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echodrops · 6 years ago

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Issues with Voltron Season 6 (Part 2)

A continuation of my extremely long vent about the most recent Voltron season.

<- Part 1 is back here.

This time, it’s all about Lotor!

3) Lotor’s entire character makes no sense.

This is such a mess that I really don’t even know where to start. I’m just gonna make a bullet list and then try to break things down from there:

Lotor’s endless drive to harvest quintessence is never grounded in a visible need; therefore, the extent to which he is willing to go to get that power feels entirely unjustified.

The executive producers, VAs, and the show itself went out of their way to flat out tell us that Lotor is a “genuine” character who meant well and really did want to bring peace to the universe--which leads to the frightening conclusion that the EPs think someone who engages in genocide can actually be genuine about wanting peace.

Lotor’s casual disregard for life is utterly at odds with someone who would genuinely want peace--and even more at odds for someone who had actual Alteans to learn from, which leaves the viewers confused about his motives in a way that is terrible for young watchers and bad even for older viewers.

The extent to which the rift influenced Lotor’s actions throughout the course of his life is never clarified, leaving viewers completely unsure whether he would have taken any of the actions he did without the influence of the rift. Clone Shiro in this season tells us the rift only amplifies evil that already exists--ergo, Lotor is, contrary to everything we’ve been told--not genuine about wanting peace and is, instead, at his core, evil. The conflicting messages here are ridiculously unorganized.

Lotor’s desperation to regard himself as a member of the Altean race is almost unspeakably horrific in retrospect, and the fact that the show went so far out of its way to portray him as a person who saw himself as Altean and nevertheless chose to murder them by the thousands is disturbing in the extreme. Even more unsavory are the implications this entire thing has for mixed-race people, since the show also went out of its way to treat Lotor as a mixed-race character--and then gave him absolutely nowhere to fit in. And that’s not even mentioning the implications for abuse survivors...

The idea that Lotor’s feelings for Allura were real is so gross I almost can’t even bear it--and this as someone who was FIRMLY on the Lotura ship before season six. If you can go from claiming you love someone to wanting to kill them in one line of dialogue, your feelings weren’t real! That’s all there is to it. “But he was corrupted by the rift!” Except the rift only amplifies what was already there, right?

Okay so, let’s just start with that first idea, because honestly, fixing that problem could actually have fixed many of the others. We know that Lotor’s plan is to harvest the infinite quintessence between universes in the rift. Sure, makes sense. Except for the part where the reasoning behind that plan is never examined in detail. Why does Lotor need that much quintessence? We viewers assume that it’s because the entire Galra Empire runs on quintessence--that the empire will crumble without a constant supply of energy. I can only guess what we, as viewers, are supposed to believe that this will be a terrible thing and that, at this point, the universe actually needs the Galra Empire in order to survive... Except that’s surely only true in a significantly smaller capacity. There are undoubtedly planets that rely on Galra technology in order to ensure survival--but not every planet. Probably not even MOST planets. The Galra Empire does not need to exist in its current capacity by any means--significantly scaling back on the expansion efforts alone would easily save the amount of quintessence necessary to begin transitioning Galra-dependent planets to independence from both the Galra Empire and quintessence use.

The only conclusion I can come to here, and the one I think the writers want us to come to, is that Lotor had no intention of ever dissolving the Galra Empire and freeing the universe from his control. Which is all well and good. Power is appealing, especially to someone like Lotor who likely desired that power his whole life. As far as villains go, this is stock behavior and I totally get it--what I don’t get is why in the world any of our intrepid heroes bought into this? When I said there was an idiot plot raging, this is exactly what I meant.

Viewers accept Lotor’s plan because we know he’s villain-coded. But the team supposedly believed him to be a good guy--in what way, and in what universe, would have supplying the Galra Empire with infinite quintessence helped anyone except the Galra Empire? “No, no,” you might say, “Lotor convinced the team that the Galra Empire was only expanding because they needed to harvest quintessence from other worlds! Without that need, they would have stopped oppressing other planets, obviously!”

Great--except they seemingly weren’t using that quintessence for any purpose but to continue expanding! The show never--at any point--shows us the Galra using the quintessence they harvest for any purposes other than evil. There’s never any moment of “Actually, we need this quintessence to power lifesaving hospital technologies for our sick and elderly!” or “We use this quintessence to amplify our food production so that we can feed all our children!” This isn’t something you should leave it up to the viewers to assume--the writers needed to do this work at least in part, to ensure that Lotor’s entire plan made sense in the first place. Until we really SEE the need for the quintessence, Lotor’s entire scheme looks like nothing more than a power-hungry bid for endless energy to continue fueling his dark empire--and our heroes look like the complete and utter idiots who thought that sounded like a good idea.

Pidge’s lines from this season confirm that Coran really did share the entire story of what happened to Zarkon back in the day with all the paladins. This means that Allura--knowing that it resulted in the zombification of Zarkon and Honerva and ultimately the death of her father--still went with Lotor into the rift in this season. I can hardly fathom the degree of idiocy it would take a real woman to choose this course of action. Poor Allura did not deserve this treatment.

Which leads into the second issue: it’s impossible--literally impossible--to see Lotor as a genuine character who really did want to bring peace to the universe unless a serious need for endless quintessence is properly articulated. There are plenty of powerfully advanced races like the Olkari who do not appear to fuel their creations by harvesting life energy. We, as viewers, cannot buy into the idea that Lotor absolutely needs this quintessence--enough that he is willing to kill thousands of people--without that need being better explained on screen.

Because it never was, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the writing of the show that makes Lotor’s treatment of the captive Alteans seem justified. The show didn’t portray this as a difficult choice for Lotor to make, didn’t give him a scene where he had to choose between say... one or two Altean lives and harvesting enough quintessence to save a whole planet or something. We never see him do ANYTHING positive with the quintessence he harvested from the Alteans or even expressing any regret for the act of harvesting it in the first place--and yet we’re somehow supposed to believe that he “genuinely” wanted peace for the universe? That he meant well? That he did what he “had” to do? Are the EPs literally crazy?

Nothing from the many interviews about Lotor’s character makes sense. This is not a portrayal of the nuanced, complex villain we were promised--even the show’s depiction of Zarkon as a semi-well-intentioned extremist was more believable and sympathetic!

By definition, a complex villain is one whose motivations are deeply explored and even more deeply-rooted in their actions, who exhibits enough “human” qualities to make the character compelling even as we recognize his or her evildoing, and whose actions, in turn, have logic behind them--the line separating a complex villain from a complete monster is that the audience can, at the end of the day, understand why the villain made the choices they made, and come to the nerve-wracking realization that, in that specific character’s shoes, we too might have made the same choices.

Because we’re never given deeper insight into Lotor’s motivation--never really shown why that quintessence was so very important to him--any degree of complexity, humanity, sympathy, and relatability Lotor had is chucked wholesale into the garbage after “The Colony.” How are we as viewers supposed to “genuinely” buy into Lotor’s rhetoric after this, to believe he wanted peace despite being seemingly remorseless at the slaughter of thousands of people?

At best, all the EPs’ talk of Lotor being authentic and complex and meaning well was empty air to hype up the audience. At worst, the writers of this series actually think they can actively include Holocaust imagery into their show and then still call the perpetrator of it “genuine.” I don’t know whether to be mildly insulted or outright infuriated.

I won’t even touch on the gross implications this whole thing has for real life abuse survivors, given that it implies they can’t rise above their parents’ actions. (Even worse that Haggar’s motivations continue to be unclear--is she headed to some kind of redemption, instead of being the supreme villainness she SHOULD have been all along?) Other people have posted about this issue and probably have more personal experience with the topic, so they can express that part better than me.

But I do want to talk about the whole super gross implications this has for mixed-race people, since that’s a little closer to my personal realm. In a previous post, I cautioned that Keith should not be read as a mixed-race character and that doing so was dangerously reductive of the show’s narrative. I still hold to that--because the show clearly has NO interest in portraying Keith as a mixed-race person. He’s literal walking, talking proof that you can include something in your show and still not have it be “representation.” Despite his alien mother being shown on screen as part of his life, there is still zero effort on the part of the show to portray Keith as actually part-alien or deal, with any degree of seriousness, with the emotional, psychological, and social implications of his being a mixed-species character. It’s simply not part of his narrative and, at this point, I somewhat doubt it ever is going to be. Keith’s being part-Galra is little more than flavor text and a convenient excuse to get him out of Team Voltron during the Clone Shiro plot line.

But Lotor is a totally different story. The show writers went out of their way to emphasize his existence as part-Galra, part-Altean, and to deliberately portray him as--up until season six--deeply longing to be discover more about his Altean heritage, to be part of that culture, and to seek--supposedly--the same aim as his Altean ancestors: universal peace. We’re led to believe that for him, Altea was something that existed like a fairy tale, something that he desperately craved to learn more about his whole life. Therefore, his coming into contact with Allura was painted (in the show!) as a chance for him to learn more about his other half, to finally come to truly understand what it meant to be Altean, to learn not from artifacts but from a real person who could understand his goals, desires, and beliefs. He began referring to himself as Altean. He called Allura’s people his own. We were supposed to see this part as “genuine.”

And then “The Colony” came in like Miley Cyrus to utterly undermine all this emotional labor the previous seasons had been building up. Lotor didn’t need to learn about Alteans from legends--he had ACTUAL ALTEANS he could have spoken to and spent time with. He didn’t need to treat the Altean culture like an anthropological study--he had real Alteans who were happy enough with him that they would have welcomed him living among them. I’m sorry, let me just go back over this point one more time: By virtue of the location of their colony in the time-space abyss, he could have spent literal years living among the Alteans and no one in the Galra Empire would have noticed.

He had every opportunity to connect to the people he supposedly idealized so much--the people whose values he claimed to espouse--the people he is related to--and he instead chose what? To run some like weird captive breeding program to build up stock for his quintessence draining plans as if they were animals, rather than a people of which he supposedly sees himself a part.

As a pure, complete monster type villain, this is actually pretty compelling. It is indeed the story of many REAL cultures around the world, who now deal with mixed-race individuals (namely half-white/half-minority people) coming back and trying to appropriate or capitalize on the minority culture that makes up their other half. (As a personal aside, I’m half Native American, a registered member of my father’s tribe, with grandparents who were essentially kidnapped and forced to attend Christian schools--and there’s a very good reason that I don’t attend any tribal events or attempt to assert myself into Native American spaces: because I recognize that, by virtue of being mixed with the race of my own grandparents’ oppressors, minority spaces are not a place where I belong.) All that to basically say that if the writers had committed to making Lotor a pure villain, this would actually have been a very realistic and tragic point, and his desire to be seen as Altean could have (should have) been treated as a deeply insidious attempt to gain even further control over his victims and to more potently manipulate Allura.

But the writers didn’t commit to that. They and every additional piece of information about Lotor given outside the show waffles painfully, leading to the implication that Lotor really did want to see himself as Altean, that he really believed he could follow in Alfor’s footsteps to bring peace to the universe. Which is honestly more fucked up than I really have any words for, because it directly implies that mixed-race people do not ever--perhaps cannot ever--fit in. By bringing up this issue of race, placing Lotor in that liminal zone, making him express a desire to be part of one of the cultures that make up his genetic background--and then effectively ending his story with “And then he killed thousands of the people he wanted to be a part of for profit!”--the writers might as well have said “He can’t be Altean because he’s too Galra” while also saying “But honestly, he’s genuine at heart--he’s much too Altean to be Galra!” The writing of the show created a situation in which there was no place for Lotor--and then made Lotor look like the bad guy for it. What the hell kind of message does that send to real mixed-race kids out there? YIKES YIKES YIKES YIKES.

And I’m saying all of this as a Lotor fan! Lotor was a favorite of mine in the original Voltron, and a favorite of mine here in Legendary Defender too. Whether they painted him as a complete monster or a redeemable anti-hero, I wanted to love this character. But the wishy-washy, conflicting messages the writing of the show is giving is beyond frustrating. I would have loved a pure villain Lotor--a true magnificent bastard, a master manipulator. I would have loved a misguided anti-hero Lotor. But a character placed half-way between not by intentional design but by clumsy and callous execution? Sorry, I can’t accept that. I love Lotor, so seeing him done so dirty by bad writing is one of the premiere moments that made me realize I can finally give up on this iteration of Voltron ever truly becoming great.

I still had more to say, so here’s:

My Issues with Voltron Season 6 (Part 3)

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river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years ago

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bruce wayne week day 2: gala rated T, no archive warnings apply, tagged: past bruce wayne/harvey dent, implied/referenced violence, brief suicide mention

how was it, bruce thought to himself, that he could withstand torture both physcial and mental without any lasting damage, but the one thing that had him trembling and ready to crawl out of his own skin was an itchy suit?

he’d grown out of them, was the thing. when he was young, alfred had ensured that he’d always dressed properly for any occasion, be that a wedding or charity event or board meeting. before that, his parents—well. they had made sure bruce was presentable enough for their friends to pinch bruce's cheeks instead of awkwardly patting his shoulder.

but now, newly returned to gotham with a thousand new scars and a hardened grip, bruce realized he had lost his tolerance for finely pressed and ironed fabric. none of his old suits had come remotely close to fitting him, and alfred had manhandled him in front of a mirror to take measurements, sending them off to his favourite tailor. bruce thought he'd cried out all the tears his body had left to give the day he came home, hugging alfred's frail body far too tight, but his eyes still managed to get all hot and uncomfortable when alfred's fingers hesitantly mapped the broad expanse of his shoulders, trying so hard to ignore the slashes, the stabs, the burn marks, the brands.

his shoes were too loose, the pointed style apparently a new trend in the gotham elite. bruce and alfred had worked on a pair of dress shoes together, ones that wouldn't fall off the minute bruce moved at anything more intense than a brisk walk, but bruce still longed for the comfort of his thick-soled boots.

those same shoes were tapping on the ground, making far too much noise, but bruce forced himself to take a breath and let the flower-scented artificial spray calm him down. logically, it made no sense at all, but bruce had always placed gotham on pause in his mind. he'd expected to come back older and harder and fiercer to find gotham exactly the same, waiting patiently just for him.

instead, bella revero had cut her hair and dyed it blonde, and was wearing a long, flowing, glittering pantsuit instead of a long, flowing, glittering gown. tom thompson's hair was a healthy salt and pepper when bruce left, but now the man was two tufts away from being completely bald. thicky-applied makeup somehow accentuated wrinkles instead of hiding them, no manner of well-cut suits could hide a growing potbelly, none of the waiters that had given bruce snacks and orange juice were working anymore, and most everyone bruce remembered being roughly his age had moved far, far away from this wretched hole of a city.

there were times when bruce slapped himself upside the head for the absolutely moronic decision to come back to gotham and announce ta-daaa! not dead! he should have just been batman and let bruce wayne's useless name and dishonored legacy be swallowed up by gotham.

footsteps behind him. bruce had tuned out most of his training, knowing that it would only hinder him as brucie wayne, only make him look suspicious. but he'd kept a basic background awareness, unable to turn that off, and these thuds were heading right for him. bruce tensed, his false smile probably turning brittle, two seconds away from whirling around and grabbing his attacker's arm so hard, the bone would shatter.

a heavy hand slammed down onto his shoulder, but right before bruce made a move, a voice spoke right next to his ear, smooth and low and capable of making his entire body relax without any input from him whatsoever.

"what the actual hell are you doing here, you motherfucker?"

"harvey," bruce sighed, turning around to give the man a relieved smile. "thank god. i thought i'd have to go through this all by myself. you didn't tell me you were coming?"

harvey's mouth pulled into a painful grin, one that didn't look the least bit friendly, and there was a bulging vein on his temple, a nervous tick that bruce knew he didn't have before.

"you alright there, harv? you're looking a little—," bruce gestured vaguely to harvey's face, "—red."

harvey's grip on bruce's shoulder tightened, fingers digging into muscle and sending painful twinges up bruce's shoulder, and bruce tried not to show his surprise. he was two seconds from shoving off harvey's hand himself, but just decided to grit and bear it. harvey wouldn't ever hurt him.

"you have been gone," harvey said, enunciating every word, "for years. i didn't know where you were. i didn't know if you were ever coming back. then i hear that you're home from a goddamn newspaper, and you just showed up to this party without telling anyone."

"i was on the guest list," bruce pointed out, automatically putting up a simplified version of his brucie wayne facade. he widened his eyes, putting a little cluelessness into the fluttering of his eyelashes, just enough to keep his cover in case anyone was recording him, just enough so harvey believes him.

"what the fuck are you doing with your eyes," harvey said flatly.

so apparently harvey knew him better than he thought.

"look, harv, i was gonna call you, i really was—"

"i thought you were dead," harvey hissed, and his best friends eyes have more lines on them than bruce remembered and he doesn't have to tip his head up just to see harvey laugh anymore and there's too much broken love in harvey's voice for them to be standing in between a gilded trash can and a spiked bowl of punch.

"harvey,,," bruce started, not knowing exactly where to go from there. he'd taught himself to prepare for any possible attack, any possible conspiracy or unmasking or targeted hit, but he'd completely forgot about his own friend. he'd forgotten he had a friend.

luckily or unluckily, harvey interrupted him before he had the chance to fumble his words. "i thought you were dead, i thought my best friend had finally fucking followed through with what i tried so hard for years to stop."

it hit bruce like a punch to the gut. he wasn't aware harvey had ever been trying.

"and now,,, what? you're just fine? you're dressed like a poser and your hair's all neat and trimmed and you're smiling at people like the only thing you care about is getting into their pants. plus, that's the fourth glass you've had tonight."

"we're already an hour in," bruce replied automatically.

"we're only an hour in," harvey said.

there was a pause. not an uncomfortable one, because it had been years since him and harvey were ever uncomfortable with each other. it was like harvey couldn't decide whether or not to reach out and strangle bruce for worrying him or break down for hurting him or hug him for coming back home.

bruce couldn't tell him. harvey worked too closely with commissioner gordon; daring bruce to steal mary jane from the principal's stash and shotgunning it out of his mouth was leagues away from keeping the secret that bruce was a dangerous, trained vigilante from everyone he knew.

"it's okay, harvey," bruce said, his voice completely sincere for the first time this night. "i found other ways to cope."

"i don't like those other ways," harvey sneered, eyes the glass in bruce's hand.

"other ways," bruce said. "you don't have to worry. i'm fine."

the photographer for the gotham gazette had snapped a picture of him entering, and no one would notice if he left now. bruce wayne couldn't be beating up pedophiles in the narrows if bruce wayne was getting drunk at a high-class gala. he'd planned to leave three hours in, a respectable amount of time, but meeting harvey had thrown him off balance.

he brushed past harvey, heading towards the butler's exit in the back of the ballroom. "enjoy the party!" he called behind him as he left, eyes wide again, clueless and fluttering and oh-so blind to the devastated way harvey watched him leave.

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @catxsnow @pricetagofficial @bikoncon @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption @capricorn-stark @batshit-birds @comics-observer @buticaaba @brucewayneweek

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justasimptm · 4 years ago

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The Bride C11

The next few minutes are a blur of screaming and begging that comes to a head when Heisenberg tosses her to the ground next to me. He hisses something at her that makes her whimper, but he doesn't give her a chance to respond before he grabs her arm and slices a quick line right under her elbow. The smell of fresh blood assaults my senses and within seconds I’ve latched on to her, sinking my teeth into her soft skin. Whether by sheer force or the sharpness of my teeth I don’t know, but biting into her is as easy as biting into a sandwich, minor resistance, high reward. The responses are immediate-she yells and tries to pull away, the sound is stifled in seconds by Heisenberg grabbing her face and holding his hand over her mouth, his other arm grabbing around her middle and forcing her to keep still. The flow of blood is steady despite her struggles, strong swallows forcing it down into my gut, warmth spreading through me.

She tastes like cinnamon and citrus, tastes alive and so so good. Part of me knows I could stop now, that I don’t have to keep drinking. I can already feel myself recovering, feel the odd tugging as my body regenerates around the wound, the stinging as it drives out the poison that was killing me, the small popping as it comes out in the form of small crystal shards. However, fair is fair. She was going to kill me, damn near succeeded. The least I can do is return the favor, so I keep drinking, gulping down the thing that sustains us both.

Keep going even as her fighting gets weaker and her arm starts getting cold. Keep going until she stops resisting and even moments after that when her body falls fully limp and there’s nothing more than drops left in her veins. Only then do I let go, letting myself flop back to the ground, sated and full of energy, my wound closed.

“Do you need more?” Heisenberg asks, tossing her now empty body to the side without a second thought and hoisting me up so I’m sitting, but leaning against his chest to keep me stable. The concern in his voice is kind, a nice contrast from the rough sound of his voice. Through my gluttonous daze I smile at him, the voice in the back of my mind says to close my mouth, knowing my teeth are certainly stained red. Logically I know it’s likely also smeared around my lips, I was nowhere near neat eating this time. I was more concerned with consumption than I was with manners. It doesn’t seem to bother him though, which is nice, as his eyes never stray from my eyes.

“She tasted good,” I hum, closing my eyes in relief, “That’ll be enough. Thank you for helping...Karl…” My head dips down, resting slightly on his shoulder. “I’m sleepy.” He nods, shifting so one of his arms is under my back, looping his other under my legs, pulling me into his lap and then up as he shifts into a squat and swings up quickly to stand.

“Rest. I’ll have these brutes clean this up. I’ll bring you back to your mother.” He instructs. I want to tell him not to, that she’ll be mad, but my tongue is too heavy and I can’t get the words to come out. I hear him speak lowly to the Lycans before I can feel him start moving. His steps are slow, calculated as not to jostle me too much. The walk back feels long, whether that’s because he paces himself out so it is, or because I’m too out of itl, I don’t know, but it feels like hours before the gates come into view. They rattle for a split second before flying open with a clang. I want to tell him to be quiet, to put me down, that my mother can’t see him here, can’t see me in his arms.

His arms, which make me feel safer than I’ve felt in ages, warmer than all my blankets ever could. I hear my mother screech my name, making me flinch and blink my eyes open. He shushes me slightly when he feels me tense, before replying to her. “Alcina.” He greets her as he makes his way up the path towards the front door. We get to the bottom of the stairs before my eyes truly focus. She’s stepped out from the frame, not leaving the radius of the door, and boy oh boy does she look furious.

“Put my daughter down this instant, Heisenberg.” She snarls, voice colder than ice, cutting through my post-feed-healing ditz and spearing my brain with a spike of awareness. He opens his mouth to protest but she cuts him off before he can, stating her demand again much more firmly. He sighs, looking down at me briefly before bending slightly to set me on my feet. He keeps his hand on my waist for a moment as I sway unsteadily, but despite my vertigo I extract myself from his grasp. “Come inside now, Y/N.” I nod at her, whispering my thanks to him almost silently before stumbling my way up the steps past her looming form. I vaguely hear her hiss out a threat before she follows me inside, slamming the door and latching onto my bicep harshly, not letting up any pressure even as I cry out from the pain. She drags me downstairs towards the dungeon, past the smug faces of my sisters, before throwing me into one of the empty cells on the far side of the castle, far from the girls we bring down, from the blood we store. “You’re going to stay in here until you learn to keep away from that slime. I don’t care how long that takes.” I want to scream, protest that I didn’t seek him out, that it isn’t my fault, but I know it’s no good, she doesn't want to hear it. Doesn’t want to hear how I almost died, how he saved me and that’s the only reason I was near him in general.

She leaves me there as soon as she locks the gate. My brain starts turning back on after a few hours, my wound fully closed, the blood I consumed finally settling into my body, the buzz it gave me calming. Not long after that I hear faint laughing, that grows closer and closer until my sisters are standing in front of the bars, all looking like the cat who ate the canary. Daniela approaches first, looking me up and down before cocking her head to the side.

“Why am I not surprised to see you three here, gloating over my fall from grace.” I muse, skimming over their proud forms. “Let me guess. You let her escape. You gave her the knife. Is that why you’ve been scaring the help off?” Her lips curl up higher, clearly satisfied with her work. “You do realize I could just swarm out of here right? Right out through the bars.” Cassandra tsks, moving to join her sisters side, looking rather pleased with herself.

“You certainly could try, sister, but we had mother coat the bars in salt ages ago when some of our experiments started coming back.” My stomach dips slightly. Salt? Of course they had her do that. They’ve been planning this, clearly, because alongside silver, salt is one of the only other things that can a. hurt me, and b. keep me from passing through gaps in either form.

“Have fun down here. Who knows when mother will stop being upset with you. You really pulled that for us. Chasing after the girl, we could have stopped her before she got out of course. But god, coming back in his arms? We really should thank you.” Bela teases, stepping up out of the shadows and I can’t stop the disgusted scoff that comes out of my mouth. The three of them quirk their eyebrows, wordlessly asking what’s funny. I take a dragging step up, keeping a few inches from the bars, but as close as I can be to the three of them. Cassandra and Bela look towards Daniela, both looking as if they want to step away but following her lead. Funny, I would have thought Cassandra planned this.

“You girls are very cute, you know that? Thinking I wouldn’t know you planned this. Imagine how interested mother would be to find out the girl had one of her silver knives? You know, the ones she keeps locked away in her office that only we know about?” I reply calmly, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on theirs. Daniela opens her mouth to give some witty retort, I’m sure, but I cut her off before she can utter a syllable. “You girls need to be very careful with how you want to keep playing this game. The longer you’re on her good side, the easier it’ll be for me to topple you. I’ll let you have this one, but if you ever try anything again to make me fall out of my mothers favor you will regret it. Because even if mother doesn’t like me, Mother Miranda does, and I don’t think she’d be pleased to find out you three are trying to torment the person who’s been so beneficial to her research. Watch yourselves.”

They huff indignantly, and I know they won’t take my threat at its full merit, but that’s fine. More satisfying for me if I have to burn them. This time, however, they find their graces not to continue poking at me and walk off deeper into the dungeons, leaving me in the dark with nothing to entertain myself. I want to ask for a light, but I refuse to give them the satisfaction of it, so instead I clumsily make my way to the bed, sitting on it with minimal error and resign myself to leaning against the wall until mother decides she wants to let me out.

@foggyturtleknightangel @beingviolentlyhappy @inesalexandra1995 @loveboldlywingedangel130

#re8 karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x reader #karl heisenberg #re8 #resident evil village #lady dimitrescu #heisenberg x reader

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miss-dr-reid · 3 years ago

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This is calm, and it's, Doctor #10

Warning: mention of penis, but no touchy touchy of anything like that

My house keys were on the same keychain as my car keys. I told Spencer which one was for the front door, and he opened it, letting me in first. I walked in and started my 'getting home routine'.

"Hey google, I'm home." I said, smirking at Spencer.

All of the lights in my lounge room and kitchen came on and music started playing in the background. My house wasn't anything fancy, so I enjoyed little upgrades where I could get them. Spencer looked up from what he was doing, to see everything in action, his mouth slightly agape. He finished closing the door, ensuring that it was locked before finally coming inside to look around. I showed him around the basic parts of my house.

Firstly the kitchen, which was to the left of my front door,

"Feel free to get yourself a drink or anything you like while you're here." I told him, gesturing toward the fridge and cupboards, continuing my tour of the house. next was the living room, and then into the hallway where the bedrooms and bathroom reside. Once we had reached the bathroom, I realised that I was desperate for a shower.

"I'm gonna have a shower, and then we can put some aloe gel on our burns." I told him, walking into the bathroom with a towel in my hand. Spencer followed me in,

"You know, you really don't have to-"

"I told you, I would look after you That's also been the job assigned to me, so it's what I'm going to do." he interrupted.

"What are you gonna do, shower with me?!" I laughed.

"If I have to!" the comeback was unexpected, and suddenly, there were butterflies in my stomach at the thought of he and I being naked together - showering together.

I told him to sit on the toilet if he insisted on not leaving my side and he did. I hopped into the shower - still fully dressed- and closed over the curtain. I undressed, throwing y clothes over the top of the glass walls, hearing the soft 'flop' as they hit the ground. Turning on the shower, I realised that Spencer probably needed a shower, too.

"You haven't showered yet, either..." I called over to him, peaking through a gap I made in the curtain, and his head tilted up to look at me, "You're welcome to join me. At least you'll be right here if anything happens." my tone was more suggestive than I had intended, but I ran with it. Spencer stood up almost immediately,

"Would that be alright with you?" his question came out fast, and I nodded.

"Yes, Doctor, that's fine with me." I said, looking at him. His nose and cheeks were red, his hair frizzy from the excitement of the day, and his skin dry from the salt water.

I popped my head back into the shower, closing the curtain over once again, and he got undressed. once he was done, the shower curtain opened and he stepped in. I took the brief moment that he was looking at the ground, to look him up and down, my eyes growing wide when they landed on the place below his belly button. He had finally made it all the way in, and I stepped back, snapping my eyes away from his body and up to his face. He laid his head back into the stream of the shower, rinsing his head, droplets rolling down his face as he did so. His long fingers ran through his hair, ensuring all of it was wet, the veins in his forearms, protruding through his skin - from being dehydrated, I assumed.

He turned to face the stream one his hair was wet, and started rubbing his face and chest. I looked over his body once again, admiring the length of him. His back was long and toned. as my eyes traveled down his body, I noticed a scar just above his knee. Before I could return my eyes back up to his head to ask about the scar he turned around, and everything was on display. I suddenly stopped, my eyes growing wide again and my mind filling with thoughts that no one should have about a co-worker. I snapped my eyes back up to his head, my finger pointed out toward his leg.

"I got shot." he said, looking down at the scar continuing to explain about how he got shot, he suddenly stopped when he noticed all I was doing was nodding. "Are you okay?"

Honestly, I was just trying hard to get the thought out of my head, thoughts of him naked. even though, I didn't have to think about it, he was right there,

"Yeah, I..." I hesitated which only made him more concerned, "Look, you've got a really nice body." I said to him, trying to redirect my attention anywhere but there.

"That's not what's bothering you, please tell me what's wrong." he pressed, and I couldn't take it anymore.

"Spencer, your penis is quite big." I said as quick as I could while focusing my eyes on the shower wall.

"Oh... Well the average size of a penis in the US is approximately three point six one inches while flaccid, with an erection they are approximately five point one six inches. Mine is slightly bigger than aver-"

"Spencer, you don't have to say anything. I shouldn't have been looking in the first place." I interjected. Even though I loved to listen to him list of facts, this was one I didn't need to know. I got out of the shower not long after that, I had made things awkward by saying what I did. I got out and grabbed my towel off the rack. barely wrapping it around myself before heading to my bedroom.

I sat on the edge of my bed, my towel coming slightly unwrapped on my back. My head fell into my hands and I sighed.

"Why do I have to be so awkward?" I whispered to my self, "Idiot!"

"Y/N.." Spencer's voice called from the door and my head snapped up to see him standing there, towel around his waist, "you're not an idiot. If you don't want to do anything like that again, we don't have to. I accepted your offer, not only because I really needed a shower, but because I wanted to be close to you, too." his voice was soft and sincere.

I looked over his body, his hair had been pushed back out of the way, a few stray droplets falling down his face. As well as the few stray droplets falling down his body and being soaked up by the towel. My eyes made their way back up to his beautiful chocolate browns, they were staring at me, looking for some type of answer.

"Spencer... I want to be close to you, too. I don't want anything bad to happen, because I like you Spencer. I really like you." My voice cracked slightly at the thought of losing Spencer. It was silly to be feeling this way, we haven't even known each other that long.

He walked over to me and cupped my face in his hands - forcing me to look into his eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere, I'll be right here whenever you need me." his words were soft, but firm. Tears brimmed my eyes and soon started rolling down my cheeks. I was pulled into a hug, and Spencer stood up, taking me with him, my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist. I buried my face in his neck as I started sobbing.

He held me there until my body had calmed, his arms were holding me so close against him. I pulled back, looking him in the eyes, keeping my hands on his shoulders. His eyes were tinged red, and tears were welling on his lower lash line.

"Don't cry for me Spencer, please..." I pleased softly, the sight breaking my heart. He tried to blink it away, but it fell down his cheek instead. I wiped it with my thumb, "Thank you for being here."

He didn't say anything else, only pulled me back into him. we were tangled together once again and I wanted to stay there forever.

Alas, it was not to be, He soon enough puled back once again, bringing once hand to the back of my head and guiding my head toward his own, only to kiss me on the forehead before putting me back onto my bed. My legs had managed to undo his towel, as it fell once I was detached from his body, my own towel following suit.

I grabbed my own towel, averting my gaze from his while he scrambled to catch his before it hit the ground. I let out a small laugh, which caused Spencer to laugh, too. It was good to see a smile on his face.

Spencer left to go get a new change of clothes and I pulled out a nightie from one of my drawers. This nightie is one of my favourites, the soft flowing material, lined with lace. It hugged in all the right places and flowed everywhere else. I slipped it on, throwing my towel on top of my drawers and headed for the kitchen.

I made my way to the fridge, bopping along with the music that was still playing in the background, and opened it. My eyes landed on the bright orange bottle of Sunkist, Ironic, I thought to myself as I grabbed it. I shut the fridge as Spencer was making his way into the kitchen, and I offered him a drink. I grabbed out two glasses, set them on the bench and poured, finally sliding his glass over the bench to him.

"So, what brings you here?" I asked him, trying to make any sort of conversation happen.

"I am here, looking after you - like I was told." he said, seeming genuinely confused on why I would ask that question.

"Spence, I - I was just trying to make small talk." I told him, and he admitted he was not very good at small talk. He didn't really understand the point, when there are so many other things to talk about. Fun new things to learn, he didn't understand why small talk was even a thing people did.

I was interested to learn new things, always up for a challenge to test my brain. Spencer was extremely happy to tell me fun facts, while he did repeat a few things I had heard before, I never stopped him, instead asking more in-depth questions about certain things that really intrigued me. He was so happy to be talking, after being cut off so often by everyone else, I would never have the heart to tell him to stop. But all good things must come to and end.

Soon, my back started hurting and the yawns escaping me, came at closer and closer intervals. I looked at the time displayed on my microwave 0124 it read.

"We should probably go to bed, Spence." while he was sighing contently a himself after finishing another fun fact. We had ended up on the lounge, opposite ends from each other, our legs tangled together. "Are you coming?" I said getting up from the lounge, looking down at him.

"I didn't think you'd want me to be in bed with you." he was taken aback at my proposal and there was no way he could hide the sight excitement in his eyes.

"Don't be silly, come on." I said, tapping his shoulder as I walked past him and down the hallway, gesturing for him to follow when he hesitated.

I made it to my room and climbed into bed, getting under the covers. I called out for google that it was bedtime, and the lights turned off and the music was replaced with Rain sounds. Spencer was climbing into bed as I was pulling up the covers. I laid my head on my pillow, laying on my side, facing him. He mirrored me, his head on the other pillow. I didn't want to close my eyes, I just wanted to stare at him, his features lit by the gentle moonlight seeping through the window.

He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, it was a sight to see. I had got so lost in thought, admiring him, I didn't realise I had scooted closer to him until he wrapped his arms around me. I smiled at myself, and fell asleep there. Safe in the arms of Spencer Reid.

#spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff

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kangaroo-writes-trash · 3 years ago

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Day Three - “Taunting”

Ugly gasps escape the lithe figure, veins bulging from their pale face as the man atop him continues to crush their throat. The vampire’s hands still try to uselessly pry away an escape, their legs just barely unable to find leverage from the lower stairs. And yet, despite their body’s desperate need to escape, their crimson-red eyes stare right into their hunter’s hazel. Forcing unavoidable eye contact for their final delight, for them to even begin to understand how much they want this. The monster’s strength leaves quickly once they allow it to, their hands barely held aloft by the time they leave one final, satisfied gurgle. Their eyes never close - the last thing they see, being the tears gathering at their killer’s eyes. Then, the sickening snap of the thing’s neck. Only then does Maddock’s own held breath escape; rolling onto their back, panting. Tears uncontrollably stream down the sides of his face, knowing it’s done. The adrenaline slowly fades enough to otherwise outline a fierce pain in his side; a rib, maybe two, broken. Broken? Fractured? He’s unsure of the right word - he’s meant to know that. His eyes clench shut, wiping away the wet from his face whilst mentally scolding himself for such a response. He forces his breathing to settle and clambers to one knee, solemnly gazing upon the single painting in the room. A moment frozen in time, of a family unaware of how the creature to his side will slaughter them. The face of the central son, staring through him. The stolen face held by the now-dead creature of the night. The same creature that saved the canvas, only to doom himself. ‘Stop crying, you fool. They don’t deserve your sadness, nor your guilt. They’re evil. Of Devil’s make, an affront to God and everything good. They deserve worse than death, but that is all we can give them.’ The memory of his father’s booming voice echoes within his head, a coldness spreading up his spine as it does. Lord Penndragon, feared by monster and men alike, but none more than by his own son. The only person still alive to know the deepest depths of that man’s anger. He’s known for one thing and one thing alone: the scorching hatred that fuels his extermination of all things unholy. And there, by the cold corpse of Maddock’s fourth kill, he cries. “Now, what a fantastic show that was!” Abruptly calls the ever-playful voice of what should have been dead, joined by a slow, one-handed clap. “Your mother would have been so proud!~” He startles, quickly turning to stand, ignoring the piercing pain that runs through his side as his eyes fall upon that same, lithe figure. The same black dress, but untouched by their brawl. No cut along their cheek, nor fear within their face. They lean against the entryway wall, holding a half-drunken glass of red, their eyes still piercing. Maddock’s breath hitches, eyes darting to their side to where that creature should lay. But they’re not. What is there, though, is a repulsively-smelling brown housecat, looking up at them with uninterested eyes, whilst three bloodied daggers sit to their side. ”Another blasted trick.” Maddock belts out, reaching for one of the remaining knives, yet they freeze halfway through. “Uh-uh.” Utters the somehow still-living figure, a small flick of their finger causing the hunter’s muscles to lock in place. Followed by a slow sip. No matter how hard he tries, his body simply refuses to listen. The animal edges up against his legs, and he finds himself able to move his head enough to watch them, their attention soon grabbed by the vampire that slowly approaches, fangs escaping from a sickening smile. “Don’t mind her, my little old Rafflesia.” They state, gesturing to the cat as it jumps up to Maddock’s shoulder, the stench worsening. “I’m quite impressed, truthfully. But, she did give up near the end, didn’t she?” “What?” He snarls, trying and failing to bat the cat away with his head. “What do you mean, what? You didn’t actually think I was going to be here the whole time, did you? I popped off during the end there, felt a little thirsty.” A beat. “Want some?” Maddock’s further growl is answer enough. “Your loss.” Accentuated with a slow sip that grows into them emptying the glass fully. “Delicious. But-” They lunge forward without warning, their left hand firmly on Maddock’s shoulder whilst their right lifts his face up and away, uncovering the entirety of their bare neck. Another inhale, and a finger dragging across the flesh. “-I’m still thirsty.” “Get the fuck off me!�� “Or what?” They jab the man in his pained side. “You’re going to break my cat’s neck again?” Their lips part, easing closer and closer to the virgin skin, as the scent, alongside the stench of their pet, mixes wonderfully. They’ve never tasted a Penndragon before; such noble blood must flow through those veins. To succumb to their thirst, to empty the man before them... to bring the fury of their father. It’s intoxicating. Then, their eyes lift to gaze upon the canvas. It only takes six or so seconds, but for the pale figure, it lasts so much longer. They force themselves apart, having taken nothing. Confusion mixes with the fear already plastered on Maddock’s face, seeing a mote of... something behind the creature’s soft features. “Silly me, I forgot to introduce myself. Diarmuid Corvus. It’s truly your pleasure.” He whispers, before leaning forward and planting a kiss on their lips. Maddock watches the creature’s pupils dilate, just before they quickly leave his view. The man’s bloodied lip sends a shiver down Diarmuid’s spine, mixed with the salt of fallen tears - fascinating. He steals away the cat and quickly retreats up the stairs, their eyes avoiding the painting with every step. “I won’t be this kind a second time, Mr. Penndragon. Leave my home, and never return. I’ll kill you if you do.” Movement finally returns to the lone, baffled man.

#whumptober2021 #no. 3 #Taunting #writing #oc #The Empty Mansion #vampire #au #draft

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phykios · 4 years ago

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the marble king, part 10 [read on ao3]

His wife had taken ill, a statement that was simultaneously the best and worst one Percy had ever thought up in his short, eventful life. It was the best, because of the simple fact that Anja Elisabet Fredriksdotter was his wife. At night they shared a bed, and during the day they shared each other’s company. Though she did not love him, and had only married him in a bid to, rather ironically, retain her freedom, she wished for him to stay at her side, and he was blessed with her presence in turn.

Yet it was also the worst, because Annabeth, the love of his life, had taken ill.

He worried for her constantly; her pain was his pain, and the thought of something happening to her was simply unthinkable. Consumed with anxiety, he did what he always had done since they had been children, and he was overwhelmed by the magnitude of his own feelings. When he found her throwing up over the side of the boat for the fourth morning in a row, he swallowed his fears, and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“The sea never used to affect you this strongly.” Percy teased, even as he rubbed at her back. “What would all the other shieldmaidens say if they could see you now?”

She only groaned in response. He offered his handkerchief as she made to whip her mouth on her cloak. Once she was cleaned, she exhaled, leaning against him.

“And to think, your father told me your family was descended from an Aesir sea god,” Percy continued, offering his own sea strength to steady her.

“Vanir,” Annabeth said. “We are descended from a Vanir god, who in turn was descended from a sea god.” Percy only had the vaguest idea of what that meant, based on Alejandra’s stories, but he so loved to hear her correcting him once more, even when she was feeling poorly, for it meant she was still herself.

“Regardless, the sea flows through your veins, Anja,” he jested, tone light. Many of these northern words felt odd in his mouth, but he loved to speak her given name. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“That neither Frey nor Njord were gods of motherhood,” she moaned.

His thoughts stuttering, he frowned at her for several long seconds. “Motherhood? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything, phykios.” She groaned, her head resting on his shoulder, and her hand going to her stomach.

Like fog dissolving in the morning sun, the meaning came to him, quickly and suddenly. But surely it could not be so; they’d only laid together once.

Gently, terrifyingly, he placed his hand on top of hers, over her belly. He could not sense a difference through her clothes. “You are pregnant?” Percy whispered. He held his breath, waiting for her answer.

“Yes.”

Percy felt tears prick his eyes. Were he less in control of his feelings, he would have taken her by the hand, lifted her up, and spun her around in elation. “You are with child?”

“I am,” she confirmed. Pulling back from him a bit, she looked at him, eyes keen and discerning. “Do you mind?” Her words were mild, yet in her tone, he could sense just the barest hint of trepidation, of fear of disapproval.

“Mind!” He laughed, a few of his tears escaping. “Of course not!”

Energy surging through his limbs, he nearly stood up and began to dance. Annabeth, his wife, his truest companion from his earliest days, pregnant with his child! They were to have a family together! How could he not be so elated, when this was every dream of his come true?

But then, he then realized, while children had been his most secret desire, it had not, necessarily, been hers. It had not even been the point of their marriage. Annabeth had married him for freedom from; to be trapped in motherhood, tied down with a child, may have been the very thing she hoped to avoid. “Are,” he swallowed, suddenly afraid, “are you very displeased?”

“Displeased? I…” She held his gaze for a long moment, looking on him with wide, uncertain eyes, and then shook her head. “No. As long as you are not unhappy, then neither am I.”

“I am happy,” he said quickly. “I am very, very happy. Ever since dear, sweet Esther was born, I always imagined myself to be a father one day. I simply thought it would be impossible.” Demigod lives, particularly those of his more immediate, more powerful peers, were short and bright and violent--to say nothing of his financial situation. As well, there was that fact that he had had a difficult time dreaming of children who had not been mothered by Annabeth.

“So you are not upset,” she asked again, seeking confirmation.

“I am most certainly not upset,” he promised her.

He was ecstatic. His whole self felt lighter, happier, better than it had in years, and not just since the fall of their city, but several years before that, at least. Annabeth, his wife, his great love, building a family with him… it had been a dream far too fragile to speak of. And now it had come true.

Her unsure expression, however, caused him to temper his outward reflection. Just as he opened his mouth to question if she required anything, she once again leaned over the edge of the boat, and vomited into the sea below.

“There, there,” he said, rubbing at her back, making sure to keep her cloak and dress, billowing in the wind, out of the way so it would not get dirty. “Come, sit.” he said, after she had caught her breath, submitting to his guiding her to a bench. “Can I get you anything?”

She waved off his offer, eyes closed against the salt spray. “These are normal parts of pregnancy, I am given to understand. When I spoke with the cook at my cousin’s house, her warnings made me fear it would be worse than it has been.”

His jaw dropped. “You knew before we left your family?”

She glanced at him, a little scathing. “A woman knows these things, Percy.”

Of that, he had no doubt--but that was not the issue here. “It cannot be safe for you to travel like this.” His earlier fear gripped him, curling cold fingers around his heart. He looked out at the sea around them, the breadth of his father’s domain now transformed into a dark, terrible labyrinth, where dangers lurked about every corner. “You should not have left your cousin’s house.”

“You were going to leave me there,” she accused.

“No, I--” he began to argue, before cutting himself off. She was correct, of course, though not for the reasons she assumed, and sadly, there was no good manner in which he could explain why, not without divulging all the secrets of his heart, and causing her more discomfort. “I wanted--I want you to have as happy and comfortable and challenging a life as possible. I had thought you would find that among your family and the politics of the Kalmar Union, but, I swear, if you had told me of the baby, I would have chosen differently.”

Happily he would have tolerated the strange food and horrid climates of Svealand forever for her sake, for his family’s sake. He thought once again of the parade of little girls dressed as Saint Lucy, then imagined his own daughter, with Annabeth’s blonde curls and grey eyes, joining it. His heart skipped a beat in his chest.

“We are not so far from your family, and a long way off from Italy,” he said. It would be a simple enough task for him--he did not even have to inform the captain. “We can still turn back, so you might have your confinement and give birth in all comfort.” Her father and Magnus would want nothing more than to take care of her in her condition, and she would far more likely welcome their concern than his.

“We are going to Italy,” she said, mouth set.

“But if you are unwell--”

“I am fine,” she snapped. “We are going to Italy, and there we shall have our child. Does that thought upset you?”

So caught off guard by her tone, he almost missed the most delightful and pleasing combination of words to ever exist: our child . His and Annabeth’s child. The most precious gift he had ever received, the dream of a lifetime.

“It does not,” he said, though he could not entirely quiet his internal concern. “If it is what you wish-- what you truly wish--then we shall continue on to Venice.”

They held each other’s gazes for a moment longer, imparting such thoughts and feelings as neither of them could understand. Then she smiled, beautiful, yet somehow sad. “Surely,” she said, “you wish to raise your child on the shores of your father’s sea.”

She knew him far too well, for he could not deny the appeal.

Then, all of a sudden, he was gripped by an overwhelming fear: Annabeth was with child . Even the most formidable fighter could only do so much while burdened with carrying another life. He remembered how his mother, heavy with little Esther, struggled to walk to and from the local market. What if they should come across another band of cruel bandits? What if she should hurt herself on the road to Italy, or if Percy should find himself injured or ill, unable to help her or protect her?

Seemingly from nowhere, a small bundle of white fur appeared at their feet, and the little cat jumped up beside them, giving a perfunctory sniff to the fabric of Annabeth’s dress before climbing on top of her, pressing her paws back and forth on her thigh the way Percy’s mother used to prepare her bread. Satisfied, then, she walked in a circle before settling down for her midmorning nap, tucking her paws beneath her body.

Admittedly, Percy had been somewhat skeptical of the cat, which Annabeth had taken to calling “Freya.” He liked animals, cats as well as dogs equally, and cats did seem to take a special liking to him. He remembered fondly the many cats of Constantinople following him after a hard day’s work, looking up with expectant eyes as they sweetly begged for part of his daily catch, then absconded with his discards into the dark city alleyways. So while he did not mind Freya’s presence, she seemed to distinctly prefer his wife, sticking to Annabeth’s side like a burr on cloth, laying ownership to her lap, sometimes hissing at strange people who got too close.

Percy could sympathize, on several points.

From Danzig, then, he decided, they would set out on the Via Imperii . Were it yet summer, perhaps they could have sailed the whole way to Venice, but he feared the might of spring storms, and would not risk her life, nor their child’s, for something as intangible as expediency. He remembered well, too, how their voyage upriver had sapped him of his strength until he had been unable to do naught but sleep; to exert himself to exhaustion on the open sea, miles away from any shore or safe harbor, could prove even more disastrous.

Immediately, Annabeth’s hands descended on the cat, scratching the underside of her chin with one while the other stroked the length of her back, and Freya purred, loud enough Percy could hear it even over the crashing waves, blinking her eyes sleepily back up at her. His wife smiled, quite taken with their furry companion.

There was so much more at stake now, he realized. Not just his own health, nor hers, but the health and safety of the life they had made together. In his heart, he swore on a river whose name had once struck fear into the hearts of men and gods alike, he would work every day to prove himself worthy of this woman who made such sacrifices for his sake.

Aloud, he merely said, “Thank you.” Two words which could not encompass all the gratitude he held for her. Were he able to pay her back its weight in gold, she would be the richest woman in the world.

Annabeth cast him a fond, if tired, look, her countenance still vaguely green. “Do not thank me yet,” she said. “I am told that it gets much, much worse.”

“I look forward to it,” Percy replied, turning his face into the sun.

***

He had hoped that Annabeth’s sickness would lessen once they returned to dry land. But after three days traveling through Pomerania , she was still sick in the mornings.

“Your child preferred the sea, methinks.” Annabeth said as Percy passed her water. She smiled her thanks and drank deeply. “But it could be much worse, I suppose. I’ve heard it said that many people feel the sickness all day, for weeks. Mine is, at the very least, limited to the earliest morning hours--and you have been most accommodating.”

With their not inconsiderable fortune, Percy had managed to procure for them a cart and a horse, so that they could keep up a lively pace while allowing Annabeth to rest as much as she required. “I have not been accommodating,” Percy protested. “You are with child.” My child , he did not say, but thought it, giddily. “It is the very least that I could do.”

“Well, regardless,” she said, “it is very appreciated.” Then she groaned, dropping her head forward.

“What is it?” he asked, reaching out a hand to steady her.

“Have we any more food? I am ravenous.”

They did, because Percy wished to spare no expense on his wife and hopeful daughter. And besides, it was Annabeth’s money, they should spend as much on her comfort as needed. They’d left the inn early in the morning, but he had gotten them some bread and hard cheese before they had begun the journey. “Here, have the rest,” he said, handing them to her.

But she pushed the parcel away. “No, no, have we anything else?”

He did not, but he would not let himself fall into a panic. “When we arrive in Stettin ,” he promised, “I shall purchase whatever it is you desire. Tell me, if there were anything in the world that you could have, what would it be?”

Whatever she needed, he would do his best to provide: that was the vow he had taken, and this was merely his first challenge.

Thoughtful, she looked towards the clouds, her lip between her teeth.

“...Olives,” she said. “I would be very happy for some olives.”

Percy laughed. Of course. Athena’s proclivity for the fruit was renowned. “Then olives it is, my lady.”

It was a simple enough task, on the surface, to procure some olives for his pregnant wife. As a child living on the shores of the great Roman lake, olives had been plentiful and ubiquitous; at the agoge , the children of Demeter and Athena had cultivated a small grove of olive trees, partially for their own use, but also to sell at market. Though there had been neither olives nor olive oil in Svealand, as it was far too expensive to import from so far South, Percy assumed that he would be able to locate some here on the continent. Stettin was the Northernmost city on the Via Imperii , and surely some of the stuff must have wound its way through the lands controlled by the Legion.

Day after day, town after town, any time they passed through a settlement, they stopped at market so that Annabeth could rest, and Percy could scour the stalls and alleys for olives--and day after day, town after town, he found none. Not a single hamlet between Danzig and Stettin carried the malakes fruit. Every day he would return to his wife empty handed, and every day she would smile at him, her eyes shining, and thanked him for trying.

Her cravings continued. He could sense it, the way he could sense a storm, her mood souring as the days dragged on.

They stayed an extra night in Stettin to let the horses rest. It was a Monday, the start of a fresh, new week, the day the merchants and farmers brought in their weekly produce. Surely, Percy thought, perhaps foolishly, surely a market of such a large city would have even a small bottle of olive oil? What civilized city did not have a healthy supply of the stuff? Rome had once spanned nearly the entire continent; the well worn roads were proof of it. Surely, they had left some sort of culinary mark.

Apparently, he was a fool. The only oil to be found was made from pumpkin seeds--a favorite of some of the members of the Legion. He knew it to be bland, tasteless, and not at all fit for his wife. As for the olives, the merchants all looked at him as though he had grown a second head, those who understood a little Italian anyway, for those who could not merely stared at him as he fumbled his way through the few Frankish words which he knew.

He felt oddly numb, returning to their accommodations empty-handed. Would she be disappointed? Would she regret leaving the comfort and security of Svealand, where all her needs had been provided for?

Yet she had merely shrugged, brushing her hair with the comb that she had pilfered from Alejandra. “It is no great hardship,” she said, a little distantly, as all her attention was focused on the task in her hands. “I shall survive without it.”

On their bed, Freya the cat yawned, very sweetly, before readjusting her position, standing up and walking in a circle, then settling down and returning to her slumber.

“Still,” said Percy, “I recall the many trials and tribulations which my mother endured before she had borne my sister; if there is something which I can do to ease your burden at all, I should very much like to do so.”

Sighing sharply through her nose, Percy tensed, fearful that she would refuse him outright out of pride, only for him to relax as she merely tugged her comb through a particularly stubborn knot of hair. His fingers twitched in the folds of his clothes, his very nerve endings alight with the mere thought of feeling the soft, golden strands for themselves. He felt, somewhat worryingly, as though he had begun to develop a minor obsession with the feeling of her hair, every time it brushed up against his skin as she moved against him on the cart, or rolled over towards him in their shared bed. To watch her daily ritual, an act so tired and uneventful to her, yet one so captivating to him, with such eagerness and attention would have seemed, on any other man, to be the mark of ill-temperament and evil tidings. Percy, however, was able to content himself with merely looking.

“In truth,” she said, “it is not the olives themselves which I crave, though there is not much I would not do for such a treasure. Just as your child preferred the sea, I can only assume that my current propensity for salt is your doing as well.”

“Salt?”

“Salt,” she confirmed. “Any salty food will do, I think.”

“Salt,” he repeated, suddenly thoughtful. Salty foods were certainly in great supply here in the North; now a whole new world had been opened to him. Then--”You believe that I am the cause of this?” he asked, frowning.

Indelicate, she raised a brow at him. “Are you not? Why else would I have such a craving for saltwater?”

“I thought you wished for olives.”

“Olives?” She made a face. “I think not.”

Percy blinked, feeling as though he had missed a vital step in their conversation. “I beg your pardon?”

Huffing, she threw her comb down, evidently done with her grooming for the night. “Never you mind! I wish to retire.” She stood, undoing the various ties and laces of her dress, while Percy stared at her in slack-jawed awe and confusion. “Go and… cavort with a young man, if one should make himself available to you.”

Then throwing back the covers of the bed, disturbing poor, sweet, Freya, who leapt to the floor, her ears turned back in displeasure, she climbed underneath them, turning away from Percy.

It was barely evening. The sun could still be seen from the window.

“I… very well,” he said, carefully. “If it please you, I shall go and fetch us some food.”

“Do whatever you wish,” she replied, muffled by the sheets. “Good night.”

Feeling very much as though he had just summoned, and then subsequently banished, a hurricane, Percy retreated from their rented room, shutting the door as quickly and quietly as possible so as not to disturb his wife.

That was… unusual.

Not, the constant, shifting hunger pangs, mind; his mother had had similar, if perhaps less intense, culinary desires which could turn on a lira at any given moment. In truth, there was much about pregnancy for which he had already been prepared, having assisted his mother in the arrival of his little sister. When a woman was suffering such emotional and mental torment, it was best not to argue with her, and to placate her as quickly and thoroughly as one could, something which Percy was more than happy to do. No, what was strange was her peculiar comment, her order for him to go and seek out the company of someone else--of another man.

To abandon his wife for the pleasures of another was unthinkable, and not in the least because his spouse just so happened to be, in a bizarre twist of fate, the great love of his life. Again, he recalled how his mother would occasionally spit curses at her loving husband for the most minor of infractions, so the fact that Annabeth, who had tied herself to him in order to escape the pressures of an uncaring, unfamiliar political snare, who had, presumably, not gone into the arrangement expecting or even desiring of a child, and who, historically, had only barely tolerated his presence, was to be expected.

That she had specified he should search for the company of another man was the odd detail in this situation.

His stomach rumbled, reminding him how he had not eaten since this morning, so consumed was he in the hunt for olives, and so he made his way downstairs to the ground floor of the inn, to purchase some dinner for himself--and for Annabeth also, who would almost certainly be ravenous when she awoke, and hopefully, in something of a happier mood.

***

They had picked up a fellow traveler in the city of Lipsi , who had warned them off continuing further down the Via Imperii . “Many wars,” he had said, “much fighting--it would not do for your lovely wife to be caught up in all of that.”

As much as Percy wished to protest, that Annabeth was more than capable of handling herself, even in such a state, she had been so fatigued as of late that he did not wish to risk her safety. Therefore, himself, Annabeth, and the traveler, an itinerant monk named Johann, turned West instead, along the Via Regia . The detour would not put them too far off--once they reached the city of Trever , they could then turn South, towards Basler , and continue through the valley.

Percy and Annabeth had come upon the man as he rested by the side of the road, his curiously shaven head something of a beacon in the dark, green forest. Though Annabeth had initially protested, Percy, being in possession of a horse cart, felt offering him assistance would have been, at least, the polite thing to do. Now they sat all three of them in the front of the cart, Percy in the center with Johann to his left, while Annabeth alternately dozed off, attended to her knitting, a blanket in the making, or stroked sweet little Freya, who had become ever more protective of her mistress’ growing belly.

He was an interesting man, this Johann, pleasant and good-natured. He had embarked on a cross-continental journey of his own, one which ranged from his hometown of Cölln , all the way to the resting place of St. James in Hispania . “Fifteen hundred miles,” he said, ruefully, in perfect Italian, “and I am the poor fool who twists his ankle barely out of his own door.”

“Lady Fortuna must pass us all over some time,” said Percy.

“On the contrary,” said the monk, “your presence is proof of her blessing.”

Perhaps it was his joviality, or perhaps it was the warm sun, beating down on them, wrapping Percy in comfort, but he was in a merry mood as well. “I would have thought you to say that all blessings came from the Lord.”

“And who is to say He did not send you to me, miserable thing that I am?” said Johann. “There is a story I heard once, of a man who found himself in a lake. A pious, devoted man, he had only the utmost, unwavering faith in our Lord, faith that He would deliver the man from the waters before he drowned. Well, by and by, a man comes up to him in a canoe. ‘Sir,’ says the sailor to the man, ‘there is space in my vessel here; climb aboard, and I shall bring you to land.’ But the man refuses, saying, ‘I have faith in the Lord. He shall save me.’ And the sailor goes on. Not long after, another man comes up to him, in yet another canoe. ‘Sir,’ says the second sailor, ‘I have come to rescue you, for the waters are bitter cold, and my wife has a warm fire and a dry bed reserved for your use.’ But once again, the man refuses, saying, ‘I shall remain, for the Lord shall see me through.’ Well,” Johann shrugged, the corners of his lips tugging in a smile, “predictably, this poor, pious man drowns after some time. A person of deepest faith, he arrives at the gates of Heaven, whereupon he is given an interview with our Lord Christ, and he asks, ‘my God, my God, I had unwavering faith in your infinite mercy. Why did you not deliver me from the watery depths?’”

Clearly a practiced storyteller, he paused, a silence which begged to be filled by his audience. “And?” asked Percy. “What did he say?”

“At this question, our Lord Christ shakes his head, and says to the man, ‘My child, there was not much more that I could have done, for you refused the two boats which I sent to you.’”

Percy couldn’t help it--he laughed. “I daresay,” he said, “I have never met a man of the cloth so jovial as you.”

“That is what sunlight does to a man,” said Johann, full of good humor. “My brothers may think they have the better of it, sheltered from wind and rain with their books, but to cage me within four walls was anathema to my entire being, for I have always had a singular talent for making things grow. Did not all of creation begin in a garden? Thus, the gardener is a blessed man indeed.”

“Indeed,” he chuckled, a little uneasily. That Percy and Annabeth were not, strictly speaking, devotees of the trinity, and did not quite understand the finer details of the faith, had not quite come up in conversation yet. He sincerely hoped Johann would not ask.

“But you did not tell me your destination,” said the monk, looking on them both eagerly. “What calling of yours caused our two paths to intertwine?”

Percy glanced towards Annabeth, who had decided to ignore their sudden companion altogether, in favor of observing the trees as they passed. “My… wife and I are on our way to Venice.”

Such a simple phrase, “my wife,” yet Percy could not think of another combination of syllables which had ever given him nearly the same kind of joy.

“Venice, eh? That is quite the journey. Are you on a pilgrimage as well?”

“Ah, no--well--” Though, he considered, were they not? They went to seek spiritual enlightenment of a sort in a far off land. Did that not count as a pilgrimage by any standard? Certainly not in the sense which the good monk was implying, yet nonetheless, it was indeed a pilgrimage. The only difference was that they were not at all certain their destination held the answers which they sought. “We are hoping to… find our fortune there.”

Johann looked him up and down, and then at Annabeth. “Your fortune?” He asked. “I must commend you, sir, for you do not look like you need another one.”

Feeling the telltale flush in his cheeks, he glanced once again towards Annabeth, who, strangely, acted as though she hadn’t heard his comment. He was correct, of course, but Percy was not certain if he appreciated other men saying so--even a man of the cloth.

But the monk continued. “Venice is supposed to have one of the most magnificent cathedrals in all of Christendom: the Chiesa d’Oro . They say it is modeled on the great St. Sophia of Constantinople--of course, I have never seen it myself, so I cannot verify such a claim.”

Even the thought of St. Sophia, of her golden domes and radiant light, made Percy’s heart ache for home--a home to which he could never return. “St. Sophia was a masterpiece to behold,” said Percy, a little wistfully. “I am hard-pressed to imagine another temple quite as awe-inspiring.”

With a little thrill in his gaze, Johann leaned in, closer to Percy. “You have beheld the Church of the Holy Wisdom for yourself? Is it as beautiful as they say?”

“More than that, sir, there is no other place quite like it. To tell you truly,” he said, chuckling a little, “my wife and I both hail from Constantinople.”

For a moment, Annabeth looked up and over at him and their companion, narrowing her eyes, but then she just frowned and went back to her knitting.

Johann frowned as well, though more confused than upset, unlike his wife. “From the city itself, you say?”

Percy nodded.

“Then, if I may be so bold, how have you found yourself in these parts? Unless I am very much mistaken, one does not usually feel the need to travel to Saxonia on one’s journey to Venice from the holy lands.”

“Not usually, no,” said Percy. “However, the two of us, we were…” He paused, uncertain of how much information he was willing to share with this virtual stranger. “I was stationed on the walls,” he said. “We fled the city just as the Ottomans broke the siege, then traveled North, to her cousin’s estates.”

“I see,” said the monk. “You were deep in the thick of it, then?”

The all-consuming flames and the blood-curdling screams of his memory, they faded more and more each day, as all battles did, for he was a soldier first and foremost, and war tended to blur together after a point. By contrast, sometimes he still awoke in a cold sweat, drumbeats in his ears as he relived the terror and panic of watching the gods flee the city in which they had dwelt for a thousand years, no more powerful than a crop of refugees. “Yes,” he said. “We were.”

Johann hummed, linking his hands together. “The loss of life is always a tragedy,” he said, “even that of a heretic. Alas, that the city of Constantine fell so far from grace that they had to be punished so!”

Percy shifted, uncomfortable.

“Yet,” he went on, still in that same, blasted, affable tone, “even in the face of great sorrow, there is cause to celebrate, for the Lord saw fit to spare you and your wife, and see you to safe harbors, no?”

He glanced towards Annabeth, who continued at her weaving, seemingly unaware of the monk’s comments. “Well, I--”

“If you will permit me, sir, let me bless your wife and unborn child, so that he or she may grow strong and pious in the loving embrace of the Lord.” And he opened his hands, all set to begin his little ritual.

With a thought, Percy pulled their cart to a stop, suddenly, bracing an outstretched arm against Annabeth so she would not be knocked forward. Freya, jolted from her mid-morning nap, mewed, pitiful. “Percy,” said Annabeth, in their own tongue, “what--”

“This is where we part ways,” said Percy to the Christian man. “Disembark, and quickly.”

He sat, slack-jawed. “I beg your pardon?”

If Percy had been more in control of his emotions, then he may not have uttered his next words. However, later on, he found he did not regret them. “My wife and I are not interested in blessings from your trinity gods.”

“My--” he sputtered. “You--”

“I will not repeat myself--you are no longer welcome to travel with us.”

His pale skin flushed with anger, the monk chose not to argue with him, but did disembark, as though he could no longer bear their presence. “Heathen,” he hissed. “The Lord knows your heart, and for your lack of faith, He shall smite you down to the depths of the underworld.”

Possessed of a fury he did not know he could feel, Percy drew himself up to his full height, reaching deep within himself to the core of his being, the part of him which could summon typhoons, slay monsters, and cause the very earth beneath them to split--the part which could more than terrify a simple fool. “And there we shall be welcomed as heroes,” he said, “for we personally know the lord of the dead himself.”

White with terror, the monk touched his face and shoulders, chanting Latin beneath his breath. Leaving him to it, Percy snapped the reins on the horse, and they took off once more, leaving Johann in the dust.

Annabeth, twisted around in her seat, peered back at the retreating figure of their one-time travelling companion. “Do not mistake my confusion for disappointment,” she said, “for I, too, am glad to be rid of him, though I must say, that was very suddenly done.”

Percy scoffed, twisting the reins between his fingers, something with which to ground himself. “Had I known what he would offer,” he nearly growled, “I would have expelled him sooner.”

Curious, she tilted her head. “What offer was so odious as to force him from your sight?”

Blinking, Percy turned towards her. As always, his heart raced at the sight of those grey eyes on him, though at this moment they were wide in innocent confusion. Percy frowned. He had thought she was a better listener than he, on most occasions. “His offer to bless us in the name of his lord.”

Her eyes widened. “Is that what he said?”

“Did you not hear him?”

“I did,” she huffed, annoyed. Again. She seemed often annoyed with him these days. “But as I cannot understand Italian, clearly I missed a few things.”

She--”You--what?”

Lips pursed, heat rushed to her cheeks, though she did not let up on her steely stare. “Yes?”

“You cannot speak Italian?”

“I have just told you so.”

“But--” Percy sputtered. “But--how did you--how did you take orders from your commander?”

The Venetians and the Genoese had comprised most of the command posts on the wall and had not bothered to learn the local language for themselves. Knowledge of Italian, therefore, had been crucial to the defense of the city, something Annabeth would certainly have known.

“My commander was a fool and a drunkard,” she said, turning her nose up, “and perished one night after he fell off the wall.”

“Then… who--” But he stopped himself before he could finish his question, for there was only one reasonable answer. “You took command of your unit.”

“Obviously.”

“And none of your men took issue with a woman leading them into battle?”

Her stern gaze transformed into a glare, narrowed and piercing. “Not when it guaranteed them victory.”

For a moment, Percy could do nothing but stare right back, in disbelief and incredulity. She must have led her little cohort for months, the warrior woman of Constantinople, Areia made flesh. No wonder the northern portion of the wall held for so long.

Then, out of nowhere, he laughed.

“And what, pray tell, is so amusing?” his wife asked, lips thin, brow furrowed.

“Nothing, nothing,” he chortled. He could not say from where such delight had come, nor why it had suddenly taken him over thus. Perhaps it was simply the knowledge that, no matter how much time had passed, Annabeth’s character remained remarkably consistent from the first day he had known her. She would always find a way to command, to control--and, save one obvious exception, to deliver victory. “Oh, Anja,” he said, fondness warming him up from the inside out, “I beg of you, do not ever change.”

“I shall endeavor not to.” She said, faintly. She seemed at a loss for words for several moments, a rarity with her, then spoke once more. “You… you called me Anja.”

Percy frowned, “I know I struggle with your northern tongue, did I not pronounce it correctly?” He had attempted to divine the subtleties in the difference between the Ana that he had always known her to be, and the Anja her family called her, but perhaps he had been mistaken.

“No.” Softly, sweetly, a smile curled the straight lines of her mouth, even as she turned her face out to watch the trees as they passed, raising a hand to rest delicately on her stomach. “You were perfect.”

***

Percy laid out his cloak over the smoothest rock he could find. It was a nice cloak, of a much higher quality fabric and weave than to which he was most accustomed. Had he been a smarter man, most likely he would not have used the garment for such a task as this--but he was used to his clothes being worn out, multipurpose things. The hot velvet could find another use as a blanket until the warmth of early summer passed them by.

Having prepared her seat, he then rushed back to the wagon, reaching his hand out for Annabeth to steady herself on it. “I am not an invalid,” she chided, stretching her leg down to the earth. “You do not have to take such precaution with me.”

“It is no trouble.” The days, slowly but surely, were getting longer, Helios’ chariot lingering for a few more minutes every evening. They could certainly afford to stop and rest for a while should she require it. Once she had revealed to him her condition, he had resolved to mold the pace of their journey to her level of comfort and satisfaction. To ensure her health and the health of their child, Percy could stand a few unexpected delays.

Supporting her with his arm, he led her to the makeshift seat of stone, situated in a patch of sunlight bracketed by the shadows of the trees behind them. With an adorable little grunt, her sweet face scrunched up, she sat down upon it, sighing in relief. “There,” she breathed, hanging her head. “That’s better.”

The town of Trever was still a little ways off, but they could still see the rise of the town walls over the rolling hills. He noted, with some displeasure, the towering spindle resting on top of the ancient gate--was there nothing these trinity men would not claim for themselves?--but chased the thought from his mind, focusing instead on the more pressing issue at hand. “What is wrong?”

She had not explicitly told him why they should stop, only that she was desperate for relief of some kind. Rather than push for a reason, he had chosen instead to indulge her. “Some water, please?” she asked, her face drawn.

Nearly tripping over himself, he leapt up onto the wagon to retrieve the water skin before delivering it to her, kneeling down before her. “Are you alright?” he asked again, hiding his concern as best he could. She did not like him to fret so much over her--not that she could stop him.

“I am fine,” she promised. “Your child is just--very active.”

His heart skipped a beat. “Oh?”

She nodded. “Here--feel.” Then, without hesitation, she grasped his hand, and placed it over her stomach.

Percy, by design, had refrained himself from touching her in any manner that was not explicitly one of acquaintanceship since that wonderful, terrible night, not in any meaningful way. In turn, she had not, precisely, refused his company, but had kept him at something of a distance, emotionally if not physically, likely for his own protection. But now she had initiated contact, had invited him in, and Percy was once again caught up in the sublime experience which was being close to Annabeth Fredriksdotter. Her hair, nearly twice as long as it was when they had arrived in Svealand, was bound up in an intricate knot, though loose, gilded strands fell out here or there, as she had left her head uncovered today, insisting that it was too hot for her wimple. Percy understood that it was key to her modesty as a married woman to cover her head, even if she was married to the likes of him, though he could not pretend he did not dislike it, at times. If only she would look at him, though, grace him with her lovely gaze, rather than their joined hands.

So distracted by the sunlight filtering through her hair that he nearly missed it.

A small, nearly imperceptible jolt beneath his fingertips.

Then he felt it again.

He recognized the feeling--it was one he recognized from when his mother was pregnant with his dear, sweet little Esther. “Is that…” he said, trailing off, softly so as not to disturb the moment.

“That,” said his wife, jovial, “is the little monster which has been causing me so much distress recently.”

Swallowing, he blinked back the sudden heat from his eyes. “Oh,” he said, pulling his emotions together so he did not weep. “I am sorry.”

“As you should be,” she said, but she was grinning at him. “Your child is kicking me in the ribs--a skill I am quite certain he got from you.”

He . She thought they were going to have a son.

Something in her smirk riled an old part of his brain. “Kicking was always your maneuver,” he accused, smiling in turn. “If she is kicking,” he insisted, emphasizing the opposite sex purely on principle alone, “it is surely due to her mother’s influence.”

She rolled her eyes at the reference. “Oh, please do not say you are still sore from--”

“I swear, to this day, I still bear the marks from the force of your blow!”

“I have seen you without clothes on,” Annabeth said, “and you have no such mark, believe me.”

A silence fell between the two of them, chilly and awkward. She did not attempt to remove his hand from her person, and nor did he wish to remove it.

“It occurs to me,” she said quietly, after some time, “that I… I have never apologized for how I treated you back then.”

Rubbing his thumb against the fabric of her dress, he shrugged. “That time has long since passed,” he murmured, “and we are two very different people now. Let the past remain in the past, I say.”

“Still. I was--very cruel to you,” she said. “I should not have said those things.”

She had been very cruel. Percy had returned to the agoge after a year and a half spent with the Legion, expecting open arms and welcome smiles from his friends and brothers in arms, only to be met with scorn and derision from the one person whom he had most wanted to see.

After the war with the titans, they had only been granted a short reprieve before they had received an envoy from Aachen, begging Percy’s help with a monster which they simply could not fight on their own, diminished as they were in the realm of Karolus Magnus , far from their ancestral home. Never one to turn down a cry for help, Percy had entreated Annabeth and their former questing companion now turned Lord of the Wild to accompany him. Unfortunately, in the snowy mountains of Dardania, they were ambushed by monsters, and separated. By the time Percy came to his senses, he was in the tender grip of the Latins, and Annabeth was long gone.

A naturally distrustful lot, they would not let him free until he had proven his loyalty to the rootless empire, and they sent him away to train with their patroness in the wilds. Once Lupa deemed him worthy of service, upon his return, they then put him to work, pairing him with his Latin counterpart, the son of Jupiter.

Again, he felt no shame with what he had with Iason. Theirs had been a soldiers’ romance, brief, but deep, intense and overwhelming. In truth, he would not have fallen in with the man, save for that he had been under the impression that Annabeth had left him to his doom in the mountains. The Latins had intimated to him evidence of a person’s quick retreat where they had found him, and had let him come to his own conclusions.

Once the giant Polybotes had been slain, then, and Percy had been released from unwilling service, he had been allowed to return to the shores of Constantinople. There he had received something of a hero’s welcome, with all due honors and celebrations--except, of course, from Annabeth, who had been decidedly not happy with his return. Feelings between them grew fouler and fouler, until, one fateful day, as they were practicing their weapons’ routines on each other’s persons, more hateful words had been traded rather than blows. Quickly, what had been a skilled and professional match devolved into something dirty and mean, filthy trick after filthy trick, until she had kicked him square in the ribs, knocking him flat onto the ground, hissing from between bloodied teeth how she would have preferred it if he had died in Dardania.

After that, Percy had promptly departed for his father’s palace, seeking escape in the form of good cheer and happier people, chasing away his broken heart in the arms of Thetis, and others.

They had not shared a serious or friendly conversation for years--not until the morning the Ottomans broke through the defense of the city.

“Think nothing of it,” he said, unwilling to dwell on that time any longer than he had to. He would not say it was alright, for it was not, but he also had let go of that animosity many months before, in the shadow of the Erechtheion.

“You must understand,” she went on, a little forceful, “I was not angry with you, but with myself. I thought I had lost you to a fate unspeakable--”

“I am not certain I would classify Latin conscription as a fate unspeakable,” said Percy, dryly.

She flushed. “I--I only meant--”

“Annabeth,” he said, not wanting to tread this ground any further, “let it be done. Please.”

“After the war,” she spoke, urgently, “I thought… I had--thought that we would… well.” All at once, she slumped as though the very breath had gone out of her, removing her hand from his, nearly curling into herself. “I suppose,” she murmured, “it no longer matters what I thought.”

She did not need to clarify. He knew perfectly well what she had meant. It was not much of a secret that Percy and Annabeth had held some youthful affection for each other, not even from each other. So easily it could have blossomed into something stronger. “I wanted to,” he said, craning his neck to meet her eyes so she could see the truth of it. He had wanted to, and had planned to. But he was no fool, for he knew that a man needed a way of supporting a family before he could start one. The expedition to Aachen, that would have been his ticket into some of the upper echelons of Constantinople; a letter of introduction from a tribune, prefect, or even a centurion would have done wonders for his social standing and finances. “I swear, I wanted to, but then…”

Her lips lifted in a small smile. Not one of happiness, no. She knew all too well the things they had done to each other, the barbs they had hurled and the wounds they had inflicted. It was the acknowledgement of old sorrows and long-ignored pain which caused her to smile, a pain shared and understood only by the man before her. “As you stated,” she said, “we are now different people, and we cannot dwell on what may have transpired between us.”

A satisfactory answer--tragic, yes, but satisfactory nonetheless. “But we are friends, yes?” he asked, hoping for a little salve for his broken heart.

She raised her head, grey eyes clear and steady. “It is my very honor, Perseus,” said she, a pronouncement handed down from the empress herself, “to call you my friend--my dearest friend.”

It was not exactly what a husband might want to hear from his wife, nor what a man might want from the woman he loved about all things. But for Percy, it would be enough. It was Anja Elisabet Fredriksdotter: her hand, her child, her friendship. Perhaps one day, that friendship could be transmuted into something more affectionate, but Percy would not waste his time waiting for a day which would never come, not when she was here, before him, solid and tangible.

“Percy,” she said, very sweetly, “as wonderful as this is, unfortunately, I must ask you to give me some privacy at this time.”

“Oh,” he staggered to his feet, snatching his hand back. “Of course.” This, too, was a symptom of pregnancy with which he was quite familiar. His poor mother’s body had been pushed to its very limit, and she had had to relieve herself quite often. “I shall leave you to it, then.”

Then, face red, he trotted round to the other side of the wagon, where, paradoxically, he could better protect her.

***

Percy blinked, uncomprehending. “I beg your pardon?”

“I merely said,” she repeated, unconcerned, “that you no longer have to keep up the pretense. It has been months since I have had such voracious cravings, yet you continue to make a show of your search. It is natural for men to wish time for themselves--I know very well what a man can do with this time away from his wife.” She looked on him flatly, as though she thought he was the fool for thinking her to be one instead. “I am more than capable of amusing myself for a few hours. Please, go on--I am sure the good people of the brothel await.”

The--”I would not do that to you,” said Percy, quietly, a little insulted. Did she truly think so low of him that he would make good on his long-forgotten promise to abandon her to her freedom? Did she not understand that dreams of their brief time together would sustain him as water in a desert, and yet ruin him for any other man or woman? “If you do not believe me, then I insist you accompany me,” he said, firmly. “Allow me to put these thoughts of yours to rest.”

She looked out the window of their little room, where the sun hung low in the sky over Messalia . It had been a hot, July mid-morning when they rambled into town, looking for a place to stay the night before they would put to sea the next day, the streets and corners quiet as the people retreated to their homes for their daily rest. Now, as the shadows began to stretch, the city came to life once more, the hustle and bustle of commerce a dull roar beneath the room in the little inn which they had rented. Through the air wafted the scents of spices, coal fire, and the blessed salt smell of the sea, the glittering, golden jewel that lay beyond the walls. “Very well,” she said. “I believe I shall. A walk outside may do me some good.”

With some difficulty, as her large stomach made everything rather difficult for her these days, she managed to stand up from the low bed, reaching for her wimple which she had discarded previously. Tying it about her face, he was once again struck by the duality of his emotions, that he could feel so disheartened and yet so elated by the same action. Her wimple covered all of her gorgeous, golden hair, as modesty dictated it must, yet the act of hiding such beauty signified, once again, that she was his wife--a cause for great celebration, if only in his heart.

And so they went together on the town.

It was an absolutely marvelous time.

Once again, the sea infused his senses and soothed his entire being--a familiar sea this time, not the strange, frigid waters of the north, but the deep lapis and emerald of his childhood. Every shaft of sunlight felt as the touch of a friendly hand, and every shadow a cool breeze of relief. Together, arm in arm, they wandered up and down the markets, where Annabeth used the time given to her to practice her Italian. She was a remarkably quick study, as he knew she would be, though it did help that the merchants here were much more familiar with that language than they had been further north.

By now, Percy had been to markets practically all over the world. Each one was unique, distinct, with its own set of sights and sounds and smells, and yet, each one had been positively lackluster, almost grey in his memory. Not many men were fortunate enough to have seen so much of the known world, and had lived to tell the tale of it. Today, however, walking about with his eight month pregnant wife in the streets of Messalia, he finally understood what they all had been lacking.

So caught up in his wife’s lovely smile as she admired a particularly ripe set of figs, that he accidentally barreled into another person, spilling the contents of their arms all over the ground. Fruit went tumbling, smashing the earth in rich, dark colors, staining the well-worn streets. “Ah, perdono !” he cried, dropping to his knees to help gather up the items which could be salvaged. “ Scusatemi !”

“ Non, non, mon sieur ,” said the woman, joining him on the ground, “ perdon , per … Percy?”

At the sound of his name, his head snapped up.

She was an older woman, with long, thick brown hair streaked with grey, and eyes that shifted color in the low light. Her skin was tanned a deep brown from hours spent in the sun, and though her face was lined with age, none would look on her and not consider her to be a great beauty.

They stared at each other, in shock and disbelief.

“Percy?” called Annabeth, faint in his ears. “I am in need of your assistance, as I cannot remember the world you taught me--”

“Oh!” wept the older woman, dropping the rest of the fruit she had gathered onto the street, opening her arms to hold him. “It is you!”

And with a deep, wrenching sob, pulled from his chest, Percy threw himself into the warm embrace of his mother.

“ Mater , mater ,” he moaned, burying his face into her chest as she held him close. “Oh, mater !”

“I knew it, I just knew it,” she was saying, over and over again, clutching him to her breast, kissing his forehead, “I knew you had made it out. Oh, lord of the sea, earth-shaker in the swelling brine, thank you, thank you, thank you for my son!”

So caught up in the sudden wave of emotion, he was rendered nearly mute. “Mother,” he finally croaked, taking in the warm, sweet scent of her--cinnamon and cloves and sea salt. To think that he had almost forgotten the particular details, hands calloused from years of cooking, eyes twinkling like stars on the surface of the water. “Mother!”

“My boy!” Sally pulled back, raking her hands through his hair, pushing it from his face so she could look on him more clearly. “Oh, my boy, I never thought I would see you again!”

“Nor I you,” he replied, tears blurring his vision. “How--how are you here?”

“I could ask you the very same,” she said, smiling the sweet summer smile which had lit his childhood as a candle in the dark, “and I will hear all of it--but for now, let me simply look upon you! It has been far, far too long since I have seen your smiling face.”

He was smiling, so wide and genuine that it caused his face to ache, a pain he was more than happy to bear, down on his knees in the middle of Messalia. “I have missed you, mater ,” he said, “so much.”

“Percy?”

Blinking, he came back to himself, emerging from the dream so suddenly made real. The populace of Messalia were not giving them so wide a berth, just barely sparing the two the indignity of being walked all over. Annabeth stood a little ways away, her hand resting on her protruding stomach, light concern falling over her face like a veil.

“Mother,” he said, seized with a strange kind of energy, “here.” With steady hands, he lifted her up from the ground, the ruined fruit forgotten. Annabeth stepped closer to them, trepidation slowing her pace. She had already met his mother a number of times--they had often taken rest at her house when a quest required them to take their leave from the agoge for several days at a time--but even he understood that to meet her as his wife was a vastly different thing.

But his mother, quick as ever, cottoned onto the truth of the matter. “Percy,” she breathed, full of disbelief, “is that--”

“You remember Annabeth,” said Percy, nerves seizing his tongue and nearly stopping it in his mouth, “my--my wife.”

How strange, that weeks ago, the two syllables represented one of the happiest truths of his life, and yet today, he felt as anxious as a baby colt learning to walk for the first time, desperate for the two most important women in his world to feel some sort of kinship.

His mother gasped, her hands flying to her face. “Annabeth!” she cried, taking her in her arms without hesitation. “Your wife! How wonderful! Oh, blessed day that made your way here!”

Annabeth stood there, quite shocked, before bringing her arms up as well.

“Oh, goodness,” said his mother, pulling herself back, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Look at me--I apologize for such unbecoming behavior. But you must come back with me--Paul and Esther will be overjoyed--I will need to purchase some wine--”

It was then that Percy remembered he had, quite indirectly, ruined her groceries. Fruit was not inexpensive, and neither was wine. Percy knew his mother, and he knew she would wish to cook for him in celebration, but he would not see her waste any more of her money on his account. “Allow me,” he said, placing a hand on her arm. “I shall pay you back in full, and then some. Ah, if,” he glanced towards Annabeth, seeking her permission, for it was her money after all, “if that is alright, of course.”

She looked at him, quizzically. “Of course it is alright.”

“Percy,” sighed his mother, “you do not need to--”

“It is settled, then!” Taking her arm in his, he directed them to the fruit seller whom Annabeth had been speaking to just prior, unwilling to let go of his mother for even a second. “We shall have a veritable feast!”

***

Paul, his mother’s husband, had wept upon seeing them. Dear, sweet little Esther refused to let go of her elder brother, stubbornly clinging to his leg. Eventually, she had tired herself out, the poor thing, only allowing her father and Annabeth to take her to bed when she had nearly fallen asleep in his lap. Percy had tried to persuade Annabeth to relax, but she had insisted, looking on Esther with such sweetness and doting in her eyes that Percy found himself hard-pressed to say no. Perhaps she would be so sweet and affectionate with their daughter, as well. The very thought excited him in ways he could not quite describe.

If she was forced to be a mother, then, perhaps it would not be the harshest of fates.

“I am so glad, Percy,” said his own mother, once he had recounted to her the whole, winding tale of his and Annabeth’s journey. Her looking at him with such fondness, it transported him back to that dark, bleak time, when they were all that each other could claim to call their own. Now look at them--families and children, both. Beneath the thumb of a monstrous man, sometimes it was difficult to imagine otherwise. “When the news of Constantinople’s fall reached us… yet I kept the faith. I knew you would survive, and I am so glad you had someone with you.”

He smiled, taking her hands in his, kissing the knuckles there. “All I learned of survival,” he said, “I learned from you.”

She squeezed his hands, warm and solid.

“But you must tell me how you came to Messalia,” said Percy, before he could begin to weep. “How is it you found your way to this place?”

His mother lifted her shoulders, tilting her head. “My story is not nearly so exciting as yours, I can promise you that. Our voyage out of Constantinople was swift and peaceful, and we arrived on the shores of this city far faster than we thought possible.”

“That was my father,” said Percy. “In Svealand, I had a dream of him--he bade me to send you his love.”

Her countenance transforming, she smiled, sweetly, knowingly, a glint in her eye which lifted years off of her face. “I had wondered,” she said, “for our voyage did seem unusually safe.” Then she shook her head, lightly, casting off whatever memories had come to her in that moment. “What else did he tell you?”

Much that he wished to keep to himself, though he was sure she would understand. “Have you ever heard of the city of old soldiers?” he asked his mother instead. He felt all of fourteen years old once more, seeking his mother’s guidance, begging for wisdom from a woman of keen sight and keener instinct.

Frowning, she turned her gaze towards the open window, to the stars which were beginning to show their faces. “I do not know this city of which you speak,” she said quietly.

Percy sighed, his shoulders slumping.

“Yet,” said his mother, “I, too, have had some extraordinary dreams as of late.”

At that, he perked up once more, leaning in to listen better. As she had told him, once upon a time, her sight had waned alongside her youth, though she could still occasionally perceive that which lay just beyond the comprehension of most mortals. “What have you seen?” he asked, breathless.

She closed her eyes, recalling. “In a city on a river,” she said, “there is a grand building--a church, made of marble, white and green, and above it rests a red dome, reaching towards the sky, as though it longs to return from whence it came.”

“A city on a river,” he repeated. Another clue--yet, just as many cities had rivers as they did old soldiers.

“I apologize, my son,” said his mother, opening her eyes once more. “This is all I know.”

He squeezed her hands, comforting. “Think nothing of it. We have already decided to seek our fortune in Venice--I have been told that their church there was modeled on St. Sophia. Perhaps this is the dome of which you speak.”

“Perhaps,” she said, unconvinced. “But must you leave us so soon? You will do well in Venice, of that I have no doubt, yet I do not know if I can bear to be apart from you once again. And,” then she grinned, her eyes suddenly sparkling, “I should very much like to meet your child.”

Percy blinked at her, processing what she was saying. Then he flushed, grinning weakly in return. “Ah, yes, well… I should like you to meet her as well.”

Certainly, he possessed no gift of prophecy--he was not, as it were, a child of Apollo--but he found himself dreaming more and more of that little girl with his wife’s lovely hair and eyes, like the children who dressed as St. Lucy. A little girl whom he could lavish all fatherly love and affection upon, rather than a wife who would find it a nuisance at best. She would be his princess; and if her mother could be persuaded, he would call her his Anja.

The lines on her face ran deep, carved from years of laughter and joy which poured forth from her like the sun itself. “Even at such a young age, I could sense the fondness and affection you had for each other. You do not know how happy I am for the two of you.”

A fondness and affection which had now faded on her part--but at least they had resolved to remain friends in a marriage of trust and support, if not love. “When I have made enough money,” he promised, to take his mind off of his situation, “I will send for you and your family, and we will never be parted again. In fact,” he said, struck with sudden inspiration. Rummaging through the various folds of his clothing, he located his purse which carried the rest of the money he had on him, then placed it in his mother’s hand. “Here. A gift, to a wonderful mother from her loving son.”

“Percy,” she tutted, brow furrowed. “Do not concern yourself with me. We are comfortable here, Paul and I; you must focus all of your resources on providing for your own family now.”

“Annabeth has more than enough to provide for herself, her dowry was immense. More land than I thought possible, sold for more money.” he said. “She and our children--our child,” he corrected, cursing himself for his weak tongue, and praying his mother had not caught it, “our child will be kept in comfort for the rest of their days. I carry only a bit for pocket change, so she need not do all the bartering for me. You have done so much for me--please, allow me to do this for you.”

“What do you mean?” his mother asked, picking up the purse, surprised by the weight of it. He observed as she untied the cord, and spilt the contents on her table, the gold coins clinking against each other ever so noisily. “Is it not your money now?”

“I suppose, legally , yes.” he conceded. “But the land we--she gained from her uncle is ancient family land. It would not do for me to leech such things away from her.” Bad enough that she had to be tied to him in motherhood and marriage, but he would not stoop so low as to usurp the use of her finances. “Once I arrive in Venice, I will then pay my own way,” he promised his mother, and his wife, though she was not there to hear him. “I will find work as a laborer, or if I am lucky, perhaps a ship will be in need of a sailor.”

“I suggest,” his mother said, “that you speak to your wife regarding such things.”

As much as he would have liked to protest, said wife reentered at that moment, helped along by Paul. “Percy,” she said, “the hour grows late, and we have left poor little Freya all by her lonesome.”

“Ah--of course,” said Percy, standing as well. Damn that cat, he thought. “Then I believe we must take our leave of you now, mother.”

“I understand,” she said, rising to see them out. “Will we see you again ‘ere you depart?”

“Tomorrow,” he promised. “I shall return to you once more.”

Then she swept him up in her arms again. “Until that happy time, my son.”

He buried his face in her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of oil and onion, cinnamon and cloves, hearth and home, and marveled again at the strength of his wife who had borne the pain of leaving her father to travel the world with someone like him. “Until then.”

#my fic #the marble king #pjo #percabeth #the rivalry ends here #darkmagyk #percyyoulittleshit #pataytayo #enjoy the idiots!!!!

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keep-looking-here · 4 years ago

Text

Shoreline

A short story piece by me, Emily. I haven’t written any poetry in ages, but I thought you guys might want to read this.

.._.._..

I took her to the beach on our three-month anniversary.

Beaches were not a place we went together.

Beaches, Amina said to me, are for straight white girls in bikinis. Beaches have sand that gets stuck in your toenails and water that hurts your eyes and people who look at you weirdly when you don’t show enough skin. Why would I go to a beach?

Sometimes, I would protest this. Most of the time, I would laugh, and she would laugh, and if the way the ocean pushed and pulled felt like breathing, then Amina’s laughter was the blood that ran through my veins, and there was nothing I would have traded for it.

But this was no Cottesloe or Scarborough, no tanned and toned surfers braving the waves or bikini-clad women soaking up the summer sun. No, here the beach was frequented only by distant couples on afternoon walks with their dogs, the murky water empty save for stingers which left swollen welts up your arms that burned and smarted for hours, leaving behind a trail of red pinpricks where their tentacles pierced your skin.

We picked our way down from the dunes to the shoreline, over the deep tyre-ruts left by the trucks that would bring new loads of sand after the ocean swept the coastline away. Amina left her shoes under a scraggly salt-beat bush; I hadn’t worn shoes in the first place.

I came here loads when I was younger, I said.

Yeah?

Yeah. After we moved from the country, it was nice to have a place that didn't feel as civilised, y’know? The city feels like it goes on forever, suburb after suburb all the way to the horizon. But there are still gaps, places that you can’t quite figure out, where time seems to go in a different direction. I reckon this is one of them.

We walked down to the shoreline, and I let the waves lap up to my ankles. Out past the ruins of the old jetty, where the rusting hull of some abandoned vessel jutted sharply out of the sand, a statue of a man on horseback stood lonely in the water. It was a rather macabre monument, dedicated to a man who planned a 500 kilometre pipeline that stretched out into the desert, but rode into the ocean and shot himself before the water made it through.

One time, I told Amina, my little brother tried to climb the statue, but he scraped his arms open on the barnacles that coated its surface and had to swim, bleeding, back to shore.

She laughed, but it was an empty sort of laugh.

I kicked at the water, absently. The murmur of the waves hung heavy in the silence between us, but nothing, I think, could have flowed in to fill that gap. How many times had my footsteps crossed this space, tracing the same paths backwards and forwards? I spent so many years trying to figure myself out, sifting through all the stuff that I’d ever been taught, until it felt like I would never see the bottom. But if there was ever a constant in the chaos, it was here, where the ocean breathed and the ocean changed, but only in the ways I knew it would.

It’s weird, I said to Amina, that we were kids once, y’know? Five years ago, I was still determined to marry a man, just to win my parent’s approval. I still sat in church, and tried to believe everything they said. I was still a scared kid, who spoke more in the things that I didn't say than in the things that I did. And now -

I paused. Turned towards Amina, but she had taken a step backwards, the swirling water rising up to her calves.

And now what? she snapped, her voice sharp and salt-water bitter. And now you’re bringing your girlfriend home like it’s some god-damned rite of passage? Do you really expect me to sit there just so I can be judged by your family?

God, Amina, you know it’s not like that! I want them in my life, ok? I can’t cut them off just to avoid one awkward dinner.

You’ve told me how all the things they taught you hurt you, how things still don’t feel the same around them after you told them. How can you want this after all that?

They’re trying to make things better, I said. And then: they’re still my family.

Amina laughed, but it sounded more like she was choking.

Don’t try and pull that stuff on me. Family doesn’t guarantee anything.

Maybe it doesn’t for you, I said.

Amina didn't respond, but she let go of her breath in one long, continuous exhalation, and the sound of her sigh echoed above the waves.

.._.._..

I’d never met Amina’s parents.

When she came out, she told me, they threw each word they spoke to her like punches until they knocked her right out the door.

She still called them, sometimes. But their conversations were cold and shallow, like the way the ocean in my hometown felt at six in the morning, numbing your fingers and biting your bones until it forced your retreat to the safety of the sand and a hot shower back at home.

We walked up and down the shoreline, Amina and I, tracing the same footsteps, backwards and forwards. The water pushed and pulled at our ankles, cool, but never cold enough to bite. I pressed my foot into the sand, watched the water pool and fill up the hole it left behind.

I came here with my mum, I said to Amina, the day after I came out. We didn't really talk much, just jogged down the beach with the dog. Dipped our heads into the water, then headed home, y’know? Like any other day. But she was the one who asked me to come, even after everything that happened the night before. I think that’s what matters the most to me. That despite everything, they’re still trying to be a family.

God, Amina said. I wish I had that.

But she took my hand anyway, and it was gentler than her words could ever be.

The ocean breathed. In, sucking sand and shells and bits of broken glass down into its frothing maw. Out, spitting up the seed-pods of seagrass that formed a luridly green and slimy mat at the edges of the waves’ reach, the bodies of fish and bluebottles and all the other lost, dead things that would gradually find their way to the shore. Even as we turned our backs and wandered up to the dunes, its presence still hung in the air in the soft whoosh of the waves, the swish of the water over the sand. This was an in-between place, the knife’s edge between two worlds, where the known and the unknown brushed each other in a gentle yet passionate caress. But I had spent too many years of my life living in the gaps and silences, in the spaces that the truths we don’t say leave behind.

So if the push and pull of the ocean was the breath in my lungs, then Amina’s hand in mine was the strength in my bones, an assurance that I would remain standing even as we left the shoreline for the dreadful, beautiful certainty of the suburbs beyond. And there was nothing that I would have traded for it.

#em's writing #it's been ages since i posted any writing on here #haven't written poetry in months which is probably a good sign for my mental health #given that poetry is often my way of coping with things #i'll see if i can't write some poems over the summer

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natebuzzlover344 · 4 years ago

Text

First of all, i’m sorry for my english and grammar. And this is a chapter of one of my wattpad stories named “Cliché”

It’s a Mitch Rapp fanfiction, if you like it i will continue to translate it in english.

I don’t own this gif (take it from pinterest)

I stand in front of the mirror looking at my sad reflex. My skin is whiter than milk, and the dark circles around my eyes look awful to me, the redness of the bruise around my eyes has been pierced by small thin veins.

I'm in a tough, tough time. I do not feel well. It was as if all evil had come upon me. I take a foundation with two shades darker from the cherry blush on the table. I need to have a little color, I look like a corpse.

I pour a few drops into my palms and start stretching in front of me. My blue eyes, like the sea, watched as my face began to come to life.

At just twenty-three, my embers-black hair begins to turn white at the roots. The stress is too great. I'm surrounded by people, but I feel lonely. Empty inside.

After applying a layer of mascara on my long lashes, I get up from my chair and take my red dress off the bed.

The bitter taste of sadness is the only aroma I have been feeling for more than three years. The judgment of the people around me depresses me, as if cutting me in the flesh.

My name is Jenna Lockwood and I'm probably the most fake person you've ever met.

After I put on the dress, I look in the mirror and struggle to smile. The red dress fit perfectly on my waist, and the square neckline highlighted my golden necklace, received as a gift from a good friend. I untie my hair and let it fall, reaching close to my hips.

Now that I'm ready, it's time to leave for a new white night in which I will hide my sadness and insecurities behind a mask. White Nights for black days.

I walk in the door of the club excited by the colorful strobe lights and the catchy music that sings so loud it seems to shake the club. The smell of liquor and expensive perfume was all that pleased my nasal senses. People dancing perfectly to the music, lovers making obscene signs without inhibitions, drunks and drunks falling on the stairs in the bathroom, that's my world. The world without prejudices.

I make room using my elbows through the crowd to reach the bar on the side of the club. It seems that the handsome blonde with long hair up to his ears was working hard flaming a few glasses.

“Ohoo, my man!” I yell at him to hear the music and I lean over the bar to clap with him.

He has been my friend since childhood, somehow our friendship lasted despite the years. Although he does not agree with my lifestyle, he understands my pain and respects my decisions.

"Lanna, I thought you'd miss the party!" Michael replies with a wide smile on his face.

The blonde returns to take the bottle of bacardi, already knowing what I usually order, but tonight I thought of drinking something new.

"Why don't you make me a margarita?" I ask, raising both my eyebrows.

Michael smiles at me and takes a glass of daisy from his stand, then greases the top of the glass with water, then dips it in salt and then pours tequila and triple dry.

I could already feel salivating seeing the beautiful pale green liquid poured into the glass. To make matters worse, Michael squeezes another lemon and hands me my glass.

I take the money out of the black envelope but Michael stops me.

“You know the start is from me!” he says friendly.

“ I always forget, some interesting people?” I ask, sipping my glass.

"About that, I understand that friends of the owner will be coming tonight, some dubious ones, be careful ..." Michael informed me, looking around.

I nod and offer a kiss on the cheek. I wink at them, then walk away to the bar and join the crowd of people dancing as if there were no more tomorrow.

I begin to move to the rhythms of the song Feel so close, occasionally sipping from my glass. The taste of tequilla caresses my taste buds.

A tall man with an enviable athletic body had appeared in front of me. He wore a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans of the same color, torn, accessorized with a chain. His beard was a little overgrown, and his hair was quite long with a gorgeous brown.

I approached the charming man in the rhythm of the dance, putting the glass of daisies around his neck, then leaving it on a nearby table.

The mysterious brunette moved in decline with me, giving me a small smile. He wasn't the kind of boy you'd see everywhere, he had a unique face that stood out from the rest of the males around here. The rhythm of the music pushed me closer and closer to him.

I took the opportunity to look at him closely and feel my amber-colored eyes soften in his eyes, not to mention the small drops of honey that were hiding in his iris.

“I've never seen you here and believe me I come very often!” I whisper in his ear to hear the music.

“It’s the first time, this pleace is awesome!” He replied very excited.

The guy grabs my hand and spins me around, and with a strong pull I get to stick my chest tightly to his. I notice a few strands of hair settling over his eye so I reach for his hand and place his hair on his back.

It had been a while since we had been dancing, the songs seemed to change from second to second.

The rest of the evening I felt like in a story. I danced until I felt my sandals tighten and the kamikaze shots flowed incessantly around our necks. I was at the entrance of the club, the cool summer breeze drying the drops of water that flowed on my body. The handsome brunette takes a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket, then carries a cigarette with an orange filter in his mouth.

"My name is Lanna, I think you should know that we've been dancing for more than five hours," I say sarcastically.

“I’m Mitch, very glad to meed you, ma’ lady” he say very charming.

I watched him curiously as he drew so pathetically from the cigarette that it was almost over. It seemed to me that he was stressed, I had never seen anyone smoke a cigarette so quickly.

As soon as he throws the cigarette in the ashtray, he lights another cigarette. The silence of the night put me back in my bitter thoughts, I didn't want peace anymore. The silence depresses me. I stared blankly under the starry sky, searching for a lifeline in my own thoughts.

"Look up!" he tells me with a smile.

His voice instantly woke me from my thoughts, as if it were a crack that pulled me out of my trance.

I conform quickly and feel him wipe the underside of my eye with his fingertips.

"Your mascara had spread," he announced, smiling.

"Oh, thank you," I say through gritted teeth.

I look back at a fixed point and am blocked again by thoughts. I have become addicted to noise, the silence is stifling.

Two young people in love leave the club. A couple who have been visiting the area for more than half a year. I always tried them with admiration, in their case it seems that love and fun are on the same waterline.

This time they didn't come out with a smile up to their ears and holding hands. They seemed to be arguing.

"I'll put my hand in the fire in a few seconds because the guy will slap him," Mitch says, laughing as he looks at the two of them.

I see the skinny blonde slap him hard on the face, turning her head completely.

"She's going to leave now," Mitch continued, as if anticipating the couple's every move.

Indeed, the girl walks away, but the man grabs her arm and turns her away. The variety continues to quarrel, vaguely hearing the girl's tickled voice screaming at him. Probably fed up with the conversation, the man hurried back and entered the club nervously, leaving the girl with his eyes "in the sun".

"Sad show," He commented, lighting a third cigarette.

I take a pack of slim cigarettes out of my envelope and light one. I watched the blonde sit on the curb and cry with her head in her hands.

I never felt the taste of love, I had a few relationships, but I didn't bother. I didn't think anyone would ever love me, after all, if I don't love myself, what can I expect from people?

"I didn't think love hurt," I say, looking at the girl as she wipes her makeup off her face.

"It hurts harder than anything," He says seriously.

“Love shouldn't hurt ... Loneliness hurts, rejection hurts, losing a person hurts, envy hurts”

“Did you list some examples, or did you say what hurts you?” he asks, looking me straight in the eye.

His question had hit me in the head, keeping my mouth wide open looking at him confused. His question was like a slap in the face.

"Forgive me, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.You've changed since I went out, what's the matter with you, Lanna?”

Mitch kept in touch, emphasizing everything with his hand over mine. I look at him confused, trying to convey a state of frustration, then I start laughing amused. Confusion had appeared instantly on his face.

“Sorry, but I remembered those cliché scenes when the guy asks the girl if she's fine-“

"She's lying to him, telling him she's fine," he continued.

“Exactly!”

"Then let's do something else, what would you tell me Maybe we won't meet again, maybe the roads will bring us back again. Maybe we will become the memory of a pleasant night. We don't know what life has in store for us. You have nothing to lose.

His realism intrigued me. It implied to me that he was open-minded. I sigh, as if without that sigh I wouldn't have had the strength to speak.

“Have you ever felt depressed?" Instead of reassuring you, does it feel like eating live? I ask, sitting down on the metal bench next to me.

“ Yes, I have moments, but all these worries have a cause.”

“ I feel like I want to break up, like me. Sadness, suffering, hot tears and annoying looks.” I say sad

"Have you ever thought we'll drive too much?" he asks in a melancholy tone.

“We think too much about everything, every look, every text.”

“Maybe we should blame ourselves, maybe we will break our hearts, but personal mistakes that are just the basis of suffering. We build the walls ourselves.”

His words seemed to caress my soul, opening my eyes to new perspectives. Is it my fault for these cruel states? For years I threw the arrows of blame on my mother.

Stubborn by nature, I did not want to attest to the fact that I could be the creator of my own agony.

I watch the sky light up, helping the sun to reveal its hot rays, indicating to me that I should go home.

"And another night has passed," he sats, looking at the beautiful sunrise painting the sky in beautiful shades of pink and red.

"I think I should go home," I say, taking my phone out of the envelope and ordering an uber.

"Let's smoke one more cigarette," he says, as if he doesn't want tonight to end.

His words form a smile on my face. I take out a new cigarette and hold it to my lips, and he lights it with a lighter. Our eyes meet, and for a few seconds I forgot I had to smoke.

Looking at him more closely, I noticed small scarred cuts running down his rough face. I was so curious about him. What he does, what his passions are, what brings a smile to his face. On second thought, I didn't want this night to end either.

"I know it may sound cliché, and you may already know that, but you're very beautiful," he says, lost in my eyes.

I thank him and see a blue bay parked right in front of us. Looks like my uber has arrived and will break me from this desired moment.

"Looks like my car has arrived," I say through gritted teeth.

“I really liked this night, Lanna, I hope we meet again, maybe life will last with us” he blushed sincerely kissing my hand.

"I hope so."

I say goodbye to the man who gave me the most beautiful night and I get in the car, looking nostalgically as I walk away from him.

#dylan o brien #american assassin #mitch rapp #dylan obrien x reader #mitch rapp fanfiction #fanfiction

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mediaeval-muse · 4 years ago

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Book Review

Descendant of the Crane. By Joan He. New York: Albert Whitman & Company, 2019.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: YA fantasy

Part of a Series? Not yet?

Summary: Princess Hesina of Yan has always been eager to shirk the responsibilities of the crown, but when her beloved father is murdered, she’s thrust into power, suddenly the queen of an unstable kingdom. Determined to find her father’s killer, Hesina does something desperate: she engages the aid of a soothsayer—a treasonous act, punishable by death... because in Yan, magic was outlawed centuries ago. Using the information illicitly provided by the sooth, and uncertain if she can trust even her family, Hesina turns to Akira—a brilliant investigator who’s also a convicted criminal with secrets of his own. With the future of her kingdom at stake, can Hesina find justice for her father? Or will the cost be too high?

***Full review under the cut.***

SPOILERS in the last paragraph of the “Plot” section.

Content/Trigger Warnings: violence, blood, references to torture, slavery

Overview: I really wanted to like this book. I really did. The premise seemed promising, and I loved the idea of a Chinese-inspired fantasy world with a touch of courtroom drama. Unfortunately, there seemed to be too much going on, so much that I couldn’t connect with this book’s characters and the narrative didn’t flow in a way that drew me into the intrigue and mystery. I would have given this book 3 stars on premise alone, but because I didn’t feel like the scenes built on one another, this book only gets 2 stars from me.

Writing: He’s prose is fine for a YA novel in that it is fairly straightforward with a few poetic images sprinkled in here and there to evoke emotion. It’s very similar to a lot of other YA prose I’ve read, and I don’t personally think anything sets it apart. I did notice, however, that would sometimes use imagery or metaphors that I found more confusing than illuminating. For example, He describes a character as taking to the shadows “like a knife in a sheath,” which would have been ok, but the character was supposed to be more dangerous in the shadows - and a sheathed knife isn’t a threat.

I also found that He would reference bits of lore, backstory, or worldbuilding at odd moments, and sometimes, this info wouldn’t be especially relevant. It felt like she was trying to make references to her worldbuilding without infodumping, which is all well and good, but these references would sometimes distract from the main action.

I also thought He’s pacing and focus was off; the trial/mystery plot would sometimes fade to the background, while the tensions with neighboring kingdoms wasn’t really felt until a certain point in the novel, then it disappeared again. Some events received more attention than I think was warranted, while others received less. For example, we get a lot of scenes of Hesina doing paperwork, but then the ending felt rushed and a lot of information was dumped on us after several plot twists. There were times when things would be summarized rather than played out “on screen,” which is ok sometimes, but it often felt like He used summary so she shock the reader rather than lead them on a journey.

And lastly, I noticed that He has the tendency to use constructions where things other than the characters have agency. For example, “fear creeped into her” or “hope fluttered through her” and the like; it wasn’t bad, per se, but it was noticeable, as if He didn’t want her characters to have as much agency.

Plot: Describing this plot is fairly difficult, since, in my opinion, none of the scenes seem to flow or build upon each other to create a structured narrative. It seemed like He wanted to write a courtroom drama, a high fantasy novel, and a political saga, all of which came together to meditate on things like truth, history, and oppression. It was a lot to cram together, so much so that instead of an action-packed saga, I got a narrative that I couldn’t focus on because there wasn’t the time to explore themes or events in detail. In other words, because a lot happened, all events were rushed and felt shallow. The murder trial plot, for example, didn’t feel very developed; all of the courtroom drama felt pretty standard (this suspect couldn’t have done X because she’s left handed and the cut had to have been made by a right handed person) and most of the people who are trying to fabricate evidence are pretty bad at it. The political conflict, too, seems to be an afterthought, as the people’s desperation for salt isn’t really felt (just told to us) and no one seems too bothered about the raids along the border. I think the novel would have worked better if it focused primarily on the trial and following characters as they uncovered evidence that would be important for that trial. Not only would the narrative structure have felt tighter, but I think the courtroom drama could have been a good vehicle to explore the themes that He seemed interested in (things like oppression and truth can definitely come up with the right focus).

I also found myself to be frustrated by the plot twists because many of them felt random. There wasn’t a lot of groundwork that was laid to make them seem plausible, and I personally don’t like twists that I can’t see coming on some level. Don’t get me wrong - I think a little shock is good here and there, but I think plot twists work best when there is some hint that something is awry. The twist with Hesina’s father, for example, felt earned, whereas the ones involving her brother Caiyan and Lilian, felt random. I especially did not like that the whole epilogue was devoted to explaining how one of the plot twists was made possible; the behind-the-scenes action was dumped on us all at once, and I don’t really like it when I read a whole book and am then told “actually, this was happening the whole time” without some hints during the narrative that there is a bigger picture.

Also, just a quick note: while the plot twist with the Tenets is interesting, I feel like it has the possibility to be a scapegoat in the vein of “prejudice is due to a magical curse rather than something real and ingrained that we have to do hard, continuous work to remove.”

Characters: Hesina, our protagonist, is a Princess who becomes Queen for the purposes of having control over her father’s murder investigation. Personally, I found Hesina to be somewhat bland. She’s not really a ruthless ruler or cunning strategist; most of her decisions are driven by emotion, which can be a good character flaw, but it wasn’t really balanced out by a trait that I found particularly defining. The most she has going for her is that she’s pretty brave and is sympathetic to people who are oppressed, but I don’t think Hesina developed enough for me to really see her character as having an arc. I did sympathize with her dilemmas, especially when she had to make difficult political decisions, but I wanted a little more from her.

Akira, the convict-turned-lawyer who is tasked with solving the case, is a ho-hum love interest who Hesina chooses to represent the crown in her father’s murder case because a Sooth vaguely tells her to “find the convict with the rod.” Akira is written as somewhat mysterious, with skills that seem to come out of nowhere: he is good at fighting, knows some languages, and seems to be good at understanding chemical compounds. All these seemed to be laid as breadcrumbs toward figuring out his tumultuous past; however, I didn’t feel like I was dying to know more because Akira is so aloof and fades in and out of the background. We also don’t really see him putting together clues or explaining how he figured things out; most of the time, we get a summary of what he said (”Akira explained this chemical reaction”), so he doesn’t feel like a major player in the plot. Even his background is dumped on us all at once in summary, which made it less emotional to read. The romance between Akira and Hesina also felt a little forced. While it doesn’t take up a lot of space in the story, it did feel a little random. I didn’t really understand why Hesina decided she wanted to kiss Akira, and the emotional moments they exchanged didn’t really feel genuine.

Supporting characters also felt a little one-dimensional, such as Hesina’s mother, who doesn’t get along with her daughter (because of mental illness? other reasons?) but does get along with her son. Civil servants also weave in and out of the story at convenient moments, and commoners are fairly faceless. I did, however, enjoy the family dynamics between Hessina, her brother Sanjing, and their half-siblings, as it created some complicated personal and official court tensions, while also showing some family affection that transcended “legitimate” bloodlines. The dynamics between Hessina, Caiyan, and Lilian were especially well-done, as they seemed to balance each other out. I would have liked to see more instances where Caiyan’s and Lilian’s experience living on the street affected how the plot went; He tells us this detail, but I think it only comes in handy once.

Other: I don’t think every fantasy novel needs a lot of world-building, but more support in this book would have been helpful. I might have missed some details because a lot was going on, but I constantly found myself asking questions like “What are the limits of Hesina’s powers as queen? Why can’t she command this person to do this thing? Why bargain with her main enemy, Xia Zhong, instead of expose him right away?” I also think some of He’s terminology needed to be reworked, as she used phrases like “sticks of black powder,” “Investigation Bureau,” and “pillow log” - terms that got the main idea across, but felt a little clunky.

I did, however, like the idea of the Eleven and the Tenets, especially their role as historical people/documents that are idolized and not challenged. There’s a real opportunity in there for some exploration of how history is sanitized or how bad things are overlooked in the attempt to present the current state of a nation in the best possible light - it reminds me of the ways in which America idolizes the Founding Fathers yet glosses over aspects like slave ownership.

TL;DR: Descendant of the Crane suffers from a shallow exploration of too many plot threads, plot twists which feel in service to shock value, and a forgettable main character and love interest. While it does have some interesting themes, such as the idolization of historical figures, there was ultimately too much going on that I found it hard to focus on any one thing for long.

#book reviews

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beloved-judged · 4 years ago

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Holistics

I keep writing and erasing entries here, and what I write frequently breaks down into a shattered handful of sentences and stories. That’s... not usual for me. I’ve spent so much time writing that I could probably competently draft my own death while in the process of it.

I learned a lesson recently that keeps buzzing around in my head. I feel pregnant with it, as yet to be delivered.

We say that smart people break things up and turn them into patterns, and they do. Patterns are fruit of the breaking mind, and formalizing stuff is also a function of that sort of thinking. The conscious, careful, disciplined manipulation of limited symbols.

Why don’t we associate a mind that makes wholeness with intelligence, too?

Maybe because we think of wholeness as giving up, a kind of resignation--someone throwing up their hands and saying “I can’t understand it, I will never understand it, so I will just view it as a whole thing so I can ignore it.”

And to break things up... gives power to that which motivates the tools used to break it up. Culturally speaking, it gives power to that which we are taught to venerate.

I wonder how often the urge to break things into pieces (to analyze) gets in the way of comprehension. I know it’s easy to get distracted by breaking things up, and the choices we make to break things up often end up with ignoring things in favor of fitting what happens to a pattern.

Our anxious brains trying to make the future comply to what we predict.

I’m re-reading Divine Horsemen, and I’m struck by a few of Maya Deren’s observations on holistic culture--mostly that she observes vodou as a cultural wholeness, not fragmented the way we tend to view religion, as if it belongs to some specific small splinter of people’s lives.

Mandatory proviso: I am only a student of vodou. I have no priestly authority to be declaring things in an authoritative fashion, so take this discussion with a salt shaker and some skepticism.

Some of that is definitely the relationship between the worshiper and the lwa. In the book, Deren talks about the everyday practicality of that relationship. We feed the lwa and they take care of us, and if they will not, we can petition or argue with them (through an actual priest, not just as a layperson), and even renounce that relationship, though to renounce it is to renounce the blood in our veins, the flesh given to us by our ancestors and its relationship to the spirit.

To ignore it is much the same--to deny the connection between this incarnation of your soul and its relationship to the body, the world as it physically exists, and the spirit of the world around us (our ancestors’ intelligences and souls, our own soul, the souls of others, and our duty to ascend.)

My papa refers to ignoring the relationship we have to spirit as being a kind of theft--to steal that which is inherently obligated in favor of something that amuses us. He also refers to delusion and fantasy much the same way: a theft that you will pay for as you incarnate, because you wasted the precious time given you in this incarnation and did not discharge your duties.

Deren talks about a world view that puts the lwa and divine power on a continuum with whatever power we have as an individual--not in that there’s some easy scale of power between these things, but in that there is a reciprocal relationship that creates obligations and responsibilities.

Along the scale, as divinity is approached, the ‘soul’ (the motivating power, the non-physical aspects of self) of the individual approaches a kind of abstractive process: to boil the ‘soul’ down to its strongest principles. It’s not that the rest of the soul disappears, it’s that the way that soul presents continues to emphasize that strongest principle until that is how that soul is known.

She refers to the lwa that way. It isn’t that the lwa are only one thing--they actively resist being only one sort of thing--it’s that they have emphases. The distance between us as individuals and the lwa means that we tend to see that which they most strongly manifest. The rest of them is there, we’re just a very small thing looking at a very large thing, and lack the perspective (unless they show it to us) to see the wholeness of the very large thing.

When I first experienced the lwa, I had to fight not to analyze them (and yes, I’m aware this is analytic, but let me tell you... it’s a lot less analytic than I’ve been trained to be)--to try to classify them down into easier to handle boxes.

This lead to some actual headaches, because I am simply not capable of fully analyzing the torrent of sensation, images, and the bandwidth of... stuff they invoke. They’re so big that I can feel my mind shrinking back, figuratively crawling into a shell and hoping they pass by without paying any attention to me, so they won’t accidentally crush me. This has gotten a lot more personal and less... impartial since my lave tet, in part because of what it is to ‘seat’ a lwa in someone’s head. They’re still huge, it’s just that I am aligned and working with, instead of observing from the outside.

Like a woman standing in front of a breaking dam armed with a twig, containing all that the lwa are just wasn’t happening.

I’ve been learning a lot of things (many of them about humility, and they were well-deserved lessons) lately on this topic, the first of which is that the best thing I can do is stand aside. Ain’t nobody need me to try to make it about me, and most of the time my best efforts should go into existing, not analysis. To refuse the urge to artificially and intellectually remove myself from the situation for the purpose of analyzing it, in favor of simply letting the situation flow through me and around me.

Sometimes meaning will bubble up to the surface of that, and sometimes it’s just not mine to know. This is both refreshing (because analysis is tiring) and deeply exhausting (because my goodness, there is just so fucking much to everything that I had previously been ignoring.)

I know that’s not entirely the cultural wholeness Deren and my papa means, but it does call to mind the fetish for cutting everything into pieces that I learned in college and tend to fall back on, to deal with situations that make me anxious.

There is an arrogance to supposing everything is available to you to be broken that way that has been a part of what I’ve been learning.

I mean this for more than just the presumption that everyone ought to have all the ritual knowledge available to a religious practice, or that one ought to be able to individually create ritual that has the same ‘weight’ or power of rituals that are secret to a religion and a specific spiritual mandate. Not everyone can do everything, and not everything is intended to be publicly known. Not everyone has the same authority, too.

I mean it also for the way it posits a relationship between an individual human thinker and the environment that they can break if they want to. The cultural effects of technology and a life divorced in fantasy from the physical world around it.

I’m so used to thinking of religion as being an optional corner in one’s life and not a wholeness of culture and thought.

To the (small) extent that I understand the process in which I am embroiled, though my papa and the lwa who choose and chose me, it is a move toward a wholeness that resists analysis and breaking into pieces. By resist, I mean ‘finds analysis somewhat comic, where it isn’t tragic’: analyze me if you like, if you need to, but you won’t know me very well that way.

It does not matter. Your analysis of me will effect my life (it can piss me off or tire me out), but it does not matter.

And that, for me, is a bizarre position to inhabit. I’m grateful for the freedom, but it’s a strange, strange place to be.

#vodou #holistic

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bi-outta-cordonia · 5 years ago

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Ebb and Flow

Last chapter moved kinda quickly in terms of progression and maybe there’s a miniseries lodged somewhere in all the development I’m shocked we didn’t get to see. Hopefully there’s more hiding in the later chapters. We’ll see!

Blades of Light and Shadow. Tyril Starfury x f!elf MC (if you squint, now complete with light touching!) sfw, all ages. Tags include: Tyril has secrets, that’s why his hair is so long, because it’s full of secrets, also he’s still grappling with some of that juicy early onset sexual tension with Ashala, maybe he’ll deal with it one, maybe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Salt of the air, taste of the fury on the tongue. The high winds rise as the sea roll low. Clutch the vessel starboard and let Honerva flow!”

Tyril’s ears twitch along to the melody, lifting and bending easy from years of involuntary practice. The priestess—Nia—her song is familiar to him but also completely foreign. Parents of Undermount sing the same tales to their restless and misbehaving children, not as an upbeat shanty but rather as a warning to the wise. Honerva is a goddess that demands much from the mortals that traverse her realm. Stay humble but maintain vigilance. Stay the course but do not ignore the many weaving paths that make up the sea. Honerva may grant safe passage or she may dash a ship full of innocents against craggy stones, whichever mood strikes her first.

Nia does beautifully as her voice ebbs and the sailors whoop heartily. She offers a dainty bow and heads back to her bunk beneath deck with Threep still perched on her shoulder.

Much like the odd whims of Honerva, the air shifts as soon as familiar magic cuts through the thin barrier around him. He often erects a small shield when he stands on his own, nothing like the ones he forces up in battle. It’s just enough to give the humes pause as they walk by him—perhaps they’ll turn away so he doesn’t have to stomach looking at them. He knows how they take to him all too well. Better to steer them clear of him before something unpleasant unfolds.

Even so, there is no guarantee that all the walls around him will remain in tact. Ashala Venralei is impossible to miss and her magic is advanced enough that crossing into his doesn’t give her the overwhelming need to be elsewhere. She quietly folds her hands one over the other and leans against the wooden rails.

“Honerva is not a gentle goddess yet humans have such cheerful songs about her,” she says.

“I see,” is all he says. “I didn’t think you’d know of the stories surrounding her.”

“Did the mage miss the morning ritual I conducted prior to our departure?” she teases, head turning completely towards him. He glances at her from the corner of his eye and frowns heavily. “Perhaps I am more elf than he cares to admit—I practically begged for safe passage. Honerva changes moods as often as Mal changes the details of the stories he’s already told. We should be grateful that her temperament has not changed yet.” Her lips quirk. “And that Mal’s stories are amusing. We move amongst seasoned travelers, it seems.”

“Ah, you speak not of I, lowlander,” he corrects. “Undermount has been my home for decades until now. What stories Mal provides come from his adventures. The ones I provide belong to me yet seem to surface whenever it suddenly becomes the fancy of one extremely nosy lowlander.”

She doesn’t laugh and it irritates him in a way. Instead, he watches that sly smile of hers crack across her face, golden eyes as bright as the beaming sun. What little she conveys with her body he can read upon her face.

Sometimes.

“You could always stop me yourself,” she says. “Two days out from port and you’ve yet to spend time with anyone aside from myself. A choice, I presume?”

Tyril doesn’t answer for a long moment. In the skies above, a flock of gulls circle and swoop down towards the sea to scoop up fish for their meals. White feathers shine wetly as they beat their wings and head back to land. He averts his gaze and stares at the distance ahead of him—nothing but miles and miles of endless sea, the horizon almost indiscernible between the place where the sky meets the water.

“I don’t…” He stops and narrows his eyes. “All that I could say about the life I’ve grown accustomed to matters little compared to the reality I embrace now.” He stands taller but takes a shaky breath of the salty air. “Stories of the past often matter greatly depending upon the context but my stories are nothing. Just the ramblings of…”

He grows quiet, bowing his head a bit, and he dares not risk a glance towards the woman beside him. His old governess would give him a whack on the knuckles for such weakness. First and foremost are the lessons of propriety—how to maintain veneer with ease and how to trick one’s enemies into believing the face displayed for them. Of all the sickly sweet smiles and taut smirks, nothing delivers more emphatically than the look of unwavering curiosity brimming in Ashala’s eyes.

Slowly, Tyril turns his head towards her and meets that gaze with his. She exudes smoke and ash, chokes the world around her into a violent submission for it has walked its course over her. She will walk her own path to save a man unrelated to her by blood but in between, the natural well of magic in the world will tip in her bend and the elements all around her will move aside for she refuses to be moved by them.

“You are…” he starts, resting his chin upon his hand. Her eyes flash—a warning or amusement? He isn’t entirely sure. “A strange creature.”

Ashala shrugs. “You are blue. And tall.” She squints at him. “And horribly gruff. I expected elves from the city beneath the stone to be a lot more refined.”

“I can be if I choose so.”

“But you choose not to be in any given moment.” Her head nods towards the door leading to the bunks beneath deck. “Save for when you interact with Nia, of course. Imtura seems unbothered but Mal does everything in his power to crack the frosty exterior you put up.”

He chuckles. “And you seem to think I exist for the sake of reciting old stories. You and Mal are no different in that sense—you are both bothersome. Only he seems to do it because nothing else in this world could possibly entertain him more.”

“You have a vein that pops up on that rather large forehead of yours when you get riled up,” she says. His fingers twitch and his jaw works. He will not rise to the bait. He is better than this.

Better than the coy smirk that tugs at her lips when he does reach up.

And much better than the playful glint in her eyes as he silently tucks his hair behind his ear, very much avoiding the spot on his forehead where the vein could be.

He will not think about this later.

“Is there something in particular you desire, lowlander?” he hisses. “Or have you come to pester me for yet another story?”

She remains silent for a long moment. Her golden eyes sweep back over the water and take in the sight of clear skies all the way in the distance. Her body closes off, turns away to face completely forward. There is a blankness about her face and his brow furrows.

“We all carry secrets, Tyril,” she says quietly. Ashala’s head remains high despite the strange air settling between them. Before the words leave her mouth, he knows the question sitting on her tongue. “Undermount is your home, yet the minute you called out the next destination, there seemed…there was a hesitation on your part.”

His lips press together. “I see.”

“Your skill is unparalleled. Of the five of us, it is clear your training as House Starfuy’s heir—” His jaw works, “—has granted you the boon of power beyond imagining. Knowledge, tactics—there is much to speak of regarding you but we respect your need to hold such truths to your being. Perhaps there is something we are unaware of that is too painful for you to recall—something that would leave you vulnerable.”

He sighs and lays his arm flat against the railing.

“No, it…”

Memories flood the empty space within his mind. Meditation keeps it clear but there are nights where he is restless, tossing and turning as events of the past play out in the form of nightmares most unimaginable. Where there is wisdom there is pride most evil, most corrupting of those that cross its path. His mother—her face is there but hazy. Fanciful feasts, the boisterous laughter of men and women dressed in the finest of silks as servants present delicacies from far and wide—

There was a man whose lips he can still taste—

The woman with straw blonde hair that smiled so beautifully—

House rankings, climbing the rungs of hollowed out ladders that snap so easily but mend just as well if only he would think.

Climb faster.

Push harder.

He runs a hand through his hair and sighs again.

“It’s…far too complicated to explain at the moment,” he finally answers. Weight presses on his shoulders and a knot forms in his belly. He remembers a sensation like this back then, only it was much more constant. “In some ways, I envy the life you’ve led.”

Ashala offers nothing at first, her eyes never straying from the horizon slowly moving in the distance. “You’ve been surrounded by luxuries most of your life. Your knowledge of our—of your culture is far more extensive. I cannot fathom the idea of envying one born to nothing.”

“I...I was not lacking for anything, no. You assume correctly in a sense. Even the happiness was constant for a time.” Quiet again. At the very least, she does not push. “Everything moved towards a single goal and that was the most exhilarating aspect. To be able to provide for the house meant just as much as being a part of it. Climbing the ranks was a ruthless game but standing atop the other children brought glory beyond compare.”

“You were heir,” Ashala says.

A rueful smile tugs at his lips. “Everything I could ever want at my very fingertips—and now? Now, I travel the world committed to a mission that the others of our kind would rather blatantly ignore.” His head shakes. “What good does it do to only partially stop an evil that would destroy us all? Why stop at splitting the shards and why not completely cleanse the world of the Court’s influence?”

Ashala hums but does not respond immediately. Her head turns and she observes him quietly.

“Then it was pure altruism that saw you abandon such a lucrative role?” His eyes dart away and he knows the exact number of whacks on the knuckles the gesture would earn him.

“I’ve been away from Undermount for a long while,” he says. “It’s been months at best yet I know the exact number of whacks I’d get for being so loose with my feelings.”

“Oh? How rare to see such a sight,” she says, hand raising to point at the corners of his mouth twitching. Tyril jerks his head away and snorts, drawing a small laugh from her. “A rare yet delightful thing to see. Perhaps I was mistaken about your ability to express any emotion aside from disinterest and disgust.”

“You could stand to repress some of yours more often,” he fires back. “Humes are widely regarded as loud creatures—you are an elf. Some stoicism would make you tolerable at the very least.”

Her laugh is a full-hearted cackle. None of the heat nor venom of his words take for she finds any slight instance of his annoyance enjoyable. Heat floods his cheeks and he can’t help the small smile that tugs at his lips as she howls with laughter.

“To have an elf accuse me of not being stoic enough!” she wheezes, wiping at the corners of her eyes. “Would you believe that humans find me to be the most unapproachable creature that walks this land? The children would often run from the pull of my magic lest it would swallow them whole. I suppose those in possession of magic naturally terrify the folk who have so little experience with it.”

He nods. “Much of yours was self-taught, however. Being able to conceal it is one of the first lessons a proper instructor should’ve taught you, but…” He coughs. “I suppose I could…show you. It would be a useful skill when we face certain enemies.”

She quirks a brow. “Now you instructing me? Perhaps it is a moment I eagerly await if only to see the bitter disdain on your face when you realize how difficult it is to teach me!” His eyes roll but she ignores it. “You still didn’t answer my question, Tyril.”

“It was…” He pauses for a long moment. “It was mostly for that reason, yes. But in truth, it is like you mentioned before. There are some secrets I would still prefer to ‘hold to my chest,’ as you say. It isn’t…it isn’t the most pleasant thing to recall, not now. I…”

Again in an instant—

The faces of hundreds who looked upon him with hope—

That looked broken and angry when he turned his back on them—

There is no shame in doing what needs to be done—for doing the right thing. Pride is not the only source of his sense of self. It makes up only a small portion of all of him but the thought still eats at him—the question of what could’ve been always lingers no matter how hard he tries to convince himself that it isn’t important to know the answer.

Tyril crosses his arms and gently smooths his fingertips over his bracers. His head bows and he stares at the water violently lapping at the hull as Imtura’s ship cuts through the sea.

“You don’t regret this,” Ashala says, pulling him from his thoughts.

“No, not at all.”

“But there are things you wonder about. Things that you cannot change or reverse as a result of your actions…”

He stands still for a moment before nodding once. “All that I do here matters more to me than the circumstances that put me on this path. I chose it, yes. There are factors that led me here, that is also true.”

She stares at him for a long while, that piercing gaze stirring something a bit unsettling within him. It’s like looking into the base of a flame all consuming, a void all encompassing. Ashala Venralei—would he ever tell her the truth about her name and all the reasons why no person in Undermount would ever consider stringing such words together to form a child’s name? He knows what Tyril is—Orthonus, Livienna, Myhri, and Rashki.

“The child born from ash and dreams”—to get to where they needed to go, Ashala’s parents burned a considerable bridge that meant that home would never be a place they could return.

“We will stop the Shadow Court,” she says and she does something dangerous—far too dangerous—

She reaches across and lays a warm hand on top of his. He swallows and stares into her eyes once more, something far more uncomfortable welling in the pit of his belly. It’s a warmth and a storm in one that starts in his gut before it shoots through the rest of him in uneasy webs.

He wills himself to nod curtly. When she graces him with a warm and genuine smile, he quivers.

It must be luck she turns on her heel and leaves him before she notices.

#playchoices #choices #blades of light and shadow #bolas #tyril starfury #tyril x mc #tyril #tyril the mage

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juniebjoneswrites · 4 years ago

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Bring Me Home // Harry Styles

This is War (2)

What does running do for me? Other than being a gateway drug to mindlessness, it shows me places I didn’t know existed. It also gives an incredible high that puts some meat on my bones. Like seriously. I could write love letters to my endorphins. I would ask how they’re doing and if they missed me while I was gone. I would ask how they felt in the dark and when it came time to play, I would dream of their favorite games. They have answers to questions I can’t ask, and know when to turn a blind eye to the darkness in my mind. I am thankful for their wilful ignorance.

There’s a street I run that has a name I’ve never cared to remember but I know the way there like I know my way up the cliff. It’s been an ongoing venture. I see the lives there in the mornings as they wake up, innocent to the day that reaches beyond their grasp. I know if they stretched a little further they could touch it. Would they hand it to me if they could? They’ve seen me running for so long now they think I’m just a girl from down the street. I belong, so I must be safe. Right?

I see them in the night when they stumble home after a day when their outstretched hand just wasn’t quite good enough. They have all the makings of myself. I revel in their sorrow, but offer help. “Ah, one of the runners,” they say. They ask how I am and if I’m liking the neighborhood. I smile politely, “It’s beautiful, I’m just around the corner,” I always motion behind us regardless of where we face. “It’s the brick one with a balcony,” usually they’re too wrapped up in their day to realize they’re all bricks with blaconies, or too polite to press further. Maybe they just think I’m being clever and safe.

“Let me help you inside,” I call out to a man as he stumbles from his car. He gives me a look of recognition as he hands me his keys. I smile in return. We’ve spoken before.

“Thank you,” he licks his lips. I smile wider, fighting back bile in the back of my throat. “Would you like to join me?” It would be a lie to say that all our conversations were innocent.

“I’m sure your wife wouldn’t like that,” I respond coyly.

“No wife,” he holds up his bare ring finger. ‘Bare’ being a generous word. There’s a tan line where his band would be, he's taken it off for the night. Maybe wants me to think he’s newly divorced.

His wife is on a work trip for the night. I know this because she told me the day before as I helped her put a big, fancy carseat in the back of her car as the child herself was throwing a fit. “Of course it delivers the day before my trip and I have to rush before work to get it in,” she laughed and wiped her brown hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. Her wedding ring glistened in the morning sun. “Husbands are useless, but I’m sure you’ll learn that eventually.” I laughed with her and commented that he must be okay if he’s going to be watching the child while she’s gone. She tells me her daughter will be with her grandparents.

His words tumble out together and I hear them fall around me like a castle under attack. “But seem like someone who wouldn’t care,” A flattery king. Knights may be able to stop the soldiers but they can’t fight catapults. My anger bubbles. I steal my smile. I move up the stairs and grab his keys. This is a war.

Leaning against the frame I put the key in the door and swing it open wide. He smiles, I whistle a tune, he stumbles through. I lead him to the couch and he pulls me on top. He tastes like a deep bourbon and nachos with extra onions. I let him take my running jacket off. The knife I have in a hidden pocket clatters to the floor and I worry he’ll question the sound. He doesn’t, and it’s clear he doesn’t care that I have, in fact, been running. I tell him I need to use the restroom and that I'll be right back. He gestures vaguely so I find my own way, but not to the bathroom. How easy to trick with a promise of reward. I line up my men.

Their family photos are on the walls telling stories of vacations and holidays. Just the three of them, the prettiest lie of them all. I stare as if I could learn some secret as to how a mother could do what she did and move on. I see theirs play out like a book and I’m filled with an anger that blinds me. They’re ready for orders.

I think of my knife so I stock back to the man on the couch only to be met with snores. Sometimes it just works out. I pity him, in his suit and tie, his loafers haphazardly in the entryway. I fantasize my life in this home. I walk their rooms and lay in their beds, I drink their juice and eat their snacks. My fingers trace the walls for fault lines and I wonder if there had been a boy here how different it would look. She wouldn’t have needed the child’s seat, he was already grown. The crayons of the walls in his room would look different here. The dolls and gowns, replaced with his stones and telescope. I am angry. A life he never knew and will never see. He would have liked a sister. Fill it with rocks.

I pull his picture from the pocket of my running pants and look for a marker. “1993-2016” I write. “You killed him.” I am not the only one to blame. ‘He found you!’ I wanted to scream at her, ‘You left and he still found you,” but that wasn’t entirely true. I had found her. I brought her name into his home and changed things, so now I will bring his name into this home and change these things. “Elijah Perry” I write near the bottom, “Taken three months before his death.” I clip the photo to the fridge and walk out. Release.

When does the sheep become the wolf? Or was I a wolf in sheep's clothing this whole time? I am growing claws and my teeth cut my mouth as I speak. It fills with salt and blood. Maybe I’ll become like cured meat with all this salt and my decay will be slow. Agonzing. My fur will matt and my family will become afraid. I will age slowly and watch them leave, seeing their funerals from the woods edge. And when the wolf finally leaves to possess someone else, the only one who will see me to my grave will be a ghost.

I don’t run again. I walk the veins of the city and let them guide me through it’s ebb and flow. It feels like I’ve thrown the daughter of a cliff into a stampede of wildebeests and I wonder what she’ll think when she’s older. When do I get that scar over my eye? I think I deserve the mark. If Cain did then so do I.

“Hey sweetie,” a voice calls from the shadow of a rundown bar. Unfortunate luck for him if he tries anything further. I flip him off and keep walking. I recognize my surroundings. There’s a pizza place up the corner. A long night of treachery will leave you hungry.

The warmth of the pizza fills the coldness in my body. I didn’t realize I started shaking until I reached for my water. I quickly fist my hand and push my pizza away, my breaths becoming fast and impatient. Resting my head on the table I let the solid coolness rush my mind and steady my thoughts. I focus on my breathing and count backwards from one hundred.

100, 99, 98, 97, 96, I can see his face. 95, 94, 93, 92, I watch him at a New Year's Eve countdown grinning and blowing his whistle. 91, 90, I squeeze my eyes tighter. Press my head harder to the table 89, 88, 87, I might be sick. 86, 85, 84, 83, 82, 81, 80,79,78,77,7767574737271

I see him on the cliff.

I’m telling him to stop.

He doesn’t.

I throw my head back and open my eyes. 48, 47, 46, 45, 44, the warped window reflects a distorted version of myself with no discernable features, just a shadow ready to disappear at the first sign of light. A fly crawling on the window stops on my face and I’m wondering if it’s an omen.

The door opens with a jingle from the bells and a figure stands behind me. I don’t care to look at the reflection. “Fuck off,” I let out through a cry. I am very intimidating.

They don’t say anything and walk away. I drop my head, tears sliding off my face. A moment later they return and hand me some napkins. I glance at them and then at my greasy, sauce stained pile of my own. Reluctantly I take them, “Thanks. Now please leave.”

I wipe my face as they shuffle in place and hesitantly clear their throat. I’m instantly annoyed. I spin around to face them, “What?” I say in more of a defeated, angry tone.

Well kids, I guess we get to answer that question here and now. I let my head fall to my arm that rests on the seat’s back. “Of course,” I mumble. “Why not?” Turning around I pull the pizza back to me and take a bite. He still doesn’t move.

“Well if you’re going to,” I motion to the seat next to me. He takes it and looks even more uncomfortable which makes me laugh slightly. “You’re being really weird, you know,” I say through a bite of pizza. “If I didn’t know you you would have a bloody nose already.”

He sits up straighter, “Sorry,” he picks at the paint on his nails. “I, uh, just saw you and recognized you from running and the gas station. Just wanted ask if you’re okay,”

“Why?” I ask harshly then, closing my eyes, wince at my stupidity.

He looks confused, “You don’t remember?” “I remember the gas station just fine,”

“No, uh, we’ve been waving at each other... while we run,” it sounded more like a question than a fact. His eyes dart around. “For, like, a few months before the gas station and then I stopped seeing you,” he trails off.

I started running after Elijah went missing. I wasn’t a runner before then so what sparked this new interest, I couldn’t tell you. I ran night and day after realizing it was the one thing that stopped my thinking and focused my breathing. There is a lot I don’t remember from the past year, this being one of them.

“You don’t remember?” he asks. I don’t say anything. He nods understanding, “I just thought you recognized me but didn’t want to…. Interrupt… or something,”

“I have no problem interrupting,” I reply. He slightly laughs, “but what’s wrong you can’t fix, so,” I take another bite of pizza. “And I wave at all the runners I pass. Good to have people remember you if you go missing,” I give a slight wave of my hand and shrug.

He nods. “Well I hope I see you running again,” he gets up, unsure of his movements, I guess not wanting to push any further.

“June,” I say, as he rights the chair, “That’s my name. Fair since I know yours.”

“Nice to meet you, June.”

My smile lasts until he’s past the shop's window and I'm back to staring at my face. I think of Mulan crossing her bridge and wiping half her makeup off in her reflection. I think of Harry and what in the actual Wattpad hell just happened. I close my eyes and rest my chin in my hand while I finish the second pizza. Harry’s face turns into Elijah’s and the waves start crashing. My body tells me to run.

(1)/ 2 / (3) / (4) / (5) / (6)

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story-of-a-sunflower-world · 5 years ago

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Sometimes, I Miss You; But

The memories of you stain the creases of my mind. Bits of laughter echo in the cave of my soul.

The you that sprouted love.

The you that would give and do and be anything for those you cared about.

That you is gone now. When you chose to leave me you preached a sermon of love, of caring, of aid in moving forward through the tangled forest that surrounded us. Little did I know it wasn’t just the two of us trapped together scraping to find our way out, a voice rang from the poisoned tree tops and sunk into you. Changed you.

Weeds sprouted from your once beautiful garden of love that beamed from your soul and fed into others. There was only a few at first. They were smart, they hid and slithered through you, cutting your flowers only to replace them. Our gardens were no longer one, giving yours and mine room to sprout on their own.

I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t stop them, they over took you.

Your blooming array of colors, the life you breathed into each giving breath you had to those around you, gone in an instant. You were now dark, decrepit. Instead of life breathing out of you now all that was left was destruction to those you once loved.

I came to you.

Weak, desperate for air, I found myself at your feet where I once knew comfort and love. I was now greeted with pain and despair. I begged you to breath into my garden for life but pried your way into it and ripped away what life I had left to give. You tore each and every peddle, ravaging through me in an endless path of annihilation, a massacre of what was left of me to give to you. Your poison sunk into every crease, every crack, filled my veins with a hatred more ravenous then I thought capable.

You were gone. Taken in an instant. I sit with bitter memories of the beautiful garden we created together. We breathed life into the world. A tsunami of growth, air, beauty, washed onto the shores of anyone who dare come near us. Waves of love, an offering of a blooming beautiful world for anyone and everyone we met. We were beautiful.

I sit singed now.

Sometimes I can still smell the sweet rain, hear the crash of the soft waves that flowed onto us and those around us. Suddenly I’m drowning in the waves of what used to be. Salt burns my eyes, sharks lurk the water around me, gasping for any dose of oxygen I can manage between each swell of water that overtakes me. The sea tangles into me, the weeds that overtook the version of you I once recognized drag me deep into the waters of despair. There is no longer sunlight here, no soft waves, only the pressure and pain of once was. I feel my lungs collapse under the ache to see just one more time the garden of your soul that flourished into mine. All that is left now is pain and tainted memories of what once was.

Sometimes, I miss you; But you are no longer what I once loved, and you never will be.

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imastrangeone98 · 5 years ago

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Lost and Found - Chapter 14: Failure

(A/N: no one reads this.... but that’s ok. I didn’t anticipate it being popular anyway XD and besides, I really love writing for this fic, even though it takes a long time for me to visualize everything)

This is horribly written but yeesh XD I still love it

There was a voice.

Faith couldn’t quite pinpoint where it was coming from, but it sounded so familiar...

“...-aith...”

...Could it be?

“엄마?”

“Faith...”

“Mommy?”

“Faith!”

Her eyes flew open. Fear and exhaustion flowed through her; she could barely make out the worried faces of Dante and Lady.

“...What...?” She squinted at them. “What happened?”

“Faith!” Dante sobbed, sweeping her up in his arms and crushing her to his chest. “You’re alive!”

She couldn’t help but smile, rubbing a hand through his hair. “Hi, Dante,” she croaked. “I’m glad to see you.” She reached out to hug Lady. “You too, my friend.”

“Yeah.” Lady sniffled, quickly wiping her eyes. “Good to see you up and kicking.”

The half-demon nuzzled into her shoulder. “How do you feel? Are you... better? Are you whole?”

If she was telling the truth, she felt like she’d been pulverized in a meat grinder. Her legs felt like jelly, and her eyes kept drooping- she was so sleepy. But that clearly wasn’t what he meant.

Her memories. Ripped out of her and tossed into the bone heap like the countless others before her. There was no way she would’ve survived without them...

Her fingers grazed her neck, slowly drifting down to her shoulder.

“You put me back together...?”

“Of course we did,” Lady said, gently massaging her aching shoulder. “We came all this way for you, we sure as hell aren’t leaving you behind.”

“Hell...” Faith mused, glancing at their surroundings... or lack thereof. Darkness covered every part of their landscape. Then she remembered- the shining hand, that kind face-

The pain.

“He absorbed us, didn’t He?”

“Yeah.” Dante huffed. “I don’t think He quite understands what it means to throw a party.”

“Yes.” Faith stumbled to her feet, only to collapse on the pile of bones. “Oh...”

“Yeah.” Lady rubbed her back and slung one of Faith’s arms over her shoulders. “Don’t think about it.”

“Kind of hard not to,” Faith whispered.

Her friend gazed at her, blue-red eyes barely glimmering in the darkness. “I know.”

Dante took hold of her other arm. The two helped her to her feet, then began to walk, her limp body hanging between them. “You probably shouldn’t walk too much, anyway. You’re still recovering.”

Pure exhaustion swept through her body. The darkness blended in so well with her vision. “I’m so sleepy...”

“No!” Dante yelled right by her ear, jolting her back to reality. “Don’t! We don’t know if you’ll wake up again.”

“Right. Sorry...” But she still felt so tired.

Lady stumbled beside her. “Maybe it’s just a side effect from coming back from the dead. Should we let her rest?”

Dante’s answer was immediate: “No. This place is draining her alive. We need to get out of here, and fast.”

“But how?! Have you seen the size of this place...?”

Her friends’ voices were slowly drifting away. She couldn’t focus. God, she was just so tired...

Alive....

Her eyes creaked open. Was there a voice? But it didn’t sound like any she knew...

Stay alive... Voices whispered, soft and gentle, breaths of air in an empty field. Nephilim. Kin. Pure. Escape.

“...How...?” she mumbled, drowsy. “How can I save them...?”

There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin of existence. In the madness of this sad earthly scene, only then we are clean. Purify this place, kin of ours. Only then can you be free.

Purify... How could a nephilim purify God Himself? She was a mistake, a living symbol of sin at its highest.

A failure. A reject. Therefore, I will give you purpose.

Faith’s head pounded. Pain pulsed throughout her body, running through her veins, composing her entire being.

“Faith!”

“Oh, shit, what the hell is this?!”

Lady. Dante.

Hands rubbed her shoulders, smooth voices whispered in her ears, urging her to return to reality.

“Stay with me, Faith,” Dante murmured. “Stay with me.”

She clenched her hands, nails biting deep into the skin. She forced herself back to them.

“Always.” She let out a groan. “I... I don’t know what happened.”

“You were fading,” Lady said in a trembling voice. “Your body was literally disappearing. Like it was...”

“Being absorbed,” he completed. “This place is killing you. We need to get out of here, but... Fuck!” He kicked at a skull. “I just... don’t fucking know how!”

He has forgotten, the voices returned. Remind Him.

“Remind Him of what?” Faith asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you hear voices? There’s voices whispering to me.”

Her companions stared at her. Great. She was going crazy. Dante was right- this place was eating her alive, body, mind, and soul.

“Never mind-“

Love. He has forgotten love. The greatest power of all, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Remind Him.

“But how?”

He has forgotten. But you have not. You never have. Remind Him. You know how. It is in your blood.

“Faith?” Lady rubbed her back. Worry poured off of her. “Maybe you should rest. You seem out of it.”

She didn’t pay attention. In the deep corners of her foggy mind, a faint memory began to resurface.

It is in your blood.

“You and I are meant to be musicians, Faith,” her father once told her, when she had asked him why they practiced the violin every day. “Music is in our blood.”

Music. Remind Him.

He has forgotten love.

The voices said that she hadn’t forgotten it. What did that mean? Didn’t she, though? She had lost everyone she ever loved, everyone she cared about. Who did she have left?

...

“You won’t lose me. I promise.”

...!

“I’ll work hard every day to make myself a better person for you.”

...!!

They were right. She hadn’t forgotten. She had them.

Lady. Someone who looked at the world with a fierce intensity, yet hid a soft side deep inside her heart, brittle as glass- yet it sparkled so brightly when placed in the light in just the right manner. She was someone who was comfortable with being alone, a full moon in a midnight sky, yet she shone brightest when surrounded by others. She had a preference for irises over roses, never failing to point them out to her on a hike.

Dante. A wild man who seemed to take everything placed at his feet in stride, and did a great job at hiding his sensitivity behind a thick layer of nonchalance and brash arrogance. He was someone who was unwilling to admit he was afraid; his actions spoke louder than his words. He preferred leaving slices of pizza on her plate rather than asking her outright if she was hungry.

The scars on her body pulsed with faint, golden light. Reminders of the people she failed. People she loved.

Love. She had it all along.

CRACK!

A grunt of pain escaped her half-demon companion, Devil-Triggered body flickering with draining demonic energy. He rested haphazardly on the small pile of bones next to her, body slowly returning to its human form.

“Fuck,” he huffed, gripping at his side. His exhaustion flowed through her; she nearly sagged with the weight of it. “There’s no exit above us; I flew as high as I could. And I don’t think it’s possible to dig through all these bones.”

“And we already know that there’s no limit to what’s in the middle,” Lady grumbled. “Shit.”

“It’s okay, guys,” Faith said, staggering to her feet. “I have a plan.”

“You do?”

“...I think.” She summoned her violin, which rested heavily in her arms. “I’ll give it a shot.”

She began to play. Can’t Help Falling in Love flowed through the air, and for a brief moment, the ache in her bones began to soothe. A soft golden light bloomed around them, and it illuminated her friends’ faces.

She channeled everything into the song- her love for her family and her friends, her desire to see them live long and happy lives, her desire for Dante and Lady to escape and be happy.

The bones around them seemed to rattle. The golden light around them expanded a little more.

SNAP!

Golden blood dripped down her fingertips. The snapped strings of her violin dangled off the wood like useless lifelines. "Oh, no..."

"Shit!" Lady searched through her pockets with frenzy. "Your hands are bleeding!"

She ignored her friend's attempts at wrapping her cuts. Quickly, Faith sent energy coursing through the instrument, pouring every ounce of hope and joy she could muster into repairing it.

The spruce top began to crack.

She grew desperate. She panicked. "Come on...!"

The bouts splintered. The fingerboard shattered.

Faith stared at the broken wood.

Dread. All she felt was dread.

She had failed them. She had failed everyone.

"What...?" She collapsed on a small bone pile and stared at her blood. "What have I done?"

Dante scooted over to her. "Hey..." He patted her knee. "Hey, it's okay."

"No, it's not!" she sobbed. "I ruined everything! I can't get you all out of here! We're all going to be absorbed, and it's all because I wasn't strong enough!" Her voice clogged in her throat. "No music. No family. No nothing. The voices were wrong. I have nothing left." The tears continued to fall, and her mouth was filled with the taste of salt and anguish. "Nothing."

Silence reemerged from the darkness of His stomach. It coiled around them, much like a snake, squeezing every ounce of life from them, second by second. And Faith was powerless to stop it.

"...Well, that's not very nice," Lady mused. "We're here, aren't we?"

"...Huh?"

"She's right," Dante huffed, swinging an arm over her shoulders. "You haven't forgotten about us, have you?"

"No... Of course not." She felt a warm hand gently run under her eyes, wiping away her tears.

"It's alright," he murmured, tucking her head into his shoulder. The smell of sweat, cinnamon, and gunpowder laced his bare skin. It was comforting, to be surrounded by the warmth of her friends. "You know, this ain't a bad place to die in."

Lady rolled her eyes, but nevertheless rested her head on Faith's shoulder in turn. "Quite frankly, I had much higher expectations for my death."

"Go out in a blaze if glory?" the male guessed.

"That, or just a nice simple death. Falling asleep forever doesn't seem so bad." She moved her head to now rest in the nephilim's lap. "A nap sounds nice."

"Yeah..." His silver hair was beginning to look dull in the encroaching darkness. "Kinda sleepy..."

Drowsiness began to seep through Faith. Suddenly, the thought of resting here was incredibly appealing. After all, she had her friends here with her, keeping her company, keeping her warm.

She continued to watch drop after drop of her blood splatter onto the bones at her feet. Her eyelids began to flutter shut.

Wait, she thought. Before we sleep, I should tell them.

"Lady... Dante..."

Each of them let out a soft hum of acknowledgement.

"I love you. Thank you for being with me... until the end."

"'Course," he replied. Warm lips pressed against her temple. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

"Ditto," Lady mumbled, nuzzling further into her thigh. "G'night..."

Faith ran a hand through her beloved friend's hair. With the other, she reached up to smooth Dante's shaggy locks. "Goodnight..."

Her scars shifted.

Goodnight, my friends... she thought to them. You're free...

She could rest now.

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A/N: haha yesss angst mothafucka!! Horribly written but still!!! Yessss

.....sigh but i already have an ending planned so i guess i cant kill her off.... or can i? Muahahahahahahahahaha!!

Edit: read chapter 15! :D

#devil may cry 3 #dmc dante #dmc lady #dmc oc #lost and found

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distase · 5 years ago

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Dear Esther. I sometimes feel as if I’ve given birth to this island. Somewhere, between the longitude and latitude a split opened up and it beached remotely here. No matter how hard I correlate, it remains a singularity, an alpha point in my life that refuses all hypothesis. I return each time leaving fresh markers that I hope, in the full glare of my hopelessness, will have blossomed into fresh insight in the interim.

Dear Esther. The gulls do not land here anymore; I’ve noticed that this year they seem to shun the place. Maybe it’s the depletion of the fishing stock driving them away. Perhaps it’s me. When he first landed here, Donnelly wrote that the herds were sickly and their shepherds the lowest of the miserable classes that populate these Hebridean islands. Three hundred years later, even they have departed.

Dear Esther. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been here, and how many visits I have made overall. Certainly, the landmarks are now so familiar to me that I have to remind myself to actually see the forms and shapes in front of me. I could stumble blind across these rocks, the edges of these precipices, without fear of missing my step and plummeting down to sea. Besides, I’ve always considered that if one is to fall, it is critical to keep one’s eyes firmly open.

Dear Esther. The morning after I was washed ashore, salt in my ears, sand in my mouth and the waves always at my ankles, I felt as though everything had conspired to this one last shipwreck. I remembered nothing but water, stones in my belly and my shoes threatening to drag me under to where only the most listless of creatures swim.

Level 1: The Lighthouse

Donnelly reported the legend of the hermit; a holy man who sought solitude in its most pure form. Allegedly, he rowed here from the mainland in a boat without a bottom, so all the creatures of the sea could rise at night to converse with him. How disappointed he must have been with their chatter. Perhaps now, when all that haunts the ocean is the rubbish dumped from the tankers, he’d find more peace. They say he threw his arms wide in a valley on the south side and the cliff opened up to provide him shelter; they say he died of fever one hundred and sixteen years later. The shepherds left gifts for him at the mouth of the cave, but Donnelly records they never claimed to have seen him. I have visited the cave and I have left my gifts, but like them, I appear to be an unworthy subject of his solitude.

At night you can see the lights sometimes from a passing tanker or trawler. From up on the cliffs they are mundane, but down here they fugue into ambiguity. For instance, I cannot readily tell if they belong above or below the waves. The distinction now seems banal; why not everything and all at once! There’s nothing better to do here than indulge in contradictions, whilst waiting for the fabric of life to unravel. There was once talk of a wind farm out here, away from the rage and the intolerance of the masses. The sea, they said, is too rough for the turbines to stand: they clearly never came here to experience the becalming for themselves. Personally, I would have supported it; turbines would be a fitting contemporary refuge for a hermit: the revolution and the permanence.

When you were born, your mother told me, a hush fell over the delivery room. A great red birthmark covered the left side of your face. No one knew what to say, so you cried to fill the vacuum. I always admired you for that; that you cried to fill whatever vacuum you found. I began to manufacture vacuums, just to enable you to deploy your talent. The birthmark faded by the time you were six, and had gone completely by the time we met, but your fascination with the empty, and its cure, remained.

Those islands in the distance, I am sure, are nothing more than relics of another time, sleeping giants, somnambulist gods laid down for a final dreaming. I wash the sand from my lips and grip my wrist ever more tightly, my shaking arms will not support my fading diaries.

Donnelly’s book had not been taken out from the library since 1974. I decided it would never be missed as I slipped it under my coat and avoided the librarian’s gaze on the way out. If the subject matter is obscure, the writer’s literary style is even more so, it is not the text of a stable or trustworthy reporter. Perhaps it is fitting that my only companion in these last days should be a stolen book written by a dying man.

The mount is clearly the focal point of this landscape; it almost appears so well placed as to be artificial. I find myself easily slipping into the delusional state of ascribing purpose, deliberate motive to everything here. Was this island formed during the moment of impact; when we were torn loose from our moorings and the seatbelts cut motorway lanes into our chests and shoulders, did it first break surface then?

When someone had died or was dying or was so ill they gave up what little hope they could sacrifice, they cut parallel lines into the cliff, exposing the white chalk beneath. You could see them from the mainland or the fishing boats and know to send aid or impose a cordon of protection, and wait a generation until whatever pestilence stalked the cliff paths died along with its hosts. My lines are just for this: to keep any would-be rescuers at bay. The infection is not simply of the flesh.

They were godfearing people those shepherds. There was no love in the relationship. Donnelly tells me that they had one bible that was passed around in strict rotation. It was stolen by a visiting monk in 1776, two years before the island was abandoned altogether. In the interim, I wonder, did they assign chapter and verse to the stones and grasses, marking the geography with a superimposed significance; that they could actually walk the bible and inhabit its contradictions?

We are not like Lot’s wife, you and I; we feel no particular need to turn back. There’s nothing to be seen if we did. No tired old man parting the cliffs with his arms; no gifts or bibles laid out on the sand for the taking. No tides turning or the shrieking gulls overhead. The bones of the hermit are no longer laid out for the taking: I have stolen them away to the guts of this island where the passages all run to black and there we can light each others faces by their strange luminescence.

I quote directly: “A motley lot with little to recommend them. I have now spent three days in their company that is, I fear, enough for any man not born amongst them. Despite their tedious inclination to quote scripture, they seem to me the most godforsaken of all the inhabitants of the outer isles. Indeed, in this case, the very gravity of that term – forsaken by god – seems to find its very apex.” It appears to me that Donnelly too found those who wander this shoreline to be adrift from any chance of redemption. Did he include himself in that, I wonder?

Dear Esther. I met Paul. I made my own little pilgrimage. My Damascus a small semi-detached on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. We drank coffee in his kitchen and tried to connect to one another. Although he knew I hadn’t come in search of an apology, reason or retribution, he still spiralled in panic, thrown high and lucid by his own dented bonnet. Responsibility had made him old; like us, he had already passed beyond any conceivable boundary of life.

I threw my arms wide and the cliff opened out before me, making this rough home. I transferred my belongings from the bothy on the mount and tried to live here instead. It was cold at night and the sea lapped at the entrance at high tide. To climb the peak, I must first venture even deeper into veins of the island, where the signals are blocked altogether. Only then will I understand them, when I stand on the summit and they flow into me, uncorrupted.

I would leave you presents, outside your retreat, in this interim space between cliff and beach. I would leave you loaves and fishes, but the fish stocks have been depleted and I have run out of bread. I would row you back to your homeland in a bottomless boat but I fear we would both be driven mad by the chatter of the sea creatures.

I find myself increasingly unable to find that point where the hermit ends and Paul and I begin. We are woven into a sodden blanket, stuffed into the bottom of a boat to stop the leak and hold back the ocean. My neck aches from staring up at the aerial; it mirrors the dull throb in my gut where I am sure I have begun to form another stone. In my dreams, it forms into a perfect representation of Lot’s wife, head over her shoulder, staring along the motorway at the approaching traffic, in a vacuum of fatalistic calm.

This hermit, this seer, this distant historian of bones and old bread, where did he vanish to? Why, asked the farmers, why asked Jakobson, why bother with your visions at all, if you are just to throw your arms up at the cliff and let it close in behind you, seal you into the belly of the island, a museum shut to all but the most devoted.

He still maintains he wasn’t drunk but tired. I can’t make the judgement or the distinction anymore. I was drunk when I landed here, and tired too. I walked up the cliff path in near darkness and camped in the bay where the trawler lies beached. It was only at dawn that I saw the bothy and decided to make my temporary lodgings there. I was expecting just the aerial and a transmitter stashed in a weatherproof box somewhere on the mount. It had an air of uneasy permanence to it, like all the other buildings here; erosion seems to have evaded it completely.

The vegetation here has fossilized from the roots up. To think they once grazed animals here, the remnants of occupation being evidence to that. It is all sick to death: the water is too polluted for the fish, the sky is too thin for the birds and the soil is cut with the bones of hermits and shepherds. I have heard it said that human ashes make great fertilizer, that we could sow a forest from all that is left of your hips and ribcage, with enough left over to thicken the air and repopulate the bay.

I dreamt I stood in the centre of the sun and the solar radiation cooked my heart from the inside. My teeth will curl and my fingernails fall off into my pockets like loose change. If I could stomach, I’d eat, but all I seem capable of is saltwater. Were the livestock still here, I could turn feral and gorge. I’m as emaciated as a body on a slab, opened up for a premature source of death. I’ve rowed to this island in a heart without a bottom; all the bacteria of my gut rising up to sing to me.

I have become convinced I am not alone here, even though I am equally sure it is simply a delusion brought upon by circumstance. I do not, for instance, remember where I found the candles, or why I took it upon myself to light such a strange pathway. Perhaps it is only for those who are bound to follow.

Level 2: The Buoy

Dear Esther. I have now driven the stretch of the M5 between Exeter and Bristol over twenty-one times, but although I have all the reports and all the witnesses and have cross-referenced them within a millimetre using my ordnance survey maps, I simply cannot find the location. You’d think there would be marks, to serve as some evidence. It's somewhere between the turn off for Sandford and the Welcome Break services. But although I can always see it in my rear view mirror, I have as yet been unable to pull ashore.

Dear Esther. This will be my last letter. Do they pile up even now on the doormat of our empty house? Why do I still post them home to you? Perhaps I can imagine myself picking them up on the return I will not make, to find you waiting with daytime television and all its comforts. They will fossilise over the centuries to follow; an uneasy time capsule from a lost island. Postmarked Oban: it must have been sent during the final ascent.

Dear Esther. I have found myself to be as featureless as this ocean, as shallow and unoccupied as this bay, a listless wreck without identification. My rocks are these bones and a careful fence to keep the precipice at bay. Shot through me caves, my forehead a mount, this aerial will transmit into me so. All over exposed, the nervous system, where Donnelly’s boots and yours and mine still trample. I will carry a torch for you; I will leave it at the foot of my headstone. You will need it for the tunnels that carry me under.

Dear Esther. Whilst they catalogued the damage, I found myself afraid you’d suddenly sit up, stretch, and fail to recognise me, I orbited you like a sullen comet, our history trailing behind me in the solar wind from the fluorescent tubes. Your hair had not been brushed yet, your make-up not reapplied. You were all the world like a beach to me, laid out for investigation, your geography telling one story, but hinting at the geology hidden behind the cuts and bruises.

I have found the ship’s manifest, crumpled and waterlogged, under a stash of paint cans. It tells me that along with this present cargo, there was a large quantity of antacid yoghurt, bound for the European market. It must have washed out to sea, God knows there are no longer gulls or goats here to eat it.

There must be a hole in the bottom of the boat. How else could new hermits have arrived?

It’s only at night that this place makes any sluggish effort at life. You can see the buoy and the aerial. I’ve been taking to sleeping through the day in an attempt to resurrect myself. I can feel the last days drawing upon me – there’s little point now in continuation. There must be something new to find here – some nook or some cranny that offers a perspective worth clinging to. I’ve burnt my bridges; I have sunk my boats and watched them go to water.

The buoy has kept me lucid. I sat, when I was at the very edge of despair, when I thought I would never unlock the secret of the island, I sat at the edge and I watched the idiot buoy blink through the night. He is mute and he is retarded and he has no thought in his metal head but to blink each wave and each minute aside until the morning comes and renders him blind as well as deaf-mute. In many ways, we have much in common.

I’ve begun to wonder if Donnelly’s voyage here was as prosaic as it was presented. How disappointed not to have found the bones of the holy man! No wonder he hated the inhabitants so. To him, they must have seemed like barnacles mindlessly clinging to a mercy seat. Why cling so hard to the rock? Because it is the only thing that stops us from sliding into the ocean. Into oblivion.

An imagined answerphone message. The tires are flat, the wheel spins loosely, and the brake fluid has run like ink over this map, staining the landmarks and rendering the coastline mute, compromised. Where you saw galaxies, I saw only bruises, cut into the cliff by my lack of sobriety.

I don’t know the name of the wreck in the bay; it seems to have been here for several years but has not yet subsided. I don’t know if anyone was killed; if so, I certainly haven’t seen them myself. Perhaps when the helicopter came to lift them home, their ascent scared the birds away. I shall search for eggs along the north shore, for any evidence that life is marking this place out again. Perhaps it is me that keeps them at bay.

I remember running through the sands of Cromer; there was none of the shipwreck I find here. I spent days cataloguing the garbage that washes ashore here and I have begun to assemble a collection in the deepest recess I could find. What a strange museum it would make. And what of the corpse of its curator? Shall I find a glass coffin and pretend to make snow white of us both?

Why is the sea so becalmed? It beckons you to walk upon its surface; but I know all too well how it would shatter under my feet and drag me under. The rocks here have withstood centuries of storms and now, robbed of the tides, they stand muted and lame, temples without cause. One day, I will attempt to climb them, hunt among their peaks for the eggs, the nests, that the gulls have clearly abandoned.

I had kidney stones, and you visited me in the hospital. After the operation, when I was still half submerged in anaesthetic, your outline and your speech both blurred. Now my stones have grown into an island and made their escape and you have been rendered opaque by the car of a drunk.

I have begun my ascent on the green slope of the western side. I have looked deep into the mountain from the shaft and understood that I must go up and then find a way under. I will stash the last vestiges of my civilisation in the stone walls and work deeper from there. I am drawn by the aerial and the cliff edge: there is some form of rebirth waiting for me there.

I have begun my ascent on the windless slope of the western side. The setting sun was an inflamed eye squeezing shut against the light shone in by the doctors. My neck is aching through constantly craning my head up to track the light of the aerial. I must look downwards, follow the path under the island to a new beginning.

I have begun to climb, away from the sea and towards the centre. It is a straight line to the summit, where the evening begins to coil around the aerial and squeeze the signals into early silence. The bothy squats against the mount to avoid the gaze of the aerial; I too will creep under the island like an animal and approach it from the northern shore.

When I first looked into the shaft, I swear I felt the stones in my stomach shift in recognition.

What charnel house lies at the foot of this abyss? How many dead shepherds could fill this hole?

Is this what Paul saw through his windscreen? Not Lot’s wife, looking over her shoulder, but a scar in the hillside, falling away to black, forever.

When they graze their animals here, Donnelly writes, it is always raining. There’s no evidence of that rain has been here recently. The foliage is all static, like a radio signal returning from another star.

In the hold of the wrecked trawler I have found what must amount to several tons of gloss paint. Perhaps they were importing it. Instead, I will put it to use, and decorate this island in the icons and symbols of our disaster.

Cromer in the rain; a school trip. We took shelter en masse in a bus stop, herded in like cattle, the teachers dull shepherds. The sand in my pocket becoming damper by the second.

The bothy was constructed originally in the early 1700s. By then, shepherding had formalised into a career. The first habitual shepherd was a man called Jakobson, from a lineage of migratory Scandinavians. He was not considered a man of breeding by the mainlanders. He came here every summer whilst building the bothy, hoping, eventually, that becoming a man of property would secure him a wife and a lineage. Donnelly records that it did not work: he caught some disease from his malcontented goats and died two years after completing it. There was no one to carve white lines into the cliff for him either.

Inventory: a trestle table we spread wallpaper on in our first home. A folding chair; I laughed at you for bringing camping in the lakes. I was uncomfortable later and you laughed then. This diary; the bed with the broken springs – once asleep, you have to remember not to dream. A change of clothes. Donnelly’s book, stolen from Edinburgh library on the way here. I will burn them all on the last morning and make an aerial of my own.

When the oil lamps ran out I didn’t pick up a torch but used the moonlight to read by. When I have pulled the last shreds of sense from it, I will throw Donnelly’s book from the cliffs and perhaps myself with it. Maybe it will wash back up through the caves and erupt from the spring when the rain comes, making its return to the hermit's cave. Perhaps it will be back on the table when I wake. I think I may have thrown it into the sea several times before.

Three cormorants seen at dusk; they did not land. This house, built of stone, built by a long-dead shepherd. Contents: my campbed, a stove, a table, chairs. My clothes, my books. The caves that score out the belly of this island, leaving it famished. My limbs and belly, famished. This skin, these organs, this failing eyesight. When the battery runs out in my torch, I will descend into the caves and follow only the phosphorescence home.

My heart is landfill, these false dawns waking into the still never light. I sweat for you in the small hours and wrap my blankets into a mass. I’ve always heard the waves break on these lost shores, always the gulls forgotten. I can lift this bottle to my ear, and all there ever is for me is this hebridean music.

In a footnote, the editor comments that at this point, Donnelly was going insane as syphilis tore through his system like a drunk driver. He is not to be trusted – many of his claims are unsubstantiated and although he does paint a colourful picture, much of what he says may have been derived directly from his fever. But I’ve been here and I know, as Donnelly did, that this place is always half-imagined. Even the rocks and caves will shimmer and blur, with the right eyes.

He left his body to the medical school and was duly opened out for a crowd of students twenty-one days after his passing. The report is included in my edition of his book. The syphilis had torn through his guts like a drunk driver, scrambling his organs like eggs on a plate. But enough definition remained for a cursory examination and, as I suspected, they found clear evidence of kidney stones. He is likely to have spent the last years of his life in considerable pain: perhaps this is the root of his laudanum habit. Although its use makes him an unreliable witness, I find myself increasingly drawn into his orbit.

What to make of Donnelly? The laudanum and the syphilis? It is clearly not how he began, but I have been unable to discover if the former was a result of his visiting the island or the force that drove him here. For the syphilis, a drunk driver smashing his insides into a pulp as he stumbled these paths, I can only offer my empathy. We are all victims of our age. My disease is the internal combustion engine and the cheap fermentation of yeast.

Jakobson’s ribcage, they told Donnelly, was deformed, the result of some birth defect or perhaps a traumatic injury as a child. Brittle and overblown it was, and desperately light. Perhaps it was this that finally did for him, unable to contain the shattering of his heart. In halflight, his skeleton a discarded prop, a false and calcified seabird.

They found Jakobson in early spring, the thaw had only just come. Even though he’d been dead nearly seven months, his body had been frozen right down to the nerves and had not even begun to decompose. He’d struggled halfway down the cliff path, perhaps looking for some lost goat, or perhaps in a delirium and expired, curled into a claw, right under the winter moon. Even the animals shunned his corpse; the mainlanders thought to bring it home unlucky. Donnelly claims they dragged it to the caves to thaw out and rot, but he is proving an unreliable witness.

They found Jakobson in early spring, the thaw had only just come. Even though he’d been dead nearly seven months, his body had been frozen right down to the nerves and had not even begun to decompose. His fingernails were raw and bitten to the quick; they found the phosphorescent moss that grows in the caves deep under the nails. Whatever he’d been doing under the island when his strength began to fail is lost. He’d struggled halfway up the cliff again, perhaps in a delirium, perhaps trying to reach the bothy’s fire, before curling into a stone and expiring.

They found Jakobson in early spring, the thaw had only just come. Even though he’d been dead nearly seven months, his body had been frozen right down to the nerves and had not even begun to decompose. All around him, small flowers were reaching for the weak sun, the goats had adjusted happily to life without a shepherd and were grazing freely about the valley. Donnelly reports they hurled the body in fear and disgust down the shaft, but I cannot corroborate this story.

This beach is no place to end a life. Jakobson understood that, so did Donnelly. Jakobson made it halfway back up the cliff. Donnelly lost faith and went home to die. I have the benefit of history, of progress. Someone has erected an aerial to guide me through these black waves, a beacon that shines through the rocks like phosphorescent moss.

Climbing down to the caves I slipped and fell and have injured my leg. I think the femur is broken. It is clearly infected: the skin has turned a bright, tight pink and the pain is crashing in on waves, winter tides against my shoreline, drowning out the ache of my stones. I struggled back to the bothy to rest, but it has become clear that there is only one way this is likely to end. The medical supplies I looted from the trawler have suddenly found their purpose: they will keep me lucid for my final ascent.

Level 3: The Caves

Did Jakobson crawl this far? Can I identify the scratches his nails ruined into the rocks? Am I following him cell for cell, inch for inch? Why did he turn back on himself and not carry through to the ascent?

From here, this last time, I have understood there is no turning back. The torch is failing along with my resolve. I can hear the singing of the sea creatures from the passages above me and they are promising the return of the gulls.

Donnelly did not pass through the caves. From here on in, his guidance, unreliable as it is, is gone from me. I understand now that it is between the two of us, and whatever correspondence can be drawn from the wet rocks.

Donnelly’s addiction is my one true constant. Even though I wake in false dawns and find the landscape changed, flowing inconstantly through my tears, I know his reaching is always upon me.

It was as if someone had taken the car and shaken it like a cocktail. The glove compartment had been opened and emptied with the ashtrays and the boot; it made for a crumpled museum, a shattered exhibition. I first saw him sat by the side of the road. I was waiting for you to be cut out of the wreckage. The car looked like it had been dropped from a great height. The guts of the engine spilled over the tarmac. Like water underground.

They had stopped the traffic back as far as the Sandford junction and come up the hard shoulder like radio signals from another star. It took twenty-one minutes for them to arrive. I watched Paul time it, to the second, on his watch.

There is no other direction, no other exit from this motorway. Speeding past this junction, I saw you waiting at the roadside, a one last drink in your trembled hands.

I’m traversing my own death throes. The infection in my leg is an oilrig that dredges black muck up from deep inside my bones. I swallow fistfuls of diazepam and paracetamol to stay conscious. The pain flows through me like an underground sea.

If the caves are my guts, this must be the place where the stones are first formed. The bacteria phosphoresce and rise, singing, through the tunnels. Everything here is bound by the rise and fall like a tide. Perhaps, the whole island is actually underwater.

I am travelling through my own body, following the line of infection from the shattered femur towards the heart. I swallow fistfuls of painkillers to stay lucid. In my delirium, I see the twin lights of the moon and the aerial, shining to me through the rocks.

In my final dream, I sat at peace with Jakobson and watched the moon over the Sandford junction, goats grazing on the hard shoulder, a world gone to weed and redemption. He showed me his fever scars, and I mine, between each shoulder the nascency of flight.

When I was coming round from the operation, I remember the light they shone in my eyes to check for pupil contraction. It was like staring up at a moonlit sky from the bottom of well. People moved at the summit but I could not tell if you were one of them.

This cannot be the shaft they threw the goats into. It cannot be the landfill where the parts of your life that would not burn ended up. It cannot be the chimney that delivered you to the skies. It cannot be the place where you rained back down again to fertilise the soil and make small flowers in the rocks.

I will hold the hand you offer to me; from the summit down to this well, into the dark waters where the small flowers creep for the sun. Headlights are reflected in your retinas, moonlit in the shadow of the crematorium chimney.

This is a drowned man’s face reflected in the moonlit waters. It can only be a dead shepherd who has come to drunk drive you home.

Level 4: The Beacon

The moon over the Sandford junction, headlights in your retinas. Donnelly drove a grey hatchback without a bottom, all the creatures of the tarmac rose to sing to him. All manner of symbols crudely scrawled across the cliff face of my unrest. My life reduced to an electrical diagram. All my gulls have taken flight; they will no longer roost on these outcrops. The lure of the moon over the Sandford junction is too strong.

I wish I could have known Donnelly in this place – we would have had so much to debate. Did he paint these stones, or did I? Who left the pots in the hut by the jetty? Who formed the museum under the sea? Who fell silently to his death, into the frozen waters? Who erected this godforsaken aerial in the first place? Did this whole island rise to the surface of my stomach, forcing the gulls to take flight?

I sat here and watched two jets carve parallel white lines into the sky. They charted their course and I followed them for twenty-one minutes until they turned off near Sandford and were lost. If I were a gull, I would abandon my nest and join them. I would starve my brain of oxygen and suffer delusions of transcendence. I would tear the bottom from my boat and sail across the motorways until I reached this island once again.

Of fire and soil, I chose fire. It seemed the more contemporary of the options, the more sanitary. I could not bear the thought of the reassembly of such a ruins. Stitching arm to shoulder and femur to hip, charting a line of thread like traffic stilled on a motorway. Making it all acceptable for tearful aunts and traumatised uncles flown in specially for the occasion. Reduce to ash, mix with water, make a phosphorescent paint for these rocks and ceilings.

We shall begin to assemble our own version of the north shore. We will scrawl in dead languages and electrical diagrams and hide them away for future theologians to muse and mumble over. We will send a letter to Esther Donnelly and demand her answer. We will mix the paint with ashes and tarmac and the glow from our infections. We paint a moon over the Sandford junction and blue lights falling like stars along the hard shoulder.

I returned home with a pocket full of stolen ash. Half of it fell out of my coat and vanished into the car’s upholstery. But the rest I carefully stowed away in a box I kept in a drawer by the side of my bed. It was never intended as a meaningful act but over the years it became a kind of talisman. I’d sit still, quite still, for hours just holding the diminishing powder in my palm and noting its smoothness. In time, we will all be worn down into granules, washed into the sea and dispersed.

Dear Esther. I find each step harder and heavier. I drag Donnelly’s corpse on my back across these rocks, and all I hear are his whispers of guilt, his reminders, his burnt letters, his neatly folded clothes. He tells me I was not drunk at all.

From here I can see my armada. I collected all the letters I’d ever meant to send to you, if I’d have ever made it to the mainland but had instead collected at the bottom of my rucksack, and I spread them out along the lost beach. Then I took each and every one and I folded them into boats. I folded you into the creases and then, as the sun was setting, I set the fleet to sail. Shattered into twenty-one pieces, I consigned you to the Atlantic, and I sat here until I’d watched all of you sink.

There were chemical diagrams on the mug he gave me coffee in; sticky at the handle where his hands shook. He worked for a pharmaceutical company with an office based on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. He’d been travelling back from a sales conference in Exeter: forming a strategic vision for the pedalling of antacid yoghurt to the European market. You could trace the connections with your finger, join the dots and whole new compounds would be summoned into activity.

There were chemical diagrams on the posters on the walls on the waiting room. It seemed appropriate at the time; still-life abstractions of the processes which had already begun to break down your nerves and your muscles in the next room. I cram diazepam as I once crammed for chemistry examinations. I am revising my options for a long and happy life.

There were chemical stains on the tarmac: the leak of air conditioning, brake fluid and petrol. He kept sniffing at his fingers as he sat by the roadside waiting as if he couldn’t quite understand or recognise their smell. He said he’d been travelling back from a sales conference in Exeter; he’d stopped for farewell drinks earlier, but had kept a careful eye on his intake. You could hear the sirens above the idling traffic. Paul, by the roadside, by the exit for Damascus, all ticking and cooled, all feathers and remorse, all of these signals routed like traffic through the circuit diagrams of our guts, those badly written boats torn bottomless in the swells, washing us forever ashore.

When Paul keeled over dead on the road to Damascus, they resuscitated him by hitting him in the chest with stones gathered by the roadside. He was lifeless for twenty-one minutes, certainly long enough for the oxygen levels in his brain to have decreased and caused hallucinations and delusions of transcendence. I am running out of painkillers and the moon has become almost unbearably bright.

The pain in my leg sent me blind for a few minutes as I struggled up the cliff path: I swallowed another handful of painkillers and now I feel almost lucid. The island around me has retreated to a hazed distance, whilst the moon appears to have descended into my palm to guide me. I can see a thick black line of infection reaching for my heart from the waistband of my trousers. Through the fugue, it is all the world like the path I have cut from the lowlands towards the aerial.

I will drag my leg behind me; I will drag it like a crumpled hatchback, tyres blown and sparking across the dimming lights of my vision. I am running out of painkillers and am following the flicker of the moon home. When Paul keeled over dead on the road to Damascus, they restarted his heart with the jump leads from a crumpled hatchback; it took twenty-one attempts to convince it to wake up.

A sound of torn metal, teeth running over the edge of the rocks, a moon that casts a signal. As I lay pinned beside you, the ticking of the cooling engine, and the calling from a great height, all my mind as a bypass.

I’ve begun my voyage in a paper boat without a bottom; I will fly to the moon in it. I have been folded along a crease in time, a weakness in the sheet of life. Now, you’ve settled on the opposite side of the paper to me; I can see your traces in the ink that soaks through the fibre, the pulped vegetation. When we become waterlogged, and the cage disintegrates, we will intermingle. When this paper aeroplane leaves the cliff edge, and carves parallel vapour trails in the dark, we will come together.

If only Donnelly had experienced this, he would have realised he was his own shoreline, as am I. Just as I am becoming this island, so he became his syphilis, retreating into the burning synapses, the stones, the infection.

Returning to my car afterwards, hands still shaking and a head split open by the impact. Goodbye to tearful aunts and traumatised uncles, goodbye to the phenomenal, goodbye to the tangible, goodbye Wolverhampton, goodbye Sandford, goodbye Cromer, goodbye Damascus. This cliff path is slippery in the dew; it is hard to climb with such an infection. I must carve out the bad flesh and sling it from the aerial. I must become infused with the very air.

There are headlights reflected in these retinas, too long in the tunnels of my island without a bottom. The sea creatures have risen to the surface, but the gulls are not here to carry them back to their nests. I have become fixed: open and staring, an eye turned on itself. I have become an infected leg, whose tracking lines form a perfect map of the junctions of the M5. I will take the exit at mid-thigh and plummet to my Esther.

The stones in my stomach will weigh me down and ensure my descent is true and straight. I will break through the fog of these godforsaken pills and achieve clarity. All my functions are clogged, all my veins are choked. If my leg doesn’t rot off before I reach the summit, it will be a miracle. There are twenty-one connections in the circuit diagram of the anti-lock brakes, there are twenty-one species of gull inhabiting these islands , it is twenty-one miles between the Sandford junction and the turn off for home. All these things cannot, will not, be a co-incidence.

Bent back like a nail, like a hangnail, like a drowning man clung onto the wheel, drunk and spiraled, washed onto the lost shore under a moon as fractured as a shattered wing. We cleave, we are flight and suspended, these wretched painkillers, this form inconstant. I will take flight. I will take flight!

He was not drunk Esther, he was not drunk at all. He had not drunk with Donnelly or spat Jakobson back at the sea; he had not careered across the lost shores and terminal beaches of this nascent archipelago. He did not intend his bonnet to be crumpled like a spent tissue by the impact. His windscreen was not star-studded all over like a map of the heavens. His paintwork etched with circuit diagrams, strange fish to call the gulls away. The phosphorescence of the skid marks lighting the M5 all the way from Exeter to Damascus.

Blind with panic, deaf with the roar of the caged traffic, heart stopped on the road to Damascus, Paul, sat at the roadside hunched up like a gull, like a bloody gull. As useless and as doomed as a syphilitic cartographer, a dying goatherd, an infected leg, a kidney stone blocking the traffic bound for Sandford and Exeter. He was not drunk Esther, he was not drunk at all; all his roads and his tunnels and his paths led inevitably to this moment of impact. This is not a recorded natural condition: he should not be sat there with his chemicals and his circuit diagrams, he should not be sat there at all.

I have dredged these waters for the bones of the hermit, for the traces of Donnelly, for any sign of Jakobson’s flock, for the empty bottle that would incriminate him. I have scoured this stretch of motorway twenty-one times attempting to recreate his trajectory, the point when his heart stopped dead and all he saw was the moon over the Sandford junction. He was not drunk Esther, he was not drunk at all, and it was not his fault, it was the converging lines that doomed him. This is not a recorded natural condition, the gulls do not fly so low over the motorway and cause him to swerve. The paint scored away from his car in lines, like an infection, making directly for the heart.

A gull perched on a spent bonnet, sideways, whilst the sirens fell through the middle distance and the metal moaned in grief about us. I am about this night in walking, old bread and gull bones, old Donnelly at the bar gripping his drink, old Esther walking with our children, old Paul, as ever, old Paul he shakes and he shivers and he turns off his lights alone.

I have run out of places to climb. I will abandon this body and take to the air.

We will leave twin vapour trails in the air, white lines etched into these rocks.

I am the aerial. In my passing, I will send news to each and every star.

Final monologues

Dear Esther. I have burnt my belongings, my books, this death certificate. Mine will be written all across this island. Who was Jakobson, who remembers him? Donnelly has written of him, but who was Donnelly, who remembers him? I have painted, carved, hewn, scored into this space all that I could draw from him. There will be another to these shores to remember me. I will rise from the ocean like an island without bottom, come together like a stone, become an aerial, a beacon that they will not forget you. We have always been drawn here: one day the gulls will return and nest in our bones and our history. I will look to my left and see Esther Donnelly, flying beside me. I will look to my right and see Paul Jakobson, flying beside me. They will leave white lines carved into the air to reach the mainland, where help will be sent.

Dear Esther. I have burned the cliffs of Damascus, I have drunk deep of it. My heart is my leg and a black line etched on the paper all along this boat without a bottom. You are all the world like a nest to me, in which eggs unbroken form like fossils, come together, shatter and send small black flowers to the very air. From this infection, hope. From this island, flight. From this grief, love. Come back! Come back...

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