#red and white flower girl dresses uk

[lisbeth-kk]

May Prompts (27) Jealousy

The Luckiest Girl in the World (chapter27)

Summary: Rosie and Timothy travel the Greek islands. An intriguing experience on Santorini, puzzles and irks Rosie immensely. When Timothy doesn't react to her liking, there's only one option on how to move forward.

Twenty-Seven Years Old

To celebrate my birthday and my new fulltime job as a political risk analyst, Timothy and I went island-hopping in Greece. Liwia and her girlfriend had done it last year, and it appealed to us both. Having nothing but the flights planned, made me feel a bit reckless but it was quite freeing as well.

The only thing we’d decided on was to stick to the Cyclades and we started our journey by taking a ferry to the small island Antiparos. Several people who let out rooms stood waiting on the quay as we disembarked. An elderly and friendly looking man caught our attention, and the room he had to offer was more than sufficient.

Our first breakfast is one I’ll remember forever. The small restaurant was situated by the seafront where the fishing boats came in with their catch. Faded coloured fishing nets hung to dry in the sun, the scent of salt weaving its way to our nostrils.

Freshly pressed orange juice and the fluffiest omelette I’d ever come across, ensured the perfect start of our day.

We hired a moped to explore a little. The trip took us through a landscape of olive trees and flowers we didn’t have in the UK. Our destination was the famous cave with stalagmites and stalactites. The stalagmite at the entrance is apparently 45 million years old, the oldest in Europe. 

We were warm and a bit sweaty after standing out in the sun, while we waited for our guide. The air inside was pleasantly chill and got even colder as we descended the 411 steps to the heart of the cave. It was a mesmerising sight, and knowing that this was the nature’s own doing, left me amazed and humble.

At a cosy taverna we ate the best Greek salad to date. The ripe tomatoes paired with the salty feta cheese, olives, onions, the rich olive oil and the homemade bread, almost made me religious for a moment.

The beach close to our quarters, was small, secluded and blessedly free of crowds. We had taken a boat to a famous beach the day before, but we’d barely found a free space to lay down our blankets, so this felt like paradise in comparison. 

Another short boat ride away was the bigger island Paros. We took the bus to the other side of the island. I don’t remember anything else from that trip than the hours we spent in Naoussa. Several boats painted in bright colours lay bobbing in the water close to the restaurants that encircled the bay. It may sound simple, but it was the most beautiful view, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. We sat there for hours, eating seafood and drinking Greek white wine. 

***

So far, it had been a “normal” vacation, or tedious as Papa would’ve called it. That all ended when we sat foot on Santorini. Getting a room was easy enough, and relieved of our heavy rucksacks we went for a stroll in the main street of Fira. Every other shop was a jewellery shop, and the necklaces displayed bore the resemblance to what pharaohs and Cleopatra wore. Heavy, massive and ridiculously expensive. For each shop they seemed to grow bigger and uglier. We had quite a laugh at that.

The most peculiar thing happened at the restaurant we had lunch. It was a terrace with a breathtaking view over the Aegean Sea. We’d decided to stay for a while and ordered more iced tea, making ourselves comfortable under the big parasol. We had both brought a book, and for a while we read in silence. A repetitive sound of paper being ripped, caught my attention.

An elderly woman had taken up residence at the table next to ours. She had short frizzy hair, more grey than brown now, her glasses were round with a white frame. The summer dress she wore had big patterns in green, red, white, and orange. On her feet were white flip-flops. 

“Stop staring,” Timothy whispered.

He startled me and I looked annoyed at him, but averted my eyes and took a sip of my drink. The moment the sound of ripped paper reached my ears again, my eyes were drawn to the spectacle at the other table.

The woman read a book too. A paperback. The curious thing I almost couldn’t fathom, was that whenever she finished a page, she ripped it out and placed it in a pile under her plate. Why would anyone want to do such a thing? What if you needed to go back some pages to look up something you’ve missed. It could never be read by another person, since she apparently left pages wherever she sat down to read. It bore no logic, and it irked me.

“Aren’t you curious about why she does it?” I whispered to Timothy.

“Not particularly. My book is far too interesting, and you won’t get an answer unless you ask her, and I guess you aren’t inclined to do that,” was his phlegmatic answer.

Timothy’s ability to turn off the world and disappear into his reading or writing, was admirable, but now it almost made me jealous of his book. I wanted to speculate with someone, solve this odd conundrum. There would be no more reading on my part after this, so I took out my phone instead.

Want to solve a mystery for me?

Pray tell! I’m bored to death and about to shoot the wall. P

Also available on AO3

Friendly warning: after 25 years the mystery is still unsolved. Don’t be shy about suggesting what the meaning of this appalling behaviour could be 🤭

@calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @keirgreeneyes @helloliriels @raina-at

More tags in the replies

[eleemosynecdoche]

How does one do Glorantha?

You do it like this:

The Man of Quality

A man dressed in white robes with two golden stripes stepped into the GHQ pavilion one day in the Zeroth. He spake, saying, "As you are antinomians, tell me. My brother's uke disrespected our family, by eating at the same table as his wife. Shall I then transgress the old laws, and kill him?" 

Deneskerva began, "That's not what-" 

The Living Goddess rose from her chair. "I've got this, honey," she said. "You can keep working on the grain dole with sweetcheeks here." And she did lightly smack Etyries upon her ziggurat of repose. Teelo Estara faced the man of quality, and plucked some cherries from a bowl. "You can do whatever you feel like in life," she said, eating them. She smiled, teeth stained red with their juices. "Such have I said, but it is a simple truth. I suppose a man of quality like you understands the necessity of one speech for the lowly and another for the mediocre orders and still another for the high and mighty. Just as you might beat a lowly slave girl to the point of death for mixing up the robe of authority with the robe of dominion, but merely deliver ten lashes with the whip to a scribe who fumbles his B's." 

Eserela closed her eyes and covered her mouth. Doskalos stuck his head in, saw what was happening, and turned and walked out immediately. The man of quality shifted uneasily, for the first and second manumissions had happened already. "I suppose," he said, thinking that perhaps this fraud was also a hypocrite. 

"So, then, here is a speech for a man of quality such as yourself." Teelo Estara spat one of the cherry pits into a wooden spittoon. "Behold the prison of the conventional order!" she said. "The pit of the cherry is the seed of the tree, and yet we gather them into one place where they cannot be sown. Should they not instead be scattered freely, such that many trees could grow and their fragrant flowers blossom? I imagine many maidens of virtuous heart would agree with the proposition, that they ought to scatter seed more freely." And Eserela choked at this. 

In a moment, though, she raised up one hand and said, "I'm fine, I'm fine, Teelo you don't need to squeeze me so tightly, I'm not going anywhere." 

And the man of quality avoided looking at anyone else while this was happening. Finally, when all was settled, he said, "I suppose it is hard to disagree with the reasoning there."

Teelo Estara spat the other cherry pit at his face, where it hit the bridge of his nose and bounced off, leaving stains of red. "And yet," she said, "It has brought you nothing but hurt and loss of dignity. Perhaps the prison of the conventional order is only such because of the chains, and not because the building is built wicked, yes?" She sighed at the expression on the man of quality's face. "Pick the pit up."

He did so, and at her further direction, put it in the spittoon. 

"Now as for ukes and other catamites, they have the privilege of favor, and of defiance, and so it is well and good for them to sit at the high table and make merry with their seme's wife. But for a man of quality, defiance is not a privilege but rather a crime, a blasphemy against the gods. So, are you a man of quality and a blasphemer?" The Living Goddess smiled. 

The man of quality looked around. No help was to be found. "I'm a catamite," he said, helplessly. 

"An unattached, despeate catamite, too," Teelo Estara said. "A pitiful and lonesome being." She smiled. "Accept this boon from me," she proclaimed, "That you will go unattached no more! Doskalos, get in here." 

Her son scrabbled in and saluted his mother. She said, "Rouge your cheeks. Stain your lips. Outline your eyes. And when you're done, take this newly appointed catamite somewhere and bless him repeatedly. With rest breaks, if necessary." 

Doskalos looked at the man, who looked back at him. He smiled gently. The man cringed. "Oh, look at that," Teelo Estara said, "he looks like a naughty puppy! After you've blown out his back walls, get him a collar too." 

And the man of quality lost his quality and became, after some exploration of his self, a very happy catamite and uke.

[wallpapernifty]

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[cali-holland]

Priceless- Tom Holland One Shot

Pairing: Tom Holland X Reader

Prompt: You’ve never liked people spending money on you or being at large parties, but Tom seems to forget that as he goes a bit overboard when celebrating your birthday.

Word Count: 3100

Warnings: swearing, mentions of alcohol

Masterlist   Tom Holland Masterlist

*Gif is not mine*

A/N: I wrote this weeks ago and forgot to post it, my bad if it’s shit- it’s unedited; also I have no clue how much student loans are in the uk or if they even exist so i made it based off the us average and i’ll just stop rambling now oops

~~~

“Tom, this place is really nice.” You breathed out in awe of the dimly lit, but extravagant restaurant. While you felt almost embarrassed by your simple little black dress and non-designer shoes, your hands began to shake a little, thinking about how expensive this dinner must be.

“Anything for my special birthday girl.” Tom beamed, pulling out your chair for you to sit down.

“I wish you would’ve told me we were coming here. I would’ve dressed better.” You said quietly as you sat down in the chair, eyeing the women in fancy dresses at the tables surrounding you two.

“What are you talking about? You’re the best dressed person here.” He sat down across from you, adjusting his tux as he did so, and a sharply dressed waiter came up to the table, offering you two champagne immediately. Before you could kindly decline the offer, Tom insisted on the drinks.

“We’re celebrating tonight.” Tom stated, holding up his champagne flute out to you once the waiter had left. “To the best day of the year: happy birthday, Y/N.”

“Thank you.” You smiled, clinking your own glass against his before drinking the expensive liquid. 

Being with Tom for the past two years, you were used to the sweet date nights and the amazing birthday gifts; today was just different though. He’d never taken you to such an expensive restaurant before, not one that is so pricey that they don’t even bother to add prices on the menu (which upset you because you couldn’t even choose the cheapest option). You loved your boyfriend very much and you were appreciative of all the romantic dates he took you on and of the incredible gifts he’d give you, but sometimes it concerned you how he’d so willingly spend his money on you. He’d give you a million dollars if you asked for it, no matter what day it was. That is exactly why he didn’t know about your student loans or any of your past due bills- you were a staunch believer in making your way on your own, and that meant not using your boyfriend’s seemingly endless cash flow to help yourself out.

Tom knew you weren’t a fan of him spending money on you, and he also knew you weren’t one for big parties or celebrating your birthday. The diamond necklace that sat on your neck from your last birthday was proof enough of how Tom used your birthday especially as an excuse to give you more expensive things.

“You know I’m paying you back for this, right?” You said as you looked over the menu. Tom laughed, shaking his head.

“You’re not paying for your birthday dinner.” He replied, taking your free hand and holding it in his.

“I’d let you pay for the full meal if we were at McDonald’s, not at some 5-star restaurant.” You stated.

“I think it’s only 4-star.” He joked, but his smile dropped when he saw your frown. Tom lightly squeezed your hand in his. “Let me spoil you tonight, please? Just for tonight.”

“You’re unbelievable, Holland.” You rolled your eyes at him, but still cracked a smile, your thumb gently tracing against the back of his hand.

“I love you, Y/N, but I’m paying for tonight.”

“I love you, too.” You smiled, and he leaned over the table to kiss you.

After a rather delicious five-course meal, you and Tom got into the car, and he took off his suit jacket. While he removed his tie, you took the opportunity to look at the dinner receipt from his jacket pocket.

“Wait, stop!” He reached to take it out of your hands, but it was too late because you had already seen the receipt.

“£400? Are you crazy?” You exclaimed, blinking to make sure you’d read the receipt right- that wasn’t even including his very generous tip (which you weren’t going to complain about that bit).

“Was it not a good meal?” Tom questioned, taking the receipt back from you and putting in his pants pocket this time.

“It was the best food I’ve ever had. I just wish you wouldn’t spend so much on me.” As he pulled out of the parking lot, you took out your phone, pulling up Venmo.

“No, you’re not allowed to pay me back.”

“Well, I said you weren’t allowed to spend that much money on me.”

“It’s your birthday, please let me spoil you a little.” Stopped at a red light, he turned to you and pouted. You sighed, locking your phone.

“For your birthday, I’m taking you to a ridiculously expensive restaurant too.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek before the light turned green and he had to start driving again. It took you a minute before you realized he was going in the wrong direction of your flat. “Where are we going?”

“I thought we could go for some drinks before going home.” Tom suggested, but something about his smile made you think it wasn’t a spontaneous thought.

“Yeah, why not?” You replied, not seeing the harm in just going with him. It’s not like you had a choice since he was already driving there anyway. You really just wanted to go home and have a nice night with him, but he was excited about whatever surprise he had planned for you and you weren’t going to ruin that for him- you already felt guilty enough about the dinner (although you did actually really enjoy it, all expenses aside).

“What are you up to?” You asked as he parked the car in front of a strange building. It was too dark for you to even try to guess what it was.

“Come on, love, you’ll see.” He smiled, getting out of the car and hurrying to open your door before you had the chance to. He held your hand, walking you up some sketchy looking stairs. It wasn’t until you got to the roof of the two story building that you really got confused. It was far too dark for you to decipher what was going on.

“Happy birthday!” A large crowd of people shouted, the lights kicking on to illuminate the roof. You smiled, speechless, seeing all the people cheering for your arrival. You weren’t even sure that you recognized a good amount of them.

“Happy birthday, darling.” Tom grinned, wrapping his arms around you. He gently kissed the top of your head, proud of his work.

“Wow, thank you.” You told him, sounding effortlessly enthusiastic about the party. Music started playing from the large speakers, and people started dancing along to the beat, getting back to their own conversations.

“Follow me.” Your boyfriend tugged on your hand, dragging you through the crowd to the far corner of the room, where a birthday cake was sitting in the middle of a large table. The cake itself was the size of a small table; in fact, you were sure it wouldn’t be able to fit on your own kitchen table. It was the most beautiful birthday cake you had ever seen for yourself. Covered in white frosting, it had your favorite flowers and lace all around it with “Happy Birthday, Y/N” written in your favorite color across the middle.

“Do you like it? I got it from the nicest bakery in town. My mum helped me with designing it, and I know we already had dessert at the restaurant, but you can’t have a birthday party without-” You cut off Tom’s nervous rambling by kissing him softly.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you.” You reassured him, giving him another kiss to calm his nerves and to calm yours as well. You already knew how expensive dinner was, and something told you this party and that cake definitely wasn’t on the inexpensive side of things. His heart was in the right place, but it was just too much for you. Needing another distraction, you spoke up again, “Drinks?”

“Right this way.” He led you over to the rooftop bar, ordering you both a couple cocktails. As the bartender worked on the drinks, Tom got a call and stepped out to the stairs for some privacy.

“If you’re the birthday girl, why are you looking so down?” The bartender asked you, a kind smile on her face.

“Is it wrong of me to say I’m not into big parties like this?” You replied with a small laugh, “I’m grateful for it, but it’s not my scene.”

“So I’ll make this extra strong for you.” She joked, but still had a heavy hand as she poured tequila into the mixture, “You know, you’ve got a pretty remarkable boyfriend there. I’ve worked here a long time and no one’s ever rented this whole place out.”

“I’m sorry?” You questioned, not sure what she meant.

“This is a rooftop bar. We don’t do individual birthday parties, but,” She trailed off whistling, “When someone offers up that much and they’re a celebrity, can’t exactly say no.”

She laughed and slid your finished cocktail over to you. You knew she meant nothing bad by her words, and yet you still felt your gut twist as you looked around the party at everyone socializing. It was a sweet gesture, yes, but did Tom really have to dent his wallet for it? With how much he was spending for today, you knew it had to have some effect on his wallet.

Just before you could take a sip from the cocktail, your phone dinged. You looked at it in confusion as a notification came through from your bank account app: “new transfer pending”. Your heart started to race, thinking someone was somehow scamming your money, but when you looked, you saw a ridiculous amount of money being transferred into your account with the memo: “happy birthday, darling”.

You shot up from your seat at the bar and marched off to find Tom. He was still at the stairs, having just gotten off the phone with a small smile on his face. He must not have processed the angry look on your face as he started, “Your birthday gift still isn’t here. I’m sorry, I really wanted it to arrive by today.”

There was a lace of sadness in his voice, clearly disappointed, but you couldn’t focus on that. Instead, you held up your phone, displaying the new transfer on your bank account. “What the hell is this?”

“That’s for your student loans.” Tom said, the happy smile returning to his face. “I don’t know how much you owe because you won’t tell me, so I just kind of guessed.”

“Tom, you can’t just give me 15,000 pounds!” You exclaimed in frustration.

“Is that not enough? I can-” He started, reaching to take out his phone again.

“No.” Tom paused at your harsh tone, “Stop giving me money. It’s suffocating me. The world already thinks I’m a golddigger just because I’m dating you and they know I can’t afford diamond necklaces.” You pointed to the shiny piece on your neck. “I know your heart’s in the right place, but I can’t keep feeling like this, like I’m your charity case first and your girlfriend second. I want to be with Tom Holland, the dorky boy from Kingston that I fell in love with, not Tom Holland, the celebrity that just flaunts his wealth every chance he gets. If you want to make me happy and make me feel special on my birthday, make me a cake yourself or something; I’d much rather have something priceless with sentimental value than have something expensive that you bought just because you could.”

It was Tom’s turn to be speechless now, completely taken aback by your words. You sighed lightly, stepping forward to give him a quick kiss.

“Thank you for tonight, but I think I’m just going to go home.” You left down the stairs quickly, calling for a cab as you did so, leaving Tom abandoned at your own birthday party as he tried to process how his genuine actions backfired so much.

You didn’t sleep well that night, too caught up in knowing you’ll have to talk to Tom about all this eventually. It wasn’t something that you wanted to break up with him over, unless it got too out of hand, like if another 15,000 pounds suddenly appeared in your bank account. As much as you needed the money and appreciated the thought, you couldn’t accept it. You loved Tom because he was so considerate and thoughtful, and you knew he was only doing this because of that loving personality of his.

It wasn’t until later that night that you started to grow worried about your relationship. Normally, if you two ever fought (which only really happened once and for some reason neither of you remembered now), it would take only a couple hours before one of you apologized, and it had been hours since you left Tom, hours since you last heard from him. You had texted him last night to let him know you got home alright, to which he replied later that he was also home, but there was no “we need to talk” text or call.

Just as you were about to go lose yourself in a pint of self-pitying ice cream, you heard a knock at the door. You were expecting Tom on the other side when you opened the door, but you weren’t expecting him to be holding a covered platter and a gift bag.

“Is it too late to celebrate your birthday properly?” Tom asked, hopefully. You smiled, stepping out of your apartment to give him a kiss.

“Come on in.” You replied softly. You opened the door further for him to step inside beside you. He placed the gift bag and the platter down on the coffee table in front of your couch.

“I’m sorry for last night. I overdid it. I just wanted you to feel special.” He said, sitting down on the couch and you sat down beside him.

“I don’t need a fancy dinner or a big party to make me feel special. You make me feel special whenever I’m with you.” You reassured him, and he picked up the platter, shakily handing it to you.

“I can’t promise it’ll be any good, but I tried.” Tom admitted sheepishly as you unwrapped the aluminum foil around the platter. You smiled in awe, looking at the two layer round chocolate cake on the glass platter, which you now recognized as Nikki’s. It was the exact opposite of the cake from last night- a messy frosting job with no flowers, lace, or letters. You could even see the cake sticking out from under the frosting when it was spread too thin.

“You- you baked me a cake?” You asked, looking over at him. You felt tears prick at your eyes and Tom let out a nervous laugh.

“You’re not supposed to cry. Does it look that bad?” There was a sense of worry in his voice, but he felt relieved as you leaned over to kiss him.

“It’s perfect. Thank you.” You set the cake aside to come back to it later.

“I didn’t make the frosting though. I tried, but it was too runny.” He stated, making you giggle.

“That’s when you add more powdered sugar.” You explained and he handed you the gift bag next. “Is this what was supposed to be here by yesterday?”

“Yes. It arrived this afternoon. There’s actually two things in there.” He replied,  a smile playing on his face while he wrapped an arm around your waist. You reached your hand into the bag and felt around. You didn’t need to fully unwrap the tissue paper to know it was a jewelry box, your eyes subconsciously widened at the feeling.

“It’s not what you think it is.” Tom laughed, knowing you’d think it was a ring.

“Not like we don’t know my answer to that.” You teased as you took out the gift. You opened the small black box to see a thin silver necklace of your birthstone resting against the velvet backdrop.

“Now, if you don’t want it because of last night, I- I can take it back.” He offered, scratching the back of his neck. “I know you don’t want me spending excessively, but I saw this weeks ago-”

“Tom, I love it.” You gently took it out of the box, handing it to him so that he could put it on you.

“Okay, so the last one,” He started nervously, before rambling, “I’ve been working on it for a couple weeks, I just needed the one last thing to actually finish it though, so I couldn’t really do it until today. I can always fix it if it doesn’t look right. And, yeah, just open it.”

“Well, now, I’m intrigued.” You laughed, slowly pulling the last gift from the bag. Tom tensed beside you, but you were far too overwhelmed, holding back tears, as you looked over the blue photo album. You turned through the pages, taking in each photograph he had put in it, reading each comment he’d written under it. It was like a story of your relationship over the years, and there was still plenty of room left in the back of the book for the future.

“See, the book was late, and that kind of set me back. I didn’t mean to ignore you today, but between the book and the cake, I was preoccupied.” He laughed lightly.

“You’re by far the best boyfriend ever. I love you so much.” You turned to him, letting a few tears escape. He wiped them away, cupping your cheek and kissing you.

“Happy belated birthday, darling.�� He told you softly once he’d pulled away. You quickly got up to grab a couple forks from your kitchen before sitting on his lap on the couch. You balanced the photo album in your lap, so you could continue to go through it, while Tom held the cake platter.

“Let’s see how good this cake is.” You teased, clinking your forkful of chocolate cake against his. Tom watched as you ate your forkful first. The sweet chocolatey taste you were expecting wasn’t there; instead it tasted bitter and almost like bananas. You swallowed it and smiled, trying to play it off, but Tom could tell.

“It’s shit, isn’t it?” He asked, putting a forkful in his mouth before you could respond. He groaned at the horrible taste.

“Did you store it next to bananas?” You laughed.

“Only for like a hour!” He defended.

“I think you put too much baking powder in here. It shouldn’t be that bitter.”

Tom sighed, setting the platter down on the table. You smiled at him, still laughing a little at the cake, “You tried, and I love you for that.”

“I love you too.”

~~~

Tag List: @viagracex​ @theamazingtomholland​  @harrisonosterfieldhazmyheart​ @joyleenl​ @t-o-m-holland​ @lonikje​ @sleepybesson​ @sunkisseddreamer​ @hollandsamor​

Tom Tag List:@quaksonhehe​ @tomkindholland

[moosekateer13]

Chapter 10: Paradise (What About Us)

8 months later…

After nearly 2 years together, we are ready to walk down the aisle. Our little girl just turned one last month. It's a warm day in June when we are getting married in our newly redone backyard.  Our colours are red and blue for the wedding. Thomas is the ring bearer and JJ the flower girl.Jared's brother Jeff is his best man and Jensen is officiating the ceremony.

All my friends are in attendance that includes all the supernatural cast & crew as well. Lou, Danneel, Genevieve, Robin are bridesmaids. Some flew in from all over the world to be at our wedding. Bee flew in from the UK with her husband, Sam for the wedding. Holy flew in from Germany and Jen from Canada. Bee, Holy and Jen are also bridesmaids. Gywneth is my maid of honour. My parents of course flew down for the wedding. 

After the incident with my cousin, his mom and I are no longer on good terms. Not that we were ever that close, to begin with. My mom's youngest sister is here as well as my grandmother. All of my dad's siblings are here too.

I’m not one for tradition, so both of my parents are walking me down the aisle. I decided on a white Beaded Keyhole Back Chiffon Wedding Dress and a short lace veil. As I walk down the aisle with my parents. JJ is sprinkling flowers.

I am in awe at the sight before me. Jared looks so dashing in that navy blue suit with a red bow tie. They hand me off to Jared with a smile. They know I am excellent hands. We've been through so much already.

"Darlin, you’re breathtaking," Jared whispered in my ear before the ceremony.

I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks in response to his compliment.

"Thanks, love. You look handsome as always, by the way,” I replied.

"We are gathered here today to join Jared and Y/N in holy matrimony. If anyone has any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace,” Jensen said.

Jensen pauses for a moment before continuing.

"Jared, at one point, I stopped believing I'd find love out there because I always came up empty-handed. Then you slipped into my world, and everything changed. You have shown me what it is like to finally have a significant other that loves, cares for you and treats you right. I love you so much. I vow I will be by your side through everything. I promise to love you forever and a day." I said.

I do my best to hold back my happy tears after saying my vows. Jared gets a little misty before he says vows.

"Y/N, I didn't think I could find love again. Then you dived right into my life. I felt an instant connection from the moment we met. I love you and I vow to be by your side through everything.  I promise to love you forever and a day," Jared said.

I feel a single tear drip down my face. Jared uses the back of his hand to wipe it away. Jensen rubs his hand along his face before continuing.

"That was beautiful guys. Now, Y/N and Jared will exchange rings," Jensen said.

"Jared, take this ring as a symbol of our forever," I said as I slipped the silver wedding band on his ring finger.

"Y/N, take this ring as a symbol of our forever," Jared said as he slipped the matching silver band on my ring finger.

"You may now kiss the bride," Jensen said.

Jared eagerly grabs my face in both of my hands and we share a heated kiss.

"Okay, that's enough guys we are in public," Jensen jokes.

Jared reluctantly pulls away from me.

"Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Jared Padalecki," Jensen said.

Jared and I smile at each other before walking arm and arm down the aisle. We head over to the tables that are set up. The speeches are first before we eat our meal. My mom is the first to speak.

“I know you had given up hope of finding love. Y/N. I've always told you the timing is right, that you'd find the one you are meant to be with. I've you and Jared together, and I can tell you it is for each other. You two just glow more when you two are together. Here's to my daughter and my son-in-law Jared and their life together," my mom said.

She's always had a way with words. I wipe the tear I just shed with the back of my hand. Luckily, this makeup is waterproof. Jared's mom is next to speak.

"Jared, sometimes life hits you with surprises. When you first met Y/N with the way you talked about her, I could tell you were in love before you did. She brings a much-needed light into your life. Here's to you and Y/N and the start of your new life together," Sherri said.

Gywn is the next to speak.

"Y/N, you fell hard and fast for Jared. I could see it despite you insisting you just wanted to be friends with him. I know that wasn't what you really wanted. Looks like fate agreed with me when Jewel came into the picture. It's so good to see you happy and in love. Here's to you and Jared, your family,” Gywn said.

Jensen is the last to speak.

"Jared and Y/N, you balance each other out. Y/N, you bring a much-needed light into Jared's life. Jared, you give Y/N a reason to believe in love. I watched these two dance around their feelings for months. I am glad fate intervened and brought these two finally together. Here's to you two and your love together," Jensen said.

"Forevermore," Jared and I said in unison before we ate dinner.

After our steak dinner, we slice our cake before sharing our first dance. We decided on the song "Paradise (What about Us?)” by Within Temptation. After all, we've been through, the song fits perfectly with our relationship.

What about us,

Isn't it enough?

No, we're not in paradise

This is who we are

This is what we've got

No, it's not our paradise

But it's all we want

And it's all that we're fighting for

Though it's not paradise

[rosesnink]

Your Most Ardent Admirer

Author’s Notes 

*This new series I had baking for a very long time took me a lot of research and writer’s block for nearly a year, but here it is! 

*This series will treat some sensible themes, such as traumas of the WWI, the misogyny, war itself, etc, so this series will be rated +13 for your sakes. 

*All the characters belong to Pixelberry, I only own my OC, June Dante, no one else. 

Summary: Ernest Sinclaire finds himself a widower, lonely and hopeless, until he meets this dashing singer that has intrigued him from minute one... 

TW: Heavy kissing, adultery 

Rating: PG-13 

Word Count: 2310 

*Click in the image for better quality!!

London, UK, 1928

The night had fallen in the Guilty Pleasures as Ernest Sinclaire scans the cabaret’s crowd. They’re all laughing, drinking and kissing. Everyone lives their lives as he mourns. He catches Bartholomew Chamber’s shape, with a hand awfully down on a man’s waist. He’s laughing, flirting shamelessly with that man as the other ladies giggle to themselves. Donna Bowman seems to see him and whispers something to Felicity Holloway. He goes toward the bar as he avoids all he can the blonde woman. He finds himself dodging some dancing ladies and waitresses in revealing clothes to catch his eye. But he ignores them all.

He finds a glass of expensive vodka and gulps it as he observes his photo with his now dead wife: Roselyn D’Oleur, a beautiful and delicate French girl who caught his attention when he was just 19. They dated over a year before he proposed to her. She accepted between ‘oohs’ and giggles. They lived happy and had a great dynamic in everything… or that’s what he thought. Then, reality hit him. She’d ask him for money all the time to go shopping and fetch drinks that never came to her since she disappeared all night. Both families pressured them to settle down and start conceiving children, but Roselyn started coming very late at home and that connection was… lost.

One day, after talking late about businesses with Vincent Foredale, he saw Roselyn in a hotel room that had the window open. She was naked and drinking expensive wine. He thought, under his hot collar that it was just ladies’ fun…   Until he saw him. The man who had been a role model was there, also naked, taking his own wife in a hotel with the window open. He thought it must be a joke. A nightmare. But fifteen minutes later they were at it again, and he couldn’t stand it. He awaited her until she came home at 6 a.m., her hair a mess and hickeys all over her neck and her dress half zipped.

“How long, Roselyn?” He asked, looking at her with sour pain. “Please, no more lies. I saw you both there. I saw everything.”

She sighed as she played with what seemed like the room’s key “Two years. Ernest, I am so sorry- It was a mistake!”

“You know it’s not true. Is it a mistake that you flirted with him with my ring on your finger, let him touch you, allow him to connect with you for who knows how often and without daring to look to my eyes and tell me the truth? That’s not a mistake, Roselyn. You let it happen and made me look like a fool in front of everyone. I just- What did I do wrong?”

She took a heavy breath “It’s not you, Ernest. You’re a fantastic husband, but- the thing is- I don’t love you. I only wanted your money, Ernest. Not all of us can afford being romantic.”

Those words came to him like a stab on his chest. He felt fooled, hurt and humiliated. This was all about money and reputation. Never love.

“Just- Get out, Roselyn. I need to think. Alone” She reached for him, but he jerked back “Don’t do it. Just… Go.”

The days passed as he processed everything and thought how he’d look at the people once he saw what they probably saw for a while ago. He felt so… he couldn’t even name it.

The days passed until, at midnight, he heard a loud banging at the door. Whoever it was, it was screeching his name and insisting on him to open the door. And he obliged.

Who else than Roselyn was there, crying and grabbing her stomach? He rushed her inside and helped her calm down and talk to him. She cried out in his shoulder that she was pregnant. Pregnant of Tristan Richards. And that she told him, but he repudiated her for a rather young woman who seemed as a payed prostitute.

Her family disowned her, the father wouldn’t talk to her and she was now a fornicator with no feelings.

Even if his reasoning told him to do the same, it was against his nature. His ethics, how he was raised. He took her in, helped her through pregnancy and never left her side.

But things got complicated in childbirth. She lost a lot of blood, she was in pain and very weak. She was too young to bear it. She died, but the child would survive.

She was breathing heavily, holding the babe tight. She looked at him and muttered “Percival… his name is Percival… take care of him…please. It’s-it’s not his fault. Don’t make him pay for my sins,”

He took her hand and kissed it “I will. Little Percival will have everything he needs. I promise.”

She smiled at him weakly and kissed his hand in return as she looked at the crying newborn “Mon bebe… J’et aime.” And with that, she was gone.

And now, back at the present, he awaited his company as his fingers drummed the table. There he was. Renard D’Oleur, Roselyn’s brother. He saluted him and asked “Where’s my nephew?”

“He is outside with the nanny. We’re biding our goodbyes. Will he be alright?”

“I assure you, he will.” He patted his back “If that’s everything…”

“Wait, one more thing. May I… call him monthly? To check on him?”

Renard sighed as he grimaced “He is just one year old and I wouldn’t have to force him compromise with something like that. I’m so sorry, I wish I could do more.”

“Just keep him safe. It’s all I ask of you,”

“He will. We’ll tell him who was his mother.”

And with that, he left with the bundle of joy in his arms, a part of him broken. He turned on his heels to look at him again and commented.

“Anyways, June Dante is giving a show in here today. Chick’s know how to sing and give a show. Relax and let her bewitch you.”

He sighed as he chugged his vodka and shook his head. Last thing he needed was now a show.

He was about to pay the bartender when a feminine voice started singing, her melodical, mermaid-alike voice seemed to caress his skin and he turned on his left, where the singer, who had a short, blonde hair and an elegant flapper dress, red lipstick and elegant high-heeled boots that made her mildly bare legs and dress draw him to her. She smiled as she dropped sensually her fur coat and started singing the chorus

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend

No man can compete against them

I like to wear them without the pressure of being called Mrs.

Making my skin glowing

If I could choose a marriage over this stone of pure blessing

I’d choose elegance over a tying knot

And do not dare to say men are better than these blessed stone

Because ‘tis the glow that will never overshadow moi

His eyes were glued on her, her charming and seductive smile, how her hands and hips moved in a killing, slow way and her eyes connected with his, sending a cold shiver over his spine, his heart racing fast. The song was reaching the end, and there was a moment where she rolled over his seat and caressed his cheek in a ticklish, sensual way, making him shiver and blush furiously. She ended her spectacle dancing in a very revealing way, feeling hot under his collar, his eyes never wandering off hers. Everyone clapped and threw her flowers, money and even personal belongings followed by “I love you’s, marry me and other rather scandalizing ways as she laughed seductively, her voice like velvet in his ear and waved goodbye.

Renard was right, that woman made a most dignifying spectacle, making him want more of her. He drank the rest of his vodka and wandered how a stranger would possibly land her beautiful hazel eyes on him, a simple, modest man. A man tapped his shoulder and whispered to accompany him. He followed the rather intimidating man and trespassed Richards, who was trying to get the singer’s attention.

“Oh, come on! Him of all people?! He’s but a boring widower! You deserve better, June!”

“Miss June awaits you. Be a gentleman,” The man scowled before kicking out Richards at the head of the horde of people.

When he took in the image of June in a fine silk white robe and her hair flawlessly falling on the edges of her jaw and with a rather extended V over her chest and revealing her ankles and part of her flawlessly shaved legs, his heart raced and his pulse quicken as he tried to assimilate that the beauty of June Dante called him. She turned around, her smile perfect and white and her lips still red and her face glowing and heard her regular voice, he felt like speaking with an envoy of the angels.

“So you’re the dashing gentleman! Oh, how rude of me, here, have a drink, darling!” She handed him an elegant flute of fruity white wine and rushed him to a very comfortable sofa and sat in a way that she was leaning on him and her knees were at a 90 angle and her manicured feet were barely seen and her perfectly made nails got close to him.

“What’s your name, handsome?” She traced a shivering line on his hand vein.

“Sinclaire. Ernest Sinclaire” He answered, trying not to shudder.

“Ernest Sinclaire… Hmm, I like your name, Ernest,” She purred as he tried to control the dizziness in his head and how her middle and index finger were tracing his hand and his heart was racing fast like a hummingbird.

“I- Thank you, Miss—,”

“June. Just call me June. We’re in confidence, dear Ernest,”

He had to admit, his name in her lips was like being kissed and caressed of Venus’s touch.

“What brings you to my show tonight, handsome?”

He swallowed as she played with the corners of her dress and answered “I’m a regular since—since my wife’s passing. I just closed some business with her brother”

Her face fell as her hand traced the length of his arm and caressed his jaw “Oh, dear, I am so sorry to hear that such a dashing and intriguing man is alone in this gray town.” She pouted.

“I—That’s much appreciated, Miss—Ahem, June.”

“Come, love, allow me to ease the pain,” She placed his head on her chest, making his skin crawl and his heart was about to get out of his chest as he felt her heartbeats and how she caressed his hair, playing with his curls.

He didn’t know if it was the vodka or some strange substance in the champagne, but he felt so good…

“Thank you, June. You’re a kind woman.”

“Oh, I am not just known for my singing skills, dear Ernest,”.  

“I never doubted that, June.”

“How long?” She asked of all sudden.

“I’m sorry?” He asked back, confused.

“How long has your wife been dead?”

He didn’t understand why she asked that but he answered anyways “Like, for a year. Why?”

She didn’t answer. She just grabbed his face and kissed him fervently, all the tension in the ambiance now down. He was at first startled by the sudden action of the woman, but then he kissed her back, returning her fervent kisses and grabbing gently her waist and back, bringing her closer to him. She moaned softly as she grabbed his hair and the back of his neck, laying down the sofa, allowing him to be atop her. Their tongues battled for dominance before she panted, leaving him some liberties and a hand traveled to her lower back, bringing her body closer to her, which she answered by arching towards him. He moaned in pure bliss and delight, not believing such a beauty would be allowing him take such liberties with her. She grabbed his shirt and tried to tug it off, but then he realized one thing: he was quite tipsy, kissing a dashing stranger and in a backstage no less. He broke the kiss and sat again as he gulped, wiping off her lipstick all over his mouth. She looked at him confused and panting, her lips red and itchy of the kissing.

“Why’d you stop? Is something wrong? I thought you liked me!”

He studied carefully his words before placing a hand in her.

“June, you’re a breathtaking, beautiful, interesting and witty woman, but we just met and I’m still grieving my wife. It’s—It’s not the moment. I am not ready for jump out for some new romantic adventure. You deserve so much better, June.”

She nodded as she fished something of her purse and said “It’s alright. I understand. I shall apologize for dragging you to this, it was wrong of me,” She handed him a few cards “My residences in Madrid, the outskirts of London, Paris, New York and Berlin if you want to pen me, either as a friend or whatever you’d like, I’ll be at your disposal despite the distance.”

He grabbed those cards and nodded “That’s kind of you, June. I’ll treasure them,”

She kissed his cheek and sighed “It was memorable to meet you, Ernest. I hope we can see each other again,”

“Me, too,”

With that, he left. All the feelings rushed him inside: he felt happiness, guilt, longing… He shook his head. He just met this woman! Love at first sight was but an old wives’ tale. And he was still grieving Roselyn, he couldn’t just do that so easily. Maybe he couldn’t afford a lover, but it never hurt having a friend who could listen to you and make your day brighter.

Right?

[molluskwritesfic]

The Waif ~ Chapter One

As an alien science experiment, she remembers nothing. Knows no one. With nowhere else to turn, Claudia must rely on the Doctor and his companions for help. She's mutating. The Doctor knows more than he's telling. But why does the Time Lord seem to hate her so much? Rated M.

Chapter Warnings: Death, amnesia, violence.

Masterlist - Fanfiction.net - Ao3

Prologue - This Chapter - Next Chapter

Chapter One: Somebody

Anyone walking the streets of Cardiff at approximately eight in the morning would’ve thought that the young woman waking the wrong way down the sidewalk was mentally challenged. 

And there were people walking the streets, so many of them were thinking this.

Maybe she was a drug addict that had decided to take a walk in the sun. Maybe she had climbed out of her lover’s window when his wife came home early and she only made it out with a nightgown. Maybe she had just escaped from a mental ward.

Perhaps she had. Who knew? Certainly not her. 

She’d left Mr. Stray the moment she realized he was dead. Somewhere in her jumbled thoughts, she recognized that she probably shouldn’t have left his body for some stranger to find, but the mix of relative safety and indifference she’d felt the night before had vanished with the rising sun. She’d panicked, for numerous reasons, and found herself trying to get as far away from the homeless man’s corpse as she could.

Her mind was a confusing murky haze of information and lack thereof. None of her thoughts made sense to her, even though she presumed that they were relatively normal ones to have. 

Thoughts like Where am I? seemed to mock her from within her own mind, but from behind a wall of emptiness, like a question on a test that she knew she ought to know the answer to. She’d studied it, but now it was gone. Stupid, forgetful girl. Who am I? Don’t worry, don’t worry. Relax and it’ll come back to you. Where am I supposed to be? What’s wrong with me? Just ask for help if you get lost, but they’ll laugh at you if they know you’ve forgotten. 

She felt like crying. She was lost in a place she felt like she probably shouldn’t be. She mentally begged for someone to fix it. For someone to just know and help her.

Claudia studied the faces of the people she passed, hoping to see a flicker of recognition in one of them, hoping that someone may recognize her and say, ‘Oh, there you are! Where have you been?’ 

She felt an awful lot like an item in the lost and found. Existing in a strange sort of purgatory until someone thought to come by and claim her. Whether that person be the original owner or someone new, it didn’t matter, she didn’t care. A stray animal wandering the streets, trying to find her way back to her old home or into a new one. 

Her bare feet began to sting and bleed, but she carried on, hoping to eventually find the place she was supposed to be.

~0~0~0~ . . ~0~0~0~

It didn’t take Claudia long to get tired. She was hungry, sad, and her feet were scraped and bleeding. She came across a nice park, one with benches and children playing on colorful plastic playground equipment, and decided to sit and rest.

A little girl from the playground came waddling up to her. She couldn’t have been more than eight, with bright red pigtails and heavily freckled face. She smiled at Claudia shyly, stopping a few feet in front of her and holding out a small white flower.

Claudia smiled at the gesture. The little girl beamed back, displaying a few gaps in her smile. 

“I’m Sara,” the little girl announced confidently, coming the rest of the way over and clambering up on the bench beside Claudia.

“I’m Claudia,” Claudia said softly, smiling down at the little flower as she twirled it between her fingers.

“Why are you so sad?” Sara was looking up at her thoughtfully, her little nose scrunched up as she tried to work out why the grownup beside her could be anything but happy.

Claudia shrugged, keeping her eyes on the flower. “I think… I think I’m lost.”

“That’s no good,” Sara concluded. “Where do you have to go? Maybe I can help.”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.”

Surprisingly, Sara didn’t question it. “Like amn… amnei..”

“Amnesia,” Claudia agreed in her quiet voice, slightly surprised at how easily the word had come to her.

“Yeah. How’d that happen?”

“I don’t know. I just woke up. I don’t even know where I am.”

“You’re in Cardiff,” Sara answered firmly, without the slightest hint of criticism. “That’s in Wales. Which is part of the UK. My teacher made us learn all about it.” Her brow crinkled moodily. “And we even had to point to it on a map. I got that part right, but I messed up on Germany.”

“You’ll get it right next time.” For the first time since she’d woken up, she smiled. It was small and nervous, but a smile nonetheless. 

“Hope so. We have to do it again next week.” 

“Sara!”

Sara and Claudia looked up to see a tall woman staring at them with her hands on her hips. Her glare was intended for Claudia as much as it was for her daughter, full of wary disapproval and a borderline threat that said do anything to hurt my baby, and I’ll kill you. 

Claudia couldn’t blame her, suddenly feeling extremely self conscious about her dirty white dress and bare feet and imagining how it must look to Sara’s mother. For all the mother knew, Claudia was a homeless crackhead and/or lunatic. For all Claudia knew, she was right.

“Is that your mom?” Claudia asked, wilting slightly under the woman’s stern gaze.

Sara winced. “Yeah. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“That’s good advice.” Claudia picked at her finger nails nervously. “You should probably go back to her.”

“Yeah, okay.” Sara wiggled back to her feet, but instead of leaving, she spun back around to face Claudia. “In class, when I can’t remember what an answer is, I think of all the things I can remember. Sometimes the rest will come back. You should try it, maybe you’ll remember too.”

“I’ll try.” Claudia managed another small smile and Sara, satisfied that she’d managed to cheer the sad woman up a little, bounded back over to her mother.

Claudia watched as the mother scolded her, impressed at how nonchalant the child was in the face of her mother’s wrath. 

She twirled the small flower in her fingers, watching the delicate petals spin as she tried to pull her thoughts together enough to work out what she could remember. She frantically scoured at the deepest recesses of her mind, looking for anything. A name. A place. A face. 

There was nothing.

When an angry black SUV tore around the corner at the other side of the park, Claudia realized that there was something that she knew: angry black SUVs bearing several strange people with strange science equipment and guns were probably bad. 

“You!” The man who had been in the driver’s seat shouted as he leapt out of the car. He was dressed in mostly blue, with suspenders and a long, thick coat that flapped around his legs. “Stay where you are!”

Claudia realized, with increasing anxiety, that he was referring to her. She stood shakily, toying with the hem of her dress, mud squishing unpleasantly between her toes. An empty brown holster jangled around the man's waist, the gun shining in his hand. Claudia swallowed nervously in spite of her cotton-dry mouth.

“An ultrasonic resonance scoop and thirteen deaths, and you thought that no one would notice?” The man loomed over her threateningly. “You got clumsy with the last one, though. Just left on the side of the street. What, did you get bored?”

Claudia’s mouth opened and closed as she floundered for a response, but her throat was too tight for any sound to escape. She couldn’t think of anything to say, anyway. 

“Hold on, Jack. She’s not like the others,” one of the other people from the car interjected, a woman with dark hair, freckles, and wide spaced teeth. Her large grey eyes were soft with curiosity and pity. 

The man, Jack, lacked both of those qualities. His eyes were cold. “You said that about the last one.”

“Oh, be fair,” the woman scoffed, “he looked twelve.”

“Yeah, and he ripped out that police officer’s throat,” another man - a bit frog-faced, in Claudia’s opinion - added. “With his teeth.”

Whatever blood was left in Claudia’s face drained at the thought. Clearly, there was some sort of misunderstanding. She hadn’t killed anyone. Though, a knot twisted in her gut when she realized that she probably wouldn’t be able to remember if she had or not.

“And that’s not counting what the others did before they slipped off.” Jack bared his teeth into something resembling a grin. “We got this one though, don’t we?” 

“I… I…” Claudia managed to croak.

“Ooh, she speaks!” Jack crooned, he lifted the gun so it was pointed squarely at her chest. “Let’s go, sweetheart. We’ve got a nice, cozy cell for you to slip into. I’ll buy you a drink while we have a chat.”

Claudia tried to move, but her legs wouldn’t obey. Her heart was beating frantically in her throat, and she could hardly hear the gawking park spectators through the sound of blood rushing in her ears. But she did catch a glimpse of Sara clinging to her mother’s legs.

“I said let’s go!” Jack snapped, roughly shoving her shoulder so she staggered in the direction of the foreboding SUV. The tiny flower from Sara slipped from her grasp and lay forgotten in the mud.

Claudia managed a few steps in the right direction, but stumbled as the air around her began to hum. Black ate at the corners of her vision and her limbs tingled like they had all decided to fall asleep at once. 

The man with the frog face pressed a finger to his ear. His eyes widened. “Tosh says there’s another energy spike. She’s being teleported…”

Before Claudia could contemplate what he meant, she was enveloped by a bright gold light.

“No— No, wait!” Jack’s voice rang in her ears, but he sounded far away.

The man’s shouts of protest faded away, replaced by a deafening ringing as the world faded into dizzying blackness.

~0~0~0~ . . ~0~0~0~

She was on the floor somewhere that she wasn’t before. Claudia lay still for a moment, dazed, trying to work out what had happened through the ringing in her ears.

“Is she stable?” A masculine voice echoed from somewhere nearby.

“Yeah. It’s just the transmat, it screws with your head a bit. She’ll be fine in a moment.”

A loud knock echoed around her. She floundered, trying to figure out which way was up. Another few knocks rattled her, and she managed to sit up. 

Claudia looked around frantically for the frightening man - Jack, and his two companions - but they were gone, as was the park. The young woman desperately tried to wrap her head around the change in scenery - from a park to what she imagined to be some sort of laboratory. 

She couldn’t recall anything that would help explain the phenomenon from the bank of experiences her short life had to offer, so she decided to assume that this was a normal occurrence.

A man in a pale blue coat was peering down at her through some sort of glass barrier. He looked human, but his eyes were far too yellow, rimmed by squarish black glasses. The man raised his hand to tap on the glass again, displaying unnaturally long fingers. Claudia had the odd sensation of being a fish, or perhaps a hamster, looking out at the student who was annoying the class pet.

“Hello!” The man greeted her cheerfully, giving a little wave. 

She stared out at him blankly, having no idea of how she was supposed to respond. She was frightened, but no more of the man before her than of anything else she’d encountered over the past twelve hours. At least he wasn’t as scary as Jack. The situation felt far too dehumanizing for her to be polite or trusting. But rude probably wasn’t the way to go, either.

She was in a sort of glass cylinder that served as an enclosure. The cylinder continued high above her head to the ceiling, topped with a black vent. The floor was made of silver grating that bit painfully into her feet.

Outside the cylinder was an altogether different environment. It was white and sterile. Metal counters lined the walls, covered with various forms of intricate machinery; their purpose Claudia could only guess at. 

On the opposite side of the room was an observation window. Although tinted, Claudia could make out a man on the other side of the glass. He was an older man, tall with a stern face. He was dressed in a coat like the other scientist, staring out at them with his arms crossed and a clipboard in hand.

At the sight of him, something prickled at the back of Claudia’s mind. It might have been recognition, but it was too faint to be sure. 

To her left, Claudia noticed three other cylindrical tanks like her own, each with its own inhabitant. From her viewpoint, she could just make out a boy in his early teens, a young woman with mossy brown hair, and a muscular man that appeared to be in his late thirties.

The scientist with glasses turned away from Claudia, picking up a clipboard as he went and ruffling though it thoughtfully. He stopped in front of the boy, who was curled up in a ball at the floor of his cell. Although his face was half hidden and his hands fisted in his hair, the blood around his mouth was clearly visible. 

“Yeah, and he ripped out that police officer’s throat,” the frog faced man in the park had said. “With his teeth.”

Claudia shuddered, imagining it. He looked so small and helpless now, but she didn’t doubt what the man in the park had said.

“223-A is responding negatively,” the man on the other side of the window mused, his voice echoing from the ceiling through speakers. “Prepare to terminate.”

The other glanced up from fiddling with an instrument that resembled a microscope. “Aww, come on, Solane, he’s the first to actually accept the treatments. Surely that counts for something.”

Solane simply wrote something down on the clipboard, not bothering to look up. “Unchecked aggression and mental degradation is not what we are trying to achieve. Don’t get sentimental on me. It’s unbecoming. Now, prepare to terminate.”

The younger scientist sighed and made his way over to a computer console. He typed a few lines and turned a nozzle to the right of the computer. “Proceeding.”

A toxic yellow fog began seeping into the boy’s cell from the ceiling vent, filling the cylinder in a matter of seconds. 

Claudia could only watch with mounting horror as the boy twitched and began coughing. Within moments, he was spasming. His gangly body seizing and contorting painfully, head snapping and eyes rolling for what seemed like ages before finally, mercifully, he stilled.

“Lifesigns terminated,” The younger scientist confirmed, still sounding a bit rueful. 

A frightened sob escaped unbidden from Claudia’s lips. She shrank against the glass, trying to put as much space between her and the horrible people as she could. The scientists ignored her.

“Good,” Sloane acknowledged.

Much to her dismay, the young scientist ambled back over to Claudia’s tank. He opened a small rectangular window that Claudia hadn’t noticed and looked at her expectantly. “Put your arm through the hole, please.”

Claudia did not want to put her arm through the gap. She didn’t want to be anywhere near this cold, cruel man. Her stomach was still heaving at witnessing the boy’s death and had there been anything in it, she would have vomited.

“Come on,” the man prompted cheerfully. “You won’t get fed until you cooperate. Today’s combination twenty four. You don’t want to miss that, do you? You must be hungry.”

The scientist’s indifferently positive tone made her feel even more sick to the stomach. But he was right, she was starving. Not to mention that she was willing to bet that he would withhold food altogether until she died, if he didn’t give up and gas her first.

Slowly, hesitantly, Claudia slipped her arm through the small window.

“Good girl,” He praised, taking her by the wrist. In one swift movement, he pressed a tube against her arm just a few inches below her elbow. It pinched sharply, causing her to flinch. 

The scientist put away the tube and took up a syringe filled with something green. He injected it into her bicep and released her.

“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it? I promised a meal, now, didn’t I?”

~0~0~0~ . . ~0~0~0~

Days ticked by dully, or at least Claudia thought they were days. It could’ve been weeks, or months. The harsh artificial lights never changed intensity to indicate the difference between night and day. Meals were regular, and there were stretches of time where Dinstral, the young lab assistant, wasn’t in the room, but these regularities had no relation to anything else, and therefore weren’t enough to use as a method of telling time. But by her estimates, Claudia had only been wherever she was for a handful of days. 

She was given bland bowls of what appeared to be porridge through the small window of her tank. Every so often Dinstral would come by to inject more of the green liquid. Then he would do something called ‘Optimising’. Claudia had no real idea of what that meant, but knew that the assistant would type something in the computer, which then caused her tank to vibrate. 

She couldn’t really feel any difference after Optimising, but they seemed to think that the ten minute session after every injection was necessary, and Claudia wasn’t in a position to protest. 

After Optimization, Dinstral would take a blood sample and would go off to run tests on it, leaving Claudia alone in her glass prison.

She tried on multiple occasions to initiate conversation. She tried to ask Dinstral what was going on; what he was doing; what they wanted with her; where she came from; but he would only tsk and say that good girls didn’t ask so many questions. Claudia was always offended by the statement, but, once again, wasn’t in any position to object.

Her fellow prisoners weren’t any help, either. The tank nearest to her was now empty. The woman one tank over didn’t seem able to speak at all, simply grunting disinterestedly in response to any statement made in her direction.

The man furthest away seemed like he was the most capable of intelligent communication. His eyes weren’t empty like the woman’s were. They were sharp, calculating. Unfortunately, he ignored Claudia entirely, casting the barest glance in her direction at every futile attempt at attracting his attention. He spent his days staring silently out into the lab, undergoing the same procedures that Claudia was subjected to without the slightest complaint. 

Then there was Dr. Sloane. Whenever Dinstral was in the room to administer injections or run tests, he was there, watching through the glass. He would make notes and give instructions, but stayed away. 

Claudia wondered why. What was he afraid of? Or was the hands-on part of the test simply beneath him? 

The longer she was in there, the more distraught Claudia became. Loneliness was setting in, eating away at her heart in a manner similar to how the cold from the metal grating under her feet seeped into her bones. She would have done almost anything for a hug. Her memory hadn’t returned as she hoped it would. There was no one. Nothing. 

Was this where she belonged? A mindless science experiment for strange people to poke and prod at? 

She told herself firmly that it couldn’t be. She had to come from somewhere, didn’t she? Someone had to have given birth to her. She surely had parents, right?

She focused on that, spending her spare hours imaging them in an attempt to calm her frayed nerves.

She thought maybe her mother had brown hair, as she did. She might have been kind with a musical laugh and smile lines at the corner of her eyes.

Her father might have been tall. He might have been witty and energetic. He might have had a brilliant smile and perfect white teeth. 

They might have lived in the countryside somewhere. With tall trees surrounding the house and a big front yard. Bright yellow flowers might have grown there, making the air in the spring smell warm and sweet. They might have read her bedtime stories and played outside with a dog. 

They might have been real, and they might have loved her.

That’s what Claudia told herself, anyway. She knew perfectly well that the probability of any of it being true was incredibly low; but to a person with no memory, fiction is every bit as tangible as reality. 

~0~0~0~ . . ~0~0~0~

Then finally, something happened.

Claudia woke up to the sound of people shouting. She sprang to her feet, shaking the groggy remnants of sleep away as she surveyed the lab, eagerly looking for the source. Her fellow lab rats did the same, getting to their feet and staring around with wide eyes, looking more alive than Claudia had ever seen them. 

The lab door was still closed, so they couldn’t see what was happening, but something had clearly gotten their captors agitated. Claudia pressed her palms to the glass, ignoring the cold that seeped into them from the lifeless material. 

The door finally slid open as Dinstral and two other assistants came bustling in. They moved quickly, shouting things at each other in a language that Claudia couldn’t understand. They tapped at the computers, hustling and gathering equipment. 

The cylindrical tanks shuddered in response to whatever commands had been inputted. Claudia watched in horrified amazement as the man’s tank began to sink into the floor. It lowered until the entire thing vanished through the metal-rimmed hole that had evidently been beneath it. 

An escape hatch, Claudia wondered. Where does it go?

Both Claudia’s and the woman’s tanks shuddered and began to do the same. Their task completed, Dinstral and his lackeys hurried back out of the room and out of sight. 

As her tank was lowered through the floor, Claudia tried to work out what was happening. The best she could figure, they were evacuating.

To get away from what?

Claudia was thrown to the floor, scraping her knees as her tank jarred to a halt, halfway in and out of the floor. The tank reversed, raising itself back out into its original placement before attempting to complete the cycle once more. She stayed on the floor this time, but was still jolted unpleasantly as the machine hit whatever snag it had encountered the first time. 

It tried twice more, but ultimately resigned itself to remaining in its original position while the computer at the other side of the room beeped in distress, flashing red warning lights at scientists that weren’t there to respond to them. 

By this point, the other experiments were long gone, having been removed by their fully functioning escape hatches. 

Claudia got back to her feet and knocked on the glass urgently, having no desire to be caught up in whatever had caused the scientists to leave so quickly. Not that she wanted to stay with Dr. Sloane and his cronies, but that was better than being left to die in her own personal isolation tank. 

“Hello?” She called, voice strained from lack of proper use. “Is anyone there? My thing… my thing got stuck!”

There was no reply. She dared calling out a few more times, but received the same result. Everyone was gone.

She wrapped her arms around herself in a poor imitation of a hug as a new kind of despair seeped into her heart. As dehumanizing and horrible as her stay here had been, it was all she knew. Change is hard, for the better and for the worse. It didn’t help that she had no idea if her situation was either. 

Please don’t leave me, Claudia begged, not to Dinstral or Dr. Sloane, but to anyone; to her theoretical family and friends; to anyone at all that might’ve laid claim to her. Please don’t leave me alone.

Minutes felt like hours, and even though she had been abandoned there for hardly any time at all, she felt like she’d been alone for years. So when the sound of footsteps echoed from through the open door, she barely recognized the hope that flared within her.

A man came racing around the corner, twisting wires together with more draped around his neck. He was tall and skinny with a narrow face. He wore a brown pinstripe suit and tie with light colored shoes and hair that stuck up every which way - like he’d been running his fingers through it in agitation. 

The man spotted her and stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide with shock. 

He stared at her for a moment, and Claudia watched as a wide variety of expressions crossed his face. Surprise. Confusion. Then winded, like he’d been punched in the gut. Then anger. 

“You!” He sputtered, voice going a bit squeaky. “What are you—?”

“Doctor?” A young blonde woman in a pink sweatshirt and jeans came charging in after him. She skidded to a stop and examined the room owlishly.

“How did…? Where have…?” The man, whom Claudia presumed was called ‘Doctor’, wavered his way over to the glass, coming closer in a few spastic spurts, much like a worked-up dog would to something that it wasn’t sure was friendly or not. His voice became strained and accusing, stress written on every line of his face. “Why did…?”

“Do you know her?” The blonde asked, coming around to peer at Claudia from around the Doctor’s shoulder with doe-like eyes. 

“Know her… I…” The Doctor broke off, hurt and anger melting into confusion and curiosity as his eyes roved over her. “But… What?”

“What?” Claudia echoed with wide eyes, unnerved by the strange man but who had yet to complete a full sentence.

The Doctor pressed the button to the lock and the glass slid away, removing the barrier between them. He stepped into the cell and came uncomfortably close, peering into her confused eyes with his narrowed ones.

“Doctor?” The blonde asked again, looking uneasy as well. 

His eyes darted around Claudia’s face, absorbing every detail. Then he snatched up her hand. He ran his fingers over her palm, pushing and prodding at the space where her fingers met the rest of her hand. 

“Show me your teeth,” he ordered, peeling back his lips as an example.

Claudia did as instructed, but was alarmed when he quickly ran his thumb along the edges of her teeth. Claudia recoiled, slightly disgusted, and looked to the equally perplexed blonde for help.

“Alright, Doctor, that’s enough of…” She came forward, waving her hand in the air. “...whatever this is. Who is she and what’s so important about her teeth?”

The Doctor blinked and took a step back, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring at Claudia. She could practically see the cogs turning behind his deep brown eyes.

“A lot, actually. But…” He took another step towards Claudia. “Do you know who I am?”

Claudia rubbed her hands anxiously, not sure if she felt hopeful or afraid. He was certainly acting like he knew her. So maybe…

“No,” she said, getting a bit breathless with nerves. “Or maybe? I… I don’t know. I don’t know anyone.”

An explosion sounded in the distance, making the floor shudder. Claudia flinched, her eyes darting back and forth as she became even more agitated.

“Claud…” the Doctor said softly but with a hint of warning, like he was addressing a child. “How d’you mean you don’t know anyone?”

“I don’t know.” She cowered under the heat in his endless brown eyes. Then she blinked, her next-to-empty mind having caught the discrepancy. “You know my name?”

The Doctor seemed to realize his mistake. He grimaced slightly.

The floor shook once more. 

The blonde stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Claudia’s shoulders. “Doctor, leave it for now. Ship losing orbit, remember? We’ve got to go.”

“Ship?” Claudia echoed, more confused than ever.

“Spaceship,” the blonde stated, as if it were obvious. “We’re in space. Did you not know?”

“Space?” Claudia blinked, trying to process it. Not that she had a reason to find the concept of being in space ridiculous. Nevertheless, it seemed… wrong. “Oh.”

The Doctor watched Claudia for a moment longer, pain and concern warring behind his eyes, then sprang into action. He took up the wires he’d been messing with before. “Right. Got to patch this into the mainframe, bypass the…” He glanced back up at the two women. “Rose, take her back to the TARDIS. I’ll be along in a minute.”

“Right, this way.” Rose guided Claudia through the empty corridors, reassuring her every time the other girl flinched at a sudden sound.

“Where have all the people gone?” Claudia asked, peering around corners, expecting one of the scientists with the blue coats to come around them at any moment. 

Rose grinned mischievously. “The Doctor locked them all in the cargo hold. Don’t worry, they can’t get out.”

“Oh, okay.”

What else could she say?

[jenniferdiazisatransgirl]

My Journey

Hey everyone, As you will likely know by now I am a trans woman and I live in the UK where lately trans people have been under significant scrutiny by the press, government and groups claiming to be acting in the name of feminism.

One of the arguments used when not directly attacking trans people, is that the medical institutions that help us in the UK fast track us through transition, even the NHS and I know so many trans people in this country that I can say without a shadow of a doubt this is not true. This includes a significant number who have been under the care of Tavistock and Portman, the under 18s service which was recently banned from giving its patients hormone blockers without the approval of the courts.

But anyway, I’m gonna share my story and how lengthy the process actually is and I will warn ahead of time this deals with suicidal ideation, gatekeeping, mental health, etc. So proceed with caution. This will also be a long post.

September/October 2008

I can’t remember which month but it was just before my 16th birthday, my Dad encouraged me to go to my GP regarding my gender dysphoria. I lived with my transphobic Mum at the time and had to go behind her back which was terrifying to say the least. I saw a doctor called Dr Moulsher and explained everything I was going through and his response was, “I don’t think the NHS funds any of this.” He was very ignorant on trans issues but it actually fortunately worked out in my favour, I got lucky, I know, but he just wanted me off of his hands.

I explained in Sheffield there was a GIC (gender identity clinic) operated by the NHS known as Porterbrook and he was just like, “Oh right. Well I’m more than happy to refer you but they likely won’t see you till you are 18.”

He asked me some questions, wrote up a detailed report and put in the referral to “get the ball rolling” as he worded it.

I was terrified at the time of the referral letter going to my home address though and he was like, “Well it needs to be sent somewhere.” So he agreed to send it to my grandparents address.

Later That Year

About a month or so later a letter arrived at my grandparents saying I had been accepted onto Porterbrook’s waiting list, explaining it is substantially long, that they wouldn’t be able to see me till I’m 18, etc. Your typical boiler plate stuff. Also as I understand it they don’t typical accept referrals for under 18s so I got lucky there. I remember getting so excited when I got my letter though, that I took it into school to show all of my friends.

Back then it was a requirement that I have a mental health assessment while on the waiting list though. So I returned to Dr Moulsher who I had become rather comfortable with and had made him my regular GP. He made a referral to the local mental health clinic and that was that.

January/February 2009

A letter came in the post asking me to ring to book at appointment at the local mental health clinic. I couldn’t ring from home cos my Mum would overhear and she was spying on me a lot at the time due to really being against the fact I’m trans. My school - which was a Catholic school shockingly enough - had already decided my home environment had become so toxic that I needed removing from my Mum’s care. They would be a process that wouldn’t be completed till June 2010 but yeah, it had got that bad. Anyway, I ended up asking the school receptionist if I could ring on their phone to book the appointment. That was booked for February.

The appointment was a weird one to say the least. The doctor asked me a quite a lot of questions but these are the ones that stuck out.

So with this first one, I am going to preface with that as far as I am aware, I am white and of white ancestry for all the generations I know of. However I do have remarkably curly hair that left to its own devices grows into an afro (or at least what looks like an afro). So the first set of questions that stood out; Dr: What’s your mother’s ethnicity? Me: White British.

Dr: Sorry, did you say Afro-Caribbean? Me: No. White British. Dr: And your father’s ethnicity? Me: White British. Dr: Sorry, was that Afro-Caribbean?

Me: Nope. White British.

Not really sure how you can get Afro-Caribbean and White British verbally mixed up but he seemed very adamant at least one of my parents must be Afro-Caribbean.

He then later goes;

Dr: Do you have a partner?

Me: Yes.

Dr: Are they male or female?

Me: I have a girlfriend.

Dr: Then you can’t be trans. You can’t be trans if you like girls.

Me: What about lesbians?

Dr: That’s beside the point.

Shockingly, in the end he agreed with my GP’s assessment that I am trans but Jesus, as you can probably guess from above that mental health assessment was a minefield of weird.

24th October 2010

In June 2010, I was finally removed from my Mum’s care at the age of 17 and placed in supported housing and on the date about I got a phone call from Porterbrook GIC on my 18th birthday no less, inviting me to my first appointment in November.

22nd June 2012

I legally changed my name and title by deed poll to Miss Lily Nichole Robinson.

22nd October 2012

I’d now been at Porterbrook for almost 2 years, had lots of appointments, most of which repeated the same mundane questions and it had started to feel like nothing was ever going to change. I had become increasingly depressed and suicidal and I had decided that if nothing had changed by my 20th birthday I was going to take my own life. I did not want to enter my 20s still living my life as a man. I didn’t want to lose another year of my life.

I remember this date exactly, not because I marked it in my calendar but because Taylor Swift’s album “Red” came out that morning. Despite everything, I was dancing along to 22 that morning while ironing some clothes, before I headed off to Porterbrook. I didn’t really feel like it mattered, I was going to kill myself 2 days later but I figured what is the harm in going through the motions one last time.

I sat there, trying not to let on how miserable I was, didn’t see the point in letting them in on how I was feeling. Nothing would change.

I remember being asked some really gross questions that day though. I got asked if I masturbated and I just declined answering. When challenged I was just like, “I maybe trans and I may hate that equipment but I’m a human being. I still have sexual urges. What do you think the answer is.”

The appointment though, shockingly ended with them telling me they were going to put me on hormones. I was gonna get my estrogen. It was enough to give me a reason to keep on living.

But just bare in mind how close I got to taking my own life there. 2 days away from my 20th birthday. Also it took almost 2 years for them to say they’d be placing me on hormones.

January/February 2013

In January, I had my bloods taken to get a baseline and I was told about options for storing gametes. I did decide to consider this but in the end it ended up being too costly for me at the time. So in February, on a day it was snowing I got the train and was adamant the snow was not stopping me getting to Porterbrook and I had an appointment with the head clinician, Dr Kevin Wylie.

He oddly listed all the testosterone blocker options to me with side effects and risks and all the estradiol options to me with side effects and risks. In the end I chose Cyproterone Acetate for my blocker and Estradiol Valerate pills for my hormones.

50mg per day of Cyproterone Acetate and 2mg per day of Estradiol Valerate. I was ecstatic and took them both the second I got on the bus 😊

May 2013

Slightly unrelated to the medical process but just 3 months in and my mental health had improved drastically. Since I was removed from my Mum’s care I had become a bit of a shut in. I didn’t have any friends, my anxiety was through the roof, I was insanely depressed and I just avoided everything and everyone, only leaving my house for work. Hormones changed that though, I just felt so much happier and I also remember that Spring just being like really vividly aware of the colours of all the flowers and plant life for like the first time in my life. I actually wanted to go out and social and make friends and there was a local LGBT youth group for 18-25 year olds that I decided to join and I started to have and social life again. And by September 2013 I started university and soon came getting drunk with the LGBT Liberation Group at the various socials. I was happy and finally starting to feel like myself.

2013 - 2016

Porterbrook became very gatekeepy in the final stage of my transition. They didn’t like how I dressed. Apparently girls wear dresses while I preferred jeans, t-shirts and hoodies. I didn’t like wearing make-up. I wasn’t the 1950s image of a girl that Porterbrook seemed to expect. I actually have a trans guy friend who around the same time had been told he couldn’t start on testosterone unless he cut his hair short, cos apparently men don’t have long hair.

It pissed me off to no end because I transitioned to be me, not to be a performance of how the world thinks a woman should be. I refused to give ground on how I dressed, etc but in the end I ended up telling a few white lies to get past the final level of gatekeeping. And I can’t remember most of this dates as they happened while uni was going on in the background. But eventually Porterbrook gave me the go ahead for surgery, about 6 months later I had my second opinion and then I was referred for surgery.

January 2016

I had my pre-surgery assessment at Nuffield Health Brighton and I was told if I wanted I could have my surgery as early as March 2016. Due to university though, this proved a bit too soon and the date was pushed to June 2016.

22nd June 2016

The day before the EU Referendum I had my gender reassignment surgery. I don’t actually remember feeling all that ecstatic after the surgery. There was lot of pain and I was on a lot of drugs. But a friend, Rosie, who I hadn’t seen since high school lived in the area and she was at my bedside when I woke up. I was in hospital a week and had 3 months of recovery ahead of me.

Post Surgery 2016

Having surgery had been great, things finally felt right. My entire body felt right for once but I had tunnel visioned my life towards surgery and put a lot of stuff on the back burner and had some major post-surgery depression so I sort counselling at my university to get through these issues and once that was sorted I felt a lot more stable in myself and like nothing was in my way.

October 2016

I put in my application for my Gender Recognition Certificate only for it to get rejected because they did not like the assessment from Porterbrook GIC and Dr Wylie who wrote the assessments was off on leave. Me and a nurse had to sit down and look through my medical record to find a medical report they might accept and we finally found one. However they wouldn’t say what was wrong with the original which made Porterbrook kinda stumped on what was wrong.

February 2017

I received my Gender Recognition Certificate and my new Birth Certificate.

March 2017

I was discharged from Porterbrook GIC.

For those who are under the impression gender reassignment is a fast process it isn’t, it took me 8 years and 6 months start to finish, from initially seeing my GP at 15 to finally being discharged from Porterbrook GIC at the age of 24. It is a long ass process with a shit tone of gatekeeping and honestly going through the process as it stands isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy. When I was discharged from Porterbrook GIC in 2017 my first thought was, “I’m free. I’m finally in control of my own life.” As up until that point, I felt I had no autonomy and that my life and happiness was in the hands of doctors. It was miserable.

But there it is.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

The Crucible (part three)

[UK Tour; Carrie AU]

Part 1 Part 2

Word count: 10,566

TW: Bullying, vomit

-----------------------

-Mind Over Matter-

  “So, you and Anne Boleyn…”

Katherine looked up at Mulaney, her right eye twitching. A barrage of emotions blistered through her whenever she thought about her cousin- anger, sadness, mourning, betrayal, happiness, guilt, pain, longing. It was a flurry of madness that she hated having to deal with. And hearing that name come out of this man’s mouth didn’t make her feel any better. It didn’t sound right when the detective said it, like Anne had just been some character in a movie that was killed off too soon for a cheap sad moment. She was a real person, whether Katherine wanted to remember that or not.

  “Friends until the end?” 

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Katherine said.

  “And why is that?” Mulaney asked.

  “We’re cousins,” Katherine answered. “She was born a little bit before me, and we grew up together, so I guess everybody just assumed we were going to be close forever.” She shrugged. “But we had our differences.”

  “Differences about Joan Seymour?” 

  “Differences about a lot of things,” Katherine clarified. “I played with Barbie. She played with horses. She’s a back to front. I’m a front to back.”

Mulaney blinked at her and then turned his head to look at Madeline, who was trying very hard not to smile in amusement. Katherine set her shoulders back, smirking. It seemed Mulaney didn’t know how to reply to her statement because he moved on, taking a piece of paper out of a yellow folder on the table.

  “Do you know a girl named Donna Kellogg?” He asked.

  “Yeah, I know Kellogg,” Katherine replied smoothly. “Every guy in school had a bowl of her cereal.”

Mulaney stared fixedly down at Katherine. At his side, Madeline snorted a laugh, but was quick to cover her mouth and straighten herself back up professionally. Katherine let out a huge sigh, wiping the grin from her face.

  “She moved to Germany in Year 12.” She said. “What about her?”

  “She got an email from your cousin about four days before the prom,” Mulaney said.

  “What’d it say?” Katherine asked with mock enthusiasm.

Mulaney peered down at the paper in his hands and began to read, “‘Dear Dirty Donna--”

Katherine raised her eyebrows and exhaled a rueful breath, rolling her eyes skyward. That DEFINITELY was her cousin's writing.

  “--so I’m out of the prom, but they’re not going to get away with this. I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do, but I guarantee you everyone is going to get a big’-- Expletive--‘surprise.’” Mulaney put the paper down and looked back at Katherine’s pale face. “Now, what do you suppose she meant by that?”

And, for once, Katherine made no snarky reply, only able to shrug silently, as her words were too caught in her throat to answer.

------

Mr. Stephens’s creative writing class was one of those rare cases where everyone wanted to be in it, regardless of whether they could write or not. And for a good reason, too. He was a laid back, supportive, jolly man who always made his lessons fun and engaging. His room was like no other, either, airy and full of light. He rarely ever turned on the overhead lights, opting to instead let the sun come in from blue-and gold-tinted windows he had paid for to be put in himself. 

A jungle of indoor plants snarled the interior, all fit with small golden plaques with names on them (one of the best assignments they had yet was to choose a plant and write a story about it; Katherine, personally, had chosen Hornet, the sassy lesbian honeysuckle). Shined mahogany bookshelves were arranged all around the room with their books sorted precisely in alphabetical order. Putting any borrowed books back into the right place was a rule even the most mischievous of students obeyed. Racks and drawers full of papers and pencils and pens of every color were set up for everyone’s writing pleasure, and there were several places to sit and write when it was time to work. Sometimes the black and pink bungee chair, sometimes the big blue bean bag or the strange egg-shaped cubbyhole you could climb into and nestle in the blankets and pillows that filled it.

The tables were assorted in a very different way, too. There were six in total: Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi, Adventure, and Historical. At the beginning of the year, students got to pick their seats at whatever genre table they were most interested in, letting people meet others with the same interests. Or, if you were like Katherine, you just bustled into the same table with all your friends.

Mr. Stephens was her first class of the day and was always what she needed to get energized for the rest of school. The sun was out again, bleeding its early Monday morning light through the tinted windows and casting beams of gold and blue across the room. All her friends, including her beautiful Anna, were already inside when she got there, along with a few others. Bessie was sharpening several pencils at the expensive electric pencil sharpener by the door, while Maria looked through the Q-T selection of books, and Anne, Maggie, and Anna were sitting at the table they all had claimed at the beginning of the year: Fantasy (although Katherine had debated on going to the Romance table, but several of her friends didn’t like the romance genre, and Anne had proclaimed that the “gang had to stick together,” so she gave up that option).

  “Kitty!!” Anne cried gleefully, throwing her arms in the air.

Katherine smiled as she walked over, sitting beside Anna. The two shared a quick kiss.

  “Morning, gang,” Katherine said. “What’s the tea?”

  “Prom,” Maggie stated. “You guys picked out your dresses yet?”

  “A dress? Me?” Anna snorted. “If I ever wore a dress and heels, I'd look like a freaking giraffe or something.”

  “Anna, shut up!” Bessie suddenly barked, whipping her head around from the pencil sharpener. “You would look great!”

They all stared at her in silence, watching as her face slowly faded to a light red color, a hugely bright contrast with her bleached white hair. She cleared her throat awkwardly.

  “What? Girls eat that shit up!” She said, and then frantically began sharpening her pencils again. The table laughed and nodded knowingly.

  “But no,” Anna said. “I’m not wearing a dress. Your girl is going with a suit.”

  “Ooooo!” The chorus of intrigued coos whisked around the table.

  “How fancy!” Anne said.

  “You are a lucky lady!” Maggie said to Katherine.

Katherine grinned brightly and leaned her head against her girlfriend’s shoulder. She sighed dreamily. “I know…”

  “I have mine picked out,” Maria said, walking over and sitting down with The Great Gatsby in her hands. “It’s orange.”

  “Oooo, nice pick!” Katherine commented. “Orange looks good on you!”

  “Why thank you!”

  “Okay, okay, question,” Maggie butt in as Bessie sat back down. “Do any of you know about waxing or shaving, you know--” She leaned in, “--down there? Like, for sex preparation?”

  “How naughty,” Anne teased, making Maggie stick her tongue out at her.

  “Well,” Katherine said expertly, “there are a few things you can do.” At her side, Anna shook her head and laughed. “There’s the rainforest. That’s where you don’t do anything at all. Hitler’s mustache. The landing strip. The Brazil.”

  “The Brazil?” Maggie laughed. “What does Brazil have to do with getting--your area waxed? Is it, like, the shape of the country?”

  “It’s because things like thongs and Brazil are so small you have to wax EVERYTHING to wear one.” Maria said.

  “Ohhh,” Maggie nodded. “Where is Brazil, anyway?”

Laughter and snickers and whispers suddenly bubbled loudly from the hallway, seeping in through the open door. A moment later, Joan entered wearing an oversized, rather ugly shade of pale yellow sweater and a long maroon skirt with small white flowers. She dragged her feet as she walked, not looking up, clutching her binders and folders close to her chest. 

Seeing her sent a sharp pang of guilt lancing through Katherine.

She had desperately tried to forget about Joan Seymour over the weekend, partially succeeding in that task, even when her father confronted her about it. But seeing the pathetic girl again sent all her shame come barreling back into her at full force. She could now see that she and her friends had ruined this class, once a place of serenity and peace, for Joan. Joan seemed...scared to even be attending.

  “Well, if it isn’t Prayin’ Joan!” Anne exclaimed. She jumped up and blocked Joan’s path, causing the younger and much scrawnier girl to reel back in fright. “I wonder who’s taking her to prom? Her mother?”

Katherine tried to laugh along with Maggie, Maria, and Bessie, but the sound raked her throat fiercely like talons of fire. She glanced to the side and saw that Anna had her jaw set firmly and a grim look in her eyes.

  “Leave her alone, Anne.” Anna said.

Joan tried to dodge around Anne to get to her table, but Anne stepped right back in front of her and she reared away again like she thought she would be burned if they were to make contact.

  “Come on, church girl!” Anne spread her arms in a grand gesture, smirking widely. Everyone in the class, even people out in the hallway, were watching, now. “Dance with me! I will make you see God!”

And then, out of the blue, Anne yelped out in fright as she suddenly crumpled to the floor. Katherine blinked in shock, watching the way her cousin had shifted her weight on her feet and slipped on her Heelys’s wheels--but that didn’t seem right. Anne hadn’t been leaning on her heels at all. It looked more like something had swept under her legs and made her fall--but what? There had been nothing there, nothing to trip her. She shuddered, and her skin began to crawl with goosebumps.

  “How’s your pussy, princess?” A boy at the Sci-Fi table asked over the laughter that had filled the room.

Anne shot up to her feet instantly, her face inflamed with rage. She glared at the boy, and her stared was filled with enough hate to make him snap his mouth shut immediately.

  “What are you laughing at?” She snarled. Her head whipped around to Joan. “The goddamn BITCH TRIPPED ME!!”

Is that what happened? Did Joan trip or push Anne? Had she finally snapped like that kid from Anna’s story on Friday night? But Joan hadn’t moved her arms or legs at all when Anne fell…

Katherine jerked out of her speculations when she saw that Anne was advancing on Joan with a murderous look in her eyes. Joan flinched away, as if she was expecting to be struck, and then there was suddenly the clattering of a chair to Katherine’s left; Anna was standing in between Anne and Joan.

  “What are you doing?” Anne demanded.

  “You’re being stupid, Anne.” Anna said calmly. “If you hit her, you’re definitely going to be thrown out of prom. Just sit down.”

Anne growled, but prom seemed to be more important to her than revenge, so she cast one like dark glare at Joan, and then let her anger snuff itself out for now. She returned to her chair like nothing happened. Anna turned to Joan, who was staring up at her with wide eyes as if she were Jesus Christ himself.

  “Are you alright?” Anna asked. She reached out to set a hand on Joan’s shoulder, but respectfully pulled it back when Joan flinched away. “Don’t listen to that gremlin. She’s just messing around.” And then she flashed Joan a dazzling smile that made Joan get an expression on her face that said she’s never been smiled at like that before.

  “Th-th-thank you…” Joan choked out, and then skittered past her to the Horror table, which she shared all alone (“Of course that crazy bitch would choose horror” was something Maggie had muttered the first day of class when Joan had chosen that genre).

Anna righted her chair and sat back down, looking like a true savior. 

  “Well, aren’t you just a knight in shining armor.” Anne said bitterly, and Anna grinned at her.

  “What can I say?” She said with a shrug. “I can never pass up the chance to be the hero to a poor damsel in distress.”

The bell rang a moment later and everyone who wasn’t already sitting down bustled over to their specific table. First period was the smallest class, with Katherine and her five friends obviously at Fantasy, three kids at Sci-Fi, two girls at Romance, three more at Adventure, no one at Historical, and then Joan all alone at Horror. Writing utensils and notebooks filled to the brim with stories and projects are brought out as Mr. Stephens entered from the hall.

  “Good morning, children!” He chimed happily. He was a slightly plump man with olive skin and dark brown hair he always had up in a man bun. The aquamarine flannel shirt he was wearing today made his green eyes pop brightly. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

After the initial opening for class, the lesson quickly curved into the topic of an assignment the students had been given last Friday, probably the only okay thing that happened on that day (aside from Katherine’s time with Anna in her car, of course).

  “As you know,” Mr. Stephens said, “last Friday I gave you all the task to write your own poem after selecting a word from my hat.” He held up the bedazzled top hat for reference. “Now we are going to read them! So…” He scanned the class, bypassing the people who usually always read first, like Bessie and Katherine and the boy with glasses in Adventure, for now. A smile broke out on his face. “Joan Seymour!”

Joan’s head whipped up so fast Katherine was surprised her neck didn’t break. She had been listlessly twirling a strand of her strangely natural white-blonde hair and writing in her small notebook with a black pen, which she accidentally sent flying across the room behind her when she was called on.

  “Present,” She sputtered. 

  “It’s not roll call, Joan,” Mr. Stephens said gently. 

  “Idiot,” Maggie muttered, rolling her eyes, and Mr. Stephens shot a glare at her and some of the other giggling students. He was one of few teachers who actually made an effort to stop the constant bullying Joan got in class. 

  “Did you write a poem?” Mr. Stephens asked. His voice was so patient and kind, his gaze merciful and lacking any irritation or scorn, despite the fact that Joan was floundering like a useless cow in a cattle chute. He never yelled at Joan or even got the slightest bit annoyed with her, even when she was being completely incompetent and probably deserved a good rapping on the knuckles with a ruler to get her head back on straight.

  “Oh-- Y-yes, sir.” Joan nodded.

  “Why don’t you come up and read it to us?” 

That seemed to be a death sentence for Joan, who became very rigid and pale. She opened and closed her mouth like a weird-eyed fish out of water, then finally choked out, “D-do I have to?”

Mr. Stephens tilted his head at her, sympathy in his gaze. “No,” He said. “But I would love to hear what you wrote.”

Joan perked up slightly, a new light flickering ever so slightly in her eyes. “You would?” She squeaked.

  “Yes, Joan,” Mr. Stephens smiled, and Katherine saw that he was telling the truth. He was genuinely interested in what Joan had written.

Joan thought for a second, then grabbed her notebook, stood up, and said, “Okay.”

Shyly, with her head angled to the floor, Joan shuffled up to the short stage-like platform at the front of the class used for reading out loud. Mr. Stephens motioned for her to sit in the big black leather computer chair he would let students use when presenting, but she shook her head, clearly too tense and nervous to sit down. Mr. Stephens respected her choice and didn’t push her.

  “What was the word you selected, Joan?” Mr. Stephens asked.

  “Umm-- Stone.” Joan answered. Now that she was up and centered, Katherine noticed violet and indigo bruises along her jawline and a split in her lip that definitely hadn’t been there on Friday.

  “And what is the name of your poem?”

Joan fumbled. “E-Evening Prayers.”

  “Oh my god.” Anne said loudly. Mr. Stephens shot her a sharp look, and she shut her mouth instantly.

  “Go ahead, Joan. Whenever you’re ready.” Mr. Stephens said kindly.

It took a moment and a few deep breaths for Joan to find her voice, but she eventually gathered all her courage and began to read:

  “Jesus watches from the wall,

But his face is cold as stone.

If he loves me,

As she tells me,

Why do I feel so all alone?”

A few giggles and snickers and mocking whispers whisked through the class, but Mr. Stephens shut them down quickly. Joan looked at him fearfully, and he gave her an encouraging nod to go on.

  “Baby savior, meek and mild,

What do you do with my prayers?

If you hear me,

Why do I feel that no one cares?”

Joan lost some of the tension in her shoulders, easing them back down into a more relaxed position. A strange flicker lit up in her eyes, like the first silvery wisps of a fresh flame. 

  “Mama sees inside my soul,

But her face is cold as stone.

If she loves me

Why do I feel so all alone?”

Was that...hate in Joan’s voice? Katherine tilted her head at the girl, suddenly filled with so many questions. Had she always been this interesting?

  “There's a movement in my head

Satan? Angels? What can it be?

It's growing!

It's stirring!

It's churning, shifting!

Bending!”

Joan released a shaky breath and raised her glowing grey-blue eyes. 

Silence. 

Mr. Stephens would have said anything, but he still seemed to be too enamored to speak, in awe at his timid student’s raw poem.

Then, Maggie raised one of her hands and spoke without waiting to be called on, “Shouldn’t people like that be home schooled?”

Mr. Stephens blinked at her, his eyebrows furrowing together. “People like what, Maggie?” He asked cautiously, falling right into Maggie’s trap.

  “Creepy religious people,” Maggie said blithely.

Joan flinched back as if she had been struck and hunched her shoulders around her neck. Her fingers grip tightly around the edges of her notebook, staring at her poem with a sudden expression of shame and hatred and disgust.

  “Yeah, aren’t we, like, not supposed to talk about religion in school unless it’s in history class?” Bessie piped up.

Mr. Stephens glared at all of them. “Does anyone have anything to say about the poem?” He said, steering the lesson back on track without giving Maggie or Bessie any attention.

  “It was disturbing,” Anne offered. “I think that’s the most little Joey has said in class all year!”

Laughter erupted in the classroom, far too much for Mr. Stephens to wrangle. Joan shrunk back, like she was hoping she could disappear right into the wall, and Katherine thought she could see tears shining in her eyes.

  “Got anything else to share with us, sweetheart?” Anne asked in a sickly sweet voice. “Or are you done scaring us?”

  “Asshole…”

The laughter stopped abruptly. Joan’s head jerked up sharply. All eyes turned to look at Anna, who was leaning back in her chair and pressing her tongue against the inside of her lip.

  “Anna?” Mr. Stephens said. “Did you say something?”

  “Yes,” Anne said, her words sliding slowly from her mouth like slithering snakes. “What did you say?”

  “I said awesome.” Anna said, sitting up. “I just thought that Joan’s poem was awesome.” She looked at Anne. “Didn’t you, Annie?”

Anne glowers at her, growling lowly. Joan, on the other hand, had the exact opposite reaction. Her eyes were wide and lit up, like that had been the nicest thing anyone has ever said to her, and a bright pink blush dusted her cheeks.

  “Yes!” Mr. Stephens nodded his head enthusiastically. “Awesome! That is a great way to describe Joan’s wonderful poem.” He smiled at Anna, then at Joan. “Thank you for reading, Joan. You did very good.”

Joan dipped her head in thanks and hurried back to her table. When she sat back down, she immediately glanced at Anna, a wistful look of adoration in her eyes. Katherine noticed it, and things began to click together in her brain.

  “Anna,” Mr. Stephens said, “since you spoke up, would you like to go next?”

Anna shrugged coolly. “Sure.” She stood up, grabbing her red spiral journal, and walked to the platform at the front of the class. She, like Joan, decided not to sit in the computer chair, opting to stand up tall before her peers.

  “GO ANNA!!” Her friends cheered from the Fantasy table and she rolled her eyes in a good natured way.

  “The word I got was ‘eagle,’” She said, then looked down at the page she was opened up to in her journal. “Dreamer In Disguise. By Anna von Cleves.” She cleared her throat, and then began reading smoothly:

  “An eagle's just another bird

Until he can spread his wings.”

Maggie suddenly leapt onto her chair, flapping her arms and letting out a bird-like screech. The class all giggled, except Joan, who looked startled, and Anna, who looked used to these kinds of antics.

  “Guys!” Mr. Stephens barked. “Quiet!”

The class settled. Mr. Stephens looked at Maggie.

  “Maggie--that was a pretty good bird, but hush up.” He said.

Maggie bowed and then plopped back into her seat. Mr. Stephens turned to Anna, nodding at her to go on.

  “A river is just a sheet of ice

'til winter turns to spring.

And though the clouds may block the sun

Don't mean that it's left the sky.

Just when you think you've seen it all

There's more that meets the eye.

Like things I dream and things I feel

There's more to me than I reveal.

And 'cause I shine in quiet ways

I'm someone you don't recognize.

I'm a diamond in the rough

A dreamer in disguise.

An eagle's just another bird

Until he can spread his wings.”

Applause filled the classroom. Anna smirked proudly, bowing her head.

  “Very good, Anna!” Mr. Stephens said. “Class,” He turned to the others. “Any comments?”

  “Beautiful.”

The marveled comment came before anyone else could say anything, spoken before Mr. Stephens had barely even finished his sentence. Joan had a thoughtful look in her shimmering eyes. A small smile was tugged at the corners of her pale lips.

  “Beautiful, yes!” Mr. Stephens said. “Excellent, Joan!”

  “Yeah, nice one, period girl.” Anne tittered.

Like that, the light in Joan’s eyes is gone. She looked away, suddenly ashamed. Anna seemed to notice this on the platform and glared viciously at Anne.

  “Shut up, Anne.” She snarled lowly.

  “Go on, Joan,” Mr. Stephens said to his shy student. “Tell us how the poem spoke to you.”

Joan looked back up, fidgeting, and then stuttered out, “I-I just think it said that just because something or someone seems one way, doesn’t mean they have to be that way.”

Mr. Stephens beamed. Anne gave Katherine a “what is wrong with this girl?” sort of look, while Anna looked vaguely rapt. She smiled at Joan, and Joan blushed madly.

  “Very good observation, Joan!” Mr. Stephens said.

  “Yeah,” Anna agreed. “I think you have the poem more thought out that I do, and I’m the one who wrote it!”

Joan ducked her head with a shy smile. “Thanks,” She whispered, and all the pieces fell into place in Katherine’s head.

Did Joan like Anna?

Katherine spent the rest of first period pondering this- Joan was hopelessly shy, but it could very well be possible. The way she looked at Anna… There was some form of longing in her eyes. Like she wanted Anna to like her--not even in a romantic way, just to--like her. As a person.

The bell startled Katherine out of her thoughts and she shook her head. Anna had to run off quickly to get to her next class that was all the way on the other side of the school, and Bessie and Maggie left in a hurry, too. Katherine was about to head out with Maria to the next class they shared together when she noticed Joan still gathering her things.

  “I’ll meet you there, okay?” Katherine said to Maria.

Maria shrugged and nodded. “Okay!”

Katherine walked over to Joan, catching the attention of her cousin, who was still in the class and now watching them with interest.

  “Hey, Joan,” Katherine said.

Joan jumped and looked at Katherine, then over her shoulder, as if thinking she were talking to someone else. She blinked up at the older girl with big grey-blue eyes, and Katherine could see so much painful anxiety in them.

  “Earlier--that was nice.” Katherine said. “That was really nice, what you said about Anna’s poem. I thought it was beautiful, too.”

Joan continued to stare at her, frozen like a deer in headlights.

  “Look-- Umm-- About the other day… I don’t know, things just sort of got out of hand and--”

  “Haven’t you had enough?!”

This time, it was Katherine’s turn to flinch, and she stepped back as if she had just been shot. She looked down at Joan and was shocked to see pure rage blazing in her eyes, which flickered like lit embers. Her teeth were bared, mouth pulled back in a snarl, and her fists were clenched into shaking fists.

  “Do you think you can just go on tricking me forever?!” Joan cried.

  “Oh no, Joan, no--” 

Katherine reached for her, but the girl clawed her hand away. She ducked under her arm and ran out of the classroom, leaving Katherine behind in shock.

  “My, my,” Anne said, sauntering over with a chuckle. “Little mousey’s got a temper!”

  “I--” Katherine’s words hitched for a moment. “I’ve never seen her angry before…”

Anne rolled her eyes and slung an arm around Katherine’s shoulder. She began guiding her out of the classroom.

  “Oh, who cares?” She said. “Just forget about it!”

But Katherine couldn’t forget.

Especially when they stepped out of the class and saw Joan, among many others, staring at the graffiti scrawled across the nearby lockers.

“JOAN SEYMOUR EATS SHIT”

Joan turned to Katherine with tears in her eyes, bared her teeth like a wounded fox, and then took off running down the hallway crying.

Guilt roared through Katherine and, this time, she knew it would be staying for good.

------

All the girls in the fourth period gym class got dressed in silence. 

The minute they had walked through the locker room door, conversations died away, giggling dissolved, and horseplay seized. There were no catcalls, no playful wrestling, no pinching or nudging or tickling. They just changed out into their gym clothes without speaking a word, already knowing what was coming.

Some teachers forgot.

Miss Aragon was not one of them.

It was no surprise when the locker room door slammed open with force after the bell rang and Miss Aragon came striding in. Her silver whistle bounced against her chest with every step she took, and a large, bulky black duffel bag was slung over one shoulder. She looked more like a wasp than usual, and not just because her outfit was a bright shade of lemon yellow with bands of black lacing over the fabric. She simply looked like she wanted to prick each and every girl in the locker room with something sharp and pointy until she had them squealing for mercy, just like they had Joan Seymour squealing in the stall just a few yards away. Resentment and disgust twisted her features as she scanned the class with brown eyes so dark they looked black.

None of her students dared to look at her.

  “Well, aren’t you all just the bunch to send off to graduation,” Miss Aragon said after five minutes of just watching the teenagers fumble with their gym uniforms. She had seen Bessie try to stick her head through an arm hole three times and Katherine apparently forgot how bra clasps worked, and she decided that it was more pathetic than anything they’ve ever said Joan had done. “When is it? A month?”

Nobody answered. Miss Aragon sneered. 

  “And then there’s the prom!” Miss Aragon began again. “Katherine, you’ll be going with Anna von Cleves. Maria, William Willoughby.” She turned to Anne, one eyebrow raised. “What about you, Anne? I imagine you can take your pick. Who’s the lucky guy or girl?”

  “Catherine Parr,” Anne said. “You don’t know her, she doesn’t go to this scho--”

  “Who?”

Anne ground her teeth when she was interrupted.

  “I’m sorry, Anne, I can’t hear you.” 

  “Catherine Parr.”

  “Well, isn’t she the lucky one?” Said Miss Aragon. “Are you going to get her a corsage? Or are you just going to tie a bloody tampon around her wrist?”

Anne’s face went red and she growled like a wild animal. Miss Aragon was anything but intimidated, easily towering over Anne and beating her in terms of fierceness and muscle. 

  “Hey, I have an idea!” Miss Aragon said. “Why don’t we skip the sport we were going to be doing today and make boutonnieres and corsages for your prom dates instead!”

The girls exchanged confused looks, finding this awfully suspicious.

  “Yeah? Sounds fun, right?” Miss Aragon said. “We can make them out of these!”

As fast as lightning, she ripped open the duffel bag and began throwing its contents all over her class. 

Tampons.

Their teacher was throwing tampons at them.

The sanitary items flew like a raging blizzard of white plastic and cotton. Bessie got hit in the eye by one and reeled back into Katherine, who nearly toppled over in shock. Another got caught in Maria’s curly hair and she clawed to get it out. Maggie let out a piercing alarmed screech. Miss Aragon smirked at their hysteria, then threw the bag down at her feet, fuming both in rage and pride.

  “I’m leaving.” Anne said, storming past the coach.

Something flashed in Miss Aragon’s eyes. 

Fury. Boiling hot fury.

Miss Aragon hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Joan Seymour at all over the weekend. Every time she closed her eyes she would see that poor child crying out to her for help. Her dreams were tainted by visions of Joan bleeding to death or killing herself because of all the harsh bullying she faced. She kept hearing her scream “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” over and over and over again. She couldn’t keep her wrath tamed any longer, and unleashed the full firestorm on her class.

Miss Aragon reached out, moving as quick as a cracking bullwhip, grabbed Anne by the arm, and slammed her into one of the rows of lockers. The sound of the student’s back smashing against the metal rattled loudly throughout the room, only beat by Anne’s cry of shock. Her eyes went wide in disbelief.

  “You can’t hit us!” She yelled.

  “I barely touched you.” Miss Aragon said, as if she were talking to a whining younger sibling she had just punched in the face. She pinned Anne against the locker in a position that looked to be very uncomfortable on Anne’s shoulder.

  “You’ll get canned for this.” Anne growled, tears of pain springing to her eyes. “See if you don’t, you bitch!”

  “I don’t really care, Boleyn.” Miss Aragon said. “If you--or any of you--think I’m wearing my teacher hat right now, you are sadly mistaken.”

She backed up so she could glare at all the other girls, but Anne didn’t dare move from her spot against the locker. Her eyes darted to Katherine in a sort of plight for help, Katherine looked away uneasily. Her gaze landed on the shower area, where this all began, and she jerked it away to look at something else. Anything else.

  “I hope you all know what you did on Friday was a really shitty thing.” Miss Aragon said. To her left, Maggie snickered and she glared at her so fiercely it was a wonder Maggie didn’t drop dead. “Do any of you ever stop to think that Joan Seymour has feelings?”

She looked around. Her rage only continued to build when she got no answer.

  “Do any of you ever stop to think?” She narrowed her brown-black eyes dangerously. “Katherine? Maria? Bessie? Maggie?”

Another pause. Miss Aragon seemed to be swelling up like a King Cobra.

  “Oh,” She said as if she had just read their minds. “You think she’s ugly, don’t you?”

Maggie snorted and made a “well obviously” face. Miss Aragon rounded on her, eyes flashing.

  “Well, you’re ugly.”

The stupid, shit-eating grin Maggie had been wearing was wiped clean from her face instantly.

  “I saw just how ugly all of you were on Friday.” Miss Aragon said.

Anne suddenly reared up, shaking her head. 

  “You can’t talk to us like that!” She snapped. “My dad’s a lawyer! He’ll sue your ass!”

  “SHUT UP!” Aragon roared. She got in Anne’s face, smoke practically billowing from her ears and nostrils. “Open your mouth one more time, and I’ll plug you up.” She jabbed a finger into Anne’s nose, cracking her head back against the locker. “Want to find out if I’m telling the truth? There’s plenty of tampons here to see.”

Anne said nothing, but that didn’t stop her from glaring mutely at her coach. Miss Aragon backed away from her, smirking briefly. The rest of her girls were exchanging frantic, nervous looks, wondering if they were about to be murdered or beaten to death or something horrible like that. Personally, Katherine thought they all deserved such a fate.

  “Now,” Miss Aragon said, lowering her voice to a slightly calmer tone, “my punishment for this little charade you pulled was a three day suspension and refusal of your prom tickets.”

An immediate uproar of unhappy gasps and murmurs eddied through the locker room. Katherine found herself sighing with them, but did agree that that would be a good way to get back at all of them.

  “That would hit you where it hurts, wouldn’t it? And you would deserve it, too.” Miss Aragon said. “Unfortunately, this administration is staffed entirely by men. I don’t think they have the slightest idea how utterly nasty what you did was.” A sneer tugged on the angered grooves in her face. “So you’ll get a week’s detention.”

Instant relief.

  “But it’s MY detention.” Miss Aragon went on. “Fifty minutes. In the field. Every day. And I’m going to run you ragged!” 

They all could already feel their legs burning from exertion and throat aching from dry heaving so intensely. 

  “I won’t come,” Anne said, shrugging.

  “That’s up to you, Anne.” Miss Aragon said. “That’s up to all of you. But I just want you to know that the punishment for skipping detention is a three day suspension and refusal of your prom tickets.”

There was that wave of unhappiness again, sweeping powerfully through the locker room, and it was music to Miss Aragon’s ears. She smirked wickedly.

  “Get the picture?”

Nobody said anything.

  “Good. Now change out. And think about what I said.”

With that, she turned and surged out of the locker room like a triumphant killer wasp. The tension of her presence quickly lifted, but only slightly. The girls were still mumbling and whispering, not daring to raise their voice in fear their coach may come back in and just take their prom tickets now.

Anne must not have gotten the memo.

  “She can’t get away with this!” She snarled.

  “Anne…” Katherine sighed.

Anne yanked her gym shoes out of her locker and hurled them across the room, as if she were hoping for Miss Aragon to materialize inside and get hit.

  “This isn’t over!” She screeched. “It’s not even in the same area code as over!!”

And she was right.

------

Meanwhile, skipping gym class like she was told, Joan was in the library.

For most of her life, books had been her only friends.

Books accepted you the way you were and shared all their secrets with you.

Books never told you that you were creepy or called you a monster or a freak or a pig or any other mean names. Books never said, “Joan Seymour eats shit.”

Joan had hid out in the bathroom after she saw the writing on the walls, rocking back and forth in one of the back stalls and crying to herself until her throat ached and she felt like she couldn’t breathe anymore.

She remembered the bathroom door opening and somebody walking in. She had tried to keep quiet as the girl was reapplying her makeup in the mirror, but her lungs began to burn and she let out a choked sob that seemed to echo throughout the room.

Silence.

  “Hello?” Called a voice Joan didn’t know or recognize. “Are you okay?”

  “I-I’m f-f-fine.” Joan choked out.

  “You don’t sound fine.” The girl observed. “Is this your stuff on the ground?”

Right. She had just thrown her belongings on the floor in her panic to get away from prying eyes to cry alone.

  “U-umm--” Joan sniffled.

Outside the stall, she heard the shuffling of feet and the rustling of papers. Her binders and folders were slid underneath the door a moment later.

  “There.” Said the stranger. “Just so nobody will take it if anyone else comes in.” She paused for a moment. “Are you alright?”

Joan tried to answer, to lie, even if God would strike her down for it, but all that came out of her mouth was a sob. She curled up tighter in the stall, burying her face in her knees. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks like streams of molten lava.

The girl outside made a sympathetic noise. “You poor thing.” She said. “Crying in the bathroom at school. I know that feeling.”

Joan’s crying halted for a moment. She sniffled and looked up slightly.

  “Y-you do?” She stammered.

The girl laughed. “Oh yeah.” She sat down on the other side of the stall, her back pressed against the door. “I got dumped in Geometry in Year 11.”

  “Oh no…”

  “Oh yes,” The girl laughed again. “I wanted to hide in the bathroom forever, but I eventually went back to class. Trust me, crying in here is completely normal. I’ve seen tons of girls do it.”

  “Did you talk to them, too?” Joan asked quietly.

The girl thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “...Then why are you talking to me?”

  “I had this feeling.” The girl said. “That you just--needed someone. More than those girls did. You know?”

She didn’t, but she still said, “Uh huh.”

The girl outside shifted slightly. Joan wished she could see her face.

  “So...what was it?”

  “Huh?”

  “What brought you in here to cry?” The girl specified. “If I may ask… You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, though.”

She was giving Joan an option, Joan realized dizzily. She wasn’t forcing her to answer.

Sniffling, Joan said, “I-it’s, umm--kinda silly…”

  “Nonsense,” Said the girl. “Was it a breakup?”

  “Umm-- N-no.” Joan said shyly. “I don’t date…”

  “Good for you.” The girl chuckled. “We love a strong, independent woman.”

Joan felt a flurry of butterflies flap wildly in her stomach and she bit her lip to keep from grinning like a giddy idiot. She was always flattered way too easily.

  “School problems?” The girl guessed again.

  “Kinda, yeah…”

  “I feel you, girlfriend,” The girl said. “They expect so much from us, you know? It’s like, do this research project in a week, but I’m only giving you one day to work on it in class so you’ll have to try not to procrastinate when you do the rest on your own and do this math assignment I barely taught you at all, oh and also, find the cure for cancer!”

Joan couldn’t help but giggle. She thought the girl outside the stall may be smiling.

  “It sucks, but you’ll get through it,” The girl said. “It’ll all be over soon.”

Joan nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

The girl got up. “No problem.” She said. “I gotta run. My teacher is probably going to tear me a new one for taking so long.” She laughed. “I hope you feel better soon!”

  “Thank you,” Joan whispered again. “Bye…”

And then, her savior was gone. Joan hadn’t even known her name. She wondered if the girl would have treated her any differently if she knew who she was…

Joan had managed to make it to third period after finally coming out of the bathroom, and then got to retreat to the one place in the school where she felt at peace.

The library.

Nobody was ever mean to her in the library. They were always too busy to pick on her, and that was one of the reasons why she liked it so much. People didn’t care about her in there, instead hunched over tables with research spread out over the surface, clicking furiously on computers, scribbling in notepads in the windowsill nooks, and reading, reading, reading.

A kind of peace settled over her as she stepped inside, breathing in the crisp smell of books. She felt like she belonged here, with all the oddities of literature, even if she didn’t belong anywhere else. In here there were answers and information and thousands of stories waiting for her to read...right behind Mama’s back. 

Mama didn’t like her reading a lot of things, especially young adult novels. But what Mama didn’t know was that she was already ankle-deep in a franchise about wild cats who were in clans and several other standalone books. When she was at school, the Bible was not Her Holy Book.

Shelves radiated out from every direction like a burst of sun, and more aisles with more books filled the overhead balcony ring. Yes, her school technically had a two-story library. A DOUBLE-DECKER library! You had to take a narrow wooden staircase to get up to the top ledge, which wrapped around the upper perimeter of the room and had a few private rooms to study or read in. The guard rail was laced in white fairy lights, causing the ceiling to glow beautifully.

Another thing Joan loved was the statue at the front, poised below the two entrance ramps and short staircase. It was of a long, serpent-like dragon made of white marble, coiled up on a mound of books with its snout dug in a thick, bulky novel. Its name was Haze, and it looked as though it might glance up at any moment, see Joan, and say, “Oh my gosh, have you read this one? It’s amazing!”

Joan gently brushed one of the claws as she passed by. There weren’t many kids in the library, rather in class, but there were a few Year 13’s in there for a free period. None of them even glanced up at Joan.

  “Mrs. Johansen?” Joan called meekly as she walked up to the librarian’s desk.

Mrs. Johansen was the blatant stereotype of a librarian- big, wide-rimmed glasses, older, warm amber eyes, curly brown hair. She looked up from the book she was reading to smile at Joan.

  “Yes, dear?” She said.

  “C-can you show me how to do a search?” Joan asked. She felt painfully awkward asking that, especially to an older woman, who apparently supposed to know nothing about technology, but Mrs. Johansen smiled kindly and nodded.

  “Of course,” She said. “Come on.”

It took a good five minutes, but Joan was eventually adept enough in computers to search things up. The first thing she did was look up ‘miracles’ and began to scroll through the search results, hoping to find some answers to the strange sensation she had been feeling in her veins ever since Friday.

mir·a·cle

/ˈmirək(ə)l/

noun

a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

Joan blinked, tilting her head at the definition as if she thought the words may start explaining their meaning to her even further if she stared hard enough.

Surprising? And welcome? She looked down at one of her hands, flexing her fingers. Mama didn’t seem to think her...issue...was either of those things. She clicked down to keep searching.

Miracles of the Renaissance

Jesus - Man of Miracles

Apparitions and Eucharistic Miracles 

Miracles on the internet!

Pray for a miracle

Herbal Miracles

Miracles and Modern Scientific Thoughts

Miracles: HIDDEN POWERS OF THE MIND

Joan paused. That last one seemed interesting. She clicked on it and was opened up to a page using big, fancy words she couldn’t really wrap her head around. But there was one in particular that caught her attention-- /telekinesis/. She had no idea what it meant, but something inside of her seemed to latch onto it and tug her interest towards the word until she searched it up in the search bar.

Psychokinesis (from Greek ψυχή "soul" and κίνησις "movement"), or telekinesis (from τηλε- "far off" and κίνηση "movement"), is an alleged psychic ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction.

Joan’s eyes go wide with interest. Isn’t that what she did to that annoying neighborhood boy? And to Anne Boleyn? She moved them with her mind? 

She looked down at her hands again, but didn’t see anything special about them. They just looked like normal hands, just more bony and scarred than usual. Suddenly self conscious, she rubbed the old burn over her knuckles while clicking on a video about telekinesis.

And it was like watching a dream come true. Joan’s eyes widened even further as she watched as a man simply held out his hand and began to move the pages of a book without even touching them. Just like she did with Anne and the biker boy! He must have the same powers as her! Oh how she wished she could reach into the screen and pull this man out and ask him all the questions now running through her mind. Like, how are you doing that? And when did you know you could do it? And are there others like us? And will you teach me how to do that, too?

She was so enthralled with the video that she didn’t even realize someone was creeping up behind her…

  “Sorry! Sorry.” The brown haired boy with a camera around his neck said when she flinched around to look at him. “I just-- You can make it full screen, you know? Watch.” 

He reached over Joan and clicked the ‘f’ key and the video filled the entire computer screen. Joan’s eyes glimmered in awe.

  “Thank you,” She whispered.

  “No problem!” The boy said with a cheeky grin. He quickly hurried off to an empty table, leaving Joan alone.

He...wasn’t mean to her.

How strange...

------

Katherine quickly realized she had a lot less stamina than she thought she did. She has always been a perfect, well-behaved girl, always slipping out of punishment during the few times she wasn’t, so there wasn’t ever a need to have tough endurance for running because she never thought she would piss off a gym coach of all people.

But here she was, running Suicides in the field after school, fighting the urge to dry heave every few seconds.

The sun seemed to be unnaturally, blisteringly hot that evening, like it, too, was punishing her and her classmates for what they had done on Friday. Katherine doesn’t think she’s ever been so hot before. Her skin felt like it was baking, her hair was tassels of golden fire, and her back was a plateau of roaring flames. Gleaming yellow sunlight made her eyes prickly and sore, and if she squinted through the haze of exhaustion, she swore she thought she could see a big black buzzard circling overhead that seemed to be just waiting for one of them to drop dead.

  “Come on, ladies!” Miss Aragon shouted from the side of the field, looking absolutely delightful. “Lift those legs up! Faster! Faster!”

  “She--she can’t do this to us,” Anne wheezed as she careened up next to Katherine. She was absolutely dripping with sweat and red in the face, but Katherine couldn’t tell if that was from the sun, the exertion of the Suicides, or the fury from both.

  “Just--let it go, Anne. We’re almost done.” Katherine said through her teeth. It took a great effort to speak; she could feel bile curling in the back of her throat like bubbling acid.

  “And then every day this week?” Anne spat. “All because of Joan Seymour?”

  “Anne.” Katherine hissed. She picked up her pace to get away from her cousin, but when she turned to run back to the starting line, her foot slipped in the slick turf of the football field and she was sent sprawling on her stomach. The impact jarred her heavily and she dry heaved painfully until her lunch finally came rushing out of her mouth. A few girls winced, but mostly everyone kept running--not that she blamed them. Anne, however, darted over to her side, and she wasn’t sure if she was happy about that or not.

  “Are you okay?” Anne asked. Her concerned Big Cousin voice was slipping into her words and Katherine couldn’t help but crack a tiny smile at that. This was the side of Anne she liked, not the evil, cruel one who liked to pick on kids three years younger than her.

  “Y-yeah--” Katherine answered, spitting out the last of the bile in her mouth. “I’m fine.”

  “Howard,” Miss Aragon called, walking over, twirling her whistle on her finger. “Are you alright?”

  “Like you care…” Anne muttered. Miss Aragon gave her a dangerous glare, and Katherine set a hand on her knees to not only calm her cousin, but to also boost herself back up.

  “Yes ma’am,” Katherine said. “I’m okay.”

  “Good.” Miss Aragon rumbled. “I’m glad.” She shot Anne another look for a brief moment. “Get back to it. You’re almost done.”

Katherine nodded and then took off again, shortly followed by Anne, who was muttering something about this being “child abuse”.

Ten minutes of running in the searing heat passed and Miss Aragon’s whistle finally pierced the field. A collective sigh of relief swept through the class as girls skidded to a halt and instantly doubled over or completely collapsed to the floor in moaning, groaning heaps of soreness. A few scrambled for their water bottles and began drinking like it was the end of the world. Miss Aragon walked over to them, amusement painted brightly on her face.

  “Don’t drink too fast,” Their coach said to the girls guzzling down water, “or you may throw up.”

  “My legs are gonna fall off,” Bessie said in a woebegone voice. She was flopped over on her back, spilling her bleached white hair all across the green grass.

  “Now you know how it feels to be Joan Seymour, don’t you?” Miss Aragon said, looking down her nose at the girl.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her have to run before,” Maggie pointed out grumpily. “Even though she’s the worst at literally everything we do in class…”

Miss Aragon glowered down at Maggie for a moment, then began marching up and down the cluster of girls. They all watched her tensely, waiting for her to exact an even harsher punishment than Suicides.

  “Life’s all about making choices, ladies,” Miss Aragon said. “And, last Friday, you made the wrong one. So here’s how it’s going to go.” Her eyes flashed like gleaming pieces of onyx in the sun. “You’re all going to apologize to Joan.”

There was an uproar of annoyed confusion. Miss Aragon rolled her eyes.

  “You are all going to apologize to her in front of everyone.” Miss Aragon said. 

  “And if we don’t?” Anne challenged.

  “Do you really want to find out?” Miss Aragon said scathingly. She turned and strode away from the field to go retrieve Joan Seymour from wherever she was, swathed in gleaming gold. 

The minute she was out of sight, Anne let out a roar of fury.

  “That goddamn pig!” She yelled, working herself up to a proper fit. “This is all her fault!!”

  “Let it go, Anne.” Katherine said tiredly. She carefully eased herself to the ground, wincing when her throbbing muscles pulled and bent. Relief was short lived, because Anne came charging up to her a second later.

  “Why are you taking her side?!” Anne cried.

  “This isn’t about taking sides!” Katherine cried back, a new sharpness in her voice. “What did Joan Seymour ever do to you? Or to any of us?”

A few of the girls exchanged looks, seemingly only now thinking about that, while others, like Anne, looked unfazed. Katherine saw Anne’s fists clench tightly at her side, but she didn’t back down her own defense. She didn’t think Anne would strike her, but if she did, she liked to think she could take her in a fight.

  “My, my,” Anne said with sickly sweet venom in her voice. “Look who’s become the little Joan of Arc around here?” Her demeanor then switched, flaming into seething resentment, and Katherine could now see that her older cousin hated Joan Seymour with every inch of her being--simply for existing. There was no rhyme or reason, she just despised the girl. “Oh yeah, remind me. Who was in there pitching with the rest of us?”

Katherine sucked in a sharp breath, but blew it out in a sigh. “I was.” She admitted.

  “Yeah.” Anne sneered. Several of the other girls were packed behind her, backing her up, while a few, like Bessie and Maria, stood or sat in the middle, looking from the swarm of sweaty, angry teens to Katherine and then back to the swarm. 

  “But I’m sorry.” Katherine said.

Anne barked a laugh. “Sorry?” She laughed again, then turned to the girls behind her. “Hey, everyone, little Miss Perfect is sorry! She’s so sorry! Oh, Kitty’s sorry!”

  “Anne!” Maria hissed, then jerked her head to the side, where the yellow figure of Miss Aragon could be seen walking back over. The group quickly dispersed and Katherine shook her head.

Miss Aragon stopped in front of them. At her side, little Joan looked absolutely horrified. Her eyes are wide and paler than the moon in the sunlight, and she kept fidgeting like she wanted to run. She was trying very hard not to look at any of the girls, but didn’t know where else to stare, so her gaze kept shifting around everywhere in a panic.

  “Now, do you all have something to say to Joan?” Miss Aragon said sternly.

  “Joan--” Katherine stood up, gritting her teeth through the awful wave of pain that burned through her muscles. She slowly walked up to Joan as to not frighten her, but Joan still backed up into Aragon’s side anyway. “I’m sorry.”

Joan hunched her shoulders in and looked away. 

  “Maria.” Miss Aragon said.

Maria hesitated for just a moment, then gave in. “Sorry.”

  “Your turn, Maggie.”

Maggie pressed her tongue against the inside of her lip and spat an uncaring, “Sorry.”

  “Bessie.”

Bessie squinted up at Joan through the sunlight, then said, “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Alright, Anne,” Miss Aragon said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “When goddamn pigs fly…” Anne muttered stubbornly. A few giggles broke out around her. Miss Aragon narrowed her eyes dangerously.

  “What was that?” Their coach said. “We’re waiting, Anne. I can’t hear you.”

  “Please, it’s okay,” Joan squeaked, gripping onto Miss Aragon’s sleeve. She looked up at her with the saddest, most scared eyes Katherine had ever seen before. Miss Aragon gently touched her head in a form of reassurance, then instantly glared at Anne.

  “I said--” Anne growled lowly.

  “You don’t have to do this!”

Joan is in front of Anne, now, hands outstretched like she wanted to grab onto her. In the sun, Katherine could see the silvery scars on her hands more clearly, whorled in strange patterns in her skin. The light made her long white-gold hair look like it was charged with glittering electricity or made of jeweled silk. Anne looked down at her, and Joan backed up, clasping her hands together against her chest nervously.

  “Joan Seymour?” Anne said softly, stepping towards the girl. She stooped down to her height and spat, “Eats shit.”

Joan flinched backwards as if she were just sprayed with venom. Miss Aragon instantly got between her and Anne, acting as a protective shield of sorts.

  “Good news, ladies!” She announced. “Because of Anne’s comment, you will all be getting another week of detention with doubled time!”

The class simultaneously groaned, now turned against Anne. Anne clenched her fists, smoldering with rage.

  “I’m not running another goddamn inch,” She snarled, “because Joan Seymour got her period and was too stupid to know what it was.”

Joan flinched again, and Katherine had the unbearable urge to run over to her and cover her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear this. Her own blood began to boil and she glared at her cousin.

  “That’s it.” Miss Aragon said. “You’re suspended.”

That seemed to hit Anne like a punch to the gut. Her eyes bulged hugely out of their sockets.

  “What?”

  “You’re out of prom and you’re out of my class.” Miss Aragon stated firmly. “Now.”

  “No!” Anne shouted.

  “NO?” Miss Aragon towered over her, eyes ablaze. She looked ready to rip Anne’s throat out, and Katherine found that she wouldn’t quite mind seeing that happen.

  “You can’t decide that!” 

  “Watch me.” Miss Aragon said. She turned her gaze to the other students, as if she were challenging them to try and speak out. “The rest of you. Another lap. Come on.”

  “You can’t do this to us!” Anne squawked. “Someone could die of dehydration! Bessie, you have a heart condition, don’t you?”

Bessie apparently decided that she didn’t know who Anne was, because she was looking at everything but her.

  “If we all stick together, they can’t suspend all of us!” Anne said fervently. There was a spark of craziness in her eyes as she watched her group of friends crumble around her, suddenly not backed up anymore. “We didn’t do anything wrong!”

Joan’s quiet whimper begged to differ. Miss Aragon looked at Anne in disgust. 

  “Come on, guys!” Anne desperately attempted to rally them together. “Haley, Allie? Maria? Heather?” She spun around for somebody, anybody, and then her eyes landed on her cousin. “Katherine!” She strode over to her and clasped their hands together. “You’re with me on this, right?”

  “Katherine…” Miss Aragon warned.

Katherine’s heart ached in her chest. Anne was looking at her with so much desperation and need. There were flickers of love in her gaze, love for her little cousin, love that showed that the old Anne was still in there somewhere and ready to play harmless pranks with Katherine again. But when she looked right into her eyes, all she saw was Joan on the floor of the stall, crying and hyperventilating and surrounded by blood.

Her mind was made up.

  “Come on, guys,” Katherine pulled out of Anne’s grasp and jogged over to the starting line to get the last bout of Suicides over with. The others followed, and out of the corner of her eyes she saw Anne staring at her with a look of heartbreak and betrayal. 

Heartbreak and betrayal that morphed into something awful and sinister.

  “You fucking bitch,” Anne seethed lowly, wheeling around to glare at Joan. The poor girl was shaking like a leaf in the wind, practically cowering behind Miss Aragon. “I’ll get you for this! See if I don’t, you filthy pi-”

Anne’s words were silenced by a fierce slap across her face. She tottered backwards, and all the girls running stopped to gasp and ogle the scene with wide eyes. Miss Aragon was scowling and rubbing her hand.

  “You can’t--” Anne sputtered, and then yelped loudly as her collar was grabbed. Miss Aragon shook her roughly, screaming in her face.

  “ONE MORE WORD OUT OF YOU AND I’LL MAKE YOU WISH YOU NEVER SHOWED UP TO SCHOOL TODAY!!” Miss Aragon roared. She shook Anne again, then drew her in close. Her words came out barbed and wrapped in shards of glass. “Do you understand me?”

Whimpering, Anne nodded. Miss Aragon released her and Katherine watched as her cousin took off, crying. Miss Aragon looked at the rest of them and shook her head.

  “You’re all dismissed,” She said. Then, she turned, gently took Joan by the hand, and guided her back inside.

Everyone else dispersed pretty quickly, not caring enough to change clothes. Katherine, however, had to trudge to the locker room because she stupidly put all her stuff in there. When she entered, she could hear voices coming from Miss Aragon’s office.

  “Joan, sweetheart? I’m so sorry, if I had known it would have gone like that--”

  “Oh, Miss Aragon, you just have to let Anne go to the prom! You got to!”

Those were Miss Aragon and Joan. Now Katherine had to stay and eavesdrop on their conversation. She shut the door silently so as to not alert them and crept closer to hear better.

  “Joan--”

  “Prom is very important to her…”

  “And what’s right is important to me.” Miss Aragon said firmly.

  “But prom is everything to those girls!” Joan warbled. “It’s the one night they get to dress up and be beautiful! It’s like a dream!”

  “But what about you?”

Pause.

Hesitation.

  “No--” Joan said, and Katherine thought she may have been shaking her head. “Oh, no, I’m not going. I’m--I’m /different/.” 

Was that disgust in her voice? Why?

  “Not that different.” 

  “Yes, I am.” 

That was sadness and grief. 

Joan added a moment later, solemnly and slightly envious, “They all got someone…”

  “And so will you one day, things change.” Miss Aragon told her.

There’s a moment of silence. Katherine could bet a million dollars that Joan was looking at Miss Aragon in disbelief right now.

  “I tell you what. Let’s pretend--”

  “Miss Aragon…”

  “Just for a minute! Pretend that the right someone comes up to you and says: ‘Joan, will you be my date to the prom?’ What would you say?”

A beat of silence.

  “No.”

  “J--”

Miss Aragon sighed heavily. Katherine struggled not to laugh.

  “Joan, why not?”

  “I’m not--” Joan fumbled. “I’m not--pretty.”

Miss Aragon gave a tiny gasp.

  “Oh, sweetheart… Sure you are! Look--” Katherine can faintly hear her root around for something, most likely a pocket mirror. “See there? That’s a pretty girl.”

Katherine’s mind was spinning. She kept thinking “poor Joan” over and over and over again. The girl’s self esteem was so low. It was normal for people to make comments about their body, but there was a sort of deep hatred in Joan’s voice when she said that she wasn’t pretty that made Katherine think all of this ran a lot deeper than she thought.

Would there ever be a way to make things right?

[freddiesaysalright]

Could I make a request for either Ben or Gwil dating and American girl on the 4th of July? Thank you and I love your writings!!

Thank you love! Sorry this is a day late!

For the most part, you loved living in the UK with Gwilym. You hadn’t gone with the intention of staying permanently, but then you met him and extended your stay indefinitely. One thing that was always hard though, was the Fourth of July. It was just another day in England, but it made you ache for home. Your family always threw a big cookout and your dad made burgers while your mom made sure everyone had a fresh drink. Then, you would all gather and watch fireworks until late into the evening. You missed that. 

It was late June when you came home from work, and Gwilym was waiting for you in the kitchen with a satisfied grin on his face and his hands behind his back. You raised your eyebrows.

“What’s up, Gwil?” you asked. 

“You’re going to love me,” he said. 

“I already love you,” you said.

“You’re going to love me even more,” he insisted. 

You smiled. “Okay?”

He revealed his hands. He held two plane tickets and you gasped. 

“A trip?! Where to?!” you gasped.

“Home,” he said. “For you, anyway.”

“Gwil, are you serious?” you cried, taking the tickets and examining them. 

He nodded. “We leave next week. I know how much you miss celebrating Independence Day with your family. So, I figured this year, we’ll join them.”

Tears welled up in your eyes as you gazed at him. “I didn’t think it was possible to love you any more, but I do. Thank you so much, baby.”

He pulled you into a hug. “Of course, love.”

You landed at home on the first of July. You were thrilled because that meant you got to help your mother prepare and decorate for the party, another aspect you dearly missed. Your parents had met Gwilym before when they came over to visit you, and they already adored him. They said they couldn’t wait to show him how Americans celebrate this holiday. Gwilym said he was excited to learn. 

The day came, and Gwilym was a little blown away by how much everyone got into it. Your family, friends, and neighbors all gathered at your house, decked out in red, white, blue. Your dad was dressed as Uncle Sam, but he removed the beard and hat while he was grilling. Everyone teased Gwilym a little for being British, but he handled it well, laughing it off. 

The party was in full swing as everyone ate too much and drank just enough. Your nieces and nephews shoveled their dinners into their mouths so they could get to lighting sparklers and running around the yard. You noticed, as you laughed, that Gwilym was speaking to your father in a low voice, so the people around couldn’t hear. Then your father beamed and pulled Gwilym into a hug. Your brow furrowed, but then your nephew asked you to light the sparkler he was holding, so you went to find a lighter. 

The sun set and everyone gathered in the yard for fireworks. Your youngest nieces, nephews, and cousins were already asleep in whichever laps they found most comfortable. You and Gwilym took seats on the grass, you sitting comfortably between his legs and leaning back against his chest as he wrapped his arms around you.

“Did you have a good Fourth?” he asked.

“It was wonderful,” you replied. “Perfect, even.”

“Great,” he said, kissing your cheek. 

Your father and uncle started with smaller fireworks and you and Gwilym watched them soar into the sky and explode into their flower like shape, lighting up beside the stars in celebration. Everyone cheered or clapped.

“I wanted this to be a special one,” Gwilym continued. “Because - well, I’d like it to be your last one as an American.”

Another firework screamed into the sky as you looked back at him. 

“What?”

Gwilym retrieved a box from his pocket. A small, velvet one, which he opened to reveal a delicate diamond ring. The firework boomed and shone, making the stone glitter. 

“Y/N, will you move to England permanently? Become a citizen? And most importantly, be my wife?” 

Your mouth fell open as the sound of the fireworks faded and all you could see was Gwilym. You slowly nodded as your throat got tight with emotion. 

“Yes!” you choked out.

He kissed you hard before putting the ring on. 

“I love you,” you said between kisses.

“I love you more,” he replied. 

He held you close as you watched the rest of the fireworks show. Your heart beat wildly as they bloomed over the inky sky. You had so many reasons to celebrate.

[thefanficmistress]

⋆✦⋆The Blind Date  ⋆✦⋆

Richard hasn’t seen you in almost 20 years since you moved from London to Canada for work. Being the little sister to one of his friends, both of you always had a weird relationship filled with laughs and sexual tension. 

You were the lovesick girl, while he was on his way to fame. Your brother always noticed and teased you about it. Your brother sets you up on a blind date with someone you didn’t expect.

Setting: New York City 

Warnings: Smut, Swearing, Angst and Fluff

Pairing: Richard Armitage x Reader, Richard Armitage x Female Character, Richard Armitage x You, You X Richard Armitage, Richard Armitage x OC

Context © me

@purplerain85 @shikin83 @jassy2101 @catthefearless @patanghill17 @aelinninielelain @deepestfirefun @fizzyxcustard @richard-crispin-armitage @pixiedurango @xxbyimm  : Please let me know if you would like to be tagged.  _____ PART 1 “ I wish you would just say yes (Y/N)” Your brother wined in the phone. “Why do I need to say yes? I don’t know the person you’re setting me up with.” “Isn’t that the point of a blind date? I can’t tell you. You have to trust me.” He says as he laughs. You roll your eyes and stare out the window of your office building. It was raining, and the streets of New York beneath you were busy as always. The cabs honking, people yelling, and the constant sound of ever moving traffic. This city truly never sleeps. She took a deep breath, closed your eyes, and put your index finger and thumb in between your eyes to sooth the headache that was building. “The last time you…”  “ I know, I know, and I can’t apologize enough for that. How was I supposed to know he was a comedy magician?”  “I could have choked him with his infinity rings Mark!” Your voice very ominous remembering that date. “I had to fake laugh, and then tell him I had a family emergency to get out of it.” “I know…” He started, but you interrupted. You pulled the phone away from your ear, and yell into the receiver. “No, you don’t know! What good is it that you set me up with dates, and always screw it up?! You, The Human Tinder, and you can’t even swipe left or right correctly!” You put the phone back to your ear. “Look, you and Sean broke up a year ago, and you need to get back out there. I may have missed a few “swipes” as you put it, but I’ll get it right one of these days, and you will thank me.” 

You remain silent. Maybe he would talk himself out of it, like he always talks you into things. But he then says something that threw you off “Duckling, I’m worried about you.” He confessed. 

He always called you Duckling when he wanted to show you that he was now claiming the protective big brother role. One of the many nicknames he gave you when you were kids, but Duckling you hated the most. He always said you reminded him of the ugly duckling when you were younger. As cruel as it sounded, he hated you when you were born, he thought you were ugly only because your parents showed you so much attention. At the time he didn’t understand what being a brother was. You didn’t really fit in with him or his friends, he teased you a lot, and made fun of you. The normal acts of an older brother. This definitely didn’t change when your parents moved to the UK. 

“Don’t call me that.” You sighed and leaned forward on your desk. Your headache was getting worse. “Why exactly are you worried? I’m perfectly fine being alone.” You tried to say convincingly. To be honest you didn’t like it. You wanted someone, but not just anyone. They had to be special. Special enough to make you forget about what Sean did to you. Mark wasn’t wrong when he said it had been a year since you split from Sean. He wasn’t a bad guy, he just wasn’t ready for a commitment, and you were. He didn’t want kids, or had any real ambition for his life, but you did. You wanted to travel and wanted someone who would travel with you. You wanted kids, and a family, and he thought that getting married and having kids was a waste of money. He was ok with where he was, and he wanted you to be ok with it too. You wanted more, so you ended it and never looked back.  Sean on the other had didn’t take it so well. He still calls you from time to time. You run into him at parties because you shared friends and rolled in the same circle. Since you he had been through 3 other girlfriends. He looked as though he had a new one every month, he always had to introduce you to them. Brag about their relationship, and then sadly tell you that you would find someone soon enough. It hurt, yes, but you didn’t let him see it. You would smile and gracefully leave the party with your pride intact and go home alone.  “Because you haven’t…. you know.” He playful teases with a smile in his voice. “I haven’t what?” You asked. “Don’t make me say it.” He said, his voice weirdly low. “You know…it” “What?” You questioned. “(Y/N) ….IT! You haven’t done IT!” He stresses over the phone. “Eww Mark!” You shriek on the phone. He started to speak, but you already pulled the phone away from your ear, and you felt a tremor of utter disgust run through your entire body. The very idea that your older brother was concerned about you getting laid made you nauseous. You almost dropped the phone on your desk. Did the thought every cross his mind that YOU are his LITTLE sister and maybe needed a companion? Needed love, and happiness? Nooooo. It was sex.

Your mind drifted to your empty apartment. To your empty bed, and to the fact that no one was waiting for you. You shook off the thought and put the phone back to your ear. He was talking and you heard absolutely nothing he said. “Fine! Whatever just make it happen, text me the location. Whatever it will take to shut you up and to never hear you mention my sex life again.” “Duckling, you need a sex life to have one. I’m just trying to get the first part started for you.” He rebutted.   “Goodbye Mark. “You sang back gracefully as you hit the bright red end button on your iPhone. It sang a few moments later with a message that said. ____________ MARK {The River Café : One Water Street – Brooklyn, NY – 11201 – 8PM.} MARK {His name is Jamie by the way :) } MARK {Don’t be late!}                                                                         YOU {Bite me! :) } MARK {Good luck! Duckling.} ______________ You left the office and went home to prepare for yet another date with some guy you hoped wasn’t a weirdo. Or at least the weirdos you didn’t like. A few hours later

You showered, covered your body in scented lotion of honeysuckle and lavender. You let your black hair down, and it fell in cascading loose curls around your shoulders and over your breast. You were about 5’1, curvy, with thickness in all the right places. Your hair always fell thick and full bodied and complemented your tiny stature well. 

You put on a sleeveless short black mini dress with a dark pink under lining. It had a beading design along the haltered bodice that hugged your breast beautifully. The dress fell right above your knees, and the skirt flared out at the waist. Slipping on your heels you grabbed your keys and sprinted yourself with perfume and looked at yourself in the full body mirror. 

“If this doesn’t work, this will be your last blind date.” You said to yourself, as your reflected stated back at you with the same finalizing decision. “Go get’em tiger.” You smiled and high five yourself gently. Your hands coming in contact with the cold surface of the glass. Then you left. 

Across a bridge, over a river, and you walk into a dream. Located in one of New York’s most unique settings, The River Café has become very well-known around the world as a culinary destination and your brother picked it. Nestled riverside under the Brooklyn Bridge with sweeping views of the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty, The River Café serves a classic New American menu using freshest ingredients. So, one point to him. If you didn’t enjoy the man, you would have at least enjoyed the food.  The room was full of gallery lights, and lamps, filling the room with an orange yellowish glow. Flower arrangements scattered throughout the room filling it with the scent of spring. The fragrance wasn’t too harsh to bother your senses, but it gave you the feeling of being in a meadow. Tons of framed photos long the walls. It was something out of a dream. It was beautiful, and very romantic.  You entered the foyer where the male host stood smiling at you. A stunning African American man greeted you with a bright white smile. “Welcome to the The River Café. Do you have a reservation with us?” “More like a date.” You say with a smile. “Well whoever they are, they are very lucky.” He smiles back at you. He opens a large black book on the stand before him and looks through the names. “What is the last name of the party?” He asked looking up from the book. “I’m sorry, it’s a blind date, and I only have the first name. Jamie.” The sound of the door opens behind you, and you remain standing where you are. The host nods when a man says, “ Kingston Party,” “ Yes your table is waiting in the Terrace Room, far back.” The host gestures to a server that is waiting to escort the men in. As they file in, you hear another set of footsteps stop behind you and they come to a stop. “My apologies.” He looks back down, and then paused when he notices something in his book. “Would you happen to be—” he was interrupted by the sound of someone calling your name. “(Y/N)?” You heard the man say from behind  you. A voice you hadn’t heard in years. A voice that you only heard through the headphones at night while lying in your bed. You turned, and almost dropped your purse. The moment your eyes locked with his, it felt as though the air was snatched from your lungs. Everything in you tightened, and your heart stopped. You remembered that boyish smile, and enchanting blue eyes. His hair was a bit longer, and cut in layers, and combed back away from his face. Still so youthful, with a trimmed beard, and manlier than you had ever seen him. And in a dress jacket no less. His under shirt was black, and he wore very dark blue jeans. Well in person, you weren’t stupid, you saw all of his movies. You listened to his audiobooks as well. You told yourself that you were being supportive, but really it was just to hear his voice. “Hello little duckling.” He purred in that perfect accent. His pink lips curled into a sensual smile, and his eyes ranked up your body. When he locked eyes again, something in them twinkled.  PART 1 END PART 2  

[superwolfiestar]

Date(Gravesbeaks one shot fanfic)

“Why am I wearing this?”

“For a thousand time Mark, this is how people dress in the UK.”

Falcon sigh again as he whispered to his plus one and his boyfriend, Mark Beak, in the chapel. He have received a invitation to his older brother wedding in the UK. And the invitation has say to bring one plus. So he decided to ask Mark out if he would like to to his older brother wedding and of course, Mark said yes. They decided to took Mark private jet plane to the UK which is a eleven hours long flight to get there. They decided to stay there for two weeks and after the wedding, they will come back.

“And what with a weird and silly hats these women are wearing?” Mark whispered to him as he look at a woman with a hat on her head in front of him. Falcon sigh again as he roll his eyes. “Those are fascinator Mark. Women do wear them to special occasions.” Falcon reply. “UK Women do wear different than American women.” Mark stated.

They’re at the chapel which is decorated with Christmas stuffs since the theme is Christmas as they both wearing a mourning suit. Mark wore a light blue, double breasted waistcoat which is complimented by a baby pink tie and pin. The striped trouser is tailored with a looser fit and is finished off with a classic morning coat. Falcon also wore grey double breasted waistcoat, which is complimented by a gold pocket chain. Falcon's trousers are tailored to a slim fit cut.

Mark have no idea why did they dress like this than they dress back home but he got his answer from his boyfriend. This is how people in the UK dress for special occasions. And women do wear day evening dresses with funny and weird fascinator on their head as Falcon call them. Then, they heard a children voice as Mark turn his head around and saw a cute adorable children in their cute formal outfit.

All the little girls wore red short sleeves and a double green silk ribbon at the waist, tied in a bow at the back. A ballet pumps on their feets and a floral crown on their head, and little boys were dress in white double-breasted style cotton shirt is worn tucked in the red velvet shorts and two hidden buttons situated around the waist, Matching piping around the collar and cuffs and white stocking and black shoes on their feets.

Mark also notice a woman who have the round felt base is covered with satin ribbon loops, adorned with flighty feathers and topped off with a birdcage veil on her head, wore a crepe and red lace dress with a gold pleated skirt, appliqued bodice and length sleeves. Dress comes with a matching mikado jacket. It look like she’s trying to control the flower girls and page boys by “shhhhh” at them and try to get them to behave.

“That’s my little sister over there,” said Falcon as he look at them. “Which one? The little one?” Mark ask as he is guessing that one of the little girls must be his little sister, but he don’t know which one. “Well, the most of the little ones are my cousins and other are a friends of my mother. That woman over there who is trying to control the children is my little sister.” Falcon smile as he pointed at her. His sister notice him as she give her older brother a smile and a small wave as Falcon wave her back.

Mark look in the front, he can see Mark older brother stood in the altar with his groomsmen by his side. He can see a tearful happy mother of the groom sitting right beside Falcon. But he began to wonder, where is the father of the groom anyway. Maybe he will be arrive later during the ceremony or at the reception? But he decided to not to question as he began to heard a bridal march playing from the organ as they all began to stand up from their seats.

Later that evening, at the reception which held at Falcon family ground. Mark and Falcon are having a wonderful time at the reception. They eat foods and dance on the dance floor. Mark was greeted by Falcon mother, siblings, aunts, uncles, and other families members he was introduced. But, he didn’t meet Falcon father. He look everywhere in the reception to see if someone in the reception look similar to his boyfriend but he didn’t find him.

He walk forward to Falcon who was sitting and drinking. “Falcon,” he began to said nervously. “I have meet all your family members, they are pretty happy to meet me. It seem you told them about me huh?” Mark raise his eyebrows and smirk. “Yeah,” Falcon smile as he sallow the wine. “I did told them about you.” He put him arms around his boyfriend as they both kiss. “I just want my family to see how awesome my boyfriend is.” Falcon kiss Mark cheek.

“Also, I never actually met your dad, he didn’t make it to the ceremony and he’s not here at the reception, where is he?” Mark began to ask. “Is he sick?”

Falcon look at him, he sigh as he rub his back. “Well, you see.” He took a deep breath as Mark rub his leg. “My father will… let just say that… my father abandoned us after I come out of the closet.” Falcon recalled the memories of how he told his family that he’s gay. “My entire family support me, except my father. He was really mad. He yell at me and he then left, and never came back home. To this day, I still don’t know what happen to him.” Falcon told Mark a whole story.

Then, they hear women screaming coming from the dance floor as they look up to see a wedding bouquet toss into the air. Mark then caught it which meant they would be next soon.

"I guess we're next to be married." Mark said with a smile. "I guess so." Falcon replied with a smile, they laughed in happiness at that thought.

[ukpromdress]

The Various Types of Bridesmaid Dresses Popular For Weddings

While planning a wedding it is very important to plan the clothes at the wedding party. This includes the groom’s suit, the suits for the groomsmen, the wedding dress for the bride, the dresses for the flower girls and the pageboys, and also the bridesmaid dresses. The bridesmaid dresses are important as most bridesmaids wear similar dresses and they have to look beautiful as well as match the overall theme and clothing styles of the wedding. Generally, these bridesmaid dresses have to be bought within the budget and the following are some of the popular styles in bridesmaid dresses for weddings:

Types of Bridesmaid Dresses for Weddings

Grecian style bridesmaid dresses are very popular as they look supplementary to the bride’s grand dress yet look beautiful and stylish during a wedding. Cheap bridesmaid dresses in UK are available online and also in bridal stores that offer discounts.

A-line silhouette dresses are very popular as they look chic and not over the top. Off-shoulder bridesmaid dresses and one shoulder dresses are also popular in bridesmaid styles.

Bridesmaid dresses with a supportive bust and a flowing chiffon skirt are also popular with wedding bridesmaids and maid-of honors. For a more casual look, dresses like simple formal style dresses or shift dresses are the more obvious choice.

Lace is a major factor in bridesmaid dresses and fabrics like chiffon, satin, English net, crepe, taffeta and georgette are some of the fabrics used in bridesmaid dresses.

Bridesmaid dresses can vary in length. Short, knee length, floor length, midi, and high low are all options that are popular in bridesmaids.

Bodycon, ball gown, embellished, fit and flare, maxi, mermaid, sheath dresses and wrap dresses are all popular with bridesmaids. Solid colors are most common however some prints like floral prints and polka dots are trendy in some cases.

Whether it is grey bridesmaid dresses in UK or bridesmaid’s dresses of any other colors, bridesmaid dresses can be chosen in almost any color. Grey, beige, purple, blue, green, pink, maroon, red, or even black and white.

Sweetheart necklines, v-neck necklines, illusion necklines, boat necks, halters, one-shoulder designs, off shoulder styles, scoop necklines, strapless and plunge necklines are all part of the bridesmaid fashions.

Bridesmaid dresses are a critical part of the wedding party dresses. Usually, brides and the bridesmaids together decide on the type of dresses to choose for the wedding and the above-mentioned styles are popular choices in this decision.

Source Code: https://tinyurl.com/y855anc2

[dyslexic-mess]

Aparently people don't know this so Imma give you a fun fact:

In UK wedding culture, its not odd for members of the bridal party to be invited to ware white to the wedding!

These are usually the children of the party (eg: flower girls and page boys) but adults who are considered the 'babys' of the family, like little siblings, are also sometimes invited to ware the colour.

For example, when my mother got married, I was 14 but was still considered one of the 'little ones' so I wore a white flower dress with the other kiddos.

Don't get me wrong though! If you turn up in white and where not invited to, it's still very much an insult. I was on duty with a bottle of cheap red wine on my mums day to make sure no one who hadden't been told they could got through!

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter - Monday, October 11th

BUFFY: Any suggestions on how we're gonna get there? SPIKE: Dad can drive. He's bound to have some classic midlife-crisis transport. (puts arm around Giles's shoulder) Something red, shiny, shaped like a penis.

~~Tabula Rasa~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Take Care (Buffy/Willow, G) by rainbowanatomy

Sticky Situation (Buffy/Giles, T) by TheScholarlyStrumpet (equipoise)

control (Jenny/Giles, M) by The_Eclectic_Bookworm

Ordinary Xander (Gen, G) by Xanderfan1984

Safe and sound (Angel/Nina, T) by Bl4ckHunter

Missing in Action (Gen, T) by spikesgirl58

Something Human (Spike/Drusilla, G) by taxicab12

Her Face Went Red Again (Buffy/Giles, M) by KnightleyOverDarcy

Playing for Keeps (Buffy/Spike, G) by EllieRose101

[Chaptered Fiction]

Magic Man Chapter 4 (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only) by Touchstoneaf

Damage Case Chapter 3 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Axell

Mirror Reflection Chapter 13 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Electric Heart

Best Wishes Chapter 27 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by Kanita

Time Is a Funny Thing Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by EstellaX

Careful What You Wish For Chapter 19 (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only) by Jws1993

Call Me Maybe Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Bewildered

Dress My Body All in Flowers White Chapter 19 (Buffy/Spike, R) by othellia

Landed Chapter 12 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Holly

Waiting By The Phone Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by sweetprincipale

Splits Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, Unrated) by 19BBY

Somewhere Begins Again Chapter 2 (Buffy/Spike, E) by alittlemoretime

[Images, Audio & Video]

PODCAST: New Moon Rising S4 E19 (Buffy and the Art of Story) by lisalilly

ARTWORK: Buffy/Tara by malvydaina

VIDEO: Buffy/Angel by bangelus9hermionepotter

[Fandom Discussions]

The Good Spuffy Fan by rahirah

Giles killing Ben was the greatest gift he could have given Buffy by atlasshrugd

most of the men in buffy’s life have left her by atlasshrugd

disappointing how the scoobies could not figure out that buffybot was not the real buffy in intervention by atlasshrugd

Spike playlist by spuffygifs

There is something so powerful about a being made for evil, from evil - and choosing to defy his own nature by atlasshrugd

Drusilla's portrayal in fics by atlasshrugd

Buffy in season 7 by millennialslayer

Jenny headcanon by jessannperreault

Random Wardrobe question by KingofCretins

So much respect for Buffy fighting some of the most DISGUSTING demons by Opening_Knowledge868

Any UK fans interested in this book? by stillhavehope99

Two of my favorite line readings by SMG by dryerfresh

Losing characters to budget problems by ginime_

Souls by OscarStoker

Which romantic relationship that began pre-BtVS Season 1 do you like best? by beeemkcl

Girls slayer by chemeli888

Undercover Pervert Willow is my favorite Willow. by Prodigal_Son22

Angel breaks the monitor by Xx_Angel_Goth_xX

The real questions by TordekIronhill

No perfect happiness if under a spell? by Blackrose909

How did everyone get into Buffy, and what drew you in? by ViviBlu

How did Darla get undusted by aliinthelamp

I just watched S5 E16 "the body" for the very first time. by patrickdm1998

Deep Down: Underappreciated? by littleliongirless

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[theresabookforthat]

Friday Reads: Royal Wedding!

Will you be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to watch the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle? Coverage begins as early as 4:00 am (Pacific Time), Saturday, May 19th. The couple will say “I do” at St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle, where Prince Harry was christened. An estimated 600 guests are invited to the wedding, which takes place at noon British Summer Time. It’s been a media frenzy speculating on who will walk Markle down the aisle given that her father will not be able to attend due to his heart issues. She has asked her father-in-law Price Charles to do the honor as of this post. The bride’s bouquet will include her favorite flowers: white garden roses, foxgloves and peonies. It was also announced that the royal couple will have a lemon elderflower cake. To further indulge your interest in the occasion, we invite you to a tasting of titles on the subject of royals, past and present:  

 ROYAL WEDDING: HARRY & MEGHAN PAPER DOLLS  (Random House)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are the ultimate fairy tale for our times—bring the romance to life with these commemorative paper dolls! The perfect gift for royal lovers young and old!

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are set to marry at Windsor Castle in May 2018. With these paper dolls, you can cut them out and dress them up in their engagement outfits, the camping outfits they might have worn while hanging out in Botswana, what they might wear to a glamorous Hollywood party, the unicorn onesies we’re sure they wear at home in their cottage, and, of course, what they might wear on the big wedding day itself! Mix and match their outfits as you learn more about their whirlwind romance!

 NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES: A JUICY JOURNEY THROUGH NINE CENTURIES OF DYNASTY, DESTINY, AND DESIRE by Leslie Carroll

“An irresistible combination of People magazine and the History Channel.”—Chicago Tribune

From the author of American Princess: The Love Story of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry comes a funny and delightful history of the royal weddings and marriages of Europe’s most famous—and infamous—monarchs.

 QUEEN ELIZABETH II AND THE ROYAL FAMILY: A GLORIOUS ILLUSTRATED HISTORY by DK Publishing

Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family is a magnificent tribute to the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II and a celebration of the British royal family. Highly illustrated with photographs and timelines throughout, Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family tells the story of the House of Windsor, and includes events such as the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and profiles on key people such as Princess Diana and Prince Harry.

 INGLORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES: A DEMI-MILLENNIUM OF UNHOLY MISMATRIMONY by Leslie Carroll

It’s no secret that the marriages of monarchs are often made in hell. Here are some of the most spectacular mismatches in five hundred years of royal history…. Brimming with outrageous real-life stories of royal marriages gone wrong, this is an entertaining, unforgettable book of dubious matches doomed from the start.

 THE DIANA CHRONICLES by Tina Brown

Years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she “the people’s princess,” who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy? Only Tina Brown, former Editor-in-Chief of Tatler, England’s glossiest gossip magazine; Vanity Fair; and The New Yorker could possibly give us the truth. Tina knew Diana personally and has far-reaching insight into the royals and the Queen herself.

 THE REGAL RULES FOR GIRLS: HOW TO FIND LOVE, A LIFE –AND MAYBE EVEN A LORD — IN LONDON by Jerramy Fine

Do you dream of moving to England, falling in love with a handsome British nobleman, and living happily ever after in his ancestral castle? Time to stop dreaming and make that dream come true!

With essential English etiquette, the do’s and don’ts of the British “Season,” advice about UK immigration, hilarious yet very real parables and lists of the best clubs, pubs, and sporting events to meet eligible Englishmen, this glamorous, must-have manual is required reading for any girl that wants to cross the pond in style.

 ROYALS by Rachel Hawkins

New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins brings her signature humor, love of Americana, and flair for romance to this page-turning Princess Diaries turned-upside-down story for young adults. Meet Daisy Winters. She’s an offbeat sixteen-year-old Floridian with mermaid-red hair; a part time job at a bootleg Walmart, and a perfect older sister who’s nearly engaged to the Crown Prince of Scotland. Daisy has no desire to live in the spotlight, but relentless tabloid attention forces her join Ellie at the relative seclusion of the castle across the pond.

For more on these and other outstanding children’s titles visit Royals