#i might take a crack at her body texture but i have doubts just based on the layout of gw2 textures vs sims

[reemaroamstyria]

An update to my sims wip!

Converting some of Nymphaelia's stuff to the sims 4. Working on her hair, face texture, and ears.

The hair, ears, and face texture match the sim's skin color, and I made the pink leaf details and the blue petal color an overlay and added some different color options.

I don't know if anyone else has any interest in guild wars 2 mods for the sims, but once I'm finished I'll probably put them up for download anyway just in case :D

Other mods shown: eyes, skin color

[malfoymuch]

somebody else [draco malfoy]

Pairing; Ex! Draco x Reader, Harry Potter x Reader 

Genre; Angst and fluff (a bit dramatic too, honestly)

Word Count; 3k+

Request; @braelynn-j Could you do an imagine loosely based off of lyric “I don’t want your body but I hate to think about you with someone else.” By the 1975. Like maybe the reader and Draco just broke up and to get him angsty she starts canoodling with Harry and Draco gets upset and confronts her or something. Idk. Do whatever you want. You’ll make it great no matter what you do 😌💕

Summary: Draco and you had left the relationship as a “couple” on a good note. But now that you’re confirmed to be with Harry after just two weeks, Draco doesn’t understand really why he feels “lonely.” This fic is geared towards Draco, and his self-like journey to what he truly desires...

A/N: First off, thank you so much for the request, love !! I’m sorry it took a bit of time, I wanted to try and create a way for it to be more original and express the emotions that are lacked rather than the person, as they split. However, I must tell you that Draco and the reader DO NOT get back together as a couple, because I didn’t really that would be best throughout the story. I took a bit of my own little spin on the lyrics, so I apologize if this wasn’t really what you expected. 

     His eyes dropped to the corner of the desk, noting each curve of wood and crack of the platform, including the interesting textures of the wall near it. Lately, Draco had been much more observant through his everyday life, whether it may be staring off into space or a casual conversation with a classmate. 

     Noticing the world around him, and people’s tendencies. As they lie or slither in a small insult. How they present themselves, or how they act when they are happy. The casual nose crunch, eye crinkles, the curve of one’s mouth as they express emotion. 

     It seemed Draco had lived in a completely different world. Much more keen to the world he had not been so consciously aware of. It made him set a much more barricaded version of himself, a much more attentive adaptation of himself. 

     Now, not all aspects of it were bad. But the more he noticed, the more lonely he realized he’d become. 

     Some would already say when a couple splits it gets quite lonely, perhaps even worse than it was before. The longing for them again, the regret of letting go-- of how it ended. 

     But for Draco, he didn’t quite know. It seemed that he wasn’t really knowledgeable when it came to feelings, especially ones that weren’t conveyed often. Draco’s relationship with you hadn’t even been an uproar of much, just the mutual understanding that things weren’t going well-- and that the pressure may have been overbearing at this point in time.  

     So regretting the way he let you go was out of the picture, because he felt proud that he hadn’t just snapped and screamed… but listened and gave a response when it was his time… like you taught him. 

     No. No, it had to be a different reason. 

     It had only been two weeks, and to be honest, he wasn’t in the best condition. He kept a distance from the world, a safe one. A noticeable barrier that everyone must endure, and if they managed to break it down-- they’d earned his trust. 

     He’d done it before. 

     And you passed. Without knowing, or doubtful of what was to come afterward, you did it-- knowing he needed someone. 

     So… maybe that’s what angered him, and made him feel lonely. And the rumors of you canoodling with Harry-- and moving on so quickly, made him feel more alone. Harry, he was an okay-type of lad. He wasn’t exactly the worst, but not the greatest… 

     He didn’t want to know the things you did with Harry. He didn’t care, honestly. It was the fact that since you left, it was just a presence missing, a feeling missing… perhaps reassurance? Hope? 

     A sense of belonging… 

     Draco didn’t want to get back together (or at least, that’s how he felt), he wasn’t heartbroken like the entire Hogwarts student body envisioned him-- in fact, it just gave him a new reality of how empty being a Malfoy was… how isolated he is, suffocating every corner he turned-- new faces to see, new people to meet and make an incredible impression on, more responsibility? 

     For the first time in a long while, Draco had finally felt the weight carrying him down, by everyone around him. 

     How easy it was for his family to convince him to be the new heir, molding him as if he was a piece of clay. It was only so many tries before the clay started to harden… and crack. 

     But when you came in, it was he was a fresh new canvas. A newly created, lively young boy, eager for both you and the world. It gave him a purpose, to know that someone had taken the time to appreciate him as a whole-- someone he knew that if he broke down, would piece him back together, and vice versa. 

     So, in a sense, he didn’t like the fact that Potter now had that chance. And he didn’t. And it angered him more at the mere thought that Potter might only think of you as a source of comfort for a short timespan. Who knows, maybe he did brew feelings in the last two weeks and did take it seriously?

     He wasn’t a jealous ex, or at least, he doesn’t think he is. Because he knew you were happy with Harry, and that was fine. Draco wasn’t dying to have your body next to his, but much rather, your words. 

     He had lost one of the best, major influencers in his life… it may be a bit dramatic, but he certainly thought so. So yes, he was upset. He was very much upset, to see you move on so quickly, and be happy. 

     But in the end, there was nothing he could do. He was satisfied enough the things didn’t blow up in front of his face, so that was that… wasn’t it? 

     “Draco? Are you all right, mate?” Blaise Zabini questioned, nudging his shoulder against Draco’s, making his head spike up from the desk. 

     “Did you say something? Sorry, wasn’t listening…” he mumbled back, his eyes soon trailing to the corner where you were talking to Harry and his friends, laughing and smiling brightly. 

     “I was asking you how long has it been since you’ve last eaten… you look like a ghost buddy… you should probably go get rest or head to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey can get a good look at you--” 

     “I’m perfectly fine…” Draco groaned, leaning his head back down on the desk, ignoring the spinning of his head. 

     “Mate, do you ever know how stupid you look? You look like you’re on the verge of passing out… you can’t ever keep your head up can you?” 

     “I said I’m fine… belt up,” he dragged out the vowels, placing his forehead against the cold temperature of the wood, breathing in sharply. 

     “You don’t have to be so uptight about it,” Zabini huffed, “I was just asking you a question… it’s not my fault you’re all hung up over (Y/N)--” 

     Suddenly Draco grabbed the collar of his robes, pulling him from his seat, his eyes blazing. Draco ignored the sudden pause of everyone’s movements, their attention now directly on his as his grip tightened, tugging his “friend” closer. 

     “The reason I’m like this isn’t because of (Y/N), all right? Get it through that thick skull of yours that my life doesn’t revolve around a single person, and no one does for you either. So quit being a pompous ass and hold your tongue, before I chop it off,” Draco demanded, shoving him roughing into his seat. As he did so, his eyes darted towards the classroom, and his eyes immediately stared into yours. 

     His mind felt hazy, his vision clouded as it began to lighten and see duplicates of everything. All he could vaguely see was a hand jumped out towards him, with the sound of someone calling out: “Draco!” 

….

     Draco woke up with a nasty pain in his lower back, groaning as a headache had also taken force. His eyes screwed shut for a good while, the sunlight blinding him momentarily, the rays shooting him down. He laid back onto the bed, cussing under his breath as he knew where he was. 

     Hogwart’s bloody hospital wing… 

     In an attempt to spring from the bed and leave before being noticed, he felt a hand resting on his, and his mouth turned dry. There, dozed off beside him on the bed… was you. 

     But why? 

     You had Harry. Harry and a bunch of other friends that you could’ve seen, spent time with, instead of being next to him. Cuddling up next to your new boy as you shared a series of laughs with, telling jokes about your past… so why were you with him? 

     An ex, his ex, laying next to him, in such a godly uncomfortable position. Your back so badly hunched over, arm under your to provide a sliver of comfort to the awkward way your body was caving. Unknowingly, his hand flipped over, holding yours, his thumb rubbing small circles on yours-- a small gesture he had always done, for both you and him. 

     “I don’t think I miss being boyfriend and girlfriend with you,” he started, not knowing what had gotten over him. One of his spurs of the moment. “Perhaps I’m saying this because I found out you were with Potter… and to be honest, I was not the happiest man in the world when I found out. But I’m happy for you-- so why do I still feel lonely?” 

     “I think… I think I’ve finally noticed just how easy the world seemed to be, with you in it. Maybe this whole time, you were a distraction? In a good way, from the world? And… and when you left… I don’t know what happened? I’ve noticed so many more things than I noticed before…? Like just how much a prick people were, and how Zabini seems to lies through his teeth until he ever so slightly flares his nose? Or how Pansy right eye crinkles more than other? I don’t know where I’m going with this…” he chuckled, his throat hoarse, but he pressed on. 

     “I don’t know what’s going with me, but maybe, after our splitting… it’s helped. And I won’t deny that I do miss you, but of course, I wouldn’t really manage to voice it out loud, though I think you’re well aware of my glances from across the classroom. You’re happy with Potter, rebound or not, I’m okay with it. Because it means that you’re glad, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted…” a sniffle came from Draco, and another laugh passed through his throat. 

     “Oh great, I’m getting all emotional… and you’re not even up, I’ve gotten so emotional it’s rather irritating. I won’t ever tell you this while you’re awake, but thank you, for everything. Another thing I did learn from all of this, is that I should probably eat, I’m starting to get frightened of myself with how bad I managed to look.” He smiled brightly, looking down at you. 

     A small smile passed through your lips as you softly giggled, and Draco’s immediately dropped. 

     “Bloody hell, you were awake? The whole time? The whole time? You didn’t bother to say anything ‘till now?” He jeered, his mind blown that he had confessed his feelings, and you heard everything. “And why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be with your boyfriend? Potter?” 

     “You know, you don’t have to be so grown-up all the time? It’s okay to tell me about these kinds of things, especially when they concern me?” You teasingly taunted, cracking your neck from your position as you raised a brow. 

     “You sound like you’ve had a sudden awakening of the world, and I don’t know if that’s exactly great… And I came here because you weren’t doing well, Harry can manage on his own.” You rolled your eyes, dismissively raising your hand in the air as you laughed. “I wanted to check up on you, and to talk to you.” 

     “There’s nothing really left to talk about,” Draco stated, shrugging. “I’ve said everything I wanted to say.” 

     “But I didn’t.” You replied smoothly, scooching over more towards Draco, taking your hand in his again. “I know we’ve ended things, and I’ve… fairly quickly went to Harry. But do know it was because he offered me emotional support, and I need to know if you have that too, Draco.” 

     Draco’s heart pounded in his chest and your words and then sank. Plummeted. 

     No. He thought. Of course, he didn’t have someone to talk to… you were that person he thought always would, and could. 

     “Of course,” Draco laughed, neglecting the brewing feeling within him, “I’ve always managed… this time will be no different.” 

     “It is different, Draco. The difference is you’ve been skipping on meals or having occasional blackouts, and honestly, I blame myself for you being like this every day,” you said, starting to tear up. Draco instantly leaned forward, wiping the small droplets. 

     “How is this your fault? We both ended it on a good note, (Y/N). Honestly, I’m amazed we did--” 

     “Draco, did you want to end the relationship?” 

     “Yes, it would’ve been best for both of us. We were having a fallout. We were slowly losing it a bit with everything going on, it was the best option--” 

     “Draco, who have you talked to, since we’ve broken up?” Draco’s mouth creased into a frown as he huffed. 

     “I’ve talked to multiple people! There’s Zabini, Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle…” 

     “No, Draco. I mean who have you talked to, all of this.” You gestured to his red face and puffy eyes. “Who have you talked to, about all your emotions, Draco? Draco, do you have someone to talk to?”

     Draco’s head hanged low as he stared at the bedsheets, his eyes moving anywhere but yours. No. 

     His hand clasped yours as he stared deeply into your eyes, mouth tugging into a small smile. 

     “I’m doing okay now, (Y/N). And I will be, now that I’ve talked to you about it… though I thought you were asleep,” he ruffled your hair. “But do know, if Potter tries something I’ll duff him up a bit, y’know… as friends. One friend to another.” A small cough passed through your lips as you shook your head, your smile still growing. 

     “Well, if you ever need me, Draco. I’ll be there, especially now. Because now I need to make sure you eat.” You mocked, pinching his hand a little, shocking him as he let out a painful laugh. “Oh, knock it off, alright? I learned my lesson…” His voice dragged out, before his eyes soon lowered to his hands intertwined with yours. 

     “You should probably get back to Potter, he’ll be worried soon… visiting hours are technically over soon--” 

     “You sure are quick to try and get rid of me, aren’t you?” The question was meant to come off as a joke, however, Draco seemed startled. 

     “No! It’s not anything like that… you have your own life, and other people in it. Besides, we’re not together--” 

     “Doesn’t mean I can’t be there for you, right?” You reasoned, bending down to try and meet his eyes once more. “I may be Potter, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t there for each other. You haven’t lost me, Draco. I still care, whether we’re together or not.” The right side of Draco’s lips shifting up, tilting his head to the side as he spared you a glance. 

     “I don’t think Potter will be happy with that, I wouldn’t really be.” 

     “Who cares what Potter thinks? Or anyone else? As long as both of us know that it’s nothing like that, does it matter?” 

     “I guess not,” Draco laughed, his arms raising up as an act of surrender. “But I will not be responsible if he gets slugged out of the blue.” A surprised gasp was heard as you tackled Draco, slapping him (not harshly) on his shoulder and chest. 

     “I don’t him hurt… unless he deserved it,” you whispered the last part, barely audible. Draco’s eyes grew as he leaned a bit closer, smirking. 

     “What? What was that? I don’t think I heard you correctly,” he teased, his hands coming up to grasp your shoulders gently, leaning in. Your face flushed in embarrassment as you covered your face, shoving him away from you. 

     “Nothing! I said nothing!” 

     “Ya right,” Draco muttered, his hand tickling you to your side, making a loud gasp and a series of laughs to follow through. This continued for a few moments more before you had enough. 

     “Alright alright! I said if he deserves it you can do it…” you said frustrated, punching him in the air as you rolled off the bed and back into the little stool. 

     “I’ll make sure he deserves it first, and then make sure he knows he deserved it,” both of you laughed as he attempted to say it in his an intimidating voice. Leaning against his pillow, silence ensued as he stared at you. And the gears in his head turning again. 

     For a long time, it seemed that Draco had kept himself in the dark, hidden from most. But you were there, for him. 

     No, he didn’t miss your “couple” relationship with him. He didn’t need the hand-holding, kisses, or any real contact from your body. Not like that, at least. 

     It was just the feeling… the feeling of feeling at home, for once. The thought of knowing someone was always there, beside you, to emotionally give you support. It was in a way, a sense of belonging, not to the person, but the world. 

     There are all different types of relationships, Draco learned. Friendship can be just as powerful or more than having a spouse, because the love is still there… but maybe it’s overlooked.

     Because in the end, both relationships are founded on love, respect, and caring. 

     Being with someone as a couple and being with them now as a friend gave Draco much more insight than he could ever imagine. About his friends, the world around him, his family. He didn’t need to completely break ties with you, after it all, he would just be as he always had--

     Draco didn’t need you to come to back to him. He didn’t want to “win” you over from Potter. As he said, it was a mutual ending of the relationship… being together in that sense just wasn’t working. But it seemed to have that type of friend might last. One that was always there for each other. 

     And Draco was perfectly okay with that. He didn’t need to hold you in his arms romantically, cuddling and professing your love to each other. 

     No, he just needed a friend. 

     The thought of you with somebody else, now, was fine. 

     Because you could be with somebody else, in that type of relationship, but at the end of the day, he knew he still had you. 

     (Y/N) (L/N), both his ex and best friend. 

    And he wouldn’t have it any other way, at the end of the day. 

Fin. 

---

Hey!! Hope you enjoyed the story. For this one, I think I just really wanted to put in detail that Draco’s desire wasn’t exactly their relationship as a couple, but the relationship of feeling at ease, and at home. I wanted to express (though I think I did kind of poorly) just how important a friend could be, one you could trust, much more than simply having a significant other. It’s the mutual understanding of one another, and supporting them through everything they do. 

It also brought me to the part where couples who split can still be friends, and sometimes that type of “love” just doesn’t work, but another one can rise. In this case, Draco seemed lost and disgusted more of the fact that he had thought he lost that feeling of home, and Harry becoming (Y/N)’s new sense of a home. Where in reality, he realizes being open and confronting her opened his eyes. I didn’t want them to end up together in the end ‘cause I didn’t think it would feel right, but for them to grow by accepting that they’ve split, and Draco’s just longed for someone to understand him rather than a partner. 

I hoped you enjoyed it!! This probably has to be one of my favorite written pieces, strictly because I didn’t make them end up together in the end. And targeted Draco’s emotions in a piece rather than the reader. Thank you once again !! 

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Permanent Tags; 

@amberkay284​

[zen-unknown]

Creatorverse: Zen’s Backstory

Angsty backstory? Check

Way longer than it probably has to be? Check

Minimal dialog from other people cause I’m afraid of misrepresenting their characters? Check

Alright! this is Zen’s official backstory for @creatorverse! Please enjoy and leave feedback if you have any!

(also a small warning: this contains angst, which specifically includes negative self talk on Zen’s part and some violent fight scenes. if you are not comfortable with this or think it might trigger you, feel free not to read this! Take care of yourselves! <3)

________________________________________________________________

Zen wasn’t really one to put herself out there. It took so long for her to even find any civilization, and by the time she got to one, it didn’t really appeal to her. She had all the materials she needed with her bamboo, so it’s not like she needed to go somewhere to get some. Besides, she didn’t feel like she could fit into any of the communities she found. Everyone already knew each other and had such amazing creations. Throwing in her own thing seemed pointless.

And so she wandered. She went from city to city, and country to country. She’d make a place for herself on the outskirts of wherever she found herself and just…. Watched. She created when inspiration struck her and kept it all to herself. Sure, she always felt a lingering urge to share her creations. To possibly get feedback or just put it out there for the sake of sharing. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. And so she watched as creators came and went, picking up inspiration wherever she could.

The only thing that really disrupted her routine were the blockheads. They seemed to come whenever she used the CREATE button, and would come after and attack her. Without other creators to help her, she learned how to defend herself on her own. She took what she had learned from other creators and constructed weapons.

The blockheads seemed to be color coded depending on their abilities, which was typically some form of an element. To counter this, she made weapons with their own elemental abilities. If she came across a red blockhead, she’s fight it using a water based weapon. If she encountered a green blockhead, she’d equip a fire based weapon. It went on like this until she had created a small arsenal of elemental based weapons.

As she grew stronger and more experienced on her own, she eventually decided to settle down on the outskirts of Tumlier, where she could easily find inspiration in the cultures and creations of the residents there. She spent some time wandering around the outside of the city, growing as much bamboo as she could and creating a small bamboo forest. She built her home in the center, far away from the chaos of the city. It also gave her an advantage if a blockhead decided to show up.

___Timeskip___

It started out as a normal walk. Zen was lacking motivation and ideas so she figured some time to clear her head would do her good. What she wasn’t expecting was to find someone, or rather, something else in her private bamboo forest. It was in shades of pink and human shaped. At first she thought it might be a creator who somehow wandered into her home. After all, blockheads don’t have any real defining features aside from having her silhouette. She could make out clothes and hair on whatever this was. However, doubt entered her mind upon spotting the familiar rocks balanced evenly on the figure’s head.

She hesitated, but then approached silently. She let herself float just above the ground to avoid making any noise as she made her way through the bamboo and towards the figure. It was standing in a clearing with it’s back to her, seeming to be simply examining a large bamboo pole in front of it. Zen thought over her options, but wasn’t given the chance to act when the person suddenly spoke up.

“You’ve been quite busy, haven’t you?”, the pink figure spokes casually, making Zen tense up. She was sure she hadn’t made any noise while approaching. The figure seemed amused by Zen’s lack of response and chuckled. It turned around to face her, and she froze. This… whatever it was. It resembled her. Not like the others. No, this one had more than just her silhouette. This one had facial features. It had texture and life.

“... you’re another one, aren’t you? A blockhead?”, Zen spoke in as steady a tone as she could manage, but she still faltered slightly. All the other blockheads she had encountered were fairly simple in nature. They came, attacked, and were even color coded. She’s fought and killed a handful of a few types. Red, brown, green, blue. She’s even succeeded with a purple and black! But pink? What could pink mean? And why was it so… alive?

(keep reading if you’re prepared for the angst!~)

“Oh? So you know what we are then? I suppose that makes sense, considering how much trash you consistently produce. But a wonder, do you really know what I am?”, the Pink Zen tilted her head with an eerie smile. Zen’s breath hitched at her counterpart’s choice of words, but didn’t acknowledge it. This is how blockheads always are. She can handle it.

“You are nothing but another obstacle to overcome. Now leave. Or I’ll destroy you just like the rest of your kind.”, Zen glared as bamboo began sprouting around her and she gripped the closest stalk. Without missing a beat, she ripped it out of the ground and pointed the sharp head at the ever smiling blockhead threateningly. Her pink counterpart stared at the end of the bamboo and simply chuckled. She put a hand on her cheek and looked at Zen with half lidded eyes.

“That’s cute. Too bad your little stick won’t be able to do much about me.”, the pink blockhead smirked as Zen gritted her teeth. She moved the rocks on her head to hover around her protectively and glared.

“That’s enough!”, a jet of high pressure water shot out of the bamboo towards the pink entity, while Zen simultaneously shot her arm up, prompting several sharp bamboo shoots to spring from the ground behind and under it. Water collided with bamboo, causing cracks to form in the surface, but not touching the blockhead. Zen raised her guard and grabbed another bamboo pole. Her eyes shot back and forth, looking for the threat frantically. She didn’t know what abilities a pink blockhead might have, and she was getting a very bad feeling about it.

“Quit hiding you coward!”, Zen shouted as she spun around. A familiar chuckle sounded through her bamboo forest as she gripped her bamboo tighter. She wanted to avoid using the CREATE button for this fight if she could, since there was a possibility of it spawning another blockhead.

“Am I the coward though? I think we both know that’s not true~”, the sickeningly sweet voice rang in Zen’s ears as a shiver shot down her spine. She spun and shot a jet of water in the direction the voice came from, snapping several poles of bamboo in the process, but not the blockhead. Zen glared through the bamboo and held up her chosen weapons.

“I don’t want to hear it! Show yourself if you’re so sure about me!”, Zen taunted, getting more worked up than she would like to admit. This thing’s voice was having an affect on her that made her blood run cold and she wanted it gone.

“Don’t get cocky. You have no idea what I’m capable of after all. Just like everyone else… not that you're capable of much anyway. They aren’t missing much.”, the voice chided in a condescending tone. Zen’s eyes widened slightly, starting to understand what it was getting at. Not wanting to appear weak, she forced her glare to harden as she kept a defensive stance and made her way through the bamboo.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”, she stated in false confidence. Almost immediately, the voice burst into laughter, making Zen freeze at how close the voice sounded. She spun on her heels to attack, but froze as her eyes caught those of the blockhead’s. Her pink counterpart floated upside down, arching over her so that their eyes were level.

“Oh I think you do… all those creations you have locked up and hidden from the world. What’s the point? You'll never get over your fear and share them with others. They’d never like the trash you make. You understand that, yet you still continue. You even fought off my fellow blockheads to defend it all. Why?”, piercing pink eyes bore into Zen’s hazel ones as she went completely still. Her mind screamed at her to move. To attack. But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t look away. She was stuck staring into an ocean of sickly pink, listening to her own voice speak the thoughts she’s been pushing away for so long.

“You… you don’t know me. Y-You don’t…”, Zen’s mind unraveled bit by bit as her pink counterpart seemed to glow even brighter. A pink haze entered the edges of Zen’s vision as her grip on the bamboo began to loosen. Pink Zen grinned wider.

“Oh, but I do know you. In fact, I think I know you better than you know yourself. Wouldn’t you agree?”, her eyes flashed pink and Zen could only nod her head slightly. Her eyes were burning and her ears were ringing. Her body relaxed slowly as more and more pink entered her vision, tinting everything she saw with the color. Pink Zen twisted her body so that she was floating on her stomach with her arms crossed under her head.

“That’s right. I do know you better. You don't like creating. You don’t like what you create. That’s why you never share it! Littering is a crime after all. You can’t just dump trash anywhere you want and expect people to praise you~”, Pink Zen hummed. Zen nodded again as her words echoed around her head. It’s trash. All of it. She can’t possibly show anyone. She didn’t enjoy creating. She just did it out of boredom. She hated her creations. They could never compare to try creations. She made trash. Just a mess.

“Hmmm~ I have an idea! All those blockheads you fought off may be gone, but the trash they were connected to isn’t! That doesn’t seem right, now does it? Now, what do you do with trash you don’t like?”, Pink Zen asked in a sing-song tone. Zen’s mouth opened slightly.

“Throw… it out…”, she mumbled in a monotone voice. Pink Zen sighed and scoffed.

“That’s not enough. What if someone sees it in the trash? You can’t risk it! So, what should you do to make sure it’s never seen again?”, she pushed, squinting at Zen expectantly. Without skipping a beat, she responded.

“Destroy it.”, she stated in a harsher tone. The hatred and disgust for the trash she had produced, fueled by Pink Zen’s influence, solidified her decision. It all had to go. All of it. None of it could stay. It didn’t deserve to exist. Pink Zen hummed in satisfaction and nodded.

“That’s right! Now, let’s get to work. You’ve got a lot of garbage to hehe- sort through.”, Pink Zen clapped excitedly and nudged Zen back towards her home in the forest. Zen made no effort to fight back and let her pink counterpart guide the way.

___Timeskip___

Pink Zen was right. There was a lot to go through. Creation after creation was smash, torn, burnt, and in the end, deleted. It took almost a whole day to go through everything. And as the day dragged on, the pink in Zen’s vision began to waver. Her thoughts and emotions clashed as her actions began to falter. Regret, dread, doubt, fear, and anger pulled at her soul from all directions.

And then it ended. Everything was gone. The destroyed pieces never to be seen again, thanks to the DELETE button. As she gazed upon the vast emptiness that was once her beloved creations, Zen spotted something on the ground. She approached it, somewhat trembling from the strain of Pink Zen’s grasp on her mind, and stood over it.

“What is it? Oh, that old thing... Leave it. Let it be a reminder of the trash you create. Now let’s go. I have something for you to do.”, Pink Zen picked up the old stuffed figure of a red panda by a leg.

That’s right. That was her first creation, wasn’t it? She had first woken up in a natural bamboo forest, surrounded by a few red pandas who were sleeping on her. It was her first inspiration. She wanted to remember them, so she made the stuffed animal with whatever she could find. It was so old and worn that most of the fur had been rubbed off, and it wasn’t quite as soft as in the beginning… trash. It’s trash. Trash she needs to destroy. Zen took a few steps forward and reached out for her first creation, but Pink Zen yanked it away.

“Hey! I said no, you hear me? Don’t you dare disobey me!”, Pink Zen shouted angrily, holding the stuffed animal almost protectively out of Zen’s grasp. In response, Zen lunged at her without hesitation. Having been caught off guard, Pink Zen’s hold on her faltered and finally fell away.

Zen’s vision cleared of the pink haze and she blinked. It only took a second before everything came crashing down. Her pupils dilated and tears stung her eyes. Bamboo immediately shot up around them, with Zen pinning Pink Zen to the ground. She grit her teeth and eyed the red panda stuffed animal that was still in Pink Zen’s grasp. She was protecting it, and Zen now knew why.

She shot her hand out and tore the small animal from her pink counterparts grasp. Pink Zen practically rawred in anger and tug back. The two pulled as hard as they could, until a rip was heard. Zen was sent flying back and hit the bamboo behind her. In her hand was the stuffed red panda, but it was missing an arm.

She look up frantically, and stiffened at the sight of Pink Zen gripping a pink bloodied stump where her arm once was. She growled in pain and shot her head up, glaring daggers at Zen. she could already feel her head spinning as Pink Zen’s eyes flared up and she staggered to her feet.

“GIVE THAT TO ME NOW!”, she demanded with venom in her tone. Zen, now having better understanding of how she worked, immediately looked away from her eyes and sprinted away into the forest. A loud, ear piercing screech was heard behind her as she clutched her first creation against her chest. She knew what she had to do. She couldn’t beat this monster in battle, but she could destroy her source. It was the only option she had.

Zen made her way into a clearing and stumbled to a stop. She gasped and trembled as she heard that thing approaching quickly. Tears stung her eyes as she tore a pole of bamboo from the ground and threw the stuffed animal to her feet. She couldn’t wait for the energy for the DELETE button to return. She needed to do this now. Positioning the sharpened bamboo over the chest area and looked up for Pink Zen.

Right on cue, the pink entity came crashing through the bamboo, trailing pink blood all the way. They made eye contact for a moment before Zen pierced the stuffed animal’s chest. Almost simultaneously, a huge hole ripped through Pink Zen’s chest. She screeched in pain, but it soon turned to coughing, then sputtering. She fell forward and landed with a hard thud. Pink blood splatter upward, staining Zen’s face and clothing. Her hands trembled violently as she fell to her knees and choked up.

She felt something wrap around her wrist and looked up in fear. Pink Zen was smiling menacingly up at her as blood smeared on her wrist from her hand.

“Y-you… w-will NEVER be free o-of us. Never… F-forget this…”, her eyes rolled back into her head and her grip on Zen’s wrist slackened. But she smiled regardless. Zen stared down at her, tears streaming down her face as she trembled. She pulled her wrist from the limp, cold grasp and stood up, not bothering to wipe away the blood or tears.

Turning back, she looked down at the now destroyed stuffed red panda. Her first creation. She destroyed her first creation with her own hands. Just like the rest of her creations. She destroyed them all. Everything she had done. Everything she had worked so hard on. All that time and effort and passion, and it was gone. Zen gently picked up the stuffed animal, only for it to practically crumble at her touch. That’s it. Completely destroyed. Oh god, has she done? What does she do now?

“Nonononono….. Please no…”, Zen sobbed quietly as she ran a hand through the destroyed remains of her first creation. She stayed there for hours, letting out the grief she felt until she had no more energy and passed out.

___Timeskip___

“-is that really-”

“-pink-”

“-happened here-”

“-one hell of a fight-”

“She’s waking up!”

Voices and light flooded her senses as Zen stirred slowly. With some effort, she managed to pry her eyes open. When she did, she found two blurry figures standing over her. Immediately panicking, she shot up as bamboo sprouted to life around her, forming a makeshift wall between her and the others. Some shouts were heard as she pushed herself back frantically, her rocks already in the air and ready to shoot at any threats.

“Holy-! Whoa, did you do that without the button? That’s so cool!”, a female voice called out from… above her? Zen looked up and spotted a female with bright golden wings, flying above the bamboo. The blue hoodie and blonde hair told Zen that this was not a blockhead. Wiping her eyes of the residual sleepy blurriness, Zen blinked and looked towards the others.

Aside from the girl with the golden wings, there was another girl with brown hair and black wings, both looking at her in interest. Zen squinted and rubbed her eyes again… no, still there. Cautiously she stood up, using a rod of bamboo for support and eyed the two of them.

“Um… who are you?”, she asked, trying to keep her tone steady. Though that was pretty difficult, having just woken up after… everything that happened. There was a ‘woosh’ sound and the golden winged girl landed on the ground in front of her. Zen had to force herself not to let bamboo sprout in surprise. The girl smiled kindly at Zen and offered a hand.

“I’m Lorel! Back there is Shandy. What’s your name?”, she asked in a friendly tone. Zen glanced down at Lorel’s hand and shook it hesitantly.

“I’m… I’m Zen. What are you doing here?”, she asked rather bluntly, not really meaning too. Lorel smiled while Shandy came around the bamboo to her side.

“We noticed some serious blockhead movement in this area and came to see what was up. And it looks like we were right-”, she pointed her thumb back at the body of the pink blockhead that had caused Zen so much pain. She couldn’t help but stiffen at the sight and look away, gripping her shirt in her hands tightly.

“You beat it, didn’t you? Pink ones are super rare! I’m impressed you were able to win on your own! Oh- uh, no offense! I just meant that-!”, Zen smiled softly at Lorel’s sudden frantic politeness ramble and chuckled softly.

“Don’t worry, i got it… I can’t really say that i- well… won, though…”, Zen trailed off, biting her tongue as the memories resurfaced. She lost everything because of that monster. She couldn’t see this as a win in her eyes.

“Huh? What do you mean? You killed it, didn’t you?”, Shandy asked, gesturing both to the body and to the pink blood that had stained Zen’s skin and clothing. That’s right, she passed out without doing anything about that, didn’t she?

“I… that thing was different from the other blockheads, alright? It got in my head, made me think things I shouldn’t be thinking. I-It made me do things that I-.... It controlled me, but it lost control and I broke free. I couldn’t fight it, so I destroyed the creation it came from.”, Zen tried to summarize it without going into detail. She really didn’t want to relive any of that. Shandy and Lorel exchanged glances and seemed to have a silent agreement.

“Well… seeing as you seem to need a place to stay, and you need to recover after your fight, why don’t you come with us to Creatorverse?”, Lorel offered, moving away from the topic of what happened. Zen paused and raised an eyebrow.

“Creatorverse? What’s that?”, she asked in confusion and slight interest. Shandy and Lorel both seemed to brighten up at these and smiled.

“It's a floating city we made as a sort of rest stop or anyone to take a break from travel and such. And it seriously looks like you could use a break.”, Shandy pointed out semi-jokingly. Zen couldn’t help but let out a low chuckle as she nodded softly in agreement.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right…”, she trailed off and scanned the area. As much as she used to call it home, there was literally nothing left. Just bad memories and grief. Sighing, she nodded firmly and turned back towards Shandy and Lorel.

“Okay. I’ll come with you.”, she said with a bit of confidence. They both smiled and nodded in response. Then they paused and glanced at each other, specifically their wings, and back at Zen.

“The thing is, well, Creatorverse is a floating island… so one of us is gonna have to carry you, if you don’t mind.”, Lorel explained a bit awkwardly. Zen nodded in understanding and gave a lopsided smile.

“Actually, I can take care of that part.”, she said while holding a finger up in a ‘wait’ gesture. She then moved the two largest of her rocks down towards her feet and simply hopped on them. The other two rocks hovered by her arms in case she needed to steady herself, which was highly unlikely but you never know. She moved them up and down in sync a few times before getting the right feel and nodded towards the others.

“Alright. Lead the way.”, she gestured up towards the sky with a patient smile. Shandy simply shrugged and nodded while Lorel seemed to eye the rocks with an impressed expression. And with that, the three took off. Zen looked back with a frown, vowing to herself never to let something like this ever happen again.

________________________________________________________________

AAAAAND DONE! I hope if you made it this far that you enjoyed! This is my first time sharing my writing, so I’d love any feedback I can get!

Shandy belongs to: @shandycandy278

Lorel belongs to: @onlyplatonicirl

Zen belongs to me

[pseudofaux]

Gifts (Kirigakure Saizo - a birthday story for Kara)

Happy birthday, @karalija honey! Thinking that we have been friends for a year floors me. Time flies when you are cracking dirty jokes. ;}

NSFW.

I woke up somewhere I had not fallen asleep, somewhere that smelled distinctly feminine and worldly, sweetly spicy, like cloves. When I moved to get up, a hand stopped my progress, slim fingers pressing me back down to rest my cheek on silk.

“Good morning, dear one,” Yuki murmured, petting my hair like a cat.

Uh oh.

“I know that silly boy has asked me not to come by unannounced, but since today is a special day, I decided to bend the rules a little so I could bring you your presents.”

Actually, Saizo had been explicit that she should never come by ever, and said if he found her around me he would tell the village elder something she did not want him to know.

I could enforce that not a whit with my head in her lap, so I only said “Ah… thank you,” remembering how she valued good manners. There wasn’t much else I could do, since she’d blocked my attempt to sit up.

Her giggle was beautiful.

“You sweet,” She praised, stroking gently along my temples. “I wish I could spend the day with you and spoil you like a sister should, but I need to go now.”

Faster than a candle going out, her hand came under my head to take the place of her lap, and then the pillow roll was under my neck, and there was the softest, smoothest brush of her mouth against my forehead as she kissed me. And then Yuki was gone.

The shoji slid open, and Saizo was frowning. He all but marched over to me and crouched beside our bedding.

“Morning visitor.” He said flatly, eyes darting to the corners of the room. It wasn’t a question. Just like it wasn’t a question that he was in a terrible mood.

“She was here when I woke up,” I confessed, hoping being forthcoming would keep his ire where it belonged: not on me. “Where were you?” I asked.

He waved his hand over me. I thought he was likely trying to get rid of Yuki’s perfume.

“You should bathe,” he said. And then he turned and left.

He probably wouldn’t touch me until I did, given his mood. So I got out of our bedding, put it away, and prepared my basket of bathing supplies with treasures Saizo had brought me over the last few months: a soap that left my skin sweetly scented, and a small vial of oil that would make me smell like his love for me.

Next to the little bottle were two others, colored ribbons tied around their necks. They weren’t there when I put things away after my last bath. I knew right away where—who—they had come from. And had I not, there was a note. Of course.

Happy birthday, darling girl. I know some people in your life have trouble with their feelings. If you need someone to be honest with you, use the blue flask. All of it. If you need someone to be distracted, just a drop or two from the pink will do nicely. They taste lovely, no need to mix them with anything.

I sighed when I finished reading the note. The lettering was light and beautiful, and I didn’t doubt these bottles would do something resembling what Yuki promised, but I’d need to give these to Saizo. His sister’s gifts were too dangerous.

“This is not bathing,” came a voice right behind me, startling me. Familiar hands, nevertheless always surprisingly strong, clamped around my upper arms, keeping me from jumping.

“I was,” I swallowed, “getting ready.”

“What’s the hold up?” Saizo asked. Had he been waiting for me?

Hoping it wouldn’t ruin things, I said, “Yuki,” and tried to hand him the letter. His hands tightened around my arms before he let go and took the paper from me. He didn’t swear. He didn’t say anything.

“Saizo…?” I asked after a minute. When he didn’t answer, I turned around.

He was gone.

I put my little kit of special bathing supplies together and went to clean up. No one disturbed me, welcome or not. A morning bath was decadent, and one with special potions and scents felt almost too indulgent. Almost. I was smiling as I returned to the room I shared with Saizo, planning to dress and figure out what to do with myself on this rare day off.  

Saizo’s irritation at Yuki wouldn’t fade quickly, so I expected I’d have time to myself. I did not expect to see him in our room, especially stretched out lazily on our bedding. Smiling. Smiling!

“H-hello,” I greeted him, heart already thumping at the sight of him. “I’m here.”

“So you are,” he said. There was nothing unhappy in his voice. It was all honey, actually, and even though I should have known better it went right to my knees and I did nothing to fight it.

“You put the bedding back out,” I said softly.

“I put bedding out,” he answered, contrary but not unkind. “Would the little lady care to check my work?”

I beamed at him. He was never so warm in his flirting! I put my things down and went to him immediately.

I hummed as I snuggled up to him. “This feels very nice,” I said. Happy enough that his mood seemed turned around, I dared to add, “Good job,” and my toes curled when he laughed.

“Someone should pay closer attention,” he chided. “This is an entirely new futon.”

I tried to sit up and inspect it, but Saizo held me to his chest.

“If you’re going to be so adorable, we’ll need a softer one,” he said silkily. I was shocked to stillness. Had Saizo said that?

I did not mishear his laugh. He turned me in his arms so my back was pressed to him. When I tried to look at him over my shoulder, one of his hands gently pushed me to face forward. His touch lingered on my cheeks, hand underneath my chin as he stroked either side of my mouth.

“Suck,” he said, and there was no mistaking that at all so I did, immediately. His thumb tasted sweet. Sweeter than it should have. My eyes flew to the little bottles on my shelf of treasures.

“Focus,” he said, pulling his thumb in the opposite direction. I followed it without thinking.

“What do you want for your birthday?” Saizo asked, a tiny hiss escaping him at the end as I pulled as hard as I could on his thumb in my mouth. He jammed the finger in farther, surprising me. I swirled my tongue around him, feeling the knob of his knuckle and even the texture of the scar on the inside of the digit.

I’d dried myself off after the bath, but it wasn’t meant to last with Saizo behind me, stroking my tongue in a commanding, promising way. I felt my hips start to move. Felt a part of him not giving against the movement, and shuddered blissfully.

“Make a man guess and you may get something you don’t like,” he whispered darkly. I sputtered.

“You!” I said. I had entirely forgotten his question. I went still, waiting to see how he would react.

“Fool,” he said, but it was quiet and sweet, and he nuzzled into the hair at the back of my head right after saying it. I could feel the pull of his breath as he smelled, and his chest pressed against my back.

“You used your oil,” he said.

I nodded and mmhmmed. I missed his thumb in my mouth.

“Where?” he asked.

“The back of my neck,” I told him, and he moved his nose down through my hair to get to it. Oh… He was breathing in deeply, and his hands were on the knot of my robe.

“Wrists,” I offered before he asked. I felt his silent smile against the base of my neck. I held one up for him and indeed, he moved to breathe it in.

“I don’t know if I want to tell you where I put the rest,” I said. Where had that come from? Even confessing the reservation felt like too much!

Saizo hummed onto the back of my shoulder. “You know I’ll find it.”

I was already deep in his thrall.

“Yes,” I said breathlessly. “I hope you will.”

I moved to clap a hand over my mouth before I said anything else, but he was quicker, his hands flying from my waist to my wrists to hold them still.

“No,” he said. I didn’t think there was anything to be gained from trying to argue with that, but I struggled a little in his grip.

“But I don’t know why I’m saying those things.”

“Don’t you?” Saizo asked.

Did I? I thought of the sweetness on his thumb. It had only tasted sweet, unlike the bitterness of most of Saizo’s ninja elixirs. But those hadn’t come from Saizo…

“You emptied those bottles from Yuki, didn’t you?” I asked.

“I’m not in the habit of picking up after you,” he said flatly.

“Just rescuing me all the time,” was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. His grip on my wrists flexed tighter.

It was quiet for a moment as I tried to understand why I’d said that or how the words had come out of me. Then there was a soft rustle as Saizo pulled me by the wrists, putting me on my back and beneath him. My body practically slid on the smoothness of the new bedding.

“Are you saying you’d rather squirm in danger?” he asked. His expression was disinterested but that he’d asked at all was a tell.

“That depends,” I answered, breathless again. Something in me felt daring.

Silver and scarlet swamped my vision until my eyes closed as he kissed me. It was sweet at first, a gentle pull of my bottom lip into his mouth, a loving brush of his tongue against mine. Then it was deeper, and I felt like the room might be spinning. His hands were still around my wrists, denting the futon with them as he pressed me into the plushness of it with those hands, with his body, with his mouth.

Saizo’s tongue was sweet. Sweeter than usual. But I was too dizzy from kissing him to give it much thought. One of his hands let go, trailing down my forearm. The sensation had me moaning into him, and he gave me a little “heh” right back. The sound settled where I wanted him to be. He could do this all day, winding me up coolly. I could only hope a birthday might be a day he’d take pity on me.

My robe was opened and his palm was sliding along my abdomen before I realized he’d even gone back to the knot. Sneaky, wonderful ninja.

“Touch me more,” I begged. I didn’t quite know what was happening; he’d put two sweeter than usual tastes right on my tongue, he’d evaded my question about throwing out Yuki’s presents, and I was on fire for him and feeling very open about it for once.

“That’s the idea,” he said against my mouth, and his fingertips rolled over one of my nipples in that absolutely perfect way he’d always known I would like.

He worked me skillfully for a few minutes, easing back from his slow, sweet kisses to let me breathe or moan in appreciation. He was far more talkative than usual, murmuring that I was alluring and perfect and humming in a satisfied way I had rarely heard before. His enjoyment sent mine spiraling until I was whimpering under him and rocking my hips up, having pressed a slick patch onto Saizo’s robe.

I wasn’t beyond begging. Once he got started, I never really got to be.

“Saizo, please,” I said, pushing up at him.

“Please what, pretty little lady?” The additional endearment went right to my heart.

“Please be in me,” I whined. “I need you.”

“Need, you say?” And he kissed me firmly, smiling. But he was pulling his hips back and his hands left my body briefly. “Look at me,” he said, and I did as he asked just as I felt the head of his cock pressing against the most sensitive part of me, needy for contact, needy for him.

He smiled as he held my gaze and shifted his hips just a little lower. “Legs up,” he said. I shuddered.

When I’d moved to his satisfaction, he smiled again.

“Not half as much as I need to be in you,” he said clearly, and then he pushed into my body, fast and deep, and I was so overwhelmed I groaned. He felt so good. Had he really said that? My mind was scattered, thoughts grains of rice from an overturned basin. Saizo wouldn’t—he would never—

He grunted and kissed me again, and I was lost in a familiar way. The proud head of his cock spread my body, undeniable, so strong I could feel the shape of it inside myself.

*

Hours later, coming out of the daze of it all, I tried to ask again.

“You got rid of what Yuki brought me, didn’t you?”

He made an entirely noncommittal noise and stretched his arms behind his head. I’d know that move anywhere. He was settling to sleep and intended to avoid answering questions.

“Come lay on me,” he said. It wasn’t an answer, but it was gently said and offered me what I wanted, so I shifted to lay on him instead of next to him.

One of his hands came down to stroke my back, raising pleasant shivers.

I’d try one more time and then succumb to the lovely exhaustion he’d gifted me.

“Saizo, I want to know. About the elixirs. We were both different today.”

He was quiet, so I looked up at him from his chest. He looked at me with that rare smile, the sweet one that spun me around his whims, sure as a spindle. Then he arched a brow.

“Perhaps little lady should study to be an apothecary.”

“Please just tell me,” I asked. His expression moved to something put out, the way he often looked with Yukimura. But I knew he loved Yukimura almost as much as he loved me, so it didn’t sting.

“Might need to be a little cleverer to be an apothecary,” he murmured. He was drumming his fingers up my skin with the gentlest pressure.

“Saizo. Why won’t you tell me?”

“Nothing to tell,” he said. That did sting. We’d just been so close.

“You’re awful,” I answered, settling back on his chest, feeling isolated despite our contact. He went still, then both his arms were around me, one at my back and the other hand threaded through my hair, holding my head to his chest. I didn’t want to give into how much it soothed me, but my body responded.

When the room was very quiet, Saizo squeezed me and said “I need no drug to want to love you, and you need none to tell me how you feel.”

That wasn’t an admission either way, I noted, but it was a very openly affectionate thing for Saizo to say. I hoped. I wiggled in his hold, snuggling closer, and decided to be satisfied for now.

“Should I give you something to help you rest?” he teased. I tapped his shoulder in a light smack and scowled.

“No need,” I borrowed his phrasing, closing my eyes. He chuckled and rubbed my scalp with his fingers.

When I woke up from my nap, he was still holding me. His fingers were relaxed, buried in my hair, and his arm rested heavily across my back. He was breathing evenly beneath me, with me. The feel of that gift in my heart was the sweetest thing I’d ever known.

[livingcorner]

How to Stock an Indonesian Pantry

Depending on what and where you eat, you might mistake an Indonesian dish for an Indian curry, Chinese fried rice, or a Filipino stew. But nothing is quite like Indonesian cooking. And once you learn what goes into it, you’ll be able to recognize it anywhere.

A World of Influences

No doubt, Indonesia’s multifaceted cuisine has numerous influences: Arab and Indian traders brought spices, rose essence, and dishes like martabak (stuffed pancakes). The Spanish introduced chiles. Rijsttaffel (literally “rice table”) is the larger-than-life Dutch interpretation of the traditional Indonesian meal of rice plus several dishes. But the Chinese immigrants likely had the biggest impact, bringing noodles, soy sauce, and soybeans to the archipelago.

You're reading: How to Stock an Indonesian Pantry

Of course, cooking styles and ingredients vary according to region. The food found on Java and Sumatra are better recognized globally—think beef stew (rendang), chicken satay (sate ayam) and chicken turmeric soup (soto ayam). But branch further out to places like Sulawesi (Celebes) and you’ll find meat- and blood-stuffed bamboo tubes, and fresh-caught fish, grilled and served with a variety of dipping sauces (sambal).

But a Dark Horse in the U.S.

While Indonesian cuisine is revered both within the country and regionally in Southeast Asia, it isn’t as well-known as say, Thai or Vietnamese cuisine in the U.S. There could be any number of reasons, but chief among them is population. The 2010 U.S. Census counts only 95, 270 Indonesians in the country. Since Indonesia was a Dutch colony until 1949, it has had fewer political, economic, and cultural ties to the United States than many other Asian nations. For a comparison, that same census accounts for 3,416,840 Filipinos living in America.

Global cuisine is often promoted through restaurants. Unfortunately, the Indonesian Embassy knows of only 34 restaurants stateside. Not that I’m surprised. Many Indonesian dishes are laborious to prepare, and few Indonesians who migrate to the U.S. deign to open restaurants. (I speak from experience; my family ran one in Seattle from 2007 to 2012. It was popular but a lot of hard work. Let’s just say family cohesion won out in the end!)

The good news is Indonesian cuisine won’t be totally foreign to Americans already enjoying Southeast Asian food.

The Essentials

If you’ve cooked Indian and/or Thai food, you’ll find the ingredients familiar. Turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, and coriander are some of the most-used spices. Lemongrass, lime leaves, ginger, and galangal are ubiquitous. Nutmeg, native to Indonesia’s Banda Islands (part of the Maluku or original Spice Islands) is usually sprinkled into Dutch-influenced dishes like macaroni schotel and risoles. These spices and herbs are blended into spice pastes called bumbu, the very foundation of Indonesian cooking. Herbs like lemongrass, salam, and galangal (a trio I dub the Indonesian bouquet garni) are tossed in while cooking and removed prior to serving.

You can easily find Indonesian ingredients at an Asian market that caters to a Southeast Asian clientele, and maybe even at a specialty store. Any other ingredients, like some of the ones below, can be bought online. I have included my prefered brands but in all honesty, some ingredients are so hard to come by, I say take what you can get! Online sources include:

Indo Food Store

Indo Merchant

Ramayana Store

Import Food

Aromatic Ginger

A.K.A. kencur, zeodary

Used sparingly, aromatic ginger’s unique camphor-like flavor is a welcome addition to dishes like vegetables in coconut stew (sayur lodeh) and Balinese duck curry (bebek Betutu). This reddish-brown rhizome is probably one of the more obscure Indonesian herbs—even I only discovered it recently when my mom revealed the secret ingredient in her fried corn fritters. Sometimes mistakenly called lesser galangal, aromatic ginger is available in the U.S. dried or powdered.

Candlenut

A.K.A. kemiri Ingalls Photography

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Read more: What Color Should I Paint My Kitchen with White Cabinets? 7 Best Choices to Consider

Similar in size and texture to macadamias (which is a decent substitute), candlenuts must be cooked—usually pan-fried—first to remove toxins. These waxy, cream-colored nuts are usually ground with other herbs and spices to add body and texture to curries, sauces and braises. They are high in oil content and will go rancid quickly if not refrigerated. Frozen, they keep for up to a year.

Fried Shallots

Fried Shallots

Fried shallots are showered over everything from fried noodles to soups and sambals. My mom even adds it to spring roll fillings for flavor and crunch. Fried shallots aren’t difficult to make, just tedious and messy. My mom would slice shallots (and Asian shallots are tiny, mind you!), dry them in the sun, then deep-fry. When I came home from school as a little girl, I would often find my mom next to a mountain of fried shallots sitting on newspaper to soak up the oil.

For convenience, I buy fried shallots in big containers from the Asian market. These store-bought brands are usually imported from Vietnam and Thailand. My mom swears by the packages of fried shallots she stashes in her suitcase every time she returns from a trip to Indonesia.

Galangal

A.K.A. laos, lengkuas Penny de Los Santos

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A member of the ginger family, galangal has a distinctive fragrance and flavor. Look for the more tender young galangal that’s pinkish in color. In Indonesian cooking, it is used in braises, soups, and for fried chicken. Peel then chop the rhizome before adding it to a spice paste. Or cut into half-inch slices and toss into soups. If you can’t find fresh galangal, buy them dried and soak 10 minutes in hot water before using.

Indonesian Palm Sugar

A.K.A. gula jawa/merah Matt Taylor-Gross

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Indonesian palm sugar is sold in solid blocks or cylinders. Made from the sap of the arenga palm (and sometimes coconut palm), it tastes of molasses or caramel and is used to make sweets and to balance flavor in certain savory dishes. To measure, shave or grate pieces off the block. Granulated coconut sugar or dark brown sugar make good substitutes.

Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce

A.K.A. kecap manis James Oseland

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The Chinese introduced Indonesians to soy sauce and they made it their own by adding sugar! The Indonesian version has the usual soybeans, wheat, and salt but also includes palm sugar and molasses. It is much thicker and sweeter than regular soy sauce which is called kecap asin or kecap Cina (salty or Chinese kecap). If you can’t find Indonesian sweet soy sauce (Cap Bango is my favorite brand), Chinese or Thai sweet soy sauce will suffice. Or you can make your own with this recipe.

The fried rice of my childhood is doused in sweet soy sauce, and when kitted out with chopped bird chilies and shallots, it makes a delightful dip for fried fish or fresh vegetables. I buy Cap Bango when I can find it, and Cap ABC is my second choice.

The kluwak “nut” is actually the seed of the kepayang tree, a tall tree native to the mangrove swamps of Southeast Asia. The oily, hard-shelled seeds contain hydrogen cyanide and must be boiled then buried in the ground to ferment and be rid of the toxin. W

hen cracked open, the chocolate-brown meat of the fermented kluwak nuts is ground up to prepare rawon, a thick, black stew made with beef or chicken. Kluwak is also made into sambal with garlic and chilies. Back in the day, my mom had to buy kluwak in the shell. She’d crack open each and every nut and scoop out the meat. It was a laborious process but the resulting dish was so tasty! Thankfully, now I can buy prepackaged dried, peeled kluwak even in the U.S.

Lime

A.K.A. jeruk

Limes are indispensable in Indonesian cooking. The juice and rind are both used, for drinks, to flavor marinades, and in soups.

Read more: What Is a Kitchen Hand?

With its wrinkled skin and limited amount of juice, the lime called jeruk purut (makrut, or what used to be known as kaffir), is almost impossible to find in the U.S. unless you grow your own. Back home, my mom used the juice and rind (she’d toss it into the marinade) to brighten the flavor of barbecue foods like grilled chicken (ayam panggang) and satay. The leaves are more commonplace, adding fragrance and flavor to coconut-based braises and soups like tripe soup (soto babat). Potent whether fresh or dried, the leaves can be ripped off the spine and crumpled to release its fragrance and flavor; or slice thinly into ribbons. Frozen leaves keep beautifully.

Jeruk limo (Nasnaran Mandarin) are small and very juicy. They are excellent in sambals and used to neutralize the “fishy” smell of seafood. My uncle has a jeruk limo tree in his Southern California garden and my mom receives care packages every few months. She freezes the limes and uses them sparingly.

Another lime, jeruk nipis, is very similar to key limes. Squeeze over sambals and noodle soups. I often use a combination of lime leaves, key limes and Meyer lemon to replicate the flavors.

Pandan

A.K.A. screwpine leaves Matt Taylor-Gross

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I’ve dubbed pandan the vanilla of Southeast Asia. This fragrant leaf imparts both aroma and color to many Indonesian dishes, both sweet and savory. Pandan leaves are often tied in a knot and steeped in a syrup that’s added to various drinks and desserts. It is also tossed into sweet snacks like sweet black rice porridge (bubur hitam), coconut rice and curries.

As a coloring agent, the leaves are crushed together with some water and squeezed to release their green juice. Bottled pandanus extract is available, but the artificial flavor puts me off and I’d rather go with frozen leaves instead. I still dream of the pandan chiffon cakes that my mom used to make.

Salam

A.K.A. daun salam

Salam leaves (Eugenia polyantha Wight.), a member of the cassia family, add a sweet, earthy flavor to many dishes. They are sometimes called Indonesian or Indian bay leaves. Indeed, they are used in the same way bay leaves are used in Western cooking, but the two are not interchangeable. Salam leaves are only available dried in the U.S. If you can’t find any at the Asian market, omit. It is one of three key ingredients in the Indonesian bouquet garni.

Shrimp Paste

A.K.A. trassi, terasi Matt Taylor-Gross

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As a little girl, I ran the other way whenever my mom started frying shrimp paste. Sometimes, she’d fry it in her gigantic steel wok; sometimes she would skewer a large chunk of it and stick it in the open flame of our gas stove. Thankfully, she always cooked in our outdoor kitchen. The blackened shrimp paste was then sauteed with chilies, shallots, bell peppers and palm sugar to make my mom’s famous chili-shrimp paste (sambal terasi). Raw Indonesian shrimp paste is sold in solid blocks (a pain to break up) as well as in a cooked, granulated form which is so much more convenient to use—buy it if you find it.

In Indonesian, asam literally means ‘sour,’ hence tamarind’s name, asam Jawa. Other sour fruit exist (including asam gelugur and asam kandis) but tamarind is the souring agent I use most often. I’ve seen both dried tamarind pods and “wet” tamarind (coffee-colored blocks in cellophane packaging) at the Asian market, but I prefer wet tamarind. And if I can help it, I never ever buy the ready-made tamarind paste or pulp. It is so lacking in flavor. Break off chunks of wet tamarind and soak in hot water. Sieve to retrieve the pulp.

When Indonesians were given soy beans, they made tempeh—fermented soybeans compressed into savory cakes with a distinct, nutty flavor. Rich in protein and other minerals, tempeh is a nutritional powerhouse and a staple food for many Indonesians, especially in rural areas where meat is scarce. In the U.S., it is a popular meat substitute and available at many mainstream grocery stores. To make Indonesian recipes, buy the plain ones and leave the marinated or smoked versions for next time.

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Kitchen

source https://livingcorner.com.au/how-to-stock-an-indonesian-pantry/

[beautymarred]

Character Mannerisms

REPOST DON’T REBLOG      

“Here’s some considerations for the tiny little details that can add a lot to a character. Figuring out these mannerisms can do a lot for conveying character traits through their normal actions rather than just their thoughts, dialogue, etc.”

Posture: When standing, his posture is often rather rigid, back perfectly straight, shoulders squared back, chin slightly raised, the perfect picture of a proud ruler, of someone who is meant to wear a crown; when sitting, he still sits with his back fairly straight and his shoulders squared, but he also tends to drape and lounge, especially where his throne is concerned. Often he will sit with one leg crossed over the other, both of his arms on the arms of the chair, his back practically glued to the back of the throne.

Their Etiquette: Thranduil knows his manners quite well. His father raised him to be a king, after all, and was taught that appearances go a long way towards perception. As such, he is a gracious host––to those who do not offend him––and usually observes propriety and proper behavior, even if his subjects do not always follow his example.

In crowds: He commands attention and respect, even when he does not seek it. The Elven-king is a rather spectacular and striking figure and, as such, men and elves and all other manner of beings, have a tendency to watch him, even in crowds. It is as much for the way he carries himself as for the finery he wears that he seems to draw the eyes.

How do they point something out: Usually with an almost languid wave in the direction of whatever it is, as though he can’t be bothered to put too much energy behind it.

Comforting self-touch gestures: As might be noted, he has a tendency to have glasses/goblets of alcohol around him. He tends to trace his finger around the rim of the glass/goblet, or to gently swirl the contents of it. When his blade is at his hip, he also has a tendency to keep one hand on the pommel of it, as if to reassure himself that he will be able to react quickly if need be. I would say that he is nigh legendary in his speed at drawing a blade. A quickdraw of swordsman, if you will, just based on that scene in the third Hobbit movie––I mean, what third Hobbit movie?––where he draws faster than a blink and cuts a bow in half. In general, for someone who is so very not tactile where others are concerned, mostly he will keep his hands busy, either with those mannerisms listed above, or with tracing the fabric of his sleeve or tracing his fingers over the texture of the arm of his throne.

Reactions to common emotions:

Anger: Typically, his face remains rather impassive. Sometimes there is a squaring of his jaw, perhaps his lips thin with a frown, or purse, but in general, he remains as telling as stone. His eyes, however, are what one should watch. His eyes will narrow or they will flash, and they will often look as cold and as sharp as his blades. On the other hand, if he is well and truly enraged, it is a different story and there is no way that his anger would be doubted. This is when, despite the discomfort and/or pain it might cause due to his scarring, his speech and his expressions become very animated.

Happiness: Though still his expression will not (often) change very much, his posture will sometimes become a little less rigid, his muscles more relaxed. And, as with his anger, his eyes give him away more often that not as they lose their usual cold, hard stare and there is a warmth to them. Sometimes, if he’s extremely happy or amused––such as when a tiny elfling decided to pledge his fealty to him ( *coughcoughHaldircough cough* )––he will smile wide and bright, nevermind whatever pain it might cause. There are times as well when his smile takes on a more crooked nature, where the left side of his mouth does not pull as far back as the right when he smiles. This is usually to avoid the aforementioned pain.

Fear: Sometimes it is clear in his expression, his mouth agape. Perhaps the most telling, however, is the way his eyes go wide and how his posture becomes even more rigid.

Sadness: It is as though everything about him dims and becomes lesser. His shoulders slump. His gaze falls downward. He practically radiates sadness.

Confusion, curiosity: He often tilts his head, eyes narrowing and brow furrowing in his confusion. Sometimes this will be accompanied by pursed lips, or by owlish blinking.

Most expressive body part(s):

Eyes: His eyes will always tattle on him. Really, the the one crack in his perfect façade. While he can lie with pretty much anything else, his eyes simply will not. If someone knows him well enough, such as his One, Lottie’s Glorfindel or, I suspect, her Haldir, and Feren who is his most trusted advisor, his High Captain, and his herald, they will know to watch his eyes.

How do they sound: Thranduil tends to talk in a rather slow and measured way, but his enunciation is sharp and crisp. He is eloquent and well-educated and that is more than apparent in his speech. As for the actual sound of his voice, it is deep and rich and there is an almost musical nature to it.

How do they handle eye contact: He will not be the first to blink or look away. Even with eye contact, Thranduil expects to maintain command and respect. There are very few from whom he will shy (usually if he is hiding something from someone he knows can read him all too well, such as those listed above) and none to whom he will back down if a staring contest ensues.

Any behaviors they reserve for moments when they’re alone: Self-doubt, melancholy, allowing the weight of his duties (and occasionally of his memories) to show their effect. When alone, he tends to lapse into thought, often either leisurely walking through a room, or lounging.  

What else do they do to comfort themselves: Other than indulging more than he perhaps ought to in wine, Thranduil isn’t exactly the best about comforting himself. He tends to either ‘wallow’ or to give himself some other task to distract––not comfort. When his One still lived, she always seemed to know exactly how to get through to him and with her, he knew at least some measure of peace. After he and Glorfindel build their relationship as gwedyr, he will some times go to him to speak, or merely to sit in silence, or to listen to Glorfindel speak while he remains quiet, listening.

[tsaritsa]

for the serpent has died and i'm leaning by your side (1/6)

this fic can also be found on ff.net and ao3.

NEXT CHAPTER

written for the 2017 fma bigbang! i was lucky to work with @rebbi-sonnenhell on here! it was a pleasure to work with her, and i hope u enjoy what we have produced.

He hates being reduced to the role of civilian – a convalescing civilian, even more. He hates the red tape that surrounds his recovery; hates that Riza still hasn't come out of her coma like the doctors said she would. 

The aftermath of the Promised Day isn't pleasant for anybody involved. 

There’s a lot of noise in the time immediately after Edward deals the killing blow to the homunculus that nearly became a god.

The eerie silence which he expects from all the old stories of good versus evil is instead enveloped very quickly by cheering and yelling and shrieks of jubilation which clatter around in his head like a rouge bouncy ball. He feels the ground trembling beneath him, and he tenses – before realising it is simply the footfalls of soldiers around him and Hawkeye. He estimates that entire battalions pass the two of them and it makes him laugh a little at how easy it is for him to tell which soldiers come from Fort Briggs, and which come from Central. The Briggs men are softer, quicker in their pacing and barely bely the exertion they must feel – the Central soldiers, on the other hand, are heavy and clumsy in their gait, and have no idea of what fitness is apparently.

He feels Hawkeye shift next to him, resting her weight on her other foot, gripping his side a little tighter than he expects as she does so. Her breathing is laboured, and for the first time since the battle has finished Roy really thinks about how much he has put her through today.

It is too much. He should never have had to ask this much of her – and yet she would broker no deal where her role was less. It was difficult to try and ignore the dark circles under her eyes as they woke early this morning, nor the slight gauntness to her frame as they dressed for the battle that would come. The months she spent under the watchful eye of not just one homunculi, but two – took a toll on her physically in ways he didn’t want to think about.

Mentally was another problem altogether.

“Hawkeye…” he begins, his mouth dry and cracking over her name. He feels her breath hitch, followed by a tensing of her muscles.

“Sir?” she responds quietly. Her voice is jagged and rough and he wonders just how much of a patchwork job the young girl from Xing had done. Her cut had been clean, and he would vehemently argue it was the only blessing to come out of that awful situation – at the time all he could think of was her blood spilling out of her like a grotesque necklace, dripping down the hollow of her throat, but in actuality he should – she should – count themselves lucky that a clean cut was all she got. He’s well-aware of how cruel the homunculi could be.

He would never admit this to her, but he had woken up more times than he could count in a cold sweat, images of her impaled on Bradley’s swords like an animal left to be bled (he had read the reports of what had gone down in Dublith the last time the Elric’s had visited, and his informants based there had not spared him any detail). He imagined her being left on his doorstep, gutted and bloodless like a carcass ready to be cut for consumption, ribs brutally smashed open: there would only be hollow where her heart ought to be and damn him for not doing enough to protect her.

He doesn’t know too much about the physiology of homunculi, only that they fought well and burned better, but it doesn’t take much to assume that all of them were capable of eating humans. He wonders if it would have come to that, and whether Wrath was possible of the empathy to make her death a quick and clean one.

He doesn’t want to think about the kind of pain that she’s in – what she is doing just to remain upright for his sake – he feels like he has been hit by a truck and ran over at least half a dozen times. Both of his hands are aching and cramping and stinging in a way that is far worse than when he had to burn himself; he feels the blood still dripping down his gloved fingers slowly – the warmth of which makes him feel ill. There’s a pain behind his eyes that reminds him of the migraines he used to get when he was a teenager, and he idly wonders why he didn’t suffer a worse fate with Truth. The Elric’s had lost their bodies in extremely violent and distressing ways; it didn’t make sense that he wouldn’t also suffers something similar. He doubts Truth cares how people come to the Gate – like his refusal to perform human transmutation himself meant anything to the weird not-entity that he can still recall (and he’ll be damned if the last thing he remembers seeing is something like that, he would much prefer a view a little closer to home).

“Sir?” Hawkeye asks him again, her voice barely a whisper this time.

“Am I bleeding out of my eye sockets?” The question is so inane and he has to try his best not to crack a smile – he feels the adrenaline lessening now; his heart no longer feels like it is lodged in his throat, and he feels his pulse strongly in his fingers, a steady but painful tha-thump, tha-thump. Tha-thump. The pain is sharpening now in his hands, and he grimaces as he tries to adjust his right hand that is loosely curled into her side. The stiffening in his tendons is a bad sign – he knows enough about first aid to realise that he needs to be seen by at least a nurse soon, but his men are his first priority. His bleeding, while continuous, has slowed – he feels the gummy texture of the haemoglobin stick around the entry and exit wound on his hand as he shifts it from Hawkeye’s waist to her shoulder, his gloves fraying seams catching on her loose hair. It’s a familiar sensation under his fingertips, even through the fabric of his gloves – she was blessed with thin hair, but plenty of it.

He puts the slightest amount of tension on her hair - not a tug, his head is throbbing and he doesn't imagine how badly she must be feeling, what she isn't letting on to him. The Lieutenant inclines her head ever so slightly – it's an old code of theirs – older than their names; than the well-placed taps of pens on wood; than a lifted eyebrow across an office.

"You shouldn't be speaking," he murmurs, twisting her hair in between his fingers more until he thinks he will not be separated from her. The noises around them are becoming more frequent and loud as every second passes; as every breath passes through his lungs. The air is tinged with gunpowder and smoke. It comes in waves as the wind shifts and Roy is suddenly reminded an awful lot of Ishval. It is the same sounds as after a heavy attack gone successfully; the same atmosphere when the commanders officially declared the end of the war – there is chaos here, but it is tinged with relief, with joy that is barely restrained. He knows there are dead bodies littering the parade grounds here, as there were amongst the sand dunes and rubble.

These soldiers, at least, will be noticed and taken care of with the respect they should not even have to deserve. The Promised Day – whatever the military decides is a fitting name – will immortalise these men and their ranks in stone. There will be parades and minutes of silence as people pay faux penance for sins that they let grow instead of addressing.

A band of Northern soldiers suddenly sprints by, yelling loudly and frantically – their accents a stark contrast to the reserved tones of Central. There is more movement their way now, and eventually Riza stands a little straighter, taking slightly deeper breaths that he can almost feel rattle around in her lungs. “We should move, sir,” she tells him firmly, her voice only wavering a little. “Triage tents are being set up to the north.”

Roy hesitates before he nods, and lets himself be guided by her hands. The cacophony grows louder with every steady, laboured step they make – the familiar screams of makeshift surgery; the frustrated yells for help; the hoarse sobs that are a constant beat in this human symphony. It is too reminiscent of Ishval, and Roy feels ill at the implications of what that means.

He doesn’t need to tell Riza what he is feeling. He knows that she understands, that she too, remembers. Her fingers grip into his coat even tighter as they pass what sounds like a rudimentary operating theatre. They might be walking on polished stone instead of stone carved by sand, but the horrors remain the same and the cruelty of humanity is still laid bare for anybody to see.

He has no idea where they are anymore on the parade grounds. His mind’s eye is hopelessly lost – though he supposes even with eyesight it would still be difficult to recognise the parade grounds now. Riza explains that the middle is torn beyond repair, alchemic or otherwise, and so what’s left of the Central troops and the Briggs battalions find themselves on the perimeters of the land, skirting structural faults that look ready to collapse at a moment’s notice.

They walk in silence for a bit, both intently focused on staying upright amongst the chaos around them. The tang of iron is palpable in the air, and he feels it coat his tongue in a greasy film.

“Hawkeye-” he starts, but she roughly yanks him down suddenly onto what feels like a cot, and he’s still as she lets out a pained sigh, her hand that was so tightly gripping his side loosening. She breathes deeply for a minute, and he can hear how exerted she is. His hand finds her wrist and he strokes over her pulse point, marvelling at how frantically it beats and flutters under his touch. Eventually he feels the tempo lessen and her body begin to relax next to him, leaning into him a little more than what would be considered strictly appropriate. He doesn’t care. She’s warm next to him, and smells faintly of his soap and sweat.

He wonders what will become of the Briggs soldiers, the ones he saw that were soaked with Amestrian blood. General Armstrong would be wise to make a hasty exit from Central if she wanted to keep her men relatively intact. Central soldiers may have been taken by surprise in this attack, hopelessly under-skilled and out-manoeuvred: but vengeance was something that was bred into their bones, into their very beings.

It is cooler here, and all he can hear is the familiar cadences of Amestrian, with the heavy Northern accent thundering out every so often. Northerners were such loud people.

Riza huffs a little and he doesn't stop the smile growing on his face. Against each and every insurmountable obstacle that they faced today, they still made it through – every single one of them, and every single one of his men. Anticipating causalities was a necessary evil of their plan - and it wasn't entirely unlikely that at least one person in his team would get severely injured or worse.

He hadn't been anticipating Riza, however. The entire day had been a flurry of emotional highs and lows and he could still hear her choked-out pleas ringing in his ears to just stop, please don't make me do this, this is not you, this is not who you are this is not –

She truly was his weakness – only she could render him immobile, it was only her now that he could not raise a hand to.

"Thank you for following my orders, Lieutenant," he begins lowly. She shifts a little next to him and it must be killing her that she can't respond but it is killing him more knowing that he is the reason she cannot in the first place. "Without you today..." he sighs and trails off, his gloved thumb rubbing against the bare skin of her neck carefully.

"I fear today might have turned out very differently if not for you. Thank you." His tone is soft, barely carrying over the cacophony surrounding them - soldiers are passing the two of them more frequently where they sit, near what he can only assume is the main triage camp being frantically set up. He knows it is not coincidence that she has moved them both to be near it – not for her sake, of course, but for his. Her ridiculous and at times maddening ability to put him above everything else (including herself) never fails to amuse him as much as it annoys him.

She shifts against him again and the hand resting on his back curls into his side, and he feels the indent of her fingernails, even through the heavy cloth of his coat. He doesn’t stop the small smile he can feel growing on his face, but instead lifts his head up. He can feel the sun on his skin, despite the cool spring breeze that moves through the parade grounds every so often. In spite of the pain that is slowly ebbing from his hands and eyes to the rest of his body, he feels lighter than he has in months.

It wasn’t like his plans (which were always very well-laid, thank you very much) normally went awry, but it was honestly refreshing to realise he wouldn’t need to worry about almost anything for a while now. He wouldn’t need to worry for his life – for her life. He could spend just a little bit of time remembering that he had helped defeat the greatest evil to befall his country in living memory and almost everyone had come out the other side relatively intact.

“Thank you for not dying,” she responds after a while, her voice barely above a whisper now. She shifts a little closer to him, her leg warm against his own. They’re quiet for a while, Riza rubbing his back in a soothing motion, sometimes stopping to trace messages instead. Roy doesn’t care what people must be thinking, at this blatant expression of familiarity that most certainly goes beyond the safe boundaries of a superior officer and his subordinate. He realises that she’s rested her head on his shoulder, and her breathing has slowed, no longer stiff and rattle-like. Her hand still traces letters lightly on the small of his back but they are lazy now, no longer urgent.

Home, he realises after another while, focusing on the languid strokes and the barest pressure of her nails as she begins the word again. Her m’s are beyond recognition, but the kiss she presses into the shoulder her head rests on speaks far more than her bruised and bloody fingers.

His hand shifts from where it had been resting on the edge of her shoulder back to the fragile and mottled skin of her neck, careful not to agitate her wound with the roughness of his ignition gloves as he splays them against the space where her shoulder meets her neck. His thumb slips under the thin fabric of her turtleneck, rubbing firmly against the bone at the top of her spine. It juts out a little more than what he was expecting – and though she’s allowed to relax her posture now, for crying out loud, it certainly points to an underlying concern that she’s not in the healthiest of conditions.

She needs the rest. They all do.

[theroseofthorns]

Rose Hips | A TAMB/MTnY fic for Tumblr

Part IV of IV: She Flies Ever Homeward

(Part I, Part II, Part III)

We arrive home on a drizzly Monday, stepping from Alice's side into the rain. Chise offers her a cuppa, but Elias is already in the doorway and Alice declines. She's carving her alchemists' sigils into the ground on which she stands, crystal gifts from Chise serving as fuel in her palm, by the time Chise has made it three steps. She's well and gone by the time Elias reaches us, sweeping into the mist to draw his robe around Chise’s shoulders, and her body into the shelter of his.

I run on ahead. Silky will want to bathe the smell of sea salt off me as it is, but should I come in with the added “reek” of wet fur, she'll have it in her head she needs to blow dry me immediately. Infernal invention. I shake off what I can in the open doorway before making a dive for the fireplace rug.  

Chise and Elias drift into the doorway soon after.

They pause in it, Chise halting to wrestle off her shoes with Elias’ arm still about her shoulders, as if the rain might reach out and drag her back into its reach at any moment. With the grey world behind them, midmorning sun diluted to a light without brightness, the door frame rising up around them in dark silhouette, they look posed for a photograph.

Chise, released from her shoes, looks up at him from beneath the shelter if his arm and robe with the glimmer if the rain reflected in the green of her eyes--bright against the backdrop of him and the grey world beyond. Her hair is barely damp, droplets running from the crown of her head like a bleeding halo. Elias is eerily dry, being of shadow that he is, as much corporeal as not.

They look at each other for a long moment. Chise speaks first.

“How are you?”

“Better, now that you're back. I worried.”

“I did, too . . . I don’t like making you lonely. Did anything interesting at least happen when I was gone?”

Elias looks up for a moment as if genuinely trying to recall something he may have forgotten before uneventfully declaring that he'd decided the borage was read to cut. Chise smiles.

“We'll have to get some flowers for Silky while we're working, she can put them in the ice cubes again.”

“She does love such decorative detail.”

A beat of silence ensues. The rain outside is loud compared to them. It's a chilly rain, the late summer sort come early and the salamander looks like a cat got into the cream, curled in the fireplace, puffed up with his own usefulness. I've half a mind to chase him around a bit.

“Did you enjoy your trip?” Elias finally asks. I prick an ear, searching for any indication of whether he cares about the answer, or is asking to be polite.

“It was great,” Chise says, “it was so relaxing, it was almost boring, when we weren't in the water.”

“I’d have thought the water would get repetitive.”

“That’s the first time I've been to the ocean.”

A fact which showed when the first moderate swell knocked her clean over while Alice snorted her oft-tempered laugh.

“I'm glad you liked it. Perhaps we can go back, sometime.”

Maybe for the honeymoon.

Chise flushes.

Shut up, Ruth!

“That would be nice,” the chagrin she shows me in her mind carefully contained and thus undetectable in her words. “We found a restaurant I think you'd like. . . Oh, by the way, I brought you something.”

Elias cocks his head.

“A souvenir?”

“. . . I suppose you could call it that, if you want to. Here, just give me a moment. . .”

She turns to the slightly dampened suitcase she's dragged in, only half on its wheels as it tumbled along the path, and wrestles for a moment with the outermost zipper before withdrawing the little gift she’d found him the third day. When she'd insisted on walking the cold dawn beach alone. She's wrapped it in, of all things, her swim cover up.

“Here,” she says, attempting to pass it into Elias’ gloved palm. He falters before taking it and after a moment’s pause, shrugs off his robe to pass over her shoulders while he inspects her gift, requiring both hands to unwrap it.

He must have jumped up quickly when we arrived, or slept late again: He's once more in his shirtsleeves, dressed beyond that only in the tie she once gifted him, and his vest.

He accepts her gift with his now free hands, and studies it for a moment before slowly picking the fabric free from its surface. Once revealed, he holds it up, high over her head, to view it in the muted sunlight. Chise hugs his robe closer around her shoulders, though I know she isn't cold.

“This is impressive,” Elias says of the gift, “it's rare to see a stone so glassy on these shores. It looks volcanic excepting the color. Where did you find it?”

He lowers the stone, dished as though the sea had chosen to fashion them a little bowl, a green so dark as to rival pine, between them again.

“I was wading out by the end if the beach. I saw it up on the sand still holding some water, and it made me think that, even though it's small, it could be used for scrying. . .  So Ruth helped me link it to this.”

She touches the pendent hanging from her own neck.

“I'd appreciate privacy, of course, but . . . Well, I thought, when we're apart, you could use it to see where I am, if you're ever worried.”

“Chise . . . That is . . . “

He pauses, instead of finding words, speaking in the sudden gesture of pulling the hand not cradling the stone to his body and pressing a flat palm and clutching, digging fingers over his breastbone while his jaw hangs open, wordless. Stricken by more emotion that he knows what to do with.

“Elias?”

“I,” he struggles to articulate, “feel like something is clenching up my chest. My heart . . . It hurts.”

Chise reaches up and takes his hand, curling her fingers around the edge of his palm, at the base of his little finger, so that he's clutching her fingers to his chest as much as his own hand. He stares at her, still speechless, holding her hand to his heart.

“It's an excellent gift,” he manages to say, and Chise leans in to throw her free arm around his waist. It's a firm embrace, her cheek against his vest—a smooth texture, and cool, his hand rather warmer—and one he does not return so much as collapse into. Elias put his arm around her middle back, clutching the stone in his hand, and falls across her shoulder like a liquid, muzzle tucked into her hair, torso curled around her so that he's stooped almost low enough to lean on her shoulder.

I can feel the swelling in Chise’s chest as they hold each other, and I elect to look away until Elias straightens up again. Chise doesn’t let go of his hand.

A year has brought so few real solutions, however many false starts. So often, it seems comforting each other is still the best they can do, and I know she doubts as well as I do how effective that comfort can be, given what they face.

. . .  Perhaps I do understand Silky’s rush to fast their hands: Elias is only just beginning to fathom his own emotions, and barely so, but grief, surely, he will come to know all too well someday, however distant or near that day may be. Perhaps she’s seeking to maximize what time they have, that the agony of bereavement might be worthwhile.

Elias breaks their eye contact to glance through the open door.

“Let's get you away from the cold,” he says, and ushers her further into the room with an arm around her shoulders, her gift still clasped in his hand.

Someday, you stubborn fools, you will realize how much you love each other.

***

“Tell me about your trip,” Elias says, as Chise drops in a heap onto the couch beside him. The silver one bustles over to place a cup of tea in front of her on the table, they exchange smiles before she retreats again, returning to her sorting of Chise’s luggage and laundry.

“What do you want to know?” Chise asks, rolling her head along the back of the couch without lifting it as she turns to him.

“What did you do, aside from wading down the beach your own?”

Chise feels flush for a moment without it appearing on her cheeks. Her surprise at his too-knowing jabs is milder than it used to be.

“You weren't watching me the whole time were you!? We talked about this.”

“I didn't have anyone or anything follow you,” he assures her, “as I promised.” However reluctantly. “But I do know you too well to believe you would be reasonably cautious for three unsupervised days. Ruth, did she even bring you?”

“I have no comment.”

“As I thought. But that wasn't my question, anyway, was it?”

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her against his side, waiting for her story. I feel something fuzzy in my chest which says the tune of my thoughts are in sync with hers as he really does want to know floats through my head.

“Well,” Chise begins, “we spent almost all of the first day at the beach. When we got to the hotel, our room wasn’t ready, so we had to leave our bags. We thought we might just go for a walk, but we were talking about swimming, I mentioned that I'd never been to an ocean before, even growing up in japan, and she wanted me to try it as soon as possible after that.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Um… I mean, yes, it just took some getting used to.”

Elias leans down and around, bringing him eye to eye with her.

“How so?”

Chise, to her credit, rarely looks truly sheepish, and so looks terribly endearing when she does.

“Well, I didn’t really realize how…uneven the seafloor is off the beach. It's so smooth on land. I suppose it's silly, looking back on it, but I tripped into a dip in the sand from the waves because I wasn’t expecting it.”

Elias’ impassive skull cracks open at the jaw, teeth parting to allow some expression of concern that even I can predict, if only through the change in intensity in that void sensation of his form.

“It was fine!” Chise hurries to assure him, and his teeth lace shut again. “only I was on my knees still when the next swell came, and so I got a face full of water. Ruth had to rescue my hat.”

Given that all is well that ends well, Elias finds this enormously funny.

In the slow moments between tasks and duties and teaching and musings that make up much of their days together, provided his mood hasn't been consumed by worry or thought in that way which is not quite brooding, but distant to the point of appearing aloof, he can be rather quick to laughter—provided it’s his kind of joke. Little misfortunes amuse him greatly, as does a certain degree of posturing some people consider to be wit, as does irony, the obvious, the disconcerting of others (though that much Chise’s own sharp and oft bitter wit has greatly tempered) . . . The list is a stunningly long one.

Chise smiles, too.

“I got a mouthful of saltwater. It was disgusting.”

He sniggers rather louder. Elias has an odd laugh, at best. Hissing, almost, when it escapes up his throat and out his mouth. When it rumbles in his chest, however, a pang that isn't pain and a swelling that isn't hurtful sometimes resonates so soundly in Chise that I feel one of us must have some wound to lick. Or, at least, an itch.

That is not, however, how she feels just now. The swelling of her quiet, still often-cautious joy stops short, and instead becomes a dull and gut-deep tightening that somehow, incongruously relates to a different tension in her face—some reflexive feeling in her mouth that makes her press her lips together when they would rather press out, a memory tingling across them of an awkwardly executed moment in the snow.

Should she find out about this, the Silver One is going to lose her senses.

 If I’m tempted to say anything to either stop or encourage her in the face of this momentous possibility, I don’t allow it to seduce me completely. I look at them out one eye, just barely cracked, not so much feigning sleep as allowing genuine tiredness to show. It seems a subtle enough approach, as neither of them, even Chise, glances my way to measure my reaction to the electric tension they both must surely feel as she sweeps her eyes across the curves and dips and jutting edges of his skull, perhaps asking herself once again where precisely is most appropriate to kiss someone without lips. I can feel the memory of her last attempt at this burning on her lips, the texture of him smooth and neutral as stone, if inconceivably warmer, rather than the sometimes slick, sometimes splintered feeling of long-exposed bone one might expect. She has her eyes set on a smooth space above the jagged line of his teeth and below his left eye orbital.

Elias’ laughter quiets less steadily than it came. He doesn’t raise his head, or pull further away.

“Chise?” he asks, and she releases a breath she’s been holding in a fevered huff, blinking rapidly, her wandering focus broken. You poor, idiot pup.

“Yes?”

“What is that look on your face? It’s new.”

New to you. She doesn’t usually look at him that way when he’s looking back. She probably doesn’t know that she does it at all--ignorance, however, does not undo the fact that it happens more frequently with every passing month.

“Oh? I don’t know, I think for a moment I wasn’t really thinking.”

“About anything?”

“Not really.”

Elias’ pilot lights burn at her from inside their sockets. She shifts a little. Evidently, this reminds him that his arm is still around her shoulders, as he lifts it awkwardly away by a millimeter or so, still touching her in several places.

Chise clears her throat.

“I guess, I might have been thinking that I . . .  like it, when you laugh,” she confesses. A warmth floods her cheeks that she can feel acutely, but which is not quite visible.

Elias stares at her wordlessly, except to hum to himself. But his arm resettles around her shoulders. Chise swallows unspeakable, confounding words she can’t quite parse within her mind, and looks away.

In the beat of silence that follows, she leans in against his side.

You two, I chastise her, fulling expecting confusion as her response. I receive no such thing.

Maybe next time, she replies within the confines of her mind.

Despite her moments of shyness, I believe she’s growing bold. What advice can I give to her, knowing this?

I settle on: Don’t wait on him any longer than you want to.

Shadow is ageless. Surely, he’s been around long enough that he’ll be able to figure it out.

Her head resting against his rib cage, she promises me that she won’t.

[voresmithing]

Truce: Chapter 14.2

Get outta here, Deadeye.

He hadn't listened.

So now he sits handcuffed to a metal table and on the wrong side of the law.

The Law, it turns out, looks like Commander Fucking Reyes. Or Ex-Commander. Or whatever. Jesse wasn't military and only knew as much about Overwatch as a couple of blockbusters and gossiping through smoky nights with the gang had taught him. But he'd seen the posters, the papers, the magazines, the comics, the action figures, so when Reyes walks into the narrow room with corrugated walls he's been held in for the last hour, Jesse doesn't much manage to bury his surprise.

The thing is, when you meet the Real Person, they're supposed to be smaller than the movies would have you believe. No one is really larger than life. No one can be six-foot-one and feel nine feet tall. And maybe it's just the skull fracture he's still recovering from or being handcuffed so that he can't stand, but Reyes just kind of reads as huge, at some base and instinctual level. The same part of Jesse's brain that tells him when to pull the trigger so that three bodies all hit the floor simultaneously lets him know that this guy could put Jesse through one of these thin metal walls if he wanted to, and that he just might. The interrogation room's stale air coalesces around Reyes like a fist, and he isn't doing anything other than looking at Jesse over the rim a dark blue tablet.

"Huh," Reyes' voice is deep and deceptively mild. His eyes dart back to the screen of his computer. "No wonder it took admin so long to find you."

"Find me?"

Jesse had about ten thousand expectations on how this might go, and thus none at all. He'd been a 'criminal' all his life, but you weren't really a criminal in the Post-Crisis Southwest. There'd have to be laws for that, and authority to enforce them. Deadlock did what they did wanted because no one was there to stop them. So he'd been tied up by other gangs a few times, and he'd drawn lines in the sand that the uninitiated had to walk, but that was it out here. The rest of the country had given up on New Mexico, Arizona, a good half of Texas, and all of south Cali. And hell, that was fine by him.

But it also means he's only seen how this goes in movies and, much like how films always got gunfire and blood-spray and bodies wrong, he's been doubting their validity when it came to setting his expectations on being brought in by Overwatch.

So when Reyes mentions finding him he wonders if somehow the reputation of Deadeye had preceded him to a national level. Flattering and terrifying all at once. He forces a grin. "Who were you looking for?"

"Jesse McCree, that's what you're calling yourself, yeah?" Reyes pulls up a seat as he speaks, tone conversational, and drops the tablet on the table where Jesse can see it. It's a file for a Jessica McCree, born 3/4/2037 in Las Cruces New Mexico. Sex: Female. Parents: Anne McCree and--

'Jessica' doesn't have any photos, but Anne does. Jesse feels something like being squeezed along a bruise that happens to cover his entire chest and looks away.

"So you could only find my sister? Sorry, I was born off the books, so--" Jesse lies automatically.

"That's what admin figured. Not all that uncommon, though you're a little old to be a Crisis baby." Reyes drags the tablet back, taps the file closed. "Til they talked to the hospital."

Jesse grimaces. Thinks about waking up in a smock, in a white room, no gang or gun anywhere in sight. He'd done his best to charm the nurses, at least when he was able to string two words together without drooling, and he'd more or less succeeded. But it wasn't like that meant they'd be keeping his secrets.

He scowls and says nothing. He's learned a lot of self preservation, growing up in Deadlock, and keeping your mouth shut is his number one survival technique. Reyes seems thoughtful and unperturbed, waiting like he expects Jesse to come up with another lie, maybe argue, but after about ten seconds of silence unfurling between them, Reyes speaks as if there had been no gap in the conversation at all.

"So, Jesse," and yeah, Jesse's surprised to hear Reyes make a point to use his name, "What happened to your parents?"

"What do you think?"

"I think," Reyes responds with an effortlessly unruffled tone that reminds him of Dolly, "you should answer me."

Dolly'd always kind of tweaked his tit with that. He grumbles, "Awfully full of yourself, demanding my sob story when you haven't told me your name."

"You can call me Reyes."

He says it like it's nothing, like that information comes unbound from context or questions, but Jesse can't stifle an urge to shift uncomfortably. "...are you really him? The guy in the movies?"

"The guy in the movies is named Charlee Mena. I'm just the guy doing my job. And right now, my job is to figure out what to do with you. So let's try this again, where's your family?"

Somehow, Reyes makes him feel ridiculous for even being interested. It's not like he was even a fucking fan, obviously everyone's favorite was Reinhardt anyway. So he shoves the fact that this guy is that Reyes aside and answers the question shortly, "dead."

"During the war?" Reyes asks, his tone just as neutrally invested, and Jesse nods. There's nothing special about his story, and he doesn't remember much of it anyway. "Anyone who isn't? Cousin, uncle, grandparent?"

Jesse shrugs, and the handcuffs clatter against the table with the movement. "What's it matter? You gonna shove me off on someone instead of sticking me in a cell?"

"Hah, with how marked up your arm is?" They both flick their gazes to Jesse's exposed left arm. The forest of black crosses has grown from his wrist to halfway up his bicep. A territory war had broken out with Bonewash and he'd been busy the last eight months. "You don't even have a chance in hell of even getting tried as a minor, forget parole. Nah, you might be able to fight it a while if you get a good defense, but one way or another you'll go in for life, kid."

That he might get let up on for his age hadn't occurred to him. And life probably won't even be that long. He makes himself grin, cocksure and uncaring. "Sounds like your job is pretty easy then."

Reyes purses his lips. It's the first sign of a temperament being tested, and Jesse has to guess it's because the wrath of the law doesn't inspire any fear in him.

But it only lasts a few seconds before Reyes sighs and stretches, getting to his feet. "Before I hand you over to the feds, I've got a bet to settle with a friend of mine. How's your head feeling?"

"Like shit," he answers honestly. The drugs wore off hours ago, and the throb behind his eyes has been perpetual since.

There's a clacking sound as Reyes removes a set of plastic keys from his pocket. "Can you still shoot?"

"I..." Jesse feels his heart stop, confused and hopeful at the same time. It occurs to him suddenly that no one's going to give him a gun in jail. Life sounds a lot longer when it means bored out of his mind and completely useless. "I can always shoot."

Reyes unlocks his handcuffs, they pop open with a subtle hiss.

"Alright then, let's see you shoot."

It turns out Reyes' friend is Ana Motherfucking Amari.

They find her stretched out in the sun, stripped down to a tank top and combat pants and lining up her sights on remote targets zipping around at what must be a thousand yards out. Jesse can only see them because Reyes hands him a set of binoculars to observe her batting the steel grey disks around like she's playing kick-the-can with bullets. When her magazine is spent and the echo of gunfire has faded, she rolls to her feet and shoulders her rifle in a single unbroken motion. She grins when she sees them, a bright and hard humor flickers across her face as she looks over Jesse, then Reyes.

"Decided to take my bet, Gabriel?"

Jesse swallows, thinking movies really just never stop lying, because once again Hollywood just couldn't can this and reproduce it for a screen.

She's not like anyone he's ever seen. There's a raw, cracked look to people raised out here. Edges like glass, skin like sandpaper. The New Mexican sun will give you the texture you need to hang on through anything. But she's smooth like titanium; not unscarred but merely nicked by blows he thinks might've cleaved someone lesser in half.

He holds his breath. He wishes they hadn't taken his fucking hat so he could take it off. He curses not getting the chance to look in a mirror in days.

"Bet?" He echoes.

"She thinks you might be half as good as your reputation." Reyes crosses to a blue and weather-beaten munitions trunk, popping it open with another tap from his key ring.

Jesse keeps his eyes on Reyes, afraid of what expression might form if he looks at Amari. "You don't?"

"Nope."

It's not a surprise, really. Jesse's lost track of how many times he's been asked to prove himself. Hell, for the boss it'd basically been a game. Showing off his young hot shot, telling Jesse to keep sleeves off his left arm as the tattoos crawled further up it. It had always filled him with two parts smug pride, and one part a buried humiliation whenever he remembered he was performing tricks like a well trained dog.

But frankly if someone like Amari pat his head and called him a good boy he figures maybe there's worse ways to use his talents.

Reyes returns with a pistol, warns him to not get any stupid ideas because it's loaded with low-impact rounds, and holds it out.

Jesse hesitates, hand hovering over the butt, trying to figure out how this might be a trap. But his fingers itch to find a trigger, and after a few seconds he yanks the gun from Reyes' unresisting grip. Whatever, he's fucked anyway.

The gun in his hands feels too light. It is clean and new but worn around the grip in a way that says it sees a lot of use anyhow. Immaculately kept. He doesn't recognize the exact model, but it has full and semi-auto settings, shoots twelve .30 caliber rounds, and is feels almost fragile compared to the modified old Desert Eagle he was used to using these days.

"This isn't my gun."

Reyes has rearranged himself next to Amari, and tips his head in her direction with his arms crossed. "Your gun is evidence. That's her gun."

Looking at them both at the same time feels a little like standing right up on the edge of a cliff so that all you can see is endless, exhilarating sky, and so he only darts a glance at them from under his tense brows. "You can't just give me a new gun and expect--"

"What'd I say, Ana?" There's a smug note to Reyes' voice. "Kid's a con artist not a murder sava--"

Jesse knows his cue.

The first bullet explodes through a thick cardboard silhouette fifty yards out with a rapport that is quieter than Jesse expects but still loud enough to punctuate the end of Reyes' goading statement.

"Ohh, not a bad shot." Amari croons behind him. "Last chance to back out, Gabriel. I won't let you off cheap."

Jesse wonders if they have something going on, in the movies they kept it professional.

"Suure, one bullet into a stationary target. He's a natural. Ana, were you always this easily impressed?" He hears Reyes' smooth sarcasm on his left. Jesse can pick his shape up in the corner of his eye. "Come on, kid. I want to know why they call you Deadeye."

Jesse sucks in a steadying breath, says nothing, and shoots.

He's handled a lot of guns, there were a lot of options when you work for arms dealers. And he's learned to impress with just about every type of pistol he can get his hands on. This one is new, fancy, too quiet and absorbs so much recoil he can't feel the shock in his joints the way he is used too. The trigger depresses so smooth each bullet emerges like a surprise. He empties the clip perforating a line down a single target, nose to groin. The vertical spacing is uneven in a few points, but goes straight down the silhouette's spine.

"Hn. Tight aim, alright, but--"

There is a sharp click from Ana on Jesse's right. "Don't try to weasel out of it. I don't think Jack has that kind of consistency without aids."

"We're not rating Morrison, Ana. This is about if a sixteen year old has seriously been showing up every wanna-be cowboy in--"

"I'm not done," Jesse interjects quickly, shoulders hunching when he realizes he'd interrupted, then presses on anyway. "Give me two more clips."

"Two?" Reyes asks, and Jesse turns to face him, chest puffed with what he hopes reads as confidence.

"Two, if you want to see why I got named Deadeye." He forces a smug grin, "Less, if you're just afraid of losing to her." He tips his empty hand toward Amari.

Reyes rumbles, appraises him with a gaze that makes Jesse feel like his veins have turned brittle, and then gets two more clips.

Jesse reloads, finds his hands are trembling.

He still gets anxious about it, usually when there are lives on the line, but sometimes when it's just his reputation. He breathes, so long and slow that he can feel the warm desert air seeping into him from inside. Shooting is easy, he reminds himself.

He pulls the trigger twelve times in under three seconds.

The sound of gunfire can be soothing, if you hear it enough. If you control it, so it reverberates like music notes in your bones. Echoing from finger to wrist to elbow to shoulder. He can feel it in his jaw, his inner ear. The familiar violence shimmies all the way up his right side.

The bullets rip a large hole in the center of a target twenty-five yards out. He expects to hear something smart from the audience, something about how he should have just fired in auto, but Reyes and Amari are both silent fixtures behind him, and he loads in the last clip.

It's late fall, and the almost-cool temperature is rare and perfect. The light isn't so bright that it increases his headache, and the terrain that unfurls around the temporary buildings serving as Overwatch's base of operations is filtered pastel under the October sun. A half a dozen targets remain untouched, sticking out stark and rigid among the thigh-high shrubs; two at fifteen yards, easy, one more at twenty-five and fifty each, and a couple of real long shots out at seventy-five.

Jesse inhales and cracks his knuckles. Exhales and drops his hand with the gun down near his hip. Goddamn unprofessional, he bets, but it's not about aiming. It's about mapping the pattern into his muscles. Get the thinking out of the way before he even lifts his gun so that when it's time to shoot there's nothing but reflex.

He takes in the range with eyes so wide he can feel the sun pricking the insides of his retinas, jerks the gun up clicks the trigger down four times. His left hand rests level just beyond the rear sight, and each blast sends the gun bouncing up against his palm only to be immediately steadied, fired again.

Four holes bloom into the four nearest targets, starting right and moving left but so fast they seem to appear simultaneously. Eye, eye, nose, mouth.

Jesse's heart races and hands ache like he'd been there shooting for hours. He swells and can't stop a grin that he's afraid to turn and show his captors.

A hand lands on his right shoulder, small but deceptively heavy, and squeezes.

"Nice shooting, kid." Ana Amari says, then, with a grin in her voice Jesse has to turn to get a look at, she walks away, slapping a stone-faced Reyes in the waist as she goes. "Next time we're in Bengaluru, Gabe. My favorite place. You better be ready to drop two weeks pay on it."

Jesse decides he doesn't care that Reyes isn't impressed. The sound of Amari praising him was going to echo between his ears for weeks. Not a bad final shoot.

But when he is handing Amari's pistol back to Reyes (safety on, magazine detached), the momentary elation buoying him putters out and leaves him in a free fall. He turns away to look back out at the desert for as long as he can while Reyes is locking up the weapon. He tries to etch the landscape into memory but finds the idea that he might not see it for a while, might not see it again ever, distracting in its unbelievably. The desert is always there; out every window, at the end of every long road, beyond every mountain stenciled against the horizon. Love it or hate it, you diffuse into it all the same, until only density distinguishes you from the dust in the air.

What could prison do to change that?

Maybe he wouldn't even live long enough to need to worry about it.

There's something brewing behind him, a disquiet in Reyes percolating toward confrontation that Jesse can feel like a thunderstorm charges the air.

In some ways, Reyes reminds him of many men in Deadlock. Guys who hold themselves like they're made out of gunpowder, all dangerous but still inert energy. Some of them will never go off, but Jesse's not fool enough to trust that, and so he's learned to track them with a gut instinct that holds him in an even orbit just outside their potential blast radius.

Jesse makes himself turn, tries to read the meaning in the set of Reyes' shoulders, but can't settle on anything other than 'pissed off'. So he loads up a weak grin, almost self-effacing. "Guess she really got you, sounds like you had a lot riding against me."

"Heh," there's a gravel to Reyes' voice that wasn't there before. "Figured I'd at least get to call it even. But you didn't leave me a lot of room for debate there."

Despite the tense anger, a wistful amusement plays on Reyes' face, and Jesse again wishes he had a hat to fuss at. Mixed emotions can be hard to navigate, especially when he can't figure out the origin. Reyes doesn't actually seem all that burned about the money.

"Are you two, uh... you know?" He asks, mostly to distract, partly to know.

That catches Reyes by surprise, and his bushy eyebrows climb up to his near invisible hairline. "With Ana?" He laughs, a low roll with none of the earlier texture. "I'm married, kid, but not to her."

Jesse doesn't point out that even a kid knows marriage doesn't mean faithfulness, especially not when you're friendly with a lady who looks like that. It doesn't matter anyway, really. The dangerous energy in Reyes has dissipated, leaving the man only frowning at him in puzzlement, and Jesse looks away from the scrutiny, reaches for a hat he doesn't have.

"You ever been arrested before, Jesse?"

That sounds like a trick question, so Jesse stays quiet, waiting to spot the tripwire.

"Didn't think so." Reyes nods, sussing out the truth effortlessly. He leans back against a table with his arms crossed, the table legs scrape over packed sand at his weight. "Going off what I heard from your charming Deadlock pals, half of you have never seen anything but this wild west bullshit. So let me explain how this plays out."

Reyes waits and Jesse says nothing; listening but feeling a hundred miles out. Reyes's low voice harmonizes well with the melancholy settling in his chest.

"You've basically got a few options; you can confess to every life you've allegedly tattooed into your arm there, or try to convince the judge you've just been playing around, that there's no way you've actually put four dozen men in the ground in the last, what, three years?"

"Four."

Jesse doesn't expect to hear Reyes pause at that, but there's a sound of him sucking at his teeth, three beats, and then an exhale. "Mary mother they start 'em early out here." Jesse watches a lizard skitter jerkily through the dust a few yards out and waits for Reyes to continue. "And you know what? If you'd kept your head down, that might've gotten you a sympathy verdict. Toss the kid a lifeline while the adults rot out of sight for the rest of their lives. But nah, you had to go be a show off. So what's everyone going to think when they find out about you making yourself an easy bet in the local death games down here? Trading ears for to make yourself a hot shot?"

Jesse had almost gotten lulled into it; a comfortable, detached acceptance that this was effectively the last day of his life. But the mention of the game jerks him back into the moment, and he stares at Reyes whose lips have curled on the sour story.

"Don't look so surprised. What did you think was going to happen when you and a few hundred other geniuses were handing a woman proof? Expected us to just never hear about it? Hell, soon everyone in the country's going to. Someone's case study is going to get famous, maybe one of your friends writes a book. Next you could be the one appearing in movies."

It feels like his heart has sunk all the way down into bowels. It's disorienting to realize that the idea of having his story in movies actually makes him feel nauseous. Jesse forces a smile but feels it curdling, "Hope they make me hot."

"Would that make it worth it, kid? Get yourself a household name? You sure got it spread out pretty far down here."

"I didn't ask for that," Jesse grates out without looking Reyes in the eye.

"Sure you didn't, just branded your arm up so everyone would know."

"So what?" Jesse spits as his back goes up, more cornered than he'd felt handcuffed to a chair thirty minutes ago. "I live here, asshole, I might as well be good at it."

"How's that working out for you now?"

"I'm still alive!" The shout emerges hoarse and already tired, the effort of raising his voice lights up a pain behind his eyes from the remnants of the injury that had put him in the hospital. "I get to eat every night, I get to shoot all I want, most of the people who'd want to kill me are too scared to try."

Reyes isn't surprised by the outburst exactly, Jesse can't imagine Reyes ever looking like Jesse managed to get one up on him. But his mouth stays closed so Jesse keeps letting his flap.

"Must be nice to just get to ride up in a place you've never given a shit about, toss everyone in prison, then drop by D.C. to collect your medals from the President for taking out the trash. Nice of you to clean up the place for everyone who got to abandon the rest of us when the omnics hit." Not that Jesse remembers when they crossed the border, rolling north in from the Sonora omnium, but he'd heard the story enough from people who hadn't been toddlers at the time that he pictures it as a tidal wave of uneven metal, glinting bright enough to blind as it breaks across the desert. "Maybe you'll get another movie out of it. Sure would help out your public image about now, right ex-Commander?"

As soon as the words pass his lips he feels like they shouldn't have, but the blood is too hot in his head to care now. He steels himself for a fight, fists rolled, ready to give back what he can against the raw force he'd felt coiled inside Reyes since he first saw him.

But Reyes responds with an unimpressed and unperturbed frown. "Yeah, no one came to save you so you can't be held responsible, that's how it goes? Bet you've learned all kinds of lines so you can sleep at night while kids younger than you are killing themselves and each other with the guns your buddies put in their hands."

Jesse glares, struggles not to lose eye contact then does anyway. The problem isn't that Reyes is right, the problem is that he doesn't know the fucking half of it.

The blood rushing through his temples has cooled, but it does nothing for the splitting pain electrifying the space behind his eyes. Abruptly he just wants to be shoved into a cell so he can call it a day. Maybe it would be dark and quiet. Maybe he'd had more than enough sun in his life by now and spending whatever time was left in a place without windows wouldn't be so bad after all.

"What do you even want, man?"

Jesse meant it as a dismissal, and a snotty one at that. Like being called kid over and over by strangers had made him want to live up to it. Whatever it takes as long as they can be done here.

But there is a loaded silence following Jesse's complaint. Jesse feels it coiling his gut like Reyes has his hand on the trigger and is deciding whether or not to pull, and has to double check that the man isn't really pointing a gun at him.

Reyes decides to fire.

"I want you to work for me."

The suggestion catches Jesse like he's finally found the ground after shooting for legends took him high into the sky and then shoved him into the air without a parachute. A visceral pain crushes his diaphragm, making it impossible to breathe. The only sound he manages to get out is a weak and started "Oh."

And though he knows he must have a thousand questions, the only response to come to mind is okay.

Full fic on ao3

[beautyxmarred-m]

Thranduil

Character Mannerisms 

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“Here’s some considerations for the tiny little details that can add a lot to a character. Figuring out these mannerisms can do a lot for conveying character traits through their normal actions rather than just their thoughts, dialogue, etc.”

Posture: When standing, his posture is often rather rigid, back perfectly straight, shoulders squared back, chin slightly raised, the perfect picture of a proud ruler, of someone who is meant to wear a crown; when sitting, he still sits with his back fairly straight and his shoulders squared, but he also tends to drape and lounge, especially where his throne is concerned. Often he will sit with one leg crossed over the other, both of his arms on the arms of the chair, his back practically glued to the back of the throne.

Their Etiquette: Thranduil knows his manners quite well. His father raised him to be a king, after all, and was taught that appearances go a long way towards perception. As such, he is a gracious host––to those who do not offend him––and usually observes propriety and proper behavior, even if his subjects do not always follow his example.

In crowds: He commands attention and respect, even when he does not seek it. The Elven-king is a rather spectacular and striking figure and, as such, men and elves and all other manner of beings, have a tendency to watch him, even in crowds. It is as much for the way he carries himself as for the finery he wears that he seems to draw the eyes.

How do they point something out: Usually with an almost languid wave in the direction of whatever it is, as though he can’t be bothered to put too much energy behind it.

Comforting self-touch gestures: As might be noted, he has a tendency to have glasses/goblets of alcohol around him. He tends to trace his finger around the rim of the glass/goblet, or to gently swirl the contents of it. When his blade is at his hip, he also has a tendency to keep one hand on the pommel of it, as if to reassure himself that he will be able to react quickly if need be. I would say that he is nigh legendary in his speed at drawing a blade. A quickdraw of swordsman, if you will, just based on that scene in the third Hobbit movie––I mean, what third Hobbit movie?––where he draws faster than a blink and cuts a bow in half. In general, for someone who is so very not tactile where others are concerned, mostly he will keep his hands busy, either with those mannerisms listed above, or with tracing the fabric of his sleeve or tracing his fingers over the texture of the arm of his throne.

Reactions to common emotions:

Anger: Typically, his face remains rather impassive. Sometimes there is a squaring of his jaw, perhaps his lips thin with a frown, or purse, but in general, he remains as telling as stone. His eyes, however, are what one should watch. His eyes will narrow or they will flash, and they will often look as cold and as sharp as his blades. On the other hand, if he is well and truly enraged, it is a different story and there is no way that his anger would be doubted. This is when, despite the discomfort and/or pain it might cause due to his scarring, his speech and his expressions become very animated.

Happiness: Though still his expression will not (often) change very much, his posture will sometimes become a little less rigid, his muscles more relaxed. And, as with his anger, his eyes give him away more often that not as they lose their usual cold, hard stare and there is a warmth to them. Sometimes, if he's extremely happy or amused––such as when a tiny elfling decided to pledge his fealty to him ( *coughcoughHaldircough cough* )––he will smile wide and bright, nevermind whatever pain it might cause. There are times as well when his smile takes on a more crooked nature, where the left side of his mouth does not pull as far back as the right when he smiles. This is usually to avoid the aforementioned pain.

Fear: Sometimes it is clear in his expression, his mouth agape. Perhaps the most telling, however, is the way his eyes go wide and how his posture becomes even more rigid.

Sadness: It is as though everything about him dims and becomes lesser. His shoulders slump. His gaze falls downward. He practically radiates sadness.

Confusion, curiosity: He often tilts his head, eyes narrowing and brow furrowing in his confusion. Sometimes this will be accompanied by pursed lips, or by owlish blinking.

Most expressive body part(s):

Eyes: His eyes will always tattle on him. Really, the the one crack in his perfect façade. While he can lie with pretty much anything else, his eyes simply will not. If someone knows him well enough, such as his One [ @ofcldcrdays ], Glorfindel [ @ofgoldcnflowcrs ]  or, I suspect, Haldir [ @ofmarchwardcns​ ], they will know to watch his eyes.

How do they sound: Thranduil tends to talk in a rather slow and measured way, but his enunciation is sharp and crisp. He is eloquent and well-educated and that is more than apparent in his speech. As for the actual sound of his voice, it is deep and rich and there is an almost musical nature to it.

How do they handle eye contact: He will not be the first to blink or look away. Even with eye contact, Thranduil expects to maintain command and respect. There are very few from whom he will shy (usually if he is hiding something from someone he knows can read him all too well, such as those listed above) and none to whom he will back down if a staring contest ensues.

Any behaviors they reserve for moments when they’re alone: Self-doubt, melancholy, allowing the weight of his duties (and occasionally of his memories) to show their effect. When alone, he tends to lapse into thought, often either leisurely walking through a room, or lounging.  

What else do they do to comfort themselves: Other than indulging more than he perhaps ought to in wine, Thranduil isn’t exactly the best about comforting himself. He tends to either ‘wallow’ or to give himself some other task to distract––not comfort. When his One, Haereleth, still lived, she always seemed to know exactly how to get through to him and with her, he knew at least some measure of peace. After he and Glorfindel build their relationship as gwedyr, he will some times go to him to speak, or merely to sit in silence, or to listen to Glorfindel speak while he remains quiet, listening. 

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Everything You Need to Know About Breast Implants

Juan Silva / Getty

When recent Muscle & Fitness Hers cover model Karen McDougal opted for breast augmentation surgery in 1996, her doctor didn’t mention any risks beyond a small chance of capsular contraction, a complication that can occur when scar tissue builds up. McDougal had cautiously chosen saline implants. “My doctor said, ‘You have the safe ones—they’re just water. They’ll last you a lifetime.’”

But after about seven years, McDougal’s health started to deteriorate. She was sick for weeks at a time. Her vision became blurry, and the whites of her eyes turned pink. As time went on, she developed migraines and noise sensitivity so severe she couldn’t tolerate the sound of her own voice, and experienced frequent blackouts as well as Raynaud’s disease, a circulation problem that causes the tips of your fingers to turn white and numb. Her doctors diagnosed depleted hormones and thyroid issues, but no matter how many specialists she went to, no one could explain what was wrong. “No one had any answers,” she says. “I literally felt like I was dying.”

McDougal never suspected her implants were the problem—when a friend confided that his wife was having her implants removed because they were making her sick, she rolled her eyes. But as her symptoms progressed, she began looking online and discovered other women with symptoms similar to hers, including chronic fatigue, insomnia, persistent infections, rashes, and more, all supposedly caused by the body rejecting their implants.

Doubting doctors

Many members of the medical community dismiss the theory that the body can reject implants just as it might an organ transplant. With silicone, your body forms an envelope of scar tissue around the implant, effectively insulating it, notes Debra Johnson, M.D., a plastic surgeon in Sacramento, CA, and president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. For the silicone to leak into your body, both the implant and the capsule of scar tissue would have to break at the same time, she says. It could happen, but it would take something dramatic, like a major car accident or being stabbed. And even then, your body would quickly try to surround the silicone and wall it off again.

When it comes to the symptoms reported by McDougal and others, Johnson acknowledges that there are certainly women who have chronic fatigue, muscle aches and pains, and other health issues, and they also have breast implants. But she doesn’t view that as enough to prove cause and effect. In fact, research that has been done in the past two decades has uniformly failed to uncover any sort of link, she argues. “The breast implant syndrome being described as of late involves all pretty vague symptoms that a lot of people have who don’t have breast implants,” Johnson says. “Back in the ’90s we didn’t have any large long-term epidemiological studies, and that was a problem. Since then there have been huge studies done, and the manufacturers jumped through a million hoops with the FDA to prove [silicone implants’] safety. There has been no evidence to suggest cause and effect.”

But some researchers and medical professionals are beginning to come around to the idea that implants do have inherent risks, beyond those of the procedure itself. In 2011, the FDA warned that anaplastic large-cell lymphoma, a type of cancer of the immune system, may be linked specifically to implants (saline or silicone) with a textured surface. This past year it solidified its stance, definitively drawing a link between the implants and lymphoma, which researchers now believe may affect between one in 3,000 and one in 10,000 women in the U.S. with this type of implant. It’s treatable, sometimes simply by removing the implant, though other times it requires a specialized course of cancer treatment.

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Removing the risk 

For McDougal, the only acceptable option was to have her implants “explanted”. She found a plastic surgeon, David Rankin, in Jupiter, FL, who has developed an expertise in the field for removing the entire capsule while minimizing cosmetic flaws. Rankin estimates he’s done about 400 explant surgeries; these days he does about one explant for every implant. According to Rankin, symptoms like McDougal’s are a rare but real side effect of an otherwise safe procedure, making up what he estimates to be just 1% of cases.

Unfortunately, better-defined statistics and high-quality medical studies about breast implant illness don’t seem to exist, says Diana Zuckerman, Ph.D., an epidemiologist and public-health analyst who leads the nonprofit National Center for Health Research in Washington, D.C. Despite the two decades of breast implant research cited by Johnson, she isn’t impressed. “Most studies are funded by those who have an interest in showing a lack of problems,” says Zuckerman, who was responsible for the first federal government hearing on breast implant safety in 1990. Critics point out the high dropout rate in the studies, with as many as 85% of patients being lost to follow-up. “It’s impossible to know if they’re happy and healthy on their honeymoon in Tahiti or if they’re sick and pissed and their doctor is no longer speaking to them,” says Zuckerman.

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In the handful of small studies that look at the type of hard-to-diagnose symptoms of women like McDougal, the focus isn’t specific to breast implants but rather “adjuvants”—substances in a variety of products and devices, from vaccines to silicone implants to mineral oil fillers, that are thought to cause an immune reaction in some people. (Even saline implants like McDougal’s are housed in a silicone shell.) While these products are generally considered safe—after all, adjuvants are intentionally added to vaccines to improve the immune response, and silicone has been used in medical devices for 60 years—some patients may be predisposed to negative immune reactions based on sheer luck of the genetic draw. For example, risk may be increased in patients with type-1 diabetes. And a 2013 study of 80 women with autoimmune symptoms thought to be linked to breast implants found that 75% had pre-existing allergies, raising the suspicion that people with allergies may be more likely to have a bad reaction.

Patient advocates like Zuckerman say implant complications are like a game of whack-a-mole; new problems seem to pop up every few years. “The first ones sold in the 1960s got hard as a rock,” says Zuckerman. “So they made them more liquidy. Then they leaked and that wasn’t good, so they added polyurethane covers to make them softer. But that broke down to a carcinogen. Every few years they do something different, hoping this new thing will reduce the complication the old implants caused.” Right now, firmer “gummy bear” implants, approved in 2013, are thought to be more cohesive and less likely to leak. But it’s a different type of silicone, so it’s still an unknown, according to Zuckerman. Complications don’t generally appear until the five-year mark, she says.

However, implants are not likely to last forever. Just like a credit card that can develop a crack if it’s folded back and forth repeatedly, breast implants can lose their integrity over time. According to the FDA, almost all women with implants will face additional surgeries. Surgeons often recommend replacing implants every 12 to 15 years, before complications occur.

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You should also be prepared to pay for follow-up medical care, including MRI screenings every two years to check for ruptures, since they may not be covered by insurance. That’s a problem, says Zuckerman, because it’s not uncommon for a woman to get implants at a young age on an installment plan. If they start leaking or making her sick, she might need $10,000 to have them removed. “Insurance won’t cover it, and few plastic surgeons will take them out on the installment plan,” says Zuckerman. “I’ve known women with silicone leaking into their bodies who can’t afford to remove them.”

For her part, McDougal received her explant surgery just a couple of weeks after her photo shoot to be on a 2017 cover of M&F Hers. The result, she says, was almost immediate. The day after her procedure, her vision was no longer blurry, and her joint pain had improved. Four months later, she rates her health improvement at about 90%. Others have seen similar effects—a 2013 study published in The Netherlands Journal of Medicine found 36 out of 52 women had significant reduction of symptoms after their implants were removed.

All women, of course, have the right to choose whatever procedures may make them feel more confident in their bodies. But Zuckerman stresses that the FDA needs to do a better job of requiring long-term studies. “If it’s not possible to have 100% safe implants, good research would at least allow women to make an informed decision—and to know which are the good ones so they’re fully aware of what they are dealing with.”

from Bodybuilding Feed http://www.muscleandfitness.com/muscle-fitness-hers/hers-features/everything-you-need-know-about-breast-implants via http://www.rssmix.com/