#so boring how every character ever has blue eyes fr

[frisky-p]

THEM 🩵💙💜

[jerepars]

Throwing Copper Extended Chapter Notes

1 / 5 Reinventing Your Exit

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here.

Teresa could see the stress James carried in his jaw and the dark circles under his eyes. She recognized it because she’d seen it in herself before, the restlessness and slight delirium, when she wasn’t sleeping.

The first sentence is an ode to the opening lyrics of Remo Drive’s “I’m My Own Doctor”: I’ve been self-diagnosing all of my problems, carrying all my stress in my jaw.

David Lee Autry was one of many aliases James had over the last few years but one he maintained with close attention because the so-called Autry had a credit card in his name. James hadn’t exactly had time to pack a bag when he broke out of a CIA facility to warn Teresa about impending doom. He showed up in New Orleans in a stolen car, the clothes on his back, contents of his pockets, and a bullet lodged in his chest.

David Lee Autry is the name written on James’ fake passport in 2x03 (around 20:54 in the episode); Pete from the militia group reads it.

James felt a lump in this throat. Whether it was because there was something very domestic about letting someone else do his laundry or because he worried the warning he’d come with wasn’t enough to protect Teresa every time she walked out the door, he wasn’t sure. But he swallowed his feelings down and didn’t put up an argument to her laundry suggestion. He appreciated the clothing George had lent him, but oversized tracksuits and brightly patterned button-down shirts were far from James’ aesthetic. And he absolutely refused to put on King George-branded attire, aerodynamic or not, so he’d been going commando while waiting for David Lee Autry’s online order to show up at Teresa’s PO Box.

When Teresa and James meet King George for the first time in 2x01, we get the lovely scene where he yells for someone to get Teresa a King George bikini (1:12) and later points to the speedo he’s wearing, saying “aerodynamic as shit, will make you feel alive, I trust” (1:18). And, like, who am I to not bring up aerodynamic speedos and going commando?

The doctor had come back and after patching him up, again, prescribed bed rest for the patient who seemed to be doing everything to keep aggravating his body rather than help it get better. Teresa had been furious, asking if he had a death wish after all, so he’d spent the last two days bored out of his mind in bed from inactivity, barely sleeping and reading Faulkner. Or maybe he’d barely slept because he was reading Faulkner. Either way, James knew it best to tread lightly where Teresa was concerned.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t sit in a chair at a desk though. Anything would be an improvement over laying on his back and waiting for his thoughts to float up to the ceiling.

So, listen, since they’re in Louisiana, and given their close proximity to matters of death and dying, if James is going to be reading anything at all, it just feels fitting that he’d be reading Southern literature, specifically William Faulkner. As I Lay Dying is an obvious choice, but personally I think he’d be reading The Sound and the Fury. Not that it matters.

The last sentence in the second paragraph is a reference to “Dreamspace” by Glacier Veins, and the line that goes I’m on my back so I float up to the ceiling to feel different.

Teresa had cried herself to sleep that night thinking about everything that could have gone wrong, if he hadn’t made it in time, or if he had but if it had been too late for him. It wasn’t just anyone—it was James, and he would’ve spent his last dying breath to tell her to chase safety if that was what it took.

Never did I think I’d manage to make a nod to and with my one last gasping breath I’d apologize for bleeding on your shirt from “You’re So Last Summer” by Taking Back Sunday. To be here, in 2020, as an adult, and finding a way to make that reference is...strange yet somehow satisfying at the same time. Also, the chapter title is in reference to a song off the Underoath album They’re Only Chasing Safety, and it looks like I found a way to work that in as well. I don’t know why my musical inspiration for this version of Jeresa seems to come from music that peaked in the early 2000s?

There was a time when James had been her mentor to the underworld, always keeping her from sinking to the bottom, even when he’d been the one who had to make the tough calls and take the brutal actions. She didn’t think he’d ever be able to rid himself of that balancing act, of showing her the ropes but strongly advising her to untether herself from the line completely, to walk away. Teresa could still hear his voice in the back of her mind, from the night after the party at the Birdman’s when he told her in a matter-of-fact fashion why he’d sent her in: your job was to learn. Since then, and especially in his absence, it seemed there’d been only tough lessons to learn and bitter pills to swallow.

I have so much appreciation for the early dynamic between James and Teresa. The car scene in 1x05 outside the warehouse is a highlight because when Teresa gets out, all indignant, she thinks she has the last word (0:15), and James comes right back at her (0:21) to tell her how it is. He’s kind of smug about it. I love it.

And I know that there’s trouble all the time. But it’s interesting that when they get away from this dynamic (especially in S4 where it doesn’t exist, because James isn’t there), it seems that’s where the real trouble comes in.

The balance that they create is delicate.

They were so far removed from the time he’d said I’ve got a plan for a future and it doesn’t include getting killed by crossfire meant for you. But he’d chosen crossfire—sought it out, really—that was what his future devolved into. And like he’d said back then, she was trouble. More and more, Teresa had begun to wonder if there was anything the James she’d first met in Dallas wasn’t right about.

I know this scene in 1x04 is often reblogged and quoted. After watching it several times, my only question is if it’s just the lighting of the scene or did they forget to apply James’ tattoos on set that day? I can’t watch it or see gifs of it now without that bothering me.

It only took Teresa a day to get the cat to venture inside and it only took George a few minutes to declare its name: Peach. God damn, we got ourselves a grumpy cat on our hands, George had exclaimed as she sunk her claws into his flesh before escaping from his embrace like a magic trick, she’s got the same personality as Giant Peach over here. She’s little Peach.

So I guess I rolled with that bts picture of Peter from Alice’s story and wrote the cat into the story. I bet this cat makes zero appearance in S5 and at no point do any of them ever have a pet but I did it anyway. The first thought when I saw it was “Peach and Giant Peach”. Would James be a cat guy? I think he would.

George suspected there was much more to the exchange than the parting words voiced out loud, noticing there was a sense of thanks in her eyes, too. The looks Teresa and James gave each other exuded the tension between them and always made it feel at least ten degrees hotter than it actually was in any room. They had their own way of communicating that only made sense to them, that no one else was privy to. There were better odds throwing copper down a wishing well than trying to decode their language of silence.

The story title comes from “Throwing Copper” by Touché Amoré. Like throwing copper in a well. You’ll never know if wishes work only time can tell.

This is not really the part that made me decide to name the story after the song, but I was still happy to find a place for it in the narration.

“Think you might need to reinvent your exit strategy, Giant Peach,” George said with a frown, nearly in disbelief with himself over what he was about to reveal to James.

“Reinvent?”

“Reinvent. Rethink. As in don’t make one. Methinks the last thing Little Principessa needs right now is more people leaving.” George spoke without his usual puns, so James didn’t have to question if he was being serious.

As mentioned earlier, the chapter title is from a song off of They’re Only Chasing Safety, “Reinventing Your Exit”. I think this might be the biggest Underoath song there ever was? Just listening to this makes me feel 14 again. This was such a gateway to other music that I ended up loving.

Teresa’s evolving thirst for vengeance, to even the score, was foreign to James. It was part of Teresa that scared James a bit. Before he left Phoenix, he’d seen tiny red flashes of her anger, questionable decisions so far removed from when she’d stood within shooting distance on a train car and said we can do a different way, where none of us has to die. Her vision had seemed clear then; she wanted to move product without the same bloodshed as Camila. When James worked for Teresa, he’d never wanted her to lose herself in the business, and never thought she should stay in the business—those were things she’d said she never wanted, too. But being at the top in the business, like she was, it changed people. It was inevitable. It pulled them down into the fire until there was nothing left but scorched earth.

I get the sense that we are never ever getting this kind of James in canon, who is not totally cool with the part of Teresa that she shuts off in order to be queen. I think we probably get another yes man. And for canon, for the sake of Teresa being the queen, I get it. That’s fine. But, in any fic, I always find myself trying to humanize characters and not just leave them as archetypes. The reason this story got so long, the reason there was no way I was going to get through it in 2500 words or less (lol, who am I kidding, I can’t write anything of that length), is because I realized this is the James I want to explore. I want to see him push back at Teresa and not just let go, not just get shut down. Because Teresa is far from perfect and she doesn’t always make the right decisions (tbh, I think she makes a lot of dumb decisions). It’s a delicate balance between the two of them that gives the best outcome.

James’ thoughts in this first chapter are the setup for the exploration of the Jeresa dynamic in the next two chapters.

James used to see a blinding light when he looked right into Teresa’s eyes, a moral compass of sorts, always willing him to choose the humanity he’d buried so deep. But now it was light mixed with dark, integrated too well to be separated. Now looking into her eyes was like staring at a flickering light, not sure if it was going to illuminate the cave or burn out.

Here is the part of “Throwing Copper” that resonated with me for this whole thing: Like staring at a flickering light, you don't know when It'll burn out, or how much time you have left to let it light up your life.

So relevant.

I don’t want to lose you. Maybe that had been a proclamation of love in her own way, and maybe that was the last honest thing Teresa had ever said to James, after she’d realized she’d been wrong to doubt him. Those words had gripped him and followed him. He’d found solace and comfort in them even after he left, because he’d wanted nothing more than to stay, but he left to protect her because of what Devon had hanging over his head.

One of the lines in Tegan and Sara’s “This is Everything” is baby, this is the last honest look I’ll ever give. But by the end of the song it turns into baby, this is the last honest love I’ll ever give.

Teresa and James so obviously love each other but they never say that out loud, right? I feel like that moment in 3x12 when she says “I don’t want to lose you” (around 23:05 of the episode) is the closest we’ve gotten thus far. There’s a silent moment before she says it, and a silent moment after, before James answers and I swear all of it is so telling. The silence. The way they look at each other. The body language. Everything. They know.

[momo-de-avis]

Wordtober Day 14: Overgrown

I was a girl when I first developed my passion for painting.

Papa would take me to the Salon and I would marvel at the stacks of canvases hung on every wall, as high as the ceilings went. Though I tended to pay no mind to the classical portraits of ladies or the massive sculptures from the Académie, I became enthralled by the revolutionaries. The naturalists, that is. The men who left the city by train, taking their pochades to paint the natural elements, who captured the forests of Barbizon for posteriority with a curious, famished eye.

I wondered deeply about these matters until it was all I thought about. How does one develop the ability to capture something within just a small frame of time, only to compose it in timelessness and thus devote it to posteriority? And what frame of time could that be? In a passing moment, as we gaze upon nature, what instant, between every flicker of existence, will we decide to depict? Is it possible to freeze one single second and represent it in several instances of daylight, to pour onto a canvas all the beauty we see unravel before a simple leaf, a dense forest, the still waters of a lake, or even the skies?

The artist opens his pochade, sets up his easel, and looks up at the sky. And there, he sees it: one cloud hovering above hues of blue, dancing slowly to the wind’s cadence, cast in heavenly shadows of grey and white and yellow. Then, he picks up his brush and begins to paint, but time has already moved on—and he rushes to capture all those passing moments and lock them into the surface of the canvas.

That is probably why I was always more inclined to paintings of storms. There’s something daunting to de la Peña’s canvases, in the way he paints one vivid golden arm reaching out between the thick clouds to set the brown rocks alight, like hope cast onto something hopeless to come. And probably why I enjoy the desolation of Daubigny’s depiction of Les Sables-d’Olonne. In either of them, there’s something massive, something imposing. It seems that, instead of painting the present, with bits of the past scattered behind, they focused on the future instead. A storm to come; a confusion of grey and yellow hues that announce the incoming night.

There’s one particular painter that has fascinated me for long, though I’ve only ever seen reproductions on bulletins owned by collectors, and on one occasion, one poor copy by some petulant little student of some small studio. It’s called A Monk by the Sea and it’s by this widely ignored little painter from Prussia called Caspar David Friedrich. It’s a massive canvas, from what I’m told, containing just three things: the sea, the shore, and a monk.

If you look at the skies, you’ll see that, much like Daubigny’s, there’s a combination of darker hues with lighter ones, and though the brushwork is far more formal and even academic, you can outline the very rim of the clouds that hover above the horizon. But they contrast greatly with the darkness below, and it gives us the sense of a looming future, a daunting and terrifying one. A storm is coming. And on this bland, sandy-like shoreline, a solitary monk stands alone. He wears simple vestments, long and crisp, and he stares. He just stares at this storm that is slowly forming in the far horizon, at these gigantic clouds that announce nature’s violence, and he is… unafraid.

Burke called it the Sublime. That which is so daunting, so terrifying, it is, at the same time, beautiful. Something able to make us quiver on our legs in trepidation, yet we cannot but reach forth and touch it.

I always did have an inclination for the more mystical of paintings. Friedrich’s in particular touched me differently. It was, obviously, that element of the sublime, but something else. Like in Constable’s landscapes, and even some of Corot’s, it’s nature’s double meaning behind every piece of beauty we admire. Have a look at Couple Contemplating the Moon and see for yourself how those beautiful branches twist like tendrils in the backlight of the incoming night, and wonder: what will happen to this couple once night settles and they are left alone with this disfigured tree, in the complete darkness? Or why is the spectral image of the Abbey in the Oakwood so enticing we almost want to wait for night to settle and the soul of nature to dance in ghostly shapes before us—even when we’re terrified of it?

Yes, I have always loved the art of painting. But there was one problem to my passion, which is my gender.

Of course, I was not exactly barred from painting, I was just left with little options, and watercolours bored me to death. Even less the motifs my family insisted I painted, those proper of a lady: boring landscapes of sunshine over green grass and still lakes and swans and other birds of sorts—I despised it all.

I knew I had a talent, of course. And I knew how to use it, I just needed the right outlet. Watercolours certainly weren’t it—I wanted proper oils, and I wanted to wear long gowns and cover myself in paint, forgetting the entirety of this world who said painting outside, like the men who took the train to Barbizon, was improper.

In truth, my father minded little of it, and it was my sister who raised much a scandal, though it seems obvious today she was also quite envious. For she married none other than an artist.

She always was quite the uptight lady, however. Proper in every aspect, yes, but incredibly dull. Composed in her folded skirts and wearing hats in the summer, carefully adjusting her little laced glove as she opened her umbrella while her husband paddled a boat on the lake. She always did think of me as far too scandalous, but I minded little so long as I could paint—and it just so happened she married a painter.

Gustave wasn’t so much a master as he was an excuse. He proposed to tutor me and for a while Adolphine was eased by the thought that it was her husband the one to guide me, perhaps considering he’d steer me towards those boring watercolours she adored in order to tame my character. But I was better than Gustave. Though he dominated the technique, of course—for a classicist. For him, it mattered only that I copied the masters and understand a composition, study drawing, that mark of intellectualism of a true artist, and the colour comes after, for it is line that is truly scientific—I cared not for any of that! Colour is the true science, I told him! And screw what Adolphine deemed proper, have a look—I screamed at him—at Delacroix or Gros instead, and dare tell me colour is not scientific! How dare he, when even Vasari praised the science of colour for Titian and the Venetians!

Eventually, he gave in, as my condition—as he put it—appeared to his eyes as none but a whim, and perhaps the best thing to do was to simply answer to my fits of rage before they could develop into something… far worse.

I began to suspect at this point that my family saw me as ill and mad, and it would be no time until they threw me into a hospice. It was common of me to hear them muttering behind closed doors, whimpering like dogs, particularly Adolphone, who wailed: oh, my sister will be the disgrace of us, what shall I do?, she will not leave those paintings alone, and what things does she paint?, she never even shows me!

No, Adolphine, I never showed them to you. 

My sister couldn’t possibly bear with my creations, considering my inclination for the grotesque. I remember staring at a Fuseli once and thinking how beautiful his nightmares were. The little goblin-like creature that sat on that fair lady, slouched over her bed in slumber was, to my eyes, not her tormentor but her guardian. And I pondered about it—imagine having a guardian, a protector who watched over your dreams as you slept. So I began to experiment with these pictures that suddenly appeared in my mind at night—just twisting shapes of humanoid presences that always seemed non-threatening to me, and they danced to my will and bowed before me. Once awoken, I would run up to the attic without eating, open my pochade and begin to paint; I would lock the door as to not be interrupted and be cast into this strange world of oils and shapes that composed themselves before my eyes, and time would pass completely indistinct.

Every time I painted, time ceased to exist—or maybe I did. But whatever the truth, I existed outside of this world, and whatever there was to the streets outside my window, it was entirely gone. It was far more than a deep trance—I could feel an intense compulsion I had to answer, or else I’d grow mad! I had to rush up the stairs and begin to paint immediately—and I did. The moment my fingers touched the hardened wood of my brush or the easel, I would cease to exist and transform into something else.

On my canvases, shapes gained form under the dark hues of my nightly landscapes. Explosions of light in the skies, in gold and dull yellow, made way to something lingering in the corner, something large and imposing with wide jutting horns and claws raising above a prey below; and sometimes, the setting sun on a pasture cast an arm of pink and purple onto the skies, enough to illuminate an anthropomorphic silhouette that danced before a farmer, who prayed the Angelus alone; and then, the same creature could be seen upon the corner of a street of Paris as a flaneur tipped his hat back and looked up, right into its big, bulbous, bright white eyes.

There was another thing present in all: the creature, as it appeared, did not hide; it stood right in front of its prey and it gazed upon them in a moment of not doubt, but profound contemplation. And below the enormous hunter, the prey would look up in peace and silence, accepting of their fate, with not a hint of fright nor a bellow of horror. Much like the monk staring longingly at the incoming storm, alone, like a castaway, on an unknown sandy shore—contemplative, silent, peaceful.

When Gustave first saw my canvases he was shaken. I saw sweat pouring from his forehead and laughed in amusement as he moved frantically about the studio, and I could see how much he longed to grab hold of my paintings and destroy them but would not dare to do so. More: how much they frightened him. How he would draw near gently but there was a line he never crossed, invisibly traced on the floors, as he’d freeze on his quivering legs, eyes locked on the monster’s eyes, my monster, cold sweat pouring still as he breathed deep and heavy, and stuttered a compliment that never really came.

I knew he thought my paintings to be outstanding in technique and composition, it was the creature that terrified him, but that only made me feel more confident in my work. That was my creature, my creation, and it stared back at me as if I was its very own God.

It was around this time that I first heard about the disappearances, though I minded them not. Men and women snatched off the streets, to never be seen again, and mere rags from their clothes left behind.

Eventually, Gustave learned to be more at ease with my paintings, though he still would not dare to cross that invisible line he had placed between him and the paintings. Except one time.

He drew near very slowly, quivering at every step, and gazed deeply upon a small figure in the corner, a small man illuminated by a single strand of light coming from a street lamp as he looked up at the creature that stood tall on the left side of the painting, firm and steady on its legs. Something about him lured Gustave, and I watched curiously as his eyes drew away from the ambience of the painting to focus on that one lonely man.

And then, he said: “This man looks eerily similar to Hubert Leblanc.”

I learned later that Huber Leblanc was a frequenter of the Salon and an avid art collector known for being the major buyer of Gustave’s paintings, who seemed entirely disinterested in the revolutionaries of the Beux Arts and instead preferred the boring artworks of a much classical tone. He had even been gifted one of Adolphine’s terrible watercolours, which he treasured delightedly. But at the time, I thought nothing of it. I had never met this Monsieur Leblanc, had no interest in meeting him, merely heard my brother-in-law’s mention of his name and my sister’s adulation of his character, and sincerely cared not for him.

So I kept on painting. I locked the door of my studio and let the word fall into its own insignificance as I painted more and more of my beloved creature in all sorts of different settings: sneaking between the columns of the Palais de Tokyo as a woman gazed up in plenitude to accept her fate; lurking at the edges of the Île de la Cité, obfuscating the Notre Dame de Paris entirely, as an onlooker accepted his fate, stood frozen on the Pont de Saint Michel; standing on the roof of Les Halles, gazing down at an unsuspecting woman who raised her head with a basket of fish on her hand, her eyes meeting the creature’s, waiting placidly; a passer-by exiting the Théatre de L’Odéon, stood frozen in the middle of the Rue Monsieur-Le-Prince, as the monster awaited his arrival at the end of the intersection, an umbrella fallen from the victim’s hand as he watched the creature’s eyes and awaited his ending.

I was ravenous in my dedication. I ate little, for time passed and I saw nor heard a thing, and outside my door, the servants would leave trays of food that would go foul. My sister would knock on my door insistently, but I heard nothing. Whenever we did sit at the table for supper, she’d complain about my behaviour and leave a hint that perhaps I needed some assistance, but her implications angered me and I was driven into a fit of rage.

One afternoon, I heard my sister gasp and turned to find her pale and frozen on her chair as she folded a newspaper and threw it aside with a gesture of disgust. She placed the back of her hand carefully against her sweating forehead and closed her eyes as if she were about to faint, wailing between her heavy pants, as if stricken with a case of consumption—horrible, horrible!, she chanted; such a horrible thing this is, God have mercy on us all!

I picked up the newspaper and read the headline. Seven people had gone missing from the streets of Paris, and at last they had uncovered the body of two: torn to shreds, nothing but gnawed bone, their flesh gone, limbs scattered across the construction site of the Ópera Garnier, abandoned into a rush—a sight so gruesome it had caused several people to faint and be rushed to the doctor.

What struck me as odd, however, was the locations upon which these people had disappeared. A woman vanished from the Palais de Tokyo. A man snatched from the Pont de Saint Michel. An angler caught and taken from Les Halles, leaving behind a basket of fish. An umbrella left behind by an unsuspecting man gone from the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.

I rolled up the paper and rushed up the stairs. When I opened the door, I saw them: those same locations, painted in hues of black and blue, and sometimes gold, as they told a tale of a person about to go missing, devoured by an enormous black creature that stalked them patiently through several Parisian landmarks. The umbrella left behind was there, fallen on the cobblestones to his side, as was the basket of fish on the angler’s hand.

So I wondered: could my creation be so spectacular it existed beyond my canvases?

It was at this moment that my door swung open and Gustave came running inside, cast into pallor and dabbing his trickling sweat with a white handkerchief he then placed inside his pocket. He ignored me, went straight to my paintings, and gazed upon the figures that lay there, waiting to be devoured alive by this beast, with peace and serenity—and again focused on the tiny little man who stood—I finally recognized—in the middle of the Place Dauphine.

He turned to me with eyes bulging in terror. “That is Hubert Leblanc,” he said. “He disappeared from the Place Dauphine two weeks ago.”

I laughed, unsure what other reaction to have, as he stood in frozen dread before me, unable still to face the monster in my paintings, and said nothing. He turned around then and grabbed the canvas off the easel, with—I knew—the intention to have it destroyed. It burned my insides in horror just to think of it, so I lurched myself at him, and we got into a tussle. Gustave was strong, gripping the canvas until his fingers made dents on my painting, and I shoved him against a wall as I screamed to let go of the painting, but he shouted back in madness: “You did this! You are responsible for this! You are cursed, and have cursed us all!”

Adolphine appeared at my door, screeching in horror at the sight, and began to scream for the servants to come to her aid as Gustave and I tussled still. Finally, he dropped the canvas and I shoved him out of my door, past Adolphine who nearly tumbled onto the ground, and as he tripped on his feet, he fell back onto the stairs and down he went.

I watched from the top of the stairs as he groaned in pain down below, gazing at me in horror. The painting was salvaged, carefully placed against a wall, and Adolphine covered her mouth with a hand, again nearly about to faint. The newspaper was fallen on the floor of my studio, and she picked it up slowly to read its cover. Then, she glanced at the paintings on my studio, the same ones she had never seen, and her pallor turned her into a living ghost. Out of strength, she sought a chair to sit on and fell to it with a tumble of weakness, barely breathing, but her eyes glared only at me.

The servants assisted Gustave, and the doctor was called in as I screamed one last warning: stay away from my paintings. Adolphine, once recovered from her affliction, cursed me and expelled me from her house, saying I had but three days to pack my belongings and leave, lest I wanted to be put into a hospice for the rest of my days.

And throughout it all, I felt… calm.

At night, with Gustave laid in bed, bandaged and tended to by the doctor and his wife, and Adolphine weeping in her privacy words that fluttered back to my ear—oh, she always was such an insolent one, I do not know what to do with her, I don’t want to kick her out, but what else am I to do, Gustave?—I locked myself in my studio and watched my paintings. It was only then that I took notice of the transformation that had occurred in my style: the creature grew in size, becoming bigger and bigger with every new one, sometimes so big I had to relegate it to the background—and as a consequence, so did my canvases, which had grown several meters wide.

Then, an idea occurred to me.

With but one lantern shedding light on the space around me, I grabbed my brushes and began to paint. Though I was in a state of trance still, I was in enough control of my being that, this time, I knew what I would paint. It was my own studio, in a small canvas, and the victim was, this time, me. I drew the shape of the creature in black blotches countered by the flimsy yellow light of my lantern, put the brush down and waited.

I was blinking my eyes wearily, about to fall asleep, when I heard the faintest growl emerging from the corner. As I stood, I saw it then: two big white eyes staring back at me, from a big gaping mouth, fangs began to glisten in yellow and white. I stood, yet I did not tremble. I looked at the creature, at my creation, and smiled as my heart thumped strongly against my chest.

Truly, I was the most exquisite painter alive in Paris, for how many could say their creations had come to life?

The monster stood silently before me, and I felt its heavy, thick breath slapping my face, though it smelled of nothing but emptiness. Its long arms swayed freely, the sharp claws touching the floors enough that scratches were left on the wooden boards, and its legs bent at the knees to fit his jutting horns inside the tight space of my attic, though they too scratched the ceilings. I suppose to any an onlooker it would have appeared as terrifying, yet to me it was… a beautiful sight. For it was my creation, and I was its God.

For a moment, we just stared at one another, and time passed by us unnoticed.

Then, the monster tilted its head slightly and in a guttural yet smoothing low tone of his voice, it spoke: “You are my mistress.”

“What are you?” I asked.

It took a long time to answer. “I am what exists in the corner of the eye. I am the drips of paint left at the bottom of the easel. I am what has been in your mind for very long, set free by a movement of your brush. But I must be fed.”

“You must be fed?”

I felt trapped inside my own canvas, locked in my own creation, my own world, and swore then I’d never leave it.

“I must be fed, mistress,” it muttered. “The day I die shall be the day your painting ends. You might lose your hands, you might lose your fingers, you might go insane enough that painting will bring nought but horrid pain to you. But if I die, you cease to become an artist. Thus, I must be fed to exist.”

I did ponder on it for a moment, on whether or not it was worth to be labelled the most talented painter of Paris if it meant innocents gone and mauled by some mysterious creature. But I knew I would never achieve that status, for I was still a woman who refused mere watercolours, and not even an aristocrat, but someone living in her sister’s attic, who had been lucky enough to marry a successful mediocre painter. No matter how talented I truly was, the city would forever cast its eyes on the men, like Rousseau and Daubigny and Cabanel. But me, I would forever be master Gustave’s apprentice, with no one sparing a second to think of my talents as mine alone, but certainly passed on to me by some man, like charity.

It was either that or becoming some skinflint painter’s muse, bound to be labelled a whore only to die of syphilis. 

No, Paris would never chant for my name as they chanted for the other artists. So I wondered then if it was worth quitting my passion, the one thing that made me feel so alive, while this unsuspecting city slept in terror before these mysterious disappearances, unknown that they happened at the hands of the most masterful artist Paris had ever seen—and a woman at that.

“All you have to do is paint,” the monster said. “Paint my food, and eat I shall.”

“How?” I asked.

“How have you been doing it so far?” It drew near, and there I felt the pulsating definition of the Sublime: how beautiful it was, yet what dread it caused me, something intricate to itself that made my body shudder in cold fear—yet all I wanted was to draw nearer and nearer, to feel its shape closer to mine.

It was an instinct, I learned at last. My talent surpassed that of the easel and the brush, it was something deep into the occult. I had a link with this beautiful creation that was my pet, and in my ravenous hours of work, I could see the present and the future all the same and paint it into a storm to come that would end the lives of those who became nothing but food for my beautiful creation.

I thought about Gustave, and I thought about my sister wanting to put me in a hospice.

So without saying a word, I picked up my brush and began to paint. The monster stood quietly in a corner, watching me in my creation, but in no time I forgot about its presence. Instead, with a smile of delight upon what I considered already to be my magnum opus, I painted my largest canvas yet, locked inside my attic, where the shape of a bed appeared, and by a trembling candlelight, a sleeping man lay, bandaged and bruised from a fall down the stairs, his wife weeping silently by his side, her hand holding his.

It was morning when I was finished. The monster hadn’t moved. He looked at the canvas and its slit of a mouth widened into a smile.

“Eat I shall,” it said.

I did not see it leave. I was so tired I did not retire to my chambers, buy lay on the floor to rest. 

I suppose I was already asleep when it happened, for I did not hear the screams.

___

Past Challenges:

Wordtober Day 1: Ring

Wordtober Day 2: Mindless

Wordtober Day 3: Bait

Wordtober Day 4: Freeze

Wordtober Day 5: Build I

Wordtober Day 6: Build II

Wordtober Day 7: Enchanted (Encantada)

Wordtober Day 8: Frail

Wordtober Day 9: Swing

Wordtober Day 10: Pattern

Wordtober Day 11: Snow

(Skipped Day 12)

Wodrtober Day 13: Ash

[whistlevevo]

characters — jade kristine qi

GIVE ME THE STRENGTH AND HEIGHT OF GLORY

full name:

— jade kristine qi

nicknames:

— none. jade likes her name and prefers to be called by it.

date of birth:

— july 16, 1998

age:

— as of july 17, 2016, jade is 18

nationality:

— american

ethnicity:

— mexican, cuban, filipino, and chinese

place of residence:

— new smyrna beach, florida

languages spoken:

— english

— spanish

— enough tagalog to get by

— jade also knows how to count to ten in chinese and thinks it counts as knowing chinese even though it really doesn’t

sexuality:

— bisexual

GIVE ME GLORIOUS LIFE, THE STRAINING AND THE STRIFE

general:

— jade is honestly, pretty hot. she’s got that trendy instagram look that makes even the straightest of girls question. she has an oval-shaped face with a sharp jawline and defined cheekbones. her nose is thin, but rounded and points up into a button nose. her eyes are light and almond-shaped, with thick eyelashes and eyebrows to frame them. her lips are thick and surly, and her skin is dark and clear, only peppered with freckles. 

hair color:

— naturally, brown, but jade likes to dye it all sorts of colors. she did most of her experimenting as a pre-teen and for now, is sticking with a bubblegum pink hair color, but she’s been known to dye her hair green, silver, blue, purple...the list goes on.

hairstyle:

— jade’s hairstyle varies from day to day. jade’s hair is naturally slightly wavy, so she normally either leaves it like that or puts it back in a messy low ponytail. jade’s not the one for extravagant hairstyles.

eye color:

— jade’s eyes were bright green when she was born, but as she’s gotten older, they darkened down to green and eventually, to her current hazel.

body:

— i hate to be crude, but jade has a rockin’ bod. she’s one of those people that works out for fun. like, she’ll go to the gym and have fun. wild, i know. not only that, but she excelled at sports. i’m talking field hockey, cross country, track, basketball, soccer—jade did all of it, and it gave her a pretty high metabolism, hence her smokin’ hot body. she has a pretty small waist with toned abs, muscular arms, and thick legs.

height:

— jade stands at 5′6″ or 168 centimeters

weight:

— jade weighs 130 pounds or 59 kilograms.

LOVE, PASSION, HOPE IN THEIR DIVINEST SCOPE

casual style:

— jade’s everyday wear is simple. she dresses like your typical “instagram baddie,” just with more comfort. i’m talking sweatpants, crop tops, and sneakers. most of her clothes aren’t that expensive, mainly because jade is super broke, all the time, but it looks fine on jade. it’s nothing special, really.

formal:

— jade rarely goes anywhere where she needs to dress up, but when the occasion arises, she also usually goes for a simple look. jade would normally dress in an unadorned, long dress, maybe with spaghetti straps or a leg slit, but jade prefers to keep the attention on her face and not on her clothes. she’d probably wear some nice heels, too, or at least ones that look nice, and some jewelry from claire’s, probably.

sleepwear:

— jade’s sleepwear isn’t anything fancy. she usually just wears a big sweatshirt, even if she has people sleeping over. no one important’s really gonna see her anyway, so...

swimwear:

— jade’s swimwear is pretty much just the basic bathing suits you’d find at target, your simple bikinis with a few fun patterns or interesting cutouts. living in florida, she goes to the beach often, so she’ll pretty much wear any bathing suit that’s cheap, functional, and looks somewhat decent. she’s not really too picky.

athletic wear:

— jade’s workout clothes are pretty much based on comfort and they don’t really deviate from the usual “leggings-and-sports-bra” thing that most people have going on. no one’s going to see her, so what does it even matter?

dreamworld style:

— jade’s subconscious favors clothes that are a little more rugged than your typical dream keeper. she can be seen in short, dark green skirts and capes. they’re not exactly armor, but they’re easy to move around in, and they allow her to blend in with the other dream keepers. they’re adorned with gold pins.

— however, when the time comes, jade wears as much protective gear as she can. that is, while looking cute. her armor covers her up much more than her casual clothes. there are few rules of physics and science in the dreamworld, so often, armored clothes look exactly the same as normal clothes, similar to the uses of vibranium in black panther. normally, one would wear whatever armor is available, as there aren’t very many battles in the dreamworld and therefore, not a lot of armor, but jade likes earth-toned ( usually green ) armor that hugs her body and doesn’t weigh her down too much. she will often wear a cloak, a cape, or a poncho, just because most of the battles take place near the nightmare realm, where it’s much colder. she also wears a black gas mask, to try to protect her from hallucinations and any attacks that may affect her face.

HIGH WINDS ON MIGHTY SEAS, NOT SHELTERED BAY

personality overview:

— jade is kind of a confusing person. on the outside, she seems extroverted and crazy. she’s reckless, insane, and honestly, kind of mean. she’s egotistical and refuses to think about anyone but herself. anything she does is for her immediate comfort and benefit, even if it hurts someone else. she seems stupid on the outside too, and she kind of is. she focuses on the present, which makes her terrible at making plans and getting out of situations, but either way, jade picks up on social cues very well. she just doesn’t care. jade doesn’t look for anyone else’s opinion on her, which is both a blessing and a curse. she’s rough around the edges, and seems like an open book, when really, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

— once more, jade isn’t stupid. she knows that people wouldn’t fear her, listen to her, or really even like her if they knew who she was at her core. so, she bottles everything up. she doesn’t disclose her past, her emotions, or her pain to anyone. she’ll whine about papercuts like nobody’s business so people think she’s open, but she’ll suffer in silence if she suffers from anything bad. at her core, jade is a cunning girl that prefers being alone, but she turns on her facade of a happy, extroverted, life of the party when she has to. maybe she feels like she has something to prove. maybe she doesn’t want people to see her weak. who knows?

personality type:

— istp-a

strengths:

— energetic // jade is a seemingly, endless ball of energy that doesn’t seem to get stressed out over much, only if she believes that something will seriously have consequences.

— creative and practical // jade isn’t super smart, but what she does know with a combination of her anxiety, makes her combine creative solutions with practical information to figure things out. 

— spontaneous and rational // jade doesn’t think much before making decisions. she doesn’t overthink things and sees a crossroads sort of like a multiple choice answer. she thinks through all the scenarios and chooses the most logical one.

— knows how to prioritize // jade tries to focus on the task at hand and moves everything else to the back of her mind until she can come back to it later, which usually works pretty well.

— tough // jade’s really good at repressing all her emotions and only complaining about stupid, petty things. she can remain pretty relaxed during a crisis, giving her the impression of toughness.

weaknesses:

— stubborn // jade does this fun thing where she disagrees with anything you say, even if she doesn’t really believe it. that’s how stubborn she is.

— insensitive // jade cares little for the feelings of others and uses logic and her own personal agenda to get what she wants, even if it hurts others.

— private // as i said before, jade seems like an open book, but most people who think they know her really don’t know anything important about her.

— dislike commitment // jade has a really hard time forming meaningful relationships with the people around her, especially romantic ones, because in jade’s mind, a relationship would only weigh her down, so she just....doesn’t commit.

— reckless // jade is bored easily, which leads to terrible decisions and unnecessary trials that could’ve been avoided had she just sat still for a few minutes. with jade, situations often escalate quickly and she can quickly lose control of a situation.

STILL LET ME SNATCH THE CROWN

stats:

— strength : 10 // jade was a boxer for a few years. not only that, but the endless sports she did as a child and many, many fights she got into left her with a lot of brute strength.

— agility : 3 // while jade did many sports, gymnastics and/or dance was not one of them. she’s not very graceful and the little agility she has came from jumping hurdles.

— stealth : 2 // jade is a classically loud person, and very clumsy. stealth is definitely not her forte.

— intellect : 5 // jade is also fantastically bad at thinking ahead. she’s not good at planning ahead. she is good at deducing things, though.

— hand to hand combat : 7 // while jade is strong physically and her boxing and karate skills do come in handy, jade isn’t particularly good with weapons, so her hand to hand combat skills are merely average.

— weaponry : 0 // jade doesn’t even know how to shoot a gun, and jade’s far too clumsy to be good with swords and knives.

physical disabilities:

— a bad punch in her left ear left jade slightly hard of hearing. she should probably use a hearing aid, but didn’t really ever have the money to fix it.

mental disorders:

— jade has severe anxiety. it can always be seen in one way or another, usually by bouncing her leg and going through every worst possible scenario in her head.

— jade also has adhd, hence her not-so-great report cards. jade initially wanted to learn in school, but her adhd made it so difficult and she got so little help that  she simply lost her motivation. 

OF ALL LIFE HAS TO GIVE

friends:

— jade doesn’t need friends. they disappoint her. also, her commitment thing...

family:

— ana paulina rosales : mother // jade’s mother was always busy, which wasn’t her fault, but they never formed a meaningful relationship. jade learned from a young age to stay away from her mother, as to not bother or inconvenience her, so while jade would certainly like to protect her mom, she rarely talks to her about anything important.

— christopher andrew qi : father // jade never met her father. she detests him for leaving her and her mom. plain and simple.

past relationships:

— god, where do i start? jade’s had countless relationships, but none that really lasted more than a week. again, fear of commitment, so...

pets:

— jade’s family never had the time or money for any pets, so none.

AND TO CRY BUT ONCE

pre-conception:

— jade’s mother, ana paulina rosales was the daughter of a filipino immigrant and a poor mexican farmer. neither of them had anything, which meant that neither did jade’s mother. determined to break the cycle of poverty, jade’s mother tried her hardest to finish high school and actually did. like many immigrants, jade’s mother knew that she had to the united states if she wanted to do anything more than be a beggar on the street. so, she hitchhiked and walked all the way to monterrey, saving as much money as she could to finally get a visa and buy a plane ticket to dallas, texas, where she met christopher andrew qi, a cuban-chinese lawyer who promised ana paulina the world. she got pregnant, and when he found out, he bailed, leaving her broke, homeless, and pregnant.

— jade was born nine months later, and lived in dallas for the first few years of her life, until her mom managed to get back on her feet and save enough money to move to new smyrna beach, florida, a quiet and quaint town filled with retired white people, so if you’re a maid, basically prime real estate. jade used to help out, too, until she had to go to school. she was diagnosed with adhd at around seven years old, but no one really did anything to help jade learn, even though she really did want to. eventually, she simply lost interest which just led to jade listening to hours worth of green day during school, which didn’t help anyone at all.

— jade realized she was bisexual when she was in seventh grade and kissed a girl in her class, which was a lot less fun than it sounded. jade spent the next few years denying her sexuality, and her town wasn’t the most accepting of gay people, especially not lgbt+ women of color, which is when jade started to get into her first few scrapes, which began escalating. jade was keeping to herself, frying ants with a magnifying glass in eighth grade-ish, and before she knew it, people were punching her. she punched them back, but she didn’t have enough time to react, and the kid hit her left ear, hard. it sent her to the emergency room, and to this day, jade’s still hard of hearing. but life went on nonetheless.

— that fight was the first time jade went to juvie. she was accused of assault and battery, and come on, this is florida. who are they gonna believe, a straight white male kid or a bisexual woman of color? yeah, jade went to juvie. after that, it mostly went downhill. no one trusted her, so she was convicted of various things that never happened, for example, drug possession and distribution, resisting arrest, trespassing, and burglary. jade pretty much stopped caring at that point, and was arrested a total of 27 times, mostly for things she hadn’t done. after that, she figured that if people thought she was guilty, then she might as well live up to their standards and started regularly breaking the law. she only got caught sometimes.

— jade had originally made her instagram account in 2013, when she was 14 years old. obviously, most 14-year-olds are ugly and disgusting, so jade didn’t have a lot of followers from the start, but as she got older and prettier, her pictures started gaining recognition. she even did a few modeling gigs, which is where she found her passion. sadly, she had to drop out of high school her senior year to work and help her mom. she did help a lot by getting sponsorships on instagram, though, which brings us to present day. i can’t say much more because it’d give away the plot, so i’ll just leave it at that.

BUT ONCE I LIVE

likes:

— shopping // jade doesn’t go shopping often because she’s super broke, but when she does, she enjoys it.

— modeling // jade finds it relaxing and it helps her focus. plus, she’s good at it.

— boxing // out of all the sports jade has done, boxing is her favorite. it lets her harness her anger and frustration into something productive.

— the beach // who doesn’t like swimming, getting tan, and getting sand up your buttcrack for weeks?

— meat // jade tried going vegetarian, but she lost so much muscle mass that she had to keep eating meat. she got a taste for it eventually.

dislikes:

— creative writing // jade is only good at things that make sense, things that have a formula to them. creative writing does not.

— insects // they’re weird and disgusting and jade does not enjoy them.

— children // jade has a little bit of a potty mouth, so kids around jade is a sure recipe for disaster.

— fish // jade eats meat, yes, but she can’t stand the smell of fish, so even cooked fish is something that jade definitely stays away from.

— police officers // they’re annoying and kind of a nuisance and definitely a wrench in jade’s illegal shenanigans.

extra:

— jade can play the drums. not well, but she can carry a beat.

— jade auditioned for america’s next top model, but didn’t make it.

— jade met chris hemsworth once. or, rather, she broke into chris hemsworth’s house and tried to get an autograph. he kicked her out and she did not get her autograph and is now not allowed within 100 feet of chris hemsworth.

[authorkimberlygrey]

I write Flight Rising stuff now I guess?

So I joined FR last year, played for about two weeks and got bored because I need some sort of goal or story to keep my attention and I was working on my novel Ascendant. Then this year @prayforelves started playing so I dusted off my account and joined her. Then she started making her own story for her dragons and again I followed in her footsteps. 

I’m still coming up with my main conflict and the majority of the world building and plot points but I did write a couple of character origins for my favorite Pearlcatcher father-and-son duo. 

This first one is for my probably-MC BogDrowned 

They tell him that his father is beautiful, that his mother is powerful. They croon that he will unite their greatness and bring it forth in countless generations. They whisper that though his father is a light dragon, he will be shadow, he will bring power and prestige to their clan, to their god.

Beside him, his siblings chirp eager replies. He joins and his voice makes the whisperers quiet. For a moment, he thinks that perhaps he has done something wrong, then warmth wraps around the shell of his world.

They tell him his voice is beautiful, the most beautiful they have ever heard. They tell him he will be Magnificent. He sings to them that he can’t wait.  

The world grows small and cramped, he presses against the walls and feels them buckle. The voices are singing encouragement, and he sings determination in return. Light floods his eyes and the world grows ten million times in size with one single crack.

“I’m here!” he sings, “I’m here! Look at me, aren’t I beautiful as you said?” He must be, for his scales shine, blacks and browns and greens. The same colors as the beautiful, beautiful world around him. He puffs his chest forward and looks up to see the singers at last.

They are speaking to a towering white dragon, though they are all towering to him. His lip curls, surely this dragon is ugly. Blisteringly bright, and not at all like the world around them.

“Ah,” says one of them, “that’s that I suppose.” This one is colored with bright greens and pinks. Ugly he thinks, surely this is what ugly looks like.

“Don’t worry,” says another, “you get some like this in every batch, its no reflection on you.” Her scales are glittering and bright, is she ugly too?

“Too bad about that voice though,” says a third. This one is colored in purples and blues.

“He will use it to sing praises to the Shadowbinder,” the final speaker is looming over him, nudging him with his polished muzzle. Colored blue and red. It is striking it is bright, surely this is an ugly dragon.

“Aren’t I beautiful?” he asks, even as the ancient dragon nudges him away from the shattered remnants of his tiny, dark world.

The ancient dragon doesn’t answer, only herds him to a small gathering of other hatchlings. Their colors are dull, or mismatched. One has a wing that hangs oddly from her side. They, he realizes, are not beautiful. He is not beautiful.

He casts a glance back at his tiny shattered world and wishes he could go back. Back to the dark where the beauty of his colors did not matter, only the beauty of his voice. He wishes that he’d never come into the light, into this massive world that somehow, manages to be smaller than the one he came from.

***

They do not call him beautiful at the temple. They call him singer, they call him tithe, they call him servant. Here, at least, his colors do not matter, only his voice. They do not want him to speak, only to sing with his beautiful voice. Songs of shadows and praise for their mistress.

So he sings. He sings of her beauty, of the shining of her luminous eyes, of the strength of her wings. He lifts his beautiful voice from his ugly throat and sings praise to the goddess that is so so beautiful.

He sings day and night, his voice echoing over the river, over the clouded scrying pool, over the shadows and the moon. The nameless priests stop on their endless patrols and sacrifices to hear him sing and they call his voice beautiful.

It tastes bitter, it tastes like mockery and derision though he knows they don’t mean it that way.

***

Once, his father comes to the temple. Even the highest priests scrape and bow to be visited by these shining beautiful dragons. Whose eyes glint with health and life, whose colors swirl in mesmerizing patterns, whose scales are polished and cleaned with pride.  

They call his father healer. They call him a servant of Light. They call him beautiful.

It burns in the back of his throat like acid, more bitter than anything else he has tasted.

His father, he learns, was a Light dragon who, for one reason or another, left his clan. No one can agree if it was a trade of pedigrees or if he was captured in a raid, or if he was outcast. No one cares though, because Zephyr is beautiful and powerful, and his healing has saved countless lives.

He learns that his father is considered one of the most beautiful in the clan, even without his healing powers. His scales shine in the darkness, whites and golds and blue-greens that swirl over his shoulders and wings. The delicate grey of his paws. He is beauty incarnate.

He looks at his father and he looks at his own muddy colors and he wonders, how could something so ugly come from someone so beautiful? He sees the way the other priests look at him and wonder the same thing.

He is a stain on his father’s legacy and it tastes bitter on the back of this throat. How dare he seek to make someone like Zephyr lesser? How dare he be born so ugly.

His father speaks to the priests and they show him the newest arrival, who is sickly and weak even to the temple. The hatchling is ugly. With a dull purple coat and random patches of brilliant orange that give the impression that someone has thrown up on her.

Zephyr heals her anyway. Touches her ugly scales with his beautiful ones and speaks to her gently.

He is surprised to learn that his father’s voice is nothing special. It is not ugly, nothing about Zephyr could be ugly, but it isn’t as beautiful as his own voice.

His father glances at him once, and his beautiful yellow eyes, smiling down at the hatchling he has healed, dim with disappointment.

Then he leaves.

That night, when he raises his voice to sing of the Shadowbinder’s beauty, his voice has a bitter, mocking edge to it. How beautiful is his goddess, more beautiful than the sun and the light, more beautiful than the glittering ice and the raging storms.

How beautiful. He laughs. So beautiful. He mocks with derision. As if beauty means anything. Why should it? Here in the darkness where no one can see clearly anyway.

He laughs himself sick and sobs himself sicker. He rakes his claws over ancient trees, twisted and gnarled. Lashes his tail and disturbs the scrying mirror, muddled and murky. There is no beauty here.

“Do not destroy the temple,” the head priest says, she doesn’t admonish the anger, only the expression of it in the temple.

He flies over the walls and unleashes his anger beyond them. His roars shake the trees, send animals fleeing and flying away from him. His claws tear through plant and rock and the water churns around him.

When his anger is spent, he collapses in the shallow water and can’t bring himself to move. His eyes close.

…...No….that is not a proper end at all…..

His eyes open and he stares into the face of his goddess. She is not beautiful. She is horrifying. He has spent his years singing of the shine in her eyes, the glittering sleekness of her scales, the delicate colors of her mighty wings.

Her eyes shine like the eyes of long-dead things. Glassy and milky and somehow, staring right through him.

Her scales glitter wetly, melting down her body. Thick and viscous, creeping through the water. Dead fish float up in its wake.

Her wings are torn and limp at her sides. Her colors are muddy and muted: murky purple, dull green, muddy brown and watery black.

She laughs at his horror. It is rasping and rattling, as though it might shake her entire, melting, rotting body apart to make such a sound. “....so surprised to see me…..am I not beautiful, my son?”

He dares not reply because the only possible answer is No.

She shakes her head. “Such foolishness….that my children have fallen to….such pointless vanity….Not you though….little ugly thing…..” She laughs again. It sounds more like a death rattle. She looms over him, the sickly shadows that melt off of her skin swirl around his paws. “I could use someone like you.”

He wakes to water in his nose, in his mouth, in his lungs. He coughs and chokes for hours, for days, it seems. When he can finally breathe again, he opens his eyes to find the world changed. The shadows remain as deep and dark as always, perhaps even darker, but he sees what they hide as though it is right in front of his muzzle.

He doesn't see the world as though it is daylight, he sees the darkness and the shadows as he always has, but they do not hide things from him anymore. They easily offer up their secrets to him and him alone.

“What--” he begins, and then stops, touching his throat with horror. His voice, his beautiful voice is as raspy and rattling as Hers had been. “What did you do to me?” he asks with his creaking, rattling, rasping voice. It sounds like claws against stone, like trees creaking in the night wind, like the death rattle of prey and foes.

It is not beautiful. Nothing about him is beautiful now.

“A gift,” the shadows snicker in a rasping voice. “For my most devoted worshiper.”   

He doesn’t return to the temple. His goddess isn’t there, in the pale shadow of beauty. She lives in the bog where he drowned, She lives in the black tears that drip from his eyes, in the gnarled, twisted branches of the trees, in the deepest, darkest shadows.

She gives him her gift and she slips back into the shadows to see what he will do with it.

He finds a bird with golden feathers and slaughters it. Cleans its skull and wears its beautiful golden feathers around his head and laughs at the idea of his father’s beauty. It is an ugly sound, but he is an ugly dragon, so at last, it fits.

[josugayy]

Craziness at Midnight [RvB]

Pairing: Blue Team X Fem!Blue!Reader Fandom: Red Vs Blue (RvB) Notes: Welcome to Hell, AKA Blood Gulch! Warnings: Language, Typical Reds and Blues

You would think, after spending years with this dysfunctional group called Red Team and Blue Team, you would get tired of things. But no. Everyday is a new adventure, whether someone liked it or not.

Take for instance, your arrival to Blood Gulch and Blue Team. Believe it or not, you were one of the first to arrive, yet Church and Tucker still insisted on calling you “Rookie.”

You were there during the time that Flowers was alive, or at least when you arrived, it was three hours before he died.

It was a bit traumatizing to witness on your first day, but while Flowers seemed like a nice and understanding guy, he looked like he had something else planned, something not good.

Not that you minded anymore, because he was long gone - and you were still stuck in this godforsaken Hell of a canyon. And if the canyon wasn’t bad enough, it was the people.

When looking back to the time before the arrival of Caboose, Church and Tucker liked to claim things were peaceful; which was complete and utter BS, because if  anybody on Blue Team liked to bicker, it was those two. They always seemed to find little things to bother the other about, which was exactly why you stayed out of things.

It was hard, at first, staying out of their conflict when Tucker tried to flirt with you constantly and Church considered you the only other sane person here, although he grumbled about you never bothered to actually talk to him so he didn’t want to say much.

And it was true, you were being selfish. But did you care? No. You spent a lifetime training during your life to help the UNSC, only to be sent to the middle of absolute nowhere because your fiery temper caused a large fight. It wasn’t your fault this army was full of misogynist assholes!

But you supposed that knocking five guys out and mortally injuring another was a bit unnecessary...

Life seemed to consider that was alright, though, because it came back to bite you in the ass by Tucker finding your reason as a good excuse to say he liked woman with a hot (in both ways) temper.

And after Caboose came along? Things turned way more hectic. Caboose was quite the character, having what turned out to be O’Malley inside his head, and thus setting him free because everyone’s radio was on.

And figuring out who he was without O’Malley was entirely another story. On the plus side, you found you were relatively okay with kids, or at least as close to a five-year-old-in-a-man’s body could get.

You couldn’t exactly claim it was easy to take care of Caboose, it wasn’t like raising a kid, it was like having your kid be the same way every day, never growing up. It made things routine, but at the same time a tad frustrating because there were some things Caboose just couldn’t comprehend.

But, you found out the hard way you simply had to deal with it, for Tucker didn’t care and Church had a quicker temper than you. Thus, you managed to develop a sort of bond with Caboose, which brings you to now.

“Miss [Name]! Miss [Name]!” Caboose’s excited voice called out, waking you up from a nap. You sat up groggily, rubbing your eyes. What could be so important to wake you up for?

It was useless to fight Caboose off, however, because that could go one of two ways; Caboose disappointed or Caboose using his abnormal strength to get you up. You preferred neither, so you took out your [variation of blue] armor and opened your door just in time to see Caboose there.

“Hello!” He responded cheerfully.

“Yes, hi, Caboose. What is it?” He seemed to think for a few moments.

“Uh... oh! Right! Well, Church and Tucker are doing this thing and they want me to help, and they said you would make me cookies for it but I didn’t like Tucker’s tone so I thought I’d come to you.”

Lately, those two have been making all sorts of weird plans that have you concerned - not necessarily for them, but for yourself. There’s an unbelievably high chance of something blowing up in this canyon, and you wanted nothing to do with it.

“Thanks, Caboose. I’ll check it out, because those two haven’t talked to me.”

“Okay! But you’re still making cookies right?”

“Of course.”

--

“Oh. My. God. This whole thing was stupid from the start! I cannot believe you right now.”

“Ok, this? This wasn’t my fault. You were the one to forget the batteries, not me!”

“You literally ripped a hole in the sleeping bag!”

“So? We have more!”

“No, you dumbass, we have four. And now we’re short one!”

“What does it matter anyways? It’s only just gonna be the two of us?”

“Could you be any more dense?  First, we asked Caboose to help, who will insist on coming because I’m his best fri- fr- you know what forget it. Plus, he literally just ran off calling for the rookie! She’ll end up coming along too!”

“Good! And maybe, since according to you this whole thing has been ruined, it can be just me and her!”

It wasn’t hard to find Church and Tucker; those two were arguing so loudly you wouldn’t be surprised if the Red Team heard them. But you were a bit cautious about whatever they were doing, and you were not willing to be left alone with Tucker.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not letting you alone with [Name]! She’s the only other person who’s sane here, and I will not have you turning her insane because you annoyed her past her limit.”

“Annoy? Woah man, I don’t annoy people. My flirting skills are just so great that all the ladies play hard to get!”

Seriously, just how long will these guys believe that no one hears their conversations? Considering how bored everyone gets, you and Caboose couldn’t have been the only ones to hear them.

“Hey! Second best married couple!” You yelled, making them stop abruptly.

“Second best?”

“Yeah! You ever heard those guys from Red Team? They argue twice as much as you guys do! I was walking the other day, and all those two do is stand around and bicker like some old married couple.”

“Isn’t that what we do? Stand around and talk all day?”

“Yeah, but ours is more consistent. All they do is argue while we come up with shitty plans.”

“Makes sense.”

“Well anyways,” You got back to the task at hand. “What the hell are you two up to?”

“Nothing!” They both rang out, obviously doing a bad job of keeping a secret from you.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” you complained. “I heard you two chatting about batteries and ripped sleeping bags. I also heard my name involved, and I’d like to know what I’m being forced into.”

“Well,” Church said after a thoughtful pause. “We’re looking for a way out.”

You almost thought he was joking. “ A way out?”

“Yeah.” Tucker responded. “We’re sick and tired of all this sun, and thought we could leave through the caves. It’s a hella lot cooler in there, and we haven’t looked at them enough to say there isn’t a path out of this closed off area.” “...Alright. I want in.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. Look, everyone could use a break. Plus, that’s just the thing. We don’t know what’s out there, so who’s saying we won’t get killed? As one of the only capable people here (probably the only one actually), I have to make sure you don’t die.”

“Aw, how sweet-”

“Shut up Church. It’s that, and I don’t want whatever we find to kill me.”

“Oh. Well, we do have supplies for everyone here, considering we can’t leave Caboose here without the base blowing up-” A loud explosion towards the back of the base sounded. “Tucker did it!”

“As I was saying,” Church continued. “But we’ll need a way to leave without the Reds expecting anything. The last thing we need is even more idiots showing up.”

“Oh that’s easy,” Tucker scoffed. “Just make some scarecrows with our colors and helmets on them.”

“Yeah, but don’t make them too convincing. Some of us here are dumb enough to get them mixed up.”

--

“So...” Grif trailed off, getting more bored by the second as Simmons stared through his sniper rifle. “You find whatever it was that exploded?”

“Nah,” Simmons answered. “Probably another one of the Blues’ failed projects.”

“You sure? Usually they’d be yelling at each other.”

“Well, it looks like they’re just standing around and talking, so I’d say yeah. Nothing productive going on there.”

“Same here,” Grif mumbled under his breath.

“Well, I’m gonna... go downstairs and eat. Since nothing ‘productive’ is going on. This watch is stupid.”

“What? You can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Why not? Grif, literally all you do is nothing all day. Sarge would be pissed at you. The least you could do is bear this until Sarge calls us down for his new plan.”

“Simmons! Grif! Get down here ASAP!”

“Speaking of which...”

--

Meanwhile, in the back of the Blue base, everyone was “having fun” with arts and crafts. And by fun, you meant Caboose was having fun, Church was done with his, and you and Tucker were arguing over your scarecrow.

“Haven’t you ever thought about how perverse and rude that is?!”

“Well, we want this to fool the Reds, right? So they have to be accurate!”

Tucker was trying to convince you to use something to mimic your breast size for your scarecrow. This caused a lot of commotion, and thus why neither you nor Tucker had finished your scarecrows.

“...And, done!” Caboose called, satisfied with his coloring. He put down his blue crayon and Church helped him put the shirt on the scarecrow.

“Hey, you guys done with your spat?” Church turned to you both.

“You know what, forget this!” You threw down the extra helmet you had to the ground. “You want it accurate, make it yourself!”

“Maybe I will!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“I’ll be inside, packing my and Caboose’s bags. Caboose; orange juice or milk?”

“Orange juice, please!”

“Alright.” You nodded your head. “If you need me, I’ll be inside.”

There was a moment of silence as you walked inside, and Church seemed to be stunned at the relatively calm (at least for them) results. But after thinking about what he would do if he commented, he decided to leave it be and pack his own bag.

When everything was all said and done, the tension between you and Tucker managed to slip away (as it does for everyone), and you all gathered in the back of your base once again.

“Okay. So, Tucker, you and me are going to set up the scarecrows, while Rookie and Caboose are going to get Sheila to drive beside them as they head to the caves to shield them.”

“Right.” Tucker nodded.

“You got that, Caboose?” “Of course. Wait, what are we doing again?” A collective sigh sounded out.

Tucker and Church carefully picked up a scarecrow in each hand, and tried to use them as cover as Tucker placed two on the roof, and two facing towards the others (backs to the Red base).

Sheila drove slowly, with Caboose and you slowly moving beside her, and once you two got to the caves, Sheila started heading back.

However, halfway she turned a different direction, much to Church and Tucker’s confusion and frustration.

“Sheila!” Church quietly yelled. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m giving the illusion that I am mindlessly driving around,” Her monotone voice responded, but to the others it sounded a bit smug and teasing.

“But we need your cover!” Tucker said, growing more impatient by the second.

Sheila gave no response, but continued turning in different directions. After a couple of moments, she finally faced the caves and started heading that way. But she drove a little too quickly, and they had to jog with her.

Upon reaching the caves, you voiced your complaints. “What took you so long?” You hissed.

“Sheila was being a bit of a bitch,” Church answered. When Sheila turned to aim at Church after his statement, the three of you headed deeper in, where Caboose was staring at the ceiling.

“Caboose, what the hell are you doing?” Tucker asked.

“Finding the way.” He simply responded.

“The way?”

“Oh yeah, There are weird carvings on the ceiling of each area, so I look at them to find my special spot.”

“...” All of you were speechless at his sudden intelligence; his plan made perfect sense.

Caboose turned to his left and ran off. “Now let’s go find those star unicorns!” And there it goes.

“Well, that was weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

--

“Hey, what are the Blues doing?”

“Oh, same as usual. Standing around and talking. Look, it’s like they’re immobilized.”

“Are they?”

“Can’t really tell, they’re too far away. But since there’s nothing better to do in this place, I’m assuming that’s what they’re doing.”

--

“Ugh, I’m tired. How much longer is this?” You complained, feeling a bad ache in your feet.

“I can always carry you if you want,” Tucker suggested.

“And give you a chance to grope me? Nah.”

“Worth a shot.”

“Maybe we should take a break,” Church observed as Caboose grew more and more tired. “Caboose, how long will this take?”

“The next area. You can tell by the pretty lights.”

Everyone trudged into the place thankfully, and barely managed to open their sleeping bags before passing out. You had a relatively peaceful sleep until Caboose woke you up.

“Miss [Name]?”

“Ugh...”

“Miss [Name]?”

“What.”

“It’s cold.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“But my arms and legs are freezing!”

You sighed. Clearly, Caboose couldn’t understand sarcasm and denial.

“And what do you want me to do about it?”

“Well, I wanted to share with Church, but he looked scary in his sleep, and I don’t want to be with Tucker. He gropes people.”

“So you want me to share with you?”

“Yes.” Wow, Caboose does not know how to beat around the bush, does he?

“... You’re lucky I’m the only one willing to deal with you. C’mere.”

Tucker woke up, or just barely enough to understand you were about to cuddle with Caboose, and immediately complained. “Oh, so you’ll sleep with him?”

“It’s not like that and you know it! Besides, this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t ripped a sleeping bag in the first place.” That shut him up, but not Church.

“Are you seriously cuddling with Caboose?”

“What’sa matter? Jealous?”

He quickly turned away, and you heard a stern “no.”

“That’s what I thought.” You said, and gazed at the ceiling.

Caboose wasn’t kidding when he said the place had pretty lights. Right above your heads was a bunch of white lights that represented stars; not too bright to keep someone up, but just visible enough to remind someone of actual stars.

In all, you learned that there was night in Blood Gulch. It was just in the caves. And having to travel with the people you’ve been stuck with to see it? Wasn’t so bad. Or, you considered, it could be worse.

You would still never be used to the craziness that is in Blood Gulch, but you sure as heck would be able to look back on these days in interest, and appreciate moments like these.

Your canyon was full of mysteries, both in what environment it has and the people stationed here. But did that matter?

Not to life, who likes to screw you all over in weird ways.

--- Words: 2635

Not quite sure I got their characters right, but I had fun with this. Tell me if I’m missing any warnings and such, and feel free to request!

Thanks for reading!

[wonggu]

Quick Victuri

This fic was inspired by a post by @shipping-cegan about thunderstorms.

He had a weakness.

Victor had a weakness that was so common thus it wasn’t something to be ashamed or embarrassed by but, he was. He really was embarrassed that he was scared of thunderstorms.

“Your scared of what?” Yuuri asked. He couldn’t believe his ears. His lover, the multi-champion of the figure skating world feared thunderstorms.

“Thunder,” Victor’s cheeks were bright red and he laughed nervously, averting his gaze from Yuuri’‘s surprised face and looking at the wall. The two were  relaxing in Victor’s apartment in Russia, the t.v was on and playing some show that they couldn’t be bothered to watch. Yuuri was sitting on the carpeted floor with his knees pulled into his chest. He had sat down on the floor  in between Victor’s legs when Victor had practically begged for him to attempt braiding his dark locks. The grey-haired male had stiffened when he heard the beginning signs of thunder far away from them, his tense state increasing with every sound of thunder.

Yuuri blinked a few times in disbelief; he hadn’t understood why the older male had tensed when the storm began and decided to ask him which led to Victor explaining his fear of thunderstorms ever since he was a child. And Yuuri could see it in his mind, a young -possibly long-haired, don’t judge him, he has had a thing for a long-haired Victor ever since he had seen that magnificent face framed by those long, shimmery locks of silver- Victor waking up due to the storms and cowering underneath his covers in fear for God knows how long.

Victor tensed again when a particularly loud thunder clap sounded through the entire apartment, taking the power with it as it slowly disappeared, leaving the apartment and the two lovers in darkness.

Victor didn’t want to embarrass himself but couldn’t help grabbing Yuuri’s shoulder tightly when a bright light shined through the apartment, lighting it for a moment before, like the electricity, disappearing for however long it’d take for the storm to end and for the electricity to return.

Yuuri found a benefit in being suddenly shrouded in darkness; the wide grin on his lips could be easily hidden. He tried to make his lips frown but i failed miserably, resulting in his grin spreading even wider than before.

His grin wasn’t because he was laughing at Victor -of course not!- but because the older male was depending on him. At that moment when it was only the two of them in the dark, Victor’s grip on Yuuri’s shoulder occasionally increasing when another thunder clap was released, Yuuri felt like the happiest man in the world.

One of the strongest people he knew was counting on him, depending on him to be there, to help him through his fear that he had fearlessly told him about. Victor wasn’t obliged to tell Yuuri of his fear, but he had. And that, that unwavering trust did something to his insides.

Yuuri picked himself up from the floor and stood up, grabbing a confused and fearful Victor by the hand and blindly leading him to the bedroom wher he released his hold on the older male’s hand and pulled back the covers.

“As much as I love doing it with you, Yuuri, I don’t think now’s the right time for that,” Victor joked, not understanding why the younger male had dragged him to his bedroom. He flinched when lighting and thunder resounded through the silent apartment simultaneously.

Yuuri knew Victor couldn’t see him roll his eyes in the dark but he did anyway and crawled into the large bed, sighing softly when the silk sheets touched the exposed parts of his skin. He patted the empty side, signalling Victor to climb in beside him.

Victor sighed and did so, throwing the covers over the both of them and squinting in the dark to see Yuuri’s bright-blue eyes as clearly as he could. He stiffened when another lighting strike lit up their bedroom but relaxed when Yuuri intertwined their hands and begin stroking the inside of his palm with his thumb.

“Turn around,” Yuuri gently said to his lover. He  moved his head further up the pillow and snuggled into the lean, slender back of Victor, wrapping his arms around the older male and assuming the larger spoon position as Victor became the smaller spoon.

“Isn’t it embarrassing?” Victor suddenly asked. His voice was blank but Yuuri picked up on the insecurity and fear in his tone. He kissed the back of Victor’s head, smiling when the soft, grey lock brushed his nose, tickling it.

“No,” He kissed him again, “Absolutely not.”

Yuuri hadn’t told him any words of encouragement or support but hearing him say those three simple word lifted an imaginary burden off his chest. He was about to say something back when the storm outside increased ten-fold. The rain pelting down their windows grew harsher and louder with every second that passed and so did the thunder and lighting, making Victor tense up incredibly so.

“Shh...” Yuuri hushed Victor softly, removing his hand from Victor side and running his hand through his hair -the best that he could given their current position.

“It’s going to be okay,” Yuuri said in a gentle voice, “I’m here, it’ll be fine.”

Victor tried believing Yuuri -he really did- but the loud storm was distracting him from his lover’s words, till the dark-haired male did something he had never expected him to. He began singing.

‘Kyou wa naitatte ashita waraeba’

‘ Atarashii hi ga kimi wo terasu’

Yuuri had never sung for him before and he cursed himself fr not making the younger male do so sooner. His voice wasn’t anything extraordinary or over-the-top but it was soft, gentle, soothing, it was something Victor could listen to on repeat and never get bored.

‘obeinakutemo ii’

The words fit perfectly with what Victor was going through which was why Yuuri chose to sing that specific song.

‘ tsuyosa ni shigamitsuku koto ni kodawaranakutemo ‘

‘ mae ni susunde ikeru kara’

‘ kono te wo tsunaide omoi wo tsumuidara’

Yuuri returned his hand down to Victor’s side and intertwined their hands once more and continued singing till the parts of the song that he could remember ended. He hadn’t realized but somewhere in the middle of his singing, the older male had fallen asleep, the raging storm outside completely forgotten as he fell into slumber.

Yuuri laughed softly as not to wake his lover up and kissed the back of Victor’s head before closing his eyes and following his lover into dream-land.

‘ hikari de kimi wo terashi tsuzukeru kara’

Lyrics borrowed from Miyano Mamoru: Moonlight. I own nothing but the words used in the story, the characters are Kubo-sensei’s.