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corner-stories · 1 year ago

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new threads

Pieter Cross. Michael Holt. Late-Nights. Super Suits. Cutting-Edge, Ultra-Thin Armor. 1389 words. (ao3.)

The contents of Mister Terrific’s workshop were as ever changing as the tourists visiting the Statue of Liberty.

Tinkering and toying with items was simply in Michael’s nature. He was a firm believer in the notion that a creator’s work was never truly done, and thus every invention and gadget he had made were versions away from their initial prototype.

And for reference, his T-Spheres and T-Mask were currently in their twentieth and fourteenth iterations.

Michael had spent the last few hours in his workshop meticulously tinkering with a uniform, one that didn’t belong to him yet was in dire need of an upgrade. In contrast to his usual jacket and mask, the suit on his workbench included a black cowl and a pair of goggles uniquely designed to allow a certain person to see under normal lighting.

With a steady hand, Michael adjusted the high-density, impact-resistant thermoplastic sheeting on the torso of the suit, making sure that it was in the ideal position to protect the vital organs. Meanwhile, the actual wearer of the garment was testing out a previous version in the only way he could.

It was times like these where Michael was thankful for the random load-bearing beam in his workshop. It allowed him to hang a pair of gymnastics rings from the ceiling, allowing his test subject to test the limits of his mobility and strength when donning the new threads.

As Michael adjusted the kevlar by the collar of the suit, Pieter A. Cross was literally hanging from the ceiling. With a false grip secured around the wooden rings, Pieter effortlessly pulled himself into a muscle-up, then held himself in a support hold as he kept his legs straight and raised them upwards into a pike hang. Had he been half the gymnast he was in his youth, then perhaps he would have been brave enough to lower himself into an iron cross.

When Michael glanced up, he couldn’t help but grin. “Showing off, are we?”

Pieter’s usually frowny face softened into something more neutral, which was pretty much a smile from someone as stoic and humorless as him.

“I’m flattered,” he responded in a voice that was slightly warmer than his usual monotone.

The Doctor leaned forward, keeping his back and legs parallel to the floor as much as he could. He made sure to spread his legs apart, forming a straddle maltese and attempting to hold it for as long as he could.

Pieter’s thirty-nine-year-old muscles and joints surprised him, as despite the wear and tear they faced on a daily basis they still managed to keep him stabilized above the floor. Even the chronic aches in his left elbow were being nice to him for once.

Eventually, Pieter finished testing the mobility of the Doctor Mid-Nite Suit V5.5 by returning to a support hold, then slowly lowering himself back to the floor.

Michael remained sitting at his workbench, but turned his head towards his friend. “So how does that one feel? Can you move your shoulders better?”

“A bit more,” answered Pieter. As he walked over, he moved his right arm in a circle, a movement that seemed to flow effortlessly with the new flexibility of the suit. “Still feels like wearing a mattress though.”

“But a comfortable mattress?”

Pieter shrugged. “I suppose so.”

As Michael put the finishing touches on the Doctor Mid-Nite Suit V5.6, Pieter looked over to an older version of the garment that had been placed on a mannequin. Curiously, he touched the cape, which was made of a material of Michael’s own creation.

On top of creating a cutting-edge, ultra-thin clothing that could rival Level IV body armor, Michael had apparently created an exceedingly light fabric that could provide one all the stealth benefits of a cape, but without the weight or drag. He even rigged the cape to detach from the suit after a certain amount of pressure, which would be useful in the event of unwanted snags.

Obviously, Pieter was quite thankful for all the effort his best friend was putting into his new suits. Making sure that the JSA’s on-site medic was protected and padded was a fairly smart move, afterall.

But considering the fact Michael had been dressing him up like a Ken Doll into the early wee hours of the morning, it was fair to say that Mister Terrific’s enthusiasm for playing the role of tailor was a bit… excessive.

“Okay, I got one more for you,” Michael soon said, garnering an exasperated sigh from Pieter.

The allegations that neither Doctor Mid-Nite nor Mister Terrific actually slept weren’t allegations, they were hard truths.

Pieter pushed up his goggles briefly to rub his tired eyes. Once he pulled them back on, he saw Michael standing from his workbench and holding up the latest version of the Mid-Nite suit. At this time of night, it was hard for Pieter to keep telling the differences between every iteration of the garment, but in his limited vision he could tell that the current suit was slightly darker than the rest.

“I’m sure it’ll feel the same as the last,” Pieter muttered.

“Not quite — see, I made some alterations that should fix the chafing around the neck,” Michael explained, gesturing towards the torso of the suit. “Plus, I’ve eased up on the armor around the joints for extra mobility. I’m hoping that a ‘move more, get hit less’ philosophy will lead to ideal results.”

It was fortunate that Pieter felt close enough to Michael to never mask his true feeling, which meant that the additional exhale of despair he let out was not met negatively.

It was also fortunate that Michael was quite good at reading people — Pieter in particular — and was able to acknowledge that ungodliness of designing super suits until three in the morning.

“This is the last one, I promise,” Michael assured. “Please?”

Pieter noticed the same sense of excitement in Michael’s eyes. Perhaps it had been far too long since Mister Terrific got a chance to toy and tinker.

With that in mind, Pieter nodded his head and grabbed the suit from his best friend’s hand.

“Just for you, Michael,” the Doctor spoke, managing a very subdued half-smile. At this time of night, it was hard for him to muster anything more.

Michael nodded along, and keeping up with his end of the deal he went back to his work bench and put away his tools. A clean workspace was a happy workspace, afterall.

While his best friend meticulously organized every tool into its designated toolbox, Pieter began the lengthy process of disassembling the new Mid-Nite suit. In contrast to the simple jacket and shirt of Mister Terrific’s threads, the state-of-the-art armor and padding of the garment was made out of several pieces that had to be removed in a very particular order. It seemed that ease of application was another kink that Michael needed to iron out.

After removing the gauntlets and belt, Pieter undid the fastenings around the shoulder, which helped loosened the chest plate secured to his torso. After the several pieces of cutting-edge thermoplastic were removed, the Doctor was left with the final layer, which still consisted of a shirt and pants made of impact-resistant foam and slash-resistant kevlar.

Hopefully Michael got a kick out of the impressive hopping dance Pieter had to perform to get his legs out of the suit’s pants.

Pieter was heaving by the time he put the suit pieces off of him, then placed them onto the table in the middle of the workshop. It was moments like this where he regretted the choice to don compression wear underneath his usual work clothes. It didn’t help that some versions of the suit made him truly understand the phrase “10lb ham in a 5lb can.”

Pieter wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead as he walked to Michael’s workbench, where he grabbed the final version of Doctor Mid-Nite’s new suit. At least it felt slightly lighter than the last.

“On another note, I’m really hoping this one breathes better…” Pieter muttered.

Whether it be because it was so ungodly late, or because he was so wrapped up in everything-proofing the suit that he overlooked such a basic detail, Michael let out an awkward chuckle.

“Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.”

#Pieter Cross #Michael Holt #Mister Terrific #Doctor Mid-Nite #JSA #Mister Mid #it's always fun to remember that Michael has a softer side #he's more chill with Pieter #bc they be buddies

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stuckylibrary · 4 years ago

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Group Ask 183

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Please send us an ask stating which group ask and which person you are replying to. Thank you so much in advance!

Anon 1 said:

Hi, can you help me find this fic, it’s pre serum Stucky, little Steve was very sick and someone tells Bucky Steve is going to die so he runs to Steve’s home crying, that’s all I remember. I’ve been looking for it for on the and can’t find it. :(

at6am said:

hello! ive been looking for this fic for the longest time, looked through every tag and i fear it has been removed :/ basically, bucky is “hiding” from an abusive ex. he finds him and confronts him, but steve sees him while hes on a run, and chases him off. he invites bucky to stay at his place to protect him. i remember steve being military. at the end, the boyfriend finds him and has a fight with bucky, where he breaks his jaw, but then steve arrives and shoots him, i think. help :(

Anon 2 said:

hii, I have a question, I'm looking for a fic! What I know about it, is that they are in some kind of sex club? Steve is a Dom, Bucky a Sub. Bucky thinks Steve is too nice and gentle and unexperienced at first and unintentionly makes fun of him, Steve doesn't take his shit and takes him into the dungeons, where only the most experienced Doms can go? I think it was even Nats club, or sum like that. Thanks so much already!!

Anon 3 said:

love y'all to bits. mwah x. i was wondering if u guys know abt a fic where steve n bucky are in avengers tower, slow dancing (i think the rest of the gang are there but not necessarily watching them?) and either steve or bucky gets super emotional bc they're pining and run out w/ the other following ??

Anon 4 said:

I've been trying to find a fic for hours but I cant remember the name of it. I remember that it was a modern au, bucky and steve were roommates or something, and whenever bucky cried, he only cried a single tear. They kissed at a christmas or new years party, but bucky ran away when steve didnt kiss back. Also, the author always refered to the space between the living room and kitchen as "no man's land", dont know why that certain detail stuck out at me. Pls help and thanks!

thefrenchfern said:

Hello! First of all many thanks for your wonderful work, your blog is so useful to find recommandations!! I am looking for a fic,where Bucky is working as a tailor (with Natasha) and he is also writing books under an alias. Steve is working nearby (in a gym maybe?) and he reads Bucky's book and he puts updates on goodreads? I also remember something about post it wirtten by Bucky to make Steve know its him. Many thanks for your help

Anon 5 said:

Hi, I feel like I have been looking for this fic forever everywhere. In it Bucky comes to Avengers Tower post Winter Soldier. He is recovering but he realizes Steve is lost too, and none of the other Avengers seem to realize. He starts gently bossing Steve around. He has Steve get his 40’s haircut back and Bucky buys 40’s style clothes for Steve to wear. They buy a farm and move out there, adopting a dog. Bucky gets set off by a trigger word and hides in the barn. Please help! Thank you!

Anon 6 said:

I lost a shrunkyclunks fic where Bucky meets Steve on the subway (or bus?) and they become fast friends, but Steve has a lot of money and Bucky is poor so every time they go out somewhere Bucky doesn't want to mention that he really can't afford to do much of anything. That's all I remember, do you know which fic I'm talking about? Thank youuuu

Anon 7 said:

Hi, desperate for some help here. I can only remember this one really specific detail from a fic I read recently, Steve asked Bucky something he'd never told anyone before, Bucky said he had Becca's kid for a weekend (?) and he said his first word at Bucky's place (the word had something to do with an ad on tv and was a pretty unusual first word), he never told Becca. Becca called Bucky a week later saying he did it again. Thanks for any help!!

artisticrogers1972 said:

I was reading a wonderful STUCKY fic; linked here from A03 and have lost it. This was maybe two-three days ago. It was about Bucky and Steve from the time they were kids on up and Bucky's mom was Roma. Bucky was in love with Steve but thought if he went with girls he'd be fine. They'd push beds together in the winter. Someone, please help!! I want to finish. It's part of a series and my head, with all the migraines, is easily forgetting titles

celestial-star-petals said:

Hello I'm looking for a fic that's post winter soldier I think. Bucky surrenders himself over to SHIELD and fury and maria have him imprisoned at headquarters but no one tells Steve, who, when he finds out immediately goes to him. Bucky doesn't leave so Steve visits as often as possible and so do the other avengers, sam, nat, pepper too. tony comes along tinkers with something in buckys cell and drops something that later helps bucky escape. Thank you for your help!!

cevansebb said:

hi guys do you know that fic (i rhink its recovery!bucky post tws fic) where bucky is OBSESSED with steve’s cowlick? if you could find it i’d appreciate it alot thank you!

Anon 8 said:

hi! i’m looking for a post-cacw fic where before helping bucky, wanda gives steve trigger words which makes bucky freak out, but then she takes them away. do you guys happen to know it? thanks :)

harrieserendipity said:

Hello stuckylibrary friends 🥰 I just went through a few of your tags looking for a fic that takes place pre-war. It’s summer& really hot out so Steve& Bucky have to sleep outside on their balcony/deck to keep cool overnight. Bucky wakes up w Steve asleep on top of him & like throws him off. It’s a prewar pining sort of thing I believe, but I went through that entire tag. I also know that this fic isn’t August and her sons, I thought it was but I just reread it and it’s not. Thanks friends!❤️

Anon 9 said:

hi! im pretty sure this was a pretty popular fic but i can't find it even with ao3 tags. it's post ca:ws steve+bucky w/ the avengers and one mission goes wrong and steve nearly dies and bucky confesses his feelings in panic but once he realizes that everyone heard him b/c the coms were still on, he dips and completely avoids steve?? i love y'all to bits, i hope you guys have been safe and healthy

#group asks

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presidentrhodes · 5 years ago

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Spider-Man Far From Home spoilers

I just finished watching it and, honestly, I’d say it was a pretty good way to bid farewell to the first three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Spoilers under the cut. This is pretty long and rambly.

1. Midtown high is supposed to be a school for geniuses but these little shits use comic sans in tribute videos and steal watermarked Getty Images pictures to put in them. I loved it, particularly with the song choice and the fact that Vision’s picture was from the Civil War airport standoff in Leipzig — that means only Peter could’ve provided it and no one bothered to ask how he got it.

2. Tom Holland really wasn’t kidding when he said the film was a love letter to RDJ/Tony Stark. He was everywhere, his sacrifice was being recognised around the world: they even had a documentary on him, which was available in the in-flight entertainment, plus, there were murals and photographs in Venice and Prague. He was very much present throughout the film.

3. EDITH. In a nutshell, it’s an augmented reality-enabled AI that controls a tactical and defensive system Tony built to protect Earth in the aftermath of his demise. Think Ultron’s perfect self minus the winning personality — EDITH controls a bunch of massive Stark Industries satellites in orbit that are equipped with thousands of weaponised drones. It can remotely target individual threats and take them out with simple voice commands. It also is able to connect to any network in the vicinity, so, Peter was able to see what his classmates were doing on their devices.

I’ve already seen so many angry posts comparing EDITH to Project Insight without taking into account a) intent; and b) the reality of the MCU. Tony didn’t build EDITH for the same reason Zola built Project Insight. The former was meant to be a last or first line of defence, controlled by an Avenger Tony personally trusted. The latter was a means to subjugate the world population to Hydra’s will.

All tech in the MCU is dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands — that’s why they’re called the wrong hands and why Steve once said the safest hands are their own. The supersoldier serum gave us Steve Rogers; it also gave us the Winter Soldiers, a bunch of dangerous, invincible highly-trained assassins. Pym particles gave us Ant-Man and the Wasp as well as time travel; it also gave us Yellowjacket, who immediately wanted to weaponise the tech. The Iron Man suit gave us Iron Man; but also gave us Iron Monger, who wanted to build an army of metal soldiers. Wakanda’s highly-advanced weapon systems were able to withstand a full-scale invasion from the Outriders, but those same weapons almost started a global war in Killmonger’s hands. Project Insight and Ultron showed us the bad side of AI; JARVIS, Vision, FRIDAY, Karen and EDITH, to an extent, showed us the good side of AI.

The point is, technology in the wrong hands will always be a bad thing yet people only seem to gripe about Stark tech while ignoring every other piece of advanced technology we’ve seen weaponized or misused. I wonder why. Since the MCU canonically isn’t made up of one big Luddite colony, there’ll always be new technology being developed and bad guys finding ways to abuse them.

Just look at the holographic tech Mysterio designed while at Stark Industries. Even before he was fired, his ambitions were grander and afterwards, he weaponized it and willingly sent people to their dooms so that he could play a hero. When 16-year-old Peter Parker, MJ and Ned — literal children — found out the truth and Mysterio risked being exposed as a fraud, he actively tried to kill them. Mysterio beat the shit out of Peter and threw him in front of an incoming high-speed train, so, no, I don’t care if Tony Stark was mean to him by firing him, he was a piece of shit who tried repeatedly to kill a kid.

Tony, meanwhile, spent $600+ million on the holographic tech to design B.A.R.F — a technology with some really promising applications in the MedTech sector to help people overcome their PTSD and trauma. That’s the fucking difference between a superhero and a supervillain.

Sure, EDITH also has massive privacy concerns. That’s on Tony, but after the Decimation, I think people have bigger problems to worry about than whether Peter Parker is snooping on their text messages. Ultimately, EDITH offers Peter, and whoever else is going to fill up the Avengers roster in the future, a plan B to strike the bad guys from a safe distance. I

4. Tony left Peter in charge of EDITH. Not the Avengers, not SHIELD, and definitely not the US Department of Defense — a fact that actually pissed off Mysterio. Tony left it in Peter’s hands because he knew Spider-Man took the meaning of responsibility far more seriously than he ever did. All those years ago, Peter told him if one could do the things he could, and they didn’t, and then the bad things happened, they happened because of them. And, honestly, if anyone deserves to have control over such a potentially dangerous piece of tech that can help in future battles, then it’s Peter — even more so than Tony.

5. Again, Peter is 16 in this film and still coping with loss and trauma. He willingly gave controls of EDITH to Quentin because Mysterio had everyone fooled, including Nick Fury/Talos — they’re both highly experienced soldiers. Fooling them wouldn’t have been easy and Mysterio’s plan was extremely well thought-out and perfectly executed. Peter redeem himself in the end and takes back control of EDITH.

6. Peter and MJ were super adorable. Spider-Man is the only franchise apart from Iron Man, where the secondary lead characters are allowed to grow without it all being about the main hero. MJ is allowed to explore her feelings for Peter and measure them against Brad’s affection. Ned is allowed to also grow in his character and be more than Spider-Man’s best friend/guy in a chair.

7. Happy and May were also adorable.

8. Happy ruined a perfectly good bed of tulips just to rescue May’s nephew and give him the TLC/pep talk he needed after, again, Beck pushed Peter in front of a high-speed train that would’ve killed an ordinary person.

9. Peter confusing ACDC with Led Zeppelin is the most Gen Z thing ever. Happy watched Peter design his own suit and it reminded him of the times he spent watching Tony tinker in his lab. You could feel Tony’s absence pretty viscerally in that scene on the jet.

10. Peter tingle. Lol.

11. Happy’s words about Tony were beautiful. He said something along the lines of, “Tony was my best friend. He second-guessed everything he did. He was a mess. But the one thing he didn’t second-guess was picking you.” That really furthered the Iron Dad Spider Son narrative.

12. Iron Zombie was the w o r s t thing ever. Again, Beck emotionally manipulated 16-year-old Peter Parker and said if Peter was any good, his mentor would still be alive just as he projected an illusion of a decaying Iron Man corpse attacking him. To give you a sense of how manipulative he really is, he told his guy in the chair that Peter’s blood will be on his hands because he had failed to report a missing drone part that MJ had discovered in Prague.

13. Peter finally understanding that he doesn’t have to be the next Tony Stark or Iron Man. He just needs to be the next Spider-Man and Peter Parker.

14. Peter choosing to safeguard EDITH.

15. J. Jonah Jameson and J.K. Simmons. That is all. He’s the MCU equivalent of Alex Jones and I love him so much. I wonder if this means we’ll see Doctor Strange offer Peter his help to erase everyone’s memories about the reveal of his secret identity.

16. Every Nick Fury scene automatically becomes 2000x funnier when you realize it’s Talos posing as Fury and 90% of the time, he has no idea what the fuck is going on and he’s just winging it as he goes along. Also, he was furious that he and his wife, as members of a shapeshifting species, were unable to detect Mysterio’s ruse.

17. Mysterio was a douchebag. Apart from trying to kill actual kids because he feared they might expose him, he did nothing worthy of a hero. He was jealous and angry about Tony, and he wanted to usurp Iron Man without doing any of the hard work. He willingly put people in danger, was prepared to sacrifice people to make his actions seem more realistic and wanted to take credit for saving the day and preventing an Avengers-level catastrophe. I’ve already seen reviewers trying to sympathise with Mysterio, and his persistent attempts to kill a 16-year-old kid because Tony was apparently mean to him.

18. And, no, Tony did not steal B.A.R.F tech from Mysterio as some review sites are claiming. The narrative is unreliable at best because we hear only Quentin’s point of view — the same Quentin who had been using his holographic tech to deceive people and put them in harm’s way because he wanted to shake the Queen’s hands or some misguided bullshit. He deserved to fired. Plus, he was a Stark Industries employee. Tech companies almost always own the patent to whatever tech you design or invent for them when you’re on their payroll. It’s how corporations work.

19. Tony quoted Henry IV to Fury when he told him to give EDITH to Peter and said Spidey wouldn’t get the reference (Heavy is the head that wears the crown) because it’s not Star Wars. It was a nice, poignant moment — made funnier when you realize that’s Talos in disguise, which means at some point, Fury had to have a conversation with him about Shakespeare and Star Wars. Someone pls write the fic.

20. The most important thing is that this film actually tried to address the Decimation. Endgame pretended to gloss over it to give Gay Joe Russo his 15 minutes of fame. But this film actually started with May and Peter organizing an event to help the displaced. Pepper sent a huge check and apologized for not being able to make it in person. :(

20a. I love Jake Gyllenhaal. I had expected Quentin to be a dramatic thot but he really brought a lot of depth to the character.

Overall, I liked the film a lot more than I had anticipated. Some people are going to scrutinize this film to death to prove Tony was the ultimate MCU villain and, hey, if that’s the hill they choose to die on, I don’t really care. After 11 years and 23 films later, if they still think that Tony was the real villain all along, then nothing we say or Marvel does, will change their mind.

Personally, I thought this film was a good send off to Tony, now that they’ve firmly established that Peter Parker/Spider-Man is going to be the new face of the MCU and will carry with him the Iron Man legacy. He wasn’t always right and a lot of his choices tended to backfire but, in the end, his motivations were good and he still went out as the man who saved the world. He, unlike Beck, or Vulture before him, never tried to kill a child, not even when he brought him to a parking lot brawl among friends.

Now, if only Marvel can just leave Tony’s legacy alone and let Peter, and the rest of the MCU, thrive on its own instead of retconning established Iron Man lore to fit new narratives.

#spider-man far from home #ffh spoilers #spider-man far from home spoilers #far from home spoilers #peter parker #tony stark #mcu #my posts

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watercolourferns · 5 years ago

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Nightly Run

Zyrcone | Angst & Comfort | 1974 words | Modern AU | seeing!Marcone

Overview: “So it seems… Gods above, what would I do without you?? You’re so good to me, Zayn…”

“It’s not being ‘good’, Macaroon, it’s me loving you and you letting me love you. But probably pass the night on the street where you collapsed and wake up in a cell for indecent exposure?” the dancer said teasingly, snickering and kissing the man’s lips softly. “Luckily we will never know the answer to that question…” The man laughed again, but then pulled the dancer closer, closing his eyes. “Never? You sure…?” “Yes, never. I’m very very sure…” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nightly Run

The night wasn’t exactly chilly, but it wasn’t as warm as it had been a few days ago, the crickets going quiet, showing the change in temperature. Zayn was walking down the street, humming to himself as the tinkering of his dance attire’s jewelry sounded underneath his coat. He had taken a gig up at the local Middle Eastern themed bar, dancing three nights a week and this was his second week. It was just a couple of hours, but when he saw the ad he had talked it over with Marcone and decided that it might be good for him and his tendency to be a shut in.

Some nights were a bit heavier than others and he sometimes arrived home an hour or so later than he wanted, but he loved his job and Marcone was very understanding of it. He felt so lucky about that, and he loved it when Marcone promised to go to the bar once he had settled into his new routines.

As he arrived at the porch, the dancer saw the light of the main bedroom on. That was never a good sign, usually at this time of the night it was off. He hurried up the porch steps pulling out his key from his messenger bag, but before he could put it in the lock the door swung open. “Amor?” he said, taking a step back as he saw the man standing in the doorway in pyjamas but with his sneakers on. “Marcone? What is it, mi amor?”

The man didn’t answer, walking out the doorway and into the dimly lit porch. He had that look again. Zayn had seen it several times now, especially after a really bad night terror. They had been living together for almost two years now and Zayn could more or less read the signs before or after, depending on the situation, and the signs were all there. But he had never caught Marcone going out during a crisis, he would usually wake up with a scream, look around and take him into his arms, hugging him so tight Zayn had to gasp for air after a moment. But this time it was different, the man was standing there, looking at him without looking at him, his thousand yard stare haunting. The dancer took a step forward again, dropping his bag near the door. “Marcone, it’s night, and it’s cold, let’s go in, shall we, amor mío? We can walk inside and you can tell me all about what’s going on, yes?” he said, getting near, but not daring to touch him. “Go away, leave me alone!” Marcone said, taking a step back from the dancer and starting to trot down the porch steps. Zayn recoiled back, but decided to follow him, throwing his bag into the house and closing the door. “Wait, Marc, wait!” he exclaimed, running behind him. “Leave me alone!! Get back!!” Marcone shouted again, looking back at the man and starting to run. “Shut up!! Leave!!”

“Marcone, please, what’s going on? Please stop, let’s talk about this, what happened?!” Zayn called, starting to run as well. “YOU VERY WELL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!! IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!! DON’T TOUCH ME, JUST FUCKING LEAVE!!” Marcone roared, turning completely, stopping his run, and looking at the shorter with daggers in his eyes, as if he couldn’t recognise him. Then he covered his ears with his hands, looking pained, and then turning back he restarted his run, mumbling to himself, gasping. “M-Marcone…” Zayn whispered softly, feeling his heart drop to his stomach. He clutched his chest and felt the tears coming in his hazel eyes, but a little voice in his head told him Marcone needed him regardless of what he said. So he sniffed and brushed the tears off his eyes, deciding to follow the man at a safe distance. As the man took off on a faster run, it was all the dancer could do to follow him on the other side of the sidewalk, panting slightly, the jewelry starting to feel heavy on his slight frame. Running and running, he didn’t know how long they had been running but it felt like ages and everytime he thought Marcone would stop he just ran faster till Zayn thought he might lose him in the night. After more or less an hour, finally, Marcone stopped near the intersection to get out of the suburbs they lived in. He wobbled on his feet and suddenly fell to this knees, panting and sweating, mumbling even more. “No… away… what-what is… I can’t…” he mumbled, his eyes unfocused. Zayn gasped and ran as fast as he could to catch up, sliding towards him on his silk-clad knees and taking him by the shoulders, if he was going to be pushed away so be it, Marcone was in bad shape and that was all that mattered. “Marc?? Marcone?? Oh gods, mi amor! Easy, easy, I’m here… It’s alright… I’m here… We need to call an ambulance… Marcone… Oh, mi amor…” he said, starting to cry, tears falling on the man’s face. “Z-zayn…? Wh-what are you… doing here… It’s… dangerous… the sky is red… Red and yellow… no… don’t…” the man garbled, unable to communicate properly as if lost in a fog Zayn couldn’t follow him into.

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Marcone opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling of his bedroom, a soft bluish glow and white stars adorning it, moving slowly as if they were revolving. “Want me to turn it off? I-I thought it might be something nice to wake up to,” a soft voice said, coming closer to him.

He sat up, pushing the soft covers off, rubbing his eyes and looking around. He had an IV in his arm, attached to what seemed like a drip. He still couldn’t focus that well, but he knew a drip when he saw one. “No, leave it on. Where am I?” he asked as Zayn came into focus, the dancer standing some five feet away from his bed, looking nervous, wearing his house shorts, two patches on his knees. “What happened? Did you fall while dancing??” The dancer flinched a little at the urgent tone, but then shook his head. “I’m fine, I’m more interested in how you’re feeling…” he said softly, cracking his knuckles. “At the moment? With a raging headache and very confused, babe. Can you please tell me what’s going on?” the taller man asked, starting to get nervous himself. “Why are you so far away??” “May I get closer?” the dancer asked unsurely, worrying his lower lip. “Of course you can, baby! What a question to ask, love, come here, please…” The man looked confused as Zayn walked tentatively towards him, sitting on the edge of the bed and only hugging him when he opened his arms. “I’m sorry… You didn’t want me to get near you before, I just wanted to make sure it was alright now…” the dancer whispered softly against the man’s chest while he hugged him tightly. “I-what? What do you mean? Zayn?” Marcone asked, pushing the younger man gently away to see him eye to eye. “Please, tell me what happened. All I remember is that I was lying on a gurney, I don’t remember how I got there. You were there, but I don’t know where you came from or how we got there… and now I’m here and I just…” Zayn placed a finger on Marcone’s lips, stopping him from working himself up again, and sighed. “Alright.. I’ll tell you…” he said and recounted the event as gently as he could, stopping at the moment where Marcone yelled at him, glossing over it and finishing his retelling. Marcone frowned, taking Zayn’s hands in his, his eyes moving from one hand to the other as he heard his lover speak. “Wait, wait… I did what?!” the man gasped after a few moments to let the story sink in. “I yelled what??” “That it was my fault and I knew what happened and to leave you alone… Marcone, is it because of my late nights? I’m sorry I will-” but the man put up a hand and shook his head, looking serious.

“No, don’t. I have no problems with you dancing at the bar, not even when you get here late. I know you love your job and I love that you love it. It has.. It has…” he cut himself off as he felt the tears start to fall from his light eyes. “Gods above, what did I do?!” He started to tremble with repressed sobs, and suddenly he let the damn break, crying openly, curling his hands into fists. His whole frame trembling with the force of his sobs. Zayn covered his mouth with his hand, unable to stem his own tears seeing his beloved crying so heartbreakingly. Then he hugged Marcone gently, patting his back and making soft shushing sounds, not to shut him up, but to try and ease his pain a little. “I’m so sorry, babe… I didn’t mean to… How c-could I say that?!… I’m so sorry! Can you ever forgive me?!” he sobbed, hugging Zayn tightly to himself. The dancer hugged him back tightly, too, kissing his temples and hair, caressing him with great care, as if he were a piece of fragile porcelain, murmuring tender words of love and understanding.

“It’s alright, mi amor, it’s alright. I’m here, and there’s nothing to forgive. Did you have a night terror and that’s why all this happen?” Zayn asked, kissing the man’s forehead again and making him look him in the eyes.

The man nodded, still crying and the dancer brushed the tears away gently, pulling a tissue form the nearby box and cleaning Marcone up. “Blow on this… Good, good. It’s going to be fine, I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere…” After several moments, Marcone finally calmed down but never let go of the dancer, who had been singing a lullaby in Spanish to him. “What happened to your knees then?” he asked finally, pulling Zayn into the bed and under the covers with him, snuggling into him. “Heh… When I slid towards you I got burned with the fabric of my harem pants. It’s not real silk but nylon, so it heated up with the friction and I got two small burns. But it’s no big deal, I was more worried about you collapsing and how I was going to get you back home!” Zayn said, nuzzling him, running his fingers through his hair, letting him rest his head on his chest.

“How did you bring me back home, though?” Marcone asked, tracing Zayn’s profile with his fingers. “I called Kia, who called Dammy, who wanted to bring in a helicopter. But we talked him out of it and he just brought in a private ambulance. A doctor oversaw you and placed you on the IV. There’s a nurse downstairs with them, too. She’s going to spend the night here to monitor you, amor…” the dancer said, caressing the man’s face back. “And before you ask, we sent Lance with Killian to the cottage, they are having a little sleepover there, and they are safe. You have so many people who love and care about you and your brother, mi amor, including me. So you don’t have to worry about anything…” Marcone blinked at Zayn and then barked a laugh. “So it seems… Gods above, what would I do without you?? You’re so good to me, Zayn…”

#Zayn Luna #Marcone Vintura #modern au #fern is writting #fluffyangst

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big-bara-boys · 6 years ago

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Turtles and their S/O

Some fluff, and some turtle x reader lovin’. Enjoy!

Leo:

“I cannot believe the nerve you have, Leo!” he watches as you huff and continues pacing. “Don’t look at me like you’re cluel- do you even know what I’m talking about?” you stop your pacing and stare at your blue clad boyfriend.

“No, darling I don’t,” leaning back against the couch, Leo runs through his head all of the possible things he could’ve done, “Please explain.”

Not passing the opportunity to let him know exactly how you feel, you let it all out. “As of late you have really been crossing the line with how you talk to me. You’ve been using that I’m-not-taking-your-bullshit-I’m-the-leader tone with me lately and I don’t appreciate it. It’s the same tone you use with your brothers. I’m not your brother, I’m your other half. I’m the one who loves you unconditionally with all my heart. You, Leonardo, carry my heart with you, and I hope I hold yours. But when it comes to being with someone you love, you don’t treat them like you would treat your siblings when they step out of line.”

Walking over to him, you get close to his face and hold his icy gaze, “All I ask of you, is to treat me like I'm your equal, because it's what I know I deserve," and with that, you walk away from him and head home, not once looking back to his pleading eyes.

Night fall comes around and you’re curled up on your queen sized bed when there's a tap at the window. Sighing, you get up to go and open it, knowing your boyfriend is on the other side.

Pushing open the window, you stare into his cerulean eyes, "Hi Leo," is the only thing you say to him before walking inside.

"Y/N, I want you to know how sorry I am. I- I have realized what I've been doing lately and I didn't bother thinking too much about it. You seemed fine so I payed no mind to it. And you are my equal, you're my love, my life, and one of the few things that keep me going. And I'm so sorry I failed to let you know just how much you truly mean to me. Please forgive my mistakes?" Leo stands in the middle of your living room, head bowed, waiting for you to say something.

You walk up next to him and place your hand on the side of his face, turning him to face you. "I can forgive you, only if you actually pay attention and do something about the way you're talking to me. Let's be honest babe, the only time I really need to be reprimanded is when we're in bed," you both chuckle at your joke.

“I can definitely promise you that.” Leo reaches up and strokes your cheek. Smiling he leans closer and kisses you.

Raph:

“God damn it, Raphael, pick up your damn phone!” You angrily toss your phone onto the couch and continue your pacing. Patrol nights were never easy on your anxiety, especially not after what happened six months ago. Six months ago it was just a regular night. You went to visit the turtles and splinter and hung out with them for the day. When night fell they mentioned that it was time for patrol, so you told them you would stay back and wait for them.

Two hours later you were reading a book when you heard frantic voices. Standing up, you face towards the entry way and watch as Leo, Donnie, and Mikey drag a near unconscious Raph. Your heart skips a beat as you rush over.

“What the hell happened?!” you stare at them with wide, panicked eyes.

“We were messing around on the rooftop of a building over on 34th street, when we were ambushed by the Foot. Raph got hit by some tranquilizers that knocked him out fairly quickly. But if I’m right on the kind of sedative that they used, he should be fine within a few hours. I’m just going to run some tests really quick and see if I can’t try and flush it out of his system quicker.” Donnie paces over and has Leo and Mikey place Raph on the curved table they made to fit their shells.

Suddenly you heard the rushed sound of clawed feet coming up behind you. Turning around you see Splinter walking towards you and the turtles, “What on earth has happened?” Leo and Mikey immediately go into detail on what happened. Tired of standing there, you walk up to Donnie and ask if you can do anything to help, “Uh, if you could go over to that metal cabinet and get the prep supplies for the IV insert that would be great,” Donnie replies without even turning away from his unconscious brother.

You walk over to the cabinet Donnie told you about and open it. Looking over the shelves you find what he was talking about and bring it over to him, “Thank you Y/N,” Donnie smiles at you and immediately begins getting Raph ready for the IV.

Ever since that night happened, you’ve been very apprehensive on letting the boys go on patrol night. Of course you couldn’t tell them what to do, you could only tell them to be safe and come back in one piece. But one rule that you had set down was that they were to answer their phones when you or splinter called. Your reasoning being that you wanted to make sure that they were fine and hadn’t gotten taken away before you could do anything to help. You only ever called on that rare occasion where they were out for more than two hours. The turtles were usually very good at coming back on time (thanks Leo) but there were always those nights where it sometimes turned into three or four. Tonight just so happened to be that night, the first night they’ve been late since the run in with the Foot.

You try calling again, and you even call Donnie, but there’s no answer. In an attempt to calm your racing nerves, you turn on the cooking channel for some background noise. About an hour later you’re sitting on your couch when you hear series of taps on your window, instantly telling you that it’s Raph. Rushing over to the window, you rip open the curtains and throw open the giant window.

“Are your brothers with you?” Raph begins to shake his head no, “Good, now get inside, Raphael,” instantly Raph knows something’s up because you only use his full name when he fucks up. When he’s stable on the ground, he turns and shuts the window, locking it in the process.

“Baby doll, I’m sor-,” Raph starts, but you don’t let him.

“What happened? Why did it take so long?” instantly your panic is noticeable to him. Guilt overrides any possible emotion he could’ve felt in that moment. He knows how worried you’ve been getting ever since that night all those months ago.

“We were messing around on the chrysler building again, just practicing some parkour.” His voice is soft and gentle, an attempt to lower your emotions.

“Where’s your phone, Raph? I called you and you didn’t pick up, I even called Donnie and he didn’t pick up.” You continued to press, even while knowing that you were starting to overreact.

Slowly, Raphael walks up to you and gathers you in his embrace, “I’m so sorry baby doll, I didn’t mean to worry you like that. Upping your anxiety is the last thing I’d want to do to you.” He leans down and smothers his face into your hair, taking in your scent. Gently he starts to rock you both from side to side, knowing that relaxes you. Pulling away just enough to look at him, you say “Please answer your phone next time? I just want to know you’re okay,” with a small kiss to your forehead he whispers his promise.

Donnie:

Laying in bed you stare at the ceiling waiting for your boyfriend to walk into the bedroom. A bit more time goes by and he still hasn’t come lumbering in. Turning onto your side, you stare at the alarm clock and see that it’s been twenty five minutes since Donnie said that he would be in bed with you. Sighing in frustration, you get up off the bed and walk towards his lab area to see what he’s doing. You don’t bother knocking on the door, knowing that he wouldn’t even hear it.

Opening the door you see Donnie hunched over his desk, mumbling to himself while using a pipette to drop a liquid into a test tube. Rolling your eyes you walk over, “Donnie c’mon, time to go to bed,” you run your nails over the back of his shell causing him to release a squeaky churr.

“Darling, don’t start something you can’t finish,” Donnie puts down his equipment and smirks at you. “Well I can’t exactly do anything when you’re stuck in your lab at one in the morning, now can I?” you raise your eyebrow at him and cross your arms.

“One in the morni- what? That’s not the time, I swear it was just like, what, midnight?” His face contorts into a confused expression. Looking down at his watch he see’s that it is in fact, one in the morning. “Well shit, I’m sorry honey I lost track of time. Let me just go ahead and put this away.” Donnie stands up and starts sorting his stuff away into his cabinets and draws. Once he’s done you grab his hand and lead him to the bedroom.

“I believe you and I need to have a bit of a talk, Donatello,” climbing onto the bed you turn and gesture for him to sit down.

“Sure, what’s up?” setting his mask on the nightstand, Donnie settles into bed next to you.

"I love you, very much, you know that right?" You start, staring at him. He nods his head, "Then you must know that I enjoy spending time with my boyfriend, right?" Again he nods his head. "My question to you is, do you like spending time with me?" You lean back and watch his face to gauge his reaction.

"Of course I do, why on Earth wouldn't I?" A look of bewilderment crosses his face, "When I'm with you I'm the happiest I've ever been!" Donnie grabs your hands and holds them close to his chest, "And I'd be a fool not to be".

Softly smiling at him, you lean up and rest your hand on the side of his face, "Then why do I barely see you anymore? I love you to the moon and back, but there is always something so godawfully important in your lab. It always take your attention away, and lately I've barely seen any of you. I consider myself to even be lucky to watch you get food out of the fridge!" With a light chuckle, you hope you got your point across.

As much as you loved watching him tinker around and create little inventions, you loved spending time with him more. Even after three solid years together the flame of chemistry between you two never died. In fact, the bond only grew stronger. But, it's strongest was when you two would be in each others physical company, which has been a rarity as of late.

"Wait, no, we've hung out plenty of times! Like last ni-",

"You were working on the computer until three in the morning.", you answered before he could finish.

"Oh! Then it was three days ago that we- " again you interjected him,

"Three days ago I was working a double shift and didn't come over at all." You exhale, slightly amused by his confusion. "Donatello, the last time we truly had any time together was a week ago. I've been trying to be understanding and let you do your own thing, but I miss you. I honest to god miss my boyfriend. I'm tired of the mumbled responses I get when I pop into the lab. I miss my "Hello beautiful" greetings that I would get from you. I miss my random kisses throughout the day. And most of all I haven't had sex in like two weeks. How can you expect me to still be sane when you look this good and won't pay attention to me? Hmm?" You fold your arms across your chest and pout. Donnie has been looking extra good lately and you haven't been able to get any of it!

"I'm so sorry, Y/N, I hadn't realized what's been going on. I've been so kept in my own thoughts and ideas that it just kind of took over me. How can I make it up to you?" He stares at you with pleading eyes.

"I have a few ideas in mind," smirking slyly you grab his hand, leading him further onto the bed for a night of fun. Suddenly you weren't as tired as you thought you were.

Mikey:

“Hey Mikey,” pulling out a chair, you sit down next to your boyfriend as he sketches away in his sketchbook.

“Hey Angelcakes, what’s up?” Putting down his pencils he looks up at you. You got him some art supplies for Christmas, knowing he was extremely talented.

“Nothing much I was about to go to the fridge and grab a bottle of soda. Do you want one?” Looking over his sketches you see that he was doodling funny pictures of his brothers.

“Yeah sure, that’d be great.” smiling up at you he leans over to give you a kiss.

Smirking, you walk into the kitchen area and make sure no ones around. As of lately Mikey has been a little busy with his art. He’s been running around town and practicing his graffiti and designs, which in turn has taken his attention away from you quite a bit. His lack of presence has left you to think, and that’s never a good thing because this is when a prank war starts. When you are left to your own devices and left “unsupervised” you come up with some whack shit, and this is one of them.

You walk over to the fridge to get a bottle of orange crush for your boyfriend and yourself. Reaching into your pocket you take out the roll of dental floss you placed there earlier. Setting the floss aside, you grab his bottle of soda and undo the cap and set that aside as well. Picking the floss container back up, you take out two small pieces and make an X over the rim of the bottle; reaching back into your pocket you pull out a single mentos mint and place it on the floss pieces. Quickly, you loosely screw the cap back on, just enough to hold everything in place, and grab some scissors.

After you had trimmed down the floss to where it couldn’t be seen anymore, you grab your bottle and head out to your awaiting boyfriend. When you walk out you notice that he’s still working on his art. Walking up you set both sodas aside and grab his face and kiss him. You use the distraction to move his artwork and tools aside so they don’t get ruined. Backing away you smile and wink at him and hand him his soda. He smiles back and stares at you as he uncaps his soda...only for it to start gushing all over his hand and then squirt up into his face.

“AH! Y/n, what did you do?!” he shouts as he quickly stands up and rushes over to the sink in the kitchen.

Mean while you’re still at the table laughing to the point where you’re snorting. You watch as he practically throws the bottle into the sink and stands there, dripping in orange crush soda with wide shocked eyes.

“I- I just put a mentos mint into your soda” you finally manage to get out in between laughs.

Slowly, Mikey starts to stalk towards you, still covered head to toe in sticky soda. “Oh y/n, I do believe I haven’t gotten a hug in quite some time. Why don’t you come over here?” A predatory glint sparks in his blue eyes.

Your heart stops, you start to panic because you’re wearing brand new clothes you just bought. Getting up from the table you go around to the back. “Mikey, let’s think about this, do you really wa- Ah! No! Mikey leave me alone! I just got these clothes!” he continues charging towards you with a smirk on his face.

“You should have thought about that before doing that, Anglecakes!” he laughed as he hopped over the soda covered table.

And suddenly, a prank war was born.

#TMNT #tmnt raphael #tmnt raph #tmnt leonardo #tmnt leo #tmnt donatello #tmnt Donnie #tmnt 2014 #tmnt 2016 #tmnt mikey #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt bayverse

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thesevenseraphs · 5 years ago

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Director’s Cut: Part III (Finale)

OK. When I started writing this Director’s Cut, I figured it would be an easy couple-thousand-word post. My plan was to rapidly look back at the past six months of Destiny 2 and layout a simple outline of where we want to go this Fall. I think I still did that, but I ended up wanting to talk more about the “why”, the team, and share how we are thinking about Destiny. I remember following games when I was younger and being excited to dig into the messages the developers put together, like Tigole’s posts on raids and dungeons back in my WoW days.

And I loved it. And I loved reading those posts.

Maybe this was all a love letter to long-form communication—a relic from a time before it was all hot takes, 140/280-character posts, and upvotes.

I didn’t think this would add up to something longer than almost every paper I wrote in college. But here we are.

Before we get to today’s programming, I want to circle back on reloader mods and also about mods more generally in Armor this fall, in case you missed my Twitter thoughts.

These general mods--which provide the exact same effect as Hand Cannon reloader (but also affects other small arms weapons)--cost 4-5 energy (depending on the mod) and do not have an elemental affinity associated with them.

These general mods -- of which there are 11 -- are unlocked for everyone automatically, so you can start to tinker right away.

Basically, when you want to specialize your weapon, it requires matching your armor's energy type.

And then you get an energy discount on socketing the mod.

Thanks for the questions on this.

Let’s finish this series by looking at combat—where the action game and RPG collide—and begin the conversation about the “single evolving world” portion of our vision. (We’ll have more on the evolving world later this month after the feeling has returned to my fingers.)

COMBAT: THE INEVITABLE COLLISION OF ACTION AND RPG

We want the game to be an awesome power fantasy where challenge can push back on its players. As we discussed in Part I, the game started to bend in Year 2 under the weight of this Power and Destiny’s imperative that it ride the line between action game and RPG. This section is going to explore that collision across a variety of places: the UI, the player character, and of course PvP.

Part I: Damage Numbers and the 999,999 Problem

Destiny 2 was built with very different goals in mind than was the much-improved version of the game we’re playing today. Some parts simply weren’t meant to last for several years. One of those parts is the displayed-damage values relative to the player’s Power level.

This problem most clearly manifests to players as the frequency of “999,999” showing up in your HUD. As the post-Forsaken year continued, the curve that dictates the value of displayed damage sharpens into a hockey stick. The display values for Shadowkeep rocket off the graph and become almost vertical!

This inflation for damage is getting retooled this Fall. It will look like a UI numbers squish, but more crucially, behind the scenes we’re setting up the damage-display system to last. It’s important that you understand we are not nerfing your outgoing damage; rather, we’re refactoring the displayed number game wide.

We’ve also had something that, over the years, the team has come to call “The Immunity Wall.” This is a value where players cannot damage AI. In the game today, if you’re 50 Power below an enemy and you shoot it, you deal a big ol’ donut. Another change we’ve made for fall is that we’ve lowered (raised?) the immunity wall to 100. This means you can now deal damage to enemies you are up to 100 Power below. The at-Power (you and an enemy are the same Power) experience isn’t changing. This isn’t a nerf. This is a way for folks to take on greater challenges by fighting further below the Power curve.

Part II: Buffs, Debuffs, and Stacking Rules

You know it, I know it, and Gladd knows it: The way damage stacking works in the game right now is busted. Multiplicative damage combines with the exponential damage inflation above to send damage numbers to soaring heights of “we cannot continue this way.”

We’ve taken all the weapon damage buffs (these enhance the player’s outgoing damage) that can appear on the character and stack-ranked their damage effects (these are effects like Empowering Rift, Well of Radiance, Lumina’s buff, and top-tree Void Titan’s Weapons of Light). We’ve also overhauled the system under the hood, so the damage calculations use only the most powerful buff on a player at a given time. It’s got nuance to it, though: If you’re under the damage effect of something stronger than Well of Radiance, you will still receive the healing effect from the Well, but the damage bonus would come from the other buff (e.g., Lumina or Weapons of Light).

We’ve made some changes to debuffs as well (a debuff is an effect that weakens the enemy). We’ve touched the effects and durations of a number of them. These effects include Hammer Strike, Shattering Strike, Tractor Cannon, and Shadowshot (Shadowshot will now work on powerful weapons as well).

In general, only one ability buff can be active on a player at a given time, and enemies can be affected by only one debuff at a time. There are notable exceptions in the form of Exotics and weapon amplification perks (Kill Clip, Rampage, et cetera). The Exotics and weapon amplification perks will remain multiplicative increases to damage above the ability buff values.

Here’s a simple version: Buffs that apply to a single weapon (Rampage, Kill Clip, Exotics) can still stack. But buffs that affect all your weapons no longer stack. The most powerful of those buffs will be applied to your damage. I’m sure someone is gonna make a video that shows this in action on October 1st.

Part III: Supers Everywhere

Masterworked guns. Super mods. Orbs everywhere.

Right now, for a pretty decent player running Super mods, the time it takes to gain a Super is under two minutes in PvP. If you compare the duration and damage of roaming Supers in Destiny 2 to roaming Supers in Destiny 1, you’ll see they’re more powerful now than ever before. We didn’t even have roaming Arc Titans in Destiny 1, but every time I play PvP, I get killed by one twice in the same Super. Similar to the way that deep down, we all know the damage-dealing capabilities of Guardians has gotten out of control, we know the Supers have too. Destiny 2 was overly restrictive at launch, but now the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. We’ll start bringing this back toward center in Shadowkeep.

On a livestream a couple months ago, I mentioned that we’re lowering roaming Super damage resistance. And we are. Seeing someone pop a Super should not instinctively make us want to run away, give up, or float off the map. We want Super kills to feel earned, and we want players on the business end of a Super to feel like they can make a big play and put down that Striker Titan. Being able to challenge someone in their Super is important, and right now, many of the Supers are very, very hard to challenge.

On top of that, more things than ever now contribute to players getting their Supers back, so we’re doing some tuning there as well. Supers will be just as powerful, but they will be a more strategic choice. As such, we’re reducing the effectiveness of orbs on refilling the Super meter and reducing the Super energy gained from kills and assists.

This isn’t just a PvP problem. Remember that series on the Reckoning in Part I? It’s all related. Supers are still very, very powerful in the PvE game—players will just need to be slightly more specific with their timing and positioning than in the past. This kind of tuning is a pendulum: We’ve swung it hard in different directions, and we’re all hopeful that these changes will begin to find a better middle ground for Destiny 2.

I know you’ll let us know your thoughts (once you’ve played it this Fall).

Part IV: Heavy Ammo Available

In Destiny 1, Heavy ammo became an in-match rally point in 6v6 matches. Once opened, players nearby would all get some Heavy ammo. In Destiny 2, Heavy ammo is a jockey-for-position speed-before-need looting game that gets played all the time. In Destiny 1, Heavy ammo felt metered, and in Destiny 2 you can defeat a team (but not an Arc Titan) multiple times with a brick for a Hammerhead.

See where is this heading?

We’re making some changes to Heavy ammo in Destiny 2: Heavy ammo will be communal in 6v6 playlists. We’re also reducing the amount of ammo per brick in PvP for certain 6v6 archetypes. It’s not exactly the same as D1 though—when a player cracks open the Heavy crate, other players have a window of time to interact with it to get their Heavy ammo.

Part V: Let’s Talk About PvP

There has been a lot of conversation (internally and externally!) at different points during the year around the support Bungie provides PvP. On one hand, we have continued to tune the game each quarter, added pinnacle PvP weapons (that somehow ended up as pinnacle PvE weapons), tried out a ranking system in the Crucible, and returned the game to its 6v6 roots. On the other hand: We haven’t released a new permanent game mode, many game modes from Destiny 1 are nowhere to be seen, there isn’t a public-facing PvP team, and the last real thing we said was Trials is staying on hiatus indefinitely.

Let’s get some of this sorted out.

Trials of the Nine wasn’t the hero we wanted it to be. We made too many changes to a formula that—while it had begun to decline in Destiny 1—wasn’t as flawed as we thought. When we were making Destiny 2, we talked a lot about making sure it felt like a sequel, bringing in new players, and simplifying the game—and Trials of the Nine created another casualty there. It happened on my watch, and if I could turn back time, I’d challenge us to do many things differently. If nothing else, I hope it’s clear we are committed to learning from the mistakes we make and making it right.

There were some really cool parts to the Emissary. Some of the gear was pretty potent (Sup, Darkest Before), but the theme felt weaker, the Trials card was less important, and the stakes felt lower. Trials of the Nine didn’t work the way we’d hoped, and Trials of the Nine is on hiatus indefinitely.

So why have we been so quiet about PvP? Well, we didn’t have a lot to say. We weren’t actively developing something to hype up. We knew PvP was going to be something everyone got for free in New Light, so it wasn’t really a part of the Shadowkeep core offering. What are we doing about PvP became a question we were asked internally, too. A bunch of folks on our team are passionate about PvP and wanted to know where it was heading.

PvP is in need of some quality-of-life improvements and restructuring. This Fall, with New Light (hopefully) bringing a bunch of new folks into Destiny and with our existing players looking for some updates to PvP, we will start by making significant changes to the PvP portion of the Director.

Today, it’s a fine balance between adding playlists and maintaining healthy populations when we’re looking at changes to playlist structures. We want to achieve a couple of goals: First, we want players to have some more agency with respect to “pick a playlist, play a mode.” And second, we want the playlists to drift back to the “everything is a factor of 3” that Destiny 1 used (and that the rest of the game mostly uses).

Player counts being based on a common number (like 3) is important. It enables a bunch of activity options for groups of friends to engage with. In Destiny 1, players could run a couple strike groups, team up for a raid, go play 6v6 PvP, split up and go to 3v3 PvP, et cetera. At launch, Destiny 2’s 4v4 PvP completely broke this pattern, and we want to reset that bone with PvP this Fall.

We’ve revised the playlists a lot, and here’s how it’s going to work:

We’ve removed the Quickplay and Competitive nodes from the Director.

If you’re looking for an experience like Quickplay, we’ve added Classic Mix (a connection-based playlist [like Quickplay today]). Classic Mix includes Control, Clash, and Supremacy.

Competitive is replaced by 3v3 Survival (which now awards Glory).

We’ve also added a Survival Solo Queue playlist that also awards Glory.

We’ve added 6v6 Control as its own playlist.

With the potential influx of new players this Fall, we want to have a playlist that signals to new players that this is where to start.

We feel like 6v6 Control is the right starting place when introducing new friends to Destiny.

We’ve added a weekly 6v6 rotator and a weekly 4v4 rotator.

These rotator playlists are where modes like Clash, Supremacy, Mayhem, Lockdown, and Countdown will appear.

We’ve removed some underperforming maps from matchmaking, too.

We’ve also been working on four variants of 3v3 Elimination. They include different approaches to revives (token resurrection or not) and variations on how Heavy ammo works. Elimination is going to make its return in Crucible Labs. However, Elimination is very much unfinished. It’s missing VO, and there are no unique medals associated with it. Between the missing polish and the four variants we’d like your feedback on, Elimination—for the time being—is a great fit for Crucible Labs. We fully expect it to graduate out of Labs and find a warmer home.

We wanted to make sure we could test Elimination on some familiar maps, so we’ve brought back Widow’s Court and Twilight Gap. We want to play with you, and watch you play Elimination in this combat sandbox and see how it all fits together.

We’re also changing how we do matchmaking. With a bunch of potential new players entering Destiny via New Light, we don’t want PvP to feel like you’re being told it’s time to learn to swim as the helicopter door opens over the Pacific Ocean. So, we’ve made some changes to separate the new swimmers from the Olympians.

Additionally, we’ve also taken a longer look at matchmaking and overhauled the skill-matching system. In the game today, Quickplay is the only playlist that doesn’t have some version of skill matching in the game. We’re preserving that behavior (connection matchmaking) in the 6v6 Classic Mix playlist. Here’s what gets really annoying about skill match:

When it’s overly restrictive, it’s fatiguing when every single game feels like a sweat fest.

When it’s overly loose, a player can get an entire evening of unlucky matchmaking RNG where they’re getting dumped on by squads of Terminators shredding Kinderguardians. A bad time (for the Kinderguardians)!

There’s much more complexity and nuance to an evening of PvP than those two statements above, but they do accurately capture the core problem: a lack of match-to-match variety. Sure, for a bunch of Terminators, a night of stomping might be a blast, but what about the folks on the receiving end of that business? This is where it gets tricky to improve matchmaking—people generally tend to focus on their own experience in their feedback.

We think variety across an evening of PvP is important. This Fall, skill match should ensure a wider variety of matches, regardless of player skill. Some matches should be tense and thrilling, while other matches should be stomps. This philosophy should also apply to the top players, so they don’t feel like every match is a sweatshow, either. We’ve refactored how players gain Glory ranks with these skill match changes—we’re factoring in your skill value to Glory gains and losses, so that number can more effectively represent skill. We’ve also made a number of quality-of-life changes to Glory, Valor, and Infamy to make losses less punishing to your streaks. Once the above changes go live in October, we’ll be watching, listening, and reading as you check them out.

AN EVOLVING WORLD

There’s an aspirational vision for what “evolving” could mean for Destiny. Someday, Destiny could become a dynamic world, where the world changes each season. We want playing Destiny to feel like you're playing in a game world with true momentum, a universe that is going somewhere. A game where things are happening—not just in terms of new items and activities but also in terms of narrative. It’s frequently seemed like Destiny was treading water in terms of moving the world’s narrative forward. We want to tackle this in Destiny 2’s third year.

During Season 8, a new situation will unfold on the Moon (I’m being cagey here only because I am reluctant to spoil anything). Over the course of the season, parts of the game will change before the situation culminates in an event that will ultimate resolve it, and its content will be exhausted. But this resolution sets up the events of Season 9, which again adds something new to the game and resolves it, something that too will go away, but not before setting up Season 10, et cetera.

This differs from last year’s Annual Pass, which permanently added activities to the game. This year will see events that last for three months and offer new rewards to chase, although at the end of that period, some of the activities will go away. For a time, the rewards will too. But we also acknowledge that part of playing Destiny is collecting all of the stuff, so in future seasons the weapons and Legendary armor associated with these seasonal activities will be added to other reward sites.

I alluded to some of this when we were Looking Back. The game continuing to grow forever isn’t something we can support. Destiny’s simulation, fidelity, and architecture fundamentally make it a big game. I’ve seen a lot of “game X does it, why can’t Destiny?” but the referenced games and ours have very different technical profiles.

Technical limitations aside, we also don’t think making a game that grows forever is Destiny’s path forward. It’s why the second component of the vision is a single, evolving world (to clarify, that single evolving world doesn’t mean there’s only one destination on the Director—that’s not where we’re heading!).

You were there with your friends, got the gear and weapons to remember it by, made the memories, and changed alongside Destiny.

In late August, we’re going to talk more about the Annual Pass and how it’s continuing to evolve.

CLOSING TIME

If you’ve made it this far, thanks. I think I could probably write another 10,000 words about this game. This Fall is my ninth working on Destiny. And at times it’s felt way longer than nine years. There have been dark, dark days. For you. For us here, and certainly for me. But this year has been special—it’s been a lot of fun talking with you all and getting to try some different things (whether they are a stream where I turned up unshowered because my hot water went out the morning of [yep] or a Twitter promise that turned into way too many words [this]).

The Bungie team has worked incredibly hard, and we’re excited to get Shadowkeep onto your hard drives in October. Big thanks to them for their hard work and also for helping me put this together on a comically tight timeline. Many, many emails and work-related IMs were sent during the construction of this message.

Thanks for playing, reading, and being a part of this community.

#Destiny #Destiny 2 #Destiny 2: Forsaken #long post #Destiny 2: Shadowkeep

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tcrushing4years · 6 years ago

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something more

10/31/18

Hey all

So I believe the last time I updated was when I said that I’m finally starting to let go of Joseph. That is still true, but more stuff has happened where I’m more confused than ever before. He and I have been talking off and on all semester thus far. Usually catching up or sending each other stuff that remind us of each other etc. And it’s been weird because I’ve kinda been seeing someone and he knows ab it but he brings him up a lot in ways that make me like tilt my head and question the intention behind asking, not that I’m uncomfy but just like his wording makes it sound like he’s idk threatened almost? But anyways, my grandmother got sick and eventually passed away over the weekend and thus I am back home. So of course I went back to school to just say hi to friends and teachers and well. I saw him again. It went as follows.

I walked into his room and he was facing his computer so I put my stuff down and said “hey” in the way that I used to so he knew it was me. And he kinda sat up and did a head tilt and then turned around

J: oh my god

He got up and gave me a hug.

J: Why are you here?!

Me: to come visit

J: no why are you here here. are you okay? what’s wrong, what happened?

Me: my grandma passed away on Sunday

J: oh no marie, I’m sorry. I knew you were close

Me: thank you. But it’s good to be home

J: Ya I bet. give me a sec to finish something

I just waited and looked at him. Not much had changed. He was clean shaven and his hair was longer than usual. Tanner than usual. no new wrinkles but the old ones are a bit more defined.

J: take a seat!

Me: haha

J: how are you how is everything?

Me: pretty much the same! I mean other than than the obvious, but things have been going good

J: Thats amazing to hear!

Me: And how about you how are things here?

J: the same, but good

Me: and you’re liking your classes and stuff? The students are good?

J: Not as good as last year, but still good. I’m tinkering with the class here and there, last year was a huge test run for me, its nice to have one year under my belt

Me: I bet. Especially because like its really difficult stuff ya know?

J: I know! And I think they knew that because you guys got the word out, but you didn’t know what to expect.

We continue just talking like this and going on about the class then my family and the entire time like he would nbe talking and I couldn’t help but smile at him, it was so refreshing to see him. And at one point I had to get up to go get my water bottle and he went

J: Dont pretend like its not good to see me

Me: I wasn’t trying to, it is good to see you

We both giggle. Then as we are talking he notices that he has one of his freshmen taking a test and so he asks if he and I were being too loud and she said just a little and he went

J: okay Marie why don’t you scoot closer

Then shortly there after another student comes in and asks him ab something and he was being a little bit of a hard ass and I defended her and with the biggest smile on his face he said

J: stay out of this, you

I think he was happy to have me around. We talked about my love life a bit as he knows Ive been seeing someone, but I am going to break things off once I return back to NY and I wish I was more focused on him than the things I was saying. The conversation kept going and ended somewhat like this and kinda abruptly

J: when do you leave?

Me: Saturday morning

J mutters something ab me being the only one back then says: I have some work to do, but I would love to see you before you leave. Would you like to get *insert name of local ice cream place we love but have never been to together* on Thursday

Me: ya that would be cool

J: and obviously you’re here to be with family and such so I won’t be offended if you’re too busy

Me: No no its all good, Im here to spend time with people that fill me up with good vibes it’ll work out

J: You probably don’t have your car so I’m happy to come pick you up

Me: ya sure its whatever

J: don’t play alll cool and its whatever

Me: I wasn’t trying to!! I was merely saying that whatever works, I’m down for

J: okay see you then?

Me: see you then

The obviously I leave the class and shit my pants because that was textbook fantasy of how our first meeting after me being in college would be. I’m nervous for tomorrow, but trying not to but anyyyy expectations on it. Crazy that its gonna be a reality. Ill keep y’all updated.

#tcc #teacher crush #tc #teacher crush community #dreams come true

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blackberrywidow · 6 years ago

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His Legacy [IV]

Summary: Tony Stark had never wanted to be a father– had never wanted to risk passing on the Stark’s legacy of absentee fathers and childhood trauma. But looking at his son now, swaddled tightly in his arms, he knew that he was always meant to be his father. Peter was the best thing to ever happen to him, and his would be the only legacy that mattered. (AU in which Tony is Peter’s biological father)

Warnings: Language, angst, death mention.

Word Count: 2.3k

A/N: Okay, so a significant time jump here to get things moving. Hope everyone is prepared for some serious angst.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

---

“Are you excited, Pete?” Tony asked, turning to look at his son, who was strapped into his booster seat and sipping on a juice box.

“No,” he answered sullenly, blowing air back into the box just to smash it down. Tony had to suppress a smile, knowing Mary wouldn’t approve of him encouraging his “bad behavior.”

“Give me the juice box, Peter,” Mary chastised, turning around from where she sat in the front seat to grab the juice box from him. She turned to Tony with an exasperated look. “He’s been like this all morning. He doesn’t want to go.”

“I just want to spend the day with you or Daddy!” Peter responded, crossing his little arms and pouting. “I don’ wanna go to preschool.”

“Come on, kid,” Tony encouraged. “It won’t be so bad. You’ll get to make friends and learn cool stuff. And if you learn enough, maybe you’ll even be able to work with me some day.”

“Really?!” Peter yelled and Mary turned back to give Tony a reproachful look. “That would be so cool.”

“His only four, Tony,” Mary reminded him. “He’s way too young to be putting that kind of pressure on him.”

“I’m not putting pressure on the kid,” Tony defended as Peter chattered on about how cool school would be and how he wanted to be like his dad. Tony’s heart warmed at the thought, knowing he didn’t deserve his son or his hero-worship, but grateful all the same. “I’m just encouraging him to go to school. He’ll forget about it by tomorrow.”

“No I won’t,” Peter cut in, taking a break to correct him before launching back into telling Happy about how he was going to grow up and be cool like his dad. Happy responded in typical Happy fashion, which meant not at all, but Tony knew he had a soft spot for the kid a mile-wide, though he tried not to show it.

A minute later and they were pulling up to the school. Peter had been full of energy and ready to tackle his first day after Tony’s pep talk, at least until Tony helped him out of the car and he face the school for the first time.

His small hand gripped Tony’s tighter, and he reached out for Mary’s as well once she rounded the car. Mary smiled down at him before taking his hand and walking forward, guiding both Tony and Peter to the front door.

“Alright Peter,” Mary said, crouching down and adjusting Peter’s shirt collar the way she always did when she was nervous. “You’re going to have a great day, okay? It’s just for a few hours, and then I’ll be here to pick you up at noon. Then we’ll do something fun to celebrate your first day. How does that sound?”

“Daddy too?” Peter questioned with wide eyes.

Mary glanced up at Tony worriedly before returning her gaze to her son. “I think your dad has a meeting today—”

“But I’ll reschedule,” Tony reassured, crouching down to give Peter a quick high-five and a smile. “I wouldn’t miss it, kid.”

With that, Peter smiled wide and gave his mother one last hug before bounding off into the school.

“Well, that didn’t take much,” Tony commented.

Mary rolled her eyes and turned to make her way back to where Happy was waiting with the car, Tony following after her. “He looks up to you, Tony. That’s all it ever takes.”

“I know,” Tony acknowledged with a chuckle. “I’m afraid of the day when I’m not his hero anymore.”

He said it jokingly, unthinkingly revealing a real fear he had. One he didn’t like to consider. How would Peter feel about his father in ten years, when the glamour of having a “cool dad” wore off and he realize he was just a man who had a past full of skeletons and bad memories?

“Then don’t ever stop being his hero,” Mary said easily, climbing into the back seat. Tony doubted that it would be that easy, but it was nice to hope.

“Boss, I can dri—” Happy tried to offer, but Tony was quick to cut him off. He only ever rode as a passenger when Peter was in the car, which both Mary and Happy knew.

“Sorry, Hap, but you get shot gun.”

Happy grumbled to himself, but went to the passenger side as Tony slid into the driver’s seat. “So, you heading to work Mary?” he asked, pulling out of the line of cars.

“Oh no,” Mary said, her eyes snapping up to Tony’s in the rearview mirror. “You can drop me back off at home. I took the day off for this. Besides, I still have to sort through some of my mom’s things with Ben. He said he’d come over later to help.”

Tony nodded, turning right to head back towards the Parkers’ residence, and he chuckled. “It’s been almost three years, Mary. You guys still haven’t finished going all of her suff?”

Mary rolled her eyes, but seemed annoyed as she said. “Ben likes to hold onto things, so it’s like pulling teeth to get him to get rid of anything. She’s been gone for nearly three years and he still wants to cry every time he looks at a teapot that she used when we were kids.”

Tony shrugged, eyes focused on the road as he switched lanes a little too closely, making Happy grip the oh-shit-handle even tighter and close his eyes. “Well, it’s understandable. Sentiment is hard to let go of some times.”

Mary raised a brow, mouth quirking up in a smirk. “I didn’t peg you for the sentimental sort, Tony Stark.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Tony lied, thinking about the boxes full of his mom’s old things from over a decade ago that he had in storage. “But Ben is, so go easy on him, okay?”

“I’ll try my best. But speaking of Ben, he wanted me to make sure that you were really okay with watching Peter for me while I’m gone. He said he and May would be more than happy to.”

“He’s my son too, Mary,” Tony reminded her, rolling his eyes as he pulled up in front of her house. “I can handle it.”

---

“Don’t forget to make sure he has his blankie—he can’t sleep without it—and he needs to take his multivitamin every day.” Mary was straightening Peter’s collar, fretting over him in Tony’s doorway as he watched on in exasperation.

“I know, Mary. It’s not like he’s never stayed the night with me.” Tony rolled his eyes, trying to hide the fact that he was actually offended by her coddling.

Mary straightened, looking at Tony with softer eyes. “I know, Tony. It’s just that this will be the longest I’ll go without seeing him, and I… I mean, it’s a whole week Tony. I know you’ll be okay, I just worry. I’m a mom,” she said with a forced laughed, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s what I do.”

“I get it,” Tony said, because he did. It was part of you that changed when you had kids—the constant worry and need to be close to them. To make sure they were all right. It was something he was well aware of after four years. “But he’ll be fine. It’s just a week. I’ll keep him safe and happy until you get back. Isn’t that right Pete?” Tony reassured her, swooping down to pick up his giggling son.

“Yeah, Dad. We’re gonna have lots of fun!” Peter chortled as Tony tickled his sides.

Mary smiled, stepping back and looking resigned. “I know, sweetie. Well, I’m off then. Wish me luck!”

“Good luck!” Peter cheered, giving his mom a big wave and wide smile.

“Knock ‘em dead, Mary,” Tony encouraged.

Mary rolled her eyes. “I’ll do my best. You know how they can be though—change is bad. But hopefully they’ll see the merit in what we’re doing.”

Tony nodded, though he didn’t really understand all of Mary’s issue. In Tony’s line of work, the more change the better. But weapons development was a far different occupation than Mary’s… which Tony wasn’t exactly sure on anyway. It was understood that their work lives weren’t something they talked about, considering Mary’s aversion to Tony’s “Merchant of Death” lifestyle.

“Well, I’m sure everything will go fine. And I’ll have Petey here waiting for you when it does.”

Mary forced a tight-lipped smile and nodded. She leaned forward to give her son one last kiss on the cheek before heading back out to the car that was waiting to take her to the airport.

---

It was seven hours later, and Peter had just gone to bed for the night and Tony was on his way to his lab to do some late-night tinkering when he got the call.

“Rhodey.” Tony smiled as he picked up the call, pushing open the door to his lab. “It’s almost 9. Way past your bedtime. What—?”

“You need to turn on your TV, Tony. Channel 9.” Rhodey’s voice was heavy and stern, and it immediately put Tony on edge. Enough so that he immediately did as he said, grabbing the remote and turning on the TV that was set up in the corner of the lab.

The first thing he saw was an aerial shot of a smoldering plane.

“What is this?” Tony rasped. “Rhodey, what the fuck is this?”

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Rhodey sighed as the words scrolled across the bottom: U.S. plane crashes in Argentina. Casualties unknown.

“No, no, no. That’s not her plane, is it? Mary wasn’t on that plane, Rhodey. Please just tell me—”

“I just saw the report, Tony. They haven’t made it public knowledge yet since the families haven’t been informed, but… there were no survivors. I’m so sorry, Tony. I… I’m just so sorry.”

Tony crashed into a chair, not even noticing as it rolled back several feet from the force. This couldn’t be happening. Not to him. Not to his son.

“I… I’ll have to tell Ben and May. God, I have to tell Peter. How am I supposed to do that, Rhodes? How can I tell my son that his mother is dead? How can I—” Tony cut himself off with a gasping sob and buried his head in his hands. Mary was Peter’s momand now she was gone. Now he was doing this entirely on his own, and he didn’t how to even begin to process his grief and help his son through his and raisehim all on his own.

This couldn’t be happening.

“I’m on my way now, Tony. I’ll be at your place in twenty, and we’ll work through what you need to do together. I’m so sorry man, but you don’t have to go through this on your own. I’ll see you soon.”

Tony nodded, not even considering the fact that Rhodey couldn’t see him through the phone, and hung up.

He sat there for a long time, unmoving and unsure, waiting for Rhodey to arrive. He wasn’t sure what else he could do at the moment.

His parents hadn’t even made it to the airport before they crashed. But Mary had and she was still dead. Now the mother of his son was dead.

He had been twenty-one when his parents had died. Peter was four. How could he tell his son that still watched Dora the Explorer and believed that he’d see his mom next week, his son that had been untouched by death until now, that his mother was gone?

He didn’t know. He didn’t even know how to process it himself, so he was grateful when Rhodey appeared in his lab with soothing words and a plan. He barely listened as Rhodey tried to console him, because ultimately words were meaningless and he was more worried about Peter asleep upstairs, oblivious to the fact that his life had just been torn apart.

But it was good that Rhodey was here. He knew Rhodey would make sure he didn’t do anything stupid like drink himself into a coma and would force him to do the unpleasant task of giving Mary’s last living relative the news.

The anguish in Ben’s voice was nothing like his own, and it almost broke Tony’s heart. Telling someone that their sister was dead was a task he had never thought he would have, and it hurt him to hear someone that he genuinely cared about in so much pain.

He couldn’t even fathom how Peter would take it.

After the phone call ended, Tony flopped back into the chair, eyes distant as he stared at the phone in his hand, relieved and sad that there was no one else to call. There was no one else that would miss Mary Parker.

Tony wondered how many calls would have not be made when he died. Not many.

“Tony,” Rhodey’s voice cut through the static, and he snapped back into the present situation. “Listen, worrying about it isn’t going to do anything for you right now. Just… just get some sleep alright? You’ll just need to tell Peter in the morning. There’s no sense in waking him up now. Just give him some more time to…”

“To live in a world where his mom isn’t dead?” Tony filled in, his voice coming out less snarky than he had intended. His tone was empty, hollow just like the feeling in his chest.

“Yeah,” Rhodey said, grabbing Tony’s shoulder and pulling him out of the chair. “But I mean it Tony. You guys aren’t in this alone. You’ve got me, Pepper, Happy, Obi. We’ll help you through this. Together.”

Tony nodded as he stumbled his way up the stairs to his bed, though he didn’t feel like he was anything but alone.

It was just him and Peter now, and no pretty words or good intentions would change that.

Part Five

#marvel #mcu fanfiction #Tony Stark #Mary Parker #Peter Parker #James Rhodes #Happy Hogan #iron dad and spider son #iron family #iron man #spider-man #war machine #young Peter Parker #AU Tony is Peter's biological father #his legacy #my writing #tw: death mention #tw: language

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lyra-rey · 6 years ago

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The Alternative || Lyra

She was at an underground lab when the sirens were blaring. Her mind was on the new gauntlet she made to help a young pyrokinetic control his powers at Hyperion and the disappointment that she wouldn’t be able to share it with her mentor. She had tried to reach out to Professor Berners several times since his wife passed away, but he has ignored her efforts. Still, she wanted to call him, her finger hovering over his name when she was told they were under lock down.

Scientists and engineers ran regardless of where they were told to go, but Lyra stayed put. Their underground research facility was made to survive worse than whatever emergency was going on above ground.

She was correct, of course. The lab was untouched and the engineers who remained were perfectly fine. After several hours, she volunteered to see what was going on. She climbed up the steps to the surface, hoping that whatever happened had passed and that first responders were already at the scene to help with the damage.

What she found was a battleground and creatures she’s never seen before pouring onto the streets.

ii.

They stayed underground for as long as they could survive, but given their shortage or resources, they had to leave eventually. Lyra had plans already written down, ideas and safe areas that might still be accessible to them. She assumed that there are places outside of the city for them to escape to, but she didn’t want to run without knowing where she was going. A few others decided to stay with her, more so because she had a plan than because they believed in her.

When they surface, it was a lot worse than Lyra had thought. Buildings were decimated, whole blocks turned into rubble. Her plans went out the window.

iii.

She stayed in the lab, surfacing only to grab supplies. Only two engineers chose to stay with her, Lydia and Caesar. They don’t particularly like each other but Lyra figured that they want the company. Someone is better than no one. She figured out how to make a small garden down there, but she knew it won’t last. Through a radio and a lot of tinkering, she found a list of the people pronounced dead. She couldn’t breathe when she saw her parents’ names on the list.

Lydia kept track of the Unity attack while Lyra found things to keep her mind busy. She thought of inventions and ways to rebuild the city. Her thoughts went to the electromagnetic levitation theory she had mulled over but never got around to finishing. She did her best to not think about her parents, her friends, and all the people who were dead several feet above them. The pain in her chest when she thought about them always brought her to tears and if this was even a fraction of what Professor Berners felt, she understood why he was so distant.

Still, she worked. Working was better than thinking about what was going on above them.

iv.

Lydia was taken by Unity when she went to look for supplies. Caesar knew it immediately and forced Lyra to leave. “Unity will be there to take them next. We have to run!”

She didn’t want to, but she did. She left the safety of the underground bunker and ran. She didn’t know where she was going, but she ran as fast as she could anyway.

She found a hole to hide in and hoped Caesar got away.

In her hole, there was nothing for her to occupy her mind with, nothing except the pain that was overtaking her. She wanted her mother to tell her that she could get out of this. She yearned to have her father pull her into a hug. She wanted to quit so badly, to go to Unity and accept whatever fate they would give her.

But she saw Lydia. She saw what they had done to her. She didn’t want to be a mindless drone. She was the smartest person in the city. Lyra was determined to maintain that.

She survived. Surviving alone is easier than in a group. You find what you need and hide out until you have to find more. She had never fashioned herself a thief, but she was smart enough to figure it out. She busied herself with whatever books she could find, occasionally making notes the way she used to--plans for a counteroffensive the world was in no shape to make. Planning it made her feel a little better, as if she could get the revenge she wanted if she made it perfect enough.

From her hiding places, she observed her enemy. She noted the way they walked, how silent they seemed. It wasn’t difficult to recognize their hive mind, but combating it was another issue. She worked with frequencies, hoping that there was one that might cause some discomfort. There were a few that triggers a reaction, but none sufficient enough to keep them away. Regardless, they were a unit that could see everything and anything all at the same time.

She wondered what it would take to break down that connection. She saw the people taken by Unity, their walks not quite human even if they did their best to appear so. Sometimes, she saw Lydia among them.

Her mind focused on her research to the point where she forgets how long she had been working on it. Years? Months? Days? Lyra wouldn’t know. But she had her theories and her notebooks full of Unity and ways to combat them. She was never quite the tactician, but she found a couple books since then. Now, she put herself to sleep at night, dreaming of how she would take them down.

Being alone had never bothered her before, but she felt it at night, when there was no one else to talk to or bounce ideas off of. On those nights, she looked to the stars, imagining that there was something out there better than the aliens that invaded her home.

vi.

They called themselves the Resistance, which Lyra thought was a stupid name. They were a small group in Newhaven, composed of the few survivors left in the city. She was grateful to see Caesar among them.

For a group called the Resistance, they didn’t do much. Lyra shared her research with them, but they had already come to similar conclusions, albeit without the technical terms she had used. Nothing changed that there was little they could do other than take Unity down one alien at a time.

Lyra saw the impracticality of that plan, but she didn’t argue with them. She didn’t want them to toss her out so she played their game.

Along with Caesar, they made their living situations livable with water and a reasonable amount of electricity. They built tunnels and escape routes in case of an emergency and tried to make themselves useful. She used the alien technology to make new things. Weapons came by easily, but she studied the way they are run and came up with a more efficient form of energy for their power generators.

For once, Lyra’s heart wasn’t in rebuilding. It was in the work the scientists were doing, inspecting and figuring out how the aliens worked. Whenever she could, she found herself talking to the duo of scientists, Mackenzie and Yoshi, although, Yoshi was more of a physicist than biological scientist. Regardless, they talked and discussed theories and it almost felt like old times for her.

viii.

It might not have been Lyra’s idea to bring in the alien body for a proper dissection, but she was vocal about her approval. She stressed that they couldn’t fight something they didn’t know about and it shouldn’t be too hard to drag back a body of an alien they already killed.

No one else liked the idea of bringing an alien into their base of operations, but they compromised. Lyra prepared a building for the experimentation far away from the base and they got to do their experiments.

The alien had clearly been dead a long time before it reached the table, but Lyra still made sure to use extra force when cutting it open. She made thorough notes as Yoshi drew out anatomy as best as he could. The three of them talked little as they worked, almost as if they were afraid the alien would come back to life on the table. Lyra just wanted to make sure she wasn’t missing anything.

ix.

Their research sent them to dead ends. They understood some of their basic organs, but their brains were too complicated for them to figure out how the hive brain works. Yoshi wanted to call it quits, but Mackenzie was adamant that there has to be a way to break the connection. Words were whispered about her husband and daughter who were unified, but Lyra paid them no mind.

Lyra came up with an idea.

They called her insane. The Resistance called the plan ridiculous and claimed it definitely wouldn’t work. Caesar told her personally that she should let it go.

She didn’t.

A few gunho soldiers agreed to her foolish plan. They memorized the routes Unity took and cornered one. Their unified came for the attack, but Lyra was already there, stabbing Unity with enough electricity to burn an average human alive. The unified screamed along with their master, but then they attacked, despite the pain. The unified took out the soldiers and Lyra was forced to run with whoever survived.

She was reprimanded when she returned to the base and they threatened to throw her out. Lyra couldn’t bring herself to argue otherwise, but they let her stay, if only because she was the only one who could fix the generator.

Mackenzie asked if it worked, but Lyra refused to tell her. Even if it did, she vowed to never do something like that again.

A boy nearly blew up the entire base when his powers came in and they were forced to move to a more secure location. The leaders questioned their safety and his parents begged them not to throw him out. Lyra offered an alternative.

Her equipment was rudimentary at best, but with alien technology, she managed to figure out how his power worked biologically. From there, she only needed to create a way for him to channel his powers. They manifest in a pair of gloves that absorbed the heat he created and converted it into energy that could be distributed back into his body. He was much more hyper than normal, but otherwise completely safe.

The success with him resulted in others going to her for help. Lyra did what she could for them. Not everyone had a gift that she could create something for, but she tried anyway.

Her name made its rounds through the underground resistance and those with powers began to seek her out. A teleporter named Percy offered his assistance to her after she figured out a way to stop him from teleporting in his sleep and she went wherever she was needed.

xi.

Lyra has all but given up on the world by the time she meets the young man by the name of Royland B. Giver. The resistance was almost completely dead, most of the friends she had made having been unified or killed. The only way she was still alive was through Percy.

Royland’s powers are different than everyone else’s and she finds herself obsessed with them. She feels like a child again when she asks him questions and tries to figure out a way to help him recall the abilities that he learns. It’s through the research done by her long dead friend, Mackenzie, that she begins to put things together.

If she can replicate the hive mind, she can save the powers.

The hive mind was beyond Lyra’s ability in her youth and she had given up her attempt to understand Unity when the remaining super people asked for her help. But Mackenzie continued her research up until her own death. Through her notes she saw theories of how the hive mind worked, more than enough for Lyra to play with.

xii.

She comes to the conclusion that she needs fresh Unity bodies if she is going to make this happen and she can’t bring herself to do so. The Resistance asks her what her next move is and she keeps evading their questions. She knows the only way she might be able to help him would be brain fluid, but how can she ask for soldiers to die for one man.

She tells Royland and he says he understands.

He returns a few weeks later with a body of Unity in tow. Lyra is furious at him, but he assures her that no one was hurt too bad. He promises that he was careful and that no one followed him back. When her anger dies down, she asks him why. He insists it is because she needed it.

xiii.

The first suit is rudimentary, but it works. He keeps two powers in it and it is more than enough to keep them safe at the least. Lyra tells him how it works but he only gives her a smile. She figures it doesn’t matter if he knows how it works as long as it does work.

She is working on improvements to it when he asks her why he can’t understand what she’s doing.

“It’s not a power, kid. It’s just stubbornness and lots of reading.”

She is able to add two more powers.

xiv.

He becomes more powerful than anyone of the Resistance can imagine. She receives praises for her work, but she keeps saying that it isn’t finished yet. There is more to be added.

No one says anything when she begins coughing too much. She claims it is a cold, but she recognizes the signs. Mackenzie had been coughing a lot too after a while. She takes a break from researching, but the cough stays. She is technically an old woman now, older than her mother ever was. It’s normal for her to be getting sick, possibly even dying. She’s trained a few to follow in her footsteps, though none are quite what she was at their age.

After several months, her cough remains and Lyra works on his suit again. If she was going to die, she wanted to at least get his suit working properly before then. By the time she finishes it off, he is no doubt the soldier they need to take on Unity.

If only he wasn’t so outnumbered.

xv.

The Resistance has a plan and Royland volunteers to go.

Lyra is already bedridden, not the spry young woman she once was. But she adds him another slot anyway. Her hands are too shaky to complete and she has her protegee build it into the suit for her. She can see the defects her protegee has created as she installs it and is incredibly annoyed that she can’t fix it herself.

“It’s a one way ticket. There’s no way her horrible work will be able to maintain the power for you to use it twice.”

Royland is grateful anyway.

xvi.

She is there when he poofs back to 2018. She wonders if he would see her there, a woman with a million ideas and not enough time to put them together.

She’s confident that he will fix it, that there will be a timeline somewhere where they are happy.

She hopes she did her part to save the world.

#dr rey #self para #au: unity won #the alternative #;i apologize for this length ok #this really got away with me

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deafeningsuitdestiny · 4 years ago

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The Elephant in the Room

Chapter one, My beginning

Hey there,

how are you?

Me, well I'm doing okay. To be honest a little roughed up, but okay none the less. My names Paige, I'm 22 and a bit of a nerd.

I spend most of my time in my room, by myself, hiding in my world of electronics. That's kind of what ive always done. My whole life has been a bit of a rollarcoaster. I was born in '98 and while others wouldnt, I do wholehartedly consider myself a '90's baby. Not that I actually remember much of the 90's.

I've grew up in the sunny and ever so saught after california Inland Empire, in a tiny town called Norco, horse town USA. No, I didn't ever have a horse in my backyard growing up. But I always had one at my grandparents. Tinker was her name when I was young. We never rode her, grandma always said that she had hurt her foot when she was younger so we couldn't. I personally just think my grandma left her alone for so long that she wasn't a 'broke' horse anymore.

Not that that was her fault. She has arthritis really bad in both knees and has had it for as long as I can remember. Growing up i spent a lot of time with my grandma. I was at her house almost everyday. Both of my parents worked. My dad in construction and my mom at a christian pre-school. That meant that every morning, Monday through Friday at 4-5 A.M, I was hauled over to grandmas house. I have endless love for my grandma for so many reasons. Her home has always been a safe haven for me to go, and really has been my whole life, even as an adult.

My childhood is probably one of the most complex parts of my life. I've never really been one to talk about it, or myself really. If you would have asked me a few weeks ago i would have brushed it off and said it was normal. However, my childhood was far from normal. I actually don't remember a lot of it. I have really had to sit and think about it to try to piece it all together. I won't go into detail about anyone in my family but me, but it wasn't really all Glitz and Glam for any of us.

Like i said my earliest memories are at my grandmas house. I do remember a bit about my childhood home. I remember having big birthday parties and asking to go to friends houses all the time. Thats not really something I was allowed to do a lot. Except for my childhood bestfriend, Natalie. I went to her house as often as my parent would let me. I remember having her house phone and my moms cell phone number memorized only. I called her almost everyday after school waiting for her to get home from dance classes so we could talk about the Sims and whatever elementry school drama we could find.

I'm so thankful for Natalie. She's been a really big person in my life and I have been able to rely on her a lot through-out my life. She and I to this day keep in touch. I also spent a lot of time with my 'cousin' Kendyl. I say cousin because her mom Stephanie and my mom were best friends. So i know i spent a lot of time with her and she is considered Family. When I was home my mom babysat her a lot. Stephanie was a single mom when I was growing up and hustled her ass off to get whatever she could for kendyl. But that meant she worked a lot.

Therefore Kendyl was also a very good friend to me growing up. Although I can remember being a bit mean to her at times. I was older and not getting enough attention in my own home so I think I ended up taking it out on her a bit. I can vividly remember her mom going off on me for smapping a balloon on her hand. Lightning struck quite a very few times in my childhood that I remember getting really upset, but that was one of them. I don't really remember why but I think there was a small group of us all hanging out. I got embarressed.

When I talk to other people about their childhoods they remember so much more than I do, but I do think it's a blessing that I don't remember a lot of it. Another memory I have from when I was younger is being at Stephanie's boyfriends house with Kendyl riding around in her green little Jeep, we went up and down his driveway until the battery was so low it wouldn't go up anymore and we ended up flipping over somehow. For some reason I also remember getting in trouble for that like it was my fault when i was probably no more than 5 outside playing without any supervision.

A lot of my childhood is like that, no supervision and left to my own devices. I think that kind of explains a lot of why I am the way that I am. I learned to exist by myself. So i learned how to escape from the world around me. A tool I use well into my adulthood.

Chapter 2 Growing Pains

I gained a sister at the ripe age of 2 & 1/2. Ms. Avery Rose made her appearance and I was not so happy at the time. I greeted her with a sippy cup to the head the day she came home.

Sorry Ave, Love you.

I was standarly upset about having another person to now add to, what i considered, a competition for attention. We shared a room, with a bunk bed. I claimed the top bunk so she was stuck on the bottom. I've always been messy, so naturally I ate in my bed. Therefore i had ants in my bed. That meant that Avery would not go anywhere near the top bunk, as shes a bit of a clean freak, and at the time that meant my deturrant was working as intended. I had my space and everyone stayed away. That was the goal, so I slept with ants. It didnt really bother me.

I don't remember why I wanted to keep everyone away, but I felt the need to. So I made huge messes and didnt really ever take care of myself. The idea was if I looked a mess and had messes around me, the standard person would stay away. I would be safe and could do as I pleased. which wasnt much but escape to the land of my imagination.

I can remember going to my toy box and literally throwing every toy I could grab over my shoulder to make a mess of my bedroom floor. My grandparents ended up coming over that night for dinner and my grandma helped me pick up my bedroom. When I say helped I mean I sat contemplating begrugendly as I watched my grandma pick up the beautiful chaos that I had created for myself. She knew i was upset, so she stayed in my room with me until I fell asleep, turned on sleeping beauty to try to calm me down, and it worked. Disney Works. Dreamworks Works. Very well, thanks to grandma. To this day I can turn on a classic disney movie to calm down.

I don't think she even knows, but to this day I use that. She has given me one of my greatest coping mechanisms.

Isolation bred imaginary friends. Bobber, Bingalong, and Joshco. They were with me wherever i went. I had bobber well into my later adolescent years and still vividly remember what he looked like.

They were all tiny, and could fit in the palm of my hand but would sit on my shoulders more often than not. Bobber had scraggly hair and wore overalls and had a red shirt. It's not a surprise that red was my favorite color most of my life. My whole family still teases me about them, but in a really weird way they are family to me. They were around when no one was there.

I did not like the outdoors as a kid. Absolutely hated playing outside. My mom, thinking I needed the normalcy would lock Avery and I outside to "play". Most of the time this led to me intentionally scraping my knee, stubbing my toe, or just outright throwing a fit to get back inside. I wanted to play on the computer instead. Club Penguin, BarbieGirls, VirtualMagicKingdom, Wizard 101, Neopets, I had a Nancy Drew Orca game that I loved to play, a Jimmy Neutron game I completed several times over. I loved the escape of it all.

Those were the only places I felt happy, safe, and had enough fun that I felt like I was thriving.

Chapter 3 School House Blues

School was always something i've been naturally good at, when i put in the effort anyways. My grandpa spent the time teaching me math as a kid, thankfully. Otherwise I would have been lost. It was not my strongsuit. School was never somehing that i wanted to pursue but I did good because I was expected to do good.

Although I never really fully paid attention as a kid. I was still off in my own world. I had a Group of girlfriends I always hung out with. It was Jada, Myself, Natalie, Emily, Cheyenne, Taylor E. , Taylor M. and sometimes a Sierra or Cierra. To that friend group ~ I am sorry if I forgot anyone. This was a while ago haha

Even in the group I always tried hard to fit in, because I felt like I didn't. I felt like that third wheel friend that always had to try really hard. I think my try-harding annoyed a lot of them to be honest. By the 6th grade the whole group was done with me and the last 6 months of elementry school I spent by myself at a picnic table, until I remembered the Library and Mrs.Curd.

Thank god for Mrs.Curd. From that moment on I spent all of my free time in the library. We has something called A.R. when i was growing up when I was growing up, basically the school wanted to make sure we were reading enough books and growing our mini human brains. The goal was to get to 100% by the end of the trimester. Well in 6th grade I made it to 100% by the second day of school thanks to the twilight series, I had read in the matter of a few days, I flew through it.

I remember finishing the first book in a day and immediatly begging my mom to go get the next one.I even read Midnight Sun online as it was released without Stephanie Meyers' permission. All 152 pages then I think it was. That also meant whenever it was A.R. time I would Immediatly run to the library while everyone else silent read. I would put books away and eat all of her butterscotch candy.

A huge shoutout to Mrs.Woolard for letting me go~ that is until my other grades started to drop. Math started to get the best of me since I was so caught up in books and my imagination. I wasnt allowed to run off to the library anymore, I had to focus on my A.M. basically it was the math version of A.R. but every single recess and lunch time I spent with Mrs. Curd.

I don't really know what happened to her, but I really hope shes doing well. She is a big credit as to how I'm still here. Teachers really are the Life Blood of our society. I'm living proof.

Chapter 4

Puberty

I wish I could tell you that Jr. High got better. My grades kept falling. Thankfully my educators were still a few good and true. Mr.Walker taught me more history and structure than I ever could have asked for. That man taught me organization.

He was a stickler, he was very good at making sure the homework assignments were done and held the accountability for it as well. I remember he was the first teacher to ever give me a detention, because the whole class didn't do the outline the night before. It was a detention that came with love however. The whole class spent that hour after school writting the outline.

Thus my love of writting began. I can't tell you how many outlines i did in that class but it was a lot. A whole binder full. His homework schedule revolved on a schedule. That meant that if you missed a day you still had a pretty good idea of what was expected of you.

It was also nice because he was someone who didnt believe in homework on the weekends. He believed in putting in hard work and having your personal time as well. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were days that homework typically wasn't assigned. Unless of course we had a project, but they always came with ample time to get them done and a solid deadline.

Mr.Walker taught me the importance of balance and knowlage. That you need to know whats going on, but you also need to take care of yourself. At the time that didn't quite click BUT years later I can look back on those days and understand the importance of what he was teaching me.

Jr. High was also the time that I Joined Choir. I was hoping it would be the fun and happy place I always dreamed of but quickly learned it was kind of a free for all with songs nobody knew unless it was around christmas time. Not exactly what a Maturing Mini Human was interested in. I remember asking Mr.Betts if we could do more relent songs, or something in the Top 40, his repsonse was no, we have to keep the classics alive, which I understand. Now looking back I wish I would have told him he was living in the past and trying to grow the future.

That doesn't work.

Chapter 5

A small circle

In Jr. High the friend group was small. So small in fact I don't think I ever consistantly spoke to more than 2 people at a time. Keeping up with friends we never my strong suit. I remember sitting in the same far right table next to the choir room every day. Being excited for Pretzel day and having access to vending machines. I would spend every quarter I had on the many snacks back then, no regrets haha.

That lunch table actually had some of my fondest memories, dancing and practicing ballet spins with Chey, doodling the many anime doodles with amie. Shes probably one of the first friends I ever openly talked to about my love of Anime. I wrote every one I watched on the front of my homework planner, it was my messy list of all the things I loved. Blue and Black ink was smeared all over it.

I wish I kept it but I didn't. It was lost in the many moves. By jr high we were living in our third house. We had moved into a new house when my baby brother came along. We outgrew our little three bedroom, moved on to a 5 bedroom and then went back down to a 4 bedroom. It had stairs and don't ask me why but that was the most exciting thing to me. I could not wait to live in a house with stairs. Call me an odd ball, everyone else in the house complained that it was too hot upstairs or they didnt like to carry the laundry up the stairs, but I didn't mind at all. I thought it was fun!

I was also in love with that house because of all the trees in the backyard, lemons grew in a large plethora. We were never short on lemons, apricots, a few tiny oak trees, the street was lined with tall pines, we had peppers that grew, grapes, it was like a mini haven. I don't think we ever could have used all the lemons. The two trees produced so much fruit my dad would complain about having to pick them out of the grass.

That house is also where I fell deeper in love with music, the Ipod Touch 1st generation came out and I think i went through a pair of headphones every 2-3 weeks. My parents werent too happy about that but my eardrums were. Evinescense, Lincoln Park, Black veil Brides, and Rihanna became my heros. I ran to them when the rest of the work felt too scary to handle. I remember watching the music videos over and over. Dancing around my room with the music as loud as I could get away with. Which was pretty loud as long as it was still light outside.

I still do that, in my car the music is always full blast. Music became my escape all over again but this time it was everything I wanted to listen to which rocked my world. Figurativly and Literally.

Chapter 6

DisneyLand

Through all of this my mom was losing touch with herself. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to watch. The strong woman I once thought could rule the world was now bedridden. A lot. It was nothing she could have controled. She just fell to pieces and I had a front row seat.

It was my first heartbreak watching her shatter bit by bit. It felt endless, lonely, and daunting. My poor dad just had to keep going to work. That wasn't an option. he had three kinds and a sick wife he needed to provide for, and he did his damndest. We never went hungry, we had the new clothes still, we just had no savings. He couldn't keep up with it all by himself and I don't fault him for it. Our world was going through a forced change that none of us were ready for. At that point he wasnt even working at a job he liked. After everything crashed in 2008 he lost his fancy construction job.

He wasn't working with all the people he loved, he wasn't being paid properly, he was just working his ass off trying to make it. Lightning continued to strike, a lot of screaming matches brewed, and it didnt help that my room was closest to theirs.

So hiding things? You could not. No hiding anything, I knew all the struggles and annoyances.

Thank the Universe for headphones. I kept those things in almost 24/7.

Now, choir was not all bad. It did have some pretty fun moments when we got out of the classroom the few times we did. We ended up going to Disneyland, going back stage and recording a few disney songs as a class which I do have to say, was pretty fricken cool. To me we got the perfect songs, we did Hawiian Rollarcoaster Ride from Lilo and Stitch and The is Halloween from The Nightmare Before christmas. Two Iconic, what I consider to be, classics. Moments like that got me through.

That only took us a few hours and then we were free to roam Disney and enjoy all of the magic. For the first time since I was 5-6 years old. And then I could do whatever I wanted. All the ride choices were at my finger tips. It was the first time I felt Free.

Trips like tha gave me things to look forward to, and honestly thats all I needed.

It took absolutely forever to get our recordings back and I didnt end up buying one, we were struggling financially as the time and I was not about to add another expense to the plate. I knew I was taking enough. Probably too much. More than my parents could have handled at the time. But I knew that, and I was still messy as hell. It kept my room as my space so nobody could come in. It was mine. My Chaotic Castle. Where I was free to blast the music, dance, and sing all I wanted.

It was my home.

Chapter 7

Off a cliff

That chaotic castle didn't last and we ended up moving to another house, but this one hung off a cliff. We had to downsize again, so Ave and I were back in a room together, and quite unhappy about it. We already fought like we were mortal enemies and for a while the severity just got worse and worse. Then one day it was like a switch went off and we decided to just make the best of whatever situations came our way. Teamwork makes that dream work. You do what you gotta do.

Sharing that tiny room with her was hard. She didn't have a closet and had to use my brothers while he used a wardrobe. We barely had room to walk around. Each of us had a bed, a nightstand, and atop our 'Paige, Avery, Money, Boys' cabnet was an itty-bitty TV in the middle that we often faught over. Usually we could reach a mutual agreement when it came to NCIS or Law and Order: Svu.

To this day we can recite the opening by heart.

We shoved two tiny twin beds in that room and did our best to get through it. Her being a clean freak did not enjoy my mess that I allowed to take over everything. Eventually she got to the point were she would just shove everything to my side. I brushed it off with an eyeroll and a shrug.

Even worse I am not a fan of laundry. And as a lazy pre-teen I was not about to do it all the time. So I lived in dirty clothes and didn't care. Once a week we would go over to grandmas house to spend the night and she would always make sure I had clean clothes. She made sure we all did when we were over, she did what she could. I always wished It was more but you can only stretch a sheet so thin before it tares too, you know?

We also had a family dog that nobody really took the time to take care of. Crap and pee was a common occurance when you walked down the hall, it got to the point where it didn't even phase me anymore.

By this point nobody had come to our house in years. We really kept an isolated boat. It was hard, I was basically trained to stay quiet and thats what I did. I put my headphones in and went off to my own. Kinda like now its funny how everything comes full circle when you don't process it. Some things you can't just wish away.

They demand to be felt.

Chapter 8

That House

That house was one of the places that haunted my nightmares. It never felt safe or like home. I atribute that to it residing right next to a cemetary, talk about the Heebe-Jeebies. It felt wrong. While I spent all of my time in my room, my sister was smarter. She always had a knack for the more social butterfly side of things. She built her own support system of friends. She didn't wait for one to poof into existance in our household. She made sure she found people who actually cared about her. That's not something I learned until much later in life. You really need a group of people you can count on, its what makes you feel human, it brings you back down to earth. It humanizes you to yourself, as wild as that sounds.

When I was a kid i thought of myself as one of the wild things, like in that book 'Where the Wild things are." I even came with the scraggly hair to match.

Avery Rose taught me it's necessary to have people in your corner, because you cannot do everything yourself. No matter how hard you try. The world is a big place to take on by yourself and you will fail every time. Trust me.

Chapter 9

Basketball

Throught my life my family always tried to in some way shape or form keep me busy. Idle hannds never thrive. When I was small it was dance, but I grew tired of that quickly, then I was pushed head first into basketball. 10 years of it to be exact. Now that sport and I have always gone back and fourth. It's very much a love/hate relationship, But i can sit here today and honestly tell you I know that game like the back of my hand.

All the way down to Passing Game.

Its a game that tests you, pushes you to your limits, and forces growth. With some perseverance you make those sidelines and suicides your bitch. The running is good for your lungs. It helps you breath more clearly.

So note to self, basketball, the sport that needs to be played, and it needs to be played more. A hell of a lot more, and if you haven't lately- Go pick up a Basketball and start dribbling.

Your hand eye coordination probably needs it.

Chapter 10

Staying Active

Through-out my messiness, I did also stay active. The hustle has and always will be real. Its what drove me. The desire for better. If you aren't pushing yourself you arent growing. Without growth, you die. So in a sense, the hustle is the whole point to life, you just have to find your hustle. It's different for everyone.

The shoe just has to fit, you can't force it like Cinderella's step sister tried.

It won't work.

You have to find your niche, for me it's writing.

For you?

Well, what do you dream about?

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pinkipie100 · 7 years ago

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Lance and the 25 Days Chapter IV: Shopping

It’s Ficcember Day 4! I had every intention of going into this chapter to make it shorter, as I have a lot of other work to do, but here I am at 3288. I’d say I’ll make an effort to be concise tomorrow, but knowing me, it’ll probably end up at a totally unnecessary 4000 words. To be fair, thought, there were three separate stories happening in these past two chapters, so that could have increased the length significantly. Hope you enjoy anyway!

Team Voltron has split up to shop for one another’s holiday presents, and each one witnesses or contributes to a different kind of holiday generosity.

Words: 3327

Category: Gen

Contains: Varkon: Mall Cop Part II, brOTP Pallura, brOTP Lance/Coran, brOTP Shunk [Shiro/Hunk], [slight] Gunderangst, dreidel mention, Jewish Pidge, Hanukkah history, Shiro and Hunk being blesséd and pure, Allura being the best Space Mom/big sister ever, Coran being Lance’s awesome Space Uncle

Takes place immediately following Chapter III’s events in the Space Mall.

Pidge had just bought the perfect gift for Shiro. She looked around apprehensively, then stuffed the item into her shopping bag. Now, all she had to do was buy something for Keith. It was not wonder he was the last person Pidge was buying presents for- the boy hardly wanted anything. Pidge thought back to the one and only time she’d entered Keith’s room, secretly, of course, and she found absolutely nothing in it. It was the polar opposite of Pidge’s room, all cluttered with Space Caterpillars and trash paladins. How on Earth was she going to buy a gift for someone who didn’t want anything?

The young paladin scoffed at her hypocrisy. Here she was, complaining about Keith being too unmaterialistic, while all she really wanted for Chanukkah was something she knew none of the paladins could get her.

A chipper ‘Pidge!’ was peeped from behind her, and the named paladin jumped. She swung around to see Allura, who was waving at the shorter individual whilst holding a bag behind her back.

Pidge unclenched her body, saying to the princess, “Allura, I hope you’re not planning to shop with me. I don’t want my present spoiled!”

The Altean woman nodded her head that she was, in fact, going to accompany the green paladin, ensuring that Pidge’s gift had already been brought and safely and securely tucked away. Allura proclaimed that she’d only Keith left to find something for, and she had come to Pidge for advice.

Pidge chuckled, then explained that she, too, was at a loss for what to purchase for Keith. They were running out of time, however, so they determined that they would shop together.

When the two paladins walked along the tiled mall floor, Allura couldn’t stand the awkward silence suffocating the two of them. Eventually, the taller paladin spoke, “So, how was the rest of your shopping?” Pidge answered that it had all gone fine, but forewarned Allura that she was not going to spoil the latter’s gift. Allura looked away and mumbled through clenched teeth that she had no intentions of coaxing Pidge into such an act. “Did you get Lance something?” Pidge grinned smugly, searching her bag momentarily before discreetly showing Allura her gift for the lanky red paladin. Allura took a peek at it and nodded approvingly, then hunting for her own gift for Lance, letting Pidge give it a once-over.

“Oh, he’ll love that,” Pidge sniggered.

“Yes, I thought so,” Allura preened. “He’s lucky to have me; I know all the good products in that area. So, Pidge… I must ask. How is Jewish Christmas different from normal Christmas?”

Pidge laughed out loud for a split second before slapping a hand over her mouth. “Hahahaha- Chanukkah is not Jewish Christmas, Allura,” the little teen delineated. When Allura expressed confusion, Pidge put in, “Chanukkah is a completely separate holiday from Christmas; they just both happen to fall in the same Earth month. I don’t know if you know this, but humans have this weird thing called ‘religion,’ and Christmas is celebrated by people of the Christian religion, generally speaking.”

“So… Jewish is the religion that celebrates Chanukkah?” Allura corrected herself.

“Well, the religion is Judaism, and the people who practice it are Jewish, or Jews,” Pidge elaborated. “Chanukkah is the Jewish festival of lights, commemorating the time when the Jews of Israel drove the Greeks from their land and kept the Holy Temple of Jerusalem’s menorah lit with only one pot of oil for a miraculous eight days.” Allura communicated her wonderment at the thought, though she understood few of the words Pidge was saying. While pushing her glasses up her nose with a glint, Pidge stated, “Scientifically impossible, but yes, quite astounding. So, Jews today celebrate this event by lighting a candle on-” Allura finished ‘The menorah!’ for the shorter storyteller, but Pidge continued, “Well, the menorah is actually a seven-prong candelabrum, and it’s a symbol for the Jewish homeland of Israel. The chanukkiah, which is what’s used during Chanukkah, has nine prongs for holding the candles, but yeah, most people I know still call it a menorah.”

Allura nodded in understanding with each description, absorbing the information like an eager elementary schooler. Pidge almost felt warmed up inside at Allura’s willingness to learn, and for a moment, she’d forgotten about what would be missing from her Chanukkah this year. She did remember, though, and her head dropped nearly unnoticeably. Allura drew her attention again, though, pointing to a store hosting a multitude of knives and related items, and the two shrugs and dashed toward it.

Lance was getting irritated again. Not only was the absolute perfect present for Shiro just out of his budget ranged, but Coran would not stop following him. He couldn’t buy Coran’s gift if he already saw what it was! Try as the red paladin might, but the gorgeous man himself could not be shaken. After the Altean man swooped behind another counter, raising his eyes slowly above it, then sneaking behind a display case and peeping out at Lance through the glass, the paladin could tolerate no more.

As Coran cautiously flipped over the case, Lance called out, “I know you’re spying on me, Coran.” The older Altean man toppled over and smashed his face onto the display case glass, quickly standing back up with false composure.

“Ah, Lance, fancy seeing you here,” Coran coughed nonchalantly. When Lance inquired shortly why he was watching him, the answer was, “Well, you see, I thought I might learn by observation. You may have given one bang-up job in a preliminary gift-giving tutorial, but I think there’s still more nuance to be learned just from… seeing an expert in action.” Coran dramatically made binoculars with his fingers and fixed his eyes on Lance. Lance gave Coran a skeptical look, but simply went back to staring down Shiro’s potential gift, sighing wistfully. “See something you like?” Coran inquired, directing his binoculars to where the paladin was gazing.

The teenager told his companion that it was supposed to be Shiro’s gift, but he just didn’t have the budget for it. Evidently, these particular items were insanely expensive toys for the children of the highest class Galra generals. Lance knew it as something vastly different than the Galra, however.

Coran, sporting a peculiar look on his face, asked, “Do you really think Shiro would want one of those?” to which Lance confirmed that he knew that Shiro wanted, or leastways needed, for cleaning up the kitchen after the paladins had a snack party in it. Coran pondered for a moment, then beckoned the alien running the Terra shop to come over so that they could purchase the item. Lance protested that Coran didn’t need to buy it for him, but the Altean silenced him with, “Early Christmas present- I’m doing you a favor. I’ve already gotten my holiday presents for everyone else, anyhow. Now you just sit back and let me compensate for your lack of GAC,” and the gorgeous man winked.

Lance and Coran left the shop in a cheery mood, and Lance was satisfied now that he only had one present left to get. The only issue was, the gift’s recipient was uncomfortably close. Lance had to get rid of Coran somehow, but he didn’t know what to do. He already knew what to get Coran, having seen it at a previous shop window. There had to be some way to get the mustachioed man off his tail for at least a couple of dobashes…

All of a sudden, Lance noticed a shop behind Coran that appeared to be a fabric store, and a puffy, white-furred alien was exiting out of it. “Coran! I need another favor of you,” Lance announced hurriedly. Coran appeared ready to comply, and Lance beckoned him over so that he could whisper in his ear, muttering something along the lines of purchasing some red cloth and stopping the fuzzy alien for a brief ‘chat.’ “I’m counting on you- Remember, it’s Christmas tradition, okay?” the boy finished, and Coran nodded with determination, assuring Lance that he wouldn’t let him down.

Coran then took off after the puff ball shopper, and Lance snuck his way back to the quirky store he had found. He also patted himself on the back for killing two birds with one stone, like the clever sharpshooter he was.

Hunk and Shiro were on their way back to the meeting spot, finishing their gift shopping relatively early. They had run into each other when they had bought some tinkering parts for Pidge’s presents in the same store. They had some time to kill, so they were strolling through a food court, decidedly not the one with Vrepit Sal’s in it. While they walked, Shiro regaled his tale of woe concerning his false peppermint bark, knowing full well Hunk would sympathize with the tragedy. Hunk also pitched his Olkarion feast idea to Shiro, whom enthusiastically offered to help cook for said event. Hunk gently turned him down, aware of his lackluster cooking skills.

The two companions found that their path was blocked by a particularly long line. Hunk and Shiro tracked the beginning of the line with their vision, and it appeared to be a queue for an unilu crépe a la mode stand. Young aliens were crying in the queue, and there was a father at the front of the line trying to negotiate with the stand owner.

“I’m sorry, sir, but our ice cream maker is severely malfunctioning; we can barely even keep it from leaking, not to mention the power has been cut to our griddles,” the owner apologized.

“But we’re here for my daughter’s birthday! We come here every year to support a good cause on her special day, but we can’t celebrate without the crépes!” the father worried, holding his daughter to his chest whilst his older son clung to his leg.

“What’s going on here?” Hunk questioned when he was within the stand owner’s earshot.

She turned to him and explained that the stand was meant to be offering their yearly Crépes for All Donors today, with all the day’s profits being contributed to the Hybrid Relief Foundation, but all their equipment was malfunctioning. The father added that lots of families brought their children to the event to purchase discounted crépes. The owner suspected that the Galra were probably trying to sabotage their fundraiser, since it supported relief given to displaced and impoverished alien hybrid families.

“You think the Galra are trying to uproot your fundraiser?” Shiro asked, and the father confirmed that this happened every year to at least a few shops, but never suspected that they would hit the most popular.

Shiro and Hunk looked at one another, then nodded. “Shiro, you go find the perpetrator. I’ll handle the kitchens. People, listen up! You and your kids will get crépes a la mode galore! No one’s stomach leaves this food court empty!” The aliens in line all stood at attention before Hunk’s proud words. “You know, where I’m from, this time of year it the best time of year to give back to the community, and I’m gonna do just that. I won’t leave here today until every piece of equipment in these kitchens is fixed and in top-of-the-line condition! I’ll help man the kitchens to make the foods from scratch, and my good friend Shiro here, not the best cook,” Shiro appeared surprised to hear that, “will stop the jerk who keeps wrecking the kitchen gear!”

There was an excited uproar from the crowd, and Hunk jumped the concession counter to work his magic on the ice cream maker. While he was doing that, he gave instructions to the stand’s assistant cook to go find a bag, salt, and gather the ingredients for the vanilla ice cream.

Meanwhile, Shiro patrolled the backsides off the many restaurant fronts for the one who was sabotaging all of the kitchens. He found no evidence at first, but soon he had come across a hover segway that matched a description he’d heard before. He took a turn and lifted up a gate to a shop that was closed, discovering a box full of tools for taking machinery apart, as well as one filled with spare parts. A certain Galra was stuffing himself under a vending machine within the shop. This Galra unstuck himself from the machine, giving a satisfied sound when he pulled a spring out of it, then switching to an upset one when he noticed a disappointed Shiro.

“Uh… I’m a maintenance worker!” the stubby Galra peeped.

“Right… and I’m security,” Shiro responded sarcastically.

Shiro left the saboteur stuffed into a custodial closet with his beloved segway whilst the Galra shouted phrases like, “Varkon will be back! You’ll be sorry; I’m Emperor Zarkon’s trusted Number Two!” The black paladin just ignored this and returned to Hunk at the crépe stand.

Hunk wasted no time in employing Shiro, ordering him the instant he saw him to use his hand to bake the crépes. Shiro was a little hesitant in doing this, but Hunk ordered him to do it quickly, and the pilot submitted to the mechanic in fear. Hunk ordered the assistant to shake the ice cream bag harder, HARDER, there are lots of orders coming in! Add more sugar to that, but just a sprinkle of vanilla. Shiro, your hand has been on that one too long, take it off! Whew, that was close… There we go, the ice cream maker’s fixed, now get on it!

Hunk worked his way through the long lines, directing the others working the stand like a finely tuned orchestra and fixing the griddle at the same time. Once it was fixed and the lines had died down long enough, Hunk moved on to helping the next food stand in crisis, followed by an attentive Shiro. He’d even inspired the father at the front of the line to join in on the volunteer cooking, and more were soon to follow. In a shockingly short but hectic, at least in Shiro’s view, period of time, the whole food court was back on track and getting their orders out and donations in. The yellow and black paladins stood back to take the thriving food court all in.

Shiro sighed off the stress, telling his friend, “Good job helping those people out, Hunk. It’s especially good knowing that these people can now send all of their proceeds to a Space Charity of crossbreeds. I didn’t even know there were charities under the Galra Empire.”

“Hey, I should be thanking you,” Hunk assured him. “For a… novice cook, you handled the pressure of the kitchen pretty well. I’m guessing that these Space Charities can’t get a lot done since stuff like this sabotage is probably pretty commonplace under the Galra Empire. We did some good here today, Shiro.” The teen gripped Shiro’s shoulder reassuringly. The crépe stand owner and the father who had volunteered had come over to meet with Hunk, offering up one of the ice cream makers he’d fixed as a reward. The two paladins met eyes, then Hunk kindly suggested that she keep it, as he was glad to aid in the troubles of a struggling kitchen.

The stand owner was about to insist further, until they were interrupted by a familiarly troublesome hover segway. “I told you I’d be back- and if it isn’t one of the infamous Space Pirates! Of course you’d hire this shady mercenary! COME HERE, YOU!”

“Run, it’s Varkon!” Hunk ordered Shiro, grabbing him to run away. “You can’t stop culinary righteousness, mall cop!”

The unilu stand owner watched in confusion as the trio tumbled off. She turned around when she heard panting coming up behind her, noting that it was Sal from the other food court. “I’ll never forget that kid. He’s a true artist of cuisine.”

Sal gasped for air for a moment more, then straightened up and commented, “He jilted you, too, huh?”

“Thanks,” Pidge said while paying for Keith’s gift and putting it in her shopping bag. She then exited the knife store to meet Allura, whom was already outside. When she found her, the princess ran over to Pidge so that she could drag her over to the small booth she was looking at.

“Pidge, look at this sand!” she encouraged. “It’s soft and moldable when dry, but when you add water, it becomes harder and solid. Then, if you dip it in hydrogen peroxide, it falls apart so that you can remold it!” Pidge was immediately fascinated by the odd substance, picking it up and playing around with it. It felt similar to kinetic sand back on Earth, which Matt played with a lot. She molded it into a mini bayard, then tested it in the water. “See?” Allura prompted as Pidge took it out of the water. To her intrigue, the little ornament acted like wet clay when it came out of the water, only to quickly dry and harden in less than fifteen seconds. The green paladin lifted her glasses and squinted at the material, then put her glasses back down while she dropped it in the hydrogen peroxide. The object slowly decayed, reverting back to sand within a minute.

“That’s amazing!” Pidge interjected. “I’ve gotta know the chemistry behind this… What element is it made of?” Pidge turned to ask the princess further questions, but she saw that Allura had already purchased two boxes. When the small paladin expressed shock at her friend’s actions, Allura posited that she believed that they could make Pidge a dreidel out of the sand.

Young Pidge froze stock still. Her pupils were dilated, and her lips were slightly parted. Allura hesitantly shrunk back, looking hurt, as if she had done something wrong. Pidge felt her eyes beginning to well up. When Allura hurriedly declared that she could return the sandboxes if she wanted, Pidge quickly yelled, “NO! No!” Allura seemed even more fearful that she’d done wrong now. “Sorry, Allura…” Pidge said softly, rubbing her eyes on her sleeve. “Thank you so much. I can’t wait to make a dreidel out of this stuff. Not to mention study it! I’m sorry I froze up, it’s just…” Allura leaned down to listen closer to the young teenager, “…I just barely mention how much I love playing dreidel in passing, and you’re already thinking of ways to make me one.” Allura smiled fondly at her young friend. “Thank you.”

The princess nodded, then took her young friend’s hand, and they wandered back toward the direction of the rendezvous point.

Pidge and Princess Allura waited patiently by the bench Lance had originally stood on when the team arrived, arms hooked. Pidge checked her bag, then looked up when she noticed Lance and Coran nearing them, with the former muttering something to the Altean about ‘not telling anyone.’

“Coran! Did you… have fun with Lance?” Allura questioned her advisor.

“Yes! Very much!” he answered, causing Allura to roll her eyes. “I see you met up with Pidge? How was your shopping? Did you get everything you needed?”

Pidge affirmed that they had, and even came back with sand to make a dreidel from, at which Lance scowled slightly. When Pidge confrontationally asked him if there was a problem, Lance vigorously shook his head, stating that he’d only wished it was him who’d found something for said purpose first.

“Well, anyway, now we just have to wait for Hunk and Shiro…” Allura was interrupted be a crescendoing call down the plaza, and when Team Voltron turn to see, a very distressed Shiro and a very proud Hunk boasting his ‘Robin Hood’ like qualities to a villainous mall cop. The older paladin warned the rest of the team to run, and they did so, all whilst Varkon and Hunk exchanged melodramatic banter fit for an anime rivalry, and Lance shouted a ‘Not again, Hunk!’

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ellebeebee · 7 years ago

Text

I decided to backtrack a little and write one of the things on my long and neglected to-do list: the marriage between Sabine and the baron, how it progressed and ended. Uuhm, I hope my tinkering the timeline/the way I structured the later parts isn’t too confusing. :) Various other characters make appearances.

6484 words, Baron of Namaire/Revaire!MC, Zarad/Revaire!MC, teen

Four Years and Seven Months

“Thank you, that will be all,” Victoire said.

The handful of maids fussing with the few parcels they’d brought from the Guyenne estate looked up. Two hat boxes and a steamer trunk that if opened would only be half-packed with gowns and dresses leaning towards unfitness for the station of a baroness. A few other boxes. One jewelry case with some of the better pieces Lady Guyenne had been willing to impart to her eldest daughter. It was a good thing the baron had already purchased a new wardrobe for his bride, along with new furnishings, jewelry. A horse the baroness would probably seldom ride. He’d commissioned a new formal garden with a delicate little garden house perfect for tea; it would be finished within the month.

It was good insight for him to make all these preparations. If Sabine and Victoire had come to the Namaire estate with only their little battered cases, it would have incurred the derision of the staff. And in fact they seemed to be doing just that now, with the way the handful of maids were glancing up at Victoire and back to each other.

Sabine turned from the window. She cleared her throat and pointedly arched a brow.

The girls murmured their acquiescence and quietly filed out.

When the door clipped behind them, Sabine looked up at Victoire for a long pause. The arched bow dropped and tightness pulled in around her lips. She exhaled. And she looked far more her seventeen years.

“Thank god,” Sabine murmured, letting herself lean into the window frame.

Victoire advanced on her and gestured with her fingers. “Come. You should rest.”

She groaned, but straightened anyway and turned around.

Victoire unpinned the veil (blue for the girl’s vivid blue eyes) from the back of her hair, tutting. “Really. We sent the things ahead of us. These girls should have had everything put away hours ago.”

Sabine just hummed. The lands rolled away from the estate in pleasant green swells and dips, lightly touched by a tepid, cloud-filtered noon light. The morning had been brighter, with yellow sunlight flooding the small chapel where they’d had the ceremony. Close family and friends only. The baron’s neighbors, a minor noble gentleman and his wife, had attended on his side. Lord and Lady Guyenne and the oldest son, Chretien, had sat for Sabine. It had been small and quiet.

Fingers moving with mechanical swiftness, Victoire unlaced the simple dress the girl had worn, and deposited her of corset and skirts. At the mother-of-pearl inlaid vanity, they unpinned her hair.

Victoire glanced up at her in the mirror. “Are you worried?”

Sabine slid a finger around a curl, twirling it. “About tonight? No.”

Victoire pulled away a set of braids and began unraveling them. Her pale fingers stood stark against dark curls. She remained quiet. It wasn’t in her nature to push for more details; Sabine didn’t expect it and had no compunctions about going on if that was her desire.

“I’ve heard too many of my mother’s stories to be worried about that,” Sabine said, closely inspecting the end of a mahogany lock.

Victoire said nothing, and kept working. When her charge was left in a simple shift that bared tawny, chestnut legs and her hair streamed over round shoulders, Victoire stood and went to draw back the silken blankets from the bed.

Bare feet padding quietly, Sabine crossed the parquet for the enormous and elaborately-carved bureau. It opened to a line of jacquard, damask, chiffon, and great swathes of silk embroidery and beading. She put out a hand and ran it through the dresses. Humming (poorly), her fingers plucked at the different materials, feeling the whisper slide of the silks and the heft of the fine woolens. She moved on to the other cabinet beside it, to the furs. The beautiful, beautiful furs. She sank her palms into the softness.

Sabine closed the cabinet doors. “Do you think I made the right choice?”

“You should rest,” Victoire said. She paused before the pile of their cases. “I’ll have a bath readied for you before dinner.”

Sabine wandered to the sitting area before the empty fireplace; delicately fluted cherrywood and pearled upholstery. She ran a finger over the curved back of the settee.

“I’m not tired, really,” she said.

Victoire popped open the trunk. She leaned back and put her hands to her hips as she considered the contents, most on the verge of being threadbare. It would probably be best to just throw it all out. She glanced up.

“Sabine,” she sighed.

She stood looking up at one of the many paintings in the room: a picturesque Corvali gardenscape.

“There’s no point in regrets now,” Victoire stated. “We have work to do.”

The baroness finally turned back to her.

They’d spent a year getting here. Bribing some shepherd boys to throw rocks under the carriage of the relative of a neighbor of the baron’s, these people being old friends of the Guyenne family. Old enough friends that, should they be laid up in a local inn and coincidentally run into Lady Guyenne and her daughter, they would be obliged to renew their friendship. Thus, a few dinners, an introduction to the Baron of Namaire, and several more dinners and teas and hunts later-- and etcetera and etcetera.

And now-- now that they could afford to dump that sad trunk’s contents into the fireplace and be done with it. Now with all of those fine gowns the girl could at least begin to look the part even if she didn’t feel it. The rest would follow. Look, even now Sabine had something like confidence in her gaze.

She nodded.

“I know,” Sabine said.

She finally went to the bed, and Victoire drew the curtains, already making a mental tally of what needed to be kept from the old life.

Four Years and Six Months

“I simply don’t see the point,” Sabine said.

She leaned into the elbow she had planted on the breakfast table and idly twirled a small spoon about the porcelain walls of her teacup, making random little chimes. Before her spread plates of fresh fruit, bread and cheese, and hard-boiled eggs in their little stands. Across from her sat the baron.

Enzo IV of Namaire’s long frame fit the delicate gazebo furniture with surprising elegance, and his hands manipulated his teacup with surprising grace. Surprising if only on account of his unmistakeable height and spareness in dress and in personal manner. His tailor cut his jackets and waistcoats with clean lines, always in blacks and grays. His pale gray eyes matched the peppering in his trim beard and hair, their blackness offset by his tanned calf’s leather skin. With a sharp click, he put down the cup in his hand.

He considered her. “You don’t see the point of learning how not to sound like the farmer’s daughter at formal dinners.”

She stared back, lips stiff. “That’s pleasant. Quite pleasant of you.”

“You also don’t see the point of sharpening that wit rather than relying on that pout?”

“My pout serves me quite well,” she said, her spine curling self-consciously. “And nothing about Madame Illais or Ser Grenbarrow would ever sharpen a thing of mine.”

He sipped at his tea. Sabine gazed at him for a long time as the silence between them lengthened. The garden around them still held slightly raw edges, with vegetation not quite settled in and nervously holding their boughs apart from one another. As if the damask roses and adolescent wisteria were a party of ladies not yet on good acquaintances. Warm morning light staved off chilly dew, but heat would set in later.

Namaire removed the napkin from his lap and tossed it onto the table. He stood, gesturing to her.

“Come. You’ve been tardy to your economics lesson enough.”

She threw her own napkin down.

“Oh, very well,” she said, taking his arm.

The waiting staff at the perimeter of the gazebo descended upon their breakfast table to whip it clean as the baron and baroness stepped out onto the path back towards the house.

“If you really want me to attend to an economics lesson,” she went on. “You could give me the household books instead. Much more useful, no?”

Her voice attempted a playful lilt.

His gaze slid toward her. “I have told you already. That is not your concern.”

“It’s my right as your wife.”

They stopped in the middle of path, the clicking of their heels silencing. He swiveled toward her.

“Is that as far as your ambition goes, Sabine?”

“What--”

“Tallying up bags of sugar and cabbages, handing out payroll?”

She tilted her chin up at him.

He sighed. “You’re not creating convoluted schemes to keep all your creditors in the dark about each other here.”

Her jaw tightened. “You are not a gentleman.”

“And you are not a lady. Not yet. The house will take care of itself. In the meantime, you ought to listen to my counsel.”

With the hand she had tucked into his arm, he nudged her back along their path. She followed with a small huff.

“Fine,” she stated.

Four Years and Two Months

The blue-emerald silk of Sabine’s train disappeared up into the shadows of the carriage’s interior, and the baron followed after. As the coachman called out and the team pulled them all into a lurching start, Namaire plucked his own hat off, leaving it beside him on the plush bench. He pushed open the small carriage windows on either side. Spilt from the slowly sinking sun, rosey evening light and breezes crept into the tight confines of the vehicle.

Namaire leaned back into his cushions and sighed. “I told you to stay. Comtois would have brought you back.”

“And suffer the gossip? For once you shock me.”

“I’m far too old and rich to care for what the gossips say of me.”

“That’s all very well, but what of myself?”

“You? You are far pretty and young and quite securely married to worry about your reputation.”

Across from him, she choked a bit, hand flying up to her long, tawny neck. She stared at him.

“What?” he demanded.

“You really aren’t feeling well, are you? You just called me pretty.”

He exhaled and turned to the rolling streets outside their carriage window.

“You needn’t look so vexed about it,” she stated. She half-stood, careful of the vehicle’s sway, and moved the black silk hat over to her vacated seat so that she might take its place. “Be assured. I never trust men that pay too many compliments or too few.”

She slipped a gloved hand under the hand he had resting on his knee. Namaire glanced at her. They inspected each other: her full brow cocked playfully, the sweat she could now see on closer inspection at his temple, the play of pinkish shadows across her smooth skin, the thickness of his eyelids. Deliberately, he squeezed her fingers once before removing her hand to her own lap.

“Comtois is a good influence on you,” he said over the surprise in her expression.

She considered him before leaning back into her corner. “Is he?”

The lanterns and tall, pike-like tools of the street lamp lighters whisked by the open windows. Inexplicably, he could smell pine resin and fir trees. Like the winter he spent in the Arlish countryside, riding about with the freezing air burning his nostrils. So many seasons ago.

“We’ll leave for the summer house before the week’s end,” he said. “The heat will soon be intolerable. Take in the shade and the cool air about the lake for a month and come back to town for the season’s close.”

“Very well. I suppose everyone else will be gone soon, too.”

“And I want you to take up a project.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh?”

“There’s a parcel of land adjacent to ours that I’ve left alone for too long. I want you do something with it.”

“‘Something’?”

“Something. Find a tenant or sell it or whatever you can think of. Figure it out. Ask Comtois for help if you like.”

She watched the unrelenting placidity and severity of his expression. Her fingers sought out her little tasseled pouch and loosened the drawstring, pulling out a handkerchief. Despite the unrelenting placidity and severity of his expression, she leaned forward to dab at his temple. The heat was indeed beginning to linger overlong into twilight now that summer waxed full.

“Very well,” Sabine said.

He leaned away. “What is this?”

“A handkerchief, lordship. Quite clearly-- a handkerchief.”

Three Years and Ten Months

After the coolness of the hall, her room’s warmth enveloped him, seeped into the chilled crannies of his woolen outer layers. With the wave of warmth rolling over him came the scent of dried lavender and shepherd’s purse, several bundles of which hung along the mantle with silky ribbons. The fire in the grate leapt and billowed. The parquet floors shone with a dark murkiness, like a pond at night. The furniture was polished, the curtains and velvety upholstery kept free from dust and cobwebs.

Everything was in its place, and was quite as it should be.

The far away clocks deeper in the house rang the midday hour. Her maid, the strange pale one, was not in the room. He approached the four post bed. A pot of yarrow root tea steamed on the bedside table. An empty teacup, more dried lavender, a jug of water resting in an ice bath. He sat on the edge of the bed, and he felt eyes on the back of his neck.

“My lord.”

Sabine looked up at him. She’d woken. Maybe before he walked in, maybe shortly after.

As she shifted to sit up, moving slowly, he reached for the teapot and poured out a cup. He handed it to her, and she accepted with the saucer carefully balanced in her fingers. Their eyes met.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She turned the cup around in languid circles. “Better than yesterday.”

He nodded. The silence between them grew. His bones itched with restlessness; he hadn’t gone on his morning ride, the same ride he’d taken since he’d turned eleven and his own father had brought him along to cover the hills and gullies their blood knew by instinct. He’d missed plenty of these rides before. Being away for the social season, traveling, illness. But as the years went by it was harder and harder to recover from their absence. As if his momentum became more and more permanent the older he got; his ability for malleability slowly crumbling away.

“Sabine,” he said. He reached out and took one of her hands. “I’ve made a mistake.”

She didn’t say anything. Her warm fingers held his, long, slender fingers-- not even the shadows of callouses lingered under her hands, the traces of the world she’d come from.

“It was a mistake…” he trailed off, his focus going elsewhere. “It needs to be let go. This idea of an heir.”

Her eyes sharpened. “But you… you have no male relatives.”

“I know. Everything will go to you when I die.”

“You-- you just… So what, one misfortune, and you want to give up?”

“It’s not important. I assure you, you will be taken care of.”

“My mother was pregnant twelve times, you know. She had nine children. These things happen.”

“I’m aware. Sabine.”

She paused at his tone. Then she exhaled and shook her head. “So what? You-- alone, without consideration for what others want-- You make the decision and that is the end of the matter?”

He leaned forward to catch and hold her gaze. “I’m sorry. All of this is my fault. You can blame me. I’m sorry.”

She sank back into her feathered cushions, jaw setting.

“For so long, I’ve done what was right. What was necessary,” he sighed. “What was expected of me and my name. But I’m tired.”

He studied her, framed by her dark curls and white linens.

“If it’s a child you want, you can… do as you like. I won’t say anything. I’ll accept it. But it can’t be me.”

“That’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?”

Her lips pressed thin. She put aside the teacup. “I don’t know. I… I don’t know. Just-- yesterday, now this…”

The door opened.

“Beg your pardon, your lordship.”

The strange pale maid, Victoire, stopped in the doorway with a kitchen girl holding a tray standing behind her. Namaire stood.

Sabine tightened her hold on his hand. “Wait.”

He looked back.

Her eyes searched over him. “Is this about your first wife?”

He gave her fingers one last squeeze before bending down to ghost a kiss on her forehead.

“Eat and rest,” he told her, already moving away. “I’ll check on you again later.”

Three Years and Nine Months

She pulled the fur collar of her coat closer. The staff cleaned the room regularly, but not near as often as the rooms actually in use. Blues and pinks from last light painted the objects of the chamber, crawling up the tall empty vaults and over the chill floors. It had not gotten to the point where all things fabric and vulnerable had to be moved elsewhere or covered in case of weevils, dust mites. White shirts and dark jackets and well-used riding habits filled the wardrobes. A pair of oiled riding boots sat by the door, the chestnut leather dull in the blue light, a riding crop leaning against them as if waiting for their owner. Pile of books with places marked.

The desk still had the remains of correspondence littered across it. An open inkwell had dried up with a quill sitting in it. The fireplace was empty.

Over the mantle hung a beautiful cityscape of the old Revairan capital flooded with golden light. An interesting choice. Where most hung their prized portraits, he had chosen a painting of a place that had never existed. At least not in that manner.

There were portraits, of course. Elsewhere in the room. Here, a depiction of the young man who figured in another painting, down in the major library. This one was a few years younger, but it was clearly the same man. The tanned skin, like the underside of leather. The sharp grey eyes. The full and dark hair.

If not for the curl of a smile and the glitter of laughter in his eyes-- clearly comfortable features for the lines of his face-- the man could well be her husband, some decades ago.

She looked away. Various other descendents of the Namaire name gazed down at her from the walls. Some of the lords and ladies stood out as family members by way of marriage, but they all became assimilated into the same expressions and coloring eventually. Would some day come when she herself peered down from a wall, just one out of many other Namaires?

She crossed to the desk. Over the smooth mahogany curls of the desk’s back, a woman’s portrait hung, washed in the demure colors of a winter’s day close. The curtains were already open. She knew Namaire came in here sometimes.

The woman in the painting was older. A few pale lines trailed through her hair which she hadn’t bothered to dye. Or saw no need to. She wasn’t beautiful. But what use was beauty? Sabine’s mother was beautiful, she herself was beautiful, but look where that had gotten them. Either stupid and useless or unhappy and with an unattractive temperament.

She sighed.

“I miss my mother,” she told the empty room.

After some time, she left for the warmer parts of the house.

Years Afterward

“Ah, I see now,” Sabine said with hauteur, the effect a little ruined by the twitch of her lips. “I thought you two invited me to tea for the pleasure of my company. Rather, you wanted to use me for advice.”

Penelope’s jaw dropped, her eyes widening in horror. Cordelia caught on, but still squirmed with being teased, trying not giggle. Giggling-- how it would ruin her dignity.

“Oh, no, of course not!” Penelope said. “I’m always eager to spend time with you-- oh, please don’t think--”

Sabine cut her off and patted her hand. “I’m only joking, dear. And thank you. I’m also always eager for your company. Both of you, dear pets.”

Cordelia considered her with her serious, dark eyes. “If it is too forward of us to ask…”

“No, not at all. Hmm. Well, things as they are-- and we three being so fortunate as to have the choices we do-- I can’t say that one should be stubborn about hoping for some idealized romance. A relationship like marriage takes a great deal of work, and that may be the more important element than any initial infatuation.”

Cordelia nodded. Penelope’s eyes wavered with uncertainty.

Sabine continued. “I would consider any woman fortunate to be permitted the sort of freedom and understanding my husband gave me. We spent the seasons in town where I met many lovely people and made many valuable contacts. Winters on the estate were a bit dull, I suppose, but occasionally we did have friends spends a few weeks with us. I was afforded my own portion of wealth to do with as I pleased. I wasn’t always successful, but I did learn a great deal.”

She sipped at her tea. “All in all, I was fortunate indeed. Respect and space are the better parts of a good marriage between nobility.”

Eight Months

“My lady?”

Sabine rotated her neck to inspect another angle to her face. She pointed out a minuscule smudge in her eye makeup to Victoire.

“Yes?” she called to the door.

It opened a fraction. A maid dipped a knee and straightened.

“His Lordship wishes to call.”

Sabine did her best to keep her face muscles slack for Victoire’s brushes as she answered. “Let him in.”

The door clicked and a chair was moved near her vanity.

“Good evening, my lord,” Sabine said.

“Good evening.”

Victoire finished, moving aside and curtsying to the baron. He placed a wooden box of deep grain into her lap.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Happy Birthday, wife.”

She raised a brow at him. “Really? You actually sound a bit cheerful.”

“I’m not always a decrepit shell of despondency.”

She balanced the box on her palm, feeling its weight. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I’ve been merely adequate in my gifts for the last few years. I think I’m overdue. Open it.”

He handed her a little key and she unlocked the intricately inlaid lid of the box. Emerald velvet lined its interior and the necklace form sitting inside. The necklace itself sparkled; a broad choker of diamonds arranged in a flowering pattern. Worn, it would fall from where the neck met jaw down to the clavicle.

Her finger grazed over the fine-cut stones, and she struggled to find her words. “I… I doubt even the queen has something so…”

“Careful. You’re showing quite a bit of your vanity. But you’ve always been weak to shiny things.”

Her eyes cut to him in annoyance. He merely gestured to Victoire, who lifted Sabine’s hair and pinned it quickly. She pulled the necklace from the box with care and enclosed Sabine’s neck with it.

“Well,” she said, looking into the mirror. “Thank you.”

Namaire nodded. He unfolded from his seat, patted her on the shoulder, and departed the room. Some arrangement downstairs probably called him, or some other task for the evening’s host.

Sabine turned her jaw about in the mirror, watching herself and her angles. Victoire worked to redo her hair to suit the new present. Their eyes met in the reflection.

“Don’t say a thing,” Sabine told her.

“I haven’t said a word,” she said flatly.

Years Afterward

“--and that is the story of my greatest failure as a woman of noble consequence.”

She giggled, the one hand she had free from Zarad’s arm flying up to her face. It took her a moment to realize his laugh was more of a weak chuckle. Turning down another nondescript hedge row of the garden maze, she peered up at him.

“What?”

He quickly smiled. “Nothing.”

“Really,” she said.

He stopped walking. His fingers grazed his chin as his eyes slid away. She felt a turn in her stomach; his nerves made her nervous, but at the same time she felt a flush of pride that he was showing his nerves at all to her. She knew quite well that he wouldn’t be like this if they weren’t alone.

He sighed. “I shouldn’t really…”

“Well, I’m too curious now. You might as well just say it.”

He paused, still with that lingering half-smile. “You… you still call him ‘his lordship’.”

“Oh. And… and that bothers you?”

“No! I mean,” he sighed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

She studied him. The silence between them stretched.

She shifted. “I’m glad you did, but I don’t know what to say. It’s not…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself. I’m sorry.”

“I…” she shook her head. “Look, I’m late to an invitation. Let’s talk about this later.”

“Of course.”

Five Months

In late spring, while they were preparing to leave the estate for town and the social season, he began taking a long siesta on the conservatory’s settee every morning after his rides. An unfamiliar pain had seeped into his back at some point. Teas and unguents did little. Staying home instead of enduring the journey to the capital and the following balls, luncheons, and events tempted him.

He went along anyway, silently perusing a book with his baroness across from him. In town, few raised a brow when Sabine floated about the usual scenes and social circles without him; he had always been averse to excessive company and tiresome conversation.

As the heat of summer rolled down through the valleys into the streets, Sabine left to visit for a fortnight with a friend who’d just had a child. It was early to already be making the migration to the summer homes, but Namaire departed some days after she did for the cooler airs off the lake.

She returned from her visit during a sunny afternoon. Her heels echoed before her approach down the hall outside of the small dining room where he was sitting at a light lunch with the broad wall of patio doors propped open.

“...will be here next week, so please send for more fruit and make sure cook has plenty of pastries ready. And I think we should go ahead and have a pig slaughtered. You mentioned the bacon was low?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And go through all the guest rooms and replace all the old linens-- there you are--”

She swept into the room and to the table, dipping into a quick curtsey. But she stopped a few steps from him. He looked up from his paper.

“You’re back from Odille, then?” he asked. “...What?”

She looked away as a servant pulled a chair for her. She sat and waved away the girl about to put down a place setting for her, as well as all the others in the room. He raised a brow.

She leaned toward him. “Have you lost weight?”

He slapped down his paper and frowned.

“Has no one mentioned anything?” she said, eyeing his plate of picked over food. “You don’t look well.”

“I…” He wasn’t sure what to say. Since her departure he’d only had the company of the summer home servants who were far too leery of him to ever make a comment of a personal nature.

“We’re sending for a physician,” she said.

In the three days it took for a runner to reach the capital and a doctor to make the trip out to the summer house, he fell under a feverish weakness. Tinctures and teas and unguents were provided and the resultant rise and fall of his fever sent him in a whirl of numbingly chill days and scorching sweat-soaked nights. His temperature broke after a week. Sabine had canceled the hosting plans they’d had and checked on him often. At least, he assumed that’s what she did. The majority of times he woke she was beside him.

Although the fever broke, an insistent fatigue plagued him, left him bedridden and unable to stomach much food. The physician stayed on. A good thing as the fever resurfaced. A cycle of inflamed wasting away and tepid recoveries lasted for weeks. When it finally looked as though he was on a definite recovery, Sabine made the arrangements for a slow and careful return to the Namaire estate.

He told her he’d go on alone; she should attend the last events of the season in town.

“No point,” she said. “Anyone worth seeing is long gone. I much more fancy a rest at home. Maybe I’ll actually improve on my embroidery. Or my pianoforte playing.”

She was lying. She was a terrible liar, and never had the perseverance to really become more than proficient at any lady’s skill.

“Your skills include having good taste in dresses and being a good drinker.”

She patted his knee across the carriage. “That’s the spirit.”

A Fortnight Afterward

Victoire paused in the south hall. At the hall’s end, where it created a junction with another hall, two maids passed. Aimee and Lan. Glancing behind her, Victoire reached down and slipped off her shoes with their tapping heels. She backtracked on her stockings to a door she’d passed. Sabine had requested to take tea in the green parlor, and Aimee and Lan would have been the ones sent to clean it. Victoire had the feeling this was an opportunity.

She cut a silent path through empty rooms to the reading room just adjacent to the green parlor, and placed her ear near the corner where a window’s frame met the other wall. It was the best spot to hear into the parlor.

“...don’t see the point. She’ll just go back to using the gazebo or the east drawing room.”

“Well, when you’re the richest woman in the district, I guess you can decide where tea gets served.”

“Not if I have to murd--”

“Shhh. Are you out of your mind?”

“What? It’s just you and me.”

A long pause. Victoire leaned even harder against the corner.

“...just doesn’t make sense, though. For three years they use separate bedrooms, he gets sick, makes a recovery, they suddenly rekindle the-- the-- romance--”

Giggling.

“And he just, bam, kicks it?”

“...It is strange.”

“You know it is. Not to mention, I mean--” The maid’s voice lowered to a lurid hiss. “She, ‘wakes up’ and he’s just dead?”

“I know. I can’t imagine how...”

“It’s more convenient, isn’t it? All of those friends of hers. Having him out of the way, she can do as she pleases.”

“Right? That Comtois man doesn’t look like he’s in a hurry to leave.”

“Still. The baron wasn’t completely himself. Not really recovered.”

“...Recovered enough, apparently.”

More giggling.

Victoire pushed away from the corner. She padded across to the door, exited out into the hall. In front of the green parlor’s door, she dropped her shoes to the floor noisily. With deliberate care, she nudged them with her feet so that she could slip back into them as the parlor’s door swept open. The two maids, wide-eyed, stared out at her.

Victoire glanced at them. “How strange. I was just thinking of taking a stroll, and here my shoes have traipsed off without me. Lucky thing I caught them.”

“Miss…”

“Quite lucky. Who knows where they could have gotten to.”

She swiveled on her heel, feeling their eyes glued to her back as she walked away.

As a child, the adults would say: such a serious boy, he’ll make a good lord one day. His father passed early, and his mother and grandmother ran the estate until he came into his majority. He never attended university. Never cared much for lessons. He regretted that later. The knowledge itself wasn’t hard to come by later. But it took him more time to create connections, which his personality did not help.

But that’s not what he wanted for Alain, decades later. That’s why he sent him to the best schools. Sent him on a tour of all the nations after school. Arranged a spectacular match for him. For all the good it did.

Stupid boy. Getting himself gutted on some scumbag’s blade.

He’d had him too late in life. Things had become harder and harder to recover from. He would dream of the sugared, bitter smell of unripened grapes and the hunched form of his grandmother on her horse. Her black silhouette against the sun and the shadow of the vineyard’s lattices. The way his father’s breath misted before his long beard during those rides. His wife’s hands, un-young and showing slackness in the skin.

His first wife. Alain’s mother.

He wondered sometimes, if he reached that other place and he met her there, what would she say? What a good lord he’d made that day, when he lost Alain.

He’d been a good landlord, he’d known. He’d protected the estates, all their wealth. The heritage of his name. His ancestors could blame him for nothing. Except for leaving the line to die.

He’d tried. But the years had slipped from him, and things had become harder and harder to recover from.

He had regrets, but it seemed inconsequential in the face of time.

The only thing, really, was her. But the girl would be fine. He was sure of it.

Some Hours Afterward

She slipped awake slowly, resisting all along the way. It had become such a habit: curling around her sleep possessively until half the day was spent. And better still, since she was usually free to fling her limbs in empty space, that he lingered for once.

Good. If he had changed his mind, then he could at least afford this as well.

Eyes struggling, she exhaled and shifted. Her head and hand rested on his chest. A gap in the curtains behind her cast a long line of sunlight over the blanket. Her fingers flexed, clenching and splaying across the fineness of his shirt.

She sat up, on instinct. But her instinct, her mind, moved sluggishly and could not prod her body into urgency.

She stared. The cold of his skin pulled at her, at her warmth. Her own movements dizzied her, in relation to his stillness. Her hand reached forward.

“My lord.”

She called for help. Or she heard herself call for help.

The following days blurred.

Years Afterward

She slipped awake slowly, urging herself onward. Her subconscious self. Or part of it, or some form of it, or perhaps not that at all and it was just residual animal instinct that made her grasp for lucidity as if she were drowning and the undertow had its fangs in her. Had she been dreaming within the form of a mermaid, fleeing the pursuit of some terror of the deep? Something Victoire would say.

Her flesh abhorred cold.

“Are you awake?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you alright? You were murmuring…”

She raised her fingers to her eyes, shifting her cheek on his chest. It was very nearly overwarm, but she pressed closer. Closer to the rhythm of his heart’s beat, the vibration transferred through touch.

“I’m sorry. I know that’s your special purview.”

“Oh?”

“Talking my ear off even here.”

He combed through her loose curls, a steady counter-beat to the heart in her ear. The sheer curtains about the bed filtered moonlight in the emeralds and indigos and purples of its elaborate pattern. How much more rare and precious a gift-- the trains and ribbons of the moon, when its appearance was so transient in comparison to the sun, and so stark when beset upon by the night’s darkness. Heady scents of the sea filled the room.

“I don’t know if you want to hear it,” she finally said.

This was untrue. She did know he would hear it, would want to hear anything that she needed to say. But a warning seemed necessary, or at least a buffer for herself.

“Sabine,” Zarad said.

She sighed. “It’s Namaire.”

“Go on.”

“A few months before, he got sick. But god knows if he was hiding pain or something before that. After a few weeks of physicians and medicine and humors, it seemed he’d recovered. And then.”

The immense murmur of the ocean mixed with the sound of their pulses.

“It’s not something I’ve ever told someone,” she said. “It’s not-- I think he knew what was going to happen. Somehow. Not that there was intention, or anything. I think he had a feeling. You hear things like that, don’t you? That people can feel it when the time’s… As if you start to waver here, and the oscillations sink to your bones.

“For years… we used separate rooms. Lived largely separate lives. But those last days, I think he needed an affirmation. That he was living, that he existed. So he… needed me… I guess. It’s hard to think about. To remember. Because it seemed like he was drowning and nothing I could do would help him.”

She continued. “I thought…”

“You thought…?”

He sounded just as uncertain as her, just as much treading on a thin shear of ice.

“I don’t know. He’d lived a full life long before we met. I only knew him for four years. Even if you know someone their whole life, you’ll never know everything. I have no doubt I knew so very little. But-- those last days--”

She rolled over and covered her face.

“I’d wake up and feel like a completely different person in the light of day. And then the nights swept in and the dark changed everything-- I don’t know. I felt that I knew him. At least in those moments. I was never in love with him. But still. It was amazing and frightening to see how fragile a person could be.”

He shifted, and she could feel him hovering with his fingers going to her hair again. “And that morning?”

She removed her hands. “As about as bad as you’d imagine… I’m glad you wake before me.”

“I’m not going to leave you, you know.”

“Good. Despite what the rumors say, I don’t fancy making a career of this widow business.”

In the face of her poor attempt at a blithe tone, he pulled her close and told her he loved her. And told her again. Created a mantra of it, crooned her to sleep again to I love you I love you. Everything else was like those long ago nights; profound and ephemeral but ultimately not as dear and near and real as this. She much preferred a sharper moon that saw her clearly and stayed with her in their travel across sleep’s dream-dark sky.

#7kpp #fanfiction #revaire!mc #zarad #penelope #cordelia #my writing #sabine #it's been a while since i've posted something serious #aha...#don't get me wrong i like writing #but sometimes i hate how guilty i feel when im not really working on anything #and then i feel bad bc the best way to keep writing and to improve #is to /actually/ write #yknow #:////#blegh

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create-ninety · 6 years ago

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Wednesday 20th February, ’19. 10am.

There’s nothing quite like going to a gig at a small venue in a trendy part of town to make you feel like a geriatric.

While I was getting ready for the event, I was wondering if I was going too casual – I was wearing a plain t-shirt with black jeans and an oversized floral blazer. Turns out I should have gone in what I normally wear as pyjamas! There were kids (I say kids, because while there were definitely a few ‘older’ people in the crowd, the majority looked like they were born this side of the century) wearing what I can only describe as their dorky mum’s clothes from the seventies. It was bizarre. Lucie and I stood to the side in a somewhat demure fashion by comparison, me sipping on non-alcoholic beer, and Lucie overheating from a temperature brought on by a nasty cold.

We both agreed that, if we were born when they were, it’s this kind of crowd we probably would have found ourselves in. Perhaps it’s because they were wearing exactly what we were wearing, once upon a time. I can imagine this isn’t a unique experience for people who find themselves looking over their shoulder at the next generation and wonder what the hell is going on.

The show itself was great – the band were amazing. I’ve seen them three times now and each time they’ve got better. The audience loved the performance and it was actually quite inspiring to see people passionate about their art in action. And it was obviously the kind of crowd that didn’t bat an eyelid that I was draped over completely over Lucie, which is always a plus.

When we got home, we lay awake talking about it the performers. I wondered what the process is that gets a person to the point where they feel confident enough to get on stage and perform in front of others. Essentially saying, “I am confident enough that my work is good enough to not only subject you to, but I am compelling enough to perform it in front of others.”

That’s a pretty brave thing, for anyone to do. To be inviting open criticism and to stand up and project vulnerability. I do, genuinely, marvel at musicians and stage actors who have to suspend what can only be described as ‘normal reality’ to sing, move about, and create a large amount of sound – something that in any other situation would be wildly inappropriate and strange. And yet there we all were, gathered around a stage, making noise for individuals who were inhabiting that space of vulnerability. I’ve decided that, for me, it’s actually less about hearing the music of the artists when I see the live show, and more about watching and observing the emotions that they’re going through, as they do it. And you can see it on their faces. The nerves, the little shakes, the awkward chatter between songs when the polished performance of practiced routine is paused.

Lucie pointed out to me that writing a novel isn’t so different to that.

In some ways, perhaps not, but by and large I think there are some key differences.

I think that if you’re a creative person by nature, then creativity has the opportunity to express itself in several key ways: as an actor, a musician, a visual artist, or a writer. Each of those could be called spheres with smaller subsets breaking off (stage actors vs film actors, painters vs photographers, poets vs fiction writers, and so on). I suppose it just depends what vehicle you ultimately are drawn to and prefer as your mode of expression. Because ultimately, the point of anything creative is fundamentally the same: it’s just that, expression. You are expressing something emotive, experiential, a message, something others might relate to. And each of those spheres give you the option to do it, but with completely different methods of execution.

When I was growing up I played with all of the different spheres and I can see them all, now, as different sizes and at varying distances from me. At certain points in my life I’ve actually valued them and explored them in different orders. Some have increased in resolution and texture while others have stayed smaller and smoother.

The smallest of my creative spheres, the one most under-developed and child-like, is visual art. I’m not bad at basic sketching or copying something. And I can stare at a piece of art and try and pull out its meaning. But when I was young, the pleasure I’d get from mixing paint or translating an emotion onto a canvas or something else just wasn’t very high for me. So I didn’t spend time doing it. There were moments where I’d develop a surge in interest (this still happens) – I’d go and buy watercolours and start painting for fun, or I’d be obsessed with sketching raccoons or something. But it’s always fleeting, and ultimately, not really something that I have been able to use as the best means of my expression.

I found a lot of joy in stage acting and performing when I was young, right up to my teenage years. I would include public speaking in this. I found it exciting. I liked playing characters with interesting stories, and I liked to turn different emotions on and off to create scenes with others. I liked finding mirrors of myself in characters, and ‘becoming them’, for a short time, was a small reprieve from myself. But sometimes it was hard to occupy the emotions of a character when my own were trying to take centre stage, so to speak. In my last year of high school when I was arguably involved in the most theatre I’d ever done – I was the lead role in my drama class’ final show, I was in a speech finals competition, I was sitting a speech and drama exam that had multiple theatrical components, I was in our school production, and in an improv team – I was stressed as hell. I realised, ultimately, I didn’t like standing up in front of others to be scrutinised as a version of myself that wasn’t me. I didn’t like that there was a ‘right way’ to act, and a ‘wrong way’. Because, well, there’s a director telling you what to do and how to do it. And so when I left school, I stopped any form of acting. I thought about joining a theatre company but I didn’t. I almost studied Theatre at uni, but I didn’t. It just wasn’t the creative vehicle for expression for me and I dropped it all together. I think, as a result, that acting is now my least valued and explored sphere.

Music, on the other hand, was something I discovered in my late teens. I’d tried piano earlier but didn’t like it, because I was taught classical, which to me was basically mathematics with your fingers. I wasn’t good at translating the written music to something that requires you to be so profoundly dextrous. Years later I would discover tab, and learn the general principles of music accidentally. I realised that chords are the foundation of all music, and that chords translate across all string and wind instruments, including the piano. Once I understood that, and once I was able to master basic dexterity and rhythm, music became the most wonderful tool of expression. I was able to write lyrics, write melodies, and then later on, piece them all together to make a song on my computer. I must have made hundreds. I did struggle to ‘finish’ one, though, and my desire to perform them never became overwhelming enough to take it to the next level. For me, it really was just means to express something. I liked the personal nature of it. I liked the different emotions that could be conveyed through the different sounds and instruments. Sharing the songs with anyone was always a profoundly terrifying experience: the music was an extension of myself, as if I had translated my own identity and ‘suffering’ into sound – and for others to hear it, and to judge it, would be for them to judge me. And so the music sphere for me has grown large, but it has stayed at the same size for some years now. I pick up the guitar when I’m feeling emotional. Or when I want to put music to a poem. And when I see musicians perform, I see love for the vehicle. I often dream about writing an album to compliment a film. I suppose that now, there is actually the option to actually produce music without having to perform at all – you can do it all digitally. But I don’t think that I love it enough to put it out there. There is so much music available. I don’t think that what I create would be contributing to anything other than my own creative expression. And so, it’s for that reason, while it’s fun to dream, I think – unless I suddenly have unlimited free time and money – that it’s something I’ll never take further than just tinkering around when I fancy.

Writing, for me, is the perfect mode of expression. It’s a completely internal process. With music there is this external component, which I think is ultimately what turns me off about it, but with writing, it can be done completely behind a veil. When it is released into the world, it’s consumed by a reader internally. You are not the work. The work is as separate from you as possible (perhaps in many ways like visual art). This is what appeals to me so deeply. That I get to have a personal, raw, emotive and transformative experience writing something and exploring it in a depth that has so many layers of meaning. And when someone reads it, the work becomes a personal experience for them. You are just a a vehicle for the expression. My physical form, my personal likes and dislikes and expressions, are not relevant to the ideas being put out into the world. And I love this. Writing also carries with it the highest possibility for profound connection: books take a long time to be read, and upon each separate reading, new meaning can be found and uncovered. The same can be said for all the spheres, absolutely – I’ve certainly spent hours listening to the same song and attached various meanings to it, and felt connections to musicians I’ve never met – but there is something unique about a narrative with a character who goes on a journey. I would argue that in a book you can still experience all five senses, but in an abstract way.

I don’t like the thought of who I am as a person getting in the way of the message. I want to place the art and the ideas at the centre of the experience. When you involve yourself – in a way that musicians and actors have to do – then you become consumable. And that is a scary concept for me. One could argue that the person performing is actually, themselves, part of the art - I would imagine this to be true - but I think this is what differentiates the spheres.

And, more than anything, writing is as automatic and as essential to me as breathing. Or eating. It’s just something that’s part of my day and necessary for normal functioning. For people who master the other spheres, you can see that they have this feeling about their own medium. I saw it on the faces of the performers last night. They live and breathe music. Their instruments are extensions of their identities that they have to exorcise. When I scroll through the Instagram profiles of visual artists, their dedication to the craft is demonstrated through the picture after picture after picture of their creations.

And, finally, I am now – perhaps like the musicians – confident enough to think that my work is good enough. I also think it’s now good enough for others. So yes, maybe I am more like the musicians than I think.

#personal #createninety #journal #feb2019 #february2019 #thoughts #contemplation #writer #author

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wuackitys-has-moved · 8 years ago

Text

I Had A Thought Dear - Part 10

I only have one thing to say: I’m so sorry. Read it under the cut or on AO3.

WARNINGS: Death mention.

Bodhi was jolted awake by the sound of the base's alarm going off. "Cassian?" he asked, feeling around the bed for his boyfriend.

"I'm up, I'm here," Cassian sat up next to him, and they both looked at each other. "Get dressed. Whatever this is, it can't be good." Cassian got out of bed pulling his shirt on over his head. Bodhi followed suit, pulling on his flight suit.

"Pilots," a voice flooded out the siren, and Bodhi looked up. "Please make your way toward your lockers and change into your flight suits. I repeat: pilots, make your way towards your lockers and change into your flight suits. Prepare for attack." Attack.

"Attack?" Cassian had just finished pulling on his shoes.

"They-they have to be talking about the Death Star attack. But we're supposed to have more training time. They can't possibly think we're ready!" Bodhi ran his hands through his hair, and he could feel his heartbeat in his throat.

Cassian grabbed his arms, and Bodhi flinched. "Bodhi, you can't afford to do this right now. It might not even be the Death Star. But if it is, your squadron needs you to stay calm...I need you to stay calm." Bodhi nodded, looking into Cassian's eyes.

"O-okay. I," he swallowed, "I need to go." Cassian nodded, pulling Bodhi in for a kiss. It was long and deep, but bittersweet.

When Cassian pulled away, he smiled sadly. "I love you. I'll see you after all of this."

Bodhi nodded, "Yeah. See you." He left the room, jogging toward the lockers. People were rushing around, looking scared. Bodhi tried his best to calm his nerves, but all he could think about was what could go wrong.

He turned one corner and ran straight into somebody. "Oof! Sorry, I- Luke!"

"Bodhi!" Luke smiled and patted him on the shoulder. They both continued the jog to the lockers together.

"Do you know what this is about? I thought the attack on the Death Star wasn't for another month?" Bodhi asked, trying to hide his fear behind curiosity.

"It was. But Mon Mothma and Leia are worried that the Empire is onto us. If we want a surprise attack, it's gotta be now." Luke explained, and Bodhi nodded. He didn't know what to say, he just hoped Cassian was safe.

"Captain Andor!" Mon Mothma greeted Cassian as he walked into the control room, "We've had to move the attack on the Death Star up. The Empire might have caught wind of our plans, and we need to strike now. I hope you're prepared."

Cassian crossed his arms and looked at the leader of the Rebellion, "As ready as I'll ever be."

Mon Mothma nodded and motioned toward one of the screens in front of her. "While the Empire is distracted with the Death Star, we will be relocating the Rebel Base to Hoth. You, K-2SO, and a few other pilots will be flying Rebels who aren't involved in the battle there in transport ships."

Cassian nodded, mind flashing to the knowledge he'd gained on Hoth. It was a glacier of a planet, with below-freezing temperatures year round. It was a few systems away from Yavin-IV, but not that far.

He heard a noise behind him and turned. Princess Leia walked in, looking angry. "Princess? Is everything alright?" Mon Mothma asked her.

Leia looked up, realizing that she had an audience. "Everything's fine. Are we all set for the attack?"

Mon Mothma nodded, "Just about. All of the non-essential rebels are boarding their transport ships now. And the pilots are being prepped for launch."

Cassian looked at Leia, sensing that something was off. "Mon Mothma, may I speak to the Princess for a moment?" He asked.

Mon Mothma looked at him, and then back at Leia. "Of course, I sneed to speak with Admiral Ackbar, anyway." She quickly left, and Cassian watched as Leia fumed.

"Are you okay?"

Leia looked up at him, frustrated, "Of course I'm fine."

Cassian sighed, looking down at his boots. "What's Jyn doing?" Leia looked up at him, obviously surprised. "It has to be her. I know that look. It's what I look like whenever Bodhi does something stupid."

Leia sighed, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. "She's being ridiculous. She wants to join the attack on the Death Star! I told her no, absolutely not. She's not mentally or physically prepared for that type of flying. Then she got angry, yelled at me, and stormed off. And I don't know where she is."

Cassian nodded, "That sounds like her. But you shouldn't worry. She's smart, she won't do anything stupid."

Jyn rolled her eyes and scoffed, "I'm not so sure." She took a deep breath, settling herself. "But it doesn't matter. We have more important matters to attend to. Captain, I need you to get to your transport immediately. You should be departing soon."

Cassian smiled sadly at her, trying to show as much sympathy as he could. "Yes, Princess. May the force be with you."

Leia looked at him, pride in her eyes, "May the force be with all of us."

"Get to your ships! Remember your formations, and don't stray from the plan!" Jan Dadonna told the pilots, and everyone in the hangar rushed around. "May the force be with us!"

Bodhi turned toward his squadron, all of whom seemed so much younger now than he thought they were before. He shook the thought from his mind, and steeled himself. "You heard Jan. Get to your ships!" They all nodded and scrambled. Bodhi jogged to his ship, waving to Luke as he went. He climbed the ladder up to the cockpit, putting on his helmet once he was inside. "Rogue Squadron, this is Rogue Leader. Do you copy?"

"This is Rogue 2, I copy Rogue Leader."

"Rogue 3, I copy."

"Copy, Rogue 4 hearing you loud and clear."

"Rogue 5 also copies."

"Excellent, let's get ready for takeoff. Remember the plan?" Bodhi asked. He was met with a chorus of yes's, and he smiled. "Let's kick some Empire ass."

A few cheers could be heard over the comm. Bodhi turned on his thrusters, easing out of the hanger. Four other X-Wings followed him, and they quickly jumped into hyperspace.

When they got out of hyperspace, Bodhi looked at the looming figure in front of him.

He had seen the Death Star before. He had seen it's power, too. Which made seeing it directly in front of him all that much more intimidating. But Cassian's words echoed in the back of his mind, and he pushed his fear back.

"Okay, Rogue Squadron. Target the TIE Fighters. Protect the Red and Gold Squadrons. Good luck." Bodhi turned his X-Wing, heading toward a group of X-Wings being followed by TIE Fighters. He shot some of them down, then maneuvered himself away from some that were trailing him.

"Rogue Leader, this is Rogue 3. I'm being trailed by 3 TIE Fighters, I need assistance. Now!" Bodhi looked to his left and saw Rogue 3. He turned his ship and shot down the TIE Fighters. "Thanks, Rogue Leader. Wasn't looking good for a second there."

"No problem, Rogue 3." He moved his ship so that he was moving toward the Death Star. "Rogue Squadron, we need to get closer to the Death Star. We need to destroy this thing, and he only way to do that is if Red Squadron gets the perfect shot. Get in formation."

"Bodhi! Behind you!"

Cassian was on his third trip from Yavin IV to Hoth. There was no news from the Death Star, and he'd be lying if he said he weren't nervous.

He'd been in the Rebellion for years. He knew that chances of survival were low. Lower, even, when you were in the front lines of the fight. Which Bodhi was. He tried not to think about it, but the flights between planets were long. And Cassian's brain seemed to hate him.

His fingers drummed against his thigh, waiting for all of the rebels to board the ship. Almost everyone had a small backpack full of things, and Cassian looked down to the bag at his feet. In it was only a few things: a few extra articles of clothing for Bodhi and him, a small piece of machinery that he was tinkering with, and Bodhi's goggles. he had forgotten them when he had rushed out of the room, and Cassian knew he'd be devastated if he lost them.

He had been told that this should be the last transport, then all of the rebels who weren't fighting would all be on Hoth. Cassian had seen everyone walk onto Hoth, and they looked very cold. He was currently wearing a large jacket, and it seemed that most of the rebels entering the ship were, too.

"Hey, Cassian. How you holding up?" Kes Dameron, one of Cassian's close friends, greeted him as he walked through the door.

Cassian stood up and hugged him, "Okay, I guess. And you?" Kes's wife, Shara, was a part of the attack.

"As good as I can really. Just trying not to think about it," he replied. Cassian nodded and smiled, and Kes patted him on the shoudler. "It's good to see you happy again, Cassian. I'm glad you and Bodhi are together. You're good for each other."

Cassian looked down at his shoes, laughing slightly, "Yeah, he's great. Can't wait to see him after all of this."

Bodhi looked behind him, and saw 5 TIE Fighters tailing him. They seemed to be locked on, and he tried to move out of the way. "This is Rogue Leader, I need some help out here. I'm being tailed by half a dozen TIE Fighters and I can't get away!" He called over the comm.

"Coming!" Rogue 5 responded, and Bodhi grimaced.

"Hurry!" No matter what he did, he couldn't shake the ships. He reached toward his neck for his goggles, but they weren't there. Bodhi swallowed and banked right. "Rogue 5, where are you!?"

"Rogue 5 is down, sir. I'm coming in to help!" Rogue 3's voice sounded in his ear, and his heart dropped. Of course he knew that people were going to die. But it was completely different in the moment.

"I can't keep 'em off of me for much longer, guys." His voice was strained, and the only thing in his mind at that moment was Cassian.

He had promised him that he'd see him after all of this. He couldn't break that promise.

"I'm coming, just hold on a-" Bodhi couldn't hear the rest of that sentence. He was hit, and his X-Wing was spiraling out of control.

He screamed, and tried to maneuver himself at all. But nothing was working. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the ominous shape of the Death Star in front of him.

The control room erupted with cheers when they heard the news. The Death Star was destroyed. They had won.

The pilots were slowly making their way to Hoth. About half of them were already there, and Cassian waited anxiously toward the back of the freezing cold hangar.

Luke showed up after Cassian had been waiting for a little bit, and he was met with congratulations all around. He was quickly followed by Solo and the Wookie, and they embraced when they saw each other. There was definitely something there, Cassian could tell.

More and more pilots showed up, and more and more of them weren't Bodhi. Cassian's chest felt hollow, and he was starting to think the unimaginable.

"Captain Andor?" Cassian turned to find the Princess, looking concerned. "Can I speak with you?" Cassian swallowed. She turned and walked down a hallway, and he wordlessly followed. They turned and entered a secluded room. "I just spoke with Luke. I have some bad news." Cassian's heart sank, and his knees buckled. He barely caught himself on the wall, and Leia helped guide him to a chair.

"Don't. Please don't." He put his face in his hands, and he felt his heartbeat in his stomach. "Don't say that he's dead." His hands were wet, and his cheeks must have been also.

"I'm so sorry, Cassian. None of the Rogue Squadron have been contacted. It's believed that none of them survived."

#my writing #bassian #fic #ro #sw

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