#ooc: i like dropping tiny bits of lore like this

[floralpromise]

Just floating around // Rafayel x f!reader

Summary: Since the beach would be too crowded, Rafayel has to find a creative solution to it.

Warnings: Probs some ooc Rafayel bc I'm not used to writing for him. Some lore so slightly spoilers? (like what he is etc and some aspects from "ebb and flow"). Some silly fic bc somehow I can see Rafayel do something like that? Let me know if I missed any more warnings.

Genre: fluff, sfw.

Word count: 705.

Rafayel was lying on a floatie, floating around in the pool that was set up in the middle of his living room. A pair of black sunglasses rested on his nose as he was holding a glass in his hand with a colorful cocktail. A yellow straw and a red parasol in it as well.

Since it was a hot and sunny day in Linkon, Rafayel didn't feel like going to the beach, knowing it would be crowded with people who wanted to take a dive in the cold seawater. And so, Rafayel preferred to float around in his own pool in the safety of his own studio.

He rested his free hand behind his head, his tail slightly moving up and down as the edges dipped in the cold water. Blue scales adore his face and body. He felt beyond relaxed, forgetting about the unfinished painting that was hanging on the wall, waiting for him to finish it, but the Lemurian hadn't touched his pencils today and wasn't planning to do so. There was no rush in finishing it, not that he was able to do so since his inspiration wasn't really there and the hot weather wasn't helping either.

He peered up from under his sunglasses when he heard the door open and being closed again, watching your figure appear in his eyesight. A smile tugged at his lips as he watched your face, trying to read your emotions.

"Rafayel, what the-" You muttered as you placed your bag down and slowly started to approach the pool. "Couldn't go to the beach." He shrugged in response as you rolled your eyes at his words. "So you brought the beach here." You huffed as he simply shrugged. "It helps me spark my inspiration." He spoke, nodding his head towards the unfinished painting.

"That's what you said yesterday when we went out for food, and also the day before yesterday when we went to the beach to collect some stuff." You reminded him of how he had been procrastinating the past few things. "It's hot outside, a heat wave! Not my fault they didn't predict the weather right." He huffed, another excuse for his procrastinating. You stopped in front of the pool, staring at the artist all relaxed on his floatie.

He patted the floatie, on the tiny spot still free for you to take. "No, we both know you'll end up pushing me off." You refused as you crossed your arms. Rafayel furrowed his brows and a small pout formed on his lips. "How ridiculous of you to even say that!" He huffed, slightly dramatically raising his voice. "Denying my invitation for cuddles. So rude to deny a Lemurian" He grumbled, pushing the sunglasses back on his nose before taking an aggressive sip from his drink.

"And what if I drown? Would you rescue me or would you just walk away?" Rafayel went on. "You are a fish, Raf. You can't drown." You waved him off. "Fish can drown if they don't have enough oxygen in the water." Rafayel pointed out. "Please join me, it's getting all cold and lonely out here, alone in the ocean." He sighed, making dramatic movements with his arms.

You sighed and kicked your shoes out and took off your socks, dropping them near your feet before you stepped into the water. The temperature was nice, not too cold but cold enough to be refreshing. And not too hot, but hot enough to enjoy it. The water temperature was pretty much perfect.

A smug smile formed on Rafayel's lips as he watched you approach him, arms wide open as he made a bit more room for you on the floatie. The moment you reached him, he was fast enough to lean forward and pull you straight into his arms, only to make the floatie sway back and forth.

You yelped, afraid the two of you would fall over but nothing happened. You let out a relieved breath as you positioned yourself in a comfortable position on the floaties, his arms safely wrapped around you as he rested his head on your shoulder. "Happy?" You asked him as you playfully rolled your eyes. "Very." He nodded with a playful smile.

[redandpointy]

⭐star⭐

ohhh. the scene I *really* want to talk about isn’t public yet. well. the first of a few.

So i guess maybe I’ll talk about the genesis of the whole series?

I got back in to WoW at the end of Draenor. I got caught up on the lore - reading the wiki entries and the books and pulling bits and pieces together and generally catching up. And it was all kicked off by someone in my raid team referring to Jaina as a “total bitch” when we did mythic siege after we all got our AOTC and being confused. So i read what happened to one of the characters I had really loved in WC3. (I still disagree with that guildie)

But I empathized with Jaina again and I really liked this teeny relationship she’d been written into with another soft magic nerd. And then we started to get information about Legion and there were bits and pieces coming out of the alpha that had me worried because WoW’s track record with female characters was not good. There were signs it was getting better, but still...

In my personal life, work was going well, but I was not as appreciated as I should have been but I was so afraid of not having a job I stayed. It was an okay job but they could have treated me better and it led to some serious workaholic habits I am still finding hard to break.

I was also just ending close to three years without writing anything that wasn’t RP. It was... not good. RP is fine and well and good and I love watching people do it - but I cannot tell *my* story doing it. I can be a GM and facilitate stories of others and that is wonderful and fun - but it is very much not *my* story. RP and, well, people, get in the way of *my* story and *my* characters. And once I truly realized that, it was better - because I could write my characters and I could do the RP thing and they were separate entertainments but for a very long while I tried them, unsuccessfully to be the same thing - because some people can bully/charm/influence their way into it being the same thing. But once I dropped that I was free.

And then right about then the Evil Ex, who I had been supporting financially for a whole year, who had been living with me after being in a long distance relationship - ghosted. A year. He got an “amazing” job in another part of the state and I was going to follow when I got a job offer. after a month - ghosted.

That was a bullet dodged. But it hurt. And at the same time, I was kicking some major ass at work and was losing a lot of weight and feeling pretty awesome and was really enjoying my current set of fannish things and was exploring the tumblr and fandom and so on and had kinda sorta thought about some writing in WoW. And I as far more interested in everything going on in the fandom and the news and in my head in WoW than I was in SWTOR and... I had some cool scenes I wanted to see. Some very grand, very epic battles and some very soft character moments and I considered “Did I want to get back into writing?” because I solidly hadn’t for close to two years and what I wanted to write was... not the big ships or the most popular thing and did I want to struggle in the same obscurity I had before and would that bother me?

And I also thought about the rumors of what would happen in Legion to the various favorites - because a lot of the time it seemed the thing I loved was the thing that was discarded or jossed or tossed aside or grossly underused or turned into a shitty trope I had seen and was happy to never see again.And so I decided that I wanted my epic visions. And I decided that I wanted my safe, happy AU bubble where things were as *I* wanted them to be with the “right” choices and Fuck. Canon, whatever it would be.

But I have this problem. I don’t like being OOC. I don’t like it when things come out of nowhere even if it’s “cool” like... there is a basis, a shared canon experience even if you or I reject parts or don’t know about things because it was in weird apocrypha - there is a basis. and part of the fun is taking that basis and expanding on it.So to bring about my pillowfort of self-care fanfic in the *legion* era, I had to start earlier. Much earlier. There would things which would need to have been different or changed prior. And those were very exciting possibilities.And, most of all, poor Jaina needed some goddamned therapy.So I started writing what became Red Crane in very late november. and I wrote... a lot. A LOT. I think I had close to a 50k buffer of words, some of them prose, some ideas, some side notes and side stories by the time I finally got the nerve to post in Jan 2016. Because I was originally just going to write for me because I needed it. And in that I was the most successful I have ever been in a creative endeavor. I was in a headspace barren of fucks and it was magically productive.The bulk became Red Crane. Over the december holidays I had an idea. and that too needed to have some substance at the base. And that was when I had ot think “do I want to start this epic muti fic project?” and I decided “fuck it, why not? no one is going to care but me and I need more rooms in the pillow fort.” I started Life-binder, because there was a story there too and I knew how it ended - I wrote the ending. but I needed to construct the beginning and to establish that solid base.And IN January I decided I had a buffer and momentum. and fuck it, I would post. I might be eaten alive by fandom, but mostly they probably would ignore me and my tiny ship. I set myself a goal - I would post at least once every 14 days if I couldn’t post once a week. and for the duration of Red Crane I met that goal, save for the final two chapters - one because they were large and two, because I needed to start Spell-Weaver at the same time.

The repercussions of deciding to write are... large. I met a whole host of new friends because of it. Because of them and because of the strange therapeutic act of getting back to me being creative for myself I ended up being far more confident and I kicked an incredible amount of ass at work (which I was not really recognized for) and then had the bravery to take a chance and ended up landing a job at a very selective company I had always wished I could go to. I mean hell, even the writing practice was key in me moving onwards and upwards to a much healthier place.

I am 100% where I am right now in life because I decided to write Red Crane and get Jaina some goddamned therapy.