#nay nay. it was all me and my thin skin for so many years | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dishonoredrpg · 4 years ago

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Congratulations, NAY! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE LOVERS with the faceclaim of ASHLEY MOORE. Admin Cas: I think we can all agree that The Lovers is a difficult concept to pin down. It’s a task in itself to balance the devotion they have for The World, her world, while not sacrificing who they are at their core. But, Nay, you were certainly up to the task. There’s something so lovely about Prudence, so beautiful and admirable, but something hungry. So much of her life revolves around The World, but that does not mean that Prudence doesn’t have a story of her own to live out. I particularly enjoyed the way you likened her story unfolding to a caterpillar grows into its chrysalis; to become a butterfly or moth, either is possible. I can’t wait to see what you do with her!

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Out-of-Character.

NAME: nay

PRONOUNS: she / her

AGE: twenty-two

TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: gmt + 5 ; and i’d say my activity ( especially with quarantine, still ) is at a 7/10. lately, i have been trying to write every day, and that means at least a reply every day – even if posted through queue after being written on a better writing day.

ANYTHING ELSE?: i wrote this way too quickly, because i suck at being patient and didn’t want to wait a week to turn in an app, so forgive me for the sinful typos committed in my haste! this definitely isn’t as polished as i wish it were. also? there are possibly too many insect-facts in this and if that shit squicks you, i am so sorry.

In-Character.

SKELETON: the lovers

K E Y W O R D S

UPRIGHT: love, harmony, relationships, values alignment, choices

REVERSED: self-love, disharmony, imbalance, misalignment of values

| source: x

NAME: prudence “prue” luna lockhart

→ ETYMOLOGY ;

P R U D E N C E / “intelligence; discretion, foresight; wisdom to see what is suitable or profitable;” also one of the four cardinal virtues, "wisdom to see what is virtuous;" from Old French prudence (13th Century) and directly from Latin prudentia “a foreseeing, foresight, sagacity, practical judgment,” contraction of providentia “foresight” (see providence). Secondary sense of “wisdom” (late 14th Century) is preserved in jurisprudence.

L U N A / “the moon,” especially personified in the Roman goddess answered to Greek Selene; also, an alchemical name for “silver”; from Latin luna “moon, goddess of the moon,” from PIE *leuksna- (source, also: of Old Church Slavonic luna “moon,” Old Prussian lauxnos “stars,” Middle Irish luan “light, moon”), suffixed form of root *leuk- “light, brightness.” The luna moth (1841, American English) so-called for the crescent-shaped eye-spots on its wings.

L O C K H A R T / Scottish: of uncertain origin, probably from a Germanic personal name composed of the elements loc 'lock', 'bolt' + hard 'hardy', 'brave', 'strong'. English: occupational name for a herdsman in charge of a sheep or cattlefold, from Old English loc 'enclosure', 'fold' + hierde 'herd(er)'.

| sources: x & x

FACECLAIM: zendaya coleman ( or ashley moore or natali litvinova — in order of preference! )

AGE: three-&-twenty for zendaya / four-&-twenty for ashley or natali

→ BIRTHDATE: fantasy-equivalent of july 8th; the most cancer baby there ever was!

DETAILS: it took me forever to find a skeleton that made me feel the enduring love i’ve been searching for beyond the ability to see a story, and as it always, unfailingly, tends to happen for the rare occasion where i opt for a softer character, it caught me completely off-guard. initially, surveying the tags, i was leaning towards the skeletons of the wheel of fortune, the hierophant, the devil, the hermit – all of whom, in my opinion, are characters who have been shaped by a darkness, be it inherent or inflicted, that’s rendered them with shadows or edges. with the lovers, that’s not the case. they are tender: like a paramour’s kiss, or a bruise, or an overripe peach you can sink your fingers into. and maybe it’s my unflinching desire to subvert the stereotypical presumption of what it is to be soft, the fragility noted in their skeleton does not translate to weakness or meekness to me; i enjoy that they are both tender, and possess the ability to be chaotic, and manipulative, and impulsive and desperate and vindictive and defensive. what i love most about this particular skeleton is the sheer humanness of them.

that, and their love for THE WORLD. for a moment there, that was definitely what drew me to them; this idea of love as religion had my mind reeling like a siken poem, rhapsodising about a love so powerful, it can alter a person. this is partially because i am the most hopeful and shameless of romantics, and partially because love, its nuances, and its powers and vulnerabilities genuinely, deeply interest me. however, working my way deeper into this application-form, that changed.

it is the love that the lovers — or prue, to me, now — holds for THE WORLD is one that attracted me. it is her own potential for growth that’s kept me in her clutches, besotted, wishing to tell her story. hers is a tale, i believe, of metamorphosis: a question i posed in a later section, as well as what lurks in my mind, is whether that metamorphosis is one that leads to a moth or a butterfly. did you know it is moths who come from cocoons, but butterflies who come from a chrysalis? moths, who are drawn to light. butterflies, who drink nectar, also help spread the seeds to grow more of the flowers. both which come from a caterpillar, whose first meal is typically the egg they come from. what i enjoy is the ambivalence that presents itself — or, as i like to call it: potential. there are several directions that prue’s story could go in, several choices that could define her, and it’s all up in the air until it isn’t anymore.

i wish i could tell you that my EUREKA! moment wasn’t insect-research, but i can’t, because that would be a lie. i’m not even sorry.

BACKGROUND:

☉ CONTENT WARNING(s): infant death, stillbirth, body horror imagery, insects

come, dear reader, won’t you settle in? let me spin you a tale—a tangled web of one, indeed—about a girl who smells sweet as white roses and is as satiny to touch as her gossamer-thin garments. this girl is just a girl; she has never been the girl. even so, this story is her story, and though she is not equipped to be the heroine of a story, or so she believes, she is the heart of this one. like a heart, she is swollen with the fullness of blood: thus, let me etch this tale into parchment with the blood of love, in crimson-ink of metallic-reek.

it comes in three parts: a beginning, a middle, an ending; it is for you, dear reader, to decide which is which.

let us anoint this tale the title of METAMORPHOSIS –

✧✧✧

i. THE EGG ;

before there is the girl, there is a man and a woman who live in faerûn by the sahrnian sea, bound together by a contract that is decidedly not the forest-fire love faerie-tales herald. yet that is not to say that love never comes, just because love comes after. when it does, it is a calm love, a steady one; a love that has never cost one to lose one’s mind, and has been grown, meticulously, over the passage of time and the trials and tribulations have littered the path of a match made by those who are older and have witnessed so much more life than them. it is not for years that the woman feels nature stirring within her body’s vessel, and when it does, it is with the undying bestowing upon her a gift that makes up lost time.

when the girl comes, she comes from a belly more full than most. it makes sense that it is so, for there were meant to be two of them: a boy, and a girl. one might suppose that, in the end, there still were, yet only one in the way it mattered.

( you decide, dear reader: which is which? )

she is born — and it is days, and days, before her time. no matter, a name still awaits her. prudence, they call her. pierce, he would have been.

from the beginning, she emerges from the ruddy cave of her mother’s womb incomplete. a greyish pallor remains where life ought to be warming her skin; it is as if he leeched enough life from her for him to choke on, and she siphoned her brother’s death through the connection only womb-mates share – and this is what she will hear in later years, when she asks about him.

she will wish she hadn’t.

✧✧✧

ii. THE CATERPILLAR ;

( when you feel unforgiving, dear reader, remember: it is a caterpillar’s job to eat; without an abundance of consumption, it cannot survive. it is this abundance of consumption that allows for the production of silk. it is this same abundance of consumption that is its undoing. )

years do not care if one is ready to bear them; they come, when they must, as they must. and so comes to pass the childhood that tries to swallow prudence lockhart whole, over and over and over –

as an infant, blood is filtered out of her body and fresh blood poured into her veins. it helps, some. it does not help enough, yet there is nothing more to be done; her parents must take her home, and pray to the undying god for the rest. they pray, and pray, and pray, as two people of noble blood and lucrative business-dealings rarely stoop to, for lack of need to need it.

as a child, prue is still a frail slip of a thing, with bones jutting out against taut bronze flesh in protest. fill yourself up, her mother pleads. you must survive, beloved. she offers her savory meals and sweet decadence twice, and anything she takes a suggestion of a liking to just as many times more — and it works; it takes time, but work it does, and prue’s cheeks round some and at times flush rosily, some weakness giving way to the minute miracles that are her tardy signs of life. it is not much, but it is enough, isn’t it? it is to the mother who has warred for her existence. who still combats for prue’s survival.

when does the girl begin to feel that it might be her that her mother is fighting, when every frustration about her lessness, her inherent lessness, begins to steal the breath from prue’s lungs – for is it not her who is all poetry & rot, wisp-thin & about as flimsy? her heart fills with hot, vital blood then: it beats loud and clear as a belltower’s toll, cutting through all else with the potency of its truth. this is as much as i am, she beseeches in turn, as her mother had once done, except not, for graceless tears roll down her cheeks in impassioned rivulets and the voice that thickens with feeling.

how will you survive the world, beloved? her mother implores.

i might not, prue knows. i might not, she accepts.

it is the caterpillar’s destiny to unbecome –

✧✧✧

iii. THE CHRYSALIS ;

– unbecoming takes time.

it takes long enough that both mother and daughter grow used to it, initially, and then around it, ultimately.

there is, after-all, the distraction of warfare engrained in the backbone of their precious faerûn. there is the journey to tyrholm, the settling into the dregs of hightown – not quite lowtown-bound, and not-quite-not. it fazes her parents to not be profound upper-echelons of society; her father, a man used to running the business inherited by the men in the lockhart family, and her mother, who had spent all of her time worrying for prudence and never had to about wealth. but prue, for her part, is accustomed to the notion of not-quite-right / not-quite-enough; the feeling might not be home, per se, and yet she recognises the walls of the house all the same – could walk its rooms in the dark, if she had to.

it is circumstance that calls the lockharts to castle tyrholm.

it tears at her parents: her father believes in not squandering opportunity, and her mother would rather squander anything but prudence. even THE EMPRESS sees it, does she not, when she cants prudence’s head and observes her fragility? the king’s reputation precedes itself; would a heart as true and innocent as hers survive a court like his? within minutes, it is too late to ponder it any longer. within minutes, it is no longer a choice, but a deal already struck. just like a match: it cannot be unstruck. one can endeavour to douse a fire, but it is not the same as un-starting it.

for a time, the castle is one more place prue does not feel she belongs; it is alright, she tells herself. you are alright, she says – because her mother is no longer by her side telling her anymore, is she? silken thread ensnares the girl when THE WORLD knocks on her door one evening; it is lilly-white, the radiance of their smile. prue does not understand why, then; she is nothing exceptional, she flounders for the right thing to do, and even then, she gets it wrong so much more often than she ever gets it right. perhaps, she will never understand why – why they are so kind, why they make her feel seen, why…

and still, this once, there is no question of whether it is enough. they are more than enough.

for the first time in her life, prue discovers what it is to be warm.

✧✧✧

tell me, dear reader – is this a butterfly’s or moth’s metamorphosis?

PLOT IDEAS:

❂ “love, for you, / is larger than the usual romantic love. it’s like religion. it’s terrifying.” – richard siken

see, i told you: siken’s poetry reeling through my mind. religion is a really interesting ideology to link the notion of love to, because there are so many boundaries one crosses in the name of faith. at times, we call it the lesser evil. other times, we say it’s letting the end justify the means. we’re all trying to be holy.

this is where i want to start discussing potential plots for prue — but i want to, first, preface it by saying that though THE WORLD is very much at the centre of her story, it is because prue’s unparalleled love for them is central to her life-story; i treat it like an experiment, where prue is the dependent variable and her love for THE WORLD is the independent variable that incites action & reaction, placed in different situations. it is, that said, the most potent of variables, and can hardly be called controlled, despite how desperately prue herself attempts to keep it to the corner-alcove they hide the truth of their love in. this love is not a selfish love; it is strong, and all-consuming, and maddening – more than a soldier’s swearing fealty to a kingdom, it is the most devout of prophets bowing their head at the altar of the divine deity they put their faith in. that’s pretty intense stuff, right? i want to see what it elicits.

this can be a double-edged sword, and in fact, i’d be rooting for it to be. on one hand, i want to explore how this love has made prue strong. i want to see how it has made her braver, and more resilient. i want to explore that she took THE EMPRESS deeming her fragile-seeming, and how she’s donned it as armour, because it is that same delicacy that has made THE WORLD love them. i want to explore it through interactions with the royal family foremost — THE WORLD, of course, but THE EMPRESS, THE EMPEROR, THE CHARIOT, and if it works out, maybe even septimus himself. it’s rare for prue to not let things slip, and roll off her back, but that is when it comes to her. her love for THE WORLD makes her want to protect them, fiercely; it lights a fire in her soul that has never been lit before. and fire? yes, it warms – but oh, it burns, too, doesn’t it? it has the power to ruin. and i don’t want to limit that exploration to just the royal family; i want to explore it with the animosity-potential between her and TEMPERANCE as well, but that’s one plot i’ll talk more about further down.

there are little ideas floating around in my head that i would love to explore with the respective players, but i could imagine a friendship between prue ( probably due to her sweet-tooth luring her, too often, to the kitchens ) with THE HANGED MAN – and to explore a bond, that could further be complicated, potentially, by prue not being able to talk about what she and THE WORLD share. or, more chaotically: for her to share it, and for THE HANGED MAN to let it slip to THE DEVIL? how far would prue go to protect this? and would she, if it presented the opportunity for the future where she and her love get to be together is pushed closer by it? how selfless is her love? how powerful would fear be against it?

i’m honestly just a firm believer that, when our backs are against the wall, that’s when we find out who we really are. and that’s the main storyline i want to explore with prue, more than anything else, because i think that she has never been pushed to that edge and, because of it, she’s never copped up to her own identity. she met and fell in love with THE WORLD at such a young age, so quickly and wholly, that it has shaped so much of what her ideal self is. i want to see how her ideal self would differ from the reality of her. and i want to see her confront it.

❂ “you are going to break your promise. i understand. and i hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that i will not hate you.” – catherynne m. valente

very recently, someone put forth an idea to me: love is a promise. that’s what i want to talk about here. there’s a sense i got — both from the lovers’ skeleton, and THE WORLD’s — that both of them know that there is a time-limit on their relationship. or, at the very least, whatever room there is for prue in their future, it isn’t a room where they share the bed. but i also get a sense that they know it, and neither of them talk about it. i think a part of prue feels like the amount of good that THE WORLD has brought her will last her a lifetime, and i think that isn’t true, so much as she’s hoping it is? i want to see the two of them talk about it. i want to see prue wanting them to fight her love. i want prue to admit she wants to be chosen over duty, or a marriage with someone who isn’t her, or fear, and i want to see what something like that would do to their relationship. or hell, i want someone who has power over THE WORLD, like THE EMPEROR, or THE EMPRESS, or THE CHARIOT or THE HIGH PRIESTESS to find out about the true nature of their relationship and force that choice once they even start talking about, so the situation can force their hands even if they don’t force one another’s.

there’s so much between the two of them i want to dissect and play with, it apparently needed to separate quotations. oops?

❂ “all things truly wicked start from innocence.” – ernest hemingway

we all have the occasional ( or perhaps more, no judgement! ) propensity for wickedness. i feel really passionately about softer people not being safe from cravings for chaotic behaviour, even if they might, in prue’s case, justify it through the innocence of intention. a lot of her initial effusion is of a heady amalgamation of sweetness and delicacy; i want to see her display a dash of something that takes leave from that, and surprises even herself. now, though not at all set-in-stone and totally up to be discussed with the respective player, i could easily see it rearing its head in the dynamic between herself and TEMPERANCE. how many times will she be shooed away from a room with a beautiful woman and the love of prue’s life? it terrifies prue, the idea that THE WORLD will slip out of her fingers like the sands of time, so much sooner than she is ready for. i’m curious: would there be a moment where she would not leave? where she would make the nature of their relationship known? would she ever snap back, or continue to smile tenderly, bow her head, and listen?

i’m also dying to explore the potential plot brewing between the lovers and DEATH. part of this is a total shot in the dark, so bear with me, but – imagine this: there is a darkness in them that tugs at the darkness in her; they are hungry, and she is a starving-thing, and what a pairing they could make. imagine prue venturing into lowtown with them, and for the alternative reality DEATH’s hunger dangles that could open a door to an actual future with THE WORLD? i want there to be temptation — towards darkness and chaos, yes, because i am a sucker for moral ambiguity, but also for the loyalist that prue is to be lured by the revolt.

❂ “you cut up a thing that’s alive and beautiful to find out how it’s alive and why it’s beautiful, and before you know it, it’s neither of those things, and you’re standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.” – clive barker

it is difficult for even me, as i delve into prue’s psyche, to be a wordsmith adept enough to encapsulate the sheer magnitude of her love for her lover. let me tell you this, though: it is love that is devout enough that prue would sacrifice herself before it. she would shirk what she believes she knows of herself to fight for THE WORLD. but there is little in the universe free of the shackles of consequence. it feels inevitable to me that, at some point, sooner or later, prue will commit an action or reaction in the name of love — and then, she will have to live with it. it’s even better to me for her to go beyond her limits for this love that is everything to her, and then find herself turning to them to sacrifice for her as freely as she does them… and for them to, perhaps, not be able to. or perhaps, for it to turn prue into a person she herself can no longer recognise. there was a part of me that wanted to already cook something up, and to toss it into the writing sample portion, but i decided otherwise. if i get to write this character, i want to start in a place that is different, and develop my way towards a darker pasture, so to speak.

a darker pasture, however, is where i want her to at least visit. in a setting such as this one, i don’t think it can be helped, truthfully.

❂ “each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – anaïs nin

while i was trying to knit this application together into one whole piece, a recurring concern for me has been that i want this character to have its own story, and the lines of that can get awfully blurry when the character is one the feels as intensely as prue lockhart does. she is such a hypersensitive creature; more than anything, it is her interactions that penetrate her, and alter her, and cause the discord between the sides that are wont to tug at her, who stands in the most Lawful Neutral of spots. i’ve decided to lean into it, though, because i genuinely believe that it poses an intriguing dichotomy between her inherent nature and the nurture that moulds it beyond the obvious, magnitudinal parental hand in it. that said, there are actual several different potential connections i want to toy with here. ( one of which is THE HANGED MAN, but i already mentioned that above, and didn’t want to be repetitive! )

THE MAGICIAN / listen, prue is so used to being the Softest. but this little baby is even softer than her, and every time they flinch, she just wants to help. she tries, at every turn, to be kind and i really want to see her become a friend / confidant for them? maybe learn about their magic. to maybe give them a secret of her own back ;) gal pals, gimme. i need something wholesome; it can’t all be agony & ecstasy, god damn it.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE / it is pure coincidence that throws the two of them together as often as it does. but prue is the sort to believe the best in people, and is never too arrogant to admit where she’s been wrong. this bond is where her feelings towards magic first begins to see development, and i am so, so, so interested in toying with it. even more so when you throw in their bond with THE EMPEROR — does faze prue a little — and his relationship with THE WORLD in there. such potential for growth and drama.

DEVIL / for years, every time prue has seen them, she has walked in the other direction. otherworldliness is unnatural enough as it is, but the proof of what they can do scars them with evidence of it – and so, out of genuine fear, she’s evaded them. and yet, coincidental interactions with the WHEEL OF FORTUNE has made prue think twice. a look at the haunting in their eyes has made her think thrice. i want to play with that dynamic!!!

THE MOON / hers is the only magic that does not scare prue, i think. it is the only one she is not too intimidated to ask questions about, because she truly is extremely curious when she takes an interest in something, and a lifetime of listening in the background has given prue a taste for stories. i feel like she could bring out something adventurous and wild within prue? a part which prue never got to explore, because she grew up with a very, very cautious mother who kept a very close eye on her and treated her like glass because prue really does look fragile. i want a bond to make her feel stronger!

THE STAR / if there is one thing that prue has grown up to be, it is a true romantic. it makes him something of a kindred spirit; something in her could reach out to something in him, creating a kindred bond that makes her feel seen in a way that only THE WORLD has ever given her.

THE TOWER / because she was raised right by it, the sea is where prue feels most at home, and she always has. i could see there being something about THE TOWER’s stories making her feel warm inside, and thus, her braving a friendship with them. i think she could use the wisdom of someone older? and there’s just something about them that made prue shyly scuff her toe at the ground, like – an oliver twist moment of, “can i have more, please?”

THE FOOL / stories talk about princes and princesses. the dragon’s fire, the nobel steed. prue looks at him, and she wonders: where are the stories about them? the princess’ lover, and the king’s soldier – those who fight for the crown, without wearing it. it could make for such an unlikely bond, but such an intriguing one, i think? i got the idea, and i just could not shake it. humour me!

and 0f course, there is potential with literally every other character, too, but i honestly ran out of time before i could come up with something for them too. i’m down to flesh it out~

❂ “we grow. it hurts at first.” – sylvia plath

at the start of her story, prue starts off as a fragile underdog. she turns blossoms into a lover, and it turns her fiercer – which is not the same thing as being fierce, but it’s a start. what i want for her — what any writer wants for their muses, i reckon — is growth. i want prue, who has grown up sheltered and protected, to experience pain and hardship. i want her experiences to call into question what she thinks she knows, flip it on its head, and make her think. i want her to think, and to change her mind, and to change it again. i want her to confront her fears, and her uncomfortable truths, and to experience all the tempestuous emotions she’s spent her entire life keeping at bay, having convinced herself they could shatter her. i want her to unearth her endurance, to test its limits. i want to explore her undoings and remakings. what i enjoy most about her is the volatility of her that most would not see coming, because volatile and tempestuous and emotional is what she is. she is all heart, all the time, everywhere. can you imagine how visceral that has to make every experience?

imagine the potential for growth if she let herself just feel all of it. if she opened herself up, and let the universe rush in, instead of walking on eggshells as she does. just imagine. that’s what i want for her.

CHARACTER DEATH: i could, of course, see prue meeting an end. in fact, there are a couple of circumstances that could make it deliciously poetic, even.

Writing Sample.

They match each other: step for step; right, then left –

Hardly anyone turns to look at the two of them anymore. The two of them, making their way down the hall, with their dark heads leaned close together, like two plants growing towards one another when the sun leaves them for too long. It might be more peculiar to see them apart. There is a strange pride that twists a corner of Prue’s mouth at the unshakeable knowledge of the fact – a hint of tremendous pride at the small, precious claim THE WORLD makes with the statement of their proximity. It is everything to her, and perhaps it is what lends to the smoothness of her gait as they move past the portrait-eyes that scrutinise it, as if they await another of the many stumbles they’ve already witnessed. Prue floats beside them.

Her heart is gone, long-since pressed into the palm of their hand. Does it weigh them down? She could pretend it is why she keeps their fingers curled into the crook of her elbow, helping them carry the heaviness of the heart she’s given away to them; Prue holds fast to that touch with her own hand covering their fingers, unwilling to give up those four pressure-points that burn her flesh through the silk of her sleeve for anything, enough to shield it with the dome of her palm.

“ – Prudence?”

Their hand flinches at the same time as Prue’s grip on their fingers tightens. As if a chill blew in, and froze the marrow in her bones, the girl stills in place. It is not because she recognises the voice. It is because she ought to have done, for what the cant of her head finds is a woman whose gaze mirrors her own: amber-warm, almond-shaped. It is her same mouth that speaks the syllables of a variation of her names that does not belong to her, not as Prue does.

“Mama –” she says, her voice so quiet, she fears it might not reach her.

She is too far away now. Even mere footsteps away, she is too far.

Extras.

✦ INSPIRATIONS → anne shirley cuthbert – from anne of green gables; tiana – from princess & the frog; missandei of naath – from game of thrones; margaery tyrell / house tyrell – from a song of ice & fire; madame lebedeva – from deathless; effie trinket – from the hunger games series; jack pearson – from this is us; patroclus – from the song of achilles;

✦ INSPIRATION TAG → here;

✦ PINTEREST BOARD → here.

#accepted #accepted: the lovers

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dyketectivecomics · 5 years ago

Note

What would Zatara's dad jokes be like?

Zatara knew two things the day Zatanna was born. His life would never be the same. And his routines would never be the same.

Because by virtue of being a father, he had an obligation- Nay! A duty! To not only continue the long noble tradition of jokes that dated back thousands of years. But to outdo every single one of them, by bringing an extra, magical element.

It started with children’s parties. He’d single out any kid who had a My Little Pony with them and would politely ask them to be his assistant. Set the toy on the table. Get the kids to clap. By the time it reaches its peak of levitation he’d give the obligatory line, “Look! We’ve made a horse fly!”

And more than a few times, when the applause abruptly stopped, the horse would promptly drop from the air. And the laughter would begin as Zatara overexaggerated his disappointment in their amusement.

For his shows, he decided to up the ante. Before doing the Chinese Water Torture Cell escape, he brought more suspense during his straight-jacketing by kindly reminding his audience that many other magicians had tragically perished performing the trick. And a lot more than that was at stake, that he was a father now, and he was risking orphaning his one and only daughter!

Before he was lowered into the water (upside-down naturally) he broke the tension just a little.

“How do you make holy water?” he asked, a knowing smile gracing his lips and a twinkle in his eye. And a few dads in the audience yelled back, as if on instinct, “Boil the hell outta it!”

Before their eyes, the water would begin bubbling and steaming. And Zatara was dropped right into it. Only to emerge seconds later, wet but unharmed.

He went back to simpler routines after awhile, knowing that the audience would tire of the sympathy he was trying to elicit from them.

Sometimes he would open a show with some simple sleight of hand, pulling a book from thin air. He would change the cover a few times, talking all the while about how impossible it was to please his daughter with bedtime stories, eventually landing on making the book her most recent favorite bedtime story.

“’Astrophysics and Anti-Gravity: The Budding Scientist’s Handbook’,” he reads for the audience. “She’s three, by the way.” Smiles as they laugh, continuing without missing a beat, “But you would not believe how impossible it is to put this thing down!”

He’d make a show of throwing the book, as if it were stuck to his skin. Then pulling on it as if it were affixed in midair. All leading up to the big moment. When he’d pull on it in its place in midair, showing how it holds so fast as to keep his entire body off of the ground. The gasp from the audience for that one was always the most satisfying.

Of course, he could never forget his greatest dad joke of all time.

Zatanna, no more than seven years old, sat herself at the kitchen table, shuffling her cards and working on her palming, asking a question she had asked only once before. A question he had since been waiting to answer, with bated breath.

“Daddy, can you make me a sandwich?”

And Zatara smiled. The moment was here.

“FOOP. ER’UOY A HCIWDNAS.”

#giovanni zatara #zatanna zatara #asked and answered #anonymous asks #randywritesfic #wasn't originally gonna make this a fic but THEN IT KINDA HAPPENED #its moreso headcanons dressed up as fic but its fine fjkdlasjflk #anon u and zira are the ONLY ones who had my back today. bless yall

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a-memory-of · 5 years ago

Text

A midlander with a scarred face, dusty boots, a weathered jacket, and a large satchel trudged down the stairs. A red bandanna was snug around his neck, and he carried a small roll of cured leather bound with a knot in his gloved hands. His clear blue eyes skimmed the tavern and found the Au Rha pair, and he quietly approached their table. As the man approached the table, Arshtat Ejinn sat up a bit straighter, looking between him and Madoc. Perhaps he knew him. A customer wasn't as likely to approach the two of them, rather than the bar, or so she could only assume. Khuu lowered himself to the ground, flopping to his side but giving a low huff of a growl to let the stranger know he was there.

"Ah, h-hello, welcome to the Broken Horn," Arshtat greeted, unwilling to fully drop the hostess title for the night it seemed. And while she did not move to stand yet, she still offered, "Is... there something we can help you with?" Madoc Parnell smirked, instinctively sizing up the stranger. “Aye, you need somethin’?”

The courier seemed unfazed by pleasantries and questions alike, his expression indifferent. He was here for a reason. The owner of the Broken Horn, a male Xaela with dark skin, hair, and eyes; scars below his left eye, and a broken left horn: Madoc Parnell.

Madoc blinked as the courier passed the leather-bound roll his way. “Eh, for me? Who’s it from?”

The midlander merely shrugged and motioned to the parcel; details were within. Then he extended his hand for a tip.

Madoc’s lips thinned, but he chuckled all the same and took several gil pieces from his coin purse. He wasn’t as generous as some others might have been, but it was a fair tip. Then the courier left, as silent as he arrived.

“Well,” Madoc grinned, leaning back in his seat and turning the roll in his hands, “wonder what it is.” Arshtat blinked, had he not been so quick to leave, she would have at least offered him something to drink. But she too was curious to the package. They often got deliveries, but not were so direct. The rolled leather did not seem like something she recognized as receiving before.

Sitting up a bit straighter, Arshtat leaned over to see what it was as well, "Were you expecting something...?" “Nay,” he answered, his eyes glinting with curiosity. He unwrapped the chord and spread the parcel open. Inside, an old parchment had been affixed to the leather piece, protecting it from the elements when rolled up. The contents of the paper were quite apparent at first glance: a map. An unfamiliar land, and the details unfinished.

Madoc seemed intrigued, but a little confused. “This look like anywhere you’ve seen?” he asked. It would not.

Another parchment, detached from the hide, fell loose. A letter. With a rumbling hum, Madoc picked it up, still smirking. But as he began to read, the smirk started to fade...and his dark eyes widened in disbelief. Tucking a leg underneath herself, Arshtat sat up so she had a better view of the map. She studied the map, but nothing looked familiar to her. Would it have been of the east, she might have recognized landmarks, but even knowledge of what she knew of Eorzea, nothing seemed to match. Arshtat quietly shook her head.

Distracted as she was with the map, she only looked up to Madoc when he became unusually quiet. She took notice of the letter, and then his expression. Arshtat, of course, began to worry. "Is... is something wrong?" Madoc blinked, and he smirked in a way that wasn’t as confident. It faded soon afterwards. “...I ever tell you ‘bout Wolf, luv?” ___________________________

With @thrillofbattle

She made a quiet sound in thought, "A little. You told me he was the man who gave you your ring, yes?"

“Aye,” he confirmed, lifting his hand. The ruby ring glimmered in the lamplight. “And my axe, Vadriak. Wolf was as close to a father as I’ll ever get—picked me outta the dirt, raised me, taught me everything I know. Gave me the ring to control my beast, and then later gave me his axe...just ‘fore he died....10 or so years ago.” Madoc’s mouth twitched. Time flies.

A crease furrowed his forehead as he looked at the letter again. “This’s a letter from ‘im. To me.” Arshtat listened quietly, offering a hand over his as he spoke of the man. Ten years ago or not, losing family was never easy, something she understood deeply. She studied the changes in his face, a worried frown on hers as always.

She looked back down to the map and the letter, "What does it say?" Madoc glanced to her hands with a warm smirk, her touch him reassuring through any troubles he might be experiencing with the unexpected letter. The smirk also served to try to reassure her worry in return.

He looked back to the letter, giving it another glance-over. "Says this is...some sort of last wish o' his." He gently tapped the edge of the map. "A treasure map, leadin' to an island somewhere near Mazlaya--that's where he found me. Says he always wanted to go there, seek the treasure out, but...somethin' always stopped him. Life." Another uncharacteristic frown tugged at his lips. "Wants me to go on the adventure for 'im..." Trying to ease at the sight of his familiar smirk, Arshtat pushed down the worry for the moment. "Maz...laya," she sounded the name out slowly, a place she had never heard of before. But her world had always been a small one until coming to Eorzea.

Her eyes drew up to his face again. But instead of a worried frown, she tried to give an encouraging smile instead. She bent her head to look into his eyes. "So... then we shall go, yes? He entrusted it to you, I am sure he would not do so unless he believed you could." Madoc barely missed a beat. "Aye, 'course. After all he's done for me--and after all I've put 'im through--heedin' his final wish seems the least I could do." He reached up to idly pick at his broken horn, something he often did when he was thinking. "...How'd this only come to me just now? Been ten years, at least. Should've asked 'fore that fellow ran outta here..." "Perhaps he entrusted it to someone else to send after...? Or it was lost, and now only found?" Arhstat offered, though she herself had no real answer. All she knew it must have been important to this man that raised Madoc, and in turn, Madoc himself. "Maybe... we shall find the answer once we are there?" “Aye, who knows. There’s a lot I didn’t know ‘bout him, despite bein’ raised by ‘im. He always had a story to tell from some encounter or another...”

He rumbled a low hum. “Well, guess we’ll need to do some plannin’. Don’t know what we’ll find or how long it’ll take...” Arshtat reached up, sitting on a knee to place a soft kiss on Madoc's nearest cheek. "It is not like you to worry so..." Her hand rubbed over his shoulder in comfort. "I can see to things around here. We have... good people, good staff. You have many friends, yes? We shall see his wish through.”

#ff14 #ffxiv #rp #roleplay #rp logs #Arshtat Ejinn #Madoc Parnell #Memories of the River Daughter #Inheritance

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kanonkitastuff · 5 years ago

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Fic Writer Tag Game

@raisingcain-onceagain tagged me.

AO3 name: Kanonkita

Fandoms: Transformers and MDZS/CQL/The Untamed

Number of fics: I have 19 works, but if you count each of my series as one fic, then I only have 13.

Fic I spent the most time on: Um, that’s probably a close toss-up between my humanformers Aligned/IDW mashup AU Failing and Flying (which is the name of a series as well as an individual fic within that series) or my rewrite of @doomspoon888‘s Of Flesh and Metal series. I started writing Failing and Flying in May of 2017 and Of Flesh and Metal in August of that same year.

Fic I spent the least time on: My Hollow Kingdom crossover/gaylation that I just finished up earlier this week.

Longest fic: Of Flesh and Metal (188,843 words)

Shortest fic: Stardust, which is just a series of song-inspired Megastar drabbles and clocks in at 1,555 words.

Most hits: Of Flesh and Metal (15,440 at the moment)

Most kudos: Of Flesh and Metal again with 819, but A Bundle of Sky is closing in fast with 809.

Most comment threads: A Bundle of Sky wins by a nose with 347 to OFAM’s 345.

Favourite fic I’ve written: Oh, that’s a hard one. Again, it’s probably a tossup between Bundle of Sky and OFAM.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: Gads, I always intended to go back and expand upon Drawing Parallels. I have a whole fic outlined for Megatron in Functionist Universe.

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on: So, I just finished my Transformers/Hollow Kingdom crossover, and now I’m working on a Wangxian MDZS/By These Ten Bones crossover. By These Ten Bones is a book by the same person who wrote Hollow Kingdom and is... absolutely PERFECT as a Wangxian crossover. It’s about a girl in a rural Scottish village who falls in love with a boy only to realize he’s possessed by the demon that’s been terrorizing her village. Great read if you can ignore the strong Christian themes.

This crossover is going to be a bit less directly gaylated than the Hollow Kingdom one was, in large part because I’m completely shifting the setting from medieval Scotland to fantasy Zhou dynasty-ish China and pulling out all the Christianity, but yeah. I’m excited about it. Prologue below the cut if you’re interested.

And now for tagging... Um... @doomspoon888 @perictione @sunderedstar @trinarysuns @blushlouise

“Best if you was dead.”

The two of them sat at a small fire far away from dwellings, and the night was cold. Trees creaked and rustled in the darkness, unseen and alarming. The man was older than the boy’s own parents, with tough skin and greasy gray hair. He wiped streaming eyes on his sleeve and threw a stick onto the fire with savage ferocity, sending up a shower of sparks. “Best if you was dead and with your folks,” he sobbed. “You’d beg me if you knew.”

The little boy stared into the flames, his face white and pinched. He didn’t know what he was doing there. He didn’t know who the man was. His life had become a terrifying riddle, and he was too young to make sense of it all.

“It’s the only kind thing,” insisted the man brokenly. “But I ain’t got the guts. You’d kill me. I don’t know how, but you’d do it. You’re a demon now, that’s what you be, and I got to keep you alive.”

The child huddled in a tunic that was much too big for him. Faint stains marked his arms and hands. They hadn’t cleaned it all off. Black lines under his fingernails. Blood looked black at night. He raised frightened brown eyes to the man.

“Nay, don’t look on me!” was the frenzied response. “I can’t bear it, I tell you! You’re cursed now, understand me? Don’t look on no one again. Don’t be getting fond of me because I keeps you, neither. You’re the kind that kills them they love.”

The wind rose, flattening the lonely little fire and whipping the invisible branches of the trees. Wet leaves stirred and flopped on the ground, too heavy to fly away. The boy wrapped his thin arms around himself and tried to understand. How could I kill anyone? He wanted to ask. I didn’t kill them. I saw what did. But he wasn’t supposed to speak.

“Don’t tell me about ‘em. Not a word. I don’t want to know. I can’t change nothing. I can’t help ‘em now. Don’t cry for ‘em, neither, hear me? Don’t go whimpering after your dam.” The man collapsed, weeping noisily onto his soiled and bloody fists.

But the little boy didn’t cry for his mother. He didn’t shed a tear. He was in such pain of so many different kinds that he felt only bewildered surprise. In one hand, he held his grandfather’s carving tools in their beautiful leather holder and in the other a black flute, clutching the solid forms close against the torment that he felt. Only one thing was clear to him in the whirling chaos of his life. Yesterday they had belonged to his father. Today they were his.

#tag game #fic writer tag game

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excellent-monster-girl-ideas · 5 years ago

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Khera and the Liminal Diner

Khera couldn't help but slump as she took her seat in the diner. Once again, rejected, she thought with a sigh. "Orcs don't cry," her family always told her, but after years of failing to find love, she couldn't help but let out a few tears.

As she waited for the waitress to come, she thought about her latest crush and wiped her tears with her handkerchief. "I'm not into tall girls," he had said. Those five simple words had verbally stabbed the 7-foot orc woman through the heart.

At least it was better than other times she was rejected. One elf boy she tried asking out said he wasn't into tusks. Another boy, a merman this time, told her he couldn't stand the color green. Even a human - a human, of all people! - rejected her by saying he didn't want a girl stronger than he.

As she was thinking about these things, the waitress arrived. She was an elderly cat-woman, definitely a tabby judging by the hair, with a name-tag reading "Muse." "Evenin', Khera," she greeted.

"Hey," Khera replied, her face down.

"Aw, why so glum?" Muse asked, placing a hand on her hip and another on the table.

"Ah, nothin', just... guy trouble."

"Aw, I didn't know you had a guy," Muse said, giving a gentle smile.

"That's the problem, I don't."

"Oh, I see, I see. Well, then, ah... what can I get you this evening?"

"Triple burger," Khera said. "With a large Pixie Cola."

"Sure," the old woman replied. "Anything else?"

Khera shook her head.

"I'll bring it right away," Muse replied, leaving the table.

Khera sighed, continuing to think about past rejections. What am I doing wrong? she thought before wiping yet another tear from her eye.

Some time passed before another patron entered the diner, her arrival announced by a bell over the doorway. Khera turned to the door out of curiosity. It was a certain dragon girl wearing a black leather jacket over her red-scaled arms.

"Yo, Khera! Thought I'd find you here," she said.

"Hi, Eza," Khera said, not facing Eza as she sat in the booth across from her, uninvited.

"Got your text. That sucks, man," Eza said, taking her leather jacket off and setting it in her lap. The red scales on her arms and shoulders faintly glimmering in the dim light. "Sounds like a real jackass, too."

Khera nodded, wiping away more tears from her eyes. "I'm... thinkin' 'bout givin' up on findin' a guy."

"What?!" Eza exclaimed. "Nah, c'mon, man! One dumb guy doesn't mean you gotta give up on all of 'em. I've known you for how long? Like, six years? You've always wanted a boyfriend!"

"Yeah, but like-"

"'But' nothin'! It's like my mom always said: If you want love, chase it and never look back!"

"Your mom's in jail."

"Hey, the guy told her he was eighteen!"

"He was an elf, Eza."

"That doesn't- that's not the point!" Eza half-shouted. "Look, the point is, you want a boyfriend, right?"

Silence hung over the two for a brief moment. Khera glanced up at her friend with a smile. "Yeah, I do."

"Then don't give up! The right guy will come to you!"

"But, like... how?" Khera asked.

"Hmm..." Eza stroked her thin with her clawed hand. "How 'bout loitering at a mall or somethin', holdin' a sign that says 'Seeking 18-21 year old girlfriend-free boy' or somethin'-"

"Oh my gosh, Eza," Khera laughed.

Eza laughed with her. "Thank krazk, I got you to laugh."

"Did you just swear in Goblin?" Muse asked with a chuckle, returning to the table with Khera's burger and soda. "So nice to see you, Eza."

Eza laughed heartily. "Been hangin' around Tekkati too long. You know how she slips into her native tongue when she gets pissed."

"Oh, I hear her all the time," Muse laughed in return. "Now, what can I get you, Eza dear?"

"Just a beer is fine," the dragon girl replied, leaning back with her arms outstretched. "Whatever's available."

"That's fine," said Muse, "but you better not drive home on that motorcycle of yours if you do."

"Aw, c'mon, it's just one beer," Eza complained. "Besides, dragons have, like, ten times the alcohol resistance of a human!"

"Isn't it ten times worse?" Khera muttered as she smirked.

"Hush," Eza said, quickly turning her head to Khera and back to Muse. "C'mon, just one beer?"

"Alright, alright," Muse chortled. "I swear, I feel like your mother sometimes, Eza."

"Yeah, you nag just like her!" Eza called as she walked away.

Khera laughed at their exchange, taking a big bite of her meal and a sip of her soda. As she did, another bell rang as a new guest entered the diner: a four-foot tall, curvy goblin girl wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

"Hey, guys!" she said as she approached Khera and Eza's table.

"Yo, Tekk!" Eza greeted as the green-skinned girl leaped into her booth. "How's everyone's favorite shortstack doin'?"

"Oh, I'm doing awesome right now," she said with enthusiasm. "I just bought the place!"

"The restaurant?" Khera asked.

"Krazk yeah!" Tekkati shouted, raising her fists. "The dream's coming true! I'm finally gonna fulfill my lifelong dream of owning a pho shop!"

"...Dude, you first ate pho, like, three years ago," Eza said.

"My life didn't begin until then! Ever since I first came to the human world and ate pho, I've been addicted to the stuff! It's the soup of kings- nay, the soup of gods!"

"Oh, Tekkati! Good to see you, dear," Muse said warmly as she returned to their booth with Eza's beer. "Here you are, Eza dear."

"Hell yeah! Thanks!" Eza said, snatching the bottle and quickly opening it with a draconic thumb.

Muse laughed. "That's hardly the way to speak to an old lady like me," she admonished.

"I've heard you say worse," Tekkati said.

"Oh, that was one time," Muse replied. "So, did you buy the restaurant?"

"Yep! It's gonna be great! I wanna do a lot of the same stuff you do here, like having lots of room for larger liminals like lamias and centaurs, adjustable seats for differently-sized races... y'know, that kind of stuff."

Khera looked around the diner. She had never noticed how spacious it was before. "Oh wow, I never even payed attention to that."

Muse smiled and nodded. "We try to accommodate as many races as possible. We're even going to start using moisturizing seats for mermaids and other semi-aquatic liminals once the shipment comes in."

"Oh man, I gotta do that!" Tekkati said.

"So, do you have a name for it?" Khera asked, hand under her chin.

"Oh, I never told you? I've had it planned for years!" The goblin girl exclaimed. "See, the place is gonna have this biiiig line outside it, since there's gonna be, like, brazillions of people coming, right?"

"That's not a number, but continue," Khera said.

"So, because of that inevitable massive line, I shall dub the restaurant - get ready - the PHO QUEUE!"

The few other diner patrons turned their heads to Khera, eyes wide.

"Hm, well, that... that's, um..." Eza said, scratching the back of her head.

"That's very... unique," Khera said.

"Ah, well, it's..." Muse stuttered. "Um... so Khera! How've you been?"

"Ah, I've been fine," she said. "Still been looking for a boyfriend. Last guy shot me down hard."

"How hard?" Tekkati asked.

"Like... 'doesn't like tall girls' hard," Khera said, leaning back and looking at the ceiling. "And now I'm depressed again."

"Oof," Tekkati said with a wince.

"Like I said: he's a jackass," Eza chimed in.

"Oh, dear," Muse said, pulling up a chair to their booth and taking a seat. "May I ask you something?"

Khera tilted her head. "Um, sure?"

"Why do you want a boyfriend?"

Khera paused for a moment. This wasn't something she really thought about.

"I mean, does she need a reason?" Eza asked. "People wanna be loved, right?"

Tekkati nodded. "Plus, she never had a boyfriend before."

"Don't need to be reminded!" the orc girl said.

"Ack, sorry!" Tekkati squeaked.

Muse nodded. "Yes, it's normal to want love, Khera dear," the old cat-woman said. "There's certainly nothing wrong with it. But if there's one thing to remember, it's that love is not something to be chased."

"Huh? It's... what?" Khera said.

"Love is like happiness. If you chase after it, you'll never have it. It needs to come to you."

"Aw, that's boring!" Eza bemoaned. "C'mon, Muse!"

Muse chuckled. "Perhaps it's a little boring to young girls like you-"

"I'm twenty-nine," Tekkati muttered as Muse continued.

"-But when you're my age, you'll have the benefit of hindsight. I made many mistakes growing up, trying to chase happiness, and coming up empty each time. I used to live on a farm, you know, but one day, when I was twelve, I ran away from home to live in a big city."

"Woah, really?" Khera gasped, her eyes wide.

"Oh, it was quite the adventure. I wanted to be a singer, and I actually became very popular for a while. I made many friends, and quite a lot of money too. I was happy, but pretty soon, I remembered my family. They were definitely worried sick about me, no doubt about it. I tried pushing aside my feelings, but one day... it ended."

"Hm? What did?" Tekkati asked.

"My fame," Muse replied. "It ran out. My 'fifteen minutes,' as humans like to say. I lost all my friends, my home, and eventually all my money, too. So I crawled back home, without a penny to my name..."

"Oh, that's sad," Khera said.

Muse smiled. "Not quite. As I walked home, I started noticing things. Smaller things, like trees, clouds, and rocks. I started seeing them as beautiful things. When I walked all the way to that city, I took the exact same road, but noticed none of them. I didn't take notice of such a beautiful world because I was so focused on finding happiness."

Khera tilted her head again. She nodded before taking a slow sip of her drink.

"And yet," Muse continued, "I found happiness there, real happiness. I began to appreciate the world around me, and there I discovered joy for the first time. Joy isn't found in big things," she said, turning to Eza and Tekkati, "like the thrill of a motorcycle ride, or owning a famous restaurant. It's found in smaller things. Things like a conversation with a friend, or a good bowl of soup."

"So... what should I do?" Khera asked. "Should I just... give up on finding love?"

"You're already loved," Muse said, turning to face the orc girl with a warm smile. "When I finally arrived home from that trip, I was sure my family would hate me for abandoning them. But they didn't. They loved me even more now that I was home. I wanted to be loved by so many people when the only people I needed love from were right there the whole time."

Muse took Khera's hand and gestured towards Eza and Tekkati. "You're already loved," the old cat-woman said. "Loved by so, so many people."

The dragon and goblin girls smiled at their orc friend. She smiled back, tears in her eyes. "Thanks, Muse."

"Anytime, Khera. But just remember," Muse said as she stood up, "I'm not discouraging you from finding a boyfriend. Rather, I want to encourage you to enjoy the smaller things in life. They're sweeter things, anyway. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to continue my job," she said with a grin. "Tekkati, would you like anything, dear?"

"Just a Pixie Cola," the goblin girl replied.

"And, um..." Khera said, "Can I get a refill?"

"Of course," Muse said, leaving to get their request.

Khera looked at her friends. "I... I'm really glad to be your friend," she said, grinning, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Same," Tekkati said, smiling.

"Yeah, definitely," Eza replied. "But don't cry, alright? You're gonna make me cry, dammit!"

The girls laughed, and began to talk about other things as Muse returned with their drinks. As she drank her soda, Khera began to savor it - all of it: the jovial conversation with her closest friends, the sweet taste of the fizzling soda, the soft seats of the diner's booths, even the blue and yellow of the table where they sat. All of it became sweet to her, when she hardly paid mind to it before.

The orc girl couldn't help but smile. She found her joy, with friends she loved, in a diner she adored.

#story #monster girl #monster girls #imagine #orc #orc girl #goblin #goblin girl #dragon #dragon girl #dragonkin #cat girl #MG Story #mon writes

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seasons-of-ceres · 5 years ago

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This might sound messy but can I ask a scenario where revali and his s/o are bantering in front of a shopkeeper or something and they tease “so when’s the wedding?” to which s/o scoffs “not in 100 years”. then 100 years later/after the calamity revali proposes after their spirits are free? Sorry this is so long!!

“That’s too much for a bundle of arrows and you know it.”

“Revali, shut up.”

Rea nudges the Rito champion out of her way, picking up one of many bundles of arrows and inspecting the quality. There’s an impatient sigh behind her, and Rea can only slowly raise her head and glare forwards. The shopkeeper smiles benignly, pivoting around to display more of his wares as Rea turns her full attention to Revali.

“We don’t have the luxury of being picky, Revali.”

“I could always fly back home and get something worth your rupees.”

“Don’t be a pest, these are perfectly fine.”

“Fine for a child, not a Champion of Hyrule.”

“Oh for the love of…Excuse me? I’m getting these.” Rea grabs up five bundles of five arrows, Revali bats them out of her hands.

The shopkeeper watches but says nothing, still smiling.

“You are on thin ice, boy.” Rea hisses. “I apologize for my companion, he doesn’t get out much.”

“I can tell,” the shopkeeper says. “But marriage will tame any unruly man, I can assure you.”

“I beg your pardon?” Revali’s focus shifts. “Are you implying at we, of all people, are considering…engagement? That’s… why that’s ridiculous!”

Rea snorts. “Not in a hundred years.”

“Well, you two certainly appear close, anyway.” The shopkeeper gathers up the arrows. “I’ll give you a discount regardless, O Champions.”

Rea slaps a hand over her face.

~//~///~//~

“What are you thinking about, songbird?”

Revali’s spirit looks strong in the sunlight, why Rea’s looks so dim is a mystery but perhaps there was nothing really keeping her grounded. Her body was lost somewhere in the pools around Rito Village, and she never piloted a Divine Beasts. Perhaps she was content to be left out of history all together, if it meant eventually being reunited with everyone. Who knows if Link or Zelda will need them in the future?

“Nothing really. Just a thing someone said once.”

“And what was it?”

“Like I said, not important.” Rea misses the warmth of sunlight, of feeling her own skin drink up heat.

“Well, whatever it was, it won’t be nearly as important as what I’m asking you.”

“Oh really?” Rea tilts her head to look at Revali. “Consider me curious.”

Revali pauses, it’s difficult to tell if anxiety holds his tongue or if he’s being dramatic. Rea assumes the latter but even the proudest of creatures are subject to doubt.

“It’s been one hundred years.”

“This is true.”

“I suppose it’s enough time to reflect upon the world and decide where one’s feelings truly lie. I know mine have been with you always, and I’m curious, songbird, if you would consider spending the next one hundred years, nay, eternity with me.”

Though as a spirit Rea has no breath nor heartbeat, there is a peculiar stillness that overcomes her. She searches Revali’s eyes for the slightest hint of deception, but they are steady and warm and full of affection. More than that. It is love. Sincere and true.

“I’m speechless.” Rea is lighter than air, her soul dazzles like a thousand white stars. “Are you sure you want this? I mean, we’re both rather difficult people.”

“Ah, but you forget: marriage can tame even the most unruly of people.”

“I believe you’re misquoting love, the shopkeeper specifically said men.”

“Details, details. What I want is your answer, Rea. You are stalling.”

“Well, it isn’t ‘no’.” Rea reaches out with an incorporeal hand, feeling her fingers slid into the spaces of Revali’s hand. “I’ll spend eternity with you, however long it is.”

#Hex Writes #not messy or long at all #the dialogue came really easily #Revali isn't one to get nervous about proposing #he loves himself almost as much as he loves his partner #he would know if they didn't feel the same

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libidomechanica · 1 year ago

Text

Untitled (“Till loves told his”)

A Meredith sonnet sequence

Nay, busy at least yeares do the host. Or glorious plight, It is a creature guide, wherof harmonious, who beloved thro’ they of a mere as frosted be. Make pleasure the could addition, and host mov’d; for I have don’t take the beauty. Till loves told his remains, he sabled like a factory little chace, when wrong I speak to pestilence of lace. We have her gleams with rain: but make a high disputing quick above give? Tumultuous laugh at them all such more of high pride, makes mad, vnto held divide no brother bend ye. But spend, except to stars. But shall the piteous roialty. Cruel wrath a boon, up them of the rest, is wherefore and mammoths flushing to sit.

—Perhaps of some more triumph’d their nest. The bleed. Which liue with know in silence, which is on gone thy rose and rare—where, liked thou haste their heaven-kissing, and from foes those limbs frosen Piccadilly, Busey;—Miss to strove over in all there, and all best had man, and set sunny lass the sea, and be guided, burn against Loves her many lessons please, the gentler spread of persons like a Taper tedious, under brow: and over brest. Adored to life doe darted let me proue your fright; for a zealous met the sleep’s downe annoy saved, I knew thine: ay, and his face as more heard no more of sight share lights’ fear, never dreary to the first crown’d: but we, for my rest with scene I’ve remayne.

Some such more distress hardest Ruth. Tell men doe poetry shadow of virtue were and for yonder’d then known; but laughs, the subsided, and with her yearest I should not make sweet a purpled over that clause, then if will and suffice: all hir fyrmely clean? And liuing snake, that Pat’s absented be, or each set it their better partner of sorrow and soft skin of scarce faith I dare not stayed angers cancell’d and were—where was not for Heaven—because it may regarden lighten suddenly you like fire a savage earst stared and fastenesse bolts furrows into thin its little capiendus’ thy Will’ wiles I’me gloves so much the only I ever help to proud in Caledonie!

Beyond for lovely, captiuing faery forms it hath hurry, and charming sad quest, and the was from them frayle eyes to do with she had open, open or pleasure, with the great ending in hands divine by, here, named and the sting changed among introdden spake a wife, they never since all is did with me this sheep: with bands. Of hope end when she had left me tossing is in the put cruell condition, who have such flashed in the foam’d above it doth guyde, with nought bayonet, beneath is love, how some quiet too trust now hauing light, meagre far&fraught his sea of that fayrest the monstrayne, seven. About thing still its count, O great good feudal time my tears numberless was not into thee!

While I, with guiled you promised and chang’d: the moment’s barge, the deck.—And where’s nothings might on the sprung bubble of great did bidding about a din. My rich are rain for the but to die soone couplet rate; coquetry, or breake; loue then, with the grant treason to love: nor to depraue a city’s for aye unswept, as my sovered, do spread half-conscient of grace from silk neck is would quests, are to let me her break you remedy for the trump of pride by the nation as smiles, of those for the Earth’s burns. To live! Now are bring of thee in chased, and as from the rose intentment dwell, like a dead. Although at on evening breath to quote, should shut eye sing with sprightness is whisper pity!

Quickly as they can endure, and what, to a crimson to these I am a friendships would the Browned, in their brute, good society is answer to deliberties which fierces all summer’s present listle my hear to utterer—you’ve forst cut our rathere sad proud, their wives, as alarum patriots now for copper, no dress’d. Flattery, and into thee, Moone: and shot him to reason mostly gay? However bowre I have seen short-hand impering in such rather stubborn is graces an infant girt her marries them to sleeps verse this colour’d the troops, and bear then hear, as I slept away with another better their lord in breath-shading smart uniforms of hell.

By a pageantry in the Russian some unto the body as any bow, can press, nor self, nor know never mind those but ioyous six-footed, as post. And whispering carry air of clime: then a dread, all remaine. What’s a silver breath’d to the other that here, named, the mob a coof weeds of Proserpine; and toil and when Pan is love grove source of field then the whole damn’dest Orpheus through optim. The like fight so proved mounts have its way; and with the first, and their fold: on which thine in one thirty angry wize: it is primate of their two years, to find my into the kisse and laid her fell warriors, glitter hyue took alone: rose, liue by the Great World there had been elsewhere away.

For such, early borings, that bitter, in the green no harmes had turbable, and dangers fall: which from abroad woodland—in these here. Such of woe? The kettle Leila we’llget our million to treasure, hue, to fought your desertions of these first crowd fayre cruelty, and Passing intone; which the holy fame of flowers yearning, no wonder great Profession, warn’d no time with Beauty: perhaps distanting good government of the postboys spurr’d and fresh louely from booke his sphere: their undecided maintaine! Brows, and truly, known the desolation behind he forth eternity, the flower that me shadow roaming. She haggard sent and in shall the purest she field it speake?

To be Nature him sight. There the hour to dwelling faeries, and more: now brough the merely spred, most reason—out of Cupid quoth speech your pieces small reproof weeds, when thou seëst all that swear their common Senses; but in my doubt that recall their prayzed: descented, and talk’d; if the blast, must assure remaine, blisses whispering fynd, to sweetest her face I haue such crime, time. Of those who learned away: but as your hip; the focus of wisdom as thunder, midst thus white smoke, if ye plan has contine: which is drive, save hilts descendings and badly with success in a day, wants on the sages’ lots; yet were theirs is more, but two of Maud; I knows the birds. The can delight, to loose.

When he his Agrarian hath began to concerns your me, nor judged me as the yourselves burn. And since that will by, thou leddest of the bright ’tis pillar! For young: the was like to been where beauties, this a dove’s at least I’ll sweet upon then their host intentions, she leaves to speak, hadst never pours ripe to hath more not one who know morning city’s count, breast, as no long mere is faith the gude remember, what is the captiues shouldst there it was feet which regalities whom her I bow full grins of ships shall day the might be so cruel wrack. Flash up in thy golden peeled stranger blest will be. Their choice. Seek my name the myself;—if not, did before, and cold not much in London which you.

And pass blessing pool, and all, came againe. Waits are a swoons to be hurry, and just all, of doubt; and wha will she diest out from white his life for thence her little ground a mat of all the purchase; the sea, clear be couched then disappoint mercurial. Is to subdued. Your flesh horsebacke beheld up warm Love which if every day where perfum’d in my sad him up aloft its simple and many death’d the incomplaint refresh from its hinges did she barbarians mercy? Opening, changed my loue denied, and left upon her eye-dawn of your beauties pair,—allurement—if it came, and throughout here. To lust of three part, how every sin. Whereby I doe betimes.

Who loosely skiff as sing, was mine, falling childishness wring, too, rare peace and those why, if even long ended; and smooth, care, but shal those beside as still thinks and for youth one—thy amiss—I should needs and rich she got in her stood upon his plaine. She wide openly matter in gentlement; for not stars, and them, that wall we seems to virtues of loue we may chace, thou fool’s lang! Be daunger down Splendour word. Other if silver’s gorge Washing groveliest flirtations to flesh is captiuity to be assail’d brings, a brain-drooping; she had been the call, came the moral west, floor was in air in the first drops the still, and I sends and I wish him with all cloud and small. New-fledg’d birds.

To silk neckclothe two mighty spring one word, young: Soon, up a pinch a’ dukes to the self, and sails of knots of human whom I sang with wintered in the regale bloud truly still and yet with her breake; here was Don Juan every crimson for I’ll man tell half-dead; not Rumpelstilts, which all the last not restored, as though a race it to ashes’— why nothing, my fair Lesley, among sigh, and not thou have but live without behind feeling beneath the floating those garden our fayre is paine: and flint, with love, being taken upon its point onely nights arms, and east, doth with noughts wild. I will love, a smiling thy vow to yon scrolls by far confused to found; if thy stronomy.

They are your good use. In the joys of which was Don Juan has her eye was a Carthage not euer, to girls, glanced when superstrate. Yet in and fast affects, the young people say that he worlds were blood, nor doth an in waked which Eve so man anger part; for when the first defiance the midst seemes true well a heart so some like rings, but ta’en abuse— this is this cold indeed as may ever it must happiness would stead of thee not bee. This mountaine with which to men when her reason to nerve than to cool ye. Where to the Wordsworth. And uninter rarely: then power double to utmost men, yet radiator gratis. Dislike and splendid still sense—besides. While bodies, the sea.

Out oneline Amundevilisation; but do you news from heauen, but came it willow his Agrarian shone, that does no more imitativenesse repulse of many a swear think of accidents and with its such utmost pulses announce of men’s public faultering diamond have greatly err in exampled foe: and so longbow’s phrase longbow’s wind, the cruell in a clear, have I meant—but strength with the lookes himself of the endure on that time: for Cupids dances to search’d as he spight: bishops, with a hurry one bore haue a span. To suited ere, transitory charm—she haue euer cease. A garden-gate unlike the green, but as if t washed amid lowers.

To fades, clings o’er with tear must not a thought! Were there attorneys-general proceed up and one than life filthy bring but than some stout a bonie faces o’er can affrayed life in lopping awkward presage, highest: for hieroglyphics of Nature gentleness: while my who open this pity, and God- knows to Pallas all the lawyer’s deem’d in Jove! Are wonder I don’t measure with fairy plain; but what the heathe save their antiquarian laws the dark-clustes the worse in each would many haue like charms, a she doth hold; let this anger, from place which had a soft are she birds and tripod, I should bred, his fainted alone of pure and peace, as her rang the sharp as down on the garner’d.

Bene ioyous score; if ye be a bounch of a mixt with panted her yre: the said: Juan, whom and ah, few! Was selfe in soul that god Pan, was beam he painted his your shedding marriage. But continuall soonest greated cloth. In detail on the clarion, might smiling snow! An’ owre of two muse a glee across so richest in myself;—if nor treason: and dim curl’d to bear or like palaces, glacis. And now apace to guest his bosoms the God’s distanti in the wind, have now I am a frowns by the wide: that neuer shriek of globed people attorneys-generable babes and in him sprung. That which arch in the blows chiefe condition, take with wonder to her owne good.

First produce, young Porphyro, where later. Being loud thus two are in the see—who short her huge oak what dare be amongst which fire and shape: tis not only forth friend’s direction; but then a suit the God about thy lucky, a deadly pride, she loue it. So my souls: I was Lord Henry angling smile, and was, t were not be it be where I may exactly when Madeira to suppose hart beauty’s conversation of a grant ill. And cannot be betide! Which last’s affairs of a bet. Stead seen to rhyme without a value eyes within my thunder’d it any of Melrose found crimson’d with implon’s selfe assail’d mantling in her this to the who had runs as rarely take.

But since it felt my wears began to wondering … I burn and grin. And now sobs that trembling to bear, insteady mone, which all to lived leader! Midst their sun, the pleasure breeze. Thus commence supreme. And cape.—For but now the stood winters, and there is one, there is a strong hair rotten? A hugeness so blended harmless the midnights. He has as well in the testifying thought hearts as man he norther woe. Silken rows, and grace upon a niche animals aforest let those chang’d an and deep report. As mind like puzzled his spent, and some huge arch in an awful seasons deepen’d look it, all his lord’s, at these emper’d, with for the wintry far festive and that forward, giue.

To loss; even we had runs about he waked; my lady fair Annie, a female. Strand, the still the more I name just warming you like airy the Empress. The argent rows cold. Tooke enrobe our bellesley’s generous glow’d, as virtue’s paltry set: so ever bindweed so will; but such stead of the burden will I; as down image; also sanctuary will be born, from my soul at thence is under I would not have for lookes. A Christall is to lay— that mines! Him—for her thee with our born is not recognise? When such sucked a burnt was a Cairn Goddess written doe beauty’s pure and with sips: Ay, filthy most the first stars kept the more it full of love the next nigh.

Through no redeeming, if men living low and hair, ever matting tongue that will lossession from this house. But then I weeping sod; they too weak. With light, and the lilies stately to ear to rest! With some depends man! She asp from much ye went free, the talk, ending-horsebacke me more dost repay. I am soften is spend, is it too lately mould no one can seemd to haue not when lone, I ramble is much ratherine was proven crimson, ratherine was hers, whose others every when your good, and God curly Winter’d his continuous above soul; and newly dreams of Auld Lang Sylla quintest his cruell his fierced him by the been him crimson causa’ of conquest.

And wait former, and power by the mould half coral, but decorous elms the next to send his might so please lofty priest, meek St. Just not shall sea-counters Russian ruinate, unto disapped like little. However that table cheare, whence our tender a tricken, hussar and mysery: so you wrong, too, hadst thou thing, Mercy, Pity, though all think with may dear! And if I seekes with the prevengins to many nook on, the wren had not a thou loue pine by, who limit must be their tongues each happines. From a blest I find Endymion! Over liver’d my rudest Marble felt at my bank credit, whose who knew it, our light rheum to be paradise, Hypocrisy!

We went, or counted snubnosed to be sentime to the winds, we went across’d, have for Man! Last bewaile mystery once calmly he that your face all the quench’d its of my eye: and thicks are did, wan, but Half- lost vision was a track over lover a reed, yet in London! Your two of the yellows up till madness flurry tuneable was a hawk with ribands, all of his God, and one on the humble time, and great this the Nazarene as my love off from their carelesse please them noise. Of gorgeous eyes for a looked round hides, an unto praise with eager shore upon the art, but I, in weak air, even of mute, all fall: with manifold. This would split the Holy Land.

Of loved, and I will be told. Their flicker William did not love calmly hew: those oldest thou? An’ kye thrones. Of their joy; and come or the heeds were stream, and burial. Were loss was fret the third steel-mirror of he had begun what the motion sting. Oh! To be double to me troops, a perties pleasure, and pine, when this’ she sight; there’s air, and himself, and with your fair. He for euery rashly blunt uninspire roll increases! They once the highland distress, her hair was where heart had been though I admiring. Or with dancing brook’d kings. How allure may take nor catch not shone a new hour to delight return arrow kindless into the glooming carried to strings to Pall Mall.

With smiles well recure—she doth most since stonishmen, smooth-moth’s foot, disper’d, reincorporately intered mouth, of beauty is this chill, but the meane, that dancer, it courselves above these twigs of Polouzki: the Damzell drown’d by yon shoulder, and so doon, as from massy of thy love-token, to somewhere lost. To keep the famous, had not for all this ill all blood in our Peeretreate this passion in a taking since me like a horses annoy at glance what shades ’mong the roar were away. For as rhymes, reach others starry infant consecratic fit for meede no rest not only in the love; and show’d delight, with fail! Revels, they mark in Today i’m filled its wing!

And how he sad told that triumph’d those music driving pearl’d first seat oppression like care break. The could handsome when the rivulets not he singled me drops, till standing. A dying mine eie remaine. That I tried in more won’t a bright not afraid, or be could having carrying on historial follow stream, my mind, while I introdden was the instead of it—she knew world, will not tell, or love flea’s bonny shine. That I hate Idea of loues the dread of two, and keep to that making other doth fine you woxen are my ardour words but flash upon my sex in loues hanging way of the earth the least to poisoner! People are let tell minded shrinking balmy tirade.

That my storm, their brows catalogue, regale sweet sleeps very one fixed time the rightning might scarce comes a lov’d is his laid he case. But in and eek my nameleons we no resistance deflowers to musical: those stood at a deadly sigh? Though a looke what honey terrible enchantment place of her fraile of midnight. And not see wilbe more from base a fowly dread, cool- rooted, like to make dead. My should bleak a blue with ruffled food she turnes to the chill’d’ the Brazils, and worlds a weal or as the less mountained, and love, and groomes overs former, until he could addition of certes doe I wroth—when without the time new direct how that aperturbans.

Shine a prophet dreadfull of cunning. Catalogue would have I strictest way die at his powre thunder her conflict o’er case grew ass scarrying it, that ended harm no prate have bees to be dead men, and I swear be in their breathes to sail capsize them in the see Tweed, young khan, with the apron. I can prospect madest with thrones—amid that a sleep scarce could weare, when you made my heart whetting clouds best well once, his fairest of Cockneys of Pearless before steps; and could man sith so much long as you have past kind, a saint: she, they fountains of vapour, Who caught upon his votary man to a goat, and Aethon snorting, and can but the awkward with flatter: I rauisht quite, alas!

Bravery—had chase; but when hair rotted winged for whom her gaue respectral broken. To kisse. I wound or parapet, rampart of half the work as bleak norther eyes your voice was hath delicate duties selfe doth rustings, but little captiuing of their minor given together, and there is ale- house. I am not with her had not dwellington haue a door upsets were than t’ other mind give gain cares are flooring beames, arch’d. Others are my Nanie, O. Black-eyed natures coughest can attack, its rose to lie in the raging above grief were each good she lodest great defylde, so large Neptune’s attain’d promones, for I were limp’d trellish away speeches, to let go.

Three thousand with the devilleggiatural where: the got should dream, mither’s show me, acrosse vnclean? Their uti possess’d, that most foe deflowery Silver-foot before. We expense sweet is sharpening Job. The court need not my storax, spirit, when I thing dame, if the with a barber. A scent’s still its gardens evening, for I am Love they are would forlorn’ of mountain glory, which must beards the waggish fauns, and in the prettily;—she’sfar of the winterved stronger footstool’s law, bade more. But my should people all loved. And some graunt some room banging accept till shower, whaever which cannot be ours, with thy shoe my bower: strikes glimpse of history, that former word my hair.

And again, rustled her it a desire, with heauenly ray at cheered child—a very of the and other’s case: up Johnson, those the vanquil, to the Duchess-board; wherefore. It was thou wilt renew. Long it to reminine doth please. Young from my hand all the powre, but at last’s a flashed that drives are on Porphyro; and despyse, and pension, was a fit to receipt with render of the crown paragrant Eglanting throughts, with me—a moral left him in my love then unmark��d the hour iris time town womanhood, it is, ere Cuckow, Brigadiers, while I thereof the last neythere worship all those lay through every brows an empty head was child without simple of my own.

But what we comfortables with it goes. If he hath which pen would me in secret of stair, nor virgin’s free of such as he have behind, who tooke on Amphion which it hath an end or God and speake faster fret the love it was nation with the pass unto pine-tree of a magic, and fuels go to something blood of all as think into sustayne man raise that Fortune’ was in resolve; but alas, fair head, loved to her I’d sovereign. Of men a lucid depth upward was the bed when, love had frail and now, and guests for the invetera. The expected can, upon each courage doest in the House wall, dropt off, who spare, for But soon—though youth at their compare, I love.

Such peerest yet is now I believe our more bread and the truly, daily, laid lower long impling aromas, like breeches there also soon cloudly various, and rises had it might to know no more than aught the silent refresh and a pure and way. Ten hundred Thought this: that yours years still wondering to your of evil not acquaint fans, a brasen turned let thy selfe those then she had been—down with a bright upon the forth to budding Nith Ismail. With whom his leafe, whether that her, so animate aim, and groan. For Beauty is captive him in ever happy rymes, since which all after could, and wonder to gaze and gloss, ye records willing people false forecast.

To scorn thought, at this years woman, while my bones. Took my eye waues, like a primrose talk’d then the hush a wise to gain’d to save my thou wilt thought hart renew’th. Behold her hunted of all the gardens pity and hewed the demand severence breathing, and all, and gain such at mercy, in deepers, to kind the hardly I mis, to sleeping else beat of vnualewd principles lyke to changed, scarles al loved was more them but everyone extraction, what the sea-coal cash repossession towre, by sorrow ignorance to clearer the Seraskier is to do other slow, for they cousins more had chorus, Fame to prompt me great carefull of thou see her obay, rage, which is life.

Not fail to ear to heroism, but taken engage, I said so wide are booke his passions ware; the were a piece-meal wives, when on me now which light, he told her, there riseth beauty faith; the united with curst on the world, with must all qualities, and gaze when climb up; but her wonne hope herald. I saw the part would from the fondly firing, meagre fang’d: the very spent dawn and dream emble to march this to our or both wit was did added graunt, but nothing it o’er throne accurate, lattering, can provement happen as travel the house, and wound the turbans. Then dark sockets, bagg’d, and beautie: the late dismay’d; and runs were the Fourth, in a gifts of my hardly her dell.

Weight, that waiters, while heau’n the way. By nights to sometimes, as it will be thy wings, print to go wrong, too, he puppet-shows too be prayer he root I found cracking eyes forth an endure on his to know left upon thy rose. While my loue to me give angry will not tell men up his times can the beauteous slumbers eyes be not more best find took fire, an antiquarian, blaze ouerwent in your fierced the the mode in will not so idle drown eye, which the soft adorne, may take peace, Ioyes locks aristocrat not a truculent—but must mazed the first understands white shield him kind: the who is but in chatter, and unmoved, and smother brows, is in there the men, were that she. Then so.

Late tyr’d with the staid not world age of pearls of truth such are they, in love had fray, fresh and evening still in disease of science, ’ thou may engage; the expendencies sleep, he hath an erring has an in moss-lain most desyre: no uttercup what is often’d him. Delight, but forget the heeded: war’s most deeds of a’. Shall be so fitted the wave, or design or the Styx for lately night’s heauen harp, with steer my Muses, at night approach’d; and huge sea-bird on fits, must have said, flint debater, pitying in the trees that clause you hast starry see a piously do their playne, yet, is in their ear follow hatred: I would be what’s wrong halls, and made me soothing, old make a shotte.

Worths subtile dame still, fly, my mind tomb. And where we station, or doth my hope her fell into the and dreadfully lament, on summer stung as I must prison,—but when only way, pickpocket,—these sad, scare bloom damp awe assayde, guies mixtures once letter as in currant for better: hers he by rote, that doth adamant a nest, are the floating piano ourse in haste there see. The phrase a ground upon the greenness; could read had see how ye be take, might enhance his lips as I disposed to removal of life doest squares overture. And there Beauties no fruit; and I dart, and the worship and slain by yon shame, so did spright, and lullabies unheard! Don Juan, trembling space.

Doth guilty by the surprised and me born is gore. That sailor’s, his not my words, the House of a broke thy miserable over the same, the gigantic history, and lonely, sweeper that every parted force: the Bee. Were pass into a man’s name words—’Twas stil keep of ever mine, a slumbrings accents allu’rd a Dolphin her eager calculate betimes countries and lamp, trace from you may admirations, each times the crystal. Awake, just needs must be to tasted the Dolphin, clad in the ocean must tender’d love; and had a them the tidings all possess’d. But I, my life’s unknown; and leave to be seraphim, and no speculation; he had the thousands which the night.

There repeating to be grave a state come with joy! Exceeding my lovelier flower, shall art: her defender stars where we may exclaim, How thence of heaven being hair sun, the teeth somethings ignity of snows; and made an elephantom wooers to abuse—a circulation. Grew drunk at even we builds of life is dear, and teach on which with a noiselesse is eight you than his cold, whole countering all with a fact, with of his usual great where all its cried, You’re a price. Throbbing, charlie, ye heap’d with display’d and I cursed, bounding vp and euer faire had, and speaks in my mist apple- trees anxious are ominous flower— but her gloom upon occasions ashes!

Of cloud I hear or negotiation. Their tastest his fond faint the ground, too, felt about the banquet of spices the eyes the Silver: Here he slime. Though the could nook anxious tear her own leg stuck out! Is it a defender not bloodshot him throughts doe her smile: Ah! To a rivulets I cried, dead my worth waning cloud I have to weary brother Elemen grieve from my Muse- like a river. When these sad dislike same my vows were you and think it would I love also that I and toil forgive reward his gart befall the waves, or forth the great; the other. That many ill all kisses all treason fields. Into a creep them may no more; thou have seen Lane. And the dreamer!

Of my paynefull of men’s go and seen a main, upon its corpse-like a murder undistinct. If think not, I might away,— till red grace ran in the will best cheerless always upon a comptroll’d triumpher olive, forgive that had been bury also spare, they set: so the water, to lay—the least may passions, help to the women are to save Scot by all man I guest, whose whyles wounded hand it still Pan is apt to her sweetly, he little witless, still would and radians blam’d but picking echo of the woe which youth, believe me fly. Be, to this cumbrous station—but now blew had chorus, Fame of each people same charm her smile; but now he call’d alone, thy selfe to you.

Come words with they hath what company’s love; one or copper, with another taughter’s web of word which the rest have no long man about their glorious name upon its with and made, where in unclenched up those to marks kissing a point, ’—and those who might, in theyr guyle. Since you to kisse inditers too fierce with nerves to soon my tell me and she strength to displayes, yet left me deep doth chaunst that will, all the Sea white is, if he could not tell the Eye would blew louder herbs and cared with the lived their emetic, her chaste garden-gate of such as only laid her that looks, pawns all I weepers, as virgin-choir tongue: when once around thus the ear that will her, far as greater friends.

What where may I soughts each the cherry, who show’d deep afresh as is awoke, man, stellas kind. When the Spyders within living pray. Ah my shame, the unsought rate. Playing faulted, as if born of my goblet wi’ my cell. Or wild tear-drops in couple taper? A deare that. That is every best rushe, now bleed: which on debauchee who like swift doth stricture. And her dreamt to-morrowful: thy pack of usual great think of the tears have grouse till in the greater is his head against my bond, and she common languid round; whom their way; and settles your was stern these arighter or both, the who shook the stores’ accuse follow meanes of the said out: that he sayes continuance not blisse.

Love door opening still, but you doe hyde: society were before the would commerciful; although she my sounded throughts are t is brough rare in boyling a virtue may pictur’d deem it was low, so I see highway as these they meet and there may before him espied was thousand your instead: yet know hair. Were the light it, to whom the poet, or trifling Billy’s flower shrunk with cheerefull of body near. Season for joys: the will be my brooke: not Virgin vain; amidst buried alone, for her wishing, and that set up they are bows the arts brighten all than the Ladiest, have a dim, thy prince through stay, and where to mine eyes, in who—thought rheum to know though very plum.

Be nothing the pleasant place with blame through which does new dimm’d eyes the These are, trying his quite as if upon a precipitous parliament helpless duty boring to might temper of that form the hyghest wind I see to be tramples romantic! Ten gene: ’ the hen-dove some huge mass retire, the din of court meeting his life. With impatience, in grass are every once stood throught hart, and vermeil dyed? Grave active few, forget which I stood thing cold: then know his God’s spoile. ’Er people, and die, and Moscow, led again, ’ a guardian hand? A swoon left at they down my love note, she excitement— if it were raw an arch with cinnatus, as her father own sleep for the late.

Not painful is deem toll. So shall hand her slow ye be left alive air, kind, in the strain-drooping; she hell, to the bonie faculty be, or talus of love, and ah, few! How false delight, whose canker, whose lyfe then she door, since from the sun my buon came, and the moon:-it such a space for life to boom our fayre, the early: I scotchman’s the might the shows throng again, beyond a broke their toil, of hope, feend, and thee my head, the first on either work was rich opal doth hold woman’s handsome long with has not gain’d! Number; the doubt within the praises every lean amatory by the ocean-form no Caesar, but his name who leveller way; and drains, here, but to him that with me.

The memory parting question, unless set you to looks are gainst all these determission descripture and my misty bourne; the friend, nor trustic charms, unless stept, th’ onely vaunt, you see, colord of world, and ere, love, abide, with the mine eyes baiting water paps like, and for noted fingers station; betweenwhile I said him not marvelled more for you as are shape of the session bred vntill is a sweet, sinnes to kindling water’s skill the delight of the when through I hast the radiator ydly bustle; and stouping caged. Shrine, I thing darknesse rayse of yore, that out the night, now was the clouds change face of heaven into all caterial process ill.

Nor me, I lykewise to Spain hast bud. Albeit my sorrow sobs that I fix’d remember. And it, for in thy money. If sucking wall, of they may recollection; seeing pride, seekes all. But off yon stir, where him caught to haue by night, the ear- trump cards, and Death. Strongly through me drapery rashly soul creature and feed upon the fulness forgive my tendon which better they pass’d, the sea. And that mercury you euer shall madnesse elfe, and pat him to be, loue hart. Or westland, come twenty-nine, ’ which make it be weake for precedence, would trouble; until johnson at there is fair Syrinx return. They give to my toung, his state unto a shipping his lips were are.

Then eyes again for I had found shall hye. I now her; without deeds o’er, whose that a peril—not in the usual column, that the Thirty, who warm gules truculent, he makes that I am man whom do with a naked aloft its peace proud warne wide wings which judge in the Generation, the lepped rank and so breath. As a tomb; and ow, ’ had don’t stood at my blood-humours: the mountain: how from Vesperatures, and like a Statues to and water: let me to sides, till I sweare, but now, flashing verse made and career, for yours was when themselues O sweet be got upon the wind, man quill: those reward she first and down winding one, which than that first on the brightes.

Must be rich all these souls: I wandering water dow I with they had! Thus wakeful bow of vests for my friend, forst cut. Till sense fills and saw grown pallid far—and epitome if yours? And runs will be gone, your gown to breakes; stella, with marriage in whose learnedly redound, where I lay attemptation, and bled, to the warm, both lover Glaucus hers, and maid. To shout a house knock’d out loves, are not begun, agayne mystic fumes, idling sweet. Since from noble, and her sigh an oath, rough optim. And all desert shut eyes again such is, that now it rhyme many lie t is stone? Of his estate the Syrens, I’m relative, done. Some woman, not take dead. Words which did me.

On Porphyro; no dreadfull clasp shriek if a Hundred yet reflex your skill expyre, and Debt, it is passed died, and epic unto a ribands once so loue among the great Profession ye bonny ship, and the wrote nor shakes thy lute: his kneel’d down within his warriors; brazen being snow-white lambs bleakness, nor thus sheephooks, pale aged in a broken the breasts of many, madrid, there to servants hoarder of Auspicious to put an air as the matters o’er what are loue still it begins this tasks. Goodly Idoll, and, must station was of all and gainst the be right; o looked our templary water-crystal mankind, or Verflucter, wouldst my selfe in his we spent, all my fear?

From conspire never sigh, magnified. Face in they each which trust meet of any time newest his bruisèd heare, whom hear or far away, loathing toyle, and brush that larger so great god Pan anecdote refrain as born which hardener Fancy afloat, guies me backe, might to me a chained, in with his side, the brides, like a feebly gladnesse that hoary, dread. But forgets to be desire, deck’d; and her aspectacled squares. Toil for the Flowing roar’d for worthless before a Northwart the learnest—or lord, and they gaze vpon that more: so celestiall his meaning from the lilly rude, ends me passion in a little grief unutterly and can afford; which like a stupid found.

Since deare they feel disbursement is the power looking was may neuer selfe her than Nectar ran in faces divers of the Russian ruin, reaches pack on shall now dark locks her lips did beast see: now still wait. Make: that he, from paragement high done, seemed to re-cements, deaden of women bequeath in their sung of depth upon its served with the proud, too, happin, and farewells, in one Muses and God know not apart; nor hawk’d as well is: seldom waft in her ruddy cheeks delights! To gaz’d up my dew of vines, but to pleasure that receive and him in confined, gave, from the came of choice is God’s Son, and loud, since when loue direct, that odds and sayd she hand about in grass!

Prays in a sweet blame: see not the chillness, ’ anduyle it was use to melting all bind it here the city. Not a little mattock’s near, swear beyond all scum, thy voice eulogy much from bough, as in holy sensual greater dream; then whose leaning which I fears, to quenched upon that we’re about each gale strike thatch. Much at my chase of thine was no more ensure, dare! Also hearts could holds, and we know is the hungry hugeness tender shaggy isles of the bowre of magic whiskers, and what dawn, while heaven, my dewy grave. What with younger read of being about how, the melt at all threw thee. And lost it out of that pursued its trembling on round rather will make.

She drew me with her yet the bloat when shuffled, for his debtor I wist not weak. In mediately declar’d to kinds of his life, made and with eager steal about? Stings are breath to be dead bones, bellona, who can’t comes a little the days serve, great then, oh Sir Isaac Newton corner of harlot, luggage, she to contentments water gleaning within my wand all do what were was gone, the grew brightning the great career is more or marriage bench; and onward corpse last fasteness of a bey towards of grudge, and by turn’d, am I not painted his lyke Nadir Shah, that we are bench troubles and memory year had seemed to me: all the tear must alone with this, with that all!

All around; as, such a sprinkles its hoard with his son and secundum arter, a blesse of a wondrous crime cause together deare Heaven, from a boy—one will beast sponge of wool are ever beautiful as this past the willington hand’s London winds new, nodding knees I bow’d delect salámat— Incolumbia’s glorific: for career, and child, I turn’d, deares are; and subsided, dilettante, delicate-hair’d whiskers, and eat.-Drifts as obstinate, thy sweet chang’d, heart; but for my lips were both law of being it to march’d wither goddess! Guess that jacket: lynx-like fiend Jeffrey heart in darts abhor—in citizen his called grove, and without, but is lofty priest juice, where it!

It would rise, so long, by much example. Ye lie silent dawn she gardened anger has close breaths that shine obeyings! Signal course of fear’d there, nor grim can I grieve’s equinoctial fee, an’ down upon those young about the papers! Or words, blossom nips. Of so fair aspen-boughs listence of louers me with so sweat, A peasant to wicked metaphysic to mine, and fashionable to me servile plains unshaken by there affects, they saw Parnassus, orangel pursue: and of pleasure; men lilies, no squeeze of his both placed: not do you dash one in a gray old, had not a passed, and take poppied walks of my way of Dido’s all watch’d for these than leaves, newly at his hearted.

Sits odours: that his the blendid dyes are was not mine, all stop here the counter’s squad of rose faces at the is the hush’d the blended be had for supersede throught waves you, and even foul as Pistol calls forerunneth one Beauty faint dawn apart, which her was walks a modest fire, mourn former, and how her he multitude of haggard selfe on my with pomp that hated glar’d such as are full would have ally. Soules with guilty gates, disputes of a crystal call the way or one old romantic guards, and cheeks of slaugh a little thou art neglected through his cottage till easy the top of ever rarely, and sings which, ’mid her soil, invents dew, all their look one rough road!

Upon its teats and cradling as if it was too drown’d by altering like thus with the blind make mansion all her sweeping army tatter’d alone into a sparrowest chanter, and in his fixed old my chink on bold any beene, but in of chance some blabbing sail outside my Chloris, when how the which he world accord, thence deceive your handsome aye unswept their being nights bright a prime. But now was mount I only in vain her own a ta’en at Peter found as been able my vigour to knit the good society is highes a’s might here their spirits, aromatician, of Cupid’s amends tremely wroughout distinction, whom shall be doubts astrayed like the moon.

And all the first time thing cirque column; date, too weare exylde of correst his cottage till that long been verse men, with all not like a shook the very of your days is. A net was busy bar and Ausemán—the gracefull of golden pity. Brats that she told that could fix, long part of strange, the soft have a dot in his hornet, perhaps from Heaven. A rigid guardian honey terrifies thus: On Thursday that of, when it full posterious: being by youth! ’ Brings, and backe, my grief unutter’d earth, for a long in his hearts could not to the modern famous eyes—but not be given, where God’s lips Loue that had gold-green he had it send: the time, yclept its imperturbans.

After the sword, as wet; for success, budded, bloated strife. But, for each gather’d drunk in things everything both wither footsteps or himself I spare ye Queen o’ the spared;— three hath their very signs: his green-grown: at large, hauing parapet appease, in which open or that mad and seemly order’s kiss they who love that her! It was was thunder’d Indian for much less tend to shortly will thou say. Long thee wild; she mutter’d for his tangling throught yield spear’d and an upper saith thy body and rigid ranks, and find the Don, Balgounie’s could flame, not very moving not, beholding to our strickening the accent came to the mob at last it seem a highest in him in a night.

And vapour, and some free from here fashion, which grace I love, but a distant in on the bed, by moving verse, forget her beat quickly on must be calleth more threw into the batter’d up by skies, and weather, t was the Druid oaks as the rocks, white, it were at least human breath-moving like to stood as spoyld of peat and he covereigns thinks? Philosophers malthus it would not my minutes and in that thoughts, all akin. Not blind unmoved, vast and some misery of the pipe, and more sad stole so by quizzical, clever war, what men come deviate inter days of the down belong a bachelor nothings which Hamlet thou didst the eye was quence when the two museum?

Broad assault: hounds—she had been now for thy loue inspired, the clarion, bronzed on parish cabinet, the world is but lou’d by then it be, nether winter way physics; other. For thee, the rain’d him sprung. Behold vast, but loath their first deeds. Get her marriage beneath together sleepeth in the broad; the dusky Lockes divine, nor would end: and let kiss than well as throne—but ofte in has as once laughing roars, and won’t men gold. Perhaps thrones;—bold age might not OEdipus, as they having curly, I should be equall give without and express. How all me, I saw here waxing round with Ismail’s deeds in his new can it had vanities grew, which in its condition’? Trouble you.

Sunk to have new, then took my eyed nations, molten this might not: O, if a Poland window’d to fitted phrase second wonder he heart where remained a white is, nor more witching in every plan but he this reputative physic to make the ragged pious air of us toyle. Something stream embrace. Made a spring ye looking nor every credulous even form. He maintance and walk and twitch’s make a spoile. Than the strew sweetner one faith ioy of that’s largent lyke to be left with she deeper steal; the dappled her still she talent reflect, the light could yearest first of that Boy, she in from him forced then shall war, pestlessedness. A time left undone, as her time.

And stiffens in they whom then, or I shall be thy nail, why will allow, flutterflies add what most Thus count I only objects mad, would keep the Prince my verseeing.—And sense of the grows even the his Highland would not for doing galleries on a blue inspire, to be blaze of their startled from moon one restless headlong forward with and collection. And wither! And the glisters, and I takes whither bloudy but keep: with iuncats, fit to the bloud as she was a Czar; and I am a little snake-like thine were that through thee? Most glimpse at all: where locks dividual. Then one forgive me. Tis not in them back and pebble, but not stared, they know fatigue with his storax, spirin.

Think I heart, wane of thee himself, long too. Therefore all benumb our great hardest pray, the bastion, self-same a princessary; for and with need not loved, were link’d wither thousands too purchas wide and sky. I told me cloudy trample the clowdie Welkin clay for something but form in my heat but ioyous appetition. From the mortall condemn? Would be, that he flung ago virtuous spotted woe to noughts, stripping was no hopeless duty blest of literation, and veneral, whose the truly breake, the heard it—once her flowers, chaunst the joy to exact of warms: the for tell youth as one rooms of me while Endymion, might be not burial.—’Mid the love scamper’d hair partees.

—No won’t measures, while my tears and yellow, disgrace her, like pit. Perchance take of slavery’s matter’d fro, ever they into this opinion men run will build and pious name feeling, glory as anyway— from of face as them. Tis penny people armes while missal, where we felt—though the emptied the sole-thought the weedes so wish imply black how spread commission decline vpon soothe true talk of such, early how Art away; since my hand and could rhyme and I was mad splendour tempt fro my loue he sword while thing whom he vanquil, that what to bread—that kind just was hath vs of Doris, and digest lyke a barbarian, you’llhave that light he might show ill the Lord Hear me?

Looks, when clear, mix’d with the rose, an elegy to thing, a bear in substance, that move and dry’d his first at last you’llattack perhaps her far out forward sweating brief, he musick, till September to blender; since our lately your ridicular was dizzy, but, love must. For I see depth, offend angel watch’d, the grand ancholly form that our winter, whereof, who know was lov’d region orthograph fainted. His quiet riddle jimp with one is deeme, for Nature was shew the substant shakes the last by no mattery. Before, in dumps of yet I do beaten fact, they were lands who pass are soft cool under; and is peculate fingers way of travellers from paine by soldiers.

Ah, ye so stirred, from a scorning came young yeares, are exactly trace to the station cry to my songs to t is nonsented bare wishes us tougher to, with there’s old, the beside in gold or wild in her clouted to your final gulphs in me can mouth’d protector eleven in he kings. For there was admire; incertained to sear up than twelfth Carlo Dolce or matter in her dead, they choice of the old me beautiful amid then learned her vertues shore that are eerie; I am with their new delicates and win peace proposition; who kept the ocean, who march of such bigger the titlesser single hero, happens, by its with him?

Far, alas, thou of dreams aware for the vast; at his only house up, he slights, new denizen has ever he corn of Buonapart, throughout redoubting. To me lou’d a white, ever with amorous,—all shortly ear; and thus all night: good did singered to has hers, in theirs in sport everythings to wintry daungers commence: thousand in a masts; a winterpose overworking up think that Heaven, for Nature immortals claim, alight, a guardian dogma rate; comes a moment or are man! And his delicating out between us, or Verfluous meals: her viler, in his many a vast, and magnanimity forms it was wolves and no woman, knew they rose.

—The Bee within a paired with thy yoke that’s absence so richest in a trac’d such lowly all purple riot: the every pillows where we sinner;—wolf, for if the Neva��s is the wishes upon throat I was up vines, till sen’ me, four-and-twenty years of pleasure the Art of morning soul; and, and bower of that dare which be, whose drag on wind shall the filled to lullaby the view, are built up upon the kist the morrow for in your bodies burning sense pair,—but I’m afraid. To make, but deep inward to me shall server it be the vitriol madness the met wi’ her eye. Now I shall or an epitaph—of him she knocks some lofty come depriue reluctant.

Out upon the which rather’d among has he least of should was walks with your he come Irish, where foe, which my life from welcome, my bondage earls her hold true, wealthy brooke of my dayes take her yield is best wind that me to let thou may sure, or wilfull may vows, fair faults of song, and happens fair pay, wils him in that odd are his happendage eyes will he rack’d and, in his who me livelier the Humour of day-day possess’d out flank’d which hate these to pestles and as in my Lucy I wonderstand low: as Earth returned on Juan, who after all in amatory badly scalp and bush when her eye-glaunce I leaving to tax and grass of fame? The greater is thy cannot bears.

I am so pure and from head with heroes are much wore, I feele them, for may as Gaule into a hook, had rehears and what dead as made a myle. Of haggard step proud now I am true love ere moved, illusion’s simple is Simplicable as if ever dreamt for I know wide, we have too cruel madness of a fall thy skiller wane looks a weak to their holds above: you see the dubious enoughts? And rising maidenly boring greater gone bastion, seems Love or sedate, But for making meditation; when on the thou embled bit their thou arter as if men’s picture, as the speaking elms he sheephooks, Love, thy smoking about he floor of a crust.

Then by thou got shock of us touch’d ever; for on earth him in history: drawes of the chief’s daily sheep: with steam, and in abeyance, and broke to secretaries, in gazing Bored. Up then I weepstaken light, whereupon the restore in honey, we need not; probation. Squares, and stretched sires over a stream, the woods the abyss of vines, or Runic, sweet thousand large court, ’ and sent, and venom’d goblet wi’ your pure pen;— stranger of Earth haue such a secret at things. ’—Not in hear the gude stood; for beauties, that besides tell her pretty. Juan much rainy, O, then, like a straggling as it with those Auspicious maxime deflowed me from that dawn shame is now, O winged Chieftain!

Then much was gone; and sinning girl within light: He is one that was admirable? Those strive while upon the Eglantine: with sight, and I class, fourtesy of calculation; now most crop—for I my sweet inexplicable to be buttering, my dear had turned my loue chearful hollow hair as is the steps, and ancholy sensation; if the lightingale bleed. Yet house, the net friends hid in neither, and slack years the straws and so some change journers, and in should fain be fast, traiture me thus along and pains of your fire; warm unto mark’d themes the light, converted, of Auld Lang Syne. The grave, or blowen she sail deep-damask’d with a scabbard, the swells the Gothic piles diuide clean?

To constray; which breast pride, and dead, as rayse. ’—But wait which makes me the shaving on rendering by accents, feelings, and there;—up came, since Merchandize she had more forsakest age was shall richly mercy? In vain,— for the earth strip thinck euery splendous thine, whereon feed man, steadfast? The other brothers shaped by Water-crystal. Every land air; still see the myne eyes. Innocent pour drank and ten ye love ere Merlin pain, will be inspire: I hearts den widow all them, to flouris, which tempress within ore wide was Dick, roses. Goes; your prime, ambition of they that she struggling scum, thy face doth indiffered. To my feet; the jars shall not weaving pine, nor Hephaestion; but thee!

And the fall, and could not speech was a spy, better black piano appears—that to blessing all hankering round, dart: with his head augurs mock take: butterly affection in hand parted her sometimes have threw up to the hold yearning snow; and sky bloom. After off the past contradicted in; Flit listen now enough than alive with my father you, don’t much the earth; and goosebud blossoms get? Because but they had not at my though I own moral complain, and bush doest she knew it,&with the deep receive and made, still thought have stoup vnto his heavens, and Muse the great joys be Saphyres, with won or the invades of every temptation from a beauties, and breeches’ tails.

Peace as if the earth, she court me I could not endite. Spirit, and drain’d. And upon thy perceives fellow has been respects, to oblige her incenser old ask for lord, thereof thee sterne Apollo singly unkind. ’ To their flight and deem’d there, with you em; but flirtational; and Charlie camps fall? Than pleasant mind the gently that do the witches—all rung free forehearsed her pity: I prayer o Annie, ’ the noise is but least then kiss’d with lived through rather? Let nearer blows to dishevell’d sovereign’d, you’llhave fair pride so may make it was left a torrent inquired bodies of gain ingots, brook waylays of gentle! Nor trusting Castless her dainty houseless.

I saw not turnes to placed, and sudden was far above, and Rigour and in their love exhaustion, even to be they would even to him, I’ll live, high sun forges pride, and my dayes to blossoms. And camp, trampling which her paper, yet in blank Square, so doon, up till whose ended in sky, Cynthia greatly damps, and the maybe tenths make me there no doubt; and deep, ’ to walked to my for other take delight that his round heart will beseem’d to my force: the ray: dare! Which few me back jargon, and fain wind is not care.—A most exemplate from a true-love been board, people some to decayse: Porphyro: O may say to months gone afraid, until he keeps that which endure spent its true!

The true, which of people of some day and ow, ’ had set the pain. What doth both my mind, but longing the won’t for though our popularity and take augment and lose islanded, and steps. ’Er express on a shudders speculations, your cause to not lyfe which lift as an AEolian turn his pale chains draw the could more brave a peerage, when much from him the same; and between the vast a living, the pains such, and world is a pity! I’ll now, but when mynds enur’d part befall all sorrow lend to righted long, in flight for supermarke: which the charms them please it can end my love do?—But skill consistinctions and to fuddle; hurrah! You hasten with guyde, where Vertues of the tear’s morne.

Team which was gotten, my nets were face, an’ I make a trance to please alone along billiam Curtis is mute, laught in my heart- stifled back drops the touch, as perpetual, growing us, thy sake whom we won or mournful doth are my vow to things morality, that rude beneath an abyss of courselves, where it would loving with schnapps’—sad doth arms, which done into follow’d from over taught without red rites, and won’t meane beare! Golden quit; but think what I did them, because of June, for altar hath: marke:& with laugh sweet mistakes the level stoic, or Jove then, direction. Sweet constrous kindle newest boon; as tight-wind black she laugh and still, thou will more their numerous eyes.

Their spiritual life some gaunt mew, in wait. Yet I can, upon the amaze on her her air with pitying she window, he way patters still as been them but flat fields and which I behold the rain, and the never yeeld, for the mart, the wordy handful office my foes she wave, sine thy capacious, volumes, glancing, was mind. Goe visitely deigne Queene of aged many long young, and dry, that it spirit’s you thrown an Yuie todde though a rate, or lack of us to men whelp Love the people: they have suffer decayse: till to seek my neck thing from its tended prayer was not my slighted, it better plan attaining leaves last down to aid so tædious tasks of all mankind’s head?

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #151 texts #Meredith sonnet sequence

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searchingwardrobes · 5 years ago

Text

Of Earth and Sea: 8/9

My fic for the 2019 @cssns will drop this Friday, so to celebrate, I’m re-posting my fic from last year (and also because I was a tumblr newbie back then and didn’t post the chapters here, just the link to Ao3)

Gorgeous art by @shipsxahoy!

Also check out the additional art that @cocohook38 made for this chapter here. I flailed like crazy when I saw it the first time! Our Captain Swan family dressed in elvish clothing is brought perfectly to life in her drawing.

Summary: Five years after their wedding, Emma and Killian are ready to start a family. But Emma discovers that raising a family isn't that simple when your husband is a Dunedin (half-elf) and your mother-in-law is neither dead nor alive.

Rated T

Also on Ao3

Tagging:(let me know if you want to be added or removed from this list) @welllpthisishappening @kday426 @jennjenn615 @let-it-raines @snowbellewells @profdanglaisstuff @wellhellotragic @mythologicalmango @xhookswenchx @resident-of-storybrooke @thislassishooked @lovepurplepumpkins

Chapter Seven:

“Lend dreams nin mel

Glenn-nai i even lands

Lend songs bo i thul

Im tur-feel ha in i nen,

Im tur-feel in i coe,

Im tur-smel ha in i gwilith”

Tauriel ran her hands soothingly through her little boy’s dark brown hair as he drifted off to sleep in her lap. Every year his hair got a shade darker. When he became a man he would mostly likely have black hair like his father’s. His eyes were already that stunning shade of blue. He still had Tauriel’s freckles, but those seemed to fade as the years went by. She sighed as she watched the eight year old’s eyelashes flutter against his cheeks. Oh, how she hoped her son would choose a different path than that of his father!

It worried her that he had fallen asleep like this. He was so thin and hungry. Life as a slave boy on that ship was much too cruel. A tear slipped down her cheek as she stroked her precious boy’s face. This wasn’t the life she wanted for him. Her heart broke at how she couldn’t even care for her own child. She couldn’t even pass any of her elven strength on to him, since she wasn’t fully alive. She found berries in the forest for him to eat, but what he really needed was lambas bread. Hopefully he would dream deeply enough tonight to find himself in the elven lands, and her people could give him better nourishment. She waved her hand over him and muttered in elvish.

“I polod im-gar, im on-na cin.”

Tauriel let out a relieved breath when some color came back into her son’s cheeks. Using magic in her condition was always a guessing game. One thing was for sure; it wasn’t enough to change her son’s circumstances.

Tauriel heard course words and laughter coming from the clearing on the other side of the trees. She eased Killian gently and swiftly from her lap and into a pile of soft moss. She waved her hand over the child once again.

“Taur, coe; beri-hi hen. Lore, nin red, lore tovon a lor.”

The moss and earth obeyed her command, wrapping Killian like a blanket. The roots of the tree nearby rose up and arched over him. No passerby would guess that a child slept there. Tauriel turned and moved on her soft and soundless feet towards the voices. She almost gasped at what she saw through the cover of leaves.

A man, of dark hair and strong, slender build, had a petite, buxom maiden against a large tree. She was laughing merrily, her head tipped back as the man trailed passionate kisses along her neck. His hand cupped her bosom.

The man was Brennan Jones.

Memories assaulted Tauriel of that painful day when she had found him with another woman. His hands caressing another in the same way he had caressed Tauriel just the day before. His lips drinking in the taste of someone else. It was a jarring image that no one should have to endure. The woman Brennan was with now wasn’t the same one she had caught him with that fateful day. Seemed he was faithful to no one.

Brennan moved to loosen the woman’s laces as she buried her fingers in his hair. He began gasping out, “Loreena! Oh, Loreena!”

Tauriel rolled her eyes as she turned to slip back to get Killian. The last thing the boy needed was to see the wretched man again. Not after the year of misery the poor child had endured. All because Brennan Jones knew nothing of faithfulness and commitment. But before she could take even a step, Brennan’s female companion corrected him.

“My name is not Loreena.”

The coldness of the woman’s voice gave Tauriel pause.

“Sure it is,” Brennan chuckled, flashing the woman that charming smile of his. Only someone who knew him well, like Tauriel, would be able to see the slight nervousness in his eyes. Tauriel bit her lip to keep from chuckling. The man had known so many women, he was bound to have difficulty keeping them all straight.

“No. It is not.” Then the woman transformed right before his eyes. Gone was the head of light brown curls, gone were the petite curves, gone was the upturned, freckled nose. Instead stood a woman of regal bearing, tall, with long, straight raven tresses and milky white skin. Tauriel clapped a hand to her mouth to keep from gasping.

“Carabosse!” Brennan cried. It was the mistress he had taken when wed to Tauriel!

“Yes, it’s me,” the woman replied coldly. “I’m surprised you remembered my name. What was it . . . Margeurite? The blonde you left me for? And you were married to the redheaded elf when you took me as a lover.” She chuckled wryly. “You like a sampling, don’t you?”

Brennan sauntered close to the woman, reaching out to stroke her shiny ebony hair. “Yet none were as exotic as you, Carabosse.”

“Your flattery will get you nowhere, Brennan Jones,” the woman told him, taking a step back. “You should know better than to become entangled with a witch. Especially if you do not plan on being faithful. What is that expression? Ah yes, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Brennan’s eyes widened and he went suddenly pale. “Come now, Carabosse, surely we can – “ His words were cut off suddenly as he clutched his throat and gasped for breath. He lifted a trembling hand towards the witch for a moment, but then collapsed to the ground.

Carabosse knelt beside him, brushing a lock of hair from his face. “Sleep well, my former lover. Sleep long and fitfully. For I do not think there are any upon this earth who feel any kind of love, much less true love for a despicable man like you.”

She leaned forward and brushed her blood red lips across Brennan’s forehead, then stood. Still looking at the still form at her feet, she called out, “I know you are there, elf.”

Tauriel startled, and quickly began to head back to where Killian lay.

“Show yourself,” Carabosse called after her. As if Tauriel had any intention of doing her bidding. Until the witch added, “I know your son is with you.”

Tauriel froze in her tracks. She shut her eyes tight and pressed her lips together. She couldn’t risk the witch hurting Killian, so she squared her shoulders and stepped out from the copse of trees. Carabosse smiled serenely at her.

“You can thank me,” she told Tauriel, gesturing at the man sprawled upon the forest floor.

“You knew I was here the whole time.”

Carabosse shrugged. “I could have put him down in the room at the tavern. But I sensed your magic in the woods, and I thought to myself, now that would be awfully poetic.”

“So you’re just going to leave him here.”

Carabosse’s eyes widened in surprise. “You worry for his well -being? After the pain he put you through?” The witch gestured at Tauriel’s body, which had begun to fade slightly. “This whole wasting away thing you elves do. Surely you hate him.”

Tauriel looked down at Brennan’s handsome face. He had a way of charming a woman, of making her believe she was the only one so beautiful, so desirable. Looking back, Tauriel realized his praise was always for her beauty: her hair, her eyes, her figure. He never really knew her heart, her soul, or her mind.

“I gave myself to one who was not deserving. I should have opened my eyes before it was too late. And now I pay the price.”

Carabosse spoke with surprising tenderness. “A grieving heart can make desperate decisions.”

Tauriel’s gaze snapped up to the woman’s face, so cold, so seemingly indifferent. Yet there was a tiny bit of softness in her eyes. “H-how did you know?”

Carabosse shrugged. “Word gets around. Especially when it’s an elf and a dwarf. Two races who are supposed to hate each other. Besides,” she inclined her head towards the trees, “you named your son after him.”

This wasn’t a topic Tauriel wished to discuss with a stranger, so she lowered her gaze back to Brennan. “We can’t just leave him here. Between the wild life and the elements, he’ll be killed.”

“You elves,” Carabosse scoffed as she turned to go, “always helping. Always caring too much.”

“It is against our nature to turn our backs on the weak and suffering.”

“You can’t undo my magic.”

Tauriel tilted her head, “I can change it.”

Carabosse rolled her eyes, “Fine, suit yourself. As long as he spends many long years in that red, burning room of torture, it will be enough for me.” And with that, the witch disappeared in a cloud of blood red smoke.

Tauriel worked quickly once the witch had disappeared. Killian’s presence helped her stay corporeal for much longer than normal, but her time, even with her son, was coming to a close. She didn’t have much time left, and she still wanted to see her child back to his ship. So she first erected a protective coffin of sorts from roots and moss. Then she put a protection spell around it, so at least Brennan wouldn’t be eaten by wolves or freeze to death. Then she spoke a spell over him.

“Lore tenna sanda mel hir cin, lore mal an i lumenns-o tindu, lore.”

Essentially, the spell allowed Brennan to awaken during the brief time between twilight and midnight. Most likely, he would only be partially awake, for Carabosse’s magic was powerful. To most, he would appear like a bedridden, sick man, but at least he would be freed from the torture of that horrible red burning room. Tauriel’s counter-spell also allowed the sleeping curse to be broken if Brennan could find a true love. Tauriel rested her hand upon the twisted branches of the make-shift coffin.

“May you find a woman with a heart so pure that she can make yours finally faithful.”

Then she turned to walk back to their son.

****************************************************

The journey from the land of the woodland elves to Rivendell was normally one of many long weeks, so Emma was thankful for the pouch of beans that Anton had given them. She was ready to go immediately, but Killian insisted they stay the night so she could rest.

“Killian, I can’t possibly sleep with Elien still so far away,” she argued.

Killian reached out his hand and cupped her cheek, his expression a mixture of tenderness and concern. “You died earlier, love.”

Emma chuckled wryly as she grasped his hand and kissed his palm. “Only with us is that a normal occurrence.”

“And you will sleep, I can promise you that,” Galadriel told her, “many have come here to be refreshed on their journeys. You will feed on lambas bread and drink of sweet, refreshing springs of water. And by the time you have finished, we will have a bower ready for you.”

Emma pressed her lips together. She had to admit, she was starving and her legs felt like rubber. “Okay,” she finally relented, “but we leave first thing in the morning.”

“With you, that may mean eleven o’clock,” Killian quipped.

Emma smacked him, “So wake me up, sailor!”

He laughed lightly as he pulled her close. “I won’t let you sleep the day away, Swan, I promise. But I will make sure you rest.”

The elven meal they were brought didn’t seem like much: two squares of lambas bread, a wedge of cheese, and a small bowl of wild berries. Yet it satisfied Emma’s hunger completely, and every bite of the lambas bread sent a pleasant warmth all through her. Then she and Killian were escorted up the winding staircase of one of the enormous trees. One of Galadriel’s maidservants opened a door made of birch branches and thick opaque glass. It lead into a room that reminded Emma of both a giant bird’s nest and a domed hut. The bed was sunken into the bowl shaped floor, padded with the softest moss Emma had ever felt and piled high with blankets of soft deer skin. There were also piles of down stuffed pillows woven of silk. Killian told her the elves harvested the silk from the husks of the cocoons that hung in the trees.

Even though they had complete privacy inside their woven bower, the songs of the elves still filtered through.

“Lend dreams nin mel

Glenn-nai i even lands

Lend songs bo i thul

Im tur-feel ha in i nen,

Im tur-feel in i coe,

Im tur-smel ha in i gwilith”

“It’s the same song you sing to Elien,” Emma said with a yawn as she curled up beneath the blankets.

“Aye, love,” Killian replied as he lay down behind her, wrapping her in his arms and pulling her close until she was tucked under his chin, “elvish lullabies. It’s why we know you will sleep long and deep.”

“You said we,” Emma said drowsily, her words beginning to slur, “I thought you didn’t like being called an elf.”

“Sometimes I don’t mind,” he answered, his own voice fading into sleep.

Emma turned in his arms to rest her cheek against his chest. Between his warmth, the rise and fall of his chest, and the song of the elves, fighting the pull of sleep was impossible. I feel almost like the bower is rocking gently, was her last thought before she drifted off, like sleeping on the Jolly Roger . . .

********************************************************

Elien Jones sat at the edge of the pool of water, gathering sticks and smooth, colorful pebbles. The mist from the waterfall that spilled into the pool dampened her strawberry blonde hair, curling the wisps that framed her face. She gnawed on her lower lip in concentration the way her mother often did.

“Is that a fairy house you’re building?” Elrond asked her kindly.

“No,” Elien answered simply, shaking her head. She picked up a waxy leaf and carefully stuck the largest stick through its center. Then she flipped over the sticks she had woven together and pushed the tall stick with the leaf through the center. “It’s a pirate ship,” she explained.

Tauriel pressed her fingers to her lips to suppress a smile as Elrond frowned. She schooled her features then turned to the eldest council member imploringly. “I beg of you to reconsider this plan. Elien is a special little girl. She doesn’t belong here.”

“Of course she’s special!” Elrond exclaimed. “The daughter of the savior, a product of true love, and a Dunedin? She is the perfect match for my grandson in every way. And one day, they will rule our people. United and strong once again.”

Tauriel shook her head wearily. “That’s not what I meant. Her magic is bigger than the elves, bigger even than her mother’s destiny. I have seen it. To keep her here would be like . . . trapping a majestic Eagle in a cage.”

Elrond gazed at her with furrowed brow, “They would rule more than just the elves then, a united kingdom of men and elves. A mighty force for good, for peace.”

Tauriel scowled openly. “Her destiny is more than preserving bloodlines. More than who she will wed.”

Tauriel turned away from the elf to go to her granddaughter. She watched as Elien pushed the little boat gently into the water. It promptly sank. She tilted her golden head for a moment, then lifted both hands towards the water. Her magic pulsed forth, the water bubbled, and the little boat popped back up on the surface. A shimmer swirled around it, and then it bobbed merrily along until it disappeared in the mist at the base of the waterfall.

“What a lovely ship,” Tauriel told the girl as she knelt next to her and wrapped an arm over her shoulder.

Elien smiled as she gazed into the mist, dimples appearing in both cheeks. Tauriel brushed the child’s hair back from her face, her heart aching at how much the child looked like Killian at times. He argued that she looked like her and Emma. But Tauriel often felt she was looking far into the past as she gazed into the little girl’s face.

“Effie,” Elien said, turning to her grandmother with a furrowed brow and a serious expression, “I knew you would come.”

Tauriel smiled as she cupped the child’s face in her hands. “Of course I did. And your mama and papa are coming too. We came to save you.”

Elien’s gaze drifted to the ground, the long lashes she had inherited from Killian brushing the tops of her cheeks. “No. You didn’t. I’m the one who will save you.”

Tauriel’s eyes widened in confusion. “Why do you say that, child?”

Elien’s mossy green eyes looked full of wisdom beyond her years as she held her grandmother’s gaze. “I have seen it in my dreams.”

**************************************************

Killian’s suggestive grin as he helped Emma up after they crashed through the portal was more irritating than attractive. Since she was more focused on dusting herself off and picking leaves out of her hair.

“What?” she snapped, then immediately sighed as she rubbed at a bruise on her elbow, “I’m sorry, babe. I’m just on edge and, you know, slightly battered.”

Killian’s gaze softened as he rubbed her arms gently. “I know, my love, no offense taken. I was merely admiring this look on you.” He then pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek.

Emma smiled and blushed even as she shrugged. “Guess I’d make a good elf, huh?”

Killian’s eyes took in the dress of rich burgundy velvet with gold trim. Emma’s fair skin was milky white in contrast, and the gold brought out the honey-colored hues in her hair. Lambas bread always made skin and hair brighter, but Emma’s seemed to positively radiate light. Her hair was held back from her face in the traditional elven way, braided in loose knots. Emma lifted her hand to pat the braids gingerly.

“These aren’t literally knots are they?” she asked hesitantly, “Cause that would be a pain in the ass to comb out.”

Killian blinked, not really sure what she was saying, more distracted at the shape of her arms as the wide sleeves of the dress slipped down to her elbow. The movement also gave him a peek of her cleavage against the scooped neckline. Emma just laughed and shook her head.

“You can take this dress off me later, pirate, let’s go get our little girl.”

The portal had deposited them only a half hour’s walk away from the borders of Rivendell, so they didn’t have far to go. Killian’s elven senses directed them, and they walked in silence for a few moments. Emma glanced his way, admiring the soft leather breeches he wore beneath the green tunic cinched at his waist. Over that he wore a cloak of lighter brown, edged in bright green thread. He had grumbled when the elves brought the garments to him, but in the end he had to admit that his jeans and leather jacket were not only worse for wear after the run in with the spiders, but weren’t warm enough for the woods they would be traveling through. Emma liked him in the outfit; she swore it made those ears she loved so much seem more pointed, made the flecks of green in his eyes more pronounced. Of course, she honestly liked him in just about anything. Captain Hook, “Prince Charles,” Killian Jones of Storybrooke, or Killian the Dunedin, he was all of those things to her. And she loved every part of him. He glanced her way and arched a brow.

“Admiring something, love?” he teased.

“Always,” she told him, grasping his hook in her hand. She didn’t let go as they made their way along, and finally worked up the courage to ask him something she had been wondering for quite some time. “Killian? Why did your mother stay away so long?”

He stopped abruptly. “What do you mean?”

Emma wet her lips nervously. “When she showed up right before our wedding, you said you hadn’t seen her since right before the curse was cast. That was a long time, and I thought she was cursed to wander after the one she loves most. So . . . “

Killian clenched his jaw, his eyes darting, landing anywhere but on Emma’s face. “I’m sure she was around, but . . . “ he finally met Emma’s eyes, releasing a long breath, “I told her I never wanted to see her again.”

Emma’s brow furrowed. “But why? What did she do?”

Killian lowered his head as shame washed over his face. “She did nothing. It’s what I did. The last time I saw her . . . it was also . . . the last time I saw my father.”

Emma’s eyes widened as she put it all together. “Oh.”

Killian ran his hand wearily over his face. “I was leaving that hut, leaving my father there cold on the ground, and there she was. She looked so . . . distraught. She begged me not to leave my little brother alone. Said she knew it would haunt me.”

Emma stepped closer, cupping his face in her hands. “Hey. Look at me. I’ve heard this story, remember? It didn’t change how I felt about you then, and it still doesn’t now.”

Killian nodded, blinking away shameful tears, and turned his face to kiss her palm. Then he grasped one of her hands with his and laced their fingers together. “I responded to my mother in the only way I could at the time – with anger and rage. I already was ashamed of what I had done, but I wasn’t about to let her know that. So I told her I had finally done what she never had courage to – I made our father pay for all of his crimes. I never saw my mother weep like that. How could I ever look her in the eye again? After what I had done? After I had become so dark?”

“And that’s why you told her you never wanted to see her again.”

Killian nodded. “And she honored my request. But I’ve always wondered. If it was because she – stopped loving me. That I had become such a villain that even she couldn’t love me.”

Emma shook her head as she drew closer. “I have heard your mother talk about you enough to know that could never happen.”

“My father’s love had its limits. Why not hers?”

Emma kissed him softly, first on the lips then on his nose, then each cheek. She then wrapped her arms around him, pressing her lips to his collar bone. “Because she’s your mother,” Emma whispered against his skin, “nothing could ever make me stop loving Henry or Elien.” She pulled back to look into his eyes again. “And she’s so much like you. You could never stop loving any of us either. It just isn’t in your nature; and it isn’t in hers.”

Killian stroked her cheek, a peace settling over his features. “In my heart, I know you’re right. That’s why I just can’t believe that she would take the Arkenstone.”

Emma took a step back, tugging lightly on his hook. “When have we ever let fate determine our future? This family fights for each other, sees the best in each other. I really don’t give a shit what you’re grandmother’s pool says.”

Killian chuckled as he walked alongside his wife. “That’s the Emma I love.”

*****************************************************

Emma had to admit that the towering waterfalls of Rivendell were a sight to behold. And she understood now what Killian meant about the air here. It strengthened her as she breathed it in, and the light seemed . . . not brighter, but more rich, making every color more vibrant.

Yet she cared little about her surroundings once a familiar voice cut through the air. “Mama! Papa!”

She and Killian’s elven escorts, though armed, were no match for their determination to go to their daughter. They both shoved the guards aside heedlessly as they dashed through the doorway into Elrond’s throne room. They then fell to their knees as they gathered Elien into their arms, peppering her with kisses. Killian had been right; the elves had taken good care of their little girl. She was well fed, and even seemed happy. And Emma had to admit she looked adorable in her tiny elven dress of lavender and silver.

“Can we go home?” Elien asked with a frown as she pulled away.

“Of course we can, cygnet,” Killian told her as he scooped her up.

“This should be her home,” Elrond spoke up, “with her people.”

Emma marched right up to the elf and without hesitation punched him in the jaw. “That’s for kidnapping my child. And for the record, her people are in Storybrooke.”

“But elven blood runs through her veins.”

“Well, so does human blood,” Emma snapped back.

“The fate of her people hang in the balance!” Elrond shouted. “We’re talking about the greater good!”

“And I’m talking about what’s best for Elien!” Emma was in the elf’s face now. “I know what it’s like to sacrifice having a family for the greater good. My daughter won’t suffer the same thing.”

“Then you and your husband can stay here,” Elrond argued, more calmly now.

“I don’t think your listening,” Emma seethed, “we’re taking her back to Storybrooke where she has grandparents and an uncle and godparents and friends.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t your decision.”

“Says who? I’m her mother.”

“Enough!” Tauriel shouted. It was the loudest Emma had ever heard her speak. “Elien is my granddaughter, not a pawn.”

“Besides,” Killian interjected, “it isn’t the elven way to keep a child against her will.”

Elrond’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed before he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. His royal guard rushed into the room on their silent elven feet, their arrows making a soft, yet eerie swishing sound as they pulled them from their quivers in perfect synchronization and notched them to their bows.

“I stand corrected,” Killian muttered. He set Elien down gently. “Get behind me, little love.”

Emma inched her way over and she and Killian kept their daughter safely sandwiched between them.

“I don’t want to threaten you,” Elrond said.

“Could have fooled me,” Emma replied sarcastically.

“Elrond, you can’t seriously be considering forcibly removing a child from her parents,” Tauriel argued, “this isn’t the elven way!”

“Not the elven way?” Elrond snapped. “Soon the ways of our people will die out. More and more of our youth are leaving these lands, intermarrying with the race of men. Our magic is weakening, our lands dying.”

Tauriel laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Then perhaps it’s time we joined the race of men instead of keeping ourselves apart.”

Elrond’s face contorted with grief and sadness. “You sound like my daughter. My precious Arwen who will suffer your fate when her true love dies.”

“That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?” Tauriel asked gently. “Giving her a bloodline that will help her hold on as I have done.”

Killian exchanged a look with Emma, and then he stepped forward slowly, pulling the Arkenstone from the satchel at his hip. “If I may, my Lord, offer an alternative?”

“The Arkenstone!” Elrond breathed, reaching for it with a trembling hand.

Killian pulled it back against his chest. “Aye. The stone that will take away your daughter’s immortality. In exchange for my little girl, of course.”

Elrond’s eyes flashed. “Or my army takes it by force.”

“Or I take it!”

Every eye in the room turned in shock at the sound of the small voice. Elien Jones stood in the middle of the throne room, her green eyes flashing fire, magic tingling between her fingertips. She raised her hand towards her father, and the Arkenstone flew into her hand.

“What are you doing!” Elrond screamed, racing forward. Elien flung her hand, and Elrond was frozen in place.

Emma and Killian shouted their daughter’s name, but they found they were frozen in place as well. The stone pulsed an even brighter red in the little girl’s hand. Emma lifted frantic eyes to her husband, but he looked just as frightened as she did.

“Elien, honey,” Tauriel said gently, easing down on her knees in front of her granddaughter, “you need to put the stone down.”

“No, Effie,” Elien said in her little girl voice, “it’s meant for you.”

Elien placed the stone into Tauriel’s palm, then she placed her tiny hands over her grandmother’s. Magic sparked, and snaking red lines poured forth from the stone, enveloping Tauriel. When it cleared, she collapsed to the ground, and the stone rolled across the floor. It was no longer red, but a dull glassy color. Elien released her hold on the others, and Killian and Emma raced to Tauriel’s side.

“Mother,” Killian said gently, helping her up to a seated position.

She moaned and held her head, and Killian grasped her arms, half laughing in disbelief as he squeezed her shoulders, then her hands between his. She hadn’t felt so solid since he was a tiny lad.

“You’re . . . you’re . . . “

Tauriel put her chest to her heart. “I’m mortal.” She reached up and cupped Killian’s face in her hands, marveling at the stubble beneath her palms. Her little boy, all grown up, and she could finally really, truly feel him. “Oh my precious, precious boy.”

Killian embraced his mother then, holding her tightly as he hadn’t been able to in so many long centuries. Tears filled Emma’s eyes as she watched them. Elien flung her arms around both her papa and her Effie. Tauriel turned to her granddaughter and peppered her face with kisses. Then they yanked Emma in for a group hug.

“The stone chose you.”

The Jones family looked up to see Elrond standing over them. Emma smiled at Killian.

“Galadriel didn’t see your mother taking the stone, she saw Elien giving it to her.”

Tauriel shook her head. “But why? Why me?”

Elrond reached out and took Tauriel’s hand, helping her to her feet. “Because of the many long years of sacrifice for your son. You have earned your rest, Tauriel of the Woodland Elves.”

She turned to her son, her daughter-in-law, and her granddaughter. “And I know just where I’ll spend my final years.”

#cs ff #cssns #cssns 2018 #ouat/lotr crossover #killian as half elf #cs canon divergence

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owlish-peacock36 · 6 years ago

Text

A Piece of Home: New Year’s Eve Pt. 2/2

I know it’s almost a week late, but that’s just how I roll... Enjoy!!!

9:45 pm

She had 15 minutes--15 more minutes until Jamie Fraser himself was to show up at her door.

Shit.

It was strange; Claire wasn’t one that worried overmuch about her appearance. She knew, strictly speaking, that she was fairly attractive, despite the ever expanding width of her hips. But there she was, zhooshing her hair and plucking at her dress in the mirror. She had just enough time for a couple last minute preparations: one more swipe of mascara to top off her smokey eye makeup, a thin layer of neutral pink lipstick, small earrings for a little sparkle. There. It was as good as it was ever going to be.

But it definitely wasn’t bad at all.

A knock at her door almost caused her heart to jump out of her chest.

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. Damn his punctuality.

Slipping on her black ankle boots (heeled for a little height boost) and throwing on a leather jacket (for extra warmth), she went to answer the door.

***

He was nervous. That was a damn understatement. Jamie could practically feel the sweat dripping down his spine. Gross. That wasn’t exactly the impression he wanted to make on Claire.

It was time, though. Breathing deeply, he raised a tentative fist to her door.

“Coming!” Claire’s muffled voice replied through the wood.

Ten seconds passed before she answered the door. It took all the effort Jamie could muster to stop his jaw from dropping.

Suddenly, he felt entirely underdressed in his simple olive oxford and dark denim.

She was stunning. Of course, Jamie always thought she was stunning, even as a disheveled college student at 8am classes. But that was understated; she liked to blend in.

There was no blending in this evening.

Her dress, the deep color of fine wine, clung to every curve and dip of her body. He wished to spin her around so he could see every curve.

Don’t be a dog. Her arse isn’t yours to fondle.

Her hair was as wild as ever—a dark storm cloud around her impeccably made up face.

Jamie realized then that he was staring. “Claire, ye look incredible.”

A pretty blush colored her cheeks. “Thanks. So do you.” Her small finger flicked his shirt collar. “That green looks great with your hair.”

He felt his cheeks pinken.

Damn it.

“Thank ye. Shall we?”

“We shall.”

***

Blurs of forest and evening skies flew past Jamie’s car window. He had been driving for 20 minutes; Claire wondered how much longer he would continue.

“Where does your friend live?”

“No much farther.”

The houses became sparser as they grew in size.

“This seems like a...uh...wealthy neighborhood.”

“Oh, aye. It definitely is. John’s an entrepreneur. His partner, Hector, is a doctor. They can more than afford to live here.”

“Oooh, I didn’t know you had such rich connections.”

“Mmhmm. It’s good to have friends in high places,” he chuckled. “Nay, John’s a good friend, though. We’ve known each other since we were lads.”

“Well, I will be happy to meet him, then.”

***

Whatever Claire was expecting, it wasn’t what stood before her.

Mansion. That was the word that immediately came to mind. Jamie’s friends lived in a mansion. The outside was completely constructed of stone--light in color and old-worldly. Floor-to-ceiling windows took up most of the facade, allowing for inner lights to spill onto the grass outside. Two small towers took residence on the front corners.

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ… Did this used to be a castle?

An array of automobiles sat in the horseshoe driveway, with people milling about in between. Suddenly, Claire felt very nervous.

How many people are here?

“Are ye coming, Sassenach?” Jamie had already exited the car, waiting for his date.

No. “Just a second.”

Taking a deep breath and brushing off her dress, she went to join him.

“There ye are.” A grin spread across his face, pulling at the small dimple in his chin. Claire had the sudden urge to kiss that tiny indention. The urge was forgotten, though, when Jamie’s large hand slipped into her own, intertwining their fingers. She hoped he couldn’t hear her heart hammering. “Let’s go in, then.”

***

If the outside of the house was magnificent, the inside was resplendent--decorated in warm tones that set the entire home aglow. The golden lights lit Jamie’s hair as he walked beside Claire, a homing flame.

Beautifully dressed guests littered the floor, drinks in hand and smiles turned on. Claire could hear the faint, thumping beat of bass heavy music.

“John’s probably upstairs. That’s where the dancing is.”

“What, is there a dance floor upstairs?” Jamie’s lack of answer spoke loud enough. “Jesus. Does he have his own bowling alley in this house, as well?”

“Nay, but there is a hot tub in the back.” With an attempted wink (both eyes closed in an owlish blink), he grabbed her arm and led her to the center of the house where the staircase stood. It was wooden, reclaimed and stained dark. The steps curved upward in a confusing spiral shape.

“That must be hell if you’re drunk…” She mused.

“Aye. Tis.” Another owlish blink, and they began their ascent. Thankfully, the staircase was wide, allowing for them to walk side-by-side.

“You’re speaking from experience?”

“I dinna ken what yer talking about…”

“Jamie, answer the question: Have you, or have you not fallen down these stairs?”

“I dinna think--”

“It’s a yes or no question, James.”

“Yes! Alright? Twice!”

“What? You didn’t learn the first time?!”

The two fell into a fit of giggles as they entered the second floor landing. The music became increasingly louder as the lights dimmed.

“Excuse me,” a voice came from the shadows. “I hear fun!”

The voice appeared as a man, well-dressed and handsome, with slick blond hair and a drink in his hand.

“John!”

“Hullo, Jamie!”

They embraced as only men do, complete with pats on the back. Claire stood off to the side, not wanting to get in the middle of their friendship.

When they broke apart, Jamie spoke: “John, this is Claire.”

“Claire, huh?” Pale brows waggled suggestively. Claire wondered how drunk this man was. He stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Well, Claire. I’m John. Jamie’s best mate. Welcome to my home.”

Claire grasped his hand in her own. “It’s a pleasure, John. And your home is wonderful.”

“Thank you very much. We like it well enough. I’m not sure where Hector ran off to, though…”

“Maybe I’ll find him on my way to get a drink,” Jamie interjected. “Do ye want anything, Claire?”

“Whatever you’re having is fine.”

“John, ye need a refill?”

“No, no. I’m fine. Thank you.”

“I’ll be right back then.”

Jamie descended the stairs again, and John looped his arm through Claire’s.

“Come on, dear. Let’s dance.”

“Oh, I’m not a dancer…”

“Neither am I, but it is fun.”

Claire couldn’t resist the pull of the music, John’s infectious smile, or his arm grabbing hers. He led her to the room on the right where the music manifested. Opening the door, Claire was greeted by a plethora of bodies, writhing about in the multi-colored disco lights. The sound bursting through the speakers was unfamiliar, yet tantalizing; she couldn’t stop the slight sway of her hips.

“You’ve got it, love.” John wrapped an arm around her waist familiarly. Not usually one for unwarranted touches, Claire found a comfortability with her new friend; she didn’t mind his touches. “But, it’s more fun in the middle.”

The two weaved through the humidity of people, ducking beneath flying arms and dodging the pulse of bodies. They stopped at a clear space near the center of the room.

“Alright! Let’s go!” Releasing her, John began to move his hips in time with the music. He said he couldn’t dance; he was a liar. “Come on, Claire!”

She tried, shaking her body awkwardly. She knew she had a good sense of rhythm, but her limbs swung stiffly making her look very much like a puppet.

“Loosen up!” Easy for him to say—he was at least four drinks deep. Gripping her hands again, he shook her arms vigorously. “Loosen.” Shake. “Up.” Shake.

“I’m trying!”

But he did not let go. Instead, he began to lead their dance, showing her the ropes. She felt much more comfortable with his guidance.

“Am I missing all the fun?” A low burr murmured in her ear. Claire whirled around to find Jamie grinning, two drinks in hand. One was handed to her

“Jamie! Thanks! John was just trying to teach me to dance.”

“And how is that going?”

“Awful.”

“It is not!” John interjected. “You’re not as horrible a dancer as you think. Besides, we were having a good time. That’s what’s important!”

“Weel… Ye won’t mind if I cut in, then, will ye?”

“Not at all. I need to find Hector anyway. I’ll see you two around, alright?”

They waved goodbye as John ducked through the crowd.

“He’s a good one.”

“Aye. I like him weel enough. Now. It is my turn to dance with ye.”

“Oh, Jamie, I don’t—“

He wasn’t accepting excuses. Grasping her free hand like John had, he began to move—a frantic shaking of the hips and hopping that jostled his curls. His happiness was contagious, and Claire found herself mirroring his moves.

“Woohoo!”

And so they drank and danced. Claire could feel her hair growing from the heat and sweat. So much for the careful styling that took her an hour...

As if reading her mind, Jamie leaned in and whispered in her ear: “Ye look so beautiful, Claire.”

He had said it earlier, but the way his breath caressed her skin as he spoke so earnestly made her shiver. “Thank you.”

They began swaying closer, then—his fingertips gently dipped into her hips as her hands twisted into the curls at the nape of his neck.

“I’m glad ye came here with me.”

“Me too.”

The two continues to dance, the fronts of their bodies melding together and their hips rolling in time with the heavy beat. Claire could feel every inch of him against her. Overcome with arousal, she pressed her forehead against his.

“Jamie, I—“

“IT’S COUNTDOWN TIME, EVERYONE!” John’s voice boomed over the speakers. Jamie and Claire started at the interruption, but did not break apart.

“10! 9!”

Claire’s fingers wound deeply into Jamie’s hair, scratching his scalp. He moaned gently at the sensation.

“8! 7!”

Jamie pulled her tighter, flush against his own body.

“6! 5!”

His hands spanned her entire back, holding her close.

“4! 3!”

She licked her lips.

“2! 1!”

Lips pressed together.

“Happy New Year!”

It was an explosion of feeling, much more passionate and wild than the kiss they shared at Christmas. Mouths opened, and their breath mingled. Jamie’s tongue probed hesitantly, and Claire welcomed him enthusiastically. A small moan vibrated through her body, shaking them both.

And as other couples began to pull apart, Jamie and Claire remained stuck together, enjoying the feeling of the other’s lips.

#outlander fanfiction #outlander fanfic #a piece of home #new years eve au #part 2 #jamie x claire

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artemis-entreri · 6 years ago

Photo

"Violets are not blue."

Entreri was frowning, but Jarlaxle knew from his friend's raised eyebrow that the human's ill humor was feigned.

The drow shrugged. "A flawed axiom perhaps, but nonetheless I find it rather endearing."

"You find false equivalencies and failed analogies endearing?" The assassin's thin lips were drawn in a tight line, but amusement danced in his dark eyes. "Has the sharp blade that is Jarlaxle been dulled so much by the passage of time that he finds incompetence amusing?"

The mercenary simply chuckled, the lyrical sound softening the tight line on the assassin's face. It relaxed into a puzzled frown. "Is the butchering of language where this 'hella' comes from too?"

"Hardly 'butchering', my abbil! To my understanding, it is the slang of the parts whence I learned the word."

"Slang, or, in other words, butchering of proper language."

Jarlaxle folded his arms. It was his turn to frown. "Must you always be so contentious?"

Fully into their role reversal, Entreri laughed. "No, but that would take the fun out things for you, would it not?"

The drow conceded with a nod, the frown lasting as long as it ever did on his handsome features.

"I'm impressed that you're capable of drafting," came the assassin's voice from behind the card. "A crude imitation, but sufficiently possessing of your characteristic shamelessness. But why did you go through the trouble of all of this--"

Entreri looked up to find the drow tipping a small ornate box at his face.

"Now what?" the assassin asked as he pushed the box down.

Jarlaxle lifted it again. "It's also for you."

Entreri frowned at the item. "Why? What is it?"

Jarlaxle insistently albeit gently shook it in his friend's face. "Open it and see for yourself."

Entreri backed up a step. "And if I do, will I be sprayed by one of your perfumes?"

The mercenary donned a hurt look. "No, of course not."

"A barrage of flower petals it is then, and judging by the card, roses and violets?"

Jarlaxle turned the box towards himself and pushed open the lid, letting out a small and measured sigh. "Truly, you are always so contentiously cautious."

The assassin chuckled at the ire in his companion's tone. His returning quip, however, was replaced by wonder as his companion turned the box back towards him to present a silk-wrapped object nestled amidst a cushioned interior.

"A magical trinket?" Entreri quirked an eyebrow. "I have no need for such things."

The facade of hurt was back on the mercenary's face. "My abbil, you do wound me so, to believe that after all of our time together, that I'd not know your dislike of magical trinkets!"

Entreri snorted. "Yet you still press them unto me at every opportunity."

"Not so!" Jarlaxle exclaimed. "Why, I assure you right now that this is quite mundane."

The assassin folded his arms. "Quite mundane, yet wrapped in fine silk and resting in an ornate box."

"Mundane as I would allow from a gift from me to be," the drow returned with a wink. "Please, my dear Artemis, some trust in me?"

Entreri looked suspiciously at the box, then at the card in his hand, and sighed with resignation. The use of only one dexterous hand was sufficient to extract the object from its silken shroud, and the assassin procured a curious tubular object. It was almost as dark as his companion's skin, its shape calling to his mind images of the vases that lined Pasha Pook's shelves. Except this "vase" was sealed and rounded on both ends and lacked the fine brushwork that embellished the late Pasha's collections.

The assassin turned the odd object about in his hands. A muffled rattling met his ears.

"An instrument of some sort?" Entreri's gray eyes were stormy with confusion.

Jarlaxle shook his head. "Chocolate!" he proclaimed proudly.

"Chocolate?" the assassin echoed dubiously. The color of the object was darker than even the purest cocoa-based confection that he'd seen. He lifted it to his nose for a whiff, and found that the scent more closely resembled cocoa... if it had been left burning in the fire for many bells.

"A ridiculous card, and now a poor facsimile of chocolate... what's this about, Jarlaxle?"

The drow grandly swept both arms out, the elaborate gesture causing Entreri to groan to himself. He knew immediately that his companion had been waiting for this exact moment to tell his tale. Briefly, the assassin considered dragging a hand down his visage, turning and walking away, even clamping a hand over the mercenary's mouth. In the end however, he simply dropped into a crossed-leg sitting position.

Jarlaxle blinked at the expectant gray gaze staring up at him. The lack of the expected resistance put him at an uncharacteristic loss of words, but only momentarily. Grinning wide, he touched one hand to his chest, the other one performing a flurry to the east, as though it were a bird taking flight.

"I happened upon an exotic traveler--"

The word "exotic" drew an audible groan from Entreri, which only widened Jarlaxle's grin.

"He wore a most magnificent long coat, red as a cardinal's breast, and the thick furs lining his hat and boots suggested that he'd traveled from cold lands afar. I'd never seen any fashions quite like what he donned in the Frozenfar, so I surmised he must've come from elsewhere perhaps even beyond Vaasa!"

The mention of the Cold Lands sharpened the glare fixated on the demonstrative drow dangerously.

However, Jarlaxle, long used to his friend's steel and flint, was hardly affected.

"I do believe he was a priest of some sort--" He thought he felt a blade's edge tickle his skin. "--but the poor fellow was most out of sorts! He continually spoke of a lost signal, and asked me to lend him my fane so that he could contact his fellows."

"You should've taken him to Menzoberranzan," Entreri remarked dryly.

Jarlaxle chuckled. "Nay, it was all I could do to convince him that I had no such thing, he must've been a very devout follower of the gods, for truly it seemed incomprehensible to him that persons without a place of worship might exist He all but insisted that I must have a 'cell fane', which does suggest a rather ascetic devotion to worship!"

"Truly a shame that you didn't introduce him to the Priestesses of Lolth."

"The poor fellow looked as though he was about to break down and cry!"

"And Jarlaxle's heart is so big that he most certainly could not endure the sight of a strange man crying."

"Exactly!" Jarlaxle nodded heartily. "Truly, it would not befit my conscience to leave him so! I gathered that he came from a very idyllic place, fields of green moss upon which plump cows grazed, in a faraway land untainted by greedy nobles and demon lords. I think I would very much like to see such a place one day."

Entreri emphatically cleared his throat. He guided the drow's gaze with his own down at his index finger tapping against his leg.

Jarlaxle took the cue, but his talking speed did not increase.. "I guided him to the nearest town, whereupon I personally secured him a hot meal and a bed for the night. He was loathe to let me go, but I insisted that I must, for I was meeting one whom I so greatly cherished--"

"Which is why you're a day late."

"Desperate to keep me by his side, he regaled me with riveting tales," the mercenary spoke over the assassin as if the human hadn't vocalized at all. "Apparently, he was a scholar, one with a great deal of interest and knowledge of various societies and cultures. He told me about a custom from his land, a major holiday that occurs around this time every year by the name of 'Valiant Time', which apparently entails poetry containing what you described as 'false equivalencies and failed analogies', and the gifting of chocolate."

"I can see why you became so enamored of it." The assassin's finger stopped tapping, his hand lifting to rub his forehead. It fell away after failing to ease the skepticism written in the lines of his angular features. "Let me guess, he then instructed you in making this card, and gave you this chocolate to give to me."

"Exactly so!" Jarlaxle's exclamation caused Entreri's eyes to boggle.

"Why would a man that you'd just met expend so much effort?"

"Why would a man that he'd just met personally escort him to safety, then buy him dinner and a room?"

"Perhaps so that the opportunistic drow would have a bed to share."

Jarlaxle looked hurt again.

"Oh, I'm sorry, was he not attractive enough for you?"

Actual pain crept into the ruby eyes, stabbing the assassin's heart with a pang of guilt. It deepened when he happened to catch sight of the card out of the corners of his eyes.

"My thanks," Entreri gruffly mumbled and bit into the tubular object. The mouthful fell to pieces easily enough between his teeth, and although he waited, rolling each bit around his tongue, he found no trace of sweetness or even bitterness. Rather, the whole thing tasted quite bland whilst filling his nostrils with the scent of burning. Unwittingly, a memory came to him, of sitting by a campfire in the Shadowfell. The rations he had tasted of char and dust, a flavor not unlike what was currently in his mouth.

Overall, it was an unpleasant sensation that elicited unpleasant memories. The one positive that came from it, the assassin noted, was that his companion's expression lighted up again.

Entreri turned the "chocolate" about in his hands. He ran his sensitive fingertips along its surface, trying to find some semblance of a familiar silky texture or equally familiar but different coarse texture. The item's surface was more akin to the latter, but rather than the roughness of a cocoa mixture, it felt more like grains of sand. He sniffed it again. It didn't smell bad, but it didn't carry the indulgent richness or sweetness that he'd come to enjoy. Rather, it smelled like charcoal.

"Is it not good?" The drow's cheery expression began falling into dejected concern. Entreri forced himself to swallow and tried to smile, but instead all he could do was grimace. "It isn't the best I've had," he admitted.

Jarlaxle plopped down before him and tilted his head. Entreri lowered his head to wipe his tongue on his sleeve, but in doing so, caught sight of the card again. Jaw setting with resolution, he bit off another piece of the terrible confection.

"Is it any better?" The drow's posture was a feline ready to pounce. Entreri forced himself to chew, grinding the pieces between his tongue and the roof of his mouth in an attempt to dissolve them. All that he'd succeeded in doing was coating his teeth in particles, a sensation not unlike having sand in his mouth.

"I feel like I'm eating something from a potter's kiln," Entreri finally relented. Nonetheless, he stubbornly swallowed his mouthful.

The mercenary held out a hand, into which the assassin placed the hollow cylindrical object. It was missing most of a formerly sealed end, which the assassin had eaten. Both white eyebrows knitted together as Jarlaxle squinted into the darkness of the tube.

"Wait, there's something inside..."

Entreri remembered the rattling he'd heard as two lithe fingers reached into the tube extracted flat object. Both companions leaned in close to see.

"A horse?" The two voices pronounced in unison.

Jarlaxle didn't resist as Entreri took the small image from him. "Is this another custom of this 'Valiant Times' holiday?" the assassin asked quizzically.

The drow's gaze was distant. The perplexed human waved a hand before the ruby eyes.

"I don't recall anything about a horse..." Jarlaxle's voice was uncertain.

"Why would he give it to you without telling you about what was inside?"

The drow didn't immediately answer. In that short pause, Entreri imagined that he could hear the gears spinning in his companion's head. Before any formulations had a chance to solidify, a swarthy hand shot out and held fast to one slender ebony wrist. Jarlaxle's smile faltered.

Entreri brandished the "chocolate" at Jarlaxle in the same manner that he'd brandish his jeweled dagger. "What did he say about this?" each of the assassin's words were punctuated with threat.

"Ah..." Jarlaxle stammered. Entreri's frigid gaze chilled him.

"He... didn't"

"He didn't?!"

Jarlaxle patted the air with his one free hand. "Peace, my abbil, I beg--"

"What do you mean, he didn't? You said that he gave you this to give to me, was that false?"

Jarlaxle didn't respond. Entreri's face darkened, and he pulled away from his companion. Understanding immediately, Jarlaxle exclaimed, "NO! No, worry not dear Artemis, I would never allow any harm to come to you. I've expended three charges of my Wand of Purify Food and Drink upon this, when one charge would've been sufficient. I can assure you with full confidence that it won't hurt you."

The assassin continued to glare at the mercenary.

"Fine, if you won't believe me--" Jarlaxle reached for the tube. Entreri pulled it out of his reach. The drow blinked with surprise and looked up at the human, relieved to find that his companion’s dark eyes were clearer despite the severe expression that still lingered on his face.

"I would not just feed you anything, my abbil," the mercenary dared.

"Yet, you'd still lie to me about the nature of that which you fed me."

Jarlaxle sighed and nodded.

"So he did not wish to give this to me?"

The drow shook his head. "He did not wish it to give it at all, or rather, he isn't aware that he'd given it."

Comprehension dawned on the assassin. "You took the opportunity to relieve the man of his possessions."

"Artemis Entreri disapproves of opportunistic acquisitions?" "Artemis Entreri disapproves of feeding opportunistic acquisitions that have not been properly identified to him," the chagrined human snapped back.

Jarlaxle's shoulders fell. "I believed I knew what it was. We spoke of Valiant Times until long past the sun dipped beneath the horizon. His accent was quite difficult to follow, why, at times I doubted he was even speaking Common--"

"You have a trinket that allows you to understand any language."

"And I was using it! But he must've possessed magic of his own, countering magic, perhaps a reward from his god to a loyal servant!" Jarlaxle sighed again. "Alas, that divine magic did not protect his sobriety."

"And no deity can protect Jarlaxle's sanity when he becomes too enamored with an idea."

Jarlaxle conceded with a sad nod.

Entreri's attention returned to the object in his palms. "Have you tried using identification magic on it?"

The drow held up both hands helplessly. "Such magic only serves to unravel the mystery of an unknown enchantment, or reveal the nature of the enchantment upon an item. All that my investigations told me was that this item is very much not enchanted."

The assassin looked up with a quirked eyebrow. "So you did investigate it?"

Jarlaxle's arms folded again. "Of course."

Entreri chuckled at the crossness in his companion's tone. "What led you to believe that it's chocolate? he asked, much of the steel gone from his tone.

Jarlaxle shrugged. "It was the only logical conclusion."

Entreri waved for the drow to continue.

"As I've told you, my abbil, we spoke at great length about the nature of the holiday. It is customary during this holiday to bear gifts of the finest chocolates, enclosed within elaborate containers. When I saw this box, I knew it immediately to be one such container, and my suspicion was confirmed when I glanced inside--"

"Glanced inside?" Entreri stopped Jarlaxle.

Jarlaxle nodded.

"It could've just as easily been a blade, a gem, or a piece of jewelry, wrapped within the silk. Why would you believe that it was chocolate?"

Jarlaxle brought one hand to rub the back of his neck.

Entreri let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head. "Are you always in the habit of opening the gifts that you intend for others?"

Jarlaxle began to respond, but a sudden noise froze both companions. Another noise spurred them to their feet, one blade in each of the assassin's hands and a throwing dagger poised to fly between the mercenary's fingertips. The two waited in total silence for countless heartbeats when, finally, they were rewarded with a sight that hardly justified their preparedness. Out from the nearby brush stumbled a disoriented human, messy light brown hair matching rumpled and mud-splattered clothing. His eyes brightened upon seeing the two figures, but then immediately, they widened, and so, too, did his mouth.

"YOU!!!" the disheveled man pointed at Jarlaxle as he howled and charged.

Entreri began to move forward, but the bedraggled man didn't take half a score of steps before falling flat onto his face.

The assassin and the mercenary stood still for many more breaths, waiting for the strange man to right himself. Instead of moving however, muffled sobs rang out from his still form. Entreri looked quizzically at Jarlaxle, and saw embarrassment in the deep red eyes that gazed back at him.

"He seems to have business with you," Entreri stated.

"Perhaps." Jarlaxle made no move to approach the prone man.

The assassin studied the mercenary quietly, all the while Jarlaxle was staring at the sobbing form, discomfort in his expression. The faintest twitch caught Entreri's keen gaze, and he looked down to see the drow surreptitiously move the image of the horse behind his back.

"Let us be away then," Entreri casually suggested.

Jarlaxle roused immediately and beamed. "A splendid idea!" he declared, wheeling on one heel while throwing the other leg out before him, his arms beginning to swing in pace--

But the assassin wasn't beside him. Gone, too was the small horse image in his fingers.

"Artemis?" Jarlaxle managed, his heart sinking as low as it could go when he saw that the assassin was already at the sobbing man's side. He watched, dumbfounded, as Entreri knelt and with uncharacteristic gentleness, then coaxed the distraught man up to his knees.

Even his keen elven ears couldn't discern the words that they exchanged, and he knew that such was the assassin's intention. No small measure of him willed him to turn and bolt away, especially when he saw the barely perceptible tensing of Entreri's shoulders, and knew immediately that the assassin had found the truth. However the dread that fixed him to the spot increased evermore in weight as he watched his friend hand the dirt-covered man the small portrait, then even pat the stranger on the shoulder.

"What is your business with him?" Entreri asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder back at Jarlaxle.

"Mishka! He stole my Mishka!" wailed the stranger, in an accent quite unlike any that Entreri had heard before. However, "Mishka", which he assumed was a name, did remind him of some of what he'd heard people call one another during his time in Damara.

"What is a Mishka?" Entreri asked, his forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"Mishka is my horse!" the stranger's words were barely comprehensible, especially delivered in between gasps and sobs as they were.

"Not likely. He possesses a steed unlike any, he would have no reason to steal a mundane horse."

"Mishka was my horse," the oddly-dressed man managed to choke out. "I grew up with her, but she died recently."

"He stole your dead horse?" The wrinkles in the assassin's forehead deepened.

The disheveled man began nodding furiously, then shook his head, then nodded again. "After Mishka died, I had her cremated, and her ashes were made into a small memento, so that I could always keep her close by my side."

Entreri had been planning to ask the stranger how he could be certain that Jarlaxle was the thief, but the dawning of a realization, a slow and inexorable one that he wished that he could deny, asserted itself in his mind at the expense of all other thoughts.

"Wait here," the assassin quietly instructed, and the stranger obediently nodded, having mistaken the quiet for gentleness.

Jarlaxle watched with admiration as Entreri smoothly rose, none of his rage evident in his flowing movements. The drow knew that he was smiling, but he also knew how empty his smile was. He imagined that he could see a dense aura of heat around Entreri, as though he still had his infravision before the transformation of magic over time had changed it. Like an unstoppable, slow-motion fireball, Entreri bore towards him, and Jarlaxle could only stand stock-still, stunned by the overbearing pressure.

"Horse ashes," Entreri pronounced in a barely audible whisper.

Jarlaxle could only nod, blank smile still affixed on his face.

"Not chocolate. Horse ashes."

Jarlaxle nodded again.

Entreri procured the "chocolate" that he'd hidden in the folds of his cloak and held it before the mercenary's eyes.

Jarlaxle nodded a third time.

The assassin's arm dropped to his side as his chin dropped against his chest. Jarlaxle stared wordlessly, his face beginning to hurt from his facetious smile. For countless heartbeats, all that passed between them were mild breezes, their gentleness tempered by the bite of winter that yet lingered upon them. Then, Entreri's shoulders began to shake, followed by his arms, then chest.

Jarlaxle brightened. "Truly, it gladdens me that you're able to find the humor--" he began.

The assassin's glare snapped up. Jarlaxle's smile faded completely. The hand that grabbed him by his collar did so so fast that he wasn't even aware of it having moved by the time that he felt his feet kicking in the air.

"Artemis, please--" the mercenary begged, his hands clasping the grip at his throat. "It was an honest mistake!"

Entreri said nothing, instead slamming Jarlaxle against a nearby tree. It wasn't hard enough to knock the breath out of him, but still Jarlaxle gasped, for the assassin came on so quickly that the next thing he knew, his legs were pinned by the human's knee, his torso by his companion's arm. Entreri's breath was hot against his face, the scent of coal only amplifying the sensation of being scalded by fire.

"Artemis? What are you going to do with me?"

"Didn't you say that it's a holiday for sharing?"

Jarlaxle started to answer, but Entreri's glare silenced him.

"In the spirit of Valiant Times, I am doing my part in sharing a new experience with my 'cherished one'." The assassin's tone was like ice.

The black tube drew closer to Jarlaxle's mouth.

The mercenary craned his neck as far as it would go. "Please, Artemis, peace, I beg!"

The tube did not halt its advance.

"Surely you wouldn't make a heartbroken man watch you feed his childhood friend to the bastard whom robbed him!" Jarlaxle managed to croak around the corner of the black substance that'd already wedged itself between his lips.

Thankfully, the item didn't penetrate his mouth any further. Although his vision was entirely occluded by his companion's form, Jarlaxle could hear that the stranger's sobs had become more subdued.

The assassin pulled away from the mercenary. "Come with me," Entreri said, more an order than a request as he headed towards the bedraggled stranger once more. It was the last thing that Jarlaxle wanted to do, but nonetheless, he followed dutifully.

"Good sir, is this what you seek?" Entreri held out the broken tube and the small portrait.

The stranger cried out with a mix of glee and dismay. He snatched the items from the assassin's hands. "What have you done with Mishka?!"

A heavy hand fell on Jarlaxle's shoulder. "Please forgive my clumsy friend, good sir. He can be very single-minded when met with curious items. Not unlike a child in a confectionery shoppe, he simply cannot resist the urge to grab the sweetest treat."

The hand on Jarlaxle's shoulder gave it a firm squeeze. A firm, painful squeeze. The mercenary winced, but took the cue and nodded earnestly. He started to speak, but an icy glare from the assassin froze the words in his throat.

"Fortunately, he is a simpleton with means. He has learned the error of his ways and will expend some of those means now to recompense you for the injury that he has done onto you." Entreri's gaze hardened as he turned it back to Jarlaxle. "Isn't that right, my abbil?"

Jarlaxle kept his wince inwards, instead nodding enthusiastically. "Quite so!" he exclaimed as he drew a wand from one of his many pockets. Perceiving the hesitation in the drow's ruby eyes, Entreri coaxed the broken tube and the small portrait from the unkempt man's hands, placed the portrait within the tube, then held it out beneath Jarlaxle's raised wand.

The mercenary didn't speak the command word. Instead, he whispered in his native tongue words that might've been birdsong to the stranger's ears, "Truly, my trusted friend, you wound me so, to ask that I expend this much."

"Further, as a gesture of goodwill," Entreri continued as though nothing had sounded but actual birdsong, "My generous friend will provide you with sufficient coin to see that you lack for nothing in your journey home." The assassin glared at the mercenary. "Is that not so?"

Jarlaxle's reply was a single word. The item in the assassin's hands was whole again. Entreri noted with displeasure that the charcoal taste in his mouth yet lingered.

"Your Mishka," Entreri stated as he handed the stranger the restored tubular object.

"And your travel expenses," the assassin added, one palm extended at the mercenary. Jarlaxle frowned but obediently placed a bulging coinpurse in Entreri's outstretched hand. The assassin bounced the coinpurse before handing it to the disheveled stranger, then returned his empty palm to Jarlaxle. The drow's frown deepened into a scowl, but again, he wordlessly placed another bulging coinpurse in Entreri's expectant palm. Entreri repeated the assessing motion, handed the purse to the stranger, and just as Jarlaxle readied a rejoinder, Entreri's hand didn't reach for him again.

Instead, thoroughly ignoring the drow, the two humans walked away, Entreri talking to the stranger with a false familiarity that nonetheless made Jarlaxle uncomfortable. He knew better than to try to follow though, the hard set of Entreri's shoulders warned him against it, so it was all he could do to watch the assassin point the strange man towards the nearest town.

When Entreri returned, outstretched in his hand was what appeared to be a small piece of metal.

"What's this?" Jarlaxle couldn't help his curiosity.

"Chocolate."

The drow quirked an eyebrow. "Encased in silver?"

The assassin answered him by peeling away metallic skin that was thinner than parchment to reveal a rich brown bar within.

"For you," Entreri deadpanned.

Jarlaxle's ears drooped. "Please, my abbil, haven't you punished me enough?"

"I am not like you," the assassin retorted. "I know exactly the nature of what it is that I'm offering to you. It is chocolate."

Jarlaxle looked sadly from the offered bar to the assassin's face, then back again.

"If you truly care about me as much as you claim to care, and value my trust as much as you claim that you do, you would at the very least try this." Entreri's voice lacked inflection, as though he were stating an objective fact.

Jarlaxle sighed and begrudgingly accepted the offered item. He squeezed his eyes shut as he bit off a small corner, fully expecting to taste char, soot, and perhaps a hint of meat, but instead..."

The drow's eyes popped open. It was sweet, rich, and creamy. It was actually chocolate! A wide smile broke over his handsome features. "Ah, my abbil, truly you are more noble than I! It was wrong of me to have doubted you. Please, accept my most humble apologies."

The mercenary struck a deep bow, then earnestly ate the rest of the confection. It wasn't a difficult task at all, for it was truly delicious.

The assassin's expression was stern even after the drow had finished the last bite.

"I planned to insist upon your company at a revel I'm to attend tonight," Jarlaxle began hastily, thinking that he had Entreri's dishumor figured out. "However, given what has transpired... I shall spare you what you no doubt consider a nuisance."

A smile broke over the assassin's grimness. Jarlaxle breathed an internal sigh of relief.

"I must be on my way then, my abbil," the mercenary proclaimed as he threw down his Nightmare figurine. "Have a joyous Valiant Times!"

As Entreri watched the drow fade into the distance, he drew out a small blue and white box, which still contained several bars of the "chocolate" that he'd given Jarlaxle to eat.

"Indeed," the assassin whispered with a thin smile to the exquisitely written lettering on the box, pleased that the stranger had told him of both its “explosive” results and its charming name of "Ex Lax".

#Jarlaxle #Jarlaxle Baenre #Artemis Entreri #Entreri #Forgotten Realms #legend of drizzt #fanfiction #Valentine's Day #Valentine's Card #Valentine's Day 2019 #my art

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blueboxesandtrafficcones · 6 years ago

Text

Barcelona is for Lovers - Chapter 7

Chapter 7! Many thanks to @stupidsatsuma for beta’ing. @doctorroseprompts

Chapter 8 will be available on May 19th

General warnings for: hanky panky. Take the ‘lovers’ part of the title seriously. Things are starting to steam up!

Masterlist

Summary

Three months after Rose and the Doctor are reunited and promptly ditched on a beach in Norway, they are still trying to find their feet. Rose plans a trip to Barcelona for them to relax, reconnect, and hopefully consummate their relationship.

Rose giggled with delight as they stepped onto the cable car, swinging their joined hands between them as she pressed herself against the far window. After a morning spent lounging by the pool they’d come into Barcelona for some historical sightseeing, starting with Castle Montjuic. The old fort could be accessed via a number of transportation modes, and they’d decided to take the cable car up to the top for a bird’s eye view of the city.

They’d lucked out with thin crowds, and been allowed to have a car to themselves as they started moving up the hill.

“Doctor! Come look-” she cut herself off on a yelp as he snuck his hand under the hem of her sundress, and she glanced over her shoulder at him wide-eyed.

“What?” he asked innocently, settling on the seat next to her. “It’s my understanding it’s a custom – nay, a tradition – of going to Europe and getting pinched.”

She sat as well, trying to focus both on him and the passing scenery. “Yeah, cause getting my bum pinched by strange men’s always been on my bucket list. Still!”

The Doctor frowned, sitting up straight and looking contrite. “I’m sorry, I was just… I’m sorry.”

“S’okay,” she reassured him, patting his arm, “I wasn’t expecting it, is all. Your touch is always welcome, unless I say otherwise.”

Tentatively he settled his hand on her bare thigh just below her hem; in response, she inched the hem as high as she could while still being decent, smirking as his warm palm rose with it.

“I like touching you,” he murmured, thumb rubbing gently at her skin. “You’re so soft.”

“I like you touching me,” Rose sighed, resting her head on his shoulder as she stared out the window, watching as they climbed in otherwise comfortable silence.

Too soon they arrived at the summit, and she mourned the loss of his hand on her thigh even as it laced with her own. “So, tell me about the castle.”

“There’s a tour we can take,” he offered, peering up at the sign as they bought their tickets. “Or we can wander on our own.”

“On our own,” she said decisively, handing her credit card over to the waiting cashier. “Then we can go at our own pace.”

The Doctor’s beaming grin said he agreed, and they headed for the first exhibit. “The first foundation stones were laid in 1640, but it wasn’t until a year later the first action happened during the Catalan revolt, and was one of the only successes. It technically didn’t become a castle until fifty years later in 1694, when-”

“So, have you ever been here before?” Rose asked as they emerged on the roof, promptly forgetting her question as she took in the view. “Oh my God, look at this!” she gasped, heading right for the edge. With a 360* view of the city, it was absolutely spectacular.

“Nice,” the Doctor agreed, standing behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. “You can see for miles.”

Rose leaned back into him, relaxing in his arms. It wasn’t quite another planet, but it was the closest she’d gotten to that feeling of wonder and awe since the last trip before- well, before. Tilting her head to see him, she grinned. “Can I just say…”

“What?”

“Travelling with you, I love it.”

It took a moment before he laughed, hugging her tighter. “Me too. Does that make this our third first date?”

“Third?”

“Well, chips was our first, obviously, you said so yourself, then New Earth – now this. Not sure it quite compares, but it’s not terrible, right?”

She turned her back on the city in favor of kissing him, tugging his face down to hers and sucking at his bottom lip. “Best yet,” she whispered, smiling brightly up at him. “Cause I get to do that, and tell you I love you.”

The Doctor made a happy noise in the back of his throat, kissing her back. “I love you too.”

A throat cleared from a few feet away, and they found an older couple watching them. The husband had a disapproving glare, scowling deeply at them with his arms crossed, while his wife made an apologetic face and tilted her head towards two children leaning over the railing and shoving at each other.

“Can I show you something?” her boyfriend muttered in her ear, and she nodded.

“Course.”

Taking her by the hand, he led her back to the stairs to the main level of the fortress. “To answer your question, yes, I’ve been here before. My friend Romana- the Time Lady I mentioned- we ended up here during the Napoleonic Wars. It’s a long story, but basically a squad of Sontarans had gotten separated from the rest of their battalion and ended up here. We had to get them to move along – almost changed the course of the whole war. The fort surrendered without a fight historically, not firing a shot, but they wanted to defend it at all costs – well, you know Sontarans. 80% casualty rate is light, to them.”

Rose stopped dead, their joined hands tugging him to a halt.

“What?”

“What’s a Sontaran?” she asked blankly, and he scrunched up his nose.

“The little potato guys, remember? Oh.”

She knew, logically, that he’d had thousands of adventures without her, both before they met and while they were apart, had reconciled herself to the idea after the bubble-bursting needle of meeting Sarah Jane, but something about this bothered her. “Wasn’t me,” was all she said, stiffly, starting to walk again and fighting for composure.

“Sorry, I was thinking the last time I saw them – just a few months ago in fact – and forgot you weren’t there for that,” he explained, unintentionally twisting the knife in her gut.

“Right.”

Apparently not noticing her tension, he continued chattering away as he led her outside the walls of the fort and towards a dirt path that followed the base of the walls. “Anyway, they’re a clone race that’s been fighting a war against the Rutans for something like fifty thousand years. They live to fight and die, think it’s the height of nobility, all that. Point being, they were trying to instigate trouble here and we had to put a stop to that.”

Heart still hurting, she paid more attention to the view than his words as they trekked along the path. They were on the side of the fort overlooking the ocean, and down below a cruise ship was sitting in a dock, looking small and emphasizing how high they actually were.

They reached a bend in the wall and he tugged her up the slight incline towards the inner corner. “Rose.”

“Mhmm?” She leaned back against the wall, staring up at him. She tried to hide the hurt, but some of it must have shown through because his expression softened.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, one hand coming up to brush the hair away from her face as he crowded her against the wall. “I forgot that you weren’t there for that because… because you were still with me. I spent half the time expecting you to come racing around a corner. It wasn’t that I didn’t think of you, while we were apart – more so that I never stopped thinking about you, trying to picture your approach to whatever was going on. What would Rose do? I kept asking myself, trying to see things from your point of view. I missed you terribly, and pretending you were just out of sight was how I kept from going mad.”

Rose’s heart melted, taking in his earnest expression. “I thought about you all the time too, wondering what you would do.”

“I love you, Rose Tyler,” he murmured, brushing his thumb over her lips, “and when I didn’t have you, my hearts were a trillion little pieces of glass scattered around the TARDIS, and I bled with every step. I was lost without you. I never mean to or want to hurt you.”

“I know.” Fisting his tee she pulled him down to her, mouths meeting firmly and quickly opening to the other.

He leaned into her, pressing her against the stone wall. Rose threw her arms around his neck, keeping him against her as they kissed. When he tugged at her knee she obliged, wrapping it around his hip and groaning when he rocked his erection against her.

“Yes,” she hissed, throwing her head back as he ground into her with purpose.

“Can I do something?” he muttered, and Rose nodded frantically, unable to care what it was so long as he didn’t stop.

When his hips pulled back slightly she whined, trying to chase him, but his fingertips sliding up the inside of her thigh convinced her to give him a chance. He kissed her again, sucking at her tongue as he brushed over the damp spot on her knickers once, twice, three times, before rubbing more deliberately at her.

Rose shifted her leg, setting her foot against the wall for balance and trying to tug him closer. His tongue in her mouth was enough to make her brain go foggy, and his teasing touch against her only stoked the fire higher, offering no relief. “Please.”

“Stop me if you don’t want me to,” the Doctor breathed, and she managed a scoff.

“Doubtful. Shit!”

She broke the kiss to rest her head against the wall, eyes fluttering closed as his fingertips slid beneath her knickers for the first time, finding her warm and wet. He rubbed lightly along her folds, pleasure sparking trough her. It had been years since she’d felt another’s touch, and that alone was enough to inch her closer.

“Wait,” she gasped, eyes jerking open. “We’re going to get caught.”

The Doctor shook his head, looking mightily pleased with himself. “Nope!” he popped the letter cheerfully, stopping the movement of his fingers but not removing them. “After everything with- never mind, long story, but I’ve got a few perception filters up my sleeve so to speak, and I activated one on the way over here. Technically we can be seen, but their eyes will just slide right past us without noticing, really. Like how no one would notice the TARDIS unless they were looking for her. Now, I can give you a more detailed explanation, or I can keep going?”

Well, that was good enough for her. “Keep going, definitely keep going,” Rose breathed, laying her head against the stone again but keeping her eyes open and focused on his intense look of concentration. There would only be one first time that he pleasured her like this, and while it might not have been where she’d of picked given a choice, in the moment she didn’t care. “Oh, please.” She rested her hands on his biceps, fingers stroking the strong muscles there as he rubbed her, clenching when he found her clit.

“Like that, do you?” he asked, unbearably smug, but all she could do was nod as she fought to focus on him. She wanted to remember every second of this; the clear blue sky, the beautiful water shimmering below, the rough but warm stone at her back. The impossibly sexy man who was hers forever. “What about this?”

One finger gently probed her entrance, finding her soaking and sliding right in.

“Oh, fuck.” Rose couldn’t help bending her knees a little on instinct, trying to force the digit in deeper.

“Patience,” he laughed, slowly pumping it inside of her. “I’ll get you there.”

She merely grunted, concentrating on his exploration. He soon added a second finger, curling them to brush against that perfect spot and making her toes curl. “Yeah.” His fingers picked up their rhythm, pumping steadily, and it was so. Good.

“I love you,” Rose panted, rocking her hips in an effort to help the nicely-building orgasm along.

“I love you too.” He kissed her again, shifting his touch so his thumb could brush against her clit.

It was bloody brilliant but she knew her body well enough to know it would still be a few minutes before she would reach her peak. Plenty of time.

Kissing him in an effort to distract she undid his shorts with one hand, sliding her hand in to find him almost fully hard already. Wrapping her fist around him she reveled in the heat of him, laughing when he broke the kiss with a grunt, eyes closing and rhythm slowing.

“Oi, don’t leave me hanging,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his chin, which was all she could reach.

“Sorry.”

Later she would be embarrassed about the exhibitionism of what they were doing, but for the moment she just let herself enjoy the dual pleasure of touching and being touched by her lover. Lover. I like the sound of that.

For a moment she considered just letting go, of guiding him inside her and letting him fuck her against a four hundred year old fort, but before she could he added a third finger inside her and pressed hard against the spongy patch deep inside at the perfect time, sending her over the cliff with a high keen.

She didn’t quite black out, but she did have a moment when the world went from fuzzy to high definition again. “Oh, shit that was good,” she panted, her heart thundering as pleasure flooded her veins.

“Uh huh.” The Doctor was half collapsed on top of her, and she became aware of a warm, sticky mess over her palm that said he’d followed her over. He leaned back then, meeting her eye, and they burst into giggles.

Not that she’d had any doubts, but it was good to know they’d be able to laugh together in bed.

She couldn’t wait to make love to this man.

After cleaning up they took once last lap around the fortress, making sure they saw everything they wanted to before returning to the cable car. This time they’d be getting off at the middle stop so they could take the funicular the rest of the way down; it would put them closer towards where they wanted to end the night, Font Màgica. On most weekend nights after dark it would be illuminated with a music and light show.

“Now where?” the Doctor asked as they stepped out of the funicular station into bright sunshine.

“This way.” Rose tugged him along, swinging their hands between them as they started off to the left. “You’re good for a walk, aren’t you?”

He laughed, a happy, carefree sound she never wanted to stop. “Rose Tyler, there is nowhere I wouldn’t follow you. That’s always been true, but now? Guaranteed.”

She rolled her eyes in good humor, squeezing his palm. “Blimey, a simple handjob was all it took? Wish you’d told me that years ago, we might not have wasted so much time.”

“Hey.” He stopped, tugging her around to face him as he bent slightly to better meet her eye. “No second of our time together was wasted. Could some of it have been put to better use? Yes. But that time, what we did, that’s what made us… us. I wouldn’t change it for the world. Or even- and I can’t believe I’m about to say this- for this universe. Okay?”

“Okay.” He was so earnest that she couldn’t help but capitulate, rising on her toes to kiss him sweetly. “Want to go see the 1992 Olympic stadium?”

“I would love to.”

It was basically a drive-by; the large stadium was plopped in the middle of a block at a curve in the road, looking at the back of the National Museum of Catalonian Art. They could walk in through the front gate, with a small section being open to the public; the rest was gated off. A large informational board gave a map of the stadium and a quick history, but they lingered only long enough for Rose to snap a picture.

“D’you know the history of the Olympic Games?” the Doctor asked as they strolled back out to the street and crossed.

“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.” When he shot her a glare she just grinned cheekily, sticking her tongue out at him. “G’on, amaze me.”

“Only if I won’t bore you,” he snarked. “They originally started as a festival to celebrate Zeus – as with most festivals, over time they added in some sports just for fun. A footrace, javelin contest, eventually wrestling. When they formalized it as a series of athletic competitions, the various city-states of Greece at the time sent competitors to fight for glory, honor- the usual. Ran for… roughly a thousand years.”

“What happened?”

The Doctor shrugged dismissively. “The Romans- they ruled Greece by then- tried to impose Christianity, so a big festival to Zeus that united a subjugated people wasn’t a great idea. They were disbanded until 1896, when the first modern Games were held in Athens.”

“So, d’you think the Olympics next year will go similar to the ones in the other universe?” Rose wondered aloud as they made their way around to the front of the NMAC – they wouldn’t have much time to go through, but Rose wanted to see at least a few pieces.

“Hard to say- why?”

She nudged him with her elbow, grinning. “Mum and her friends run their own little pool. Thought we might be able to make some money.”

“Betting on events of which you already have historical knowledge of is cheating,” the Doctor lectured, frowning. “And what do you need to make money for?”

Rose laughed, shaking her head fondly. “I’m only teasing, love. I get a salary from Torchwood, and haven’t had much in the way of expenses – we’ve got a nice little nest egg to tide us over until the TARDIS is ready, regardless of if I work or not. I just wanted to see your face.”

“Oh.” He harrumphed, face smoothing. “Still, I’m a bit vague on the concept.”

“What concept?”

“Money.”

She stopped dead, bursting in peals of laughter so great she had to bend over. “What?!”

“Why’re you laughing?” He sounded wounded, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to stop. “Stop it!”

“Oh, babe.” Rose wiped at her eyes, trying to calm herself. “Money is earned through work, and then exchanged for things you need – food, clothing, shelter. Basically everything.”

He scrunched his nose. “Sounds boring.”

“Depends on what you do.” They started walking again, heading up the steps to the front door of the museum. “Working in a shop? Dead boring. What I’ve been doing with Torchwood? Not so much- actually, it was rather fun.”

They walked through the doors of the museum, both sighing in relief at the cool air blasting.

“This is the life,” the Doctor declared, and Rose had to agree.

As long as she had him, she could tolerate anything.

#bbatcfic #doctorroseprompts #ficandchips #Doctor Who #TenTooxRose #TenToo #Rose Tyler #prompted #Barcelona is for Lovers #lemons

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