#said havva

[atomsociety-hub]

squit, I was the one who said please love me, just fyi you made me cry. /vpos

waow

am i the crier maker

im just good atmaking people cry happy. waw

havva good day learning to love yaself mysterio man!!! itll pay off i promid

[behnantugrab]

Bir Film: 12 Öfkeli Adam (1957)

Bir Kitap: Said Havva-Ruh Terbiyemiz

[questionsonislam]

How does a nikah be solemnized? What is said and what prays are recited?

Nikah is performed as follows;

The person (an Imam or a sensible person) who is going to solemnize nikah firstly writes the name of the girl going to marry, for instance he writes “Fatima bint-i Ahmed”.

Then he writes the name of the agent of the girl, for example “Ali bin Zayd”.

Then he writes the names of the two testifiers.

Then he writes the name of the boy going to marry, for example “Omar bin Hussein”.

Then he writes the name of the agent of the boy, if the boy is not present.

Then he writes the amount of mahr-i mueccel (mahr paid in advance) and mahr-i muaccel (mahr paid on account) by asking both parts. (mahr: the money which is supposed to be given by the man as a right to the woman)

Then he seeks refuge in Allah and recites A’udhu-Bismillah (A’udhubillahiminasshaytanirrajimm-Bismillahirrahmanirrahim) and says; “Alhamdu lillahillezi zavvacal arvaha bil ashbah ve ahallannikaha ve harramessifah. Vassalatu vassalamu ala rasulena Muhammadinillezi bayyana-l-harame va-l-mubah ve ala Alihi va Aashabi-hillezina hum ahlussalahi valfalah”.

Then he recites again A’udhu-Bismillah and reads 32nd verse of the Surah An- Nur (24th chapter of the Quran) and after he reads “Sadakallahuladhim”. Then he says; “Kale rasulallah, “An-nikahu sunneti faman ragiba an sünneti falaysa minni” sadaka Resulullah. ‘Bismillahi va ala sunnet-i rasulillah’”

Then he asks the agent of the girl;

“By the order of Allah and the sunnah of Rasulallah and the rule (ijtiha) of the Imam of our sect (Abu Hanife) and the testimony of present Muslims, do you agree, since you are the agent of the girl, to give Fatima bint-i Ahmad in marriage to Omar bin Hussein, who promise to give such amount of mahr-i mueccel and mahr-i muaccel?”

Then he reads the same pray by starting from (Bismillahi va ala) and asks the agent of the boy going to marry; “And since you are the agent of the boy going to marry, do you agree to take Fatima bint-i Ahmad in marriage to Omar bin Hussein by agreeing to give such amount of mahr-i mueccel and mahr-i muaccel?”

Three times the questions are asked to the parts and the answers are received from them. Then the prayer given below is recited;

(Allahummac’al hadhal akta maymunan mubarakan vacal beyna-huma ulfetan va mahabbeten va karara va la tac’al beyna-huma nafratan va fitnetan va ferara. Allahumma allif baynahuma kema allafta beyna Adama va Havva. Va kama allafta beyna Muhammadin va Khatica-tal-Kubra va Aişa -ta umm-il muminine . Va beyna Aliyyin va Fatima-taz-Zahra. Allahumma ati la-huma evladan salihan ve umran tavelan va rizkan vasian. Rabbena hab lana min azvacina va zurriyatina kurrata ayunin vac’alna lil muttekina imama. Rabbena atina fiddunya hasanatan va fil ahirati hasanatan va kina azabannar. Sabhana rabbika rabbilizzati amma yasifun va salamun alal mursaleen valhamdulillahi rabbilalameen al fatiha).

Therby performing nikah finishes.

[beardedbluebirdcheesecake]

Positive emotions

What positive emotion do you feel most often? Every human has some positive and some nigative. Emotions .When he find some success in this world he feel positive and when something happens wrong with human he feels very very nigative emotions. True story of Adam and Havva When Allah said Adam and Havva to go in paradise and never eat food of a tree .Satan came to Adam and said if you eat this…

[lykkexliten]

havva looked at him quietly for a moment as he spoke, before her dark hues fell to look at the coffee he held out to her. she gently shook her head. "well i did say i was gonna come... and no- i'm fine.. you keep it." she said tucking bits of her hair behind her ear, knowing she was horrible at hiding the emotions on her face, even if she didnt mean to.

open to all! ft. hasan sayar! serkay tütüncü, 32, he/him, pansexual, chef.

"in my defense, i thought you were going to say no." hasan stood, a look of surprise on is face at the fact that they had come. it was barely six in the morning and he didn't think they'd want to go to a market, so he only bought himself a coffee. "it's early, most people don't get up this early for a market, alright?" he said, offering his coffee out.

[breitzbachbea]

🌹

Riva, my beloved! You're getting probably THE horniest part of TA so far. Ft. Timothea and Havva trying to have dinner inbetween two flirtsy couples.

Send me a 🌹and get a passage from my WIP

Herakles stuffed the rest of the vine leaf into his mouth. “Sadık?” he asked after he had swallowed and the other looked at him. Herakles asked him: “You’d be there to catch me again, right?” His voice was low. “If I’d falter.” I wouldn’t mind your arms around me this time. You’d like me buckle underneath you, you’d like to be the only thing I can hold onto. Sadık stared at him, mouth slightly open as the piece of bread hovered in front of it. The green eyes were wide open. They watched when Herakles picked up a piece of feta and stuck out his tongue to place it on it. He drew it back into his mouth and chewed on it, his eyes still on Sadık. He gave him a quick smile and Sadık swallowed. He closed his eyes for a moment, squeezed them shut for a second. “Close your mouth, you’ll catch a fly,” Timothea said. “Also, eat your bread before the joghurt on it says goodbye.” “Really, Sadık, you’ll make a mess,” Havva added and Sadık shook his head quickly. “Yeah, yeah,” he said and bit into his bread. Herakles held a chuckle in. He put his foot forward. Searched with it for Sadık’s. He found it and rubbed his ankle against Sadık’s.

[human-monodam]

Suddenly, Monokuma, Monodam, and Hajime all get a group text message. From... Miu Iruma?

Miu: Uh... Guys...

Miu: Something's wrong with Gamer Bitch, Cock-itchy, and Slut-yaka.

Miu: They're acting really weird...

Miu: OH SHIT WHY DOES SLUT-YAKA HAVVA Q KNFI3

Her texts stop there. That's... concerning. Check on them?

- @seven-crimes-and-punishments ((I TOLD YOU I'D THINK OF SOMETHING- FEEL FREE TO IGNORE- ))

*And just like that, Monokuma and Monodam breaks down the walls, repairs said wall, and runs up to Miu.*

Monokuma: "Where's Sayaka!?" @seven-crimes-and-punishments

[faithofgods]

These prompts are so cute 😭 It’s what Flor deserves 🥰 could you please do “kisses in which, i can't believe this is real, but i love you so much”

Anonymous said: ohhh can we get 50 for the prompts pls! because I, too, feel tht way abt Flor 😌

Anonymous said: *peeks in shyly* 50 for flor, please?

Anonymous said: "smiling in-between kisses" for Flor's birthday please?

Anonymous said: 22 !! Happy birthday Flor

22. smiling in-between kisses 50. kisses in which, i can't believe this is real, but i love you so much

A shadow falls over where you kneel in the gardens, and you glance up, spying Flor resting against the wall. You rise easily, dusting the dirt from your palms. "Someone's back early."

"Only for a moment," they reply, a slight smile. "Could you gather some flowers for me?"

"These ones?" you ask after following their nod to a bed behind you, fingertips lifting up a cluster of small, pale blue blooms.

"One over. The violets."

The shears, retrieved from a nearby table, are heavy in your hand, dulled metal and wood handle worn smooth from years of use. The edges remain sharp though, well-cared for, and they snip easily through the stems.

You're recrossing the garden in a matter of minutes, arms full of cut flowers and passing them back to Flor over the wall.

"You're not having me cut my own gift, are you?" you joke, setting the shears down on the wall, and Flor shakes their head.

"Havva is sick," they explain, pulling a large square of linen from one pocket and wrapping it around the stems. "I was going to stop by before sunset. Violets are her favorite."

They look up, back to you, and you reach out, brushing a curl of dark hair out of their eyes. Their smile returns, soft and sweet and almost blinding how wide it is.

You can't help but laugh. "What's that look for?"

"Just reminding myself how grateful I am."

It's their turn to reach out, fingers trailing the curve of your cheek, a shyness in how lightly they touch. The scent of the violets clings to their skin, enveloping you.

"Grateful?"

They lean in, kissing you, near painful in its sincerity, in everything conveyed through such a simple action. Love, and trust, and a humbling honesty layered over it.

They draw back slightly, just enough to answer, "To have you in my life."

It's a little awkward, how you're both leaned over the wall, the end of one post digging into your hip, but it's hard to bring yourself to care.

"How long will you be?" you whisper against their lips, feeling their smile grow.

They kiss you again, lightly, whispering back, "No more than an hour."

A third kiss, a third goodbye. "I'll miss you the entire time you're gone."

[kadertango]

Ali bin Ahmed bin Said ibn Hazm d. 7 Kasım 994, Kurtuba - ö. 16 Ağustos 1064) Endülüslü-Arap felsefeci, tarihçi, fakih ilahiyatçı ve Şair. İbn hazm ez-Zahiri diye ün yapmıştır. Bir azatlı kölenin torunudur.

Batıda eserleri bir çok dile çevrilmiş. İtalya, Rusya, İspanyolca, Fransızca, Japonya.......

Ne yazık ki Türkçeye bu yüzyılda çevrilmiş. Kitap üç bölüme ayrılmış, İbni Hazm'a göre 10 tanesi, aşkın kaynaklarına, 12 bölüm aşkın araz (belirtilerine) 16 bölüm aşka içeriden gelen bela ve afetlere, son bölüm Endülüs edebiyatı ve İbn Hazm

Erich Fromm" "Sevme Sanatı"Sigmund Freud "Aşkın Psikoljsi" batılı felsefe ve düşünürlere verdiğimiz önemi inşallah doğu kültürüne ve İslam felsefecilerine de verme gayreti yaşarız.

Güvercin gerdanlığı güvercinlerin boynunda bulunan halka biçimindeki tüylerdir. klasik islâm edebiyatında, boyna geçen ve ölünceye kadar çıkmayan 'aşk zinciri'nin sembolüdür. endülüs'lü filozof ibni hazm sevgiye ve sevenlere dair öykü ve şiirleriyle kalbe dokunmuş, insanı başka alemlere götürerek duygu, betimlemeler ile soyut, edebi ve felsefi yönden mantığın dile gelmiş hali diyebiliriz

Kitap kişilik eğitimi için benzersiz bir sanat eseri niteliğini taşımakta, o kadar benzersiz ve eşsiz yazılmış ki bir öykü ve öyküye yazılmış şiir ve kasideden oluşmaktadır. Sayfadan sayfaya geçmek için sabırsızlandım.

Alıntılar

Hemen hemen hiç değişmeksizin çoğu kez aşkın dış güzelliğe bağlanmasını sağlayan neden , ruhun kendisinin bizzat güzel olmasıdır . Bu nedenle ruh güzel olan herşeye hemen tutulur ; güzel ve hoş motiflere karşı bir eğilim gösterir . Güzel bir şey gördüğünde hemen ona bağlanır; biçimin ötesinde , kendisiyle uyuşan bir çizgi ayrımsarsa, işte o zaman birleşme meydana gelir. Gerçek aşk da budur zaten. Şayet, görünenin ötesinde kendisiyle uyuşabilen en ufak bir nitelik göremezse, sevgisi bu dış biçimden daha ileriye geçmez. Sadece bedensel bir arzu olarak kalır. Gerçekte, dış biçimler ruhların birbirlerinden ayrılmış parçaları üzerinde etkin bir çekim gücüne sahiptir.

Bir aşkın benim içimi yakması için, belli bir zamanın geçmesi, benim ona onun bana karşı sürekli bir bağlılık hissetmemiz, hayatın acı ve tatlı bazı şeylerini aramızda paylaşmış olmamız gerekir.

Benim düşünceme göre aşk, ruhların çeşitli yaratıklar arasında bölünmüş parçalarının birleştirilmesidir. Bu birleşme onların en yüksek temel ögelerinde meydana gelir. Beraberlik ve ayrılığın, varlıkların birleşimi ve ayrışımıyla ilgili olduğunu biliyoruz. Her şekil kesinlikle kendine uygun olan şekli

çağırır; onu arar. bulur. Herşey misli mislinedir. Aramızda karşıtların birbirini ittiğini benzerlerin birbirlerini çektiğini, hemcinslerin birbiriyle uyum sağladığını bilmeyen yoktur.

Niçin aynı durumlar ruhlar için sözkonusu olmasın? Allah Adem 'in eşinde bulacağı ısınmanın nedenini Havva 'nın kendisinden bir parça bulmasında kılmıştır.

Kuşkusuz zevklerin ve eğlencelerin bir sonu var; ama işlenen günahların doğurduğu olumsuz sonuçlar ve onların utancı hiç tükenmez.

En değerli Aşk Yüce Allah'ın aşkında buluşup birleşenlerin aşkıdır.

[praiseyah]

TOP 8 Things you probably never knew about Eve Aka Havva ( Hawa) "The Mother of all who lives"

# 1 Eve's ( Havva or Hawa) Husband Adam lived to be 930 years old

Genesis 5:4-5 4. And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: 5. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years and he died.

# 2. Because of Eve's disobedience, Yah appointed Men to rule over women.

Genesis 3:16  and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." ... And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.

#3. Yah wasn't done punishing Eve for her and her husband's disobedience in the Garden of Eden; He also made it so that women will always have to endure birth pains during conception.

Genesis 3:16  To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.

#4. Contrary to the FALSE Christian/Catholic religion and teachings, Adam & Eve DID NOT eat an apple in the Garden of Eden.The fruit was never mentioned, so no one knows what forbidden fruit they actually ate.

Genesis 3:3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, Yah has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

#5. There is no mention in scripture of the age where Eve ( Havva) Died.

#6. Yah appointed Eve to be the "Mother of ALL living"

Genesis 3:20 Then the man—Adam—named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live.

#7  If you base snakes/serpents on how they were in the days of Eve then they had legs and talked.  In reading the below verses, it readably asserts that not only did animals talk, but we humans communicated with them.  As seen in the dialogue between Eve and the serpent.

Genesis 3: 1- 5 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals Yah had made. He said to the woman, “Did Yah really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but Yah did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die. “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For Yah knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like Yah , knowing good and evil.”

#8 Her son Cain killed her other son Abel over jealousy. Yah favored Abel's gift over the gift that Cain gave to him; and because of that, Cain killed him over it. (This is why it is very important to never favor one child over the other. It will bring strife between those children)

Genesis 4: 3-8 The day came when Cain brought a gift of the fruit of the ground to Yah 4 But Abel brought a gift of the first-born of his flocks and of the fat parts. Yah showed favor to Abel and his gift. 5 But He had no respect for Cain and his gift. So Cain became very angry and his face became sad. 6 Then Yah said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why are you looking down? 7 Will not your face be happy if you do well? If you do not do well, sin is waiting to destroy you. Its desire is to rule over you, but you must rule over it.” Thank you for reading! Yah bless & Shalom!

[caginmumineleri]

“İslam’a karşı olan kuvvetler, kadınların bozulması için çalışmaktadırlar. Eğer Müslüman kadınlar bu çalışmayı önlemek üzere, karşı bir çalışmaya geçmezlerse, İslam davetçilerinin bütün çalışmaları boşa gidecek veya yetersiz kalacaktır.”

[Said Havva Külliyatı, Allah Erinin Stratejisi, c: 8, s:136]

[lal-ffxiv]

recordare - what is your muse’s least favourite house chore? which is their favourite?

“I don’t havva uh house,” Luka said with a shrugged.

( However, if they did a magical broom  would do all the sweeping and their house would always need dusting that Luka wouldn’t enjoy. I am sure Luka’s favorite house chore would be remodeling. Is that a chore?)

Thanks for the ask @kepesktribe!!

[derdiderun]

Suriye ihvanı'ın önde gelen alimi Said Havva da isabetle belirtir: "Çok denedim, çok gördüm. Ama İslam esaslarına uygun temiz bir tasavvufi terbiye almış kişiler dışında nefiste kemal, sülûkta ihsan ve akıllıca muamele gücüne sahip nadir insan gördüm. (...) Asrımız şehvet, duygusallık ve maddecilik asrıdır. Bu gibi şeyleri en az onların seviyesinde ve ayarında şeylerle karşılamamız lazımdır. Onun için diyorum ki, bu tehlikelere sadece tasavvufî terbiye ile karşı koyulabilir(...) Tasavvufî tecrübeden yararlanmaksızın hayat seyrinin ve asrımızın giriftleştirdiği ruh hastalıklarından çoğunu tedavi etmemiz mümkün değildir.

(Bedri Gencer, Modernliğin Hikmetinden Sual,123)

[tisfan]

Only Mostly Dead (All Day)

Name of Piece Only Mostly Dead (All Day) Also on A03 Square Filled A5: Resurrection Rating Teen Warnings: Non permanent character death, death, resurrection, tony has a heart, even when it’s not beating Summary: WinterIron

When Tony wakes up dead, everyone’s presumed to be having a bad day.

Created For : @tonystarkbingo

A/N – Presumed to be having a bad day is a phrase that some EMTs use for “this guy’s probably dead, but we’re not doctors and we’re not allowed to declare it.”

The world didn’t end with a bang, or even a whimper.

It ended with a sharp pain, like someone had stuck a crochet hook right behind his belly button and then yanked everything out. Tony barely made a sound when it happened. He took one breath that was a little shallower than the one before it.

And then it just… left his lungs.

He didn’t push it out, but it kept going and going until he was straining to breathe in again, and couldn’t.

It made a choking, soft rattle sound, as if he had a bad cold.

And then…. Everything stopped.

With a final thu-thud, Tony’s heart stopped beating.

Blackness.

He didn’t feel any different, not really. Nothing hurt, he just couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. Panic swamped at him. Was he dead? Was this what death was like? Being stuck in his (not quite yet) decaying corpse?

Tony struggled to move, and then--

--sprang free from his body to hover over it like some dolled up tart from the original Ghostbusters movie.

He made some fish-flailing efforts and managed to roll over in mid-air. “What the hell is this?” There was a… glowing spot on his body, just over his navel. That… that was probably not good. He tried to reach for his own body and as soon as his ghostly fingers touched skin, there was pressure. Resistance. He couldn’t touch himself.

Bucky shifted, then reached out his hand, groping for his husband. He patted the dead-Tony’s shoulder as if reassuring him. “You havva nightmare, doll?” Bucky mumbled, then--

“Tony?” Bucky sat straight up, eyes wide. “Tony, oh, oh, god.” He checked for a pulse, heartbeat, breathing. “Tony, Tony, no, no, no, no.”

“Bucky? Hey, honey, honey, I’m right here, this isn’t… this isn’t how it looks, I’m right--”

(more below the cut)

His hand slid right through Bucky in his attempt to comfort. Bucky didn’t react at all to Tony’s touch, to his voice. It was like Tony wasn’t even there. Tony managed to stop hovering like a dramatic Casper, but all he could do was watch, helpless and horrified, as Bucky screamed for help, as a med-team came in and tried, fruitlessly, to revive Tony.

Bucky was sobbing.

Tony was sobbing. Except it wasn’t quite like crying. He couldn’t produce any tears. It was just needless shivering. Tony wasn’t breathing. His heart wasn’t beating. He was just… there. Watching as Bucky screamed and wept, watched as Steve had to hold Bucky back. Stuck. Witnessing, but useless.

Tony couldn’t do anything.

“Am I dead? Like, really dead?”

No one answered him. There were no pearly gates, no bright light, no door, no demon to drag him to hell. Just useless watching of his loved ones as they hurt for him.

He followed his body down to medical and watched as Cho tried to bring him back.

And failed.

No one could see him.

No one could hear him.

Tony tried walking through people a few times, and sometimes he’d get a brief shudder -- someone walked over his grave -- but that was all.

He couldn’t touch anything in the real world. He couldn’t move anything. He couldn’t write. He couldn’t do anything.

He was dead.

How the fuck had that happened, and what was he supposed to do now?

“Don’t panic, Stark,” Tony told himself.

He was in fact, finding it hard to panic; panic was a physically driven mental reaction (or a mentally driven physical reaction, Tony wasn’t quite sure.) In either case, the lack of a heart rate to increase, the complete absence of brain chemicals, no lungs to pant for air. Tony might have thought that this lack of physical symptoms might have alleviated all emotions -- that for the first time ever, he existed as a completely logic-driven creature, but he still ached for Bucky’s pain, he still missed his husband, his family.

He was still scared.

Maybe feelings weren’t quite as random and illogical as he thought, but the lack of chemical soup made it somehow easier to deal with those feelings.

“I’ll figure this out, honey,” he told Bucky, who’d fallen asleep, face still wet, over folded arms against Tony’s desk. “I’m still here. I promise.”

He couldn’t touch Bucky, but he let his fingers hover just over that thick hair. Let his hand drift until he was sliding through Bucky’s shoulder. It didn’t feel like anything to Tony, but people who were still alive sometimes had a brief reaction to it. Bucky’s sleeping settled out a little more, and Tony smiled down at him. It was something. “Be right back. Sleep. Hopefully this’ll just be a bad memory, real soon.”

Tony found himself in medical again without really being aware of it.

His body was on a gurney, naked, with a sheet tucked around his hips. There was a big Y drawn on his torso.

“Oh, fuck, no,” he said. “No, Helen, come on, Helen, no. I need that, don’t cut it up!” He reached for Helen’s wrist and the scalpel as if he could stop her from performing an autopsy. Of course everyone would want to know what happened to him, but… he was pretty sure if she started taking his organs out, that body wasn’t going to be habitable again.

Her hand shook as his fingers thrust right through her wrist.

She took a few deep breaths, tried again.

He ran through her.

She gasped, staggered back a step.

“Doctor Cho?”

“I’m fine, just…”

“We all loved Mr. Stark,” someone else said.

She nodded, like that was it. Tony ran through her again.

He wasn’t sure what he was doing to her, if it was hurting her in some indescribable way, but each time he made a pass, she paused.

He couldn’t keep this up forever, and just preventing the autopsy wasn’t going to help him get back into his body.

“Doctor Cho?”

Helen put the scalpel down in the tray. “I… I can’t do this today. I’m emotionally compromised. Put him away. I don’t want to miss something. We’ll try tomorrow.”

Tony would have sighed in relief, except that, again, no actual lungs.

God, this whole being dead thing sucked.

“Getcher own,” the woman said.

There weren’t terribly many homeless people around the Tower; Tony had people for that, who went around regularly and got people into shelters, or help or even just a warm meal and a bus ticket.

Tony blinked. “You can see me?”

He was pushing the outer boundaries of where he could and couldn’t go. It seemed like, somehow, he was still tied to his body (which was a little disconcerting) in that he couldn’t get more than about five hundred meters in any direction away from it.

Whenever he tried, he just ended up popped back to his body.

Weird. Disconcerting.

And really not useful for fixing this, since it wasn’t like he could haul his own body around.

“Yeah, like, you’re not a ghost or nothin’,” the woman said. She moved her bottle of cheap booze out of Tony’s grasp. Not that he was grasping for it. He was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to take it from her anyway. “Although you mi’be a hallucination. S’pose that’s possible. That I’m jus’ a crazy, drunk, homeless bitch with a shopping cart an’ arguin’ with myself. Still ain’t sharin’ my hooch.”

Tony waved his hand in front of her face and she tracked the movement, which was encouraging. But then he stuck his hand into her, and it still passed right through her, which was not.

She didn’t scream, though. Or panic. Or protest. Or do any of the things that most normal people would do when confronted with the impermeable. All she did was swatted at him, like he was a particularly annoying fly.

“I wonder why you can see me,” Tony said, sitting down next to her. He also wondered why he didn’t fall through the planet, and why he couldn’t walk through walls. Getting out of the Tower had been an exercise in trying to dodge along with other people walking through the doors and pushing them open. Really, really frustrating to have all the disadvantages of being a ghost without any of the cool shit. “No one else can.”

“You look like my imaginary boyfriend?” she suggested, waving the bottle around. She took another long swill out of it. Cloudy, three dollar convenience store wine. Yuck. “Or maybe it’s the booze. I heard that sometimes that happens. You try walkin’ in a bar?”

“I can’t get that far away from my body,” Tony told her. He chewed on the side of his thumb; which did nothing. He couldn’t bite down with his teeth, but his own fingers wouldn’t pass through his ghostly body. Another weird, inconvenient thing. At least nothing itched, because he wasn’t sure how he could scratch.

“Sucks for you, dude,” she said, and dumped another half cup of what Tony assumed would be terrible smelling alcohol down her throat.

“What’s your name?”

“Abbie,” she responded. “And you are?”

“The ghost of Tony Stark?”

She cackled, rocking back on her heels. “You’re having a bad day, aren’t you, Mr. Ghost?”

She was a homeless, drunk lady and she could see him. The problem was, Tony couldn’t see a way where that would help him at all. Telling anyone she could see him wasn’t going to convince them, and in fact, would probably get her thrown in jail or something. She couldn’t get into the Tower and move his body for him; that would decidedly get her thrown in jail, even if he could navigate her all the way through the security checks. Most of them required some sort of biometrics.

Although--

“Lemme see your hands,” Tony said.

“Huh?” She held out one hand anyway. Tony looked at it; she wasn’t shaking too badly.

“How do you feel about a little B&E?”

Even with Abbie having nothing better to work with in her stash of supplies than some tape, a magnet, and a jelly knife, they managed to break into the coffee shop across the street from the Tower without setting off the alarms. Tony walked her through getting the computer turned on, evading the minimal and bad password set up, and logging in through his MIT email account.

Most of his more current email accounts had fingerprint locks or voice commands, but this was an old email and he used it specifically to harass Rhodey on occasion.

“Okay, first person we’re emailing--” Tony said, “is Dr. Cho. Her Tower email is slicendice@stark.com…”

Tony talked Abbie through four emails; Cho (please don’t cut him open yet, we might need that.) and Strange (I could really use some magical assistance) and Rhodey (I’m fine, but this is so weird.) and finally Bucky.

He hesitated. “If I tell him where we are, he may come here immediately,” Tony told Abbie. “I don’t blame you if you’d rather not deal with my husband when he’s got a complete mad-on. He can be really scary.”

Abbie cackled again. “This is like the high-tech version of Ghost, and you’re Patrick Swayze. Go ahead, what do I tell him?”

Snowflake,

This isn’t a joke.

I’d prefer you to come alone, since I don’t want you to scare the nice lady who’s typing this for me, as I’m not really connected to a physical form at the moment -- and I want you to know just how much it’s hurting my brain to say any of that -- but you can bring Nat as backup if you don’t trust us.

Her name is Abbie, and for some reason, she’s the only one who can see me.

I’m not in my body right now, honey, but I don’t think I’m dead. I’ve already asked Strange to come see if he can do something.

But I’d really like to talk to you.

Go out to the courtyard, and if you don’t freak her out too much, we’ll come out and talk.

You know who I am

PS - You asked me if I had a nightmare, when you tried to wake me up. Called me doll. Please come out. I don’t know how to prove to you that any of this is real, but please…

Bucky made up for all of Tony’s inability to have physical fidgets by committing most of them in about five minutes.

“So?”

“Well, yes, he’s decidedly dead,” Strange said, holding his hands out over the body. “He has experienced irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions. Medically, dead.”

Bucky made a sobbing sound, and Tony reached for his husband again. It still didn’t help, he couldn’t touch anything, he couldn’t make contact. “So she’s lying?”

“Oh, no,” Strange said. “He’s right there, I can see him plain as day. A spiritual manifestation. Almost solid, really. He doesn’t have any of the etherealness that’s characteristic of an astral projection. He just can’t interact with other humans, which he passes through, or with standard objects, like doors. Somewhat less than a poltergeist, but more than just a spirit. Yes, Stark, I see you, stop waving around like that. I can’t hear you, however, which is decidedly odd.”

“Your business is the odd and unusual,” Steve said. He was scowling down at Tony’s corpse as if it had personally offended him.

“Despite that, I’m not a miracle worker,” Strange said.

“Your guesses are better than most people’s facts, Strange,” Tony snapped. “Throw us a bone here, Merlin.”

Abbie shuffled her feet and looked up from the stack of cheeseburgers that Tony’d gotten Clint to obtain for her, pretty much first off. “He says make a guess, Merlin.”

“First off, Merlin was a magician,” Strange started--

“All hail Pedantia, goddess of literal humor,” Tony said, rolling his eyes. “No, don’t repeat that. I don’t usually have a brain to mouth filter, but I’m getting used to the concept.”

Abbie laughed, dipped a handful of fries into her milkshake and ate them.

Yuck. But whatever. Calories in the homeless person, that was good, right?

“Wait, what?”

Abbie chewed faster. “He wasn’t paying attention, can you say that again?”

Strange huffed. “You’re familiar with the legend that if you die in your sleep, you die in real life, right? For years, science explained the phenomena as a lucid dream, complicated by sleep paralysis. Our bodies mostly go torpid in sleep, so we don’t flail around and hurt ourselves while dreaming, right? Except the mara -- from where we get our word nightmare -- are very real, if exceptionally rare.” Strange glanced at Tony, meeting his eyes, which was a fucking relief. Even after they’d established that Tony was there, everyone looked close to where they hoped he was, and Tony had taken to moving into their line of sight rather than getting Abbie to move them. “Someone like Stark, who suffers from nightmares enough that they cloud his aura even when he’s awake, he’s like a feeding ground to creatures like that.”

“They killed me in my dreams?” Given the situation, it shouldn’t have sounded as ridiculous as it still did. Maybe it was like alien abduction; even after proof positive that aliens existed, no one wanted to believe they’d just snatch people up. It was too scary. Better ridicule a few crazy people than believe that it happened every year.

“Probably be accident,” Strange continued. “They’re not really malicious. Or even that intelligent.”

“So, c’n you fix it?” That was Bucky, getting right to the point. Tony moved to his side again, his fingers drifting in and out of Bucky’s throat and shoulder. He shivered once, but having been told what it was, pushed into the sensation instead of pulling away, until he was half standing inside Tony’s incorporeal form.

“With a proper application of magic mixed with science, I believe so,” Strange said. “Dr. Cho, I need you to get the cor-- the body, please get the body back up and running. Artificial breathing, blood pumping, all of it. I can help you facilitate the procedure with judicious application of the time stone, to undo those changes death has already caused. Once the body is habitable, we’ll have to tempt the soul back into it.”

Cho nodded and pushed the gurney toward the operating room, calling her staff.

“Why do you have to tempt me?” Tony demanded. “I don’t want to be dead.”

“It’s not a trivial process,” Strange said. “There’ve only been a few verified cases of resurrection before. And while we deified the last guy it happened to, he died about forty days later anyway.”

“You’re talking about Christ,” Steve said. “You’re going to make Tony into the second coming?”

Strange rolled his eyes, which meant that Tony didn’t have to. “No. I’m just saying it’s not a frequently successful event. Reincarnation is easier, but then Barnes would have to wait for Stark to grow up again. Also, that tends to cost a person their memory, so we might not even be able to find him again, much less have Stark at our disposal. And, uncomfortable as that tends to make me, we need him.”

“I’m a mascot, great,” Tony muttered.

“More like a good luck charm,” Strange said, after Abbie repeated Tony’s words again. She’d finally finished off the last of her lunch and was scraping bits of cheese off the papers. “You’re a nexus of fortune; good luck coalesces where you are, in endeavours in which you participate. Luck is a powerful force, Stark, don’t underestimate it.”

Usually, Tony’s stomach would twist and his teeth would ache with the effort of not saying what he was thinking, or of dealing with his so-called luck, but there wasn’t a stomach to turn or a jaw to clench.

And Bucky turned to him. No one could say Tony’s husband wasn’t intuitive, because he’d figured out those cold patches, and he knew, without seeing or any other evidence, exactly where Tony was. “You are good luck,” he said, softly. “You’re my good luck, if nothing else. Come on back to me, baby.”

Being resurrected hurt.

Like, a lot.

Like, more than open heart surgery without anesthetics.

More than falling out of a hole in the sky.

Tony came back to himself screaming and remembered that dying hadn’t been so bad.

But then Bucky was there, biting his lip and trying not to cry with relief.

And Tony remembered that it was all worth it.

[breitzbachbea]

Day 6: Pirates & Mermaids [TurGre]

My fourth entry for @hwsrarepairweek2022! A Pirate's Life is for ... not Herakles, who'd much rather hang out with his local rat catchers than rats on the corsair ship.

Ship: Turkey/Greece (Sadık Adnan/Herakles Karpuzi) Set in a Human/Historical AU (The Mediterrenean between 1480 to 1570) Please consult ao3 for a full overview of tropes, topics & disclaimers in the tags Read it here on ao3

Herakles & Sadık talk a lot about three human OCs of mine in here - all of which the lovely @captkirkland has drawn for me! [Original Post]

(Left to right: Timothea, Herakles, Omar)

(Left to right: Dilan, Sadık, Havva) (I'll still have to find a way to integrate Havva into this AU, but I'd love to.)

A few big disclaimers before we get started on this:

I sadly did not have the time to delve deeply into the academic archives of the internet to find any papers on Gender, more importantly Gender presentation, Gender construction and Gender deviance in the Ottoman Empire. I'm sure that scholarships on these topics exist and I'll add further readings for you once I find it. Please do not assume any accuracy when it comes to the topic of being transgender in the times & places this is set (The Ottoman Empire around 1480 to 1570). I've tried to the best of my abilities, but that is still based on assumptions and educated guesses. I tried to avoid any hurtful language or phrasing when it comes to the two trans characters (Dilan & Omar), but I'm open to criticism if I said something ignorant.

A lot of this has been influenced by my class "Travel accounts in the Late Medieval Ages." While it deals with the accounts of German pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem and sometimes beyond, I'm confident that many of its aspects can reliably inform the scenario of this One Shot. One of them is certainly the aspect of slavery, which was a common and widely spread occurence all throughout the mediterranean at this time, from Genua to Alexandria.

The main source for Ottoman Corsairs & the Ottoman Navy around this time I could get my hands on was "Die Seeaktivitäten der muslimischen Beutefahrer als Bestandteil der staatlichen Flotte während der osmanischen Expansion im Mittelmeer im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert" by Andreas Rieger, published in Berlin, 1994. However, as solid as I assume the work to be in many regards, it's nearly 30 years old and is heavily slanted towards european sources.

I also used the International Encyclopaedia for the Middle Ages here and there to look up certain things, such as seals.

For the snippets of the Odyssey that Herakles reads, I used Samuel Butler's translation, which is freely available online here!. There are much more modern, and perhaps much more engaging translations of the Odyssey available, if you want to seek the text out for yourself - But this one's online and for free. Most importantly, free for me to copy & save some time.

She's the only one I want, she's my only wish

„That does not look like the letter to the Sancakbey I asked you to write.”

Herakles startled before he froze. He didn’t know how Sadık had managed to enter the captain’s quarters without making a sound. Everything on the ship made sounds, day and night, loud and banging. Sadık was a loud and booming man.

“The letter is over there.” Herakles pointed to a stack of papers on the left end of the low table. He had lowered his head again. “It only needs your approval and seal.”

Sadık did not demand that he turned to look at him. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were done?”

Herakles had become aware of how close he stood behind him. He continued to look at the book in front of him, though he could barely process the words. “I thought it better not to interrupt your prayer, Sir.”

“I finished my prayer a while ago.” Sadık let the words linger, long enough to become uncomfortable, not long enough for Herakles to come up with a reply. In measured steps, he walked around the table and sat down on its other side.

Herakles kept his head down. On the periphery of his vision he saw how picked up the paper. His seal ring was like his hands, weathered and sturdy, but of a beautiful form and a curious intricacy.

By the time that Sadık sealed the letter, Herakles had become engrossed in his readings again. The rustle of paper joined the same background noise as the waves outside and the crew on the ship.

“What is this?”

For the first time, Herakles looked up. Sadık had picked up another letter from the pile. The paper bent to its own weight enough that Herakles could see the writing.

It was in Greek letters.

He stared at the letter before he dared to look Sadık. He didn’t even wear a veil in front of his mouth; Herakles was met with an inquisitive and yet unnervingly shallow look in the brown eyes and an expressionless mouth.

“ … It’s a letter for Natasa,” Herakles admitted and held his gaze.

Sadık broke it and put the letter down. “I see. What is your plan for getting it to Athens?”

“I’ll see to it.”

“Do you have the money for it?”

Herakles tried to ignore the implicit taunt. “There must be some kind soul left on this earth, who’ll put the ease of a worried mother over the weight of their money purse.” Said as if he would believe it.

Sadık snorted. “Well, I should hope you find such an elusive and fantastical creature. Did that book of yours also fall from the skies into your lap that you believe in such miracles?”

Herakles no longer kept the edge out of his voice. He looked at Sadık. “You are prying. And I’d like the illusion that I am not here as a slave that owes you an answer in such private matters, but as a scribe and part of the crew.”

“Well, slaves are part of the crew.” His tone turned from nonchalant to boastful. “And regardless of free or not, Christian or Muslim, Turk or not, anyone on this ship has to answer to me.” A smirk to match had grown onto his face, but now it dimmed. “That was the deal for being signed on and yours is not a special one in that regard.”

Herakles would have returned the letter to Athens himself and then locked himself into his study for all eternity, lest he’d run the risk of ever meeting someone like Sadık again. But his own emotional well-being was of no concern as long as he worried about the lives of his friends Timothea and Omar. “Slaves also get their fair share of loot, so you could have a lot more pretty books, if you wanted to.” Sadık tapped on the open page and Herakles hands cramped while he swallowed his anger.

“I’ll take the illusion of freedom.” His voice was level, as was his look for Sadık, despite the amused twinkle he found in the other’s eyes. “For how long will we be at anchor here?”

“All winter, if things go badly.” Herakles’ expression slipped as he stared at him. “But I hope as much as you do that we can go for one last run. Perhaps catch some Venetian or Genovese stragglers before the winter sets in – Those Venetians have become awfully bold, anyways.” Sadık carefully set aside the letter to Natasa and took the rest of the documents to peruse. “But we’re actually headed for the Spaniards in Sicily.”

“Sicily … Yes, that is a good place …” Herakles was absentminded. He hadn’t seen Michele in many years, but knew that as owner of an inn, he’d have news of who passed through the Mediterranean.

“You’ll only get your loot if you stay for the winter.” Sadık had not lifted his look from the papers.

“I was not going to part ways until I found the twins. Have you any news of your friend?”

Sadık smiled faintly and Herakles did the same, until he realized it. “No, but we’ll sail along a few ports well-disposed towards us, among them the port where Dilan left the ship.” The smile disappeared. “I’m worried for her – Her fate may be the same as the one of your twins.”

Herakles tried not to think of all the possible fates implied, one worse than the other.

“Well, if neither of us knows about the whereabouts of either of our companions, perhaps they’ve met up,” Herakles said. “Your friend is the whole reason why Omar left, and his sister with him.”

“I thought the same. And it’d save us some trouble, if we found them at the same time, wouldn’t it?” Sadık said and glanced at him from the side with a smile that was somewhere between heart-warming and roguish.

“And it is safer for anyone to travel in a group. Even better, either party could vouch for the other if they run into troubles with Christians or Muslims along the way. The twins know their way around people.”

“What do you mean by that?” Herakles thought about how to phrase the twins' gift of adapting to situations as they arose and the characters around them. “That they can vouch for each other?”

His heart slowed down, but didn’t sink completely into his guts. He had told Sadık that the Simonides family were converted Muslims - The Greek Natasa had married a trader from Tunis called Ibrahim and converted to Islam. There had been no lie in this story; it was the life they lived in front of everyone. No one ought to know that Natasa’s conversion had been rather half-heartedly and that the twins had been raised with a knowledge of both religions.

“I’ve known them ever since the three of us were children, you know, and unlike their mother, I did not renounce the Christian faith. Therefore, if they meet another Christian, which could mean trouble for Dilan, they can pretend to be a believer and vouch for her.”

“Blasphemous behaviour.” It was said rather as a statement than a condemnation.

“Perhaps your God and Prophet will allow it, if it is to save a fellow believer from a harsh faith.” Herakles looked away and lowered his eyes. “Though I do not want to speak on matters that do not concern me.” He looked back at Sadık. “I can only speak for their parents, who’d much rather have them back with sin than a martyr.”

“I suppose that much is true. Since their actions are none of my concerns, I’d also rather have them do what they have to do to ensure I’ll get my second in command back safe and sound.” Herakles wondered if somebody else on the ship could hear them, but doubted it. “They owe it to me, in a way. After they used their wiles to ensnare her and led her away from me in the first place.”

Herakles’ lips twitched into a smile as he snorted. A smirk flitted across Sadık’s face, but he didn’t look up from the document that he held in front of him.

Herakles returned to his reading.

'Come here,' they sang, 'renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name, and listen to our two voices…

“If Dilan had any brains left, and she is with the twins, she would have already married Timothea.”

Herakles jolted up. A deep furrow between his brows and his jaw slack, he could muster a “... Huh?” as reply.

Sadık lowered the document and glanced at Herakles, undisturbed by his stare. “It would make sense, if she wanted to keep them safe abroad, travelling within the empire.”

“My apologies, Sir, but I fail to see the sense in marrying your lover’s sister.”

Sadık put the document down. “You’ve heard how the rest of the crew talks about her.”

They would not say her, for a start. “I do.”

Sadık crossed his arms, but soon unfolded them again to gesture. “Well, if she acts on land as she does on the ship, people will recognize her as a man. Which does mean that she wouldn’t be able to marry Omar, but she would be able to marry his sister, which I think would do them better when it comes to fending for themselves in the Empire. There’d be no doubt about the twins' faith and origin that way.”

Sadık had said that he had seen the twins before, or at least Omar, but only from afar or fleetingly. And evidently, Dilan hadn’t told him about how she could have easily married Omar, if one applied Sadık’s logic about her gender to him. Perhaps Omar had even run away to elope with her, with him as wife and her as husband. Although, with the penchant his sister had for women, she perhaps wouldn’t have objected to Sadık’s plan either.

“You’ve understood, Herakles?”

Herakles blinked rapidly. “Yes, yes I have. I see your point now.”

Sadık nodded. “Good.”

“She did behave very much like a man on this ship, the brief time that I knew her.” A scowl crept onto Sadık’s face and Herakles added: “So I think she probably already had the same idea as you, she’d know it would work.”

The scowl disappeared. “She is very practical about such matters. She long preferred women’s garments and women’s ways, but then the sea called and it was easier to be a man out in this world. Well, to act like one.”

“I saw she still wore a veil in a woman’s fashion from time to time.” Herakles rested his cheek on one of his hands. “So she used to live a proper woman’s life?” He lowered his eyes. “If I may ask.”

“You may.” The way he stressed the you confused Herakles. “She did indeed. I have known her since I was a boy. When the time comes where boys turn to men, she instead chose to live as a woman, as she had always wanted. So you must take my word for that she is one, no matter her behaviour and looks, and especially no matter what anybody else says.”

“I would never take anybody else’s word but yours, Captain,” Herakles replied and bit his smile back, to not make Sadık think that he was jesting. The fondness with which he spoke about his friend endeared him to Herakles. It was as if they shared some nebulous connection, some shared life experiences despite leading such starkly different existences.

“Good.” Sadık looked at the book and leant over the table. “What is it that you’re reading?”

Herakles decided to not take the chance and let the friendly tone sour over an evasive answer, though he didn’t know what a truthful one would evoke.

“It’s the Odyssey by Homer.”

It evoked no reaction at all. “What is it about?”

A thousand different answers flitted through his head behind his eyes and Herakles took a deep breath, to give an exhaustive answer to all the ways this question could be answered. However, then he remembered how it would perhaps be wasted on Sadık, as it was to most people that listened to Herakles. Being kicked off a ship far from home was however a much worse fate than being run out of the local tavern.

“The return of Odysseus, king of Ithaka, to said island after the Trojan War and the ten years he spent at sea due to his hubris.” Herakles exhaled all the leftover air with a big sigh.

“No, I meant what is this page you’re reading about,” Sadık replied and Herakles stopped his breath for a second, before he further deflated.

“Oh. It’s about his encounter with the Sirens,” Herakles said and watched Sadık carefully. He yet held back any further remarks about how Odysseus had been warned about them by the enchantress Circe, which of course would warrant an explanation of Circe herself …

“Ah, so it’s about Mermaids,” Sadık said with a smile.

“They’re actually feathered women in this text,” Herakles replied and the smile dropped.

“Huh? Don’t try and pull my leg, I know what the Italians call sirens, I know what you Greeks and everyone else calls sirens. They’re fish women. They’re mermaids.”

“Except they are not in this text.”

“You’re lying to me,” Sadık said. It was a statement.

“I am not!” Herakles insisted.

If anything, it deepened the angry frown on Sadık’s face as his eyes narrowed further. “I get no entertainment out of being fooled.”

“And I get none out of you being a fool.”

Now his eyebrows furrowed hard, but Herakles held his gaze with a stubborn fury. He did not bother with regret in this moment; for if Sadık was already too far gone, grovelling placation would demean them both.

It was the calm before the storm. Sadık was loud, bellowing and imperious. He had seen it in how he treated crew members that contested him. There was no question that Sadık would yell at him before he threw him out of his cabin, only if he’d hit him.

Instead Sadık got up and walked over to the other side of the table, where he sat down next to Herakles. “Read it to me. And you better read it carefully, because you are not the only person who can read Greek on this ship.” As if he spoke to a petulant brat, he repeated: “And I do not appreciate being lied to.”

I doubt the poor souls down at the oars can even look straight ahead anymore, much less read anything, Herakles thought but kept it to himself.

Instead, he put his head down and began to translate the part about the Sirens: “Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, 'My friends, it is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so that whether we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope's ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.”

“Yeah, yeah, just read me the parts about the bird women,” Sadık said and waved his hand.

Herakles closed his eyes so he wouldn’t roll them and exhaled quietly.

“I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very favourable.” Herakles went further down the page and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end when he felt Sadık lean closer to him. “When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore and began with their singing. 'Come here,' they sang, 'renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song- and he who listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world.' They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear them further I made by frowning to my men that they should set me free; but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes bound me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of the Sirens' voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and unbound me.”

Herakles scanned the page further and turned it, but there was no more mention of the Sirens.

“It seems like your claim holds no water,” Sadık said and Herakles furrowed his brows harder in annoyance.

“Perhaps they are described in the warning Circe gives to Odysseus,” Herakles said and turned the pages to find the passage. “First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men's bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must lash the rope's ends to the mast itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster. When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take; I will lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for yourself.”

The annoyed frown did not subside, but a smirk had stolen itself onto Sadık’s face.

“And, Herakles? Any mentions of birds here? A single feather?”

“Well … no.” Sadık laughed. “But it didn’t say they’re fish either.” The laughter died in his throat. “And other ancient authors, as well as scholars like Eusthatius say –”

“Well, I only care about what this book says,” Sadık tapped the page, “and it says there aren’t any feathered women in here.” He pulled his hand back. “Why would you associate a bird with the sea, anyways?”

Herakles cocked one eyebrow. “You’ve never seen a seagull?”

“Smartass.”

“Let me ask you a question - If they are fish, then why would they be on an island? Fish may be around an island, but not on it.”

“Women may be, though, and they’re only half fish.”

Herakles decided to ignore his point at his own risk. “And did you ever hear a fish sing? Birds do. They sing beautifully.”

“You clearly never heard a seagull.” Herakles opened his mouth to clarify his point, but Sadık wouldn’t let him. “Same answer as before - Fish don’t sing, but women do. Often as beautiful as a nightingale. And they can lure somebody to a nasty fate.”

Herakles didn’t labour the point anymore, for there was no logical argument he could make without the help of other writings.

“I think they sing to Odysseus about knowledge, because that is what he would most desire,” he said instead. He paused for a moment. “In a way, and I mean no offence, but I feel like this is what happened to Omar. That something about Dilan lured him out to sea.”

“She’s not devious like this,” Sadık said with a look of displeasure that Herakles had wanted to avoid.

“I meant not to imply that she is,” he said, softly and in earnest. “Simply that Omar heard a siren call from your ship, with Dilan being clearly the thing he desired the most.”

Sadık held his gaze, but the displeasure faded only slowly.

“Also, I’m the only one who can say that she looks like a bird.” Sadık snickered to himself like a school boy. Herakles frowned in confusion, but it was ignored by Sadık as he carried on with a smile. “I rather think that it was the other way around. That Omar called to her like a siren and lured my second in command away from me, on the dry land and far from home …”

“On the dry land, famously where fish reside.” Herakles couldn’t bite back the jibe, but Sadık didn’t mind.

“Famously where women reside.”

“However. Do not call Omar devious in such a manner either.”

Sadık smiled at him with a curious look. “But in other manners?”

“I said that he and his sister know their way around people, but they wouldn’t run away from home just to play with someone’s heart.”

There was something deeper to Sadık’s gaze now as he smiled at him. Herakles dared not to break the silence, but looked down at his book.

“No, I’m sure they wouldn’t, I’ll take your word for it,” Sadık said. “ … I was thinking more along the lines that there’s a certain allure about you Greeks.”

Sadık scooted closer to Herakles and put an arm around his waist. One of many advances ever since Herakles had begun to travel with him. When he had first asked him for a place on his ship in exchange for his skills, Sadık had taken his chin between his fingers and seized up his face.

Herakles usually resisted them – sometimes he excused himself, stepped away from him or diverted the topic playfully. Sometimes, he harshly reminded Sadık in what capacity he worked on the ship and in which decidedly not or made a bitter quip.

One time he had pushed him so hard that he had fallen. Herakles had run out of the cabin and hid in the room where the ropes were stored. With his heart in his mouth, he had waited to hear him stomp across the ship and cursed himself for his hiding place. Instead, another crew member had found him and told him to help with the sail. The next time he had been alone with Sadık, he had merely told him: “You’re lucky no one saw that. You’ll do that in front of the crew or while we’re on land and I’ll leave you standing – or swimming – in that very spot.” Herakles had acknowledged it and written storage lists in silence.

He looked at the book. He had no chest to store it safely and feared that someone else might mistake it for a religious text and begin an argument over it. Not that he looked forward to sharing a crammed space under deck with a hundred other people, twice the amount of rats and an uncountable one of vermin. Loathed as he was to admit it, his best night’s sleep had probably come by him when he fell asleep at the table in the captain’s cabin.

Sadık’s bedroll, with its plush pillows, looked so much more inviting.

“You know, the sleeping quarters on this ship leave much to be desired.”

Sadık had moved to be able to rest his head on Herakles’ shoulder. He snorted and Herakles felt his breath on his skin. “They do so for all people, that is how it is on a ship. No money could buy you a better one, if you had any. That’s what you signed up for in your selfless mission.”

“Indeed.” Herakles’ eyes were fixed onto the bedroll. Aside from a good night’s sleep, which he missed almost as direly as the local cats, he hadn’t laid with a man or woman in months either. Whenever they made anchor somewhere, Herakles was too afraid to be left behind to visit a brothel.

If one put the fact aside that Sadık was Sadık, a loud, entitled, good-for-nothing corsair oaf, Herakles had little reason to object. He had often watched the ottoman officials in his city, who carried themselves with an air of dignity and gravitas, and hoped no one would notice his longing gazes. He often wondered what the beautiful brown eyes of their wives, if they weren’t from Christian nations, betrayed about the rest of their beauty.

Sadık buried his face in his neck. His beard scratched him. Both of his arms were draped around his waist, but he was almost shy about his touches. Herakles said: “But perhaps I could offer another skill, besides being a scribe and a capable young man …”

Sadık halted. Herakles wondered if he could feel how fast his heart was beating.

He dragged his mouth to Herakles’ ear. “I think your skills of being a capable young man will suit you just fine for a nicer sleeping arrangement.”

Herakles could hear his breath, could hear his own, and gasped when Sadık pressed a wet kiss to his neck.