#i am interested in All Hallows Eve but I don’t know that much about it tbh

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Trick or Treat

The next A Very Bouncey Halloween installment and a belated birthday gift to my darling @veritasrose. Thank you so much for the last year of friendship, I look forward to celebrating with you again. <3 you are much loved.

tw: curses, Geralt is an idiot, competent Jaskier

---

Light flashes through the room and momentarily blinds Jaskier, who stumbles back against Geralt. He mumbles an apology to the ever-sturdy Witcher as he waits for his vision to return and when he blinks clearly for the first time after a few long moments, the bard feels utterly and totally confused by the scene unfolding before him.

The Duke’s grandest ballroom, which had been bustling with excitable party guests only moments ago, is now flooded with ghouls, ghosts, vampires, and monsters of all sorts. A woman with swan’s wings is huddled in one corner, squawking angrily at anyone who tries to draw near. A minotaur stumbles through the center of the dance floor, lowing in frustration as he tries to control his bulky limbs. Two werewolves wrestle for dominance atop the furthest banquet table to their left. As Jaskier takes it all in, he feels Geralt’s hands wrap suddenly around his bicep; the Witcher is clinging to Jaskier fiercely, leaning his not insignificant weight against the bard’s side as his eyes grow round and watery.

“What’s happening?” Geralt finally asks. His tone of voice seems breathy and high, filled with a terror - almost totally foreign to Jaskier’s ears. Geralt fears nothing and yet… “Let’s get away from this dreadful place, please!”

“Aren’t you going to try and solve this problem?” Jaskier asks, glancing at his companion. He gestures at the various monsters roaming freely past the buffet table. “You’re likely the nearest Witcher, after all.”

“I’m no Witcher,” Geralt declares. He splays a hand over the very center of his blue velvet doublet (a nearly perfect imitation of the way Jaskier reacts to a perceived offense). “I am a Count. Witchers are dirty things, not meant for such a public life as my own.”

“For fuck’s sake, Geralt, now is not the time for a prank of this nature,” Jaskier huffs. “Something is clearly going on here. We need to help these people!”

“I know something is wrong,” Geralt sniffles - fucking sniffles - and squeezes the bard’s upper arm even more tightly. The sound of Geralt crying shakes Jaskier into understanding, even as Geralt begs: “But I don’t know how to help! Please get me out of here, Milord, I’m scared.”

Milord? Jaskier mouths to himself, even as he wraps one comforting arm around Geralt’s waist and ushers him away from the growing chaos at the center of the ballroom. Jaskier hurries them down one suspiciously empty hallway after another until he reaches the small suite that he had accepted as payment for his performance at the party. Jaskier ushers Geralt inside and locks the heavy oak door behind them.

“My Lord Geralt,” he gets the not-quite-Witcher’s attention. “Do you mind taking a seat by the fire for now? I’ll be right with you as soon as the room is secure, and then we can figure out what’s going on and what to do from here.”

“Yes, Milord,” Geralt nods. He hurries to comply with Jaskier’s request, to the bard’s continuing shock and awe, and stays still and quiet as Jaskier removes his doublet and rolls up his sleeves. Using the strength he’s spent twelve years at Geralt’s side developing, Jaskier shoves a bookcase, a dresser, and an unfortunately designed roll-top desk in front of the locked doors for added protection.

Moving behind Geralt with practiced efficiency, Jaskier also closes, shutters, and locks every window in the room, pulling the curtains closed to keep any light from spilling out and alerting stray creatures of their presence.

When he’s finished locking down all of their room’s possible entrances and breathing hard from exertion, Jaskier tugs the Witcher’s xenovox from his bag and flips it open, waiting with bated breath until Yennefer’s irritated voice snaps: “What do you want, Geralt?”

“Who is that?!” Geralt cries from his place near the fire. He has a white-knuckle grip on the overstuffed armchair he’s perched in and his clothing is mussed; Jaskier motions for him to be quiet and Geralt bites his lip, worrying the soft pink skin between his unusually dull canines.

“Was that Geralt?” Yennefer asks. "Did Jaskier summon me?"

“Yes and yes,” Jaskier replies. “I think he’s been cursed or enchanted or something. I was hired to play at the Duke of Rinde’s All Hallow’s Eve celebration and Geralt accompanied me - even dressed up for the occasion - but something happened at the party and now he’s acting strangely. I don’t know what to do.”

"What's happening?" Yennefer prods.

"Geralt is acting rather out of sorts. He’s speaking strangely, he wanted to flee the party rather than investigate the source of the changes-”

“What changes?”

“Everyone sort of… Well, a good portion of the party guests suddenly transformed into their costumes,” Jaskier explains, his speech stunted by his disbelief. “I know it sounds incredible, and it was! One moment we were all enjoying the music and the next… there was a minotaur and a mermaid and a faun… Geralt went nearly mute and started clinging to my arm like some sort of aristocratic maiden!”

“Oh shit,” Yen groans.

“Who is that?” Geralt repeats. Jaskier continues to ignore his companion. He knows that the moment he turns his attention to caring for Geralt, he won’t be able to tear it away again, and he needs to finish this conversation with Yennefer first.

“Why are you swearing?” he asks the sorceress. “What is it?”

“Geralt asked me for advice about this stupid ball a few days ago, while you were busy making arrangements with the Duke. He wanted to impress you with his All Hallow’s Eve costume and prove that he could be just as fancy and well-mannered as all the other men of your status.”

“Why in the world would Geralt want to dress up and act like a nobleman? It makes no sense! He detests small talk, he hates vanity, and he finds most men of my station to be cowardly and overly delicate - myself included! I just- I don’t quite understand why he’d go through all of this just to impress me. Or why he thinks this kind of thing would be impressive in the first place.”

“Jaskier, please tell me that you aren’t as stupid as our mutually beloved Witcher…”

Jaskier considers for a moment, pondering the things that he does to impress Geralt: gathering wood, learning to cook with game meat, preparing the Witcher’s potion ingredients while he's out on hunts, organizing their packs when they're spiking camp, brushing Roach’s mane… Realization dawns suddenly and all at once. He has a moment of pure understanding, a moment much beloved by every poet, bard, and playwright across the Continent: “Oh.”

Yennefer gives a tired laugh. “Yeah.”

“So he’s stuck as… a noble?”

“I suppose,” she sighs. “I’ll portal you to my location and we can figure things out in peace. Get your things together, I’ll open it up in precisely five minutes.”

“What’s happening!?” Geralt demands. Jaskier pulls the Witcher/Count to his feet and bows shallowly.

“I am Jaskier Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. I will be your protector and chaperone for the foreseeable future, Your Lordship,” Jaskier bows shallowly. “I’m going to gather our things together and then we are going to meet up with a very lovely sorceress, Yennefer of Vengerberg.”

“Is she a friend of yours?”

Jaskier barely manages to hide his surprise at Geralt’s utter lack of recognition. His memories of Yennefer have also been taken, then.

“She’s a mutual friend.”

“Are you my friend?”

“I would like to think so,” Jaskier smiles. Geralt remains oblivious to the bard’s heartache, even as he curls himself against Jaskier. He tucks his face against Jaskier’s shoulder and sobs quietly. The bard runs his hands comfortingly up and down Geralt’s spine for a long, soothing moment. The smooth, royal-blue velvet tickles his fingertips. “Shh, dear heart. I’ve got you. Everything will be alright, I swear.”

“I trust you,” Geralt whispers.

Just as Jaskier is about to reply, Yennefer’s portal snaps open in the center of the room. Jaskier hands Geralt a set of bags and hauls his own over his shoulder. “Time to go, Your Lordship. Just take one little step…”

---

“Do you know who I am?” Yennefer asks. Geralt shakes his head before burying his face in the back of Jaskier’s shoulder-blade.

“I’m so frightened, Milord.”

Frightened? Milord? Yennefer mouths. Jaskier shrugs nearly imperceptibly and makes a panicked gesture in the Witcher’s general direction.

“I don’t know what to do either!”

“Well, start from the beginning. Tell me what happened at the party before all of… this.”

Jaskier recounts every detail he can remember in the most straightforward way possible, momentarily renouncing his poetic skills in favor of efficiency - for Geralt’s sake, of course, not Yennefer’s. When he's finished he asks: “And you said he did all of this to impress me?”

“Yes.”

“But why?” Jaskier repeats his earlier question. Yennefer understands that his meaning is different; Jaskier understands that Geralt is interested in him romantically, but the bard can't seem to get it through his head that Geralt has deemed him worthy. Although, knowing the Witcher, he isn't even sure how to go about doing such a thing in the first place.

"I just... I don’t quite believe you," he adds.

“He loves you,” Yennefer reiterates. "And now he’s stuck like this until the effects of the spell wear off, so I suggest you take his precious Lordship to one of my spare rooms and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll see you both for breakfast, providing the magic is null and void by then.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“I hope you enjoy small talk, you bardic bastard.”

Yennefer smirks and disappears from the room in a whirl of black and white silk, the scents of lilac and gooseberry curling through the air in her wake.

Geralt clings to Jaskier’s bicep again as the exhausted bard stands, keeping his larger body pressed against the human’s side as if Jaskier is the one who wields the Witcher’s swords. “So I’m under a spell?”

“Yes, darling.”

“At least I have you here to protect me, Jaskier. You’re so brave and strong; my hero!”

“It’s usually the other way around, dear heart, but I appreciate the sentiment. Now, how about we find a comfortable place to bed down for the night, Milord?”

"Alright."

Jaskier moves Geralt's hand so that it's curled around the inside of his elbow, the proper etiquette for a platonic escort, and leads him quickly down the long hallways of Yennefer's sprawling manor house. He chooses the blue-themed bedroom at the back of the East Wing, far from the sorceress' own suite of rooms.

He has to help Geralt change out of his lordly costume, the Witcher-turned-Count fumbling uselessly at the laces and buttons as if he'd never seen a fastening before in his life. Geralt whispers shyly as Jaskier pulls a nightshirt over his head: "Thank you again, Milord Jaskier. I feel as if I can't help but continue indebting myself to you."

"Think nothing of it, dear heart," Jaskier smiles, ignoring the pang in his chest. "I am happy to help you."

Jaskier tucks Geralt into bed before changing into his own nightclothes, tossing his things back into their travel bags as he swaps outfits. He feels Geralt tense up when he sits on the edge of the bed and his eyebrows narrow in concern.

"Are you alright, Geralt?"

"Are you going to share a bed with me?"

"Would you rather I didn't?" Jaskier answers with a question of his own.

"I... I wouldn't mind it if we shared."

Jaskier wishes he had Witcher sight, so he could catch a glimpse of the blush no doubt attempting to stain the Witcher's face. Despite the mutagens, Geralt's face still went pale pink when he encountered a strong emotion. It was adorable. And incredibly rare.

As soon as he pulls the covers over his chest, Geralt glues himself to Jaskier's side, snuggling close. "Feels safer," he says in lieu of explanation.

"Goodnight, dear heart."

"Goodnight."

---

"Fuck," Geralt groans, sitting up in bed. Jaskier sits up beside him, wiping the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Good morning, Milord," he teases.

"Shut up," Geralt groans. Jaskier does get to see him blush this time, and the bard revels in it; he would trade all the gold in the world to see Geralt flush like this. "I can't believe I cried on you!"

"It was rather adorable, actually."

"Hmm."

"Still..." Jaskier reaches out, tentative, and cups Geralt's cheek with his palm. He turns the Witcher's face and locks their gazes together, blue meeting gold. "Still, I think I prefer you as you are. My big, strong Witcher who cares so much about defending the little guy. Willing to step in and help wherever and whenever he can."

Geralt's eyes get a little glassy and he leans forward, pausing and letting Jaskier make the final decision. The bard meets him halfway, pressing his lips against Geralt's without any sense of urgency at all. It's warm and sweet, time fading away as they let their feelings pour through this one simple gesture. When they pull apart again, Geralt gives a surprised, lopsided smile. "Oh."

[kaijudyke]

hello my friends! as you may or may not be aware i have a healthy obsession with the ballad of tam lin, and today i would like to talk to you about the abundance of parallels between tam lin and star trek deep space nine s02e22 the wire! i will be summarizing the ballad for you so you do not need to be familiar with it! strap in for a long analysis and join me under the cut 💖

1. a summary of the ballad in broad strokes

(all excerpts in this section from child 39A)

tam lin is a scottish folktale about a young woman named janet who goes to the forest of carterhaugh, which is known to be guarded by a fairy called tam lin.

O I forbid you, maidens a', That wear gowd on your hair, To come or gae by Carterhaugh, For young Tam Lin is there.

(janet is aware of this, and goes anyway. one of my favorite running themes in the ballad is janet being incredibly headstrong and cocky.) she picks a few roses, he appears and tells her to stop, she stands up to him, and they end up sleeping together (and, ostensibly, falling in love). she returns home to her father's castle pregnant. her father and the other men at the castle are very concerned about her pregnancy, but she defies them and tells her father that this is her own responsibility and that she'd rather be with tam lin than any human nobleman:

If that I gae wi child, father, Mysel maun bear the blame, There's neer a laird about your ha, Shall get the bairn's name. If my love were an earthly knight, As he's an elfin grey, I wad na gie my ain true-love For nae lord that ye hae.

janet goes back to carterhaugh to pick abortifacient herbs and terminate the pregnancy, since she believes she and tam lin will never be able to be together. tam lin reappears and asks her to stop, and she asks him to tell her more about himself (in many versions she asks him if he's a christian), looking for any reason not to give up on him:

"Why pu's thou the rose, Janet, Amang the groves sae green, And a' to kill the bonny babe That we gat us between?" "O tell me, tell me, Tam Lin," she says, "For's sake that died on tree, If eer ye was in holy chapel, Or christendom did see?"

he tells her that he's human like her, but was taken by the fairy queen as a child. he also says that the fairies pay a tithe to hell every seven years, and he's worried this time they're going to sacrifice him. he tells her how to save him: she must be at miles cross at midnight on all hallow's eve, when the fairies ride by, and she must pull him down from his horse and hold on to him as the fairies change his shape several times.

"They'll turn me in your arms, lady, Into an esk and adder, But hold me fast, and fear me not, I am your bairn's father. "They'll turn me to a bear sae grim, And then a lion bold, But hold me fast, and fear me not, And ye shall love your child. "Again they'll turn me in your arms To a red het gand of airn, But hold me fast, and fear me not, I'll do you nae harm. "And last they'll turn me in your arms Into the burning gleed, Then throw me into well water, O throw me in with speed. "And then I'll be your ain true-love, I'll turn a naked knight, Then cover me wi your green mantle, And hide me out o sight."

(the exact details of the transformations vary between versions, but some of the most common shapes he has to go through are adder, newt, lion, hot coal, and burning iron. if you're interested in the variations, i highly recommend this page!) once the transformations are done, he instructs her to wrap him in her green cloak, after which the fairies won't have a claim to him anymore. janet follows his instructions and successfully saves him, much to the dismay of the fairy queen.

2. janet, julian, and their relationships

whichever version of tam lin you are reading, janet is a character with a ton of agency. she has no qualms about encroaching on tam lin's territory (in fact she tells him in no uncertain terms that the forest is hers), and there is some indication that she might have gone to carterhaugh specifically because she wanted to sleep with tam lin; she's said to be wearing a green dress, and since the color green was associated with the fae, wearing green to a fairy wood is pretty clearly inviting their attention. (in medieval literature, green was also sometimes associated with love and sex.)

it's not hard to draw a parallel between janet's decision to pursue tam lin despite the danger he represents and julian's immediate fascination with garak in past prologue even though (or rather because) he suspects him to be a spy. also of note is that janet and tam lin's relationship begins with an argument, where her willingness to challenge him seems to be what draws him to her. one of my favorite retellings, by james p. spence, emphasizes this:

‘I'm here tae guard these woods, tae see that naebodie nor nothing disturbs their peace.’ ‘An was it ma father that gave ye such a job?’ ‘Naw it wasnae.’ ‘Weel, there ye are then. It should be you that's asking ma permission tae set foot in these woods, because it is ma father that owns them.’ Then the young man's face rose up intae a smile that seemed many a long year since it was last there. (scottish borders folk tales, james p. spence, p. 114-115)

i'm sure i don't need to tell you that this is reminiscent not only of garak and julian's fondness for debate but of the way cardassians show romantic interest. more than that, though, i think there's something to be said for the way these relationships are treated by other people in the characters' lives. janet's father and his knights are troubled by her pregnancy, and they clearly think she should be with a normal, respectable man, preferably one of said knights, given that she feels the need to remark "There's neer a knight about your ha / Shall hae the bairnie's name." (child 39I) in the wire, when julian tells jadzia he wishes garak would trust him, she replies "why should he? it's not like the two of you are really friends." julian's friends do not understand why he spends so much time with garak—a cardassian, a spy, an outcast, someone who can't be trusted.

in both cases it's easy enough to see where they're coming from; being pregnant out of wedlock with a fairy's child is certainly not an ideal situation for a young noblewoman to find herself in, and it's remarkably foolish for a starfleet officer to have regular lunch dates with someone he believes to be an enemy spy. but janet and julian are both stubborn, and more interested in what's adventurous and exciting than what's good for them. (remember that, like janet knowingly going to pick roses in a forest guarded by fairies, julian wanted the position on ds9 because he wanted to try his hand at "frontier medicine"; misguided as he may have been, his thirst for adventure is the reason he's even on the station to begin with.)

3. fairyland, the obsidian order, and enabran tain

in the ballad, tam lin is abducted by the fairy queen when he's a child. she takes him to a magical realm where he feels no pain and is far removed from human worries.

And we that live in faeryland, No sickness know, nor pain, I quit my body when I will, And take to it again. (j. holm, verse 32)

garak has been enabran tain's protégé since he was very young. as an operative of the obsidian order, he's been trained to be cool under pressure, to play his cards close to his chest, and to avoid sentimentality and attachment. the plot of the episode hinges entirely on a device implanted in his brain that keeps him from feeling pain. to save his life, julian has to remove the implant, metaphorically rescuing him from fairyland and the influence of the queen who stole him away from the human world. the fairy queen is very possessive of tam lin and very disdainful of his feelings for janet; in many versions of the ballad, after janet successfully rescues him, the fairy queen remarks that if she'd known this would happen, she would have plucked out his eyes and replaced them with wood, or taken his heart and replaced it with stone.

"But had I kend, Tam Lin," said she, "What now this night I see, I wad hae taen out thy twa grey een, And put in twa een o tree." (child 39A, verse 42) 'Had I but kend, Thomas,' she says, 'Before I came frae hame, I had taen out that heart o flesh, Put in a heart o stane.' (child 39B, verse 41)

much like tain tried and failed to mold garak into the perfect emotionless spy, the fairy queen very literally wants to remove tam lin's ability to feel love, because his emotions make him harder for her to control, and in the end are what lead him to escape her clutches entirely. garak and tam lin are both saved by the same thing: their transgressive love for their rescuer, and the fierce, unconditional love they receive in return.

4. hold me fast and fear me not

the central event of the tam lin ballad, of course, is the transformation scene. i'm sure it's what makes the ballad stick in people's minds; it certainly is for me. there's something so deeply romantic about the phrase "hold me fast and fear me not," and about the idea of loving someone so much that you'll hold on to them even as they turn into a beast in your arms. the wire doesn't have as literal a transformation scene as tam lin, but i would argue that it certainly has one.

after julian removes garak's implant (which we can equate to pulling tam lin down from his horse), garak goes through withdrawal. he becomes, by turns, depressed, and angry, and spiteful, and violent. throughout the episode, we see him try to drive julian away. he refuses his help; he insults him; he tells him contradictory stories about his past, all designed to shock him; when none of this succeeds at discouraging him, he physically lashes out.

julian, however, doesn't budge. he isn't fooled by the shapes garak contorts himself into. he takes every change in stride, never wavering in his determination to save him. every person garak claims to be, julian accepts. like janet defying the fairy queen for love of tam lin, he goes as far as to enter cardassian territory and seek out enabran tain in order to save garak's life. when he believes he's about to die, garak tells julian he needs to know that someone forgives him; "i forgive you," julian says, "for whatever it is you did." whatever kind of beast garak is—whatever kind of beast tain has turned him into—julian will not let go of his hand. he will hold him fast.

He grew into her arms two Like iron in hot fire; She held him fast, let him not go, He was her heart's desire. (child 39D, verse 31)

the basic structure of these stories is the same: the main character finds out that the person they love is in immediate danger due to something they went through when they were younger, which fundamentally changed them as a person and is also keeping the two from being together. unwilling to lose their love, they brave the wrath of a powerful villain who's controlled this person's life for a long time. there are undeterred by the frightening changes the person goes through. in the end, they are victorious, and their beloved is free.

5. my dear doctor, they're all true

a closing statement: tam lin is a folktale. like any folktale, there are many, many versions of it, often contradicting each other. there is no definitive version of tam lin (though child 39A may be the most famous). you're free to read every available version of the story, finding meaning not only in the most commonly reoccurring themes, but also in which parts of the text speak to you. like garak's contradictory stories about his life, while it's hard to say whether any one element is true, every element tells you something—about the story, or about the person who tells it. my view of these story parallels is heavily influenced by my own personal interpretation of, and feelings about, the ballad. as it should be.

[vynsvision]

*This became a long post about general headcanons of the NXX boys and their feelings and behaviors on Halloween.*

I wonder what each of the boys would think of Halloween. Luke and Marius would obviously have a blast, Vyn would be more interested in the history than the actual holiday and would be That Guy to be like "well actually the *real* holiday is tomorrow, All Saints Day" (luke: "vyn shut up and have fun!!") and Artem... he could either be super soft and totally down to do something simple w MC in private or would just totally veto it.

Anyway I would personally have the most fun with Luke and we'd drag Marius along too. "Just because you're a CEO doesn't mean you have to refrain from fun. You haven't shut up about wanting to participate. Throw on a mask and it'll be a blast."

Because, really, I think Luke is the only one to have gotten to participate in Halloween. (And/with MC, of course.) He, out of the boys, was probably the one with the most average childhood and therefore had the ability to dress up and go get candy from the neighborhood. Luke and MC's costumes probably match most years- of course, they probably have a Sherlock and Watson costume ready at any time. I think, too, that Luke would totally be down to swap roles and be Watson to MC's Sherlock. (We get it, we know it, hes whipped for them.) Overall, very excited for spooky season.

Marius definitely always wanted to trick-or-treat, but he A) didn't have a lot of peers in his neighborhood and B) wouldn't be allowed because what if someone was sneaking through our neighborhood to snatch him away? Once, when he was young, he got to drive through a neighborhood full of kids his age running around strangers' yards with costumes on and bags or buckets full of candy. He was unusually quiet that evening, even after they left that neighborhood. His parents were probably too busy to notice.

So when he gets an invitation from MC and Luke, he quickly accepts and internally freaks out (/pos) because oh my gosh I finally get to participate in Halloween!

In my scrolling through the ToT tag today, I came across some posts hc'ing that Artem is autistic. I dont 100% agree but then again its an hc and who am I to be a bitch.

That said, Artem definitely is a wildcard- a chill one, of course. He hasn't had any rom or sexual relationships, he clearly prioritized his school over friendships, and I dont think we've seen him be very... shall I say, culturally aware? Of course, he knows about holidays, but since he probably hasn't changed much since childhood- and Halloween is a very community-based tradition, in which he doesnt have much community (friends)- he probably just didn't have the interest in the holiday. Or, in a similar vain to Marius, never got the chance. Or he simply thought it would be embarrassing to admit he wanted to go trick-or-treating to his parents because like. Since When did you want to go and partake in stuff with people and dress up. Its not my-hc-child-Artem's vibe.

If invited, he may go along... to make sure no one gets lost. Like a designated driver. He would probably snap some pictures when the three costumed NXX members aren't paying attention. He also finds MC exceptionally attractive in their costume but he can't and won't admit that.

Vyn, finally, is most familiar with the holiday in the textbook sense. Hes never partaken (partook??), hes from Svart for gosh sakes, they don't have something like this. He would definitely be fascinated by the holiday, considering if you ask someone (like me) why they like the holiday so much, people flounder for an answer or reply "for the vibes", "I like dressing up", or "free candy and the community is out at night! What not to love?". While perhaps logical, these things don't make emotional sense. People just like this holiday. Its not easy to explain why.

He would come along, at first, to observe. Traditions are usually deep-rooted, and he would have all the facts about All Hallow's Eve and All Saints' Day and the Celtic lore and traditions of old. He would share these facts when the conversation of the group got quiet, and nobody would complain.

Everyone is in a good mood on Halloween night, and MC cherishes the good-natured and relaxed conversation and company of four powerful men. MC probably feels safest walking along a dark street with any one of the boys- but all four? Nothing can touch them.

I may edit or write more on this, and I may even write little fics as if MC just asked one of them to go with them. We'll see if there's demand.

[hopeless-weakness]

2021 Books I’ve Read

197/75

Hallowed Night

Romance Anthology

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

On all Hallow’s Eve...The wicked come out to play. One night of mischief. One night of mayhem. One night of sinful delights and sinister tricks. When there are no rules. No repercussions. Anything goes.

These Dark Hearts

L.A. Cotton

⭐️⭐️⭐️

The book for this comes out next year. NEXT YEAR! I was half way through when I decided ’I’m gonna read the book/series for this.’ But NEXT YEAR?! Fine, I’ll mark my calendar! I need as much Harleigh and Nix as possible.

7/10 Friends to Lovers

Devil on the Lake

Veronica Eden

⭐️⭐️

There’s nowhere to hide from his wicked torment. And once he catches me, the game turns into something else.

I think I’ve read a book like this before? (I need to figure that out because it’s driving me crazy that this feels so familiar.) Dante and Willow hate each other, for good reason. The usual story of miscommunication and assumptions. And then it suddenly turned into a teenage sexual tension chase through the woods with a corn syrup and red food coloring kink. Not my cup of tea, but great writing and story!

My Favorite Quotes:

•’He loved me with everything he was. He just didn’t love me enough.”

•”I need you to know that it’s you, Birdie. It’s always been you.”

•”See me, Nix. Please just see me.”

•”Tell me you’ll always be mine. That I’ll always own part of this.”

8/10 Bully Romance

6/10 Enemies to Lovers

The Ritual

Shantel Tessier

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

L.O.R.D. A Lord takes his oath seriously. Only blood will solidify their commitment to serve those who demand their complete devotion. He is a Leader, believes in Order, knows when to Rule, and is a Deity.

A dark college romance, that’s heavy on the dark. There’s a secret society, a dirty and dangerous secret society. There’s no holding back! This is a perfect teaser. And my calendar has already been marked!

These Wicked Ways

Holly Renee & R. Holmes

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

These authors together, are you kidding me?! This was a glorious tease! Friend, teammate, roommate, stepbrother. That’s all I’m saying. ‘The end for now’, what does THAT mean??

My Favorite Quote:

•”I want you to take him down your throat until I can feel it against my hand.”

8/10 Dirty Birdy

7/10 Forbidden Love

Maze of Mayhem

Rachel Leigh

⭐️⭐️

It was cute. But just wasn’t the kind of story I like. I probably would have enjoyed it so much more if I had read their story before this sweet extra scene.

6/10 Dirty Birdy

Dark Halloween Knight

Tracy Lorraine

⭐️⭐️

This is a connecting piece to future books. I just don’t think it piqued my interest enough to want to read them. (I’ve marked them nonetheless.)

4/10 Dirty Birdy

3/10 Mafia

Thrill

S. Massery

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yes. Yes I need more! I need it all!! I need more Nyx and Saint. I need more Apollo, Ares, and Hades. I need more of this Olympus. I even need more of the Titans and Hell Hounds. I need more of the drama!

My Favorite Quote:

•”People are going to worship you as Nyx. Let me worship you as Elora.”

7/10 Dirty Birdy

Mayhem

Becca Steele

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love having a piece of the Four’s past, even if it isn’t from them. I miss Hailey and Elijah already. Becca has a knack for that!

My Favorite Quotes:

•”I don’t want normal. I don’t want to just exist anymore. I want to live.”

•”My heart...whatever’s left of it, if I even have one at all...it’s yours.”

6/10 Dirty Birdy

Mischief on Halloween

C.L. Matthews

⭐️⭐️

It’s a love triangle, without a love triangle. Because it’s mostly drama and misunderstood emotions. Definitely a true friends to lovers! And in .5 seconds! This is just a hint into Patch and Lowell, and I’m interested in their story. I am worried about Patch’s mental state though. Maybe that’s what I’m most interested in?

7/10 Friends to Lovers

Hollow Vow

C. Lymari

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is heartbreaking! Avoiding the person you loved, knowing you’re hurting her, just because of a promise you made? I’m so glad he finally snapped out of it though!

My Favorite Quotes:

•”i realized i couldn’t honor a dead man’s wish at the cost of a living person happiness”

•”I don’t want to pretend like you don’t exist for me anymore when you’re all I can see. I lied, and you believed it.”

•”My ultimate prize has always been you.”

6/10 Dirty Birdy

7/10 Friends to Lovers

8/10 Second Chance

Mischief Managed

Daniela Romero

⭐️⭐️

Using a guy for sex, instead of facing her emotions and grief? Yeah, that’s definitely messy. This has a lot of little parts, without one big thing to focus on. But, if you’ve already gotten to know the characters, I guess this is a good little extra piece to have.

The Devil Knows My Name

Kayleigh King & Greer Rivers

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Another story about running through the woods to get laid? I did enjoy that back story of the coach and his lucky watch. (Nice that it wasn’t just to be dominant.) Pretty sure Hudson’s povs got all the good parts (Which I’m not complaining about!) I enjoyed the back and forth game. Selfishly, I would have liked to see more of the chasing, seeing what Hudson was really made of.

6/10 Dirty Birdy

6/10 Sports Romance

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[pamphletstoinspire]

United in Beauty - The Latin Mass (The Perfect Prayer)

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m a Protestant. Like all the rest, I’m still trying to wrap my head around transubstantiation, things relating to Mary, and places like Purgatory. But despite all this, I’ve never felt such a feeling of belonging to something as I have at the Parish of Holy Innocents—one of the last places to celebrate the The Latin Mass (TLM) in New York City.

I say “belonging” because the opposite seems to be felt surrounding Latin Masses and their attendees since the latest news from Rome, which determined a divisiveness in online and in-person groups devoted to celebrating this Extraordinary Form.

A TLM divisiveness might exists, but it remains to be seen at Holy Innocents. Theirs was the first Latin Mass I ever attended, and this fact itself seemed to be a selling point for these “rad trads” to come up and talk to me. The lovely people who approached me only lit up more when I informed them I wasn’t Catholic.

“I overheard you saying you were considering converting,” one hipster-looking man said as he sat down next to me. “That’s so interesting.” His kind, curious eyes looked at me through his Harry Potter glasses. He had grown up in the city, was a music student at Hunter College, and was working for the Dominicans. These facts are all I know though since he spent the rest of the time asking about me and my story.

“I’m considering joining the Benedictine monastery,” a woman told me one Sunday. She also gave me a pleasant look when I confessed to being a Protestant. That seemed beside the point to her, for she confided in me about her excitement and anxieties of leaving her family. I was no uncultured Protestant; I was a fellow journeyer.

To them, my lack of knowledge surrounding all things TLM did not display ignorance, but rather my own opportunity to witness some real beauty and truth in the beat-up basement of an old “Shopper’s Mass” church off Broadway. I breathed a sigh of relief in meeting these people—they were the first dose of genuineness I ever received in the city.

The contagious joy of these Mass-goers is like none I’ve ever experienced. Perhaps it’s the weed wafting into the building from Times Square. But I don’t think so.

In the most earnest way, love seems to be the culprit.

From the Latin missals they bring, to the distance they took to come, to the veils they wear, to the significant lack in percentages of those who approach the altar for the Eucharist, it is evident that they love this mode of practice because, through it, they catch a glimpse of a closer, intimate portrait of Christ. This Mass, to them, is completely extraordinary, and Pope Benedict apparently thought so too.

A known admirer of Church tradition is Cardinal Henry Newman, who said this Mass “is virtually unchanged since the third century.” Those who attend Latin Mass know that they are speaking the same words as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. It’s a deep and wide history, and it serves as a connecting link between 21st century post-modern New York City and 3rd century Athens. Now there’s something you don’t get every day.

So TLM goers are a loyal bunch devoted to this phenomenon, but Holy Innocents’ purpose seems to go beyond this. Some in the TLM community might pride themselves in being the only ones left, fighting a great battle against modernity with historical tradition.

That attitude doesn’t exist at Holy Innocents. They act as faithful vessels, honored to be a part of such beauty and equally honored to extend it to an outsider, like me.

The literal heart of the matter is the object bringing them fulfillment. For most of them, it doesn’t rest in being the last one standing. In fact, this seems to be a source of despair for them. They’re gripping something much firmer than pride and traditional superiority. It is their love—pure and sincere love.

Following Adam and Eve’s creation, St. Augustine writes, they dwelled in joy and delight. Why? Because they were near to what they loved. Just so with these Broadway parishioners. Behind a reverent face upstairs in Latin Mass is a joyous individual in Coffee Hour downstairs. Their love is deep and wide, and sincere. And because of that, they see my entrance into their hallowed halls as a blessing and not a hinderance.

And due to this openness, I’ve come back, again and again. And as a Protestant who has attended many churches and parishes, Holy Innocents has become my secret favorite. It’s my one place to receive sincerity, thoughtfulness, and most importantly, brotherly love.

It’s why I am writing this. With my Protestant self not being very informed on the politics of TLM and its online presence, I was shocked to hear Pope Francis’ words on the culture that I now hold very dear to me. I have no doubt that the snobs exist and that pride is one of Satan’s strongest footholds. But I’m saddened the TLM community has gained such a reputation through these things. And I am saddened that Pope Francis has not had the chance to visit Holy Innocents in New York City. If he did, maybe he would realize that behind any trolls and raging egomaniacs winning historical arguments on discord is a cluster of veiled women who cannot stop laughing, huddled over coffee and bagels in a basement off Broadway.

BY: FIONA LACEY

[drreidfics]

Dr. Reid and the Broken Girl pt1.

DR. REID AND THE BROKEN GIRL (Working Title)

Characters : SpencerReid x FemReader

Warnings : Abuse, Hints of Self Harm.

CAUTION // TW // THIS BOOK DEALS WITH MATURE CONTENT SUCH AS PROFESSOR AND STUDENT RELATIONSHIP, SEXUAL ASSULT, SELF HARM, MENTAL ILLNESS AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE. IT ALSO INCLUDES A LOT OF RATED-R MATERIAL. IF THIS IS TRIGGERING OR MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE THEN PLEASE DON’T READ.

Here I am again, on the floor, begging him to stop. There he is again, laughing at my pleas and forcing himself inside of me. Almost every night he climbs into my bed, then in the morning, he pretends everything is normal. When anyone is around, he acts charming. He is able to trick everyone into thinking everything is fine. Well, it's not.

My phone buzzed to life at the side of me. The alarm was going off but I had been up for hours, staring at the flecks of dust dancing around the air. The sunlight streamed in through my thin, white drapes. It was beautiful out. It was the middle of May and bound to be hot out in Arizona. I could feel the warmth on my skin already. I needed to shower and get all this sticky sweat off my skin. It wasn't even mine. I felt disgusting. His touch lingered everywhere on me. The bruises he gave me stained my skin more than the self inflicted cuts.

'Morning Ms. y/l/n. Last night was lovely. See you at lunch?'. It was a text from Mr Reid. He was my psychology professor. Older than me, at thirty, he had long dark hair and deep brown eyes. His hair curled slightly at the end. He was tall and slim. Smart and nerdy, having two degrees and a doctorate, he left his job at the FBI for something less mentally draining. He had worked there since he was twenty-two.  I was twenty-one making our age gap quite small. Look at me, trying to convince myself that it even mattered. He was a lovely guy. Friendly, and handsome. He wouldn't fall in love with a student, and if he did, that student would never be me. He was too smart for that.

"Morning Dr. Reid. Thank-you for taking me. It was a fun eve! Yes, see you at lunch. We can have a chat about the stuff we saw yesterday =)". I read the message over and over again before hitting send. I was nervous as I usually always say stupid things. My low self esteem affected me very much. I was twenty-one, already with one degree and going back to do another. I was still living at Sharon's and I haven't had a boyfriend. He texted me back instantly.

"Can't wait! Need a lift to school? =)" I smiled down at my battered iPhone 6. I couldn't afford a brand new phone. I was lucky in that I only had to work a few hours a week at the local book store and that it was something I enjoyed doing. Sharon was good to me. She helped me pay for and make my way through college. I don't know what or where I would be without her. On the other hand, she brought the human spawn of the devil into my life.

"No thnx, Luna is picking me up =)" I sent but then instantly regretted it. I love my best friend but I would have preferred a ride with Dr. Reid. Our conversations were always interesting and insightful. We could talk about a wide range of subjects for hours and it would only feel like minutes passed.

"Ok, see u soon Y/N"

I smiled, almost forgetting my problems before catching glimpse of myself in the mirror. My fragile, battered body stared back. I sighed. He could never find a girl like me attractive. Not that it mattered anyway. Silly little girl crush.

After debating whether it was best to just find the nearest bridge in town and throw my self off or get ready for school (I am very mentally unwell), I decided on the latter. Luna had already texted me to inform me that she was about to set off. Knowing Luna, which I have had the pleasure of knowing for fifteen years (no sarcasm in there), ten minutes would be ten years.

I staggered down the dreaded stairs, almost losing my footing a few times, feeling light headed. I entered the brightly lit kitchen. It was so bright that I could feel an aching behind my eyes. The decor was simplistic, all white with gold features. Classic business mom who is never home asthetic going on.

       Sharon sat at the island, face absorbed in her laptop. She was in her late forties with short, mousey hair. I believe she would be referred to as a 'Karen'. She looked nothing like Dom. She was short, like me, and fairly slim. He was tall and muscular with broad shoulders. Quarterback star player with the strength to show for it. He could snap us both in half. Dominic is Sharon's only child. Yes, that is correct. She is not my mum. I lost her.

Sharon looked up at me, flashing me a warm smile, still bashing the keys to her MacBook. She took a sip of her black coffee, nibbling on some cold toast. "You look like shit" she stated; matter of factly, her face blank.   '"Thanks?'" I answered with a raised eyebrow. I walked over to the coffee machine and put in a pod, sticking my travel cup underneath. 77Kcals of goodness. All the fuel I will need this morning. "Sweetheart, don't act like that. You know I'm just saying. You need to sleep more" '"I know" I sighed. It was true... "But that makes two of us" I retorted cheekily with a grin.        "Oh sweetheart, don't I know it" she raised her cup as if toasting the comment before gulping the last bit of coffee.

Sharon was my guardian, though not anymore as I was an adult and of drinking age. She still cared for me though as if I were her own. My mom died when I was seven and my dad had a breakdown. He couldn't cope. One day I came home from school and he was gone. He didn't say a word to anyone. He packed up his stuff and  left me. I hated him for a while. The anger within me burned to my core. After a while I felt sympathy. He didn't get the help that he needed. If he did then we both wouldn't be in this mess. We'd be happy - together. I doubt he would know how to contact me now.

Aunt Sharon took me in. She wasn't really my aunt, she was my mom's best friend. She was the only connection to my mother that I had left besides her wedding ring. She loved her dearly and I believe she loves me dearly too. It's not her fault she can't protect me. She works herself to death trying to help me live my dreams. Dom wasn't the child that she had always wanted. He is doing nothing with his life. That is something I will alway's respect of her, single mom raising her child and somebody else's.

I loved her, though she did have the tendency to dish out tough love which often was way - way too harsh. And she was always away leaving me with him. I knew that if I'd only just tell her what he was capable of... What he would do to me when she left... She'd have murdered him herself with her bare hands. But it would kill her. I couldn't do that to her. He was the only thing she had who was blood. Me, I had no-one.

"shit! Is that the time? I'm going to be late. I gotta go, honey. Say bye to Dom for me." she pleaded as she stuffed the last slice of toast in her mouth and gathered her briefcase and her keys. " ...And make sure you have something to eat. You're wasting away!"                                   "Have a good day at work Shaz" I shouted after her. I doubt that she heard me. She was out the door in seconds, jangling her keys and fighting between speaking with me and the ringtone on her work mobile. I heard her professional, scripted 'Hello, Sharon Cormack speaking' as the door slammed behind her.

I made my way through the spotless kitchen Gina, Sharon's housekeeper, always did a good job. I grabbed a bottle of water out of the integrated refrigerator. I also grabbed my iced latte from the coffee machine. It was almost half eight. My first classes start at nine and Luna still wasn't anywhere in sight. I scrambled through my purse for my phone, ready to give her a piece of my mind. That girl would be late to her own funeral.

"You're up early" a voice from behind me sneered. It took all my might to not to curl up in a ball, trembling.

"I... I have school"

No reply. I felt him creeping up behind me, felt his breath against my neck.

"I can think of something much better to do with the day baby"  he whispered as he planted acid kisses on my neck. It burned. I squeezed my eyes shut, putting my hands up defensively. He pushed my back into the counter. A sharp pain ran though me.

"Please stop. I have to go" I whispered as his hand snaked its way up my neck, fist knotting tightly in my hair.

'"Why do you think a whore like you has the right to tell me what to do, hm?"

'- Hello? Katy?'  Luna's smooth voice called out in sing song.

Oh, thank god for her and her timing. He released me from his grasp and increased the distance between us. His eyes were clouded. I could tell he was pissed. I brushed passed him, running towards Luna, who was standing by the open door. I ran straight into her arms hugging her tightly.

"I thought you'd never show." I whispered. She rested her chin on my shoulder, stroking my hair. I could tell that she was staring daggers at Dom and I could tell he didn't care. Like I said, the same routine. Every morning.

By the time lunch rolled around I had had enough. had gotten into a lot of trouble with Ms. Hallows over an overdue assignment and I had spilt water all down the front of my jeans. It looked like I had pissed myself. My saving grace is that they were dark jeans and so it wasn't too noticable. That didn't stop Georgie from laughing and calling me pissy pants for half the day.

Georgie was the kind of girl that you would avoid in high school. Everybody wanted to be her but everyone hated her so bad. She had golden brunette locks, a slim face and a petite nose. Her friends Nova and Ari were just as bad. Everyone used to tell you that when you left high school things would be different. I am sorry to inform you that they don't. Bullies stay bullies forever.

I forced my way through the groups of students, crowded together in the corridors. The last thing I wanted was to be late for my chat with Mr. Reid

"Y/N" I heard Luna calling after me. I could tell that she was chasing me through the crowd of students.  "Y/N. Look, Y/N stop." I rolled my eyes.

"What?" I snapped. I could see the hurt in her eyes. She leaned on the wall, panting. I sighed. "I'm sorry. What's wrong?" I asked. I felt bad for snapping at her. All she wanted was answers, like anyone would have after walking in on what she did. But I don't give answers. I shut down. I don't tell anyone anything. She tried talking once we got in the car. I ignored her and I ran once we'd arrived at school. She didn't even need to speak. I could just tell what she wanted to talk about from the look on her face. I sighed again.

"Luna, I can't talk about this right now."  I saw the hurt in her eyes. If I kept pushing her away then eventually she wouldn't fight to stay. 'Good', a small voice whispered in my head. Maybe that would be for the best. She deserves better. Everyone does. I could just end my life today and nobody would care. I used to fight hard against the suicidal ideations that entered my mind but now I didn't see the point.

"I have my meeting and I can't be late. Taco Bell after classes?" I asked. To my relief, she smiled and nodded, that beautiful smile that I loved so much. She was so easy to please. I smiled and walked away towards room 1980. Dr. Reid's office.

"I love you!" she shouted after me smiling.

"I love you more!"

"Lesbians" Georgie mocked. She was stood near the bathrooms. I rolled my eyes.

"Grow up"

Luna was gay but we weren't together. We had been intimate a few times but nothing had come of it. But so what if it had? We both agreed it felt weird as we had known each other as friends for so long. We didn't want to ruin anything. Luna and I had been friends ever since she opened up my juice box for me in kindergarten and then hit the girl who had stolen my straw. We had been inseparable ever since. She's been with me through thick and thin. I'd hate to think where I'd have been if she hadn't been there when my mom had died. We are and will alway's be the best of friends. In another life I could see us growing old together, adopting puppies and children but sometimes, it doesn't work out. And if you love someone, you have to let them go.

I opened the door to 1980 and as soon as I did my heart fluttered in my chest. There he was, as beautiful as ever. He looked up from the book he was reading, glasses perched on his nose and smiled, he seemed glad to see me.

"Sweetie!" he said, a smile spreading across his gorgeous lips. He's the only person who calls me that.

"Dr. Reid"  I smiled back. My smile was huge and I probably looked so dorky but I don't care. My day just got brighter. I pulled up a chair next to him and kicked my feet up onto his lap. He rested his hand on my calf.

"So what did you think to the book?"

[jincherie]

mystery gang; unsolved |PT.2

☾ — pairing: taehyung x reader ☾ — genre: demon au, supernatural/paranormal au, buzzfeed unsolved au/inspired, smut (oncoming), f2l ☾ — words: 6.2k ☾ — rating: adult! this one is sfw, but final part will be nsfw ☾ — warnings: demons and haunted houses, supernatural & paranormal themes! this is the part where shit goes down, so be aware of that! also some angst ☾ — notes: part 2 of 3! the next part will be the resolution and the smut, so look forward to that!! also wow man first post of 2020!!!

ever since you met taehyung in one of your first year classes at university, you seemed to click and you hadn’t parted from each other’s side since. you’ve been his friend for a few years now, and your mutual interest in the supernatural and taehyung’s propensity for finding the spotlight wherever he goes led to the two of you starting up your very own supernatural investigation vlog series. friends isnt the only thing you want to be, and one night close to hallow’s eve when the two of you get a little in over your heads in a way you never have been before, you find out that maybe it’s not only you that feels that way.

— posted; 05.01.2020 || ⇤prev. | masterlist | next⇥

PART TWO

You wish that you could say that as the night goes on, your nerves begin to ease. They don’t, though; the church, albeit slowly, proves to be feeding into all your fears. You feel paranoid, as you often do while filming this show, but tonight it feels like something… more. As though there’s a little bit more substance to your worries than usual. Needless to say, you’re not a fan.

It begins in the largest part of the church, as you’d expect.  The hall where processions were held, lined with pews and intricate statues in its better days, is far too big to be giving you any comfort. There is so much space, so much empty blackness, that it actually feels like it’s closing in on you a bit. Surprisingly, in between segments you record for the vlog, Taehyung ends up distracting you by bringing up all the other times you went to places allegedly home to ‘demonic’ energies. A part of you thinks he’s doing it because he knows you’re uneasy, but the rest of you is more annoyed that he’s making fun of you again. He knows you’re wary of demons!

“You know, I think you’re taking this much better than that last house we did—you know the one a state over?” Taehyung remarks, setting up a little camera so that it can record the two of you whipping out the spirit box.

“Please don’t remind me,” you say, placing a hand over your stomach to quell the nausea rising at the mention of it. “It was popular with our viewers, but at what cost.”

“Yeah, they were surprisingly fond of you looking like you were about to vomit,” Taehyung says, somewhat nonchalant—when you direct a glare his way you can see the cheeky smile on his face, though. “Anyway, that one wasn’t as bad as this one is meant to be, and you’re already doing much better! Kudos.”

“Don’t patronise me,” you say, taking the spirit box from him and moving to one of the seats you’d set up. It feels wrong, in honesty, like sitting down in this seat is inviting a whole lot of misfortune to fall upon you. You don’t bother telling Taehyung that you’re actually doing far worse than last time. “I won’t apologise for having a healthy fear of the unknown.”

Snickering, Taehyung finishes setting up the camera and flicks it on. The lights you have illuminate only the barest patch where you’re sitting. You don’t like it, you don’t like it one bit and you hate that it feels like something is behind you, hands hovering just out of your sensory range. The muscles along your back are tense and rigid and you do your best not to show it to the camera.

“And here I present to the viewers, the crowd—and ghost—favourite, the spirit box!” Taehyung announces for the camera, voice a little louder than you’re comfortable with. You restrain the urge to shush him only because you know he’ll make fun of you for thinking that being loud will attract the ghosts. “We’ll be asking some questions in an open forum for any ghosts, ghouls and-or demons to respond—”

You smack him, delivering him with a warning glare, and he simply chortles as he sits down. You clearly mouth ‘I’ll kill you’ at him, before sitting back in your seat and clearing your throat. “Right, yeah. It’s spirit box time. I literally… can’t put into words how absolutely overjoyed I am.”

Taehyung laughs at how you blatantly forced those words through your teeth, but otherwise remains silent as you fiddle with the spirit box and do your usual introduction for the viewers and spirits around.

“Please, use this as a medium to communicate with us. We’ll ask some questions now.” You finish up the spiel, turning the box over and leaning forward to place it on the pew between the two of you. It’s as you near the pew that the hair along the back of your neck rises suddenly, prickling and making your muscles lock up for the barest second. A breeze brushes across the skin and skims your ear, and you swear you catch a word that rides with it, soft and thin yet clear as day.

“Don’t…”

You shriek as your reflexes kick back in, hand slapping to your neck and a glare already on your face to direct at Taehyung—surprisingly, he seems bewildered at the sudden heat in your gaze.

“That’s not funny!” you scolded him, attempting to pat down the hairs that rose on your neck. “I told you not to whisper in my ear like that when we’re in demon places!”

Taehyung’s hands fly up into a position of surrender.  “It wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything! You can check the camera if you want!”

The panic that had already welled within you and was on track to fade reignited at that, fear stopping your thoughts from flowing as they should. There’s an unmistakeably scared edge that enters your voice, “What? But I just—someone—something just whispered ‘don’t’ in my ear, I swear.”

From Taehyung’s face, it’s clear he doesn’t believe you—or at the least, doesn’t believe that some otherworldly entity or otherwise whispered a whole word in your ear.

“No way,” he says, confirming your thoughts. There’s something that flicks across his face though, something out of place but too ephemeral for you to catch. “It was probably just a creak. This place is old, you know.”

“A creak that sounds like a whole word?” You push your case a little more, but you’re already shaking your head in defeat. You know there’s no way to sway his sceptic ass. You think a ghost could appear in front of Taehyung right now, slap him across his face and call his father a whore, and he’d still try and explain it away. “Whatever. The tape will show I’m right.”

Taehyung huffs, clearly entertained—you wish you could be as at ease as he always seems to be. He waves his hand to urge you on. “Hurry up and get the spirit box going so it can be over and done with. I hate listening to it.”

“Fine, but I’m doing it because I was already going to and not because you told me to,” you grumble, reaching for the spirit box and doing your best to force from your mind what happened the last time you were in a similar movement. You look up just in time before turning it on to catch Taehyung looking right at you, a brow raised and something heady in his gaze.

“You’re such a brat.”

You bite your tongue and resign to only sending him a glare, flicking on the spirit box and relishing in the way Taehyung flinches as the harsh sound of static replaces the heavy silence in the air. To be honest, you don’t really like the spirit box either, but it gets results. Well, you think it does. Taehyung would be all too happy to argue the differ.

“Alright,” you start, voice a little shakier than intended. You clear your throat and try to clear your nerves with it. “Let’s get it. First, is there anyone here with us now?”

The static is almost deafening, the volume turned up high enough that some of the audio-crunching is borderline painful in your ears. The device is as jarring as ever, the rate at which it flicks through channels almost distracting enough to lure your attention away from how tense and thick the air feels around you. There aren’t any prominent sounds or words that come through, and you give it a few more moments before probing some more.

“Uh, oh boy… Who… is in this room with us? Meena, are you in here?”

Taehyung snorts. “Or maybe the priest, or the groom that was meant to be married to Meena—anyone? Hello? Man, I don’t think we’re ever going to get something from this stupid box—”

It’s as Taehyung is in the middle of taking the piss that the static morphs ever so slightly, sounds forming the barest edges of words.

“he… here…” Static, louder and louder and then softer, making way for another hint of barely comprehensible sound, “…on’t g… in…”

It’s not loud enough to really count as anything, and not loud enough that Taehyung even notices it over the sound of his own talking, but you can’t help the sudden feeling that gauges a place inside you. You want to leave so badly—you don’t think you’ve wanted to leave a place this much since that first house.

You don’t even realise you’ve become all that distracted until Taehyung’s voice brings you back to the present moment. He’s leaning forward, waving a hand in front of your face; you keep your gaze on the parts of him illuminated before you and away from the pitch black beyond his form. “Yoohoo, you still there? The ghosts aren’t responding to me, it’s your turn to ask them things.”

You roll your eyes, avoiding his gaze for the slight searching edge it has adopted. “Not all that surprising. If I was a ghost I wouldn’t want to respond to you, either.”

Taehyung lets out an offended noise, and just like that the session resumes as it normally would. You can’t shake the odd tension in your muscles, but you can only hope that the hall held the title of creepiest part of the church and that the rest of the night would be smoother, less spooky sailing from hereon out.

X    x   x    x    

The rest of the night has not gone by with smoother sailing, you hoped. There are more rooms than anticipated in this building, and painstakingly exploring each and every one is beginning to really take its toll on you. The walls and floors creak, moving with you and even in your wake, like there is another pair of footsteps trailing behind you. The only sound to permeate the air is that of the wood and the odd cricket from outside—when there is complete silence, and even the crickets don’t sound, is when you’ve discovered you hate it most. Because it feels like everything suddenly stops, and everything is then waiting for something to happen. You’re definitely not a fan.

You try and upkeep your usual antics with Taehyung, but this place is really getting to you. On more than one occasion, you swear you can hear the barest of whispers, and feel fleeting, featherlight touches on the parts of your skin bare to the air. There seems to be a common theme in what you swear you can hear: ‘he’s here’, ‘leave.’ It’s not the most ideal thing you could be hearing.

Of course, Taehyung isn’t hearing or feeling a thing. You really hate that none of this ever seems to happen to him, that he’s so damn… immune. If you knew being a sceptic ass would protect you so much, you might have tried your hand at it, but then again you think you’d have a lot of trouble forgetting the things that have happened to you so far.

About midway through the building and a little over halfway through your tour, you enter one of the last few rooms (which you view as simultaneously a good thing and a bad thing, since the last room on your list is the most haunted in the building). Well, enter is a strong word. The second you stopped in front of it, an awful feeling like ice sliding down your spine came over you. The most you were able to make yourself do was stick your head in before Taehyung took the opportunity to waltz on inside, completely unbothered.

“I hate this,” you grumbled, to anyone that would listen at this point. It took you a few breaths before your legs felt strong enough to follow Taehyung into the room.

It’s tiny, admittedly. You have no idea what it would have been used for, before the church fell, and you can’t really tell since any and all furniture in here has since fallen prey to decay and rot. It’s just as you take a few steps in that Taehyung halts, turns around, and huffs.

“Nothing in here,” he remarks, turning on his heel and marching out. “Boring. Come on, let’s go to the main room—the big paranormal breadwinner of this place.”

You sputter incredulously, summoning your thoughts as you turn to follow him. He makes it out the doorway but before you can follow, only a few paces behind, the door that had been wide open for the two of you to enter slams closed with such a loud, shaking BANG you almost topple in fright.

It takes a second for what happened to sink in, another for you to realise you’re now in this room in the dark alone, and another for you to feel the hairs along your neck and back raise all at once. Completely surpassing ‘fight’, you launch at the door and bang on it.

“Taehyung!! This isn’t funny!” You’re scolding him, but you know you didn’t see him anywhere near the door. “Can you let me out? The handle isn’t working in here. Oh, what the fuck, what the fuck—”

With one palm pressed to the door, you try the handle over and over and over again. It’s like it’s locked, or stuck, as though it’s been rusted over in the same place for years and refuses to budge. Except, that makes no sense, because it was literally just open, you were just in here and there isn’t a lock on this door’s handle so it should be opening—

It’s just as panic is beginning to touch the bottom of your lungs, the organs dipping into ice, that you hear the clearest utterance you have all night. A feminine voice, carrying the sadness of all the oceans and the urgency of fishermen when thunder starts to echo across that churning horizon…

“He knows you’re here.”

“Taehyung!” It’s a humiliatingly desperate cry that escapes you without consent, something a distant part of you is already scoffing over. What is calling for him going to do? You’re still stuck in here with this god-awful feeling and now that voice—

Before you can wallow and spiral any longer, there is a splintering sound and you only have a moment to step back before the door is finally swinging open. You aren’t sure how he did it, but you’re presuming it was by force—the handle isn’t even on his side of the door anymore. Taehyung doesn’t even hesitate before grabbing you by the wrist and yanking you out, eyes wide. You have the very sudden, strong urge to just launch yourself at him and cling, but even in the beginnings of your hysteria you somehow manage to refrain. It doesn’t help that you know all it would take to feel secure in this situation is being encased in his arms.

And probably also getting back in the car and getting the hell away from here.

“What the fuck was that.” You hadn’t realised it earlier, but your breath is coming kind of fast. You feel a bit like a frightened animal. “What the fuck—”

“The breeze,” Taehyung says, the answer coming easily. When you look at him, though, he doesn’t seem entirely convinced as he usually is. You’re too shaken to even rub it in like you want to.

“Whatever,” you dismiss, antsier and more eager to get out of here than ever. “Let’s just skip the rest of the rooms and get this big one over and done with.”

Taehyung makes a soft, noncommittal noise that you take as agreement. When you go to move though, he stops you.

“Look, I know the original plan was to spend the night in that room tonight,” he begins, dark cocoa eyes gentle as they hold your gaze.  “But you’re getting pretty shaken up—do you want to do some spirit box shit or something instead and just go back to the hotel after?”

Your chest warms at his concern, chasing away a few inches of fear that had embedded themselves over the duration of the night. A part of you is resistant though, the prideful part that wants to see your word through to the end. That resistant part of you isn’t as big as the rest that is thoroughly freaked out, and is therefore quickly outnumbered.

Since the words seem to have gotten stuck in your throat, you simply nod at him, hoping your eyes convey how thankful you are that it’s his suggestion so you didn’t have to ask yourself. You kind of wish he’d also suggested you scrap the part of the plan where the two of you go into the room one at a time and spend five minutes there alone, but you suppose you can’t have everything. You still needed to come out of this with enough good footage for an episode, after all, and there would have been no point coming here and getting borderline traumatised if not for that.

Taehyung offers you a slight smile, low baritone more comforting than he probably realises as he speaks just once more, “Alright, we’ll do that. Now take a few deep breaths, you’re acting like a cornered animal.”

You simply mustered a snort, not bothering to tell him that’s exactly how you feel. You almost spare a thought to wonder who could have been harassing you this whole time—Meena? Her Fiancé? A demon?—but you shut it down before you can work yourself up any more, and do as he instructs. A few deep breaths later and you feel much calmer, less fried. You’re in no way ready to go into that final room, but you’re the tiniest bit more ready to accept that it’s about to happen.

The final room that you had on your list to investigate was, as you now tell the camera and viewers, the most allegedly haunted of them all. It’s a hidden room, through a concealed doorway behind where the church organ used to be and up a cramped, spiral staircase. You don’t know what the original purpose of this room was, either, but you do know that it’s the final location in the number of tales about this place where the bad things happen.

“So, if we are to believe, let’s say, the version that says Meena summoned and made a deal with a demon,” Taehyung says as you climb the staircase, and puts weird emphasis on the word as he says it, likely in an attempt to make you chuckle. Oddly sweet of him. “Then this is the room where she did that? The demon room?”

You do your best to ignore the spike of fear that shoots through your chest. “Yeah,” you answer, voice cracking. You clear your throat. “That would be… this room.”

You’re audibly unenthused, but you’re sure the viewers will love it. They always seem to enjoy you losing your mind.

Taehyung is trailing behind you as you climb the stairs, the wood creaking dangerously under your weight with each step. The only reason you can even see which step to take next is because of the torch in your grasp, although it has grown shakier in the past few minutes than when you first started the night. Now that you think about it, why are you the first one going up these stairs?! That is so unfair!

Then again, if you were going second and something grabbed you from behind…. maybe that would be worse.

You don’t climb very far, and as you near what you presume is the landing that leads to the final room, you can’t help but notice how much heavier the air has gotten. You can feel it all against your skin, dragging along as you walk through it. There’s a feeling beginning to trickle and swirl in the pit of your abdomen, too. It’s nameless, but you know instinctively it is not the kind of concoction that heals and soothes.

“So here it is,” you announce as the two of you arrive on the landing, staring across the few metres between you and the doorway to that stupid room. “The room of the hour, where most alleged bad things in the tales about this place went down. Well, besides the chandelier thing. That was… yeah.”

Taehyung is already looking at you, camera pointed your way, and you can tell from the look in his eye that he knows you’re stalling.  

“Right, so, we’re gonna do the usual—go in, spend a few minutes alone, see if we can get a response…” You trail off, gulping and feeling a little nauseous as you describe your nearing fate.

“You want me to go in first?” Taehyung asks, a teasing lilt to his voice. You shoot him a glare.

“And have you stir up any spirits and-or beings that are in there for me? No thanks.”

He laughs, but it’s much quieter than you expect. Almost sullen, you sigh and begin preparing to go in alone. You’re avoiding looking at the door, because you already feel the weird vibes seeping out and you don’t want to look in and risk actually seeing something.

Taehyung helps you with the equipment, handing you what you need. When you’re done and ready to go in, he takes a few steps closer with you—and then he freezes. You figure that’s just where he’s choosing to stay until you come back out, and continue into the room.

The second your foot crosses the threshold, the first thing that registers is how much cooler it suddenly is. The dimming torchlight reveals that the room isn’t that big at all, but in the absence of light it feels like the blanket of cold, lurking darkness stretches on endlessly. It almost feels like it has a certain sense of gravity, pulling you in, making you dig your heels in on instinct.

Oh, you don’t like this. Is it too late to bail?

“y/n…” Taehyung says your name softly, and you hear it, but dismiss it soon after when you realise he’s probably about to try and spook you. You force your feet to take another few steps in, when Taehyung’s voice sounds out once more.

“y/n, wait—”

There is a chord of something different in his voice, something you haven’t heard in him before, that makes you pause and turn around; even if it means turning your back to the rest of the room and the abyss it holds.

Facing him for a moment, you catch sight of an indiscernible expression possessing his features—his brows are furrowed, mouth parted as though he is about to speak once more. He seems to be about to do just that when he catches sight of something over your shoulder and his eyes shoot wide.

In that instant, you get the very sudden, very strong feeling that something awful is about to happen, and you want to run.

You don’t get an answer or even a clue as to what he’s looking at. Taehyung begins to move, but he isn’t fast enough to beat the door that flies closed, a sudden and loud SLAM announcing the new barrier between you. It hasn’t even registered yet but your heart instantly stills and drops as a sheet of icy air plummets over you. For a moment, it is still, and silent.

And then, the worst experience of your life begins.

Legs that had begun carrying you back on instinct, stumbling over nameless items you didn’t get a chance to see, lock and freeze at the stark and unmistakeable sensation of a hand gripping tight around your bicep. It tightens, and then you’re being dragged, pushed back with your feet scrambling across the floor, until your back meets icy wall with enough force to make you cry out in pain. Distantly, you swear there is banging on the door, but you can barely hear it over the sound of your own pulse drumming erratically in your ears.

Your breath comes in clouds, the flickering torchlight allowing you to glimpse it before the bulb bursts and you have only the moonlight filtering through a boarded window to aid you. You almost wish that you didn’t, though—

Because in the very next second, something begins to materialise in front of you, as though being formed from smoke and pools of shadow cast across the room. A long, lean body with inhuman proportions, one of the spindly limbs ending in a taloned hand responsible for the grip on your arm. A smell so foul it makes nausea roil in your abdomen crosses your nose, and the being finishes taking shape before you in the span of a saccade. Its skin is like shadow incarnate, dripping like tar into sticky pools on the floor and burning like ice where it makes contact with your own. Spikes and disfigured lumps litter its form, but you think that the most terrifying part must be its face.

For all you can see of it is a crown of curled, gnarled horns,  gleaming white eyes and a mouth full of teeth half the size of one of your fingers.

Half a scream makes its way out of your mouth before the demon hisses, the sound immediately making you clam up. “Shut up.”

The fear that clenches around your heart in a vice grip is one you’ve never felt before, your knees feeling like jelly.

“It’s been so long since any human has dared come here,” the demon says, and it’s like he is grating along the nerves at the back of your neck with every word, plucking them one by one in a curdling tune. “You’ve been so fun to play with. Souls always taste better once they have been soaked in fear.”

Your eyes had been transfixed in terror on the way the demon’s teeth shifted with each word, drool slipping down some fangs and dropping by your feet. You don’t know if you would have snapped out of it were it not for the sudden increase in banging on the door, growing louder and louder with each second. You don’t know if it is the handle making that rattling noise or your teeth and you don’t have the mental capacity to dwell.

When his words sink in a split second after they enter the air, its as though you make a subconscious decision that differs from the rest you’ve made tonight. You’re cornered now, and you can’t run—your brain chooses fight so you may have a chance to flee.

“Get off me!” You lurch suddenly, legs lashing out and kicking even as you can barely control them. “GET OFF ME!”

Your boots meet his legs harshly, and it probably hurts you more than him, but when you suddenly recall the half-empty bottle of blessed water in your pocket and reach for it, throwing it across his face, its like you’ve poured a bucket of pure acid over his skin. Steam billows and smoke follows, and the demon lets out a scream so sharp you swear your eardrums burst, but in no way does the pain weaken his grip on you.

“YOU BITCH.” The demon howls, eyes clenched shut and free hand lashing blindly to claw at you. “I’LL RIP YOUR HEART OUT AND EAT IT BEFORE YOUR EYES, YOU—”

It’s like you’re suspended, floating in time as his claws swipe and almost miss you, but manage to slice lightly across your collarbone—it’s so close to your neck that you can’t help but scream, kicking harder. The demons eyes fly open and narrow on you, its hand raising again. Your eyes clench shut on instinct, not wanting to watch his claws sink as far into your skin as they were meant to the first time. It’s in the moment after that there is a familiar splintering sound, and the grip on your arm is wrought free.

With nothing substantial holding you up anymore, your knees collapse and you sink to the floor, eyes flying open upon impact that you know is painful but can’t quite feel. What you see is something you definitely aren’t ready for—it takes a moment for it to sink in.

Unlike the scene that your eyes had closed to, the demon is no longer the only other being in the room—there is something else, body shrouded in shadow yet cast in an odd glow that shifts and warps like oil beneath sunlight. At first, you think that it’s giant and hulking in mass, but you quickly realise that the shapes protruding from its back aren’t lumps or anything of the like, but large, leathery wings. They flick and twitch, before shooting out and spanning at an incredible length as the new creature shoots forward. The demon that was so close to you before is now on the other side of the room, slammed into the wall by a hand around its throat that glows with heat, a startling juxtaposition to the cold still sinking into your skin.

The demon isn’t about to go without a fight; it surges back, limbs lashing, but the new creature is too strong and pinned to the wall the pitiful being stays, screaming in rage. Curled horns stem from the newcomer’s head, catching moonlight on the ridges and gleaming as it turns its head and glances over its shoulder, at you. Instantly, your heart freezes once more, except this time in a different sort of terror.

Because you know the face looking at you right now— it’s Taehyung.

It’s not the same as the face that usually greets you—there are those inky horns curling from his head, his ashy hair is tinged red on the ends, and its longer than you remember. Beneath the eyes boring into you are black markings like upside down teardrops, and the irises themselves are different shades of violet and gold, split down the middle by a slitted pupil. There is a fang peaking out from the corner of his lips, and the tips of his ears have elongated and angled. The curves and lines of his face resemble the Taehyung you know, and this should give you some modicum of comfort, but as you continue to look at him it becomes more than apparent that this Taehyung…

This Taehyung isn’t the Taehyung you know.

There’s a certain amount of dissonance within you, warring reactions to the information currently overloading your brain, but above all else you find yourself almost hysterically, irrationally scared. You can’t move, can’t seem to breathe as the creature— Taehyung? — releases you from its gaze and turns back to the demon struggling in its grasp. Breath rushes back into your lungs and you have enough presence of mind to attempt to struggle back to your feet. It’s hard, though, with your gaze transfixed on the scene before you.

“I should have known there was something behind the stench of this place,” Taehyung’s voice as he speaks is a mere echo of what you’re used to, a guttural growl strung with rage that reverberates straight through your chest. With each word that leaves him, there is a glow that builds around his form, like St. Elmo’s fire. The demon quickly goes from enraged to terrified, and the observation has your own gut dropping. “But I didn’t think whatever it was would be stupid enough to try anything. You shouldn’t have come out tonight, you shouldn’t have laid your hands on her.”

The demons shrieking becomes diplophonic, tune changing from angry cries to desperate, pitiful pleas.

“I did not know it was you, lord! I did not know! I would not have touched the lord’s human if I had known!”

“Shut up!” Taehyung commands, wings flaring. The demon instantly obeys, but at the sight of Taehyung’s free hand rising with what you quickly realise is a dagger, coated in flames, it returns to begging and pleading with renewed vigour.

“No, lord, please! I did not know! Please do not slay me! I will leave, I will return to the underworld! I will never near your human again! Please, lord, do not—”

“You cut her,” Taehyung hisses, fury coating each syllable. “I cannot leave you alive.”

And then, faster than you can blink, the blade is embedded in the demon’s dripping abdomen, and it takes all of a split second for its to become engulfed in the same cerulean flames that coated it. Taehyung’s grip around its neck disappears and the demon crumples to the ground with a horrid, blood-curdling scream so piercing it makes your vision blur and head throb. Blearily, you watch as the demon twists and curls, warping across the ground before the flames flare and heat washes over your skin.

And then it is gone, the scream it left behind still echoing in the air until the only thing left ringing in your ears is your own hurried, frantic heartbeat.

The silence that follows is startling, the two of you seeming to be processing exactly what just happened. You’re going to need more than a moment to properly do so, but the adrenaline rush from this near-death experience seems to be propelling you back to clear thought sooner than anticipated. Without the demon here, it’s almost as though nothing happened and you were imagining the whole thing. But then, your gaze returns to Taehyung; the very same Taehyung that stands across the room and resembles the demon more in his inhuman features than he does your usual Taehyung.

There are still the slightest tendrils of fear clinging to your heart, and where you stand you can feel the weakness of your knees—when Taehyung turns around, against the protests of a distant part of you, you can feel those tendrils flare up and clench tightly.

There is still rage rolling off his form, and you can almost sense the heat of it from where you stand with the absence of the earlier chill in the room. His expression is furious as he turns to face you, taking a step forward. Unable to help it considering what you just went through, you flinch and press to the wall, the slightest sound escaping your mouth despite your best efforts to squash it.

Immediately, Taehyung freezes. Those mismatched eyes are boring into you again but this time they’re wide, concerned as he takes in your reaction and the condition you’re in, gaze zeroing in on your collarbones. In this moment, you’re scared of him, and you can see the second he realises it. Something indiscernible yet that ripples akin to sadness pools behind his iris’, and he braves another step closer, hand outstretched—a hand with talons just like the ones that had cut you before.

“Don’t!” You feel like it’s not even you talking right now, but you can’t stop the words from coming out. So much happened, too much happened, you can feel yourself beginning to freak out as your breath begins to come quicker and quicker. You haven’t had time to process this. For the third time tonight, you feel like a cornered animal. Except, you never would have thought that it would be at the hands of Taehyung.

“D-don’t come closer! Don’t—Just… don’t…”

Your gaze hasn’t left him and you can see, almost feel the way he recoils at each word; it’s like you’ve punched him in the gut. You can’t stop though, you’re so overwhelmed and you so suddenly and intensely want to leave—you need to leave. You don’t even realise you’re shaking until you take a step, entire form trembling. Taehyung doesn’t move, eyes following you, his brows furrowed and mouth parted as though he wishes to say something. He doesn’t, though. He watches you with a sense of resignation. The sight of him still in that form, standing so painfully and undeniably there, is what pushes you over the threshold.

All of a sudden it’s too much—too much, too much, too much— and you can’t hold it back anymore. Chin wobbling, you don’t even think about the equipment or anything you’ve dropped, you can’t bring yourself to think of Taehyung, you just go. In a blur, you’re out of the room, down the creaking, rotting stairs—you’re stumbling in the fear taking hold of you but there’s something else there, a bittersweet tinge of hurt, the tiniest hint of betrayal. You don’t have time to pick it apart.

Before you know it you’ve made it down the stairs, through the ruined hall and out of the church. The night is silent, not even a cricket daring to chirp in the wake of whatever just happened. It makes you feel alone, but not the kind that you’re trying to be so desperately right now. You can’t chase the feeling away, though, as you dash for the car and start it up.

As you floor it out of there and tear onto the main highway, breath still coming quick and uneven, you can’t chase the memory of Taehyung’s crestfallen gaze as it followed you out the door, either.

a/n: pls let me know what you think and if u liked it interact with a like or rb!! It helps me know how many people have read it and how many enjoy it & how well its received!!! thank u for reading!!!

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[ancientechos]

Hallow’s Eve

Emet-Selch/Arianna ♡ 3281 words ♡ eldritch au [modern au]

Did I...write even more...for eldritch AU...? Yes, yes I did. Proper fic coming...who knows when. My superpower is to write a lot about nothing.

Random little Halloween-themed fic! And another example of how I cannot do titles.

Has an appearance from @windup-dragoon Kiri and Hien.

Despite herself she --

Admittedly, very often, wonders if she’s too boring for her...very strange and impromptu roommate. Lover...? She supposes they are technically thus, at this point...

Though that is besides the, well, point.

It’s not as if they’re always home, though she admits they are...more often than not. Thus Arianna has taken to worrying she’s exceptionally dull to the eldritch creature...he’s simply too polite to say it.

(There is, of course, inherently something wrong with this assumption, but alas.)

“H-have you ever been to a party...?” The second the question finishes making its way past her lips, she regrets it -- it’s banal, not specific enough, absurd. Her suspicions are confirmed as Hades fixes her with a quiet, unimpressed stare. He plucks a grape from the fruit bowl before answering.

“Depends what sort of party, I suppose.”

Absentmindedly, she wonders what sort of “parties” he might have been privy to in the past...the only thing her mind can conjure is strangely fantastical images of odd creatures, one less humanoid than the next, eerie music --

She has to stop her mind from running off into the imaginary. Perhaps she’ll ask him later.

“Um -- w-what I mean is -- a -- ” The woman finds herself growing ever more anxious when she realises she doesn’t -- really -- have any point of comparison for what she wants to ask. For a moment, she fidgets her fingers together, then brushes a hand through a few strands of her hair. Her green gaze glances from her companion, still leaning casually against her kitchen counter, to the calendar on the wall in the hopes it might give her answers.

Unfortunately, it does not.

Somewhat blessedly, he does not interrupt her nervous fumblings as she struggles for words.This does not, however, stop her mind from being dangerously on the edge of wondering just how exasperated he must be --

“A-a p-party...?” Almost desperate to say anything at all, she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Yes?” She can practically see one of his eyebrows quirk without actually looking at him. “You mentioned a party already. I asked what kind.”

Never mind that the question had been decidedly implicit.

He sounds far more patient than she ever deserves, and she presses her palms to her face, hard enough that colours dance behind her eyelids. “Ah...” Why is she getting so worked up about this, in any case...?

“There’s nothing to be upset about.” Hades’ voice cuts through the fog and white noise threatening to overcome her. “We have all the time in the world. no?”

-- He’s completely right. She truly has not an inkling of an idea as to why this has made her so on edge. Is it the subject matter itself?

“Unless there was a party happening within the hour...”

“N-no, that’s not -- ” She’s responded before she can fully realise, with the wryness of his tone, that he’s being sarcastic. Of course she wouldn’t have asked him about something like this on such short notice. Slowly, she lets out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, her shoulders lowering from where they’d nearly surpassed the tips of her ears. What she wants to ask...

“What I mean is...a c-costume party...” She trails off as she pulls her thoughts together. “Some people...like to d-dress up as...strange creatures, o-or book characters...for parties. A-at this time of year.”

Not that she’s ever really gone to one. Twining a strand of curled hair about her right index finger, she finally turns to look at him curiously. Already, she can feel the strange, harsh energy from earlier dissipating simply from being able to speak properly.

“Mm. I suppose I’ve been to one of those before. Though not really any in the mortal realm, of course...” There’s a pause as he regards her. “I suppose that means there would be a great deal of people there...and you wanted to go regardless?”

She has to bite her lip before she can mumble a reflexive no. “I-I just thought...perhaps...you would be interested...”

“Hmm.” The sigh he exhales almost has her thinking he wants to reject her offer. But -- “You said people like to dress up? Maybe I could go as my true form...or something close to it.” There’s an almost malicious smirk that curls his lip, his head tilting slightly to the side. Arianna tries to ignore the way her heart thunders treacherously in her chest and absently prays the lighting is too dark to notice her nonsensical blush.

“I-I don’t think it would be a good idea to go in your...ah...o-other form...” She pauses, teeth sinking into her lower lip. “Wouldn’t you simply scare everyone away...?” She doesn’t need to be told twice to remember that...incident from before.

“That’s the point, is it not? You could enjoy yourself.”

She is not quite sure whether she’s meant to be touched or concerned, and thus settles for wavering uncertainly between the two.

“W-well, regardless...” She exhales nervously. “I think...if you wanted to go, it might be...best to go in...ah, c-costumes...?”

“Oh?” The smirk hasn’t faded for even a moment. “And what do you propose we’d go as?”

The we has her heart fluttering stupidly again, for no reason, as she brushes her fingers through her hair once more. “Um...that...” Blinking and shaking her head to try to clear it, she regards him with what is meant to be a critical eye, but simply gets caught up in his gaze again. “Ah...”

-- Now that she isn’t an anxiously flustered mess, he seems perfectly content with simply flustering her further. Pushing himself away from the counter, he approaches her to smirk fondly down at her. When she simply proves all the more wordless, he brushes a finger gently along her cheek.

“How about an angel and a demon?”

To say she would have expected a suggestion from him would be a lie...not to mention...the suggestion itself...? It’s enough to have her blinking up at him blankly, her nervousness for the moment forgotten.

“I-I suppose...but...h-how do you know what an angel looks like, anyway...?” Curiously, she eyes him. She can’t imagine he’s ever done much...mortal reading. Or maybe he has? Well, she isn’t home -- or even awake -- the entire time. She supposes it’s perfectly possible and within his abilities for him to have picked up any of the numerous books she has, or to even have perused the titles elsewhere. But something so specific as an angel and a demon? It’s an odd thing to think about...

“Hmm? Oh, that’s easy.” There’s a smirk on his lips as he casually slings an arm about her shoulders, leaning in close. Somehow, she manages not to turn away despite the blush threatening to overtake her yet again. “There’s one right in front of me, isn’t there?”

It takes a moment for the words to process, and even longer for the precise meaning to dawn upon her. But when they do --

She wouldn’t be surprised if the heat that radiates from her face could run a generator.

“Y-you -- !” she stammers uselessly, turning away from him and smacking a hand to her face. Her fingers feel cold. Though she attempts to pull from him entirely, he holds her fast against him, amused.

“Yes? What about me?”

She ducks underneath his arm to avoid answering him, rubbing her palms against her cheeks as if she could simply push the sensation out of them.

“Am I to take it that you agree with my idea, then?”

“N-no -- ! Definitely not!”

________

Well -- that was what she had said...

But clearly her conviction had not been strong enough, given her current...predicament.

It had taken a concerning amount of time to find an angel costume that simply...wasn’t too short, but finally she’d managed to find one with a skirt that went at the very least past her knees, while Hades had loitered about the rest of the costumes shop, occasionally remarking this or that or giving extraordinarily unhelpful advice.

“What about this one?”

He, of course, goes ignored.

The house they’re standing in front of now seems tall and imposing, though doubtless only to her. Various decorations and a myriad of lights are strung up about it. The owners had had no qualms to spare coin for making the place fit for Halloween. There’s even a fog machine, judging by the mist blowing across the front yard and obscuring the door.

She’s already not very enthused about entering. Alas, the same cannot be said for her companion.

Whilst Arianna is dressed mainly in white -- with gold accents and, of all things, gold glitter littering the skirt portion of her dress -- and a black headband to allow her halo to blend with her hair, her date (?) wears a mainly black suit with dark red horns. She can’t see his headband from this angle, which leads her to believe he must have simply...willed the outfit into existence, or something. She can’t remember him throwing any such thing into her cart, either.

-- She supposes he looks nice.

Apparently sensing whatever discomfort she exudes, Hades’ grip upon her hand tightens slightly, and he draws her closer to him.

“You are aware we don’t have to go, yes?”

“I am, but -- I thought...you might want to go, so...”

Certainly, as he’s fond of reminding her over their telepathic link, there’s no especial reason they need to be going. They could just as easily turn and go home...and yet she can’t shake off the feeling that she isn’t giving him enough of what he deserves. Surely he would like for more than to simply lounge about her apartment, or...whatever it is he does when she’s away.

And perhaps a part of her is curious if she truly can do this.

Arianna allows him to lead her past the gate, up into the odourless pale fog that masks the door, and then through it. The closer they get to the doorway, the more loudly the music reverberates against her ears. Ah -- her least favourite sort of “party”, then...

Not that she’s really been to many --

Inside are all sorts of people, most dressed in costumes with a few occasional individuals apparently left out, or simply not wishing to invest the time in their get up. There’s clearly food and drink available further within, and the decorations from without continue on in inside the house. Fake cobwebs with tiny plastic spiders, glowing pumpkins and skulls...and a bit of the fog from outside.

And of course there’s hardly any shortage of dramatic and multi-coloured lighting.

Most of the guests are milling about, some far too close for Arianna’s comfort Unfortunately, her already clear awkwardness isn’t especially evident to the more inebriated partygoers.

“Hey pretty lady.” A young man in a some sort of zombie mask apparently isn’t discouraged by the presence of the even taller man next to her. “Wanna go grab a drink?”

As soon as she focuses on him, her gaze snaps to his shoes, then away; he’s about to try to say something else, though with one derisive stare from Hades and he instantaneously shuts his mouth and slinks away like a defeated pup.

“Hmph. They’re like animals.”

Arianna doesn’t really want to ask him precisely what he means, focused on trying to regain her toppled equilibrium. The sudden approach and the already crowded atmosphere is doing little to quell her flickering anxiety. Perhaps it had been a mistake to come here after all.

Her other free hand lifts to grasp at his wrist, her gaze firmly upon the ground as she hunches in on herself, entire body tense.

“Are you sure you don’t want to leave? Perhaps -- ”

“Oh, Arianna! You came!”

The other masculine voice cuts through the white noise and Hades’ words; she recognises it immediately. She glances nervously at Hien’s boots as he comes to a halt a little ways away; there’s cloth beside his, like a robe, or -- 

“I didn’t expect -- I see Hades is here, as well...” Hien trails off a little, perhaps noticing the dire state of the dark-haired woman. “Shall we go somewhere a little quieter? I know a spot -- the hallway’s not as crowded.”

She doesn’t need any other amount of convincing; Hades leads her as Hien and Kirishimi direct the two of them into a darkly lit hallway. Whilst the music here is somewhat muted, the decorations continue along the ceiling, winding over the doors.

It feels far less claustrophobic, however. Perhaps most of it is to do with being surrounded by friends instead. Or Hades standing in the entranceway to the larger room, blocking out most of the rabble.

Leaning against the wall, her death grip upon him slowly lessens as she exhales. Her shoulders slump as some of the sickly tension evaporates. Whilst she’s not entirely in her element yet, things feel -- slightly better. At least better enough that she can try to look up.

She’s somewhat tempted to ask Hien if something is wrong with his eye, until she recalls that they’re all wearing costumes. His appears to be something of a pirate, complete with an eyepatch; though the lighting is dim if not entirely coloured, his outfit seems to be composed of yellows, or perhaps orange. As for Kirishimi --

The woman looks so natural in the -- kimono? -- that for a second it hadn’t even registered that she’s wearing a “costume” at all. She still isn’t really certain it looks like a costume --

And the tails are certainly not a fabrication. Though she supposes she can get away with it at a party.

Hades chooses that moment to gesture with a sigh.

“And you wouldn’t even let me come like that.”

“Your case is a little bit...different...”

Hien’s expression is friendly once he notices Arianna looking up at him.

“Feeling any better? I could get you a drink, if you like...?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the woman gives a small nod. Whilst she feels bad for monopolising the man’s time, her throat undeniably feels a little parched. Once he slips past Hades, the kitsune takes the opportunity to speak.

“Yer lookin’ cute, Ari!”

Feeling her face heat up, Arianna directs her gaze away, glancing toward the ground; after a few seconds, she takes a peek to the wider room, then the other side. With no one else -- really in earshot, perhaps she can manage --

“Ah...tha-thank you...you...too...”

Pressing her fingers to her cheek, she closes her eyes as she tries to calm herself, feeling stupidly childish for no real reason. Though she supposes, perhaps, this is childish; what sort of person can’t even converse...?

“But yer looking as slimy as ever.”

“And I can tell you hardly put any effort into your ‘costume’. You’ve just gone as yourself.”

“Ya tellin’ me yer not some kinda demon? As if I’d believe that. And that suit’s just what ya always wear.”

“Not at all, the cut and style are entirely different. But I wouldn’t expect anything more of a mutt.”

Paradoxically, their hissing argument somehow manages to put her at further ease. Perhaps because it’s a norm of what those two always do when they’re forced together in a single room; no matter the occasion or the reason, they’ve never seemed to be able to get along for longer than a few minutes at a time, and even that is being generous...

See? Everything is normal. That is what she tries to tell herself.

Except for, well, everything else about the situation, but if she just focuses on Hades’ shoulders, perhaps she can pretend nothing is too out of the ordinary about this.

Hien returns a few minutes later with a clear glass of water in his hand; he gives it to Arianna with an encouraging smile, and she takes it gratefully. The glass is cool in her hand, and for a moment she wishes she had something warmer, but it’ll do. Lifting it to her lips, she begins to sip as her companions break out into quiet conversation and half-hearted jabs --

A loud sound, like a foghorn, sheers through even the music; a few people scream. Arianna full-on nearly jumps in place, her vaguely settled nerves fraying like unravelling threads. The blood in her veins turns to ice along with the coldness of the water spilling down her front, and she lets go entirely of Hades’ hand to press her palm to her ear. It’s a wonder she doesn’t let go of the glass entirely -- or that her grip doesn’t simply break it. Instead, she presses it to her other ear as she curls away from the entranceway, her mind struggling at a mile a minute.

There’s few things she’s consciously afraid of. Loud, sudden noises are one such thing.

The tiny noise that had managed to spill from her lips earlier dies, her throat constricting painfully. The dimly lit hallway seems to flicker and swim before her eyes; she squeezes them shut as she tries to calm herself.

“Ari? You okay?”

Their voices sound far away, as if they speak to her from under water or glass. She can’t respond, not even with a movement; her head spins like a kaleidoscope and, dimly, she thinks to herself yet again how stupidly childlike she must look to them all. Especially...

“I am afraid everyone here has overstayed their welcome...”

If there’s one voice that cuts through the noise, it’s his, always his.

But what is he...?

“ -- Ha -- ” Her voice falters in her throat the moment she tries to speak out and grasp at his arm; he easily slips from her and into the crowd of giggling and chatting partygoers, their volume spiraling into a crescendo. She still feels ill, and his sudden disappearance does a poor job of calming her. Was he talking about her...?

There’s a sudden scream; the entire crowd stops stock still. Then pandemonium erupts as chaos consumes the whole house, a thundering of voices and footsteps as the guests throw themselves out whatever doors and windows they can reach.

It’s not difficult to see why. In the centre of the room -- and taking up more space with every second -- is...Hades, in his eldritch form of course, the same one she’d seen when she’d first met him.

The house is deserted in less than a minute; only Arianna, Kirishimi, and Hien remain. The kitsune’s ears are instinctively flattened to her head, tails stiff, her arms unconsciously thrown out in front of her companion. Arianna thinks she can hear something like a growl from within her throat. The devourer of souls seems to have no issue with his current appearance, arms spanning the whole living area.

“Will ya put that away already? Ya stink like the damn void.”

“And you smell like wet dog. Nothing new about that, however.”

With a sigh, the eldritch’s limbs and size retreats; shadows envelop him, and finally he stands in the middle of the abandoned glasses and shattered plates in his humanoid flesh.

“Much better now, eh? I said you’d finally be able to enjoy yourself.”

[batsforbadones]

‘Quick’ Lil Question

Hi! I have a quick little thing to talk about that I would like some input on! A lot of you really enjoy my Stu stuff, as do I, and I’m about to hit 200 followers. It is also almost All Hallows Eve which is, of course, a horror bitches most prevalent time of the year. I don’t get many requests, but currently, the only two in my inbox are related to Stu! I’ve had this idea for a bit, but I would like to know your opinion on if I- decided to write a... full fledged multi-chapter x reader fanfiction about him. Given that Billy has so much, I figured Stu deserved some ---- Love and affection as well. Now, this is something I want to do. Like- have had boiling in my head for a bit want to do- However there are a few-- issues. And by a few I mean a lot. - At the moment my time schedule is not very forgiving. I am jam packed at the moment, and honestly should not even being entertaining this idea until I get my external affairs in order- - There’s a certain- lack of stability when it comes to X readers that can be excused in a quick ficlet or drabble, but not in a full fledged work. A lot of people treat Y/N as their own separate entity, but this doesn’t lend to the most interesting stories. I can’t give my main character any distinct flaws because I’m unsure of what the reader’s flaws actually are. I’ve seen beautifully written X Reader’s before, but I have never tackled something this large. I am unsure of how to do such a thing. - I don’t doubt I’d be able to catch on, but as mentioned, I do not have much time, and so the main priority of the piece wouldn’t be reworks and quick fixes, meaning the tone would be off. I can’t go back and fix clunkier chapters, which, as someone who likes her many drafts, I am not thrilled about. - I also have a very bad issue with keeping up with stuff like this. I used to write Creepypasta fanfiction, and, to this date, I have only finished one (1) fanfiction novel in whole, and that was the very first piece I ever made, Age 9, when I didn’t even know writing could be considered a hobby. As a reader, I know how frustrating it is to have a work you really really enjoy just- completely ghost you. My updates wouldn’t be consistent, and I have ditched my fair share of fanfics because they were just- taking too long to update. I change my favourite horror boy three times a week ( except for you Herbert, you’re always number one in mi corazon ), and only wanted to start writing this because I was fresh off of scream. I love Stu, but I don’t know if I could hyper obsess over him for as long as I can without feeling burn out, and therefore this fic becoming a choir. - My final problem is that I’ve never done this on tumblr and A03 scares me : D This site is my primary source, and I know it’s not the most kind in it’s format, so I’d probably be posting on A03 which, is hard to get in to if I’m not mistaken, but I’d be willing to do it for this.

I just want to know if any of you would want to - read something along the lines of- ‘ Stu Macher X Reader, canon divergence - stu breaks into your hosue to sleep there - you begin to be FWB - you don’t know his name until it pops up on the news as one half of the ghost face duo - he’s in your house again- panic smut ensues - so fourth so fourth - ‘ as you can see, I also have no real plans for this, I just really, really like Stu’s character and want to explore it more- 

TL; DR - Would you want a Stu Macher Multi-Chapter Smut fic from me or nah ?

[leelee10898]

The 13th Duchess..

This is my submission for the creepy campfire tales, hosted by @speedyoperarascalparty.

Books: A very Scandalous proposal and Unexpected Heiress. (Vip books)

Pairing: Ridley(mc) x Simon Montjoy

****************

"Everything is all set, Darling." Simon sauntered into the room, a bright smile on his face. "I must say, I am rather excited for this party. The first Halloween bash Barrington has seen." 

"Have I told you lately how much of a god send you are, hubby?" Ridley smirked, turning her back to him. "Zip me?" 

"Anything for you, my love. Simon's let out a low chuckle, his fingers slowly pulled the zipper of her dress. "Shall we?" He extended his arm and the two made their way to the ballroom. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Simon and Ridley Montjoy, Duke and Duchess of wessex." The herald announced as the two entered the festively decorated ball room.  The pair had been married just over a year, Ridley and Simon taking over the Barrington estate full time and loving every minute of it, well, maybe not every minute.  

An estate as old as Barrington came with some interesting phenomenons, which Ridley would often freak out over.   Simon on the other hand never seemed to notice when things would groan, or randomly appear. They decided to throw a Halloween party on the spookiest of nights, All Hallows eve. 

Ridley wore a beautiful crimson flapper dress, simon wearing a matching suit to really give them the roaring 20s feel. The pair split the room, speaking with their guest. Ridley's head was spinning, she needed a breather.  She found a quiet corner and pressed against the wall, eyes closed for just a moment. 

"I'd love to say it gets easier but, I can not tell a lie." A voice pulled her from her rest. Her eyes landing on a petite woman with dark hair who looked exactly like someone she would have loved to go back in time to meet. 

"I just love your costume, the details are flawless. If I didn't know any better, I would think you were the 13th duchess herself." Ridley grinned ear to ear, the woman smile matching hers. 

"Gemma Montjoy at your service." She winked, extending her hand, Ridley taking it giving a firm shake. "How wonderful to meet you, Gemma. I'm," 

"Oh darling, everyone knows who you are." The woman gave her a brilliant smile.  "Ridley Duchannes Or, shall I say Montjoy now. You and Simon have done a wonderful job leading Barrington into a new age, such a wonderful job." 

"Why thank you. I have to ask, why the 13th duchess? I mean, I am partial to her myself." Ridley began, "Her memoirs are what led me here in the first place." 

"Lets just say Gemma and I are kindred spirits. Besides, the montjoys are family."  The lady gave a playful smirk. "Say, it's been quite a while since I have wandered these old halls, shall we see what kind of trouble we can get into tonight, being its Hallows eve?" 

Ridley hesitated, she did not know this woman but the American in her screamed and got into trouble, she did say she was family. Her lips twisted into a rebellious grin. "What the hell, let's do it." 

The two wandered into the study just off the ball room, Gemma's hand roamed down the wall "should be right… here." She grinned as the wall swung open, Gemma lit an old lantern and the pair disappeared into the passage ways. 

"So you've been researching the Montjoy family's history I hear. I have yet to read your book but, I can't imagine the scandal you unearthed." The woman spoke as the two made their way down the dimly lit halls. 

"I have. Did you know that Thomas Montjoy, the husband of the 13th Duchess fathered a child out of wedlock? He sadly passed a year after he and Gemma took the boy in." 

"Andrew." The woman's voice turned soft, a slight pain behind it. 

"Yes,  Andrew Olivier Montjoy. He went by Ollie as I understand it. I can't imagine how Gemma handled such a situation with as much grace as she did.  I do not know how I would handle that, it would completely crush me if Simon ever did that." 

"I assure you darling, she struggled to connect with the boy. Her attempts thwarted at every turn,  ollie just would not warm up to her. It broke her heart. Never having children of her own, he was as close as she ever got." 

"How do you know all of this? I have never been able to find any diaries or letters from the 13th Duchess." 

The woman opened her mouth to speak but abruptly shut it as a set of raised voices grew louder. 

"Damnit Genevive, I said I wanted to go as a naval captain,  I look like bloody captain crunch." Hugos voice rang out. Gemma motion towards a small hole in the wall, peaking in they could see Hugo and his wife Genevive.  "Now settle down Hugo. I am trying to adjust this griddle but it wont. Go. Down." Genevive huffed struggling against her husband. "Oh dear, he looks like a busted can of biscuits." Gemma giggled. "Pillsbury should hire him as a spokesperson." Ridley cackled. 

"What was that? Who's there?" Hugo shouted. "Careful Hugo it'll," Genevive gasped as the girdle snapped, flinging across the room,  Hugo flew back, flipping over the chaise and landed on his back, feet up in the air. 

The pair let out a roarous laughter and took off running down the hall. They settled against the wall, catching their breath. 

"Well that was certainly one for the books. " Ridley laughed. "I'd say so." Gemma agreed looking around. 

 "ah. Here we are." She ran her hand along the wall pressing a button.  The door slid open, revealing a room that had clearly not seen the light of day in quite some time. 

"What the hell? I have never been in this room." 

"That is because nobody knows about this place, not anyone living that is." She chuckled.  Ridley gave her a confused look. 

"Well. Have at it darling." The woman motioned around the room. 

Ridley waived her hand, clearing the cobwebs from her path.  The room had gone untouched for quite some time.  The vanity still loaded with a pewter brush and mirror, a compact and various bottles of perfume littered the top. Ridley  walked over to the bedside table picking up a black leatherbound book. She blew the thick dust from the cover and opened up to the first page. 

This is the diary of Gemma Montjoy, Duchess of wessex. 

Ridley's eyes boggled out of her head. "This? This is hers? The 13th duchess, THE Gemma Montjoy!" 

The woman smiled, her hand ran softly against the tattered bed spread. 

"The room was sealed off shortly before her death, only a select few knew of it. Her dear friend Lillian Hayes saw to it. Such a pity what happened to  Amelia, her dear sister. Never did fully get over that one but, Lilian gave everyone hope again. " A shadow cast on her face, she quickly shook it off. " You want some more Montjoy family information,  look to the somerset family. Cousins of the Montjoys loads of scandal there." 

"Lillian? Amelia? Who are they? And what happened to Amelia." 

"Why, Amelia was murdered of course. Amelia was set to wed Francis Somerset but, her untimely demise ended that and her sister Lillian stepped in to take her place." She gave a sad smile.  

Ridley sat on the bed flipping through the diary, her eyes widening. "She solved the murder? And who is John?" 

" She sure did. And John was Francis's brother. Lilian made a marriage pact quite like you and your simon did. She would have never gone through with the marriage, it was all a farce. John had her heart." 

Ridley's head was spinning at all of the new information. How did this woman who looked identical to the 13th duchess know all of this. If it weren't for the dusty old journal in her hands, she would have thought it fake. Was it a dream? She tried to pinch herself awake but her attempts were futile, Ridley was very much awake. 

The phone strapped to her thigh began to vibrate, a slew of text from Simon appearing on the screen. 

"Everything ok?" Gemma questioned. 

"Yes, my husband is worried about me." She looked at the time, "has it been an hour already?" 

"Perhaps we should be heading back?" The woman questioned, Ridley nooded her head. "Yes but, I don't want to leave.  This is the 13th dutchess private room. Nobody has ever seen it and here we are."

"Of course, it is like a missing piece to a puzzle. Perhaps you could come back again, but for now your husband worries. Come now Ridley, we haven't much time." 

Ridley stood nodding her head. "Ok. But I am taking this." She held up the book. 

"Have at it." 

The two women ventured through the passages back to the study. The wall slid open and Ridley stepped out, Simon standing there waiting for her. 

"Ridley,  Darling. You gave me a fright. I thought I would have to send a search party after you." She wrapped his arms around her. "You know that saint Bernard is just a call away." He chuckled, releasing her. "Where the bloody hell did you get off to?" 

"I'm fine Simon, my friend and I found Gemma Montjoys hidden room." She smirked. 

"Your friend, Darling?" Simon quirked his brow giving her a confused look. "Ridley, how much have you had to drink?  Are you snozzled?" 

"I am not drunk, Simon! She's right here.." Ridley turned pointing towards the wall,  only to find her new friend was gone. "Where..Where'd she go?" 

"Ooookay.. Darling, perhaps you've inhaled too much dust in the passage ways. Come now,  let's get you a glass of water and some fresh air." Simon led a confused Ridley away. She kept peaking back waiting for the woman to jump out of her hiding spot, could she have imagined it all? 

Later that evening Ridley sat in bed, the journal firmly grasped in her hands. "I can not believe I found this Simon." She sighed contently. "There is so much personal information in here. Much more than her memoirs." 

Simom smiled fondly,  climbing into bed next to his wife.  "Brilliant Darling, you should add this into your next book." He leaned over kissing her good night.  She turned the to a blank page in between another entry. Ridley's mind wandered back on the night, something odd was going on but she couldn't quite figure it out. Had she dreamed it? But then how did she come by the book? She shook her head in frustration looking back down on the page only this time it wasnt blank. 

Ridley darling, I had a blast tonight. Enjoy the journal. 

 Until next year,

~Gemma 

Ridley's eyes went wide, she didn't just meet a woman dressed as Gemma Montjoy,  she met her Ghost. 

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[grell-writes-stuff]

A Self Indulgent First Chapter

Enjoy...something

Words: 2,549

Genre: Young Adult / Paranormal

---------------------------------------------

Slam!

Gasp!

And then the apathetic yell of “Walk it off, Willow!” from Coach Martin. No stopping the game or running over to make sure I’m not deprived of air or dying or something. Just “Walk it off, Willow!”

I suffer for a second with the wind knocked out of my body. My inhaler finds its way from my pocket to my hand, and while I hold the one breath I force myself into and wait for my crap lungs to jump-start again, I contemplate the most-likely-illegal play that landed me flat on my back in the middle of the field. Quarterback Tom Styles’ outstretched elbow connecting with my neck at full speed in his chase for the checkered ball and high school sports glory, clearly confusing his claim-to-fame varsity moves with a pickup game of soccer since I doubt he has the brain cells to remember the rules to two sports at once. And probably a little bit on purpose. Because he’s a dick.

My chest wheezes a little, but at least it’s something, and the weak inhales finally start to catch as a sun-freckled face appears above me and blocks out the light. Ivy offers me her hand.

“Did th-that look a-as bad as it f-felt?” I sputter.

Ivy tilts her head from side-to-side like it’s the scale measuring how uncool I am. “Worse. Very pathetic. You will die alone.” She yanks me to my feet and acts like a support in spite of the height difference.

“P-Please stop making m-me take gym with y-you.”

“Nah. It’s too funny.” She ignores my scowl. “Come on. Let’s get you some water and wait for those shitty lungs to work again.”

She escorts me – hobbling like some eighty-year-old man with spine problems and not just what will soon be a terrible, ugly bruise – toward the bleachers, empty except for the water bottles of our classmates. I’m happy enough to sit on the sidelines, not just while recovering from having all of the air robbed from my chest, but for the rest of gym class, and also forever. Ivy is equally as happy, but only because it prompts the girls’ teacher, Coach Caruthers, to scream in her booming voice:

“Hammond! Back on the field!”

Without missing a beat, Ivy responds, “In the event of moderate injury, students are allowed to have a friend or fellow student for mental, emotional, or physical support. It’s in the code of conduct.”

I don’t know if that’s actually something in our school’s rule book, but Ivy has read the whole thing cover-to-cover for the sole purpose of seeing how many provisions she can disregard without getting into trouble through malicious acts of over-compliance or sheer dumb luck. So, she’s either following the rules to the letter or lying about them. As I sit, I see that Caruthers does not look impressed when Ivy plops onto the bench next to me. The whole reason our gender-segregated phys. ed classes collaborate so often is because they’re full of athletes – and me, the outlier – so more often than not, it’s just an extra practice for the varsity players. Even though Ivy was born with the “good at physical stuff” gene, and talented enough to be a forward on our girls’ soccer team, she prefers to rely on the natural part of her ability and not the practice part to the vexation of literally everyone.

“Hammond!” Caruthers screams. “On the field, or off the team!”

Ivy squirts a stream of water into her mouth and quickly swallows before passing the bottle on to me. “Cool. Who’s replacing me?” she retorts.

I focus on downing some water and breathing evenly again and not on the vein beginning to pop out of Caruthers’ angry-red neck. She can’t say anything back because, well, Kinross High School isn’t huge. Pretty much everyone who can play sports is already playing sports, and as far as Ivy’s tendency to disrespect anyone of authority can go, she’s also crucial to securing victory over visiting teams. Caruthers just grits her teeth and returns to refereeing the game where Tom Styles has once again stolen the ball that got away from him, this time without incapacitating anybody since the one guy with asthma has left the field. (Asshole.) I watch as Abby Jefferson starts to gain on him, and Tom makes the choice to skillfully send the ball flying across the grass to the next open player, Drew Young, the only person in our gym class who does even less than I do.

That’s not for lack of talent either. I’ve seen Drew actually try on the rare occasion, and he could absolutely score a spot on a boys’ sports team. But most games, like today, he receives the pass and kicks the ball along to the next open player – it’s intercepted by one of the girls – and continues pacing the field leisurely. Coach Martin yells at him to get his head in the game, but Drew doesn’t bother. If the activity doesn’t involve selling the pens that he stole from the cheerleaders to the football team, the little weasel has no interest.

The game continues on.

Ivy reclines until her shoulders are touching the bench behind us, tilting her head back and staring at the sky. I have to wonder how comfortable it is.

“My dear Sid,” she theatrically addresses me. She likes to be dramatic sometimes. She thinks it’s funny. “I have a proposal for you.”

“I told you I’m not training a messenger pigeon with you. We only live three houses apart.”

“I’ll wear you down eventually, but no, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.” She looks over at me without breaking her questionable position. “I know what we’re doing tonight. I’ve concocted a perfect plan, you see, for this most All-Hallowed of Eves.”

“You can say ‘Halloween’ like a normal person. It’s okay.”

“Let me bring you back in time,” she continues, ignoring me, “to the Kinross of yore. Just decades after its founding, the Salem Witch Trials came about and our town was no exception to the noose–”

“Salem is two hours away, Ivy,” I interrupt with the fact.

“Shut up. The Salem Witch Trials swept across the state of Massachusetts, migrated into Kinross, and thus the most famous trial of Kinross history was set in motion when one Ann Kelly was accused of being a creature of the occult!”

“Can I get the abridged version of this plan please?” I ask her. “Like, the part that takes place in this century?”

Finally fed up with my interjections, Ivy sighs exaggeratedly and rolls her eyes at me. “Blah, blah, blah, she was hanged, she’s buried in the historical section of Riverview, and we’re going there tonight during the witching hour to see” – she switches to her best spooky voice with elongated, trembling vowels – “her haunted grave.”

“Hard pass.”

That makes her sit upright again with a slouch to her posture. She’s wearing a fabricated pout. “Sid,” she whines.

“Ivy, I’m not sneaking out with you at three in the morning on Halloween to go see a ‘haunted grave.’” She opens her mouth, but I follow up with, “Our parents would kill us. Besides, what’s-her-name probably just angered a bunch of Puritans and got executed because of religious prejudice. That doesn’t mean she was a witch.”

“Well, of course. I think angering Puritans was a mandatory activity back then. But come on, Sid! The legend says she’s a witch, and it’s the perfect Halloween thing! I think we are obligated – if not encouraged by the spirit of Halloween herself – to go see a ghost witch.”

“Does the spirit of Halloween have a gender?”

Ivy pushes past that and waits to catch my eye dead-on. “Bet you a hundred bucks we actually see Ann Kelly’s phantom.”

My lips part to say no just a split second before I register the number. “Wait – a hundred?”

Something cocky has taken up her face, and she recites with inflated confidence, “Ten A-Hams. A Franklin. A thousand Roosevelts.”

“You know what? Fine. I’ll take your money,” I tell her. “You’re on.”

Her grin is smug as we fist-bump on it and close the deal, but I decide that I don’t care so much with the promise of an easy hundred dollars coming my way. Ivy ingests another stream of water, and swallows while her eyes quickly scan the grass to catch up with the game again. Suddenly, a yell flies from her mouth:

“Box him out, Julia! Come on!”

Then she’s up off the bleachers and jogging back out onto the field. As unwilling as Ivy is to make an effort and practice, she’s also equally as competitive, even if this is just a gym class where victory doesn’t really matter. I, on the other hand, take my time on the bench. Struggling to breathe isn’t my idea of fun. I need to stop letting Ivy manipulate me into taking phys. ed. If she keeps it up, she might kill me.

 ***

I can nearly be qualified as a mess by the time Ivy and I reach our lockers after final period, and she’s humming like she’s got live wires for veins despite just spending an hour burning off energy. Meanwhile, I’m still recovering from my last bout of airlessness after I returned to the field and ran for maybe ten minutes. And I feel gross. The benefit of having P.E. last period is that I don’t have to shower here and can wait until I get home or to Ivy’s. The con is the window of time in between. I usually try to keep the gap as short as possible, and therefore, my time at my locker brief. I think Ivy and I took enough time getting changed after gym to avoid most people – at least the non-athletes.

“Hi, Sidney! Hi, Ivy!”

A mixture of feelings suddenly rockets through me and don’t add up in the end. While my chest is beginning to slowly overclock, and the hallway seems a few degrees warmer and rising steadily, I’m ready to play dead as Naomi Park opens the locker right next to mine on the opposite side of Ivy’s. Her shoulder is a fraction of an inch from touching my arm which is probably too close when I’m still drenched in gym sweat. Ivy greets her politely with ease while my brain is trying to catch up with the mundane situation and not think about how she smells like some kind of flowery perfume and I smell like crap.

“Hey, Naomi,” leaves my mouth and sounds too drawn-out and weirdly cheesy, so I just try to smile to make up for it. That feels awkward too, but she thankfully doesn’t seem to react to that, and her glossy pink lips tilt up without much effort into a perfect grin.

She puts some books on the shelf in her locker. “Any exciting Halloween plans?”

“Nope,” Ivy says immediately, likely because our actual idea involves a wager and might not be entirely legal – it’s a misdemeanor at the least. I just take the hint and don’t add anything to refute her answer.

“You? Any plans? For tonight – Halloween?” I wish that had come out differently. It could have at least sounded coherent.

“Nothing tonight,” Naomi responds. “But Heather’s having a ‘Belated Halloween Bash’ on Saturday while her parents are out of town so I’m ‘required’ to be there.”

“Oh, cool. That’s…cool.”

“I guess so. Heather’s parties get a little boring after a while though. I bet your plans for Saturday are much more fun.”

“Yep. Pints of ice cream, horror movies, and making bets on how long it takes Sid to hurl when the blood starts gushing,” Ivy interjects.

“Ivy.” I mutter the snap of her name so it doesn’t sound as harsh as I want it to. The temperature in the hallway rises astronomically.

Naomi giggles, which hurts. Well, it would if her laugh wasn’t so musical and twinkly. It’s like a damn harp quartet. “Sounds like a good time,” she comments. Her locker door shuts. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“Yeah, totally – tomorrow. See ya’, Naomi!” She’s nearly out of earshot down the hall, and I wait until I know she definitely can’t hear anything before I say to Ivy without daring a look at her, with the heat of embarrassment and shame boiling me alive from the inside, “Please say nothing.”

I can hear the grin on her face when she speaks. “You realize she’s just another human being, right?”

“Are you kidding? She’s at the right hand of Heather Loch. She’s popular. I’m shocked she still knows my name.”

Ivy shuts her own locker with a characteristic slam. “Dude, you’re ridiculous. She likes you back. If you just talked to her, and told her that you like her, you would have a girlfriend.”

“Ivy, she thinks I’m a loser.”

“I think you’re a loser and I still like you sometimes.”

I roll my eyes and can’t say anything to that. I don’t care if Ivy thinks I’m lame. It’s not the same. We’ve been together for as long as I can remember, so at this point, she’s locked into this friendship, no matter how easy it would be for her to hang out with the people at Kinross High who are actually popular and liked.

I close my locker and we start walking to the main exit of the building and eventually across the school’s student parking lot. Some groups linger, but most people seem to be dispersing and heading home for the day. Ivy and I walk straight through the lot as always, avoiding the cars pulling out.

I want to avoid the Styles’ Ford Everest – which is so bright red that it’s an assault on the eyes – but we have to walk past it and the clump of popular kids loitering next to it: blonde, perfect, popular Heather Loch, Asshole Quarterback Tom and his not-as-terrible twin, Ed, and my locker neighbour and secret crush, Naomi. The girls are under the guys’ arms like they belong there, popular with popular. There’s usually not much interaction between our pair and their group because I’m pretty sure most of the popular kids either don’t know who I am or just hate me for no reason, but today Tom decides to rub in his full-contact plays on the soccer field.

“Nice moves out there, Pussy Willow!” he shouts clear across the lot. It makes me feel the bruise on my back, still fresh, but I’m past the point of being mad about it. Really, Tom’s just an annoying jerk, and that’s all he’ll ever be.

I try to tap into Ivy-like sarcasm and passiveness. “I get it. Because my last name is Willow, and you’re insulting me. That’s really funny. It’s original.”

He yells something back that includes one of Ivy’s favourite swear words, but we disregard it and turn out of the parking lot in the direction of our houses. Ivy states that we’re going to my place because, in her mind, it’s easier to sneak out of a single-parent household. I don’t try to refute it because arguing with Ivy when she has her mind made up is like talking to a brick wall.

[avinrydarchive]

hallow’s eve, saint’s day

Author: AvinRyd Fandom: The Bartimaeus Sequence Rating: G Pairing: Gen Word Count: ~8500 words

When in Prague...

--

Some lighthearted spooky shenanigans for you this October.

Written for the Bartimaeus Fic Exchange 2020. Check out the collection on AO3 to see everyone else’s awesome fics!

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: Somewhere: Sometime

 22,643

“...”

“Hello, glad to see you’re awake.”

“Um, hello. Where am I? How long was I...asleep?”

“Well, twenty-two thousand, six hundred and forty three spirits have passed by since you arrived, so I’d assume about five days on the mortal plane? Hard to say exactly, but I’ve had a while to put a model together. “As to where you are? Stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Stuck. I have many theories as to where and how, but the fact is that we’re stuck here between the two dimensions known to my people—and yours, I’m assuming, since you came from the same direction I did.”

“Oh…

“You said you’ve been here for a while? Is it permanent, then? This being stuck?”

“In theory? No. I believe it’s possible for us to leave, should the right situation arise. However, in practice? I’ve yet to see a situation that would afford an exit so...it might be permanent, yes.”

“...”

“...”

“How long have you been here?”

“I lost count a few centuries ago.”

 1,962,573

“Hey, the gates haven’t done that before.”

“Oh, that usually means someone on the mortal plane came up with something interesting. What… Oh. That’s  very interesting. I wonder…”

“What? No. No, stop—whatever you’re ‘wondering’ it’s a bad idea.”

“Hmmm, doubtful.”

     4,747,821

    “...”

“Finally! That was way too long, don’t do it again.”

“How long?”

“Thirty thousand, six hundred and fifty seven. I didn’t think you were going to form back up that time.”

“I was  so close though. It closed just a fraction of a second too soon. Next time—”

“Next time?! Did you hear how long I said you were gone? You’re going to get yourself dispelled at this rate, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work!”

“It will.”

“Oh, so when I say stuff like that, it’s arrogant, but when you do it’s just fact?”

“It’s not arrogance when my previous hypotheses have all been correct. It’s based off the same knowledge, there’s every chance I’m right. I  know I’m right. I—

“Wait, there’s another one.”

“Ah, no. Hold on—”

“I’m going to do it. This time for sure.”

“Wait! What if it doesn’t work? What if it  does?  Will you— That is, I’ll be…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll work out the method, then come back for you. I promise, my friend.”

“Friends? Is that what we are? I—wait, no!”

“...”

“...”

“I didn’t even ask his name…”

Chapter 2: Prague: Hallow's Eve

“—so there’s no need to worry about it. Piper and Harold can badger me all they want, send all the nastily worded imp messages they like—it’s not like I’ll run out of 'fuck,no's. I’ve got an unlimited supply.” Kitty sighed and shifted, trying to ease the ache in her back without smudging chalk lines. Sitting on the hardwood floor was murder on her over-taxed body, sending sharp spikes of discomfort up the curve of her spine and into her creaking hip joints, but this circle was so fragile she didn’t dare risk throwing a chair into the mix. The ringing at the base of her skull wasn’t terribly comfortable either, but it was a side effect of this spell they’d been unable to mitigate. Over the slight resonance, Bartimaeus’s voice replied, “Alright, alright. And since you’ve left Bruges they’ll probably have a time finding you for a while, at least. How’s Prague?” “Beautiful. Old. Rainy. A bit spooky, but I suppose that’s to be expected.” The laugh ringing through their connection wasn’t just one voice, but many. That was the interesting thing about this; she was speaking to Bartimaeus, but he was only separated from the Other Place just enough to exist as “Bartimaeus”—the rest of the Other Place was nearly an equal part of their conversation, which had taken some getting used to. “See, that’s the appropriate response. Certain modern magicians I’ve known—particularly young, bratty, British ones—have no appreciation for the old magic that city is steeped in. And speaking of magical detritus from a thousand failed spells, you did bring your instruments with you when you left Belgium, right? This is the longest we’ve ever had the portal open, and—” Kitty sighed again, much put-upon. “Yes, Bartimaeus. I have them and they’re set up and everything is stable. There was a tiny spike a few minutes ago, but everything is normal otherwise. I left Bruges to get away from the hovering protective people, you know. Please don’t you start being one now.” Bartimaeus scoffed, but the humming presence behind him was at least half on Kitty’s side, she was sure. “Fine, far be it from me to care about silly humans doing insane experimental magic with minimal education. I place full faith in your absolute knowledge and will immediately cease worrying that the portal will explode in your face and leave a Kitty-sized crater in one of the oldest standing magical cities of the mortal realm. I wash my metaphorical hands of it.” It was Kitty’s turn to laugh, bright and clear in a way it’d taken years for her to get to. “You do that. Anything in particular I should know about the city: places I should go, things to avoid?” “Eh, just keep your wits.” Kitty got a strong, almost visual impression that, had Bartimaeus been in a material form, he’d be looking on with an unimpressed twist to his mouth. This was such a weird spell. “If you’ve got that aura-viewing skill on tap still, keep a sharp eye out. Avoid any bridges without auras—they’re most likely falling apart internally. And costumed men with ‘distinctive’ candles!” “O-o-okay? That’s highly specific, should I be concerned?” The suggestion of a shrug and his words came through crackled with interference. “Not really, he was just a bit creepy by human standards, and that candle… Not a thing for polite company. Thought you’d prefer to steer clear of anyone similar. Don’t go to graveyards tonight, either.” The ringing at the back of Kitty’s mind was escalating to a high whine and she reached up to massage the base of her skull. One of the glass phials outside the circle, sealed and full of swirling gas, was starting to pulse with a faint glow. “Alright Bartimaeus, we’ve got to stop. The spell’s starting to break up. I’ll try again after I’ve spoken with the print master, okay?” “Good, this was probably too much strain on you anyway. Have fun bullying old men into changing books!” The djinni’s voice sounded further away than before, and before Kitty could reply, the connection snapped off. There was a sharp pop and a flash of sparks in the air above her as the spell collapsed—another issue to work on. She’d love to reach out to Button for ideas on a fix, but that would invite more pleas to return to London and Kitty was so, so tired of those. Government was not for her, not even a little bit. Even her drive for activism had waned, though she suspected it was simply burnout—and as Bartimaeus and Jakob and everyone else had said, this was some well deserved burnout indeed. Standing up was a process for Kitty these days: gingerly uncross legs; wait for the shriek of pain to stop; get knees under herself with careful movements; press up using stiff wrists to stand with popping knees; roll slowly upright, feeling every sore vertebrate slot into place. Painkillers. She had a couple left from the drugstore in Burges, right? She hoped so. She was far too tired to be exploring the city for a drugstore—or an apothecary? Who knew what this place had. Her travel bag lay on the bed, flap sagging open to reveal her essentials. The white plastic of a drugstore bottle peeked out from under the sweater Mrs. Hyrnek had made for her, and she’d just reached for it when— “Did you know that, when a djinni is dismissed, the gates between our world and the Other Place are open for precisely eight-point-five-two seconds?” Kitty whipped around. The room was empty; the disembodied—familiar?—voice already just an echo bouncing off the window panes. Light from streetlamps flickered strangely through wavy glass and water droplets. Somewhere, thunder rolled. “Second—” There it was again, but there was nothing to see, no matter how hard Kitty looked. “—and you must know some of this, having visited the Other Place yourself—but did you know that a human soul is, pardon the pun, in essence the same composition as any spirit? Though with a deep affinity for the earth element that other spirits abhor. And that, if sufficiently stimulated and accustomed to the act, a soul can exit the body—voluntarily or not—and bridge the worlds; even following another spirit on its way away from our earthly plane?” The voice was familiar, and yet...not. Kitty could swear she’d never heard this person speak—a boy with an absolutely unfamiliar accent. And yet? And yet, in her mind she heard an echo… What do you presume…?   “And thirdly: did you know that your absolutely ingenious bit of spellwork holds the Elemental Gates open longer and with more stability than any spell used in the last two thousand years? And that, if a spirit were somehow stuck in a crevice of those gates, your spell provides an opportunity for escape not given in those same two thousand years?" The voice came from behind her now, and this time Kitty turned slowly—mindful of the crick in her neck her last turn had caused, and also not near as fearful. She knew now that there was nothing to fear from this voice. On her bed—or rather, floating slightly above it—sat a teenage boy, visible at last. Yellow lamp light and the watery orange glow of the street lights did not bring up warm highlights on his dark skin as they should have. He was nearly transparent and so washed out the ends of his curly hair faded out of sight. Seemingly unbothered by this, he grinned up at her, flush with the satisfaction of solving a millenia-old conundrum and shining with an emotion Kitty suspected might be gratitude. Cautiously, she returned the smile and—in a very steady voice, thank you very much—quipped, "Ptolemy. Are you aware you're floating three inches above the bedspread?"

Chapter 3: Prague: Hallow's Eve  

“Ptolemy. Are you aware you’re floating three inches above the bedspread?” Ptolemy’s face twisted. “Am I? Irritating. Rekyt made this material form business look so much easier than it is.” “Well,” Kitty said reasonably, moving to sit on the bed as well, “he has had quite a bit more time to practice. And human souls aren’t terribly used to having to keep themselves in a form, are they?” Brows drawn in concentration, Ptolemy drifted downwards about an inch and muttered a distracted, “I suppose so,” before managing to drop the remaining space. Now he was flush with the worn bed quilt, but didn’t make so much as a wrinkle in the fabric. Kitty watched in fascination as, with experimental movements, Ptolemy brought his hand to the bedspread, then pushed it into the bedspread, then waved it in and out a few times. In a sudden flash of mischievous inspiration, she grabbed the drugstore bottle she’d reached for earlier and turned to Ptolemy, lobbing the rattling object with a quip of “Catch!” The boy’s reflexes were not quick—even in the best of circumstances he would have ended up bonked in the nose—but it didn’t matter. The bottle phased through his fingertips, then through his face and chest to land with a clatter on the pillows behind him. Kitty met his unamused stare with a grin, absolutely unrepentant. “Had to check. Scientific method and all that.” Still looking a bit miffed, Ptolemy pulled his foot up to “rest” on the bed and wrapped his arms around the bent-up knee. “If you hadn’t built that spell, I’d be tempted to say you’re the least scientific person I’ve ever known.” Kitty rolled her eyes and leaned back to reach around Ptolemy for the bottle she’d thrown—her joints really did ache after that long conversation’s worth of sitting on the floor. Pulling herself back upright after the extension wasn’t exactly painless either, but she was very sure it would be rude to reach  through her visitor to grab something, especially since she’d been the one to throw it through him in the first place. Deftly, she twisted open the puzzle cap and tapped two tablets into her hand before closing it and trading it for a waterbottle in her travel bag. When she’d done, she met Ptolemy’s interested stare with grin. “You’ve only just met me, but you are pretty close to the truth. I didn’t do much with the technicalities of inventing that spell. It was my idea, and I know how it works and how to monitor it, of course, but the construction was a collaboration between Bartimaeus and two magicians I know back in London. They did most of the actual science.” The water tasted strongly of mineral and metal, filled at the last petrol station her bus had stopped at, but it wasn’t awful and got the job done. The moment also gave her time to consider how the hell to move on from here. There was a boy dead more than two thousand years sitting in her boarding room, and she had no idea how he’d gotten there. He seemed to have minimal purpose other than just...arriving—not indicating he had any message or any particular reason for not being able to move on. If his opening remarks were to be believed, he was back on the mortal plane because of a magical glitch in the system. He’d gotten sucked away before death had fully taken hold. Her musings were interrupted by Ptolemy moving, reaching to pull a book from her bag, then huffing when his fingers slipped right through the corner. “This is not going to work,” he muttered, focus completely on the stubbornly stationary book. He made two more swipes at it before giving up that approach and staring intently at it instead. Nothing happened and he flopped back dramatically to stare at the ceiling, hair falling right through the bed. “This is not at all workable. Kitty, I think I need your help.” “I don’t know why. You seemed to be doing quite well on your own.” “Are you always like this?” Kitty snorted in a very unladylike fashion. “Pretty much. Why do you think Bartimaeus likes me so much?” A moment of contemplation, then: “That does make an unfortunate amount of sense. Still, I really would appreciate a moment of sincerity, this is a matter of utmost importance.” “Utmost importance, huh?” Kitty laid back on the bed with a groan. “What’s that, then?” Ptolemy’s face was solemn as he looked over at her. “There’s someone else who’s stuck, and I promised I’d get them out.” “They can’t just...fall through? Same as you did?” Ptolemy snorted a laugh, serious moment broken. “They could, but they won’t. Too unsure of the results. If we’d had physical forms, I’m pretty sure they would have tackled me to keep me from doing something this reckless.” A day’s hard travel and spellwork dragged Kitty’s eyelids down—an inexorable pull. She hummed in exhausted consideration, then said through a yawn, “I don’t suppose a normal summoning would do the trick, would it?” Her jaw cracked mid-yawn, nearly drowning Ptolemy’s reply of, “Probably not…” Then, “I sense we may need to continue this conversation in the morning?” “Mmhm…” She’d given up the fight to keep her eyes open. “Well then.” His laugh was softer, almost fond. “Until the morning, Kitty.” She tugged her feed up onto the bed and shifted a bit, trying to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy mattress. “G’night, Ptolemy.” Kitty’s last thought before slumber was a deep confusion as to if this was not all just some elaborate dream, caused by magical backlash-induced unconsciousness. Quietly, she hoped not.

Chapter 4: Prague: Saint's Day  

Early morning sunlight cutting across her eyes pulled Kitty to consciousness. She’d forgotten to close the curtain before going to bed. Odd. She was usually quite conscientious about that—woe betide wherever woke her up too early, up to and including the sun itself. Still, last night had been quite strange, hadn’t it? Her fuzzy brain struggled to remember. Movement in the room drew her gaze. A boy, crouched next to the circle she’d forgotten to clean up. Habit moved her mouth before her brain caught up; she mumbled, “Bartimaeus, we don’t do magic science early in the morning, remember?” His face turned, familiar in shape but not in expression, and everything clicked back into place. Ptolemy looked rather bemused. “Does Rekyt take my form often? Or are you just so unused to any company other than his?” Oh. Right. “...both.” Kitty scrubbed at her eyes and pushed messy bedhead from her face as she sat up, the last night’s events reordering themselves in her mind. Two thousand years’ death seemed to have little effect on the boy sitting on the dusty floor of her sleepy, second-floor boarding room in the middle of Prague. He looked at her expectantly, fingers sketching circles on the floor and making no trace in the scuffed dust. With a groan, she flopped back onto the bed. Ptolemy’s intent gaze was still trained on her, she could  feel it, but her too-tired brain wasn’t up to meeting it and thinking through the morning’s problems at the same time. She stared at the cracked plaster ceiling for long moments before sighing heavily. “Alright then. We’ve got your business of ‘utmost importance’ to get to, right?” An affirmative sound, so she continued. “Well, I’ve got some business of importance to get to today as well. You’ve obviously been awake, thinking about this. What do you want to do?” A glance over at Ptolemy proved Kitty’s suspicions—the boy was practically shaking with the effort of not simply spilling all the plans he’d made overnight. Ghosts, apparently, didn’t sleep. She quirked an eyebrow and he immediately began: “We need to summon Rekyt. You said he helped design this circle, and I want to use it as the basis for mine, but I don’t understand a good third of how it’s build. Magic has moved on and—oh, but Kitty this is fascinating, I never could have dreamed—” He stopped, catching Kitty’s second raised eyebrow and pulling himself back on track. “Right. Between us and Rekyt and some intensive research, I think I can put together a spell that will do the trick. So. First: Rekyt; second: library.” Pushing upright once more, Kitty shook her head. “Other way around. Library first, Bartimaeus second.” She continued ahead before he could interrupt. “A summoning, a real one like that? That isn’t a small undertaking for me. I’ll be knackered for the rest of the day afterwards so—unless you figured out how to conduct an entire summoning while insubstantial last night?—we’ll go to the library and printers’ first, then come back with your research and summon Bartimaeus. Agreed?” Ptolemy studied her closely, quietly, and she felt a blush threatening to flood her cheeks. Ridiculous, really. He’d barely been able to  stand  after his trip to the Other Place; she had no business being embarrassed by her trip’s cost of physical stamina in front of him. A long, long staredown later, he nodded. “Agreed.” Good. She stretched and swung her legs off the bed to stand at last. There was a washroom just down the hall, communal for the boarders but Kitty was the only guest at present. She was glad of it—sharing washing up space with strangers was  not  something she wanted on top of everything else. After digging out her toothbrush, she turned to Ptolemy. “Stay here. We don’t know if anyone can see you yet. I’ll be back in a second.” Ptolemy looked just the slightest bit abashed. “Actually, I do know. A little after midnight I may have...taken a stroll? No one else can see me, or hear me.” “Oh. Well then. That’s good to know. I’ll...still be back in a second.” And she stepped briskly into the hall.

***

Ten minutes later—longer than her usual habit but hell if she didn’t need a good five minutes of overwhelmed solitude—Kitty returned to her room to find Ptolemy floating cross-legged a foot off the bedspread, exactly level with the windowsill so he could look out. At the creak of the door, he didn’t turn so much as roll backwards, ending upside down with curls falling to and fading through the bed. Inane as it was, she couldn’t help but grin. Bartimaeus held such a reverence for the memory of his old friend; Kitty wondered if that was the source of his gravitas in the guise, or if the new freedom of insubstantial spirithood was breathing new mischief into an otherwise solemn boy. The grin stayed as she moved to pack up her travel sack once more. She saw the grey chill outside the window around Ptolemy’s inverted form and tugged her jumper from the side of the bag where it’d gotten jammed. It was grey-blue wool and knitted by Jakob’s mother—a gift. She saw Ptolemy’s eyes catch on the textured fabric as she finished tugging it on and offered her arm. “Have you figured out how to touch things yet?” He shook his head but reached out anyway. As expected, his fingers swiped right through it. Less expected was the world-wringing sensation of his fingertips passing through her wrist. Early on in their experiments with the communication spell, Kitty had directly touched their “spectral conduit” to the Other Place, as Mr. Button had called it. Before Bartimaeus had snatched her back, she’d felt her self, her essence, tenuously bound to her body at the best of times, begin to be siphoned out and up and away. It felt like that, except in reverse. Connection was made and into the vacuum of her not-quite-full body flowed another gust of person. She felt him for a moment, entranced and inexorably drawn to the lure of earthen control once again before she was able to batten down all hatches and shove the presence away. With a jerk, Kitty yanked her arm back. She could feel her eyes popped wide in panic as she stared at Ptolemy, who was also wide-eyed but in fascinated joy. “Kitty,”  he breathed, wonder under his words, “Kitty, let me try that again. That. It was… I could have— we could have—”   “No!” Her voice was too loud in the quiet room and Ptolemy flinched. “What? Why? I just want to try it. If we were a bit more careful, I might be able to—” “You might be able to do quite a lot! And you won’t be trying, thank you very much.” His brows furrowed in consternation. “Alright, then. I can try it with someone else, I suppose. I wonder if you need their true name to—” “No, Ptolemy.” She didn’t yell that time—her voice was as flat and cold as London pavement. She cut off Ptolemy’s next attempt at speech with a harsh, chopping motion of her hand. “No. That is an invasion of self no commoner can even attempt to consent to, even if you did ask, which it sounds like you weren’t going to do.” Hideous silhouettes danced behind her eyes, though she tried to push them back. Glowing, demonic eyes in the faces of helpless puppets that haunted her nightmares. Breathe. She just had to breathe through it, just like she did all the other times. Through sheer force of will, her heart rate slowed down to something resembling healthy and she was able to bring her vision back into focus. Ptolemy was staring at her—very human, but also not quite. She forced down a shudder. “Come on. We’re going to the library. I’ll explain why you can never, ever do that, but I’ve only got it in me to do it once, so you’ll have to hear it along with the master printer.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just turned, snatched up her satchel, and headed out the door, closing and locking it behind her. Ptolemy was a ghost, he’d be able to follow just fine. He did. She couldn’t hear him coming behind her, but she now had a disturbingly unerring sense of his location that she hadn’t possessed a moment ago. Possessed. With a shudder, she rubbed the skin of her wrist under the jumper, trying to scrub off the sensation even as she mentally tracked Ptolemy’s progress behind her back. They went in silence like that—Kitty walking at a brisk pace with Ptolemy trailing behind—for nearly ten minutes of winding through dreary streets. Kitty had a map, and directions from the proprietor of the boarding house, which she trusted more. Concentrating on the confusing tangle of twists and turns busied her nervous mind into calm—calm enough that when Ptolemy cleared his throat, her quiet “hmm?” was genuinely amicable once more. “Where is this?” His voice was soft, awed. “I know I’ve...been gone a while, but I’m fairly sure this not Alexandria.” Kitty snorted and replied, “Prague,” before snapping her mouth shut. The street wasn’t busy by any means, but there were still people about who might look sideways at the out-of-place British girl talking to thin air. Quickly, she stepped from the sidewalk to stand under the awning of a cafe. The map made crisp sounds as she unfolded it and brought it up to her face, hiding the movement of her lips as she whispered, “We’re north of Alexandria, by a lot. Across the sea, past Rome, up where we call Eastern Europe, now. I’ll find you a map when we get to the library, yeah? For now, I can’t be talking to myself all the way across the district.” “Right.” He agreed with a quick nod, already distracted by the pastries displayed in the cafe window. Rolling her eyes, Kitty folded the map once more and headed off. The grey above threatened more rain and she quickened her pace. It wasn’t a short walk to the Holy Roman Archive and she’d rather not have to make the last third of the trek getting dripped on. Ptolemy was at her side now, gasping and exclaiming every other second at some new thing he’d glimpsed, and she had to actively suppress a wide smile. Grinning inanely at nothing wasn’t a look she wanted to project either. As they began to emerge from Old Town’s winding alleys, though, the city’s mood began to pick up and match Ptolemy’s joy. They stepped onto the larger, more toured streets around the great Charles Bridge, where tourists and business people alike made their way on foot regardless of the weather. Ahead, the bridge’s towers loomed and, just off to the left, Kitty saw the large buildings of the Klementinum. She made straight for it. The tourist traffic was, thankfully, a bit dimmed by the unpleasant weather and it was only another few minutes walk through ornate, baroque halls and courtyards blanketed in autumn-hued ivy before they reached the Holy Roman Archive. Home of what was left of Prague’s magical lore, it was  also adjacent to the most influential of the Czech Publishing Guild’s members: Petřín Printers. They handled all of the magical texts to come out of Prague; all of the magical knowledge of Eastern Europe flowed through this print house and into the Archive. Kitty stepped past the enticing hush of the Archive, hoping Ptolemy would follow since she couldn’t physically drag him like she was afraid might be necessary. A glance to the side showed the boy’s feet were indeed dragging, eyes gazing with longing at the doors. “Soon. We’ll go there next.” He followed with an insubstantial sigh. “Yes, alright.” Kitty blinked. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It was so quiet in these halls, anyone could hear. The lobby of Petřín’s was unassumingly quiet, but Kitty wasn’t fooled. The walls hummed with the aura of a spell, most likely a silencing charm to keep the workings of the printers from disturbing the immediately nearby library. At a desk just inside, a man sat scribbling in a ledger with a fountain pen but he looked up at Kitty’s approach. His cheerful greeting was in Czech—thankfully one of the phrases she’d picked up staying with Jakob and his family. She replied in kind, following up with a somewhat abashed, “English? That was about all the Czech I know.” The man laughed and nodded. “How can I help you?” “I need to speak with Mr. Pavel Vlastislav? I’m here on rather urgent magician’s business, as well as with a delivery from Karel Hyrnek, of Hyrnek and Sons. I think he sent word ahead that I was coming?” “Hmmm, let me take a look.” The clerk flipped through his ledger, then ducked behind his desk to grab another book. As he did, Kitty looked around and saw Ptolemy studying a world map to the left, artistically rendered and nearly as large as the wall it was painted on. She couldn’t see his face, but she had an idea as to what it might look like, and what he was going to sound like in three…two...one… Right on cue, as the clerk popped back up into view, Ptolemy’s voice flooded into her ear as if he were standing right next to her and not ten feet away. “Kitty. Kitty this is— Is this the whole world? The entire globe? Have people truly been to all of these places?” The clerk was chatting at her as he flipped through his notes with Kitty nodding along distractedly, trying to pay attention as Ptolemy continued, “—and this map! It’s nearly as good as the cartographers of Alexandria’s work! Rekyt described many of these places to me, but they were not all in places I could plot on an available map… You said we’re in...Europe? To the east—oh! Yes, this must be it! You’re right, we are much, much further north. I wonder—” “Ptolemy! A minute? I need to focus,” was what Kitty thought to herself in a moment of irritation, mouth clamped tight over the words, but the boy stopped rambling immediately. “Ah, my apologies.” Well, that was fun. Maybe that mishap back at the room had been good for something after all? It was the only thing she could think of that might have caused such a strange phenomenon… Distracted, she had to once again refocus on what the clerk, Radim, was saying. Frankly, she’d missed what he’d last said, but then he was standing and ushering her through a door on the right and chattering about the privilege of being able to see inside the prestigious print house and Kitty was tuning him right back out. She was here on business, not to see the inner workings of yet another magical publishing shop. This was her third one in the past year; they all sort of looked the same at this point. Pavel was in his office when they arrived, Radim knocking a quick rap on the doorway before entering. The man inside stood, head still tilted towards a jet black sparrow perched on his shoulder—the imp’s presence explained ease with which he greeted her, a heavily accented but cheerful “Ms. Jones!” before Radim even had time to speak. He and Radim had a quick exchange in Czech too fast to catch, then Radim stepped out and Pavel gestured her to enter. “Come in, come in, Ms. Jones. You have news and a package from old Karel in London, hm? Please, sit down and tell me why he needs send such a lovely lady friend, rather than this news in the post.” Kitty swallowed. This was the hardest part, always the hardest part, and she’d already done it twice. Out of her bag she pulled a plain book, bound in brown cloth and printed on scrap: a manuscript printed by Mr. Hyrnek. There was also a pamphlet. Assuming today went well and Pavel accepted her request, she would need write her friends back in London and request him to send her another copy before she left Prague. Hands shaking, she set the book on Pavel’s desk and took a deep breath. Ptolemy perched on the edge of the desk, invisible to Pavel and watching her intently. Another deep breath, trying to dislodge the shaking behind her breastbone. Her trimmed down, bare bones narrative of the London Disaster was practically recited by rote now. Only by keeping it clipped, clinical, and precise was she able to get through the worst of the story without stuttering, but she’d told the story before and she’d tell it now. Unfortunately, the shuddering terror of the hybrids needed to be the focus of the tale—that’s why she was here. Magicians, the humans who practiced the enslavement of spirits, needed to know what happened from a first-hand source, told with compassion and urgency, or they would simply take the whole incident as either fairytale, or use it as a way to further demonize both the British Empire and the spirits themselves. If this came out wrong, the enslavement of spirits would worsen, not move closer to eradication. When she’d finished, wrapping up with a quick note of the Interim Council’s formalization of an integrated Parliament and the supposed plans for the country, both members of her audience were silent. Staring. This was a normal reaction, she’d gotten it from the print masters in both Paris and Madrid, and she didn’t blame them or Pavel. It was a lot to hear. It’d been a lot more to live through. Eventually, Pavel spoke. “That is...a harrowing tale. We’d heard of some horror from across the channel when the empire broke two years ago, but to think…” He swallowed. “Yes, this needs to be recorded. I assume this manuscript is the account?” Kitty nodded. “Yes, originally published by Hyrnek and Sons, but we all agreed that something like this should be shared. If nothing else, please, we request you bring this to the Archivist and have it included in the archive. If you are willing to print and distribute it, that is for the best, but I understand—” “I will, of course, do my best to ensure it is placed in the archives. And we will see what can be done about distribution.” Reaching out—just missing Ptolemy, who jumped away before his arm could be brushed—Pavel picked up the pamphlet. “And this?” “A list of the spirits who perished in the disaster, to update the newest editions.” And maybe a few others, but who was to know? Pavel flipped through it and Kitty stood, scooping up her satchel once more. Alarmed, Pavel stood as well. “Ms. Jones! Surely you don’t mean to leave so soon?” Exhaustion weighed her voice, two haunted years dogging her steps. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vlastislav, but I need to be going. I’ll leave the address I’m staying at with Radim and I’ll be in town for a few weeks. Find me there if you need anything.” That was the nice thing about her situation—after all the horrors and all the insanity and quite literally visiting another plane of existence, social niceties were near the bottom of her priority list. With a parting nod, she let herself out of the office without another word. Ptolemy was silent as she retraced their steps back to the lobby, still silent as she left her contact information with Radim, silent all the way until they’d reached the Archive once more. He didn’t suggest a book to start with, so Kitty made her way to one of the study tables and pulled another book from her satchel, rather than any of the shelves. Delicate pages with scorched edges crinkled as she turned them, scanning the handwritten translations in the margins. She’d been offered a fresh copy of Ptolemy’s Apocrypha with an English translation printed in, but Button’s book was special, and translating it with Bartimaeus’s help was a good memory. Credit to his perturbation, when Ptolemy finally spoke it wasn’t about the book she held. “I’m sorry. What happened… I can’t imagine. I didn’t realize the kind of trauma what I did would cause you.” “You couldn’t have,” Kitty replied diffidently, blithe tone slicking her thoughts to icy smoothness. “Like I said, it’s something no commoner would be able to understand, and most magicians too. The only ones who could come close are those of us who were there, and even then… The one who would best understand the bond you were trying to attempt is— Well, he’s dead.” Silence again, then: “And you? Would that make you the closest living authority?” “Actually, no.” She was able to look up and smile. “That would be Bartimaeus, so let’s hit the books and then you can ask him yourself, yeah?”

Chapter 5: Somewhere: Sometime 

 4,752,256

Dread emptiness pressed in around him. Is this how his friend had felt, all those years alone? When the spirits passed—back and forth and back and forth—he could sense their movement, know their passing, but there was no sound to hear, no sight to see. Even this place he was stuck, a place he felt should have something of substance to perceive was just...nothing. To stave back the madness, he began to study the passing spirits with whatever senses were available to him. Thousands upon thousands passed before his examination, and on every few he focused his attention. Going one way, they seemed to mournfully coalesce from liquid freedom into a speeding, aerodynamic form to rocket through the other side of the gate; coming the other, solid misery flared and flittered out in joyous reaching for the far bank. Nowhere did the strange, fluid channel appear again. Only cold, clinical, slippery-walled openings to pull the beings to and from. He’d reached out to one once, only to find himself sliding off, lacking whatever was needed to be included in the transference. Probably for the best. Once the temporary madness left him, his logic reasserting itself over the crushing loneliness, he drew away from the traffic in fear. To be loosed in the fearful current without anchor or guide? No, he couldn’t… Or at least he thought that. And thought that. And thought that until he came to the point—singular and horrifying—that he could.   His watching took on a new edge: analytical, searching. Time barely existed here, but some amount of it had passed before something caught his attention. Another direct stretch, calling for a specific being, but something about it was...softer. It was inviting but wary, familiar but fearful, like a stranger singing a long-buried song from childhood. Carefully, not flinging himself with abandon like someone had, he approached. It was tenuous, as all of these were—temporal and not meant to last long, unlike the fluid path they’d seen before—and this one was even more ephemeral than most. Holes in the weave, it could have been described. From one end, movement came, barrelling closer and closer and...familiar. Yes, the being speeding down was definitely a construction of substance he recognized but couldn’t put a name to. Names were hard here. Names were hard, but suddenly decisions were not. As the spirit sped past, he impressed some effort upon the pulling force, imposing himself on the construct until he fell through in a flurry of movement that he could suddenly feel, not just perceive in an abstract sort of way. He could feel it and he still felt it as he tumbled through. The portal did exactly as all the others did. He felt himself being compacted and compressed, separate from the being it was actually meant for thankfully, as he’d hopped in a good moment past it, but the bonds were ill-fitting. A familiar word that wasn’t his word. And so, when both he and the other tumbled out the other side, he felt himself spinning and drifting, formless and dazed as his traveling partner took form in a circle.

Chapter 6: Prague: Saint's Day  

In a brilliant bit of foresight, the first thing Kitty asked Bartimaeus to do once he’d arrived was cast a nexus about her room to silence all noise coming from within. A good move, as her explanation of the situation first garnered her a bemused “what?” Followed by some silence. Then some contemplation of the figure who was making a concentrated effort to appear on the mortal plane to more than just Kitty. Then followed by a roar of the same word that had come before. There was a lot of yelling for a short time. Possibly some crying as well, not that Kitty would ever tell. But when it was done, and all explained and settled and understood, she might have asked Bartimaeus to remove the nexus. Absentmindedly, she forgot. This turned out to be a good thing as, five hours later, both she and Bartimaeus stared at Ptolemy over their sketches of runes, figures, and half-circle diagrams in consternation. Together, their query was definitely loud enough to have been heard by the good matron downstairs. “You don’t have their name?! ” Kitty groaned and set her pencil aside. They’d been at this for hours, and only now did Ptolemy mention he was lacking this key piece of their puzzle? Bartimaeus looked just as crestfallen in his guise of a young, dark skinned man, wearing a traditional desert kilt and bedecked with a necklace of amethyst, but also not terribly surprised. “Ptolemy, my friend. I always knew your disinclination for names would come back to bite us in inconvenient places. Admittedly, this is the furthest situation from what I could have imagined, but still.” The ghostly boy in question was not meeting either of their gazes. He was staring at the bedspread he sat on, stunned silent. Then quietly, obviously not in reaction to what either of them had said, he breathed a word Kitty had never heard in her life. Bartimaeus, however, choked on his non-existent spit, indicating that it was probably something foul. After a few more moments of unintelligible invective that had Bartimaeus’s jaw on the floor, Ptolemy muttered, “I can’t believe I forgot. We were there for what must have been years, how did I not ask? I promised. I’m a magician, I know how important names are. How could I have forgotten?” Kitty winced. They had maybe been a bit harsh. “It’s alright, I’m sure we can figure something out…” Ptolemy stood up and began to pace, making circuit after circuit of the tiny room. Amusingly, every time he turned a corner, he also stepped upwards about an inch, beginning to spiral upwards as he muttered to himself. Kitty glanced over at Bartimaeus, who shrugged, leaned over and whispered, “Don’t look at me, this is new. He didn’t used to pace.” “Hmm…” A ghost pacing was a strange phenomenon in that you couldn’t hear them, the fact that they were pacing of above your head at this point notwithstanding. It was painfully quiet. Kitty and Bartimaeus went back to fiddling with their designs, pencil and quill scratching loudly in the silence, but still working around a glaringly blank space where, in all of them, a name had to be placed. “I need a calendar!” Ptolemy’s voice, loud in the room, had Kitty jumping nearly a foot out of her chair. He was suddenly right next to her, face intent and determined. “I had a formula, I just need to do the calculations and we can figure out when my friend arrived. From there— Well, only a few specific circumstances could cause this, so maybe someone will have heard about it happening?” “Well, it’s somewhere to start…” Bartimaeus hedged, and Kitty agreed with the hesitant tone. How on earth were they going to sus out a single death of magical happenstance, even if they could narrow it down to an exact date? Kitty caught Ptolemy’s gaze again. There was a light, one she felt mirrored in her own past. Hope. And hell if she could ignore that. She’d wrestled demons, ransacked governments, and crossed dimensions for a hope like that, and well—Ptolemy had been the source of a lot of that hopeful vision. It was the least she could do to try and help him in turn. As Ptolemy still hadn’t managed enough substance to actually touch anything, Kitty was the one to walk to her duffel and dig out yet  another   book. She was becoming quite the librarian herself, these days. This one was worn, thick, full of cramped handwriting with a ribbon bookmark between the last few pages. Returning to the small table, she set it down. “Not a calendar, but close. My journal goes back two years, almost. Think your friend showed up in about that timeframe?” Ptolemy nodded firmly. “It couldn’t have been longer than that. Now, let me just…” He trailed off, fingers tracing invisible numbers on the table. With his brows drawn together in a focused frown, Kitty thought privately that he’d never looked less like Bartimaeus’s replication. Similarly, the fond expression Bartimaeus watched him with was a brand new thing to see on the spirit’s face, and something warmed in her. For the span of about an hour, a long time ago, Kitty had cared about a djinni and a boy more than anyone else in her probably-about-to-end life. This wasn’t the same, couldn’t ever be the same, but she liked it anyway. Across the table, Ptolemy was now rattling off numbers to Bartimaeus, who flipped through the journal pages—first in large swaths, then fewer and fewer at a time. Closer and closer to the front cover until— “That’s the end of it.” Both of them were staring down at the first entry on the first page of Kitty’s journal—a date, five words, and a tiny shard of glass taped to the paper. Bartimaeus continued, “How much further back?” “Two days.”   Kitty looked at them blankly. They both looked back—Ptolemy glowing with the triumph of a puzzle solved, Bartimaeus with...something. Probably the same something building somewhere in the pit of Kitty’s stomach. “There’s no way,” she managed eventually, voice hoarse, throat suddenly dust dry. Bartimaeus’s reply was just a nervous chuckle while Ptolemy glanced between them, his high fading into confusion. “What’s the matter?” It took Kitty two tries to clear the lump from her throat. “Erm, well. You remember what I said about the only person who would understand possession by a spirit being dead? And what Bartimaeus said about the Glass Palace?” “Yes?” “That all happened two days before my first journal entry. I didn’t think to start recording events until— I was a right mess, basically, until then.” Understanding dawned on Ptolemy’s face and brought a smile to his face. The smile grew, bit by bit as he looked between his two friends. “Well then, shall we try? It’s our best guess, and the worst that will happen is it doesn’t work.” They both watched as he breezed over to where Kitty and Bartimaeus had left their sketches. A moment of careful study, then he pointed to Bartimaeus’s page—the djinni smirked at Kitty, who stuck out her tongue. “This one. Let’s try this one.” He bounced on his toes, each bounce taking him higher into the air. “Come on! I still can’t hold the chalk, help me draw this!” So they did. The dingy, dusty boarding room was a flurry of activity for long minutes. Bartimaeus did most of the kneeling and drawing while Kitty held the string guides and lit the few candles they needed for the spell. Ptolemy supervised, directing them in drawing a half-circle diagram. Lines stretched out from it in rays, similar to Kitty’s communication spell, but with a few slight adjustments. More geometric than ornate, the completed spell was chalked innocuously on the floor as Bartimaeus scratched out the last few runes. At the apex of the arch, a blank space had been left. Almost reverently they all knelt, Bartimaeus handing Kitty the chalk as she regarded the bare patch of floorboards before bringing the chalk down. Her handwriting was nowhere near as calligraphic as Bartimaeus’s—her chicken scratch legible but not beautiful as she spelled the name out: Nathaniel   Chalk still in hand, she traced under the letters with a finger, the spell still cold and not yet activated. Together, Ptolemy and Bartimaeus reached out as well—and then another transparent finger traced along the top of the word. Glancing up, her gaze met with blue eyes, happy and calm in a way she’d never seen them while he was alive. “That’s what it was. I guess I just needed someone to write it down before I could form up properly. Took your time about it, didn’t you?” Surprise jerked her hand and brought her in contact with all three of the other beings in the room. Her vision spun and everything was very mixed up for a very confusing moment. Kitty was, for seconds or hours, not just Kitty anymore. Four souls rushed around and around in a feedback loop, bringing nausea to a body that wasn’t even really hers to experience it. It was like being back in the Other Place. Actually, it felt exactly like that, and the similarities echoed through their loop loud enough to bring the chaos to a balance. Carefully, they all extracted themselves from the morass—all but Nathaniel at least understanding the mechanics of the feat—and another moment brought Kitty solitude in her mind once more. She had fallen onto her backside, legs twisted awkwardly, and three beings of unearthly substance lay sprawled nearby. On seeing their mess, pushed up on her elbows, a giggle bubbled up from her throat. Then another, and another, until she couldn’t hold them back and collapsed onto the dusty floor, laughing until their was no more breath in her body. Around her, Ptolemy joined in first, then Nathaniel, then Bartimaeus, until they were all cackling like maniacs for long minutes.  Good thing the silencing nexus is still still up, Kitty thought faintly, which sent her and her friends off into more gales of laughter. They laughed until all their surprised energy had been spent in joy. Jittery adrenaline rush settled to a wondrous warmth in Kitty’s chest as she looked at her friends. There was no telling what they would need to do now. But as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter. They were together, no one was dead in the traditional sense of the word, and the world hadn’t tried to end for two whole years. She didn’t get sappy often, but today seemed like the day to try—the most pleasant Hallows Eve and Saints’ Day she’d ever experienced, by far.

[dandanthemotorcycleman]

Winterizing your bike, and yourself

               So, I’m a mid-west boy born and raised.  Which means riding year-round is not necessarily advised.  Hell, I don’t run outside past about early November so safe to say, the bike will probably also not be making an appearance past All Hallows’ Eve.  I purchased my bike in the fall since it’s considered off season and I wanted a deal.  I got one, but what that meant was, my first task with the new bike was to winterize it before I even got to learn to ride it.  Since I haven’t been able to ride it, all I’ve been able to do so far is go out to the garage, sit on the bike, and imagine.  I fired it up a few times, and even once bravely tested out the clutch by riding it from one side of the garage to the other.  Boldly go and such.

               The end result of my experimentation was a dead battery.  Turns out motorcycle batteries are a tad finicky and don’t like being used but not charged regularly.  Who knew? On top of my misuse, I purchased a used bike so who knows how the battery was treated before I so carelessly wore it down to nothing.

               Being the nerd that I am, I immediately jumped into some online research to determine if I was going to need a new battery in the spring and how much one would set me back.  As it turn out, how much it’s going to set me back can vary quite a bit depending on what level of technology I want to embrace.  I’ll save you the full breakdown of options, but I’ve decided on a gel.  I believe they boast a decent cold weather start capability, mid-range pricing options, are less likely to leak than an old school battery, and the play nicely with battery tenders.  Battery tenders by the way are another topic entirely but for now just know that you’re going to need one.

               Anyway, I may be getting ahead of myself.  I may or may not even need a new battery in the spring.  Step one, for now, was to remove the current (pun intended) one and hook it up to a battery tender for the winter.  If the battery is still usable, the tender will keep it fully charged and it should be ready to hook back up and go in the spring.

               So, my friend who was kind enough to test ride the bike for me was also kind enough to let me know that I needed to pull the battery for the winter, or I may have just left it on.  Complete beginner here after all.  He assured me it was a fairly simple procedure and should, “take about five minutes”.  I don’t doubt that this would be the case for anyone remotely familiar with what they are doing.  Forty-five minutes and three YouTube videos later, I had the battery safely removed and the seat back on the bike.

               I’ll give you just a brief breakdown of what it entailed here so you have a general idea of what you’ll be doing, but I would highly recommend YouTube for some audio-visual assistance.  I started by popping open the battery cover on the left side of my 2011 Sportster.  This was fairly straightforward and even I didn’t need a YouTube video to make it this far.  It was at this point that I began scratching my head.  Two wires appeared to be attached to the red terminal and the instructions on the inside of the battery cover clearly stated, remove the black connection first.  At this point, I’m thinking that I need to remove this bracket thingy (technical term) and probably pull the battery out to access the black terminal.  Feeling a little crowded by the seat being right in my face, and wondering if it may be possible to access the black terminal from underneath the seat, I figured I should proceed by taking the seat off so I could get a better look at what I was getting myself into.  Seat removal the first time for me was five minutes and the first two of three YouTube videos.  The learning curve is steep on this and popping the seat off takes about 30 seconds the second time you do it.

               After getting the seat off, I was welcomed by a jumble of wires but still couldn’t get to the negative battery terminal. Fair enough, the goal was to remove the battery anyway, so I may as well focus my energies back on that goal.  Big pro of seat removal is that even though I think the battery can be removed without taking the seat off, getting it out of the way really makes it easier to see and manipulate the bracket holding it in place.  There was only one screw holding the bracket, so I popped that bad boy off and the bracket came off easily enough after that.  I slid the battery out of its compartment and there it was.  The vaunted black terminal.  Thirty minutes into my five-minute job and I’d found it!

Quick background interlude here.  I served for a year overseas in Operation Iraqi Freedom.   Spent a solid chunk of that year fixing radios and electrical systems in HMMWVs.  That’s a Humvee for you civilian types.  Point being, I’m not entirely unfamiliar with working on vehicular electrical systems. So I do have a healthy respect of what happens when someone shorts out a battery while trying to remove it.  I managed not to do it, but apparently PFC Garrita dropped a wrench on one and it touched both terminals.  Oh, and HMMWVs run two 12V batteries in series to provide 24V of output.  From what I heard, the end result was spectacular, and sparks flew.  The lesson here is, when you disconnect the black terminal, don’t let it make contact with the bike frame as it is often used as the ground.  My college physics is a little rusty so I can’t go into too much detail anymore about exactly what would happen and why, but just make sure the black lead is tucked out of the way or even taped off if you’re the very cautious type.  With a properly fused bike, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but best not to test the system.

Unscrew the bolt from the red, or positive, lead and disconnect the cable. There you have it.  Battery removed.  Screw the bolts back into the battery so you don’t misplace them, and your battery is ready to hook-up to that tender sitting in your basement workspace. Close up the battery cover, pop the seat back on and pour yourself a beer, all while patting yourself on the back for a job well done.  Try not to pull a muscle.  It can be an awkward angle.

So that’s your bike taken care of, but how do we make sure we’re taking care of our own internal battery during the long cold winters with short, sometimes dreary, days?

Lean on friends.  Don’t be afraid to reach out to old acquaintances.  Remember that relationships are a two-way street and it takes traffic flowing in both directions to keep them active.  If you’re feeling lonely and down, ask yourself what you’ve done to reach out to someone else recently.  Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and make an effort.  Last summer when people were really feeling stuck home alone with the Covid blues, I commented on an old high school acquaintance’s post about a local distillery that he’d checked in at the year before.  It’s a local distillery that’s opened just outside of my hometown and I was completely unaware of it.  I think my comment was something to the effect of, going to check this place out when this whole corona thing finally passes.  Next thing I know, he’s calling me via the Facebook chat app, and we end up spending the next two hours catching up.  We were by no means best friends in high school, but it was great to talk to him again and I’m really looking forward to checking out that distillery when society opens up again.

I will say, if there is one silver lining to the pandemic, it’s the fact that we all have learned how to Zoom, or Houseparty, or Google chat or whatever group video call app you use.  Point is, use one.  I have some close high school friends that historically I’ve been lucky to see once a year and we’ve actually had more virtual “face to face” interaction in the last year than actual face to face time in the previous three years combined. Technology is making our world smaller and our friends more accessible.  

That brings me to the second self service of surviving winter with the double threat of a pandemic.  Keep looking to the future.  Usually this time of year I start planning a road trip or begin eyeing up upcoming musical festival dates.  Covid obviously makes this additionally challenging due to the uncertainty factor but start doing some research on locations that may offer outdoor activities as the weather begins to warm.  So, there are certain limitations to our current ability to foresee the future, but try to remind yourself that winter and Covid, as with all things, will pass.

Try to stay active.  I’ll be honest, I don’t like outdoor activities once the temperature starts to drop below 30, let alone the teens.  I’m trying to get better at enjoying the winter season here in the Midwest. I’ve found having and wearing proper gear helps.  Even with that, I’ll just acknowledge that I’m definitely more of a summer guy when it comes to outdoor activities.  This makes watching my diet and hitting the weights all the more important from November to March.  The nights may be longer, but that isn’t going to guarantee a good night’s sleep by any means.  I struggle with being tired already by 6pm but then being unable to sleep at midnight when I finally crawl into bed.  Even getting just 5 or 6 rounds of short but high intensity lifting or cardio during the day gets blood flowing and helps my body prepare to shut down and recharge at night.

Finally, find and keep alive, your year-round hobbies.  Aside from picking up the bike as a hobby, I home brew, play guitar, and write…which is what brought me here.  If your hobby is a productive one that results in say, some mildly palatable beer, all the better.  But there’s nothing wrong with having a hobby with no end goal or use other than enjoying loudly and poorly attempting to play and sing along with your favorite songs while no one else is around.  The more varied our hobbies, the better the mental exercise and more importantly, the more interesting and fulfilled people we become.  

Until next time, take care of your bike and take care of yourself.  

[breaniebree]

Flashback Sequence:

Chapter 192 -- Girls night between Tonks and Zee at Lupin cottage during the full moon

My friend Saz wanted to draw them chilling out and drinking -- thanks for the lovely drawing!  I’m always honoured when I inspire artwork!

[Excerpt]

The sound of the fireplace made her jump and she hurried into the living room as Zee was dusting herself off.

“Hi, sorry I’m late,” Zee said, holding out the bottle of rosé in her hand.  “I needed to finish my report and get the plans formed for the new Aqua Protectors.  When Sirius left to come here, I thought that I would be right behind him, but it took me longer than I planned.  I have a group of magizoologists helping me form the unit and how to get more magical creatures involved.”

“Sounds exciting.”

Zee grinned widely.  “I think it will be.  I am trying to work with the Merpeople now and to convince them to shift their stance of neutrality and to join the force, but I don’t know how successful I will be.  They are very distrustful of the Ministry of Magic and considering their past with them, I can’t blame them.”  She jumped at the sound of the howl and the barking and smiled.  “Is Harry out there with them?”

Tonks nodded.  “He is.  He was a bit late himself.  It seems that Mandy broke up with him tonight.”

“Oh!”  Zee said, her face sad.  “The poor darling!  It was their anniversary tonight, wasn’t it?  How is he holding up?”

“He said that he’s fine,” Tonks told her.  “But we both know what his version of fine entails.  Come into the kitchen and we’ll open that wine.”

Tonks led the way into the kitchen to get wine glasses and then opened the icebox with a smile.

“I sliced up some kielbasa with cheese and crackers for us to snack on and I have a bag of salted crisps.”

“Sounds perfect,” Zee said with a smile as she opened the bottle of rosé.  

A few minutes later they were both sitting cross-legged on the couch in the living room drinking wine and snacking.

 “So, how’s married life been?”

Tonks grinned widely.  “Perfect.  I mean, nothing really changed, I suppose.  We were already living together, but I like being able to call him my husband as much as my mate.  He’s the sweetest.”

“How so?”

Tonks shrugged.  “Like this morning, he brought me breakfast in bed and we ate and talked and then spent the whole morning making love.  It was just… wonderful and lazy and wonderful.  Then we just lied there and talked about the war and well, what’s coming.  He’s nervous about Umbridge being at Hogwarts this year and I can’t say that I blame him.  She’s such a bigot and I don’t see how she will do anything good for that school.  Not to mention that she very clearly doesn’t like him — though how much of that is hate compared to fear I’m not sure.”

“Yeah, I agree with that.  Sirius says that Amelia is a very bright woman and I happen to agree with her.  Umbridge knows that she isn’t high on the Minister’s list either so that should come into play with how she acts.  But Mary Raffigan was also assigned to Hogwarts and she’s a bright woman.  She’s the historian that I spoke to about that necklace outline we found in Slytherin’s study in the Chamber of Secrets a few years ago.  She’s very well informed on Hogwarts history and Hogwarts mythology and I think that having her at the school could be a huge asset.” 

Tonks nodded.  “Well, hopefully she also manages to reign in Umbitch because if that woman harms one hair on Remus’ head — I will end her.”

Zee snorted as she drank her wine.  “Might be worth it to see that.”

Tonks shrugged.  “Maybe.”

[...]

Tonks chuckled.  “Wish that I could say the same, I’m totally prone to jealousy.  Did I ever tell you about the time Rem and I ran into an ex-flame of his in the Ministry?  God, I took one look at her flirting with him and the first thing I did was put my arm around his waist and shove my hand into his front pocket.  It was like I had this need to claim him.”

“That’s the mating aspect of you and him though.  Wolves mate for life and as you said, Remus had done his part, but he had never given you the opportunity to do yours so it was like part of it was still open.  Remus had no interest in anyone else, but you still saw him as potentially desirable to others and needed to stake your claim to him.  You are his other half in every way.”

Tonks grinned widely as she drank her wine.  “He is definitely all mine and I plan to spend my day tomorrow worshipping his body.  He’s always ridiculously randy after the moon and I love showing him how sexy he is.”

Zee smiled.  “It’s a wonderful kind of power, isn’t it?  To hold our men under our thrall?  I love pleasuring Sirius.  I love sex in general and sex with him is always amazing, but I love just pleasing him.  Fuck, I don’t care if it makes me sound like a scarlet woman or whatever, but I absolutely love giving him head.  It turns me on so much to watch him come undone like that.  I love everything about it and I definitely try to go down on him as often as possible.”

Tonks blushed.  “Remus is the only man that I’ve ever done that too and I like it.  He’s just… big, and I can’t take all of him, you know?”

Zee grinned.  “So you keep teasing.”

Tonks bit her bottom lip and grinned.  “I like being with him that way, every way, and well, it is kind of sexy to give him pleasure.”

Zee grinned.  “It really is.  Plus it helps when your man isn’t selfish.  Sirius is not a selfish lover and I love that about him.  I mean he definitely goes above and beyond in that category.”

“Remus too,” Tonks said, biting her bottom lip.  “Definitely.  He is always pleasuring me and I feel so wanton sometimes it’s ridiculous, but Merlin, he’s the best.”

Zee chuckled.  “Great sex definitely adds that little extra to a good relationship that’s for sure.”

“Speaking of good relationships, Remus and I were talking about it a few days ago, the fact that you’ve been together longer than us and yet the topic of marriage has never come up.  Have you and Sirius talked about marriage yet?”

“Well, officially we’ve been together a little less than you.  That first year I travelled so much we really just shagged each other’s brains out at every opportunity, sometimes going over a month without seeing each other.  But yeah, we’ve talked about it.  I love him, Tonks.  He’s the most amazing man that I have ever known and he just amazes me every day with his love and devotion to Harry and to his friends.  He’s intelligent and brave and has a short temper, but deep down he’s like a child who still craves love that he’s not sure he deserves.  That part of him just makes me want to love him even more,” Zee admitted with a smile.  “And Harry, watching him grow up and… he is my son in everything but blood and I would lay down my life for that boy in a heartbeat.  They’re my family.”

Tonks smiled.  “I know that Harry feels the same about you.”

Zee grinned.  “He talks to me and trusts me and I know that he’s getting to that age where he might not come to Sirius and I or to you and Remus for those same things anymore and that hurts me a little.  But I love him and I will be part of his life no matter what.  Sirius and I spoke about marriage and I think maybe it’s something that I might consider in the near future.  I like where I am with him and to be honest, I don’t know if I want to surrender myself to be Zahira Black.  But, I am putting my cottage up for sale this week.”

Tonks’ eyes widened in surprise.  “I thought that you were going to keep it?”

“I was, but it’s just sitting there unused and there’s no point in it.  My parents and grandparents stayed there when they were down, but I haven’t spent a single night there since Sirius and I moved the last of my things into Black Cottage.  I think part of me kept it because it was my first home, the first thing that I owned myself, but another part of me was keeping it because of that fear, you know the one that tells you that you’re jumping all in too fast.  That fear dissolved the moment I moved in with Sirius and Harry.  I knew that I had made the right choice.  I was home.  It’s stupid for me to keep it.”

Tonks grinned.  “I’m happy for you.  What did Sirius say about marriage?”

“Believe it or not, he might be a bit more ready for it than I am, but neither of us are quite there, not yet.  How did he put it… that we’re both quite happy living in sin, but we’re open to discuss making it more legal when the time is right.”

“What about kids?”

Zee smiled.  “I don’t know.  They were never something that I ever admittedly decided I wanted and Harry is ours.  Maybe one day, but Harry is enough for me right now.  Have you thought about kids?”

Tonks shrugged and scratched the buzzed hair at the base of her neck.  “Sure.  I know Remus is worried about how his lycanthropy will affect his children even though it’s extremely rare for it to be passed down unless both parents are wolves, but we haven’t talked about it.  Maybe in a few years when the war is over we can discuss it again.  I take the potion the first of every month and I never miss a dose.  I’m very good with it and it’s fairly effective.”

Zee chuckled.  “Very effective.  I take it too and that one percent chance of a baby upon us is scary enough, but I think it works well.”

Tonks grinned.  “Merlin, listen to us, marriage and babies, we need to talk about more important things.”

“Like how Harry is in love with Ginny?”  Zee asked.

Tonks smirked.  “Obviously.  Now, Zee, would it be completely tactless of us to make a bet on how long it takes him to make a move?”

Zee’s mouth opened in surprise.  “Completely.  It would be invasive and heartless.  It’s absolutely none of our business.”

Tonks nodded.  “Yeah, you’re right.”

“But, I say by Yule he’s going to cave.”

Tonks grinned.  “All Hallows Eve.”

“What are we betting?”

“Ten Galleons?”

Zee smirked.  “Deal.”

They clinked wine glasses, eyes twinkling in laughter.  It was going to be an interesting couple of months, Tonks thought.

[raywritesthings]

Those Fishnets

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Thea Queen Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Laurel gets an idea to try out Halloween costumes again. Oliver is not opposed Warning: Mild Sexual Content *Can also be read on my AO3*

Across the bunker, Laurel looked up as Thea let out a cackle of a laugh. “Oh, this is hilarious.”

“What is?” Laurel set aside the sticks she’d been using to practice and walked off the mat as her younger friend turned her phone around.

“Unofficial ‘Team Arrow’ costumes, just in time for your Halloween needs,” Thea proclaimed.

Laurel raised her eyebrows. She knew about the action figures, of course, but found it hard to believe a parent would want their kid dressing up like a vigilante.

She nearly choked on her breath when she saw the images Thea had pulled up. “For Halloween?”

“They’re the adult versions. You know, like the slutty librarian or witch stuff. Look, they called mine ‘Sexy Speedy’,” Thea snickered.

Laurel pursed her lips at an image of a model in a red hood and jacket with laces barely covering her breasts. Unlike the real Speedy, this one also wore booty shorts. “Interesting.”

“Come on, it’s funny! You should see yours.”

“If I see mine I’m liable to file a lawsuit.” She had put on a mask to help people and inspire her fellow citizens, not provide them fantasy fuel.

“Oh yeah, that’ll definitely be winnable,” Thea said. “It’s really not that bad, Laurel, I promise.”

“Okay,” she sighed, taking the phone back. And well, yes, it could have been far worse. The model that was supposedly being her still had a jacket on. Though she was posed in a way that decidedly showed off her — that was, the model’s — backside. Her pants had also been replaced entirely by a pair of fishnets.

“Why would anyone like this?”

“I don’t know, ask Ollie,” Thea suggested with a grin. “I bet he could tell you.”

Laurel swatted at Thea’s arm before handing her the phone back. “We agreed that’s not up for discussion.” Ever since the last time Thea had caught them in the living room, that had been the rule.

Though, that thought did give her pause. It had been a while since they’d done anything like, well, what happened in the living room. Work, field work, everything just tended to get in the way. And she seemed to recall an exchange from only a few years ago, back when the idea of her and Ollie spending Halloween together seemed stuck in the distant past.

“Oh yes. I wore those horrible fishnets.”

“I thought you looked good.”

If it was just some harmless fun...

“What site even is that?” Laurel asked, careful make herself sound vaguely disgusted.

“I’ll just send you the link. Check out the gallery. They got versions of everybody. Think my favorite’s ‘the Flash-er’,” Thea barely got out before dissolving into giggles.

Laurel shook her head, not bothering to hide a smile. ��I’m sure.”

Soon enough, her phone was buzzing with the link as Thea had said, and she spent the rest of that evening contemplating. Was this really something she wanted to try?

The day was coming up soon and it wasn’t as if she would look any better the next year. Why not chance it? The worst that would happen is they both laugh about it. But the best?

Laurel hit the checkout button.

—-

All Hallows’ Eve found Oliver on the apartment couch, Laurel snuggled in at his side as they watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! on the television. Their bowl of candy was sitting in her lap; there were few, if any, children in their building, so no trick or treaters.

It was hard some years to tell the people in costumes apart from the ones wearing masks to hide illicit activity, so he’d finally decided this time to give the criminals a break. Their other teammates had been happy enough to hear it, all having their own plans. Parties or, in John’s case, taking the kids out to get candy.

“We used to do stuff,” he remarked, never taking his eyes off Linus waiting in the pumpkin patch.

Laurel lifted her head. “Hm?”

“You know, years back. Before everything. We used to do stuff on Halloween.”

“Well, we were younger then, I guess.”

“We were in our twenties. We’re not that old,” he insisted, a little put out.

Laurel considered him for a long moment, an unreadable expression on her face. “You want to do something?”

“Well, I don’t know what. It was just a thought.” Maybe next year, since it was already late. He never thought these things through.

But Laurel suddenly stood, passing the candy bowl to his lap. “Alright, give me a few minutes.”

“For what?”

“I had plans. Just have to move them up a little,” she told him, walking back towards the bedroom.

Oliver braced an arm on the back of the couch as he turned to follow her retreat with his eyes. “Is this a trick or a treat?”

“Wait and see.”

Patience was hardly his strong suit and she knew it. Still, if she’d gone through the trouble of planning something, he’d do his best to respect how she wanted to carry it out.

Oliver turned around and shut off the TV. He could hear shuffling back there, then maybe a zipper. Was she getting changed? Were they going somewhere?

“Laurel,” he called out, more for something to say than anything.

“It’s Black Canary, actually.”

Oliver made a face as their bedroom door opened and he looked back over his shoulder. “What do you—”

But whatever he’d meant to ask flew completely out of his mind. As did most of the rest of his rational thought.

Laurel was standing there in a leather jacket and little else. High-heeled boots went up past her ankles, and from there it was leg and leg covered in fishnets. They went all the way up her thighs before disappearing under a leotard.

“Like my costume?”

He sucked in a breath but found little air. “What?”

She shrugged. “They sell them online. Kind of weird, but not much I can do about it without turning myself into the authorities in the process.” She walked around the couch slowly, and he was only somewhat successful in keeping his eyes on her face. Especially when she lifted one foot and set it on the couch, showing off her inner thigh. And the fishnets.

This was hugely inappropriate. A disgusting scam that someone was making money off of Laurel’s image in this way, turning her into some kind of sex symbol. It was also incredibly hot.

“I thought,” he began, and had to clear his throat once. He shifted on the couch, the candy bowl about the only thing hiding the fact that most of his blood was rushing south. “I thought you didn’t like wearing fishnets.”

“I kind of have the legs for them now, so they’re not so bad. Anyway,” Laurel added with a knowing glance down. “I’m pretty sure you mentioned you like them.”

She motioned him forward with a crook of her finger and Oliver moved like a man enchanted. He ran both hands up from calf to thigh, feeling the material and the smooth skin of her leg. His head bent, and he pressed a kiss on the inside of her thigh. He was close enough to feel the jump of muscles in her abdomen as she sucked in her own breath.

“You are...gorgeous. Costume or no. But I am very grateful you did this.”

Laurel allowed herself to be pulled back down onto the couch so he could kiss her properly, only stopping him when he started to pull the zip down on her jacket.

“Do something for me?”

Oliver was aware his voice sounded very hoarse as he replied, “Name it.”

It was the answer Laurel had been expecting, for she reached under the couch for a bag she must have placed there, dropping a package in his lap. Oliver opened it and pulled out an alarmingly scant amount of green leather.

Laurel gave him a wicked smile. “Put that on first.”

[terraforged]

Tfw you make the mistake of talking about gay af Hallow’s End stuff with @/holyforged and then you gotta write it :^(

Fair warning this is, uh, long. Also pretty gay and self gratuitous yikes I’m sorry.

---

Soft thud of wings near soundless as he carried them through Exodar, an endeavour he found frivolous when the walk was not truly a long one-- admittedly it was perhaps a confusing one, the twisting passages of the Exodar a baffling thing even though he had ventured here on occasion. Anduin, however, had asked so very sweetly with a flutter of eyes Wrathion knows to be deliberate yet had fallen for anyway. His king’s amusement to that fact was not lost on Wrathion either, though he would be more inclined to say his reasonings were elsewise.

Autumn was well on its way to claiming the land, a fact even bastion of molten earth was aware of as chilly caress bit at thick scales as metal and crystal finally gave way to inky dark above. With autumn came cold, the bone aching sort which crept in and made its nest quietly, painfully, in places of old hurts. The High King hid it well. Wrathion does not think another mortal might even notice barring the worst of days where stiffness rages through Anduin terribly, but Wrathion is not mortal, is instead top of all food chains within these lands. Any predator knows weakness where they find it; can see the lameness of a sickly deer, the way weight is not carried properly even as they try to hide it.

Anduin was no deer of course, is no meek prey, but Wrathion sees none the less and so he had agreed and allowed elder upon his back. Bore still unfamiliar weight onto himself as gloved hands slide against onyx neck, a wandering caress Wrathion thinks nothing of until he feels tap for his attention.

“There,” Anduin says, voice whipped away from him by winds but heard nonetheless as crimson eyes find illuminated settlement in questions, wings folding into a graceful dip until taloned feet met earth once more with ripple of muscle a ways from the settlement.

Wordlessly he felt Anduin shift upon him as if to dismount, a goal quickly dashed as Wrathion eased into long strides which closed meager distance between they and Azure Watch. It earns him a laugh, one that has wings shuffling where they rest tucked against him.

“Are you looking to replace Reverence?” Words come with light amusement, breath curling in puff of condensation like smoke before the king’s face. A sham of an illusion, but a charming one Wrathion thinks regardless as Anduin prattles on with his nonsense. “He enjoys our morning rides when I have the time! He’ll be really quite upset if you try and take that from him, and he’s already not entirely fond of you~”

For all draconian features did not easily wear emotions flatness still prevailed on his features. “Your human stories that talk of dragons whisking away princesses. They’re very inaccurate. You humans talk far too much to be worth kidnapping.” 

“Are you calling me a princess? Really? Now, that is rich from you. My, what was it you were complaining about just this morning? Other than everything, obviously, as you seem to have a never ending list of complaints--” It was a tangent cut short by deliberate bounce of step, jarring a soft ‘oof’ from Anduin before the fires of Azure Watch cast them in their glow.

On most days there would be shrieks of upset at a black dragon making an appearance, weapons raised in fear, in contempt. Usually Wrathion would scarcely dare allow himself to be caught by so many mortals in true form, and yet tonight such was apparently… acceptable. Hallow’s End was, in his opinion, a rather baffling affair. One that could turn fear into a childish awe as they perhaps simply did not deem him real, did not think it was anything other than a clever illusion. It was a farce, he thought, but as he looked about at garishly costumed children fleeting about with unabashed glee he didn't suppose it mattered. If happiness could still be found even in the midst of such a pointless war then who was he to begrudge it?

Soft gasps rang out as children pointed to Anduin, High King an unexpected sight for seldom did he have time to leave Stormwind say for battle these days, a fact Wrathion thought must weigh heavy upon that soft heart of his. That they were here now, seemingly without cause, without dire urgency spurring Anduin into action, was evidently fascinating to young draenei and visiting humans alike. Even adults murmured as Wrathion finally drew to a stop beside roaring fire, front end dipping until chest hit ground and rear followed, limbs tucking beneath himself much like an overgrown feline which had taken to soaking up warmth.

Feeling tell tale shifting once more Wrathion cranes head around, lifting wing for elder to brace hand upon and steady self as he slid down shoulder to ground. “You’re causing quite the stir! Though, I suppose that should hardly be considered a shock, hm? With how rarely your guard dog lets you--”

“Wrathion,” comes an exasperated sigh from Anduin, cutting Wrathion off from an old argument they have had on several occasions. They would have it on many more if Wrathion were to get his way, though it seemed Anduin was ill inclined to allow today to be such an occasion as he swatted at Wrathion’s snouth earning indignant huff of coiling smoke.

“Very well.” Concession came from the drake as he shifted once more, scaled body heaving to free a foreleg from beneath himself, talons curling into soft dirt as Anduin pulled a well worn leather pack from his back. 

Bold children wander toward king, curiosity dancing in their young eyes as they whisper conspiratorially to one another, emboldened by the soft smile which graced Anduin’s face. The heat of raging fire at Wrathion’s opposing side was, suddenly, almost chilly against the radiant warmth of such an expression, chest constricting sharply, painfully, as Wrathion deftly ignored such a notion as Anduin sat upon extended leg and tucked himself into comfortable crook between neck, shoulder, and once more folded wing.

“You all look very fierce! I do wonder what I might have to appease such scary monsters.” Children drew closer as Anduin dug fingers into pack, withdrawing with a handful of colourful candies which drew delighted squeals of excitement from the gathered children; even a few adults, the elder draenei especially, seemed somehow equal parts amused and baffled by the odd turn of events. The affair earnt yet another gossamer laugh from Anduin, offering the sweets to all-- regardless of age-- who came.

Wrathion had little interest in such things, less so even as Anduin began to regale a story Wrathion thinks he might have heard thrice this week already within Stormwind itself, but one the king tells with just as much enthusiasm as he had every time before. Soon children and adults alike are seated before him, enthralled by the tale Anduin offers to them as yet more confectionary is handed out liberally as Anduin’s voice became a soft drone to Wrathion, a gently lulling thing of sounds more than words.

It was a revere eventually broken by the sound of shuffling, a nervous little cough that finally drew Wrathion’s attention from Anduin and crowd alike to find a young draenei girl dressed as what seemed to be a shaggy owlbear, though one free of mask as she clutched it in little hands to gaze up. A look he met, lazy blinks as third eyelid swept across glowing ruby and gold, her own stare never faltering. 

“People tell lots of scary stories on these cold nights,” she says, shuffling closer ever so in a display that had him arching head back and away in equal measure to recoil ever so and hold her in his gaze. “They tell bad ones about black dragons, sometimes. You don’t seem scary though, not if King Anduin likes you.”

It is a statement that earns a throaty laugh, one that covers the sickly feeling child’s words inspire. “Well, of course I am not trying to be scary! But if I were to then you would certainly be terrified.”

Words seemed to give her pause for beat, eyes dipping as fingers shifted on her mask. The draenei were a terribly thoughtful race Wrathion pondered, philosophical and not as prone to the harsh judgments of other races. Even so, he does not quite expect what she says next.

“You have pretty horns. I’ve never seen a dragon before, though there are many stories written about them.” And he can hear it, that childish curiosity barely hidden at all with a wonder in her eyes he does not think he has ever been confronted with before. It is not the fear he is used to, the distrust that is brandished at him day in, day out. Perhaps that is why he barely reacts as she continues on with a soft, daring; “I thought dragons would be bigger.”

On another day, to another person, such bold insult might have earnt ire from him, but today he merely eyes her silently for a moment before finally, finally dipping head once more until tip of snout is nosing gently into her soft hair, brushing her own little nubs of horns. “Much like yours mine are still growing, but in several years more perhaps we should meet once more so that you might show me how much more magnificent your own become.”

Shallow huff ruffled her hair as she giggled, reaching to touch at scales before he took to nudging her toward rest of crowd. “But for now enjoy the stories. His are far better than tales about dragons, though I’d be very glad if you were to keep that between us. We wouldn’t want our king to get an oversized head from an abundance of compliments, hm? Our secret.” One that was no secret at all really, spoken both too publically and far too loudly to be as much, a fact proven by the amused titters that sound as she joins the other children as one story closes and another begins.

Such sagas span on throughout the rest of the eve as Wrathion settled head upon ground, content to doze as Anduin talked on, drawing to a close only when sweets are exhausted and children begin sagging as sleep sought to claim them, adults retrieving them one by one to tuck them into warm beds for the night. 

Then, and only then, did Anduin dare brush fingers against neck once more to rouse his companion, drawing a clicking huff as breath caught in great chest before Wrathion turned to greet him with a yawn full of vicious teeth.

“Charming,” was Anduin’s amused retort. “Though between the two of us I don’t think my ego is the one we should be worried about, Wrathion.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my dear king! My ego is perfectly suited to my capabilities.” A terrible unkingly snort was his only reply, Wrathion meeting it with a lazy puff of smoke in his face before Anduin reached, curling fingers against scaled cheek as ever tumultuous blue eyes sought out draconian red.

The expression he wears is not one Wrathion thinks he has seen before, not entirely. Those vivid eyes were filled with something he does not recognise; thoughtful as fingers scratched idly against him, brows furrowed ever so though not quite in consternance. There is an ever present warmth to it of course, kindly as ever as corners of mouth cling yet to a smile that has not left Anduin’s face since their arrival. Anduin is considering, but entirely what Wrathion cannot say. It is a frustrating position to he who prided himself on the knowledge he could hoard, though thankfully he was saved the embarrassment of attempting to needle it from Anduin by an armour clad vindicar. 

“Your majesty,” the hulking figure began, respectful dip offered before continuing on. “We have prepared drinks and food at the Exodar in your honour. The Prophet Velen has requested your presences.”

It sounded terribly tedious to Wrathion, though if nothing else it would be a learning experience, one he likely could not avoid as Anduin moved to stand as Wrathion followed suit.

“Of course, we’d be glad to. Please, tell him we shall attend imminently.” Dipping his head the draenei returned the gesture, turning back toward Exodar and making to send word. It is then they are cast into a brief reprieve as others about them attend their business, adults gathering with children now gone to begin what Wrathion assumed to be their own merriment.

Forelimbs extended as chest dipped once more as Wrathion stretched, wings shuffling before he righted self with a shake of his head and click of jaws. “Please, tell him we shall attend imminently.” Came his childish imitation, one that earnt him a firm shove to his shoulder and sudden bright laugh that cut through the darkness.

“Oh, shut up.”