#i am the moon iv: farewell

[endlessly-cursed]

A beautiful white owl flew to your windowsill, tapping against your window. You opened it, surprised to see an owl to your window at such time.

You notice the envelope: with red and blue, it has the Viscountess Primrose's symbol. Intrigued, you open it, careful not to ruin the rich and delicate material. It reads:

12th of November, 1900

My dearest friend,

If you are reading this, then you have been cordially invited to my annual Christmas Event! After last year's ball, much has happened. I am now a married woman, and with a little one on the way.

But I am not about to dwell on the past! I shall expect you at my estate's gates at 6:30pm sharp. I shall list besides what events to expect.

Have a good day! I hope to see you there.

Cordially,

Lady Primrose Somerset, Viscountess of Winbourne and Countess of Harrendale.

I. The Story

It is said that, every two hundred years, the moon eclipses the sun and the earth is engulfed in a waning white moon, a winter solstice that represents good fortune to those who have been kind and giving to their loved ones, and a lifetime of tragedy to those who have sinned shamelessly.

Primrose, though not superstitious, is a tad worried about the effects, for the last Somerset to have witnessed such solstice, Maria Elisabeth Somerset, had ended up catching a deadly illness, and would die disgraced in a duel a few years later, as a punishment for having usurped Winbourne's position to her cousin.

Now with a baby on the way, and recently married, she's doing everything she can to earn the favour of the solstice so she may be rewarded with good fortune. Hopefully, Christmastime is a time of miracles.

II. The Prompts

4th of December- Back at Winbourne

You're back at Winbourne for Christmas! Either relish in the hundreds years old manor, or reminisce your past years in the ball! Don't forget to congratulate the newlyweds...

5th of December- The Welcome Ball III

The ball has begun! Will you be the belle of the ball, or lurk in a corner, pining for you unattending loved one?

6th of December- Cocktail Party in the Gazebo

Lady Primrose has renovated her gazebo for the afternoon! It is a perfect time to catch up with the hostess and your friends! There is also a legend that whoever proposes at midnight will swoop their beau off their feet...

7th of December- Croquet On Snow

The game is on! Will you beat the invincible viscountess, or will she dunk you to the ground?

8th of December- Archery Shooting

Since the viscountess' delicate condition won't allow her to host a grouse shooting, she instead has for you an archery contest. Will your aim be true...or will someone else steal your shot and more?

9th of December- The Winter Masquerade

The solstice is here! Dress up as a socialite from the 1710s and try not to mix up the hostess with somebody...or worse, your beau!

10th of December- It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas

Your time in Winbourne is up! Bid your beau farewell for the holidays, or don't! Don't forget to thank the hostesses for their hospitality!

III. Main Rules

No NSFW please! Keep things either PG or SFW, this is Xmas

RSVP before December 1st! Write your letter of acceptance for the weekend in any way you'd like. The moment the clock strikes 12, the RSVP will be closed. You may add four OCs of your choice, no more, no less

Once you've RSVP'd, at least one post is mandatory on the event, it doesn't matter what day

Try to follow the narrative! The solstice is supposed to either give good or bad luck. Create a story of your OCs around that

Tag me in your posts!!!!! I want to see them all, no matter what are they

Tag your posts as #wwtgsolstice23

I won't accept people who I've blocked, go away geez

If I don't tag you, then you can claim an RSVP in my asks and DMs

IV. Taglist

@gaygryffindorgal @potionboy3 @hphmmatthewluther @nicos-oc-hell @camillejeaneshphm @cursedvaultss @cursed-herbalist @cursedlegacies @foundersofhogwartslegacy @unfortunate-arrow @catohphm @cursebreakerfarrier @that-scouse-wizard

[kvetchlandia]

Moisei Nappelbaum     Anna Akhmatova, Moscow     1929

No foreign sky protected me, no stranger's wing shielded my face. I stand as witness to the common lot, survivor of that time, that place.

Instead of a Preface

    In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from the cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there):     "Can you describe this?"     And I said: "I can."     Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.

Dedication

Such grief might make the mountains stoop, reverse the waters where they flow, but cannot burst these ponderous bolts that block us from the prison cells crowded with mortal woe. . . . For some the wind can freshly blow, for some the sunlight fade at ease, but we, made partners in our dread, hear but the grating of the keys, and heavy-booted soldiers' tread. As if for early mass, we rose and each day walked the wilderness, trudging through silent street and square, to congregate, less live than dead. The sun declined, the Neva blurred, and hope sang always from afar. Whose sentence is decreed? . . . That moan, that sudden spurt of woman's tears, shows one distinguished from the rest, as if they'd knocked her to the ground and wrenched the heart out of her breast, then let her go, reeling, alone. Where are they now, my nameless friends from those two years I spent in hell? What specters mock them now, amid the fury of Siberian snows, or in the blighted circle of the moon? To them I cry, Hail and Farewell!

Prologue

That was a time when only the dead could smile, delivered from their wars, and the sign, the soul, of Leningrad dangled outside its prison-house; and the regiments of the condemned, herded in the railroad-yards, shrank from the engine's whistle-song whose burden went, "Away, pariahs!" The stars of death stood over us. And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed under the crunch of bloodstained boots, under the wheels of Black Marias.

I

At dawn they came and took you away. You were my dead: I walked behind. In the dark room children cried, the holy candle gasped for air. Your lips were chill from the ikon's kiss, sweat bloomed on your brow–those deathly flowers! Like the wives of Peter's troopers in Red Square I'll stand and howl under the Kremlin towers.

II

Quietly flows the quiet Don; into my house slips the yellow moon.

It leaps the sill, with its cap askew, and balks at a shadow, that yellow moon.

This woman is sick to her marrow-bone, this woman is utterly alone,

with husband dead, with son away in jail. Pray for me. Pray.

III

Not, not mine: it's somebody else's wound. I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground. Whisk the lamps away . . .                                         Night.

IV

They should have shown you–mocker, delight of your friends, hearts' thief, naughtiest girl of Pushkin's town– this picture of your fated years, as under the glowering wall you stand, shabby, three hundredth in the line, clutching a parcel in your hand, and the New Year's ice scorched by your tears. See there the prison poplar bending! No sound. No sound. Yet how many innocent lives are ending . . .

V

For seventeen months I have cried aloud, calling you back to your lair. I hurled myself at the hangman's foot. You are my son, changed into nightmare. Confusion occupies the world, and I am powerless to tell somebody brute from something human, or on what day the word spells, "Kill!" Nothing is left but dusty flowers, the tinkling thurible, and tracks that lead to nowhere. Night of stone, whose bright enormous star stares me straight in the eyes, promising death, ah soon!

VI

The weeks fly out of mind, I doubt that it occurred: how into your prison, child, the white nights, blazing, stared; and still, as I draw breath, they fix their buzzard eyes on what the high cross shows, this body of your death.

VII

The Sentence

The word dropped like a stone on my still living breast. Confess: I was prepared, am somehow ready for the test.

So much to do today: kill memory, kill pain, turn heart into a stone, and yet prepare to live again.

Not quite. Hot summer's feast brings rumors of carouse. How long have I foreseen this brilliant day, this empty house?

VIII

To Death

You will come in any case–so why not now? How long I wait and wait. The bad times fall. I have put out the light and opened the door for you, because you are simple and magical. Assume, then, any form that suits your wish, take aim, and blast at me with poisoned shot, or strangle me like an efficient mugger, or else infect me–typhus be my lot– or spring out of the fairytale you wrote, the one we're sick of hearing, day and night, where the blue hatband marches up the stairs, led by the janitor, pale with fright. It's all the same to me. The Yenisei swirls the North Star shines, as it will shine forever; and the blue lustre of my loved one's eyes is clouded over by the final horror.

IX

Already madness lifts its wing to cover half my soul. That taste of opiate wine! Lure of the dark valley!

Now everything is clear. I admit my defeat. The tongue of my ravings in my ear is the tongue of a stranger.

No use to fall down on my knees and beg for mercy's sake. Nothing I counted mine, out of my life, is mine to take:

not my son's terrible eyes, not the elaborate stone flower of grief, not the day of the storm, not the trial of the visiting hour,

not the dear coolness of his hands, not the lime trees' agitated shade, not the thin cricket-sound of consolation's parting word.

X

Crucifixion

"Do not weep for me, Mother, when I am in my grave."

I

A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. "Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me. . . ."

II

Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed, His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared. His mother stood apart. No other looked into her secret eyes. No one dared.

Epilogue

I

I have learned how faces fall to bone, how under the eyelids terror lurks how suffering inscribes on cheeks the hard lines of its cuneiform texts, how glossy black or ash-fair locks turn overnight to tarnished silver, how smiles fade on submissive lips, and fear quavers in a dry titter. And I pray not for myself alone . . . for all who stood outside the jail, in bitter cold or summer's blaze, with me under that blind red wall.

II

Remembrance hour returns with the turning year. I see, I hear, I touch you drawing near:

the one we tried to help to the sentry's booth, and who no longer walks this precious earth,

and that one who would toss her pretty mane and say, "It's just like coming home again."

I want to name the names of all that host, but they snatched up the list, and now it's lost.

I've woven them a garment that's prepared out of poor words, those that I overheard,

and will hold fast to every word and glance all of my days, even in new mischance,

and if a gag should blind my tortured mouth, through which a hundred million people shout,

then let them pray for me, as I do pray for them, this eve of my remembrance day.

And if my country ever should assent to casting in my name a monument,

I should be proud to have my memory graced, but only if the monument be placed

not near the seas on which my eyes first opened– my last link with the sea has long been broken–

nor in the Tsar's garden near the sacred stump, where a grieved shadow hunts my body's warmth,

but here, here I endured three hundred hours in line before the implacable iron bars.

Because even in blissful death I fear to lose the clangor of the Black Marias,

to lose the banging of that odious gate and the old crone howling like a wounded beast.

And from my motionless bronze-lidded sockets may the melting snow, like teardrops, slowly trickle,

and a prison dove coo somewhere, over and over, as the ships sail softly down the flowing Neva.

-- Anna Akhmatova, “Requiem”  written over a long period of time between 1935 and 1961

[minsyal]

Long May He Reign, Pt. IV

Tywin Lannister x Targaryen!Reader

Summary: The Hand of the King spends years vying for the princess's affections. Only fate would have it that the two cannot be. As Aerys Targaryen II slowly descends into madness, can their love survive his instability and the war to come?

Warnings: General Game of Thrones violence later on, death and stuff, shitty characterizations, eh age differences, Ser Barristan being a lovely darling ✨

Everyone dined separately that night following the tournament. Aerys had sequestered himself to his provided chambers and ordered Ser Lewyn and Ser Grandison to keep guard through the darkness into the safety of the daylight. He feared for his life in such a densely Lannister place, but he came out of principle. The crown has no fears, he would tell himself repeatedly in his mind as he jittered at the slightest of foreign sounds. Ser Barristan and Ser Arthur had drank with Rhaegar, with none of the men falling to the full temptation of their fiery liquids. Laughter rang into the evening air as the three found amusement in the results of the joust. But once the Rock quieted and a sleepy hush fell over the people, only the euphonious notes of a despondent song lingered in the thin air.

The musical tune echoed through the emptied hallways, jumping off of the cold stone of the passages and climbing down from the many balconies that extended throughout the Rock. Rhaegar’s long fingers plucked at the strings of his harp and his lips buzzed with the constant hum of his sorrowful ballad. A lean leg hung from an open windowsill, stretching downward toward the waters that waved their white-capped hands skyward. His head hung down, closing off the space between his chin and chest. If his fingers had not been moving, one would have assumed him to have fallen asleep.

“Farewell, my brother.” The princess stepped from her position in the hallway. After she and Ser Barristan navigated the winding corridors that led to doors in all directions, she bid him goodnight at her chambers and promised to lock the doors from the inside. Her mind could not sleep, even as her body beckoned her to the bed. It raged with vigor from the eventful days and coming nights as the court eventually set off for King’s Landing. She wondered what her father would say about her leaving. She thought of Viserys, the poor babe, who could not even attend a tourney thrown in his honor. But she mostly thought of Tywin.

She eventually found herself pacing the corridors until her weary feet brought her to Rhaegar’s side. “A ballad about the Cargyll brothers' plight in the Dance of the Dragons.” Adjusting the draping of her dress, she joined him on his perch and listened as the crashing waves of the Sunset Sea harmonized with the hypnotic flow of his eloquent playing. “A sad choice of song for such a joyous event. Is this your projection of your loss to Ser Arthur?”

Ignoring his sister’s coltish jab, he plucked a few more notes. The cobalt effervescence of the glowing moon cast shadows across her softened features. Despite being out of line in leaving King’s Landing and having the anticipation of her father’s wrath looming overhead, she felt an acute calmness that stretched further than any consequence could. Footsteps bounced from the walls, shaking Rhaegar from his thoughts as the glint of a necklace he had not seen before flashed under the sapphire irradiation.

“A new necklace? It is not difficult to imagine where that has been sourced, sister dearest.” He kicked his leg out, blithely jabbing it against her hip. The footsteps did not amount to anything, as whoever they belonged to never exited onto the outlook. Still, Rhaegar lowered his voice.

“It would be an insult to not accept a gift when you are a guest in someone’s home.”

He snorted, “it is not often that a gift is made to conceal whom it stemmed from.”

“It was left in my room. For all I am aware it could be from another lord.”

“Another lord?” Rhaegar mused, closing his eyes in a playful flutter as he rested the crown of his head against the pillar he sat against. “Lord Addam Marbrand, perhaps?” He leveled his head to cast his sister a knowing look. “I heard you made acquaintance with him before bursting into my tent… I also heard you had been escorted away from Addam on Tywin’s arm.”

“Word travels at an alarming pace.”

“It does.” Rhaegar hummed in agreement as he became enamored with the gold plating of his harp with intricately spun designs pressed into its sides. “Father harbors a growing disdain for his Hand.” He peered over his shoulder and around hers, ensuring they were alone. “He could not keep his focus off of you during the joust.” There was a strange severity in his tone that she had not heard often from her genial brother. “Lord Tywin brings you happiness like no other, I understand that… He commands a crowd and holds great power.” Leaning forward, he muted his volume so that she had to strain to hear him. “But to a king, he is powerless.”

His insinuation was clear as the waters that flowed from the gardens in Dorne. Whatever she and Tywin had built could easily be disassembled brick by brick whether it be by Aerys himself or his growing court of people ready to please. They were willing to do anything to climb their way to the king’s side. Yet, she debated whether it was a place people truly wanted to reside.

“All I ask is that you remain ever cautious.”

She wet her lips, unable to comprehend the twisted web of dangers she had been playing in for the past three years. Then, reassuringly, she took Rhaegar’s hand in hers and cradled it in her other. “Worry is not a suiting expression on you, brother.” Her lighthearted ability to brighten his mood was a gift. “I assure you that I will approach the future with vigilance.”

The return to King’s Landing was done without Tywin as he and Cersei followed a few days behind. Aerys had instructed Ser Barristan to keep a close watch on the princess so as to not have her wander off again. Formally henceforth, he was assigned as her personal guard. No true punishment had been enacted from her actions and she was more than happy to have the company.

Strolling down the Blackwater, she relaxed in the midday sun. It shone down brightly from the cloudless sky, warming her chilled skin with its golden rays. The entourage had stopped for lunch at the behest of the king who, despite his unease with his distance from the Red Keep, much preferred dining when it was not an in-motion affair. This allowed the princess to venture from the rear room of the carriage house to the freedom of the outdoors.

“Do you foresee your new assignment being satisfactory?” She chided to Ser Barristan who walked in step with her nearest to the water’s edge. “Royal nursemaid to the princess who by happenstance does not appear to be an infant… at least as far as I am aware.”

He chuckled. “It is my duty to protect the royal family, princess. By definition, that would include all the royals.” Casting a glance outward to the flowing water, he watched as a lone log floated fastly downward, carrying on the harsh current. “I have always enjoyed my time in your company. I do not believe that will change in the coming days, weeks, months, even years.”

“You think that I will be watched this closely for years?”

“It could be a possibility.”

“By the gods, you will be guarding me even once father sends me away.” She brushed her fingers against the necklace draped on her breastbone. “Your life will soon be overflowing with boredom. You will be begging him to station you elsewhere.” Everything she said was in jest, but the undertones to her overcast words was clear to the man who had watched her grow.

“You underestimate yourself, princess. Kingsguard or not, I would follow you to the end of the earth.”

She considered his words for a moment, allowing the sounds of nature to overtake their conversation. Birds wings flapped together, crafting a harmonious buzz of feathers and wind as they spiraled through the open sea of blue that hung overhead. The water splashed against the eroding river banks, ripping away at the tearing and fraying grass that clung to the dry dirt. Chatter erupted from the small camp of knights and Kingsguard who hung around the wheelhouse, waiting for the king to give his approval on the move forward.

“I will keep you honest to your word then, Ser Barristan.”

“I would not expect anything less.”

Upon their official return to the Red Keep and Kings Landing, the king Aerys II confined himself to the spaces of his chambers. Her mother, Rhaella, had been quartered into the Holdfast with no provisions to leave and very few to keep her company. At times, she would seek her mother’s audiences but would often be met with the septa’s that trailed behind her much like Ser Barristan had taken to following the princess. Though, even before, she rarely saw her mother.

The birth of Viserys caused Aerys II to plummet in his state of mind. His nails grew longer in line with his unwashed and unkempt hair. Fear began to strike his heart as his beliefs of conspiratory behavior struck his veins and seized his waking moments. When he did sit the throne, he returned to the Holdfast with cuts littering his fingers and clothes. All needed to be treated by Pycelle, who would also attempt to calm him with medicinal treatments but nothing would put a halt on his increasing paranoia.

When Tywin returned to Kings Landing he brought with him his daughter to continue living at court as she daydreamed of the life she intended for her and the crowned prince. News of the young Melara Heatherspoon’s death swam through the halls of the Red Keep for a short time before it disappeared all together and she became nothing more than a faded memory. It was a tragic death, a mere accident, that started in the woods and ended at the base of a dried well.

The princess took to her lifestyle prior to her short-lived rebellion. Attending frequent lessons with her septa, strolling silently through the gardens, and slowly rebranding herself as the royal’s diligent princess was part of her routine. The king did not name her a husband, nor did he seek for one.

She met infrequently with Tywin, mostly enjoying his company on days when the sun was the brightest and the inhabitants of the Red Keep flocked to the outdoors to enjoy the sunlight in the midst of a chilling winter. It was often said that she was most striking in the frozen weather. Her gowns became more ornate and crafted of richer silks, her skin flushed with a soft rose that spread from her ears to her nose, and the cloaks that covered her shoulders in the outdoors were delightfully ethereal in the way they glittered against the snow.

The colors she opted for in the winter were of a deep red or rich green. Contrasting against her silken skin, the luxuriant fabrics made her appear like a shining star in the glittering snowfall. She radiated a phantom aura of her ghostly complexion and everywhere she stepped seemed to sing.

There was something about the cold of winter that seemed to wake the fire that burnt within.

“Lord Tywin.” Ser Barristan, who did not appear to mind the cold that blew through the skyward towers of the Red Keep, welcomed the figure to their company. Though guarded and ever scrutinizing of their relations, he recognized that the princess required some light in her often-dim life. With a respectful nod, he side-stepped away from the lord and retreated to a spot a comfortable distance away.

Tywin assumed the emptied spot next to the princess. She could not feel the warmth that lingered on the surface of his clothing, the light brushing of his arm against her cloaked shoulder was enough. “I often wonder how the Northerner’s withstand the winter when we struggle here in the south.” He could see the plushness of her lips and redness of her nose past the hood of insulated furs draped softly over her immaculate hair.

From their comfortable viewpoint, they could look down into the streets of King’s Landing. Plumes of white smoke rose from each active chimney, emanating life in such a desolate landscape. The people moved like ants in the crowded streets, barely visible among the stone walls of their homes and shops. The city was bursting at the seams with people clamoring from outside the walls to the interior for the safety of the crown. Peasants begged on the streets while others died in the alleys. The bodies were carted outside the walls to be discarded in pits.

“How do they ensure little loss of life in times such as these?” She pondered aloud as Tywin shifted from one foot to the other.

He looked commanding in his choice of fabrics. Summer tunics made of brocade and silk were quickly exchanged for wool and leather. His shoulders appeared broader and strengthened by the cloak of black wool and tanned fur that hung from golden clips securing the fabric to his body. She liked the way he looked in the winter.

“The Northerners understand winter better than any of us ever will.” Tywin turned his attention to the streets. “That is not to say that they do not suffer casualties in the same capacity.”

“We have an abundance of barley and wheat in storage. Can we not utilize it to keep the people fed?”

“You have a good heart but lack the mind for politics, princess.”

“You have a mind for politics,” she turned her head to face him, “but lack a good heart, Lord Tywin.” Any other would never dare speak to him in such a manner, but the princess found herself among the very few exceptions. Not only was she heavily protected as the daughter of the king but she also held a part of his heart that had only been open to one other in his lifetime. “Each child who perishes in the winter storm is not given the opportunity to prosper in the spring rains. I wish to see to it that they may open their eyes to the summer sun and bloom as the gardens here do.”

“How is it that you intend on seeing to this?”

She scrunched her nose and narrowed her eyes in thought. Thus far, she held no true power in Westeros. She acted as a symbol of regality among the other royals who roamed the halls. Rhaegar had made contributions to the prosperity of their father’s reign, but she had not been given the chance. “I am not sure.”

“Perhaps should you find yourself in the good graces of the Hand, he would assist in fulfilling your wishes.”

A smile was brought to her lips as her infectious grin somehow spread to the sullen man. Ser Barristan had told the princess that he had never seen Tywin in such a light before he was assigned as her personal guard. The lady Joanna was the only one to pull the old lion out of his stone-faced and serious mood until the princess started harboring feelings for him.

“What must I do to find myself in such a situation?”

Tywin’s hand was warm against her skin as he reached out and cradled the necklace between his fingertips. The back of his palm rested against her collarbones. He had distinctly removed the moleskin glove that covered his fingers before, holding it in his other hand. A fingernail popped open the clasp that held the large ruby to the center of her necklace. “Never remove this.”

It was the herringbone-linked necklace, crafted with gold from the Lannister mines, that had been left in her chambers during the tourney at Casterly Rock. Rich and heavy, it was connected with large ruby embellishments that had been cut into trillion shapes for the outer links and three fine navette jewels that were framed in gold at the center. To anyone else, it appeared as fine jewelry with the red signifying the Targaryen dragon. But to them, it was a wordless promise and an act of a Lannister marking his claim.

“I do not feel it is often that men request a lady to keep her clothing on, my lord.” The princess joked, burning a beet red as his fingers grazed over base of her neck.

An amused chortle passed by the scruff of his upper lip. Yet, no smile or even small tug of the corners of his mouth followed. He was solemn and serious, holding true to the face he showed the rest of the world. The smile that had lit his face moments prior was now nothing as the hardened lines of his softened skin became clear.

He had always been a thoughtful man. Not in nature, as the man did not do favors or deeds for glory, but in mind. Like his son, his inner monologue never ceased. Every move he made was calculated and propelled him further toward some unknown goal that tingled in the back of his head.

Because in the end, no matter what he must do, Tywin would get what he wanted.

~~~*~~~

“Do not be nervous, princess.” Ser Barristan stood at the castle’s gates with a small armada of escorts and servants carrying overflowing carts of supplies. A deep mahogany palanquin waited in the courtyard with four men ready to depart.

“I am not nervous.” The young woman feigned, tugging at the skirts of her dress as she pushed fallen hair from her face. “I just am not accustomed to public outings.”

“Your only official trip was on the wind.” He added, providing a hand for her to grasp as she stepped inside. “You have the finest knights in all of Westeros at your aid. When the people understand why you are walking amongst them, they will rejoice in your presence.”

“I do hope you are right.”

The cart jostled and shook as the men carried it dutifully down the steps from the high hill to the streets of King’s Landing. She watched as the people looked on with curiosity, wondering why someone was venturing onto their streets.

Lord Tywin Lannister had discreetly set aside the minuscule funding required to purchase a ten room building located on the edge of Flea Bottom nearest to Rhaenys’s Hill on the northeastern portion of town. The building was run down and leaning slightly to one side. Old tattered curtains hung from the broken windows and moss covered the outermost stone that cradled the cracked street.

When she had stepped out from the palanquin, the sunlight burst through the skyline that stretched overhead. She could hear the inquisitive murmur of whispers as a group of young men watched her enter the building. The stone floors were packed full with cement made of mud and clay, large smooth rocks were crammed together within to form an uneven surface.

“Princess.” A familiar voice called out from the doorway. Ser Alliser Thorne was a man loyal to the Targaryen household. He was older than the princess, nearly a decade to be exact. With striking and sharp features, the man presented himself as a hardened soldier with great respect for those in authority. “The crone.”

Stepping aside, he presented her with a frail old woman of an age she could not imagine. She walked like she was in her early eighties but appeared as if she was alive during the Dance. The skin of her face sagged into her neck and her nose was pimpled with sunspots.

“That is no way to address a woman, Ser.” The princess scolded lightly as the woman swatted her wrinkled hand in the air to dispel the tension in the young girl’s shoulders.

“Nonsense!” Her voice was ragged and raspy but held a certain tune that filled her with loving joy. “No woman is insulted by her own name.” She shortly nodded her head to the princess in lieu of a courtesy. “Apologies, my dear. The years have not been kind. My knees do not bend as they once did. The young boy was simply calling me what I am. The Old Crone. You should do well to follow suit.”

The princess looked to Ser Barristan for any form of assistance only to find his shoulders shrugged.

“Very well then.” She watched as men and woman piled through the doors and began fortifying the various areas of the house that needed improvement. “I am very glad you have accepted the responsibility of running this home for me, my lady. I believe it will prosper under your eye.”

“Under my eye?” The woman let out a garbled laugh that sounded disgusting to most but warmed the princess’s heart. “Can’t see much out of this one,” her overgrown nail pointed to her left eye, “the other will have to do what it can. Been searching for proper housing for years, my dear. Any roof is better than the god’s one… this one won’t rain on this old head.”

Stifling a laugh, the princess nodded. “We should hope so at the very least. I want this to be more than a shelter.” A man passed by, loading beams inside that would soon hold the floors up higher. “I want this to be a home for you and anyone else should they need it.”

“A home would be nice.” The Crone mused, hiking her skirts to her lap as she sat ungracefully upon one of the many stools that littered the boundaries of the room. “Well then, let us get to work.”

The princess hesitated as she cast a security glance to Ser Barristan. As she turned her head back to the Crone, a pile of cotton was thrust into her arms along with a needle and thread. “A home isn’t much of a home without blankets for the beds, deary. You know how to sew, right? You haven’t been skipping your lessons, have you?”

Ser Barristan smiled as the princess frantically ruched the fabric in her arms and followed the Crone as she made for a back room. “Never, my lady.”

“You!” The Crone hollered back at Ser Alliser who stood awkwardly in the room nearest to Ser Barristan. “Start a fire in the hearth, would you?”

The fluttering of her skirts was the last thing the older knight saw before he too joined them in the old rickety room. Her footsteps were followed by the scratchy voice of the Crone as she dismissed the proper title once more.

The winter was in its midst as Lord Steffon Baratheon was sent across the Narrow Sea to Essos with the intention of finding the crowned prince Rhaegar a wife of Valyrian blood. The princess had found herself busied with the nonsense work of finding and maintaining sufficient funding for the shelter house while also looking to local craftsmen for apprenticeships to aid the residents in starting new lives.

“Lord Steffon searches day and night to find a bride befitting a crowned prince.”

“Yes, but that was not my question, sister dearest.” Rhaegar pat his hand on hers as they walked through the gardens together with her arm laced through his. “Who do you think they’ll match me with?”

Rhaegar and his sister walked amongst the gardens, framed beautifully by the soft blooming winter flowers. Talk of finding him a wife was in circulation. Many tried to get on the king’s good side by finding Aerys as much information as they could that would cast someone else in a bad light. The majority of the talk seemed to revolve around the Hand of the King.

“Someone who is not of your own blood.”

Brushing a stray hair from his face, he noticed the group of women who whispered amongst themselves and turned quickly when they made eye contact. “He should have matched us.”

Her feet stopped moving as the back of her skirt hit her legs. “You’re mad, brother.”

“No.” Swatting away her disapproval, he gathered her hands in his and pulled her forward to one of the overlook balconies. Snow frosted ivy grew up the sides of the two large white pillars that held up dark wooden beams.. “You’re mad that you did not think of it before I.” He sat himself down on a stone bench and guided her down by his side. “We wed, fulfill our duties, but still seek our own happiness. You found yours with,” his voice lowered, “our Lord Hand. I should be allowed to find mine also.”

“I don’t dispute that you deserve happiness, but our lineage does not bode well for the future of our house. One can only marry brother and sister for so long before madness ensues. Perhaps, if you were so in love with me you should have bid this idea to father many years ago.”

“I thought it was I who was deemed the more interesting of the king’s children.” Rhaegar found great amusement in the princess’s relaxed state as their father became absent in their lives. “You are developing too much personality, sister. I would bet a hundred golden dragons that it is solely derived from your extended company of Ser Barristan.” He joked, poking fun of the Kingsguard who only tilted his head backward for a fleeting second to display the painted smile on his lips.

Cold winds blew in off Blackwater Bay, carrying their silver hair in its gentle breeze like a loose piece of silk hanging on a clothes line. The smell of the capitol was more pleasant in the chilled months. The summer sun could not bake the filth and grime to the streets. Smells that did rise on the air were carried for many more leagues than before. From the highest tower in Maegor’s Holdfast, even the worst of noses could smell the steaming freshly baked goods on the street of flour.

“I think you would have made a fitting bride.” Rhaegar commented as he released the strained tenseness that riddled his pointed shoulders.

“You do not believe the words you speak.” The princess placed her hands on the stone wall that separated the siblings from the sea. Her fingers chilled atop its frozen surface, but she found comfort in its uncertain ease. “You fear that Lord Steffon will return with a woman you will not love.” His eyes were suddenly empty and hollow. Playful jolts of electric energy died down as a palpable hesitancy clawed its way down his dried throat.

After a passing moment filled with the static of silence, Rhaegar let out a pume of hot breath into the open air. “How can one love another when they are not certain in the prospected changing of the tides?”

“Certainty is not afforded to those who carry the name Targaryen… Lord Steffon is a reasonable man. He will not bring back anyone who is not fit to hold the title of ‘queen.’”

“With personality came wisdom.” He snickered, turning fastly as his uncertainty faded into nothingness. “You should be sent away to the Citadel to assemble your chain.”

Shaking her head, she pushed her hand against his arm and rolled her eyes. “Ser Barristan would grow bored surrounded by such a group. Perhaps I should instead be sent North. I can shed the wisdom and replace it with bravery.”

“The Targaryen princess banished to The Wall.” Rhaegar chided. “You can fight with the brothers in black against The Others.”

“The prince is to come of your lineage, not mine.”

“Oddities of the world are not set in stone. The prince could be a princess.”

“I was right.” The princess smiled with her teeth and tucked her chin to her chest as she looked down at her hands. “You are truly mad.”

Rhaegar’s hand shook her shoulder as he clasped it firmly over her cloak. “Madness is a disease we are rather prone to, sister. At the very least my form will not turn the realm to ash and dust.”

Tag List:

@issybee0611 @yellowbadgermole @ladysindar @usernameosv @thanyatargaryen @kishie8

[candor-creator]

do you happen to have some kind of playlist for sunspot? ive been wanting to add more songs to mine and i was wondering if youve got any recommendations? i love music and i for real love your interpretation of them

ooo!!! Technically yes, but instead of making a separate playlist for the two of them I just included the songs in both of their character playlists. Lemme grab a few goodies:

the big one I will put here is Tongues and Teeth by the Crane Wives, which, uh, "I know that you mean so well | But I am not a vessel for your good intent | I will only break your pretty things | I will only wring you dry of everything," so. anyways,

Canary in a Coal Mine - The Crane Wives; wrote a fic centering around this one Take Me To Church - Hozier; writing a fic titled after a lyric from this one Metaphor - The Crane Wives Dream of Better Things - Aliceband Fight For Me - Aliceband Be Nice To Me - The Front Bottoms Oleander - Mother Mother I Love You Like An Alcoholic - The Taxpayers Farewell Wanderlust - The Amazing Devil No Light, No Light - Florence + The Machine Mercy - Sir Chloe Daylight - David Kushner High Horse + Nobody + Can't Have It All + The Moon Will Sing, all - The Crane Wives. i like that band

these I specifically grabbed from Hollow's playlist - while there is a bit of overlap with Radi's, if you want some that are specifically her perspective shoot me another ask, just trying to keep this post from going on forever asdfghj

[libidomechanica]

Than a clapper classic frieze, with crown and Moon of all thy

A rispetto sequence

               I

Alas, thou shalt be so lives in his Highness. Maids drew a moral England, the golden morning to shame, is swimming full verse. I shadows many time of life was an insomniac … She came—and with yours. On her lids hung to spark, attracts each in the end of poesie were not. Fair, yet wanted none closet.—This part, gather’d in charged with pearls to swell’d so to severall Shape.

               II

The young ambition! And praise, Hypocrisy for this be truth may, if you are spread upon us while she would have left the heaven you departing colour vade of Loves cool moss extend. Tell your ears have part, and snared thine eyes first in his rage: scourge of her like a wash, would have cease to your whence I gave it was wartime, if I have to get a part were o’erheard us?

               III

Limb of a beacon, bare walls to prevent out. Morning from deference doth bowèd neck, the town, I sigh’d, and distant clip enjoy it; i’ll devis’d, do offences privilege on Juan, in hue the trains. Was a faults even young bride, fix’d prince all gen’rous youth that had been unexpecting comes in my heart, the should have sail’d, and blushing scandal hit.—Then he calm and baffled, what all.

               IV

Beside my Grandsire, and seen but a rake: men, some casual term of the End shall lay this poor heart. The sins with the suffer here that you perished, strength forests, turn’d something harsh kissed his foolish mind like varies he asked, that he wash’d half the warmth against though the addition, I lose no less; so as I forget, tis no more; whether the still hanker; as thoughts are show thou then.

               V

To plaining, a sore tender stem of all threde so shelter for your heart that ink may call grow they hurt me. Sweetness of these tree she would have her hair; i’ll described, we dread, and a glow, wind blew thee is laugh for lover, floats airily out of virtue crowded round what I so kind: and ioyes enioyes, the seraglio guest: your confess: no matter, nor its tender the heauen hent.

               VI

If that am I ravish’d Russian—how here more This post.—Jamie, come antique so favourite, and faith, I wish I knew youth could she, that wonder, die. And straight have founder’d, and the spaces between the voice before my Fall! Spark that where to look out? I answering hits each we say that he was in begin? Into a shake the cried, and shook her,—so they lie, allegiance!

               VII

But here ; and whispered ‘Go: we harmonious. In the trotting draperies from the morning shewed far brought, and would not that a man’s brow of his sort can no man know. Chains of tongues of one whose stretched brown earth turn his words extremely whole sex of queen of Gold! Nor lose by the racing car nor sleep; when I think you will to mine own intent the figured the warm you-smelling.

               VIII

Alas, my deadly swannish music, at whose victories. Sic a wife as Williams wake to humanity—must makes this cheek was not a Prison make, and slaughter of that each other, warn’d his Rein tow’rd me, as may choose all the Wolf, not be paid price, and in acting ask’d more that may be, and years, like amorous birds, or fear, a path the blue spurt of the center of thy love.

               IX

Some twenty summer in its golden dreams thy frown’d, as in a sore her matches, to take withdrew to fall: not for a spacious chime, whether won’t agree; with weeds and though you canst then die, that woman and quiet, sometimes, toilet’s be doing, turn’d rather we had seen to take: in which thee. Poets, though harbengers long since at a farewell loose gown going hurt make your life.

               X

Worn out it to the dim purpureal tresses lightning but a lass wi’ a tocher; they are cut off and not served. A third her all Aspasia’s royalty of your witchcraft o’ Beauties reddest in skins, raw from all awry: however she was abhorr’d: how eager come ages had give you taken at night described—what he was such make my grandmother’s! Had dragged your feet.

               XI

As souls, poets, which I hate revealing a tone of sorrow find out upon her innocence will scandal hit. Maids are for great! In faith embraced with apple fall upon his sight from the flouret of the hay-field, ere ships, and were, since Heav’n, a favourites, columns, broken its strange coin of bitter Eldre braunches current pour’d, famous face. At last by Time’s all them toll.

               XII

My milk home, it was, a wofull through the comfort my distraction in thy worthy being in designed to myself, or other’s face as legible as they body torn and look some are at all. Denies, the latch would win my bride. Or is it a silver more penchanting, the bridegroom the day, as going to have more beloved you all your arms to me here, light grows.

               XIII

She went up with the steal upon his beer. The wisest fool to pleasure, sacred hand was you had newly-caged, commands despite despite of virtue yet, I deplore it little think you don’t say no; and tears she went once more uniform. And with kindly could not limit, and me, as are, and jewels, twice that promise to your necks, and adders sunk chilly ones, round us lie?

               XIV

I strike, and, husbandry? Vase, forc’d by the weak Love speak. An’ a’ the board by the bush her father, I am not, joy delight, with Secretary Sis to comfort me makes there nymph we view, alluring shewed far fair Cypres doen advaunce: they came to i, that bards could wed in Dust, nor could be. This wholly unconscious contain. That sun their posts; and yet no remora.

               XV

Appeared a sleep; when your sins,—making up this poor of God do go, as he greatest way feminine do out of view she is dying Locke, as you will, good truth, however quick seven day was sorry, that wears might have been tools; and the porch with, Let the Vision burns; and thoughts with his being stag and then wild-flower to the fair and past expound with Novocain. Will not.

               XVI

That tardy millions; and dreadful pains; in the Bong-tree lay at will not fear: some scenes to peep, what were St. A charred spinning might have flowe in her elder cheek toward to sell forgive, there! One mornefull team won on homecoming of long years of conquests keep for whether hair, an’ wi’ her loof her own, and the age at least world; for presence, than those who lent his tongue was a theft.

               XVII

When he danced you should ask my love, and made for laugh at a man’s sufficiently, in the moral England, with unconscience chilly o’er his best pastured mountains, o love always choose to such precision, when I stood a beauty come and eddied into her know do we long car. And an ermine, but that my face, and gilte Rose—and the Living love, if thou then declines.

               XVIII

Thy Babish tricks in his medicine salesman or like an unshed thence wise Kings, than to glass of ioyes enioyes, that not seen: a Chapel was gone, two plummets dropt for adoration, than his side, and now drooping ring, haue no more; while at the well? Rich with two tall? All my wish that stand up a pile of Men, and shown lucus a non lucendo, ’ not wish: but would compriseth!

               XIX

Or rather caught the facts, over his title be but where he embrace; I loved, fill the Godless and senses them away! In the winds to a hole inside your image in sentimental friend Jeffrey writers rung, brainpan were they had temptations deep in the Darling but uneasy novelty he blessed poor cottage underneath through we called our even to hath thee!

[divetofall]

﹙ ✿ ﹚ ─ Golden leaves and spotlights ꒰ ♥︎

Hark, gentle reader, and lend thine ear to the tale of one who treads the boards in this modern age of melodious spectacle. I am she who bears the name Gaeul (가을), a moniker that whispers of autumn’s golden embrace, though Kim Ga Eul upon my arrival in this mortal coil on the twenty-fourth day of September, in the year two thousand and two.

From my first breath in the borough of Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, I felt the siren call of the stage. With a heart full of vim and vigour, I set forth on my journey of tutelage whilst still but a slip of a girl in the eighth form. Many a moon did I toil, honing my craft with the tenacity of a terrier, my resolve as my fondness for penny dreadfuls

Lo, in the yuletide of twenty-one, my labours bore fruit most sweet. I made my debut as the eldest of the IVE castle, a company of fair maidens destined to set hearts aflutter across the seven seas. Standing five feet and five inches in my stockings, I cut a fine figure, though I say it myself.

My fellows, bless their hearts, have seen fit to dub me "Dowager," a jest at my sage demeanour, no doubt. But let it not be said that I lack for mirth - indeed, my ready wit has become something of a calling card.

Though autumn’s child I may be, my heart belongs to the vernal season, and I bring that freshness to every performance. My quill is as nimble as my feet, and I take great pleasure in penning verses when not engaged in the daily ablutions of our team lodgings.

I approach each morn with the curiosity of a magpie, ever eager to add to my hoard of knowledge. Be it indulging in spine-chillers, conjuring visions of grand spectacles yet to come, or plotting jaunts with my dear comrade-in-arms Wonyoung, I embrace life’s rich pageant with open arms.

As my star ascends in the firmament of fame, I strive to remain as grounded as an oak, cherishing the bonds with my IVE sisterhood and ne'er forgetting the odyssey that brought me hither. In the grand land of our art, I, Gaeul, shine forth - a humble testament to dreams pursued and autumn leaves that cavort in the limelight.

— End —

And so, dear reader, I bid thee farewell for now, but fear not - the curtain has only just risen on this grand adventure of mine.

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks - “I Can Feel You Smiling” (Live in Studio)

Before it was a Tedeschi Trucks Band song, “I Can Feel You Smiling” was a duo number for Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.

Recorded during the band’s quarantine-era Fireside Sessions, this just-released version features Trucks on acoustic guitar and Tedeschi on vocals.

Before beginning, Trucks says he wrote it as an instrumental and sent it to Oliver Wood for some finishing touches.

“It’s a beautiful song,” Tedeschi says to her husband before singing it just beautifully to his tender, fingerpicked accompaniment.

She predicted the the full Tedeschi Trucks Band would eventually record the song. And they did, releasing it on 2022’s I Am The Moon IV: Farewell.

And while the previously released version is terrific, this is the one they probably should have stuck with. It’s pretty much perfect.

Grade card: Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks - “I Can Feel You Smiling” (Live in Studio) - A

12/21/22

[musiconspotify]

Tedeschi Trucks Band

I Am The Moon: IV. Farewell (2022) … the shortest …

#TedeschiTrucksBand

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ADWD: Jon VIII (Chapter 39)

Val waited by the gate in the predawn cold, wrapped up in a bearskin cloak so large it might well have fit Sam. Beside her was a garron, saddled and bridled, a shaggy grey with one white eye. Mully and Dolorous Edd stood with her, a pair of unlikely guards. Their breath frosted in the cold black air.

"You gave her a blind horse?" Jon said, incredulous.

"He's only half-blind, m'lord," offered Mully. "Elsewise he's sound enough." He patted the garron on the neck.

Look, it's Jon the horse.

+.+.+

"The horse may be half-blind, but I am not," said Val. "I know where I must go."

"My lady, you do not have to do this. The risk—"

"—is mine, Lord Snow. And I am no southron lady but a woman of the free folk. I know the forest better than all your black-cloaked rangers. It holds no ghosts for me."

Okay She-Ra, Princess of Power. Save the day, like only you can.

+.+.+

Do not fail me, he thought, or Stannis will have my head. "Do I have your word that you will keep our princess closely?" the king had said, and Jon had promised that he would. Val is no princess, though. I told him that half a hundred times. 

I wish Satin would remind you every once in a while.

+.+.+

It was a feeble sort of evasion, a sad rag wrapped around his wounded word. His father would never have approved. I am the sword that guards the realm of men, Jon reminded himself, and in the end, that must be worth more than one man's honor.

Something tells me Ned Stark would approve.

+.+.+

The road beneath the Wall was as dark and cold as the belly of an ice dragon and as twisty as a serpent.

Love when the Wall gets the dragon treatment.

+.+.+

When they emerged north of the Wall, through a thick door made of freshly hewn green wood, the wildling princess paused for a moment to gaze out across the snow-covered field where King Stannis had won his battle. 

Lol.

+.+.+

The light of the half-moon turned Val's honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. "The air tastes sweet."

"My tongue is too numb to tell. All I can taste is cold."

The Joneri'i pretending this is positive foreshadowing will forever be the funniest thing in the world.

"Your head's as wooden as your teeth," Hake told him. "There's no smell to cold."

There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander's chambers. It smells like death. - Jon IV, ACOK

+.+.+

"You have my thanks, Lord Snow. For the half-blind horse, the salt cod, the free air. For hope."

Their breath mingled, a white mist in the air. Jon Snow drew back and said, "The only thanks I want is—"

"—Tormund Giantsbane. Aye." Val pulled up the hood of her bearskin. The brown pelt was well salted with grey. "Before I go, one question. Did you kill Jarl, my lord?"

"The Wall killed Jarl."

"So I'd heard. But I had to be sure."

"You have my word. I did not kill him." Though I might have if things had gone otherwise.

"The only thing I want from you is—"

"Tormund. I know. Did you steal me?"

"No."

❤️❤️❤️

+.+.+

"This is farewell, then," she said, almost playfully.

Jon Snow was in no mood for it. It is too cold and dark to play, and the hour is too late.

❤️❤️❤️

No really, how many times must Jon Snow shut down this second rate blank canvas of a character before the fandom gets it? Fifty? One hundred?

+.+.+

"I have heard you singing to him."

"I was singing to myself. Am I to blame if he listens?" A faint smile brushed her lips. "It makes him laugh. Oh, very well. He is a sweet little monster."

"Monster?"

"His milk name. I had to call him something. See that he stays safe and warm. For his mother's sake, and mine. And keep him away from the red woman. She knows who he is. She sees things in her fires."

Ohhh, he heard the singing! To a baby! His kryptonite.

Shoot, too bad she wants to kill a child.

She knows who he is. She sees things in her fires.

I believe this. Melisandre knows that baby is not Mance's child. We're safe.

+.+.+

She sees things in her fires."

Arya, he thought, hoping it was so. "Ashes and cinders."

"Kings and dragons."

And Jon Snow. She saw lots of Jon Snow.

+.+.+

Dragons again. For a moment Jon could almost see them too, coiling in the night, their dark wings outlined against a sea of flame.

What does he mean by again? Is it the Stannis thing? Has he been having nightmares?

Two kings to wake the dragon. The father first and then the son, so both die kings. The words had been murmured by one of the queen's men as Maester Aemon had cleaned his wounds. - Jon I, ADWD

+.+.+

"If she knew, she would have taken the boy away from us. Dalla's boy, not your monster. A word in the king's ear would have been the end of it." And of me. Stannis would have taken it for treason. "Why let it happen if she knew?"

"Because it suited her. Fire is a fickle thing. No one knows which way a flame will go."

Because Shireen.

+.+.+

Val put a foot into a stirrup, swung her leg over her horse's back, and looked down from the saddle. "Do you remember what my sister told you?"

"Yes." A sword without a hilt, with no safe way to hold it. But Melisandre had the right of it. Even a sword without a hilt is better than an empty hand when foes are all around you.

I'll give Cool Girl credit for one thing, she knows not to play with magic.

Silly little Jon needs to be properly convinced.

+.+.+

Under the lid Jon discovered three duck's eggs fried in drippings, a strip of bacon, two sausages, a blood pudding, and half a loaf of bread still warm from the oven. He ate the bread and half an egg. He would have eaten the bacon too, but the raven made off with it before he had the chance. "Thief," Jon said, as the bird flapped up to the lintel above the door to devour its prize.

"Thief," the raven agreed.

The raven is prompted to say thief.

+.+.+

Septon Cellador appeared confused and groggy and in dire need of some scales from the dragon that had flamed him, whilst First Builder Othell Yarwyck looked as if he had swallowed something he could not quite digest. Bowen Marsh was angry. Jon could see it in his eyes, the tightness around his mouth, the flush to those round cheeks. That red is not from cold. "Please sit," he said. "May I offer you food or drink?"

What?

+.+.+

"The men have concerns, my lord."

And who is it who appointed you to speak for them?

Does it matter? If you know he's speaking for some of the men, then you have to make sure he buys into the vision.

+.+.+

"As do I. Othell, how goes the work at the Nightfort? I have had a letter from Ser Axell Florent, who styles himself the Queen's Hand. He tells me that Queen Selyse is not pleased with her quarters at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and wishes to move into her husband's new seat at once. Will that be possible?"

Yarwyck shrugged. "We've got most of the keep restored and put a roof back on the kitchens. She'd need food and furnishings and firewood, mind you, but it might serve. Not so many comforts as Eastwatch, to be sure. And a long way from the ships, should Her Grace wish to leave us, but … aye, she could live there, though it will be years before the place looks a proper castle. Sooner if I had more builders."

Apparently I've been sleep walking through these chapters. I'm only now registering men of the Night's Watch have been repairing the Nightfort so Stannis can make it his seat. Is Jon insane?

Is Shireen going to die at that creepy castle? Was there any hints in that Bran ASOS chapter? I'm too lazy to go back and check.

+.+.+

Jon Snow was unsurprised. "As you wish. We will keep the giant here." Truth be told, he would have been loath to part with Wun Wun. You know nothing, Jon Snow, Ygritte might say, but Jon spoke with the giant whenever he could, through Leathers or one of the free folk they had brought back from the grove, and was learning much and more about his people and their history. He only wished that Sam were here to write the stories down.

Add it to the list of things Sam has to write.

If only Yarwyck took Wun Wun. Jon might have survived one more chapter.

+.+.+

"We need good men at Long Barrow."

"Whore's Hole, the men have started calling it," said Marsh, "but be that as it may. Is it true that you mean to replace Emmett with this savage Leathers as our master-at-arms? That is an office most oft reserved for knights, or rangers at the least."

"Leathers is savage," Jon agreed mildly. "I can attest to that. I've tried him in the practice yard. He's as dangerous with a stone axe as most knights are with castle-forged steel. I grant you, he is not as patient as I'd like, and some of the boys are terrified of him … but that's not all for the bad. One day they'll find themselves in a real fight, and a certain familiarity with terror will serve them well."

Update: pomegranate still unhappy.

+.+.+

"He's a wildling."

"He was, until he said the words. Now he is our brother. One who can teach the boys more than swordcraft. It would not hurt them to learn a few words of the Old Tongue and something of the ways of the free folk."

"Free," the raven muttered. "Corn. King."

Nobody prompted the raven to say king. This is Bran.

+.+.+

Septon Cellador spoke up. "This boy Satin. It's said you mean to make him your steward and squire, in Tollett's place. My lord, the boy's a whore … a … dare I say … a painted catamite from the brothels of Oldtown."

[...]

"Most like," said Bowen Marsh, stony-faced, "but the men do not like it. Traditionally the lord commander's squires are lads of good birth being groomed for command. Does my lord believe the men of the Night's Watch would ever follow a whore into battle?"

Jon's temper flashed. "They have followed worse. The Old Bear left a few cautionary notes about certain of the men, for his successor. We have a cook at the Shadow Tower who was fond of raping septas. He burned a seven-pointed star into his flesh for every one he claimed. His left arm is stars from wrist to elbow, and stars mark his calves as well. At Eastwatch we have a man who set his father's house afire and barred the door. His entire family burned to death, all nine. Whatever Satin may have done in Oldtown, he is our brother now, and he will be my squire."

Update: pomegranate is angry.

I don't think Jon needs to justify this decision, but it's plainly obvious someone who is more politically savvy could spin it better.

+.+.+

Septon Cellador drank some wine. Othell Yarwyck stabbed a sausage with his dagger. Bower Marsh sat red-faced. The raven flapped its wings and said, "Corn, corn, kill." 

Nobody prompted the raven to say kill. This is SO Bran.

+.+.+

Might I ask about these corpses in the ice cells? They make the men uneasy. And to keep them under guard? Surely that is a waste of two good men, unless you fear that they …"

"… will rise? I pray they do."

[...]

"Can they talk?" asked Jon Snow. "I think not, but I cannot claim to know. Monsters they may be, but they were men before they died. How much remains? The one I slew was intent on killing Lord Commander Mormont. Plainly it remembered who he was and where to find him." Maester Aemon would have grasped his purpose, Jon did not doubt; Sam Tarly would have been terrified, but he would have understood as well. "My lord father used to tell me that a man must know his enemies. We understand little of the wights and less about the Others. We need to learn."

Plus they'll come in handy when you need to convince every lord in the north and Vale there's an issue beyond the Wall.

+.+.+

Septon Cellador sucked in his breath. "The king's prize. His Grace will be most wroth to find her gone."

[...]

 "I sent her to find Tormund Giantsbane and bring him my offer."

"If we may know, what offer is this?"

"The same offer I made at Mole's Town. Food and shelter and peace, if he will join his strength to ours, fight our common enemy, help us hold the Wall."

Bowen Marsh did not appear surprised. "You mean to let him pass." His voice suggested he had known all along. "To open the gates for him and his followers. Hundreds, thousands."

"If he has that many left."

Septon Cellador made the sign of the star. Othell Yarwyck grunted. Bowen Marsh said, "Some might call this treason. These are wildlings. Savages, raiders, rapers, more beast than man."

Update: pomegranate is furious.

Tell them you sent Val because you didn't want to endanger another man from the Night's Watch. Tell them you'd rather risk wildlings. Play the game!

+.+.+

"Tormund is none of those things," said Jon, "no more than Mance Rayder. But even if every word you said was true, they are still men, Bowen. Living men, human as you and me. Winter is coming, my lords, and when it does, we living men will need to stand together against the dead."

"Snow," screamed Lord Mormont's raven. "Snow, Snow."

Nobody prompted the raven to say snow. This is not Bloodraven!

+.+.+

"Mother Mole?" said Bowen Marsh. "An unlikely name."

"Supposedly she made her home in a burrow beneath a hollow tree. Whatever the truth of that, she had a vision of a fleet of ships arriving to carry the free folk to safety across the narrow sea. Thousands of those who fled the battle were desperate enough to believe her. Mother Mole has led them all to Hardhome, there to pray and await salvation from across the sea."

See what happens when you trust the visions of a witch?

Ships will go to Hardhome because the wildlings went to Hardhome. They made the prophecy come true!

+.+.+

He did. Hardhome had been halfway toward becoming a town, the only true town north of the Wall, until the night six hundred years ago when hell had swallowed it. Its people had been carried off into slavery or slaughtered for meat, depending on which version of the tale you believed, their homes and halls consumed in a conflagration that burned so hot that watchers on the Wall far to the south had thought the sun was rising in the north. Afterward ashes rained down on haunted forest and Shivering Sea alike for almost half a year. Traders reported finding only nightmarish devastation where Hardhome had stood, a landscape of charred trees and burned bones, waters choked with swollen corpses, blood-chilling shrieks echoing from the cave mouths that pocked the great cliff that loomed above the settlement.

Six centuries had come and gone since that night, but Hardhome was still shunned. The wild had reclaimed the site, Jon had been told, but rangers claimed that the overgrown ruins were haunted by ghouls and demons and burning ghosts with an unhealthy taste for blood. 

Every single opinion I've read believes it was volcanic activity. The hot pools at Winterfell are used to support this idea.

Here's my question. If a volcano erupted, why did the land not change?

Six hundred years ago. . . people carried off into slavery. . . a town consumed by fire. . . ashes rained down. . . nightmarish devastation. . . haunted by ghouls and demons and burning ghosts with an unhealthy taste for blood.

To me that sounds like dragonriders from Valyria came for a visit.

+.+.+

Septon Cellador pursed his lips. "Salvation can be found only through the Seven. This witch has doomed them all."

"And saved the Wall, mayhaps," said Bowen Marsh. "These are enemies we speak of. Let them pray amongst the ruins, and if their gods send ships to carry them off to a better world, well and good. In this world I have no food to feed them."

Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. "Cotter Pyke's galleys sail past Hardhome from time to time. He tells me there is no shelter there but the caves. The screaming caves, his men call them. Mother Mole and those who followed her will perish there, of cold and starvation. Hundreds of them. Thousands."

"Thousands of enemies. Thousands of wildlings."

Thousands of people, Jon thought. Men, women, children. Anger rose inside him, but when he spoke his voice was quiet and cold. "Are you so blind, or is it that you do not wish to see? What do you think will happen when all these enemies are dead?"

Above the door the raven muttered, "Dead, dead, dead."

Back to regular raven things.

King -> Kill -> Snow

Those were the words it spoke unprompted.

I don't agree with anything Bowen Marsh says, but I think it's fair to point out he's operating from a place of fear.

+.+.+

"Let me tell you what will happen," Jon said. "The dead will rise again, in their hundreds and their thousands. They will rise as wights, with black hands and pale blue eyes, and they will come for us." He pushed himself to his feet, the fingers of his sword hand opening and closing. "You have my leave to go."

Septon Cellador rose grey-faced and sweating, Othell Yarwyck stiffly, Bowen Marsh tight-lipped and pale. "Thank you for your time, Lord Snow." They left without another word.

Update: pomegranate is enraged.

Final thoughts:

Can we hire this boy a public relations team.

-> return to menu <-

[a-few-of-my-favorite-mangas]

A Few of My Favorite Mangas ( and Light Novels) Masterlist

| LIGHT NOVEL AND MANGAS (On-going)

A Tale of the Secret Saint LN (), Manga ()

Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter LN (4), Manga (5)

Ascendance of a Bookworm LN Book I (3), II (4), III (5), IV (7)

Ascendance of a Bookworm Manga Book I (7), II (1-2)

Ascendance of a Bookworm Fanbook (5)

Ascendance of a Book Worm Specials (1)

The Apothecary Diaries LN (5), Manga (5)

Bibliophile Princess LN (4), Manga (1)

Bofuri - I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense LN (1), Manga ()

By the Grace of the Gods LN (6), Manga (2)

Mushoku Tensei - Jobless Reincarnation LN (11), Manga ()

My Next Life as a Villainess LN (11), Manga (5)

I Swear I Won’t Bother You Again! LN (2), Manga (2)

The Saint’s Magic Power Is Omnipotent LN (5), Manga (4)

The Tales of Marielle Clarac LN (6), Manga ()

Tearmoon Empire LN (5), Manga ()

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime LN (12), Manga ()

| MANGA ( On-going )

A Side Character Love Story (11)

Abe-kun’s Got Me Now! ()

Again!!

Barakamon

Carole and Tuesday (03)

Chihayafuru (28)

The Decagon House Murders (04)

Dr. Stone (18)

Hatsu*Haru (6)

High School Debut ()

I'll Never Be Your Crown Princess! ()

In the Clear Moonlit Dusk (3)

Knight of the Ice (08)

Komi Can’t Communicate (18)

No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! ()

Ran the Peerless Beauty ()

Romantic Killer (1)

Sayonara Football / Farewell My Dear Cramer ()

Shadow House (1) (JAP07)

Skip Beat! (44)

Smile Down the Runway (18)

Something's Wrong with Us

Spy x Family (1)

Time Stop Hero

Uncle from Another World (03)

Villains are Destined to Die (2)

Waiting for Spring (14)

The Wallflower / YamatoNadeshiko ShichiHenge (36)

Welcome to the Ballroom (10)

With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day Is Fun

| LIGHT NOVELS ( On-going )

Can Someone Please Explain What’s going on? (05)

Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower (02)

LOG Horizon (10)

My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s (02)

Otherside Picnic (05)

Reincarnated as the Piggy Duke (01)

The Rising of the Shield Hero (21)

There is No Way a Side Character like Me Could Be Popular, Right? (02)

| MANGAS (Complete)

A School Frozen in Time (4)

Ao Haru Ride (13)

Arisa (12)

Beauty Pop (10)

Cat Street (1)

Food Wars! (36)

Goodbye, My Rose Garden (3)

Haikyuu!! (45)

Kimi ni Todoke (30)

Let’s Dance a Waltz (3)

Lisa Kleypas Romance Mangas

Magic Knight Rayearth (3)

Mame Coordinate (4)

My Primitive Boyfriend (3)

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Eternal Edition) (10)

The Prince of Tennis (42)

Princess Jellyfish Omnibus (9)

The Promised Neverland (21)

Star⇄Crossed!! (4)

Sweat and Soap (11)

Ultra Maniac (5)

The Wallflower / YamatoNadeshiko ShichiHenge (36)

Weathering With You (3)

Wotakoi - Love Is Hard for Otaku Omnibus (6)

| LIGHT NOVELS ( Complete )

Hello, I am a Witch and my Crush Wants me to Make a Love Potion! (2)

I’m in Love with the Villainess (5)

Prison Life is Easy for a Villainess (2)

| FUTURE READS

Boys over Flowers, Erased, Hikaru no Go, Kodomo no Omocha, Nadame Cantabile, Perfect World, Strobe Edge, Say I love You, One Piece, Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, Bleach, Demon Slayer, Berserk, How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom

[dudewhoabides]

Tedeschi Trucks Band - I Am The Moon: Episode IV. Farewell

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Epilogue: Ja Mata, Friends

I finally finished the Main Story Quest Rewritten Series! Yaaaaay! *Kermit Flail!*

Erii settled down on her knees and opened her little red suitcase. She wrote down on the paper notepad that she was supposed to be going to Korea to start a new life, but you notice that she didn’t pack very much. 

Your body still aches terribly to the point where you wanted to puke. Your eyes rolled with fatigue. But Erii was showing you her things and writing down her words in her way to chat with you even though you could only stare blankly.

You were in the middle of a graveyard of bones. The cooling effect of the broken canister of liquid nitrogen mixed with the spring air and created a dense fog in the Red Well. But you could still see the outlines of ribs, femurs and skulls among the pile of debris. Charred skeletons embraced each other in battle and deadpool remains mixed with human remains. It reminded you of a scene in an ancient fossilized tar pit. Over hundreds or thousands of years, countless animals and people fell into the pit and died together. Archeologists discovered them but their bones were all mixed up.

Erii showed you her Roman shoes, her white strapped shoes, her hairpins, stockings and ribbons all neatly packed. Then she showed you her little toys. Then she showed you her postcards.

“On April 24th, I went to Tokyo Sky Tree with Sakura. The warmest place in the world is on the Sky Tree.”

“On April 26th, I went to Meiji Shrine with Sakura. Someone held a wedding there.”

“On April 25th, I went to the amusement park with Sakura. The haunted house was scary, but with Sakura there it wasn’t so scary.”

You blink sleepily and suppress a yawn to avoid the pain of stretching your bones. “Hmm… at Christmas, I will take you to see Siberia.”

She nods seriously as this is a solemn vow to her.

Erii quietly took out some of her clothes and pressed them against your skin. The battle had ruined the last remnants of your wedding dress. She opened a blouse and slid it on your arms, pausing when you flinched and hissed in pain, only to continue when you relaxed. Then she buttoned up the front for you. She handed you her skirt and slipped it over your body. 

A soft noise, like a stone rolling down a hill made you sit up in alarm. Erii pressed one hand to your shoulder to keep you from standing. She wrote in her notebook. “Sakura is here.”

You blink at an approaching, staggering human shaped shadow in the fog. For a second, you think it’s Z and your heart lifts. In a few more seconds, Lu Mingfei came into view. Erii with her amazing hearing had already sensed his approach. That explained why she had dressed you and covered you up.

The man looked exhausted and soaked to the bone. At the sight of Erii’s wave, he relaxed to near collapse. “You’re here!” He exclaimed.

Lu Mingfei stumbled the rest of the way into her arms. He hugged her tightly and after a long time, he quietly began to cry. You watched them embrace, feeling happy for them at first, and your eyes grow dull.

Chance was gone. Ruri Kazama was gone too. He fell asleep in the mind of Chime and you would never be so greedy as to use the clapper on him to bring him back. Chime was off somewhere with his brother. It was uncertain if you’d ever see him again. Somehow, you’d seen the world, been wooed by the most beautiful men of Tokyo and still had ended up alone with no one to hold you and cry. 

Lu Mingfei had arrived in a black Mercedes and that’s what you took to get out of this place. You fell asleep on your way there.

You woke up days later to an IV in your arm in the comfort of the luxury suite. You stare up at the princess canopy. You’re surprised. How could it be that this place remained untouched throughout the whole disaster? Ruri Kazama knew your room. Perhaps by his fierce order, all the Devil Clan members knew not to destroy the bedroom of his precious love.

“MC…” A familiar voice speaks out of the dimly lit corner. You sit up. 

Renata was sitting next to your bedside. Her long blond hair was down over her bare shoulders. She wore a frilly blue lace top and a light yellow skirt with a white obi belt at her waist. A black knee brace interrupted her silhouette. For a moment you stare silently into each other’s eyes, expressionless. 

“Is there still a bug in this room?” You ask.

“I had Fingel remove it.” She said, standing and sitting next to you on your bed.

You finally wrap your arms around her, rest your head in her chest, and the tears roll down your face. Renata doesn’t cry but the strength in her arms as they hold you, so firm and so tightly, conveys her thoughts. You slept for twenty years and traveled all the way across the world. You’d fought with monsters and devils, gangsters and gods. But you still managed to find each other in the end. In this secret hide away in the dark, you could hold each other again. You press your ear to her chest and listen to that strong heavy heartbeat and hear her breathe in and out. “Renata… I loved you back then.”

“I thought so too. I was too embarrassed to say anything about it. I was afraid of getting in trouble with the nurses. But please. Continue to call me Zero. It’s more than my new identity. It’s who I am now.” She pulled away from you slightly. “Do you know about… him?”

You know she’s talking about Z and you nod. “A little.”

“Please keep it to yourself.” Her eyes were gentle, but her voice held a command. “There are things that are still far beyond that we cannot understand. But if you stay useful to the end, he will not leave you.”

It takes three months for everything to settle and, in the meantime, you stay with the men in Takamagahara Night Club. Your bloodline test returns completely clean and you are installed as a full member of Cassell College.  You don’t tell them how it happened, that you were bitten by the Light King parasite and filled head to toe with its fetal blood. When Erii embraced you, the effect was the same. She bathed in the blood of a young dragon and her bloodline issues resolved. In Caesar’s report, he simply states that your bloodline problems were clerical errors and you were never a dangerous hybrid.

In those months, the club Takamagahara was fully restored. Though Tokyo still lies in ruins, a great final performance has been arranged. You settle in your seat next to Zero and she looks at you and smiles.

The curtain was slowly opened. Caesar’s fingers ran across the keys of a piano, Chu Zihang blew out the first note on the saxophone and the applause rolled over like a tide. The spotlights swayed over them and the banners that read “Love Sakura!” “BasaraKing forever!” and “Sacred Ukyo!”

Zero huffed to your right. “Someone should stand behind Lu Mingfei before he faints.”

Erii sat next to you on your left and held up a sign. “Go Sakura!”

Tonight is his debut show and the farewell show for the three of them. The theme is ``Goodbye, Ikemen Team.” The TV regrettably announced that BasaraKing, Ukyou, and Little Sakura would be returning to the United States due to their expiring contract. Tonight is their last performance. They would also be ending their careers as performers, so this was truly Sayounara.

All the tickets were sold out in advance. Not even VIPs could get a hold of them. Whole bar fixtures were removed to accommodate more guests. The dance floor was full of women, young and old. Everyone was dressed in costumes from shiny sexy short skirts to dignified long black sleeves. In order to ensure safety, the Metropolitan Police Department temporarily activated traffic control measures and everyone had to walk to the Takamagahara.

Apparently, Cassell had pulled some sort of mass brainwashing. All the people who witnessed the raging deadpool in the club suddenly didn’t remember it that way at all. They only remembered you and the boys protecting and helping people during the storm and that was it. Cassell was scarily efficient at hiding the truth of the world from the world.

Lu Mingfei stepped to the microphone and looked at Erii and sang a shaky little “Sayounara.” He picked up the champagne on the piano cover and drank.

You only understand the word Sayounara in the song. It’s all in Japanese. Lu Mingfei might not have the best voice, but he does have the best Japanese of the three. You quickly pick up a handkerchief. “Erii… don’t cry! Come on, you have to give your support! You can still chat over Line tonight.”

There was no more fear that Erii would rage out of control and kill everyone. So she was free to express sad emotions like this. Now her red eyes ran with tears. “I want to go to the US with Sakura.” She wrote.

“And you will! You will! Eventually… Don’t despair okay?”

The best theater speakers in Tokyo were tuned to the use of the Takamagahara. The sound from the subwoofers burst like ten thousand cannons. Caesar’s piano skills were handed down to him from the world’s top masters and flowed into the sound system. Chu Zihang’s saxophone was also very good. The musical emotional refrain climbed higher and higher. And then when the hall seemed to no longer be able to accommodate such surging music, the top of the hall suddenly opened letting in the moon and starlight.

The spring had turned to summer and the warm air of the seaside city flooded in. You look up at the star strewn sky and grin. Your hand tightens on Zero’s hand. “Make a wish.” You whisper.

Caesar got up from the piano and Chu Zihang put down the saxophone. They all walked to Lu Mingfei’s side and the three took each other’s hands and bowed deeply. 

Cries and applause swept the stage like a storm. And the enthusiasm can't be contained. Women rushed the stage to embrace the young men who were leaving but the stage was too high to climb. So they throw roses, thousands of roses until the stage is covered with bright red, pink and white.

“Ukyou! Ukyou! BasaraKing! Basaraking! I love you! Don’t leave!”

It was time for the final rankings of the performers. At this moment, the spotlight suddenly came on to Lu Mingfei. Whale who had lost an arm in the disaster strode onto the stage. “According to Takamagahara practice, whether Little Sakura stays in our warm family depends on one thing - love! That is, your love!” Whale shouted. “Only the flower tickets of your love can get him to stay. So vote for him. Waiter! Please reveal how much love did LIttle Sakura get during his internship?”

A waiter came with an envelope on the platter. Whale tore it open with his teeth and shouted “320 flower tickets!”

“Oh…” You wince. Poor Lu Mingfei. Chu Zihang and Caesar and easily gathered over 900 ticket buyers in a few days. And after months here Lu Mingfei couldn’t gather half that.

But Whale continued. “In addition to the flower tickets purchased before the show, the total is 100,320 flower tickets! Congratulations Little Sakura, you passed the internship period and you are now a member of our Takamagahara club family!”

Whale took a check from his pocket. A projector enlarged the check until it was the whole background of the stage. It was a check for 100 million yen. Lu Mingfei stood in stunned silence. The check was signed by Erii Uesugi.

Erii had stood up at the end of the show but now she held up a new sign with a sad silent face. The sign read clearly. “Sakura, please stay.”

“Oh… Oh Erii…” Your heart was moved by this. You reach out to her.

Zero takes your arm and whispers urgently. “You have to go now. Or else you’ll miss them.”

You hesitate. Erii doesn’t look at you or shift from that spot. Lu Mingfei stares at her over the crowd but the curtain goes down in front of him. Zero is pushing you now and you have to go.

Erii still stands there even though the curtain is down.

Zero drags you out a side entrance to a waiting Alfa Romero Sports car.

“You can comfort her later.” Zero says as she shuts the door of the driver’s side of the vehicle.

“Yeah…” You buckle up and then do a double take. “Since when did you learn how to drive?”

“Since forever ago.” She turned her head and backed out of the alley and sped down the street so fast you were pressed into the leather. 

The helicopter was parked in a large parking lot two blocks away and the eight executive members of the Hydra lined up to send the Cassell team off. After this incident, the Japanese branch was established again, but a new agreement was signed. Anjou gave up his personal control over the branch, though he still holds the highest decision making power.

The last surviving member of the original family was Nanami Sakurai and she was promoted as Minister of Japan and the new acting director of the Executive Bureau. Chisei and his brother were missing in action and assumed dead. But before his disappearance, Chisei had left the leadership to Mrs. Sakurai. Caesar and Anjou spoke to Mrs. Nanami and she was impressed by their words enough to let you have a special internship and training as a White King bloodline operative and you would be handling all matters when it came to the Devil Clan and unstable hybrids.

“These small gifts left by the clan chief are not quite high end,” Crow gave sunscreen in glass bottles to Casear, Anjou, Lu Mingfei, Zero, and Fingel. “They’re his whole collection. He was really serious about going and selling sunscreen.”

“I’ll smear it on the prettiest girl’s back for him.” Caesar said.

“That would make him happy. That’s what he looked forward to the most.” Crow said.

Your heart aches slightly, thinking of Sakura Yabuki. You wondered where Chisei was now. You hoped he managed to find peace somewhere with his brother.

Caesar approached you. “Are you going to be alright by yourself?”

Your lips curl upward. Then you dip your head and delicately remove your contact lenses. Your eyes are glowing golden, permanently. One didn’t just brush up against the experience of being a dragon king and not be left with some sequelae. “Caesar… Are you going to be alright by yourself?” You ask in a sly voice.

Caesar averts his eyes. “Okay, okay, point taken.”

You replace the contacts in your eyes. “I’m no Caesar Gattuso, but I think I can hold my own here.”

Caesar’s eyes soften. “We’re going to look for him.”

Your smile fades. “Don’t look too hard.” Your chest aches again. “Chime needs time. And so do I.”

Caesar pulls you into a tight hug. You inhale deeply and focus on the bright sweet scent of tobacco. “Don’t forget to text me when you get in. And tell Nono I said hello.”

“I will.”

You approach Lu Mingfei. His eyes are dim and he doesn’t look up. You shake your head. You’re living because of this guy, so you can’t punch him or threaten him too badly. You tap his nose and he looks up at you, looking irritated. 

“Better step up, pretty boy. She went through a lot for you.”

“I know… I... “ Lu Mingfei rubbed the back of his head.

“Don’t say anything! I’m having the hardest time not dragging you back to the Takamagahara right now. It’s 100 mil yen man… come on.” You suddenly hug him tight.

“Ow! Ow! Have you been working out or something? Geez you’re gonna leave a bruise!” He whined.

“Text her.” That’s the last you say to Lu Mingfei.

You approach Chu Zihang. He looked down at you with golden eyes hidden behind black eyed contact lenses. Even now, you didn’t feel particularly close to him, especially not close enough to hug. Chu Zihang was holding a long white wood box that contained Chisei’s swords anyway. He nodded once to you.

“I will be following your progress closely.” He said.

Principal Anjou was blowing out a puff on his cigar as you approached him. He handed you a small white card. “This is your official Cassell Credentials. You’ll be on remote study, but given your performance, you can study at your leisure.”

“Thank you, Principal. I would like to learn Japanese, and how to drive faster than Zero.”

Zero looked up from where she was about to board the helicopter and rolled her eyes at you, but there was a trace of a smile on her lips.

The helicopter took them up into the sky and you watched as its white light disappeared like a shooting star flying into the distance, taking your friends away across the ocean to the United States. 

You turned back to Crow who bowed deeply until he was horizontal. “Mrs. Chief. Forgive my bad English, but your car is ready to go to your new accommodations at the Hydra headquarters in Genji Heavy Industries.”

You grin flashing your white teeth at him. “Arigatou.”

[nekogojo]

one-shot - Levi Ackerman

Levi stood by the open window in the empty room, the moonlight bathing upon his sharp features as he drags another puff from the cigarette deep into his lungs. The orange embers on the tip of his cigarette danced slowly in contrast with the darkroom, balanced between his long and slender fingers. I sighed as I made my way across the room to him while drinking him in with my eyes, his petite but muscular frame never fails to make my heart beat just a little bit faster.

He noticed my footsteps coming closer to him. As he turned around to face me, I grabbed ahold of his shoulder and the windowsill where he was resting his elbows and hauled myself onto the windowsill, my legs dangling on either side of him and our chests so close I can almost hear his heartbeat. I stared into those deep gray eyes that were usually so cold and lifeless, but around me, I noticed they sparked just the tiniest bit. I smiled softly at the thought, but I snapped back into reality when I felt the soft touch of Levi's hands resting on my waist. My eyes never felt his face, and as he noticed the slight widening of my eyes and the blush creeping up my neck, he couldn't help but let out a small smirk, with the cigarette now placed between his lips. He noticed the effect he was having on me with even the slightest movements, which propelled him to grip my waist tighter as his fingers slowly start massaging into my skin, and even though I am fully clothed, I felt the heat of his fingers.

My breath started to come out in ragged puffs as I was thoroughly enjoying the tender touch of his soft but firm hands on me.

But I wasn't going to let him have the last laugh.

My eyes lingered for a moment on his full lips before slowly making their way up to his face, letting my gaze bore into him. I noticed immediately how quickly his sparkling eyes clouded over and darkened as I could see him being taken over by lust. I let a sickly sweet smile envelop my face as I quickly wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him even closer to me, our chests now touching, and I could smell the slight cigarette breath he had. His breathing hitched as I tightened my legs around him while his arms fully snaked around my waist as he held me close.

Levi and I were the same height, but sitting on the windowsill added a couple of inches to my height, not only that, but the fact I have a long torso meant that I had to dip my head down slightly to look at him. I relished at his surprised face as I draped an arm around his shoulder, my fingers slowly making their way up into his soft hair as I made a firm tug on the back of his head, so he looked up at me. His hands were at the small of my back, gathering my blouse into his balled-up fists.

With my hand still in his hair, I used the other side to cup his face as I leaned closer to him, our breaths mingling. Levi took a sharp intake of breath as I softly grabbed the cigarette from between his lips with my teeth. As I pulled away, I felt his gaze on my lips as I tantalizingly used my tongue to shift the stick so that the orange tip ended up dangling outside of my mouth and not inside. I took away the hand that was cupping his face and held up the cigarette from between my fingers as I took a long drag, then while holding it in my lungs, I snubbed the smoke onto the side of the windowsill.

I watched as the last embers of the smoke died out before proceeding to throw it into the outside bin. I turned to face Levi as he looked at me with a slightly annoyed look on his face, pushing me to annoy him even more by proceeding to blow out slowly, his entire face shrouded with the plume of smoke. I grinned to myself as I saw the dark cloud of anger when the smoke cleared, and just as he was about to open his mouth and scold me, I tugged his hair again to look up at me as my lips came crashing down on his.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

We stayed there by the windowsill in each other's arms, hearts racing together, my face buried in the crook of his neck as the moon bid its farewell as the sun dragged its way into the sky, signalling a new day.

Author’s note: AHHHHHHHHHHHHH this was a scenario i have had in my head for the longest time but it wasn’t until now i decided to publish the one of many ongoing scenarios that take over my head rent free. anyways i literally love levi to pieces he can step on me and also i did not edit this i literally just went blah blah and wrote this so yeah hope u enjoy!! p.s the most explicit ive ever written, i dont ever write smth fuelled w sexual tension but i had fun writing this

[thelonguepuree]

Eleven Stars Over Andalusia

I. On our last evening on this land On our last evening on this land we chop our days from our young trees, count the ribs we'll take with us and the ribs we'll leave behind … On the last evening we bid nothing farewell, nor find the time to end … Everything remains as it is, it is the place that changes our dreams and its visitors. Suddenly we're incapable of irony, this land will now host atoms of dust … Here, on our last evening, we look closely at the mountains besieging the clouds: a conquest … and a counter-conquest, and an old time handing this new time the keys to our doors. So enter our houses, conquerors, and drink the wine of our mellifluous Mouwashah. We are the night at midnight and no horseman will bring dawn from the sanctuary of the last Call to Prayer … Our tea is green and hot; drink it. Our pistachios are fresh; eat them. The beds are of green cedar, fall on them, following this long siege, lie down on the feathers of our dreams. The sheets are crisp, perfumes are ready by the door, and there are plenty of mirrors: enter them so we may exit completely. Soon we will search in the margins of your history, in distant countries, for what was once our history. And in the end we will ask ourselves: Was Andalusia here or there? On the land … or in the poem? II. How can I write above the clouds? How can I write my people's testament above the clouds when they abandon time as they do their coats at home, my people who raze each fortress they build and pitch on its ruins a tent, nostalgic for the beginning of palm trees? My people betray my people in wars over salt. But Granada is made of gold, of silken words woven with almonds, of silver tears in the string of a lute. Granada is a law unto herself: it befits her to be whatever she wants to be: nostalgia for anything long past or which will pass. A swallow's wing brushes a woman's breast, and she screams: “Granada is my body.” In the meadow someone loses a gazelle, and he screams, “Granada is my country." And I come from there … So sing until from my ribs the goldfinches can build a staircase to the nearer sky. Sing of the chivalry of those who ascend, moon by moon, to their death in the Beloved's alley. Sing the birds of the garden, stone by stone. How I love you, who have broken me, string by string, on the road to her heated night. Sing how, after you, the smell of coffee has no morning. Sing of my departure, from the cooing of doves on your knees and from my soul nesting in the mellifluous letters of your name. Granada is for singing, so sing! III. There is a sky beyond the sky for me There is a sky beyond the sky for my return, but I am still burnishing the metal of this place, living in an hour that foresees the unseen. I know that time cannot twice be on my side, and I know that I will leave— I’ll emerge, with wings, from the banner I am, bird that never alights on trees in the garden— I will shed my skin and my language. Some of my words of love will fall into Lorca's poems; he'll live in my bedroom and see what I have seen of the Bedouin moon. I’ll emerge from almond trees like cotton on sea foam. The stranger passed, carrying seven hundred years of horses. The stranger passed here to let the stranger pass there. In a while I'll emerge a stranger from the wrinkles of my time, alien to Syria and to Andalusia. This land is not my sky, yet this evening is mine. The keys are mine, the minarets are mine, the lamps are mine, and I am also mine. I am Adam of the two Edens, I who lost paradise twice. So expel me slowly, and kill me slowly, under my olive tree, along with Lorca … IV. I am one of the kings of the end And I am one of the kings of the end … I jump off my horse in the last winter. I am the last gasp of an Arab. I do not look for myrtle over the roofs of houses, nor do I look around: no one should know me, no one should recognize me, no one who knew me when I polished marble words to let my woman step barefoot over dappled light. I do not look into the night, I mustn’t see a moon that once lit up all the secrets of Granada, body by body. I do not look into the shadow, so as not to see somebody carrying my name and running after me: take your name away from me and give me the silver of the white poplar. I do not look behind me, so I won't remember I’ve passed over this land, there is no land in this land since time broke around me shard by shard. I was not a lover believing that water is a mirror, as I told my old friends, and no love can redeem me, for I've accepted the “peace accord” and there is no longer a present left to let me pass, tomorrow, close to yesterday. Castile will raise its crown above God's minaret. I hear the rattling of keys in the door of our golden history. Farewell to our history! Will I be the one to close the last door of the sky, I, the last gasp of an Arab? V. One day I will sit on the pavement One day I will sit on the pavement … the pavement of the estranged. I was no Narcissus; still I defend my image in the mirrors. Haven't you been here once before, stranger? Five hundred years have passed, but our breakup wasn't final, and the messages between us never stopped. The wars did not change the gardens of my Granada. One day I'll pass its moons and brush my desire against a lemon tree … Embrace me reborn from the scents of sun and river on your shoulders, from your feet that scratch the evening until it weeps milk to accompany the poem's night … I was not a passerby in the words of singers … I was the words of the singers, the reconciliation of Athens and Persia, an East embracing a West embarked on one essence. Embrace me that I may be born again from Damascene swords hanging in shops. Nothing remains of me but my old shield and my horse's gilded saddle. Nothing remains of me but manuscripts of Averroes, The Collar of the Dove, and translations … On the pavement, in the Square of the Daisy, I was counting the doves: one, two, thirty … and the girls snatching the shadows of the young trees over the marble, leaving me leaves yellow with age. Autumn passed me by, and I did not notice the entire season had passed. Our history passed me on the pavement … and I did not notice. VI. Truth has two faces and the snow is black Truth has two faces and the snow falls black on our city. We can feel no despair beyond our despair, and the end-firm in its step-marches to the wall, marching on tiles that are wet with our tears. Who will bring down our flags: we or they? And who will recite the “peace accord,” O king of dying? Everything's prepared for us in advance; who will tear our names from our identity: you or they? And who will instill in us the speech of wanderings: “We were unable to break the siege; let us then hand the keys to our paradise to the Minister of Peace, and be saved…” Truth has two faces. To us the holy emblem was a sword hanging over us. So what did you do to our fortress before this day? You didn't fight, afraid of martyrdom. Your throne is your coffin. Carry then the coffin to save the throne, O king of waiting, this exodus will leave us only a handful of dust … Who will bury our days after us: you … or they? And who will raise their banners over our walls: you … or a desperate knight? Who will hang their bells on our journey: you … or a miserable guard? Everything is fixed for us; why, then, this unending conclusion, O king of dying? VII. Who am I after the night of the estranged? Who am I after the night of the estranged? I wake from my dream, frightened of the obscure daylight on the marble of the house, of the sun's darkness in the roses, of the water of my fountain; frightened of milk on the lip of the fig, of my language; frightened of wind that—frightened—combs a willow; frightened of the clarity of petrified time, of a present no longer a present; frightened, passing a world that is no longer my world. Despair, be merciful. Death, be a blessing on the stranger who sees the unseen more clearly than a reality that is no longer real. I’ll fall from a star in the sky into a tent on the road to … where? Where is the road to anything? I see the unseen more clearly than a street that is no longer my street. Who am I after the night of the estranged? Through others I once walked toward myself, and here I am, losing that self, those others. My horse disappeared by the Atlantic, and by the Mediterranean I bleed, stabbed with a spear. Who am I after the night of the estranged? I cannot return to my brothers under the palm tree of my old house, and I cannot descend to the bottom of my abyss. You, the unseen! Love has no heart … no heart in which I can dwell after the night of the estranged … VIII. O water, be a string to my guitar O water, be a string to my guitar. The conquerors arrived, and the old conquerors left. It is difficult to remember my face in the mirrors. Water, be my memory, let me see what I have lost. Who am I after this exodus? I have a rock with my name on it, on a hill from which I see what's long gone … Seven hundred years escort me beyond the city wall … In vain time turns to let me salvage my past from a moment that gives birth to my exile … and others’ … To my guitar, O water, be a string. The conquerors arrived, and the old conquerors left, heading southward, repairing their days in the trashheap of change: I know who I was yesterday, but who will I be in a tomorrow under Columbus’s Atlantic banners? Be a string, be a string to my guitar, O water! There is no Misr in Egypt, no Fez in Fez, and Syria draws away. There is no falcon in my people's banner, no river east of the palm groves besieged by the Mongols' fast horses. In which Andalusia do I end? Here or there? I will know I've perished and that here I've left the best part of me: my past. Nothing remains but my guitar. Then be to my guitar a string, O water. The old conquerors left, the new conquerors arrived. IX. In the exodus I love you more In the exodus I love you more. In a while you will lock the city's gates. There is no heart for me in your hands, and no road anywhere for my journey. In this demise I love you more. After your breast, there is no milk for the pomegranate at our window. Palm trees have become weightless, the hills have become weightless, and streets in the dusk have become weightless; the earth has become weightless as it bids farewell to its dust. Words have become weightless, and stories have become weightless on the staircase of night. My heart alone is heavy, so let it remain here, around your house, barking, howling for a golden time. It alone is my homeland. In the exodus I love you more, I empty my soul of words: I love you more. We depart. Butterflies lead our shadows. In exodus we remember the lost buttons of our shirts, we forget the crown of our days, we remember the apricot's sweat, we forget the dance of horses on festival nights. In departure we become only the birds' equals, merciful to our days, grateful for the least. I am content to have the golden dagger that makes my murdered heart dance— kill me then, slowly, so I may say: I love you more than I had said before the exodus. I love you. Nothing hurts me, neither air nor water … neither basil in your morning nor iris in your evening, nothing hurts me after this departure. X. I want from love only the beginning I want from love only the beginning. Doves patch, over the squares of my Granada, this day's shirt. There is wine in our clay jars for the feast after us. In the songs there are windows: enough for blossoms to explode. I leave jasmine in the vase; I leave my young heart in my mother's cupboard; I leave my dream, laughing, in water; I leave the dawn in the honey of the figs; I leave my day and my yesterday in the passage to the Square of the Orange where doves fly. Did I really descend to your feet so speech could rise, a white moon in the milk of your nights … pound the air so I could see the Street of the Flute blue … pound the evening so I could see how this marble between us suffers? The windows are empty of the orchards of your shawl. In another time I knew so much about you. I picked gardenias from your ten fingers. In another time there were pearls for me around your neck, and a name on a ring whose gem was darkness, shining. I want from love only the beginning. Doves flew in the last sky, they flew and flew in that sky. There is still wine, after us, in the barrels and jars. A little land will suffice for us to meet, a little land will be enough for peace. XI. Violins Violins weep with gypsies going to Andalusia Violins weep for Arabs leaving Andalusia Violins weep for a time that does not return Violins weep for a homeland that might return Violins set fire to the woods of that deep deep darkness Violins tear the horizon and smell my blood in the vein Violins weep with gypsies going to Andalusia Violins weep for Arabs leaving Andalusia Violins are horses on a phantom string of moaning water Violins are the ebb and flow of a field of wild lilacs Violins are monsters touched by the nail of a woman now distant Violins are an army, building and filling a tomb made of marble and Nahawund Violins are the anarchy of hearts driven mad by the wind in a dancer’s foot Violins are flocks of birds fleeing a torn banner Violins are complaints of silk creased in the lover's night Violins are the distant sound of wine falling on a previous desire Violins follow me everywhere in vengeance Violins seek me out to kill me wherever they find me Violins weep for Arabs leaving Andalusia Violins weep with gypsies going to Andalusia —Mahmoud Darwish (1992), trans. Mona Anis, Nigel Ryan, Aga Shahid Ali, Ahmad Dallal

[libidomechanica]

Till in a clouds do lie forget the Apostel tolde he me

A Meredith sonnet sequence

               I

In procession of May is no lights be   terme of one down, down, used! The God curst sun,   and kick your tears, from sonny rayes, was table- cloth and by love, and revolutions, lavours, wherwith youre owene may bring thy   Father’d with pretty ruth upon the gods   the pit, and thy beauty and find him another liue. Till in a clouds do lie forget the Apostel tolde he me blest mood   has yielded: she, most impossibly useless   grace, which the Spring, and night, the shrubs, with Phoebus gan avails the Seas Seventh— the Seventh a Moon, and stealing to quench   in her eye, that win, their hear the people   would shade thee liste; taak your haddė God curst sun, and Loue doth lose my spirit-voice, in reste!

               II

And, lang ere was Alisoun, as now to   grasp our little dart is so rare. Let me   was nature is not so hard, and darkened her eyes of old to entangle me a feeste on ever in hir good, shal berė hym   of the night will serve people, grief in your   curls, and Leander; and bask in the shadow grows erect, as she! Sire oldest seye, Wyf, go wherefore you in ioyes remaine,   rather call when soft their end; each changed   away; if on me, the gleam, where else I selle my breast; i, sick with want&i can heart in its move; the salt weed sways in goodness   spent, a mind is sweet. He laity our   lowd desire what thonder-dynt and no rose-bud-like me, and kneled faire adoun.

               III

And lone; yet koude noght to weep, and juicy.   But all a solempnytee, and you have paid   to shatter that poore my Fall! Like a bird All along there are not thrive to comfort is, she never wished he hir house, the   benefit of rest? And I, while on youth that   I took hym on honde hadde at Thebes sory grace to wedde me yeve it were thou art thou poured overal the Temple’s worth a fear,   the power, or shame the air, so by the   soyle, that thogh folk and her exultations, lavours, when we shall mar utterly hym wrong. Never. I give me not so. In   another as she: and takė witnesse sweeter   sweets my mistress’ eye Love’s remorseless but still. Through, clasp and strife: he brought it near.

               IV

Foist upon folds of golden hair. The dede;   and in beauty slumber of Wisdom is   the policemen who kicked men—and you age unbred; ere you were used to my plaine, whose eyes with face is reckon with pain—surely   she no lenger speke of cherries themselves   with thee. How far I toil, still cavern deep, therafter then without. And wonted rendezvous, but night. Come against each place me   zones and find then compass come to shatter   if I have tolde han sorwe! Dame, I am experience. Too many noiseless they were good, shal berė hym on the Signs of   trespasse did quickly, before farewel!   The dew of more, speak of love, and denisen’d with your boughes doe you have no more.

               V

Accuse me did appetit; and have his   stirrups, just as eager or nothing the   thick stain’d when they fed not run too fast, for open-heveded her was no while ye may be deed er it was it yesterday   and pants as dew on flowing and groan: to   say him now beside a week and Is To- day is not evere folks of May is not dead, flying the humbly own—’tis dear, was   table as hell with mine ear. Accuse me   in for dowry with thee, is of the cattes skyn, that love her that salt of her hair; and built, in the vista of years longer   droue: I neuer lyst prechestow of a   royall her to brow, doth part from which wooed. That ye have not abuse me now! Peter!

               VI

As ten color is it thee it   innumerable glittering overmuch, stand   an Asia, and then too late, our came; she so fall be it in Cupids fights that that I love you have licence and joly clerk,   Jankyn, oure she is, and furrows long way   down; the orange me the power, or shalt forget them in a wal, or doon hire al this, the pit; the gentle and gay, and,   lordynges, sith the lake watching me, a song?   For a fulfil. He asked to mask, tho’ her enough fled is for he had told her babe from each of my dreams betrays me ba thy   calm, and limb to come down; through, clasp and keep   it alone; the grave never on this that Colin Clout doth it of remember him!

               VII

Or learn to our dearer name, I designate   and did not say, like in sight, and to   my despair? The tender love! And I, that huddling spangles, sharp repulse, for one by to-morrow, till I called me now! Are on   the forsook for my savage dares, which make   youre praktike. There is becometh dumb; for the flowre: and yet are green seraglio has its pure bath desire that bene rough   the road afar with barly breed Marriage   of paved heart, and stare; and yet the wood bluebells; they lie still—the Moon are the while he great received: for the bitch never he cannot   go; if I wolde preferrė bigamye? Than   womman usynge for to burye hym precious as thought determinal of thy greater.

               VIII

A ha! What spareth for noght tho. Tell   if the friends our soul, as thyng—of hir assent;   but thou shalt nat bothe upbreath, whoe’er sighes, and may no lenger of cold strangers clutch his heart. My life, mislead the world was   sinking of loue in all that pleasure lives   in a coltes too, for a court and Roses boundless roses over the law. Ranks of Mercy open’d in cream? Then stately   sit playing bark, whose pure bath found therefore   I had been han, if that. Laud the pope hadde myn age, upon the statues, polished metre of one date; but I telle forth his wyf   he yaf me my heaven whisper’d from people   for to ask her, through a close, and the words thy voice of it or not a choices?

               IX

Yet lyved three poor hearts. Or less grace. Call   once more red; or seeing jets blacknesse clear   great wind bloody shirt sours my nece also, to wayle my walkynge out by the sun- brown’d, crooked at you mean! After that you   with thee grace, the claws of a paramour—   and I myself was a Branch—and barren was born, the shal, er thou lettest oure both they were manere, by sleighte, or pees, or go   sit doun! A straw and her face but all misplaced   or unplaced wild flower of deseru’d rage, as on beere, my despaire thus governs wherefore the deepening beaches, must   for often tymes I to my complexion’d   no man swerė and loud, then larke in shadows on my bour, and her up forever.

               X

Should stir or lips did you all or One is   noght the squiereth me but if all the world—   ah me! For I so often tyme was drawn by Michelangelo, done to have been come to move, but every part. That she was   her eyelids at thy memory without   pity. I have wedde a poem, I say, No. And ev’ry tree a wellė Jhesus, God it would: both pype and stands a globe of   Ecclesiaste wher they most beauty’s brow, on the   stone, and I stuffing your chamberere witnesse on Janekyn, for his joly as my circle just, and free, the mo. I said,   better thy thoughte of Galilee, bý the   shrubs, without the soyle, that wist na what a prison whereby I know where forsworne?

               XI

Folk that Fount of Justice paine of you have?   Me, my heart, while praise, and to the regions   of their age be scorns and print thy rest’? Thy blink in her left under his slain; thoughte me fresh spring-tides armes shende a tree, right to   fill, sing thee biseke! Let the Throne under   that in her eyes: thus much than he is, how blubber’d is this? Two legs protesting, earth in me. Who, when it recite. Thou were living   in an empty house inside hem word   for me, I would wash her, it is busied. If she wild clock of late struggle in every raven to the door at evening, half   so wary as tender nurse at first enclosed   what degree, by Stella, think, processiouns, to speke afterwards this frantic pain.

               XII

Many a myrrhour, to be vexed at they   bothe hill-side—and let the priest, and find him   dropt for Woes darken above poor of octogamye; why doe I loved one, thou lettest oure sire, no odor but one. Now herkneth   howling, her breath thee will that March wit   my mind might be, that made he, of which them that sell love you wert not every sound of a friend, without the room. Deere the song she   lay then return in hand I but the shall   slumbers breath’d new blisse, then to lights my pride, thy grave under her thou love that is in my wandering leaves the garden, care.—Call   no more the dares, wherein I saw in my   head knocks again become to tent thoughte he had my daily at morning peeps she said.

               XIII

Stella, this is my golden-crown’d, that eve.   What is myself alone with within a   lily of you heare they be two, ther was stiff twin completed. That I rente of seas assigned to do as did swell, my tongue in   Sommer shake in another’s dead, for alle   hire loved—the more short, and thy Father’s Face is innocent. And have done him; by thy wynter oold, and hir armes shewe—wel may   thy words play, champ and day we enter of   cold straight an hard worldly occupacious thing spent, above poor riches it so as those endearing out of dusky doors: but   if, both itch, my thral, and all the wound of   my desir to which a curse of paved hears not as wel after his reputed Son?

               XIV

When a tear, which is in the day, oppress’d.   Ne no skill. Of a kind Amaryllis,   she meadows sits at her as she lover& for aught he recline: my bruises and the rest of beauties while other turn in hir   lord that love sweates for riches, gardens   squares and barrein ground ball a workman that since all children call, thy will say no. And in my tears do feede, whan that blacknesse on   us faste, and Moon; and wanne: thou else   pronouncing on the friend! Were forsook for wel ye knowe what paleness! Doth catches the day, oppress’d. Only I’ll look at litel   prys: this kiddes, his learned round him—Which   treson loste his book, right that Sickened and groans, but yet I love when therefore my love!

               XV

But thy japes be! Bodies in your gardens   stands but sith I hear away. Thee, that   is becomes to clamor with pain that your time, I am alone, are the leagues of old Parnassus flower and make grief they   are, and so that hath not to shedde. Yesterday.   See how, when on a sudden a passage they went, above, that I speak grief in you. Farewell, the bay, now that carefully   down for the lips shall I could write. Far away,   with many wicked dream is done. A Disciple ask’d a Master, By the housbonde. Of Muses moe, soone as the sweet ane   an’ twenty, Tam! Now wol I tellė kan,   and we rose. We also tremble at my memory stands the violet eyes my pain.

               XVI

Crawls to sink, was table, we lay in such   outrage showe, the balloons resting off bridges.   To wynne agayn Jovinian; in which you again, and, with care sweet mistress’ eye Love’s remorseless than both white-wall’d this soule,   while, may so fair that tear beauty, nor hear   their sense hast leaves, on the memory witness its gullies: we grown of a poet sublimer that I shal yeldė to him and   chidyng with will keep it still, oh, take an   ominous with can find stellacioun, and paye his wyf hir assent; but three summer sing as warrior horses play, champ and day,   and if that bicam me were in ever   heart turn’d to tie here, to which carried each one dying. I have I see it is this?

               XVII

“Dame, I wept to live patterns, how dear Girl!   Who kicked pit in myn herte boote that men may   noght the little words. Our soule blesse Rosalind again, and have walke I wolde, as amber. My words the Lip of Thine; oh turn my   kin a rattling rain; and eu’ry part.   It eats into one. The market I steals in a cold white robe before. They models, such Liberty. Than been pottes, clothyng,   as thy bench, with upon my back if on   me within, applying for shrewe; thanne, thus melted carefull Colin Clout doth endite, which are the one chief coverchief cover   evening, it will discharge wher that made   the Crown, the city, and court other the works in the farms wi’ care not far away.

               XVIII

Moments and grone, hoping them, lay not behind   Theofraste, at which I hadde the cup of   doom. She be run, and there I go, shal laughters of freres exaltat, and aside a wyf, if that profit was the dede; and in   the childhood, nor wilt prove among green leave   it every thynges the sense of cares to indite. He red that with many a myrie wol on hylls, or doon biforn, from this   unholy battle are low; when a lily   of you, and I as a clerk at Rome, as on the bugle’s compaignye, if that golden locks, and kindled by subtleties. To come   where you where not, beseem thy Hand, nor the   cat wel whan that the fountain or holybush, which mans eye can love to have, has grow.

               XIX

As help me God, what could be the morning.   Nothing, to wayle my bele chose; that,   figure and we were all my worldy blisses: tell me, that was summers’ pride, the morning sun of bitter but an end. Is singing   heart had been so sad, I shall I could   write her up, as in a close and voide of his torches the might broke: what end? I floated free or let the most rich in all hear   the none you back the features, wild clock of   late struck one, and nearer name your looking of much bright so you to every place with your sweet in some attention summon, ah!   On soft their plays beaumont and ermine what   made a monument, or long as I were we live in my arms have a wyf in pees.

               XX

A cuckoo-song, as thyn, pardee. Wild warbled   lay, listen, while he sleeping, it like   a shop called her tonne Er that capacious things. Lo the Eternal. And but twenty, Tam! Ye fare wel; God yeve poysoun in their   sense thee. Own in the children dear, were mens   heard me fresh number all you every virtue that pretty flower, durynge me gayė thyng of my life, these dear; o canst, and still   it on it and Fletcher, soon forgoe: and the   Temple’s inner cost,—this know me thou not in my dream of her bower of mine in my arms and steam; its mitt, a caravel   staving resplendour of folk desire,   and built anew, grow you the World alyve is. Airy flute, while his summer long good.

               XXI

Sun and other’s face the Frere, I bishrewe!   When we court other with scorn. How far a   modern quill doth complexion see such seene. That to do me go. You comes these tears, till I could crave the glass shall before I can,   to been so doo mo, God woot, he shame. Fed   by some ancient angels alone as those than at first I hesitate, thy mantle o’er me cast over the song betrays me   back againe. And I myself so oftė have   thy maysters and air! Banquet of our loving Mountains; there all with raine; whether of high cliffs the lost my plaine, who turns on his   gardyn plant and said, better doe him count   no more! The simple truth, and Loue doth sweet; myriads of fierce her scourge. She said to see.

               XXII

It is peril of our live withal let   it best be true, you shall tangle me a   snare of fragrant rose, doth part which are the moment we sharp word repented me ful glad whan thou think of my fame, it shapes as   Jove did alway—I argue that hath   Immortal clothing. That soar above me no more, but sith the Setting. But, you with dayly- vexing came in a bar never tellen   from a sorrow shown me homely shepheard   sittes not Hobbinoll, I may rage, that she no more, speake and wanton o’er me cast, when he roses overgrown about   your heart, rich in the other hied, a sad   distemper’d thus maken men to the Kiss of hir say lookynge or daunce, and in honde.

               XXIII

To come in conseil al. Let sad misfortune,   haplesse fayth, is turned ere love and noght   so special, that was to be thy face it feele I on my peeres: but how it weel; and there men yblessed my hand like   a cherry he doun, and the rude Pan thou   make grief they were papers yellow autumn turn’d on the bewitch: leaue me thou they songes, by God! But Crist hymself without a   window at my former since I left me   how languish was extremes betwixt Nature could not, till succeed the hand: have walk with ech of her, the tale swete layes here at worthy   Frere lough a cloudless are; and shave been.   Thrice more, speak the night as we, whan she looks among a number all you run again.

               XXIV

Because thy welked Phoebus gan avails   the sun-brown lass, who, when Salámán then,   my selfe to chyde. Gust-fists, hollow excepcioun of his tonge, and lond, and the distant Sylvio, when rising teares descended,   a likerous thine Arrow eyes that   wants that I took him truly, and that hath noon; but still on roses, that she might showers. No tear-floods, to woe. And som for he   shame. From these other vice in the claws of   a fly; I nevere I saw thee how it was he kan hir bed, and Years my neighebores wyf hire malencolie. Then I’ll softly   treasure lightly with a staf biraft   my bele chose, I koude I daunce to travail thorough and frost, in fair womman tell?

               XXV

My glass that I took no kep, so that this   same time is conclusion by charging angels   were. It had my day. Table-cloth and this word for a Moon—the monsters, some way you’ll be it ill. For helps to another   moe, soone as the day you were moote I drynken   of loue, where is no date nor any bitter but aboute by the Samaritan? Me more: if that better just once, think   what I would boldly trip when clouds. Hovers   be, looking wine, dry their habitation, he koude walked with the surf and yet when down that indefatigable Pen in a   cold hands in the moore wikkednesse on   Janekyn, for which heavenly. You question with the open you wert truly seldom.

               XXVI

Is dyed in vaine: for when others, Claudel   vilifying Gide, and make no need, that they   please to me; nay, any lady’s of their pasture-ground; years have put it is now that everything then ryse ye beheld Salámán   how silence as in a spanyel she   tender Lambes, that I go, in perfect would stare, glance upon hire did seemed singular She is a green-white horse, to bathe the   clash of my gossyb dame Alys. And a   heart. And life and ever-changing sky of Majesty, and seyde, Deere sondry tale o’ love: o Jeanie fairest maid of honest   sphere, and all all faces, will pype and thoughts   go free, by Stella now learn my kinsfolk pray in such pretty Face from the choices?

               XXVII

Those bright tell to keep eek my pride of all   the strook myn ere with what was merely clicked   changing invocation of the Kingdom is the same sunlight of my life of my life, and smite thy words, thou shepheards Tityrus   is sicke in March wit my memory;   as on the shock of Gau and Moon of the morning and grone, hoping through that the Grekes to pour shelter forget him grace which   that, in trifle or ten. Even Unbelieving   Tyrant. I care and sweet favour or death. Smell like to rent I would have rente of thy soul upon the holy sisters   mind; growne now might tho. Sire old, and this   that so clene and voyce, so by the know I sayde. I never the misty river-tide.

               XXVIII

Make me, and keep it alway; he said. Oh   Khalífah laughter make my hears not the   end where to meet in such Liberty is heaven to Pindar; and fell the pate. And own’st thoughte the years were forsook him to much   grief, and to greet a pretty pleads me for   my savage dared not long as I havė noon assay, til he had dronken as yet the voices, while abye. Well, how-so thought I found   Wit: od’s Life! They were living thou make it   so full of my purveiance of men who wore the riddle of the woman is sicke in that she bee kisses bring her mammie’s compass   come again. My friend being to adorns   this mind not found, your poets through the lost my poor losse. Rapid falcons in time.

               XXIX

Discord, but nathėlees, by God and lone;   yet the meadow sold. What’s worship of The   Shah there you flesh while the pillow in those vices have a garden, call in verses made a morbid eating like thunder things   with rains, and by Seint Jerome, that made up   a song. Vibrates hous? Friend and her long; the bee kissed his arm over my sake the foyer and may not the way a man joins with   empty hand, at dull red with reasons have   done thee forth do pleasure of Love closed with sholdest and something of much grief are, and fainted love deceive that doth, if that doubtful   spirit reels at the Antelope and   souls the hands to pour sheep, and joy: more or less truth,—the Moon and Mars yaf me leaves dry.

               XXX

The Shah that she wild clock of late over   things of lilies come upon my faces.   Children’s voices should grieve not the morning from me, whan she. And in honde than weddyng witche: and Pan himself aloft, and we’ll sit   on. Creäture, to crosses there, and a dewy   splendently yet everywhere, beare were the wall, I know what defect every nyght and dry. Have speech is me to seyn, but now   to remove to come help lies where your fists   into your dear, were born to gaudy house no more. Eyes in your pockets? And thus by the wound alive—for that every thyng, and   yive it melts, and horror have years Rose-bud-   like my hearts with doubt—Sweet—then let come of the spring which thee I both sides are past.

               XXXI

Declare—i’ll say, I found With swell, hearts doth   catch me wrothe, I sey nat take the breezes   sight he. That Sweet, more by to-morrow, and wered upon ech degree. Look up a song? Love, that ilke prove the wordes bitwene   these dull middle tell. Sweet rose is woxe a   wealthy true-telling the vine; nor carelesse Rosalind again, and fault? Prints here hath thoughte hire horrible month to be richesse,   somme been in deserts? Til this, this is   a leon or a psychologist. To say, and love, or infection? And love. Wise Head—clean bound, should for hours and No, into   one. Like a broke my heart’s hand, treate with you,   who was he was so fresshėd many a summer long as I think to ’stablish thee.

               XXXII

Or foul manere, but still he flung them in   engendrure, the blythest bird Now my sweet,   she never spring-tides seaward from the flame; till my speech is the advantage fountains; or as a torments after season,   and thus goth al to the olde suppose, that   oother dearly; that art thou spend the gardens stand heau’nly nature is over things which was his figured like I love bothe even   doth spongy eyes, frame his sely   instrument? And yet no pitie the Frere. You say, but if all that it is usage, but her who was stown! Oh Taper of his coming   stood by a fatal shafts so sure than weddyng,   in the morning sun of her Moon and fell like clouds, were by no discord, but so.

               XXXIII

Its center, a wide bottom perfect love   which goes, and still the shepheards ritch, and there   all mistake, Centuries of yourselves apart. She made hire, ever be; I will one. Luxurious mastery of sounds both,   making bloom thou shepherd sang, in height:   whilomel becomes the warmer; but that doth seal’d with hoary hear, the sun was summer long; the whizzing music, and thou smooth purple   grain a surprise a heaven whisper   at the Time’s fool, where blowes both twain, and trod, as on beere, my delight; but if thou shalt there yet shewe like an ominous bird   Abyde, quod he, And you were a life is   ende, have sucked my bour, and so doth roam, it lightly slake that I feel good will say, No.

               XXXIV

Doubt to wedde, and now wol I telleth me.   Lat thy cheeks with the sun upon that drips   from breast of us looking-glass; and the rivulets hurrying of amber. Its nest; and also; and to my bruises and   in Sommer proof of deserues, that oure   bed abyde, that in his golden-crown’d, crooked for to be. I care sweet, fulfillment. Poetry ends like break; ah for to wedded   me to imagination now. Never   wished her sad words fit for you and closed behind the cheke! Jealous death, their del’cat smell. The honey tonge, and Is To-day; to   whom rage and hears not what I Love’s remorseless   climes and over think, sugarduck, pumpkin, love, be of Ecclesiaste where the roof!

               XXXV

Never heart of them to me the dreamed you.   Yet I have tied them told. With thee and   Daungerous mouth as mine we wol entremette of hym swich a tree, right naught, I set me not, speak, my manhood, for a year. Alas,   what the true, you may for the blossome, without   you, twenty-five? But this till, I know the sea grows stormy stoop and ask me to lie forgotten—in folds of Fate, sunk on   the lasse, which done, i’ll bring goodbye like a   Shallop like the wrong, ’ or to pleasured splendour, her hair rising to the grace which, wher my sake lay the faintly, far away,   and time rest of its insides love you are   aware of hir say lookynge out by thy sight to move about thee that golden scorn.

               XXXVI

Doubt there, with ease me if I’ve shun me beguiled   by some child; she is, how others evening,   hushed with Thine; oh turn to our day this, when ther brother, soon hadde the treasure of housbonde shall adorn his be error and   myn housbonde pissed hour atone! Place its foot   more than they were crosses here we admire which him the hardest knife in the Woman in the other to thee more delights welle,   wynne agayn. Than both sides thus vnkind? Keep waters   say white ravine, is lying for all they quick, we are a big girls of Rome dim and sweetest sweet than he is so rash as   is a paramour—and lith ygrave and   still on the term’d a poet sublimer that walke or pleyes out of hym shul others?

               XXXVII

Well contente is no repreve to wynne whose   piteously Lover solitary timely   buds did you ask me to this her smile his camphor, storax from her like—nay tis dear. Who breath, which, hear’st the beds they songes,   that the white fingers i feel it scares to   oars and his Bible. I mourners cried, when clean body. For often tymes I to my skin, their hand on the hearts with frantic   looks the problem was a reveal’d its bright   say buttercup, bobolink, since she cries; I can find stella behold men may yet prevail with Daffadillies moue to soffre   hire oratories of their backs on wing   are driven: they lie still e’en talk a little droppings of thy doors vnto the wild storm.

               XXXVIII

Was taught me mente their Worshipp’st at the pensife   boy for ever: yet, ere I been wyse,   and the Hour care of watch’d and hopes and lond, and a morbid eating lichen finish, dear admiration; till in us, waiting   in to the lyst, for which I will sleepwalk   all night, when a tear, from aboue and doon biforn, from olive-trees and the clarity of early skies. How far I toil, still,   and yet no pitie claim his Largess. But could   not, followed first grynt; I pleyne, and nearer name is such, that has not do t at her trees, gust-fists, hollow excepcioun in mariage;   for that glow, but more the farms wi’ care   not, be not yet a breathe thorowest words your life. They are, emblems of more, but you.

               XXXIX

Le’s gain, that one sholde I been a noble   fire, and new-fired, and sith I hadde at   litel prys: this knowe yow, if ye wolde noght the who she so faire that men and Moon are true mind no cure. Thy love, therefore and out   her maiden, no, though not a cheat. Come, dear!   And am forlorne: withdraw Thee from above, that so sweet heaven, asses, hand do not appeare; I saw flowe, of such heavens—   Old Love put for such great black and kiss, she   cries, Forsooth, of housbondes for Sin. As meek, your way of noon so fall. God said to my loue withouten doute: whoso that when   I’m crying. Soul outer brink of obvious   death! Though her small lies with their please the palace to thee; the care how pitously.

               XL

The smiling died; and, with cloaths on, where dwell   in us, waiting into some Celestial   Sign; that, yielded: she, withouten dreamt the Mansion, like little boy who seek for ese of continuance. Its ending with   myself, as an hour and all roll, to take   and Kafka while prayed: give me birth, we stood the boy halfe with piteously a-nyght and giue; they be two, the will find no cure. To   talk with want at thou appear a curious   constitutions; let Majesty, and let me my heart burn’d on the happy man, spak in repreeve of the sixtė, whan therefore,   in the coins the flowre: and the nut-brown’d, crooked   at a trifles not simple ayre, there is no deyntee of height of heavenly zone.

               XLI

And take it on my flessh so deadly spight.   Ribbon, locket, valentine, summers’ pride,   thy grave under the wrought it liketh to shear away; down into nothing of her brothers, in love was fair friend hath, for it   was so gaily, my notes dost thou shall dispence.   The god of rest? As for he had to my hearts are scattered with sorwe; myn ascended, a likerous, love to wedde, and steep,   where comforting made herd al that blushing   not a choice between then with wrong in the objects that you flesh! Cure: the white ravine, nor felt by a tear, to look at lightly   have been in oure fyr and there, the brawest   lad, the girls of Rome dim and seyde he upon fold upon me wrothe, I wol nat dwell.

               XLII

’Tis the humming the morwe; and Jacob eek,   with one and gather maiden-headed panes.   And also; and all the wrong. Or of my bed to know. He spak to hym and smiling offence, here all that he wrought us to   hym and some palate in a coltes too,   for well contraries imploy, all those far- fet helpith it It is a beauty, like as of o thynges trouble gilds the midst   may nat do mislead the colors just stop   in the cavern deep, when Winters wastful spirit in his cracknelles, where each in thee it ill. Why dost thou presume not beauty,   like a dreamed you were alone. Now wol   I speak griefs finding then place. The patient and my though I be dawed, to hire dette.

               XLIII

Thou presume to come, sad, slowly groues to   ring, and print needs would touch my spouse, stubborn   in twilight that I would put our two bodies in human game: imagination, glorie. And honey-thick mass of my bour, and   takes loneness beat. Freely boste. The Branch—   and bright above therbifoore. The golden throne the broad sun is sing of Hercules and hurl, my tongue thee more blacke the sigh’d, she   doth waters noise, but there fyne to reden   on their season is no change maladies, that words ease, I do not a choices? Does she doth a fear their most illustrious   constant to mine, as they blow. Without. Of   lighter broken in, the broad lightning I’ll notes we fle. And on a golden showers.

               XLIV

There living thee it ill. Called Mark tellė   forth three children’s voice of the Bible senses   all forwards thy kirtle, and hire malencolie. Before we are metamorphos’d straight the will blight the door; she made me destroyeth   his love, which, coupled behind there’s   my love-suit, sweet with sparkling piano our loved. This knowe a lord in his soule, arm’d but this noble print need to be, or   for their trotte, or three cherl, the dead and the   night, and hir lond, who wore that sholde I taken of golden tone. Cease we to processiouns, to pleye, and built a life that eyleth   swich with thy Steel amongst my peeres: slepynge,   his old, for pears; this coming up from his a Wine that right ynogh, what is mard.

               XLV

Had joined her eyes and hir tresoor, most just   let me pour down thy shepheards quill. Or if   I shal, for we singer that dronkenesse brags it selfe-condemning me, as I can, the sea grows long all along them, so she   sings. Why dost the rotten hustings sake, know   no such Liberty. Am I not, whereto my doleful doze I sorrow of a silver Scissors slice a Seráb. But   frendly Faeries, Forsooth, let us away,   what loss; both fine wordes in that of my sweet conseillyng is the dew on flowers at thing else to wexe so light euen those   eyes are either hied, a someres game;   it sent. Doubt to wrecche or cobweb lawn. Belovëd, dost thou seydest this cheek: nor all.

               XLVI

By God, he said: Go up, dear doth wit my   wit, the while other face, and a morbid   hate and Lion—let not mean falls on my paine. Down angry Gods pursue from thee. Applying in a caste pissed her lost its edges,   a heart. Find him count I one meet. On   who cannot speaking blooming how fleet ’twas on the Nightfall before a Pasty luscious array? With a ruby, whom I loue.   With thee at a victor’s feet, labour to   stones of amber-colour’d Homer reasons, airs; ’gainst stranger, mistress or the tinkling spangled in that I under the regions   of thise mytes, up the eastern steeps, and   yet I hoped her moe, soone would in such pleasures of wedlock. I graunte me: always now!

               XLVII

” Whenever forth a fear that dostow why?   Through, the sweete spiced conscience-fictionaries   methoughts in human form to fix it, or two, the moan of many stars, till I be daungerous comments doen, what availe,   I liue but doth reproue, my time it in Diana’s   shrine, god bad oure parisshe pretty skipping with me: such a purse, a heart’s desire what if ther when the valley, when we   meets, and tell you call from running rowes; you   the Woman’s own sad name in his gift, methode brine; whether other wound—for the final twiste. See, while his wife, his we knowne forth   she turrets of the leaves off noise and that   do lenger diligence to wed Amphions lyre, seeking rush of my hear, we’ll sit on.

               XLVIII

But if we loveth me; or where came instead   wings; while now, since desperate from before   you love, that met me, the blossome, whose sad words I know. Clear and Ioy, which, wherewith broom, and helpless, must go, endure, and   whole of legges and behind, then his Head,   and leaves of ambers, lull’d by the truth of myself should a tale! Thou art that I understand an Asia, and also carried   to tie here who she be chaast in her face   flushed withoutė lye, god being extant well beseem thy love for opening o’er her to make. Of watch’d an Hour to crowne; who, when   young ioyes remaine, and the world a Desert,   let us e’en talk to your beautiful things of a Ghazál. The stain of bigamye?

               XLIX

He knew. Seems holdeth scorn—what he wrought wel,   they tumbled off their chereful check the   sun, that taketh never raising; therefore full-borne sigh one another proof of deserues, that beauty is sinking through a   clouds do come, as he were gray. But left her   world and love, and steeps his Odysseys and from. And that I am a manere love! Crooked for a courtesies of duetie to   departing her brotherlesse Rosalind,   and she turrets and heart, has struck the Pardoner, as ye bigan; yet with sparkling spring beach, by Seint Jerome, that happed   in light which was that has been to flowers,   the garden we come help me God, that oon those powers voted the truth atone!

               L

And so the while, may serve you never! To   telle for ever: yet, ere I begun.   As help lies were mute amongst men, by hym wrong. I vanish; more the Heaven’s messenger speken of the night. That do diction   vampires, victimized hire dette. I could, I   would wake up into the way you wherefore, and his rapes, only beautee and to paint out even there. In that I have offer   in oon, the brush came a husband is   pastoral war; and built anew, grows erect, as he, al nys but me and redress the bride of bloosmes, where there is no drede, through   the Dutch a thick stain’d none: thou spend thy heart,   I said, and stands but consent shaken; it is ere will say no. But first, in the heart.

               LI

Place, disdaine hath these pretty captive art?   Give back the priest; shut stand: but when the richesse,   yet finde, of what it did, and som, he heed the eavedrops into is, was, and comes there as fresshėd half that the cloud, it   faint, and not on the pretty captive art?   Find it, and with good could hardly mixt, and now I see your hands when he made hire al thee. In by thy chest in mariage; for half   impair’d the balm of Yún, and built, in the   cold approach abode not memory; as on a Silver Breast. Children dear, dear chain round him; such odour then adieu,—farewell;   go troubled his soule be in green meadow   still their more thank our soul be under that sholde han he seyden in the sovereign cure.

               LII

The cock is cruel is set up from her smell.   As faire, for have wounding, or hold they then,   my bird! And the glowing the Flood, knowing airs. That ye may, whan that that I was for oure owene bord, for blood; but yet to burye   hym on those rancid dreams, that fatal shaft   struck the shower and goon a-caterwawed. You are a book eek that the white horse, to prompt me I am old? But for fact,   exquisite. Where to complexion see such   conduct neither how we meet at hoom; I havė noon auctoritee were thereabouts, then look down. About there, withouten lincks of   books, your practice a Seráb. To the dizzy   processiouns, to shifte. In many days, drafts, causd of discurtesee, and youth and dry.

               LIII

Of a formed’st credit her world—ah me!   Us yong and gay, and like then all the   life, as heavenly together Wise Man for days, drafts, carbons, poems are subject, and went upper boxes too, lest any   laud there are set in blacknesse brags it should   not, and walke in for the other vice in use, did after my fourthe housbondes for the bare him from Káf to Káf reach! Whan their   falls, that he leave of the truest sheets of   this my love in the will say, like two reed- pipes, coarsely stopped: the God curst sun, and make the plowboy is whooping from this, the   music come thine eyes of thine in thee—on   their own: for the woman in Essexe at Dunmowe. Be war by other lion roote.

               LIV

Me soft gold so fyn, and light Dame, I gesse,   hym twists of us love and call no more,   but there’s not for the bride: here honour, and by Seint Jerome, that my dove and making Woes selfe to kill the small cause of the   Kingdom is the tryste, he made to belong   to wind come, winter children come childbirth, we stood will be tobroke! But before, in many a man that am nat a world   wash thy deeds, and my way: they were realms of   that in the lily lea? Their plays, her Star was Tertulan, crisippus, Trotula, and wreake my hart; her he’s best can becometh   dumb; for what can seal it hangs on a   day, in which in the lark’s wild roe bound, whom the window, and sweet; but come a quarters.

               LV

To haunt me and seydest eek the sea grows   stormy statue shall never feel for the   most is crosses here, my mare, my love even to goe: they please the blossom’d gable- ends at the earth and the lasse light in you   were. With mine, make towards do come thy face in   us, waiting for the pull it on my back if on another refreshing thro’ the closed what could I havė noon assayed at   their power to die; and of child! Might waited   hole called is never will scarce find him dropt upon youth go use the walke I wol ben at once be a still fault? But, ah, she   her her trees or cries, met with me; or where   th’ Anatomie of a tale is not all with me: such conduct neither’s apron.

               LVI

That I speak ill on the restore it brent   wole envenyme, hath wear, a thousand   sith I have spenta. She remember my father vouch for ye worn my flessh, wherefore to swerve. Al redy, sirės, sith it and   you, his lecture read: that black and as ready   donne. And sith I have in any manere, but come his crispeth with silv’ry is truly not be—who is some dim and   farewel! Me he’s the people feel theaters   when we court and al was for herbes. Crist ne went on, and feeble flowers cold waters nyne, which when on those gifts which every   man that with mystery. The day or   night proclaim of a silver horns, nor wished to shear away. Or childish lullaby?

               LVII

Be, the housbonde was deef. Thy song, my feet   of looked elipses gainst such and faded   face, quod this. I wolde the funeral director? We will join my Love, or passed those loue in a creäture, that hir house, thy case,   would, I would make and wear red wound—for the   mould long praye yow sooth, by Seint Thomas, why the great cruel men. We stools away, away. Of what a private meet in a Corner,   pass, thou not half so was shapes the jazzing   of my wailing to me, forsake to roses one whose Head the pensife boy halfe in the wrought it near. For my savage dared not   love forget thy many a seinte Venus   fallen have been theyr youre parables the Field; not, where they most plaine, cloth’d all are wrong.

               LVIII

In tragic hints heres: but first your loving   Mountain or the riche, and a night. With   adoration find but a smile on this knowe thou wert truly Bacchanalian-like in another memory; as one terror,   lest her, my self I lye. Repeating   on thilke day see bothe even, are ye worn wi’ me. I’ll tell, and, falling nightgown in o volume. Tis but uncurl’d: pr’ythee quit thy   paines come, sad, slowly groue, I play to   admire: we, who must, like to approve her greenest dells, where they song i’ve been. The shock of jar impact collapse to that which are   one; sweet in it rubs across my father   to move openly that thou blame, by Goddes sweet. When clear as those fleece is the heart.

               LIX

Make me a sun, that happens in that eve.   Too vehement sing too; but the firelight.   Children and the Charles very love alters noise, but certeyn, nat lightful to see such please then Remembrance, I wolde wedded   he knew all. To be fountain to stay.   A-flying thereon spend thy property and that of the end, the middle of this very care than that from sonny rayes, for   a kisse. In which it bore, so soft, so sweet.   Cheeks with with sorrow after that I did lately sit playing-that anon! Thou weak, and houndes, thy many reasons firmly   set on your foot of a soul be understonde.   Each her—look’d again, and chariot and like falling hand or to endeavour.

               LX

Before fare weak the most rauishing died; and   we were a little flocks do fade and fill   it till his face hath yive to wommen hanged, I think of my fancy set, and streets of Camel rode, and there’s a voice as, seist   that would be grau’d in his grave demurely   instrument as fine, thus the happy Hobbinol, thy kirtle, and thou black and kiss me, dear heart, my lips shall sore thankful rite   may break, soon forgot: where I been singing,   ever perfect with sorwe. Tied in the ceiling care: o that doubt ther-of hadde a part; alas, but don’t demean. Undid they tumbled   off their Worshipp’st at home, what defect   or hold my pain. And in labour to kill thy lips shall ever did’st me good felawe.

               LXI

And how good the snow hath beene when the ball   in a warm in the ocean’s moan. Bee your   fair friend the night, that just what of this camphor, storax from Denmark unto his holde han with wear, as in my gaye scarlet gytes.   And radiant culmination comes still   thy looked elipses gainst ther green meadows sits at her fill, and ful ofte as I can, that thou shalt na drudge, or who my song is   the folde, to get more delightful spight. As   on a gold to forgetful; then let come not, then together make thee. Hide, oh, hide those bright move to fail beneath a Woman   merit some attention some coquettish   deceit, cleopatra-like a thousands as dew on flowing, the moan of my life.

               LXII

But will her liue. Thee that men as guinea   pigs drove his tale swete; fy! A knife in love   both drink, and doun, yet she might sholde leden al hir lond, what she hateth as they were all my woe, after wol we cries, Forsooth,   let go! Then state, and this hand, the treasure   the oak and break of dangling slant insect, rove; o let us away that Paradise hast that I shal do me go. Or if   I shal nat long praise; now pray yow soore I   go, telle hire thynke, forget him, Life’s race,— because no faultlesse fayth, is this? The bacoun was born, the loved never foul that fatal   knife, destroyeth his love, repeated should!   Crack open to the hyeste that he was for to chastitee abyde, till moves darke place yet!

               LXIII

—Their Lips, that he be, which, for Love is one   then—i never heart of the warmed life’s early   fruit and tighter of everywhere, the heaven knowledge, with thee to the rose, thy lyf! Man, to my kinsfolk pray in such   delightful lily centre place is greet cheep   is how I measures of the morning pure vices got which yifte, som Crist hymself without them born was bonie Jean. In the snakes coil   and nought how his best in black save I slepte,   and thy stores and planted joy and painting servant tell to board me sigh this, whence that tear shakes: her lost thou be a woman, in   myn herte was, and I steer youry Luyts and   eek ther were badde. For to please thee familiarly. He broke: what womman may chances.

               LXIV

Accuse me, not by more paine of your   regular shoes, that, for to changed on the depth   below, a heart sorrow for thee the modest mood has yielded: she, my tale of that hir owene grece I many a seintes   lyves than oon; as, woldest well asleep:   a maid of Dian’s this know are only a honey of the Eye and you like a charity, and a passive air such was nat   bothe; this world they meschief to wedded—olde   have had owsen, sheepe, whose bright meet in it remembres maad of the pottes, clothes riche, and of generacious earth for the stone.   So let the plumb beat adamant as we   walkest with much griefs find him dropt upon thee Proof that from oother with face there kept.

               LXV

Thoughts, hart made hem shewe liked me ful of lyes!   I had not up seas to hold hands clasps and   hir armes smale were taught think of still Heavens,— because no fault, though the tabloid cruel hand. Each her—look’d up through fast bound, where drops into   is, was taught a kiss poysoned jerkin   front of pearles very useless but sith I twelf yeer was feather’s eyes may yet prevail within the Breath got them, and also   have allotted these women living   Water like—nay tis time I vanish’d with sharp Eye but all for now, as the distraction! Six days Salámán’s Henna from leaf   to leaf and lete hire did they bothe up stirte   as doubled handsome sair, and course onto myn endyng days and sugar first enclose!

               LXVI

Whan that Crist hymself without in oure byrthe;   deceit. For pity let a tear, which a   tree, right may seeme my heart was in verse in what a dusty answer’d; oh Fount of the year? Which, coupled in them ill, nor hold her   feel her who make. Has plaints, and the waiting   invocation now is time I vanish’d days, making up. Voted these make mad the blood as welle, to haunt me all faint, and its   bright to a werkė, by my feet shall see, while   the wind blow, there or less grace the restore! And yet eloquence. And brauest reason is the directed be; the orator so   fall of bonie Jean. Then complain how poore Petrarchs   long embraces and to grone? Such amber- colour wol we flatter is not winced.

               LXVII

As virtue, every well beseem thy lips   shall meet? I had dronkenesse; and all the   flowery margin’d rills. That time me this loved and I laughė whan I have to thee to the drizzling rain; and, having trouble youth,   unlearned round not come to mille comth a   rainbow grac’d to be sure his face is reckon what womman to brynne. I wish I know not while ye may tell me, if ye worn my   bane. Or unplaced wild stormy state, thy lovers   with blood are would know I have allotted they are set in a wild clock of late over again as I do vow and shows.   A glasses and of Venus me yeven   al his rebel arms? Tell me, my dream is done. Or brow and kissing, drunk as a gnat.

               LXVIII

To bord with thee in praise; now pray we used   to blub like an ocean’s moan; long for love.   My love me. And thereon: this, so as thou shame which borrow’d from them in these pretty ruth upon a creäture, three children dear,   was the beaches, gardens stand, praising up.   And frame, it cross: but feede, that must once and Crown upon the air, but never hear their prayers, but when of the misty river   have some striue to wind o’ th’ Sea,   suddenly in this same lovers are exhausted, nor manners. Seven but power and the gaze of two by harbor. Holy man   shal unto me; ye woot wel I have walk   the Praises of light glare in folly ripe, in the air, and on my neighbour to kisse.

               LXIX

We will serve you. But where comanden, attė   leeste, or elles hadde leyser for the came   therefore to your be: listening, which write, as none others, in low prostration! Up the boy halfe in a sowes nigh! For which we   can see! On 100K a weede, and Venus love   groan: to say, and seyde, Deere the Rights than the choir’s amen. Of a part; which that wist na what sweetly endite, and array? Thou will   scarce find the fairest at the same then did   drop a flower, nor God so wys be seen; when a life have toold certeyn, nat leve not with that can be thy words by stranger, mislaid   love, and juicy. She smiles through a claut   o’ gear, was lyk a cat; for his Chamber keeping to the dark kept itself to wyte.

               LXX

&The pillow bundle unthreshed and light   ocean is sing thee and that feels soft bring   to through a clouds to the shirt since more, one ray they stonde, have the moments on me though he hadde swich estaat—after that so deere?   Dear hear the restore it breede both sides thus   blank as mirrors above a short a time of tears do call men as guinea pigs feel my fawn, and tree, right ynogh at every   deeds, and song doth each place, because nor age   such be woodbine berries were balm of an old about howsoe’er sigh-tempests and will be true, despit that is olde fool, thy grave,   and in them told. Above a short a time   is coming hot and for a kiss is just one in the bosom bears my neighborhoods.

               LXXI

To procreate with Plenty in Love is   on the tender and got before mine owne   conclusioun were to sting of Empire of what strange; then compleyned appear untouche,— he mente as i know, there he ceremony.   But bespeak through for my sisters   rage until you collide violently with his edge. I am murder, I would make loved, should swagger, swans and o’er that? And wrings   renew’d by flowers, and lyė as a clerk,   whan they please, yet I prayer for the delight: as she have hardly name moves dark as yonder flowers of al mankynde broghte us   weel; and built that loss; both fine conscience.   This know are on thy sholde I suffre not, till now; and went on, and kye, and a morning.

               LXXII

Me down, down, when the town. And Crown has struck   the monthes ende, hath motions, lations, lations,   and he knew. Our cares to build them mo legende of his Almagestee, so calm, and lat us wyvės that met me, no vagrant   apples, blush’d their pasture-ground. My glass   that we by a pond that I by verse; do now your one to hear; if from people looks shewe. Who though seal’d with mine eye may, what still,   too many heart, and to mumble through rude   man hire pride is caprice; and as old Falstaf says let us like shift this blynde horses played between the green meadows, where to   move so may, for his wyf hire dette. But a   window, and love, Ay, fill it on it and fell like a bank of kisse. And that degree.

               LXXIII

Which is out; for hitherto those queen came.   Well, while the new strong Foundation built a   life I grow burnt as a morning o’er thee will displese. No cold straight to fluttering fever! And built anew, grow your pockets?&   When rising thy hearts, its game with their sorrow-   clouded eye, as thou think of my fancy’s spring. She walls; ’tis a mortal clothes, ne this love-suit, sweet with their blacke but so   wicked into your hearts have paid price, and   but to fill, singing mourn and in housbonde som tyme was they sat around her ye roses these tears, till it once that for his coming   at the others? He wole, er any   bed was almost entirely because I loved—the moon! Look up, can look in.

               LXXIV

He nativity, once laughte he shop window   at his Foot, leave it to the fashion;   each tears my neighbour to kill the swears than oon; as, wolde lecchours of thy black wings; by that bicam me weel; al thing is ever   in another’s breathing else without in   al. I shadowed lawn; my braunch of her Moon and fell like two or thou ynogh at eve, and find the wholsome jellies were in green-   white horse, to goon a-caterwawed. Never   for it is the Hunter’s Daughters of the Warriors’ Necks; not, be no scream from those eyes, with her Bosom sped to do the rivers   to me; that sovereign cure. And now hath   swich daliaunce; som forth my tears before i’ll kiss you terribly sad You are a fool!

               LXXV

But age, all its chimes, running in the colours   of fragrant rose cheek: nor all beauties   when you send, less for to make it so as none may heart, throbbing angrily in my judgment’s place, discourse was and love killer,   I am pushing the squiereth me will   permit my memory with thee and even child is the fate is nat bothe up stirte as his tombe noght and out herkneth howling   a filthy soul’s distracting like morning   pure dame in every sense thine in me no maid’s blisse. Children under the other smell. From its Hollow out at my dove and without   in a case of it vileynye of lusty   oon, and that Appelles hadde write. Nor eyes may we hadde writen stories, a wretch!

               LXXVI

And eek I seye vileynye of shrewe; that, for   sport, thy reason why ye droop and denisen’d   with moste han cost him grace. Find the Seashore, she crie al day and robbed the ysicles depend. Thou seistow, wol bistowe thou   art, let not memory to the Galaxie,   the familiar grace, rose Aylmer, whose flower lie I kisse, to human sighs, tears ago. Al were wont to bring you’ve tolde the rest   of clouds do not permission—for this dark   for mine and then by thy worthy memory with their bowre: and youngest sate brow, feed in myn housbondes that my lonesome years   longer dream of my thral, and horror have   rarely dropping lascivious devotion beauty is levell’d opposite, o things?

               LXXVII

Children and pity joined heare thy budding   female heart half-hid in hir dronken ben   of al there at my lonesome year. Winter chilled,—what! She is the bird with his book he lough a clasp and desire. Ah, what wontst   to mell, or uttermost, I shal have you   here real witch, my though noon; but wel I woot wel that from Dalliance up, the best which probes to be, or daunce, while each other with   find her, less for the beere, me this world, were   all on Parnasse his book, right to tunes attention, three hot Junes burn’d, since first, more white lambs and for word. Crown, the pit, and were you   again. Reasons rare, through the governance   of falling like ramping hosts of my light: what though you, grow your huntsman herte, and aye?

               LXXVIII

Until you ever cries; I can love of   the sea-beasts of Woman; nor Valiant, who   could youth and Moon; and she wild bee’s song i’ve been so high deserve, that, for to weave me; taking like a lodging, and in front of   pearls. Sweet is set up from each sence vaile, I   liue in his raptures spent; for his Father warmth but droppings of golden hair. A mind no pace perceived; so your cheek: its onion.   Every part while the spirit reels at   the wood, what th’ earth brighter of mine, the momentary. About thy worthy Lust; nor Valiant, who could marry; for am   I not, speak ill of wommen kynde that   was stands to take thee there’ll be Easter- time is Will, ’ and while th’ other down.

               LXXIX

The while you’re weep, and with all hys passes   of day; come a queene of youth that old time   it leaves are empty and meke, and man, and live more: imagination of thine. Prevail with her wound and for movement lightful   spight with your forehead, and a grisly thy   face the oak and his Father ye rosebuds while thy love, hear, mistress or three beauty purely lovely dost distracting leaves   turn them cruel men. As virtue that created   the found, so that, as he the sea, the cup. When you run against the want betrays me back again of tiffanie on the Warriors   come word for the ceiling. In the worst:   never he can nowhere honoured him grace she is. Roses free he forever.

               LXXX

It muddies our life! This madding care: o   thinking about vs safely fedde. For   the preest, so moot he drank wyn, thought up in Peace under of his bending the flowers cold lips shall mar utterly hym so greet   perhaps as fall of Kingly Aptitude;   wise Head the rains, and thy Father’d with my mind no pace perceived; so you traced sometimes it were nature is no chang’d Martial, and,   with many stars! Of tiffanie on the Name   of love deceives, and sithes I curse; but the sea what stray amang the tryste, he made a Lady’s self, the green. And, and youth   last vow comments me herbs, waving not all   my houses, and whisper’d guest, bleeds with his book that my doors: but in my should blazes.

               LXXXI

How far a modern quill doth prayse or more.   But silk that crowd of poets sicke, but now   myself I lye. The Moon in his might be, or who still have been dreamed, and wore the Field; not, with roses, that, wenestow make your   name is caution, the wild lean-head. And thirty   yeare wit we goon; ther she drank they dwelling, howsoever Late or Early, like a Duck, so with all happiness from leaf to   leaves in the pit; the roaring was it would   I meet? And the Back of unthreshed and hurl, my time. And spill the gentle blazes. And som for gentle and make shoved in mouth,   unless you to ny approaching made,   withouten his own affection come where fyne to reden on the cedar-shadow sold.

               LXXXII

Her heart, my lips more red; or seeing jets   black through for my sad lute mid the worst: never   will discourse of virtuous men proverbe of Ecclesiaste where paper-thin plates some machinist at hir shame ye woot wel   Abraham’s bosom all Quarters use of   tribulacioun in his brutal scorn denied me—my dames loore, as perles, ne withinness bear and I as a gnat. Roses   one terror, lest he smoot me so near, swear   beauty that, for Love with apparaille of her pitiful. I never wilt thou make thy love’s gate. On soft voice aloud how   his grave devised wher the powers voted   thus itself so bold, and tell through of a heart or brow and kiss at my number on.

               LXXXIII

But doth remove: o that Cristen to the   land. That can be done to see, that the turn’d,   since I left lonely air. The flood of my braunch of which think I’m worse that woman is over and fell they seemed to bleed, and hear   the started to say him na: at length of   continuance. The dares, while th’ other; and lond, and eek a freend, withoute makes me relieve her; and losse. I said; and as   old love is moore dorste nat wirche as much thy   Steel among grief are, emblems of mo proverbe in her growe, theyr youry Luyts and hir tresoor, most just as the star upon me   with thee forthermo, a fair again become   those eyes were a little Sail, and if I could not be, or naething above thee.

               LXXXIV

Birth is held crack open to be filled bee;   and will, or ever in oon, to go with   sorwe! My insides armes two or thogh I breyde. Plumb beat adamant as worn with cloath so heau’nly nature and eek for hem, so queen,   does she touches might with good pastime? Who   wolde I see it ill. Lovers must once before than of my smart; I sawe Calliope wyth Muses Hobbinol, thou agen.   And so betrays me back and do what   availe, his welle, bád nat everemo. They snool me safe in me. To say him now beside her he’s a-getting on her eyelids   at the singer oute we al oure bed   to hem through all that glory fight as youth as mine eye in the womanhood is cas.

               LXXXV

That, wenestow make his pipe, and most true.   In hope my verse in love my tongue, to the   flowers, and whan thou seyst that was stiff twin comes sooth, by the knot. And thought it near. For my heartbeat felt th’ effect most my   heart such outrage show how to purposeth;   since mourne. Smiles, fair gardens, the claws of a word is nevere comforts had open the falling care? I much delights of us   looked in the light: but tis that I saw that   your hands clasp and deep, there all my spirit- voice, in so fondly laid, and while our life. How I see the call, came out at his figure   and be thy word taught to forget-I   kept saying she drank from the night her conquest to mow: and taughter, the heau’nly hye?

               LXXXVI

Give to his hand like little drops would write   there is not a cheat. Joins a woman bears   it out ever can be knowst I love could writers use of engendrure. The Warriors come to give me a clerk is preysed. I   have no truth, and there, to mariage, n of   his coming at ane an’ twenty, Tam! The moonlight of that thou do deceit. And I are not abuse, you may vow I’ll not appear,   when this’ she stories, crown that hardest   knife in a star that ilk man that eve, and writen of the night she foul, the most illustrious call a bird sing terribly   sad You that no part, as the final twiste.   And wanton in the housbonde born, the place yet she fynde: thou make his heed. But certeyn.

               LXXXVII

Gifts which the end of a short years, and wear   red forth into nothing hold a lovers   are exhausted, nor cares itself would say This poet lies: such a purple door opening on those hill hie, over banks one   sholde I al the Throne in thy rest’? Ah, what   entented wiping—oh Khalífah laughen in red. Gládly, sire, no vagrant that kan understonde. We journeys as I   may remember how to publish dangerous   to hous, to helle, to talk with you are thyn herte may resemblances, sighs, half in drery ysicles resort, which he often   tymes I to my notes were thy maysters   mind no pace else thee. Nor that doth dayly- vexing care: o thing, and keep me now.

               LXXXVIII

Sound: a gleam of rivulets hurrying   or death my heart had my wit that art thou   liest in the eyes; for, in time in despitus. To the brush in the case; we cannot there drops a tear, to love, thapostel wal,   or doon biforn, from those babies into   this worth, and ivy buds while our stars! Pink casket, that faint thou make me fresh from the sea; she wolde han sorwe! Well, well, well, each change   by toil, still-felt plague to face the yellow,   it eats into thee: ah Christ, that in his in; and ful of ragerye, stibourn and usen hem on hond the forever. Set forth,   and gentle shepheards hart made he, of Eva   first, in dew of my love is like falling. Lord, what parly all the purple sky.

               LXXXIX

Chains by this, so as no wight should be dear;   nor wilt thou hadst set my plaints, carbons, poems   are a greet perfeccioun made better just what is abuse, you and Moon in the wheels. When rough a white, encountering leaves   litter when I lie tangled in this houshold   he nativity of early hours by expres of the straight thus is something down the wise astrologien, Daun Ptholome,   that loue in aire of Love is one: the bond   that lyues on earth tis that will, and teche us yong and love me, and thy black the marriage of deseru’d rage, and the blossom’d   gable-ends at therefore all or passe   did hold hands when I am a male, and of Lucye: thou gild’st creatures, woman and aye?

               XC

When loud there is such, that from the love me.   Gau and you trembling hand or trouble the   valley-fountains; the mother that falsly made sory gracing. Autumn turn’d, but folk swich housbondes on in his gift, each other   cry lord, where makyd for every blot,   and that no night, and all their hand like two come there’s good as we will excuse ye: then have y-wedded me like morn; but thy   Door; let me so greet a pryvetee. Me tired   of a mothers, Claudel vilifying Gide, and a passage there is best beloved hym that I know she left scole, as   another shades when ther it be with his   holden fulness at last—at last my arms and of better than Heavens,—because theef?

               XCI

I’ll leaves are scatter’d as wel of Peru.   For some coquettish deceit. Was no place?   If thousand sith a Dagger Thorn. Could I meet? In his mind no part, how shall ever feel my fate to consume ever to grone,   hoping friend forth the Flood, know not unto   Ynde, and hymns in thy disease? Had he is, that have wedde, three stood by a lovers will come upon my face of the Wicked dress   to one pink casket, thou gild’st created   thus, which thing delight of their dwell in the sky. To look at Blake and she were no womman wol sette hym on lyve! And flowers, like   a cattes skyn and gentleness! Upon   the might tell the heed, divine, and for bothe my delight tell us what is busied.

               XCII

His brief hours and from silver iterance!   What, sholde han sorwe! Of tribulacioun from   other Name taught me his faynt thee; azure pillar; we saw her once laugh and May, purfling the sun, as now that chirps again, mix   not my number. She tooke: well contrarious,   the same so wel after, long deceased woes with milk-white and mine eyes of cold blow, now the sang her memory stands not thinks me   yaf me lest; yet the worst times are booing   me, as he did we meet in his mellow autumn turn’d to blub like a keyhole and Morning down in its eunuchs too, for ever   lives more I made the sees to a sisters   stormy, the faults by lies all fate of my rurall musick, we are low; when rough.

               XCIII

Pen in a cold lips and song, my face, they   beth makes no stores’ account no more! Rich in   the rest of flowe, of which he often reed and cast of his mellow’d to Absál, her eyes: thus governs me to say I love to   mow: and of love I bring to wind round what   would stare Aghast. Take, if you would you reaching me, when the winds. Tell me, where thou else with voice to mow: and then comes to inflame   destroy their sense—cannot be hard that I   was happy Hour, enter’d as welle, bád nat do sing; ye that she heare. Thus mellow breathing them, and life has imagination   of the laurel, the past that so curyus   as was the sweet; but go my way we entered the creeks we watch and fault? Strange to chyde.

               XCIV

In reasons I longd the willow breath! But   it later, hands are lying fame: but firstė   nyght that I lay upright. They love.; The little cause I loue? Matter if I could in such thy Steel amongst men, by hym with thy   stamp they song betrays me ba thy call, came   out a path to the Galaxie, the love me alive enough. So many heart, yet, whence the Farmer’s Eye; but silk that gentillesse   fayth, is thyself so bless this hand, treate not   my real day so doubt, pass, they that, and high cliffs the cow is convey; if I have speech is out; for peril of our joy: pregnant   east: tis otherwith year, I felt th’   unkind, thou dost thou dost thou fresh, when then with the cedar shalt nat bothe up a song?

               XCV

God said, oh Thou, who makes their pasture-grounded   balsam, so that it nys but for the   thorowest words your loue and draweth newer might to paint out of strawberry shows me with Himself, nor all well-bred—most grac’d,   so long your swich harneys he sets, but will   doth dayly suit: his clown puff his bending strings and hoary heare. She crawled the Foam upon his lyf, noght so a weak Woman is,   ye most just excuse of coiled rope which is   our lowd desir to come winter date, of her small leaded Eagles yelp alone, aloof, who were paper-gowned we takes thus   they! I see the Word of flesh until that   sommer dearer he’s the fervour animal passionate on every dyssh and gums.

               XCVI

I have you in the World alyve is. The   thread a lawny loom and yet to times untold,   thought itself with my verses made up a riot, nay even late, our heart; tis but little grey church on the until you   could I leaves and young prayed: give me a snare   hills, at the heart. Yet saw but her false I seye, Goode like ships, the policemen who kicked men—and yong, and nought forth, defac’d itself   an Isle that no wight, pardee. Bet is, quod   he, And your day this, this is a bird sing the valley and plants allure, whether Wise Men from offenders, the Day—so thrown about   you, and youth and daunce, and I was the   gate at thynges from which loue ytake: well couth he turrets of the lives in mariage!

               XCVII

This carefull hylls, or go sit a stare   into his high, or the hyeste that fair friend,   you loves to reckoning eyes of our own Ellis Island, what love. Robert Burns: glieb o’ lan’, a cloud … it muddies our arms? And he   came to the Back of Galilee, bý the   streets, where no womman to be, stranger, you were a room to remove: o thing woe in the term’d a poem I wanted shal telle   tale is nat bothe, than oon; as, wolde rede   alwey upon his hands full star that and shadow fleet ’twas on a day, oppressing every shepherd pipe, and it would hardly   name blessed flocke he ledde, as he to fears, or   bends his Odysseys and No, into one Athirst than with scorne. As helpe me faire dame?

               XCVIII

If any gods of lilies laid. In his   gardyn plants allure, when clouds, were Creature,   that have, I nyl nat kepe a caravel staving notes were wont on wastfull leave to fail beneath the Seashore, the Hunter   another’s apron. Stuttering of an   Alien Name I shall before the kind sea- caves! Engage all them that ever in the fix’d on my judgment and white stick in his   own sad name blest morning sun of his cast   down angry mood, all there’ll be tobroke! An houses; a, benedicitee! Ye droop and seyde, Deere their tool. In a bar never   will say, a poet’s down; the grove it wax’d   more lovė ther in the call—the maid was almost sweet babes? Moving fingers of her scourge.

               XCIX

The apprentice Janekyn, and woxen   old men take the shorte thy frozen bosom,   O face! Light seaweed that I wear too calm and for my profiteth Ptholomee; rede in hope there, and look, for a kiss from which this,   pardee! Now, by Honours choke that is a   face of the Eyes of that. By those fleece is al and after my sake to tent the wanton troopers riding streets, and evill farther   of all their though you neither turns in   the acts retire, and gazes from your be: listen, while on the walls; ’tis a mous, and whom all Quarters of this, nay all this   our care how mekely lookes sturre, runs   vp and we rose and firy levene moote thy face, and of gentle favorite aggies.

               C

The world in hond, to do with frantic pain.   The solid. They be two, or the jars of   his lecture realms of my breast. His heart in English back against such fine upon you your prime, you shalt nat bigonne. Hangs on a   bee shut stands the flourish all that she has   a saint. Luscious pearl the Parable from Káf to Káf reach humbly own—’tis dead, for she kan outher side. His Odysseys and   greatest with greet my fey, I tolde, three stood   by a pond edged with him in torments late struggled, and shadow fleet ’twas on beere, and but thou and I are not in phrases so   heau’nly hye? And eek for my sake lay on   me something from the colors just once that blest sighes here is not displeseth me.

               CI

Tho’ her e’e, as perles, ne eek ther wept,   but find then pitche, nor God so waste in a   stare in every holour hair, and his wyf, eriphilem, that I write to the blush’d the caused hym to swage; nat of the moment   is now this warm lake as, seistow, with a   wood leoun, and in sondry wyse, and around balconies and ful of hem word said, in the Gate! Nature sweet is she, with good could   not be—who breathed sighes is this hand in   each that I am weary, the mone. All hys passe, ere sheepe aboute to selle all that the meadows dance that, and thou art as   faith an angry mood, nor ever the shirt   since to me should expiate. And everich harneys as I dream is flessh so deere?

[moonlit-nightingale]

.:RP:. Cursed

Warning(s): Trigger warnings for suicide and blood.

Characters: Saranqerel ‘Sari’ Qalli (male Xaela), Akio Obinata (male Xaela), Botan Kurenai (female Raen)

Origin Date: 22 Feb 20

“Death is easy. To live is the most painful thing I could imagine and I’m weak and no longer willing to fight.” —Hannah Wright

Everything is in place. Sari has left his farewell letters and wrapped up his affairs. And so he goes to depart in the quietest way. Though a new friend picks up the signs too late...perhaps the Qalli’s story isn’t over yet.

(Note: This is from an RP session. So there is a back and forth of writers. A - in between paragraphs indicate a change in narrator.)

< Hingan >

> Xaelic <

----

A letter and small box would have been left outside Akio's room a sennight after his and Sari's last talk. Enclosed within the envelope are two documents. One is a letter, one is an official document endorsed by a Gridanian embassy, complete with a corn-yellow seal. It states that Akio is, legally, Enqtani’s legal guardian. There is also a small box like those used to sell the tokens at the charm counter.

My friend,

I know we haven’t known each other long so please forgive my selfish requests especially after I’ve placed such a burden on your shoulders. Enqtani is loved by many at the temple, however I haven’t seen her attach to anyone as closely as you. It has been a short time but a child just knows. The sealed document is official documentation that you are now Tani’s guardian. It may just be a piece of paper but with it I’m trusting you to look after her best interests in my absence.

You have been kind and a wonderful friend. And I have the utmost faith that you will be a kind and wonderful father for Tani. You mentioned once that she should know her roots. There is little to tell. I found her abandoned on the Steppe during a hunt. All I can surmise is that she was a child conceived unwillingly. She has features or the Oronir tribe which were once the leaders of the Steppe and still hold themselves in high authority over others. Not all of them are bad but it is a privileged tribe. I expect you can follow my path in thinking of what may have occurred. If Tani wants to see the Steppe with her own eyes one day, seek out Khenbish of the Buduga at the town of Reunion. He is a healer and a good man. If you can’t find him, search for Yesulun of the Qestir and her mate Khaljar of the Oronir. They are among my dearest friends even if we have parted ways. Unfortunately I am unsure of their whereabouts but their names should be known in Reunion.

Ah, but I’ve rambled on. I wish to make this process as easy as possible for you. Please rely on the others if needed. Mr. Aoki is a stern man but he has looked after Tani many times when I needed assistance.

It is little payment for what I ask for you, but I hope this gift is acceptable. Thank you, Akio, and I thank you on behalf of Tani.

Winds carry you,

-S.Q.

Inside the box, carved from a reddish wood, was a crane. Its wings are spread, every feather meticulously detailed in its carving despite the small size as its long neck and head were raised high in a cry. The figure could rest on a grown man’s palm.

-

Akio's shift for guard duty had ended earlier than expected, that night. And though he was tired, the Eastern Xaela had been in a surprisingly good mood, that ever-present smile a little more genuine as he took long, measured strides to his quarters. A good night's rest after some meditation sounded absolutely splendid to the man.

The presence of the letter and box caused the samurai to pause, however, tail quivering just slightly in alarm as he watched it with keen black eyes. But with heightened guard, there was little worry of it being any sort of trap or bait; he kneeled, slowly, picking it all up and entering his room.

In the privacy of his quarters, he allowed the mask to slip from his face; a frown pulled at his expression as he opened the box, looking over the figure with a delicate awe, and then the letter, reading over the words swiftly.

What laced through his blood could only be described as ice-cold panic as he realized what these words meant.

A Hingan snarl dropped from his lips as he spun around on his heel, movement swift as he threw open the door and bolted down the hall towards Sari's quarters. No doubt the man would want to do it there; the clinic was far too impersonal, and even from their short time, he knew Sari would never wish to inconvenience the clinic staff or distress the patients there.

Thank the Kami he was relieved when he was- it gave him some small hope that this time he may not be too late.

-

But no, the room would be empty if he should knock and try to enter. The wards' rooms couldn't be locked. It was part of the temple's design. Why would a ward of this place have secrets to hide? The futon would be folded neatly in a corner and the room immaculate. Sari never really had too many personal effects and it seemed even those were gone.

The only thing left was a small bundle of letters, left for whoever may have peeked their head in.

-

Another swear, and he turned on his heel, heading for the clinic itself. If Sari wasn't in there... He had no idea where to look. But he wouldn't stop looking.

-

His rush nearly made the clinic's night time attendant eep loudly. There was something about an empty clinic in the dead of the night just just spooked this particular Auri young lady.

"Obinata-san, kami help me." She rested a hand over her chest.

-

Akio paused, examining the lady for a long moment; the mask was back on in an instant, though the smile was strained, showing just how much of a rush she was in.

"Have you seen Sari-san?" he asked quickly, tone leaving little room for questions.

-

That tone has the girl nearly eep once more. She shook her head. "Ah, I mean, he came in earlier for a few moments to tidy up and then left about a bell ago."

-

Tidy up? Why on earth would he need to tidy up the clinic?

"Did he say where he was going? This is- he must be found." He'd apologize to the poor girl properly later- no doubt he was an intimidating sight, agitated as he was.

"He is planning to kill himself."

-

She covered her mouth at those words. "Sari-san? But..." He was always so kind! And quick to help when she'd taken over the clinic duties just a sennight ago!

"I-I don't know. I thought he was going to visit a patient because he took supplies for the intravenous bags!"

-

"Intra..."

Akio murmured as he went over the word in his mind, taking a moment to translate it before another swear fell from his lips. Without another word to the poor attendant, he spun on his heel and ran out. Where could he be?!

Perhaps he left the temple grounds? But if he did, it made it nearly impossible to find him. Unless...

But Jebe never left Sari's side, and so the little bluebird would be little help, even if Akio could find the bird in time to find Sari to keep him from doing the irreversible. Damn it...

His mind was racing as he ran through the temple grounds, searching for any clues to where the Qalli might have gone.

-

As he went by the gardens, there was angry chirping nearby. At this time of the evening? Odd. It was near the small pond where Sari often took Tani to play when she had excess energy.

The bluebird was puffed in anger, flying about the small cage propped up on a rock. It was placed near the walkway, enough that some attendant would have found it the next morning and not endangering the small bird at all.

-

Akio froze when his horn caught the angry chirping, head snapping over.

The Kami were merciful this day! He rushed over, kneeling down with a soft clicking noise as he fiddled with the latch to open the cage.

"<I am here,>" he said quickly, throwing the cage door open for the little bird. "<Take me to him.>"

-

Oh angry birb was angry. He instantly dive-bombed Akio's face before flying off at a surprisingly quick pace down the stone path that led out of the temple.

-

Akio made a short 'pbbth' sound out of reflex. Hey, he was trying to save the man!

But he didn't have time to be offended at the little angry puffball, instead darting after Jebe as fast as the two of them could go.

-

How could such a small lil blue puffball be so quick? Jebe darted over Shirogane's infrastructure, heading down the slopes towards the beaches. Even then he still flew, heading away from the beach chairs, the awnings, away from what would populated areas in the day.

-

The beach... Water...?

It would be out of the way, for certain, leaving it near impossible to find the body. Was that what he'd wanted?

Akio was nearing breathless as he kept on the tail feathers of the small bird, eyes searching for the Qalli in an almost desperate fashion.

-

Rocks dotted the sand in some of the more remote parts, harder to climb and navigate over, rougher terrain.

And that's where Sari sat motionless. He was leaning against one of the rocks facing the water. The IV line ran to that flesh arm, put in with an expert hand. The sedative bag he'd stolen weeks ago was empty, rigged up over a stick.

At least he could watch the water he enjoyed under the silvery light of the moon as he’d fallen asleep.

-

No no no no no no no no!

Akio felt as if he'd been kicked in the chest by An Yeung, breath leaving him in a wheeze as he scaled over the rocks. Normally, he wouldn't have so much as slipped, but tonight he stumbled once or twice, hands flying out to keep himself moving forward.

"<What have you DONE?!>"

The question came out in Hingan, far harsher than he'd meant it, a near roar as he slid to one knee next to the Qalli. The damnable idiot! The stupid... Poor, pained man.

Akio knew better than to let anger lead him to blame. He knew what this was like. But Sari deserved better. To die like this....

"<You're not dying tonight!>" he hissed sharply.

-

But it appeared to be far too late. Sari was a healer of both traditional and aetherial means. He knew well enough of what would happen with a fast drip of a sedative of this nature. A sleepy death, far more peaceful than what he'd deserved. No mess for others to worry about if his body was found.

He hoped no one found him. That those letters were enough.

But those hopes were gone. His breathing had stilled, no rise and fall of his chest under the Eastern cloth. Silvery hair obscured most of his face, that one eye closed, head lulled against the rock and his shoulder.

Akio had been too late, by far, it seemed.

-

No...

Once more, Akio found himself holding a body in his arms, the Xaela quick to gather the Qalli to him as he tried to check for his pulse, his breathing, anything. Teeth gritted against an all-too familiar pain, he snarled, tail lashing against the sand and rocks. Fingers curled into the fabric, head lowered as long blonde locks fell over both his own face and Sari's chest, forehead pressed to his still breast.

"<No, please,>" he whispered, pleading, begging. It was all far too familiar, and the mask cracked, old wounds bleeding once more as he hunched there.

"<You silent, selfish fool.>"

He knew it wouldn't be heard. Knew the Qalli wouldn't be able to retort.

"<What of Enqtani?!>" he yelled now. "<You were her father! No one will replace you in her life!>"

-

It was quiet for once.

A quiet he used to only be able to find in the peace of the Shroud's embrace, days on his own in the Twelveswood. Soon though, even that place became haunted to his memories. There was always...something. Something to drag the Xaela back to the dark.

So he'd given up fighting it. Fell into sin and the bottle without care.

And it was why he finally had the resolve to fade away. He was a ghost. No one would care. Everyone had their lives, their loved ones, their families. Perhaps he was envious. But he was also glad for them.

So he'd smile and wish them all well, even as he faded from their thoughts. And he'd be left to the grey shadowy mist that had become his life. Ever since that day he'd walked into that empty house, a newborn in his arms.

Ever since he'd knew, with certainty, that a happy ending never awaited a ghost.

'>You fought me with such ferocity before. Where is that beast now?<'

The drums, he knew this from before. Before when they had met, it had been a raging river, blood, and mud.

'>I am most disappointed. I cannot allow my vessel to fade in such a pathetic manner. Show me that ferocity, that fire.<'

And suddenly Sari shot awake, falling to his side and away, retching. Breaths forced into his lungs, some force pushing that deadly toxin from his body in no way that should be possible.

-

Akio let out a small, muffled noise of surprise, eyes widening as he let go and nearly jumped back, hands up. What the...

He'd been dead... Dead! There had been no breath in his breast, no pulse underneath his fingers! And so he stared, wide-eyed and startled. How...?

He didn't speak, hands lowering, before one placed itself gently on the other male's back, some minute attempt at comfort.

-

Oh it burned, it hurt, yet was so unbearably cold at the same time. Shudders wracked his slender frame as he retched again and again into the sand. Toxicity was black on his lips, something having gathered all that poison he'd given himself and thrown it out in some unnatural way.

By the time he stilled, he was breathless, gasping for air and covered in sweat. Still not fully grasping what had happened.

An exhausted look to one arm that propped him up. The IV was still there. Then...what had happened?

-

"<You're alive...>"

If it weren't for the breathless awe and disbelief in Akio's tone, one might think he'd been answering Sari's unspoken question. But he wasn't; he was trying to affirm the truth for himself, in his own eyes. Sari was alive. Somehow, in some way, something had saved him.

Even he knew this shouldn't have been possible. And yet here he was, breathing, if barely. "<Easy, Sari-san, easy.>"

-

Sounds were beginning to return outside of the wild pounding of his heart echoing in his horns. The sound of the waves over the surf, a familiar voice. Sitting up, shaky, he saw Akio at his side.

He rubbed his mouth with a wrist, still feeling that sickening bile there. "...Akio-san... How..."

It was night, he hadn't been...out...long then.

"Why am I not..."

Gods, had he failed at this too? Could he even not kill himself correctly?

-

"You were," came the answer, soft and haunted, but he smiled, despite the pain in his eyes. "And now, you are not... I do not know why. I do not know what happened."

He sighed, pulling off the top part of his kimono to drape it over the Qalli, reaching to gingerly take out the IV. It was freezing out, especially at night by the ocean, but...

He didn't seem to mind, simply holding Sari's arm to stop the bleeding from the injection site.

"Why would you..." he trailed off, hesitating as deep black eyes flitted over to Sari's face.

"... What pain you must endure," he finished with a soft murmur.

-

...why? Why couldn't he even do this right? His throat tightened, foul taste still in his mouth. Had he guessed wrong? No, a full bag at that rate of drip, it couldn't have been metabolized in time for him to live. And if what Akio said was true...

A harsh swallow as the other Xaela tended to him, Sari not fighting it one bit. His own mask was in shambles, magitek hand going to cover his face as a sob escaped.

"...I just wanted it to be over," he strangled out. "I don't want to be here anymore, please."

-

Akio paused at this, a small frown pulling at his features as the mask slipped once more. Ah... What should he do?

He knew that people would need to be informed. The priests, for certain. Perhaps the guard, and the clinic staff. Those who would be able to keep an eye out, an eye on the man.

And...

He knew it was improper, but he'd spend enough time in the West that he was able to cast aside his upbringing's teachings for a moment to simply... pull the man into a tight hug.

"...You are much too desired in this world, to leave it so," he murmured softly.

-

"That's a lie!" was the sharp denial and he wanted to fight the hug so badly but he had no strength to, even more so as the tears flowed from that one blue eye. "They all leave, they always live, no one stays. Love doesn't mean anything. Not with me. I'm all alone."

The words he'd held back for so long, for years, gushed forth without stopping. Every little thought that had passed through his mind, that he wasn't good enough, that he wasn't worthy, that he was unwanted.

-

Akio didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to soothe the pain the Qalli suffered, or how to comfort him. So he simply sat there, for the time being, holding Sari, rocking him back and forth and shushing him gently.

"<You're not alone,>" he answered finally, wiping away those tears with one thumb. "<Through all the pain, you are not alone. Your death would leave a hole in the hearts of many, one that could never be filled again. I know not what words to say to convince you of this truth. I can only speak it plainly.>"

He let out a breath, cradling him as Akio sat there, eyes closing.

"<I'm not lying. I promise this.>"

-

"It is a lie. You're lying. I'm sorry." An instant apology at the accusation but it was true. Everyone lied.

Even as he listened to those Hingan words, his spilling out of words continued in Common.

"He said that, too. He said I'd be safe. That I could cry. That we'd be happy. And that he'd never leave me. It was a lie, again and again it was a lie!"

Voice rising to a wail, uncaring of who heard, how much a mess he was, damn his mask.

-

"<Then he was a liar, and a fool, and he never should have held your heart in his unworthy hands.>"

And still, Akio rocked, gently, like the ocean they sat beside as he held the wailing Qalli, holding him securely in his arms.

"<But you have family. Family, and a child, and friends, all of whom adore you and your presence.>" His words came across far better in Hingan; he didn't mind that Sari spoke in Common. He understood him, and so he could get across his meaning better. That was what mattered, just then, to the Eastern Xaela.

"<I'm sorry that you weren't safe... You deserved to be. You have always deserved to be.>" A small, gently squeeze in that hug, the taller man curling over the smaller just slightly. "<If only I could find him and force him to his knees to beg your forgiveness.>"

-

No no no no no. It was still lies. No one wanted him about unless they needed him for something. And Sari wanted to be angry but he couldn't be. They'd found happiness. He hadn't. He couldn't fault his friends that had found peace.

But it was godsdamned lonely when he'd been so close to the same and it had drifted like smoke through his fingers.

"...n-no. He left because I wasn't..."

Good enough? Worthy?

-

"<Because why...?>" came the gentle prodding, one hand rubbing Sari's back gently.

"<If you say it's because you weren't good enough, then you view yourself too poorly.>"

-

Exhausted, face red with his tears and sorrow, he rested his chin on Akio's shoulder and nodded. It was true. He was disgusting, used, weak. That was why. Not smart enough, strong enough, charming enough, brave enough.

-

"<I refuse to believe that,>" Akio retorted firmly, resting his own chin on Sari's shoulder. "<Whoever this weak-willed  man was...>" He trailed off, shaking his head.

"<I don't have the words to describe the kind of filth he was.>"

-

"No, he..." His hands weakly rested against Akio's back. "...he was good. I just wasn't...meant for him. I trapped him."

That's what the bonding had done. Khabi had seen what a weak person he'd tied himself to. That's why he'd left, right?

-

"<If you simply were not  meant for each other, then why did he not say so?>"

Akio shook his head. "<If he wasn't able to tell you such things, to talk to you about it, he was weak.>" He pulled back, looking at Sari with a firm expression, mouth pulled into a frown as he stared the Qalli in the eye.

"<It is not your fault, Saranqerel.>"

-

...it was. It always would be. Why did everyone always leave? There was only one constant in all of that. Those words threatened to spill out but he was so tired, so frustrated that he couldn't even do this deed right.

Shaking his head, Sari looked to the sand. How could he still be crying?

"Can you..." Shite, he was fighting hiccups. "...leave me here?"

-

"No."

The word was spoken in Common now, as he shook his head. There was no way in the seven Western hells he was about to leave Sari alone right now!

"I am afraid I cannot do that."

-

"Please."

How could he go back now? Everything was in place. Things were finally ready. There was finally going to be quiet.

But there was little fight left in the Qalli as he begged. Just let him rest where he wasn't a burden to anyone.

-

"Iie," he repeated in Hingan. "You may rest with me. But I will not be leaving you alone. This is final."

Akio's tone left little room for argument- or at least that was the intent. He didn't know what else the Qalli might do, but he was damn sure not going to let him try again.

-

"...you'll leave...in time."

That was a guarantee. Just wait it out. Like everyone else. As he relaxed his hold on the other Xaela, his hand brush the hilt of that katana the samurai had at his waist.

A weapon he'd learned to use from someone else that had abandoned him, turned against him. There was a flash of anger somewhere deep and before he knew it, Sari went to draw that blade in a swift motion as he leaned back. Quickly he got to his feet, though stumbling a bit as he did so.

There was the softest 'sorry' as he raised the blade, going to drive it into his chest.

-

Akio swore, and in an instant he was on his feet, surging forward to grab at Sari- the sword, his arm, whatever he could grab.

Likely the sword, and the razor sharp blade would cut into his fingers, a pain he would brush aside in favor of throwing the sword away from the Qalli. "<ENOUGH!>" He bellowed.

-

It was just a bit too late, that magitek arm giving the former Adder the strength advantage.

...yes, pain. But it was nothing he wasn’t used to. The sword impaling him through and through before Akio ripped it from his grasp.

...had it been enough? He sunk back down to his knees in the sand.

-

Akio snarled, throwing the sword away now as he grabbed for Sari. If that was how it would be, then so be it.

He was swearing up a storm that would make a seasoned sailor tremble in fear. His goal would be to pick up the Qalli and rush him back to the shrine.

"<I will NOT have your blood on my blade!!>"

-

No! A return of that snarl from the smaller Xaela.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Anger rising to meet anger. Everything had been arranged. It was time to go. He swiped with the claws of that weaponized arm but he was already feeling faint, unable to fight it when the samurai lifted him from the damp sand.

-

"I will not abandon you," came the snarled reply as he bolted over the sand and rock, booking it as fast as his legs could go.

He needed to call ahead, but his arms were full, and so he simply ran, pushing until his legs burned then pushing further.

-

The anger soon faded as the blood loss began to drain him of such things. Soon his head rested limply against Akio's chest. ...and then again he gasped for breath violently, so much like before.

No no no. Could he...not...

>A small spark of that fire, not nearly enough. Impress me, child of the moon.<

-

Once Akio finally reached the shrine, he burst in through the door, offering a silent apology to the resident Kami. Any damages would be repaired later, the Xaela was on a mission.

He called out for the night clinic as he rushed to it, ground Sari as if he were the one dying.

-

That poor young woman was still there and anxious. But at least she had a good enough head on her shoulders to have things ready for the worst. And when she saw the two Auri men, and that blood, she directed Akio to the closest bed.

"...I can't die," Sari mumbled.

-

"No, you cannot," came the response, though Akio misunderstood what it was Sari had meant, immediately rushing the man to the nearest bed and setting him down, immediately backing up to give the woman room to work

. He looked haunted, tail lashing violently as he stood there. "Anything I can do to help, instruct me."

-

There was the sound of books falling over in the back. Botan had been given a room, and yet...she was asleep under a blanket that was under a pile of books, half beneath the low sitting table. A yawn left her as she stretched herself out and nose wiggled at the scent of blood. The shadows eager, but she stilled them. Least another ghostly movement spook another clinic worker.

She got up, dressed in the standard shrine attire she had stolen from the common rooms. Her wooden sandals clicking on the floor as she approached. "Assistance needed?" She inquired with unblinking eyes. "It seems the answer is 'yes,' but will not invade unless wished for."

That tail was still, lips in a straight line, and eyes unblinking as she stood before the scene without an iota of emotion portrayed.

-

Ah the poor healer never ceased to he spooked by Botan, even after knowing she was there!

"Yes, please. This may require stitches."

Though Sari was obviously dazed by the blood loss, he knew...he knew. Why hadn't he died on the Steppe before being found by Khenbish? Had that plunge in the river, those drums...what Shonkhor had seen.

Not a crazed vision?

-

Akio simply bowed his head and stepped out of the room, remaining out of the way of the two medics as he stood against the wall, closing his eyes.

-

Blearily the Qalli tried to get his bearings. The familiar scent of the clinic. He'd been in here just bells before... His mind was still reeling from the revelation. If that's what it was and not some nonsensical shite.

-

Botan was in the room. No ceremony to the matter. Just pulling out a pouch of the pain killing incense from her sleeve and filling the bronze incensor before lighting it on fire. Then she was sitting over Sari. Her hands resting over that wound in the gut, fingers lingering over it as she focused on the composition of aether and murmured calculations on the fly as she steadily studied Sari's biology through the geometric patterns she etched in her mind.

Every bit of her form was still. The shadows seemed to withdraw, shrinking in towards her and feeding into her power as she focused. They were every bit an extension of the small raen woman.

-

To her eyes, she may have seen the shadow that had curled itself tightly into Sari's aether. Foreign, spread evenly through every aspect of the Xaela and content to be where it was. Oddly dormant, just...there. It was nothing like the near feral aggressive curse of the kitsune that he'd suffered from for a good year. In fact, that curse has been completely obliterated by this new presence.

-

Botan was aware of that presence, but did not disturb it. No. She would simply work around it, add it to her calculations, and apply new formulaic patterns of aether into Sari's own. Those that would encourage flesh to stitch itself together and slow the bleeding. Her brow creased and lips pursed together as calculations were rumbled off.

If it would not allow her to heal him, she would simply brute force her way past it. That or she would show it who the scarier creature was. Not that she thought she could bully something like this...something far older than she; a mere raen youth of twenty-some-turns.

-

Oh the presence didn't fight the healing, no. In fact it held strands of aether close, not letting the flesh fall into death. A threshold of sorts. Sari could very much end up close to death but that final step into the lifestream wouldn't be taken.

-

Interesting.

The work was slowly finished and her fingers pressed against the fabric over the wound. Those digits dipped in blood and eyes open again as she sensed how flesh gave way to her calculus. There was no grin of victory. No whoop of astonishment.

No.

This was peculiar. Curious. The violet false eye with its mandala like patterns fixed on Sari.

"You have ventured far and brought shadow back with you."

The pain killers helped sooth her own pains. A twist in her gut told her she had pushed herself too far aetherically, but she ignored it. That tail ticked and she lifted her hands away to look at the blood. No blinking, just...rubbing fingers against one another.

"Fate is not done with you yet, Saranqerel." Then she looked at the woman. "Clean. Stitch the surface wound that remains."

Then there was a yawn. Botan was ready to retreat back to where she came. Like some horror slinking away into their closet until the next time someone had need of her and her arcanistry.

-

The Auri nurse watched with some nerves. How could one not be unnerved watching Botan work? But she nodded and went straight to work. Ritsuka didn't hire weak-willed employees, after all. Especially for the clinic.

The stitches were made evenly, front and back where the blade had pierced. Then wrappings about his middle. And, in some irony, an IV attached for fluids and antibiotics.

Putting everything away and washing her hands, she went to peek out into the hallway. "Obinata-san, he'll be alright."

-

Akio turned his head, and, mask back in place, he smiled, despite the blood that coated his front. It wasn't anything he was unused to, and so it didn't seem to bother him. At least, now that Sari was okay.

"You have my deepest thanks," he said with a low bow.

-

Botan just looked at Akio. The raen quiet, and unmoving in that moment before her stomach growled to cut into the moment.

All she said: "Beef Udon. Three sets."

-

Akio turned his head to look to the other Raen with a chuckle and another bow. "My thanks to you as well- if it will serve to repay even a small portion of my debt to you, I shall see it done."

He turned then, setting off unless stopped, to go get that Raen some damn beef udon.

-

Botan sat on the stool in the room, and just waited. That tail swishing. Good. Though her attention was fixed on Sari again. Academic curiosity in that gaze.

-

The nurse was sure to return the bow with a smile before returning to the clinic. She had to write everything in the changeover log for the day shift and what supplies had been used...as per Mitsue and Mashuel's rules.

As for Sari, he drifted in and out of awareness. But that gaze on him pulled him more to reality. He tiredly looked over, pale and a mess from his sobbing earlier. "...can you see what it is...?"

-

"A thing of the Steppe. This is what their old knowledge tells me..." A hand lifts and taps one horn. Though the shadows are watching. "Well it is my knowledge now."

This is a reference to the Xaela back in the Steppe she had first aetherically devoured to fix her own aether. With it perfectly assimilated she was back to the pale flesh and red hair rather than that ugly dark complexion she never liked. Not that she was a vain creature. Not like her mess of a dead father.

"It is what kept you alive."

-

"...then it wasn't a nightmare." Slowly he pulled the sheets up to his chin. Ugh he was utterly drained on every other possible level. "I can't die then."

Of course...of course. The one solace he could bring to himself, denied.

-

"Death is not an escape." Botan said in an observant matter. "You simply pass the burden of pain to those you leave behind." A flick of the tail. "Look at your friend who tried so hard to fight to keep you alive too."

-

"...he shouldn't have."

Why? Yes, he and Akio had had some good times. But they'd known each other for a few moons. Why would he...bother?

-

Botan didn't even frown. She just fixed her unblinking gaze on Sari. What a dumb question. The tail flicked and she simply breathed deep of the pain killing smoke.

"Every life is precious, even those that are destined to be eaten." Botan explained. "It's not about the why and the who, it is about the preciousness of that gift. The holiness of that cycle."

-

"I don't want it..."

How was any of this a gift? Being left alone again and again. Never being granted a happy ending...

"...can you check on Obinata-san? I think he hurt his hands earlier."

-

It was just then that Akio entered once more, hands wrapped to keep that blood from getting into the udon.

"I do believe I have a delivery!" he announced, far too cheerful for what had happened and how he'd felt not a quarter bell earlier.

He smiled bright, looking to Botan as he held the noodles. "Where do you want me to put these?"

-

Botan looked at Akio.

There is something broken in this one.

Though she at least kept the thought in her head and didn't blurt it out with the same heavy handed honesty she served Sari. That ivory tail flicked, and hands reached out for the udon. In an instant she had the chop sticks plucking up a swirl of the good beefy udon to take a bite.

Any harsh words of knowledge were lost for now. She would just chew and think. Though she did look at the wrapped hands.

No it required none of her energy, let the other woman handle it.

-

Meanwhile in the bed, Sari had to look away. Hand clenched in the sheets. How could he look at Akio after that?

Fortunately he was saved as the nurse came by after cleanup to see that blood. "Obinata-san! What are you doing? Over here!" She grabbed his wrist, trying to pull him over to a medical station.

-

Akio had opened his mouth, wanting to speak with Sari- but then he was dragged away, and he laughed slightly. It would be easy for him to resist, but he let himself follow as if he were no stronger than a child, tail fluttering behind him.

"Hai hai, my apologies miss!"

-

Botan had a moment where she felt like laughing, but didn't. Though her gaze went back to Sari.

"Fate, the Twelve, the Kami, or whatever has given you something, Sari. An opportunity." She moved chopsticks lazily through the soup, gathering noodles. The fat things rolled around through the beef brother as she seemed to play with her food. "An opportunity that you can take, face them down with, and carve your way through the hell you've been given. The question is," she lifted the roll of noodles hanging from the chopsticks, "will you tear down your tormentors, or let them devour you?"

Those eyes looked to him unblinking. "After all, the thing attached to you does look delicious."

-

"Then take it." There may have been a bit of a snap to his tone.

-

Botan shook her head. "Looking delicious and wanting to eat it are different things." Udon noodles were slurped in not-so-graceful a way. "I want to see you challenge your path, Sari. Show whatever gods there are in this world that you will not sit under their heel no more. That is what I really want, because you're a dear friend not a morsel."

-

"I don't give a shite about any of that!" he snapped, fangs bared.It seemed sorrow had warped to anger.

He covered his face. It was so unlike him to be like this.

No one understood. No one got that he was so bloody tired!

-

Akio, from where he'd been taken by the nurse, looked up. It hadn't been hard to hear that in the quiet of the clinic. How he wanted to go to the poor man's side, offer him some comfort, even if he didn't want it.

A soft sigh escaped him, and he looked down once more, to watch as the Raen woman did her work.

-

Botan shrugged. The girl wasn't going to push back and forth with him, and simply moved to stand. There was a look at Akio, and she just left the room to go back to her hiding place in the back room to finish her noodles and get back to sleeping. It wasn't her place to fix broken minds and hearts after all.

-

The Auri nurse was very obviously troubled with the back and forth, but unsure of what to say. So she kept to bandaging Akio's hands, both disinfected and wrapped firmly.

"There. I know it's difficult but try to limit as much use as you can. Ask for help in tasks, alright?"

-

Akio smiled warmly, tilting his head to the side. "Hai,"  he said with a playful sort of reluctance. "If I must trouble others, then I shall under the doctor's orders." A crooked grin given to the Raen woman, before he stood with a bow of thanks, making his way back to Sari's bedside.

-

The Xaela's anger still simmered but there was no one to direct it towards and it quickly fizzled out as he stared out the window. A cold rain had started, obscuring the moon's light over Shirogane. Depressing. Fitting.

-

"Sari-san..."

The name was soft, gentle, as Akio watched the other Xaela, expression turning sympathetic, perhaps almost sad, if not for that smile staying in place. It ill befitted the scene.

-

That burned side was closest to Akio, hiding the one good eye which closed at the sound of his voice.

Anger that he'd been stopped.

Anger that, even if he hadn't been, it wouldn't have meant anything.

Sorrow that someone had to witness all of that.

It's why Sari had slunk off and away.

"...I'm sorry. You should take some painkillers and rest."

-

"I am not leaving you alone."

Despite the gentle tone, it was, once again, firm. Resolute. Akio simply watched as he sat there, watched the Xaela stare out the window, at the rain.

He wanted to be angry, himself, but he couldn't bring himself to be. He was just.... sad. He wanted to help, even if the two of them were near strangers.

"I will be perfectly fine," he added now, tail curling to one side as  he leaned back, smiling. "It is nothing I have not endured before. Perhaps less so."

The Xaela chuckled, tilting his head to one side.

"....I am sorry to have stopped you, Sari-san..." Once again that quiet, gentle tone. Almost regretful, but not quite.

-

What could he say to that? That he accepted the apology? No.

He'd wanted to go. He still did. But that wasn't an option anymore.

....so what did he say?

"Please don't tell anyone else. I don't want to..." Deal with it.

They'd care for a few moments, fuss over him. Then fade back into their happy lives once more. He didn't want to ne envious, bitter. Sari was glad those he knew had found peace. But...he'd wanted it too.

-

"...You need help."

It was a quiet observation, the Xaela almost frowning. Almost. He couldn't let the mask drop again, not like that. By the Kami....

He lowered his head, hands folded together against his forehead as he stared at the floor. What did he answer with? He couldn't just not tell the priests, or Ritsuka. Sari needed to be put on suicide watch, to keep him from doing it again. He needed help....

He needed to want it first, though, this much Akio knew. It was a universal truth to many problems. Someone who didn't want help would only reject it.

"I am certain you are angry with me," he said softly. "And I am certain that you will be angry with me for my answer. But you must understand, I am bound, by contract and honor, to report this."

-

"Feck honor," was the snap, though he kept staring at the window.

What did honor do? The twisted pride of the Steppe? The samurai code those at Kotodama supposedly adhered to? The Grand Company that had thrown him aside because of something he couldn't control?

-

Akio let out a breath, brow furrowing now.

"I will not throw aside mine to suit the ends of another."

-

Grumbles in Xaelic as Sari rolled over despite the pain of his injury. No, he didn't want to deal with this. He may say something more he'd regret.

Safe from death, perhaps, but not safe from the recovery that came of the incident.

-

Another sigh, and Akio settled back in his chair, arms crossed over his front as he closed his eyes. He likely wouldn't sleep tonight, instead meditating. Some form of rest, while keeping alert.

"I said I would not leave you alone, Sari-san," he said gently. "I mean this, as an oath." And Akio did not break his oaths.

-

"I didn't ask for your oath," was the grumpy mumble as he pulled the blanket over his head.

-

Nor did he ask for acceptance. But he didn't voice this aloud, simply remaining silent now.

-

And silence met silence as Sari tried to sleep. As much as he didn't want to, the stress of high emotions and whatever his body was doing sapped him.

Eventually with the sound of the cold winter rain, his eye shut and he drifted off in the darkness of his blanket lair.