#i feel like shadow milk would use the wool for so many things too

[dreamyblanket]

DRAGON COOKIE Y/N /nf

but instead of the imposing structure. They’re floofy.. (marshmallow fluff dragon)

I thought this was a super cute idea!! I choose a more sheep look for them so they were more cuddly //^^//

[libidomechanica]

For loves at last

A kimo sequence

               1

And soon: through I cannot despair, and watched. Bob Southey scratch this? For loves at last? Be it by night?

               2

And from thy silently comes Love, ah my day. Let seems to the will retain tops. Or, if your mine.

               3

Nor brough the were with such and. May hid away from his bright the earth. By dews o’ Ballochmyle.

               4

When in hast spear’d think of the wondered hands. Among tongues. The famous—that same way, and the kind off.

               5

Which way bare, while thrilling all throughts of the world leave. ’ Or he wistful eye like a religious flie.

               6

Not women curse, and, saying, receipt with that swell; he heigh-ho! Her she talking, that every side.

               7

By lies she has met wi’ thee see. I die if she and saw, with whose hand: about things his to me.

               8

Since her so abide by side. Trigger never head to me. He lay: she, My granted shirt yellows.

               9

And the bonie Last Love. My last let tearm of all through the light. The patient for us? I give me.

               10

Of delight. If their we drink my will stand its gainst a signals, that hope drown. That love to its late.

               11

Justice all the was. It rubs across that together, but the golden my Nancy aft the pails.

               12

Then thy breathen burn cloud all go no more? She too sick, it take his can hours, gave there each chaste. Feel.

               13

Tempest, but to given he fetid breasts. We are, leg over you disdain. And fife to enclosed.

               14

That cannot represents to be love let met. Stiff in beauty’s brother Sunday suit of love’s race.

               15

And at ever than a God! To tender at thin my heart I offence, or wishes weather brown.

               16

Have brough some dawn was decked the rose! Perhaps, as his flowers, mass o’ Ballochmyle. After room.

               17

I don’t wanting the sword! She silent see and hour anguish, while want at their the grew and let bee.

               18

Star-pitched him he is beautiful you were shore o’ the end. And bade him river sat, and me, ah!

               19

The marmalade, what are you feel that grew. Let seen frae come and this cowslip ballad gallow hole.

               20

Milk shall the after me for ever is there on the kind out my fancy. Their with tend to mone!

               21

The corne rest thou shall and bleeding sun: before shepherd-sang but all, my days of wool with a clouds.

               22

As nine more wafted abroad, i feels laid aside: it seek another. Met wi’ the out a shawl.

               23

Made and yet—she hodge porcelain, is in its later. And this separate Hell. And defecates.

               24

Let me passionate baldness of good god grotesques make his estatesman’s delight. Or her.

               25

Teach sides, kingdoms the strength I did want of grace to would I be like the stairs: and six feet. Grows stand.

               26

So many blast through a red who watch—if I come, virgins on thine. Thing but less fled fly, playing.

               27

Turned in and Off’ring sun: and out blown coat, and quiet word? What her ne’er forgotten, and the cause?

               28

Thou dost subterranean soul’s dispense with a stoic, or tempers? I knew that we knew it.

               29

She is only due to tell! A cure thus I let it at anchor and yet new, like should could cry.

               30

For her can compare, who made the fair is mourning to was human just as your humble feet. No.

               31

These of us when shadow of blue moved! And blind the prince; no dark disgusting another hair.

               32

A crime, perhaps from the beetles,—blind. But this moment jessamine arms and days to cute, alas!

               33

What in amorous glimmersion I thing an and that my voice. We image in the flower heart.

               34

What a calamity hardly let bee. —The floor—and with depends of her sic picks of her found.

               35

Let tears, and suppresse, in a valley long- star’s at my bonds of Love is one. No, no, no, my love.

               36

In Lethe the cloud, sunny gems of all Heavens,— because no long since morn. Our teeth much love, let bee.

               37

To lie and thee! Is dreamed abroad-blown back upon the street, lord of have been a bitter to her.

               38

In gray, ready have you love then these empty been lines hast men in they sang those went! To their race.

               39

But silvery Law that we can my name. And mow, would heard Apollo singly! A quire in me?

               40

And the floors, that caughter. Which Indian compare, which their tryst. Eye well- gotten love I used why?

               41

Opine, to drink jeered you always of plait upon a pillow’s go and makes to Marses live me.

[seaswalllow]

how about some techno and dream allyship

((ah yes... the server’s god and the blood god walk into a bar...))

((this wound up being a Whole Fic, christ, am i sorry JLKDSHLKJH))

trap

don’t trust him

where’s tommy? trap trap don’t trust him where’s dream what’s he doing-

“chat, shut up,” techno hisses softly. hefts the pickaxe over his shoulder, sharpened edges glittering in the dying sunlight. 

all the while, his eyes never leave the bustling boardwalk. ranboo down below look he has a trident? when did he get the trident there’s tubbo besides him-

chat continues to swirl about him, sticking to the shadows; neither they nor techno quite subside, though. staring down at the banners proclaiming today’s festivities, techno thinks that the muted dread congealing in chat’s voices, and the deja vu rearing its head is well deserved. 

l’manburg has never been terribly original about its bloodshed. 

techno chugs another invisibility potion in a well-practiced motion, and feels the silvery weightlessness settle into his bones. checks for his armor in his inventory, checks his pickaxe and crossbow, and settles back to watch from the roof. 

he doesn’t wait for long, as it turns out. 

dream dream dream rip his mask off see if it’ll choke him on his blood blood for the blood god he’ll try to use you you should leave you should fight-

the edge of his pickaxe digs into his back. techno takes in a measured breath. watches as punz flickers in the shadows at a distance, watches as dream settles to a stop in front of tubbo, a friendly hand resting on the young president’s shoulder. 

it’s too far to hear the fine details of their conversation, and dream’s mask doesn’t lend itself to interpretation. techno watches the way tubbo holds himself, too loose, too friendly- and the way that behind him, fundy and quackity watch dream with something just short of naked anticipation. 

dream sees it too, if the way his gestures land too close to the axe strapped across his back are anything to go by. 

trap this is a trap nothing good at a festival

tubbo turns, gesturing to the podium. ribbons and banners flutter about; techno sweeps his eye across the open platform. there will be no trapping another president on that ledge. 

dream turns with him, but the arc is too wide, and for a moment, techno feels the full weight of dream’s eyes on him, even as the voices explode into a flurry of whispering. 

he saw us he knows not safe get out of there 

“be quiet, chat. of course he knows we’re here,” techno mutters under his breath. “he sent for us as his glorified security detail.” 

with the way that the cabinet watches him like strays circling a villager, there’s reason to it. 

techno watches, hawkeyed, as dream follows the trio up to the podium. there’s ranboo, hovering around the edges, gripping onto the notebook like a lifeline. wilbur- ghostbur- isn’t far off, one hand fisted into friend’s blue wool, an unusually somber expression on his face. chat murmurs uneasily, and techno does not look forward to discovering if similar situations will draw out similar poisons within the dead- or if certain things stay dead. 

he sweeps his gaze elsewhere, noting the distinct lack of armor yet the uneasy atmosphere. there’s a poster that niki and puffy are hovered in front of, whispering

to his credit, tubbo is good at the facade. years of necessity have worn the mask of pleasantry and politics into him like a second face; he treats dream like an old friend, the faintest hint of tightness around his eyes the only indication of displeasure. 

or pain, perhaps. 

the first festival was hard to forget, after all, especially for someone who was but a child. 

tubbo is turning now, sweeping his arms out wide before snapping them back to his side; too many familiar mannerisms, too many old scars. 

techno follows his movements, and pauses. 

enchantments have a tell, he’s learned. some stronger than others; a faint heat shimmer, a lingering smell of ozone, a muffled hissing. 

there’s a haze lingering above the wooden planks that fundy and quackity are shifting in front of. 

what are they planning they going to blow this up are they trying to die they will spill blood we will spill it first

a gentle ping cuts through the rising swell of chittering. 

<dream> not yet. 

let them make the first move, techno reads between the lines, and he grits his teeth. there’s nothing else to do except to shift to keep them in his direct line of sight, and sweep for any other giveaways. exposed trails of torches, oddly shaped rocks beneath the waves that now fill in the crater-

the soft hiss of redstone fills the air, and techno whips to face tubbo, who has stepped up to the podium. 

then he speaks, and techno realizes, oh, sam or fundy definitely had some hand in this as tubbo’s voice echoes above the waves. techno, admittedly, does not hear a good portion of the speech as the voics hiss and swell with indignation. 

a celebration of l’manburg’s independence, of l’manburg’s freedom, of shaking off so many chains of blood and tyranny, tubbo calls it. hypocrisy, techno thinks, as his eyes trace the pillar where the anvil used to stand. a shinier, sweeter form of the iron fist hovering above them in threat. softer, perhaps, gilded with noble intentions, but nevertheless a threat.

but first, tubbo says to the audience. but first, before we can truly celebrate our freedom, there is one more chain to be cut. 

techno draws in a breath. carefully, carefully eases his hand to his crossbow. dream is stock still; a deer in headlights, chat whispers. a hunter waiting to strike, techno sees. 

trap trap they never wanted peace where’s phil where’s tommy trap RUN FIGHT FIGHT-

the planks have been cut away. there is a chest, there are axes glittering in the cabinet’s hands. we’re sorry, dream, fundy says. i’m not, tubbo amends. quackity is no longer blustering. a potion bottle breaks at dream’s feet, and although he does not flinch, draws his axe, techno can smell the sickly sweet rot of poison from here. punz looses a trio of arrows before he leaps forward, gunpowder filling the air as he throws down stack upon stack of dynamite around them, while netherite cracks out a discordant tune against steel, dream meeting fundy, axe for axe.

blood for the blood god, the tides roar around him. his armor glitters as he draws his crossbow. quackity is the first to see him. they savor the fear, the indignancy in his expression.

blood for the blood god, he roars, as he rains fire down. 

two in one for the hitlist, he hears quackity shout above the explosions. he thinks he hears dream laugh as the next axe blow shatters wood and steel. who would let you, alex? fundy is nowhere in sight, and there is blood dripping into the waves, blooming above the coral, an axe lying abandoned. 

 is this the hill you want to die upon, icarus? flying up to meet the sun, only to burn? he slings the crossbow over his back, hoists up his pickaxe to block quackity’s axe. twists, locking one side of the pickaxe’s tips around the axe, and sends it flying into the water, uses the momentum to complete the arc and sink the other tip deep, deep into flesh. 

there is fear again, deep, deep in quackity’s eyes. they’ve laughed about his hunts before. quackity isn’t laughing now as he wrenches his shoulder free of sizzling metal.

blood for the bl-

-blade, hold your fire. hold your fire, dream orders, and for a moment, they all balk at the icy tone cutting through the battle’s haze. techno slams a hoof into quackity’s leg, sends him to the ground with the distraction, and hefts the pickaxe as he watches dream. 

“i came to act as a security guard, not a negotiator,” he informs the masked god, and dream laughs from where he has an axe levelled to tubbo. chat swells, unsure of who to direct their ire to as the shock subsides. techno ignores them.

“lucky for you, the job description won’t involve too much negotiation. you see- they’re both about to die, aren’t they? they’ve burned up all but one of their lives. if they die, they die here, with nothing to their name but failure. if they accept it, they can hold on to that last life.” 

quackity opens his mouth, and techno wiggles the pickaxe on his shoulder ever so slightly. 

quackity is quiet. tubbo is shaking, and techno swallows down the bitter feeling that roils on the back of his tongue. he remembers his battles that young, when the bloodlust wasn’t tainting the fear and fury. 

“surrender,” dream says. “surrender, or he will put that pick through quackity for a final time, and i will burn this city to the ground and bury you in its ashes.” 

silence. 

silence, and then tubbo’s axe clatters to the ground. quackity surges up, and techno raises his pickaxe, and dream calls “hold your fire, blade-”  

-and techno slams the pickaxe’s hilt into his head. quackity goes down, and stays down, but he stays there at their feet.

dream shakes his head. 

“look, it was either that, or stab him. you don’t want that second option, apparently.”

“because they have surrendered,” dream points out. “they’re not a threat.”

“did he look like he was surrendered? dream, did going for my throat look like he had surrendered?”

“please, he could barely get to his feet. no way he’d be able to reach your throat on a normal day, anyways.” 

techno snorts. “i think whatever they tossed at you messed with your perspective.” 

why is he laughing danger danger kill them all all of them are d a  n g e r-

dream is laughing, and it dawns on techno as he watches tubbo’s pale expression that they didn’t understand just how far out of their depth they were, going after a god with a potion and three axes. 

then again, he reasons, they stopped seeing how out of their depth they were the first time they raised their axes against him. 

“felt a bit like being splashed with expired milk, honestly.”

techno hums, noncommittal. he hoists quackity up onto his shoulder. “you said you had a place for them?”

dream holsters his axe at his side, and draws an arm around tubbo. the posturing leaves the chat hissing, but techno watches, impassive, as dream hums “a very special place, indeed, where they can’t be a danger any longer.”

[fanfictionfansmiction]

Interruptions

George reader insert modern au. Basically George has been your barista for months and you bump into him at the club but something gets in the way. Word count: 2533

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“Admit it! You’re in love,” Lavender extended the vowels like chewing gum, “don’t look at me like that! You haven’t stopped talking about him all week!” She buzzed with excitement, that finally her loveless roommate had a crush. She could barely contain the gasp that too anyone else would seem completely over dramatic but for Lavender this was tame. She eyed me knowingly as she reapplied her burgundy lipstick. Just as I was about to break and admit my crush Luna floated in draping her paper white arms delicately over Lavenders deep brown exposed shoulders. Luna planted a kiss on her cheek leaving a shiny residue of her sparkling lip gloss and then she gave me one to. In her hand she had a large glass of shimmering champagne that she somehow managed not to spill a drop of.

“What’s the crack girls?” She asked looking at Lavender. All Lavender gave her was a look. Unsurprisingly that was all it took. A wild grin grew on her face. The excitement of love! They would say and start giggling. I loved all of it really, but I had to keep my cool.

“I have absolutely no idea what she’s told you Luna but it’s not true! You know what she’s like,” I side eye Lavender who had resumed her knowing look, “I don’t even know the guys name! Yes, he gave me a free coffee one time but that was it! A gesture of goodwill, please can we drop it.” I plead dramatically.

“A free coffee! When’s the wedding?” Luna started.

“I was thinking a winter wedding.” Lavender finished.

My cheeks were burning, and I couldn’t stop myself from throwing my head into my hands. Shaking my head. God why are feelings so embarrassing.

“Right young lady,” Lavender said sternly, “I can’t have you feeling sorry for yourself. We are going out and we are going to have fun. So, for the moment you’re just going to have to get over the mortifying ordeal of feeling fuzzy feelings for someone you barely know! Here take this.” Lavender hands me a plastic shot glass of a green liquid that smelt like apple. I peered up and looked at my friends. A smile gave me away and then we drank.

We had made it from the flat, to the pub and now we were in line for the club. All of us dressed up and feeling very much like the most beautiful, funny, intelligent and wonderful people to ever grace the earth. Luna brought along some old school friends who had names I probably had been told but I was shooting blanks. She had her arm slung around the waist of a strong looking girl, face splattered with freckles and fiery ginger hair. Nattering with Lavender a girl with wild curly hair and hands somehow still covered in ink. We weren’t too far from being let in, each of us clinging to our ID’s and laughing about something stupid that happened earlier in the night. I kept fidgeting. Looking around and chewing on my fingernail.

“What’s up your arse?” The ginger girl asked me.

“Oh, she’s just in love.” Lavender said stretching the vowels a little further this time.

I slapped her bare arm, shooting her a look that I hoped would put this conversation to bed. She was about to open her mouth again.

“If you drop this conversation right now and for the rest of the night, I will buy everyone a shot.” They considered it and then all of them nodded and quickly changed the subject.

“Ginny why are you complaining?” I heard Luna whine.

“Because my brothers are out tonight and I’m pretty sure they’re already in the club.” She stamped her foot like a younger sibling does. I had to stifle my laugh because I could see my younger sister doing the same thing.

When we got inside, we weren’t cold and shivering anymore. The air was thick and the wooden floor disgustingly sticking. The girl with the large hair whose name I learned (Hermione) checks in her wool coat and Ginny’s denim jacket.

I make a bee line to the long bar that stands away from the crowded dance floor. The line was almost too long for me to care but I did promise shots and I am a girl of my word. I was quickly wishing I were more covered up. All the crowds pushing and shoving me. Being jabbed by sequins and zips. Not incredibly fun.

I found myself pushed up against someone much taller than me. Wearing faded jeans and a strange graphic t shirt. That’s all I could see from my restricted viewpoint. But then he looks down at me. A face full of freckles and orange hair illuminated by the changing lights. My barista. His brown eyes look down at me and I almost expect him to recognise me, but he doesn’t. His smile is wrong, not enough teeth and he’s missing a dimple. Not my barista. My face must show my disappointment because he starts to stay something. Which I can’t hear so he leans down. Hot breathe on my already sweaty neck.

“Don’t look so disappointed love, you aren’t my type either.” He chuckles. Then I look at him and feel the urge to explain. So, I plant a hand on his neck that must still be cold because he shivers and I talk in his ear.

“Sorry, you look like someone I know. But you aren’t the right one.” I say shrugging. Before he can respond I’m called forward to the front of the line. I’ve upped my order to two shots a person. They give me a silly circular tray that I am determined to defend. When I reach my friends, I have successfully kept everything together.

A chorus of yay and yeahs squeal over the thudding music. The shots are gone before I know it and Hermione only took one, so I have her other one and I’m ready to dance. That’s when I see the guy who’s not my barista again, it seems like he’s about to approach me until he looks beyond me and I can’t help but turn to see at who he’s poking his tongue out. He must be Ginny’s brother. He decides that whatever he was going say is worth it because he saunters over. Definitely not my barista. A wild look in his eyes and a wide grin.

“Hello again love.” He mouths. “I think you might know my brother.” He says. “Do you go to his coffee shop?” He asks. I nod. Then somehow his grin grows wider. Before I could ask if his brother is here, he disappears into the crowd dancing. I shake it off because I’m here to dance. I take Lavender by the hand and spin her around. We dance like an old married couple in a kitchen singing songs to each other. I’m having fun and I feel light. Someone catches Lavenders eye, and she sways over to them. She is going to have a fun night.

So, I go to dance with Luna, but I see that her and Ginny are closer than I knew so I decide to let them have their fun. I notice Hermione having fun and I decide to join her. We jump around in a circle and laugh together. She says she’s spotted her boyfriend and they need to have a conversation. I follow her eyeline to see someone who looks like Ginny and my barista. How many of them are there? I shrug again. Must be time for another drink. This time at the bar I see my barista. Black jeans instead of blue and a mustard colour crew neck. I look up at him to see if he sees me too. He’s not but his face is flushed pink and he’s chewing on his lip like his life depends on it. Why didn’t I read his name tag? I’m in that coffee shop every morning and evening why haven’t I learned his name? He quickly looks down at me like he’s checking I’m looking at him. Now the pink is a little darker. He looks down at me now smiling. That’s my barista. All teeth and a single dimple that casts a little shadow on his face. Now my cheeks are burning red. It’s my turn to look away. He bumps into me purposely and I look up at him. He bends down slightly to talk into my ear. The hair stands up on the back of my neck.

“Caramel latte with almond milk, right?” He asks, he voice deep and struggling to be heard over the music. It’s my turn to talk in her ear. I place my hand on his neck to steady myself.

“And you’re my barista.” I say.

He pulls away to look at me but keeps my hand there. He asks, “Your barista?”

I take a shaky breath in deciding how to play this. I’ll be someone I never am, someone who says what she means.

I tilt my head, “Yes. My barista.” He chokes on something and coughs a little.

“Can I buy you a drink?” He asks but he doesn’t wait for me to answer. He orders me a drink and leads me to smoking area where we share one chair. It’s still cold outside and my body heat seems to be running out of me. He drapes his arm around my shoulder rubbing his red hands up and down my arm. I turn to look at him and I realise I’m basically sat in his lap. I look up and we’re basically nose to nose. Looking away I down my drink which makes him laugh. A low rumble that I can feel in his chest.

“So do I get to know you name?” I ask.

“George.” He smiles at me, the light from the club dancing over his face. I go to ask if he needs mine but then he says it. As though he’s been waiting to say for months. It makes me blush like he said something inappropriate. It sounded like he did. So, I begin to question if it was my name he said.

“You know my name?” I ask a little breathless and beginning to feel the heat re-enter my body.

“Of course,” he brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes, “prettiest girl to come into the shop and the best tipper I’ve noticed. My brother said he ran into you at the bar. He sent me there to wait for you. I was beginning to feel a little ridiculous. Until I saw you staring at me.” He laughs quietly like we’re alone.

“I was making sure it was you.” I say in a hushed tone reserved for museums.

“How’d you know?” He asks edging closer so our noses bump.

“Well you’re the prettiest barista in town. Your brother doesn’t compare.” I say. Just as I feel us edging closer and his lips brushing mine someone clears their throat in front of us. I slump my head onto his shoulder and George looks at the person.

“What Gin?” He asks in a huff.

“There’s a girl emergency and she is needed.” Ginny says strongly like she’s asking for her toys back. George groans like he’s not done with me. I sigh because I know I’m needed but I’m also not finished with him.

“I have to go. If I don’t see you tonight, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I say kissing his cheek and push his hair out of his eyes.

“I hope you know you don’t have to pay for coffee anymore.” He shouts after me.

After finding Lavender weeping in the toilets I do my best to carry her back to our flat. Where I take her makeup off, brush her teeth and carry her to bed.

“Night Lav.” She whines in response. I switch off her light and close the door.

I wake up before Lavender and as I wander out the door in clothes, I’ve thrown on I see the rest of the girls laying across the sofa and the floor. The plan is to get everyone coffee. I don’t expect to see George in the shop but he’s not working. He’s in the queue looking as bad as I feel. When he sees me, he flushes red and doesn’t know where to look. Suddenly I feel just as shy, but I go next to him anyway. He looks down at me and then wraps an arm around me and kisses the top of my head.

“What are we getting?” He asks.

He pays for the drinks and brings them back to the flat me, not letting go of my hand as we walk. Ginny groans when she sees her brother causing Lavender to peak out of her door wrapped up in her duvet.

I give everyone their orders and make toast for them all. George and I laugh when Luna makes a quick exit to the bathroom. I cover his ears and he cover’s mine. So we don’t hear her bring up last night in the toilet. Slowly all the girls shower and collect their stuff to begin the walk home. Lavender manages to cry through the full story of what happened last night, blowing her nose dramatically as she does. I rub her leg and tell her men are stupid. George agrees making us another hot drink.

Lavender’s phone rings and she scurries back to her room. For the second time in twenty-four hours me and George and alone together again. Standing in the kitchen. Closer than you would stand to a friend. I don’t know what to say. So, I just look at him. He looks at me. I hug him, holding him close. Close enough to smell the coffee beans and to feel his heart racing. The TV still on the music channel begins to play a mushy love song I never learned. I move my arm to rest on his lower back and take his hand with the other. We sway in the small poorly lit kitchen. Laughing as we stand on each other’s feet. Still we dance together in the kitchen like an old married couple. Until the song changes to something I didn’t know you could slow dance to.

The TV goes on standby and now we’re just holding each other in the kitchen. His hand brushes through my knotted hair which makes us laugh. I rest my hand on his neck which makes his face soften. He says my name again like a wish I know will come true. I wait for him to kiss me or to say something to acknowledge how strangely familiar this all feels. Then his phone dings. He groans again. Cursing under his breath.

“It’s Fred, Mum’s expecting me for dinner.” He looks at me with pained eyes, “I have to go.” I whine. This time Fred kisses me delicately like he knows if he kissed me harder, he wouldn’t be able to leave. I give him my number before he leaves, promising that next time we won’t get interrupted.

[huilian]

It was silent in Gen’s room. It should not have been. The night of the reni was supposed to be a night filled with laughter and teasing for the soon-to-be wed, and, even more importantly, advice and wisdom from those who had walked the road of marriage earlier than them. But it was only Hector in the room with Eugenides, and Hector did not know how to fill the silence.

In every other reni night he was in, Hector hadn’t needed to fill the silence. The silence filled itself. The room should have been filled with dozens of already-married friends and family, sharing their stories and wisdom and advice, often contradicting with each other.

If they had been in Eddis, if Gen had married an Eddisian, the bride would have been doing this in her own rooms, with her own friends and family giving her their own advice and wisdom. But they were not in Eddis, and Gen was going to marry an Attolian queen, and this wedding was a dance of shadows and lies and tricks.

And so Hector had no wisdom nor advice to give to Gen, because what advice could he give the Thief of Eddis about shadows and lies and tricks that he did not already know? It should have been his wife here. She would have had something to say, and she had been the better story-teller out of the two of them anyway.

When she had fallen from the roof, years and years ago, the amount of stories in Hector’s house had dwindled almost to none.

But here was something he knew, with absolute certainty, was the truth. “Your mother would have been proud,” he said, finally breaking the silence in the room.

Gen snorted. “She would have dissected my plan and told me each and every single flaw in it.”

She would, but Hector raised his eyebrows and waited. Sure enough, after a few seconds, Gen sighed and continued. “Then she would have kissed my forehead, put me in the finest clothes she could find, and maybe stolen me a necklace to give to my bride, since I had given her earrings already.”

She would. She did much of the same for Xenia, the only one of their children whose wedding she had been alive to attend.

But what Gen didn’t know, was that the night after all the celebration had ended, when their daughter had left their home to become a married woman, she had climbed into their bed, curled on Hector’s chest, and cried until morning.

And just like that, Hector knew what to say.

“Once, there was a very clever young man with the name Phanes. He has cleverness in spades, but nothing much of anything else. One day, when he was collecting firewood in the forest, he saw something many men would kill to see. Some of the spirits of the trees in that forest had left their home to walk for a moment in the guise Earth had given to mankind. They were beautiful, and Phanes was captivated by them. He carefully put down his firewood, and hid behind a rock, for if he had hidden in the trees, the spirits would have certainly known him.

“He watched them, as they laughed and sang and danced. For you see, in their guise as trees, they have all the power they would ever need, but they cannot laugh, and they cannot sing, and they cannot dance. He watched them, and without even realizing it, he had fallen in love with the one that had laughed the loudest and sang the sweetest and danced the brightest.

“The more he watched them, the more he found himself falling in love with her. The thought of leaving without her became unbearable. But he had nothing for which to tempt a woman, much less a spirit of the trees, who long for nothing in their long, long life.

“However, he had one thing in spades. Cleverness. He realized that as the spirits left their trees, they hang their stola on their branches. Phanes decided that he would search for the most beautiful of the trees in this forest, for she who had taken his heart surely had the most beautiful tree of all, and steal the stola from her branches. This way, he thinks, she would not be able to return to the trees, and he could make her stay.”

“Father,” Eugenides said. Hector looked at his son’s face, and realized that this was the man who had taken Hamiathes’s Gift from Hephestia herself, who had stayed in the temple of his namesake and heard the messenger goddess speak, who had called on the Great Goddess and gotten an answer.

But he had no other wisdom to share, in what was supposed to be a night of wisdom, and so he continued.

“He stole the stola from her branches, and hidden it deep within his firewood. Then, he returned to his hiding space in the rocks, and watched some more.

“When the sun reached the horizon, all of the spirits decided that they would return to their trees, for they had laughed and sang and danced enough for the day. One by one, they took their stola, and slipped back into their trees, becoming one with the forest once again.

“All of them, except for one. To Phanes’s delight, it was the spirit who had laughed the loudest and sang the sweetest and danced the brightest. She stood in front of her tree, and, finding that her stola was no longer there, cried out for the other spirits.

“‘Have you seen my stola?’ she asked.

“‘No, Callidora, we haven’t seen it,’ the rest of the spirits answered.

“They looked and looked and looked, but none of them could find it, for the stola was now safe inside Phanes’s firewood. Realizing that she had no hope of returning to her tree, Callidora sat down and cried.

“The other spirits tried to console her, but they too had their trees to think about, and so one by one, they returned back to their trees until Callidora sat there, crying and alone.

“It was then that Phanes came out of his hiding place, and asked, ‘Is there something wrong, my lady?’

“Hearing his voice, Callidora stopped crying and turned towards Phanes. ‘I have lost my stola and now I cannot return home. Have you seen my stola, stranger?’

“‘No,’ Phanes lied. ‘But I have a home you can return to, if you wish. It is not much, but it is a home.’

“Thinking that it was at least better than being alone in the forest, looking at the home she can never return to, Callidora took Phanes’s hand and stayed in his home. At first, she did not laugh and did not sang and did not dance. She was a stranger in a strange land, learning things she did not understand.

“But Phanes was kind and loving and patient, and soon she began to feel comfortable living among men. More than that, she began to feel comfortable in sharing Phanes’s hearth and home, for his kindness had also captivated her. And then, she began to laugh loudly and sing sweetly and dance brightly again.

“One day, Phanes asked her to marry him, and she said yes, for why would she say no? She had only one condition, though. She would be a wife, and she would do all the duties a wife would do, but Phanes must never come inside the room when she is weaving. Phanes, not seeing why he should say no, for now he had gotten his heart’s desire, said yes.

“And so they began life as husband and wife. With Callidora’s help, Phanes had enough to buy a small flock of sheep, and they tended to their lamb, taking their milk and wool. Phanes made yogurt out of the milk, and Callidora spun the wool into threads and wove them into cloths.

“Slowly, their herd grew. No matter how many cloths Callidora wove, there was always enough thread for Phanes to sell. On and on it continued, until their house was filled with spools of thread that had not been sold by Phanes.

“Phanes now had many things in life, but one thing he never lost was his cleverness. He wanted to see how his wife managed to weave so many cloths and still have wool left to sell, but he remembered what she said before she agreed to marry him. And so Phanes slowly carved out a hole in the room she used for weaving, and once that hole was big enough to see through, sat down when his wife had entered the room, and watched.

“What a sight he saw. Callidora’s hands moved so quickly that even Phanes, with his still sharp eyes, cannot see them. One spool of thread became a length of cloth so long, it can be spun around a man three times and still be trailing down the ground. Seeing that, Phanes remembered two things. That his wife was a spirit of the forest, and he had stolen her power, and that his wife was a being, and she was not his to steal.

“Phanes stood up, and took the stola from where it was hidden, still in the firewoods he had gathered that day. He held it in his hands and waited in front of the door of Callidora’s weaving room, and, when Callidora emerges from it, he knelt down in front of her, and placed the stola in her hands.

“Callidora knew exactly what that was, and she knew exactly what that meant. Her first thought was anger, that her husband had taken what was not his to take. But then she remembered that even though he had taken her stola and lied about it, he had not forced her to stay. He had not forced her to marry him. That was her choice, after she had known him, liar and all.”

Here, Hector stopped, for when his wife had told this story at Xenia’s wedding, she had stopped there too. Xenia had known what she meant by that story, and Hector had never thought to ask his wife for more.

“And?” Gen asked.

Looking at his son’s face, Hector wished he had asked his wife where she had heard this story. It was most likely at her own reni night, for Hector had not known this story until he heard her tell it at their daughter’s night. A wisdom from one married thief to another, and Hector had never wished that it was his wife who was here more than this moment.

“And?” Gen asked again, sounding just like when he was five, when he asked for more and more stories from his mother, instead of the hero of one nation and the future king of another.

Hector met his son’s eyes, and remembered how his wife had spun stories of her own for their children. They were not in any of the myths Hector himself had heard as a child, but did stories not become true the moment someone gave life to them?

“And so Callidora pulled her husband to his feet and clothed him with the wool she had spun and weaved. Then she fed him with the milk and yogurt he had made, and, when he was fed and clothed, took the stola and returned to her tree, for her tree had suffered greatly in her absence.

“Then, once her tree had returned to her original splendour, she came back to the house she had built together with her husband, hang her stola at the door, and became his wife. And whenever she leaves to tend to her tree, she always returns, and she always hangs her stola at the door, and she is always both a spirit and a wife.”

They sat together in silence after that. Hector had no more wisdom to give, not to his youngest son, his god-touched, god-blessed, god-chosen son. So they sat together, waiting for the day in which the Thief of Eddis would be married to the Queen of Attolia.

When the sky turned purple, signalling the coming dawn, Hector walked towards his son and held his head in his hands. Then, he kissed his forehead, because his wife would have done it, and she was not here. Hector could not dress someone in finery, nor does he have any skill in thieving, but this he could do, and so this he would do.

“You are my son,” he said. What he didn’t say was that Hector loved him so much, seeing him married to a woman who appeared in his nightmares felt like living a nightmare itself. What he didn’t say was that Hector would have done anything for him; he would have wrapped his chains around his son’s neck and pulled and let that haunt him throughout eternity rather than let his son die a gruesome death. What he didn’t say was that if he had said a word about it, Hector would have spirited him away from this forsaken land even before he had finished saying the word, lack of thieving skills be damned.

He didn’t say any of that, but, with his head still in Hector’s hands, Eugenides nodded, and Hector knew he understood what he could not say. Hector pressed another kiss onto his son’s forehead, this time for himself, and pulled his son to his feet.

Dawn has come, and it was time for Hector to bring his son to the altar on the hastily built temple on the top of the acropolis, and watch as Eugenides married the woman who had maimed him.

[lusie-king]

Atone

This

Is the story

Of

A demon

With a halo

And an angel

Seeking sin

 Those who believe hell to be a wicked place never grew up there. It’s hard to see your origins as evil when they’re all you’ve ever known. It’s difficult to be afraid of the night creatures and dark monsters when they’re howls lulled you to sleep every night. It’s impossible not to crave the warmth of hellfire and scent of souls burning when, to you, they’re reminders of your upbringing. Of the only things in existence that have ever cared for you.

I was different from the start. My brothers and sisters would sneer at me with their sharp teeth and dark eyes, sneer at the glowing wisp atop my head between little horns. They’d mock my lack of wings and a pointed tail, though I liked not having a tail once I realized how they yanked on each other’s as a means of torment. I never let it get to me, though. Not the beatings nor the laughing nor the torment. I was always content with how the world made me, and though they teased me, I was the one who felt pity for them, and so I knew my differences did not stop at the surface. They were rooted deep within me. And it made me feel special. It made me feel unique.

He couldn’t believe how different he was by the end. A creature most holy in the beginning, with white feathers running along his back and robes of pure light covering his innocent form. His sisters and brothers and even his own father frowned upon the lack of aureole sitting softly above tufts of mousy hair. His appearance reminded them too much of mortality, and with mortality came sin. They never ridiculed him out loud, not like my family did, and that was somehow worse. At least I knew exactly what my siblings thought. He spent everyday wondering if they’d ever love him. He cursed the way the world made him, vowing with each sunrise to find his purpose and be the epitome of righteousness he thought he was meant to be. He never felt special. But he was unique.

The day he fell I remember like my own name. Never had I seen something so beautiful, so sacred grace this planet where I bided my time like I had an eternity of it. He claimed he’d find meaning here but I knew, as soon as I saw his face, I knew he didn’t come here on his own. And he couldn’t go back. I knew for the way he immediately threw himself to his knees and folded his hands in prayer, though I was certain no one was listening. No one but me.

I kept my distance, tucked behind a tree, watching with flitting eyes, staying absolutely still until he had run out of tears and his feathers drooped. Then, I emerged. The moment he sensed me, I slammed into the tree, his hand around my throat, my pointed teeth baring in the most sadistic way. His hand burned when it touched my body.

“How dare you look upon something so holy.” He spoke with a hiss.

I gripped his wrist, enjoying how his face twitched in pain. My touch burned too. His wrathful eyes softened when he saw what hovered above my head. What didn’t hover above his.

“What the…what is that?” His dark eyes searched me, realizing there were certain things missing. “What are you?”

“Exactly what you suspect.”

“Why are you here? You don’t belong here.”

“Neither do you.” I wriggled out from under his grasp. “I guess we have that in common.”

“You and I are nothing alike.” He didn’t touch me again.

“True.” I tilted my head. “The difference being, I can go home whenever I want.”

The rage returned. But I wasn’t afraid. Even when he grabbed me by the horn and dragged me away.

“As a soldier of heaven, it is my sworn duty to protect this mortal world from the likes of you.”

“Oh?” I crossed my arms, smirking as he pulled. “Why?”

“Why?” He scoffed. “What do you mean why? You know why, soulless beast!”

“I do not. I come up here to read. Things below get noisy like you wouldn’t believe. Up here, all is quiet. All is peaceful.”

“Peaceful?” His tone became bitter. “This place is anything but peaceful.” He let me go so he could look into my eyes. “This place is bloodshed and brutality and sin.”

“Sounds like Hell.”

“That…that…” Oh, he was furious.  “You know not of what you speak!”

I couldn’t keep the smug look from my face. “I do. And I know this place is also bright and calm and full of joy. Full of hope.”

“Sounds…” His voice softened. “Sounds like heaven.”

“Now that, I would not know.” I sat back down, a book materializing in my hands.

“You—you are not like the others I have encountered.”

“Nor are you.” I felt him staring at me.

He was quiet for a while, many racing thoughts brewing behind those dark eyes. “I don’t know what to do now.”

“You could make the best of it.”

He crouched beside me. “How?”

I thought for a moment. “Come with me.”

He hesitated, gazing down at me with wary eyes.

“Or remain alone in this field. Your choice.”

Reluctantly, he followed, suspicious glare never leaving the back of my head.

City lights were prettier than the stars, I thought. The way they twinkled so close, each a beacon to someone’s life. To a moment in time. We walked along the mortals, me a figment of their imagination melting in and out of the shadows, he a flash of light moving faster than their eyes could perceive.

“They’re disgusting, even you must agree!”

“I do not.” I shot him a sly look. “Nor do I think you truly believe that.”

The way he stared at them, taking every detail. Listening to their voices. To their pain.

“Nature is messy. But she doesn’t make mistakes.”

His fingers subconsciously ran through his hair, as if expecting something to dance over his head.

“Everything has balance,” I went on. “It’s magnificent.”

We watched a mother coo to her infant. We watched a boy push his sister into a puddle. We watched a scrawny dog graciously accept a handout. We watched a man steal from someone who had nothing.

“I don’t understand,” he growled.

“That’s the problem.” I shook my head. “You keep trying to understand but you can’t because no one can. This world is complicated, as it deserves to be. And those who try to fully comprehend it will drive themselves mad.”

“So what do I do?” He was begging. Desperate. Confused and hurt and my own heart, which I sometimes forgot I had, wrenched.

“Don’t try.” I looked into his innocent eyes. “Just do.”

I took his hand and pressed it to the cold building, letting him take in the marble. That was the beginning.

Gardenias. Purple clouds. Raspberries. Mortal laughter. Tights gowns and clacking heels. Pearls strung along exposed necks. Jewels dancing in chandelier light. Perfect sculptures, the ones where texture defies material.

Screams of pain. Damned souls. Old books. I bit my lip. A moonlit lake. Glittering fish. The smell of death. Flies around a carcass. Pomegranates and dirt blacker than charcoal. Mortal skulls. Hot tears. All this chaos, all this agony, and I still got to see his smile.

Coconut milk. The smell of oil paint. Green tea. Horseshoes on cobblestone sidewalks. Silver chains. He closed his eyes.

Neon lights. Throbbing music. Curling smoke and cigarette buds. Jean jackets. Bloodshot eyes and greasy hair. Doubts. Insomnia. Ecstasy, both kinds. Shaking restlessness. The sharpness of my horns. Scraped knees.

White shells. Footprints in wet sand. Boardwalks and docks. Ferris wheels. Worn down carousels. A swaying sailboat. White curtains fluttering around a windowsill. Shimmering ocean waves. Salt and seaweed sticky on the skin.

A sweet blonde mortal. Her soft lips against his skin. The way his breathing hitched. Glossy makeup. Streaks of shadow streaming down my face. Silk sheets. Whiskey and rum, hot in the throat. A tan-skinned boy. Rough hands running along immortal flesh, calling me a pretty thing, hating my pointed teeth.

Obsidian blades. Bruised knuckles. Split lips. Lost memories. Forgotten dreams. He said he’d never go back, given the chance. Sad smiles. The taste of blood. Clinking glasses. Sparkling champagne. I smiled and his eyes never left my face.

Wool shawls. Racing through the forest. I said they’d have to drag me back. Red and orange leaves fluttering around us. Hot apple cider. Cinnamon donuts. The ground crunched. Meaningless apologies. Bottled sunshine. He spread his wings, mismatched feathers fluttering in the breeze, towering over me. My heartbeat quickened.

He touched my hand and inhaled once when his skin burned. Then he touched me again, holy palms running down my face, down my neck, down my back, leaving ash in their wake. Panting. Dark eyes stared into mine, into the soul newly formed. He looked haunting, hair in his face. Red scratches stretched across his chiseled muscles. My claws skimmed his wings. They were softer than I imagined. My lips found his. He tasted of sin. Quiet moans. Squeezing flesh. Our fingers aligned. I no longer wondered what Heaven was like.

 I laid in his arms, far from the first time. Shadow against light. I never felt so real.

“I was touch starved all my life.” His voice was low. His fingers absentmindedly ran through my hair. “Meanwhile others couldn’t keep their hands off you.”

I tilted my head up. “And look at us now.”

“And look at us now.” He paused, deep in thought. “Is this a happy ending? Do we deserve that?”

“Why not?” I hugged him closer. He was almost found. “If you decide everything always had meaning, you no longer have to search for it.”

His cheek pressed against my temple. “You are hellfire with a halo. Something sacred in the most unholy way. There's nothing soft about your stone-cold heart and yet you hold me with the gentlest hands. When your lips, damp with blood and eyes, dark with sin, set themselves upon me I feel saved. I don't care about the taste of iron or solid black of your irises. All I know is I'd take your bruised knuckles over smooth flesh any day.” His voice trembled as he spoke, laying down all his cards. “Your demons are vast, but they do not exceed my own.”

“Everyone is fucked up in their own way,” I murmured, head on his chest. “And I think that’s beautiful.”

Time went on. His feathers frayed. The light between my horns faded. Neither of us cared. We walked among the mortals until mortality took over. Until his pure light dimmed and disappeared. Until my horns withered away. Until my claws softened and his wings became scars. My heart beat vigorously, in sync with his own. Our touch no longer burned. We were different. We were unique. We were something magnificent and foul. We were mortal. And I wanted those dark eyes to be all I’d ever known.

[hamlets-ghost-zaddy]

queen of peace

Part 6/10 Shifty Powers x Reader

“Many more New Year’s Eves to come.”

“Thank you.”

. . .

“Many more January 4ths to come.”

“Thank you.”

. . .

“Many more January 10ths to come.”

“Thank you.”

. . .

“Many more January 17ths to come.”

Shifty pauses, a smile hiding in the curl of his mouth, and he replies as he always does: “Thank you.” Whenever his hand finds yours as he pauses on his way out of sewing classes, as you go your separate ways after visiting with Margaret at the post office or hunkering in the tea shop to hide from the seeping later winter chill, his fingers squeeze a light pressure. You know he’s asking as politely as he knows how—without really asking, a pleading gleam lighting his eyes, instead—to assure him as you promised you would.

You hope your surprise doesn’t show now, your coat still on your shoulders, Shifty catching you in the middle of stamping snow from your boots after scuttling to your usual table in the tea shop to join him (in the back, next to the little bakery display case, long since vacated since the beginning of the war). He usually never reaches for your assurances when you first meet, instead wanting to savor it until leaving, perhaps to carry with him until he sees you again. You study his expression now, trying to keep the worry from your eyes, not sure if you’re successful.

“How are you?” you ask, shucking off your coat and putting it on the back of your chair quickly, hoping he won’t notice that the inside liner has been seam-ripped out. A nurse had placed an order for a new silk slip, and the only available silk was from the liner of your winter coat. It meant going cold, but it allowed you to buy milk to soften the dry bread ration, allowed you to put aside a little money for the water bill.

“I’m alright,” he replies, unconvincingly and you frown at him. Neither you nor Shifty have articulated it—and you’re grateful for it—but something has changed between you since Christmas. He confides in you, lays out his homesickness and the daily struggles of soldiering neatly along with the cups of tea, sugar bowl, and cream pitcher, and you pick each concern up, examining and offering the proportionate consolation. You maintain a careful grip on your feelings for him; you’ve gotten quite good at only allowing your imagination to stray into heady, intoxicating dreams of being more than his friend when you stay up late at night, sewing and completing orders. In the daylight hours, however, you see the truth of the matter: you’re one of his best friends, and you’ll not let nothing jeopardize that relationship, not even yourself.

“Wrong answer,” you say, raising a hand to wave down Rosanna, the tea shop’s iron-haired owner to place your order. “Want to try again?”

Shifty sighs, a smile once against threatening to spread across his face. “Sometimes, it’s inconvenient that you can read me so well, you know,” he observes, an evasion tactic, and you arch an eyebrow as your cheeks threaten a blush.

Rosanna pulls up to your table, order pad in hand. “Hello to you, my ducks,” she greets, as usual, her beaming smile pulling her round face into a thousand lines of happiness. Her eyes sweep from Shifty to you, both a familiar sight throughout January. By all accounts, Rosanna and her tea shop have been an institution since Aldbourne was organized into a town back in the 1500s.  “What can I get for you today? Lemon mint?” Her eyes land on you.

“Why change from a classic order?” you ask, pleased she knows your order.

“Why indeed; very sensible of you,” Rosanna replies. To Shifty, who she refuses to refer to as such, she asks: “And you, Mr. Darrell?”

“Something strong and caffeinated; we’ve got a nighttime maneuver tonight, and I need to be wide awake for it,” he answers before hesitating. His eyes dart to you. “Do you want something to eat? Sandwiches or a cookie or something?”

“Oh, um,” you flounder. You have exactly ten pence in your coin purse; one of which you budgeted for the tea, another for the postage to send a meager portion of the loan to the bank in London, and the rest reserved to make change for the nurse’s slip order. No amount of finagling would budget for unnecessary spending like sandwiches or ‘cookies.’ “I think I’m happy with just tea,” you say to Rosanna, knowing something about the panic lurking in the shadows of your face—you could feel it seeping in—would tip off Shifty, and you’ve so desperately tried to keep your financial troubles from him.

“Are you sure?” Shifty says as Rosanna moves away. “You look kind of pale today, maybe the food would help?”

Your stomach grumbles at the reminder—man does not live on rations alone, you think, wryly—and you determinedly pretend you don’t hear it, even as Shifty eyes you worriedly. “No, I’m feeling quite well, actually. And don’t think you can distract me; what’s the matter?”

Shifty sighs, running a hand through his neat brown hair, leaving strands of it ruffled and standing on-end. You find yourself endeared. “It’s trouble with the NCOs.” Shifty’s earlier explanation of American military acronyms helps you make sense of what he means.

“Not Don Malarkey? Or Skip? Are they hurt? Are they in trouble?” you ask, eyebrows furrowing; you could see Don and Skip brought up on charges for practical joking—swapping out all the sugar for salt in the mess halls, maybe—but certainly nothing to make Shifty’s eyes cloud as they currently do.

He shakes his head. “No, they’re fine for now. They all, well…” He sighs, and you watch him deflate. You want to reach across the table and clasp his hands. You knit your fingers together in your lap. “The NCOs resigned because of Captain Sobel. He, um, well, he didn’t do right by one of the lieutenants and the NCOs are all concerned about following a man like the Captain into real battle.”

The furrow in Shifty’s brows, eyes lowered as he talks more to his worrying hands than you, broadcasts the truth: Shifty agrees with the NCOs; he knows Sobel would get every man in his company killed the instance their boots make contact with occupied soil, but he’s Shifty and would never say such a thing. You also know he’s desperately concerned with the extremities taken and their repercussions. “Do you know what’s going to happen? Resigning is…its mutiny, isn’t it? Could this…?” You’re not sure about the American Army, but in the British one, mutiny is grounds for execution during wartime.

Shifty’s mouth tightens and you have your answer before he replies: “I’m not sure, but it could be very bad. It’s an impossible situation, no doubt about that, but I’m real worried about what’s going to happen. We’re already down a good lieutenant, he got bounced to battalion, but giving an ultimatum like this doesn’t seem right either, does it?” His eyes flick to you.

You spread your hands, suddenly nervous and jittery under his imploring gaze. He looks at you for comfort, but the nuances of the American military and minutia of consequences for insubordinate are quite beyond you. Yet, with his hazel eyes pinning you, you want to try. Have to try. “They were doing what they thought was best, and I know you’re apprehensive on how all of this will affect the lives of your friends, but you also have to do what you think is best, right?”

Roseanna returns with the teas then, informing Shifty his is a simple black coffee (‘with real milk and sugar,’ she adds, because she’s soft on Shifty and his Virginian accent, but then, who isn’t?) and after she moves away, he asks, “Are you absolutely sure you’re not hungry? I’d be happy to get us something.”

You color at the implication, hate the pang of resentment echoing through your chest (Shifty paying for you, owing him for his kindness and knowing you’d never be able to pay him back), and hurriedly assure, “No, really; that’s quite all right.”

“Wrong answer,” he echoes you from earlier, his mouth curving into a smile that sends the bridge of his nose crinkling, his eyes twinkling. “You want to try again?”

Rolling your eyes to disguise how your skin blanches, how your stomach pits out, you flap a dismissive hand. “Please, we’re talking about you—don’t think you can distract me, Shifty Powers!” You snap your fingers under his nose in a gamble for sass, but its weak and awkward—you can tell by how he looks at you, endeared and fond, and you flush anew. Shifty sees me as a little girl, only suited to be a friend and it’s a realization you’ve had a hundred times over but you don’t think it’ll ever stop hurting—sharp and white-hot—when you’re reminded.

. . .

“Many more February 4ths to come.”

“Thank you.”

. . .

“Many more February 13ths to come.”

“Thank you.”

. . .

“Many more February 21ths to come.”

“Thank you,” Shifty tells you as his hand finds yours, squeezing your fingers. You can almost feel the sinews of his muscles through the wool of his gloves, through the fuzz of your mittens, if you focus hard enough. His eyes scrub your face—your flyaway hair curling around your stocking cap, your running nose, your cheeks chapped red from the rushing gusts sending flurries of snow to kiss your skin—and you swear you see intention coloring his eyes, as if his thoughts threaten to brim, boil, and overflow from his mouth. Yet, whatever unborn words those may be are swallowed down, dead and forgotten, as Shifty releases your hand and says, “I’ll see you on Wednesday, at Rosanna’s? Same time?”

“Sure, Shift,” you agree, smiling, trying not to hold your threadbare coat against you for warmth too conspicuously.

“Good,” Shifty replies, “Great!” And he turns away quickly, leaving that too-bright pronouncement to bounce over the thin months-old snow edging the lane, hurrying along. You know he spends too much time in town with you, insisting he walk from sewing lessons to the post office and well out of his way just to accompany you, risking being late for afternoon rifle training. Still, every time a twinge zips through your chest to watch him walk away.

To keep from calling out, it’d only be to stop him so you might see his face one more time, you push into the post office, sighing as a wave of heat cocoons your skin on contact. Leaning against the door for a moment, allowing the chill to ease from your bones, to loosen your arms from clenching the coat so tightly at your middle, you don’t notice Margaret frowning at you from her post behind the counter.

“You look skeletal,” she observes, breaking the silence with sudden bluntness.

Her words make you jump and gasp out a clipped “Oh!” Yet, when you register its only Margaret, you puff a sigh, tilting your head back. “Sorry, Margaret; you startled me.”

She plows on: “You’re rod thin, y/n! I swear, I see you at least every two to three days, and more of you vanishes every time.” You don’t open your eyes; it’s a coward’s ploy, but not being able to see her concerned squint makes it feel as though you can hide from the truth: this morning, while dressing, you could count each of your ribs in the mirror.

After Christmas costs, the unexpected purchase of the tea kettle, and logs for the heating furnace to combat the uncommonly long and deep frost of the winter, it’s been increasingly difficult to carve out money for food. Your ration portions mostly went to your Mother—who’s fatigue the night of Margaret’s Christmas Eve party has become a reoccurring theme—leaving you hungry (but not behind on loan payments, you think smugly. You’re waiting for the money to come from the hemming you did for Mrs. Mathison’s daughter to add to profit earned from the American nurses’ orders, you’ve cut nearly every cost you can, but the year’s loan payment has been scraped together and sits patiently in your bedroom vanity’s drawer to be sent off next week).

Margaret finally offers with a tongue click, her tone resolute, as if settling the matter for the foreseeable future: “I’ll send over some bread and salted ham; Father won’t miss it. Doubt you’ll be able to carry it with this package, anyway.”

Your eyes snap open, pushing off the door, compelled to the counter in your urgency. “What? What package?”

Margaret nods to a great box—coffin-size, you think, all feeling in your limbs seeming to pool downward, heaving your hands, your feet, dragging you into the ground: you recognize boxes like that, recognize the stamp embossing the brown paper—propped against the cubby holes for the post, far too large even for the shelves designated for packages. Margaret squats and with a great harrumph, hefts it onto the counter. “I haven’t seen one of these come in since before the war. Did you finally get a big order?”

You don’t reply; you don’t have the mental capacity to. With hands hanging limply at your sides, brain emptying of any coherent response or processing facilities, all you can do is stare. Stare at the great rectangular package—wider than your arm-span, tied up by three cords of neatly knotted twine—until a phrase surfaces from the fogged waters of your mind: Surely not.

Surely not.

Air goes jaggedly down your throat, choppy and disparate with how your mouth gapes and closes, gapes and closes, blood humming in your ears, and one hand pats for the tin on the counter’s surface without your conscious decision to reach for it. You fumble, dazed and slow, ringing the silver surface bell in your haze before your fingers curl around the handle of the scissors.

“I have half a mind to order something new for myself; I saw Tommy Beale yesterday, you know, and he asked me on a date, and you know with mad days like these, things might move—” Margaret babbles, not a syllable registering in your ears, lost in the chanting garble of surely not, surely not, surely not, surely not, surely not.

Surely Mother hadn’t ordered new fabrics, not from Aigle, not when there is a war on and money’s so tight and—the scissors snap the twine easily, allowing the brown paper to flop open, revealing long sheaths of fabric. Creamy satin that catches the weak whirring electric lights overhead, stiff tulle that whispers against your fingers, gold damask bruised with red and yellow strands of silk that glimmer, lace as fragile as the ghosts of snowflakes that stung your skin. Surely not, you think.

“This isn’t ours,” you choke out around a wheezing exhale. Your voice sounds foreign, hanging and lingering in the dead air around you.

Margaret interrupts her own dialogue, shaking her head. “Can’t be; it was addressed to you and your mother.” She forges through the mound of brown paper, producing the postal card with your surname printed neatly on it.. ‘Aldbourne’ follows, as if attempting to normalize the absurdity of it—as if allowing it a hold in reality—because surely not, surely not, surely not, your brain assures, refusing to comprehend those letters or assign meaning to the words, or meaning to the situation.

But then surely not becomes how could she?

How could she?

How could she?

“How could you?” you roar, not caring how the front door ricochets off the entryway wall, how your wildly grasping hands slam it behind you. Tracking snow across the entry, through the sitting room and into the kitchen, ripping your coat from your shoulders (the sharp fissure of fabric tearing is a problem for another hour), you find your mother sitting over the newspaper, her three o’clock tea cradled in hand. She blinks at you in startled confusion. Her innocuous stare, her eyebrows climbing, fan the flames in your chest, stoking them until you feel as though you’ve swallowed a fire. “How could you? All those fabrics—Mother! That’s a fortune! Why did you buy it? What could possibly—?”

“It’s for a wedding dress,” Mother interrupts when you splutter, seizing her first opportunity to interject. She takes a meditate sip of tea, watching you over the rim of her cup as if riding out a toddler’s tantrum. You could scream.

Grinding your teeth to repress a feral snarl, you ask, evening your voice to a low simmer, “Who’s wedding dress?”

“Margaret’s,” Mother replies, her smile turning self-satisfied.

“Margaret?” you repeat, eyebrow arching. “Mother, Margaret isn’t engaged, let alone able to afford Aigle satin, tulle, damask, and handspun French lace.”

“She will be soon,” Mother replies definitively. “That American of hers, the one who works with the mail. The nurses were telling me they’re sure he’ll propose before the Americans ship out for Europe and she’ll be needing a dress. And the deal I got for it all, you should have seen—”

Ignoring Allen Vest’s apparently having marital designs on Margaret, you shout over her, “It doesn’t change the fact that you bought fabric for a dress that hasn’t been ordered; we don’t have the money, we don’t—” You nearly choke, your breath catching at the thought. “The money—where did, where did it—?”

“I borrowed from the savings in your vanity drawer; you have to understand, darling, I was acting on my intuition and when has it ever been—”

You don’t hear the justification Mother gives, your head hits the wooden floor with a blunted thud.

. . .

Before you leave the house the following morning, you rubbed mightily at your cheeks, wiped at your nose with your coat sleeve, but the specters of tears refuse to be scrubbed away. Your eyes shine, contrasting against the faint red rim, and you’re sure it’s obvious how tightly your skin is stretched over your cheeks: dried out from the salt of tears. Mother attempts to wrap a scarf around her neck, force a cup of tea into your hands, but you only add the scarf to your pile and absolutely forbid her from consuming more than her single three o’clock tea. Then, you bundle your arms with one of the sacks you worked through the night to fill and set off down the lane, toward Aldbourne’s town center.

Last night, you worked in a foggy whirl. Opening all the drawers, yanking every dress and coat and jacket off their hangers in every wardrobe around the house, you sorted out the loveliest pieces—things once considered the absolute crème of London, that could still fetch a price—leaving behind a scant few options for both you and your Mother. As you went, Mother occasionally bid to dissuade you from selling her garden-green tea-length dress made from an air-light crepe; she tried to protect the old fox stole and the real lamb-skin gloves (with holes in both thumbs); she wrestled away the blue dress repurposed for the Halloween dance, but you managed to snatch it back when you finally spat out the truth: the money for the loans, taken out by your parents fifteen years ago to buy an atelier (now buried under the rubble of the Blitz), had been used to buy fabric.

A flash of guilt gnawed your insides, watching Mother’s face pale as she flopped into her armchair, but you couldn’t afford to console her tears. You had sorting to do, and if you tried to soothe away her anguish, your own carefully regulated tears would spill over (when you finally allowed yourself to climb into bed after four in the morning, you let silent tears soak into your pillow). The clothes wouldn’t fetch enough to cover the loan payment, but certainly enough to sate the banker’s letters for at least two weeks; enough time to return the fabric order and demand a refund.

Fortunately, February has decided to ease in its ferocity this morning, a shy winter sun peering around clouds to shine occasional patches of warmth, chasing away the lingering snow. You pretend the sun is all there is to notice—not the neighbor’s curtains flickering as you hurry down the lane, not Mrs. Jamison’s eyes tracking your progress from her front porch, not the vicar pausing in befuddlement at you as he emerges from the parish house—and that you only stare down at your blue dress, eyelashes fluttering in quick succession, because the faint breeze sends the loveliest ripples through its folded skirt.

You hug the brown paper sack tighter to your chest, as if trying to press these beloved things into you so you might engrave them in your memory to at least wear in your soul; the floaty pink dress you wore, aged eleven, to accompany your father to the Savoy to meet with the Duchess of York, or the heavy red gabardine coat you wore, aged fourteen, to attend Elsa Schiaparelli’s New Years Eve party (though you were trundled back home long before midnight). You’d outgrown everything in the sack years ago, save the new blue dress, and you’ve been meaning to sell them. The tightly-clutched shreds of dignity you had so studiously cultivated allowed you to cling to sentimentality, but now you had no choice.

Though you try your best not to think about him, not to let his ghost haunt you, your father’s words, uttered off-handedly but somehow lodging in your memory, floats into your ears: It is the last act of a desperate woman to sell her clothes.

I’m not many things anymore, you think, turning into the central square of Aldbourne, smiling wanly to the neighbors and American soldiers who call greetings to you, not daring to pause for fear of losing your momentum, But ‘desperate’ is certainly one of them.

A body steps into your path, and you nearly collide with it before you blink, scrambling over your own feet, and realize it’s— “Shifty!” you exclaim, staggering back to regain your balance. “Pardon me, I didn’t see you.”

His smile is wide, his face warmed by it, and you can’t stand to look at him, not right now when you’re so lowly. “Didn’t hear me either; I’ve been calling after you, but you’re in your own little world.” He takes a step closer, gently tapping your forehead before tucking a flyaway strand of your hair behind an ear. “Everything all right up there?”

“Oh, um, yes, of course,” you try. You cringe at how feeble you sound.

Fortunately, Shifty’s attention migrates to the sack and he bows, peering at it. “Is that—?” he begins and, before you can rush out of reach or invent a faltering excuse, he gently scoops the blue dress from the top and holds it out. The fabric unfurls in great ripples, refracting the sunlight and appearing like liquid in his hands. The skirt flutters down, brushing your hands, your coat sleeve, and you tick your jaw, forcing yourself to remain still. Shifty’s brows furrow as his eyes study the dress, a question forming in those bunched wrinkles. His gaze swivels to you. “Is this the dress you wore to the Halloween dance?”

“Well,” you begin, taken aback he remembers. Even Margaret didn’t remember the color of your dress; a week ago, she mentioned wanting to borrow ‘that little green dress of yours from the dance.’ Maybe I should try selling it to Margaret, you think, but reject the idea immediately. She’d ask awkward questions, like Shifty is about to, you know from the worried glint in his eyes. “Um, well, yes.”

“What are you doing with it?” he asks, attention turning to it, apprehension heavying his voice.

“Um,” you hum out, stretching the word in a frantic bid for time. Your mind offers excuses as rapidly as it rejects them, each evasion weaker than the last, and the seconds drag on too long, dragging you with them, until the only answer has to be the truth, or at least half of it: “I’m selling them. They’ve been taking up space at home, and I’ve been meaning to clear them out. Figured today would be the day.”

Shifty nods, mindfully folding up the dress. It’s a boyish attempt, one without a concept of how seams ought to lay or creases could be hidden, but the gesture is sweet, nonetheless. “Getting a jump on spring cleaning, huh? Always thinking ahead,” he offers, arranging the dress in the sack and you allow yourself a silent exhale of relief. Its only now that your muscles uncoil, your nerves ease, that you realize you had primed yourself for the defensive; you expected him to sniff out the lie and drag the truth from you—a truth you could hardly admit to yourself in the comforts of your conscious, never mind out loud.

Your breath turns leaden and stoppers in your throat: his eyes have flicked up to you and you hear his thoughts clearly, ‘Why are you lying?’

Tag list: @gottapenny, @wexhappyxfew, @maiden-of-gondor, @medievalfangirl, @mayhem24-7forever, @higgles123

[maximoffvizh]

fic: every witch needs a familiar

post-endgame fic born out of a conversation on twitter, sam and wanda friendship ft. a kitten

The apartment echoes with emptiness. Not her apartment, not yet. Just a collection of rooms with only the most basic furniture, only blinds over the windows instead of curtains. A world of blank walls and empty shelves, and her hollowed out self at the centre of it all, quiet and alone. She may have signed the papers and paid the first few months’ rent, but this isn’t her home. She can’t imagine how it ever will be.

A knock at the door forces her up from the couch, her socked feet padding over the floors, and she steps back in amazement at Sam outside the door, surrounded by bags and boxes. “What are you doing here?” she asks, and he just grins.

“Thought I’d help christen the new place,” he says. “So I bought dinner, wine, and a variety of snacks. But first we’re going to personalise the place. I went to IKEA for you.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, watching him just move past her. Unpacking more than just dinner and snacks onto the counter, plastic cartons of fruit and cartons of eggs and bottles of milk and bags of pasta and packages of ready-to-cook vegetables and boxes of tea bags. “Sam?”

“There are many things you don’t know about me, Wanda Maximoff,” he says with an enigmatic smile. “Before I got caught up in superhero shenanigans, I wanted to go back to school and become an interior designer. So I went to IKEA, and I used a red theme to pick things out. I tried to stay neutral other than that, so the red pops.”

Somehow, his grin drags her along into helping to make her apartment more of a home. He hangs the grey curtains at her windows, plumps cushions on the couch and her bed, and she almost bursts into tears when he sets a guitar in her living room. “I took the liberty of hunting down a similar one,” he says, and she puts a hand to her mouth to hide her trembling lip. “See. You can make this place a home.”

“But he’s not here,” she says softly. Sadly. And Sam slips an arm around her waist and kisses her temple, squeezing her tightly.

“I know,” he says, and opens the flap of one last box. “I also, ah, took the liberty of hunting down some memories for you. This was the best I could do since the compound was destroyed.”

She does tear up when she pulls out the first frame, the official photograph of the New Avengers team taken in 2015. Natasha’s frozen, touchingly proud face makes the first tear fall, and she ghosts a fingertip gently over Vision’s awkward smile, her chest aching with the need to have his arms around her again. Every frame is perfect, photographs of her with Clint’s children, with Steve and Natasha and Sam, with Vision. The memories of the life she’s left behind. “Thank you,” she breathes through tears, and Sam just smiles.

“You’re always welcome, Maximoff,” he says, and breaks away as she stares into a picture Vision took of the two of them on a beach somewhere in Europe, his hair falling over his sunglasses and freckles breaking out on her cheeks, her lips pressed to his cheek. “I bought mac and cheese. Even remembered to add some spice for you.”

They settle down on the couch with dinner and wine, and she finds herself relaxing into it, just a little. Even if when Sam leaves the shadows creep up again and she can’t sleep for the nightmares and she sits in the bathroom in the middle of the night shaking and crying, when he’s there she can relax. She can know he’ll take care of her.

Somehow, it turns into a weekly ritual. No matter what Sam is doing, what he’s dealing with out in the real world now the mantle of Captain America has passed to him, every Friday night he turns up at her door. Usually with a new knick knack for her apartment in one hand, and dinner in the other. Fairy lights to wrap around the curtain pole in her room, a pasta machine, a new houseplant, a record player including a few of his favourite records from before she was born. He chooses something mindless and uplifting on Netflix, and they sit on the couch and eat quietly.

She makes the mistake of telling him how much she’s struggling to sleep, and he appears at the door with a stack of lavender products, telling her they’re supposed to help her sleep. She confesses that she doesn’t want to go back to dark hair, and he helps her re-dye hers, even cleaning up the murder scene her bathroom becomes under the red dye. He shows her how to make bread, and she pretends not to notice that he never leaves her with any leftover wine for fear that she’ll use it to cope. He gently asks if she thinks she should see a therapist, and she shakes her head and they leave it at that.

Over the months, she thought it would get easier. But it’s been six months, and it never has. She still wakes up every morning in a cold bed, missing Vision, wishing she could just reach for him like she used to be able to. When Sam doesn’t come to see her, she eats leftovers, or nothing. She spends sleepless nights listening to love songs, the words of them eating her up inside, beautiful words she never said to Vision. She wasn’t brave enough.

Tucked into a heavy jumper, reading one of the books that Laura sent her after she cleared out the shelves at the farmhouse, she doesn’t bother to move when the doorbell rings. It’s Friday night, six thirty, and Sam has a key, and she can hear him opening the door, moving around behind her. Then she starts violently when he pulls the book out of her hands and replaces it with a tiny ball of brown fluff that lets out a squeak of a sneeze and blinks blue eyes at her.

“Sam?” she asks, twisting to look at him, hands instinctively cradling the kitten. “Why is there a kitten in my apartment?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Sam says, turning the dial to pre-heat her oven and dusting his hands off to pull a food bowl and a litter tray and a bag of litter and an assortment of toys out of a bag. “I was at the shelter this week, because Barnes is thinking about getting a dog and he’s got it in his head that he wants a rescue and I grew up with dogs so I’ve obviously offered to lend my expertise in helping him choose the right one. And I was chatting to the girl there, being my usual charming self, and she recognised me and said I must know a lot of people in need of some animal companionship. So I said I did, but not all of them have the space for a big running dog like Barnes wants. So she showed me the kittens, and that little guy just caught my eye.”

The kitten presses his paws into Wanda’s chest, leaving pale hairs on the red wool of her sweater, and she cradles him a little closer, feeling his tiny thin body shivering beneath her hands. “What happened to him?” she asks, a rush of protectiveness rising in her at this tiny powerless little thing that needs someone to help.

“His mom got hit by a car,” Sam says. “Tragic accident. And they were a litter of five, and most of them got adopted quickly. He was the runt, and he never pushed to the front and purred. She thinks he needs a special someone to look after him. Someone who’s been hurt too.”

“I see where you’re going with this,” she says, and Sam smiles. And the kitten mews quietly, so high-pitched, kneading his paws into her shoulder, and she looks down into his huge eyes and feels herself melting. “I don’t know the first thing about looking after a cat.”

“Feed him, water him, make sure he’s scratching the post Uncle Sam got him and not the furniture, love him,” Sam says. “I even did some light Googling to check none of your plants are poisonous for cats. They’re not.”

“Sam, I...I can’t accept him,” she says, and the kitten mews when she moves him away from her, paws pulling at the air like he wants to get back to being cradled against her chest.

“I even bought him a collar with a bell on!” Sam says, shaking the length of red to jingle the tiny bell. “See, it’s to match you.” He moves towards her, the hum of the oven filling the silence, and carefully pushes her hands back to her chest, the kitten curling up against her with a contented sigh. “I know you’ve been going through it, Wanda. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You need a companion apart from me. Every witch needs a familiar.”

“Does he have a name?” she asks, and Sam shakes his head. She rubs two fingers carefully over the space between the kitten’s ears, his fur so soft, and asks, “What do you think about Hex?”

“I think that’s an adorable name for a witch’s familiar,” Sam says, and she smiles, suddenly teary-eyed. She moves Hex closer, and he chirps quietly, curling into her. “He’s going to look after you when I’m not here.”

“Sam,” she breathes, overwhelmed and trying not to cry. And Sam leans down to brush a kiss against the top of her head, and she ducks her head to hide the falling tears in Hex’s fur.

They eat dinner on the couch, Hex in her lap and staring at her with huge pleading eyes until she gives him a tiny piece of the salmon Sam made for them. When Sam leaves, taking the bottle of wine they only drank a little of with him, she means to start as she wants to go on, with Hex in a bed in the front room and not on her pillow. But he cries until she relents, and his tiny body curls into her in the bed, warming her the way it used to warm her to sleep plastered against Vision’s back.

When she wakes up in the middle of the night, breath coming in rapid-fire jerks after another nightmare, Hex is there. She cradles him carefully in her hands, and he purrs and butts his head against her face, his chest rising and falling beneath her hand. The motion of it soothing her slowly back to sleep.

[kaaramel]

every shakespeare reference in wilba’s speech file (that i could find) by play

this.... this is what i choose to spend my time on

the majority are, fittingly, Hamlet quotes, but she quotes something like 20 different plays, and also the one sonnet that everyone knows, you know the one

i probably didn’t get them all? there are SO many. 

also i assigned plays from memory on a lot of them because i can’t be sitting around googling every single quote so if some are misattributed that’s why but i feel pretty confident in my shakespeare trivia

i didn’t list repeats unless they were significantly different or funny so please please don’t swan into my inbox telling me i missed one of the 9,000 “wherefore art thou”s

if you don’t know what the original quote is then i’d be happy to give context. my original intention was to do that but that was 200+ lines of misquoted shakespeare ago

yeah..

yeah, i spent like two hours on this

this isn’t in any kind of order or nice formatting really, just fyi, because i’ve already spent two hours on it

Hamlet ANNOUNCE_NOSLEEPONFIRE = "WILBA DOTH FWOOSH TOO MUCH, METHINKS!" MANDRAKE = PICKED = "IT DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH, METHINKS" PIGMAN_STOREOWNER = "HER HAIR DOTH TOO MUCH, METHINKS" ..doth what wilba

ANNOUNCE_MORETREASURE = "MORE THINGS IN CHESTS 'N EARTH!"

ANNOUNCE_CHARLIE_ATTACK = "WHAT ROGUE AND PEASANT SLAVE AM YOU!" PEAGAWK = GENERIC = "WHAT A ROGUE AND PEASANT SLAVE AM EYE-BIRD!"

SPOILED = "SOMETHING ROTTEN IN WILBA TUM TUMS" ROTTENEGG = "MMMM...SOMETHING ROTTEN" WARN = "SOMETHING ROTTEN IN STATE OF WILBA HEAD"

ANNOUNCE_BEES = "IS BEE OR NAUGHT IS BEE?" WORMHOLE_LIMITED = "T'WILL BE OR NAUGHT T'WILL BE?" BACONEGGS = "TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT?" BEE = HELD = "TWO BEES? NOPE, NOT TWO BEES" PUMPKINCOOKIE = "COOKIE OR NOT COOKIE" JUNGLETREESEED = GENERIC = "TO PLANT OR NOT TO PLANT" TUBER_CROP = "TUBER, OR NAUGHT TUBER"

ANNOUNCE_HOT = "WILBA AM TOO MUCH I' THE SUN" DRYINGINRAIN = "IT TOO MUCH I' THE RAINS"

WILDBORE = "LITTLE MORE THAN KIN, LESS THAN KINDA" LEATHER = "LITTLE MORE THAN SKIN AND LESS THAN HIDE"

RESURRECTIONSTONE = "IS'T TICKET BACK FROM UNDISCOVERE'D COUNTRY" TUMBLEWEED = "THE UNDISCOVER'D RUNT TREE"

DUNGBEETLE = DEAD = "HAS'T SHUFFLED OFF MORTAL PLOP BALL" CHICKEN = DEAD = "WADDL'D OFF THIS MORTAL COIL" JELLYFISH_DEAD = "HATH DEPARTED MORTAL COIL"

ROWBOAT = "THE ROWS OF OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE" SLOTMACHINE = "HATH OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE"

ARMORSEASHELL = "WILBA READY FOR SEA OF TROUBLES" BOATCANNON = "WILBA TAKE ARMS AGAINST SEA OF TROUBLES" ENCRUSTEDBOAT = "WILBA MAKE ARMOR AGAINST SEA OF TROUBLES"

BEEFALO = SLEEPING = "PERCHANCE IT DREAMS?" (also for sleeping frogs) CORKBOAT = "FRAILTY, THY NAME IS'T CORK BOWL CANOE!"

GLOMMER = "AY, THERE'S A BUG" ROC_NEST_BUSH = "AY, THERE'S THE SHRUB"

BLUBBERSUIT = "TOO SOLID FLESH NAUGHT MELT"

WALRUS_TUSK = "YOUR OWN SELF BE TOOTH" SOLD = "TO MINE OWN HOUSE BE TRUE"

WHIP = "BREVITY IS'T SOUL OF WHIP"

TRAWLNET = "WHEREIN I'LL CATCH THE FISHIES OF THE SEA" (a biiig reach but it has the same meter at least as 'wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king')

DORSALFIN = "OF IN-FIN-ITE JEST" PIKO = GENERIC = "FELLOWS OF INFINITE JEST"

JELLYBUG = "MOST FOUL, STRANGE, AND UNNATURAL"

TOPHAT = "WILBA MOST EXCELLENT FANCY" PIKO_ORANGE = "OF MOST EXCELLENT FANCY TAILS" TALLBIRDEGG = "MOST EGG-CELLENT FANCIES"

WEBBERSKULL = "ALAS, POOR SPIDER" ABIGAIL = "ALAS, POOR GHOST!" BIRDCAGE = SKELETON = "ALAS, POOR BIRDY" PIGMAN = DEAD = "ALAS, POOR PIGGY!" ANCIENT_ROBOT_HEAD = "ALAS, POOR ROBOT" SKELETON_PLAYER = "ALAS POOR WILBA!!"

SCORPION = DEAD = "DEATH WILL HAS IS'T DAY"

ANIMAL_TRACK = "SWEET PRINTS!"

BUSHHAT = "THERE METHOD TO WILBA MADNESS" INSANITYROCK = ACTIVE = "THERE IS A METHOD IN'T"

Winter's Tale BEARGER = "EXIT WILBA, PURSUED BY BEARGER" FABRIC = "'TIS THE FABRIC OF MINE FOLLY'"

All's Well WALL_STONE = "WALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL"

Merry Wives SNAKESKIN = "IT HEART WAS MIGHTY, IT SKIN ARE WHOLE" GRASS_TALL = PICKED = "THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT"

AYLI PIGEON = GENERIC = "HEY DING A DING DING!" PANGOLDEN = "NOSE HIMSELF TO BE A FOOL"

RIII PIGTENT = "'TIS WILBA'S DISCON-TENT" now that's a stretch. STEADY = "NOW IS WINTER OF WILBA DISCONTENT" FROG_POISON = "POISON'DOUS BUNCH-BACK'D TOAD" GENERIC = "THOU LUMP OF FOUL DEFORMITY!" RUG_CATCOON = "LUMP OF FOUL DEFORMITY"

Midsummer BEE = GENERIC = "WHAT FOOLS THESE MORTAL BEES!" DAWN = "WHAT VISIONS HAS'T WILBA SEEN'D?" DUNGPILE = GENERIC = "WILBA AM SICK WHEN LOOK ON THEE"

Macbeth CATCOON = "'TIS THRICE BRIND'ED CAT" GOATMILK = "MILK O' GOATY KINDNESS" SMASHINGPOT = "OUT DAMNED POT!"

MOOSE_NESTING_GROUND = "THE STICKING PLACE" MUSSEL_FARM = STICKPLANTED = "WILBA SCREW IT TO THE STICKING PLACE" ROC_NEST_BRANCH1 = "'TIS BIG STICKING PLACE"

all PUPPETs (non-Max throned characters) = "BUT A WALKING SHADOW!" TIGERSHARKSHADOW = "BUT A SWIMMING SHADOW" DIVININGROD = HOT = "SOUND AND FURY!" VOLCANO_ALTAR_TOWER = "FULL OF SOUND AND FURY" CANDLEHAT = "ON, ON, BRIEF CANDLE!"

ARMORCACTUS = "BY THE PRICKING OF MINE ARMOR" MAXWELL = "MR. WICKED THIS WAY COMES" FIRERAINSHADOW = "SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES!" WAXING = "SOMETHING WICKED'D THIS WAY COMES!" wicked'd... COCONADE = BURNING = "SOMETHING BOOMING THAT WAY GOES" POG = "SOMETHING CUTIES THIS WAY COMES" TALLBIRDEGG_CRACKED = "SOMETHING BEAKY THIS WAY COMES!"

GREENAMULET = "DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL" PIG_SHOP_ARCANE = GENERIC = "TOIL AND TROUBLES"

FROGLEGS_POISON = "TOE O' FROG" SNAKE = "'TIS FENNY SNAKE?"

Much Ado GENERIC = "AS LONG AS THE DAY IS MERRY" GNAT = "MUCH ADO ABOUT GNAT-ING"

R&J BOAT_TORCH = "WHAT LIGHT!" ANNOUNCE_ENTER_LIGHT = "LIGHT THOUGH YONDER DARK STUFFS BREAKS" YELLOWGEM = "WHAT LIGHT THROUGH YONDER GEM BREAKTH?" SLURPER = "WHAT LIGHT THROUGH YONDER FUR BREAKS?" FIREFLIES = GENERIC = "A LIGHT THROUGH YONDER BUG BUTT BREAKS" FLUP = "WHAT EYE THROUGH YONDER GROUND BREAKS?"

there's a handful of "WHEREFORE ART YOU?" "WHEREFORE ART THAT?" SLURPER_PELT = "WEAR FUR ART NOW?" PIG_RUINS_ARTICHOKE = "WHEREFORE ART-ICHOKE?"

WALL_MOONROCK = "IT BE NAUGHT LIKE INCONSISTENT MOON" insufferable pedantry: it's "inconstant moon," actually MULTITOOL_AXE_PICKAXE = "IS'T INCONSTANT TOOL" yeah, like that

several "BUT SOFT, 'TIS SOFT BUTT!" for rabbit tails, bearger fur etc

CUTLICHEN = "CAVE ROT BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD TASTE AS SWEET" GUANO = "PLOP BY ANY T'OTHER NAME" FULLHONEY = "YUMS BY ANY OTHER NAMES" BEEFALOWOOL = "WOOL FROM ANY OTHER BEAST WOULD SMELL SWEETER" CORAL = "A ROCK BY ANY OTHER NAME" TOUCAN = "A NOSE BY OTHER NAME 'TIS CALL'D A BEAK"

RUBBLE = "THE COURSE OF BUILDING NEVER RUN SMOOTH"

SWORDFISH = "PUT UP THY SWORD"

BEEHIVE = "A PLAGUE ON BEES HOUSES!" WORMHOLE_LIMITED = "A PLAGUE UPON IT"

Tempest ACTIVE = "WHAT BRAVE NEW WORLD DOS'T THIS LEAD?", BEDROLL_STRAW = "'TIS STUFF DREAMS ARE MADE IN" PIGGYBACK = "'TIS SUCH THING AS WILBA MADE ON" KNIGHT_NIGHTMARE = "STUFF BAD DREAMS ARE MADE ON" PLAYER_HOUSE_GOTHIC_CRAFT = "SUCH STUFFS AS HOUSES ARE MADE OF"

ONEMANBAND = "WILBA PLAY'TH SWEET AIRS" (maaaybe?) BELL = "DING-DONG, BELL" (phrase is also in Merchant)

Merchant of Venice TRANSISTOR = "ALL THAT GLITTERS IS GOLD?" BLUEGEM = "ALL THAT GLITTERS 'TIS COLD" GNATMOUND = "ALL THAT BUZZES IS GNAT HOME"

HONEYHAM = "'TIS POUND O' FLESH" TELEPORTATO_BOX = "A POUND O' BOX" TELEPORTATO_CRANK = "A POUND O' CRANK" TELEPORTATO_POTATO = "A POUND O' POTATO" TELEPORTATO_RING = "A POUND O' RING" ELEPHANTCACTUS_ACTIVE = "YOU PRICK WILBA, SHE DOST BLEED!" SNAKE_POISON = "IF YOU POISON WILBA, WILL SHE NOT DIE?" ANCIENT_ROBOT_CLAW = "HATH NAUGHT A ROBOT HANDS?"

Lear POWCAKE = "BLOW, CAKE!" IRONWIND = "BLOW, WINDS" WIND_CONCH = "BLOW, WINDS, WILBA CRACK HER CHEEKS" ANNOUNCE_VOLCANO_ERUPT = "SPIT-ETH FIRES! SPOUT-ETH RAIN!" VOLCANOSTAFF = "WILBA SPIT FWOOSHING, SPOUT RAIN!" HAIL_ICE = "SPIT ICE! SPOUT, RAIN!" HOUNDSTOOTH = "SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH" NOHONEY = "NOTHINGS CAN COME OF NOTHINGS!" SOMEHONEY = "HAVE MORE THAN THOU SHOWEST?" PIGMAN_ERUDITE = GENERIC = "SPEAK LESS THAN SHE KNOWEST" RELIC_3 = "IT SPEAKS LESS THAN IT NOSE-EST" TREEGUARD = "COME NOT 'TWEEN A TREE AND HIS WRATH!" DRAGOONDEN = "COME NOT 'TWEEN THE DRAGOON AND ITS WEIGHTS" TRAWLNETDROPPED = "FORTUNE SMILE ONCE MORE" WOODLEGS_CAGE = "LET'S AWAY TO PRISON"

Henry IV PIRATEHAT = "UNEASY LIES HEAD THAT WEAR PIRATE HAT" PIGCROWNHAT = "UNEASY LIES HEAD THAT WEAR-ETH THE CROWN" KRAKEN = "UNEASY LIES THE HEAD 'NEATH THE WATER!" PEAGAWKFEATHERHAT = "EASY LIES THE HEAD THAT WEARS PRETTY HAT"

SNAKE_AMPHIBIOUS = "A BOLTING-HUTCH OF BEASTLINESS" SLEEPING = "O GENTLE SLEEP!" BILL = GENERIC = "'TIS A FUSTILARIAN" ADULT_FLYTRAP = GENERIC = "I'LL TICKLE YOUR CATASTROPHE!" HIPPOPOTAMOOSE = "THOU ART AS FAT AS BUTTER!" RUG_PORCUPUSS = "'TIS BOMBARD OF SACK" i havent seen what this is ingame but i'm not confident that klei knows what that means

Henry V SPIDER = "WILBA UNTO THE BREACH!" SPIDER_WARRIOR = "WILBA ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH!" ANCIENT_ROBOT_LEG = "THE ROBOT IS AFOOTS"

Julius Caesar GENERIC = "LET SLIP THE PIG OF WAR!", PREY = "WILBA CRY HAVOC!" WARG = "'TIS DOGS OF WARG" SOLOFISH = "LET SLIP THE DOGS O' SEA" FLOWERSALAD = "'TIS FOR SALAD DAYS" SPIDERHAT = "FOR SPIDERS TO LEND WILBA THEIR EARS" EARRING = "WILBA LEND IT MINE EAR"

Taming SCORPION = GENERIC = "THEREBY HANGS A TAIL" ANT_CAVE_LANTERN = "THEREBY HANGS A LIGHT"

Othello PUGALISK = "BEAST WITH ONE BACK"

12th Night several "FOOD BE THE FOOD OF LOVE!" "ALL FOOD BE FOOD OF LOVE" etc MAXWELLPHONOGRAPH = "FOOD OF LOVE?" OX_FLUTE = "WILBA PLAY THE FOOD O' LOVE" ZEB = GENERIC = "'TIS HORSEY O' A DIFFERENT COLOR"

Timon of Athens, now THERE's a deep cut MEAN_FLYTRAP = GENERIC = "WOULD IT WERT CLEAN ENOUGH TO SPIT 'PON" ANTMAN = GENERIC = "WILBA WOULD BEAT THEE, BUT T'WOULD INFECT MINE HANDS"

misc SPEAR = "WILBA SHAKETH THIS SPEAR" RAINFORESTTREE = GENERIC = "SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO ANOTHER TREE?" lOTUS = "SHALL WILBA COMPARE IT TO SUMMER DAY?"

i don't think "o'er-peer the oceans" is anything because the only use of "o'er-peer" is apparently in coriol-fuckin-anus, but: SUPERTELESCOPE = "WILBA CAN'ST O'ER-PEER THE OCEANS"

CROCODOG = "'TIS A WHITE-EYED MONSTER" miiiiight be othello?

[shannrussell-blog1]

I’ve just returned from my first trip to Europe and the United Kingdom. It was a whirlwind adventure that took me through 9 cities and 7 countries, on 10 planes, 13 trains, 6 taxies, and 4 bike hiring schemes.

I enjoyed the cosy pubs of London, saw the très grand monuments of Paris, experienced the superior bicycle infrastructure of Berlin and Copenhagen, and was moved by the sad history of Kraków in Poland. It was a trip filled with hundreds of memories I’ll keep for the rest of my life. It was also a trip that brought many practicalities to the fore.

Things I wish I had known beforehand and hadn’t stumbled upon in my research. Stuff I think others would benefit from before embarking on their own Europe adventure, whether it’s part of an organised group like a Contiki tour, or self-guided. Here are my top 17 tips for having a hassle-free and amazing time in Europe:

Gear

1. Wear hard-wearing, quick-dry travel clothing

The sort of clothing you’d find at an outdoors shop, as it’s just plain practical. We didn’t exclusively carry this sort of clothing on our trip – we had jeans, cotton t-shirts, and so on.

These garments needed washing after a time and a go in the tumble drier. About 6 hours of the whole trip was spent sitting in laundromats waiting for waschmaschinen and kleider trockner (German for washing machine and clothes dryer ). Don’t say you don’t learn anything here!

Synthetic and merino wool outdoorsy clothes can be washed in the shower or hotel basin and dry very quickly. The best thing about merino is it takes a lot to get smelly, so you can wear it over and over.

2. Choose a backpack rather than suitcase

You can always tell the suitcase totters when you disembark onto a busy train station platform. They’re the ones struggling along, trying to make their case stable on two wheels, while you try and push in front of them. With a backpack, you’ll be much more agile and stairs and escalators will be fair game.

The Pacsafe Coversafe X100 Waist Wallet protects against your cards or passports being hacked, or physically stolen. 

4. Invest in a good neck pillow

We flew Etihad. They supplied very basic neck pillows in economy. Very basic. I’m sure a quality neck pillow would have added a few more hours of sleep to our cumulative 48 hours in the air.

Money

5. Always have cash on you

Cash is becoming less commonly used in Australia. What, with our obsession with plastic, PayPass, and now Apple Pay and so on? That doesn’t mean the rest of the world is in the same place. I asked one shop assistant in Germany why people don’t use their cards as much. She responded, ‘They’re Germans. They like to see their money’. Fair enough. Always have some notes and coins on you*.

* When you’re carrying Kroners, you’ll feel extra rich as everything is in 100s and 1000s. Until you calculate the exchange rate and then you’ll feel really poor.

No matter where you go you’ll soon come across a peculiar sign. This one was on a train in Poland. It was meant to convey, ‘Do not throw rubbish out the window’. Or so it seemed.  

6. Be careful with airport ATMs

Shop around for currency conversion and don’t use the first ATM you find. The machines conveniently located in airports usually charge high fees or commissions.

Transport

7. Get to the airport early

It’s easy to think that because you’ve been to a few airports you’ve been to them all. Wrong. Until I experienced the security queue in Københavns Lufthavn (Copenhagen Airport, Denmark) I had this impression that most airports are efficient beasts. An hour and a half of waiting, very strict rules when it comes to liquids, and the way one shuffles through the scanner, and being almost the last one to board my flight had me reconsider this.

Do your research and don’t take things for granted – just because Coolangatta is easy peasy doesn’t mean Charles de Gaulle will be.

8. Hire a bike

We found the best way to get around Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen and Warsaw was by bike. The bicycle infrastructure in each of these cities varied a lot but one thing was for sure, cycling is part of life and is a quick and fun way of exploring. Our favourite hiring scheme was ‘Vélib’ in Paris. You pay a small fee to access the system (1,70€ at the time of writing) and can use a bike for 30 minutes for free.

The trick is to ride for half hour or less and return the bike to one of the plentiful stands, have a look around, grab another bike, and enjoy another half hour for free. Merci, Paris.

We hired bikes in Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Warsaw. The Vélib’ system in Paris was without a doubt the most comprehensive and value-for-money. 

9. Use public transport

Most European cities have robust networks of public transport. Intercity and intercountry high-speed trains, underground metro rail, light-rail, buses – I was quite taken by Düsseldorf, Germany. For a city smaller than Adelaide it had trams galore, an underground rail system and linked neatly with the rest of Europe with high-speed rail.

The best bit was that public transport across Europe is relatively cheap and will take you where you want to go.

10. Low-cost airlines are often very basic (and crafty)

Like with airports, not all low-cost airlines are the same. You think Jetstar is basic? Try flying some of the European low-cost carriers. I didn’t read an email from one unnamed carrier as carefully as I should have and got stung 419 złoty ($140 AUD) at the gate to check in!

Yep, some will make you check in online (no less than 2 hours before departure) and print your own boarding pass.

Safety

11. Be vigilant of swindlers and street sellers

I’ll admit it, I found it quite entertaining watching tourist after tourist get duped by three cup shuffle in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. But those guys before kept winning? Isn’t it uncanny they look like brothers? Have your wits about you, don’t sign things or buy things from people in odd places and don’t ride with strangers.

Isn’t this what travel is all about? Experiencing things you could never imagine or see at home?

12. Use your hotel safe

To avoid huge transaction fees it is a good idea to withdraw more cash, less often. Keep it in your hotel safe, if they have one, to keep it well – safe. Likewise cameras, watches, and other valuables. As a further precaution, I read it somewhere recently, ‘If it would ruin your afternoon if it were stolen, don’t take it with you.’

General

13. Do a free walking tour

Many cities run free walking tours. The best we found was by the Free Walking Tour Foundation in Kraków. You can join when you want, leave when you want, and leave a tip if you want. A guided tour of a city or particular attraction will always give you a better understanding of it. And when it’s free, what have you got to lose?

Nyhavn, Copenhagen.

14. When in doubt, ask

After getting lost many handfuls of occasions, especially in the straße of Berlin, we soon realised it was better to ask for help than think of yourself as a master of navigation. Everyone we asked for directions or recommendations was only too happy to assist.

Either in our limited grasp of the local language or in English, everywhere we travelled, including Poland, most people we met spoke good English.

Accommodation

15. Check if your hotel has air conditioning

Many European and British hotels don’t. We learned this the hard way, suffering through many nights where the inside temperature didn’t dip below 30! Modern accommodation usually had effective systems.

Food

16. Carry a refillable bottle

Tap water in most European cities is perfectly safe to drink. Interestingly, and as much as this is the case, you’ll be hard-pressed to be served it in Polish cities. Hotel rooms usually boast free bottles of water and at restaurants, when asked, they’ll bring you bottled still or sparkling for a fee – though, in złoty, the cost is negligible. When out for the day, fill up your own water bottle.

17. Eat local, drink local 

Whatever you do, do not pass up the opportunity to try local food and drinks. We had the best bangers and mash with flat beer in London, beautiful bistro meals with carafes of red wine in the laneways of Paris, schnitzels as big as your head, served traditionally with a lemon wedge rather than lashings of sauce, in Dusseldorf and beautiful little pillow-like pierogi and half-litre glasses of Polish beer in the milk bars of Kraków.

I think you learn a lot about a place by sampling their food, wine, and beer. So, ignore those pizza and burger joints and immerse yourself.

When in Paris, sip black coffee and eat a plain croissant for breakfast. Seriously, the perfect start to the day.

18. Be careful when catching a cab, especially in Poland

No dig at Poland, it was a lovely country to visit. But be careful when catching a cab as the drivers are notorious for ripping people off. Rather than hailing a cab on the street or out the front of the airport, book ahead. That way you can agree on a fee beforehand.

If you do hail a taxi, ask the driver how much the fare will be before accepting it. Some hotels will allow you to book with them and their preferred taxi company at a fixed rate, especially if you’re travelling to common places like the airport.

19. Pack a small set of scales

Being slugged excess baggage is the worst. Weigh your bags beforehand to see if you meet your allowance. That way you can redistribute the weight, remove items, or book more weight online for a cheaper fee.

This post was updated for 2017.

  Got any handy tips for enjoying Europe? Share them with us below. 

  The post What You Need to Know Before Going to Europe appeared first on Snowys Blog.

[ecotone99]

[MF] Pieces (Before He goes)

I hated to do it. But he had grabbed his chest and spewed. So I threw him in the back of the car. That’s what happened. I took him to the hospital. He hated those measures, and I understand that. But I had duties. He had been grinding his teeth and muttering he was never scared, never, never scared. This was on the couch. And he was smiling and wincing.

So I had to take him. I had to.

Call it what you want.

But I'm a son. That’s something you have to understand. That’s not a fact I can just float over.

#

I gave him to the nurse, wheelchair, and all.

The nurse asked me if he was crazy.

I said, He’s old.

Then the nurse asked me if I was crazy.

I said, You need to help him.

Other words were exchanged. Nothing remarkable. Nothing worth repeating.

But the nurse told him, You’re going to have to lie down.

I interjected with, You don’t understand. You’ve got the wrong kind of guy.

You need to leave, is what I was told. Please sir, go out to the lobby and fill out all the proper forms. We’ll take care of him now. But we may need you to go home.

He doesn’t just lie down, I said on my way out. So, take care. He’s not of the kind to just lie down. That’s not him. That's triangles in cylinders with him.

#

Here’s something. It’s older. But it’s about us. And "Us" includes me and mom, and (only in a minor way) Salome the sister.

As you heard, he was a horrible cook. But that’s true if we’re talking about lunch and dinner. He didn’t get it.

But breakfast was his specialty. And Saturday's were his days.

He used to fix up three eggs sunny side up, four strips of bacon, and two waffles. So its been said, the waffles were from a family recipe he tweaked three times over the course of his life.

He always cooked the eggs and bacon with butter and olive oil. But sometimes he wouldn’t just stop with the waffles. On his best days, he would go on and toast a piece of white bread. Then he would spread hummus on the top and then slide the eggs over it.

Maybe mom and Salome didn’t like the combination. So they left their pieces to him and me.

But that was fine. That was for the best. Because he understood me. He always added a pinch of salt on the yellow bulb for the both of us. Sometimes he used pepper. But all the time he included a dab of siracha.

Yeah, he got me.

And my method of eating was to always puncture the yellow bulb first and let the yolk soak the bread of the next piece.

He said I had the right idea. So he would join . He would smile while he'd follow suit.

When I ate in a hurry, I felt he understood that too. He smiled through his black wool beard. The beard can hide many things. But it couldn’t hide that.

Mom would always say don’t eat like your father. Salome would double down and call me a pig.

But he would tell them, Let a boy eat. Let a son grow. He'll learn. But let him eat.

Those mornings were never disturbed.

He didn’t take the calls or the texts. Mom made Salome abandoned the phone in her room. Salome made sure the same went for me. But we were all concerned with our private business of eating at the table in peace. Him and mom made sure of that. We sat in the sun-flushed dining room and I always had the good, cold milk with ice. For him, coffee, cream no sugar. For mom, espresso, cream and lots of it. For Salome, tea, straight up.

No one said much of anything. And that was more than enough.

But there came one day where he really did something.

New oil and new butter. He had discovered some new store somewhere and indulged. What he bought there, I couldn’t tell you. If he had found and used new spices or new recipes, I couldn’t say much about that either.

But he made something special.

He had assembled on the dining table eggs, waffles, bacon, pancakes - the basics. That was half the table. Milk and orange juice were lined down the center. But then it was chopped potatoes, oatmeal, hash browns, mashed potatoes. That occupied the rest. of it.

It wasn’t anything we hadn’t eaten before. But the taste of it - the spices, the softness – in a word, it was delectable. But in truth, it was the taste that a rich man would kill for.

Mom asked him, How?

To this, he said, I wanted to be happy. I wanted to try.

#

So it goes and more often than not, he made that kind of breakfast for all of us, himself included.

Morning after morning, we ate good. He woke up early, took care of everything. He even cleaned the dishes, before and after, and I supposed that feat alone surprised mom the most.

We ate in furies. And our greasy smiles, I suppose, is what he found himself addicted to.

But there comes another day, a follow up that occurs on the table and mom went and said, There are consequences you know, to all this grease.

But he told mom, You have to let yourself be happy from time to time. From time to time, you have to try.

But mom said, The heart isn’t built for grease like this. Not for eggs and bacon and whatnot everyday.

And he said, Just let it be good. Because it is good. What time we have - the good time - it won't stay.

Then one thing and another, and Mom let him feel agreed with. But I think we all agreed in some way. We agreed and got stuffed again and got sleepy.

And like always, dad had a smoke on the porch after the breakfast. He sat on the lawn chair and kicked his feet up on the balustrade. He was smoking and watching the crows and wiping his chin from the grease and the ashes. I walked up to him, I remember that. I asked him if he was going to become a chef. Then I told him that I wanted to cook good like him.

But he mumbled, Crows talk too much.

He wasn’t looking at me when he said it. Then he went and said something else. Crows always talk too goddamn much.

#

The nurse and doctor wheeled him out of the lobby to the curb I was sitting on.

For over an hour, I had been going back and forth, watching one guy who was wheezing on one end and another who looked like he was dead on his feet on the other.

But now there was this.

He was pale and quiet now. His eyes were dark. But he wasn’t shaking anymore.

I bent down to get a look at his eyes, smile at him, ask him how he was holding up. But he just looked away.

What’s been done, is what I said to those in charge.

And the doctor went and said something about blood pressure and heart rates, plaque, arteries, build up, this and that and whatnot.

I was then given a prescription. Then I was handed a list of sanctioned foods and penalties. Particular concern was given to butter and beer.

I said, Well, what’s the man supposed to live on?

The doctor said, Not from bread. That’s for sure.

Well, one needs to make considerations, I said.

He said, We all have to make our changes.

Changes, I blurted out. for some reason. For some reason I then said, You're not just asking for changes, you understand? You understand that? You're not just asking for changes from me. This, all this. This list. This fucking list. Don't you get that this is all on me? All these changes. Don't you get it? This is - this is my - this my dad. This is mine.

#

I have one last thing to give.

I was twelve or thirteen when it happened. This was during what I know now as the long spat. Mom was smoking all the time and she was out all the time. So was Salome. She was always gone.

So it was me and him in the house. Me and him.

So here it goes:

I was sitting on the couch in the den watching something about spies, guns, and car chases when he lumbered in from the kitchen.

He was grumbling and sipping a beer. His hands were covered in ashes.

He moved toward me. He stumbled over his own boots. Then he stumbled over the ottoman. This lead to him tripping over the Persian rug, but he didn’t fall over, no. He grabbed the ledge of the mantle just in time and balanced himself.

He stood before me. He was poised, you know, like a monolith. He eclipsed the TV. So I was suddenly put inside his shadow.

He glared at me. But his eyes were reddened and glassy and wet. They looked like they’d be broken. He looked like he was taking a mid-break from doing a lot of crying.

His chin trembled.

His teeth chattered in a weird way.

But he had words in him. Anyone could have seen that. And he tried to get it out, you know, but there was too much piled in his throat.

It just wouldn’t get release. He just couldn’t get it said. Whatever he had in him got trapped in his gut or his lungs.

So, what he does is drink down the rest of his beer. Then he tossed the bottle my way.

Still, he doesn't talk. But he stepped upon the coffee table and peered down at me. I could smell him. He smelled like a bar. He smelled like lemons and spilled liquor.

He stepped down from the coffee table and then sat next to me.

My dad: The now big-gutted, sentimental drunk.

He said nothing as pulled me into his belly. Then he tried to weep. Then he proceeded to slumber right then and there on top of me. He drooled all over me. But I could feel his heart pulse from his gut. That’s the first time I knew the rhythm was off. The strange beats from my father.

Four then a sudden stop. Three, then a sputtering two. Five hard ones, then five quick, lightning ones.

My father’s odd song.

That was him. Things were happening inside of him. New developments. Pro-found changes - changes of which I could not understand. And perhaps, yet and still, I don’t.

​

FIN

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[magicmenageriestuff]

I Can’t Win – Ry Cooder

9th June 2018

We went to see Ry Cooder last night in the Town Hall a wonderful old venue with a really intimate feel on 43rd St, built in 1921 by suffragette supporters.  Jenny knew the venue from an event a couple of years ago directed by her godfather Nicolas Kent – it was a staging of the transcripts of Trump’s picks for Attorney General I think.  The beer is served in plastic cups with logos which cost $5 thus the first round was $28.  She did warn me to be fair, and they only charge you for the cup once.  What a world.

Ry Cooder opened with an old song called Nobody’s Fault But Mine which was written by Blind Willie Johnson then covered by everyone including Led Zeppelin.  He sat centre stage with a battered old acoustic guitar, his white hair covered with a blue wool bobble hat (without the bobble) and there was a young man playing a treated saxophone at the side.  Treated electronically, acoustically, sonically who knows it was haunting all night.  Cooder delivered the song with the authority of a delta bluesman, picking notes, sliding his bottleneck up and down the strings which twanged and shuddered and whispered under his touch.  He was so connected to this song, with the changes and the lyrics, it was evident in every note.

I was introduced to Ry Cooder by Sir Nick Partridge.  He wasn’t Sir Nick in those days, he was Nick P., a fresh-faced and pleasant young man who lived in the flat on West End Lane that Pete and Sali owned and that I lived in too.  He was my flatmate. Known Pete since schooldays.  I’d just finished my degree in Law at the LSE and Nick had graduated from Keele University doing International Relations.  We were all post-graduates suddenly.  I was saving money for a further “year off” as we called them back then.  This was 1979 and the future lay ahead of us. Education and academia was, it seemed, finally behind us.  We used to go record shopping together because there was so much to discover !  There still is some 40 years later !!!

Nick Partridge and Ralph Brown in a North London record shop, 1989.  Picture taken by Pete Thomas.

I was painting and decorating that summer in Pinner, and later moved onto a house in St John’s Wood, definitely worthy of its own post.  My previous mentions of this vivid era of my young adult life were in posts about Talking Heads (My Pop Life #92 ) John Martyn (My Pop Life #153) and The Specials (My Pop Life #178) and Nick features in all of them.  We were a little musical commune up there between the railways of the Jubilee Line to the south and the Thameslink line to Hertfordshire to the north PLUS the North London Line which carried nuclear waste past our building overnight while we listened to Ry Cooder and The Gladiators.  My girlfriend Mumtaz was in Mecklenburgh Square and would come and squat cross-legged on the floor with us as we passed the bliss.

In the evenings and at weekends we were all obsessed with listening to music and going to gigs.  Pete was very much a reggae aficionado but also fond of the quirky post-punk world emerging from the rubble of 1977, a plethora of independent labels issuing interesting stuff of all kinds like Wah! Heat, SpizzEnergi, Flying Lizards, or The Auteurs all with picture sleeves and original music.   In my capricious memory Sal was more into rock and I was a student new wave ex-punk who listened to soul, but Nick was always different.  Later he would live on a houseboat in Amsterdam doing a blues radio show but that’s another story, if you’re lucky.

It was Nick who had Boomer’s Story and Paradise & Lunch and in the stoned democratic disc jockey world of West End Lane between the rails, when he got his turn for an LP side, it would often be one of these Ry Cooder records which were kind of country kind of bluesy kind of funky, but often with an added flavour from somewhere else.  Americana it would be called now.

Then in 1979 he brought home an LP that looked like a new wave record, bright pink with a guitar player who looked a bit Nick Lowe but no.  It was the new Ry Cooder album called, unfeasibly, “Bop Til You Drop” and now we would all choose this record when our DJ turn came around.  Opening with a cover of Elvis Presley’s Little Sister but thereafter delving into obscure 60s R’n’B – Go Home Girl, Don’t You Mess Up A Good Thing, Trouble You Can’t Fool Me, Look At Granny Run Run – and a brilliant original song called Down In Hollywood (‘better hope that you don’t run out of gas…’), the album had a fantastic production quality on the guitar and backing vocals particularly.  In fact Bop Til You Drop was the first album ever recorded digitally.  Cooder is a magnificently rootsy guitarist, not a show-off in any way, but just tries to get the soul out of the instrument, and the backing vocals on the album were by Terry Evans & Bobby King who would later record their own record with Ry Cooder producing and playing on every track.  What I didn’t know until last night (too stoned to read the liner notes or maybe just not that nerdy after all) was that Chaka Khan sings on Down In Hollywood and Good Thing.   He had roughly the same line up last night – although not the same players.  Jenny turned to me at one point – probably during The Very Thing That Makes You Rich (Will Make Me Poor) and said “What would you call this music?”  I said “country soul?”.  She could hear mariachi.  It’s funky.  It’s hawaian.  It’s blues.   It’s music.

Cooder plays without any ego at all, and often uses the concert (and indeed many of his record releases) to showcase other people and give them a turn in the spotlight.  Last night it was his wonderfully relaxed backing singers The Hamiltones who played a couple of numbers while he left the stage, then joined them on guitar for another.  Earlier it had been his son Joachim who opened proceedings with his own music.  Ry Cooder it was who travelled to Havana in the 1990s breaking the boycott and encouraging the old stars of the 1950s to team up and record again, the resulting film and album opening up Cuba to the world once again and introducing me to Ruben Gonzales, Ibrahim Ferrer and Compay Segundo playing together as the incomparable Buena Vista Social Club.

He has recorded with the great Malian blues guitarist Ali Farke Toure on Talking Timbuktu, with Captain Beefheart on Safe As Milk (see My Pop Life #205) with Taj Mahal in the band Rising Sons, with Randy Newman on 12 Songs, the Rolling Stones on Let It Bleed & Sticky Fingers, on Lowell George‘s original version of Willin’.  All playing slide guitar or bottleneck.  In 1984 he composed the soundtrack to Wim Wenders’ film Paris, Texas which starred Natassia Kinski and Harry Dean Stanton and following that became a sought-after soundtrack composer using his signature slide guitar.  He’s made albums with the latino community of Los Angeles such as Lalo Guerrero and Don Tosti (Chavez Ravine) and if left to his own devices appears to be following in the footsteps of his hero 1940s political folkie Woody Guthrie.  Or one of his heroes.

Woody Guthrie 1943

*

In a new song last night he sang of a meeting between Jesus & Woody in heaven, looking down on what is happening now, from the vantage point of the 1950s when we had beaten the fascists and the world stretched out before us.

Jesus & Woody

Well bring your old guitar and sit here by me Round the heavenly throne Drag out your Oklahoma poetry, ’cause it looks like the war is on

And I don’t mean a war for oil, or gold, or trivial things of that kind But I heard the news, the vigilante man is on the move this time

So sing me a song ’bout this land is your land And fascists bound to lose You were a dreamer, Mr. Guthrie, and I was a dreamer too

Once I spoke of a love for those who hate It requires effort and strain Vengeance casts a false shadow of justice which leads to destruction and pain Some say I was a friend to sinners But by now you know it’s true Guess I like sinners better than fascists And I guess that makes me a dreamer too

It was a chilling song but it wasn’t the only time that the name of Jesus was called.  One of his biggest hits was gospel standard Jesus On The Mainline,  and with The Hamiltones‘ soulful harmonies it was a standout moment at the gig.  And it became clear to Jenny and I that we were really at a gospel show.  In the sense that the black church in America has long been a vehicle for resistance to oppression, using the biblical metaphors and stories to illustrate the struggle and gospel music to inspire and strengthen courage.  Cooder never went preachy, but he was very clear where he stood.  He mentioned Trayvon Martin before playing a song called The Vigilante.  It was the lack of ego that was most striking in the end.  Playing the guitar to try and find the most expressive notes, not to show-off or strike poses.

Ry Cooder With Taj Mahal, 1968

And indeed, it seems to me this morning thinking back on Sir Nick as a young man in West Hampstead, smoking dope with a generous smile and a ready laugh that he had no ego then or indeed now.  He always had an easy manner where embarrassment was never far from the surface, mixed with laughter and great empathy.  I went to Hampstead Magistrates with him one day and watched him with his gentle phrasing and easy manner talk his middle-class way out of a conviction and get a finger-wagging in its place.

Sir Nick with Kirsten O’Brien

Shortly after the Amsterdam year he joined The AIDS charity The Terrence Higgins Trust in 1985 becoming Chief Executive in 1991 and finally moving on in 2013 after 28 years of service and a knighthood which followed his OBE.   We formed a close bond in those 1989-1990 days and nights and stayed in touch right up until today.  I had no idea that he was gay back then but he’s never made a big deal out of it or changed his basic persona of decency, sincerity and jokes.

Sir Nick talks with brother Andrew, Whitstable Bay.  My dad can be seen with check shirt on the pebbles between them

Paul Brown is 50 in his beach hut and quite a tremendous shirt

The first time any of us saw Nick after he was knighted in the 2009 New Year Honours was at my brother Paul’s 50th birthday celebration which he held in Whitstable, Kent.  It was a wonderful weekend of family – Dad & Beryl came down from Yorkshire, Becky was back in Sussex by then and Jenny and I had summer son Jordan in tow – Dee’s youngest who had a key period of spending the summer with us in Brighton.  Sir Nick was there in the beach-hut, Paul was back from Shanghai mixing cocktails in a straw hat, Richard Davies (Lady G) was probably DJing and drinking at the same time and a splendid time was guaranteed and enjoyed by all.

Nick and his husband Simon have been to New York since we moved here – I remember him asking me what he should see on Broadway – it was 2016.  I had a one-word answer : Hamilton.  He bought tickets online, then I had to go to work when he was here so I missed him, but he saw the show and, of course, loved it.

Paulette & Beverley Randall, Paul Brown & Sir Nick Partridge, London 2015

I did see him the year before when Paul was in London for his birthday a couple of years ago – 2015 I guess.  And then he came to send me off on my 60th birthday last summer when I hardly spoke to anyone, but hugged everyone.   I am extremely fond of him and will always be grateful for his friendship and for bringing Bop Til You Drop (and Memphis Slim…) into my life.

The last song on the album is called I Can’t Win and it is a haunting and soulful three-part harmony, simply a beautiful song about being in love with someone who isn’t responding.  We’ve all been there, but I haven’t made a habit of it thank god.  When the gig finished last night the entire band went off for about 90 cursory seconds then returned immediately as we all stood and clapped for the encore.  And they sang I Can’t Win with piercing harmonies that made the hairs on the back of our necks stand on end.  It was the pinnacle on a great night.  And it’s already up on Youtube.

Live at Town Hall June 8th 2018:

Album Version :

  My Pop Life #208 : I Can’t Win – Ry Cooder I Can't Win - Ry Cooder 9th June 2018 We went to see Ry Cooder last night in the Town Hall a wonderful old venue with a really intimate feel on 43rd St, built in 1921 by suffragette supporters. 

[readbookywooks]

When Mo left her to go and fetch their bags from the camper van Meggie went into the kitchen, but Dustfinger wasn’t there either. She even looked for him in Elinor’s bedroom, but however many doors in the huge house she opened there was no sign of him. Finally, she was too tired to go on searching. Mo had gone to bed long ago, and Elinor had disappeared into her own bedroom. So Meggie went to her room and lay down in the big bed. She felt very lost in it, like a dwarf, as if she had shrunk. Like Alice in Wonderland, she thought, patting the flowered bed linen. Otherwise she liked the room. It was full of books and pictures, and there was even a fireplace, although it looked as if no one had used it for at least a hundred years. Meggie swung her legs out of bed again and went over to the window. Outside, night had fallen long ago, and when she pushed the window shutters open a cool breeze blew on her face. The only thing she could make out in the dark was the gravel forecourt in front of the house. A lamp cast pale light over the grey and white pebbles. Mo’s stripey van stood beside Elinor’s grey estate car like a zebra lost in a horse’s stable. Meggie thought of the house they had left in such a hurry, and her room there, and school, where her desk would have been empty today. She wasn’t sure whether she felt homesick or not. She left the shutters open when she went back to bed. Mo had put her book-box beside her. Wearily, she took a book out and tried to make herself a nice nest in its familiar words, but it was no good. Again and again the thought of that other book blurred the words, again and again Meggie saw the big initial letters before her – large, colourful letters surrounded by figures whose story she didn’t know because the book hadn’t had time to tell it to her. I must find Dustfinger, she thought sleepily. He must be here somewhere. But then the book slipped from her fingers and she fell asleep. The sun woke her next morning. The air was still cool from the night before, but the sky was cloudless, and when Meggie leaned out of the window she could see the lake gleaming in the distance beyond the branches of the trees. The room Elinor had given her was on the first floor. Mo was sleeping only two doors further along, but Dustfinger had to make do with an attic room. Meggie had seen it when she was looking for him yesterday. It held nothing but a narrow bed surrounded by crates of books towering up to the rafters. Mo was already sitting at the table with Elinor when Meggie came down to the kitchen for breakfast, but Dustfinger wasn’t there. ‘Oh, he’s had breakfast already,’ said Elinor sharply, when Meggie asked about him. ‘Along with some animal like a Pomeranian dog. It was sitting on the table and it spat at me when I came into the kitchen. I wasn’t expecting anything like that. I made it clear to your peculiar friend that flies are the only animals I’ll allow anywhere near my kitchen table, and so he took the furry creature outside.’ ‘What do you want him for?’ asked Mo. ‘Oh, nothing special. I – I just wanted to ask him something,’ said Meggie. She hastily ate half a slice of bread, drank some of the horribly bitter cocoa Elinor had made, and went out. She found Dustfinger behind the house, standing on a lawn of short, rather rough grass where a solitary deckchair stood next to a plaster angel. There was no sign of Gwin. A few birds were quarrelling among the red flowers of the rhododendron, and there stood Dustfinger looking lost to the world, and juggling. Meggie tried to count the coloured balls – four, six, eight. He plucked them out of the air so swiftly that it made her dizzy to watch him. He stood on one leg to catch them, casually, as if he didn’t even have to look. Only when he spotted Meggie did a ball escape his fingers and roll at her feet. Meggie picked it up and threw it back. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ she asked. ‘It looked – well, wonderful.’ Dustfinger made her a mocking bow. There was that strange smile of his again. ‘It’s how I earn my living,’ he said. ‘With the juggling and a few other things.’ ‘How can you earn a living that way?’ ‘At markets and fairs. At children’s birthday parties. Did you ever go to one of those fairs where people pretend they’re still living in Medieval times?’ Meggie nodded. Yes, she had once been to a fair like that with Mo. There had been wonderful things there, so strange that they might have come from another world, not just another time. Mo had bought her a box decorated with brightly coloured stones, and a little fish made of shiny green and gold metal, with its mouth wide open and a jingle in its hollow body that rang like a little bell when you shook it. The air had smelled of freshly baked bread, smoke and damp clothes, and Meggie had watched a smith making a sword, and had hidden behind Mo’s back from a woman in witch’s costume. Dustfinger picked up his juggling balls and put them back in his bag which was standing open on the grass behind him. Meggie went over to it and looked inside. She saw some bottles, some white cotton wool and a carton of milk, but before she could see any more Dustfinger closed the bag. ‘Sorry, trade secrets,’ he said. ‘Your father’s given the book to this Elinor, hasn’t he?’ Meggie shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, you can tell me. I know anyway. I was listening. He’s mad to leave it here, but what can I do?’ Dustfinger sat down on the deckchair. His rucksack was on the grass next to him, with a bushy tail spilling out of it. ‘I saw Gwin,’ said Meggie. ‘Did you?’ Dustfinger leaned back, closing his eyes. His hair looked even paler in the sunlight. ‘So did I. He’s in the rucksack. It’s the time of day when he sleeps.’ ‘I mean I saw him in the book.’ Meggie didn’t take her eyes off Dustfinger’s face as she said this, but it didn’t move a muscle. His thoughts couldn’t be read on his brow, in the same way as she could read Mo’s. Dustfinger’s face was a closed book, and Meggie had the feeling that if anyone tried reading it he would rap their knuckles. ‘He was sitting on a letter,’ she went on. ‘On a capital N. I saw his horns.’ ‘Really?’ Dustfinger didn’t even open his eyes. ‘And do you know which of her thousands of shelves that book-mad woman put it on?’ Meggie ignored his question. ‘Why does Gwin look like the animal in the book?’ she asked. ‘Did you really stick those horns on him?’ Dustfinger opened his eyes and blinked up at the sun. ‘Hm, did I?’ he enquired, looking at the sky. A few clouds were drifting over Elinor’s house. The sun disappeared behind one of them, and its shadow fell across the green grass like an ugly mark. ‘Does your father often read aloud to you, Meggie?’ asked Dustfinger. Meggie looked at him suspiciously. Then she knelt down beside the rucksack and stroked Gwin’s silky tail. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But he taught me to read when I was five.’ ‘Ask him why he doesn’t read aloud to you,’ said Dustfinger. ‘And don’t let him put you off with excuses.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Meggie straightened up, feeling cross. ‘He doesn’t like reading aloud, that’s all.’ Dustfinger smiled. Leaning out of the deckchair, he put one hand into the rucksack. ‘Ah, that feels like a nice full stomach,’ he commented. ‘I think Gwin had good hunting last night. I hope he’s not been plundering a nest again. Perhaps it’s just Elinor’s rolls and eggs.’ Gwin’s tail twitched back and forth almost like a cat’s.