#ocean swimming is the great equalizer

[remembertheplunge]

A New Journal Begins

July 27, Saturday 8:37pm

A new journal begins. Where does it find us? Everything I have done, been, said, lived, experienced, has led up to this entry. Has fueled this 'Now".

Mojan has been texting me about "Now". "NOW-ing". No future. No past. Just now.

Per New Dimensions Radio guest, Dr Rick Hansen, now lasts about one and one half seconds. A good inhale takes longer than that.

I heard on KPFA radio yesterday, the 3-4pm Friday psychology show, that we are more than "be-ing". We are a verb. We are be-coming" I kind of like that.

But, we be-come from a constant be-ing which is "NOW".

Enough.

Beautiful swim today. Ernst had just finished his swim as I prepared to start mine. We met on the Dolphin club beach around 10:25am. He said "The water is delightful." It was!

Interesting---he's a Da. I'm a defense attorney---but, we meet at water's edge and we are swimmers. That's all---the Ocean is the great equalizer. It reduces us down to bodies and the sea.

End of entry

Notes: July 28, 2024

I met Mojan in a local gym in 2019. We have become good friends. We share thoughts and ideas on the concepts of "being" and "NOW".

Ernst is a Deputy District Attorney. I am a criminal defense attorney. We practice in different counties. In court , the district attorney and the defense attorney are adversaries. But, not when confronted with swimming in the ocean!

The Dolphin Club is a swimming and rowing club at Aquatic Park in San Fransisco, California.

[themusingsofacurlyhairednerd]

Ludos Imperiales

Summary: A Princess!Reader x Gladiator!Bat Boys fic that's been swimming around in my head for weeks after watching Gladiator I and II

Content Warnings: Blood and Gore, Mentions of Torture, Slavery, and Assault

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“So good of you to finally join us, cousin.” The din of the crowd nearly drowns out the words, the feverish cheers echoing off the massive stone pillars that hold the auditorium seats up and away from the stench of death and decay that permeates from the mud soaked pit beneath the plush outdoor auditorium. There are rows of decadent booths along the pit's edge, each box set with plush chases and golden edged pillows. Slaves with palm fronds fan ornately dressed royals, their faces obscured by gold lined veils. The auditorium oozes wealth and luxury, offers decadent food and drink and deep enough betting pools to make the strictest penny pinchers among the elite crawl out of their caves to try their luck.

The altar for the Mother gleams golden in the afternoon sunlight, the carved statue standing with arms and feathered wings outstretched in welcome. Beckoning those to come and offer a bit of blood in hopes of trading it for some luck. Luck for the gamblers, of course, never the males, and sometimes females, who fight and die in the muddy pit far beneath the first row of booths. My father says they made the Games to punish our enemies, and to reward our soldiers, but both fight and die as equals all the same. 

I frown first at the statue, how could our most beloved Goddess reward this kind of brutality? Then at my cousin, who I remember, is still waiting for me to speak. Dagdan sports his military regalia, the glittering medals across his chest all pinned there by my father for his service to our great empire. Service he never actually participated in. Dagdan can wield a sword because of the patience of his tutors, he’s never raised it in battle, despite the stories he tells at every possible turn. 

“Father said the Games would be impressive this year,” I reply, trying to keep the bite out of my tone. Mother raised me to be demure, to keep my chin up, to never let an enemy see what I was feeling. She had been good at that, too good, perhaps that was why she had been publicly executed. For all her poise, she had not been able to outmatch my Father’s paranoia.

Beside him, Dagdan’s twin sister Brannagh grins, her pearly white teeth a harsh contrast to her otherwise impassive face. It’s like watching a shark try to grin. “The Uprising in the Courts made for a lot of candidates this year.”

My stomach turns. The Empire is vast, spreading across continents and oceans. The Courts in Prythian were the last of the fae to fall in line before Father turned his attention to the Human Lands. Each year, more and more slaves and captives are carted in through the iron gates far beneath the smooth stones we stand on, all tossed into the mud to fight each other for a slim possibility of survival. Some come willingly, chasing fortune and gold; some are sponsors of Father’s Inner Circle, their armor always pristine, their weapons always sharp. But most of the gladiators are slaves, crammed into dingy cells in the catacombs beneath the arena. Despite the decadence of the auditorium, one visit down into the bowels of this awful place was enough to scar me for life. As Father intended, I’m sure. Our esteemed Emperor had not been shy about his disdain for not being able to produce a son and his paranoia often convinced him that I would one day find a husband crafty enough to steal his Throne before he found a match he thought suitable, he often dragged me to these things to remind me the brutality he was capable of if I stepped out of line. No doubt it was why he’d insisted I come out today. I had not been out in public in some time, not after the grief of losing my mother had so thoroughly consumed me. My grief had shamed him; had made some in his Inner Circle suspect I was also plotting against him. My presence here was as much a check into my loyalties as it was to remind me of what fate could befall me if I kept on wallowing away in the dark.

I smooth my hands over my skirts, putting thoughts of my Mother aside. It always feels like a gaping wound in my chest, nerve and sinew exposed and open for every onlooker to see. I must reign it in. For the sake of my future. 

“We’ll see a lot of Fae, then?” There were a lot of elves last year and shifters the year before that. There is no prejudice in the games. Race and gender matter little in a battle of survival. 

The twins follow me as I find my way through the bustling crowd to our booth, where I know Father will already be waiting. 

“Some humans for the first round,” Dagdan spits like he’s tasted something vile. 

“Some half-breeds and mutts for the second,” Brannagh finishes with far more delight than her brother. Their eagerness from blood is one of the few reasons Father didn’t name their heir in my place. Brutality is necessary, but bloodlust turns a well rounded Empire on its head. Father placates them by giving them titles, parading them around like their important so they remain loyal, but he will never truly give them the power they seek. They’re simply not smart enough to see it.

“But the final round will be entertaining,” Dagdan says, gray eyes twinkling as the wall of guards at attention in Father’s booth part for us. 

Our esteemed emperor sits on a throne made entirely of gold, a goblet of wine already in his hands. A circlet of gold leaf perches on top of his salt and pepper hair, the sharp edges reflecting the light along the crimson curtains that help keep out the summer heat. We all bow to him as we enter, and Father reaches out a hand for mine without ever looking at us. 

“It is good to see you outside again, daughter,” he says, chapped lips brushing over my knuckles in a brief display of affection. 

“I’m sorry it has been so long, Father,” I keep my voice even, unbothered. I will not let any of them see how much I hate all of this. 

He guides me to sit on the couch beside the throne, where I have ample view of the uneven floor below. Yesterday’s rain has filled the giant pit with mud. Mud that could have easily been covered and smoothed out to make the playing field fair for all, but that is not how these Games work. Bones still litter the uneven ground, a rib cage protruding from a mound of dirt, a crumbling arrow still caught inside it. There’s the skull of an animal turned upside down, a stream of muddy water running out the eye sockets like some sort of twisted water fountain. Old weapons lay scattered around the arena floor; a wagon weaves around boulders and mounds of loose earth to scatter more. 

“I trust you’re feeling better?” The question is pointed, for the sake of my cousins. He has been telling people the shock of my Mother’s supposed betrayal had been too much on my health and I’d been bed ridden. It’s not entirely far from the truth. 

“Yes, Father. The sunlight does me good.” Not far from the truth either. It is nice to be away from the palace and all the chaos that comes with it. 

Brannagh sits beside me, a slave scurrying behind her with a fan, a second not far behind with some wine. She stretches her long legs out in front of her with a sigh, the sunlight drifting through the curtains making her pale skin look translucent. “Do you have a favorite to win today, Uncle?”

My Father sips from his goblet, a bit of wine caught in his graying beard. “Just a favorite to lose,” he chuckles. Though he is getting older, the gleam in his slate gray eyes is still sharp and youthful. Even with his bouts of paranoia, his mind is still sharp and calculating. 

“Do tell, before it’s too late for me to change my bets,” Dagdan quips. Though I doubt it is all in jest, my cousin is far more in debt than he realizes. 

Horns blare from the upper rings of the arena, signalling those still milling about placing bets and finding food to get to their seats. The Games will start soon. My stomach twists itself into a new knot. There is no shortage of ways my Father will have found to torment the poor souls who find themselves in the pit today, I am not eager to see what they are. 

“There was some… trouble in the mountain regions of the Courts,” he says carefully. 

I force myself not to turn and look at him. Trouble for my father usually means rebellion, or outright war, anything else is too insignificant to mention. In my seclusion, I had not even caught wind of it. 

“We have a few insurrectionists I’d like to see fall today.”

Few are foolish enough to raise a hand against the Empire. It usually means their provinces go without food and aid in the harsher months of the year. I am curious to see who would be foolish enough to risk the lives of their people. 

“Those great wings of theirs would make an excellent trophy on my wall,” Father finishes. 

A shiver runs down my spine. It would not be the first gruesome trophy of his, but still, the outright admittance to such cruelty still makes me tremble. My unease is only heightened by the arrival of my Father’s General, who enters the booth followed by a handful of male slaves, all barely dressed.

“Amarantha!” It is no secret that my Father has always wished I shared the temperament and constitution of his beloved General. If he had to be cursed with a female for an heir, he wanted ruthlessness, cunning, and a smile that could peel paint. All things the red headed fae oozed in abundance. 

All things my Father was convinced I lacked. I’d take it. His disdain was better than being exactly like her. I can’t help the way my nose crinkles at the sight of her. Brannagh moves closer to the edge of the couch, in hopes of ending up in her line of vision, eager to swap stories before the Games officially start. Brannagh wants to be just like her, the gaggle of pleasure slaves included. The two of them would unleash hell on the world if my Father ever put the two of them together. 

“Your Highness,” Amarantha bows, the loose fabric of her nearly sheer gown spilling to give my Father ample view of her cleavage. I stopped allowing myself to question the nature of their relationship long ago; my stomach turns thinking about it. 

“It is a good day for betting, don’t you think?” She asks. Her voice is like gravel, fitting since its the color of her eyes. A finger bone dangles from her neck, an eye encased in glass sitting atop her finger; though she is lean, she is stronger and more deadly than most people assume at first glance. Everything about her is dangerously sharp. 

“I was just telling Dagdan the same thing,” my Father says.

Those dark eyes flick briefly to my cousin, who puffs up his chest, but she ignores him entirely as her gaze settles on me. “Princess! I didn’t know you’d be joining us today. What a monumental occasion!”

“I thought the fresh air would do me some good,” I say simply. What else is there to say to Evil Incarnate? Perhaps I should put more energy into being clever, I know that if Amarantha saw a benefit to cleaving my head from my shoulders, she’d take it--power is all she cares about, so far we haven’t faced each other because she doesn’t think I have enough to steal--but I cannot summon the energy. Ever since the incident with my Mother, I have not managed to find much in me at all. Especially not for Amarantha and her social climbing. 

“Nothing like a little blood sport to invigorate the mind,” she purrs as she lowers herself into the seat at my Father’s right hand. One of her slaves perches on the arm of her chair, bare chest glinting with oils in the harsh sunlight. Another sits at her feet, and her nails, sharpened to points, drift harshly through his thick curls. 

I watch my cousin run her tongue over her lips at the sight. 

“Did you place any bets, Princess?” Amarantha continues as someone brings her a goblet of wine. She sniffs suspiciously at it before instructing one of her slaves to test it first. Perhaps poison would be a mercy. 

Never admit weakness. Never admit that my solitude has kept me out of the loop and left me ill prepared for whatever is about to happen in the Pit beneath us. Instead, I say, “We have several days of entertainment, I prefer to observe on the first day.”

To his credit, my Father does reach over and pat my shoulder in approval. 

“Clever,” she says, but there’s enough bite in it to not make it a compliment. 

“My money is on your Attor, as always, General,” Brannagh says with the eagerness of a child with a crush. 

Amarantha huffs in annoyance, as if my cousin is a fly buzzing around her ear, “He’s too good, its almost boring at this point.”

Brannagh deflates, but before she can come up with something witty in response, the final warning horn blows from the rafters. The Games will begin. 

I turn my attention away from my company, watching brightly dressed royals rush to their booths. There are all sorts of creatures here to watch: Elves and Fae and Fawn, a few Goblins and Giants, observing from a standing platform opposite us. There is room for most, save for humans, within the Empire, as long as they prove their usefulness. That is my Father’s crowning achievement, the Hybern Empire has room for all, if you play your cards right and never step out of line. 

The groaning of the gates draws my attention away from the spectators and down into the Pit beneath us, where a whole cart of humans appears from the gloom of one of the entrances. They look small; mud and blood splattered as several Praetorian guards usher them out of the cart with spears bigger than most of their heads. The guards do not remove their shackles, leaving all twelve of them tethered together in the center of the Pit.

The cart rolls away, the guards with it, only once their out does another gate open to let out the challenger: Amarantha’s hulking Attor. The creature is battle scarred, lines criss-crossing over its leathery skin. Its giant wings flutter on the breeze behind it as it stalks into the center, Amarantha’s crest painted in blood red over its chest. 

The crowd goes wild as it enters the pit, clawed hands swinging wildly around its hulking body. “ATTOR! ATTOR! ATTOR!” The monster has always been the crowd favorite.

Amarantha yawns. She’ll make thousands off the creature, but that is nothing to her. Money is trivial, unless it can buy her the power she craves. 

I glance at my Father as the Games Maker starts addressing the crowd and explaining the match up. “Would it not be more entertaining to unchain them?” They’re all going to die anyway, surely this gives them a fighting chance to die with some honor. “We all know the Attor will win, why make it easy for it?”

Amarantha nearly spits out her wine, a gurgling sound coming out of her as she tries to maintain her composure. 

I do not let myself grin at the victory.

Father runs a hand over his graying beard in thought. “Perhaps your solitude did you some good, Daughter.”

I do not shutter. I cannot save any of them, as pitiful and helpless as they look alongside the Attor. It will give them all gruesome deaths purely for the fun of it. But perhaps the Mother will take pity; may the chance to die fighting grant them peace in the afterlife. 

Father stands and motions for the Game Maker to quiet. “Let the humans be unchained!”

The crowd erupts into varying shouts of surprise and approval. 

“Let us test the skill of the Attor!”

This pleases the crowd, but it makes Amarantha’s cheeks flush crimson. She hides a grimace behind her wine as my Father returns to his seat. 

A single guard returns with keys, and the crowd falls into a hushed silence, waiting for chaos to ensue. I force myself not to look away; to face what I have done. One of the humans cranes its head to look up at our box and flashes us his middle finger.

Dagdan bristles in his seat next to his sister. “He should pay for that!”

They will. There will be no rescue. There is none to be found. The Empire comes for all of us eventually, best that we can do is go into it with our heads up. I am trying to accept my fate in this, what other choice do I have, lest I end up dead or locked away. 

Once the guard is clear, the horns once again blow, telling the Attor he can start his hunt. Those great wings at his back kick up loose dirt as he launches into the air with a roar that makes the arena tremble. 

The crowd cheers, leaning forward in their seats to watch as the monster swoops down and gets its great jaws around the head of the first human. Brannagh giggles at the splatter of blood that erupts from the poor creature’s neck. 

I clench my hands in my lap. 

The second human tries to run, scrambling for purchase in the thick mud. It doesn’t help that they’re all barefoot. The Attor’s claws tear through the human’s back like butter, the poor thing going down with a wail that makes my heart lurch painfully in my chest.

The third manages to find a sword, the blade rusted from the rain; the man gets a good swipe in, nicking the inside of the Attor’s palm before it gets shredded to pieces.

Each human tries a little harder than the last, getting further each time. One manages to weave around the debris and avoid being swooped down on like the first, but the uneven terrain catches her ankle, sending her sprawling down with a shout as her leg is left twisted and broken. Another manages to get an arrow into the Attor’s back, but not deep enough to do damage. They all go down fighting, and each new one has me saying a mental prayer to the Mother on their behalf, but none survive. Much to the crowd’s glee.

“Wonderful!” Brannagh says, clapping as the Attor roars in victory. 

Amarantha shrugs. “Boring.”

The Attor exits the Pit, ever the victor. The bodies it left aren’t even carted away. No one comes to pick up the pieces. No one will bury them. Their bones will rot and decay into the Pit floor.

I ask one of my Father’s servants for some wine to try and settle the nausea that rolls in my stomach, but even the smoothest of wine does not dull it. 

My Father watches me carefully, calculating every move. I do my best to keep my features neutral. 

“What did you think, Daughter?”

I take another sip of wine before speaking, giving myself time to collect my thoughts. “Humans don’t make very good gladiators.”

He laughs at that and my cousins join in, as if it was the funniest thing ever. 

“Humans don’t make good anything,” Dagdan says.

“Except for a snack,” Brannagh adds.

“Worms,” Amarantha spits.

Father raises his cup in salute to me. “May the next match be more exciting for you.”

I ignore my revulsion and return the gesture. I cannot wait for this to be over. I shall retire back into my gloomy quarters with the curtains drawn and try to scrub the gory images from my brain. Perhaps my solitude would be more comforting than this.

The horns blow announcing the next match and the Games Maker drones on and on about where these next gladiators hail from. One side are all sponsored by royal families, all males trying to make a name for themselves and some coin to feed their families. They’re all well trained and well equipped for the task. They’re a filler spot, to give the rest of the Game Makers time to prepare the next victims of the Empire’s wrath. Beneath the Pit floor, in the dark of the catacombs, the next round of war captives are likely being hauled out of their cells and prepped. I can’t help but wonder if they can hear the roaring of the Bogges and Gladiator’s alike from down there. Do they understand what is about to happen? Are they saying their final prayers to the Mother?

I can’t help but glance at Her altar. What kind of world is this that we live in? Brutal and cruel and blood splattered. If we are so favored, how could our lives look like this? It is thoughts like these that have kept me sequestered in my room. I do not know what I am supposed to live for, or who I am supposed to be any more. My life feels like it is stretching out before me, and someone else is pulling on the strings, making me a puppet that moves at their will. I no longer have the protection of my Mother. Father will soon throw me to the wolves if I am not smart or careful or cunning. The world is different and dark and I have utterly lost my way.

I am so wrapped up in my thoughts I barely register the fight. One of the males gets eaten by the terrifying Bogge, his screams echoing off the great walls. The crowd eats it up, cheering and screaming and jumping from their seats. The more blood that flows the louder they yell and cheer. These are my people? These are who I am to rule one day? What does that make me?

Dagdan huffs about his losses as the gladiators exit the arena, the Bogge all dead. He drowns his sorrows in his cup as if the solution to his terrible gambling habit might lie in the bottom. 

“Finally, now we can get to the part I’ve been waiting for!” Amarantha declares. 

Father grins. “I take it they gave you trouble on the way here?”

She spits again, a nasty habit that doesn’t bother anybody but me, apparently. “Damned Illyrians! Had to use faebane on them the whole way, otherwise they tore through the damn chains!”

Father shakes his head. “I have to admit they surprised me-” certainly a feat few have ever accomplished in his lifetime “-usually their kind throw themselves on their swords before they get caught. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

I’ll chalk that up to his paranoia talking, but I have to admit, I am intrigued by the conversation. Anyone who can surprise my Father must be very skilled. Despite my disdain for these Games, I find myself leaning forward to get a better look into the arena when I hear the grates open for the third time. 

“What is there to be surprised about?” Amarantha counters, but her words feel farther away as I catch sight of movement from the dark tunnel behind the entrance of the arena. “They’re rebels, their deaths will make martyrs out of them. They want a public execution.”

The world feels as if it has narrowed into this moment. The din of the crowd starts to fade in and out of focus. I am suddenly very aware of the roaring of my heartbeat in my own ears.

The first male steps out of the tunnel, stripped to the waist, his bronze chest smattered with cuts and scrapes and bruises so dark they’re nearly black. Dark twisting tattoos trace their way up his broad chest and over his shoulders and back, until they meet great, leathery wings like that of a bat’s. Long, dark hair, matted with mud and what might be blood, clings to his face, but despite the disheveled state, his hazel eyes remain clear and bright. 

The crowd boos when they see him. A few people hurl food at him. 

“Cassian,” Amarantha scoffs. “The rebels call him their General.”

Father frowns. “As foolish as their militia was, do not forget how many of our soldiers he killed.” 

I cannot take my eyes off him. He’s taller than the guard that leads him by his bound wrists into the Pit. Larger too. Those broad shoulders and defined abs speak volumes about how skilled in swordplay he must be.

“Will you keep his wings when he dies, Uncle?” Brannagh asks.

The wine threatens to come up at the thought of having to see such beautiful wings pinned to a wall in Father’s study. The male clearly cares for them. When the guard gets too close he flicks them out of reach. While there are some nicks in the leathery membrane, the wings are the least scarred part of him. He has to take good care of them for someone so battle hardened to keep them looking like that.

“Happily,” Father says.

Even if I wanted to look at him, I couldn’t, not as the second male enters the arena. He’s a little shorter than the first, his hair shorter, the dark onyx locks curling gently around his forehead. Blood still drips from an open gash across his temple, staining his cheek and neck crimson. Like the first, his chest is bare and marked with the same swirling tattoos, but unlike the first, his great wings hang limp behind him. One drags along the mud like a cape, the leathery membrane ripped open and bleeding, the other is twisted at an angle sharp enough to make me wince at the sight. The urge to run down to him is overwhelming. My hands drift down to the seat cushion and hold tight to keep myself still.

The crowd continues to boo and throw things as he tries to keep his head up and meet the other male in the center of the Pit. 

“Azriel,” Father says to Amarantha, “ was quite a challenge for you, I hear?”

His beloved General frowns. “The shadow wielder managed to get a few good blows in, I’ll admit. But surprise only gets you so far.”

My eyes drift from his broken wings to his hands, covered entirely in scars, like someone burned him. The thought makes my chest heavy. 

I don’t know what’s happening to me. I have never been so obviously shaken by the Games, not since the first time I’d come. Father had made me sit through weeks of slaughter, watching as gladiator after gladiator fell prey to a magic storm and a slew of magic beasts. Even then I had managed to hold it together until I’d made it home to vomit, but now I feel as if I cannot keep my body in its seat!

The magic that lives caged beneath my, usually, pristine facade cracks through, a bit of dark mist seeping out from between my fingers. I unfurl my fists and take my hands carefully into my lap, using a bit of my skirts to hide the errant flow of power. I’ve been neglecting my studies, have not given myself an outlet, this is a terrible time for a flare up! I try to focus on my breathing, the pounding of my heart isn’t helping. I need to remain calm. I need to remain in control. 

A feat that feels utterly impossible as the third and final male exits the tunnel. Time comes to a grinding halt, every footfall against the Pit floor a drumming, haunting echo in my ears. I have utterly forgotten how to breathe; how to think. The male is by far the most beautiful male I’ve ever seen, violet eyes twinkling with a thousand glittering stars. He sports the same tattoos as the others, the same bronze skin and battle hardened muscle, but it is the expression on his face that gets me. He is as battered and bloody as the second male, cheek split open, a slash mark clean down the middle of his chest; most of his body is a bruise, but he doesn’t wince at all. He keeps his chin high, high enough to look Father right in the eyes with every step he takes into the Pit. There’s a clear challenge there, unhindered by the chains around his neck and wrists. Those gorsian stone chains don’t often make an appearance, unless the person attached to them is exceptionally skilled with magic. 

“Rhysand,” this time Amarantha’s voice is an excited purr and the power trying to escape through my fingers slips faster from my palms. I dig my nails so tight into my palms they bleed. 

“I do admit, it’s a shame you have to kill him,” she continues. “He’d make such a pretty addition to my collection.” 

It is all I can do to not turn and hurl a blast of dark, obsidian power at her. I keep my gaze on the Pit instead, as the final rebel joins the others in the center. Its only once he’s there that something clicks into place in my mind. If Amarantha still speaks I can’t hear her. Time freezes again, the only signal of its passing the pounding of my heart in my ears.

They’re my mates!

And I’m about to watch them die. 

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 4: Read Between The Lines]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

It is your first week of basic training at Great Lakes on the north side of Chicago, and as you lie in the top bunk of your assigned bed you wonder what the hell you’ve done. You enlisted right out of high school, eighteen, no driver’s license, no work history, never been more than fifty miles outside of Soft Shell, Kentucky. The drill sergeants are always yelling and you’re bad at push-ups; you can’t understand the recruits from big cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, Detroit, Houston, and they don’t seem to get you either, and aren’t interested enough to try. Sometimes you wish you hadn’t signed that five-year contract, but where would you be if you weren’t here? Home is not words but textures, colors, fumes that still burn in your sinuses: cigarette ash on rose pink carpets, red embers glowing in the wood stove, Hamburger Helper and Mountain Dew, coffee creamer in Hungry Jack potatoes, laughter and heavy footsteps and slamming doors, scratch-off games, dogs barking, collecting coins from couch cushions for gas money, scrubbing clothes in the bathtub when the washer quits, Mama taking gulps from her favorite cup—plastic, Virginia Beach, filled with equal parts Hawaiian Punch and vodka—when she thinks no one is looking, blue shows flickering on the television, Family Feud, Maury, Good Morning America, WWE SmackDown. For as long as you can remember you’ve known you couldn’t stay. Now you’re getting out, but nothing in life is free.

You are at Class A Technical School in Gulfport, Mississippi, and even though it’s hotter than some noxious, volcanic hellscape—Mercury, Venus, Io—you are beginning to like it. You taste the salt of sweat when you lick your lips, sugar in the sweet tea they serve in the chow hall. There’s a magic in building something where there was only empty space before, in patching roofs and painting walls. Here being quiet and watchful is exactly what they want from you: head down, hammer striking nails, measurements and angles and long hours under the sun with no complaints. You’re not just running away anymore. You are creating something new.

You are sitting beneath swaying palm trees and a full moon on Diego Garcia, draining cans of Guinness with Rio, and he’s telling you things he shouldn’t, too personal, too honest: Sophie wants to try for a baby next time he’s home on leave, and part of him wants that too but he’s terrified. As thunder rumbles in the distance and raindrops begin to patter on the waves of the Indian Ocean, you tell Rio you think he’d be a good father. He wonders how you figure that, and you say because he’s not like any of the men from home. He gives you one of his crooked smiles—a flash of teeth, knowing dark eyes—and doesn’t ask what you mean.

But of course, when you swim up from the inky currents of sleep you are in none of these places. You are curled up on the floor of a bowling alley in Shenandoah, Ohio, cheap worn black carpet peppered with stars and swirls in neon green, pink, blue. You stretch out with a yawn. Someone has left a Lemon Tea Snapple within reach; you twist it open and guzzle it, hoping to extinguish the pounding in your skull, a rhythmic thudding of warm maroon, half Captain Morgan and half misery. The music isn’t helping. From the green Toshiba CD player, a man is singing in Spanish. Aegon and Rio are sitting at the nearest table and playing Uno.

Aegon says as he ponders his cards: “You know Enrique Iglesias, right Rio?”

“You are so racist.” Rio puts down a wild. “And the new color is red. Racist.”

“So what’s he saying?”

“Aegon, buddy, I told you, I was born here. My grandparents came over in the 60s. I don’t speak Spanish.”

“You can’t understand any of it?” Aegon is skeptical. He plays a skip, a reverse, and a seven. “My dad never taught me a word of Greek but I can recognize plenty of phrases. Vlákas means idiot. Spatáli chórou is a waste of space.”

Rio sighs, relenting. He puts down a two. “The song is called Súbeme La Radio, Turn Up The Radio For Me. Bring me the alcohol that numbs the pain… I don’t care about anything anymore…You’ve left me in the shadows…”

“Damn, now I’m sad. Draw four, bitch.”

“When the night comes and you don’t answer, I swear to you I’ll stay waiting at your door…” Rio studies his cards. “What’s the new color?”

“Green.”

“Yes!” Rio slams down a skip. “Fleeing from the past in every dawn, I can’t find any way to erase our history…”

Everyone else is awake already. As muted late-morning daylight streams in through the small tinted windows, Aemond is weaving between tables, pointedly checking on each person. He glances at you, says nothing, turns around and walks the other way.

“That’s tough,” Rio says sympathetically, popping open the tab on a can of Chef Boyardee and shoveling ravioli into his mouth with a plastic fork.

Aegon gives you a smirk. “You want to fake date now?”

“I’ll think about it.” No you won’t.

Helaena appears, a prairie girl vision in a modest blue sundress and with her hair tied back with a matching scarf. She reaches into her burlap messenger bag and offers you a choice between a ranch-flavored tuna pouch or a silvery pack of Pop-Tarts. “Strawberry,” she tells you.

“I’ll take the Pop-Tarts.”

Helaena gives them to you and then shakes a bottle of Advil. You’re so groggy it takes you a few seconds to figure out what she wants, then you obediently hold out a hand. Helaena lays two tablets in the center of your palm and moves on, soundlessly like a rabbit or a spider.

You wash the pills down with Snapple. As you nibble half-heartedly on a Pop-Tart—trying not to look at Aemond, multicolored sprinkles falling down onto the carpet—your eyes drift to the tattoo on the underside of Aegon’s forearm. It’s not over ‘til you’re underground. You’ve spotted it before. Only now do you remember where you recognize the lyric from. “Is that Green Day?”

“Yeah,” Aegon says, enthused that you noticed. “Letterbomb.”

“I love that whole album.”

“Me too. I could sing it front to back if you asked me to.”

“I’m not asking.”

Aegon cackles and resumes his Uno game with Rio. Baela is wearing denim shorts and a crop top, slathering her belly with Palmer’s cocoa butter from Walmart as she chats with Rhaena and eats Teddy Grahams. Daeron is waxing the string of his compound bow. Jace is gnawing on a Twizzler as he scrutinizes Aegon’s map, annotated with Xs and circles and arrows in sparkling gel pen green.

“I’m going to be a thousand years old by the time we get there,” Jace mutters.

Aegon hits the table with his fist. The discard pile collapses and cascades, an avalanche of Uno cards. Rio, undisturbed, continues contemplating his next move. “You know what, Jace? The cities are full of zombies, the interstates are blocked by fifty-car pileups, if we bump into anyone else who’s still alive they’re just as likely to rob and murder us as want to be friends, and on top of all that I’m trying to do you the favor of preventing you from getting so irradiated you turn into Spider-Man. If you have a better route in mind, I’d love to hear it.”

“Spider-Man…? You’re such a dumbass, what are you talking about?!”

Luke says from where he stands by a window: “Aemond, someone’s outside.”

“What?” Aemond stares at him. “Zombies?”

“No. People.”

Aemond bolts to the doors, the rest of you close behind him. Rhaena turns off the CD player. You, Rio, and Aegon squeeze together to peer out of one of the windows. There are men—three of them, no, four, all appearing to be in their forties—passing by on the main road through town. They are armed with what are either AR-15s or M16s, you can’t tell which.

Rio whistles. “If you get shot by one of those, the exit wound will be the size of an orange.” Everyone looks at him. This was not an encouraging thing to say.

You elaborate: “Thirty-round magazines. Semiautomatic, assuming they’re AR-15s for civilian use. I guess they could have gotten ahold of M16s somehow. Those have a fully automatic setting.”

“So regardless, we’re out-gunned,” Jace says.

“If they know how to use them. Some men think guns are wall decorations, like deer heads or fish.”

Aegon recoils. “Fish?! What the fuck. I’m glad the colonies left.”

“Maybe they’ll keep walking,” Daeron says hopefully. One of the men stops and points at the bowling alley, saying something to his companions. They laugh and begin crossing the small parking lot. They are less than two minutes from the door. “Oh, great…”

“There’s an emergency exit in the back,” Baela says.

Aegon snorts. “Yeah, that we stacked about twenty boxes of bowling pins in front of to zombie-proof.”

“We won’t be able to get out before they hear us,” Aemond says. Then he abruptly orders: “Grab your guns, let’s go. Helaena, Baela, Rhaena, you’re staying here.” Aemond’s remaining eye—briefly, reluctantly—skates over you as Rio, Aegon, Jace, Luke, and Daeron scatter to obey him. “You too.”

“But I’m the best shot.”

“I don’t want them to know we have women with us.”

“I’m of more use to you outside.”

Aemond rips his Glock out of its holster, pointing it at the floor. His frustration is palpable, an electric shock, heat that refracts light rays until they become mirages on the horizon. “You’re going to stay here, and if a stranger comes through those doors you’re going to kill them. Okay?”

His urgency stuns you; his eye is blue-white summer storm lightning. “Okay.”

“Now get back.”

You soar to the nearest table, duck under it, reach for your Beretta M9 and double-check the clip, fully loaded. You click off the safety.

“Aemond, wait, let me go first,” Aegon is saying by the door. “I’m better at de-escalation, I’m less…uh…intimidating.”

“Less socially incompetent, you mean,” Jace quips.

“I’ll lead,” Aemond insists. “Aegon can talk. Rio, you’re up front with me.”

Rio pumps his Remington 12 gauge. “I’d be delighted.”

Jace is amused. “I’ve been demoted, huh?”

“He’s bigger,” Aemond replies simply, then opens the door and vanishes through a blinding curtain of daylight. The others follow closely; Daeron, the last one out—his compound bow in hand, the strap of his Marlin .22 slung over his shoulder—shuts the door behind him.

Very faintly, you can hear Aegon: “Hey, guys! What’s happening? How’s the apocalypse treating you…?”

Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are under the table with you. They deserve to have options. You tell them: “If you want to go hide behind the lanes or try to get out the back door, now’s your chance.”

Helaena shakes her head, clutching your t-shirt: black, Star Wars, pawed off a shelf at the Walmart. “I want to stay with you.”

“Same,” Baela says determinedly, gripping her Ruger. She barely knows how to use it, but she’ll try. Rhaena is shaking, her eyes filling up her face, small fragile bones like a bird’s.

You can’t hear voices from outside anymore, but there are no gunshots either. You keep your M9 aimed at the doors, your breathing slow and deep, your heart rate low. Your hands are steady. Your eyes hunt for the slightest movement, for the momentary shadow of someone passing by a window. Against your will, your thoughts wander to Aemond. I hope Aegon is on his left side. Aemond can’t see there.

“Rhaena, get your gun out,” Baela says sharply. “Come on. Turn the safety off. What if you were alone right now? What if we weren’t here to protect you?”

Rhaena nods, fumbling to free her revolver from its holster. “I’m sorry…I’m trying…”

Now there is a stranger’s voice, gruff and deep. He must be just beyond the door, the farthest one to the right. There is a creak of hinges, a sliver of sunlight. “That’s just too damn bad, fellas. You got a nice little hideout here, and you’re gonna have to share it—”

The door opens. Two unfamiliar faces, too shellshocked to raise their rifles in time. You close an eye, line up your sights, fire twice, and that’s all it takes: one headshot, one in the throat, blood like a fountain, spurting scarlet ruin, thuds against the carpet strewn with neon stars, gurgling and spasms as their brains send out those final electrical impulses: danger, catastrophe, apocalypse. Rhaena is screaming. Helaena is covering her ears with both hands.

You run to the doorway; there are more booms of gunfire out in the parking lot. You cross into the late-morning light to see the other two men on the pavement: one with an arrow through the eye, the other with a gaping, hemorrhaging hole where his heart once was. Rio is admiring his work, holding his shotgun aloft. He scoops a handful of Cheddar Whales out of his shorts pocket and shovels them into his mouth.

“Goddamn, I love Remington Arms Company.”

“Oh, that was awesome,” Aegon says, wan and panting, hands on his waist. “Yeah, that was…that was…” He bends over and vomits Snapple and Cool Ranch Doritos onto the asphalt.

“Everyone okay in there?” Rio asks you.

“Yeah.” Behind you, Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are stepping through the doorway. Your thoughts are whirling sickly: I killed someone. I killed someone. “They wouldn’t leave?”

“We told them the bowling alley was ours,” Aemond says, not looking at you. “We asked them very politely to keep moving. They chose to try to intimidate us into letting them stay. They weren’t good people, and these are the consequences.”

You click on the safety and re-holster your M9. You’re wearing Rio’s on your other hip. They seem to weigh so much more than they did ten minutes ago. I’m not supposed to be a killer. I’m a builder.

“Aegon, are you okay?” Daeron asks, a palm on his brother’s back.

Aegon retches again. “Shut up. You can’t even buy fireworks.”

“Zombies.” Luke is peering through his binoculars. “Not many, just two. Way up the road.”

“There will be more.” Baela’s cradling her belly; you don’t even think she’s aware of it. “They heard the gunshots, the sound carries for miles.”

“We’re leaving,” Aemond says. “Right now. Everyone get your things.”

As backpacks are hastily zipped and Daeron and Aegon stand guard in the parking lot, you kneel down beside the men you murdered and check their rifles. They are M16s, either stolen or illegally purchased: there’s a little switch by the trigger to choose between semi-automatic or the so-called machine gun mode.

“They barely had any bullets left,” you tell Rio. Just like us when we were trapped on that transmission tower.

“Yeah, same story for the other two guys. Four bullets in one magazine, a half dozen in the other. But it only takes once. We don’t have any ammo that will work with M16s, do we?”

“No, we definitely don’t.”

“Fantastic. Well, we’ll throw them in a Walmart cart and take them with us just in case.”

You’re staring down at the man you shot through the head. His eternal resting place is a puddle of blood and brains in a bowling alley in rural Ohio; surely no one deserves that. “He was a real person,” you say, dazed. “Not a zombie. Just a person.”

“Hey.” Rio grabs your shoulders and spins you towards him. From where he is helping Luke gather up the remaining food, Aemond’s head snaps up to watch. “You hurt him before he could hurt us. You did the right thing.”

“Sure.”

“I killed a dude too. I blew his heart right out of his chest. You think I’m going to hell for that?”

“No,” you admit, smiling. “And if you’d be there with me, I guess I wouldn’t mind so much.”

Rio grins, wide and toothy. “Well alright then. Let’s finish packing.”

The ten of you depart from Shenandoah, Ohio heading northwest on Route 603 just like Aegon marked on his map, Jace chauffeuring Baela in one shopping cart, Rio pushing another loaded high with food and M16s.

“It looks like rain,” Helaena says.

Everyone else peers up into a clear, cerulean sky, wondering what she means.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re a few miles north of Shiloh when the storm rolls in, cold rain and furious wind, daylight that vanishes behind dark churning thunderheads, jagged scars of lightning in an opaque sky. The road is only two lanes, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and ravaged crops and untilled earth; it would look like the patchwork of a quilt if you were gazing down from an airplane, but of course the FAA grounded all flights over a month ago when the world went mad: Revelations, Ragnarök, the fabric of the universe unweaving as death burned through families, cities, nations like a fever, like plague.

“Maybe we should cut across one of these fields,” Jace says, pointing. He is soaked with rain; it drips from his curls, runs into his eyes. Baela is in her cart again; each time she tries to get out and walk, she’s gasping and can’t keep up within half an hour. You’ve all taken turns pushing her, much to Baela’s dismay. She’d be humiliated if she wasn’t too exhausted to keep her eyes open.

“Here, let me do it,” you offer, and Jace gratefully relinquishes the cart. Baela gives you a frail wave of appreciation.

“We stay on the road,” Aemond insists, flinching as rain pelts his scarred face. “Farmhouses have driveways and mailboxes, we’ll pass one eventually. If we lose the road, we might not be able to find it again. We’ll end up wandering around in circles in the woods.”

“Just like the Blair Witch Project,” Aegon says glumly, his Sperry Bahama sneakers audibly soggy.

“There!” Luke announces, spotting something with his binoculars. “Up ahead on the left. Past the bridge.”

You can’t see what Luke does until there is an especially brilliant flash of lightning: a farmhouse, old but seemingly not derelict, and with a number of accompanying buildings, guest houses and stables and barns and towering silos.

“Home sweet home!” Rio says. “And I don’t care if I have to kill a hundred of those undead bastards to get in, it’s mine.”

“Well, hopefully not a hundred,” you reply, in better spirits now that a sanctuary has been found. Aemond keeps glancing back at you as you push Baela’s cart. If he wants to say something, he’s doing a good job of resisting the temptation. “We don’t have that much ammo.”

There is a concrete bridge over a river, probably unremarkable and only five or ten feet deep normally but now torrential with rain. Water rushes by beneath, a muddy incline on each side as the earth rises back up to meet the road. A reflective green sign proclaims that you are only two miles from Plymouth, which Aegon plans to skirt along the edges of. It’s a decent-sized town; he thinks you might be able to find a car to steal there, something with gas in the tank and keys on a hook just inside the house.

“I call the master bedroom,” Jace says craftily, rubbing his palms together. You’re near the center of the bridge now, another ten yards to go. “Nice big bed, warm cozy blankets, and I was up for half of last night keeping watch so tonight I am off duty, I am a free man, it’s going to just be me and my girl and eight glorious uninterrupted hours of sleep—”

Rhaena shrieks, and then you hear it over the noise of the storm, pounding rain and rumbling thunder: moans, growls, hisses like snakes. Not one zombie. A lot more than one. They’re crawling up from under the bridge, from the filthy quagmire at both ends. There was a hoard of them waiting, aimless, dormant, almost hibernating. But now they are awake. They are grasping for you with bony, dirt-covered claws. They are snapping with jaws that leak blood and pus and bile as their organs curdle to a putrid soup.

“Get off the bridge!” Aemond is shouting. He has his Glock in his right hand, a baseball bat in his left. He’ll shoot until he’s out of bullets, and then, and then…

Rio helps you get Baela out of the cart, then opens fire. His Remington doesn’t just pierce skulls, it vaporizes them. When he’s out of shells—there are more in his backpack, but no time to reload—he yanks the M16s out of the other Walmart cart and empties each of them, mowing down zombies as the rest of you scramble across the bridge. All around you are explosions of gunshots, thunder, lightning, zombie skulls crushed by bullets and blunt force trauma. Baela is firing her Ruger as you half-drag her, one arm hooked beneath hers and around her back. When the last M16 is empty, Rio starts clubbing zombies with the butt of it. You’ve all reached the north side of the bridge, except…

“Fuck off, you freaks!” Jace is screaming. They’ve backed him up against the guardrail, a swarm of ten or more. His Remington shotgun is out of ammo; he’s swinging it wildly, but he doesn’t even have enough room to maneuver. There are still more zombies emerging from under the bridge. You can hear them snarling and groaning. You swipe an M9 off your belt and put a bullet in the brain of a zombie as its fingers close around your ankle, then you start picking off the ones mobbing Jace. You aren’t fast enough. As they lean in to bite him, teeth gnashing at the delicious throbbing heat of his jugular, Jace throws himself over the barrier and into the surging water below.

“No!” Baela cries. She careens off the road and into the field, running parallel to the river as swiftly as she can. You are helping her, steadying her, firing at any zombies you have a clear line of sight on. The others are here too: slipping in the muck of the flooding earth, shouting for Jace. He surfaces through the frothing current, flails pitifully, disappears beneath the water again. You glimpse a white hand, a shadow of his dark hair, a kicking shoe. There are more zombies on the opposite side of the river, trailing after Jace, lurching and slobbering viscous, gory saliva. They cannot swim, but they can follow him until he washes ashore.

Jace bursts up through the waves, gasping. “Help! Aemond…Aemond, for the love of God, help me…” He blubbers and then is dragged under. Aemond and Luke are continuing frantically after him. Baela is hysterical, sobbing, trembling with adrenaline. Aegon is yowling as he swings at zombies with his bloodied golf club. Helaena is darting around almost invisibly, always cowering behind Daeron or Aegon or Rio.

You glance north towards the farmhouse, growing not closer but farther away. We can’t leave shelter. We can’t leave the road. You lock eyes with Rio. He’s thinking the same thing.

“Aemond, we have to go,” Rio says, but in the midst of the rain and the turmoil it barely registers.

“Jace, we’re coming to get you!” Aemond swears. The ground is increasingly sodden, deep, difficult to trudge through. Jace resurfaces, coughing and sputtering.

“Jace!” Aegon wails. He caves in the skull of a zombie who was once a registered nurse as Helaena crouches behind him. “Jace, I’m sorry! I’m gonna miss you, man!”

Jace splashes in the rising river, his arms flailing helplessly. He is being swept away far faster than any of you can move on foot. “Aegon, you dumb bitch!” Jace manages, then slips beneath the water and doesn’t reappear.

“Where is he?!” Baela is saying. “Aemond, where…?”

You are trying to soothe her, to bring her back to reality. She was always so pragmatic before; you have to wake her up. “Baela, listen, we can’t stay here, he would want you and the baby to be safe—”

“Aemond! Aemond, we have to go!” Rio catches him, wrenches him around, roars into his face as driving rain pummels them both: “We have to go, or we’re going to die here too!”

It hits Aemond all at once; he understands, horror and agony in his sole blue eye. “We have to go,” he agrees. And then louder, to everyone: “Get to the farmhouse!”

Baela collapses into the mud, howling, tears flooding down her face. “No, he’s still alive, he’s still alive, we can’t leave him!”

You and Rhaena are trying to haul Baela to her feet. Now Aemond is here, pulling you away from her—his fingers tight and urgent around your wrist—as he and Luke take your place. “Go,” he commands. “You run. Don’t wait for us. Rio?”

“I got her,” Rio replies, grabbing your free hand with an iron grip. Gales of wind rip at you; every millimeter of your skin is soaked with rain. As you flee across the fields towards the farmhouse, dozens of zombies pursue you. More are still staggering along the banks of the river, swept up in the hoards chasing Jace and the promise of his waterlogged corpse when it reaches its final destination. Daeron has run out of arrows and is shooting with his .22, which is very much not his preference. Aegon trips, getting covered in mud as he rolls, and Rio stops to help him. While he is distracted, you look back at Aemond. He, Luke, and Baela are moving quickly, but not quickly enough. A drove of zombies is closing in on them. You have a spare few seconds at last. You yank your backpack off, grab a box of ammo inside, and reload your M9.

“Chips?!” Rio calls over his shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

He knows you well enough to listen. The world goes quiet as your finger settles on the trigger. There’s a rhythm one slips into, an impassionate lethal efficiency. It’s easier to keep going than to stop and have to find it again. You fire over and over, dropping eight zombies. You sheath your M9 and whip Rio’s out of your other holster, the sights finding grotesque decaying faces illuminated by lightning. You pull the trigger: blood, bones, brains, corpses jerking and convulsing as they fall harmlessly to the mud. Aemond is here; when did he get here?

“I told you to run!” he’s shouting through the storm, furious. He’s shoving you towards the farmhouse. You resist him.

“Let me kill as many as I can—”

“Go! Now!” Aemond orders over the clashing thunder, and then sprints with you all the way to the front porch to make sure you listen. Everyone else is already there. Helaena has fetched a spare key from under the doormat and is turning it in the lock.

Daeron observes her anxiously. “We don’t know if it’s safe in there, Helaena.”

“Not in,” she says, insistent. “Through.” Through this building, and maybe through the next one too. The average zombie is not terribly clever. If they lose sight of you, without the benefit of the momentum of a hoard they are lost. Helaena opens the door. The living rush inside, and she locks it behind you. As you are bursting out the back door, you can hear zombies pounding their rotting palms against the front one. You soar through a stable full of dead horses and donkeys, leaving the doors open; this should keep the zombies distracted if they make it this far. Then you race to the farthest guest house. Luke, swiveling with his binoculars, spies no zombies approaching as you steal inside. There is no spare key this time; Rio punches out a first-floor window for you to climb through. Once everyone is inside, he and Aegon move a bookshelf to cover the opening.

You all stand in the living room, gasping and shivering, dripping rain down onto the rug and the hardwood floor. The air is dusty but clean of any trace of vile, swampy decay. Outside, thunder booms and lightning flashes bright enough to illuminate the lightless house. The sky is so dark it might as well be nightfall. Baela sinks to her knees, clamping both hands over her mouth so she won’t sob loudly enough for a zombie to hear. Rhaena and Luke are beside her, both weeping quiet rivulets of tears, trying to comfort her in whispers. Helaena is rummaging around searching for candles; she has already taken a lighter out of her soaked burlap messenger bag.

“Daeron, bro, come over here,” Aegon chokes out. He embraces Daeron, clutches him tightly and desperately, doesn’t let go. Rio is reloading his Remington 12 gauge.

Jace is dead. Jace is dead.

Aemond says to you, his voice low but seething: “What the fuck was that?”

You blink the raindrops out of your eyes as you stare at him, bewildered. “You needed help.”

“I told you to run.”

“I’m an asset, I have skills that can keep you alive, why am I here if I’m not going to be useful—?”

“You’re not in the fucking Navy anymore!” he hisses. “When I tell you to run, you run, you don’t stop, you don’t look back, because I can’t worry about you and take care of everyone else.”

“Nobody asked you to worry about me.”

“But I do.”

“Aemond,” Aegon pleads, waving him over. Aegon’s plump sunburned cheeks are glistening with rain and tears. “Man, it doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters now. Please come here.”

“I’m going to clear the house,” Aemond says instead.

Rio raises an eyebrow at you—this is one fucked up guy, Chips—and then pumps his shotgun. “Me too.” He sweeps with Aemond through the main floor and then vanishes up the staircase.

Helaena is lightning candles she found in the kitchen and arranging them around the living room. Daeron starts gathering food from the pantry. Rhaena and Baela are murmuring to each other softly, mournfully. It doesn’t feel like something you should intrude on. Luke is peeking out of a window with his binoculars, vigilant for threats. Aegon sniffles, wanders over to you with large, sad, shimmering eyes, pats your shoulder awkwardly.

“Hey, Chocolate Chip. You doing okay?”

“No,” you answer honestly.

“Yeah. Me either.” Then he flops down on the hideous burnt orange couch and lies there motionless until Daeron brings him a can of Dr. Pepper. Aegon pops the tab, slurps up foam, and then begins singing to himself very quietly, a song so old you can remember your grandfather saying it was one of his favorites as a boy: A Tombstone Every Mile.

When Rio comes back downstairs—heavy footsteps, he can’t help that—you meet him at the bottom of the steps. “The house is good,” Rio says. “And Aemond’s in the big bedroom on the right if you’d like to go up there and talk to him.”

“I don’t think he wants to see me right now.”

“I could not disagree more,” Rio says with a miserable, exhausted smile. Then he goes to the couch to check on Aegon.

You pick up one of the flickering candles, white and scentless, and ascend the staircase. You find Aemond in the master bedroom, the same accommodations that Jace laid claim to when he was still alive. He is sitting at the edge of the bed and staring at the wall, at nothing. Tentatively, you sit down beside him, placing the candle on the nightstand.

“Aemond…what happened to Jace…it wasn’t your fault.”

“Criston said I was in charge, that’s the very last thing he told me. They might be the last words I ever hear from him, and I just…” His voice breaks; he wipes the rain and tears from his face with open palms. “I really wanted to get everyone home.”

“I’m so sorry about what I said at the bowling alley,” you confess, like it’s a dire secret. “I don’t want to fight with you, Aemond, I…I want to help you. I can see what you’ve done for everyone here, me and Rio included, and I believe in you. I want to be a part of this.”

He nods, an acceptance of peace, but he still doesn’t look at you.

“Can we start over? I’ll never bring it up again, okay? I wasn’t trying to guilt you or upset you or anything. I should have just dropped it. I overreacted. And I understand why being with someone like me maybe wouldn’t be…super appealing.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what’s it about?”

Aemond wrings his hands, shakes his head, at last turns to you, golden candlelight reflected in his eye, his scar cloaked in shadows. His words are hushed, clandestine, soft powerless surrender. “I’m already so afraid of losing you.”

He cares, he hopes, he wants me too? “I’m here right now, Aemond. I don’t know what else I can say. I’d promise you more if I could.”

He reaches out to touch you, to ghost his thumb across your cheekbone, wet with rain. Then he kisses you, so gently you cannot help but imagine the wispy borders of calm white summer clouds, the rustle of leaves as wind blows down the Appalachian Mountains. You don’t have to ask him what he’s thinking, what it feels like. You can read it in the startled, firelit wonder on his face.

You taste like the beginning of something, here at the end of the world.

[lovebugism]

Hello there! For a blurb, could I request either Steve or reader making a mixtape for the first time for the other? Also, hope your brain is able to get some good rest!

ty for your request anon! — steve's shy gf loves to spoil him 'cause he deserves to have nice things (established relationship, fluff, shy!reader, 1.1k)

fictober (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)

When you first started dating, Steve learned two things about you, very quickly.

One, you’re not great at expressing your feelings. And two, you love giving him gifts.

Both are equally hard for him to stomach.

He hates when you don’t tell him how you feel — when you choose to suffer alone rather than let him in on your suffering. It doesn’t matter how many times Steve tells you that you’re not burdening him or that he’d swim oceans to appease you. You keep to yourself most times, very rarely vulnerable.

What you lack in your ability to communicate, you make up for in gifts. And not the “here’s something shiny because I’m trying to buy your love” kind of gift his parents always got him. What you give him is far more sentimental. The full-blown, hand-made, holy-shit-this-took-a-lot-of-effort sort of gift.

You paint things for him when you have the time. He’s got a dozen tiny, vibrantly colored easels decorating his desk and dresser. You make him jewelry, too, out of pretty pastel beads. Steve wears your initial, along with various hearts and stars and circles, on his wrist every day. 

You wear his, too — on your pulse when you visit him at Family Video. 

Closing shift, Saturday night, a billion other things you could be doing, and you’re spending it with him. It makes suffering the graveyard shift a lot easier on his heart.

You’re there for half an hour before you work up the courage to pull your latest present from the pocket of your jacket. “I made you something,” you tell him, finally, somehow quieter than the already quiet store.

Steve’s smiling before he knows what it is. His rosy lips curl into a crooked smile. His tired honey eyes blink up at you. “Yeah?”

He sits behind the bulky computer, slouched in his swivel chair and barely focused on the catalog he’s supposed to be mining through. You’re sitting on the counter beside him, legs hanging off the edge. His right hand lazes on the computer mouse while his left idles on your leg — long fingers curled around your calf, thumb rubbing absentmindedly along your shin.

You nod sheepishly and motion to the cassette tape in your hand.

“What’s this?” he wonders as he takes it from you.

“A mixtape,” you answer with a curt shrug. ‘Cause it’s easier than telling him, “Oh, it’s just tape I spent hours making you so I could compile every song that could maybe come close to describing how much I love you, but even that came up short.”

Steve’s still grinning when he reads what you’ve written on the front of it. 

best songs ever for the best person ever, you’ve scribbled on a sticker you decorated with pink and red hearts. The bottom reads, everything i can’t tell you.

“Babe…” he hums quietly, lovesick eyes flitting up to you. “This must’ve taken you forever…”

Again, you shrug and duck your warming face down to your lap. “It wasn’t that hard…”

Steve’s hand is still caressing your leg, squeezing softly along the back of it. He knows it took work. He knows you won’t admit to it. So he just smiles — a tiny, tight-lipped thing that makes his dimples peek out.

“Thank you,” he mutters with a honeyed fondness. “You know you never have to give me anything…”

“I like doing it… You deserve to have pretty things,” you answer sheepishly.

His grin widens. “Well, I got the prettiest thing right here, so…”

He rises from the cushioned seat to stand in front of you, back aching and legs groaning in protest. 

Your nose scrunches in disdain at his words.

“Too cheesy?” Steve squints and positions himself between your legs. His palms are wide and warm as they settle contently on your thighs.

“A little.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes, though he doesn’t really mean it. He just uses it as an excuse to press a kiss to your burning cheek. When he pulls back again, he’s still nose-to-nose with you — still smiling and sparkling at you. 

“I get off in, like, thirty minutes. Maybe I can drive us to Lover’s Lake, and we can listen to the tape and stargaze or whatever. You know, all the stuff people disgustingly in love do.”

“Then why would we do that?” you quip, still shy in your way.

“Very funny.”

You conceal your grin by pursing your lips to the side. “I don’t know… I wasn’t really expecting to listen to it with you.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause it’s embarrassing.”

“No, it’s not!” he protests, almost offended you would even say so. “What’s gonna be real embarrassing is when I sing all the songs at the top of my lungs to you.”

“Oh, god…” you groan quietly to yourself. 

Sometimes, you think social anxiety is scared of Steve. He’s not afraid to get stared at, especially not when it comes to you. It’d be way too easy for him to roll down all the windows, turn up the radio, and belt all the cheesy love ballads you’ve compiled for him.

Steve grins, pink and crooked. “Exactly, baby.”

“Just promise you won’t make fun of me,” you murmur, gaze turned down to where your anxious hands fiddle with a rogue thread hanging on the hem of his shirt. You say it in a lilt like you’re joking, but you’re still sort of serious.

“When have I ever made fun of you?”

“You know what I mean…”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he echoes tenderly in return. 

Because he does. 

You’re trying to tell him that you don’t want to talk about it. You don’t want him to analyze all the lyrics and make jokes when one of them is particularly cheesy. You want to pretend like you’re just listening to the radio and not like every single song is handcrafted specifically for him and the way he makes you feel.

“I’m gonna be too busy kissing the life outta you to say anything, anyway,” Steve promises, wide hands squeezing the outsides of your thighs.

Your face flares hot again. You think if he pressed another kiss to your cheek, you’d burn him.

“Promise?” you press.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he huffs, almost sympathetically, already leaning closer to you. “You’re gonna have to pry me off of you by the end of the night.”

Before you could promise him that you’d never because you want him to kiss you forever and ever and ever, his lips are already on yours.

He kisses you soft at first — several tender little pecks to warm you up like he’s giving you ample time to pull away and tell him you’re not in the kissing mood. It only makes you go deeper. You get more languid, more confident.

Steve lets you kiss him how you want. His mouth is soft and pink and obedient for you. His hands are warm and wide and welcoming, rising from your thighs to the curve of your waist.

You barely make it to Lover’s Lake that night.

[somepsychopomp]

and so what if I said I was drafting a fic where Eris tosses a golden apple among the gods but instead of "for the fairest" it says "for the best kingly lover" or something like that and both Zeus & Poseidon reach for it at the same time.

naturally neither will back down since their pride and reps are on the line. Both have had many lovers over the years and regard themselves as outrageously good and definitely better than the other at sex, but how can they determine who should rightfully get the apple & the bragging rights?

Well, they should share a lover and have them judge the two divine brothers. But what lucky mortal should get such a privilege?

Someone good looking themself, who'd be able to appreciate the sublime attention bestowed upon them. Someone young and without much experience, or preferably none, so they have little in terms of expectations or past lovers to compare to (not that either god thinks that any mortal could ever compare to them in bed)

Someone intelligent, who'd most certainly make the right choice (AKA after being bribed a little or a lot)

Someone like... why, Athena's darling pupil, the young King of Ithaca!

Odysseus is currently a bachelor king, but doesn't squander his life or status on heaps of whores. He lives a rather humble life, contributing to the construction of his palace himself, plowing the fields, and making frequent appearances among his people.

By the time Athena catches wind of who her father & uncle have chosen for their little contest, it's too late. She cannot dissuade them or rush to hide Odysseus- for she knows that no matter who he chooses, the loser would be more than willing to exact revenge against her student or his people.

There's also one other problem for Ody. A tiny, miniscule problem that doesn't even register as a concern in Zeus' or Poseidon's eyes.

Odysseus of Ithaca is engaged and madly in love with his future bride, and he will want no part in either god's attention.

But it's too late.

On one particularly beautiful day, Odysseus wakes up to a cloudless sky and the warm sun shining down on his island. The rocky coast is usually a darker shade of blue from the rough surf, but today the ocean glitters like sapphire and silver. Odysseus thinks today would be a wonderful day to go for a morning swim so he heads to the beach alone. And wouldn't you know it, right outside his palace is a little cove he's never noticed before. How strange, given that he's confident he knows every inch of his island.

Odysseus sheds his clothes and sandals, baring his body but feeling safe within the high walls of the little sunlit cove, and slips into the water. Another pleasant surprise- the sea is much warmer than he was expecting for so early in the morning!

He sinks beneath the water and luxuriates in the feeling, swimming a little farther out. It takes just a few breaths before he's nearly upon a large boulder jutting from the surf, a miniature island in the cove. Odysseus thinks it'd be great exercise to touch it and swim back.

He ducks his head underwater one last time before surfacing once he reaches the rock...

When he emerges, there's a man waiting for him. A man larger than any Odysseus has ever seen before, with a mane and beard of pure white hair and eyes the color of gold. He sits upon the boulder as if it were his throne, smiling with mirth at Odysseus and inviting him to come and enjoy the sight of the beautiful sky together.

Odysseus is instantly wary and tries to retreat, only for his back to come flush with a broad chest. An equally large man with black silken tresses and sparkling blue eyes purrs at him and encourages the little king to stay and enjoy the water...

[espionn]

SeaWing tribe sheet!

seawings my beloved. i didnt do anything too crazy with them but they deserve to be a bit over-the-top. (also, lmk if anyone is interested in a size comparison chart and/or an evolutionary tree for the tribes because i might do those if people would like it)

Physical Appearance + Traits:

-SeaWings are almost entirely aquatic dragons. They can live and breathe out of water, but vastly prefer their ocean habitat, and too much time out of water can dry and dull their scales. 

-They have short legs with wide, webbed talons which they use to propel through the water. They also have long, thick and powerful tails. SeaWings cannot be called comparatively large or small due to these unique proportions.

-Not unlike MudWings, SeaWings can fly, but aren’t skilled at it. Their wings have adapted to be used essentially as large fins to steer accurately through the water, and are not as effective for flight. They sometimes can leap from the water and catch air like flying fish, but they struggle to get fully off the ground; their wings are better suited for passive gliding.

-The pale marks that cover their bodies can be used to create bioluminescent light, so efficiently that SeaWings can turn individual lights on and off at will, and even control the dimness. They use these marks in flashing patterns to communicate underwater, in a language called Aquatic. Phrases in Aquatic are often less about individual words assigned to specific combinations - though that can be applied to some - but more about the overall visual expression. (For example, in the right context, random and scattered twinkling refers to stars, or the night sky.) Aquatic, like much of SeaWing culture, is loose, expressive and artistic.

-Large and airy frills run along their bodies, connecting at the tail. These bolden their appearance and make some swimming patterns almost mesmerizing.

-Colors, like many SeaWing traits, vary greatly, but blues and greens are most common. Grays, purples and even pinks also appear on occasion. 

-Due to the vastness of the oceans, there are multiple variants of the typical SeaWing. Living outside the sea kingdom, near the coral reefs bordering the mud kingdom and rainforest on the east side of Pyrrhia, are the fittingly-named Coral SeaWings, which are brightly-colored with rougher and rockier scales (and even minor color-changing abilities). Another group, with sightings so rare as to be unconfirmed beyond urban legend, is the Deep SeaWings; almost nothing is known about these besides a dark and spiny appearance with vivid bioluminescent markings. 

-Gills allow underwater breathing; small lungs allow above-water breathing, but not as strongly or reliably. SeaWings also have a few adaptations that allow them to withstand pressure changes.

Life Cycle:

-SeaWings are laid in clutches of anywhere between 6 and 12. It’s these large groups that will make up their friends and peers for the first few years of their lives. SeaWing parents are present for the incubation and hatching of the eggs, and they are fiercely protective parents when the dragonets are very young, but most dragonets begin to be more independent after that. 

-While the sibling clutches aren’t as close as MudWing troops, they do tend to be quite interdependent and prefer each other’s company. Once they get a bit older, though, they often branch off and find friends and romantic partners outside this group. 

-SeaWings are monogamous and mate for life. It isn’t uncommon for the first dragon they show interest in to be the one they stay with. Both parents are considered equally responsible for dragonets if they have them.

-Because they’re hatched underwater, dragonets don’t learn to speak aloud, walk on land or fly until they’re several years old; some never do in detail, instead living underwater without contact with other tribes for their entire lives.

Culture and Society:

-SeaWing society is structured and organized around the royal family, who have great cultural influence and wealth. The Deep Palace alone holds about 40% of the SeaWing population, and it is by no means a small tribe.

-Arts are a huge cultural mark of the Sea Kingdom - no other tribe, aside from the NightWings, has such expansive literature, and SeaWing sculpting and jewelry-making is famous across Pyrrhia. Before the war, in fact, one of the main exports of the Sea Kingdom came from art exhibits - festivals held on near-shore islands, where dragons from all different tribes would come, to enjoy the scenery as well as look at and/or buy various displays of SeaWing art. 

-This is one of the most social and closely-bonded tribes; with talons mainly made for mobility, dull horns, and no breath weapon, SeaWings depend on each other for safety, and their society is close-knit. Social norm intricacies, politeness in language, and subtly complex ranks and boundaries are all cultural things that dragons simply adapt to by being around it.

-The SeaWing education system is one of the most successful and robust, with every dragonet attending a school for at least two years. If they choose, there are also more specific career paths they can take if there’s an area they’d like to specialize in. They are taught extensively in literature and history, basic hunting and self-defense, and basic land language and skills, such as how to walk and fly. 

-Even more than other dragons, they take great care to keep their scales and frills shiny and healthy. In-depth cleaning methods are abundant, to keep barnacles and parasites off of them, and SeaWings in general are seen as much more attractive when they’re polished and unscratched. As they get older and move less, it may become harder to keep barnacles and algae off, but some SeaWings accept this and allow themselves to take on a “stones in a tide pool” look as a clear indication of age. SeaWings also enjoy jewelry, particularly made up of pearls and precious stones on strings; gold and silver don’t work as well underwater.

-They are resourceful and use a wide variety of tools; the fact that they have few natural defenses has led to a greater use of weapons than most other tribes, for example.

Diet: Facultative carnivorous (mostly meat). Fish, shellfish and crustaceans make up the vast majority of their diet, but their meals can also include a few types of seaweed, seagrass and other aquatic plants. In the palace, large hunting groups provide food for the entire population, but SeaWings who live outside of it usually provide food for themselves.

[mieanme]

Merman x Siren au

Hualian - (part VI)

First part: PART I

Previous part: PART V

***

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?!"

When Xie Lian gets back, he sure expects other mers to be shocked that he actually did what the Emperor forbade. He also knows that there's probably a scolding from the Emperor himself awaiting him.

However, what he doesn't see coming, is bumping into his two friends the second he gets closer to the main cave formation in the pod's territory. The area loosely called a 'capital' by others is usually guarded through out the night and day, but taking into account that both Mu Qing and Feng Xin had a shift just the other day (he checked in with both of them in the canteen twice, to make sure), Xie Lian thinks he got really unlucky that they have another one right when he decides to not sneak around so much anymore.

"Feng Xin, please, calm dow—,"

"Calm down? CALM DOWN? I AM FOR NOW VERY MUCH FUCKING CALM!"

The loud, harsh sounds that escape the merman's mouth are truly something else. Xie Lian knows only one mer that can produce noise of this caliber and it's none other than his friend. Good thing Ruoye left Xie Lian's side as they were passing by the collar reef, cuz it could never withstand those loud, deep squeaks of Feng Xin.

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO RECKLESS? WHERE HAVE YOU EVEN BEEN? I WANTED TO VISIT YOU, BUT YOU WEREN'T HOME. YOU DIDN'T EVEN TELL ANY OF US YOU'RE GOING OUT DURING THE NIGHT! IT'S DANGEROUS! YOU'RE RIDICULOUS!" There's no end to the merman's rage.

"Feng Xin, shut it, you're behaving like you're his mother," Mu Qing chimes in, slapping Feng Xin's back with his deep purple fin, completely not trying to be gentle.

The comment seems a little bit off, because Xie Lian doesn't even remember his mother, but he's not bothered by it. He's sure Mu Qing means no harm.

"Hey!" Feng Xin exclaims, ready to throw a punch at the other merman, but Mu Qing swims around him adroitly. "We're friends! I care about him! Unlike you!"

"Well, at least I didn't try to visit him empty handed yesterday. I came with some food and saw your brown pathetic ass miserably banging at his cave entrance. The bigger the fins, the smaller the brain."

Mu Qing's slay smile seems to enrage the other merman more than his words, even if Feng Xin is known for having one of the biggest fins in the pod. This time he doesn't miss though, getting to punch Mu Qing straight in the face.

Xie Lian sighs. For as long as he remembers, his two friends have always been bickering over the smallest things. Even from the very day they rescued him in the wild, when they all were still children, he can recall a heated argument they had right before his eyes. They both are great mermen in Xie Lian's opinion, so till this day he can't figure out why they are always so hostile against each other. At this point he's certain he will have to live with that question unanswered till the day he passes.

It doesn't mean he can't try and stop them every time he has a chance though.

"Hey, hey, hey, now! It's okay! I'm back and unscratched, right?" Xie Lian swims in between them right after Mu Qing lands a successful slap on Feng Xin's cheek, making them equal for the time being. "And I got something very important!"

They both actually stop to look down at the algae in Xie Lian's hands, to his delight.

"And what is this? Looks like a sperm whale's vomit. Why did you drag some random plants back to the capital?" Mu Qing scrunches his nose, glaring at Xie Lian.

"It's an algae from the oceanic trench," he states with a small smile, but it fades quickly when this time both of his friends yell at him.

"IT'S A WHAT NOW?" Feng Xin and Mu Qing both scream in unison.

Xie Lian grins, shaking his head.

"I guess I have a lot of explaining to do anyways, so why don't we find the Elder medic first? I want to deliver those as soon as possible."

"The medics are still discussing today's search results with the Emperor and all hunters that are off duty. We're an exception as guards," Feng Xin states, looking back at the highest part of the cave formation, that serves as a house of the Emperor and also a kind of a city hall.

"I will hurry up then, it's good that everyone's gathered in one place!"

Xie Lian of course doesn't get to depart alone this time. Feng Xin and Mu Qing both stubbornly insist on escorting him, so the three of them make their way to the Emperor's caves quickly.

Inside, there actually is a lot of merpeople gathered. Xie Lian enters through a small hole on the top of the main hall that's always open to everyone to come and discuss important matters. The cave itself is huge, it could fit every mer that belongs to the pod and there would still be plenty of space left. Jun Wu spends a lot of time here, tending to other merpeople matters and naturally he's here now too, resting on a seat sculptured especially for him inside the hall. He seems troubled even from afar, supporting his chin on one hand, his golden tail and scales lacking their usual shine.

Xie Lian always thought that very tail might have been the only reason the Emperor let him stay in this pod - they share quite a similarity. They both have features that bring one's eye to their person, so Xie Lian thinks Jun Wu might understand his white-tail-stuggles. However, Jun Wu was never untrusted by his pod, on the contrary, he was always priced for his unusual scales. His handsome face and great intelligance lead him on the top, where he remains till this day, while Xie Lian is collecting scrap for a living.

This world is truly unfair.

"Emperor! Elders! Everyone! I'm sorry to interrupt!" Xie Lian exclaims, silencing the discussion that has been going on and on for probably hours before he even came back to the capital. "I have great news!"

Xie Lian makes his way through the hall right to Jun Wu's throne. He lowers his head and extends his hands, showing the Emperor the plants he managed to take back with him.

"I got the algae we have been discussing about during the prior days! If the medic Elder is ready, please, use them as medicine for the mers that had fallen ill!"

A round of heated whispers explodes right after he finishes his sentence. Unbelievable - the merman almost everyone despices came back with the right plant so fast? Where did he get it? Is this a joke of some sort?

"Silence."

One sound from Jun Wu manages to get a hold of the situation.

"Xie Lian," the Emperor calls his name, so the merman obediently lifts his gaze to meet Jun Wu's golden eyes. "How come you found the algae before everyone else had even found a place it might grow in? Are you sure it's the cure we're looking for? Where did you get it?"

Yes. Xie Lian knew these questions were coming. As for being prepared to answer them, well, that's a whole different story.

"Emperor, I got them from... the trench we all know of."

Another round of gasps of disbelief arises in the hall.

"Did he go to the siren's territory?"

"Is he crazy? The Emperor forbade anyone from going there!"

"How is he even alive? There's no way the siren wouldn't notice him with that white tail of his!"

"What if he's lying? Aren't those just a regular looking algae? Maybe it's poison!"

Jun Wu waves his hands, unwilling to scold the crowd verbally yet again. When everyone stops commenting, he asks the medic Elder, that seemed to be the most knowledgeable about the disease, to examine the plants Xie Lian brought with himself.

The old merman studies the algae only for a few moments and, with not much deliberation, but with great disbelief spread on his face, he speaks up.

"It's indeed the algae we need!" The old merman exclaims, looking in shock at Xie Lian's face. "How did you do it?! You shouldn't be able—"

He stops himself before he can finish the sentence, but Xie Lian gets the message.

'It grows too deep for any mer to pick it. Your elder didn't mention it, did they?'

"Very well," the Emperor chimes in. "Please, take the algae and prepare the medicine as soon as possible. Will this be enough to treat the ill merpeople and store something in case the disease resurfaces?"

"Yes, Emperor! More than enough!"

"Then we can stop the search for other places for now. Everyone is dismissed. You worked hard, take some rest," Jun Wu announces and immediately everyone starts leaving the city hall.

Except, when Xie Lian hands over the algae and turns around with a smile to leave as well, the Emperor speaks up again.

"You stay, Xie Lian. I want to have a word with you."

***

Next part: PART VII

Okay, I have to admit, Jun Wu is hot af. I KNOW HE'S A BAD GUY (I haven't reached that part of the books yet, but tiktok spoilered me that), but I can't deny sky daddy is doing things to my brain and I am awaiting the arc in which I get to meet him as a villain, BECAUSE I HAVE TO STOP SIMPING. BUT I CAN'T. DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND ME.

[sk-lumen]

New Moon in Scorpio

Much like the moon, I have seasons of coming and going, waxing and waning. Of being bright and radiant, and then going completely and utterly dark.

Sometimes it’s necessary — this surrendering into your own depths. It’s necessary to let go of control and let yourself sink as deep as you can, so that you can at least gather your strength enough to continue fighting to swim back to the top.

Because you can’t keep up that control forever. You can’t control the waves any more than you can control your own destiny. You can choose your direction, certainly. But your destiny is the magical crossroad between the gravity of your desires, and the gravity of the sky and the ocean and all its beautiful, brilliant little microcosmoses.

When I go dark, I don’t apologize anymore. I used to, but I’ve since learned no grace comes from a tree shaming its own leaves for wilting when the sun turns away from them. No grace comes from a flower shaming its petals for falling when its time has passed. Grace comes from accepting that there’s a season for everything, and you cannot grow into your next season until you accept that the previous one has passed.

There is an art to letting go, in this dark phase of the moon. This new moon.

There is a release. A certain peace and stillness. Because yes, while you’re fighting to swim back to the surface, the violent adrenaline of hope still drives you forward, but plummets you equally fast when you realize the surface is so, so far out of reach…

That constant struggle drains your soul. Drains you entirely, really.

That’s why…sometimes you just want to lie still. Lie so very still, and let yourself float. In this dark, quiet stillness, this great, scary unknown of your life, of being inbetween seasons, inbetween phases, inbetween beginnings and ends, somehow, and yet nowhere at the same time.

You feel lost and found at the same time. You feel everything and nothing.

In this quiet, the deepest truths come to the surface —

What is it that you want?

And why is it that, before you even fully voice that desire, you have already silenced it inside yourself as being out of reach? As being too much, not enough, unattainable?

Why have you denied yourself your greatest dream before even granting yourself the grace of believing? Hoping is just half the fight. You have to believe you deserve it, too.

No wonder you keep sinking no matter how hard you fight, love. It’s the weight of your own doubts and limited beliefs anchoring you….

To rock bottom.

A/N: “Lumen’s Diary” is a relatively new column I started, which acts as an online diary that combines random thoughts, artistic photography, poetry, stream-of-consciousness style prose, etc. In today’s era of 10-second insta-reels, it might be unconvential. But it’s a way to express my soul, and hopefully it might resonate with others and remind them they’re not alone. <3

🌸 More glow up articles on sklumen.com 🌸

[catboygirljoker]

no idea how to phrase this bcs it's a bit esoteric i guess but any like niche and oddly specific headcanons/thoughts on like, just the places in kh generally? like what the archetypical average joe in twilight town gets up to or local favorite radiant garden food hot spot, things of this nature

oh this is a GREAT opportunity because ive been wanting to develop Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden's, like...Sense of Place for my fic [since most of it takes place there] and i haven't really thought about it much! so . excuse me while i tunnel vision here a bit. [also all of this is just touys and pretend and speculation]

i think RG is the biggest city in any extant contiguous original KH world—"extant" to exclude Scala, "contiguous" to exclude Quadratum, and "original" to exclude San Fransokyo. i kind of assume they model enough buildings/detail to suggest that it's a larger city than it actually is. it'd be supported by smaller settlements/towns in the same world, and realistically it'd have a seaport and a proper entry gate that vehicles or carts could pass through. it wasn't modeled to have those, but it wasnt important to the story, and ive got an imagination.

i've already posted about small town boy Terra calling Merlin "sir" and getting burned. in general, i think RG is ~relatively egalitarian. like, AnsemTW is the king, people defer to him, they call him His Lordship, but he works alongside his apprentices. i dont think everyone is 100% equal in RG, but i think there's less class striation, less expectation for people to defer to their elders, more of an assumption that respect is owed to those who earn it.

the castle is huge, and i dont imagine AnsemTW being the kind of ruler who has all that opulence for its own sake—part of it is laboratories for sure, but i think the researchers and guards and other staff of the castle all live in it, as well. we see dilan and aeleus guarding the castle, but i imagine it'd be open to the public from time to time, and i wonder if there are entrances that are open to the public, with like a library or other public education services.

in terms of recreation/leisure: there's the literal gardens of RG, the pride and joy of the city. maybe everyone takes part in the care of the gardens—like a spring festival where people clear out the dead plants and plant new ones, trim and prune and fertilize in preparation for the new year. plants and flowers would be important to the culture of the city. the ocean would be, too—people sail and swim and take ferries out to the nearby islands. and fish, obviously, seafood would be a big part of the RG diet.

RG strikes me as a kind of like...social market economy sorta situation. there are businesses, but with regulation and social safety nets. politically it's a monarchy, and i think it's a situation where monarchs choose their successors, but not much more codified than that. everyone operates under the assumption that a just and wise king will always choose just and wise successors, and that this process will never be interrupted. it's easier and less scary than looking directly at the obvious problems with that.

a lot of this has to do with Themes and such in my fic specifically—but im interested in exploring the idea of RG, culturally, having an intense fear of darkness and chaos and disorder. the social safety nets were almost put in place more out of fear of crime than out of love for its people. i imagine that in the games we're meant to understand that the fall of RG was purely natural disaster and/or the work of Maleficent and AnsemSoD, but im interested in the idea that this fear of darkness contributed to RG's fall, that there were cracks in the foundation that were compulsively plastered over and ignored until they couldn't be anymore.

a lot of the city is destroyed in the fall of RG, and the sea around it is frozen solid, barring access to any other towns and probably destroying those too—so although a lot of people died, i think as people are returned from Traverse Town, RG ends up being more populated than it can handle. there are a lot of hands on deck rebuilding the city, including a Literal Wizard, but it's pretty dicey for a while. it's a disaster situation—no shops are running, shelter is established wherever the roofs don't leak, soup kitchens are stocked by regular gummi ship supply runs and whatever Merlin has the energy to conjure (theyre not able to fish, obviously).

RG seems like it's fully restored by the events of 3, but i imagine there's still more work to be done. that's a central part of the city that we see, it makes sense that it'd be restored more quickly, and if the gardens are culturally important to the citizens then maybe they replant those as soon as they can, as a symbol of the city's restoration.

it was fun too sit down and think abt this...the KH games are a big wide sandbox to explore :o)

[irregularm4ngo]

just a for fun cute peaceful drawing request I thought of

Amanda Young from Saw 2

swimming underwater in dark aquatic background by a abandoned shipwreck and alongside the Bull Shark Pup aka the shark protagonist from the game Maneater as it silently helps keep Amanda safe and protects her as she is facing her darkness fears exploring free diving further underwater.

while the Bull Shark Pup being it’s innocent curious self

Amanda be also gently petting the snout of Magu Tapa a legendary great white shark from the game Endless Ocean as it doesn’t pose a threat and is quite silently curious about Amanda despite how big it was compared to her. 🦈🤿🫧

Details: the ref images were to help show what I mean and the design of both The Bull Shark Pup and Magu Tapa

and what Amanda Young wears while underwater and uses.

Amanda would wear a black red white swimsuit

and black red diving fins on her feet and black red diving mask on her face. While she is breathing from the mini respirator scuba tank and has dive knife holster attached to her leg just in case for underwater self defense.

But she be both equally petting the snout of Magu Tapa and the Bull Shark Pup. while underwater

sorry if I’m bothering with this request just thought it be cute to see this in digital art but pls have a safe day or night and only do what’s comfortable!

Thank you for such a cute request i love both amanda and sharks

hope you like it :)

[grimm909]

Deep In The Sea - Part 1

Hey guys! I don't have much to say here, not to mention that I will be answering your requests as soon as possible. I'm sorry for those who wait, but I had made a promise to myself that I would do, first of all, a horror and drama story where Jade would be the main attraction. Sorry for the delay and please don't give up on me! I also want to apologize if there are any English mistakes. As I said in my first post here on tumbrl: English is not my native language. Happy reading~  WARNINGS: female gender reader, violence, yandere, obsession, non-consensual, mind break, horror, drama, mutilation, mention of pregnancy.

The creature's eyes glowed with fervent attraction, which you thought were like a child's after being given a new toy. That same heterochromatic gaze met two other eyes fragmented between fear and fascination, but equally deep as the ocean. Those eyes were too fixed to dare to look away. Those eyes were yours.

Apparently attracted to you, little by little the creature's slippery tail began to wrap itself around your body, similar to a seaweed that simply wraps itself around things, without actually squeezing them. It was almost like a preventive measure to not let you get away from him, preventing any attempt by you to escape – which you thought was a possibility.

The penknife still present in your hand — firmly attached to your fingers as the only weapon you had in case you tried to defend yourself against him — was something seen and admired by the merman, as it had been exactly the object that had saved him until a few moments ago.

And of course, you.

[...]

It should have been just another normal day of swimming for you. As a marine biologist, sometimes your job allows you to explore and catalog the different types of fish in the sea.

You don't know exactly when this desire to explore the intriguing and dangerous ocean started, but you know that's what you wanted for your life. The emotion, the adrenaline, and how enchanting the beauty of the things that existed below the water was not something that made you tired.

You also usually had the help of your friend and co-worker, who was responsible for steering a small speedboat, to take it to the middle of the ocean. Sometimes you took turns swimming, as it was not a good idea to leave your only means of transport floating in the sea. 

Really, nothing had been much different from that. You put on your wetsuit, waved goodbye to your mate, and dropped into the ocean with a waterproof camera slung around your neck. 

You dove as far as you could to the bottom of the ocean, for enduring the cold and high pressure down there was not something a human could do without the proper equipment. And his were good, but not the best. 

Nevertheless, for someone with affinity and custome, trying to go more than a hundred meters deep was reasonable. As far as you knew, the longest record ever broken by a person was 320 meters. But honestly, it's not like you're too interested in beating other people's records, if they weren't your own. 

So you were tempted to go deeper than ever before. Checking his blood pressure gauge and what oxygen he had left, he realized that a longer round trip would be possible, as long as there were no interruptions along the way. 

However, it was from this decision that things started to take another turn. 

So, well, your fault. 

You've successfully managed to bear the huge weight on your back and take some great pictures, which you use to take some daily notes later on. However, just as you were about to swim back to the surface because of the oxygen, a tiny high-pitched sound was captured by his ears.

You thought at first that it might be a whale, dolphin, or any other creature that made relatively loud sounds like that. However, this hypothesis was soon dismissed on its own when the sound again resounded in a more strangely shrill and profound way, that even the earplugs could not rid him of the momentary headache caused by the noise. 

This was unlike anything you had ever heard, recognizing that it was not an aquatic animal ever cataloged by man. You were extremely tempted to want to know what it could be, perhaps even discovering a new species of sea creature and being able to photograph it. 

Curiosity overcame your logic and you tried to guide yourself through the animal's "screams", noticing that as you swam deeper, the sound increased. Darkness began to cover more and more the entire route, due to the lack of sunlight. And you were forced to turn on the flashlight housed above your head, so you could see what was before your eyes. 

The vision was of a tortuous path with many stones, but his biggest concern was the excess of mesh nets present in the environment and other types of garbage improperly discarded, which continued along the way to where the source of the sound was. 

You checked the oxygen in the cylinder one more time and realized you had to race against the time. The movement of your feet and hands became more erratic, yet quite painful due to the pressure of being even further down than you could have anticipated. 

By the increase in speed, in the distance you noticed a strange sea shape, which for you exactly resembled an eel. However, eels didn't "scream" that way. They didn't even look as huge as this one. 

You became more cautious as you knew the good reputations of these creatures and taking an electrical shock was not in your plans. Then he tried to approach more slowly, until he noticed that the creature's shape was starting to get even weirder. 

You hid behind a rock and turned off your flashlight so the animal wouldn't see the light, then turned on the camera. Your intention was to zoom in as far as you could and try to take the picture right there in the darkness, through the flash.

Squinting your head a little, you positioned the camera towards the animal and in a quick fraction of a second, the light emerged through the click of a button. You get your photo and quickly go back into hiding, analyzing the image. 

It is not completely clear, let alone sufficiently illuminated, but the shading of the animal is quite noticeable and it would be possible to make an analysis of which species is. That is, if you knew any sea animals with arms. 

Yup. Damn arms. 

Aside from an apparently human head, of course. 

Is it possible to choke under water, breathing through a tube? Well, you almost did. 

You eyes widened in absolute surprise and her hands that were still holding the camera trembled with anxiety. 

You thought that, like every child, it was always normal to hear and even be interested in fanciful stories of mermaids and mermen. But the fact that somehow these creatures could be real stirred you in a strange way. To make matters worse, none of these stories portrayed the mermaids as friendly beings, but rather as ship sinks and fishermen killers. Especially, if you disregard the entire "The Little Mermaid" movie. 

However, you are abruptly kicked out of your own thoughts when the sound made by the creature is even worse than before, causing your eardrums to ache due to the distance of only a few meters between the two of you. 

No way. That's ridiculous. It should just be a misunderstanding on your part. It was all so dark in the image, that simply assuming it was a mythological creature without even seeing it with its own eyes, was evidently gross neglect on the part of the animal that was screaming for apparent help. Yes, animal. 

By this reasoning, which you tried to tell yourself was the only absolute truth, you put your camera in place, turned on your flashlight again, and came out of your makeshift hiding place to complete your objective. 

However, for a second surprise that day, in less than a few minutes, you realized how foolish you were, to think that your eyes had been deceived with the truth demonstrated through a blurry photograph.

It was real. The stories were really true.

For a few seconds, time stopped for you and your body remained stagnant, as if you were just some object floating in the water. The image before your eyes would be etched in your mind for a long time, both for the stunning beauty of the creature and for how deadly it looked, but especially for the deplorable state in which he found himself. 

His neck and wrists were tied to a large mesh net, linked to a generous amount of rubbish tangled around a rock. It was impossible to escape that trap caused by the illegal disposal of men, if the stone was not obstructed or if those wires were not cut. And the fact that the merman was struggling to get out of there didn't help, it just made the situation worse so that he was more and more trapped. It was like he was in quicksand, how funny. 

However, time didn't stop for him, who noticed your presence precisely by the light that the flashlight emitted, directing his attention to you and immediately growling as a probable warning. 

Soon, it all happened just too fast for your eyes to follow. One instant you were fine and the next a dull ache shot up the side of your face, so that totally unprepared by the force of the blow, you fell to the sand. 

His goggles ended up cracking a little on one of the lenses, perhaps from the fall or the attack by the merman's tail — who else could it have been and what? Furthermore, the creature's tail was the only thing it wasn't attached to, enabling it to attack anything that came dangerously close.

Afraid, you quickly sat up and crawled across the sand to get away from the monster, then raised your hands in the air and shook your head frantically from side to side, trying to indicate that you weren't there to hurt it. This didn't seem to have the slightest effect—probably because those signs didn't mean shit to him, or he wasn't a rational creature as mythological stories always suggested—whereupon the merman was now stretching his arm and tail toward him to try to reach you. Like anyone in this situation, you feared for your life, but you weren't angry at the creature for its hostile actions and you knew there was no way it could hurt you, precisely because it was trapped. 

Actions speak louder than words, however—even though there was this tremendous irony that you couldn't even speak because you were underwater, just as you seriously doubted the merman would understand you if he could—and you pulled out of the pocket of your latex coveralls a switchblade, grabbing a piece of net on the ground that luckily was close to you, and cutting it with extreme ease, then pointing at the blade and then at the net it was tangled up with, signaling that he wanted to help you. 

The merman somehow seemed to understand you bad mime, relaxing his muscles and stopping his growling, yet still giving him an extreme look of distrust. Surely, one wrong move with that object and your neck would be broken. You were just lucky this time, because you weren't close enough to take the full weight of that monster's tail in one slap.

A third time, you checked your oxygen and realized that you would now not only have to be careful to help him, but very quickly. However, fast and careful were two words that couldn't always keep together. 

You thought a little about getting close. Is it ok to untie it? Until a few moments ago, he seemed quite willing to kill you. However, you stopped to once again analyze the situation he was in. If by chance his movements in his hands and neck were not entirely restricted, he might even be able to cut the net with his teeth or sharp nails. And if he wasn't released, he might starve to death or some other predator even bigger than he would make him a snack.

You forced yourself to swallow your own fear. If I were in his shoes, I would also like to be released. Maybe he wouldn't kill you in retribution, right? 

You got off the ground and swam a little closer, breaking the safe distance from your body to his. You looked into the merman's eyes, trying to convey serenity and confidence, then looked away at the hammock around his neck, deciding that first you would free him from that agonizing suffocation he was probably feeling. 

You lift the pocketknife in your hand and carefully begin grinding the line of his neck, breaking out in a cold sweat at the prospect of accidentally cutting it. If that happened, he'd get a little cut and you'd get a broken neck. Haha, it would even be funny, if it wasn't for a cruel possibility. 

Taking longer than you'd expect, when the last line of mesh on its neck is removed, the merman looks strangely relieved and you almost swore you saw him heave a sigh. Inside, you smiled at it and then proceeded to cut the net from one of your wrists. 

When the job was done, the creature raised its webbed hand and pushed you away with a light shove to the chest. You were slightly startled by this, but then realized that he would finish the job himself, using the claws of his free hand and sharp teeth to instantly rip apart that net, much faster and more aggressively than you had done with the knife. So that was it, he was on the loose. The merman massaged his neck and wrists, relieving the likely pain he was feeling. His face, no longer nervous, looked strangely indifferent and serious, as if he had stepped in mud and soiled his shoes—that is, if he had been on land and had feet.

Then he hovered over his person and approached with a single, brief flick of his tail. At that moment, the apathetic face gave way to a brief curve of lips in a polite smile. 

And you didn't like it.

[...]

So, here was your person. Facing a potentially dangerous and definitely carnivorous creature. However, now was not the time to remember the events that had stupidly gotten you into this situation. 

After all, you were starting to run out of oxygen in the cylinder. You widened your eyes and lifted your free hand and pointed at the tube in your mouth, then up, then at the tube again. Repeating this sequence more than three times so the merman could understand his despair. 

You shook your head from side to side and touched its slippery as well as sticky tail to push it away. That bad choice only made him tighten around you even tighter, not enough to hurt, though. You thought you could use your pocketknife to hurt him, but from the look of it, he was just holding you there out of sheer curiosity, with no pretense of attacking. 

Desperate, you gave him the best pleading, desperate look you could muster, trying to let him know that you really needed to go. And all he did was just widen his smile. 

Oh no. 

From then on you swore you would die, but it was then that he surprisingly proceeded to unroll his tail from his body. The merman swam dangerously closer until his face hovered inches away from his own, causing his eyes to widen and a nasty shiver down his spine. 

His big, sharp, smacking hand touched your face, then tenderly caressed the side, in the same spot where it had hit before—and which now was a huge red smear. You noticed: he was apologizing through this act of affection. 

In another situation, you would find this very cute. But not in this one, certainly. And it didn't help much when the creature decided to break the distance, opening its mouth to lick the entire reddened expanse, with a tongue you found to be extremely long and strangely soft. 

Is this supposed to be really cute? Now it felt more like psychological torture.

You felt a tightening around your waist, this time realizing it was his arm. And it wasn't long before the merman's other arm came around his back as well. You had no idea what he wanted, however you understood when the merman began to swim up, with you in his arms. 

Apparently, he had the vague idea that you definitely wouldn't survive if you stayed there much longer, so he was giving you a ride. He was so fast! So fast that even the pressure made her head ache, needing to hug him back so she would feel less likely to end up having a stroke. You would never have had a chance to escape him if he wasn't being so friendly. Killing and eating you wasn't in his plans, apparently. 

And lucky for you, in less than five minutes, the sea started to be less dark and brighter, indicating the brightness of the Sun and how close you were to the surface. 

The oxygen time in your cylinder runs out completely, but unbelievably coincides with the time your head finally emerged from the water. You hastily take the tube out of your mouth and suck in a significant amount of air. 

How stupid of you to take such a risk, as you had taken today. 

The feeling of pure relief makes you forget for a moment that you are still facing and in the arms of a mythological creature, resting your head on the merman's shoulder and breathing heavily. 

When the world in your head finally seems to be at peace, you take your distance from the merman and this time he lets you go. Lifting your goggles, you once again stare into the creature's eyes, this time without fear. 

"Thanks." 

You thanked him and smiled, gracing the merman's ears for the first time with your thin voice, even though you were uncertain if he would be able to understand it.

He then mutters something totally incomprehensible to you, however you imagined it was his "disposition". 

You start looking around the sea, identifying to your right a distant image of what looked like a speedboat. 

Immediately turning your back on the creature without saying another word, you proceed to swim towards your only mode of transport. 

Distant enough, you turn your head back one last time to confirm that the creature was still there and that for a moment, none of this was your imagination. And to her surprise, he was. However, showing a terrifying, sharp-toothed grin, exclusively for you in delight or gratitude. You wouldn't be able to identify it anyway. Maybe you didn't even want to. 

However, you are polite to smile again—however forcedly—and give him a brief wave of your hand, thus saying goodbye to him definitively and returning to swimming without looking back. 

You hoped never to see him again.

[...] 

Telling what happened to your friend was not a complicated task, because it would be really difficult for him to believe his story. For sure, he would just think that the water pressure started to affect his head in a negative way, making him notice things that weren't there. 

And by those thoughts, you omitted the truth. Even if you had that blurry photo intact—and showed it to prove the integrity of your words—your colleague would momentarily be surprised, but then quickly dismiss the possibility of being a merman by saying you were confusing seaweed with arms. Sea shadows are never to be trusted, he would say. 

Extremely skeptical he was, just as you were. Although, now, maybe you weren't as skeptical as before after seeing that sea monster in person, touching it and still hugging it. 

You decided to frame the creature's photo in a photo panel you had in your room, to always remember that certain "things" really existed and to remember that the sea floor might not be as friendly as you thought it would be. 

You almost died, idiot.

Still, it didn't shake you as much as it should have, for after a week since your encounter with the merman, you continued to do your usual job at sea. 

You didn't find him either and didn't risk swimming too deep, fearful that she would see him again or find another creature no longer as "generous" as the first. 

However, fate seemed to have other plans for you. 

Cruel plans.

Thanks for reading this far! But if you're frustrated that you don't have any smut, know that part two will be full of it. I had to split it due to how long it was. So next time be careful with the depth!

You don't want to drown, do you?

Eventually, my work will also be posted on Ao3, in the form of two chapters. So, don't be surprised if you find him there.

See you~💙

[dlairlonia]

how do you see your manifestations as of now? A GENERAL, TAROT READING 𓇼 by Lonia 𓇼 10823

ෆ˚⋆୨୧⋆˚ෆ No license to love, insurance to hold

A GENERAL, PICK-A-CARD (PHOTO) READING ౨ৎ ⋆｡˚ As a Tarot reader passing information onto you, I hereby pass on the responsibility to you, the reader, the authority to manage your every wellbeing as a human being after taking in information (Tarot reading) that declares to be for entertainment purposes only. This is a note that I am not responsible for anything except for what I type and upload for the public to see. If you have any concerns with what I have published, please message me privately. - Lonia

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷˚ ༘✶

... pile 1 🌸🍀✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚

You see your manifestations as truly pleasant, good in investing long term. However, there is this feeling of obsecurity; of uncertainy and/or insecurity. This manifestation, as I see it, is splitting your identity apart and it may help you, however you look at it----although does it really do justice? Think but not lavishly with this. The way you apply the feeling of knowing you have it, which is the main goal, do you do it or do you focus on the feeling of something else? I know you are in the right path, your guides know this, PLEASE kindly redirect yourself to making the visions all about your feelings. To sum it up, most of you are most likely staying in this state of lack.

(I am not confessing to be a states girlie, it is just the focal point of manifestation that FEELING is the secret. Embody that 'I AM'. It is what YOU allow that persists.)

Let us say, or assume that you are manifesting refinement most aspects in your life. Money, love, desired body and face all-in-one; this desire makes you feel good. It makes you feel pleasant. There is moments that is baffling or truly confusing. I feel you are confused. When I try to make up visions of you, pile 1, I feel us both confused. Some of you may not know what you want, this creates a lack of stability and balance, this hurts you deeply. I will not swim in the ocean deeper as I sense it is more of a personal 'life' problem than having the struggle to choose what to manifest in an inclination, just to fancy, or a mere whim.

I, as well, just have to say that this is an incredibly reflective pile that chooses to FEEL. Instead of feeling the worse, why not the one that makes you truly spark? My darlings, take control of your own life and remember to be kind as equally as to have a nerve. Retire what perpetuates harm in you or does not benefit you and never take a single damned cent out of that pension. Be cautious, darlings.

LOVE U. Lonia.

... pile 2 🌸🍀✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚

You are doing a magnificent job, darling. However, do you find yourself being too nitpicky with dealing the concept of manifesting? This may be being overly critical with what you want; a focus to being on the road to perfection when visualizing, finding the right words like a pedantic for your affirmations only to leave you not 'feeling it'? 9 is signifcant for some here. (this was incredibly random however I think this is meant for a specific reader). This, in result, somehow distorts the way you see your manifestations. Even in a subtle fashion. This might have hurt the relationship with your vision of the world or yourself.

All of you are doing great with this manifesting process of yours. Anyway, pile 2, this pile is all about wealth; money, extravaganza, or even business/careers. If any venus or aquarius placements here in particular, greetings darling! Most of you see your manifestations as for 'reaching for the stars', top notch, out of your league---this in return makes you feel insecure. and may it be that some are truly confident and being .that.bitch., however some may feel insecure and avoids feeling 'it'. Thinking about this concern may give headaches and dehydration. Do take care, my dear.

Just so all of you know, you do not have to sacrifice yourself to have it. No matter your gender or sex, stand tall with grace and have a little faith. Not blind faith. Never forget yourself as this is all about you! You only truly have to be. Be it. Pushing yourself too hard has this similar feeling to a knife or a dagger burying deeper in your raw flesh; you lose yourself or what makes you live. Like pile 1, we must remember to redirect. Redirect. Redirect.

I heard "be your own father, stand up and have faith" ???

LOVE U. Lonia.

... pile 3 🌸🍀✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚

As much as most of the people in pile 3 share the same mindset or self-concept; or let us say truly worked on their self-concept and it shows, my darlings, we are still uniquely different in what we are facing or who we are today. The DEATH card showed up and this does not mean macabre things to happen, as we know of it some are facing 'opportunities' or events challenges their identity, their 'I AM'. This, in return, warps or changes the way may it be you, how you see your manifestations. Go back to the source in which what allows the change which is you, your I AM. You 'being'.

I sense that this pile must be self-concept focused rather than 'manifesting' a desire they have ifykyk. Calm and a wee bit contented. There is no equivocation. It is an assumption for me that pile 3 may be seeing their manifestations as an 'accesory' per se., like getting a Birkin bag, Dior cosmetics, a boyfriend, a phone or seeing signs. Maybe a travelling (aeroplane) ticket too.

Most of you, I sense that there is not a lack of struggle. However, if you are struggling, know you either have it or you do not. Be confident and feel you have it. Do not focus on admiring that desire, focus on admiring the fact that you HAVE your desire. Feeling is the secret, darling.

Also, my darlings for pile 3, voice out what you fancy to. Even if you do it in a subtle fashion, YOU WILL STILL BE HEARD. Remember that. I assume that most may have fire placements or Leo/Aries and are incredibly on fire during this Leo SZN. Be u and shine bright.

LOVE U. Lonia.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

Lmfaooo I know I already yapped my way into ur inbox earlier but. Sighhhh aroace reader has been on my mind again and I’m literally screaming clutching my torso rolling around on the floor crying thinking about it no joke <///333

I think that aroace reader + stsg comes with SO much comedic potential I physically cannot 😭😭 especially with reader who’s pretty much romance averse with satosugu (secretly) being their exception… like maybe shoko and utahime end up talking about their love lives and ask reader about THEIR love life and reader just deadpans “oh I don’t do romance. Doesn’t interest me” and satosugu (particular toru) are just like “….🙁ok but but but but but but-“ LMFAOO BUT THIS ALSO WORKS WITH READER WHOS COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF HOW STSG FEEL ABOUT THEM DESPITE IT BEING OBVIOUS TO EVERYONE ELSE???? imagine being with them out in public, being all affectionate n shit and then a cashier asks “oh are you guys dating? :)” and before either of them can get a word in ur just like “oh no, we’re just close friends haha!!! I know it looks like we do but none of us having feelings for each other at all haha!!!!” And they just look so fucking dejected like satorus shoulders slump and he puts on such a babyish pout…… and sugus just nodding and smiling along (he’s trying not to start screaming and crying on the floor) or maybe someone comes up to you and asks for your number before noticing suguru with his arm wrapped around your waist and satoru who’s got his arm around your shoulders and is looking at you like you hung the stars with your bare hands n the person is like “oh sorry I didn’t notice you guys are dating!!!” But reader is just like “huh?? No we’re not dating u can have my number!!” LMFAOOO I CAN SEE SATORU PULLING THIS FACE

They’re so funny I actually cannotttt 😭😭😭 another thing that’s been on my mind is that if sugu didn’t leave and stsg + reader sorted out their feelings for each other, they could all be teen parents to little Megumi ☹️☹️ satoru gets some money from his rich aah family (cause no way they aren’t rich cmon he was spoiled as a kid) and buys a nice apartment for you all, maybe somewhere by the sea… firm believer that suguru is the mother of all time like. He absolutely makes pancakes with syrup and blueberries and whatever else for u all in the morning……. U guys wake up early in the morning sometimes when it’s still a little dark with Megumi in his tiny little raincoat and take him out for walks by the beach….. collecting pretty rocks and seashells….. megumis dogs swimming in the ocean and satoru skipping stones while sugu reminds him not to go too close incase the tide comes in unexpectedly and he gets his shoes soaked…… I gotta stop myself now or else I’ll go on the lengthiest sugu rant you’ve ever seen but. You get the idea. Sugu being a caretaker mommy for one actual baby and one baby that’s actually a tall pouty bastard that’s so insufferably charming <//333 and you ofc!!! (His favourite baby) (joke he adores you all equally) (even if he lovingly pretends satoru is his least favourite)

HAAHHAAAAA I SERIOUSLY CANT STOP THINKING AB THEM I NEED HELP 😭😭😭 AS ALWAYS I HOPE UR DOING ALRIGHT N TAKING CARE OF URSELF!!! AND ARIIIII the merman sugu asks you’ve been getting have actually been making me laugh my ass off everytimeeeee 😭😭 sugu flopping around like a seal and hating all humans except reader is so fucking funny to me like he’s just straight up dissing the human race but just looks you dead in the eyes and says “but you’re one of the good ones” GOODBYEEEEE 💀💀💀 ANYWAYS HOW HAVE U BEEN???? UP TO ANYTHING INTERESTING??? :3 🎤🎤🎤🎤🎤 gives u a flower + pancakes (sugu made them) u deserve it mwah mwah hope ur ok <333 🌷🥞

OLLIEEEEEE IT’S ALWAYS GREAT TO SEE U IN MY INBOX DW !!! we are yapping together 🫂🫂

PHDJDGDHDH THIS CONCEPT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME I HOPE U KNOW THAT 😭😭…. aroace!reader makes us all insane god bless. u are so REAL for mentioning the comedic potential bc it’s literally so beautiful….. i think i’m biased towards this option:

reader who’s pretty much romance averse with satosugu (secretly) being their exception… like maybe shoko and utahime end up talking about their love lives and ask reader about THEIR love life and reader just deadpans “oh I don’t do romance. Doesn’t interest me” and satosugu (particular toru) are just like “….🙁ok but but but but but but-“

IT’S JUST SOOOO FUNNY AND SWEET…. but i think stsg would also be so smug abt being reader’s exceptions 😭😭 losers. lovesick fools. utahime is just like… don’t you and those idiots have a thing 🤨🤨 and reader just goes well yeah but that’s different. they’re satoru and suguru. <- as if it’s just the most obvious thing in the world and stsg are sitting there all quiet and smug….. mentally squealing……… idk i just lovelovelove the idea of reader being very blunt with their emotions because they just don’t view romance in the same way others would and it flusters stsg Every Single Time. they used to always daydream abt being teasing bfs and making them flustered by acting all lovey-dovey but as it turns out they’re the ones who keep getting caught off guard by reader….

this is rlly just a random thought but. i’m just imagining them in the future, living together, not necessarily labelled in any way but they very much Love each other… suguru is smoking by the balcony late at night (he’s planning on quitting bc he doesn’t want to worry his babies <3) while satoru & reader are keeping him company… and reader just casually mentions that they want to live with stsg forever. that they’re happiest like that and don’t ever want it to end. and they’re just bluntly telling the truth but suguru and satoru are genuinely Losing It bc????? did we just get proposed to ????????? satoru is oddly quiet bc he’s trying to stop himself from blushing and suguru just clears his throat and tells reader that they feel the same way ….. but he’s not nearly as suave as usual bc he is in fact getting choked up LMAOO i love them sm they’re so silly ….. T—T

ok but back to ur lovely thoughts !!!! the idea of aroace!reader being oblivious is also rlly charming to me 😭😭 SATORU MAKING THAT FACE LMAO HE SOOO WOULD ……. i picture suguru just kinda twitching lol like he’s trying sooo hard to keep it together but a part of him kinda wants to kiss reader all over their pretty face so that they get the message. (jokes on him bc reader would somehow still assume that it was just … platonic kissing … just kissing the homies goodnight …..) sigh. it’s tough out here for stsg BUT i think they’d also be really endeared by it …… their oblivious lil reader….

AND WAHHHHH LIL BABY GUMI 🥺🥺🥺🥺 OLLIEEEE YOU’RE KILLING ME a nice house by the sea…….. taking walks by the beach…… and . mommy sugu ..,, our lord and saviour ……. makes u breakfast every morning and wakes u up by kissing u :(((( lets u cling to him while he cooks .. sighhhh. sigh sigh sigh. being a househusband could’ve fixed him idc 😔😔

Sugu being a caretaker mommy for one actual baby and one baby that’s actually a tall pouty bastard that’s so insufferably charming <//333 and you ofc!!! (His favourite baby) (joke he adores you all equally) (even if he lovingly pretends satoru is his least favourite)

AND THISSSS PLS u know the way to my heart….. caretaker mommy sugu 🥺🥺🥺 he would thrive off taking care of his babies like truly. he’s the Mother ever. and now he has one lil baby to Actually Mother and two overgrown babies to coddle and tease…… his dream life tbh. now i’m just imagining reader, toru & gumi waking sugu up on mother’s day to celebrate LMAOO they made a cake and everything….. he’s exasperated but secretly very touched :’3 maybe tears up a lil later when he’s looking at the world’s best mommy <3 cup u guys bought him LOL he’s such a sap …..

AND ARIIIII the merman sugu asks you’ve been getting have actually been making me laugh my ass off everytimeeeee 😭😭 sugu flopping around like a seal and hating all humans except reader is so fucking funny to me like he’s just straight up dissing the human race but just looks you dead in the eyes and says “but you’re one of the good ones” GOODBYEEEEE 💀💀💀

PHDJDJJD NO BECAUSE SAMEEEE i still have a couple more mer!sugu asks to get to actually… they’re all so great…… my anons have converted me fully into a mer!sugu stan and now i can’t stop thinking abt him 😭😭 HE’S SOOOO FUNNY U GET IT COMPLETELY LIKE …. he’s just a grumpy little seal man ……. ”you’re one of the good ones” NO BC LITERALLY!! THAT’S HOW HE FEELS…… reader is his emotional support human <33 he doesn’t like anyone else and WILL consider drowning anyone who gives them trouble but then reader gives him a Look and he’s like. sigh. 😒😒😒 you’re no fun. <-… he’s insane actually BUT WE LOVE HIM <33333 silly lil fishy !!

WAHHH URE SO SWEET OLLIE 😭😭🥺🥺 thank u for the flowers and sugu’s pancakes…….. i am munching on them gratefully…… here are some nice sunflowers 🌻🌻🌻 and croissants 🥐🥐🥐 for u <333 I’M DOING WELLL trying to catch up on asks + cooking up a lil sashisu/reader thingie.. 👀👀 i haven’t been able to post fics as regularly bc of uni but hopefully i can get it out by next weekend :33 and thennnn i think i’ll focus on mer!sugu…

ANYWAY WHAT ABT U ???? how have u been ?? tell me tell me 🎤🎤…… i hope it’s sunny wherever u are, here it’s still cold n gray T—T but spring will be with us soon … stay strong …….

[lisutarid-a]

[Gakuen K] Fushimi Saruhiko Route Translation

Leaving the training camp

LIST OF CHAPTERS

[Translation under the cut]

Fushimi: Oi. Wake up.

Fushimi: Oi.

Saya: Hmm…

Saya: (It's night already…?)

Saya: (Huh, why is Fushimi-kun so close…?)

Fushimi: Tsk…Did you finally awake?

Saya: (I must have fallen asleep!)

Saya: Sorry!

Fushimi: Why didn't you wake me up in the evening?

Fushimi: That's why I brought you here, but what's the point if you're sleeping too?

Saya: Eh, I didn't remember you saying that. I wonder if the meeting time has already passed.

Fushimi: I don't know the exact time because I left my PDA behind, but it's probably past.

Saya: Maybe we can make it in time, let's hurry back!

Saya: (It's my first time swimming in the ocean at night, so it's a little scary…)

Fushimi: …You swim first again. I'll be right behind you.

Saya: U-Understood.

Fushimi: If you won't be able to continue swimming, tell me as soon as possible.

Saya: Uhm, thank you.

Saya: (Fushimi-kun is taking care of me. I've rested more than enough, okay, let's swim hard!)

Saya: Haa…Haa…We finally arrived…

Fushimi: Took longer than lunch…What time is it?

Munakata: It's 8PM.

Saya: M-Munakata-senpai!

Munakata: The meeting time was 6PM. I was worried when you didn't come back.

Munakata: It is very good that you are so enthusiastic and training until this hour, but… What exactly were you doing?

Saya: Um, that's…

Fushimi: We were swimming to the other island.

Munakata: Ho. That must have been quite a long way for it to take this long.

Munakata: Konohana-san went with you?

Fushimi: Well, since we were paired up.

Munakata: Hmm. Even though you're paired, I didn't mean to force you to come such as to the camp.

Munakata: You two get along so well, spontaneously working together.

Munakata: Did you have a good time today?

Choice: I had a good time ❤︎

Saya: Yes, I had a good time. It was the first time I swam that much…

Saya: With Fushimi-kun watching from behind, I managed to complete the round trip swim.

Munakata: That's great to hear.

Munakata: Certainly, the main focus of this camp is to strengthen physical strength, but there is an equally important objective.

Munakata: To live under one roof and to strengthen the bond of the Blue club.

Munakata: And to make the most of your student life so that when you look back in a few years, you will have no regrets.

Munakata: The point is to make memories. I am glad to see that Fushimi-kun and you were able to accomplish this.

Choice: Actually, I was sleeping…

Saya: Actually, I was sleeping…

Fushimi: Oi…!

Saya: (Ah…I see. It would be bad if he find out I've been sleeping and slacking off)

Saya: Um, it was my first time doing long-distance swimming, and it was fun!

Munakata: Is that so…

Saya: (I guess I said too much)

Munakata: I think it's an experience you don't get to have very often, so I'm glad it was a good memory for you.

Munakata: Well, I guess that's enough standing around talking. Please change your clothes and have dinner. There's still some curry left.

Saya: Okay. Sorry for worrying you.

Saya: I'm glad he wasn't too mad at us. …Achoo!

Fushimi: Don't catch a cold and pass it on to me. I'll be back soon.

[Prev chapter][Next chapter]

[yomogi-mogi-mochi]

Lasting Spring

Pairings: Vil Schoenheit x (Orpheus Inspired) MC

Summary: Great expectations are placed on you, coming from a line of extraordinary poets, bards, and musicians. You fulfill these expectations with ease‒ the lightness of your voice illuminating any room with divine merriment through a swift dance of your fingers on your lyre. Your fame is equally matched with the curse swimming through your family’s blood‒ one which announces death and tragedy to your lovers, unless they are your true love‒ your soulmate. However there is no assurance that soulmates truly exist, only the madness that comes as an endless thirst for it. So you extinguish that thirst, settling for quick, messy flings‒ much to the dismay of your childhood friend, Vil Scoenheit. You lament your own tragedy through woeful verses, masked in the sweltering felicity of your music. Vil always trails that sorrow back to you, wishing to embrace you in his warmth to take it away, even for a moment. But the members of your family who had found love unobstructed by the gods were great lovers to heroes, kings, queens, and warriors‒ who was he, seen by most as a villain, to taint that possibility for you? 

Notes: Orpheus inspired reader, with a friends to lovers dynamic with Vil, GN pronouns. Continuation of my myth-inspired series

CW: Mentions of death and suicide, references to depression 

AO3 Link Here.

Masterlist

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The child of a legendary line of poets, bards, and musicians‒ you were always surrounded by lush sounds of harps, guitars, and voices which trilled of bittersweet love‒ ones which you echoed with your own youthful voice, plucking your golden lyre with what could only be described as divine sensibility. From age ten, you were rumored to have the ability to command flowers to a weeping sorrow, cap mountains with a fury of snow with a single verse. As such, it was given that your house was often host to lavish festivities, one which you enjoyed particularly because you liked seeing your mother up and out from your bed, shining in her freshly ironed dress and combed hair. It was rare to see her talking so brightly with the guests, but the way the room spun as adults pushed questions upon questions onto you made you scurry off from the ballroom, off to find somewhere to practice your melody.  

Finding a window tipped towards the ocean, you sat on the ornate bench facing the high moon, plucking your lure and singing a ballad of two star crossed lovers, soulmates, the lyrics specified, and the events which bled into their untimely demise. Their love so endless, spun into the eternity of myth, deathless as the gods themselves. You wondered a bit if they had any relation to your family, bearing the same cursed blood as you to have their tragedy to be the only thing fossilized into eternity like that‒ your blood cursed with similar ill fate in love until they found their soulmate. Even with the sliver of possible paradise, the gods promised heartbreak and woe to be cried from your throat in form of a song. Despite the ease of which you could spill brilliant notes and verses from your heart, your throat was always raw from the cursed blood inside of you, as if it knew of the coming agony that lay before it. 

"Do you really believe in that story?" A familiar face crept into the jewel-toned blue of the moonlight. 

You greeted it brightly. "Vil!" Koinonos, companion‒ in anything, perhaps the only one you knew that fit that word. 

"I thought I'd find you here." He sat next to you with a weary sigh. "And thank the gods I did. It's getting boring out there."

"I could imagine. Bla bla bla finance bla bla bla business. All they talk about these days. Even mother."

"Hm. My father also. Why can't they speak of more interesting, more beautiful things?" When he speaks, he never breaks the thread between his eyes and yours. Unlike the adults or their children who looked through you, tipping their head to the vastness of your family’s legends, Vil spoke clearly to you, the one that was here, now. 

"If you want to hear something beautiful, lend me your ear for this lowly bard." You bowed dramatically with a hand in the air. Vil giggled. That was one of your favorite sounds, even competing with the rich colors of your golden lyre, gifted from the gods. When you returned it to him‒ Vil mirrors your sentiment in his head in a clandestine whisper, only known to you in glimpses in the glassy warmth of his eyes.

You spoke of soulmates and heartache once more. When you ended the song in a mixed tune, Vil lulls his head into his hands behind his neck, flashing the cool violet of his eyes at you. 

"Do you believe in soulmates?" 

"Hah." You hacked out a laughter from your chest‒ taught and stiff. "It would be a wonderful thing wouldn't it? If soulmates existed." Sure, those who found soulmates in your family married kings and queens, heroes and the finest warriors‒ but the rest? They slipped into madness from relentless heartbreak, twisting towards death as they repeated songs which only reflected their own agony. The gods were cruel this way‒ such ripe, sweet fruit bearing on a tree full of thorns swelling with poison. You had so much of your love to give to that sweet morsel‒ but it felt like such a distant thing, a fairy tale of sorts, that even at your young age you broke that fantasy for yourself before you tore yourself apart trying like you had witnessed your mother had. You decided before your sixth birthday, when you were gifted your golden lyre with the title euainētos, well praised, that you would be content picking at the flowers beneath that thorned tree, occupying yourself with smaller loves, smaller heartbreaks without so much as desiring that fruit ripening at the branches reaching the heavens. 

"You don't think they do?" Vil almost pleaded. He could feel the desperation tightening of his throat. 

You looked up at the portrait of your family above you, just you and your mother, absent of your late father you had known better of his fists rather than his face. Sometimes, you had doubted you were from your mother’s womb‒ bearing little resemblance to her her face‒ but you felt a seed taking root inside of you as you witnessed her heart break over and over again, ensuring that the cursed blood that was beginning to grow in your body was indeed one which beat under her thick skin as well. You plucked the strings on the lyre, weaving a melancholic tune. 

Rare‒ Vil thought‒ you had always paired even your most woeful lyrics with the brightest notes‒ but anything that came from your fingers seemed to have a brilliant magnificence to it, divine, was the only word he could think of. The moonlight beads down the strings of your lyre like thin droplets dancing in the air, and it suspends you in a heavenly glow as you close your eyes, spinning a downwards tune. He flushes a bit at the thought. 

"No. I don't think so." You answered simply, a narrow smile and eyes reached your face, turning to Vil. 

"Oh." 

A light laugh escaped your throat, head thrown back to lean against the window. "Don't be so glum Vil." The liveliness in your eyes dimmed, hands slowing to a feathery sound. "I was just speaking for myself. You're beautiful." 

A hair had fallen onto his face, you swept it back with lithe fingers, resisting the temptation to trace the delicate features on his face. Tall, slender nose; rosey heart-shaped lips, lavender eyes speckled with sharp arrows of frosted blue. You tried to liken it to something in your head‒ twisting a poem in your mind‒ but no words you knew were big enough to describe his beauty. "I'm sure there's someone perfect out there for you who can recognize that." You curved your lips, deepening the smile in hopes of communicating your candor. 

He turned his tinted face away from you, simply answering: "Play louder." 

You did, a blithe color erupting from light beaming onto the strings of your lyre as they danced between your fingers‒ your throat the color of fresh blood as you trilled a song of woeful lovers. Vil didn't dare move his eyelids further up, afraid that if his lashes lifted, revealing your entire face to his gaze‒ his lips would betray him into a shameful quiver. Once he had, when he found a deep sorrow in your eyes, as infinite as the prickling stars in the sky, even with your hands which whirled with such an elated melody. He almost heaved with tears that time‒ he was only ten, after all. But you, the same age as him, seemed so much more wiser to tragedy, bearing it with a silky smile. 

He hoped what you said about him was true‒ that he would find a soulmate‒ but when your statement before sounded just as certain. Anything that came from your mouth did to him‒ it rang as clear as glorious mountains forged by the gods, and as robust as rolling waves of the holy seas. Like your ancestors, he felt that you had the power to move nature‒ crumble mountains and make the sun know heartbreak. If you said soulmates didn't exist, he would simply believe that as fact. Still‒ a tightness swirled inside him, one with a feverish heat that wriggled inside his chest.

A few months later, a letter arrived at his home, informing him and his father of your mother's death. At the bottom of the letter rested a wobbly signature, your name, written in red ink. You were only ten‒ what ten year olds practiced their signature enough for it to be as elegant and poised as an adult's? He walked to your house, a bundle of lavender from the garden as an offering. You took it with cold hands when you opened the door to the empty house, letting in Vil with that soft smile. 

"I have to…I have to sing at her funeral. And speak too." You stared distantly at the soundless waves, facing away from your family portrait. "What…what should I say?" 

"You shouldn't have to say anything if you don't want to." He camped next to your body's warmth, wanting desperately to let it scorch him by embracing you. But he thought it would not be a comfort if he had. 

"It's in her will." The adults already decided. "What do I even say that's not already known?" A bitter laugh pushes past your lips. "Sorry for all the trouble of gathering here‒ you all already knew this was going to happen? Yeah guys the prophecy is true‒ you can stop gossiping about it? You think they'll let me off the hook if I just don't stop crying?" You paused your chattering laughter. "I could if I wanted to, you know."

"You should cry whenever you want for as much as you want. We’re young, we should be afforded that right." He felt the stillness blistering in the air. After a moment, you answered with a weariness he wasn't used to seeing in your face. Still, it flowered gracefully in your eyes, soft as the cerulean moonglow and the velvety waves which were pulled by it. 

"Will you help me write the speech?" 

"Me?"

"Who else? I have no other friends. No one." 

Vil's eyes flashed through faces which laughed and danced with you. "How about the others from your party?" 

"They're not my friends." You leaned against him, rocking your head in the curve of his shoulder. "Not like you are." Koinonos, companion‒ in anything.

His breath stuttered for a moment, before he muffled it with a deep breath that raised his chest. 

"Sorry‒ you don't‒"

"No." He tried again, softer. "No. I'll do it. Of course I will." 

"Okay." If he were to guess that quiet voice came from your powerful throat‒ he would have guessed wrong by the crackling whisper of your reply. He also couldn't have guessed you were crying from the stillness of your form, but he knew the trick. The heat that rose to your face and the subtle shudder of your inhale was one he knew well. He said nothing, taking your sadness in without any need for words. 

The funeral was planned by you, and a few of your mother's friends since you were not yet at the age where you could sign legal documents. They pat your still back in sympathy, especially when they find through the surrounding gossip that you were the one to find her feet dangling above a tilted pile of scores and books of hymns. 

"I'm sorry."

"She deserved better."

"I'm sorry."

"She will never be forgotten."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry."

Who are you all sorry for? You thought, standing above her body blanketed in firewood. You wanted to crawl into her arms, but you felt that she would not let go if you had‒ you knew she was tiring of losing‒ dragging down blood of her own blood. The tightness of her decaying skin, the flowers which were delicately placed to hide her bruised, broken neck slammed your chest down to your small feet, which you heaved back up with steady breaths and rapid blinking, and the privacy of your face afforded when you bent down to place a coin on her cold tongue, your hair veiling the affliction in your eyes. 

You played her a song on a harp as long and tall as your grief. At ten, you were seasoned with that agony through blood and bone‒ no tears rose to your flesh during the ritual‒ the song, the speech, the mourning. Most left after you had kindled the fire to her flaring tomb, leaving after squeezing you with empty hands and words. You sat facing away from the blazing fire, weaving your hands in the grass poking out from the seaside cliff. Vil sat himself beside you hours ago, watching the waves crash against the rocks, withering it. 

"Do you truly think love exists?" 

He sat, thinking what words would comfort you. "I do. When you sing of it in your songs, I believe it." He knew his truth would be as much as he could give. 

"When I die, Vil." You looked straight at the swelling waves. "Will you be the one to sing at my funeral? Will you speak for me? Ignite my body?"

Funerary songs were reserved for the direct relatives of the deceased‒ mothers, daughters, sons, lovers, husbands, and wives. You had no father, no siblings, no spouse or children‒ and now, no mother. The thought of you dying before you could even make such connections choked him. "I'm not much of a singer." He says, throat wobbling. 

"Your singing is divine, Vil." Your smile draws shakily today. "Sing a happy song for me. Let people dance, sing, laugh. Bring people together." He averted his gaze away from the tears that silently trekked down your face, he knew better than to watch you break. "This is way too depressing. It's better to think of happiness and beauty during times like this, isn't it?" 

He wanted so badly to look at you when he answered, "Yes. It really is." 

"Don't die before me, Vil. I want to hear your beautiful song." You embraced him to hide your face. 

"I won't." He knew at the moment, why Orpheus had looked behind to gaze at his Eurydice's face when he couldn't hear her footsteps. He could barely hear your heartbeat, your crying, against the roaring waves hammering against the cliffside. But he felt stronger than your divine ancestors that day, cradling your face behind his own without turning, still as the rocks sinking and appearing from the cold waters. 

——————————————————

Despite your busy schedules, you stay in touch through piles of letters, small gifts with even smaller notes scribbled: “This made me think of you”, and sly backstage passes to each other's performances. He knows of the messy, brash flings you have with people, and the ease it brings you‒ after all, where else would you put all the love you have? To a curse that promised something unfathomable to you that would lead towards a path of self annihilation? He knew better than to question your actions in that, ready to silently sit beside you during days where it all weighed upon you. Moments you would lay stagnant in your bed reminded you of the slivers of memories you had of your mother‒ furthering the hope that Vil had not forgotten the promise he made on that burning cliffside.That cursed blood receded, and returned to you like the ceaseless oceans‒ a divine revenge coming closer and closer to crashing upon you as you felt the love inside you threatening to burst open at your seams. However, you waded that thick, flushing blood like water‒ carelessly throwing yourself against bodies that desired to devour such a passionate and powerful beast such as your legacy. The sexual pleasure helped a bit with the “muchness” of it all‒ despite the slight dismay of Vil, who saw the growing amount of alcohol and people you consumed during the nights of festivities at Night Raven College you often hosted. However, that would never stop him from checking on you the next day, bringing you cups of water along with a much needed lecture on alcohol consumption. It’s not like you didn’t stop being his friend after all‒ calming and assuring him during moments of his own doubts and rage whenever he was informed he was selected for yet another villain role. Those were rare times where you returned to the tranquility and delicacy of your childhoods‒ belting funny and melancholic tunes of gallant lovers and beautiful princes, wrapped in the blankets of Vil’s private quarters. There was a valor, a resistance in this happiness, the laughter from Vil’s lips making the moments even sweeter. It almost made you want to reach for that tantalizing fruit, but the poison rooted in your blood made you stop before you could even try. 

But moments like that, were again, rare. Most of your time was filled with smuggling alcohol into the Pomefiore dorm, hosting elaborate parties and such that gained you the reputation as “party animal”, a raging appetite befitting one too. Some even joked that you bore a similarity to Dionysus, jolly god of wine‒ ironic, considering your ancient records say your ill fate was because your ancestor angered him, causing the curse to fall upon your family. Nonetheless, the title was one you took with pride, becoming host to hours filled with music, food, and drunken splendor. 

"Let's begin the festivities!" You fluttered your hands prettily into the bustling air, the gold twisting around your wrists letting out a merry jingle as you let your fingers dance drunkenly towards a bass guitar. 

Vil quirked a brow. "You know how to play? I didn't know." 

"No." You tested the strings with lithe fingers, humming. "But I'll learn." A smirk fell onto your lips, immediately echoing onto Vil's own. Your plucking already sounded like the most masterful composition to him. 

He kept that same questioning curve to his brows while letting out a huff of laugher. So cocky as always he thought‒ but he knew once you whirled around the floor, throwing your head back with an airy laugh to bask in the light of the gods‒ the instrument would be singing a vivid tune. When that dazzling sound came from you‒ you flashed a crescent smile at Vil‒ leaping into the crowd to create high spirits, doing so with a blinding radiance. The warmth of your songs beamed on Vil's face despite you twirling far away, leaving him to his own devices. He knew you were too bright, too limber to be held only by him‒ and it would burn when he tried. Though he would spring to that blistering feeling like flowers to the sun‒ he knew the gods made you so it was almost unbearable to keep all of your splendor to just himself. He watched with a smile from a distance, admiring how you lifted the crowd into a howling merriness that shook heated bodies against each other. He too joined that swelling warmth in the room, smashing his body against it, the taste of alcohol tipped onto his mouth as he poured the drink down his throat in one go. It made his head buzz blindly, letting him loosen his body to whirling movements. 

When you cried his name, hollering a cheerful whoop at the quickness of which he drained the drink, he wondered if it was your music or the alcohol that was flushing his cheeks, bringing hot blood floundering to his prickling skin. He shifted his eyes to you once more, but you were no longer looking at him, flashing between bustling bodies, and he ignored the tugging feeling when he thought he saw you dancing next to a certain Kingscholar, throwing your head back into his chest, spilling your hair and drink onto his skin. Vil almost drinks himself to a stupor thinking about it, but reminds himself of the bloating he would have to deal with tomorrow morning if he did. So he turns from you, closing his eyes to the rhapsody of your music. 

The night feels endless, and tomorrow feels far. But the tiredness of Vil’s muscles comes sharply, waking him from that distance. The weariness of his body sinks deep into his face as he finishes his skincare for the morning, and he decides a smoothie would give him the burst of energy he needed for the rest of the day. Padding over to the kitchen, he sees a familiar figure slumped over on the couch, a tangled mess in a flurry of blankets and clothes. 

“(Name).”

You give a jumbled response, pressing your head deeper into the crevice of the couch. 

“You’re going to regret it if you sleep here, you know. I don’t want to hear you complain about it later.” 

Another groan, before you sat up, your head lolling to the back of the couch when you did. The openness of your crinkled shirt revealed violet bite marks and bruises blooming on your skin, before they were tucked under your head once more, a smirk reaching your lips when you caught Vil staring. 

“What? Like what you see?” Vil hated when you teased like this‒ because he so badly wanted to answer‒ yes, yes, of course I do you idiot, I have for years. But he deflects your question per usual, turning his back to you to make his morning slurry of fruit and vegetables. 

“Ugh. Cover yourself, you drunken bard. Actually‒ please change. You absolutely reek of alcohol.” 

“Do I? Hardly noticed.” 

“Tends to happen when you’re around it so often.” 

“Oi! I’m not the only one who was drinking last night. I saw you down that entire cup of sangria last night.”

“Yes but I don’t come back with bruises on my neck do I?” 

You see Vil pour out two drinks‒ you’ve never seen him not do this in your presence. Still, you thank him when he hands you the cup.

“Hey nothing wrong with a little roughness.” You spread a sly smile on your lips, lifting your eyebrows in a suggestive manner. ”Besides‒ easier to just let ‘em do whatever, you know?” 

Vil squints his eyes in concern, before he takes a sip of his smoothie to suppress the energy bustling out of him, sparked out of the anger he feels in your statement. Still, he’s careful with his words before leaving the room. “Just…be careful.”

“Yeah, yeah.” 

——————————————————

You tried to sleep that day to prepare for the school week that followed, but you were woken several times in a cold sweat, haunted by images of your mother’s dangling feet in the air. You breathe heavily, heart weighed by the burden of your blood. Would you end the same? Seeing glimpses of your mother in your own moments of despondency had brought this question closer and closer as time passed, as the love inside of you was begging to be displaced anywhere but inside your thin, rupturing skin. Perhaps death would be an easier home than finding a residence for that love somewhere.

The gods were cruel even in times like this‒ bidding: sing, sing, turning your blood hot and writhing in your tired body. You moved your heavy limbs from the crushing weight rippling from your chest, clamoring in your hands the golden lyre. Euainētos‒ well praised. By whom but by the gods who dangled the ripening fruit far from your reach, or by the people who rush to your givings, but never return with any of your adoration? Sure your legacy may be well-praised, but what about you? You try not to think about it, or yourself‒ spinning instead a lament of two lovers, one set off to find their beloved in the land of the dead. Perhaps this score could hold your pain, just for a moment. 

The softness of your voice comes as a willowy whisper, the blistering rawness of your throat tipped upwards towards the heavens to cool in the pin-pricked starlights and forlorn incandescence of the moon. The flowers near your window drooped at anguish laced in your low notes, you felt a deathly weight unravel from your lips, unfurling into the crisp night air, turning it to a frosty winter, negating all of the sun's warmth mirrored on the high moon. Even on this temperate autumn night, your music brings frost to the delicate petals of the flowers surrounding your window, seizing the fragrant water that slept in the flora in your chilled sorrow. 

Vil hears this bellowing ballad from his window, and feels it in the growing coldness of the air. To him, your music always smelled of late autumn winding to winter‒ it's crisp, unforgiving wind warmed with the spices and colors of the mountains; the scent of decomposing leaves and thrashing dirt; its perfume of smoked wood turning to ashes. It also brought him the salt behind his eyes, the copper taste upon his lips when such a levitious melody trailed a fragrance of setting decay. It was almost masked with the aroma you wore‒ a summery scent‒ fresh, sun bathed dew on candied lavender‒ he could follow its deep scent to the sweet smile that always flowered on your face. But it never did mask the scent of endings, the smell of dwindling, evanescent light. He inhaled all of it knowing he could not escape it‒ the salt, the decaying earth, the sweet florals‒ knowing he could trail that scent blindly in the shackles of hell. But this time, that maytime veil barely masked the frosted musk of your tender, singing flesh‒ murmuring a low tune of lovers fated in destruction. It worried him. 

"You awake?" He texts you.

The voice seeping through the cracks of his window stops for a moment, before a reply comes. "Yeah. How'd you know?" 

"We literally live right next to each other."

"Oh."

.....

"Yeah. Forgot about that. Sorry if I woke you up from your beauty sleep~ Don't kill me please?? I'm too cute to be murdered" 

Vil throws the satin covers from his body, shuffling his slippers on and heading to your door. He barely knocks once before you're opening it, blanket tangled over your body. Your scent washes over him like the mild sun, but is quickly chilled by a wintery aroma that freezes his breath tightly in his lungs. The bags that weighed under your eyes accentuated the hollowness in them, if not then by the your smile that didn't bother to reach past your lips. 

"Come on. We're doing face masks as long as you're interrupting my beauty sleep. Those eye bags are going to take care of themselves."

"A way with words, this one." You watch Vil march over to your vanity, pulling out a bottle that was part of a gift he had given you during your many exchanges. "And I thought I was the only bard." You squint your eyes a bit to make the curve on your lips more believable but Vil returns the look with a slather of a cold substance onto your skin.

"Ack! Your hands are freezing you heartless bi‒!" He smacks another glob on your cheek. 

"I wonder whose fault that is, hm?" 

You look at him perplexed, before he pointed his gaze towards the roses that had begun to wilt at your window. 

"Oh did I…?" They weren't like that before. Those blooming buds had been alive just now‒ you swore it. But now, turned gray and cold, they began to behead from their stems onto your floor. "I did it again, didn't I." 

"Can you undo it?" Vil asks softly, now spreading the substance onto his own skin. 

"I mean I could. Theoretically, yes. But right now I just‒" A sudden pain lurched inside your chest, clutching your throat in a quiver. You quelled it with a thick breath in, swallowing it down the constriction of your throat.  "- I‒I just can't‒ I‒" 

His gaze softens, and he places a clean hand on top of your own, warming it from the cold metal instrument that sat below your palm. "It's fine. You don't have to. It's okay."

"Okay." Your voice comes small and frail like a newborn bird. It swoops to Vil’s heart, soaring it‒ but he brings it down to earthly terrain, macerating the hunger of his hands, begging to take all of your pain away‒ to squeeze it out with his love. But what right did he have, tainting your legacy, your potential like that? You were meant to intertwine with legends and the blood of royalty, heroes, mighty warriors‒ he felt that you would be deathless in your art as the gods, divine power swelling in your carnal body reaching the eternity you deserved. Then maybe he could break the promise he made by the cliffside, never having to face your own flaming pyre. 

But he is reminded of your humanity when you shake silently like a wind whipped oak‒ that trick of yours he knew never to voice‒ for a moment, decorticating the towering facade hardened by the curse, the legacies, the thickness of your blood, withering away until it revealed your small form. He felt small too, returning to similar moments like this in childhood where you cried a whisper louder. But like Eurydice's final footsteps, your woeful imprint on this earth were beginning to sound more and more distant, and it grew the fear in Vil that you would disappear somewhere far off from him. Still, the stubbornness of his doubts and self image tethered to his insides like a quick, sinking poison, suspending him in a moment of paradise and hell. He imagined this was the reality you lived as well. 

In a moment of weakness, he determined, he indulges in his grasping notions, hugging a single hand to your bare shoulder, feeling the smoothness of your skin as he rubs it. You sink into this warmth, moving your head to his lap and unwinding into his heat. His satin robes smelled of lavender and rich vanilla, sweet as his plush palms lulling you to sleep. 

You hope he stays the night, caging you in this warmth until you wake again, but he never does. 

——————————————————

It's the weekend again, which means yet another celebration hosted at the Pomefiore halls. You begin the preparations at late noon, having slept off the exhaustion of the week's low mood until the last possible minute. It wasn't much effort, it's not like people your age were particularly picky as long as hard liquor and junky snacks were involved. You took a quick swig of the nearly empty bottle, enjoying the dizzy fever it brought to your head. 

"Drinking already? Honestly (Name)..." Vil sighs as passes by the hall, returning from his workout. 

Feeling color rise to your cheeks as your eyes glaze over his exposed body, you decide it was a perfect opportunity to chalk up to your growing alcohol intake. "Uhh yup. You know me." You smile tightly, as he enters the ballroom, emptying the water bottle in his hand in huge gulps, ripping the mound on his throat in a rhythmic wave. The way his hair curls messily at his neck, sweat beading down his chest makes your head spin some metaphor likening his stature to mighty marble masses‒ but the sound of your heart thundering away at your ears makes you deaf to your own song. 

"What? Like what you see?" He mirrors your exact words from the other day, a mischievous glint in his eye. As much as you detested the teasing, you loved the look of his face. Not Vil Schoenheit, the actor; or Vil Schoenheit, loved by all‒ just, plainly, Vil. Your Vil‒  Koinonos, companion‒ in anything, your heart blared. But you killed that voice as soon as it rose, busying your head with the ecstacy of boozy daze with another swig of another bottle. This would be your companion for the night. 

"Suck my‒" You began, but was met with a solid chest right as you swiveled on your feet to exit the room, the intoxication reaching your movements when you knocked back onto the floor on your behind. 

"Elegant." Vil responds with a raised brow. 

"Sorry!" 

You recognized the face but not the name, prompting you to scramble through your memories for one. "Hey Uuh…" Blank. Nope. Nothing. "Sorry‒ what was your name again?"

"Oh! Yuri, remember? We uh‒ you don't remember last week?" 

It clicked in your brain. Shit, why was he here? Usually your flings knew to avoid pursuing or meeting you again because of the whole curse situation. But situations like this happened now and again, you were just hoping it was resultant from a lack of knowledge of your bloodline than some extravagant declaration of "love". You answer, with a poised smile on your lips. "Yeah, I do, sorry my memory gets foggy sometimes. Can I help you with something?" 

"I…" His eyes sway from yours to Vil's. "I was just‒ here!" 

To only your slight surprise, an envelope is shoved in your face. His hands shake a bit from his nerves, ears tinted dark while his face hides in the deep bow he positions his body in to hand you the paper. Inhaling a mulled breath, you wrap your hands softly around his wrist, tugging it to raise his face. He doesn't meet your eyes‒ you don't blame him.

"Hey." You begin, setting the bottle of alcohol on the table. "Let's talk in the hall, okay?"

He nods, retracting his hand from your back to his chest. Vil shoots a concerned look at your now completely sobered expression, but you just smile and wave, shutting the door quietly behind you. 

"I appreciate it. I really do. But you know about my bloodline‒"

"I do! I'm ready to make that commitment! I think‒ know I know this is love! Don't you feel it too? Isn't that why‒"

"Do you honestly believe true love exists? We're strangers. We forever will be." You notice his eyes that look distantly through yours. 

"When you sing of it, I do." 

You blink. Somehow, those same words from Vil sounded less believable when this man‒ declaring his unflinching commitment‒ utters them. There’s a certainty that is embedded inside you that you’re not used to, that says you’d believe Vil’s words hell and back over any other person in this world‒ even over any other arduous confessions of love no matter how much you wanted to seize an opportunity, a chance, any glimpse of serendipity in love. But you placate that hunger, bury it deep in your darkened stomach, killing it kindly with the fragrant flowers that seat beneath that tangling tree of ripening fruit. There’s a whiff of lavender which trickles from above, but you pull yourself from it to focus on the moment. 

"It doesn't exist. Neither for you or I, or anyone. Do you want to know what happened to my ancestors and their lovers?" 

He shakes his head. "I don't care about any of that, I‒" You take a hand to his pulse, measuring it’s speed with the stilled rhythm of your own. 

"Some die horrifically, ripped apart by furies. Some go mad and take their own lives because they can't stand the thought of potentially suffering a death like that. Others have been killed, poisoned, struck and tortured by the gods. You’ll become their little plaything, like me." Relief floods you as his pulse begins to quicken, stuttering at your words. But, these words come as a generosity. "Are you ready for something like that? A fate worse than death? For something as flimsy as 'true love'?" His eyebrows furrow, he squeezes the envelope between his clammy fingers. 

You decide to make this easier for him, taking the words from his heart and whirling them on your tongue. You've heard it plenty before from your days of romantic pursuit, despite the sacred promises to yourself when you were younger. But you're glad it gives you the script for times like this. The words roll off like practiced notes on your lyre.

"You're fun, you're beautiful, I like you and all…" A smile crept on your lips, like an infinite curse, widespread and flowering on your face. 'I know, I know' it says, the muchness of it all, I know. What else could you do but smile in the face of such heavenly concocted absurdity? "But we both know how this ends, right? Put your love somewhere else. Somewhere precious, yeah?” 

He nods silently, and you afford him the dignity to leave as such. Vil’s eyes flicker to your expression, then back to his phone when you slip back into the ballroom, which fills with silence. You take another swig of the bottle to beat the growing heaviness pounding a crater inside your chest. 

“Carter called, says he’s bringing his friends over soon. With the amount of people that were on the call you’ve got a lot of work to do.” 

“Correction‒ they will have a lot of work to do. They’re going to help me.” You drop your back onto the couch, sinking into it and Vil’s shoulder. He flashes you an annoyed look, but he doesn’t budge. 

“In that case I’m going to get changed. Don’t want to have a drunken bard ordering me around.” 

“Okay, I’ll let you know when my servants finish up with preparations~” You reach to your lyre and strum the strings carelessly. You imagine the giggle that would emit from Vil’s throat, but you’re met with a stiff laugh, his usual vibrancy between you two smothered by the concern of his eyes. You play a merry tune to soothe this expression, relieved when his posture seems to relax a bit. This silent language is thrown between you at all times, and it forges a weltering tension in your chest, something you try to pacify with the bright song erupting from your lyre. But the music seems to dull when Vil leaves, relaxing your smile into an empty gaze to the skies in his absence. 

——————————————————

Preparations are done just in time (much to the resistance of Carter and his friends) before people begin flooding into the dorm, reaching immediately for the alcohol that loosens their nerves. You're quite drunk by then, babbling on about some ancient heroic hymns and the process of which ambrosia is dedicated to the gods, dancing your fingers across a lute with a whirling fervor. You swing your body with a feverish madness, throwing it against the vivacious bodies bouncing across the room, sinking your mouth into the bitter lips of a bottle once more‒ hoping to jostle and boil the ache in your body with some lunatic passion. But soon, that cavity in your chest grows too heavy for you to move your body with such vigor‒ and you excuse yourself out of the room onto the balcony, despite the pleas for another song. Even with their roaring solicitation, begging for another intoxicating melody, promising a dimness in the room if you leave it‒ the space remains hot and lively as you turn from it, sobering you with the chilled autumn evening, and the darkened blueness of the world. 

You find the golden lyre in your hands, your florid fingers grazing the engraved wreath composed of the many titles your ancestors bore. Orphéfs, Aoidan Patēr, Tælætárkhis, Kælefstís, Khrysolýris ,Prophítis, Khrysáoros, Onomaklyton, Chrysolyrēs, Paian, and finally, Euainētos. It spans the entire arch of the metal, beginning from the coiled head of the instrument, ending with your title at the opposite tip, filling the space with each letter‒ E U A I N Ē T O S‒ to leave no capacity for another. Perhaps it was all fated in the beginning, to slowly chip away at your bloodline‒ until someone like you remained, alone, and ended your legacy in that way as divine punishment. Even on these nights you sung wonderful merriness into, you retreated like this‒ helpless to the waves of pity and the axis of despair that spun you dizzy‒ whipping and cracking against your crumbling heart as you were reminded of the burden of the gift, the kindness, the everything you had to keep giving while killing any sort of expectation for anything. But at times that hunger for that tantalizing fruit swelled, the sweetness of looking into the face of love gathering the pieces of your heart and molding it together in its temporary warmth. Surely, it is not bravery, but perhaps blindness, stupidity‒ that reeled you back like this every time, whispering against bruised flesh‒ the hurt would be worth it this time. You really never knew if it was, having a seasoned sense to extinguish that voice when you remembered the poison that would lay in your path because of it. 

During times like this, you were careful not to weave your own poetry‒ afraid that if you had unleashed all of this emptiness at once, the world would decay and pulverize into stardust, quieted from all of its life and launched every which way into the eternal cosmos‒ the gods, tipping their ears to your destruction, and punishing you with another effortless thrust that hurdled you off the cliff of your mountain of love into the endless pits of your grief. So you recited a hymn of two star-crossed lovers, encrusting the roses that weaved onto the balcony with a white frost. 

“Hey.” The gentleness of that voice for a moment brought a stuttering warmth to your song‒ breathing a lifted radiance that bloomed into the flowers. But you quelled the muchness, the everything even as it burns in the tightness of your throat, managing to return a small, “Hey” back to Vil. 

“Tired already?” 

You scoff with a slight smile on your lips. “You wish.The night is still young.” You make room for Vil on the bench, dangling off nearly half your body when you do. He sits with a delicate grace, his sweet perfume reaching your nose with a twinge of alcohol melded in. 

“The air feels nice. Reminds me of back home.” 

Home. You try to imagine it, and you're just met with dusty, barren rooms‒ and Vil, Vil, Vil. He is everywhere in your memories and tethered to home, filling that empty house with his laughter, his warmth. Like your memories, you allow yourself to sink into him, filling your chest with his sensation. The bench is not meant for two people, but you manage. 

“Tell me, which one of your stories were you babbling on about?” 

“Oh nothing, really. Just some old tale, not any of mine. I’m tired of having to thread something from myself.” 

“All these old tales‒ they all end the same don’t they.” He recalls his career, strife with the same, fairytale endings over, and over, and over again. The villain, no matter how bright, how cunning, how beautiful‒ will fall, slain at the feet of the hero. He understood your sophistication to this tragedy at a young age, bearing this destruction over and over. Still, your back remained ever brighter than anyone he knew despite being whipped against this ceaseless death. “Why don’t you sing of something more bright, beautiful, happy in your life?” 

You chuckle. “What, like you?” The air cools the slight flush of your skin. Raising your hand to the skies like a muse, you lift your body to the balcony railing, lunging towards the heavens. “Oh gods lend thy ears to my hymn dedicated to very best companion‒ Vil Schoenheit‒ his beauty surpassing all those on this land even you dreadful creatures‒ kindness penetrating all of sentient beings; hair silky smooth as Galatea's skin‒ whoa!” 

Vil catches you by the waist before you tip over the edge of the rail, almost melting in your mild aroma if it wasn’t for your loss of balance. He swings you down to the balcony floor. 

“You.. half witted, drunken bard. I’ll kill you if I start wrinkling at this age because of your antics.” 

You lean back onto the balcony, afraid of the soaring feeling his touch engraved in you. Your breath stinks of liquor as you let out a laugh, throwing your head back off the rail. “The god won’t hear anyway. The story I must tell is already composed in the stars by their hands.” The corner of your lips weighs into a softer, mathematical smile‒ one which ensured it warranted no pity, no kindness, no woe. “I have no true say in what I sing. It doesn’t matter. None of it does.” 

You avoid Vil’s face, but your eyes heave over to them in a covetous gaze. There is no pity, no kindness, no woe‒ but understanding‒ something which makes you want to fall deep into the earth, all the way to the chamber of Hades, to bury yourself deep into the cold ground to shackle down any desire that may arise for that dangling fruit. But you yield to the celestial warmth in them, one which reflects the heat of your fluttering heartbeat in the tender lavender of his eyes. A warmth that did not burn, or was fed by taking your own, one which glowed with sublime beauty and touched like warm flesh. It takes an agonizing effort from you to sink and sabotage your heart from enjoying that tender touch, instead reaching your hands to the wintery, still metal of your lyre.

“...I understand that feeling. It's the same when you get type-casted over and over again." He stares at your hands plucking a wistful tune. "It's like you have no story to tell but the ones people keep deciding for you."

Your hands move ceaselessly to twist a sorrowful song, so shamelessly in front of Vil. You plucked with mulled, languid fingers, aching to play something much faster, much lighter than the weight licking against the strings of your heart. But a growing force born of your own flesh, would not let you, seizing control of your body and its movements, intoxicating it with a rupture, a breaking, a splitering that followed the lines of old scars. 

“You’re so beautiful, Vil. And so diligent, resilient too. You could command the seas and the stars if you pleased.” You giggled to squint your eyes, hoping it would shade the absolute adoration within them. “You’ll be whatever you want to be. That’s the Vil I know. I don’t care if you’re a hero, or a villain. You’re…” everything. All of it. “...you’re always that beautiful Vil to me.” 

He believes every word from you, he always does. Anger sparks in him. "What about you, then?" Those words came fast, escaping his throat without a hesitance prickling through it.

"Hm? What about me?" 

"You're the same‒ you could shake the earth with your songs, and you do." A heated temper welled inside him, buzzing, swollen like a burn. How dare you speak like this? How dare you speak so lowly, so carelessly to the one he loved? "What about you? What will you become?" 

"It is already decided‒"

"By who exactly?" He demanded, louder.

"By the gods of course. The ones which my family dishonored‒ "

“I am asking about you‒ what do you want? What will you do with all your love?” What about us? He wished things were a certain way so he could have tasted the sweetness of those words. But he bit his tongue. 

A hollow laugh thrusts past your lips. "But why should I try? Only few have returned from the trials of love with someone to share that victory with. Many take their lives‒ you know‒ my mother did." You rested your hand on top of your instrument. "It all ends the same. They all leave.”

"But they're not you." 

"The same blood flows within me." He was being so persistent tonight. You wished he’d give up, but it would also break you if he abandoned you at this moment. 

He can’t help the sarcasm lacing into his voice, rising from the rage swelling inside him. "I wasn’t aware you passed down the same heart too, is it a family heirloom?”

The silence hurt your ears like a bitter, frosted wind, matching the feeling in your chest that ached so freshly at those thrashing words. 

“They don’t.” You answered finally. “But this heart is neither theirs nor mine. It is for the gods to ravage. And I don’t know where to put it. All this love.” You turn towards the sky, sparing him the sight of your tears. 

“Okay, fine.” Vil sucked a breath in, he was feeling brave now‒ perhaps it was blindness, stupidity. “Then let me have it.” 

"...what?" He sees the tension grow in your shoulders, the heave of your white breath against the inky, cold air. 

"Give it to me." He said with more greed, hunger rumbling, plump in his veins. 

"No." You gripped the gilded gold handle of your lyre. "No. I cannot do that to you. I won't. You're‒ you're‒" Everything. Love. My memories. My love. My everything. The words came tumbling from your mouth. "You're too precious, Vil. What would the world do without you?" No. You felt those weren't quite the right words. "What would I do without you?"

Vil swallows the space between you two with one step.“You won’t have to live without me. I’ll be here. With you.” 

“You don’t know that! Don’t‒ don’t say things like that.” You shake, those words sharpened at him, lashing against his sweetness. “I can’t lose you. You’re different, you’re unlike anyone I’ve met. Even the gods cannot tear you away from me. I…” I love you. “...I could not bear it if you sunk below this mortal sea‒ if I robbed you of your life. Don’t do this. Stop.” 

He embraces your form. You want to lurch away from his tender arms, but you can’t. His arms station themselves like ancient stone around your body. “The gods have always been merciful to you when they brought us together. But you have not been the same to yourself.” 

You thumbed your title on your lyre numbly, pleading. “Stop. Don’t do this. Don’t say things like that.” Don’t, don’t, don’t.  

“Don’t take me for a fool, tell me why, then. Did all of these years mean nothing to you?“

“Because it will fade. Love is ephemeral, it dies, it withers. Do you truly believe it is eternal? Like some stupid fairytale?” 

He remembers your words towards him. You could command the seas and the stars if you pleased…You’ll be whatever you want to be. “When you sing of it in your songs, I believe it. You make eternity out of love. You’re more of an idiot than I thought if you won’t do the same for your own.”

You don’t answer him, leaning the back of your head against his flaying heartbeat, trembling. 

“It seems I can’t get through to you in these flowery words, you stupid bard.” He turns you to face him, a smile reaches his lips despite him seeing, for the first time, those greedy, fat tears that fall from your face. “I love you, dumbass. I will plow my way out of heaven and hell for you to hear this.”

“I…” You want to run, hide, thrash against his grip with the decaying vehemence of your song. Instead, you force out thick, hitching breaths with a burning in your lungs. “Is this‒ are you‒”

“I’m certain. I’ve had about an excruciating decade to be certain, (Name).” 

In your lifetime as a balladeer, you’ve trained your throat to trill the highest notes, sung your muscles raw to commit epics to memory, thickened the flesh of your lungs to cry bellowing poetry for colossal crowds. The world knew a thousand words from you. But the sun had never touched the words spilling from your mouth, pouring out corroded and rusted with the heat of your heart. It comes as a babbling rustle, rough as a child’s cry. Your arms move on their one, tangling into his neck and burrowing your face into the curve of his shoulder. It's warm, so warm. “I love you too. I love you, I love you.” You feel suspended in the heavenly, prickling starlights in his embrace.

"Tell me this isn't a dream‒ some cruel dream spun by the gods. Please?" The metal of your lyre sings as it hits the ground. You would not let the gods interrupt you this time, holding his face to look for any semblance of betrayal, cruelty‒ anything that would tear down this moment like the gods had promised. But it never came. This was your Vil. 

"Can I show you instead?" He peeled your lip forward, exposing the flushed color to his eyes. Was this the color of your blood? Your throat? Perhaps he could taste it if he tried hard enough. 

Your breath was already mixing with his when you begged. "Please‒"

His lips molded against yours‒ you tasted the faintest twinge of candied apples sticking against his plush flesh. He pulled you closer, hoping to color his insides with your smell, your taste‒ more, anything that would bring you closer to him. When you separated to breathe, you greedily gulped the air scented with his sweet fragrance, before diving back to his lips. Again‒ one more time‒ just to make sure this was all real. The bruising of your lips and feverish fluttering of your breaths made you believe, indeed, that this was reality. You grinned‒ your cheeks throbbing. 

“There is so much you have to make up for.” He says, smiling against your grazing fingers against his lips, committing every curve and grove to your memory. You would fill yourself with him like this. “Or‒ we have a lot to make up for.” 

You enjoyed the way his eyes flushed with a sea of violet as they squinted, crushed from his brimming cheeks. “I’m sorry. I will. As much as time will let me, I’ll make it up to you again, and again.”

“Show me.”

You dip your mouth onto his once more, tasting the fountain of sweetness spilling from his throat. A smile, one for yourself and no one else, flowers on your face. "I'll have to shape us into a song. I'll make sure they'll paint of us, sculpt us, sing of us‒ they'll remember us. Two lovers, you and me, a constellation of love." The lightness of your laughter almost pulled him up to the heavens. Finally. 

"You have such a talent of making everything sound so stupidly splendid."

"Because you make it so.”

You strum your lyre, lacing your adoration into the notes, each finger weighted by the love in your heart. The roses of the garden grow fragrant, fruit and flowering buds swung from the trees, lavender sprouting from between the crackling veranda floor. An everlasting spring of your love, infinite as the elements that grow, and wither, and die, and rebirth into the earth allows you to plant your feet next to Vil’s. You look to him, finding mischief, kindness, and tenderness swirling in the violet, speckling with the glassy blue. It was as if the whole expanse of the sky lay within each of his eyes‒ infinity‒ you thought. Your infinity, a garden of lasting spring you would grow with each loving note from your throat. There would be frost, there would be decay‒ but not even the gods could lay their hands upon this infinite season. You titter, filled with its warmth, listening to the beat of his heart, spinning a song, an eternity from it.

——————————————————

Notes:

Title inspired by Shakespear's poem "Orpheus"  “Orpheus with his lute made trees / And the mountain tops that freeze / Bow themselves when he did sing / To his music plants and flowers / Ever sprung; as sun and showers / There had made a lasting spring.”

Euainētos is an epithet for Orpheus, meaning well praised. I thought it would be interesting for an MC who has many people who love them for what they can give, rather than love them as a whole (the whole “people love me but don’t like me” dilemma). Love an angsty epithet. 

Lavender has historically been a symbol for both lesbians and gay men‒ an overarching mark of queerness. I try to be as inclusive as I can with my language and writing‒ but all art is a self portrait of their creators. So, because I'm queer, my writing will inevitably be queer coded too. I thought it was a nice touch to add because I do headcanon Vil as queer‒ both in his gender and sexuality. The pronouns he uses in the Japanese version has a historical connection to the "Okama"/"transsexual" and contemporarily, queer people in Japan. Our culture I think often twists gender expectations and language because of the rigidity in our language and social structure as an extension of ourselves (language = very strong way to express the self = entices subversive use of this powerful tool). We also have a great history in queer gender performance in our performance arts‒ such as Kabuki and Takarazuka which have deep influences in our overall society and culture. Though western literature and society has not seen these people explicitly "queer" I think westerners (and Japan as it is affected by Western ideology) need to expand their definition of queerness so that it is culturally inclusive. So to me I think Vil falls within that definition of queerness (also, his dress/uniform slays) on the gender and sexuality spectrum and I thought lavender was a good, subtle nod to that. 

Also, the hanakotoba (flower language) for Lavenders is "I await you", silence, hope, hesitancy, elegance,  "love that forgives'', and "please answer to me"- it has both positive and slightly sorrowful sentiments, and an aspect of yearning that I love lol. I love flower language so fucking much I use it with every chance I get

Title is also inspired from this plus, yes you guessed it, our lord and savior Mitski (First Love/Late Spring) 

Your mother's body is burned because cremation was popularized by the Athenians and became common practice by the Homeric era. Coin placed in the mouth (Charon's obol) is the payment for Charon to carry you across the river of the dead. 

Why are there so many convoluted parental relationships in my fics? Easy! I have mommy AND daddy issues. Yes ladies you really can have it all

All the names I mentioned that are engraved onto the lyre are different epithets of Orpheus

Working on the Azul x Siren hanahaki fic soon~ Here is the post of myth-inspired ideas if you haven’t seen it

[lukabrina-viperhound]

Never Love An Anchor - Prologue:

Luka Couffaine was drowning. months of plotting and rallying and carefully preparing, all gone down the great blue ocean, along with his body and soon, his soul.

and just as he is about to accept his fate, while closing his eyes and ceasing his struggle to stay afloat, he catches a glimpse of brilliant orange and shimmering teal, swimming his way quickly.

He awoke to a gorgeous face haloed by the glaring sun, with too many questions and not enough air in his lungs to ask any of them, he began coughing up saltwater.

“Oh, oh my. Are you alright? I'm not sure humans are supposed to do that. Not that I’ve really drowned any myself to know for sure…” The gorgeous face spoke with an equally lovely voice. So lovely, in fact, that it took Luka a second to process the disturbing nature of the sentence.

“What-“ he had to cough and heave and cough again before continuing breathlessly. “What are you?” But the question was redundant. He was saved from drowning by a beautiful woman with a melodious voice who, by her own admission, was expected to drown humans. something she herself was not.

His savior was a siren.

“Calm down, sailor. If I wanted you dead then I wouldn't have bothered saving you, now would I?” the beautiful siren reassured him.

“That’s not nearly as hopeful a sentiment as you believe it to be. After all, what could a siren want with a man that she keeps him alive for?” Luka found himself arguing against his favor in his anxiety.

“The only hunger I wish to satiate with you, sailor - “ the siren leaned in close with the top half of her body, honeyed voice laced with a dangerous edge, closing in on his waist and allowing the suggestive nature of her words to linger for only a moment before innocently submerging her body back in the water and completing her sentence, “is my curiosity!”

“Curiosity? Of what kind?” Luka asked, suspicious and still a bit flustered.

“Oh, just the healthy, intellectual kind.” She explained readily, smirking subtly at having riled him up so successfully over nothing. The other sirens thought her a boring prude, but she just made a sailor blush! “A seafaring man such as yourself, one I found drowning no less, surely has some stories to tell?” She finished her explanation, phrasing the ending more like an invitation, perhaps a request.

What could she say? She loved unraveling a good mystery.

“And what exactly is in it for me if I tell you my whole sad story? You getting entertainment at the expense of me reliving my trauma hardly sounds like a fair trade.” Luka shot back, now slightly more at ease despite his better judgment and bantering freely.

“What? Does my excellent companionship not suffice? You do realize I could've just left once I rescued you and you'd be all alone here for who knows how long. As I've said, I'm no human expert, but even I know you don't do well in isolation.” Her words had a teasing edge to them, something about her tone letting him know that leaving him behind and alone was never an option for her. He found himself feeling just as curious about her as she was about him.

“Be that as it may, I still feel like this isn't an equal exchange. So what if we came to an agreement?” Making a deal with any sort of magical creature was dangerous business, but the siren was right about one thing. It's not like he was going anywhere anytime soon, so he might as well take a chance.

Sabrina's smile widened in excitement and her tail splashed around in the water. “I'm listening…”

“Ask me a question about myself, and I will endeavor to answer to the best of my ability. Then, I ask you one of my many questions and you give me some much-needed answers about yourself. Does that sound acceptable?”

“hmmm… well, sailor, you drive a hard bargain. But I believe you've got yourself a deal!”

Art by the wonderful @the-lavender-creator who helped inspire this fic, along with this song;