#my favorite flower AND very appropriately-named for what I wanted here

[ohmydumbledear]

Orym of the Air Ashari 🌸

It was about time I drew my favorite halfling, I actually can't believe this is the first ever piece I made about him. He has my whole heart 🧡

[ne-videl]

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤

♡

yandere Dion Agriche x fairy fem reader

he will gladly go even to his own death if you'll order him to.

sub yandere, unhealthy relationship, a little bit of Cassis x reader, mentions of violence, reader and Dion have master/pet relationships, also reader is referred to as "sister" a few times so pseudo incest I guess, sfw but a bit suggestive, everybody likes you!! poor english

word count: ~2k

a/n: there I am again drooling over fictional men. so here's my favorite yandere trope!! for if your psychopath doesn't worship you it's not your psychopath ©

honestly when I was reading this manhwa for the first time and saw dion I was like "damn I want this man on his knees 🤨🤨", so here you are. eat.

"you're a dog, Dion." – not-Roxanne lifts the corners of her lips in a slight smile, while her neat fingers run through his shaggy hair.

"your dog," – Dion adds mentally.

you feel the touch of his dry lips on your bare foot.

sitting like this, kneeling in front of you, seems right – it can't be any other way, and it won't be.

"may I?" – after receiving tacit approval, he leans closer, his hand stroking your bare thigh.

you smell like flowers: maids must have added rose oil to the water, and this smell digs into his lungs, making him roll his eyes in ecstasy.

just from this, from the fact that you are so close, he could just reach his hand out and feel you.

your body is cold – devoid of any human warmth, burning his skin with the cold of it's touch. your eyes look with a non malicious mockery: how a person looks at their beloved pet. with kind condescension.

you lean in, and Dion feels a kiss at the top of his head. scent of roses hits his nose, almost suffocating, and it feels like his mind is about to give up. well, if he dies right here, he won't regret a bit.

crimson flush on his cheeks almost burns his skin.

____*:･ﾟ✧

"hello. my name is ███████. do you mind playing with me, brother?"

he turns around at the girly voice behind him – distracting himself from the dead bird – and he is met by the look of your laughing eyes.

not red ones.

his sister tucks a lock of her hair behind her little ear and sits down next to him, waiting for an answer.

shouldn't she be blonde like Roxanne?

who is Roxanne?

"okay." – Deon catches his sister's smile and for some reason wants to smile too. she talks about a cute teddy bear that her father gave her, about how she likes to drink tea under the summer sun, and that she probably likes him too.

he had once seen in a book: in the old fairy tales that mothers read to their children, it was said that fairies could replace a human child with their own.

none of Agriche's children believed in fairy tales, but it seems appropriate for his "sister" – you, not-Roxanne, must be a fairy. a lovely creature with transparent wings and a honey voice.

he doesn't mind. whatever calls itself his sister, Deon thinks he really, really likes it.

____*:･ﾟ✧

if he's not on a mission, Deon is always by your side.

"what are you doing here? can't you see sister is with me now?" – Jeremy mumbled indignantly, but you only laughed softly, covering your lips with a neat palm.

a beautiful silver ring glitters on the sixth finger of the "sister".

their father also adores you – maybe it's natural for fairies to charm everyone around them – from members of their so-called "family" to the maids and even the hounds of the estate.

maybe he's a hound himself in her eyes. it didn't matter, as long as he could be with his "sister" – or at least with the creature that pretended to be her.

it was undoubtedly a pleasure to belong to you.

Deon drapes a white fur coat over your shoulders: you often went out into the garden in light clothes, as if the winter cold did not bother you at all. your hair falls over the fur collar, and you smile at him, giggling about how quietly he walks, and chirping about something else. you were fond of chatting, and it was often very difficult to stop listening to you. he, however, usually spoke rarely and little, accompanying you, his mistress, like a silent shadow.

you're spending too much time in the company of a Pedelian pup – an unacceptably long time – so that his eye begins to twitch with anger.

isn't he enough? why would you need this toy if he is always at your feet, your faithful dog, a hound, ready to do whatever you want without a trace of doubt and regret?

Dion wished you'd let him kill Cassis.

"may I ask you a question?" – you turn at the sound of his voice. surrounded by a winter garden, you look even more beautiful, pitch black against dead-white snow. perfection.

"of course, ask. what is it?" – "sister" raises an eyebrow a little stiffly, not naturally, just a little bit.

"do you like him more? I dare not doubt you, and you should not doubt my loyalty, but still-" – his scarlet eyes narrow slightly – "but still, do you like him more?"

if you answer yes, he will go and kill the eldest of the Pedelian offspring on the spot. this is Deon's place. and the hell he's going to let someone else take it.

"of course not, silly." – you laughed – "didn't we discuss this earlier? toys are toys, but you were and will remain my favorite."

right. that's how it should be. why did he even doubt it?

"favorite." – mentally repeats after you while your six-fingered palm rests on his head: you had a habit to pet him like a puppy.

"favorite." – gaze of crimson eyes trembles, invariably riveted to you, and Dion struggles with the desire to grab the object of his sick adoration in his arms, hug you, to feel the cold of your inhuman body at least through clothes. your smell is dope, your touch is opium, your eyes are an abyss, mesmerizing with the horror of its cold depths.

but he can't. you didn't allowed it yet.

and he, as befits a well-trained hound, will obediently wait for your permission.

____*:･ﾟ✧

"███████. that's not your real name, is it? what are you?" – Cassis looks at you expectantly.

you tilt your head to the side, picturesquely rounding your eyes and raising your neat eyebrows.

theatrically. not natural.

"what are you talking about? I am me. who else do you think I can be? stop asking stupid questions, darling." – you answer with a mocking smile. like he's saying something ridiculous.

"are you kidding me? you have six fingers! why doesn't anyone else notice this? besides, you look different, not at all like-" – Cassis cuts himself off in mid-sentence.

like who?

"you know, forget it... it's like I haven't been myself lately. you know, with all this kidnapping, and even your brother..." – he shakes his head nervously under your laughing gaze.

something inside told him that if he kept asking questions now, it won't end well. and anyway, why would he do that? after all, it's not polite to interrogate his benefactress.

everything is fine.

"the less you know the better you sleep, my dear. why don't we just proceed as planned? and how many fingers I have is none of your business." – you look appraisingly, as an already well-fed snake looks at a mouse.

eat or not?

"if I were you, I'd be more worried about the success of your future escape, and for that matter, about my dear brother. you see, Dion has been wanting to twist your neck for a long time." – mention of the red-eyed man makes Cassis tense up.

when you see his reaction, you giggle like you just said the funniest joke in the world.

"come on. I was joking. Dion won't hurt you unless I tell him to. he's a good boy."

when he thinks about it, you, the elder Agriche, had a lot in common with the poisonous butterflies you adored so much. in the sense that Cassis often got the impression that you wanted to devour him. at least it wasn't hard to imagine transparent wings behind your back.

____*:･ﾟ✧

gatherings with your father always ended well after midnight – invariably over cigars and wine, in his office full of acrid tobacco smoke.

it was no secret who will become the next head of Agriche: Lante never hid his paradoxical favoritism. with you alone he had the relationship that most closely resembles the relationship of a parent to a child.

"in general, everything is going as it should. don't forget to dress up for the next dinner party: I've already called the designers." – Lante exhaled a cloud of smoke, smiling cheekily: alcohol was doing its job.

"as you wish. Is Dion doing good at his job?" – you answered with a relaxed face: wine, as well as many other "human" things, had no effect on you.

"you ask as if you don't know. you raised him well." – you slightly unnaturally round your eyes in surprise – "only a fool here does not know that the only person to whom my son is truly faithful is you. I don't know how you did it, but these mind games of yours seem to have had the desired effect. of course, you're my daughter! you're more like a dog with a mistress, not a brother and sister."

Lante bursts into a deep laugh, and his "daughter" does not deny herself a satisfied grin.

a dog and his mistress, huh?

heavy doors of the head's office closed behind your fragile – at least visually –figure.

you are greeted by the night chill of the deserted corridor of the estate and your dog waiting in the distance.

"hi, Dion. already returned?" – he just nods silently in response, coming closer to you and offering his hand.

my-my, just came from a mission in the middle of the night and immediately rushed to you. how obedient.

"did you hear it?" – you tilt your head to the side with a sly grin.

"I did. while I was waiting for you." – he doesn't say anything about Lante's comment. doesn't deny it.

indeed, you raised him well. no trace of pride was left.

Dion in your hands – a faithful puppy, readily following any of your instructions. even if you'll send him right to his death, he will return, only bowing his head in anticipation of praise and the touch of your cold hands.

and you, like a good master, praise, and stroke, and kiss. after all, if there is a stick, there must be a carrot.

____*:･ﾟ✧

"here we will part, my dear friend. we have already discussed your plan of action, so I see no point in repeating myself. go to freedom, but quickly: we, you know, deal with riots quickly."

"wait, listen, please. can you at least answer me before I leave? what are you, really? I always have the feeling that you're not who you seem. I mean... no, I like you, I really like you, it's just-" – Cassis cuts himself off, realizing that he blurted out too much.

he's all flushed, confused in words, and you're just looking at him with your unnerving eyes and smiling.

watching. and aren't blinking.

"God, no matter how much years I'm carrying on my shoulders, it's the first time I've met such a curious human." – you purse your scarlet lips, thinking about the answer – "don't worry, "she" is now where she will be better. and as for your question, dear, you can consider that I'm just a bystander. yes, let's think so. so stop talking and run, okay?"

"and you? will you be okay?" – you raised your eyebrow: still unnatural, however, he's already used to it.

exit from the estate is already very close, just a stone's throw away, and Cassis is hesitating. desperately grabbing your wrist, looking with shining yellow eyes into your laughing, soulless ones.

tch.

"what, you want to stay my toy forever? you know, I'm an Agriche too, and I might change my mind about letting you go if you keep looking at me like a beaten puppy." – realizing that your quip was not accepted by the "audience", you rolled your eyes, but then broke into your too perfect smile again.

"don't worry. I can't be killed in a way that matters."– a six-fingered palm rests on the top of his head, and your face stretches into a grin, not human, too wide for a human.

but he's not scared. he wants to watch more – it's impossible to look away, even if his instinct for self-preservation screams that he needs to get out of here as soon as possible.

the abyss, as it turned out, can really look back, and it is beautiful in its terrifying appearance.

is this how Deon feels every time he looks at something that calls itself his sister?

"well, let's never meet again, my friend." – and Cassis leaves, leaves without turning around, because he understands that if he turns around, he will never be able to leave this nightmarish estate. he won't want to.

you hesitate a little, watching him with unblinking eyes, and with a sense of accomplishment you turn back.

your face rests against a man's chest. familiar scent of ash and blood hits your sensitive nose.

"and you're still walking silently." – Dion drapes his coat over your bare shoulders. a gloved hand lingers on your skin a little longer than it should.

"it's cold in the dungeons. you should have dressed warmer." – you laughed a little.

he knows perfectly well that you don't feel the cold, but he does this every time anyway.

"and what, you won't even ask anything? aren't you curious why I let the Pedelian offspring go?" – your six–fingered hand is holding his elbow as you wind through the dark and cold corridors.

"I will not question your methods. but was it wise to talk about your secret, even in this way? doesn't he know too much now?" – it's not difficult to understand what he's hinting at: in his opinion, you should've get rid of Cassis. athough never said out loud, your "brother's" dislike of your toy was ridiculously strong.

ah, men's jealousy!

"let him think what he wants. there are no big conclusions to be drawn from what I said anyway." – you tilt your head to the side, your eyes lazily scan the walls of the dungeon. he just nods and continues to walk beside you in silence.

Dion never asked too much, never doubted any of your actions, never poked his nose where it should not be. you certainly raised him well. no, even exceeded your own expectations.

what a good boy.

mom yelled at me for almost a hour and I wanna curl up and die 🤩

thanks for reading!!

[immoralimmortals]

A Song With Ten Names

Chapter 31: Sally's Song

Chapter 1 ☆ Next chapter ☆ AO3 ☆ Featured song playlist

Summary of chapter: What’s so wrong with Kakuzu playing around? It’s not like her affection will last. Nothing ever does.

Author's Note: I have a very strong attachment to this song. I try not to be *super* 1-1 with my personal experiences to what the reader analog "Takara" is supposed to be, but this one can't be helped. I love this song, it's the first song outside of church that I memorized, first song I sang for the purpose of wanting it to sound good. If Sally's Song has no fans, that means I am dead.

I really, really admire the Fiona Apple cover of this song especially, but for whatever reason it was removed from Spotify, apparently a couple of years ago. The rendition added to the fic playlist will be a music box instrumental by Music Box Rockstar. (Forgive me if I change my mind later).

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

And does he notice my feelings for him?

And will he see how much he means to me?

I think it's not to be

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Dappling light is a lot more awe-striking when you’re relearning how to see the world, the way it blots over each thing like flecks on a watercolor painting and makes you reevaluate its shape. The sun isn’t visible right now where the performer is, instead diffusing its rays through the fading foliage in this magical way. It’s fascinating, really, how in autumn so many plants seem to give one last hurrah by bleeding out all their bright colors before it’s time to die. There’s a similar reason why the performer is now stuck with her once favorite dress and sweater.

She wears both now, of course, as there is nothing else in her wardrobe. In the springtime with Hidan and Kakuzu’s initial company, it was quite fitting! White with pink and blue detailings, sort of like flowers fresh from the melting snow. Summer managed to fit still, sweater removable and sunhat appropriate. But now in fall, the warming hues of crimson, orange, gold, and brown make her miss a scarf she used to have with matching colors. The fiery rainbow refracts in her eyes until a cool-toned finger gently brushes up and down her arm. Kisame always oozes with a strange, contagious sort of vibrancy even though he doesn’t bounce off the walls like Tobi nor raise his voice like Hidan. It’s subtle, and though his color is blue, it’s an attitude that suits red maple leaves and yellowing morning glory vines that climb up old, moss-sodden lattice.

“Told you it’d be nice to get out of the place,” he asserts, having figuratively dragged her from bed for this. And she beams up at him, as though the woman is bone-tired, he is still right.

“Hey!" 

…Someone shouts to get their attention. A head of spiked hair perks up with double the attentiveness for his ward who can hardly blink, shifting his shoulders to turn them both around. Once it's had, Hidan purses his lips and gives the fish a judging look; he lets it sink in before putting in his two cents. "You shouldn't be carrying her everywhere.���

The privacy is quickly shattered, the interrupting voice reminding the performer of how, exactly, she even managed to go outside: that Kisame only got her here by picking her up and taking the lady himself. He’s so strong that it became second nature for a few minutes, and the silly thing entirely forgot that she is a grown-ass woman that can suddenly be held like a toddler. Mute, she instantly shrinks closer to his cloak— which he now dons over his indigo tank top with the chiller weather— a redness on her cheeks. The taller man blinks with a frown at his sudden opponent with gray hair and righteous attitude. "It's better than her staying in one spot for too long, isn’t it?”

Hidan effectively scrunches one half of his face, corner of his mouth pulling up and the right eye squinting. He’s seen her move on her own; why not just let her? It doesn’t make sense! Will she forget how?! “Then have her walk!”

A whimper is all she’s got, hiding more into the dark cloth at the shark’s neck. Kisame defends, a snarl curling his upper lip: "She's enjoying it."

The shirtless grim reaper stares long and hard to verify this to no avail, rolling his eyes back up to the fellow Akatsuki. "She looks unhappy, asshole."

"Yeah, now that you're scolding her,” the swordsman parries, holding her just a little bit closer as if the arm of his cloak can shield the poor woman from misunderstanding cruelty. “Can you either get with the program or shut up?"

"What?!” Hidan, of course takes offense, redirecting his attention to the one he’s actually worried for. “Girlie, hey! Look over here!" To Kisame’s dismay, ever so slowly…she abides, and he notes the anxiety in her eyes. "You enjoying that?" A flush in her cheeks...but she nods. There is no way to deny that this is oh so very wonderful. The priest blinks twice in disbelief. “W—... really?”  

Hidan’s double down is about to knock her off her feet (metaphorically, too): 

"Then— then let me carry you, too!"

Kisame’s response is immediate: "...What the hell?" he blinks back with his own shock. His shaming doesn’t work on a man who has no shame to speak of.

"If you get to, so do I,” Hidan argues, folding his arms matter-of-fact. “Simple as that!"

...By technicality, that is true. The kiri-nin looks to her attached to his side for approval or lack thereof once more. "You don't have to say yes...” he reminds under his breath.

But the consideration is heavy, her soft eyes glancing over to the silver-haired man standing on this path outside their house. Is Hidan only asking because he's jealous? Does he even want to? They haven't really talked since they…you know. But the firmness there... Regardless of motive, it does seem to be a sincere want. But she has her own, in spite of how she misses him: "I don't...want to be a bother..."

To that he frowns, and his hands lower onto his waist in a sure, somewhat annoyed stance. "Yer not." His half-lidded stare alone dares anyone to ask why he wants this, including her.

Unable to formulate an acceptance as an apology...she just nods up to the shark to abide by the other man’s wishes. Kisame reluctantly, awkwardly passes her to him, muttering something about not fucking dropping her, and she’s unsure what to do with her own arms in this exchange—

"Come ‘ere."

So Hidan does the actions for her, careful fingers with a ring like dusty dry blood adjusting her hands to loop around his neck and the back of her knees to go over his cloaked arm. The way he looks at her...hooded eyes so close to her own... Geez, it's a bit more believable Kisame is so strong, being so very tall and less human looking. Hidan is just... a guy. But she gives him no problem whatsoever...!

She remembers abruptly how heavy his scythe was. Oh.

…

...

"Okay..." Hidan asks the swordsman after glancing her up and down, "Now what?"

It's Kisame's turn to raise an eyebrow this time. "...What do you mean,” he asks flatly.

"The fuck do you do next?"

Kisame squints so much harder that his actual eyes aren't visible, merely small black gills over a widening grimace. He is starting to regret this pass-off. "You...hold her...?"

"I'll do it, un."

Before Hidan can argue his place, a blonde takes her into his own sure, smooth grasp. Oh dear. He's even smaller than Hidan but picks her up like she's lighter than a kitten...! It shuts her up into pure, unadulterated silence with a stare as big as two dinner plates. "Hey, darling." The artist blinks, smiling still but brow curling, shy girl saying nothing to help alleviate tension. "...What are we carrying you for...?" Deidara inquires.

"That’s what I was asking! Now let her down, okay?"

"Why?” Deidara scoffs at Hidan, backing half a step away as the latter ninja approaches to grab her back. “You were the one holding her, un."

"You didn't ask!"

"...Did I need to?"

"Yes," both fish and Jashinist confirm in aggravated unison.

Ohhh my gosh. Her face hurts from blushing so much, eyes from being so wide. Kisame takes it as his cue and he tentatively steps up, reaching out to take her back from this problem he incidentally started. "Let me...just—...” he stammers, ready to rescue from a social faux pas. “Come here, Takara-hime—"

"Swoop!"

With a flash of black and orange, an unexpected fourth man slips between them and flees, pastel-dressed prize in his arms. He trots away with the speed of a child stealing from a candy store, reaction stagnated by shock just until his long, trailing scarf is out of sight:

“TOBI!”

“TOBI?!”

“TOBI, YOU GODDAMN COCKSUCKER!!!”

The chase begins, a whine at the back of the kidnappee’s throat that wavers with each bounce of his feet. “Heehee!” he laughs, “Takara-chan is mine, mine mine mine!” the jester teases, shit-eating grin surely behind the spiral he wears as he revels in the tight grip lovely fingers make into his clothes. The swift shinobi weaves around one corner of the house, speeding through a pile of leaves which scatter about like Tobi had stepped on coals of a fire, flying sparks and embers that crunch instead of crackle. “If—” he huffs an exaggerated breath, “—They can’t decide who has you—” Breath. Another corner of the house is rounded. “—Then—” Breath. He stomps through a couple-days-old puddle, water droplets splashing cold against her legs. “It’s gonna— be me!”

The thief twists around one more side of the ancient home lined in dead vines like a gold trim only to be caught by surprise. Abrutptly, he stops to a halt, seeing something before his dear Takara-chan can register the new danger.

“Oh?” One...Two...Three. Surrounded!

Kisame is grinning to the left, Hidan is frowning to the right, and a fuming Deidara is directly behind, sliding open the back door with Tobi’s name cursing from the back of the tongue within his head. She’s not even the one running and this is all making the traveler lose her breath. How the hell did they move so fast...?! It’s only been all of, what, ten fucking seconds?!

"Oh— guess you got me!” He's playing, the fellow performer can still tell. Something's up his sleeve. Okay...so what does that mean—? “Catch!"

It means she's not ready for what's next, not all.

“AAAAAAH-!”

The woman screams as she’s tossed unceremoniously up to the clouds, feeling the force of gravity first in the way that her body attempts to break it, climbing up and up and up with the power of his throw. A couple of times on roller coasters have prepared her instincts well: her stomach sinks in anticipation for the rest of her, just as the acceleration slows and the drop is about to begin.

“AAA—” … And she waits for a fall that does not come. “...Oh…?” The first thing in her vision is the bright blue sky in contrast to the vast forest. Wow...what a view. It’s open like she’s high above—

—Oh. Oh Jesus. Is she really two stories up in the air? TOBI?!

A heavy, heavy sigh is heard from an open window nearby, practically behind her ear. It wakes her up to look down, first at the guys staring up at her from the ground, then a bit closer to her own self. Black threads wrap around her body, around from her back and then loop over and over around her legs; it feels as secure as, well, if you somehow warped metal straight out of the flame to a custom fit just for you. The sight of herself is enough to swallow further shrieks, much to the relief of he who has rescued her from such reckless affairs.

Kakuzu leans down, open fist outside the threshold of the window pane with threads weaving out of rips in his skin that keep her in place. Menacingly, his glower rolls down to the ants below. "You...stupid motherfuckers."

"IT WAS TOBI, JACKASS!" Hidan quickly accuses, pointing to the culprit. A growl and a death glare is all it takes for the masked man to whine like a scared puppy. That’s good enough to appease Kakuzu. For now.

Ironically enough, it's his turn in this ridiculous game: "Come on, then..."

The three watch as the woman flies back into the house, a small eek on the back of her tongue and window promptly shut behind her with a slam. A moment of silence, all four men staring up to where she was spirited away.

…

…

“He’s going to kill you, you know,” Hidan states without any urgency, glancing over to the orange spiral. “He’s kind of famous for that.” And though Tobi fakes shaking in his boots very, very convincingly, everyone else still thinks he’d deserve it.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

What will become of my dear friend?

Where will his actions lead us then?

Although I'd like to join the crowd

In their enthusiastic cloud

Try as I may, it doesn't last

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

What a mess, Kakuzu thinks. He exhales, fully undressed besides a pair of pants, no face covering nor shirt to cover his unnerving stitches. Thanks, Tobi. A small “oof” is muttered as the woman is set down on his bed without a second glance, man himself turning around to retain what little respect he has left. It's an opportunity for the performer to briefly gain her bearings. Kakuzu’s room, she vaguely recalls. Really has been inside it only once— no, not even inside . She’s only seen into it less than a handful of times. Frankly, it’s pretty...ordinary. It’s clean. It at first seems to lack hobbies. No piles of clay, no sword to polish (re-wrap??? Samehada is a stick of bandages, after all), no circle to pray in. But it becomes apparent that what he has instead of things to humor him is...finances. Receipts and bills are nicely organized or are in a pile waiting to be, a bingo book of wanted criminals open that perhaps may promise enough funds to keep this makeshift horrid fucking family alive another day. A couple of briefcases are neatly lined next to his desk, metal and heavy looking as if to transport valuables.

Her head shifts side to side. Grumbling, taking no heed, the treasurer has walked over to his closet in search of attire to make him better suited to be around a lady. He forgets so easily that the strangest thing about him isn't just the stitches but what they lead to on his backside…

"What...?"

Thinking this is about the metal threads, he looks over his shoulder as she finally looks to him and speaks. “They—” he begins. But, oh. Oh, no, it isn’t those her eyes are locked on; the threads have slunk back into his hollowed body already. What he sees, instead, is her pointing squarely at the masks. There's four of them, different animals and colors.

"Are those...attached to you?"

Ah. Right. Damn . He exhales yet again, not moving so she gets a good long look, ogles to her heart's content at the freak he is, get it out of the way. Guess it was inevitable she find out. "Yes." Then he reaches forward, a tank top chosen off the shelf with an open back for these creatures. It’s more comfortable, for one, and for another makes it easier to fight if they don’t have to pop through and ruin a perfectly good shirt. Never can be too prepared. Not too fast as to not scare, he turns his front back around despite his bare chest facing her. She looks so small, somehow, head hunched down and eyes angled up as she sits upon the edge of his own bed. How do they always get off the wrong foot when they don't even try?

"I'm sorry." Because of course she is. There’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

One thing is sure: "Don't be."

A thread drifts away from his bicep like an autonomous, thin tentacle, locking the door just in time to hear the nob shift futility and Hidan knock ever so impatiently to be let in. His head turns sharply, a snarl on his face. She notes how the way his eyes scrunch up is such a common expression above his usual mask; does he always frown like that when they do? "Give the girl ten damn minutes without your nonsense!"

Vague but clearly angry response muddles through the closed door, but Kakuzu's expression stays and so does his order. A moment of silence and gradually the arguing fades, something about promising to be back later. The hunter’s tense brow relaxes and so do the corners of his lips, and red and green eyes stop bulging. In. Out. He catches his breath and turns boiling rage to a simmer. For her sake. Calm down, for her sake.

The stitches on his face move with his cheeks, she can tell from where she grips the edge of the bed; they are, most certainly, not just burns or scars or face paint. His eyes catch hers, a challenge in them that regains a sliver of the anger he managed to beat back, daring her to call him a monster. Unnatural. Hideous. It’s all true, just get it over with. A flash of something else was before that, though, on his face. It's an emotion that feels familiar in her own chest.

Despite his expectations, she reaches out to him, slowly raising her wrist with a begging, upward-facing palm. He doesn't flinch, eyes starting at the woman’s fingertips, trailing up her arm and to her face.

"...What?"

How can she say it? Both palms, now, come back, gesturing together for him to come here. Out of pure confusion and desire to know what the hell she means, Kakuzu simply obeys.

Shaky hands go to the brown arm as he grunts with the unexpected contact, even as her touch is more gentle than he could have imagined. Maybe even especially so. As she sits on his bed, one hand goes under his palm to steady it in place while the other wanders up to explore, both visually and tactilly...

The bounty hunter…has two tattooed bands on his forearm. At first she assumed that's where they come from, but no, the actual stitches are higher up, unmistakable as the source of his eldritch-seeming threads. She traces up to the shoulder, then under his chin. There's even more of these lines on his torso, seen far, far too easily as he hasn’t yet slipped on his top in this unexpected intermission, and she can tell they all lead like train tracks to the masks embedded into his latissimus dorsi. Her eyes consume him, taste him, know him. She's far from the first to witness him like this, in battle or otherwise, and so he ignores the sense of novelty that washes over him and behaves with expectations that are tried and true. Something Kakuzu and his musician have in common is how they’ll insult themselves with the truth before you can turn it against them first.

"...I know. I know what I look like." But she acts like she hasn't . She's seen him before, though, the times she barged in at the peak of midnight...why is it different now?

Sometimes trauma heightens the senses, lets you take in things better than before. The quivering touch of the performer moves to reach further upon his skin, still. In awe, fingertips barely brush against his chest and most unbelievably, he doesn't stop her.

Tears well up on her eyes, which to his surprise turn up to his own instead of staying locked lower down on his ugly, deformed self.

"Does it hurt?"

...That’s not something he's been asked before. IF it hurt, yes, when “it” happened decades ago. If it does when hearts pump out of his back to attack and spew the elements at his enemies. Yes and yes, answers to both as well as if others have been so brave as to inquire directly to the bastard himself. But does he hurt now , merely existing with this curse? It's been so long with the aches stitched into him that he's forgotten, so he searches the numbness under his skin for what the answer may be.

"...Yes," he discovers, despite how it might make her cry. He knows she likes the truth. "...But it's better than before,” Kakuzu softens. In several ways. Better off with than without them. Better off than being fully human. Better off than being dead.

He sits down next to her and unbelievably, after rubbing the saltwater from her face, this woman shifts. Yes, yes, he is not mistaken; this woman now crawls onto his lap.

And he lets her. 

All hearts pounding in discordant, unmatched pulses, he lets her. Legs wrap around his side, thighs seated atop his own. She trusts him. Even after everything, even seeing him like this...—? Oh so delicately, with a hesitance that draws her away before curiosity pulls her back in, this soothing lady traces the metal woven into him. The way he is… It reminds her of something. Something distinct. A visceral sort of memory, one from long, long ago…

…Kakuzu notices before she does that his performer is humming.

It's a tune both sweet and melancholy, befitting a creature like her and somehow, too, the way she approaches a beast like him. His gaze softens, lips no longer a stern, stretched line, and he drinks her wonder in. Kakuzu missed the songs that used to always tinge her voice, and this is the first it’s come back since she has come back home to him, even if so, very small.

“...Oh…!” The woman pulls back, somehow both after too long and far too soon, and she...smiles up at him. This…who he is…makes her happy? “...You remind me of...a rag doll.”

…

Dark brown hair drifts past his face as he savors that nickname, elaborates to himself on the implications. He’s been called it before, yeah...usually just before deciding to detach the person by their arteries. How can it seem so... kind from those lips? So adoring…? She has an answer, and it’s silly just like her.

“When I was little…” the performer tries to explain with stilted words, as plainly as she can so as to not confuse, “...I loved a story. It had a rag doll...who...stuffed herself with leaves.”

The Frankenstein's Monster stays silent, does so regardless of if there’s more for her to add. The slightest, softest inhale and the humming begins again...this time closer to the singing the Akatsuki miss, just without words. Down, up, and up...down… Down, up, and up...down… Lovely indeed, whatever it is, even if simple and bouncy. It was, after all, one of the first melodies she memorized on her own volition. Idly, she traces him again, finding a spot just at his collarbone and right at her line of sight. The threads are stiffer than they look, less like woven fabric and more like surgical staples. How do they move with such lithe grace, so little effort?

As she ponderers this question, one of his own springs off Kakuzu's tongue like a diving board.

“...You never sang when you were alive?” To his relief, the humming doesn’t stop; it’s such a piece of her, this melody that she can do it without thinking. A free hand wipes her eye again, and despite the nature of everything, her tiny smile does not waver nor flinch away as she answers.

“...I wanted to,” she murmurs after a moment, voice light and wispy much the same way as she seems next to someone rough like himself. “I wanted to be a singer...a musician…” A guitarist, a keyboard player, a...star. A performer. “I...learned...to stop doing it...just because I felt I had to, and started doing it...for fun by myself.”

Eyes close, and she tries to identify these marks on him with touch alone, tries to narrow down exactly what he feels like skin on skin. Kakuzu wonders if she can feel how his pulse is stronger than one any normal person should have.

“You could have been.” And she is now, he reminds himself. Or at least she will be once this nonsense is said and done and she can get back to a nondescript civilian life. But...she shakes her head.

“Too scared,” the woman says, “Too shy.”

“How do you know that? Did you try?” Perhaps foolish to challenge; the thing she is surest in besides the persistent strength of humanity is the failures of her own making.

“I had the chance...I was offered...to be in a play…” The smile widens, showing teeth and hiding a grimace. “...I was too little and too scared. And I never…”

…

She doesn’t continue that thought.

“Why didn't you try again? You were just a child, right? Children are allowed to be wrong.” But as soon as he says it, he knows this isn’t true. He knows from experience. So does she. A long, painful silence...and then her eyes open. The humming continues, sweet and sad. She reaches up into his hair, delicately, to see if it feels as smooth as it looks.

"She falls in love with someone...who can't see his demise coming,” the woman explains of the rag doll with leaves. His brown hair is silky and soft. “She tries to help. In the end...it gets her in trouble. He realizes she's in danger and saves her." Kakuzu raises a brow, stitches at his mouth exaggerating a purse of his lips.

"What monster pairs with a living rag doll?" And to his surprise, she beams once more:

"A skeleton!"

...Oh. He grunts, his way of chuckling without being so vulnerable as to give off actual mirth, eyes hooding and smirk forming. "I know what you're going to say, Takara...that that’s like us."

The combing stops, big eyes blinking their befuddlement as the curled fingers pull away. "Excuse me?"

...Oh, dammit. She has never even seen Hidan's ritual form, and so Kakuzu feels his face flush at making the connection himself. Goddammit… As if Hidan could ever save him. It's always the other way around...

"Am...am I...a...a skeleton?" she stutters, not getting it.

"No,” he cuts in sharply. Too sharp, in fact— “I mean— ...never mind."

…

…

The now free hands of the woman fidget index fingers, pressing tip against tip. "There's another character...that's filled with bugs," she adds, as if this is helpful in any way whatsoever.

"…" Kakuzu answers, gaze narrowed and mouth in a straight line.

"I like bugs."

And so he exhales yet-fucking-again. "Takara, you're very fortunate I happen to be tolerant of the dumb shit you say." Hidan owes him for that, too, really.

"Oh." The woman on his lap doesn't need to say: she's sorry. She gets shy and withdrawn and her hands drift even further away. Exasperated, Kakuzu takes them into his own grasp.

"...But it's better than you never talking again."

He can't touch her with his own hands; surely he's too rough, both literally and figuratively. The threads come instead, strange and cold and inhuman. It only makes her remember what it was like to hold him by the fingers, though, as she did once when Kakuzu taught her how to read the stars.

"...Can I ask you something rude?"

What a weird thing to ask. He shrugs, just barely so not to shake her too much up and down as she sits on him. Is this fine? Is she safe so close to him? Is it proper for a man to let her do it? And yet he can’t bring himself to pull them apart. "Alright."

"Why is your skin... so...?"

It isn’t a sigh this time as he releases air from heavy lungs, but a chuckle. You can tell it comes from deep in his chest, even if quiet. "It'd be rude if you ignored it. That's just how I am now."

She blinks again, lashes fluttering. "You weren't... always...?"

"No. I was someone else a long time ago."

"Like me?"

…

He thinks about this, long and hard. This girl does, after all, remind him of who he used to be. So what does that mean of her before? He recalls her mentions of a life before a death, an existence riddled with agony, debt, and servitude. A broken loyalty to a system that felt nothing for her, and waking up to abandon it by any means necessary. …So, perhaps, they have switched lives. Silly boy to serious man. Serious woman to silly girl. Funny how life works out. They both had a death of sorts in between to make it happen, and here they are.

"Sure. Like you, I guess."

"Thank you," she responds inexplicably, despite the implications he sees, an emotion so bright dripping from her mouth like honey from a hive. There isn’t even a blush on her face; with the next action, it’s all whimsy and instinct and no thought whatsoever. It has to be, to be so silly.

The woman leans up and presses a kiss on his forehead, for once bare of the headband marked with his betrayal. A sensation tingles down his own cheeks, down his neck, into the depths of five dark hearts. Despite it all...he feels joy. It makes him tense up. Alas, this is so easy to pick up on with how close they are, and she jerks back immediately, crawling off his lap just as quickly as she got on. Now her face is red.

"Sorry…! I—... Sorry."

Sorry... That’s the right word for giving a guy like him the time of day, the warmth from a sixth blood-pumping organ somehow tied inseparably to his quintet. "It's fine,” he responds in calculation, choosing not to tell her how much he enjoyed it. “Just...be careful who you do that to. Alright?"

Instead of asking why, she simply says, unable to look him in the face: "I'm bad…" And calmly— oh so calmly compared to a moment ago— he retorts, his own voice murmured and already longing for her song.

"I didn't say that."

...

"I meant it,” the taki-nin elaborates, both as a comfort and an admonition. “We're all like this, Takara. ...If not outside like me then on the inside. Keep your wits about you. Save your affection for those who are deserving. It isn’t you that’s wrong, here. If someone has to be called 'bad'…" Childish worldview as it is, to be so black and white, the answer is undeniable. “...It’s us. They threw you, for god’s sake.”

"But...I...—"

"And if you can't," he adds selfishly, and the next is a whisper. "At least be tactful about it." The scariest part about what happens next is that he does, indeed, mull it over before it’s done. The outcomes are considered, the details poured over, and the fool still does exactly as he's warned her of.

A press of his world-weary lips comes from out of nowhere yet arrives so, so gently, just as soon pulling back before she can even tell what's happened. And though he isn’t brimming with sunshine like Takara can, this old man still can’t hide he’s making a silly, silly choice. "...Duckling."

And that’s it. There’s the slightest smirk on his face as he slinks backwards off the bed, visible until Kakuzu turns around and throws the signature cloak of his ilk over leathery-textured shoulders. The traveler gapes, what she thought as her mistake now his confirmation—

“Oi!” another guilty pleasure beckons impatiently behind Kakuzu’s locks. The bounty hunter huffs, allowing the woman one last opportunity to see a widening grin before the mask slips back on.

“Perfect timing.”

Before she knows it, another, paler set of arms come around the performer, Hidan complaining with his chin upon her head of her terrible, unforgivable absence for all of ten minutes. It really is over so very, very quickly. It has to be, lest the choices grow poorer and poorer between a half-naked man and a lady not even back to herself.

But he hums the lonely rag doll’s song back to himself all the same in private the rest of this day, up through dinner, in the bath, hell— maybe even in his sleep. It somehow sounds just fine on his old, gravely tongue as a mind re-walks the life it’s led just to work up to something as stupid and risky as this. Dead leaves fall down past the window where the zombie scooped her into his waiting lap, and he wonders what it would be like to stuff them underneath his patchwork skin.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

And will we ever end up together?

No, I think not, it's never to become

For I am not the one

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

[emmaestrella]

Hiiii :DD Here's some questions, as promised :3

No pressure to answer any of these, and feel free to skip around/only answer certain ones

Who’s your favorite Greek god, and why? (mine is Artemis because she's a lesbian aroace (at least to me) and has a badass follower cult, she's pretty, nature, her twin brother is Apollo (music, poetry, etc), and yeah. She's just awesome and badass.)

Seven characters you relate to?

Favorite flower(s)?

Do you like singing, and if yes, are you a tenor, alto, mezzo, or soprano? (I'm an alto :D)

Left or right handed?

What's your favorite potato food? (Fries, mashed, chips, baked, etc)

Average time you fall asleep?

An underrated song you love? (one of mine would be Runs In The Family by Amanda Palmer)

Lemonade or tea?

Do you like where you live?

(Since it's appropriate today lmao) Do you celebrate the 4th of July?

An aesthetic (or 3) that you think fit you?

The name of one of your playlists? (the one I've been listening to a lot currently is Summer nights exploring the woods)

What's your favorite candle scent?

How are you?

What's your comfort food?

What's your favorite animal?

Did you know that you are loved? <33

Okay that's all for now!! Lemme know if you want more questions, and feel free (please) ask me some too!! Could even be the same questions :]

Byeeeee

-Mysterious

OO YAY QUESTIONS!!

ok sooo

my favorite greek goddess is hestia, i feel like she’s always forgotten and she seems like she would be such a lovely person, especially being goddess of the hearth, i feel like she would give really really nice hugs

seven (thats a lot) characters i relate to are: uhm nina zenik (the vibes are there), annabeth chase (gifted kid), kataara from ATLA, amity blight, gwen from spiderverse, kat stratford from 10 things i hate about you, and pidge from voltron

my favorite flower is gerber daisies :D

i do like singing!! i’m not very good on my own but i’m okay when i’m singing along and i do not know what my vocal range is

i’m a rightie!!

my favorite potato food is probably french fries (i really like waffle cut or crinkle cut)

depends, i usually fall asleep around 10:30 during the school year but i’ll stay up till 11:30-12 over breaks

ooh an underrated song i love is literally anything by chloe ament but i really love evangeline or dining room table by her!!

lemonade 100% (i don’t like tea)

i like my town but i hate the state i live in so no :/

my family does, so i’ll get dressed up but i’m only in it for the food

ooh another tough one, i think indie, cottagecore, and fairycore!

most of my playlists don’t have like long names but i do have “female rage: the musical” based on this one post taylor nation made about the ttpd eras tour set being called that

i love anything vanilla/sugar scented!!

i’m doing good today!! how are you?

my comfort food is campbells chicken noodle soup probably

my favorite animal is rosg maple moths :D

i did <33 and you’re loved too <3

[dreamtydraw]

WELL HELLO HELLO THERE!

I once made a post explanation of the designs step by step of my ol mc Cerise. Here is part 2 with my ol2 mc.

SYMBOLISM OF MY OL2 MC

Valentin Second ❄

First of all, contexte informations needs to be given to understand some design choice (infos and design might change once the game release). Valentin's name was chosen specificaly for the meaning of sweetheart. When someone says that you are their "valentine," they are choosing you as the person that they would like to show fondness to during special day such as Valentine's day. Second is the default name surname and i'm being honest, just tout it was funny in contrast to Cerise Fourth.

Just like Cerise was summer but for sad periode fall themed, Valentin is a winter kid. From the palette to the clothes and motifs, she's the physical embodiment of dark snowy night. I wanted to keep the fruit theme too, Valetin is also based on blueberries.

Like i said before, Valentin is a winter kid and not automn. the new place may be fun but this is not where he is from so that why her palette is made of blue and cold collors in contrast of Golden Grove. Valentin is out of place, coming previously from a snowy country.

Before moving on to design detail, one theme important about Valentin is their identity. Step 1 Valentin identify as amab non binary without really being sure about the label, she goes by she/he/them. Step 2 valentin struggle with their identity and the idea of feminity. Step 3 Valentin found a label and confort in their identity as a trans girl going by she/ them. An imagery of her gender identity journey: her scarf

From step 1 until step 3 the scarf is too big. It's pretty, white, and expensive, with a bow shape on the back. This is an important object and sort of embodiment of Valentin's coquetry. Be pretty even if it dosen't fit and you're scared of abiming it, it's special and is reminiscent of her previous place. It only starts fitting right during step 3 when her femininity feels right to her.

Step 1

Step 1 is wearing brown shoes to go play outside, the only thing that is allowed to get dirty, and who is more appropriate to where she is now rather than where she used to be (compared to all the winter warm but delicate clothes ). She is herself, a kid from another place but ready to go on an adventure and visit new places, getting her shoes dirty on the walk. She wears pigtails or occasionally a ponytail to look nice but also be comfortable to not get hair on her face. Little Valentin owns a lot of fantasy jewelry, mainly earrings, her favorite one is snowflake-silver-shaped earrings that she got from a souvenir boutique of her old town.

Step 2

Step 2 Valentin is a kid growing up too young on the internet and being heavily influenced by it. There is an unpleasant feeling of not feeling right in the young girl's heart. She wear strictly winter colors like blue or white, trying to get a hold on what she think defines her. There is also the toxique imagerie of what "feminity" is suppose to looks like. Valentin feels self conscious and want to feel pretty under standards regardless of developing a personal identity. This js reflect in her choice of keeping her hair long and lose despite it being inconvenient and having it on her face during windy days. Cute,skirt, very long hair, trendy fit and pastel imagery or else she won't look girly enough to fit her falsenn idea if who she sould be. She still wear her too big scarf

Step 3

Step 3 Valentin comes from a long way. Accepting the search for her identity, she feels at home in Golden Grove, autumn starts warming her wardrobe. Valentin dresses more as she wants and not like she thinks she should, starting by cutting her hair short and getting new piercings. She personalized her outfit with the embodiment of flowers or leaves, she is a mix of everything that impacted her. She matured, her scaf is well adjusted on her neck and she goes for either warmer or darker colors. Valentin also gives a chance to make up and she likes it, sometimes trying bold colors, sometimes doing simple.

THANK YOU FOR READING! Valentin's design is not complete,more may be defined once can add canon story elements through the evolution of her as a character. In the meantime, I hope you'll have a good day💙

[robininthelabyrinth]

Initiative - aka NMJ and JYL get engaged - ao3 or tumblr pt 1, pt 2, pt 3

Nie Mingjue was always glad for an excuse to leave a boring political meeting, although he was surprised that Jiang Yanli had been bold enough to send a note requesting his immediate presence before they were married.

Certain jibes had been made at his expense by his fellow sect leaders, of course, but he had shrugged them off. Let them think him overly indulgent; what did he care? He enjoyed having someone to dote on when he had the chance, and anyway he didn’t think Jiang Yanli would ask him to come out so quickly over nothing – though it was interesting she asked for him to join her, rather than asking for her brother.

“Mistress Jiang?” he said, walking into the room in Jinlin Tower where she was waiting for him. Her posture was tense, her hands clutched together under her sleeves. “What’s the matter?”

“Do you know where the Wen sect survivors were sent?” she asked. “It’s a matter of – some urgency. If you don’t know, we’ll have to find out another way.”

We, he thought. Wei Wuxian, no doubt, since Jiang Cheng was still inside the hall, enduring the politics that came with any meeting between sects. And Wei Wuxian did not, generally speaking, have the best ways of figuring things out.

“The Jin sect has not shared that information publicly,” he said slowly, and saw her shoulders slump in disappointment. “But that does not mean I don’t know it. What is the issue?”

Jiang Yanli explained in a few sentences: a woman looking for a brother, a young man who had helped rescue Wei Wuxian during the war, a doctor’s assistant, who’d even gone so far as to poison his own people to save members of the Jiang sect and then spent the majority of the war in a prison, and yet now they thought he had been trapped in a prison camp, being abused…a young man surnamed Wen.

A young man called Wen Ning, or Wen Qionglin. It was not a name Nie Mingjue remembered.

But the one searching for Wen Ning was his sister, Wen Qing - and that was a name he did remember.

Wen Ruohan’s favorite nurse.

Nie Mingjue’s jaw clenched at the thought. He’d spent more than half his life avenging his family, and had always assumed the Wen sect would do the same if they were allowed to live; he had never stinted on hating all of them without exception, without quarter. Wen Ruohan was a murderer and a tyrant, and his family supported him with nary a word in protest until the tables had turned and it was their own lives at stake – was it not evil to support evil? Could Wen Ruohan have done as much as he did without Wen Qing’s medicines and treatments, without Wen Qionglin’s silent compliance? Did it really matter that they had been threatened, as so many other people had been threatened?

No. Duress could explain many things, but it never excused standing aside in the face of murder. Wen Qionglin and Wen Qing were, at best, accessories to a hundred crimes, and deserved exactly none of his sympathy.

And yet.

It was not them that was making a request of him.

Patient, calm, gentle. Forgiving. These were all traits he wanted in his bloodline, traits he lacked and knew he lacked. Traits that Jiang Yanli possessed: matching strength to weakness, weakness to strength.

Nie Mingjue did not love Jiang Yanli, not yet, but if he was not willing to even trust her, it was better not to marry at all.

“Very well,” he said, deciding. “Are they waiting outside? We will go at once. Huaisang will make my excuses.”

“…Huaisang will?”

“He’ll stutter and obfuscate and make a tolerable mess of it,” Nie Mingjue said, not without a mixture of exasperation and fondness – he knew his brother too well. “And as a result they won’t know where or why we’ve gone for at least another half a shichen, if not more.”

(Knowing Nie Huaisang, he might ‘accidentally’ end up implying that Nie Mingjue had gone to enjoy some afternoon delight with his soon-to-be bride, but Nie Mingjue was too polite to mention something like that to Jiang Yanli.)

Jiang Yanli nodded, and slipped her hand into his, squeezing briefly. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I know what it all means to you.”

“I can only give you the benefit of the doubt,” he said, trying to be honest but probably coming off as harsh. “For the rest of it, I will decide when we are there.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t have his sword, as always these days, and Wen Qing, shivering behind him, had lost hers, but Nie Mingjue brought along four Nie sect cultivators and ordered two to act as escorts, with the other two trailing behind in the event of trouble. He rather liked Wei Wuxian, especially after that stunt he’d pulled in protest of the Jin sect’s little shooting ‘entertainment’, but demonic cultivation was dangerous and Wei Wuxian’s mentality was said to be unstable. Nie Mingjue had lost so many of his own already - he was taking no chances.

“How did you know where they’re located, Chifeng-zun?” Wei Wuxian asked from where he was balancing behind a long-suffering Nie Zonghui. “I wouldn’t have thought the Jin sect shared that information.”

“Are you not familiar with the concept of spies?” Nie Mingjue asked, voice dry. Jiang Yanli, in his arms, giggled – she’d planned to send them along without her, looking disappointed and worried and resigned, and she’d brightened like a flower exposed to the sun when he’d informed her that she was coming along with them. She was accustomed to being left behind, and he intended to change that.

Besides, they were only going to the Qiongqi Path, which was solidly in Jin territory, to a prisoner of war camp staffed by Jin cultivators. It was hardly a dangerous expedition, and he did not expect to encounter anything that might be a threat, excluding perhaps his own temper.

His temper did, in fact, make an appearance.

“Jin Guangshan swore to Lan Xichen that the Wen remnants would be resettled peacefully,” he snarled, eyes red with rage and Baxia in his hand as the Jin sect cultivators - which had been tormenting the civilians here and that had gotten into Wei Wuxian’s face when he’d charged over first to shout at them - cowered in front of him. They were willing to challenge Wei Wuxian, but it seemed that Nie Mingjue was a different story – bullying the weak and cowering before the strong. Pathetic! “I had not realized that our understanding of the word peaceful was so different. Clearly I will need to have words with Sect Leader Jin.”

A hand touched his arm, and he looked down, surprised; virtually no one approached him when he was in a rage.

Jiang Yanli stood beside him, looking up at him fearlessly. “As much as I’m sure you’d like to chop them into pieces, it’ll be more effective to present them as evidence,” she said, and even smiled, as if they were sharing a joke between the two of them. “We can save the chopping for later. Following the trial that I’m certain Sect Leader Jin will insist upon.”

The Jin cultivators paled, clearly realizing that the likelihood of Sect Leader Jin standing behind them rather than immediately making them scapegoats was very low. They would be much more likely to spill whatever secrets they might have now, knowing that their fates depended more on Nie Mingjue’s mercy than on Jin Guangshan’s, than they would have even in the face of his threats.

Baxia grumbled in reluctant approval, and all of a sudden Nie Mingjue could not wait for Jiang Yanli to have a saber of her own and to cultivate its spirit – he thought it would be a very fine spirit indeed.

“Very well,” he allowed, and put Baxia back on his back, noting but ignoring the respectful looks his cultivators were sending Jiang Yanli. It was nothing more than what ought to be, the proper role of a Nie furen: to incite when appropriate, to restrain when necessary. “Zonghui, return to Lanling and bring a larger force so that we can transport the Wen civilians to safety. And – there’s no need for subtlety.”

By which he meant that he wanted every cultivator who could fly their own sword to be tagging along out of curiosity, and Nie Zonghui knew it. He saluted and left at once.

“What do we do now, then?” Wei Wuxian asked, shifting from one foot to the other. He looked anxious and young, clearly startled by the abrupt lack of violence and worried about Wen Ning – the young man had some nasty injuries that hadn’t been treated by the Jin sect, his body tossed away like so much refuse, but they’d arrived early enough that his sister was avidly working to care for him. She had said that his chances were good, since they had arrived before his consciousness had slipped away.

If they’d arrived later…

If Nie Mingjue hadn’t had the information ready to hand from the spies he disliked using, if Wei Wuxian had had to get the information out of the Jin sect directly, if he had had to ride here from Lanling rather than fly a sword, if he’d gotten stuck in that thunderstorm that was rapidly heading their way…

Well, that hadn’t happened. There was no point in wondering what if.

“Now? Nothing. We wait. Nie Xizhe, Wu Shude, take some of the Wen civilians and have them help you tie up all the Jin sect cultivators; I don’t want anyone sneaking away, and there’s not enough of us to guard them while they’re free. Wei Wuxian, walk with me.” He glanced to his side. “With us, I mean.”

Wei Wuxian obediently trotted over to where Nie Mingjue and Jiang Yanli were waiting, and Nie Mingjue led the three of them over to a nearby ridge where they could have a little privacy. The storm was getting ever closer, he noticed.

“Very well,” he said finally. “It’s just us now. What debt do you owe the Wens?”

Wei Wuxian froze. “Debt? I don’t – I already said –”

“There’s something you’ve left out,” Nie Mingjue said. “The way you act with them…”

He didn’t know how to put it into words. It wasn’t merely chivalrous altruism, nor even friendship, that was driving Wei Wuxian – he was desperate to help, manic with the need to do something; there was something else there. Some secret. He knew, because Nie Mingjue knew secrets and what they did to a man, even if he was keeping it for the best reasons in the world.

“A-Xian?” Jiang Yanli asked when Wei Wuxian said nothing, when Nie Mingjue said no more. “You know you can tell me, right?”

His lips were pressed together, his hand tight on his flute until his knuckles were white. He shook his head. “Shijie,” he whispered. “Don’t ask, please. Don’t.”

At least he’d admitted there was something.

“Your conduct is causing trouble for Yunmeng Jiang,” Nie Mingjue said, and Wei Wuxian turned tormented eyes on him, even as Jiang Yanli’s hand tightened on his. “It’s a Great Sect, but your brother is young, untried, and sensitive to criticism. It will be difficult for him to deal with the issues you present, especially if you persist in your present path of continuing with demonic cultivation instead of returning to the orthodox path of sword cultivation.”

Wei Wuxian nodded, looking pained.

“Do you have a suggestion?” Jiang Yanli asked.

“Yes,” Nie Mingjue said. “Absent yourself before you are forced to leave in truth. Go to the Cloud Recesses the way Lan Wangji continues to pester you about – see if you can’t tell him what secret it is that’s weighing down your tongue, if you can’t tell any of us – and come visit the Unclean Realm when you’re done there.”

Wei Wuxian was staring. Nie Mingjue ignored him.

“When you’re done with that, assign yourself the job of checking up on the Jiang sect’s dependent sects, or even just go around to visit every sect listed as having fought in the war, building relationships with them,” he continued briskly. “As for the reason, you’re clever, you’ll think of something. Get Wangji to teach you some healing spells and come help those in my sect who need it. Say that you’re using your demonic cultivation to help ferret out resentful energy in need of cleansing. Something. It doesn’t really matter what. But whatever you do, go. Give Yunmeng Jiang time to become as strong as it needs to be to protect you.”

“But it shouldn’t be protecting me,” Wei Wuxian protested. “I should be the one protecting it!”

“A-Xian!” Jiang Yanli exclaimed, and her expression was suddenly fierce. “Are you the eldest? No. I am. You are my A-Xian, my didi, and that means you are part of Yunmeng Jiang – we have as much right to protect you as you us, and don’t you forget it.”

“But – shijie –”

“I won’t hear another word,” she said. “I won’t! Whatever it is, A-Xian, you need to tell us eventually, or else we’ll all fall apart. Didn’t you both promise me that we’d stay together, the three of us, always? You can’t break that promise now.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes were wet with tears. “All right, shijie. I’ll figure something out.”

“Start with Gusu,” Nie Mingjue said again, uncomfortable with the display of emotions. “If you tell Lan Wangji the truth, he may even be able to help – in one way or another. Or don’t, it’s up to you. Just get yourself out of the public view. Earn some merits that aren’t related to slaughter.”

Wei Wuxian nodded again, clearly overcome with feeling, and then promptly made up a flimsy excuse to leave, dashing away towards where Wen Qing was still working on her brother.

Jiang Yanli sighed. “Thank you,” she said. “Again. I just wish I knew what was wrong with him!”

“We’ll figure it out,” he promised her. “Even if I have to pick him up and shake the secret out of him.”

Jiang Yanli smiled up at him.

“Thank you,” she said, now a third time over.

“Thank you,” he corrected. “If you hadn’t brought this to my attention, I would be guilty of negligence in regard to the Wen sect remnants – and most of them civilians, no less. As for Wei Wuxian…he’s your didi, and so soon to be my brother-in-law. It’s nothing but what I should be doing.”

“Still,” she said. “I am grateful nonetheless.”

Nie Mingjue looked down at her, fierce and yet patient, kind and righteous in her own quietly determined way, fearless enough to stand by his side and trusting him enough to come to him for help.

His heart moved in his chest.

He decided to be daring, as it had always served him well in the past – he stepped forward, closer to Jiang Yanli, and leaned down to press his lips to the corner of her mouth.

“It is what I should be doing,” he murmured, voice low. “Nie furen.”

Jiang Yanli’s face turned bright red, but she was smiling.

Yes, Nie Mingjue thought – he might not be able to promise love, but accepting Jiang Yanli’s show of initiative was definitely one of the better decisions he’d made.

[space-oreos]

The Shop on 24th Street

Summary:

It’s spring,

flowers are always someone’s favorite thing.

Words: 2028

Fem!reader

Warnings: None? (I wouldn’t consider this angst but idk, depends on how u interpret the story ig)

Tulips, daisies, daffodils,

It truly was spring. All of the flowers in my shop had started to blossom, or already had. All of my customers coming more and more often to see what new flowers had shown up with spring, asking what each flower meant, what they could mean.

“Here you go Mr.Jankins, I hope your husband likes them.”

People buying the flowers for a love one or just because, for joy or to mourn a loss I never asked. The action to full of purity to really need a reason, and I, just happy to provide them with a means of expression.

“I hope he does too, see you again hopefully!”

That’s probably why I love this job. In mourning or in glee, everyone comes to get a flower to celebrate with someone else, the flowers almost never for themselves.

A farmer never grew so much just so he himself could consume it, before he plants such a big stock he always makes sure he has someone else to feed, kinda like flowers, you buy one, or some, to make others happy, content.

My father is a farmer, he always said I was his little flower, giving joy to everything.

“Ohh, a snake plant Mrs.Fin? Fancy.”

The act of giving flowers is associated with spreading happiness, love, or even dealing with grief. A wide range of emotions tied to such little things.

“Yes, I’m going to put them in my dining room.”

And maybe if you’re lonely, they can keep you company.

“Good luck with that, Mrs.Fin.”

I always thought that flowers were the most beautiful thing, besides the stars and smiles, they were always my number one favorite thing, their supposed purpose aiding people in their stories of grief, romance, and dreams, the flowers bearing witness to such moments.

I always thought that flowers were the most wonderful thing, until I met her.

 The shopkeepers bell rang, I looked up. A woman I’ve never seen before, with red hair that could match the color of some of my roses, was looking at the newly bloomed tulips. “Hey, can I help you? Are you looking for something specific?”. She looked at me, gave me a dismissive smile “No, just looking for some flowers for my girlfriend, you know valentines day and all tomorrow. Not that it needs to be a holiday for me to get her flowers, but if I have an excuse to, why not you know?”. I smiled at that, she seemed sweet, “Yeah, I get it.” I looked to what she was looking at again, still the tulips. “You know, if this is for valentines day, I have some roses she may like?” 

I mean, everyone likes roses, right? 

“No, no roses.” Or maybe not? “Why? If I may ask?”. Still picking out the flower she wanted, if she wanted any, she replied, “Roses are full of romance and passion, are they not?” I looked to her, “Why yes? Is that not what you want?”. She shook her head, “But roses also have thorns, the love that is given could easily draw blood, could easily hurt a heart. Roses are full of passion and romance, but passion and romance is not all that makes a relationship. You can romancisie anything, you can be passionate about everything and nothing at all, but you cannot force love.” She stopped at the carnations , smiling “The person I’m buying this for is unique compared to everyone yet the same.” She picked the carnations up, “And I plan on getting flowers that I think represent her, what do you think?”

Still processing the words she said, I looked. My eyes drifting to her I spoke, “I think they look beautiful, your girlfriend is a very lucky woman.”

She smiled so joyfully at that, “No, you’ve got it wrong, that would be me.”

I smiled with her, how could I not, she was radiating so much joy

I learned her name was Natasha Romanoff, and what she said stuck in my mind far too long than what was appropriate for a conversation with someone I was barely acquainted with.

That interaction was 2 weeks ago, now, now she enters my shop again, looking for “something that won’t die.”

She looks cute when she’s focused 

“She just moved into a new apartment, and I wanted to get a plant that I think she would like for the coffee table. But I KNOW that she will forget to water it, she’s not very good at taking care of plants, so what do you think?”

She so considerate 

“Umm, how about a cactus?”

She laughed, not at my suggestion but like she was reminiscing on something that hasn’t happened yet.

A laugh that I wish was reminiscing about me 

“Absolutely not, she would fall right into those.”

Her eyes wandered, searching for something, then they lit.

“Oh how about that one? They’re hard to kill, right?”

Lucky bamboo 

“Yes, those are very hard to kill.”

She searched awhile, looking for the perfect one. Then a smile played on her lips as she took a bamboo plant right off the shelf, her smile wide like she just found the meaning of joy itself, maybe she had.

“Okay, well then. I’ll take this one.”

She read the label.

“Nice, Lucky bamboo, she’ll love this.”

Lucky indeed   

A few months had passed since I’d last seen Natasha, you’d think that my mind would outgrow replaying the scenarios like the roots of a plant outgrowing its pot. But the memories seem to be on loop, and I had only met her two times, well, officially. I’ve seen her walk past my shop, sometimes with her hand intertwined with a womans. They are a beautiful couple. I’m happy for them, well I assume, my eyes seem to follow them when they walk past, only ever stopping when they fall out of sights reach.

If I’m happy for them then why does it hurt? Why is there pressure whenever they’re  around me? Why does the air even feel out of reach?

Later Natasha would come in, eyes puffed and glemy  from what I assumed was a crying session, asking for lilies. When she bought a card with the lilies, my heart sank. These were for a funeral.

These weren’t for her girlfriend, were they?

Her answering her phone call answered my question, no these indeed were not for her girlfriend, these weren’t even for a person. These were for an animal that they found on the side of the street but had unfortunately passed due to its conditions. She must have noticed me listening because when she got off the phone she gave a sad chuckle, “I know, I would think I’m weird too. Who throws an animal they found off the street a day ago a funeral and buys it flowers and a card? Well my girlfriend and I, she started crying and her crying made me cry!” she started laughing at the end of her sentence, I gave a small smile. “This all was her idea.” She said while looking at the flowers and the card, smiling like she was appreciating something, then she looked up, “Well thank you, I have to get going now. I’d hate for her to cry alone.” 

Even when gloomy her thoughts are beautiful

At that she left, but the feelings she left within me unfortunately didn’t.

I think flowers are becoming my second favorite thing 

To say I felt guilty to the feelings she brought would bring the word to shame. Of course I was disgusted, she was taken, happily. But I could not stop the wonder in my mind and the longing in my heart whenever I thought about her. My mind constantly in hopes it’s her when the bell rings, my chest constricting when my hope and reality don’t meet.

That’s all it is, a hope, the only thing that bled from my dreams were feelings she brought out of me

Then one day, she showed. Hand in hand with a woman, the woman. Her smile different than I’ve ever seen it, so different that I would fail to describe it. They were looking through the flowers, through the bouquets. I tried my best for my eyes not to linger on the couple, not that they would have noticed, they were in their own little atmosphere, away from reality, their atmosphere. But as much as I made my eyes, and my mind wander, they always came back to red-amber hair, green eyes, two smiles, and hands with bands intertwined like they were made for each other. Maybe they were.

Like lovers on a movie screen, 

tales and fables telling stories of two against the galaxy

Snapping out of my thoughts, I noticed the couple coming up to me.

“There’s one of my favorite shop owners!”

One of her favorite  

“Hey you remember me, right?”

How could I forget?

“Yeah, Natasha, right?”

“Yeah, do you remember my girlfriend I mentioned?”

She’s all I think about when I think of you, of our whisper of moments, moments I stole 

They were looking at each other, deeper than a look to the surface, a look to the soul. Deeper than words made from man could describe, it was a look that could not fade with space, with time. I would call it love. But that phrase takes little to less of a breath. What they had could be explained beyond eons, maybe it could even outlive the concept of time's whispers, of fate's breath. 

Makes me feel guilt when I think about you and I 

They both then turned to me. Natasha holding her hand up proudly, not like she won a prize but like she was holding something sacred, something precious, something like a promise. A promise that she was proud to show the world, she was wearing an engagement band, her girlfrien- soon to be wife bore one as well.

Why do I feel so light

“Well, we’re getting married! And my love liked the arrangements and plants that I bought from your shop so much I had to show her where I bought all of those gifts from! We want some custom bouquets for our wedding! Do you think you could do it?”

Why does the air feel heavy?

Is my throat getting tight?

I smiled, I looked to both of them. I started writing their names on a pad of paper, ready to take their requests.

She’s getting married

“I’d love to provide bouquets for your wedding, Natasha and”

My feelings, thoughts, how embarrassing 

I looked to her fiancee.

My heart not being able to break, because what love would be breaking 

“Y/N, Y/N Romanoff.”

They both smiled wider at that

“I’d love to provide bouquets for the Romanoff wedding, when will it be?”

How could I not smile back?

So joyful,

so cosmically breathtaking 

I smiled with her, I am happy for them, truly. You can be happy for someone and still grieve, right? But, that's the thing. 

 I don’t even know what I’m mourning

Or do I? Is it;

My fiction that I felt bleed into reality?

As I watched them walk out, smiles not apparent on their faces but their bodies emanating more than joy. I happen to have pricked my finger on a salmon colored rose, the rose of;

Desire and excitement

And I bled on a daisy, the flower of; 

Joy

My father was right, I am just like a flower. 

I smiled, not one in defeat, for there was no fight. Not one in heartache or longing, or even hurt despite the fact that I was almost about to cry. It was with somewhat understanding; 

My father was right, I am a participant to someone’s story,

As they are mine, because the Romanoff’s taught me that flowers were my second favorite thing. 

To the Romanoff’s I’m just the shop owner on 24th street

Digital Library

[writing-reaper]

Love Blindly

Captain Rex x Blind!Reader

This is also published on my Wattpad account: CheetahDoesF1ction.

Warnings: drugging, stalker

Description: Reader is a friend of Senator Amidala. Both of them have been attacked by a mutual enemy and seek help from the Jedi. Anakin Skywalker and a handful of the 501st come to their aid. Amongst the unfortunate situation, a love will blossom between (Y/n) and, the 501st’s own, Captain Rex.

Chapt. one (you are here)

Chapt. Two

Day turned night so quickly. When the harsh scents of sweat and urgency turned to warm scents of calmness and wine, she always knew it was night. The city was a strange place. She missed the grass of Alderaan, but she could never return to the planet.

She missed the smell of the wind, the trees, and the flowers after spring rain. (Y/n) could barely tolerate staying in doors. They had stayed inside for practically a week. Of course, they'd done "Senator stuff," but (Y/n) wanted to do more, not stay stuffed up in Padme's large home.

She couldn't even stand on the balcony without the risk of being shot. (Y/n) felt suffocated, which is why she was quite thrilled when Padme told her the news. Her boyfriend and his troops were coming to protect them until the threat was gone. (Y/n) had never met this mysterious "boyfriend" Padme rattled on and on about while alone, but he sounded pleasant (at the very least).

Hands brushing against fabric, searching for something a little more professional to slip into (at least, something she'd hope was professional). The fabric textures changed with every movement of her fingers: silk, cotton, polyester, velvet, and, her current favorite, chiffon. Granted, it was a mix of fabric, but it was light weight and comfortable.

Careful hands go up her body, pulling her current silk dress over her head. A chill crossed her body as she laid the other dress on the bed, deciding to properly discard it later. Laying down the new dress, she fingers for the tag, then removes it from the hanger. (Y/n) fumbles with the skirt, making sure it was the right layer before pulling it carefully over her head.

(Y/n) ran her hands over the dress, the (mostly) smooth fabric brushing against her skin. She swayed her body side to side and smiled at the feeling of the dress brushing against her ankles.

Soon, (Y/n) could hear voices through the door, so she knew it was time. Exiting the room, she felt the presence of 6 people. Entering the room, the voices pause momentarily; she began to wonder if what she was wearing really was appropriate for this.

"Ah! General Skywalker, Captain Rex, Jesse, Fives, and Hardcase, this is (Y/n) (L/n)." Padme introduces, then motions everyone's attention to (Y/n).

"Uh, Padme— Senator Amidala! Is she uh..." the voice (Y/n) identified as General Skywalker.

"Blind? Yes. But she can handle herself." Padme answers, a smile in her voice. At least someone had a little faith in her.

"Good evening, General Skywalker and I'm afraid I didn't quite catch everyone else's names." (Y/n) speaks, her head facing the direction of the voices. Eyes lost in a stare toward no one in particular.

"Alright, boys. Introduce yourselves." General Skywalker instructs. (Y/n) heard the men shift slightly, before one on her right spoke first.

"Captain Rex, at your service ma'am." He had to clear his voice first, but it was stern and confident. The next voice was to her left and close to her.

"Names Fives, miss." This one held more confidence, voice smooth and husky. Clearly, this one was a charmer. The sound of a grunt and armor hitting armor took away that cockiness however. "—m-ma'am."

"Sorry about him. I'm Jesse." The voice also came to her left. It was soothing yet hollow. Then finally, a little more gravely and sonorous voice chuckles.

"And I'm Hardcase." (Y/n) couldn't help but smile and she nods, taking a moment to mentally match names and voices.

"Thank you, it's a pleasure to meet you all." She bows her head slightly, then adjusts her posture once more. "Does everyone know why they're here?"

"Not entirely... Senator Amidala said there was a threat?" General Skywalker answers.

"Yes. (Y/n) was attacked 4 months ago before she went into hiding. When I was attacked two weeks ago, I called (Y/n) only to find out she was attacked by the same person." Padme explains. "We believe someone is targeting us, but we don't know why."

"The bad news is that they don't want us dead. So the good news is that we are safe in here and around other senators. That is until they run out of patience." (Y/n) continues.

"They don't want you dead? Shouldn't that be good news?" Hardcase questions, sounding very confused.

"Unfortunately, that is not good news. This could be anything from a stalker to someone who wants inside information and power." Padme answered, taking a glance around the room. She could feel the anger radiating off of Anakin at her first suggestion before it shriveled into confusion.

"What information could (Y/n) provide?" Anakin questions, he'd never even heard of the woman until now.

"Classified." (Y/n) answers. "Classified information."

"Like what?"

"Let's just chalk it up to something that could make the separatists win the war." Padme answers.

"Alright, alright. So who are you? A librarian?" Anakin questions, earning a soft laugh from the woman.

"Who I was is not important. Who I am now, is someone who just wants to survive." She answers. "What's your plan, General Skywalker?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." He answered.

(Y/n) could feel his disapproving gaze on her skin. As Padme had said, he didn't like being left out of things. However, this wasn't something just anyone could know. This wasn't exactly something that could strictly help the separatists. This was something that could destroy everything. From moral codes to worlds.

Clearly, the stare off had made Padme uncomfortable. She placed her hand on Anakin and (Y/n) felt his eyes disappear from her skin. However, there were still eyes on her. Whose, she wasn't certain.

"Senator Amidala, dinner is ready."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two women awaited the troops and their general over a glass of wine. (Y/n) had first tried to listen in, but Padme insisted on helping her relax. She asked about her thoughts on Anakin, earning (Y/n)'s honest opinion.

"He seems alright so far. He seems loyal. Which is more than I can say for your past flings." She answers, earning a light kick beneath the table. (Y/n) laughs and Padme gives a small chuckle.

"Alright. Well thank you for being honest." She grins, taking a sip of her wine. (Y/n) lifted hers as well, inhaling the scent deeply. She grimaced slightly, but just assumed the off scent was of age or a different kind of grape.

Just like any other wine, it was sweet and bitter. It went down smoothly, regardless of her distaste for it. However, it wasn't often she drank wine anyway. Between her more fruity drinks or her whiskeys, wine wasn't quite on her go to alcohol list.

Soon, everyone was in the room. The clones moved in position at the doorway and by the columns. (Y/n) could feel their eyes scanning the room and listened as Anakin pulled out a chair and sat himself right next to Padme.

"Are they not eating?" (Y/n) questions, confused as to why she wasn't hearing anymore chairs being pulled out.

"No, they're working." Anakin states with a shrug. The room went silent momentarily.

"Are you certain they can't eat with us?" (Y/n) asks, feeling uncomfortable eating while the troopers didn't.

"Don't feel bad, they'll eat later." Anakin brushes off her concern considering it hadn't been the first time they had eaten in his squadrons company. It wasn't even him who ordered it. Rex refused to take a break, always worried about the worst case scenario and scared to let his guard down.

"Are you certain?" She questions, the concern raw in her voice. "I doubt we'll be attacked at the dinner table."

"100% certain ma'am. We'll eat after you all." Captain Rex nods to the woman. She hummed with concern, but accepted it.

"So... where are you from, (Y/n)?" Anakin asks, trying to change the topic and become more comfortable with each other's presence.

"Alderaan." She answers before standing up and out of her seat. "Excuse me."

(Y/n) leaves the room quickly. Anakin motions for Rex to go after her and he was gone before Padme could stop him.

"Anakin, she's fine. She's just uncomfortable with all the attention." Padme eases, stopping him from following with Rex as well.

"All the attention? I asked her a question!" Anakin huffed, confused and annoyed.

"Anakin. There is someone trying to kidnap her, she has a disadvantage, and now she's surrounded by a bunch of men who she can't pinpoint unless they make a sound." Padme explains quietly, not wanting everyone to hear this information.

"But—" Padme gives him a small glare. "Sorry. I can see why she'd be uncomfortable."

(Y/n) finally reached her room and leans against her door. She didn't want to leave, but she was panicking. Something was wrong, something was very wrong.

What was wrong?

What was wrong?

She heard heavy footsteps approaching behind her, the sound of armor grinding made her relax slightly, realizing it was just one of the generals men. (Y/n) faces the general direction of the trooper, waiting for an identifying voice.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" It was Captain Rex, with his stern and confident voice. She nods her head and leans against the wall. Not understanding her panic.

"I'm sorry." She breathes out, feeling herself lose her breath. Her head was pounding but her heart didn't match its normal speed. "Th-the wine..."

"Pardon?"

"P-Padme... wine." She stammers, gripping her head as her hearing faltered from a ringing. (Y/n) tried to walk toward the dining room once more, but lost her balance. "W-wine... drugged."

Her head spun and her body went limp. All her senses were gone and she passes out.

They were no longer safe inside.

[swordgayist]

cultural appropriation in ATLA (hinduism edition)

i’m sure there’s already a ton of posts about this, but whatever, i’m still making one idc. 

ATLA’s cultural appropriation, everyone knows about it, the white people don’t speak about it, and the asian and indigenous people get ignored. we know the cycle. but i wanted to come here and highlight some of the most prominent examples of ATLA abusing hinduism, as i am kinda sorta hindu (i was raised in a hindu household, i go to chinmaya mission, that kinda shit). i might forget some things so keep that in mind.

this is gonna be divided into 3 main sections, since there are different ways that they disrespect hinduism that i don’t wanna lump together.

and i’d say i know a lot about hinduism but that doesn’t make me an expert, obviously, so if other hindus have anything to add and/or correct then please do !! and if anyone else wants to share how their cultures were appropriated then please do that as well !!

so let’s get started shall we?

appropriating hinduism

1) the avatar

we’ll start with the most obvious example: the avatar itself

i know that there are parts of the avatar mythos that are taken from other cultures as well but the idea of the avatar itself is primarily from hinduism.

basically in hinduism, the term dashavatara refers to the 10 reincarnations of lord vishnu (the god of preservation), with avatar(a) meaning form or incarnation in sanskrit, and das(a) meaning ten. it was said that whenever the world was out of balance, lord vishnu would come down to earth in a certain form to restore balance. Each reincarnation is considered a different life with a different story. the avatars of lord vishnu are often considered the saviors of the world.

so basically, the central idea of the show and the actual name of the show is largely based on hinduism.

2) chakras

many different indian religions have a concept of chakras (chakra meaning wheel or circle in sanskrit), but hinduism is the one that primarily preaches the system of seven chakras, the version used in ATLA.

chakras connect the physical body to the ‘subtle’ body (referring more to the spirit and the psyche) by connecting parts of the body to aspects of the mind. the idea is that through different forms of steady meditation you can manipulate the different chakras and allow the pure flow of energy through the body.

the whole idea of chakras on ATLA is that aang has to unblock them all to let the cosmic energy flow through him so that he can go into the avatar state at will. so yeah, pretty much that whole idea was taken from hinduism.

3) terminologies

these are just a few terms that were taken from hinduism. i’m pretty sure there are more that i can’t think of right now but yeah.

“agni” kai 

i’ll be honest i don’t know where the ‘kai’ part is from, i don’t think it’s from hinduism but if it is well fuck me i guess.  ‘agni’ in hinduism is the god of fire, so the creators used it in ‘agni kai’, the name for a firebending duel.

“bumi”

this is in reference to the hindu word for ‘earth’, which is bhoomi. this is also in reference to our goddess of earth, bhoomi devi. also this doesn’t really bother me but i wonder if the creators knew that bhoomi is a name typically used for women (as are most hindi names ending in ‘i’/‘ee’).

in general, concepts like having multiple complex gods (the spirits) who are capable of good and evil and the reincarnation cycle are prominent in a lot of asian cultures, including (and arguably primarily) hinduism.

mocking hinduism

now we get into the mockery of hinduism in ATLA, because it is very much there.

1) whoever the fuck that baboon guy in the spirit world was

now what the fuck was this.

i mean i wouldn’t say this is the most egregious example of them making fun of brown people but lord why did this even need to be there? this random guy from the spirit world has an indian accent ? and is fervently chanting ‘om’ for some reason, and it’s clearly meant to be seen as comical. also portraying brown people as monkeys....... really.

2) combustion man/sparky sparky boom man

when rewatching ATLA in 2019 i actually had no idea that this was a thing, because the last time i had watched it was as a kid and i didn’t finish it.

so lord was i in for a surprise when i saw...

now... now what.

if you didn’t know, combustion man’s ‘third eye’ is designed to replicate the hindu god of destruction, lord shiva. right down to the vibhuti on his forehead (referring to the three line markings around the third eye).

in hinduism, lord shiva’s third eye is used to reduce people to ashes, though as far as i can recall, not very frequently. the primary significance of the third eye is that it represents the ability of higher spiritual thought and higher consciousness.

the ATLA writers take the ACTUAL significance of the third eye, throw it out the window, and then take its destructive abilities to make a super duper cool and dangerous new firebending technique.

and if that wasn’t bad enough, the actual person who uses this technique, and is meant to emulate a GOD who is PRAISED, is a scary, burly, half metal man who is a villain and an assassin. not to mention the design of his facial hair replicates that super duper scary “terrorist” depiction of brown people, particularly of muslims, that white people are so thoroughly terrified of for no reason. 

this is a parody of a god, and they portrayed him as this terrifying, maniacal fucking assassin who, along with p’li, the combustion bender from LOK, is constantly referred to as a “third-eyed freak”. i’ve made this analogy before and i’ll do it again, this is like making jesus into a hitman.

now onto my favorite example...

3) guru pathik

ah, this motherfucker.

i don’t really have any problems with him as a character, i mean hell, must’ve taken a fuck ton of patience to handle aang’s “why would choose cosmic energy over katara” bullshit.

but we all know it, we see it plain as day, don’t even try to deny it.

“guru” literally just means teacher or guide, so i don’t really know why pathik needed to be referred to as “guru” so distinctively from aang’s other teachers and guides, but that’s just extremely trivial compared to all the other issues with this character.

first of all what is this character design? what is he even wearing? if they’re trying to replicate the clothes of swamis and priests and stuff this is already wrong, realized people don’t dress like this. and why the fuck does he have an indian accent? and why was this indian accent done by a non indian (brian george)?

once again, the poor but extremely heavy indian accent is clearly meant to be mocking, if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t’ve gone out of their way to get a non indian person to DO an indian accent, and instead they would’ve just gotten an actual indian person to play the role. 

and oh yeah, the onion and banana juice. because hindus just eat weird shit right.

whether it’s actually weird or not, the show certainly portrays it as weird. and as far as i know no hindu actually fucking drinks onion and banana juice.

ironic because brown people can absolutely destroy white people in cooking. but i digress.

i know what you’re all waiting for. because the guru apparently didn’t have enough fun with guru pathik, so they just had to come back to him in book 3:

where do i begin.

so this is obviously john o’bryan’s super funny and hilarious depiction of pathik as a hindu god.

usually when a god has multiple arms it’s to carry an array of things, from flowers to weapons to instruments, and one hand is typically free to bless devotees (ie. goddess durga and lord vishnu respectively):

but of course white people see this as weird and so they make fun of it, hence guru pathik having multiple arms just flailing about aimlessly (save for the two that are being used to carry the aforementioned onion and banana juice).

then there’s the whole light behind pathik’s head which is usually depicted in drawings of hindu gods to show that they are celestial.

also what the fuck is he holding? is that supposed to be a veena? because this is what a veena looks like:

and i assume the reason this was added was to mock the design of goddess saraswathi, who carries a veena:

but that right there in the picture of pathik looks more like a tambura than a veena. 

and it also just kinda looks like a banjo?

but i guess the animators just searched up “long indian instrument” and slapped it on there. actually no, that’s giving them too much credit, they probably didn’t search it up at all. 

and then the actual scene is pathik singing crazily about chakras tasting good or something while playing the non-veena and it’s all supposed to be some funky crazy hallucination that aang is having due to sleep deprivation. just some crazy dream, just as crazy as talking appa and momo sparring with swords or tree-ozai coming to life.

our gurus and swamis and sadhus and generally realized people are very respected in hinduism, they’re people we look up to and honor very much. and our GODS are beings that we literally worship. and the writers just take both and make caricatures out of them for other white people to laugh at.

4) other shit

before we move to the next portion i just wanna mention there are also smaller backhanded jabs that i can’t really remember now, but one example was when zuko was all “we’ll be sure to remember that, guru goody goody”. or when a character would meditate and say “om” only when the meditation is supposed to be portrayed as comical or pointless. or in bitter work when sokka was rambling on about karma. small things like that. but moving on.

south asian representation, or lack thereof

now i finally get to the “losing” hinduism part. by this i mean the lack of actual representation there is of south asians (the region where hinduism is primarily practiced) despite the fact that hinduism plays such a big role in the show’s world design.

i think it’s safe to say that broadly the main cast consists of aang, katara, sokka, zuko, toph, azula, iroh, mai, ty lee, and suki. 

a grand total of none of these characters are south asian. the writers don’t even attempt to add any south asian main characters. 

there are characters with dark skin, like haru and jet, but a) they’re not confirmed to be south asian and don’t have any south asian features or south asian names, b) they’re side characters, so they don’t count as representation, and c) even if they were south asian and main characters, jet wouldn’t even count because he’s portrayed as a terrorist.

the ONLY truly south asian character we get is fucking guru pathik. so yeah. not representation.

i don’t get how the creators of this show rip off of hinduism (among many other south asian cultures they rip off of), mock indians, and then don’t even have the decency to HAVE a main character who is south asian.

i’ve never gotten a chance to compile all this, and this definitely isn’t all the creators have done, but i hope this was somewhat informative.

[libraford]

I owe you all a story about kittens. But its about... a little more than kittens. It's a long one.

I want to tell you all about the kittens, which took place in 2019. But in order to do so, I have to take you back even further, to March of 2018, and concludes in 2021. Because it's about kittens, but it's also about business and all the things that can go wrong.

In March 2018, tragedy struck. The owner of the flower shop died unexpectedly, leaving the business to four capable managers. One of those managers was the man that had hired me, leaving a power vacuum at our location. Grandpa was not the first choice to take the lead, but she stepped up and she became manager. In my opinion, there was no better person for the role: she had only ever worked in the flower industry (assuming we're not counting the one week in 1976 when she worked at a pizza parlor,) and as such she knew the business inside and out.

Prior to this, she had taught all of the designers and practically ran the place when the boss was out, so it was the next logical step. And it was good.

Of course, we had our ups and downs. What I did not realize when I joined the flower shop is that the flower industry is volatile- there are so many variables that went into the creation of floral pieces and if there is one misstep you can be set back anywhere from a day to several thousand dollars. There are late deliveries, there are frightening brides, there are missing piñatas… van fires, flower snobs, color corrections, failed psychics, friends, enemies…

You can set the bar so very low and yet…

The rise and fall of drama at this particular flower shop could be dictated into hours and minutes because sometimes you need to hire people just to fill that space. Grandpa was on record by saying 'if they can walk, talk, and spell their name, hire them.' Even so, we were critically understaffed most of the time because if you hire anyone you're going to get a lot of quitters.

It's a tough cycle to break, and our power was limited.

And we had bigger fish to fry: we had an average of thirty funerals, two weddings, and well over six hundred deliveries per week. Business was booming and we just had to keep up- if you make it one week after the next it doesn't feel so bad.

By March of the following year, the four owners had whittled down to two: my former boss and the former webmaster. We had a district manager now, some kind of accounts position… things like that. It was kind of astonishing that before this, all the work had been done by a single man. But the secrets to his success had died with him.

Things were looking good, actually: the flower business was full of life! We were doing all kinds of special events, starting contracts with businesses and getting our name out there. Drama still plagued us, but as far as I'm aware, that's par for the course for flower shops.

Then, in May 2019, tragedy struck. A tornado ripped straight down the street of our headquarters, demolishing the greenhouse and the historical building that it all started in. No one was injured, but the damages were devastating. Despite all this, we kept working.

We worked hard. And hard. And hard.

And though the new warehouse wasn't slated to be finished until 2021, we reached an equilibrium where things were okay.

But before I get to that, I made a promise to you.

It was a hot day in August and I was walking into my closing shift at 10am. After two years of working with roughly the same people, you got to learning how to tell when something was happening. I walked in to everyone staring at me and acting 'natural.' It never looks natural.

In the back of the store, there was a box that Cherry was standing very purposely in front of.

"What's in the-"

"Sh!" Grandpa spied through the window in the cooler door as someone swung out with a purchase. "Did you find something you like," she asked the customer, trotting over to help him at the register.

"What's happening," I asked Blue.

"Nothings happening, it just kind of… happened."

"Blue… what does that MEAN?"

"There's a customer here, I can't talk about it."

I am bursting at the seams to know what's going on.

Grandpa fared the customer well and went back to her station behind the computer. "Open the box," she said.

Ominous, but okay. I go over to the box and Cherry steps aside. There's something moving inside the box and I wonder if Pam's daughter had folded herself into a box to ride out a panic attack again. I carefully opened the flaps of the box and accidentally disturbed the sleep of-

Four.

Tiny.

KITTENS!

Oh my god, it was the most adorable thing in the world and the poor things were screaming because they had only known the world for a few weeks and everything was strange and blurry and all they knew to do was cuddle for warmth and scream. The box consisted of two black kittens, one tuxedo kitten, and a white seal-point with terminal eye goop.

They immediately started climbing up my arm.

"Not that I'm not thrilled, but… why?"

"Stray cat left her babies out by my pond and wasn't just gonna leave the little fuckers," Grandpa said. The seal-point made it all the way up my shoulder to scream in my ear and stare at me with one clear blue eye. "That one's name is Pop-eye. He's my favorite."

"Jake doesn't get along with them," I surmised. Jake was Grandpa's Australian Shepherd. He was old, blind, deaf, and losing his sense of smell. And he was ornery.

"First thing he did was sit on Pop-eye. So they're gonna be at the shop during the day until we can get them all homed. Know anyone that needs a kitten?"

So, for awhile, we had shop cats. One of the all black twins had been claimed the very next day, but the rest of them were with us for some time. We got very good at feeding them all every hour on the hour and eventually they settled into accepting that 'mom' was seven different people.

In the meantime, we had to hide the three of them from visiting management.

This was not my first round with cat-related crimes.

The district manager, Puppet, was due to come for a visit any time that week. He was supposed to come once a month for a routine check in, and there were only ten days left in August. Likewise, we had to hide the kittens from the customers on the off chance that one of them was a secret shopper.

Backtracking once more to explain: the company had shelled out money to pay a third party to send secret shoppers to grade us on a rubric and also whatever they thought was appropriate. The grades were cleanliness, customer service, how knowledgeable we were of products, things like that. If we got above 90%, there would be a bonus in our next paycheck.

Sounds great, right?

The spies could decide that anything wasn't up to their standard. One woman went on and on about our 'black wall,' which was the outside of our cooler and I'm sorry but… that's not changing. There was a complaint that the table at the front used to showcase our bridal seemed out of place and odd. There dirt in the flower pots… where dirt goes. Corporate reads those comments.

So keeping the children out of sight of the customers and any visiting management became our priority.

'So just keep them in the break room,' I hear you, the reader, suggest.

If you've never owned cats, it is imperative for you to know that they are mostly comprised of spine, and only the smallest of openings will deter them from squeezing into parts unknown. Cats are semi-solids. Kittens are semi-solids with a sense of adventure and little tiny needles for fingernails.

And you can't just tape the box shut.

So… they got out. Well, two of them got out. The tuxedo awoke to find that her brothers had gone exploring without her and did the sensible thing, which was cry about it.

Mood.

I have named this cat Brood X Cicada. The black one can be named Abyss. I'm great at naming cats.

Lucky for us, they're only a few weeks old and walk kind of like little tin soldiers. It took all of five minutes to pry Pop-eye from a piece of Styrofoam and locate Abyss exploring an old toolbox. However, by the time I'm done cat collecting, Brood X Cicada had toddled off in search of her brothers and I'm out of hands to hold kittens in. I stuffed Abyss into my apron pocket and tried to save X from eating plastic.

It is at this moment that Cherry came in to tell me that Puppet the District Manager was on his way, and saw that I was helplessly juggling kittens. Abyss was climbing out of my pocket, eager to join his siblings in the high and exalted position that was my hands.

"We need these kittens out of here," I said. "Who hasn't been on lunch yet?"

Cherry dodged her head back into the workshop. "Hey Key, you been on lunch?" Pause. "You wanna go now?"

Key came into the back room and I handed her the box of kittens. "Take these, in your car. Go to burger King or something, I don't care. Puppet cannot see these. If anyone asks, you're on a route."

Key held the box and took a moment to appreciate the series of events that lead to her being handed a box of kittens in a 'Take this, don't ask questions' kind of matter.

Puppet was in the front door as Key was out the back and we successfully avoided a serious mistake. His visit was only an hour and she walked back in without anyone the wiser.

We made it through the big challenge, now to continue looking for homes for them. Ms. Crow found a friend of a friend of a friend that was excited to take Abyss from us. After some interrogating my friends, I found someone who knew someone who could take Pop-eye and Brood X Cicada. (They were renamed Hocus and Pocus.)

Grandpa cried for every single one of them that had to go. And I remembered my very first day of working there when she introduced herself as 'The Tinman.' What a liar, the softy.

Our days went on kitten-free, the management none the wiser.

It was December when I got the feeling that I should be taking photos of my work to build a portfolio. Something wasn't right, I felt. I couldn't say what it was that put me on edge, but I could only say that all was not well. I took photos of everything that I was proud of, and I was proud of a lot of things. By February, I had over fifty items that I could show off to a potential studio. And I thought- in March, I should start looking to see if other shops are hiring.

And in March 2020, tragedy struck. Our state went into lockdown on March 13, dictating that all non-essential businesses close and non-essential staff be laid off. There were two days where none of us knew what was happening, if we had jobs or if that job was safe.

They laid off all but three designers and Grandpa but kept most the drivers, changed our hours to 8-5, closed Sundays. Canceled weddings. No walk-ins. The three designers were Blue, Red, and me.

Blue was worried about her children. She resigned.

Red's wife was worried about him and harassed him into quitting.

And then there was one.

There's a series of poems I wrote in my journal about being an essential worker during lockdown. There's adorable little doodles of skeletons around the margins, festooned with flowers. They all go something like this:

We are the Skeleton Crew.

We once were seven but now are two

We don't know what to do

So we just work, work, work.

Many may wonder how a flower shop would be considered an essential business. The answer is funerals. We were allowed to remain open because of our relationship with the funeral industry. And sad to say: the industry was booming.

And I did all of it. I made every spray, every 'get well soon' vase, every 'happy quarantine' bouquet. I called angry brides to see if they could postpone, I dealt with everyone's grief and uncertainty.

All the flowers that arrived at US Customs through Italy were destroyed because we didn't know whether coronavirus was transmitted through physical contact and there's no way to sanitize flowers. Not without killing them.

It was me and Grandpa. That was it. Ten funerals a day, and everything else. Flowers were more important than ever: you couldn't be there, so you sent flowers. And flowers and flowers and flowers…

I couldn't leave now. I was important, I was needed.

The work became overwhelming for both of us and we began hiring back some of our staff. Some came back right away, bored out of their skulls having to spend time at home. Can't relate. Key never responded, Cherry was pregnant and shouldn't be out of the house.

Dandy came back, Kali came back, Astra came back. Eventually, Blue. After a month of just me and Grandpa, there was almost a full crew and it was enough for us to get through an average week. It took us a month on our bare knuckles but we finally weren't shouldering the responsibility of seven people.

But we still didn't know jack shit about the future there.

In May, the 'economy opened up,' which is a strategic way of saying that people got tired of never leaving the house and stores were pressured to open back up again before a vaccine was released under threat of… you know what? This isn't a story about how America responded to the coronavirus poorly and you can probably find a better thinkpiece about it written by someone with facts and feelings if you want to squeeze yourself behind a pay wall.

This is about workers rights and kittens, two things that are far more important than the economy.

We got 'Hero Pay,' which was two dollars extra per hour and damn did I grasp onto that with the tendons in my wrists. I had never been paid $12 an hour for anything in my life. They started talking about permanent raises, and benefits, 401K, pregnancy leave… and I started thinking… maybe I could stay. Maybe I can stay here for awhile and it won't be so bad now that I'm getting paid actual human wages. Maybe it will be okay.

Life returned to an uneasy normal while we navigated mask laws, sanitation regulations, safety screens, and daily temperature checks. There are stories to tell about some less than great customers we'd had as people realized that they weren't coping with the pandemic as well as they thought, but they deserve their own entries.

We had a revolving door of open positions. If it wasn't a designer it was a driver or both. People weren't ready to come back to work yet but we still had a business to run. People asked if they could perform this job remotely. I'm not sure how one does flowers from home.

It was August when we started feeling the roots of our problems seep into the foundation.

Grandpa's pride and joy was her funerals. She had spent thirteen years building a relationship with the funeral homes in the area to make sure they trust us and our work. If anything was wrong, even a hair out of place, they knew they could call us and have it fixed before the visitation.

"We want unity across the board on our products," Puppet said. "If you're doing the sprays one way and others don't look the same, it doesn't look very good for Oldman Funeral Home, which has locations in all our cities, does it?" He swept his bangs out of his eyes, which was strange tell but we weren't sure for what.

"Okay," Grandpa said. "Schedule a time for me to go down and I'll teach them the way we do them."

"Okay, then."

She went down, prepared to show the crew in the warehouse what 40 years in the business was capable of, only to be met with a strange kind of resistance.

Their head designer greeted her and immediately started instructing her on how he makes sprays. Grandpa, confused, blinked at him with no words. When he was finished, she picked up her clippers and began making her own.

"That's not how we do it," he said. She was met with criticism after criticism. "That's not enough flowers, you're putting them in wrong, you're still making it one-sided. Why did you put the bow there, this looks nothing like our products."

She stood back after his barrage of blows to the ego. "I guess I'm a little confused."

"I'll say."

"Am I teaching you or are you teaching me?"

"I'm teaching you," he said. "Since they're going to all be made here from now on, they want me to show you how we make them in case of emergency."

She let that simmer. "That's not what I was told."

"You didn't think you were supposed to show me how you do it, did you? That doesn't make any sense. Why would we want to look like yours?"

"Oh, I dunno… maybe because we've kept up 30 accounts for 13 years and your location just lost your very last one because you can't make their delivery times and they're across the damn street."

This was how we learned that corporate was planning on taking our funerals from us.

Funerals were something I was immensely proud of. My ability to turn out a thousand dollar funeral order with limited stock was a subject of envy. I could take a phone order, make the flowers, and the deliver it all by myself within an hour. I was good. We were all good. And we trained anyone that stayed longer than two months how to do this because we wanted every person to be able to fix any problem.

And they wanted to take that away from us.

And they did. Because who was going to stop them?

'But what does that matter to you,' I hear you, the reader, ask. 'Surely this meant less work for you!'

Ah, but for the sprays to get to us, they had to come on a truck. Making them in-house meant that we knew we had them. We had to put our trust in corporate to deliver the goods to us by 7 am or we would have to make them day of.

There were days when the truck didn't come, or where only half the pieces were delivered, or a spray got left in the workshop an hour away. At least once a week, often more.

But you know… we adapted. You just schedule more openers to make sure no one is doing it alone and hope to God that you have all the flowers you need to make it. Which you could never anticipate how many flowers you would actually need because them taking our funerals was supposed to reduce the amount of stock flowers we got as well.

Mornings were nightmares, but we adapted.

Another visit, Puppet told Grandpa that she should get all weekends off. All the other managers do. He suggested that I learn to run routes so she can have weekends, and I said okay. I'll learn it.

I got real acquainted with the map of Ohio, and I hated it. I was a weekend manager with no real managerial power. If someone needed a refund, I had to write a note for Grandpa to email the accounts manager because she wouldn't take requests from anyone that wasn't a manager. Everything just waited until Monday. What was the point of me? I couldn't design while managing and I couldn't fix what was broken, so why even have a weekend manager? Let the animals loose in the zoo and it probably would have been a better fit.

But I powered through. I adapted.

Throughout all this, spreadsheets. Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets. Completely pointless spreadsheets that we were bound to fill out all day every day. They had simple purposes: inventory. You filled one out to take count of the specials so you knew how many there were. Then you had to count again to put them in the system so that they knew how much we had. Then you had to go back and count them again and put that number in the computer so they knew how much to make and send tomorrow.

I spent an hour each day counting and recounting the flowers in the far-off and futile hope that the counts would remain accurate to the end of the day (which they did not because the call center consistently used the wrong codes) and that the stock would be replenished properly in the morning (it was not.)

An hour was lost each day to this and it accomplished nothing, yet they always yelled at Grandpa if the counts were off or it was late. Why stress a system that does jack shit?

And every time there was a new feature or there was a new… thing, oh look! Another goddamned redundant spreadsheet that served no purpose.

But we adapted. We created a rhythm.

Show up early at 6:30 to make sure everything got in, make everything that didn't, get the drivers routed, pull routes for the third party deliveries, process same-day orders, data entry for the funeral consolidated. Then at 7, when the phones start ringing…

Okay, so before I forget:

Instead of installing a new phone line and hiring a few more call center people like a normal company would, our headquarters decided it would save us money if call overflow rerouted to the next available phone line, regardless of which location the phone was at. So we would get calls for the Kentucky store asking questions about what that store has and for the sake of preserving confidence in our brand we were supposed to pretend that we were the Kentucky store. We're just supposed to know or assume to know what each store had in stock because there's no way that could ever backfire.

It was… another thing to yell at us for. And boy did they, because they were listening in on our calls. Not to like… coach us on how to do better, but to tell us we were wrong. Sometimes they would call one of us on the other line to tell someone currently on the main one that they said something wrong. They also would straight up lie and scold us for calls we didn't take. The phones system, was simply a mess.

...so when the phones started up at 7am, and one person is designing, one person is taking unending phone orders, Grandpa is doing damage control. By 8, we have most of last nights orders figured out and it's time to start on same day orders and tomorrow's orders. It's too early to do inventory now because they'll yell at us for doing it too early.

By 9 we have our second wave of same day orders and next day orders, the rest of the world realizes we're open and starts walking in. That requires the attention of an entire person. We're at this point also taking out trash, breaking down boxes, disinfecting, sweeping the cooler.

Typically, there were only two openers on any given day, which meant most of this was all being handled by Blue or me.

By 10 we've caught up, we can do the inventory now without getting yelled at by the four heads at corporate. We're on route #3 by now and someone probably had to go to the same place twice because the orders came in late.

At 11, a crisis has probably happened. Something dropped, something wilted, something wasn't what they imagined. Someone has to go fix it, and that someone was usually me because I knew my way around town better than the other transplants.

This typically returned me to the shop around 1pm, which meant it was time for lunch, bringing me to 2. 3 o'clock was the cutoff for any next day orders to be sent to corporate, which meant that if there were any funeral orders taken for the morning, they would have to be made in-house. This included sprays, which takes half an hour to an hour depending on how complicated it was and if we had the materials and how much else we needed to make for the next day. Or how busy we were.

There was always something called in at the last minute, taking us to 4 and then 5 o'clock, when the openers went home and the same-day orders were cut off.

But see, that was when we stopped taking orders, not when we stopped processing orders. So if an order was placed for the same day at 4:59, it may not go through until 5:30. And by 5:30, chances are you've sent your drivers home for the day. Which means calling the customer to apologize and explain why something can't be sent out today, and no one wants to hear that they fucked up by sending it out late.

So, on more than one occasion, I had to personally deliver flowers on my way home from work in my personal car, thirty minutes out of my way because if we miss a delivery by God will we hear about it. And it was always some damn $25 arrangement with 'God Loves You' written on the tag, hardly worth the gas to Johnstown.

The irony of it being delivered by the witch was lost on no one.

If that didn't happen and the screen was clear, the night was easy and all we had to do was clean up and watch the door.

Unless a last minute order for the next day came in, which was about half the time. All of this for $11 an hour. (Once they got rid of the Hero Pay, it went back down to $11.)

That was an average, unexciting day for us. You got used to those kinds of stresses, but every day I came home and I was so tired and sore that I couldn't move. I started walking with a cane, had a low-grade fever most days, and my hands looked like I'd taken to them with a cheese grater.

But I powered through. I adapted.

Then it was December. The owners had always been generous with Christmas bonuses, handing everyone an envelope of cash. Mine was $500. This was the largest amount of cash that anyone had ever handed me (feel bad for me later.)

And then it was Grandpa's turn, but there were no envelopes left. It had to be a mistake, she thought. She didn't get paid very much for all the work she put into the shop, so she was counting on that bonus to buy presents for her grandchildren. It… it… had to be a mistake, right?

"I didn't get a bonus," she said. "I thought the accountability didn't take effect until January," she said to Puppet.

Before he opens his mouth again, I have to explain yet another thing.

In September, there was a meeting. Now that we were working on benefits and bonus programs and other things to make sure the staff stays, they needed to put in accountability measures for the managers. Effective January 1, managers are reflected by the income of their store, the number of returns, accidents in company vehicles, and high turnover rates.

Pick one of those attributes and decide its bullshit to begin with, and I'm about to show you the entire steer.

"We had to make an example of someone," he said. "So that the other managers know we're serious."

She was being personally punished for a car wreck that happened in 2019 even though she fired the guy that was in it. We had too many returns, he said, but most of them were sent to us from corporate. She was personally held responsible for the high turnover rate during an economic crisis AND a goddamned pandemic… because they needed to make an example out of someone.

And her grandkids didn't get presents this year because of it.

She cried. The last time I saw her cry was when we were saying goodbye to the kittens. It's not the same.

But she got up every day and listened to them scream at her while we counted and counted and recounted the fucking Christmas specials because the numbers weren't right and we couldn't make them right because someone in the call center couldn't figure out the codes and in their eyes it was our fault, too- we had to be stealing the flowers or something.

"It sucks and then its over," she said. It was how she dealt with holidays: "It sucks and then its over."

We were all angry for her. I got asked to go to the headquarters and help them mass produce more fucking specials and I offered the beat them up for her and she told me not to get involved. Head down, do the work, get it done.

One of the call center girls died of a heart attack a few days before I was due to help them mass. We were supposed to go to her funeral, but we all missed it because there was so much work to do.

Wait, let me back up… again. The company gave us all life insurance. The number we were quoted on our life insurance policy was $10,000, which seems like a lot but in the funeral business it's not. Your average funeral will eat up most of that, if not all. It's very expensive to die right now.

At least… we all thought it was $10k. I was certainly told $10k.

Turns out it was $1k, which isn't enough to buy you a box for your remains. The call center crew ended up crowdsourcing the rest- she didn't have much family.

And none of us could go to the funeral because we were working.

I worked two twelve hour shifts in that warehouse making the same goddamn centerpiece over and over again while a Frenchman in a scarf told me I was doing it wrong, while everyone was grieving on a time crunch.

I really should have beaten them up.

But we got through Christmas, for what it was worth. We found Grandpa some sales that she could get gifts from and we all worked together to make sure we were okay through it. I mean, we weren't- it was blind leading the blind. But we tried.

And then it ended. "It sucks and then its over," she'd always say.

And into January we go and we're back into the stupidity of trying to fight with hq about funerals. I'm constantly told that if we needed certain things we should have ordered them.

I… did. I did. I ordered everything we needed every damn day and it still never came because the left hand and the right hand can't even coordinate enough to pull off a high-five. But it can't be their fault. It has to be Grandpa's somehow.

Now during the week of Christmas, Grandpa had to take an extra day off because she got sick. It wasn't Covid, thank goodness. I can imagine it was a stress-related issue, but it's not my business. Due to the holiday, this put her at under 40 hours for the week.

So they paid her hourly.

...which is extremely illegal to do to a salaried employee, especially one that works way more than 40 hours a week with no overtime.

And then they told her that she'd already lost her quarterly bonus because of a fender-bender that happened on my watch, and because she lost 39 employees last quarter.

I write everything down. I keep a journal. I cannot find 39 employees, even going back the entire year… during a pandemic. They have to be making this up. They have to be because there is no way they can hold the dude that was fired for literally sleeping in the men's room against her.

And I was close to just telling them all that… when my grandma died.

I'm not getting into it, really. Because you know… she was 96 years old and… it happens. It's sad, but it happens. But the relevant point to make is that I was given an… inheritance. It wasn't a lot. Grandma wasn't loaded. But it would be enough for me to keep afloat for awhile if I ever needed to.

When I told my girlfriend, she said: 'you could quit your job.'

And I didn't want to think about that because the flower shop needed me. I was important there. I was special. And Valentine’s Day was just around the corner.

But I was thinking about it. I thought about it every day.

A week before Valentines Day, Grandpa was inconsolable. She had to leave work because her dog, Jake, wouldn't stop bleeding. She needed to get him to the vet.

Two hours pass and Blue gets a message asking her to come help her move the dog. Grandpa lives alone and she's not very strong.

Blue doesn't like dogs. She was bitten by one the first time she ever made a delivery.

And I am known for exceptional physical strength. So I went.

When I arrived, Grandpa was a mess. I had never seen her cry so much, and it wouldn't stop. And I was trying to be strong, but it's hard. Jake was still alive, but bleeding. He was confused and upset, and blind and deaf. He barked, he growled, and he lunged… but always pulled back when his legs buckled from the pain.

I had her grab a blanket and we rolled him onto it, using that to lift him. He thrashed and growled and snapped at me while we walked him towards the door, but he wasn't getting out of the wrap we had him in.

As we're out the door, I noticed a man at the neighboring house. He raised his hand in greeting, but lowered it in confusion.

"Grandpa, is it alright if I get him to come help while you bring the car around?"

The best she could do was nod.

"Yeah, sorry, to bug you but can I ask for a little help here?" He looks at what we're doing and drops his trash can lid to come help. "Yeah, just take that end there and we're gonna ease him into the car when she comes around."

He nodded, took the ends, and we tucked a very confused Jake into the back seat. I thanked the neighbor, Grandpa sped off, and I went back to work feeling extremely odd about it.

That was the first time that I'd ever met the dog: on his way to be put down.

I know it seems weird to tell that story, but there's a reason. Part of it is symbolic. Part of it has to do with kittens. But we're not there just yet.

So now it's February and it is crunch time for Valentine’s Day. We have no earthly idea what this holiday is going to look like because past experiences have us anticipating a large number of walk ins, but state regulations have put a limit of six customers inside the store at any one time. We were never given any… instructions on how to enforce that rule, so we just kind of vaguely set out roles for who has to be the bouncer at the flower shop.

But before all of that, we had to make 275 two-dozen red rose arrangements in bowls. Based on our sales last year and general growth, we were expecting something close to five hundred deliveries on our busiest day. If I wasn't making them, I was counting them. And I was counting, and I was counting, and I was counting… every hour, just like it was at Christmas. We used up every single red rose in the place and came up short.

To which we were scolded: we must have used the roses they sent us for other orders because there was no way the error could have been on their end! Their inventory was impervious to mistakes. Somewhere between the warehouse and our store, twenty-five packs of roses went missing! And why is it only our store that has these problems? Clearly it must be our fault- a store full of thieves and liars and delinquents.

They ended up sending more just because… you know… they care. I guess.

And every hour, they needed a number of something and I counted, and counted and counted…

I think it was February 8 that I started crying every day. When I slept I was stiff as a board because I made so many mistakes throughout the day that the idea of coming to work the next day just to make more mistakes made me lock up entirely. There was no way to relax. There was no winding down from a hard day of work because my body could not move anymore.

I felt like I was made of splintering wood.

I had a dream around this time that I quit my job. I was so happy. I thought about it almost every hour.

So I stayed out of the way at work, picking up cleaning projects because at least there I could be useful and it was dark enough in the cooler that if I started crying no one had to see it.

That cooler was so clean. I wouldn't recommend eating off of it because I used an entire bottle of bleach to clean the floor.

If we're not counting the constant barrage of demands from corporate to count, count, count; Valentine’s Day was worryingly uneventful. Previous holidays were chaotic: filling the requests of the most desperate and clueless men with deep pockets and expensive tastes. Corralling the temporary drivers and make sure no one gets into any crashes or… uh...tries to sell unregulated merchandise from their trunks. Trying to decide what "Malibu Barbie Pink" meant for that one customer who comes in every six months and orders it but has rejected every color pink on the spectrum that our store has ever offered.

On this one… nothing important happened.

We were… slow.

Grandpa started sending people home early because there weren't many orders. We ran out of projects to do.

Sounds great, right?

...heh…

Corporate would like to know why our store is under projected sales by over 200, as if we have any say in how many people buy from us. Like we personally called all our typical customer base and told them not to come to this store. "Yes, hello Mrs. Penderghast? I'm sorry we can't fill your Valentine's Day order this year because we suck balls and don't want your business. Have a nice weekend. Say hi to the grandkids for me."

I don't… fucking KNOW! I don't work in PR! I'd ask the people in that department if they know what happened but… that's the owners. So who really is the fuckup here? Not me, that's for fucking certain! I cleaned the cooler. That's all I did all weekend was clean the Gods damned cooler because there wasn't enough work to go around so I made work for myself.

And then: "Why are the counts off," asked Mt. Rushmore. See, we called them that because between the owners, Puppet, and the head designer we had four white men looking down at us while we did all the work and built their success on the backs of their forefathers. Well… to me it was anyway. To everyone else it was four dudes that looked down on you.

"Why are the counts off?"

Oh, the COUNTS are off? Well, let me just drop everything I'm doing right now and count them for the third time in the past hour because that takes fucking priority.

"There's 95 specials missing from your inventory. Where are they?"

...okay, 95 is a lot. But it was also kind of hard to know how they were 'missing' when we'd sold all of the 275 that we made. How can they be missing if we sold them.

"We need to know where they are."

We don't know where they are. Because we sold all of them. The math didn't add up.

But they hounded us about it like we'd stolen them and resold them on the street corner. Which, to their defense, had happened once (but Sugar stopped doing that when her corner was taken over by the woman who accused Jay of being a demon.) But 95 is a huge number, and these arrangements were a foot wide and two feet tall. Someone would have noticed if a 100x200 foot square opened up in the cooler.

We literally could not know what the fuck they were talking about.

And the truth was extremely stupid: those 95 pieces were redeliveries. When someone has an issue with their order, like it didn't come or it was left out in the snow and got damaged or… someone put the name of their ex on the card instead of their wife… we send a replacement. But depending on who took the phone call, a person might use the wrong code and put it in for 'redeliver' instead- which counts it as another order.

We weren't missing 95 arrangements. We had 95 redeliveries. They hounded us about inventory for two days over a clerical error.

I decided I'd had it. We were going on a full week of crying every time I had a moment alone. They had made us feel like everything that went wrong was our fault: from low turnout to high turnover, missed deliveries and trashed sprays, lost accounts and new grievances…

But did they ever say a Gods damned thing about how hard we worked? How good we were? About how great a team we were under pressure? We once pulled together an entire wedding in fifteen minutes. My ass carried this store through the pandemic. I have done… so much.

So fucking much.

And yet it's our fault.

I had been reasoning with myself that I would stick around for the aftermath when Grandpa was eventually fired: we'd all felt it was coming. But I got that little bit of cash and all my joints were screaming and every time we got negative feedback a part of me died.

The following Tuesday had seen a massive snowstorm. Things that weren't already closed due to the pandemic were closed due to weather.

But we still had to be there. Because someone had to be there to make all the funeral pieces.

Because there wouldn't be a truck the next day, which meant that all of the funeral pieces that we'd sent to the headquarters needed to be made in-house. Which, once again, could have been avoided if we had kept the funeral orders in-house to begin with.

I waited until everyone had cleared out before I said it.

"Grandpa, I have to quit."

I don't think anyone ever looked so disappointed in me in my life.

"Why?"

"The way they treat people here is terrible and I can't see myself doing another Mother's Day for this company. They're so… mean! And for no damn reason! I have cried every day for the past week because I see the way they treat you and I'm… I'm tired."

I thought she was going to cry, but she nodded. "I can't stop you," she said. "I shouldn't stop you. If it's affecting your mental health like this, I'll miss you but its for the best. You know they'll want a written notice."

"And you know I'll tell them the truth," I said.

"...it's not me, is it?"

"If I worked for just you and those fuckers were out of the picture, I would stay. And you can count on me to tell them that."

"Any flower shop you apply to would be lucky to have you."

So I drafted up a resignation letter telling them exactly how I feel: that the way they run this company was asinine and they treated their employees like garbage. They received it on Thursday. Everyone at the shop knew by then. They were upset…

...but they understood.

Puppet did not understand. He emailed Grandpa asking her what she's doing that her people keep leaving.

He didn't see it. He didn't see that he was part of the problem. It always had to be someone else's fault. I explicitly said in my letter whose fault it was and he still didn't take any responsibility.

But suddenly I'm one of their best designers, and he begged me to reconsider, take some time off to think about it. They desperately wanted me to stay and they were willing to bargain, I just needed demands.

No one's ever… begged me before. I don't know if I like that.

This is when it dawned on me that I was next in line. It all made sense now: training me to route, making me do all the extra work, and now they want me to stay?

They were planning on getting rid of Grandpa and promoting me to manager. In a perfect world where Grandpa resigns willingly and I’m promoted on my merits as a designer and the company wasn’t very quickly circling the drain, I would be excited. But I wasn’t. I was frightened. I watched them take a confident, extremely talented woman and turn her into the whipping boy of the flower shop. And if I were in her position, I would have quit. But I don’t have the strength to stand up to the people that are signing my paycheck.

Why… am I at a place where the idea of moving upward makes me more scared than excited?

Flattering, but no. I've seen how you treat your people. My demands are to treat them better.

It was the longest week for me: making lists of pros and cons. I had made a lot of friends there and there's stuff that I will never forget. But the fact that the only people who didn't understand why I was leaving were the people who had the most to lose really hit me in the knees. I could tell them every day for the rest of their lives why they suck and it wouldn't matter because nothing was ever their fault.

And at 7:00 on Friday, I turned in my key.

I didn't have a plan, I didn't have anything lined up. This was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make and I was just kind of… throwing myself at it.

I don't do that. I always have a plan. I look into every possible scenario and I try to make the smart choice. And this time…

I didn't.

It was probably stupid.

But I slept for 12 hours the next night and I could feel my bones settling into their rightful places. I didn't realize how many health problems were caused by standing for 9 hours a day, 11 days a week until I was home all the time to notice them changing. I will always have a limp from trying to pretend I don't have a limp. I'm pretty sure that ulcer is chronic. But my back isn't seizing up and I don't cry every day anymore.

That's something, I think.

About a week after my departure, I got a text from Grandpa that said:

"Hey guess what."

"What," I replied.

The next text was a picture of a week's old seal-point kitten with terminal eye-goo, wrapped in a towel.

"Pop-eye!?"

"I'm keeping this one," she said. The strays had dropped a litter of identical baby kittens by her pond. Two years later, with Jake put down, she could finally have Pop-eye, even if it was version 2.0.

The next text was a few days later. "Puppet fired me."

"What!? Why?"

"Too many accidents, too high turnaround. The new people suck, he says no one wants to work with me."

"Are you okay? How are you doing?"

"I'm okay." She paused and the loading screen did its little dot dance. "I'm playing with my kitten."

[thatlongspringnight]

A Crown in Springtime (Jungkook x Fem!Reader)

summary: When Jungkook caught the eye of the queen that night, he didn’t realize just how much it would change his life for the better.

pairing: Jungkook x female Reader

genre: arranged marriage au, lust at first sight, romance

word count: 6.2k

❂ amorentia in spring

⁂ hosted by: professor amora through @bangtansorciere​

⤐  au type: daffodil

⤐  themes: spring, honeymoon

⤐  kinks: Edging ⤞ Praise ⤞ Cunninglus ⤞ Fingering ⤞ Handjob ⤞ Thigh Riding ⤞ Hair Pulling ⤞ Creampie ⤞ 

Jungkook is nervous, it bleeds into him like the cold of midwinter, a stark difference from the blossoms of early spring that surround him. Even now, in the sunshine of early morning, he shivers, nerves leaving him tense as he feigns calm, leaning back on the veranda as though nothing has changed, nothing is different, letting the sun soak into his bones. 

But everything has changed. He’s more tense now then he was a day ago, when he was kneeling at the ancient altar, handfasting himself to a woman he barely knew for life, for the hereafter too….And not just any woman. His liege, his queen...now his wife. His father had talked of nothing else for the last two months...since...since the betrothal. All he could speak on was the arrangement, brooking no talk or protest from him, nothing but smiling and acceptance. 

A savior - his father had called her, the queen their savior, rescuing them from poverty. 

“She chose you.” It had been repeated so many times, the idea that he should be grateful, grateful for this arranged marriage. He should be full of joy even, plucked from obscurity to marry her. But...but he doesn’t know her, he can’t wrap his mind around why she would pick him She could have anyone after all...so why him? 

Before the wedding...he could count the number of times he had seen her on one hand. A - A little older than him, a couple of years, maybe - he hadn’t known a world where she had not been queen. She had grown up with a crown on her head, a sword in her palm, and the shadow of a dynasty weighing on her shoulders. A child queen raised on tales of her ancestors, long dead, war and conquest. He...He had heard that she had been in want of a husband.

His father had even suggested his older brother, his heir - but never once had his name been mentioned. Not until....not until that night - two months ago, when - when she had smiled at him, eyes alight in mirth and something he didn’t have a name for yet, asking him to dance after a dinner.

They had gone to court for the winter celebration, and he had felt her eyes on him during the meal, offering her a soft smile, as - as was proper.

She’d asked him to dance, first - his thoughts repeated, an honor, one that had given him the warmth of her palm in his, her eyes trailing up his face.

“Your hair.” She had murmured, a hand going to play with the strands. “Blue like the ocean.” His own personal magic, how the fae had manifested in him. He wondered how it manifested in her…

Either way…was that why? Was that why she had picked him? Not even two days after, she had offered his father...and the deed had been done..all leading up to yesterday, kneeling at the altar, him bedecked in clothes woven of silver thread, blue sapphires dripping from them, from the crown she laid on his head. Joining him at the altar, covered in gold. He felt like the moon, lit only by her golden glow. 

Somehow, somehow he had made it through, repeating ancient vows that dipped magick into his blood, feeling their bond form as sure and strong as the rope that bound their hands. Somehow that day had faded to night, banquets and being whisked away - a honeymoon in the mountains - early spring blossoms filling the air with perfume. 

A honeymoon, but still - no bride. The thought alone is enough to stir something, a gentle sigh making him jolt. Her, he knows its her, he can feel it, looking up to meet her amused gaze. The - the queen, his queen, he dips his head, scrambling to sit properly, to bow…

At least until her fingertips press his forehead, stilling him instantly.

“No Need.” her voice still shocks him, calm and easy - sweet too - like the last drops of sap from a tapped tree at the end of winter. “Especially not here.” 

“....Not here?” 

“You haven’t noticed?” She smiles now, and it makes him feel warm. “We’re all alone. No one dares to interrupt their queen on her honeymoon.” He’s watching her, stepping to sit beside him, legs dangling like his were just moments before. 

“And...and if we weren’t alone?” He curses how slowly the words seem to come to him, trailing and trembling in her presence, but he can’t help it. His position feels uncertain, her husband, but what does that make him. He’s no king. 

“Then you’d only need to nod your head.” She hums, a hand lifting up, moving to block the light, to let the sun’s rays break between her fingertips. “You’re a prince now, anyway, my darling, people will be bowing to you.” She says it so easily, like it doesn’t alter his entire life. “But….between us.” She continues. “I’d like it to be different.” This is the most she’s ever spoken to him, and he finds himself entranced at her lips, the way she forms words. 

“Different?” He mumbles, barely aware he’s asked.

“Different, friends at least.” She tilts her head to look at him. “Maybe even more.”

“F-Friends?” he questions, eyes widening. “With me?” “Is that so odd?” She snorts. “To want to be friends with my husband?” “....No.” He answers after a moment. “Well  - just a little.” 

“At the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl, you know.” Words he doesn’t believe, not even for a moment. 

The day passes, the coolness of the morning fading to a gentle heat, and he learns - Jungkook learns about his wife. 

More than he’s bargained for.

“Oh come on, don’t be like that.” She pushes her own plate of food at him. “Here, eat up.” They are lounging again, on the veranda, which seems to be her favorite place, his too, where the breeze is gentle, and the flowers bloom so heavily nearby it smells like a garden. “It will get cold and you won’t want it.” Its a simple pronouncement, one that makes him pout. 

“How do you know?” He answers her, watching how her lips twitch into a smile. “Maybe i want it cold.” “As your Queen, I demand you eat.” That pronouncement is met with him grumbling, before he sits up, a look in his eyes that makes her raise an eyebrow. 

“Feed me then.” Jungkook demands, a petulant lilt to his voice, even as he tries to hide his smile.

“What?”

“Feed me.”He gives her a grin, one that makes her heart beat quicken, not that he knows, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Come on - “ He throws her words from before back in her face. “Feed me or else everything’s going to get cold.”

“What a baby.” The woman complains, not at all fooled by the sweet look on his face. “You’re not playing fair, Jungkook.” His name, whenever she says it, makes his stomach flutter with butterflies. Still, he doesn’t even pout at being called a baby, too triumphant at her shifting to face him, reaching to pick up a slice of meat, offering it to him. “Your highness.” She mocks, and he could only snicker, enjoying the taste on his tongue.

It is delicious.

“So good – its delicious.” The smile he shot her was enough to make the woman feel a brush of something she chose not to name. Damn this boy, damn him for making doing something so simple as eating so attractive.

 It made her want to tease him, and that made her smile, something he notices. “You – you gave in really easily.” Jungkook spoke after a moment of comfortable silence. She had, this woman who had led his people in war, had fed him just now, without much protest at all. “Maybe you can feed me every day.” Did he enjoy it? Yes, of course he did, but unfortunately for him, the words seemed to click something into place for her.

 “Oh, you want me to feed you every day?” The woman purred, managed to snag a bite of her own food before setting down her plate. The air shifts, a shiver coursing through him, the trees seeming to shiver too. “Tell me something, Jungkookie.”

“W-What?” He speaks, a bit of alarm on his face as she leaned over him, her body suddenly very close. “T-Tell you what?”

 “Ahh..” She settles herself close to him. So close, their shoulders touch, and when she leans over, their noses nearly brush. “Tell me, are you sure you want this every day?” This time, when she offers him food, he is slower to take it, his cheeks warm. It feels heady, being close to her like this, and he wonders if this intimacy will ever feel anything other than clandestine. “Jungkook, I asked you a question.”

 “Ngh.” The boy looked up, his nose brushing hers. “I – I wouldn’t mind.” He breathes. Her chest was too close to his face, and the skin she exposed…it was right there. His lips could brush her collarbones if he looks straight ahead. Suddenly a warm day felt blazing hot. “I – I’m thirsty – “ He managed to speak, unsure of how he even got his voice to work.

 “Thirsty?” A teacup was balanced in her hand in an instant, her hold graceful…almost delicate. “Tea, your highness?”

“Don’t call me that.” He protests. “I – you’re the Queen - I’m just - “ “You’re my husband.” She answers, offering him a sip. “Your highness is an appropriate title.” 

“But to you, I should just be Jungkook.” He answers her, and she can only smile. 

“Can I taste too?” its a shift in conversation, but Jungkook nods, assuming she’d just…take a drink from his cup – which is why his brain short circuits the moment the cup was pulled away, replaced by her lips.

 Cherry blossom tea is at first just a hint of salt – one that fades to a mellow sweetness, floral notes and plum. Jungkook thinks to himself. Those grounded musings lost at her lips. She is kissing him, and he is overwhelmed, the taste of her and the cherry blossom tea an all too dangerous combination for him, leaving him lightheaded. She is kissing him -  and he could have whined, the angle of their bodies meaning he couldn’t move his hands from the ground, or they’d both tumble over.

 And he didn’t want to lose the fierceness of her kiss -  her hands in his hair, tugging at the strands hard enough for him to whimper, the sound lost as her tongue explored his mouth, stealing the taste of tea from his lips.

 He is on fire, he is in bloom under her touch.

 And then she pulls away, panting against his lips, her own cheeks flushed.

 “I like it – the tea. Its good on its own…but its better tasting it on your lips, pretty boy.” Jungkook could faint.

 “I – y-you can’t just….you can’t just say things like that!”

“Do you need a moment?” She is stretching out like a cat in the sun. “We should make flower crowns next, my prince.” 

Jungkook truly looks like a fish out of water in that moment, his mouth opening and closing in shock, and She could’ve laughed at the blush high on his cheeks. She had got him right where she wanted him, he realizes. The lilt to her voice was teasing as she gives him a knowing smirk. “What’s wrong, Jungkook?” 

 “I-“ He gulps, unable to speak, the taste of salt and honey still strong on his tongue from their kiss. It is too much- she is too much. “A-Actually, my throat is still dry.” He clears his throat once, then twice as if he was trying to prove it to her. “I might n-need another drink...”

 “Well, that is a problem, isn’t it.” She tilts her head to the side in mock sympathy and he nods, almost a little too eagerly, giving it away.

 “It is, yes. Maybe- maybe you could help me drink again?”

 “Hmm, I could...but you also have two perfectly good hands to use so.” She shrugged. “That sounds more like a problem than a me problem.”

 “But maybe I’d rather use my hands for...other things.” He is trying to tempt her- and failing miserably as she barely spared him a second glance, too busy focusing on gathering the materials for the flower crowns, something that he wasn’t as interested in now as he had been before.

 “Well that’s good, seeing as you’ll need them to make your crown. What flowers did you want?”

Making flower crowns was relaxing – that is the thought after a few minutes, as he hummed softly, twisting the flowers around the ribbon, grinning as they connected. It was unconscious, he sways softly, humming under his breath. He used to make so many of them, for the whole court…and his father would always pick his over his brother’s…

 “Ugh – “ The frustrated sound from beside him, pulls him from his memories, and he pauses, listening softly to the woman’s grumbles. Glancing down, he finds a bit of a mess, and it made him grin – he didn’t want to say anything though – not wanting to break her focus – that is until she hissed through her teeth, the flowers literally bursting from their ribbon, scattering around her.

 “Gah – “She grimaces, and he laughs outright, her head whipping around at the sound, finding him already wearing his…

 And it was beautiful…of course.

 “Having some trouble– “

“Its not easy.” She huffs. “You must be cheating somehow.”

“I did not!” Jungkook protests. “I just have more experience is all  - “

“I can’t do it.” She straight up whines, and Jungkook grins, giggling in earnest, scooting closer to her. How was she so cute, struggling like this, gathering up her flowers. In this moment she is just a girl, and he is just a boy - He can’t help but be brave.

 “Here...”He croons,  reaching for her, pulling her closer so he can watch. “Let me teach you.” Only after does he realize how informal he’s being, shooting her a worried glance, only to be met by a little pout. 

 “I-I don’t need any help!” She curses under her breath, her stammer hardly hidden as she gives him a little glare. “I can do it!”

“Here.” His chin rested on her shoulder, hands gently taking hers in his. “You made your stems too short so they were harder to wrap.” Those flowers get set aside as he picks others from the pile. “These longer ones will work better.

 She was silent as she watched him manipulate her hands with his own, twisting the flowers so it entwined with the ribbon, the dyed material looking so good against his skin. 

 “...try?” The sudden baritone of his voice makes her jump.

 “What?”

 “I said, why don’t you try.” He has the gall to sound amused and she finds herself scowling at his grin. Even if she couldn’t see it- she felt it. “Let’s try to pay more attention when I’m teaching you, alright?”

 “Give me that.” She grabs the flower crown from him, ignoring the sound of his laugh, his body shaking next to her. Jungkook watches her, how she furrows her brows, grabbed another flower- daisies this time, and carefully winds it around the ribbon like he had showed her, focusing hard on her task.

She’s beautiful, he thinks to himself, wistful almost. Beautiful, and he’s hers. 

Beautiful, and wants him just as bad as he wants her - something he finds out the next morning, the veranda a place of more than just relaxing in the sunshine. 

“You should call me Noona.” Her voice is a purr against his ear, the kind that makes Jungkook shiver, tensing against her light touch. And it is like, fingers trailing his skin, delicate in the way they touch him, make him yearn for more...its...unexpected, how she makes him feel desirable and full of desire for her all at once. 

“N-Noona - “ He stammers, breath hitching at her fingertips parting the robe he’s wearing, dancing across his chest. “Ngh - you - “ “You’re so pretty.” She murmurs. “I wanna make you feel good.” He’s tensing at that, but the pit in his stomach is full of butterflies and aching, nothing like fear clinging to him now. “I don’t want you to regret...this...with me.” “This…?” he asks, confusion bleeding into his tone. “This...now?” “Now - and...our marriage.” She confesses, face dipping lower, lips ghosting across the juncture of his throat. “I want to make it worth it for you.” “Why is it worth it for you?” He wonders aloud. “I’m no one at all - “ “You’re magic itself.” She counters, and this time its a kiss against his neck, not just lips, this time her hand finds purchase on his chest, fingernails a dull scrap against his skin. It feels good, and he whines softly, adjusting to the feeling. “Beautiful, sweet - Strong.” She says, and she can feel his cheeks heat. “What, is it embarrassing to hear?” She sounds almost amused, blowing lightly at the strands of his hair, soft blue in the clear, cloudless sunshine.

“T-That - “ He nearly chokes on his own spit. “That - that’s taking it a little too far.” Its almost scolding. “How can you know that?’

“I want to know everything there is to know about you.” She answers. “And to show you all of me, too, if you...if you’ll let me.” 

“I want to...to see you.” He answers, honestly, after a moment. “You’re my wife after all, my bride.” There is a smile, hers, against his skin. 

“Such a good boy.” She praises, and he cannot help the pleased feeling under his skin, the way he nods, preening a little under her words. “Such a pretty, darling man.” Her hand, trailing lower, bringing new, ticklish feelings to his skin.

This type of affection wasn’t altogether new to him, romps with boys and girls in the stables up...up until recently, but this is different too, there is a feeling there he’s not used to, a longing coming from the woman that registers in his heart. 

He can feel her loneliness, the ache in her soul - and he wants to fill it as best he can. Maybe that’s what she had seen in him that night, that same feeling - deep in his heart - that deep alone that kept him up at night. 

So he kisses her, adjusting so he’s nearly in her lap, back to her chest, turning to catch her gaze. His lips meet hers and he sees her eyes widen, before his own shut, one of her hands coming to cup his cheek, thumb stroking idly against his skin. It’s sweet - soft, at least for a moment. But they’re both ravenous, he realizes, when it’s his hands that find purchase on the dainty silk robe that hid her form. Ravenous as she bites at his bottom lip, earning a whine, a whimper - when he looks up again, there is something molten in her gaze, and in his stomach. 

He wants her, and - 

“Ngh -“ he muffles the sound of surprise in his throat as she shifts them, so now it’s her, legs parted on either side of his thigh, sitting with her hands pressed against his chest. “I - I -“ 

“You?” She asks, like she hasn’t put them in a compromising position, little smirk at her lips. “Cat got your tongue, Jungkook?” Her thumb parts his lips, delight on her face as he opens his mouth, lets her press it to his tongue. “I’d be glad to have your tongue on my kitten.” The slang is enough to make him sweat, heat prickling against his skin. 

He’s wearing too many clothes - even if all he’s in is a night robe, the mid morning sun has left him languid and warm, her touch has set fire to his skin - and her - so close to him, nose brushing at the skin of his cheek, coaxing him closer, mouth meeting his with more fervor, hands tangling in his hair. 

She’s pulling at the strands, drawing a whine from his lips as her hips rock forward, as his hands find purchase on her hips - registering what she’s doing before his mind catches up. 

“N-noona -“ it’s a moan as they part, him panting softly, him trying his best to capture her lips again, only for her to evade. “I want to kiss you.” 

“Do you?” She asks, a soft hum on her lips as she brushes them by his ear, earning a shiver. “Badly?” 

“Everywhere.” He’s feeling bolder now, straightening his posture so he can give her more - tensing the muscles of his thighs as she rocks - rewarded with a surprised, pleased little noise, even more at how he shifts her himself, across the strength of his thigh, exposed now. 

“Not worried we’re going to get caught?” She asks, met with beautiful, darkened eyes. 

“You said that I didn’t have to worry about anyone disturbing us.” He reminds. “Who’d dare interrupt their queen?” He mimics her voice from before, pleased when she laughs, when she grips lightly at his hair, tugging again just to make him whine.

“Brat.” But her tone is fond, like she’s seen him and found nothing displeasing in the least. “But you’re right, no one would dare.” She eyes him, noting the way his hands grip at her, eager to get her out of her clothes. “Don’t you try it.” She warns before he can act. “Seeing me naked is something that you’ll have to earn I’m afraid.” Even as she says that, her hand is grasping at the tie around his, her eyes meeting his own, seeking a silent permission he gives readily. 

The ribbon holding it closed is pulled away, her hand making contact with his lower stomach. Dipping lower, finding purchase on something that makes him hiss. 

“A-Ah - “ “Hard.” She poses, and its not a question, its an observation. He’s hard. “Pretty.” She tacks on. “Even your cock is pretty.” He feels like he could combust, head dropping to hid in the crook of her neck.

“N-Noona.” He whines. “Don’t say that.” 

“Come on, Jungkookie.” There is a note of challenge to her tone. “Are you just going to sit here while I touch your dick? Or are you going to help your wife, hm?  She glances at his hands on her hips, looking back up at him. 

Its enough, he’s back at it, biting his lip as she touches him, and her touch is light, light as she trails fingertips against the head of his cock, dips them down to grasp at him, pulling her hand away so she can lick her palm. He’s entranced, only shifting her hips because she told him to, entirely too focused on her damp palm meeting his skin again, dragging up, up, up.

But that’s not the only sensation. Its her, rutting against his thigh when he’s not fast enough, thumbing at his tip. He is conscious of his moans, soft and eager, and that’s about it, overwhelmed with the feeling.

“N-Noona - “ “Beautiful.” She answers him, and he can feel her - her essence against his skin, he’s flustered. “Lazy.” She teases and he whines, this time actually dragging her against his thigh. Again, then again, over and over - movements faltering as her drag up his skin sped up.

It - it was so hard to focus - 

“I-It would be easier if I was inside you.” He finally counters, words catching up with his thoughts - and that gets a reaction, her thighs clamping around his, her movement stuttering. “If y-you let me - “ “Already at the business of begetting heirs?” her palm slips from him and he whimpers. “Not yet, if you want it, I need it first.” She warns. She doesn’t mind being selfish, he already knows - and he doesn’t mind it either. 

“Then let me give it to you.” He’s pulling away, eyeing her. “Let me - let me worship you, on my knees, since you’re my...my queen - my wife.” and he is on his knees, already, something that clearly pleases her.

“Worship me?” She asks, perching up on her hands, legs stretched out in front of her. “You mean between my thighs, where you belong, right?” His cock is still hard, she muses, still throbbing and leaking, and eager - but making him wait was good, bringing him close to the edge and then not letting him…

Perfect.

“Can I?” He asks again, needing more than that from her. “Please - “ “You should talk less.” She answers him. “You’re wasting time you could be worshipping me.” It spurs him forward, but she meets him halfway. He is pushed down, pulled forward, till his nose was brushing against her core, silk robe falling around exposed hips and soon enough her legs were resting on his shoulders, holding him in place. He looked up, finding her flushed, seemingly eager. 

“This – this is what you want?”

“Come on, Kookie –  You said you wanted to worship me, to be on your knees before me...So…why don’t you show me what that mouth does…besides teasing.”

 “Ngh -!” Jungkook flushes hard at the crude words that fall from her lips, his whole body uncomfortably hot. He wants to hide his face from her dark gaze but with the firm grip she had on his hair, he couldn’t move. Even then, he isn’t sure he could, trapped in her gaze the way he was. “V-Vulgar.”

 “I’m just telling you what I want, Jungkookie. You said you were going to….so do it.” The way she is looking at him makes that fire ignite in his blood again, a deep sense of desire and wanting.

 Because she is right. Jungkook wants to watch as she fell apart, her thighs trembling from around his head, his name like a prayer on her lips as her back arched with pleasure. 

 He wants nothing more.

 “Okay.” He murmurs, pressing sweet kisses to her thighs, intent on getting her just as hot as he felt. “You’re so wet for me, Noona.” Slowly, he ghosts his mouth over her core before going to press kisses to her other thigh, not missing the way she tensed and let out a little huff when he passed over her center.

 “I’d be wetter if you actually used your tongue on me.”

 “Maybe so.” He hums, letting his thumb brush over her clit, the corners of his lips twitching upwards at her soft whimper and he wonders if she tastes as sweet as the noises she makes, as sweet as the honey that he had tasted on her tongue earlier. Jungkook lets his gaze rest on hers before giving an experimental circle of his tongue on her clit, the woman jolting at the touch.

 “J-Jungkook-!“

 He doesn’t pause, his eyes still on hers as he wraps pretty lips around her pearl, giving a gentle suck, just to see how she’d react, a finger drawing over her entrance.

 Jungkook is not disappointed at her reaction, her hands falling free of his hair, digging into the wood of the veranda beneath her. She moans, a pleased – heady sound, her heels pressing into his back, pushing him closer and closer to her core. So – so she liked that, then,  Jungkook took note, returning to kitten licking at her.

 Don’t try to overwhelm her with the first thing you find she likes, take your time, savor her, till she’s aching with need - advice from his older brother about what to do with girls - he’d taken it, and it had always seemed to work. he took a breath, his warmth ghosting over her as he pressed his finger against her.

 “Noona – c-can – can I?” Jungkook asked, wanting to make sure.

 “Yes –! ngh – “ She tenses at the feeling of his finger. “F-Fuck… please – “ He slid a finger inside of her, the feeling making him whimper against her core. She – she was so warm, clenching around him...

 “O-Oh –“ He couldn’t help press his hips against the floor, searching for friction. How was it going to feel…buried inside of her, the hot, and wet and – and tight. He really was going to have to work her over now…because he doubted he was going to last very long at all. “Noona – you – you feel – so good.” Her thighs pressed against his face, and her head was tossed back.

 “More – Kookie – more, y-you can be more rough with me.” His name on her lips, the endearment not lost on him, spoken so fondly, with such need – Jungkook can’t help himself but give in to her desires. Sliding his finger out, till she whined at the empty feeling, this time her thrust two in, harder, teeth just lightly grazing her clit. If – if she wanted rough –

 “A-Ah! Jungkook!” the moan was sinful, and more of a cry, a shudder going through her as she tenses – “Ngh…ah..” He is thrusting his fingers into her, sitting up to press a kiss to her stomach, to bite lightly at her skin.

 “Noona – Noona – you’re driving me crazy –“ The boy pants, still rutting into the floor. “You – ngh – you sound so hot, I – I can’t – “

“Jungkook- “ Her voice sounds almost scolding. “Don’t – don’t you dare get yourself off.” He froze, not realizing she could tell.”

“B-But…But Noona –“ he whines, met with her hands in his hair again, pulling roughly.

 “No – you – you’re pleasuring me now. Just me.”

 Just her...

 Jungkook wanted to pout, to whine more at her scolding. It- it was hard to not lose himself over in the sound of her moans, the cry of his name falling from her lips. He couldn’t help that he wanted to be inside of her, actually inside of her- not just his fingers. To have her clenched tight around him.

 “J-Jungkook, move..” His wife gives a little wriggle of her hips, huffing at the stilling of his fingers. Brat. Trying to get off by himself- like she wouldn’t notice the shift of his hip and his soft whimpers against her skin. She gives him a cool look from his place between her legs. “Unless you want me to finish what you started on my own-“

 “N-No!” He blurted, his doe eyes wide at her implication. “No, Noona.” He repeated, slowly resuming his finger work, her shuddering in response. “Let- let me take care of you.” And then his mouth was on her again, sucking, licking, his fingers crooking inside of her- crooking his fingers to find that spot that’d make her see stars. He’d know just by the way-

 “A-Ah -“ Her grip on his hair tightened, holding him in place. “Ngh, K-Kookie, right- right there.” She moans. “D-Don’t you dare stop.” She could feel him smirk against her and honestly, she would’ve said something if it didn’t feel so fucking good, his tongue flattening against her clit before circling around the nub. She was close, she could feel it- that pleasure growing tight like a bow that was being strung. She was just about to fall until-

 Until-

 “S-Stop -!”

 Her gasp took him by surprise, her pulling him away from her immediately. Jungkook blinked up at her, confusion on his face. She had told him not to stop before... Had- had he done something wrong? “Noona...?”

 “C-Come here.” She shifts then, pulling him up to her so she could capture his lips with hers, tasting herself on his tongue. Her hands dropped to his waist, a whine in Jungkook’s throat, his hips bucking against her hand as she palms at him again, a whimper as she bites down on his lip.

 “Ngh, Noona, why...why’d you have me stop?” He felt his dick twitch in her hand and gods, he wishes he could feel her properly. “Y-You were close, a-ah, I could feel it.”

 “I was, you’re right.” Finally- finally, she moves, grasping his hand to put it against the tie of her robe.. “But if I’m going to cum...then I want to be doing it around your cock- not your fingers. I want you to see all of me.” That’s all he needs, pulling at it, undoing it - watching the silk slip from her shoulders, slowly exposing all of her.

She’s beautiful, but he already knows that. 

 “Jungkook.” Her voice is breathy, and her fingers traced patterns against the skin of his chest as he takes her in. “Kookie – you’re – you’re breathtaking.” He whines softly, hiding his face against her neck again, clearly flustered at her words.

“I -  I should be telling you that - “ He protests, but she is unabashed.  

“Jungkookie…” A hand dipped lower, finding purchase on his cock, swollen, pre-cum dripping.

 He is big. And even his dick was pretty, smooth and straight, with a gentle curve upward, She thinks wryly, wondering how physical perfection had managed to manifest itself so clearly in this man. Like every bit was crafted to draw a reaction from her, to make her long for him, yearn for him, need to have him.

She had known from the moment she’d seen him. 

“Noona- “ 

“I’m yours to take.” She answers the unspoken question, pulling him to her, till he is gripping at her hips, glad that he had something to hold onto so his hands wouldn’t shake, the pads of his fingers digging into her flesh as he shifted her hips upwards. Slowly, slowly, he sinks into her. Glad not to have to wait anymore, a whine on his lips at her heat that surrounds him and he feels her stiffen, her mouth dropping open into an ‘o’ of pleasure. “N-Noona -“

 She is hot and...and so tight around him, clenched like a vice, and he knows- Jungkook knows that he won’t be able to last very long.

 “Ngh-“ A gasp leaves her throat at him suddenly thrusting inside. “K-Kook -“

 “A-Ah, Noona, I- ngh, I can’t help it.” He leans forward, pressing kisses to her neck, her hands coming up to grip at his shoulders. “You- you feel so good.”

“Do i?” She asks, his reaction more than enough to clarify, hips setting a pace that seems to surprise her. “Ngh - you - you feel good too.” 

“A-And you’re beautiful.” Jungkook finally feels brave enough to say it. “I - I’m a little terrified of you, b-but I don’t regret this.” Its sweet, in its own way, and it makes her laugh.

“I hope you never do.” She is kissing him again. 

“W-What about you?” He asks after a moment. “Do you r-regret it?” “Never.” She answers against his lips. “Now, stop this idle worrying, let me feel your cum dripping out of me, instead.”

 “N-Noona – you – you can’t say that.” Jungkook works on steadying himself, methodical in his thrusts, her words echoing in his head. That thought – the feeling of her, he can’t help thrust as deep as he can, feeling her nails dig into his skin, her small pleasured sounds filling the air. He could feel her tense, like this, his name falling from her lips as she gripped at him.

 “K-Kookie – there – that’s it. Ngh – just like that.” She wasn’t shy under him, her legs wrapping around his narrow hips, drawing a soft groan from him.

 “It – ngh – feels too good.” Jungkook whines, only to have her pull him into a kiss…one he wasn’t sure was to silence her or himself. Whatever it was, it was messy, teeth and tongue and sounds of pleasure.

 But – but – he can feel it, that same feeling in his stomach, and he knew he needed to finish her, rewarded with her flat out moan, the loudest sound he had heard come from her, heady and high, when his fingers met her bud, breaking their messy kisses to toss her head back, a shudder coursing down her body.

 “J-Jungkook - !” There it is, the boy is triumphant, rubbing at her roughly – its what she wanted after all – still pounding into her, thrusts growing more and more sloppy with every move. He could feel her again – too, the way she tenses and tightens, but even in his triumph he couldn’t help the words on his lips.

 “Please, please – please Noona, please cum.” He is begging, his own mind hazy with pleasure. “Ngh – need you too…really bad.” He didn’t know what possessed him, slamming into her enough to make him wince, but it was enough.

 It was too much – the feeling of her falling apart, how tight she was, pulsing against him, too much – and he -and he couldn’t hold it in anymore.

He empties himself in her, feeling very much so like a bucket, tossed to the ground, water spilled. 

“I told you no one would catch us.” She speaks after his breath settles, idly playing with his hair. “My dear husband.” “Y-You - I’m...I’m happy.” His words don’t fit hers, but they do all at once, telling her directly what she wanted to know. “That you chose me to give a crown to.” 

“Your magic sang to mine.” is all she says in return, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. “Your loneliness called to mine, because you were always meant to be mine...and i was always meant to be yours.” 

[dennou-translations]

Violet Evergarden: Booklet 3

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At that moment, I found myself thinking, “Aah, maybe if I disappeared, if I vanished right now, nobody would notice.”

Once I thought this, I could no longer think of anything else.

Before I realized, my hands and feet had moved. I slowly moved my whole body and left that place behind.

Nobody called for. Nobody tried to stop me.

Which was why I was now hiding. I was in a corner of a maze of roses in the royal palace of this forest kingdom.

I looked up at the sky. It was overcast. The air was a little heavy, so there was a chance of rain.

Was anyone looking for me by now? No, they might not have noticed. I could bet a hundred of Drossel’s white camellias that they hadn’t. “That wouldn’t be a bet,” someone said from within my mind.

——What will happen to me if I just stay here like this?

I tried to think calmly. Firstly, I would get hungry. My body would get bitten by insects. The sky was looking shady, so rain might come pouring down on me. I would get a fever from the cold, and then... and then... and then...

The power of my imagination was scarce, so the scenario ended there.

Stretching out my dress’s sleeves and removing my long gloves, I plucked the grass with a bare hand. Picking up some rose petals that had fallen to the ground, I threw them into the air even though they would not fly too far. I looked almost like a child trying to contain her bad mood. Most likely, if anyone saw me, they would wonder what on earth the queen of Fluegel was doing.

Why had I grown up to be like this? All I ever did was think big of small matters and be in a state of chaos. It was such a weak mindset, which people most likely wouldn’t expect to come from someone born in a family that was meant to rule a country.

“Members of the royal family are actually not supposed to expose their original selves. Under no circumstance should you forget that you must act with dignity and be a role model to your subjects.”

Even though I had already become a wife, I behaved like a little girl.

“However...”

I had experienced a romance like the ones that young girls dream with.

“...from my long time working in the court...”

I fell in love and won my beloved lord over.

“...these have been the most memorable Public Love Letters. Yes... in a good sense.”

After running and running, I was now living the aftermath of that.

My name is Charlotte Abelfreya Fluegel. Already a year had passed ever since I married off to Fluegel.

   Charlotte Abelfreya Fluegel and the Forest Kingdom

   Drossel and Fluegel – no matter what could happen to these two nations in the future, they had me as their intermediary princess. If I happened to die in this rose labyrinth without anybody ever finding me, I wanted someone to remember that.

As to why things had turned out like this, I’d have to rewind my life a little to explain. I had to mix up the cauldron of time that made the hours pass.

How far back was I supposed to go?

That beautiful golden-haired girl. My favorite. The ghostwriter who had become a mediator for my romance.

Rewinding to the times of Violet Evergarden’s Public Love Letters would be going back too far. It should be a bit later. Perhaps the appropriate would be around the time when I, who was once the third princess of Drossel – that beautiful country where white camellias bloomed in copious amounts –, went away and changed my surname. Yes, right, that was adequate enough.

Fluegel was a neighboring country of prosperous forestry. I was married to the man who had the priority rights to succeeding its throne. Letting go of everything that I had cherished until then, I married off.

I had transformed from a girl into an adult. Although my appearance hadn’t changed much, that was my status.

My husband was Damian Baldur Fluegel. He was the person who possessed the rights of succession as the next monarch at the beginning of our marriage, but a few days ago, he had inherited the throne from his father and become a king both in name and reality. In other words, I had become the queen as well.

Probably the worst queen in history. After all, I had run away.

   Let me try to trace the rewound time with exact precision.

Fluegel’s capital was a city of fresh greenery, which had a castle erected in the depths of a forest. Said royal palace couldn’t be considered sturdy or showy, but it was in perfect harmony with the nature, endowed with a calculated beauty. Unlike Drossel, a country that maintained itself through the tourism industry, Fluegel had much of its national interest shouldered by its forestry. Drossel’s national flower was the white camellia, while Fluegel’s was the red rose.

The two countries were separated by a large river, but one would be tempted to wonder how they could be so different.

Differences were by no means a bad thing. After all, Lord Damian and I had met because we had been raised in such different cultures. That was exactly why I became attracted to Lord Damian’s… albeit artless, uninhibited personality, which was so unlike that of the royals from Drossel and other nations...

Yes, “differences” were not bad. But the so-called “differences”... how should I put it? When they weren’t tolerated, instead viewed as an absence of profits and effort, they would turn into a really bad thing.

Most likely, that was what made me the way I was now.

Was this an excuse? It might be. But that was how it was. That was it.

At first, my life in Fluegel didn’t go well.

Becoming used to even small differences in habit was extremely difficult for me, which caused the chamberlain to sigh often. He was someone who deserved respect for having taken care of Lord Damian’s personal matters for quite a long time.

There was no mistaking that I was in a position higher than his, but I soon understood that he looked down on me. One could tell as much by things such as the movements of the other’s eyes and their attitude.

The chamberlain would tell me: “That is not the way we do it in Fluegel”, “This is for your protection. You will be criticized otherwise. Now, fix yourself up”, “I have said this several times, but...”

I didn’t think I was some idiot. I believed myself to be the kind of girl who could do well if I put my mind into it. But I had to admit that I was a very unstable crybaby.

The differences such as the ones that the chamberlain talked about were, for example, the order in which people were seated at meals, how to lift my dress when hopping into a carriage, and other minute details like that. If I were told such things back in Drossel, I was positive that I could internalize it in the first try. After that, I definitely wouldn’t repeat the mistake. But the moment I tried to do it in this foreign country that I wasn’t familiar with, being watched by the monitoring eyes of someone that didn’t have me in his favor, I ended up failing. It was almost as if I were inducing the failure on my own. What was this phenomenon?

The chamberlain most likely knew this as well. He knew it, and even then he would sigh and speak in a detached manner while watching me go pale. There was nothing good in it for either of us, yet we would find ourselves repeating this vicious cycle.

To be honest, we were so incapable of getting along that the desire to jump off from one of the Fluegel castle’s windows as retaliation surged from within me. However, I had no choice but to keep going. Because I was a newcomer and that person was an elder.

If I didn’t get used to this, it would be the end of me.

Right, and there was also the tea party. The flow of the Cauldron of Time had finally returned to the present.

It all had begun… from the chamberlain suggesting that if I, who had become the queen, held a tea party, I would certainly make myself known as someone who shines like the stars in the night sky. He gave a long speech about my authority as a queen being this and that. That detestable chamberlain.

I did like tea parties, but even after being in Fluegel for a year, I wasn’t able to find myself anyone that I could consider close to me, so I frankly didn’t like the idea. I hadn’t gotten myself anyone to be on friendly terms with, so rather than a display of my power, wouldn’t this be deemed as more of a public execution for me?

Ever since I had arrived here, I was in the position of a foreign princess who had a political marriage with Lord Damian, so both the royal family that I had joined and the people who took care of me were somewhat distant… To make things worse, I was the very person who had tainted the traditional event of the Public Love Letters. People were wary of me as an unprecedented princess.

I had seen that Fluegel had a liberal aspect to it and wasn’t too bound by formalities in comparison to Drossel, but when it came to the royal family, that was a different story.

Whenever I passed the corridors of the royal palace, I could hear one name being whispered. Everyone would have faint smiles on their faces. “Baby Princess” was what they called me.

The one who came up with it was Lord Damian’s younger sister or something. Indeed, I had childish facial features and I was the girl who had married for love, so there was no helping that I would be mocked like this.

Receiving a nickname and having it made into a title meant that it was ingrained in people. Once a knight earned himself an alias, others would expect him to have a conduct that was worthy of it. In that same manner, no matter what I, Charlotte Abelfreya Fluegel, might say… I lived in Fluegel as the princess whom everyone would giggle at.

Whenever I made a mistake, “it’s because she’s a child”. If I happened to rush towards Lord Damian, “it’s because she’s a child”. Whenever I said anything, “it’s because she’s a child”.

If there was some magic spell that could turn me into a twenty-year-old right now, I would have taken it. It’d be great if I could instantly grab ahold of my dignity in a way that nobody would complain. But that was something that people had to be awarded to through the years, along with their efforts...

I might have been the Baby Princess today as well – the day of the tea party.

The chamberlain was in awfully high spirits, which one way or another was an omen for misfortune. I was watching from my bedroom as the elderly man briskly instructed the people around him.

From the room where I stayed with Lord Damian, I could see the castle’s garden, the rose maze that started from the garden’s entrance veering to the side, and the castle town. Back when we had just married, we used to often gaze outside the window together, but now we couldn’t even talk for more than five minutes.

Ever since succeeding the throne, Lord Damian was truly busy. He would be working while I waited for him in our room; by the time that I woke up, he would be by my side without me having realized it; as I stretched the creases that formed between his eyebrows while he was dreaming, he would wake up all of a sudden and then head off to the royal office again.

I was depressed since morning, because why did I have to hold a tea party while my husband was working so indiscriminately? But, well, this was also part of my duties. It was important for me to mingle with other women from a social status similar to mine. The trust earned from them would help not just me but also Lord Damian.

Those who controlled factions also had control of politics. Yes, yes, I knew that much. I had to do this exactly because things weren’t going well. In order to level up my speech skills, I had to start from taking up a stance. As my position was becoming worse, if I could get around here well, I would increase my authority in the royal territory without having to recreate myself.

I understood the reasoning behind this. What the chamberlain said was correct. He was implicitly telling me to do right, and I was the one at fault for not managing it...

The tea party was held in the garden outside at the arranged time.

There were people that I hadn’t seen ever since my wedding ceremony, whom I greeted while turning my head around at an incredible speed. Whenever someone sprinkled the subject of political affairs here and there, I’d throw it back at them with a smile, literally tearing apart and flinging away whatever came at me on repeat. Although the scene actually looked like a peaceful conversation, under the surface, I, the queen, was being evaluated, so this was a battle.

I thought I had done a really strenuous effort up until the middle of it. Instilling the impression that “My, so maybe the Baby Princess isn’t a bad person and is surprisingly smart when she talks?” was quite a success. The signs that I could make them deem me as worthy of standing by Lord Damian’s side were becoming visible. However, the very moment that Her Highness, the King’s young her sister, appeared in the tea party, everything I had set up crumbled down at once.

She was pretty late from the scheduled time – rather, she suddenly showed up when it was already ending.

Although she was close to me in age, she had a very adult appearance and was an awfully beautiful person. Renowned as one of Fluegel’s talented women, she was also involved with the National Assembly, and told us that she had rushed over because the meeting had ended just now. I had not yet been allowed to attend the meetings even though I was the queen, so I was terribly jealous... and a little miserable.

Of course, whatever had been discussed there became the topic, which Her Highness told the women present, explaining in a simplified manner. What a wonderful person she was.

Regardless, it felt like this was going to end as Her Highness’s tea party, even though it was mine. Well, that was okay too. Rather, it might be easier if there was someone to take the initiative to talk like this. I had a bug where I couldn’t speak very well to people whom I wasn’t close to, so I decided to leave it to her.

Despite this being a tea party, I hadn’t eaten anything, so I had the feeling that I would get hungry in the evening. I wondered what we would have for dinner.

Just like that, half of my soul disappeared somewhere else, so I didn’t notice that the subject had changed from state affairs to the next successor to the throne.

“Queen, are you listening? If things continue the way they are, there will be no helping it if a concubine is appointed.”

Since I hadn’t noticed it, I couldn’t react right away, even as I took the tremendous brutality of those words to the face. This had happened just a moment ago, so I didn’t remember very well what kind of reaction I’d had. I had the feeling that I had responded with a somewhat sluggish reply such as “aah” or “eeh”... much like the way that living creatures cried for the first time upon being born.

I could immediately tell that Her Highness wasn’t satisfied with my answer.

“It is because you are so laidback like this that the King has to fight the national affairs alone. You still intend to be here as a guest, not doing what you have to do, so everyone has to hold back and nobody can speak up their opinions. Talk more. Be more useful to the country. Most important of all, it has already been a year, yet nothing has been reported to us. Are you seriously discussing the succession with the King? If this goes on, someone will suggest a concubine for him.”

With such words thrown at me in sequence, I—I had... I had a thought. That perhaps she was trying to make me lose heart. Wasn’t I being attacked right now?

I looked around. Nobody attempted to open their mouths in order to defend me. There was no one. I had no one.

All of them were waiting for my reaction.

I knew this situation. I knew it very well. I wasn’t being treated as a person at the moment. My personality was being denied as well. The dignity that should be granted to the human being named Charlotte wasn’t being taken into account.

However, I didn’t break. Why?

Because I was used to being neglected.

“Yes, I am truly doing a poor job. I believe it is as you say.”

I was smiling.

“However, it has not yet been decided what will be my part of the work and what will be the King’s, as we are in the process of deciding on it as a couple.”

I was smiling mockingly.

“Now that I have talked to all of you like this, I have concluded I should propose my thoughts to the parliament slowly, little by little.”

I was... smiling.

“I was the princess of my country. But now, I am the queen of Fluegel. I did not intend to be here in the position of guest, but it is true that I was restraining myself. But is that not the same for all of you? I am aware. Everyone has been... well, surrounding me from a distance and looking after me. I was fretting, as it would have been better for you to tell me more directly if there was anything wrong... By all means, I would like to have a frank exchange of opinions with you in the future... and I hope that we can help each other... as fellow women.”

This was laughable.

Her Highness was appalled. So was everyone else. She must have spoken so conflictingly due to thinking that it was sure to make me start crying.

I wanted her to stop saying such stupid things. I was the former third princess of Drossel. Did she know what kind of country that was? It was a country where it was okay for women to become political tools. We were by no means granted the position to act freely like she did. As the shadows so-called “women”, we had no choice but earnestly do whatever we could.

I was born in a country were women were consumed and worn down. To top it off, I had been raised mostly by courtiers, away from my biological parents. I hadn’t seen my mother in forever.

Exhausted as a result of her marriage of convenience, Mother had Father build her a palace and secluded herself in it all day long every day. She did show up at the wedding ceremony, but she hadn’t even sent me a single letter after I had married off. She had probably already forgotten that she had given birth to me.

But that was the country I had been born in. I had been raised by one of this country’s strong women – a carefully selected, tough woman. This person patiently educated me, even though my aptitude wasn’t good. She explained things to me over and over again. She scolded me a lot. She taught me so that I would be able to marry anyone and live anywhere. She had also predicted that a situation like this might happen. So she told me how to act during a quarrel with other women.

That was why I smiled at times like these.

My looks weren’t bad. I was no idiot. I knew what effects I would bring about if I smiled. There was little that I could do, but I was going to be the one firing the best shot here.

I was a crybaby. I was a weakling. I was lonely.

However, I had been taught well. No matter what, I couldn’t lose in times like these. I knew that much.

I had been protected through the erasure of my personality.

   That day’s tea party was over right then, and thanks to the chamberlain saying that it would soon be time to bring it to a close, it ended well.

At a later date, my feud or whatever with Her Highness would become a rumor around the royal palace, but that was a story of the future. In any case, it was over for now. Therefore, I was extremely relieved.

The chamberlain let me return to my room unusually early and consoled me with a “you must be tired”. “You were excellent today,” he told me. Enveloping my shaky palms in his hands, which had wrinkles just like Alberta’s, he warmed them up. “No matter what happens, do not forget that you have one ally,” he said.

From that, I understood a little something. That he, indeed, worried about me in his own way. I wasn’t fond of his way of doing things, but he had struggled as much as he could in order to do something to improve my position.

He had seen what I had gone through today, so he was commending my brave fight. I had been subjected to violence today. I had been told such terrible things. Even though I—I...

I was in love with Lord Damian.

Both Drossel and Fluegel were aware of this. The citizens of both kingdoms knew it. And yet, aah, how embarrassing. But everyone knew.

I was in love with that person. I was in love.

“You have not sired a child after a year, so there might be need for a concubine. Therefore, if such a woman appears, you should accept it,” she said, despite knowing how much it would hurt me.

I was told off. I was told off by the younger sister of the object of my affections. That was what she said to me.

“Thank you, but please, let me be alone.”

I still managed to keep my smile up, but as soon as I drove the chamberlain out of the room, the tears overflowed torrentially and I couldn’t stop them.

There should be things more painful than that out there in the world. I looked like a fool for crying because of something like this. But right now, I was feeling like the most pitiful person in the world. I wanted to return to Drossel. I wanted to go home to Drossel.

No, that wasn’t it. No, that wasn’t it. No, that wasn’t it.

I wanted to go back to the person who would always allowed me to cry, no matter how much I did so. The person who would stay by my side.

“Alberta...”

I wanted to go back to Alberta.

I knew it was stupid of me. But when I thought that a day might come when Lord Damian, my husband – the object of my affections –, would take another woman aside from me, it was so painful. My chest hurt – it hurt so much that it was hard to breathe. So I couldn’t contain my cries.

I wondered what had gone wrong.

Was it because I had started clamming up, since the chamberlain would always hammer me down by saying, “That kind of unheard-of behavior is not allowed here”, so I couldn’t speak the way I wanted to? Or was it because I was late to find out that not assertively addressing the royal family was bad manners, since I was in a position where I had to wait for people to talk to me first back in Drossel?

Perhaps it was everything.

Apparently, Fluegel hadn’t taken in a princess from abroad in the last sixty years, so maybe it was already difficult for them to accept a foreign object like me in the first place. Things would probably have been different if I were a great woman – yes, a woman like Her Highness –, yet I had nothing but tears. Still, was I such a horrible person that I had to be told such things?

Aah, nothing – just nothing. Nothing was working out. It might be that nothing would go well from now on too.

This thought swiftly made its way into my heart.

All of a sudden, I was able to clearly hear the sounds around me. The noises of someone walking, the whistling of the wind outside, my own breathing. The way that the tears fell down as they dripped from my eyelashes, the way that I was suddenly looking at myself in a holistic manner.

Yes, perhaps things would never work out from now onward. If so, then...

Then, shouldn’t I run away?

Several questions – such as to where, with whom and to do what – came to me, but I ignored them. I had probably broken down at that point.

I dropped my own heart, which I had been cherishing as much as possible in order for it not to break, onto my feet. I had the feeling that I heard a clank when doing so.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

If so, then no matter how much I exerted myself, it would be useless.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

I had to run off to somewhere.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

Nobody was going to protect me.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

After all, this was a foreign country and Alberta wasn’t here. The only one who could protect me was...

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

The only one who could protect me was myself.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

I had to run away.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

I had to run.

——Maybe nothing would ever go well in the future.

If I stayed here like this, I... I might seriously jump off the window.

Once I thought this, I somehow felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore. When I came to my senses, I had left the room.

The courtiers were busy cleaning up the tea party in the garden. The chamberlain had also gone outside in order to instruct them. If I came out of the room without making any sounds, nobody would chase after me right away. When I went into the corridor, there was a soldier, but he was only meant to see whoever entered and exited the place and wouldn’t follow me since he wasn’t my bodyguard.

If it was now, perhaps no one would notice if I disappeared – if I happened to vanish. Once I thought this, I could no longer think of anything else.

Before I realized, my hands and feet had moved. I slowly moved my whole body and left that place behind.

I continued down the stairs and trotted through a passage that relatively few people used. Even then, I did pass by some people, but they didn’t seem to pay any mind to me. To begin with, they might not even have the conceptualization that the queen was running through the halls alone.

It wasn’t like I wanted someone to call for me. However, no one did. No one tried to stop me.

Which was why I was now hiding. I was in a corner of a maze of roses in the royal palace of this forest kingdom.

I looked up at the sky. It was overcast. The air was a little heavy, so there was a chance of rain.

Was anyone looking for me by now? No, they might not have noticed. I could bet a hundred of Drossel’s white camellias that they hadn’t. “That wouldn’t be a bet,” someone said from within my mind.

——What will happen to me if I just stay here like this?

I tried to think calmly. Firstly, I would get hungry. My body would get bitten by insects. The sky was looking shady, so rain might come pouring down on me. I would get a fever from the cold, and then... and then... and then...

The power of my imagination was scarce, so the scenario ended there.

Stretching out my dress’s sleeves and removing my long gloves, I plucked the grass with a bare hand. Picking up some rose petals that had fallen to the ground, I threw them into the air even though they would not fly too far. I looked almost like a child trying to contain her bad mood. Most likely, if anyone saw me, they would wonder what on earth the queen of Fluegel was doing.

Why had I grown up to be like this? All I ever did was think big of small matters and be in a state of chaos.

This wasn’t the married life I had envisioned. I did think there would be hardships, but – how should I put it? – I thought they would be rather different. I thought they would be something easier to grasp.

I honestly didn’t know what I was fighting against. Her Highness probably hated my guts, but if I were asked whether she was my enemy, I would say she wasn’t, and I wasn’t mistaken about that. I did think she was cruel, though.

What was I fighting against? What was I scared of? I kept on being intimidated by vague things that I didn’t understand very well and shutting off my typical behavior, and while I was so frightened, my evaluation from the people around me declined, thus I had come to the point of fleeing.

What was I fighting against? Why was I fighting? Why was I...

Why?

Why was I all by myself right now?

   After that, I cried myself to exhaustion and fell asleep. Perhaps it was an extremely deep sleep, as I didn’t wake up even when night fell. Nobody realized that I was gone, so there was no ruckus over it.

Therefore, I was able to stay asleep forever.

While sleeping, I had a dream. I dreamed with the people of Drossel. Also, Violet – she appeared in it too. My favorite girl.

She looked at me as I cried and said, just like before, “You are such a crybaby.” She also said, “I would like to cease your tears, but I do not have a handkerchief with me.”

I told her that I didn’t need one and hugged her, asking her to stay by my side instead.

I realized that, while I was crying on Violet’s chest, she had turned into Alberta. When I thought, “It’s Alberta”, the tears overflowed even harder.

I appealed to Alberta. No matter what I said, no one listened to it seriously. No matter what I said, people would make faces, as if poking fun at me. No matter what I said, my situation never improved. No matter who I looked at, nobody would help me. No matter who I looked at, nobody was my ally. No matter where I searched, you wouldn’t be there. No matter where I searched, you wouldn’t be there. No matter where I searched, you... you... you...

“It’s because you’re not here, Alberta, that I’m so very weak.”

Even a crybaby like me would be able to act high and mighty if you were there. I would’ve been able to maintain my dignity as a princess. But now I was everyone’s bootlicker. This wasn’t me.

That was why my heart broke and, yes, I dropped it on the floor.

“Alberta, did you not see my heart somewhere around here? I need it... I need it...”

If I didn’t have it with me, Lord Damian would—

   “Were you waiting for me to search for you?” a husky voice whispered.

That was when I woke up.

Just like that one time, the Full Moon was looming over the night sky. The stars and moon were so beautiful in the blooming season of roses.

In a dreamy state of mind, I blinked. The tears spilled again. When my husband saw me weeping, he embraced me as if to hide me from the night sky.

“I will report to the soldiers that she has been found.”

“I don’t want any fuss. Leave us for a while.”

When I heard the voice of the chamberlain as well, my consciousness finally returned to reality. He had said “soldiers”. This might have turned into a big deal. But right now, I didn’t think it would be too scary even if my heart were destroyed. “Is that so,” was all I thought.

This marriage might really be done for now.

Once Lord Damian shooed him, he put his coat over me and crouched down. He gripped my hand, guiding me and carrying me in bridal style.

“This makes me look like a child.”

“No. You’re my wife, aren’t you? And a princess.”

There wasn’t anything else I wanted to do, so I just nodded and did as I was told.

The two of us went through the maze of roses. There was probably someone watching over us. The light of a lantern swayed in the distance as a guide.

“Do you want to divorce from me?” Lord Damian muttered out of the blue with a quivering voice, leaving me in shock. I didn’t understand very well what he was saying.

“Lord Damian, if you want to do so...”

“That’s not it, Charlotte. I don’t want to break up with you... but I was wondering... if you might be thinking of doing that, right now...”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“Ralph, the chamberlain... has been telling me all this time. That if I were to take the hand of a princess from another country for the first time in sixty years, there would definitely be criticism. He told me to make sure to protect you when the time came.”

What was he saying?

“At first, I thought I was nailing it. I stayed by your side, so that no one could even try to say anything inappropriate to you...”

What was he... saying?

“But then I had to succeed the throne... there were tons of responsibilities stacked up in front of me, and I started looking only at those stacks... I didn’t even realize that you were in such a painful spot. It’s not your fault. I’m the one who isn’t ruling the country right, and for some reason, that’s being taken out on you. Stupid, isn’t it? It’s ridiculous. Everyone thinks it’s okay to do this to you just because you’re an outsider.”

——You’re not the one to blame. I’m aware of my own defects too.

“I also heard about what happened today. It seems you acted dauntless, even though my sister said something truly foolish to you...”

——You’re not the one to blame. Lord Damian. I know it. I know that you look sour every night when you sleep. You’re doing your very best. You’re doing your best every day – every single day. I know that. You may be ten years older than me, but you’re also...

“I’m... I’m pathetic. It’s fine if you complain. Yet you haven’t uttered a single grumble to me until now. Not to Ralph, either. We basked in the fact that you were holding back and nobody took notice of it. And so, we cornered you. Until you ran away, just like that.”

——You’re also still so young.

“I’m... pathetic... I cornered my own wife...”

——So lost, so scared.

“...to the point that she ran away... barefoot.”

——And shaking.

“Charlotte, have you come to hate me already?”

——Aah, Lord Damian. So you cry too, huh. For some reason, I used to think that you didn’t shed tears. I wonder why. You were a moonlit prince for me, so I thought you didn’t cry. But I see. That’s right, even you...

“I like you. I want to stop your tears.”

——Even you have a crybaby side.

After Lord Damian had said so, I realized for the first time that I was barefoot. I had the feeling that I was wearing shoes when I left the room – I wondered what had happened. He told me that someone had looked for and retrieved them. For how long had they been searching for me? If it was enough to make this man cry, then they must have searched everywhere.

Needless to say, I was such a handful of a woman. However, my heart, which had broken apart and scattered away, began setting itself in motion little by little. I could feel it regaining its warmth.

The reason might be that, for the first time ever since I had married him, we had now finally become a couple.

He asked me if I had anything that I wanted to do or that I wanted him to do. I told him that I wanted to see Alberta. He told me that he understood. He then asked if there was anything else, and so, I told him something that everyone had laughed at. We were had gone through a lot to be married, so I wanted to do something for both of our countries. I proposed that we build an orphanage near the national borders. Lord Damian didn’t laugh. He told me it would be great.

“Let’s think things out together. I regret not talking about this before because I thought it might be a burden to you. From now on, let’s have proper talks, the two of us. About happy things, sad things, painful things. I want you to talk to me. And I also want you to listen to me,” he said. He then kept on asking if there was anything else...

Lastly, I asked him to lock me up in the palace if he ever found himself a concubine. He got angry, saying he would never have one. We couldn’t be sure. It seemed we had no knack for child making. A concubine might be necessary. Lord Damian said that even then, he didn’t want one.

And then... And then... And then... What was it again?

I buried my face into Lord Damian’s neck. It had his scent, which always made my heart race whenever I sensed it.

“Hey, maybe I want to kiss you right now. My face is a mess because I cried a lot, though. Would you do it even with a wife like this?” I asked.

Lord Damian laughed while crying. “Even if you cry, you’re my lovely wife. Of course I’d do it.”

Overjoyed at these words, I shed warm tears.

When we kissed, as expected, it was a bit salty. My heart throbbed.

“I’m still in love with you, but what about you?” I asked, making sure to sound as if any answer would be fine.

Unsurprisingly, Lord Damian continued making a tearful face. “I actually only fell for you after we got married. So my heart’s beating really fast right now.”

“I see. So our feelings are mutual. That’s amazing,” I said, impressed.

“Then, what did you think it was until now?” he asked.

“A one-sided love,” I answered sincerely.

“Don’t you hear when I tell you that I love you every morning before I leave our room?”

“I do, but I thought it was some sort of flattery...”

“I’m not such a pro at that. When I like something, all I can say is that I like it. I’m very honest. You found that out on your tenth birthday, right?”

“How nostalgic... I’ve been in love with you all this time since then.”

I was living the aftermath of that story. I didn’t know whether it was a happy or sad one. But I would live, live and live. And this would probably go on forever. I was on my own in this royal palace.

But I wasn’t all alone.

“Damian, do you love me?”

“I do, Charlotte.”

I was living here, in this forest kingdom.

[trashyslashers]

Hello C: may i ask for a matchup with dbd survivors? Imma put the info here,

I use she/her pronouns and i’m bisexual.

I have long black hair with bangs, i’m 5’2, I’m very feminine, I tend to wear a girly style(like long skirts, cardigans, loafers, hairbands, jewelry, etc).

🫶🏼I am an ISFJ 9w1, I have an Aqua moon/sun and virgo rising, I am a true neutral, My love language is touch and quality time, I like to tease close friends, I have been described as shy,friendly, understanding, accepting, kind hearted, open minded, self sacrificing, and supportive, People have also said that i give out a very chill and comforting aura. Ppl tend to vent to me easily (which i don’t mind!!). Some of my flaws are that i have pretty bad trust issues, socially awkward yet social(it’s literally the worst), slow, paranoid, a bit sensitive, VERY snappy when mad and forgetful. Idk if it helps but here are some of my kins, Aimee Gibbs, Sayori, perfuma, Tanjiro Kamado, Lain, Rory gilmore, Nana komatsu, Mindy meeks, elle woods, rarity, Kaworu Nagisa, and Tahani Al Jamil!! :)

🫶🏼My hobbies are making outfits, reading, ceramics, journaling, and shopping. My interests are HORROR, perfumes, fashion, and psychology! Some facts about me is that I babysit! I major in psychology and plan to work in child development, and i would love to have a job as a florist as well! I LOVE music, like i literally can’t live with out it lol.

that’s it! sorry if i put too much info, i tend to go a bit overboard on these. thank you and have a nice day(remember to take breaks!!)<3

Claudette would be a good match for you!

Honestly? You remind me quite a bit of Claudette! Both of you are kind, sensitive, open-minded, and supportive, to name a few.

If you met in the Fog, she would really appreciate having someone with a calming, relaxing aura; while Claudette isn't as anxious as some of the other Survivors, she tends to be the one many go to for advice, remedies, etc. While I'm not saying she'd go to you like that, necessarily, having someone around who can help her relax is a very welcome change.

However, if you do lend an ear to her when she needs to vent, she'll appreciate it more than you may know. She is incredibly used to not really getting the chance to share what's on her mind, her troubles, or her anxieties as usually she doesn't have someone to do so with, or the time isn't appropriate. You providing her with a space (bonus points if you're very reassuring and supportive with words, too) means the world to her.

More than happy to indulge you in both of your love languages: while she's not huge on PDA, hand holding, head-on-shoulder relaxing, and the occasional head-in-lap nap are some of her favorite ways to touch and be close to you. Doesn't matter who's resting on who - she just loves being physical with you in such a tender manner, especially if you two have time to yourselves.

Claude is a very patient, understanding person. She understands that you have trust issues and tend to be anxious and a bit paranoid, and is more than willing to let you take your time to warm up to things. She has pretty thick skin, to a degree - while she can get a bit flustered if someone snaps at her or is particularly rude, it, more often than not, rolls right off her back, and this extends to you (especially if she knows you're struggling at the time).

Thinks your interest in regards to working in childcare is sweet, and loves that you like flowers enough to want to be a florist!

[lvnatiq]

Random Relationship Headcanons | Felix Escellun x gn!reader

a/n: Hey ! On todays menu I am serving you modern au relationship headcanons. I know for a fact that I can’t write headcanons AT ALL yet here we are, out of spite I will keep trying until I can manage to write good shit. I’m going through a chaotic time in my life so please be patient with me 😭

I’m currently working on tattoo artist! reader x Felix headcanons and college!enemies to lovers one-shot. Knowing that Felix’s fav trope is enemies to lovers, I will post it hopefully before his new chapter drops. I used most of the hcs that were sent to me but if you couldn’t see yours, then it will probably be used on the other works.

No beta we die like men.

warnings: curse words, nsfw under the cut, random sage moments, felix being a ‘the neighborhood’ song basically.

You persuade him to start an Instagram account, and because of his family's popularity, he quickly gains followers. His account is practically empty because he would rather spend his time stalking your account on Instagram. You noticed the emptiness and wanted to take him out and take some photos for his account, which turned out amazingly. He is a little camera shy, so be patient with him.

You like to watch him apply his eyeliner but he finds it so stressing to do under your gaze.  He used to be able to do it easily, but it has now become one of his most difficult tasks. You wanted to ask for his assistance in applying eyeliner to you in the hopes of making it simpler for him; he agreed but quickly regretted it when he realized how near your faces would be. You with your eyes closed, waiting for him to drag the line as he was only thinking about how bad he wanted to kiss you. 

Felix has a Polaroid of you and stella in his wallet I said what I said.

When it comes to himself, he can be a pessimist, but when it comes to you, he is the most loving and positive boyfriend you could ever ask for. You have a dream ? He is ready to help you achieve it. Do you want to change in your life ? Go for it, He’s more excited than you are.

He can be quite insecure at times when it comes to your relationship because he feels like you deserve the world but the world is too big for his tiny hands. Will his cuddles be enough ? God he hopes so.

He almost cried when you told him you loved him for the first time. He's also baffled as to how you might feel the same way about him.

Drunk Felix is really clingy and honest. Whatever he can’t say sober drunk felix can and definitely will.

“May the stars let my death be between your glorious thighs amen-“ “Felix-”

Felix is weird but it add to his charm. It’s not unusual for you to wake up in the middle of the night and find the pillow besides yours empty. In the dead of night, you will find Felix munching on some weird ass food combinations.

He also has a habit of doing things that are extremely adorable without even noticing it. Like walking around the house in his oversized shirts, his hand clutching at the cuffs whilst the other one sheepishly rubs his eye.

“Can I lay on your lap ? I promise I won’t fall asleep. I just need to rest for a little.” His voice is so soft and hushed. “Of course, come here.” He throws himself onto you as he comes hopping on his tip toes.

He falls asleep on his desk too often, so you have to carry him back to his room, where he snuggles against you while you lead him there. Once he's in his room, he insists that you stay with him, so you wait until he falls asleep as you play with his hair, and he wakes up thinking it was all a dream.

I firmly believe that Felix’s love language is acts of service. Like making you coffee and bringing you random snacks as you work or wrapping you up in fluffy blankets whenever he catches you slacking on the couch.

He's been romanticizing anything and everything since he met you. When he sees beautiful flowers, he wants to bring them to you, but he also believes that their beauty stems from the fact that they are alive, so he argues and stresses a lot when deciding what to do in simple situations like these.

His edginess belongs to his impulsiveness and his style only at any other situation he's a complete softboy.

And I'm certain he knows a variety of card tricks. He enjoys showing off, and he enjoys it even more when you become fascinated and beg him to share the trick.

If you're a morning person, you'll probably spend your mornings alone in solitude, finishing work before the day begins, but if you're a night owl, you and Felix will go out for night walks and Felix would go out for night walks, sharing headphones to play some music, enjoy each others presence and develop a habit of watching the sunrise together.

Felix makes you playlists at the most random times and with the most random names. Until one day he sent you a playlist at around 4 a.m called “you”, filled with his favorite music. He usually sees music as a safe space for himself and now that you are his safe place too it’s only appropriate for him to do so. This only further proves how he spends his time thinking about you.

I feel like Felix would have what most would call "attachment issues" but it’s mainly because of his protective tendencies. This is not to say that he’s this "overly jealous toxic" character; rather, he has never had anyone to truly call his own in his entire life so he would do anything to protect it.

Felix is also big on astrology, so if you want the perfect birth chart, he'll give it to you. Also he owns a lovely deck of tarot cards, and if you ask him for a love reading, he can't manage to keep his words and feelings to himself so he modifies your reading according to him and his desires. Let the boy abuse his powers for the sake of love.

His style could be described as dark academia, his wardrobe mainly consists of dark colors, lots and lots of blazers and a lot of oversized shirts. He also loves jewelry so he owns a lot of rings and chains. Just so you know, if you're wearing any of his rings, his heart is doing cartwheels.

Is it obvious that he loves it when you place your hand in his and play with his rings with your fingertips.

Spoil him. Buy him that baby blue hoodie with cat ears.

“Ah, you look adorable.” “Isn’t it a bit too b-big ?” “You could say that. Do you mind ?” “No, I like it that way.” “I would know.” You smirk followed by felix’s gasp. “If you so desperately wanted a cat boy you know you have me right ?” Nudging your shoulder, Sage leapt into the conversation. “What is he talking about ?”  Felix grumbled, only to notice two fuzzy triangular fabrics on top of his head as he brushed his fingertips over it.

He’s obsessed with your hands, kissing your knuckles, drawing circles in your palm. At a certain point it became an involuntary gesture he does it quite often without realizing.

He’s also canonically extremely blushy but he would never admit it. You’re convinced he uses some sort of make up because it is not possible for the pink dusting his cheeks to look this good.

He insists that you’re cold even in the warmest weathers because he wants to see you in his coat.

Sage forces Felix to take his thirst trap Tiktoks.

He really appreciates it when you add to his herbal tea collection without him noticing and he considers it a sign of affection because he takes his tea very seriously.

He loses it when you call him baby he gets flustered and frustrated but it’s all because it rolls off of your tongue so nicely that he can’t get enough of it.

Felix owns a broad collection of scented lip balms some of them are tinted. You didn’t hear this from me.

He never once took anything the Sage says seriously until he saw how well you two got along. He never thought that he would be standing there taking relationship and flirting advice from the frat boy.

Felix is a complete asshole when he wants to. He’s very verbal about it too. Consistent sarcastic remarks and eye rolls. I mean it runs in his blood, look at Escell.

You love it when he suddenly whips out the confident Felix, it’s not a daily occurrence you know.

When Felix is concentrated, he’s lost and there’s almost no way you or anything else can distract him. So it’s time to grab some colorful hair clips and ties to fuck around with his hair.

Felix is not the best at verbally expressing his gratitude towards you. He doesn’t know what he would do if you weren’t there for him at the lowest points of his life where normally he would close himself and bare the weight of his family problems and personal life issues that he can’t seem to get out of. Now he has you, someone who’s willing to listen to him and offer him a warm embrace when he needs the most. 

While you to play games together, when he wins he wears that iconic shit eating grin of his with pride looking at you through the corner of his eye. “Shit, what do you want me to say to that felix ? Perhaps I should call you master now that you won ‘one’ fucking round.” He is praying that the screen light is covering the fact that he is a blushy mess after hearing you say that.

NSFW

I cannot stress this enough but he is extremely vocal in bed. Whining, trying to restrict himself from making too much noise but failing miserably.

Muffled pants, choked sobs and lots of pleasure infused tears.

He loves getting praised during sex but what he loves more is to get praised after it’s all over. Like you telling him how great he was, how well he behaved, how good he made you feel. He experiences sub drops a lot so please assure him that he did well :(

He’s into power-play but not in a submissive or dominant kind of relationship, it’s more of a psychological thing where the fact that he can see how good he makes you feel gives him a rush of confidence and adrenaline.

I believe that this motherfucker is a masochist, pain makes him more excited than getting an update on his favorite author who went on a year long hiatus and that is saying a lot.

Bite him. Scratch him. It is so stimulating for him he can reach his high just from those actions.

Fuck do anything to his ears bite, lick, pull, blow on it. He is extremely sensitive so anything you do will basically drive him out of his mind. It will most definitely lead to him trembling beneath your fingertips.

You must think that you are the only one who is such a tease but you’re wrong. Felix teases you quite often mostly to direct your attention towards him or to keep your attention on him. He’s quite greedy when it comes to you and your hands on his body. Unbuttoning unnecessary amount of buttons on his shirt to show a little skin that he knows you’ll notice. Playing with his necklace placing the chain between his lips dragging it towards the inside of his bottom lip teasing the metallic charm with the tip of his tongue. He definitely ain’t oblivious he knows exactly what he’s doing and he makes sure that you know exactly what he’s doing.

When he’s in the mood he will tug the hem of your top meanwhile his eyes are glued to the floor or graze the temples of his glasses between his lips, his teeth lightly nibbling the pointy edge. He loves to play dumb too. When you question him, he acts like he doesn’t intend anything and that you need to get your head out of the gutter.

At the end of the session Felix looks divine. Drool leaking down from his bottom lip to his jaw line towards his neck, his bangs sticking on his sweat coated forehead, his chest rising up and down quickly. His eyes rolled at the back of his head, his hands still clutching tightly to the sheets. Faint whimpers and deep breaths filling the air.

Leading up to the after care, his shy self returns. He buries his face to your chest hiding his blushy cheeks beneath the palms of his hands.

He likes to experiment a lot and you are his favorite subject.

It shouldn’t be surprising to find random kink definitions or role-play ideas on the search history of your laptop. After all Felix just asked for it to write an email, that’s all there is to it. That’s until you offer to try them out.

He doesn’t act upon his jealousy, what he does instead is that leaving marks on you especially around your neck and your chest where he knows it will show. Don’t cover them up if you don’t wanna deal with him.

“People just don’t appreciate art anymore.” “Felix these are, hickeys.” “Oh so now you are judging my art medium ?” “Since when proving Sage that I got railed by you is a form of art ?”

I didn’t see anyone point this out but whenever he is in the sub space he tends to be more on the bratty side. He starts of shy but his confidence builds up as the tension rises. Meaning that you should be ready to get your patience tested.

When you two are in separate places your suggestive words and tone leads up to phone sex, which Felix secretly fantasized about a lot. What made everything even more dirty was the fact that you didn’t know that he was laying on your bed surrounded by your scent and humping your pillow. Once you come back home you are greeted with a fresh pair of sheets on your bed. Apparently Felix decided to do you a favor and clean your room as well as the the whole house. He’s crossing fingers that you don’t notice because he knows that he’ll never hear the end of it.

Felix knows a lot about sex but his knowledge is based upon fiction rather than experience. So, naturally, he is more interested about learning specifically how your body responds to certain actions, what you enjoy and what you’re interested in so teach him. He’s a good student and oh well he’s a quick learner.

Pull his hair pull his hair put his hair pull his hair pull his hair pull his hair pull his hair pull his hair.

When he settles between your legs as he ties his hair, he places the hairband between his lips and looks up at you with half lidded eyes. It’s his definition of torture.

Even though he doesn’t give off that vibe, he is very freaky if you would’ve known what his AO3 tags consisted of you would agree.

Tag list is open

[waitimcomingtoo]

I knew it. I knew tumblr glitched again. Here it is when you have a chance. Teacher!tom has an unruly elementary class to put up with but things change when the new music teacher shows up. Eventually feelings develop between the two and only their students are willing to do something about it.

Here Comes The Sun

pairing: teacher!Tom Holland x Reader

Masterlist

“Jeremiah. Please. If I have to ask you to stop drinking the Elmers glue one more time, I’m gonna have to send you to the principle.”

“It tastes like white!” Jeremiah cheered before squeezing the bottle into his mouth again. All around him, Toms students were screaming and making trouble. His class was known to be unruly, and this day proved to be worst than most. Before Tom could take another step towards just one of his many misbehaving students, a woman he had never seen before slipped into the classroom and knelt down beside Jeremiah.

“Woah there. We don’t want to drink that, my friend.” You chuckled as you took the bottle of glue from him. “It’s not good for our tummy. Why don’t you try milk instead?”

“I’m black toast and taller ants.” Jeremiah told you.

“You’re lactose intolerant?” You connected the dots. “Tell you what, you come find me at lunch time later and I’ll give you a lollipop. Do you like lollipops?”

“Yes.” He nodded eagerly.

“Cool. Can you tell me your name so I know who to give it to?”

“This is Jeremiah.” Tom appeared behind his student and patted his back. “He does this a lot.”

“I had a feeling.” You laughed as you stood up. “I’m Miss. L/n.”

“Mr. Holland.” Tom reached out to shake your hand. “Nice to meet you. Jeremiah, why don’t you go sit down for some quiet time, okay?”

“I’m Y/n.” You said as soon as he left.

“Tom.” Tom laughed. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“I’m the new music teacher.” You told him. “I’ve been making my rounds and introducing myself to the other teachers. Your kids are still a little young for music so that’s why you haven’t seen me.”

“Oh. That’s a shame.” Tom pursed his lips. Of course the gorgeous new teacher who could magically tame his kids wasn’t on his floor. He knew he’d barely see you, and he really wanted to see you.

“Is it?” You smiled coyly.

Just then, a scream ripped through the classroom. No one was hurt, they just wanted to scream.

“For the kids, I mean.” He covered up his accidental flirtatious remark. “We could all use a little music in our lives.”

“I completely agree. It calms the kids right down. It’s like magic.”

“I could definitely use some magic.” Tom laughed over the noise.

“When I play In My Life, they get so quiet, you’d think they were asleep.” You told him your secret.

“I love that song.” He smiled softly at you. “I love Here Comes the Sun too.”

“Me too!” You gushed. “My favorite is I Wanna Hold Your Hand though.”

“I like it too. I have a feeling we’ll get along.”

“Mr. Holland, you may be my first friend here.” You smiled shyly at him. “I’ll see you around.”

Tom watched as you left with a happy smile on his face.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Amanda asked, making Tom jump a little. He looked at her and then out at the class, who was suspiciously quiet. They were all staring eagerly at Tom.

“No. That’s the new music teacher.” He said skeptically as he made his way to the front of the class.

“She’s pretty.” Another student spoke up. All the kids nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, she is.” Tom laughed shyly. “Now, who wants to do some math?”

October

“Hi.” You knocked on Toms doorframe as you walked into his classroom, the same thing you did every day. He sighed in relief at the sight of you and made his way over to you.

“Hey little darling.” He greeted you. “How is your Tuesday treating you?”

“I’m gonna assume it’s treating me better than yours is treating you.” You chuckled as his students screamed and ran around behind him.

“What gave it away?” He asked sarcastically as a paper ball flew over his head.

“I had a hunch.” You played along. “How are you holding up?”

“Not great.” He sighed. “I’m getting a migraine and it’s not even 10 am.”

“Would apple slices make it better?” You presented a bag of apple slices from behind your back.

“They might.” Tok said sheepishly. You held the bag out to him and let him take a few, rubbing his arm to soothe him as he took a bite.

“Thank you. You’re a life saver.” He said with his mouth full.

“I have some Motrin in my bag if you want.” You offered. “It might help with the migraine. And your PMS.”

“Funny.” He narrowed his eyes at you. “Thank you again.”

“No problem. Why don’t you step out for a minute and I’ll look after your class? I’m off this period anyway.” You squeezed his arm to comfort him further.

“Are you sure? They bite.” He grimaced, and you let out a laugh.

“So do I.” You shrugged, making Toms eyes widen.

“That was a joke.” You said quickly. “Take a minute, gather yourself, and then come back. I’ll be here as long as you need.”

“You’re an angel. Thank you so much.” He brought his arms around you and squeezed you.

“I thought I was a little darling.” You chuckled into his ear as you hugged him back.

“A woman can be more than one thing.” Tom teasingly rolled his eyes.

“Very true. See you in a few.” You squeezed his hand. He gave you an appreciative smile before leaving the classroom. You made you way to the front of the class and clapped your hands.

“Hi my friends.” You shouted over the noise. “What have you been learning today?”

The students quieted down at the sight of you and one girl raised her hand.

“Yes, Carly?” You called on her.

“Are you and Mr. Holland dating?” She asked politely. The rest of the students nodded and looked at you, as if they all had the same question.

“No, we are not dating.” You laughed nervously. “Boys have cooties, haven’t you heard?”

“Do you like him?” Another student raised her hand.

“He definitely likes you!” A girl called out.

“Now class, I know it’s fun to speculate, but Mr. Holland and I are not together.” You told them. “You know who is together though? Q and U. They’re married, in fact. That’s why they’re always together in words like quiet and question. Can anyone else give me a “qu-“ word? Yes, Elizabeth.”

“Croissant.” Elizabeth answered.

“So close.” You nodded. “That’s actually a “cra” not a “qua” sound.”

“Not the way Mr. Holland says it.” Another student cut in.

“That’s because he’s from the O.K, Josh. They speak differently.” Elizabeth turned around in her seat and rolled her eyes.

“Oo, very close again.” You tried not to laugh. “Mr. Holland is from the UK.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth turned back around in shame.

“That’s okay.” You assured her. “Everyone makes mistakes. How do you guys feel about Mr. Holland anyway?”

“I love him.” One of the boys raised his hand. “He lets us have snack time. Mr. Osterfield’s class doesn’t do that.”

“I like him too.” Another boy chimed in. “He gave me extra time on my math test when I couldn’t figure out what 9x10 was.”

“Do you know the answer now?” You asked him.

“Uh huh.” He nodded eagerly. “90.”

“Great job.” You clapped for him. “Maybe you’ll be a math teacher one day.”

The boy smiled and shrunk down in his seat, proud of himself for knowing the answer.

“Hello, class.” Tom came back into the room and smiled at you. “Did you all behave for Miss L/n?”

“Yes they did.” You beamed at the class. “What a smart, well behaved class.”

“Are you sure you watched the right class?” Tom said out of the corner of his mouth so only you could here.

“I’m sure.” You chuckled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Holland.”

“See you tomorrow little darling.” He smiled softly at you as you walked out of the classroom. He sighed happily and went to his desk, immediately noticing a packet of apples slices you left for him.

“Mr. Holland! I have a question.” A student calling out caught his attention.

“Yes, Amanda?” He asked.

“Is Miss L/n your girlfriend?” She asked, making Tom go bright red.

“What? No. What? No. What? No.” Tom stammered.

“You like her!” Amanda gasped. “I knew you liked her. I told you Elizabeth. Carly and I were right.”

“Whatever.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes again.

“I have a question.” Tony raised his hand.

“Yes?” Tom asked nervously.

“When are you gonna ask Miss L/n out?” Tony asked, making the class nod.

“This is not appropriate for class time.” Tom laughed nervously as he made his way to the blackboard.

“But you guys are so perfect for each other!” Carly whined. “You need to ask her to be your girlfriend. She’ll totally say yes.”

“You think so?” Tom asked them shook his head when he realized he was asking third graders for relationship advice. “I mean, this is not up for discussion.”

“But you guys belong together.” Amanda gushed.

“She totally likes you.” Jennifer piped up.

“Ask her out already.” Joseph called out.

“Please? I’ve always wanted to go to a wedding.” Kaley said and all the girls agreed.

“Me too. Can I be the flower girl?” Elizabeth raised her hand to ask.

“I wanna be the flower girl.” Carly whined again.

“Her niece Sophie would definitely be the flower girl.” Tom chuckled, then shook his head again. “Not that we’re getting married.”

“Why not?” Candy pouted.

“Because she’s not even my girlfriend.” Tom reminded them.

“So ask her out.” Jason said simply. “She’ll never be your girlfriend unless you ask her out.”

“I think that’s enough of this topic for today.” Tom clapped his hands as he diverged from the topic. “Who wants to do some sentence structure?”

November

“Jason, please stop biting Candy.” Tom begged. “That’s just her name. She is not actually candy.”

His attention was immediately drawn to another student who was misbehaving.

“Elizabeth! Get that out of your mouth! Erasers are not food. I say this everyday.” Tom whined as he made his way over to Elizabeth to take the erasers from her. His eyes drifted to the boys, and he immediately regretted it.

“Oh my God. Joseph, put that back in your pants.” Tom groaned. “Please.”

“Mr. Holland! Mr. Holland!” Eric screamed from across the room. “Watch me floss, Mr. Holland!”

Tom looked at Eric, who was flossing rapidly in the back of the classroom.

“Very nice, Eric.” Tom nodded stiffly.

“Who’s Eric? My name Jeff!” The child quoted the outdated vine, making all his friends laugh.

“Okay.” Tom said weakly.

“Epic chungus moment.” Eric and his friends shifted into a T pose. “Bruh bruh bruh BIG OOF bruh bruh bruh.”

“Okay.” Tom repeated.

“Mr. Holland?” Tom felt someone tap him from behind.

“Yes, Jeremiah?” Tom knelt down beside his student.

“Watch this!” Jeremiah cheered before opening his mouth and squirting Elmer’s glue inside.

“Oh my God. Please. Don’t drink the glue. I’m begging you.” Tom pleaded as he wrestled the glue bottle from his hands.

“But Rachel is.” Jeremiah said with a full mouth.

“Rachel is - - RACHEL.” Tom yelled when he saw another student pouring glue into her mouth.

“No drinking glue.” Tom snatched the bottle from Rachel. “This is not a snack.”

“But I’m hungry.” Jeremiah whined.

“We just had snack time.” Tom reminded him.

“Tony ate my snack.” Jeremiah pouted.

“Why did Tony do that?”

“Because I gave it to him.” Jeremiah said simply and Tom groaned.

“Remember what I said about sharing snack?” Tom said through a forced smile. “We can’t share snacks in case someone has an allergy.”

“But you said sharing is caring.” Rachel spoke up.

“Yes, I did say that.” Tom kept a tight smile. “Sharing is caring unless it comes to snacks. Then we have to keep our snacks to ourselves.”

“But you and Miss L/n share food all the time.” Rachel continued.

“It’s different with Miss L/n and I.” Tom explained. “We’re adults so we can share snacks. She’s not allergic to anything I give her.”

“Do you think she’d like some glue if I shared it with her?” Jeremiah asked.

“Maybe, if she was making an arts and crafts pro-“

“I mean to drink.” He cut Tom off. Before Tom could answer, a scream caught his attention.

“Candy!” He shouted. “Don’t bite Jason!”

He spun around in circles, seeing children misbehaving everywhere he turned. He was getting over whelmed very quickly as just as he was going to succumb to defeat, you opened his classroom door.

“Hi my friends!” You shouted over the noise and held up your guitar. This caught their attention and they all stopped in their tracks, eyed glued to the guitar like bugs to a light.

“Hi Miss L/n.” The class said in unison as they returned to their seats.

“Does anyone here like music?” You asked as you rested your guitar against your chest. You looked at Tom and winked, and he instantly melted. Like Superman, you had burst in the room to save him. The students nodded eagerly and watched your every move.

“You do?” You gasped. “Me too!”

You stood in front of the class and began to strum a simply melody on your guitar.

“Here comes the sun, do do do do.” You sang to them.

The children fell silent as they became enthralled by the music. Tom leaned against his desk with a huge smile, unable to be more in love with you.

“Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here. Sing along, my friends.” You asked of them.

“Here comes the sun do do do do. Here comes the sun and I’ll say.” The children sang along with you.

“What’ll you say?” You asked as you continued playing.

“It’s all right.” They sang in response. You finished out the song, slowly letting the music fade out at the end.

“Thanks for listening my friends.” You spoke softly. “Now, let’s all put our heads down for some quiet time.”

The children listened to you and kid their heads down on their desks, shutting their eyes as well. Tom walked over to you and pulled you into a tight hug.

“Thank you. You are such a gift.” He mumbled in your ear.

“I try.” You laughed as you pulled away. “I learned the song just for you.”

“Did you really?” His eyes widened in appreciation.

“No. I’ve known it for years.” You admitted. “But wouldn’t it be romantic if I did?”

“That’s very romantic.” He agreed. “Has anyone ever done that for you?”

“Unfortunately, I have yet to be serenaded.” You sighed dramatically.

“How rude.” Tom teased, making a mental note of what you were saying.

“I know, right?” You added. “It’s a tragedy.”

“I think my class might be asleep.” He realized as he looked around. “You’re like a child whisperer.”

“I told you. Magic, baby.” You smiled as you held up your guitar.

“Oh, it’s definitely magic.” He noted with a grin.

“Well I should head back down. The recorders won’t play themselves.” You sighed again, a little sadly this time.

“See you later, little darling.” He squeezed your hand.

“See you later.” You waved, your high heels clicking against his floor as you left. Tom let out a content sigh, reveling in the rare silence of the classroom. Jeremiah slowly raised his hand and looked at Tom.

“Mr. Holland?” He whispered.

“Yes Jeremiah?” Tom asked.

“You know what you have to do.” Jeremiah gave him a pointed look. The rest of Toms students looked up with wide open, blinking eyes, all staring at Tom. Tom sighed again, knowing his students were right.

December

You knocked on Toms door the following week, the early December chill in the air. He let out a nervous breath as he opened the door for you, knowing it was finally time to enact his plan.

“Class, we have a special visitor with us.” Tom announced as he let you in. “Can we all give a musical welcome to Miss L/n?”

The class greeted you with excitement and you did the same.

“Hey kids.” You waved. “Good to see you all.”

“Good to see you too.” You turned to Tom and held up a bag. “Pretzel?”

“Thank you.” Tom smiled as he took a pretzel from the bag. “So, um, I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m listening.” You nodded as you munched on a pretzel.

“We always have lunch together, right?” He began.

“That’s right.”

“Would you maybe want to have dinner together one night?” He squeaked, knowing his face was bright red. Behind him, his class was dead silent, all pretending not to listen as they tried to hear every word.

“Ooo.” You raised your eyebrows in surprise. “Like an after school activity?”

“I was thinking this Saturday.” He offered. “I could take you somewhere where they have better food than apple slices and pretzels, though I do love those.”

“You wanna give me your weekends, Mr. Holland?” You asked through a coy smile.

“You know, little darling, I really do.” He smiled back.

“Then it’s a date.” You blushed. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

“All right. Saturday.” He nodded, letting out a nervous laugh.

“Bye now. See you at lunch.” You put your hand on his arm and kissed his cheek before turning to his class.

“Well it was great to see all of you!” You grinned. “I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day.”

You winked at Tom before leaving swiftly, a silence settling in once you were gone.

“Well?” Amanda called out.

“Well what?” Tom asked.

“Did you do it?” Carly was nearly bouncing out of her seat.

“Class, I know you like Miss L/n but our personal relationship is none of your concern.” Tom reminded his students. The class let out a collective groan, and Carly looked like he might cry. They were all dead silent, and it made Tom feel slightly bad.

“Yes, I asked her out.” He admitted and the class erupted into cheers and applause. Tom rolled his eyes as an embarrassed smile tugged at his lips.

Tom walked into his class the following week and was met with an uncharacteristically silent classroom. His set his bag on his desk and looked around, growing more suspicious by the second. All his students were staring at him expectantly, yearning for him to speak.

“You guys are oddly quiet.” Tom commented. “Did Jeremiah eat another book?”

“How was the date?” Carly was the first to speak up, and everyone chimed in. They were leaning on the edges of their seats, impatiently waiting for the answer.

“Did you kiss her?” Tony asked.

“Did you guys hold hands?” Elizabeth sighed.

“What did she wear?” Amanda wondered. “I bet she looked so pretty.”

“Did you take her to your penthouse and freak it?” Jeremiah asked.

“Did I - - what?” Tom looked at his student in confusion.

“Are you guys gonna get married now?” Jennifer called out.

“No, Jennifer.” Tom chuckled. “We’re not getting married now.”

“I hate it here.” Jennifer grumbled as she shrunk down in her seat.

“Okay, we have a lot to get though today so I hope you all had a good nights sleep. If you could all take out your social studies textbooks and turn to page 116 for me.” Tom began to teach. He turned on the Smartboard and turned to his class, seeing them all sluggishly taking out their textbooks with glum expressions. He let out a sigh and rested his hands on his hips.

“You guys aren’t gonna focus unless I tell you about the date, huh?” He realized. His students shook their heads and he chuckled a little.

“The date was amazing. She wore a black dress with white music notes on the waistline. She looked very pretty. We held hands when I was walking to her car and yes, I kissed her.” He answered their questions. The class dissolved into giggles, applause, and commentary.

“All right, I told you. Now, textbooks. I mean it.” He said pointedly, and for once, they complied.

You and Tom continued to date, keeping up with your lunch dates, but engaging in weekend and after school dates as well. Tom students kept an eye out for a ring on your finger as the months went by, asking him almost every week when the wedding was. Come May, he actually had an answer for them.

May

“Class, I have a favor to ask you.” Tom announced to his class on a particularly warm morning. “I am going to ask Miss L/n to marry me.”

His class began to scream, and this time, it was welcomed. Carly started crying while Jennifer and Kaley jumped up and down.

“I know, I know.” Tom grinned. “It’s been a long time coming. That’s why I need your help. If I’m going to pull this off, I’m gonna need all hands on deck. Are you guys in?”

“We’ll do anything.” Carly promised.

“Great.” Tom nodded. “First, I need some ideas.”

“You have to show her how much you love her. You need to make a romantic gesture.” Rachel declared.

“Yes! You have to do something big so she knows how much you care.” Jennifer agreed.

“Get her a dozen roses.” Kaley suggested.

“No, he needs two dozen.” Carly said. “And chocolate.”

“You should get a flock of doves to deliver the ring.” Elizabeth spoke up.

“Or show up on a horse.” Rachel added. While the girls began to discuss, Amanda quietly raised her hand.

“Yes, Amanda?” Tom called on her.

“She’s a music teacher, right?” Amanda asked and the class quieted down to listen.

“Yeah.” Tom nodded.

“So play her some music.” Amanda shrugged.

“What do you mean?” Tom wondered.

“I have an idea.” Amanda grinned.

June

“Hey, Mr. Holland asked that you go to his classroom.” Mr. Osterfield popped into your class to tell you. “He said his students are a nightmare right now.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll be right there.” You hopped off your desk and went to the door. “Thanks.”

You quickly made your way to Toms classroom, knowing how unruly his class could be. You opened the door and stepped inside.

“Mr. Holland, are you ok-“ You stopped mis sentence when you saw Tom sitting on a stool, surrounded by all his students. They were quiet and tame, smiling eagerly at you as you shut the door behind you. The weirdest part, however, was the guitar in Toms hands.

“Whats this?” You asked through a hesitant smile.

“1,2,34.” Carly counted down to cue them in.

“Yeah I’ll tell you something I think you’ll understand.” Tom began to sing as he played along on the guitar. “When I say that something, I wanna hold your hand.”

“I wanna hold your hand. I wanna hold you hand.” His students sang in perfect unison. You covered your mouth with your hands as tears welled up in your eyes.

“I wanna hold your hand. I wanna hold your hand.” His students backed him up. They finished out the song while you stood there is happy shock, hanging on to every note. Tom set the guitar down once he finished and stood up, slowly making his way to you. He took your hands in his and smiled softly.

“You’ve given me your lunch time and weekends. Would you mind giving me the rest of your life too?” Tom asked as he presented you with a delicate diamond ring. Your eyes flickered to the ring and widened before looking back at Tom with a dropped jaw. The anticipation in the classroom was palpable as the students eagerly awaited your answer. All at once, your mouth closed into a smile and you nodded.

“You know,” you laughed as a tear of joy rolled down your cheek, “I really would.”

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[iwhishtomeetinournextlife]

An anonymous love (Part 1)

Summary : Y/N sees Sirius Black running away after a particulary rough letter from his mother. She wants to cheer him up and decide to send him a letter, anymously, she knows how much he hates her house.

Warnings : Slytherin!Reader, female!reader, reader is worried about Sirius, not proof read

Word count : 1.8k

English is not my first language, sorry if there is any mistakes

You're here - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

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Y/N loved receiving letters but even more sending them, she loved including all sorts of little gifts in hers; flowers, drawings, photographs, candies sometimes, she loved it even more now she was a witch,  she started doing experiments with her magic. She learned how to make the drawings moves, charms the flowers so they would reopen as fresh as new, she even found a way for the letter to be read out loud if desire, in a way were it doesn’t fold and destroy itself the ways howlers do, so it could be listen to over and over again, her family especially loved that one.

She wanted to see now if could even include kisses, or even hugs, the feeling of arm wrapping around you to squeeze you tight was one of the best feeling to her and she wanted to be able to send it to anyone, so they could feel it whenever they wanted.

She was able to put the hugs and the kisses on little cards who had to be unfold, it took many mistake, accidents and retry but she was able to do it after some times. It wasn’t as reusable has she had hoped, only three uses who doesn’t last more than five seconds, but she was confident enough to know she will do better in the future.

She had send her last version to her parents a few days ago, one she was the proudest of, and was now waiting for their respond. Making sure everything was perfect was important as the first time she tried to do it the message felt like a dagger stabbing her chest. Thankfully she had no injuries, Mrs Pomfrey assured her there were nothing, the pain stayed a few hours though and she could have kissed the nurse for excusing her from the morning class that day, she would have not been able to work anyway.

Y/N was now waiting at the slytherin table next to the few friends she was able to make among her own house, quietly eating while listening to the crazy story of the friend on her right, laughing joyfully. She turned her head when she saw the owls starting to enter the room, eager to find if she will receives the respond of her parents, she watch as the other student opened their own mail, including the raven-haired boy at the gryffindor table, Sirius Black.

He had catch the eye of Y/N like many others, girls and boys, but she never dared to make a move, she was a slytherin and she knew how much he hated them. She had thought many times to send him an anonymous later but what for ? It would be a lost cost and she rather let the feeling die rather than being hurt. Well, at least she thought her feelings would disappear as time went by but she was incredibly wrong, it only got more intense.

Being in most of his classes was of no help, his cocky behavior, his stunning looks and charming smile. What bugged her the most was how brilliant he was, she never saw him study or even really paid good attention in class but was somehow able to earn good marks. She was a bit jealous of him for that if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t a bad student per say but did have to be focused and study to have good grades. They talked a few times before, mostly him helping her out with classes but he was nothing but nice and patient with her despote the green of her tie.

She fell for him even more when she saw him helping first years travelling the corridors and defending a third year against her bully, the punch was perfectly aimed for Merlin’s sake ! She loved every story he told her, all the pranks, the aventures, the quidditch match. The more she learned about him, the more difficult it was for her to keep her eye away from him.

“You’re drooling again”, Jacob snapped her out of her mind “ ‘m not !” swipping her lips just to be sure, making her friends laugh, she was red of embarassment, so out she hadn’t notice the owl giving her her parent’s letter. She gratefully took it before giving a bit of food to the owl who then flied away. Y/N got interrupt has she was opening the enveloppe.

“C’mon, you cant’ keep looking at him from afar for the rest of school ! Talk to him for once and save us the lover eyes !” said Olivia, “I can’t, you know he hates slytherins” her friend opened her mouth to protest before being cut. “Plus, he is way out of my league, he is like-" Y/N hesited a bit on her words, waving her hand around “- a sun giving life around him and I’m just somekind of, I don’t know, insect in the dirt”. Her friends around all gave a chorus of long sighs, they heard that a million times before, she rolled her eyes “My point is, I will never have the courage to ask him out”.

Before anyone could talk, a loud sound was heard comming from the gryffindor table, followed by the sound of turn up paper. When Y/N looked, she frowned, seeing Sirius almost running out of the room. “Wait mate !” James Potter, his best friend, tried to follow him but Remus Lupin stopped him. Y/N didn’t quite catch what they were saying, something about him needing to be alone.

And alone he stayed, she didn’t see him for the rest of the day, and she learned during the dinner that night it was because of the letter he received from home, it was quite known by most of the people who cared enough to be aware of the disastrous relationship of Sirius and his family, as it wasn’t unusual to see the boy upset because of his mother. Y/N’s blood boiled every time it would happened, how could someone treat their child that way ? Taking their time to write every horrid words just to cause pain ? Using something she loved so much to cause trouble instead as it should be : for the one you loved.

The scene earlier that day worked her up so much, she put her parent’s latter away without reading it, and it is only now in her bed she remembered even having it. She smiled at the curved letters, it was her mother’s handwritting, she very enthousiatly explain how her and her dad loved the hug, that coupled with the speaking spell “It was like you were right here with us !”, well not quite as she precised right after, but it felt nice to feel and hear their daughter after so many weeks apparts. She laughted when her father this time wrote she should find a way to commercial it, as she will become the richest witch of the wizard world. “Sure thing dad” she thought to herself. She carefully fold the paper before putting it in her “letter box”.

Then when she laid down, she couldn’t stop feeling sad for Sirius, he had such terrible parents but deserved so much more. She turned and turned and turned around in her bed, searching for a way to cheer him up and then she stopped, thinking of the letter of her parents and the success of the hug in the message, perhaps, she could send him something ..? She blushed at the idea, what could she says ? “Hey, your parents suck but your butty could send me in outter space”, sure, yeah, what a great idea Y/N.

She sighed, fine, maybe not that harsh but she could try to remind him how much is he loved here and how much of a great person he is. So she sat down in her bed, took a piece of parchment, her ink and her quill, careful to not wake up her roomates as she closed her curtains. She blow air through her mouth for a minute, gathering some courage, and then she start to write, hoping he would like it.

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The next day when she woke up, or more like when it was time to get ready since she didn’t close her eye all night, wanting the message to be perfect : the drawing, an illustration of a dog, a stag, a rat and the moon, remembering the nickname and the jokes the marauders gave and made to eachothers, she charmed it for the little animals to run around the paper, leaving paws or hooves print behind –which disappear after a few step of course-, the curves of the words, the ink, she had opt for her favorite dark purple, the flowers had she picked, some wind-flower and cyclamen, that she carefully stuck to the parchment.

And of course the final touch : a kiss on the forhead. She had thought of a hug but decided it was too much, it could be scary to suddenly feels arms around you. A smol kiss was more appropriate, a bit bold yeah, but more fleeting, less intimidating and still a tender gesture.

When she was happy with the result and check any error in her words she put the message in an envelopt, decorated with stars, showing the cannis constellation, because of Sirius name obviously. And then put it in her bag, careful so her friend would not see it.

Once she was ready and out of her room with her friends, she realised she had no idea on how to give it to him. Surely not by hand, she didn’t put her name anywhere for a reason, maybe slide it into his bag during class ? But she was to scared to be caught.

She didn’t have to worry about it to much, since Sirius wasn’t at the class she shared with him, his friends looked troubled and worried, calmer than usual. Y/N felt a weight setting in her stomach, was the letter that bad he didn’t want to show up today either ? When he wasn’t at lunch either, she decided to send him by owl.

She excused herself from her friend, saying she had to send a letter, it wasn’t unusual for her to do so, so they didn’t even flinch. Once at the owl aviary and once she gave it to an owl and walked away, trying not to think to much, she stop. What if the letter only made him more upset ? Of course nothing she wrote was mean, but what if he didn’t like at all the idea of some unknown person looking in his private life ? Feeling arrogant enough to think they could cheer him up when his friends, those whom he consider family, weren’t able to do it ? Y/N turned around to take the letter back but it was too late, the bird had fly away, and since he was at hogwarts, he will have it in a few minutes only.

She felt the weight in her stomach get heavier, she hoped so much it will not make things worse.

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Hoped you liked my first fic ! I don't know when the second part will be posted but I'll do my best for it to be soon.

Have a nice day ! Love you <3