#normal ways to express your feelings! in the 19th century.) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kiameicore · 10 days ago

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Purple ribs [Vil Schoenheit]

Warning's: Spoilers for The Shaftlands' Tapis Rouge (some things are changed yet some parts are taken out of the actual in-game event), OOC Vil, Suggestive in The 24th of May at the end, mostly fluff with small pinch of angst in some parts, meet the in-law type, Reader is mentioned to have knowledge in humanities and able to play an instrument, Reader is adopted by Crowley. (Let me know if I forgot something).

word count: 19k

[NOT PROOFREAD]

A/N: So, after two years of not writing I decided to write something. Mainly because I watched the The Shaftlands' Tapis Rouge event on some JP channel and had to go through the trouble of translating almost every line in the wideo to get the grasp of what's going on. Generally I just saw Eric the th time again and thought 'damn, I wanna write something'. It's not my best work, so please, treat it as a crackfic. I wrote it when I had COVID and fever. I felt like I was high at that time so excuse me if the fic doesn't make any sense. Just keep in mind please that after not writing for two years I got out of shape. I'll be honest, I don't even like it, I disliked it when I was in the proces of writing it. I also got frustrated with OOC Vil and tried to write him in the most canon way yet here I am (failure) LMAO. Nevermind, please enjoy.

The 19th of April, XXXXX ' Today is… April, nineteenth.. ah, yes. So, where should I begin… Today my boyf- partner asked me if I would go with him to visit some city - Fairest City, to be clear. Well, I shouldn't be surprised yet here I am. I could say he just wanted me to tag along out of responsibility as a partner or something, but no. It isn't the reason.. not when I have The Vil as my bo beloved - yeah. He wasn't even hiding his intentions. He enquired just like that. As for me, of course, I agreed. I mean, how could I refuse? Personally, I wouldn't understand someone who would. Or in general, I don't get people who just because make a disdainful image of him in their heads, as if he's just a puppet on the scene, moving on strings pulled by anybody. Ah, it's not time for that. I just wanted to make a note of what happened today. But… No, seriously. It's confusing for me. How could someone hate him when he's just being… so sweet? '

Indeed. How could someone hate Vil?

The room temperature was just correct. Not too hot, not too cold. Even the air was perfect. It's one of those kinds when you wake up without feeling dryness in your mouth. The weather was nice too. It may be just april, yet you could feel the nature spreading it's wings and making every plant wake up from their winter slumber. The flowers started opening themselves and maybe by the end of the month the will show their beautiful petals to the world. The sun was softly shining and entering the room by one of the windows. Such radiation made the curtains have a beautiful glow, which could remind one of those paintings from the nineteenth century.

"[Name], dear, I almost forgot to ask you something"

At the vanity table was sitting a blonde man. Even though he was applying his make-up with utmost precision, he did not slouch nor did he had trouble keeping his attention at you. Heaven forbid someone accuses him of not being able to keep eye contact with you by the mirror, which was just one of the vanities table pros along with many small sized cabinets.

"Hm? Wassup?" If it wasn't you, the reply would make him angry. You didn't ever feel like it was a privilege, it was just normal for you that Vil never made a fuss about it. How were you supposed to know it? I mean, it's not like you talked with him like that before you were in relationship with him yet still. Maybe next time you say something similar in a public place (Pomefiore's lounge, for an example), you should look at others faces or maybe just give Epel a quick glance to see his expression. An expression, which would be aghast and then flabbergasted after seeing his scary housewarden just mostly ignore how improper is it to act like a blasphemous who doesn't know basic manners and just reply to you in somehow pleased tone. You hear that? A pleased tone! This should be a transgression!

"I'll be visiting Fairest City, I have some things to do there. I'll be also taking Jamil, Azul and Ace with me as my bodyguards." Vil said meanwhile applying some eyeshadow on his lid.

"Uh… that's great?"

"I'm not asking you to give me your opinion on the thing but to tell me if you would like to accompany me, dear." He seized your silhouette which was lazily spreaded on his majestically large bed (too large for normal school standards, but is anything in NRC even normal?), not very interested in the case. Once again, for tangling his sheets, he would probably throw out the guest from his room, but he didn't do it since why would he get mad at you for such a silly thing? It's just bedsheet. Besides, he would remind you later to fix them if they would look messy.

"Wait, you want me to be your bodyguard?!" From the shock his words gave you, you just as if you got hit by lighting, quickly got up on your elbows. "Hey, Vil, don't tell me I'm going to carry your shopping bags! I know how your most normal 'shopping spree' looks like! And I bet it will involve cosmetics, oh my god…"

It's not like you didn't want to help your boyfriend with his shopping or anything. You would love to, really! If only his shopping didn't look like a Chanel burglary.

"Potato." The stern voice made you frezze and stop your anxious muttering. It's not like you were foreign to Vil being his strict persona. You have heard and seen it many times. Yet now it felt like you did something very wrong.

"I would rather be condemned than suggest something like this to you my dear. My.. you think quite unflattery about me, hm?" The expression that could be a scowl (a pretty one!) soon after turned into not so condescending smirk. You knew he didn't mean anything harmful by it and was only teasing you.

"..Really. I wanted to ask if you would like to go with me there. Not as a bodyguard, 'unnecessary luggage' or.. Gott bewahre es, some porter but as an accompanying person, just as my partner."

He finished one of his eyes. The make-up, as usual, looked most perfect. Nothing was out of place. It wasn't heavy. It was soft, subtle look which somehow still made his eyes sharper and even more better looking than before.

"I want you to just enjoy the time we'll spend there. Treat it as a vacation."

"Oh."

"Just 'oh'? That's quite disappointing reaction I fear." Vil chuckled softly dovering his mouth with his hand which only gave him more elegance and properness, having the best time of his life it seems.

"I mean.. o-of course! I'll gladly accompany you, Vil!" You didn't want to sound shocked yet the way the blonde was still having his too happy for your liking smile, you were sure you failed.

He gave himself a look in the mirror. Content with the after look, he quickly finished it with a little bit dark red lipstick. Still gazing into the mirror, he moved his bangs aside as not to distract his vision. He moved a stray strand of hair behind his ear and then turned his head in your direction, now having all of his focus on you. His amethyst eyes tore into yours as if he was checking out your soul.

"Well then, shall I help you with packing?"

(DE) Gott bewahre es - God forbid.

The 20th of March, XXXXX ' Sometimes I just think how in the world I am dating this man. I mean, it's not like I am unhappy - it's actually the opposite. He's so pretty. So unreachable. Then why did he got interested in me? It's not like I am someone who's popular or attractive enough for other people to just turn their heads in my direction after catching a sight of me. You get what I am talking about, right? I'm pretty sure anyone would be surprised a superstar, a worldwide known model is.. 'yearning' for them. When did it even happen? When he started liking me? Was it me who fell first? Or not.. maybe it was him.. nevertheless, I remember how I started seeing him in different light. I think it was after SDC thing, right after he apologized for his behavior and him failing the whole team. '

Crowds. So many crowds.

"Godness.." You sighed. It was the lunch break and you were hungry. After having almost an hour long lecture, you were tired.

"Don't dramatize. I told Deuce to take our seats." Ace sure was in great mood for someone who recently failed their exam. He leisurely started walking towards our table where Deuce was already waiting for us. "Holy moly, look at that queue!" He commented with shock after seeing how many people decided right now was the most perfect time to get some food. "[Name], go sit. I'll order your usual. You look quite dejected, huh?"

"No, it's just.. I'm sleep deprived." The girl tried to divert her friend's attention from her state. She may have lied a little bit since the lack of sleep wasn't exactly the main cause of her upset mood.

"Man, if you were in Heartslabyul, Riddle would chew you out for that!" Ace laughed while he was putting his stuff near yours on the bench. "Okay, I'll be going. You owe me one." He winked and slightly sticked his tongue out and soon after left.

You sighed again.

"[Name], are you sure you're okay?" Deuce, who was sitting on your left, asked concerned. To him, you looked like him when he is preparing for an alchemy exam, which made him worried. "If you need a.. supporting shoulder, I am here!" He puffed his chest, putting on his 'honor student' persona.

"Thank you Deuce, but it's okay." You smiled at your friend and stared blankly at the table. "It's just.. I'm having a problem with someone rather than something."

"WHAT?! SOMEONE IS BOTHERING YOU?!" The dark haired boy shouted, thunderstruck from what he heard from you. A second later he cringed, realizing that he unconsciously raised his voice which made some studnets turn their heads in direction of your table. Some of them curious, some annoyed with the ucalled for noise. "Ag. Sorry.." He said still upset with his behavior. He bowed slightly in the directions of the others who heard him.

"No, I mean.. I'm just thinking about someone. Like, not a few times a day but day and night." You fidgeted with your fingers as to feel less awkward.

"Huh.. so you're saying you have a.. crush?" Deuce suggested, a little bit proud of himself that all those times where Cater was yapping his ear of paid off.

"Crush?" Startled, you questioned. Crush. To you it sounded a little bit weird. It could be a little, small fascination but a crush? No way.

"Yeah, like, a person you think about all the time and then you date them, right?" Spade maybe wasn't the sharpest tool in the sheet but he wasn't an idiot. He noticed your dreamy gaze and the absence in the material plane. Just like Ace, he payed great attention to you.

"A..yeah! But.. I don't think I really have a 'crush', you know. I'm just.. observing him occasionally. Nothing more." You almost felt yourself beam with elegy.

"..now that sounds like unconscious stalking."

"Agh! I'm not stalking him nor do I have a crush. I just like him only a little bit!" You tried to defend yourself from your probably knowing already what's going on buddy.

"Like who only a little bit?"

You squealed hearing somebody's voice behind you. You almost got a whiplash injury from turning your head too quickly. Deuce stiffed too.

Ace came back with two trays of food and placed them on the table. He put under your nose a croissant with choco filling. "A little gift for you." He patted your back and sat with you and Deuce.

"So? What both of you were talking about?" He chirped while eating his food. Ace's perceptivity was something you really admired but right now you wish your friend was as ignorant as you to the world.

Deuce gave you a look, a little bit uncertain if he should tell Ace your secret. You locked eyes with him and shaked your head as no.

"Nothing. We have been talking about our exams." You tried to keep a unmoved face.

"Yeaaah. Sure." Trappola was now one hundred procent sure you were lying. "Spill the tea."

You knew there was no running from this.

"So..you see.. I just recently had someone on my mind like..all the time."

The redhead snorted at this. "Now, be serious,"

"But I am! I feel like I am sick."

"[Name], by the way you didn't say who you have been thinking about.." Spade interjected, clearly curious.

"Yeah [Name], tell us!" Ace encouraged the idea.

"Ugh, give it a break you two. At least for a minute!" You snapped and rubbed your forehead slightly. You heard your friends snicker to each other quietly. You knew they didn't mean anything harmful but you were stressed and felt cornered to a wall.

"It's the guy who auditioned to the SDC. The blonde, you know who." You said very quietly and reluctantly.

"WHAT?!"

Once again, you felt people gaze at your table. Amazing. "Shut up you all!" you scolded them, not wanting others to hear such thing. My, in your imagination you could vividly see how all of the NRC is awaiting to hear the answer to the question; 'who does the [Name] thirst for?'

"Is it..Hunt-senpai?" Deuce hesitantly asked, as if he was scared that his assumption would turn out to be true.

"You mean Rook?! No, don't tell me you're after such weirdos, pff.." Your other friend sure was making the best he could do of this. So funny.

"No! it's not him, it's the other one!" You felt like you were talking to a wall.

"Don't tell me.."

"YOU MEAN SCHOENHEIT?!"

Godness. Today was truly a bad day.

"Hey, you three! Shut the hell up!" Someone yelled from a table that was close to yours.

"Be quiet you two. Others have been giving us looks the whole time since we walked in here.." you tried to hide your face in your arms.

"I am very sorry!" Deuce yelled back, bowing his head.

"Ugh.. what a pain." You gave them a glance only to put your arms around your face once again. You were tired and lost your appetite.

"It's Vil, isn't it?"

"Yes, Ace. It's him. Stop making a huge thing out of this."

"Okay, hahahah. So what now, you'll confess your big love to him?" Ace teased you with a stupid smirk. He took a bite of his food and watered it down with some soda. "Woa, I didn't expect this combo to turn out so good!"

"No, I won't be doing any confessing. I don't love him nor do I have a crush on him. I am very normal about it."

"We can see that clearly [Name]." Deuce dissed you with truth. Were you sure it was just fascination? Or maybe you were really crushing him not even knowing it? He was pretty, that's for sure. Many people probably liked him for that. You found his personality interesting. 'Oh, but so do everybody!', or maybe not. You sure didn't fall in love with someone who just apologized and started being better. What a change of character! A simple action like this wouldn't make you swoon. You had standards. However, whenever you though about his face, his fashion choice, his perfect smile and pretty lips, and oh.. those eyes, right.. his eyes were probably the best thing out of his whole face. It was them on which he put his make-up the most. Majestic, regal and dazzling amethyst. If only you could look into them for eternity, you wou-

"Heyy, Twisted Wonderland to [Name]! Were you just thinking about your fancy man, secret lover?" The redhead made an exaggerated smoch at you, comically pouting his lips.

"Stop it Ace." The dark haired boy tried to stop his friend's teasing but internally he also found it a little bit amusing.

"Why do you even like him? I mean he is a model and everything but he's so scary and strict.." The freshman tried to defend himself.

"You're not wrong on this one.."

"See! And you tell me to stop. I'm just spitting facts here. Someone as harsh as him doesn't fit [Name]." Ace stated believing he is right. You didn't feel like talking. You looked at the croissant and at the rest of the food. Since the sweet was packed, you could eat it later.

"Let's talk about something.. more nice, shall we?"

"…"

"…Fine."

The 3th of March, XXXXX

'Dear Father,

I am writing to you as to notify you that I have developed a relationship with someone who's very close to me. I know you would like to hear about this in person, so I will visit you this week.

sincerely yours, [Name]'

Oh, my little hatchling!"

As soon as you opened the door of The Headmage's office, you were greeted by Crowley. Sometimes you just wondered if he had another sense which made him aware you were near him.

"I couldn't be more content to see you." He said giving you a long hug as if he hadn't seen you a month at least.

"Ah.. y-yeah, I'm also happy to see you." You replied sincerely. The Headmage grunted and straightened up. Smoothed his clothes and shake off the imaginary dust from his pants.

"So, what brings you here, my dear? As much as I would love to justify your visit as sincere concern for your papa I am aware it is something else?" He began, giving you a knowing look.

As annoying and triggering Crowley was to others, he knew you inside out.

"…Right. As I have written in my letter, I have formed a relationship-" Your sentence was interrupted by a loud cry.

"O-oh..! Oh dear.. I am so happy for you!" He cried louder. "You have a new friend! A-ah, Godness, they grow up so fast.."

"No, It's not like-"

"Don't worry. You have my most approval." He said with solemnity after blowing his nose with his (probably) ancient, engraved and worth more than ordinary man's paycheck, handkerchief. "I was pleased with you joining Night Raven College as here you could broaden your possibilities. You're doing a great job. I'm glad you won't be lonely, my child. May solitary never reach you and your new relations bring you elation."

"Are you even listening to me?" You tried to explain that you didn't gain a 'friend' but a boyfriend. "It's not a friend. I have a b-o-y f-r-i-e-n-d." You spelled it to him.

"Ah, a boy friend? My dear, assuming your friend is from our magnificent and prestigious school, I am not surprised your friend is a male." He said, not even catching what you were implying.

"No-"

"Ah, how the time flies! My, I should go, I have a housewarden meeting in ten minutes.. My dear child, please excuse this poor man for I am ought to leave now. Farewell, youngling. May fortune fall upon you for the rest of the day." He pecked you forehead softly albeit quickly and walked out with his cape lastly leaving your sight. No matter how many times you saw it flutter and shine it would always leave you amazed.

"Ah."

You stood in his office for another minute which felt like an hour. What just had happened?

"I mean.. at least I tried. I told him everything and he seemed content. The rest is not my problem." You shrugged and eyed the whole room. After some time it started feeling like a home to you, even if it was just an office in the school. It may be pretty, but it's not as pretty as Headmage's residence, which was your home now. You walked to the desk and started to check out things on it.

A dirty mug with leftover lukewarm coffe? Check.

A bunch of documents halfway done and messily spread on the whole desk? Check.

A photo of you in frame? Check.

Everything seems normal.

You sat on the chair and eyed the room once again from the perspective of the Headmage. You crossed your legs. "Well, seems I am the Headmaster now."

You felt like you were missing something. Ah, yes.

You put one of your legs on the desk. Now, that's it. You picked up the mug. You took a sip of the coffe.

"HOLY-" You choked. You wanted to throw up.

"What the- ew.. why it's so disgusting.." You put the mug down. That won't do.

"I am the Headmage!" You put your hand in the air while making a pistol sign with your hand and blinking.

…

Silence.

You felt even more bored.

"Why do I feel like I will suffer from this meeting consequences?"

You leaned back on the chair while gazing into the ceiling of the office. There was a pretty chandelier. The light it's candles reflected in yours eyes making them have a little fire in them. You kept longing with a blurry look.

The 9th of April, XXXXX ' Today was my love's birthday. I should be the one who took him somewhere and set up a nice date. I didn't know Vil had other plans. He booked us a two day stay at some fancy hotel which name I don't even remember. I told him I should pay at least but looking back at that price for a two day stay.. uh, no thank you, at least for now. Vil didn't mind being the one who had to set up everything. I bought him something nice and made a small cake for him. He looked happy and enjoyed himself which made me happy as well. I thought he would complain about the cake since I was pretty sure he rejected everything that interferes with his diet. But how was I supposed to know that he actually had a sweet-tooth? I made the cake to his liking. He was curious about the ingredients but not in a 'I want to know what I am eating because I care about my diet' but as 'I want to know how you made it and how the process went'. I was glad that I could make him smile with something so little, but he was already content with just my presence. On our two day vacation (we visited the Fairest City). We mostly went shopping or visited some cafes. '

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

Precipitated from your thoughts you stared at Vil with slightly open mouth. "Huh?"

"I'm asking if you're having a good time, my love." After seeing your confused expression he smiled. Sometimes you were too cute for your own liking.

"Yes, I am. But I still think I should be the one spending on you today. It's your day after all…" You replied unsure.

A laugh has reached your ears.

…A laugh?

Vil was laughing softly. The more you stared at him the more you noticed a light forming near his head as if he was an angel sent down from heaven.

"[Name]," He started.

"I don't expect from you to spend money on me or I want you to do so. I would be just happy with you being here with me. And personally, I think my birthday is a good occasion for us to go out. It's my day, right? So let the birthday boy pamper you, will you?" He put his arm, which was before linked with yours, around your waist giving you a smug smile.

"..You're a lost cause, Villy."

Hearing this made him adjust your scarf. Carefully, he made it look once again as neat as it was before. "A lost cause, you say?" Adjusting your scarf made him close the small distance between you. You could feel his breath on your face. After he said that, he looked into your eyes deeply.

Goddamnit. Actors and their ways.

"Ah..Um.." Cat got your tongue for sure. But who wouldn't be speechless after having someone so pretty almost at their face? "It's surprising it's coming from someone who didn't notice their scarf is untangling." He teased you, noticing your slight blush from the closeness.

God. You seriously are too cute for your own good.

"How was I supposed to know it was untangling?! I cannot look at you and my scarf at the same time!" The girl was lightly fumming.

"Oh my, excuse me then. Had I known you were admiring me I wouldn't interrupt your passionate entrance."

Vil started walking slowly waiting for you to catch up. You were staying in the same place flabbergasted.

"Darling, I'm waiting." He turned his head, slowing his walk even more.

Like in a slowmotion you saw how his hair moved and how his corners were lifted up. You blinked and pulled yourself together.

"Hey, wait for me!"

"As if I could leave without you." He said quietly which made it barely reach your ears. "Hm, if my fans heard someone has kept me waiting they sure would be devastated." He sent a glance your way.

"Maybe if you didn't rill me up, I wouldn't be taking my time."

"My apologies then."

Both of you started walking at unknown to you direction. The whole city and it's street's were leaking with luxury. It just felt like Hollywood but a Twisted Wonderland version of it? Nevertheless, it looked beautiful. People who you were crossing paths with here were dressed elegantly, clearly wearing the newest collection of some popular clothing brand.

"We're going to the cafe, is there something you would like to order?" The blonde asked you keeping his eyes on the footpath since it was crowded and easy to get lost in.

"Something to drink and a small dessert I think?"

"Good choice. I was also thinking about getting something to drink."

"How much left before we reach the cafe?" You inquiried getting tired from walking all the time.

"We're here actually." He stopped walking and turned to some large local. You also turned yourself to see it.

At this point you should be used to seeing fancy things in this city but still the appearance of the cafe made you skip a breath.

I feel my wallet wailing.

"It looks very.. luxurious." Perhaps your awe was visible to your partner or maybe it was him having some mystical inner connection with you since he only replied with;

"I want you to enjoy yourself to the fullest."

He gave your hand a squezze and opened the door for you. After you two walked in you were greeted by a waiter.

"Mister Schoenheit, welcome, your reservation is at the table 19th on the second floor." The waiter handled the documents and showed you the direction to your table.

"Thank you." Vil took your hand and leaded you to yours table. The inside of the cafe was kept in gold and red colors. There was soft jazz music, you didn't knew if it was live or not. It wasn't crowded but there were quite a lot of people.

I mean, it's a expensive cafe. I would be freaked out if it was fully crowded. The most cheap thing here probably costs more than hundred thaumarks.

Next, you climbed the stairs which were quite winding and colored black. So polished that you could check yourself out in them. Finally both of you could sit. The menu was already there.

"So, Darling, does anything piques your fancy?"

"That milkshake looks delicious.. it's kind of large though.."

"Don't worry about it. How about the dessert?" The man scanned over the menu. Quite a lot to pick from, huh? He tried to find something that looked healthy but still could be a dessert.

"I think I'll go for the Lava Cake. I think I had it in the past. Maybe I even made one, I can't remember." You said and put the menu down.

"Okay, I have everything. Are you finished yet?"

"Hmm.. Yes, I decided. Oh, the waiter is coming. Perfect timing."

"Not really, it was you who took so long to decide. The waiter waits ten minutes I think." The girl joked at her boyfriend. The man in return rolled his eyes and made a soft frown.

"Dear costumers, what would you like to order?" You looked at the waiter. Hell, even the clothing of the staff here is fancy.

"We would like to order one Lava Cake, one Apple pie and the large milkshake." Vil politely announced with a small smile.

"Is there anything you also would like to order"?

"No, thank you."

"Well then, your order will be ready in 15 minutes, please enjoy yourselves." The waiter gave a polite bow and was ready to leave but Vil stopped him. "Ah, excuse me, but," he made some motion which looked like a secret code. What the hell he is doing? you thought.

"Add to the order, if that's not a problem."

The waiter just like someone who has been working here for their whole life, understood quickly.

"Of course, it won't be a problem. Please excuse me." The waiter once again bowed and left.

"What the hell was that?" You laughed in modest volume. You never saw Vil do anything like that. What was that, his try of acting as a secret agent?

"Hm? Ah, that. Nothing. Just a normal thing here when ordering something. I just forgot to add something to our order."

"You? Forgot something? Please.."

The man looked uncomfortable and quickly changed the topic.

"How is your.. pet doing?"

"Pet? You mean Grim?" You wanted to be assured.

"Yes, Grim. With who you left him? I doubt you left him alone without anybody to look after him." The man asked further, curious where was your 'baby', as you called it.

"Pa- The Headmage is looking after him. I told him to be gentle with him. He's not great with cats or animals in general… I remember he once told me Professor's Trein cat didn't like him. When I asked why does he think so, he told me it hisses everytime it sees him. I'm not surprised, since he always picked up cats by their tails, good God.." You rambled, getting only a bit concerned about Grim. You knew Crowley wouldn't hurt since you would be very upset if something ever happened to him.

"I feel pity for this poor creature."

"You mean Grim or Crowley?"

He blinked two times rapidly and exchanged looks with you.

"Actually, make it both."

You chuckled at this. Vil didn't find it as amusing as you did which he made clear with his look with hooded eyes. "I am being serious here. Both of them are a danger and disaster to society. What good would come from both of them interacting?"

"Vil, please, don't worry. They'll be okay." You put your hand on his, softly massaging it. "I assure you."

"I'll put my trust in them, but only because you trust them and I trust you heartily."

"Thank you for putting your trust in your adopted son." You giggled after seeing his expression turn into annoyance with a frown. "Please. Don't be ridiculous." He rolled his eyes and.. was it blush on his cheeks? A faint one but still a blush.

A pleasant silence filled the room. You looked out of the window and gaped at the scenery. The Fairest City was really a beautfiul place with it's own charm. From the second floor you had a nice view at the pedestrians who looked like ants, moving fast and knowing exactly what they want to do. You switched your view at Vil, who was already looking at you.

"Have you ever eaten here?" You asked.

"I have. I once had a photoshot near this local. It was quite a long time ago. I also went here with my father." He answered truthfully. "Now that sounds interesting! I never actually heard about your father beside that he's an actor and producer, you know." You gave him a smug smile and snapped his hand with both of your fingers. "So? Tell me something interesting, Villy."

The man closed his eyes for a while as if he was regaining his composure. Maybe the topic of his father irked him a bit? "My, are you perhaps a fan of his?" He shot you a glance. "I saw some of his photos on the internet. And I saw his photo in your wallet and on your nightstand." The girl reciprocated his gaze.

"..Yes, right."

"Man, I don't know what the Schoenheit genes are made of, but y'all look fine as hell." This simple sentence made him furrow his brows.

"Now, stop right there!"

You grunted with your hand covering your mouth. "Yes, Sir." You totally weren't sorry at all.

The blonde softly pouted. Sometimes you were surprised with how expressive he was when he was with you.

"Don't gush about my father, you're here with me, not him. It's rude to not pay attention to your date, you know?" At the end of the sentence, he gave you his special smudge face look. The one where he slightly furrows his brows and up lifts the corners of his mouth while striking a pose.

"But of course, my queen.. by the way, are you jealous?" Like a sparrow knowing his place in the persence of the maginificent peacock, you put on a fake, pathetic servant mask. But you couldn't help yourself and asked him the last thing, totally not to rise his pressure. Yeah.

"Please." Vil scowled. His face showed irk and annoyance.

"Okay, I get it, worry not, I only have my amazing, talented, beautiful partner on my mind." You put your hands in the air as to show you're innocent and sincere now.

"Heh. As if it could be another way."

"Here's your order." The waiter put your dishes on the table. "The bill will be ready at the reception. Please enjoy your meal."

Vil only nodded. You started to think that maybe he knew this waiter. You looked at your food.

"Uh.."

What the hell?

"Vil, I think they messed up our order. They forgot to bring your drink." You said uncertain.

"No, it is as it should be. I didn't order any liquids."

"But didn't you say you wanted to drink something though?"

"Dear, worry not about me. Now, enjoy yourself."

You shrugged. If he's not thirsty, there's no problem then. You wanted to take a sip out of your milkshake and then you noticed something. "Huh?"

"Why they gave me one straw for two people?"

"What do you mean, 'one straw for two people'?" Vil asked faking confusion. You knew it was fake. He looked too calm.

"You know what I mean. That one straw for people so they can drink at the same time, you know.. I just don't know how it's called."

"My, that's perfect." He said with a hidden enthusiasm. "Didn't you say that milkshake was too large for you? Cease your concerns, I will lend you a hand, my love." after he said it, he brought himself closer to the table. He squinted his eyes at you, which could be a flirtatious attempt as to make himself look more eligible, like he was preening himself to you. But no. It won't work on you. You knew something was wrong.

He took a sip of the creamy drink.

"You have an exquisite taste, dear."

You stared blankly. "I see."

"You should try it. Or are you going for the Lava Cake first?" The blonde without a care in the world (It seemed) was drinking YOUR milkshake.

"How about I try your Apple Pie? I'm curious how it does taste like." You said with a different motive in your mind than just trying his dessert. He thinks he's smug? Well, hell no, not today.

"Hm? Sure, feel free to try it."

You took the plate with the dessert. You took his spoon. You digged in.

The first bite felt like Heaven…

You should have expected that a cake from probably the most expecnsive cafe in the most rich city in the most known for it's value country would taste good.

Yet…

"Why it's so good.." you mumbled after you swallowed down. The appearance of the cake also was prepossessing. It also smelled nice.

"I see you're enjoying my meal, I'm flattered." Vil chuckled softly.

"Look who's talking" You murmured under your nose. You wanted to take another bite but you were interrupted by Vil placing his hand on your cheek, lifting it gently so you could look into his eyes.

"[Name]. I am happy to see you enjoy yourself. I'm glad you spent my birthday with me. I couldn't ask for a better gift." He said with a gentle expression. This was probably the most soft you have seen him today. His eyes shined in the light of the chandelier. You didn't know what to say. "I… how could I not spent your birthday with you?" You squeezed out, unsure if that's what you should say right now.

"Well, you could have said you're busy or that you just don't want to. I would've understood."

"But wouldn't you be upset?

"I would be. I would be unhappy and miserable, really. But I don't know if I could be really mad at you." Vil chuckled weary.

"I love you." You blurted out out of nowhere.

Vil's orbits dilated a little bit but soon after they returned to their natural state. He left a amused sigh and the corners of his lips lifted instantly.

"I love you too, sweet potato."

He retreated his hand and took your spoon. He digged in the apple pie and brought the spoon to your lips.

"Here you go." He nonverbally encouraged you to open your mouth and take in the spoon.

"I didn't expect you to be into something like this, how…extraordinarily." You opened your mouth and tasted the cake.

"Hm. A occasion like this happens only once in a lifetime, dear."

…The second took you there.

"So, Dear, how about we drink together the milkshake now-"

You kicked him lightly under the table.

"Today was fantastic."

You two walked slowly on the suburbs of the city near some park. It was almost dark by now. You were glad that since the city was famuous, the supervisors made sure that every lamp on the street was working properly. It may be just April, but the weather was still unstable and the day was still not as long as in the summer days.

You and Vil held each other's hand, the other had a glove. You thought Vil would be that type of person who would have had cold hands, but surprisingly, his hands were warm. Probably because he was working out everyday which made him have a proper blood circulation.

"I agree. I have enjoyed myself to the fullest." The model replied, a smile present on his face. "I must confess that I have relaxed today like never."

You headed in the direction of your hotel. It was too late to go somewhere else and you were too tired for anything new today.

"You know, I didn't expect you to be.. engaged when I mentioned your father."

A sigh escaped Vil's lips.

"I just don't want you to talk about others with such interest when you should be focused on me" He said.

"Right. Sorry. I should pay more attention to the birthday boy." You squezzed his hand.

"But it's good you asked about my father. I actually wanted you to meet him. He was curious about you, too. Maybe too curious for my liking, but I still would like you two to at least see each other."

"Really?!"

"Yes." He chuckled. "I know my father will pull something for sure, but I can't leave him in the shadows for too long. Especially that he doesn't have a lot of time."

"Oh, I see…"

"Don't worry, you'll soon meet him. Maybe sooner than you expect." You said nothing at it. You two walked in silenece to your hotel. Sooner than I expect?

You felt a chill run your body.

The 26th of April, XXXXX ' Today is the day me and Vil visited the Fairest City along Jamil, Ace and Azul. He said there was some production of some film. I wasn't really interested in the details. Vil showed me the photo of the garments he will be wearing today for the whole event. I knew he would nail the look. I didn't expect though that I would meet someone new. '

"Can you be any slower, you all?"

You felt bad for them. Carrying Vil's shopping bags was not a mere task.

You thought you saw one bag almost slip out of Ace's arms but in the last moment he corrected himself. It didn't go unnoticed by Vil, of course.

"Spudling number one, what do you think you're doing?" The blonde's stern voice made Ace wince. "Sorry!" He threw quickly.

You really couldn't admire Vil from far away, because he kept you near him all the time, arms linked or at least in two step distance.

"Hey, [Name]. Maybe you would like to help us out? Jamil asked while sweating a few droplets. When you were about to answer something, your boyfriend beat you out of it.

"Oh? You dare to ask [Name] for help? How bold of you. Did all of you forgot about our contract?"

The model gave them a cold look. With his new make-up, different hairstyle and luxurious clothing he looked more demanding and scary than before.

"My dear, I'm going to the cosmetics store now. Would you like to go with me? There's some products I wanted to get you." Vil turned himself to your direction, dropping his scary and cold demeanor.

The man gently put his hand out for you to take. You took it and he walked with you to the store. Before you two disappeared inside the store, he turned to the three boys.

"I expect all of you not to do anything foolish. Also, make sure to not drop anything." He seized all of them with his eyes.

The store looked like something out of vintage aesthetic. Most of the furniture was in brown tone, made probably from the most expensive and real wood of highest quality. The cashier was absent.

Vil approached some shelf and took some products. "Look, I was talking about those."

He picked a few and went to the other shelf. "They have unique products. I really wanted to check out those rice balms."

The cashier finally came back from the back room.

"Welcome, how can I help you?"

Vil eagerly went to the counter. "We'll be having those products. I waited so long for their release."

The cashier behind the counter laughed. "Ah, yes, they sell very well." Vil paid for the articles and you left the shop. From the distance you could hear a street musician playing on a instrument. Your boyfriend noticed you gaze at the crowd from where the music was coming from. "We can go there later, if you want." He sent a small smile your way. You smiled back. He turned to the three boys. "You three." He pointed a finger at them. "Quit your idling. We have four shops left to visit."

All of them shuddered.

Vil started walking. His polished shoes clicking against the surface. He really nailed the outfit which his strong personality only completed.

Ace, Azul and Jamil only sighed desperately. Soon after, all of them started walking. You quickly walked up to Vil, who took your hand and matched your peace.

With every shop you visited you saw how they started to enjoy dragging his bags, pushing each other lightly or just copying Vil's way of walking for fun. You noticed that once in a while Vil indulged them a little and also copied their way of walking, smiling slightly.

You liked how all of them looked happy, trotting to the next destination.

You once again glanced at the blonde, noticing how his face shined in the sunglow, basked in bliss.

"Desserts?!"

After visiting all the shops, you stopped at some bakery. You heard the boys yell, surprised that Vil would actually let them eat something… unhealthy near him. And at his own cost.

"Why, I thought you all would be delighted to try something sweet. Fairest City is known for having the best bakeries or cafes. I myself am interested what they are serving today."

You were astonished too. You knew he wasn't someone cruel who wouldn't eat someone sweets at least once in their life, but most of cakes or desserts in bakeries are full of unnecessary sugar.

"Then I want something with cherry filling!" Ace said with enthusiasm.

"I want to try something I haven't had before." Jamil replied while looking at the bakery's display. "How about you, Azul?"

"I don't consume anything too fat or too sweet." He said, spreading his arms. "But, since this is once in a lifetime occasion, I will indulge myself a little. After all, mister Schoenheit is generously paying for our orders, wasting a occasion like this would be such a loss." A smug expression made it to Azul's face.

"Now, don't let it go to your head." Vil said with slight frown, but actually not minding Azul's remark. "My, their selection of options is quite big. I'm hesitant to pick anything." His eyes flickered on things.

"Ugh, they have so much sugar. Is there anything a little bit healthier?" he squinted his eyes with down turned corners.

"Vil, there's some apple with caramel, how about this?" Ace suggested. The sweetness looked like an apple candy covered in caramel. It reminded you a little bit of a halloween treat.

"It looks utmost. Thank you kindly." He smiled, content with the thing. "And what about you, my dear? Does anything pick your fancy?" Your lover turned to face you, giving you a pleased look.

"I'm not sure."

"Oh, I didn't tell you, but this bakery connected to the cafe we have been at on my birthday. It's the same company." He said in a quiet tone so only you could hear him.

"You mean THAT cafe? The one with the milkshake?" You wanted to be assured.

"Now, now, please, let's keep our voices down. Yes, it's that cafe." His expression switched to something that resembled amusement. To see you so ruffled about such a small thing was quite a view to him.

Oh, yeah, so funny when you were the one who drinked all of my milkshake.

"Would you like perhaps the same thing as me?" He said gently taking your hand in his and softly massaging the surface of it with his thumb.

"Fine. But I would prefer to save it for later, so tell them to pack it as a takeaway."

"As you wish."

He went into the bakery to get your orders. The rest looked at you quizzically. You could see suspicion on their faces. "What?"

"What you two just were whispering about?" Ace squinted his eyes at you, like you have committed some crime.

"My, talk about playing favorites." Azul adjusted his glasses.

"Yeah. Stop complaining and go drag the bags." You dismissed them with a hand wave. Ace sent a smirk your way.

"Yes, our Lady."

Vil returned from the bakery. He held a stack of boxes and had a paper bag hanged on his arm. "Come on, take your orders. I won't be carrying all of this."

"But were already carrying tons of your bags!"

"Don't make me repeat myself." Vil furrowed his brows, making the rest sigh.

You walked up to get your bag with the apple candy. When Vil saw your stretched hand towards the bag, he retreated it. "Ah, I didn't mean you. I'll carry yours." He still had his hand with the bag retreated. You gave him a distrustful look.

"Hurry up, spudlings. We don't have the whole day. We have little time left before we meet the producent."

The three lighted up at this. "We'll be meeting the producent?!"

"Of course. He wants to meet all of you." He smiled pridefully. "You especially, [Name]." Huh?

Vil didn't say anything after that.

"Let's go, shall we?"

The place where you were supposed to meet the star of the whole stay, day and night. Were you stressed? It was hard to say.

The inside looked like most of the Fairest City buildings. It soaked with luxury. The restaurant (you weren't sure if it was one, but it had a bar and tables, so it probably was one) had a nice, chill music playing in the background. If you had to compare it to something you would say it sounded like french music, played in most of cheesy movies.

The palette of red and gold combined perfectly. You saw some people sit at the tables for two, talking with each other in hushed tones. They all looked like celebrities.

"Which table is ours?" You heard Ace ask.

"We'll be sitting at one of the couches, we'll wont fit at a normal table." Vil said, approaching one of the couches which had a table big enough for you all.

You all sat down finally getting some rest after walking all day. Before you met Vil you thought shopping was a hassle but it could be done. However after you two became a thing you just think how stupid and clueless you were before. Shopping with Vil is only nice if you have patience and you aren't carrying his bags.

"It was a rough day." You said to your peers.

"Yeah, it was. I feel like my back is ripping from all that shopping." Ace said and massaged his back with a slight painful frown. "I never knew Vil was this demanding… I mean, I knew but come on." He complained. You didn't deny what he said. "I feel kinda bad for you. How do you put up with this dude?" He gave you a look, somehow uncertain and worried for you future.

"He's not that bad." You said, slipping off a little bit from you sitting position. You looked out of place right now but you prefered to sit comfortably at least. "I get how it looks to others, but sometimes you need to make some.. sacrifices for love, you know." You winked at him at the end of your sentence. You pulled quite a inner poet of yourself.

"Now, don't tell me this bullshit." He laughed, hitting your side lightly with his elbow. "If you say so, I won't intervene. But if something happens, send me a SOS, okay?" You could feel care from your friend. Ace maybe didn't look or behave like a guy who would pull a prince act, but if you would ever need help - he would be there. He may be frolicsome, but he has his heart in the right place.

"You bet." you smiled at him.

You saw how Jamil and Azul talked about something. You didn't hear what it was about because they had their tones down. Vil was checking his phone and typing some message.

Where's that special guy? That 'producent'?

You lost yourself in thoughts. Once again, [Name] entered her world. All this socialisation doesn't do anything good for a man, huh?

"Hey, I waited for you all."

You felt a chill run down on your spine. You froze. No, it can't be. Your fingers digged in the soft couch. The voiced came from behind you. Just like the person who came to your table was perfectly standing behind the place of the couch where you sat down.

You didn't turn back.

If I do it,

I will die.

You heard some 'Huh' from your mates. All of them in awe, from what you could hear.

"Vil, it's been a long time since I saw you!" The mysterious figure said. You had your eyes glued to one spot, not really on the floor but not entirely on the table - something in between. You weren't sure if you were even blinking at this point.

"Indeed. I am surprised you had time for us. I thought you would be busy with meeting important figures." Vil said.

"Please, how could I not see all of you? I was very curious to meet you." The man (from the voice you suspected it was a man) said to everyone.

Dread. You felt yourself going numb.

The fancy french-like music was still going on. Long enough for you to gasp the entire rhythm of it. In your wicked mind, you hummed it's tune.

You hear Vil moving. He was walking up to the man. His shoes cliking against the floor. Such a nice sound.

From what you could listen, sounds of light and quick pecking reached your ears. So they're exchanging greetings now, huh? Your friends got up one by one to greet in person the guest (host would be more accurate, since it was him who wanted to meet you). Ace shaked hands with him with a friendly demanor, Jamil shaked hands with him with the elegance you would expect from someone who knows who it's better to side with and Azul shaked hands with him like someone who wanted to present themselves in a good light and give them a business card. You knew you should turn back. At least for good manners.

I can do it.

It wasn't your fault to be so scared of meeting,

You slowly turned yourself back when you heard the man express an interest in you, the only person he didn't had the chance of exchanging pleasantries with.

You saw him.

He had a nice smile on his lips. 'Pretty' you thought. His clothing was fitting him nicely. The color of his eyes..

You were fully facing him, still sitting on the couch. You wanted to close your open mouth but you couldn't bring yourself to do it.

From others perspective it must have looked funny. You, gaping at the man and the man looking at you with singularity and curiosity.

"Oh, hello. I believe we haven't met before?"

…Your future father-in-law.

Am I still alive?

You stared at the man.

Oh, right, I should get up and shake hands with him or something. It'll be worse if I don't do it.

You get up and walked up to him. You wanted to believe your entire 'walk' at least could resemble some basic elegeance and not wobbling.

When you were close enough to the man, you stretched your hand to greet him.

Smile, [Name]! Show him you're a great material for Vil! A total ten out of ten!

You tried to smile as pretty as you could pull. A ugly and twisted grimace showed on your face. You had your corners turned up, so in your opinion it was a smile (and others should also take it as one).

"Um.. Hello to you too." An awkward greeting sounded out of you. You were sure you were shaking a bit.

Instead of shaking hands with you, the man gently took your hand and brought it to his lips.

…What?

The man, while not breaking the eye contact with you, gave your hand a light kiss.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, [Name]. I have heard a lot about you." He dazzled you with his smile. He also gave Vil a look when he finished. "Father!" You heard Vil raise his voice.

Or maybe you wanted to hear it.

Neverthless, you were too gone. Too gone from this world, too gone to hear anything.

Maybe you were in something akin to a space right now, where planets slowly moved, star shined and a shooting star blinked far away.

I was wrong. I can't do it.

You were glad your boyfriend was here. So if you would, for an example, pass away he would be here with you at your last moments.

After hearing his son's raised voice, the man slowly let go of your hand. It was amusing to see his son be so pressed. He knew he would enjoy this event, but now? Oh, an occasion where he could ruffle his son's feathers was almost impossible to come by.

You stood there and just watched how these two had an invisible fire ignited between them.

How embarrassing…

Your friends were both shocked at what Vil said. "Father?" Azul repeated flabbergasted.

"Ah, yes. The producent I was talking about is Eric Venue, who is also my father."

"REALLY? AND WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?" Ace shouted still in shock. Azul put his hand on his arm and said:

"My, his father is the most popular actor and producer. He's basically a big-shot in Twisted Wonderland."

"Holy.." The redhead looked at the man. He still had his handsome, million dollar smile on. Just now he noticed how similar he and his son were.

"But his last name is Venue, why is that?" Jamil inquired.

"I didn't want people to recognize me as 'the son' or just by the last name. The 'Venue' is only a stage name." Vil answered the question which seemed to puzzle the whole group.

"Indeed. I wanted Vil to gain his recognization by his hard work, not the name he bears." His face settled down a little.

"Right now I can say openly, without people doubting my worth, that we're related." The younger Schoenheit announced with delight.

You felt like everyone has forgetten about you. A part of you was glad, however you felt awkward. You could say something but it would probably only worsen your situation.

"How about we all sit down? The starters will be served soon."

'Great idea!' You thought.

"Ah, we'll be starting with starters? Nice!" Ace said with enthusiasm. You envied him how he could stay calm in a situation like this. You all sat down on the same couch you sat before. You saw how some chatted and some just sat down in silence. This time your boyfriend sat beside you.

"Is everything okay?" You heard him ask. You turned your head to look at him. You saw slight frown and concern on his face.

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm just… feeling a little bit out of the place. I'll get over it." You assured him, which didn't feel assuring at all.

You were right. He didn't look convinced at all. Your reply only made him worry more.

Just like always, he took your hand in his and gave you a light squezze. He always did it whenever you were anxious or just felt upset. You sent him a smile.

Your moment of peace didn't last long.

Just like a hound which was trained for hunting, Eric saw you two 'coddling to each other' as he would say. The hound sniffed out his quarry from the long distance.

"You two are quite close, aren't you? I'm glad Vil has such a good friend to lean on." He smiled in a way that screamed 'I know what you are'.

'Does he know?' you thought.

No, I doubt.

You were pretty sure Vil didn't tell his father that he had someone. He didn't had time to inform him, you two started dating in like February or something. He and his father met once in half a year or in a few months. There's no way.

You moved away from Vil. Your sudden movement only made the suspicion rise. From the corner of your eye you saw how your boyfriend's jaw clenched.

"I thought you would prefer to talk about the movie but I see you would rather go into private matters it seems." Vil narrowed his eyes at his father. You were pretty sure he was about to throw hands.

"No, don't take it that way. Put yourself in my shoes, how could I just pretend I don't have such a prosperous relationship before my eyes? I'm happy you have such reliable friends."

'I would never wear those' flew through your head. Maybe Vil would. Vil was seething at this point.

"I must tell everyone, you all have a really good fashion style." Eric complemented as if he wanted to avoid his son's wrath and ease the tension. He will strike once everything's will subside. "Thank you!" Ace happily thanked. His cheeks reddened a little bit and his face lightened up.

"I'm glad to hear this, however it was your son who picked all those outfits." Jamil said. "It's only thanks to your son that we could make it out in such style." To others who didn't knew Jamil personally it could sound like he was putting himself down and direct all the praise to Vil. But in reality you knew he also wanted to push Vil's buttons and have some fun.

"You know, I really like fashion myself." He laughed neatly with his hand near his mouth as to give himself grace. You could see the little shinning sparks fit his aura. Truly, everyone could agree this man was fine as hell.

"That's splendid. But to like something it means to know how to fix it. In this case it means to know how to wash it. You don't know how to do it."

You and almost everyone at the table were surprised to hear Vil's side mark. You knew he was petty, but would he go this far?

"Ah.." Eric seemed perplexed. Deep down he didn't mind his son's jab, however… "I try my best when I'm doing the chores."

Vil face changed to disappointment at this. "Right. You always need help of the housekeepers."

Everyone at that stiffed clearly. You and your classmates didn't know what to do. You felt like you were in a conflict which didn't include you.

"That was quite harsh…" Jamil commented in a hushed tone. You all looked at each other, sweat forming on yours foreheads.

"Oh, they are about to bring the starters! Incredible timing." Eric said, happy that he no more has to be in his son's quarrel.

On the table were placed starters, all of them looked delicious. Maybe too small for you, but it's proably the restaurant rules.

Time to dig in.

A reflection was shown on the knife.

The light shined on it which caused the reflection to appear. You held your fork in the other hand thightly.

You looked at your meal. You took a deep breath.

You looked to your left.

You saw your friends eating in comfortable silence. You noticed how Ace struggled with handling the utensils and how Jamil instructed him as not to embarrass himself. You hear him say if his housewarden had seen his table manners, he would have cut his head off.

You looked to your right.

Vil was handling his utensils with elegance. He even ate in a proper and neat way. He didn't smudge his lipstick nor did he dirty his clothes.

The music is playing in the background.

Once again you look at your food.

You raise the knife. The fork already stabed the meat. Just like a surgeon cutting the body, you cut the meat. A slick, straight and deep line.

You were glad Vil learnt you a little bit of the basic (for Pomefiore) table manners. Everytime you ate with him you watched how he raised his utnesils and how he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief after the meal.

You brought the food to your mouth.

A subtle flavor could be tasted on your tongue. You could say it was too unseasoned for you.

The comfortable atmosphere was interrupted by Eric.

"What a lovely time we have. But I wanted to ask you something." He adressed it to you and your friends. "What is Vil like at school?" A simple question. However you saw how Ace choked on his food, how Jamil stared at him and how Azul stiffened.

"Ah.."

"Well.."

"Uh…"

You also didn't know how to respond to this question. "Um.. Vil is quite an admirable figure." Jamil started sweating a little bit. "He's also very.. precise." You noticed that the rest only readily nodded their heads in agreement.

"I'm glad to hear this." He gave them a content smile. Then his expression changed into something else, like he had remembered soemthing just now. "Oh [Name], I would like to hear your opinion!" The girl stared at him with wide eyes then turned to her boyfriend. Vil only sent her a smirk. "I also would like to hear it."

Maybe this is the time you start praying.

"So…" You started hesitantly. "I also think he's an admirable figure. He knows his way and he moves very elegantly..um," what were you even talking about?

"Please continue." Eric encouraged you.

You closed your eyes as to calm your self and continued. "He cares for students in Pomefiore. He's strict and only sometimes annoying."

You smiled awkwardly. "I mean, it's a different experience for everyone. It depends if you're close with him or not." You were sincere. It would be stupid to expect someone to treat dear people to them the same way the treat strangers. "As for me, I don't have any complaints. Some people might have though." As you finished an image of Epel showed in your mind. You laughed to yourself in your mind.

"That's a very interesting way to put it in." Eric said after you finished. "And I was worried that he had problems at school." He chuckled. "Guess I worried over nothing."

"Please. Let's not be ridiculous." The blonde also laughed. "Even in elementary school I never was bothered." "You went to elementary school?"

"Of course. I remember I had joined a theatre group at that time." Vil finished with pleased expression. "And what is up with that shock?" His face turned into annoyance.

"Ah, how the time flies! I believe they will be serving dinner soon." Your in-law annouced. "The food here is great. It could be used as a buffet. In acting, actors often are offered pancakes, sweets, salads, meat and others type of meals."

"It sounds delicious." Azul commented while shifting his position. The starters weren't very fullfilling, so most of were still hungry. After some time, dinner was brought on the table.

A large pot was set on the table. "The goulash is inspired by the fairest queen tale."

You spent quite a lot of time in Twisted Wonderland. You found it interesting how many dishes are inspired by the great seven. The goulash looked just like the rest of the food served today - very delicious and worth a fortune.

The portions on your plates were small. You doubted someone could fill their hunger with it but you got it was a restaurant. Even in your world some served portions like this. How absurd.

You had a great time with everyone eating the dinner. The atmosphere wasn't that stiff and uncomfortable.

'It's not that bad' You thought.

When you all finished you started conversing and chatting. You saw how happy your friends were and how Vil was in a good mood too. Just when you wanted to ask something Vil's dad slapped his thighs and stood up.

"I'm glad that we all could meet up today. I'm pleased I could get to know you." He spoke to you and your classmates. "Sadly I have a meeting with other producer's now and won't be able to stay. I'll join you after the meeting is finished. Please excuse me." He smiled politely. When he was about to go, he turned back and walked up to you. "Ah, [Name], can I ask you for a moment? It will be short, worry not." He looked at you from the above giving you his million dollar (thaumark?) smile.

You froze. What?

"Um.. sure," you rose from your seat and walked up to him. He guided you to a more secluded place. When he was sure you two were alone, he spoke.

"Ah, don't be nervous. I just wanted to ask you something." Once again his expression turned into delight. He felt bad for making you stress over this.

"You see, I know you and Vil aren't just friends. Vil never told me it in person or verbally. I just guessed on my own." He crossed his arms and seized you.

"Oh," In a moment like this you could only make a short sound. "I guessed it when he called me one day. He was very happy when he was talking. I thought something good had happened. He didn't want to tell me what it was, but considering that since one day you were the only thing he was informing me about I guessed you two started dating." He looked in your eyes and his face became serious. "I see how he looks at you. I never saw him this happy."

"Um, sir…"

"You two have my blessing." He smiled and put his hand on your shoulder. "Others may not be able to notice it, however as his father I don't need a confirmation. Vil can say what he wants, but he won't deceive me."

You didn't know how to react. Too much information for you for such a period of time. You still didn't knew why he wanted to talk to you in person.

"Ah, but it's not about it. I wanted to ask you if you would accept an invite to a dinner. I would love to know closer my daughter-in-law." He sent you a noble and kind-hearted smile.

"Oh.. of course, I accept." You were shocked. Daughter-in-law? Did he just see you as family at this point? Even if you and Vil weren't engaged or something? You were like at the first base, almost reaching the second.

"I also heard you have a guardian who's your father, right?" He asked hesitantly as to not cross the line of making you uncomfortable. When you shocked your head as 'yes', he continued:

"Splendid! I would love to meet him as well." He seemed to be too happy about this. "Feel free to bring your furry friend too." Something akin to a wink was sent your way. Holy, was he trying to kill you? It's not like you were attracted to Vil's dad, but it also wasn't like you weren't attracted to him. It is not my fault - that was what you would say to enraged and rabid Vil.

"Oh, thank you!" You were happy that he knew about Grim and wanted to include him as well. Your furry friend was as important to you as Vil was.

"Well then, I'll await our dinner patiently." And with that, he gave you a slight bow and left.

…

What has just happened?

After the talk with the Eric you came back to your table. Everyone asked where you were but you just swept it away with a visit to the toilet. The only one who wasn't convinced was your boyfriend, Vil.

"Where were you?"

You didn't want to lie to him so you said the truth.

"He knows." You eyed him with solemn face as if you had just witnessed a murder scene. "He knows. Your father. He knows, Vil."

"My, how perceptive of him." He narrowed his eyes. His make-up didn't help and only made his gaze more serious and gravely. "So what now?" He changed his expression to something more soft as not to seem like he was directing his negative emotions at you. "He said he wanted to ask me to a dinner, Vil."

He tsked and his scowl only worsened. "What a-"

"I agreed Vil." You said still with the same wasted tone as before. "And he wants to meet the headmage as well. And Grim."

Your boyfriend turend to a new shade of red. You saw a vein form on his forehead. Maybe you should've unaccepted?

"Don't worry, dear." He unexpectedly put his hand on yours. "We're together in this. I'll be with you." You weren't sure if this situation was this serious but you appreciated the effort.

"Thank you.." You said not sure what to say. A furious Vil was a dangerous one. You didn't want to piss him off more than his dad did. "I don't understand why he is interfering in my relationship." He sighed while closing his eyes.

"Well… maybe he just misses you? And he's interested in how is your life going, or something?" You tried to make the mood less uncomfortable.

Vil looked at you with a puzzled expression. "Darling, you don't understand. It won't be a normal dinner. He's going to ask you many questions and the whole meeting will last til night. He will probably suggest staying at our home for the night." He was clearly upset. "I know you don't like when people press you or just ask you things you rather not talk about. I'm worried for you… I just don't want you to feel uncomfortable." He confessed closing the space between you.

His face now was very close to yours.

"I.. I understand. But I also want to know your father more personally. After all, he's your father and an important figure in your life. Knowing him is as important to me as knowing you, Vil." You said trying to fix his mood.

His eyes twinkled at this. If you were this interested in meeting his family then it meant you were thinking about your future together. The future which involved him.

"[Name]…" He whispered. You didn't have much time to react before you felt his lips on your cheek. A slight peck however it was filled with many emotions.

"My sweet potato, I understand." He was still close to you. His expression different now, eyes filled with comfort.

"A dinner it is."

The 15th of May, XXXXX

'Dear Father,

I am writing to you as to notify you about coming dinner with mr. Eric Schoenheit and his son, Vil Schoenheit. The date is 24th May, current year. Your presence is required and the host asks for confirmation of presence. (I will pass it to Vil and he will pass it to his father) Yours sincerely, [Name]

"My dear child."

A grave-like voice boomed through the room. This is not going in the right direction.

"What is the meaning of this?"

You stood as straight as a plank. A solider waiting for an order.

"I told you before, that I have formed a relationship. Vil is the one whom I bonded." Your answer was the last nail to your coffin.

Sometimes you wondered if your father was stupid or stupid. No, let's take it back. Was he playing a fool or was he just one? At this point you should run.

"And Sir Schoenheit has invited you and me to a dinner. Is that right?"

"Yes,"

"Oh my dear." He wraped his arms around you. "I'm so happy for you! You may be young and helpless, however you already lined up nicely…" He was at the edge of breaking down.

"Ah, such an inportant moment in the life of a parent.. I accept the offer. I'm impressed you found such a well positioned friend! You adopted all of my life tactics, o-oh…"

You didn't want to say anything. Your father still thought you and Vil were just friends. At this point, you didn't even care. You just wanted him to confirm whenever he will attend the dinner or not. You just were worried if he will pull a stunt. Please, no.

"And your letters improved too! But, what was the last note, huh? Do not break your character at the end, no matter if it's me or a stranger!" He scolded you. Ah, so dumbing down the last sentence was unnecessary.

"Right. I'm sorry."

"I hope a mistake like this won't happen again. The act of writting a letter is very important. I want you to master it for your own good." He said in a serious tone.

"Well then, hatchling. I'm looking forward to this meeting! Ah, I wonder how the Schoenheit maison looks like…"

Right. You were correct. Let's just hope he won't do anything.. embarrassing.

It will be fine, just like always.

"Vil, I'm not sure if it's a good idea."

You were laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Your mind was clouded with doubt.

"[Name]." He sounded stern. He sat beside you on the bed. Vil gazed at you with tired eyes. It was past 6 p.m and the sky was turning fully dark. Your boyfriend normally was starting his routine at this time, however since you came to him looking very anxious, he put it aside. It can wait.

"Don't worry, it will be okay." he rubbed your shoulders. "I will be there with you. It's just a dinner."

"A dinner on which my father and yours will meet." You corrected him. The whole thing was taking a toll on you. You didn't want to be stressed however you couldn't suprass your mind.

Vil didn't say anything at that. He continued massaging you hoping it would help.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" Your boyfriend asked. He didn't like seeing you in a state of stress and anxiety. It caused him pain and the fact he couldn't help you only worsened everything.

He sighed and got up. Vil left the room without saying what was he doing. You stared at the ceiling following it's patterns. You liked how his room presented itself. Pretty and velvet purple with light white.

The dumbbells layed on the floor in tidy. You knew it wouldn't really bother Vil if you stayed here for a longer time, yet you knew you couldn't do that.

After 15 minutes which felt like an hour the bloned returned back. He held a tray with some snacks. "Maybe this will improve your mood?" You saw your favorite snack. You appreciated that even though it was late he still decided to eat something with you.

"Eat to your content, love." The girl saw him flash her a dazzling smile. You enjoyed how Vil no matter what could bring comfort to you. "I thought you didn't support eating this late." You joked taking one of the snacks.

"Don't let it go to your head, Darling. This is the last time I'm doing this." A smirk appeared on his face, joining you in this fool's parade.

"Okay, okay, I get it." You waved your hand as a sign you gave up.

The two of you spent the rest of day munching on the snacks while having the best mood ever. Maybe a little time together was all you two needed. At least it seemed so.

The 24th of May, XXXXX ' Today is the day. I have prepared myself. It will be okay. Despite mentioning Vil many times, I haven't actually told anything about him at all. I haven't even said why I make sure to say Vil is my partner rather than a boyfriend. Okay, so the thing is; Vil thinks that the title boyfriend is.. very degrading. It's not bad however it means the two of us are just a 'temporary' thing and it has some high shool after taste.. and partner sounds neutral yet loving. You can call someone who's been in a relationship with you for like twenty years or five months. I also prefer the term partner than boyfriend but I tend to forget myself. Actually, now that I think about this.. boyfriend sounds very cute. Ah, what else to say… I remember how I and Vil were like before we started dating. I seriously had some one sided beef with him. But it was hard to understand Vil and it was probably hard to understand me. Looking back, we made a lot of progress. Oh, also I find it quite cute how Vil lights up whenever I mention some new way of putting on make-up! Or when I mention theatre, ah, he looks just so- '

"[Name]? What are you doing?"

You jumped at the sound of Vil's voice. You hurriedly closed the journal hoping no one saw what's inside.

"It's nothing." You reply was too quick. It didn't escape your lover's attention.

"Huh? I am not the one to pry into private affairs," He gave you a interested look which quickly turned into his special smirk. "But I won't hide that I am curious what's inside. Did my presence cause the quick closing?" He teased you. Ah, if only he knew what you were writing about.

"When are we leaving?" You asked as to step away from the topic. You already packed your stuff for the two day stay.

"In an hour. I hope you're prepared for the fantastic day?" His manicured nails reflected some light which only made them more dazzling. He looked very dolled up, you weren't sure if it's for you or just for the occasion.

"Riiiight. I can't help myself. I'm gonna die from happiness." You jokingly said. Both you and Vil weren't prepared for this in reality.

"So funny." Vil said with an amused expression. "I thought you would be more excited. You're meeting your, as you once said, amazing and talented super-actor." You felt the jab stick in your chest. Indeed you said that, but no matter what you won't call Eric like that in person.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. You're my most precious, talented and amazing actor, model, icon and so go on." You put your hands in the air as a sign of defence. "You can stop your jealousy now."

You saw how his face twitched. "Me? Jealous? Over my father? I couldn't ever to that. I am secure in my relationship and my choices." Ah, the perfect defense of someone who obviously jealous. You decided to give it a stop as not to torture your boyfriend furthermore.

"Check if you packed everything 15 minutes before we leave. It may be just a two day stay but I won't let you neglect yourself." He scolded you giving you the harsh reality of most basic Vil-self.

"Yes, my queen." You saluted and left the room. You walked through the corridors searching for something. You looked left and right and no sight. Where did he go?

When you were losing hope for finding the lost 'person' you suddenly saw a flash of gray. Oh, you found him.

"Grim, behave." You told your companion stoping your walk. It wasn't like Grim was some slob who didn't know manners, yet he also wasn't the example of proper behavior. He may be a little lost, yet he got the spirit.

The direbeast presented himself before you. Most of time you were happy to see that grin of his, but this time you were too tired for this chaos. "[Name,]" He began while his tail was twitching from side to side. "I can't pack my whole stuff. This trip is a hassle."

"What were you trying to pack?"

"My blanket, cans of tuna.. you know, the special edition I got from Azul and the plush I got from you." He stretched his paws as to emphasise the tragedy (Nothing too serious in reality).

"My God… I have some space left in my suitcase. You can pack some of your things there. But not too much, understood?" Sometimes you felt like a parent nagging their kid.

Grim's ears turned up and he uttered a howl.

"Ahaha! Right, there is my hunchman!" You let him be. A moment of happiness in his life wasn't forbbiden. You watched as he ran in big jumps to his room.

You went back to Vil. He was supervising everything from luggage to the most unimportant. From a different perspective he looked like a frea-

"Why you're standing in the door?" He zipped one of the bags and mentally checked it as done.

"I was talking with Grim a moment ago. He wants to bring his food along, you know." You told him.

The blonde raised his eyebrow, "Why would he do that? There will be food at my family's house." right, Vil didn't seem like a person who could understand Grim's sentiment for his food.

"Let him be." You defended the creature. You felt bad enough when Vil suggested putting Grim in a pet carrier.

"Check if you packed everything you wanted. We'll be leaving in a few minutes."

You walked up to one of your bags and then to your suitcase. "I think I got everything. I'm ready."

With the last check and zip, the man picked up the stuff.

"Well then, let's set off."

You used the mirror chambers to move to the Shaftlands and when you got there, limousine drove you to your destination.

The views you could see from the limousines window were breathtaking. A different world in many colors. The city in which Vil's house was located was only a half hour ride away.

When you reached the house you weren't surprised how it looked like. When the headmage said 'maison' or 'villa', you knew what will you see.

Once you stepped out of the vehicle you took a better look at things that surrounded you. You saw a nice garden which was quite large. The sky also was presenting itself nicely today.

"Ah, what a ride it was!"

The loud voice of Crowley rang and you turned to look at him. He was stretching his back making too much noise for your liking.

"Dear, take your bag and I will take the rest." Vil said while taking your suitcase in hand and the other stuff in other. You knew he was taking too much to carry so you voiced your worries out, "Isn't it too much? I can carry something…"

You saw a flash of confident smile and heard, "My, are you suggesting I am feeble and won't be able to carry all of this?"

"No, not at all."

At the doorstep you wondered if you'll be ringing the bell, however you saw Vil pull out a key. When he was about to open the door, it opened itself.

"Ah, you're already here. Welcome Mister Crowley! And you too, [Name]," You weren't sure if he smiled more widely at the sight of your or was it your imagination. "Please, go inside. Feel like at home." You unsurely entered the maison looking around. You saw how the classicism dominated the whole interior style and furnishings. The whole place was spacious.

"Your rooms are at the end of the left corridor on the first floor, I'll guide you there-"

"No need for that. I'll do it." Vil interrupted his father taking your hand in his and moving to the direction of the rooms.

"Oh, fine.." Eric was shocked at the sudden annoucement from his son but he didn't worry about it for too long. "Well then, please let me escort you to your room, mr. Crowley."

The whole 'walk' was accompanied with silence. You could only hear your and Vil's footsteps. You felt how his nails slightly digged into your skin. You gave him a glance but you only saw his profile and clenched jaw. Oh, how pretty he looked, even if he was upset or furious.

"Vil?" You shot your chance into the air,

no respone.

Only for it to be sanked away in the deep sea.

The silhouette of perfection and you, dragged by it, not sure if it was a right choice to poke it with a stick.

"I don't want you to deal with them, you should rest."

He looked at you. You saw no fury in his eyes. Oh heaven's, my gratitude!

You were still walking.

"Um, Vil, I think you might have skipped the guest rooms-"

"You'll be staying in my room." He saw your shocked face and immediately corrected himself. "If it's okay with you."

"I don't mind. I am actually excited to see your old room." Both of you entered the second floor and went through a corridor and then turned right. Once you reached a white door you stopped.

"We're here." He opened the door and let you go first. When both of you entered the room he closed the door.

You switched the light on and observed.

It looked.. normal. Empty, almost.

"I took most of my things when I got accepted at Night Raven College." He answered your inner question, while joining you in looking around.

A diploma was on one wall, trophies and awards were on a shelf. You walked around and turned yourself to him. "It looks neat. Hope you won't my sleep wriggling, hm." You shot him a smirk that didn't held any innocent intentions.

"Hah. I would like to see you try."

You ignored him and slumped on the bed. You tried to make yourself as cosy as possible.

Your boyfriend sighed. "I'll go and bring your luggage here."

You checked the time on your phone. It was still a midday yet it already was looking like evening.

You waited ten minutes and Vil finally brought all your stuff into his room. You looked how he was putting your clothing in the wardrobe.

"Does your dad know that I'll be sleeping in your room?"

He continued arranging the clothes, "Does your dad know that you'll be sleeping in my room?"

"..Touché"

You heard him laugh. "See? Potato, you'll need to learn how to be more underhand."

He probably noticed how yours eyes rolled because he only continued chuckling at you.

Then, you heard a knock at the door.

Vil and you stopped in your middoings, unsure what to do.

"Vil?" You heard from behind the door. It was Eric.

The blonde looked at you and then at the door. "Yes?"

"Supper will be ready in 10 minutes, please inform [Name] as well."

You two catched an eyecontact. "I will inform her as soon as possible."

That smile. Again.

You heard the footsteps fade away which meant Eric left.

A moment of silence was present in the room. It was ended by your comment, "That was close."

"He wouldn't come in. In this house we respect privacy."

"In this house we respect privacy." You imitated him as to bother him a little.

Vil turned to you and furrowe his brows. "Care to repeat that?" His eyes squinted at you. It didn't mean anything good.

"I'll pass this time." You waved your hand at him. Your response made him curious, "So there will be a next time?" His derisive grin was stopped when he realized you two should be on the ground floor.

"Oh."

You two quickly fixed yourself to look decent (Vil made sure he didn't look just 'decent' but perfect) and hurried to go down.

"So, how was the ride?"

When you came to the dinning room you felt the eyes on you. You suspected that both the headmage and Eric knew you two were together somewhere. What a hassle.

"Uh.."

You didn't feel like speaking right now.

"Marvelous! It was very kind of you Sir to send a pick up for us. My, my I enjoyed the ride very much." Ah, Crowley was the only one person who wanted to talk.

"I'm happy to hear this." Eric smiled politely. He looked at Vil and then at you. "And what about you two? I understand you were very tired. After arriving you two just wanished away.. I was wondering where you have been." He shook his head sadly. You knew he was faking it. He must have. What's the meaning of this?

"I just wanted to show [Name] the house. I wanted her to feel familiar with it." Vil said with a calm demeanor. He niped his mouth with a handkerchief.

"Oh, I see! I take it you wanted [Name] to familiarize with it because you two plan on visiting once again in the future?" You saw how Vil's dad teased him. You didn't blame him, it was a funny thing to do in free time.

"I never said anything, stop making presumptions."

You didn't want the atmosphere to go foul, so you tried to save the situation.

"Dad, will you pass the salt, please?"

"Here you go."

"Please."

You stared owlishlyat what just happened.

Both Crowley and Eric tried to pass you the salt at the same time. "Ah, excuse me." He chuckled while covering his lower face slightly with hand. "I tried to help as a good host would. Please, help yourself everyone."

You took the salt from Crowley still unsure what just happened. You glanced at Vil who was as shocked as you. You were sure you never saw him so surprised before.

"Oh, mr. Schoenheit, you're such a generous host!"

Right now you just wanted to go to sleep and sleep for eternity.

The whole late dinner was short and it ended after twenty minutes. You bid goodnight's to everyone and went to Vil's room. Vil was already here with lights dimed. He was making the bed. You noticed that he made your side to your liking.

"Where's Grim?"

You walked up to him and sat on the bed.

"He's sleeping in the guest room. He's been sleeping since we arrived. I was surprised he didn't turn up at the dinner." You saw his corners rise.

"He sleeps a lot. He'll have a lot of energy tomorrow."

You were grateful you could take your furry companion with you. If he had stayed at home, you would be worried for him and you would probably drown in sorrow from missing him.

You gazed at the room once again. Even though both of you were here it still looked too blank and bland. It didn't suit Vil's character. At all.

"Your room here looks funny compared to yours at the school. Seriously, it doesn't scream 'Vil' at all." You told him, wanting him to maybe open a little bit on why, even though he didn't spent his time here, he left it so undecorated.

He glanced at you, with confusion painted on his face. "Didn't I tell you why it looks like this? I took my things to the room in my dorm."

"Yes, I know, but.. it looks rejecting." You put emphasis on the adjective. You should buy something for him so he could leave it here and if he comes back to his home room, he'll have something to remind him of the colors of life and give the whole space more liveness.

"Hm, so I am not good enough to cover the deadness?" Vil jested. He himself wasn't really bothered by not being cornered by many items and only be embraced with nothing.

After you heard what he said you nudged him with your elbow. "so funny." You moved closer to him. He saw how you squinted your eyes at him with a fake scowl. Ah, how your face looked so beatiful close-up-

"What you're gawking at?" You noticed how silent he was. He was just.. staring at you. The ultimate uncertainty of not knowing what will happen next has flooded you.

"Schatz, you didn't answered my question."

You felt his hand cup your cheek and saw how the mesmerizing and violet eyes were getting closer to you. When you blinked you saw his face a few inches away from yours. He was looking at you vainly, his thumb wiping your lips.

"Well, you know my main focus is on you," You tried to explain, not sure what he wanted to achieve.

"Ah, that's what I wanted to hear." Vil smiled triumphantly. He closed the left distance between you with a kiss. When he tore off from you, he gave you one last look.

"Dear, come closer. Put your hands on me." You slowly were sanking on the bed second by second thanks to overwhelming Vil's body. After you fully were laid on the bed, you saw how Vil's face looked at you from the above. "I got a little bit lonely during the whole ride.

Would you mind giving me your attention?" You felt his hands on your body, only making soft circles in some places waiting for your agreement. With the way he bated his eyelashes at you and how his pretty eyes were toring into you, you couldn't bring yourself to reject such a tempting offer.

"I shall give you my wholly attention."

Vil's eyes widened at your words, elated with your words. Not caring for being patient, not so gracefully, he threw himself at you. Dipping into you as to taste once again what perfection is.

(DE) Schatz - My treasure/beloved.

You woke up. You had trouble with fully opening your eyes and only limited yourself to slow blinking. The sun was visible as it's rays bursted to the room through one of the windows. You guessed it must have been almost afternoon. You felt heavier than ever and.. was that your imagination or the sheets made it look like it crushed you? You could only see things that could keep you in bed.

Fighting and battling led you to finally open your eyes. You turned to where Vil should be. You noticed that his place was made up. He must have probably gone to eat something or do his routine.

After sitting and gaping at the wall like a man that lost his mind, you got out of the bed. You walked up to the window. Nothing interesting outside. You made a face at that and scratched your arms. The isolate location of the house made everything calm outside. You felt the freedom of having nothing to do. Such a great feeling.

Still in your sleepwear, you left the room. You looked at your left and right. Which corridor was it once again…?

Neverthless, you found the way. On your way you passed painting hanged on the walls. Some of them had people painted on them, some had places, and one even had an animal. Many of them showed different tehnique, style and ceuntry period.

Oh, was that classicism? My, that looked like baroque! And, isn't that Romanticism?

You observed all of them with wonder. You doubted they were fake or just an imitation of the originals. They had to be original.

Such a house, filled to the brim with art. You recalled Eric's words where he in short asked if you planned to come here more frequently. Well, now you were sure you wanted to drop in next time you'll have a chance to.

Your walk was finished once you entered the groundfloor. You passed some housekeeper's and even bid greetings to your animal buddy. You went to the kitchen in which you found Vil. His back was turned to you. He was making.. something.

"Hello, Vil." You said in a little bit raised voice so he could hear you through whatever he was making. He looked over his shoulder as to acknowledge whoever was talking to him. When he saw it was you he gave you a small smile still continuing whatever he was doing. "Hello to you too, my love."

"What you're making?" You came closer to peek at the cooking process. You saw some veggies on the pan, an egg made in a sunny side up. On the countertop there were two cups filled with a green liquid.

"I went down when I noticed you moving in the sleep. I'm almost finished with the breakfast. Feel free to sit down, I already set the plates."

You sat down on one of the chair's in the kitchen. You looked at the plate. Snow-white. Ah, it was the same as the Vil's room. "How are you feeling?" Vil asked as he was giving the vegetables some last touches.

"Great. I slept really good. I'm surprised I woke up so late though." You gave him a look.

Vil took the pan and put the food on your plates. He also took the cup's and put one near you. He sat down on the chair beside you. "I'm happy to hear that."

You dismissed his almost suggestive smile and caught his attention with, "I saw the paintings in the corridors. They look neat." You took a sip of the green liquid (which turned to be a smoothie), and felt the taste of some vegetables on your tongue. A fruit also rolled through. "I knew you would love them. They're lovely, aren't they?" He smiled fondly. He also appreciated their beauty.

"Indeed they are!" You chimed in happy. Your love for art could rival Rook's.

"It's rare to see you so hyped. Maybe I should get myself a painting in my dorm room?" Vil said pleased that you liked so much his family's home.

The rest of the breakfast you two spent on chatting about a few topics, enjoying the cosy atmosphere created by you.

"So, that's the painting you wanted to show me?" [Name] and Vil been standing for what felt like an eternity before the painting. It didn't show anything complicated, it was just some background. Even if it looked pretty basic, the technique of it made it stand out.

"Yes, it's the one I wanted to show you. What do you think?" Vil thought for a while then replied. "It looks nicely done. I remember it was hanged a few years ago."

You were sure it was painted by an artist you knew. You were amazed that you could see an original in the person.

"Your admiration for art is one of the things I like about you." Vil knew many things about you. For an example, you loved art. You excelled in art in your own way. You liked music. You loved to play some pieces from your world not caring what others thought about it. No one ever commented on it because you could do the best performance ever. The way you held an instrument just showed how much you put of yourself in your play.

"Hmm, don't you say so. I still remember the painting I gave you one day." You teased, the picture of it came to your head.

"I actually have it on my desk. The canva is small, so no one really notices it unless they have an eye for the details." You opened your mouth slightly hearing that. You didn't knew he would keep it. You just asumed he would just toss it somewhere or keep it in one of the wardrobe's shelves.

"Really?! You liked it that much?" Your change in mood made Vil smile at you. It was quite easy to light up your mood, wasn't it? "Why, of course. I treasure every gift I get. "

Your nice time was interrupted by your alarm which started ringing. You could see it was past 3 p.m. The dinner was supposed to take place at 4 p.m. You had only one hour left. "Oh." Your bitterness was quickly noticed by Vil. "That alarm was for dinner, right? Let's go and change our clothes. I picked outfits for us." You could hear the excitement at the end of his sentence.

"I swear you're the only person who's happy and cannot wait for the dinner. And only because of the clothes." The girl rolled her eyes at his behavior.

"Don't worry, I made sure to not give you anything that is not stylish." He replied with pride and content face.

"You're the only person who would worry about such things actually.."

And the touring ended.

It was 4 p.m already.

The long table was decorated with a fine tablecloth. It's patterns only gave it more glamor than it had. The chairs were comfortable. The food on the table looked delicious. Everything was perfect. "Ah, mr. Schoenheit! You're being too nice, really! Oh, there's even the wildgame… gracious…"

Or so you thought.

You have been sitting here for only ten minutes. But it was enough for chaos to sprout.

Your father was voicing out his good humor. The vain nonsense was hurting your ears and you wanted him to be silent even for only a few minutes. Vil's dad, Eric, was sitting here too. His flashy, milion dollar (Thaumark) smile was blinding your eyes. You waited for him to laugh like those old rich men do when they play golf. Enough, enough.

Your last straw was Vil. He didn't do anything wrong and that was the problem. Did he not notice the things around you all? The damned things that were about to happen. Oh, maybe he was just playing nice and he actually did and just decided to ignore everything.

The first dish you put on your plate was a steak in jelly. With some vine-like dressing. The food which was put on your plate looked good. It smelt good too. So this means it must taste good too.

You took the first bite. After one second, your tongue tasted it.

Ah, how to say it…

Disgusting. Or more like, not to your taste. The dressing wasn't vine but something sweet which made the dish taste awful. It was a wrong decision to mix something bitter with something sweet.

Mentally you cross yourself.

Since the beginning of the dinner, no one really said anything interesting. Everyone ate in a cosy atmosphere (In their opinion, to you it was dreadful).

"I wanted to thank everyone that we could meet today and be able to taste this excellent food." Eric began out of nowhere. You shuddered at the unexpected noise.

"No, it's us who are grateful. It was a pleasure to met you in person, outside of the school matters." The headmage said, clearly sucking it up to Eric.

"Sir Crowley, you're being too polite." Eric smiled in his direction. "I just wanted to know you closer. People who are important to my son are important to me too. And everything is heading towards us becoming a family soon." The older man finished and took a sip of from his glass.

"Ah, really, How could I not be polite… huh? Family?" The headmage started in a uptone which quickly ended in confusion. Eric swallowed the liquid and send his son and you a look.

"It seems so. They're growing up too quickly, aren't they?"

Crowley's confusion only deepened. Who was growing up too quickly? Surely not you, for him you'll always be a little hatchling which only started walking just now. If he wasn't talking about you, then who was he talking about?

You turned to him and shook your head in a 'no' manner. Please, give it a rest, don't respond, don't respond-

"Hm.. I suppose."

You mentally gave yourself a handfive. You also sighed in a relief.

Thanks heaven.

The second dish you tried was a salad.

The only thing which differed it from a normal salad was that it had tuna in it.

"Oi, [Name]! Give me some of that salad too!" Grim after noticing what you had on your plate automatically also wanted to taste it. You were surprised he was quited this whole time. You didn't want to think about it but maybe he prepared some.. surprise. Not a good surprise.

Stop. I'm overthinking.

"Okay, but please calm down." You put some of the salad on his plate. Not too much in case he decides he doesn't like it.

You also tried it. It was.. good. Normal.

After chewing it for some time, you look at Vil. He was consuming a fish. You also wanted to try it, but it was marinated in sauce you didn't really like.

The blonde notice your gaze on him and pointed his head at you as a sign that you had his attention. You showed him with your thumb up that you liked the salad. He replied back with the same sign. At least in this whole mess you two were eating good.

This time Vil decided to take his voice.

"I'm thinking about collabing with that one brand from Queendom of the roses. They have some new products I wanted to test out."

Ah, how smart of you, Vil. To break the awkwardness with such a text.

"I have heard that you're modeling beside acting. It's very impressive." Crowley commented with a gleeful expression.

"Thank you. I put a lot of effort in my work. I hope the collaboration with that brand will give me new opportunities."

You stopped paying attention to your surroundings. Grim was the only person (Or animal, as Vil likes to say) in the room who didn't really join the conversation. Not surprised.

You picked to eat something sweet as your third dish.

Chessecake with melted chocolate inside sounded good. The sweetness of it made you, even if for a while, forget where you were. For a moment you could escape the harsh reality. With only one bite of a cake.

Eric was talking with Crowley in the background about something. They stepped aside to have some space to converse about some matters. You were sitting with Grim and Vil who joined you two. "Are you tired?"

Vil tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. You probably didn't look good now, tired of the whole dinner and it's length. You nodded your head and leaned back on your chair.

Vil's face became soft and he moved closer his chair to yours. "Feel free to lean on me if you're that tired. It'll be a long time before they finish talking." You leaned your head on his arm.

"Thanks." You smiled at him with close eyes.

"[Naamee], I also want to sleep. I'm tired after eating.." You didn't want Grim to be left out so you patted your lap.

"Come here, Grim."

And so the three of you were half sleeping on two chairs. The only one who was half conscious was Vil who didn't want to fall asleep here.

After some time both Crowley and Eric finished talking and walked up to your little camp near the table. Right now even Vil was sleeping, not being able to resist being awake for such duration.

"Oh," Eric left out and came to you three. "I should have knew they would be sleepy by this time. Maybe I should go get them a blanket.." He put one hand on his son's shoulder as to check if he really was asleep.

The boy didn't even move. He was sleeping hard as rock now. "They look adorable together, don't they?" The older Schoenheit turned to the Headmage with a cheeky grin. "Maybe I was teasing them too much with this whole wedding thing. I saw how furious Vil was yet I didn't stop. I hope he doesn't hold it against me for too long." He chuckled softly and shook his head lightly. "They really fit together. I'm glad my son has someone who supports him and is there for him."

"Excuse me?"

Crowley suddenly frowned and put on something akin to defensive posture. "What do you mean by a wedding? Is there something I don't know?" His face didn't falter. Sometimes even he could look.. scary. Eric's face turned into confusion. "Ah, I understand what do you mean. I know they will think about such things after they finish their school and be old enough to understand that marriage is not a easy decision. Please don't take it in a wrong way, sir Crowley." He tried to fix the atmosphere which turned to the wrong way.

"Eh? So you mean that this boy over there and my precious daughter are in a relationship?" With every word, the headmage managed to put emphasis on every one of them.

Vil's father didn't know what to say. He thought that your father was aware that both of you were dating. "..Of course. The whole reason of this dinner was to get to know each other since ours kids are dating."

"SO THEY'RE DATING? MY [Name] AND YOUR SON?"

After having such a loud talk and the latest yelling of the Headmaster you two were more conscious. Sleep was leaving you with every shout. At first the voices were close to you then they started to fade away.

You groggily looked at Vil who also was in the same state as you. you held eye contact for a while and then asked each other the same question; "What's going on?"

Even though in the background you could hear things like, "She's too young for this,", "They're of age,", "My precious daughter.. to think some boy would steal her from me," or "Sir Crowley, please calm down, you're going to pass out," and "Sevens, please, save me!". You Could count all of them but none of it concerned you.

Ignoring the shouts from far away, with head turned in Vil's direction you only could bring you hand closer to his. He squezzed your hand and you only could see the corners of his lips lift up

. And in such position, the two of you fell asleep once again. In each other's embrace you felt peaceful, no matter if it was some tragedy or just you father's arguing. There, in this large and spacious room you two found a place of comfort.

The only one who was able to see such a sight was Grim, who still sat on your lap. Before he met you he was used to being alone. After meeting you, he understood what love meant and what it was like to be loved. The sight of you and Vil only reassured him that what he was seeing now was love in it's purest form.

ⒸKiameicore. Do not repost, translate, stole. This work is currently only posted on Tumblr.

#twisted wonderland #vil schoenheit #vil shoenheit x reader #twst vil #Twisted wonderland x reader

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adamsvanrhijn · 10 months ago

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So what do you think it is that John actually loves about Oscar? What made their relationship work for as long as it did? We never really see Oscar treating him all that well in the show, but I'm sure there have been occassions when Oscar has been fully on John's side too or otherwise he wouldn't have stayed so invested in him especially post breakup.

God. Okay. so this is one area where i would love S3 to spell it out a little more, for all the people who are Not insane and are Not making things up in their heads about these guys nonstop and seeing all the things etc. because until then i can only hypothesize and make shit up outright.

ergo. disclaimer as always that

🚨 THIS TUMBLR USER IS NOT NORMAL ABOUT THESE GUYS!!! 🚨

now. because of the very nature of john & oscar's story, we only see them in the midst of conflict — their very first intimate scene together includes oscar hiding information from john, and that information, when it comes out between them, drastically alters their status quo... at least for john, visibly. oscar is determined not to let it do that, but to john this is contrary to everything he wants and the way he thought he and oscar were living their lives together.

i do think john is drawn to oscar in an oscar-is-john's-type way. like the other two guys we can infer john is interested in are, guy who is physically similar to oscar but taller and cleanshaven, and, literally oscar wilde. oscar van rhijn is giving off a certain vibe and also approaches the world and their culture a different way than others, which sets him apart. at first glance it would be easy to assume oscar doesn't care what others think of him: he dresses and speaks in a certain way, he disregards etiquette norms, he seems to have, if not necessarily disdain for or disillusionment with his society, then a sense that he specifically knows better than and is above it. in fact oscar cares very deeply what others think but just has certain traits he does not seem to be willing or able to compromise about himself. but i think john, who by 1882 is so totally decided in his path to live a life that feels authentic to him, would be attracted to that — even if i am sure he comes to know soon enough that it sits on a bedrock of (largely warranted!) social anxiety. it still takes some combination of courage and not giving a fuck and lack of willingness to compromise yourself to behave the way that oscar does.

john, despite his personal beliefs and intentions, does not seem to be living his life such that it conspicuously challenges any norms or mores, in a way that could only be seen as intentional, the way that oscar is. his rejection of marian could be social awkwardness. his introversion — as with all recurring characters if it happens twice it's a habit ✌🏻 — is just a personality trait. his gender expression is giving 19th century masculinity ideal such that future confirmed bachelorhood would be easily explained as plenty of things other than exclusive interest in men. to another person, he simply would not seem to have anything to live with discretion about. there is nothing About john that indicates that the way he wants to live his life and the way he sees himself as a person is deeply incongruent with his culture, and if he needs to or chooses to he can actively pretend otherwise very effectively. i think there is an element of john's attraction to oscar that is tied up in their outward expression and what it takes or doesn't take for them to express themselves the way they do. john isn't the same type of guy as oscar but i still get the impression that if he wanted to be, he wouldn't or couldn't act the way oscar does, where he is trying to be one person throughout every sphere of his life with nothing reflecting or bearing on anything else.

BUT that is all reasons to be into a guy, but not necessarily to live with him for years and be totally in love with him and design your mental future around him. which is not to say that attraction is not important! like the sex is clearly phenomenal! but also, look at john with your eyes and tell me he couldn't have anybody else he wanted you know.

which brings me to.

first of all, i totally agree with your estimation that oscar must have been there for john in some way that john appreciated in the past that we just haven't seen. i also think it's safe to assume that there are Very Many aspects of their relationship that we haven't seen — in 1.08, john says he doesn't see why they can't carry on as Before, meaning before oscar was looking for a wife, meaning 1.01 was like, the tip of the iceberg for them, for us as an audience. we have not seen Before! they have known each other long enough aurora describes them as old friends and they're clearly obsessed with each other, there's a wealth of history there the audience just doesn't get to see.

and then digging into that... i actually think john and oscar could be really compatible and complementary and Good For Each Other under the right circumstances. opposites attract in this case! john is clearly very cerebral and very sensitive, and even under the circumstances we Have seen them in, oscar has demonstrated an understanding of that and how to draw John out of it when he needs to — "I am preoccupied but nothing's the matter", the entire 1.09 interaction; despite his steadfastly not listening to what John actually wants let alone acknowledging it in this particular topic when it Is eventually made clear to him, he clearly understands what will upset John: "never mind about that now" is bad communication when it isn't followed up on but good recognition of time and place and emotional needs. i think oscar not only Gets john but for the most part knows how to actually deal with him....

BECAUSE last but not least. the thing that looking at him with your eyes two paragraphs ago was Supposed to bring us to. john adams the gilded age is like, the absolute embodiment of He's A Ten But. this man has SO many emotional problems! i do not think they have ever like, Infringed on oscar in quite the way they do in 1.08 before, but i do think they must have Manifested and oscar was perhaps what John needed if not necessarily the most straightforwardly Supportive about it. i think oscar has a lot of what John needs and is in that position where he can draw him out and keep him grounded, up to the point where the issues are between them and relationship rupturing. and i think oscar is his own little brand of weird that means he not only puts up with it but even takes satisfaction in doing so — oscar clearly likes Knowing Better and taking care of the people he is close to, and john gives him opportunities for that, and that obviously could benefit john immensely too.

#john adams tag #johnoscar tag #oscar van rhijn tag

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apn-music · 1 year ago

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VSL announces Synchron Duality Strings 'sordino' version

The Vienna Symphonic Library has announced the virtual instrument Synchron Duality Strings (sordino).

Add another layer of expression and sonority to your small and large string sections with these muted string ensembles, recorded exactly the same way as the first installment in the series, Synchron Duality Strings (regular). While the large ensembles played their instruments in Stage A, the small ensembles simultaneously played in the dryer Stage B of Synchron Stage Vienna, performing perfectly in sync, with a beautiful velvety timbre that’s still bursting with variety. Sordinos massively expand the sound palette of string instruments, especially string ensembles. Considering that the volume of the instruments is only slightly reduced, playing with mutes is not synonymous with “playing quietly”. Rather, sordinos evoke a change in the frequency and sound spectrum that multiplies the possibilities of instrumentation, as the great orchestrators and composers have impressively demonstrated since the end of the 19th century. Changing the instruments’ sound also has a decisive influence on the attitude of the players. Musicians instinctively react to the sound they produce as well as to the overall sonority of the ensemble. Passages played “con sordino” (with mute) will therefore always be clearly different from “senza sordino” (without mute) passages, even when a sordino effect is artificially applied to the recordings. The musical feeling and expression of first-class musicians makes all the difference, beyond the mere placement of a piece of plastic or wood on the bridge of an instrument. Consequently, VSL developed a sordino collection that was not just a reduced version of the non-sordino recordings. Continuing in the vein of their Duality principle, each sordino articulation was recorded immediately after its non-sordino counterpart. The objective was for users to be able to activate or deactivate sordinos without creating a difference in expression, resulting in a continuous, coherent performance. This means that all the articulations of Duality Strings (regular) are also available with Duality Strings (sordino), except for snap pizzicato.

If you have both the regular and sordino collections of Synchron Duality Strings installed, the “Merged” Preset combines “senza sordino” and “con sordino” articulations, making it easy to switch and keep an overview of all available articulations.

Create your own blend

As in the first Duality Strings installment, the large and the small ensemble were sampled at once, playing in separate rooms, with the conductor on the podium in Stage A also directing the ensemble in Stage B via video monitors. While the mic setup in Stage A delivers a broad string ensemble sound, the smaller ensemble in Stage B was recorded closer with two different sets of microphones, offering bright and dark sounding variants. This enables you to customize your own string sound organically and effortlessly within the Synchron Player. Of course you can also rely on the expertly crafted mixer presets, ranging from close and classic to wide, distant, lush and more.

Extensive articulations, easily accessible

Articulations include a wide variety of short notes, long notes, various legato variations (normal, agile, slurred, portamento), espressivo, with various attacks and note releases, plus pizzicato, col legno, tremolo variants, fast repetitions, trills, harmonics, glissandos, legato and détaché runs, and much more.

Multiple Microphone Positions

To capture the spectacular ambience of Stage A and the signals in the dryer sounding Stage B, our engineers employed separate phase-coherent microphone configurations that were recorded simultaneously to provide a broad range of room options. All sections were recorded separately at their designated positions. The Dark and Bright microphone signals consist of a mix of two pairs of microphones, respectively: The additional Ribbon L/R microphones that come with the Full Library add an extra warm, low-mid layer to the transparency of the Decca Tree for an even lusher string sound.

The main surround microphone settings may also be used instead of the main stereo room mics in order to achieve a wider and more ambient mix. Blending surround signals with the other microphone signals creates a denser, more lush overall sound, even in stereo applications. Room Mix Presets feature an excellent mix-down to stereo from the Decca tree and surround mic positions for a CPU and RAM-saving sound that’s perfectly balanced right out-of-the-box. A host of Mixer Presets is available in the categories of “Decca Tree Multi-Mic”, “Surround to Stereo Downmix”, and “Surround”. Due to the comprehensive selection of discrete audio channels you can mix your string sound in stereo, 5.1 surround or even Dolby Atmos (or any other immersive audio format, such as 9.1 Auro 3D). The price of Vienna Symphonic Library Synchron Duality Strings (sordino) is €545 for the standard library version and €870 for the full library version, and is currently available for purchase at a discounted price of €395 and €635, respectively, until October 30th. More information can be found on the Vienna Symphonic Library website. Read the full article

#orchestra #string #VSL

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creatingnikki · 4 years ago

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What 2020 has taught me

1. Those things that seem like content for sci fi or pure fiction are actually things that can happen. To the entire world. Like a pandemic. And to you. Like a seizure.

2. Everyone is sad. Everyone is struggling. In different ways and in different measures. Makes no one special. But you still get to feel sad for yourself and be compassionate towards others. But it's also okay to draw boundaries because you're everyone too. Remember, not special? You're sad and trying to deal with it too.

3. Every job you have will not add value to your life. It will not teach you new things or give you people you'll want to stay in touch with. Sometimes some jobs will only be a season of your life. Even if the season lasts for over a year. It's okay.

4. You know how you thought picking a college and picking a major and picking your first job and picking a specific industry were all the career decisions you had to make? Yeah, no. It's never a one time thing. You could have a job as a marketing strategist for two years and then want nothing to do with it. And then you'll have to make another decision and work towards it. So I'd like to call it moves. It's like chess. You always have to make a move. And it always has to be strategic, yes. But the truth is in your 20s it probably won't. Even if you try. And as long as you're trying, you'll be fine.

5. You may have different sorts of friends like the one you only talk to about kdrama with or the one you met when you went book shopping alone and the friendship is all about books really. That's normal. But irrespective of why and how you became friends with them, if you consider them a friend then there has to be this basic sense of care, respect and empathy for each other. I don't care what people want to say. If you're faced with the worst trauma of your life, the least your friends can do is check up on you regularly. On text. And if they don't even do that then guess what? They aren't friends. They are acquaintances. Social media and quick promises make everyone seem like your friend. But they are not. They are just nice people who will be nice to you for specific periods and then wander away like you are a speck of dust floating in their journey.

6. You speak a lot and write and you express yourself and you’re emotionally mature but oh my god. You still hold in so much. You’ve known that at a subconscious level and over the last year people - experts - have told you that. You have also realized that you make your pain and sadness about pettier things because dealing with them, admitting about them, sharing that with your friends, is easier. You do that so that you don’t have to deal with the real stuff. Because it’s so damn painful. And you don’t know how to do it. Yet. Acknowledging is the first step anyway right? I know you’re confused about how exactly to let go of all this pain and sadness and feel lighter, and you know that talking to people really isn’t the solution, but I also know you’re smart enough to figure it out.

7. Talking about being smart...you know you’re different than others. Better. Special. Smarter. None of these are the right words. And you never voiced this out until this year because you knew it would make you come across as narcissistic. Some would say it’s because you’re an INFJ. But my mother once said that this may be the first time we are consciously living life but our souls are old and so our instinct and the things we know but can’t explain are because this isn’t the first time for our souls. The connections we feel with certain people, the reason we are so different from our siblings who grew up in the exact same environment with the exact same opportunities, our sense of right and wrong...it’s all because our souls learn and grow with each time and that’s why we are who we are. I think that’s probably how I can explain what I have always felt. That I am living in a different universe than everybody but I have to pretend to be in this one and dumb my emotions and thoughts down. Maybe that’s because my soul has lived through thousands of years while most around me are living their 100th life. Or maybe I’m just narcissistic, who knows?

8. You shift between talking in first person and second person but that’s because that’s how you think in your head and talk to yourself and live your life. You ask yourself things and you accuse yourself of things and you apologize to yourself and you comfort yourself. I think that seeps into your writing and the changing of the voices.

9. You always genuinely thought that you’d not be afraid of dying. And then what happened this October proved you shockingly wrong. I know it’s not so much being afraid of dying but the unbearable pain of knowing what that would mean to your family. So you have to be more prudent and less reckless with your life and the choices you make.

10. Regret is not something that plagued you but this year the realisation and pain of giving away your favourite books from your own personal collection to people you care about as a show of affection and them turning out to be ass holes or losers has hit you so hard. So, yes. No more of that shit. I really fucking want my copy of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower back. UGH. With the childhood picture of me inside it!

11. Sleeping at 5 am in the morning stops being fun or romanticised when you realise just how much harm it does to your body and mind. Literally every single disease and disorder can be traced back to a shitty fucking sleep schedule. It’s not just the hours you sleep but also the quality of sleep and the time you sleep at. So yes sleeping for 8 hours is healthy but not if that 8 hours is from 5 am to 12 pm. ‘Not a morning person’ is just another construct of capitalism and you don’t realise how many industries profit from having you believe that and staying up late or all night. Entertainment. Food. Alcohol. Pharma. Biologically and naturally you are a bloody morning person. And you don’t need 3 cups of coffee to begin your day or your phone notifications to get you to open your eyes and brain to wake up.

12. Sometimes you really have to stop taking people so seriously. I know the idea of treating people as casual friends or entertainment makes you want to fight that concept but you know what? Some people like Pineapple are ever only going to be good for that. No matter how much they ‘grow and change’. So keep them in the background for whenever you want some entertainment or drama. But please don’t clear up your busy schedule to meet them or send them gifts on their birthday.

13. If you don’t have the fruit juice or green juice within half an hour of making it then you are losing out on its most optimum health benefits. Or when you remove the white stringy stuff from oranges. That’s where all the actual nutrients are.

14. I am privileged and so are most of the people I interact with. The global pandemic has been hell for a lot of people around the world. Health wise. Financially. Losing people they care about. But I was blessed enough to be safe at home and have a job that I could smoothly do from home and not have a pay cut or 4-hour long Zoom meetings. So honestly when my friends tell me 2020 has been bad I have to stop and ask them why? Yes, the crippling uncertainty and anxiety is not something that can be undermined. But most people I know had very great positive life-changing milestones this year like moving away to another country for college or taking their first solo trip or getting married. So I have to ask them. Because I am not going to agree that everybody’s 2020 and pandemic narrative is the same.

15. Money gets spent really quickly. When I left my job earlier this year because of personal issues, I thought I had enough savings to last me a year. Full disclosure - I mean to last my personal expenses because I live with my parents. But it didn’t even last me 3 months. And so to use money wisely and buy things that provide utility than instant gratification is something to follow. Also buying one pair of really expensive but quality shoes is better than buying 5 pairs of affordable but low quality shoes that will have a very short life and force you to buy more. I know that higher price doesn’t always mean better quality but sometimes it does. And as an adult now I want to do the whole quality > quantity thing even with things and not just people.

16. Everyone in their 20s went through a crisis of what they should do with their lives and their careers and it’s not unique to the 21st century and the challenges of today. Whether it was Vincent Van Gogh in the 19th century or Sylvia Plath in the 20th, every single person, as brilliant as them went through the torture of making these decisions and living with their consequences. You may think I picked wrong examples for they both killed themselves but you know what? They were the people who really want to live more than anyone. They knew what life meant. And maybe if mental health help was more accessible back then their lives would be longer and more peaceful.

17. Telling people everything is overrated. You don’t have to talk about every single thing that’s on your mind or that’s going on in your life. The good and the bad and the mediocre. You have to be mindful about how much of yourself you’re giving away.

18. Re-watch Suits when people at work feel intimidating because the confidence + negotiation tactics that they show can actually work irl cos at the end of the day no matter in what position you’re dealing with people who have emotions and fears and insecurities and desires. You understand how to leverage that nobody can get the better of you.

19. You belong to yourself. No matter how much you love someone or how much they have done for you or how much you owe them - you belong to yourself. You can’t live your life for someone else. Everyone belongs to themselves first. No relationship, no promise, no circumstance should make you feel like you have to give up your life and make it all about them. If and when the time comes to die for them, go ahead. Take a bullet. Donate that kidney. Write them in your will. But live your life for yourself. And let them live theirs.

20. Twenty three was a challenging year. When it started you claimed the age 23 sounds boring and insignificant. Guess it proved you wrong. It hurt so much now. But that only means you’ll look back on it later and see how it added so much wisdom and resilience to your being. It doesn’t mean that it makes all the bad things that happened to you okay. Or that you should be grateful to them. Fuck no. It means that you should be kinder to yourself because at the end of the day, your mind and body find it in themselves to deal with whatever is thrown their way. They have your back. It’s time you learn to sit straight.

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maplecornia · 3 years ago

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chapter 30

𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱: 2.85K

𝔰𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶: You watched them from the sidelines ever since you were a young teenage girl. Now you’re grown up, they’ve returned after 2 long years and everything has changed. What happens when you pull back the mask and find the darkness within? What happens when you see that they’re broken?

𝔞/𝔫: another yoongles focus lol i just figured out that i really don't have much to say in these things anymore, i might save the a/n's for the end next time

This is not exactly how you expected to meet Min Yoongi.

His hand tightens around your wrist as he drags you through the halls of BigHit, and you silently pray that your small legs can keep up.

Looking up at him, you can't help but be a bit confused.

Why is he so angry anyway?

You didn't do anything to him.

Certainly nothing worth yanking your arms off.

Wincing as he turns a corner, your eyes widen as he opens a door and practically shoves you inside a dark room. You stumble a bit, an inner instinct inside of you resurfacing. You find yourself frantically looking for any form of exit, any form of a way out. When you find none, you swallow hard, feeling your hands palpitate with cold sweat and your breathing run short. Turning briskly to where Yoongi stands in front of the door, you step forward, ready to push past him and bolt before you’re hurt, but the look in his eyes stops you.

They’re soft, confused and slightly caught off guard. You wonder if the fear that prickles off of your skin is as evident to him as it is to you. Taking a deep breath, you swallow hard, trying hard not to show your discomfort. Inwardly, you chastise yourself for even considering that Min Yoongi would have any malicious intent towards you, but you can't help it when put into a situation like this...

Dark room.

Blocked exits.

No way of escape.

You can't help but be on your guard.

A bit confused, but choosing not to question it, Yoongi gestures towards a clothing rack to the left. Blinking, you turn towards it, begging yourself to relax. When he advances into the room, however, you flinch and frantically back up, straight into a tray of forgotten makeup and hair products.

He immediately stops at the reaction, and you downcast your eyes shamefully praying he doesn’t realize what you’ve tried so hard to cover up. However, as he takes in your frightened eyes, tense stance, and the shallow breath, he knows that somehow he has triggered a memory.

From the looks of it, even a form of trauma.

Definitely not what I expected.

Taking a deep breath, he turns on the light before turning to you with his hands up in a form of surrender. Almost a peace treaty. "Relax, I'm just trying to get a shirt for you."

You swallow hard, already feeling a bit better with the light on. Chuckling nervously, you straighten and nod, running your hand through your hair.

"O-of course you were. What else would you be doing?" you try to swallow the sudden rise of bile in your throat as you rub your arms violently to ease the chill your memories have brought you.

Yeah.

What else indeed.

Confused, but choosing to leave matters out of his hand alone, Yoongi returns to his task and rummages through the clothes dangling on the coat rack. Once he's found his prize, he turns to you and throws it towards you. Your eyes widening, you hardly catch it before he's already heading out of the door.

"Shirt." He explains bluntly, and you nod, a bit surprised that he used English. You smile inwardly at the sentiment, however. The small taste of home certainly helped you to regain your composure. You give a weak smile and tighten your grip around the shirt, hoping that it would be a better outlet to release the emotions bottled inside.

"Thank you." You murmur, and he nods before turning to leave.

He almost makes it out the door, but when he remembers something, he turns back to you.

"Do you know the way back?"

"Back...?" you mutter, a bit confused, and he rolls his eyes, resisting the urge to smile.

Looks like she's back to normal.

"To the dressing room, you're supposed to help us with the photo shoot today." Your eyes widen at his explanation, and you faintly remember your soiled schedule. Cursing under your breath, you wish you had at least taken a picture of the thing before heading to perform your duties. Maybe then you'd have a backup.

Well, guess that's a good thing to remember next time.

Realizing Yoongi is still waiting for a reply, you snap out of your reverie and smile.

"Oh, yes. I think I can manage." He nods before turning around and finally leaving you alone, the door closing with a few words of encouragement.

"Hurry up."

With that, the door is shut firmly behind him and you let out a small breath.

Well, no need to be so cold.

But then again, it was kind of him to offer you a shirt and not to pry when you had that slight panic attack. If you can even call it that. Sighing, you turn to the mirror and place your hands on the desk, staring deep into your hollow eyes.

It wasn't always this way.

There was a time when these eyes sparkled with life. When they were filled with joy and happiness, not a care in the world. Where you could smile without a weight on your heart dragging you down. Where you could live without feeling guilty of it.

Why do you feel guilty?

He deserved what he got.

He deserved to die for what he did to you.

“But still...he was my father.”

Biting your bottom lip, you hardly notice it as your teeth pierce through your skin and blood begins to trickle down your chin. Only when the taste of iron on your tongue pierces through do you realize. Flinching, you shakily wipe the blood away and lick your bottom lip as though that will erase the pain bound tightly to your heart.

No, nothing can erase this.

I don't think anything ever will.

Swallowing hard, you choose to forget that which is best not to be pondered over. Turning the shirt Yoongi found for you, you slowly unbutton your own, pulling it out of the plaid skirt you've garnered today. You're thankful Yoongi has managed to find you a similar shirt to the one you brought in today. A white button-up that reminds you of the 19th century. Something a high-class man would wear to a gala per se. You smirk at the ruffles at the end of your sleeves and try to avoid your reflection in the mirror as you pull it on over your bra.

The only thing you would see would be another daily dose of self-deprecation and hatred.

You'd rather stop before it started.

Once the shirt is buttoned and tucked safely in your skirt, a few small touches added by you in order to fit your look, you look at your reflection and smile faintly. For a man's shirt, it fits your frame quite snugly. You wonder who exactly it belongs to, but figure you could just ask Yoongi later.

This should do nicely.

Smiling weakly in satisfaction, you turn to the door and open it.

You weren't expecting to see a very fatigued Yoongi leaning against the wall right next to the entrance. So you'd say your reaction was justified.

He would probably think otherwise.

At your shriek, he jumps halfway out of the air before turning to you in surprise.

"What the hell was that?!" He cries, and your eyes widen in ignorance.

"Me?! What about you? I thought you were going back to the dressing room!"

"Well, I--" he breaks off, finding nothing to say, and you raise an eyebrow in confusion. Swallowing hard, he turns his face away from you. "You were taking too long."

Rolling your eyes, you scoff.

Sorry, but I didn't think I was on a time clock.

"Besides, I didn't trust you to get there on your own." He explains, turning back to you with a scowl. You narrow your eyes at him yourself before noticing the slight rosy hue to his cheeks.

Is he...embarrassed?

Clearing his throat, he shakes his head before brushing past you and heading back the way you came.

"Let's go."

You stand there in stunned silence before turning to his retreating figure. Smirking a bit to yourself, you scoff in disbelief before jogging to catch up to him. You want to thank him for his help, but as the two of you head back, you find it hard to start a conversation with him.

Biting the inside of your cheek you turn to him, trying to study his expression.

He definitely has some sort of hidden animosity towards you even though the two of you have never met before now. However, he doesn't seem to hate you. He's been kind to you so far. In his own...weird way. But if he doesn't hate you then what's the reason for his behavior? Sometimes he seems perfectly fine, and then others he seems to be incredibly angry by your presence.

Then again...your presence is sort of foreign to him.

Maybe he just needs time warming up?

"She's hardly qualified."

Or maybe...

He knows you don't belong here.

"Do you need something?"

Jolting back to reality, you blink and find Yoongi to be regarding you with a perplexed gaze. Quickly, you snatch your eyes away and laugh nervously. You hadn't realized you were gawking at him this whole time.

"No, it's nothing..."

His expression changes as soon as you look away, darkens into something nearly unrecognizable. Turning away, he swallows hard, as though holding himself back. You, however, find this as a perfect outlet to start a conversation.

"I was just...wondering...W-why are you doing the shoot here?"

He shrugs, trying to avoid your gaze as much as possible.

"It's more convenient this way. Does the shirt fit?"

"Hm? Oh! Uhm, yes it does. Thank you."

He nods in response.

"Good, that was Enhypen's dressing room. They hardly use it other than the times they visit our company for shoots and such. Sunoo has a smaller build than most in our company so I thought it'd work best for you." He examines the shirt on you, and you can't help but blush, half wondering if you should cover-up. "Hm. It's tight in some areas but definitely better than wearing something like Jimin's."

You blush profusely at the comment and cross your arms around your chest. You have half a mind to smack him right then and there, but as a group of employees pass by you, you're forced to hold back. He smirks in satisfaction at your reaction, and you scowl.

"I see...thank you." You mutter between gritted teeth. He doesn't respond, just continues to smile that smug smile. Turning the corner, you find yourself in another realm of silence, but this time you don't really have the urge to talk to him.

He on the other hand...

"Has BangPD talked to you yet?"

Your ears perk at that and you turn to him, shocked.

How did he...

"I'm sorry?"

"About being a trainee." He replies with that debonair air about him. Swallowing hard, it takes you a while to respond.

“How did you know?” He gives a look at the ambiguous answer, but you meet it as an equally indignant one. You feel as though you have a right to know, and you won’t answer him so easily about something you weren’t aware he even knew about. Sighing when it’s clear you won’t give in as easily as he thought, he answers you.

“BangPD met with us to discuss your training.”

“‘Us?’ You mean...”

“Yes, BTS. He said as shareholders of the company, it was only right for us to know he was considering training you. He wanted our opinion.”

In short, they were deciding your life before you even had a chance to decide.

You don’t know why, but the thought puts a sick feeling in your stomach. The fact that a group of people were discussing whether or not to trust you, to accept you without even half of them getting a chance to know you or your abilities...Who gave them the right to decide that? Who gave them the right to take control of your future?

And what if you say yes? Do they even want you to succeed? What if they do? What if saying no let down their expectations? Why weren’t you told about this? Why weren’t you a part of the conversation?

Was it really too much of a risk?

"So?" He prompts before pausing in front of an elevator door and pressing the up button to the dressing room. "What did you say?"

You give him a look, hoping that will let him know that you don't want to talk about this anymore, but he doesn't seem to care. He raises an eyebrow at you expectantly and you find that even if you wanted to, you wouldn't know what to say.

Does he think that this is an easy decision? There are things to consider, your future to think about, people who could be affected...

But really, what is there to consider?

You don't have anything to lose, not really.

And this is your dream.

So why are you hesitating?

You know why.

At the soft ding of the elevator arriving, you break eye contact and turn as the doors open. Stepping inside, you watch the doors slide shut before answering him.

"He told me to think about it."

Yoongi scoffs at the answer, biting the inside of his cheek in annoyance. He knew it'd be like this.

"What's there to think about?" At the question, you flinch but refuse to meet his eyes. "It's a yes or no question."

You bite your lip furiously, at war with yourself.

It's not like he's wrong but...

Yoongi glances at her from the corner of his eye and wonders what exactly everyone sees in her. He wonders what makes her so special. From what he's seen, she's incredibly ordinary. Sure she has a beautiful voice, her face is nice, but she can stand to lose a few pounds especially if she wants to be an idol.

Does she even want to be a performer?

There are so many others who have tried their whole life just to be considered for what they're offering here, and what?

It's too hard of a decision?

Animosity growing like a drug, he scoffs turning away.

"I was against it, you know." You turn to him, a bit confused at the statement. He sighs before continuing, a bit piqued at your behavior. "Your contract. I didn't want you to be considered as a trainee."

You should feel surprised. You should feel wronged, angry. But you feel none of those things. Instead, you understand him.

Smiling a bit bitterly, you turn back to the metal doors.

"I see." You reply, and he turns to you in confusion.

"You're not mad?" You shrug before turning to him.

"Why would I be?" He scoffs at the reply.

"Most would feel offended."

"Well, I'm not. In fact, I'm grateful."

Surprised, he turns to you. "Why?"

"At least you didn't lie or cover it up." You explain matter of factly and he shakes his head at you in disbelief as the elevator dings, announcing your arrival.

"It would've been better if I had." He mutters half to himself as the two of you depart, bowing politely to a few employees waiting to board the elevator. You shrug at the statement before glancing his way.

"Well, maybe I don't like people who beat around the bush."

He can't help but feel a bit stunned as he watches you walk a few steps ahead of him. He can't help but feel that he'll always be a few steps behind you. Shaking the feeling away, he peers your way.

"Are you scared?"

"Of what?"

"Debuting."

You swallow hard, not sure how to answer. Biting your bottom lip in concentration you consider the question.

Are you scared to debut?

"Yes."

Who wouldn't be after all? It's scary not knowing if the public will view you positively or immediately cast you aside. It's scary not knowing whether or not your dream will be achieved, whether or not you'll make it.

"Is that why you're hesitating?"

Spying the dressing room a few feet away, you shake your head at his question before replying.

"No."

You can deal with that fear...but what you're even more afraid of is betrayal.

Like what happened last time.

Yoongi stares at you for a moment and watches as you get that faraway look in your eye, the same look that tells him you're not really here. When the two of you reach the dressing room once again, he can't help but pause a few feet away from you. He has the sudden urge just to look at you, maybe then he'd be able to understand.

"You're not what I thought you were." He mutters, not sure if you can hear him, but at your smile, he knows you never stopped listening. You smile at him over your shoulder.

"I guess I don't like beating around the bush either."

𝔞/𝔫: i feel like this offers a lot of background to yen's past...which may be revealed soon

chapter 31 here

check the Infinite Stars masterlist for more chapters

check my BTS masterlist for other BTS content

check out my masterlist for other kpop fanfics

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beannary · 2 years ago

Text

Something So Precious About This

A Hisirdoux and Zoe fic

ao3 link

In the early 19th century, Hisirdoux gets invited to a private ball and makes a lifelong friend.

Hisirdoux takes in his appearance in the mirror, carefully adjusting his cravat just so, adding the final touches to his outfit. He wouldn’t necessarily consider himself to be vain, but well, he does take pride in his appearance. It was one of the first things Merlin taught him, that to control your appearance is to control what assumptions people make about you. Normally Hisirdoux goes for a more subdued look to blend into the background and remain unnoticed but he wants to look presentable for this particular event.

He preens in the mirror, before twirling around and striking a pose.

“How do I look, Archie?” He does feel quite proud of himself. It’s been ages since he’s gotten the chance to attend an upper class event. Sure he loathes the stuffy prim and properness that comes with balls and feasts, but Hisirdoux does miss the feeling of his fancy robes he would don when attending royal events in Camelot.

Archie frowns. “What I think is that this is a bad idea.”

“Oh c’mon Arch!” Hisirdoux whines, slumping to where Archie is lying on his bed. He sits down, lifting his hand to angrily pet Archie. You know, to properly let him know how upset Hisirdoux is. From the sound of Archie’s purring this tactic is working perfectly.

“Douxie you are attending a private ball at the very beginning of the courting season,” Archie starts. Hisirdoux groans at the oncoming lecture. “There is absolutely no way this isn’t going to end in disaster.” Archie looks up at him. “You have to admit that going to an event where all in attendance will be looking for a more permanent romantic relationship is a rather daft idea.”

Hisirdoux sighs. “I know, I know, but…” Hisirdoux pauses. He doesn’t want to offend Archie in any way but, well…He is going a bit stir crazy only having his familiar for company. There sure is something to be said about humans being social creatures and craving human companionship. Hisirdoux is definitely feeling that lack of close human contact getting to him. Fancy that, it took him nearly 600 years to get sick of his constant state of near solitude.

Maybe he shouldn’t go. Archie is right after all. This happens time and time again where he makes friends only to have to leave them suddenly after only a few years. His lack of aging is certainly both a blessing and a curse. And as much as he wants to go out and socialize, he would hate upsetting Archie more.

“I do know though,” Archie begins, “that at the end of the day I very well can’t control you.” Hisirdoux perks up, looking surprised at Archie. “Just please, keep your heart in check? We’ve been in London for far too long already, we don’t have much longer before we have to leave. And I truly hate how heartbroken and desolate you get every time you have to leave your human companions.”

Hisirdoux stands up, quickly dusting himself off of any stray cat hair. “I can’t promise anything. But I’ll try my best.”

Archie hums in thought. “Could you promise to bring me back some fancy meat?”

“That,” Hisirdoux laughs, “I can manage to do.” He glances up at the cuckoo clock that hangs above his bed, hurrying quickly towards the door as he sees the time, taking a spare moment to cast a quick concealment charm on his bracer. “I’m off then!” Hisirdoux hangs slightly out of the open door. “Don’t have too much fun without me Arch!”

“I’m sure I’ll get up to all sorts of shenanigans with you gone,” Archie says as he stands up and stretches languidly. “Oh and Hisirdoux? You do look quite handsome tonight. I hope you have fun.”

Hisirdoux arrives at the venue at exactly 9 pm, precisely the time expressed on the invitation. He stands in awe of the grandeur of the ball hall before hurrying inside, stopping only to check his hat and coat in at the front before venturing into the ballroom proper. The decor on the inside is no less ostentatious, teetering just on the edge of gaudy, but without a doubt achieving its goal of displaying the immense fortune and high status of the Murray family who are hosting the ball.

Hisirdoux was quite lucky to receive an invitation to this event in the first place. Even though he grew up in the castle in Camelot, Hisirdoux is a peasant boy through and through, and that has followed him throughout his life. No matter how hard he tries he just cannot seem to acquire enough money or status to maintain an upper class, or even a middle class lifestyle.

Not that he minds or really cares. The coins of his youth would hardly benefit him today. Money can only take him so far, whereas the skills he has honed over his life have proven to be much more valuable. It is those exact skills that landed him an invitation to this ball in the first place. The eldest Murray daughter had found herself in a spot of trouble with a foreign vampire, and long story short Hisirdoux stepped in to resolve matters and found himself with a golden ticket to the social event of the year.

He spends a few moments flitting about the ballroom, trying to socialize before the dancing begins. It’s difficult though as few of the ladies spare him the time of day. They are looking for suitors after all, and he very well can’t provide for them on his meager income. Perhaps if he had mastered the intricacies of regency era aristocratic etiquette he would have more luck finding someone to converse with. But his lower class accent and slightly out of date suit make him stick out like a sore thumb, making it dreadfully obvious to all in attendance that he is truly a fish out of water.

He would really like to dance though, that is the whole point of attending a ball after all. But with his luck it seems as if he might not get the chance. Proper ball etiquette states that ladies have to start the conversation, and considering how all of them are avoiding him like the plague, Hisirdoux doubts he’ll get the opportunity to ask a lady to dance. So instead, he quietly drifts off to a corner close to the band so he can play off his solitude as a musical interest rather than his obvious lower class status.

Not that he is faking his interest in music. Though the lute will always be his first love, it would be foolish of him not to make use of his immortality by learning every instrument under the sun. Perhaps he should start branching out from string instruments. The bassoon sounds quite magical, perhaps he should ask its player for some tips once the musicians have a break.

Hisirdoux is deep in thought, his gaze unconsciously roving over the crowd when he meets a pair of eyes across the ballroom. Hisirdoux feels himself freeze. A lady with long, elegant, brown hair and a shockingly flamboyant pink dress is staring at him, giving him a curious look. She blinks as soon as she realizes that he is staring back, giving him a little half wave. With elegance and grace, the lady lifts her fan in one hand, carefully touching a finger from the other hand to the top of the fan.

Hisirdoux is certainly not an expert in the language of fans, but even he can’t deny such a clear message of I wish to speak with you. He feels his face flush at her forwardness, and he sees her laugh in barely concealed amusement. She switches her fan so it's held in her left hand, opening it swiftly to half cover her face, fanning it gently, clearly waiting for him to venture closer to her.

Well he’s certainly not going to get a more forward invitation into conversation than that. And beggars certainly can’t be choosers. Not that he is dreading talking to this lady, quite the opposite in fact. Still he can’t help the nerves that flood him at the prospect of being in pleasant company. Archie always goes on and on about how Hisirdoux is completely unable to maintain himself when conversing with people he finds attractive, and this lady is exceedingly easy on the eyes. But it's not as if Archie is here now to bemoan Hisirdoux’s lack of brain cells once in the presence of attractive people, so he takes a moment to calm his nerves before swiftly making his way across the ballroom.

The lady bows as soon as Hisirdoux is in appropriate conversing distance, to which he bows in return.

“For a gentleman currently in attendance of one of the most coveted balls in London, you have been rather unsocial.”

Hisirdoux chuckles, averting his eyes and taking the opportunity to pick up a glass of wine from a tray carried by a passing by waiter. “I am regretfully not as accustomed to these events as the average London socialite.”

“That much is obvious,” she says with a smile. “How then did you manage to acquire an invitation? Has your family newly come into wealth?”

“Oh no nothing of the sort,” he explains. “I am here on the personal invitation of Miss Murray.”

The lady’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Oh my, I was quite unaware that I was in the presence of a guest of the hostess herself. May I ask how you became acquainted with the Murray family?”

“Ah,” Hisirdoux starts. He hadn’t quite thought of a suitable explanation for that question. He swirls his wine and takes a sip. “I’d rather not get into the details in respect to Miss Murray but I helped the family out of a rather peculiar situation.”

“Hmm, consider me intrigued. You’re quite unlike the other guests in attendance Mister…”

“Casperan,” Hisirdoux fills in. “And may I be privy to the lady’s name as well?”

“Zinoviya Ashildr.”

“That’s a rather interesting surname,” Hisirdoux hums. “I can’t say I’ve heard word of the Ashildr family in London. Did you move to the area recently?”

Miss Ashildr blushes. “Ah yes I suppose you could put it in that manner,” she stammers. “My family travels between our various estates. It has been some time since we have resided permanently in England.”

“Merchants then?”

“Of sorts,” she replies with a wry smile as if she’s telling some sort of joke.

“Now you could consider me intrigued.”

“Well if I have piqued your interest I would be more than happy to continue our discussion over a dance?”

“If it is what the lady desires then I shall be honored to deliver,” he says, extending a hand to her and bowing ever so slightly. She places a gloved hand in his before whisking him off to join the other couples gathering in preparation for the first dance of the evening.

It’s surprisingly enjoyable dancing with Miss Ashildr. She’s witty and charming and he spends the entirety of their two dances together smiling and laughing, all thoughts flying from his head, his mind thoroughly occupied with the woman in front of him.

After nearly an hour of dancing, they step off the main dance floor together, to take a brief moment of repose before the next dance begins. Hisirdoux wishes he could spend the rest of the evening with Miss Ashildr, but alas a lady is only meant to dance with the same man twice before it is expected for her to move on. If they were to spend the entirety of the evening together it would give off the impression that they were betrothed, and that is the last thing Hisirdoux wants.

“You are quite the interesting character Mister Casperan,” she says as the two settle at a table and nurse their respective drinks.

“And you as well.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she laughs. Miss Ashildr gingerly picks up her glass and swirls her wine before taking a sip. “May I ask you a question?”

Hisirdoux nods as he picks up his respective glass, patiently waiting for her to continue.

“Hmm, or rather not a question but an observation perhaps?” She says as she turns to fully face Hisirdoux. “You are quite good at blending in, you know, I hardly would have recognized you as anything other than normal if it weren’t for one tiny detail.” Hisirdoux freezes at her words, his glass halfway to his lips. She sets down her glass before slowly reaching over to his arm on which rests his concealed magical bracer. Or what is meant to be his concealed bracer, as instead of being invisible to the eye it is instead visible for all to see. She gently taps the bracer with a single finger. Upon contact a soft pink light envelops the bracer before it disappears before their very eyes as a concealment charm is once again placed upon it.

“Well then,” Hisirdoux says, tension flooding out of him. “That could have gone much worse, figures I’d find the one other magical person at this event.”

“Really you should be much more careful. You’re quite lucky it was me who noticed and not one of the more, let’s say superstitious types.”

“One would think society had moved past the craze of the witch trials but alas humanity continues to disappoint me,” Hisirdoux quips before taking a sip of his wine.

The music swells in preparation for the next dance, prompting various couples around them all moving towards the dance floor. Hisirdoux regretfully would rather spend the rest of the evening with Miss Ashildr, but alas, social etiquette requires him to bounce between various ladies. He’s about to bid Miss Ashildr farewell when she stops him.

“Forgive me if my proposition is too forward, but would you accompany me to a more private location? I would greatly enjoy continuing our discussion without the prying eyes of socialites too nosey for their own good.”

Hisirdoux blinks in surprise. “Surely us departing together will bring us far more attention than us staying.”

“Perhaps,” Miss Ashildr shrugs. “But does it truly matter when they only exist for only a mere portion of our lifetime?”

Hisirdoux frowns. “I suppose that is true, though I hate to think of human life as being that disposable. But perhaps in the case of caring for their opinions you make a valid point.”

“Well then Mister Casperan, care to escort a lady on an evening promenade?”

Hisirdoux bows, extending his hand and giving Miss Ashildr a cocky smile. “If it is what the lady wishes then who am I to object?”

#tales of arcadia #toa wizards #toa hisirdoux #hisirdoux #toa douxie #my fic #you want to reblog my fic #you want to reblog my fic so bad #also you want to read it #please read it #if you want to though!#dont feel pressured

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astrowitch · 3 years ago

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An Enjoltaire WIP

This is a scene from a big project I’m currently working on. As you may be able to tell, this scene is unfinished, but I’m pretty proud of it so far. I’ve tried to make the dialogue as authentic as I can to the 19th century, but it can be hard to do while still trying to be true to your own writing. It’s definitely ambitious, but I’ve tried my best, so please be patient with me.

June 4th, 1832

“Grantaire, please just listen to me-“

“No! I’m not going to listen to you justify getting yourself killed!”

“You don’t know that I’ll be killed! What if we succeed? Then we still have time…then we have a bright future for France!”

Grantaire sighed deeply, a sense of despair washing over him as he exhaled.

“Enjolras, mon ange,” He began, gripping the blonde man’s soft, slender hand within his own big and rough one, “You are so idealistic. How I envy you and pity you at the same time. Your mind is beautiful, optimistic, everything I’ve ever wanted to be. But it is unrealistic. The National Guard will not listen to the people, much less students. I’m begging, if you just call this off, no one has to die. We can…we can be guaranteed time,” Grantaire’s voice caught in his throat as he finished what he was saying. Of course, right when he had earned a stroke of luck, the thing that he was living for was to be stripped away from in a matter of hours. Grantaire so desperately wanted to wake up tomorrow morning in his rooms with his lovely Enjolras in his arms and the sunlight beating down upon them. He knew that this wish was in vain, for Enjolras was the most selfless person he had ever met. He couldn’t be satisfied until everyone around him was. Grantaire would follow Enjolras to the ends of the Earth, so deep down, he knew that not only were these his last day or two with Enjolras and his friends, but also his last days alive.

Enjolras had a look of frustration on his face, but still had a firm grip on Grantaire’s hand. His blue eyes bore straight into his lover’s soul, and Grantaire wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold his tears back. Hell, Grantaire didn’t even know if this Heaven he had been taught about was real. If God was real, how dare he burden this suffering upon Grantaire’s, Enjolras’s, and all of France’s backs.

“Grantaire, nothing you say can stop me. I know what I must do. My duty lies with France, and I cannot let her down. I would love nothing more than to spend the rest of my days with you, not a care in the world, but none of that is possible until France is reformed! When I feel the crunch of the monarchy beneath my feet, I will be at rest,” Enjolras rambled, his grip on Grantaire’s hand getting tighter. His eyes told a different story than his words, and it was easy to tell just how terrified Enjolras was behind his cover of fearless leader. It was in moments like these that Grantaire recognized Enjolras’ humanity, contrary to when he first met the man.

Alexandre Enjolras was not a god. He was just a boy with a dream.

Cynical Adrien Grantaire was irrevocably and utterly in love with him. Grantaire’s heart was breaking more every second he thought about losing his love.

“Enjolras, please. I can’t lose you. I-,” Grantaire choked on a sob before he could mutter those three words to the boy in front of him.

Arms immediately came to envelope Grantaire in a tight embrace. He felt the familiar soft curls brush up against his neck, and he tried to keep his sobs under control.

“I know, Adrien. I know. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry-,” Enjolras was speaking through tears too, as Grantaire felt them soaking the collar of his shirt. It was even more unusual to hear Enjolras speaking his first name though, then it was to see him shedding a tear.

Shakily, Grantaire brought one of his hands up from Enjolras’ waist to card it through his Apollonian curls. “I…I would call you Alexandre, but I think you might actually kick me,“ He tried joking, but it came out watery and desperate. Enjolras still let out a broken laugh, and Grantaire’s heart soared at the thought of himself bringing Enjolras joy.

“Grantaire, I- there’s just so much I want to say to you and so little time. There are so many injustices in the world, and I feel that this is one of them,” mused Enjolras, his composure clearly cracking.

“I think we’ve finally come to an agreement on something. How bittersweet those words taste on my tongue in a time like this,” Grantaire leaned his forehead against Enjolras’ own. The pair of them were an incredibly melancholy sight.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras broke Grantaire out of his cage of darkness.

“Yes?” He replied, the smallest twinge of hope manifesting in his voice.

“I…I need you to stay as far away as you can from the barricade tomorrow. I may be risking my life, but…but you don’t have to. Do you understand me?” These words looked like they were physically painful for Enjolras to say, like thousands of little knives pierced his throat as they fell from his mouth.

Grantaire let out a humorless laugh at that. “Enjolras, you really believe that I will stay away from you tomorrow?” He started.

“Grantaire, please-“

“Enjolras. My world is nothing without you. I have no one if you and the others are to expire at the barricade. Living alone for eternity is a far worse fate than dying together. I told you that I would never abandon you, and I intend to keep that promise. There…there is no longer an Adrien Grantaire without an Alexandre Enjolras I’m afraid. My soul intertwined with yours the moment I laid eyes on you. Tomorrow, I’ll be there with you. I’ll die with you…and I’d do it over and over again for a million years if it meant I’d get to experience whatever we have,” Grantaire exhaled after he spoke these honest words.

Enjolras surged forward to capture Grantaire’s lips in a passionate kiss. Grantaire felt tears staining both his and Enjolras’ cheeks as they embraced. It was horribly poetic, their tears mixing. All their anguish was shared, much like their fates seemed to be. When Enjolras finally pulled away from their kiss, he buried his face in the crook of Grantaire’s neck, hiding himself from the world. He was holding on to Grantaire impossibly tight, like he’d somehow slip away from his grasp if he didn’t.

It was then Grantaire heard the most heart-wrenching sound; Enjolras gasping for breath, sobbing helplessly into his neck. This was so unlike the Enjolras that he had first met that it was almost disconcerting. This Enjolras was vulnerable and loving instead of cold and militaristic. This was the Enjolras that a lot of people didn’t have the pleasure of seeing. Of course, it was clear that Enjolras cared deeply for others, but he had never broken down like this before.

“Shhh…I’m here. We’re going to get through this…together,” Grantaire soothed, holding the golden boy in his arms close.

“I…I’ve never-“ Enjolras began, “I’ve never felt like this before. Oh, how Marius underestimated me in his speech about the girl he met. I do know how it feels to…to…,” he stumbled.

“To?” Grantaire questioned, hoping that this was going the way he believed it was.

“To be in love. Grantaire, you’ve changed me for the better. How could I have gone on to die without knowing how it felt to be cared for by you? You’ve made my task so much more difficult than it was before, not only because you have a fondness for playing Devil’s Advocate. You have the kindest heart I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. I’m honored that you let me in,” Enjolras didn’t have time to finish what surely would’ve been a long, rambling proclamation of love because Grantaire so quickly captured his lips in another kiss.

“So many call me cynical, but more honest words have never been spoken than when I told you that I loved you from the moment I saw you. I have been your beloved Patroclus from the very beginning, and you my Achilles. How queer it is that we’re also condemned to a tragic end! Maybe it makes our ephemeral romance all the more fascinating,” Enjolras couldn’t help but grin as Grantaire began his waxing of the classics. It was one of many little quirks he adored about the artist.

When Grantaire finished his spiel, the hopeless expression returned to his sullen face. Enjolras mirrored it, pressing his forehead against Grantaire’s own.

“We will treasure this night, live in our own world. Tomorrow, we return to the situation at hand. We honor General Lamarque, and we will rise up and show the king that we are tired and desolate. If we are to perish, at least we have made a point. At least we have perished for the sake of the people,” Enjolras, ever the patriot, insisted passionately. If this wasn’t such a tender moment between the two of them, Grantaire normally would’ve started an argument, but he had the wise judgement to not say anything.

#enjoltaire #enjoltaire fanfiction #enjolras #grantaire #les amis de l'abc #les mis #les miserables #victor hugo #aaron tveit #george blagden #enjoltaire fanfic #romanticism #exr

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yellowocaballero · 4 years ago

Text

Human Relations Snippet: Jon and Sasha versus Bad Telenovelas

This is a birthday request from @hihereami who wanted something very Latin American and an excuse to show me her favorite shows. This takes place in early Season 3, before Jude Perry but with Sasha working at the office. Jon fudged some stuff. It features incredibly stupid office dynamics, bad relationships, and a shared history that produced two very different people. Happy birthday, Ami!

CW as usual for Human Relations: explicitly discussed transphobia, references to 19th century racism, and a depiction of a platonic abusive relationship.

Sasha now understood that she was talking to an expert.

“Fine,” she said grudgingly, gathering the papers back up. She left out her great outline and timetable, though, because Martin should definitely appreciate it. “But the number one rule here is to keep up an active support system, right? Which means Jon needs more than just you.” Martin gave her a hilariously prissy look, which she responded with an equally prissy one. “He thinks we have a psychic bond or something.” They did but Sasha didn’t want to admit that. “Look, I’ve been harassing Jon for months about how shitty Jonah is. But if he’s going to listen to me, he needs to know that...I guess that I care about him more than I hate Jonah. That I’m not doing it out of spite or with some ulterior motive to get something out of him.”

Martin closed the manila folder, carefully attaching a label on it and writing down their coded filing system on the tab. “You don’t care about him more than you hate Jonah. You are doing this with ulterior motives. But it would be pretty hypocritical of me to care about that, so...he likes television? And he likes hearing about your life and the things important to you. He’s like this historical, cultural, political, anthropological sponge. I mean, he knows everything about everything, but it’s his passion. So if you want to combine the two…”

And, of course, once Martin said that then the answer was obvious.

Sasha liked to be the smartest person in the room.

The problem with people like Sasha was that, very frequently, they were the smartest person in the room. For seventeen years of her life Sasha had been remarkably and thoroughly assured that she would go places, she was really going to make all of us proud, she’s going to take care of us in our old age, Mrs. Pérez’s son just wastes every day with his girlfriend but here you are, studying all day with your complete lack of friends!

Once she skipped town - well, town, country, Americas, oceans - all of that had been replaced with shiny grades and the bragging rights of Oxford and the implicit looming pressure of her scholarship. Sasha had always been the smartest person in the room. She couldn’t afford anything else - not if she wanted someone to care, not if she wanted to get anywhere in life.

Every adult was somewhat of a child inside: happily ignoring a toy until it was taken away, at which point they would scream and scream. And when Sasha didn’t feel like the smartest person in the room - or, worse, others didn’t see her as the smartest person in the room - there was nothing tolerable about it.

Upon retrospect, workplace and academic discrimination, in addition to some healthy insecurity, bothered her so much that she sold her soul to the devil about it, but apparently this was an semi-common occurrence. Abuela had been right. Teach Sasha to doubt her again.

Mrs. Pérez’s son probably hadn’t accidentally sold his soul to the devil. He and his girlfriend were probably happy with their hard working but low-paying jobs, their cute little smattering of babies, and their mass every week. They’d have long, happy lives, and the amount of life-or-death situations they were put in were probably no more than usual.

Well. Sasha would literally rather die than do that, and that resolve had been tested very thoroughly. She stood by it. Sasha had never regretted a decision she made in her life, besides the ones that sold her soul to the devil, and also maybe some things about Tim. But most of her decisions were good. And even if they weren’t good, she stubbornly stood by them.

That’s why this was difficult. For all of Sasha’s insecurity reasons that, to be fair, had mostly drifted into the background of her life while she had been on the run for murder. And because it was Martin.

“Sasha, I’m not sure what help I can give you.”

Godfuckingdammit.

“Please?” Sasha slid into the seat across from Martin, giving him her best big cow eyes. “Don’t hog the emotional manipulation. You’re the expert in making Jon do what you want, just...work your magic!”

Martin looked up from the statement he was organizing shot Sasha an extremely flat look. Martin was extremely good at looking extremely unimpressed. “Because I’m the one who can magically make people do what I want.”

Sasha winced. “At least you didn’t sell your soul to a demon about it?”

“I know you tell yourself a lot of people do that to make yourself feel better about doing it, but literally nobody does that.” At Sasha’s double wince, Martin sighed. “Don’t listen to Jonah. You didn’t do anything a normal, non-satanic person wouldn’t do. If I could…” Martin trailed off slightly, staring a little in the distance, before shaking back to himself. “I’m not helping you manipulate Jon. That’s my place in this ecosystem.”

“Then we should team up,” Sasha wheedled. She reached into her briefcase - which nowadays contained little more than alcohol and Statements, she wasn’t sure that Georgie had been a good influence on her - and yanked out the print-outs before slapping it on the table. “See, I did research!”

Martin slid the papers closer to him, leafing through them quickly. Sasha waited for him to look very impressed and appreciative of how socially competent yet intellectual she was, but he didn’t look very impressed at all. “ “Help someone in an Abusive or Controlling relationship”, ‘3 ways to support someone stuck in a controlling relationship’, ‘How can I help someone in a toxic relationship’...”

“You aren’t going to deny it, are you?” Sasha asked heatedly. “Because Tim just does not get what I mean no matter how many leaflets I show him because he ‘framed me for murder’ or whatever -”

“Do not pretend as if you’re forgiven him for the murder thing.”

“I fucking hate his guts over it. I will never, ever forgive either of them.” Sasha’s heart spiked in her chest, and she forced herself to take a few calming breaths. “This is a problem. Jon and Jonah are a problem. I don’t think we’re in a position to take on Jonah right now - even if I am working on it. But Jon is a weak link here. We know he’s impossible to kill -” At Martin’s extremely alarmed look, Sasha quickly elaborated, “ - and I wouldn’t want to, although he would really technically deserve it with all of his human rights violations. It would be far easier, and a better use of our resources, if we got Jon to our side. Then hopefully those two could...blow each other up, or something.”

Martin stared at her, expression implacable. Sasha became abruptly aware that she had just threatened to blow up this guy’s semi-boyfriend, and resisted the urge to apologize. She wasn’t apologetic. This was what she had to do, and Sasha always did what had to be done. It didn’t matter if she hated Jon so much that she wanted him dead, when he would be more useful to her alive. It doesn’t matter if she knew that, deep down, Jon was an exceptionally kind and caring person who loved very deeply, and that who he was now was a product of a great deal of influences mostly out of his control. If he was who Sasha was going to turn into, given enough time.

She would stick to the plan. Sasha was going to get herself and her Assistants - including Melanie now, for some reason, who still refused to believe them about the psychic vampire thing despite how many times Jon confessed to it - out of this.

Finally, Martin said, “I’m not going to deny it, Sasha. I’ve printed out all those guides, I’ve read all of the books, I’ve done everything. I’ve been working on this since - I think since I decided that I loved Jon more than I hated him. I’ve got Jon’s trust. And, way more importantly, Jonah is convinced that I’m harmless. He doesn’t pay any attention to me. I think he, like, secretly hates it whenever Jon has someone - whatever. But he is obsessed with everything you do.” At Sasha’s disturbed look, Martin shrugged. “He micromanages. Jon complains about it. I don’t think Jon gets that he really spills the cards on all of Jonah’s plans when he gets drunk and bitches about him.”

Sasha now understood that she was talking to an expert.

“Fine,” she said grudgingly, gathering the papers back up. She left out her great outline and timetable, though, because Martin should definitely appreciate it. “But the number one rule here is to keep up an active support system, right? Which means he needs more than just you.” Martin gave her a hilariously prissy look, which she responded with an equally prissy one. “He thinks we have a psychic bond or something.” They did but Sasha didn’t want to admit that. “Look, I’ve been harassing him for months about how shitty Jonah is. But if he’s going to listen to me, he needs to know that...I guess that I care about him more than I hate Jonah. That I’m not doing it out of spite or with some ulterior motive to get something out of him.”

And, of course, once Martin said that then the answer was obvious.

*******

Sasha was now willing to admit that Martin was smarter than she was.

It was always kind of a crapshoot when looking for Jon. He was only around the Institute half the time, probably less, and he refused to buy a cell phone so anybody could stay in contact with him. Tim had also flatly refused, because Jon would inevitably go to him for help with figuring it out, and apparently that could take hours. Sasha had volunteered to help Jon with accessing some online archives, and apparently she had explained it so confusingly that Jon was left refusing to touch a computer for a month.

The farthest they could go was convincing him to take a Jitterbug for emergencies. Tim had taken great pains to explain the LifeAlert function, to Jon’s increasing lack of amusement. When Sasha had explained the adventure to Georgie, a known social media sensation over wine at their weekly girls night, she had found it hilarious and was very impressed.

“Jon must be really attached to you guys,” Georgie had said, carefully nibbling at her luxury chocolate. Girl’s nights with Georgie were decadent. “I mean, not that he doesn’t talk about all of you nonstop, but he can spend ten years incorporating the Beholding into every piece of technology in the country while willfully refusing to learn how to work a computer.”

Sasha hadn’t missed Georgie’s word choice - deliberately refusing instead of an incapability to learn - but something else in the sentence was stranger to her. “I thought he was all about all kinds of knowledge.”

“I hear that the future can be terrifying for a lot of people,” Georgie had said wisely. “No matter how much of it they experience.”

“Is it terrifying for you?”

“Goodness, no.” Georgie had flashed her a bright grin - not so much a showing of teeth as it was a peek at a bone-white skeleton. “I always know what the future holds.”

As it stood, Sasha got lucky today. She wasn’t forced to make Jon use his dreaded phone, and as a result she wasn’t forced to understand what the fuck Jon did all day. He was in the Magnus Institute, and when Jon was in the Institute there were three places he could be.

The Archives, which Sasha had just come from. The Institute Library, occasionally terrifying the graduate students and more frequently helping them write their papers. Sasha had heard that they had communally begun sacrificing one grad student to his hunger per week in exchange for study sessions. Which...she should discourage...whatever, it was probably ethical. Or, at the very least, voluntary.

The only other location Jon visited was Magnus’ office, where he could spend hours relaxing on the evil little bastard’s couch and annoying him. That was a last resort scenario, and was usually saved for complete and total emergencies.

Thankfully, today, Sasha found Jon in the ‘D’s. He was lying on his back, legs propped up on the bookshelf across from him, reading what looked like a very fascinating philosophy text regarding humanity’s search for aliens that Sasha silently resolved to borrow from him later. He didn’t look up when Sasha approached, so she carefully tipped a book off the shelf above him to fall on his head.

He yelped, dropping his book and sitting upright. He rubbed at his head, scowling, and Sasha saw that he had restyled his hair since the last time she had seen him. It had been growing long, but instead of cutting it and returning to his short twists styled into a loose curtain over his forehead he had pulled it back into a puffy bun. It was...somewhat more fashion forward than Sasha had ever seen from him. He had swapped his greatcoat for a primmer and shorter pea coat. Even his glasses were now thin-rimmed, circular, and kind of stylish.

“Oh my god,” Sasha said, “has Martin started dressing you?”

“Martin can barely even dress himself,” Jon said automatically. “It was Georgie. She said I have to ‘clean up nice’ if I ever ‘want a man’. What does any of that mean?”

“Isn’t it kind of weird that your wife is setting you up with someone?”

“The concept of monogamy becomes ridiculous after the first eighty years,” Jon said, also automatically. Then Sasha’s words sunk into his brain, and he flushed. “Georgie and I aren’t together right now! And she’s not setting me up with - how can you even consider - what makes you think I’m a homosexual -”

Sasha stared at him flatly. Jon gave up.

“Just let me know if I need to explain gay shit to you,” Sasha said. “It’ll cost a hundred pounds for me to explain queerness and three hundred if you want to learn about trans issues. Recompense for my emotional labor.”

“Young people think they invented these things. It’s ridiculous.” Jon stored the book back on the bookshelf behind him without looking, before carefully dropping his feet and rolling up. Sasha’s back ached in sympathy. Some people got all of the demon deal luck. “What does Martin say? ‘People are gay, Steven’? Historical figures are gay and trans, Sasha.”

“...are you a historical figure that’s -”

“I apologize for being a cisgender man that’s ruined your life, yes.” Jon arched an eyebrow at her as Sasha spent a second in confused agony over whether or not she was getting through to this guy. “I assume there’s no emergency, considering this conversation, so why are you here?”

There was no way to make this offer sound genuine. Jon would look for the catch - because there was one - or what she was trying to pull. There was something she was trying to pull, but she wasn’t about to admit it.

In the end, Sasha settled for a fragment of honesty in her heart. Jon always had a way of drawing that out of people.

“I haven’t watched my telenovelas in years. And I don’t know anybody else who speaks Spanish, and so much of it doesn’t translate that I refuse to watch it subbed with someone else, and they’re something I used to watch every night but now I haven’t seen them in years. And you speak Spanish. So.”

Jon stared at her, blinking owlishly, before his mouth twitched into a small smile. It flowered, moving from a hesitant movement of the lips into a real, close-lipped smile that sent his usually severe and sharp expression into something resembling excitement. Understated enthusiasm over novelty.

How weird, Sasha thought. That you could be 200 years old and still find excitement over something novel. Over something new. Or, maybe, over someone choosing to trust you with a part of their lives.

Or maybe it wasn’t that weird. How could someone keep living for that long if something as simple as this didn’t bring you joy? Sasha was only thirty four and she already felt so tired of life, all the time. Either tired or overwhelmed. She wondered if Jon still felt overwhelmed.

“Sounds like fun,” Jon said. “Can I bring my notebook?”

“...yeah, sure.” Sasha paused, almost uncertain. “Hey. When you get to, like, two hundred -”

“Technically two hundred and twenty.”

“When you get to two hundred and twenty, do you finally feel like an adult?”

Jon stared at her, faintly surprised, before his expression settled into something a little wry. “Anybody who says that they ever feel like an adult is a liar. That’s how you know that Jonah’s full of shit.”

Somehow, it was almost a little reassuring.

First time she had ever said that about Jon.

********

Their adventures, of course, were quickly throttled by practicalities.

Sasha suggested just watching it on a laptop, but Jon’s expression had wrinkled in distaste. Jon suggested just watching it at her place, but Sasha liked to pretend that he didn’t know where she lived. Far too much intimacy, and somewhat hilariously Jon seemed very awkward about being alone with a woman in her flat. Also they were still working, technically.

Martin, overhearing their argument in the Archives as Sasha collected her laptop, suggested Jon’s place, since it was pretty nice and cozy and close to the Archives. This forbidden knowledge, the shining proof that sometimes a little knowledge could be a terrible and traumatizing thing, the sheer mental image that imprinted itself behind her eyelids, shook Sasha to her core.

“For christ’s sake,” Martin said, “we are not fucking.”

“Sounds like someone who’s fucking our boss would say!” Tim called, from his position asleep on the break room couch. Sasha had spent roughly five hours yesterday convincing him that her plan to manipulate Jon’s psychological weaknesses was the most effective defense against evil fear powers that they had, and since he had lost the argument he was now resentfully napping on the couch. “If I walk in on you doing it in the office over a desk I’m going to fucking kill both of you and then myself!”

“Does this place have an HR?” Melanie asked, from where she was sitting at her desk actually trying to work. “Can I report all of you to HR? Please?”

“Jon can hardly fire himself,” Sasha told her sympathetically. “This shit will all make sense if you accept the fact that -”

“God, I get it, enough with the workplace hazing!” Melanie threw up her hands, as Jon unsubtly whispered something in Martin’s ear that made him blush. “You can all drop it now, it was never funny!”

“If Sasha just let me prove it to you,” Jon said, exasperated, “then you can see -”

Simultaneously, all three of them snapped, “Do not!”, cowing Jon immensely.

Tim was no help in problem-solving, since he was resentful that Sasha was doing this at all. He had been spending almost all of his time lately throwing himself into research into the rituals, into anything that explained the strange and obscure rigor of this universe. Jon only explained as much to them as Jonah let him, and the most he ever did was mysteriously drop off boxes that held a lot of information about clowns and sawdust.

He always seemed a little surly as he did it. Sometimes he looked very guilty. Sasha noticed, every time. She couldn’t afford not to.

All Sasha could try to do for Tim was help him. Their relationship had already been fractured by the way they kept secrets from each other, and although they both wanted to repair it they were forced to confront the fact that now they had to tell each other things. Accept help. Sasha hated acknowledging that she couldn’t do everything by herself, and Tim hated putting Sasha in the danger he relentlessly and suicidally threw himself into, but neither of them would let the other continue on their self-destructive path.

It wasn’t sweet. But it was the most solid and tangible proof Sasha had that they loved each other. Maybe it was the most solid proof anybody could have: that, in life or death, they’d choose wherever you were.

If Sasha followed Tim into whatever dangerous shit he was getting himself into, then he would be more careful. Tim wouldn’t survive it if he lost her, and she knew it.

Between her and Tim, and Jon and Martin...why did all of their relationships feel like mutually assured destruction?

Eventually, Jon’s solution was, as usual, the worst one. Jon’s solution to every problem always worked, but it was always the one thing that nobody wanted to do and that everyone hated. But anything else was either vetoed or improbable, and Sasha refused to back out once she committed to something, so that was how Sasha stuffed a laptop and an HDMI cable into her bag to trail behind Jon as they rode the elevator up to the third floor.

The number three rule of the Archives was not relevant right now (let Sasha have two cups of coffee before bothering her about how terrible their lives were). But the number two rule of the Archives was this: don’t fuck with Rosie. They both gave her their brightest grins as they passed, impeccably polite without actually asking if Jonah was inside. Rosie smiled munificently at them and complemented Sasha on her heels. They were in. They were now breaking the number one rules of the Archives.

The number one rule of the Archives was, of course, this: never talk to Jonah Magnus unnecessarily.

On the bright side, from this perspective Sasha could see how Jon worked his magic - that is, how he always entered Jonah’s office through kicking the door open and infuriating the other man tremendously. He actually took the time to open the door a crack first, completely silently and almost imperceptibly, before crashing it open in as annoying a way as physically possible.

“I need your fucking office!” Jon called.

When Sasha poked her head in behind him, she was treated to the sight of a terrified employee cowering in the hard plastic chair in front of Jonah’s desk. Sasha was well aware how that chair could feel like an electric chair. Across from him, Jonah looked distinctly unamused, already kneading his brow.

“I’m in a meeting, Jon.”

“Good for you.” Jon pointed at the door, and the employee silently scurried out. “Not anymore. Now fuck off, I need your office.”

Impossibly, Jonah looked even more unamused. “Fucking your Archivist on my desk in the middle of the day is a bit beyond the pale even for you, Jon.”

Sasha was immediately so fucking disgusted that she switched into Spanish and called him a great deal of incredibly rude things for an incredibly long period of time.

Talking over her, Jon said, “Take out your resentment over 1899 on someone else. We want your television, we’re watching Sasha’s programmes.”

“Right. Like how you and that boy Martin are always watching programmes -”

“Me cago en tu puta madre--”

“Honestly, Jonah, just because you had all of those men over for revision of your manuscripts doesn’t mean everyone’s as euphemistic as you are. And Sasha, that’s remarkably vulgar.”

For the first time, Jonah looked alarmed. “What is she saying?”

“Sólo porque tienes un rabo chiquito -”

“Go learn Spanish.”

“Ms. James, this is a professional office, and -”

“Melanie’s fucking right, we need a fucking HR.” Now this was a matter of pride. Sasha flounced into the office, collapsing onto one of the dumb uncomfortable leather couches facing one of those screens that rich people had in their offices to show their powerpoint slides or whatever. “I’m going to Stare you to death if you don’t leave us alone to watch telly.”

Hilariously, Jonah looked at Jon, alarmed. “Can she do that?”

Jon opened his mouth, before Sasha shot him a look. “She’s progressing amazingly rapidly. At this point, not even I know what she’s capable of.”

What a wingman. Jonah looked faintly uncomfortable, but he went back to his computer anyway instead of doing the rational thing and getting out. “This grant is due in three days, Jon, and I have no time for your little fancies. Do what you will, but leave me out of it.”

Sasha was not thrilled at the prospect of Jonah fucking Magnus hanging out in the background while Sasha and Jon watched telenovelas. She’d be outnumbered by the evil fear demons, for one. But Sasha had a sneaking suspicion, and maybe if she couldn’t genuinely stop this guy’s evil plans she could annoy him to death.

At the very least, it would make her feel better. Sasha was beginning to recognize the value of anything that just made you fucking feel better. Maybe Tim was onto something with constantly being a giant bitch all the time.

“Ignore that cunt,” Sasha said in Spanish, catching Jon’s attention as she stood up to plug in the HDMI cable and turn on the television. “I got crisps and chocolate in my bag, I’m putting on Marimar.”

“Is she insulting me again?” Jonah asked. “Jon, what’s she saying?”

“I’m afraid I only consume trauma,” Jon said, also switching to Spanish. His accent was fucking bizarre. He sounded like her great uncle, or an even worse version of Sucedió en La Habana. At her boggled look, he elaborated, “The Witness gifted me with understanding of all languages very early in my development, but it bestowed verbal fluency in...1910? Perhaps? I’m afraid that without a little practice and frequent use I’m a little bit stuck there. I was able to beat my Chinese and Russian into sounding modern, but I’m afraid that people now tell me my Chinese is somewhat 1960s and my Russian is fairly 1980s.” He scowled. “Why does modernity change so much?”

“I think telenovelas can fix this for you,” Sasha decided. She paused a beat as Jon sat down beside her, a careful distance away. “The Witness? Is that a weird translation thing? You called it the Beholding last time.”

Jon shifted, a little guiltily. In English, he said, “The term Beholding’s better...it’s more academic, and more people use it…”

“What are you two -”

“Is ‘The Witness’ your word?” Sasha asked, and to her horror she found her tone almost gentle. It was almost easier, in her own words.

This time Jon truly looked uncomfortable, and he shifted back into Spanish - perhaps, Sasha thought, because Jonah could not understand it. “Smirke contributed all of the nomenclature for this, and he never...well, none of Jonah’s little circle liked me very much.”

“Wow, wonder why.”

“Exoticism only gets you so far, I suppose,” Jon joked weakly, before sharply swerving the subject. “I always felt as if it gave me its own name. When I began to understand, really understand what it was and how we could feed each other...I felt as if it told me. And that’s what it told me. So it’s always been my name.”

Hm. Sasha wondered what it was like, to have your religion be - so tangible, so grounded. Sasha believed, and she had faith with all of her heart, but - well, you wouldn’t need faith if you had incontestable proof. Faith was about believing because you knew something in your heart. But Jon...when he had nothing else, maybe, he had this.

“I just put down ‘James’ because I thought it would make that small-dicked asshole more likely to hire me,” Sasha finally offered, her only equivalent for something like this. “Tell you what. Call me James Martinez, and I’ll curse the name of the Witness, okay? If you’d like me to.”

Jon brightened, and for a second Sasha saw her own faith in his brilliant green eyes. “My gift is shared with you, Sasha. Of course you can.”

It was not a gift. It was a terrible and disgusting curse, and it was one that Jon had inflicted upon her. But Sasha was playing nice...and this was knowledge, understanding Jon was knowledge that could save her life one day...and there was something strange about Jon’s hesitant and multi-barbed trust.

It had to be the trust of somebody who had it betrayed a hundred, thousand times. But he gave it so easily, and he reached out incessantly. Sasha knew lots of people who cared too much, although she had never been one of them - Tim and Martin, for one - but she could already see how it was making them a little bitter and jaded.

Jon wasn’t. Sasha didn’t know why.

So Sasha kicked off her heels, tucking her legs underneath her as she pulled up her favorite episode of Marimar on her laptop. It was a comfort show, having context wouldn’t help, she had rights.

“Okay,” Sasha began, a little aggressively, “we’re starting a lot of the way in, so I have to catch you up. Like a lot of telenovela protagonists, Marimar is a wholesome young girl who lives in a little sad hut shack on the beach and she can’t read. She’s raised by her grandparents and her dog talks. This is the essential premise of the show.”

“Wow,” Jon whispered, “just like me.”

“I - okay, you are not obligated to give me your backstory, but what?”

“Martin keeps calling me a ‘sad little Victorian orphan’,” Jon said defensively. “And dogs talk to me too!”

“...what do they say?”

“If you’d believe it, nothing interesting.” He paused a beat. “But Georgie’s cat is kind of a psychopath, if that helps.”

“That’s a stereotype against cats,” Sasha accused. “Just because humans don’t understand cat body language -”

“Oh, no, cats are lovely, my favorite animal. But the Admiral’s kind of a freak.”

“If you two are going to sit here and trash talk me in my own office,” Jonah said, aggravated, “then please at least take it outside.”

Actually, this was a great idea.

Sasha ran through the plot of Marimar, down to the love interest with the terrible chest hair (Jon and Sasha then got into an argument over chest hair that was so heated that Sasha suspected Martin had chest hair), the evil step-mother (they both agreed that women in soaps tended to fall within the madonna/whore complex), and the weird amounts of humiliation. Sasha loved to hate Mr. Douchey McChesthair in this one - he wooed Marimar and promised to raise her up from poverty, but he ended up ditching her when she wasn’t refined enough for him. She wins him back at the end with her nice dresses and inherited money, and they settle down with a baby and a big house. Sasha always hated the ending. Marimar should have become a career woman.

“It’s massively cheesy,” Sasha warned, finally playing the episode and letting the cheery theme song play, “so don’t sit here and point out the logical inconsistencies. We know. It’s part of the experience.”

But Jon just arched an eyebrow, unbuttoning his own pea cot to throw over the back of the sofa and lounge in his seat. “Watching telenovelas, in the office of the Director of the facility where you work, with his boss, in London, is the experience? And we’re all - how do you put it - evil fear demons?”

“You haven’t met my auntie,” Sasha said darkly. But she ended up shaking her head too, picking at her stockings a little. “The experience is...eleven pm, and the whole house is dark. The kitchen light is on, this flickering yellow thing that pops and buzzes. There’s cicadas outside, and somewhere you can hear someone playing music too loudly. Dad’s in his ripped up armchair, snoring. Mom’s on the couch, reading a magazine. They’re only half-paying attention, but it’s late, and you feel like you never get enough time with them. So you sit on the couch next to Mom, and because neither of them say anything you watch the show with all of your attention, just happy to be near them...it’s family bonding, you think. It feels like it.”

Jon was silent, staring at her. Not fixedly, or intensely - just looking, as if he was waiting patiently to see if she would say anything else. But Sasha trailed off, picking at her stockings, until she forced herself to stop. She didn’t want to say anything else. She was worried that he would know what she wasn’t saying. He always did.

“My grandmother couldn’t read,” Jon said finally, and Sasha fought the surprise. Jon never talked about this, not in any specific words. “But she would darn clothing by the fire at night. She did it for the neighborhood and earned some extra money.”

“What about you?” Sasha asked, hoping it was a safe topic. “What did you do?”

Jon grinned at her, sharp and amused. “I got into trouble.”

They both turned their attention back to the television, and Sasha silently mouthed the words along with the screen as Jon paid rapt attention.

It was later in the show, when Marimar was showing up all of the people who did her dirty when she was poor. She had a fine dress, lingering on the arm of her rich and kind of creepy father, and she walked around with her head held up high. Her old husband who treated her terribly saw her at the opera and he was stunned by how hot and cool she was now.

“Good for her!” Jon said abruptly. “Go find someone better, Marimar!”

“Oh my god,” Sasha groaned. “She ends up with him!”

“What!”

Quicker than Sasha would ever have expected, Jon got wrapped up in the episode. He gasped with her at the right parts, cheered at the screen whenever Marimar said something particularly sassy, and they booed whenever Douchey McChesthair showed up.

When Sasha glanced behind her - not that she did - she saw Jonah fixedly ignoring them. He was gritting his teeth a little. Every so often he would glance at the screen, obviously look terribly confused, then go back to his computer.

When the credits rolled Jon declared this second-hand trauma, which terrified Sasha deeply but raised interesting questions about her own future diet.

“It’s about the humiliation, fear, and voyeurism,” Jon told her. “Supernatural trauma and devastation tastes rather similar to these telenovelas.”

“...what do they taste like?”

Jon thought hard. “Taste, but if it was a feeling.”

“...what’s the -”

“What’s the feeling you have?”

Sasha was forced to concede the point, and put on another episode.

In this one, Marimar’s new dad tied tragically, and she very cunningly has him sign all of his money over to her. Sasha cheered her on very enthusiastically, and Jon agreed that Marimar was the definition of girlboss, but he found it kind of a dick move.

“I thought you hated pretentious, old money rich white Britons,” Sasha accused. She knew that Martin had been working on him and trying to convert him to socialism,, but it was slow going.

“I do hate entitled, old money people,” Jon said shortly. “But it’s hardly illegal to work your way up the social ladder and improve your station in life. Marimar isn’t putting the work in, she’s just inheriting all of this blood money. If she doesn’t make something of her life then what’s the point in all of that suffering?”

“You do know how social mobility is a lie fed to the lower class by the upper class to keep them complacently participating in the system, right?”

“I’m not saying many people do it,” Jon said, ignoring Marimar’s grotesquely fake sobbing, “but it’s possible. I’ve met plenty of people who worked hard and became successful.”

“Yeah, and those people were lucky. Most of us just sit around in poverty and suffer.” Sasha rolled her eyes, unwrapping her chocolate bar. “Not all of us can be Dr. Faust.”

“You didn’t sit around,” Jon said, turning to face her. Sasha didn’t meet his eyes, focusing on her chocolate instead. “You were smart, you worked your way up, you got your scholarship, and now you’re part of something far greater than yourself. You took what happened to you and you used to make you stronger, just like I did. Anybody can do it if they work hard enough.”

Sasha’s teeth clamped down on the chocolate.

Abruptly, stupidly, she got angry.

“I’m not better than the thousands of other trans women who got kicked out, Jon,” Sasha snapped, but Jon didn’t flinch. “I’m just luckier! I know I worked hard, but I’m not more - more worthy of what I have than the brave women back home who have nothing. And I’m not going to stomp on them to make myself feel better like you do!”

“I do not -” Jon started, outraged, but Sasha cut him off.

“You tell yourself that you worked hard for the security, money, education that you never got as a child! But you deserved all of that! That’s shit that anybody who lives deserves. But because you think of it as some kind of stupid reward, then it’s something that can be taken away. And when what you have can be taken away at any moment, then you have nothing!”

She cut herself off abruptly, unwilling and incapable of saying anything more. There were lines you couldn’t cross with Jon, and lines that she didn’t deserve to cross no matter how callous he was. She couldn’t accuse him of forgetting where he came from, or of betraying his people. Sasha knew well that Jon had never forgotten, not for a second.

He had just - twisted everything around. He had to justify to himself what he’d done, so he’d taken the truth and molded it to fit his own desires and call it holy.

It had killed her. It had killed her, how Jon told her that they were the same, but he did all of this shit to her anyway. But maybe that was no surprise: Jon hadn’t done anything to her that he hadn’t done to everybody else, and he hadn’t made any justifications to himself about his behavior towards her that he hadn’t made about everybody else.

You couldn’t live like he did with emotional honesty. Good people could do bad things - Sasha knew that better than anyone - but it required a truly disgusting level of willful blindness and cowardice that Sasha had never tolerated.

“Nobody gave me being a woman,” Sasha whispered, too full of - something, to even look at Jon. “I didn’t take it from anyone. I didn’t steal it. It was something that I always deserved, and that I always was. And because of that, nobody will ever take it away from me.” She exhaled heavily, forcing herself to stop shaking. “Nobody can make me something I’m not. Not even you.”

Jon stared at her, toxic green eyes wide and something foreign in his expression. It looked almost as if he believed her. Ha. “Sasha, I -”

“I swear, it’s like you two are making an effort to be as intrusive as possible. Jon, can’t you control your own Archivist?”

Jon almost jumped, as if he had forgotten that Jonah was in the room at all. Something in his chest seized closer, and a year ago Sasha would have just called it a twitch.

It wasn’t. It was an aborted, concealed cringe, seen only once before. But there was only one other person in this world who cared about that.

“Jonah!” Jon said, switching back to English immediately. “Sorry, we were just - having a really heated discussion about - uh, about -”

“Brujeria and how it changed when adopted by members of the Catholic church,” Sasha said smoothly. “I think his weird compulsion thing is just advanced witchcraft.”

“Yes! Yes, of course - you remember, I took inspiration from p - pagan rituals, you know, for our early work. I think you called it -”

“Bizarre?” Jonah asked, arching an eyebrow. “Jon, there were bones involved.” Jon silently pointed at the human skull taking up proud residence in Jonah’s cabinet of curiosities. “That’s different, a friend gave me that.”

“ ‘Have you seen Barnabas lately, Jonah’, I said. ‘He hasn’t seemed to have written lately’, I said. ‘Have you grown distant?’, I said. And you said -”

“Yes, he was very distant,” Jonah said dryly. “You hardly complained. You hated the man.”

“I hated all of your friends,” Jon said. He was smiling, once again relaxed with his arm spread over the back of the couch. Sasha furiously bit into a chip. “Didn’t mean you let them die.”

“Yes, but he was your least favorite, so I figured there was no harm done there.”

Improbably, Jon brightened. He smiled again, a curved slash of the mouth that had always been reserved for Jonah. It always spoke of secrets, a private joke. “You do care.”

“I’ll care more if you stop chattering when I’m trying to get us funded for another cycle.”

“Whatever.” Jon turned to face the screen again, letting the smile fall into a curiously blank expression. “Next episode, Sasha?”

“Sure,” Sasha said slowly. “But it only gets worse from here.”

It would never stop being weird how - well, maybe that was no wonder. How could Sasha begin to understand a relationship as strange and esoteric as theirs? Two hundred years in the making, forged by cruelty and passion? Two lives, intertwined so closely they fed in a parasitic loop, starving the other to feed themselves?

“Oh, I don’t mind a little tragedy,” Jon said. He spoke in English, vowels carefully rounded, posh accent meticulously stretching his words. “It’s the most entertaining.”

Sasha thought about print-outs. She thought about a many-eyed, malicious tumor of fear and pain consuming humanity alive. She thought about the face of God, and the tired and resigned face of Martin. When Sasha spoke, she stayed in Spanish.

“Even though she gets married to Mr. Douchey McChestHair at the end?”

“I’m sure he’s not all bad,” Jon said, and wouldn’t say anything more.

#my writing #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #sasha james #timothy stoker #jonah magnus #elias bouchard #tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #the magnus archives fanfiction #everything said about marimar is real #however inauthentic because I ended up using the funny or die recap #me: i am not writing any more hr #my friends: but what if you did?#been seeing so many weird takes about abusive friendships lately i feel the need to very pointedly ask the question #what is the nature of the power dynamic between jon and jonah?

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momo-de-avis · 3 years ago

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Hi Momo! First off I'm so excited for you moving out! Your current neighborhood seems hellish cjdks i truly hope you'll have some rest for your ears wherever you go.

Secondly! I'm starting to write (for a hobby) but I've found that although dialogue flows very easily for me, descriptions not so much. Do you have any tips or resources?

Thank you 💕

THANK YOU, I CANNOT wait to get out of this house!!!!!!

Now, I know this sounds extremely cliché and, to an extent, disheartening, but I swear it's what's most effective to me.

The cure to writing better is reading more (and that includes reading shit books, I mean the absolute dregs of self-published literature, bottom shelf 0,99$ kindle stuff, you gotta learn how to NOT do things, and when you read absolutely terrible shit, it actually makes you think not only why it's bad, but how would you have done it to make it better, so I cannot advise enough for people to read bad books).

Being blunt, at the end of the day, our brains, literary-wise, are a compilation of words we picked up here and there and bundled together because they looked nice. Some tiny expressions we might have picked up on other books, some we found by combining words, some we saw somewhere or heard somewhere we don't remember but it stuck. It's why it's important to keep reading, to build up your vocabulary, not in the sense of "learning more words" but in the sense of "understanding the possible uses and value of words". I also advise everyone to install a dictionary app on their phones so they can check stuff out while they read (I have THREE in mine for THREE languages, including my own, because bilignorancy is real problem in our world).

In my humble opinion, to find that description, just the right one, you need to first find your voice, understand just how relevant description is to you and to the story you're writing. There really are (to me) no rules, and nothing set in stone, every story has its own tone, language and voice. This goes for the infamous "show don't tell" as well. I don't believe "show don't tell" is a rule so much as it is a balance between showing what must be seen and telling the things that must not distract from the showing (if that makes sense). There is such a thing as showing too much (from personal experience, my biggest mistake in the past was over-showing (??) emotions. It got to a point where, after three paragraphs, you got the feel of 'okay, yeah, I get it, they're pissed' and I had to cut back), just as there is such a thing as not telling enough. For example, the balance between these is what usually makes for great foreshadowing -- you show what must be seen, discreetly enough that it comes off as almost a passing note, but you tell zilch. The telling might come (if you wish so, it's really a matter of style) at a point of revelation.

Also, pick up books closer to your genre. This isn't just about understanding some kind of inherent style of the genre, but of understanding the audience it is aimed at. When you're starting out, it's perfectly normal to not know who your audience might be (hell, in the beginning, the audience is you, so that's a place to start -- please yourself as a reader before you please others, you really gotta be your number one fan in this). It is important to understand the genre itself, but I think that's somewhat relative, I really don't like saying there's like, one or two ways to do things, because from my experience of studying art and literature, for every rule, there's a guy who broke it masterfully. I mean, I could tell you that you should read books set in the 19th century if you're writing a story set in the 19th century, but then again you might be doing it in a way that the typical 19th century language just does not fit. I do believe you should always read the genre you want to write, disregarding your stylistic choices, but it's entirely up to you.

Although, and I'm walking around in circles a bit here so apologies, there are stylistic conventions within genres. I think erotica is the best example of this (and why I can't write erotica if it meant saving my life). Erotica is the kind of genre where certain words/expressions are not just accepted, but encouraged, but those same words/expressions would look extremely tacky in another genre (and they do look tacky, just take a look at the Bad Sex Awards).

So, when I was younger, I used to do little exercises to practice description. This was a long time ago, but if I remember correctly, one I used to do was pick up the most boring sentence I could think of and transform it into a paragraph. I'd start off with simple shit like "The coffee was black and hot" and then move onto more complex sentences like uhh "The coffee tasted bitter and burnt his tongue". At a given point, if you do these enough, you'll find yourself developing a sort of stream of consciousness, and honestly, that's what I was aiming for at the time.

What else I'd do, I'd carry a small notebook with me, sit somewhere (a café, usually), and pay attention to the people around me. Then I'd just describe, again stream of consciousness style, some particularity that caught my attention.

Understand also that there are several types of descriptions. I, myself, am not very visual overall (except with landscapes, apparently). I sincerely dislike describing how characters are dressed or what their hair looks like unless it's relevant somehow (like, the person who is looking would make note of that, or I want to make sure this is a "I am very attractive" moment, cause those sometimes just exist). I am, however, extremely sensorial, meaning that most of my descriptions don't really focus on one or two of the five senses, but... all of them at the same time and none altogether, if that makes sense. So, if I were to describe how hot the coffee was and how bitter it tasted, I'd likely pull from old memories, make analogies, use metaphors, probably personify an object which is something I do a lot (like, for funsies, the coffee bit him in the tongue instead of burning, or he picked up a 'pensive cup of coffee', meaning he's doing the thinking, but by putting the characterstic on the coffee cup, it sort of explains how he's so distracted he forgot the coffee is hot... idk I'm pulling this out of my ass right now, I hope this is making sense!)

ON THAT NOTE: learn literary devices. They are your friends. They make reading pleasant. They are the seasoning of books. They're not just the salt and pepper, they're the extra cloves of garlic recipes don't tell you to use, and the rosemary that will give it a special aroma. I really mean it, literary devices are very important, they ennoble your style and your words, and they help you tell the story exactly as it means to be told. You probably use them anyway without even noticing (most of us do), but try to jot down in your head what each of them means and how important they are, and especially how they're used, if you're having any doubts. Widen your horizons.

If you are more descriptive visually, read books (or shorts, or fics) that match that style (I find that, for example, Neil Gaiman is one, G.R.R. Martin is way too fucking descriptive, it's actually one of the reasons I quit his books, Sanderson to me is really balanced out, but he, like Sapowsky, apparently fucking love describing fights, so expect both to go off the shits with pirouettes and leaping and jumping). Same for if you prefer another type of description, more focused on the other senses or more stream-of-consciousness-like. Just find the author that clicks with you.

Do you remember that movie, I think it was called Hitch, where Will Smith taught Paul Blart how to love a woman, and the goal was to conquer, I think it was Eva Mendes? There was a scene where Will Smith takes Paul Blart (I really don't know the actor's name) out on a date to teach him how to behave, and then when he takes him home, he tells him that, when kissing after a date, as the man leans forward, he does 90% of the path, whereas the woman, when she moves forward, she does 10%.

That's exactly the type of balance you will want with descriptions, though of course the numbers may vary. But you, the writer, are the man here: you do 90% of the path. You set the scene, you give out the ambience, you describe the mood, the appearance, etc. The woman here is the reader, and the final 10% you leave it for them. You withhold that last bit so they have some room for imagination. In my honest opinion, it is extremely important to leave this 10% there, to give this wiggle room for imagination, because otherwise, the reader might feel like they're sort of trapped. If you give too much description, at a certain point, it becomes confusing.

Remember, no matter how good with words you are, no matter how much of a fantastic, awarded writer you are, when you write "The room was dimly lit by the late afternoon sun, the blinds were pulled halfway down, and the walls were yellow" NO TWO PEOPLE will imagine the exact same room. So you want to leave it at that: the general outline that provides the details necessary to set the mood and are relevant to the story/characters, but not so overly descriptive it would become impossible to imagine. It literally feels, in that situation, like the author is trying their best to control my imagination, and it's an unpleasant feeling.

Same could be said for people, but it is generally agreed that with people you have more leeway to be more descriptive than you would be clothes or spaces etc. Generally speaking, people have characteristics that require more attention, for example: 1) if they have a familiar relationship to another character, you bring that up; 2) tics and mannerisms that make them stand out; 3) the already expected: eye colour, skin colour, hair colour, but then you add hints of change to these, for example, how they flush if they're shy, how their hair is a mess if they tousled it out of nervousness, etc; 4) be aware that characters' relationships with each other will influence how they see them: for a guy who's in love with a girl, her general traits won't be enough, and her brown hairs will appear different, will stand out, or her eyes will have a spark, or there will be a tic or something they will notice, whereas if it's a child - son, daughter, niece, etc - they will see them in an endearing, comforting (not sure that's the word but hey) way.

Also, be careful with spaces and clothes. Spaces and clothes are THE TWO things people tend to be overly descriptive, and -- again, OPINION, everyone eats what they feel taste better -- it's the biggest turn off for me. Special situations (as I said above) call for special attention, of course, but remember again: the character's relation with the space will dictate how they see it. What I mean is, if it's the house they grew up in, it's off-putting to go off on a huge description full of awe (something YA authors do A LOT in fucking fantasy stories). But if it's like, a palace they are entering for the first time, and the character has never seen anything bigger than their living room, then yea, go off on the details that would stand out.

Clothes is the biggest YA crime (followed by body). Like, yeah, I get it, your special poor girl who's about to become a lady is fascinated by the clothes she's given, but a couple of descriptions are enough, if you go on for pages. and pages. and pages. of like. just telling me about the impressive velvets and massive muslin our beauty wears, I'm gonna tap out. In my opinion, it distracts from what seems obvious the author can't tackle -- the psychology of the situation. (Remember when the woman who wrote Throne of Glass told us about a girl who spent 2 years under gruelling work in the salt mines, and apparently the first thing she considers when she looks herself in the mirror is "wow, I have huge tits" come on, man. THIS is the kind of shit erotica knows how to do.)

I don't think I have anything else to add, so yeah. It's about balance and objective, whatever fits the story you're trying to tell, as well as the genre.

On that note, let me suggest you a book that's actually pretty small and, in my opinion, is the perfect example of how descriptions are balanced between different perspectives (even though it's all told through one man's eyes) and influenced by the ambience/psychology of the character: Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. Beautiful, heart-breaking book.

I hope my ramblings helped you, anon!!!

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melanielocke · 3 years ago

Text

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 17

AO3

Taglist: @nott-the-best @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised

Previous Chapter: Chapter 16

Next Chapter: Chapter 18

Lucie spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden trying to figure out how to do magic. It didn’t help that she had no idea what she was doing or how magic worked and instead she was just trying some methods she remembered from her favorite books. So far, nothing happened. After some time, Jessamine came outside to watch.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Trying to do magic,’ Lucie answered, a little frustrated with her lack of progress. ‘You don’t happen to have any clue how that works?’

Jessamine looked shocked. ‘About magic? Of course not, why would you think such a thing. I’m a good Christian.’

Lucie guessed she should have suspected such a thing. ‘Jess, in all the time that you’ve been here, was I the only one who could see you?’

Jessamine thought for a while.

‘Actually, no,’ she said. ‘There was someone else, years ago. The sister of Mr. Gray. She travelled to the manor shortly after my death, to express her condolences to my family, and she could see me and spoke to me.’

Mr. Gray’s sister… Her mother couldn’t see ghosts, but perhaps she was somehow distantly related to his woman and to Jessamine’s old suitor through her mother. Perhaps that power did travel in families.

‘And was there anything else she could do?’ Lucie asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Jessamine said. ‘Mr. Gray always thought his sister was odd, occupied with things not suitable for a young lady. She rarely came to balls, even if she was old enough to be out and looking for suitors. But he thought discussing what his sister was up to would be inappropriate for the proper ladies present, such as myself.’

‘She must have been a witch too then,’ Lucie speculated.

Jessamine looked horrified. ‘Witches don’t really exist, do they? Mr. Gray’s sister was certainly odd, everyone knew that, but I never thought she could be a witch.’

‘Jess, you’re literally a ghost. And I can see you and speak with you, just like Mr. Gray’s sister did. When I’m near you can pick up hair brushes, which you normally can’t.’

‘All this time, you’ve been bewitching me?’ Jessamine asked, her voice small.

‘No, not like that,’ Lucie said. ‘That wasn’t something I did intentionally, and I never forced you into anything. Although I’m thinking maybe I could. Jess, my friend is in danger and I need to save him. Are you willing to help me?’

Jessamine looked reluctant. ‘What will you do to me?’

‘Just test a few things, figure out what I can do,’ Lucie said. ‘I’ve always made you stronger, I have no idea what you could do with my help.’

She looked down, resigned. ‘Alright, Lucie. I will see what I can do. What is it that you ask of me?’

Lucie looked around, and noticed a stick lying on the ground.

‘Can you pick that up?’ she asked, pointing.

Jessamine looked confused, but bent down and picked up the stick, holding it in her hands. Usually, ghosts could pick up things they cared for around her. In Jessamine’s case, hairbrushes and dolls. Lucie didn’t think Jessamine cared much for sticks.

‘That looks odd,’ Thomas, who was sitting in a garden chair next to Alastair, commented. ‘Like you just made the stick float.’

‘Yes,’ Lucie said. ‘But that’s not exactly helpful, is it? Jessamine, can you touch Thomas? Usually you’d pass through him.’

Jessamine dropped the stick and rubbed her hand even if there was no dirt remaining on her ghostly form. She walked over to Thomas, who'd stood up out of his chair, and shook his hand, curtsying politely. Thomas yelped, which indicated that he could feel her. Interesting.

‘Do gentlemen not kiss a lady’s hand anymore?’ Jessamine asked.

Thomas turned red, and lifted his hand up, taking Jessamine’s hand with him, and kissed her. To Lucie, this looked relatively normal, but Thomas couldn’t see Jessamine. This had to be awkward. Jessamine let go of Thomas’ hand.

‘It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir,’ Jessamine said.

Lucie repeated Jessamine’s words to Thomas.

‘Ah, it is a pleasure to meet you too, miss,’ Thomas said, looking over her head instead of at her.

Lucie sometimes wondered if Thomas got neck cramps from having to look down whenever he was talking to other people.

Jessamine let go of Thomas’ hand. ‘In my day, the gentlemen certainly had better manners,’ she snorted.

Lucie started laughing. ‘Jessamine is not impressed by your manners, Tom,’ she said.

Thomas turned an even deeper red. ‘I am terribly sorry, miss, that my manners are not up to your standard. Wait, is she still there?’

Jessamine scoffed. ‘I’ll never understand the gentlemen of this century. If you can call them that. People are so contradictory. I always felt like public displays of affection are frowned upon nowadays, especially between gentlemen, even if they are very close friends. But your two gentlemen seem to be very affectionate and improper with each other.’

Lucie started laughing. She suspected Jessamine had seen Alastair and Thomas kiss each other the other day, she’d seemed very shocked by it, but Lucie didn’t realize she’d interpreted them as having a very intimate friendship. Some decades before Jessamine lived, such a thing had been more normalized though, known as the romantic friendship. Although Lucie suspected at least some of those “romantic friendships” were really concealed gay relationships. ‘Oh no, that is not considered normal in this day, but Alastair and Thomas are not simply close friends.’

Jessamine looked absolutely horrified and Lucie decided to change the subject. She did not feel like discussing sexuality with a ghost from the Victorian era, she didn’t think that conversation would end without anyone getting hurt or offended.

‘What did she say?’ Thomas asked.

‘Jess is very confused about the gentlemen of this day. Usually they are not so affectionate towards each other as you are with Alastair,’ Lucie summarized.

‘I,’ Alastair announced, ‘am very glad to live in this day and age and not whatever century this lady must have been from.’

Lucie could imagine, the modern day might still be a mess but she would certainly prefer it over being a 19thcentury lady. She imagined she would have married young, a gentleman she’d thought she was fond of, but didn’t really feel romantic attraction to, and then she’d be trapped. That wouldn’t happen to her main character Eloise though. Eloise and Mabel would find a way, although of course writing a story about a sapphic couple in the 19th century had its limitations in their happy ending.

‘So Jess can touch objects and people who don’t see her,’ Lucie continued. ‘Anyone has any other ideas?’

‘Could you make her visible to us?’ Alastair asked.

‘Jess, show yourself,’ Lucie said.

Jessamine frowned. ‘I don’t know how to do that.’

Nothing happened, at least not that Lucie could tell.

‘She looks a lot like I pictured her,’ Thomas said.

‘I thought her hair would be darker,’ Alastair commented. ‘I don’t think bleach for hair existed back then, and I’m pretty sure no one has hair that’s naturally this light.’

‘I think it depends on where you’re from,’ Thomas said. ‘Light blonde hair is more common in Northern Europe.’

Cordelia snorted. ‘Just because you used to bleach your hair, does not mean everyone who is blonde does the same.’

Thomas frowned. ‘You bleached your hair?’

‘I dyed it back to black, and it’s mostly grown out now,’ Alastair said. ‘It was too much effort to maintain, I had to touch up the roots every four weeks. It looked good though.’

‘It did not look good,’ Cordelia commented. ‘He looked like a turnip.’

Lucie’s eyes went wide. It worked. They were seeing Jessamine. Lucie was feeling a little faint, but did not let it distract her.

‘Come on, pay attention. You’re looking at a ghost for the first time in your life, isn’t that more interesting than Alastair’s hair?’ Lucie shouted.

‘Almost,’ Thomas said. ‘Have you seen Alastair’s hair?’

Alastair rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s pay attention to the ghost. Alright, blonde people are real. And her dress is very nice, I always liked the bustle style.’

‘You can see me?’ Jessamine’s smile lit up. ‘Oh this wonderful. It is such a long time since a gentleman has been able to see me. And it is a lovely dress, I had it made when I visited Paris with my mama.’

She pronounced Paris the way the French did. Lucie knew Jessamine loved to talk about her gowns, although she wasn’t fond of modern clothes. She wore a green day dress with a bustle, something Lucie imagined was a bit unpractical. So many layers. Not to mention the corset.

Alastair looked up thoughtfully. ‘How long do you imagine she’ll stay visible, Lucie?’ he asked. ‘What about if you step away from here? Go inside?’

Lucie took several steps away from Jessamine, taking hold of the door to open it.

‘She’s gone,’ Thomas said.

Lucie turned around and walked to Jessamine. ‘What about now?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ Cordelia said. ‘I think once she disappears, you need to ask her to become visible again.’

‘Show yourself,’ Lucie repeated.

‘There she is,’ Alastair said. ‘She looks surprisingly human. I always thought ghosts would be more transparent like in movies.’

‘If they were, do you think I would have mistaken ghosts for living people?’ Lucie asked. ‘If you look carefully, ghosts have a bit of a shimmer but beyond that they look just like people.’

‘Living people, that is,’ Jessamine said. ‘I consider myself a person still, thank you very much.’

‘Of course you are a person,’ Thomas confirmed, indicating that he could hear as well as see her. ‘It is odd to think you’ve been here for such a long time, and always invisible.’

‘It has been very difficult,’ Jessamine said. ‘For a long time, no one could see me until Lucie came here. And modern times are so confusing. Why do ladies wear clothes that reveal their ankles at all times? Worse, the knees? In my day, the occasional ankle slip was to be expected, of course, but visibility of the calves and knees was unheard of. Have people lost all sense of propriety?’

‘Because it’s more practical to not wear floor length dresses all the time,’ Lucie said. ‘Also, no one cares about ankles nowadays. Or knees.’

Lucie did like wearing dresses and skirts, but didn’t like them too long. She was short and therefore the hem always dragged over the ground, which meant she either tripped over the skirt or got it dirty when she wore it outside.

‘But it’s so improper,’ Jessamine insisted, horrified. ‘How could people just stop caring about such things? If this continues, it will not be long until humans go out with no clothes at all and society will fall into chaos.’

‘Now that is generally frowned upon,’ Alastair said. ‘I do not expect that to happen anytime soon.’

‘It would be uncomfortable,’ Cordelia added. ‘And also very cold. The point of clothes is to stay warm.’

‘Does anyone have an idea on how to open a gateway to the land in between?’ Lucie asked. ‘Because that is different from what I can ask of ghosts.’

Cordelia frowned. ‘Maybe you could ask Jessamine.’

‘Jess, can you open a gateway to the land in between for me?’ Lucie asked.

Jessamine frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I do not understand what you ask of me.’

That wasn’t it, then. Lucie guessed opening the gateway was something she’d have to do herself. Making Jessamine visible, that was also something she did, she commanded it and Jessamine could not do it without her. Then perhaps it was about commanding.

‘Or you could ask for a gateway,’ Thomas suggested.

‘Like, open sesame?’ Lucie asked.

‘Be specific,’ Alastair added. ‘What is it that you want to happen? Perhaps Thomas is right, perhaps all you have to do is ask.’

Lucie tried to remember what Grace said, that her magic was dark magic. Perhaps she needed to ask the darkness, or shadows, or something like it? Grace had hinted at this too. Careful what you wish, you just might get it.

‘Darkness, open a gateway to the land in between that is only open to myself, Thomas Lightwood, and Alastair and Cordelia Carstairs,’ Lucie said, remembering to be detailed. Perhaps that was what Grace had warned her about, that what she asked for would happen but not the way she’d intended. ‘A gateway that will not close until all four of us made it back safely to our world.’

It didn’t look like a gateway exactly. There was just a hint of shadow, and when it touched Lucie her friends disappeared. There were no ruins here, the change was subtle beyond her friends being gone. The air was just a touch darker, the breeze a little colder. Some of the color had faded, the grass was a bit duller. There was a fog hovering above the ground. The house was still there, but from here she should be able to see her father’s car and that was gone.

Cordelia, Thomas and Alastair appeared beside her, Cordelia with cortana in hand.

‘I don’t see any ruins,’ Thomas commented.

‘I think the land in between is layered over our land,’ Lucie said. ‘So perhaps to find those ruins, I need to open a portal around where the ruins are. Or I guess we could walk there, but then we’d leave a portal open here and we’d have to walk all the way back once we find it in this world.’

‘I imagine you could open another portal,’ Alastair said. ‘But finding the place the ruins should be in our world and then opening a portal is likely safer. Come, we should get back. This place doesn’t feel right.’

Alastair had a point. Lucie looked around to the way back. In their own world, the gateway looked like a shadow. Here it was a ray of light in an otherwise dark and gloomy environment. She watched her friends step into the light and disappear and then Lucie followed.

The four of them were back in the normal world, her parents both in the garden, concerned. The gate of darkness disappeared behind her. Lucie had asked it not to close until all of them were back, she guessed on its own it didn’t stay open for long and would close if she didn’t stop it. She made a mental note of that, she didn’t want to have to open another portal while they were being attacked by something. The portal closing behind her while all four of them were back was a good way to make sure nothing else came through.

She was feeling a bit more faint than before, light headed. She should have expected using magic would come at a price, but perhaps it was like exercise and she could improve her magic stamina.

‘Where did you just come from?’ Tessa asked.

Lucie looked around for help, but figured since this was her power she was to explain it. She started with Grace visiting again, with her telling her that she had more power than she knew and that she could open a gate.

‘I figured out how to do it,’ Lucie concluded. ‘So we can go into the woods and find Grace’ skin.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want us to come along?’ Will asked.

Lucie considered it, but it was a long time since her father had fought anything and her mother had barely any experience. It wouldn’t be safer with them there. Cordelia had a sword, Lucie was the only one who could open the gateway, and Grace seemed under the impression that it was also necessary for Alastair to come, that his memory would be essential. At least one person with the sight would also be useful.

‘I think it’s better if you didn’t,’ Lucie said. ‘But there’s something else you could do in the meantime. According to Cordelia and Alastair, their father has lots of notebooks from their ancestors, and one must have described a witch similar to me. Perhaps you could call Elias, or uncle Jem, and ask for them.’

Will frowned. ‘Do you think Elias would help us now? He was so opposed to Cordelia coming here with us before.’

Cordelia hadn’t been allowed to come at first, but then her mother had moved out and taken her children with her and her father couldn’t stop her anymore. Sona had decided it would be good for both her children to have some time away and had encouraged them to go. Lucie agreed it was unlikely Elias would be any help on his own accord. She couldn’t say she understood him or his relationship with his children well, all she knew was the damage it had done to Alastair and Cordelia.

‘Father does listen to Jem at times,’ Alastair said stiffly. ‘I think perhaps he could reason with him.’

‘I’ve been meaning to call Jem anyway,’ Will said. ‘If you do not return before dinner, we will come looking for you.’

‘I could leave the gate open for you,’ Lucie said. ‘But we cannot be sure about the time. It doesn’t run the same way, we could spend only a couple of hours there and we’d be missing for a whole day. We cannot keep track of time in there.’

‘Dinnertime,’ Will repeated. ‘I won’t blame you if you’re not back, but we will come looking.’

‘Perhaps we should go tomorrow,’ Alastair suggested and Lucie wondered if maybe after this morning, he did not feel up for it and needed rest. ‘I think it is unlikely we will finish before that time, and if we go tomorrow early in the morning, it is far more likely we can finish before dinnertime.’

Lucie had to admit his line of reasoning had merit, even if she was impatient to get out there. Besides, that gave her time to practice. Cordelia returned to her practice with cortana, whereas Lucie tried asking the darkness for other favors. She practiced opening and closing gate. The gateways all worked and did what she asked of them, but it was tiring though. After four more gates Lucie collapsed onto a garden chair and took to watching Cordelia practice, too tired to get up. Perhaps Alastair had a point in postponing going for the skin, and she imagined even if he was feeling better now that he was exhausted after this morning. She’d had a break down on a rare occasion, autism and stubbornness didn’t always go well together, but never as bad as Alastair had. She knew how exhausting it could be.

Cordelia’s stamina had to be a lot better than Lucie’s, because she kept going for a long time and didn’t seem to get tired. She certainly had a weak spot for girls with swords, and Lucie made a note to use that in one of her novels. Cordelia had tied back her dark red hair in a high ponytail, and was wearing a wide shirt tucked into a pair of jean shorts, something a bit more practical than Lucie’s yellow jumpsuit. Well, it was comfortable to walk around in, but a struggle to go to the bathroom. Cordelia had begun to break a sweat, a few drips on her forehead, but that didn’t stop her. Perhaps later she’d want to go swimming to cool down. Thinking of water, Lucie realized she hadn’t drunk anything in a while. And considering Cordelia had been training for some time, she had to be dehydrated.

‘Do you want something to drink?’ Lucie asked.

‘I could use a glass of water,’ Cordelia said. ‘I always forget to drink when I’m training.’

Fortunately, Lucie was there to make sure Cordelia drank enough water. She tended to forget herself too, especially when she was busy writing. Sometimes she’d complain of a headache, only to realize she hadn’t drunk anything since breakfast.

She went inside to find Alastair and Thomas were about to leave, both carrying a bag.

‘Where are you going?’ Lucie asked.

‘Just to the lake,’ Thomas said. ‘We won’t go too far into the lake, but it’s getting too warm pretty much everywhere. Maybe you and Cordelia can join us later when you’re done training.’

‘I’ll ask Cordelia,’ Lucie promised. ‘Have fun, in the meantime.’

She returned outside with two glasses of water, putting one on the table.

‘The boys have gone swimming,’ Lucie said. ‘Thomas said we were welcome to join once we’re done.’

‘Sure,’ Cordelia said. ‘Just let me finish.’

Cordelia went through a few more repeats of her training, and then transformed cortana back into its necklace form.

‘I get tired a lot sooner than you,’ Lucie admitted.

‘I can’t do magic,’ Cordelia said. ‘I have no idea how exhausting opening or closing a gateway is. I imagine it is a lot more work than simply swinging a sword.’

Lucie guessed perhaps that was true, magic ought to have some limitations. If not, then how could Cordelia’s ancestor have defeated the witch from Grace’ story? ‘I’m curious what else I can do. Grace said something about controlling the dead and making them fight, but that seems a bit unethical. Jessamine isn’t a fighter, and I’d never make her fight something on my behalf.’

‘It depends on the situation, I guess,’ Cordelia said. ‘We don’t know what it takes to stop Tatiana and save Thomas.’

‘No, but I do need to draw moral lines for myself,’ Lucie said. ‘I feel bad for that witch from the story, and I don’t want to end up like her. I don’t want us to become enemies.’

Cordelia took her hand. ‘I’ll never become your enemy, Lu.’

‘Then I guess I’ll have to stay on the safe side of that ethical line. I know how easy it can be, to have the end justify the means, but that’s something I’d rather save for my stories.’

#Lucie Herondale #Cordelia Carstairs #Thomas Lightwood #Alastair Carstairs #Jessamine Lovelace #Lucelia #Thomastair #fanfiction #the last hours #tlh

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spookieloop · 4 years ago

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WHAT THE DEAD MEN SAY

Chapter One:

Pairing: Ivarr Ragnarsson(AC Valhalla)/Female!Reader

Premise: You are an archeologist/linguist in the Victorian era, and your world is turned upside down when a certain Viking Warlord returns to life before your eyes.

Rating: Explicit(there is a bit of NSFT at the end, and there will be more in later chapters)

In truth, you hadn’t wanted to attend this party. The museum was...nice, but you were quite familiar with most of the exhibits. Your presence had been politely mandated by the foundation that pays your bills, if only on account of your relative fluency in a number of dead languages and scripts. Not that you were given the proper respect for your achievements. “Greatest Female Mind of the 19th Century,” to distinguish you from the men, who won far greater respect for far less work. You weren’t sure how many more questions about your ‘spinsterhood’ you could withstand; as though none of your accomplishments held weight without a ring on a finger or a child on your hip. The other scientists were the worst of course; they had seen you work, knew your intelligence, yet it served their egos to pretend as though you were lesser.

It is far too much frustration, with far too little alcohol. Perhaps wine, yes; a quick trip to the cellars to clear your head ought to do you some good. You excuse yourself, your colleagues all too willing to believe you some dithering lady with need to retire for a bit; as though they hadn’t seen you trek through hot sun and freezing rains.

You roll your eyes as you turn away, your heels tip tapping against the marble floors as you make your escape.

It is however, a large building, and the lower floors are beginning to feel more like a labyrinth than a basement. At this point, you are more interested in finding your way out than you are in seeking out more wine.

The further you go into the basement, the less light there is, fortunately, you come prepared. You rummage through your satchel for your candles and matches, shedding some light on your surroundings.

The breath is stolen from your lungs and you all but shriek at the sight before you, a wide skeletal grin seeming to stare down at you. You calm down quickly however, realizing that this must be where the museum keeps its new exhibits before they go on display. Holding the candle closer to the skeleton’s glass case, you see evidence of water damage, as though it had been found at the bottom of a lake after centuries of rest...you frown as your flame illuminates the brass plaque.

Ivarr Ragnarsson

Of course, this must be from the recent Viking Age find. You had been requested for this project, but you refused. Normally, you were a go-to for Viking cultural finds, but this...The Foundation had decided to dredge the lake in search of high-profile remains. You were sickened by the idea, it felt as though your colleagues were disturbing the extensive rituals of the honored dead. You loved history, but this...felt wrong.

Wrong could not even begin to cover what you were about to witness.

You watch in awe as the bone seems to rejuvenate from its formally eroded state; awe giving way to horror as blood and flesh materializes seemingly from nowhere, knitting together to reform the man from the inside out. His face wears a blank expression, not quite alive, as the scars tear across his flesh, ink bubbling up to the surface to reform his tattoos. Your fingertips ghost against the glass inquisitively, your fears all but forgotten as you marvel at his form. Until now, you could only guess at what the people of the distant past truly looked like; and now here he is, standing before you just as he was the day he died.

Suddenly his eyes open, and you recoil with renewed urgency, only barely keeping your grip on your candle. He hadn’t just regained his form, the man is alive. Your brain fires off quickly, desperately seeking some explanation for this...perhaps a gas leak? No, your candle would have had you up in flames.

His head tilts in confusion as he eyes you, blinking abscently as though he had woken from a long slumber. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but a look of animal panic flashes through his eyes when he realizes there is no air in this glass box.

You realize it too, instinctually rushing to his aid, moving to unlatch the glass box...too slowly. As you reach for his prison, he is already smashing his head through the glass like a battering ram, littering the floor with the glittering shards. In your surprise, you drop your candle; the light still glowing weakly against the marble floor.

Barely illuminated, the man-Ivarr, is a thing of terror; rage and confusion etched into his face. You scramble backward, pressing your back tightly to the wall as he fixes you with his murderous gaze.

“What, THE FUCK, is this?” he growls in thickly accented Old Norse.

You struggle a bit to understand him, you were much more accustomed to reading Old Norse than hearing it. His displeasure though, is obvious. He lets out a pained grunt as he steps down into the broken glass with his bare feet, quickly closing the distance between you.

“I don’t know!” You manage to stammer out in his own language, shrinking away from him as his nostrils flare with rage.

“I was in Valhalla,” he booms. “Fighting beside my family for endless days.” He looks around, even as he struggles to see in the darkness, he can tell how deeply unfamiliar this world is. “Now I am...where am I?” He growls, caging you against the wall with his hands on either side of your head.

You quake in your boots; even naked and unarmed, you know he could kill you-with ease if he wanted…and he certainly looks like he’s got murder on his mind.

“London,” you force yourself to answer.

He doesn’t let you elaborate before he resumes his barking, unsatisfied. “I have been to Lundon, they had nothing like this,” he says, gesturing to what little you can see of the modern furnishings.

“It is London,” you insist, earning a rough hand around your neck before you can finish your sentence.

“You lie,” he snarls, squeezing harder as you claw at his hand desperately.

“Please,” you urge, struggling to choke the words out. “You’ve been dead for a thousand years.”

You gasp deeply when he releases you, staring up at him as you scramble for breath. He looks confused, but not so shocked as he should be; you can only hope that he believes you.

“A thousand years?” He whispers, looking around abscently in consideration. He looks down at you as you sink against the wall. “What sort of magic calls me back to this world after so long?”

You shake your head, trying to regain your composure, eyes fixed firmly on his. “I’m as shocked as you; skeletons don’t exactly have a habit of coming back to life.”

He sighs deeply, shaking his head before he looks at you, much more calmly than he had a moment ago. “So I live again…” he runs a hand through his hair, eyes miles away before returning his gaze to you. “What happens now?”

Fear dissipating, you cautiously rise to your feet; he’s staring at you expectantly, as though somehow you are supposed to have an answer for him. “I-I don’t, wait,” you cut yourself short, pacing quickly to retrieve your fallen candle. He looks at you curiously as you return, holding the candle up between your faces. “This is an extraordinary opportunity!” You gasp, any lingering expression of your previous trepidation evaporating in the heat of your excitement.

He opens his mouth to speak, but you cut him off, grinning wildly. “So much history from your time is lost to us, or tainted by cultural bias,” you explain with a fevered sort of enthusiasm. Your free hand slides along his bicep, getting a closer look at the intricate tattoo stylings. “My God, you are incredible. Think of what can be learned.”

He eyes you with a grin, clearly amused with your sudden zeal in contrast to just a moment ago, when he had you cowering against the wall. “You are an odd woman,” he says, lifting his arm so you can get a better look at his tattoos.

“What?” You look up at him, breaking your intense focus, if only for a moment. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

He shakes his head, looking down at you. Already your attention returns to his tattoos. A deep chuckle escapes his throat as you kneel to trace the runes etched into the skin of his abdomen; translating them in your head. He takes you by the chin, just a tad too roughly to be tender. He grins down at you, satisfied that he’s got your full attention.

“I said, you are an odd woman.”

There is a certain growl to his voice that sends a warmth through your spine; you feel yourself blush as you realize just how much of this man’s personal space you’ve invaded.

You rise quickly to your feet, turning away from him in a failed effort to hide your embarrassment. “Sweet Mercy,” you whisper in your own tongue. “I am so sorry.”

He laughs, deep and loud from the pit of his stomach. “Sorry?” He steps closer, into the light of your candle, on full display. “There is no shame in liking what you see.”

Your free hand covers your face in scandal. Your profession affords you much less prudery than your contemporaries, but it is difficult to shake the Victorian Sensibilities with which you were raised.

He grins playfully as he approaches, his hand brushing yours as he takes the candle from you. “Look at you,” he beams, thoroughly delighted by your obvious discomfort. “You shook less when I was going to kill you.” He snatches your hand from your face, leaning into your comfort zone, but awaiting your response.

You bite your lip, focused on the hunger in his eyes. That is part of what you love so much about history, is it not? The Passion. Rarely in these modern days do you see such an unashamed lust for life. This man lived and died in a culture of unrestrained freedoms, unabashed pleasures. You gaze back deeply into his eyes; perhaps you’d like some of that pleasure for yourself.

You lean into him, pressing your lips against his, and he pushes you up against the wall. His teeth scrape your bottom lip as he tries to push your skirts up, but he quickly becomes frustrated with the sheer amount of layers you’re wearing. He sets the candle aside.

“Too many fucking clothes,” he growls in your ear, his hands sliding up to rip your dress open.

You gasp, ready to protest the destruction of your most expensive dress, when you notice him eyeing your corset with a frustrated sneer.

“Fuck, are you wearing armor?”

You fail to hold back your laughter as he pouts, like a dog denied his treat. Your eyes widen when he grips your corset, however and you quickly snatch his hands.

“This one is my favorite, don’t you dare-”

You hardly get the words out before he’s grinning like a madman, and you know he took it as a challenge.

“Wait, I can take it off-” You shout, but not quickly enough.

You cringe at the sound of the busk popping open. You open your mouth to give him a piece of your mind, but a pleasured squeal forces it’s way out instead as his teeth sieze the sensitive bud of your breast.

“Fuck,” You moan, your arms draped lazily around his shoulders.

He releases your breast with an obscene pop, pressing firm kisses from your chest up to your neck, before biting down on your soft skin with a lustful growl. You gasp, digging your nails into his shoulders as pain meets pleasure. You feel him start to move away, as though he’s concerned that he hurt you, and you whine.

“Do it again,” you beg, pressing your body against his with urgency.

He grins, toothy and feral, before pushing you a bit more roughly against the wall, teeth biting down on your neck. He takes your hand, guiding it to his waist. You know what he wants, and you are happy to oblige; your fingers sliding down to wrap delicately around his length.

You make long languid strokes, savoring the weight of him in your hand. You desperately want to feel him inside of you.

He groans in protest as your hand leaves him, and you laugh softly, your hands working to undo your skirts.

Your attention is so utterly consumed by him, that you hardly notice the room flood with light, until Ivarr’s attention leaves you.

“Unhand her!”

You blush furiously, shifting to move between Ivarr and your bosses, the Board of the Foundation.

Taglist: @youre-my-boshaw-baby

#mypost #ac valhalla #assassins creed ivarr #ivarr ragnarsson #ivarr the boneless #ivarr/reader #ivarr x reader #ivarr the boneless x reader #ivarr ragnarsson x reader #ivarr ragnarsson/reader #nsft #fanfic

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meta-squash · 4 years ago

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Brick Club 2.3.8 “Inconveniences Of Entertaining A Poor Man Who May Be Rich”

This chapter is so long. Here goes.

Is it normal for Cosette to have to knock to get into the house she lives in? Or is Hugo just using that as a vehicle to make Mme Thenardier meet Valjean first?

It’s times like this that I desperately wish I knew more about biblical stories and fables and things. This, a rich man in disguise as a poor man being treated poorly by innkeepers and taking something from them, sounds like a bible story or a similar type of fable. But the only two bible stories I know with similar themes are the nativity story and Sodom and Gomorrah and neither of those seem quite right. Still, this entire episode reads like a fable or fairytale.

We’ve already seen how Evil the Thenardiers are re: their treatment of Cosette. Now we are seeing their Evil in the form of treatment of the poor.

You know, that’s an interesting thing that I’m not going to get into in this longass chapter. Javert’s evil and Thenardier’s evil are different because I feel like Javert’s evil is a lot more muddied or obscured by morality and duty and things like that. Where are the Thenardiers are bad but the badness of their actions is much more black and white. I think it’s also because, technically, they never have social power over anyone unless they are manipulative, whereas Javert always has the social power. I’m not sure where to go with either of these ideas but I will look back on it for a shorter chapter.

Cosette is ugly because she’s sad. It’s like the exact opposite of Roald Dahl’s description of ugliness. I called it on the orphanage thing and kids looking years younger than they are; she looks 6 when she’s 8. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference when you look at it written down but the difference between the size and maturity of a 6 year old vs an 8 year old is surprising.

In the way that the description of the doll was a distant echo of young Fantine, the description of Cosette here is a faded echo of dying Fantine.

“Fear was spread all over here; she was, so to speak, covered with it; fear squeezed her elbows against her sides, drew her heels up under her skirt, made her shrink into the least possible space...” I’m sure this description comes from Hugo observing children in his lifetime, but I also wonder if any of this comes from his brother who had schizophrenia and was institutionalized?

“The expression on the face of this child of eight was habitually so sad and occasionally so tragic that it seemed, at certain moments, as if she were on the way to becoming an idiot or a demon.” What an interesting pair of choices. Fear and sadness either stun and numb you completely or they turn you aggressive and evil. Hugo said the same thing before when talking about Valjean’s prison time. Again, like I said before, Cosette here is Valjean when we first met him: exhausted, scared, sad, numb, hatefully terrified of the people around her; the difference is that she still has hope. She had that moment of hoping someone would rescue her, she had the moment of pausing and wondering what the doll’s paradise was like; when we met Valjean he was past that kind of hope.

(Funny that Mme Thenardier doesn’t suspect the trick Valjean just pulled, despite Valjean “finding” a 20 sous piece instead of 15 sous piece.)

I love the description of Eponine and Azelma because it’s so innocent. They as little human beings aren’t morally bankrupt at the level of their parents yet. They’re still pretty and glowing. Partly because they are well-cared for unlike Cosette, and partly because they are still innocent.

“Eponine and Azelma did not notice Cosette. To them she was like the dog. The three little girls did not have twenty-four years among them, and they already represented the whole of human society: on one side envy, on the other disdain.”

Ah, human microcosms. Hugo loves those. The Thenardier children and Cosette are the pared down, simplified version of society. It’s also an excellent example of how Privilege works in layers. The girls’ doll is worn and old and broken, but the fact of them having a real doll and Cosette having nothing is already a layer of privilege Someone else, another little girl with wealthy parents and a new intact doll would have privilege over the Thenardier girls. There are layers.

I really love this passage too because it shows the start of the zero-sum game between Eponine and Cosette. At no point are Eponine and Cosette able to be equals. But the important thing is that neither of them are aware of this. Later, when Cosette and Eponine encounter each other again in the Gorbeau house, Eponine doesn’t have the awareness to be angry about the reversal of their fortunes. She seems sad, mostly, a jealousy born from a feeling of worthlessness rather than feeling slighted. And Cosette doesn’t even recognize Eponine, so there’s no room at all for disdain on her part, unless she’s disdainful of Eponine et al due to their poverty, though that never seems to be the case. But Eponine cannot be happy while Cosette is and Cosette cannot be happy while Eponine is, because their goals occupy the same fulcrum (Marius) and they can’t both be on the same level at the same time.

Fanfiction has explored this a lot in modern AU but I wonder the kind of havoc that could have been wreaked had Cosette and Eponine met and become proper acquaintances. Their teenage personalities are two sides of the same coin. I’ve always been of the opinion that had they switched places as children Cosette would have ended up like Eponine and Eponine like Cosette. Because Eponine has the capacity for kindness within her, except that she doesn’t know how to use it selflessly; and Cosette has the same stubborn ruthlessness as Eponine, except that she is held back by convention and reduced to talking a lot in order to try and somehow glean information from Valjean or Marius.

“Now your work belongs to me. Play, my child.” This is the second (or third?) Myriel moment for Valjean. Cosette is a child, an innocent child, but her soul doesn’t need to be bought for god. As far as I can tell, for Hugo, children are always holy. Instead, he’s buying her work. But that makes sense. For Valjean, his soul needed to be bought for god because he had already lost it to sin and to evil and to doubt. Cosette still has hope; what she needs bought from her is suffering.

And here is where the parallel continues. Cosette up until now has been Valjean as we first met him: sullen, suffering, scared, dulled, close to becoming “an idiot or a demon” and now, like Valjean’s soul, her work has been bought so she can be free.

I think it is within the walls of the convent that their parallels will catch up to each other and they will become more equal.

I feel as though the cat in a dress vs the sword in a dress must be some sort of parallel to Eponine and Cosette’s personalities but I’m not quite sure how to pull the meaning out.

“A little girl without a doll is almost as unfortunate and just as impossible as a woman without children.” Ugh. Gross, Hugo. This whole chapter was so lovely and then this misogynist bullshit.

I can explain the “water on her brain” line! Mostly because it’s a medical condition I actually have! So, “water on the brain” is another term for hydrocephalus, which is a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain. It can be caused by being born prematurely (like mine was) or by infections/head trauma. Nowadays they can put a shunt in your head that pumps the fluid into the abdominal cavity (which is what I have), but obviously they didn’t have the technology back then. So what happens to the head if the fluid doesn’t drain, is the head will start to increase in size, and the fluid buildup will squish the brain against the sides of the skull, causing seizures and brain damage/intellectual disabilities and vision problems and other such things. I function perfectly fine except for mild dyscalculia and ADHD (which might have been genetic anyway) but back in the 19th century hydrocephalus probably would have resulted in either mild-to-severe disabilities or death.

Cosette doesn’t have hydrocephalus, but what she does have is severe malnutrition, which can make a person’s head look much too large for their body. So Mme Thenardier is likely using Cosette’s appearance due to neglect to fake that she has a neurological problem and explain why they have to “take care of” her.

Jesus fucking christ this next bit is so much. There’s so much going on. Mme Thenardier is talking to Valjean about Cosette’s mother, the drinkers are singing vulgar songs about the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, and Cosette is under the table singing “My mother is dead.” to herself. Woof. It is, yet again, an instance of the memory of “Fantine” (in the symbolic, saintly form of the Virgin) being sullied both by the foul songs of the drinkers and the callous, flippant commentary of Mme Thenardier. And Cosette is there under the table, staring at the fire, suddenly playing the role of her own mother, rocking the sword-baby (herself) to try and comfort herself from the shock of this new knowledge that her mother is dead.

(Anyone else read As I Laying Dying, by the way? All I could think of when I read that line was “My mother is a fish.”)

We start to see Cosette’s bold personality come out in fits and starts. She’s brave enough to sneak out and grab the doll Eponine and Azelma have abandoned. But it’s also an example of how desperate she is for something pleasurable and good, considering she’s doing that at the risk of a beating.

For the second time, we see Cosette so absorbed in her moment of “I Want” that she doesn’t see or hear anything else. Again, this seems unusual considering her constant hypervigilance. But her success in getting the doll and her increased confidence due to Valjean’s presence probably have something to do with her lack of awareness.

Cosette is caught with the doll. Is this the parallel of Valjean being caught with Myriel’s silver? Mme Thenardier says “That beggar has dared to touch the children’s doll.” The gendarmes don’t say as much when they return Valjean to Myriel, but it’s pretty obvious they’re thinking something similar.

“We are forced to add that at that moment she stuck out her tongue.” COSETTE IS SO CUTE I LOVE HER SO MUCH SHE DESERVES THE WORLD. Also I just love the way Hugo writes children, it’s so real.

Why did Hugo choose Catherine for the name of the doll? Is it to do with St Catherine? She (the saint) became Christian at 14 and converted hundreds of people before being martyred at 18 after rebuking the Roman emperor for his cruelty and winning a debate with his best philosophers.

“This solitary man, so poorly dressed, who took five-franc pieces from his pocket so easily and lavished gigantic dolls on little brats in wooden clogs, was certainly a magnificent and formidable individual.” Valjean is now Myriel. Outsiders are fascinated by him because he dresses so shabbily and yet is so benevolent and charitable with his money. Again, the difference is that Myriel’s name is always known, and Valjean’s is never known.

I know I say this so often but the distance with which Hugo treats Valjean is absolutely fascinating to me. Valjean has this incredible power to just go inside himself and not move, but we never get that kind if internality unless it’s really really important (like with the Champmathieu affair). Otherwise, Hugo keeps a respectful distance, and even when we get Valjean’s emotions described to us, I feel like Hugo is always holding back a little, like he’s not letting himself see all the way into Valjean, or Valjean isn’t letting him in.

Valjean asks for a stable; I think this is the first time we see his whole thing about sacrifice of physical comfort. Things like this asking for the stable and sleeping in the shed behind the house at Rue Plumet and not having chairs and only eating black bread etc. This is the first example we see of him feeling unworthy of physical comforts to such a degree.

(It’s interesting to me that we don’t see this characteristic when he was mayor, or at least not to this extreme. Is it because it would be unbecoming of a mayor and therefore would blow his cover? Or did going back to prison hammer in that feeling of worthlessness and lesser-than and warp his perception of what he is compared to others?)

“What a sublime, sweet thing is hope in a child who has never known anything but its opposite!” We’ve said this already, but Cosette is full of hope and life and light and that is Important because it is exactly what Valjean did not have when he was in her position. But it means that she doesn’t have to work as hard in her ascent towards happiness and goodness.

And, lastly, I love that the placement of the gold Louis in Cosette’s shoe isn’t just a sweet Christmas gesture or a gesture towards Cosette: it’s also an echo of M Madeleine breaking into houses to place gold pieces on the table.

Wow. Long af post for a long af chapter. Congratulations if you read through all of my rambling thoughts.

#les miserables meta #les miserables #brickclub #lm 2.3.8 #les mis #les mis meta #doing this chapter melted my brain a little

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vanessakirbyfans · 4 years ago

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Vanessa Kirby suggests we meet on the Mall, the central location for her on-screen triumph as the young Princess Margaret in The Crown. I’m standing outside the shuttered Institute of Contemporary Arts when she strides into view, a slender, leggy figure with bleached hair and brilliant blue eyes, clad in trademark black, but for her gleaming white Converse trainers.

"I haven’t been here since we were filming!" she marvels through her mask, gazing up the processional avenue towards Buckingham Palace. "I was whizzing up the road on a motorbike, holding onto the back of Matthew Goode [as Antony Armstrong-Jones] and feeling so exhilarated about what on Earth was happening to my life – being in a job I loved, playing someone I loved."

Her ebullient mood was dented when Margaret’s handbag, into which she’d put her own phone, was blown away from between her feet, and an opportunistic passer-by ran off with it. "By the time I could check Find My iPhone, it was already in Leicester Square," she says. "Of course, the costume department were furious because the bag was vintage and a one-off." We both laugh, rather ruefully, for such anecdotes already seem to belong to a more carefree time. This bright, crisp lunchtime in lockdown, the Mall is all but deserted –there would be no need for roadblocks or filming at dawn today – while the roles Kirby is here to discuss are light-years away from her embodiment of a pampered royal party girl.

The morning of our meeting, Pieces of a Woman has launched on Netflix to rapturous reviews and critical acclaim that has seen Kirby, in her first lead role, picked as a front-runner for the award season’s most coveted best-actress gongs.

It is not, however, an easy watch. Kirby plays Martha, a first-time mother whose baby dies moments after being born; the film follows Martha’s subsequent disintegration, alongside that of her close relationships. Her labour, which comes at the start of the film, is some 26 minutes of one unbroken take that manages to be simultaneously intimate and menacing as the camera swoops around the apartment and hovers beside the traumatised protagonists.

Kirby’s performance is astonishingly unselfconscious, which is the more surprising since she never went to drama school (turning down the offer of a place at Lamda in favour of stage roles at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre) and says she couldn't bring herself to dance in front of her friends. "I’m the one who sits in the corner and watches." She describes seeing herself on-screen as "disconcerting", and "not a very natural human experience", and indeed even finds making Zoom calls a trial. "There’s nothing to hide behind!"

For Pieces of a Woman, the director Kornel Mundruczo decided that the birth scene would be the first to be shot, she tells me, as we stroll around St James’s Park, conducting ourselves like a couple of spies in a Le Carré novel. "I knew I’d have to be naked, and literally open my legs and give birth in front of a group of strangers I’d only met that morning. I was actually quite thankful – I thought, the rest of it’s going to be a lot easier."

In fact, she says, she found herself swept away by the emotion of the story. "Normally, it’s so hard to forget there are machines in your face, but I had no idea that a camera was even there." Was it traumatic to act? "The first time we shot it, I was literally sobbing for 10 minutes afterwards. I couldn’t get out of it. My brain was telling me it wasn’t real, but my unconscious didn’t know the difference, especially with having a real baby in my arms.

"Kornel came over onto the bed and held me so tight. He didn’t let go of me for five minutes, and he said, 'Just remember this feeling.' That really helped me for the rest of the movie, when the character doesn’t express anything, but almost has to be doing the howling without speaking a word."

Kirby took her research seriously, even asking a mother-to-be –a total stranger – to allow her to be present in the delivery room at the birth of her son in a north-London hospital. "I remember every single second of it," the actress says emphatically. "I was there, glued to my seat, for seven hours, not even a loo break! I was just amazed, in awe. I saw a woman completely surrender and go on this spiritual journey, which involved indescribable pain, clearly, but also ecstasy. It gave me a whole new respect for women and how powerful they are, and a new empathy for men, because they feel so helpless. And obviously, seeing the baby come out was the most incredible thing in the world I’ve ever seen, by far. After he was born, all of the mother’s colour returned, she looked like an angel, she had a kind of holy glow." Bathetically, it was only then that the couple recognised Kirby. "They were going, 'Oh my God, it’s Princess Margaret! This is so weird!'"

The experience has given her a new philosophy on life, she says. "I was watching the mother go through these contractions, which were excruciating, and the pushing, and then there was a moment of calm, and of expansion. And so, when I’m going through things in my life, I say to myself, this is like a contraction, surrender to it, because there might be something born from it. Sometimes we don’t want that; when we’re feeling something horrible, we want it to pass as far as possible. I’m teaching myself to allow it to be there and not resist or push it away, and that’s because of that woman."

But her character’s storyline also demanded that Kirby understand the experience of stillbirth. A friend introduced her to a woman who had lost her baby Luciana under eerily similar circumstances to those in Martha’s narrative. "She shared everything with me." They have become close friends, and the film’s ending is dedicated to Luciana. Kirby continues to work with Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity, and is voluble in her admiration of the Duchess of Sussex and Chrissy Teigen, both of whom have recently spoken out about their own experiences of miscarriage.

"I feel so close to them and so proud of them for breaking that silence," she says. "Meghan is probably the last person who would feel comfortable sharing her very personal, intimate feelings. It’s that courage that I want to continue to honour. What they’re saying is, if you’ve been through it, we have too, we share your story. I think that makes you feel less lonely. But one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, which is far more than I knew about. Society finds it difficult to hold space for that kind of pain."

Her parents, to whom she is very close, have both seen the film and wept throughout, she says. As if on cue, her phone pings, and her eyes soften when she checks the message; it’s a childhood friend who herself miscarried, getting in touch to say how much the film has meant to her.

The integrity of Kirby’s performance has already netted her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. "It doesn’t seem real," she says. "I have it in its case – I wouldn’t have it on display, it looks like a football trophy – but occasionally I glance at it and think, 'Did that really happen? Or did I make it up in a weird dream?'" In a similar vein, she is reluctant to engage with the Oscar buzz surrounding her. "I don’t even know when they are," she admits. "My 13-year-old self would have a heart attack. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it!"

Kirby’s other film, The World to Come, is set in mid-19th-century America but touches on the same themes of bereavement and redemption. The central character Abigail, played by Katherine Waterston, has also lost her young daughter, and in her grief, turns away from her husband to have an affair with Tallie, her free-spirited, flame-haired neighbour. "I was glad I was playing Tallie rather than Abigail, because it might have been a bit too much," Kirby confesses – though without giving away spoilers, that role is pretty traumatic too...

The screenplay is taken from the short story of the same name by Jim Shepard, which was inspired by an entry he found in an antique diary: 'My best friend’s moved away, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.' "It was one woman’s voice, like an echo from the past, and we’ll never know who she was," says Kirby. "The World to Come really educated me about what life was like for women not that long ago. They didn’t have a choice about anything they did with their time. You were owned by the house, and the man, and you had no freedom outside that. The best thing about doing this mad job sometimes is having your ignorance illuminated. I gravitate towards things that push beyond my experience, I want to go to places I don’t know, I’m not familiar with."

The experience of making both films has changed her profoundly. "I can’t do anything unless it means something to me now," she says. "It’s a better way to work, because you’re not focused on yourself at all. So maybe I’ll only work once every 10 years!"

To ensure that this is not the case, and in order to find more untold, female-led stories, her ambition is now to set up her own production company. "Even a few years ago, a film about a woman losing a baby would have been unthinkable. There are so many voiceless people, and I have a voice in this industry, and I want to make sure the tribe is represented properly."

It is undeniably awkward, therefore, that her male co-stars in the films, Shia LaBeouf and Casey Affleck, both of whom play violent, abusive husbands, have been called out for their treatment of women. In December, the British singer FKA Twigs filed a lawsuit against LaBeouf, her ex-partner, alleging that he "hurts women. He uses them. He abuses them, both physically and mentally". While LaBeouf largely denied the accusations, he admitted in a statement to The New York Times: "I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say."

Meanwhile, Affleck was sued by two female crew members working on his 2010 film I’m Still Here, one of whom accused him of sexual harassment. He denied the allegations, and the lawsuits were settled out of court, but he later told the Associated Press: "I behaved in a way, and I allowed others to behave in a way, that was really unprofessional, and I’m sorry."

Kirby is understandably reluctant to get into any of this. "I can’t comment on a legal case that’s going on in someone’s personal life," she says. "I feel really protective of Pieces, so that’s what I want to speak about. Because it came out at eight this morning, all I can think about is the mothers I spoke to, and wanting them to be my focus. I just know my job is to honour them."

Perhaps counter-intuitively, starring in Pieces has awakened in her the desire for a family of her own. "It’s definitely made me want a baby, for sure," she says; but she hasn’t currently got a partner, having split up from Callum Turner (Frank Churchill in last year’s Emma), whom she met when they co-starred in the 2014 film Queen & Country. "This year has made me think a lot about the home I want to create. I like the idea of inviting someone into a space that’s mine, preferably before I have kids."

In the near future, however, Kirby has nothing on her plate except for getting through a third lockdown. "I’m free as a bird! I’ve read a lot of stuff, and said no to a lot of stuff..." She currently shares a flat in Tooting, south London, with her sister Juliet, an assistant director, and two friends. "I was just about to move out to live on my own in north London – my God, I would have been so lonely! My sister saved me. It was so nice to have routines together. We were trying to take a bit of exercise, cooking together, watching films that made us feel better, drinking wine on Friday nights..."

By now, having circled St James’s Park several times, we are strolling back towards the Corinthia Hotel, where Kirby has a full programme of Zoom interviews lined up for the afternoon. "That’s why I’m so happy to have actually had the chance to go out and meet you in real life," she says enthusiastically. "It’s funny when everything in your life closes down, and you have to sit with yourself, and you suddenly notice all the things you have and you’re grateful for. I hope that feeling never goes away – I will never underestimate how lucky I am."

#Vanessa Kirby #Pieces of a Woman #The World to Come #Interview #Articles

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riversofmars · 3 years ago

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Hi all! I love hearing all of your theories and thoughts, thank you so much! I'm having a brilliant time writing and am so excited, as things are about to start happening! :D Enjoy! <3

Chapter 4: The Board Is Set

London, Late 19th Century

Back in the TARDIS, as they set off, Yaz felt a little more in her element. She joined the Doctor at the console while Vastra and Jenny equipped themselves with Samurai swords and Strax checked through his grenade packs. The Doctor was quiet and deep in thought.

“So… you’re married.“ Yaz said after a while of watching her fiddle with the controls without doing much. The course was set and the TARDIS knew the way.

“Hm.“ The Doctor wasn’t quite paying attention to her.

“It’s just that… you never mentioned and you’re not wearing a wedding ring.“ Yaz observed, her voice soft. She sensed it was difficult for her friend to talk about but she wanted to understand. Why had she never mentioned River before?

The Doctor didn’t answer and Yaz felt her heart sink. Maybe she was not quite ready to confide in her yet. Defeated, she was just about to turn and head back to the others, but the Doctor finally spoke up:

“I lost it…“

“Oh…“ Yaz didn’t know what to say, that wasn’t the response she had expected.

“When I regenerated, it was too big and it just slipped off… and then, the TARDIS turned on its side and exploded and I fell… and…“ The Doctor broke off. “I didn’t even look for it…“ She admitted meeting Yaz’s eyes at last. “It was easier… not the have the constant reminder… when I knew we wouldn’t see each other again.“

“Why wouldn’t you?“ Yaz asked with a frown. From what she had gathered about their relationship so far, there was no way of knowing when and if they would see each other again.

“Our time is up.“ The Doctor gave a sad smile. She tried her best to be patient, to explain, but she didn’t expect Yaz to understand.

“You can’t know that. Even you can’t know what your future holds.“ Yaz crossed her arms in front of her chest, standing her ground, but the Doctor just gave a bitter laugh and a shake of her head, returning her attention to the console. “Doctor you have a child!“ Yaz exclaimed, she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. She was growing more frustrated by the minute. She understood the pain and heartbreak the Doctor surely felt for the loss of her wife. She sympathised with the confusion and fear about these new revelations. Nevertheless, surely, amongst it all, her friend must have realised that she had gained something incredible as well. She had a child! Maybe not here and yes, terrible scary things were happening, but she had a child. Something incredibly precious her late wife had left behind and surely that was cause for joy, even during the darkest moments.

“Yaz, stop it, stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about.“ The Doctor interrupted her firmly. “You don’t know what my relationship with River has been like. What we’ve been through. And the pain for knowing how we would end up. I’m not going to walk out of this with a family!“ The Doctor’s voice cracked ever so slightly. “If we somehow, miraculously manage to find this child…“

“Your child, your son.“ Yaz interjected firmly.

“Even if we find him and if he’s okay, it doesn’t bring her back. River will still be gone. Our son will never see his mother again. We will never be a family.“ There was a bitter sadness to her voice.

“Does he have a name? Did the Professor say what he was called?“ Yaz looked to Vastra who pretended like they hadn’t been listening in.

“No. She said that was a decision she wanted to make with the Doctor.“ Vastra answered promptly.

“Perhaps that’s something you can decided when you talk to your wife again and tell her he’s safe. You can decide that as a family.“ Yaz turned back to the Doctor who chose not to answer, she returned her attention to the console.

Yaz squared her jaw, frustrated. While she didn’t have the sprawling knowledge of the Doctor’s past the others seemed to have, she felt like she had heard enough to understand what was going on. She tried to be sympathetic towards the Doctor’s struggle but she couldn’t grasp why she was shutting herself off so completely. There had to be more to it. The Doctor was not the same since prison, since whatever happened on Gallifrey. All the Doctor had told her was that the Master had died and the planet was a wasteland. She refused to speak of anything beyond that, no matter how much she pushed.

Yaz was about to protest, demand a reaction, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked around to Vastra who gave her an understanding smile, as well as a firm indication to leave it for the time being.

“Where are we going?“ The lizard woman turned to the Doctor, changing the subject.

“Old acquaintance, you’ll remember him well.“ The Doctor answered in an off-hand sort of way as she straightened herself up and checked the contents of her pockets like a soldier readying their weapons. The comparison hadn’t occurred to Yaz before now but it suddenly felt most appropriate. “The TARDIS has a fix on him, though he’s not where I expected he would be…“

“How about filling those in that haven’t been travelling with you since the dawn of time?“ Yaz pipped up, frustrated for feeling out of the loop again. “Where are we going?“

“There is no business like information and there is someone that has done very well for himself out of it.“ The Doctor worked the controls and the TARDIS wheezed as it landed.

“Armed and ready, Sir!“ Strax announced removing the safety of his blaster rifle. He looked ecstatic for being back in Sontaran armour and Yaz had to admit he looked a more normal sight now than he had in his butler’s uniform.

“Perhaps going in all guns blazing might not be required?“ Jenny suggested pushing Strax’s gun down. She did, however, keep her hand firmly on the hilt of her sword. There was no way of knowing what they would encounter once they left the relative safety of the TARDIS.

“It is exactly what’s required, carry on Strax, I’m not here to mess around.“ The Doctor interrupted as she headed for the door.

“We might make a Sontaran soldier of you yet, Sir!“ Strax grinned with excitement.

“Doctor…“ Vastra, always the voice of reason, tried to intervene but the Doctor cut her off:

“I don’t want to hear it.“ She opened the door and stepped outside.

“She’s not right…“ Yaz whispered to Vastra as they followed.

“No she’s not. But that’s what we’re here for.“ The Silurian replied and they stepped out of the TARDIS as well.

“Wow…“ Yaz was at a loss for words at first. She felt like they had just walked into the iconic Mos Eisly Cantina from Star Wars. The lighting was dim, there was music playing and aliens upon aliens of all shapes and sizes occupied tables and bar stools. The chatter of dozens of foreign languages added to the other-worldliness of the place. It took a moment for the TARDIS’s translation matrix to set in with as many languages as this. “That’s a lot of aliens in one place.“ Was the best observation Yaz could manage.

“That’s probably what they thought of us as we piled out of the TARDIS.“ Vastra commented in amusement as they closed the door behind them.

“This way.“ The Doctor didn’t give them time to linger and look around, she pushed ahead through the crowd. Yaz could feel everyone’s eyes on them, their obvious display of weapons probably didn’t help. Judging by the variety of dangerous creatures around them, however, she was glad they would be able to defend themselves if it came to it.

“What is this place?“ Yaz asked, falling into step with Jenny. She didn’t want to keep bothering Madame Vastra with her questions, her scaly expression had turned very serious indeed; her human wife seemed more approachable.

“This is the Maldovarium.“ Jenny answered with a pleasant smile. “A popular trading hub, black market basically. Everything you could possibly need you can find here.“ She explained as she looked around the bar.

“Like information?“ Yaz concluded.

“Dorium Maldovar’s speciality.“ Vastra added turning her head towards the two humans as they came to a halt. “He is an acquaintance of the Doctor’s and their wife…“

“Welcome!“ As if on cue, a boastful voice greeted them. It belonged to a very large man of distinctive blue skin. He was dressed in exquisite robes of silky materials and spread his arms out in greeting. Even amongst the other colourful aliens, he stood out.

“But I do remember him to be a little less of a man, last we saw him…“ Vastra carried on under her breath as they stepped closer.

“Did he grow a new body?“ Jenny whispered back.

“It would take years to cultivate a body that size.“ Strax added in his usual loud voice.

“Don’t be rude, Strax.“ Vastra chastised him and the Sontaran rolled his eyes. Yaz couldn’t quite follow their line of conversation but she hoped it would make sense to her later.

“We need to talk, Dorium.“ The Doctor walked right up to the blue man who looked at her surprised.

“And who, pray tell, are…“ He didn’t seem to recognise her at first, not until the Doctor’s companions stepped into the light as well. “Madame Vastra. Miss Flint. Commander Strax…“ Dorium seemed to be going a paler shade of blue all of a sudden.

“We might want to handle this in private.“ Vastra advised, scanning the room for possible eavesdroppers, but the Doctor was too impatient:

“Have you spoken to my wife recently?“ She asked, stepping into his personal space.

“Doctor, is it really…“ He looked her up and down and it was difficult to tell whether he was actually taken aback by her change of body or if he was playing for time.

“Don’t give me that, as if you haven’t got pictures of all my faces by now, very little passes through this universe without you knowing. Have you spoken to River?“ The Doctor bit back sharply. She didn't have time for games.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.“ Dorium feigned innocence but there was a measure of nervousness to his voice.

“Don’t make me come back there.“ The Doctor lowered her voice threateningly.

“Doctor, I speak to so many people every day. Professor Song, being a long standing customer and dare I say, friend, of course I talk…“ Dorium started rambling but the Doctor interrupted him.

“What exactly did you tell her.“ She pressed on.

“I haven’t seen the Professor in a very long time, as I understand it, condolences are in order, Doctor…“ Dorium started again but the Doctor grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close. Around them, several patrons started to take notice and Yaz watched, getting slightly unnerved, as Vastra and Jenny pulled their swords out halfway, in warning.

“Do not mess with me, Dorium, I am having a very bad day.“ The Doctor growled. “Strax, see that pillar behind the bar?“ She carried on without looking around.

“Yes?“ Strax said slowly, surprised to be called upon. He spotted the pillar in question.

“It’s a generator.“ The Doctor revealed something she had noticed straight away upon entering the bar. “Use it for target practice.“

“No!“ Dorium exclaimed but Strax was quicker.

“Yes!“ He grinned in excitement and fired at the structure. All the lights went out and Dorium vanished in a flash. There was shouts of confusion at the sudden darkness and several weapons discharged as their owners feared attack. Chaos ensured until finally the back up generators kicked in and emergency lighting came on.

“Alright, alright, someone show them back here.“ A voice called from somewhere in the back of house and a waiter gestured for the Doctor to follow.

“Solidograms, nice trick.“ The Doctor stated as they walked into the back area. The projection, though solid and life like, had not been able to fool her. Amongst ornate decorations and piles of art, wealth and treasure, they found the real Dorium Maldovar. Yaz nearly fell over her own feet, startled to see Dorium’s balled head but little else. It sat in a wooden box atop a desk.

——

Sheffield, 2021

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what is it we’re dealing with?“ Graham set down a fresh cup of tea in front of Kate.

“UNIT didn’t just cease operations for no reason and of its own accord.“ Kate revealed as she leaned forward and picked up the cup, some conversations were better had over a cup of tea. “Someone wanted us out of the way.“

“How do you know that?“ Graham asked sitting down again as well.

“When the defence budget was being discussed in a closed session, the director of UNIT and two supporting MPs were due to give statements. It was only a formality, the budget was due to be granted as it always has been.“ Kate started explaining.

“What happened?“ Ryan asked confused as to what could possibly have gone wrong if it had never been an issue before?

“The day of the session, all three advocates simply didn’t show up for their testimony.“ Kate gave a shrug.

“What? All three of them?“ Ryan frowned and Graham agreed:

“That’s one hell of a coincidence.“

“As a result, the budget was cut and UNIT had to cease operations.“ Kate carried on and took a sip of her tea. “Obviously, myself and many colleagues were shocked and went looking for answers as to why they didn’t show up.“

“And you found they’d been… what? Killed?“ Graham jumped to the most obvious, grim solution. If someone wanted UNIT out of the way they probably were planning something big. If this wasn’t about the Daleks, then who was behind it?

“Worse.“ Kate retorted.

“Don’t like the sound of that.“ Ryan shook his head, exchanging a concerned glance with his grandfather. This sounded exactly like the sort of thing they had been planning on protecting Earth from while the Doctor was away.

“They appeared to never have excited.“ Kate stated, looking into stunned faces. “The budget committee had no record of them being due to speak, in fact, Parliament had no recollection of the two MPs ever being elected.“

“What? They just disappeared?“ Graham asked, confused.

“Not just them, any record of them, any memory…“ Kate carried on, though she seemed to be having trouble phrasing her own thoughts. “The only reason I can tell you about this is because I read the file again on the way here. And even the files… they just… fade after a while. As does my memory. We have to keep reminding ourselves… and some details are lost already, like their names, what they looked like… it’s like they’re being erased.“ She broke off as she struggled to think of anything else to say.

“But that’s not possible.“ Graham crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You can’t just erase people.“

“I’m afraid it is, this is why we need your help.“ Kate gave them an apologetic smile. She realised they had probably been hoping for a break from the adventure, returning to their lives, as they had made the choice to stay on Earth but it couldn’t be helped.

“How can we help? We literally have a physic paper to our name, that’s about it.“ Ryan admitted. This felt like a tall order to tackle without the Doctor.

“There is one thing we have noticed. The memory loss seems to effect some people more than others. Like I said, the members of Parliament didn’t recall their colleagues whom they served with a mere day after the hearing. Even after reminding them, they can’t recall. Some of us at UNIT, however, seem to be able to retain the memories for a while, so long as we keep refreshing it.“ Kate explained.

“Why do you think that is?“ Ryan and Graham exchanged concerned glances again.

“The only correlation we have been able to find is the Doctor. The more time each of us has spent with them, the more… resilient out memory appears to be to change.“ Kate revealed, though she couldn’t quite make sense of it herself yet. They had a long way to go but this was a start. “That’s why I’m here, asking for your help, you are uniquely qualified.“

——

The Maldovarium, 52nd Century

“Well, I can’t very well be greeting customers in my current state.“ Dorium huffed as they came to stand around the desk where he could see them.

“Talking of current state, last I saw you, you were in the Seventh Transept.“ The Doctor observed looking around. Dorium had done well for himself, he was back in business. “It’s not like you walked out of there by yourself, is it.“ She returned her attention to the head on the box.

“I may have had some assistance, yes. You do realise I’m very well connected.“ Dorium pointed out and the Doctor huffed:

“You were sitting in the Transept for decades after Demon’s Run, you don’t expect me to believe that suddenly, miraculously, one of your cronies turns up to save you long last.“ She shook her head.

“Why are you here, Doctor?“ Dorium asked, hoping to change the subject.

“I told you, I need to know exactly what you told my wife.“ She answered. “And I would like to know how you know about it.“

“Well, it’s nothing really, just gossip, she likes me to keep her informed whenever new information about you arises.“ Dorium explained reluctantly. “I daresay, she would be delighted if I send her word of your change of complexion…“

“And what new information was that?“ The Doctor demanded to know, frustrated with his evasive answers. “I swear Dorium, if you don’t tell me right now, I will put your head on a spike outside your bar!“ She leaned onto the desk threateningly.

“Inspired choice of decor, Sir, if I might say.“ Strax threw in.

“Strax.“ Jenny sighed but no-one paid attention to his comment.

“Well, it was the first I’d heard of it anyway and I haven’t since.“ Dorium sighed, realising it was in his best interest to just come out with it. “The Timeless Child… I wouldn’t have connected it to you, had they not specifically said it related to you in some way.“ The Doctor’s eyes widened in surprise. It sounded as though someone had told Dorium on purpose. Someone had betrayed the secret of the Time Lords.

“That’s not something you just let slip.“ The Doctor shook her head firmly. After ages of burying the secret deep, there was no way anyone would just unearth and chat about it to just anyone. She also couldn’t imagine anyone would want to save Dorium without an ulterior motive? “Did they tell you to pass it on to River?“

“No, but I thought it would be just the thing she would want to know about. So as soon as I got home, I sent word to Darillium.“ Dorium answered. “You’re acting like I did something wrong.“

“Who was it that told you about this?“ The Doctor ignored his offended tone.

“The person that retrieved you from the Transept?“ Vastra suggested, sensing that it was all somehow connected. Her detective work had taught her never to ignore coincidence. Dorium’s silence was confirmation enough.

“That’s how it started, they must have done it on purpose. They knew you would pass the message along and that River would feel the need to investigate it.“ The Doctor mused, turning back to the others. She tried her hardest to keep her emotions under wrap but she felt the anger searing her insides. “It’s all part of a plan, part of a… game.“

“But why?“ Yaz asked, confused.

“Perhaps to make her leave Darillium? And your protection? And with her, your child?“ Jenny suggested.

“If they had been as calculating as that, they could have grabbed River the moment she left and kept hold of her until she gave birth.“ The Doctor shook her head, it didn't seem to make sense.

“They might not have if they realised how complicated her timeline was. She is a complex space time event like yourself. Her death was already a fixed point, intercepting her could have…“ Vastra pointed out.

“You’d need understanding of the time streams for that, you’d have to be…“ The Doctor mused.

“A Time Lord?“ Vastra prompted and the Doctor turned back towards Dorium.

“Who saved you from the Transept?“ The Doctor asked as the others exchanged concerned glances. “Who’s game is this?“

“Come to think of it, they didn’t actually give a name…“ Dorium mused before clearing his throat awkwardly.

“How convenient.“ Jenny huffed.

“I thought it was you at first. Not very many people are in possession of a TARDIS these days but judging by your expression, it probably wasn’t.“ Dorium explained, giving a defeated sigh.

“A TARDIS?“ Yaz exclaimed surprised and unsettled while the Doctor kept her expression stoic.

“What did they look like.“ She asked.

“Well, he was male… dark hair, beard… not very tall… but then, it’s hard to judge height when you’re sitting in a box…“ Dorium answered reluctantly.

“Doctor, do you think it could be…“ Yaz felt her stomach turn as the description sounded terribly familiar.

“He’s dead. The Master is dead.“ The Doctor snapped, refusing to entertain the thought.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you were wrong about that.“ Vastra pointed out more calmly.

The Doctor’s mind was racing. The Master was the only person who knew about the Timeless Child but she firmly believed that he had perished on Gallifrey at the release of the death particle. Surely no-one, not even the Master could survive that, could they?

Suddenly the atmosphere around them changed. The temperature jumped twenty degrees and screams sounded from the adjourning bar.

“What is going on?“ Yaz asked dizzy from the sudden change. Jenny drew her sword, as if awaiting an attacker to emerge. She looked to Vastra with great concern, she knew her cold-blooded wife would struggle with the sudden heat. Vastra was quick to throw her coat off, looking around as well, trying to keep her breathing steady. Strax backed up to the door, looking back into the bar.

“The cowards have run away.“ He announced when he realised the bar was empty.

The Doctor stood petrified for a moment, her senses overwhelmed.

“Something is happening to time.“ She breathed, feeling it in her very bones. The time line of the planet was in flux and it left her disoriented.

“What’s happening?“ Vastra breathed heavily and loosened the collar of her shirt.

“Doctor?“ Dorium called from his box. “Are you responsible for this?“

“Should I shoot something again? Perhaps the heating?“ Strax suggested.

Finally, the Doctor managed to shake off the confusion and she rushed to a window. Her eyes took a moment to adjust as she looked out. Gone was the dreary cold landscape and perpetual twilight of the unnamed planetoid Dorium had set up shop on. A blazing sun had appeared in the sky, practically cooking the surface below.

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