#just figured this would be a fun excuse to draw some pearls and use as reference later :] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blazingopus · 4 years ago

Text

Diamonds and Pearls - Diamond is Unbreakable

I wrote this story for my sister, because she is really into Josuke. She read it and said that nothing much happens. It seems that I have much to learn when it comes to writing romance. Please enjoy.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2IFeTVorFps8gukz51x3CU?si=zntwgGbeRq-E6JpuBQeH9g

Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Doing that thing with your face when you are happy. It's making me nauseous."

The little town of Morioh. If you looked at it on a map, you would think that it was just a normal rural town in Japan. It's only when you step foot inside that you find out about its true nature. A town with secrets and strange occurrences around every corner. Not all of them bad, not all of them good. After a little while, you get a used to it. Morioh is my home, and the home of many other stand users.

One of these stand users is a friend of mine. His name is Higashikata Josuke. His mother and my mother were close friends for years. We knew each other before we were old enough to remember. We went to school together, we spent our summers together, our families celebrated holidays together. Many of the people who see us walking down the street together think we are brother and sister, or boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't know if we are either of those, but Josuke is very important to me. That's all I know.

Things got a little more strange than usual a couple weeks ago. It all started with this Kujo Jotaro wanting to talk to Josuke one day before school. He had some important information from Josuke's long lost father, who is also Jotaro's grandfather. Apparently, Josuke is Jotaro's uncle, even though Jotaro is at least ten years older. He also had warnings of a serial killer loose in Morioh. A very strange message, indeed.

And that is how our adventure began. Along the way, we picked up some new friends. Hirose Koichi can be a little timid and worrisome, but he has a good heart and will always try to do what's right. Nijimura Okuyasu may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but he will stick with you through thick and thin.

Koichi has some strange people that like to follow him around. He has a girlfriend named Yukako. She's crazy, but I can't tell if it is a good crazy or a bad crazy. Still, she seems very devoted to him and wants to see him happy. He also has a famous mangaka friend. You might have heard of Kishibe Rohan. He is the writer and author of one of the most popular mangas in all of Japan, Pink Dark Boy. He's also an asshole. Well, an asshole to everyone but Koichi. He seems to actually enjoy his company and is respectful towards him. Everyone else can go screw themselves, me included.

All this to say, we are a strange bunch. If this whole adventure with the stand bow and arrow hadn't happened, I don't think I would know all these people, and all the other people I have met around Morioh. Seriously, you need to go to Tonio's restaurant. He makes amazing food.

It was a Saturday, and I was heading to Josuke's house. He had bought a new videogame, and was really excited to show me how it played. I'm not very interested in video games, but I did it to make him happy. Just watching him get excited was enough for me. And I like being over at his house, his mom makes some good cookies.

I live a few doors down from him, so I walked over to his house and knocked on the door. A few seconds went by before he opened the door.

"Hey, how's it goin', (Y/N)?" he asked me with a smile. He was wearing his usual attire, hair neat as always.

I laughed a little. "Josuke, you just asked me that over the phone."

His eyes went wide for a moment, before giving a nervous chuckle and rubbing the back of his neck. "I guess I did, didn't I? Sorry about that, my mind has been all over the place."

"It's fine, Josuke. It doesn't hurt anyone. Now, didn't you say you had a new game to show me?" I dramatically held my chin and looked off into the distance.

"Yeah, come on in." He stepped out of the door with a grin on his face. I walked in and followed Josuke into the living room. In front of the tv, his console was hooked up and ready to play. Controllers snaking across the carpet. A few of his games were scattered around the floor, like he had been looking through them. Josuke sat down and patted the spot next to him.

After I sat down, he held out a controller. I stared at it before looking up at him.

He blinked. "It has a two player mode. Do you want to try it?"

I hesitantly took it from him. "Okay, but I don't think I will be very good. You know I don't really play video games."

He shrugged. "That's fine. I don't care how good you play, I just want to play with you." A slight blush came across his face.

Josuke turned on the console and the logo came up on screen. After a few seconds, it faded away and the start screen popped up. He went through the menu, selecting the game mode he wanted.

It was a spaceship shooter game. You moved your ship up and down the screen and shot at things as they floated in from the right side of the screen. Other ships came in and you had to avoid their laser missile things and stay alive. Josuke did his best to explain the controls, but I kept dying despite trying my hardest. He did most of the work getting through the levels. He was having a lot of fun with it, really getting competitive. He was taking out other ships, trying to get the best score.

It was when we got to the boss level, even he started to die. He concentrated more, getting really invested in the game. The only thing he could see was the collection of pixels on the screen. After a few rounds and a lot of hard work, we were able to finally defeat the boss.

"Yes!" Josuke pumped his fist in the air. "We did it, (Y/N)! We kicked that boss's butt!" He beamed at me.

I smiled back at him. "Yeah. You did great." I don't know how we did it, but I guess beating the first boss is a good thing.

He reached over and turned off the console. "You did pretty good too. Hey, I have an idea. Do you want to get ice cream to celebrate?"

'Uh, yeah." I didn't understand why we were celebrating playing a video game, but I will use any excuse to get ice cream.

Josuke stood up before reaching out a hand to help me off the floor. We walked out the front door and stepped onto the street. We began to find our way to downtown where our favorite ice cream shop is.

"Hey, um, (Y/N)?" He managed to say. "I want to talk to you about... Something important."

"What is it?" I asked looking up at him.

"Well, it's..."

"Hey, Josuke!" A familiar voice called out to us.

Across the street, Okuyasu and Koichi were on a walk of their own. Koichi was smiling at us, while Okuyasu was waving crazily at us. They crossed the street and came over to us.

"Hey guys. Koichi trotted over. "What are you doing today?"

Josuke shrugged. "Nothing much. Just heading to get some ice cream."

Okuyasu's eyes got really wide. "Whaaaaat? Ice cream? I love ice cream! Can we come along?"

"Yeah, that sounds great!" Koichi said with a smile.

Josuke didn't look so happy. "I would love to guys, but I was hoping I could spend the day with (Y/N). It's been a while since it's been the two us"

Okuyasu's smile turned into a sly grin. "Oh, I see. Are you and (Y/N) on a date or something?"

Josuke started to blush. "It's nothing like that. We just haven't spent as much time together as we used to."

Okuyasu nodded. "Uh huh. Whatever you say, Josuke."

Josuke clenched his fists. "What's that supposed to mean, huh?"

I grabbed Josuke's arm. "It's fine, Josuke. They can come with us to get ice cream if they want."

He sighed and relaxed a bit. "Fine, if you say so, (Y/N)."

"YES! WOO HOO!" Okuyasu yelled out.

Koichi looked up at me. "Thanks a lot, (Y/N). I appreciate it."

I smiled and nodded. "It's no problem. I like hanging out with you guys."

Together we set off to the ice cream parlor. Okuyasu was thinking out loud, trying to figure out what kind of ice cream he was going to get, and what kind of toppings he was going to put on it. Koichi was politely adding to the conversion. Josuke was oddly quiet. We seem sad and a little disheartened. I found it odd, because he usually likes going on adventures with these guys. What was so different about today?

We finally made our way to the ice cream parlor. There were many people outside, sitting on the metal furniture. One of those people was Kishibe Rohan. He was busy scribbling away with a notebook and pencil, taking quick glances at the shops across the street.

Koichi waved to him. "Hello Rohan-sensei. It's a nice day today, isn't it?"

He stopped sketching and looked up at us over his notebook. "Yes, I do believe it is." He glared at Josuke. "What are you doing here, Koichi?"

"We're getting ice cream," he replied excitedly. "What about you? What are you doing here Rohan-sensei?

He put his notebook and pencil down with a sigh." I was sketching some of the architecture around Morioh. While I am indeed one of the best artists in Japan, I like to keep my skills sharp. Drawing from life is important for an artist at any skill level."

"Wow, that's impressive." Koichi walked over to see Rohan's work.

"Yeah, real impressive," Josuke said with venom in his voice. "Let's get some ice cream already."

Koichi looked up from the notebook. "Oh, right. Sorry guys."

We walked in together. I ordered something I liked, while Koichi got vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and rainbow sprinkles. Okuyasu ordered a little bit of everything at the bar, and put every kind of topping on his ice cream. Josuke ordered, strangely, a chocolate malt milkshake. I don't think I have ever seen him order a malt. He likes banana splits. Was he really having an off day?

When we walked out to the patio, there was only one table available that would fit all four of us. It was next to Rohan, of course. Josuke sighed as we sat down.

"Please try to keep quiet," Rohan said without looking up from his drawing. "I'm working."

Okuyasu huffed. "We are not the only ones here, you know."

"I know," he said unfazed. "I told the other patrons the same thing. They are much more accommodating than you lot are."

Okuyasu growled and began to stand up. I glared at him. "Sit down and eat your ice cream. It will cool you down."

He reluctantly did what I said. "Ugh, he just gets on my nerves sometimes!"

"Believe me, I know." Josuke took a straw out of the dispenser in the middle of the table. He took the wrapper off and plunged into his malt.

Koichi took a bite of sprinkles and fudge. "C'mon, guys. He's not that bad."

"To you, maybe," I said with my mouth full. "But everyone else is a lower life form compared to his majesty and grace."

Rohan tilted his head over towards me. "I would appreciate it if you didn't talk about me if I wasn't here."

I glared right back at him. "Don't pretend you don't do the same thing to us all the time."

He sneered at me, but turned back to his work without another word.

I smirked. I got him that time.

Josuke gave me a small smile before taking a sip from his straw. I looked between him and his malt. "Josuke," I quietly asked, "I thought you liked banana splits. Why did you get a milkshake?"

He glanced up at me. "That's true, I do like those." He looked thoughtful. "But I do like a chocolate malt sometimes. But it's not just a normal milkshake. The malt makes the whole thing better."

"Huh," I thought out loud. "Can I try some?"

He blinked at me with wide eyes. "Yeah, sure." He grabbed another straw and put in the milkshake. He slid it over to me.

I caught it and I grabbed hold of my straw. I took a drink. The malt added a little something to the chocolate ice cream and milk blend. "Hm, not bad." I slid it back to him. "I see what you mean."

Josuke grabbed hold of the glass. "Right? I mean, I don't like to have it all the time. But it's good every so often."

Okuyasu looked at us with a sneaky glare. "So, are you guys going to drink at the same time all romantic and stuff?"

Josuke locked on to Okuyasu. "Would you just butt out, Okuyasu? You're not helping!"

He just shrugged. "I was just asking."

"Helping with what?" Koichi asked innocently.

Josuke whipped around. "It's... Just... It's nothing, Koichi. Don't worry about it."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "If you really want to, Josuke, I don't mind."

He looked at me and blushed a little. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "Don't feel like you have to, (Y/N)! It wasn't even my idea." He waved his hands in front of his face like he was trying to dismiss it.

I leaned over the table and took hold of the glass. I moved it to the center of the table. "I will if you do." I put my straw in my mouth, inviting him to do the same.

Okuyasu gave Josuke a little nudge with his elbow. After he gave him a nasky look, Josuke leaned over the table with me and grabbed hold of his straw. I giggle a little bit. This was so ridiculous, like this was in some cheesy romcom.

We both began to drink the milkshake. His face was so close to mine, I could look directly into his eyes. Our eyes met, and I started to giggle again. Josuke blushed some more. The glass was quickly emptying.

I pulled away and started laughing. Josuke also dropped his straw and sat in his seat again, a smile on his face.

"Yeah! Go Josuke!" Okuyasu announced and pulled him in for a side hug. Koichi gave a slow applause.

"Sorry Josuke," I said, feeling how warm my face was. "It just seemed so silly, I just couldn't stop myself. It was fun, though." A large smile was plastered on my face.

Josuke also broke out in a huge grin. "Yeah, kinda was." He gave out a chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Stop that." Rohan ordered from the other table, his eyes boring into Josuke.

Josuke leaned over so he could get a better look at him. "Stop what?"

Rohan narrowed his eyes and looked condescendingly at him "Doing that thing with your face when you are happy. It's making me nauseous."

Josuke pushed the chair out from under him. "That's it. I'm tired of this. CRAZY DIAMOND!"

"Heaven's Door!"

Both Josuke and Rohan were ready to attack, poised to beat the crap out of each other.

"Both of you, stop!" I ran out in between them, arms raised out to block them. Koichi quickly ran to my side, calling upon Echoes. "Now is not the time or the place to be doing this!" I yelled, looking back and forth between them. "Now settle down. You're already causing a scene."

Josuke looked around him, huffed, and then dismissed Crazy Diamond. "Alight, (Y/N), I'll do this for you." He turned and pointed at Rohan. "But next time, I'll beat the ever-loving shit out of you, Rohan"

Rohan smirked and grabbed his supplies. "You can certainly try, Josuke. I look forward to our next meeting." He walked away, leaving us to watch his stupid, sassy strides.

"Son of a bitch," Josuke muttered under his breath, his fist clenched so tightly his knuckles were turning white.

"Don't let him get to you, Josuke," I gave him a sympathetic look. "He's just trying to get you worked up."

He looked down at his feet. "Yeah, you're probably right." He looked back up at me and gave me a half-hearted smile. "Thanks."

I returned the smile. "Let's finish up our ice cream, okay?"

It was later in the afternoon. After a fun time with Okuyasu and Koichi, both went to their respective homes. They had responsibilities they had to attend to. It was just me and Josuke walking home together. It was bringing back old memories of all the time we had walked home together after school. We walked silently, letting the sounds of Morioh fill the space between us.

"Hey, um," Josuke said quietly. "I'm sorry about what happened today. I didn't mean for any of that Rohan stuff to happen." He paused for a moment and rubbed his neck. "I hope I didn't ruin it for you."

I shook my head. "No, not really. Rohan was the one causing trouble, not you. And nothing was ruined for me." I smiled at him "It's just another day in this crazy, noisy, bizarre town of ours."

He watched my face, looking for some sort of hidden emotion or answer. When he couldn't, he smiled back. "Well, I'm happy about that, at least."

We walked for a little bit longer, letting the silence get comfortable around us. A thought crept into my head as we traveled down the sidewalk.

"Josuke?"

"Yeah?"

"Didn't you say you had something important to ask me?"

"Um," He almost stopped walking. He was avoiding my gaze "Yeah, but it's not that important. Don't worry about it"

"If it wasn't important, you wouldn't need to ask me. Besides, you said yourself that it was important." I tried to get a good look at him. "What is it Josuke? You can ask me anything."

He stopped walking. "Well, I..." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes again, and looked me dead in the eyes. He was going to get it out even if it killed him, I could tell.

"(Y/N), I like you a lot. I like like you a lot." He paused. "I've wanted to ask this for a long time. Would you be my girlfriend? Don't feel like you have to say yes, or anything, just because we're friends. But if you really want to..."

I took his hand in mine. "Yes, Josuke. I will be your girlfriend." I giggled a little, my cheeks getting warm. "I like like you too. And not just because we're friends."

He stood there stunned for a few moments. Then a huge smile spread across his face. "Really?"

I nodded, feeling really giddy inside.

He leaned in and scooped me into a hug. He lifted me off the ground, my feet dangling under me. I let myself melt into him, enjoying the love and warmth. We had given each other hugs before in the past, but this one was different. This one was special. I think we both could feel it.

When we finally pulled away, all we could do was look at each other and laugh to ourselves. "You know," Josuke mumbles a bit, "I kind of had this whole day planned out and everything." He chuckles a bit. " Guess I didn't need to go through all that, did I?"

I give him a smile. "No. I would have said yes, no matter how you asked me. Besides, you can't plan for anything in Morioh. At least one thing will throw off. your entire day."

"Yeah, I guess so."

I reached out and took his hand. He slid his fingers in between mine, and gave my hand a small squeeze. We walked the rest of the way like this, both blushing a bit. It felt a little like a dream, like this was never supposed to happen. But it did, and I couldn't be happier.

We walked until we were standing in front of his house. His was the first stop, while mine was a few more houses down. Josuke sighed and looked down at me. "Well, this is it."

"Yeah," I sighed back. I didn't want this to end. Like if I let go of Josuke's hand, the spell would break, and everything would be undone. The dream would end, and everything would go back to the way it was.

Josuke looked at me for a moment, looking unsure of himself. He took a deep breath and gathered his courage. He leaned in, and slowly kissed my cheek. When he pulled away, I could feel my face flare up and turn red. I looked at Josuke. His face was just as red as mine felt.

"Well," I managed to stutter out. "I'll see you later, Josuke."

"Yeah, you too (Y/N)."

Then we both turned away. All things considered, it was a pretty awesome day. And I couldn't wait to spend another one with my boyfriend, Higashikata Josuke.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo's bizarre adventure diamond is unbreakable #diamond is unbreakable #josuke higashikata #josuke x reader #jjba #jjba oneshot #jjba x reader #jjba reader insert #jjba fanfiction

33 notes · View notes

agerefandom · 5 years ago

Text

Safe and Sound

Fandom: Steven Universe

Characters: Regressor!Steven, featuring Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet as caregivers.

Words: 2,000

Summary: Steven decides to give up regression when he becomes part of the Crystal Gems, but one morning he finds himself physically stuck as a young child until he’s willing to accept the help he needs.

Warnings: ‘Little’ terminology used. Rose is mentioned in this fanfiction, Steven regresses from stress, and there is a mention of panic attacks, as well as a fair amount of described anxiety. Also, Steven physically regresses as well as mentally, because it’s canon that his body shifts to fit the age that he feels like? Cartoons are odd.

Note: This is set somewhere in season two, I think, but it’s a bit ambiguous. I haven’t seen Steven Universe Future yet, so excuse any contradictions, and the canon fact that the Gems are absolute disaster caregivers.

Steven loved the beach house that he shared with the Gems. He loved the constant sound of the waves, and the calm glow of the warp pad at night. He loved the short and familiar walk to town, his comfortable bed, and the bathtub deep enough that he could submerge his whole body.

The only thing that Steven hated about his home was the lack of privacy.

Even when the Gems were away on a mission, they could warp back in at any given moment. At night, Amethyst often wandered in to get a midnight snack, and Steven was sure that Pearl still watched him sleep, even if he hadn’t caught her recently.

So when Steven wanted to regress, he had to plan ahead.

At first, he had retreated into his mother’s room, knowing that no one could access it while he was inside. But as soon as he stopped being careful about what he wished for, Rose was always there, stepping off a nearby cloud to collect her son into her arms. Steven was happy to see his mother when he was little, playing and laughing and sharing his favourite stories. But at some point, he always aged up, and Rose would change into a figure who was silent, and looming, and distant. Steven would retreat from the room feeling more exhausted than before, promising himself that he wouldn’t go in again.

Lion became Steven’s source of escape. He would pack a bag, hop on Lion’s back, and tell the Gems that he was spending the afternoon with Connie, or Ronaldo, or even Sadie. He had enough friends that the Gems never checked first, and then he had a whole day to spend in a field in Alberta, or Texas, or even France.

Lion would pace around the area while Steven played, rumbling warnings at anyone who tried to approach. Steven would run, and explore, and eventually sit down and cry until his throat hurt too much to continue. Often, Lion would come and curl against him while he cried, turning his head away to feign indifference as his tail wrapped around Steven’s wrist.

Regression was only fun for a while, for Steven. Eventually, reality came crashing back in, harsher and bleaker in contrast to the bright innocent world he had inhabited for a few too-brief minutes.

Yet he came back to it again and again, not knowing a better way to escape the constant anxiety of his everyday life. He needed to forget about the most current threat to planet Earth, needed to forget about Pearl and Amethyst’s most recent fight. Needed to forget the guilt of walking in on his father crying over a picture of Rose.

Regression was a safe space like nothing else in his life was, ruled by uncertainty and continual attacks from outside and inside his family.

Eventually, it fell apart.

As Steven was expected on more missions, the Gems might need him at any moment. If Steven wasn’t where he said he’d be, then all hell would break loose as the Gems searched for him. He was scared that if it happened too many times, then the Gems would stop letting him leave with Lion at all.

So there was only one thing to do. Steven had to give up regression. There was no time or space for it in his life, he always needed to be available for Crystal Gem missions. It was alright that the others forgot he needed to sleep, needed to eat, needed to rest between missions spent running after corrupted gems.

Steven was a Crystal Gem now, and he needed to act like it. That meant no more running away to be a kid every so often.

Steven was going cold-turkey.

But of course, things didn’t really work out like that. Steven managed to hang on for two full months, hiding his panic attacks in the bathroom and trying not to fall asleep on the couch whenever he sat down.

At the start of the second month, he woke up to the morning sun with tears already running down his face. His clothes were too big on him, and his arms felt weak when he tried to move them.

Trying not to panic, Steven looked down at himself and saw a young child’s body, twisted in the sheets and teenage-sized clothes that he’d slept in. He needed to shift back to normal-Steven before the Gems came out to see him!

But Steven couldn’t stop sobbing, and however hard he concentrated, he couldn’t calm down enough to shift back to his usual size. His failed attempts made him cry harder. What was he going to do? No one could see him like this!

Just as he was getting ready to truly panic, he heard the warp pad activate. Hurriedly throwing the covers over himself, Steven tried to cry as quietly as possible.

The Gem’s voices were bright as they spread out across the house, Amethyst’s voice drifting towards the fridge as the others settled on the couch. Their mission must have gone well. Pearl sounded especially enthused, but Steven couldn’t make out the words through the pounding panic in his head. Any minute they would notice him, unless he kept absolutely still. He had to keep absolutely quiet, despite the way that his chest was spasming, and he couldn’t breathe, and he just wanted his paci-

“Steven.” Garnet’s voice drifted up from below him, low and calm. “We’re home.”

Steven twisted his fists into the blankets, making a renewed effort to calm his breathing. If Garnet thought something was wrong, she would know everything as soon as she thought to look. Steven tried to make his voice sound normal, even though his body wasn’t cooperating.

“Oh, cool. I’m just having a n-nap.” His voice hitched on the last word, and he froze under the covers. There was silence for a beat, and then Pearl’s voice murmured a question to Garnet, too quiet for Steven to hear.

“What’s wrong, dude?” Amethyst broke right to the point, and Steven could hear her coming towards the stairs. He curled tighter into the blankets, prepared to wrestle them away from Amethyst’s grasping hands. But she stopped at the bottom and called up to him again. “Steven? Are you sick? If you’re gonna throw up, I wanna see!”

“Amethyst!” Pearl’s voice was sharp until she turned her attention to Steven. “Steven, are you alright? Do you need some food?” Steven had snapped at her about needing to eat breakfast a few weeks ago, and she had taken to offering snacks at the first sign of Steven’s distress.

“Steven is fine,” Garnet said calmly, and the other two made questioning noises at her. Steven curled tighter into the blanket, confused. He wasn’t fine! What was Garnet saying? Was she lying, or did she somehow not know what was happening? “Steven, you can come out and see us. No one will be mad.” Steven whimpered. Garnet was definitely lying. She wanted him to come out so that they could fix him.

“Mad? Why would we be mad?” Pearl was saying.

“Come on, Steven.” Garnet’s voice was familiar, soft and certain. She always knew what was best, didn’t she? “You know we love to play with you. We always want to be with you, and spend time with you.”

“Of course we do!” Pearl’s voice was shrill. “We love Steven, he knows that!”

“Yeah, duh!” Amethyst added. “Steven is the best.”

Steven couldn’t stifle the tears as they spoke. They didn’t know who he was, didn’t know what he was hiding. They would see that he was just a stupid kid, that he couldn’t handle being a Crystal Gem. Why did they have to love him? It wasn’t fair. They would have just left him alone if they cared less, and then it wouldn’t hurt so much.

“Steven?” Pearl was the one to climb the stairs, her voice alarmed. “Steven, what’s wrong? Don’t cry.” She scooped Steven off the bed, blankets and all, to hold him tight. “Come on, Steven, stop crying. We’re all here.” She started to unwrap the blankets from around him, and Steven panicked.

“No!” he shouted, trying to push her away. “No, no, no!” Pearl gasped, and then Steven was on the floor. The blankets were in his face, wrapped around his neck, and all of a sudden Steven felt trapped. He pushed at them, rolling on the floor, kicking arms and legs that were too small and too weak. He couldn’t breathe, but then the next second the blankets were gone and he was drawing in a breath to cry out again, the wailing cry of an overwhelmed toddler. “Leave me alone!” Steven shouted, slamming his hands into the wood of the floor. “Leave me alone!”

Hands wrapped around him and he was lifted off the floor. Steven wriggled against them, but they held strong, and suddenly he was cradled against the side of Garnet’s hip, held stable and safe against her. Garnet bounced Steven lightly, practised and easy.

“Hush, little one,” Garnet murmured. “We carried you for years, you know that.” Steven hid his face in her shoulder, sniffling. He was exposed, yet protected. He was vulnerable, yet safe. He didn’t know how to feel or what he should do. He was starting to calm down now, so surely he should shift back to normal as soon as possible? Being big-Steven seemed so far away and impossible, even as the tears and panic subsided. Garnet’s arms were so nice, so familiar.

“Do humans do that?” Pearl asked from somewhere over Garnet’s shoulder. “I thought they were linear time-beings and rather bitter about it.”

“Steven’s only half-human,” Garnet reminded her. “He’s special.”

“Can I hold him? Can I hold him?” Amethyst’s voice was as excited as ever. “Is he young enough for a bottle? I still have some of them in my room!”

“Nothing from your room is going into Steven’s mouth without a good wash first,” Pearl said sharply. “But I do have a clean bottle or two stored in my gem, if it would help,” she added to Garnet.

“Steven gets to make the decision,” Garnet said simply, shifting her hold on Steven so that he was sitting on her lap, on the edge of his bed, looking outwards. Once his hands were free, Steven put his fingers into his mouth and bit down anxiously, trying not to meet the eyes of the three Gems watching him.

“Oh, those are filthy,” Pearl admonished, and the next second Steven felt his fingers being pulled away, replaced smoothly by a pacifier. The familiar pressure on his tongue made him relax, and he finally looked up. Pearl was smiling at him, her gem still sparkling from when she had summoned the pacifier. Was she not angry?

“What’d’you say, Steven?” Amethyst’s face was suddenly right in front of him, her eyes big and hopeful. “Do you want a bottle from your big sis Amethyst?”

“Amethyst,” Steven tried to say, but around the pacifier it sounded like babbling. He felt himself go red, and bobbed his head in a nod.

Amethyst pumped a fist in the air and said something enthusiastically, but Steven didn’t hear it because Garnet had put her hands over his ears. Pearl looked angry about Amethyst’s outburst, wagging her finger and pointing to Steven. Steven could feel Garnet laughing against his back.

“You have a silly family, Steven,” Garnet murmured when she took her hands back. “But they all love you very much.”

“Sorry, Steven,” said Amethyst, looking contrite. “I forgot you were little for a second.”

“Baba!” Steven managed around his paci, making grabby hands. Wasn’t Amethyst going to feed him?

“Coming right up!” Pearl sing-songed, dropping a kiss on Steven’s forehead before summoning a shiny bottle out of her gem with a wave of her hand. She passed the bottle to Amethyst, who did a front-flip off the bed, landed on the couch, and bounced all the way to the kitchen with one more jump.

“Oooh!” Steven clapped for her, laughing.

“Amethyst, use the stairs!” Pearl sighed, before kneeling down in front of Steven. “Hello, Steven,” she said gently. “Do you remember me?”

“Pearl!” Steven tried around his paci, and Pearl beamed at him.

“That’s right!” She tapped the end of his nose, and Steven giggled. “Now, what did you eat for breakfast yesterday?”

Steven let the paci fall from his mouth, barely noticing Garnet catch it. “Donuts!” he told Pearl proudly. “Walk all the way!”

“You do eat a lot of donuts! Who gives you the donuts?”

“Sadie!” Steven was bouncing on Garnet’s lap, giggling. “And Lars!”

“Good job!” Pearl produced a star sticker from what seemed like nowhere and pressed it to the front of Steven’s too-big shirt. “You’re a very smart little human.”

“Uh-huh!” Steven looked around for his paci, but Garnet was already putting it back in his mouth. He settled back against her chest, humming happily. He had the best Gems ever.

“I told you he was fine,” Garnet said without reproach. Her fingers scratched gently at Steven’s scalp, making him melt even further. “You remember his last birthday, he was even younger then.”

“We don’t know how a Rejuvenator would affect a half-human,” Pearl murmured. Her words washed over Steven as he hummed, wriggling closer to Garnet’s wonderful hands. “You know I like to be careful. You know who he is.”

“Yes.” Garnet sighed, trailing one hand down to tickle under Steven’s chin, making him giggle. “I understand. But I think this is part of our wonderful Steven. A little bit of the past, every now and then.”

“I got the bottle!” Amethyst burst back into the conversation, stomping up the stairs two at a time. “Where’s the Steven?”

“Baba!” Steven reached out for his food-bringer, grinning so wide that his paci slipped out again. He frowned, reaching for it, but Garnet had it in one hand.

“You’ll get it back after your bottle,” she told him, and handed him over to Amethyst.

Amethyst hoisted him up in the air, and Steven sniffled, feeling unsafe with all the air under his feet. “Oh, sorry.” Amethyst put Steven down before he started to cry again, sitting down with him on her lap. She cradled him like a baby, which Steven wasn’t, but he was pretty comfy so he relaxed into her arms. “Okay, little dude, open wide!” Amethyst made lots of funny faces and noses while Steven drank the warm milk inside the bottle, making him giggle and spill milk down the front of his chin. That made Amethyst laugh out loud, jostling Steven in her lap. Garnet and Pearl sat on the end of the bed, watching them both with fond smiles.

By the end of the bottle, Steven’s eyelids were as heavy as big huge rocks. He was trying to stay awake, but he was yawning to much to even keep in his paci.

“We’ll still be here when you wake up,” Garnet said, laying Steven carefully on a pillow as Pearl untangled the sheet from the ground and laid it over him, tucking it in carefully on all sides.

“Yeah! We can play little Steven tag!” Amethyst said, shape-shifting into the same size as Steven was.

“Lil’ Steven tag,” Steven yawned. That sounded like lots of fun, he wanted to play now but his eyelids were so heavy…

“We love you,” Garnet murmured, and that was the last thing Steven heard as he fell asleep.

#steven universe agere #su agere #agere fanfiction #agere fic #agere fics #sfw agere #cglre #fandom agere #cglre terminology #steven universe #my fics

113 notes · View notes

thestayway90 · 4 years ago

Text

Reign of Lies: Chapter 1 (SKZ Royal Fantasy AU)

Author: thestayway90

WC: 2873

Warnings: None

Characters: Stray Kids OT8 Royal Family, Alexis (OFC), Elora (OFC)

Relationships: Changbin x Alexis (OFC)

Summary: An angsty Royal AU where Alexis (OFC), as her fathers only daughter and therefore the kingdoms only Princess, is sent to marry a Prince of their rival Kingdom to ensure Peace. However, after arriving at her new home, Alexis quickly finds out not all is what it seems…

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! Did I start another series even though I’ve already got one still ongoing??? yes yes I did...

But in my defence I've had this idea sitting for a while and finally got round to doing something with it!!! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Also a side note this will contain SKZxSKZ relationships... obviously these are written for fanfic and not based on reality so please don't take them seriously... this is all just for fun and entertainments sake :)

I’m a little nervous about posting this one but enjoy <3

Alexis straightened her skirts nervously. Her outfit felt heavy and suffocating in the warm sunlight that streamed through a large side window. The climate was so much warmer here than the cooler weather she was used to back home.

Elora stepped in front of her, deft fingers fixing Alexis’ collar as she told the older girl briskly, “Walk in there with your head held high and show them what you’re made of.”

Alexis smiled down at her sister and best friend, grasping one of her hands tightly. “What would I do without you?” She asked rhetorically as Elora took a step back, staying on Alexis’ right where she would always be within sight.

“You would be a mess,” Elora replied unnecessarily in a deadpan voice, drawing a surprised laugh from her sister.

Suddenly the double doors in front of the two girls was flung wide open and a herald bellowed loudly into the large space behind. “Princess Alexis, Duchess of Vitova and Alzilicia, beloved Daughter of King Tobias of Mava.” He took a breath then continued as the girls took their first steps through the doorway. “And her companion, Lady Elora.”

Alexis concentrated on not tripping over her cumbersome skirts, keeping her eyes on the floor until she reached the foot of a set of stairs that led up onto a low platform.

Pausing at the end, she sunk into a low curtesy, seeing Elora copy the movement in her peripheral vision, and finally looked up.

She sucked in a breath, wobbling a little in the curtsey she was still holding, as her eyes swept over eight imposing figures ranged around the front of the room.

Standing proud in the centre was who, she imagined must be, the King she had heard so much about. King Chan didn’t look as imposing as his reputation would suggest, an easy smile gracing his lips, his black hair cut short and shockingly coloured a bright ruby red on top.

Standing slightly back from his right shoulder was a man with the sculptured looks of a statue, and to the kings left stood four boys, who Alexis assumed were the Kings younger brothers, the Princes of Roalun. Alexis let her eyes linger on the four figures, wondering which one was Prince Changbin, her soon to be husband.

Finally her gaze fell on two boys, standing to the side of the platform, her eyes widening as she took in the most beautiful people she had ever seen. One was tall and lean, long blonde locks falling over his forehead, partly covering intense liquid brown eyes. The other was shorter with a petite figure and silvery blonde hair that seemed to shine even in the shadows he stood in. But it was his eyes that drew the most attention. One was such a dark brown that it looked black, the other, in stark contrast was a shockingly bright light blue. The pair made such an achingly beautiful sight that Alexis had to advert her eyes but couldn’t stop herself continuing to steal glances in their direction.

Alexis straightened from her curtesy and, heeding her sisters advice, held her head high, fixing the King with an unwavering gaze.

To her surprise King Chan smiled even wider at her and launched himself down the stairs, wrapping her in a tight hug when he reached the bottom.

“Welcome, Princess Alexis. The Kingdom of Roalun is so pleased to have you here at last.”

The King pulled back and kissed her on both cheeks.

Alexis startled a little, feeling unbalanced as she replied slightly stiffly, “Thank you for the kind welcome, Your Majesty.”

“Oh none of that,” the King scoffed, waving a hand at her. “We are soon to be Brother and Sister. Chan will do just fine.” Chan motioned for the five boys still up on the platform to join him.

He grabbed the sculpted man first, pulling him to his side and wrapping an arm lovingly around his waist. “Let me introduce you to my Husband, Prince Minho.”

Minho inclined his head, his feelings hidden behind his cool expression. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Princess Alexis.”

“Just Alexis please,” Alexis insisted, getting the feeling that this court preferred a less formal approach to their Royalty.

“And these three are my baby brothers.” The boys grimaced at the title, none of them looking even close to being babies. “Prince Jisung, Prince Seungmin and the youngest, Prince Jeongin.”

Alexis’ eyes drifted over the three very different brothers but her gaze settled at the last boy, standing silently, head bowed.

“And this is Prince Changbin, Heir to Roalun and your future spouse,” Chan introduced so casually that Alexis fought not to wince at the informality.

Changbin finally looked up, bowing low to her. “It is a great pleasure to meet you, Princess. I hope your time here will be agreeable.”

Alexis felt her heart drop at his distant but polite distant tone. His greeting made it sound like she was only visiting for a holiday, not moving to a completely foreign kingdom to become his wife.

Before she could speak to him at all, Changbin gave her another quick bow and then turned to Chan. “I really must be going, brother. The Generals are waiting for me.”

Chan’s brow creased into a frown but he nodded his consent. Changbin retreated at a brisk pace, Alexis watching after him in confusion.

Chan cleared his throat. “Unfortunately my brothers position as the Head of Military keeps him very busy.”

Alexis smiled and nodded her understanding, hiding her consternation behind what she hoped was a polite bland expression.

Chan then beckoned to the two boys still standing to one side. “And these two fine gentlemen are my brothers, Lord Hyunjin and Lord Felix.”

Hyunjin groaned in a dramatic voice, rolling his eyes as he approached. “You know how I hate being introduced as Lord, Channie,” the tall blonde complained. He reached over and grasped one of Alexis’ hands, placing a quick kiss onto the back of it, smiling crookedly up at her. “I’m so happy to meet you, Alexis. I’m very glad to finally be adding some femininity to our little family.”

Chan glared at the inappropriate words while Alexis struggled not to turn and look at Elora as she heard the other girl suppressing laughter.

Alexis concentrated her attention back on the King. “I thought you only had four brothers?” She questioned unthinkingly, her curiosity around the weird dynamic of this foreign court getting the better of her.

Chan gave a loud bark of laughter, pleased at her straight forwardness. “Hyunjin and Felix’s father was my father’s best friend and advisor. When their parents passed away my father took them in as his own. We’ve spent our whole lives together.”

Alexis turned her eyes on the two brothers, Felix having joined them, standing silently next Hyunjin. “I’m very sorry for your loss. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s fine. Ask away,” Hyunjin said flippantly, waving his hands around airily. “This is to be your family as well. You have a right to ask about it.”

“Talking about family,” Alexis turned and beckoned Elora towards her, grabbing hold of the younger girls arm and holding her tight against her side, relieved at her solid presence. “This is my sister, Lady Elora.”

“Just Elora please,” Elora interrupted, shaking her head at the formal title.

“Lovely to meet you, Elora,” Chan said, smiling widely at Alexis’ sister, putting Alexis at ease.

Alexis immediately felt favourable towards anyone who treated Elora with kindness and respect. The younger girl had too often received scorn and distain from others, making Alexis very protective of her sister.

“I’m sure you are tired after your long journey,” the one called Jisung spoke up, clearly picking up the signs of exhaustion that both Alexis and Elora was exhibiting. “Should I show you to your rooms now so you can have a rest before dinner?” The kind boy posed it as a question, not wanting to impose on them.

“If His Majes…” Alexis stopped herself and continued pink staining her cheeks, unused to such informality. “If Chan does not mind us being excused. A rest sounds wonderful right now.”

Chan frowned a little, concern creasing his brow. “Oh dear. In my excitement I forgot what a long day you’ve both had. Of course you may go, please. Go rest and we can talk more over dinner.”

Chan gave both Alexis and Elora tight hugs before Jisung beckoned for them to follow him out. Alexis and Elora curtseyed to the royal family and then exited the throne room, feeling much more relaxed than when they had entered.

Jisung chatted amiably as he led them through a maze of corridors before stopping in front of a pair of large doors. Alexis looked at the masterpiece in front of her in awe as she heard Elora’s quiet exclamation of amazement.

Jisung had a smug look on his face. “Do you like them? They were specifically made for you. In fact the whole room was specifically decorated for you.”

Alexis felt her heart constrict at the startling act of thoughtfulness that she hadn’t expected when being forced into an arranged marriage in a country at war with her own.

The doors were painted a solid gold with beautifully ornate pearl and turquoise inlays making up intricate patterns of flowers and animals. Alexis raised a hand to brush against a perfect depiction of a peacock with full plumage proudly of display.

“He heard you liked animals.” Jisung’s voice pulled Alexis out of her reverie and back to the present.

“Who heard?” She asked unthinkingly, still in awe of the artwork that was simply the entrance to her rooms.

“Changbin of course,” Jisung said matter-of-factly, reaching over and pushing the doors open. “The inside is all Hyunjin though,” the boy continued as he stepped inside, Elora following close behind him.

Alexis took one more moment to admire the first sign of consideration that she’d received from her future spouse, before following the other two inside.

This time the opulence before her made Alexis’ jaw drop and eyes widen in shock, as she turned in a full 360 to try and take in every detail surrounding them.

The colour palette of the door was continued into the rooms, gold, pearl and turquoise hues mirrored throughout the furnishings and decorations.

They were standing in a large sitting area, the ceiling draped in gold and white cloth, a large brazier of gold hung from the ceiling dripping strings of pearls that sparkled in the late afternoon light. The chairs were large and comfy, their brilliant turquoise upholstery offset by gold trim. A low table stood before a fireplace, surrounded by multicoloured floor cushions and covered by an intricately embroidered table runner that depicted brightly coloured scenes of animals found in Roalun. Through a set of white shuttered doors to her right, Alexis could see an absolutely enormous fourposter bed draped with beautiful hangings of sheer gold and turquoise.

But what attracted Alexis attention the most were the doors directly in front of her that were flung wide open giving an unobstructed view of the outside. She walked over, feeling like she was in a haze, out onto a large balcony, pressing up against the railing as she took in the view.

As the Palace was built strategically at the top of a hill, the city of Epiris was laid out like a tapestry below her, extending down the slope until it hit the bank of Lake Lilies, continuing to spread along the lakes edge on either side. The lake was a breathtaking sight, glistening in the sunlight, large enough that you could barely glimpse the other side. She could see from her position the place where the Mairis River flowed into the lake and immediately took in the two garrison towers on either side, brows pinching when she remembered exactly why she was here.

“Beautiful isn’t it?” Jisung said as he came to stand beside her. Elora was still inside, already starting to unpack their trunks, always happier when things were in their proper place.

“It’s stunning,” Alexis agreed, closing her eyes for a moment and basking in the sunlight. They stood in silence for a moment, Alexis feeling slightly bewildered with how comfortable she was already feeling in her new home.

“Can I ask you something?” Jisung sounded hesitant. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t feel like it.”

Alexis opened her eyes and looked over at him. He now had his back towards the view, leaning against the railing as he fixed her with a serious look.

“Sure.”

“Did you have a choice? About coming here, I mean?”

Alexis considered the question for a moment, her silence making the other boy jittery.

“Not exactly,” Alexis finally answered. “I’m sure if I had put up more of a fuss, the King wouldn’t have sent me, but I’m also pretty sure if I’d done that he would’ve renounced my title, leaving me with no prospects and no way to keep Elora safe.”

Jisungs expression softened, pity shining in his eyes. “Not really a choice then,” he commented softly.

“Not really, no,” Alexis replied, giving him a small smile. He returned it with one of understanding, making Alexis wonder what non-choices had been given to him and the close-knit family around him.

“You know we didn’t even know Roalun had a Princess until Chan told us about you coming to marry one of us,” a voice chimed up from behind them, making both of them spin around in shock. Jeongin, the baby of the family, stood in the doorway, his face openly curious.

“Jeongin, you can’t just walk into other peoples rooms,” Jisung berated his younger brother, looking ready to throttle the boy.

“The door was open.” Jeongin shrugged slightly, not seemingly bothered by the scolding.

He fixed his gaze back on Alexis. “Are you really a Princess? Because I learnt in History that King Tobias only had sons.”

Jisung whacked the younger boy over the head. “You don’t ask questions like that you dimwit!”

“It’s okay. He should know if I’m to be his sister-in-law,” Alexis consoled the embarrassed elder boy.

She turned her gaze back to Jeongin. “My father is the King but my mother isn’t Queen Lillian. My mother is her sister, Lady Edelyn, the former Duchess of Vitova and Alzilicia. The Princes are my half-brothers. The reason you didn’t know that Roalun had a Princess is because up until a month ago there wasn’t one. Although the King had claimed me as his daughter, I was still only a Lady, one day to be Duchess of my mother lands. However, when the King saw an opportunity to seal the Peace Treaty with Roalun by connecting our two Kingdoms through marriage, he gave me the title of Princess and shipped me off here, and as my mother is dead there was no one to stop him doing it.”

Jeongin looked shocked, eyes wide as he tried to make sense of Alexis’ story. Jisung on the other hand didn’t look surprised, his expression empathetic, which made the newly made Princess feel a little bit better about exposing her complicated past.

“Does that make you a Princess as well?” Jeongin unthinkingly asked Elora as the other girl joined them.

Alexis stiffened, immediately shooting Jeongin a glare, even though she knew he didn’t mean any harm by it.

Elora grimaced and shook her head, quickly blurting out, “No, I will never be a Princess,” before quickly disappearing back inside.

Jisung slapped Jeongin over the head once again. “Idiot!”

“Wait, what did I say?” Jeongin was genuinely confused which made Alexis soften her irritation at the younger boy slightly.

“It’s a sensitive topic for Elora. Just leave it alone, alright,” she told him, a hand going to her forehead and her exhaustion finally caught up with her.

“If you don’t mind, I think I might go lay down for a bit,” she told the two boys, walking back inside.

“Of course. Someone will come and get get you when it’s time for dinner,” Jisung said, taking Jeongins arm and dragging him out of the room with him. Jeongin smiled widely and gave Alexis a cute wave goodbye before the door slammed shut in his face.

Alexis smiled and gave a chuckle at the cute boy, shaking her head as she went to check on Elora.

She found her sister already asleep on top of the covers of her bed in her own slightly smaller room. Her face was still scrunched in distress and Alexis reached out a hand to smooth the hair off of her forehead, Elora immediately relaxing at her touch. Sighing, Alexis grabbed a rug and covered her up, quietly tiptoeing out of the room and softly closing the door behind her.

Fighting to keep her eyes open, she stumbled into her own room and crawled into the massive bed, burrowing deep under the covers.

The last thing she saw before succumbing to sleep was the detailed picture of a Mountain Lion painted onto the ceiling of her room, the sparkling afternoon sunlight making it look alive.

16 notes · View notes

reachfolk · 3 years ago

Note

8, 11, and 12 for Ursula and Bothela then!!! And if you wanna pick a random ship for Alexi to answer them for go for it!!

💛 from @korvanjund

aaa thank you sm for the ask!! bothela and ursula are my emotional support lesbian moms so i'm glad to have an excuse to rave about them more lol <3 for lexi, i decided to just go for the little team i've got for her in my current wip, which is her, lucien, inigo, and vilja !! it's the one i've been posting some promos for, so i'll be posting more about them later this month.

who shows affection through touch?

bothela & ursula: definitely ursula !! growing up, she and her sister were extremely close and very touchy and physically affectionate. even though the sisters grew apart over the years, i think ursula still has that streak where she loves being as close as possible to the people she loves. her favorite thing hugging bothela from behind while she's working at the alchemy lab and giving her a kiss on the cheek. bothela would call her out for being a distraction, but she secretly loves it too lol. they've got that old married couple banter. "stop doing that, this is a sensitive mixture!" / "what? i just wanted to remind you to dilute the ash hopper jelly more. it's not watery enough." / "it's perfectly fine." / "you know, this is why my health potions are better than yours." / "why you-! you're fired." meanwhile muiri is trying to figure out how this relationship lasted 30+ years dkdflkhsd

lexi's polycule: oohh my god it's alexi by FAR. i mean, vilja is also very affectionate too, but alexi will be all over whoever is in her vicinity. she's her mother's daughter in that regard and it almost confuses people who aren't used to affection cause she's so casual with it. she will find a way to cuddle in any position--by lifting their arm and putting it around her, or sitting in their lap, or hugging them from behind. will not go an hour without giving someone a kiss on the cheek. it makes vilja so happy and she returns it enthusiastically. inigo sometimes teases her for it, but he lets her get comfortable and loves it all the same. lucien gets very flustered by it, because he's not exactly used to having a woman all over him like this, and definitely not one so scantily dressed (forsworn armor and whatnot). he gets used to it eventually, but no matter how long it's been since they've gotten together, he still ends up blushing a little.

how do they comfort each other?

bothela & ursula: a lot of the time their way of comforting can be seen as a little harsh i think? it's part of how they were raised as reachwomen; they don't sugarcoat anything and tend to focus on practical solutions to problems. they aren't insensitive by any means of course, and they won't dismiss the other's feelings, but they also won't let them wallow in it and make themselves feel worse. so when bothela is having a rough time because of her nephew being in the mine, ursula would tell her there's nothing left to do but take care of each other and their other loved ones as best they can. when ursula is anxious about her niece alexi going off to do gods-know-what, bothela assures her that no matter what, alexi's choices are her own and ursula gave her the self-assuredness to make them for herself. they often opt to distract the other from their worries by drawing their attention to their work or to something pleasant and relaxing. walks along the karth river are their go-to.

lexi's polycule: alexandria is more gentle with her words than her aunties, seeing as she spent much of her childhood acting as a peacekeeper between her family. she's really sensitive to people's moods and feelings, and she's very emotionally supportive, but she feels bad that she doesn't always have the wisdom to give advice on what to do. lucien is a great listener as well, and he's really great to talk to when one of them is feeling confused and torn over something because he's really good at asking the right questions and helping to make sense of what they're feeling. he also tends to offer rational solutions and offer help however he can. vilja is super understanding and always has a shoulder to cry on, but i think she's also someone who's able to lift someone's spirits when they're down. she's great if you need a distraction or change of pace. there's a little scene in my fic where she helps alexi down from a panic attack by singing her favorite song and giving her a hand to grasp to ground herself. lastly, inigo's been through hell and back, and so he's very sympathetic and gives really great advice on how to cope with a lot of difficult things, especially grief and guilt. he's just a warm person and a comforting presence. and like vilja, he can help lift someone's spirits just by his sense of humor! he can get someone laughing even if they're having the worst day of their life.

what’s an ideal evening for them?

bothela & ursula: i actually think they're both very sociable, community-oriented people! their favorite memories are in group settings, surrounded by family and loved ones. usually potlucks and big family gatherings. sad as it is, those memories are long gone. much of what's left of the reachfolk perished in the markarth incident or were thrown in the mines (including bothela's family). it left ursula and her sister constantly at odds, and it tore up the community they had grown to love. they do still have a few people left that they love spending time with; namely robin, marceline, and muiri (and alexi before she left of course). they never had kids of their own, but they took on a very parental role with muiri, and they treat her like family. and of course, ursula loves her nieces and nephew with all her heart. they'd usually invite the kids out to a picnic overlooking the karth river. ursula would make her famous juniper berry pie, and bothela makes a great salmon stew which is a classic reach dish.

lexi's polycule: kinda different things for all of them! with lucien, alexandria and he are both absolute nerds, and they often spend hours on end discussing their research (their interests mostly overlap in history, but lucien learned a lot about alchemy from her and she learned a lot about philosophy from him). basically, study dates!! with vilja, i think she enjoys a calm evening. she loves walking along the coastlines and looking for pearls, and alexi loses her mind when finding new ingredients, so it's a pleasant way to spend time for both of them. with inigo, i think he's got the most adventurous spirit of the bunch, and he always brings it out in lexi! she's most fond of nordic ruins (inigo's worst nightmare lol), but they find their common ground in smashing giant spiders !! lexi insists they're cute in their own way, which pretty much always leads to playful bickering between the pair, but they have fun regardless (and lexi gets tons of ingredients, which is like christmas for her)

#oc: alexandria silver blood #oc: ursula dain #ship: ursula x bothela #ship: alexandria x inigo #ship: alexandria x vilja #ship: alexandria x lucien #cozy answers #why do i have so many tags good lord

1 note · View note

chaoticchickadee · 4 years ago

Text

Good Things Happen, Week 1

Hello there! Since I’ve been writing (mostly) consistently recently I thought it would be fun to do a little challenge. Every Friday, I’ll be posting a one-shot prompt fill from this bingo card. I’m going to try to do this until I fill the card, provided it gets good reception/I continue to enjoy doing it. You’re welcome to send in specific prompts, I will write for any Star Wars fandom you see on my blog and most characters. I’m more comfortable with gen at the moment, but I can try ships as well!

Starting out for week one is “good hair day” with Padmé and the handmaidens, circa Queen’s Peril novel.

Show your support-- reblog!

Read it here on AO3

Padmé hadn’t expected how exhausting wearing the Queen’s headdresses all day could be. Sure, she’d known during her candidacy that they were heavy and hard to balance, but knowing and experiencing were two different things. Rabé did her best to make them as comfortable as possible, but even with the braids and the styling gel her hair was a mess by evening. It was unimportant, really, but Padmé missed the feeling of her long, tightly-curled locks flowing freely all day, not just in the evenings before bed. Still, Padmé would gladly suffer frizzy and unkempt hair for the rest of her life if it meant she could make a difference as Naboo’s Queen.

Sabé had noticed Padmé staring at her, and it hadn’t taken long to figure out why. It wasn’t her that Padmé was staring at, but her hair. Padmé had lamented what the royal headdresses had done to her beautiful hair many times, and while it was said in a light-hearted, joking manner, there was a little bit of truth to it. Padmé had gotten very good at hiding her tells and insecurities, but Sabé would always be able to read her. She shared her observations with the other handmaidens, and they decided they would try to ease Padmé’s discomfort, at least as much as they could. Eager to find a solution, they put their heads together and did what they do best-- scheme.

It was a long day in the court, and all Padmé wanted to do was flop onto her bed and not move for at least three days. Her handmaidens were suspiciously quiet on the walk from the throne room to the royal apartments, but Padmé was secretly grateful for it. She didn’t think she had enough energy to walk in the elaborate wardrobe of the Queen and hold a conversation at the same time. Soon, they arrived at the apartments, and Eirtaé quietly opened the door. Once inside, the handmaidens quickly stripped her of the gown. As soon as it was off, Padmé sat on the stool in the center of the common room, and they began working on her paint while Rabé took her place behind her to work on her hair. Padmé sighed when she felt the headdress being lifted off of her, relaxing further when Rabé’s gentle fingers began undoing her braids. Instead of putting her hair into a loose braid for the night, Rabé accepted a bowl from Saché and began working some sort of goop into her hair. Padmé sent a questioning glance towards Saché but didn’t press any further when she didn’t get an answer. She closed her eyes as Rabé massaged her scalp, relishing in the simple pleasure of being cared for by her friends.

When she was done, Rabé twisted Padmé’s hair up and secured it with a clip. After quietly instructing Padmé to rinse it out after ten minutes, the girls settled down to read and unwind, as was their nightly routine. They talked about a variety of subjects, from the latest palace gossip to speculating how many heart attacks they’d given Captain Panaka that day. It was Padmé’s favorite part of her day, relaxing with her friends and chatting about nothing and everything, enjoying being in each other's company. Padmé dutifully excused herself after ten minutes to rinse her hair and clean up. She lingered a little longer than strictly necessary, tension bleeding from her body under the warm spray.

Shutting off the water, Padmé stepped out of the shower and dried herself off. She ran a brush through her hair once more, surprised by the lack of any difficult tangles. Her hair felt uncharacteristically smooth and soft when she went to braid it. Whatever Rabé had put into her hair, it had worked wonders. Padmé spent a minute staring at herself in the mirror, petting her hair in awe. She shook her head and started to braid, but she was still unable to wipe the goofy grin off of her face.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As much as she loved her work as Queen, Padmé was grateful for the quiet day. For once, there were no meetings she needed to attend or appearances Amidala needed to make, so she didn’t bother to put on the Queen’s regalia. Officially, Queen Amidala would be spending the day in her quarters reviewing documents while her handmaidens were out running errands in the city. If, perhaps, there was so much that needed to be done that it required all of the girls, including the young page Padmé, well, who were they to shirk their duties? Surprisingly, it hadn’t taken much to convince Captain Panaka to allow the excursion. He seemed a little more at ease with their adventures now that they kept him in the loop for some of their schemes.

They’d opted against hoods for the day, as they were less likely to be recognized when they weren’t near the Queen. The central market of Theed was already bustling by the time the girls arrived at about noon. They’d meant to get there earlier, but decided to indulge themselves in their morning routine, taking time to do their hair in fun, elaborate hairstyles and go a little crazy with their makeup. Their morning was full of giggles and goofing off. It was a rare opportunity for them to be just teenage girls, not a head of state and her terrifyingly competent handmaidens. For the first time since her election, Padmé was out in public without the royal wardrobe. She hadn’t realized she missed the common, everyday activities of normal life until now. Being able to effortlessly move through the crowd without so much as a second glance was now foreign, but Padmé was grateful for it.

The girls wandered from stall to stall, eyeing the merchandise and occasionally making a purchase. Yané snagged a beautiful pair of night pearl earrings from an up and coming artisan, using most of her allowance for the day. They all teased her about using her money on one thing, but they really were a beautiful pair of earrings, well worth the price. None of the items for sale had really interested Padmé, so she used her share to buy them all a modest but tasty lunch after a few hours of meandering around the market.

Almost every time the girls approached a stall, patrons and vendors complimented Padmé’s hair, peppering her with questions about her hair care routine or tricks for styling it. Padmé deferred most of the questions to Rabé, reeling at the attention she drew. She’d gotten used to being in the public’s eye when she began her candidacy, but that had been as Amidala. It was new to draw the attention of passersby as just Padmé, but she enjoyed it much more. It felt more authentic, which in turn made her feel even more connected to the public and her people, even if they weren’t aware they were speaking to the Queen.

Once the entire market had been combed through, the girls headed back to the palace. The sun had started to set, and the girls could feel the excitement of the day catching up to them. When they’d gotten far enough away from the market that the streets were practically deserted, Padmé finally asked the question that had been on her mind all day. “So, how long were you planning my unusually good hair day?” The handmaidens stopped and looked at each other, silently discussing the best way to answer. When an explanation and a speaker was chosen, they turned back to Padmé with easy grins on their faces. “Not long. A few weeks ago I noticed you staring wistfully at me.” A couple of giggles interrupted, but quickly settled. “Once I realized you were staring at my hair, I told the others and we concocted a plan. Once we had the supplies, we just had to wait for a time we could get you out without being Amidala,” Sabé finished. Her rundown was clinical and professional, but Padmé could hear the affection in her voice. Saché piped up next, “You have a lot on your plate, we just wanted to do something nice for you.” Padmé’s heart melted at their words and the care in their eyes. She drew them into a hug, not caring how sappy and public it was. “I didn’t expect to get close to you all, but I’m so glad I did. You’re the best friends I could ever ask for, thank you.” She said. Though her words were a bit muffled, they all heard her loud and clear. “We’re glad to have you too,” Eirtaé responded. “Even if it means I won’t be the youngest accomplished engineer of Naboo.” She added. They laughed at her quip as they broke away from the hug. “It’s getting late, we should get back to the palace soon or Panaka will send out a search patrol,” Yané sighed. They all hummed their agreement and turned to start walking again. Padmé cautiously linked her arm with Rabé, and the rest of the group enthusiastically followed suit. With their arms linked and smiles on their faces, they continued their trek back to the palace.

7 notes · View notes

anywhozits · 4 years ago

Text

All I Really Want Chapter 7

Rating: M

Pairing: Kristanna eventuallyyy

Verse: 90s High School AU / frozen retelling

Chapter Summary: Anna celebrates her 15th birthday.

Notes: Thank you for reading!!! Also there is some language, underage drinking, and homophobia in this chapter - be warned! (also tw emotional abuse)

Read on Ao3 here!

June twenty-fucking-first.

Another year. Fifteen, now.

And… Anna was excited, objectively, sure. At her very core, she felt excited because she knew she should be excited. But still, the very nature of this date always left her with a huge pit in her stomach.

There was just so much pressure. So much hope and want and desire for the love she craved to fill her first moments of fifteen.

Anna used to think she loved her birthday. The attention… the entire day naturally being about her—like, she knew she was supposed to enjoy it. She loved attention. She’d never deny that.

But…

In reality, her birthday stressed her out. There were all these expectations. Wanting people to acknowledge her, surprise her, and do all these special things to show they care. And yeah, this was probably way too much to ask on her 15th birthday but she wanted to feel … desired.

And yet she worried that wouldn’t happen this year.

Because her birthday was and had always been so full of disappointment.

Elsa forgot. Her parents forgot. Over the years one or two or all three of them forgot. They would ignore her the whole dumb day and then Anna would end up sobbing alone in her huge stupid room that had no reason to be so huge when it felt so lonely.

So far today, not one member of her family had acknowledged her. Her mother was definitely taking a nap or something. Who the hell knew where her dad was… and Elsa hadn’t called (yet, Anna thought, maybe too optimistically), but she was busy at this pre-college academic program at Pomona. So she had an okay excuse.

At least this year Anna got to spend her birthday with Hans. With Hans, maybe it’d be different. He already made the prom milestone so special that she had no doubt he’d do the same for her birthday.

No disappointments this year. Fingers crossed.

And how could she forget? She had Kristoff, too. And Kristoff never forgot. Kristoff always tried his best to make it special.

In fact, he’d already done something for her—he’d left her a card and a mixtape. This had to be her 37th Kristoff Bjorgman mixtape. And every new tape was better than the last.

He... well, um—that gesture alone made her feel desired.

She was officially on her third listen of the mixtape, and the sweet sweet tunes of Modest Mouse’s Dramamine filled her room.

In the past, he tended to include recordings of Pissed Off Kids, but Kristoff had made it extra special this time—the final song of the tape was instead a solo of Kristoff’s smooth tenor singing Better Man by Pearl Jam. Naturally he also hit all of the epic guitar riffs.

Anna loved it.

This lovely thought paired with the swelling sounds of Dramamine put her in a trance. Deep in her emotions, Anna swayed to the beat, instantly craving something more.

Traveling swallowing Dramamine

Look at your face like you're killed in a dream

She crawled on the floor and under her bed, pulling out a blue plastic box that housed her entire stash. The stash was once discovered by the family’s housekeeper, Anna (pronounced A-nuh not Ah-nuh), who subsequently revealed it to Agnarr and Iduna. Obviously, they did nothing about it. Duh. They gave zero shits. Zero. And it had devastated her, somehow. To not be yelled at or grounded… to not have her entire stash confiscated.

And you think you've figured out everything

I think I know my geography pretty damn well

Clearly, Anna had no reason to hide it anymore but leaving it out in the open took most of the fun away. So here it was back in the blue plastic box under her bed. Various bottles of alcohol, rolling paper, a pipe, a lighter, some weed, and an unopened bottle of Xanax with Iduna Larsen’s name on the label.

You say what you need so you'll get more

If you could just milk it for everything

Actually, come to think of it—Anna’s entire stash had been collected from her parent’s room.

I've said what I said, and you know what I mean

But I can't still focus on anything

Looking squarely at the box and its contents, Anna bit her lip. She needed this. And, why? Well, it was a combination of her baseline birthday nerves and the aftermath of the intense sob-fest she had when the oh-so-topical So Unsexy by Alanis Morrissette played on Kristoff’s mixtape. Oh, and of course the fact that her parents probably fucking forgot her birthday yet again… So, she took out the rolling paper and the Ziploc baggie that contained a few grams of weed.

Then, some weird crashing sound echoed from her window, which made her gasp and spook slightly.

Walking over to the window, drawing the curtains, and emerging onto her Juliet balcony, she noticed Hans and his goofy grin, standing in the driveway like he was a regular John Cusack.

When she saw that he had a bunch of tiny pebbles in his hand, it all made sense.

Anna’s heart fluttered. She loved it. She, like, literally loved it. So romantic.

“Can I come up?” He shouted, and Anna blushed. She was basically real-life Juliet at this point.

“Of course!” Anna called, and Hans started off in a sprint toward the rose trellis that led up the side of the house and into her window. “You don’t have to sneak in, you know!”

But he smiled devilishly and yelled, “I want to!”

Anna laughed and rolled her eyes at his definitely not-necessary efforts, but her stomach also did a few backflips. It was literally 500 times more romantic for him to climb up the trellis than it was for him to simply walk through the unlocked front door.

He pulled himself onto the balcony and Anna kissed him deeply. She couldn’t help but sigh—she was so, unbelievably happy to see him today.

“Happy birthday, babe,” he cooed in between kisses.

“Aww, thank you! I’m so happy you’re here.” After kissing a few more times, they ended up back in her bedroom where Kristoff’s singing now boomed through the room. Anna’s eyes fell to the blue plastic box—right. She had plans. “I was gonna do a little something to, uh, match the general vibe of this mixtape Kristoff made for me if you maybe wanted to join?” Anna gestured to the rolling paper and Ziploc bag.

Hans shook his head but then did a double-take. “Kristoff made you a mixtape?”

“Yep! He’s made me, like, tons of them.”

She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man.

“Who’s this? Pearl Jam or some shit?”

“Yeah, but not—"

“Damn, he really thinks he’s emo, huh?”

“—because it’s Kristoff who’s singing. Pearl Jam cover, yeah, but…”

She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man.

Hans laughed, heartily. “He’s pathetic.”

…huh?

“What?”

“You’re telling me he specifically chose this song to sing for you, recorded it, and then actually had the balls to give it to you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Another robust chuckle from Hans.

Anna furrowed her eyebrows. “What’s the big deal?”

“Are you even listening to these lyrics?”

“Um, yes, I—"

Hans laughed again. “You have no idea, do you?”

Anna pouted. She hated feeling naïve. Especially now that she was such a woman. Fifteen and a woman. Not naïve, not anywhere near naïve.

“No, I ... I know. Duh. I totally know what you’re talking about.” But she really didn’t. She had no idea what the hell he meant.

“So fucking pathetic,” Hans said, shaking his head. “But whatever. He’s not even a little bit threatening, is he?”

Threatening?

Oh.

Ohohohoh.

Hans thought… no way.

Kristoff wasn’t pathetic. He wasn’t pining after Anna or whatever. No duh he wasn’t. Absolutely no way.

They were just friends.

And, besides, Kristoff chose these songs because he knew Anna would like them. There was no connection between the themes or lyrics of the songs and how he felt about Anna. None at all… there couldn’t be a connection, because if there were, then… the whole sister thing was bullshit. But it wasn’t. No way in hell. Like, it couldn’t be.

Then why was Hans so convinced?

Before Anna could give this another thought, her bedroom door flew open.

She reflexively ran to the plastic box stash and kicked it back under her bed. For no real reason beyond wanting to keep some kind of classic-teenage air of mystery about herself.

Not that she had any earthly idea who the hell was coming barging into her room on this particular day at this particular hour.

But then when she saw the hint of blonde hair zooming past her and then engulfing her in a huge hug, she beamed. Elsa. Exactly who she wanted to come barging into her room.

“Anna!” She exclaimed as she hugged and hugged and hugged her sister. “Happy happy happy birthday! Fifteen—wow. I’m absolutely thrilled that I get to celebrate with you today.”

Anna didn’t want to pull away. So she didn’t. She held on tighter, savoring this moment she thought would never in a million years come to pass. “I’m really happy too, Els. I thought… weren’t you at school? How’d you even get here?”

“Mom and dad picked me up.”

“…really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why?”

“So I could be here for your birthday.”

“They should really just get you a car or something so they don’t have—” And then the pin dropped. “Wait, what?”

Anna finally pulled away from her sister and stared at her incredulously.

“Yeah—they picked me up so we could have a proper celebration.”

“But…wait. You’re saying…a proper celebration for… for my birthday? Our parents wanted to do this? For me?”

“At Hans’s insistence, actually.”

“Hans?” Anna’s eyes darted to her not-boyfriend. “You… did this?”

“Only took a couple phone calls with your parents, a few with Elsa. And then magic was made.”

“I can’t believe you did this for me.”

“Of course I did, babe. I love you.”

Anna’s heart fluttered the most it had ever fluttered. It fluttered so much she honestly worried it might fly away out of her chest and off the balcony or something totally wild like that.

Hans was perfect. She was so lucky to have Hans. The perfect not-boyfriend who made her birthday okay again. More than okay, rather. Magical, wonderful. Perfect.

She didn’t even notice as Kristoff’s next selection, All Over You, started playing in the background.

And then the door swung open again and the two essential strangers she called parents walked in to also swarm Anna with massive hugs.

It felt… strange. Uncharacteristic. Almost like… almost like seeing a teacher at the movie theater, sitting down to watch the same movie you’re seeing with friends.

That level of weird.

But at the same time, it was a type of weird that Anna embraced more than anything else.

Because her parents were hugging her… they were acknowledging her.

They hadn’t forgotten her birthday.

“I rented us a Duffy boat for the afternoon,” Agnarr explained. “Kai set it all up for us—stocked with the best Cristal and naturally Anna’s favorite charcuterie board.”

“Ooh cured meats. A birthday delight.” Shit Anna had no idea how to interact with her parents anymore. Who even was this person—cured meats? Like yeah, she loved cured meats of course but damn this felt awkward.

“Actually, we should consider heading out soon. Don’t want to find ourselves on the blacklist at the Yacht Club, you know.”

That may sound like a joke but their close family friends actually did get blacklisted from the Yacht Club. Well, it had much more to do with some kind of scandalous drug and prostitute type situation than it did with being late, but… the fear was there.

“Should we bring your stereo?”

“Oh, yeah! Yes. Great idea. Kristoff actually made me a mixtape for my birthday, so—yeah. I’d love to have that along for the celebration too!”

They brought the speaker. They brought the Cristal and the charcuterie. Anna brought her now sunny and enthused birthday disposition.

Her family. And Hans. All together. Right now. On her birthday. Like, shit.

It felt like something out of her absolute favorite dream of all time.

And, yes, this whole Duffy boat thing was the most freaking Orange County plan of all time. But that meant her dad had to have planned ahead, since Duffy boats booked up ahead of time.

She felt so loved. So loved.

Once they arranged themselves in the boat, Anna turned on the stereo. So Unsexy played again, but Alanis didn’t get to her this time. Nobody had forgotten her birthday. She wasn’t alone. She felt, like, confident for once… damn. This was nice.

Hans moved to sit next to Agnarr, looking for a lesson about driving the boat, and Iduna sat close to the two of them, smiling. It was a Good Day. Anna could already tell.

“Aww, Alanis?” Elsa asked.

“Yeah!”

“Wouldn’t’ve expected Kristoff to put this on his mixtape.”

“Well, I mean, it’s because of you.”

“What? Really?

“Mmhmm. Because he, um, he knows how much Alanis means to you and because Alanis means so much to you she means so much to me. I really—”

“That’s so sweet.”

“You mean it?”

“Yeah.” Elsa leaned in to give her sister a huge hug. “I’m happy I get to spend more time with you.”

Anna relaxed into Elsa’s hold. She would thank the stars every day for this magnificent change. “Me, too.”

“Did you know the song You Oughta Know is about Uncle Joey?”

“Shut up. Really? For real?”

“For real for real.”

“No shit,” Anna laughed. “I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“Yeah!” Hans chimed in. “No pull for Uncle Joey.”

“But, wow, yeah. Um,” Anna’s cheeks flushed red and she locked her eyes with Hans. “Guess he must’ve been pretty mind-blowing in bed.”

Hans winked at her and Anna all but shivered on the spot. Hold it together, Anna. Hold it together.

But Elsa entertained them zero, shaking her head. “He took advantage of her,” Elsa explained, crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s fifteen years older than her. And they’d already broken up when she was 21, so who knows how old she was when they started…”

Anna bit her lip, worrying this was getting a little personal. Hans was only two years older than her, so. Different story, right?

Eh. Maybe not according to Elsa.

She needed to change the subject and impulsively blurted out, “I wanna get blackout. Right now.”

Elsa shook her head again. “Anna…”

“Yeah! I mean it! You too, right? You’ll do it with me? Let’s blackout on this Cristal. Yeah?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

“Oh, come on. Ms. Boring! I didn’t ask for your judgmental-as-shit opinion. Do you wanna blackout or do you wanna blackout?”

“Uh—neither?”

Anna pouted. “Boo. Boring.” She looked to Hans for more support, but he’d turned his attention back to Agnarr and the steering wheel.

“I’ll drink with you, but I don’t want to blackout. I wanna remember you turning 15.”

Anna chewed on her bottom lip. “Oh… yeah. Well, I guess I do too. Since it’s so great and all.”

“I’m not boring,” Elsa smirked.

“Prove it.”

Elsa grabbed the bottle of champagne and twisted the cap a little hesitantly but still enthusiastically. It made a loud popping sound and a little bit of the liquid spilled from the top, but both Anna and Elsa cheered when the champagne was deemed officially free.

Elsa poured them both tall glasses, and then she poured three more, remembering there were other people on this Duffy Boat and not just the two sisters.

All five raised their glasses.

To Anna. Who was now officially fifteen. Old enough to legally drink Cristal on a Duffy Boat, right? Totally.

And then Agnarr perked up, suddenly remembering his eldest daughter was also on this boat. “So, Elsa… can you tell me again why you chose Pomona over Harvard?” The way he said both school names made it more than clear how he felt about Elsa’s decision. Pomona sounded like he smelled the sweet stench of vomit infested garbage. In contrast, Harvard sounded like a choir of angels sang at the gates of heaven.

“I needed a change of pace.”

Agnarr laughed. A literally massive guffaw. “Harvard could’ve been a change of pace.”

“I don’t really—”

“But, at the end of the day, fine, you’re majoring in what—finance? Which means that your classes at this bullshit liberal arts doohickey will be miniscule. And you’ll get more time with the professors, get better letters of rec, and then end up at the Stanford GSB like your old man. That’ll really seal that fucking deal, you know? You’ll be in tip-top shape to take over The Company. Harvard or not.”

“I’m not gonna major in finance, dad.”

“Oh? So what’s the plan, then?”

“I don’t know. I like Anthropology, or maybe something like PoliSci?”

“Politics? Really?”

“Yeah,” Elsa said, her jaw clenched. “I’d love to clean up some of the damage you’ve done to this country.”

A tense silence filled the air. Elsa crossed her arms over her chest and took a nice long sip of champagne.

Until Iduna piped up, “Well, if you want my opinion—”

“I don—" Elsa started.

“—a pretty young thing like you can’t work around Bill right now.”

Agnarr guffawed again. Profoundly. He raised his glass and cheered, “Oh ho ho!” Like he won some kind of stupid battle he wasn’t even in.

Anna was utterly lost. She’d already downed one whole glass of Cristal and poured herself an entire new one without anybody noticing. Hah. Classic.

She didn’t really want to admit she was, like, this stupid or politically unaware or whatever but she also wanted to feel like part of the conversation, so she said, “Wait, what? Has something happened?”

Hans gave Anna the benefit of the doubt. “Nah, but he’s known for being a pussy hound.”

“Okay! Enough! That’s not why I said I wanted to major in PoliSci. We don’t need to get into—"

“No, no, no. This is important, Elsa. You better watch out,” Agnarr said, ignoring her plea entirely. “Listen, I don’t know how a man like Bill gets it up for a woman like Hillary. She looks like such a dyke. Not that I respect the bastard that much, but he could have any broad he wants. Any broad like you.”

“No—” Elsa raised her voice, but Iduna chuckled.

“Since she’s got my cheekbones!”

Elsa’s entire face had turned a cherry red. She was mad. Fuming, really. “—you can’t say that.”

“I can say whatever the hell I want.”

“You can’t say that,” she repeated.

“Why not? You think you’re some holier-than-thou judge of character?”

Elsa’s jaw was still insatiably clenched. “I want to go home.”

“Els?” Anna reached out her hand to touch Elsa’s shoulder in a way she hoped brought at least a marginal amount of comfort.

“Seriously,” Elsa begged, her eyes glistening with what looked like fresh tears. “Can we turn this boat around? Please?”

A lump formed in Anna’s throat and she swallowed it down. She didn’t want today to end like this, so she tried to redirect. “Um… but—we’re having fun, aren’t we? You… how about we drink more champagne?”

Anna knew Elsa was mad. She knew that their parents had upset her beyond belief, but this was the only time she’d spent with all of them in the same place in… literally forever. She didn’t want it to end prematurely. No matter how mad Elsa was. Besides, Anna had been there, too. She’d been on the receiving end of comments like that countless times.

It stung, sure. But it wasn’t unexpected. That was just what happened when you spent time with Agnarr and Iduna. They were like parasites.

But the kind of parasite Anna still yearned to have in her life… if that made any sense at all?

Thankfully Elsa seemed to snap out of it a bit and turned back to Anna. “I’m sorry, yeah. You’re right. I…” She added in a whisper, “I shouldn’t let them get to me.”

“Yeah—no. Never!” Anna beamed. Crisis averted. “Drink more!”

Elsa took one big gulp of the champagne. “Maybe now’s as good a time as any. Um… I have something for you.”

“Oooh for me?!” Anna squealed when Elsa pulled out an envelope from her back pocket.

“Open it.”

It was the cutest handmade card ever. What Anna recognized instantly as something they would exchange as kids. Classic white printer paper, cut out into the shape of an A. And inside was the sweetest note of all time. Not long. Never long. Elsa wasn’t the most feelings-y. Or not so much that she wasn’t feelings-y, but she didn’t really have a knack for expressing all of the feelings that brewed deep inside her soul.

Inside this note of absolutely wonderfully sweet words was the fact that Elsa had decided to get her the most fun gift of all time—a night at the local roller rink. A disco roller rink night, too, which sounded five hundred million times more fun than any old roller rink night.

So, Anna squealed again. “Oh my God! Elsa! This sounds so, so, so fun! I’m so excited I can’t wait I’m, like, literally the most excited ever for real I’m, like, oh snap I’m rambling but that just means you know how excited I am!”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Like it? I love it!”

“You can choose whenever you want to go. I can find a way to get here.”

“Okay! I can’t wait!”

Anna had always considered herself forever an experience over a material present person. And an experience present from Elsa of all people only made it all the more special. Quality time with her sister. Shit, she was so excited.

Honestly, ‘so excited’ hardly began to cover it. Anna was ecstatic. Absolutely ecstatic.

It felt almost like… everything was going perfectly. Kristoff’s music played in the background. Hans and her dad had started laughing and carrying on what seemed like meaningful conversation… Iduna was smiling to herself as she usually did on a Good Day. And here Elsa and Anna were. Together. For the first time in forever.

“I’m so happy!” Anna yelled this loud enough that everybody snapped to attention, expecting a speech or something of the like. “This has to be the best birthday I’ve ever had in my whole life. I… thank you for not forgetting. I know—that’s happened before, but—"

Iduna clicked her tongue. “What are you talking about? We’ve never forgotten your birthday. We’re your parents.”

…what?

Was Anna wrong? Had she made it up? She thought she remembered several birthdays in a row her parents had forgotten… since… probably since Elsa had been shipped off to boarding school. It happened at least every other year.

But.

Her mother seemed to think differently. And Anna knew she could be a bit dramatic sometimes.

So…

Maybe that was all a load of BS and Anna was actually absolutely bonkers.

Shit.

“Anna, dear, your mother’s right. We’d never forget your birthday,” Agnarr explained.

Okay, yeah. All right. So then she was literally bonkers. Batshit crazy. Living in some kind of crazy dream world?

“Okay,” was all Anna said, in a tiny voice. She didn’t know what to think.

Except that maybe she really was crazy after all.

But she tried to push that aside. Something to unpack a bit more later.

She needed to enjoy this moment.

And due to this decision, from that point on, the Duffy boat ride went smoothly. They drank their champagne. They finished a few bottles. More than any of them would care to admit, especially because Agnarr and Iduna served the alcohol to minors and whatever. But regardless, they had a great time. In the end.

Sure, Elsa refused to speak to their parents, but thankfully she was never put on the spot again so that really didn’t put a damper on anything.

Hans kept Agnarr company, Iduna kept to herself, and Anna and Elsa spent the entire time talking each other’s ear off about literally everything.

Anna made sure to include all of the dirty details of her own life. Her chest puffed out when she talked about Hans and everything they’d done to celebrate their not-relationship that Anna still continued to make Elsa believe was a real relationship.

But eventually, it came to an end.

The end of an era. The end of this somewhat happy family dynamic Anna wanted to have 100% of the time.

Agnarr and Iduna hugged the girls goodbye. They were getting dinner with some friends and had to dash.

Which left Elsa, Anna, and Hans to fend for themselves.

Anna was a little bit disappointed that her parents had left them alone, but after what she considered such a great afternoon, she didn’t want to dwell on it.

Focus on the positives, Anna! Keep those in mind!

So, she turned to Hans. The orchestrator. The one who made it all happen.

“Oooh, Hans!” Anna jumped up to give him a peck on the lips. “That was awesomesauce! Like, hands down the best birthday—I totally, totally loved it, thank you!”

“Hold that thought, babe,” he smiled, snaking one hand around her waist and using the other to cup her chin. “I’ve still got one more thing planned.”

“Really, really? You do?”

“To the beach house!”

Anna giggled. She loved him. She now officially loved her birthday. She couldn’t wait.

#OOPS FORGOT TO POST ON TUMBLR #frozen #fanfic #fanfiction #kristanna #hansanna #Elsa #90sau

9 notes · View notes

serendipitous-posts · 5 years ago

Text

Wayfarer Au - Spinel

The background was more focused on Pink Pearl than Spinel. This was because not much happened; we know Pink Diamond abondende Spinel, and nothing happened in the time of isolation. But I want to fix that so; some information about Spinel in the Wayfarer Au!

Spinel is the only one of her kind, specifically made just for Pink Diamond. She’s quite a bit younger than Pink Pearl and Crystal Pearl, since she was specifically made to replace Pink Pearl.

Her cut is perfect, her cultivation was perfect, and her powers were perfect for a toy

Because, at the end of the day, that’s what Spinel was, a toy. She realises this soon after she arrives on Earth: Pink had never thought of her as a friend, as a living thing. To her, she had been a fun plaything to throw away when she got bored

(She’s a little bitter, sue her)

She and Crystal Gem Pearl never really interacted all that much, despite sharing the same owner for some time, and both acting as a replacement for Pink Pearl, but since Spinel is the only one of her kind, she’s extremely memorable

(Hence why, despite not knowing her personally, being thousands of years and her looking different, in the movie Pearl was able to immediately realise who Spinel was and who she belonged to)

Spinel’s existence was really confusing to the Gem Hierarchy. The Pearls were the lowest of the ranks, as slaves.

But Pearl’s had jobs. They brought you things, took things down for you, stored things. They were, loathe as they were to admit it, useful. Spinel was just a toy really. Did that mean she was lower on the social ladder than the Pearls? After all, Pearls could entertain as well, singing and dancing if you so required.

Spinel, though intelligent, could often be insensitive and sometimes even clumsy. But Spinel was a Diamond’s, and, due to her questionable position on Homeworld’s Social Ladder, nobody really punished her for it

Spinel is very, very clever. She was the one who had the idea for getting the Gem’s memories back in the Movie, and she managed to put together a plan to destroy Earth that came closer than anyone else, including the Diamonds

In this verse, Spinel was made to be the best of the best, and, as such, has an intelligence a lot higher than the average gem. She’s not logically intelligent like Crystal Gem Pearl, she’s spatially intelligent, making her an imaginative gem capable of spatial reasoning, of thinking of things in three dimensions and is very good at drawing conclusions from limited data

Ironically enough, for a gem literally made to be someones friend, Spinel is extremely emotionally stupid. She makes jokes at inopportune times, doesn’t seem to understand when Pink wants to be left alone and comes across as naive and gullible

That last one comes back to bite her, hard

Upon finding out that Pink Diamond tricked her, the stress of it all causes her to poof and reform, into the outfit we see in the movie

Spinel’s faith in Pink Diamond is broken, as she realises that she never had any plans to come back for her, and immediately starts voicing her betrayal and hurt at being betrayed

She wakes up to find that Pink Pearl took her gem and fled to Earth, which she is not happy about

It was originally because she didn’t want to be on the planet that reminded her of Pink; because she was grieving, but it swapped to all consuming rage real quick once she realises what Pink Diamond did to her

Spinel doesn’t have anything against Pink Pearl, but, like in the movie, she’s hurt and so lashes out at her, while also not wanting her to be out of sight

Pink Pearl is also going through some shit right now, just waking up from years of brainwashing. She’s normally a very laid back gem, from what we see of her, and as a Pearl she is taught not to talk back to her superiors. But she would see Spinel as her equal here, and she is not going to let some upstart lecture her when she could of have just left Spinel in the Garden

They argue. A lot. Pink Pearl’s habit of excusing Pink Diamond’s abuse does not mesh well with Spinel’s hatred of her former owner

They wander for a bit, and settle in with some North American tribes, but, after realising Humans aren’t immortal like they are, they start travelling.

Spinel takes the longest to be won around to Earth’s side, due to the bad memories of Pink abandoning her for it, but she loves the children who trip over themselves to play games with her

Spinel and Pink Pearl’s relationship is something I wanna go deeper into in a different post, but they finally start to get along when Pink Pearl finally admits what Pink Diamond did to her

They move a lot, and it is usually Spinel’s fault- her bright pink skin is very hard to hide, and she feels a lot of guilt over that, though Pink assures her that it’s okay, that it’s good that they moved, they would of have had to eventually

Over the centuries, Spinel and Pink Pearl have been poofed many, many times, though they are always super careful to make sure the other isn’t cracked - thankfully humans discover a way to heal cracks in gems, and the outfits change, usually to fit the era they’re in

The 1930′s was great, it was there that they finally figured out how to fuse at will instead of awkwardly stumbling into it every now and then

Currently, Spinel favours wearing hoodies or jumpers, loose and baggy, covering her gem because she’s not going to have that out for all to see and possibly crack. The hoodies hide her face, so bonus

Spinel’s personality was never as bad as it was in the movie; she continues to have extreme mood swings to this day, but since she wasn’t in isolation as long as Canon!Spinel, it didn’t affect her as bad

“As bad”

One day Spinel will probably have to see a therapist after a run in with the earth’s government (awkward) and she will probably be diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder or something along those lines

Spine’s personality is extremely bitter most of the time; she is deeply cynical, contrasting Pink Pearl’s optimism, and is a pragmatist and an opportunist. Self deprecating humour is her strong suit, though she does like shitty puns and knock knock jumps

They did run into gem monsters at first, and are always really confused as to what that’s about, but they have no problem bubbling or shattering them when they have to

As they move away from the area the corruption song hit, they see less and less of them, and they kind of sort assumed that they were dinosaurs or something

Spinel and Pearl have found themselves in the middle of wars or revolutions, and, after a while, they start joining in, being extra super careful to make sure nobody realises they’re there and what they are (it doesn’t work)

Spinel’s weapon is still a scythe, but it’s design is different. She named it Peekaboo, which Pink finds hilarious

Spinel is more aggressive than Pink Pearl. She never aims it at Pearl- the closest she gets is the very start of their partnership when they first arrived on Earth.

Instead, it’s more aimed at everyone else. She knows that the humans will all eventually die, and leave her, so she shuts them out- though she absolutely adores kids. She’s the main muscle between her and Pearl, and is by far the better fighter

Due to how weak Pearl’s naturally are, even a well made one like Pink Pearl, she is naturally protective of her other half

Of course, Pink Pearl will cut a bitch if you make her friend/girlfriend/wife cry

Spinel loves, loves, LOVES theatre, it’s something she and Pink bond over a lot. They both loved to visit William Shakespeare when he was around, though Spinel suggested that he could make some of his poems a lot less angsty, please?

When the circus was invented, she was over the moon, and kept dragging Pink off to go and see it (she may or may not have inspired the idea for clowns)

Over the years, Spinel tries branching out, to try and discover what she likes to do outside of making others laugh. It takes a while, and almost drives her to a nervous breakdown because oh stars what if all she can do is make others feel good, what if she can’t break outside her programming what if-

She discovers that she likes photography, and, after cultivating that skill for hundreds of years, she is quite good at it. She likes the idea of having pictures of everywhere they’ve been, and in her spare time creates scrapbooks to gift to Pearl

She has all kinds of nicknames for Pink Pearl; Raspberry, Loveheart, Sweetheart, Doll, Valentine, etc

Pearl admitted to her that she hates her name, of being “a” pearl, so, after going back and forth, they decide that she can be called Peach

(Because I refuse to call her Volleyball in this au)

#steven universe #steven universe au #wayfarer au #spinel #pink pearl #pearl steven universe #spinearl

18 notes · View notes

seduceme-lovestruck-thearcana · 4 years ago

Text

@megatraven

Had another idea for Rose and Apollo. BUT THIS TIME IT ISNT SAD I PROMISE!! And it’s pretty long my bad lol. And no proofreading it’s late and I want you to see this and I’m a little tired dhwndb.

It’s a Rose Queen AU. Like,,just in a universe where Rose is a queen. Idk how she’d die or maybe this is the timeline where they get to just be together. It happens eventually,,but it doesn’t happen this way I promise djqnsb. But yeah Apollo finds Rose and realizes she is the queen. The one that rules over everyone and he’s in one of the most peaceful kingdoms. He’s not surprised, but he is in awe of her. She is glowing when she meets him. She meets him in the garden. Instead of wearing a fancy dress or jewelry, she’s wearing a simple, silk, blue dress. It’s sleeves don’t even reach her elbow, it helps her keep herself cool. She loves that dress and it reminds Apollo of when they first met. He adores the dress and Rose herself.

He’s a gardener working that day. He’s on his knees at a part of the garden and is working planting new flowers and he noticed Rose coming closer to him. She was looking at the flowers around her, the butterflies (her favorite animal other than the fox), and the people who are happy. Apollo tries not to stare at her, but he always glances over at her direction from time to time. She eventually ends up beside him and she talks to him. “Excuse me,” she says, her voice sounding like a goddess, but none of the goddesses sounded like her. He looks at her and she smiles at him, her blue eyes shining in the sunlight and her face lighting up. “Y-Yes,” he stutters out, taken aback by her beauty. She laughs at his response, so used to people being a little anxious around her. She points towards the area he is planting in and asks him a question.

“Is this where the roses will be planted? I was going to put a bench in front of them. Roses are my favorite,” she said with a smile. He knew they were her favorite and they slowly became his favorite too. Not because of her necessarily, but because of what they stood for. Love. Love that he slowly realized he had. Once he realized he was staring, he nodded and laughed. “Yes, your worship. They’ll be planted right here,” he said as he tapped the dirt. She smiled at him and nodded. “Thank you! I appreciate all the work you and everyone are doing on the garden. I love gardens.” He nodded and smiled at her. She excused herself to do her queen duties, and he watched as she went.

“You’re staring,” said a voice behind him. He looked over and saw his friend, Jane, tapping her foot as she had her hands on her hips. She knew he had a crush on the queen, many people did. However, she knew it was deeper. She doesn’t know how she does, but she just does. He let out a cheeky laugh and began working again. Once the roses have grown and bloomed, Apollo wants to go see them. He likes the garden, almost everyone who visits does, and loves to see all of the flowers. Plus, the butterflies too. They fly up to him a lot more than other people and he wonders if it’s because he’s a god. He just brushes it off and visits the garden everyday. However, one day he is blessed with the presence of her majesty. He sees the bench that’s placed right in front of the roses and sees Rose sitting there with a sketchbook in her hand.

He watches her for a few seconds, deciding if he should join her or not. He was in her servant clothes, so he didn’t know if she’d be angry at him for not doing his job. He knows she’s rarely angry, but he would prefer for her not to be angry at him. Plus, he knew Jane would be a bit angry, but he really wanted to talk to Rose. He decided to join her and he walked up to her. She noticed him immediately (she was always on guard) and smiled at him. “Hello, sir. Did you need something?” Few people ever came to just talk to her. Many of them wanted something from her or were there to ask her questions or her opinion on something. He felt a bit bad and could tell she was lonely. All of the servers did.

“I was wondering if I could join you. I love the roses, too,” he said with a smile, trying to be friendly as possible, even if a blush was starting to rise on his cheeks. She nodded and scooted over for him. He sat next to her and it was silent for awhile. She had stopped drawing and was just staring out into the distance behind the roses. “Coin for your thoughts?” She looked over at him, surprised for a second. “You wanna know what I think? People rarely do that nowadays.” His heart did a sad thump at that. Of course people didn’t. She was the queen. People were a bit afraid of her or only came to her for deals.

“Of course I do. I’m sorry no one else does.” She looked back into the distance. “Thinking about what I’m doing.” That answer was a little confusing and worrying for Apollo. “What do you mean?” She was silent for a minute. The silence seemed like years for Apollo, but it was only a minute. “I’m the queen and my mom helps me with decisions, but the future makes me worry. What if I mess up? What if I hurt people? So many what ifs run through my head everyday,” she said, her voice shaking a bit. She wasn’t going to cry, but she was still full of emotion. He wanted to hug her, but knows he can’t. She’s the queen and he is a little dirty. “I’m so sorry that you suffer from those thoughts, but I believe you’re doing a wonderful job,” he said while looking at her with love clearly on his face.

If Aphrodite was there, she’d be singing “Kiss the Girl” like Sebastian did in The Little Mermaid lol. She would look at him with a look that was hard to read. “You do?” He nodded. “Of course I do! And many others do too! You treat everyone with respect, keep everyone safe, the soldiers are always on point, and you keep things safe and peaceful.” Of course things happen. Some murders happen. Nowhere is truly safe, but Rose always figures out who it is and always punished them. She doesn’t punish them with death always. People asked why and she always gave the same response.

“Sometimes living is a harsher punishment than death.” It would make Apollo feel like it was all of the other Roses speaking through this Rose, saying how her living is a punishment. A punishment she didn’t deserve. Rose smiled at him and looked back down at her sketchbook. “I was drawing the roses. Do you like them?” She held up the sketchbook towards him for him to see. The roses were beautiful. They weren’t too realistic and perfect, but they were well drawn and look beautiful. There wasn’t color, but he could imagine it with color, and it looked beautiful. “It looks beautiful, your worship.” He handed back the sketchbook and when she grabbed it, their hands met for a second. They went still for a second, but Rose eventually took the sketchbook back and put it in her lap.

“Thanks for joining me. I’ve been a bit lonely,” she said truthfully. Apollo frowned at that and scooted closer to her. He put his hand on her thigh, feeling extremely brave and wanting to show he was trying to comfort her (in some kind of way). “Well, we’re all here for you. Not just me. If you ever need a day out, find me and I’d be happy to go. And some of the other workers would be happy to go with you. They’re always there to help you, your worship.” Rose looked at his hand and placed her hand over his. He noticed she was shaking a bit, maybe embarrassed or scared. “Thank you,” she said before she stuttered first a second. “What is your name? I usually try to learn all of the servants names.” He squeezes her thigh and got up ready to go back to work. “It’s Apollo, your worship,” he said as he tilted his head down and did a little bow to his waist (it’s so hard to describe the bow I hope you understand. And bow as in how you bow to a queen and not a bow on a dress lol). She bowed her head back to him, a sign of respect which she always did.

Maybe a few months or so, Apollo sees that there are fewer knights than normal. He wanted to be a knight. Not just because of Rose, but because he wanted to help more than just in the garden. He tried out to be in the army and he made it. All of the tricks and strategies last Rose taught him was burned in his mind, as if he could remember her with his body and his style of fighting. And he could. Many people asked him to teach them and he did. Showing them what Rose had taught him and how sometimes strength isn’t the thing you need to focus on. It was the one rule she always told everyone. Strength is important and a big factor, but observation and thinking is also important in war or fights.

After a few more months, his hard work at training and practicing and protecting the kingdom got him noticed by the commander. He tried to promote him to a level higher than a knight, but all he wanted was to be a knight. So, he was put into knight training. When he was finally to become a knight, he had to see the queen first. Do that thing where they kneel before the queen and she does the thing where she hovers the sword over both shoulders (ya know what I mean?? It’s hard to describe :(). He’s honestly a little excited. Since he joined the army and trained and taught, he hasn’t seen much of Rose. Only little glances whenever she checks the guards, but he likes those little glances. Especially since she looks at him a little bit longer than she does at the others.

When the night has come, many gather in the throne room, and it was an interesting sight. Apollo didn’t quite understand why they were always excited, but he’d entertain them as much as he could. He was outside the throne room and many other men were. They were all going to be knighted today and he saw the nervousness on their faces. He made fun of them a little, but told them that it’d be okay. Rose would take only the best. Once the throne room doors open, Apollo’s eyes land on Rose. She’s in a dark, blue dress. The fancy dress that has flower designs on it, some parts lined with pearls, the neck part is a little frilly, and it’s mainly lace. She loves lace fabric. He smiled at her and she smiled back. The men stood in a line and were called up by name to face the queen. As he watched the men get knighted, he saw them bow and a memory came to his mind.

He remembered promising that he would never bow before a human. A mortal would never control him and they would never be able to even dream of controlling a God. He remembers other Gods agreeing with him and encouraging that mindset, but overtime he saw how humanity...is better than the Gods. There are a few bad people, but there’s always light that shines in this world. Just like Rose does. Rose would always say,

“The world is like a garden. There are unique flowers that have different purposes and live differently, but they’re all flowers. All the same deep down. And there are beautiful flowers, strong and lovely. Then, there are flowers that dont have sunshine because it’s blocked. They wilt under the dark and need someone to bring back the sunshine in their life. Some poisonous flowers. They are dangerous, but most of the time they do good in the world as well. Then, there are weeds. And what do you do with weeds? You pick them out. One by one. However, a garden will never be completely rid of weeds, they will always come back. Just like evil. It can’t be destroyed.”

Her explanations and opinions are always stuck in his head. When he first met her, he didn’t understand. He believed mortals deserved evil. They practically caused it on themselves. But over time when he saw how they struggled, he knew that they didn’t deserve this. They didn’t deserve death at every corner, didn’t deserve being murdered for no reason, didn’t deserve to be...abandoned like this. So, he always came back. Even if Rose wasn’t alive, he worked and worked to make the world better. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t do enough, felt like everything he did was for nothing, but everytime he found Rose and saw how he made her feel, he feels like he is doing something. Something important.

When Rose called Apollo’s name, he walked to her and stood a foot from her. She bowed her head and he did what he promised to never do. He got down one knee, put his hand over his heart, and looked his beloved Rose in the eye. He felt his heart racing out of control, but it calmed when he realized who he was bowing to. It was Rose. Not an evil king, not Zeus, not another God. It was Rose.

“Sir Apollo,” she started, “do you vow to protect the people of this kingdom?” “I do,” he would reply, no hesitation. “Do you vow to protect your queen?” “I do,” he said a little louder. “And what do you intend to do for the rest of your days?” He smiled at her.

“I will happily serve you, no matter what happens, all my life.” His voice wavered with emotion. He always did. He always tried to do what was best for her and always gave her everything he had, and now he was be able to say it to her and in front of hundreds of people, and he wasn’t scared. She smiled at him, and it seemed a bit different than the other smiles. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, and she seemed more happy. It was hard to describe how it was different. It just was.

And she knights him and he leaves with a big smile on his face. And he eventually gets a patrol time. His patrol area (I like to imagine Knights do fight but also are like guards) is right in front of Roses bedroom balcony. If you thought I wasn’t gonna do a cliche idea where she ends up going outside one day and sees Apollo, tHEN YOURE WRONG!! She does go outside one night and she sees Apollo. He’s looking around, seeming bored, and she decides to cure him.

“Looking good, sir Apollo,” she said with a small laugh. He looked up in surprise and saw her in a blue nightgown and her long, brown hair was down. It fell over her shoulders and he found her beautiful in the moonlight. There were a few lights surrounding the area, so he could see her face a little bit, and he noticed she was happy. “Hello, your worship,” he said with a salute. “Aw, don’t be too serious. It’s late. Let loose.” He was a little surprised to hear that come from her. He’s always seen Rose be the queen and be serious. So hearing her tell him to loosen up made him laugh. “What’s so funny?” She had her hands on her hips and seemed angry, but he knew she wasn’t.

“It’s just...you’re telling me to loosen up? You rarely get a day outside!” She scoffed at his response, but after she thought about it she laid her arms on the rail and rested her chin on her fist. “Well, I’ll try to get out one day. Maybe you need to save me.” He was happy it was late and she was far away because he was going red. “M-Maybe I will,” he stuttered out. Rose took her opportunity. “How about tomorrow?” Apollo was once again surprised. He was usually the one making the moves, but now she was. And he wonders why? She barely knew him, yet wanted more of him? “Of course, your worship.”

“Rose. Call me Rose tomorrow,” she said as she gave him a wave and left the balcony and closed the doors.

And then the next day they get out of the house. Melody wishes Rose good luck (she just wants her daughter to be happy🥺) and she meets Apollo at the market. Rose is wearing a simple dress, something the commoners wore. She was trying to not be noticed, she really wanted to have a good time with Apollo. And they do! They have fun!! Rose gets to see the commoners closer and she loves seeing them!! Even if they don’t know it’s her!! She’s enjoying it and Apollo is so happy to see her smiling so bright and so happy to see everyone else being happy.

This is what makes Apollo feel like he’s doing the right thing. And after awhile,,Rose has some suitors that are coming towards her. She’s turning 25 and they see that as a perfect opportunity to get her hand. Everyone notices Apollo, her personal knight, being against it. I mean, most people are against it, but Apollo is strongly against it and everyone notices. Even Rose. They’d see each other in her room and talk about the day. Apollo’s day was almost always the same but Roses was almost always different. Some gossip, some plans, and some venting. However, she did not tell Apollo everything. She was vague with her plans. Never saying she wasn’t going to accept the marriage proposals (even if she was). She loved him and trusted him, but she was taught about betrayals around the world.

And wouldnt ya know...many of them start with love and she wasn’t going to be another story of a fallen kingdom bc of love in the history books. He knew that and couldn’t blame her. Rose was rough around the edges. He believes it’s all her life’s adding up together. Betrayal and death were making her wary, even in her other lives where she recalled nothing of her past. It made him sad but understand why she was like that. But he still supported her, even if he was left in the dark sometimes. He just held her in the night when she needed comfort and was always her personal knight.

And when she gets angry at all the suitors, she decided to ask Apollo to marry her in front of everyone in the ballroom. I imagine a ball is thrown. Rose celebrating a victory or trying to give people a nice time away from stress. She wears a beautiful dress and Apollo is dressed to the nines. She asked him what kind of clothes which he thought was very thoughtful. She watches as people dance and she talks with the suitors that have visited. She stands beside her mother most of the time (needing some motherly comfort during all this). It isn’t the first time she’s throw a ball, but the suitors was new. And it was giving her anxiety. Apollo would be standing by one of the doors leading into the room, always on guard. He would watch the people but his gaze would never be far from Roses. Eventually, she dances with the first suitor. She doesn’t want to cause a scene by saying “no” so she dances with him. He’s well taught (no surprise there. He is a prince) and dances well with her, but she doesn’t find it enjoyable.

Once one suitor is done dancing with her, she notices Apollo’s annoyed face. She laughs quietly in the middle of her next dance. When the suitor whispers, “you will be my wife,” it makes her stop. She’s gone rigid and refuses to dance along. He tries to move her along, but no. His whisper took her off guard and she refused to let him even entertain the idea of she being his wife. “No. I will NOT be your wife,” she shouts, her voice echoing in the room. The music has stopped (it always stops when the queen stops dancing) and everyone has gone silent. She pulls her hand out of his grip and moves his hand off of her waist. “The only one who will be my king is my knight!” People let out a gasp and even Apollo lets out a gasp.

In the end, Rose tells Apollo to join her in the middle of the room and he does as he’s told (he always will🥺) and she tells him how much she loves him and how she wants to marry him. She wants him to be her king. He felt stunned at first, but the happiness kicked in and he accepted. They kissed in the middle of the ballroom and people clapped. Some were unsure of what just happened, but Melody knew everything and was so proud of Rose. She finally let someone else in her heart. Whenever Rose and Apollo go into Roses room to sleep (or celebrate hehe ;)) he asks her how she trusts him.

“Well, for the year we were dating, I had my spies watch you. They saw whenever you went, whatever you did, and could tell you what you ate this morning. They watched and observed if you were telling anyone any of my plans. My plans were fake, none of it was real. I wanted you to believe it and I wanted to see if you were working for anyone,” she said with guilt clear on her face. “However, this night was when I learned you didn’t do anything. Never told anyone what I told you, never reported to anyone, did what you were told, kind to commoners and people you work with, and you didn’t lie to me,” she said with a smile. He smiled back and took in everything about her that night. Her body, her face, her voice, and her passion.

This was his queen. He was her king. In the end, it will be them. Together forever.

Let’s say this is the AU where Apollo has made himself mortal to be with Rose dnwndb. So they do have the same forever.

OKAY SO!! HAPPY ENDING FOR THEM!! In this AU this is her last lifetime and Lumie doesn’t show up and ruin things lol. Enjoy some rlly long fluff😌. Thanks for reading all the way down iTS REALLY LONG SIS DJNSBS.

#The Girl in The Blue Dress #my writing #I LOVE THEM!! OKAY!! AND I HOPE YOU LIKE IT TOO!!#Im shouting bc its honestly good and I like it and the fluff I managed to put in there lol.

2 notes · View notes

dragons-bones · 5 years ago

Text

5 Questions for Writers

Tagged by: @frostmantle (thank you!)

Tagging: @ishgard, @starsandauras, @twelveswood, @autumnslance, aaaaaaand YOU (because I cannot keep track of who’s done this or not XD)

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

----

Cut for length!

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

I am, of course, obviously quite fond of snarky, quick-witted characters, and my OCs banter a lot. Dialogue is one of my favorite things to write, so chatty characters in general I find easier to approach. It’s fun slinging sass back and forth! (This tends to be why I focus a lot of Synnove and Rereha most often--they’re the snark queens of the Squad and the most likely to turn the sarcasm filter off and just go off on someone. Which further reminds me I need to have Thancred and Rereha trading jabs, too, at some point...)

I’ve also really been enjoying writing Aymeric specifically, even if it is intimidating to do so at times. I obviously headcanon him as ridiculously smitten with Synnove (the feeling, of course, is mutual), and finding the right balance of “deeply in love with a Warrior of Light” without it coming off as overly saccharine or out of character is a great mental exercise. Also of course I enjoy indulging my personal fantasy of having a handsome man be a badass, deeply in love with his lady, and perfectly delighted to kick ass beside his lady!

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

Food porn. My mother’s Italian, I grew up being taught to enjoy food, I love sharing my enjoyment of food. Plus it’s usually accompanying some happier moments, or domestic ones, and is basically a cue to the readers that the story is meant to be light and fun.

I have no idea what the proper trope name would be (and going to TV Tropes to asking to start a rabbit hole dive I shouldn’t begin), but as we all know, I love Shenanigans. I typically write them in reaction to how serious the setting is; I deeply enjoy stretching how far I insert some humor and levity without it becoming crack. I think it provides some fresh air; I enjoy angst and hurt/comfort and dark themes, but frequently it’s not something I prefer to write for myself.

I also enjoy found family, battle couples, magic-as-science... Anything that gives me an excuse to write character interactions and/or worldbuild. The great fun of fanfiction, particularly in a setting like FFXIV, is that we’ve got a bare bones foundation, with some areas more developed than others, but otherwise there is a ton of room to grow my own ideas. I personally like to work within lore, but it is hugely enjoyable for me to figure out how to get certain concepts to work with the lore rather than against it. (See: my approach to arcanima.)

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

This obviously changes all the time, but there’s a couple I really love:

From Pearls of Wisdom:

It was one of the most basic principles of magic, not just arcanima: astral elements and umbral elements. It was such an accepted, unquestioned foundation that she had never even considered that the three elements most commonly used by arcanists for their carbuncles were not all the same primary polarity. Every element could manifest as either polarity, but Roksana Blackspark was correct, now that Synnove properly thought about it: wind, earth, and fire were much, much more likely to be found in a stable state. Even the Guild’s enormous aether batteries, all the way down in subbasement twelve, had been initially tricky to install until they found the right combination of overgrown elemental clusters, with most of the problems coming from the water, ice, and levin clusters.

Of course trying to infuse any sort of gem with those three elements specifically was going to fail, they were fucking overaspected to astral or umbral. The equations didn’t fucking work as they should because they were built to account for elements that naturally occurred in stable states, and so the infusions fizzled and the gemstones cracked and no carbuncles could manifest.

But.

But if she did account for instability, or, in fact, deliberately found crystals with which to infuse gems that were of opposite polarities so that the final infusion was stable…

A new thought made itself known, and Synnove stuffed the rest of her cake in her mouth, set the plate and fork aside, bookmarked her spot in the journal, and opened up the note taking program, yanking the stylus from the side of the case. As she chewed, she began scribbling in frantic shorthand. Perhaps in addition to ensuring stable aetheric polarity, she could also try infusion over time as well? Even when artificially infusing emeralds, topazes, and rubies, the stones still cracked every one time out of eight. Certainly, working with water, levin, and ice aether would benefit from a slower infusion speed, as it would allow her to keep a better eye on maintaining polar equilibrium, and if that issue was what was affecting the failures for wind, earth, and fire, then that would be two problems solved.

…Perhaps three, Synnove sucking in a deep breath and her heart pounding as she wrote. A proper balance of aetheric polarization combined with a slow enough infusion potentially meant that she could, theoretically, infuse any precious stone she desired, not just ones with a specific hardness and durability. Of course, the equations would need to be further adjusted to take into account the specific chemical properties of the specific gems and how they would need to interact with different elemental aether, but that, while difficult and tedious, was still doable.

Writing characters smarter than oneself is really difficult and intimidating, but I think I did a really good job showing Synnove’s thought process, and based on some of the feedback I’ve gotten, I succeeded! So I’m really, really proud of this passage.

From Suffer, Promise, Witness (FFXIV Write 2019 #19):

The ground shook, suddenly, and Synnove whipped her head around to the direction from which it originated, staring in shock. In the distance, an enormous red…key, for lack of a better term, pulsing with blue aetherlight, had struck the ground. The dust cloud kicked up rose immediately into the air and began obscuring it, and even from here she could see that the force of the strike had knocked down allies and foes alike around it.

Then a roar of sound—a deep, resonant thunder of triumphant, all-consuming rage—engulfed Carteneau, drawing every eye skyward, to see Dalamud’s outer shell, glowing with more of that sickly blue aetherlight, cracking open.

And Dalamud exploded.

The shockwave hit her first, throwing her and every other living being on the Plains still alive and standing to the ground with a force that punched the air from her lungs. The sound came next, shaking her bones and cracking the stone around her in an awful crescendo of combusting, howling aether. Her ears rang—or maybe it was just the screams of terror from every damned soul on the Carteneau killing fields all blending together.

The sky was aflame, and then the first of the pieces of Dalamud impacted the ground. Molten earth flew into the air, and then again from another impact, and another, and another, until the heavens and the earth were indistinguishable from how they both burned. Synnove desperately tried to sit up, feet scrambling to find purchase on the broken ground, as Galette and Tyr converged on her, eyes wide with fear as they tugged and pushed on her to get her upright.

Honestly I love this whole piece, but trying to describe what’s basically a trailer from another perspective (while also trying to portray the passage of time in an accurate manner) was difficult. I’d been dying to write the Synnove at Carteneau piece for a long time, and I just let myself write without worry. I think it came out pretty well! (Everyone screaming at me after the fact certainly boosted my confidence. :D)

From Assessments (FFXIV Write 2017 #25)

He did not attempt to step softly, as it was always a poor idea to sneak up on any warrior, never mind a Warrior of Light, but apparently Synnove was deeply enough engrossed in her text to not register his approach. Tyr, however, looked over as soon as he noticed the loud clacking of boot heels on stone floor coming closer to his mistress. He perked his ears up and came to meet Aymeric, shoving his face into the elezen’s hands.

“Maow!” the topaz carbuncle said, deep and echoing like a brass bell, only a little bone-rattling.

Aymeric laughed softly and obliging scratched behind his ears. Tyr thrummed happily, enjoying the attention for a few moments, before he disengaged and went back to Synnove. He braced himself on the rungs of the ladder and reached up with his paw to tap her foot, chirruping quietly.

“Hmm? Whazzit, honey?” Synnove said, voice distant and distracted. She did not look up as she turned the page.

Tyr sat back on his haunches and said, “Maow!”

Aymeric hadn’t the faintest idea of what Tyr had said, but Synnove most certainly did, as her head jerked up in surprise. (He winced sympathetically; when she had straightened, her spine had made an awful crack.) She frantically looked around until her gaze settled on Aymeric. She blinked rapidly, quite obviously not yet comprehending what she was seeing, until a smile finally bloomed across her features, her green eyes crinkling at the corners. “Well, fancy meeting you here,” she said, her cheerfulness tempered by the slight slur of exhaustion in her voice.

There were dark circles under her eyes, her hair was obviously unkempt up close, and her fingers were ever-so-slightly shaking from the particular combination of too much caffeine and not enough sleep, but Synnove Greywolfe was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Aymeric grinned up at her, not bothering to disguise how besotted he was with no witnesses about to see, and said, “What brings one of the celebrated Warriors of Light to Ishgard a bell before midnight?” He took a few steps closer to the ladder and held out his arms.

Synnove winced as she closed and shelved the book she had been reading. “Thal’s balls, that late?” She slid to the edge of the ladder’s seat, pushed off with her right hand and foot, and unceremoniously dropped into his grasp.

He tightened his hold on her as he caught her, drawing her close, and he dropped a kiss on each of her eyelids, relishing the giggles the action elicited from her. Another kiss on her nose, one to the beauty mark at the side of her chin, and then he finally kissed her properly. Synnove, in turn, languidly draped her arms around his shoulders and ran her fingers through the hairs on the nape of his neck, practically purring as she did. He hummed appreciatively against her lips, and they both ended up laughing into the kiss.

(Next to them, Tyr sighed, and rolled his eyes.)

Aymeric reluctantly drew away and set her on her feet, keeping Synnove steady as she wobbled and her spine cracked yet again. His beloved immediately leaned back into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and slouching so her cheek could rest over his heart. He smiled and returned the hug, resting his chin on her head. He closed his eyes and swayed with her gently, enjoying the familiar and much-missed comfort of her presence.

An older bit, but I love these two goobers, and I love writing them being physically affectionate and just basking in each other. Fucking cuties.

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

FUCK I HAVE TO CHOOSE. Okay, let’s start with Pearls of Wisdom again:

Rereha threw open the doors to Aymeric’s office, shite-eating grin firmly plastered on her face as she skipped inside, and sang out, “Congratulations! It’s twins!”

Two things happened.

First, as soon as the doors opened, but before Rereha even opened her mouth, Lucia, she of finely honed Frumentarium instincts and years of friendship with a lalafell infamous across the realm for her Theatrics and Shenanigans, reached out and yanked the multitude of reports on the desk in front of Aymeric out of the way.

Second, Aymeric, who had been taking a sip of tea at the exact moment Rereha entered the office, choked and spat out said tea across his desk—and where all of the paperwork had once been not even a second before—in the most glorious spit take Rereha had ever engendered. A tiny part of her was saddened at the waste of perfectly good tea, but, wow, that had been spectacular. She gave herself a mental pat on the back and came to a stop in the middle of the office, grin widening to manic levels.

Lucia pounded Aymeric on the back between his shoulder blades as he coughed and sputtered, stopping only when the Lord Commander wheezed out, wide-eyed, voice high-pitched and halfway to a full-blown panic, “WHAT?!”

THREE YEARS THIS LIVED IN MY HEAD. THREE FUCKING YEARS I HAVE WANTED TO WRITE THIS STORY AND BEGIN IT WITH THAT LINE. THREE YEARS AND IT’S FINALLY OUT IN THE WORLD AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

From Needling (FFXIV Write 2019 #17):

Merlwyb drained her cup dry and poured herself a fresh serving (no whiskey this time, however). Grudgingly, she filled a second, and slid it over to Synnove, along with the bowl of maple sugar cubes and jar of cream. The arcanist doctored her tea as she preferred it—three lumps, generous dash of cream—and took a luxurious sip, humming in satisfaction.

“Why are you here?” the Admiral finally said, tea cup in hand and elbows braced on her desk. She wedged her feet a little firmer beneath Tyr.

“Mmmm, we had to bodily force Thubyrgeim to take a vacation,” said Synnove. She took another slow sip of tea. “Accounting realized she hadn’t taken a proper one in nigh on three years. So, we kicked her out of the Gate, with the caveat that she wasn’t to come back until next moon, and then we divvied up her usual responsibilities among the lot of us. I volunteered for the pleasure and delight of taking over our dear Guildmistress’s sennightly meetings with you.” Here the woman batted her eyelashes.

Merlwyb eyed her. “You have an ulterior motive,” she said, enunciating clearly for emphasis. “You always have an ulterior motive.”

“I enjoy the faces you make when you are confronted with the stark reality that every single one of your arcanists is capable of rewriting the laws of creation but are, simultaneously, godsdamned lunatics who should be taken out back and shot.”

“I should start with you.”

“Start with aetherochemistry; they just invented a new plague.” Synnove took the top folder from the pile and slid it across the desk to the Admiral.

“Of course they bloody did,” Merlwyb growled, opening the folder and skimming the abstract on the first page. Dear gods, did they really decide to mix malaria and consumption? Always so busy wondering if they could they never bothered to consider if they should. She plucked her reading glasses from their usual spot, sliding them on as she turned the page to the formal report, written in the aetherochemistry department chair’s tiny, cramped hand. Absently, she said, “And no, we are not testing it on the faculty of the University of Radz-at-Han.”

Synnove pouted. For the first time that afternoon, Merlwyb cracked a grin.

Merlwyb doesn’t get enough love, in my opinion, and of course I imagine she’s a salty bitch underneath the cool, commanding exterior. Couple that with Synnove probably letting loose the Full Sass (she would never behave such with Raubahn, Nanamo, or Kan-E, but she’s been an assessor for fifteen years, she knows exactly how far she can poke the Admiral and is well aware it’s tolerated only because she’s been an arcanist for so long) and the “out back and shot” line is my single favorite sentence from the whole of FFXIV Write 2019, and this is my favorite character exchange that’s I’ve done in a long time.

From Of Taunting and Tales (FFXIV Write 2019 #25)

Knock knock a-knock—knockknock! “Guess who~.”

A loud groan answered her. “Go away, you debauched scandalmonger!”

Rereha poked her head into one of the private rooms of the Rhalgr’s Reach infirmary, wicked grin firmly in place. “Now, now, Mr. Scaeva, is that any way to speak to the lady come to relieve your unending boredom?” she drawled.

The former tribunus laticlavius of the XIVth Imperial Legion raised his arm, hand up and middle finger extended, without lifting his head from his pillow.

Rereha cackled and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. A disgusted sigh came from Nero’s direction, and he flopped his arm back down on the mattress with a characteristically overdramatic wave of his hand. She grabbed a chair sitting by the wall and dragged it behind her as she waltzed towards Nero’s bed, the wood shrieking angrily against the stone of the floor, and whistled a cheery little ditty deliberately out of tune. She could see his jaw clenched in annoyance as she set the chair up near the head of the bed and cackled again as she hopped up into it. She placed the book she had been carrying on her lap and folded her hands primly on top of it, beaming.

“How are we feeling today?” she chirped.

“Like I’ve been run over by a flock of rabid chocobos.” Nero stubbornly refused to open his eyes, instead folding his hands on his stomach in unknowing mirror of her. “And then sat upon by a buffalo.”

“That’s an improvement! Last time you said you felt like you’d been chewed and spat out by an enraged king behemoth!”

“Rereha,” he sighed, still not opening his eyes. “Why are you here? Garlond and Greywolfe are infinitely more stimulating conversationalists, for all their damned sanctimonious self-important morals and ethics.” He spat out the last word like it was a particularly loathsome curse.

“I’m hurt, Nero,” said Rereha, placing her hand on her heart. She pitched her voice to express layers of emotion: disappointment, regret, sadness. “Genuinely hurt. A friend of mine has been grievously wounded in the course of his attempts to safeguard not just Eorzea, but Hydaelyn as a whole from an interdimensional entity of vast and unfathomable power. I come in my spare time to bring some light and laughter to his dreary hospital room as he heals, and he insults me and wishes for the company of others.”

A long silence descended over them both. Finally, Nero arched one golden eyebrow and cracked an eye open to stare at her incredulously.

Rereha pursed her lips together and said pensively, “Laid it on a bit too thick, didn’t I?”

He raised his hand and held his forefinger and thumb a quarter of an ilm apart.

“Damn,” Rereha said, crossing her arms. “Ah, well.”

Rereha basically exists to let me write Sass and Irreverent Humor. Nero is full of Salt and Sass. Together they could flay someone with words alone. I also really enjoyed writing Nero being a sassmaster without using words. Wordless dialogue is fun!! :D

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

One day I’m gonna get over my hesitation about writing (and sharing) smut and fucking write the first time Synnove and Aymeric had sex. I know exactly when and where and how.

...Also Synnove getting ravished in one of the Neo-Ishgardian dresses. That’s, like, second on the list. Ooohh, and the Vacation Fic; maybe I should write that one as scenes and worry about connecting them after the fact. I think because that one will require chapters and I’m more of a one-shot person is a reason I have yet to start it.

#meme stuff #writing #dt's writing

7 notes · View notes

theashemarie · 6 years ago

Text

Demo Brew Ch. 3 | Pearlina

☆ Reblogs appreciated! ☆

↪Chapter 1: [The Bet]

↪Chapter 2: [The Squid Sisters]

Read one chapter ahead on AO3!

Chapter 3: The Song

By all rights, things should be different after this revelation, but nothing changes. Callie and Marie are still just Callie and Marie after all, though they do sing more when the shop is empty. Three seems to relax a little too, as if she was holding all the tension of the secret in her body, and Pearl easily feeds off the energy. She feels like she’s coming back into herself, back into the Pearl that’s all confidence and swagger. The past six months have been a little rough, all things considered. Adjusting to the job (the job she didn’t need but kept coming back to), adjusting to Callie and Marie, adjusting to Three, adjusting to Marina...

And, now she’s trying to decide if punk music really is her thing after all.

It’s been a creeping thought, ever since she saw Callie, Marie, and Three’s reaction to her scar. But, she doesn’t want to just drop her band, but they’re also not the most cohesive unit anyway. It’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way—the punk group that’s dysfunctional and awful to each other. Their lead guitarist is known for showing up late and drunk, and while Pearl isn’t exactly the most reliable person in the world, she likes to think that she’s dedicated to the cause. She doesn’t want to be arrested one day because her bandmates are caught drunk and belligerent after a gig either, but that’s a whole other issue.

But, most of all, she wonders what it would be like, to start a group with Marina. Their voices would probably go well together, and they’re just different enough that their stage presence would be interesting and fun. She wants to change her image anyway. She’s getting a little sick of wearing black all the time.

“I can’t believe you didn’t figure it out,” Three says when she spies Pearl staring pensively at her notebook. She’s doodled a few hearts beside the scribbled song lyrics from yesterday. She quickly draws a few skulls beside the hearts, just for balance.

“What? Callie and Marie? I totally knew,” she lies.

“Yeah, and I can fly.” Three grabs a scone out of the pastry display and nibbles on it. “You grew up rich, right?”

It’s so out of nowhere that Pearl has to look up from her doodles. “Yeah? Why?”

Three shrugs. “Just curious why you’re here is all.”

“Callie didn’t tell you about the bet?”

Three shakes her head and takes a large bite of the scone. “Callie’s big on privacy. She says that ‘everyone deserves their secrets!’” The last of that is said in a peppy imitation of Callie’s upbeat voice, and Pearl can’t help but chuckle. “I was just wondering, since it seemed like your whole punk thing was taking off too. You’re not like me. Stuck here until the next big thing.”

It's so painfully true, and Three says it so easily. Three isn’t like Pearl—she has to scrape to make it to her next paycheck without going hungry. Most of the time, that involves eating all she can of the leftover pastries or sandwiches at the end of the day, and sometimes Pearl thinks she sees Callie or Marie give her money. Pearl has considered offering her some cash, but she doesn’t want to offend her. If there’s one thing she understands, its pride, and people always have a lot of it when it comes to money.

Pearl sighs and leans back. She’s not wearing her usual black today—decided to go with an oversized sweater, a pop of pink that goes well with her dark jeans—and she thinks that that’s what’s got her in this weird mood. She doesn’t really want to be the punchy punk princess anymore.

“I don’t know about that,” Pearl says. “I love music but I’m not sure if that’s the scene for me.”

“Oh yeah?” Three leans against the back counter, between the espresso machine and the blender. “You gonna sell out? Go mainstream?”

Pearl bristles a little. “Maybe I am! The mainstream could use a little something like me! I’d refresh the hell out of it! The Squid Sisters are the biggest thing right now, but behind those masks they’re still just another poppy idol group.”

Three smiles and crosses her arms. “Don’t let Callie and Marie hear you say that. They think they’re changing the world. Their music saves people.” She shakes her head and laughs, as if she just told some kind of joke. “I think that’d be fresh as hell. You trying to shake things up, I mean. You’ve got the voice. I say go for it.”

Pearl glances back at her notebook, at its scribbled lyrics to a song that’s already written. “It’d be pretty bad if I ditched my band. They’d hate me.”

Three shrugs. “So? You know they’re definitely using you for your money, right? You’re the lead but you also have all the cash. They wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

She’s right and Pearl knows it. Her whole life, people have pushed their way closer to her in order to get closer to her money. It’s a fact of life—people will kiss up to you if they think it’ll get them somewhere. That’s probably one reason why she likes it here so much with Callie, Marie, and Three. They don’t want her money. They want her.

And Marina. Marina doesn’t know either, and she actually trusted Pearl with her demo. Ebb & Flow sounds like it had been recorded on a tape recorder—an act so intimate and personal that every time Pearl listens to it she can almost imagine Marina holding the microphone in her hand as she pressed the record button. Marina trusted her with that—

“You’re right,” Pearl mutters, feeling a lot like the floor has just been ripped out from under her. Suddenly, everything with Marina crystalizes.

Because Pearl likes Marina, and she’s pretty sure that Marina likes her.

+++

At least, Pearl thinks she does.

It’s Saturday when Marina comes back in, and Pearl is jittery. So, so jittery, but she’s playing it off. She’s got her swagger back, finally, and she’s determined to use it.

“Hey Rena, what can I get you?” She leans deep into the counter, chin on her fist, and she smirks her best smirk.

“Hm, I think I’ve finally tried everything...” Marina mutters, staying at a respectable distance from the counter. She’s so cute that Pearl almost turns into a squid right there, like she used to back when she was fifteen and overwhelmed. Nothing made the world slow down like turning back into your childhood form.

“You’ve tried everything twice. I think you’re just looking for an excuse to keep coming back to see me.” Pearl’s smirk changes into a small, sly grin, and she sees Marina blush, just there on her cheeks. She swallows hard to keep herself from smiling even bigger.

“Maybe I just really like coffee,” Marina shoots back. Then, when Three pushes through the door with a tray of small sandwiches, she adds, “Or maybe I just really like to see Three!”

Three puts the tray down with a great clatter and makes a show of looking flattered. “Oh you tease.” She waves her hand in Marina’s direction. “I’m afraid that I’m taken though. I’m married to the job.”

Marina laughs, a small thing that’s barely audible, and Pearl’s knees turn to jelly. “I took too long!” Marina laments. “I guess I’ll have to settle for watching you from afar.”

“You need to move on!” Three cries. She pulls the back of the pastry case open and starts arranging the sandwiches on their small plates, like ducks in a row.

“I’m right here,” Pearl butts in, stomping her foot for emphasis.

“Sorry Pearl.” Marina giggles again.

“Yeah, Pearl. Sorry you had to witness the sauciest love story of our generation,” Three adds.

“I was trying to be smooth,” Pearl whines under her breath in Three’s direction. Then when she realizes what she just said, she turns to Marina with large eyes.

If Marina heard, she makes no indication. Instead, she steps closer to the counter and pokes at the small menu that they have posted there. “I’ll take a black tea. No sweetener, please.”

Pearl recovers quickly. “What, you can get addicted to caffeine but not sugar?”

Marina shrugs. “I get my sugar elsewhere.”

Pearl swears that she sees her wink. The world goes super quiet for a moment, and suddenly all she can see is the floor, and the ceiling, and since when did everything get so big?

“Pearl?” And there’s Marina, leaning over the counter to look at her. And Three is there, like a tower.

“Oh, you little squid,” Three says, exasperated.

Pearl picks herself up quickly. Forms her limbs back into place and grows a neck and stomach. Accidental squid form at twenty because a cute girl flirted back at her. She really is a gay disaster.

She has to rescue herself, and fast, before Marina writes her off as an out of control, lovestruck fool. She dusts her clothes off, picks a piece of white fuzz off of her t-shirt, and points a strong finger at Marina. “I have something for you.”

“Oh...?” Marina is pinned in place by Pearl’s point so she can only stand there while Pearl marches toward the back, where her bag and notebook are waiting. She cleanly rips the page with the edited song out and walks back, stiff-kneed.

“Here. Don’t read it now. I’ll get your tea.”

Marina takes it and follows her instructions. The slip of paper disappears into the bag, and Pearl quickly stirs together Marina’s drink. Three stands there, like a mother, like a principal, like Pearl is liable to make an even bigger fool of herself, and Pearl can’t blame her.

As she hands Marina her drink, Marina accepts it quickly, too quickly. Pearl can’t put it down on the counter and slide it to her like she usually does. Marina intercepts her, wraps both her hands around Pearl’s. “Thank you,” she says as they hold eye contact.

It’s the hottest thing Pearl’s ever experienced, and it’s just their hands wrapped around a to-go cup.

+++

Marina comes back an hour later. Pearl isn’t in the front because it’s her turn to bake (burn) the pastries. Everything’s homemade and they need more bread, so at least she can enjoy herself with the kneading, the punching, the forming of the dough, and she does, but she also can’t help but feel like there’s a creeping panic coming on. She just handed that shit to Marina like it was no big deal! She was so cool about it! She just handed it to her!

Like, ‘hey Marina, I loved your song! Do you take constructive criticism?’ What is wrong with her? She didn’t even warn Marina! Just handed her a note like it was some ‘will you date me? check yes or no’ situation. Oh, she’s so fucked. She’s fucked sideways. She’s fucked into next week. She’s fucked. She’s fucked, she’s fucked, she’s fucked, she’s fucked—

“Hey Marina!” Three yells, loudly, from the front, at a much higher volume than she usually does. She’s basically hollering. “You’re back!”

Pearl is up to her elbows in dough, so she can’t exactly go out there. But Three is screaming. But also Pearl can’t go out there. But also she can’t not go out there. She stands there, panicked, stricken, trying to melt into the floor. Her knees almost give out and she’s about two degrees away from squid form again when Three yells again.

“Yeah! Pearl’s here! Do you want me to get her?!” Three’s voice is louder, and Pearl can imagine it—Marina, with her arms crossed, angry at Pearl, while Three, who knows exactly what Pearl handed Marina earlier, tries to hold everything together. Oh, this is bad.

“Okay, I’ll get her!” Three darts through the door and sees Pearl, hands and counter dusted with flour “What are you doing! Marina’s here! Get out there!”

“I can’t!” Pearl searches for an excuse. She waves her hands at the football of dough on the counter. “The gluten is gonna set!”

“I’ll do it!” Three reaches into the flour canister and claps her hands together, sending up a puff of white. “Go out there! She wants to talk to you!”

Pearl begrudgingly shakes as much dough off of her hands as she can before running them under the sink. “Did she look upset?”

Three grins at her. “She looked excited. Now go!”

Pearl death marches through the door and hopes that her face doesn’t look as grim as she feels. Marina is there, looking disheveled. Her headphones are gone, replaced with another hat, which she keeps tugging down.

“There you are! Come with me.” Marina turns to leave, just like that, as if Pearl can just ditch her job at a moment’s notice just for her.

Well, she can, but the point is that Marina shouldn’t be assuming things. Even if she is right.

“I’m going on break!” Pearl cries as she rips her apron off. Three sticks her head out of the back and grins at her.

Pearl follows Marina out onto the street. It’s cold and she considers running back in for her jacket, but Marina looks spooked. Pearl doesn’t want to give her a chance to get away, so she just crosses her arms and ducks her head against the stinging wind.

“This way,” Marina leads her away from the main thoroughfare, where all the foot traffic is—Inkopolis Plaza is the busiest area of the city, where tourists rub arms with professional turf war kids, where fashion models and music groups come on their time off, and Marina stands apart, even in her shapeless sweater dress and tights. Her hair is longer than it was when Pearl first met her, and she seems to have finally found her footing. Pearl’s mountain girl finally at home in the city.

She’s mooning again, like she’s fifteen years old and getting ready for a first date, but she can’t help it. Now that she’s out here, in the cold, in the real world, she sees just how beautiful Marina is, just how different her mannerisms and presence are. She wants nothing more than to sit in this moment and let it percolate. She wants to stand as close as she can to Marina and let their hands brush, wants their fingers to lace, wants to pull Marina along behind her and explore the city.

She wants to be with Marina. That’s it. She just wants to spend time with her. That’s... That’s a new type of desperate want that she’s never ever experienced.

And it’s... It’s really nice.

“C’mon Pearl!” Marina is waiting for her next to a nondescript door, about two blocks from Fresh Start. She easily unlocks the door with quick fingers, keying in the code to the lock with practiced ease. Pearl jogs to catch up, and Marina pulls her inside by the end of her sleeve. Their fingers brush and Pearl can feel her face heat up.

The room is dark, and Marina easily flips a switch. It’s a landing, with a long hallway in front of them and stairs to the right. Marina quickly takes the steps, jumping up two at a time with her long legs. Pearl follows suit, trying to seem cool, using all of her energy and her strong knees to leap up after her. They stop in front of another door with another lock, this time with an actual key, which Marina quickly slots into place. Her keyring jangles with all kinds of bits and bobs, and Pearl just catches glimpse of a Squid Sisters keychain.

This door leads into a small apartment, about half the size of Pearl’s bedroom at home. There’s a tiny kitchenette to the right, a door to a wet bathroom on the left, and ahead of her the bedroom and living area are all one room. The bed is made, and the comforter is a bright green; the walls are covered with music posters, some recent, some old, some antique, some human—

Pearl barely has a chance to take more than that in, because Marina tows her into a tiny, itty bitty closet just to the left of the main door. It’s so small that Pearl feels huge. She’s immediately accosted by coats and jackets, all of which smell just like Marina, and she has to struggle to find a spot where she can breathe without getting fabric in her mouth. And then Marina piles in right after her, carrying something dark and bulky in her hands.

It is at this precise moment that Pearl realizes that she just followed this girl, who she barely knows outside of their small interactions at Pearl’s place of employment, down an alley, into a sparsely populated area of the city, through a locked door, up some stairs, through another locked door, and then let her drag her into a closet. She’s heard that people who think they’re in love do stupid shit, but this is next level.

Silently, she hopes that if Marina kills her, that her father never ever finds out. He’d spend millions of dollars to bring her back only to kill her again.

Marina reaches up and pulls the cord for the light. A bare bulb illuminates and Pearl realizes that the coats and jackets are all old, patchy, and a couple seasons out of style. Marina beams at her and hands Pearl a microphone. The bulky thing is an old-fashioned tape recorder, with a cassette in it and everything.

“This is the only place I can record,” Marina explains. There’s a long cord between the mic in Pearl’s hand and the recorder, and Marina presses a button to rewind the tape.

“I see.” Pearl swallows thickly and thinks back to her recording studio at home, with its large soundproof sound booth and sound boards, professional microphones and digital storage. This closet with all of its fabric is close to soundproof, but Pearl imagines that it can’t be great, acoustically. “It’s nice,” she croaks. Her throat is very dry.

“Thanks!” Marina beams. “I bought all the coats to help dampen as much of the sound as I could.” She looks down as the recorder makes a click. “Okay, so the tape is in the right place. Just sing your part and hopefully I can mix them together without too much trouble.”

“Wait, wait.” Pearl waves her hands and smacks into a large leather jacket that has to be two sizes too big for Marina. “What are we doing?”

“This.” Marina reaches into the pocket of her dress and shoves a sheet of paper into Pearl’s confused hands. “You wrote that right? I want you to record what you wrote.”

Pearl unfolds it and yep, that’s the sheet she ripped out of her notebook, with the lyrics that she wrote on a whim, and her scribbled music staffs. Oh jeeze, what has she gotten herself into?

She’s flattered, and panicked, and excited—because clearly Marina loved what she wrote. She loved it so much that she had to hear it for herself. But suddenly Pearl can’t feel her own voice. Her throat is dry, and she’s hasn’t actually sung in months because what she does with her band is scream. Melodic screaming, skilled screaming, but screaming all the same. She reaches up and touches her throat, as if that’ll make a difference, and tries to swallow again.

“I can’t...” she says, feeling like a cad, like a fraud. Marina makes a soft, confused sound and Pearl feels like she owes her an excuse. “I’m not warmed up...” She doesn’t want to tell Marina that she hasn’t sung for real in so long that her range has shifted, has shortened, that even the rhythmic chanting that she wrote might be too much, especially here with Marina so close, making Pearl’s hearts beat out of sync, creating a drum solo out of her chest.

She can’t imagine trying to harmonize with Marina’s strong, melodic voice. She can’t imagine letting Marina hear her sing, especially here in this closet.

“That’s okay!” Marina says. She’s still fiddling with the tape recorder and hasn’t looked up to see Pearl’s pale, pale face. “This is just a demo. It doesn’t have to sound perfect.”

“Reena...” Pearl sighs and that gets Marina to look up. Pearl is holding the microphone so tight in her fist and her fingers are bleached of all color. “I can’t.”

Marina stares at her for a long time, her eyes swimming with some unsayable emotion. Pearl can’t tell if she’s disappointed, angry, sad, or a combination of all three. She wants to squirm under the attention, under her own shame, and she reaches for the door, just so she can escape back into the air and the light and get away from this terrible, frustrating moment.

“No.” Marina grabs Pearl’s hand, the one still wrapped around the microphone, and her palm is cool. It jolts something inside Pearl, and she turns back. “No, Pearl. I know you can do this. I’ve heard your voice.”

“What? No you haven’t.” Pearl’s in disbelief, but she can’t pull away, not with Marina’s hand wrapped around hers. Her hand is decently bigger than Pearl’s, and it’s so nice. “That demo I gave you doesn’t count.”

“Not that.” Marina smiles then, and pulls Pearl back, away from the door. She pulls her into her chest, into a hug, and Pearl allows herself to be embraced even though she doesn’t know what she did to deserve it.

“I heard you singing in the shop,” Marina continues. She rubs her hand on Pearl’s back. “You’re really good.”

“If you say so...” Pearl sighs, because she can’t really say no when she’s being hugged like this. “Why are you hugging me?”

Marina pulls back slightly so that Pearl can see her bright, cheery face. “You seemed like you needed it!”

Pearl smiles too, because she did need it. She needed it so badly. She hasn’t been hugged in so long.

And it is then that she realizes exactly who she’s hugging. Her face blooms red and she feels her hearts donkey kick, jumping into a high-speed race against the clock. She swears Marina must be able to feel it.

“Will you sing for me now? Please Pearlie?” Marina pouts out her lip, like she knows just which of Pearl’s buttons to push. Pearl feels like she’s going to pass out right there, just from that nickname alone, and then Marina goes and pouts—

She has no choice, really.

#splatoon #splatoon 2 #pearlina #splatoon fic #ashe writes #ashe talks #demo brew #seems like no one's reading this here but i'm gonna keep posting it so i can have an archive

16 notes · View notes

blackrose-ffxiv · 6 years ago

Photo

Difficult Truths 10/03

"This is a much better place to talk in peace, but I can't say I enjoy the trip," Idristan Agache confesses to the other elezen. "Though it's likely for the best, all things considered." He gives Anselme a level look, though there's something else hovering just beneath the surface. Anger, perhaps. "Since I want to talk about your family." Straight to business. Wasn't this likely to be a fun conversation for everyone.

Anselme de Haillenarte grinned brightly when the other arrived, though it lessened slightly when he saw the way Idristan shivered. He pushed the mug of mulled wine over to him. “Oh no, did Onfroi strike Quincy? Did Quincy strike him back? I wouldn’t be upset, he’d likely deserve it.” Though if that was the case, why would Idristan come to him.

Idristan gratefully accepts the wine. He doesn't drink right away, instead simply wraps his fingers around the mug in an attempt to bring feeling back to them. Perhaps this is why it takes him a moment to realize what Anselme had said, or perhaps it is simply because he had honestly forgotten that Anselme had yet another brother. "What. Fury, no. I'm not here about Onfroi at all. Especially since I suspect that Quincy would go to Lionnet before me." Well. Unless he needed someone beat up perhaps... Shoving that thought aside, he fixes an intent gaze upon Anselme. "I'm talking about Lebeaux. Or at least, that's what he's calling himself now." His voice is at least as cold as the snow and wind outside as he speaks the name.

Anselme seemed relieved that it wasn’t about Onfroi. Plainly concerned that the boy was still struggling with basic concepts of successful social interaction. Yet then, if it wasn’t that brother. That only left his sister and… the other brother. The Knight’s gaze lowered down to his mug of wine, unable to meet Idristan’s as he mentioned Lebeaux. “We met because of him.” He said quietly. “I didn’t tell you he was my brother because of his situation in the Far East. I didn’t want to risk getting him into trouble, or rather sending trouble to him. Has... he been killed?”

Idristan's eyes narrow at this as he tries to read the expression on Anselme's face--which he was making somewhat difficult at present. At the knight's words, however, he can't quite seem to help a small snort of amusement. "He seems to have rather a knack for making trouble for himself, doesn't he," he remarks, his voice still cold and sarcastic. He takes a sip from his mug before going on. It gives him time to consider how best to say this. Finally, he seems to decide to settle on the truth--or something close to it. "And no. Though perhaps not for lack of trying."

The pale blue eyes that were icy and cold on Lebeaux were normally clear as the summer sky on Anselme, though at the moment they were clouded over as he stared down into the dark wine in his mug. His own reflection distorted in the rippling drink. “He does, indeed. So then if you’re not here to tell me he’s dead, then you’re here to tell me that he’s done something, aren’t you.” He asked quietly. While he was being careful to keep his expression in check he seemed about two steps from utterly miserable. He could hear it in Idristan’s voice even if he didn’t look up to look at his face.

Idristan lets out a soft chuckle at this, though there's no actual humor to it. "You don't seem very surprised," he notes. "Would you like the list in chronological or alphabetical order? Because personally," he continues. "I would perhaps start with what exactly he did, that he's now hearing voices in his head."

A shoulder lifted in a small shrug. “I can’t apologize for him, it would mean nothing. I can’t tell you why he is the way he is, I don’t understand it myself.” He paused for a small sip of the spiced wine to wet his dry mouth. “… voices?” He looked up at that, thick brows furrowed with concern. “I don’t understand. Has he come to you complaining of voices in his head?”

And here it was. The moment of truth, where he would have to admit to trying to kill Anselme's brother. "No," he says slowly, before taking another sip of his own wine. He thought this would be easy, but that was before he had considered how concerned Anselme would look. "It came up while we were trying to kill each other in a duel."

Anselme inhaled deeply as though to respond, then simply exhaled in a slow rush of air. He tried again, plainly trying to process this and getting nowhere with it. “I don’t understand.” He repeated quietly, looking away from Idristan as though the answer was in the frosted window or the nearby fireplace. Not finding anything there he looked back to the other, searching his face for an explanation. “I know he’s… traditional and you’re a Reformist, but if you’re both working in the Far East that seems a trifle. Why?”

Idristan's lips draw back in a sneer. "It hardly is. In fact, I'd daresay that's what started this whole mess. At least, at first," he adds quietly. His expression darkens as he recalls all of the other incidents that had led up to this, and he reaches for his wine once more. Some of them he intended to take to the grave, if he could help it. But others... "He likes to torment his assistants. Inflicting pain, and all that. And I know he used to be an Inquisitor," he adds sharply. "That's rather more than simply being 'traditional'."

Gloved fingers curled a little more tightly around his mug as he watched Idristan sneer, baring his unusually long teeth in something of a snarl at the mere thought of his brother. “We were all different men during the war. I’m not proud of who I was or what I did… I’m sorry. I’m not apologizing or making excuses for him.” He insisted as he reached up and rubbed at the side of his face thoughtfully. “You’re right. He can be cruel and he doesn’t repent for what he was back then. What… did he do to you.”

Idristan purses his lips for a moment, then draws in a deep breath as he tries to keep control of his temper. "I am aware. But I doubt you ever enjoyed torturing someone," he snaps back. "And that's good, because I would hardly accept them," he states. At the knight's question, however, some of his control falters. The hands holding his mug tighten until the knuckles turn white, while his green eyes drift down to not meet Anselme's gaze. "Pulled stitches, false accusations of cowardice and desertion..." He specifically leaves out heresy on that list. "Harmed someone I consider a--" He stops for a moment and considers. "acquaintance."

Anselme’s mouth was dry again yet he suspected if he took another sip he wouldn’t be able to swallow it. Idristan looked away, saving him from having to as the charges were listed. All of it sounded exactly like Lebeaux, he wouldn’t deny any of it. Instead he rubbed at the side of his face again, fingers drifting unconsciously along the mark where he himself had felt that cruelty after being clawed by a voidsent. “I’m not angry at you for dueling him.” He noted quietly. “He pushed you to it, I believe that truly. I will admit I’m glad neither died.”

Idristan lets out a huff at that. "If I were concerned about that, I would hardly have come to tell you, now would I?" he points out. "Especially since I didn't know at the time that he was your brother." Not that that would have likely stopped him. "And it was hardly for lack of trying. He very nearly managed to roast me alive." He finally looks back up at Anselme. "And I likely would have done the same, if I had had the chance." He had certainly thought about it, once he had drained the other of aether. "But anyroad. Has he always been like that?" he demands.

“I don’t know why you’ve come to tell me.” He admitted as he placed an elbow on the table and pressed his forehead into his palm, sinking slightly into himself as shoulders slumped. “You’ve figured out the secret, well done. I can’t do anything about it.” Another step closer to miserable though he was managing to keep himself together for the moment. “I can’t bring him home, I can’t make him stop. I can’t even talk to him anymore. I had to destroy my linkpearls when the Inquisition came and I’ve no address…” He trailed off when Idristan demanded further information. “Please don’t.”

"Because there is something wrong with him, apart from the miserable personality." And that could be used as leverage to keep his own secret safe, if nothing else. He does note, dimly, how miserable Anselme was starting to look. But he is firmly ignoring any stirrings of pity or compassion that that might awaken. He liked Anselme well enough--but he had himself to look out for as well. "And yet you haven't asked for an address," he points out. "Surely you knew he and I work together. So you can't be that eager to talk to him. So why not answer me then?" he demands.

“I had to protect him and the nest of lies he’s built to protect himself.” He confessed, rubbing fingers against his forehead. “If I asked you to pass messages or pearls, it was risking his safety. He is my brother, Idristan. My family.” He sounded almost as thought he were pleading now. “I didn’t protect my brothers when I was young and stupid, now look how they’ve turned out.” He began speaking a little more quickly now, a little more desperately. “I have to protect them now. You’ve all but said you mean to hurt him or even kill him, I can’t help you do that.”

Idristan actually flinches at the word "family". It seemed that Anselme might have just stumbled onto something of a sore spot. "I rather doubt that you bear any fault in that. You're nothing like him. I never would have guessed you were even related," he confesses. He still finds it rather hard to believe, truth be told. "And what if the alternative is that he will attempt to do the same to me?" he demands, his own voice rising slightly.

Fingers shifted away from his forehead to cover his own eyes as he thought on that. “We’re more alike than it seems. We just… deal with things differently.” He exhaled a heavy sigh, biting briefly at the inside of his own mouth as he considered that. “Please don’t make me choose between you or him, Idristan. Neither of us would like the answer. I want a solution where neither of you have to die.” He explained slowly, swallowing hard against the dry lump in his throat. “I’ll only help if that’s your goal.”

Idristan grimaces. "I understand how deep those ties go, but... defending an inquisitor Anselme?" he demands as he slowly shakes his head, his eyes drifting away from the knight's once more as he considers, pointed teeth sinking lightly into his lower lip. "I don't think I can forgive him. Neither what he's done, nor what he is," he finally says slowly. "But at present I more concerned with preventing him from destroying my life--or worse," he adds grimly. "Stopping that is my goal." At least, for now.

Anselme shook his head quickly, lifting his head from his hand and blinking away the dampness in his eyes that he had been hiding behind his fingers. “I am not defending an Inquisitor.” He insisted firmly. “I am protecting my brother. We were spoonfed doctrine since we were born and if we refused it, it was shoved down our throats.” He explained, unable to sit any longer he rose to his feet and paced towards the fireplace. It was too late to stop now that he had started. Maybe it would make more sense if he told someone, sound a little less mad if he shared what he suspected. “I picked up an axe as soon as I could and ran, but I left him behind. Our father and those priests filled his head with all of that hate and I did nothing.” He confessed, rubbing his sleeve against his face as he caught his breath. “He joined the Inquisition and I lost him entirely, whatever came back wasn’t really Lennaux anymore. But he’s still my brother.”

Idristan listens. From the way that his fingers are curling and the anger that is growing on his face, he does not want to. But he figures that he owes Anselme that much. "I grew up here too," he retorts as he gets to his feet. "I know what it's bloody like," he snaps. "Being indoctrinated doesn't excuse--" His voice cuts off abruptly as he grimaces in pain and anger. He tears his eyes away from Anselme, drawing in several deep breaths before he trusts himself enough to speak once more. "Sadism," he settles on finally, his voice quieter than before. He reaches down towards his mug; he turns it between his hands, more to have something to do with them than anything else. "But for what it's worth," he finally says curtly. "There is a chance that something did indeed happen to him."

Anselme shook his head quickly. “It doesn’t excuse any of it. They may have twisted him up but he chose to continue that way. He was cruel even as a boy and this simply gave him an avenue to express it without consequence. To do unto others as was done unto him.” Broad shoulders slumped again, he had no choice but to agree. It was true and Idristan was right. Loathe as he was to admit it. “Even if something happened, what good does that do us. The old Inquisition has been dismantled and with it all of their secrets. He won’t tell, I’ve asked. He only smiles that stupid smile and says he’s seen the truth.”

Idristan actually blinks at that and is forced to look away as he draws in a deep breath. He hadn't expected Anselme to actually admit that. "Well, it might keep him from talking about my own secrets, for starters," he points out. "If he thinks we could do the same to him, he might at least think twice. He does seem to care about his own skin, at least." He then looks sharply back to Anselme, his eyes narrowing. "I suspect that has to do with what I heard," he muses. "It sounded like prayers." His lip curls. "There is some irony there, I suspect," he adds under his breath.

Anselme was silent for a moment, once again rubbing his sleeve against his eyes. “Even if he isn’t the Len I wish he was, I don’t want him hurt or dead.” He insisted before he seemed to regain his composure and lowered his arm with a slow breath. “What you ‘heard’? I don’t understand.”

Idristan, wisely, chooses to keep silent on that point. He wasn't quite sure he could say the same--at least, not convincingly. Instead he grimaces as he faces Anselme once more. "During the duel, I did--well, what exactly isn't relevant," he snaps. He trusted Anselme more than Lionnet when it came to the matter of voidtouchedness, but that wasn't truly saying much. "His aether... there is something wrong with it. And when I touched it, it sounded like there were prayers in my head. Along with... something else," he finishes, sounding a touch frustrated.

Anselme’s eyes shifted as he thought, thinking hard about that. Idristan did something… and touched Lebeaux’s aether? And with it came prayers and… something else? His brows shifted, frustration now. He didn’t understand any of it. “Did you do… what you did to that man in the bookshop?” He asked slowly. Thinking back on when he had seen Idristan ‘let loose’. He could still clearly see the mage hunched over the body that seemed to slowly fade from life.

Idristan's eyes widen at this. Anger has been replaced by alarm as he reaches up to run a hand through his silvery hair. "I didn't... I didn't realize you had seen that," he breathes. "No one said anything, so I assumed..." His voice trails off, but the ending is clear enough. That he had gotten away with it. He looks away once more. "Yes," he finally says, his voice flat. "It was either that or die."

“There was so much going on, I assumed I was imagining things at first. But I thought about it afterwards and… you did that to him.” He curled his fingers into a fist. Idristan had tried to do the same to Lebeaux. It was all too easy to imagine the scene again, but with his brother in the place of that false Inquisitor. He should hit him for it, really. Yet he couldn’t raise that fist up. After a few moments of silence his fingers uncurled. “You did what you had to do and you didn’t kill him. When you did… that… you touched his aether. I would guess to bleed it away?” That same hand lifted to run through choppy hair. “What does normal aether sound like, if not prayers? It’s the sound of a spoken’s soul, isn’t it?”

"I did," he says. "And I would do it again. That cultist was going to die regardless." He has enough sense to not add the part where it was a better use of his life than what he had previously been doing with it. He can see Anselme's hands curling at his sides, causing his own stance to shift slightly in wary anticipation of a punch that never came. Instead he inclines his head slightly in agreement. "More or less," he says. "But you're wrong on the rest. Aether isn't the soul, it just keeps us alive. It's something else that goes to the Heavens or Hells. Normal aether makes no sound. It--" He pauses as he purses his lips. How to explain that exhilarating rush to someone who had never experienced it first hand? "Burns, but in a pleasant way. You feel... alive," he murmurs.

Anselme’s gaze slid aside as he looked into the fire. Considering Idristan’s words. “So when you bleed them away like that, you feel alive at their expense. You leech their essence and warmth until there’s nothing left.”

Idristan winces and looks away from Anselme, folding his arms protectively across himself once more. "And? What are you implying?" he asks curtly. There is a bit of an edge in his voice.

"I am implying that I may have been consorting with the very devils I’ve been trying to banish. I don’t know why you do it, but I know what it felt like when you did. It was that same sort of sickly and wrong feel to the air as when we were down in the Darkhold with the monsters. And… I’m only just realizing this now.” He moved quickly back to his seat and sat hard in it, as though worried his legs wouldn’t hold him. “He figured it out and wanted to kill you for it?” He took a long, deep drink of that wine. Wishing he had ordered something stronger.

Idristan snarls at this--which is unfortunate, for the motion shows off those unnaturally pointed teeth. "I am no devil!" he protests. "I do not harm innocent people!" With one or two exceptions. "And because I don't have much of a choice. It's not a pleasant death, having your life slowly bleed away." He pauses for a moment as he draws in a deep breath, his eyes closing as he tries to push away unpleasant memories. "And no. He was perfectly willing to do that /before/ he found out." He glares defensively at Anselme.

The Knight held up a hand. “Please, Idristan.” He pleaded before he lowered it down again. “I’ve only ever seen you attack monsters or men who work for them.” Except for now apparently his brother as well. “And you’ve always been quick to defend the others. I don’t think you have the right to judge whether others may live for die… but he doesn’t really either… and I don’t want you to die for it.” He set the cup down and exhaled a sigh, dropping his head down to press his palms on either side of his forehead. “How can I help.”

Idristan lets out a huff, but he finally seems to relax slightly at that. "I've found that people who call me a leech tend to mean ill will," he says. The explanation seemed about as close to an apology as Anselme was likely to get. "And perhaps not, but at least no else can get hurt with my methods," he murmurs. Still a bit defensive, it seemed. "And..." He lets out a short breath of desperation-tinged laughter as he sinks down into his abandoned chair. "Figure out a way to keep your brother from declaring that I am... touched." The word seems to cause him pain. "Or a nightkin, or leech, or whichever flattering name he chooses. And ideally, come up with a way so that we never cross paths again." Because that was surely simple.

@roses-and-grimoires

#idristan #anselme #the other brother #man i feel so bad for them

13 notes · View notes

ajoraverse · 6 years ago

Text

I’m finally heading back to work and don’t know when I’ll be able to expand on this. So, feel free to laugh at my pathetic attempts to write action scenes. Or Pearl, for that matter.

Excerpt from the next chapter of Beta AU 3.

In time, which was a few hours before moonset, the warp pad shimmered and lit up. The Crystal Gems appeared in that rush of light and air, and none of them looked surprised to see her. A shadow of guilt flickered in Rose's expression just before she plastered on that fake smile of hers.

"Jasper!" The cheeriness in Rose's voice was forced; it wasn't that long ago when Jasper relayed a rebuke to her from the Antelope clan for breaking some young man's heart. "What brings you here?"

As much as she disliked having witnesses when talking about anything personal, she tried not to let the irritation about that or having to ask for anything show. "Training. That offer's still open, right?"

"Oh! Of course," Rose chuckled and glanced down at Pearl. "Would you mind, Pearl?"

"I'll be delighted." Something about the shift in Pearl's bearing suggested that she wasn't, but Jasper was hardly going to bring it up.

Rose beamed sunnily, gratefully, at Pearl. Probably for giving her an out. The more Jasper asked her questions, the less willing Rose was to answer them. Deep down, Jasper suspected that there would come a time when Rose would stop pretending to put up with her questions. "You'll do wonderfully. Have fun!"

Then, as if she wanted to get far away before Jasper asked something uncomfortable again, Rose disappeared into her room. Garnet muttered an excuse about a mission and picked up Amethyst to warp away. She was left alone with Pearl.

It was hardly unusual. She had lost count of how often Pearl had come with an accounting of errant corrupted gems running to the safety of the Great River's western banks, or with some warnings of future events from Garnet. This was new, however, and Jasper wanted to ask a dozen things, starting with; Why do you let her treat you like that?

"Rose doesn't like me, does she?" she asked rhetorically, instead. Whatever was going on between Pearl and Rose was none of her business. All she knew was that if she had a romantic partner, she wouldn't be running after someone else for fun.

"You hardly make it easy."

It was probably as much of a confirmation as she was going to get. "Someone has to keep you gems from getting too complacent." And speak up when Rose's weird proclivities for playing with human suitors and sticking her nose into private rituals were likely to get them in trouble with their neighbors. Given that the other Crystal Gems thought only the best of Rose, and her own gems were reluctant to bring up the issue, that particular task was Jasper's.

Just as well that a lifetime of putting up with malcontents muttering behind her back had inured her to any doubts about that aspect of her job as leader of the village and smothered any inclinations she may have had towards being worried about what others thought of her choices.

"Yes, well..." Pearl's eyes drifted aside, to some thought she wasn't likely to share with Jasper.

Jasper waited for Pearl's eyes to clear. She just... got like this sometimes, when Jasper accidentally set off a memory of some dark time that Pearl would never talk about. Jasper waited patiently until Pearl could finally find her words again. Then the shadows cleared and Pearl tittered uncomfortably.

"Stars! I'm sorry. We'll go to the Sky Arena and start there."

The warp wasn't long, but she still preferred walking every time. The novelty of warping had worn thin in the first hundred years after the Crystal Gems showed them how to use their pad, at least for her. Staying still while being whisked away was boring. At least when she walked, she could feel the changes in the ground beneath her feet.

"How does this thing stay up?" Jasper asked as they stepped off the warp pad. She managed to glance over the side just long enough to get a view of the ground far below. The way the whole thing shifted ever so slightly in the wind suggested that it was held aloft by nothing at all.

"Magic," Pearl said with a smirk. She knew by now how Jasper hated trite, too-simple answers.

Jasper dignified that with a grunt and looked around. This high up, the air was both bitingly cold and strangely warm from the sun. The tiles felt solid, glued in place by something far more enduring than the lime mortar humans used for their masonry. There was a grit to their surfaces that prevented slipping. If that was consistent, then that was one less thing she had to worry about with Pearl's training. The broken rubble left over from the smashing of pillars and statues were a bigger issue--she would have to be careful not to trip over the larger fragments. For the most part, what hadn't already been broken wasn't likely to fall over from a strong gust of wind. She took mental inventory of everything as Pearl led her up the stairs and into the arena itself.

It was crumbling, as all things of great age do, and there were marks of impact damage that weren't so different from the damage their ball court took during particularly rowdy games. She wondered what the carvings on the pillars said, but teaching them how to read Gem writing had never been a priority for the Crystal Gems. Jasper supposed she respected that--she had no inclination to teach Rose how to read the stones in which humans carved their directions and warnings. At least on her end, she had good reason to protect her neighboring humans from Rose's curiosity.

Finally Pearl stopped and took on that bearing she so loved to take when she was eager to tell someone what to do. Her fingers laced together, and her eyes were wide with anticipation. She evidently liked having students. Just not Jasper. After all this time, Jasper suspected that it was because her questions had a way of distressing Rose.

"Now then," Pearl said, her voice almost a chirp, "what's the extent of your combat experience?"

"Hunting wild animals, chasing off human raiding parties, and wrestling cheaters who can't win without fusion."

Pearl hummed thoughtfully. "And have you experimented with the quartz spin-dash?"

"Somewhat." When it was a new idea, anyway. She hadn't needed it for the wrestling matches, and by now she was skilled enough with her darts and thrower that she could take down an animal before it realized what was going on.

"We'll start there. Try to hit me with your spin-dash. You'll want to start a little further back."

Jasper stepped back, eyes darting around to pick up every little thing of note around her, and considered whether she really wanted to attack Pearl. She liked Pearl well enough, considering that they never agreed on Rose.

Something about her doubts must have shown on her face, for it only made Pearl smile. "Don't worry. You won't hurt me."

Jasper wasn't sure about that, but she resolved to try getting to her anyway. She dropped into the roll, used the friction of the floor tiles to her advantage, and picked up speed as her form shifted into the motions of the spin. The ground sped by quickly, and she was so close, and--

Suddenly, without warning, Pearl was gone. Jasper skidded to a stop, palmed a broken-off bit of stone, and glanced around. Pearl grinned at her from atop one of the statues, one foot not so much dangling off the statue's head as pointing elegantly downwards.

"You know how to stop before you run into anything. Good! We can work with that." Then, as if to drive home the fact that Pearl was lighter and quicker, she stepped off the statue's head, shifting her weight to the toe of the dangling foot and landing on its shoulder, and dropped to the floor with barely a spot of dust kicking up.

She would have to change her tactics.

"Let's try again. Watch me during your spin-dash and try to predict where I'll jump next."

The minutes sped by as she dropped back into her spinning ball form and chased Pearl around the arena. When she picked up speed, Pearl saw her and leapt off in another direction, forcing her to make sharp turns and circle around if she couldn't turn fast enough. It was like chasing an antelope, and the way Pearl shifted into the direction she planned on going before she leapt and pranced off somewhere else wasn't much different.

Once Pearl stopped broadcasting her motions, she truly started to shine as an evasive target. She kept Jasper thinking on her feet, something that not even the most canny of prey was able to do for long. It was exhilarating to be so focused on a target she was so close to reaching, and the hours passed quickly. Her ability to switch directions mid-dash actually seemed to improve from the practice.

By the time the sun started drawing low in the sky, Jasper figured it was time to stop playing. Her eyes never quite adjusted well to the dark.

Pearl flounced to her side and was ready to leap again. Jasper darted towards her as she had so many times during this session, and changed directions to circle back the moment Pearl made the leap. Pearl saw her change directions, moved to redirect her own landing, and Jasper spun wide behind her and stopped to lob the rock she kept in her palm for so long. She didn't even have to think to aim anymore.

The rock soared as all her darts did and hit Pearl right between the shoulder blades. None of the force she used with her darts was behind the throw, but still it got Pearl's attention.

Pearl turned, startled, and stared as the rock clattered to a stop on the tiles.

A silence settled over them, sudden and awkward, until Pearl broke it with a chuckle. "Well! That was a surprise. Where did you learn to do that?"

"Hunting."

A quick, easy smile spread across Pearl's face and lit up her pale blue eyes, as if she had actually enjoyed prancing around like that. "It's a good start. Have you considered developing a proficiency with other weapons?"

"Haven't needed to." It wasn't that her options were limited. She just didn't get much out of what was available when she already had her darts, helmet, and the sheer size and strength to make both of them deadly.

"Hm. It would benefit you to learn how to use them."

"Keep me occupied, you mean."

(tbc obviously; cultural notes: Jasper’s familiar enough with American Southwestern petroglyphs to be able to read most of them. Also mentioned are Maya stelae, which were largely used as propaganda tools.)

#SU: Beta AU

3 notes · View notes

bookthecake · 4 years ago

Text

Gifts for Girls and Tips to Impress them with your Charm!

A girl since birth is characterised as a sweet little bundle of joy and happiness. Entangled with innocent tantrums, giggles and tears and a bundle of mischief. For a soul filled with variable moods and not so easy to please, these special gifts for girls can easily capture your heart with a wide smile.

Little girls are the most pretty creatures on earth and they grow up really quick. Having their own mind every teenage girl has a different thought process. They are quite fascinated with the idea of love, not to forget, so are guys. Girls in their teens are always caught thinking or dreaming about a romantic movie scene.

Now that you know the definition of a ‘Girl’, let us see how to please a girl with unique gifts for her. And we surely have for you guys some tips to impress a girl too!

Gifts for Girls

Girls are delicate darlings with different choices of gifts in different phases of life.The idea of gifts for girls is a lot more difficult than we think because girls are very moody in nature and might have a complete opposite perception of gifts. And of course, there is no girl in the world who would not get excited with the thought of receiving gifts. Choosing gifts for her can be made easy with a little patience and understanding her nature. So, let’s start!

1. Donut Mugs

A girl is mostly not a morning person. But waking up to to this bright and chirpy donut mug will not only make her morning joyous but would also give her a extra zing to her morning go-to drink.

This could be the perfect gift for her motivating her to wake up to mornings as beautiful as her!

2. Personalised Tassel Keychains -

Colorful Tassels always brighten up a girls mood. Bunching them up together making lovely keychains that they can use for the power banks or for their cupboards these tassel gifts for teenage girls make a wonderful choice.

Add a personal touch to it by getting their name printed on them. This is a sure shot tip to impress a girl.

3. Crown Headphones -

Show her that she is Queen, no matter what! These unique gifts for her, cute and cool crown shaped headphones will definitely impress her.

4. Cute Studs -

A pair of cute studs for your girl to wear on the very first day of college will be a very thoughtful gift for her. It is no secret about how important the first day of college is in the life of any girl!

5. Monogram/Initial Pouch -

A sweet little gift for girls to store all their essentials is a monogram pouch. Small enough to tuck in all her makeup and toiletry essentials, their initial on it making it more special will be one of the most valued gifts for teenage girls.

6. Smartphone Mounts -

Adorable and cute animal figurines in the form of smartphones mounts make the best gift for girls who just cannot do without their phones and are more attached to them than anything or anyone else in the world.

7. Floral Monogram Journals -

Oh Boy, you can never go wrong with a monogram gift for girls. They love the importance they get. These beautiful floral monogram journals will make them have the prettiest notebook in class and they would be proud of your choice.

8. Gold Flakes Smartphone Case -

Your girl is ‘Selfie Girl’ whose pictures are always filled with glitter? Add to her sparkle with these gold leaf flakes infused, acrylic smartphones case. This present for girls will also keep their most prized possession, their smartphones extra safe!

9. Sassy Gym Bag -

Get her going to maintain that lovely figure she has! Every girl is pretty weight conscious and can’t think of anything beyond size zero! So this sassy gym bag could be the perfect gift for her.

10. Personalised Zodiac Necklace -

Jewelry gifts for girls are always an excellent choice to gift a girl. A charms pendant with their initial engraved on it will make these zodiac necklaces the best gift for girls.

11. MAC Power Palette -

Whether your girl likes the glowy look or the smoky look; help her have the perfect makeup with this perfect gift for her. These MAC gift hampers are one of the best gift for girls in their teens!

12. Nail Art Kit Set -

There isn’t a single teenage girl in today’s world who is not into nail art. These bright and full of colours nail art sets will surely add sparkle to her needs to make her nails a next level masterpiece.

13. Doodle Diary -

Blending together the art of doodling, drawing and journaling in one creative space these doodle diaries are unique gifts for girls. Every page of this perfect gift for her will prompt a creative idea with her individual twist.

14. Cozy Color Changing Pillow -

A girl can never be too old for a colorful mood uplifting pillow. Taking her little cozy bedroom to the next level of ‘Chill’ these gift ideas for teenage girls are so cool!

15. Scrabble Lights -

Help her decorate her room with lit up scrabble letters. Based on the popular word game these scrabble tiles help you create your own letters and light up your favourite space.

16. Floating Bath Lights -

Every girl loves having her ‘Me-Time’. It is very precious to her! These gifts for girls are unique and special as they will love their new bath-time treats. These gifts for her will surely make her fall for you!

17. Personalised Trinket Box -

Engraved with a lovely message, these lovely presents for girls can have a spell bound effect on them. Perfect for keeping their little bits of jewelry safe these gifts for her will look charming on their dressing tables.

18. Personalised Pearl Bracelets -

Making a memorable gift for any occasion, these freshwater pearl bracelets personalised with their initials will definitely make to the list of most favorite gifts for her!

19. Emoji Cushions -

These ideal hugging cushions come in the form of different emojis; each representing a different emotion. Designed with her favorite emoticons, these funny gifts for girls will be the most cherished cushions.

20. Fuzzy Friend Slippers -

Snuggy and lovey-dovey slippers are the perfect gift for her. These gifts for girls are themed to keep them warm on cold winter mornings and are a favorite among pretty girls!

21. Cozy Global Gift Basket

If your girl loves to enjoy an ideal evening which is calm and has the flow of cool breeze, then these small gifts for girls are sure to leave them happy. Let her enjoy some global chilling with this gift basket that is stuffed with just everything that she will need to relax and calm herself. This handwoven gift basket is the ideal gifts for girls to have a chill-out routine and curl up with coziness. Give your girl a little warmth and keep her smiling!

22. Wooden Unicorn Fame With LED Lights

If you are on the look out for gifts for girls age 20 or somewhere around that then these unicorn frame gifts could be a beset match. Girls in this age usually tend to believe in the idea of magical dreams. Add some sparkle and magic to their living space by gifting them this beautiful LED Light-up Unicorn Frame. This lovely choice of gifts for girls will let them enjoy a trip to their dreamland on this colorful and pretty little unicorn anytime that they wish to! After all, life is just all about unicorn and rainbows!

23. Ladybird Hooded Blanket

Help her snuggle up cozily with a warm blanket that is brightly colored to look like a ladybird and comes along with a hood. Super soft to couch and comfortable, this is a cool choice of gifts for teenage girls. This ladybird hooded blanket that is bright and beautiful gives her the perfect excuse to go snuggle up in. Let her add a pop of color with this bright red hued blanket as special gifts for her with love from you.

24. Swinging Terrarium

Love the idea of 'Go Green'? These gifts for girls in the form of a swinging terrarium will add life to her home brilliantly. This elegant, geometric design swing gives a fabulous display to her little plants and adds to the beauty of her home. Help your girl make her room look as wonderful as a fresh daisy with this gift item for girl that she is bound to love. Spark some life into her lovely little house with these lovely gift ideas for girls.

25. Sparkling Rose Cocktail Kit

For the girl who loves sipping on her cocktails and call it a day! Let her enjoy making and indulging in some bubbly, rose tinted cocktails with this kit. This kit for crafting artisan and mind-blowing cocktails that come in a batch of flavors and with a touch of rose syrup bring in the right amount of sweetness to her drinks. Give her the pleasure of enjoying these gifts for girls that are unique and one-of-a-kind that give a twist to the traditional champagne cocktails. This little kit comes with a recipe card of mixology that is really easy for her to follow and make some celebratory cocktails for herself.

26. Bath Lights Show

Bring some fun to her bath-time with this cool gifts for girls that create a spectacular light show with these disco bath lights. Let her enjoy watching with total amazement how her bathroom lights up brilliantly with these LED sequences of lights having flashing effects. Give her a party in her bathtub. The invigorating effect of these flashing lights with transform her bath time into a dazzling light show. With this marvelous and colorful device floating on top of water, the light from it reaches out to beautifully illuminate her entire bathroom.

27. Waterproof Phone Pouch

If her phone is as important to her as her very own life then this waterproof phone pouch that is colorful and quirky will make the ideal choice of gifts for girls. Help her keep her phone secured and protected with this fruity pouch that is totally waterproof. The artistic doodle design and the print of exotic fruits make this pouch give your phone a new and fresh outlook. Along with her smartphone, these gift ideas for girls can also help keep their ID cards, bank cards, and money safe from water when they wish to take a dip in the pool or somewhere. Even though their phone is kept in this fruity pouch, this gift item for girl leaves the touchscreen facility of her phone completely intact making it easy for her to use.

28. Glass Garden Bells

Go all out and use the idea of recycling to present these cool and cute looking glass garden bells as unique gifts for girls. Hang these cute little bells in her garden or backyard to fill the air around her with some dulcet melody that creates an enchanting effect on her senses. This luminous work of art as special gifts for her will surely impress her. With recycled glass turned into a large bell that is topped with flecks in brightly colored hues and a wooden clapper that brings out a beautifully melodious sound as it strikes the glass creates the perfect gift for her. Suspend these cute things from her porch for a laid-back alfresco fete.

29. Ceramic Balloon Lamp

Stop your search for the look out of the perfect gift for her. We have for your one of the most unique gifts for girls in the form of this wonderful looking ceramic balloon lamp that adds a whimsical effect to her bedroom. This beautiful lamp that is made purely out of fine white Chinese porcelain will give an instant lift of brightness to her face with just a single glance. The subtle and ambient glow that is emitted from this bulb makes it look like it is pulled out straight from a fairy tale. These gifts for girls are simply the perfect choice to bring an instant smile on their face.

30. Guardian Heart Love Token

Regardless of the occasion, let your girl know that you will always be there for her and will have her back in every situation. Give her an affirmation of your love. Let her know that there will never be a bad time that she will have to face alone with you being around her with this perfect gift for her that represents your love and affection for her. This sterling silver guardian heart that comes with a loving message is simply a beautiful choice of gifts for girls that shows her significance in your life. Make sure that she never feels alone with this special gifts for her and let her know that she will always have a piece of you wherever she may go.

31. Meditation Box

Help her get relief from the daily stress of life with a meditation box as unique gifts for girls. Create an oasis of calmness and tranquility around her with this meditation box that is filled with grains of fine sand that tend to shift with every inspiration of hers. Let her be in the moment and take a breath to reflect upon her life with this wonderful gifts for her. This box uses the transitory nature of sand to stir her imagination and bring out her hidden thoughts and creative yearnings. This compact, tablet-sized meditation box that brings in a swirl of emotions lets the mind simply wander and the ever changing canvas lets her fill the blank page by creating a soothing sensation.

Now that you have a unique set of gifts for girls, to make her feel special and wanted; let’s take it to the next step. Every girl is said to be remarkable in her own way, and thus, she needs to be presented with the perfect gift for her. Our eclectic collection of some brilliant ideas and gifts for her tells you that your special girl truly deserves something special. We have had a lot of fun sourcing for the bests gifts for girls and we hope that you too enjoy browsing through our list of brilliant gift ideas for her that will bring the widest smile to her face. We assure you that all of our gift ideas for girls here will let you enjoy the process of gift giving as much as they will enjoy receiving these unique gifts. So be confident and make the right choice of gifts to impress her.

Girls today are not just impressed with a whole lot of gifts, but they also see the manners and morals in a guy. ‘How to impress a girl?’ is the most daunting question in every guys mind. Let us help you achieve this task by giving you some tips to impress a girl.

8 Tips on how to Impress a Girl -

Confidence -

Confidence is the first quality a girl looks for in a guy. A confident guy is always sure of himself and his abilities. Always let your self-confidence show clearly through the way you act.

Be a Gentleman -

Since times unknown girls have always had a heart for chivalrous men. It is one of the basic tips to impress a girl. Small yet trivial things like; opening the door for her, pulling the chair for her, speaking intelligently and not swearing, giving her unexpected flowers, offering her your coat when it is cold outside are a few things you could do to make a special place in her heart.

Dress to Impress -

The way you dress speaks volumes about your personality. Being well groomed and dressed appropriately makes you easily charming for any girl. So stay shaved, dress sharp and smell fresh.

Focus Your Attention -

One of the best ways on how to impress a girl is to give her your undivided attention. Try to keep away from your mobile. Letting her know that she is important is one of the best gift for girls.

Compliment Her -

Complimenting girls is one of the most important tips to impress a girl. Always be sure that you can back up you compliments with reasoning. Give her effective compliments on her smile, hair, eyes, clothes.

Know Her Friends -

Amplify your effect on her by impressing her friends. You are halfway through if you are able to impress her friends. This is one of the most vital tips to impress a girl.

Show Her Your Feelings -

A girl always wants to know the depth of the feelings you have for her and also that you are not afraid to express them to her. Just make sure that you don’t overdo it!

Take Interest In Her -

A good listener is one of qualities that a girl is always looking for; someone who can lend a ear to them. Taking genuine interest in their likes and dislikes is a way of showing your care and affection towards them.

Why the wait guys? Go and leave her stunned with your charm! Leave an impression that she will find hard to let to from her mind and heart. Make the most of our tips to impress a girl and our gifts for girls to please her with your love!

0 notes

punishandenslavesuckers · 7 years ago

Photo

She has no throne. Girls without thrones should not have knights, but hers won’t go. Princess Zelda – the girl who killed Calamity – would love to fade into legend, but Link’s bought a house, he’s fighting off monsters, and he’s selling giant horses to strangely familiar Gerudo men. She’ll never have any peace now. (ao3)

(chapter one) (chapter two) (chapter three) (chapter four) (chapter five)

(chapter six) (chapter seven) (chapter eight)

“I can do that.”

Zelda – presently in a meditative state, fingers looping rhythmically through her hair, twin hair clips between her teeth – blinks up at Draga. The sun is high in the boughs of the trees, thin beams of yellow laying down mottled light on the grass by the road. They’d stopped briefly along the road east from Tabantha Stable to eat and re-organize their things a bit – Link having gotten distracted during the morning and made a haphazard job of a few saddle bags. Draga, who is responsible for most of the distracting, kneels beside her, slinging his rucksack to the ground. He nods to her hands halfway through the beginnings of a single golden braid.

“Oh, no I’ve got it,” she says, smiling. “It’s just a braid.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Hylian isn’t my first language, but I think you understood me.”

Link, tacking the horses by the road, snorts audibly. Zelda glares at him but try as she might – his smile lopsided and newly familiar – she can’t maintain her glare. So, she glares at Draga. He looks impatient, like she should just smack him or let do it already. So, she hands him her clips and hair band and turns so she’s facing away from him. He immediately draws a finger through the braid she’s managed thus far and unravels the lot.

“Not up to your standard?” she chimes.

“No.”

For that, she does smack him.

“If I had a mirror…” Zelda mutters.

“It would still look like a Hylian did the job,” Draga says calmly, around the clips between his teeth.

“You are trying to pick a fight? Or are you just missing having enough hair to do anything with?”

Draga, already parting her front-right region of hair into workable sections, says, “Rude.”

“You’re rude. Don’t make fun of my hair.”

Draga ignores her. Focused on the task at hand. He moves carefully along the side of her head, starting with three parts and twining them deftly down, adding consecutive segments of hair as he goes (very quickly she must admit) around the back of her head. She fiddles with a wrinkle in her pant leg.

“So you’re sure about this? You don’t mind? I mean, I know we discussed this at length over the last few days and… and I know we all agreed it’s the most logical course of action and I know you said that you don’t mind, but I feel like you should know that at any time you may change your mind and we can find some other method. I could refocus my efforts on lost Sheikah knowledge. There may be vast magi-tech archives yet untapped in the shrines. Or the Beasts even. You saw Medoh at the Rito Village. We could go back there if you –”

“Hold this,” he says, taking her hand and pinching her fingers around the middle of a finished braid. Then he starts on the other half of her hair and… Zelda’s isn’t quite sure what he’s doing exactly. She can feel that he’s leaving some sections loose, then gathering them up again later with a sequential foresight that she does not really apply to hair styles.

“So?”

“I said that I’m fine with it.”

“But it’s forbidden for you… right?”

“No, I said only elders were permitted on the mountain.” Draga removes a clip from between his teeth and applies it to a part of her hair. “For generations, my family has guarded the Statue of the Eighth Heroine and preserved it from everyone. Foreigners and Gerudo alike. This mandate was passed down to my tribe, supposedly, by Nabooru herself. It is the oldest undisturbed archive of written Gerudo history dating back to the Naboorian Age. It will pre-date the Twilit Calamity and the Bandit Age.” She can feel him shake his head. “I don’t believe we will find a better place to begin our search.”

“You’re sure you’re okay with it?”

“Zelda, there are no elders left in my tribe, so it would fall to me anyway.” He finishes off another braid. “Besides, you’re the maiden-form Goddess. Who else could be worthier to tread sacred ground?” A beat. “Also, Link already paraglided down the mountain and took pictures of the exterior. So, it’s hardly that unbroachable.”

From the road, Link calls, “I said I’m sorry!”

“You’re a godless heathen.”

“I’m the Goddess’s chosen Hero?”

“A regular sort of heathen then.”

“I didn’t know!”

Draga coils the finished ropes of Zelda’s hair in a neat whorl at the top right-hand side of head, giving the mirrored spiraled braids an asymmetric weight. Draga pins the coils in place with practiced engineering and Zelda touches the finished work, admiring the complicated craftsmanship, fingers picking out the soft track and curve of her braids like a road coiling inward. She turns.

“Thank you, Draga.”

He’s still kneeling there, one arm braced against his knee. Even though she’s seated on a stump, he’s taller than her while kneeling, looking down into her face with an expression just short of worried.

“It could have nothing about the Goddess Mark. It may be a waste of time.”

“That would be fine. I like history for the sake of it.”

“You’re certain Hyrule Castle is of no use?”

Zelda nods. “Yes. Even before the Calamity, most records were lost in the fall of the Magi-Technical Golden Age.” Zelda gestures helplessly. “Our oldest texts only barely describe the events of the Twilit Calamity and before that, there are anecdotal accounts of an ancient hero who moved through Time itself. No record of his actions exist because, it’s said, he existed in a non-linear state. Stopping Ganon before his rise and after.”

Link says nothing. Reacts not at all to the descriptions of his previous lives.

“Prior to that, there’s only… myth and fairytale. So there is nothing in those catacombs worth returning for. Not if our aim is to know more about why the Goddess Mark has appeared now. Why it’s expanded its touch to you.”

“What do you know of it?”

“Theology and historical theory. We know the Goddess Mark is tied to Hylia and the creation myth of Hyrule – the Golden Goddesses who left the world in the hands of Hylia. But that’s it. Scholars of the age have only said that the Mark symbolizes the godhead, three in one – Din, Farore, and Nayru. The heart of the world. The balance that maintains existence. It appears in most Hyrulian symbolism. Hardly compelling factual account. Not like Naboorian hieroglyphs.” She sighs, almost romantically. “Such a record would be so… unromantic in its chronicle of the past. Vital. I have to admit, I’m selfishly curious to know what’s on that mountain for my own sake.”

Draga gives her a crooked smile. “Well, thank the hero Nabooru. It was she who mandated a record of Gerudo history be made written.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Hard to say. Nabooru was an ancient figure to my people, I have a theory. When the Great Chieftains brought the Gerudo out from the Sea of Sand and laid us at the shores of Hyrule… that was the moment our oral traditions began to die. Such things do not survive when you must change to survive a new world. She knew it then and committed great efforts to laying down physical records of our history. This is how we know we were different before we found Hyrule.”

Zelda smiles. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad your people did find Hyrule. We would be poorer for it had they not come.”

“Yes, I guess history would look very different.”

Link catches the tail end of the conversation then, walking up to tap her shoulder.

He signs, ‘We should go. I want to be past the Scab Lands before nightfall.’

“Okay,” she says.

And she kisses him on the cheek. She does it carefully, catches his chin with two fingers so he doesn’t move and fits her lips against the warm plane oh his cheekbone. There. Proud of herself – and feeling very giddy – she stands up and heads toward the road. She isn’t aware that anything extraordinary has transpired until Draga says, “For fuck’s sake,” and kicks her knight escort in the ankle to break him out of the trance. She smiles all the way back to the road.

When they reach the Scab Lands, there are three Gerudo on the road

Two of them, carrying twin travel packs and matching jackets, are dressed for the road heading north into Tabantha, bundled prolifically in an excess of scarves. One of them is capped in an adorable wool-knit hat, a grandmotherly kind with a pom-pom stuck to the top. This would seem a bit much, if Zelda hadn’t seen Draga stuff himself into excessive layers back in the Rito Village and his subsequent almost primal hate for the snow. He is, in fact, still wearing a scarf presently.

The two girls are talking to a third Gerudo woman on horseback. Her violently red hair is pulled back in a heavy tail – from it, hundreds of sparkling beads catch the light when she turns her head. She’s wearing a veil. Blue fabric pinned at her temples by elaborate gold clasps. The scimitar at her hip is sheathed in a mother of pearl scabbard. Zelda notes that, upon seeing them, Draga sits up a little straighter and nudges Arbiter into a faster trot.

“Greetings!” says the girl in the cap as they draw near. Her accent is very strong. She waves while her companion – a little older, sharing enough of her bone structure and contempt to be a sister – rolls her eyes and gently pushes her arm down.

“Good evening,” says the older girl in carefully done Hylian. Then in Gerudo, to Draga, “That’s quite a horse. I’ve never seen one more beautiful.”

Draga also in Gerudo, says, “Now you’ve done it. It’ll all go to his head now.”

Arbiter, as if on cue, tosses his massive head and nickers, stomping a hoof in the dirt and blowing air at the nearest girl who startles, almost losing her cap. The older girl laughs loudly. Draga smiles a little – just a suggestion of it but so specifically gentle Zelda finds herself studying the shape of it. Cataloging it. Hoping to commit it to memory so she can identify it again in the future – like the flight patterns of birds or the phenotypes of a rare plant species.

“Are you two headed north?” he asks.

“Yeah. Meeting a family friend. He says he has work for us,” says pom-pom girl.

“That’s good,” Draga says. “Lots of young Gerudo leave town without a single part of a plan. You’re doing better than I did.”

“Didn’t plan well for the cold though,” says the older girl. “I’m not looking forward to freezing my tits off on some gods forsaken snowfield.”

“I am!” enthuses pom-pom. “There will be snow. I’ve never seen snow.”

“Say that again when you run into a snow rhino,” says Draga, amused.

The older girl stares in horror. “What the fuck is a snow rhino? Don’t say there are snow rhinos.”

“There are snow rhinos. They’re ornery. I’ve seen them.”

Zelda notes that Draga leans harder on the male-conjugation than he does when speaking Gerudo with her. The older girl gives no sign she notices – possibly because she is distracted by the snow rhino and the fact earmuffs will not protect her from getting gored by one. The younger Gerudo girl though… as the conversation goes on, visibly frowns and Zelda can tell she’s trying to figure out Draga’s understandable but slightly canted take on her own language. It occurs to Zelda that the occasion for personal male modifiers in Gerudo might be uncommon enough that not everyone might have bothered to learn them.

About sixty seconds into the conversation, the younger girl confirms Zelda’s suspicions by blurting, “Oh! You’re a voe!”

Delighted. Like she just figured out a difficult riddle. Draga and her sister, bent over a map and reviewing their likely path north for safety and friendly rest stops, stare blankly at her. Draga, still in his saddle, glances at the older girl who balls a hand over her face in humiliation. This signals to the younger girl that she’s made an error and she wilts.

“Oh, uh, I mean…” She switches to her mother tongue. “Sorry. That’s rude right?”

“Yes, Rima. That’s rude,” says her sister, exasperated. “Goddess, you’re embarrassing.”

“But both the blonde ones are women, right, Taz?”

“No, you idiot. The short one is a man.”

“Really?” She stares openly at Link who tilts his head. “Are you sure?”

“You need to get better at this, I can’t tell you who is man and woman every time.” She looks directly at Draga. “I am so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Draga says, visibly trying not to laugh.

“Are you two on Pilgrimage?” Zelda says in Gerudo.

“Oh! Your accent is so pretty!” Rima exclaims, clutching her hands to her chin. “You know Gerudo? That’s so amazing. No one knows our language! I’m so bad in Hylian. I say the wrong things.”

“You say the wrong things in every language,” Taz snaps.

Zelda makes introductions and accepts compliments on her hair and, through the corner of her eye, watches Draga dismount and start going through his saddle bag. He pulls out a small wood box she’s never seen and what looks like a snowquill doublet and overcoat with a couple ridiculous hats. The hats are also snowquill, but twice as thick as normal with ear flaps that make her immediately regret not seeing him wear it. Draga inspects these items with a calm appraisal, then turns and holds them out to the older girl.

“You two should take these,” he says.

Rima bounces a little at her sister’s shoulder, peering as she takes the coats and opens the little wood box. “Oh. Pretty. What are they?”

“Are these warming stones?” says Taz, her eyes big.

Draga nods.

She looks up. “We can’t take these.”

“Sure, you can.”

“These are too valuable!”

“They aren’t worth a thing.”

“You’re lying!”

Draga looks mock hurt. “I’m sorry. We just met and you’re calling me a liar?”

Taz loses some of her cool worldliness to alarmed sputtering but Rima is already pulling on the snowquill doublet, and then the overcoat, patting it with warm brown hands and smoothing the thick material down. She admires its fit (a bit too large honestly, even with the doublet beneath) and spins around so the longer part flaps out around her. She can’t quite lower her arms to her sides on account of the layers.

“So warm!” she says, beaming from the gap in her scarf and hat.

“It’s standard gear, but high quality,” Draga says. “Don’t let anyone try to trade you for it. The doublet and warming stone should be enough to keep even Tabantha cold out. Don’t go without full gear once you hit the snowfield. The temperatures there are deadly if you’re not ready. Besides, I’ll hardly have use for it back in the desert.”

Link signs, onehanded to Zelda, ‘That gear is worth near its weight in gold.’

Zelda blinks, then signs, ‘What?’

‘Rito can only make so many snowquill pieces a year since they use molting feathers. And warming stones are usually ruby. That equipment is no joke.’

The girl with earmuffs is already pulling the warming stone from the box – an adjustable leather wrist-cuff into which a single small red stone is filigreed in with silver wire. The stone has to be flush to skin to transfer its effect, Zelda knows. Draga tells her so and shows her how to tie the bracer to ensure it can’t come off. Then he says earmuffs are inadequate against Tabantha cold and places the ridiculous hat on her head. Rima squeals in delight. Taz tolerates this new development like she knew it was coming.

Draga pulls the flaps of the hat down around her ears and frowns down at it with a kind of judicious pragmatism and vague fraternal concern that makes Zelda aware, suddenly, of herself and the fact she’s sitting on her horse watching her giant friend vaguely mother people on the road. Makes her aware of Link kind of grinning besides her and as Draga finishes tying the stupid hat on his fellow Gerudo, Zelda acknowledges her desire (familiar and strange simultaneously) to put her hand on one of them. Not in any way specifically, just to be in contact.

The woman on horseback, who up until now has said nothing, waits until the sisters have departed with elaborate promises of returning the favor one day that Draga clearly appreciates, but expects nothing of. The woman’s horse is shockingly beautiful, golden in color, perfectly groomed, and stands at disciplined attention until she, gently, taps her heels into the beast’s flanks. The sun catches on the painted kohl and red that lines her eyes. She smells faintly of jasmine and when she smiles, Zelda can see it in the way her eyes crinkle and she says…

“You can’t buy the love of the People, you know.”

Zelda, stunned, just stares.

Draga, however, seems unmoved, He sneers, actually, his lips curling back like a dog bares its teeth. “I wouldn’t pay shit for your affection.”

She smiles. Her voice is almost gentle, musical, even in Hylian. “Come now, isn’t it a difficult life to choose?”

“You don’t choose,” he says.

“Of course, you do,” she says, almost gently, almost affectionately. “I’ll show you if you like. It’s easy. Here tell me: What is your real name?”

Draga’s expression changes then – a scorching burn of rage like a flash-fire on clay, baking in a color. He gets darker, if possible, with the intensity, the totality, of his anger in that single moment but even through that heat, Zelda catches it – an undercurrent. A brief but violent glow of hurt. Then he speaks through his teeth.

“You should ride on.”

She’s still smiling behind the veil.

The woman kicks her horse forward a little, so the beautiful gold animal circles to his left. “But don’t you want wisdom from a sister?” she asks, continuing to circle when Draga holds his ground. “I gave it to those girls, I’ll give it you. As if you were like them. The courtesy due your mothers at the least. Here’s my wisdom: Stay out here. Don’t go back. You’ll do much better where they don’t know shit about the People.” Here, she looks directly at Zelda. “Riju isn’t a little girl on the road with no jacket. She knows a shorthair heretic when she sees one.”

“Excuse me?” Zelda says in Hylian.

And the beautiful woman switches to Hylian just to clarify, “If you want to fuck a Gerudo, you should fuck a real one, girl.”

Link puts his fingers in his mouth and whistles.

He splits the air with that whistle, cracks it open with that sound. A piercing almost painful zipline of air, high and aggravating – cut with an impossible vibrato and quite without warning the beautiful woman’s horse throws its head, issues an equine scream, and bolts. The woman, clearly not expecting that, shrieks and flails forward, snatching the reins and hanging on as the mare gallops full speed, breakneck fast down the road. By the time she recovers she and her horse are a quarter mile away.

Link drops his hand. Zelda stares. Draga glares. Link just shrugs.

“How’d you do that?” Draga says, patting Arbiter on the nose. The massive stallion acts rather like it didn’t hear a thing.

Link nudges Epona off the road. “We’re behind schedule. We should go.”

Zelda looks at Draga. “Are you alright?”

He mounts up. “Of course.”

“Why would she say something like that?”

Draga looks at her. His expression so neutral it makes a momentary statue of him. “Link’s right. We should try to gain ground before it gets much darker. This area isn’t safe at night.”

Zelda thinks about the flight pattern of birds, the mating habits of poisonous frogs, the sexual dimorphism between the male and female of a certain species of lizard, and the precise balance of the smile that touched Draga’s mouth when he tied that stupid hat on Taz’s head. She nods and follows her companions off the beaten path and they head into the wilds at the foot of the mountain range beyond, toward the uneven ridges that mark Draga’s homeland.

“That’s too much salt.”

“You said add more salt.”

“Not that much.”

“I can’t un-salt something, Link.”

There’s a silence.

“No. I’m not taking cooking critique where you spell things for me in Sign.”

“Add a little more of everything.”

“How about you give better instructions and we won’t have this problem?”

“How about you don’t dump too much salt in my salmon risotto and we won’t have this problem?”

“Never mind. Go back to not speaking.”

Zelda looks up from the bow in her lap – recurve composite, Gerudo make, one of Link’s spares dug from the vast and confusing depths of his enchanted travel pack. It feels warm and familiar in her hands. The wood curved like the dip of a hipbone. She watches her compatriots. Link is hovering and peering over his shoulder with a kind of bland anxiety that’s specific to food. Draga is glaring at him for it. She goes back to what she was doing because she explicitly warned Draga not to try and help Link cook. He gets weird about it. So, this his bed to lie in.

She smooths her fingers up and down the shape of the bow, fitting her fingers to the leather grip at the center, feeling again and again a vague sensation of reflex. Of want. It’s one of the lightest in Link’s arsenal at a thirty-five-pound draw – just enough pull to down an opponent if she puts some intention to it. The bowstring lays coiled in her lap, tacky, wrapped in wax paper.

“Could you back up?” Draga says.

Link does not do that.

“I need you to back up.”

Link kind of makes a face and Draga picks up the entire plate of spare ingredients from the grass and shoves it into his arms. “That’s it. I’m done You are like…” He says something in Gerudo that Zelda thinks is slang, but translates like ‘a jackal in heat’ or something to that effect. “I hate fish anyway.”

Link looks offended.

Draga leaves him there looking offended and comes to join Zelda. “You going to string that?”

“I’m trying to remember how.”

“I can show you.”

“No. I’m trying to remember.”

He frowns, then realizes. “Oh.” He crouches down in front of her, inspecting the weapon in her hands with a thoughtful reconsideration. “What is that like? Trying to remember something that didn’t happen in this life?”

“Like I’m remembering something I did in a dream,” Zelda says, carefully unspooling the bowstring from the wax paper. “I can ignore it if I want. What I remember in a dream does not confuse me. I am never uncertain about what I have done and what has been done by my predecessors.” She hooks the top of the string into the notch at the bottom of the bow. “Often, it’s not memory at all. Just a feeling. Indistinct.” She stops here to stand up, bracing the bottom of the bow against the ground just outside her right boot with the curve hooked up hugging the back of her left thigh, set diagonally between her legs. “It’s nothing specific. Just…”

Draga waits. “Want a hint?”

“No… I know this. I…” She grips the top curve of the bow and pushes it down like a lever forward, the body of bow bending against her leg. This gives her just enough time to hook the string into the top notch. She releases the tension and the line goes taut. “Ha!” She steps her leg out of the freshly strung bow and presents it to Draga. “It’s like muscle memory!”

Draga tilts his head. “Well, if it’s muscle memory, Princess, maybe we should try some target practice.”

She falters a moment. “Oh… well I could try.”

Draga fetches his own quiver from their equipment, taking long enough that she begins to regret her decision. She fully regrets it by the time he hands her the first arrow. He waits. Clearly not intending to help her figure it out whatsoever.

Nervous now, Zelda readjusts her grip on the bow in her left hand, awkwardly sliding her hand down the arrow from the middle of its length to the feather-fletched end. The feel of it sends a vague blush of familiarity through her. She closes her eyes. She imagines… fitting the bolt to the string, drawing it back. A compound movement, pushing the bow away and drawing the line back, high at first, then lining up. Mathematical. Precise. Her line of sight focuses and – she opens her eyes.

Draga is peering down at her, waiting and curious.

She shoves the arrow back at him, a sick well suddenly in the back of her throat.

“Never mind. I don’t want to practice this.”

Draga blinks a little owlishly. “Why not?”

“I just don’t want to. The draw weight is too heavy for me anyway.”

“How would you know unless you tried?” Draga says, his brow rising slightly.

“I… I just would rather not.”

He takes the arrow.

“Is this because you said you thought about killing me?” And when Zelda goes ramrod stiff, petrified, he scratches his chin and says, “Your dream-mind notwithstanding, if you think you can kill me, it’s going to take more than an arrow, Princess.”

She sputters, horrified. “I would never –!”

“Then there’s no reason not to learn this,” Draga interrupts.

He offers her the arrow again. When she does not immediately take it back and, instead, stands there frozen, he says, quietly, “It would be useful if you learned this.” A beat. “Relearn it.” Another beat. “Whichever it is. I barely follow you two when you talk about these things.”

“Draga…”

He steps forward and with an old archer’s ease, he fits three fingers beneath her left elbow and lifts her bow arm to a proper height. He nocks the arrow to the string for her, his fingers momentarily fitting hers to the line.

“Just draw,” he says.

Eventually, after a long moment, she draws.

It’s like taking a breath.

“Hm,” he says.

“What’s ‘hm’?”

“You have a long pull.” He moves out of her line of sight, behind her. “You draw all the way past your ear.”

“This feels right. Is that bad?” she asks, maintaining her stance, aiming indistinctly at the trees.

“Not necessarily,” he says. She can feel the shrug. “Your footwork is good. How does it feel?”

“Familiar.”

“It should.” His mouth is suddenly very close to her ear. “I saw you shoot at that dragon.”

A shiver runs down her spine and coils in Zelda’s stomach. A murmur enters her heart, but before she can react, he loops his quiver belt around her hips, drawing it tight. He’s kneeling behind her to do this, his hands occasionally bracing against her hip as he fits it. He’s not gentle exactly, tugging at the strap with a utilitarian strength she might expect if he were tacking Arbiter for the road. It forces her to brace. She looks over her shoulder to glare at him, but when she turns her head, he looks calmly up at her from where he’s kneeling. The fire light illuminates one side of his face, painting a gold heat into the high plane of his cheekbone and –

She immediately faces forward again, suddenly very aware of his hands against her hip.

He finishes adjusting the quiver and stands up.

“There’s a knot in that oak. Think you can hit it?”

She squints down the shaft, the bowstring digging into her fingers as she holds the tension and… she relaxes. She lowers the bow with the arrow still nocked to the string and turns at the hips to look up at Draga.

“Why did that woman speak to you like that on the road today?”

Draga blinks. “This is an obvious delaying tactic.”

“It’s an honest question.”

Draga thinks about it. “When you were learning Gerudo, you were taught the importance of gendered conjugation in our language, yes? That our pronouns delineate Gerudo as its own gender category. Then non-Gerudo women and men.” When he gets a small nod from her, he goes on. “Naboorian dialects are the only Gerudo dialects that allow for Gerudo-specific male modifiers at all and that dialect is not widely spoken. So, in effect, my own language does not properly allow for my existence.”

Zelda’s brows lift in surprise. “The dialect you speak… it’s an offshoot?”

“A slight variant. But yes. My family spoke it, but not many outside the Highlands do.”

She hesitates, then admits, “I honestly thought that Gerudo-specific conjugation was gender indifferent until I met you.”

He shrugs. “Our most common conjugation structures evolved without distinction. Hardly unnatural, but it’s also why that woman said what she said. If I have used any modifiers other than Naboorian – then she wouldn’t, perhaps, have spoken up.” He pauses a moment, thinking. “I have had more fights with Gerudo over my dialect than any other moral disagreement.”

“Why?”

“It’s very hard for the narrow-minded to ignore me when I speak Naboorian Gerudo.” He smiles a little, but it’s a brittle baring of teeth. “It’s subtle. Outside of my own dialect, if I wanted to specifically delineate myself as a man… I would have to linguistically separate myself from being a Gerudo.”

Zelda shakes her head. “Why don’t I know this?”

“You’re Hylian,” he says, shrugging. “Also, you were fighting Calamity Ganon so I hardly fault you for not being finely aware of the societal riffs among my people. Now, are you going to shoot that bow or do you want a grammar lesson?”

“Well…”

Draga waits.

“Oh, very well. I will try.”

Draga smiles.

Zelda turns back to her target. After a moment’s consideration, she draws a second arrow, hooking the feathered end into the loop of her pinkie finger while she sets the first arrow to the line – both shots held ready now in her right hand. She breathes. She thinks – not of the desert. No. Not the desert. Something else. Like… like standing in a long yard. She imagines her hair shorn short for battle, her fingers callused and scarred. Zelda draws. Aims. Releases the shot. Flips the next bolt over her knuckles and sets it to the line. Pulls. Fires.

When she lowers the bow, two arrows stand quivering from the mouth of the hollow, clustered at the head.

“Huh,” says Draga.

“That’s a Sheikah’s draw,” says Link.

Zelda blinks, her heart-pounding elation -- alien and effervescent, like she’s stealing it from another world entirely – subverted by the frank certainty the statement. Link is no longer cooking by the fire. He’s standing with Draga, watching, arms folded. The campsite smells of salmon risotto. Link’s hair catches bits of gold in the fire light, Draga beside him lit in copper. She blinks again at the peculiar mirror they make of one another, both peering at her with identical looks of intrigue.

Link points. “The way you bring it up, pull past your ear, and sight. The reload method. It’s Sheikah.” He shrugs, then signs, ‘I don’t know how to shoot like that. It’s one of the most challenging styles I know of.’

“Oh…” Zelda looks uncertainly to Draga, who just shrugs, then back to Link. “Really?”

He nods and she feels a strange dissociation, staring at her own fingers.

She shakes it off. “Okay, so I use a Sheikah draw? Is that bad? What style do you use, Link?”

Draga interrupts immediately, at volume, “Link shoots with his wrist out and some bizarre pinch and draw I’ve never seen and it’s appalling. Do not do what he does or ask for his advice.”

Link shrugs. “It a Zora draw.”

“It’s what?”

“I trained with Zora when I was younger,” he says blandly. “They shoot that way to keep their fins out of the line. I didn’t know that when I was a child.”

Draga stares. “So you shoot weird because you’re too lazy to retrain yourself?”

Link shrugs again.

“You’re unbelievable.”

Link says, “Dinner’s ready,” and walks back to the fire. Rather like nothing of great surprise occurred, leaving Zelda and Draga to stare after him.

Zelda shoulders the bow for a moment. “Draga… thank you for telling me all that.”

“You both deserve to know before I take you into it.”

“Can I ask one more thing?”

“Of course.”

“Why did she ask for your ‘real name’?”

He looks at her, a little surprised, then says, “Only demons have many names.”

Zelda blinks. “What?”

“Do you not say that in Hylian?”

She shakes her head.

“Oh.” He ponders this, rubbing his neck like there’s a knot there, his other arm folded across his stomach. “I’m not sure how to say it in Hylian, Names have power in the desert. Saying I have the wrong name...”

Zelda lays a hand on his arm, drawing his hand down. He looks at her.

“You know that we prefer you as you are, right?”

He stares at her. A strange expression. Like he hadn’t seen her properly or the dark made odd shadows in her face. “Thank you, Zelda.”

“Always.”

Zelda wakes to Link’s hand on her arm.

It’s still dark. She can hear crickets in the forest. Even the embers of their fire are dark.

Link’s face is just barely discernable in the moonlight, the blanket having fallen off his shoulder when he rolled over to wake her. He says nothing, but she knows what’s wrong. She crawls carefully over her knight, bare feet sinking into gap between their sleeping pads, fingers bracing against the mess of bedding. She can feel dew on the fur Link pulls over the top, strictly to keep the dampness off the wool.

Draga, lying next to Link, is breathing too fast. Keeps jerking involuntarily. Half-formed words escaping him in quiet suppressed bursts, like someone has a hand on his throat. He’s on his side, spine curled slightly forward, arms drawn close to his chest, like he’s cold… or like he’s trying to clutch his throat in his sleep and can’t. Zelda lays a hand over his brow and a faint gold light wells gently in her fingers. Link’s eyes – suddenly visible, blue, holding the glow in a way that defies what she knows about illumination – meet hers.

Eventually, the tension leaves Draga’s limbs. His hands unclench and the faint, pained tension in his features smooths away to unconscious neutrality. For another minute she sits there, her hand against his head and Link’s chin against her shoulder. She listens to them breathing until, vaguely, she realizes they’re breathing together and Link’s fallen asleep against her. They won’t mention it in the morning.

A reminder: Link doesn’t look dangerous until he is.

Lake Alumeni lies shining at the foot of the Gerudo Highlands. An icy wellspring of water wreathed by a copse of apple and evergreen trees, knotted with heather and long grass. The grass gives way to a sandy slope of shore before the lake’s edge and it’s there, under the dying sunlight, Link does as Draga asked of him. Namely: be very dangerous for a while.

He’s crouched, waiting, sword in hand.

He says, calmly, ““You won’t beat me without magic.”

Draga, knotting anther bandage around his forearm, snarls, “I know, you tiny bastard.”

Link doesn’t smile.

The lackadaisical courtesy of previous sparring sessions has gone, replaced with mercenary indifference – the blank, blue-eyed battle stare that is precursor, Zelda knows, to terrible violence. That’s the face he wears now. Apathetic as physics when he puts an impossible bend in the universe and uses it to smash his friend to the ground. Repeatedly. Viciously. Trying to draw out an response. Even the blunt edge of the sparring sword does the job – laying a ragged road of bruises and shallow cuts down Draga’s arms. Leaving him panting, laved in sweat and sticky with blood. IT’s been hours.

The air stinks with like live current. Link’s breath like the air before a lightning strike. There’s a storm in his eyes when he’s like this. Zelda almost forgot.

“Ready?” he says.

Draga thinks about it. Then nods.

Link hits him instantly. The blade sings with the blow and Draga lunges back. He swings a massive blow at Link’s flank, but he just pivots, ducks the side slash, and smashes his elbow into Draga’s back as he goes past. Draga hits the ground rolling and comes up instantly. Draga attacks. Fast. He’s still so fast, even now, but Link is always that much faster. He deflects the blow, pivots, and comes up slashing, sword ringing when it slams into Draga’s. It puts a terrible vibrato into the metal, driving the bigger man back but Link does not stop. Doesn’t slow an iota.

He presses the exchange with a merciless speed, the entire time saying, “No,” and “C’mon!” and “I’m going to kill you, if you don’t get this!”

(Zelda tells herself he doesn’t mean that. It’s a tactic. It’s just talk.) But he doesn’t stop.

Draga’s breathing hard. He tries to catch his balance. Link keeps coming. Link gets past his guard, strikes a glancing blow to his head. Draga keeps his feet, but only just and Link lays open another bleeding line against wrist, his thigh, his hip – Draga flinches and that’s when the lake shore shivers. Draga is already swinging when it happens. He brings the blade down and the impact is Lynel-like, buckling Links arm and spinning him around.

This time, the metal does not howl. It eats the impact and the air around him becomes heat-smeared, mirage-like. When he steps forward, small pebbles on the ground begin to shiver and jump as if caught in the gravity of a localized star. The surfaces of the lake ripples, a barometric shiver in the air displacing the mirror shine.

But Draga’s thrown his sword down.

He stands there, stock still, his hands clenched in front of him. Eyes closed. Breathing too fast.

Link, seeing this, steps back and lowers his blade.

“Control it,” Link says loudly. “Focus!”

“What the hell… do you think… I’m doing?”

His eyes take on a shine – glowing internally, red – usually a controlled burn, steady as the embers in a blacksmith’s forge. Now, she can see the erratic pulse of it, like someone is inexpertly pumping bellows into the forge, throwing sparks and heating the interior too fast, too much. He shakes his head. He breathes too fast.

Zelda steps in.

She’s got her hands around Draga’s wrists, then around the back of his neck. It’s like grabbing a burning skillet from a flame. She can feel the heat hissing against the thin golden shell that paints her skin, like heat crackling in water. She pulls his forehead down to hers and pushes that golden light through her palms into the muscles in the back of his neck where it travels like water down a wall, dousing his skin where it touches.

He's gasping. “I can’t breathe…”

“You can breathe. Breathe when I breathe.”

Draga’s breath is hot against her face, but it’s cooling. She feels the resistance start to give, like trying to dam water with your hands then letting it go. He lets her pour out light, running over his skin, into his skin and evaporating on contact. And in the same breath she can feel the… depth he was talking about, like a house that’s bigger on the inside, the vast space into which she is pouring herself with no hope of filling. The void that dragons opened inside him. But even so, Draga’s skin feels human again. When he breathes, there’s gold in it.

She pushes, carefully, another dose of sunlight against his skin and he twitches, shivering.

“It’s like a ocean moving around you,” she murmurs. “Like a river. You can direct part of the flow, but you can’t control it. Do you feel it?” She breathes slowly, speaks calmly. “You have to let go or you’ll drown. Every time.”

“It’s like you have your hand in my chest,” he says, surprising her.

“I won’t hurt you.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“It’s okay. You’re not losing control.”

“That’s not what I meant, either.”

She blinks. “Oh.”

Zelda doesn’t recognize the way he’s looking at her. But at the same time, she knows it exactly. There’s gold on her tongue when she kisses him. There it is again – that dirty copper taste, like swallowing a coin. Like warming a spoon with her mouth. Her fingers close in his hair, her nails dragging on his scalp and when she finally pulls away, the air is calm around them. No longer boiling where they touch. Nevertheless, she feels hot. Her fingers against his neck pulsing, her heartbeat in her hands and in her stomach and she feels dizzy, like her head is filled with vapor.

She pulls away.

Draga shivers. “Thank you.” He looks at Link. “Both of you.”

Link joins them. The alien battle blank edge resolved into a kind of wry concern. He wipes sweat from his face with his sleeve, managing a small smile and a shrug that says, without sign or sound, ‘Whatever it takes.’

“Honestly,” Draga says again. “This would be much harder on my own. I’m glad I’m not this time.”

“Of course,” Zelda says emphatically. “I said you could rely on us and I mean it. I do. We’re going to figure this out together. We’re going to figure out the nature of this new magic. We’re going to go with you back to the Gerudo. We’re going to move forward.” She smiles. She doesn’t’ know why – overwhelmed suddenly by an excess of happiness. Or hope. She hadn’t been aware she lacked that before. “I have every confidence. I really do.”

Link taps her shoulder.

“Hmm?”

He cups her jaw and draws her into a kiss, tilting her head and his tongue is salt and milk in her mouth. Her heart races. A dizzy delight rising in her throat and she giggles a little. For some reason, Link seems to like that, and the way he’s kissing her becomes a little feral, his fingers knotting in her hair, his teeth just barely catching against her lip and rather without meaning too, a small moan rises in her throat. High and broken and Link immediately pulls back. Red in the face.

“Sorry,” he says, stepping back.

“What for?” says Draga, arms folded, looking a little disappointed.

Link blushes harder. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Why not?” Zelda says, a little punch drunk.

Draga laughs. “You’re allowed, you know.”

Link hesitates. Then, rather like he’s repeating a question, he moves toward them again. He looks between them. She can tell he’s trying to figure out the best tactical execution here. Draga just rolls his eyes, bends down, and lays a hand against Link’s jaw.

“For someone who clearly knows what they’re doing,” he says, “you embarrass easy.”

Link gets redder. “Got to hell,” he says, but in the wrong tone of voice.

Draga smiles.

Zelda notices the back of his left hand is brushing her bare wrist.

“Maybe later,” he says.

go to chapter 10...

#botw #legend of zelda #legend of zelda breath of the wild #loz #zelda #link #ganondorf #lozfic #in which the cycle starts over immediately #and no one told link or zelda #you can actually #run into the next triforce holder on the fucking road #and he might be kinda chill #tagging for #polyamory

38 notes · View notes