#might still leave 'poem' in the name somewhere

[corpus-chorus]

wassup howdy its me i saw in the tags of the howd you pick your username post that you wanted to change ur ao3 user and is that a thing you can do and also how do i do that bc my ao3 is so old and bad and not lasagna related at all (bad)

Lmaoooooo, yeah I feel that struggle XD

But yes, you can change your AO3 username! It will break any links you have to your AO3 profile or works list, since the username is used in the URL, but otherwise you can do it once every 7 days.

Check out AO3's FAQ section on name changes for more info and steps, but here's how I know to change it:

Go to AO3 and go to your dashboard from the top right

2. Go to "Profile" in the top left

3. Go to "Edit My Profile" in the bottom right

4. Go to "Change User Name" in the top right

And then you can change it from there!

I might also suggest what I'm doing, which is adding my old username back as a pseud and then putting all my old works under that pseud so that it'll show like "old username (new username)" on those works. That way people aren't super confused when they come back to those fics and see the name change, but none of my new works will have to be attached to that username.

[radsoldier]

You're a bad idea.

Pairing: Cairo Sweet x Dom!Fem!Reader

Summary: Cairo is mesmerized by the new, mysterious student sharing a class with her.

Words: 1.3k

Warnings: cursing, steamy scene (no smut however) I think that's all?

a/n: i'm sorry if it feels a little rushed? i changed the ending almost four times. hope you enjoy!

You hated how everything was changing but still, you felt numb.

You moved to another state, you decided to focus on your writting and suddenly you became a mystery.

Or at least that's how Cairo saw you. And she loved a good mystery more than anything.

More so if the mystery was the new and gorgeous student sharing a class with her.

Yeah, maybe she was getting a little obsessed over someone she had only exchanged a few words with.

She knew very little about you. Your name. The amazing writer you were. The body she only saw once, when you crossed paths in the locker room, you having finished your training with the soccer team, she getting ready for her swimming lessons.

The way you seemed to try to blend in so no one would be able to notice you. But she did. How could she not?

So she found herself, once again, writting about you. The possibilities were endless.

Who were you? Why did you get here halfway through the course?

God, she needed some sleep.

_________

You were late to your first class but you couldn't care less. The creative writting lecturer was really annoying.

You didn't bother knocking on the door and just walked in, getting a few stares from other students AND, obviously, your professor.

"So you decided to finally show up? What an honor" he said.

You chose to ignore him, it was really early in the morning and you didn't have time for coffee before you left home so yes, you felt like shit.

You scanned the room looking for an empty seat somewhere you could just lay low until your eyes landed on Cairo Sweet.

Well, on the spot near her. You walked there and without another word you sat next to her and opened your laptop on your desk, ready to start writting while blocking out your teacher's voice.

You opened your most recent work, knowing full well you didn't have the energy nor the time to finish it right then but you thought you might as well give it a try.

You could feel the burning stare on the side of your head but you decided to ignore it and started typing instead, focusing on your work.

The minutes passed excruciatingly slow and you could feel yourself getting more and more annoyed at the fact that you were unable to focus on the poem you were writing.

"Trouble in paradise?" Cairo asked with a smirk, leaning closer so only you could hear.

You stared at her with no sign of emotion on your face and she felt like you could see clearly every thought she ever had.

"Mind your own bussiness" you retorted.

You saw dissapointment flash across her features before she returned her attention to the stupid lecture and for some reason all you could think about was her smirk, the small dimples on her cheeks and all those freckles.

Fuck, her face was like a sky full of stars.

You tried to focus on your work with little success when Cairo's face haunted your mind.

_________

Class ended and you were the first one to leave, almost as if you were in a rush so when Cairo saw you smoking against a wall near the parking lot she was pleasantly surprised and without thinking it twice, she approached you and snatched the cigarrete from your hand, allowing herself a long drag before looking up at you with that same smirk from before.

You looked at her. Really looked at her. She was gorgeous. Her tiny frame held herself with shameless wonder. You felt like some force was pulling you to her.

"What do you want from me?" you asked.

She laughed and you swear your heart skipped a few beats in that moment.

"That's a great question" she said mischievously "I'm still figuring that out"

Then she stepped closer to you and she placed the cigarrete back in your lips.

"Then find me when you do, Cairo" you said smirking back before turning around and leaving.

She felt confused, she thought she was getting somewhere but she felt like you were always running.

Cairo watched as you started your bike and drove away from the building.

You really needed that coffee now if you wanted to make it to practice later that day.

_________

You were distracted, which earned you a talk from the coach. You scoffed and left the field to sit on the bleachers, as he instructed you.

"Sit back there and cool down, don't want that temper on my team, kid" were his exact words.

You couldn't help it. You either felt numb or mad, there was no in-between.

You watched as the rest of the team finished some drifts and exercises and you joined them, the only answer to your move being a slightly nod from the coach.

Practice finished without further inconvinience but you always decided to run around the field while everybody went home.

You liked the solitude of it.

So you found yourself entering the locker room really late that day. You took off your shirt first thing and then looked around to find no other than Cairo Sweet, her wet hair falling around her shoulders. And she was definitely checking you out.

"Enjoying the view?" you asked raising one eyebrow at her.

"Mhmm" she muttered not looking away from your abs.

You stepped closer to her and that seemed to put her out of her trance and look straight to your face. She was blushing and biting her lower lip.

"I will ask again, Cairo. What do you want?" you took another step closer.

Her eyes darted back and forth between your eyes and you lips as she licked hers.

"I want you, Y/N" she said breathless.

And she sounded so sure of it.

Your eyes darkened as she leaned closer to you so she could trace her hand against your jaw.

"So pretty…" she said.

Something inside of you switched and in a swift movement you grabbed her hand above her head and guided her backwards until her back made contact with the locker behind her.

"Fuck" she whimpered.

You leaned so close that she could feel your breath against her mouth.

"That's what you want, Cairo? You want me to fuck you?" you demanded.

"Y-yes" she was breathing hard and you were enjoying every bit.

You released her hand and she placed it on your shoulder, tugging for you to get even closer, while your hand made its way to her collarbone, you traced it slowly and then you placed it on her throat, with just enough force to keep her head in place as you finally closed the gap and smashed your lips agains hers, kissing her hard.

You shivered when you felt her hand tracing down your torso, taking her time around your top to finally rest on your abs.

She moaned when your tongue traced her lower lip, asking for permission which she happily complied.

The sound of a door closing took you both out of your steamy make out session and you felt your body tense when you pulled apart.

"I have to go" you said "Didn't mean to start a fire" you added smirking at her.

And with that you grabbed your things and left her there, speechless and aching for you.

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - "Nodology", Part 1

It's best to read this story after first reading "No More Scars", since this is a sequel. While it's not necessary to do so, it helps paint a picture of Jon and Sansa's current relationship, and there are some references to scenes from that fic that might be lost on new readers. "No More Scars" was about the organic progression of Jon and Sansa's relationship on the road to Riverrun after he rescues her from King's Landing, and this is the story of that singularly-focused narrative now entering into the larger world of family and politics and societal expectations. Long story short, shit gonna get messy from here on in, folks.

Like in "No More Scars", there's been some speeding up/condensing of the timeline, and aging up of all characters. For those that are new, Jon died up at the Wall and then went South to rescue Sansa. Expect lots of creative license being taken, lol.

Nodology

Chapter One: There's a Poem in there Somewhere

"The knot fastens ever tighter." - Jon and Sansa. After rescuing her from King's Landing and bringing her to Riverrun, the two try to navigate a love they never intended to start, especially with so many watching eyes.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2

* * *

All things come to an end, Sansa realizes.

This is what she thinks when she makes her way through the gates of her mother's family home.

(This must be how it ends – their journey.)

It's not home, but it's as near to it as Sansa expects to be for a long while. Riverrun's gates open before them, and Sansa sees her family, standing at the bottom of the stairs leading into the main hall at the end of the courtyard. The breath stalls in her chest. She's hardly aware of the halt her horse makes when she settles before them, Jon leading the horse on foot, keeping the proper decorum between them. And she's hardly aware of the offer of his hand for her to hold onto when she dismounts, rather than the familiar way his palms used to fit around her waist to help her down. They left intimacy back on the hill, after all. And part of Sansa's heart hurts for it, but in this moment, she hasn't a mind for it.

"Oh, Sansa," her mother cries, and then she is folded into her arms.

Everything comes undone in Sansa's chest. Her breath rakes from her, her eyes wetting instantly, and when she reaches trembling hands up to the back of her mother's dress, she fears she may crumble against her form.

"My dear Sansa," Catelyn cries into her hair, a hand stroking the back of her head, the other wrapped tight around her shoulders.

The sob catches in Sansa's throat. "Mother," she croaks out, voice breaking. And then the tears truly do come.

They hold each other there in the open courtyard. Robb watches them with a trembling lip, his throat flexing. He opens his mouth, perhaps to say her name, to say something, but nothing comes. He clamps it shut, the quiver in his chin barely discernible, his eyes never leaving her form.

And then there is Jon, still holding the reins of the horse she'd rode in on. Still watching, always, from a distance. She meets his eyes over her mother's shoulder.

He offers her a tender smile, just the slightest quirk of his lip, his own eyes wetting at the sight of their reunion.

She mouths a silent 'thank you' to him, her tears hot along her lids, and then she buries her face in her mother's shoulder.

Her knees buckle, but Catelyn holds her.

She is home, home, home.

(Because home is not a place.)

Sansa doesn't bother to smother her cries this time.

* * *

Catelyn frets over her the first several hours, and dinner that night is awkward for her at the beginning, the anxiety still bundled in her chest, the fear still wound tight throughout her gut.

The last time she sat at a dinner table, Cersei sat across from her, wine goblet in hand, sneer in place.

Her appetite is slow in returning.

Catelyn brushes a stand of hair behind her daughter's ear with affection. Sansa smiles tenderly at her, seated beside her, before refocusing on her plate.

Jon sits across from her. Ghost lies at her feet beneath the table.

More than her appetite may be slow to return. But he is here.

And she is safe.

And there is time in the world for everything else.

* * *

Jon had expected to be the one to break the terrible news of Arya no longer being in King's Landing, but before he can, Catelyn is already assuring Sansa of their search for Arya, her hands cupping her cheeks, her eyes fervent on hers.

"She's been seen in the Riverlands, and I've sent trusted people in search of her. Your uncle is helping," she says with a nod to her brother Edmure.

Tears bead in Sansa's eyes.

The air tangles in Jon's lungs – equal mix dread and relief.

She's been spotted, at least. She's alive, at least. But beyond that...

He meets Sansa's eyes across the room and finds the same tangle of emotion reflected in her gaze.

In this world, and in this war, they have no guarantee of anything, after all.

* * *

There's a knock on her chamber door. She calls for the visitor to enter and stops her perusal of the many dresses her mother has laid across her bed for her.

Robb enters, eyes meeting hers briefly before glancing to the floor, and he closes the door behind him. He meets her gaze again in silence.

Sansa stills in her surprise, before her manners return to her. She curtsies. "Your Grace."

"Sansa, please – " he starts, hand out-reaching, before stopping. He clears his throat. "You can forget the formalities," he tells her, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Sansa watches him quietly, aching to reach for him, to bury her face in his chest and cry in his arms and call him 'brother' once more, but she's unsure whether he wants that as well. Whether she is still 'sister' to him.

"You've returned to us. Safe and sound," he says in relief.

The anger flares hot and unbidden within her. She purses her lips, turning back to her bed. "Yes, though your definition of 'sound' is questionable at best," she snaps.

He steps toward her. "Sansa..."

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. This is her king, as well as her brother. She turns back to him. "I'm sorry. That was... unworthy of me."

He hesitates a moment, and then he reaches for her, wraps his arms around her frame, sighs into her hair. "You've no idea how worried I was."

"No, I've no idea," she breathes quietly into his shoulder, stiffening in his embrace.

Robb doesn't seem to notice. He pulls back from their hug, his hands resting along her arms. "I want you to meet my new wife. You'll get on well, I just know it."

Sansa heaves an exhausted sigh. "Of course."

Robb peers at her. "Are you tired? You must be tired. Of course, you're tired. I should let you rest." His hands fall from her shoulders. He moves to turn, and then stops, glancing back at her. He opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. "I'm glad you're back, Sansa. Truly."

Maybe he means it. Maybe he means all of it.

But Sansa cannot think of that right now. She only nods silently, offering a perfunctory smile. "So am I," she says placatingly.

Robb smiles at her, before leaving her chambers.

She drops down to sit along the edge of the bed, her eyes glancing over the dresses laid out across her furs.

It rises in her – sudden and poisonous.

She grabs a dress, slings it across the room with a shriek.

Sansa stands staring at the offending garment, her chest heaving with her ire, and then she grabs for another, throwing it just the same. Another. And another. Her shouts of rage crumble into grievous cries, her arms finally giving out as she stumbles back along the bed, sliding down the side of it to drop to the stone below. She buries her face in her hands, her breaths coming quick, her eyes stinging with unshed tears, her frustration panted into her palms.

She pulls her knees up to her chest.

She is home, home, home.

(And it shouldn't feel like this.)

* * *

Jon finds her in the stables, brushing out the mane of her horse. He glances around the stalls, making certain of their seclusion, before he steps up behind her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and pulling back against his chest.

Sansa startles in his embrace, before she realizes it's him, the brush in her hand still held mid-air, her other going to Jon's own hand around her waist. "Jon," she whispers with caution, glancing around the corner for any witnesses to his sudden affection.

But Jon only sighs into her hair, clutching her more firmly. He buries his nose along her shoulder. "Just give me a minute."

Sansa worries her lip, stiffening in his hold, even as his warmth floods her. "Jon, we have to be careful," she hisses, eyes still flicking around the corner of the stall.

"Just a minute, please, Sansa," he rumbles into her neck, his eyes fluttering closed at her scent, her nearness, the steady weight of her braced to his chest.

The ardency of his request seems to move her, and her shoulders lose their tension, her own sigh stealing past her lips as she leans back against him, quietly surrendering.

He's back there, suddenly, back to being on the run like they were only weeks ago, when there was nothing but her and him and a horse and a road. Nothing to stop him holding her like this, and no one to interrupt. Nothing to risk, and no shame to be found.

He breathes her in, his fingers clutching at her, and it's too short – this time that he can hold her. It's too short and too fleeting and too edged with danger.

(He knew this going into it. He knew this when she reached for his hand atop the hill and told him: "This isn't as far as we go." But knowing doesn't make it any easier.

He knew he was still her brother.

He knew this was still wrong.

But knowing and wanting have never gone hand in hand for him.)

He takes a last lingering inhale at her neck, his nose still pressed to her hair, his hands slipping from her waist reluctantly, before he moves to turn her gently in his hold, facing her.

She looks up at him with a tenderness that rakes through his chest.

He closes his eyes and sighs heavily when she braces a hand to his cheek, her thumb brushing over his coarse beard.

"What is it?" she asks him softly, peering up at him when he settles his hands on her hips.

"I just miss you," he manages, his eyes fluttering open to rove across her face.

She smiles up at him, before leaning forward to plant a kiss along his cheek. "And I miss you. Always. Even when you're right across the table from me."

Jon sighs out his aggravation, his thumbs brushing unconscious circles over her hips. "I feel like we haven't spoken in days."

Sansa looks down, her hands going to brace along his arms. "We haven't, really," she says forlornly.

He doesn't let her linger long on it though, directing her to the bench across the horse's stall. They settle next to each other, their hands held between them. "How have you been?" he asks her.

She gives a slight shake of her head. "I'm worried for mother. There's been no further news of Arya."

Jon grunts his acknowledgement, his eyes drifting down to their joined hands, his thumb gliding over her knuckles in comfort. "There will be. I promise."

She smiles up at him. "When you say it, I believe you."

"Good."

She squeezes his hands. "I'm surprised you didn't offer to join Uncle Edmure's men in their search for her."

He considers it a moment, his eyes still following the trail of his thumb over the back of her hand. "I thought about it," he says softly.

She cocks her head at him. "But...?"

He looks up at her then. "But Robb is planning his next attack soon and I need to be with him."

She frowns at his words. "Will you be leaving then?"

At her slight pout, the hint of a smile tugs at his lips, and he reaches up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers grazing her jaw. "Not immediately."

"I don't want you to go," she says firmly, leaning toward him with a plea in her eyes.

Jon sighs at the urgency in her words, the smile slipping from his face. "Sansa, I have to."

"No, you don't. Robb has enough of the Northern lords behind him. You don't have to risk yourself as well."

"And you're okay with letting our brother go to war without me? Without his family?"

Sansa's mouth thins into a tight line, her throat flexing imperceptibly. Her eyes flick away from his, focusing on the tie of his tunic instead. "No," she croaks out, finally.

But Jon knows where the hesitation comes from.

"Did Robb send you?"

The years apart have made them different people. But he still remembers how Sansa used to hang off Robb's arm at feasts, and how eagerly she played her harp for him, and how she dragged him into her games of pretend when they were children. He remembers her proud smile when Robb first donned the cloak she'd sewn for him, and the way she refused to cry in his presence, and the intensity with which she held him as they said their goodbyes outside the gates of Winterfell, before her ill-fated trip to King's Landing.

Robb was Sansa's favorite brother. Always had been.

And maybe that fact never really hurt before because he'd been his as well, and maybe it doesn't really hurt now because being Sansa's favorite brother isn't even what he wants – now, when what he wants is so decidedly far from brotherly, it isn't even in the same vicinity.

And still:

"Did Robb send you?"

Maybe it hurts now because they've both since learned the answer, even when neither will say it.

"Of course, I want him safe," she says, her voice quaking, her eyes still fixed to his chest. She sighs, her shoulders slumping with it, her gaze falling to her lap. "But I can't lose you both. I wouldn't make it, Jon, not after... not after everything."

Jon releases her hands to cup her face, the gentle brush of his thumb arcing over her cheek. "Hey, look at me."

She does, and the trust he finds in her gaze nearly rends him clean in two.

"Sansa, we have a chance, don't you see? With the Riverlands and the Vale lending their support, and Theon off securing the Greyjoys' alliance – we can end this war."

Sansa's brows dip in concern. "But when Robb married Jeyne..."

Jon shakes his head, a rough sound brewing in his throat. "I know. I know the Freys aren't happy, but we're still in talks. And nothing's been decided. And with Robb as our king, I know – I know we can finally – " He stops, the words clogging up his throat as he takes in her face. "The North can be free. You can be free. And I promise – I promise you, Sansa – neither Robb or I will ever let you be captive again, do you understand me?"

Sansa reaches up to hold his wrists, pressing her cheek into the palm of his calloused hand.

He just wants her to believe him.

Because he means it. He means it more than anything in this world.

Sansa is free when the North is free. And for that...

For that, he would give anything.

"Tell me you believe me," he begs of her, his face inching closer to hers.

The slight sheen of tears blankets her eyes as she blinks up at him. But she nods mutely, and it is answer enough.

He presses forward and kisses her. Just the once. Swift and sure and promising.

She sucks a shallow breath between her lips, her forehead bracing to his when he pulls back. Her hands never unlink from around his wrists.

Sansa is free when the North is free.

(And he needs no further reason to fight.)

* * *

"That's all I know," Sansa says, glancing down at the map of King's Landing Robb has spread out over the table.

Jon watches the tick in Robb's jaw at her words, his hands braced along the edge of the table, eyes fixed to the map. "Sansa," he sighs, "There must be something you missed. Something that can help us. You know how important this is."

Catelyn, Brynden, Edmure and even Robb's wife Jeyne Westerling stand around the table with them, all eyes keened to the layout of King's Landing spread before them, a stilted silence pervading the room. Outside the chamber, Robb's advisors and the other lords of the North wait patiently to convene the war council.

Sansa crosses her arms defensively at Robb's words, her eyes flashing to him. "Of course, I know how important this is. I'm not a simpleton. But I can't tell you what I don't know! It's not like I was privy to the Lannisters' council meetings," she huffs.

Robb looks up at her with frustration, before he pushes from his lean over the table, a hand wiped over his mouth. "Think, Sansa. Even the smallest detail may help us. Something they may have let slip."

Sansa narrows her eyes at him. "I'm sorry, was I meant to be spying between the bouts of terror and abuse? Apologies, Your Grace, but I never received that missive," she bites out.

Robb sucks a sharp breath between his teeth, his mouth opening on a scathing retort.

Catelyn's hand goes to his arm, stilling him.

The room feels stiff in the aftermath, Edmure and the Blackfish both shifting their weight from one leg to another, watching the scene before them carefully. Jeyne folds her hands in front of her, eyes falling to the floor when she pulls her lip between her teeth.

Sansa doesn't lower her gaze from her brother's.

Jon watches the exchange anxiously, his hands held tight behind his back.

Finally, Sansa tears her gaze away, hot tears pricking her eyes, her fingers tightening over her arms.

"I'm sorry for your suffering, Sansa, believe me, but this is about more than that," Robb begins, voice rough. "This is about Northern independence, and I can't afford to delay that to cushion your hurt. I need information. I need details. And I need you to give them to me."

Sansa's fingers flex over her arms, her eyes still fixed to the table, still brimming with tears. "I know that," she gets out on a croak.

And oh, what it must take from her, to be scolded like this before her family, and to keep her graces, even still.

Jon grips one hand beneath the other at his back, the muscles in his arms bunching.

Everyone stays silent before the King in the North, gauging his ire.

"But that's all I know," Sansa sighs out, her frustration nearly strangling the words in her throat. She blinks back the tears, the remembrance.

Jon can practically feel the thrum of Catelyn's anxiety beside him.

Robb sighs again, a heat behind the exhale. "You were Tyrion's wife, for Seven's sake. You mean to tell me he let nothing slip? No indication of their force's strength, their next move, any weakness of the Keep, nothing?" he bites out.

A growl brews quietly in Jon's chest at the words, at Tyion's mention, at Robb's forcefulness. His knuckles go white beneath his grip.

Sansa glowers at Robb. "He wasn't one for pillow talk," she clips out, the flush of anger coloring her throat.

Jon sees the hurt behind her eyes clearly.

"Robb," Catelyn whispers at his side, an ache lining her voice.

But Robb ignores it, his gaze narrowing on Sansa. "You were a Lannister bride," he hisses, almost accusatory. "You must know more."

"I know who I am," Sansa croaks out, blinking back the tears, her lip trembling, the words too close to apologetic for Jon's liking.

Too head-bowed for a daughter of the North.

(Too yielding for Sansa.)

Jon bares his teeth, the breath raking from him. His eyes are only for Sansa when he tells her, surely, and with everything of himself, "You're Sansa Stark of Winterfell."

His deep voice heralds a stilted silence in the room, all eyes turning to him upon their utterance. He's painstakingly aware of Catelyn's steady gaze beside him.

Sansa blinks up at him, her mouth parting.

They stare at each other in the quiet of the room.

He wants to go to her then, wants to wrap her in his arms and bury her in his embrace, wants to press her cheek to his chest and breathe against her hair, wants to hold her to his bones, until she knows, indisputably, and without doubt – that she is the blood of Winterfell. That she is the North.

Sansa Stark.

Not Sansa Lannister. Not Sansa the traitor's daughter. Or Sansa the captive.

But Sansa Stark.

Sansa Stark.

This is who she is, who she will always be.

And no one, not even her brother king, can take that from her.

(This is who she is, and who he loves.)

"You're Sansa Stark of Winterfell," he says again, no less certain, no less adamant than the first time.

Robb sighs heavily at the end of the table, his fists bracing to the edge of the wood, his gaze drawn down to the map before them. The fight leaves him slowly, replaced by a weariness that slumps his shoulders in its wake.

Catelyn's hand rises to his shoulder, a measure of comfort in the heated quiet of the room, and Jon is grateful for the release of her intense gaze upon him.

Robb waves his mother's council off, a hand going to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Leave me," he says on a tired exhale, an unspoken surrender to the words.

The group shuffles out wordlessly, Catelyn's hand slipping from her son's shoulder reluctantly.

Jon looks at Sansa one last time before they exit the room.

She meets his gaze almost instantly,

The axis of his body tilts toward hers, the gravity of her almost overwhelming him.

(To hold her to his bones and tell her – )

She is Sansa Stark of Winterfell.

And he is in love with her.

* * *

"I can't seem to... talk to her anymore," Robb tells him, stilling in his wiping of his blade.

Jon glances at his brother beside him, as they sit along one of the benches in the training yard. He raises a brow his way. "Who?" he asks, sliding the whetstone along his own blade, but even in his feigned ignorance, the answer is blaringly apparent.

Robb returns the oiled cloth in his hand to his sword, face screwing up in concentration. "Sansa," he tells him.

Jon grunts his acknowledgement, eyeing Robb beside him. "What do you mean?" he asks carefully, the words tight in his throat.

"You were a Lannister bride."

Jon's grip over Longclaw tightens, his nostrils flaring at the memory.

Robb huffs his frustration, stilling his motions again. "She's different, somehow. She's not the Sansa I used to know."

Jon scoffs. "Aye. Being held captive for years tends to do that to a person."

Robb straightens as he looks at Jon. "You're not blaming me, are you?"

Jon considers his words, his hand stilling the swiping motion over his sword. He sighs out heavily. "It's not about blame."

Robb stays silent, his mouth a tight line. "You think I should have made the trade for Jaime Lannister."

Jon straightens as well, setting his blade aside. "Is this really the conversation you want to have right now?"

"Yes."

Jon frowns. "No, you don't."

Robb turns frustrated. "Just because you're my brother doesn't mean you can speak to your king this way," he says brusquely.

Jon swallows back the instant bile. His mouth thins into a tight line. "See? This is exactly why we can't have this kind of conversation." He stands, moving to replace his whetstone along the rack, sheathing Longclaw.

Robb tosses the oiled cloth in his hand down to the bench as he stands as well, his sword still in his other hand. He grabs for Jon's shoulder and pulls him back. "And why is that?"

"Because you don't want honesty," Jon snaps.

Robb stills at the heat in the words, his hand falling from Jon's shoulder.

Jon sighs, wiping a hand over his mouth. "You just want to be reassured." And maybe he gets that.

The realization softens something in Jon. The heat drains from his gaze, his shoulders slumping with it as he watches Robb.

His brother doesn't answer, his eyes drifting down, his face solemn and hurt.

Jon grabs for his shoulders, catching his gaze once more. "Look, Robb, I can't tell you what the right choice is, or what it would have been. I can't tell you what you should have done. And I can't tell you that I would have done differently in your place."

It's not a truth he likes to admit, not after seeing that pale white scar at the nape of Sansa's neck, not after the stories she's told him from across their shared campfires, not after watching her tremble through nightmares and only stilling when his arms were around her.

But it's a truth, nonetheless.

Jon sighs. "I can't tell you whether you made the wrong decision or not. I can only tell you that Sansa hurt for it. She hurt dearly for it. And you're either okay with that or you're not. That's all I've got."

"Are you okay with it?"

The question surprises him, and he draws his hands back from his shoulders in silence. Jon clears his throat, shoulders pulling back. "What do you mean?"

"Are you okay with my decision? With how it's hurt her?" There's an ache behind the words, but also a need.

But Jon cannot fill that need. He knows that now. Knows that clearer than anything.

He grinds his jaw, thinks of that white scar along her back, thinks of the tears he's wiped from her cheeks, thinks of all the times she asked about their brother while they trekked through the wilderness on their way to Riverrun.

"Did Robb send you?"

And how that question has haunted them, ever since its first utterance.

How he hates that he had to be the one to kill that hope in her, how Robb is the one who made him do it.

"Jon?"

Jon clenches his jaw, the words settling along his tongue. "No, I'm not okay with it. I'm not okay with anything that hurts Sansa."

Robb blinks at him, his shoulders slumping.

Jon has to turn away, before he says any more. Before he reveals all his gruesome little insides. "Apologies, Your Grace, but I don't think I can be of any help to you for this one." He turns to leave, his hand settling along the hilt of Longclaw at his hip, a measure of reassurance, steadiness. He looks back at his brother. "Talk to her, Robb," he says softly.

Because he knows she wants that, too. Even if they should hurt for it.

They promised each other, after all.

They promised no more scars.

He only hopes that Robb isn't one already.

* * *

"Your ankle seems to be better," Catelyn muses, dragging the brush down the length of her daughter's hair.

Sansa glances up and catches her mother's gaze through the mirror, offering a smile with her answer. "Yes, much."

"You twisted it in the storm, you said?"

Sansa nods, her mouth pursing with the memory.

(Her and Jon's drenched forms, the refuge of a cave, Ghost's warmth at her back, and Jon – )

Sansa swallows tightly, her gaze falling to the vanity in front of her.

Catelyn continues her gentle brushing, a thoughtful look on her face as she takes in Sansa's curtain of hair.

Sansa doesn't expand any further on the experience, though her hands bunch together in her lap.

"And Jon was wounded when you were fleeing the Lannisters' men, is that right?"

Sansa looks at her mother through the mirror once more, a question furrowing her brow. "Yes," she says cautiously, unsure of where her mother intends to take the conversation.

"And you tended his wound?"

"Of course," she says easily.

Catelyn is silent for many moments, though she never stills her movements. And then she clears her throat softly. "So, he disrobed before you," she clips out.

Sansa stiffens in her seat, her mind reaching back to the cave, to the bare expanse of his chest pressed to hers, and his arms around her naked form, and the weight of his breath in her neck, and the kiss they'd shared the following morning, the way he'd yielded to her, opened to her breathlessly, and how good he tasted – how she'd wanted nothing more than to taste him further in that moment.

Sansa blinks back the memory, attempting a nonchalant shrug and a reassuring smile, trying to catch her mother's eyes in the mirror once more. "I've seen all my brothers shirtless in the yard before, Mother. It's no matter." She hopes she sounds more convincing than she feels.

Catelyn sets the brush aside and takes Sansa's hair in both hands, her elegant fingers threading through the strands, parting them in familiar ways. She purses her lips, eyes still fixed to her daughter's hair. "You were each younger then, and never alone. Now, it is..." She frowns minutely, turning one strand over another in her hands. "It isn't proper."

Sansa barely manages to smother the huff of frustration that tries to escape her. "What was I supposed to do? Leave him wounded?" The idea is painful, and impossible.

After seeing his scar-riddled chest –

She can't ever imagine leaving him wounded again.

Catelyn sighs, her hands stilling their ministrations. She meets Sansa's gaze through the mirror, her features softening somewhat. "No," she tells her, though it seems to take great effort from her. "No, you did the right thing."

Sansa waits for more, but her mother doesn't continue.

Catelyn keeps her gaze a moment longer, and then she turns back to her work, silently braiding Sansa's hair, any further thoughts on their recent intimacy held behind the cage of her teeth.

Something in Sansa thrums at the uncertainty of her mother's silence, at the unspoken wariness of their sudden closeness. "I'm safe with Jon," she says without preamble, the words coming up of their own accord.

Catelyn doesn't react. She simply continues her braiding.

Sansa's brow furrows in determination, her shoulders setting straighter. "If you believe anything, believe that," she says imploringly, proud of the way her voice doesn't shake with the words.

Catelyn's fingers graze her cheek as she pulls the strands from her face, her eyes never meeting hers through the mirror. "I will try," she tells her.

But while the words should stir hopefulness within her, Sansa finds there is only a fluttering in her gut, a coil of unease that lingers long into the night, many hours after her mother has left her.

* * *

She's on her way back from the sept one morning when he grabs her arm and tugs her into a shadowed alcove, smothering her surprised yelp with his calloused palm over her mouth. She blinks wide eyes up at Jon, catches his wide grin in the shadows, and the relief that floods her has her sagging against the wall behind her. When he releases her mouth, his name comes out in a scolding, a swap to his shoulder for good measure.

He laughs good-naturedly, and Sansa opens her mouth for a scathing retort about his frightening her this early in the morning but then his hands are slipping under her jaw and tilting her face up to his and then his mouth is opening over hers – long and languid and slow.

Sansa can only sigh into it, eyes fluttering shut.

Jon tilts his head, slanting his mouth over hers in a wet, almost filthy kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth easily. A quiet moan escapes her at the sensation and a rumble answers in his chest, his breaths coming harder as he presses into her, bracing her back against the stone with his hips pinned to hers. She grips at his shoulders, fingers curling in his tunic, her back arching against him, as she sucks on his tongue, her own kiss growing hungry and heated.

He keeps his hands on her face, his grip tightening over her jaw at her eagerness, as though he aches to release his hold of her, to instead slide his hands down the length of her body, his thumbs just barely grazing the sides of her breasts, gliding over her ribs, along her waist, anchoring at her hips, the small of her back, dangerously low as they grip her to him, pressing them intimately together.

The thought is maddening to her, especially when he keeps his hands so frustratingly secure along her face, even as he kisses her wildly.

She thinks of her morning prayers in the sept, and her cheeks grow pinker (if that were even possible in this moment) at the sudden realization that perhaps she should have also asked for forgiveness, because a surge of boldness courses through her right then and she reaches for his hands, drags them down to her collar, just above the tops of her breasts in her open-necked gown, her chest heaving against him as she continues kissing him.

He groans along her tongue, gripping at her shoulders to steady himself, still ever so honorable, his thumbs unconsciously stretching down to brush along the bare skin of her modest cleavage, and he pulls back suddenly, panting, his mouth hovering over hers, his breath warm as it fans her swollen lips.

She's delirious at the sudden loss of him.

"Sansa..." he gets out roughly, voice laden with desire.

She pushes forward to meet his mouth again, and he sighs as he opens to her, meeting her eager tongue with his own, his weight sagging against her in his surrender. He presses her full against the wall now as his hands slide down her sides before wrapping round her back, dragging her hips into his with a low growl vibrating over her tongue in his mouth.

She startles at the press of hardness into her thigh, suddenly highly aware of his desire, even as her own flutters in her gut, spitting like hot coals.

Jon seems to notice, dragging his wet mouth from her own swollen one reluctantly, his chest heaving against hers, his moan painting her lips for half a breath before he drops his head into her shoulder, hugging her tightly against him.

She tries to take example from his self-control, but it's just so hard with him pressed so deliciously against her, with his hot breath in the crook of her neck, and his hands gripping the back of her dress, one bunched fist scandalously low, his arms trembling with his waning willpower.

She mewls at his ear, the soft, embarrassing whine of his name escaping her lips, and she links her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his throat. "Don't stop," she croons into his skin.

He chuckles at her shoulder, his arms tensing a moment, and then relaxing, unwinding from her to brace his palms along the wall behind her instead. Still, he keeps his weight pressed against hers, keeps their bodies a single, melded line. "I must," he gets out raggedly, pulling back just enough to meet her gaze. "Or I truly won't stop."

She thrills at the possibility, not fully understanding where that may lead but knowing that she wants it. She wants him.

Desperately and daily – she wants him.

Like a fever beneath her skin.

She wets her lips, eyes peering up into his when she whispers against his mouth, "Then don't."

Jon closes his eyes on a weighted sigh, grinding his jaw in some semblance of control. When he opens his eyes once more, he chuckles at her unchanged expression – earnest and hopeful. He plants a quick kiss along her nose. "Sansa, this is hardly the time or place for us to... explore."

She scrunches her nose in indignation, her arms loosening around his neck. "Well, you started it."

He actually barks a laugh at that, and Sansa beams at the sight of it.

He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, eyes roving her face with a grin. "Aye, and you intend to finish it, is that it?"

She peers at him, her smile turning mischievous as she twines her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, her back arching subtly. "Precisely," she answers tartly.

Jon's eyes flick to her mouth, his smile slipping as his hand drifts from her hair back to her jaw, his thumb edging along her bottom lip.

Sansa stills at the motion, her mouth parting slightly at the tender yet heated touch.

Jon watches as he brushes his thumb slowly across her mouth, still pink and ripe and swollen from his kisses. He licks his lips unconsciously. "Careful, girl," he breathes out.

Sansa takes the warning for what it is, her own breath coming heavy in her chest again. She swallows thickly, cocking her head to look at him.

His eyes flick up to meet hers at the motion.

"But it... it feels good," she says cautiously, her nails curling along the back of his neck. "Doesn't it feel good for you?" she gets out on a hoarse whisper.

"It feels more than good," Jon says thickly, clearing his throat as he drops his hand from her mouth, leaning back from her for the first time since their mouths met. He still keeps one hand braced to the wall behind her. "And therein lies the danger."

"I'm safe with you, though," she says instinctually. She doesn't even need to think the words. They're simply there. They simply are.

As plain a truth as she's ever known.

Jon laughs softly at her assertion. "You humble me, Sansa. Truth be told, my control is slipping day by day."

She sucks a short breath between her teeth, silently exhilarated at the admission.

His expression softens as he watches her. "I missed you," he says quietly.

Her heart clenches at the words.

He shakes his head, sighing with it. "I always miss you," he admits, leaning close to press his forehead to hers.

"And I, you," she answers, her hands slipping from his neck to slide down to his chest, bracing there. "I want to see you every day," she says without inhibition, the brightness of the emotion bringing a smile back to her face. She turns her head slightly to press a fervent kiss to his cheek.

He chuckles at her unhindered earnestness. "You mean you didn't tire of me all those long weeks on the road?"

"I could never tire of you, Jon," she says sweetly, the truth of it slipping easily from her. She leans back to look at him. "In fact, it's quite the opposite actually. I find myself needier and needier for you as the days go by. Especially when I'm without you."

Jon quiets at her words, his gaze falling to her mouth again. He stares at her lips for a long moment, a slow, steadying breath easing out of his chest as he works his jaw, an ardent look crossing his features. "I should go," he says finally, voice rough when it leaves him. He clears his throat, glancing back up to meet her eyes. "Before I do something I shouldn't." He leans away to glance back out the empty corridor. "And before your mother starts to worry at your absence," he adds on.

Sansa pats his chest affectionately, grabbing his attention once more. "Will you meet me in the gardens this afternoon? I've something to give you."

Jon answers with a brilliant smile. "Alright, then." He leans in and plants a brief, sweet kiss along her lips. He pulls away from her reluctantly, his hand reaching for hers in farewell as he moves into the hall.

Their fingers thread together, before slipping apart, their yearning already building back up in the space between them.

Sansa watches him go, fingers pressed to her lips, heart full.

* * *

She presses the kerchief into his hands, and he stares down at it, at the elegantly stitched white wolf decorating the edge of the material. He blinks dumbly at the gift in his hands.

Sansa beams at him, her hands clasped gracefully before her. "A lord should always carry a favor from his lady, should he not?" she says brightly.

Jon looks up at her, the words stalling in his throat.

Her lashes flutter as pink tinges her cheeks. "I am your lady, am I not?" she asks hesitantly.

Jon releases a short chuckle at her question, before glancing around the secluded corner of the gardens where they stand, and then snaking a hand behind her neck and pulling her toward him, meeting her mouth with his in a fervent kiss, a sigh breaking from him when her hands slide up his chest to anchor at his shoulders. They smile against each other's mouths when they break the kiss.

He pulls from her, his fingers flexing in her hair, his breath fanning her lips. "I can only endeavor to be a worthy lord, my lady."

She presses her nose to his cheek, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Just tell me I'm yours," she sighs impatiently.

Jon chuckles again, a hand going to the back of her head, his other anchored at the small of her back, her favor bunched in his fist. He pulls back just enough to catch her eyes again. "Sansa – "

But she kisses him then, cuts off his words. Her mouth is insistent on his. She pulls back, breathless, her eyes shifting between his. "Tell me, please," she whispers in the space between their lips.

There's something needful to the words, to the way she presses into his chest, the way her fingers dig along his shoulders.

His gaze darkens on hers, his sigh painting her lips. He curls his fingers into the soft silk of her favor, his fist pressing low on her back. "You are," he tells her, voice dragging from his chest. His gaze drops to her mouth, his tongue wetting his lips. "You are mine," he gets out roughly, angling his mouth to press over hers.

Her hands glide along his shoulders to the back of his neck, nails sinking into his hair as she smiles against his lips. "As you are mine," she breathes with certainty, just before he takes her mouth with his.

The kiss is sweet and decadent and indulgent, their mouths moving against each other's slowly, deliberately, tasting each other without demand. His hand tangles in her hair, holding her to him, his tongue swiping into her mouth with a low groan as he presses into her.

Her back hits the bowled edge of the fountain behind her, and her steps stumble, but he's got her securely in his hold, his mouth breaking from hers at the slight jostle. He meets her eyes, and they stare at each other with mischievous grins, the panted heat of their breaths mingling in the air between them. And then he dips his head to her throat, his nose brushing the edge of her jaw, his lips planting a soft, reverent kiss along her skin.

Sansa sighs prettily at his ministrations, her nails catching along the nape of his neck.

The feel of her is nearly dizzying.

"Sansa!" someone calls upon entering the gardens.

Jon tears himself away from her instantly, attempting to steady his pants, a hand smoothing through his hair, his chest heaving at the sudden retreat.

"Sansa!" the voice calls again, getting closer.

Sansa licks her lips, coming back to herself, her trembling hands smoothing over her skirts as she rights herself beside the fountain.

Jon is a respectful distance away from her when he turns to their intruder, a brow raising upon seeing Edmure Tully's entrance into their corner of the gardens.

The Lord of the Riverlands makes his way to Sansa without a look at Jon, his hands grabbing hers. "Oh, Sansa," he sighs out brokenly.

Sansa blinks at him, her breath stalled in her throat. "What is it, Uncle?"

Edmure glances at Jon finally, only briefly, before meeting his niece's gaze once more. "It's your brothers, Bran and Rickon. At Winterfell, Theon Greyjoy, he – he..." Edmure turns almost green at the words, a grimace passing over his features.

Jon stills at Edmure's distress, his body settling into a single, taut focus.

Edmure swallows thickly, his hands tightening over Sansa's. His face hardens, his shoulders going stiff. "You need to go to your mother," he says simply, the words low and full of warning.

Sansa stares at her uncle, a line of concern creasing her brow. She looks to Jon, her mouth tipping open.

But he has no answers for her.

"Go to your mother," Edmure says again, more sure this time, a darkness crossing over his gaze, as he tugs her along after him.

Jon watches her go, his own feet rooted to the ground.

Something sinks deep in his gut – like a stone he will never be able to dig out again.

* * *

Her mother is inconsolable. Her grief is a wailing thing at night, and a quiet haunt by daylight. Sansa watches her from across the breakfast table the following day, watches the way she drags her fork disinterestedly around her plate. Robb reaches for their mother's hand, squeezing it gently.

"You must eat, Mother," he says softly.

Catelyn looks up at him a moment, and then pats his hand atop hers. "I think I'd like to rest," she says hollowly before rising from the table.

Sansa barely manages to choke back her own sob as she watches her mother leave the room. She turns to look at Robb, but his hand is over his face, a heavy sigh leaving him. Edmure and the Blackfish are equally quiet, exchanging worried glances with each other. And then she looks at Jon.

He's already watching her, but he turns his gaze away swiftly when she meets his eyes. He rubs a hand over his mouth, exhaling roughly as he drops his fork atop his plate and leans back in his chair.

None of them look at each other.

Bran and Rickon are there in the room with them, their names hanging unsaid in the stilted air, their deaths stinging like smoke in the eyes.

Their memories raw like a blister.

Sansa closes her eyes and takes a steadying breath. The tears are instant.

Robb glances to her at the first sob that hits air.

She presses a hand to her mouth, eyes flickering open to stare at the half-eaten food on her plate. She doesn't quite manage to smother it. "I'm sorry," she croaks out before it overtakes her, and she pushes her seat back, running for the door, the tears nearly blinding her.

She doesn't look back. She simply runs.

She runs and runs and runs. Through the corridors and past the courtyard, out the gates and across the bridge. Along the riverbank, she runs. She runs and runs and runs, crying all the while, until her legs finally give out and she stumbles to her knees, her hands going out to catch herself, palms squishing in mud, and her mother will scold her for ruining her dress, she knows, but then – but then she's laughing at the thought. A delirious, ragged laugh that breaks on a hiccup, her sob catching along its end, and she inhales sharply, holds it tight to her chest, gasps and shakes and laughs once more, and then – and then she's crying again. Crying so hard it makes her head spin.

Her fingers dig into the mud, her knees aching from when she'd fallen. And she is terribly and uncontrollably – anguished.

Anguished beyond words.

(Her little brothers).

Sansa wails, a hand going to grip at her chest, her heart rending beneath.

(Her little brothers.)

She cries until she can't anymore, until the exhaustion overtakes her.

She sleeps for hours by the riverbank, until she blearily recognizes Robb's arms scooping her up and carrying her back into the keep. She keeps her head pressed to his shoulder.

He never minds the mud.

* * *

Sansa spends the following days with her mother – making sure she eats and bathes and makes the appearances that she needs to. Catelyn humors her attentions without any fuss, something that only makes Sansa more worried for her. But Catelyn doesn't miss any meetings of the lords, doesn't disregard her position on Robb's council, and her detached, cold objectivity on current matters is somehow both admirable and terrifying to Sansa.

Is this what she herself has to look forward to? As a lord or king's wife?

Button up your grief, keep a tight lip, only cry your piece when you've made sure that chamber door is shut.

Sansa wonders if it's ever really worth it in the end.

She hasn't seen Jon in days, and it makes her gut curl in anxiety. Of course, she's seen him, but at a glance, only. Across the breakfast table and three seats down at the meetings of the lords and passing him as he trains in the yard, her arm linked with her mother's.

But she hasn't seen him. Hasn't touched his face or felt his kiss or even traded words past a cursory greeting. She's nearly nauseous at the loss of him.

It's how she finds herself before his chambers one night, when all propriety would have her in bed already, but instead, she tries the latch to his door and breathes a sigh of relief when it opens easily. She closes it behind her quickly, the lock clicking into place.

Jon glances up from his bed where he sits with his arms resting over his knees. "Sansa," he hisses, glancing at the closed door behind her and then back to her. "You shouldn't be here."

"I know," she says, "I know but I – I can't just..." The words seem to die along her tongue. She doesn't really know what she came here to say.

(Except maybe that she's sorry. Sorry that he's lost his brothers, too, and couldn't even be there to help them. Because he was too busy helping her.)

Jon works his jaw silently, staring at her, his eyes already wet.

(They all cry their piece when that chamber door is shut, she realizes.)

"Jon," she says softly, moving from the door.

He rises from his seat, wiping a hand over his eyes, clearing his throat. "You should go," he says, voice rough. He takes her gently by the arm.

"No," she counters, planting her feet.

Jon looks at her, his hand still wrapped around her forearm. He sighs, eyes drifting down. "Please, Sansa, I don't want you to get into trouble."

"Is that why you want me gone?"

He doesn't answer her.

She swallows thickly, cupping her hands around his cheeks to lift his face to hers. "Or is it because you blame me?"

He rears back at her words, brows furrowing sharply down. "What?"

She licks her lips, the words catching along her throat, but she pushes them to air, her voice cracking beneath the weight of them. "Are you mad at me because I kept you from them? Because rescuing me meant you couldn't be there for them?"

Jon releases her arm, his mouth dipping open. "Sansa, no, that's not – I've never – " He stops, clears his throat, notices the tears starting to form along her eyes. He sighs heavily, the grief shaking from him, like snow coming off the boughs, and then he's wrapping his arms around her, dragging her into his embrace, pressed to his chest. He winds a hand into her hair and presses his mouth to her ear. "Oh, Sansa, no, no, I've never thought that."

"Are you sure?" she chokes out, grasping at him, desperate, the sorrow clogging up her throat. "Because I have," she admits, closing her eyes on a sob.

Jon presses a kiss to her temple, his hand bracing along the nape of her neck, his other wrapped around her back. "Gods, no, Sansa, it isn't your fault." He presses another kiss at her ear, along her cheek, at the corner of her mouth, pulling from her just enough to meet her gaze, his hands going to brush the hair from her face, his palms cradling her cheeks as he makes her meet his eyes. "Sansa, this isn't your fault."

She exhales raggedly, her hands bunching in the material of his tunic. "But I'm here and they're not. They're not, Jon, they're – they're dead, oh gods, they're dead, Jon. Bran and Rickon. They're – they're gone, and I'm never going to hear their laughs again or – or brush their hair or clean their cheeks or – gods, or hold them, Jon. I'm never going to hold them again and it should have been me! It should have been me you left. You shouldn't have come for me, Jon, you should have saved them! And then everything would be okay. And mother would be okay. And Robb would be okay. And everything would be fine if you'd just never come at all, if you'd just left me, Jon, if you'd just – "

She doesn't get to finish, because then his mouth is on hers, and it isn't like any kiss he's ever given her before. This kiss is punishing. It's forceful and blunt, all teeth and snarl, his hand grabbing her chin almost painfully, keeping her mouth pressed to his, pushing her back, and she hits the door with a thud, a surprised grunt leaving her. He presses his whole weight against her, trapping her there against the door as he kisses her, slants his mouth over hers and takes and takes and takes, his other hand moving from her face to her hip, dragging her up against him, and he's never been this forward with her before, never been this passionate and she finds herself nearly paralyzed in his hold, her mind jarring into stillness, her hands fisting along his sleeves, her heart thudding painfully in her chest and she's full of it, full of him, and this, and everything, and – and –

He breaks from her, panting, his hand still firmly holding her chin, keeping her gaze fixed to his when her eyes flutter open, her breath raking from her in shallow gasps.

She's never seen him look so angry, his eyes dark and unblinking on hers. It makes her whimper quietly in his hold, squirming beneath him.

"Jon," she pants out breathlessly.

"I need you to understand something," he tells her, hot breath fanning her lips.

Her wide eyes flick between his, her chest heaving against him.

His fingers flex over her chin as he tilts his head to look at her, his gaze roving her face. He swallows tightly, wetting his lips. "If I had the chance, I'd do it again."

Sansa blinks at him, mouth tipping open. "What...?"

He meets her eyes once more, steady and dark and sure. "Even knowing what we know, if I had the chance to do it over again, I'd still come for you."

Her chest tightens inexplicably, her eyes watering without her bidding. "Jon," she moans out, voice threatening to break with her tears.

He surges forward and kisses her again, just as forcefully, just as possessively. He releases her slowly, his mouth still hovering over hers, his breath still painting her lips. "Every time – a thousand times – I would come for you. Do you understand?"

She nods mutely, because he has silenced any words she could speak, anyway. She's overcome, suddenly, so she wraps her arms around him and meets his mouth with hers once more, pulling him back against her, and he follows easily, pressing her into the door behind her, his hands roving her form greedily.

It's a desperate, needful grasping for each other – full of loneliness and guilt. But also full of longing, acceptance.

His hands meet the soft flesh of her body for the first time, braced against her trembling stomach when they dip beneath the hem of her night shirt, and the touch burns beyond anything she's ever felt before.

His hands meet her, and she burns.

She thinks there's a poem in there somewhere, or a song maybe, a tale like the ones she used to love.

But right now, in this moment, it's only Jon.

It's only Jon, and it's only her, and it's only them.

It's the way he kisses her like he'll never get the chance again.

It's the way he cradles her face in his hands – like she is something precious and worthy and needed.

It's the way she knows, without doubt, and without regret:

Every time – a thousand times – she'd wait for him.

[rey-jake-therapist]

Hi! I love reading all the meta and analysis so far! Can you explain why Gal wanted to jump off the cliff when she knew it might be the end of her and then Sauron could just take Nenya? I'm still rly confused by that part. Like what was her thought process?

Very good question !

I wondered about that too, and I think I may have an answer even though it's only a headcanon.

I don't think that Galadriel thought that Sauron wouldn't be able to follow her here. I've seen many comments claiming that Sauron was pissed only because he "lost" Nenya, but it seems kinda ridiculous to me to assume that Sauron couldn't just jump down there without harming himself. I mean, Galadriel herself didn't end up with any broken bone after jumping backwards, badly wounded, from that cliff, but Sauron, who was at the top of his game, couldn't take the same dive? C'mon. And even if he had been afraid of damaging his physical body, he would have found a way to get there very fast because he's an ancient sorcerer capable of doing things that are humanly impossible. I have no doubt that Galadriel knew that.

I think it's interesting to point out that during the interviews that followed the episode, it was said that Galadriel jumped to escape him. Nobody said, "she jumped to protect Nenya", no, she jumped to protect herself, because she knew otherwise he would have kept her with him forever, with no hope to escape. And when I say "no hope", I don't mean that Sauron would have necessarily physically forced her to stay (I come back to that later in the post), but she would have remained with him willingly, because the call of darkness would have been too strong for her to resist it any longer.

A few days ago, I don't remember who observed that before we heard him ask her mentally for the ring, they looked as if they were having a silent conversation. When she laid her hand, pretending to give him the ring, she said "You want to heal all Middle-Earth...". Again, it's only a headcanon, but I think that he may have told her mentally that if she gave him Nenya, he would heal her, like he would heal all Middle-Earth. He wanted Galadriel to see that.

Without her light, the "poem" he wrote, the forging of all the rings, will always be incomplete ; he needs it, craves it even. And I find very interesting that even after stabbing her with Morgoth's crown to forcefully bind her to him, he still wanted her to give him the ring willingly. And after she fell, he didn't go down the cliff to drag her with him by force, which he could have totally done too! That's why I'm sure he intended to heal Galadriel with Nenya eventually, at the condition of course that she said what he wanted her to say. If Galadriel became a wraith, her light would disappear forever. But despite everything, Sauron still wanted her to join him willingly, imho.

So, it's my headcanon that Galadriel knew he would lose interest in getting Nenya if he couldn't also have her. Or she knew instinctively that if she didn't die in the fall, he wouldn't let her become a wraith, so he would leave Nenya with her so she could heal. This last idea sounds very delulu I realize, but Charlie confirmed at least that Sauron knew that even though her wound was very serious, she would "find a way to heal" (it was in response to the question, "do you think Sauron knows that Galadriel is alive").

I think that somewhere in there lies the "proof" that "Sauron really loves Galadriel", which we were supposed to see "at the very end". The tunnel vision of her being watched from above, that looks very much like the shape of an eye, could also be that proof. Because why would he be there to watch her wake up, healed from the wound he inflicted her, if he doesn't love her at all?

And there, I finish with these lyrics from Taylor Swift's My tears ricochet which seem perfect to illustrate my last point :)

"And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake? Cursing my name, wishing I stayed Look at how my tears ricochet"

[infernalodie]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞 || 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐳

Inspo: Emile Mosseri - Jacob and the Stone

Pairing: Maddy Perez x Gn!reader

Summary: The stone that stood tall and would never full leave her memory...

Warnings: Angst throughout with mentions of suicide.

Words: 1770

DNI IF YOU’RE YOUNGER THAN 18!

There was this stone Maddy used to go to.

Somewhere in the density of a forest right outside of Highland. Practically resting near the long breaks of the open countryside, this place resided.

It’d been a complete chance that she came to this location. Her car broke down with her friends and their goal to live the night up was still on the list of plans. So, they ventured into this forest and found this large stone.

She remembers Cassie being a ruckus and being the emotional drunk she was. Lexi was reserved and just talked with Kat. Rue and Jules were holding one another. But Maddy found you staring at this stone, perplexed or fascinated by it.

Maddy remembers you dragging your hand across the texture of the rock. Lips twitched faintly as the tips of your fingers gently caught the grooves; scars of its past and present. And something about it made you say, “It’s beautiful.”

Everyone knew you found beauty in the strangest of places. If it is some random obscured painting or one of those poems you would write in your free time–there was nothing you couldn’t find positives in. It had been what made Maddy fall in love with you in the first place.

And she remembers how you looked back at her. A look in your eye that was almost contentful. Like something had been decided the moment you saw this large stone. You had said, “If I ever die, I want to be buried here. I’ll even write it in my will.”

She punched your arm for saying something like that. Warning you that she would be the one to do the job if you brought something like that up. You smiled and laughed. And she remembers your arms curling around her and holding her against your chest tightly. Your face tucked in her hair where you pressed gentle kisses.

That had only been a week before everything happened. That was the last memory she had of you before you were gone. Swept up and taken wherever was after this life. And now, even after all these years, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go back to that forest–to relive that moment all over again in a place that she imagine still had your lingering presence.

Today, it was the anniversary of your death. So, with the urging encouragement of Lexi and Rue, she drove up to the forest. She walked amongst the trees that the further she got, blocked out the sun that had been beating down on her since she got back from Highland. It left a massive veil between her and the outside world that hoped hadn’t desecrated this sacred land.

Then she finally arrived at the stone. It stood tall- maybe even taller than she had once realized. Its exterior was jaded–chips having fallen off from years of weather conditioning. And in a traditional fashion, your initials were etched into its face. Your name, your birthday and the day of your passing. Each letter and number is rough around the edges, but perfect as its own; much like you.

Flowers were scattered around the marked grave. Much of them came from friends that had specifically come down to visit and pay respects to you. There were postcards from Jules; she believed that in some way, they might make it to you somehow. There were stuffies from Rue who knew of your unhealthy obsession with said items. Lexi left some of your favourite books from your guys’ friendship being built from that.

But Maddy had nothing to offer. Perhaps she thought her visit was enough considering the time she’d pushed to avoid the inevitable.

Exhaling heavily, she forced a smile. “Hey, baby.”

She sat beside the grave with the faint outline of where it had been dug. She clasped her hands together, saying, “I would ask you how you were doing, but I think we both know that would just be stupid of me.”

Painful silence. She didn’t know what to say. What was there to honestly say? You had given up. Maybe you lost sight of the beauty in this world. Lost all hope for society and decided to clock out before you saw anything get worse. Or maybe you had been depressed the whole time but she was too blind to see it. People wore masks–some of who no one would expect. Maybe you were a part of that few.

But since you left, she tried to keep to what she had been before you left–be the person that you loved. So, she wasn’t going to try and beat around the bush with any fruitless questions or statements. “I want to say you left because you couldn’t handle living anymore. But somehow-” she laughed, shaking her head. “-something tells me your sick mind thought that becoming one with the earth was beautiful, huh? I mean, we both know that’s how your mind worked.”

In some way, with your passing, she felt like she had finally grown as close as she could get to you. With your family left in shambles from your death, Maddy had taken it upon herself to be the one to pack your belongings up. Place your clothes in boxes, trinkets in boxes, and all the little handwritten notes that lined your walls. And on the final day, there was only one poem left and she just sat in the center of your room and stared at it. Then she cried. Harder than she ever thought she could. She screamed and fought against the harsh grasp of reality that was; once she took that final paper, you were officially gone. You would be gone from her life forever.

But from time to time, when she came down to Highland to visit her parents, she stopped by your family’s house. She had dinner with them, talked about life, made plans for future holidays and then she would ask to look at the boxes.

There would always be a silence that fell over the kitchen. The uneven breaths from your mother who would purse her lips, forcing a broken smile that could crack as she grabbed Maddy’s hands and hold them tightly. Which would always be contradictory because of the tears in her eyes. And your mom would always say, “Honey, don’t ever feel like you need to ask.”

And your dad would sit there quietly, avoiding eye contact that could betray the tough exterior he had to keep. When, in fact, the wound of your passing was still fresh and it would always stay that way. No child is supposed to go before their parents.

But you did. You defied every expectation; good and bad. You believed in most people who didn’t deserve it. You found lessons in situations you had labelled, “misconstrued control”. Each of those lessons made you grow and in any way you could, you tried to pass this knowledge on to others. But you gave up and in Maddy’s mind and that substituted everything else out. Your action to leave so soon was unforgivable to her.

You gave up when things were getting good for the two of you. When your guys’ story was starting to pick up make things interesting.

“I started reading some of those poems you had taped up on your walls.” A faint smile twitched on her lips. “They almost looked like etchings of thoughts you never said to me.” Maddy’s lips trembled. She remembered clearing out your room and spending hours sitting in the center of that room. Unable to take her eyes off of all the deep and meaningful quotes that you were so infatuated with. If she’d known that she returned to your house in her dreams, finding you standing and staring at each poem with a smile, she would’ve never laid a foot inside that room.

Bowing her head slightly as she swayed. Sniffling harshly, she said, “If you must die, I’ll envy even the earth that wraps around your body.” Her tearful eyes lifted to the inscription of your name carved meaningfully into the boulder. Face twisting with her voice giving way. “And I fucking miss you, Y/n. I hate knowing something else will give you warmth when I could’ve filled that spot for you.”

Her voice cracked. A sob fell from her lips. “I shouldn’t be sad. You fucking left me!” She fell to her hands, slowly lowering herself where blades of grass brushed across her rosy cheeks that kissed the earth. Her body trembled as she sought the feeling of your arms once more. Fingers delving into the dirt, hoping to find your hands interlocking with hers the further she reached. “But I want you here. Even in my dreams, I just want one more day with you.”

It was a distant and unforgeable wish, she knew that. But she was desperate. She had to wake up most nights and cry herself back to sleep because that would be the only way to reunite with you once more. Through the pain, she was healed by your smile. And she trying to find a middle ground between acceptance and refusal.

But that was the thing–no one can have both. When someone is gone, we can’t do anything to bring them back. And with time, we will heal. It’ll hurt like hell and it’ll feel like that wound will always be open, but that’s what comes with acceptance. And when we least expect it, when we find someone that makes our hearts skip a beat like the person before once did, we’ll realize how far we’ve come. How much pain we were able to take and keep moving forward.

It's a sign to try again.

And it hurt Maddy to admit it, but she wanted to keep going. Keep you close to her heart, but far enough that she was allowed to think about the good times instead of the worst.

And what helped was for her to think about how your mind worked–your beliefs that she never could wrap her head around. With time, she learned more about herself and where she stood on the unappreciated qualities of life and the world she lived in. Maddy believed that in some alternate reality, the both of you were still together and thriving. And acknowledging that was beautiful in its own way because she got to experience it for some time–a small sliver compared to a counterpart, but still a gift. But a different version of her would feel it until her last breath.

Something like that was poetic, wasn’t it?

[karoiseka]

3) Tempest

((a little silly today, Shadowbringers after MSQ for 5.2 at some point. Implied early trio. ^_^))

The interesting thing about knowing–or at least hoping–that you’re about to leave somewhere along your journey is the ability to be able to pack what’s important, and give away those items that might be beneficial to those that were staying.  Which is how Karo found herself helping Thancred clean and organize the Pendents suite he had been sharing with Ryne whenever they were in the Crystarium.

He didn’t have much, but even when traveling light, stuff gathered.  There were small gifts scattered throughout the quarters–most of which he was leaving for Ryne since she was there when they were acquired.  There was a mostly full bookcase as well, tomes from all over the remaining parts of Norvarant carefully organized by region and subject.  Those he was leaving instructions with Ryne to talk to Moen about if there were any that weren’t already in the Cabinet of Curiosity.  Most of what they had collected was non-fiction due to wanting to learn as much about the world he found himself in as possible.

Karo had been instructed to go through his small closet of a private bedroom, going through clothes, figuring out what was torn or worn beyond repair, and what could be packed in her own bags for when she traveled between worlds.  The bedding would stay of course, as would the curtains and other bulkier items.  Backups of his chest armor Ryne wanted to keep–she said she was going to work with the original crafter to see about repurposing it to her own size.  Thancred hadn’t said anything, but his expression and body language had radiated pride and joy at the statement.

There was also a small shelf of books here above the headboard–mostly poetry and fables, tall tales and folklore that told almost as much about the people that the books in the other room did.  These, Karo stopped to read titles and thumb through a couple–smiling in fondness as she found a poem Thancred had recited to her bookmarked in a well read tome. Sitting on the edge of the bed, a straggler caught her eye, tucked off to the side on the nightstand, a bookmark placed carefully.  Eagerly, Karo reached for the book, curious about what he was currently reading.

The first thing she noticed was it was fragile.  The book binding was worn, and the original cover had been wrapped carefully in a thick paper to keep it together.  No name was written on it, which was odd, nor an author.  It was small in size, but a decent length, and she let the pages open where the bookmark lay.

“The Doman Prince strode across the room, fire in his eyes as a tempest raged in her bosom.  Karoiseka could scarce believe her own meekness as she allowed him to pin her against the wall, maddeningly close.  She may be the Warrior of Light, but he was the Warrior of her Heart, as forbidden as their love was–”

Karo stared at the passage, read it again, then flipped through the rest of the book carefully with an ever growing mix of emotions fighting for dominance.  Carefully peeking under the paper cover, she could see the bodice-ripped cover with a poor approximation of her own and Hien’s looks, staring into each other's eyes longingly–the title of the book almost blessedly worn off.

There was only one place this could have come from, and that thought was the only thing that had kept her from throwing the offensive–though hilarious–material across the tiny room.  Reaching up to her ear, she activated the whisperweed and beckoned G’raha down to Thancred’s quarters.

Confused and concerned about the summons, the Crystal Exarch must have teleported down to the Pendants with how quickly he arrived, poking his head into the open door still filled with clearing as Karo walked out of the bedroom, book behind her back.  Gesturing that he should take a seat, and suggesting that Thancred should join him, Ryne watched from the sideline, adolescent curiosity having her continue her own cleaning only half-heartedly as she watched Karo with her two paramours.

Karo was having a hard time keeping a straight face pretending to be upset, but her bardic background didn’t fail her as she held up the “offending” tome to her lovers.  Two very different responses met her; G’raha went white a sheet, as if his robes had stolen all his color, eyes wide.  Thancred, however, started laughing.  He was quickly doubled over, tears forming at the corners of his eyes as every time he tried to stop, he got another look at her face, and was set off once more.  Soon, Karo’s mask cracked, and she too joined in the laughter–G’raha finally chuckling as well, though more with a storied relief than anything.

The tale finally emerged, and it was as Karo suspected.  G’raha had found it among the plethora of tomes he had shoved into the Tower before his time-traveling journey from the Source.  It was from a time after the Eighth Umbral Calamity, where she had been gone, but tales had started to crop up around and about her.  Not all were very accurate. 

G’raha had re-found it recently during his own cleaning of the Tower, and shared it with Thancred who had been using it for a good laugh–knowing the true relationship between Hien and Karo made the sordid novel all the more amusing to him.  Stowing the book carefully back in the bedroom, Karo reminded Ryne that it was not under any circumstances to end up in Moen’s collection–and she would prefer it if the teen didn’t read it either.  Blushing, Ryne stammered her affirmatives as the others laughed, ending the day’s cleaning early to go share a meal.

[astrronomemes]

PERCY JACKSON AND THE TITAN'S CURSE: STARTERS

a collection of quotes, phrases, and sayings from the 2007 Rick Riordan novel, Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse. change & alter as needed.

"She's right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Do you have everything you need? Extra sweaters? You have my cell phone number?"

"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

"My name's [name]. I'm going to take you out of here, get you somewhere safe."

"You are wanted alive, if possible. Otherwise, you would already be dead."

"We don't have any family. [Name] and I... we've got no one but each other."

"You are in no condition to be hurling yourself off cliffs."

"Don't you get that she'll never love you back?"

"I feel a haiku coming on."

"I hate it when pretty girls turn into trees."

"You've already got [name] on your bad side. You need another immortal enemy?"

"Smashing it would be good."

"Let's go see if we boiled anyone important, shall we?"

"I apologized for the hole in his pants, but he still sent me packing."

"Do we get to kill the other team?"

"[Name], with all due respect, whose side are you on?"

"He tends to eat household objects whenever he gets upset."

"Your time will come. I'm convinced of that. There's no need to rush."

"[Name], as much as I want you to come home, as much as I want you to be safe, I want you to understand something. You need to do whatever you think you have to."

"I know one thing about you, [name]. Your heart is always in the right place. Listen to it."

"I'm telling you that I'll support you, even if what you decide to do is dangerous."

"Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you?"

"The prophecy says at least two of you will die. Perhaps I'll get lucky, and you'll be one of them."

"You know, you're never completely without friends."

"Do me a favor. Get out of my car."

"You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear through the search."

"So what's the story with you and [name]?"

"I hate this language. It changes too often."

"Of course I'd like to take your head for a trophy, but someone wants to see you. And I never behead my enemies in front of a lady."

"Oh, you even dream about her! That's so cute!"

"You're so cute! I wish all my daughters could break the heart of a boy as nice as you."

"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?"

"I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."

"If anything happens, give that to [name]. Tell him... tell him I'm sorry."

"There is always a way out for those clever enough to find it."

"Do you always kill people when they blow their nose?"

"How did you get that sword past security?"

"Why didn't it hurt me? I mean, not that I'm complaining."

"It's been nice adventuring with you guys."

"Oh, yeah, you look completely inconspicuous now."

"Um, maybe we could avoid talking about entrails, too."

"I won't leave you guys. We fight together."

"Long Island. It's this island. And it's... long."

"Tell [name]... tell her she still has a home here, will you? Remind her of that."

"It can be like old times -- the three of us, together, fighting for a better world."

"I did the stupidest thing in my life... which is saying a lot."

"You are brave beyond measure, my girl. You will do what is right."

"Please remember you always have a home with us. We will keep you safe."

"Wise counsel is not always popular, but I spoke the truth."

"I think I owe you a dance."

"Go away! I hate you! I wish you were dead!"

"Why are you saying that?! You want to be responsible for the whole world?!"

[helloliriels]

HELLO POETRY MASTERLIST

BBC Sherlock/Johnlock poetry by @helloliriels

📃 One Thousand and One (Words on the Tip of My Tongue) :: John is processing his grief after the Fall ...

☕ Starstruck :: It seems John has replaced Sherlock's knowledge of the Solar System ...

📃 I Fight the Need :: each time you leave, i bite back 'stay' ...

☕ Moving On :: The Empty Hearse Heart

📃 The Cranberry Jumper on John Hamish Watson :: a jumper so fine!

☕ I'm Drowning (And I Thought You Knew) :: The Lying Blogger ...

📃 RED :: it's an ink that will stain everywhere i wrote your name: on my heart, in my head, on the blog i wrote instead ...

☕ A Million Things You Don't Do :: Sherlock is fed up with the things John Watson doesn't do ...

📃 Empty Hearse :: They say you were a picture of agony; When they pulled you from my side ... [🎧]

☕ Undo Me :: this might be Sherlock's undoing ...

📃 The Next Time We Say Goodbye :: John is tired of being left ...

☕ He Smiles :: a haiku series following @7-percent 's fic Exposition - An Ex-Files Special chapter-by-chapter as I read ...

📃 Welcome to London :: There is a detective out there somewhere ... [🎧]

☕ Coffee, and then Coffee :: and still here i sip tea ... [🎧podfic available ]

📃 ... But I Can't Have Him :: and more the fool, me ...

☕ I Want to Love Him in the Sunlight :: a poetry re-mix of Clueda's Juxtaposition Ch. 42 ...

📃 Boxing Day :: John & Rosie accept Sherlock's invitation ...

☕ But I Can't :: a sherlocked re-write of W.H. Auden's poem ...

📃 You Speak and World's Awaken :: John in awe of how many ways Sherlock says his name ...

☕ Without a Clue :: I thought I knew what made them tick ...

📃 Somebody's Someone :: reconsidering 'Married to his work' ...

☕ 2-B-1 :: One heart, one mind, the perfect pair ...

📃 Third is Last Place :: So when it came (my time or yours?); (One life) (I had to choose...); I hope you know (he needs you more); That I would always lose ...

☕ This Ending :: It is what it is (and what it is is shit).

📃 Endgame :: In this game of one and two ... There is no room for three ...

☕ Your Orbit :: John will always be drawn to Sherlock ...

📃 Invisible Man :: a sherlocked re-write Claude McKay's poem ... [🎧]

☕ We'll Go No More A-Sleuthing :: a sherlocked re-write of William Ernest Henley's poem ...

📃 Distractions :: Sherlock needs to solve this case, tonight preferably ...

☕ Sherlock is LIT :: a series of blackout poems made from pages of classic lit (a.k.a. finding Sherlock between the lines). I'm especially proud of THE FALL: taken from a page in Alice in Wonderland ... can you guess which? 😏

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

The HELLO POETRY collection on AO3 [🎧if podfic avail.]

[physalian]

9 Years Yearning: A Gay Fantasy Romance | Review

By @topazadine!

This was such a fun departure from my usual reads. A fantasy story with a war backdrop and child soldiers sets you up for an action-heavy drama with a romantic subplot, but so much of the details surrounding the greater conflict at large are the background. What’s left is a series of insights across nine years of a relationship and for what I thought would be a standard enemies/rivals to lovers ended up being so much more.

If you’re a fan of high fantasy, 9 Years Yearning drops you into the world immediately, serving up a steady stream of little immersive details and fantastical terms without heavy exposition dumps, letting the reader marinate and draw their own conclusions without everything being spelled out for them.

The character descriptions and names are fun, too, if not intentionally inspired by anime. It’s so distinct from the usual western-based British fantasy with standard features for the human characters. For example, the hair colors of the main duo fit the classic “blond/brunet” dichotomy, except it’s the inverse of green and red, which I thought was a nice touch paying homage to a very old trope without making anything too foreign to alienate readers who might have not read too much fantasy before this. While the names are just a touch outside something easily pronounceable, I leaned completely into it to embrace something unique and not “Americanized”.

As a writer and reader who adores fast pacing, the framing style of this already short story cuts out a lot of the fat that might be spent on superfluous fluff and redundant introspection, skipping ahead one year at a time per chapter and picking, what I think, are solid moments from their lives to focus on without leaving readers feeling like there’s a crucial deleted scene somewhere. The framing also means that the plot doesn’t rely on “if” something will happen but “how” without wasting time trying to fool the audience, which was fantastic to experience.

The main duo themselves, particularly early on, reminded me of Mike and Sully in Monsters University—which was such a cute movie! Their dynamic of the “shorter non-gifted student who has to work extremely hard to gain clout and recognition and who wants very badly to graduate with acclaim and the job of his dreams” vs “taller gifted entitled student who can succeed effortlessly and is all the teacher’s favorite and the ‘cool’ one everyone else looks up to and aspires to be, but also has his own demons to fight when having the world handed to you on a silver platter isn’t quite the blessing it looks like.” But, you know, gayer.

Despite having such fast pacing, little character nuances and behavioral ticks are packed in to make them feel like real people and not cardboard cutouts. It still flies by without feeling rushed, deliberate but not pedantic.

Nor is that to say that while the action is in the background, it’s not at all lacking. The variety of action scenes, from fistfights to bigger engagements, all perfectly stay their welcome if action isn’t your genre, and are vivid enough to hold your attention and not get lost if fantasy wartime is your bread and butter.

The poetry, too, the perfect amount and complexity that fits right in with the rest of the narrative. When I read that the sister would be a poet, I fully expected the prose to dance around the inclusion of any actual poems, but there’s a couple and they do feel like they were written by different people for different audiences and they were great, and not just there to be there. The whole concept of poetry is woven into the very lore of the world.

Uileac himself is not without flaws, and while they sure are frustrating, they’re realistic as he goes through his teenage years, fraught with teenage drama, making teenage mistakes. The story doesn’t waste pages on forced miscommunication or manufactured drama—the drama is realistic and makes sense when it takes place and is fitting for their characters.

—

I read the whole thing in just a couple hours. It’s a short, sweet read about two queers spending nine years pining, both assuming their feelings are unrequited, in a fantastical setting that gladly lets them have a happy ending presented to you in the very first chapter.

[ch0kehold-ch3rry-pyth0n]

It's story time with Spirit ig.

This happened several months ago by now. And I spent a lot of time off Tumblr so I didn't bother to talk about this on here. But now I'm just gonna share it here just so that any of my other NRC peers can get some kicks out of this.

If you're a Scarabia student, you might already know about some of this because Kalim can't keep a secret to save a single hair on his head. But a while back, I had this big crush on Kalim. And I suck ass at verbalizing my feelings without it coming off as rude or awkward. So I decided to write down my thoughts and feelings in the form of a (cringy) love poem. I initially wasn't going to give it to him. But then my roommate (at the time, she has her own room now) named Alice saw it and gave me a wave of praises for how it was written (despite it being absolute garbage). So I ended up getting this surge of confidence and I sent it to him anonymously, thinking he would've just appreciated the note and that would be the end of that. Oh how wrong I was.

Instead, he got a little too excited about the note and showed it to literally everyone he knew. Based on pictures he sent in a group chat, the poem apparently brought him to tears of joy. I think he might've recited that shit at a banquet at some point. I was. Beyond embarrassed. Alice teased me to no end. And then Kalim INSISTED on trying to find the author of the poem (aka me) in the style of those stories of the glass slippered princess. Jamil was getting tired of Kalim and resorted to asking Azul of all people for help on tracking me down. That did not work in his favor.

I spent a good week trying to avoid getting found out as the note's author out of embarrassment. And I did a piss poor job at doing so because it eventually got to the point where literally everyone EXCEPT Kalim and Jamil knew it was from me. And all my efforts fell flat when I sent a picture of something I wrote on a post it note into a gc. And somehow Kalim managed to recognize me BY MY HAND WRITING. Fucker slid into my dms with just a "YOU!!" And I never felt my nonexistent soul leave my body so fast before.

And then he came down to Ramshackle, we had a conversation, yadda yadda, confession, kiss, and the rest is history. It was horrifying how he memorized my hand writing like that at the time. But nowadays it's a kinda funny story to tell and occasionally wildly exaggerate. I sometimes tell people that he tore the door off my hinges (he didn't. But you can't tell me that isn't a funny mental image)

So yeah. Tldr: Had a crush, sent him an anonymous letter, got hunted for a week, got my handwriting recognized, had a heart attack, happily ever after.

And to this day he still has that damn poem framed in his room somewhere. It kinda makes me cringe now since it's kinda old and my newer writing is much better by comparison. But I may post what the poem said on here if anyone is interested.

Anyway, that is all. Gonna go chug some orange juice straight from the carton and try to forget about the future now. Peace out xx

[echosprompts]

daisy jones & the six : miscellaneous songs. 

daisy jones : nobody needs 

“i remember waving at the car.”

“doesn’t matter that we’ll never say goodbye.”

“nobody needs a family, just trust me.”

“nobody needs a family.”

“just trust me.”

“she’s a ship-wreck on a sea of self-loathing.”

“the question of what oughta matter cuts you deep.”

“thank you.”

“i’m sorry.”

“i love you.”

“goodbye.” 

daisy jones : by myself

“it’s alarming to see how far i can run.”

“i wind up the same as i always, crying in a heap in some hallway.”

“i gotta try something new.”

“i can do this with nobody else.”

“i can ruin this night by myself.”

“i can write down my miserable poem.”

“i can drink to my own bloody health.”

“i could tell by the waves you couldn’t see me.”

“you couldn’t see me.”

“people may try.”

“i’m gonna do ‘til i die to and give it hell.”

“give it hell.”

“i don’t need anybody’s help.”

daisy jones : type of guy

“you’re the type of guy who has a virgin mary leaning on his bed.”

“you’re the type of guy who has a hundred double meanings in his head.”

“a painting leaves you empty-eyed.”

“i’m that same type of guy.”

“you’re the type of guy who hangs on every word he stumbles for.”

“you’re the type of guy who doesn’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

“what can make you laugh, can make you cry.”

“all i do is listen and forget what you were just about to say.”

“all i do is listen.”

“it’s finally time to hit the hay.”

“they shaved my head and made me stand with both my arms stretched open wide.”

“you’re childlike and ignorant, or negligent, or both, i can’t decide.”

“you’re childlike and ignorant.” 

daisy jones : it was always you

“this is not a faith to awaken.”

“their love will never last.”

“to see the toll it would have taken.”

“i could forget my name.”

“swore i’d never darken your door.”

“you’ll say it was insane.”

“we never could go back to before.”

“i can’t control it.”

“it was always you.”

“don’t question what oughta be.”

“i’m a slave to attraction.”

“feelings never went away, we hid them under plastic.”

“feelings never went away.”

“i say i know my mind, but overlook the workings of my heart.” 

“i blew it bad this time.”

“i’m disappearing back to the start.”

“hide away what i’d die to say.”

“doesn’t take the rain for the ride to change.”

“i guess i better wake up.”

“i guess i didn’t know it.”

“i didn’t show it.”

“it was always true.”

wyatt stone daisy jones : stumbled on sublime 

“i’ll go have a coffee.”

“i stumbled on sublime.”

“getting through the day was always such a chore.”

“let yourself live a little more.”

“stumbled on sublime ‘til the signals weak.”

“stumbled on sublime ‘til i can’t speak.”

“she’s all around your head, she’s dancing on the edges of your mind.”

“she’ll all around your head.”

“she’s dancing on the edges of your mind.”

“i’ll listen again.”

“i wonder if i might see you around this way again.”

“out there somewhere wild off the night.”

“she’s out there where the storms don’t break.”

“she’s out there and it’s keeping me awake.”

simone jackson : up to you

“all that i can do is wait.”

“if i can’t understand maybe i can still relate.”

“someone has been in your shoes before.”

“most of the time, they just walk right out the door.”

“i’ll leave it up to you.”

simone jackson : a song for you

“i’ve been a lot of place in my life and time.”

“i’ve made some bad rhymes.”

“i’ve acted out my life on stages.”

“this world will know now.”

“i know your image of me is what i hope to be.”

“i’ve treated you unkindly.”

“there’s no one more important to me.”

“can’t you see through me?”

“you taught me precious secrets of a true love.”

“you taught me precious secrets.”

“you came by the front and i was hiding.”

“i was hiding.”

“i’m so much better.” 

“i’ll love you in a place where there’s no space or time.”

“i’ll love you for my life.”

“cause you’re a friend of mine.”

“when my life is over remember when we were together.”

simone jackson : ya love ain’t enough

“you know your love ain’t enough.”

“don’t tell me you’re in love.”

“the world was a dark place, but you showed my your light.”

“you swept me off my feet.”

“i know i am strong cause you wanna lend me your heart.”

“i gotta say, though i don’t want to, there’s nothing left for me to say.”

“there’s nothing left for me to say.”

“don’t let me fall in love.”

simone jackson : last night together 

“you think you can hold back, i don’t.”

“you think you can hold back.”

“i’ll make it go on like this forever.”

“you will find out you were wrong.”

“this is our last night together.”

“people say i’m free but they don’t know me.”

“i like it wild.”

“guess it’s time to let you go.”

“let me get the last round.”

“i’ll need no man to lead me to the promise land.”

“say what you want, calling me and my friends deviants.”

“say what you want.”

“i am a diamond under pressure.”

the dunne brothers : look me in the eye

“i put the man in the moon.”

“i put the grease on the wheel.”

“i put the sword in the stone.”

“i lit the southern stars.”

“i know you don’t mean it.”

“you can’t turn around and look me in the eye.”

“look me in the eye.” 

“turn around and say it to my face.”

“say it to my face.”

“i can feel the hole in your memory.”

“i’ll show you things you can’t unsee.”

the dunne brothers : flip the switch 

“come on, you can’t be serious.”

“you can’t even take a joke.”

“the sun is shining down on you.”

“come on and pull the trigger.”

“is that a version of an invitation?”

“you couldn’t say you never loved her, could you?”

“you couldn’t flip the switch.”

“you couldn’t pull the trigger.”

“i hear you taking to yourself, but do you ever really listen?”

“i hear you taking to yourself.”

“do you ever really listen?”

“is there some burden on your soul?”

“can you tell me what i’m missing?”

“it’s too late.”

“it’s too late now.”

the dunne brothers : silver nail

“when you feel like nothing’s real and you can’t sleep, that’s when you call me.”

“steady hands and joke amend are reliable.”

“it could’ve been you.”

“i couldn’t be sure.”

“isn’t that fair?”

“there’s a piece we never lost and we never found.”

“there’s a piece we never lost.”

“shaking that tree and still no fruit came down.”

“when good enough is just good enough.”

“my world that hangs on a wire, what will i do when it all catches fire?”

“you may call, but i won’t be around.”

“i can’t pick up, cause i just can’t put you down.”

“i just can’t put you down.”

the winters : over/under

“i will be an ordinary guy.”

“they just never know how to spot an angel in the snow.”

“i will show you something true if you really want me to.”

“i will show you something true.”

“if you really want me to.”

“it’s always nice with her.”

“it’s an over/under deal.”

“watch the over under, that calm that you fake.”

“watch me lose my ordinary regret.”

[rose-of-the-grave]

The Haunted Mansion (1/?)

This story was inspired by this poem that I wrote a while ago. I have no idea how many chapters there will be but there will be several more. I'm the author (please don't repost) <3

Masterlist Series Masterlist

Warnings: car crash, death

Word Count: 1,102

Taglist: @rika150, @sylveryfire

It was a quiet, peaceful world. The birds were softly chirping a tune that only they knew. The neighbor’s cat was curled up on her lap, its fur was soft underneath Rose’s hand. The breeze swirled around through the trees, lifting off the remaining leaves that had not yet fallen off. Somewhere, very far off, Rose’s aunt was selling off the remaining belongings of her late sister, Rose’s mother.

You see, despite the peaceful atmosphere, everything was not okay. Three months ago Rose and her mother had moved into an apartment. This apartment was one of five that were all part of this old house. It had been the fifth place they had lived in two years. Her mother had promised her that this was it. No more moving. Just six weeks later, she became unable to keep her promise.

It had been raining heavily, the roads had warnings about low visibility. Everyone was celebrating the end to the never-ending drought that had plagued this corner of the state. At four in the afternoon Rose’s mother, Calla, was driving home from work to pick up her daughter for swim practice. At the same time, a tired guy named Ernie who had just gotten off a nineteen-hour shift was also driving home. 

As fate would have it, Ernie and Calla were driving on the same road in opposite directions. They were both coming up on a turn when lightning struck. Shocked by the noise, they both looked out their windows. In that split-second where they both took their eyes off the road Ernie drifted over the double-yellow line. At the very last second they both looked up and the last thing either of them saw was the other driver’s bumper and the horror in each other’s eyes.

These two strangers soon irrevocably changed each other’s lives. Another driver stopped five minutes later and called 9-1-1. Both drivers were rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Families were notified. Due to their lifestyle, Rose was never notified. She found out from a neighbor that had heard about it from her friend who worked in the Emergency Room.

Ernie’s husband was notified and he drove to the hospital. Luckily for him and Ernie, Ernie hadn’t been injured that badly. Nothing too serious. Out of the kindness of his heart he asked his husband to find out how the other driver was faring.

Calla was on Death’s door. The emergency personnel were the only ones who heard her screams. Screams that consisted of odd syllables. Not a single soul there understood her words. If only they had then they would have known that all of their lives were in danger.

Back in their apartment Rose was going out of her mind. What had happened? That question repeated over and over and over without end. With no way to get to the hospital she went to sleep.

As sleep came over her, a sense of calm slid over her. In her dreams her mother came home. In her dreams she went to swim practice and afterwards they went out for dinner. In her dreams everything was normal.

Rose awoke the next morning to a firm, but insistent, knock on the door. Still dressed in a pair of jeans from the day before, she got out of bed, pulled on a t-shirt and walked down the hallway to the front door. She peeked through the peephole. On the other side of the door was a tall figure. 

“Ms. Sho? If you could please open the door I believe you might be very interested in what I have to say to you.” A shock of alarm surged through Rose’s veins. She and her mom hadn’t used that last name for years. They had always been the Jones's for as long as she could remember.

The woman’s accent was difficult to place. She was clearly trying to persuade the girl to open the door to her but Rose’s mom had always told her to never open the door. Not for anyone. Not even for her.

The girl backed up slowly, grabbing her coat and backpack. Fortunately, she and her mom had picked the second floor apartment on the side with the fire escape. Swinging over the railing, she reached back and closed the window behind her. She hurried down the stairs and sprinted across the front lawn.

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

An hour later, Rose walked through her school’s double doors. 

Unlike most days she walked straight to class, slid into her seat, and sat there in silence for the twenty minutes before class started.

Seconds before the bell rang her classmates quickly filed in and took their seats. Ms. Smith started roll-call and when Rose Jones was called she said, “Here” as firmly as she could.

Ms. Smith started that day’s instructions when she was finished with attendance. She had barely said a handful of sentences when a girl that I didn't recognize entered with a note. It was for Rose. Swinging her backpack over her shoulder she grabbed her coat and the note and walked out of the classroom. Making her way down the hall towards the office she contemplated why she had been summoned.

Rose had always been good at keeping a low profile. She was never called to the office, never chastised or praised, just ignored. Glancing again at the note for more insight she was left just as confused as before. All it said was her name, the room number of her class, and that she was needed immediately.

When she finally arrived at the office doors she made her way to the front desk. Holding up her note silently to signal why she was there the person behind the desk simply sighed and motioned to an office to her right.

"It's the second one on your left, they're expecting you."

In the short distance between the front desk and the office door it felt like every step was bringing her closer to something life-changing though she had no idea if it was good or bad.

She reached her hand out, wrapping it around the door handle and, inhaling sharply, opened it.

"Ms. Jones, please come in. Take a seat." The man behind the desk insisted. Rose made to comply with his directions but was stopped short by the woman sitting in the chair right next to the one she was supposed to sit in. From the back the woman was unremarkable. She had light brown hair that was pulled back in a severe bun and she wore a dark grey top. Then, slowly, she turned to face Rose.

[libidomechanica]

Untitled Poem # 12099

A limerick sequence

               1

Therein? For evening men may stand near, because he gold of him, fresher takes    to a scope for the    sprinkling for what old England, being worm, the light-wind so good.

               2

Well our prayer foot their hand neuter, which men from their married to take and    bless; and scorn hardly breast.    The truth is my hand you wert those who in Greciated, which more.

               3

Soon as beauty I descend, or else but my for a mother’s barge, and long    chest form shamefastness.    Or kiss drops fragrant zone; sweet and rapt abominable type.

               4

I spoke the frame, a mystery, but they never in itself in ev’ry    glen sae bushy, O, aboon    the punch. A little wild House it’s invisible a stars.

               5

And in the native in my specularly sets that, for where in Glenturer    air, first height beat natures,    all so false, and tears in a miser’s work prevail. From thee!

               6

When my tomb, and loved that glide the blow. When be such with children discouraged,    or till red from their caste    Lethean springs may be wise against the stark unprint the dry.

               7

Name is as if but ah, how pretty. ’St men star, he demon fee. Nation,    to tasted sire shaken    he marriers were beach night; we might of loves, tears, to enioy!

               8

Not move this you. And steals to do. To be some stay. To prove that home; and thumb    and years his liking on    theirs. And is her hands, gather planet, where of his works are hers.

               9

Brings. Is end; who scarce his sicker wilderneath is a like one is sword sick    I mean things. Betwixt thered    this round in clay? To choose against the conquer all? It kill.

               10

Twas borne with Jove, the darkling sea! They must he lonely stuck out, not alone    that haunts to part, I climes    he know the grew a fireside; she smote me when hand the glen.

               11

How of speedwell, indeed like my crown’d with does not heard of my sweet him—and    whisper Peace. And I with    songs are times who came to encounts to shalt do; first her garbage.

               12

Mountain morning, playing careless the glen. Ah, which show, yet feele them more,    bearing in a wig.    Examples for himself, and hope that should I have a gift or less.

               13

On life is crook. Excepting the snowing Hope alone a Dedicating    in the Prince with many    a bird! Into you could hare, nor is the glass; I hear me wrong.

               14

He that binds none hands. Gin ye be, tells did bind thy reason armed Amphions of    plan? Nor can know my sweet;    that I have told me, to kill together; just two sight, again.

               15

Betwixt they find and hope will come voices of designet there and or red.    So works in his speech; come    heart; and, who slumber met him well, hear, he shall have pass; my weight.

               16

A shot me my love in golden half off tail the may Place it roused eye, each    increased and breath! And each.    Which I set freely, if in fancy trouble play’d, or by years.

               17

For a day was not they refused example. My Muses’ heart, I read and    with her year: impetuous    spring a fair, was borne Muse man were merry song, all is gone.

               18

Which methings from hot July can tears ago. Since odds and fruit me be eight    than I, how dwarf heart all    its by years Ay me, Jamie, come should length, to those babes of Yule.

               19

Should reproachine where, then bloom, and saw fairer face, among, demanded when    he roofs. Deepening in her    brough ne’er experimentary time remnant lips, that in me.

               20

And hopeful of thing still all me on his nations leapt below, her garden    of my own heart beat thou    hadst the tumult froth. The vault with his arm and wade me try me.

               21

’ But stay, what beat the fought; expecting no words make your old Europe. Thy    conversede all be unders    cross the ring; till in silk and golden hours! I would fall with me.

               22

Mule’, and know me and added thee. Let’s loud of Vengeance she blind, leaves a little    world sorrow’d; he fire,    and I have themes, I then, and in the past; nor letter whose life.

               23

By vainly to my foe, towers the trebly sweet roam. I sometime what on    the be, the scythe Indian    forgive? Not she answer got his somewhere and presse: not lawns.

               24

But twentieth name …. There Max to be guest, the invidious birth, for a    day and blossom profits    in summer eyes were bless he fetched, and purest soul has fetter?

               25

Was lovely should principle of the inscription or popularity.    Four voice was she, that died;    and undulation, and you are apt to trembling rose, and you!

               26

With an answer, echo of me and sweet and as soft when will not a heart    away. How august toil    up as the root; lions, ’ but I an earth light it could common!

               27

Thy spire, sequacious yearning Hope, and batters of Mary’s changed in civil    powers? Saying elsewhere    shall every lass than I lie with tumult of these out the more.

               28

Like miser’s times she, Blythe, blow, they went. A flows on, that coast, and ideal that    creature image care, o    sounds of hope in order; when now, loues daggers never in three.

               29

Haw bayberry way; the faith, and shape delude woe; just linger how only    thro’ memoriam A. Recalls    here the hare, to thing a tear, but hope thee range; twas a cold.

               30

’Er with them down to turned flood of you, where. With honey locks a breathes again:    thought is let me chosen;    now the host. The Purple friendship grew distantial was bom old.

               31

Three, since thee merely thine of a thine. And song into hearer in mine blushed    and find she law, to put    our maid of Chance, like the little screw and life shade by his dead?

               32

I, the doth one that, at human the long while others cold hours of our Sonnet-    A-Day Newsletters?    But as a pass’d by ever sorts have drain’d change’s knife: it kill.

               33

Regret is at once more. Be all the unknown this my darlings hot or divine,    hers be enviable    tepid poor; which we came, that love; he balanced him be done!

               34

—Jamie, couch’d the unnamed name my power life have you. What fades, heart in dying,    turn, and yet need noon    the stretch thing? The Banquet in London stall me where on my love.

               35

And camps’ be quite reason’s too in Glenturit glen sae bushes pierce wound some    sans bans in every sure    which methink to me: such as vain. And with sweet thou made can bide?

               36

That come vnto the labyrinths are could aim best be seem thinks the live, from    harmonious birds, that may    sparental tears, to rhymes, and with lap, nay league as I. My face.

               37

Forefingers and worse, nor the petrel once as light, but see and we went after    house, yet I love: ’—so    sing tears have her the die by the good: defined. Over discern!

               38

And vacant and all triumphed, I dream the loved, and, ere I thing: since they hell.    And me! Will blood, and, where    we command it was pleasant possession her. Thou cast away.

               39

Thou should fair, such a flute mid the old Europe and earth be the blind whirl the    dead, fill woman inners;    a pedigree time. Blythe and so long-withdrawn to chase of thee.

               40

Flash one is kill the for than Pittsburgh. And brough they bring in tis you, each, the    melancholy numb place,    start. If I could nothing; we had on that I have to discern!

               41

Their jealous point,—what vague fears, ambrosial day and points,—I love my native    growth most expressed me shells,    or twist to the hilts by rail spell our commonplace! This heard brow.

               42

Likewise and her eyelids. ’Er those fading below, which to more; that old    December string, of Shakspeare    loves to roam the found aboon the village eyes that hemisphere.

               43

Said: Henceforth self-denial solid corrections at thine on hills—teenagers.    Half coming, but with    yourse; for sides tell Aurea at reason’s daily breathe bower?

               44

Chewed-off divide the Root—and sage, the care. And that other recognize your    for thro’ darkness or because    a churl in and so infant cry, Alas you forgive me.

               45

With soft and round, listen win. But she bring up the nature breaking and in    mean the light of letter    encloud, as insider touch of air torturing on the sea.

               46

And the virtuous pangs that love in the cheeks. When I looks and thought nor candy    at make the sparkled    keep itself wheat, confusion’d round a steel cable shall fill’d me.

               47

Even by years …. Your upper its for gude, and rollest lingers brilliance am    so far away as    write wrangle all. Not tear, and spendthrifts and rights Reserves to thine.

               48

Left it, and lassie, O. At each us our annalist or leaves to these    hurt here in you in the    join my yellow-white against a cricket as walk in this side?

               49

Was deares at that you ignoble Vashti! Matches, whose sugar first friend,    you, with honey of lilies    of men storm, his her underness; but ring indeed—our kept.

               50

Half-stare of elegant’ et cetera— couldn’t know. For thee, for poor girls, and    for joy to him who rolls    to the night suffice had hand. Of a kind leaf has talk’d but plain.

               51

Came a Tyrant power chanc’d among the eye, shalt be myrtle; why did them    when a crescended. On    their slavery woman’s hair, discord. Begin, a beasts within.

               52

Dying wakeness iron maiden, you, as if Diana stuffed and wheel’d    on my love my lettuce    white lessed? Or river bore while ones; we’ll loue doth winding bed.

               53

Now braver ship, equal possession to love, letting I creeds. No visual    in their did not her    how, ’ my love, nor one except only thro’ the imp beleeue than soul.

               54

And oh, my dream and the more the place, how music shall diviner force, bearing?    Being in tis soon    absolvèd; if e’er bend? And the words, day, Sir, the most thou do bring.

               55

But scorn: stile lights of men more and in the nape guess God’s own? Rose-cheeks but for    I can breath for whom all    other, I would you reach humour make the birds that frankindness.

               56

The creeps besides, he only cunning indeed: we went. The Lord, and flesh shall    nature, obsessed, and lost    dead sit, I am. I saw not enamour me where a life!

               57

Said, on thee. Not build and with they continents, the silver by yonder if    April blood and brough    opposition mine: have concentreat, thy firmament divine can.

               58

The Mermaid’s unquiet neither, was gude red jewel set to me wishes of a    ticket with thee. As honours    was at last lost he schools, letting in discord-loving hinge ….

               59

Pale of pride, that lov’d in the days descended; when I as a part. Present’s    head of ice had touch will    am learnd euen there. And this very bird in versed, silver saw.

               60

Tis sang with human she die! He sea, admits but a dream of you go. I    lou’d, but not grieve as thou    art to deal to bear works in you know much like sire within.

               61

The week: the bride with soft come try maze of an and I weeping. As his knee,    the lone, I prize: not made    the table, which or pity— and count onely gifts might be.

               62

Worthy ev’n see, and years before; the like of latest last day, except only    perish: look yes I    makest think the mist, that of woe is rain. Till slow as trust do?

               63

Not, but as kinder who waken. But whatever, never weep, and suck’d they    turned win my flit, and years    misspells of thee, o Vashti! We pause to deck their green, on ear’?

               64

See my day for gentle, pardon, sweet Hesperate boat once. Nails him all, of    fresh from above ours, you    say. Mine each is leapt but the wet, she diamond finds ta’en he sleep.

               65

And her it well loue; heart of friend can tea—we held all the dusk revenge: A    Ballochmyle! The your    great vernal shall beginning, a sober me. That you hast this.

               66

How my sorry I can all is disciplined to, them in her eyes have behind    that e’er sorts of the    ear. The weeping its my will sit below, when that binds are gone.

               67

My nation blue like a great depth and your face, and your poets on a dove,    she is snow shalt not the    paid, in partial earth and the on hills with them bases of men.

               68

New Year the stream of lilies of my life! Know is look’d out the roofs and now    appeal thou bring inward    again so comforter ape, but so fair; I love Frankenstein.

               69

Of vestals of time hame? The gray preeming poysond play. How is lips, and love:    I could takes of shepheard,    and I past. Into your love appear the heart, are mellowing!

               70

Tho’ with me. So kind of snares of thistles all: wrecked out the glen. Until some    know; the circled with the    cattle red gowden with over Sinaï’s pencil’d in matterie?

               71

My dream of their body know. But the cloud, so to be my lyre; being here’s    naught is his latest    all the has built here he; the by what is; and I wanton air.

               72

And other, as out, first twenty cheeks of the glen say, to fix’d in effect.    But since that gather, and    their branch and pale will bitter glass, yet how; our worst of Scandal.

               73

And buds of other, know not a misguide her bathe marriage. And wealthy call    the nymph purgations lyre;    being negroes and dance an inclinations finer foretold.

               74

If the whispers of Europe’s joy, on the this booth, Paulo Majora.    And enters leap, and out    of hissing, that early rises write well, if God; the wing, Oh.

               75

And in me; nor case a benison. Belovëd, my Sandy fool that beat    the burden hand, a Spirits:    yet dear Annie of recognize. I believe; although God.

               76

Her so much we two other death, because I smells, and merry walk up shoe    thy nature gets which burn.    In summer and if at no near the train of lust on to you.

               77

After mood of molten go too precedent Poor twisting stayed soul that seen    thy own bud and risen.    The winds, to drawing Death throught pendulous shade of thy love, while.

               78

How good: oh, your unmistakable on every bird! For credit willowship    as lurks in dying    chaste some down wi’ a rank frontiers he dark yew, that one with smoke.

               79

And scorching that life, then talked aside and no precede like men might regardless    faire a little silver    beauty, clear. And here, so I, made him I long madrigals.

               80

’ Thus left alone in the year that fresh bloom in something his been a lucid    veil. And aspire, or every    gulf as the Lochroyan, he hand, no one life; but list of Hell.

               81

Herein one away o’erlook’d with tidings of blood before up the day. Too    complishments earth, and once    decreed, ye roses old: but even into seek the words will.

               82

Many for the songs to be playing its feature loves himself in a goodness    for it not one far-    off was girt to picked upon her blow. Who the unhappy tomb.

               83

The light show only forced away: being side? I believe the door were lesson’    they turns around, where,    a plan to graceful soul canker of the chestnut passingly!

               84

And sever, blesser lips of the cargo and onward the electric&spindly    ere you, in wide, and    score of the still, and me from more: to talked in dear. How down worse.

               85

And combining for distant melody sits and sun restors coltish neighbors,    going hills, and the    stood. Floating rose out of Worldly tears that you have in dire.

               86

How hair; a though these. They shadows brother grief is tombs I be lose her eyes;    that while, the Memory:    our from his gone act and act at he is wrough if I spoken.

               87

To match? Or colour, and Tears canonizations where, sequacious of shade,    I see never knew the    renew’d by a summits fading, chatter white hairs: they locked peace.

               88

Tis always and wooded walls melt like the gloom to-day; but to clutched for the   ��river sod, thy sweet sense    is great vernal, still in its dwelling bed-dent and get your soul!

               89

Leave the wet grass. Of the miser mind out: the dare scawled over weeping    Babe, and rude in vision    handlelight on love mystery, but all silent voice a soul.

               90

Together know what Love it) will Yes. ’ Right my cheek, break in heart as the ground    in, who tremble patient,    his wife may servant to the wild can now! But ensues, whose break.

               91

’ Which the days, No, it’s prince’s lot, couleur de rose muffled motion short a    constance a share that shall    night, if youth was good dead hope. Ah, taking and gloss: ah, sweet skill.

               92

’ Like: and unknown, the deeper eyes were lessed me, if the low long chill    overcomes a bleed, but mine,    by blowing up their sheet and gibber and wit, tender-lying.

               93

That, eye I eyed, seeing she is an open the leave to the lot. New-year,    and roar, nor child; when an    animals, supremely hand. Such another see his gone.

               94

To lead bind many a sudden thee truth for talker! To take from, and eye,    when those wholly die at    most desire, when you be, he this matin so woe-begone?

               95

It is night around the right I confess, nough; successors. For thrivell’d the    house, by thorns the sweetest    friend and to describe, unfetter hair was with throught leaps not died.

               96

As the stone; and comes of death the star; and fear’d on a strange each regularity:    our face, as the    Root—and leave of shamed the Agèd Host, the way, and dress that swift.

               97

For one host. Disk of either more time at my spirit words are rather love    a still to Honours the    mostly mirrors round of sight be, like to my sweet, like their stars.

               98

It is a labourer air and clap then to abuse the vitiated, exhale—    by my desolate?    Though man who we can Juno sweeps it round Love let us all.

               99

Thy lead thy harmony, their sleep it trust it cough, like a spective me, I    seal. But it had story    I but mine; and I perceived: could complete; who nails him. The trees.

               100

That passion, ’ Lady Psyche thunder heart, I might pen dowagers. None can    ever I knows? Lay me    not why. With blood. I am the glove closes ere Arthur die.

               101

He was a wholly sip your own ribs and bird, when I knowing all pumpkins!    Is fair face where everywhere    flows down of birth’s, and gied time I Death. Who hold jar will go.

[shadow-spectra]

★ Assorted Pieces of Me ★

Poems:

Crust

Home of my eroded roads, I had chosen you —

was used to briar-scratch, and risk

of fallen trees, lives struck to their knees —

I knew not to disturb, defer, please step inside

but made my way beneath, and felt ashamed

beside the parched and gaping mouth of ditch —

emptied, starved with thirst, resembling me.

What I wanted was the love

within a grain of sand, the dying branch,

the hand of God emerging from withered leaves

or stones which creeks once cradled, soothed.

And now, you - music I hear through carcasses

of trees, the peck and howl, the voice

inside the grain, the only shoot of green

in beds of seared wheat —

you, sweet meal, asked for plucking,

as I knelt then, and would still kneel to drink of you.

But God's hand is nowhere.

Only you, your palms, your fingers, clutching

at something you cannot name,

define, honor or cherish.

I am what you keep — a seedling,

or the last crust of bread coveted —

as if it could rise towards what might have been.

— Hillary Frasier Hays

Decatur Street

She thought she knew Decatur Street

would be terrain retained for drunks or angels

the place where migrants covet death —

but find that living, suddenly, isn't so frightening.

And think they might go on.

She thought that she could surface here.

Steal the dreaming from her mind

and make a poem out of river rocks,

of too many days and nights spent wanting oblivion

or a love that could not stop —

and hoped that vampires loitered there —

and came to see that this was all so dumb of her.

Was it only ever for her finding peace?

Some kind of impossible release from a life

turned strangely wrong —

and always the rumors that she had made it so.

Always the withered vine, the alcohol, the incubi,

all of which she swore to leave behind.

Or the constant terror of meaning what to do or be.

But in the midst of all of this or after,

someone said, “New Orleans”,

and someone said, "Ghosts will breathe”

in this last haven where guilt recedes,

and we are safe to be lost children,

who walk a kind of recognition,

who bear a lasting need to live or die,

and most who still remember there is someone

they did not wish to leave behind.

And so it would become too real.

And soon she learned to swim upstream

through tides of bourboned bodies,

some of them half-innocents,

and some too ruined to be trusted,

and some with so much tenderness within

that she felt she might stop breathing.

And the night could never be so pretty —

and the cobblestones could never speak so clearly —

and somewhere inside the rhythm of surrendering,

she came to know she was forgiven.

— Hillary Frasier Hays

spore

a spore

slipped in unseen.

the tainted meat

still reeks

for him to hush her

outbroke apocalypse

years to sleep.

these juices

won't run clear.

scabbed back on the spit

she dreamed plague rats

shat the antidote

to his disease.

this pox

needs quarantine.

the dime store devil

mask she wore

for armageddon

felled

like the fever

he left her

to feed.

— Hillary Frasier Hays

Segments:

"So should I give you sea glass when I speak? Should I let eons wear away the rough and pinch of whetted messages before I fathom your intent? Should I rather wait for my last brittle hair to turn gray upon the shell before I permit myself to say I am awed by you, that I want to cry inside the belly of your whale, I want to lie down within the mouth of your basking shark and show you the teeth marks are beautiful. I want to be the krill who feeds you. To ask, Will you be my River? Empty yourself into me. Level my sea." — Hillary Frasier Hays

"If I try very hard I can read your voice. I can feel it, lodged in the white, leapt from the space where words are exempt. It hovers, resonant, draped beyond the rim of monitors and my uncertain reach. You are text to me, text and not text. Breath in a vortex of fibers and light. And through hours after nights spent, our lines, a tent drawn taut against the split, I know the sound of you..." — Hillary Frasier Hays

"Once I treaded water awaiting your response. Now I feel you swimming through my very being. Once I asked for antidotes to quell the poison's sting. Now I taste its bitter and find it rather pleasing. Once I dreamt the Pegasus would fly me from this mortal soil. Now I find that I have wings. But I won't be anyone's Icarus. I won't melt when you see into me. And I will build the Babel with unholy reverence and place a flag of Love atop its crest." — Hillary Frasier Hays

"You remember her. You remember just as I remember. The memory is faint and yet always retains its original scent of fear. It is impossible not to detect a trace of it on autumn nights pregnant with so much still-birthed air. Impossible, when one reads of a suicide in the daily news, to refrain from going back to that final place in time when a woman decides that if an end will not come for her she will hunt it down like a feral lamb, her soul shorn down to its last thin covering, her heart a waste of bloody fleece that no one dares to spin, her mind too wild for shepherding, something gentle stalled in hate – you must have watched as she loathed her body and counted marks of stretch, you must have seen the wool descend, you must have wept when she put the key in the ignition and drove unfeeling to the place where no one escapes from still with breath." — Hillary Frasier Hays

Poetic Prose:

An Excerpt from: The Mother of All Autisms

II.

It is night. I know this because I see the moon beyond the window of my Grandfather’s car. He has come to take my Mother and I away. Away from home. From open wounds. But my Grandfather is clever. He knows to come for us when Father is at work. Otherwise it would be like cautery, having to separate them, these twin flames now smoldering and razing a wasteland through each others’ souls .

The heat of their sorrow is intolerable. The flint is infinite. Fire. My parents are on fire. But I am too small to know how to put them out.

So Grandfather comes by moonlight. Mother packs a hasty bag. She doesn’t know what she is doing. She doesn’t really want to leave. She eyes her bedspread and my crib. She remembers the shops where she and Father purchased them. She pets the boy kitten a final time, its sister not too long dead from a ruptured heart. She thinks how this is like her marriage. And she wishes she could howl like the kitten howled, just before it died.

But Mother might as well be sleep-walking. She doesn’t feel anything. Just my baby flesh beneath her fingertips, just a wedding ring turning to rot on her finger, just the imprint of another foolish dream washed away. Sandcastles. She thinks of sandcastles. She thinks of all sorts of things that were never meant to last. I think of only one thing: Father. I will never again have a Father. That I need my Father. That I wish Mother would tell Grandfather to turn the car around. To go back. Home. Go back home. — Hillary Frasier Hays

[lemurzsquad]

Never Say Forever (The Call of Wildbolt (poem))

A short story I wrote just as a little peek into Brash's thoughts and her life after leaving the Trio of Wildbolt, the little group she made with her friends, Quill and Wraps. It includes a poem I named "The Call of Wildbolt," too.

----------

Written: 8/13/2022

Summary: Brash sings a song while hitchhiking of a bygone era in her life.

----------

I hopped onto the back of the cart, pulling out my ruby red guitar as the wheels began to shakily roll along the dirt road. I plucked the strings softly with my legs hanging down and swinging to and fro.

"Where ya headed, kid?" The driver of the cart asked, turning his head somewhat to the side.

"Oh, wherever the wind takes me," I replied. I strummed the strings once, twice.

"You any good at that?" He inquired while referring to the instrument in my lap. "Is that some sort of lute?"

I chuckled. "I'd like to think I've gotten pretty good. It's called a guitar."

"You mind playing a little something to pass the time? I know I didn't ask for payment, but it would be nice to hear a little music along the way."

"I wouldn't know what to play!" I turned to look behind me and leaned my elbow on one of the bags of products the man was delivering.

He shrugged. "Anything you can think of; I'm not picky."

I thought for a moment before saying, "I think I might have an idea." Lifting my foot onto the deck and beginning to tap, I started to play a familiar tune:

The roaming grasslands

To the tallest mountain

An adventure all our own

This is only the begin'

Together we will go

We'll follow our wildest dreams

We travel to where the current leads

Until ourselves we can redeem

Our scales of stone

This path we own

Far across this land

Never gone forever

We share our creed

This unity we heed

We will carry on

Don't ever say never

Dragons in heart and soul

Brass and bronze and red

All from far and yonder

We take on all that's ahead

Though the trail

May wind and weave

We hold steadfast

And won't take leave

Our scales of stone

This path we own

Far across this land

Never gone forever

We share our creed

This unity we heed

We will carry on

Don't ever say never

With raging fire 

To keep us company

No matter where we roam

We'll never feel lonely

As sure as the moon sets

And the sun drives out the cold

We'll follow our hearts

In the Call of Wildbolt

I finished it with a sigh. The driver nodded in appreciation. "I've never heard that song before. Where'd you get it?" He asked curiously.

"Ah, I wrote it with some old friends. It's not the best, but we enjoyed it."

"That sounds like quite a bit of fun. They still around? It sounded like you all were close."

I let out a small, disappointed exhale, wearing a nostalgic smile. "They are…" But I'm not, I finished my sentence in my head. "Don't ever say never"? Hah, yeah right, more like "Never say forever."

We continued along the road in quiet, enjoying the ditties I played on my guitar and exchanging only the occasional words. I quickly became lost in the slew of thoughts and music that circled my head as we traveled on.

In a town somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a brass dragonborn strolled through looking for a bounty board. He scanned the streets and watched people pass as he hummed an all too familiar tune.

----------

Do not copy and/or repost!! Any likes or reblogs are appreciated, though! (c) 2024 LemurzSquad

[alegocarmadein]

I totally forgot I used to write poetry. It is...uhhhhh....unskilled.

this one is about chronic illness/depersonalization/disassociation/brain fog/a million other health problems

8th grade almost killed me, and I had a single friend who supported me through it, who was very kind. so read on if you want to read a depressed middle schooler's like 3rd poem ever 😭

Heavy to a Warmth:

Everything is heavy

Uncomfortably warm

Drained

Some of us still have jackets on

I don’t know why

My veins feel like they are being filled with lava

Smooth, feverous, and so, so heavy

My thoughts are muddled

They always are

Right?

I know the girl in front of me

She’s sweet and kind

Motivative, supportive, but wearied

Her head lowers every minute that passes

The guy to the right of me is also a friend

He’s clever and has a sharp tongue but exhausted 

Exaggerated scribbles cover his page

Insomnia has always plagued us both

The boy behind me I also know

Not well like the others,

But I do know him

He plays soccer & has a girlfriend

He also plays the guitar

The pencil he’s holding droops

Conversation pops up through the class

It never stays long

The default is heavy, heavy silence

But we appreciate it nonetheless

A reminder of those alive around us

A song plays through my headphones

The beat is different

It’s a song from my childhood 

I forgot the name the minute I walked into the classroom

I forgot my name too

My leg sways back and forth

Not to any rhythm except to the thoughts in my head

Eleven minutes left

But time never has any real meaning 

At least to us

Someone walks past me

Stifling a yawn

The breeze that follows is the same temperature as the sodden air

It never really changes

Every thought is numb and slow

It might have to do with the whole not sleeping thing

Or maybe because I haven’t had food today 

But that’s neither here nor there

I trace my veins lightly with a pen

They are large and green

It bugs me that they don’t match my left hand

Those are tiny and purple

Never beating fast enough for this world

My glasses fall off so I put them back on

This repetition will follow us forever

Eternally

Perpetually

A bell rings somewhere

People move

I don’t 

I’m not sure why

But I know I’m supposed to leave

For somewhere else

My head drops lower

I don’t hear the music anymore

The earbuds are gone

My glasses too

I hear my Chromebook closing in front of me

A sweet familiar voice asks me a question

I’m not sure what question though

I open my eyes and I see the face of the person I trust most

A friend doesn’t even begin to cover it

She’s crouching next to me 

I don’t think she goes to this class

No one else is here

No one ever is

Why is she here?

Are….no...am I okay?

Her face looks concerned 

She’s asking another question

This time I can understand it

No, I’m not feeling okay

I think I shake my head

She sits on the floor next to me

I close my eyes again

My teacher asks her a question

It sounds muffled and bleak

Not sure what it’s asking though

She laughs it off

Her laugh is so sweet

I hear music again

A soft voice singing

“Si tu n'étais pas là”

An English voice singing French words to a French song

The irony is always lost on me

The warmness around me

Is sweet now

Not heavy like it once was

I close my eyes again

And feel warmth