#i do get doubts sometimes that my voice in the community is dwindling down because of lack of content

[tinysupervicki]

So...I finished my homework late lol so I have to go to bed for work whooops

I’ll try to draw this weekend gahhh I want to get some inspiration out 😣

[ickaimp]

[HTTYD] Break your heart, steal your crown

Sometimes ya just gotta write angst. Lotta people liked Coming Down is the Hardest Thing, my version of the ‘Hiccup runs away and becomes the “Dragon Master”, Astrid’s offered up as a Sacrifice years later’ tropes without Hiccup being a dick, and there were requests for sequels, which I didn’t do because this was all I had. Two years post Coming Down is the Hardest Thing, 4220 words, angst and some fluff.

"Berk is dying."

The words sat heavily in the air of the smithy, lingering like a spectre between Stoick and Gobber.

Stoick almost wished he could take the words back, but that wouldn't change the accuracy of his words. Berk was dying.

Gobber closed his eyes and sighed, giving him a weary nod of agreement. So he had seen it too. Or more likely, he had seen it in Gothi's last roll of the bones, before she had gone to bed and passed away in her sleep, leaving the fortune out for Gobber to read when he found her body this morning.

He hadn't actually told Stoick what the bones had said, giving him the same world-weary look he was currently wearing instead.

Even without the soothsayer's predictions, Stoick could see it. The twins had left years ago, declaring that the isle was too boring for their pranks, setting sail with only a chicken as their companion. It had seemed like a blessing at the time, less things exploding in their wake, leaving Berk a much quieter place than it had been.

Then came Spitelout's stupidity with Astrid, offering her to the savage Dragon Master. They'd gotten her back, only for her to disappear a week later. She'd left a note that this time was by her choice, but it'd been little comfort.

This left Berk's next generation without any women old enough to be wives. To become mothers to bear future generations. 

With the Jorgenson clan name soiled by Spitelout's actions, Snotlout was no longer able to be Stoick's heir. The other clans would never treaty with someone whose family had literally brought the Dragon Master down on their heads during a meeting of the chiefs. Except for maybe Dagur, and that was not a glowing recommendation, given the Berserker's... instability.

Which left Fishlegs as the only remaining of Berk's next generation to lead. The lad was smart, there was no doubt about it, and he would be fantastic as a second in command, the next Chief's Gobber, he was too quiet and soft to be a leader. The politics would eat him alive. And worse, Fishlegs was aware of this.

There were other children, Gustav and his ilk, but they were too young to start training as the next Chief of Berk. Stoick ran a hand down his beard, more grey than red from the stress and sorrow. He didn't have long enough to train one of them up.

And Berk's numbers were dwindling in other ways. Many had not been able to adapt to life without dragons to fight, finding a peaceful life did not sit well with their warrior blood. They'd left, being adopted into other clans. They'd just lost another family that way today. Stoick wished them no ill will, but if this continued, then they'd find their numbers too small to maintain the community.

Even Gobber was growing bored, not having enough work to keep the blacksmith busy. Without the dragons, there was no need for weapons, and the simple farming tools they had didn't need as much maintenance.  Stoick looked around the smithy, his eyes falling on the curtain leading to a small room that Gobber wouldn't allow anyone into, his own private shrine to his missing godson.

And then there was the loss of Hiccup, the first of Berk's children to leave. The Dragon Master's words, that Hiccup was happy and healthy where he was, was little comfort without being able to verify this. There was little Stoick wouldn't do in order to be able to see his boy again, for even just a moment. Sometimes he wondered if this wasn’t his fault. The path had seemed clear when they were constantly being raided by dragons. But without the raids, he was floundering. His people were looking to him for direction, and he had no experience with peace to know what to do. More and more they seemed to realise this, and left. Seven generations of vikings had lived on this isle, going all the way back to the first chieftain, his many times great-grandfather, and it was starting to look like he’d be Berk’s last chief.

"I wish I had some words of wisdom for ye, my friend." Gobber said softly. "I-"

Stoick jumped as something flew in through the window and landed on Gobber's face.

It was a green and brown Terrible Terror, who was making a high pitched growling sound as he crawled all over Gobber's head. "Don't move." Stoick rumbled, reaching for his sword.

"Ach." Gobber made a sound of annoyance, reaching up and grabbing the Terrible Terror by the scruff of its neck, pulling it off his head. "What're you-"

He trailed off, eyes drifting upwards and Stoick realised that it was the sound of a larger dragon's wings flapping. A Deadly Nadder, unless he missed his guess. Stoick gritted his teeth, feeling fire in his veins again, eager to have something to fight again, to take this rage and frustration out on.

"Oh no." Gobber said, a look of horror crossing his face as he glanced at Stoick. That was all the warning Stoick found himself being spun, his arms being bound behind his back with a pair of iron manacles, and he was flung through the curtain into Hiccup's old room. He landed against something softer than he expected, falling to the ground.

"GRUMP!" Gobber commanded, sticking his head through the curtain and pointing to Stoick. "Sit."

With a complaining groan, something large and heavy pressed down on Stoick. He grunted, trying to push himself up with his shoulders, but the weight was too much for him to get leverage.

"I didnae want you to find out like this." Gobber said, sounding apologetic, the Terrible Terror riding on his shoulder as if this was a common occurrence. "But if you value yer son's life at all, do not make a sound."

Stoick opened his mouth to bellow, only to find a rag shoved unceremoniously into his mouth. He growled, ire filling his veins as Gobber turned away, pulling the curtain shut. The torn fabric didn't go all the way to the ground, leaving Stoick with a clear view of the smithy.

When he got free, and got his hands on Gobber...

A blue and gold Deadly Nadder head stuck it's head into the doorway of the smithy, then carefully stepped in, taking care not to bump into anything in the small building. A crowned pale spectre rode on it's back, white and grey wisps obscuring the figure.

"Gobber!" The spectre greeted the smith with a cheerful voice. The spectre raised an arm, throwing what looked like a bridal veil over their crown, revealing inhuman features covered in glittering blue scales.

"Is good to see you, lassie." Gobber returned the greeting, his voice rolling with affection. The spectre laughed, reaching up for their head and pulling it off-

-Revealing Astrid's smiling face.

Stoick stopped fighting, going lax in surprise. It had been almost two years since he'd last seen Astrid, grim faced and bitter before she disappeared. She seemed to practically glow with happiness now, as she slid off the Deadly Nadder's back, giving a little hop before leaping into Gobber's outstretched arms, giving him a tight hug.

"Good to see you too." Astrid declared, holding him out at arm's length. Stoick could see that she was wearing armour now, covered in scales that matched the Nadder she rode. She wore a skirt, cape, and veil made out of ragged strips of a thin sheer white fabric that seemed to dance in the air when she moved.

The Undead Bride of the Demon was Astrid. Stoick recognised the Nadder now, it was the same one that she'd flown when the Dragon Master had kidnapped Stoick from the Althing.

"What brings ye here?" Gobber asked jovially, the merriment sounding slightly forced. "Not that I'm complaining, but was nae expecting t’see you for another week or two."

A stab of betrayal felt like a knife between his ribs.

"We have news." Astrid bounced and gave a little hip wiggle of delight. It was a gleeful carefree movement that Stoick didn't think he'd ever seen from the usually tacturn lass.

"Hey, wait. No fair." A shadow at the doorway protested, and Stoick found himself growling as he recognized the outline of the Dragon Master and his demonic Night Fury. The Dragon Master swung a leg over his so-called brother's neck, standing upright on his cloven foot and moving towards them. "I wanted to see Gobber's face when you tell."

"Not my fault that you're being slow, my sweet husband." Astrid grinned, giving another skip-hop to give a little kiss to the side of the Dragon Master's scaled helm and Stoick growled, wiggling as he trying to get free, but the weight on top of him didn’t budge.

"Wait a moment." Gobber breathed. "Astrid... Your belly... You cannot mean..." He trailed off, too choked up to speak.

Looking at her in silhouette, he could see what Gobber meant. Astrid's previously flat stomach was curved out in a very distinctive solid roundness.

Astrid was pregnant. And from the casual arm around her shoulders that the Dragon master had around her waist, the babe in her belly was that demon's.

Stoick would kill him. He'd kill him for touching Astrid. He'd rip the foul creature limb from limb, and then he'd get rid of that Night Fury who was sniffing around the room-

All thoughts faded from his mind as the Dragon Master took off his helmet, revealing his face for the first time, and Stoick's breath caught in his throat.

It couldn't be.

The messy brown hair, almost reddish in the candlelight. Green eyes. The fond crooked grin on his narrow face, having finally grown into his ears.

"Hiccup." Gobber said, his voice thick with tears. "Astrid. You've got a wee bairn on the way."

His son. That was his son standing there with an arm around Astrid, the two of them shining with happiness.

His son, the Dragon Master.

"I'm about five months along." Astrid beamed at Gobber, resting comfortably against Hiccup, the two fitting together like matching puzzle pieces.

"We were hoping you'd agree to be the Godfather." Hiccup said, and Stoick didn't know how he hadn't heard it before, in the Dragon Master's dry sarcasm. It was his son's voice, a little deeper than as a teenager, but the nasally tones could only be him. 

"Godfather-?" Gobber echoed in awe.

"It's not dependent on if you take up our offer to live with us." Astrid was quick to assure him. "But we'd like you to be. We wouldn't be having a kid if it wasn't for you."

"You got Astrid out of Berk, and you saved my life by taking me under your wing here." Hiccup said sincerely. "We're also open to them calling you 'Grandpa', if that's okay with you."

Grandpa.

Stoick was a Grandfather.

He felt tears prickle the corners of his eyes. He'd never thought he'd have that chance, not after his son went missing. And here his son was, was, healthy, happy, and with a wee one on the way.

"Och." Gobber shook his head. "I couldn't."

"You can." Astrid grinned, reaching out and taking Gobber's hand in hers, scales and claws curling delicately around calloused scarred skin. "We talked to Valka about it. She laughed and said she's fine with it. Someone else to share the responsibility of dirty diapers."

The tears spilled over his cheeks. Valka, his dear sweet Valka was alive as well.

He remembered now, the Dragon Master saying that he had his mother's eyes, and he did. Skies above, he did. Hiccup had always had Valka's clear eyes that seemed to penetrate and see more than anyone else.

"I mean, you did more to raise me than my own father did. It's only fair." Hiccup added without any trace of bitterness as he gestured around the smithy. "All of my fondest memories of Berk are here."

Stoick's breath caught, feeling as if a sword had just been thrust through his chest.

"Someone had to keep an eye on you." Gobber shook his head dismissively. "Otherwise some dragon would have flown away with your toothpick self."

The Night Fury, who had been circling around in the background, stuck it's muzzle under the curtain. The beast sniffed the air for a moment before poking its head all the way into the small room, it's acid green eyes narrowed into slits as it stared at him, a low warning rumble coming from its throat, lips curling back to show a giant maw full of razor sharp teeth.

Stoick stared back, uncomfortably aware of how vulnerable he currently was. The creature could bite off his head in one bite, and there was no way for Stoick to protect himself.

"Oh nooooo. How terrible." Hiccup deadpanned in the background as Astrid laughed. "Carried away by draaagons."

The great weight on top of Stoick shifted and grunted, and he realised that it was a giant heavy dragon that was currently sitting on his back. The Night Fury crooned what sounded like a question to the creature pinning him down, getting a snore-like rumble in return.

The Night Fury glanced back down at Stoick, giving him a look that could only be described as 'scornful' before turning away with a smug expression and trotting back over to his son. Stoick watched as the beast gave an amused warbling at his son, casually headbutting Hiccup, sending him into Astrid, who took a half step to keep them all upright.

"Oh!" She gasped, then took Gobber's hand that she was still holding and pressing it against her belly.

"They're moving!" Gobber gasped. "Oh, they're a fighter, just like their parents."

Stoick's breath caught again. His grandchild. His grandchild was moving.

"The only thing that really settles them down is when the dragons sing to them." Astrid looked amused. "Even if the dragons are confused as to why I haven't laid an egg yet."

The Night Fury gave Stoick a pointed look, then nudged Astrid's belly with it's broad flat nose, giving a soft affection croon, as if to point out that the creature could touch the babe in Astrid’s belly, but Stoick could not. Stoick choked on the gag in his mouth, silently swearing vengeance.

"Which is part of the reason why we stopped by early." Astrid said gravely, and Stoick wondered how much more news he could take tonight. 

"Valka says I'm probably fine for flying up until I give birth." Astrid said, wrapping a protective arm around her belly. "But we decided that fighting is out until afterwards. So it may be awhile before I'm back in the area."

"Trapper tried to kick her in the stomach." Hiccup growled, and all three dragons in the room echoed the sound, even the Terrible Terror on Gobber's shoulder. The sound covered up Stoick's own noise of outrage at such an act. "Stormfly stopped them, but it gave us all a bit of a scare."

Astrid nodded, leaning against Hiccup, who looked a little anxious, rubbing his hand up and down the blue scales of her arm. "I can still do air support, but the pregnancy is making me exhausted lately. Which is probably only going to get worse." Astrid looked annoyed. "So we're all going to be staying with Valka at least until I give birth."

"It's not like the Hidden World really needs Toothless and I to guard it." Hiccup said with wiry humour. Stoick blinked, finding he had no more room for shock. Of course Hiccup found the home of the dragons. Of course he had. "But if you did decide to accept our offer to live with us, we didn't want you looking in the wrong place and thinking the worst."

"And Valka promises not to cook in your honour when you do show up." Astrid smirked. And Stoick nearly choked on muffled laughter, aware he was crying again. Valka had never been the best cook, but she tried. And it'd been worth every burnt and raw bite he'd choked down.

"Thank you." Gobber's voice was thick. "But I cannae leave just yet. Your Father needs..."

"I know." Hiccup hastened to assure. He stepped forward, wrapping a clawed hand around the back of Gobber's head, resting his forehead against the blacksmith's. "When you're ready, we'll be there. Even if you're never ready, we just want to make sure you know that there is a place for you."

"You just don't want to be the only one with experience making protestetics." Gobber grumbled, and Hiccup laughed, tapping his cloven foot on the ground, making a ringing sound.

Hiccup's prosthetic foot, Stoick realised, watching the spring inside the metal contraption flex. His son was missing a foot.

And Stoick had no idea when or how it happened.

"You caught me." Hiccup didn't sound angry about it as he released Gobber, more jovial than anything. "But it doesn't make it less true."

"I'll think about it." Gobber promised with the air of having said the same thing many times before, taking the Terrible Terror off his shoulder and transferring it to Hiccup's.

"And I'll teach you how to make Dragon Iron when you do." Hiccup said with a grin, his voice both teasing and cajoling.

Dragon Iron, which the Dragon Master was the only one who knew how to make. Because Hiccup had been a smith since he was six years old, put under Gobber's eye to keep him out of trouble.

"Stop trying to bribe me, you brat." Gobber cuffed him upside the back of his head with a grin. Both Hiccup and Astrid laughed, even if the Night Fury gave Gobber a glare. "Now g'wan. Get out of here before you're seen."

"Yeah, yeah." Astrid rolled her eyes and stood up on her toes to give Gobber a quick fond kiss on the cheek. "We'll see you later, one way or another." She informed him matter of factly before putting her helmet back on and climbing on top of her dragon, settling the veil around her shoulders.

"Take care of yourself." Hiccup clasped Gobber's hand, then pulled the larger smith in for a back thumping hug before releasing him. "And say ‘hi’ to Grump for me, wherever he's snoozing at."

"Will do." Gobber agreed blithely. "Stay safe, all of you."

The Night Fury let out a warble as if to say that it was his job to keep them all safe as Hiccup fastened the helmet back on his head, transforming back to the Dragon Master. The beast gave Stoick one last pointed look as Hiccup climbed in it's back, before turning and heading out of the smithy, both the dragons and their riders losing their relaxed easy going postures.

Astrid followed a few heartbeats later, following Hiccup's soft whistle. There was the sound of wingbeats, and then they were gone.

Leaving the smithy empty aside from Gobber and Stoick. It was with a sinking realisation that he realised he probably wouldn’t get another chance to ever see Hiccup again.

The Dragon Master was essentially Chieftain to the dragons, a role that clearly kept him busy and constantly travelling all over the archipelago and beyond. Stoick knew first hand how busy having a newborn kept one as well. It would be months, if not another year before Hiccup would free to visit Berk. And there would be no way for Stoick to know where or when.

Gobber gave a great big heaving sigh before turning back towards Stoick, his peg leg sounding loud against the ground. Gobber moved the curtain aside, and then knelt down, removing the gag from Stoick's mouth.

"I'm sorry y'had to find out this way." Gobber said softly, and the thing that hurt the most is that he could feel how sincerely his oldest friend meant it.

"How long?" Stoick asked, ignoring the way his voice broke.

Gobber gave a thoughtful hum, reaching up and petting the dragon on top of him. "Almost two years now." He finally said. "I recognized Hiccup's work on the blade the Dragon Master gave Astrid when he returned ya both here. Astrid had suspected as much, it just confirmed it for her."

He'd travelled with his son for an entire day, and Stoick hadn't a clue it was him.

Stoick, who had sworn that he'd be able to recognize his son anywhere, any time, in any place.

Horror went down his spine as he remembered the accusations he'd hurled at the Dragon Master after the dragon had crashed into their camp. Threatening to kill the Dragon Master in order to find his son.

His son, who had been right there. Who had told him while hidden behind a mask, that Hiccup was alive, healthy and happy where he was, far away from Berk.

Away from Stoick.

"About a month after Astrid left, she stopped by for a visit, ta let me know she was fine." Gobber continued, nudging the dragon off of Stoick. The giant creature grumbled as it slowly obeyed, leaving Stoick still shackled and on the ground. "The next visit, she brought Hiccup, and we cried together for nearly an hour."

Gobber paused, checking his pockets for his keys, then started to work on the manacles around Stoick's arms. Stoick had broken through stronger bonds before, but he didn't have the energy in him now.

"They stop by every every other month or so to check in on me, let me know how they're doing, or send a Terrible Terror with a letter." Gobber continued quietly. "Valka's been by once as well, weren't real comfortable here and left just as quick. Too many memories of blood shed."

The manacles released with a click, and Stoick slowly moved his arms, his shoulders protesting having been twisted in such a position. He carefully sat up, turning to face the monster that had been on his back.

And found himself looking at the least dangerous dragon he'd ever set eyes upon, for all its enormous size. It was large enough that it had probably only been it's head that had been resting on Stoick's back, and looked like it was already asleep with its eyes half open.

And it looked like a giant turd. Large, brown, and lumpy.

"This magnificent fellow is Grump." Gobber motioned to the sleepy dragon, with a fond expression. "They left him with me for back up, and so I have a way to meet up with them some time. He's been running the forge fires for me. Never realised how helpful having a dragon in the smithy could be before Hiccup mentioned it, even if the great lump sleeps most of the time."

Grump slowly turned an eye in Gobber's direction, thick club of a tail bouncing a few times as if realising that they were talking about him. He briefly wondered how many months the dragon had been sleeping here and no one had even suspected.

Stoick felt as if everything he had believed in had suddenly been turned upside down and shaken about. Dragons possibly weren't evil. His son was alive. He had a grandchild on the way. Hiccup was the Dragon Master.

"Is he happy?" Stoick asked, mindful of the tears still on his cheeks. "Hiccup?"

Gobber thought it over. "Aye." He finally said, stroking his moustache thoughtfully. "The lad weren't never made for being a Viking. Living amongst the dragons brings him not only comfort, but joy. Astrid and Valka too. Once you've earned a dragon's loyalty, there ain't much that can break it. And the three of them fit among them like they were born for it."

Stoick nodded. "And you?"

"Me?" Gobber looked surprised at the question.

"Will you be joining them?" He had the invitation and the dragon.

Gobber hesitated, looking at the slumbering dragon. "I'd like to." He finally admitted. "Some day. But not any time soon."

Because he was staying here, for Stoick's sake. He'd told Hiccup that clearly enough.

Gobber was his oldest and dearest friend, loyal to a fault, and Stoick couldn't blame him for keeping HIccup's secrets. Not when Stoick's reaction to meeting the Dragon Master hadn’t been nearly so generous, even as he realised that the Dragon Master was only trying to help in his own way.

"You should join them." Stoick said, rising to his feet. Gobber looked like he wanted to protest, and Stoick stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "When you're ready."

Gobber closed his mouth and nodded. Stoick nodded back, then walked out of the smithy. The cold air hit the tear tracks on his cheeks, and he ignored it, trudging up the hill to his cold empty hut.

He had gotten his wish, to know that his son was not only alive, but thriving. Astrid too. And Valka as well, his wife living amongst dragons for nearly two decades now. He was so elated to know that they weren’t dead. 

Stoick wouldn't trade that knowledge for anything, not even with the understanding that the reason for their happiness was that they were living their lives far away from him.

-fin- (no, there are no plans for anything further in this au, but if it sparks something in you, feel free to play.)

[cinnaminsvga]

🌸 social media au where y/n posts a fake boyfriend application on twitter as a dare but ends up seeking something real in the long run (aka how to fall in love the zillennial way) 🌸

A/N: This... fried my brain cells. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to WRITE... I’m not sure if any of this flows properly but it’s 5AM right now, I am tired, I am jetlagged, I’ve forgotten how to speak English, but this is the best I can do and I guess that’s all that matters. Anyway, RIP Y/N you’re about to have a bad time. *megalovania intensifies* || W.C. 2.7K

prev // part 27 of ? // next masterlist here.

[updates every 6PM PST]

Despite the summer heat already dwindling as the cooler months start to settle in, the sun still shines strongly in Ilsan. Sweat drips down your back like a faucet, the shade of the trees doing little to protect you from the midday heat. Namjoon had offered to relocate to one of the small air-conditioned cafes just outside of the park, but you chose to bear the heat instead, more interested in enjoying the packed lunch his mother had prepared for the two of you and observe the people milling about.

“Your mom is a cooking goddess,” you say with a large grin, moaning unabashedly as you chowed down on her homemade kimchi. Completely immersed in the pleasure that is Mrs. Kim’s food, you forget all semblance of dignity as you make it your goal to get all the food into your body as quickly as you can. “God, her food is so fucking good. How can you even bear leaving home?”

Namjoon chuckles, eating at a significantly more humane and dignified pace. “Believe me, it was hard choosing to study in Seoul for university, but it was a sacrifice I had to make. I’m just lucky that I live relatively close, so I can visit them every once in a while.”

“Then you oughta invite me over again some time. The dinner last night? I dreamt about nothing but her galbitang,” you say with bits of food still in your mouth, but Namjoon doesn’t seem all that phased. He’s gotten used to it, or so you hope. Habits die hard when you’ve been stuck with animals (read: boys) as friends for the last ten years.

“You can come over anytime. Though I’m not sure if you would want to, since then you’ll have to keep pretending to be my girlfriend if we do…” Namjoon trails off, his gaze lowering back to his food. His lips purse, brow crumpling in that way you’ve come to realize was he was overthinking again. “N-not that you’d have to. Pretend to be my girlfriend, that is. I can p-probably just bring home some packed lunches to Seoul whenever I come over, or something then you could—“

“Namjoon,” you call out to him, snapping him out from his rambling. You place your container of food down on the grass, raising your hands up as if in surrender. Confused, Namjoon is about to ask what you’re doing before you promptly smack him (gently), grabbing his cheeks and squeezing them together until he looks like a cute (and incredibly bemused) pufferfish.

“Huwah?” Namjoon tries to speak, but your grip on his face prevents him from moving even an inch. “Y/N?”

“Namjoon, I know we’re fake dating and all and I did agree to go with you to see your parents just this one time, but is it that hard to get it through that thick skull of yours?”  you say, eyes boring into his as you try to communicate your feelings. After a few moments of staring, you sigh tiredly when the look of confusion refuses to leave his face, his eyebrows raised in both astonishment and uncertainty. This fucking idiot, you think tiredly to yourself, but it’s hard to stay annoyed at him, not when he looks so cute with his cheeks squished between your hands.

You continue, “Aren’t we friends? Doesn’t that mean I would do anything for you, even if that means pretending to be your fake girlfriend as many times as I have to?”

Realization finally dawns on Namjoon’s face, but it is quickly replaced by sheepishness. “Oh, I guesh sho…” he says dejectedly. “Showwy.”

“Good. Now stop being so insecure!” you huff, pinching his cheek for good measure before you release him. He rubs his jaw gingerly, pouting like a child who had just been scolded.

“Okay, I promise… Sorry,” he repeats, rubbing his neck in shame.

But even then… you aren’t satisfied. Not until he can really get over his insecurity, but you suppose this is going to have to suffice for now. You can tell that Namjoon still has some ongoing conflict happening inside of him that he doesn’t seem willing to share with you as of now. You desperately want to pry, but you know more than anyone how frustrating it can be when someone tries a little too hard to help you, even if getting into right up in your business comes from a place with good intentions. He deserves to set his own pace, and you are more than willing to be patient with him (most of the time, at least. Some pinching and prodding may be useful along the way.)

“I’m not gonna leave you, you know? You’re stuck with me for life unfortunately, so you’re going to have to deal with me for the rest of yours. That was my only condition when I agreed to be your fake girlfriend, remember?” you say, giggling lightly at his dumbfounded expression. “Unless you’re tired of me already? I can always leave,” you tease.

“No!” Namjoon exclaims suddenly, nearly slapping himself in the face when he brings his hand to his mouth. A few families also eating at the park look at the two of you in alarm, but Namjoon can only bow to them apologetically. When he turns back to you, his cheeks are reddened slightly, though that could also be from being under the sun for so long. He scratches his nose: another nervous tick of his. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scream like that. I just… No, I’m not tired of you. I don’t think that’s even possible. You’re one of the greatest people I know and I like hanging out with you.”

“I…” You’re shocked by his sudden proclamation, stuttering as you try to formulate a response. You cough in embarrassment, shifting your gaze elsewhere, anywhere, away from Namjoon’s earnest expression. It’s a complete 360 from the shy schoolboy persona he had just moments ago. “Thank you… I guess? I’m just… Wow, how do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Switch modes so quickly like that? One moment you’re a bumbling buffoon and then the next second you’re saying sweet shit like it’s nothing!” You huff, hoping that your own cheeks aren’t heating up. “Seriously. Are you sure you don’t have a girlfriend?”

Namjoon lets out a short guffaw; the sound familiar to you as the one that he makes when he doesn’t know what to say. You don’t know how or when you had gotten so adept at differentiating his multiple ticks, but it makes you feel… special, for lack of a better word. You wonder if he notices things about you, too.

“I think I would be the first to know if I had a girlfriend. I suppose you’re the closest thing I have,” Namjoon says. When you look back at him, you can see that he’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well, at least my parents think you’re the real deal. You were really good last night, by the way. My mom wouldn’t stop gushing about you when you went to bed.”

“Oh God, you guys talked about me when I went to bed?” You gasp in horror, worst-case scenarios flying through your head even though realistically, you know you had been perfectly normal during the entire evening. You had even practiced in front of the mirror the week before, rehearsing the lines you’d have to say should his parents ask the usual relationship questions. You memorized the story the two of you came up with: how the two of you had met, how you’d gotten together, how long you’d been dating… It was all so ingrained in your brain that it almost felt real, sometimes.

Namjoon rolls his eyes, poking you lightly on the nose. “No, it was nothing bad. You were perfect, like always. I doubt my parents could ever hate you even if they tried. You were wonderful.”

You nod slowly, still slightly unconvinced. “Okay… If you say so. I just don’t want to mess things up for you, you know?”

Namjoon slings an arm around your waist, inadvertently causing you to scoot closer to him until you could comfortably lay your head on his shoulder. You tilt your head upwards, your breath hitching when you realize how close your faces were to each other.

“I suppose we’re both dummies then, huh? I know this is hypocritical of me to say, but don’t be so insecure, okay? We got this. We’re fine.” Namjoon’s voice dips into a whisper, his forehead nearly touching yours. When he’s close like this, you can smell the kimchi in his breath; not an unpleasant scent by any means, but you do wonder if he’d taste good if you’d leaned in right now and kissed him—

“Y/N, you have rice on your chin,” Namjoon interrupts your train of thought, catching you off guard. You yelp, sitting straight up and separating from him like you had been shocked. Namjoon doesn’t seem to notice, as he seems more intent on wiping away the stray rice grains than anything else. When he flicks them away, he smiles at you endearingly, his dimples on display for your mortal eyes.

“Um,” you stammer, rubbing your chin belatedly. “T-thanks…”

“Y/N, are you okay? You’re getting kind of red. Maybe we should head back? We’ve been under the sun for a while.” He grabs his phone from his pocket, nearly dropping it as he fumbles with it before he finally manages to take a look at the time. “Oh, damn. It’s already almost 4. We better head out if you want to go look around the shopping district,” he says, packing up his mom’s containers. “Do you want to finish your food?”

You still had a bit of food left, but your appetite had strangely disappeared. So instead, you help him pack up, ready to get out of there and get your mind off of weird things. This is fine, you’re just being weird because of the bad week you had. Let’s try to relax, you remind yourself, but even you think your words sound weak.

Disgruntled and shaky, you trail after Namjoon in silence, content to just listen to him explain certain landmarks to you as you walk towards the nearby shopping street.

“I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but if we have time, we could probably visit my old high school on our way back. There’s a small park near it where I used to hide whenever I didn’t want to go home,” Namjoon says, chuckling at the memory. “My life used to be a constant cycle of going to school and coming home to study some more, so my mom would throw an absolute fit whenever I came home late, but she could never figure out where my hiding spot was.”

You snort, smiling at the thought of a rebellious Namjoon. It’s hard to imagine, especially with how hardworking he is with all his side projects that you’ve caught glimpses of when he had shown you his workshop. “Are you sure you want to show me your spot? What if I tell your mom?”

Namjoon laughs, eyes crinkling from the sheer force of it. The sight of him laughing causes you to pause for a moment, caught off guard by how… good he looks, when he looks so honest, so vulnerable. Namjoon smiles a lot, but you’ve never seen him this cheery, like the sun had come down to earth for the day. You like it a lot; you want to be able to make him express himself honestly like that all the time.

“If you tell my mom, then she’ll know for sure that you’re the one for me,” he jokes, the remnants of his joy still present in his eyes. He winks cheekily at you, making the tips of your ears redden ever so slightly. “There are many nooks and crannies I’d love to show you around Ilsan, but we only have a weekend here, unfortunately. If you could stay another day, I could probably show you around more.”

“I mean… I could, if you want me to,” you mutter, the words slipping out before you can stop them. You inhale sharply, both yours and Namjoon’s eyes popping out when you realize what you had said.

“I just! I don’t mean to intrude, of course—“

“Y-you don’t have to stay! It was just wishful thinking, of course—“

You both speak at the same time, talking over the other as you both try to explain yourselves. You both stop speaking simultaneously as well, causing the two of you to burst into laughter. You’re doubled over, giggling as tears of mirth slide down your cheeks at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

“God, why are we so awkward together? I thought I was bad, but I guess pairing two socially inept losers really has doubled our power, huh?” you say.

“I know. You’d think we only just met yesterday or something.” Namjoon scratches his nose bashfully, but the same honest smile is still on his face. “But if what you said was true, then… I’d love to have you around for another day, if you want to stay? Like I said, I love hanging out with you. This is honestly the most fun I’ve had in a long while,” he says shyly. He coughs into his fist, pupils shaking as he stares resolutely at your chin.

“Me… me too. I’m having a lot of fun too,” you admit, your cheeks heating up involuntarily. You both turn to look away, embarrassed by each other’s sudden confession. What is going on with me today? you wonder idly, forcing your rapidly beating heart to calm.

“Er, well. We’re almost at the shopping district,” Namjoon clears his throat, trying his best to wave off the suddenly awkward atmosphere. He points ahead, where you can see rows of shops and booths of all shapes and sizes, selling anything and everything you can imagine. “You’re the guest here, so you choose. What shop do you want to head to first?”

“That reminds me. Jimin had asked me to buy this skin product from some store around here. Let me check the brand; he texted me the photo before we left,” you say, rummaging for your phone in your bag. Admittedly, you haven’t been using your phone all day asides from taking and posting the occasional photo, keeping it on silent and do not disturb to stop unwanted text messages from disturbing your time with Namjoon. You know you had a few messages from your group chat that you’ve left to read for later, but it’s only now that you realize that you had another message waiting from a person you would rather not speak to at all.

“Oh geez, what does that whore want?” You sigh, going against your better judgment and opening it anyway. “I swear, if Seokjin is using me as a booty call now of all times, I’m going to rip his ass in two the next time I—“

“Y/N? You okay?” Namjoon asks when he notices you have suddenly stopped speaking. He had been walking continuously, assuming that you were following behind him only to find that you were frozen in place a few steps away, staring holes into your phone screen. He walks over back to you, concern flickering in his eyes when he approaches you. “Hey, what’s up? Did you get an important text or something?”

“No, it’s nothing important. It’s…” You sigh, not knowing what to say. Your lips begin to wobble as your senses are assaulted by confusion, pain, and heartache all at once—all because of a single text message. Your eyes start to well up, but you blink them away. You’re quick to wave off Namjoon’s slow growing panic at your sorry state, not wanting to ruin his day with your stupid emotional breakdown.

“Y/N. Who texted you? What is it? You can tell me, I promise I won’t judge you,” he whispers kindly, taking your free hand in his own. He rubs comforting circles into your palm, his brow scrunched up in worry as he watches you fight to keep your tears at bay. “Y/N?”

You take a shuddering breath.

[phantompearlsalt]

Sour Cherry, Chapter 15

We’re taking a break from the smut this week, folks! This update I bring you more soft Kuvira, specifically moments where our favorite girl needs some extra loving. We don’t see Kuvira as feeling much of anything in the show but I think we can all imagine she feels deeply and intensely so...that’s what this is kind of. She just has someone to love on her and reassure her ❤️ As always, I love to read your comments so feel free to drop some on AO3 or leave me some messages in my inbox! LOVE Y’ALL! 

Ba Sing Se

It’s not unlike Kuvira to fall asleep at her desk these days.

You’ve been in the Earth Kingdom capital for some time now, and although the worst of the violence has since subsided, the imminent work of bureaucratization poses an overwhelming task.

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Kuvira will fully restore Ba Sing Se to its former glory — even improve it. Given Suyin’s decision to remain complacent in the face of such chaos, Kuvira symbolized the steady hand that would guide a city in disarray into an era of peace and unity.

From the moment she took it upon herself to oversee this venture, she proved time and time again that few people—if any—could assume such an undertaking and carry it to completion. She managed to instill a persistent flame of hope in everyone, even beyond her army. There was a reason her popularity grew so rapidly among the local residents.

She was the beacon of light no one had expected to find but now relied on as a means of getting through this period of such great distress.

But at the end of the day, Kuvira is still human.

Despite having initiated a new kind of relationship with her, you’re ashamed to say that sometimes even you forget this simple fact. Kuvira is many things: above all else, she is a strategist. Of course, this mentality shapes every move and decision she makes in Ba Sing Se and this extends far beyond politics.

She’s methodical in her approach to life, modulating her demeanor in a way that allows her to easily adapt to constantly shifting environments, people, and interactions. In doing so, she often becomes a force of pure energy, steady and obstinate. After all, one doesn’t become the Great Uniter by projecting any degree of weakness. The Earth Kingdom needed somebody who embodied strength, fearlessness, and hope. They needed to reclaim that sense of certainty that had been shattered the moment all structure—however precarious it was—vanished upon the Earth Queen’s death.

So when you walk into your makeshift quarters, lit up only by the dwindling flame of her desk lantern, it’s a sharp reminder that even Kuvira reaches her limits.

You walk over to her slowly, paying extra attention to the weight of your feet against the floor. When you reach her, you kneel down and carefully drift your fingers towards her arm. She has them folded beneath her cheek, her lips parted just enough for a faint whistle to travel between her teeth. You touch Kuvira’s shoulder and stay still, not wanting to rouse her from slumber too brusquely.

She sniffles once and the sound makes something in your chest twinge so you press your fingertips into her uniform just enough for Kuvira to feel the pressure of your hand more surely. “Kuvira,” you whisper. “It’s me.”

Upon hearing your voice, her eyelids snap open and even through the dusty orange glow of the room you can see just how bleary-eyed she looks. You wonder if anyone has ever seen her like this, walls down and vulnerable, but the answer comes to you before you dwell on it too long.

“I’m sorry,” she says, flattening out her back so she’s leaning into her chair. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me…”

“I think I do,” you respond, inching forward until your lips softly press against her cheekbone. “Come on, let’s get you out of this stuff.”

Never having been the recipient of such doting, it takes Kuvira a few moments to respond but she eventually stands and walks over to your shared bed. You pull away the sheets of metal along her shoulders and forearms, carefully setting them aside while Kuvira pushes the breastplate off her torso and lets it clatter to the ground.

Once she’s cloaked only in her dark green uniform, she collapses onto the bed and looks just about ready to pass out. There’s one more thing left for you to do though.

You quickly kiss the crown of her head before crawling onto the mattress and finding a position along her back, your knees positioned around her hips. Kuvira’s braid is barely a braid anymore, mostly a disheveled rope of hair with some vague semblance of pleated folds.

You make quick work of it, dragging your fingers through the thick strands and undoing the knots you encounter. Once it feels loose and heavy, you reach for the brush on your nightstand and start guiding it from the roots to the tips along her back.

It’s a choreography you unknowingly crafted at some point when you could finally call Kuvira your lover but it’s one that you fall into so easily it’s as though you learned it another lifetime. Your fingers know exactly how to glide through the silk-like texture of her hair, how to hold the contours of the brush so your movements stay slow and gentle. Kuvira lets herself fall against your palm and you imagine this might be how a moonflower preens beneath the glow of a stainless night sky.

You aren’t sure how long you brush her hair but eventually her breathing evens out again and can’t tell if she’s fallen asleep. She starts inching forward and it’s sufficient indication that you’ve done your part.

With a loving smile, you set the brush aside and guide her onto the pillow. Leaning down, you let your lips hover over her temple before finally pressing them against the soft skin. Though you attribute it to a trick of the light, you fall asleep to the image of Kuvira’s cheek twitching against your touch.

---

Republic City

In the context of all that was to come, three years seemed like such an insignificant period of time. There was so much left to do to consummate the burgeoning Empire. The vast majority of the former Earth Kingdom now fell under Kuvira’s rule but there was still the matter of Zaofu. The United Republic of Nations.

Although Kuvira had successfully wrested the authority to rule from the young prince, the Earth Empire army knew it was only the beginning of a much larger mission. The past three years hadn’t been easy by any means but there was something unusually intimidating about annexing Zaofu and the United Republic.

Perhaps because it felt much more personal. Of course, you felt the connection of a common background with all Earth Kingdom inhabitants but Zaofu was your home. You grew up there...Spirits, you probably still had loved ones there.

And Republic City? Maybe it was the way people and communities hailed from all nations and found ways to live in relative peace after the horrific events led by Amon and then Unalaq. But even then, all of it seemed precarious when compared to the vision Kuvira was putting forth.

As you drive away from the Four Elements hotel, Kuvira’s hand wrapped tightly around yours, you think back to Zaofu once more but this time you aren’t met with images of your old library or the bright green fields that lay beyond the metal walls.

No, you think of Suyin. She was the last person Kuvira spoke to before you left Republic City. You had waited in the shadows of the hotel patio after the failed coronation, hoping it would shroud you enough to avoid being seen by any of the world leaders.

Just when you were about to make your way upstairs Kuvira stepped out of the elevator, flanked by her guards. “Everything has been packed,” she said coldly. “We’re leaving. Immediately.”

She didn’t wait for you to respond, instead charging forward without a second glance at her surroundings. The interaction left you stunned before you finally came to your senses and scurried close behind her.

The first few seconds in the Satomobile were almost tangibly uncomfortable. You wanted to ask how she was doing, to soothe whatever venom Suyin had undoubtedly said. There was a dark shadow cast over Kuvira’s face, one that you hadn’t seen since you first left Zaofu all those years ago.

Instead you stayed quiet, folding your hands over your lap and looking at the cityscape zooming by. Eventually, Kuvira’s gloved hand slid over yours, twisting between your fingers until your palms met in that familiar embrace you could distinguish even without first knowing it was her.

As the train comes back into view, you squeeze Kuvira’s hand, hoping the sentiment translates all the same despite your inability to verbalize them. The tension in her body doesn’t loosen up but she closes her eyes momentarily and lets out a slow, even breath through her nose.

For now, it’s all you can ask for.

---

The State of Yi

The meeting with Yi’s governor ended poorly. Even without Kuvira’s report, the smattering of ink dripping from the metal table was indication enough.

After exchanging a few curt words with the young airbending boy, she makes her way back into the train and calls an impromptu Inner Circle meeting. Bolin reluctantly leaves Opal’s side while Baatar joins without hesitation.

The conversation is awkward at best, deeply uncomfortable above all else. Kuvira keeps it together quite well for someone who had been shunned away mere moments ago but you’re certain no one else can see the fire of indignation in her eyes.

“There has to be another way to help them, right?” Bolin insists. “Can’t we just stay another day? If we bring Opal and Kai on board, I bet we could come up with another plan to help these people.”

“You more than anyone should know we cannot afford to waste our time on fruitless negotiations,” Kuvira snaps. “I will not sacrifice the wellbeing of our fellow citizens who are willing to accept our aid for a single governor who refuses to acknowledge the suffering of his people.”

Varrick, Bolin, and Baatar end up falling into a chaotic exchange of potential solutions that very quickly wears Kuvira’s patience thin.

“Enough!” she commands. You watch in silence as everyone freezes and slowly submits to her exasperation. “I have made myself clear. We will wait one day — not an hour earlier or later. If the Governor would rather see his people perish, I will not be held responsible. This meeting is adjourned and I expect no one to leave this train unless expressly informed to do so.”

Everyone nods and promptly makes their way out of the room. You make a move to join them but wait for everyone to get ahead first before sliding the door closed and pivoting back towards Kuvira.

She’s silently fuming — a vein sticks out from over her collar and her hands are woven tightly together behind her back. You imagine she might look composed to others who don’t notice those details but you’ve learned to see past the iron facade she forges around herself.

You fold your hands over Kuvira’s and feel the tension her fists carry, the way it courses all along her arms and bleeds into the rest of her body. Kuvira isn’t known for being a very relaxed person — she’s all hard lines and perfect posture, angled features and unyielding brow.

But this rigidity is different because it’s fueled by ire. Kuvira doesn’t take refusal well and with most of the Empire united, the Governor’s reluctance proves especially inconvenient.

However, she softens into your touch and you start to see her for what she really is, for what she only allows you to see. A woman on the brink of burnout. A leader nonetheless, so close to securing all she has worked towards, but which she has sacrificed too much to achieve.

She unfolds her hands and weaves her fingers into yours, letting her shoulders drop just enough for you to know this is helping to some extent.

And even though it lasts no more than a minute, because suddenly you’re interrupted by the voices of her guards requesting her immediate presence, when she looks at you there’s a softness along the corners of her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

---

Zaofu

The army is stationed immediately outside the Zaofu metal domes. Kuvira had left with Bolin and Baatar moments ago to meet with Suyin and hopefully come to an agreement that would eliminate the need for outright combat.

You insisted on joining her, afraid of what she might be subjected to and unable to accept that potential reality. You never knew the Beifong matriarch to resort to violent tactics but her response to Kuvira’s actions led you to believe anything was possible at this point.

Nevertheless, Kuvira had none of it. “I’ll be with Bolin and Baatar — I’ll be safe. I know Suyin. She knows better than to try anything of that nature with our army posted just outside her gates. I promise you I’ll return, unharmed,” she reassured, kissing you once before making her way outside.

You pressed your hands against the window, watching as the three of them grew into small green dots that eventually disappeared past the metal lotus structures. Kuvira was smart, you didn’t doubt that. She could absolutely hold her own. Yet despite her attempts to sway you otherwise, you still found it difficult to accept that Suyin wouldn’t try anything.

So you paced back and forth, sitting and standing, fiddling with your hands and carelessly flipping through papers on your desk until you heard guards murmuring and saw Kuvira’s silhouette making its way toward the tent.

She returns with Bolin and Baatar at her side again and you notice the former appears rather grim. Nevertheless, you’re instantly hit with the searing desire to throw yourself around her, to feel the heat of her blood beneath her skin and the bends of muscle and bone pressing against yours.

She’s here. Obviously she’s okay. But you can’t shake the need to confirm it by feeling her and knowing she’s uninjured.

Bolin starts talking, a nervous edge in every word, asking too many questions that ultimately set Kuvira off. She towers over Bolin, questioning his loyalty to the Empire, to her, and you stand in your corner silently. Baatar watches with an almost smug look on his face and it makes you scowl.

“Both of you are dismissed,” Kuvira says when she steps back. Still thoroughly shaken by the encounter, Bolin stays frozen for a moment before Baatar coughs and they step out of the tent in tense silence.

Kuvira sits down and leans forward so her fingers press against her temples. She sighs frustratedly and tightens her jaw. Even with all that transpired in the past ten minutes, that instinct to hold her close and just feel her doesn’t waver but you know better than to cave into it right now.

She does look up at you and her face has grown haggard with frustration in the span of seconds. It startles you how easily she conceals this side of herself, doing so in a manner that seems so effortless that she has everyone convinced that she really is impenetrable.

Right now, she lets the veneer crumble until all that’s left is an expression so openly cumbered with fatigue it seems to draw you in with arms of its own, tugging you forward until you’re at Kuvira’s side and she’s still looking up at you.

Every possible gesture seems inappropriate. What could you tell her that would offer that reassurance she needs? How can you be sure that’s what she needs at all? She’s being faced with the increasingly likely reality of using brute force to take that which once served as her home.

You don’t know when Kuvira’s cheek presses into your belly but when it does, your arms wrap around her head of their own accord.

Kuvira’s body speaks to yours in a language of gentle touches and unspoken pleas. Naturally, you have come to understand the meaning of each movement and your body responds as such. You hold her close to your body, feeling her head dip into the soft flesh, and smooth her hair over her scalp.

You aren’t sure what’s going to happen next. The Avatar is still gone. Despite Kuvira’s threat, you know Suyin will not acquiesce and there is still the possibility that she will try something horrible to stop Kuvira. And even if you manage to successfully take Zaofu for the Empire, that leaves Republic City.

But with Kuvira’s head cradled in your arms, her cheek dipping into your torso, all of that stops meaning something if only for a moment. Right now you have each other. Most importantly, Kuvira has you. And you’ll figure everything out as you go.

[melon-wing]

A Confession of Love Part 1 [Grian x Ren]

Betaread by tha amazingly talented @aaronampora-ao3 Warning: This is sad! This may hurt a bit. ~*~

Grian looked down at his communicator, a sad smile playing on his lips. How could he be so happy and sad at the same time? A laugh bubbled up without him being able to hold it back. He wiped a stray tear from his face. This was stupid. He shouldn’t be as emotionally invested in this as he was. Ren was talking to everyone like that. It was just the way he was. Ren loved everyone and in return it was so easy to love him…

And like everyone, Grian had told him that much countless times. He had sent Ren so many ‘I love you’s, just like all the other Hermits had in their group chat. And he wanted to believe that he was still special, that there was something between them. He wanted to believe it so badly. But deep down he really knew he wasn’t. He was exactly like everyone else to Ren. Grian looked at the message again and his heart felt so weird, like it wanted to jump and ache at the same time.

<Ren> I love you so much, man. Talking to you is so much fun. I almost walked off a cliff because I couldn’t take my eyes off your message. I really wanna see you again.

Grian hesitated, his fingers twitching over the little keypad. He knew what he wanted to say, but at the same time he really didn’t. He wanted to drop hints so badly, but hints at what? That he was in love? But was he?

It was just so fucking confusing. They hadn’t even interacted all that much since he joined this world. Their bases were far apart and they only sometimes crossed paths in the shopping district. They mostly chatted in the group chat, and lately privately as well. How could you be in love with someone you had barely spent any time with?

He started typing.

<Grian> You know, I really love you too. I love talking to you. It’s weird to imagine a life before Hermitcraft now…

He sent the message. But he wasn’t happy with it yet. He felt the urge to say more, to drop some hint. An ‘I love you’ was so common in their chats, it had lost it’s deeper meaning. Everybody on the server said it.

‘You know… My friend Taurtis asked about us and I told him I would date you if you were into guys and I was here for longer than just this one season’

Grian stared at the words he had written for a while. He really wanted to send it, but he was scared of the way Ren might react. What if that went too far? It was nothing like a love confession. Ren might just take it as another of their overly affectionate talks and nothing more… But what if it made him uncomfortable? He didn’t want to lose the way they talked to each other so easily. Things might get awkward.

Grian leaned back against the tree, looking up at the little piece of sky he could see through the skylight of his aviary. The leaves and sky got a little blurry slowly, as his eyes filled with tears. Fuck. Why was he starting to cry again? He was so confused. This was all so confusing. He should know what he wanted.

He didn’t.

With every new message that Ren sent him, he hoped for some hint inside. Some hidden meaning. But at the same time he dreaded it. What if Ren was interested? Grian would be gone again after they were done in this world. He had only asked Xisuma to join them for one Season. He’d move on in a year. They’d be worlds apart. Was he ready to commit to something like that… And was it selfish to maybe hope that Ren would come with him?

Damn, he wasn’t a stupid lovestruck teenager anymore. He was old enough to have a grip on his emotions.

He took a deep breath. He’d been there before. And he could do this.

“I decide who I fall in love with”, Grian said in a quiet whisper, the words he had told himself so often, every time his heart had threatened to beat faster for someone. “If I don’t want to, I won’t fall for him. I won’t fall in love. I can’t… I’m done with love. I’m happy right now with the way things are.”

He looked back down at the communicator, his own message seemingly glaring back at him. But what if there was a chance? Would he take it? His finger hovered over the send button. He wanted to send it so badly.

He didn’t.

Instead he deleted it all again.

He wasn’t in love. He wasn’t. He wouldn’t allow himself to fall. He wasn’t ready to be disappointed. He had been disappointed too often. He had let himself fall, believing his crush was also interested, only to fall into a void of sadness. This time he wouldn’t let himself fall. He would keep pretending nothing was wrong. To Ren, he was just like the others. The love confessions to him were nothing special.

And he wasn’t in love.

Because he had decided he wasn’t.

But if he wasn’t, why wouldn’t the tears stop coming? Why did his heart hurt when he made that decision? Did he want to fall in love…?

No.

He had decided he didn’t want to. His heart should really stop trying to be so dramatic. This was real life and not some romance novel.

<Ren> Right back at you, my dude! Maybe you will change your mind and stay with us for longer than one season ;)

Grian sighed. His head was a mess. He wasn’t able to think clearly anymore. He… He was just tired. He was imagining things. He wasn’t really falling. He just needed a night of rest. Just one night and in the morning everything would look different again. He’d have a clear head once more. He’d be rational. He’d not be a crying mess over some stupid messages that meant nothing.

<Grian> I’m going to crash now. Talk to you tomorrow.

<Ren> I’m looking forward to it. Love you!

Without answering and with a heavy heart Grian put the communicator aside. One of his parrots hopped over, eyeing the device curiously and then decided that it wasn’t interesting enough, instead going for Grian’s lap, snuggling against him.

Grian closed his eyes. Tomorrow the world would be different. His future self would laugh at the mess he was right now.

Grian awoke when a felt a stinging sensation on his head. He opened his eyes to look at one of the little birds, trying to rip out some of his hairs, probably to build its nest. Grian gently pushed it away, which earned him an annoyed squawk.

He took out his communicator and looked at it. There were only a few new messages in their group chat. And suddenly he felt so stupid about the evening before. Why had he gotten so upset again? He was doing that to himself. He probably wanted to suffer. He cursed his brain for that. He got up, putting his parrot onto one of the low hanging branches. He still felt the urge to message Ren – to check if he really was over yesterday's emotions. Or at least he told himself that was the reason every time a voice in his head suggested something else.

He flew down his base and stepped through the portal. He had a busy day ahead. They were about to update their world’s code in a few days and he’d need to work on Sahara a bit more. There was so much to prepare. He had no time to think about some stupid emotions.

Grian was in the middle of trimming the trees in Sahara’s courtyard, when a loud beep made him almost fall from the ladder with how fast he scrambled to get his communicator out. He berated himself for being that jumpy, but he couldn’t help it. When he looked down and saw Mumbo’s name flashing over his screen he gave a sad sigh and then stopped, eyes going wide. No! He so hadn’t been hoping for Ren to message him. No way!

He dropped a quick reply to Mumbo and then checked the group chat again. And there he was, Ren, throwing around words of love. Something rose up inside of Grian as he read about Ren gushing over Iskall and his style of building. It didn’t take him long to realise he was jealous. And with that realisation came a pressing amount of guilt. He loved Iskall dearly. He himself threw similar words at him all the time… Iskall deserved the love and praise. And Grian wasn’t in love anyways. His brain had no right to be jealous, because he and Ren? They were just friends and wouldn’t ever be anything more. He had decided that and his brain and heart were supposed to follow his decision.

He started typing a message of support into the group chat and the moment he sent it off, Ren greeted him, with a bunch of hearts and excitement.

<Ren> GRIAN! Have I told you today how much I love you already? Because I do! I love you!

Grian grimaced a little, sitting down on the top of the ladder, resting his head against the tree trunk. His chest felt tighter the moment he read that message. He had been over it. He was still over it. They were friends. And on Hermitcraft, this was what friendly interaction looked like.

<Grian> Love you too. But I gotta keep working now. The trees won’t cut themselves… at least not until Mumbo builds some redstone machine to do it.

<Grian> Also, Mumbo? If you read this, I’m kidding. Stop planning a tree cutting machine, it would ruin the way the Sahara yard looks like.

Mumbo only sent a frowny face into the group chat and immediately a round of friendly teasing started. Grian put the small device into his back pocket, returning to cutting the trees. So what if he was a bit rougher with the huge scissors than necessary? It meant nothing.

When he was finished he went back to his base building a bit on the pillars framing it, putting in his dwindling supply of white concrete. He really needed to use a different colour Palette one day. Maybe one that didn’t involve a block as grind-heavy as concrete. Maybe he should build a house out of wood once they went to the new part of the world. It had been a while since he had built something rustic. Taurtis would be shocked if he knew how modern all of Grian’s buildings looked.

Taurtis... Grian stopped what he was doing, looking at the sky in deep thought. He should really message Taurtis again. Talking to him always helped Grian figure out his emotions. Taurtis could make those doubts go away. He’d laugh and tell Grian he was being stupid and then Grian could move on and not feel so weird every time Ren declared his undying love for him in the chat. He just hoped Taurtis would really agree with him, that there was nothing going on. Because he didn’t know what he’d do ifTaurtis told him he had fallen for Ren.

He definitely hadn’t fallen for Ren. That was ridiculous. It would make far more sense to fall for Mumbo, who was his neighbour and with whom he shared so many projects. Or maybe fall in love with Taurtis, who had been his friend for years and who he planned to join again after this Season was over. Falling for Ren made no sense... And that was why he definitely hadn’t fallen. It all made sense. It was the only logical conclusion.

He didn’t love Ren as more than a friend. He never had and he never would.

Grian looked back at his communicator again. Back at another private message from Ren, asking him something and ending with another declaration of love.

<Grian> I know. Love you too.

<Ren> Forever and always?

Grian hesitated for a second. He was a bit too slow to stop his brain from wondering if there might be some intention behind Ren’s words. If he maybe was just as confused as Grian and tried to test the waters. Grian suppressed that voice as fast as it had spoken up.

<Grian> Sure! Forever and always! Love you so much!

Grian let out a frustrated noise, pressing a hand against his eyes. This was stupid. He should just outright ask Ren if he had feelings for him. When Ren said no it would be far easier to tell his brain to stop all of this. Maybe then his brain would stop imagining them kissing. Damn, now he had that image stuck in his head once more.

His bird made a worried sound and Grian let his hand drop again. "Don't worry. Everything's alright. He doesn't like me that way and I don't... I... What if I ask and he says he likes me? I don't even know what I'd do then. I don't love Ren", Grian whispered to the bird, while gently caressing the feathers on its belly.

"Love Ren", the bird repeated and Grian could feel heat rising to his face. This was so dumb. He was getting flustered by some bird repeating his own words. Maybe he just needed another huge project to stop himself from thinking about it.

Grian looked down from his house in Hermitville and grinned in excitement. He sat on the highest tower, able to look over all of Hermitville and beyond. He loved the crooked way he built it. He had been right to change up his block palette a little after the whole modern thing. His communicator beeped, and Grian tried. He really tried to resist it. But after another beep and a few more seconds he sighed, putting his shulker of wood away to have his hands free. Their shared chat hadn't been that busy today and most of the messages had just been someone asking for coordinates or some blocks.

And every time Grian had hoped there'd be a message for him alone... But they were all busy building in this new place, discovering all the new things this part of the world offered them. And he didn't drop any message either... He had thought about it. He had opened his private chat with Ren a few times in the last hours alone. He had stared at the 'I love you's from the past days, his fingers hovering over the keypad. He had never even entered one letter. He didn't really have any reason to write to Ren. And no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn't think of a reason to start a conversation. Sure, Ren always told him he loved their conversations, and that Grian could always talk to him... But still. It felt weird.

Grian looked into the group chat and froze. Ren was finally in the chat. And why did he freeze up at that alone? This was so stupid. Grian took a breath and then read the message. It was the same as the rest, Ren was just asking for some blocks he needed and didn't want to go way back for.

<Grian> I got some. You can come over any time!

Grian's hand was shaking a little, as he was typing and he deleted the message again. He really shouldn't. He needed the materials for himself. He really did. But he had the urge to just give them to Ren, if it meant the other would come over and talk to him.

Ren must have seen him typing something though, because there was an immediate reply.

<Ren> Grian! My man! My love! You got something for me?

And finally Grian felt brave enough to reply.

<Grian> Of course! You can pick them up at my place. You know I'd do anything for you!

<Ren> Anything?

Grian hesitated, staring at the message and his mind went wild. Anything? Oh fuck. What direction was Ren going with this? Was this some innuendo? Him flirting? Could Ren be interested after all? Grian's heart was beating in his throat when he wrote back.

<Grian> Yes. Anything.

And then he waited. His heart was racing. He let himself fall back, lying on the rooftop and looking at the sky. He was getting nervous now. What if Ren had really meant something more with that. What if Ren was about to ask him on a date or something. Oh god he wasn't ready for that. He had told himself that he wouldn't... But when he had sent Ren that message, it had mostly been his heart speaking, not his brain and he had meant it. Whatever Ren would ask of him next, Grian would love to hand it to him on a silver platter. But his mind was screaming at him not to. Play it off as a joke if Ren really asked. And why was it taking Ren so long to reply? What did he need to write to that?

There was a beep, but Grian didn't move. He didn't feel ready, when just a second ago he had been so impatient.

Grian took a deep breath, calming his nerves. There was nothing to be nervous about. Nothing. He finally looked back down and opened the message.

<Ren> You know that is almost as good as an IOU note, right? You should be more careful with how you phrase things! But I already know what I want. Take a break. You’ve been building like crazy. You need to take care better of yourself Grian! Don’t overwork yourself! The competition you got going on is all fun and games until one of you guys faints. I love you, man, but I think you also need to love yourself more!

Grian’s heart stopped beating so fast and why did he suddenly feel disappointed? What had he wanted Ren to say? What had he expected? He let out a joyless laugh. He wanted to scream, wanted to cry. He wanted to throw the communicator off the rooftop and watch it crash on the ground below. And at the same time he wanted to be glad that this hadn’t went into a certain direction. Because if Ren had tried to flirt, Grian would have broken his heart... Because he wasn’t in love with Ren, right?

It took a few seconds to calm himself down again.

<Grian> I can’t promise that. It’s hard, you know? I get so lost in building I don’t even realise it’s already so late.

<Ren> Grian, please. For me?

<Grian> I promise that I’ll try. I can’t promise more than that. But I’ll try for you, alright? For me that is a lot!

<Ren> That’s perfect. I love you so very much! I wish you could love yourself just as much as I love you!

Grian did throw the communicator off the roof after that message. He didn’t know why he did that. He really didn’t. He had thought it would satisfy him, but as he watched the little device shatter on the ground, only to immediately respawn in his hands, he only felt hollow inside.

He really needed to speak with somebody about all of this. But who? Taurtis was busy at the moment. Then there was Mumbo or Iskall. But how much was Grian willing to share with them? Sure, they had become great friends in the comparably short time Grian had spent in this world... But they were also friends with Ren and that might make it weird.

And what if Ren also talked to them about it? What if they knew for a fact that Ren was or wasn’t interested. What if they told him what Grian had suspected all along? That Ren was 100 percent straight and wouldn’t be interested in Grian because of that.

And why the fuck did Grian think he’d be disappointed again?

“Grian! My dude! Down here!”

Grian jumped when he heard the voice and his heart seemed to jump along, almost leaving his body  the way it raced. Right, the materials he had promised to Ren! He had almost forgotten about that.

He did his best to compose himself, getting up only to realise that his cheeks were still a little wet. Damn. He hurriedly wiped the remaining tears off with the sleeve of his jumper. He was really lucky that Ren had walked over here instead of coming by Eytra and maybe landing right next to him.

Grian smiled and waved down before jumping off the roof. He had planned to land next to Ren, but a sudden gust of wind changed his flight direction and he landed right in Ren’s outstretched arms. They looked at each other and Ren chuckled. Grian felt a blush rising to his cheeks at that sound, hurriedly taking a step back. But he couldn’t help the smile that came to his lips.

“I would have never thought that the day would ever come, when I needed to catch the server’s best flyer.”

Grian rolled his eyes, casting a fond glance towards Ren, before walking to his door. “You know you didn’t really have to catch me? I would have landed gracefully if you hadn’t stood there.”

“Well I like hugging you. So that was better than just stepping aside. You know, I love you.”

Grian faltered as he pressed the handle, almost falling forward with the door. Ren’s love declarations were nothing new. He read them daily, but hearing him say it was always even more jarring. And Grian felt so hesitant to return them then. In chat it was more casual, more meaningless. Speaking those actual words? It had been easier a while ago. When had that changed? When had he felt his throat close up at the thought of saying a little ‘I love you’ out loud?

“I know”, he just replied, voice quiet and he hoped Ren wouldn’t notice the little tremble in it. he felt stupid for it. He felt stupid for being unable to say those words when it had never been a problem. He had been able to say them to Ren. he was still able to say them to all the other Hermits. It was just a phrase. It didn’t have to be romantic. There were many forms of love after all…

Ren didn’t seem to notice his little hesitance as they entered the house. Grian tried to keep his hands busy, painfully aware of the others presence right behind him. Ren kept on talking, but Grian wasn't able to concentrate on the words, hearing that deep, rumbly voice, listening to those little chuckles, it drove him insane. He hurriedly got the materials out and put them into a shulker box.

"There you go", Grian finally said as he turned to Ren, doing his best, to push all of those unwelcome thoughts down. He managed until Ren smiled at him, eyes lighting up, almost sparkling in excitement and then there were arms around Grian. His face was pressed into Ren's chest and he could feel the heat radiating off of him. He gasped in surprise and instantly Ren's scent seemed to be all around him.

"Thank you so much! You don't know how much you're helping me! I sort of misplaced my Elytra and I really don't want to walk all the way back to my original base", Ren said and as he was speaking, he kept a tight hold on Grian, one of his hands almost gently caressing Grian's back. And Grian didn't know what to say or do. Did Ren even realise what he was doing to Grian? Did Ren know what was going on inside of him? Grian could feel the walls he had built in his mind crumbling. He felt weak in the embrace, as if his muscles didn't work anymore. Maybe this was okay. Maybe it was alright to let himself go. Maybe he finally found someone... Maybe this time he wasn't imagining things. Maybe this time he was actually loved.

His hands twitched. He wanted to return the hug. He really did. He raised his hands slowly.

"Dude, you are a true friend! One of the best friends someone could ask for.”

Grian felt the walls snap back into place, stronger even then before and he let his hands drop again. He felt like someone had emptied a bucket of ice cold water over him.

"No worries, Ren. I got your back. But I have to get back to Sahara. We got a meeting there soon." With those words Grian stepped back out of the embrace, smiling tightly at Ren. "I got no time for our chit chat today. Sorry."

Ren looked a bit disappointed, but then smiled at Grian and nodded, before giving him a little salute. "Thanks again for those blocks. I'll put them to good use. And I'll return the favour. Just tell me if you ever need anything, alright?"

Grian just nodded and watched Ren leave his little house. He still felt crowded. Even when he was alone. His body was suddenly set to auto pilot, as if he was moving on muscle memory alone. His legs took him to the portal and then he was flying through the tunnels. No time at all seemed to pass until he was back at his old base and then back to the aviary. And then his feet touched the ground... and he became undone. He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. All of his parrots were fluttering around him, roused from his sudden fall.

Grian should have known it all along. He had known it. And he had already decided that he didn't love Ren. Then why did it hurt so much? Why did his heart feel like someone was holding it in an iron grip? He didn't love Ren. He didn't. He never had. So what if Ren saw him as nothing more than a friend? That was alright, that was what he had hoped for. And still... He couldn't stop feeling like he had wished for a different ending. Maybe, just maybe his mind wasn't the one calling the shots after all. Maybe he had been lying to himself all alone, thinking he could decide not to be in love. He had been such a fool.

He was shaking, more tears rushing to his eyes and then he raised his head to the sky and screamed. He screamed until he was out of breath and then he just sat there, his head tilted backwards, looking at the ceiling, tears running over his cheeks.

He was in love.

He was in love and it was hopeless.

[jackjots]

#9 Bones

Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye 30 Day Prompt

(This takes place around Episode 6 and briefly refers to the corresponding podcast episode )

Day #9 @30daysofwayward

(I do not own any other characters or place names outside of Shelby St. Ranger, this is just for fun)

The mob outside, even as small as it was, was not missed when it dissipated. But the anxious energy in the air did not go away with it. I sat in the shadows and kept writing down theories as the noise outside the bar dwindled to the usual silence I was used to. I was trying to remember Aubrey, after Quinn had mentioned the name. I had gone to one town meeting when I’d moved, just to get a feel for the things, but I’d sat in the back and had, of course, realized it that community meetings weren’t for me. That’s when I found out about the fact that the mayor was a dog, and - that was it, that was when I’d met Aubrey. According to Quinn, he knew about werewolves. I wondered if there was a way to learn more about him without actively seeking him out. I tried to think of other people I could just exist around to maybe gain new information. 

And then it occurred to me. The florists. 

Now, I often avoided Mary Jo and Ellis for a very specific reason: they were the exact opposite of me. They had that extrovert energy that I found intimidating and almost scary. The little I interacted with them was enough to know that nothing I told them was sacred. It didn’t help that they clung to each other as if they were one organism and as a perpetually single person with little to no interest in dating, I found that disturbing. But I could look past that, if it wasn’t for the incessant gossiping and aforementioned intense energy. They were just not my kind of people. I sighed and finished my beer finally over my empty plate. I was going to have to do it. I was going to have to buy some flowers. 

I decided to purchase some for all of the new graves that I assumed would be dug soon. It was a morbid thought, but a good reason to buy flowers. I wasn’t really the type to just have them in my house for no reason. Where would I put them? My desk? I would immediately knock them over and destroy my keyboard. These were just facts about myself I knew as deeply as I knew I was not looking forward to talking to Mary Jo and Ellis. 

Their shop was so bright and sunny, contrasting the slowly encroaching rain clouds outside, that I squinted when I went inside. It was also way too small. I was immediately the center of their attention.

“Hello.” They both chimed simultaneously. “How can we help you?”

“I wanted to buy some flowers.” They nodded expectantly. “Um, what are good flowers for a funeral?” Twin eyebrow raises. Mary Jo asked in a loud whisper. “Which one?”

“I guess I’ll get one for all of them?” I intended to pick it apart for each grave, but I wasn’t going to tell them that.

“If you’ll allow us,” Ellis said, spreading his hands wide in front of himself, “We can pick a different flower for each,” he lowered his voice, “werewolf victim.” 

“Did you know that we have werewolves here?” Mary Jo asked me in a way that suggested she was trying to be sneaky. But no one else was there and her voice was still quite loud. 

“I’ve heard.”

“You’re new here aren’t you?” Ellis’ eyes swiveled at me suspiciously as they started to gather flowers together. 

“Yes.” I admitted. “But I don’t feel like I’m really the werewolf sort.” 

“That’s true. You’re not. You hardly speak. This is the most you’ve spoken. Ever.” Mary Jo seemed reassured.

Ellis was not. “Would werewolves speak though? If they’re animals?”

Mary Jo looked doubtful. “But aren’t they human sometimes? I feel like wolves that are human sometimes would have a lot to say.” 

“Unless you are a,” Ellis paused for dramatics, “lone wolf.”

“Afraid not. Just a writer.”

“A writer. Oh, have you met Artemis and Paul?”

“Briefly.”

“They have a podcast.” Ellis smiled excitedly. “And soon, so will I.”

“Really?” I had trouble believing it.

“I’ve already started the tape.” He began, but Mary Jo gave him a look that calmed him down. “Probably.”

“Did you hear about what happened at the town hall?” Mary Jo asked me as another flower got placed in an arrangement that was becoming garishly bright. I thought about asking them to tone it down, but I did not have any control over this situation.

“Oh about Barney? Yes I heard.”

“Where were you during the town hall anyway?” Mary Jo asked. 

“I was at home, I think. Yeah I was at home.” 

“I didn’t see them while I was out and about.” Ellis said under his breath to Mary Jo. 

“Were you not at the town hall?” I asked. 

He seemed surprised I heard him and I heard him say. “Good hearing.” In a sing-song quiet voice with a side eye. To me, he smiled. “I was doing some investigative journalism.” He said the words in an over exaggeration. 

“So you missed Barney’s death?” 

“Yes. But I know all about it because Mary Jo is my eyes and ears.” 

I nodded. “It’s good you had someone there.”

“How did you hear about it?”

“Quinn.” I said. “I had some vegetarian food at the Dead Canary.” I added. 

Their shoulders relaxed at exactly the same time. The amount of energy it took not to roll my eyes. “Can I ask,” Mary Jo started as they wrapped the yellow, green, and pink bouquet, “why do you have two black eyes?”

I was taken aback. I had forgotten and I felt the heat rising in my face. “I had an accident yesterday.” 

‘You know who else has a black eye? Crispin.” Mary Jo said.

“Didn’t you say he spoke today?”

“For the first time in who knows how long.” 

“Too bad it was vulgar language.” 

“Well he had just seen a person die. I almost said a bad word.”

“You did not.”

I felt like I’d started the gossip machine with such little effort. I decided to try to push it in the right direction and throw them a bone to follow. “Was Aubrey at the town hall?” 

“Aubrey Dockweiler? Of course he was. And Artemis called him out for talking about werewolves.”

“His whole family has always been obsessed with them.”

“Too bad he’s the only one around for this.” 

“His father would be so pleased right now.”

“Pleased people died?” I asked.

They both looked at me, their faces growing into hard pouts. “Of course not.” They gave me the flowers and charged me. It wasn’t very cheap, but I felt like I got a lot of information out of it. 

“Have a good day.”

They nodded at me, suddenly mute. Bringing that up was a bit cruel, but I couldn’t help it. I still had so many feelings about the deaths that it was hard to see people being flippant about it. And it was nice to bring them down a peg. 

I looked at the flowers and couldn’t handle how bright it was. I took them to the Dead Canary and offered them to Desmond who took them much like someone would take a screaming child.

“For me?”

“I got them to put at the graves of,” I gestured broadly, “Everyone. But I don’t know when they’ll be buried.” “Or taxidermied more like.” Desmond added.

I gave an expression that accurately depicted my fear of that prospect. “Egh, okay. Anyway, you can do whatever you want with them.”

Desmond nodded and put them under the bar. “I’ll find somewhere to put them.” 

“The trash is okay too.” I volunteered.

He smiled. “Probably not that.” He put a glass in front of me and pointed with raised eyebrows. I nodded. I was just going to drink my way through this process, I decided. I still needed to talk to Aubrey, and now it felt like a more persistent need.

“Desmond, where does Aubrey Dockweiler live?”

[vaingloriosa]

If it's not too much of a bother can I ask what s/e//lfships-in-sp/a//nish did? I remember seeing her art around when I was into DBH for a bit. (Emphasis on was)

first off, congrats on getting off that dbh juice! very proud of you for leaving that part of your life behind. love that for u!!

i’ve actually been meaning to make a post like this. in order to fully answer your question, there has to be a little bit of vulnerability on my part. it’s something that has taken me awhile to process and heal (i’ve only talked to a handful of people about this) from but i am at a point where i think i am ready to talk about it. please note that i am only answering this for y’all to know the truth; this is not me trying to stir the pot and cause any drama. if you still follow her, i am not the all-knowing moral authority to tell you to stop following her but what i will say is to hear me out and reconsider who you give your support to.

there might be some things that i am missing because i don’t like remembering any of this but i will try my best. i will not be using any names in order to protect these people’s identities, even if some of these people did hurt me. again, i am not here to callout anybody, i am not here to say “officer! this person right here!” because this is not what this is all about. i am only here to give you my experience with SSIS (her username for short). also, i do not have screenshots, i deleted the server, and there is no evidence to support me. i didn’t want to keep such baggage around and wanted to just move on...and i hope you can trust me with what i am about to say.

SSIS and i were like two peas in a pod. when we found one another in the dbh fandom, i looked up to her. i thought she was one of the greatest artists in dbh and i felt so intimated by her. soon, i think she was the one contacted me and from there, it was like an instant click. we got to talking and it felt like we were friends for a long time. slowly, in private messages, SSIS and i were often vulnerable with one another. i talked about the things i have to face as a latina woman, and she talked about her own struggles. i thought i was being open and honest with another woman of color but it wasn’t until way later that i found out that she is a white woman. that is something to keep in mind as we go further down the line.

there were some things that she said about other people that felt like she was trying to persuade me from keeping my distance from. i will not name names of these blogs but they were also fairly popular in the dbh fandom and it felt strange the way she got so angry and heated over people i called my friends. sadly, i was influenced by her comments because i started to internalize her words and became weary of these people since she said that they, too, were secretly talking about her and had their own clique. this is something that has taken a lot to unlearn because words can hold a lot of weight. this really should’ve been my first warning, a red flag, but i kept being friends with SSIS because, well, i trusted her and i considered her a good friend of mine. i wanted to defend her honor, i wanted to stick up for her as she did for me. i thought she was on my side as i was hers.

then i created a server for my mutuals and followers.

things were going great, everyone was getting along, we were all making inside jokes, and just supporting one another. slowly, there were events that started to unfold that truly revealed the true nature of who SSIS is as a person. it started out with when there started to be an inner circle within my server. it was SSIS, three other dbh content creators, and another reader of mine. now, i loved that they slowly started to become really good friends with another. however, it slowly started to feel like they were becoming like an exclusive club where SSIS became the head person of the group. i had my suspicions confirmed when i saw that they created their own personal server which, again, it’s okay to make your own server when you have your own friends. but the thing is...they felt withdrawn from the rest of the group and me. it’s like they tried to distance themselves away from me and me only. now there’s another part that i really...don’t like talking about. this part...it’s something that i never fully...grasped. whenever i think about it, it makes me sick to my stomach. the one person that was a reader of mine is a minor and these four adults friended this minor. again, as long as you are respectful with one another, it’s okay to have a friendship. however, this friendship became a bit inappropriate when they were sharing NSFW content with the minor in the server. they even encouraged such behavior from them....and i remember having a talk with my mods of the server saying how that was super fucking odd and kind of disgusting. i didn’t even wanna know what was going in in that private server. this should’ve been the second red flag, but i gave the benefit of the doubt.

however, this wasn’t the penultimate thing.

you know by now that i am a vocal person when it comes to activism. i do not shy away from hot topics because i want people to be informed and be comfortable in the uncomfortable. some of my mutuals often asked me what i meant when i said “all white people” or when i said that white people are responsible for this and that and i was okay with answering these questions because, hey, you’re not gonna learn if you don’t ask questions. at first, i was willing to teach my white friends about some of the things that contribute to the oppression of people of color and what their white privilege meant but what i should’ve learned sooner rather than later was that i can’t always assume the role of teacher. 

and there are some things that must come from a white person in order for them to recognize their privilege, realize their behavior, and come up with ways to do better, and put action towards that.

sometimes that’s better said than done. some of the white friends that i had in that server were kinda agitated by all my “accusations” of all white people but i kept reminding them that when i say that, i only mean this type or that type...but if the shoe fit? i could tell that SSIS was just not understanding any of that...but she never really said that. but here i thought she was a woman of color because she said that her specific group of spaniards faced oppression. i do want to say that it is partially my part for not putting two and two together that spaniards are europeans and are not considered people of color, no matter the region. however, the way she spoke of her struggles made me want to believe that she was. it’s a stupid reason, i will say that. even when typing this, i still can’t believe i thought she was a woman of color...and i want to try to make excuses but really, i should’ve been more informed. but the more i think about it, SSIS should’ve been the one to correct me, stop me, and tell me that she isn’t a woman of color, that she is european. you don’t lie about one’s identity like that just because you think being called a woman of color gets you some sort of clout. people think that being “hispanic” also covers spainards and i fell into that trap. SSIS shouldn’t have kept up the lie like that. that should’ve been the third red flag but i wanted to attribute that to them learning and growing.

the catalyst seemed to be when notre dame burned. an empty church building, mind you. the way that her and the rest of her group were viciously attacking my friends of the server for making jokes about it, forcing one to apologize for doing nothing wrong, and quite literally foaming at the mouth for some silly symbol of colonization by europeans...i was kind of taken aback by it. i remember being in the car with my sister and her boyfriend and reading the messages out loud and they started to laugh because c’mon! it was ridiculous that they were defending this building! this should’ve been my fourth red flag, but once again, i believe people can change.

it became quiet after that, real quiet. i know some of my mods decided to take a break from the server after such a heated argument that was initiated by SSIS. slowly but surely, the server started to pick up again and for that i was grateful that this didn’t completely severe any trust. though i did notice the absence of SSIS and her little friend group. it became more blatantly obvious that these people have separated themselves from us. the private conversation that i still held with SSIS slowed down to more sporadic messages. however, i still supported her and her art. i donated money to her, i even offered to help her buy a website for her art and merch. the support from those friends dwindled down but i continued to support their content no matter what. i wanted to let them know that even though we may have some differences, we can overcome these challenges and support one another.

gosh, sorry, i started...getting teary eyed from remembering this because it comes to show that internet friends...you don’t always truly know them.

i’m not 100% sure when this started to occur, whether it was before the big fight or afterwards but i slowly started to realize that these people were not my friends. as y’all are aware, i started to have a steady disinterest in dbh and often was vocal about that. given that, everyone is allowed to criticize media so my opinions are my own. i was trying to fight for a better community for the dbh fandom, i was trying to fight for my voice and my fellow stans of color to have their voices and stories heard. i believe that SSIS was on my side because she, too, agreed with me for wanting a better fandom where fans of color are taken seriously and are recognized. i thought she was willing to fight for me because she, too, was disappointed that nothing ever come about my rants and awareness. however, that wasn’t the same tune she and her friends were singing. when i brought up racism in fandom and transformative fanworks, i was met by such a response by one white author (who has her own story with me, but i am not sure if i should talk about but she apparently tried to get in contact with me to apologize but as of today, i still haven’t heard from her) who said that it was up to me to create the content that i want to see...and that is a very racist thing to say. the responsibility shouldn’t fall on me or on the shoulders of my fellow people of color. i could go off on a tangent but...lemme bring this back to what i wanted to say.

when that decline started to happen, i was becoming more and more aware that two people from this inner circle, SSIS and that other white author, were making vague tweets about me. they, too, also started to make vague posts about me as well. they started talking so...horribly about me and the things i felt so passionately about...that these things hurt like hell. fuck, crying again...um, i don’t remember specific wordings but i do remember that they were specifically about me...and they were posting that while i was still following them. that’s what hurt the most...because they knew i was going to read these tweets and these posts...so i talked it over with my mods, cried a bit about it, and they held my hand while i unfollowed them quietly from twitter, tumblr, and instagram. even despite it all, i was so....it was hard to unfollow them. i don’t know why...they hurt me so why did i feel like i was betraying them? i unfollowed everyone from that friend group except for the reader of mine because i gave him the benefit of the doubt, i wanted to believe that he was merely influenced by them to do things he was against, and i hoped that he, too, would recognize what they were doing was wrong. 

then it happened. all hell broke lose.

it started with the white author who posted a public message on the general server channel that i would’ve rather have had her sent that personally to me than just having this out in the open for everyone to see. since this isn’t about her, i will save my commentary and just say that it was kinda hurtful to read. 

then, i guess that white author gave the confidence of SSIS who dropped a very long and personal message on the server that was one of the most vile, vicious, and racist things i have ever read in my entire life. she began the message with “now that you unfollowed me on twitter, i can really tell you what’s on my mind” and typed up one of the most ugliest and most wicked messages...i wish i knew what it all said but i remember reading it....and crying. it broke my heart knowing that this woman, someone i considered my friend, someone i trusted, someone that i shared a lot of vulnerable shit with, someone that i thought i looked up to...someone i cared for....harbored such hatred towards me. slowly i began to see that she kept up a front with me, kept those feelings at bay, and waited until i slipped or something so that she had an excuse to air out what she thought was “dirty laundry”. to this day, it’s one of the most traumatic things that has ever happened to me.

after that happened, i deleted the server as it served as a reminder of what transpired. i apologized to everyone on my server though there wasn’t anything on my part to apologize for but i felt like i had to. all of last year was one of the most difficult years i have ever been through because it made me second guess myself, my abilities, and i became incredibly weary of white women (even more so than before). i lost any motivation to write, i lost any creative spark i had before that time, and just...completely became a shell of myself. it sounds so dramatic and silly of me...but it felt like i was in some sort of weird sad episode where i couldn’t control my impulses. i deleted a lot of my work, i deleted a lot of my content from my blog, even content i was proud of. even outside of the internet, i was...withdrawn. i tried to throw myself into working but i didn’t even have that drive to do that. i wanted to get over it so badly because i didn’t want to give up like that. i became withdrawn from others, i closed myself from speaking up about what happened because it hurt to open up a huge wound like that. plus, i couldn’t really talk about this with my family or my other friends because it’s like “hey, this one internet friend that i had turned out to be a racist snake” like it sounds wild to be upset about that. it felt silly to me because my gosh, this is the internet! nothing is real! everything is so...trivial. but what happened with SSIS last year is something that i haven’t 100% healed from but i have come a long way since april of 2019 and i am proud of myself despite how it doesn’t feel like i have healed much. also i don’t remember most of 2019 if we are being honest. however, just a few days ago i got a notification from a tweet she had tagged me in but instead of panicking, i kinda laughed? about it? rolled my eyes? that’s growth, babeyy!

if you are a follower of hers, you do what you want with this information. like i said before, i am not going to tell you what to do. you are the one to ultimately make that decision. whether you decide to send screenshots to her of this ask, whether you choose to defend her honor in my inbox, call me a liar, block her, idc but whatever you do, please don’t send her hate anons or hateful asks...i do not endorse that behavior whatsoever. thank y’all for hearing me out

[rebelwheels-blog]

Dose #6: Added to the Mix

May 26, 2019

It is at the times of when we feel we no longer can that we always manage to prove ourselves wrong.

This was supposed to be posted a month and a half ago oops

Greetings readers, yet again, long time no write. These past few months have not been pleasant and writing this blog now is not something I have been particularly looking forward to writing… Although I will admit that seems to be my mentality for every one of these posts lately, which I apologize for. However, writing about my life isn’t all that easy. Some may argue that I could or should leave bits and pieces out, which I have seen others do. But I always feel like the rest of the story just doesn’t make as much sense when it’s done that way. Luckily, a friend of mine convinced me that it needed to be written, and they’ve fallen asleep on our phone call right now, so I ended up gathering the courage. Of course, as I say this, I am having second thoughts, but nevertheless, I will continue.

Picking Up Where We Left Off

My last big blog entry was definitely a heavy one. With me getting sick, discovering my love for poetry, and then being plonked this news that a fellow SMAer had passed and basically left me money from the contest we competed against each other in. Granted, it was his parent’s idea, however it did not feel that way when I was gifted his money. I mentioned how he left a rather large imprint upon my soul and that because of him I wanted to embrace the fact that I am apart of the SMA Community as well as the Disabled Community in general.

When I wrote this, I had no idea what Life had in store for me.

The month of February was the month of my sixth Spinraza Injection, February 25, to be exact. I was ecstatic to be receiving my sixth injection as this is the one that many have said on the social forums to be the one that really counts. The one where you notice bigger milestones to be achieved. The one that matters. So as the weeks go by, I get my blood drawn where and when I usually do, as well as other things, and wait. Then the Thursday before my injection, I get a phone call from the place where I get my injection. I thought it a bit strange to be called on the Thursday instead of the Friday to confirm my appointment for Monday, but I picked up anyway.

The phone call wasn’t to confirm Monday’s appointment.

The lady that schedules all of my doctor’s appointments had called me to say that my injection date had been moved to three weeks later. I couldn’t believe my ears. Apparently since my insurance had gone through a merge with another company, the paperwork to get my injection and medication paid for had been completely changed. Even though I had received a letter a few weeks prior saying everything that was pre-approved would not have any issues and coverage would overlap until the end of July.

Apparently not.

My immediate reaction was to bite my tongue and agree to changing the dates in my calendar. But emotions overruled my logic and tears began to stream down my face making it difficult to see.

Great, this is bringing back all those emotions.

I quickly changed the dates in my phone and thanked the lady on the other end of the phone before hanging up and sobbing as my grandmother held me after running to get a box of tissues.

The next few weeks were hell. I did not handle it well at all. I’m still having the effects from it to be frank. Even though the effects that I was experiencing are not possible to even occur. I was assured and reassured this. At least two more times after that phone call of having to move my injection date, as I was told two more times on the Friday that I still couldn’t have my injection. Every week was purgatory, every second was worse than the last. Then, to top it off, every day I felt my strength dwindling every second that ticked by. Which is the effects that I had been assured and reassured is not possible. Well I am here to assure everyone that their assurance is not true at all. Sure, molecularly, it’s still in my system until the sixth month mark. But the effects of the Spinraza giving me back my strength go straight down the drain after the four-month mark.

I may not be an expert at chemistry, but I do know that what I was experiencing was not psychosomatic. Getting tired easier, leaning over more, experiencing difficulty picking up my head again… The list goes on. Of course, due to this occurrence, I have found myself researching how genes work and how Spinraza does what it does down to the molecular level. In turn, causing this update to be a month late. Okay, it wasn’t just my curiosity that caused this update to be much later than I prefer, as I’m not only just regaining the use of my body the way I had before this hiccup, but the fog that has clouded my thoughts over the past months is starting to lift as well.

Gotta love my brain.

Now, there is a flicker of light in all this darkness, and that leads me to my next heading.

All Over the Place

During my roller coaster of emotions, I ended up acquiring a group of friends. Yeah, I have actually acquired a group of friends.

I’m growing up!

This group has helped me all through the month of ups and downs, so allow me to introduce them to you.

Our little family is quite the complicated bunch, so here is how we all refer to each other.

Dova is the founder of our family. She found us scattered all over the world, and brought us together to create our group. I owe her a lot for taking me in. Especially since she understands my crazy as she is as crazy-probably more-as I am. All joking aside, she is the first person to invite me into a group and I haven’t felt unwelcome.

Schiki is Døva’s longest friend in the group, and they refer to each other as Twin due to how close they are. I used to not talk to him much, that was, until we decided to phone each other. I haven’t been on a call as long as I have been with him since… Well that was in the past. Talking to him is as easy as it gets, never losing things to talk about. Granted, this applies to the rest of the family as well, but with this one, it’s different.

SD is the youngest of the group, I recruited her. She’s like the little sister I never wanted. (Sarcasm) SD is one of the funniest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, even if her humor sometimes ends up getting misinterpreted. But she has a beautiful soul and a voice to match it. She’s gonna hate me when she reads this hehe

Spike… Now that’s a character. He has many fascists which makes him interesting to get to know. He’s an amazing artist, easy to talk to, as is Schiki, and pretty smart. Him and Schiki are two I’ve had group calls with and we ended up talking about physics. This guy knows how to push my buttons, but who doesn’t, really?

Hybrid is an entity all of his own. He’s part of the family, but in a sort of complicated way. However, he’s a physics major which makes it easy for us to talk. Can’t really say much about him as he’s been away for a bit.

Death is a new-ish addition to the group, but he’s pretty interesting. Gets along easily with Spike and has a great sense of humor. I can thank him for introducing me to a video game that I can actually play.

The best way I can describe this group of ours as a whole is in the layout of a poem that I had written for one of our members during a moment of doubt.

We’re the puzzle pieces that get lost

And are found one day

By someone who took the time

To look

And to pick us up

And put us in our own puzzle

That creates a bigger picture

That’s just as odd as we are.

Every one of these people has helped me out one way or another. Sure, we get on each other’s nerves a lot as well, but that’s what happens in a family. I don’t know how I could have made it through my unknowns without them. They found me at my lowest and helped me get back to where I should be, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

The Sixth Battle

The day finally came where I could actually be given my injection. April 1st. Yeah, we had the same thought. Who would book an appointment as important as this when so many things have gone wrong already? Well, luckily the appointment actually was kept after being moved three times already. Three times the charm, I guess.

Even though this injection was an absolute pain to get, it was my sixth one which was supposed to be when I saw more extreme changes in my strength. So I decided to make my Spinraza crew a gift.

Those who were there to see the gift were blown away, but most of the crew for this injection was new. The usual staff was out for this, that, or the other, but my main nurse was there which was all that mattered at that point.

Of course, the complications with this injection weren’t going to stop simply because of the fact I was actually on the table about to have a long needle shoved into my back. Noooooo. The one time I decide not to put my earbuds in to listen to music is the one time the needle decides that it doesn’t want to find my spinal fluid sack in my spine. It took a good ten, twenty minutes to finally feel the spinal fluid drip out from the needle. Never had I welcomed that feeling so much in my life.

As each second ticked by that my doctor couldn’t get the spinal fluid out, the more I worried that they’d have to take the needle out and either redo it or book the appointment for another day. But everyone assured me that I’d get it that day no matter what, and they were right.

My injection site was in a lot more pain than previous times, as well as my lower spine when I put my head back to eat. But I was grateful to have the synthetic DNA back in my system. Although, more than a month later, I still don’t feel like I have all of my strength back. Especially when it comes to my core strength. But I’m hoping as I don’t have to go through all of this approval garbage for another year, Spinraza should build itself back up in my chemistry.

[joeybelle]

Oh, how the tables have turned - Clyde Logan x Reader

Part 1

Inspired by @clyde-prompts: “Some guys are rude and use ableist slurs against Clyde. The reader is with them, and although she feels bad about what's happening, is too scared to say anything in front of her "friends". She comes back to the bar a couple nights later to try and show him she's not a bad person. They get to know each other and fall in love”. Doesn’t fully follow the prompt

Warnings: Language, ableist slurs, general stupidity, first person point of view.

Rating: Mature

Setting: Pre-heist

AN: Please keep in mind when reading this that I’m not a native speaker so my English may be questionable at time. Also, I’m a very slow writer because usually when I have the energy to write I don’t have time and vice-versa. Any type of feedback is appreciated, even incoherent keyboard smashes. The things I tag sometimes don’t show up in tag searches so check the masterlist from time to time. Thank you <3

It looked like a dive bar and I was pretty sure it was one, but I wasn’t surprised in the least. It’s what I had expected from my friends. Maybe they’d grown up in the years I hadn’t seen them, but I was certain they still enjoyed cheap drinks and questionable company, at least sometimes.  And to be honest, I wasn’t one to complain. With my dwindling budget, I would have done anything to save a buck.

“Baby!” Jake’s booming voice greeted me the moment I stepped into the bar, the heavy door closing behind me with a thud.

If there was something I really didn’t look forward to about moving back to my West Virginia hometown was being called ‘Baby’ once again. My childhood friend, Maggie, used to call me that since we were toddlers and somehow it stuck. Before I knew it, the whole high school knew me as Baby. Hell, that’s what the whole town called me. And while it was somehow acceptable (although a bit creepy for obvious reasons) in high school, in the meantime I’d grown up and felt like it was time for the nickname to die.

My friends were all gathered around a pool table, some actively playing, others watching or sitting at the nearby table. There were quite a few empty beer bottles in front of them, and I realized that the party had started way before I’d arrived there. Somehow, this made me uneasy. It’s never advisable to be the only sober person in the bunch.

Jake, Peter and his sister Lisa, stood around the pool table, and my childhood friend Maggie a little further by the bar. There was a brunette holding onto Peter’s waist, so I assumed she was his wife, but I couldn't for the love of me remember her name, although I was sure Maggie had told me about her multiple times. The others were faces I didn’t recognize. Although my group of friends in highschool has always been pretty large, the core was always made of the five of us.

Jake looked considerably more inebriated than the rest, although this didn’t surprise me either. Maggie had told me that he had become quite the heavy drinker after they had gotten married, and that scared me. He had always been tall and well built, and right now he looked even more massive than I remembered. With his volcanic personality and rather unpredictable nature, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Hopefully, with age came some wisdom too, but judging by his glazed eyes and the stupid grin he had on as he approached me, I highly doubted it.

“Fuck me, you’re still a babe,” he interjected, giving me a one armed hug, squeezing me a little too hard, making me flinch.

“And I thought I’d finally evolved into an actual woman by now,” I joked, wiggling out of his crushing embrace.

“Nah,” he said patting me on the butt, something I really didn’t appreciate, but remembering it was something we used to do as teenagers, I let it slip. “You’re still a baby. Hey Maggie,” he boomed once again, earning some glares from the other patrons. “Look who’s here!”

“Baby!” She shrieked so loud that I was sure at least half the continent knew I was back in town. Not that anyone cared, besides the handful of highschool friends currently huddled around a pool table in this rather rural bar.

Maggie almost tackled me, hugging me so tight it almost hurt. “Oh my god, you changed so much,” she said, running her hand through my hair. “I see you prefer it more natural these days. Is that the trend in New York?” she said, and I could sense a weird note in her voice. She twirled a bleach blonde curl around her finger and went to kiss her husband. She was still the same as always: bleached hair, tiny shorts and a crop top revealing a perfect abdomen that didn’t show any signs of the three children she’d given birth to in the past ten years. But she had always been the athletic one, head cheerleader and all that, and although I envied her sometimes, I was much too lazy to try and be like her.

“I don’t think anyone cares how you look like in New York. No one really looks at you,” I replied, shrugging.

“Is that why you came back?” I always knew there was a sense of bitterness that Maggie was left with after I went to university, but I had hoped it would be old news by now. Apparently not.

Maggie and I have known each other since we were in diapers. She lived a few houses down the road and we spent all our childhood together. She had always been incredibly beautiful and bubbly and fun and everyone loved her, so it was a given that she’d be very popular. She was a cheerleader all throughout high school, got herself a quarterback boyfriend (that she later married) and because I was her best friend I ended up with the popular kids too. And for the most part I really tried to blend in. I dyed my hair and wore short skirts, flirted with whomever was available, I even tried to join the cheerleader squad, but after face planting and breaking my nose, I decided it just wasn’t for me.

However, during senior year I realized that the small town we were living in wasn’t what I wanted. I dreamed of the big cities, full of opportunities and exciting jobs and interesting people and all that. I was tired of seeing the same old faces every day, the same two bars that sold cheap booze and the same bleak future for all of us. I told her this and started applying to out of state universities.

She was hurt. I know she had imagined that we’d both live here all our lives, get married and have children that would be best friends like we were before them. She used to daydream about this when we were little, we’d buy houses next to each other and we wouldn’t have a fence, just a big garden where we would both drink our coffee in the morning. So I understand why she would feel betrayed by my departure.

But this was never my dream. I always felt like this place was too boring and that I could do so much better. So I studied hard, applied to universities and was finally accepted to NYU, and since then I lived in New York for more than a decade. However, when I was just a teenager dreaming of big cities, I never imagined how hard living in one would actually be.

“Nope,” I said, shrugging. “It’s the money. Couldn't afford living in New York anymore.”

There was no reason to lie to her, or to anyone for that reason. Finding a job in my current field was hard so I had to resort to teaching jobs for the past few years, and the pay wasn’t so good. That coupled with my student loans, other random loans and rent, left me with very little for expenses, not to mention such luxuries and new clothes and internet. I felt really embarrassed having to borrow money from my parents just to live, even though they were always loving and helpful, so when I heard that the community college near my hometown had an opening for an assistant job in my field, I was happy to come back and not starve in New York. Big cities are way less glamorous when you’re homeless.  

“It’s always the money, eh?” she said, and her eyes were a little softer, like she understood. With the current economy, she must have struggled at some point too. “You live in your old house, right? Too bad we sold my family house after my dad passed away, otherwise we’d still be neighbours,” she laughed.

“We’re not that far away. A short drive and we can visit anytime.”

“I know! I’m so happy that you’re back! Can’t wait to tell you all the new gossip!” She sounded so excited that I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I just didn’t give a shit about any sort of rumours. One other thing that I really didn’t miss about small towns: the gossip.

“Hey babe,” Jake cut in. “Where are our drinks?”

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” she apologized with a distracted smile. “I was about to get drinks when you showed up and I completely forgot why I went to the bar in the first place. What can I get you?”

“Uhh, a beer is fine. I can’t stay long anyway. I’m waiting for someone to deliver my fridge.”

“At this hour?” asked Jake.

“They got lost somehow. I don’t know, I just want my fridge, so my food doesn’t spoil anymore and I can have cool drinks once again,” I said, thinking at how the past week had been torture. I could easily live without the luxury of an AC, but living without a fridge was too much for me.

With the corner of my eye I could see Maggie returning, precariously holding too many beer bottles. I thought I’d help her, but the bartender had already gone around the bar and was taking a couple of bottles from her hands, making sure she arrived with them all in one piece. She shot him one of her trademark winks and I couldn’t help but laugh. One marriage and three kids later and she was still cheekily flirting with everyone.

“Hey fuckface!” Jake yelled, startling me. Confused, I had to look around to see who he was referring to. Following his extended index, it seemed that he meant the bartender. “You stay away from my wife! You hear me, stay away!”

Right. He’d always had a jealousy problem that didn’t seem to have gotten any better over the years. It was another thing I was glad I didn’t have to deal with while living in New York. As it seemed, I was already starting to regret moving back. Or at least, trying to mend relationships with my old friends. I guess distance wasn’t the only reason we lost touch.

“Come on, babe, he’s just trying to help,” she said appeasingly, and somehow I didn’t think this would help de-escalate the situation, so I hurried to take the bottles from the bartender’s hand so he could go back to where he wasn’t perceived as a threat by Jake.

“Thanks!” I said, looking up at him. He was a really tall and broad man, even taller than Jake, but he didn’t have the same intimidating stance. Maybe because his eyes looked soft, or because his face held a certain gentleness. “And sorry, my friend is a bit of a hothead,” I tried apologizing, hoping it would all stop here.

“It’s ok,” he said in a low, beautiful voice, that I had to admit kinda tickled my fancy. However, before I could say anything else he turned on his heels and went back behind the bar.

In the meantime, Jake was still yelling profanities, although by the tone of his voice he was more mocking than angry. “Jake, stop it for fuck’s sake,” I said, passing the beers along, and taking a sip from my own bottle, quite certain that more alcohol wasn’t the best idea, but I wasn’t their mother. “He didn’t touch her, he just wanted to help her with the beers that’s all. Leave him alone.”

“You’re still such a baby,” he laughed and I snorted. “You didn’t see how he was staring at her, the fucking creep.”

That made me look over to the bar. The bartender was making himself busy with something behind the counter but when he lifted his eyes, he did have and intense gaze, one that could possibly be mistaken for staring by an inebriated hothead. “I don’t think he meant anything by it,” I said, prying my eyes from the tall man. “Anyway, how are you all doing?” I said, trying to shift the subject, because I really didn’t want to be part of a bar brawl.

“Jake’s right, he’s always been a weirdo,” said Peter finally leaving the game of pool to join the conversation. “Staring creepily at all the pretty girls he couldn’t have. Cause he’s an ugly ass nerd.”

“Oh shut up!” I hissed, getting increasingly irritated. They spoke loudly like they wanted him to hear. I just wanted to spend a pleasant night out with my old friends, not to watch them belittle someone else.

“He’s kinda right, Baby,” Maggie said, apologetically. “He was always a bit weird. Not talking to anyone, that sort of thing. He was always ogling at us in highschool.”

“Do I know him?” I asked, trying to put a name to the face.

“Maybe. Yeah, probably, he was a year or two older than us. Clyde Logan.” The name didn’t ring a bell. “Jimmy Logan’s younger brother?”

“Ohhh!” I glanced towards him again trying to see if he looked familiar. He didn’t, and definitely didn’t resemble his brother at all. “Was he really in highschool with us? I don’t remember him.”

“‘Course not, Baby only had eyes for the great Jimmy Logan,” Peter said in a mocking tone, and I could feel the old bitterness was still there. He’d asked me out multiple times during highschool, and I always turned him down, but that had nothing to do with my everlasting and very well known crush on Jimmy Logan.

“Well, Jimmy’s single now,” Maggie informed me with a wink. “Not sure you’d like him anymore, now that he isn’t a star quarterback.”

“Wasn’t he going to marry Bobbie Jo?” I asked out of pure curiosity. Jimmy Logan hadn’t been on my mind for ages now so this conversation seemed weird.

“They broke up a long time ago. She’s married to some car dealer now. They have a kid together though.”

“I see,” was my only input.

“Bobbie Jo’s smart, she wouldn’t stay with a loser like him,” Jake laughed.

“Besides, people say the Logans are cursed.”

“Why would they say that?” I said, looking from Jake to Maggie, feeling more and more like I’m gonna regret this outing.

“Cause, you know,” she started explaining, “both their parents died, Jimmy fucked up his career because of his leg…”

“And this one lost his fucking arm in Iraq.”

Only after they pointed it out did I notice the plastic prosthetic strapped to his arm. I took my time to actually look at him, since he seemed busy behind the bar and not looking up. He did everything with only one arm, with more dexterity than I would have been able to, with both arms intact. There was this air of sadness on his long face, the corners of his mouth slightly curling downwards. I felt really sorry for him, being in a warzone is tough and coming back with permanent injuries is even tougher. I didn’t really want to know the mental trauma that came with it.

He suddenly looked up, meeting my gaze so I smiled and looked away, hoping he wasn’t too weirded out that I was staring at him. Given the shit he probably heard from my so called friends, he probably was.

“They say he’s lucky, he could have died that day,” Maggie continued, and I was starting to feel exhausted by this conversation. Not because I didn’t want to find out more about Clyde Logan, quite the opposite, but I was pretty sure we were close enough for him to be able to listen in. And none of them made an effort to keep their voice down. “But living with only one arm feels more like a curse to me.”

“He’s lucky alright,” Jake laughed loudly, and I feared the worst. “He’s lucky cuz he lost his left arm and he’s still got something to jerk off with,” he said, loud enough for the whole bar to hear. Clyde only looked up for a second, then went back to what he was doing.

“For fuck’s sake, stop it already,” I pleaded with Jake, now knowing full well that this meeting was a mistake.

“Well maybe he likes jerking off with the plastic hand,” Peter added, making an obscene gesture with his hand and I snapped.

“Jesus fucking Christ what’s wrong with you guys?”

“Relax, Baby! We’re just having a little fun.”

“This is definitely not fun!”

“What is it,” Jake said, placing an arm around my shoulders that I promptly shook off, “did New York steal your sense of humour along with your accent?”

He had such a stupid sneer on his face that I wanted nothing more that to punch him in the teeth. “I didn’t lose my sense of humour,” I snarled, “but never, no matter how stupid or drunk we were during high school, would we stoop so low as to mock a disabled person. And I’m not gonna start doing it now. Not gonna be part of this.”

“Baby, please, come on, he didn’t mean anything by it. You know how Jake gets when he drinks, he’s always been a jokester,” Maggie tried to salvage the situation, but it was too late for that.

“Sorry,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket, “I think my refrigerator’s here. I have to run. I’ll see you all around, I guess.” I turned on my heels and went to the bar to pay for my beer.

Clyde Logan handed me the change with the same unfazed if a little sad look on his face and I had to wonder if he was just so used to this kind of abuse that he just didn’t give a shit anymore.

“I’m not disabled, you know,” he said, and I felt my heart sink to the depths of hell. “I’m just… I’m just missing a hand, that’s all.”

He looked me in the eye for a second and there was so much sadness in that brief glance that it almost broke my heart. It filled me with shame that I had somehow contributed to that.

“I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean…”

“It’s ok,” he said, but his voice was strained. He turned his back to me and I wanted to cry.

I almost ran out of the bar and climbed into my car. I let out a prolonged wail of anger and shame as I repeatedly banged my head on the steering wheel. This wasn’t how I planned on moving back to my old hometown. I really wanted to pass unnoticed and live peacefully in the countryside for as long as I’d be here. Have a garden. Maybe get a dog at some point, when I’d feel I could be responsible for a life other than my own.

I didn’t want to realize that my highschool friends were shit and that probably I had been shit for being friends with them. I didn’t want to hurt the cute bartender’s feelings especially since he was a veteran and his voice was so soft. The only thing I wanted to do was crawl under a rock with a working refrigerator and spend the rest of my life hibernating.

I mentally said goodbye to the Duck Tape before I drove away, because I sure as hell wouldn’t step in that bar ever again.

Masterlist

Next Part

[longsightmyth]

Chapter-by-Chapter, The Naming, Chapter 16

PELLINOR

So the dude talking to them in the speech is essentially a marchwarden. He’s not a bard though, which is confusing to both Cadvan and Maerad, who both thought only bards could use the speech. Maerad can’t even use the speech yet, so she’s a little left out when Cadvan and the new guy tell each other things. More people who can presumably use the speech appear with more bows and arrows and lead Maerad and Cadvan off.

The bowmen led them for hours, long into the night. Maerad looked up through the trees and saw the stars shining bright and cold above them. How many times had she cast up her eyes to the stars for succor? she wondered to herself; for as long as she could remember she had found a comfort in their chilly beauty, so remote from human suffering.

Keep that in mind: we’ll chat about it in the comparison section.

The bowmen lead them to a super fancy bardhome where the trees have even grown some beds. Cadvan is pretty chill about the whole situation, saying that he’s grateful for a bed and food while Maerad (understandably) frets. They sleep.

Cadvan learns the bowmen’s names in the morning when they set out early (Farndar, Imunt, and Penar) but nothing much else. After a while Maerad realizes they’re following a path, and they reach a river. Cadvan thinks it might be the Cirion, which does run into and out of the forest. Nobody knows what it does while it’s in the forest, though.

They are brought to the city of Rachida, which is made entirely of wood. Throughout are planted gardens and orchards. It sounds pretty great tbh. Cadvan says he has in fact heard of Rachida in story and lore (it was one of the havens of the Dhyllin) but everybody thought it had been destroyed.

As they walk through the city the people are kind of interested in Cadvan and Maerad (they’re both pale and dark-haired, which appears to be a rarity here) but even more interested in the horses. The children especially follow them.

They are led to a hill and told their ruler’s hall is at the top.

There’s a lot of similarities to Lothlorien for reasons that will soon become even clearer, but Rachida is actually more similar to Gondolin for all that Ardina could easily be compared to Galadriel.

They get to eat and wash their faces and hands and rest, and then Farndar comes back to lead them to what is effectively a throne room.

At the far end was a dais on which was placed a single chair, carved simply out of a polished black wood that Maerad thought at first was stone, and in the chair sat a tall woman. She was robed in white, and her hair fell freely down her shoulders almost to her feet, like a river of silver. Her face seemed at once young and infinitely ancient, as if she were the painted image of a queen who had reigned in ages long past which, by some enchantment, lived; and her gaze pierced Maerad with a strange thrill, as if she had stepped into a cold river. She bore no circlet or jewel or staff of authority, yet Maerad knew at once she was a queen of great power.

The woman tells them that it’s a good thing Cadvan knows the speech, because otherwise they might already be dead and she’d be a little bit sorry about it, since she prefers people not to die needlessly. They’ve been brought to her to hear her decision.

“I will tell you willingly of us, Lady of Rachida,” said Cadvan, bowing. “But it seems a lack of courtesy not to know who I am addressing, and who reigns over this enchanted place.”

“You wish to know who I am?” The woman seemed to ripple with amusement, although she did not laugh. “I am called many things. To my people I am the Star of the Evening, and the Song of Morning, and the Sap That Feedeth the Tree of Life; and once I was called the Child of the Moon, and the Jewel of Lirion, and many other names. I have wandered beyond the Gates to the Meadows of Shade and returned whole, and so am encumbered with a doom alone of all my kind, and am also called the Alone. What is a name?”

Cadvan, who apparently missed the whole bit about names being pointless to her, asks if she was once known among bards as Queen Ardina. She says yes fine, that’s her too, and she hadn’t thought anybody remembered her outside Rachida.

Cadvan says the bards at least remember her, but they all thought she died, and Ardina basically says she isn’t allowed to die.

They all sit and chat, Cadvan filling Ardina in on a few things, and,

She asked for news of the realm of Annar with a distant curiosity, as if they spoke of something that had nothing to do with her, but was quaint, like travelers’ tales of distant regions.

So if you can’t tell, Ardina is an Elidhu, though we don’t know that for sure for another two pages or so. She mentions her kinship with Maerad (second Elidhu clue, the first being, of course, that she’s only vaguely interested in the human world: I still love that little detail. Even the Big Good Elidhu is kind of like ‘sometimes these stories are entertaining’) and sends them off to rest more while she considers some things.

The kids still love the horses, and Cadvan and Maerad are given a guest house to sleep in, where Maerad asks about Ardina since Cadvan is so flummoxed by her continued existence.

Ardina, it turns out, fell madly in love with a mortal king and rescued him from Arkan (the Ice King, if you remember), but first she had to exist, so Cadvan gives us a bit of poetry.

When Arkan deeme an endless cold

And greenwoods rotted bleak and sere,

The moon wept high above the world

To see its beauty dwindling:

To earth fell down a single tear

And there stepped forth a shining girl

Like moonlight that through alabaster

Wells, its pallow kindling

A wild amazement fastened on

The Moonchild’s heart, and far she ran,

Through all the vales of Lirion

Her voice like bellnotes echoing:

And from the branches blossoms sprang

In iron groves of leafmeal wan,

And Spring herself woke up and sand,

The gentle Summer beckoning.

Basically, Ardina is a mashup of Galadriel, Luthien, and Arwen. I’m less mad about it than I could be, especially since she was apparently created in direct opposition to Winter, aka Arkan.

So Ardina rescued Ardhor from Arkan, and Cadvan says there are a zillion and twelve tales about her (paraphrasing).

“But I wonder what she meant, when she spoke of her doom. The Lady Ardina was one of the Elementals, and she alone of all her kind attempted to die as a mortal and to follow her lover through the Gates. The songs say that they walked together past the Meadows of Shade and to the Starry Groves that overlook this world, and there at last they could be together as they wished. But it seems the songs are wrong.”

I love this, y’all. She tried to pull a Luthien and failed.

Maerad dreams about her mother Milana as First Bard of Pellinor, and in the dream Milana won’t turn to look at her. Maerad wakes up crying.

If she was First Bard of Pellinor, [Maerad] thought to herself, why did she not free us? Why couldn’t she have run away with me, like Cadvan did? Maerad couldn’t remember Milana ever mentioning her father, but suddenly she knew with adamant certainty that his death had destroyed her mother. She wondered what it was like to love someone like that, like her mother had loved her father, like Ardina had loved Ardhor. She never would: it was too dangerous. It had killed Milana. And even Maerad hadn’t been enough to save her. Why not? A pain she had never acknowledged opened and flowered in her breast. Why couldn’t she have saved her mother? Why did Milana die, so miserable, so broken, in a place so far from the bright world that was her right?

...she thought of Silvia, of how deeply she already loved her, of how in that short time in Innail she had been more of a mother to her than anyone. Except Milana before Pellinor burned, she loyally added to herself; but the truth was she could scarcely remember Pellinor.

Maerad further remembers that the Elidhu in the forest called her ‘daughter’ and starts spiraling into an existential crisis, remembering Dernhil too, and then moves on to whether going to Norloch is worth it and how exactly she feels about Cadvan.

She knew she trusted him as she trusted no other man in her life, except perhaps the father she could barely remember, but she didn’t really understand why. Perhaps it was because Silvia trusted him too; but inside she knew it was more than that. She remembered how he had first stood before her in the cowbyre, years ago it seemed, though it was only a couple of months: how his face then was gray with exhaustion, vulnerable, and, she thought now, sad. Even then it had not occurred to her to doubt him. ...what if he was wrong [about her being the foretold]? Would he then abandon her?

She can’t stop thinking and can’t sleep, so she goes outside to look up at the stars. Eventually she does sleep, wrapped up in a blanket. He tucks her hair away from her face and goes back inside to let her wake up naturally (I’m a sucker: SHE’S SIXTEEN but this is really cute).

The next morning Maerad is especially grumpy about not having the speech since that’s how everyone communicates here. Cadvan tells her to be patient and it’ll come. Maerad points out that he doesn’t know everything because he didn’t know about the elementals.

“No,” said Cadvan. “I don’t know everything. No one does, and only the foolish seek to.”

They discuss being set apart even amongst bards, but Cadvan won’t tell her why he is even if she’s noticed it.

Rachida is great, but Cadvan makes a sidelong comment about possibly not being able to leave since nobody knows about the place.

“I hope not,” [Maerad] said. “It’s time we left.”

Rachida is in fact like Gondolin in that once you’re there you aren’t allowed to leave, they learn when Ardina summons them back after a week. Cadvan makes the case that if she doesn’t let them leave there probably won’t be a Rachida to keep safe, because the Nameless One and the Dark are rising. He further tells her that he (Cadvan) was “captured by one of thy kin, one who inhabits a mountain some know as the Landrost. He was long ago snared and corrupted by the Nameless. He is a sorcerer of great malevolence and strength, and even so he is but a slave of that Dark power.”

Ardina acknowledges that she knows who he means, and Cadvan continues that his captor had a dark reflection of Ardina’s scrying pool, and in it Cadvan saw all the awful things actually currently going down in the world including the return of the Nameless because his captor hoped he would die of despair.

“The tools of the Dark have ever lied,” said Ardina swiftly.

“Aye, Lady,” said Cadvan. “But I am said among bards to be a Truthteller, and have the gift of knowing what is a lie and what is not: and I am long used to the deceptions of the Dark. What he showed me was not a lie. He could not have hoped to have tormented me with a falsehood or a meretricious shadow; and well he knew that.”

Ardina considers it and says that Cadvan has something else he should tell her, so he tells her that Maerad is the foretold. He takes his time about it: I can’t tell if he’s dolling out tiny bits of information in hopes that eventually she’ll stop asking before he has to tell her it’s Maerad that’s important or if the book is just dawdling a bit.

Ardina says Cadvan reminds her a little bit of Ardhor, and she really wishes he didn’t. She turns to Maerad.

“I see a Fate on thee, sister,” said Ardina softly. With a thrill, Maerad realized that Ardina was speaking to her in the tongue of the Elidhu, not in the language of Annar. “I sensed it when first I saw thy face. I know not what to say to thee, for thou art yet asleep, like the lily that sleepeth under the ground in winter; and yet within thee there dwells a fire of unsurpassed brightness, which will blossom in its own time.”

She says that she thinks it will mean the end of her people here in Rachida one way or the other, and Maerad says maybe it will be another beginning. Then she realizes that Ardina and the Elidhu in the forest are the same person, just slightly different aspects maybe.

“Aye, sister,” said Ardina, who was studying her closely. “You see aright. I am both Queen and Elidhu, here and there, wildefire and hearthfire, forgetting and remembrance. But do not yet speak of this, for men are impatient with such things and do not brook contradiction.”

Ardina says she’s going to let them go and gives Maerad a ring, telling her to be careful: “...you are sought by the Dark and the Light. Perhaps you will find that your Fate has nothing to do with either of them. It may be that you will find that your greatest peril exists already within you.”

She adds that Maerad has a great heart, but will suffer for it and shouldn’t let the suffering make her heart any smaller. She gives Cadvan only a blessing, but he says that’s pretty big in his books.

Maerad decides she will always wear the ring just like she always wears the jewel Silvia gave her, “as a token of love.”

They are led out of Rachida and bid everybody farewell.

Yet already it seemed to [Maerad] that a shimmering veil lay between her and Rachida, as if, even at this distance, it lay only within her memory, a golden dream of untouchable beauty.

THRONE OF GLASS

Chapters 32, 33, and 34, y’all.

Nehemia and Celaena walk through the gardens. Celaena reflects on how much of the common tongue she’s taught Nehemia even though they both speak Eyllwe on their walks, and how in learning Eyllwe she at least learned something in the mines.

Nehemia says that Celaena seems troubled. Celaena says she can’t tell her anything about it, and Nehemia says she understands secrets but will always be there for Celaena to talk to. She mentions that Celaena is always followed by guards or locked in her rooms, and “if [Nehemia was] a fool, [Nehemia] would say they were afraid of [Celaena].”

I’d worry that my friend was being unwillingly kept, but what do I know.

Nehemia says that she’s been talking to Georgina to keep her fingers in all the pies of royal politics, which I approve of. Anyway, they reach the kennels, where Celaena worries they aren’t allowed to be.

“I am Princess of Eyllwe,” [Nehemia] said. “I can go wherever I please.”

Rock on until you hit the evil conqueror whose will is supposedly never flouted, I guess.

The breeds were all fascinating and beautiful, but the sleek hounds aroused awe in her breast.

Breeds weren’t really a thing in medieval-ish society? You bred for traits, but you didn’t have, say, labrador retrievers or springer spaniels. I guess I can give some leeway because hounds were a thing, but you just went ‘I have a dog that’s great at sniffing out game, let’s breed it with ANOTHER dog good at sniffing out game.’ The classifications weren’t nearly so specific as ‘breed’ implies. Also, stop using aroused to sound fancy 2k18.

In short, when Dorian and Celaena discuss ‘mutts’ I roll my eyes a lot. If they looked nice and fulfilled a function, the dogs were already ahead of the game. If they just fulfilled a function, they were used for it.

ANYWAY.

Celaena gets angry when Dorian says that a puppy that hates people and also won’t get along with other dogs might have to be killed. Celaena immediately scoops it up and declares that that would be cruel, and Dorian says fine, he’ll find a family for it if it makes her happy and make sure she approves of the family.

But if the dog hates people and other animals, what kind of family are you going to get it to? You can’t put it with kids, kids like to pet soft things and a dog who hates people and other animals will bite. Dogs can do damage. Additionally, Dorian didn’t even say that the dog would be killed: it was a conditional. I hate to be on Dorian’s side, but he said if the dog couldn’t respond to humans it would have to be killed, and that’s an if. So like?

Nehemia and Celaena leave, discussing how pretty Dorian is and how much Nehemia has misjudged him (...?). Celaena says she would sooner cut her heart out than love a Havilliard, which. Fair.

Celaena considers running away once she and Nehemia split up, and runs into Cain, who is acting strangely. He finally leaves after appearing to almost choke himself and try to say something.

Celaena waited until the sounds of his fleeing footsteps faded, then hurried back to her own rooms. She sent messages to Nox and Pelor, not explaining why, but just telling them to stay in their chambers that night and not open the door for anyone.

I maintain that Celaena is Adarlan’s Assassin not because she is the most competent, but because everyone else is even more incompetent. The champion candidates are getting murdered left and right and nobody’s guarding their doors? I’d guard them on the off chance it was one of the champion candidates offing the others to eliminate competition.

Chapter 33

Kaltain smokes opium for her headaches. Perrington comes to see her and she swaps clothes and sprays perfume in the hope that he won’t smell it, and then drops hints about Lillian not being appropriate for the prince. Perrington agrees. Kaltain manages this while hallucinating and in the midst of a migraine.

Cut to Celaena in the library. Nehemia enters and says she didn’t know where else to go. Five hundred rebels were captured and being transported to Calaculla when they tried to escape and all of them were killed.

“What is the point in being a princess of Eyllwe if I cannot help my people?” Nehemia said. “How can I call myself their princess, when such things happen?”

“I’m so sorry,” Celaena whispered. As if those words broke the spell that had been holding the princess in place, Nehemia rushed into her arms. Her gold jewelry pressed hard into Celaena’s skin. Nehemia wept. Unable to say anything, the assassin simply held her—for as long as it took for the pain to ease.

We’re gonna discuss this later, y’all. For now, the next chapter.

It’s eleven pm and Nehemia has returned to her room. Celaena stretches and feels a cramp. We are informed she’s been like this for an hour. Philippa comes in with tea and says it’s a pity about the rebels, but that at least Nehemia has a good friend like Celaena.

She leaves. Chaol comes by and starts babbling his feelings on the matter to Celaena even after she tells him she isn’t feeling well. She throws up, which is fair - menstrual cramps are, as previously mentioned, nothing to sneeze at. Chaol is alarmed and escorts her to bed, where she finally fesses up that it’s her cycle.

He immediately flees.

Dorian comes in and decides they should play cards, since he knows she’s menstruating and wants to distract her. She throws a book at him, he says she should call him Dorian, and then he starts to mock her romance novels. She tells him Chaol wouldn’t read them either, so he takes one and hides the title to avoid being embarrassed I guess.

Dorian tells her she’s beautiful. We learn that he hasn’t ever known an attractive woman this long without courting her except Kaltain.

He goes from there to considering how he’ll feel about inheriting a conquering country to how Celaena must feel about being from a conquered country, with only a cursory mention of Nehemia, whose people are being killed right now you selfish overcooked monkfish.

Anyway, he tells Celaena he gets why she might hate him (no one ever mentions this to Nehemia) and Celaena tells him he isn’t like the others and he mentions the Yulemas ball.

Celaena can’t come. She wants to know why, and also what a yulemas ball is. Celaena, you are a motherfucking princess and also raised in this exact city, you know about the goddamn religion/celebrations.

She jokes about extending her regards to Perrington, and Dorian gets angry thinking of how Perrington treated Celaena. Dorian leaves.

Celaena stared at the moonlight as it streamed across the ceiling. A masked ball on Yulemas! Even if it was the most corrupt and ostentatious court in Erilea, it sounded dreadfully romantic. And of course, she wasn’t allowed to go. She let out a long sigh through her nose and tucked her hands beneath her head. Was that what Chaol had wanted to ask her before she vomited—a true invitation to the ball?

She shook her head. No. The last thing he’d ever do would be to invite her to a royal ball. Besides, both of them had more important things to worry about. Like whoever was killing the Champions. Perhaps she should have sent word to him about Cain’s strange behavior earlier that afternoon.

Celaena closed her eyes and smiled. She could think of no nicer Yulemas gift than for Cain to be found dead the next morning. Still, as the clock marked the passing hours, Celaena kept her vigil—waiting, wondering what truly lurked in the castle, and unable to stop thinking of those five hundred dead Eyllwe rebels, buried in some unmarked grave.

You forget about them quickly enough.

COMPARISON

Let’s get this out of the way: I love that Ardina is a failed Luthien, and I love that she kept on keeping on anyway. It’s an interesting contrast to how Maerad thinks about Milana, though later on we learn more happened than just Maerad’s father’s murder.

About the stars: Throne of Glass has a fascination with the stars, but usually in order to make bombastic statements about how much people want to sleep together etc etc. The bards have a whole culture surrounding stars (if you remember from way back in the very beginning, they’re even technically called Star People). When Maerad looks up at the stars, she’s pulling on childhood teachings that she might not consciously remember but remained ingrained in her. When Celaena looks up at the stars… well I don’t know, what do the stars even mean to Celaena aside from that one line about rattling them that originated with Treasure Planet?

Also we hit a menstruation scene in Throne of Glass, which is slightly better than I remember maybe. Everyone involved is super embarrassed except Dorian, who proceeds to try to embarrass her about her books and this is supposed to be funny? I don’t know. It feels very juvenile, but then so does the whole book so maybe that’s just what’s wrong here. You’d think menstruation in a YA novel aimed at young women especially would deal more maturely with the whole thing, but to be completely fair a lot of grown-ass people I know in real life deal with menstrual cycles in a juvenile way.

On the note of dealing with things well or not: I am not a fan of the narrative becoming All About Celaena once more when it’s Nehemia’s people who have been murdered. I understand that we don’t get Nehemia’s PoV, but we do get Dorian’s and he feel remorse towards Celaena ten times more than he feels for Nehemia, whose people are being murdered right now when he can in theory do something about it as opposed to a conquest that happened when he was eight or nine. This book’s priorities are very clear.

Both protagonists are likened to fire a lot, or having a fire burning in them, and both display fantastic capacity for destruction (granted for Celaena it’s in later books). Celaena gives lip service once or twice to not wanting to use her powers and/or wanting to be normal, but it always feels out of left field. Part of it is that we’re in her head so if the narrative doesn’t mention it it seems like Celaena isn’t thinking about it, and part of it is how little Celaena hesitates to use her phenomenal cosmic powers to threaten or punish.

Maerad uses her magic in times of fear and worries about it afterwards. She constantly worries, because it’s only been a few months. She trusts Cadvan and Silvia, neither of whom belittle her or invade her privacy or override her opinions. I wonder how Celaena would seem to us-the-readers if she had a more deeply developed relationship with anybody: it’s a pity that Nehemia is here to prop up Celaena’s supposed awesome, because Dorian and Chaol constantly override her opinions, deliberately invade her space to watch her sleep, don’t believe her if she says she feels ill, and force their presence on her when she doesn’t feel well. That’s leaving aside embarrassing her about her own body or her reading taste.

Honestly at this point Celaena feels like one of those children who are often unpleasant, but once you see their home life you understand: they have too many rules and not enough boundaries. Here, the book is the parent: it refuses to let Celaena move out of the role of Shining Light in the Darkness Who Can Do No Wrong when it tries to push the idea on us, while at the same time letting her get away with everything so long as it doesn’t directly stop the story’s goal. It’s bad writing and worse parenting.

Maerad is allowed to make mistakes and worry and second guess and be wrong. She’s allowed to be set down, but she’s also allowed to be right even in the face of her love interest, which is something Throne of Glass also doesn’t allow. Maerad is a sixteen year old coming out of a terrible situation that she ended up in through no fault of her own, and she’s adjusting, however slow the adjustment might be in some areas (or fast in others). Her experience has shown her, for instance, that dudes are to be feared or at least to be wary of, but her instincts and (short) experience with Cadvan say that he is trustworthy. Cadvan very purposefully gives her space: compare the scene a few chapters back in ToG where Chaol and/or Dorian watch Celaena sleep to the scene here where Cadvan finds her asleep.

First of all, he isn’t going into her private space looking to watch her sleep. He goes outside and she has fallen asleep there. He moves her hair out of her face and leaves her alone, in fact going back inside so she isn’t disturbed. Chaol and Dorian? Walk right into Celaena’s bedroom and stare. They stare a lot. They wake her up. They fantasize about her, so when they do something like move her hair back it’s fucking creepy instead of sweet. I cannot emphasize enough how deplorable I find it that these two men with literal power of life and death over our protagonist continuously enter her private spaces without permission (sometimes after being told to leave). It doesn’t matter that I hate Celaena. It doesn’t matter that I loathe Celaena with every fiber of my being. This is bullshit, and I hate it.

Cadvan, I think you might be worth 10,212 Dorians and 127 Chaols. Even your age difference goes by the wayside at this point.

STATS

Throne of Glass

Pages: 22

Fragments: 19

Em-Dashes: 49

Ellipses: 15

Pellinor

Pages: 29

Fragments: 9

Em-Dashes: 6

Ellipses: 7

[jestercheshire]

Drabble!

To Caspian's credit, Tempest had to admit, he stood up to the beast. In a flash, the werelion stood between queen and dragon, thin arms flung wide as if to protect her. His snarl was vicious, but his voice cracked as he spoke. “You shall not lay a finger on her!”

The dragon slowly blinked a silver eye and Tempest had the sense that he was rather amused as his words rumbled from what felt like the mountain above them. “You are brave, little cat, I will give you that.” He rumbled another laugh as Caspian snarled again, the sound distinctly lion.

“I will guard her with my last breath if I must, dragon,” he growled, his voice taking on the bass that he'd eventually grow into with a few more years, if he survived this.

Tempest reached out to put a gloved hand on Caspian's shoulder. “Caspian, calm down. Danyl won't be happy with me if anything happens to you.”

His anger subsides slightly at the mention of his father, who was probably starting to wonder where his son went off to by now, only to have the dragon's words trigger him again. “I summoned your queen to speak politics, boy, which you have no dealings with. I wish to speak with her privately.”

She had to widen her stance to stop him from charging away from her at the giant silver eye. “Caspian!” Between her hand and his name, he stopped, but barely. Tempest cursed her lack of forethought when it came to bringing a young, fiery shapeshifter with her. She didn't let it show as she gently turned him to face her. “It's okay, Caspian, all he wishes is to talk to me.”

Caspian's liquid gold eyes met her's with some difficulty, so close to losing his human shape. It was in that middle ground that she saw his terror. She gently places a hand to his cheek, the other still on his shoulder. “I will be alright. Just give me a few minutes, that's it.”

His expression slowly started to cool, turning sulky as he saw the battle turning against him. “Tempest...”

She shook her head. “This isn't Tempest to Caspian, this is a queen to her loyal subject. Please,” she adds to his sulky expression.

He lets out a pented breath before finally nodding. “Fine. But I'm just going over there.” He nodded to the mouth of the tunnel leading back to the surface, glancing defiantly over his shoulder at the reptile. “I still want to be close.”

For the first time that day, Tempest noticed the pendant that hung around the lion's neck as he fingered it nervously. She stored that bit of information away for a later time. She cocked her head to the dragon. “Is that alright?”

The dragon lay where they left him, barely moving to nod his great head as he blinked the visible eye. “Whatever you wish, my lady.” As Caspian sulked off, the dragon chuckled again, the sound traveling through the ground to her boots and making her smile lopsidedly in return. “I fear I insulted him,” he murmured, though the sound still carried. “It was not my intention. I am... out of practice communicating with anything more than a merchant or knight here and there.”

Tempest beamed up at him. “It's fine, dear dragon, he understands I'm sure. He just would truly protect me even in a situation that...” Her words falter as she glanced over towards the tawny haired youth.

“Would ultimately end in a loss of his life?” The dragon supplied as he slowly raised his head from the ground. “A brave soul indeed, though I do fear I spoke the truth that these worries are not for him.”

Tempest frowned up at him, though the movement of his serpentine neck brought her attention to the rest of his bulk still hidden in shadow even from her unnatural light source. “So, what do you plan to do about that?”

She saw Caspian look between them, obviously listening to their words. Without warning, the black dragon opened his mouth and.... nothing happened.

Tempest felt her ears pop. She opened her mouth in a faux yawn in an attempt to pop them again, but nothing seemed to change. She saw Caspian still standing by the tunnel opening, but it was almost as if she were looking through a fine sheet of glass. “What did you do?”

The dragon coiled his neck once more, placing his giant head on the ground at her level. “Dragon magic. I don't mind the cat listening, but whomever's listening through the device around his neck doesn't put me at ease.”

His words jolt against her consciousness. She frowned at Caspian. “I thought that necklace was weird.”

The dragon nodded sagely. “Given to him by friend or enemy, you can never be too careful.”

Another bit of information to be stored for a later time. She shakes her head, long blonde hair falling into her face before she quickly swept it aside. “No, you can't be. So tell me, dragon, what is it you want from me?”

It was the dragon's turn to pause. He slowly closed his eye and opened it again. “First, allow me to give you a name to call me by instead of 'dragon.' One of my names is Mikari.”

Something seemed to shift in the air, like old magic settling around them. She recognized the old naming magic and added her's to it. “Good evening, Mikari. I am Tempest.” With the pact sealed, he breathed a slow sigh of relief that surprised her. “What, you think I wouldn't recognize ancient ceremonies, though this one is obviously rather simplified?”

His lips curled showing off his teeth. She had to step back to see that it was a smile. “Not many remember the old ways. People only seem to remember myths now instead of history.” He locked eyes with her. “Like dragons, for instance. We're little more than trophies and hunting stories now, due to that mad king and his quest for immortality.”

She frowned. “Wait, I thought he was just running from a prophecy? I've never heard about immortality.”

Mikari rolled his eye at her. “What do you think he does with the dead dragons he pays people for? Because he requires proof of the deed for payment. He uses the parts to supplement his life, which drives him crazier every day.”

She reeled at that information, grasping at the connections. “Wait, so he's really paying for dead dragons to... what? Live a few more years?”

He snorted at her. “How old do you think he is?”

She paused before she could automatically answer. Her guess would have been middle aged, but she'd only met the man once. She narrowed her eyes in thought. “I honestly would guess in his forties. He's always looked like that. Since... I came into power almost ten years ago.”

He snorted again. “And before that? I wouldn't be surprised if he looked like that for the last eighty years. Before he was known as the 'Mad King' he was 'Sirius the Ageless,' supposedly blessed by the gods.” He waved a clawed hand, chuckling. “I doubt he was blessed with anything but a smart mind. Until he took a dragon as a bride.”

Tempest folded her legs beneath her, enraptured by his tale. “I didn't know he married...”

He nodded. “He did. I knew her. She was powerful, brilliant. And young. She knew she would outlive him, as did he, but they didn't care.” A hint of sadness crept into his voice. “But things changed. I wasn't there to witness it, but she became more and more.... distraught. Something started to bother her and he appeared more often without her than with. Sometimes I'd see her fly through the night sky, but she didn't answer my calls. Only much later did I learn what happened.”

Tempest started to shiver even as she sat, subconsciously scooting closer until she almost touched the dragon's cheek with her side. She craned her neck up to see his eye. “What happened?”

He sighed. “She bore him a child, though it wasn't pink and fleshy like a human baby. Sometimes shifters, specifically dragons, come out a bit more... dragon.” He swallowed roughly before forging on. “Sirius either didn't know that, or simply panicked. He killed the babe in her arms.”

Tempest covered her mouth in horror, her eyes welling up. “No.”

He nodded gently, so as not to dislodge her. “He slew the child before the sex was even discovered. His queen suffered in silence, unwilling to return to her kind nor abandon the man she thought she loved. She wasted away in her tower. He, on the other hand, grew more bold. He started marching and devouring land, building an empire. When she stopped appearing, we started calling on her.” Anger washed over her as a low grow erupted from the dragon. “The few that went in person never returned. Then his knights started finding our lair's and filling them with water, bombarding our eeries with flaming rocks, and redirecting the prey from our normal hunting grounds to starve us out. He single-handedly killed the younger generation with the information tortured from his own wife.”

The rumble of his words fell away for a moment, allowing her to finally breathe as the angry tears streamed down her face. “That... I knew he was horrible, but this? Why?”

He sighed. “I know not. For years, though, we feared she helped him. Only recently did we learn that she had been dead for almost as many years as the first ones. There are no more females of my race, and barely any males.” He closed his eyes as if pained by his next words. “Which is why I asked you here...”

Tempest straightened in her seat, frowning uncertainly. “You'll have to be a bit more plain, dragon, I don't get why you need me.”

He eyed her for a heartbeat or two before glancing at the lounging Caspian at the edge of the light. “She was the last female of my kind, Tempest, and I am almost the last male. I need my race to continue, but I need a strong female that can lead it.”

She turned paler as he spoke, already shaking her head as his words dwindled away. “Mikari, I can't. I have a husband, I'm a queen of all of Bloomwood. I rival Sirius, but only in name. You could have any other female out there, I have a few friends that would jump on your... offer.”

He snorted at her choice of words, but continued soberly. “As lovely as they are, they are more than likely human, or even a few shifters. But they are still mortals. You, my dear, are not.”

[tmntreasures]

We have to break up... (Donatello)

Prompt:

   It was an unfortunate circumstance, but it was simply inevitable. College was pricey in New York and takes a long time to complete, especially for what you wanted to go for. But there was a small glimmer of hope; there was a community college in your home town that cut the completion time in half and was still accredited.

   There was just one problem: your hometown was six states away.

   This unfortunately made the possibility of a long distance relationship an impossible option. Although you would be living with family, you felt like you had an obligation to contribute to the household and would be working during your summer and holiday breaks; and of course the turtles couldn't just hop on a plane to see you either, especially with your college being so far away. There wouldn't even be anytime for the two of you to communicate online either; there was the time zone difference to worry about, plus the turtle's patrols were always irregular and hard to schedule around, especially if they happened to run into a Foot patrol. Then there was the possibility of enemies finding out where you were. If they were to hack into one of your e-mails and find out where you were currently living, there would be no way the turtles could come save you. You would be putting yourself and your family in danger. There was no other option...

   You had to break up.

Donatello:

   His lean body was silhouetted against the illuminated screens. He seemed to be focused on three things at once, his hands flying across the multiple keyboards. At first you had thought the amount of electronics he had was a little much, but now you have come to realize each one served an important purpose. His ability to multitask and problem solve was amazing; that combined with his stubbornness made him a force to be reckoned with. It was just one of many things you admired and would hate about him soon.

   You were dreading telling him the bad news, knowing the genius mutant to try to find a way around the problem. It had to be done, however, and you stopped behind his chair.

   “Hey, Donnie?” You asked a little tentatively. A part of you hoped he would tell you he was too busy. Perhaps he was in the middle of tracking some shady Foot activity and could not be disturbed?

   Donatello turned to look at you from around the seat, “Hey you!” His cheeks pushed his glasses up ever so slightly as he smiled. “I didn't even hear you come in,” He stood so he could get a better look at you, though his attention quickly returned to the blinking screens. “What's up? Did you wanna hang out?”

   “Well, I actually want to talk.” You could see him nod but he made no move to look at you.

   “Uh-huh. Okay, sure. What about?” His fingers flew across the keyboards expertly before he finally hit one button. The screens flickered off and he turned to face you. The smile on his face looked sadder than before and the realization hit you.

   He knew.

   An aggravated sigh escaped you. You hated it when he kept tabs on your internet activity. He claimed it was to make sure the Foot could not get into your computer, but you knew he also used it to snoop around. Though he used it for positive reasons most of the time, like what you would like more on your birthday; but there had been times where he crossed the line. Looking at your college search history definitely crossed one of those lines.

   “I think you might have an idea already,” You sighed and crossed your arms.

   His eyes widened before they shifted around the room. His shoulders shrugged slightly as his head nodded, showing admission of his guilt. “Sort of,” he motioned for you to come over as he kept speaking. “I mean, I get why you want to go there. It looks cheap, you'll finish in half the time if you went to a college around here. And did it look like you had family there?”

   You stopped and stared at his shell, surprised at how much he knew. “Well...yeah, actually,” the two of you went to your usual spot. He sat in a rusty lawn chair while you hopped on a ledge, making him only slightly shorter than you.

   “Well it sounds like you have it all figured out,” He breathed. You could see his green brow furrow and his brown eyes dart about. Thoughts were clearly being bounced around in that overactive brain of his. “You should go for it.” He finally looked up and smiled at you.

   For a moment you felt a sense of relief wash over you. But this was not why you came down to see him. There had been so many choices when you first started looking at colleges, but once you realized you would have to pay either expensive rent or be in debt for most of your life, the number of colleges you could apply to dwindled slowly. Eventually you found the best option was a community college out in Colorado. You would be gone for three years, but there was just one problem...

   “Donatello,” you started. Your fingers began to fidget nervously as the words got stuck in your throat. Why did he have to be so nice about all this? It would be so much easier if he was upset, right?

   He held his three-fingered hands up and shook them a little. “No, no. Don't worry about me. I know you'll probably want to spend time with your family on the holidays,” One of his hands rested on your knee comfortingly. “But I can wait for you to get off in the summer.”

   “That's the thing,” your own hand laid on top of his. “I'll be working over the summer. I'm not just gonna live with them without contributing something to the house.”

   His hand began to slowly squeeze your knee. The shock was apparent on his face and his lips twitched as he tried to think of a response. “Oh...well,” He caught sight of one of his many electronics and huffed proudly. “Well, that's still fine. Because we live in the technological phase of the twenty-first century!” There was a little smirk on his face; it was the same look he had whenever he figured out a definite solution to a problem. Or anytime he won in a game.

   “We'll just face-time, or text, or send e-mails if neither of us are available.” He lifted a finger the moment you tried to open your mouth to speak. “Time-zones don't matter when you have the internet!”

   A frown began to form on your face. Did he truly think those options never crossed your mind? They were the first ones you thought of. “Yeah, but...what if someone tracks our calls Donnie?” Now the real argument was about to begin. “Or hacks into my e-mail? What if they track me down that way?”

   There was a fleeting moment of fear in his eyes but his mouth was already in motion. “I'll just program a firewall for you.”

   “What if they get around it?” You started and frowned when he snorted in disbelief.

   “C'mon, you know the Foot aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer. They have a hard time getting past the security system I made when I was ten.” He was confident in his work. Everything he created he put his full attention in to, knowing one wrong wire could mean the failure of a mission.

   There was no doubt in your mind he would create the best firewalls the world has ever seen, but the risk of someone finding out where you were was too great. The Foot Clan may not be smart but they had a lot of money.

   “Donnie, if they find out where I'm at it's not just me in danger,” your voice cracked. “My family could get hurt. If the Foot ever got a hold of my family I...I don't know if I could still keep your secret anymore.”

   Silence overcame him. He understood why you would give away the location of the lair if your family got involved. If he were in your position he would do the same, there was no doubt about it. But he was positive he could make something to hide your location. There was always a way.

   “Donnie.”

   The sound of your voice was what snapped the turtle out of his world. You sounded so stern, so serious; except your eyes told a different story. They glistened more as the light reflected off of the still-forming tears. The realization of what you were going to say slowly dawned on him.

   “Wait.” Donatello never realized just how hard his voice could sound until now. Unfortunately, it only made you want to speak faster.

   “I can't keep up a relationship with you when I go.”

   “No. N-no you can,” Sweat began to form on his face, making his glasses slide down. “I swear, the firewall will work. Trust me! I'll even update it every month!”

   Your heart twisted at how much he was trying. Your hand squeezed his wrist, hoping it would calm him down in some way. “I do trust you. It's the Foot that I'm afraid of.”

   He shook his head and looked away; but you had to know he was listening. You grabbed the side of his face with your free hand and turned his head so you could look him in the eye.

   “I'll be six states away, Donatello. I won't be able to go to you for help if something happens!”

   “Then call me if something does!” He raised his voice slightly. He just could not understand it. Programming was like breathing for him; there would be no way anyone would be able to find you. How were you having a hard time understanding that?

   You huffed at him and crossed your arms defiantly. This was the stubbornness you knew and admired sometimes; once he was set on being right it was hard to convince him otherwise without physical proof. “And if they kill me after they get what they want?”

   His shoulders shrugged and grumbled, “Well you could use that logic right now! Why are you suddenly so worried about it now?”

   “Because my family will get involved!” You shouted. The realization finally hit him but you kept going, making sure he knew the full extent of it. “If it was just me, then fine. I would gladly take the risk for you. But I'll be with my family there! If the Foot find them because of one mistake...!” You stopped to wipe the tears that had fallen on your cheeks. “It's not fair to them,” you whimpered, trying not to cry already.

   For now, he was done. You were clearly upset and he did not want to push you or himself any further today. There was just one thing he had to know.

   “So,” He leaned back in his chair, his hands rubbing the top of his head as his eyes stared at the ceiling. The muscles in his throat tightened but he had to force the question out. “Are we still gonna hang out? Before you go that is?”

   You stared at him, wishing he would look at you. “If that's okay with you,” you mumbled loud enough for him to hear.

   He nodded quickly and felt the salty sting of tears. “Yeah. I'd like that.”

   “Okay,” you managed to whisper as you stood. Short sentences meant he was done speaking; of course it would usually be when he was looking at a computer screen, his mind trying to decipher whatever equation he was transfixed on. You wiped the dust from your rear and shrugged at him, “I'll text you tomorrow then. I got a lot of packing to get started on.”

   His jaw clenched at the mention of moving. “Have fun,” he snapped a little as he stood up. Donatello did not even attempt to look at you as he walked back to his set-up. His fingers started to flick as they turned the large system on and you knew that was your cue to go.

   With heavy foot-steps you made your way out of the lair, hoping tomorrow would be a little better. –

   For the first couple of days, you and Donatello did some typical date nights. The two of you watched movies, a couple episodes of your favorite shows, and even explored the city at night for a bit. One day, you had a great idea for a date. Your parents were going out for the night which meant you could have the large mutant inside of your apartment. You were going to make this a damn near perfect date, or at least a good one.

   Spending time with Donatello these past couple of days has put you behind on your packing schedule. It's gotten bad enough that you were not sure if you would be able to spend anymore time with the ninja turtle. Tonight had to be a good night. For his sake.

   Donatello was shaking with excitement as he stood in front of your bedroom window. This would be the first time he would be able to roam freely throughout your place instead of being secluded to your bedroom. Not that he did not like your bedroom, but the rest of your home was something else entirely. Plus, the two of you were going to make pizza for dinner.

   Hand made pizza? Free roam of your apartment? You clearly had something planned tonight and he had a feeling he knew what.

   One green finger tapped on the window a little louder than he normally would have. For a moment there was nothing, but soon he heard your feet tapping on the floor as you approached. Your door squeaked open before you popped into sight. The smile on your face made him feel warm inside. He would miss seeing it in person, but after tonight he might not miss it as much.

   You let him in and were surprised by the kiss he gave you. The smile on his face made your heart flutter and you forgot for a second that this might be the last time you see him.

   “You gonna give me a tour?” He beamed.

   “Of course!” You grabbed his hand and lead him through the apartment. You watched as he stared at every picture on the wall, even pointing out pictures of yourself when you were a kid. You told him a couple of stories about your childhood and in turn he would tell a few from his. It was the first time in a while you two were able to open up without a tense air hovering around one of you.

   Eventually you made it to the kitchen where you washed your hands and got started. You were both making your own mini pizzas. Donatello favored the vegetarian toppings while you decorated yours with your favorite. Soon both circular pieces of food were put in the oven and the timer was set.

   All you had to do was wait now.

   “Oh yeah!” You snapped your fingers. “I almost forgot. I got you something!” The grin on your face made your cheeks hurt. You figured since you guys had been having a good couple of days, that you would get him something small.

   The tall turtle's eyes lit up when you handed him the little purple box. His cheeks burned a little at the nice gesture, “Aww, you didn't have to do that.” After he took the lid off he pulled out the little turtle-shaped USB light. A smile crossed his face and he gave you an amused look. “A turtle? Really?”

   You smiled back and shrugged. “Well yeah. So you don't forget your roots,” you teased. As your hip bumped into his you added, “And also so you won't forget me.”

   He slid the USB into one of his pockets and paused at what you said. For a moment he thought you were just being sentimental, but the tone of your voice filled him with doubt. “How could I forget you?” He chuckled, feeling the dread that seemed to weigh his stomach down.

   The confusion that spread across his face made you frown. “Well, three years is a long time, Donnie.”

   “But...” For once he found it hard to speak. A lump formed in his throat as he realized what this was. “So...we're not going to try long-distance?”

   You let out a sympathetic sigh and rubbed your forehead. “Donnie, no. I already told you, I can't put my family in danger like that.”

   The turtle began to slump and you could see the joy drain out of him. “I thought...I dunno,” He rubbed the top of his head quickly and grumbled. “I don't know. Being invited to your apartment, making pizza together. It was all really great so I thought you were gonna say we can give it a shot.” He shrugged and began listing off the statistical success of long-distance relationships. “Thirty-two and a half percent of college relationships are long distance.”

   “Donnie...” You pleaded but he kept going.

   “Forty percent of them break-up...” His speech started to slow down. “...and seventy percent of all failed long distance relationships are due to unplanned changes.” He did not stop until you touched his arm.

   Big brown eyes stared at you through the lenses of his glasses. They darted about, taking in every curve of your face, every strand of hair, every shade of color in your eyes. “This is the last time we get to hang out, isn't it?”

   “It might be,” You admitted. “I fell behind on my packing.”

   He made a loud sniffling noise and wiped at his snout. Of course this was it. Why else would you have gone through so much effort to make this special? Not that he did not appreciate the effort; it just was not what he was prepared for. He braced himself against the counter and stared at the ground. “Can I see you the day you leave?”

   “Of course you can,” You breathed; already your hand was on his wet cheek.    It was amazing to you, how this giant, mutant, turtle looked so defenseless. You had witnessed first hand his prowess on the battlefield; he was able to take on waves of enemies without breaking a sweat, yet here he was. Weakened and vulnerable in the middle of your kitchen. It broke your heart seeing him this way.

   First his hand was over yours, then it slowly grasped your forearm and began to tug you forward. You complied and found yourself pressed against his hard chest; those lean, yet massive, arms of his already wrapped around your shoulders. You buried your face into the crook of his neck as the two of you embraced one another.

   BZZZZZzzzttTTT!

    The piercing sound of the alarm made both of you jump and return to reality. You both stepped away from each other after Donatello turned off the buzzing machine.

   For the remainder of the night, you two were silent. -    Donatello waited for you in the alley behind your home. The early morning sun shone brightly in the sky, creating the perfect shadows for him to hide in.

   Not being able to see the past couple of days had given him plenty of time to think about the whole situation. He used the time to do more extensive research on the college you were enrolled in and investigated the crime rate in the neighborhood you would be living in. The college was fantastic for what it was, and the place you were staying at was in a low-crime area; it was indeed safer than most places in New York. It was during this research that he admitted defeat. It truly would be unfair to your family to risk their lives just for your relationship.

   After all, this would not be the first thing you would have to leave him behind for. You had a human life that required certain responsibilities out of you; responsibilities that he did not have to worry about or ever expect to think about. It would be selfish and unfair of him to ask you to stay for his sake. It was a hurtful conclusion, but if this meant you would have a good future then so be it. In the end, he only wanted you to be happy.

   When you finally emerged in the alley your good-byes were mutual. You hugged, you cried, you kissed, and said “I love you” for the last time.

   Donatello had waited for the sound of the truck driving away to disappear before he returned to the lair. The first thing he did was go to his large set-up and booted every tower and monitor there. The first thing he did was check your social media pages.

   Every single one mentioned how nervous you were about starting college and how you would miss your dearest friends in New York. He sighed longingly, knowing this would be the closest thing he would have to you. No matter what, he would not contact you, but he would still keep tabs.

   As a precaution, of course.

[southeastasianists]

It is 1.30pm on a rainy, humid December afternoon and the Sin Hoe Ping puppet troupe is busy making sure that everything is in place before they perform for Da Er Ye Bo, the two Taoist gods of the underworld.

It is the first feast day at the shentan or shrine festival for these deities, and the troupe wants the celebrations to begin smoothly.

Knowing that they will be singing for two hours without a break, the grey-haired puppeteers are clad in loose, comfortable clothing and slippers.

Two life-sized figures of Da Yi Er Bo glower at them from behind, macabre guardians of a dark curtained area where a spirit medium will be offering consultations to devotees in the evening. The medium, along with the getai singers whose traditional performance dates back to the era of the Japanese occupation, will be the star of the event.

But the members of Sin Hoe Ping don't mind being out of the limelight. As they begin to sing a high-pitched, mournful sounding song while manoeuvring the puppet characters around the makeshift stage, Yeo Lye Hoe, the 67-year-old troupe leader, shuffles off to an open area outside the tent where the festival is taking place. The only people in the audience are a little boy in a uniform, presumably on his way home from school, and his grandfather.

Yeo puffs away at a cigarette. "I'm going to do this for as long as I can," he says gruffly. "After all, if I don't, who will?"

Vestiges of the past

Sin Hoe Ping is one of the last Chinese puppet troupes active in Singapore, and the very last troupe performing in the Henghua language, spoken by those with ancestral roots in Putian, a part of Fujian Province in China.

Frequently sidelined for the more flamboyant sensibilities of Chinese opera, these puppet troupes are something of an anomaly in cosmopolitan Singapore. Rooted in ancient folk religion, they appear almost to be vestiges of the past that have stubbornly survived to challenge the modern skyscrapers and apartment blocks that are crammed across the tiny island country.

Many of the performers are hired on an ad hoc basis, whenever feast days are held to commemorate Taoist deities.

Yeo, who makes and repairs his collection of up to a 100 puppets from his apartment, says that demand for puppet shows has declined in recent years.

He attributes this to the lack of interest in temple rituals, which are often elaborate, time-consuming and costly.

"We now have five or six regular performers left. One died recently, and after the rest of us go, nobody will know the art of Chinese puppetry in Singapore any more."

Numbering approximately 20 in total, though this figure is also dwindling steadily with Singapore's ageing population, these troupes faithfully represent traditions that emerged from southern China as early as the Song dynasty in the AD 1000s.

The Chinese diaspora in Singapore, who arrived as immigrants from the southern Chinese provinces during the late 19th century, ironically preserved many elements of Chinese puppet theatre that have become almost extinct in their country of origin due to the brutal effects of the Cultural Revolution. These elements include handwritten theatre scripts used for puppet shows, which have been passed down for generations and can today cost up to $1,000.

Fading art form

Yeo is a laconic and stout man who does not romanticise the work he does.

"I don't feel that I'm doing something noble. My grandfather taught me the scripts, the songs and how to move the puppets when I was seven. I have known everything by heart for my entire life, and I keep doing it now because it's what I know."

He studied with a puppet master until his 20s. Then, upon the latter's retirement, he bought the puppet collection for approximately $1,500 and continued running the show with other troupe members.

In good months, puppet troupes such as Sin Hoe Ping can earn between $5,000 to $7,000, performing at a number of temple festivals every week, but for the most of the year, income is much harder to come by. The money is mostly redistributed among performers, who are all older people or retirees, with the rest going back into the maintenance of the puppets.

"It's not something you do to make money," he says with a slight smile. He has three children who are English-educated and in their 30s. None of them is interested in continuing his trade.

One of his performers, Chua Mui Hua, 76, agrees.

"My grandchildren have never come to see me perform, but even if they did, I doubt they would understand anything I am singing," she says.

She is making a salient point about the Chinese languages that are gradually becoming extinct in Singapore. In 1979, the government became convinced that the use of southern Chinese languages such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and Hakka - which were the lingua franca of the very first Chinese immigrants in Singapore - was preventing Singaporeans from achieving full bilingualism in English and standard Mandarin Chinese.

For more than 30 years, the Speak Mandarin Campaign heavily discouraged the use of these southern Chinese languages in the popular media, particularly on television and radio. Today, few young people can claim to understand simple phrases in their grandparents' language, let alone comprehend complex narratives sung over two hours.

Children in the business

Not all the stalwarts of the Chinese puppet trade are pessimistic about its future.

Tina Quek, 47, is the leader of the last puppet troupe in Singapore that performs in the Teochew language, but she is sanguine about her prospects. Much like Yeo, she has spent the bulk of her life immersed in these vanishing traditions, and her repertoire includes not just puppet performances but also opera and Qing Chang, singing events staged by an all-female group. But unlike Yeo, all four of her children are heavily involved in her business and learning the ropes.

"My youngest son is 13 and is already learning to play the suona to accompany my performances," she says. Her speaking voice is soft and gravelly, but transforms completely into a nasal soprano when she sings.

"It's practice," she grins. "I've been doing this since I was eight, that's how I was confident that my children would be able to pick up these skills quickly as well." Still, her cheeriness is tempered by slight anxiety.

"I would like my children to continue the business, but I'm especially worried about my son. His studies suffer each time he leaves school early for a performance. And more importantly, with younger people becoming less interested in these traditions, will he be able to make enough money to survive in Singapore?"

Her daughter, Christine Ang, 19, shares her mother's ambivalence. She has just finished at a vocational school and reveals that she juggles a string of part-time jobs alongside her impressive credentials as one of Singapore's youngest puppet performers and opera singers.

Getting ready to perform and putting on make-up are among her favourite parts of the job.

"I don't think it's true that there's no interest amongst young people my age," she muses. "Whenever I invite my friends, they always turn up. In fact, the last time they came, I made them put on make-up too!"

However, she acknowledges that "off-peak" seasons are a cause of concern.

"The Seventh Lunar Month is a good time for us, because that's when many people worship at the temples to appease the spirits of wandering ghosts. But the rest of the year, not so much," she says.

She admits that she sometimes wonders, although fleetingly, if continuing her education or getting a full-time job might be a better option. "It would be sad if I stopped performing. I guess there's some pressure, because I don't want to be the one who let a tradition die."

Reviving puppetry

Some are eager to help this small community survive the onslaught of modernisation.

Caroline Chia, 33, is a researcher specialising in Chinese puppet traditions who has single-handedly documented the performances of almost all the troupes still active over the past few years. Yeo fondly refers to her as "xiao mei", a Chinese term that means "little girl".

"I have tried to help in some ways by liaising with event organisers and theatre personnel so that the troupes get to perform outside of the temple context," she says. Her hard work means that some of the troupes have had the opportunity to bring their work to wider audiences, including public road shows and cultural events at museums.

Her late grandmother, who loved Teochew opera and music originating from eastern Guangdong Province in China, encouraged her interest in Chinese puppetry.

"Troupes come and go … it is something that's beyond our control sometimes. But I guess more has to be done to revitalise puppetry before it is gone altogether."

On a sweltering day, Yeo's troupe holds a performance in a shrine in eastern Singapore.

Yeo is in a bad mood, barking expletives down the phone.

"The performer who was scheduled to sing with us today forgot to turn up," sighs his wife, Li Shui Mei, who is from Putien and has been working with him for years. "I guess I will have to sing both the female parts by myself, then."

I help them carry the puppets into the shrine to make them "kneel" before the deities prior to the performance, since there aren't enough people around to do it. The puppets are surprisingly heavy.

For the next two hours, Li and Yeo sing, play the keyboard, cymbals and drums, and manipulate the puppets across the small stage. There might be only five people in the audience today, and in a few years there may be none, but, just getting to perform today is enough for the two puppeteers.

[char27martin]

7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Melissa Fraterrigo

“7 Things I’ve Learned So Far” (this installment written by Melissa Fraterrigo, author of GLORY DAYS) is a recurring column where writers at any stage of their career can talk about writing advice and instruction, as well as how they got their literary agent—by sharing seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning.

1. There are many ways to write.

When I was in my 20s, I visited the local coffee shop with my yellow legal pad, ordered a bottomless cup of coffee, flipped through my Moleskin, and waited for one of the jotted ideas to catch my attention. Then I’d sit and work for about two hours. If I worked really hard, I might stand up and reward myself with a brownie, and then I’d work a few more hours. Since then I’ve been a teacher, an editor, a wife, a mom, and my process has had to accommodate these changing responsibilities. A writing practice is not static. It will adjust according to your life circumstances and you should let it do just that. Rather than expecting to work the same way you did when you were 20 years old, it can be helpful to realize there are many different ways to get words on the page. I now understand that I am writing when I’m reading poetry and paying attention to the way the old man in line at the post office clutches a sheaf of papers to his chest. Much of writing is not just about crafting sentences, but refilling the well that gives you the impetus to create in the first place.

Melissa Fraterrigo is the author of the novel GLORY DAYS (Sept., 2017, University of Nebraska Press) and the short story collection THE LONGEST PREGNANCY (Livingston Press). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in more than forty literary journals and anthologies from Shenandoah and The Massachusetts Review to storySouth, and Notre Dame Review. She is founder and executive director of the Lafayette Writers’ Studio in Lafayette, IN, where she teaches classes on the art and craft of writing. Follow her online at https://twitter.com/Lafayettewrite.

2. Wake early.

I’ve never been a morning person, but now my alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. and I charge out of bed, excited to sit and write while the rest of my slumbers. There is something comforting about writing in the dark—literally and figuratively—and it has fueled my work in a way I could not have cultivated otherwise. When I write in the early morning I am able to tend to my own needs before anyone else in my family. I am able to listen to the voices that come to me as quiet as dandelion fluff or as sharp as broken glass—and give them their due.

3. Keep lit alive.

If you love literature, you must find a way to keep it alive in your community. You can teach or tutor, organize an open mic, or just offer to read a fellow writer’s work. Better yet, start a writer’s group where rather than workshopping pieces, you simply read them out loud to one another. The market for books continues to dwindle, and lovers of literature must do their part to keep the medium strong. Introducing others to the power of the written word and sharing what it is about literature that moves you deepens everyone’s awareness of literature’s reach—and benefits us all.

4. Get moving.

I’ve solved my greatest issues of plot and character while swimming laps at our local pool. When I’m swimming, I can only focus on the beat of my stroke, heartbeat whapping in my ears. Suddenly I can’t hear the doubts that circle a project, or the concerns that plague a draft. What I’m aware of is my breath and the voices of my characters, urging me forward.

5. Say thanks.

Writing and publishing is not a solitary enterprise. We stand on the backs of supportive friends and family, dedicated teachers, readers, and writers whose work we admire. If someone has helped you along the way, thank them! Is there an author whose work makes you swoon? Take the time to track down her email and send her a note of gratitude for her books. My fifth-grade science teacher took the time to attend a small coffee shop reading last month. While I was shocked that she seemed so much shorter than I remembered, I was also floored she chose to be present, and I made sure she knew it!

6. Be your own cheerleader.

There will always be people who believe that you do not have the experience or qualifications to write. They may believe that you aren’t bright or attractive or interesting enough to pen your memoir or novel. Accept that these naysayers must exist, just like the green fuzz that develops on old yogurt, and go on. Decide for yourself that you want to learn everything about writing and that the pursuit of this knowledge is enough. Rather than focusing on publication, concentrate on what you love about this work—is it the rush of the initial idea? Is it a crackly verb? When I left for graduate school to study fiction, my dad told me that I was wasting my time pursing an MFA; he said stories weren’t real. His opinion, but still. It remained with me. Yet his comment also set me free. I was no longer bound by his expectations because I didn’t believe them. I was thrilled to have two full years to study the craft of writing. Embrace your ideas and love for writing—and don’t let anyone else keep you from this pursuit.

The biggest literary agent database anywhere is the Guide to Literary Agents. Pick up the most recent updated edition online at a discount.

7. Keep the channel open.

One of my favorite quotes is by the dancer Martha Graham: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” Your job is not to judge your work, but to create it. If you don’t, who will? Commit yourself to your writing. You do so each time you wake early or stay up late to complete a page. Every time you tell friends you cannot meet them for drinks because you are working, or jot down a potential story idea, you recommit yourself to your art. If you put yourself in the seat and see the work you do as important, others will as well. And sometimes, it’s okay to treat yourself to that brownie.

If you’re an agent looking to update your information or an author interested in contributing to the GLA blog or the next edition of the book, contact Writer’s Digest Books Managing Editor Cris Freese at cris.freese@fwmedia.com.

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