#in a place where it will often snow in September

[acesammy]

ITS SNOWING. FINALLY!!!

[climbthemountain2020]

Your Eyes Whisper Have We Met

Part 1/? | Ao3

I was momentarily and violently possessed by the spirit of Taylor Swift to write this Feysand

Biggest thanks to @witch-and-her-witcher @cauldronblssd and @rosanna-writer for the best betas a gal could ask for!

[In a world where the Archerons never lost their fortune, fate finds Feyre on the night of a masquerade ball.]

The sun was setting low and bright over the horizon of the lake while Feyre brushed out her hair, her hips leaned casually against the side of the stone railing of the balcony to keep her balance. Before too long, the nights would begin to bring a chill into the air and it wouldn’t be as easy to stand out here and marvel at the colors in the sky. But here at the end of September, the breeze was still balmy enough to skirt over her exposed shoulders like a soft blanket.

The upper register of the sky was turning a deep navy, the stars already sparkling like diamonds. They felt familiar and comforting to her, as they always did. Lower, the blues bled into a menagerie of lavenders, periwinkles, and the lightest, brightest pinks. She wanted to paint the colors so badly, lay them one by one onto a canvas until they merged together seamlessly. The colors reminded her of the smooth interior of a seashell her father had brought home once from a trip. Feyre kept it on her dresser, touching the glossy bridge of it every so often, holding it up to her ear to hear the sounds of the waves lapping the shore, though she’d never actually been to a beach herself.

She sighed, letting the arm with the brush fall to her side and flipping her hair back over a freckled shoulder.

The moon was going to be large in the sky tonight–a good omen for the masquerade in honor of Elain’s twenty-first birthday. If Feyre leaned far enough over the edge of the balcony, she could see the twinkling lights that spread across the entryway to the estate, glowing brightly and welcoming the already-surging crowds of nobles. Though she couldn’t see them from where she was standing, she knew from careful preparation how magical the lights looked, reaching criss-crossed over the main pathway up to the massive oak front doors, though Feyre couldn’t see them from here.

Despite all the shining luster, she felt her elation ebbing like the tide in her chest.

These hosted events were nothing new, but Feyre had trouble getting excited for them anymore. Something about them felt so shallow and empty–forced laughter, fake smiles–it was always the same. The same people, the same conversations, and the same…nothingness that followed.

Elain and Nesta enjoyed them well enough, though you might not know it by Nesta’s face or attitude. The two were born and bred for high society. In theory, Feyre had been too, but something had always been different. She’d taken the same lessons, been born of the same bloodline, suffered the same teachers, and fumbled through the same etiquette courses. But, still, something felt different about her.

A half-wild beast.

Nesta’s favorite insult. Yet, in the quiet privacy of her room, Feyre wore it like a badge of honor.

She would sit on her balcony often, long after the manor was asleep, and stare up at those same smiling stars, dreaming about the stories in her books, and wondering if, in some other lifetime, she was the one slaying dragons, riding horses, and falling in love. She dreamed of wielding the weapons that the guards tossed around so effortlessly in the yard, her fists clenching and unclenching with the want to hold them in her hand. She dreamed of the bow and arrows so vividly that sometimes she woke up feeling as though her arm had been drawn back at the ready, the golden eyes of some animal in the snow flashing brightly in her mind.

But, at the end of the day, Feyre understood her role. She knew her place here, even if she hated it. She’d have gone down swinging and fighting if it weren’t for her sisters, but she knew she’d never forgive herself if she ruined their chances at a life they wanted for her own selfish wants.

So, she allowed the soft dress to be pulled up her body, the corset laced so tightly she could barely breathe. She let the long, golden tresses of her hair be pulled into a braid–nothing efficient or practical, but wispy and loose and lovely. She let them apply powder and blush to her cheekbones, only to roll her eyes to herself knowing she’d be wearing a mask anyway.

Her mask was a glittering mass of crystals inlaid on the softest navy fabric, the tops of the gems twinkling brightly as she turned it in the light. She’d seen the mask in a shop in town and couldn’t take her eyes off of it. It had reminded her of the silent nights spent outside, and she hadn’t been able to leave without it. She may have hated getting dressed and paraded for these events, but at least she’d have chosen one aspect of her presence this evening.

She slipped into the satin shoes, and she listened to them click, click, click down the stone and marble of the halls on her way to the foyer.

The manor smelled magical, the air filled with sweet, sharp, and savory spices from across the world. Her father always returned from his expeditions with barrels of the best foods, cans of spices, and wooden boxes of the loveliest, most exotic teas. Their house regularly smelled of some beautiful delicacy or another, but on nights where events like this took place, the whole manor was awash in the smells, and Feyre always liked that best.

The loud rise of voices became nearly deafening as she reached the massive set of stairs in the entryway.

As she looked down, she could see Elain and Nesta already socializing and doing their duty. Elain was floating like a butterfly around the room, twirling her skirts without even meaning to and catching the wandering eyes of every eligible–and ineligible–man in the room. Elain was effortlessly beautiful and charming–a perfect fit in this life–all soft, rounded edges and sweet sighs. Her mask was a soft, brushed suede in a light brown, the gems rounded up and shaped to mimic the face of a doe. Fitting, for every bit of Elain was that beautiful, gentle, cushioned etiquette that high society expected of her.

If Elain was the cushion, though, Nesta was the pin.

Nesta had dressed in black and red tonight, the ruby gemstones of her mask catching the light and reaching out like the wings of a great creature around her face. Her silver eyes cut across the room, daring any man to come closer. She looked as though she was ready for war, and in truth, she might be. The expectation weighed heavily on Nesta to marry, and soon.

Even Nesta’s calculated coldness couldn’t combat the pressures of society for much longer. She may be cold, but with money and a noble name came the burden of responsibility. Even with her reputation, the men had been lining up for her for nearly two years already. The time she had left was running out. While Feyre knew Nesta did not care one bit for the implications of being an unmarried noble, Nesta knew the consequences for her family and her name were she to be labeled as unmarriageable, and she wouldn’t dare harm Elain’s reputation in such a way. And, in addition, Elain had been breathing down her neck, anxious for her turn and knowing that she could not step forward for a marriage offer until Nesta had accepted one herself.

Feyre sighed as she reached the bottom of the steps, turning immediately to the back walls behind the circle of pillars surrounding the foyer and leading out into the main ballroom. The estate was absurdly large–so large, in fact, that as a child, Feyre had spent years discovering rooms she’d never even seen before. It was a gross misuse of money, from her point of view, but it’s not exactly like they could give rooms to the needy. She had suggested it once as a child, and her mother had their governess strike her for it. Their mother might be long dead, but her lessons lingered into their lives.

As Feyre passed the great doors, the strung-up lights again caught her eye, glowing against the backdrop of the now deep-black sky with the woods behind them. Something stirred within her.

Go. Go see.

But she’d long felt that pull to the woods. She’d also long learned to ignore it for the sake of propriety.

She ribbed at Nesta and Elain often for their expectations, but she knew someday they would fall to her, too. She was nineteen now, and once her sisters had been paired off, it would be her turn to find a nobleman who she’d be handed off to and expected to run his home and birth his children until she died.

The thought was almost enough to send her running to the woods.

Feyre could barely hold a conversation with any of the insufferable, pompous pricks for more than five minutes; she wasn’t sure how she would ever be able to warm one’s bed long term. But she saw her life for what it was: a gilded prison where her options had been predestined, planned, and chosen for her the minute she was placed as a squealing babe in her mother’s arms and declared a girl.

Feyre grabbed a drink from a passing server, sipping it delicately and letting the bubbles settle on her tongue and in her spirit, calming her as she walked into the wide open ballroom and began to skirt around the walls. She’d need to limit it to just the one–she had a tendency to drink too much at these events, and she notoriously could not handle her drink well.

If Feyre was honest with herself, she had wondered more than once what it might be like to meet a handsome young man who was more than the surface-level idiots of the rich families. Not that she was one for a vulnerable moment, but as beautiful as these parties were, they were just the same, old, tired faces again and again. In her bed in the dark, she’d thought more than once what it might be like for a handsome prince like the ones in the books she’d hid away from her governess by shoving them in her mattress to come and whisk her away for something more–something wonderful. Not just for the love story, but for the adventure, too. They’d run off arm in arm, him setting her on a horse by his side to roam the wide world beside him, never behind.

She continued along the curved wall, watching the crowd of twirling bodies embellished in jewels and brightly embroidered threads. She could be in her room, painting the colors swirling together across a canvas, instead of being here and watching it all pass her by.

Abruptly, Feyre stopped in her tracks, the air stolen from her lungs as though by force. She’d been hiding in the near-shadows as the others danced in the light. But across the room, almost entirely encased in shadows of his own, a pair of violet eyes met hers.

Feyre felt as though she’d been punched in the chest, her entire world narrowing in on the singular raised brow attached to those beautiful eyes, staring directly into her soul as though asking have we met? He seemed to hesitate, to recognize her almost, his hand raising nearly imperceptibly as though to wave.

Had she imagined it?

She could almost hear the voice now as she took a tentative step in that direction, closing the gap as she made her way around the room.

Come. Come see.

Silky and smooth and low, like warm honey in a cup of tea, like the burn of whiskey in the swigs she’d stolen in her father’s office. He pushed off the wall and walked towards her, looking quickly to the sides as though to check if anyone else was watching. His approach caused her heart to thunder wildly in her chest.

Come see.

As they approached each other, the gap closing with each step, she was taken aback by his overwhelming beauty. His hair was the color of raven’s wings, softly catching the light of the chandeliers above. The rest of him that wasn’t covered by his mask appeared to be carved out of stone, his chiseled features sharp, but kind. Those beautiful violet eyes up close sparked like they held a galaxy within them, the glittering reminding her of the patterns of the gems in her mask.

This is the most attractive man I’ve ever seen.

His lips arched up at the corners as though he’d heard her.

Impossible.

He looked familiar as he passed behind each of the marble pillars lining the room, the swirling and twirling of dancers in her periphery not breaking her focus for even a moment. She was a woman possessed, all her energy focused entirely on this beautiful stranger, only steps away. She felt a strangely familiar comfort as they closed the last few feet between them. She was sure she’d have remembered someone like him.

“Hello, darling.” His voice nearly knocked her breathless again as he took her hand in his, sketching a bow as he pressed his lips to her knuckles delicately. The touch of his skin to hers was electric, the currents coursing through her veins like lightning and fire and shooting straight to her chest where they swarmed and tore like bees in a nest.

She must have gasped, her body reacting before her mind could catch up, because his lovely twilight eyes locked on hers, a brow quirking up again as he stared at her. There was something unidentifiable in his expression–something so wide open and unguarded and vulnerable that didn’t match his raised brows or rakish smirk at all.

Underneath all that, there was something like wonder.

Every so often, his carefully curated expression would tic just the tiniest bit, a strain of his jaw, a twitch of his brow, and Feyre could see something different hiding beneath. Something almost nervous.

“Hello.” Her voice was a curious whisper, full of awe and jittery trepidation, but the smile she was granted in return was as bright as the full moon over the lake outside the manor, and it felt especially reserved for her.

“What’s your name?” His voice was deep and rumbling, the timbre of it shooting to her ribs and tugging briefly, so visceral and real that she nearly stepped forward with the ghost of it.

“Feyre.” There was no use playing coy. She wanted to hear her name off his lips–had never wanted anything more than she wanted it.

She swore she could hear his thoughts twirling the name around in his mind, likening it to the tolling of bells. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all.

“Feyre,” he murmured, eyes still full of stars and staring at her. “Fey-ruh,” he mouthed wordlessly this time, as though tasting it on his tongue and savoring it. She shivered to the tips of her toes, her eyes tracking the shape of his plush lips as they moved around the syllables.

“Yes,” she said, embarrassingly breathless. “What’s yours? I don’t recognize you.” The corners of his mouth turned up in amusement. Feyre had never been good at the rules of high society, failing even the most basic points of etiquette repeatedly and fantastically. But he seemed delighted, and the thrill of it all kept her heart threatening to pound out of her chest.

“Rhysand. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Feyre.” She loved the way he said her name; she loved the way it fit with hers. Feyre and Rhysand.

Rhysand. Rhysand. Rhysand.

He still held her hand in his.

“Would you honor me with a dance, Feyre darling?” She nodded mutely, still struggling to find words in the wake of meeting this familiar stranger, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

He took her hand in his, his midnight black suit with silver embroidery glinting in the light and catching the reflections like beams of light. Rhysand. She tried the name in her mind over and over again until it felt like home on her tongue.

I could see myself calling him Rhys, warm on a couch, his lips on mine.

The thought came out of nowhere, startling her and making a blush race across her cheeks and up her ears. She must have physically flinched, because she could feel Rhysand almost shudder beneath her hand.

At long last, they reached the dance floor right as a new song queued up from the musicians, a light and sturdy waltz that would allow for space to talk between them. She placed her hands on his shoulder and arms, beginning the steps that she knew by heart. He kept time immediately, almost as though the dance was something he’d also grown up knowing.

“You’re not from around here.” Not a question.

“No, I am not.” He offered nothing more. She scrunched her nose, studying him, and he grinned down at her, his hair tumbling down across his forehead.

“Where are you from?”

“Somewhere further north of here. I’m here for business.” She wasn’t one to ask family names, lest she seem like she was throwing herself at his feet. But his words were so vague she couldn’t help but cock a brow at him. He smiled, a laugh on his lips.

“Hmm, family business. Sounds very serious.” The mocking in her voice was not lost on him, and his smile widened.

“It’s all a bit dicey right now. I’m a little out of my element.” She could surely understand what that felt like, nodding almost imperceptibly in agreement.

“Well, what part of business requires you attending a masquerade in the forest?” She couldn’t help but tease him. the words flit off her tongue before she could bite them down, but she relished his surprise. He seemed to enjoy the teasing.

“Just an errant invite to a nobleman passing through. I make it a habit to know the people in the important families when I travel. You never know what you may find.”

“Or whom.” The words were coy, and his eyes flashed momentarily with something akin to hunger before it cleared.

“This is your manor, is it not?” Perhaps he cared more for propriety than her.

“Yes. I’m Feyre, the youngest. The ball is for my sister, Elain. She just turned twenty-one.”

“Ah, and you?”

“Nineteen. Yourself?”

“A bit older, not in spirit, though.” His grin was heart-stopping, her breath catching in her chest at the sight of it. He was stunningly gorgeous, a work of art. Her fingers itched to paint his face embraced by the night sky, the stars humming and shooting past behind him as though they were alive…

Her thoughts were interrupted by his hands on her waist lifting her into the air as though she weighed nothing, her small yelp bringing yet another flush to her face. She’d lost her place in the dance while her thoughts had wandered, but he just chuckled lightly as he set her back down and they resumed. The music slowed to a quieter number and they readjusted their holds on each other to fit the new tempo, stepping close enough to feel his breath flit across her neck.

“You’re not at all how I imagined you’d be.”

“How you imagined?”

“Just the daughter of a noble family. You don’t act like them.”

She scoffed, then raised herself up a bit on her toes, arching her neck to place her lips closer to his ear, never breaking the slow rhythm of the dance. “Can I tell you a secret, Rhysand?” He shuddered lightly beneath her touch as they swayed.

“Anything.”

“I hate it here.” He laughed, something warm and welcoming blooming in her at the sound.

“I can see you somewhere different,” he said, voice still filled with amusement.

“Hmm, where?”

He pulled back a bit and pretended to think about it while she took in his face again, the mask doing nothing to hide the lovely strong jaw and high cheekbones, his dark golden skin nearly glowing beneath the chandelier lights. He looked like he belonged in the galaxies above them, flying through the night sky like some sort of Angel of Darkness in a painting. The thought brought a thrill to Feyre’s lower stomach that she’d only ever felt in the dark of her bedroom alone at night.

“I can see you outside, somewhere beneath the stars with a clear view of the sky.” Feyre could hear her own sharp intake of breath as she felt it, so she was sure he could too. Perhaps, it should be strange that someone she didn’t know at all could guess something so easily about her, something so intimate.

But instead of fear, the only feeling she could summon was comfort. Had anyone ever really known her? It was nice to be seen. It was nice to be known.

“I’d like that.”

The song came to an abrupt end, spooling immediately into another, more fast-paced dance. Feyre let the mischief flare to life behind her eyes as she grabbed his hand in hers.

“Can you keep up?”

His smile could rival the sun, and suddenly it was all she cared to see again.

He grabbed her hand, his skin warm and comforting against hers, and they launched into the steps for the dance, holding each other–perhaps a bit closer than was expected.

Song after song, dance after dance, the two twirled around the room. Feyre could sense time was passing, but she couldn’t find it in herself to track it or care, the world and people an inconsequential blur around them. They weren’t speaking with words, but it all felt like a conversation in and of itself, their bodies and minds somehow in step with each other, learning one another as his starry, violet eyes met blue. His smile crinkled around his lips, and left the smallest, almost unnoticeable dimples in its wake. Feyre grinned to behold it, and something told her it wasn’t a smile most were lucky enough to see.

She felt breathless, bubbly, intoxicated–and she knew that it was unrealistic to fall for someone so suddenly. It was something she expected of Elain, ever the romantic, but for the first time in her entire life, she imagined what it would be like if someone did make a bid for her hand.

For the first time, she thought about what it might be like to accept.

Please don’t be in love with someone else.

After what could have been hours, the songs began to slow again as the night began to wind down, the lights lower and the people quieter. Their hands regrettably dropped off the other, but Feyre wasn’t ready to let this go, not just yet. She leaned in almost imperceptibly, her whisper just barely a breath on her lips.

“Meet me in the garden? The back side of the house with the lake view.” Then, before she could view his expression or regret her actions, she walked off, very audibly complaining to her sisters that her feet hurt and she was off to bed.

Feyre sprinted down the halls, cutting corners so closely she almost slammed into the walls. She rushed across the marble floors, crashed into her bedroom doors, and flung them open and back shut with an intensity of which she didn’t believe herself capable. She shut and locked them behind her, kicking off her uncomfortable heels, ripping off the beautiful mask, and pushing her loose hair off her face as she strode to the balcony. She’d gone out this way in the night so many times it was like second nature to her now, the light breeze smelling of flowers and earth. She crept down the trellis, feet expertly catching on all the holds until she jumped the last few feet. Feyre skittered to the large stone wall to the garden, avoiding the gate in favor of scaling up the thick, twisted vines, swinging a leg over, and dropping wildly down to the other side.

Nesta’s words once again rang in her head, but if she could see Rhys again, even for a moment, then propriety be damned.

She turned to run but pulled up short with a gasp when she found him already there, nearly running into his chest.

“Hi.” The word was a breathy exhale on her tongue.

“I’ve been looking for you.” His words were soft and quiet in the night, a kind smile already on his face, his eyes crinkling at the corners in what appeared to be delight. Without his mask, she could see his lovely face in full, somehow even more beautiful than before.

“Would you like to walk? I can show you the lake.” It was one of her favorite places on the property. Elain favored the gardens, Nesta the copse of old oak trees that were older than the manor itself, but Feyre had always loved the lake. More times than she could count, as a child and even older, she’d had to be dragged from its murky depths. She loved to play in it, the time slipping away as she swam around, played with the fish, and even laid on her back just watching the clouds. Nesta called her a swamp monster, but she hadn’t minded.

Under the light of the moon, she led Rhysand to her favorite lakeside view, a small stone bench beneath the curtain of a weeping willow. Here, she couldn’t be seen from the house, and it was often she’d come here to paint, or relax, or just be left alone.

“Is this your favorite spot then?” He asked coyly, almost as though he’d heard her think it, as she grabbed her skirts up and sat down.

“I like to be alone, more often than not, and it’s easy to come here and buy some time unseen.”

“Unseen, hmm.” He sat beside her, the warmth of his thigh brushing against her own. “Did you take me here to kill me then, Feyre?” A laugh burst out of Feyre before she could stop it, loud and unrestrained as she raised a hand to her mouth. He was so funny; men were never funny. She should have been embarrassed that she’d guffawed like a goat in front of him, but when she looked up, his face was lit with an intangible sense of joy that stopped her short.

“You have a beautiful laugh.” The words weighed heavy in the air around them, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “I hope to hear it again.”

“You could.” She wasn’t sure what had come over her, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them with any sense.

“If I make you laugh too often, I think they require a proposal in these parts.” A grin split his face, but something about his tone felt serious to Feyre.

“Would that be so terrible?” His responding smile was sad, almost pained, as he grabbed her hand in his.

“Please believe me, Feyre, when I tell you nothing would please me more than to ask for your hand in marriage this very second. If I was able, I would have already asked your father.” The words froze and ached in her chest, making it hard to swallow, but she couldn’t look away.

“I wouldn’t say no.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, seeming to fight with himself over something. “In my current home, I am unable to make any propositions, and it would kill me to make you a promise I couldn’t fulfill. You deserve more than that. More than me.” It was the first true crack she’d seen in his mask, the first real show of that vulnerability that she’d sensed immediately. He huffed a mirthless laugh.

“What if I waited?” His eyes shot back to hers. “My sisters are not yet wed, and I cannot go before them anyway. What if we waited until your circumstances changed? We have time.” The hope and awe and wonder in his eyes was almost enough to unseat her entirely. His hand came to touch her jaw delicately, softly, as though she was something precious in his hands.

“I can’t ask you to–”

“I want to. Rhysand, I want to. This is crazy, I’m never this way. Truly, Nesta likens me to a beast more often than anything else. I don’t get along with others, but…” When she looked up again, he was staring at her like she’d hung the stars and moon. “You see me. I don’t know how I know, but I can tell. You see all that I am, here, now.” He nodded, brows deeply furrowed, as though thinking before he spoke.

“You would wait?”

“I would, unfailingly.” Something cracked wide open in her chest at the admission she hadn’t quite even felt herself deciding to make. Who was this man who had enthralled her so completely and utterly? And why did it feel more right than anything ever had before?

His eyes searched her face, as if looking for any reason to say no and failing.

“Would it be wildly improper of me to ask to kiss you?” His voice was as breathless as hers, as though they were speaking on sacred ground. She’d tipped forward a bit, leaning her face into his hand.

“It would, but do it anyway.”

“Can I kiss–” She didn’t let him finish as she surged up, pressing her lips to his.

The effect was immediate, sparks shooting off in her mind like a cracking piece of firewood. The tug in her chest became overwhelming as she wrapped her arms around his neck, his tongue moving against the seam of her lips as though asking for permission. She let him in, the smooth caress of his tongue against her own drawing a sound out of her that she’d never heard before. He smelled like jasmine and lilac as she ran her hands through his silky, inky hair, the motion drawing him closer as he ran his hands down her sides to hold her waist. It felt monumental, world-shifting, right.

The kiss deepened as he shifted her into his lap, his hands pulling, gripping, grabbing at every inch of her as they slid up her thighs to cup her ass. She ground down against him, feeling him against her and losing the fight against tipping her head back as his mouth left hers to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses down her jaw and neck. She gasped as she felt his teeth, feeling sharper and more dangerous than they were, skirting lightly over her pulse point, something deep and primal thrumming within her at the action.

He murmured against her, “Feyre, you’re my–” And she would have given him anything he asked of her in that moment. A kiss, herself, the entire world.

But, abruptly, the sound of laughter and shattering glass broke them apart. Someone at the party had dropped something on their way out, but Feyre and Rhysand stared at each other, eyes wide and wild, chests heaving for air as they broke free of the spell.

“Feyre.” The word was a prayer on his lips as he licked them, as though he were tasting her one more time.

She pressed another, more chaste, kiss to the corner of his mouth, smiling as he sighed against her.

“Will you write to me, when your circumstances change?” She asked. His face was full of such wide, open hope. She would wait, and she’d do so happily if there was even a chance of this being the future that awaited her.

“Yes, of course. I’ll call on you when all is settled. I will see you again.” It sounded like a promise, an oath. She believed him as she felt the surge of joy and anticipation welling within her, the feelings stronger and more potent than she had ever felt before.

They stood, so unwilling to untangle their limbs and let go. He walked her back to the stone wall, offering to give her a hand and help her up. She sat atop it, gazing upon him a final time.

“I am very glad to have met you tonight, Rhysand.”

“Rhys.” He sketched a bow. “Call me Rhys. I was enchanted to meet you, Feyre.”

“Goodnight, Rhys.” He smiled, and as she turned to quietly dismount the other side, she looked back a final time to find him already gone.

+++

Rhys stood on the stone wall surrounding the manor as the moon dipped low in the sky. The colors of the sun on the horizon would be coming soon, but he hadn’t been quite ready to go yet. Instead, he stood, shrouded in the dark, hands in his pockets and the entirety of his focus on a single balcony. The wall was large and sturdy, at least two feet across and spanning the entire estate.

Good, Rhys thought. There are predators here.

Through the balcony window, the gossamer curtains flowed in the breeze, the low, golden light inside highlighting the fuzzy shapes within. He could see movement, the motion he’d been waiting for since she left the lakeside bench. His breath caught in his chest as she appeared, her hair down from her braid, loosely flowing over her shoulders and back as she spun around the room in her nightgown.

Dancing. She was dancing.

For the first time in decades, Rhys felt something like tears burning behind his eyes. She was so incredibly beautiful there in the window, holding her arms out and mimicking the moves that they had completed together only hours before. He’d have stayed a lifetime if only to see her dance again, to see that beautiful smile light up her face when she looked at him.

He’d been a fool to accept her offer, but it had been so long since Rhys had felt hope. He’d been an idiot to come here in the first place, considering the circumstances, but he had to see her, touch her, know that there was something worth fighting for. If he was going to make it out alive, he needed hope.

Mate. My mate.

He’d heard her thoughts all night long, so open and honest and forthright, not even second guessing herself. She fit him so thoroughly, her thoughts often matching his as they flitted through his own mind.

She was perfect.

It had been years since the first time he’d seen her in his dreams, just snips and flashes of her running through the woods, sloshing through the lake, then more detailed pictures of her pranking her sisters and governess, painting the undersides of furniture and the trees of the forest so no one would see. It had been a particularly horrible day when he’d finally broken and gone to see her, the lights of the ball providing a convenient ruse.

He’d told himself to be aloof, just a visiting guest, only there to observe.

Then he saw her. The pull nearly painful and he was pushing off the walls to look for her the second their eyes met.

If he had suspected the mating bond before, he was certain now, the tether alive and glowing in his chest, though unsnapped. He wondered how it felt to her, a human, but they’d been sharing thoughts and emotions all night, to his great joy.

Please don’t be in love with someone else. Please don’t have somebody waiting on you.

Half of that promise he could fulfill–he would never love anyone but her, his mate, the female from his dreams. He would always belong to her, the visual of her pressed against his chest as they danced, her smile bright and warm and eyes happy to see him. There would never be anyone else for him but the human girl who was a dreamer, who wanted more for herself in this life than the pretentious, materialistic world of a nobleman’s daughter. He watched as she threw herself back onto her fluffy bed with a sigh, kicking her feet against it as he smiled.

It was time for him to go, to flee back beneath the mountain before Amarantha looked too closely into his absence. He wouldn’t risk Feyre, no matter how much his heart ached to be near her. Just this glimpse would get him through, get him one step closer, one move further into a future where he might fulfill his promise, might be able to come to her again. Might even be able to bring her back home with him. Home, to his family.

He gave her a final look, smelling that pear and lilac scent on the breeze and filling his lungs with it.

“I’ll come back for you. I promise.” And then he was gone.

[peachjagiya]

This is for @blue703 2019. The one where JK made the bear snow globe and gave it to Tae. Watch it again and watch them closely. Tae seemed to be off at the first part of their trip with JK constantly looking at him. He was giving Tae space but he looked wary and his focus was mostly on Tae. When they were all making the snow globes, Suga even said to Taehyung "Taehyung, you should learn to let go or else you will lose even those you already have." In essence, that's what his message was. Seems like Suga was helping JK out to "make up" with Taehyung.

Few things to note about Winter Package in Finland as well:

They blurred the names of who they picked to give their snow globes too, and I have a hunch that it's because JK didn't give the globe to the one he is supposed to give it to and broke the "chain" by giving his to Tae. Hence, you have Hobi quickly "remedying" the situation at the end by giving the globe he made himself to himself coz "he love his self" LOL!

TK were giving eo space the first day there, JK wasn't able to get much footage of Tae for GCF coz he didn't approach Tae in the 1st day activity. He got his footage when they seemingly made up already the next day.

I don't know when they actually "made up", but there was a shift in that "giving space to eo" to then clinging to eo after when JK cried while reading his own letter. Tae went over to him and comforted him. After this "scene", they were around eo more often and we got pleeeenty of domestic and sweet TK moments: photoshoot of JK backhugging Tae, JK smelling Tae's hair looking so domestic if you took a photo of that moment, Jk saying Tae is so innocent and Tae getting flustered etc.

When they were writing on their "trip diaries", JK seemed to have wrote the first lines of Kim Dong Ryul's "Like a Child": "When you said you love and accepted my love....." VMinKook were horsing around writing on their diaries. JK and JM wrote on Tae's diary, there was a page full of smileys which led to a prompt on the diary "remind someone you loved one you love them" and those lyrics where what was written above. Now, the most intriguing part is when Tae was reading what JK and JM wrote. You can see the moment he gasped on camera and got visibly moved almost like choking on tears. This is a link to what was written: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSYmYebHc/ And this link to when Tae read what was written on his diary: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSYmFsjCy/

They were pretty much so cozy after they "made up". This was also when I notice a shift in JK being more "open" in his affections for Tae. Airport nape kiss, GDA Hug, Grammys clinging etc all happened after this trip.

They went to Finland in November 2019 for this. Another thing to note, the "Get out of your imagination" comment happened just days after TK made up and were so cozy, hence the "Tae put shippers into place" "He doesn't love Jungkook like that" comments don't make sense. He was literally being pampered and showered with love and affection by JK those days LOL!

I don't know what the cause of the "drama" was at first part of that trip. This was months (November) after JK and tattoo girl issue came out (September), they travelled to New Zealand (BV 4) when that news broke and TK seemed fine (but then they are filming so they must show they're fine BUT then clearly in Winter Package, Tae had no issue avoiding interactions with JK when they arrived in Finland so.... there's that too). What stood out to me tho is this trip happened a week after JK's minor car accident. He was apparently just few minutes away from Tae's house. I dont know if there's a connection to that and their lil "non-scenes" in Finland.

Oh also note that Tae must have stared writing Sweet Night around this time.

This has been too long now 😆 I'd love to read anyone's thoughts as well. 💜

Thanks @sweeteyestell!

For you, @blue703.

And a merry Christmas to us all.

[gay-noodle-clan]

Don’t know if anyone’s interested, but I want to introduce my DR self.

This is Andi Grei Ruenhaert, fourth born child of Talsen Ruenhaert, king of Lelyra, and Shasta Indarain, queen of Lelyra and High Priestess of the Goddess of Fate.

- Andi’s pronouns are She / They.

- Andi is half kienrif, a species I created. Kienrif are shapeshifters that can only turn into one animal: tiger, lion, wolf, coyote, bear, hyena, leopard, jaguar, elk. Tigers are mostly extinct, but as the art shows, there is a tiger behind her. This is her other form.

- Andi is 6’9, due to being half kienrif through her father’s side, a species known for their height. She is actually unusually small for the species, due to her being only half. Her tiger form is also rather small, only the size of the average wolf.

- Andi is a quarter Wood Elf and a quarter Hummingbird Fae through her mother’s side, giving her an unusually long lifespan, pointed ears, and a rather quick but graceful step.

- Andi was born September 19, 1374 A.D. In most of my DRs, it is the year 1397 A.D., making Andi 23 years old.

- Andi lives in Miðrfold, but was born in the realm Tasmuidal. For reference, our reality / realm is Heltensrike. Miðrfold is another reality / realm that is connected to Heltensrike, and to Tasmuidal, and translates to the Middle Realm. Tasmuidal is the “final” realm / reality, and is considered unholy or dead lands.

- Tasmuidal has 2 countries, Auluiria and Lelyra. Andi is from Lelyra, a place that snows year-round. They rely heavily on trade for food and supplies, and often eat the northern Leopard Seal selkies so that they can avoid trade a bit more and not have to keep an eye out for hungry selkies stealing children.

- Andi is very soft spoken and sweet, but is able to stand up for herself when necessary. She is very well-liked, though, and is rumoured to be the next Sylvati, something akin to the magical leader of the realm.

- It varies who her romantic partner is, depending entirely on what DR I am in.

- The way Andi ends up in DRs is that she touches an auyura, or a magical fae’s gate, and it takes her to an unknown, uncharted place, the DR. For reference, she touches the gate, and ends up in My Hero Academia.

- Andi has plant-related magic due to being a quarter Wood Elf, and has the ability to understand animals if she learns their language. This is usually a common tongue amongst animals of an area—rabbits, bobcats, and squirrels would all speak the same rough common tongue in a northern pine forest where they live together, that an elf could learn. But the bobcats of different regions could understand each other through their own first language, but the elf would have to learn that language separately, because it is a different language from the pine forest’s common tongue… there’s a lot of different languages to learn. Most elves specialise in certain species or areas. Andi chooses to specialise in smaller woodland mammals. Whereas her grandmother, Svea, understands dragons, because she’s learned that language. It took Svea a couple hundred years, though.

- Andi knows 13 different languages: “Not too many. Icelandic, Germanic, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Faroese, Estonian, Norwegian, Greek, Portuguese, Ukrainian, a bit of French, Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese, Korean, Doric, and Elvish. It is embarrassingly little, unfortunately.” She has the life goal of learning as many languages as possible. Although she refuses to learn English, mostly out of spite for having found the language too difficult when she was younger.

- Andi is incredibly intelligent, but is usually in her own world. Good luck getting her to respond when she’s daydreaming.

And that’s my DR self! Yes I made her special, because it’s my DR, so why not? Andi is my DR self in all of my DRs (30+), except for 3.

There’s more about her, too, if anyone is ever interested. I don’t refer to myself as Andi because in this reality, that isn’t who I am. I’m Andi in another reality, and prefer to stay Noodlers in this reality.

However, please feel free to ask me about her if I missed anything!

[cheerleaderman]

Astrid Primrose

A quite person who doesn’t want to stand out.Some-people think he’s hiding something deep given his curse but others see him as friendly and helpful.

Personality :

quite, reserved, socially awkward,only show true self with people their comfortable with, won’t say if he’s hurt, more Genuine with people they are comfortable with, pretty simple , Gracious  

Twst : the enchanted rose 

Basic Info

Age: 17

He/they

Voice claim: Langa- Sk8 the infinity (eng and Jp)

Birthday: September 18

Height: 174cm

class: 2-C

Dorm: Diasomnia

Nickname: koi fish (Floyd) ,Monsieur rose enchantèe(Rook) ,Ash

Dominant Hand: Right  

favorite food: different kinds of bread, salad, chocolate and melon

Hobbies/likes: chess, cross word puzzles, puzzles, origami , snow, birds, architecture, stargazing 

Dislikes: feeling trapped, moldy food, mold , dumpster diving

Club: Equestrian  

Hometown : Briar Valley  

Best subject: astrology

Talents: Completing puzzles quickly and reading maps

Unique magic/Curse : Beast of the guilty 

He has no control of the curse but it seems like if he touches or direct eye contact for long enough. A shadow looking beast will surround a person in vine staring them down making them relive something they deeply regret and it could last for a day or two after being let go basically tormenting them with guilt. Astrid curse that will later become his UM.

For the selfish and the lairs

You must not feel pity

Because soon they will meet

The beast of the guilty

More info

-Wants to travel the world when they hit 21

-thinking of becoming an architect 

- Astrid pretty goofy with people they are comfortable with and would do it with his resting expression having others if he’s serious 

- Doesn’t talk much about their home or family when they do some say there is a kinda unsettling feeling/ look in his eyes

-Swears the horses like messing with him

-Part Fae but didn’t know until Sebek said something ( Malleus and Lilia thought he knew about it)

- is like 80% Fae 20% human [ he can Fly ,is super strong and poison doesn’t have the same effect on him as humans]

- believes they’re unlovable

-played against Leona in chess during a school club event and impressed Leona so now they play against each other often (Astrid got adopted )

-Friends with Jamil (they don’t have a label on their relationship) They met during joint classes in 1st year and would talk continue to talk. Would look Astrid in the eyes and miss the shot on purpose goofy stuff like that.

J-“what’s your obsession with bread?” A-“Bread was the only food that wasn’t stale or moldy that was given to me at the orphanage * goes back to eating bread*” J-*shocked*

-Managed to get Azul indebted to him with 2 favors and would always avoid his attempts saying “he doesn’t want anything from Azul” Azul can’t even blackmail since there isn’t much he can use besides basic info even then Astrid blocks the attempt.

-good at drawing manly buildings and interiors and has some sketchbooks filled of them

- Would carry Sliver back to the dorm if it’s late/ Sliver would sometimes fall asleep on them

-Sebek has never called Astrid human

More about Astrid

Outfits

(Astrid’s hair is covering his eye in lab wear just lazy to fix it)

Backstory

Astrid lived in an poor orphanage in Briar valley until they were 10. During their time there others would stay away or bully him because of his curse thinking he did it on purpose causing them to run away.Astrid would dumpster diving for food, doing best to survive when he teacher found them.

Being taken in Astrid reside in the west wing of the place.Given a place to stay and food to eat he was very grateful for finally finding a family so he thought. Even though his teacher showed him love and kindness the rest of her family didn’t seem to like him and didn’t understand why.

At 14 is when he finally understood sneaking out of the west wing. Walking around coming across room where Teacher and her husband were talking about no other than their cruse.

The cures was supposed to be used against his teacher.Due to the selfishness and betraying her old friend.

One day you will come across a child who will be your downfall.

By the time the child turns 21 you will pass as they will obtain the magic you prioritize so dearly.

But if you put away your selfishness and welcome the child into your arms truly loving them you may live to see another day.

He never heard such a venomous tone from his teacher but didn’t hear anymore running back to his room heartbroken.

“That why teacher family doesn’t like me”

“Were those accident everyone trying to get rid of me”

“Teacher doesn’t even like me, My parents didn’t want, The staff ignores me, no one wants to be around me”

“All because of this stupid curse! The only reason I’m here is for someone’s revenge”

“I’m I really that unlovable?”

After that day Astrid started to pretend to reciprocate the “love”  their teacher gave them.Planning to leave at 20 which changed when he got excepted into NRC for when they graduate they’ll just never return home.

Divider

[ratherbebitch]

𖦹 IᑎTᖇO 𖦹

formerly @/dumbcrustyassbitch

hey !! this is basically just a silly blog where i ramble and reblog about my interests !!

info

you can call me bee :3

she/they

scottish

will unlikely be the one to initiate conversation, but feel free to talk to me !!! im just a very anxious person

neurodivergent in some way, im still working myself out

lesbian, possibly asexual !! questioning that and gender bc wtaf

can get very passionate, just lmk if im being annoying or too much !!!

my interests

mean girls

my favourite version of mean girls is the broadway !!! regina is my favourite character, ive watched the 2024 movie 31 times !! also im an avid cadina/rejanis shipper (me and my gf are literally cadina)!!! please send me asks/dm me about mean girls, i could babble for hours :3 my favourite song from the broadway is meet the plastics, and my favourite from the movie is someone gets hurt !! WISHING SO HARD FOR WEST END TICKETS🙏🙏🙏🙏

reneé rapp

ive been a fan for just under a year !! my favourite song of hers is either so what now, in the kitchen, snow angel, or moon. ive seen the sex lives of college girls 4 times (leighton murray marry me) IM SO EXCITED FOR SEASON 3. TALK TO ME ABOUT IT. PLEASE. i own the mean girls and snow angel cds, and its my dream to own one of her vinyls !! i love her so so so much, she's helped me understand myself a little better, and SHE'S SO FUCKING FUNNY AND HER VOICE IS JUST AHAJABFAJAMAN

rachel mcadams

the first movie of hers i saw was mean girls ofc, and then i decided to go on a watching spree !! my all time favourite movie of hers is 100% morning glory, but a few honourable mentions are the notebook, the vow, red eye, eurovision (don't come for me it's not good it's just funny) and game night !! ALSO HER SNL SKIT>>>

erin caldwell

been a fan since 09/05/2023, met her twice, genuinely actually saved my life. there's not much more to say really. as a scottish person, it makes me so proud to see someone like me on stage (help im getting sentimental) but seriously, erin is one of my biggest inspirations, and she's helped me develop my confidence and skills and self esteem and SHES JUST AMAZING OKAY

musical theatre

my longest interest !!! favourite shows that ive seen live are six (ive seen it 4 times, round 5 and 6 booked !! the uk tour 23/24 cast hold a very special place in my heart), heathers, come from away, everybody's talking about jamie, pretty woman, hamilton, and grease :3 my favourite shows that i wish i could see/could've seen are mean girls, the notebook, and the great gatsby !!

movies

i really really really love movies !!!! during september and october i dragged a little but now we're in november im trying to watch at least one per day, but sometimes i get caught up with life !!!! ill link my letterboxd here :33 im open to things to add to my watchlist !! im trying to widen my variety of movies i watch but some things i just can't stomach (excessive gore, etc) but as i said feel free to suggest !!! can i just say that doesthedogdie.com is my life saver and everyone should use it ANYWAYS.

here's my next/current watch: music and lyrics

movie of the week: woman of the hour

other interests include heartstopper/osemanverse, derry girls, gravity falls, superstore, the owl house, olly murs, chappell roan, towa bird, wednesday, descendants, dove cameron, bluey and olivia rodrigo :3

dni

homophobes, biphobes, etc. any anti lgbtq+

racists, xenophobes, etc.

transphobes, terfs, etc.

ableists

just generally don't be an asshole pls, im here to have fun, not report you for being a cunt <3

tags (starting from 16/10/2024)

#bee yaps ← shit-posts

#bee's inbox ← asks

#my girl ♡ ← stuff for/from my gf !! yes people need to know !!!!!

extras

i don't write fics or draw very often, I JUST GENUINELY HAVE NO CREATIVE TALENTS TBH !!!! but i tend to shitpost about mean girls and reneé mostly, some rachel thrown in there !!

also i frequently get the urge to change the entire theme of my blog, just go with it. i may also change my username so. but don't worry it's still me !!!!!! <3

matching blinkies with @rockinaroundthepole <3

[mlmxreader]

September Sunflower | Bane x gn!reader

『••✎••』

↳ ❝ anonymous asked: May I please give you a request to use the following prompts for big tiddy Bane X non-binary, male, or gn!Reader: “I don’t wanna know anything, if knowing means losing you” ❞

: ̗̀➛ you and Bane cannot be together properly, there are secrets that can't be uttered, and although Bane is willing to do anything for you, he knows that the difficulty of navigating secrets weighs on you.

: ̗̀➛ swearing, angst

•──────────────────★•♛•★─────────────────•

At first, Bane had been enjoying the time that he had with you; chilling out together and spending most days doing nothing but listening to music and talking.

He would knit during the nights when he couldn't sleep, always giving you a new scarf or a new pair of socks. It was nice to actually spend time together and to actually be a couple for once, and although you knew that your time together would come to an end soon enough, both of you didn’t want it to end.

If the world were to stop, if everything were to come to a halt for just a few more days, you would both be so happy with it in all honesty. To be together and to stay together for as long as it was possible, that’s all either of you wanted.

All you ever wanted was to be together in the end; but Bane knew that you could not stay forever, he wasn’t a fool enough to think that you could have. He would always know better than that. Bane was a lot of things, but an idiot was not one of them.

A lot of people would have said that his heart was too dark to hold any care, but they didn’t know Bane the way that you did. You loved him, which  was why you could never let him go in the slightest; you knew that when you left, Bane would bring your shirt to his mask, and would keep the soft fabric against the harsh metal until he fell asleep.

It was always like that, and in return, you often took his big fluffy coat. He would see you out and about wearing it from his place in the shadows, and if he could have, he would have smiled at the sight every time.

But nothing could ever be perfect; you had to keep the relationship a secret from your family, and you had to keep your family a secret from Bane.

You didn’t want him to look at you any differently when you told him that you were Bruce’s younger sibling; three years behind your famous brother, you were taken in by Alfred Pennyworth when you were just a baby and raised alongside Master Wayne. Bruce would never forgive you if he knew about you and Bane, and Bane would almost certainly look at you differently for being Bruce’s sibling.

You despised the thought of something like that ever happening. You loved them both dearly, you would never be able to choose. You sighed as you packed up your things, knowing that the time was nearing when you would have to leave; just an hour left with your beloved Bane, you wished that fate was not so cruel and that it would let you and Bane have just a few minutes more. 

He noticed your demeanour, and tilted his head to the side as he furrowed his brows. “Little one? Everything alright?”

You shrugged, not really sure how to answer. “I don’t want to hide anymore, but I… fuck, I can’t tell you.”

“I don’t wanna know anything, if knowing means losing you,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “No secret is worth losing you… ah Sun-flower, weary of time, who countest the steps of the Sun: seeking after that sweet golden clime, where the travellers journey is done. , where the Youth pined away with desire, and the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: arise from their graves and aspire, where my Sun-flower wishes to go.”

You smiled at him, nodding slowly as you cleared your throat; Bane always did like to quote poetry at you, and usually, it made you feel a little better about leaving, as the sweet words from his thunderous voice would echo in the back of your skull until you fell asleep… but not this time.

You still felt bitter and blue, melancholic and woeful, knowing that you had to keep such terrible secrets. You chewed at the inside of your lip for a moment, sighing heavily as you shook your head, licking your lips in hopes that the tears would not fall and your voice would not tremble too much when you spoke.

“I love you,” you told him. “I don’t want to keep secrets, but I know I have to and… I love you. Yeah?”

Bane nodded slowly as he cleared his throat and came to sit beside you, putting his hand on your thigh as he hummed softly. “Yeah.”

You were his September. He could see you through the sunshine of July, knowing that once April had passed, it would not be long until he saw you again.

His September, he looked forward to seeing falling leaves of brown and rust colours, to feeling the chilly and icy winds as well as feeling the soft rain against his head; he looked forward to hearing the owls in the night and the foxes in the evening.

Knowing that it would not be long before he saw you again. For you, Bane was willing to wait for years, months - he was willing to wait for a millennia if he knew that at the end of it, he would be able to see you one last time.

He would be able to feel your skin on his and see you smile when he read Wilfred Owen and William Blake to you, he would be able to hear you laugh. Bane would wait forever and a day for you, with no complaints; for you, he was willing to do anything. There were no boundaries for what he would do.

“I’m sorry,” you told him quietly. “I know it’s… difficult to be with me.”

“It’s worth it,” Bane told you with a shake of his head. “Any and every difficulty we come across, little one, it’s worth it when it means I get to hold you in my hands and see you for even just a few minutes. You don’t have to apologise. You are worth the difficulty.”

[dailyanarchistposts]

Introduction

Two aspects of animal life impressed me most during the journeys which I made in my youth in Eastern Siberia and Northern Manchuria. One of them was the extreme severity of the struggle for existence which most species of animals have to carry on against an inclement Nature; the enormous destruction of life which periodically results from natural agencies; and the consequent paucity of life over the vast territory which fell under my observation. And the other was, that even in those few spots where animal life teemed in abundance, I failed to find — although I was eagerly looking for it — that bitter struggle for the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin himself) as the dominant characteristic of struggle for life, and the main factor of evolution.

The terrible snow-storms which sweep over the northern portion of Eurasia in the later part of the winter, and the glazed frost that often follows them; the frosts and the snow-storms which return every year in the second half of May, when the trees are already in full blossom and insect life swarms everywhere; the early frosts and, occasionally, the heavy snowfalls in July and August, which suddenly destroy myriads of insects, as well as the second broods of the birds in the prairies; the torrential rains, due to the monsoons, which fall in more temperate regions in August and September — resulting in inundations on a scale which is only known in America and in Eastern Asia, and swamping, on the plateaus, areas as wide as European States; and finally, the heavy snowfalls, early in October, which eventually render a territory as large as France and Germany, absolutely impracticable for ruminants, and destroy them by the thousand — these were the conditions under which I saw animal life struggling in Northern Asia. They made me realize at an early date the overwhelming importance in Nature of what Darwin described as “the natural checks to over-multiplication,” in comparison to the struggle between individuals of the same species for the means of subsistence, which may go on here and there, to some limited extent, but never attains the importance of the former. Paucity of life, under-population — not over-population — being the distinctive feature of that immense part of the globe which we name Northern Asia, I conceived since then serious doubts — which subsequent study has only confirmed — as to the reality of that fearful competition for food and life within each species, which was an article of faith with most Darwinists, and, consequently, as to the dominant part which this sort of competition was supposed to play in the evolution of new species.

On the other hand, wherever I saw animal life in abundance, as, for instance, on the lakes where scores of species and millions of individuals came together to rear their progeny; in the colonies of rodents; in the migrations of birds which took place at that time on a truly American scale along the Usuri; and especially in a migration of fallow-deer which I witnessed on the Amur, and during which scores of thousands of these intelligent animals came together from an immense territory, flying before the coming deep snow, in order to cross the Amur where it is narrowest — in all these scenes of animal life which passed before my eyes, I saw Mutual Aid and Mutual Support carried on to an extent which made me suspect in it a feature of the greatest importance for the maintenance of life, the preservation of each species, and its further evolution.

And finally, I saw among the semi-wild cattle and horses in Transbaikalia, among the wild ruminants everywhere, the squirrels, and so on, that when animals have to struggle against scarcity of food, in consequence of one of the above-mentioned causes, the whole of that portion of the species which is affected by the calamity, comes out of the ordeal so much impoverished in vigour and health, that no progressive evolution of the species can be based upon such periods of keen competition.

Consequently, when my attention was drawn, later on, to the relations between Darwinism and Sociology, I could agree with none of the works and pamphlets that had been written upon this important subject. They all endeavoured to prove that Man, owing to his higher intelligence and knowledge, may mitigate the harshness of the struggle for life between men; but they all recognized at the same time that the struggle for the means of existence, of every animal against all its congeners, and of every man against all other men, was “a law of Nature.” This view, however, I could not accept, because I was persuaded that to admit a pitiless inner war for life within each species, and to see in that war a condition of progress, was to admit something which not only had not yet been proved, but also lacked confirmation from direct observation.

On the contrary, a lecture “On the Law of Mutual Aid,” which was delivered at a Russian Congress of Naturalists, in January 1880, by the well-known zoologist, Professor Kessler, the then Dean of the St. Petersburg University, struck me as throwing a new light on the whole subject. Kessler’s idea was, that besides the law of Mutual Struggle there is in Nature the law of Mutual Aid, which, for the success of the struggle for life, and especially for the progressive evolution of the species, is far more important than the law of mutual contest. This suggestion — which was, in reality, nothing but a further development of the ideas expressed by Darwin himself in The Descent of Man — seemed to me so correct and of so great an importance, that since I became acquainted with it (in 1883) I began to collect materials for further developing the idea, which Kessler had only cursorily sketched in his lecture, but had not lived to develop. He died in 1881.

In one point only I could not entirely endorse Kessler’s views. Kessler alluded to “parental feeling” and care for progeny (see below, Chapter I) as to the source of mutual inclinations in animals. However, to determine how far these two feelings have really been at work in the evolution of sociable instincts, and how far other instincts have been at work in the same direction, seems to me a quite distinct and a very wide question, which we hardly can discuss yet. It will be only after we have well established the facts of mutual aid in different classes of animals, and their importance for evolution, that we shall be able to study what belongs in the evolution of sociable feelings, to parental feelings, and what to sociability proper — the latter having evidently its origin at the earliest stages of the evolution of the animal world, perhaps even at the “colony-stages.” I consequently directed my chief attention to establishing first of all, the importance of the Mutual Aid factor of evolution, leaving to ulterior research the task of discovering the origin of the Mutual Aid instinct in Nature.

The importance of the Mutual Aid factor — “if its generality could only be demonstrated” — did not escape the naturalist’s genius so manifest in Goethe. When Eckermann told once to Goethe — it was in 1827 — that two little wren-fledglings, which had run away from him, were found by him next day in the nest of robin redbreasts (Rothkehlchen), which fed the little ones, together with their own youngsters, Goethe grew quite excited about this fact. He saw in it a confirmation of his pantheistic views, and said: — “If it be true that this feeding of a stranger goes through all Nature as something having the character of a general law — then many an enigma would be solved. “He returned to this matter on the next day, and most earnestly entreated Eckermann (who was, as is known, a zoologist) to make a special study of the subject, adding that he would surely come “to quite invaluable treasuries of results” (Gespräche, edition of 1848, vol. iii. pp. 219, 221). Unfortunately, this study was never made, although it is very possible that Brehm, who has accumulated in his works such rich materials relative to mutual aid among animals, might have been inspired by Goethe’s remark.

Several works of importance were published in the years 1872–1886, dealing with the intelligence and the mental life of animals (they are mentioned in a footnote in Chapter I of this book), and three of them dealt more especially with the subject under consideration; namely, Les Sociétés animales [Animal Societies], by Espinas (Paris, 1877); La Lutte pour l’existence et l’association pout la lutte [The struggle for existence and the association for the struggle], a lecture by J.L. Lanessan (April 1881); and Louis Böchner’s book, Liebe und Liebes-Leben in der Thierwelt [Love and love life in the animal world], of which the first edition appeared in 1882 or 1883, and a second, much enlarged, in 1885. But excellent though each of these works is, they leave ample room for a work in which Mutual Aid would be considered, not only as an argument in favour of a pre-human origin of moral instincts, but also as a law of Nature and a factor of evolution. Espinas devoted his main attention to such animal societies (ants, bees) as are established upon a physiological division of labour, and though his work is full of admirable hints in all possible directions, it was written at a time when the evolution of human societies could not yet be treated with the knowledge we now possess. Lanessan’s lecture has more the character of a brilliantly laid-out general plan of a work, in which mutual support would be dealt with, beginning with rocks in the sea, and then passing in review the world of plants, of animals and men. As to Büchner’s work, suggestive though it is and rich in facts, I could not agree with its leading idea. The book begins with a hymn to Love, and nearly all its illustrations are intended to prove the existence of love and sympathy among animals. However, to reduce animal sociability to love and sympathy means to reduce its generality and its importance, just as human ethics based upon love and personal sympathy only have contributed to narrow the comprehension of the moral feeling as a whole. It is not love to my neighbour — whom I often do not know at all — which induces me to seize a pail of water and to rush towards his house when I see it on fire; it is a far wider, even though more vague feeling or instinct of human solidarity and sociability which moves me. So it is also with animals. It is not love, and not even sympathy (understood in its proper sense) which induces a herd of ruminants or of horses to form a ring in order to resist an attack of wolves; not love which induces wolves to form a pack for hunting; not love which induces kittens or lambs to play, or a dozen of species of young birds to spend their days together in the autumn; and it is neither love nor personal sympathy which induces many thousand fallow-deer scattered over a territory as large as France to form into a score of separate herds, all marching towards a given spot, in order to cross there a river. It is a feeling infinitely wider than love or personal sympathy — an instinct that has been slowly developed among animals and men in the course of an extremely long evolution, and which has taught animals and men alike the force they can borrow from the practice of mutual aid and support, and the joys they can find in social life.

The importance of this distinction will be easily appreciated by the student of animal psychology, and the more so by the student of human ethics. Love, sympathy and self-sacrifice certainly play an immense part in the progressive development of our moral feelings. But it is not love and not even sympathy upon which Society is based in mankind. It is the conscience — be it only at the stage of an instinct — of human solidarity. It is the unconscious recognition of the force that is borrowed by each man from the practice of mutual aid; of the close dependency of every one’s happiness upon the happiness of all; and of the sense of justice, or equity, which brings the individual to consider the rights of every other individual as equal to his own. Upon this broad and necessary foundation the still higher moral feelings are developed. But this subject lies outside the scope of the present work, and I shall only indicate here a lecture, “Justice and Morality” which I delivered in reply to Huxley’s Ethics, and in which the subject has been treated at some length.

Consequently I thought that a book, written on Mutual Aid as a Law of Nature and a factor of evolution, might fill an important gap. When Huxley issued, in 1888, his “Struggle-for-life” manifesto (Struggle for Existence and its Bearing upon Man), which to my appreciation was a very incorrect representation of the facts of Nature, as one sees them in the bush and in the forest, I communicated with the editor of the Nineteenth Century, asking him whether he would give the hospitality of his review to an elaborate reply to the views of one of the most prominent Darwinists; and Mr. James Knowles received the proposal with fullest sympathy. I also spoke of it to W. Bates. “Yes, certainly; that is true Darwinism,” was his reply. “It is horrible what ‘they’ have made of Darwin. Write these articles, and when they are printed, I will write to you a letter which you may publish.” Unfortunately, it took me nearly seven years to write these articles, and when the last was published, Bates was no longer living.

After having discussed the importance of mutual aid in various classes of animals, I was evidently bound to discuss the importance of the same factor in the evolution of Man. This was the more necessary as there are a number of evolutionists who may not refuse to admit the importance of mutual aid among animals, but who, like Herbert Spencer, will refuse to admit it for Man. For primitive Man — they maintain — war of each against all was the law of life. In how far this assertion, which has been too willingly repeated, without sufficient criticism, since the times of Hobbes, is supported by what we know about the early phases of human development, is discussed in the chapters given to the Savages and the Barbarians.

The number and importance of mutual-aid institutions which were developed by the creative genius of the savage and half-savage masses, during the earliest clan-period of mankind and still more during the next village-community period, and the immense influence which these early institutions have exercised upon the subsequent development of mankind, down to the present times, induced me to extend my researches to the later, historical periods as well; especially, to study that most interesting period — the free medieval city republics, of which the universality and influence upon our modern civilization have not yet been duly appreciated. And finally, I have tried to indicate in brief the immense importance which the mutual-support instincts, inherited by mankind from its extremely long evolution, play even now in our modern society, which is supposed to rest upon the principle: “every one for himself, and the State for all,” but which it never has succeeded, nor will succeed in realizing.

It may be objected to this book that both animals and men are represented in it under too favourable an aspect; that their sociable qualities are insisted upon, while their anti-social and self-asserting instincts are hardly touched upon. This was, however, unavoidable. We have heard so much lately of the “harsh, pitiless struggle for life,” which was said to be carried on by every animal against all other animals, every “savage” against all other “savages,” and every civilized man against all his co-citizens — and these assertions have so much become an article of faith — that it was necessary, first of all, to oppose to them a wide series of facts showing animal and human life under a quite different aspect. It was necessary to indicate the overwhelming importance which sociable habits play in Nature and in the progressive evolution of both the animal species and human beings: to prove that they secure to animals a better protection from their enemies, very often facilities for getting food and (winter provisions, migrations, etc.), longevity, therefore a greater facility for the development of intellectual faculties; and that they have given to men, in addition to the same advantages, the possibility of working out those institutions which have enabled mankind to survive in its hard struggle against Nature, and to progress, notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of its history. It is a book on the law of Mutual Aid, viewed at as one of the chief factors of evolution — not on all factors of evolution and their respective values; and this first book had to be written, before the latter could become possible.

I should certainly be the last to underrate the part which the self-assertion of the individual has played in the evolution of mankind. However, this subject requires, I believe, a much deeper treatment than the one it has hitherto received. In the history of mankind, individual self-assertion has often been, and continually is, something quite different from, and far larger and deeper than, the petty, unintelligent narrow-mindedness, which, with a large class of writers, goes for “individualism” and “self-assertion.” Nor have history-making individuals been limited to those whom historians have represented as heroes. My intention, consequently, is, if circumstances permit it, to discuss separately the part taken by the self-assertion of the individual in the progressive evolution of mankind. I can only make in this place the following general remark: — When the Mutual Aid institutions — the tribe, the village community, the guilds, the medieval city — began, in the course of history, to lose their primitive character, to be invaded by parasitic growths, and thus to become hindrances to progress, the revolt of individuals against these institutions took always two different aspects. Part of those who rose up strove to purify the old institutions, or to work out a higher form of commonwealth, based upon the same Mutual Aid principles; they tried, for instance, to introduce the principle of “compensation,” instead of the lex talionis [The law of retaliation], and later on, the pardon of offences, or a still higher ideal of equality before the human conscience, in lieu of “compensation,” according to class-value. But at the very same time, another portion of the same individual rebels endeavoured to break down the protective institutions of mutual support, with no other intention but to increase their own wealth and their own powers. In this three-cornered contest, between the two classes of revolted individuals and the supporters of what existed, lies the real tragedy of history. But to delineate that contest, and honestly to study the part played in the evolution of mankind by each one of these three forces, would require at least as many years as it took me to write this book.

Of works dealing with nearly the same subject, which have been published since the publication of my articles on Mutual Aid among Animals, I must mention The Lowell Lectures on the Ascent of Man, by Henry Drummond (London, 1894), and The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, by A. Sutherland (London, 1898). Both are constructed chiefly on the lines taken in Büchner’s Love, and in the second work the parental and familial feeling as the sole influence at work in the development of the moral feelings has been dealt with at some length. A third work dealing with man and written on similar lines is The Principles of Sociology, by Prof. F.A. Giddings, the first edition of which was published in 1896 at New York and London, and the leading ideas of which were sketched by the author in a pamphlet in 1894. I must leave, however, to literary critics the task of discussing the points of contact, resemblance, or divergence between these works and mine.

The different chapters of this book were published first in the Nineteenth Century (“Mutual Aid among Animals,” in September and November 1890; “Mutual Aid among Savages,” in April 1891; “Mutual Aid among the Barbarians,” in January 1892; “Mutual Aid in the Mediæval City,” in August and September 1894; and “Mutual Aid amongst Modern Men,” in January and June 1896). In bringing them out in a book form my first intention was to embody in an Appendix the mass of materials, as well as the discussion of several secondary points, which had to be omitted in the review articles. It appeared, however, that the Appendix would double the size of the book, and I was compelled to abandon, or, at least, to postpone its publication. The present Appendix includes the discussion of only a few points which have been the matter of scientific controversy during the last few years; and into the text I have introduced only such matter as could be introduced without altering the structure of the work.

I am glad of this opportunity for expressing to the editor of the Nineteenth Century, Mr. James Knowles, my very best thanks, both for the kind hospitality which he offered to these papers in his review, as soon as he knew their general idea, and the permission he kindly gave me to reprint them.

Bromley, Kent, 1902.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Rob Rogers

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 13, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 14, 2024

Last night a woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande that marks the border between the U.S. and Mexico near Eagle Pass, Texas. 

U.S. Border Patrol agents knew that a group of six migrants were in distress in the river but could not try to save them, as they normally would, because troops from the Texas National Guard and the Texas Military Department prevented the Border Patrol agents from entering the area where they were struggling: Shelby Park, a 47-acre public park that offers access to a frequently traveled part of the river and is a place where Border Patrol agents often encounter migrants crossing the border illegally. 

They could not enter because two days ago, on Thursday, Texas governor Greg Abbott sent armed Texas National Guard soldiers and soldiers from the Texas Military Department to take control of Shelby Park. Rolando Salinas, the mayor of Eagle Pass, posted a video on Facebook showing the troops and saying that a state official had told him that state troops were taking “full control” over Shelby Park “indefinitely.” Salinas made it clear that “[t]his is not something that we wanted. This is not something that we asked for as a city.”

The Texas forces have denied United States Border Patrol officials entry into the park to perform their duties, asserting that Texas officials have power over U.S. officials. 

On December 18, Abbott signed into law S.B. 4, a measure that attempts to take into state hands the power over immigration the Constitution gives to the federal government. Courts have repeatedly reinforced that immigration is the responsibility of federal, not state, government, but now, according to Uriel J. García of the Texas Tribune, “some Texas Republicans have said they hope the new law will push the issue back before a U.S. Supreme Court that is more conservative since three appointees of former President Donald Trump joined it.”

On January 3 the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the new law, saying: “Texas cannot run its own immigration system. Its efforts, through S.B. 4, intrude on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere with U.S. foreign relations.” 

Abbott and MAGA Republicans are teeing up the issue of immigration as a key line of attack on President Joe Biden in 2024, but while they are insisting the issue is so important they will not agree to fund Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s 2022 invasion until it is solved, they are also unwilling to participate in discussions to fund more border officers or immigration courts. Today, once again, Biden reminded reporters that he has asked Congress to pass new border measures since he took office, but rather than pass new laws, Republicans appear to be doubling down on pushing the idea that migrants threaten American society and that an individual state—Texas, in this case—can override federal authority.

Abbott has spent more than $100 million of Texas tax dollars to send migrants to cities led by Democrats. These migrants have applied for asylum and are waiting for a hearing; they are in the U.S. legally. In September 2023, Texas stopped coordinating with nonprofits in those cities that prepared for migrant arrivals. 

Yesterday, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker wrote to Abbott, calling him out for choosing “to sow chaos in an attempt to score political points.” Pritzker noted that Abbott is “sending asylum seekers from Texas to the Upper Midwest in the middle of winter—many without coats, without shoes to protect them from the snow—to a city whose shelters are already overfilled with migrants you sent here.” Chicago’s temperatures are set to drop below zero this weekend, Pritzker wrote, and he “strongly urge[d]” Abbott to stop sending people to Illinois in these conditions. “You are dropping off asylum seekers without alerting us to their arrivals, at improper locations at all hours of the night.”

Pritzker wrote that he supports bipartisan immigration reform but “[w]hile action is pending at the federal level, I plead with you for mercy for the thousands of people who are powerless to speak for themselves. Please, while winter is threatening vulnerable people’s lives, suspend your transports and do not send more people to our state. We are asking you to help prevent additional deaths. We should be able to come together in a bipartisan fashion to urge Congress to act. But right now, we are talking about human beings and their survival. I hope we can at least agree on saving lives right now.”

Speaking on the right-wing Dana Loesch Show last week, Abbott said, “The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border, because of course the Biden administration would charge us with murder.” 

On January 13, 1833, President Andrew Jackson wrote to Vice President–elect Martin van Buren to explain his position on South Carolina’s recent assertion that sovereign states could overrule federal laws. “Was this to be permitted the government would lose the confidence of its citizens and it would induce disunion everywhere. No my friend, the crisis must be now met with firmness, our citizens protected, and the modern doctrine of nullification and secession put down forever…. [N]othing must be permitted to weaken our government at home or abroad,” he wrote.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[sroloc--elbisivni]

Ok you win! You win, I read your amazing RotTMNT AU and now I want to know more about Usagi Yojimbo!!! Do you have any recommendations and also I would love to read your bibliography for that fic 😭🙏 your writing is ~superb~ it's so poetic and evocative aaaagh

GOT ANOTHER ONE, BOYS

welcome!! welcome!! come on in. Usagi canon isn't actually as intimidating as it looks--and I'm not saying this in the way often applicable to comics where that means 'only one flowchart is required to understand the reading order.' i think. There's only one major continuity, and two spinoffs in Space Usagi and Senso,* neither of which is required to understand the main order. Each issue is often overwhelmingly self-contained, so you can really pick up anything and start reading. The split comes in where the series being published at like. four different companies over the years. means that there are different publishing rights that change the way stuff comes out. technically we're at 38 trade volumes. thinking of it like that is the way madness lies.

The bulk of the series is collected in The Usagi Yojimbo Saga, a 10-volume set published out of Dark Horse. Each one is about as thick as a phonebook. This is not the beginning of the series, it technically starts with the overall series' volume 8, Shades of Death, but the first book of the Saga has a 4-page intro comic at the beginning that does very well setting the scene. This is where I started. I still think it's a great place to start because it's fun to go back to the origins with all the knowledge of the later books behind them. (Books 1-9 are in sequence; Usagi Yojimbo: Legends collects Senso, Space Usagi, and Yokai)

If you want to start at the very beginning, you need to look for Usagi Yojimbo, vol. 1: The Ronin. After Volume 7, Gen's Story, everything's published in the Saga.

The beginnings of the series are also collected in Usagi Yojimbo: Origins, which is a recent republishing of the early comics in full color. They've got four volumes--Volume 1,** Wanderer's Road, The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy, and Lone Goat and Kid. If you start here, you'll be switching over to series Vol. 6, Circles, after LGaK.

Once you get through the Saga, you're into IDW publishing territory, which so far has 5 trade volumes--Bunraku and Other Stories, Homecoming, Tengu War!, Crossroads, and The Green Dragon. That brings you up to the Ice and Snow issues, which just started publishing in September.

But quite honestly, given that the overall premise of the series is 'watch this man wander around the early Edo period experiencing Problems,' I really do think you can start anywhere in the grand tradition of 'what's at the library/comic shop' and have a good idea of the series.*** Have fun!

*Technically Chibi Usagi is a separate continuity, but I feel disingenuous putting it in the same category as Senso.

**No, it doesn't have a name. Yes, really.

***tbh between stories that are told As Flashbacks and how only about half the stories have things that squarely indicate exactly what the previous story was, I tend to assume that it goes in non-chronological order unless a story contains evidence otherwise. this opinion has gotten me booed. but i stand by it.

[queenoffishingandcookies]

Thinking of Noctis is Tenebrae.

Specially, when he was in Tenebrae.

Noctis was born on August 30th, and was eight years old during his time in Tenebrae.

Lunafreya, who was born on September 4th, was twelve.

Considering the main game generally takes place over the course of a year (I think? Don’t quote me on this, all I know canonically is that it starts May), in the year of M.E 756 and he visited twelve years prior:

M.E 744.

I’d guess very late winter, early spring. Possibly late January through February - maybe to early or mid March, at the latest.

Why so early in the year?

In the Kingsglaive movie, the prologue when we see the fall of Tenebrae and Queen Sylva’s murder, several characters are wearing clothes that seem suited to chilly weather - namely Ravus, Lunafreya, and Noctis.

Ravus and Noctis are, respectively, wearing a padded jacket or padded vest. The puffy sort you wear when it’s getting cold out, but not big-puffy full blown winter coats.

Also, Lunafreya is wearing a shawl or capelet with a hood, and it looks like it has a fur collar(?). Her dress looks, at least to me, like a thick fabric - wool, maybe. She’s not wearing stocking or leggings (or maybe she is and I didn’t notice), so again, it’s not winter-levels of cold.

There’s no snow either, which means either it’s before winter has fallen or afterwards - and I am inclined to believe the latter.

(That’s dependent on the general climate of Tenebrae, though)

We don’t know when Noctis was attacked, except that it was after he turned eight years old - in other words, some point after august. Possibly early September 743 at the earliest, and March - July 744 at the latest, since he was out catching fireflies, which usually appear most often in spring and summer.

We know he was comatose for a period of time following the attack, but not how long.

He possibly had been afflicted by the starscourge in canon (I don’t know if this was ever confirmed).

We also know he was paralyzed, or his body was still recovering from his injuries to the point where he was still wheelchair bound in Tenebrae.

My idea is this:

Noctis is attacked some time in late M.E 743. He is rushed into emergency surgery in an attempt to save his life, no doubt after Regis had used his magic to keep the Prince alive on the way to the nearest hospital (he’d probably be transferred to the Citadel later? He woke up in the citadel in Brotherhood, at least).

Noctis is possibly comatose for a month, maybe two. As a result of lack of movement, his muscles - on top of the damage done to back and legs - begin to atrophy.

(The symptoms of starscourge infection are stymied, because starscourge adapts differently to the body of a Lucis Caelum, and makes Noct effectively asymptomatic for a time).

When he wakes up, and probably even before that, immediate therapy begins. When possible, rehabilitation in regards to spinal cord injuries begin as soon as possible, I believed.

For a time, I think it would be…not okay, not happy, but workable. Regis would be there every step of the way, and if not him - a team of nurses and doctors ever on standby.

But at some point during his rehabilitation, from the Acute and Sub-Acute phases which will stretch over into the new year, which can generally (and I mean this broadly, every spinal injury and situation is different) take around six to eight months, he begins to show signs of the starscourge.

Regis can’t do anything to help with the appearance of the scourge, and then the realization that it must have been there for a while, that this was why Noctis’ healing was so slow - even, and especially, compared to a normal person.

The crystal, the LC magic, would have been straining to heal him - but it was almost sluggish, unfocused, as it coursed through Noctis’ body.

Regis could feed Noctis magic, take the burden of how it pulled at one’s lifeforce so that his son already so close to death did not have to.

He couldn’t take away the scourge which corrupted his son’s magic, which was just as much as the family’s magic eating away at his son’s life. The doctor’s could give estimations and exams and exercises on how to help Noctis walk again, if he ever could, and even an inability to do so was not an impossible fact - not in the long history of the bloodline -

But the starscourge?

Sooner or later, it was fatal. Regis knew of no known member in the bloodline who had gotten it - most who died to daemons died outright in battle, or as a result of injuries, long before the scourge could set in and take them - but no one had ever survived the scourge.

And only one bloodline could do anything against it.

The House of Fleuret, The Oracle.

And that meant heading to Tenebrae. Even if it was an autonomous ‘kingdom’, Tenebrae had long since been annexed by Niflheim - just like Accordo.

To bring Noctis there would be like to deliver all of Lucis into the jaws of a snarling best.

If it had simply been Noctis’ back and legs maybe, maybe Regis wouldn’t have done it. It’s a big maybe, considering how much he loves his son, but maybe.

Starscourge, though?

Hell no, it’s off to Tenebrae. They have to fucking go. It doesn’t matter how dangerous it is, to go through imperial Territory. Noctis might die either way.

A route to reach Tenebrae has to be made, means for the two of them to leave the wall unknown, then travel to Tenebrae still unknown, also having Lucis ruled well - all the while, trying to keep Noctis as stable as possible? Things like that take time.

So, they arrive in Tenebrae some point in early 744. My personal headcanon is that the two are there for maybe a few months, around March, and then Niflheim strikes and everything subsequently goes to hell. It has to be before his ninth birthday.

[greenthey]

Boldogasszony Masterpost

Everything I could find on Hungarian goddess Boldogasszony (BOL-de-vahs-oyn), cobbled together from various sources (some more trustworthy than others) and personal gnosis.

Number: 7

Colors: blue, red, pink, white, black

Themes: joy, abundance, harvest, fertility, birth, death, love, devotion, protection, winter

Symbols: hearts, rivers (and water), flowers (notably snowdrops, tulips, lilies), flame, blood, milk, gold

Offerings: milk, fruit, pastry, palinka, wine, water

Day: Tuesday (it is recommended not to do laundry or anything that pollutes water on her day)

Holy Days: Winter Solstice and feast days (more info below)

Boldogasszony, syncretized with Mother Mary, is the patron saint of Hungary. (Encyclopedia Britannica). But what do we know about the pre-Christian goddess?

Her name is usually translated as "Blessed Lady."

Boldog Asszony literally means ‘Happy Woman.’ Asszony, translated as ‘woman,’ possesses an extra nuance: Asszony indicates a relationship so close and intimate that, though not a physical blood relative, it is impossible to conceive of having a wedding or funeral without Her. That’s the gist of Boldog Asszony, presiding spirit of life cycles, especially births and weddings.

- Juika Illes, Encyclopedia of Spirits (via)

She may have originated as an Earth goddess.

Ő a kapuja életnek-halálnak, Ő a Föld, melyből minden földi élet sarjad és Ő az, aki befogadja a már nem használt testet, hogy újra születhessen általa. Óvja, védi a föld teremtményeit.

She is the gate of life and death, She is the Earth, from which all earthly life springs, and She is the one who receives the body that is no longer used so that it can be reborn through her. She protects the creatures of the earth.

- B Klári, "7 Feasts of Boldogasszony"

She is also sometimes referred to as Nagyboldogasszony and her seven daughters as Kisboldogasszony (big vs little Boldogasszony.) Are they the fae and she, their mother?

The Hungarian Christian Universalist page Az igaz tudás és szeretet hívei ("Adherents of true knowledge and love") describes an early religion called Büün or Boldogasszony Faith, the full details which I will eventually translate, where the female aspect of God is called Ukko, possibly similar to the Altaic goddess Akka. Both names simply mean "mother."

Feast Days

Boldogasszony (as Mother Mary) is officially celebrated on 7 feast days throughout the year in Hungary. These may have originally been linked to cycles of nature and agriculture.

Földtiltó Boldogasszony (Feast of the Immaculate Conception, literally "Our Lady of Land Blocking") - December 8th.

Gyertyszentelö Boldogasszony (Candlemas) - February 2nd.

Gyümölcsoltó Boldogasszony ("Our Lady of Bearing Fruit") - March 25th.

Sarlós Boldogasszony (Visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth) - July 2nd.

Nagyboldogasszony (Great Boldogasszony) - August 15th.

Kisboldogasszony (Small Boldogasszony) – September 8th.

Olbasós Boldogasszony (Our Lady of the Rosary) - October 7th.

Along with on the following days:

Kármelhegyi Boldogasszony (Our Lady of Mount Carmel) - July 16th.

Havi Boldogasszony (Our Lady of the Snows) - August 5th.

Hétfájdalmú Boldogasszony (Our Lady of Seven Pains) - September 15th.

Fogolyszabadító Boldogasszony (Our Lady of Prisoners' Liberation) - September 31st.

Magyarok Nagyasszonya (Our Lady of Hungary) - October 8th.

Source: B Klári, "7 Feasts of Boldogasszony"

Ritual

Hungarian Native Faith Ceremony in Hungary, at the Temple of the Seven Images of the Mother of God.* Cc Laszlo Koppany

Boldogasszony may have been considered a "birth fairy" whose wrath could be incurred if new parents failed to call on her. She is also called upon for weddings.

Hungarian wedding festivals often take place in winter, after the harvest season and meat preparation. The traditions here are laden with magic we can ‘borrow’ for building strong personal relationships, asking for Boldogasszony’s blessing by having a cup of milk present at any activity. For example, cutting a rope that is attached to your home symbolizes your release from the old ways and freedom to enter into commitment. Stepping across birch wood purifies intentions and ensures a fertile, happy union.

Lighting a torch (or candle) represent vigilant devotion in a relationship. Do this at the time of your engagement, as you recite vows, or as you both enter a new residence for the first time so that commitment will stay with you. Wherever you are, eating off each other’s plates and drinking from one cup deepens harmony (include a milk product like cheese). Finally, dancing with kitchen utensils ensures that the home fire will always stay warm.”

- Patricia Telesco, “365 Goddess: a daily guide to the magic and inspiration of the goddess” (via)

I will continue to add more information and links to this post as I learn more. 💦🍑🌷

*Unfortunately some Hungarian neopagan groups align themselves with far right and nationalist movements. I do not endorse them or stand with them in any way, as I do not believe ethnic identity or faith should ever be used to oppress others. Migrants and refugees from the global South aren't the ones "eroding" Magyar culture. White monoculture has always been the greatest enemy to all European cultures and faiths.

Let us remove the chains of white supremacy so we can coexist in love with our fellow humans and the land, as Boldogasszony intended ❤️‍🔥

[pokemonbiologyirlthetabletop]

Snom & Frosmoth

Glaciestinea infansnix (Snom)

Glaciestinea elegansnix (Frosmoth)

Snom (#872)

Snoms are an ice/bug-type larval Pokémon that hatch in the fall. They average at around 8.4 pounds (3.8 kg) and are a foot tall. When they sleep, they extrude threads from its little mouth to anchor themselves to a branch, disguising themselves as an icicle.

Habitat: Snoms are found in cold climate zones, places that experience below freezing temperatures for at least 65 days a year collectively. The mother Frosmoth lays her eggs in a cold cave during the late summer, where she hides from the heat in that cave and protects her brood. They are found throughout the northern hemisphere.   

Life Cycles: Snoms hatch from their eggs at the onset of autumn, typically around late September/early October. The entire brood will hatch within a short period of time together. During the time they were eggs, their Frosmoth mother had been guarding over them almost the entire time, and she continues to care for them at least for the first few days after hatching. As the many Snoms venture outside the cave to explore and eat and even make friends, the Frosmoth eventually leaves the ice cave to go and continue her own life.

 

Snoms are highly susceptible to predation by anything that would be inclined to eat an ice-covered caterpillar, and most will not survive to evolution. They will spend the fall and winter consuming food and bonding with other Pokémon, including each other. If a Snom does not evolve by the time winter is over, which greatly increases predation risks as the winter snow disappears, then they will often try to return to the ice cave that they were born in and hibernate through the summer. Frosmoths rarely turn away Snoms from their caves.

Behavior: Because Snoms evolve through high friendship, they are in fact quite amicable creatures that readily bond with friendly Pokémon and trainers! This bonding also increases their survival rate, too, as a Snom who successfully bonds with another Pokémon or trainer are less likely to be eaten by predators. This amicability also makes Snoms truly excellent companions for trainers!

Diet: Snoms eat snow and ice! Well, actually, they eat the micro-organisms inside of the snow and ice. In absence of snow and ice, Snoms can also be given very cold water. They will also eat larger things like fir and pine needles, cones, and junipers, but they cannot grow up healthy and strong without snow and ice to eat, as the ice helps strengthen their spikes and keeps their internal temperatures cool.

Conservation: Least Concern

Relationship with Humans: Snoms are a frequent starter Pokémon in the upper regions of the world, such as Canada, Siberia, Alaska, and so forth. They are much beloved Pokémon, and there is even a brand of candies called Gummi Snoms that originates from Eastern Europe. These gummies are quite popular, coming in a variety of flavors and colors, and all of them in a delicious sour coating!

 

As with many Pokémon that are common and weak, Snoms are often used as bait for hunters, trappers, fishers, illegal dog fighting, and more. They are easy to breed, easy to hatch, easy to catch, and easy to raise, which makes them perfect for such purposes.

Snoms and Frosmoth are both highly studied Pokémon.

 

Classification: Snom and Frosmoth are distantly related to Larvesta and Volcarona, though the split occurred before the onset of the last ice age.

 

Frosmoth (#873)

Frosmoths are ice/bug types that average at 4’03 feet tall (1.3 M) and 92.6 pounds (42 kg). They are the evolved form of Snom, who evolve into Frosmoth with high friendship at night. The scales from their wings may fall like glittering snow as they fly over fields and mountains. The temperature of its wings is less than -290 F. While usually crossed and obscured, Frosmoths do actually have paws with little heart-shaped pads at the end! When in use, they emerge as little hearts on their chest.

Habitat: Frosmoths are found in cold climates throughout the northern hemisphere, but do not seem to proliferate in areas that experience less than 2 months of below-freezing temperatures.

Life Cycles: Once a Frosmoth evolves from a Snom, it becomes reproductively viable and it will begin the process of seeking suitable mates. Female Frosmoths will mate with as many other Frosmoths as they can find with little discretion on sex in order to increase the genetic variation of their own offspring. Mating/courtship usually occurs during the dead of winter into Spring, and eggs are laid in clutches of 150-300 at a time. The female Frosmoth will guard her eggs until they hatch, only leaving her ice cave on rare occasions to feed when the temperatures are low, but these occasions greatly increase predation risks on her eggs.

Behavior: Frosmoths are quite amicable with each other and to other non-predatorial Pokémon, and wild Frosmoths have even been known to let trustworthy trainers take their eggs because a Snom under trainer care is near-guaranteed survival compared to wild ones. In the wild, Frosmoths mate with eachother rather indiscriminately, which also serves the function of increasing inter-species bonding and encourages male Frosmoths to be protective of Snoms, too.

In preparation for the summer, Frosmoths will find a suitably cold cave to hide in and nest for the summer. Often they use their own ice powers to manipulate the air around them, creating a microhabitat within the cave so that they may rest peacefully as their eggs gestate. Some Frosmoths will share ice caves.

 Mother Frosmoths will take care of her baby Snoms for the first few days after hatching, but once they start leaving her cave she becomes unable to keep an eye on all of them and lets them live their lives, and she leaves to continue her own life. Their babies may be small and fragile and delicious to predators, but if a Frosmoth happens to be nearby, they will defend that Snom from predators.

Diet: Frosmoths eat lichens, moss, conifer needles, and nectar. They are a pollinator for many arctic flowers. Trainers can feed them specialty Pokémon food (made available from many companies!) as substitute for a natural diet, but you should still take your Frosmoth outside and let it enjoy some fir needles or something. As both Frosmoth and Snoms enjoy tree needles, they can be quite a pain for Christmas tree farms.

Conservation: Least Concern

Relationship with Humans: Throughout human history, it seems there has been a relatively low rate of Frosmoth and Snom predation by humanity. At most, Frosmoth fluff has been used for cold-weather insulation and occassionally eaten by the desperate, but by and large it seems humans have found Frosmoths to be unappetizing and not worth the effort. Which doesn't mean they're not ever eaten by humans, just not typically, and when they are the Snoms are usually seen as the much easier target than the Frosmoth. Instead of direct consumption, Snoms were historically used as bait for larger creatures, and in regions where this is still practiced the Frosmoths are quite hostile to humans.

Because of their little heart-shaped paws, Frosmoths are sometimes utilized in love-themed imagery.

Frosmoths are excellent defenders of remote mountains and forests, and many rangers utilize and work with Frosmoths in defending their homelands from invading threats.

Like many fully-evolved bug Pokémon, Frosmoths are common enough Pokémon on the teams of trainers in the regions that they frequent. They are seen as easy to raise and generally agreeable to co-habitating with others.

~~~~~~~~

Hey guess what, if you like my stuff, this is my website where you can find other Pokémon I've written on and more information about the game that I’m slowly making! Check it out! I write books sometimes too.

[meimi-haneoka]

Thank you Cinzia! I seriously need to check my notifications more. I didn't even realise that you had answered my ask. Loved your timeline and fanfics. I completely get what you are saying about writing fanfic. It kind of just flows out when you are that invested in a pairing. Also, that CCS in Public domain ask.... if I am not wrong, Japan seems to have a different approach to it. I mean I have seen doujinshis and light novels being sold legally featuring (and being advertised with) CCS characters. I am not sure but it seems that is legal in Japan? Not sure of all this but I assure you that I have come across some R18 doujinshis featuring Junior High aged SyaoSaku. The horror...... Also, I didn't realise that Akiho and Sakura had lived together as sisters for 5 months post Alice in Clockland. I mean, they all don't look much different (I kind of presumed that it had been just a bunch of weeks, like autumn is over and winter has begun). Frankly, they should be nearer to the heights in the final chapter of OG CCS manga if the second year is about to begin (since Sakura and Syaoran were reunited in the beginning of the second year of JHS in the OG manga). Oh well, I will just chalk it down to art style change.

Thank you so much for reading my drabbles and finally check my timeline, Aubretia!! 😁I'm glad in the end it worked for you! ✨

About the doujinshi matter, hehe, it's not that simple. From what I know, doujinshi are considered 二次創作, "derivative works", and as such technically they aren't legal, if they don't have the authorization of the author. Often fanartists who produce doujinshi also produce what we call "fan merch", like printing their art on acrylic keychains, stickers, acrylic stands and such. Those fall into the category too. However, in the industry there is an unspoken agreement that such works are "tolerated" by copyright holders as long as the price they're sold at can be proven as a mere "reimbursement of the cost" to produce such merch (like the printing cost for the doujinshi/anthologies and the manufacturing cost for other items). Basically, the fanartists don't have to earn money from this (or I guess the don't have to earn too much). Usually artists print a definite amount of copies to sell at conventions and a definite amount to sell online, so it doesn't "become too much" and attracts "too much attention" from the copyright holders. These are tolerated only because it turns into further promotion for the IP, so of course the fanartists need to know their place and not overdo it. So it's not legal, but it is common practice to "close an eye" on it (and yes, this means that there's literally anything, as you pointed out, out there).

For Akiho and Sakura living together, yeah it's more or less from 4 to 5 months! I calculated this from the fact that when the play started, they had barely changed into their winter uniform at school, and usually that happens on a set date in Japan, on October 1st. Now, in the chapter of the play (63) you can see lots of people attending the school festival, and many of them wear short sleeves, while other wear mid or long sleeves. This definitely made me think that there were still quite nice temperatures so it probably wasn't in late October but rather at the beginning of it (I even thought it might have been September and they changed uniforms early). When Kaito activated the forbidden magic, things continued exactly from where they were left off before he brought Sakura and Akiho to Clockland, so when we come back in chapter 70 it's still everything on the same day of the play. And then, when we see how things are going for them in chapter 71, we see everyone wearing the "super winter uniform", as I jokingly call it, along with coats, scarves, gloves, it's even snowing at some point! And they also say that "soon" Sakura is going to become a second year student at Tomoeda Middle school, so I had already pinpointed the month when all of this was happening as end of February. When the last chapter dropped, turns out I was right, because just 4 days after the "last battle" Akiho says she would've left Tomoeda one month later, and when we see her and Kaito on their departure day, cherry blossoms are starting to bloom, so that means that they are at the end of March. So, in short, Sakura and Akiho spent as sisters an indefinite part of October, all of November, December, January and all of February together before they realized what the heck was happening. Yeah, it's all a matter of looking around you and observing "the silent hints" (isn't all of Clear Card like that, after all?) and you can get a lot of the context. 😉👍

And oh, I absolutely don't suggest to take any of the OG manga panels as a reference for the heights and such because back then CLAMP's style was very different. They tended to make their characters so tall (and their legs so long!) especially when they had to indicate that kids had grown up. Their chins were more pointy, the shoulders wider (I always laugh when I look back to Syaoran with those wide shoulders)...yeah it was something completely different. Now Mokona sensei respects body proportions a lot more and I also have to say that the poses of her characters are more natural and not "stiff" as they were before. I also love how more expressive they've become. I do agree though that if she could make them a tiny bit taller it would be better. This is something that I've constantly "complained" about during the serialization.

Besides, I always understood that Sakura and Syaoran were in their first year at Tomoeda Middle school, at the end of the OG manga? Cause Sakura says "my brother is going to poke fun at me oversleeping even though I've become a middle schooler!" so it suggests that the change had just happened? Well, Clear Card is its sequel and it starts exactly like the last pages of volume 12, with an "extended version" of the finale, so I think that the kids being in 1st year of middle school is what CLAMP had always intended since 2000.

[snowbellewells]

Self Promo Sunday: “Cold as Stone” {CS three shot ff}

I originally wrote this less than a week before "Once" returned for season four. The show didn’t go this way with the Snow Queen arc, but I couldn't get how heart wrenching and dramatic it would be out of my mind, so I had to give this a shot.  In a way, I’m almost glad it didn’t go in this vein (though it would have been more true to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale) but it would have HURT to watch...

{3 part canon divergence pre-Season 4}

Also available on AO3 or ff.net, if that’s your preference...

Summary: His heart - always so warm and open to her - has been frozen, and the Savior will have to truly thaw hers as well for a chance to get him back. 

i.

She should have known something was wrong the first time he didn't answer her call.

True, he was a one-handed, 300-year-old pirate to whom cellular technology was quite the foreign concept, more than a bit tricky to master, and strangely off-putting for one so fond of hearing his own voice – Emma Swan smirked to herself at that one – but Henry had gladly taken to showing him how the "blasted contraption", as Killian referred to it, was operated and the many things it could do. When Captain Hook had finally cottoned on to the fact that he could speak to her – and ask her questions, annoy her, lob unending innuendos at her – even when they were apart, his protests against his own cell phone had ceased.

Since then, he had never failed to answer the phone for her calls – often before it could even reach a second ring. The fact that she had called him half a dozen times in the last three hours with no response or call back, and that David hadn't seen him either, was not lost on Emma. She hated that she had tried him so many times, that she was frantic to find him, and that the panic was churning in her stomach as she slammed back out of Granny's – the last in her line of Killian's haunts where he was nowhere to be found. She did not want to be that needy type of girl she had always despised. Yet she couldn't let it go. At that point, she sensed something wrong – simply felt it in the same way that one senses she is being snuck up on from behind or that a storm is coming even before the first rumble of thunder.

The brisk bite to the air as she plowed down the street again only worsened the chill of foreboding in her gut. It might have been autumn in New England, but it was downright icy, and much too cold for September. She tried to bury her chin into the collar of her coat and think of another place to look for her erstwhile pirate, when right up ahead of her on the street, Killian Jones himself strolled around the corner of the building – leisurely, unconcerned – and not at all appearing to be looking for her.

Emma stormed toward him, feeling as though there might be actual steam pouring from her ears. She was so ridiculously worried about him – thinking some new baddie had come out of the woodwork and taken him as their first victim, that he had electrocuted himself by getting his hook caught in the toaster, or that he had been hurt, or lost… She wanted to smack him upside the head for making her so crazy, or handcuff him to her so he couldn't disappear on her again. It would serve him right for standing there looking so smug, so unfairly gorgeous, and as if he had not a care in the world.

"Something I can do for you, Lass?" he asked blithely, a devilish smirk quirking his lips. "You're staring."

It was only then that Emma realized there was something strangely off about her sailor. His voice and manner were as effortlessly flirtatious as ever, but the light in his smile was absent. The love and concern behind the play, the things that made him her Killian as well as the consummate pirate rogue, were somehow missing. While his ocean eyes usually reminded her of flames hot enough to burn blue, now they were crystalline shards of ice. A stranger was looking back at her from behind them. Emma's breath caught, and she stumbled backward as if she had been struck in the chest.

He looked at her with puzzled curiosity, but not the immediate desire to help or make it better that she had finally come to depend on from him. It was Killian…and yet, it wasn’t him at all. "Should I know you, Darling?" he said harmlessly. "You look as though you've seen a ghost."

And that did it; she shook her head blindly as tears began to fall, already freezing on her cheeks in the cold, while she pressed her hand against her mouth to hold back the cry of anguish.

Yes, she should have known something was wrong, but how could she have imagined this? Her True Love was standing right in front of her…but he no longer knew her at all.

ii.

Emma stood frozen to her spot until David came squealing up in his truck, peeling in behind where she had parked the cruiser. She had not moved or hardly breathed since Killian walked away. He had disappeared down the street again when she was unable to speak around the panic and hurt rising in her and clawing up her throat. Seemingly oblivious to her distress, or even unconcerned, which was so unlike him it made the trauma worse, he had headed off, bidding her farewell and turning his back without another glance.

"Emma!" David's voice was taut and intense as he ran up to her, seeing the expression on her face and immediately pulling her into his arms. He could see that she was not in physical danger, but that something had struck her hard; whatever had happened, the damage was already done. "What is it?! Did you find Hook?"

The dam against her emotions broke at his words, and Emma leaned into her father's strength, crying on his shoulder as she had never been able to do growing up. He shushed her hiccupping sobs, cradled the back of her head in his hand, and swayed them both from side to side soothingly. Gradually, Emma brought herself back under control and pulled away, wiping the tears from her face and still sniffling, but aware once more that they were in the middle of the street and she was falling apart. This letting people in allowed her to feel so much more than she used to, but at that moment it was coming back to bite her, and she wasn't sure what to do with the empty, brittle ache in her chest and the shocked disbelief at what had just happened.

Her dad wanted answers, and Emma could tell it was taking every bit of his restraint not to press her for details. Finally, she drew enough of a steadying breath to nod and try to fill him in. "He was here," she confirmed, then faltered, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood in order not to cry again. She had done enough of that already to last her another decade, "but it – it wasn't really him."

She shook her head, knowing that couldn't make much sense, but not sure how else to put what she had experienced into words. Something had happened to her pirate, and she wasn't sure if they could right the wrong. She only knew she had to think of something. Unless…unless he really had put up with enough, gotten tired of waiting on her, of taking it slow, reassuring her at every turn, and …he truly intended to walk away –just as she had always feared he would.

David couldn't actually know her thoughts, but it seemed he read his daughter's mood just then, grasping Emma's arm to brace her and interrupt her torturous train of thought. "Emma, honey, you aren't making sense. Just take me back through what happened. What do you mean, he was here, but it wasn't him?"

Managing at last to shake her head clear and focus, Emma told herself that it was something more than her pirate changing his mind. Killian would not simply forget the feelings he had professed for her and leave. That gave her enough momentum to snap back to business. Taking a moment to square her shoulders and meet David's eye, she reiterated, "It was him…but he didn't seem to know me at all. There was no feeling there…no hint that he recognized me or felt what we are to each other."

David reached out and took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze, but didn't immediately try to coddle or brightly reassure her – for which Emma was grateful. This was not okay, and no amount of well-meant but empty words would change that.

"He was just so cold," Emma continued, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper and almost carrying away on the frigid breeze. "It was like he had completely forgotten he loves me, and I was nobody special to him at all." She pursed her lips and looked away, partially scanning the near distance for anything amiss, and partly just to avoid her father's knowing gaze. She didn't want to make him feel any guiltier than he already did for how alone in the world she had been, how many times she had been hurt and betrayed, and just how easy it was for her to believe a loved one could turn his back and abandon her.

The Prince's steady voice pulled her back and helped brace her. "Okay, here's what we'll do. I'm going to call Regina. We'll see if she has any knowledge of a curse that makes one forget or alters personality. I know we've discussed this before, but I still can't help thinking this is all related to whoever or whatever is causing the drastic shift in weather. We know it isn't Elsa – she's really coming along on her control with Regina tutoring her – but that doesn't mean some other newcomer hasn't slipped in while we were distracted."

Emma gave him a curt nod of agreement before adding wryly, "Better you than me. Ever since the whole fiasco with Robin and Marian, Regina's barely civil to me, even when Henry's present. Otherwise, she pretty much pretends I don't exist."

Her dad gave her a grim half-smile, hand on her shoulder as he held her gaze. "It will work out, Emma. Somehow, it will work out."

She rolled her eyes, but managed to smirk back before retorting, "You and Mom are both ridiculously hopeful. You know that, right?"

"Comes with who we are."

She snorted inelegantly, but managed a nod.

"In all seriousness," Charming said, sobering again, and using the 'dad' voice that let her know how in earnest he was. "I once had to hear Snow tell me she didn't love me, that I meant nothing to her, and watch her turn her back on me. I almost gave up on us, until I was reminded how priceless what we share truly is and made the decision to keep fighting for True Love. I'll admit I had my doubts about Hook at first – he is a pirate – but I can tell you now, I haven't seen someone as in love with a woman as he is with you in a long time. Don't let yourself doubt that. There’s more going on here than we know."

His words did their job, though Emma found herself trying to blink back tears again. "Okay," she whispered, "I'll try to borrow a little of your faith."

She was heading back towards the cruiser awaiting what David would find out from his call to Regina before she went out on patrol and tried to figure where she might find Killian, when Ruby came bustling out of the diner and made a beeline for her.

"Didn't I see Hook out here with you a minute ago?" she asked breathlessly, an artfully sculpted brow arched in confusion. "He practically left a standing order for one of these anytime he comes by," she added by way of explanation and pressed a warm to-go cup into Emma's hand.

"He – he was here," Emma stated obviously, a bit dumbfounded by Ruby's usual quick exuberance. "I'm not sure where he went though. …What is this?"

"Hot Caramel Apple Cider," Ruby supplied with a fond grin tilting her red lips. "He was in here a week or so ago, getting coffee for you, David, and himself at the station. He overheard Henry and Grace ordering them, and he was curious, so he tried one. Then I think he ended up having two more. Said it was the best drink he'd encountered since his first taste of rum. Pretty adorable really."

Emma returned Ruby's playful grin, in spite of all the other thoughts whirling in her mind. "Yup," she added with a gleam of mischief fleeting through her otherwise tense expression. "The dread pirate Captain Hook has quite a sweet tooth." Emma's heart panged at the sense of familiarity she had come to feel with her pirate, and Ruby leaned forward; either the she-wolf's sixth sense had allowed her to pick up on something, or she had caught some trace of how Emma's face must have fallen at wondering if their True Love connection was gone.

David had just hung up the phone saying, "Okay, I'll tell her," and started back toward them, when the ache in Emma's chest suddenly intensified tenfold, doubling her over. Crying out at the abrupt, slicing pain, she clutched at her heart.

Ruby stepped closer to support her when she stumbled, and David rushed back to her side, crying out in alarm, but Emma could hardly tell what was going on around her. Her vision narrowed and her surroundings faded out, to the point that her only focus was the throbbing sensation in her chest. She almost went to her knees, gasping for breath, then the sensation ebbed a bit and she opened her eyes to see David and Ruby surrounding her worriedly.

She was about to take their offered hands and let them pull her to her feet when she was nearly crushed by the memory that invaded her thoughts. In Henry's book, she had read the story of Snow White taking the poisoned apple from Regina and eating it willingly to save Charming's life. More than that though, she remembered how miles away and unaware of what was happening, in the dungeon cell of Regina's prison, Charming had felt the life leave his True Love and fallen to the cold, hard floor, clutching his chest as if he himself had been the one cursed.

Panic replaced the hurt and indecision Emma had felt previously as she grabbed her father's forearms in a desperate grip and choked out her fears. If she and Killian were the same, if they were True Loves as well, something horrible had just happened. No matter what he felt or remembered; he had just been struck a fatal blow. She had to get to him, no matter what happened after.

~~0~~0~~0~~0~~0~~0

Killian Jones came back to himself as if from some hypnotic daze. Glancing around, he realized that he had no idea where he was or how he had reached his current location. If he didn't know better, he would have thought he was in some sort of gigantic snow fort, so vast he couldn’t even see the far wall. He only knew that behind him rose a pristine, flawless partition of freezing white. He shivered on reflex, before realizing that he was almost beyond sensation. He knew he must be cold; he was only wearing his open-necked black shirt and leather vest and duster. Yet, though common sense would insist he should be freezing, he honestly felt nothing at all.

It was troubling enough that his natural curiosity was overridden by the immediate desire to get out and get back to town. His thoughts were fuzzy and sluggish at best, but he knew there were people there who would surely explain to him what was going on; in fact, yes, there was one in particular… A flash of golden tresses and crackling green eyes darted through his mind and escaped again before it could solidify or he could put a name to the vision, but he knew. His lass…his love…he needed to get back to her…

Striding forward, he was nearly thrown back when he smacked into a solid barrier of ice. It had been completely transparent and invisible until he touched it, and Killian reached out, disbelieving, until his fingers slid along the glassy face of the obstruction. "What bloody sorcery is this?!" he swore to himself, pushing against the wall only to find that it would not budge in the slightest. He took two steps back, then bodily threw himself against the blockade, but it did no good. Not even a crack appeared. Growing desperate, the pirate began to pace his crystal prison, seeking another way out and growing more angry and frantic by the moment. She was worried about him; he could tell. He needed to reach her, whoever she was, and he needed to get out of this white fortress. He did not know how he had ended up here in the first place, but it was unnatural and he wanted no more of it.

He swung his hook forward, hoping to stab the metal tip in deep enough to shatter the sheet of ice, or at least put a crack in the surface, but it merely gouged in and stuck. Killian was struggling to free his metal appendage when an eerie, trilling laugh blew past him on the wind. Looking left and right, he still saw no one, but a strange, disembodied female voice followed the laughter. "My my," the ghostly speech lilted, "aren't you a bit anxious to leave? You're such a handsome one…I think I might keep you a bit longer."

Killian's face twisted in anger and he growled, freeing his hook at last and brandishing it in front of him, though he had no way of knowing where the mysterious being was speaking from. "Show yourself, demon," he challenged. "I'm not a toy or plaything. Let me out of your magic cave."

The strangely light, frighteningly cheery laughter sounded again, tinkling in his ears like icicles against the surface of a frozen lake. "Oh no, I think not," the female tone assured him. "It's been much too long since I've had visitors. We're going to have bit more fun."

Steeling himself for whatever attack must be coming, Killian still saw no visible sign of his captor. He had just relaxed slightly, thinking perhaps she had left him alone again to brood on his fate, when a sudden chill ran down his spine, and ice shards and snow began to whirl in a miniature storm all around him, striking at every bit of his exposed skin. Looking down, he was aghast to see a large, deadly-looking splinter of solid ice impossibly stabbing right through leather, skin and bone into his heart. A paralyzing pain invaded his chest as the wicked spike disappeared within right before his eyes. Numbness set in after the pain, until a second, throbbing ache pulsed through his being, this one distant, almost out of body, but no less debilitating.

His vision began to darken; suddenly the haze that had surrounded him thawed. No longer numb, he was so bitterly cold that he knew he must be dying. He fell against the wall, going helplessly motionless as ice seemed to overtake his body inch by horrible inch, encasing him and freezing over his skin, stealing breath and warmth. One last thought burst through before he went mercifully unaware – one last shot of warmth. Emma! his mind screamed, reminding him who he had needed to get back to, who the second stroke of pain must have belonged to…his True Love. Her name is Emma.

But then there was nothing.

iii.

The pain in Emma's chest had subsided to a dull throb, but she found that her hand kept absently coming up to press against the area as they conferred together and put a plan into action. From David's conversation over the phone with Regina, they at least had a starting point, if nothing else. Apparently, the day before, the mayor and her young princess protégé had been out in the woods, where they had been conducting lessons to harness Elsa's magic, and Regina had thought that something seemed different in the landscape north of the forest's edge. There had always been some hills in the distance a few miles off in that direction, but she had never noticed them looking so large and foreboding before. In fact, one had almost resembled a mountain of ice and snow. She had intended to go back out and investigate, but did not think it wise then, with Elsa in tow, as unstable as the poor young woman's powers were.

It could have nothing to do with Killian's unfathomable behavior, where he had gone, or what had happened to him, but it was all they had to go on. In Emma's experience with Storybrooke and magic, when something odd was going on, it all generally ended up being connected. Her pirate wasn't anywhere else nearby, and she couldn't stand around waiting if the pain that had nearly toppled her had only been an echo of what he had felt. He needed her, and she was not going to fail him. There had been so many times when she was blind to all that Killian had done for her; he had given and sacrificed, patiently waiting for her to see the light and accept the love he had offered her. She often felt in the time since they'd become a couple that she could never repay him, could never express what she felt as he so freely did for her.

Oh, she loved him; she had known that for much longer than she was willing to admit. What was harder was actually telling him so. Confessing that she needed Killian Jones in her life forever, that she would crumble if he left her now, was daunting – and, for Emma – a sight more terrifying than fighting a dragon or facing Peter Pan himself head on. Killian deserved to know his love was fully returned and that he finally had her trust and her whole heart. Yet, though she could sometimes see the wistful need in his eyes, he had never pushed her for the words. She stumbled over them when she attempted it, and stuttered into silence when she tried to tell him how she truly felt. Eventually, Killian would save her from her own floundering, kissing her lips until her babble stopped, and he would assure her that whatever it was she was trying to say, he would wait until she was able to tell him. He wasn't going anywhere.

'You promised me,' she whispered to herself, scrunching her eyes closed and picturing that adoring, perfect face. She pressed the heel of her hand to her chest once more, putting pressure against the dull ache.

She was not waiting around for Regina to come check this out – even if the assistance of the queen's power and experience would make it a much safer and smarter venture. She needed to move – to find Killian now – and she knew Regina would be in no hurry to help her save her pirate and return their happy ending, not when Emma had unknowingly ruined Regina's own second chance. Instead, once all that info had been relayed, she headed for the cruiser, jerked the door open, and was about to head out to that edge of the woods without another moment's thought.

"Emma, wait!" David called. "I'm going with you. There's more…"

"You'd better not think you're leaving me!" Ruby added, coming up beside her dad.

"Guys, I appreciate the gesture, but I'm flying blind here. This has to be dark magic, and I'm sure I should be waiting for Regina's back-up. I don't want anyone else getting hurt for my impatience."

She had known it wouldn't help, but Emma still sighed when David slid into the passenger seat and Ruby scrambled in back.

"Too bad," her father said in a voice that brooked no argument, "you're getting our help anyway."

As they pulled out onto the street and started out of town, Emma listened anxiously to the rest of the information David had gathered from Regina. "She didn't know all the details," he was relating, "but she knew there were many other spells and methods for cursing hearts. She had always seen her mother remove hearts and keep or crush them, which was what Rumple then taught her as well. However, there were rumors in our old land, before she cast the curse that took us all away, of a new queen gaining power in the far north – one that could freeze hearts."

Emma chanced a quick, sidelong glance at her father upon hearing those words, a little gasp escaping her as she pictured again how cold and unfeeling Killian's expression had been in a face that was usually so warm and inviting. "Freeze them?" she questioned. "My common sense wants to ask how that wouldn't kill a person, but I know by now that doesn't really mean much around here."

Ruby let out a tense giggle in the backseat and agreed with her sardonically. "You've got that right for sure. If everyone in Storybrooke were subject to natural injury or aging, there wouldn't be many of us left."

Emma gave Ruby a smirk in the rearview mirror, then turned her attention back to her father. "Know anything else about this Ice Queen?"

David gave a terse nod and continued. "According to Regina, rumors had reached her of people in that area going missing and then reappearing, but treating their loved ones as strangers upon their return. They seemed devoid of feeling or previous connection, but otherwise themselves. It had caused enough of a stir that Regina commented she would have gone to check it out and let this being know who was truly in charge in the realm – if she had been planning to stay. However, she was days from enacting the Dark Curse, so she didn't waste much thought on it, or find out how the thing was being done."

"As per usual," Emma commented, frustrated and feeling no more equipped for what they might be about to face, "if it didn't help her personal agenda, it didn't matter."

By this time, they had reached where the road trailed away at the edge of the woods. Beyond that, the terrain got rougher, the trees thicker, and the road simply carried on no further. Parking and turning off the key in the ignition, Emma drew in a deep, steadying breath, trying to prepare herself and convince her own mind that she knew what she was about to plunge them into. She really had no idea, and for probably the hundredth time since she had begun actively trying to use her light magic, she felt woefully unprepared and inadequate. Trying not to show any of her reservations visibly, she squared her shoulders, stepped out of the cruiser, and looked at her two compatriots hopefully. "Ready?"

"You bet," Ruby nodded, her eyes fierce and stance determined.

"Right beside you," David affirmed seriously.

Emma started forward with a nod at their answers. Though she dreaded taking either of them into a trap with her, or getting either of them hurt if she failed, it was reassuring not to be alone. Pushing her way through the last of the undergrowth and out of the last stand of the tree line, Emma was pulled up short by the sight that met her eyes.

It was like a mountain had grown at their borders overnight. Craning her neck, Emma realized that the white fortress rising in front of her disappeared into the clouds before the top even became visible. David and Ruby tramped up on either side of her and let out similar breathless exclamations of shock as well.

Eerie as it was, Emma now had the distinct feeling that this was right where they needed to be. How or why, she wasn't sure, but this was where she should be to get Killian back; she felt it in the rising hairs along the nape of her neck and the twist in her gut, just as she had felt something wrong that morning when Killian had not answered his phone. This could be their freakin' Snow Queen's palace for all she cared, Emma was going in.

She rested her hand on her gun for reassurance and plunged forward, starting out across a snowy clearing, when she realized David and Ruby were no longer at her sides. Turning, she was stunned and struck with confused apprehension to see that her father and her friend were several feet behind her, pushing against some sort of invisible barrier, unable to come any further forward. Whatever the strange force was, it had not stopped Emma. She hadn't even noticed it, but as she retraced her steps to them, she found that she was now kept within its edges. Though completely transparent, it was as hard and solid as any physical wall, separating her from the other two.

Watching tensely, Emma could see that neither David nor Ruby were hurt or in any distress, other than her father seeming nearly beside himself at being kept from coming to her aid. He was speaking to her, but the sound was muffled by the strange barrier, and she could make out no distinct words, only a garbled murmur that vaguely matched the movement of his lips.

It was just as well; she could tell by his expression that David was telling her to wait, to use her magic to get back to them and regroup; at any rate, Emma knew her father didn't want her continuing on alone. A quick glance at Ruby though, showed Emma that the other woman already knew what she intended to do. There was a calm look of acceptance and understanding on her friend's face that centered Emma and helped steel her resolve. She couldn't wait any longer; she had to get to Killian. Ruby would be with David. He would do the same thing himself if it were Snow in danger. Once he calmed down, David would have to admit that.

Shaking her head and trying to give her father an apologetic look, Emma turned her back and resolutely started toward the gigantic white structure again. It didn't take long to cross the snowy stretch of clearing and reach the foot of the mound, which she could now see resembled a rough sort of citadel, like some giant child had begun a snow fort and then abandoned the task. Looking back, Emma could barely make out David and Ruby, or even the outline of her cruiser, any longer; it seemed instead that she was the only living being now encased in a silent, empty world of white. Tilting her head back, Emma could see how this pristine, glittering edifice towered over her and all the surrounding landscape. It was as if the temperature dropped another twenty degrees at the sheer immensity facing her, and Emma shivered, feeling dwarfed by her own uncertainty and reservations.

She studied the daunting view a moment longer, and it was then that she discovered a fissure a bit to the left of where she stood, appearing just wide enough that she could squeeze through and into the interior of the structure. Squaring her shoulders, and setting her resolve, Emma pictured Killian's smile, his dedication, and the feel of her hand held warm and safe in his larger one, then she plunged in, trying not to think about what might go wrong and focus on the possibility of finding him.

The moment she stepped through the passage and into the frigid cave-like interior, Emma sensed there was no going back; she could feel a sort of tension, a heavy waiting in the air. Darkness closed in as the outside light was blocked, and she squinted, trying to see a way forward. The chill almost stole her breath, and Emma clutched her arms around her torso, attempting to hold in any bit of heat she could, but she wasn't changing course. Her hair stood on end as she debated which way to go; something told her that Killian was there.

She hadn't been long, letting her eyes adjust and straining to see something, anything, that gave her a clue where to go next, when a strange, tinkling, like the glass pieces of a wind chime, reached her ears. Nothing became visible, but an oddly bright, disturbingly playful voice filled the interior of the arctic room and ran shivers down her spine.

"Hello," the spritely, feminine voice trilled, setting Emma's teeth on edge and sounding all too pleased with itself. "So you're the Savior I've heard so much about. We've been waiting for you."

There was a frigid little laugh, humored but brittle enough to shatter easily. Emma was not amused, and the steel in her voice showed it when she replied. "We? Who do you mean? If you're talking about Killian, you had better believe I'm not leaving here without him."

"We shall see…but at least now you will have to play fair. Sorry to block your little helpers, Savior, but I only wanted you."

Shaking her head in disgust, Emma stopped treating with the disembodied voice, as its owner continued to remain invisible and gave the distinct impression of toying with her. She only hoped that her pirate had not already paid a price he wouldn't recover from in the plot to draw her here.

As if her thoughts had been read, enough light to lead her eyes to the opposite wall filtered through the open, cavernous space. "Oh alright, see to your lovely captain. I don't think he will want to leave me, but you can find out for yourself…" Demented little giggles echoed through the air, rebounding sickeningly in Emma's head.

Then, she spotted Killian at last, standing motionless, and she ran to him with a strangled cry before giving another thought. She never even paused or drew a breath until she reached him, finally face to face with her sailor again. However, as soon as she got close, her throat constricted with panic and horror at the sight. Tears that she would not give the unseen witch the pleasure of seeing her shed prickled at the corners of her eyes on taking in Killian's shocking appearance.

While he had appeared fine (other than not knowing her) when she had approached him in town not long ago, Killian now seemed a lifeless statue before her. Emma could not stop the emotion that welled up in her chest as she reached out a hand to touch her love and found his skin chilled, glacially cold, with no rise and fall of air in his chest, not a flicker of life in that lively, beguiling face, no lean into her touch that she had come to adore. It frightened her how the cold seemed to radiate from within, his brow frozen in a defiant but worried tilt, and the blue tinge of Killian's skin. Frost tipped his black hair, making him appear fragile and gray, as old as he truly was.

Emma ignored the frosty bite to her fingers and laid her hand over Killian's cheek, trying to convey that she was there for him, to comfort him, to warm. Though there was no response, she prayed he was aware, that he felt her beside him somehow. He couldn't be…gone. He just couldn't. They had come too far to have their chance at happiness stolen from them now.

"What did you do to him?!" she yelled at the malevolent being who still refused to show her face. Anger flared within Emma, bringing a crackling warmth under her skin against the frigid air. For a moment, she didn't even care if the magic she conjured against this foe was light or dark, and sparks crackled at her fingertips in anticipation of a fight.

"Oh, you don't like him that way?" the enchantress pouted coyly, completely unconcerned with Emma's mounting turmoil. "Pity, because I don't think you will be able to do anything about it. Besides, I like him this way – my own lovely little trophy."

"Why?" Emma gritted out, trying to balance between the rage she felt simmering within her at this villainess and the bile rising in her throat at Hook's still form, which she protectively moved in front of, whether or not it was too late. "What did he ever do to you to deserve this?"

"Oh!" the voice exclaimed, then grew noticeably more malicious than it had yet been. "No, no, dear, you're mistaken. The Captain didn't do anything. He were merely handy, certainly easy on the eyes which makes this all the more delicious, but mostly he was my surest way to get to you. I am the Snow Queen. And now that I am here, the Land Without Magic will be mine – just as the far reaches of the realm your perfect parents and the Evil Queen left behind became mine. It was easy to discover that you are the one who could stand in my way, so I needed you debilitated. One can see clearly that whatever small bits of your shriveled, battered heart still work belong to him. Poor man. It was almost too easy. A well-placed story that your 'motor vehicle' had broken down at the town line, leaving you stranded in this unnaturally cold weather, and he walked right into my grasp." The chortling in that light, airy voice made Emma want to scream; she was sure she could have produced a Regina-worthy fireball to fling at this rival's face, if only she would show herself.

"Why didn't you just come after me?" Emma finally asked, dread filling her that maybe Killian was permanently lost to her and it was all her fault. He had charged right into a trap in his infinite concern for her, and she had been the reason he was targeted in the first place.

"Because…as untapped as it may be, your light magic is powerful…and fueled by love. Rather than take my chances fighting you, it seemed easier to weaken you at the source…your True Love."

Emma gasped in spite of herself. She had thought it many times, come to believe it deep within her soul, but never had the words been uttered aloud. Were she and Killian?…Could it be true? If so, then…

"Ah, ah, ah, not so fast," the voice tittered. "It won't be that simple. I froze his heart before I froze the rest of him. A kiss won't fix it, because his heart is no longer capable of feeling. The ice within prevents it."

"So what's your plan? Freeze me too and take over the world?" Emma shot back bitterly.

"After I watch you fruitlessly try to restore your love and bask for a moment in my triumph," the Snow Queen continued, voice going deadly calm and intent, "that is exactly what I mean to do. Without the pirate's steadfast faith to back you, you cannot do a thing to stop me."

Emma turned helplessly to face Killian once more, indeed feeling the strength seep out of her at the thought of him no longer caring, no longer existing at all. She studied his unseeing blue eyes and tried to will him to life again. Burying her face in his chest, now hard as literal rock, she let her silent tears flow unabated at last. She was too late; it was all for nothing. Sobs shook her frame as she clung to him, defeated but unwilling – unable – to let him go. He had fought so hard for her, to bring her back, and now… It would have terrified her at any other time to be falling apart this way, the sheer force with which her tears poured forth and how the warm drops soaked his shirt beneath the stiff, frozen leather of his outer coat.

"Killian," she pleaded quietly, not wanting the psychotic witch still laughing with glee behind him to hear. "Please, Killian. Can you hear me? Come back to me…" Emma pressed her face right up against the spot beneath which his heart resided. She tenderly placed a kiss against the chilled skin there, and suddenly realized that, though wet with the traces of her weeping, it was less frozen than the rest of him, and still warming under her touch, thawed by her tears.

Afraid to make a sound and give the Snow Queen a hint of what was happening, Emma kept her face buried against Killian, running her fingers up to stroke through his icy hair, feeling its strands soften again to their normal texture. She kept her eyes carefully hidden, knowing that the spark of hope kindling in them would give her away. The tears still flowed from her unchecked, doing their job, and she could feel his body returning to life under her fingers as she held him to her tightly. Endeavoring to hide his restoration for as long as possible under the pretext of saying her final goodbye, Emma instead moved in close to soothe Killian when he finally regained awareness – knowing he would be immediately confused and on the alert.

Sure enough, only moments later, Emma felt her pirate's muscles jerk and then clench, his lungs sucking in a desperate heave of fresh air, before his eyes quickly flew to meet hers. "Emma, love, what is it? Are you alright?" he asked with enough love and fear for her in his voice to assure Emma that his heart was once again properly his own.

Blinking back the last of her tears, at least for the moment, she only murmured, "I'm about to be," before surging up to mesh her lips with his desperately, passionately, and with everything she felt for him, even what she had never before managed to say.

He let out a surprised little grunt, and her momentum pushed him back into the wall of snow behind them, caught off guard and still trying to catch up to where he was and what was happening. Nevertheless, his arms immediately wrapped around her and his lips fused with hers gladly, drawing her closer and blessedly kissing her back.

A bracing wind whipped up, whirling around them, snatching Emma's hair and Killian's coat, flapping them wildly; bright light pulsed from where they were locked in an embrace and spread out to illuminate every recess of their enemy's fortress. The Snow Queen howled in rage and hatred. "How have you done this?!" she demanded, the voice no longer light but haggard and raw, scraping desperately in thwarted evil. "It should have been impossible!"

Despite her villainous railing, despite the howl of the wind and the crash of falling chunks of the icy ceiling. The rumbling and tremors of the ground beneath their feet shook them, but nothing could pull Emma and Killian apart now that they were reunited. He clung to her every bit as desperately as she did to him, until suddenly the rattling and reverberations became so violent that they threw Emma into him again, and they were both nearly knocked off their feet.

Pulling away from each other reluctantly at the anguished final wail of the Snow Queen, Emma realized that their foe appeared to be vanquished, gone, and that her lair was falling down around them. Killian pulled at her hand, urging Emma from her shocked stupor and into motion. "Come, Love, we have to get out of here."

At the Snow Queen's defeat, the ice and snow of the chamber walls were literally melting, shrinking as their materials streamed in rivers to the ground. Fleeing his collapsing prison, slipping and sliding, Killian deftly pushed Emma out in front of him the way she had entered, and squeezed through on her heels, just before the opening itself liquefied and dissolved. They could both hear the crushing slough of ice and frost-filled water pouring and cascading down behind them, gushing like a river freed of its dam.

Even running their fastest, Killian and Emma were picked up in the torrent and carried along on the stream across the empty space she had traversed alone not an hour before, until they were deposited, soaked and panting, their relief and flagging adrenaline so great they were laughing in near hysteria, at David and Ruby's shocked feet. Eyes wide, the prince and the werewolf helped both of them to their feet, beyond relieved after having seen Emma disappear into the snow fortress, heard the screeching of their enemy, then helplessly watched the whole mountain start to topple before the princess and pirate had reappeared.

"Are you alright?" her father asked more quietly after stopping his barrage of questions to breathe. He smoothed her sodden hair back from where it was matted to her forehead and tried to peer deep into her eyes, as if expecting her to deflect or put him off.

Emma met his gaze with a gentle smile, then reached for Killian's hand, knowing she would find it there, and twined his fingers with her own. "A warm bath wouldn't hurt either one of us, I'm sure," she joked wryly. Then, with the seriousness of a vow, she added, making sure Killian could see the truth in her eyes, and that it was only because he was returned to her, "But we're going to be fine now."

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

A few days later, Killian Jones stood outside the sheriff's station, waiting for Emma to finish her shift. With his arms crossed, leaning against the side of his love's little yellow Bug, he looked the picture of calm, but in truth the reformed rogue was deep in thought. He and Emma were due for their several-times-delayed first date meal within the hour. He was dressed in her world's modern garb for the occasion, a surprise he had managed to carry out for her with the help of Henry and Dave, and though he was not at all sure what he thought of the feel and practicality of the charcoal grey slacks, navy blue shirt and grey vest he was wearing instead of his accustomed black leather, he tried to focus on the amused and affectionate twinkle he hoped to see in Emma's eyes once she glimpsed his effort.

Emma. His heart squeezed at the thought of the danger she had put herself in to rescue her, and at the pain in her eyes when she had gazed at him once they were home again safe and sound, both bathed and warmed in sweats and cuddled under blankets on her parents' couch, with Snow fussing over them and bringing hot cocoa. ‘You didn't know me,’ she had whispered, burrowing into his side and avoiding his eyes as she continued brokenly. ‘I had never told you what you meant to me, and it was almost too late. I was nothing to you. You would have walked away from me like everyone else.’

She had not been blaming him. In fact, he got the distinct impression that she had been heaping judgment on herself. Though he knew as well as she did that the Snow Queen's freezing of his heart had taken his emotions out of his control, he still hated to have caused her pain. How could he have forgotten his love for her? Killian had sworn to himself long again that she would never see him turn his back on her, never betray or desert her as she had suffered so often in the past. Yet, he could see in her pleading eyes that she had believed him gone, that she had felt herself abandoned once more.

There was nothing for it but to start again from that moment. Willingly, he would never do anything but endeavor to bring her happiness. He had already spent too much of his unnaturally long life dwelling on past mistakes and what could not be changed; he still had a future here with his Savior, and they could both find happiness at long last.

It was not much longer before Emma emerged from the station door, sliding her arms into her red leather jacket and looking toward her car to find him waiting. A wide, happy grin broke across her face, more simple and uninhibited than he had seen her wear, crinkling her dimples and brightening her entire aspect. To Killian's eyes, she brightened the very world around her.

She moved to stand before him, smirking at him smugly and reaching out a hand to pull him to her by his vest front. "Told you those modern clothes would suit you, Pirate," she murmured, humming lightly as she leaned in and placed a quick kiss to the tip of his nose, then each of his cheeks.

"Aye, you did Milady," he returned, voice rumbling low and smug smile matching hers. He allowed himself to be pulled easily into her clutches, letting Emma set the pace as she slipped her hands up his back to delve into his hair and pulled his face down to kiss him more thoroughly.

And later, when they entered Granny's together, in full view of the dinner crowd, when Emma lead him through the door by their joined hands, brought them up to her lips, and kissed the back of his palm with a secret, satisfied smile on her face, Killian felt more peace in himself than he had in ages. They were in this for the long haul now – both of them – and done letting anything stand in their way, be it outside threat or their own walls and scars. This was real and True...for all to see.

Tagging: @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @laschatzi @whimsicallyenchantedrose @jrob64 @apiratewhopines @cosette141 @anmylica @justanother-unluckysoul @shireness-says @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @darkcolinodonorgasm @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @wefoundloveunderthelight @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @drowned-dreamer @xsajx @stahlop @thislassishooked @xarandomdreamx @sotangledupinit @resident-of-storybrooke @lfh1226-linda​ @tiganasummertree​ @optomisticgirl​ @ineffablecolors​ @let-it-raines​ 

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Divorce Rumor Round-Up

By popular demand! All allegedly, for entertainment purposes only. I do not subscribe to nor endorse any of these.

In parenthesis are when the rumors/theories first popped up.

Also, I won’t provide links to where these rumors came from as I do not wish to send any abuse towards those bloggers/forums/social media accounts, but:

Most of the rumors that are very specific and detailed, particularly those involving specific dates, tend to come from tarot readers, astrology blogs, and gossip vlogs from YouTube. 

Ones that sound wildly far-fetched and over-the-top (or tinhatty) tend to come from very vocal “anti” or “hater” royal watchers on all sides.

Ones that sound more “normal” or generally speculative tend to come from more “neutral” royal watchers and mainstream media/press.

Divorce rumors about William and Catherine

Meghan propositioned William in late 2017/early 2018 to create a crisis that would require him to divorce Kate and marry her instead. (2018)

Kate is leaving William and moving back to Berkshire with the children (September 2021)

William and Kate are moving to Windsor Castle under the guise of George going to Eton but it’s a cover story for a divorce. (September 2021)

William and Kate are married in name only (all but divorced on paper). Moved to Windsor to hide this better. (June 2022)

William to divorce Kate now that he is Prince of Wales and doesn’t need her anymore. (October 2022)

Kate to leave with the children over the lack of support from Charles and emotional abuse from Meghan. (December 2022)

William to destroy his marriage with Kate. (February 2023)

Divorce rumors about Mike and Carole Middleton

Carole and Mike are separated, not really married. Everyone knows. (May 2018)

Carole and Mike are secretly divorced. They appear together publicly and live on separate sides of the house to keep the divorce a secret. (May 2018)

Carole and Mike are in an open marriage since they can’t divorce because of Kate/relationship with the royals. Mike has an official girlfriend he prefers to spend his time with, a redheaded woman who often accompanies both Carole and Mike to royal events as a perk for keeping silent about the Middletons’ open marriage. (May 2018)

Divorce rumors about the Yorks

Sarah to give a tell-all interview to pressure Andrew into remarrying her. (October 2022)

Andrew to have another public downfall/hit rock bottom sometime during 2023 - 2025. This meltdown and the allegations of Andrew it reveals will cause Edo to leave Beatrice and they will divorce. (January 2023)

Beatrice will remarry after divorcing Edo. It will last and she will be much happier. (January 2023)

Jack has been cheating on Eugenie since 2021. They moved to Portugal to work on their marriage. It will not last and they will divorce. (January 2023)

Divorce rumors about the Sussexes

Sussexes to divorce before first anniversary. (Betting odds, May 2018)

Sussexes to divorce before third anniversary. (Betting odds, May 2018)

Sussexes to divorce before fifth anniversary. (Betting odds, May 2018)

The Sussex divorce will take place in wintertime, when it is snowing outside. Meghan will shock everyone with the announcement. Harry will be caught totally off-guard. (2019)

Megxit because Meghan threatened to leave and divorce Harry if he didn’t support her. (January 2020)

Harry’s diplomatic immunity as a Counselor of State will force California to send their divorce proceedings to London. Any of California’s laws dictating divorce proceedings or custody will not be applicable. (April 2021)

Harry to file for divorce or leave Meghan if his Counselor of State status is revoked because it conveys a certain diplomatic immunity that would invoke the State Department to move divorce proceedings to London. (April 2021)

Lili is a save-the-marriage baby. (June 2021)

Sussexes are secretly divorced. (November 2021)

Harry will return to the UK/BRF on the original half-in/half-out scheme after the divorce. (March 2022)

Harry left Meghan and bought an apartment in Turtle Bay, NYC, near the UN. He lives there full-time. (March 2022)

Secret Sussex visit to Windsor to initiate divorce proceedings. (April 2022)

Harry and/or the BRF to get full custody of the children after the divorce. (May 2022)

Harry will remarry and adopt more children after leaving Meghan. (May 2022)

Meghan to have a third marriage to a Saudi/Middle Eastern businessman and live quietly in the UK with shared custody of Archie and Lili after the divorce. No more children for her. (May 2022)

Harry and Meghan to divorce in 2025. (May 2022)

If Meghan leaves Harry and initiates the divorce, she will use Diana’s divorce timeline. (June 2022)

Harry will give up titles received for the wedding before the divorce so Meghan cannot use the titles post-divorce. (June 2022)

Harry will leave Meghan and blame it on a mental health crisis. (June 2022)

Meghan will leave Harry and blame it on his insulting/attacking the US Constitution. She will use the divorce announcement/timing to announce political candidacy or other political aspirations. (July 2022)

Meghan to appear on the cover of US Vogue as a condition of the divorce settlement. (August 2022)

Meghan will sell her private journals from royal days for profit after the divorce. (August 2022)

Meghan has moved out of Montecito and into the Beverly Hills Hotel to be with her new boyfriend. (August 2022)

Meghan’s new boyfriend is wealthy, connected, and white. (August 2022)

Meghan does not want custody of the children but will fight for it in the divorce. (August 2022)

Meghan moved back into the Montecito Mansion to create the illusion of a single mom with a playboy husband, who only has her mother for support, for her divorce narrative. (August 2022)

Meghan will work with Sunshine Sachs to tear Harry down the moment the Sussex divorce is public. (August 2022)

Meghan and Harry separated, on the way to a 2023 divorce. Harry travels frequently to the UK when it’s not his time with the children to re-establish domicile for custody fight. (August 2022)

Charles to accept Harry back into the firm as a full-time working royal after the divorce. (September 2022)

Meghan threatened to leave Harry if she was uninvited or sidelined during the Queen’s funeral. That’s why he was demanding she travel to Balmoral with him. (September 2022)

Sussex divorce to be handled in England. Meghan will be represented by a bulldog American lawyer. It will be similar to the Paul McCartney/Heather Mills divorce - as acrimoniously and with Meghan doing some kind of stunt that backfires. (September 2022)

Harry to leave Meghan by the end of 2022 in response to his stripped status at The Queen’s funeral. (September 2022)

Harry to get full physical and legal custody of the children in the divorce and live in Frogmore Cottage with them. (September 2022)

Harry to leave Meghan between October 15, 2022, - November 14, 2022. (September 2022)

Meghan’s threat in The Cut about not signing NDAs and having journals was a threat to Harry to stop him from leaving her, not the BRF. (September 2022)

Meghan to publish her own memoir about Harry post-divorce. (September 2022)

Sussexes had a private meeting with Charles while in London for Queen’s funeral to negotiate terms of the divorce, including timing and announcement. (September 2022)

Harry to physically, mentally, and publicly leave Meghan to return to the BRF by October 31, 2022. (September 2022)

Meghan will give an exclusive Oprah-like interview but not to Oprah, in which she pops off about “her truth” and how the BRF mistreated her during the jubilee, The Queen’s funeral, and Charles’s coronation. This will cause Harry to leave her. (September 2022)

Charles will not accept Harry back into the firm at all after a divorce. (September 2022)

Sussexes to divorce after Netflix and PRH book obligations end. (September 2022)

Meghan is cheating with a married man and wants to leave Harry for him but the new partner has said he doesn’t want a future with Meghan and it’s just a fun affair for him. (October 2022)

Sussexes to divorce by March 2023. (October 2022)

Sussexes have begun divorce proceedings and have formally separated. (October 2022)

If Harry returns to the UK without Meghan and divorces her, then Charles will pay back the remainder of the PRH book advances and sort out financial/legal troubles with Netflix. (October 2022)

A Sussex scandal will precede Harry’s divorce announcement. Both the scandal and the announcement will catch Meghan off-guard. (October 2022)

Harry and Meghan are separated. Harry will spend Christmas at Sandringham with the BRF. (October 2022)

Meghan to launch a PR war against Harry for leaving her at Christmastime. (October 2022)

Meghan and Harry have been separated since August 2021; Harry lives in San Francisco. (October 2022)

Harry left Meghan and lives with Eugenie in Portugal. (November 2022)

Harry went into involuntary rehab after a drug- and alcohol-fueled fight with Meghan following The Queen’s funeral and his public “demotion.” Courts forced them to separate and they are not allowed to live together. Charles will pay Meghan a huge settlement when they finally divorce to keep the court details sealed/private. (November 2022)

Sussex divorce announcement on or by December 17, 2022.

Sussex divorce announcement on or by January 23, 2023.

Charles/the BRF will influence Harry’s terms of the divorce settlement: they will allow Harry to return and have his IPP/security detail back, but he will not be a working royal and kept out of the public eye under very strict parameters. Meghan’s access to the BRF will be cut off and any attempt at a compromise that sees her coming back to London or attending royal events will kick Harry out of both the firm and Britain, and the BRF will take custody of the children. (November 2022)

Sussex divorce by March 2023. (November 2022)

Divorce/separation negotiations are going poorly and Meghan is lashing out via Kerry Kennedy’s criticism and the Kennedy Do-Good award. (November 2022)

Pictures of Archie on a Zoom call were leaked with Meghan’s authorization and indicate that she and Harry are separated, because Harry is the only one who demands and expects the children’s privacy. (November 2022)

Meghan has tapes, audio and video, of Harry being wildly drunk and/or abusive, which will come out in the divorce. Divorce will be acrimonious and messy like the Heard/Depp divorce. (December 2022)

Harry suspending his press lawsuits signals that the divorce is imminent and he is moving back to London. (December 2022)

Harry and Meghan to divorce when the money runs out and they cannot make profitable multi-million dollar deals anymore. (December 2022)

Meghan to leave and divorce Harry when America turns on her. (December 2022)

Sussex divorce announcement to come on the eve of Charles’s coronation, overshadowing the weekend. (December 2022)

The BRF intends to prove/accuse Harry and Meghan as unfit parents to take custody of the children during divorce proceedings. (December 2022)

Doria will testify on Meghan’s behalf about the children’s custody during divorce proceedings to help Meghan win custody; however, the court will question Doria’s absence from Meghan’s childhood and uncover something that will undermine her credibility, which tanks Meghan’s case for custody. (December 2022)

Meghan to leave Harry and use Spare as evidence/justification. (January 2023)

Meghan to file for divorce citing irreconcilable differences. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce to be epic, on par with War of the Wales. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce to begin after Harry’s book tour obligations end. (January 2023)

Harry has a pre-separation agreement in place with Meghan that protects him from all business arrangements and debts made during the marriage in return for silence on certain topics. (January 2023)

Meghan to announce the divorce after William and Kate announce a fourth pregnancy or birth of a fourth child. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce announcement between February 19, 2023, - March 21, 2023. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce to take place in California so Meghan can keep primary custody of the children and earn monthly alimony/child support from the BRF. (January 2023)

Meghan has created an extravagant life in Montecito so when she divorces Harry, she can argue to the court that the children have an exceptional standard of living, which the court will require Harry/the BRF to maintain with alimony/child support payments equivalent to current standard. (January 2023)

Meghan and/or the BRF to use Harry’s admissions of drug and alcohol abuse in Spare and the promo tour against him during the divorce and custody proceedings. (January 2023)

Harry to be placed under a 5150/conservatorship due to his addiction and other issues by the BRF or Meghan in divorce proceedings to show he is unfit for custody. (January 2023)

Sussex terms of divorce to include an agreement that anything of Diana’s (including trust money and jewelry) will automatically go towards the children and cannot be used or accessed by Meghan. (January 2023)

Harry’s dirt from California will start leaking in March as a precursor to the divorce. Meghan will be the one leaking and use it as threats to get what she wants. (January 2023)

Harry to have a catfish scandal on Instagram after divorcing Meghan. (January 2023)

Charles will give Meghan $50 million and generous child support to divorce Harry and return him to London. (January 2023)

Dirt on Meghan’s use of surrogates will be revealed during divorce proceedings. (January 2023)

Charles to be implicated in the cover-up of the Sussexes’ use of a surrogate and he will abdicate or be forced to step back in the fallout. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce in November 2023 (January 2023)

Meghan’s “revenge dress” moment will be related to the Hollywood awards season. (January 2023)

Meghan has a sex tape on the dark web, which will be published/leaked to the “regular” web during the divorce. (January 2023)

Harry will remarry in 2030 - 2031. Meghan will be a non-issue and won’t bother with his new wife. (January 2023)

Security camera footage of Meghan mistreating Charlotte exists and will be leaked during divorce proceedings, causing her to lose custody. (January 2023)

Meghan and Harry have been separated since late 2022. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce between June 2023 and September 2023. (February 2023)

Meghan and Harry are currently legally separated and “will they/won’t they” about the coronation is to keep news of the separation from going public. (February 2023)