#she still has that persistent fear of the past repeating itself but there?

[line-of-fire]

Is this primarily a single muse blog? Yes. Does that mean I love my NPCs and background muses any less? Absolutely not they’re all my emotional support gremlins and each and every one of them is dear to me

[felixcloud6288]

Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 94

We see what Mustang's crew is doing. They're acting as the PR team while Briggs goes on the offense.

It seems like the fighting is in a fairly small part of the city since people don't know anything going on.

It's also pretty strange that no one in the general public is aware of King Bradley's disappearance or the attempted assassination. If there wasn't an attack on the capital and it wasn't specifically the Promised Day, maybe someone in Central would take temporary control and then make the announcement.

Since Graman is leading the recovery operation, maybe he put the gag order so Roy's team could take advantage of the public's confusion.

Breda also said the train bombing happened "a few hours ago". I've mentioned a few instances that show that characters have a very vague sense of the past. A few hours might mean earlier today or it might mean yesterday afternoon as far as I can tell.

But with Roy's team playing the part of the loyal allies of the beloved Fuhrer, they're managing to rally the public to their side. It could also pave the way for Eastern and Northern reinforcements if Graman were to march on Central. Graman could just say that he's rallying to Roy's cause and even reveal that he'd found the train wreckage.

And Maria Ross ties their whole PR machination with a pretty bow by claiming their cause is just.

If I could edit this chapter, I'd put the tank scene first and then have the radio station scene. Maria Ross said their cause was "for the sake of justice" and it would hit even harder if we then transitioned to Roy who is acting for the sake of vengeance instead.

It seems Envy can't maintain any shapeshifter appearance when seriously injured. When Roy burned Envy's face, it started changing back to its default human form. And I double checked chapter 38 and Envy immediately changed back from a dog when Lanfan impaled it with a kunai.

Envy has been previously defeated in its monster form. But it didn't lose in a way that implies Envy is not a threat anymore. So when Envy transforms again, we might be feeling a bit of dread and excitement. But only for a moment.

This really is the most appropriate way for Envy to truly lose a fight. Envy has been the most persistent antagonist in the whole series. It has mocked and manipulated the protagonists; it has reveled in its cruelty to others; it caused the Ishbal Civil War which was the source of many of the characters' traumas. And every time it was faced, Envy was a deadly enemy who no one could truly defeat.

And now Envy is facing an enemy it is helpless against. And anything it tries to do just makes Roy even angrier and make him prolong its suffering more.

Envy can't mock, manipulate, murder its way out of this.

And the best part is we the audience are enjoying the catharsis about it. Envy is cruelly mocked, all its tricks fail completely, and it spends the chapter running in fear while being hunted. And we might not realize how Roy is sliding off the path he set for himself. And Roy isn't aware of it either.

There is an alternate universe where Roy still had this fight and there would be no concerns about his mental state. And that universe was destroyed when he declared that he'd make Envy suffer through the whole ordeal.

When Roy fought Lust, he opted to burn her and continue to burn her until she stayed dead. No waiting for her to regenerate. Just continuous explosions. But with Envy, he's opting to make every burn as painful as possible. Melt Envy's eyes, blow Envy up, wait for Envy to recover, repeat.

And this chapter really shows how utterly petty Envy can be. It couldn't trick Roy by disguising itself as Hughes, so it tried to guilt him over attacking Hughes. It couldn't beat Roy, so it targeted Hawkeye in order to hurt him. And it yelled defiance at Roy even as he prepared to finish it off.

And let's talk briefly about Hawkeye's pre-skirmish with Envy. Since Envy-as-Roy is the first one we see, and Hawkeye is the one hidden in shadow, it's understandable that we'd think Hawkeye is actually Envy. Although the first hint to the contrary should be that Roy stopped doing the eye thing when he met Hawkeye.

And Envy apparently does not ship Royai.

That scene also sets up a nice parallel with what happens next. We were set up to think that we were seeing Envy about to attack Roy and it turns out to be the very opposite scenario. But then Hawkeye really does point a gun at Roy.

In both cases, she's aiming her gun at a monster.

How many guns does Hawkeye have on her? She pulled out 4 different handguns over the course of this chapter.

And here's a potential explanation to Ed's long-range Alchemy. He's not actually performing the same thing May does. He's manipulating the ground along the way to its intended destination.

back

[igigix]

Black Heart

Chapter 10: He Knows

- Rio (Good Girls) x Female Reader/You -

-> 18+ readers only!

-> English is not my native language, so bear with me because there will probably be some grammatical mistakes.

Summary: Rio, a dangerous, ruthless gangster, stumbles your path.

Rating: Mature, Explicit.

Warnings: Mentions of rape and assault.

Word count: 1.8k

A/N: Yo! Yo! It’s been a long time, lol. I've really missed writing. Let’s see how our two idiot are doing. Enjoy the new chapter because there will be a lot of development in the following one. Reblogs and feedback are very welcome. 

"Stop. You don't have to do this." 

"Do what, sweetheart? I've done a lot of things that are out of character for me since I've met you, so be specific, yeah?”

It was getting late. Rio has yet to appear, and despite your best efforts, you find yourself disappointed. You began to genuinely grow attached to him, which was very dangerous for many reasons. So you focused on your job to distract yourself from him. You were able to progress in your work since your sister brought you your computer. Lucy came to see you after Bonnie and Sarah left. She wanted to check up on you. She was worried about you, especially when she heard about the attack. She didn't know the full extent of what had occurred, and you wanted to keep it that way. Dorothy also visited you. She was always nice and caring. You're grateful to them. Everyone has been extremely kind and supportive. 

You turn off your Mac and lie down on the bed. You are left alone with your thoughts and emotions. Although you are surrounded, you still feel alone. You seem to be swallowed whole by the pain as it overtakes you. Why? What caused that shift in your life? Now you're lying to your loved ones, hiding your criminal activities from them. Your actions caused your best friend harm. You accused Beth, but deep down, you know it's you're fault. The past came to strike you with full force after you provoked it. Your blood courses through your veins and brings your heart to a rapid beat. It's your fault. Your breath comes in short, shallow spurts. 

You're feeling dizzy. You try to relax by focusing on the ceiling while trying to block everything from your memories. You see him. 

"For a little privacy. You know, just like the old days.”

 Everything around you becomes hazy as his image jolts through your mind. You feel a burning sensation overwhelm your body as the emotion of guilt engulfs you. You feel dirty. You're safe; everything will be alright, you tell yourself. To prevent your seizures, the nurse handed you your meds. You're fine, you repeat over and over again. You squeeze your eyes shut as if that will make it stop. It doesn't. Your mind is throwing itself into a vicious cycle of self-blame. Not only did you let everyone down, but you failed yourself. No wonder why Beth and the girls don't care about you. They only use you as a pawn to make fake money. Same for Rio.

You have feelings for someone who only sees you as a tool. Your brain keeps replaying Beth's harsh words. "What do you think will happen when he learns about your health problem because believe me, he will. I'll tell you; you'll instantly become a burden to him." You're falling apart, and you feel very, very scared. You want it all to stop. You want it to disappear. He'll either toss you or, perhaps worse, kill you. He's capable of it. The weight of it hits you all at once. 

He could kill you, and stupidly, your heart yearns for him. You need to put some distance between you and him. You can't let yourself fall for him anymore, no matter how charming he is. He's not a good man, and you're not worthy of love. You don't feel dirty. You are dirty. Filthy. Regardless of how much you scrubbed yourself, that sensation persisted. You knew that part of you that you couldn't get rid of. You thought you had moved on, but it came back to haunt you even more strongly than before. You feel that state of confusion and fear again. 

— — — —

Rio strolls down the sidewalks in front of the hospital where you are staying. He was so livid that he opted to walk rather than drive. His hands are tucked up in his pockets, and a blue hoodie covers his head. His lips are pursed, and his scowl is evident. All he thinks about is you, that piece of shit, and the seething desperation boiling in his chest. He is driven by the desire to beat and destroy everyone and everything that could hurt you. Rage bubbles inside him. He can hardly contain it. He could go ballistic at any moment, like a lit fuse on a burning bomb. But instead, he strides on; his pace is deliberate and controlled. He wants to be level-headed. He needs to think about this properly. He didn't want to frighten you. He didn't want to lose control. He needs to restrain his temper for you. He needs to do this for you. 

He pauses when he's right in front of the entrance to the hospital. He was determined to see you regardless of visiting hours; nothing or no one would stand in his way. He never knew he could feel this way. He was ready to do whatever it took to be close to you. He needed you like a heart needs a beat. He didn't know where this devotion came from, but he was experiencing it. It was strange and foreign--He was beginning to allow himself to care for someone other than his son Marcus. Elizabeth misled him when he thought they had a connection. He vowed to remain cautious after she betrayed him. 

Could he trust you, though? He didn't know yet. But he would give it his all, and the rest would figure itself out. You were someone worth fighting for. You were unique and special. He was enthralled. The moment he laid his eyes on you, he knew you were more than meets the eye. Something in you called out to him. He was utterly mistaken in his assumption that Elizabeth did all the heavy lifting. You were the actual talent, the real deal. You were too innocent and too beautiful for your own good. 

Rio enters the automatic doors, and the melancholy mood of the hospital seeps into his bones. He navigates through the empty halls. It's very late, and there aren't many people around. He takes the elevator to the fourth floor and wanders to your room. The corridors are silent, and there aren't any staff members around. He approaches your chamber and stops where one of his men, Kofi, had been positioned to watch over you. From now on, You won't ever again be exposed or defenseless. No matter what. He will protect you at all costs. Kofi steps aside as Rio enters after opening the door, his eyes immediately catching yours. Your eyes are tired and a little red. You're not asleep. You have a pensive and troubled look on your face. He stands beside the bed and tentatively reaches out to touch you. His fingers skimmed the plane of your cheek. His fingers brush your skin and send a shiver down your spine. 

Head encircled with a scarf; You wore silk nightgowns. You feel the urge to close your eyes and lean into his touch. You want to know what's behind his ruthless, intimidating facade. He forces himself to stay still. You are vulnerable right now. He doesn't want to take advantage of your helpless state. Your gaze is drawn to his wounded hands.

"Oh my god, what happened?" You ask. You pull his hand and focus your attention on it. "Are you alright?" you ask him. His expression hardens, and he frowns. The tips of his fingers are stained with blood, while his knuckles are swollen and bruised. You're in a fucking hospital bed because you were assaulted, yet you're worried about his hands? The bastard ambushed you, and you're asking him if he's alright? Rio stays silent. "Why won't you answer me?" You say. His hooded gaze flicks at you before it is glued to your face again. "Please," you beg, "answer me." 

You're honestly intrigued. Whatever it was, he had been in a dangerous place. You can feel it. Your mind is preoccupied with anything else than simple curiosity. Fear. The recognition causes you to jerk within. No. You could care less. You want to stop caring. You wish to despise him. You need to despise him. The biggest act of treason your heart can do will be to care for a man who will never love you.

"I'm good, sweetheart." He replies, his voice soft. He leans over you and kisses your forehead. It takes every ounce of his self-control to pull away. He pulls the chair near your bed and sits, holding your hand.

The tension in his shoulders melts away when you tangle your fingers through his. He is still fuming with fury, but you make him feel calm again.

"Tell me you trust me, yeah?" He murmurs. 

"You've given me every opportunity not to," you state. "How can I trust you?" 

"Because I need you to." He replies, clutching harder to your hand.

You bite your lip and look at his hands. "Then tell me what really happened." You whisper.

"I know." 

"You know?" Not understanding you at first, you keep quiet. Still absorbing his words. A few moments later, you realize that he knows that you were assaulted. Deep shame tinges your skin at the thought. 

You attempt to remove your hand, but he firmly holds you. You turn your head away in humiliation. He knows you're dirty. 

"No, you don't. Nothing happened to me." You lie. The truth will disgust him, and you know it. 

"Eyes on me, mama, when you're talking." You hear him growl.

You try to pull away, but he has a tight grip on your hand. The silky pad of his thumb caresses your palm. He is trying to make you feel comfortable. Your body responds to his touch. You don't know how to process that. The display of affection makes you want to cry. You never expected to be treated like this. Your heart yearns for him, and your mind revolts at the idea. He gently takes your chin, tilting your face to meet his gaze. 

"Eyes on me, yeah?"

───────── ∙ ~εïз~ ∙ ──────────

<- Previous chapter: Between Two Points 

-> Next chapter: My Tears Are Becoming a Sea

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[manicr]

X-Factor: Daken

Since I did a development analysis on Daken in X-Men Blue, it feels only reasonable to do one for X-Factor, especially considering the the latest issue (#8). I had thoughts that I articulated in the tags, but I think I should try to put them together and look at Daken as a character in the whole of X-Factor.

Firstly, Daken isn’t recruited into the team, he persistently volunteers despite the objections of the team. He is presented passed out on the bar floor, drinking to deal with his feelings. Word of God states he’s depressive again and Laura being in the Vault is a big factor in that. Daken later confesses that he’s been “playing nice”, implying what he did was trying to be good and finding it a role, rather than natural.  His drive to join the team seems to be desperate to distract himself from his negative feelings, needing purpose and preoccupation.

However, very in-character, he excuses himself with flippant commentary, and the fact that he finds Aurora attractive:

He, as in XMB, makes himself useful to the team with his powers and instincts, despite them not being welcoming of his presence. He persists and tries to reach out to them, even if only a little, like he’s learned to do with his sisters and what we saw in XMB. He even calls them out on their bullshit against him, and tries to “be good”. The team still doesn’t trust him, and are bothered both by his flirtatiousness and his past villainy.

He actively pursues Aurora and gets himself thrown out of Mojo-verse, however his interest isn’t just romantic/sexual, but he wants to solve what happened to her when she died. He knows she’s not telling everything. He tries to be kind and reach out to her, not forcing her to say, but curious -- maybe having his own hypothesis on what happened. He knows something is off, and can’t let it go. Seems to care enough to want to help her.

Now were three issues in and Daken has been trying his best to help, reach out and fit into a team that is not very welcoming or accepting of him. Aurora is a fixed point of interest for him, and he tries especially with her. She seems flattered by the attention at this point.

Then the X of Swords event happens, essentially without Daken though he fights in the background, and we get our first major time-jump. That jump seems noticeable in text, as there seems to be a greater comfort and trust in the team as a whole, not just towards Daken.

At a party in the Boneyard, Daken talks with Polaris, trusting her enough to ask her if the kindness he sees is real It is, and it’s a bit of an alien concept to him still. He equates it with lack of intelligence “simple-mindedness” or faking it as an act to get ahead/mask whatevers beneath. Polaris mentions his childhood trauma.

Daken also takes some ribbing from Lorna regarding his past and glum attitude, but laughs it off, but we get some foreshadowing through it. Daken’s trauma regarding snow is tied together in XF, harking to a Dark Wolverine era trauma of him  as a child being forced to ‘train’ in snow by Romulus. It’ll repeat itself in XF again.

We also get to see a little of what Daken does on his spare time, drawing with charcoal: having finally found some other outlet than fighting, fucking and drinking for his feelings.

He also reaffirms his interest in Aurora, as well as his familial affection for Polaris. He shows off growth in being able to have different types of affection, to have family that he cares for when back in his own series he refused social bonds like family (in ref. to the Fantastic 4) and saw them as based on fear, social obligation, and naivete.

Themes of being trapped, trauma and abuse are repeated in XF by different characters -- it applies to all of them in different ways. The letter “Why didn’t you just leave?” that speaks of this.

It echoes trauma that Daken needed to deal with himself under Romulus control -- even when he was physically away from him. His character arch has been to find himself, and not just flippantly in his eat-prey-killing comment, but also a way out of the trauma of abuse and making himself ‘smaller’ lesser to fit with the living weapon Romulus wanted. To find and dare to feel, to feel worthy, and not fear some punishment from his abuser. Of course, this applies to so many characters in X-F, both sub-textually and directly like with Siryn and Shatterstar.

One of the major relationship changes now in the book is Daken and Northstar’s relationship. Northstar confides and trusts in Daken as a team-mate from previously having refused it. Daken in turn takes his orders and seems to want that trust:

This culminates in Northstar rescuing Daken when he was trapped and beaten by the Morrigan. And according to Aurora, Northstar is behaving towards Daken as a person he doesn’t want to lose, by yelling for him and checking on him. He explicitly cares for Daken now, even with the protectiveness he still feels for Aurora. The dying in the snow theme repeats it self.

Then there is Daken and Auroras long conversation about his powers, her feelings and his feelings. He reveals the limits of his skills and she insists on understanding, which seems to make him feel better about it. She empathizes with the burden of his skills, seeing the drawbacks.

There’s a lot of subtext regarding his relationship with his own powers, he outwardly uses them shamelessly but at the same time this implies that it’s far more fumbling, uncertain and emotionally harrowing for him. And that he’s willing to see that and feel that rather than see it as his right to do whatever or refuse his powers utterly.

The Morrigan fight is overlayed with a speech about trauma, highlighting how it directly relates to Daken. He’s traumatized. He’s been abused. He’s been rewired to be dysfunctional, to hide his pain and the suffering. And it makes him feel worthless, unloved, and that no one cares, has never cared.

Later, Daken acknowledges how poorly he felt, how helpless, and how suicidal it made him feel. Even if he thinks its hypnosis rather than his own real feelings. His description fit in with depression and trauma-related issues, the feeling over never reaching shore, of drowning, and helplessness combined with the negative-self talk, that no one cares, loves him, or will be there for him since he’s worthless and a burden. But also how he looks to Aurora for comfort to deal with that.

Generally this issue irons out issues of consent, the genuineness of both their feelings as well as Daken being more like a real friend and family member to the team, but also about revealing his trauma. To show that he is not alright, despite his flippant flirty exterior. He struggles with his past, his trauma and his feelings about himself, and the belief that he deserves to be loved, cared for and to belong. This is repeated in issue #8 which hammers these themes home once more. Daken is not alright, but he wants to be.

This is growth from early Daken who didn’t even want to admit to himself that he was abused and molded by Romulus, and using rage and hurting others as a way of dealing with his own feelings, as well as using others and himself because it didn’t matter, he didn’t and no one else did either.

The in the snow theme is repeated and his fervent desire to be saved, from everything, himself as well as everything and everyone that might harm him. He seems to believe that being loved by Aurora will save him. Which is not the healthiest approach to dealing with trauma but a very common one, latching onto other people, because he doesn’t yet have the sense of self or self-worth to believe in it unless someone else does too. This for most people a necessary step towards growing and getting better.

He also is still stuck in the abuse-trauma-victim cycle and blaming himself for being harmed, seeing that he’s somehow not being good enough and that’s why he’s being hurt. “I’ll be good” are the words of someone who has been hurt over and over again by someone who made them believe they somehow deserved it. That they were ‘bad’ and needed to be punished.

...then he is faced with the fact that he truly does believe this about himself, that he’s not over it, that he’s not yet free or saved from the feelings that the trauma left behind.

But then... he dies, self-sacrificing to save his team mates and the information they carry, knowingly risking up to a week of his memory and experiences. He uses Aurora as a morality pet, to prompt himself into action, excessive such even.

He is resurrected without the memory of any of this to the point BEFORE Northstar came for him. He knows he lost that. He knows from reports that he lost things, even if not the extent of it, and now the hurt and pain from DAYS in the snow is fresh again, without any help from Aurora to process it nor knowing for certain that she loves him, without being proved that his team cares and came for him in the end. He might now the latter in paper, but that’s not the same emotionally speaking.

So, he’s angry. He knows he’s lost things, he’s been hurt and killed. But he doesn’t have the comfort of resolving these things with his team like he did, not with his habit of hiding his pain, and feeling like a burden. So he fights instead.

So, where have we ended up at the end of issue #8 of X-Factor?

Daken has been accepted by his team, because of all of HIS hard work, reaching out and kindness

Daken has opened up about his powers and his suffering (though lost half of it to the mind transfer time gap)

He has established a relationship with Aurora with clear consent, affection, but not yet full transparency of their mutual pasts (again some lost from his perspective)

He is starting to realize that he’s not yet ‘over’ his own trauma and that he’ll need to continue working on it (some lost)

Daken isn’t a perfect character nor perfectly written, he was abused and shaped by that abuse and trauma into something vicious, that he didn’t dare change from for a long time. Instead he tried to enjoy it, to revel in it, rather than face the pain and grow. He hurt and killed a lot of people, including himself, and it’s takes years of development for him to start to grow past that old self. Getting away from Romulus was only the first step.

He needed people to make him see how fucked up he was and to motivate him to be better, from Johnny back in Dark Avengers, then Laura and Gabby, and then trying on his own, attaching to Donna for a while, before teaming up with the X-Men and then X-Factor and Aurora as support for himself. It’s pretty clear that on his own, he can’t do it, he needs help, support, structure and purpose -- as do the majority of people. I’d also recommend therapy, but he’s not there yet.

One day he might stand on his own feet when it comes to feeling good about himself and managing his own life. But right now he’s in a place where he needs a strong support system, not just his family and lovers but also friends.

[juliandev0rak]

Into The Wild  

Chapter 5: Honeysuckle

✧ Into The Wild Series ✧ playlist ✧

Words: 3023

At the beginning of the summer Asra and Willa did a tarot reading, just for fun and mostly as an excuse for Willa to show off the cards she’d designed and painted herself. It had been a simple one card pull to symbolize the theme of the summer, and she’d pulled the star— symbolizing hope, faith, and rebirth. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now, looking back at the last few weeks of summer, Willa has realized just how correct that prediction was.

She can’t remember the last time she was this happy and excited for the future. The last few years have been hard on her own, and joining the staff of Camp Vesuvia had been a last-ditch effort to fix things, to make something of herself, to find a place to belong. And as her tarot deck had predicted, she’d done all of those things. Though there was no way the cards could have predicted Muriel, or how much Willa has grown to like him in just a few short weeks.

After the movie night, specifically after the cuddling in the dark and goodbye cheek kisses, she’d been afraid he would disappear. But Muriel had kept his promise to be around more, and they’ve spent the last few days almost entirely together. He’s joined her at meals, sat with her every night at the campfire, and even helped her with work. volunteering in the arts and crafts cabin when his own work was slow.

And Willa had been just as eager to see him, she’d even followed him around on a patrol one evening. It should have been scary to be in the forest after dark like that, but she’d never had so much fun in her life holding the flashlight and listening to Muriel tell stories about his work to pass the time. That’s another change, he actually talks to her now. And whether it’s due to her persistent encouragement finally wearing him down or the tentative trust they’ve built up over a few weeks of friendship, Willa is very glad for the change.

In all of the busy days of work and evenings spent sitting close together by the fire, time has moved fast. Only one week remains before the end of the summer. Only one week remains until Willa has to drive back down the mountain and back to whatever remains of her solitary life in the city. She supposes she’ll have to look for a new job, and that she’ll simply have to forget about how wonderful things have been here at Camp Vesuvia.

Willa doesn’t want to think about forgetting Muriel yet, the thought hurts too much to consider though the deadline for accepting it grows ever nearer.

With only seven days left till the end of camp, it’s time for the culminating event of the summer— the annual talent show. It’s all the campers have been able to talk about for days, and most camp activities have been halted to allow them to practice their talents. Willa had been asked to judge, but she decided to leave that job to Asra and Julian. They’ve been bickering all day about the criteria used to find a winner and what “defines talent”. The winners will get prize money, a trophy, and most importantly— the glory of winning Camp Vesuvia’s talent show.

The air is full of excitement, and as Willa enters the amphitheater she can’t help but be swept up in the festive mood. Lucio has been busy with the decorations, he’s got an eye for dramatic decor and somehow managed to turn the outdoor stage into a real theater experience. There are lights strung through the trees, a red curtain creating a backstage area, and he even managed to convince the kitchen staff to bring out the popcorn machine.

As the campers file in, Willa takes her seat in the back, making sure to save the seat next to her for Muriel. When she saw him earlier in the day he’d promised to be there even though “talent shows aren’t his thing”, as he’d told her in no uncertain terms. Nadia takes to the stage to start the show and Willa searches the crowd, not spotting Muriel anywhere. Portia waves Willa over to sit with her and Asra, but she shakes her head. She’ll wait a little longer for him.

The first act goes up, one of the older campers sings a Taylor Swift song. She’s actually really good and Willa gives her a standing ovation when she finishes. The camper gets a ten from Julian and an eight from Asra which causes a squabble between the judges which Nadia has to break up. The judges are almost better entertainment than the show itself, and by the time the second competitor takes the stage Willa’s nearly forgotten the empty seat next to her. But sometime in the middle of the next act Muriel arrives, silently taking the open seat.

“Sorry I’m late,” Muriel says.

Willa scooches over to make more room for him on the bench, giving him a smile in greeting. “I’m glad you made it.”

“What did I miss?”

“The first camper sang a cover of ‘You Belong With Me’, and then Julian and Asra fought over the scores. Someone needs to take those score cards away from them before a physical fight breaks out,” Willa laughs, eyeing the judges warily.

The corner of Muriel’s mouth quirks up in amusement. “Sounds like them.”

The next act features a bunch of card tricks involving audience participation. “Is this your card?” the boy asks, holding up the King of Hearts for another camper to inspect. It turns out that it wasn’t the right card, and the judges give out a measly 5 and 3 as scores.

Willa sneaks a glance at Muriel as the judges deliberate and finds him already looking at her. Instead of looking away they both stare for a minute, only breaking eye contact when applause signals the next act taking the stage. Willa clears her throat, hoping the moment of staring wasn’t as awkward as she fears it was.

“Did you ever compete in a talent show?” Muriel asks, his voice pulling her out of her thoughts. He keeps his volume at a polite whisper so as not to disturb the performance.

“I was homeschooled so I didn't have much of a chance, but my brothers and I would put on our own talent shows,” Willa whispers back. “We used to charge our parents a dollar to watch the show.”

“What was your talent?”

“Singing, I wanted to be on Broadway when I was a kid. As I got older I realized I’m not that great of an actor,” Willa says, smiling at the memory of her younger self tap dancing her way across the barn.

“I think you’d be good at it.” Muriel sounds earnest, as if he really means the compliment.

“Thanks, but I think you’ll have to hear me sing first before you make that judgement,” Willa laughs.

“I’d like to hear you sing.”

Willa blushes at the comment, ducking her chin into her scarf to hide her face. “Maybe someday.”

“But I’m not going to karaoke.”

“That’s ok, it’s a bit much even for me,” she says, trying to keep her tone even as he continues to look directly at her.

A strong breeze moves through the trees around them and Muriel suppresses a shiver, his shoulder bumping hers. Willa wonders again why he doesn't bundle up in more clothing, maybe the cold doesn’t bother him like it bothers her. The thought reminds her of the present she made him and Willa turns to him excitedly.“I brought you something.”

“Huh?”

Willa reaches into her tote bag, digging past her water bottle and various scrunchies and nearly-empty packs of gum. Finally she locates the gift and pulls it out for Muriel to see. “I made you a scarf!’’

“You… made this?” Muriel takes the green knit scarf out of her hands, inspecting the repeating pattern with interest. “Why?”

“I wanted to! It gets cold here at night. I know you have to patrol outside a lot and I thought you might like something to keep you warm.” Willa reaches for the scarf again and he lets her take it. “May I?”

Muriel inclines his head slightly and allows her to wrap the scarf around his neck. When he lifts his head he’s smiling and Willa exhales in relief. He likes it.

The talent show goes on, though Willa and Muriel admittedly don’t pay much attention to it. There are musical acts, dancing, and every sort of talent in between and though Asra and Julian continue to bicker a little, as the night continues they seem to get it together. They manage to at least avoid breaking out the score cards as weapons.

With only a few acts remaining the tensions are high, and the crowd has only gotten louder. Willa looks over at Muriel and notices how uncomfortable he looks at the increased volume and chaos. He seems like he wants to leave, and Willa can’t blame him, it is a bit much. Since she’s not technically on duty tonight, and she wants to spend more time with him, Willa concocts a new plan for the evening.

“Would you like to go get some cocoa? The kitchen should still be open,” she suggests.

Muriel looks up, eyes wide in relief. “That’d be nice.”

“Let’s go then! I need a snack.” Willa grabs his hand on the pretense of pulling him up from his seat, but he doesn’t pull his hand away once he’s up. As they leave the amphitheater his fingers weave through hers and he holds her hand more tightly.

“Are we allowed to be in here this late?” Muriel asks as they enter the kitchen building. It’s warm and brightly lit, a nice reprieve from the dark path they’d had to navigate to walk here.

Willa crosses over to the cabinet where mugs are stored, reaching up on her tiptoes to grab two mugs. “Wellll… not technically, but I’m friends with the kitchen staff so it’s fine!”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Muriel stands by the door, uncertainty clouding his expression.

“Muriel it’s fine, I promise. Come here and help me measure the cocoa,” she beckons him over, holding a spoon out for him to take. They make their cocoa, stirring warm milk and chocolate powder together until it's smooth.

Willa holds her mug up to her nose, inhaling the chocolate scent. “Do you want marshmallows?”

“Only if they aren’t burnt to a crisp. Maybe I should handle them,” Muriel laughs, and Willa turns to him with a surprised grin.

“Wait, was that a joke?”

“I can be funny.” He plops two marshmallows into his mug and puts three in Willa’s.

“Thanks.” Willa holds her mug up, clinking it against Muriel’s in cheers.

They sip their cocoa in silence, enjoying the quiet after a night of too much noise. Out of the corner of her eyes Willa notices Muriel watching her and she wonders if he’ll say something or if she should first. He beats her to it, setting his mug down on the counter before he turns to face her more fully.

“What will you do after this summer?” he asks.

Of course he would bring up the one topic she most wants to avoid. “I’m not quite sure, I guess I’ll move back to the city and start looking for another job,” Willa sighs. 

“So you’re leaving.”

Willa takes a sip of her cocoa, trying to decipher his tone as she thinks of a response. He sounds almost sad, and she can’t imagine it’s on her behalf. “I think I have to, I can’t stay here with no campers around, I wouldn’t have a job.”

Muriel’s hair falls into his face, leaving half of it in shadow, but Willa can still see him frown. “Why are you spending time with me, why aren’t you out there with your friends?”

“You are my friend and I like spending time with you, I like you,” she says. “We’ve been over this.”

“Why do you give me things? I don’t ever give you anything in return,” Muriel looks frustrated now and Willa fights the urge to reach out and take his hand. She gives him his space, keeping her hands firmly planted on her mug.

“You give me plenty, Muriel. I know this will sound cheesy but your friendship is a gift, being around you is the best part of my day,” Willa explains. “You don’t have to give me anything.”

Muriel still looks frustrated and confused, and Willa sighs in defeat. She’s leaving in a week, it’s now or never. If Muriel isn’t getting the picture she’ll just have to draw him a new one. Though part of her wants to just bury these emotions and not risk ruining things, she's never been one to shy away from her feelings. Even if he doesn’t feel the same way as her it’s only fair that he knows how she feels.

Before she can overthink it any more Willa blurts out, “The truth is Muriel, I like you.”

He tilts his head to the side in confusion. “You already said that?”

“No, I like you, as in romantically,” Willa pauses. Muriel stares at her blankly as if he doesn’t understand her words, but now that she’s started talking it’s hard to stop.

“I’ve liked you for weeks now, actually, ever since that night when you taught me how to roast marshmallows. And I know summer’s ending soon so I feel like I have to tell you now or I’ll never get a chance and I know I’ll regret it forever if I don’t. I don’t want to be an old lady still thinking about that crush I had in my twenties that went nowhere because I was too afraid to tell him so uh, here I am telling you…” Willa trails off, wondering if Muriel might need medical attention, he looks very pale.

“You like me?” he repeats.

“I do,” Willa nods.

Muriel continues to stare at her in silence and Willa doesn’t know what to say. Finally, the tension breaks and Muriel grabs his jacket off of the coat rack by the door. “I should go.” Before she can process what he’s said Muriel opens the door, practically running outside.

“Muriel, wait!” Willa stands in the doorway calling after him, but he doesn't turn. She briefly considers going after him but that might only make things worse.

Instead, she takes a seat on the doorstep, feeling like she wants to disappear into the dirt. For a second, tears well up behind her eyes but she blinks them away, feeling silly for caring so much. He’d run away. She’d told him she liked him and he’d left, there could be no clearer sign of rejection.

“Well, that went well didn’t it,” Willa mutters sarcastically, using her sleeve to wipe at her damp eyes. “I need to go clean something.”

She heads back into the kitchen, trying to ignore the well of emotions she feels as she washes the mug Muriel had been holding only minutes ago. She watches the cocoa wash down the drain, feeling like her own life might be headed in that direction. 

Her tarot reading from the beginning of the summer feels like a sick joke now, she should’ve pulled the tower instead, that would be a more accurate depiction of the summer. At least she’s leaving soon, Muriel won’t have to worry about bumping into her anymore. And she won’t have to see him, she won’t have to walk around camp being reminded of him and how she’d ruined things.

After a few minutes of listlessly scrubbing already clean kitchen counters, Willa takes a seat on the doorstep again. The sudden sound of footsteps approaching startles her and she turns towards the path, wondering if perhaps Muriel has come back after all. She’s surprised, and a little disappointed, to find Nadia instead.

The camp director gives her a soft smile in greeting and gestures to the step, “Is there room for one more?”

“Of course.” Willa scoots over to make room for her.

Nadia looks at Willa with a raised eyebrow, taking in her tear-stained face and red eyes. “I saw Muriel on the way here, he looked quite disturbed.”

“That’s my fault, I scared him off.”  Willa fiddles with the edges of her scarf as she speaks, picking at a loose thread.

“I’ve known Muriel for many years now, and while he is a very capable, kind person he does not always know how to react to people. Especially not pretty girls,” Nadia smiles, nudging Willa with her shoulder. 

Willa tries to laugh, though the sound comes out as more of a weak sniffle. “How did you know I liked him?”

Nadia laughs, “Oh Willa, the whole camp knows.”

“Of course they do,” Willa shakes her head in dismay. “Well clearly Muriel doesn’t feel the same way, he ran away from me after I told him.”

“As I said, he doesn’t always know how to react. Give him some space, give him some time,” Nadia counsels. Willa would normally agree but she has no more time, she can’t be patient.

“I’m out of time, Nadia. Camp is over in a week,” Willa frowns. “And I think it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t like me.”

“He likes you,” Nadia states, her tone the no-nonsense matter of fact one she uses when directing campers. “I’m certain of that.”

Willa stares down at the dirt, wondering how Nadia could possibly be certain of that. “Even if he does like me there’s no point, it doesn’t matter if I'm leaving.”

“Where’s that eternal optimist who stepped into my office at the beginning of the summer?” Nadia asks, putting a comforting hand on Willa’s shoulder to draw her attention. “Would it change anything if I told you that you don’t have to leave Camp Vesuvia?”

“What?”

“Would you like to stay?”

✧

[scabopolis]

lv au week, day 3: fairy tales

Title: parry on Fandom: Veronica Mars Rating: PG  Pairing: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars Other Characters: An animal that is 100% based on one of my mom’s felines Additional Tags: Absolutely inspired by Tangled, though I do not give Logan luscious magical hair (SPOILER!) Things I googled for this fic: antique jewelry box, what to feed cats in the 1800s, fencing footwork drills Word Count: ~1,950 Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

Jump forward. Advance lunge. On guard. 

Logan goes through the motions and repeats them, increasing his speed each time. “Again,” he says to himself. 

Jump forward. Advance lunge. On guard. Jump forward. Advance lunge. On guard.

Again, and again, and again until his chest is tight with exertion and he is barely capable of lifting his makeshift sword up above his hip line. It is only then he ceases movement. 

Logan drops his weapon to the floor and hinges at the waist, taking deep, slow breaths. He is unsure how long he remains in that position before his cat, a rotund tortoiseshell who simply showed up in his keep one day, winds itself around his ankles. 

Lady Richard looks up at him and lets out a cross between a whimper and a meow. Logan reaches down and scratches the cat behind its ears. 

“Ah, I know what you want.” 

Lady Richard meows again, even more pathetically.

Post-workout, Logan’s sabre has returned to its true form and is a wooden spoon once more. He kicks it out of the way and makes for his small kitchen. His father’s man visited him the day prior (“your father wished to come, truly”) so his larder basket is more than full. 

Once Lady Richard appeared, his father was surprisingly amenable to Logan’s keeping her. Apparently his father did not consider a cat scaling the unsteady ivy outside his window a threat. 

Logan unpacks the cat collops from the larder basket and sinks to the stone floor. Lady Richard invites himself into Logan’s lap.  

“Father approved entrails this week.” Logan scratches Lady Richard under the chin, feeding him the meat pieces from his hand. “He must be in a good mood.”

Once Lady Richard is finished with her meal, she bounces from Logan’s lap and moves over to her favorite cushion of the burnt orange sofa in the corner of the room. Logan reupholstered the sofa himself but, seeing as it was a decision made primarily to irritate his father, he deeply regrets the choice of fabric.

Logan sets himself to preparing his own meal, removing bread, cheese, and some salted meat from the larder basket. He takes a jar of the fig jam he made the previous week down from the kitchen shelf. This batch is considerably better than the past few he has attempted, though it is still not quite right. If only he could ask Lettie, the palace cook, for her advice. On Logan’s more optimistic days, he believes he will one day have the chance to. 

He pours himself a large glass of mead, sinks back down to the floor with food and drink in hand, and then waits. For what, he is never certain. But he has been waiting for something to transpire the more than three years he has lived in this tower. The day Logan stops finding something to hope for will be the day he takes a flying leap from the tower. 

Some hours later (it is hard to say how many — his father did not think a clock necessary for his survival) Logan wakes with a start, laying upon the cold stone floor of the kitchen. He notices the bright light spilling in through the tower window, illuminating most of the room. It must be a full moon. 

At first uncertain as to what caused him to stir, he registers the distinct rustling of ivy outside the tower window. He assumes Lady Richard to be the culprit but that is not possible as the cat is tucked behind Logan’s knees, fast asleep. The rustling persists. 

Logan pushes himself to a seated position (Lady Richard meows in displeasure) and moves to crouch behind the large floral chair that once belonged to his mother. He reasons with himself that it is likely just another cat; possibly a squirrel of some sort. But then there is the darker possibility that his father has determined keeping him alive and hidden is no longer worth the trouble. 

The rustling is even louder now, but it is the sound of metal hitting stone that has all his attention. Logan moves from where he crouches into the kitchen in search of a weapon. Father has left him without knives of any sort, so he settles on the heavy cast iron pan, still soiled with the remnants of breakfast. Rather than return to his original hiding spot, Logan moves on bare feet to the book shelf nearest the window. This position unfortunately obscures his view of the tower window. 

He listens to the repetitive movements outside; metal hitting stone again and again. Eventually the sound stops and Logan is startled by how calm he feels. His father has always been mercurial — it was only a matter of time before he decided a dead prince was preferable to a hidden one. 

The assassin grunts as they first swing one leg and then the other over the window ledge; their heavy boots hitting the stone. They don’t seem concerned with keeping quiet, which is strange. Rather than head immediately for the stairs, and thus his room, the assassin sounds as if they are moving towards the main room. 

“What is this place?”

Logan freezes in place at the assassin’s quiet voice. A woman? He was not expecting a woman. She moves further into the room, her back to Logan. He especially did not expect a woman who appears to be a foot shorter than him. The woman continues her exploration of the tower, her head turning this way and that, when her eyes settle on the engraved silver jewelry box set upon the fireplace mantle. He watches as she picks up the jewelry box, inspects it for a moment, and then tucks it into her satchel. She helps herself also to a pair of candlesticks and his pocket compass. 

Not quite an assassin, then.

Lady Richard makes herself known by flopping backwards onto the thief’s boot, feet up in the air in invitation. The thief laughs quietly and leans down to scratch the cat’s stomach. “You’re a well-fed thing,” she says. “Where is your owner?” 

And Logan would much rather take someone by surprise than be surprised, so he seizes that moment to step out of the shadow. 

“Right here,” he says. 

In one quick action, the woman reels around to face Logan, a knife he was unaware she wielded clutched tight in her hand. Logan holds up the frying pan. It distracts her for a moment, but only just.  

“Who are you?” the woman asks. 

“Who are you?” 

“I believe I asked first.” 

“You are the intruder, which I think places the burden of answering questions firmly upon your shoulders.”

“You live here?” 

“Clearly. Shall I repeat my original question: who are you?” 

She hesitates. “My horse threw me off a few miles from here. I was looking for assistance.” 

“Is that so?”

“You do not believe me?” 

“I do not. But I also do not believe you are here to kill me, so that is something.” 

“Why would I kill you?” 

“Why, indeed.”

“I suppose you saw me steal your jewelry box.” 

“I did. The candlesticks, too.” 

“And you are okay with this?” 

“No, and I do expect their return, but you have bigger concerns.” 

“What concerns?” 

“Successfully leaving this place alive, for one.” 

The woman tenses and she takes a step back. Lady Richard follows, batting at the thief’s boot. “You intend to kill me.” 

“No. I do not. But I am afraid you stormed the wrong tower.” 

She narrows her eyes. “Who are you, exactly?” 

This evening, when Logan sat on that cold stone floor to eat his supper, he had no way of knowing what he was waiting for. Seeing this woman now — this woman who boldly brandishes a knife at him and speaks without fear while so clearly being in the wrong — he makes a decision. 

“Perhaps you should look at that jewelry box once more.” 

The woman manages to fish out the silver box while still keeping the knife steady and directed at Logan. The top of the box is engraved with a scene of a pond and the requisite flora surrounding it. There’s no way for this woman to know the etching is a perfect rendering of the large pond on the palace grounds. 

It is the name engraved upon the box which can hardly escape her notice: Her Majesty, The Queen, Lynette II

“You are a thief, as well?” she asks, though she sounds doubtful. 

“I am not.” 

“Then how—?”

“The queen is—,” he clears his throat, “—was quite dear to me.”

“How did you know the queen?” 

Logan remains silent. 

Her eyes return to the box, her thumb tracing over the engraving. She looks back up at him and, perhaps it is the remnants of a long-faded instinct, but Logan draws himself up straight for her inspection. That is when his identity appears to be clear to her. 

“It cannot—,” she begins, haltingly. He nods. “Are you the lost prince?”

Logan sighs and lowers the frying pan. Lady Richard accepts it as an invitation and comes over to lick bacon grease from the cast iron. “The lost prince? Is that what they call me?” 

“Most of the kingdom believes you dead. Your father increases the reward for your return each year.” 

He laughs. “I am sorry, but all my return would garner you is your death.” 

“Why is that?” 

“Because your good king, my father, does not want me to be found as he is the one who entrapped me here.”

She loses her grip on the jewelry box, but manages to recover the object. Her knife, on the other hand, clatters to the ground. She does not pick it up.

“Is this true?”

“What is more, I believe as soon as my step-mother produces an heir, I will truly be expendable.” 

“Why tell me this?”

Logan twirls the frying pan in his hand and sends spatters of cooled bacon grease flying. “As I see it we have two options and limited time to decide: one, you leave me here, and you worry that one of my father’s spies has witnessed your departure and will thus murder you.” 

“Option two?” 

“Option two is far less likely to succeed.” 

He pauses for dramatic effect and she rolls her eyes. “Do go on.”

“Option two, you help me escape, I take my rightful place as ruler, and you will earn far more than any reward my father could offer.”

“What makes you think I can help you?” 

“Something tells me a woman who just happened to have the means to scale a 60 foot tower in her satchel has the means to do much more.” 

This is already more fun than Logan has had in close to a decade. 

“What should I call you?” she asks. “Because I refuse to call you highness.” 

“Logan will do. Shall I call you thief?” 

She picks up her knife, sheathes it, and extends her hand. He grips hers in return and is overcome by the fact it has been years since he has touched another person. 

“Veronica. Mars. And I prefer the term master thief.” Veronica looks down at Lady Richard as she intently licks a spot of grease off her boot. “The cat?” 

“The cat comes. Her name is Lady Richard.” 

“What say you, Lady Richard,” Veronica says, “ready for an adventure?”

[forasecondtherewedwon]

À la Carter

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Rating: T Word Count: 1572

Summary: Even when she’s helping Sam, Sharon has her own agenda.

Sharon’s fingers tap. They spread and pinch, manipulating the scale and definition of Riga’s rooftops. When she feels like she must be zeroing in, she stops, straightens from where she’s been leaning over the screen of her tablet.

She tosses back a swallow of her drink, a flinch around her eyes as the alcohol stings her cut lip. It had been a while since she’d had to fight her way out of a tight corner (or configuration of shipping containers), before Sam, Bucky, and their pet baron showed up in Madripoor. Her tongue prods the cut.

Her satellite access came through, like she knew it would, and John Walker’s no needle in a haystack. On her screen, he’ll be displayed as TRACKER 01, but his position might as well be stamped with the shield—that symbol of justice and virtue and treachery and regret and whatever else the thing stands for these days. She’s a little behind on American public perception when she only feels very loosely American herself. An expat snagged on the last unravelling thread of her former country’s flag.

Another sip, another wince, is punishment in advance. Sharon’s about to do what she does in this new life of hers: take her cut. Her deal with Sam is going to develop a deviation he doesn’t know about. It’ll be seamless, wasting very little of anyone’s time, a detour on the streets of Riga; the view lies between her forearms, resting on the glass surface of the table.

She likes Sam, likes him a lot. The patience and problem-solving in his eyes that say he’s actually listening. The way he looks without his shirt. His persistent trustworthiness when trust is something Sharon thought she no longer dealt in. No giving it out and no inviting it. People don’t just trust her here. That’s why she has hired security. But she’s already expecting Sam to follow through on his end of their deal and sort out her little being-labelled-an-enemy-of-the-state issue, so she’s committed to helping him. The instinct to is annoyingly natural.

Here’s the wrinkle in their verbal contract: the job’s personal. Sam and Bucky are aware of that, she’s certain, and she wonders if they’ve considered that she might be too. It isn’t about her freedom of travel between countries or the do-gooder urge—which Sam in particular appears to overflow with—to ensure Zemo is once again caught and held to account. It’s a Steve thing. She’s heard a lot of rumours (there’s one circulating in High Town at the moment, that Steve is on Mars, building the bones of Elon Musk’s Martian colony in exchange for a couple billion dollars and, presumably, his own self-respect), and it hurts that she can’t dispel any of them, even to herself. Sharon doesn’t know what happened to him. All she knows is that there’s a new guy slinging his arm through the straps of Steve’s old shield and that she doesn’t really feel as casual about it as she might’ve led Sam and Bucky to believe when she mentioned Walker to them. She’s angry. Because she looks at New Cap and wonders what it was all for.

She drums her fingers on the tabletop.

With a deep breath, Sharon touches the screen again. Now swiping intently, she finds TRACKER 01, AKA John Walker. She pulls her phone towards her because she should call Sam to tell him the location. And she will. What she’s going to do first is just for herself.

Hacking into Walker’s comms is surgical and effortless, not requiring payment or bartering like the satellite access, just the skills she keeps honed. Sharon enables a moderate vocal distorter and slides into the ‘secure’ channel. She’s determined to keep her anger and bitterness out of this side-mission, but with nowhere else to go, resentment climbs the back of her neck as an uncomfortable, spreading heat.

“Hey, John.”

“Who is this?” his voice snaps at the other end of the line.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that.” Sharon tilts back in her chair until she can prop the heels of her boots on the table, posture perfectly at ease as she goads him. “Do you prefer ‘John’ or ‘Captain America’?”

“Who are you? A fan?”

Well, she has to laugh at that.

“Um, yeah,” she gushes, channeling the preteen goddaughter she might’ve had if she were living a life where she could make real friends and have neighbours instead of hosting underground art auctions and sniping hostiles from an open window while two idiots from her old life sprint past on the street below. “Is this the Captain America Hotline?”

“Let me tell you, you are seconds away from being located and identified by the U.S. government,” Walker threatens. At least he’s smart enough not to hold on to his fan theory any longer.

“At ease, Cap. I’m not doing any harm.”

“What you’re doing is something incredibly foolish and you will reap the consequences.”

“It’s been a few seconds,” Sharon taunts. “Either the government’s found me and they don’t want to rudely interrupt our conversation or my capabilities exceed theirs. Which one do you think it is?”

“What do you want.”

It comes out flat and hard.

“No more warnings? You’re not going to try to brute-force your way to the conclusion of your choosing?”

“That isn’t always the best method.”

“Something tells me somebody taught you a lesson recently,” Sharon observes, crossing her ankles and rocking her feet side to side on the table. “How bad were you humbled?”

“I went up against the Dora Milaje.”

“So you really got your ass handed to you. I’m surprised you’d be so forthcoming about that. Stiff-upper-lipped soldier type.”

“I figure you could find that information if you really wanted it.”

“You’re being generous then? Saving me time?”

“I just want you to get the fuck off this line.”

“Back to business then,” she says.

She can hear Walker’s breathing change, from a heavy pant to the sound of him clearly trying to control it. Less background noise too, like maybe he just entered a building. She assumes he’s trying to be stealthy. That means he’s either sneaking up on the Flag-Smashers or fears they’re sneaking up on him. It’s almost time to quit toying with New Cap and alert Sam so he can soar in, kick a few asses, maybe save a life. While she goes back to drinking alone in High Town, knowing Madripoor is beginning to tear itself to bloody shreds with so many sharpened claws.

“What do you want?” Walker repeats.

“To tell you I wouldn’t have minded calling you ‘Captain America.’” Sharon shrugs for her own benefit. “It’s just a name, and yet… I think it’s going to bother you. Realizing that you won’t live up to it, I mean.”

“You’re pathetic.”

His breathing’s a little harsher again. He might be climbing a flight of stairs.

“John Walker, I almost feel sorry for you,” she says. “I might if you came off as less of an asshole.”

“Don’t waste your condescension on me. I don’t give a fuck what you think.”

She laughs at him.

“That’s ridiculous. What sort of man agrees to be Captain America when someone as incredible as Sam Wilson has just given up the shield? When the world doesn’t need to close their eyes to picture Steve Rogers still standing behind it? Walker, you stepped into a shadow that was still fading because you were too vain to miss your opportunity. Well now that shadow’s never going to fade,” Sharon hisses at him, her feet hitting the floor as she hunches forward, studying the orange tracker. “You think you’re standing in the sun, but you’re not. And it’s only going to get darker for you.”

“I’ll take my chances.” His voice is hushed, but the tone is arrogant.

“I’m sure you will. You’ll take them without any regard for anyone around you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lectures. “I’m helping—”

“Of course you’ll say you’re helping people when, really, you can’t see past the larger-than-life persona you borrowed like a rental tux. It’s never going to fit, John. While you’re watching yourself, all those people are seeing the guy in the ill-fitting suit, the guy who thought he was going to pick up that shield and turn into Steve Rogers. You’ve got one thing in common with Steve: a name that would be forgettable without the actions you attach to it. Soon, you’re going to wish you really were that forgettable, but it’ll be too late. The world will be watching.”

Sharon closes the connection and throws herself back into her seat, slapping her phone to the table, almost too hard. She rubs her temple and mindlessly watches the tracker flicker back and forth; Walker must be moving around the building more rapidly without her in his ear to distract him. She could’ve done worse, gotten him discovered by the Flag-Smashers, gotten him shot. That’s further than she’s willing to go though because Sam’s given her this pesky sense of hope that her life won’t always have the blinding lustre of destruction. The high shine of a speeding car, the glint of the sun peeking past Icarus’s silhouette. It’s time to let Walker destroy himself.

And, because he must think he can get in the way of that and mitigate the fallout, it’s time to call Sam.

[serenlyss]

Parallel

Fandom: The Owl House Rating: G Relationships: lumity, luz & her mom, amity & her family Summary: Luz and Amity have more in common than just their favorite book series. Crossposted to AO3: Parallel

This one-shot is set between Enchanting Grom Fright and Wing it like Witches. I just can't stop thinking about how Amity and Luz are kind of foils for each other and how their families are so different but similar in certain ways. I feel like they'd bond over their respective parental drama. Anyway this show has stolen my heart and Lumity slays me so have some gay bonding.

---

Something’s off with Luz.

It isn’t difficult for Amity to notice. She’s a perceptive young witch; it’s a quality she’s always considered to be a strength of hers, and she knows more than she lets on, but Luz is also notoriously easy to read. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and she doesn’t mince her words--not when she really means it. It’s a trait of hers that makes Amity feel simultaneously warm and envious, but it also means that Amity is acutely aware of every shift in her friend’s moods and mannerisms. Today, it would seem, her balance is especially skewed.

The two of them had retreated to Amity’s library hideout after classes for their now-frequent reading sessions, a tradition Luz had dubbed the “Azura Book Club” despite the fact that Amity’s personal collection is far larger than just a handful of fantasy novels. Over the past few sessions, Amity had begun to introduce to Luz a few of her favorite novels that originated from the Boiling Isles itself, and for the last few sessions, the human girl had been practically glued to her side while she eagerly read over Amity’s shoulder. Amity would swear up and down that the close proximity definitely does not make her so nervous that she can hardly focus on the page in front of her, but if Luz notices her slower reading pace and persistently flushed face, she has yet to comment on it.

This afternoon, however, Luz is keeping her distance. She still sits close enough to Amity that their knees touch where they’re sharing the same giant beanbag chair, and it’s still intimate enough to set off the alarm bells in Amity’s definitely-not-distracted mind, but she’s been uncharacteristically quiet all afternoon. There are no excited comments, no involuntary noises in response to the surprising events happening in the narrative, not even a quiet chuckle at the book’s various jokes and hijinks. In fact, now that Amity reflects on the prior school day and even into that morning, Luz has been kind of spacey and distracted all day. Well, more than usual, and in a different way than Amity has learned is typical of her. She keeps pulling out her phone and fiddling with it, unlocking it with some kind of purpose only to hesitate and return it to her pocket every time. Even now, when Amity turns her head to see if Luz has finished the page they’re on, she sees that her friend isn’t even looking at the book at all, and she’s holding her phone in both hands. Her gaze has wandered over to a shelf to her right, but when Amity tilts her head to get a better look, she sees that Luz isn’t looking at anything in particular at all. She seems lost in her own head, unfocused. From this angle she even looks a little sad, her mouth turned down into a persistent frown that Amity doesn’t see very often.

Amity swallows, contemplating what she should do. Should she play dumb and act like nothing’s wrong, try to smooth things over? She’s never been a very… emotionally intimate person, at least not on the outside, and she doesn’t want to pry into anything personal Luz might be experiencing for fear that it might drive her away. Stop overthinking things so much, she mentally berates herself, recognizing her bad habit and attempting to squash it. Luz isn’t the kind of person to get angry over something like this. It’s Amity who dislikes the prying.

“Um,” she finally speaks up, attempting to grab Luz’s attention. It works, and she watches Luz blink and straighten up in her seat, as though awakening from a trance. Immediately, the sad fog that had been enveloping her gaze subsides, and she musters a meaningful--if unusually small--smile, quietly prompting Amity to continue. Once again, Amity considers playing it off, turning the subject to a new book or a happier, more lighthearted conversation, and again she corrects herself. “Are you okay?” she asks instead, nervously thumbing the corner of the book’s page to release some of her apprehension. “You’ve been spacing out, and you keep pulling out your phone. Are you expecting a call or something?”

Amity’s never seen a person stuff their phone into their pocket faster than Luz. Her smile turns sheepish, and Amity almost misses the flash of guilt that passes through her expression for just a moment. “Oh! Nah, I’m not expecting anything. Just antsy, I guess,” she deflects. It only serves to make Amity more worried.

“Are you sure? You just seem… out of it, I guess.” She turns her gaze down to the book still open in her lap, frown deepening. “I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, especially if it’s something personal, but, um…” She trails off, feeling the telltale rise of a blush on her face. What a time to start feeling bashful! “W-we’re friends, right? You can tell me if something is bothering you. Because we’re friends.” She stumbles over her words a bit, wincing internally at her own lack of tact. Could she be any more awkward?

Still, Luz does look a bit relieved to hear this, and she nods her head. “Yeah, of course,” she says immediately, with full confidence in the statement. It eases Amity’s nerves every so slightly, but it also brings with it a tinge of disappointment. Somehow the word “friend” doesn’t feel quite right. But now isn’t the time for that, Amity reminds herself, pushing that thought out of her mind for the time being.

Luz lets out a loud sigh and flops back on the beanbag, jostling Amity in the process. “I really am okay,” she continues, her voice more self-assured this time. “I just… I’m worried about my mom.”

Amity blinks, a little surprised by the admission. Luz doesn’t talk about her parents very often; it seems to be a sore subject for her, and Amity doesn’t dare bring it up with her, not after Grom. Apparently it’s been eating at her more than she’s let on, for it to lead to this. “What about her?” she prompts, swallowing back her own worry. She slips a bookmark between the pages of the novel they’d been reading to mark their place, then sets it aside to focus all her attention on Luz. “Is she not responding to you?”

Luz musters up a wry smile. “Kind of the opposite, actually. She sends me texts almost every day,” she replies, an obvious fondness creeping into her voice.

Amity is… confused. It’s obvious that Luz loves her mother, and from what little Luz has said, her mother loves her just as much. “I don’t understand,” she says with a shake of her head. “Do you not like getting messages from her?”

“I do!” Amity says quickly, almost in a panic, like she’s afraid of anyone thinking otherwise. “That's not what I meant.” She lets out a groan of frustration, giving her legs a kick and scrubbing her hands over her face. She’s silent for a moment, hands hiding her expression, before she finally peeks out from under them to glance in Amity’s direction. “Hey, if I tell you something, can you, um, keep it between us?”

Her voice is quieter now, layered with an air of secrecy, and it just makes Amity more curious. Still, she suppresses her inner gossip for the sake of respecting Luz’s feelings. “Of course,” she responds honestly. “What happens in the club, stays in the club.” She recites a line Luz is fond of repeating whenever their club discussions turn more personal, but this feels like an extra weighty secret for Luz to be sharing.

Still, her attempt at humor pays off, winning a genuine smile from Luz, who immediately blurts out, “My mom doesn’t know I’m here.”

Amity blinks, shocked, and is quiet for a few seconds as she processes this information. “Wait, what? How does she-I mean, she knows you’re not home, right?” she presses, frantically trying to wrap her head around this situation.

“She thinks I’m at summer camp,” Luz clarifies, clear disdain for the camp tinging her words. “She’d freak out if she knew I was here!” Guilt starts to take over her expression again, tugging her lips into a deep frown. “You saw her at Grom, right? That’s what I’m afraid will happen when she finds out I ditched her camp. I’m supposed to be learning boring adult stuff, like how to be polite and not say weird things and, I dunno, file taxes? Adults do that, right?” She throws her hands up in the air, huffing.

Amity shakes her head, a little overwhelmed. Sure, she’d suspected something was up at Grom, but she hadn’t known just how deep her rabbit hole goes. “Taxes?” she mumbles to herself in confusion, then gives her head a shake. That isn’t the important part. Staring down at Luz’s expression, Amity feels bad. Luz is obviously agonizing over this on the inside, and has been since the day she’d arrived at the Boiling Isles. Something in Amity really hates seeing the way Luz avoids her gaze, like she’s ashamed to be admitting this. She’s twitchy, too, looking for any way to let out her nervous energy. At the moment, she fiddles with her fingers, crossing and uncrossing them, and picking imaginary dirt from underneath her fingernails.

Amity lets out a long breath, steeling her nerve, and flops back onto the beanbag at Luz’s side. The force of it jostles them both, and despite herself, Luz can’t help but let out a little laugh when she’s nearly thrown onto the ground. She wiggles around to reposition herself, and Amity nearly chokes on a breath when Luz’s arm presses against hers and comes to rest there. She’s suddenly very aware of how hard her heart is beating, sitting so close to Luz like this, but she doesn’t dare move, for fear of disrupting the moment. Her voice cracks just a bit when she says, softly, “Why are you so intent on hiding it from her? I don’t know much about humans, but is it really so bad for you to be spending time here, with us?”

Luz sighs dejectedly. “That’s the thing. Everything about this place, everything that I love, is the reason she wanted to send me away in the first place!” she says. “You may not get it, but I’m not just a weirdo here, Amity. I’m a weirdo on Earth, too.”

“Of course you’re a weirdo, I already know that,” Amity says before she can stop herself. She can’t hide the snickers that bubble up in her throat when Luz hits her on the shoulder good-naturedly.

    “Not funny,” Luz complains, but Amity can see the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

    Amity swallows down her laughter. “Sorry, sorry. It’s not an insult, promise. I like your weirdness,” she admits, hastily turning away before Luz can see the easy blush that comes to her face so often these days.

    She hears Luz laugh softly beside her, and takes it as a victory. “Thanks,” she murmurs. “I wish everyone could accept it like you and Willow and Gus do. My mom sent me away to camp because she wanted to fix my weirdness. No fanfiction, no cat ear sweaters, no fantasy novels. I know she’s just worried about me, but it’s not like I’m hurting anyone! Is it really so bad that I like nerdy things and want to geek out about them?” Turning to look at Amity, she forces a grin. “Don’t answer that. I promise it’s no big deal, it’s just something I worry about sometimes-”

    Luz keeps talking, but Amity is frozen. She hesitates to admit it out loud, but Luz’s words hit a little too close to home for her liking. Flashbacks of her younger self being scolded by her parents crop up in her mind, punishments for silly things; associating with the wrong people, participating in activities they didn’t approve of, ditching her studying in favor of something fun. Instances where her parents had pushed her away from what she wanted and towards their own ideal. It all made so much sense now. “I totally get it,” she blurts out, surprised and astounded that she and Luz, from two completely different worlds, maybe even different dimensions, could have something so intimate and personal in common.

    Luz looks surprised, too. “You do?” she says.

“Yeah, I really do,” Amity echoes, and a smile breaks out on her face despite the heaviness of the topic. Of everyone she’s ever met on the Boiling Isle, only her own siblings have really related to her family’s… complicated dynamic, and Edric and Emira aren’t exactly people Amity is keen on confiding in. “My parents do it too. You saw them, in Willow’s mind. They do stuff like that all the time. I’m a Blight, after all, I have a reputation to uphold on their behalf. If you don’t do things their way, you get scolded, right? Can’t go giving off “the wrong impression” or it reflects badly on them. Your mom wants you to do what she wants, not what you want. That’s exactly how my parents are with me and my siblings.”

Luz is staring at Amity in stunned silence, sympathy clouding her gaze. “Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like,” she sighs. “It’s hard, trying to live up to her expectations without feeling like I’m giving up everything I love. Is it hard for you, too?”

Amity shrugs. “I guess. My parents are easier on me than on my siblings, though,” she admits, clasping her hands over her stomach. Her elbow rubs against Luz’s in the process, but her friend doesn’t seem to notice. “Ed and Em were under super strict control when they were younger. I guess they coped with it by rebelling wherever they could. They still do.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Mom and Dad still try to keep them under control, but, well, you’ve seen them. They don’t take orders easily.”

Luz giggles softly at this, nodding her head. “I’m an only child. I think Mom feels like if I keep going down the path I’m on, that I’ll somehow ruin my life and make her out to be a bad mother, but it’s not true. I don’t know how to explain to her that I’m just fine the way I am, and that I’m not going to end up a failure just because I still like to read fantasy books.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Amity reassures her. “In the meantime, you can be as weird as you want around me.”

To her surprise, Luz actually blushes at this, her tan face going ever so slightly darker. It’s so unlike Amity’s own pale skin, which could and would turn bright red at the slightest provocation, that she can't help but stare. “Thanks, Amity. I'm really glad that you're my friend,” Luz confesses.

Humbled and more than a little embarrassed, Amity opens her mouth to deflect, but her words get tangled up in her mouth when Luz suddenly reaches into the space between them and takes her hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. All coherent thought immediately leaves Amity's mind, and she's certain that she's red to the tips of her ears from the way her face burns. “N-No problem,” she manages to stutter out breathlessly, and she thanks whatever gods are watching that she’s able to string together a reply at all.

Amity has held Luz’s hand before, but it’s never been like this. She sees now how big of a difference there is between grabbing someone’s hand to help them stand up, or to steady them, or to keep from being separated in a crowd, and holding hands just because you want to. Luz’s palm is warm and firm against her smaller, daintier one, and she’s fitted their fingers together in a way that is decidedly, unnecessarily intimate. There is no practical reason for Luz to make this kind of gesture, she just does it because she wants to, and because it feels right to her. Amity can’t help but admire how brave she must be to make such a gesture so casually, when Amity herself can barely share the same space with Luz without combusting into a stuttering, rambling, disorganized mess. “Did you, uh, want to keep reading?” she asks, her voice soft in the hidden room, but the close proximity means her voice doesn’t have to carry far.

“If it’s alright with you, I’d like to stay like this for a little while,” Luz replies. It’s not often that Amity hears the rambunctious human speak so quietly. Luz shifts to get more comfortable, slipping her cell phone into her pocket and out of sight. Her shoulder presses against Amity’s and stays there as the two of them stare up at the glow-in-the-dark stars Amity had once climbed the shelves to stick on the ceiling.

“Okay,” Amity says, turning to give Luz a small smile. She wonders if Luz notices how red in the face she is. She wonders if Luz recognizes what it means, if she’s known all along, or if she writes it off as some magical quirk or another, oblivious to the way her actions make Amity feel.

Right here, in the moment, Amity can’t bring herself to care whether or not she notices. She holds Luz’s hand, looks up at the ceiling, and feels that everything is going to be okay.

[scribbles97]

Cahelium and Stone

@gumnut-logic​ wrote this wonderful bit of fic for us but seems to have forgotten how to not leave a fic on a cliff hanger :P 

So of course I could not simply ignore the implications of said fic, so I went ahead and added to it. 

Thank you Nutty for letting me play with your ideas! 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It wasn’t like Virgil to flee when a family member was in hospital. The middle brother having both the most patience and the most medical knowledge of them all would always be the first to take vigil at a bedside. It was impossible to count how many days his brother has sat by a bedside, either waiting or entertaining another.

He was never first to leave. It was rare for him to even consider leaving before the patient was stabilised unless they had a job to do. 

So to be ordered back to Thunderbird Two just minutes after landing in Auckland and flown  home in tense, deadly silence, was nothing like normal. 

To say it freaked Gordon out was an understatement. 

Especially considering just who was in that hospital bed. 

The fact that his older brother hadn’t even protested when Grandma insisted on repeating the medscan on his head spoke volumes. 

Gordon had been shooed off with that look only Grandma had perfected, sent away to shower and change. Grandma would set Virgil straight, she always did. 

Except, the next time Gordon found his brother it was on the floor of the hangar, arms and legs limp like a ragdoll as his eyes stared blankly at a familiar green panel. 

He doesn’t have to look up to Two to know just which panel it was. 

The panel from the wing that had collided with Thunderbird Shadow. 

***

Gordon was by far the least quiet of his brothers, and also the least subtle. 

Despite the pounding rush of blood in his ears and the screaming guilt in his head, he had still heard his younger brother coming. He knew exactly what conversation was to follow, could have probably planned it out in his head if he had been so inclined. 

Except, after the rush of so many emotions just moments ago, numbness had taken over. Physically and mentally exhausted from a day of rescues and disaster, his entire body had gone into protective mode and shut itself down. 

There wasn’t even the energy to tear his eyes away from that dent. 

“She’s fine V.” 

Still he couldn’t draw his eyes away. 

Gordon sighed as he sat down next to him, kicking the panel out of sight with a clank and a shower of paint flecks. 

“Couple of bruises, a bum leg, and a mild concussion, nothing that any of us hasn’t had before.”

Except he had caused it, that hadn’t happened before. 

“Come on bro, this isn’t your fault. You’re the last person Kayo’s gonna blame for this.” 

He was the first person she should blame. Everyone had questioned him after he’d caught his face on that bit of metal that had been sticking out where it shouldn’t have been. A couple of steristrips and a quick med scan had been enough to convince them that he was fine, fit to continue the rescue. It was just a cut after all. 

Maybe he’d missed something. 

“Should’da let you fly home.”

Gordon scoffed, shaking his head  with a grin, “What, so I could ding up both your girls and then suffer a slow, painful, death by both yours and Kayo’s hands? I’m good thanks.” 

He knew it was meant as a joke. 

“V, be grateful it was you flying. Nobody else would have recovered Two quick enough to grab Shadow out of the sky like that.”

It hadn’t been quick enough though, she’d still hit the side of the cliff, crumpled between the weight of Two and the solid rock face. All he’d saved her from was a watery demise. 

“Eos and John both said that the gust came out of nowhere, it was a freak accident, a random result of mother nature and the start of the hurricane.”

“She could have died.” Was all he could force past his lips. 

“She didn’t though.” Gordon persisted, ever the optimist, “Because you pulled her out of that dive into the water.”

A hand squeezed hard on his aching shoulder, feeling finally coming back with a vengeance as he realised just how much of himself was starting to ache. 

“Everyone else saw the same as me bro, you saving your fiancee’s ass. Let me tell you, if you don’t get that into your head, I’m gonna tell her what you’re thinking and let her kick your ass for me.”

His brother’s elbow was lumpy against Virgil’s ribs as he grinned some more and added, “And I will take great pleasure in watching.” 

The little question was still in the back of his mind though, still needling against his greatest fear of the moment. 

“I could have killed her.” 

“Virgil Tracy, you couldn’t kill me if you damn tried. You even hesitate to try and punch me when we’re training.”

Aching muscles damned, he immediately sat straighter, eyes widening at the voice from Gordon’s wrist. 

“Told ya I would.” Gordon grinned, “Your funeral, Virg.”

“Kay, I-- you-- wha--”

Her hologram appeared above his younger brother’s wrist. The image may have been small but the anger she radiated was enough to fill him with fear. 

“Where the hell are you?” 

He swallowed, feeling as small as the image in front of him. 

Visibly she seemed fine, a minor cut on her cheek, a swelling bruise blending with her hairline. She hadn’t had her helmet on at the time, the rush to clear the area before the hurricane hit more of a necessity. There had been nothing to protect her if her ship had hit the water below. 

“The hangar at home.” Gordon filled in for him as the silence stretched on. 

Her glare hardened, as cold as ice. 

“I’m sorry.” He forced out, pursing his lips as he watched her, “Kay I--”

“That had better be an apology for not being here.”

He couldn’t lie to her, it wasn’t in his nature. In that moment though there were several things he was sorry for, and Kay probably knew exactly what he meant. 

Looking across to Gordon, Virgil swallowed, “Gords, will you--” 

His younger brother was already standing, a hand held out to help him up, “Alan’s already prepped Tracy Two. Don’t worry Kayo, we’ll make sure he’s delivered direct to your door at no extra charge.” 

That earned them both a slight smile before she looked back to him, “Virgil? I’m okay, thanks to you.”

His chest tightened, a lump swelling in his throat blocking off any words that he might have tired to respond with. Instead he simply nodded, mute, trying to ignore the cut on her cheek. 

“I’ll see you soon, yeah?” She prompted softly. 

Straightening, he glanced to Gordon before clearing his throat. There was nowhere else he would rather be, nowhere else he should have been. 

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He confirmed. 

Her smile was softer, the anger fizzled out as she nodded back to him. 

“I love you, Virgil tracy.” 

He snorted softly, scratching the back of his head as his next breath came easier. Both knew there was no need for him to respond, that the only reason that he wasn’t already there was out of how much love he held for her. 

Still, he said it anyway. 

“I love you too Kay.”

[crystxlclear]

hell above

o. prologue ( the spark to light a match ... )

part one of hell above

synopsis: prologue.

word count: ???

warnings: mentions of death

paring: din djarin x original female character

author’s note: official prologue of hell above! din won’t show up for a couple of chapters but he’ll be there soon enough!

It’s the faltering stars overhead that first let Rhia Vytuia know that something is wrong.

She's learnt to trust them and the wisdom they utter; over the years, they've been a constant, a long-standing and persistent reminder of a world beyond her home. The only friend who never leaves her side. The stars recount stories of the universe - they whisper sonnets of far-off worlds, their anguish speaks of pain and their delicacy speaks of innocent. The stars sing to her while she sleeps.

Clear and bright and insistent. They are never-ending. The stars have existed before her. And the stars will exist in the sky long after she is dead, merely a memory lost to the world. They've regarded destruction and creation, birth and death, and all the horrors of the world. They are eternal and everlasting.

And, so, she yearns for them to tell her everything.

All the secrets from beyond.

Tonight, they dim and blink and falter, scattered aimlessly to the wind. Bright arcs and constellations, colours usually so vibrant and vivid they cast the shadow-filled horizon in pastel and gold, fading away into the distant blackness. The darkness creeps in and pulls everything apart, destruction raining down in the form of brutal chaos, in the form of shadows that pull across the skyline. The moment the darkness creeps in, she knows something is wrong.

In all her twenty-five years, they've never lied to her.

And that night is no different.

Rhia is sat overlooking the city. It's a familiar spot, a position she takes up every night when nightfall descends and the shrill, screaming bustle of life lulls itself into a fitful sleep. Her feet have an intimate relationship with the wood of her windowsill; she's committed each curve and groove to memory, that nightly spot she takes up when night steals away the sunshine.

The alarm is raised as the moon rises to its highest point, the tip of the city's crystal towers, standing tall and terrifyingly imposing in the west, pointing straight to it. The mark of midnight.

It's two minutes later when her room is filled with guards. Some familiar - the young man with the blond buzzcut who stands guard outside her door each night, and the woman with the plaited red hair that follows her whenever she wanders her gardens - some she barely recognises as the guards that trail her brother, and faces she's never seen before. They rush for her, where she sits overlooking the city. There are hands gripping her arms, pressing against her back; they yank at her shoulders and her wrists - everywhere, everywhere, everywhere - and they steal her from the solace of her room and out into the hallway. Their bodies shield her from the outside.

They don't speak and they don't answer her questions and, as much as she tries not to be terrified of what the hell is going to happen to her and her family - to her brother and her mother and father - and everyone else she holds dear or to significance, she has to hold her breathing steady, lest she start to sob and gasp and bubble up with pathetic sobs. There's no clarity within her fear as an alarm sounds and the stars aren't there to answer her pleas; it's loud and intrusive and horrifyingly shrill, and she's never heard it in all her years. It spikes terror through her. Her long nails dig deep into her palms.

Rhia is rushed blindly through familiar hallways, rendered unfamiliar when she can no longer see her ancestors' sketches that make the walls so vibrant. Without them, the palace is merely a labyrinth of repeating archways and awnings, a starless night sky of high ceilings above the heads of strangers. It seems to be closing in on her as they descend step-after-step; no noise comes but the rhythmic rush of footsteps and the alarm blaring loud, and Rhia wants to scream out proclamations and demands as fear swells up deep inside her chest.

She could be marching towards her death, for all she knew. An overthrow of the monarchy, the end of her days; the end of her families days; the end of the Vytuias and their reign over Ondorra.

Fear, more fear than she's ever felt in her entire life, crashes over her. It's brutal.

She's not afraid to die. She's only afraid of how death will come.

At risk of sounding like a petulant child, like the spoilt, rich little Princess she's sure most of them think she is, she yells out demands, practically screams at them for answers. But they just glare at her out of the corner of their eyes, like she's merely more than a gnat whipping around their atmosphere. Their lips form lines and there's a cursory regulation to their steps; they're rehearsed and deliberate and they never once falter, though Rhia still senses the weight in each footfall and the urgency that presses into the marble floor.

They rush down staircase after staircase, more than she'd ever thought could possibly be crammed into the palace she's lived in her whole life, stopping only to unlock imposing oak doors and relight torches in the darkness. They must be miles underground, hidden within a twisting labyrinth of identical hallways, each growing darker and darker, white marble walls turned amber with each flickering pass of candlelight. They're most certainly in the darker depths of the palace now; there are doors locked by rusty keys and large ornamental padlocks, and they're the only doors in the palace she has not breached.

They've always intimidated her with their stature - unnatural and heavy and always so steeped in danger that it never seemed worth it. She's always assumed that they hide her father's secrets; his mistress' quarters, old courtiers allegedly exiled for their crimes. The things he didn't want others to see.

She hadn't expected empty, hollow hallways buried deep below the earth and the lilac sky.

The guards halt at the end of the longest hallway; the abruptness of it startles her and she almost tumbles into the back of the guard in front of her. She's been complaining the entire way, long minutes stretching on and on and on as they circled down into oblivion, but the fear is burning her nerves, turning them to liquid fire and it bleeds out in the form of petulant demands for information.

The hallway opens out into a dimly lit room. The roof arches up imposing and deliberate, cut and carved from gleaming firestone. Light fractures in from somewhere high above; it throws patterns across the stone floor and the walls look as if they're painted in blood. She's sure this is the end the moment she sees it looming.

The perfect place for sinister intentions. A room stowed away so far below, hidden and unknown even to those inside. A red room, built of danger, so far from the stars that they cease to exist.

"Rhia," her mother's voice calls. The guards part from before and Rhia rushes to her, into the familiarity of her pinewood perfume.

"Are we going to die?" Rhia questions, into the empty space. Her voice echoes through the void; the room is a cavity, all plain and endless walls of thick, polished marble. There's a lip that stretches the entire expanse, like a bench, made for a hundred people, it seems. But there's no furniture; no beds or ornate dining tables, no armchairs or even carvings like the rest of the palace's rooms. The space is but a barren, never-ending chasm, swallowed whole by the abyss and she's sure that the darkness will drown her, if given half the chance.

There's an echo, here, and it's palpable, and Rhia swears that she can hear her heart thundering brutal against her ribcage.

As she glances around, she notices.

They're the kind of walls that are easy to clean.

"My darling, we are safe here."

"Where's Coren?" She inquires. Everyone is there, everyone but him. Her mother, her father, they're holding her close like they used to do in the dead of winter, when the eastern storms would roll in and douse the city in silt and fog and thunderstorms. The air is electric, just as it was back then. The static pulses through her. Her heart hammers within her chest, heavy and persistent. It rushes through her head, renders her dizzy. The end is near. She can feel it in her bones. "What is happening? Where are we?"

"My great-grandfather intended for this to be a training centre, back when Ondorra had the largest army in the Galaxy. Given the recent tensions, I intended on turning it into a safe room for us. I did not think it would be needed so soon," her father explains, hand gripping her shoulder tighter.

"A safe room?" Rhia scowls at each of her parents. The door she'd been rushed through opens, rusty hinges creaking and protesting. Her cousins and aunt are ushered into the room; they aren't nearly as heavily guarded as Rhia had been, by lineage not as important as the King's daughter. The guards lock and bolt the door after they enter and the light from the candles in the hallway is snuffed out. There are ten bolts, that she can count. They're trapped inside this lightless room, with an echo that bounces from each wall. "Where is Coren?"

She knows her brother is on Ondorra. Or should be, at least. She'd seen him that morning at breakfast, sat opposite her at the table, telling their father about his plans for the day; to visit the library, to visit the woman he's been courting. He'd smiled at her when she'd sat down and smoothed out her heavy skirts, and asked her how she'd slept that night, that kindhearted man always has time for his younger sister. She'd been restless the past couple of weeks. Too warm, too cold, too loud, too quiet, always something stopping her from falling asleep. There aren't many their age within the Court and they're close as a consequence. They look out for each other. She's pretty sure that they're best friends.

The King and Queen glance at each other, then back at their daughter. "Where is my brother?" She demands, her foot stamping against the marble floor. Her heel rings out like a bell throughout the room and the stoic silence that consumes it. She means to sound strong when she implores them for an answer, determined, persistent and persuasive, but her voice falters and breaks the moment she thinks of Coren's absence.

As if she's a fragile little bird, her mother brushes a finger over her cheek. "Starlight, he's gone," she whispers, "I'm so sorry." Her eyes sparkle with tears. Rhia is sure that hers do, too. She can feel the sobs burning the back of her throat as she tries to hold them in. "He's gone."

[smol-and-trashy]

Sylvix Vore Fic (FE3H)

A/N: This is probably mega OOC, but I fell in love with both Sylvain and Felix during my first playthrough of FE3H and been itching for a vore fic featuring them. It’s probably more accurate to read this as platonic due to my inability to write anything remotely romantic... This was also inspired by @sinfromlokislair‘s Sylvix fic, theirs is a lot better tbh haha.. Vomit warning, so if that makes you squeemish, please leave now! Enjoy :) 

_____________________

Felix growled as he shoves off the giant finger, wishing this oaf wasn’t the first person who offered help. While Sylvain would disagree, it wasn’t entirely his fault that he was in this position. The blast of magic was directed towards their professor and Felix, standing behind her, found himself foolishly taking the hit. He expected a lot of things to happen, well aware of the effects of taking a direct hit to dark magic, but being reduced to the size of a field mouse was not one of them. Now, he has to pay the price of the curse. 

Felix pinched the bridge of his nose, he expected something like this happening to Sylvain, the reckless skirt-chaser, but himself? He was usually more collect in battle. He sighs, regret still weighing heavily over him, but he had more pressing matters to tend to, specifically regarding the man before him. He looks up: Sylvain Jose Gautier loomed over Felix in all his self-proclaimed glory, Felix swallows. Goddess, he was gargantuan, his chest taking up most of Felix’s line of view and he has to crank his neck far back just to peer up in his friend’s eyes and feel like an equal in conversation. Bubbles of fear and humiliation rose up inside the smaller, but he represses those feelings, swiftly replacing them with indignation. “For the last time, Sylvain, quit poking me.” “Sorry, sorry, it’s just that you’re so tiny and cute! I really can’t help myself.” Sylvain laughs a little, folding both hands behind his head. “Insatiable, as always,” Felix mutters under his breath. If Sylvain heard, he gave no indication, instead, grabbing Felix without a single warning. As the tree-sized fingers close around his waist, Felix soon finds himself face-to-face with his ginormous friend; bemused, Sylvain simply watches as the smaller struggles in his grip. “Let me go, Sylvain!” he squawks, trying to pry those fingers off him. Really, the man had no concept of personal space. “Mm, I could, but,” Sylvain leans forward with his elbow still on the table, drawing closer to Felix. Fruitlessly trying to maneuver his legs and kick at Sylvain’s too-close face, he stops; scowling as he notices his own reflection in those amber eyes, and at last, Sylvain pulls back. “This is all too much fun!” he winks. “Hilarious, now let me down, you oaf.” Felix says flatly, “I would rather dual the boar than being stuck here with you.” “Really? Because most ladies would love to be in your shoes, Fe.” Felix squirmed a little in the redhead’s grip, not fancying himself so high. “Let them. At least you would finally leave me alone.” Sylvain leans on his arm, a cocky grin adorning his lips, “Ouch, don’t be like that! Least now, you can’t refuse to get dinner with me.” The raven-head rolls his eyes at the reminder of Sylvain’s countless dinner invitations, most of which he had turned down in favor of training. “Forcing me to eat with you, would you stoop so low?” Sylvain says nothing, only flashing a sly smirk and hoists Felix a few inches higher, just above his nose. Felix unwittingly tenses up, he's much too high and Sylvain was taking this joke further than he'd like. He curses while digging his nails into his friend's skin, trying to force himself to be lowered. Yet, the other refuses to budge. He can't tell if Sylvain thought of this as one big joke or if he was really this careless. "You incorrigible---" "Aw, c'mon Fe, you’re just cute enough to eat!” Sylvain interrupts smugly, dangling Felix over his wide-open mouth; He wasn’t seriously going to drop him, but it was all too easy to get a rise out of him. Felix’s heart pounds furiously against his chest as he’s forced to peer into Sylvain’s awaiting maw. Sharp white teeth that could easily bite him in half taunt him while that wet tongue twitches and Felix doesn’t even want to think what is beyond that dark, pulsing throat. It was repulsive, everything. Despite himself, Felix couldn’t stop staring. Is this what prey feel when they’re about to be eaten? Strangely enamored? He frowns, choosing not to dwell on it, and instead, averting his eyes to the door, he was no damsel, but a piece of him wishes for Ingrid or even the boar to pay Sylvain an unexpected visit. Relief sweeps through him as those lips close, “Tell me, do you have a death wish, Sylvain?” he growls, but the older man’s lips quirk upwards, evidently amused. As Sylvain opens his mouth to make a quip—- “Sylvain!” Ingrid barges into the room, and in an instant, he loses his grip on Felix, barely able to make out the tiny man’s objections as he falls straight towards the gaping throat. Sylvain’s jaws snap shut, and the obtrusion at the back of his throat causes him to swallow, purely out of reflex. Fuck. All traces of coy playfulness disappear instantly as he feels the tiny body make its way down his throat. He sits there, in cold shock, as Felix drops into his stomach. The heavy, humid air hits him, and Felix lies absolutely still, paralyzed with disbelief. This can’t be real. That half-wit did not just swallow me. Felix’s heart pounds in his ears as he wipes the slime off his face. The chamber wasn’t as dark as he anticipated, in fact, he could see the wrinkled pinkish walls fairly well. His own stomach turns as thick chyme splashes on him, and before he’s able to gain some semblance of footing, he’s thrown at the opposing wall. More liquid soaks him, and Felix thrashes aimlessly, the only coherent thought going through his mind is ‘I need to get out of here.’ He rushes to the nearest wall, cursing at Sylvain for taking his swords beforehand, and punches at the wall. No reaction. Not a wince, not a protest to stop, nothing. The chamber groans and convulses, but there’s no direct response from Sylvain. Felix clenches his fist, and despite the heat, he feels an icy chill plunge into his veins; no, he must persist. He’s trained on hours end, he can make Sylvain notice him. As Felix is about to inflict another punch to the walls, he hears a familiar voice around him, pushing down the squicked feeling of hearing his childhood friend in such a ubiquitous manner, he pauses to listen. Sylvain stands up and freezes, a nervous chuckle arises from his throat, “I-Ingrid! To what do I owe the pleasure of—“ “You know how many messes of yours I had to clean up for the past week?” He blanches as Ingrid wastes no time in berating him for his less than reputable behavior, “You promised that you would cease your philandering ways, but I heard from Ashe, of all people, that you were—-“ she pauses, Sylvain was almost hunched over, sickly pale with his arms twisted around his stomach, “Are you okay? You look unwell.” At that, Sylvain straightens up, “Ah, yeah, yeah, just ate something bad earlier,” he winces as he earns a nasty kick from Felix, “nothing some rest can’t fix!” Ingrid’s concerned expression only deepens, she purses her lips, but Sylvain, armed with a charming smile, puts a hand on her shoulder, “Honestly, Ingrid, I’m fine. But it’s cute of you to get all worked up over me! Y’know, maybe a kiss on the cheek would help?” The blonde shoves his hand off, rolling her eyes, “I’m not…Take care of yourself, Sylvain,” she sighs, turning around and finally shutting the door behind her. Alone in his room, Sylvain gingerly presses a hand on his belly, earning sharp kick in retaliation. His mouth suddenly feels like it was filled with cotton, and finding himself at a rare loss of words, Sylvain racks his brain for the right thing to say, for something to say. “You alright in there?” he mentally slaps himself after the words come out of his mouth. How utterly stupid he must sound. “Am I alright in here?” Felix repeats incredulously, blood boiling with every ticking second, “Did you really just ask the man who’s stewing away in your filthy guts if he’s ‘alright in there?’ What the hell do you think?” Sylvain swallows and finally sits down on his bed, trying to control an incoming rush of vertigo. He runs a hand through his hair, slicking the ruddy strands back into place, and sighs. “You’re right, I-I’m sorry, Felix. You’re not… melting in there, are you?” His heart-rate begins to pick up, thumping wildly in his chest like a caged bird. “Oh Goddess, you need to let me know if anything is happening!” “As you should be,” Felix says while checking out his arm. His once white sleeves are stained from the juices, but he’s feeling no burning effects. Not to say the acids wouldn’t be activated when Sylvain eats something—-other than himself. “It looks like I’m fine, for now.” “Good, let’s get you out of there.” He’s met with an affirmative hum, and Sylvain plants himself on the floor, firmly pressing both hands on his stomach. Tiny fingers tap on the bottom of his belly and now wholly aware of it. The feeling is entirely alien, almost ticklish; he automatically heaves, offhandedly noting the room getting warmer as sweat gathers on his forehand. Bile creeps at the bottom of his throat, and Sylvain dry heaves once again, “C’mon…” he murmurs. His stomach groans louder, noisily protesting the shrunken being inside, and his fingers slam on the hardwood, curling instantly. As his guts twist and turn in itself, he grimaces, wishing for a drink to aid him in this uncomfortable process. Sylvain’s eyes widen as he gags, only able to retch out strands of saliva. There is a distinct lack of a certain sharp-tongued mercenary.   “No…Why didn’t it work?” he whispers, clutching at his middle. “Sylvain…” Felix’s voice is dangerously low, and Sylvain was sure that if he hadn’t removed the former’s weapons, his insides would have been lacerated mercilessly. Even though they’d been friends since childhood, even though they made a promise, there was no way Felix would let himself die such a humiliating death. Felix glares up at the tight sphincter from above, it’s much too high to force open, but maybe if Sylvain was lying down… He pauses, out of nowhere, acids begin to bubble and churn. The stomach gurgles louder, and suddenly, he’s thrown from wall-to-wall, hardly getting a chance to catch his breath. A god-awful groan resonates around him, and his head gets submerged under the liquid; everything flies by too quickly; this was it, this was how he was going to go down. He can’t breathe; one moment his lungs are filled with acids, and the next, he finds himself splayed on a squishy surface. Felix coughs and gasps for air, for a split second, he really thought he was done for. Arm slung over his head, he almost doesn’t notice the shadow looming over him or the fast pulse below, rivaling his own. He needs a good minute to recoup himself as he breathes slowly to even his heart-rate. Finally removing his arm, he looks above. Felix’s breath hitches as the thundering vibrations of Sylvain saying something reverberates through his body; nearly admonishing himself for such a pathetic reaction, he realizes the words aren’t registering. “—-about this, yeah?” Felix catches the tail-end of whatever the redhead was trying to say. “Alright.” and for the first time since this ordeal, there’s no bite behind his words, only thinly veiled exhaustion as he finds himself slumped against Sylvain’s index finger. He just wants to return to normal and forget this day ever happened.

[kkintle]

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy; Quotes

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

“I always loved you, and if one loves any one, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be.”

“Is this life? I am not living, but waiting for an event, which is continually put off and put off.”

Then, for the first time, grasping that for every man, and himself too, there was nothing in store but suffering, death, and forgetfulness, he had made up his mind that life was impossible like that, and that he must either interpret life so that it would not present itself to him as the evil jest of some devil, or shoot himself.

“Some think marriage a game; for others it is the most serious business of their lives.”

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” (...)

“Vengeance is mine,I will repay.”

“Yes, she won’t forgive me, and she can’t forgive me. And the most awful thing about it is that it’s all my fault—all my fault, though I’m not to blame. That’s the point of the whole situation,” he reflected.

There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day—that is, forget oneself.

They were fond of one another in spite of the difference of their characters and tastes, as friends are fond of one another who have been together in early youth.

He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women.

He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking.

“Why, of course,” objected Stepan Arkadyevitch. “But that’s just the aim of civilization—to make everything a source of enjoyment.”

Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. He so well knew that feeling of Levin’s, that for him all the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class—all the girls in the world except her, and those girls with all sorts of human weaknesses, and very ordinary girls: the other class—she alone, having no weaknesses of any sort and higher than all humanity.

‘Forgive me not according to my unworthiness, but according to Thy loving-kindness.’

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”

There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good.

(...) If one forgives, it must be completely, completely.

Anna was unmistakably admiring her loveliness and her youth: before Kitty knew where she was she found herself not merely under Anna’s sway, but in love with her, as young girls do fall in love with older and married women. Anna was not like a fashionable lady, nor the mother of a boy of eight years old. In the elasticity of her movements, the freshness and the unflagging eagerness which persisted in her face and broke out in her smile and her glance, she would rather have passed for a girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and at times mournful look in her eyes, which struck and attracted Kitty. Kitty felt that Anna was perfectly simple and was concealing nothing, but that she had another higher world of interests inaccessible to her, complex and poetic.

“So now you know whom you’ve got to do with. And if you think you’re lowering yourself, well, here’s the floor, there’s the door.”

“With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better,” (...)

“Well, there’s nothing to be done. . . . It’s not my fault. But now everything shall go on in a new way. It’s nonsense to pretend that life won’t let one, that the past won’t let one. One must struggle to live better, much better.”

“Every heart has its own skeletons, as the English say.”

She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.

As though tears were the indispensable oil, without which the machinery of mutual confidence could not run smoothly between the two sisters, the sisters after their tears talked, not of what was uppermost in their minds, but, though they talked of outside matters, they understood each other.

“ (...) ‘No one is satisfied with his fortune, and every one is satisfied with his wit.’ ” The attaché repeated the French saying.

He felt what a murderer must feel, when he sees the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame. Shame at their spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him. But in spite of all the murderer’s horror before the body of his victim, he must hack it to pieces, hide the body, must use what he has gained by his murder.

“ (...) There, do you see, you know the type of Ossian’s women . . . Women, such as one sees in dreams . . . Well, these women are sometimes to be met in reality . . . and these women are terrible. Woman, don’t you know, is such a subject that however much you study it, it’s always perfectly new.” “Well, then, it would be better not to study it.” “No. Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in the finding it.”

In the pauses of complete stillness there came the rustle of last year’s leaves, stirred by the thawing of the earth and the growth of the grass. “Imagine! One can hear and see the grass growing!”

“Count the sands of the sea, number the stars. (...)”

“The great thing’s to keep quiet before a race,” said he; “don’t get out of temper or upset about anything.”

He was angry with all of them for their interference just because he felt in his soul that they, all these people, were right.

This child’s presence called up both in Vronsky and in Anna a feeling akin to the feeling of a sailor who sees by the compass that the direction in which he is swiftly moving is far from the right one, but that to arrest his motion is not in his power, that every instant is carrying him farther and farther away, and that to admit to himself his deviation from the right direction is the same as admitting his certain ruin.

(...) like a man who, after vainly attempting to extinguish a fire, should fly in a rage with his vain efforts and say, “Oh, very well then! you shall burn for this!”

(...) “we mustn’t forget that those who are taking part in the race are military men, who have chosen that career, and one must allow that every calling has its disagreeable side. It forms an integral part of the duties of an officer. Low sports, such as prize-fighting or Spanish bull-fights, are a sign of barbarity. But specialized trials of skill are a sign of development.”

“Who are you? What are you? Are you really the exquisite creature I imagine you to be? But for goodness’ sake don’t suppose,” her eyes added, “that I would force my acquaintance on you, I simply admire you and like you.” “I like you too, and you’re very, very sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time,” answered the eyes of the unknown girl.

“Perhaps so,” said the prince, squeezing her hand with his elbow; “but it’s better when one does good so that you may ask every one and no one knows.”

“But time’s money, you forget that,” said the colonel. “Time, indeed, that depends! Why, there’s time one would give a month of for sixpence, and time you wouldn’t give half an hour of for any money.

“ (...) I’ll be bad; but anyway not a liar, a cheat.”

“(...) while you have at your disposal a means of helping them, and don’t help them because to your mind it’s of no importance.” And Sergey Ivanovitch put before him the alternative: either you are so undeveloped that you can’t see all that you can do, or you won’t sacrifice your ease, your vanity, or whatever it is, to do it.

“I imagine,” he said, “that no sort of activity is likely to be lasting if it is not founded on self-interest, that’s a universal principle, a philosophical principle,” (...)

Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but there were good moments too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold.

Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.

“No,” he said to himself, “however good that life of simplicity and toil may be, I cannot go back to it. I love her.”

He experienced the sensations of a man who has had a tooth out after suffering long from toothache. After a fearful agony and a sense of something huge, bigger than the head itself, being torn out of his jaw, the sufferer, hardly able to believe in his own good luck, feels all at once that what has so long poisoned his existence and enchained his attention, exists no longer, and that he can live and think again, and take interest in other things besides his tooth.

“It is a misfortune which may befall any one. And this misfortune has befallen me. The only thing to be done is to make the best of the position.”

And it was not the necessity of concealment, not the aim with which the concealment was contrived, but the process of concealment itself which attracted her.

“To sleep well one ought to work, and to enjoy oneself one ought to work too.”

Every man who knows to the minutest details all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, cannot help imagining that the complexity of these conditions, and the difficulty of making them clear, is something exceptional and personal, peculiar to himself, and never supposes that others are surrounded by just as complicated an array of personal affairs as he is.

“The manner of life you have chosen is reflected, I suppose, in your ideas.”

When Sviazhsky had finished, Levin could not help asking: “Well, and what then?” But there was nothing to follow. It was simply interesting that it had been proved to be so and so. But Sviazhsky did not explain, and saw no need to explain why it was interesting to him.

“I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all end; I had forgotten—death.”

The position was one of misery for all three; and not one of them would have been equal to enduring this position for a single day, if it had not been for the expectation that it would change, that it was merely a temporary painful ordeal which would pass over.

By gymnastics and careful attention to his health he had brought himself to such a point that in spite of his excess in pleasure he looked as fresh as a big glossy green Dutch cucumber.

She laid her two hands on his shoulders, and looked a long while at him with a profound, passionate, and at the same time searching look. She was studying his face to make up for the time she had not seen him. She was, every time she saw him, making the picture of him in her imagination (incomparably superior, impossible in reality) fit with him as he really was.

Then he had thought himself unhappy, but happiness was before him; now he felt that the best happiness was already left behind.

He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now, when as at that moment it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken.

“It is old; but do you know, when you grasp this fully, then somehow everything becomes of no consequence. When you understand that you will die to-morrow, if not to-day, and nothing will be left, then everything is so unimportant!

(...) no difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions, (...)

“What is horrible in a trouble of this kind is that one cannot, as in any other—in loss, in death—bear one’s trouble in peace, but that one must act,” said he, as though guessing her thought. “One must get out of the humiliating position in which one is placed; one can’t live á trois.”

“One may save any one who does not want to be ruined; but if the whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved, that ruin itself seems to her salvation, what’s to be done?”

“What do they want to argue for? No one ever convinces any one, you know.” “Yes; that’s true,” said Levin; “it generally happens that one argues warmly simply because one can’t make out what one’s opponent wants to prove.”

(...) he had firmly decided in his heart; but he could not tear out of his heart his regret at the loss of her love, he could not erase from his memory those moments of happiness that he had so little prized at the time, and that haunted him in all their charm.

“Doubt is natural to the weakness of mankind,” (...)

“There’s some sense in this custom of saying good-bye to bachelor life,” said Sergey Ivanovitch. “However happy you may be, you must regret your freedom.”

In reality, those who in Vronsky’s opinion had the “proper” view had no sort of view at all, but behaved in general as well-bred persons do behave in regard to all the complex and insoluble problems with which life is encompassed on all sides; they behaved with propriety, avoiding allusions and unpleasant questions. They assumed an air of fully comprehending the import and force of the situation, of accepting and even approving of it, but of considering it superfluous and uncalled for to put all this into words.

The thought of the harm caused to her husband aroused in her a feeling like repulsion, and akin to what a drowning man might feel who has shaken off another man clinging to him. That man did drown. It was an evil action, of course, but it was the sole means of escape, and better not to brood over these fearful facts.

Never did he work with such fervor and success as when things went ill with him, (...)

And the most experienced and adroit painter could not by mere mechanical facility paint anything if the lines of the subject were not revealed to him first.

He knew that Vronsky could not be prevented from amusing himself with painting; he knew that he and all dilettanti had a perfect right to paint what they liked, but it was distasteful to him. A man could not be prevented from making himself a big wax doll, and kissing it. But if the man were to come with the doll and sit before a man in love, and begin caressing his doll as the lover caressed the woman he loved, it would be distasteful to the lover. Just such a distasteful sensation was what Mihailov felt at the sight of Vronsky’s painting: he felt it both ludicrous and irritating, both pitiable and offensive.

At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat. He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; that one had to think too, not for an instant to forget where one was floating; and that there was water under one, and that one must row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it was only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it, though very delightful, was very difficult.

But it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame some one else, and especially the person nearest of all to him, for the ground of his dissatisfaction

“He’s just one of those people of whom they say they’re not for this world.”

He was nine years old; he was a child; but he knew his own soul, it was precious to him, he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no one into his soul.

One may sit for several hours at a stretch with one’s legs crossed in the same position, if one knows that there’s nothing to prevent one’s changing one’s position; but if a man knows that he must remain sitting so with crossed legs, then cramps come on, the legs begin to twitch and to strain towards the spot to which one would like to draw them.

She had prepared everything but the words she should say to her son. Often as she had dreamed of it, she could never think of anything.

(...) and slightly turning, was saying something to Yashvin. The setting of her head on her handsome, broad shoulders, and the restrained excitement and brilliance of her eyes and her whole face reminded him of her just as he had seen her at the ball in Moscow. But he felt utterly different towards her beauty now. In his feeling for her now there was no element of mystery, and so her beauty, though it attracted him even more intensely than before, gave him now a sense of injury.

“You think he can’t fall in love,” said Kitty, translating into her own language. “It’s not so much that he can’t fall in love,” Levin said, smiling, “but he has not the weakness necessary.... I’ve always envied him, and even now, when I’m so happy, I still envy him.” “You envy him for not being able to fall in love?” “I envy him for being better than I,” said Levin. “He does not live for himself. His whole life is subordinated to his duty. And that’s why he can be calm and contented.”

“I don’t think anything,” she said, “but I always loved you, and if one loves any one, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be....”

“It’s our Russian apathy,” said Vronsky, pouring water from an iced decanter into a delicate glass on a high stem; “we’ve no sense of the duties our privileges impose upon us, and so we refuse to recognize these duties.”

But her chief thought was still of herself—how far she was dear to Vronsky, how far she could make up to him for all he had given up. Vronsky appreciated this desire not only to please, but to serve him, which had become the sole aim of her existence, but at the same time he wearied of the loving snares in which she tried to hold him fast. As time went on, and he saw himself more and more often held fast in these snares, he had an ever-growing desire, not so much to escape from them, as to try whether they hindered his freedom.

“But you say it’s an institution that’s served its time.” “That it may be, but still it ought to be treated a little more respectfully. Snetkov, now ... We may be of use, or we may not, but we’re the growth of a thousand years. If we’re laying out a garden, planning one before the house, you know, and there you’ve a tree that’s stood for centuries in the very spot... Old and gnarled it may be, and yet you don’t cut down the old fellow to make room for the flowerbeds, but lay out your beds so as to take advantage of the tree. You won’t grow him again in a year,” (...)

But, as he told her, the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.

“If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied. And it’s true, as papa says,—that when we were brought up there was one extreme—we were kept in the basement, while our parents lived in the best rooms; now it’s just the other way—the parents are in the wash-house, while the children are in the best rooms. Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to exist altogether for their children.” “Well, what if they like it better?”

(...) felt a great weariness from the fruitless strain on his attention.

Anna had come from behind the treillage to meet him, and Levin saw in the dim light of the study the very woman of the portrait, in a dark blue shot gown, not in the same position nor with the same expression, but with the same perfection of beauty which the artist had caught in the portrait. She was less dazzling in reality, but, on the other hand, there was something fresh and seductive in the living woman which was not in the portrait.

Anna talked not merely naturally and cleverly, but cleverly and carelessly, attaching no value to her own ideas and giving great weight to the ideas of the person she was talking to.

If you knew how I feel on the brink of calamity at this instant, how afraid I am of myself!”

There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way.

Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception, while reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it.

But as he looked at her, he saw again that help was impossible, and he was filled with terror and prayed: “Lord, have mercy on us, and help us!” And as time went on, both these conditions became more intense; the calmer he became away from her, completely forgetting her, the more agonizing became both her sufferings and his feeling of helplessness before them. He jumped up, would have liked to run away, but ran to her. Sometimes, when again and again she called upon him, he blamed her; but seeing her patient, smiling face, and hearing the words, “I am worrying you,” he threw the blame on God; but thinking of God, at once he fell to beseeching God to forgive him and have mercy.

In order to carry through any undertaking in family life, there must necessarily be either complete division between the husband and wife, or loving agreement. When the relations of a couple are vacillating and neither one thing nor the other, no sort of enterprise can be undertaken.

She was jealous not of any particular woman but of the decrease of his love. Not having got an object for her jealousy, she was on the lookout for it. At the slightest hint she transferred her jealousy from one object to another.

This irritated Anna. She saw in this a contemptuous reference to her occupations. And she bethought her of a phrase to pay him back for the pain he had given her. “I don’t expect you to understand me, my feelings, as any one who loved me might, but simple delicacy I did expect,” she said.

For an instant she had a clear vision of what she was doing, and was horrified at how she had fallen away from her resolution. But even though she knew it was her own ruin, she could not restrain herself, could not keep herself from proving to him that he was wrong, could not give way to him.

“(...) What’s so awful is that one can’t tear up the past by its roots. One can’t tear it out, but one can hide one’s memory of it. And I’ll hide it.”

“He thought he knew me. Well, he knows me as well as any one in the world knows me. I don’t know myself.”

“We all want what is sweet and nice. If not sweetmeats, then a dirty ice.”

“Yes, of what Yashvin says, the struggle for existence and hatred is the one thing that holds men together. No, it’s a useless journey you’re making,” she said, mentally addressing a party in a coach and four, evidently going for an excursion into the country. “And the dog you’re taking with you will be no help to you. You can’t get away from yourselves.”

Then she thought that life might still be happy, and how miserably she loved and hated him, and how fearfully her heart was beating.

“Yes, I’m very much worried, and that’s what reason was given me for, to escape; so then one must escape: why not put out the light when there’s nothing more to look at, when it’s sickening to look at it all? But how?”

“There’s no one I should less dislike seeing than you,” said Vronsky. “Excuse me; and there’s nothing in life for me to like.”

And all at once a different pain, not an ache, but an inner trouble, that set his whole being in anguish, made him for an instant forget his toothache.

And he tried to think of her as she was when he met her the first time, at a railway-station too, mysterious, exquisite, loving, seeking and giving happiness, and not cruelly revengeful as he remembered her on that last moment. He tried to recall his best moments with her, but those moments were poisoned forever. He could only think of her as triumphant, successful in her menace of a wholly useless remorse never to be effaced. He lost all consciousness of toothache, and his face worked with sobs.

Levin felt suddenly like a man who has changed his warm fur cloak for a muslin garment, and going for the first time into the frost is immediately convinced, not by reason, but by his whole nature that he is as good as naked, and that he must infallibly perish miserably.

(...) something had happened that seemed extraordinary to him. He, an unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at the moment he prayed, he believed. But that moment had passed, and he could not make his state of mind at that moment fit into the rest of his life. He could not admit that at that moment he knew the truth, and that now he was wrong; for as soon as he began thinking calmly about it, it all fell to pieces. He could not admit that he was mistaken then, for his spiritual condition then was precious to him, and to admit that it was a proof of weakness would have been to desecrate those moments. He was miserably divided against himself, and strained all his spiritual forces to the utmost to escape from this condition.

“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life’s impossible; and that I can’t know, and so I can’t live,” Levin said to himself. “In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is formed a bubble-organism, and that bubble lasts a while and bursts, and that bubble is Me.” It was an agonizing error, but it was the sole logical result of ages of human thought in that direction. This was the ultimate belief on which all the systems elaborated by human thought in almost all their ramifications rested. It was the prevalent conviction, and of all other explanations Levin had unconsciously, not knowing when or how, chosen it, as any way the clearest, and made it his own. But it was not merely a falsehood, it was the cruel jeer of some wicked power, some evil, hateful power, to whom one could not submit. He must escape from this power. And the means of escape every man had in his own hands. He had but to cut short this dependence on evil. And there was one means—death.

Whether he were acting rightly or wrongly he did not know, and far from trying to prove that he was, nowadays he avoided all thought or talk about it. Reasoning had brought him to doubt, and prevented him from seeing what he ought to do and what he ought not. When he did not think, but simply lived, he was continually aware of the presence of an infallible judge in his soul, determining which of two possible courses of action was the better and which was the worse, and as soon as he did not act rightly, he was at once aware of it. So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and what he was living for, and harassed at this lack of knowledge to such a point that he was afraid of suicide, and yet firmly laying down his own individual definite path in life.

“Then she recovered, but to-day or to-morrow or in ten years she won’t; they’ll bury her, and nothing will be left either of her or of that smart girl in the red jacket, who with that skilful, soft action shakes the ears out of their husks. They’ll bury her and this piebald horse, and very soon too,”

“Yes, all the newspapers do say the same thing,” said the prince. “That’s true. But so it is the same thing that all the frogs croak before a storm. One can hear nothing for them.”

“The people make sacrifices and are ready to make sacrifices for their soul, but not for murder,”

“Were you very much frightened?” she said. “So was I too, but I feel it more now that it’s over. (...)”

“What is it? you’re not worried about anything?” she said, looking intently at his face in the starlight. But she could not have seen his face if a flash of lightning had not hidden the stars and revealed it. In that flash she saw his face distinctly, and seeing him calm and happy, she smiled at him.

“No, I’d better not speak of it,” he thought, when she had gone in before him. “It is a secret for me alone, of vital importance for me, and not to be put into words. “This new feeling has not changed me, has not made me happy and enlightened all of a sudden, as I had dreamed, just like the feeling for my child. There was no surprise in this either. Faith—or not faith—I don’t know what it is—but this feeling has come just as imperceptibly through suffering, and has taken firm root in my soul. “I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will be still the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife; I shall still go on scolding her for my own terror, and being remorseful for it; I shall still be as unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it.”

[lizzieraindrops]

Your chance to make the sun rise thrice (Chapter 3)

that a garden will grow (11,143 words)

"There are no happy endings, because nothing ends." - The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle That does not mean that there is no joy.

Veera is alive.

Also on AO3  |  Playlist soundtrack  |  Aesthetic sideblog

Happy autumn equinox, everyone.

When I started this story as a oneshot back in 2016, I had no idea that it would turn into a series spanning four years of new life for these characters, much less that it would end up taking me nearly the same amount of time to write it.

I wrote the first part during the darkest yet time of my life as an abstract fantasy of being in a better place. I finish writing it today from a better place, physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. If I've learned anything from this, it's that your own creativity saves you and is powerful enough to call the better things that seem so impossible into existence.

This is my tribute to Veera as a character and everyone like her and anyone who has identified with her. She changed my life. Even with all OB's many, many flaws (dear god there are SO many), without the explicit representation of Veera's neurodivergence in the Helsinki comics, I don't know how I would have figured out that I'm autistic. That has been both the biggest hurdle and the greatest blessing in the trajectory of my healing. Since it's been so central to this story and its writing, I've included a link to some resources for autism spectrum self-diagnosis.

Part 1: Herbs on the windowsill

Part 2: Someday colors

Part 3: Your chance to make the sun rise thrice  |  Chapter 1  |  Chapter 2  |  Chapter 3

***

Veera wakes gently, early, unexpectedly so. As she sits up, her weighted blanket slips off and crumples around her waist like a shed skin. Bands of muted morning coming through the blinds slide over her as she rises from the plane of the bed. The summer sun has still risen first, of course. True dark never falls here in the summer, at this high a latitude. But right now, its light is softened and diffused by a thin veil of cloud over the city. Listening, the others aren’t up and moving yet.

Slight shifting of her relaxed limbs makes the softness of the sheets into an extravagance. She’s in a rare, delicately balanced state, one where her senses have sharpened just enough to turn ordinary sensations exquisite without overwhelming her. She’ll have to spend some time listening to music – and with Niki and Beth. That was the plan anyway. But the others aren’t up yet.

Today, there’s a restlessness in her. Most days, she gets up slow, simply waiting until her body is ready to go about the day. Yet a quiet kind of discomfort has made a home in her core, nudging her to get moving. The feel of it is neither full nor hollow, not exactly painful yet nothing like comfort. It’s just there, a subdued directionless yearning.

But her mind needs to go at its own pace waking up. Inertia drags at her when she tries to move too fast or cut corners in her daily ritual. Subtle distress quickly follows that inertia if she tries to press the issue. It shows in the incrementally increasing fine tension of her muscles, slowly winding her up like clockwork. So she sits with the feeling. Motionless except for her breath in the middle of her bed, she thinks.

Light. Leaves. Home. Hunger. She should eat soon. They’re out of cereal, though. There’s a farmer’s market a few blocks away that should have fresh summer fruit. She could go. She does, sometimes, early in the morning like now, before Niki wakes up, and just wanders around. As long as she keeps it short and doesn’t talk much, she should be able to manage it without giving herself a headache.

Twenty minutes find her feet traversing muted pink granite. Neat rectangular stone cobbles pave the street below her living room window. The rumble of a loud truck passing right by close makes her flinch, but she manages to shake the discomfort out of her neck and shoulders easily enough once it’s gone. Other than that, the streets are unusually peaceful. Most people like get out of the city this close to midsummer.

She steps lightly over the stone in snugly laced canvas shoes, toes touching down first. There’s some sort of bird hidden in the trees lining the street, singing two repeated notes on a slow loop. A flycatcher, she thinks.

Being in motion somewhat soothes her restlessness as she slips through broad swathes of clouded morning light between the shadows of buildings. The persistent sensation is nothing so strident as the hypervigilance that used to keep her so high strung. But its subtle company has been constant, lately. She can tell she’s internally processing something, but she can’t quite pin it down. Maybe that’s why she’s been waking up so much earlier than normal.

Lately, a strangeness has been gently tugging at the edges of her mind. In part, she knows it’s a growing awareness of how much things have changed since four years ago. It’s happened so gradually. It was nigh invisible until she cast far enough back along the path of her own footsteps to see how far she’s come. She almost died, but she didn’t. She’s no longer in a desperate race to survive. Now, she’s alive. The question of who and what she is now is an unnervingly open one.

These days, she wakes within a body that is soft and scarred. She is both a wounded creature walking this world with strange steps and a thing healing yet already whole. More often than not, she finds her shoulders loose and her chest open, instead of curled tight into a semblance of stone. They can still seize up when her fears circle back around to worry at invisible scars. But it’s not an endless anxious state. It isn’t everything she is anymore.

Likewise, her nightmares don’t spend as many nights haunting her. Weeks pass between them, sometimes. When they do steal back to the surface of her psyche, the quiet fear they stir up saps all her energy and trails lazily through the daylight hours like an oilslick. She spends those days baking something sweet in the apartment’s warmly lit kitchen. Or she takes inventory of the shapes and textures of the leaves that hang suspended in the air of every familiar room.

It helps, even if dreams or memories linger smoldering in the back of her mind the whole time. The sensations and sense of space keep her grounded, both within herself and outside of the fickle fear and pain that flares and fades and keeps returning. Of course, nothing is so immediately comforting as the presence – and, in this searingly ephemeral moment, presences – that remind her she is not alone. But even when they aren’t there, the space itself reminds her that she lives with and in this place she’s chosen to call a home.

The apartment is the first home she can remember that feels the way she suspects one is supposed to. It fits around her, small and enclosed enough to know every inch without uncertainty scratching at the bounds of her awareness. Tucked away up on the third floor, it nests in a quiet old brick building that’s as comfortably worn in as her favorite hoodie. Its wide windows spread big and bright in every room, reminding her to breathe freely. She is no longer a creature caged. Shadows are soft in this place, and the sunlight is as much a part of it as the walls. Its radiant forms lance through glass and smile through aches, never failing to wrap her in warmth.

Leaves unfurl gently in every window. She likes to run the living silken or waxy greenness of purposeful growth between her fingertips. Perhaps their green faces are outnumbered by all the strangely familiar human ones in the photos along the whitewashed walls, marking where friendships have germinated. But then again, perhaps not. It’s a close call, and there’s always more of both growing. They’re still something of a miracle to her, after so long alone.

Low murmurs of outdoor conversation bring her back to the pop-up stalls of the market hovering just ahead. She’s there.

There are somewhat fewer visitors than normal, but the market still appears to be proceeding about business as usual. Early on, this Saturday market tends to be quieter than the Sunday one, not quite as full of people. It's that perfect balance of un-crowded enough that she can keep to her own internal world without interruption, but bustling enough that she doesn't stand out. She's just another woman at the market. Once in a while, gazes will slide over the scars on her cheek, or her upper arm if she’s wearing short sleeves (not her leg or ankle, as she never wears anything except pants). Her skin begins to remember to crawl - but then the eyes keep on sliding past, on to the peppers or the green beans or the fresh cut flowers.

Weaving her way into the dispersed crowd, she heads for the egg stand first, just in case they run out. They often do. With a dozen blue and brown eggs in tow, she roves about until she finds a stand with peaches she can smell from several paces away. Their sweet tang fills the air as she picks them out. She also gets some fresh apricots, brushing her fingertips over their velvety little coats of fuzz. She tucks the stonefruit and eggs safely into the backpack she brought and keeps moving. A yeasty oaf of fresh bread for picnicking later joins them. The rounded tip of the long loaf pokes out the top of the zippered pocket, hovering just behind her ear. She leaves the top of its paper wrapper open so it stays crisp.

Live music rolling out from the street corner captures her, pulling her out of her trajectory mid-stride to swing toward the unadorned sidewalk stage. The resonance of shimmering metal strings and singing wood flows over her and through her, and she simply sways with it, part of it. It sparkles over her skin and hums along her bones, making her flutter her fingers in pleasure, and it’s blissful. After everything she’s been through, the long gauntlet of near misses and fires and nightmare flames, it still seems wrong somehow for things to be this okay, to feel this good.

That’s why, when visceral self-consciousness swoops down on her again without warning, its familiar fear is as much something like relief as it is a thorn in an old wound. Nothing even causes it, really: just a stray passing glance from a stranger that slid over her hands instead of her scars and didn’t even linger. But it makes her remember the oddness of the ways her hands move, when she’s happy, when she’s stressed. It makes her stand out if she doesn’t make the effort to hide them – or if she takes a little too long to think in a conversation – or if she lets on that she can be hurt so easily by the smallest, normally inconsequential things.

In more dangerous times, standing out could have ended very badly for her. The feeling of being hunted might have retreated to the back of her mind, but it has never truly left. In moments like this, she still snaps back into old habits. Her fists clench into stillness, her mind into sharp wariness, her whole self into the ache of immobility except for consciously calculated movements. It’s not quite the old full-body taut-wire tension of terror. Nonetheless, it’s a painful tender twisting inside, pulling things skewed and wrong in her chest.

The thing is, she knows she’s one of the lucky ones. For so many people, the fear never gets to recede at all. Either the danger remains ever-present in the casual cruelties of the world, or their wounds never get the care they need to heal. Not everyone can be set free by toppling a single old castle of corruption into the sea. Veera gets to try to heal, as impossibly hard as it is and always will be. She has support to fall back on now, kind hearts that hear her, arms that will hold her when she hurts. Though they’re rare, she has days where she doesn’t feel like she has to hide at all. It’s so strange. Even before the Helsinki fire, she spent so long becoming acquainted with the wariness of attracting too much attention. She’s still trying to understand who she even is if she’s not hiding.

That’s why she’s doing the work she does with CYGNet. They’re all muddling their way toward healing from their one-off odd brand of hurt, but the support system they’re building could be useful for so much more. In her mind, they’re just the beginning. One day, maybe they can expand to help even more people beyond the Leda project. The Beths with different faces but surviving the same family history. The Nikis with different nightmares but recovering from the same betrayal. The Veeras with different scars who are just as overwhelmed by the everyday world, but deserve just as much of a chance to experience it without having to hide their truth in shame and become someone they’re not.

Well. Maybe one day. For now, one thing at a time. She has to take care of herself and her own healing if she’s going to make any progress down that distant path. Sometimes, the path she’s on right now still seems to stretch so much further ahead than she can fathom.

Eyes closed, Veera takes a breath into her tense stillness. To her own fragile heart, she whispers, It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. She breathes; it passes.

Giving herself a few minutes more to listen to the music, she waits until the grip of physical memory lessens. The sound is still lovely, even if she can’t quite fall back into the two-piece symphony the way she did mere moments ago. She calms further as she carries herself onward again down the tent-lined street. Under the surface, though, in the same hollow where her restlessness lives, her heart remains sore where something still won’t settle into place.

Fortunately, there are other good things at the market that help soothe the ache. Even for someone like her who needs to limit her exposure to overstimulation and crowds, they make it worth braving all the bustle now and again.

A small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth at the sight of a profusion of green fronds leaning out from beneath the awning of the stand up ahead. It's bursting with foliage in more shades of green than she knew existed, and chock full of rows of those knobbly little succulents she loves so much. The vendor is a quiet man with a ponytail and a kind face. He merely smiles at her whenever she comes by. He’s one of those strangers who are friends by the shared appreciation of silence. Sometimes words get in the way.

He nods at her in recognition as she ducks into the stand to avoid a loud group of shoppers. Though there are people in there, something about the vendor and the greenery keeps things calm. The tiny forest is an island in the flow of people. It’s nearly on the opposite end of the market from where she started, and it always provides a brief respite where she can recover a little before heading back. Besides, she likes to look over the lacy ferns and trailing philodendrons and all the tiny succulents in every color of the rainbow, even if she already has too many.

She still leaves most of the houseplants to Niki to look after. But to her own surprise, she’s quite good at taking care of the succulents. For the most part, she leaves them somewhere sunny and ignores them. They love it. Sometimes they even treat her to little shiny-papery flowers in brilliant pink or yellow.

Ranks of mini succulents line one of stall’s tables. She’s barely skimming her fingers over the surfaces of a row of flat, stone-like lithops when she sees it. One of the tiny pots is filled with what appear to be little green spheres like peas. Looking closer, they’re round, succulent leaves attached to thin trailing stems. Sprouting from the end of one string of them is a long, spindly stem curving up to a closed flower bud that bobs in the breeze. She’s never seen anything like it.

The man running the stand notices her looking at it. Veera points at the plant and tilts her head in a question. He smiles and extracts a sheet of paper for her from a messy pile half tucked under the cash box. Its a care sheet for Senecio rowleyanus, or string of pearls.

Veera did promise Niki she’d stop bringing home so many succulents. But the plant man’s pressing the little pot of pearls into her hands, waving her wide eyes away with a smile when she reaches for her wallet. This one will have to be an exception. Her small smile and wave of thanks receive another nod in acknowledgement and farewell. Cupping the pot in both hands, she ventures back into the mid-morning river of people to take herself home.

On the way back down the street, the plant cradled against her chest draws smiles from the crowd. They often transfer to her as well. Something about the green thing in her arms softens people’s expressions, even when they see her scars. It makes it easier to walk softly, and to carry her dull ache of residual fear just as gently.

As if struck, she stumbles when she remembers that today, she gets to go home to her two best friends in the entire world. The ache that knowledge calls forth is just as arresting as the kind that comes with the clinging oilslick fear, yet different. This is far stronger and far sweeter, its truth a soft clarity. Veera clutches her plant close to her chest with one hand as she catches her balance on a fruit-covered table with the other. A handful of little oranges roll off as she bumps into it.

Stammering apologies, Veera scrambles to gather up the fallen fruit. A nearby woman browsing the citrus in a purple sweater kneels down to help her. Veera wasn’t planning on buying mandarins, but she can hardly knock them all over the ground and run off. She hopes she has enough cash left. Straightening up, she looks for somewhere to sit the fruit down so she can check her wallet.

But the woman in the sweater holds her hands out for them. She’s already put the ones she picked up in a canvas bag.

“I’ll take them,” she says. “I was gonna buy some anyway.” Her sweater is a few shades bluer than the warm purple of Veera’s own hoodie.

Veera blinks at her. “Are – are you sure?” She holds out one of the mandarins, showing its dented skin, fragrant with released citrus oils.

The woman gives her a small smile. “Yeah. I’ll eat that one first.”

“Oh. Um. Okay.” Veera delicately hands three more mandarins over. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Don’t worry about it.” The woman’s voice is like her smile: small but kind.

Veera whispers her thanks again, then hurries home before she can be waylaid by any more painfully kind gestures from strangers.

***

Veera’s so relieved to walk through her own door into the kitchen that she doesn’t realize someone’s in the living room, not until she hears a soft sob. Her head snaps up. Niki’s on the couch with her face in her hands and Beth next to her with an arm around her. Alarmed, Veera drops her bag on the kitchen counter and begins to make a beeline for her. But she hesitates. She’s used to offering Niki comfort whenever she can, but is she interrupting?

Too late. Beth makes a small sound of surprise when she notices Veera hovering halfway into the room. Niki looks up too, but she wipes her eyes and gives Veera a watery smile. It’s okay.

Niki holds a hand out as Veera makes her way over to the couch. Gladly, Veera takes it. As Veera stands there before the scruffy secondhand sofa in the hazy light from the window, the three of them are briefly an interlinked chain. Beth watches the other two with soft, understanding eyes, her arm steady over Niki’s shoulders.

Niki heaves a shaky sigh. Then she gives Beth’s knee a thankful squeeze and uses Veera’s hand to lever herself up to standing. She briefly embraces Veera, who returns the gesture. “I’m okay,” Niki whispers. Veera nods. Then Niki slips away into the kitchen and starts bustling around, half-seen behind the half-wall that divides it into an alcove off the main room. Presumably, she’s taking a moment to collect herself while unpacking Veera’s groceries. She does that. Niki doesn’t mind if Veera sees her cry – or Beth, apparently. But she always takes a moment alone afterward to put herself back together.

Veera shakes her head to clear away the traces of her second unexpected fright of the morning. In its wake, the empty spot on the couch is too inviting.

She flops onto the cushions next to Beth with a sigh and goes limp. Maybe going to the market was a little too ambitious for today. She’s already had too much excitement this week with Beth visiting, and she hasn’t slept well because of it, which only saps more of her limited energy. Even good things can be so exhausting. She knows she needs to get more rest than most people do, especially when there’s so much happening. But that’s so hard to remember when she knows that this moment is such a rare blessing. Both of her most important people are right here with her right now. It’s so hard to not throw herself completely into every possible joy she can have, in this transcendent sliver of time.

She rolls her head where it rests against the back of the couch to look at Beth sideways. “I got breakfast,” she offers.

“Looks like you wiped yourself out doing it.” Beth leans against the arm of the sofa to look at her. “Morning.” Her own tired eyes twinkle.

Veera smiles. She tries to fix this moment into memory: the wisps of Beth’s unbrushed hair catching the light, the wooden clatter of Niki opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” Veera asks.

Beth runs a hand through her hair. “Yeah. We were just talking, about,” she waves a hand around, encompassing all the faces in all the photos on the walls, “everything. We’re so different. But some of the stuff, it’s the same. The things we’re all going through. You know?”

Veera does.

The kitchen clatter intensifies as Niki starts moving pots and pans around and clinking them down on the stovetop.

“How many eggs do you want?” Niki calls, voice more steady now. When Veera and Beth come over to investigate, she’s already got a skillet out and is debating with herself whether to start a pot of porridge, too. Veera’s always in favor of porridge no matter what, and Beth’s never had proper Finnish porridge before, so that settles that.

Niki starts scooping the mixed grains into the pan without measuring, like normal. She fills it with an unknown amount of water from the sink with some arcane skill of estimation that Veera has never understood. It always turns out fine. As Beth gets to work slicing some of the fresh fruit, Veera sidles up to Niki and lays a light hand on her arm.

Niki meets her questioning eyes. “I’m okay,” she says again. But she leans into Veera’s touch and stays there. Veera says nothing, just strokes a thumb over Niki’s shoulder and holds the space. Oats and rice swirl in the saucepan as Niki stirs them into the water with a wooden spoon.

“I was talking to her about what happened with Aleks, and mum and dad.” Niki’s voice goes soft, but not hushed. Her words aren’t directed at Beth at the other counter, but they’re not hidden from her, either. “How it made it so hard to trust anyone anymore. Especially Suvi, ‘cause she was there before. And you know how that gets me all... ugh.” She twiddles her wooden spoon in the air. Then she leans even more into Veera, into the arm that curls around her in half an embrace. To think, that Veera is someone who offers such gestures now with hardly a hesitant thought.

“She just gets it, you know?” Niki continues. “Not that you don’t, but it’s different. Like, you understand about how people are always expecting things from you. People see what they wanna see, and only take you seriously if you play along with it. It’s so frustrating. And it’s bullshit! I’ve never met anyone who understands that better than you.” She stirs the porridge again.

“And Beth... she was telling me some about her dad. She knows about having someone close to you just pull the whole rug out from under your world.” Niki pauses her stirring, and looks at Veera. “I’ve always been amazed, how you just landed on your feet and hit the ground running, when you found out. I couldn’t have done that, if I was alone.”

Veera shrugs, incidentally squeezing Niki sideways. “I never was very close with Matti.”

Watching her, Niki’s face falls a little. “I’m glad he didn’t hurt you that way. But I wish... I don’t know. I wish you’d had someone who was there for you, then. Everyone deserves that.”

“Huh.” Veera blinks. “I’d never thought of it that way.”

Arms suddenly wrap tight around her middle, a face tucked into the crook of her neck and shoulders. The handle end of a wooden spoon presses into the muscles between her shoulderblades.

“Niki!” Veera exclaims softly.

“Hey, look.” Her voice is sniffly again. “I’m having a day, okay, let me just –” She holds Veera tight.

“Nikiii,” she cajoles. “I’m fine.” Her eyes flick toward Beth over Niki’s shoulder. Her hand hovers over a peach on the cutting board as she meets her eye. Veera tucks her head down a little, embarrassed. But Beth’s smiling, if also looking a bit watery.

“I know,” Niki says into her shoulder. “I know you’re fine. You’re wonderful. But I’m here, okay? You’re always here for us. But we’re here for you, too.” Niki reaches an arm out blindly toward Beth until her fingers make contact, then gathers her in as if calling in backup. Beth gladly lays down the knife and joins the impromptu embrace next to the stove.

“Um.” Veera automatically relaxes under the extra pressure. It’s nice. But she’s still flustered. And the vociferous burbling of the porridge is getting a little concerning. “I think the porridge is going to boil over.”

Niki releases her with a groan. Veera’s sure she’s rolling her eyes, even though she’s a little too overwhelmed to look at either of them.

“That doesn’t mean you’re getting out of letting us be nice to you,” Niki says as she returns to the stove. Soon, the porridge is placated and eggs sizzle in the skillet, providing a crackling accompaniment.

When the food’s ready, they crowd around the table squeezed into the little kitchen nook below the window as if they do this every day. They pick slices of ripe peach and apricot off a cutting board in the middle. Spoons click in bowls as they do their best not to elbow each other. Stonefruit and cinnamon mix in the air with the light sulfur of fresh eggs and the pervasive aroma of the basil in the windowbox.

After a languid breakfast and a long morning spent simply enjoying each other’s company, the cloud cover is well on its way to burning off. The three head out to the nearby park, determined to make the most of the sun while the two Finns show off the splendor of the Helsinki summer to Beth. They pack up the fresh bread and cheese and the rest of the fruit for a picnic later.

Veera’s companions’ eyes are bright and animated as they leave behind the crisscrossing tracks of the train station and step into the shelter of the park’s old trees. Boughs bend and leaves whisper lazily in the light wind breathing over the bay. Veera follows them. With the hood of her jacket pulled down, the cool and verdant breeze caresses her short hair. Shade and sunlight dapple the grass between the footpaths and spatter the old blanket that they throw over the green, the one that usually lives on the couch that Beth’s currently taken over. They’re exposed to the open sky and anything else that might wander the earth with them. But branches lace and lattice across the blue, and the handful of other park-goers are too immersed in their own summer reverie to pay them any mind.

It’s surreal, almost. Niki basks like a lizard, looking like she needs nothing else in the world to keep her happy. Beth keeps running over to stick her toes in the salt water of the little bay. She takes every deliberate step into grass and gravel as if both she and the world are fresh and new. Peace settles into Veera’s bones. She spends half her time watching the others while reading an old fantasy novel in the shade. The other half, she looks upon the scene as if watching herself, absolutely bewildered by the way she both sees and cannot see the pain that still lives in the three of them, even as she still feels the scores it left trailing across her heart.

It's a long and lazy afternoon in the best understated way. By the time they return home sunwarmed, though, Veera’s starting to feel the effects of having been out all day doing too many things. Her skull is beginning to ache. But it’s familiar and cool and quiet here. She can rest.

Once they unpack the remains of their picnic, Niki makes good on her earlier threat of not letting Veera get out of being fussed over. She chivvies the other two into the living room and onto the couch. To Veera’s mild bemusement, Niki sits next to her, across from Beth, looking far too pleased with herself.

Then Niki pulls all three of them into a cuddle pile with Veera caught in the middle.

Veera lets out a little squeak of surprise as she’s smothered in limbs and warm laughter. Beth’s only too happy to help Niki tag-team her, the traitor. She squeezes Beth’s wrist in retaliation, but all that gets her is Beth slipping out of her grip just enough to tangle her fingers with her own.

With a little shuffling, Veera ends up with Niki pressed comfortably up against her side leaning her head on Veera’s shoulder. Niki also tucks an arm around her, as natural and necessary as breathing. Curled up against her other side, Beth backstops her. She lets Niki play with the ends of her long dark hair with the hand that reaches around Veera’s shoulders. Beth’s still holding onto Veera’s hand, steady like she’s never planning on letting go. The intense late afternoon light slants into the room, sending stars refracting off of the glass bottles on the sill that trail green-leaved vine cuttings.

Veera doesn’t know that she’s ever been as happy as she is right now. She watches herself in half-believing wonder, then stops. She breathes. She feels the others’ breathing like her own. She reminds herself to just be here, just exist.

But the restlessness that she awoke with doesn’t cease, even now with the two presences she treasures most on either side of her, tucked almost as close to her body as they are to her heart. It still aches and whispers in her ear with a soft insistence. Something about the fragile intensity of this moment calls to that unknown quantity like its own.

This little apartment on the edge of the city was never meant to be more than just enough for her and Niki to carve a safe space out of a terrifying world. And it has been that. But then there was more. There were the herbs keeping the kitchen and the succulents dotting the shelves. There were the colors covering the floor in rugs and memories covering the walls in photos. There was ample quiet to replace chill silence, and the fullness of kind words spoken like truth. There were pancakes. There was sunshine. There was Jade and Justyna and Janika and Sofia and Sarah and Helena and Katja and Aryanna and Danielle and Alison and Cosima and Jennifer and Tony and Femke and Fay and Krystal; and there was Beth, and there was Niki, and there was her.

Perhaps that’s the strangeness that keeps plucking at her mind. Not only have her situation and surroundings strayed so far from what her life used to be, but she herself is someone different now. She emerged changed out the other side of the two fires that consumed her entire life. Maybe the flames were bookends. She doesnt remember anything from before the first, and the space between them was long and lonely. The person she became during that in-between time is still fused into her foundations.

And yet, so much of the structure of her self has shifted. New parts of her unfurl daily. Being within her own body feels both utterly familiar and completely new. She can look back at the strange girl she once was and still recognize parts of her as the strange woman she is now. Now, she’s someone who gets called Veera with a voice full of love and Mika with sense of wonder and Leda with mild curiosity, and they are all her.

The unexpectedness of being given so many names still leaves her bemused. There’s a surprising intimacy to them, the way people speak them like they’re describing the shape of her in so many other lives. She’s unaccustomed to it. As difficult as people can be, what she has now is... good. When she thinks on it too hard, it makes her ribs feel like they’re closing in on her heart even while her lungs expand to take in the whole sky in an single endless exhilarated breath.

She’s thinking about it now. It’s not just a thought. It’s a longing and a fulfilling, an ache and a balm, a memory and a future, a call and response. It becomes all of her in this moment, and she shivers with its intensity. The shiver ripples into the bodies nestled on either side of her. Only a few years ago, she could never have imagined being so close, or wanting to. Sometimes it’s still too much, even with Niki – even with both of them, now, who are both so inexplicably easy to be around. The companionable solitude bathes her soul like the green breathing of a forest in eternal spring. She thinks about the unlikeliness, the flouted impossibility of it all. The feeling that it calls into bloom from her seed of a heart is almost too much.

“Veera?” Niki turns to face her in response to the shiver, her golden head catching and holding the gilded afternoon light.

“You alright, Veer?” She blinks at the new sound of the new name spoken in Beth’s softest-leather voice. It fits, too.

Veera inhales to speak, but words evade articulation. She releases the breath again to its own wordless purposes. The hand that’s been interlaced with hers squeezes gently as Beth makes a little questioning sound like a cat and shifts the comfortable weight of her knees in Veera’s lap. On Veera’s other side, Niki leans even further into her than she has been and rests her chin on Veera’s shoulder.

The press of their affection and concern envelop her in dearest aching, and it’s so much. She wants to stay right where she is. But she’s hardly slept for the past two nights and she’s tired and aching from overextending herself and her words have left her again. The immensity of feeling blooming inside her on top of everything else is just too much. She won’t be able to stay like this much longer. She needs to be by herself, to quietly sort through the backlog of everything she’s experiencing that’s stacking up faster than she can process it.

First, though, she needs them to know how much this means to her. Her ears pick up every breath and brush of smallest movement, and her world is filled with little strokes of sound that fall across her skin and hum in her chest as if painted there. They’re closer and dearer to her than anyone has ever been. Veera lifts Beth’s hand with her own and sweeps Niki’s hand into her grasp as well. Then, she presses both of them hard against her heartbeat. She bends her head down and locks her arms over her own chest to hold them there. No sound escapes her except a minute whimper.

Wordless murmurs and small shufflings to stay close tell her that they understand what she can’t say right now, and tell it back to her twofold. She sniffles a little, then begins to untangle herself without yet letting go. She doesn’t want to leave. But if she doesn’t, the waves of overwhelm that currently shove at her will become a tide that pulls her under and leaves her head pounding.

Niki’s voice, low. “You getting overloaded?”

Veera nods.

“Okay,” she says gently. “Go wind down. We won’t be loud.” Niki’s always been so understanding, right from the very first moment she’d shared her strangeness. Secret for a secret, she’d said, guarding Veera’s like her own and holding her trust like a treasure.

“Take care, Mika,” Beth says, mimicking Niki’s tone. Beth’s never been here here for this before. But Veera has texted with her at length numerous times in the past, when she can’t bear conversation out loud but still wants company. Veera can still hardly believe that Beth’s really here, proving herself as compassionate through soft sounds and touches as through a keyboard. “Don’t worry,” she adds as Veera still hesitates to let go. “We’ll be here later.”

Veera breathes out and nods again. She manages to stand, still holding one hand in each of hers. She squeezes them one more time, one after the other. Then she picks her way around the blue-and-brown mess of clothes spilling out of Beth’s suitcase onto the living room floor and steps softly into her own room. She closes the door.

With the blinds half shuttered against the afternoon light coming through the west-facing window, it’s cooler, dimmer, quieter than the main room. Veera likes it that way. She needs its restful seclusion as much as she needs the sun-glazed warmth of the rest of the place. Filled with muted purples and greens, there’s no dizzying array of photographs here. The only picture on the walls is a large cream and gray poster of a detailed sketch of the moon with all its craters arcing over its surface. Stubby succulents dot the heavily book-laden shelf and her cluttered desk in front of the window. They sort of glitter in the sunlight. The beams catch the water stored in the overlarge cells of their chunky little leaves, brightening their soothing shades of green, grey, dusty lavender, and mauve.

Nerves spangling, she changes out of her jeans into something softer without looking at what she’s doing. Sometimes, even just looking at things gets to be too tiring. Her hands know exactly where she keeps everything stashed in her dresser drawer, and her fingers are familiar with the texture of nearly every piece of clothing she owns. She doesn’t need to see them to tell them apart.

Veera sinks into the soft give of the comforter spread over her bed with a sigh. When she pulls the weighted blanket at the foot of it over herself with the rain-like rustle of plastic beans in its quilted pockets, it wraps her in gentle even pressure from above and below. The heaviness of it flattens out the frayed edges of her nerves. Laid out flat on her back with her arms floating loosely on either side and her elbows bent upward, the blanket covers everything except her face and hands.

As the creeping tension begins to trickle away, another sigh escapes her lungs. It’s a slow process. With how large her emotions are now, and with all the excitement and exhaustion of the past three days, it will take a few hours to wear down the worst of it. The tightness of her shoulders and the pinched feeling in her neck will fade. But they won’t completely disappear for a day or so – and that’s if she does nothing but rest her body and mind. The strain is mental as much as it is physical. Her brain just does what brains normally do, only sometimes slower and sometimes faster, and getting there via unorthodox roads. When rushed, the process only gets backed up, the road blocked, the paths tangled. Pushing it is like trying to run with a twisted ankle. It only makes it worse.

At times like this, it’s even easier than usual for the world to turn into sandpaper on her soul and senses. Overexposure to the riptide of existence all around rubs her nerves raw, living faster than she can think and burning brighter than she can bear. Sounds become ocean waves with weight behind them and lights fill her eyes with their intense brilliance. Gentle touches catch her skin like fire, while firm pressure forms a gravity well that could either pull her into a stable orbit or sling her satellite round reeling. It’s so easy for her to get overwhelmed by pain and pleasure alike. The line between them is faint and fluid.

To some degree, that vibrant intensity was always going to be part and parcel of the way she experiences the world. She was always going to be strange. Maybe if she hadn’t been put through two fires, it wouldn’t be quite so overwhelming quite so often. Probably. But she doesn’t know where the scars end and the inherent self begins, because they’re the same now. Whatever the cause, the person she is now is someone subject to both exquisite sharpness and terrible softness, captivated by so many infinitesimal pangs of ache and grace. It’s a lion’s share of pain and wonder across a lamb’s shoulders.

She wouldn’t change it, if she could. She didn’t choose it, but it’s hers. It’s her. It’s given her an unprecedented ability to be gentle in just the right ways with the people who need it most. That comes in handy considering how many traumatized Ledas she works with. Besides, she’s found all sorts of unusual yet efficient ways to do what she needs to do, because the normal ways don’t work for her. Sometimes that results in really neat new things, like the advanced cyber-security system she personally designed for CYGNet. It hasn’t been beaten yet, and if her constant updates have anything to say about it, it never will. If she ever gets tired of co-running the organization with their board of Ledas, she could always actually go into the tech field.

Right now, ever leaving CYGNet seems such a remote possibility. After a couple years of a reduced workload so she could actually finish school and take a few courses in database management to supplement her work, she’s finally returned in her full capacity. It feels good. Between her responsibilities managing the sheer volume of information DYAD had surrendered to them and protecting both it and their secure communication network, she has plenty to keep her mind busy and satisfied.

Now that Sofia and Aryanna take care of most of the administrative work, things run a lot smoother, too. Sofia’s steadied into tenacious steadfastness as her confidence grows, and she’s got a level head and a killer knack for budgets. Aryanna’s a great project manager and she’s got plenty enough charisma to handle the public-facing parts of CYGNet that Niki used to wrangle.

Niki’s stepped back a lot from CYGNet since Veera came back full time. She’d only been involved out of circumstance and necessity in the first place. For years, Niki had been the smiling face of Leda to the world, giving their story the life it needed to be told. Veera doesn’t know how she’d ever have done any of it without her. But really, all Niki wanted was a quiet life with the people she loved. So now that things were steadier and the world’s scrutiny had moved on, she was taking more time for herself. She worked part-time in a cat café downtown a few blocks away from the park, went on dates with Suvi around the city, and came home smiling to Veera and their little apartment.

Niki seems softer these days, happier. It’s like she’s settled into her natural gentleness, rather than defiantly clinging to it like a lifeline after the fire tried to burn it out of her. Her recovery is a thing of beauty. Sometimes Veera is stricken into stillness at the sound of Niki humming to herself in the next room, or at the sight of her smiling to herself while reading in a patch of sunlight, her legs stretched out on the couch. Sometimes, the memory of almost losing her so soon after finding her four years ago floats forth, casting Veera’s current joy in a sickly shade.

But they’ve talked through that fear they both have, many times. They’re both here, alive. They both care too much about the closeness they’ve created to ever choose to be too far apart. Anything else that might separate them will just be the ebb and flow of life, and that’s always true for everyone. Veera tries not to worry about it too much. She’s lucky to have Niki in her life. And these days, Veera’s gotten better at believing her when she says she wants to stay.

She finds her mind going unfocused, her body gone heavy like she needs a nap. It’s been an eventful day. Veera curls up on her side under the blanket, burying the rough texture of her scarred cheek in the softness of her pillow. To see her now, anyone might assume she was one of the others, marked only invisibly. Instead, a chapter of her story is written all down the right side of her body in curlicues of too-light ridges and and too-dark indentations, dappled from face to elbow to ankle. People don’t always read past that page to reach the rest of her. Much of the time, she still can’t, either. But at least there is another chapter now. It’s right here where she’s living in this strange new moment.

Her already heavy limbs go slack. Thoughts shift and sift and slip over each other half-defined. Maybe there will be more chapters she can’t even imagine yet, even better than this half-healed, aching glory.

***

When she wakes once again, Veera finds evening falling in its long, slow descent. It’s late. The sky glows with that particular kind of soft, omnipresent golden glow that only comes with the midnight sun at the height of summer. Niki and Beth have probably gone to bed already. They’re both early risers, and Beth is adjusting relatively well to her jetlag. As usual, the evening belongs to Veera.

Evening here is a half-seen time, gilded in twilight in the summers and shrouded in restful darkness throughout the long winter. Her eyes get a reprieve from the sharp definition of day among the soft placement of shadows. Even in winter, she rarely turns on the lights. Navigating the familiar space is easy by the sound of her feet on thin carpet and linoleum, by the brush of her fingertips on the matte whitewashed walls. She’s usually the only one awake.  Even when Niki wakes up with bad dreams and seeks her out for comfort, they don’t talk much. Voices are kept low. Most of the time, it’s a space for her to be alone with her thoughts, turning them over and laying her experience of the day to rest before she sleeps.

Cautiously, in case Beth’s asleep in the living room, Veera pries her door open so it doesn’t clunk in its uneven frame. Sure enough, Beth’s curled up in her nest of blankets on the couch. Niki’s bedroom door is ajar, and through it she can just catch the barely-heard sounds of an occupied room, the imperceptible breath or rustle of presence simply felt. It’s the difference between quiet and silence. It's subtle, but worlds away from the dullness that permeates an empty space. Having grown up roaming two floors of dim, silent rooms with only the click of the keyboard from ‘uncle’ Matti’s office for company, Veera is endlessly familiar with that emptiness. This is something else: a living seed hidden under the soil; a flower that’s closed its petals for the night.

Pulling the hood of her well-loved purple hoodie up to shield her ears from the mechanical hum of the fridge, she slips out of her room and heads into the kitchen. Things are less sharp now, but she's still unusually sensitive, especially her ears. Retrieving a tall glass of room temperature water and a tin of chicken soup tipped into a bowl takes only a minute. She doesn’t heat it. The quiet is worth more to her than the warmth, in this comfortable stillness. She retreats to her room with the bowl clutched in her hands and curls up at the foot of her bed for a quiet dinner.

She’s far more relaxed and grounded now than she was earlier. But, checking the clock, she’s just woken up from one of her exhausted five-hour recovery naps. She’s too awake, if in a mild and focused sort of way, to go to sleep like she normally would around now.

Well. Though she’s mostly taking the time Beth’s here off from CYGNet work, she has been checking once a day just to make sure nothing critical or time-sensitive has come up. She hasn’t done that yet today because she was absolutely and completely passed out and dead to the world for half of it, so she might as well get that done now.

She cracks her door partly open so that the presences of the others can better keep her company at a distance. Then she boots up her computer and dials down the display to a dim setting in the endless dusk.

Everything looks fairly normal. There’s nothing of note in the security reports, just the usual bots automatically blocked. Other than that, there’s only two messages in her inbox that have been flagged for immediate attention by her custom filters.

The first is a notice of identity confirmation for Jennifer Fitzsimmons in the States. She filed a request not long ago for all her information retrieved from DYAD to be destroyed. It’s one of the solutions they originally came up with to make sure CYGNet didn’t just replace DYAD as a repository of excruciating detail. The whole point of the organization was to help them all reclaim the autonomy that had been stolen from them. That meant making sure every Leda had full control over their own records. CYGNet couldn’t do much for those who didn’t contact them except seal and guard their data in case they wanted it someday, which Veera did dutifully. But they could make sure that anyone who heard about the organization knew they had the option to cut that unauthorized tie.

Veera was surprised how few chose to do so - only 34 of the 113 Ledas in contact with CYGNet. Many seemed to simply consider it a comprehensive if unnervingly detailed medical history that they could refer to for their own use. Others, like herself, saw the data as a window into otherwise lost parts of their lives. After she’d decidedly parted ways with Matti, she had no one to tell her anything about the times she was too young to remember. Still others, like Beth, wanted nothing to do with their records, but chose to preserve them as proof of their ordeals.

On the other hand, a minority including Jennifer had made contact for the exclusive purpose of requesting their data be destroyed and didn’t seek any engagement with it. CYGNet verified their identities to make sure the files in question pertained to the one who was actually making the request. But they made a point of doing the verification by traditional means. They’d all had enough of blood tests and lab rats.

It was more common for people to decide to delete their data after actually accessing some of their records, the way Niki did. After confirming the identities of her monitors, she’d wanted nothing to do with any of it. She said all it did was hurt. She’d already experienced enough of the sharpness of betrayal without knowing the prickly details of every last lie. Her DYAD records were the first ones they erased. Veera deleted the digital files, and Niki burned the hard copies herself, her smile strangely grim yet satisfied as she set them alight with shaking hands. She seemed lighter, after, and less wary of the warmth of flames.

Veera spends a few minutes completing the second half of double-authorizations for Jennifer’s digital and physical record destruction (permanent removal needed confirmation from two board members) before initiating file deletion. She watches the progress bar creep toward 100% while sending the requisite forms off to Danielle in record storage. She’ll put the hard copies in the incinerator. Set to its lowest volume, Veera’s computer gives a small congratulatory bloop as Jennifer’s digital data disappears for good.

Finally, the only other thing that needs her attention is a request for the general Leda health packet from a new sender, dundorsetsilver@webmail.com. Piquing Veera’s curiosity, it specifically asks after the packet’s chapter on the autism spectrum and common comorbids, even though the sender “would hardly deem it necessary, but my new psychiatrist wants to be thorough.”

As she delves further into the odd letter, it hurts a little to read. It’s laced through with the kind of disdainfully certain air of superiority that reveals just how deeply someone has internalized the cruel views that the world holds of certain ways of being. Veera’s found that this attitude is particularly common in people who actually are on the spectrum, but have been taught since before memory, consciously or unconsciously, to suppress every natural expression of their own differences from the norm. They’re more likely to notice and disparage any deviations in others, specifically because they’ve spent so long trying to disavow their own. They’ve gone so long unsupported, learning to see support only as a weakness instead of as a natural and too-often-denied necessity.

It’s heartbreaking, because Veera’s recognized so many of her own eccentricities in so many of the others, and hardly any of them know what it probably means. She sees it again and again, over CYGNet video conferences and at the occasional Leda meet-ups. Cosima’s hands dance while she talks in much the same way that her own flutter when she’s nervous. Tony’s always blasting his music like his life depends on it, and as far as sensory regulation is concerned, it probably does. Rachel deliberately tilts her head in just such a way that Veera can tell she’s masking, trying to remain poised while she takes an extra moment to process and adapt to a situation.

It’s not that surprising, really, since they all share the same genetics. Most people don’t notice, though, because they only know the broadest and most inaccurate stereotypes. That’s why Veera had insisted on adding the neurodiversity chapter to the health packet.

Veera lightly skims her fingers back and forth over the keyboard without pressing down, thinking. The clicks of the barely jostled keys clatter out a tiny rhythm. Normally, they’d want new contacts to establish a secure CYGNet account. This email’s tone and its throwaway address, though, suggests that it’s either from someone who either isn’t comfortable making contact, or who is struggling too hard with internalized shame to ask for help without doing so anonymously.

It’s an easy decision. Veera attaches the health packet PDF to her reply and sends it along with just a few words of her own.

 Hey,

 Here’s the health packet, including the neurodiversity chapter. Whether or not any of it applies to you, I hope it helps you find your way closer to yourself. We’ve all got a long way to go if we’re going to build lives we can call our own.

Veera’s fingers hover over the keys. She wants to somehow tell whoever this is that it’s okay. It’s okay to wonder, to look into their own strangeness, to perhaps embrace it. But they’re probably not ready to hear it.

 If looking into neurodivergence ends up being a path you need to walk to do that, you’re not alone. I’m here, and so are a lot of the others. You know where to find us.

She signs off as merely MK, hoping that whoever it is might feel more comfortable with another semblance of anonymity. That’s all she can do, and for herself, that’s enough.

All at once, weariness weighs her down. Synthesizing such a delicate appropriate response takes so much effort. She’s gotten better at it, especially when she has time to compose and distill her thoughts. But such nuances don’t come naturally to her. She sags, shoulders loose. Though the light is still golden, it’s actually past midnight now. She hadn’t realized how long she spent trying to craft her words into the right shape. She folds her laptop away and sits on the end of her bed, opening the blinds to stare at the glowing amber of the summer night sky.

Now that her senses are less flooded than they were this afternoon, they itch in the way that means they’re craving some kind of input to regulate them, to calibrate her back into balance. Her vast collection of shared music is her go-to for that. There’s really nothing for it quite like becoming a song for a little while. It lets a steady measured flow of clean water smooth down the troubled riverbed of her nerves, torn up by the passing of the flood.

With her headphones on, she’s bathed in a swell of sound that washes over her like the cool sea on a warm day and just as refreshing. Her widely varied tastes change from hour to hour and minute to minute, but she always comes back to metal. The density and intensity of it literally drown out everything else with that single symphony of sensation. Now, she sways to its current in much the same way she wanted to at the market earlier – was that just this morning? Except now she can because she’s alone, and the only people near are the ones she trusts most. She lets herself dance in it, soothingly rock herself back and forth within its waves, shake out her hands along its endless ripples. She forgets the passage of time for awhile, existing only in the sound and the single present moment.

She emerges from her reverie far more relaxed and substantially more grounded. Setting the headphones aside and stretching her spine out along the bedspread, her limbs have gone soft and slow. Even with her long nap earlier, her overload was exhausting enough that she can probably manage to sleep again til morning. The thought is barely formed before she’s already drifting off.

***

She knows what’s different, when she wakes in soul-deep stillness. Lingering tendrils of vague golden-glazed dreams might just be yesterday’s memories. They retract from her consciousness like opening petals, only to birth her into that same sunlight. She can see the brightness without even opening her eyes, warmth flooding into her room through the door she’s left open.

It’s not just that she’s different now; it’s that she’s actually okay, sort of. And even after years, she’s also clearly not. And somehow... it’s enough.

The truth of it holds her in stillness for a nascent moment, like gentle hands around the wings of a bird about to be released into the sky. Then her eyes open to a room washed in brightness. Her neck and shoulders still ache, but her sight is sharp and clear. The bedroom is the same it’s been for years now, furnished simply, with a mess of cords spilling over her desk to the power strip and the too many favorite books crowding the shelves. But she can see it now, the way it’s filled with life in a way that these traces only barely begin to show. It’s not alive because she moves things around and grows plants in it now. She grows plants in it because she is vulnerably, tenaciously, heart-breakingly alive. She is what is filling the space.

Her life is now full of joy in ways she once could never have imagined. Her happiness feels strange because she is not used to it. She is healing, but she is also just beginning to understand the shape and nature of the scars on her heart and mind. They are just as deep and real as the ones on her skin. They may never truly leave her, and she has made peace with that. But that has done absolutely nothing to stop beauty from seeding her life and springing from every fracture like grass from cracks in concrete.

The restless discomfort that’s been plaguing her has been nothing more than her own hesitance, holding back from fully inhabiting this current joy. Some part of her must still believe that it’s undeserved, or that it’s impossible until she is completely okay.

But it’s not. It’s right here and already making itself hers, as broken and whole as she is. She’s been looking at every new leaf wondering if she’s allowed to love it, even while it’s sinking roots into her life and breathing life into the air.

Few people like her get the opportunities she has; to heal, to help, to grow. She’s already trying so hard to give back as many of those chances as possible, even if it's just to the handful of Ledas she’s been able to help. But that doesn’t change the fact that these opportunities are hers; and yet she’s still half holding back.

She could take them. Not from anyone, but for all of them – and for herself. She could choose it in the unknown names of all her people who have been so lost and alone and longing, the ones who never will be found and the ones who are still hoping. She could believe for all of them that she deserves the joy right in front of her. Maybe this whole time she’s been trying to help the others, she’s been trying to heal herself.

It's a terrifying prospect. But maybe doing right by people like her means doing right by her self, too. Maybe it’s as simple, as impossibly hard, as just letting herself be where she is.

With a shock that catches her breath, she realizes that she’s already made her choice. Somewhere deep inside, something has already shifted like a flower turning toward the sun. She has changed.

It’s never going to be easy. She is going to be healing for the rest of her life. Not to mention, she’ll have to do it in a world where she knows all to well that people are often cruel. But there are also people it’s easy to be around. People like her, and unlike her, but kind people, understanding people, even strangers like the plant vendor at the market and the woman with the oranges. Perhaps she needs to mourn the fact that it took her so long to find any. But now... oh, now.

She tumbles out of bed in yesterday’s clothes. She makes her way out of the room past the crusty soup bowl that she left on her desk last night. Brushing past the great glossy leaves of the swiss cheese plant like a forest creature through the undergrowth, she steps into the central room that’s blazing with light and color and life.

As she enters the kitchen, she ignores the twin cries of greeting from the stove. She casts about for her new little pearls plant. Looking around, she spies it in the kitchen window half hidden under the canopy of the basil. She marches right up to it and into the vault of sunlight streaming in.

One by one, each round little bead of a leaf leads up to the stem holding its spindly floating flower - and it's actually a compound flowerhead. It’s opened up several miniscule pinkish-white flowerets with five pointed petals each. They’re giving off the most incredible, intense smell that fills that whole corner of the kitchen and seems like it couldn’t possibly be produced by something so tiny. Her hands flutter near her shoulders in absolute delight. As she breathes in, the little flower’s fragrance mixes with the pungent aroma of the herbs growing next to it. She drinks it all in deeply, breathes in the smell until it fills her lungs. Sometimes she feels as if she could survive on the richness of such things alone, like a hummingbird subsisting on nothing but nectar.

Nonsense. Her world is so much larger than she ever thought it could be, and she wants it, chooses it. Unlatching the window, she flings the shutters open wide to the trees just outside dancing in a kaleidoscope of green and brown and gold and the sunny city beyond and the blue sky above. The summer breeze that rushes in ruffles her messy hair with a wonderful effervescent sensation.

She laughs out loud, then turns around and practically throws herself at Niki and Beth with arms outspread. She seizes them both in a messy hug that somehow manages to include that wooden spoon again. Veera still laughs, and she feels tears on her cheeks, too.

“Whoa! Hey, girl.”

“Oh, shit! Hi Mika.”

“Hey, Veera, are you okay?”

No. Yes. Always. Never. She finds herself crying harder than she’s ever cried in her life. But she’s still smiling, steeped in a deeper kind of joy and certainty than she’s ever felt before. Someone threads their fingers through her hair and strokes her head until the tide turns and sets her free. And then, still, she is held.

None of this will last. Nothing does. There is more elation and agony and monotony and uncertainty and wonder up ahead. And yet, they’re still here, and she’s beyond grateful. She’s never stopped being here. Maybe this really is exactly where she needs to be. Maybe all she needs to do is tell the garden of her heart that it doesn’t have to stop growing.

When she can, Veera breathes in deeply, her ribs pressing against the arms circling her. She feels the way her exhale blusters soft and warm in the small space between her face and the shoulders she leans it into. The yielding soft pressure of the embrace engraves itself into the very bones of her arms, and she will never ever be able to forget the ache of it and will never want to.

Fuck the fires – this is what’s real now. She wants this to be what makes her who she is. This dance of joy in strangeness can be the story she makes of the rest of her life. All she needs to do is remember her choice, and make it, again and again and again.

“Hey, there, hey... there you are,” Beth murmurs. “You’re here. I’m here. We’re here.”

She is; they are.

They are.

[a-royal-obsession]

The Prince of Wales to the Queen

Grange, 4 June 1796

I cannot help, my ever dearest mother, as I am sending a servant to town with a letter to the King upon his birthday, scribbling a few lines to you by the same opportunity to tell you that I wrote at considerable length to the King yesterday & to tell him that nothing but his resolution, firmness & support can bring us all through at this moment, & sensible that if I fall all must fall also; but that we must all rise victorious if the King will but take a decided tone to the Princess, to his Ministers & to the world in general, but if half measures are adopted there is an end of everything. Nothing can equal what I go through nor can anything paint it strong enough to your imagination. You ask’d me, dearest mother, the very last time I saw you whether I should have firmness & resolution to persist when once I had taken my line. I told you that when I felt myself in the right, that had I the whole universe against me, nothing could or should shake me. This is not obstinacy but the strongest conviction that I am serving my family in the most essential manner by ridding them of a fiend under whose influence otherwise, not only I, but you & all the rest of us must make up our minds to submit to for the whole of our lives. To set aside for a moment the private questions of point of honour, & of a[n] authority; politically speaking if we do not get her under now, all is over & all must be over, for it is not only her own wicked, mischievous intriguing head that we have alone to cope with, but it is an example to others who have seen how she will throw herself into the hands of any party to carry any view she may have at a particular moment, & the success that has attended her so far upon the present occasion, & if she was to carry her point to humble me to her in the face of the world, she would not only strengthen her party greatly by every wicked & designing person who had views of their own to carry political &c. but positively usurp the whole power of the country, force it into her own hands or into those of the wicked set of whom she would be the tool, leaving me almost without a friend. The rapacious crowd that would & actually do pay her the most servile court to answer their own ends would be immense; everything would be said & done to cry her up, to vaunt her abilities, her virtues, her amiable qualities. Whilst others who may or might be aware of such atrocious falsehoods, though they would be ashamed to join in the general clamour, still frighten’d at the perseverance she has shewn, & at the torrent of success with which it has been followed up, would be actually afraid to open their mouths. As to the present moment, my situation is most deplorable indeed as it is being represented by the King, if he is to submit to its being so, but that is entirely in his own breast. For if the King is to allow the separation to be so mention’d & so stated to the House of Commons to allow them to have an option of acting upon the business, it is ipso facto, giving up his own consequence, power & everything but giving up his Crown; it is making the Princess & me change situations, it is making me the dependant, for actual subsistance upon her, so that this very argument of the King’s, both for his own sake as well as mine, could I have wanted any other argument to have strengthen’d my adherence to the unalterable resolution I have taken this alone would have done it, & indeed it would have been sufficient of itself without any other reason to authorize the line I have adopted. I can starve, with honour, but never shall it be said that I am the despicable wretch to act contrary to every principle that is just & right, every principle of sense & reason, to the destruction of the interests of my own family, to the bartering as it were my own birthright with the Princess, & all through pusilanimity to stop a momentary clamour, & however great the ferment when truth comes to be known it will carry with it its own reward. I have retain’d Erskine besides my own lawyers to prosecute every paragraph, every pamphlet that can be construed into a libel. By the by I see by Ernest’s letter that the Princess has been at the Queen’s House. For God’s sake let me know everything that has past, tell me nothing, or conceal nothing from me [sic]. I suppose she has made the best of her own story & told her lies as usual, timing them just as they best serve her purpose. I see by the newspapers likewise that Malmesbury has seen the King. If it is so, & you know what has past, pray tell me likewise s’il a été franc et honéte, whether he has been sincere or not, for if he has lied I only wish to be confronted with him.

I fear I have already extended this letter to a most unmerciful length, but I cannot close it without adding a few words about yourself, ever dearest & best of mothers. My soul is too much wrapt up in you not to suffer more from the apprehension of the anxiety I fear you undergo at this chrysis, than it is in the power of language to express. If the sacrifice of my life alone, that life which I owe to you, was the point in question, you have too long known the boundless & affectionate attachment of your child to doubt that he would not glory in such a sacrifice; but when it is more than merely his life, his reputation, his honour, his existance as a man, as a Prince, your own reputation dearer to him than everything else, the reputation of a number of helpless & dearly beloved sisters, who have only him to look to for standing by them & for support if anything should happen to their father, which God Almighty avert; these are considerations which outweigh every other circumstance. Think only what it would be to you, & what my feelings in consequence must be, calumniated as we both have been, to see & know you to  be at the mercy of that infamous wretch the Princess to say & act by you as she pleas’d without my having the power to assist you or even to be listen’d to, were I to attempt to open my mouth upon the subject. The thought makes me quite frantic; my sisters whom I love as I do my life compell’d to submit to any treatment she might choose to honour them with, as well as the continual risk of having their morals exposed to every licentious attack, without the power of aiding them or supporting them, not to mention again myself; these, these, I repeat, are considerations which outweigh everything else; & whatever may be the momentary policy to shelter oneself against the storm which has already burst, the evils which would arise of such conduct are so stupendous, & stare one so evidently in the face, that it is impossible not to see that nothing but the entire ruin, the crush of the whole family would infallibly insue. It is therefore, my ever dearest, dearest, dearest mother, that I adhere to a resolution which nothing can stagger me in, conscious that I act from a right principle, the averting mischief & ruin from you all, & which by another line, I should consider myself as the very instrument of. If the King is not very firm, very resolute, I am well aware that I must fall, but then I shall be the only sufferer; & if it pleases Providence to grant me life, & but common justice, I may then rise really again the bright star your partiality makes you hope to see me, & I may have a chance to support & defend a mother, sisters, my whole family, all in one, myself. But by a contrary line, I sacrifice you all, which I never will do while I have life. I would wish you, dearest & best of mothers, to read parts of this letter to the King if you think it right, but at all events I have open’d my whole soul to you, I have explain’d to you the innermost feelings of my heart, & beleive me, when with the true fervour of a Christian I swear to stand by you all whilst I have life so help me God.

Every congratulation on this day attend you all. I shall drink the King’s health. Would to God I could have been with you, but my heart will, though I am not myself. God for ever bless you.

[xxsparksxx]

075: "Can you help me up, your child is pretty heavy." Romelza, thank you!

Laaaaaaate response but hey, better late than never.

1000 words, un-beta’d. Under a read-more for length.

“Go to bed,” Ross said absently, not looking up from his ledger. “I told you not to wait for me.”

“We-ll,” she prevaricated, “I’m settled here.” She yawned again, and this time Ross did look up, an eyebrow quirked, his amusement obvious. She made a face at him and rubbed gently at her belly as the child inside her made itself known. Her bladder was becoming a more pressing concern than her sleepiness, if she was honest, but neither problem had an easy solution.

Unfortunately she felt sure that, if she admitted her difficulties to Ross, there’d be no end of worrying and fussing and cosseting. And really, apart from the aforementioned ache in her feet by the end of the day, and sometimes a little backache, she’d never felt better. There was no need to fuss, none whatsoever, but Ross did fuss, and would fuss. She couldn’t altogether say she disliked it – as a sign of his feelings for her, it was entirely welcome – but it didn’t do to encourage it. Women in the village, and in Mellin, mostly worked until the day they delivered, and then were often up next day and back at the bal. She was the same stock as them, at heart, no matter how much Ross’s gentility was rubbing off on her.

The child kicked again, and another yawn made her eyes water. Need was overtaking want, much as she hated to admit it.

The fact of the matter was that she had settled herself so comfortably, and she felt so fat and unwieldy, that she wasn’t sure she could get up without assistance.

“Go to bed,” Ross said again, turning back to his accounts. “I’ll be a while yet.”

She contemplated her belly for another few moments. Then she gave in.

“Can you help me up?” she asked reluctantly. “Your child is heavy.” Ross looked up at her again, his lips twitching – but to his credit, he didn’t allow the smile to show any further.

“If she’s being inconvenient, I think we should call her your child,” Ross said, but he set aside his book, stood up, and reached out his hands to take hers. He levered her up and out of the chair with, it seemed, a minimum of effort. He didn’t release her hands when she was upright, but held them tight in his. “Inconvenient,” he repeated. He was trying to sound stern, she could tell, but he wasn’t quite succeeding. His mouth was too soft for sternness.

“Am I inconvenient, then?”

“Wholly inconvenient,” he assured her. “A tiresome distraction.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, belying his words.

“Maybe it’s a boy,” she said. “Maybe he’ll be stubborn like his papa.”

“Ha! Perhaps.” His lips lingered on her skin and she hummed a little, under her breath. The baby shifted, easing the pressure on her bladder. She could stay like this for a few minutes more, she decided. Standing here with the fire warming her side and Ross warming her heart. It was a pleasant feeling, and she savoured it. After a while his nose nuzzled at hers. “Go to bed,” he instructed gently. “You’re dead on your feet.”

“D’you want a son, Ross?” she asked, somewhat dreamily. Perhaps he was right; perhaps she was already asleep. Perhaps this was a dream. That wasn’t a nice thought, so she opened her eyes and made herself remember that she was awake, and this was all real. Ross, her child, the house cosy around them. Real, and hers. Or she was his. Both were true.

“What do you mean?”

“Men want sons, don’t they? To have their name.” She bumped her nose against his again, and felt the press of him against her belly. “Which d’you want?”

Ross visibly hesitated, and for a few moments she could see fear, written plainly across his face. She’d never seen him openly fearful before, not like that. She knew, of course, that he worried…but of course she would be fine, and so would the child. She was young and active. Her pregnancy hadn’t been troublesome. Ross would no doubt say she had no care for her own safety, but she felt well, and besides, she was sure nothing could mar the happiness that had been hers these past months, as his beloved wife.

“I want a healthy child and a healthy wife,” he said at last, which was what she’d expected him to say. “Anything more than that will be a blessing.”

“No, but serious,” she persisted.

“No, but serious,” he mimicked, “it’s time for bed, for us both. Did I not say you were a tiresome distraction? I’m abandoning my work to see to you.”

Sleepiness left her abruptly. “Oh?” she said. Alert now, she looked up at him and found the gleam in his eye that his words had suggested. “Yes?” It was still possible – and still wanted – despite her large belly, and if he wanted to, she had no intention of saying no. It was reassuring to find that he could still desire her, no matter how fat and fudgy-faced she felt herself to be. That had always been her biggest fear about becoming a mother, superficial and silly though it might be – the fear that perhaps he would no longer want her when she was fat and smelled of babies and clouts and all sorts of other things. So far that hadn’t happened. He still wanted her like this. He wanted her now.

“Yes,” he confirmed, and used their clasped hands to pull her from the room.