#lops says it's a poem to him (:

[guide-to-troubled-survivalists]

and you know if you call / i'll be there, i'll be there / whatever you call me for

[mathildeaquisexta]

But seriously, what did the people of medieval times listen to?

Let's answer this post :

The short answer is : the things they listened to were FAR MUCH WORSE than anything in our Spotify playlists.

The long answer is :

In the 12th century, southern France knew an exceptional cultural and linguistic wealth. It is in medieval Occitanie that the fin'amor took roots and these stories of courtly love inspired a whole literature of archetypal romances between a queen and a knight, of an inferior rank, who surpasses himself to reach the object of his desires while knowing his romantic goal to be vain and inaccessible. These stories advocating qualities of respect, honour and chastity were very popular at the court of the county of Toulouse.

These love stories were sometimes in the form of poems and always sung by musicians who mastered the local language, the langue d'oc: the troubadours. Very influential in the local nobility, the troubadours were allowed to take certain liberties that in other courts, further north in the country, would be offensive: for example, they could sing a melody proclaiming their love for the queen.

The Occitan ballad "A l'entrada del temps clar" (meaning "at the beginning of the warm season") was written and sung during the 12th century, supposedly in honour of the late Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. It tells the story of a "queen of April" or "queen of spring" who leaves the king, deemed too old, and prefers him a handsome young man. The song tells that the queen organizes festivities and invites the whole kingdom to dance and eventually a night of general debauchery.

Now, to the actual lyrics:

A l'entrada del temps clar, eya Per jòia recomençar, eya E per jelós irritar, eya Vòl la regina mostrar Qu'el' es si amorosa

In English:

At the beginning of warm weather, indeed To bring back joy, indeed And to anger the jealous, indeed The queen wants to show That she's in love

Who are "the jealous" here? If we stick to the theory saying that the song is about Eleanor, it’s probably the king of France and his court, particularly pious and austere (so not a very conducive place for celebrations and festivities). They struggled to understand and accept the queen’s strong character and the southern Occitan education she had received.

Moving on.

Lo reis i ven d'autra part, eya Per la dança destorbar, eya Que el es en cremetar, eya Que òm no li vòlh emblar La regin' aurilhosa [...] Mais per nïent lo vòl far, eya Qu'ela n'a sonh de vielhart, eya Mais d'un leugièr bachalar, eya Qui ben sapcha solaçar La dòmna saborosa

In English:

Furthermore, the king is coming, indeed To put an end to the dance, indeed Because he is afraid, indeed That another man would steal from him The Queen of April […] But his efforts were in vain, indeed As she doesn’t care about an old man, indeed But rather for an ardent young man, indeed Who knows how to satisfy The savoury lady

Here, the king is openly mocked and ridiculed: he disturbs the festivities and refuses to join it, he is reduced to his old age and his inability to satisfy his wife and nobody cares for him, preferring his more handsome and entertaining rival.

Qui donc la vezés dançar, eya E son gent còrs deportar, eya Ben pògra dir de vertat, eya Qu'el mont non aja sa par La regina joiosa

In English:

Anyone who sees her dance, indeed And show off her beautiful body, indeed Can say without lying, indeed That there is no equal in this world To the merry queen

Here, praise is made on the beauty of the queen but especially the beauty of her body, in a rather licentious way. As said earlier, it is a privilege that only troubadours of Occitanie can indulge without fearing repercussions.

Nonetheless, the King is not the only person that can be subject to critics and mock in medieval times. No one is untouchable, including the church.

"Ai vist lo lop" (I saw the wolf) is a popular song from the 13th century, also of Occitan origin. Here, animals are used to represent real-life people: the wolf is the king, the fox is the churchman and the hare is the tax collector. These three representatives of power are accused of being responsible for the misery of the people.

Ai vist lo lop, lo rainard, la lèbre Ai vist lo lop, lo rainard dancar Totei tres fasiàn lo torn de l’aubre [...] Fasiàn lo torn dau boisson folhat

In English:

I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare I saw the wolf, the fox dancing All three went around the tree I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare All three went around the tree They went around the leafy bush

Seen like this, the lyrics sound rather cryptic. But the next lyrics are extremely explicit:

Aqui triman tota l'annada Pèr se ganhar quauquei soùs Rèn que dins una mesada Ai vist lo lop, lo rainard, la lèbre Nos i fotèm tot pel cuol Ai vist lo lèbre, lo rainard, lo lop

In English:

Here we slave away all year To earn a few pennies And in a month I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare We have it in the ass (meaning that we have nothing left) I saw the hare, the fox, the wolf

And then everything becomes clear. People work hard and the few coins they receive go directly into taxes, first those of the king, then of the church, and other unjust taxes that existed at the time. The wolf, fox and hare will then waste this money on useless parties ("All three went around the tree") and orgies between themselves ("They went around the leafy bush").

So yeah... They definitely can handle your Spotify playlist lol.

[teddywesworl]

ok y'all said you want director's commentary so I'm gonna start by saying a couple things about 🪑 since it recently celebrated 2k kudos

🪑DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY LET'S GO

1.

A fun fact about the poems at the beginning of each chapter is that I took two of the poet's classes in college, and she might be solely responsible for convincing me I was a good writer and should pursue the skill. I don't know how she'd feel about me using her poetry to thematically frame an explicit fanfic, but that's neither here nor there.

As a poet, she (I'm not naming her here in case she might possibly name search on tumblr, lol) is obsessed with transformation and with the discord between the material and spiritual self. Blackberries, Brambles in its entirety goes as follows:

Akhmatova wrote, "O look!—that fresh dark elderberry branch is like a letter from Marina…" And she was right, branches criss- cross, words sharpen. We lop them down, fit them into envelopes. But I forget: you don't do letters: Too much tangled in thickets and desperation. Did I say envelopes? I meant elevators. See, I've snagged favourite sweaters in high rises, snarled hair in hedges, given up skin scrapings for blackberries, tongueburst, the sweet stain, explosion under light canine pressure. Don't you just wish you were a dog sometimes? No panic. Romping through brambles. Even in delirium, near death, Akhmatova remembered. Her bitter friend had been dead a long time. Love. Don't think I'm thinking about you. Anything but you.

Akhmatova here being Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, and the Marina in question is Marina Tsvetaeva. You can go on as much or as little of a research spiral about them as you like; many of the layers of this poem are in the reference to Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva, but I was mostly interested in the commentary on the cost of pleasure. I've snagged favourite sweaters in high rises, snarled hair in hedges, given up skin scrapings for blackberries. What are you willing to pay for happiness? Wouldn't it be nice not to think about it? Wouldn't it be nice not to be afraid to pay?

2.

Obviously the other major literary framing device is A Room With A View. The movie, specifically, but obviously the Forster novel as well. A Room With A View is about the clash between tradition and modernity, familial duty vs. adventure and romance, etc. etc. etc. And like, listen, the Duffers have not put this much thought into Steve Harrington, but his arc, despite them, is that of the ultimate privileged 80s all-American masculine symbol taking a slow, deliberate turn toward Otherness. He was supposed to die a static character. He did not, and now we're all writing fic about it.

I probably didn't need to have Eddie literally whack the point home with a hammer with the you're Lucy line in chapter 2, but here we are.

3.

The other bits of ~Art~ in the Steve chapter are Elton John's The Fox and Bruce Springsteen's The River. As follows:

But if you’re wily, you will leave them lying, snared up in the traps that they set for you, Elton sings. And it’s an evergreen affair— Steve lifts the record out and replaces it with The River. Springsteen sings, you're walkin' tough, baby, but you're walkin' blind and that’s not really better.

The Elton John record, you may recall, was a compromise between Eddie and Nancy. The inclusion of these lines in particular was very vibes-based, but hopefully the vibes are semi-coherent. Snares. Traps. The hunter, the fox. Btw the next lines after these are:

As temptation taunts the fox Into the hunter's waiting lair

Which, okay. Teasing out the vibes just a little. Argyle interprets Nancy as Lucy (and implies, without meaning to, that Steve is Cecil--a character that represents old money and tradition and duty and, like. Being trapped). Nancy would probably also view herself as the titular Fox. And Steve has bought into this line of thinking! He sees himself as the snare! He has internalized the idea of life with him being a trap! He is Bullshit, etc.

Eddie complicates this self-concept. Through him, Steve becomes the Fox and Lucy. Temptation taunts the fox into the hunter's waiting lair, after all. And, you know: 🪑🪢

(The Springsteen lines are just. All Steve.)

Ok I have to go feed some horses. More.... later. eventually.

[radianceholy]

Owlcatober 2024 - Fake Names

Arueshalae engages in personal exploration through creative roleplay, with some unexpected company along the way. cw: some implied history of abuse, slightly flippant gender talk maybe, some alcohol use

His hair was short, trim, neat; he was a man of some means, perhaps, with all of the care taken to his appearance. His boots polished to a shine, the brass buttons of his doublet catching the flickering lamplight of a tavern edging ever closer to nightfall. Though it wasn’t the finest of material - nothing was, this close to the Worldwound, supply lines strained and any given luxury coming at a substantial premium - it was, perhaps, flattering. The look of a wandering poet, or maybe a fresh-faced merchant. Bright-eyed, slim, youthful. He was, no doubt, a stranger to these lands; an anomaly among the hardened veterans and knock-kneed recruits alike. He was, perhaps, uncertain if alcohol was to his taste, either. Wine, like fine fabrics, was rare enough; good wine ever more so, and he wasn’t so sure he knew to tell the difference, bringing the goblet to his lips as though its contents might just poison him. It was what one does in a tavern, though. What any mortal would do, certainly, provided that mortal wanted to be there in the first place. The question was, did he want to be there? “Studying the color of your drink, hm? Or transfixed by your own reflection? I can’t say it’s terribly hard on the eyes.” His gaze shot up, back straightening immediately, a familiar voice that put him on edge and made his heart jump into his throat. (No, jumping was good, right? Was it really jumping? Were those the right words for the feeling…?) He laughed. “My, my. You’re that flustered? That’s really not much of a challenge.” Daeran waved his hand, and it was hard to tell if he was dismissing him, or offering reassurance. “It’s dull here, with only the company of sub-par wine. And I’ve never seen your face around here before, so there's surely a measure of curiosity to be sated. But if you’d rather while away your hours gazing into your own eyes…" It was a feeling much more akin to anxiety, perhaps. It was’t as though he’d let a few unkind words sway him from his path (he often told himself that, again and again, like a prayer, hoping it would prove true), but he took no pleasure in mockery of his path. He couldn’t trust himself with anger or revenge, so those feelings had to be placed up on a high shelf in his mind. Not inaccessible, but far enough away that he wouldn’t reach for them the very moment something went wrong. It made it all the more upsetting that this man (the man that was now chatting him up) was the one that had decided to sit down, right at his side. Here, of all places. Tonight, of all nights.

…But right now, he wasn't that person, right? At least… for the role he was currently playing, he wasn’t the sort of demon that would be fun to tease and provoke. He didn't have to apologize for his own wickedness. “...I’m sorry. I’m… new here.” “Oh, that was established.” Daeran smirked, insufferable. It was a calculated twitch of his lips, to let him know that he was a huge asshole on purpose, and he really wasn’t quite sure why that should make a difference. Mortals are impossibly strange. “I know-! I know that you just said it, you know. It’s just that I’d rather say it myself,” he huffed, defiant, though that only seemed to earn him another laugh. “Callus. My name is… Callus.” “Indeed? And what, pray tell, has brought you to this den of misery? Idealistic enough to volunteer what limited means you have available to the Crusade?” “I suppose you could say that,” he murmured in reply. “I’m… a poet. From Mendev. I'm here to practice my art, on the subject of the Crusades themselves.” 

“I would hate to see the grim prose you’ve spun from this dismal subject. Dedicate poem and verse to overstuffed Paladins and their lopped-off limbs, with tearful praise for their great sacrifice and honor in the face of impossible odds…" That didn't sound so bad to him, but Daeran said it like it was the most boring thing he could imagine. "Unless you’ve a sense of humor about it, I suppose. Throw in a bawdy limerick about Balors, perhaps?” “I don't think anyone would enjoy that. It would be considered a tasteless joke, at best.” “Yes, it would. Naturally, I’d pay handsomely, as a patron of the arts.” He pouted. “...I just wanted to see a different perspective of the Crusaders. Something closer to them. Not mock them.” “Different, you say? Different from what? Parades and preachers? Wide scale recruitment of the idealistic and foolish alike?” He grinned, leaning in, close enough that the room seemed to fade but for his gaze. “You're much too vibrant to waste whatever talents might be at your disposal on that. I, on the other hand, could offer far more stimulating subject matter.” His eyes opened a bit wider. He had never seen his face this close before. His eyes were bright. Warm. They reminded her of that beautiful song, and the flights of butterflies. He knew Daeran quite well, in their travels - he’d said a hundred wretched things to him a hundred times over each, always with this awful tone of detached mockery. Sosiel often said that anything good or beautiful in the world becomes foul through the eyes of the Count. The smug mockery, pressing his boot against the back of someone at the edge of a cliff as though it were the most delightful of jokes; the gentle warmth of someone who felt he might be among equals, sharing in delight with one another, however fleeting it might be. Or, perhaps, willing to humble himself however briefly to give that impression. It’s what he’d have done, as a succubus. He knew that trick. He knew it. And even so, in his eyes– “In all of Elysium,” he whispered, “there’s truly nothing more beautiful. No one, nothing.” He trembled, stroking her cheek and tracing her chin with his delicate fingertips. His face was pale, sickly. He looked like he might just throw up on the spot, but the gentle smile was as genuine as ever.She had, of course, poisoned his drink. She could recognize it instantly. Her insides twisted and burned. Her body twitched, and for once, she couldn’t find the words. No twisted ultimatums or wicked lies. No cruelty could spring forth from her lips. It was the first time he’d ever poisoned hers, in turn.He wrenched his gaze away all too suddenly. Any trace of comfortable mirth was gone. He felt sick. 

“Oh? Here I thought we were getting along. I suppose I must have offended. And I wasn’t even trying all that hard to do so.” “No. No, no, I’m sorry. It’s not you.” Daeran leaned away, and he felt like he could breathe once more. A knot of guilt twisted in his stomach, but that was nothing new. “I suppose there’s such a thing as coming on too strong.” “...You reminded me of someone. Um, I guess… an old boyfriend.” “Now that would explain it. And it does spare my ego for a turn, so all the better for it. The wound is still fresh, is it?” “You could say that,” he said, voice small. “Well, well. I’ll leave you to your night, in that case. But should you be compelled to look me up again, say, when it becomes more of a scab, my name is–” “Count Daeran Arendae,” another chimed in. (Mortals use full names and titles when they’re upset with one another, he knew. But only sometimes. How confusing!) He flicked his gaze towards the new voice a little too quickly, forgetting himself. (A mortal shouldn’t act like a frightened fawn, should they? And he’s a friend. Maybe not Callus’ friend, but… wait, Was Sosiel his friend? He should really ask–) “It’s no surprise to find you here, haranguing a newcomer. Can’t you see how overwhelmed he is?” He scoffed. “I am nothing if not perfectly accommodating of the gentleman’s boundaries!” “He obviously doesn’t know you well enough, if he believes such a blatant lie. You’ve clearly upset him.” “For a priest so transfixed with beauty and inner goodness, you are remarkably unforgiving and dour, aren’t you? I’m almost proud to bear witness to your overbearing hypocrisy, day after day.” “It's okay,” He said, softly. ‘Callus,’ the name. It didn’t fit. It really didn’t fit. He wasn’t really a poet from Avistan, and– “...Daeran did nothing wrong,” he sighed, despite the smug ‘Ha!’ that came just from his right. “...I owe you an apology, then. The look on his face was simply…” “...Oh, don't act so contrite. I’m sure you were pleased as ever to come in on your high horse.” “And– and my name,” he continued, despite the bickering. “...I’m not Callus.” Both men glanced back at him.  “...You know, a false name doesn’t have much meaning if you're someone I’ve never met before in my life.”

Sosiel shot a glance towards Daeran, and then another towards Arueshalae. A look of understanding crossed his face… much, it seemed, to Daeran’s annoyance. Silence lingered between them all for a few moments.

“Naturally, I expect thanks,” Daeran hummed. “For my role as muse and inspiration in this whole performance.”

“A performance, really?” Sosiel interjected.

“It’s all performance,” he shot back.

Arueshalae adjusted his collar, letting out a sigh. “Even if I doubt it was your intention, you did give me the idea.”

“As disappointed as I am,” he mused.

Sosiel shot him another glare, resting a hand on Arueshalae’s shoulder. “...I’m sure you must have been nervous. And I am glad that the count truly did respect your boundaries,” spoken as a warning and eliciting an eyeroll, “and I wanted to assure you that nothing but good can come of exploring yourself in such a way. Find the beauty within yourself, and share it with the world.” He smiled warmly.

“...It was still based on a lie,” he replied. “I’m not a poet.” He wrapped his arms around his waist, hugging himself. He was as skilled at changing form as ever, but despite despite his skill in doing so, his tail had reappeared behind him once more, swaying and twitching to betray his feelings.

“I’m sure that you could learn. And I’m sure that the world would be better with your poetry in it, regardless of your precise origins.”

“Well, then-!” Daeran rose to his feet, the sincerity repelling his presence as sharply as ever. “It is, unfortunately for me, a night wasted. I’ll have to be wary of every willowy gentleman I come across from here on out, and that’s certainly going to cut into my personal time–”

“Wait!” Arueshalae spoke up. His horns had grown in the span of a moment, without even realizing it. “Ah… thank you.” He murmured.

“Really? No one’s ever embarrassed themself before you, I suppose? That seems unlikely.”

“...No. No, not that. No one’s ever–” he rubbed his arm, still hugging himself. “–no one’s ever backed off so willingly. I suppose it made things more pleasant than I expected.”

He looked, for once, like he was taken aback, an acerbic word choked to silence in the back of his throat. He let out a dramatic little sigh, some effort at saving face, and he was soon gone, leaving Arueshelae behind with Sosiel.

Sosiel offered a hand to Arueshalae, and he took it, rising up beside him. Hunched in on himself, his wings – there they were again – folded in as close to his sides as they could, a protective shelter. “This place is rather crowded, isn’t it?” He offered gently, gesturing towards the door.

“...It is.”

“Would you like to talk? I can provide what guidance I can, of course, but we need not speak in absolutes."

He nodded.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, the last light of the day beginning to fade. The stars above would soon be clear, ready to offer guidance, as they always had. The weather was chill, and in the beauty of night, the world felt more calm and still than it ever had before. Somewhere in the darkness, there was an answer to that elusive question.

Who are you, Arueshalae?

[mystical-sleepy-musings]

ICELUS/PHOBETOR/EPIALES

Onerioi of Nightmares

Somber Icelus

With your nocturnal tribulation

Shadowy beasts bring terror

With a feather

Clasped in your hands

You whisper

"Herefore lies within me"

"The shadow of myself"

Gifting the one who he cares for so

Visions of truth and understanding

He cradles them in his arms

Safe from all negative emotions

Loving them

Protecting them

Straddling the line between fear and ferver

He coaxes them with a gentle hand

They take his call into the wafting shadows

He is the primal instincts

Left to be buried

But now

They arise from the depths of being

Living amongst our subconscious

Icelus

The Shadowy One

The Giver of Trials

The Bearer of Omens

My dear Icelus

This is my poem for you

|Confusing names|

Epiales is his Greek name (considering I got a lot of flack for saying Icelus is a separate deity from Epiales I'm just going to see them as the same because the first mention of Icelus/Phobetor's name was in a Roman writing "Metamorphosis" by Ovid. So technically, he is Roman but was still around in Hellenistic Paganism as Epiales in spg(possibly upg* but not sure tbh). But he prefers the name Icelus in my own personal experience so I am going to call him that

|My Experience|(*UPG)

*The freakazoid crazy but lovable uncle going through a midlife crisis. He is known to show up in dreams as beasts and animals. So I took meltonin, which apparently gave me night terrors, but I needed to see Icelus/Phobetor, so I had a dream, and this pale skinned, dark eyed being appeared in my dream . It was not Morpheus taking on the form of Dream of The Endless cause he had a fancy headdress with a red jewel in the center and long black hair with black lipstick and a sinister smirk. He was in all black but didn't know what exactly he was wearing since it was just his head and shoulders. But I knew who it was... Icelus. So apparently, he was the giving me the night terrors, not the meltonin cause the dream was calm and not as chaotic as usual when I take meltonin. I think Morpheus kept his word and kept his rowdy brother in check, so he had no choice but to stay in the form that he usually takes . It wasn't a beast it was him in his (human like(?)) Form . I think his true form is something so terrifying that mere mortals die or go insane from upon seeing it. He is rough around the edges(he has a mouth like a sailor) but is actually sweet....in his own way. Usually, he teases Morpheus (or me sometimes) to make me laugh, especially when I'm feeling upset. But he guides by bringing tribulations to help you get stronger and to bring you closer to understanding.

He has a wild flamboyant personality, which is a complete contrast to me and Morpheus who are more quiet and introverted. He is a major troll to me sometimes cause when I asked him for a sign, he acted like he didn't want to, but then a couple of days later, he sent a brown recluse spider. Icelus, compared to Morpheus dresses, very elegantly. He is usually seen in suits or elaborate robes with 6 horned headdresses with a red jewel crowning his forehead, but sometimes he opts for a simpler but still bedazzled headdress. Icelus used to have long waist length black hair but lopped it off when he saw Papa Emeritus 3 of the band Ghost. Those three markings under each of his eyes....well....they are eyes as well. This makes sense to me since he likes spiders and spiders instill fear in many people . Icelus has fangs, of course, but his wingspan is significantly shorter than Morpheus's since yes, he is shorter than his brother but still a bit taller than me by a couple of inches He is the youngest out of the three named Oneiroi

|Associations|

*Note that this is UPG*

Animals

Ravens and Crows

Nocturnal rodents like raccoons and Possums

Spiders(To me, his main animal he associates with)

Just creepy crawlies in general. The more legs, the better!

Earthworms

Bats

Snakes

Dragons and Monsters

Black colored animals(how he appears to me in dreams)

He is known for appearing as beasts and animals in dreams, so yeah, he loves a lot of animals

Colors

Red

Black

White

Maroon

Silver

Green

Misc Objects

Feathers

Skulls and skeletons

Gothic decorations

Bug and creepy crawlies decorations or toys

Anything Halloween or spooky

Anything related to Beetlejuice or the band Ghost

Also, he loves memes and cursed images

Sweets like chocolate and cookies

Jewelry (with gothic designs )

Planet

Uranus(he picked it, not me)

😏

Music

Heavy metal

Dark vaudeville/Circus music

Anything that is annoying to his brother Morpheus

Rap

Meme songs

Dubstep

Musicals

Ballads(only a few so far)

He loves Shanklin Freak Show , Ghost , Skrillex , Marilyn Manson ,

Tarot card

The Tower

Crystals

Black tourmaline

Onyx

Obsidian

Red colored gems

Herbs and flowers

Mugwort

Roses

"Anything that bites back" is what he told me

Poppies

|Working and worship|

Icelus tends to like dark spaces, which I learned by Clairsentience he likes to lurk in an unused bathroom in my dorm or currently in my apartment bathroom, laundry room or closet, so I tend to keep the light off in those area's. And whenever I turn on the light, my clairaudience picks up on him hissing. So keep that in mind when it comes to altar placement. Also, he is very good for shadow work and inner child work. He teaches me how to laugh and have a sense of humor since I'm usually very serious. He can be vulgar and rude at times, so keep that in mind . Icelus can be brutal at times, but through tribulations, he brings you to understanding. When it comes to banishing bad spirits, he will tear them apart, lol. Ie he very good at that!

Also bonus:

Icelus, to me, sounds like Alex Brightman as Beetlejuice from the musical . Imagining Icelus doing and singing "The Whole Being Dead Thing" makes it even funnier cause it's not hard tbh

This gif reminds me of Icelus

[brooklynislandgirl]

Even blind-folded Beth would recognise that smile, almost hear it in her own way, absolutely feel it miles away. It's the smile that holds things back, the words and ideas that Peter isn't sure he can say aloud and make any sense, or worse, the ones that he knows will cause someone to feel hurt or disappointed. It's therefore crucial that she pays attention to the ones that do come out so that she can hear them correctly and be able to parse out later. She nods. Oh she understands, all right, and she could add a few other things to that imbalance. Peter might think magick is cool in stories, but does he know that just knowing she could cast spells meant she was tempting the universe to punish her for it? The fact that she is a witch, and Andy, too? That's a secret she's never tried to burden him with. How could she? "Yeah. Get dat." She stops herself at just that. It isn't really the right time to interject and it feels like this pause is significant, as if he's casting around to find the place that he can draw the strength or comfort to tell her, or tell her the aftermath of some secret he has already shared. It feels more uncomfortable than drying sand trapped inside of your rash-guard, though she can't put her finger quite on it. Maybe because he's caressing all of her without a single touch. And then it all comes out, swallowing her like a barrel that's broken over her head and she can't out surf it.

Of course something happened to him. There are still moments that she wakes up and thinks about inviting Uncle Ben to lunch or some other silly thing because he's easier to talk to than Andy. And if she's honest, her brother, Peter, and his uncle are really the only friends she's got. And then she remembers some vicious and frightened animal robbed the world of Ben Parker. No one mourns him more than Peter. Maybe not even Auntie May. She cannot imagine what it would be like to carry around the pain and guilt the way he does, so of course he's changed. She doesn't think she'd survive it if anything happened to Andy. Absently, she makes the Sign of the Cross for even thinking about such a thing. She doesn't say that he hasn't lost her. He hasn't, but maybe she hasn't been as good a friend as she could have been. Not when the shadow of Gwen Stacy has overcast their friendship. She's always known that Peter couldn't be hers forever. That some day their lives would diverge like a Robert Frost poem. She just thought that maybe there'd be more time. But then again, there's got to be something she's not just wishfully overthinking here, if he's come to her and not anyone else. It's almost too much to think that he's come to his senses and he finally realises all the things she's never been able to say to him. An idea that he murders at its inception when he tells her that he needs his best friend. And in that very second, she realises how very selfish she's being. Not a very good friend at all And just like that, she pushes away and down all of her own self-pity for the sake of the boy that's always tried to the same for her. She girds herself in her own imagined armour and gets ready to battle whatever demons have come up to muster on his emotional doorstep. It isn't exactly like she is a Koa warrior but she can maybe mend fences and give him some kind of peace of mind, and maybe that's all that Peter really needs right now. As their fingers brush, she turns her wrist and captures his digits between hers and her palm, silently offering him comfort and strength and maybe a bit of the affection she's held onto when he started dating, thinking maybe he didn't need it any more. Likewise, she offers him a sympathetic gaze and a soft but encouraging smile, one that is a little lop-sided as any of hers have ever been. After a moment, she lets go and instead slides her arm around his back so that her nails reach for his side, just above his hip. "Bes' good friend reporting, front and centre," she says with a gruff little tone, almost as though she were mocking Andy or teasing Peter, but she means it. "Anyt'ing you say in dis sanctum of secret kine stays between us, you have my word on dat. However, if it's somet'ing lame? I reserve da right t' make fun of you about it forever. Jus' need to put dat out dere."

@brooklynislandgirl (continued from here)

The things that Beth says make complete sense to Peter, and he minorly hates that they do. He's spent a long time trying to say them to himself until his complexion had, at varying times, found its way to both ends of the spectrum adorning the suit. She's not wrong. It ought to be as simple as she lays it out to be. Moreover, keeping a secret this big… in time, it would eat anybody alive.

He has an airtight reason keeping it from Aunt May. Nothing in the world will ever pry his jaws open to tell her what it is. He's seen the look in her eye every day since It Happened. How much she misses Uncle Ben. He's even seen those moments she's tried to hide, where she would glance up as if to call Ben's name or start talking like he was sitting right there.

No. There's no telling her, and there never will be.

He'd found a way to tell Gwen… without really saying it out loud. And why was that? Why had he been so desperate to tell her, when her father was the chief of police? It had put Gwen into an absolutely impossible position. It hadn't been fair of him to put that on her shoulders.

Her father's dying wish had been for Peter to stay away from Gwen. To keep her out of his superhero antics. And ever since that moment, he's been trying. All summer long, he's steered clear of her and her family. But that was never going to take the pain of loss away from them… and Gwen still carries the burden of Peter's secret, when pain and anger could give her every reason she needs to out him to the world.

Knowing who and what he is hadn't been the cause of Captain Stacy's death. But being who and what he is… that's most surely the cause of his separation from Gwen now.

His lips tremble up into a half-smile. "You know what the problem with asking someone to keep a secret is… is that, before you tell it to them, they can't understand how important it is. And after you tell them, they don't have the option to not know it. There's no taking it back. There's just… living with it."

His eyes cast about the interior of the blanket fort, peering at each detail in turn but never fully settling on any of them, as though he might be able to find an answer to his own question amongst her treasures. It's a disparate array, items to please the eye, soothe the touch, and enchant the soul. Articles that speak to her past and her future, her penchant for fantastical whimsy and her aptitude for bio-science.

They're both surrounded by all the things that she adores, finds comfort and safety in. And Peter knows better than to deny that he himself is one of those things… and as he peers through that lens, as his eyes settle on Beth's face and he sees a war of hope versus dread in her eyes… his heart aches. He's let her down in so many ways she doesn't even know, by not being honest with her.

Some best friend he is.

His eyes drift shut and his brow wrinkles.

The dam cracks. Words seep through like water.

"Something happened to me. And, uh… one way or another, I've been losing people I care about ever since. I wanna be honest with you." He swallows. "I'm… I'm just afraid I'm gonna lose you, too."

He pours all of his effort into releasing his death grip on his bottle, and shifts his hand to brush his fingertips across her knuckles. When they were smaller kids, they'd held hands frequently. Nowadays, it has a different connotation, and he doesn't want her to get the wrong impression… but maybe, he thinks, maybe it'll allow them both to recall their inseparability of those days. The strength of their friendship.

"And I really need my best friend."

[devildom-tyrant]

Maybe some valentine HC of the brothers getting a present from MC? What would they really want from them?

Lucifer

He’s someone that doesn’t have much of a gift preference, as long as there’s thought behind it.  He wants it to be selected specifically for him.  He doesn’t want a generic gift.

So, you get Lucifer a decanter for his Demonus shaped like a skull – and a box of poisoned chocolates that are also in the same shape.  You’d heard him mention the need for a new decanter in passing, and it had been a little detail you’d kept in mind.  

“I figured it would go with the rest of the skeletons in your rooms,” you joke, grinning over at him while he chuckles.

“At least I no longer have skeletons in my closet… or attic.”  He stands, moving to the bottle of Demonus.  “Shall we have a drink to commemorate the evening?”

He’s offering you some of his incredibly rare, vintage Demonus?  “It might be wasted on me,” you hedge, tempted as you are.  “I drank with Asmo, but it didn’t really affect me.  Maybe I have a high tolerance?”

His gaze is mirthful.  “Then perhaps you won’t mind trying a drinking contest with me?”

…..

……… He wins.

Mammon

He’d want something personalized; if it can’t just be bought in stores, it’s worth more!  Plus he really wants to know you were thinking about him it’s cooler than a store-bought gift.  

You give him a custom wallet, with “First Man” engraved in the leather.  

“… Ya got me this?  I…”  His voice starts to hitch a little, so he clears his throat and slings an arm around you, pulling you against him for a hug.  “Damn right, I’m first.  Better not forget it!”

He wears his sunglasses during the movie you pick out, but that’s because he doesn’t want you to see him cry.  Periodically, he’ll pull out the wallet, opening and closing it, and just looking at it, even though it has practically no Grimm in it.

You also get him chocolate, but Beel eats most of it while Mammon’s screaming at him about how he’s already got his own and these are his special chocolates!

Levi

He wants something otaku-related.  Ruri-chan figures, the latest game, something TSL limited edition, a doujinshi from his fav artist… You’ve got a huge pool of interests to pick from.

In the end, you stood in line and bought chances to win a limited edition figure of Ruri holding a box of chocolates out with a flustered look on her face.  It looks like she’s confessing her feelings to someone.  You didn’t win it, but you were able to buy it from Mammon (who has crazy luck and didn’t even realize he was entering – again) for double its value.  When you give it to Levi, he’s speechless… and then, his excitement ramps up, and his hands begin to shake.  “I… I can’t… I can’t believe it!!  You ACTUALLY got the limited edition figure?!  I wanted to be there so bad, but it was the same day as the concert, and I felt like I was betraying Ruri-chan, but you– you had my back!”

Levi hugs you tight and spins you around.  It’s rare that you get to see him look so happy.  “You’re the best!  For real!  Like, you must be some sort of angel!”

You also get him bath bombs with figurines from Mononoke Land in them.  When he looks confused, you grin and tell him, “For your bed.”

Yeah, it doesn’t get old teasing him about his bathtub bed. 

Satan

He’s an easy one; you give him a present, and he can tell it’s a book.  It’s exactly what he wanted, and he’s hoping it’s one from the human world.  Maybe he’ll get a glimpse of one of your favorites?  He’s interested to see what kind of book you specifically picked out for him, but when he opens it, he finds a book with lined pages… that are all handwritten.  

You’ve made him a book, some of the pages poems, some of them little stories (with a devilishly handsome blond protagonist), some of them just positive affirmations you feel he needs to hear.  He stares at it for so long that you begin to feel self-conscious, your face heating up.

“I, uh, got you a box of chocolates, too.  Here –”  You move to get the chocolate, but he grabs your wrist, and stares at you with that same intensity, as if trying to figure something out.  

“Why would you go through this much trouble for a gift?”

You swallow, trying to play it off with a lop-sided smile and a half-shrug.  “Because it’s you.”

He pulls you in for what you think is going to be a hug – but it’s actually a deep kiss.  

Asmo

When it comes to Asmo, he wants anything that’s centered on keeping him beautiful -- usually.  But Valentine’s is all about love!  What he really wants is something Valentine’s-specific... but from you.

You get him a giant stuffed dog with a single spot on its eye, holding a heart in its mouth that says “You’ve got a spot in my heart”, and a coupon book for things like “1 free massage” and “1 free cuddle.”  

He loves both of them immediately.  

“Aww, this is so sweet!  I mean, I get things like this all the time from admirers -- my room would be full of roses and chocolate if I kept all of them here! -- but when I get something like this from you...”

His boasting fades, and the tone in his voice becomes more serious.  He’s staring into your eyes, but it isn’t like the times he’s tried to use his power on you.  No, it’s like he’s trying to figure something out.

“... Well, it’s different.  It makes my heart skip a beat, when the others... don’t.”  He shakes his head, hugging the dog, and then moving to wrap his arms around you, pulling you in close.  “You’re special to me, you know.  And...”  His tone turns mischievous, and he pulls back to grab the coupon book.  “I’m using this coupon for a free massage right now!  I have a new lotion I want to try out, and if you want your gift... I’ll give you a massage after that will leave your entire body weak.”  

He winks, but who are you kidding?  You’re already weak just thinking about it.  

Beel

He definitely wants food, and you don’t disappoint.  You enlist Luke’s help to learn how to bake a cake and some chocolates using ingredients from the Celestial Realm.  You have to do it at Purgatory Hall so Beel won’t notice and eat it all before they’re done.  

Beel is touched that you made them for him, though he’s skeptical at first.  After all, your cooking at the retreat wasn’t... edible, even for him.  The icing on your cake is lop-sided, but heart you drew in the middle isn’t bad.

 “.... You made this?”

“I got some help, but yeah.  Try it out.”

“I almost don’t want to ruin it, though.”  His stomach growls.  “Well, almost.”   He cuts off a rather large piece, trying not to destroy the heart, and after one bite... his face lights up.  “This...!  This is really good!  Thank you!”  He pulls you against his chest in a hug, but doesn’t stop eating while his arms are around you.  

He’s absolutely beaming.

Belphie 

Valentine’s Day isn’t super important to Belphie; he hasn’t thought about it in centuries.  However, the moment you hand him a gift bag with a smile, he realizes what kind of gift he wants:

Anything given to him by you.

You’ve gotten him a cow-print, electric heated blanket and a heart-shaped pillow to go with the V-day theme.  His brows raise, and he grins, laughing.  “This is too perfect.  It goes with my usual pillow.”  He immediately plugs the blanket up and turns it on.  “I got you something, too.”

Suddenly, he lies back on his bed and lifts up the corner of his new blanket.  “A nice nap with a warm blanket, just us, no interruptions.”  His smile suddenly shifts to a smirk.  “After all... you got me a blanket that’s big enough for two.  I bet we could even fit Beel in here and make a cuddle sandwich.”

Yeah, you’re game for that.  

[aeondeug]

Irish mythyrath Jame must rules lawyer her way through all 5000 of her various geasa. Death’s-head meanwhile is trying to rules lawyer around his own that keeps him from killing Jame outright himself by being a little fuck that just kind of so happens to do a thing that maybe just kind of made Jame get herself killed. It is a delicate dance of cosmic laws and taboos. Macha glares at Jame and hopes to fuck she falls first.

Ashe is a fili that wanders the hills and gives strange judgements. People find her horribly eerie but they must respect her due to her position Or Else. She’s said to have half herself in Otherworld at all times. She’s blind in one eye, one of her hands is too scarred to be of use, and she seems to be piling up more and more of these injuries as the days go by. Which each new one she seems to speak less and less like someone from our world and seems to see less and less of our world. Her poems are quite accurate though, as a result.

There are tales that in the Cave of Cats there are large wild cats that know the laws better than any man. They can speak with the voices of people and sing beautiful songs that reveal the future and pronounce the fates of the unjust. Sometimes they take that justice into their own hands.

The Ard Rí slew his unjust father in a war. He lopped off his head after a tryst at the riverbank with Jame. While Tori killed Ganth, Jame was out in the field single handedly fending off an entire host. Her warp spasms were so great and so horrifying to behold that even her companions dropped to their knees and wet their pants in terror. But through this the unjust rule of the Mad King Ganth was brought to an end. The King Caldane of the neighboring Caineron questions the validity of this new Ard Rí but he’s yet to make his official move on the crown. Especially after the Lia Fáil screamed upon Tori’s touch. The Ard Rí must be scarred first.

Brenwyr is an infamous bancháinti and she is credited as having kept the Brandan lands safe. Many talk behind her back though and tell tales of how she slew both her mother and her lover with satires. Some say they came during madnesses, other say they were intended by her and that the Brandan woman can’t be trusted. Either way few have any desire to invade the lands directly lest they incur her wrath. A rare few will seek her out for aid and a rarer few will receive her aid. Those who have can at least report that her curses are successful, though most would rather not speak with her again.

Some tell tales also of Brenwyr’s dead lover. That she’s come back in the body of one of the Fair Folk, and that you can see her at night. Her voice carries far over the winds, people say, and the bancháinti is said to go an meet with her. What they talk about varies and some just think Brenwyr’s mad from grief and talks to the air for no reason. At least some of those that accuse her of madness are said to have had run-ins with a prankster of a young girl; one with a smile like the sun who anyone would want to be friends with.

There are packs of wolves that turn into men and which always have the voices of men. Several are good friends of the Ard Rí, it’s said. In particular his best friend and court poet is said to be a wolf. No one’s been able to prove it of Grimly yet, but many suspect it. And they’re right to do so. This friendship helps keep Tori’s lands safe from the wolf packs, though. There are also tales that the wolves are teaching their arts to the Ard Rí.

[dfroza]

Today’s reading from the ancient book of Proverbs and book of Psalms

for September 21 of 2021 with Proverbs 21 and Psalm 21, accompanied by Psalm 94 for the 94th and last day of Astronomical Summer and Psalm 114 for day 264 of the year (now with the consummate book of 150 Psalms in its 2nd revolution this year)

[Proverbs 21]

The king’s heart is like a channel of water directed by the Eternal:

He chooses which way He bends it.

Everyone may think his own way of living is right,

but the Eternal examines our hearts.

To do what is right and to seek justice—

these please Him more than sacrifice.

The lamp of the wicked lights his way;

a proud look, an arrogant heart—all sin.

A well-thought-out plan will work to your advantage,

but hasty actions will cost you dearly.

The fortune made by a swindler

is a fast-burning fog and a recipe for death.

Wicked people will be swept up in their own violence

because they refuse to seek justice.

Dishonest people walk along the crooked path they have made,

but the innocent travel the straight course they have laid.

It is better to dwell outside on the corner of your roof

than to live inside your house with a badgering wife.

Wicked people delight in doing bad things;

their neighbors never see even a hint of compassion.

A naive person wises up when he sees a mocker punished.

A wise person becomes even wiser just by being instructed.

The right-living understands how evildoers operate;

he subverts them and ruins their plans.

If you ignore the groans of the poor,

one day your own cries for help will go unanswered.

A gift given in secret soothes anger,

and a present offered privately calms fierce rage.

When justice is done, those who are in the right celebrate,

but those who make trouble are terrified.

People who wander from the way of wise living

will lie down in the company of corpses.

Those who live to party, who pursue pleasure, will end up penniless;

those who enjoy lots of wine and rich food will never have money.

The wicked become a ransom for those who live right,

and the faithless pay the penalty for their treachery against the upright.

You would be better off living in the middle of the desert

than with an angry and argumentative wife.

The wise have a generous supply of fine food and oil in their homes,

but fools are wasteful, consuming every last drop.

Whoever pursues justice and treats others with kindness

discovers true life marked by integrity and respect.

One wise person can rise against a city of mighty men

and cause the citadel they trust to collapse.

Guard your words, mind what you say,

and you will keep yourself out of trouble.

The name “mocker” applies to one who is proud and pompous

because he is defiantly arrogant.

What slackers crave will surely kill them

because they refuse to work.

All day, every day the greedy want more,

while those who live right give generously.

The offerings of wrongdoers are despicable to God;

it’s even worse when they bring them with evil motives.

The testimony of a false witness is eventually impeached,

but the person who truly listens will have the last word.

The wicked wears a defiant face,

but the right-living plans his path.

No one is wise enough or smart enough,

and no plan is good enough to stand up to the Eternal.

No matter how well you arm for battle,

victory is determined by Him.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 21 (The Voice)

[Psalm 21]

For the worship leader. A song of David.

The king is glad because You, O Eternal, are strong.

In light of Your salvation, he is singing Your name.

You have given him all he could wish for.

After hearing his prayer, You withheld nothing.

[pause]

True blessings You lavished upon the king;

a crown of precious gold You placed upon his head.

His prayer was to live fully. You responded with even more—

a never-ending life to enjoy.

With Your help, his fame and glory have grown;

You raise him high and cover him in majesty.

You shower him with blessings that last forever;

he finds joy in knowing Your presence and loving You.

For the king puts his trust in the Eternal,

so he will not be shaken

because of the persistent love of the Most High God.

King, your hand will reach for all your enemies;

your right hand will seize all who hate you.

When you arrive at the battle’s edge,

you will seem to them a furnace.

For the fire of the Eternal’s anger, the heat of His wrath

will burn and consume them.

You will cut off their children,

lop off the branches of their family tree.

The earth will never know them,

nor will they ever be numbered among Adam’s kin.

When they scheme against you,

when they conspire their mischief, such efforts will be in vain.

At the sight of you, they will sound the retreat;

your bows, drawn back, will aim directly at their faces.

Put Your strength, Eternal One, on display for all to see;

we will sing and make music of Your mighty power.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 21 (The Voice)

[Psalm 94]

God of Vengeance

A Wednesday song composed by King David

Lord God Almighty, you are the God

who takes vengeance on your enemies.

It’s time for you to punish evil!

Let your rays of revelation-light shine from your people and

pierce the conscience of the wicked and punish them.

It’s time to arise as judge of all the earth;

arise to punish the proud with the penalty they deserve!

How much longer will you sit back and watch the wicked

triumph in their evil, boasting in all that is wrong?

Listen to them bragging among themselves,

big in their own eyes, all because of the crimes

they’ve committed against your people!

See how they’re crushing those who love you, God,

cruelly oppressing those who belong to you.

Heartlessly they murder the widows, the foreigners,

and even the orphaned children.

They say to themselves, “The Lord God doesn’t see this.

Their God, the God of Jacob, he doesn’t even care!”

But you’d better watch out, you stupid fools!

You’d better wise up! Why would you act like God doesn’t exist?

Do you really think that God can’t hear their cries?

God isn’t hard of hearing; he’ll hear all their cries.

God isn’t blind. He who made the eye has superb vision,

and he’s watching all you do.

Won’t the God who knows all things know what you’ve done?

The God who punishes nations will surely punish you!

The Lord has fully examined every thought of man

and found them all to be empty and futile.

Lord Yah, there’s such a blessing that comes

when you teach us your Word and your ways.

Even the sting of your correction can be sweet.

It rescues us from our days of trouble

until you are ready to punish the wicked.

For the Lord will never walk away from his cherished ones,

nor would he forsake his chosen ones who belong to him.

Whenever you pronounce judgments, they reveal righteousness.

All your devoted lovers will be pleased.

Lord, who will protect me from these wicked ones?

If you don’t stand to defend me, who will? I have no one but you!

I would have been killed so many times

if you had not been there for me.

When I screamed out, “Lord, I’m doomed!”

your fiery love was stirred, and you raced to my rescue.

Whenever my busy thoughts were out of control,

the soothing comfort of your presence

calmed me down and overwhelmed me with delight.

It’s obvious to all; you will have nothing to do

with corrupt rulers who pass laws that empower evil

and defeat what is right.

For they gang up against the lovers of righteousness

and condemn the innocent to death.

But I know that all their evil plans will boomerang back onto them.

Every plot they hatch will simply seal their own doom.

For you, my God, you will destroy them,

giving them what they deserve.

For you are my true tower of strength,

my safe place, my hideout, and my true shelter.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 94 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 114]

A Song for Passover

Many years ago the Jewish people escaped Egypt’s tyranny,

so that Israel, God’s people of praise,

would become his holy sanctuary,

his kingdom on the earth.

The Red Sea waters saw them coming and ran the other way!

Then later, the Jordan River too

moved aside so that they could all pass through.

The land shuddered with fear.

Mountains and hills shook with dread.

O sea, what happened to you to make you flee?

O Jordan, what was it that made you turn and run?

O mountains, what frightened you so?

And you hills, what made you shiver?

Tremble, O earth, for you are in the presence of the Lord,

the presence of the God of Jacob.

He splits open boulders and brings up bubbling water.

Gushing streams burst forth when he is near!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 114 (The Passion Translation)

[aion-rsa]

The Green Knight Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/3ig4m5i

This article contains The Green Knight spoilers.

A man who would be king lies crouched, cowering on his hands and knees. It is the day he’s feared all year and, seemingly, the hour of his death. And yet, within this moment, after he’s seen his life flash before his eyes, Dev Patel’s Gawain has never appeared taller or more free from the terror of self-doubt. The character is still not technically a knight, but as he throws away a magical green sash and asks his executioner, a Green Knight made of bark and flower, to do his worst, Gawain truly has achieved the greatness he’s striven for in King Arthur’s shadow.

This is why Ralph Ineson’s imposing emerald warrior leans down and whispers like a kindly grandfather his approval. That’ll do, Gawain, that’ll do. “Now little knight,” he adds, “off with your head.”

I’m sure that jarring and abrupt final line has left many an audience shocked and maybe even a bit confused. After all that, did the vision Gawain had of himself assuming Arthur’s throne come to naught? And did the flawed hero we’ve watched for two hours only achieve true chivalric virtue in the same minute as his death, which the Green Knight promises is about to occur off-screen? Also why did any of this happen?

There is much to unpack about David Lowery’s poignant and often surreal interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but there is sound reason for why the absolute happiest ending for poor Gawain is the one that concludes with his swift decapitation.

The Ending of the Original Green Knight Poem

Perhaps the most striking thing about the ending of The Green Knight is how it both complements and changes the resolution of the 14th century epic poem upon which it’s based. Tackling a ballad that profoundly affected him when he first read it as a teenager, and even more so when he chose it to be the template for a film, Lowery is unsurprisingly close to many of the smallest details in the 800-year-old story.

For instance, the first line of dialogue spoken by a character in the film—when Alicia Vikander’s Essel says “Praise the Lord, Jesus Christ was born”—is taken from how the anonymous author describes Gawain’s first thoughts every morning he’s awakened. However, in Lowery’s The Green Knight, that awakening occurs on the actual Christmas morning and the person who speaks the words to Gawain is a prostitute whom he spent Christmas Eve with. It’s hardly an auspicious time to be talking about Christ, but then again, Essel is arguably the most virtuous character in the film due to her guileless practicality. 

Such is one example of how the film follows the plot of the poem while adding often challenging context and subtext to its medieval values. Which in the film’s climax comes when we meet Vikander again in the role of a different character: the Lady of a manor married to a jovial Lord played by Joel Edgerton. They live in high Middle Ages luxury with an unexplained older woman who is apparently blind and mute, and they ensnare Gawain into an odd game: Edgerton’s Lord will gift any animal he kills in his hunts during the day, and Gawain will share with his Lord any gift he might receive in the house. When that gift comes in the unexpected form of seduction from the Lord’s wife, Gawain is forced to reluctantly kiss his host on the lips, all while still hiding that he received an allegedly magical green girdle as a present from her.

These events all occur in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, however they occur with a different meaning here. On the page, Gawain is able to resist the Lady’s advances on three separate occasions, as opposed to instantly capitulating on-screen. And while he proudly kisses his Lord on the mouth in the poem, he still hides that the Lady gave him a magical sash which will keep him safe from the Green Knight’s axe. This becomes crucial at the end of the poem since when Gawain encounters the Green Knight again in the Green Chapel, his grassy-hued foe reveals he’s the same Lord of the manor played by Edgerton in The Green Knight!

As it turns out, the Lord was turned by magic into the indestructible Green Knight by Morgan le Fay, King Arthur’s half-sister who also via magic disguised herself as the old blind woman living in that strange manor. Further, this entire charade was never meant for Gawain; it was orchestrated in the hopes of a king’s man beheading the Green Knight, who would then not die. It’d be such a shocking sight, Morgan thought, it would scare Queen Guinevere to death.

In 14th century Arthurian lore, Morgan le Fay was not yet the chief antagonist of the tales, but she was still an ambiguous presence. Gawain’s journey into learning that even for all his virtue he was still fallible since he hid the green sash from the Lord is almost narrative happenstance.

That is how Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ended in the 14th century. But is that actually what’s occurring at the end of the 2021 movie, with the Lord and Lady in league with an unseen Morgan le Fay? Yes… and no.

The Game Being Played By Gawain’s Mother

While the ending of The Green Knight’s source material reveals the titular character is Edgerton’s Lord in disguise, that’s obviously not what Lowery’s film is about. Indeed, we see how the Green Knight is summoned by Gawain’s unnamed mother in the film, risen from the weeds of the earth as if he were the pagan deity we call “the Green Man” made flesh.

There is definitely a pagan witchiness to the woman played by Sarita Choudhury. She openly refuses to go to her kingly brother’s Christmas Day feast and instead uses Wiccan-like magic to summon a champion born from nature. We know she is in league with the Green Knight, but it is not immediately clear to what end. All that’s evident is when she hides beneath a blindfold, she is at the Camelot feast in spirit when the Green Knight intrudes.

In Arthurian lore, Gawain’s mother is named Morgause, and she is one of Arthur’s several estranged half-sisters. In fact, before the sorceress Morgan le Fay was depicted by post-19th century texts as the ultimate villain of Arthurian tales, even birthing Arthur’s would-be usurper Mordred, it was Morgause who gave birth to both Gawain and Mordred in Le Morte d’Arthur, the latter by incest after sleeping with her half-brother Arthur.

When we spoke with writer-director Lowery about The Green Knight, we asked if he intentionally blended the Morgan le Fay of the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tale with Gawain’s mother.

Says Lowery, “Very pointedly we did not give any of the characters, other than Gawain, Essel, and Winifred, a name. No one is named. King Arthur is just ‘the King.’ Merlin is just ‘the Wizard.’ So Morgan le Fay in our story is Gawain’s mother. And we wanted to embrace what the original poem did, which was have Morgan le Fay be the character who is behind it all, but I wanted to make her aim, her plot integral to Gawain’s journey.”

He continues, “In the original poem, Gawain sort of just accidentally intercepts this devious plot to scare Guinevere to death, and he gets in the way. But he was not meant to play a role in what Morgan le Fay was conjuring that day, that Christmas morning. So I wanted to honor her role in the story but also make it still revolve around Gawain. And the way I ultimately realized I could do that was to combine the character of Gawain’s mother with Morgan Le Fay and make them one and the same.”

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The alteration also changes why the Green Knight came to Camelot that day, as well as what the green sash really means for Gawain. In the original text, it really did not matter who attempted to behead the Knight in the Yuletide game, but in The Green Knight, Gawain taking the challenge may or may not be the entire crux of his mother’s plan.

While it is open to interpretation, I think the Green Knight was personally intended for Sean Harris’ enfeebled King Arthur, who is the only man at the Round Table eager to meet the challenge. He’d have done it too, if not for the weakness in his hands (also a change from the original story). So there’s a scenario that could’ve occurred where Arthur beheaded the Green Knight and then was doomed to spend a year getting his affairs in order before meeting the foe again next Christmas.

However, there is the other added wrinkle in the movie that the Green Knight gives Gawain an out. He explicitly says that it’s Gawain’s choice to strike him as hard as he wishes or to leave but a scratch. Arthur cautions his nephew to remember “it’s just a game,” and Guinevere is clearly heartbroken when Gawain lops the Green Knight’s head clean off. The royals knew that was the losing strategy.

I would argue, then, that is why Choudhury’s Morgan gives her son his first green sash. She intends for her son to be king, just as how modern interpretations of Morgan le Fay have her angling for Mordred to usurp Arthur. (It should also be noted The Green Knight implies Mordred exists in this film’s universe since Arthur asks Gawain to take an empty chair next to him, intended for another who’s left.)

Who Is Alicia Vikander’s Lady of the Manor?

The green sash is supposed to be Gawain’s salvation, which brings us back to Vikander and Edgerton’s Lord and Lady. By the time that Gawain reaches their home, he has lost the girdle, and much of his integrity, while on the quest. Ergo, the house’s waiting occupants are there to tempt Gawain’s virtue, as opposed to test it.

As Lowery says, Morgan le Fay has much the same function here as she does in the original story, and that includes her being the mastermind disguised as a frail old woman. Consider that the blind woman Gawain always sees in the presence of Vikander’s Lady wears the exact type of blindfold Gawain’s mother wore while summoning the Green Knight. She is there to ensure her son receives a second green girdle that will have magical properties to keep him safe.

Which brings us to the actual seduction. In the text, Vikander’s Lady is there to test Gawain’s virtue. On the screen, she is determined to shatter it, hence the curious dual casting of Vikander as both Essel, the prostitute who Gawain maybe loves, and the courtly Lady who so easily dissuades him of his concerns about coveting another man’s wife.

A surface level reading might be about the limited ability Gawain has to adhere to the Chivalric Code, in which men strive to be noble and all women are reduced to wilting flowers and possessions for their lordly masters. In this sense, all women look somewhat the same to Gawain. Indeed, such assumptions are repeatedly challenged on screen as he’s bested by multiple women, beginning with the pair of thieves who actually capture him and steal his first green sash, and now again by the woman who gives him another sash by appealing to his lustful desires.

But such a reading misses the larger themes at work, as well as the implicit magic at play in Vikander and Edgerton’s home. Their castle is more than just a refuge, and her Lady is more than just a seductress. In the scene where she climbs atop Gawain, she only breaks his (meek) protestations by asking if he believes in witchcraft and magic. Like any good man of the Middle Ages, he says of course.

Only when she mentions magic and offers a green sash like Gawain’s witchy mother did, does Gawain abandon any pretense of virtue, succumbing to the lady’s beauty and her magic. He is surrendering to a fear of death as much as lust, knowing on a primal level if he gives in to her, the magic she promises will save his life from the Green Knight’s blade.

This entire house was designed by his mother and her coven as a trap to seduce and protect Gawain via his foibles. If you pay attention early on in the film, one of the nameless weird “sisters” who help Morgan summon the Green Knight has the same hairstyle Vikander does when Gawain first arrives at that house. As Gawain’s mother has taken on the countenance of an old blind woman, another witch (and possibly Gawain’s actual sister) has taken on the appearance of the woman Gawain loves but is too foolish to wed. He refuses to take Essel as a wife because of her lowly stature, yet allows himself to be beguiled by her face when it belongs to a highborn “Lady,” despite said Lady being another man’s wife.

Gawain’s mother wants her son to have the sash as it will keep him safe, and allow him to return to Camelot as a hero and true heir to Arthur. Which is why Gawain’s final decision is so significant.

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The End of Brave Sir Gawain

All of which brings us back to the Green Chapel and Gawain’s decision to confess he is wearing a magical green girdle—and to then throw it away. Moments before this, Gawain has a vision of what his life would be if he survived the Green Knight’s axe, either by magic or cowardice. He runs away and returns home, claiming to have survived his quest with honor.

In silent montage, we see what kind of honor playing political games and giving into ambition provides him. He becomes king and marries a woman he doesn’t love. Meanwhile, the woman he does love, Essel, is abandoned after Gawain steals their son from her. In the end, he lives a life of feigned honor, hidden behind the false security and protection the green sash gives him. Unlike his uncle, he does not offer Camelot a golden age: There is only death and ignominy from such a cautious self-serving path. And in 20 years’ time or so, he still will lose his head.

All of that flashes before Gawain’s eyes at the moment of his greatest fear: the Green Knight’s axe falling. Up to this point, he’s attempted to look as majestic as a knight (or king), but throughout the film he has failed time and again to be truly virtuous. He was taken by a band of ruffians in the wood where he begged for his life; he first requested payment from the ghost of a murdered girl instead of simply helping her find peace; and then he received the green sash through a moment of monstrous infidelity and carnal surrender.

As Vikander’s Lady says, red is the color of passion, and green the color of passion the morning after. His green sash represents both life and death, bloom and decay, and it’s stained with the literal seed of his sin. To wear it might allow him to cheat death today, but it instills a lifetime of cowardice. A stain on his honor.

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Likely his mother suspected second-guessing, which is why she also took the shape of a fox to warn her son that he may face his doom if he meets the Green Knight—we know the fox is really Morgan because in the animal’s final scene it speaks with the voice of Gawain’s mother.

So in the movie’s final moments, Gawain understands all of this, and the ignoble road his nature is leading him on, and he finds the courage his mother feared: He takes off the sash and faces the Green Knight’s axe fair and square.

This is the thematic crux of the original text, too. As Lowery tells us, “He ultimately fails [in the poem], Gawain does not live up to the Chivalric Code to which he’s bound. When he kneels before the knight with the girdle on, he is approaching his state with cowardice in his heart. So I wanted to take that fallibility and present a more binary version of it and have a character who is not yet the knight of legend but who has room to grow into that.”

And yet, Lowery has also changed the meaning of that ending, including Gawain’s fate. In the poem, Gawain does not tell the Green Knight he wears the sash (just as he hid it from the Lord), because he fears death in spite of all his virtue. In the film, Gawain is a man who spends Christmas morning in a brothel and has lived his whole life without real honor. But in the moment where it most counted, he became a true knight by taking the girdle off.

It is a complete reversal of the poem’s ending, turning this into a story about living in peace with yourself, as opposed to an impossible Code thrust on you by society. In many ways, it’s like Vikander’s Lady also saying she changes the stories she reads when she sees room for improvement—although Lowery tells us that line was not intended to be self-referential about how he adapted the poem.

“I knew I would get in trouble for it,” the director laughs. “I don’t know what was going through my head when I wrote that, but Alicia just fell in love with it.” He even almost cut the line in post-production until Vikander convinced him to keep it in.

Intentional or not, the Lady’s admission is what the entire ending of the movie is about. Gawain has found grace and true nobility, improving himself and his story. Unfortunately for Gawain, true chivalric virtue is no shield, and by finding it he’s also found his last act. Thus the Green Knight’s final line. “Now little knight, off with your head.”

If you can live with yourself, you can also die in peace. That’s chivalrous.

The post The Green Knight Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3BUNDwx

[darkhymns-fic]

Poetry Isn’t Your Strong Suit

Lloyd's feelings for Colette could no longer be denied, but how else could he express them to her than just through second-rate necklaces?  

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters/Pairings: Lloyd Irving/Colette Brunel, Genis Sage, Raine Sage Rating: G Mirror Links: AO3, FF.net Notes: Someone showed me a prompt and I ran with it.

Lloyd knew that he liked Colette ever since he was little, but it was only at thirteen years old that he was finally able to put his feelings for her into words.

Kind of.

Colette had sat at lunch alone when he first saw her, hair so bright that it reminded him of the polished metals his dad would use to craft. After that, his young mind then began to process other things; the way her voice lifted whenever she saw Noishe at the village entrance, how her white dress stood out in the classroom against the brown oak of the walls, and the day she held his hand when she brought him to her grandmother, hoping to share with him the baked cookies her family had made.

There were other girls in the class that he thought were also pretty, especially Professor Raine and her silver hair. But before he could join her fan club with the other boys, she had yelled at him loudly in front of everyone for sleeping during a lesson, and then gave him extra math assignments as punishment. The way she had shouted had been so frightening, which took away any pretty shine Lloyd once had for her.

Colette never shouted – sometimes she barely said a thing at all, and it took a few days for Lloyd to have her speak to him beyond simple polite greetings. After that, she would make faces at the math questions he showed her, and always marveled at the tiny little carvings he drew on the school desk (until Professor Raine found out and had him sit on the floor for the rest of that week). And when she smiled – when she really smiled, and not the kind she showed to adults from the Church or nodded with while in class – it made him happy. How her teeth would show, how it stretched her cheeks, and how bright her eyes would become, so much so that he tried to do all he could to keep them shining.

There would be many girls around with pretty hair, but no one smiled like Colette. On her last birthday, she had smiled so much, holding the necklace he made for her, shaped like an uneven star. It didn’t seem to matter to her that it wasn’t as good as the work his Dad would do. She had held it tightly between her fingers, and the feelings that he had been building for her in his chest, suddenly filled him to the point of overflowing. Something that made his heart beat fast, that nearly made him reach for her hands again until he held it back.

Lloyd wanted to tell her how he felt, but he was never very good at words, and…. he was afraid of saying so to her face. He then asked the smartest person he knew for help – his eight-year old best friend.

“You want to write what?” Genis asked. Both boys were seated before the small pond in front of Genis’ home. There was a tiny mound of pebbles placed between them, each trying their hand at skipping stones. Lloyd had the stronger arm to flick the stone straight past the pond’s perimeter, while Genis just lopped his own straight into the water.

“Just… like, a letter.” Lloyd didn’t look at Genis, keeping his eyes on the water and suddenly feeling very, very self-conscious about the whole thing. “For Colette. I want to write something for her. And I think I need your help doing it.”

He didn’t have to look to know Genis was frowning. “Sis says that your handwriting’s really bad.”

Lloyd started. “She’s not supposed to tell you that!”

“Sis tells me everything! And I’ve looked at your homework enough to know that already.” Genis continued their game, throwing another stone, once again smacking into the center of the pond. “I mean, I guess Colette might still be able to read it. What did you want to write her? Are you going away somewhere?”

“Um, no,” Lloyd said, confused. “Why?”

“People send letters to others when they’re far away, dummy. But you see Colette every day, so I don’t see why you need to? If you want to tell her something, just tell her!”

“I can’t… um…” Lloyd messed up his aim, the stone going off course to the left. “I can’t really say it out loud. Writing it just… seems easier... And you’re good at all that word stuff!”

A pause. “Just tell her you like her already.”

Lloyd’s stone hit right into the moss-covered fence, missing the pond completely. “How did you know?!” he asked, in awe of Genis’ insurmountable knowledge.

“Lloyd, after so long hanging out with you, how could I not know?” Genis finally succeeded in skipping a stone, hitting three splashes before it sunk. “Also, sis told me.”

Lloyd decided to be a little sulky at this, bringing his knees to his chin and staring ahead. “Jerk.”

Still, that was one hurdle overcome, and it gave the boy an opening that he took advantage of before it went away.

“You should just write my letter for me!”

“What?” Genis cried. “I’m not doing that!”

“Well, you owe it to me for being a jerk!”

“How was I a jerk?!”

Lloyd stood up, hand still clasping a pebble. “For saying my handwriting is dumb!”

Genis followed suit, his young face turning a light shade of red. “When did you ever care about that? And it’s true anyway! Besides, me writing your love letter for Colette is super weird!”

Lloyd stuttered out, “It- it’s not a love letter! And don’t say that so loud!”

“Oh, come on! Everyone already knows!”

“No, they don’t!” Lloyd countered, but struggled to think of a follow-up. It took him a full five seconds, fists clenched as he wracked his brain for something good to say. “And what do you know? You’re… only eight after all!”

Genis rolled his eyes. “That’s so lame.” With that, said eight-year old then turned around and lopped numerous pebbles into the lake, which shocked Lloyd to his core.

“That’s cheating! You can’t do that!”

“It’s my pond! So, it’s not!” Genis finished by crossing his arms, standing tall with a smug smile. That stance sparked a competitive beast within Lloyd, one that always seemed to come out whenever they played games together.

“Oh yeah?” He wound up his arm, aiming it at the pond again. “Check this out then!”

“Boys!” A shout reverberated from the house behind them. Raine had both hands on her hips, staring daggers at the children. “Please quiet down while I’m working. You two have been yelling the whole afternoon.”

Raine’s interruption was sudden. Her shout especially threw Lloyd off balance. Just when he was about to throw the stone, he wobbled and threw it at a completely opposite direction – toward Raine’s head.

“Ow! Lloyd!”

Lloyd had never run out of a place so fast.

Genis had come by his home the next day, lugging a giant textbook in his arms, and saying no words about his sister. He dropped it on Lloyd’s worktable, making the structure rattle from the weight. “That’s a thesaurus,” Genis said to Lloyd’s befuddled expression. “To help you find good words for your letter to Colette.”

Lloyd looked blankly at the book. “…Do I have to read all of it?”

“No, just find the page of the word you want to say, but better. It’s in alphabetical order.” Genis then raised an eyebrow. “You… do know your alphabet, right?”

“I’m not that dumb!”

“I’m just making sure!”

The book was as thick as one of his dad’s arms. Lloyd was wondering just how exactly Genis was able to make it through the long trek in the forest while carrying that around. He was good at magic, but shouldn’t he need at least one hand free to do any of that…?

Genis answered his unspoken question. “Sis came with me. She’s just outside.”

“Oh.” Lloyd grew nervous. “Um, is she…”

“She’s fine, though she’s got a nasty bump on her head.”

Lloyd was already not looking forward to Monday.

“Anyway, just use this so you can write your love letter to Colette. I even bookmarked the pages with the words you might want. Like ‘nice’, and ‘pretty’, and ‘the’…”

“I told you, it’s not a love letter!” That sounded so uncool! “But, um, thanks,” he said in a more somber tone.

Genis smirked. “Don’t think too hard on it anyway. I’d help, but Raine wants to try out a new recipe today and I have to make sure she doesn’t melt our cooking pot again.”

Lloyd had intense sympathies for his friend just then. “Sorry.”

Before Genis turned to go, he said, “If you really don’t like what you wrote, I guess I could try writing your letter for you. It’ll be really weird, but only if your letter is that bad. You’d have to rewrite it in your handwriting though. Colette would at least recognize that it wasn’t your writing for sure.”

Lloyd was tempted to jump at the chance. Since Genis let him copy his homework all the time, how was this any different? But then he thought about it, and about Colette’s smile. Is that something Genis would even notice?

“Thanks, Genis,” he said simply, still mulling over his thoughts, barely noticing when his friend finally left the room.

After that, Lloyd put all his willpower into just trying to open the humongous book. He immediately regretted this decision. He already had to write. Why did he need to read, too? Couldn’t he just copy one of those dumb love poems that the Professor made them read for literature class and be done with it?! Not that it was a love poem to begin with!

Lloyd sat at his desk, eyes glazing over the pages, idly noticing the bookmarks that Genis had placed. Why did he want to write this so bad? When he could barely write an essay to save his life, and his grade?

Colette had been so busy with her Church duties lately. She left class early to attend even more lessons, walking a far stretch of land to the temple. Despite how long Lloyd would wait for her, hours after school was already over, the sky would start to darken once she returned. So little time left together before he had to march back home with a whining Noishe. Colette would always apologize on those days, her hands unconsciously touching the necklace he made for her. If only he could have made a better one, if only he could say something that would make her magically stop apologizing and thinking everything was her fault.

He hoped that this letter would make her happy at least, if he couldn’t do all that. He wanted her to smile without fear, and he wanted her to cry whenever she wanted. There were tears in her eyes when he and Genis found her on her birthday, seated on the grass, away from the village. But she had wiped them away before they got close. Lloyd wondered how often she held those tears back. He wanted to tell her that she could cry in front of him if she needed to.

There were too many things that he wanted to say. He dug his fingers through his hair and pulled at them in frustration. “Argh, why does writing have to be hard?”

But like when he made her the necklace, he decided to push through. His skills may not be the best, but he could at least try! He searched for a piece of paper and pen, both so dusty from their lack of use. “Okay! I’ll do it!” he shouted to no one in particular.

It was the first time Lloyd ever pulled an all-nighter.

Lloyd could barely think straight the next morning.

The problem with getting little sleep was that it made his journey to Iselia a bit harder. Luckily, no monsters attacked him this time, and Noishe was more than willing to guide the boy. He was so tired that he was nearly falling asleep atop the dog. Colette, who liked to greet Lloyd everyday (and his cute doggy!) was waiting by the village entrance for him. She immediately noticed the bags under his eyes.

“Lloyd, you look so sleepy,” she commented with worry.

He smiled at her tiredly. “I’m okay, just… had to do chores and junk.”

She smiled back, going over to pat Noishe’s head, scratching behind his big ears and laughing as she did so. Her shoulder brushed past Lloyd, just against the inside pocket of his jacket.

The letter was in there.

Colette didn’t seem to have noticed it. “Ready to go?” she asked him, already starting on their way to the schoolhouse.

This was the time to give it to her. His hands still ached from holding the pen for hours. Bunches of balled up paper littered his room, which would result in an angry Dirk later for not cleaning up. All he had to do was hand her the paper he held close to his chest and tell her what he felt. He had done it so easily with the necklace, despite how much his heart trembled. But the way she was looking at him, so expectant, suddenly froze Lloyd’s limbs.

“Uh…” he started, throat all dry. Noishe sneezed behind him, making him jump. “Um, uh, y-yeah! Let’s go!”

Ah, damn it.

Colette was already leading the way as Lloyd followed her. He could call out and stop her at any time, but his hands were shaking. He had worked so hard on this! Just give it to her!

His numerous chances completely vanished once they finally walked into the classroom. Immediately, he was greeted to Raine’s face – and the small bandage on her head.

“Good morning, everyone,” Raine said as she was seated at her big desk. Sharp eyes latched onto Lloyd quickly. “Good morning, Lloyd. Glad you could join us.”

Wow, that bump really was big! Lloyd winced at the sight, shifting nervously on his feet. “Sorry about… um..” Why could he suddenly not talk today?

“It’s fine. Go take your seat. And Colette, you don’t need to be late yourself just because Lloyd is, too.”

“I- I know! I’m sorry.”

Lloyd watched forlornly as Colette rushed far to her seat, all the way on the other side of the classroom. He had missed his chance…

“Lloyd.”

“Uh, yeah! Sorry!”

It was normal for him to barely pay attention in class, but never before had his mind buzzed so much as it did now. Lloyd’s desk was shifted all the way to the right wall, ever since the ‘desk carving’ incident where Professor Raine thought it best that his acts of vandalism would not be spurred on by a gleeful audience (ie: Colette). Lloyd shifted every so often, unable to take sitting there for six hours until he could finally give it to Colette… but then, didn’t she have to go to the temple later for her Chosen stuff? Argh, he was never going to get it to her then!

Lloyd glanced at the blackboard ahead and saw Raine writing down some math equations. So boring! He knew Colette didn’t like math that much either. Sometimes, he would pass her notes while in class, usually with badly-drawn pictures of dogs (he could carve well enough, but drawing wasn’t his strong suit). But now she was rows away, so that was a bust. Maybe he could have handed her the letter then…

A brilliant idea lit up Lloyd’s mind.

“So, we will be going over the basics once more.” A collective sigh from most in the classroom. “Yes, I know most of you have this down by now, but this will be a good refresher. As well as help catch up those who are behind.”

A furious crinkling of paper whispered from Lloyd’s desk, but luckily Raine’s voice was louder, overpowering any other sound. Genis heard it however, turning around to spy at his friend who was bent over his desk. He was folding up something. Was he making those paper cranes again? Lloyd knew he could just do that during art class, didn’t he?

“Now, from the beginning. When you have one apple, combined with another apple…”

But Genis had never seen Lloyd work so hard on those things before. Being around two rows ahead of Lloyd, he couldn’t see very well, but strained his neck trying to anyway.

“Obviously, it amounts to two apples. This only increases the number of said apples, and not, as some would say, their apparent strength. Numbers can denote different values, and they are not equivalent for all situations.”

Lloyd sat up straight suddenly and seemed to smile at his own handiwork. It was a simple paper plane, though one miles better than what Genis could ever make. Then Lloyd turned to his left, one where Genis knew Colette was sitting.

That was how he was going to deliver his love letter?!

“Ms. Raine,” spoke up one student, a girl with thick glasses, who sat just ahead of the young Chosen. “Would it be alright if I can open the window? It’s getting very humid.”

Lloyd didn’t notice Genis’ open-mouthed stare. This was the best thing he ever thought up! He didn’t have to wait for who knows how long to give this to her. That and he wouldn’t need to just stand there awkwardly while she read it either.

He paid no attention to what was happening up front.

“Alright, Laura. You can do so. Now, let’s review fractions.”

Lloyd calculated the arc of his flight, and then flew his paper plane with careful force. Not like skipping stones, but he was usually better at this. The plane circled just above Colette’s head.

Then the window opened.

The breeze was a bit sudden, ruffling the pages of some open books. Colette brushed back some loose strands over her ear to keep them from flying in her face.

She never noticed the plane above suddenly change direction.

“Aw man!”

Lloyd’s cry of dismay was a bit loud, attracting numerous eyes. The paper plane continued to fly drunkenly above the ceiling, buffeted by light winds before it finally decided to settle on a flat surface with a less than graceful landing.

And it did so on top of Raine’s desk.

Raine looked to it, then back to Lloyd. “What’s this, Lloyd?”

The boy went very pale. Wow, this… did not go as planned at all.

The kids in the classroom then started to voice their own theories on the mysterious paper.

“Is it those doggy drawings again?”

“I bet it’s a gross picture of Ms. Raine!”

“No, it’s a love letter to Ms. Raine!”

“He can’t do that! He’s not in the club!”

Raine ignored all the mutterings and went to pick up the paper. “Well, if this is so important that you needed to interrupt our lesson, Lloyd, then I suppose you won’t mind if I share this with the rest of the class.”

“Wait!” Lloyd shouted. He got so frantic that he jumped right onto his desk, flailing his arms. “Don’t look! That’s not-!”

“Lloyd Irving, get down!

Raine already unfolded the paper plane, not checking if Lloyd heeded her words. He didn’t, standing stock still as she read aloud.

“Roses are red, violets are blue, out of a million people, I chose you…”

Genis slapped his forehead. “You started off with that?!”

“I – I was stuck on the first sentence, okay?” Lloyd yelled.

Raine continued, her voice completely stripped of all emotion.

“Please take my hand, and also know, that whatever you say, I will like the…” Raine squinted. “More? Moist? Oh, it’s ‘most.’” She sighed. “Lloyd, your handwriting has improved, but only slightly…”

The other students laughed, pointing at the boy who was still standing tall on his desk. He quickly scampered back down, but Raine continued to read. Did she know no mercy?!

“The rest doesn’t rhyme, but I want to say, I really like you and want to see you smile. But if you want to cry, that’s okay, too. You are…” Raine squinted her eyes again, though this time in confusion than out of any reading difficulty. “The superlative lassie with the prevalent aortic pump that myself comprehend of.” Silence followed shortly after.

“Wow, and it started off so romantic, too,” a student critiqued aloud.

Genis turned to Lloyd. “Why.”

“I was using the thesaurus like you said to! I wanted to sound all smart!”

“You could’ve just said heart!”

There was apparently more, as Raine’s eyes scanned the lower parts of the letter. But then she folded it up, deciding enough was enough. “Lloyd, while I am flattered you feel that way about me, please don’t throw your proclamations of love around in the classroom. Someone could lose an eye.”

The kids laughed, shouting popular love rhymes as Lloyd looked down, his face red. Though a few remained pointedly silent; the boys of Professor Raine’s club, muttering vengeance for Lloyd taking their beloved’s attention, Genis who was still wrapping his head around it all, and Colette, her eyes still that bright blue. Lloyd had sneaked a quick glance at her, and immediately felt like complete crud.

“Now, I appreciate a man that can transcribe his thoughts neatly. So, we will be going back to our handwriting lessons, Lloyd, after school.”

“Now he gets private lessons too? Come on!”

Unlike the other boys, Lloyd was not so thrilled. This was just another punishment, with even less time he would have with Colette. He looked back to the girl, but her eyes were forward again as Raine restarted her lesson. He hoped he hadn’t messed anything up.

Next time, he was just sticking with jewelry.

Genis couldn’t help but feel bad about the entire thing.

The day dragged on, Raine’s lessons already erasing the previous incident with little impact, except to Lloyd’s pride. The boy had tried to sneak away when class ended, but not before Raine called out to him.

“Now, Lloyd. If you really want to see me smile, you will do these extra lessons for me.”

Most of the class had already left, Colette earlier than most, as she once again had gone off early for Temple training. Only Genis straggled, as he always did to talk with his sister. He watched as Lloyd sulked, walking up to the front of the class.

“You know that wasn’t meant for you,” Lloyd mumbled, still embarrassed.

Raine’s face betrayed no surprise. Instead, she spoke, “Of course. I saw her name on it, no matter how sloppily written it was. And I was there when Genis decided to hand you our thesaurus, after all.” Then, her voice turned a fraction softer, preceding her words with a sigh. “I suggest you tell her your feelings in a more discreet manner, preferably not during class time.”

The boy had no defense to that. “Fine. Sorry.”

Genis wondered then if he really should have written the letter himself.

Lloyd was already morosely writing out sentences on the chalkboard once Genis left, the excuse given to his sister that he would start making her dinner. Despite being only eight, he was a fast learner when it came to cooking (and most other things too, of course). Besides, when one lived with Raine, learning to cook was a necessity.

Instead, he went down the path that led to the temple, where the shore was outstretched. He wasn’t really allowed to go out by himself, but his window of opportunity was short! He had to hurry before Raine would finally leave the schoolhouse.

He barely turned the corner to go outside the village before bumping into someone.

“Genis! I’m sorry!”

Colette had landed on her back, looking up at the young boy with apologetic eyes. Genis remained standing, looking down at her with some bewilderment.

“You know, Lloyd has a point. You really do apologize too much!” He reached for her hand, trying to pull her up as much as his little body was able to. Colette mostly got up through her own strength, but she thanked him all the same.

“Hey, Colette, I actually wanted to tell you something. Is now a good time?”

“Oh, of course!” she answered, hands clasped politely. No priests were with her now, not even her grandmother. This was probably the first time Genis had ever seen her walk by herself from the temple. “Grandmother had to finish up some things,” she said to the question in his eyes. “And they say it’s good training if I walk around this place by myself more often. So that I can prepare for my journey!”

She said this with such positivity that, for a moment, Genis saw something in her eyes. But it vanished so fast. Perhaps it hadn’t been that important.

“It’s about Lloyd and his letter, from today.”

“The letter he wrote to Professor Raine?” She smiled again. “She is really pretty though.”

“But that was for you!”

Colette paused, hands still clasped before her. Genis couldn’t read her face. He decided to just explain further.

“Lloyd wanted to write how he felt about you, but he’s so thick-headed and just didn’t give it to you like any normal person would. He even asked me for help and everything. So, all those things about red roses and your smile and…” A sigh, so much like his sister’s. “Aortic pumps, were for you. This is so weird for me to talking about, but Lloyd’s my friend and I just thought you should know!”

Colette remained silent. Genis then wondered if maybe this was the worst thing he could’ve done for his friend actually, but not like the other options were much better! “You don’t have to tell Lloyd or anything if you don’t like him back. I don’t think he’s going to be writing anymore love letters anytime soon.”

“I do, though.”

Very soft, a breath, one that was swallowed up by the ocean’s waves from far off. Even Genis’ nimble hearing could barely make out a sound.

“I do like him. A lot. So much… I’m sorry.”

Genis considered. “And you’re apologizing… why?”

Colette shook her head, though kept on her smile. It was wider, showing a bit of teeth, and her cheeks stretched enough to create dimples.

“I’m really glad all those things were for me. I’m so happy.”

This worked out even better than Genis had hoped for. He really was smart! “Great! Then you can tell him too and be all happy together.”

That smile faltered. Colette looked off to the side, where her home was. The sky was painted with hues of orange and gold, inviting a certain sleepy air to the world. “I, well, I can’t.” She looked like she would say more, but instead just shrugged.

Genis already had to cut short his self-praises. “Huh? Wait, why can’t you tell him?”

 “I can’t.” She repeated. Then a shaking of her head. “I can’t.”

Genis blinked owlishly. Everything that had suddenly made sense to the smartest kid in class just as abruptly didn’t at all. “What? I don’t get it. If you like Lloyd, too, then why not…”

Colette smiled, with closed lips, and her cheeks as unstrained as possible.

“I don’t want him hurt, that’s all. So, keep this a secret between us, okay?” Hands fiddled before her, clasped together so tightly. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, well… okay.” Genis frowned, then just let out a tired breath. “I really don’t get you older kids though. Is this how I’ll be later?”

Colette giggled. “You’ll be great, I think!” She pressed her hands down her dress, addressing any invisible wrinkles. “Um, is Lloyd still in the village? I was hoping to see him after, but my training always lasts really late now.”

“He’s getting tutoring from sis, and suffering.”

“Oh no! Poor Lloyd.”

“I think it’s going to be done soon though. This is usually the time she gets hungry.” Then Genis flinched. “Argh, I have to start making dinner!” Before he rushed off, he said to Colette, “I bet Lloyd would be happy to see you!”

It was the last thing he could do for his friend, despite all this weirdness about feelings and secrets. He was glad to see that Colette nodded to that idea.

“I’ll go see him right now!”

“Great! I’ll see you guys tomorrow!”

While he rushed through Iselia, already catching Colette going through the school doors, Genis really had to wonder. Maybe this was what love was about, after all?

But what do I know, he thought to himself, pushing all the questions aside. I’m only eight years old, after all.

[ma-at-thought]

A Poem Arrives

When Laereth came to check on his packages at the Tranquillien post office, the girl behind the counter offered him a single envelope with a trembling hand and a shellshocked face. She looked like a woman who'd walked through her personal hell and she wouldn't look him in the face as she passed over the letter; didn't even greet him as she normally did with a bright smile and a polite inquiry about his health. Instead, she slammed the window closed and slipped out back to have a quick nip from her flask.

The autumn day was pleasantly crisp, tart scents rising in the air as Laereth's heavy boots crushed fallen leaves in every hue of fire underfoot. The fluttering banner of his crimson foxtail echoed the colors that still clung to trees, as did the sun-bright bronze designs on the simple but elegant armor the proud Spellbreaker never seemed to be without. Chilled breezes danced fallen leaves in merry circles, foreshadowing the cold of winter to come, but for now the sun shone down warmly and made for a pleasant day.

At least, it stayed pleasant until Laereth arrived at the Post. The stunned and mutely horrified reaction of the familiar girl behind the counter put him enough on edge that one arm tucked behind his back, calloused fingers brushing the downward-facing loop of a handle on his bronze-bound wooden shield. Gracefully-tapered ears perked and narrowed emerald eyes darted from shadows in the buildings to passing Sin'dorei with suspicion, but aside from the look of lingering alarm and fear on the pretty girl's face, he saw nothing to justify his tension.

When he turned back to lay his gaze upon the girl again, with intent of asking just what had happened to leave her so shaken, Laereth instead saw the letter held mutely out toward him as if a bribe to make him go away. His lips pursed in a frown as he took it, glancing down with disdain at the awkwardly-made hearts that formed a insipid backdrop to the presumptuously scrawled name in looping letters suggesting an overzealous attempt at elegance which fell flat to him. He raised his head to squint at the girl behind the counter, wanting to ask just who had dropped off such a thing for him, but the slam of the window foretold her retreat to seek comfort in whatever her flask held.

Heaving a sigh, Laereth turned and headed down the path, no longer enjoying the day as much as he had. Nothing in the crisp breezes that carried scents of burning leaves and ripe apples would put a spring in his step when he held such a missive. What noble youth had decide to cast her eyes to someone so incredibly beyond her reach? Being a well-known bachelor of some reputation and Lord of his House invited the most vapid, infatuated women to send their calling cards his way, hoping pointlessly that he would deign to bother with them. He held himself so high above these lovelorn youths that they would have better luck convincing the moon to drift down in her cold and pale beauty to grace them with her presence.

Still, when he arrived at home, he made his way up to his bedroom and tossed the letter like a discus to land on his bed. Rattles and clinks filled the chamber, bouncing off the heavy bed with its four tall posts and the crossbeams that loomed over the brick-red bedspread; once his armor was removed he was left in just the bronze-hued leather pants so well-worn and comfortable. Dropping to sit on the edge of the bed, he picked up the envelope with a sigh for those wobbly hearts that scattered like forlorn leaves that waited to drop until the cold of winter. Even the handwriting filled him with disdain, but he plucked a thin knife from beneath his pillow and used it as a letter-opener. His nose crinkled as he half-expected wafts of expensive and cloying perfume to emerge like unwanted spirits, but instead he was rewarded with thick vellum upon which the obnoxiously loopy handwriting continued. A poem, of all things. His eyes narrowed to show the faint lines at the outside corners and he settled down to read.

Flashing like a lighthouse on a foggy winter's ever,  

his sword swings in deliberate arc, another skull to cleave.  

Blood coats his face, his chest, his hands, but he's no time to grieve  

for the souls from whom the bodies fallen, he has forced to leave.  

A monster in an elven skin, this lion's fangs are bared  

and he charges 'cross the war field where no other men have dared.  

A leader to his army who, around the campfire's shared,

the tales of all his battles leaving weaker soldiers scared.  

The heads he's lopped clean off their necks, the bodies left to rot  

across a barren hellscape where the battles have been fought--

a man who dithers, primps, and flirts with power he is not,  

but a beast unchained and left untamed, he works with what he's got.  

And what he's got could fill an ocean, and overwhelm the sky,  

he is deeper than unending pit where plagued souls are tossed to die.

Great hawk who soars above the world, his bloody wings on high,  

does he ever face mortality and fear the end is nigh?

So full of rage he's bridled, clapping muzzle on his temper,  

plastering false smiles across his hardened lips while swarmed by those who simper  

and offer to him vapid presents in the tail-end of December  

that lie forgotten on a shelf by next year's bleak November.  

But give unto him heartfelt praise that compliments his dusk

and you may draw close to steal a whiff of fiery amber musk.

Present to him your trophies taken, a claw, a bone, a tusk,  

and share with him around the fire some cheese, boar loin, and rusk.  

Should you ask him the right questions, he may deign to answer you  

and tell you all his war tales, the cruel, the hard, the true--

of times he's face defeat when all the aching hope, it flew  

to nest in future battles when these fighting days are through.

Mayhap he will divulge the thoughts kept trapped inside his head  

and provide you with a glimpse into the heart of living dead--  

for a fire can only burn so long when it's not being fed  

and hungry beast needs meat to feast, to drink a river red.  

Give him no empty words nor flattery, he can smell the bitter guile  

that clings to the vacant grin you wear although your eyes don't smile

and should he scent the falsehood, you won't be saved by denial--

a great predator will track its prey for many a long, rough mile.  

He will not stop his careful hunt until you're humbled at his feet  

and trussed up like a gala goose and carved for him to eat.  

Sinks he his razor teeth into your tender, well-done meat  

for he's always victor in his games and you taste of defeat.  

Cross not the Bloodhawk leading charges headlong into the fray  

and listen in between his words for the phrases he won't say.

If you're in his confidence, he'll help chase your fears away--

but don't try to chain him down to you; a wild thing cannot stay.

 For long moments, Laereth simply stared at the poem that had surprised him as much as if a dog suddenly spoke eloquent prose. The content didn't even match the handwriting; it was jarring. Slowly, he read over the poem again, and his lips curved in the barest shadow of a smile. Long ears set back slightly and relaxed as he took a certain amount of pleasure in the poetry that he had been presented with. Someone knew him very well. And nobody who would plaster insipid hearts and curlicue letters all over the parchment would be the sort of person Laereth would ever allow to know him well. That cut down the possibilities of a sender to almost no one. Add in genuine skill at composing poetry and that pathetic number dwindled even further.

The smile that flashed and was gone like lightning was feral, a quick baring of teeth. He threw the envelope away as though concerned that the hearts might vex him toward madness if they stayed visible any longer, but the parchment was set upon his nightstand. He leaned out from the bed to grasp the neck of his guitar, then leaned back against the headboard in a comfortable slouch and settled the instrument against his thigh, knee bent to support it. Hands most familiar with every weapon known to man and some random items that no one would suspect could be weapons drifted gently over strings and frets, producing a whisper of sound. A quick plucking brought forth the babble of a brook; his hand upon the neck dropped down and the same quick plucking displayed a rumble of thunder. A few chords were strummed until he settled on a low minor key and he started to play, wandering through an immature tune that could grow sophisticated and ripe with patience, mentally setting the poem to music.

[jfastereft]

"SCARY LIFE." a poem  4 November 2019 (Monday)

I met my "friend" this afternoon; his eyes were smiling. Hurray.]   His manner?   It was so relaxed; as we hugged there, I did say:] "Remember, friend, just days ago, you lectured me for an hour;] Your eyes were dark, your voice did bark, and your smile was so sour,] But now, rightNOW we HUG; (p) we're easy and we're loose,]  &, perhaps, in another couple days, you'll CHARGE me like a moose,]  & laughter will have been transformed into a condemning stare."]  Gosh, I hope this ISN'T The Nature of FRIENDSHIP, the nature Everywhere. (p)] The HUMAN CONDITION is variable, & I AM  MUCH THE SAME,]  But, you know, thank goodness for my friend, whoSaysHeWon'tJudgeOrEverBlame,]  Me for being human    because he's so AWARE.]   And I'm so grateful for friends like him; he never acts MUCH like a bear.]   Oh, yea, sometimes we won't agree, & love is lost and then,] We will BE, in an hour or two, "happy" ONCE AGAIN?]  I think that schizophrenic encounters are contrived and pretty scary;]  I wonder HOW IN THE WORLD   any of us anyOfUs  CAN everMARRY,]

Because I see these inherent traits  ofWhatPeopleCall:  "Personality Disorder,"]

In ALL I meet, with no exceptions; we'reALLupon THE border,] Especially when  we have the agenda, of NEEDING TO BE ALWAYS RIGHT.]  I can't imagine HOW I've continued to exist AND NOTjust DIED OF FRIGHT.]  These interactions are exacerbated, especially between women and men;] Perhaps the only thing keeping most people from killing one another isThePolice x3. Amen.] It's no wonder a lot of folks  (1) stay indoors  or (2) are on constants MEDs;]  Thank goodness for  COPS,   LAWS,   andLawSuits (Ha, ha) & S-XinLotsOfBeds,]  Which gets our MINDS away fromFighting, ActingOUT & howCrazyWeAre.]  It's amazing to me, ABSOLUTELY amazing  that the human race has gotten this far.]  I wonder IF I read this to my friend       s?, how will t[he]y respond?]  Will t[he]y say: "We shouldn't meet any more, 'cause you're acting like  a blond,]   Scared and Silly thinking The Whole World    is againstU you."] & I'll look at t[he]m, shake my head and feel sorta BLUE,]  & think: "This is the very same body  that often houses MY friend,]  & schizophrenia is the only CHRONIC thing'RoundHere, and it will never end,] & I don't know how to deal with this or anything else at all,]  Except WAIT, scared & hopeful, that in a few hours, perhaps a friend will call,]   & say:   'I am feeling BETTER?  a little better TODAY;  Shall we go OUTSIDE, my friend, shallWeGoOutside    to play?]  Shall we go TO a coffee shop, a bar or some place or di nary?]  But, of course, I wanna be SPECIAL; ordinary's kind of scary.]   No, let's not.  Let's NOT do anything ordinary or mundane;]  Let's just keep a tight schedule, for I'm sure that's not insane.]  Oh, wait, LET'S GO.  No, I've changed my mind.'   By this point, I'M CRYING and I'mNOT KIND,]  & I say: 'I can't make up my mind either,' Do I say that to all my friends?]  And at about that point, about that point  THE CONVERSATION ENDS.  & we hang up and I go out  TO A COFFEE SHOP,]  & I see my ex-wifeWithAsmile on her face, & she has a machete, with which to lop,] To lop right off my bloody head, ]  And watch me fall   to the floor real dead,] So, she can call other friends and they'll talk about.]  My Incredible Failings and that I WAS a scary lout,]  But there's nothing to be scared of  ANY MORE.]  I'm dead or dying, LAUGHING ON THE FLOOR."

fin  <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa-ae6_okmg

[whatdoyouthinkmyjobis]

Hunters on the Hellmouth

masterlist

first chapter

previous chapter

AN: Inspired by events in BTVS 7.11 “Showtime.” Links to character sheets at the bottom of the story.

Warnings: Torture. Gore. FEELS!

Chapter 32: The Demon Inside

The body landed in the alley with a sickening crunch. Dani, Grace, and Wook heaved their blanketed package into Giles’ trunk. From Dean’s broken bedroom window, Buffy watched them pull away with the last Bringer corpse.

“I’m going to need you to repeat what you just said,” Xander requested. He and the rest of the Scoobies had spent the better part of an hour listening to Buffy tell Dean’s story while the Potentials helped unbloody the Winchesters’ apartment.

“About how Sam and Dean don’t know of anything that can kill Lucifer?” Buffy asked.

“About all of it.”

“For the record,” said Anya as she scrubbed the splatter off the wall, “this whole angel thing scares the crap out me. It’s not natural!”

“I’m more stuck on the Satan part,” said Xander.

“Angel. Devil. It’s all the same apparently!” Anya had been practically green since Buffy shared the news.

“And Giles has nothing?” asked Willow, hope still in her eyes.

“I think Giles has a splitting headache.” By the time he’d left Dean’s hospital room, Giles had taken on the glassy gaze of a wandering Alzheimer’s patient.

“At least that explains why they’re so strong and manly and ridiculously good looking.”

Xander’s relief brought a smile to Buffy’s lips. “Strong yes, but I think the rest is just genetics. I’ve seen the family photos.”

“Damn it!”

“Imagine keeping a secret like that,” Willow wondered aloud.

Xander shrugged. “‘Hello, I’m an angel in disguise,’ sounds like a great pickup line.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Anya argued. “And that’s not what they are.”

“I meant Sam,” Willow clarified. “Having something like that done to you as a child, an infant. Being terrified of latent evil inside of you.”

“You get used to it,” said Dawn.

A cough from the doorway alerted them to Cloé with her arms full of books. “I don’t know how to get the blood out,” she said meekly.

Willow relived the girl of her burden. “I'll handle these, and you go get yourself a snack in the kitchen, okay?”

“Terrifying Lucifer part aside, this is a good thing, right?”

“How could you even think that, Xander?” Anya whined.

“Hear me out,” he continued. “The angels want Dean, and they don't want the bad guys to have Sam. Let's just tell them Sam was abducted. They saved Dean’s life, after all. What's the worst that could happen?”

According to Dean, a lot of bad could happen when angels were involved, but Castiel was his friend. “We could try--”

Anya tossed her bloody rag in the bucket of water and stormed out of the room.

“For once, I'm with Anya,” said Willow. “Angels sound kind of cosmically selfish. They helped Dean, but who’s to say helping Sam wouldn't take the form of killing him? Or, hey, now that they’re here and noticing things, how about they burn the witch?”

“I get where you’re coming from. I do,” Buffy said. “Dean told me the angels are bad news, but Castiel is on their side. He’s the only angel on their side, and it’s cost him. If we pray to him, maybe we can at least get some guidance.”

“You pray. I’ll be hiding. Dawn, you staying?”

The girl shrugged and settled onto the bed. “Pretty sure angels can smite me no matter what room I’m in. I’ll stay for the fireworks.”

“Do we need to hold hands or confess our sins or something?” Xander asked after Willow left.

“I don’t really know.” Buffy felt heat in her cheeks. The prayer thing still felt weirder than angels existing. “But we have to address Castiel specifically or the other angels will hear.”

She sat cross-legged on the floor, her hands upturned on her knees, and began. “Castiel, it’s Buffy Summers again. We need your help. It sounds like Lucifer followed the Winchesters here, and now he has Sam --”

The unbroken window exploded as the squealing roar of a freight train filled the room. Xander and Dawn huddled into balls screaming, their voices unable to overpower the sound. “Castiel, make it stop!” Buffy cried.

Silence.

“What was that?” someone shouted above the crying in the other room.

“He could have just told us he was washing his hair,” Xander said, shaking his head as he checked on Dawn.

Buffy stood and gently shook the glass from her hair. “Plan B. Gather the girls. We needed an army yesterday.”

 It had either been hours or days since the Turok-Han bit off his fingers. Though the slightest movement made him want to scream, Spike held up his hand to look at the tattered stubs. They’d stopped oozing blood, but they weren’t any longer. Hours then.

Vampires were semi-immortal. As long as they avoided sunlight, few humans were strong or fast enough to stake or decapitate them. But, as Spike had discovered years before under the torturous knife of Glory, they don’t pass out from pain either. His entire body felt like a lit wick being eaten up by burn and sizzle.

Laying on the floor a few feet below him, Sam looked worse for wear. The bandage over his stomach was brown with dried blood; infection would set in soon. He was pale with sunken eyes and a confused gaze. Wearing only pajama pants in the drafty old church in December, his shivering had unnervingly diminished. No one had fed Sam or given him water since he’d arrived. If the goal was to see who could endure torture the longest, Spike would be the grim winner.

“Sam, you like poetry?” Spike asked.

Wearily, Sam lifted his head from the cold stone floor. “Poetry? Uh, kinda. It-it’s okay.”

“Fftt! Americans! No sense of romance.”

“I dunno. B-Bobby’s really into poetry,” Sam mumbled.

“Who’s Bobby?”

“Kinda like our, um, adopt-a-dad when Dad w-wasn’t around.”

“Oh, what’d ‘e like?” Spike asked.

“Uh, Fr-Frost and the Scottish guy. Auld Lang Syne.”

“Burns! Not bad. I like the romantics myself. You ever read any Keats?”

Sam shook his head.

A new twinge of pain shot through Spike’s hand, but he bit his tongue. They were going to talk about poetry until one of them died. “Most of ‘em are love poems. Now, don’t start thinking I fancy you. Like my hair a little longer and my heads a bit more fucked up. One of ‘is most famous goes:

        O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,   

        Alone and palely loitering?

        The sedge has wither’d from the lake,   

        And no birds sing.”

 There was a dark splatter and smear at the sewer entrance to the caves. Sam’s blood. Buffy hoped that would be all for blood. How much damage could The First -- could Lucifer -- have done to his chosen one in less than twelve hours? She knew she didn’t want an answer, that the Devil’s desire for a body was Sam’s only hope.

The footsteps behind her provided no comfort.

She had no idea if her theory was correct, but the clock was ticking on Sam, and she couldn’t waste time hoping a clue would land in her lap. The Turok-Han had acted like guard dogs. They knew Spike was being kept in a church, but Willow didn’t recognize any of the windows the Winchesters had snapped. Because the church wasn’t above ground. Buffy was all in that Spike and hopefully Sam were in the church where she’d faced The Master.

As Buffy arrived at the spot of her last battle, a blood-curdling scream echoed off the ruins. She’d never been so happy to hear someone in pain.

One of the Potentials whimpered.

“You’re okay. Remember, The First doesn’t have a body. It can’t hurt you.”

“Now, Buffy,” said a soft voice that made Buffy’s heart skip a beat, “it’s not fair to give the girls a false sense of hope.” Standing where she’d last seen It as Angel, last seen It as The Master, was her mother in a long white dress. If she had to watch this near immortal dress up as her mother, she was going to give it more than hell. “After all, what I may lack in vessel, I more than make up for in followers. It was considerate of you to bring the girls. Saves me the trip.” It snapped its fingers, and a dozen Bringers stepped out of the dark, blades ready.

As they’d practiced, the girls formed an outward facing ring. “Bring it!” Dani yelled. As the Bringers rushed forward, Molly fired on them with a water pistol.

“I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming,” said The First.

Lys, Wook and Kate stepped forward with blowtorches raised, engulfing the gas-soaked Bringers in flame. The girls stepped aside, letting the monster-torches run past screaming.

“Next?” taunted Buffy. The Turok-Han, dark blood up to its elbows, slunk out from a crumbled doorway and snarled at them. Giles’ research had confirmed her experience, they couldn’t be staked. Gripping the handle of her machete, Buffy smiled recalling Dean’s philosophy: everything can be beheaded, which provides distraction if nothing else. “Hey there, short, grey and ugly. Ready for round two?”

They circled each other, Buffy acutely aware of the barely trained girls watching behind her. If it killed her, they’d be next. They’d done well against the Bringers. It was her turn to make them proud.

The vampire swiped, nicking her skin. She kicked it in the chest. It barely moved. They grappled and rolled, Buffy’s machete falling in the tumble. She bashed its head against the stone floor. The vampire started to push her off, so she jammed her thumb in its eye. It howled and released her arms. She rushed to her machete as it lunged at her. Using its speed and weight to throw it off balance, she swung her blade and lopped off its head. It sputtered and hissed before turning to dust a moment later.

The visage of her mother offered a tight-lipped smile. “Don’t get comfortable, sweetheart. I’ll be back, and you’ll be so grounded.” In a flash of blue light, Lucifer disappeared.

Buffy and the Potentials entered the torch-lit corridor the Turok-Han had come from. Most of the windows had been shattered from earthquakes, but the shape implied this was part of the buried church where Buffy had faced The Master. At the end of the corridor, they found a mostly collapsed chapel, one window still intact behind the bloody, meat-covered altar. Sam was chained in a kneeling position at the base of the altar steps. With one firm kick, she was able to release him from the floor. He was pale, his eyes hollow. Collapsing onto Grace and Keisha, he wheezed, “Get Spike.”

“Where is he?”

“Don’t recognize me, love?” Spike’s voice came from the bloody altar.

Ascending the stairs, Buffy started to see a human form in the meat. Spike’s skin was taut on his ribs, his cheeks more gaunt than usual. He was missing his legs and fingers. His naked body was covered in hundreds of puncture marks. The blood oozing from his wounds was nearly black and thick. “Not my best look, but my heart’s still intact. Head’s still on. Do a bloke a favor, and kill me, eh?”

 Buffy didn’t kill him. She wrapped him in her coat and carried Spike out of his hell. The voices of dozens of girls asked what he was, but she didn’t answer. He rested his head on her chest and, despite his pain, fell asleep to the thumping of her heart.

He awoke when someone removed the coat, exposing his naked, maimed body. It was quiet where he was, but many feet were moving above him. He opened his eyes just enough to see that he was back in Buffy’s basement, and she stood over him examining his body. “Enjoying the view?”

“No,” said Buffy. “Even when I wanted you dead, I never wanted this.”    

“Funny thing, all-encompassing evils don’t take kindly when you tell ‘em to sod off.”

Her small hand, gentle and warm, rested on his arm before she began to clean the punctures  from the Turok-Han’s claws on his torso.

“How’s the giant?”

“Sam’s not great, but he’s doing a hell of a lot better than you.” Her voice was distant. No doubt, she’d rather be attending to her friend, but with a full house, Spike couldn’t imagine why she’d deigned to care for him.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“I didn’t want to play anymore.”

“So It had a tantrum? What did It want from you?”

The night Spike returned to Sunnydale after his soul trials, he ran into a light. It was terrifying and comforting at the same time. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It went through him like his pockets were being rifled by supernovas. Then the light turned into Buffy, but more the Buffy of his dreams than the real thing.

“Are you a demon?” It had asked.

Spike said he was a vampire, but It was excited about the demon in him. Spike was certain It was a siren, but any port in a storm.

“It wanted a friend at first,” Spike confessed. Unflinchingly, Buffy started to clean the tattered remains of his fingers; he wanted to recoil from her touch. She didn’t deserve this gruesome sight. “No bandages, alright? Gotta leave room for me to grow back.”

“You’re going to grow back?” There was a hint of happiness behind her surprise, a softening of her mouth, and Spike wondered if caring for him had perhaps been her choice.

“Short story, this isn’t the first time those primordial vampires snacked on me.”

“That’s good news, I guess. Although, I’m not into this whole chapter on your best buddy The First Evil.”

“Pfft! That’s what It calls itself? Weak. And do I look like we’re on good terms?” He wouldn’t admit it, but It had kept him from climbing the walls when his soul was driving him mad, asking him questions about Sunnydale, the Hellmouth, demons, Buffy. “It was a distraction ‘til It started asking me to do things.”

“Things like kill people?”

“That was later. At first, it just wanted to know about you, and I painted a warts-and-all picture. Then it wanted me to follow you, spy on you. I did a little, but seeing you with Dean was torture.” Spike paused to mourn again what could have been if he’d ever gained full control of the demon inside. “Then It wanted me to kill you.”

Buffy turned away. He thought she left, disgusted by the sight of him, disturbed by what he’d done, but he heard her rummaging through some boxes. She returned with oven mitts -- one with pink and white flowers stained brown, the other red and printed with a festive black buckle and white trim.

“But you started killing other people, building it an army,” she said as she gently wrapped Spike’s maimed hands in gauze and slipped the oven mitts over them.

“Wot can I say? The Devil made me do it.”

Buffy’s cool, interrogator’s mask melted in surprise.

“Yeah, I know,” Spike said. Between torture sessions, Sam had filled him in on the true nature of The First.

Quietly, Buffy moved on to cleaning the stumps of his legs. She tore a sheet in two, gently folding each half around a leg before covering him with a downy blanket. “How does that feel?”

“Better,” he said with a small smile.

A single tear rolled down her cheek. “I--I haven’t been a good friend to you.”

What could he say? Ever since he’d regained his soul, he’d needed someone to talk to; but unfortunately, he and Buffy had been better friends when he was evil. Buffy had been so caught up in her new boyfriend, Spike’s only option for friendship had been the Devil himself.

But what choice did she have? Besouled vampires hadn’t exactly gone well for her in the past. And she had spent months flinching when he got near, the memory of what he -- what his demon -- had tried to do still clawing at her.

“I wish I could change things between us,” he said. “Rearranging the timing and all. We could ‘ave been great together under the right circumstances.”

She smiled as the tears fell.

“But I’m ‘appy for you,” he continued. “You found someone who understands you. I’m not jealous you didn’t pick me, but the loneliness stings. Love-sick vampire with a soul doesn’t ‘ave a lot of places he can go. No singles mixers or one-nine-hundred hotlines.”

“So when Lucifer appeared to you as me…”

“I took comfort in it, though I knew it wasn’t you. All that time, It was working me out, figuring out how to operate me. It kept complaining about how my soul and the demon were getting in the way. I think it figured out how to talk to each separately. So when I was killing--”

“The demon was in charge.”

“Gold star for the lady. So you see, Buffy, you have to kill me. Otherwise, It’s going to come back, going to make the demon in me do things again.”

 The fight had gone smoother than they’d expected, bringing some cheer to the girls’ faces. But the confused aftermath -- watching Buffy expertly fight the Turok-han, finding Sam hurt and half naked in the chapel, Buffy’s mysterious package -- had driven a group of them to the backyard to talk in private.

“Did you see what she was carrying?” asked Vi while biting her nails.

“I think it was a body,” said Keisha more calmly than the statement justified.

“Like a dead one?” asked Cloé in breathless horror.

“No, it moved,” whispered Naomi, checking over her shoulder to see if anyone in the house was watching.

“No way! I was in the chapel when we got Sam. Whatever it was couldn’t have been alive,” said Gabi.

“It spoke,” insisted Naomi, who had been no closer to Buffy post-fight than the rest of them.

“No!”

“Guys, you’re ignoring the obvious,” said Kate, brushing her heavy black bangs from her eyes. “We ‘ad to remove the anti-demon symbol to get it through the door.”

Gabi shook her head and looked directly at Cloé to calm her. “It can’t be a demon! Buffy wouldn’t bring a demon in the house. She wouldn’t put us in danger like that.”

“Maybe it’s a vampire?” asked Lys, clearly delighted by the idea.

“Like the Slayer would be friends with a vampire,” said Keisha, her eyebrows raised in speculation.

“But she is!” Lys insisted. She pulled a cigarette from her pack and handed it to an expectant looking Kate before pinching another between her lips. “My Watcher said she was friends with a notorious vampire named Angel. I guess he turned his back on his kind or something.”

“I’ve heard them whispering about Angel!” added Naomi.

“My Watcher said she had a fling with Angel,” Vi added. “It was, like, this huge scandal, a Slayer and a vampire. Also, total ew.”

“I dunno,” Lys shrugged. “Sex with a vampire could be hot.”

Keisha curled her lip in disgust. “You are broken and gross.”

 Sam remembered being rescued, but the next twenty-four hours was a blur of sleep, hospital noise, and gorging himself on chicken broth. The cold stone floor of the chapel had made his already damaged body ache, and he’d missed several rounds of meds. The exhaustion forced his reeling mind to rest. The nurses came in and out making sure he wasn’t lacking for anything, but mostly he wanted to hide.

Three words. Three words said in Xander’s casual, joking style as he helped him into his car after the rescue: “So Satan, huh?”

They knew. Maybe Dean had told them. Maybe they figured it out. Either way, his secret was out.

When Willow had said she saw darkness in him -- something evil like what was in the vampires -- he wanted to hide, but Willow knew what it was like to wrestle with her inner demons, to quell her dark powers. Even so, there was a difference between one’s own dark side and an evil planted inside.

I am the vessel of Lucifer. Sam couldn’t say the words.

The pain woke him. He’d slept long enough that the sun was dim through the blinds. Blinds? He barely remembered being discharged, yet he’d been returned to Buffy’s house and was laying in Willow’s bed. Reaching for his meds on the night stand, he saw Dawn curled on a trunk at the end of the bed staring at him like a he was an exhibit at a traveling freak show.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

“I know,” she said brightly.

She dashed out of the room only to return with a glass of water for him. She perched on the edge of the bed. “Buffy always tells me that my choices are what define me. Screw fate and prophecy.”

He offered her a faint smile. “Sounds like Dean.”

“Maybe that’s why they like each other. They’re just a couple of narcissists.”

Sam laughed, which hurt, but the unexpected joy made his whole body tingle.

“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” Dawn said. “I’m sorry you’re being chased. It was smart of your angel friend to bring you here. If anyone can stop Lucifer, it’s Buffy.”

Her innocent faith broke his heart. He nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what he was hoping.”

Dawn squeezed his hand. “Get some rest. Running for your life is super exhausting.”

Sam woke in the morning to find Dean on a cot beside him, his hand stretched out toward him as it always was when they shared a motel room.

“Jerk.”

“Bitch,” his brother replied without opening his eyes.

“Your girlfriend saved my ass.”

“She’s fucking awesome.”

 After a few days, Sam felt he would go crazy if he had to lie in bed a moment longer. Willow’s soft mattress spawned knots in his back, and he felt bad that she was sleeping on the floor. In the still hours before dawn, he tiptoed around Dean sleeping on a cot and slipped downstairs for some space.

Only there wasn’t any space. Two dozen or so girls, double what he’d remembered before going to the hospital, filled the living room with cots, blankets, and bags.

A mousy redhead by the stairs stirred. She squinted at him with sleepy concern and poked him in the ankle. “Real,” she muttered, before laying down and adjusting her blankets.

A dark-skinned girl wearing what looked liked a dingy hand-me-down Catholic school uniform, complete with small wooden cross, stood at the kitchen counter peeling an orange.

“Good morning,” Sam whispered.

She nodded with a shy smile.

“Just an orange for breakfast?” he asked. She was thin, not sickly, but she would need to add some muscle for training.

The girl nodded, taking a bite of fruit.

“English?”

She pointed at herself. “Jabulela.”

It took a moment before Sam realized that must be her name, not a language he hadn’t heard of. “Sam.”

“Sam,” she repeated, holding the a in the back of her throat.

“Jabulela, parlez-vous français?” he asked, pulling up the six weeks of French he’d taken Freshman year.

Her face lit up. “Je remercie le Seigneur! Quelqu'un à qui parler.”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t understand. Ne comprends. Enchanté.”

Jabulela’s shoulders slumped, but she smiled again before returning to her orange.

No doubt, in a few weeks, Buffy would have him and Dean training Potentials. They’d find a translator soon.

Sam slipped two oranges into his sweatshirt pocket and headed for the basement -- the only place they could have possibly tucked Spike in this packed house. The basement was so dark, Sam gripped the rail and felt the steps out with this eyes closed. One step. Two steps. Though Spike didn’t need to sleep, Sam didn’t want to wake him with a light if he’d opted to.

“What are you doing ‘ere, Samuel?” Spike’s voice, though soft, carried a hint of threat.

“It’s just Sam. I brought you an orange.”

“Worried about my vitamin C?” Spike was laying on a cot underneath the manacles they’d locked him in weeks before. A blanket covered his lap, but it was too dark to tell if his legs had regrown to fill the space.

Sam approached him, but as he crossed the demon trap surrounding him, Spike jolted upright and raised a mitted hand in warning. “You should stay back! My pet demon is rearing up you just being ‘ere. Wants me to take you back.”

“Did you recently grow some sporty peglegs I need to worry about?” Sam sat on the end of Spike’s cot. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“I thought you were supposed to be smart,” Spike said earnestly as he watched Sam peel the orange.

“Sometimes I think it’s better to trust people. Want a slice?”

Spike pinned one mitt between his arm and chest, pulling out a bare hand with gnarled, small fingers that clasped around the orange slice. “I don’t need to eat, you know.”

“I know, but it’s nice isn’t it?”

Spike nodded. “Going to need ‘elp getting that mitt back on.”

“What’s up with those?” Sam asked.

“Growing back itches,” Spike paused to suck on his orange. “I don’t want to look at ‘em either.”

They ate a few more slices in silence as the house above them began to buzz with activity. When the first orange was gone, Sam said, “You didn’t have to save me.”

“But who’d peel my oranges?”

Sam chuckled quietly. Spike, or at least the man inside him, couldn’t help but be a hero though he wouldn’t take credit. Had Spike not kept Sam awake, kept the Turok-Han’s attention, stoked Lucifer’s hatred, Sam would have died or been in pieces or both. “I’m sure one of the Potentials would have helped you.”

“Potentials?” said Spike with surprise. “Is that all the ruckus upstairs? Slayer niblets?”

It was Sam’s turn to be surprised. “Have none of them been down to see you?”

Spike shook his head. “Mostly Buffy brings me blood. Willow a few times. Giles popped down once to ask me a bunch of questions. Didn’t even know ‘e was back in town.”

Sam’s experience had been completely different since the rescue. He could only get a moment alone in the bathroom. Dean, Willow, Dawn and Xander were constantly by his side anticipating his every need. It was nice to know they were still his friends even though he was a freak, but the way they treated Spike felt unjust. “What have you been doing down here?”

“Daydreaming. Sleeping. Buffy brought me some books, but--” Spike held up his twisted hand.

Turning on a light and grabbing the book on the top of the pile, Sam began to read, “Chapter one: The Boy Who Lived…”

The sun was up by the time Buffy came down with a happy-faced mug full of warm blood. If she was surprised to find Sam reading Harry Potter to an enthralled vampire, she didn’t show it.

“We’re all crammed in my room,” she said as she absent-mindedly watched Spike drink his blood. “It would be great if you could join us, Sam.”

“‘It would be great if you could join us?’ Way to make a sentencing sound like a birthday party,” Spike grumbled.

Deeply confused, Sam asked, “Why? What’s going on.”

Coldy, Spike said, “They’re sorting out what to do with me, more specifically, who gets to kill me.”

“No one is killing you, Spike,” Buffy said, taking back the blood-stained mug. “I won’t let that happen.”

“Appreciated, but I’m not sure you have a choice.”

“You’re in my house, under my protection. I won’t let anything happen to you,” she promised.

“I’m not sure you have a choice,” Spike repeated slowly.

“Why doesn’t everyone come down here?” Sam asked, as memories of being locked in Bobby’s panic room flooded back. “Spike should get a say.”

Spike shook his head and smiled sadly, “Thanks, mate, but I don’t need to ‘ear exactly ‘ow much some of ‘em want me dead.”

“You’re not dying.” Sam hoped his determination combined with Buffy’s would be enough.

“When you can...” Buffy slipped up the stairs, leaving them in the basement’s uncomfortable quiet.

In the name of the greater good, Sam had killed many people, and he couldn’t blame demon possession for most of them. If Spike was guilty and out of control, then so was he.

By the time he caught up to her, Buffy was by the bathroom arguing with Lys. “I don’t care if you like her or not, French is the only common language Jabulela speaks. Show her around. Explain things.”

“But she’s some sort of religious nut!” Lys exclaimed, waving her hands as if that could hammer the point home.

“She’s a nun and less likely to bite than other people in this house, including me. Go. Do intros.”

Lys squinted at Buffy. “Fine, but you owe me!”

“I’ll get on that,” Buffy muttered as the girl stomped downstairs. “Like I’m not doing enough already.”

“Hey, can we talk?” Sam asked, leaning against the wall for support. “About Spike?”

Buffy raised her eyebrows and sighed. “He is the theme of the day.”

“Spike saved my life down there.”

“He probably did,” she said.

“So would it kill anyone in this house to spend a little time with him?”

Buffy leaned against the wall beside Sam, her head resting on his shoulder. She whispered, “I’m glad you care. Spike’s been through so much and tried so hard to better himself, but I know Dawn and Xander and the others just see the monster who--” He could almost hear her biting her tongue.

“I’ve tried, you know,” she continued. “I went down there the first day and cleaned him up; we talked for hours. But the First tripped something in him. I can see it in his eyes. The demon in him wants to hurt me even if the man doesn’t. I want him to live. Hell, I want him to win, but how can that happen with a time bomb in his chest?”

“So what we need is a way to separate the demon and the man?”

She sighed, the weight of her task pressing the air from her lungs. “We’ve been hitting the books for days, but I can’t find a spell that would help.”

“I know one,” Sam said.

Spike wiggled his toes in his newly tied boots. It had taken nearly two weeks to regrow his body. He stood by his cot and stretched before walking slow laps around his circular cage. He pressed on the air, but nothing he did could get him past the line painted on the floor.

The basement door opened and new footsteps, one of which was thunkingly uneven, descended the stairs. Spike sniffed the air. Engine grease.

“Winchesters!” He turned to see Sam, Dean in a cast, Buffy and Giles standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Come to gloat? Maybe poke the bear a bit?”

“No, we’re here to save your sorry ass,” said Dean.”

Spike pressed his tongue against his teeth and chuckled. “‘Course you are. Gotta fulfill that hero complex.”

“Spike.” How did Buffy fit so much exasperation into one syllable? “Dean and Sam have a plan to help you, maybe.”

Unable to suppress the smirk, he crossed his arms. “Maybe? Maybe if I’m a good boy or maybe it won’t work? Neither sound appealing.”

Leaning against the railing, Giles said, “You yourself said The First has been able to activate the demon within you, use you as a puppet. Do you feel any of its influence now?”

The smirk faded from his face. The demon’s voice was strong and pushy; usually when it was ravenous, Spike felt due for a good slaughter. “It’s like a dog, barking away in my ‘ead.”

“What’s it barking?” Dean asked.

“To kill you. Then turn ‘er,” Spike said, pointing at Buffy. “I - I don’t want to do either.”

“And what’s your plan to deal?” Buffy asked. “Yoga?”

Spike rubbed his tongue on the inside of his teeth, waiting.

Dean began, “So here’s the deal--”

“Not you,” Spike said, locking his eyes on Sam. “Can barely tolerate you. Sam, ‘e’s on my Christmas card list. You wouldn’t lie to a poor devil, would you, Sam?”

With a little color back in his cheeks but his eyes still darkly circled, Sam gazed at the floor as he thought. “It’s a theory, really. If it doesn’t work...you die.”

Spike shrugged.

Sam eased himself to the floor to sit cross-legged just outside of the painted trap. “Vampires are different where we’re from; it’s more like a genetic mutation, but here it’s a form of demon possession. Where we’re from, we would say you, William Pratt, are a vessel, and all we need to do to empty you is an exorcism.”

“Exorcism? Wot with the spinning ‘ead and pea soup?”

Dean and Giles busied themselves looking anywhere but at Spike, yet Buffy stared at him with tears rimming her eyes.

“Kinda? Demons don’t go quietly,” Sam said. “But the bigger problem is that to become a vessel at all, you had to be killed by a vampire. We’ve exorcised a few people who were already dead; they didn’t come to life once the demon was gone.”

Spike nodded. Was there a man inside him able to be saved? He wanted to think so. With the demon gone, would he return to his Victorian self? Sniveling, timid, desperate to please. Spike had never liked William Pratt, which is why he never fought to save him.

But the demon’s voice was getting so loud, filling his head with a thousand horrible things to do to Buffy, to Dean, to everyone in the house. Lucifer’s hooks were in him, and he wanted to be free.

“Do it,” Spike said.

Sam began, “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus--”

Spike’s body slammed to the ground and pushed back to the other side of the circle, sending his cot flying across the room.

“--et omnis legio diabolica--”

Buffy and Giles rushed to the edge of his cage.

“--Cessa decipere humanas creaturas--”

The demon, furious Buffy didn’t have the balls to kill him, lashed out, “You fucking bitch!”

“--hostis humanae salutis--”

Spike clutched his throat. It felt like his heart was trying to claw its way out.

“--contremisce et effuge--”

Buffy held back tears.

The younger Winchester’s spell was replaced with a deafening roar, like drowning in a tidal wave. Blackness crept into Spike’s vision. He stared at Buffy until the darkness won out.

“--Benedictus deus. Gloria patri.”

Spike coughed and opened his eyes. Cold air rushed into his lungs as his entire body began to tingle. A strange pressure filled his chest as he bounded up the stairs in twos. Rushing past the startled girls in the kitchen, he burst into the backyard where, for the first time in over one hundred and twenty years, the sun glowed warm on his skin.

Read Giles’ dossiers on:  Dani    Vi    Cloé      Molly     Lys     Grace    Wook    Keisha    Leticia     Naomi    Kate    Gabi    Jabulela

next chapter

[maneatingbadger]

For Leonardo, writing in the literary sense remains peripheral. (Somewhat paradoxically, one of his favourite literary exercises was the paragone, or comparison, between painting and poetry, in which painting was always argued to be superior; this debate forms part of the introduction to the Trattato della pittura.) He cultivates literature, it seems, principally as a social or courtly skill. In Florence he keeps the company of poets like Cammelli and Bellincioni, but his own achievements in that area are confined – as far as we know – to his skills as an improvvisatore, a song-and-dance man with his lira da braccio. The letter to Dei belongs within the same sort of sphere – an entertainment, a jeu d’esprit, probably written for a specific occasion. Its beautiful last sentence is an unexpected gem: a little coup de théâtre which ends the performance on a haunting, unsettling note. I see this as the typical mode of Leonardo as writer – lowbrow formats, plain-speaking style, moments of unexpected poetry. Leonardo’s taste for puns and word-games is part of his interestingly limited view of the writer, and there is a fascinating page of the late 1480s which belongs precisely to this stratum of literary trickery, and which again affords certain oblique glimpses into his mental processes. It is a large sheet in the Windsor collection, crammed with what Kenneth Clark rather quaintly calls ‘puzzle writing’ – what are more generally called rebuses or cryptograms. A rebus is a word or name or sentence expressed pictorially: a visual code. Though the game is to avoid words, it is of course a thoroughly verbal game, since the solution of the puzzle depends entirely on linguistic connections and often on double meanings. The word ‘rebus’ may be derived from carnival newsletters headed ‘De rebus quae geruntur’ (‘concerning things that have been happening’, i.e. current events), which avoided libel by using pictorial and hieroglyphic symbols in place of names; or more soberly from the explanatory formula ‘non verbis sed rebus’ (‘not with words but with things’). There had long existed in Italy a fondness for these punning cryptograms – the heraldic rebus representing the name of a family was particularly popular – though the more sophisticated rule-book for composing emblems and imprese had not yet been formulated. Leonardo manages to squeeze a total of 154 rebuses on to the two sides of the Windsor sheet. (Some other fragments of picture-writing, of the same period, bring the total to something like 200.) The pictographs themselves are hurriedly drawn: the finesse is in the mental ingenuity. Sometimes a picture alone is used, but often there is a combination of pictures and words or letters (not a ‘pure’ rebus, therefore). The sheet seems to be a working draft, in which ideas are tried out; some of the ropier ones were doubtless discarded. Beneath each rebus is written the key, the punning solution to the visual riddle. Thus the solution to the rebus showing a stock of corn and a rock is gran calamità, a great calamity, via puns on grano = grain and calamita = a magnetic stone. An o and a pear (pera) = opera, works. A face (faccia) and a donkey (asino) = fa casino, a slang phrase meaning someone is making a total hash of things. Some of the puns recur as he moves into whole sentences – thus ‘if the’ (se la) is always represented by a saddle (sella), and ‘happy’ (felice) by a fern (felce). These have become part of a reusable picture vocabulary. There is a sense here of Leonardo as intellectual court-jester – these are party pieces, pen-and-ink entertainments. One imagines him hovering, the enigmatic quizmaster, as the courtiers struggle to guess the answer. There would also be a practical spin-off, since pictographs were popular as architectural decoration. According to the Milanese architect Cesare Cesariano, the Sforza castle was decorated with such allegorical hieroglyphs, though these are no longer to be seen. Leonardo’s friend Bramante later designed an inscription in honour of Pope Julius II for the Vatican Belvedere, in which ‘Julio II Pont Maximo’ is spelt out in carved pictographs. Thus the rebus-skill Leonardo is practising here has also a practical application for the aspiring architect of the mid-1480s. Practical or not, there is a touch of the psychiatrist’s ‘free association’ games in the rebus. His mind is roving between different levels of meaning, between pictures and letters, enjoying the semiotic frissons out of which come strange hybrid meanings. Some of the phrases he comes up with have a certain psychological piquancy: ‘siamo scarico di vergogna’ – 'we have got rid of all shame’; ‘ora sono fritto’ – ‘now I am done for [literally fried]’. And the psychiatrist might raise a momentary eyebrow at that tiny scribbled self-portrait I mentioned earlier, apropos the lion in St Jerome – the lion in flames = leone + ardere = Leonardo. As a self-identifying pun or hieroglyph it seems rather bleak: the lion, axiomatically noble and powerful, is consumed and destroyed. We seem to be once more in the agitated sphere of the Oxford allegories. Even here, in these courtly quiz-games, we find that words open up chinks of Leonardo’s inner life. Also designed for courtly entertainment were Leonardo’s riddling ‘prophecies’, some of which I have already quoted. One of them has what amounts to a stage-direction added to it: ‘Say it in a form of frenzy or craziness, as if from a madness in the brain.’They were delivered, in other words, in a kind of mock-oracular ecstasy or furor. An obvious candidate for this performance would be Zoroastro, one of whose nicknames was Indovino, ‘the Prophet’ or ‘Soothsayer’; the word has an overtone of mystic hocus-pocus (cf.indovinello, a riddle) which fits these joke predictions. The humour of the prophecies lies in their ingeniously anti-climactic explanations. Mostly they turn on simple little twists of meaning, not unlike the visual puns of the rebuses – those who will ‘walk on top of the trees’ are men wearing wooden clogs, and those who will ‘walk on the skins of great beasts’ are men wearing shoes of ox-leather, and those who will ‘go as fast as the quickest of creatures by means of the stars’ are men using spurs, which are star-shaped. The ‘bodies’ which will ‘grow when the head is taken from them, and diminish when the head is put back’ are pillows. The animal which will be ‘seen with its tongue up another’s arse’ refers to the butcher’s custom of wrapping up pigs’ and calves’ tongues in entrails. These are the meanings which the audience has to guess. But there is also an element of double-bluff: the prophecies are often pungently expressive little texts, which linger in the mind after they have been explained and deflated. Like the spoof newsletter to Dei, they stray into an imagery of cataclysm and violence. They also express an idea of Nature as the wounded, exploited victim of man’s rapacity: There will be many who will flay their mother and turn her skin inside out. [Those who till the land] Men will severely beat what gives them life. [Those who thresh grain] The times of Herod will return, when innocent children shall be taken from their nurses, and will die with great wounds at the hands of cruel men. [Kids] With merciless blows many little children will be taken from the arms of their mothers and thrown to the ground and then torn to pieces. [Walnuts, olives etc.] This ecologically compassionate view of nature is also found in Leonardo’s fables, which were probably also written for recital at court. As far as can be established, the thirty or so fables that survive are original compositions. They emulate Aesop, but are not borrowed from him. Leonardo may also have known Alberti’s collection, the Apologhi (not published till 1568, but doubtless available in manuscript). The fables are full of an animistic sense of the landscape as a living thing. It is not only animals that are given a voice, but also trees and plants and stones. They become sentient creatures, capable of feeling pain – a pain constantly inflicted on them by man. A chestnut-tree is envisaged as a protective parent whose ‘sweet children’ – the nuts – are torn from her. The ‘hapless willow’ is ‘maimed and lopped and ruined’. Harvest is wounding. Here is a very short fable about a walnut-tree, almost a gnomic little prose-poem: ‘Il noce mostrando sopra una strada ai viandante la richezza de sua frutta, ogni omo lapidava.’ (The nut-tree by the roadside showed off to travellers the richness of its fruit; everyone stoned it.)

Charles Nicholl, Leonardo Da Vinci: The Flights of the Mind

Caption: Part of the large sheet of rebuses at Windsor. 

[a-friendinthedark]

*blows whistle* ROUND TWO BEGIN

@sakamotorei: For the second OC ask list: 1,2 (you cry), 5, 8, 13, 14 , 15, 16, 17 and 19. I especially wanna know for Jacob since I feel so soft for him now haha but I’m just as curious for everyone else.

1: What’s something other characters will notice first about your character?

Noella –

The overall impression of how cheery and bubbly and fluttery she is.

Nova –

Her striking fashion sense and the confident way she carries herself.

Jacob –

The overall impression of quietness and softness. I feel like some people immediately feel a bit more at ease around him.

Emily –

Most likely her physical attractiveness? And then the overall impression of energy, enthusiasm, and cheerfulness.

2: What’s your character’s aesthetic (things associated with your character)? 

This is very hard, so I’m not going to be rigorous about this. This is mostly based off their moodboards I did last year, also their daemons lol.

Jacob –

Night skies with stars, black sweaters, rice, nightlights, black-and-white rabbits, black cats

Noella –

Flowers, bicycles with baskets, gardening tools, pies/pastries/cakes, succulents, hens

Nova –

Pastel make-up on dark skin, silver jewelry, heels, peacoats, lavender sky with a city skyline, lavender lightning, black panther

Emily –

Tan riding boots, lemons, straw hats, the beach, iPhone and earphones, red peacoats, sunglasses

5: What kind of transport does your character usually use? 

Jacob –

Public transport or walking

Noella –

Cycling, walking, and public transport. She cycles wherever possible.

Nova & Emily –

Car, public transport, or walking

8: If your character attended school, did they have a favourite or best subject?

Jacob –

He’s an average student. He likes Chinese though. 

He didn’t really like the Arts or Humanities subjects. He struggles to be creative. Even when he’s older, one of his strengths is not creativity. He also had trouble seeing multiple perspectives of an issue – he does better with by-the-book subjects, like Maths and Science. This is because he tends to have a rigid way of looking at things (Si-dom), which balances out as he gets older (he becomes more open-minded).

Nova –

She excelled at any subject involving rational arguments (her family and her regularly have debates at the dinner table lol), and she loved those subjects. So, mainly Language and Arts/Humanities subjects. She also did really well with Science and Math, but she enjoyed Math more than Science. She feels most alive when she’s putting her ideas out there to make them a reality, organizing the world and putting things into order, so I’d say she loved being president of whatever club she was in, she loved working as the team leader of teams, etc.

She didn’t like and didn’t do well with creative subjects, such as creative writing, drawing, painting… etc.

Noella –

She’s a Language and Arts/Humanities person. Art history, Film studies, Literature, Music… she loved those subjects and she was good at them.

She didn’t like Maths and Science. Especially higher-level Maths.

Emily –

She didn’t like school because of the rigid structure. Her favorite subjects were gym and her extra-curricular activities (e.g. cheerleading). She did like Maths when it wasn’t too theoretical. She was good at that, and found it straightforward and easy.

She found every other subject a drag because she struggled through them and also she couldn’t/didn’t see any value in them. She is one of those people who has outstanding records in every area except her grades. She struggled marginally lesser with English. Her older sister and brother coached her in the subjects (Emmaline is a better teacher than Ethan, who is nearly as restless as Emily is) which helped her a lot.

Ayla –

VOLLEYBALL. Okay, but seriously, her favorite subjects were gym and volleyball. She loves nearly all her subjects because she has lots of friends in all her classes. Class, more like bonding time amirite.

She didn’t dislike anything because she enthusiastically tries to love all her subjects, and do well in them, but she’s a slightly-below-average/average student. Though if you really press her, she admits that she finds Science really really tough. Also, she doesn’t know it, but she actually did better with Humanities subjects because of Icarus. He loves it, and during their conversations, they sometimes ended up sharing opinions, which opened her worldview a bit. She thinks he is so intelligent and “deep” for being able to have such well-thought-out opinions.

Icarus –

Humanities subjects. He does especially well with subjects like creative writing. He’s a budding artist – tried his hand at painting, prose/poetry-writing, sketching��� He once shyly let Ayla read one of his creative writing pieces and ever since then, she’s his biggest fan, and excitedly asks him to share every time he hands in an assignment. He’s very flattered and happy. They mull over criticism of his writing together lol. He also likes science but he tends to do just slightly above average in it.

He doesn’t like Math coz he doesn’t do well with it.

13: What’s your character’s preferred method of self-care? 

(going to exclude talking to people because this should be something they do alone)

Noella –

Looking after her plants and hens, talking to her hens (getting quite upset and even tearing up while she’s talking it out loud. It’s basically journalling, but out loud and to someone)

Cooking/baking for herself, indulgent-eating (when she’s really upset) 

Hugging a few babies or playing with kids or giving them something nice/pampering them so she can see them smile, she feels good herself

Goes for a bike ride, picks some wildflowers, walks in the woods, eats some berries

Jacob –  

Takes good physical care of himself. In other words, he goes home to unwind: he bathes, eats, rests, turns on the TV, watches a few pleasant shows, or maybe reads a book. He makes sure he is feeling physically comfortable and safe, the way he takes care of his Pokemon in the Pokemon AU.

Pets Lops, feeds him, and just watches Lops. It sounds weird but he finds it peaceful to just watch Lops go about his rabbit routine.

Ayla –

Working out (at the gym or goes for a run)

Talking to BooBoo (her pig). She feeds him and watches him while she dejectedly tells him about what went wrong with her day.

Scrolling through Facebook for minion inspirational quotes and feeling inspired, and then sharing the quotes on her FB.

Looks for cute animal videos to watch. Cheers her right up.

Icarus –  

Tries to write a poem, listens to music (while trying to really imagine himself in the situation so he can really feel the music), writes down his thoughts and feelings on his tumblr

Emily –

Does individual sports. She has a lot of energy and she’s always moving. When she’s upset, she wants to move. Swimming, gymnastics/physical exercises...

Spends time with Star, her beloved horse. Grooms him, feeds him, goes riding with him.

When she’s very stressed, she goes for retail therapy. Aka she just hits the mall and binge-shops. This is if she’s really stressed and she’s tryna escape for a while.

Nova –

Declutter. She likes to declutter stuff (throw unnecessary things out) and organize, because it clears her head and makes her feel calmer/better

Works out. Either goes to the gym to jog on the treadmill for a couple of hours while listening to music, or goes for a jog around her neighborhood. She does this especially if she is angry (trying to work off the aggression)

Unplugs. Practices yoga -- breathing exercises, relaxing her body... she is always doing something or thinking of getting something done, so this is when she makes herself slow down, and clear her mind so she can think clearly about her problems.

Books a massage for herself. Enjoys the massage so she can think better. Goes for a facial or a spa to relax herself while she thinks over her problems.

14: When does your character feel truly at peace? 15: What’s one thought, idea, goal, dream, or desire that your character is most ashamed of having? 17: How does alcohol affect your character? 19: What words would your character use to define themself?