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tilltheendwilliwrite · 1 year ago

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Reflections

Chapter Eight

Master List / Real People Master List / Reflections Master List

Pairing: Mia MacAlsdair x Au Tom Hiddleston

Warnings: language, fluff, angst, mentions of suicide and self-harm, 18+ Minors do not interact

A/N: I apologize in advance should my Scottish/English interpretations be incorrect. I am Canadian playing in a world of my own making. Do not @ me.

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Tom watched Mia drive off, on the correct side of the road, into the low-lying fog. She didn't have far to go, but he made her promise to text when she arrived. The compassionate and understanding look she gave him said Emma must have explained about their parents, but she promised she would, and it eased his mind.

On a clear day, he could watch her make her way along the winding roads, the trek by car longer than the walk across the fields, but with the fog covering nearly everything, he had to wait for confirmation of her safe arrival.

He remained outside until it came and sighed in relief. It was unexpected, but she had become quite dear in a very short span of time. He appreciated her honesty, that she willingly spoke to him about her beliefs, her life, and her past. There was nothing false or contrived about Mia. She was exactly the woman she showed to the world, unapologetic and authentic to herself.

That she trusted him enough to speak of her… vision? Experience? He wasn't sure what to call it, but it humbled him that Mia told him her story. And he would be forever grateful for whatever, whoever, saw the child on the bridge and intervened.

Tom looked around at the empty grounds and then up at the cloudy sky. "I don't know if you truly are real, if you care what I think, or would bother listening to me, but if you are out there, thank you. Thank you for saving Mia."

A flash of red caught his eye, and he turned to find a raven sitting on a window sill. It hadn't been there before, of that he was sure.

It croaked at him and flew off, leaving Tom bemused.

God? Raven? Omen?

He shook his head. He wasn't sure he was ready to find out.

He walked inside to find his siblings waiting to ambush him.

"To what do I owe this pleasure? This isn't another intervention regarding cardigans, is it? I'll have you know, I haven't worn another since you likened me to Grandfather George."

Emma giggled and shook her head, her grin smug and body nearly vibrating with glee. "It seems you and Mia got on smashing once you removed your foot from your mouth."

Tom huffed and shook his head, striding past them into the study. "She's a nice girl."

"Oh, please! We watched you snog her," Kip snickered.

He barely contained the need to wince. "What of it?"

"You dog!" Kip crowed, laughing as he went to the sideboard and poured two fingers of whiskey.

Tom sat behind his desk with a scowl. "It wasn't like that."

Emma perched on the corner. "What was it like?" she asked softly.

He flexed his hand against the chair arm, still able to feel her touch like it was imprinted on his skin.

"He's speechless," Kip murmured.

"Not hardly," Tom huffed, shuffling papers around.

"Tom," Emma murmured. "You like her."

He paused in his shuffling to stare at the wood. "Yes. I… yes."

"She's really lovely, had a hard go before now, but so open."

He looked up at Emma, watching him knowingly and sighed. "I asked her to dinner tomorrow."

She beamed.

"And I told her about Sarah."

Kip and Emma appeared gobsmacked by that.

"You did?" Kip gasped.

"Henry cares for her farm. She's already heard things. I wanted her to have my truth before he distorts it."

Kip sank into the chair across the desk, his expression stunned. "It happened. It actually happened."

Tom scowled. "What are you prattling on about?"

"Love at first sight. You've already fallen for her."

Emma gasped and squealed for joy.

"I have not!" Tom bellowed, but his traitorous heart jumped in his chest.

Kip snickered. "You're so far gone 'round the bend, you can't even see it anymore."

"Fuck off!" Tom growled, glaring at his brother.

"That's so romantic." Emma smiled. "I'm so happy you've found someone."

"Not you, too," he groaned. "We've only just met!"

"I've never seen you take to anyone so quickly, though. Not since-"

"Do not say that name!" Tom snapped. "It was a mistake, and we all know it. I was nothing but a PR stunt for her." The first and last time he allowed anyone to talk him into a public relationship for the sake of image.

"Camila is different," he admitted. "There's something… almost innocent about her. She's genuine, honest, and utterly kind." He grinned slowly. "Until you annoy her, and then she lets out the temper her hair warns of."

"You are so smitten. Is the world now rose-coloured?" Kip snickered.

"No worse than you with Serina," Emma huffed.

"Or you with Ethan," Kip shot back.

"Clearly, when it's the right one, Hiddlestons' fall hard." Emma sniffed. "But you are seeing her again?"

"As I said. Tomorrow."

His phone pinged, and he glanced at it, finding a text from Mia to let her know when and where tomorrow for their date.

Tom grinned, replied he would pick her up, and wished her a pleasant night before teasing that perhaps she'd enjoy a new television show. She should see if she could find a three-episode series called The Hollow Crown.

Her cheerful thanks for the recommendation led him to believe she had no idea he was the lead.

"That's her, isn't it?" Kip snickered.

"Yes, and he's being all sneaky, suggesting she watch Hal." Emma giggled.

Tom glared at her. "It's poor manners to read another's private texts."

"Then do a better job of not showing them to me," she teased.

Another ping had him glancing down.

"What's it say?" Kip asked.

Emma leaned closer, causing Tom to snatch his phone away, but not fast enough. "She Googled and now wonders if that's his attempt to keep her thinking about him the rest of the night."

"Out!" Tom roared, pointing at the door as Kip burst out laughing. "Both of you bugger off! I don't have time for your nonsense right now!"

Emma snickered and pressed off his desk. "Ah, yes. Mayor Campbell has an appointment. Is he still after you to sell the west fields to his nephew?"

Tom rolled his eyes. "Yes. Thankfully, I have the note stating we're a heritage site now. He can't touch it as long as Highpark is in our family's possession."

"Good," Kip grinned. "Can I sit in? I would love to see the slimy toad's face when you hand him the papers."

"Let's allow him his dignity," Tom muttered.

He wanted to maintain a semblance of civility with the town and its Mayor. Kip's remarks would be unwelcome and potentially detrimental to that.

He huffed but stood. "Then tell Mia the portrait is perfect. Serina will adore it."

"Do we get to see it?" Emma asked, attempting and failing to appear uninterested.

"After Serina," Kip snickered.

Emma pouted and flounced out of the room, leaving Tom alone with Kip.

"I'm chuffed for you about Mia. I knew when we met, she was special."

"She's a remarkable woman," Tom agreed.

"Don't muff it up," Kip smirked and sauntered from the room.

Tom had no plans on fucking up a second time.

Mia sat on the couch, a bowl of popcorn in hand, watching The Hollow Crown with Cora. It was surreal and a little odd to not only know but have kissed the man who played Henry the Fifth all these years later.

"He's so young in this," Mia murmured, but Gods, if she didn't recognize that smile.

"Aye. It was odd watching him grow up on screen for a few years," Cora chuckled, helping herself to the bowl. "But he's a good man, an honourable man. He did right by his family and the village."

"What do you mean?" Mia asked, turning to face Cora.

"Came a time the Mayor wanted to turn Kelso into a thriving metropolis, make us the next Edina, but it was never what we wanted. If Highpark had folded, Campbell would've been all over that land. He talked of tearing down the keep, but conservancy said he canna, so he was goin' to turn it into a luxury hotel."

"And that would be bad?"

Cora snorted. "We don't mind the occasional tourist, but having them around all the time, pushing up prices, complaining about this and that," she scoffed deep in her throat. "We moved out of Edinburgh and Glasgow for just that reason. But Tommy came home, saw the lay of it, and dug in. Campbell still skulks around, but there's naught for him here."

"And if he took over Ashwood Farm?" Mia asked, curious what his plans were for this place.

"Feckin' holiday lets," she snorted. "He canna take down this house either, titled as it is, but he could convert the barn, the outbuildings, build what he wished in the fields. It would be a bloody mess."

Mia scowled. She would hate that. It was so peaceful here. The land was pristine and quiet. It was the only 'church' she ever needed.

"Yeah, that's not happening," she said, causing Cora to chuckle and eye her speculatively.

"So, as we're watching a film with Tom in it, can I assume yer day at Highpark went well?"

Mia blushed, causing Cora to chortle. "It was fine."

"Oh, a bit more than fine when ye blush like a schoolmaid!"

Mia groaned but quickly gave in and told Cora all about her encounter with Tom, him running out to stop her driving off, their walk around Highpark, and how he kissed her.

Mia never knew what it was like to have grandparents, but she imagined the relationship between herself and Cora to be pretty darn close. The older woman had become a confidant for Mia, someone she could ask anything of without fear of judgment.

"About damn time!" Cora crowed, throwing her hands into the air.

"What?" Mia frowned.

Cora patted her thigh. "Tommy's a good lad, but it's high time he found himself a good lady. Many a Kelso lass has tried to catch his eye, but none could. Glad I am it's ye. Ye deserve better than ye had, and Tom is better."

Mia blushed again - damn fair skin - and fiddled with the popcorn bowl. "He… he told me about Henry and Sarah."

Cora's face fell. "Aye, that was a hard time. Very hard."

"Will you tell me what you know? Henry warned me off Highpark and Tom in particular. Then Tom told me about Sarah's infatuation-"

Cora shook her head. "Nah, that girl was obsessed. She set her sights on Tom early, maybe eight years old and spent the rest of her life planning how to marry him. It was… unnatural."

"What do you mean?"

Cora sighed. "Plenty of lasses have crushes. This was more. If anyone were to naysay her, she cut them out of her life. Her entire focus was Tom."

"How did no one notice? Did they try to get her help?"

Cora shook her head. "Henry and Sarah didnae have the most involved parents, and Henry adored his sister. She could do no wrong in his eyes. Tom, for his part, tried to keep a separation between them, but Sarah was persistent. Then, the lads went off to college, and Sarah changed. She got sneaky. She didnae talk as much, but there was something… off about her. She spoke when spoken to, was pleasant, but something behind her eyes was just… wrong."

Mia sighed. "And Henry didn't notice because he was away, too."

"Something happened the night of the Highpark Christmas party. It all went sour, then poor Sarah…" She shook her head. "I've never said this to Henry, but… I have wondered if her taking her life was an accident."

Mia frowned. "What do you mean?"

"She wasn't the type. Dramatic? Yes. Conniving? Absolutely. I wouldn't have put it past her to do what she did to gain sympathy and guilt Tom."

Mia's jaw dropped. "Really?"

Cora nodded sharply. "Henry wasn't one to let things fester. If he hadnae been pished, he would have let her cool off, then gone to check on her. Instead, he fell asleep and found her in the morning."

"Oh, shit," Mia whispered. The utter horror of that find would be enough to break a strong man.

"Aye. It was terrible. He grieved hard and never went back to finish school. His parents moved away, but he stayed on, came to work here. I dinnae ken if it was the grief that kept him or the guilt, but he never left. Stuck he is."

Mia bit her lip before glancing at Cora. "Before he warned me off Highpark, Henry tried to kiss me."

"Eh!?" Cora gasped.

"I stopped him first. He's a nice man, but I don't see him like that. But Tom…"

"Aye," Cora smirked. "Thomas, he's handsome enough to make my old bones quiver!"

"Cora!" Mia laughed, making the older woman cackle.

She waved at the TV. "I'm old, not dead!"

"He asked me to dinner tomorrow night, but I don't want to cause more problems between Tom and Henry."

"But you like our Tom?"

Mia nodded.

"Then that's yer answer. Henry is a grown man. If he canna take rejection, that's on him. Besides, fighting over a bonny lass is what those two need to clear the air."

"I'd prefer not being the centre of that," she grumbled.

Cora scoffed. "Watching two braw lads come to blows over ye is a particular type of thrill. Ye canna decide if it's exciting or horrifying, but the make-up afterward is the best part."

"You're terrible!" Mia laughed.

She shrugged. "I had a few adventures once my boys were grown and gone. None stuck, but they were fun while they lasted."

"I bet," Mia snickered.

Her eyes lit up, and her smile widened. "I'll tell ye of Patrick McCain! Woo boy! The man was dense as a brick but had a boaby like-"

"Cora!"

"Bah, dinnae be a prude!" she huffed before continuing her story.

Mia was red-faced but utterly amused when she finished. "Oh, my Gods! You're terrible!"

"Was the best three days I ever spent. And when I got back, took two days before I could walk without whinging. Yer grams, she scolded me fiercely, saying it was bawheided to run off with a man I barely knew, but then she asked me how it was, and we spent an afternoon giggling over biscuits and tea!"

Mia couldn't help but laugh, only to groan and thunk her head back. "It's been so long since I.. you know."

"Since ye been proper pumped?"

"Cora!"

"Bahhahahahah!" She let loose and laughed until tears streamed down her face. "Yer too easy!"

Mia traded her bowl of popcorn for the kittens when they came to investigate the laughter and plopped one in Cora's lap. "There, now you have to watch what you say around the children."

She snorted and covered Tyr's ears. "Ye put on a nice party dress and have a good night. But if ye end up parked with that rascal, don't get caught doggin'."

Mia blinked at her and finally sighed as Cora's grin continued to widen. "I don't even want to know what doggin' means."

"When people catch you doing it in the backseat of a car."

"Odin's one eye, Cora!"

She cackled again and stroked Tyr's head. "Yer young! Go out! Have fun! And for the love of all that is holy, get some for us too old to get any for ourselves!"

Sure her face was scarlet, Mia plucked Tyr from her lap and stood. "I'm going to bed before you get any wilder. Good night, Cora. But know, if you wanted to-" she rolled her eyes, "-get some, you could. You're gorgeous."

"Bah! Yer bums oot the windae! But I thank ye anyway. Yer a good lass."

Mia bent and kissed her cheek. "I'll clean up in the morning."

Cora waved her away. "I think I'll finish the show. I'll get it afore I'm for bed."

"Alright," Mia nodded, wandering off with the kittens.

As she reached the stairs, she smiled and whispered to her fur babies, "Three good things. One, I met Tom. Two, Kip liked his painting. Three, I have a date."

Four, he kisses like a God.

"Shush. That was part of number one," Mia grumbled.

No, girl, when a man kisses that well, it deserves recognition.

Mia smiled and walked into her bedroom. "Yeah," she whispered dreamily. "It really does."

Loki's laughter was soft and indulgent.

Mia woke the following day in anticipation, hurried to dress, and waited impatiently for the coffee to drip before pouring her cup and heading for the door.

Every morning, Cora made breakfast, but Mia usually woke up to take her walk before the older woman. She made the coffee and came back to the kitchen smelling of bacon. It was an easy and beneficial relationship, as Cora could growl like a bear pre-coffee, and Mia hated cooking breakfast but loved to eat it.

But today, she was excited to see if Tom would ride down to meet her and rushed out the door only to nearly cover Henry in coffee when they collided.

"Whoa! Ye've a head a steam up. In a hurry for yer dander?" He chuckled.

"Something like that," Mia muttered, embarrassed, wondering how to break it to Henry that she was going on a date with Tom tonight.

He frowned a little but didn't ask for clarification. "I've a need to speak with ye. A friend from the north called last night. Seems his missus took a turn and landed in hospital."

"Oh no!" Mia gasped. "Is she going to be okay?"

"Aye, but he needs a hand seeing to his farm for a few weeks."

"Of course! Absolutely," she nodded. "I can look after the animals." She had already helped him around the place a few mornings and was familiar with the routine.

He seemed to relax with relief. "Thank ye. He's a good mate. Kept in touch after I left school. I was there when they married."

She placed her hand on his shoulder. "Henry, go. Cora and I can look after the horses and dogs for the next few weeks. And if I have questions, I'll text you."

"It's all done this morning, but I left instructions in the feed shed," he muttered, stepping back and heading for his truck. "We'll postpone the riding lessons 'till I get back!"

Mia nodded and waved him off, watching as he drove down the road.

Well, that would put a damper on her morning walk for a while.

She sighed, but it couldn't be helped. Henry's friend being there for his wife was much more important than Mia sneaking out to watch Tom ride.

Still, she had today and headed for the meadow, whistling the dogs to her when they sat staring forlornly after the pickup. She would check Henry's instructions later and hope they were legible, but she was pretty sure she could look after two horses and a handful of birds, though collecting eggs hadn't been all that fun last time.

The morning was warming as they moved from May into June, and the light mist over the fields made her smile.

However, at that very moment, she realized she left her coffee cup on the counter in the kitchen, where she had placed it after attempting to pour it on Henry and swore softly in disappointment.

Then the dogs barked, and she looked up to find a man on a large black horse standing at the fence and forgot all about her caffeine deficiency.

With the pair rising out of the morning mists, a golden glow suffusing the two, she almost gasped. They were a sight to see, like some old-world painting.

"I thought perhaps you weren't coming." Tom smiled, though it appeared a touch relieved.

"Sorry. Henry stopped me on my way out the door. He has to go away for a few weeks, so I'm going to have to forego my walk to muck stalls and feed chickens." She sighed, stroking the black's nose when he stuck it over the fence.

"Henry's leaving?" Tom frowned.

"Left," Mia corrected. "Said something about a friend whose wife is in hospital and needs him to run his farm." She shrugged. "It was all very fast, and sometimes I still struggle with the accent."

"Damn." Tom sighed. "I had hoped to clear the air between us as best as possible before taking you out. I don't want to make him uncomfortable if we cross paths in the bailey."

"Is that the barnyard?" Mia asked.

Tom chuckled. "After a fashion. Well! There's nothing for it, then. Hop up on the wall," he instructed as the horse shifted to turn its body to show her his side.

She blinked at him, not understanding. "I'm sorry. What?"

"Climb up on the wall. Then, you can step over and sit close behind. We'll give Mystic his exercise and see a bit of the countryside. Do you have chores to do this morning?"

"Henry said he did them," she muttered, staring at man and horse skeptically. "I don't think I'm climbing up anywhere."

"Mia." He leaned toward her. "Trust me."

He held out his hand, and by the Gods, she did trust him.

Mia grasped his hand, climbed up on the stones, and gingerly slid behind him on the big horse.

"Oh, that's a long way down," she muttered, also aware of how widespread her legs were over the horse's rump.

"You have to scoot closer, love." Tom chuckled, reaching back to grasp her knees and pull her until she was flush with the saddle and his back. "Better," he purred. "Best to put your arms around me."

"Now that's definitely a line," Mia quipped, her face red, but she wrapped her arms around him.

"Nice and tight now. Mystic still has power in his legs. We don't want you taking a tumble off the backend."

She tightened her grip across a very tight, very toned, very flat stomach.

"Good girl," he crooned, nudging the horse forward, to which Mia yelped. "It's alright, darling. I won't let anything happen to you."

Then he whistled for the dogs, who came over the fence like hurdlers, making it look so easy, and trotted beside the horse.

"Get a feel for how he moves. How your hips have to shift as he walks, then we'll ask for some speed and give you a thrill."

"Thrill?" Mia squeaked. "I'm thrilled already!"

Tom laughed. "You should feel honoured. This old man made over three million on the track. Not just anyone gets to ride him. And he's doubled that in his sire fees."

"Dollars!" Mia shouted.

"Pounds, love," Tom snickered. "This isn't Canada."

Mia poked him in the stomach. "Stop making fun of my homeland. At least we never lost a war to the Americans."

Tom gasped. "How dare!?"

Mia laughed at his outrage, faux as it was, only to damn near fall off when Mystic went from a slow amble to a rolling run.

It wasn't a full-out gallop, just a nice pace the dogs could keep up with, and while initially figuring out how to settle her body so she didn't fall, didn't bounce around, and didn't squeeze the life out of Tom, took time; eventually, she got it. Then, she could take in the countryside, feel the rush of wind across her face, and enjoy the sound of pounding hooves up close.

As they approached the stone fence, Tom drew Mystic down to a walk again.

"Keep going or stop?" he asked, looking back at her.

Mia beamed. "Keep going. Definitely."

Tom grinned and leaned down to open the gate.

They arrived back at the farm an hour later, Mia laughing as she carefully guided Mystic toward the barn.

She and Tom had switched positions as he gave her an impromptu riding lesson, and the horse - Mystic - was a perfectly behaved gentleman.

The mares in her paddock whickered at him as if admiring the pretty male, who nickered back like a flirt.

Mia giggled at the three of them but kept a steady course for home, where the dogs, thoroughly exhausted from chasing Mystic, flopped down in the breezeway between the stalls and the feed room.

Cora stood in the open door, grinning from ear to ear. "Well, I see why ye're late for breakfast. Tom, ye stable that horse and get in here. Ye can eat with us."

"I would be delighted, Cora," Tom agreed, sliding from Mystic's back over his hind end before joining Mia to help her down.

Her knees were like jello, and her thighs were sore when she landed, causing Tom to grab her tightly.

"Easy, love. The legs take finding again after a long ride. A bit like finding one's sea legs."

"I see that."

He held her closer as she looked up. "Let me make Mystic comfortable, and I will meet you inside."

"Okay," Mia whispered, her attention on his mouth.

"You make this impossible," he grumbled.

"What?"

"Being any sort of gentleman," he muttered before stealing a soul-searing kiss.

She moaned, surprised and instantly turned on, clinging to him when he pulled away.

His hands grasped her hair, and "Camila" whispered from his lips like a prayer.

He sank in again, stealing her breath before his tongue pressed against her lips and snaked between, coaxing his way into her mouth with minimal effort.

He backed her into the barn wall and ravished her mouth, another thing Mia thought only happened in books until a discreet cough reminded them that Cora still watched.

They broke apart like guilty teenagers.

Cora cackled and went inside as red suffused their cheeks.

"Well, I'll just." Mia pointed at the door.

"And I'll just." Tom pointed at Mystic.

Mia nodded and practically ran inside.

"Oh, lass," Cora crowed, grinning from ear to ear. "He's a keeper! He nearly curled my toes clear across the bailey!"

"Hush, old woman!" Mia muttered, face so hot it felt like it was on fire.

"Bah!" Cora huffed, sliding a plate of bacon and sausage onto the table. "It weren't so long ago I was young. Ye canna tell me he didn't knock yer knees together."

"More like apart," Mia mumbled.

"Eh?"

"Nothing!"

Cora eyed her suspiciously, but Mia scooped up the kittens when they attempted to jump from chair to table.

"Not on the counters," Mia insisted, plopping both back on the floor.

They immediately jumped back on the chair and tried to climb on the table again.

"Cut it out, troublemakers." She huffed, snatching them up before they could reach the bacon.

"Go wash up," Cora commanded, shooing her out of the kitchen.

Mia took the kittens with her, needing a minute to calm down.

Her ride with Tom was amazing, the countryside gorgeous, and the company hadn't been half bad either. But it was so easy with him after their initial meeting it made her wary.

Was it too easy? Was she stepping into the same pitfalls as last time?

Stop worrying, girl.

"Easy for you to say. You didn't get burned last time." Mia sighed.

You keep looking at the past like it is something to regret. Take it as a lesson and move forward. It got you somewhere better. You learned from it. Reflect. Don't wallow.

"Why do you always have to be so rational?" she grumbled, frowning at herself in the mirror.

What? Would you rather I tell you to gather five sprigs of rosemary, three dandelions, and the horn of an ox, burn it during the next full moon, and dance skyclad around the fire to invoke my blessing? He snorted in amusement. Come now, girl.

"No need for all the mockery," she muttered, leaving the bathroom to follow the scampering kittens back to the kitchen.

The low murmur of voices greeted her as Tom looked up and smiled. "There she is. I was telling Cora she cooked enough to feed an army."

"Usually Henry joins us. You'll have to eat his share," Mia teased as she sat at the chair he held out.

Tom shifted to the side to do the same for Cora, who batted him away. "Leave off with yer high table manners."

He chuckled, appearing to enjoy teasing her. "Now, Cora. You know no one has been a high table lord for a long time at Highpark. I'm just one of the common people now."

"Uh-huh," she sniffed. "And I'm Mary, Queen of Scots."

"Your majesty." He bowed deeply before dodging the swat she sent his way, laughing loudly as he skirted to sit across from Mia, who was plucking Tyr from the table. Again.

Tom smirked. "Little scamp."

Mia sighed. "They're usually pretty good about staying off the table, but bacon makes them crazy."

"It does that to the best of us," Tom teased as he picked a pastry with a chocolate centre from a basket. "Cora, my sweet lady. I should get down on my knees and convince you to run away with me for these blessed things alone. If I thought you would say yes, I would."

Cora snorted. "Ye've always had a sweet tooth for a pain au chocolat. I remember ye as a boy snitching them every opportunity ye got."

"But none are as divine as yours," he swore. "I have tried some of the finest pastries from around the world, but nothing compared to these. You could ask a princely sum, and people would line up for them."

She scoffed. "In New York or London, maybe, but in Kelso? Bah!"

Mia swallowed her eggs before saying, "If you like them so much, I'm surprised you haven't asked Cora to supply the cafe at Highpark."

Tom looked like he'd been hit with a shovel, while Cora just seemed surprised.

"What?" Mia mumbled when they both continued to stare at her.

"You're a certified genius," Tom whispered. "Three years we've been ordering from the grocer. Mia! You're a bloody genius!"

"What if I don't want to bake for your fancy cafe?" Cora huffed.

Tom looked crushed.

Cora burst out laughing. "Gah! Yer face!" She laughed until tears fell and sat back to cross her arms. "I'll bake what I want."

"Of course, though, there will be a minimum order and a maximum for space saving in the kitchen."

"Course." She nodded. "I may want to use yer fancy Highpark kitchen."

"Done."

"And if I don't, ye've got to come here for pickup. I won't deliver."

"I wouldn't dream of making you haul your goodies up the hill." Tom grinned.

Cora smirked. "I'll run ye some numbers. Won't give up my market stall, but I'll figure my own logistics."

Tom leaned closer. "Cora, dear. You tell me what you need, then tell me what you want. Your baked goods at Highpark will be a coup for us. It may even draw local traffic up for a cuppa. I'll happily pay for the privilege."

"We'll talk more later," she agreed before rising.

"You're not eating?" Mia frowned.

Cora smirked. "I did. Before ye got back. I'll leave yous to it. Enjoy."

She wandered off, leaving Mia gaping after her.

Tom chuckled. "I aspire to be as true to myself as she is when I'm her age."

"Yeah," Mia agreed. "She's amazing. I would have been so lost here without her taking me under her wing."

"She was always a bit of a village mum. Never afraid to scold anyone's children, not even those whose parents could have potentially lost her, her job."

"Tom Hiddleston! Did you threaten to have Cora fired?" Mia gasped.

"Eh? No!"

"Good. I was about to change my opinion of you."

He shook his head. "Benedict, the Mayor's nephew, and Joseph, the Mayor's son, were not so fortunate. Sadly, I missed the explosion to follow, but I heard from Kip that Cora marched both by their ears into the Mayor's office and told him just what she thought of the mannerless heathen brats he had in his family."

"She didn't!" Mia could see it, but she wasn't sure she believed it.

"She did!" He snickered. "Joseph straightened up after. He went off to London and became a doctor last I heard; a family practice. But Benedict never grew out of the prick stage."

Mia giggled. "I don't think he knew what to do with me."

"I surely didn't."

She looked up and found him watching her with a slight smirk and soft eyes, an almost lazy aspect to them as if he were tired, but the intensity of his focus said otherwise. He brought a hand to his mouth and rubbed his index finger over his lips as he devoured her slowly.

"And what about now?" she asked, biting down on a strawberry.

"Do I know what to do with you?" He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. "Oh, yes, pet. I know exactly what I want to do with you."

Mia smiled and blinked slowly, attempting a seduction and succeeding if his sharp inhale and bitten lip could be believed. "Don't call me pet."

He grinned like a flower unfolding. "Why not?"

"It implies ownership." She snatched Idunn and dropped the kitten on the floor before she could snag a sausage, but she never looked away from Tom's eyes.

"And I don't own you…"

The word yet resonated like a gong between them.

Mia tilted up her chin. "I wasn't looking to start anything with anyone, but if I did find myself in a new relationship, I want a partnership. My fiancé tried to change me, subtly at first, but I couldn't see how much until I was on a plane over the Atlantic."

No longer hungry, Mia pushed from the table.

Tom rose with her. "Mia, tell me how. What did he do that hurt you? How did he try to change you?"

She sighed, but he caged her against the island and wouldn't let her escape.

"My wardrobe. Nothing was good enough. I had to look the part of a lawyer's woman. He didn't want me to feel out of place when I met the partner's wives. Which, I thought, was sweet until the clothes didn't fit right. He said something about joining a gym. I had them tailored. He wasn't happy, but he backed off. Then it was tone down my freckles. Then cover them up."

"He didn't like your freckles?" Tom's gaze travelled over her face, following the path of gentle fingers, almost as if he mapped them. "I adore them. I want to memorize them." Hot eyes lifted to lock with hers. "I want to know how much of you they cover."

Mia trembled. That sounded like a threat, but his eyes said it was a promise.

"What else, Mia?"

"My art. He thought it weird, but it was income. Then Covid happened, and nothing I did was right. My music was too loud. I was too messy. I didn't fix him a meal when I made my lunch, even though he originally said he wasn't hungry. It was a lot."

Tom cupped her face. "Mia, love, he may have only hit you once, but he was abusing you. He has been for years."

"I know," she whispered, a little ashamed because she did know, but leaving was more complicated than people understood. "But… he was all I had."

"You deserved better."

"Tom…" she whispered, closing her eyes. "No one loved me from the time I was eleven. I was just a kid in the system. To go back to being alone, unloved, and homeless? How could I leave? At least with him, I had something. It wasn't good, but it was something."

Warmth preceded his forehead resting against hers. "Mia, sweetheart, you're killing me. You deserve the world, happiness, and so much love."

"I know that now. I know now that even after my parents died, my family was looking for me. They loved me enough to leave me this place and help me find a home I didn't know existed. Being here has helped me learn to love myself again, to remember the good and forget the bad. It's shown me there are good people in the world, even when I felt so very alone."

He threaded his fingers through her hair. "You're not alone now."

She opened her eyes to find dark blue staring back. "No. No, I'm not."

"Mia," he murmured, his hands warm and rough on her face.

"Tom, just shut up and kiss me," she whispered, slipping her arms around his neck.

"Yes, ma'am."

She pulled back. "Don't call me ma'am either. You make me feel old."

"No pet, no ma'am. I'm notorious for endearments, darling. I have to have something." He chuckled.

She melted against the counter. "Darling is good. So is… love. Sweetheart was also nice."

A cheeky grin flashed. "Love," he crooned. "I would kiss every one of your freckles. They are charming."

"My mother used to pick out her favourites. I hated them as a child, and she made me pick my three least hated. She would pick her three favourites. Eventually, I stopped hating them and started seeing them like she did."

"Good, because I would be most cross if you chose to cover them up," he grumbled.

"Cross?" she teased, mimicking his accent.

"Now who's poking fun?" he quipped before brushing their noses together. "You're gorgeous, Mia. I thought it from the moment you walked through the study door. I cannot wait to take you out tonight."

She blushed, pleased and a little embarrassed. "Thank you. Where are we going?"

"A restaurant in a nearby town. I thought it would be nice not to be fish in the bowl on our first night out."

Mia laughed. "That does sound good."

"Good. People mean well, but they're busybodies."

"Yeah, I'm sure everyone has heard about me and my black eye now." She sighed but smiled.

"People here care. You were Lorna and Douglas' family. That means you're ours now, too, Mia." His thumb rubbed over her cheek. "I have no plans on letting you go."

She felt it like a promise and trembled again as he pressed soft lips to the corner of her mouth.

"I need to return, but I will pick you up later."

"Yeah," she sighed, waiting for him to kiss her properly.

Tom smiled and stepped back. "Until later." He winked and walked out the door without looking back.

"Oh, that was mean," she grumbled, only to hear a commotion that had her turning just in time to watch Idunn and Tyr run off with a sausage.

Next Chapter

#reflections #au tom hiddleston fiction #rpf #real people fiction #tom hiddleston

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unknownjpegs · 10 months ago

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library

Tidings! Benedictions! Good morning, afternoon, or evening! I hope this letter finds you well, decent, fair, etc. :

Dr. Sullivan, with whom you might be familiar, recently found herself enjoying a piece of yours published in an esteemed literature magazine, which was shared with her at a salon. She finds most writers' work piteously boring these days, but not yours. In harsher words dictated to myself for the purposes of bolstering her offer, she describes your wordsmithing as 'refreshingly, philosophically challenging'. She wishes to read more. And so, as you might the attached conditions agreeable, she wishes to extend a financier’s opportunity to you. In which you will come to her company (in the most professional of manners, she assures) and receive meals, room and board, as well as a generous stipend and access to the estate's charming (when kept,although you heard this not from me) grounds. Dr. Sullivan stipulates that her status as benefactor extends so long as you remain her — and here Mr. Palanivel, I must pause to offer in a voice of my own, that this stipulation was also dictated to me — intellectual equal. Dr. Sullivan requests that you not — and again I pause, because though I personally find some of your scribing to be tediously saccharine, I do regret having made such a coarse phrase be known to you — become slow of tongue or dull your wit. Dr. Sullivan asserts that this offer is extended in gracious appreciation of your artistic merit, and by no means wishes to pursue anything further than a symbiotic, stimulating partnership between equals. And she also makes known that, while bestowing the following warning might threaten you to believe exactly the opposite, she wishes no harm to you or your person; there is not, of course, a shadowy dungeon within the bowels of her estate.

A bit of a jest, that last part, and from yours truly. I trust you shall keep that between this two-party correspondence. As to relieve you of Dr. Sullivan’s strange demeanor or coarse tongue, I cannot. She is as she sounds. However I think you will find, in the very least, that she provides adequate entertainment even in her most foul of moods. Please respectfully refrain from passing along that last note of mine to her, as well. The pen moves of its own sometimes if properly inspired, wouldn’t you agree?

-M. M. Rhoades

Benji had considered which garments to pack into what travel case to make room for his own humble collection of books before he’d even reached the end of the tight-script correspondence. Had felt silly for the next week, because he’d penned an eager acceptance and sat like a fool with most of the belongings he needed on a day-to-day basis tucked away.

He discovers that Dr. Sullivan is, as hinted, indeed a rather strange hermit, even for an academic. One who despite all attempts made by her colleagues to fashion her into an individual of polite society, keeps her hair scandalously short and rotation of suitors scandalously long.

Benji likes her. She is not brittle in the slightest, as that seems often like a possibility that minds such as hers try to avoid, lest they become an inevitability instead. So, for the first month of his stay, Benji does little different but join her for daily walks on the grounds. They speak of all manner of things with an ease that feels quite alien to him — his fingers have always felt more verbose than even his mouth, even with practice and considerable effort. But for some reason, Dr. Sullivan draws out of him a desire to engage. She has wonderful ideas and a sharp, sometimes cruel tongue that makes him guiltily laugh on more than one occasion.

And, fortunately for one like Benji who feels often that he must seek relief from even the most gentle of social events, she kept all manner of books in her library.

On one particularly rowdy soiree hosted at Dr. Sullivan’s estate, it is within the library that Benji discovers solace. And, additionally, discovers that all manner of books encompasses…quite a lot.

It is a lovely, enviable collection of literature and prose and scholarship. The poetry books are naturally Benji’s favorite. He has made it a habit to find the most scandalous pieces in her vast library. He is pouring over the pages of one such hardbound (he snorts to himself, here) collection when there’s a soft rap of knuckles against the door.

His shoulders tighten immediately with the strength of his surprised, disappointed sigh. He was hoping for at least a few more minutes alone, to quiet the myriad of voices and sounds rattling about his skull. No such luck, it seems. He’s meant now, in this state, when he’d rather be alone, to keep up a veneer of politeness? So be it.

“Yes?”

He shuts the book around his finger, keeping the page, and turns towards the entrance with a frown.

That expression quickly slips from his face when he recognizes the tell-tale red of a certain soldier dipping between the parted doors.

“Xavier,” Benji laughs with considerable, embarrassing delight. He takes a single step forward and… falters. There is no handbook of social etiquette to guide him from here — it is strange, new territory they’ve entered. That does not make him uncomfortable. Benji doubts he could feel uncomfortable around the soldier.

Who beams at him, slipping inside the library and closing the door, which he leans upon, behind him. The smile is so wide and toothy he must mirror it with a grin of his own. The open, unapologetic enthusiasm within Xavier sometimes seems so deep it challenges Benji’s understandings of volume.

So he isn’t uncomfortable, but he is hesitant. Especially when Xavier lopes, practically a skip, across the room to stand before him. His nearness makes Benji nervous, makes him hot beneath his clothes as if Xavier’s mere presence, and so close, is enough to raise the temperature of the entire room.

“Benji,” he greets, hands folded quite properly behind his back as he leans close. He brings his voice to a conspiratorial, teasing whisper. “May I ask who we’re hiding from?”

“Everyone.” Benji whispers back, fingers tracing the spine. “But I suppose I’ll consider making an exception.”

Xavier’s eyebrows raise. Oh?

“Unfortunately I find your company bearable.”

Xavier tosses his head back and laughs. Benji watches him, absolutely entranced by the sight and sound. His neck is so long and pale, peeking from he collar of his shirt. He sounds lovely.

He sidles closer still, until Benji must retreat his step and find himself leaning back into the mahogany desk in the center of the room.

“I find you bearable too, if that sort of confession is welcome.” His cheeks are a little pink, and Benji’s hand twitches around the book of poetry. He doesn’t offer Benji enough time to confirm how welcome. “What are you reading?”

“Wait —”

Xavier stares down at the page. The book looks smaller in his hands, and for some reason Benji cannot look away from this detail.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen uses of fruit used to describe how one’s —”

Benji snatches the book away, quite sure his face cannot get any more warm to the touch than it already has. “You would be surprised how well those similes have been critically received throughout history.”

Xavier glances over his shoulder at the page again. Benji snaps the binding shut. “Well it certainly seems like things were being received.” He grins suggestively, then his brow furrows. “Which one was simile again? I remember being taught, but it always escapes me.”

Thankful for the change in subject, Benji sighs. “A bit like a comparison, but not truly. It is one of the oldest literary devices, along with the allegory and the myth, that humans - well. Anyway. It is when you want to describe one thing as another. Usually, accompanied by flowery language.”

"You're an expert." Xavier’s mischievous smile returns, tongue poking between his teeth. “So, a charming description of ripe fruit when really the author wishes to speak lovingly of —”

Benji covers his mouth with a hand, ears now burning at the still-audible description that continues to spill forth. Laughing a bit too loud, he tries to temper it.

“Like discussing eyes as the shade of spring's first green blossom, or a crescent moon sliver, instead of a smile.”

Xavier blinks and then holds his gaze for so long Benji feels his chest ache with the need for air.

“I — I’m usually better at that. I feel sometimes, as you do, that writing it is challenging. It was always easier for me than speaking. But I struggle when - only when I think of you.” Benji stutters. He stares up at Xavier with eyes widened by that, and something perhaps a centimeter tighter in his chest. His hands grip, even tighter still, to the edge of Dr. Sullivan’s desk. “Perhaps I shall stick to things that I know, and that I can speak on. Or,” he laughs nervously, “They might come out so harebrained as…as fruit.”

“I think it was apt, actually,” Xavier teases. His eyes are dark.

“Very little could be more improper, but sometimes that’s the fun of it.”

The soldier tilts his head slightly, boyish grin slipping into something unfamiliar. Something that curls at the edges.

“Ah, well. What could be more improper?”

His hands splayed on either side of Benji’s on the desk, Xavier reaches between them and slips the book slowly shut. Puts it aside, focus never wavering from Benji’s eyes. It’s not mischief passing over his mirthful, teasing grin. It’s desire.

“You’ve read all the poetry. I’m sure that makes you an expert.”

“I’m — pardon me?” Benji splutters, cheeks heating. “I’m not an expert on —”

“Oh,” Xavier drags it out into a sing-song, harmonious little tease. Ooooh. “So you know… nothing, then?”

Benji gapes at him, brow furrowing. “N-no, I only mean that…”

Xavier tilts in to press a kiss to his warm, slightly red cheek. “You’re very handsome when you’re flustered.”

Suddenly, Benji’s feet leave the ground. Tow hands firm on his waist, Xavier lifts him just enough to perch on the edge. His breath slips out in a long, winding noise, and he glances up at Xavier.

“I’m not flustered.” Benji denies snappishly.

“Aren’t you? I’ll just have to work harder, hm? Perhaps do something,” Xavier puts one gloved hand on his knee, making him jump. He pushes it slowly to the side, accommodating himself between Benji’s open legs. “Improper like this?”

Benji gasps outright at the touch of his hand brushing higher, spanning his waist. He finds his spine curving slightly towards the other man. The grin against his neck feels wild. His accompanying inhalation is shaky.

“Or…improper like this?”

With a second large and warm palm firm on the slight dip of his back, Benji’s next noise is certainly not so delicate, nor quiet, as a gasp.

“And what about this sort of improper?” Long fingers touch slowly and sweetly up his spine, squeezing over the rounded muscle of his shoulder as they coast. He isn’t sure what contributes more strength to the shiver; that a hand touches him as he craves and in the appreciative manner it does, or that the hand belongs to Xavier.

“This doesn’t feel improper to me, Benji,” the soldier whispers into his skin. His hand has trailed up to weave strands of Benji’s hair, falling loose from its velvet tie. It always did that, and Benji’s mother had always scolded more delicate care of it. He simply felt that his time ought be spent in other, more useful and joyful, pursuits.

But Xavier, who keeps his nose pressed below the hinge of Benji’s jaw, does not seem to care for his mess. Or, if he does, the direction of those feelings point decidedly opposite.

The fingers in his hair wind just a little more, making Benji’s mouth fall open. He feels dizzy as if sitting upright, even aided by the…substantial strength of the uniformed arm wrapped around him.

“How could this be improper when it feels so good?”

Benji shivers again at his tone; soft and whispery, like he were telling a secret, and yet…it held heat. A delightful, slight roughness that made him sound just shy of typical. It brought heat with it, making Benji sway forward as it slipped down the center of him. Sticking to his insides, leaving pricks of gooseflesh, until it nestles in his gut.

Lower.

Benji tilts his head forward, and for a moment their lips share air. Benji groans, pained, as his forehead lands on the pad of Xavier’s shoulder.

“Don’t you think it feels good, Benji?” The hand on his thigh doesn’t seem to realize the effect it has as it brushes up, draws a warm path up his sternum. An equally blistering palm finds his cheek, cups with a bit of force so that he must raise his eyes.

“Yes,” he breathes, feeling stunned to so few syllables as their gazes catch. Xavier’s beautiful hair, for which Benji has yet to find suitable allusion and perhaps never will, halos him golden. “Yes, it is. I-I find myself lacking the ability to find a better turn of phrase.”

“I find myself that sometimes, the simple ones do the trick,” Xavier says with as much air in his chest, eyes sparkling impishly. The thumb set over his cheek drags a caress over his cheekbone, and its softness there makes Benji’s fists clutch into his jacket.

“Tell me it feels good?”

Fingers pet over his scalp. His eyes flutter, a candlelight on the far wall going double as his vision blurs.

“H-huh?” Benji huffs, breathing coming a bit faster.

And faster still, rabbit’s quick thing as it tucks in his ribcage, when Xavier’s fingers in his hair tighten and pull.

Benji’s head drops back, chin ascending to the ceiling, as a harsh noise stutters out of his throat. Not too sweet to be a moan, but something close. He shifts forward, tucking an ankle around the back of Xavier’s thigh.

“I love hearing you talk,” Xavier murmurs hotly against his mouth.Their lips stick together around the words, something so obscene about the intimacy it makes his stomach flutter. “I know you’re a wonderful writer, but I like hearing you. So, please talk. Tell me how it feels, Benji, I…I have to know.”

“I ...oh, I can’t—”

“I can.” The soldier presses on. He shifts closer at the same time he yanks Benji forward, fitting their hips together. And he’s right, none of it feels wrong, although it does feel a little thrillingly improper. It feels —

“You feel good, Benji. You’re warm, and I can’t compare that to anything either. But I know it as your specific warmth, because you fit best here, I think. And I can’t compare your hair to anything either, because it’s different every day. That brings me such joy, you have no idea.”

Benji’s chest flattens of air as Xavier presses it to his own. A button digs into his side with a pain that he is embarrassed to find isn’t entirely unagreeable. He nods sluggishly, as though everything within him is moving around several seconds behind.

“It feels good. You feel good, Xavier, you feel so —”

Xavier jerks him closer, lips already parted as their mouths meet. And Benji finds this isn’t unwelcome either, just as their moment at the Duchess’s estate. If he is, as Dr. Sullivan says, an intellectual equal, he will be smart enough to keep this man close. He suspects every moment will be more than welcome, especially so long as they are pressed together.

Which they are, quite obscenely. Benji might even be moving slightly, the slip of papers under his thighs on the desk.

“That’s it,” Xavier is saying between kisses. “It’s good, right? God, it’s good.”

His hands clutch at Benji’s face, at his arms, trail down and back up his chest. They push at his jacket, as if meaning to get it past his elbows. And then they retreat quicker than Benji would like, to meander back to his face.

Xavier prefers him this way, it seems. To be touching him, to have Benji be touched by him. Not just prefers, but wants.

He seems to relax the flightiness of himself slightly as soon as Benji’s jaw fills his palms. He tilts his face, guides him, to accommodate deeper and longer kisses. He makes noises into Benji’s mouth that he has not yet heard. Drawn-out sighs, ragged gasps of air, whispered half-phrases that are lost in the heat and taste of the next kiss.

And each noise he plucks from the air and swallows, brings it within himself. He feels possessively like the contributor of each, like they’re his as much as Xavier’s as he has been the one to coax them out. The mere idea has Benji moaning wantonly against Xavier’s mouth.

There’s one for you, he thinks as it pulls away to trail down his jaw, following the line of his neck and lower, kisses presses over his clothes to his chest, his arm. There, Xavier. A sound for you. Those are yours. Give me of yours, and I’ll give you mine.

A broad hand drops from his face to snatch up his hand, lift it for a kiss snuck into the center, over the heel, a nip of teeth at his wrist.

“Benji,” Xavier moans into the skin there, and then repeats his name several times. “I’ll never be tired of this. We could do this ten thousand times and I’d still want it more.”

Benji whimpers in response, his brain going fuzzy for a moment. Then, quite suddenly, he grabs Xavier’s shirt and yanks him back up. Pulls their faces together, kisses him until he’s breathless, until he’s the one making noise. And while they whisper to each other between the mess and heat of its, good and not improper, Benji reaches for the button on his vest.

It comes undone, and they part a moment to glance down at it together.

“Yes?”

Between pale hands, Xavier shakes his face. “Yes, fuck, yes —”

The expletive makes Benji smile. Its curve is kissed as he finds another button. Another, another; Xavier works at his, too, and suddenly a soft pale stomach is beneath his knuckles, jumping at the touch. Benji’s fingers slip further into the waistband.

It is at that moment, when Xavier steps back to pull his jacket off, eyes intense as they drag over Benji still sat upon the desk, that the library door slams open.

Dr. Sullivan stands in the doorway, a noble lady in a stunning crimson dress draped against her suited flank. The woman has hair the color of starlight, charmingly greyed blonde; as they stumble together several steps it catches streaks of candle-flame gold.

“Good evening,” Dr. Sullivan says jovially, raising a champagne flute with a hedonistic grin. “Unfortunately I must request you take your aside together elsewhere. I was just about to show Jacqueline — ah, Dame Rhoades — some of my finest work.”

Benji jumps from the desk to his feet, casting an apologetic yet frustrated glance at his patron. He takes with him Xavier, who stumbles several steps behind, and who tilts his hat charmingly enough to Dr. Sullivan’s companion that she laughs behind her hand.

When they are down the hall a distance, Xavier says: “Dr. Sullivan seems —”

“Like she needs, perhaps, to learn how one should knock before entering a room?”

Xavier laughs, tugging Benji to prevent him from walking so fast — or at all, because he pulls Benji right to his chest again. “This is her estate. That’s her library.”

His cheeks go dark at that, which only makes Xavier coo sweetly and cup them. Then they’re pressed together against the hall, good and improper, until Benji feels a swift retreat must be made. Lest anyone else how pretty a face Xavier makes when Benji prompts him to talk, too.

#writing #ua #bp #xw #bs #bp x xw #regency au

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milliesmuses · 1 year ago

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A Day To Remember

Today I went to the biggest library in my hometown in south Louisiana. Perhaps one day I will share what town I live in. I went to check out "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius. I ended up, as usual, checking out many more books because I have no self control and a humble thirst for knowledge.

One of the books I ended up checking out was "Storyworthy" by Matthew Dicks. He is an award winning story teller who teaches people how to tell personal stories as a way of entertainment. This book inspired me to finally start this blog.

I would like to share my life through this blog and hopefully help you feel seen and heard. My twenties so far have been wonderful, insightful, adventurous, horribly lonely and full of existential dread. Please message me if you feel this way. We can feel wonderful and awful together. This is what it means to be human.

Today is a day I would like to remember. And a day I'd like to share with you as it may spark something inside of you.

Like I said, I went to the library today. I sat on my porch and read "Storyworthy" when I noticed heavy, dark grey storm clouds that were coming my way. This is a somewhat common occurrence in Louisiana. I put my plants on the ground in front of my porch and let them get soaked by the rain that came soon after. I continued to read my book and I began to feel lonely as I now do when I am alone.

Before Covid, I loved being alone. I have always described myself as an introvert. But during the pandemic, I spent 2020-2023 in Texas and California. It is hard enough to make friends when you move. Imagine trying to make friends in a new state during a pandemic. I spent an unimaginable time alone. Now I cannot stand it. I am an extravert now through and through.

Luckily, my sister lives in the same apartment complex as me, only three doors down from where I live. So I grabbed my plastic porch chair and my book and walked through the rain to her porch.

She was potting some plants that supposedly attract butterflies while I read my book. I just so happened to began a chapter where the author was talking about one of his ways he comes up with stories to tell people. He began to see the beauty and wonderful moments in his day to day and wrote them down.

I started to think about the moment I was in. I am 24 years old and my sister is 21 years old. I am sitting in a plastic chair that she painted. She spray painted it pink and painted simple purple, yellow and pink flowers all over it. I did something similar with my other porch chair. She is potting plants that we bought with our mom a week ago at a community garden in the downtown area of our city. It is a rainy day on June 5, 2023 and I am reading my library book in a position so that it doesn't get wet.

I am reminded of the all girls summer camp we went too when we were in elementary school. Some days it would rain and all of the dirt paths around the camp would flood. But it would be so cozy in the old wooden cabins during "Rest Hour", our time of rest after all of our camp actives and lunch in the big, wooden dining hall.

Later we will make brownies together.

Many years from now, I hope I remember that simple but wonderful moment in time. When my sister and I were in our early twenties. I was reading a book. She was potting some butterfly plants: Lemon Queens, milkweeds and others. It was June 5, 2023. It was raining softly.

#personal post #life update #rainyweather #june 5th #summer #flowers #pink chair

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daim1812 · 3 years ago

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One Last Time

Levi Ackerman x Reader

Labels: Romance, angst, drama, mentions of suicide, blood, children involvement, pregnancy and death.

Warning: Some manga spoilers. Change of storyline for adaptive purposes.

Song of choice: Saturn by Sleeping at Last

As the sun went down so did his body, sitting down on the log with a perfect view to a hidden lake between enclosed tall trees. Rising up from the mountain, the moon made its way into the night sky.

Levi couldn’t stop himself to stare at the moon. He couldn’t stop breathing the air, feeling it hit his lungs with small fights. He couldn’t stop from repeating the same images in his head.

His squads death made him realize that death was always near. He knew that no matter how much he ran away from it, it was always going to catch up to him.

Mike’s death shook him slightly. He knew this man for his whole years of being in the Scouts, and consider him someone close to him.

Erwin’s death threw him in a verge of loosing himself, almost to the point of ending things. And yet... he found himself weak to the thought. He couldn’t do it, it was someone else’s job to kill him and end his agony. Even when Hange stood there with him and helped him realize that he wasn’t that alone, her sudden sacrifice pushed him into an unknown feeling.

And so he sat there, amaze by the scenery; amazed by the simple thought that he was still... living.

Without a care in the world, Levi closed his eyes and emerge into the swing of the wind. Hitting him softly on the face and pushing his hair back, he indulge in a new feeling he couldn’t describe before.

He was delighted.

He was enlighten.

Yet, he hated that. Everybody else died, leaving him alone to understand himself and hate himself at the same time. All he wanted was... for them to come back. Since Isabel and Farlan, Levi learned the hard way that life isn’t the way he thought it would be. Kenny’s death was another punch in his face. His mother's death since the beginning made him this solitary person filled with problems.

Levi wasn’t normal.

Two pair of hands took him by surprise, but not enough to act defensive. He already knew this hands.

She pressed her face on Levi’s head, her body slightly pushing to his back. Her hands collared on his neck, embracing him thoroughly to her own content.

“What are you doing, Captain?” Her voice swayed Levi’s ears, the melody in her voice making him subtle and nostalgic.

“I have never stopped myself to watch this place, Captain.” He mumbled, almost too low for her to understand, but she did. Levi felt her jaw tense and knew she was smiling.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? This is what we fight for, Levi. For this place, this scenery, for the wind, for the people, for the oceans, for the animals, for us.” She let go of Levi to sit beside him, looking at him.

Levi finally got rid of his bandages, half of his face with a scar that marked a battle in transition; his left eye was hidden over a patch. She wanted so much to contain herself from touching his face once again. One after the other, every time she saw him like this, her hands immediately moved to touch his face. Levi doesn’t care much, but at the beginning he prohibited her to do so.

“Can I...?” The whisper made Levi look down, slowly nodding, not wanting to show her that he needed her to touch him.

Her fingertips rolled on his skin and scars, slowly, and carefully, she continue the path from the chin to his forehead. She stopped the movement once she reached his eye patch, looking at him for confirmation. He didn’t say anything, still staring at the ground in front of him, how the grass moved with the wind.

“I love your eyes, Levi.” She smiled at him, continuing her path, her fingers sinking inside his hair.

He finally let go of a sigh, looking up at her with the most saddest eyes, the color of his eyes slowly fainting by the light of the moon.

“If you die...” He started, stopping her movements. She frowned her eyebrows, looking back at him with fierce.

“Don’t say that. I’m not going to die. I’m not planning on doing so. My plan is to finish this war with Eren and those idiots, and then... we’ll retire in a cabin in the woods. We’ll have lots of kids. I’m still young, I can have at least 7 kids. Don’t you think?” She chuckled, Levi loving so much her action.

When was the last time he felt so affected by the emotions of another person? She had him wrapped on her fingers and yet he couldn’t do anything about that. He didn’t know the feelings he was going through. He didn’t understood what this new emotion was.

Was it really love like the books in the library described?

Was it the love Hange so furiously told him about when they stayed up almost all night drinking with Erwin and Mike?

Was love the past arrangement Erwin had with Nile’s wife?

Or was it that anxious feeling of seeing someone for the first time and noticing how beautiful they were?

He couldn’t decipher anything even if they were together. He was confused with all those emotions flowing into him. From the beginning, in his childhood, he never got to experience love and affection. Farlan and Isabel gave him affection, that friendship, and he learned from that. From Erwin he went through companionship, same with his squad, Hange and Mike. He understood those feelings; he already battled those and lost. Levi knew death, despair, loneliness, sadness; he knew all of those and yet he never once understood love.

She changed those thoughts so easily it scared him.

“You would look so beautiful holding our baby...” Her smile made Levi weak to the knees. How couldn’t he have fallen for her? “My plan is for us to be together until we are old and we decay with time. I want this to be over so we can be happy. What do you think?”

“...” Levi couldn’t say anything. If something he learned from all those years of loneliness and misery, it was to never dream too much. He wanted to live in the present because every time he thought things were alright something ended up wrong.

“Levi?” She looked so worried for him, letting her knees touch the grass in front of Levi.

His hands immediately hold her elbows, not wanting her to get on her knees and get her pants dirty just for him. Yet, she didn’t cared, only pushing away his hands a little bit to not make him feel bad.

“Talk to me, Ackerman.” Her voice soothes him. How many times has he loved hearing her call his name or just say anything in general?

He didn’t wanted to admit it, but having her near him, breathing, laughing, talking, whispering, singing... made him sleep so good for the first time. He finally let go of the worries in her arms and slowly pacified his urges of ending thing. Whenever he could sleep with her, he felt like the world didn’t needed to end just yet. Sleeping with her seemed like the only medicine he needed for days full of regret.

Either way, with those thoughts in his head while he stared down at the girl he profoundly fell for, he couldn’t let himself be like her.

Levi was the opposite of her. Down to earth, cold, and with secrets nobody needed to know. She was an open book, imaginative and lovable. He just didn’t wanted her to feel bad for saying words that could hurt her.

“This is real life, Captain. We are in a fragile situation right now in where we don’t know if tomorrow we will be alive. We live our lives to the fullest imagining that at some point we will stop and notice we fought so hard for our freedom.” Levi’s eyes connects with her, noticing how the light faded a little bit. “I can’t live in a fantasy... not when everything around me is based in reality. You are the one thing,” He stopped for a few seconds, his finger grabbing onto some of her locks. “I can’t loose.”

“You’re in bad luck, Levi, ‘cause I’m going into battle tomorrow and I promise you I will live. I won’t die yet. I can’t leave you alone.” Suddenly she pressed her forehead softly against Levi’s forehead, both of their noses slightly kissing. She closed her eyes and Levi admired her fractions.

He liked her so much.

She was the only reason why he hasn’t indulge into the darkness and end his life right there.

His fingers pressed her locks behind her ear, some of the hair covering his face and hers. She giggled at the humble actions of the man she loved with all her life. He continues to push her hair behind her ears, slowly passing his fingertips on her earlobe.

“Don’t die on me, brat. Keep fighting.” His whisper made her eyes crystallize. She felt the feelings behind those words. He wanted her to continue living even if he didn’t made it through another day.

She shook her head, the hairs from behind her ear falling back on her face as she pulled away from him.

Her hands locked onto his, pressing them on her chest tightly, a little careful of Levi’s bandage hand missing two of his fingers.

“No. Don’t YOU die on me, Levi. I want you to live and fulfill my wish with me. I want you to wake up tomorrow ready to battle and do everything it takes to come back into my arms. Many will die; death is inevitable, yet I’ll be here always. I want you to survive because you deserve to. I know how much you await death. You’ve been waiting for so long to feel it. The grass on your fingers, the blood gushing out of your mouth and the pain. But, Levi, I assure you, nothing is better than living the moment. Nothing will be better than this moment. You and me... finally together. I won’t let you die, Levi. We will have each other’s back. But you will survive even if it means me saving you over and over. I won’t let you fall into a darkness you won’t ever go out. I’ll light up your path every time you see it darken. I’ll keep the light up every time the wind tries to blow it. I’ll be here for you... until death do us apart.” Her eyes quickly tried to gush out the feelings, but the feelings were already dripping down her face.

Levi couldn’t stop himself anymore. He grabbed her cheek, pulled her up a little to be at the same height as him and pushed his lips against hers.

Her lips danced slowly on his, taking almost all the control of the kiss. Even if they were together for so long, Levi didn’t know a lot of things couple usually did. He didn’t know how to kiss, how to compliment, how to touch, how to love. Yet, she didn’t care for those small details. Being near her lover solely made her live happily.

Their lips continued to stick together, Levi wanting so hard to not let go. Maybe he didn’t wanted to let go because he wanted to love the moment like she told him to do; or maybe he felt the need to kiss her one last time just in case something bad happened.

Her hands touched Levi’s cheek, rubbing her fingertips on his cheek. He felt the cold round of tears pressing on his face, sticking them.

Breaking the kiss with a subtle movement, Levi gazed at her up and down, taking a mental picture of his lover for future references. For when the battle came, he could keep calm and fight dedicating his heart.

“Don’t cry, idiot.” He rolled her tear off her face with his right thumb. She nodded quickly, wiping her face with her long sleeve shirt.

“Promise me, Levi... we will fulfill my dream? Just promise me that.” His hand pressing on her cheek, she shoved it even closer to her.

He couldn’t promise that. He just couldn’t. Levi didn’t know if he was going to survive. The situation was getting dangerous and if everything went south, he would have to sacrifice himself to save the others. He needed to give them a future, Levi already fought enough, lived enough.

But now he had her... Now he was supposed to live to keep her by his side. He needed to survive. Yet, he just couldn’t say that to her. He wasn’t very good with words. Showing actions and taking actions was his forte.

The moon shined on them once again, the lighting in his eyes finally shinning again, the back of her head being lightened by the moon as well.

He wanted to live for her.

“I promise.” He mumbled, watching her shriek and throw herself on him, almost pushing both of them back into the ground.

She flowered him with kisses all over his face, being extremely careful of his eye and scar.

“I love you, Levi. Thank you. I’ll keep you safe.” Those words brought him so much joy. An emotion he hasn’t felt at all in his life, yet he was purely in love with this woman and he was going to make her happy.

“Me too, Captain.”

————————————

“Papa, papa, papa!” A little kid, around 6 years old with short dark hair and beautiful grey eyes threw himself at Levi. He catches him almost in midair and makes him sit on his arm and waist.

“What is it, Teo? I’ve told you to not interrupt me while I’m working.” The little kid shrugs his shoulders and purposely hides his face on Levi’s chest.

Levi noticed by the corner of his eye the little girl standing near the door, half of her face looking at him and the kid.

“Alora doesn’t want to play with me and I feel lonely.” His voice makes Levi tremble gently. Who would have thought that the Captain of the Survey Corps was going to be swayed by the adorable side of his older child?

“Alora, come here.” He turns around to the door, the little girl holding onto a dark teddy bear that hanged on her right hand and kept being swept on the floor.

She walked in with her face looking down on the floor. Alora couldn’t lie about it, she was almost scared of her father. He was always so quiet and cold; while she was the opposite. She was curious, a shining sun wherever she went, and a beautiful, intelligent little girl. With only 4 years old she already knew how to do basic math (something her mother continuously felt proud of and mentioned every time).

Levi looked down on her and gently squatted down with Teo on his arms, leading him to stand up on the floor.

Pressing his hand on Alora’s black, long soft hair that fell until her lower back and was tightly put in a ponytail, he smiled at her. Alora looked at her father and smiled back, loving those moments with him.

“Alora, would you like to play with your brother for a little while? Papa has some work to do, but once I’m done I’ll play with both of you. Anything that you want, I’ll play it.” He kept smiling, watching the kids as they celebrated that their dad was finally going to give them some attention. “Go play, kids.”

The kids rushed through the door, running into their rooms to play and have fun with each other.

Letting out a small sigh, Levi got up and sat down on his chair again. He still couldn’t believe he was a father of two children that made his life a whole heaven and a living hell as well.

A knock on the door caught him slightly by surprise, turning his attention towards now the person standing at the door.

He stared up and down at his wife, and how the dress made her look so irresistibly gorgeous.

She smiled at him and entered the room without invitation. Holding on her back for support, or for pain, she finally stood next to him. A hand pressed on Levi’s left shoulder, making Levi close his eyes and sigh again, loving so much her touch.

“You must be exhausted, Levi. Are you sure you can’t just finish this later? I could really use a massage, you know.” She leaned down a little bit, rubbing her nose on his cheek and ear.

“I have to finish today. I’ll be done soon.” Sighing once again, he let go of his desire to stop working and just let her shower him in affection and love.

“You’re so tense, dear.” Her hands touched his shoulders and made pressure on her hands to make him feel at ease. Levi’s head fell back a little bit, seeing his wife enjoying giving him all the love and attention he needed.

“Go do something else, brat. You’re always trying to make me feel good. I’m fine.” Levi pushed his body upwards, breaking the contact of her hands on his shoulders. She chuckled, understanding that Levi didn’t wanted to feel vulnerable at the state of tension he was in.

“Alright, Captain.” She makes the old salute, making Levi tremble at the sight. Even so, she continues to smile, leaning down on him to kiss him on the lips real quick.

“Tsk... idiot.” As soon as he said that, his body lay back at the chair, resting himself on it as he watched his wife walk away with a smile.

As soon as he heard his wife say dinner was ready, his body immediately got up and walked to the living room, seeing how the kids ran to the table. Getting from behind Alora, he helped her get on the chair. Giving her a short smile, Levi sat down at his respective chair, not having any other option than watching his wife put the plates and utensils at the table.

Levi always loved watching his wife do housework. He was a clean freak, and noticing how she always tried her best to keep everything tidy up and clean, made him love her even more. It wasn’t rude or anything, Levi helped a lot in the chores, helping whenever he wasn’t doing his own work.

“You’re slacking off, Levi.” She smiled, putting down the utensils next to his plate. He looked up at her, and her eyes shined to him. God, he could loose himself with just a stare.

“I’m tired.” He said with a sigh, resting on the chair.

“You could finish up quickly, papa.” Teo’s small voice makes Levi smile. His ear rings to that voice and he just enjoy his son’s voice.

“Yes, papa. You have to play with us.” Alora smiles while her mother pours some food on her plate.

“I know, kids.” His wife presses her thumbs to Levi’s nape, slowly rubbing it.

“Papa will be busy, but I’m sure he’ll take some time to play with you, kids. Right, darling?” Levi lets his neck fall back a little bit and looks up at her staring into his eyes. A faint blush covers his cheeks and he tries his best to hide it, yet she already notices.

“Yeah.” Mumbles, staring down at the food that was being served.

After they finished eating, Levi went back to his studio, trying as fast as he could to finish his work.

With a loud sigh, he finally finished doing all the things he had to do. He got up the chair, stretched his back and walked over to the room in where the kids were playing.

Standing on the entrance of the room, Levi let his back touch the wall and just decided to stare for a little bit at the kids giggling and playing.

He never had a childhood like that. All he knew while growing up was self defense. He knew how to stab, how to kill, how to defend himself. Levi didn’t know what other feelings were. The emotions he was feeling right now while watching his daughter show him her doll and his son the little train he got for his birthday, he didn’t know what that was called.

Knowing well enough how to battle an enemy, Levi never thought he would have to be fighting himself over and over in the future. He thought, maybe, after marrying her and starting a new life he would stop all those thoughts. And he did stop those thoughts. The birth of Teo brought into his life a whole new meaning that he didn’t know he needed so much.

Levi found love.

“Papa, papa! Come! Play with us.” The little girl’s voice shook him out of his thoughts. Looking up and down at her, he smiled, walking over to them and joining their small party.

Levi tucked both kids into bed. He wore them out enough for them to be knocked down cold into a huge sleep. Sliding the blanket over Teo and Alora, Levi kissed their small little forehead. If Erwin saw him right now he would have been surprised at the sight of weakness Levi was showing. “What would he say about this?”, Levi thought while staring down at the little girl holding tight her small bear. Nevertheless, Levi didn’t care. All he cared about were those kids and his wife. Erwin was long gone and he knew that if he saw that, Erwin would have been so proud of him. Levi found exactly what Erwin wanted for him, and what he wanted as well. No thoughts would change his mind on what his ex-Commander and best friend would have thought in that situation. Erwin would have been happy.

Turning off the light, Levi closed the door to the room and walked over to the room he shared with his wife.

And there she was, looking over at the door in wait for her husband. She smiled, opening her arms so she could get Levi next to her.

“Tsk. You’re a needy brat.” He crossed his arms, but still walked up to her. She grabs his hand and detangle them from his chest. Bringing him close to her, making him sit down on the bed, she gently pressed his hand on her belly.

Levi felt a knock, a kick, that startled him a lot. A life was in there. His next child was there. Levi finally understood that feeling. He felt it when Teo came the first time and when Alora also came. The feeling of being alive.

“It keeps kicking. It’s so funny.” She whispers near Levi’s shoulder, letting her head fall on his shoulder.

“He wants to kill you. I’ll kill him if he comes out like the other two. Disorganized and dirty.” His comment makes her laugh and Levi has no other option than to enjoy it. He wanted to record that in his mind forever. Her voice and her laugh.

“You silly... They are only like that because you let them be. I remember when I was a Captain and every time I saw you, you were scolding the cadets for leaving dirt everywhere.” She makes him remember, and he just snickers. He really was a strict Captain. And still, he always got the job done.

“I lived so long in dirty and dark places... I didn’t wanted HQ to be the same.” After he finishes talking, he feels another kick, letting go of a small smile.

“The HQ was bland. It was colorless. It reek of death and broken dreams. I didn’t like that so much.” She closes her eyes and rubs Levi’s hand over her belly.

“We didn’t have time to be thinking of colors. We were always living in a die or live situation.” She nods on his shoulder.

“I agree.”

“We should head to bed.” Levi mumbles again, not wanting to take his hand away from her belly or the warmth of her hand on his.

“Mhmm... let’s stay like this for a little while more. I missed your scent.” Her whisper makes Levi shiver, yet he only lets a small grunt come out of his throat, responding to her.

The small shallow breaths she was taking, the thumb rubbing on his hand, her hair falling on his shoulder and her thighs pressing on him made Levi so renewed. At the end of the day, all the tiredness faded away when she was there with him.

He knew she had her eyes closed, she was just resting on his shoulder. Yet, he wanted to look at her, kiss her, hold her, do everything he could think of even if she had a belly growing up. She has done so much for him and continues to do so by loving him every single day of their lives.

Levi slowly pulled his hand away from her belly and her, but now press it on her cheek. She opened her eyes and leaned back from his shoulder, now staring at him with bags under her eyes.

She was fucking stunning even when she was tired.

Letting his fingers roam from her cheek to her ear, pushing the hair to the back of her neck and ear; Levi cut the distance between each other and kisses her. Slowly, shaking and almost afraid of being too aggressive even if he wasn’t. Her hand found Levi’s shirt and gripped it. He pressed his other hand on her cheek and hold her face steady for him to kiss her better. Licking on her lip slowly, he went back and devoured her lips once again, showing off his dominating side.

Hearing her small moan, he let go of her. Staring deeply into her eyes, the small faint blush on her cheeks made him smirk. He loved making her flustered.

Slowly, but surely, Levi pressed his nose against her nose and gave her a lovely Eskimo kiss.

“I love you, Captain.” She said first, leaving him speechless once again like always.

He stared at her up and down, watching her completely. She always had this effect on him. Not for nothing they were married. Even so, Levi couldn’t be so easily frank like her. He loved her, but saying it was so difficult for him. Yet, when seeing her eyes shine the same way it did when they kissed for the first time, Levi couldn’t let her be disappointed on himself. He loved this woman with all of his life.

The woman who saved his life.

“I love you, too, (Y/N).”

————————————

“I’M NOT LEAVING HIM BEHIND, JEAN!!!!” The small faint voices of a girl during a silent world, were being simply shouted against the noise.

“We have to leave. We need to help Armin and Mikasa. If you stay here, we’ll be loosing you too, Captain. Please, reason with me here. We already lost Connie and Reiner is seriously injured. We need you.” Jean tried his best to reason with the girl who fearlessly continued to cry and shout at the tall man.

“NO!!! I CAN’T LEAVE HIM!!” She cries out, her tears falling in Jean’s arms and onto the floor.

“I understand, Captain. But Captain Levi wouldn’t want you to stay here and do nothing. We must continue to fulfill his wish and save the world. Please...” He couldn’t hold her anymore. She kept screaming while trying to push Jean away so she could hold her lover’s body on her arms. “CAPTAIN, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!!”

He let go of her and she fell on her knees, scrapping them against the rocks and sand. Yet, it didn’t hurt. Her body was numb to the exterior damage. She just couldn’t react to any of that. All she could do was cry and cry and keep crying.

Her body crawled closed to her lover’s body and she grabbed his bloody hand.

When did that happened? How did it happened? Where was she? How did she let that happen?

She kept questioning herself over and over again into the smallest details. Levi’s death was upon her and she couldn’t help but blame herself.

Levi’s soulless body was laying on the ground, his left arm missing and his left leg. He was not coming back from this one and she knew it. After everything she promised. After everything she tried to do to keep him safe, she failed every and each of those promises.

“Wake up, Levi... Yo-You... you promised... You pro-promised we were going to live. You promised ME you were going to live. You promised, you promised, you promised... YOU PROMISED!!!” Her shouts could be heard all over the quiet ambient. Jean let some tears fall down as well, his head falling forward to not be seen weak.

She grabbed Levi’s body and got him close to her, pushing his face near her and sobbing. Tears falling down on Levi’s face, almost washing away the dirt and the blood. She just couldn’t believe that was happening. Levi was actually dead, his body resting on her arms.

“You promised... we were going to have kids... and live happy in a little house on the woods! We were going to raise our children the way they never raised us. Please... please... Levi, please, I love you. Don’t go... don’t leave me!”

The sound of her sobbing suddenly were muffled by extremely loud crashing sounds.

Jean looked over to where the sound came and his eyes became plates. He quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her forcefully, making her shriek and cry harder.

“Captain, Armin is in trouble. We need you. I know it hurts. I know you and Levi had dreams. But right now, if you don’t stand and get your shit together, everything that Captain Levi fought for will be for nothing! DEDICATE YOUR HEART!” Her red face and covered with tears, dust and blood suddenly came to a halt.

Levi wouldn’t wanted her to be like this and not in that moment. She gazed at Levi’s body on the floor one last time, got closed to it, kneeled down and after crying out her last tears, she gave him a farewell kiss.

She wiped her tears off and got up, her face drastically changing to pure anger.

“Let’s save humanity, Jean. DEDICATE YOUR HEART, SOLDIER!!”

The End

Thank you so much for reading.

Have a good day or night, darling. 🥰

#levi x reader #levi ackerman #levi x y/n #levi angst #levi attack on titan #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #levi romance #couple #blood and death #levi death #self insert #levi x reader fluff #levi x reader angst

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citydreamgrls · 4 years ago

Text

a simple favour - part two

fred weasley x fem!reader

summary: it was all in her best interests, fred never meant to catch feelings for her. it had started as a simple favour.

words: 4,785

warnings: swearing , tw: stalking / stalker , smut in later parts (18+)

find part three here

“You did WHAT!” Ron was the first to respond to Fred’s confession. The rest weren’t far behind. Harry burst into a fit of nervous giggles, unable to truly contemplate it all George just switched up his facial expressions from confused to shocked to horrified over and over again. Hermione’s reaction was similar to Ron’s, as she threw herself into a flurry of telling Fred how mental he was, and asking him questions without waiting for answers.

All the while I sat in disbelief, unsure if I’d heard him correctly. I held my head upright, just a blank expression stuck on my face as I watched the wall, hoping that something would come to mind.

“YOU’RE FUCKING MENTAL FRED!’

“HAS SHE NOT GONE THROUGH ENOUGH?”

“GOD SHE’S ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS, THIS IS DISGUSTING.”

“Poor girl, you should be ashamed Fred.”

“And to think I ever looked up to you.”Ron huffed, setting Hermione off again.

“IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF A SICK JOKE?” She screeched, stopping everyone in their spiralling tracks, even making me look over to see what the twin would say.

“It- it just slipped out okay, but wait-” He stopped his brother from ripping his head off, “I think it might have done something.”

“Does he believe you?” I asked into the following silence, making him look at me with more of an apology than he had ever spoken aloud. “I can’t say for sure.. But he was definitely bothered by it.”

“And what if this is all he needs to get back at her, just a reason to hurt y/n?” Hermione asked.

Fred’s face dropped and he sighed with genuine regret, if what he was saying was true then it could go either way. Mclaggen could either get bored of seeing me with someone else and move on, or he could come after fuelled with jealousy.

“I’m sorry,” He finally spoke, looking over to me and keeping his eyes on mine as he carried on,“I know it isn’t ideal, but it could at least mean he isn’t as interested.”

“There isn’t much else we can do, is there?” My best friend replied, tying her hair up and sitting down in defeat.

“I suppose we better make him believe then.” I nodded, the words feeling heavy and wrong as they came from my throat. Nothing felt right about this, I felt bad for Fred having to lie for me and act as if he loved me just because some guy was being a creep.

Fred smiled weakly, he must have sensed my nerves. Or maybe I just wasn’t as good at hiding what I felt as I’d always presumed I was. Either way, he knew something about where my head was at. He was also right. This situation wasn’t ideal, but equally it was the only idea any of us had come up with that seemed to actually work in some way. Fred wasn’t malicious, he would only ever do this to help.

Now we just needed to pull it off properly.

None of us talked over it for long, no one really wanted to go into much detail of how soppy Fred and I needed to act around one another. No one less than Ron, who had a permanent scowl aimed at his brother as we discussed the plan. It all came down to what people outside of mine and Hermione’s room thought. It wasn’t just Cormac who we would be lying to, but everyone else in the school. If just one person caught wind that this was a set up, then it would be a wasted effort and I’d be stuck with a stalker for the rest of my time at Hogwarts.

“What about Ginny?” Harry asked, “Do we tell her?”

“She needs to believe it like everyone else,” Fred said. “If she thinks we’re together, then she’ll tell mum and dad straight away. Saves them hearing from anyone else, that would be more suspicious.”

“We can still tell her the truth,” Ron was still angry, finding every reason to disagree with people. “Even if she knows she can tell mum and dad.”

“She’s still young Ron, we can’t trust that she won’t let slip.” He argued back.

“She’s family you git, it isn’t fair to lie to her too!”

“Fred’s right.” Hermione put a hand on Ron’s, all of us nodding in agreement. “All of this stays between us, that’s all. We can trust one another, and that’s it. No one else.”

Ron reluctantly gave in, not quite agreeing, but nevertheless refraining from arguing the point any further. It all seemed quite futile to him, and something deep down made him wonder what his brother was up to. George coaxed everyone out, leaving Hermione and I to talk things over once again.

“One of us can watch the tower from the common room, that way he can’t get to you.” He explained once the boys were going down the stairs. I thanked him as he smiled and left, always the one to keep smiling despite the circumstances.

My best friend hugged me once again, refusing to let go as we tried to chat about anything other than Fred, which lasted about 2 minutes.

“What was he thinking?” She scoffed and I shrugged.

“It’s our only chance Mione,”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“Then I’ll kill him.” My face was blank, probably pale and sickly. I felt sickly so it seemed right that I look the part.

“Who? Fred or Mclaggen?”

“Both,” I laughed, the tiniest glimmer of happiness stabbing its way through the dark. My friend’s wrapped round me more, unwilling to let go until she absolutely had to, her hands squeezed my sides comfortably. “Thank you, for stopping Mclaggen last night… and for looking after me so much.”

“I know you would do the same,” She smiled, stroking my hair with one hand.

“Were you scared too?” I asked, breathing deeply as I tried to repress that feeling I’d had seeing him standing in the middle of the room only a few steps away from my bed.

“A little bit,”

“You’re braver than me… what do you think he would hav-”

“Don’t think about it y/n, it’s over. Just focus on you and Fred.”

I sat up, her arms slipping away as I did so. She mimicked me, crossing her legs as I did mine and watched my mind whir as I thought about Fred over and over.

“There must have been other things he could’ve said.” I sighed, Hermione nodding.

“Probably..”

“Hell, he could’ve beaten him to the ground.” “So why didn’t he?” The girl asked, no answer coming to my mind but plenty inside hers. “I just think there’s a reason he lied to Mclaggen.”

“He said it slipped out,”

“Oh I believe that, but it’s what that means that’s confusing me.” She admitted, I frowned at her, not quite following.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” She sat up onto her knees, looking me right in the eyes to make sure I understood what she was thinking. “For Fred, the guy who couldn't care less about girls, to suddenly pretend he has a girlfriend seems strange. But when he said it just slipped out to Cormac, I think he was thinking of you more than himself.”

She was right about Fred not being bothered with girls, he’d seen George mess around with enough of them that the aspect of a relationship probably seemed useless to him.

“Yeah I understand that, he was confronting him about me.”

“But… he could’ve said anything else. Why did Fred, think about you and his head immediately go to girlfriend?” She leant back now, satisfied with her theory. I hummed.

“Maybe you’re over-analysing it a bit?” Hermione did tend to after all.

“I have a gut feeling about this one.”

Harry came to check on me halfway through the day, telling us that Ron had been sulking all day despite Fred's attempts to apologise. Hermione went to spend some time in the library as I continued to hide away in our dorm, refusing to come out until dinner. Tomorrow would be a different day, I’d have classes all over again but luckily none with Mclaggen because he was in the year above. However, it meant I’d be matched with people asking questions, whether they knew about the night’s events or not. I now had a fake relationship to speak for, not to mention I needed to be somewhat happy about it too in order for things to go smoothly.

“Hi.” Fred said quietly, making Harry look up from his magazine. He got the idea and left us to it, shutting the door behind him.

“I’ll see you at dinner y/n.” He smiled sweetly, each step echoing down the stairs. The twin shuffled over to sit on Hermione’s bed to face me.

“How are you feeling?” He asked me, avoiding my empty eyes.

“Fine,” I smiled weakly, doing my best to lie. I didn’t want him to think I was nervous.

“I cannot apologise enough,” He started, hands moving slightly as if he wanted to reach out for mine. But they went back to his lap, fingers tightly crossed over one another, I watched him clench them until his knuckles went white.

I felt like a toddler that needed watching all the time, like he wasn’t sure what to do with me or how to talk.

“Fred don’t, just- it’s fine.” I stood up and walked across the room, desperately trying to find something to busy myself with. I folded some clean clothes, his eyes on my shaky form.

“You’re nervous?” He tried again, his voice scratching the air. I nodded, not daring to turn around and face him. I felt pathetic alone in his presence, vulnerable to his gaze as I clutched a jumper Ron had given me one Christmas between my fingers.

My thoughts were scrambled but they refused to come out to Fred. So we were alone in the silence.

“Everyone’s angry, aren’t they?” I said, at first to himself, but when I peered over he was waiting for me to tell him otherwise.

“I am grateful Fred,I know you were just looking out for me.” He smiled, having been given the reassurance he’d wanted.

“We all are.”

I swallowed once, feeling the spit slide down my throat with a disgusting taste. He meant that as a humbling comment, to show that everyone else cared as much as he did, but why was I disappointed. Had I really been holding out hope that he wanted this?

“Do you need any time before we go?” I nodded, suddenly realising how much of a state I must have been in from the night before.

“I should probably shower,” The words came out meekly, like I was too scared to speak any louder.

“Okay, you can use our bathroom.”

Hermione and I didn’t have a bathroom big enough for a shower in our dorm, subjected to walking halfway across the castle each morning before breakfast. Yet Fred and George had been lucky enough to bag a room with a bigger bathroom, giving them an annoyingly better deal than us.

He checked that the common room was empty before letting me walk through it to get to his dorm. I had never been inside, the twins rarely using their room for anything besides sleeping and washing. They did share it with another boy, Lee Jordan, but as Fred explained he was never really around either.

I showered quickly, enough time to enjoy the privacy of the warm water as I shivered beneath it. Fred was waiting outside, that I could tell from his light footsteps as he paced the room.

“Ready?” The boy stopped walking when I came out, fresh clothes on and my others in a small bundle in my arms. “I’ll put those in with my laundry if you want?” I smiled and dumped it in his little washing basket, taking a deep breath.

He gave me a sudden hug, making me jump slightly. Fred wasn’t one for complex emotions, generally sticking to the safety net that was happiness and anger. I certainly hadn’t seen him hug a single person before without being coerced. Maybe he saw me as such a basket case, that he didn't even know how to react.

“I’m fine Fred.” I laughed awkwardly, patting his back and letting him pull away. For a second I thought he hadn’t heard me, because he didn’t move away, but then he coughed himself back to normal and turned to leave. Me following behind, more confused than ever.

The noise of voices in the great hall boomed louder than ever before, even from down the hall. Fred had started holding my hand the second we’d left the common room, chatting casually to me as we walked through the castle, people giving us looks as we passed them. I too wouldn’t have understood his change in demeanor, he had never been overly affectionate to anyone. Yet here he was, acting as if I was the only person in this whole school. We didn’t stop to discuss anything, or reassure one another, before walking into the hall. I feared that if we had done so, then that slight slither of courage I had would’ve melted away quicker than wax.

Fred’s smile was so natural as I peered up to him, already looking over at George on the Gryffindor table. They were all at our usual spot, watching expectantly as I did my best to ignore the many turned heads and hushed murmurs of surprise. My eyes were fixated on Hermione, who seemed to express a great deal of pride. I hadn’t even noticed that we’d passed Mclaggen’s end of the table, Fred’s body blocking that side so I never even saw him.

When we sat down, I shuddered at the feeling of Fred’s arm around me, which I hope he hadn’t noticed. It was strange, having someone’s hands on me at all times, even worse when it was Fred's. I’d seen the boy fidget before, it was a normal occurrence, but to be the one on the receiving end of his restless fingers playing in my hand was weird.

It was as if he wasn’t necessarily paying attention to me, but yet he was letting me know I was still on his mind. All without a single word spoken. It was nice just to see a different side to the boy, but I needed to remember that all of this wasn’t real. None of these feelings were true to Fred.

Ron ate his food in silence, refraining from looking over at either me or his brother. I ate slowly, mostly speaking to Hermione and Harry and avoiding eye contact with anyone else in the hall, especially him. George and Fred were keeping themselves entertained, which made things much easier for me as I realised that I had no clue how to chat normally with Fred. A fact that became evident as we walked hand in hand through the halls.

Some people congratulated Fred as he took me to potions class, most just whispered about us as if they were invisible. I stayed quiet, the attention mostly on him thank god.

“You didn’t have to bring me,” I smiled as we stopped outside the classroom door “I’m sure people would still believe you.” I whispered.

“Y/n.” He frowned, like I was a naughty child.

“Sorry.” I became very aware of him flipping out. Not even one whole day, and he was already seemingly sick of pretending. The boy looked around, eyeing up a group of Ravenclaw’s hanging out at the other end of the hallway and sighed, turning back to me.

“I didn’t mean it like that, sorry.” He took my hand again, confusing me with a gentle smile.

It became apparent that Fred was a great liar, both to me and everyone else. He said goodbye, and I did my best to produce a fake smile, not that he would be able to tell the difference.

Fred watched her leave, noticing how uncomfortable her smile had been and wanting to punch himself in the face. Why was he acting like such an idiot around her? She was so easy to be happy around, but he repressed it, not enjoying the vulnerability she instilled in him.

He couldn’t deny himself the joy that came with the smiles, or when she held his hand so small inside his own. But he couldn’t let her know that, not ever. Because, when she looked up at him, those eyes so big and innocent, he wanted nothing more than to keep her safe from all the world’s evil. That was what made him weak to her.

She wasn’t ‘his’ in any sense of the word, not a possession like Cormac had described, but god why did he like showing her off to all the boys in her year. The same dirty guys that had confessed the things they wanted to do to her in the dark during a game of truth or dare. Thinking back on it made him mad, physically furious, he wanted to go back and kick them all in the mouths for ever defiling her that way.

It was wrong. Fred felt as though he was benefiting from something y/n had been so traumatised over, like he was her protector from Mclaggen and now she owed him the satisfaction of acting as his girlfriend. He had the nerve to revel in every fucking second of it too.

Fred felt as bad as her stalker. He felt as vulnerable to her as Cormac was, begging for her over and over until it drove him mad. He saw how easily love had turned his father obedient to his mother, and he’d watched Ron stumble over words whenever Hermione looked him straight in the eyes. Fred wasn’t like them, he didn’t need a relationship to belittle him as he’d watched it do to others. He needed to control himself, but it was so hard when he held her and felt what it was like to be under that trance.

She was most likely only being polite with him because he was just that little bit better than someone who broke into her dorm to do god knows what. He wished that she hated him, that she would scream and yell and tell him what a dick he was for making her do this. At least in that case, it would be easier to forget all that he wanted from her. It made him angry that she was so encaptivating, so furious that he felt the need to push her away.

That rage had gotten everyone into this mess to begin with, that anger had made him notice those desperate feelings for y/n that shouldn’t exist. Fred vowed to himself in that moment, he would do everything in his power to rid any attraction to the girl he merely owed a favour to.

Days went by, Fred and I agreeing that kissing one another on the cheek was far enough for people to still believe while not making things awkward between us. The boy, however, was becoming increasingly distant over the next few days. He seemed so calm and collected when we were around others, but the second we were alone he shut down.

His hands would drop mine as if I was the plague, no words exchanged. It hurt, knowing that it truly was all an act, contrary to Hermione’s theory. But nothing else had been hinted at from the start, he himself told all of us how much of a mistake it was. Now I had no choice but to believe him when he said that.

Each time he went silent, or grunted to me instead of talking, I was reminded of how many times he apologised. How quickly he regretted his actions, the second he’d told all of us that morning in my dorm. He never did it for me, I was just naive enough to think differently. Maybe it hurt because he was so convincing, he held me proudly and smiled as if I was the only person in the room. But I too was just someone else being fooled by a very good actor.

The only upside to it all was that Mcglaggen seemed to back off a bit, keeping the creepiness down to just stares across the great hall. It put me at ease again, knowing that I wouldn’t have to worry about walking into a room of flowers and gifts from someone I despised. At this point, he had to be yet another believer of mine and Fred’s fake relationship, thank god.

“I think he hates me,” I said into the darkness one night, unable to sleep and hoping my best friend would be the same.

“Who does?” She grumbled, drowsiness in her voice but not in her body.

“Fred.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You must’ve seen it too, he just ignores everything I say. Like he can’t even stand to be around me.” I huffed.

“Maybe he feels bad for you, he kind of forced it upon you.”

“It doesn't feel like pity… more like disgust.”

Hermione fell silent, searching her mind for a good response.

“Maybe there’s something else on his mind?” She explained.

“Maybe,” I rolled over and looked at the room from my bed, sighing and closing my eyes in another futile attempt to sleep.

I soon realised it was so incredibly stupid of me to ever think that Cormac would have backed off when I snuck off to the black lake one evening to have some time to myself. All I’d done for weeks on end was in the company of others, and it had started to suffocate me slightly. Hermione hadn’t mentioned our conversation about Fred, and his attitudes had only worsened over time, so I just decided to keep it all to myself. I’d snuck off while everyone was busy and walked to the water’s edge, watching the sunset.

It was peaceful, and refreshing to be alone. Finally, I could enjoy my own thoughts without someone interrupting them or the need to fill the silence between Fred and I. He had barely spoken to me all day, only putting on a smile at breakfast before going off to quidditch. Then he disappeared, not even turning up to dinner later on, which seemed to make some people talk as I prodded the food around my plate.

My mood’s were at an all time low, Fred’s constant rejection only pushing them deeper. I’d never needed his approval before, so why was I longing for it now? I hated that I wanted him to come and tell me he was sorry for being off with me. In reality, he probably enjoyed the one day without me around to bother him.

“All alone y/n?” His voice made me want to cry, the once bubbling anger had been conditioned into fear every time I heard him speak. I turned around, ready to leap up and run at any moment. Cormac stood smugly, arms crossed, as if he had finally gotten what he wanted. He had. Now I was all on my own, as he’d asked me already, and he could do whatever he’d wanted to since he’d laid eyes on me.

“What do you want?” I forced the words out shakily, only making him smile more.

He stepped forward and I scrambled to my feet clumsily, stepping back as he came closer.

“I want you to myself y/n, you’re wasting your time with Weasley.” I cringed at his words, if only he knew. I moved around him, trying to leave. But he would never give up that easy, he followed me up the hill with ease.

“Stop it.” I begged.

“We’re meant to be together y/n,” He smiled, reaching for my hand but I just sped up. Making him jog after me. He wasn’t quite chasing me, neither of us moving fast enough for that, but it felt like a wolf closing in on me. “You can’t deny your feelings, can you?”

I stopped, for a split second pondering over the idea that he was talking about Fred. Then he smirked, that ugly god awful, gut-wrenching smile and I remembered that when Cormac spoke it was only ever in his own interest. So I kept walking, finally reaching the bridge to the courtyard.

“I’d love you so much more than he could y/n,” I didn’t dare respond, the tears pricking at my eyes. “He barely pays attention to you, I see it, there’s no spark with you two.” I hated that he was so right.

His words were impossible to ignore, even as we got into the castle with noises everywhere, Cormac’s rang out above them all. “Does Weasley ever touch you?” He asked me, that sick feeling increasing by the second.

Just the stairs to go, then I’d be inside the common room. Someone had to be there, and if not then Hermione was bound to be in the dorm. I prayed I wouldn’t be alone, I had no chance against Mclaggen if I needed to defend myself. I was fearing for the worst, his words unrelenting as he demanded to know intimate details.

“I want to be all over your body,” He whispered as I spoke the password, the painting swinging open. I’d never run inside so quickly, just to whip round to the boy following me closely. He seemed caught off guard, stumbling a little in his step.

“You’re a sick fucker, what will it take for you to understand that no one is ever gonna love you if you threaten them!” I screamed in his face, not giving him a chance to respond.

“I’m not something you can play about with, I’m a fucking person. Do everyone a favour Cormac and leave!”

I hadn’t spotted the three boys peering over at us, getting up in defense the second they saw who had followed me. Ron, Fred and George waited until I was done before coming to my side.

“There he is, your precious boyfriend.” I rolled my eyes at him and turned away again, not in any mood to deal with any of them.

“Leave her alone Mclaggen, she’s had enough of your shit.” Fred pushed the boy to the ground, towering over him with a foot pressed to his neck. He nodded, wanting to be let free and got up to rush off. I scoffed, but not at the pervert.

“I bet you’re so proud of yourself aren’t you,” I huffed, making Fred frown. He’d yet to see me mad, but it had been growing over time.

“What’s wrong?” His tone was dull, as if he couldn’t be bothered.

“You, you’re so full of yourself” I scoffed again.

Ron and George sloped off, deciding this was between the two of us alone.

“What did he say to you?” Fred tried to change the subject with a sudden gentle tone.

“Jesus why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

My face was blank with annoyance. He was so thick sometimes. He must know what he was doing, no one was that ignorant.

“You spend all day acting as if you hate me, out of nowhere, and then you do this. Play all protective and caring as if it’s normal. None of this IS NORMAL!” I was getting closer to him, trying my best to get him to understand from nearly half a foot shorter.

“I’m doing what we agreed, what’s the problem.”

“Do you hate me? Is that what it is, because tell me now and we can end this.” I laughed, wanting nothing more than to be far away from him.

“Y/n you’re mad over nothing.” He lied.

“I actually thought you could be half decent... but jokes on me eh?” I ranted, getting more and more furious by the second. I could see he was hurt, but my words were still riling him up and pissing him off. Fred took a deep breath to compose himself.

“It’s complicated y/n,” He tried his best to explain calmly, but I was too far gone.

“I get that I’m just charity work to you Fred.”

I went back out of the common room, passing Ron and George leant against a painting on my way down. They called after me, confused, as I raced down the stairs, but I didn’t dare stop. I needed to be away from them all, somewhere safe where I could hide from it all for a little while.

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darkorderaf · 3 years ago

Note

your writing has inspired me to want to start writing again! but work is a pain right now SO I shall roll up with another Evil Uno request. maybe a lil spooky take on the ‘someone almost dying and it finally clicks for them?’ supernatural shenanigans almost going wrong? always down for smut but ur instincts are impeccable so whether you feel like going there is obvs up to you!

OOOOH WHAT AN IDEA. I’m obsessed. I sort of took this one and ran with it, it might be a little weird and experimental lol, so I hope you like it. When I tell you that this one had me busting open my symphonic metal playlists...I’m also so honored and humbled that my writing has inspired you, sincerely. Me, along with everyone else, would LOVE to read your writing. And that goes for everyone who’s thinking about writing. Do the thing! <3

Pairing: Evil Uno x OFC. Prompts: Your lover almost dies and that’s when it clicks for you. Rating: M. Warnings/Content: Angst and smut. A little blood and spooky stuff. Word Count: 2,683.

(I don’t own gif; credit to allelitewrestlings!)

The first hour they met, it was within a shroud of smoke upon a floor speckled with crimson. The thick smell of brimstone burned the sensitive skin of the human’s nostrils. Eight figures watched as the form in the center of their summoning circle slowly unfurled. Her eyes flicked between the bodies. Her body felt tired, as though she had been strung along an endless journey. Her naked thighs trembled as she made to stand.

“Holy shit, it worked.”

Her eyes darted to the side and the man she looked at froze. He was short, stocky. Apparently named Silver from what she could make out from the man beside him. The pair eyed her warily. Her head throbbed and she held her hand up against the harsh light of the moon overhead. The air here felt so heavy. Footsteps shuffled behind her and she turned again. The sudden movement was too much for her weak legs and she nearly collapsed.

Strong arms caught her before she could. She tried to make sense of the masked face that hovered over hers. It looked garish, skeletal, but the eyes...His eyes were dark and warm. Full of that human concern she was familiar with. He pulled a sheet around her and took a few steps away. She gathered herself in the blanket and took a deep breath.

“Why am I here?”

The man crouched down in front of her.

“We need your help,” he said. His voice was soft and low. Gentle. Funny considering what was required to summon someone like her. “We’re...attempting something but it’s in a language we don’t understand. It’s not a human one.”

She snorted in amusement.

“So you summoned something inhuman to help you,” she said as she eyed the eight again. “And they say humans lack ingenuity.”

She made to stand and when she stumbled, he was there to help her again. Her attempt to growl at him was weak and she settled for a glare.

“What do you want from me?”

“Your wisdom, that’s why we called you here,” he answered. She didn’t doubt him. This was not a man that would lie. “Teach us what to do, that’s all we ask.”

She grinned, her eyes heavy with exhaustion. Her head lolled back against his arm as she looked up at him.

“Oh, is that what you think I am? A creature of wisdom?”

Her hand loosely curled around the collar of his vest and pulled him close. Just before she nodded off, she hissed.

“Bless your soul.”

---

She was reluctant to teach them, let alone speak, those first few days. They had forcefully summoned her there, she didn’t owe them anything and said as much. She wandered the halls of their Keep. It felt familiar to her but she couldn’t place it. Each night, the strange masked man sat with her and asked her questions. Even if she didn’t answer, he was patient with her. She never wanted for anything. Food with sunup and sundown, clean water to bathe in. Evil Uno, as she came to learn he was called, was well-versed in the history of the world she came from and all its layers. It was oddly endearing.

He asked her her opinion on things. Asked her questions she hadn’t been asked in so long. She hadn’t realized how desperate she was for conversation until he sat beside her and addressed her like an equal, not someone they simply summoned for their gain. Slowly, her answers lengthened from two words to ten to whole monologues. It was after an impassioned rant on the nine layers that she saw him smile. She smiled too.

“I like you,” she said. Evil Uno and Anna Jay were barely through the door to her room when she was on her feet. It broke the silence of the seventh day and the two members of the Dark Order glanced between each other. “Tell me what you want me to teach you and I will consider it.”

“Really?”

It was Anna that spoke and the demon nodded as she brushed past them.

“Yes. Where is your library?”

Uno was quick to fall in step beside her.

“My tongue is a difficult one to teach,” she said as she assessed him through a sideways glance. A smirk formed. “Don’t worry if you get frustrated, it’s only natural. Are you prepared?”

His eyes locked with hers and she couldn’t help the way her smirk grew. Her eyes fell to the way his smirk reflected hers. It was true. She did like this mortal man and the way he looked at her. Not with heat like most mortals but with understanding. Respect.

“I’ll have a good teacher.”

---

She went silent once he told her what exactly he wanted to do. Damn him. Damn him for drawing her in near and springing this upon her. Damn her for caring about it.

“No,” she said. She shook her head and slammed the ancient book closed. The chair scraped loudly against the stone as she stood. “I won’t teach you this.”

She made to move away and then his hands were on her shoulders, his grip a shaky thing that worried her. The demon eyed him warily.

“Please,” he begged. “Please. This is something that I need to do.”

Her eyes burned when she looked at him, his eyes so fierce yet so full of unknown sadness. What was it?

“Tell me,” she said. Her voice lost that indignant nature, tempered to something soft and almost human. “Tell me why you would want to do something so humanly reckless.”

For a brief moment, his thumbs traced the lines of her shoulders. His hands fell to his sides and he sat down heavily in the library chair. The man leaned forward and rested his face in his hands.

“I’ve…” He paused. Sat back up and straightened himself out. “Every day passes and I see the way they look at me. I remember the way they used to. I’m their leader and I’ve failed them. If I do this…” He touched the book on the table and looked at her. “If I do this, I can be the leader they deserve. I can be someone they’re proud of and we won’t ever be lost again.”

“You do not need that to be a leader,” she spat. When did human affairs get her so incensed? “You can do that of your own volition.”

“I wish that were true,” he said. “I wish that were how it was but it isn't. Please, help me do this.”

“It will kill you,” she finally said. “Or if, if it doesn’t, you will pray that it had.”

His eyes didn’t stray from hers. Damn his conviction. Damn this mortal man.

“I will teach you the words,” she said, devoid of emotion as she willed herself to set it aside. “Then the rest is up to you. I will wash my hands of this.”

“I understand,” he said. He reached out to her again and this time, his hand cradled her firewarm cheek and she allowed it. “Thank you. I mean it. Thank you.”

At that, she shook her head and moved away from his touch. She would not allow herself to grow to like it. Not when the future was being erased with every minute and her black heart couldn’t bear it.

---

Uno was a quick study and she would have been impressed if it didn’t infuriate her. She had hoped to prolong the inevitable, hoped to prolong this foolish endeavor. Even as she broke the spell into smaller and smaller parts, he picked it up quickly. Within two weeks, he was ready.

The smell of incense burned through the halls of The Keep and stirred her out of her sleep. It was the incense that she had told him he needed. They had stayed up late studying and when he had dozed off at the table in her room, she took him to her bed. She had meant to keep vigil but she too needed rest. He must have known. Clever Uno.

The smell led her to the same room that the Dark Order had summoned her into. Before she opened the door, her nose was thick with the smell of blood. He was close to completing it. She threw her body against the door three times before it finally broke apart. Inside, a great chasm consumed the center of the room. Inhuman arms tried to crawl out, tried to snatch at Uno to draw him inside.

“S-Stay back,” Uno gasped out, the man on his knees and the purple of his clothes dark with blood. Five and Ten had almost broken the lines. “I can do it. I can do this.”

Anna looked at her with tear-filled eyes and she did her best to rid her eyes of her own. With long strides, she crossed the room and threw herself to the ground between Uno and the chasm. The creature inside paused, as though it sensed one of its own. She hoped, a strange thing, that it would be enough. Uno’s heartbeat was weak behind her. The panic in her chest made her speak faster, the old and buried language alive and loud in the room. She continued to chant, to strain every muscle in her body to keep it back. To keep it away from him.

Her ears bled with the intensity of the creature’s screams and it’s claws reached out at her, scratching her arms. She didn’t flinch. The creature’s arms began to shorten, the chasm began to close. With one last infuriated shout, the chasm slammed shut and severed the creature’s arm.

With a great sob, it vanished.

The room went deathly quiet, save for her heavy breathing and the constricted sobs of the Dark Order around her. The thud behind her whipped her around and she was on her knees, Uno’s masked face cradled in her hands.

“If you die on me, mortal man, I will haunt you,” she said, voice choked with emotion. She muttered the old language under her breath as she held his face. “I will never leave you alone, do you understand? I will find you, do you understand? I will find you.”

---

Uno finally stirred two days later and she was by his side, her intense eyes on him. He thought he would be endlessly tired but he felt...awake. More awake than he had been. Just as he was about to ask,

“What did I tell you?”

“That it would kill me,” he said. “But it didn’t, did it?”

She looked at him, her jaw momentarily dropped. Then she began to laugh, a hand over her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes and he reached for her.

“It did not,” she conceded. “You’re welcome.”

“What did you do?”

“Stopped you.”

“No, that’s not...All you did, is it? I feel fine. I shouldn’t feel fine, should I?”

She had looked ethereal before, an otherworldly glow to her skin. Her eyes. It was still there but not as vibrant.

“You did something stupid,” she said. She climbed up onto the bed and sat beside his legs. “It only felt right that I should match you in stupidity. I’m never doing it again, it’s terribly human.”

His dark eyes fell on her and roved over her with suspicion. He reached out to her and she took his hand. Slowly, he led her to straddle his lap as he sat up. Her hand stroked his masked cheek.

“You never asked what I was,” she murmured. “Why?”

“It didn’t matter,” he said with a shake of his head. “I trusted you. I do trust you.”

“Bold of you,” she hummed. Her nails trailed along the pulse in his neck. “Trusting a demon.”

“You saved my life,” he said, full of that earnest nature that she adored so much. “I’ll trust you as long as I live.”

“Ask me,” she breathed. She leaned into him, cupped his face in her hands. “Ask me what I am.”

His hands went to her waist and she could feel him swallow.

“What are you?”

“A demon,” she said, an amused lilt to her voice. His hands squeezed her and she smiled at him. Her hands trailed down his chest and slowly undid the zipper of his soft vest. “Yours. So often, when humans speak of love, they speak of the love of angels as though it’s so pure. As if it’s the only love. It’s foolish.”

She tutted and caressed his face again. His hands trailed under the loose shirt she wore and caressed her heated skin.

“I burn for you,” she said. Her confident tone wavered as she looked at him. “And I do not want to be without you, my unexpected love. I think I would go cold. Can I show you? Can I be with you?”

Uno nodded and rose with her as she captured his mouth with her own. She ripped the sheets from him and made quick work of his clothing. The frantic energy they created stripped them to stand on equal grounds. Her mouth laved kisses along the flesh of his chest and when she took him into her mouth, his hips nearly shot off the bed.

Her hands held him down as her tongue traced the throbbing vein that ran the entirety of his length. She didn’t mind the way his hands pulled and pushed at her hair, her head. His choked moans coaxed a grin out of her and when he came with a ragged shout down her throat, she swallowed him whole. She trailed back up to kiss his neck, gently biting the meat of his shoulder. His hand slid down her torso and settled in the junction of her slick thighs. He surprised her by flipping them and settling her back against the bed. The lights went dark and she gasped when she felt his tongue trace up her wet slit, curl around her sensitive bud.

Perhaps her tongue had not been that difficult to learn.

Uno had her toes curling and her lungs heaving by the time she came. He certainly was a quick study. His mouth found hers and she was surprised to feel that he had foregone his mask. His hands kneaded her breasts and she felt him hard once more against her. Her thighs wrapped around his hips and he grunted as he teased her with the head of his cock.

“Lover, please,” she begged. Hells, how she wanted him. It was torture and paradise to burn so heavily with lust. “I want you, I want you.”

His initial thrust into her was slow and then his impatience got the better of him. Old, wicked words flowed from her mouth into his ear and urged him on. He repaid her in kind, French heavy on his tongue as he bucked into her. Squeezed her flesh and marked her skin with his lips, with his teeth. He panted into her pulse and she felt the way his hips stuttered, the way he pulsed inside her. He hefted her hips up higher and ground down deeper into her. The sudden sensation against her clit had her arms tightening around him, her thighs locking around him. Her nails raked down his sweaty back and gripped the muscle of his ass.

They came together with an unholy shout, their mouths locked together as their hips waxed and waned against one another before gradually coming to rest. The room remained dark as she gathered him against her chest and he slid out of her. He rested his forehead between her breasts and breathed hard.

“I…” She suddenly said, her nerves gathered in her throat. “I would like to stay with you. I don’t want to go back.”

He answered her with a kiss and lingered there.

“Then stay,” Uno said. “Be a part of us or just be a part of me, it’s your choice. I want you here, however you want to be.”

She smiled at that.

“Of course, lover.”

#evil uno imagine #evil uno fic #evil uno fanfiction #evil uno smut #aew imagine #aew fic #aew fanfiction #aew smut #dark order imagine

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curiosityunsated · 3 years ago

Text

In Pursuit of the Scholarly

Triggers: Racism against elves. If there’s anything else you feel should be mentioned, please let me know. No violence included.

Not beta read, cross posted on AO3. Also, I have no idea of the Sindarin here is accurate- I used a translator I found on Google. Don’t @ me.

——

Prince Kíli, second in line for the throne of Erebor, was incandescently angry.

The Council sat and watched, though most did not really listen, as the Prince railed at them and yelled counter arguments and indignity. Most of the council, save for a very select few outside of the presence of the royal family, were not swayed by the show of temper. Some, in fact, looked rather smug (though those were typically not well liked in the Lonely Mountain).

The King, the King’s Consort, the Princess Royal, Prince Fíli, and Her Ladyship Tauriel sat in tense silence as their kinsman slowly ran out of steam. Tirade ended, he stared at the Council and waited.

Kern, who had held his seat on the Council even prior to the Desolation, was barely able to swallow his smirk before he responded.

“Be that as it may, Your Highness, Khuzdul is our sacred language, and it must be... protected. It is... understandable,” it looked as though the word hurt to say, “that you would wish to share it with your wife. But I’m afraid that we cannot agree with your insistence to allow Princess Thiliriel to take Khuzdul lessons.”

The young father bristled, and for a brief moment the Council braced for another round of ire. But it wasn’t the Prince Kíli who spoke, but Prince Fíli.

“Surely you see how difficult it would be to keep Thiliriel from learning Khuzdul completely, my Lords, as she lives in a Dwarven city. Some would say restricting her education in this way was born of ill will directed at the race of her forebears.” He pointed out, politely. Kern’s eyes narrowed.

“We can’t control the opinions of the uninformed, your highness,” he allowed, “and it is understood that there has been, and will be, some unfortunate transference. But perhaps this may be managed if the Royal Family would consider limiting their use of Khuzdul while in the company of the young Princess?” His polite tone matched Fíli’s syllable for syllable.

The Royal Family, save Lady Tauriel, stiffened as one. Prince Fíli’s eyes glinted at the response.

“We are approaching the Noonday bell. Perhaps this is a matter best settled another time.” Balin tried to intervene, and another dwarf would have accepted it for the diffusion that it was. The majority of the Council was prepared to do so, had Kern not spoken.

“I believe we’ve made our decision clear, Lord Balin, but thank you for the reminder. A pleasant day, my Lords.”

And an infuriated Prince Kíli was storming out of the chamber after Kern’s final words, gently tugging Lady Tauriel with him, even before the King had officially ended the meeting.

——

It started with Prince Fíli. This, perhaps, should not have surprised the Council as it had.

The Prince had been spotted, overheard really, in a training ring with the young Princess. That itself wasn’t unusual; the heir had made it routine to ‘train’ with his niece a few times a week, and nearly all the dwarrow who frequented the upper training halls had seen the two playing rambunctiously under guise of hand to hand combat. If this time usually came just before the Princess’ bedtime, well, no one could say Prince Fíli wasn’t efficient.

As far as the Council could gather, the incident happened just before the Royals had left for the evening. The Prince had been crouched on the ground, beckoning the little one forward and playfully taunting her. She had responded in kind, rushing at her uncle and jumping at him with a battle cry that, according to multiple reports, was very cute. He had taken her momentum and propelled himself backwards, landing flat on his back. And then, he had exclaimed:

“Cin got nin! Im’m dad!”

Apparently no one had clearly heard what the little one had said, but the Prince had smiled and kissed her forehead, replying:

“Cin did eithel, lend emel.”

Of course the Prince knew multiple dialects of elvish- the entire royal family did- but only so that they could interact with Elvish representatives without fear of coercion! It was unheard of for it to be spoken so- so- familiarly within an everyday setting! Especially in a Dwarven stronghold such as Erebor! Even Lady Tauriel chose to speak mostly Westron in the presence of the mountain’s public eye. It had left the Council feeling slightly wrong-footed, but perhaps it had been a one-time occurrence. A bit of practice, perhaps, so the Prince wouldn’t get rusty.

It was not a one-time occurrence. Only days later, King Consort Baggins was overheard in the library casually reading aloud to Princess Thiliriel in Sindarin... though the book itself was Westron! The Head Librarian hadn’t even asked him to lower his voice- though as the Head Librarian was the young Ori, son of Lori, that wasn’t surprising in the least. The former Company of Thorin Oakenshield was very close, even now.

Lord Ori had even pointed out a few words and asked for the translation in his own book, an act which garnered stares of its own.

The next day, Prince Kíli and Lady Tauriel gathered stares of their own as they strolled through the market, Princess Thiliriel between them, speaking exclusively in Sindarin! In the middle of the Marketplace! At one point, one scout reported, the Prince had swung his daughter around in his arms, exclaiming something in the lyrical language he hadn’t understood. It must have been humorous, though, because both Mother and Daughter had burst into giggles.

But the final straw, really, had happened in the Council’s very chambers during a meeting. Princess Dís, during a moment between agenda topics, had turned to her brother and quite clearly addressed him in Sindarin. And the King, with no hesitation, replied in Sindarin.

The entire room went silent, and many stared. Only Prince Fíli and Lord Balin continued perusing the paperwork for the next order of business as though nothing was amiss.

“Is everything alright, My Lords?” The King asked dryly, noticing the attention.

“It is just... well, you see...” Lord Tírn stumbled as the King turned his attention to him, and Kern interrupted.

“It isn’t like you to speak Elvish when there aren’t any Elves around, Your Majesty.” He interjected, and Thorin raised an eyebrow coldly.

“And you would know me well enough to make such an observation?” The Council watched as Kern blanched and then flushed.

“We’ve been hearing quite a lot of Elvish around the Mountain these days, Your Majesty.” He didn’t answer The King’s pointed question.

“Sindarin, Lord Kern. Not ‘Elvish’. There are multiple dialects. And since my granddaughter has been forbidden from learning her Father’s sacred tongue, we have decided to use her Mother’s instead.” Princess Dís replied, and if Thorin was cold then his sister’s tone was frozen solid. The Council felt a rush of fear run down their spines.

“Yes. In fact, I’ve been considering asking Prince Legolas to visit soon- Lady Tauriel is both a working ‘dam and a mother, and I don’t want to take more of her time but there are a few grammar questions I have that Lord Bilbo can’t seem to explain.” The Prince’s tone could be described as bland, even self-musing, but the flash of steel in his eye as he glanced at Kern.

“I- I suppose it would be good for our relations with Mirkwood for the Prince to visit-“ the Councillor tried, and was interrupted.

“Perhaps we should revisit the idea of an Elvish Ambassadorship, as a permanent position in the Court.” The King stated, and Kern turned an ugly puce color.

“Elves living in Erebor!?” He erupted, evidently at the end of his rope.

“My Brother’s Wife is an Elf. I would be very careful how you finish that thought, Lord Kern.” Prince Fíli said lowly, and unsheathed a knife to spin, point down, on the table with pointed intent.

“My granddaughter is part Elf. I will not hear any protest about her kin coming to stay, Councillor. Especially if you hope to keep your seat.” Princess Dís did not need to produce a weapon to aid her threat.

“I meant no disrespect, your Highnesses. I humbly apologize.”

“It seems to me, Lord Kern,” the King began, “that you have invited disrespect with your words and your conduct. Barring my grand niece from learning her Maker’s tongue- don’t look at me like that, I know who’s voice persuaded the rest of Council against it- and now making remarks of such disgust against the lineage of an heir of the line of Durin?” King Thorin trailed off, hard stare never wavering.

Kern, who had already been thrown off kilter by the Royal Family’s seemingly overnight adoption of Sindarin, floundered under such a direct accusal.

“I- Your Majesty, never-“

“In fact,” the King continued, and the Council watched the two with bated breath, “I have been in talks with some of our oldest, most practiced curates and they all agree. The right to learn Khuzdul is a matter of religion, not of politics.”

Kern turned that fetching shade of puce again.

“So while it remains a matter of courtesy for Prince Kíli and Lady Tauriel to inform the assembled Council of their plans for Princess Thiliriel’s education, they are in no way obliged to do more than consider the Council’s opinions on this particular aspect.” The King finished, and it was Princess Dís’ turn to smirk as she, and the rest of the Council, watched the pompous windbag known as Kern to puff up, process, deflate, and stiffly nod.

“Thank you, your Majesty, for reminding the Council of the boundaries of our reach. I am... sure this will not be forgotten.” The words came as easily as blood from a rock, and Kern ground his teeth as though trying to break ore from stone as he spoke.

“Oh, and Lord Kern?” King Thorin said, already looking at the papers for the next topic, and not sparing a glance for the Council.

“Yes, your Majesty?”

“I’d like for you to tell his Highness and Lady Tauriel the good news. Directly after the Council Meeting concludes. We wouldn’t want to delay the Princess’ education any longer.”

Fíli’s smile could only be described as wolfishly sharp, and he clearly inherited it from his mother.

——

Elvish translations:

Cin got nin! Im’m dad! : you got me! I’m down!

Cin did eithel, lend emel. : You did well, sweet heart.

#the hobbit #fili #kili #bilbo baggins #fanfic #thorin oakenshield #Dís #original child character #Kiliel #injustice #elvish racism

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the-melting-world · 4 years ago

Text

The Empress | Side B: “The Fear”

Art by @markmefistov

~ In which a humble gardener opens Strength’s Door…

The Trio Appearances: Kipling | Khleo | Ozy

Arcana LI appearances: Asra | Nadia | Muriel

Track Origins: “The Fear” by Ben Howard

Not sure if this is the right track? The full album can be found here: The Empress

cw: none

~ 2k words

After Kipling, Ozy, Nadia, and Asra return from the underwater library, Ozy leaves Kipling with the gauntlets, reminding her that he still has to show her how to permanently unlock her third eye.

“Trust me, Kip,” Ozy said with a reassuring smile, “once your third eye is open, you’ll have a much better time navigating the portals.”

With that Ozy let Nadia escort him back inside the Palace. Earlier in the library, he and Kip had agreed to save their lesson in grey magic for the next day. Kipling appreciated Ozy’s patience with her. She could tell he wanted her to be as comfortable as possible before they started unpacking everything from the past.

She was grateful to him for that.

***

(Nadia’s POV)

Nadia walked with Ozy back to his chambers. When they arrived, she waited by the door while he removed his gauntlets and set them aside on the dresser. Nadia wasn’t sure why she hadn’t yet left the grey mage to his business. Her agenda was packed with meetings with foreign dignitaries and not to mention she had a desk full of letters that needed responding to.

And yet, there were other things clouding Nadia’s mind. Like intricate spiraling details across a pearly, artificial surface that stretched so far in every direction.

“That machine in your library,” Nadia said, starting quietly at first. “The one underwater. Is that where it’s meant to be kept?”

After Ozy took off his gauntlets, he rolled his wrists a few times and walked back towards the Countess.

“The Nautilus? Yes, that’s its primary function – traveling through water. Makes it easier for deep sea exploration.”

This piqued Nadia’s interest even further. “A vessel that never needs to surface?”

Ozy was standing before the Countess now, his expression friendly and eager to keep engaging with her on the topic.

“It does! But not often.”

Nadia hummed. “I see. Like a whale. Or a turtle.”

A soft glimmer flashed behind Ozy’s eyes, as if he were thinking of the same comparisons.

“Yes. Exactly.”

Nadia, who was content to invite Ozy to walk with her, said, “That’s fascinating, Oz. What an incredible find.”

Ozy fell into an easy stride beside the Countess, his hands tucked comfortably in the pockets of his crisp pants. “Hm. Thank you, but I didn’t stumble upon that vessel. You did.”

“What do you mean you…” Nadia slowed to a stop. Ozy mirrored her and turned so that he was facing her, his lip quirking in what she read as a hopeful challenge. That’s when Nadia quickly assembled the pieces of his implications.

“Oz… do you mean to suggest that you built such a thing?”

Ozy looked off to the side rather sheepishly as he shrugged his shoulders.

“Abaco helped.”

Once again, the grey mage had left the Countess at a loss for words.

As if to put her at ease, Ozy added, “I built a lot of things over the years, Countess. Fixed a lot of things.” His hazel eyes drifted skyward. “Broke a lot of things too now that I think about it.” His hand wandered up to absently scratch at his five o’clock shadow. “Mostly because I ran out of stuff to fix. Not really any other option in that case but to break some things. Otherwise I wouldn’t have…” Ozy’s speech turned into uninterrupted mutterings.

Nadia realized he would have never stopped if she hadn’t said, “Oz, please.”

That was enough to call back his attention.

“As long as you’re here,” Nadia reached for both of Ozy’s hands, “I want you to call me Nadia.”

Ozy looked down at where she held lightly onto his long fingers, and then back up again.

“Oh. Like Asra and Kipling do?”

Nadia gave a deliberate nod. “Yes.”

Ozy blinked, the confusion written plainly across his face. “But they’ve known you longer.”

The Countess shook her head. “I know it might seem strange, but that does not matter to me.”

The grey mage was silent for only a moment before he grunted in gentle understanding. He pressed his rather nimble fingers more firmly against Nadia’s.

“You’re ambidextrous,” Ozy noted. “Like me.”

Nadia couldn’t help her face from heating slightly at his observation.

“You’re correct about that.... How did you know?”

Ozy continued to test and trace his fingers around the Countess’.

“These hands have solved a lot of puzzles. To the point where it’s impossible for them to ignore the details in fact. So… Nadia,” he locked eyes with her, his gilded lip curling into a soft smile, “what’s the story with your hands?”

Nadia grinned, trying to gauge the line where Ozy’s friendliness blurred into flirtation.

“I’m not sure if there’s a way I can express this without sound like I’m bragging, but my hands do know their way around a workshop.”

Once again, Ozy’s eyes lit up. “A workshop, really? Will you show me?”

Nadia gently guided her hands out of Ozy’s and up around his bicep, linking her arm through his.

“I can take you there, but I won’t be able to join you again until late this afternoon. I have a city to help govern as you might have gathered.”

“Right.” Ozy said with a respectful nod. “You don’t have to worry about me, Nadia. I can always find ways to keep myself busy until you return.”

“Oh, Oz.”

Nadia thought back to that vessel, immense and pristine, resting at the bottom of a deep pool.

“I have no doubt about that.”

***

Kipling noticed that Abaco didn’t follow Ozy and Nadia when they left the garden. The bird was content to stay behind and play with Taro and Faust. There was something Kipling found soothing in watching the three familiars interact. So she sat there right in the grass next to a hedge of snowball viburnums.

Asra, who knew Kip’s behaviors very well by now, was happy to take a seat and curl up right beside her.

“Asra, there’s something I have to tell you.”

The magician breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that it wouldn’t show. He wrapped his arm around Kip’s shoulder and placed his other hand in her lap. “I’m listening.”

In the past, Kip had looked elsewhere, anywhere but directly at Asra, only occasionally flicking her gaze up to meet his. That wasn’t the case this time. Her syrupy brown eyes were fixed on him as she spoke. She seemed determined to give him her full attention.

“When you came by Muriel’s cottage, did he tell you about the reading he gave me?”

Asra swallowed. “Yes. But only a little. He said you drew the Empress.”

“Reversed,” Kip clarified. “I’ll be honest. I’ve been neglecting to tell you the whole truth about Ozy and Khleo… well, Khleo specifically.”

“You don’t talk about them much,” Asra noted. He also didn’t miss how Kip’s eyes would glaze over whenever Ozy mentioned the umbra’s name.

Kip sighed. “I’m ready to talk about them now. Asra, I knew Khleo for a long time before meeting Ozy. They kept my secrets, they were the one I confided in whenever I needed it. When Ozy came around and I didn’t want to have anything to do with him, it was Khleo who taught me about kindness and acceptance. I don’t think I can explain how close we were…”

“You loved them. You still love them.”

Kipling could tell by Asra’s tone that he must have known all this time.

Kip took a moment to work out the tremors in her upper body. Asra squeezed her hand in reassurance.

“We never confessed it aloud, but the day that Khleo was taken by the Door, I was so sure that they were going to say it first.” Kip caught a sob. “There just wasn’t enough time.”

Asra pulled Kip until her face rested against his collarbone. He removed his red scarf and wrapped it around her shoulders. By now the three familiars had gathered onto both of their laps. Taro was determined to soothe Kipling with her head nuzzles and soft chirps.

While Asra rubbed her spine, Kip managed to choke out, “When I portaled to Strength’s gate, I saw Khleo and those feelings were still there, Asra. I don’t know what to do. I know I’m supposed to go see the Empress, but I want… all I can think about is…”

“There was something else Muriel told me,” Asra said. “On the morning you left, the ground all around his cottage was covered in daisies. They could have only come from you. He said there were so many of them, magically conjured to stay in bloom for much longer than normal.”

“Daisies,” Kip sniffed. “They were in Strength’s realm too.”

“Well, they’re all around us right now.”

Kip opened her eyes and sat up. Asra was right. The magical daisies had appeared in the garden. There were thousands of them, packed so tightly it was almost impossible to see the grass.

It wasn’t unnatural for Kip’s green magic to behave in this way. Most of how she managed it was based on her emotions. But she had never seen anything like this.

“Kip,” Asra said, “what if you used the daisies to find your way back to Strength’s realm?”

She tore her eyes away from the flowers and looked at the magician with a mixture of uncertainty and surprise. “You think I should go to Strength’s realm? Without Ozy?”

Asra nodded, his lavender eyes serious. “I’ll go with you.”

“But what if–”

“It was you who said that you can’t bring yourself to meet the Empress right now. What if drawing that card means that you have to face your feelings about Khleo before moving forward?”

Kip’s drew a heavy breath. There were so many what ifs. What if Khleo didn’t remember her? What if Strength tried to bite her head off again? What if…

“Kip.” Asra placed his hands on either side of her face and steered her into a kiss. “I’ll be there with you. We fought the Devil, remember. We can pay Strength a visit. We’ll come to the front door this time instead of dropping out of nowhere. If she doesn’t want to let us in, then she won’t.”

When Asra put it like that, the stakes didn’t seem so high.

Brrrrr.

Kip looked down to see Taro holding up her new pair of gauntlets. Faust bobbed her head in encouragement and Abaco fluffed his feathers once before using his beak to flick a switch on the gauntlet so that it hummed to life.

Once Kipling had donned them and stood up, she took a deep breath and did her best to rely on what she knew. To her amazement, the gauntlets made it so much easier to detect the control pad that opened the Doors.

Kipling activated the invisible motherboard and gasped when she saw more daisies growing spontaneously in the air. They shot off a few feet to Kip and Asra’s left, circled once and then again in a double ring – the outline of a Door.

“That must be the way to Strength’s gate,” Asra whispered.

Kip’s gauntlets gave a sharp whine as she felt them tug her towards the highlighted portal. Asra followed behind Kip as she drifted in that direction. Abaco flew ahead, tweeting madly and whizzing to the path of the daisies.

Kipling reached out until she connected with the lever handle to the Door. She found it easily, as if a magnetic force linked her gauntlet to the portal.

Then Kip pushed until the lever rotated. The Door squeaked as it opened. That magnetic tug was back, but this time it wanted to get away from Kip. She tentatively released the lever and watched as the door snapped open. Wider, wider, wider –

“You have to lock it, Kip!”

Kip gasped at the memory of a younger Ozy hollering at her while a storm grew over their heads. This sparked a second memory of a Door that grew too great for any of them to handle. She couldn’t let that happen again.

Kip glanced over at Asra and remembered. She would never let another Door take off with someone she cared about.

Her gauntlet glowed brighter. Kip listened to the hum…

The gardener caught the lever before it could get away from her and spin completely out of control. She sensed a new type of pull and followed it, anchoring the lever into a small depression that wasn’t visible to the naked eye.

Glittery light sparked all along Kipling’s knuckles. Abaco was absolutely delirious with excitement. The daisies dissolved, but there was water on the other side of the Door, churning smoothly, without turbulence.

Through the tunnel of seawater and shimmering light, Kip felt the call of clear summer skies and rolling hills blanketed in wildflowers.

#arcana albums: the empress #arcana albums #the arcana #kipling the apprentice #ozy the grey mage #asra #asra alnazar #nadia #nadia satrinava #my writing #the arcana fanfic #the arcana fic #asra the arcana #nadia the arcana

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ihopuhopwehop · 4 years ago

Text

Leap of Faith

AO3

Warning: Talks about blood purity.

It was the most hyped up and controversial game of the year. Slytherin versus Gryffindor. In a fight for the Quidditch Cup.

James was quite exhilarated about it all though, despite the hostility surrounding the game.

James lived for large crowds, chanting, rivalry, and winning.

He loved winning.

The feel of being revered when he made a game winning catch. Of being able to walk the halls with people congratulating him or even better, envying him.

Well, the Slytherins congratulated him. And sometimes Hufflepuffs, but Hufflepuffs congratulated both teams for the sake of sportsmanship.

The Gryffindors would envy him. For a while at least, until there was some fight between the sides, showcasing how disgusting some of his housemates truly were, and then Gryffindors didn’t envy the Slytherins anymore.

But despite all of the quidditch-induced rivalry and buzz, James was excited for the game for an entirely different reason.

Going against Lily Evans.

Lily Evans. Christmas on a stick. Sass level unmatched. And also, Gryffindor’s seeker.

James was the Slytherin seeker.

Which meant he’d be allowed to observe Lily Evans all game long without being scolded by his housemates.

Of course, he was always being scolded and harassed by his housemates because he thought muggleborns and half-breeds alike were worthy of life, liberty, and love. Though his house did not seem to agree.

Besides Regulus Black to some extent. Though Regulus usually sided with his family in public, James knew he did not agree with them entirely. This led to James trying to protect Regulus and lead him down a more morally powerful side, but that only worked for so long.

Regulus had gotten the dark mark, and now there was no amount of protecting James could do.

But through all of his efforts to help the younger Black heir, he befriended the older Black ex-heir. Sirius Black was good fun to be around, though he sometimes lacked ambition surrounding his studies and future achievements.

James didn’t blame him, but thought it was dumb not to at least try to get top marks and excel anywhere he could. Especially if Sirius wanted to outrun the infamy of his last name.

Oh well, at least he was noble…most of the time.

But back to Lily Evans.

James had only gotten to know Lily through Severus Snape, and as such, was skeptical of her character at first.

But when Lily Evans allowed her sass to go against her childhood friend and his beliefs, James knew she could be trusted.

He also knew she could be trusted because after the incident that caused her to end her and Snape’s friendship, she had requested a new potions partner. Slughorn had only been too happy to switch Snape with James, much to Snape’s anger and James’ joy.

Not to mention Lily’s eyes matched his house colors, which he thought made her even more likeable.

The first day they had worked together, Lily had seemed put out to be partnered with him. But after James made sure to stay on top of the potion, and even prevented a catastrophe when Lily confused two different dragon scales, she seemed to at least tolerate him.

And then the quidditch pitch happened.

James had been on his way to practice a few extra moves before his official practice but had been prevented when he found the snitch already being used by his favorite Gryffindor. Well, besides Sirius.

Lily had been trying to practice a diving roll to catch the snitch, which was typically done if the snitch was close to the ground so that one could jump off their broom and land safely on the grass, but Evans didn’t seem to be able to truly jump off her broom.

Her bravery had been lacking that day, and his had been soaring.

He had ruffled his hair as he had begun to speak, “Quite ambitious of you to be practicing outside of your time slot, don’t you think?”

She hadn’t even batted an eye as she responded, “And quite brave to be teasing a girl who could unleash the bludgers while you’re unprepared.”

“Touché. Now are you going to ever actually jump off your broom or continue to miss the snitch because you’re scared.”

She had now dismounted her broom and blew some of her auburn fringe out of her eyes. “If it’s so easy, then you do it Mr. Brave Slytherin.”

James smirked as he mounted his broom, “Alright. Release the snitch.”

Lily had quirked an eyebrow as she pushed the snitch forward. The snitch flittered close to James nose, enough to reflect in his glasses, and then zoomed forward and towards the ground. James leaned as far forward as he could, prompting his broom to speed up, and then at the last second, pushed off the broom with his feet and clasped the snitch safely in his palms. He completed the move with a barrel roll and a quiet “accio” to retrieve his broom, which he smugly caught when he stood up to wink at the dumbfounded girl.

“That—That was—How--”

James smirked at her floundering and ruffled his hair, “Takes resourcefulness and ambition and, something I thought Gryffindors were supposed to have in abundance, bravery.”

He inwardly grinned when her eyes narrowed, “Alright. Fine. Teach me.”

He beamed at those words.

“A Gryffindor asking a Slytherin for help. What would Godric think?”

She stuck her tongue out at him, “A Slytherin being kind, what would Salazar think?”

He chuckled and motioned towards her broom. He had her practice balancing on her feet a few times and then pushing forward with her feet as well.

That had been an awkward exercise for him as he had to stand behind her to make sure she was doing it properly. It had given him a perfect view of her in her quidditch trousers. He had to admit his chivalry was really lacking during that exercise, but he figured he retained a normal amount of it. Not everyone had Gryffindor levels of chivalry.

Finally, it was time for her to actually jump. He should not have been surprised when she achieved it on the first try, but never-the-less, he was.

“Brilliant! Good job, Evans! You’re a natural!” He may have gotten over excited and pulled her into a hug, but well, he felt pride when he was able to help a fellow student.

He remembered the way his chin had sat on her head and her head laid on his chest. It was, in his humble opinion, a good hug.

Lily had blushed at his compliment, or maybe his hug, he wasn’t sure, and told him, “Well yeah. I’ve been practicing on my own for awhile. Just had to gain a little courage and confidence.”

“Just had to use your courage and confidence. You’ve always had plenty, you just let your fears get in the way.”

She had smiled lightly at him, “You know, you’re not that bad. For a Slytherin.”

He snorted, “You’re not that bad for a Gryffindor.”

She had side-eyed him, “I assume you aren’t a blood purist? You didn’t even hesitate to hug me.”

James furrowed his brows at her, “What made you think I might be?”

She shrugged, “Everyone in your house seems to be. Wouldn’t be surprised if you were, especially since you’re a pureblood too.”

James clenched his jaw. People always assumed that about him. On one hand, he couldn’t blame her, on the other, he thought every person deserved the chance to show who they really were, regardless of house or family.

“Right. I guess you just see what you want. Wouldn’t be surprised if you thought Sirius was a purist too.”

Lily could tell she touched a nerve. She had shaken her head, “No. It’s just. We have to be cautious. Could cost me my life if I assumed you weren’t a death eater.”

James raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t thought of it from that perspective. “That makes sense. Sorry for snapping at you.”

She had seemed surprised at his apology. “It’s alright. And um, I think your team is here. I should probably go, but thanks for the help. I’ll be sure to use it when we beat you.” Then she had winked and made her way back to the castle.

James had ignored everything his teammates had said that day in favor of replaying her wink.

After that day, Lily seemed to consider him a friend.

Lily had made it a point to keep a conversation going during potions. Had studied with him in the library. And she had even invited him to sit with her, Sirius, Remus, and Peter at the Gryffindor table.

He thought they were getting along smashingly and hoped it would not crush their budding relationship when Slytherin won.

The game had started in a whirlwind, with the noises from the audience growing to deafening sounds and the wind beating against his face. He tried to drown it all out by focusing on searching for the snitch but when he noticed Lily flying towards him, he couldn’t help but acknowledge her.

He had begun to wave, but Lily continued straight towards him, until she was close enough to lightly shoulder check him.

He rocked a little on his broom but was able to gain enough balance to shoulder check her back.

“Better watch where you’re going Evans. Hate for you to miss when I catch the snitch.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t miss what doesn’t happen.” Then she had turned a 180 and flew towards the sky to get better optics.

They had each tailed the other a few times and yelled at fellow teammates, cheering and booing respectively when someone scored.

Slytherin was up by 120 points. Surprisingly, if James was honest. But apparently, Gryffindor’s chasers were suffering today, much to Lily’s dismay.

Malfoy had yelled at James to stop ogling Lily, though Lucius had used a word James made a point to never say.

Sirius had shot several bludgers Malfoy’s way after that, and Regulus shot a few back towards his brother, though slightly slower compared to when he aimed at other Gryffindors.

Then, James saw it. A golden glint thanks to the sun, near the Slytherin goals.

Unfortunately, Lily had seen it too, and they both shot off towards it.

Eventually, they were both right behind it, with James longer arms being closer than Lily’s. They followed it higher for a few minutes, the air getting harsher, and each of them inching closer,

until Lily yelled a loud, “CATCH ME!”

James looked at her like she was insane, only for her to wink and jump completely off her broom, into the freezing sky.

“EVANS!!”

James abandoned his quest for the snitch and instead focused on grabbing some part of Lily Evans that had dived towards the snitch.

Gravity had barely begun to pull the absolutely mad girl down, when James finally grabbed her fanned out shirt.

He felt his arm strain and he grunted as he worked to pull her up onto his broom, “You’ll be the death of both of us Evans, I swear.” He heaved and used his other hand to support the arm that was holding Lily.

Finally, after tremendous effort, Lily was sat behind him on his firebolt, grinning victoriously and holding the snitch up proudly.

The crowd was cheering raucously, with many people standing and whistling. The Gryffindor team was running towards the Quidditch Cup McGonagall was holding up, with Sirius hugging the usually professional woman. James noticed his teammates looking equally parts angry and shocked.

He ignored them and instead turned to Lily while he began their descent.

“You’re either certifiably insane or incredibly brave Evans, though at this point the lines are blurred.”

Lily grinned at him, “The jump wasn’t that big of a deal. But trusting a Slytherin was.”

And then she kissed him. Which was also very dangerous in the air, but James figured some things were worth the risk.

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fallin-4-ya · 4 years ago

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The Follies and Vices of You

cedric diggory x reader- part iv of series

based off the novel and film ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen

summary: Being the beloved sister of the incredibly wealthy Mr. Potter, you felt no need to rush into marriage. But one day, when you come to meet a new acquaintance, the proud Mr. Diggory, your views of love and follies change.

warnings: a bit of angst & tension! (gif is not mine, credit to owner!)

part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v

‘Maybe it’s that I find it hard to forgive the follies and vices of others, or their offenses against me. My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.’ -Jane Austen

The month of January passed dreadfully slow, as you waited for something interesting to happen. As the snow fell softly onto the ground, thoughts wondered through your head rapidly, most of them involving Mr. Diggory. In fact, he occupied your mind most days. How dreadfully awkward that poor man is, you pondered, and yet how confident. His character never made sense to you, as awfully as he appeared on the outside, you could tell there was much beneath his many layers. But your thoughts were soon interrupted by a knock on the door, it was the post.

‘From Miss Ginerva, Miss Y/N.’ You smiled and nodded thankfully. Excited, you ripped the letter open and the inside read,

My Dearest Miss Y/N, I hope my letter find you very well. How dreadful these past few days have been, for all of this snow has made me think of nothing besides summer time. I was invited to stay at my brother Bill’s until the end February; Miss Hermione Granger will be attending alongside me, to encourage sisterly bonding. I am sorry to hear that Mr. Malfoy has resided back to his home up north, but I do hope that he continues to write you such pretty verses. I shall be home before the flowers bloom. Be well.

Much love, Ginerva

You sighed thinking of how even more boring the next few months would be without the company of a most dear friend.

Now that Mr. Malfoy was sent back home, the house was quieter than ever. Between Harry managing the estate, Sirius writing business proposals and Mr. Lupin locked up in the library; you felt most unentertained and gittery. Letters began being sent to you the day after he left, expressing a fondness for you, which kept your boredom to a minimum. You thought long about the letters exchanged between you and Mr. Malfoy; Ginny was certainly right in saying the verses were beautiful. She also urged you that there would soon be a proposal on the line if he kept with the letters, though you secretly hoped it wouldn't be anytime soon.

The next evening, to much of your excitement, you were joined by Mr. Fred and George Weasley for dinner, who were in the company of nobody other than Mr. Diggory. Reaching a hand out for each of the Weasley men, they took it graciously planting a kiss upon it. Extending out to Mr. Diggory as well, he ignored your gesture and simply bowed in your direction. After the questionable gesture from the latter of the men, you lead them to the dining room, where the rest of your family awaited.

The evening was going splendidly, much laughter and wide smiles reigned. That was, until a letter arrived addressed to you from Mr. Malfoy. You excused yourself from the table, to retire to the parlor to read it.

Blushing profusely and smiling at the beautiful verses addressed to you, unaware of the floorboards that creaked viciously behind; you sat on the armchair nearest the window of the parlor. You heard a throat clear at the doorway and shot your head up.

‘Mr. Diggory! I am so sorry, I mustn’t have heard of your following.’ Humming to yourself, you gazed out the window, ‘I do love this time of the year, Mr. Diggory. The snow is nothing short of lovely.’

‘Yes, Miss Potter, I do agree that the snow is very beautiful but I must interject and beckon you about some-‘

‘He’s thought to propose, you know. Mr. Malfoy that is. Quite strange, isn’t it; how young girls go to young women with only a proposal.’ You unknowingly interrupted in your dream state.

‘Miss Potter, I truly cannot help but to interject; however, there is a matter of urgency I’d like to discuss.’ Mr. Diggory huffed. Being pulled out of your trance, patience grew thin, you turned your head and snapped, ‘What is it, Mr. Diggory, that you feel so inclined to interrupt me for?’

‘Its addressing Mr. Malfoy. You see I am afraid I must interject on a most sensitive discussion topic.’

‘If you have anything negative to say about Mr. Malfoy, I must urge you that I'm the last person who would be inclined to hear it! And if you have some here to ruin my evening, I am afraid I won’t allow it.’

With that you grabbed your coat and trekked out into the falling snow. Footsteps not far behind you, you sped up; unwilling, or rather unwanting of hearing what anybody had to say. The crunching of snow only following you farther, as you followed the angelic pathway to the stone pavilion in the graden. You threw your back against the wall, sighing out deeply. Without a moment of peace Mr. Diggory entered your presence.

‘You cannot marry him’

You were taken aback by his sudden bluntness. Exasperated by his cultivated occurrence of strange actions you cocked your head at him.

‘May I ask you why, Mr. Diggory?’

‘The Malfoy family is least cordial, completely unattached and deranged from society. They are completely unsuitable for a family such as yours.’

‘A family such as mine?! Have you come here to separate an engagement or to insult my family, Mr. Diggory? Or rather, does your sudden interest in my affairs have anything to do with your dislike towards Mr. Malfoy; because believe me, Mr. Diggory, I know well of your disputes with the poor gentleman and will not stop an engagement from happening due to your pride and arrogance.’

‘No, Miss Potter! You know perfectly well that I find your family most respectable. I just find their family uncommony stiff for your reckless behavior.’

‘Reckless behavior! How dare you insult not only my upkeeping but a personality of another. Have you forgotten the follies and vices of you, Mr. Diggory? For who are you to judge another?’

‘Miss Y/N, has it ever occurred to you that you may be too harsh on me or perhaps my light on you may have been caused by the misjudgment of one’s character? I beg of you to enlighten me on why you find me the most disagreeable man.’

‘Well then, I beg you, Mr. Diggory, why you wish to separate a young couple who have grown quite fond of each other?’

‘Because I love you.’

There was a lull and Mr. Diggory halted. ‘I love you most ardently and I could not have you go another day more without you knowing of the likeness I have for you.’

You stood in silence, snow falling ever so godly on you both, speechless. Words clouded your mind, and you wanted to scream, and cry, and love, and erupt all at the same time. But rather than doing any of them, you looked back on him with a haze in your eyes.

‘I would not marry you if you were the last man in the world.’ You said walking away, allowing a tear slip silently from your face.

The next day there was a knock on your bedroom door early in the morning. Mr. Diggory walked in humbled and shy, ‘Miss Y/N, I’ve come to leave this for you. I hope you do me the honor to read it. Thank you much for your time.’

You had not even reached his gaze, for he spoke for too quickly and you were far too angry. Staring at the enveloped with a tear stained face for nearly an hour, you decided to open it.

Dear Miss Potter,

I hope my letter finds you in good health. I do not wish to impose on you again what I have said last night; for I am writing to you today not to remind you of said words, but rather converse upon the accusations you have brought upon me. I urge you that everything in this letter is the truth and have many to testify upon it.

Mr. Draco Malfoy and I had been connected since infancy, for his father, Lucius, and mine worked exceptionally close together. However, as Mr. Malfoy grew he became reckless; he gambled a large portion of his father’s money away and took no responsibilities seriously. Soon thereafter, his father wrote him out of his will, leaving nothing to his son. Mr. Malfoy became desperate for an inheritance; my father later offered him a job which he begrudgingly took. However, not more than seven months of work, he confessed a most passionate love to my sister. It did not take long for us to realize that he was only after her fortune for she was to inherit seven thousand pound a year. She was thirteen at the time and utterly heartbroken.

When my sister had gotten sick mere months later, my mother and I moved to London alongside her to get the best medical help. Unable to access our money without my father present, Mr. Lucius graciously lent us the sum of the bills. Unfortunately, my sister passed with just two months of treatment; she was truly a remarkable young woman. After the mourning, we paid what was due back to the Malfoy family; but for Mr. Draco Malfoy it was not enough. He hounded me for more money; knowing his dispositions I had given him the sum of his ask in hopes that he would become something of himself. He gambled the money away in two weeks. After that, I refused to give him anymore money, cutting him off for good.

Miss Y/N, I am terribly sorry to force the burden of the truth onto you, but I just felt that you ought to know. Please do keep the affairs containing my sister private, as I believe it be a disgrace to her memory to attach her name to one like his. Thank you for the time we have shared.

Yours, Mr. Cedric Diggory

(author’s note: oh my goodness! end of part 4!!! ending on a bit of a cliff hanger... i can't wait for you all to read the final chapter, which will be out soon! as always, let me know if you’d like to be part of this tag list! thank you as always for reading!)

tag list: @freddieweasleyswife @truly-insatiable @annasdani @mullthingsoverinthehotwater

#Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter headcanon #cedric diggory #cedric diggory x reader #cedric diggory x you #ginny weasley #fred weasley #george weasley #Draco Malfoy #Ron Weasley #hermione granger #pride and predujice #jane austen #draco malfoy x reader #sirius black #remus lupin

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dimensionwriter · 5 years ago

Text

Wings of Love

Male Dragon x GN! Reader

Warning: None, just usual fluff

Word Count: 3,266

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Remember to like, reblog, and comment. Thank you.

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Rain drops lightly dusted the small village. The village was filled with children running around with their mouth open trying to catch raindrops, parents trying to run errands, and elders idly chatting with each other about the olden times.

The forest outlined the right side of the village with small random openings where most villagers go during times of boredom or special occasions. To the left, for miles upon miles there were fields that the farmers used to harvest all the village's food.

But far off in the distance, there sat the tallest mountain that was covered in black charcoal rocks with no signs of life on it. There thrive no plants nor animals, for they may know what lies it in.

Centuries ago, the village told tales of how there lived a monstrous dragon that was almost as tall as the mountain. Teeth bigger than yourself and so sharp that it could shred you as if you were wet paper. Wings strong enough to lay trees flat in a forest for miles with only one flap. It's skin was eerie green that allowed the beast to blend in with the tree, that way it was easier to capture any foolish child that wandered into the forest. Soulless black eyes that showed signs of no morals, for a beast like itself didn't need them.

That was the story that every person brought into the village was told. Until the beast actually came from the mountain to the village. As expected, the village was thrown into shambles with screams of scared children, worried parents, and fearful men.

As the villagers prepared themselves for the worst, the dragon simply lowered it's head. The villagers grew weary of the supposedly neutralizing action.

The dragon opens its mouth to reveal those flesh shredding sharp teeth. There was no doubt that this was the dragon from the tales. It was him, with his head bowed.

He began to speak softly in broken English. He spoke of wishing to end the fearful image of himself and instead hope to reside peacefully with the humans. All this said with his head still bowed.

That day is now celebrated as Dragon Birth, for it was the beginning of an era of peace between the supposed monstrous dragon and the village.

Due to the agreement of peace being made, the dragon showed itself a lot more to the village. At first, they still feared him, but as the time went on and the children grew into adults and the leaves all fell from the tree, the dragon became a part of the village.

"History of the Dragon Village? Trying to look up our history," someone joked, pulling the book out of your hand. You blinked slowly trying to get your eyes adjusted to looking at shape instead of words.

Today felt like a great day to just sit under a tree and enjoy the nice warm weather. On your way here, you stopped by the library to just pick up a random book to enjoy while you just simply existed in nature.

Brandon, the idiot who decided to snatch your book out of your hand without having the audacity to save your page, was the son of the butcher in the village. He could sometimes be very eccentric, but was overall a nice company to come around.

"Can't you read something, I don't know, more interesting," he asked spinning on his bare feet in the grass. He started walking off in a direction opening the book. Letting out a fake cough, he began to read from the book.

"The once weary villagers begin to see the dragon as a protector over the village. As a change in view, the Sunset Village changed their name to Dragon Village." He stopped as he doubled over in laughter.

Grabbing at the bark of the tree, you lifted yourself off the ground. Brandon continued to laugh as he stumbled over to you. You gave him a curious smile to try to understand what could evoke such a joyous reaction.

"This village sucks at naming things. Uhhh, we see the sun going down, so why not name it sunset village? Perfect. Wait, we befriended a dragon now. Whelp, change that to dragon village. What about when the dragon dies? Are we going to become ex-Dragon village or We had a dragon village."

A snort of laughter slipped out at you from Brandon's overexaggerated faces. He always told jokes with such a passion for it. This is what made his company so welcoming.

"How about, he gone village?" you joked along bumping his shoulder. He bent over backwards as laughter spilled out of him. He grabbed his stomach as he continued to repeat your new village name. Brandon was so easy to make laugh, but one could not help but feel proud at getting such a reaction to a joke you made.

"I haven't laughed that hard all day," he said wiping the tears from his eyes. He handed you back the book with a smile on his tan skin. Brandon was known to be the handsomest boy in the village. He was, but he just didn't interest you.

All males and females knew he was hot. But, he just seemed plain. Being absolutely honest, none of the villagers caught your eye. There were some nice people, but no one you were willing to marry. Sadly, that time was coming so soon.

"I came over here to tell you that my mom said she got some new flower seeds if you're interested," he said, turning his head to the sky. His light green eyes reflected the tiny wisps of clouds flowing past.

"Really, tell her I said I'll come over by noon," you said showing your excitement as you slowly lowered yourself back to the ground. Brandon's mom sometimes asked you to help her with her garden since she's too old to do it now. And it somehow resulted in her being your flower partner. She always came to you about any new flower she saw or read about or received. It was absolutely adorable.

Brandon gave a curt nod before spinning on his heels and running back into town. He was always so full of energy no matter where the sun stood in the sky.

Flipping through the pages of the book, you tried to find where you stopped off. It ended with the agreement of peace between the dragon and the village.

Just as you saw the paragraph you stopped, a huge gust of wind blew the book out of your hand. That wasn't no normal air gust. That was the winds from something that could flatten miles of trees with a single beat of wings

The dragon hasn't been seen in days. You thought maybe it took to hibernating early or was flying around the world. If you had the ability to, you would.

Lifting your head to the sky, there it was. The protector of the village, Kaos the dragon. He was more majestic than this silly history book could put into words.

He landed a couple of meters away from you, near the edge of the patch of open space. His body was full of muscles, even though he was centuries old. His green scales are just as vibrate as always.

His legs folded underneath him and he laid his head gently on the ground. He tails rose up before laying down over his side.

Was he resting? Is he okay? Of course he is, he's a dragon. Maybe you could ask him?

Tucking you book into a small bag you brought, you begin to sneakily make your way over to the dragon. You were sure if he wanted to, he could sense you. But not a single scale on his body has moved.

His breathing was quite calm, not quite as heavy as you thought. He appears to be sleeping. Does he really trust your village so much as to just choose a random place out in the open to sleep?

His scales seemed so sharp and firm, but the way they move with his breathing seem to make them appear as liquid. His entire body seemed to be a weapon, but he carried himself as if he was nothing more than a delicate flower.

To be honest, you've always been curious about your town's protector. You were one of the unlucky ones who never got a chance to talk to him. During your youth, while all the children were playing with Kaos, you stayed in your house studying or working. As you got older, you found yourself with a packed schedule. So your only interaction with Kaos was walking past him or seeing him off in the distance.

This may actually be the closest you have ever been to him. And it's truly a humbling experience.

"You can touch them if you're curious." A soft grumbly voice spoke out. His voice reminds you of hearing thunder miles away. Something so powerful, but with restraint.

"Sorry," you yelled, stumbling away. How did you notice you woke him? How foolish of you. Obviously, he's a high class predator who would be disturbed by a prey coming closer.

"It's fine. Are you a traveler from far away?" Kaos asked, lifting his head closer to you. His snout was covered with a long scratch going from the tip of his nostril close to his left eyes. His eyes seem to hold all the night within them. A marvelous creature.

"Oh, no. I grew up here," you said, feeling disappointed at not being noticed. Kaos knew everyone who resides in the village. But he doesn't know you. Of course he doesn't.

"Oh, I sincerely apologize," he yelped, getting on his feet and turning his entire body in front of you. He stood so much taller than you. You were barely the height of his legs. "How could I forget a villager?"

"It's not your fault. I never really interacted with you before today," you admitted shyly. His head tilted to the side and he lowered himself to the grown. Cautiously he folded his legs under himself, but kept his neck and head up.

"Well, that's a shame. You seem like such an interesting person," he said smiling softly at you. How can a beast seem so gentle?

"Oh, I'm not really interesting. I mean I am nothing but a mere human from a small village," you said splaying your hands out to your home village. You didn't hate your village. You honestly loved every person in here. But some days, the only interesting things in the village seem to be how time moves so slow.

"Humans are absolutely wondrous creatures. You are always changing and moving. Every obstacle you face, you take it head on," he spoke with such pride in his voice. He really viewed humans at high status. But why for?

"How about this little human? Since I somehow missed getting to know you, would you mind entertaining this dragon for an afternoon. I would love to hear about you."

You open your mouth to tell that he would obviously be bored. But the way his head tilted and a small smile spread onto his mouth. It made you stop yourself.

"Um, guess I should start from the beginning. I do apologize if I bore you," you stuttered out. Kaos let out a laugh that reverberated through your soul.

"You humans can never bore me," he mumbled, nudging you gently with his clawed finger. You let out a flustered laugh of your own at the indirect compliment.

So, you spent the rest of your afternoon talking to Kaos on your existence. He asked you all about your hobbies and even went deeper on why you enjoyed them.

The sun slowly went down the horizon and painted the sky in an array of colours. Even though the sky looked absolutely beautiful, it was nothing compared to the soft pink glow reflecting off of his earthly green skin. How can something so dangerous look so pure?

"I do not understand how you assumed you would bore me," he whispered, craning his neck to look at you again. You looked down in overwhelming embarrassment.

This magnificent creature paid attention to whatever you said. You were sure that the tale of your boring and tedious life would cast a sleeping spell on him, but he was alert the entire time. How could he care so much about a simple human like you?

"I mean, probably compared to your tales, mines dull in comparison," you said brushing him off. He shook his head at you with a small smile stretching up his snout. The pink light reflected off his teeth making them shine like freshly buffed jewels.

"My tales consist of me living in a cave and sleeping. And a few of me flying around in the air. I think the most interesting thing that has happened was a tiny bird attacking me." A small giggle escaped your mouth before you could stop it. The thought of Kaos' face as the bird attacked him was just too humorous .

"Apologies," you said, trying to stop your laughter. A playful smirk painted onto Kaos' face as he stared at you through his peripheral.

"It's fine. I can laugh it off now. The little rascal was angry because the wind from my wings caused him to stumble through the air. It really was a shame that he had sharp talons," he grumbled with his lips pouted. You didn't know it was possible for a dragon to pout, but now that you did, you could put it down as one of your weaknesses.

He reached one of his paws up and rubbed at the scar going down his snout. Wait a minute…was that scar…and the bird?

You didn't mean to laugh as hard as you did. By the way Kaos jumped at you sound, told you that he wasn't expecting the laughter. The giant green tail stood at attention for a few seconds before falling back down.

You took a deep breath to calm yourself, but a few giggles still managed to escape past your lips. Even though the laughter was unexpected, it still left you with this happy fuzzy feeling that seemed to be spreading throughout your body.

"I'm sorry, sir," you giggled softly. You uncrossed your legs and let your body fall softly onto the cool grass. The sun had almost completely disappeared under the horizon, but it barely registered in your head. "My mind came up with this hypothesis that it was… simply a bird that caused that scar on your face."

His paw lifted up again and ran against the scar. He seemed to be careful of the claws on his fingers and used more of the soft pads.

"Sadly, you hypothesize true," he grumbled tilting his head away from you. You don't think he took into how much space he occupied, because even with his head turned, you saw a good portion of his face. And you almost didn't believe your eyes when a slight purple hue began to spread onto his cheeks.

"A bird did that to you!" You exclaimed in disbelief. Kaos nodded his head in embarrassment before trying to hide his face under his folded arms. The purple colour darkened due to his confession and trailed down to the top of his neck. The scales in that area were a lot thicker, so it covered up the spreading colour more.

"I didn't want to hurt the tiny creature, so I tried my best to blow a little air on him to get me to leave me alone. Next thing I know, one of his talons is heading straight towards me." A small puff of air escaped from his lips from his light laughter. It was a good thing that he could laugh about this now.

The moon light filtered through the clouds in small sprays of spotlights. One appeared over Kaos, highlighting his warm green scales in a soft blue light. Seeing him in this new lighting made him feel more real. You've always held him on a pedestal, but he's just an average… dragon.

"Human," he purred out, turning his head towards you. He was so close to you that you could feel his warm breath fanning against your cool skin. It felt so nice and safe to be here. Quite ironic how you felt this way while being surrounded by such a majestic and powerful creature. "It should be close to your time of rest. Is it not?"

Your eyes glanced up at the moon rising even higher into the sky. However, your eyes preferred to look into the midnight black eyes of Kaos. Their radiance shined brighter than any star or moon in the sky.

The corner of his mouth lifted up. He pressed the tip of his nose into your foot. The nudge was so light and careful, but the playfulness was present.

"Go home. Please, rest." How could you resist him when he looked at you like that? The scales around his mouth slowly glistening from being pushed along with his hooded eyes

You had to push down the desire to throw a tantrum and wrap your arms around Kaos and beg for him to stay. You are not a child. You just need to be mature about this.

Silently, you reached over and pushed your borrowed book into your bag. A few of the pages' edges were wrinkle due to the powerful wind from Kaos' wings. Even though you were still there with him, it felt nice that there was something you could remember this meeting by.

"It was nice of you to entertain me for the evening. Thank you so much, Kaos," you whispered staring down at the ground. His body shifted around until he was facing you.

"You do plan on visiting me again tomorrow, right?" You couldn't help the shock expression that came onto your face. This moment truly felt like a dream and he would allow you to indulge in it for longer. "I have many sun and moon passings to make up for."

You couldn't stop the smile coming onto your face. Nothing but pure happiness flowed fervently through your veins. Good thing the darkness covered your current state, seeing as you could feel the heat rushing to the tip of your ears and across your face.

He lowered his head a little and nudged your stomach with his nose. A laugh escaped out of you at his actions. "You are tempting me to converse more with you. Go now, human. When you return when the sun rises, I will be right here."

You nodded while taking a step back. You began your quick journey back into the town. It was barely visible now since most of the candle lights were now out in their houses.

Before reaching the edge, you spun around towards the clearing. Standing at full height with his wings lightly beating in the silver moonlight was the magnificent Kaos. But even with the distance, you felt a little closer to him.

You gave a parting wave before running back into town. The sound of your feet hitting the rocky pavement was the only sound around.

Although, you barely notice as you let the full smile come onto your face. A few victorious jumps may have happened, but the only witness was the moon and calm spirits of night. For nothing could ruin this joyous moment for you.

"Wait a minute. Brandon's mom!"

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

I'm so happy about this story. I've always wanted to write about a dragon and I did it. It may have took me almost a year to finish it, but here it is. I'm kind of proud of how this came out.

Thank you so much for reading. Please leave a like and comment about anything. I love to read comments. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.💜💜💜

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inkperch · 4 years ago

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Lady Bird and Magpie, C1D1

I’m in a Lady Bird and Magpie mood, so have a sneak preview of chapter 1! It’s only half finished, gotta write the fight-y parts still and then go back and clean everything up, but here you go! (also, finally figured out how to do Line Breaks!)

Winter Schnee woke up, and immediately wished she hadn’t. It couldn’t be later than seven, her alarm had yet to go off, yet already Kay and Robbie were at each other’s throats, Rose hesitantly trying to mediate. In her half-asleep haze, she vaguely tried to follow, catching a few stray words as she tried to drift back to sleep for a few more moments of plausible deniability regarding her team. Of course, even considering it was massively irresponsible- she was the leader, it was her job to break up such disputes, even if they happened with irritating frequency. And besides, now her alarm was ringing, if nothing else she needed to turn that off.

“What are you two arguing about?”

Kay and Robbie both whirled to face her as she sat up in bed with a stretch, with a guilty smile and an annoyed glare respectively.

“Sorry Win, we just had an… uh… academic dispute?” Kay tried, scratching the back of his head nervously.

For once, Robbie didn’t take the chance to rat him out, simply scowling at everyone and throwing herself onto her top bunk, above Winter’s own. Hopefully, she’d be done sulking by the time classes started, Winter didn’t have the energy for another fight this week. She’d already had to start two, and it was only Thursday. Kay dropped onto his bunk, picking up a discarded book and starting to read as though nothing had happened. Rose looked between her two friends, hesitantly trying to speak before awkwardly meeting Winter’s eyes. Taking that as a cue to leave, Winter grabbed her uniform from the closet and headed into the bathroom to change.

When she was done, instead of lingering in her dorm and finding a way to kill and hour, as her team was no doubt doing, she headed out. The library was only a short walk from their dorms, so if she were quick, she may get some light studying done before class. Maybe she’d even treat herself, and pickup a recreational book for study breaks? She was feeling particularly whimsical today, despite the rough start…

So lost in thought, she nearly didn’t notice the old man crossing her path until it was to late, forcing her to rapidly push herself out of the way with her glyphs, sending her over him in a perfectly executed front flip.

“I’m so sorry sir! I didn’t see you there!” Winter said, head bowed, “What are you doing on Atlas Academy’s campus so early, today? Can I assist you in any way?”

“You’re a polite one, aren’t you?” The man said, a small smile gracing his face, “I’m just going for a stroll. My son attended here in his youth, and… well, I heard there’s a memorial to… former students on the grounds.”

“Oh.” The old man was on the wrong end of campus for the memorial. It was the centrepiece of a garden on the opposite end of the dorms, Winter often went there to study in peace. “I can escort you there, if you wish?”

“Oh, I’d hate to be an inconvenience, I’m sure I’ll make my way there eventually,”

“You’d be no inconvenience, really,” Winter lied, “I owe you besides, for nearly running into you before,”

“No harm no foul, really,” The old man insisted, “But, if you insist… I think I’m a little lost?”

“Yes, very- this way sir.”

-#-

Robyn stood up and stretched as her final teacher of the day dismissed the bored Grimm Studies class. Well, Robyn was bored. Fiona had seemed pretty attentive, despite May and Jo arm wrestling right next to her. Speaking of Fiona- Robyn gave a quiet ‘thanks’ as she scooped all of team RGMT’s books into her Semblance. Robyn waved her team on ahead with a smile and headed off to the library. She had an assignment to complete for her Weapon Maintenance class, on the maintenance of the Atlas Military’s regulation weapons. So, utterly useless to her, but she still needed a passing grade in the class, so to the library it was.

At least, that was the plan- as she was walking across the campus a giant thing seemingly made out of paper charged into campus and started smashing buildings.

Okay. So it was that kinda day.

Like most of the students lurking around campus, Robyn pulled out her crossbow and started blasting. Presumably, some idiot had let a Geist get into the library or something for a dumb prank, its shell seemed to be entirely paper, so Fire Dust was the way to go, right? That seemed the general consensus, as an honestly impressive volley of flaming projectiles flew towards the Geist. Still, somehow, the paper didn’t light, and not one student got a lucky hit on its mask. Wait. Where was its mask? It should be visible- if not when they started, it should’ve whirled to face them by now. Where was the mask?

Why did it seem bigger than when they started?

“I am Payback! Turn over the Schnee and the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous, or die!”

…the courtyard was silent enough you could hear a pin drop. This- this wasn’t a Grimm. It couldn’t be a Grimm- it was talking! Whatever the giant fire-proof-paper monster was, it wasn’t a Geist. It had to be... something else! A semblance, or a robot, or... or some weird experiment! And, just in case that wasn’t enough to fuck someone up, it threw an arm out and sent a wave of fire back into the stunned crowd. So, the giant fuck-off paper monster wasn’t a Grimm and could deflect their shit. Just perfect.

Luckily for the stunned students in range of the attack, a giant glyph appeared and, through it, a massive, white, Nevermore took the brunt the wall of fire, disappearing in one hit. Winter Schnee stood proudly, sword aloft.

“If you want a Schnee, here I am!”

Ok, so, the Schnee heiress has a death wish, good to know. Robyn was about to run forward to help, because of course she was, when an ominous cracking sound came from behind her. Turning around, she saw a tall old man, with a cane just out of his reach, underneath an ominously leaning statue. It looked like it had been hit by a stray spout of fire, knocking it off balance on its pedestal. She dashed forward as the statue came tumbling down- shit, she wouldn’t have time to grab him and leave, this was gonna hurt. She unfurled her weapon into its shield mode and held it above her head, catching the large statue more on her aura than her arms.

“Run!” She yelled, kicking his cane into his reach. Not the most tactful approach but fuck it she had a massive statue on her back, she could apologise when he was safe. The old man grasped his cane and dragged himself from under the statue. As she shoved it to the side with a pulse of her aura, he stared at the Schnee morosely, before turning back to her.

“Miss Hill, was it?” he asked, blue eyes piercingly sharp.

“…yeah? You ok, sir?”

“I was not. I have you to thank for my saving. A humbling experience to be sure.” His hand hovered over his earrings, two plain black studs. “…this experience has reminded me of something a dear friend has been trying to tell me for a long time.”

“Um. Ok.” Robyn nodded, and accepted that random information. The old man was probably slightly in shock, if she’d been a second slower, he’d be a goo right now. “Where can I take you to be safe?”

“No where, if that Akuma isn’t stopped.” He pulled out his earrings, which… changed colour? They turned from plain black studs to bright red gems. That… didn’t look like Dust? His semblance, maybe? “Your semblance… it shows you whether the other party is speaking truthfully, does it not?”

Robyn couldn’t help but feel like she was making a massive mistake as she nodded, and followed his beckoning gesture into the covered garden, casting anxious glances to where the Schnee was fighting. He turned back to face her, hand outstretched. She took it.

“What is your favourite Fairy tale?”

#rwby #Lady Bird and Magpie #miraculous ladybug #crossover #au #Winter Schnee #robyn hill #schneewood forest #(I'll remove that if people want me to I know we aren't there yet)#ocs

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twistedintern · 4 years ago

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(Credit to @VILSWIFE on Twitter for the questionnaire, and special thanks to @appleflowerwritings for bringing this to my attention!) Time to get back into the swing of things, and what better way to do that than by expanding upon yume ship lore? Hopefully this doesn’t come off as weird...

(Although... I am loath to admit that I’d do better to wait until the next NRC Unified Exams before taking the plunge like this. I suppose I can always revise my responses to reflect official lore later on.)

“Person A” is Kyuu. “Person B” is Trein.

Question (1) - As mentioned in Kyuu’s personal chronicle, the two met in passing when Kyuu first awoke in a empty coffin in Night Raven’s Mirror Chamber. Their encounter was so brief that it almost didn’t register in Kyuu’s mind (she was too busy being terrified by Crowley’s appearance in the dark to focus on much else). It would only be about a week later when she was assigned to work with him that she would realize that Crowley was not alone when he discovered her; on that occasion he was accompanied by a stately man and a cat. The two formally became acquainted that day over tea and snacks.

Question (2) - Crowley described the sort of person Trein was to Kyuu before she had the chance to meet him. As the headmaster is the type who’s always on the receiving end of a lecture from the professor, he exaggerated the latter’s rigidity and inability to get along with others. Kyuu had terrible first experiences with his colleagues, so she took the headmaster’s words as gospel and came to dread meeting him one-on-one.

...But when they did meet, Trein was firm in explaining to her why others perceive him as they do. Kyuu realized she misjudged him and felt horrible about it for some time afterwards. Her current impression of him is founded not on fear, but deep respect. For her, he represents propriety and discipline--a constant in a chaotic new world.

Question (3) - Trein himself did not think much of Kyuu when Lucius came across her that night she appeared in Twisted Wonderland. He initially suspected she was a runaway who stole away to the school grounds--the sort of person who would prove to be a problem for the staff of Night Raven in the short-term. But once Crowley relayed her peculiar state of affairs during a general meeting--and that she would be taken on as an “intern”--he was a bit surprised (and irritated by the headmaster’s rash executive decision). But Lucius had taken to her, and his dear companion was nothing if not a superb judge of character.

He figured her to be bumbling or inattentive or immature; younger folk are always difficult in some way or another. She proved him wrong the first time they sat down to chat. She was very much a breath of fresh air, she was respectful, humble, and took an active interest in his work despite being half his own age. He appreciates her company and values her as an individual.

(Questions (4) & (5) have been omitted because I’ve not yet thought about this.)

Question (6) - Kyuu’s feelings for Trein gradually grew so intense as to occupy her every waking thought: he was her first love; she’d never before felt like this towards another. A confession wasn’t a question of “if”, but a matter of “when”--something Kyuu intended to stay for as long as possible. Fate had other plans, naturally... Kyuu made the mistake of working late with Trein at the latter’s residence one particularly stormy night. When she became cognizant of the hour and made to leave, Trein urged her to stay the night. She conceded: any attempt to brave the storm would end in disaster. Their proximity was enough to break Kyuu’s resolve, especially when it occurred to her that he couldn’t reject her... or, that he wouldn’t leave her at the mercy of winds and rain.

Trein did not reject her... but he did not express that he reciprocated her feelings, either. He didn’t give her a response; the only indication that he heard her was that he remained still while she spoke.

A number of days would pass, with Kyuu taking pains to avoid Trein at any and all costs. Trein would be the one to approach her; all the while, he behaved as though the incident never happened in the first place. Weeks later, when the two were working at his residence, Kyuu recognized a familiar warmth: contentment. A feeling of peace; an acceptance of herself and the incident.

Then Trein broached the topic once more.

His voice was calm; he sounded neither resentful nor accusatory. Every nerve in Kyuu’s body urged her to run away--she couldn’t bear shameful weight of her foolhardy sentiments. He was about to reject her... but she stood her ground. It was her just desserts, in a way, for allowing misguided feelings to dictate her behavior.

Then he quietly took her hand and gave her a gentle, small smile:

“I hope you can accept my sincerest apologies. The fact of the matter is, I could not answer you at the time. I had a poor grasp of my own feelings when you had the courage and resolve to speak your heart. Know I’ve passed countless hours since in self-reflection. Romance, intimacy... love--these are not things to be taken lightly, after all....

“I’ve grown quite fond of you. If you’ll have me, I should like to give this--the two of us--a try.”

Question (7) - Kyuu loves Trein’s olden manner, strict sense of discipline, and passion for his work. Trein finds Kyuu’s diligence, honesty to a fault, and humility to be endearing.

Question (8) - Both enjoy looking after cats (though this extends to other animals for Kyuu), reading, and playing chess (which they rarely do together because Kyuu’s a mediocre player at best). They share love for history as well.

Question (9) - Both Kyuu and Trein look down upon truant and delinquent behavior. They believe rules exist to be followed.

Questions (10) & (11) - Between the two, Kyuu is much more likely to seek affection and company. She’s not pushy or demanding about it--in fact, she’s generally unwilling to put her desires into words, especially in public. (She finds couples who engage in gratuitous PDAs rude.) Her gestures lack the grace of Trein’s rare but deliberate actions. Trein will express his love with measured care; never failing to demonstrate the utmost formality and poise when doing so. Still, he only takes the initiative when he’s certain Kyuu requires reassurance, though both are quite confident in their bond. Oftentimes, they’re just content to be around one another.

Question (12) - Trein, though both are early birds.

Question (13) - Kyuu will talk more if something’s on her mind, but Trein can speak on his profession for hours if given the chance (Kyuu is more than happy to listen to him during those times).

Question (14) - They’re both reserved when it comes to showing affection in public. Kyuu tends to be more affectionate in private, however.

Question (15) - A lovely dinner at a fancy restaurant followed by a quiet evening reading and engaging in hushed discussion about any number of things in the company of Lucius.

Question (16) - A library.

(Questions (17) & (18) have been omitted.)

Question (19) - Trein. Kyuu’s pride keeps her from apologizing for however long she feels like she’s in the right (which isn’t long).

Question (20) - ...Yes. A son and a daughter. Both take after their father in terms of manner and diligence, but they possess their mother’s empathy and willingness to accommodate the needs of others.

Question (21) - When Trein first asks Kyuu to call him by his given name.

Question (22) - Trein a cat, Kyuu a fox.

Question (23) - Kyuu.

Question (24) - Probably Trein, but he doesn’t cook much.

Question (25) - Kyuu enjoys a bevy of different foods; Trein is more reserved in his tastes. While Trein has yet to take to any of Kyuu’s favorite dishes, Kyuu absolutely loves Trein’s favorite dish, vichyssoise: it was a comfort food of her childhood, one that she associates with feelings of security and family.

(Question (26) has been omitted.)

Question (27) - Kyuu would gift Trein books and tea blends, whereas Trein might give her antiques or small trinkets.

Question (28) - They’d just spend the day together doing small, meaningful things--nothing extravagant.

Question (29) - Trein.

Question (30) - Neither one is prone to getting sick. Whomever is well will keep close watch over the ailing partner, doing all manner of things to ensure their speedy recovery such as monitoring their temperature; and preparing foods and serving them meals in bed.

#twisted wonderland #twisted-wonderland #twst ocs #twst yume #mozus trein #twst x oc

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oh-so-scenarios · 5 years ago

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Hello Again...❦| 01

⤳ Tʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ʜɪs ᴍᴀɴʏ ʏᴇᴀʀs, Mʀ. Pᴀʀᴋ ʜᴀs ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴀᴄʀᴏss ᴍᴀɴʏ ғᴀᴄᴇs. Bᴜᴛ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴏɴᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴇ ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ʜᴇ'ᴅ ᴇᴠᴇʀ sᴇᴇ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ.

⤳ ᴅᴇᴍᴏɴ!Jɪᴍɪɴ x ғᴇᴍᴀʟᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

⤳ᴀɴɢsᴛ, ғʟᴜғғ, ᴅᴇᴍᴏɴ!ᴀᴜ, (ᴀᴛ sᴏᴍᴇ ᴘᴏɪɴᴛ) sᴍᴜᴛ

A/N: Ok! I have decided that the POV’s will switch. Sometime’s it’ll be Y/n, other times It’ll be Jimin! Also, if you haven’t read chapter 00, please do so!

***Please ignore any errors!

(Word Count: 4.24K)

Previous | Next ◀ ▶ Series Index | Masterlist

JIMIN:

There’s a storm raging outside. The rain is knocking on the window of the library in my home. The wind is howling and lightning lit up the poorly lit corner I sat in.

Just as a storm went on outside, a storm went on inside.

I watch my guests zip around the library. They’re pulling all the ancient books from the shelves, leaving a disorganized mess behind them. They are rambling things to themselves in a frantic manner. They were paying me no attention as I sat at the small table in the corner of the sitting area. My elbow was propped on the table and my cheek rested on my hand.

I watch in silence, tuning in and out while I get lost in my thoughts. The tapping of the rain on the window was all that was keeping me grounded. I don’t know what to say, or what to feel.

Those same eyes. That same smile. What in the world? Though her eyes were no longer that alluring honey color, they held the same feeling. Y/n stared at me like I was a stranger. Her uneasy smile and stiff posture revealed her uncertainty and the tense atmosphere was confusing.

But my heart hammered in my chest all the same. I can’t be sure if it was the shock of seeing that face and hearing that voice again, or if it was anger boiling deep within me.

The woman who stabbed me in the back. The one who gained my trust, only with the intent to betray me, was living right under my nose this whole time. But when I came face to face with her, I could feel the rage I thought I was carrying this whole time.

Y/n, the woman who I thought was the love of my life and that was going to rule with me, blinked at me, oblivious to her presence shook my core.

“Your highness.” A gentle voice called out to me. I heard the voice but couldn’t respond for a few moments. I am stunned, and my head is buzzing but it also feels empty.

My eyes look to my left where Jisoo stood with a shy smirk. A hand rested on her hip and she grew in confidence while I eyed her. She’s beautiful, and though she was only a Stronghold, her crafts in dark works were powerful.

Jisoo is a distant friend I’ve known for more than a century and she has always been someone I enjoy having around, but marriage?

My uncle has become desperate to marry me to someone if he wants me to be with a stronghold demon.

Stronghold demons are lowly demons. They are weaker; often the contract demons, incubus demons, and demons that possess humans.

Demons have roamed the earth since the very beginning, watching as humans evolve and struggle with the problems they faced. Some problems that some would look up at the big man and ask why, when it was really our doing. It is all about status and power. That is how it was set from the beginning yet everyone has a purpose.

I am a Second Hand, also known as a Prince of a Fallen Angel. Before any type of demons existed, there were fallen angels. Fallen Angels are not demons. They are not the same as us. They are more powerful than we are and do not dwell on the earth. They do bigger things. Second hands were created from a fallen Angel. A specific fallen angel.

There is only a handful of us who have their own reign. I am the Second Hand of Chaos who came directly from the most well known fallen angel of them all. We simply call him big L. Everyone knows who he is. I am one of 5 who came directly from that specific fallen angel. Leaving us to be the only Second Hands. I was the first one and would argue that I am the most powerful.

I avoid the others, only running across them a few times in the past centuries. We are not a team, our work has nothing to do with each other so there is no need to contact each other. The only one who reaches out to me is Hoseok, the Second Hand of Despair. We were almost friends for some years.

I don’t care for the others.

Second Hands were only created from that particular fallen angel. The other demons created from other fallen angels who aren’t big L are Powers. Powers are demonic beings of their name. They are demons of powers. There are nature demons, witchcraft demons and more. Though they are below Second Hands in the hierarchy, their strength has range.

Some can be just as weak as Strongholds, while others sit high with their power nearing Second Hands.

From Powers come to Dominions. Dominions are the first demons to not come directly from a fallen angel. Dominions are territorial demons who were Strongholds that moved up in power. They are often connected deeply to land. They tend to have a clan following that goes by region, hence them being territorial demons.

The Busan Dominion can be overthrown by a strong demon.

Strongholds are the lowest of the low demons. Strongholds are humans who were once alive and have signed away their souls or became a demon through other means. Dominions only appeared once Strongholds gathered together and others grew in power. Once a demon dies, they do not reincarnate or even go to hell. They simply do not exist anymore.

This is why seeing Y/n, who was once a Witchcraft Power, as a human is throwing the people around me into a frenzy.

I glance at my uncle, my focus drawn to the specific dark purple book in his hands. The years of dust that accumulated on it were brushed off with a careless hand. My uncle opened the book, his brows furrowed and he looked up to meet my already waiting gaze.

“Why is the Witchcraft Scroll looking like this Jimin?” I knew what he was talking about before he turned the open book to face me. I didn’t move from my spot, staring at the blank pages he displayed to me.

My mother, though she’s not truly my mother, rushed forward gasping loudly.

“Jimin can see it. He told me. Right?” She grabs the book from my uncle’s hands looking between the void pages and myself.

Witchcraft Scroll, a book that holds the oldest and most robust spells that Witchcraft Powers have. One can’t forget they own such a book. Not when many Witchcraft Powers arrive at my door asking for it. Some strongholds and Dominions even poke me with a question about the book.

It could be because I know nothing about the works of witchcraft that I did not truly understand the weight and power of that book.

“Jimin?” My mother’s calls fell deaf to my ears as my thoughts were tuning out every sense.

“Jimin! Hello?” She says again.

●

“Jimin?” Y/n called out as if she didn’t already have my attention. She ran her fingers across the spines of the books on the shelf. Her dark hanbok is not something you see at this time. She stands out wherever she goes. She keeps to herself and though she doesn’t smile often, her eyes are always kind.

I can’t say we’re friends, but the more I see her, the more I miss her when she is gone. She is...fascinating. A powerful witch who silently commands respect but is still so humble and gentle.

My uncle’s words of finding a bride echo in my head as I watch her intently.

“Jimin, do you have an empty spellbook? A thick one?” She only kept her eyes on me for as long as she spoke, looking back to the bookshelves.

I sigh, a grin pulling at my lips.

“You say you find me annoying,” I begin, my teasing tone causing her to look at me. She rolls her eyes and moves away from the bookshelves, walking towards where I stood. I leaned against the larger desk just some meters from Y/n.

My white dress shirt and khakis became my home clothing, as I didn’t have time to change once coming home from my endeavors

“You say you find me annoying,” I repeat, “yet you are always in my manor, trailing behind Hoseok with that same frown on your lips.”

She takes slow dragging steps my way, her eyebrows raised, the corner of her lips turning up slightly.

“If I am correct, when I don’t follow Hoseok here, you question him about my absence. I have no choice but to appear, it would be rude to leave you longing for me.” Her voice grows quieter as she looks up at me under her eyelashes.

It feels like my entire being is burning up, as she stops in front of me. A wave of lavender tickles my nose and my gaze moves across her face. Her soft eyes, the beautiful features of her cheeks, and her lips. Oh, how her lips look tempting.

Have her lips always looked so kissable? 7 years of bickering playful with Y/n and I am only now being blown away by her beauty. Of course, Y/n has always been beautiful. There are many beautiful women in this world. I have been surrounded and pursued by many women.

Some demons, some humans. I laid my eyes upon many beauties so why do I suddenly feel blown away?

“Are you using a charm on me?” I am breathless when I speak next, realizing we stood in a comfortable silence only gazing into each other eyes.

“I would never. You know that.” She answers. I almost cringe at the traces of offense in her words. Did she think I was accusing her?

“Why? Do you feel weird?” Her words held concern now as she looked my body up and down. She looks back at me waiting for an answer but for once I felt...giddy.

I clear my throat, shuffling to the side and walking around the desk. This put her on the other side of the desk, staring at me in confusion.

“Are you okay?” She asks, ignoring my questions.

“I’m fine Y/n, I just have a lot of things to deal with. I have Dominions coming to me with complaints against each other. I must deal with it.” I bent down to open a few drawers, knowing that I had some blank spellbooks.

I finally found one, a thick one like she wanted. It was a beautiful dark purple, the material almost leather. I grab it and set it on the desk with a thud.

“Perfect!” She whispers and teaches forward, opening the book to stare at the blank pages. She closes the book again, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. I keen on her, watching with eagerness. Y/n doesn’t use her powers often, but when she does….it’s something you can’t look away from.

A demon of her strength that isn’t power-hungry? Lovely.

When she opens her eyes they are a crimson red. She looks down at the book, takes her left hand, licks her thumb and places it onto the book. The book catches into flames, but the fire doesn’t damage the book.

She opens the book and stares at the flame and the flames turn black before disappearing, only leaving a thick grey smoke. When she looks back up, her eyes are gold again. I look back down at the book and there are now words written in the book.

I leaned over to take a peak, yet the words did not make sense. They were weird symbols and characters from a language I’ve never seen.

“What is that supposed to be?” I ask.

She snickers, and it might be the best sound I have ever heard.

“It’s all the spells and charms I have made and gathered from my travels in the last 200 years.” She flips a page, skimming it a bit.

“It also holds some secrets people would probably want to get their hands on.” She says a matter of fact. She closes the book and picks it up, holding it to her chest.

“Only those I trust can see the ink.” She adds and closes her eyes as if to catch her breath from a tiring activity.

She opens her eyes and that same old frown is on her lips again, “And only those I love and I can read the text.”

“Who in this wretched world do you love?” My words come out in a teasing manner.

“Other than myself? Mhh...let’s wait and see.” She raises an eyebrow at me, “See you around.”

She turns to leave but I can’t help but call out.

“Y/n!”

She spins around quickly, “Yes?”

“1931,” I pause, “I am to find a bride by 1931.”

She nods, “Ah yes. There is much talk of it among the female Powers and Dominions. Even some Strongholds are interested. You have 20 years to find yourself a bride, it’s only 1911. You have much time”

I kept my eyes on her, running my fingers through my hair as she waited patiently for me to speak.

“What are your thoughts?”

“I don’t have any.” She answers quickly. I smirk, earning a small smile from her.

Cute.

She turns around to leave only to turn back to me, “I do have one thought.” She quickly set the book back on the table.

“Keep this safe for me.”

●

◌

“Jimin, the text is still there right? That witch’s secrets?” My uncle stood beside my mother who was also looking at me for an answer. I was still dazed, lost in the scene of my past.

I look at my mother, my uncle, and Jisoo. I can’t be sure what my face looks like right now, but I know I’m slightly annoyed.

Maybe they don’t understand? Are they small-minded? My uncle, who isn’t really my uncle, the Dominion for Seoul. I’ve known him for longer than I can remember. Centuries have passed and this man has guided me and helped me to make correct decisions.

My “mother” is a stronghold demon that worked for me at some point. She also became like family, being by my side for many years. If I was human, she’d probably be my mother. We look similar, hearing things about our resemblance from both humans and other demons.

I can’t expect them to understand. I can’t expect them to truly understand the stress I am feeling at this moment. They know they are stressed because demons cannot reincarnate and Y/n was there...reincarnated as a human.

But I am stressed not only because it seems a demon has reincarnated…but I am being reminded of what was done years ago. I am being taken back to 1931. I am angry, disgusted and ashamed. It is 2020 and the emotions are still as raw as they were 90 years ago.

“Your highness. You said you could see the text right?” Jisoo said, referring to what my mother said.

I sigh, standing from my seat with my hands in my pockets.

“I can’t see the text anymore cause there is no text,” I answer slowly.

“I’m sorry what?” My uncle hisses. He has always been curious about Y/n’s book. Uncle always wanted ways to rise in power, I could see it in his eyes. I’d never tell him what was in the book if there was still ink to read, but that’s something I decide for his own good.

But I told them all my books were open to them, so I can’t be surprised to see that Y/n’s book is what he searched for.

“There is no more text uncle,” I hiss the last word, “Do you know how dark magic and crafts operate? Why do you expect that the text would still be there?”

I narrow my eyes at him, resentment bubbling up within me.

“You should have sat down, read the book and copied down what it said!” He snaps, and whirls around to stalk back to the bookshelves.

“You should have thought that through!” I call out, my voice echoing in the vast library. It almost sounded like I was singing. in a mocking manner, while I walked closer to the familiar desk that sat in the middle of the library.

“You should have thought that through while you were manipulating me, uncle,” I scoff humorlessly, “But I guess we both ran off our emotions those days.”

“Is this why you refused all those who came to you for the books’ knowledge?”

“Uncle, if the text was so important, maybe you shouldn’t have pushed me so hard to kill her!” My voice shook the room, leaving a tense silence.

“It was the appropriate action for the offense she committed Jimin! Don’t let that human girl make you regret your decisions! You acted correctly!”

“Oh spare me that bullshit uncle! When Y/n was killed, the text disappeared and went with her!” I yell, my voice dropping to a whisper for my next words, “She may have been a traitor, but Y/n wasn’t stupid.”

~!~

I stroll through the house hallways. I don’t know where I’m going but I keep walking.

Is that really Y/n reincarnated? The face is the same, the first name is the same….everything is the same, except she is human.

I walk down the main staircase to get to the lobby area of the house. I stop a few steps short of the end of the stairs, deciding to sit down.

I sat there for a while or a long time, I’m not sure. But I’ve seen lightning crackle through the sky more than 30 times. The action appeared like a camera flash when looking at the frosted glass window that was in the front door.

I miss the hasty footsteps that approached. My senses have been delayed since seeing Y/n. I am...in a state of shock?

“Mr. Park?” Someone calls softly.

I respond with a hum before I even look up to see Y/n looking at me curiously. Even as a human, she held her head high with a sort of grace and confidence I can’t explain. She stood in front of me and unlike my other staff, she didn’t show any nerves or hesitate to look me in the eyes.

I try to be kind to humans, but oftentimes they are still intimated no matter how gentle I am. The human race wouldn’t be able to handle the existence of demons. They’ve built up their nations believing they are in control of all things, but that’s wrong.

The wars? Us. The politicians? Under our control. We simply let them walk about believing that they are on top of the world. Their egos are far too fragile.

“Mr. Park, You have missed your dinner. We weren’t able to keep to your schedule due to your guests. The kitchen staff can still cook up some dinner for you? Do your guests wish to eat as well?”

I don’t register her words, my gaze sitting on her face for way too long.

“Sir, glaring at me won’t give me an answer.” She says after some time, “Do you want to skip dinner all together?”

I groaned, finally dropping my gaze from her and running my fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes for a moment to collect my thoughts, but I could feel her eyes on me.

She stopped there waiting patiently, and the fake smile that was plastered on her face earlier was no more. Her face was neutral, not giving away any sort of anger or irritation while waiting for my response.

“The kitchen staff are still prepared to cook?” I questioned, glancing away from her at the floor and back to her.

“Yes, they are. It’s only 8:30, so they have not made any move to leave the kitchen yet. Also, once again, thank you for allowing us to stay the night. The storm isn’t letting up, traveling in such conditions would be impossible.”

When I only stare back in response she continues to speak, “I assume your guests will also be staying the night? Should I prepare their rooms?”

Maybe it’s because she’s technically off the clock, but the considerate and friendly attitude Mrs. Yoon said the new coordinator had is nowhere to be found.

“You talk a lot.” The words left my lips before I could think, my eyes widened as we both stared at each other.

Y/n pressed her lips together tightly, fighting back a chuckle? She looks off to the side, placing both hands on her hips. The motion oddly brings my attention down to her body. My gaze flickers back to her face just as she’s looking back at me.

“Sir, someone has to talk! I need to know what you want to be done for dinner.” She teases, and for some reason, I want to smile. This Y/n is not very different from the Y/n I knew previously.

“Don’t worry about preparing rooms for my guests. I will prepare food for myself later, please tell the kitchen staff they don’t have to stay in the kitchen waiting for me.” I answer.

She nods, “Understood. We will make sure to keep from disturbing your wing of the ho--”

“Jimin.” I turn around to see Jisoo descending down the stairs. Even though she called my name, she was glaring at Y/n. I almost rolled my eyes in annoyance but settled for a soft sigh.

“Everything okay?” Her tone and the sharp eyes on Y/n held a clear accusation towards Y/n. She was wondering if Y/n was bothering me.

“Everything is fine.” I utter, as she takes a seat beside me on the stairs. I choose to ignore the comforting hand she places on my knee, but I notice the knowing look she gives Y/n. Ugh.

“What were you talking about?” I open my mouth to answer when I notice that she’s speaking to Y/n.

“I was asking Mr. Park about his plans for dinner. He’s answered so I’ll be taking my lea--”

“When are you off work?” Jisoo cuts her off, narrowing her eyes at Y/n.

“Seven. But due to the weather, Mr. Park has allowed the staff to stay the night.” She answers plainly. She was either oblivious to the hostile actions Jisoo was directing towards her, or she didn’t mind it altogether.

“Jisoo, can you let her go, please? The questions are unnecessary.” I nearly whine, “You can go Y/n.”

Y/n leaves quietly, her steps relaxed and slow.

“I commend your restraint.” Jisoo giggles.

I raise an eyebrow at her, “What do you mean?”

“You must be fuming,” She explains further, “To see her again. After how things ended, it’s a cruel fate for her to end up working under you.”

I snicker, “It must be a sort of punishment.”

“For who? Her?”

Me.

“I don’t know, but it’s a twisted fate for sure.”

“It’s okay to express your anger Jimin,” She says in a soft tone, “you’ve been laid back since what happened. You don’t have to hold back.”

I can only shrug, “I’m feeling a lot of things right now. Anger is one of them but, we know what happened last time I acted out of anger.”

“Your Highness, I feel like that girl working here isn’t gonna be good for you. Yes, it’s okay to hold regret but it’s been 90 years. Your decision to execute Y/n was certainly done out of anger, but your highness, she was plotting to kill you!” Jisoo looks around the lobby of the house.

She was shocked by how loud her voice had gotten and when she spoke again, it was a whisper.

“You didn’t have to wait to hear her explanation. You didn’t owe her that, she was caught red-handed. So don’t let that weird reincarnation of her guilt you more. I say you fire her.”

“There is no need for that. She’s been working here for over a month and today is the first time I laid eyes on her. I can carry on with my life by simply ignoring her.”

“Having her here is--”

“--My decision.” I deadpan, “You will not tell me how to run my house Jisoo.”

“Okay, fair enough. This whole fiasco is distracting from the real reason we’re here.”

“Oh,” I yelp sarcastically, “yes I almost forgot that you, uncle and mom are trying to force me into a marriage. It’s not happening.”

“Is it me?” She pouts.

“Mhh,” I think for a moment, “Yeah.”

I watch her expression drop to a frown.

“You’re my friend Jisoo, I do not have feelings for you, I will not marry you. Also, it would make more sense if I married a Powers or a Dominion, you are only a stronghold. Those are simply the facts of it.” I stand up, placing my hands back into my pockets.

“I-I’ll contact Seokjin about that girl’s reincarnation.” She mirrors my actions, also standing up.

My face twists up at the mention of that name, “I don’t know how you can be friends with that angel.”

She chuckles slightly, “Just try to avoid Y/n okay? Let us worry about the rest.”

“Of course,” I reply, walking down the last few steps to head towards my office.

I can try to, but I can’t promise I will.

❦....❦....❦

Alright! How are you guys feeling about chapter one? If anything is confusing please inbox me about it! What did you think of the chapter? Also, things about the past will be revealed over time, so if it feels like pieces of the puzzle are missing, it’s okay!

If you want to be on the tag list for this story, let me know! :)

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