#so unabashedly unapologetically strange

[constellation-sapphic]

Hozier was so fucking right when he sang "Love with every stranger, the stranger the better" I love weirdos so god damn much. And I do fall in love just a little bit with one every day he's right about that too. If I see you and you're doing something weird strange or unconventional I will think fondly about you for the rest of the day.

I don't meet enough weird people in my life, I need people to be more open to showing their weird features. I'm getting better about doing that, myself.

[nikethestatue]

This might be an unpopular opinion but ACOTAR (the book, the first one) had the most interesting characters.

If you consider the mysterious, unapologetic villain-ness of Rhysand, the intriguing motivations and his relationship with Feyre, the sleek brutality and coldness of Amarantha, the fragility, determination and humanity of Feyre, the sharpness and humor of Lucien, even the confused, impotent torment of Tamlin—all the characters were actually a lot more interesting and unique than what they became in later books.

They hooked us. How many people continued reading BECAUSE Rhys was so gray, so odd, so unpredictable? We wanted more. We wanted more of Feyre’s story, of what was in store for her strange, contradictory sisters, for Lucien.

The watering down of all these characters is a great disservice to them. They’ve become black and white, and that’s such a shame.

To me, the appeal of Nesta was her acerbic tongue, her disdain for convention, her haughty coldness. She was unique in the pantheon of female characters.

Elain was the opposite—soft and sweet and uncommonly passive. Amongst the throngs of characters who all need to handle swords, put on pants, and lose their feminine attributes , Elain unabashedly requested pink, pretty dresses, roses and a husband.

The tragedy here, I think, is that everyone has been written down, to the lowest common denominator. Swords. Fighting. Trauma. Love interest.

Even Nesta’s modestly, for example, her insistence on remaining covered, not flashy, plain in her dressing and her hair style, has been removed. Nesta, somehow, ended up naked for the majority of her book.

This is sounding like a rant, and maybe it is. I just hope that SJM returns to interesting characterization for her MCs. I saw glimmers of it in ACOSF, where she made Rhys pretty awful (and that was great!$, but I want more! I hope that she makes bolder choices going forward. Also considering that it’s now NA. Honestly, less Gwyn and more Jurian.

[phtharticdelights]

Here’s a snippet of a story that I started writing back in 2022. It’s not finished, but I’m planning on finishing it sometime next year.

CH. 1 — THE NIGHT COMES DOWN

August, 1973

Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words…

Roberta Flack’s dulcelet, euphonious voice drifted throughout the otherwise silent car. Softly, Jeremiah began to hum along to the bittersweet tune. Although he wasn’t the biggest fan of Ms. Flack, Jeremiah couldn’t help but to acknowledge the genuine emotion put into the song. Every lyric and note worked in tandem, tugging ever so gently at the listener’s heartstrings. Jeremiah felt as if he were in the place of the narrator.

I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd…

Jeremiah slowed his vehicle to a halt as the traffic light switched from its cautionary yellow to red. The young man sat back in his seat, closing his eyes and letting Ms. Flack’s soothing vocals flow through him.

Jeremiah pictured himself in the audience of a small, intimate concert. The other audience members were out of focus, but, clear as crystal, Jeremiah watched the man on stage singing his heart out. Singing…to him. The man seemed to have searched the very depths of Jeremiah’s soul, regurgitating every secret and memory to him. Jeremiah wanted to retreat from the biographical lyrics, but he couldn’t find the strength to run. His only choice was to wait for the man to finish singing.

Telling my whole life with his words…

The loud, abrupt honk! honk! from a nearby car jolted Jeremiah from the confines of his mind. He saw that the light had turned green, and started driving again.

Killing me softly with his song.

A wave of despair washed over Jeremiah once the song was over. Jeremiah wished he could replay the song on an endless loop, and lose himself in Ms. Flack’s intricate storytelling. Maybe he would buy the entire album. If Killing Me Softly With His Song could leave him spellbound, Jeremiah had faith in the rest of Ms. Flack’s musical repertoire.

After the unnecessarily long intermission, Elton John’s Daniel began playing. Daniel was Jeremiah’s favourite Elton John track, however, the young man found himself thrown off by someone walking unsteadily off in the distance. Jeremiah squinted his amber eyes, trying to make out the possibly distressed stranger. With the assistance of the awfully bright streetlight, Jeremiah was finally able to get a good look at the person as he pulled up to the curb.

Mascara streaked tears stained the man’s cheeks while the high humidity had caused his long, voluminous sea of ebony hair to become a frizzy mess. Despite the man’s dishevelled appearance, a spark of recognition came to Jeremiah almost immediately.

“What in the hell…” Jeremiah muttered under his breath. A note of concern was evident in his tone.

Jeremiah had met Giles Barker in Art History last year. He remembered staring unabashedly at the Englishman with pastel blue eyeshadow and wing tipped eyeliner. Aside from musicians like David Bowie or Little Richard, Jeremiah hadn’t yet come face to face with a man who freely and openly embraced characteristics associated with femininity.

Giles also had a habit of referring to people as “honey” or “sweetheart”. Though others may have found this form of address peculiar, especially when spoken by a man, Jeremiah thought Giles’ eccentricities made him a unique individual. He wasn’t another straight laced conformist whose entire personality was equivalent to wet cardboard. He was a magnetic and intrepid person who wasn’t afraid to be unapologetically himself.

On the occasion where words were exchanged between the two men, Jeremiah found himself taking a liking to Giles. It was strange because Jeremiah rarely liked people these days. Especially people he had only known for a short period of time.

Jeremiah lowered his window as he cruised alongside Giles. “Um, are you alright?” He asked awkwardly.

“Me? Oh! I’m just peachy. Can’t you tell, honey?” Giles retorted. His voice was uncharacteristically monotone, and his speech was noticeably slurred.

An exasperated sigh escaped Jeremiah’s lips. “Look,” he spoke. “There’s no need to be crabby. I was trying to make sure you were okay.”

Giles stopped in his tracks, turning to face Jeremiah.

[omegawizardposting]

Genuinely miss the Old Internet. It was a truly lawless land. I want to send Goatse to my friends again and have them send me Lemon Party in retaliation.

It was a weird way to bond, but I never feel closer to someone than when we're being unapologetic freaks together. You were allowed to be that back then. Unabashedly weird. The Internet was a place for the strange and unsettling, the only place for it.

Now it's so sterile.

[aimfor-theheart]

🌷 send this to ten bloggers you think are wonderful. keep the game going! 🌷

okay, don't come at me for sending this unprompted and especially after never confessing my undying love for your writings - i know, I KNOW how important feedback is and that it can help brighten days... and since reciving the above message spontaneously and rather undeservingly has brought a rwy of sunshine into my heart, i took it as incentive to let you know how unabashedly, allencompassing and wholeheartedly i adore you and what you put out into the world in your works!

cielo, you have such a gift and more importantly talent to wield words and capture souls!

a gift, because whatever your mind conjures for your storylines and topics comes from a place deep within yourself and an understanding of life and humanity, from a place of sincere emotion and widespread observation not many people are able to tap into

and talent, because you manage to capture the essence of those innermost parts of human beings so magnificently in your prose, portray scenes and interactions so vividly and strikingly beautiful, convey so much in every sentence it in turn reaches your readers on an innermost level

your stories and characterisations feel so intimate, so intricate in their design yet are nothing but the face value of what life and being human is.. i believe that people who are able to convey troublesome emotions on a poignant level well in their works/arts are able to do so because they themselves feel and/or felt them intimately themselves, and that if they have turned those emotions into a well-fabricated craft it speaks for their unapologetic vulnerability and ability to work through the tough parts of what life throws at them, it speaks of their strength and bravery - to me those people are the most beautiful there are... i hope i am not overstepping here, i just sense a form of sophistification from pain in your works and i cannot help but adore it

like our most beloved fictional characters you portray so breathtakingly well, those that know suffering and loss, the broken ones we cannot help but admire and feel for, those who we wish to be able to care for and dream of having care about us, like those characters you yourself are also a piece of kintsukuroi art - having become more beautiful for having been broken by life and for having mended yourself.. for showing the golden cracks of your past experiences in your works and vulnerable moments, you are a piece of art to be marvelled at, and i am marvelling

there, i spat it out 🖤

i’ve been sitting on this ask all day and rereading it and trying to even begin a way to express what i feel because of it.

gonna put this under a cut so it doesn’t get super long on the dash <3

i’m incredibly moved by this—for a lot of reasons, but beginning with, you received that message first and then jumped and thought of me. bro what!!!!!!! that’s so incredibly achey and sweet of you. it makes me sit here and go like this ☹️💕💕💕💕💕💕 you felt a ray of sunshine in your heart and it has extended onto me!!! now i bask in that light!!!

next, i just want to say wow. and thank you so so so so much.

i feel so strangely seen lol.

or….i guess it’s like…incredibly validating!!

all i have ever strived to do in my art is capture the human experience!! it’s why i love acting so much!! it’s why i love writing!! it’s why i love stories. since the moment i learned to read and write, since the moment i could get up and move and speak and sing and dance, i’ve been doing it. i’ve loved doing it. and later i’ve realized it’s because it’s so human. and i’ve gotten to tailor those interests and sharpen those skills and really dig into why i love it and it’s just exactly as you say—it’s so human.

and it’s something i’ve always reached for is just heart! and soul! of humans!!!

i also think i’ve always needed writing. art. stories. i’ve needed to create them, does that make sense? i could never not write. i could never not create. i feel like it has to come out or it’ll sit inside me and rot. i’m just glad i’ve found such wonderful people to share it with me.

you’re not overstepping!! i’ve certainly been through tough times but i figure we all have? i don’t consider my pain or struggle in life different or worse, if that makes sense? i don’t consider my knowledge of struggle any grander than anyone else’s.

mostly i think the secret to life is loving and being loved. especially during the tough times. and this looks different and is different for everyone. and i think good stories tell us this in all sorts of ways; through heartbreak or triumph or battle or fear or desire or joy.

idk how to explain it other than life is hard and love is there. life is also wonderful and love is still there. and that’s what i strive to find in stories!!

honestly i cannot believe you would compare me to kintsukuroi art…..i consider myself just some guy!!! having a good time writing!!! and sharing some w some pals online!!! but nevertheless, i’m deeply grateful and can’t express what it means to me.

don’t know how to explain it but this message came to me right when i was feeling a little wobbly or nervous about my storytelling abilities in life—not that i felt dismayed. but i’d been telling myself “deep breath, do the work” over and over again which simply means i’ve felt overwhelmed!!

i’m seriously going to cherish this message. i appreciate it so so so much—i appreciate you taking the time to read my work and then come to me and tell me this.

thank you thank you thank you

[konnfusion]

You've tagged so many cool posts with Odessa that I'm officially intrigued, I would love to hear about her!

I hope you're okay that I posted this publicly because you're the first person to ask about OC lore in quite some time, and I am ECSTATIC!

I will put a "read more", however, as I tend to ramble, and will mostly assume anyone reading this knows something about Doctor Who.

so a brief tldr; primer is that about a decade or so ago, my now-husband and I were intensely into Doctor Who and did a very cheesy, self-indulgent (pretty poorly-written but fun) RP here on tumblr with a companion character I'd created traveling with the Tenth Doctor. cut to now in 2023, and he's fully back into DW (classic and new), and dragged me along with him. I'd been reworking this character I'd created off-and-on for years (changing her name, her faceclaim, backstory, everything; I just felt like she deserved an update as my writing developed and improved!), and now that the hyperfixation is back in full swing, so is she.

pinterest board for vibe check // story pinterest board with working title for extra vibe check // said posts I've tagged with her name

basically, Odessa is a young woman living in an isolated cottage in the countryside following personal turmoil (including the mysterious and untimely death of her parents and possibly leaving a man at the altar, her neighbors are unsure about that last part; she's a little bit of a "champagne problems" gal), and barely has any contact with anyone. she's just chosen to shut herself up for whatever time she has left on Earth, and tend to her garden and books and be alone until she dies.

but, on her way home from a trip to town one day, her bike runs into a big blue police box that definitely hadn't been on this rural dirt before, and there's man nearby who says he's investigating some strange, not-of-Earth communication signals in the area. I won't give all the details since we're intending to publish portions of this at some point (I hope!), but she decides to help The Doctor find the source of the signals and hopefully stop whatever's going on before it can hurt anyone. it turns out the mystery is linked to her and to the death of her parents, and shines a new light on the tragedy and on her decision to live an isolated, quiet life alone. so, when they've deal with the threat and The Doctor invites her to travel through time and space with him, she agrees. might've been a little bit of a "Getaway Car" situation in the beginning, but developed into something so, so much bigger.

we've been planning lots of original adventures with her, as well as some stuff that adds her into canon episodes, all going through the end of Ten's run, through Eleven's, and into Twelve's and beyond. and, yes, she does get to find romance because I am a romantic at heart, so how can I resist?

there's so much I love about her that I wish I could put into concrete words, but I recently realized that the arc I'd been writing for her was seeing her start as someone who decided to lock away her love because all she ever did was lose the things she loved; to grow into someone who forged this huge, time-and-space-spanning family that she could love unabashedly and wholeheartedly. sort of a coming-of-age out of linear time, and one that she never got to have because she just always felt stuck in the same place (derogatory). she gets the chance to fight to protect the things she cares about, and be openly who she is without fear of judgement or shame--and feel like she matters in her own life. (I do like to joke, though, that she locked away her love because, for her, all love does is end, but then she fell in love with someone who is functionally immortal, so did she really ever unpack that fear? it's sweet, though, I promise.)

it's been fun morphing her into a character that sometimes is just so unapologetically weird, too. I mean, to travel with a centuries-old alien through all of time and space, you have to be a little weird, but I feel like I just poured all my wonderful weird into her and let her run wild. (and this is the first post I tagged her in during this little revisiting, SO. this somewhat references a plot point that my husband doesn't even know about yet, but that will be deliciously angsty and link back to Odessa and The Doctor's very first meeting.) it's been really satisfying to rework a character I've had in my back pocket for a decade and feel like she's more fully-realized, even if just in my own head. less of an avatar, and more of an actual character with needs and an arc. (an actual character who has a proclivity for going after Daleks with a baseball bat and relates a little too hard to the bridge of "Mastermind", but I digress.)

it's also been so gratifying revisiting a story that my now-husband and I were working on in the very beginnings of our friendship, and develop the romance plot from just romance to eventually a marriage between two characters we both really love. hell, we've already formed a spin-off AU, and one-off adventures with different incarnations of The Doctor outside of their shared linear timeline. (one of my husband's creations is a story where she's put on trial for perceived "crimes" against the known universe, and for being accessory to "crimes" committed by The Doctor. we love a chaotic woman wanted for multiple violations against the space-time continuum. ✨)

as I'm re-reading this, it feels kind of vague for how much lore I have in my brain, but honestly sometimes it's like when someone asks what your favorite movie is, and you suddenly forget every movie you've ever seen. 😅 I'm always so, so happy to talk about my characters (and their pinterest boards and playlists and such), please feel free to ask me to elaborate on anything if you're still curious!!! 💕 Odessa is a constantly-shifting, ever-developing, total-failed-misanthrope-beause-her-heart-is-just-too-big, time-traveling madwoman in my mind, and I love her so, so much and love that you reached out to ask about her!!!

[sinigangsta-ao3]

Thursday Thoughts: A contemplative moment...

In typical Nina fashion, posted a day late on a Friday lol...

I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the fact that it's already December... and, with the onset of this month, the fact that I'm quickly approaching eight months of writing and posting fanfic on AO3.

It has been quite a journey, admittedly, as I embarked on fic writing at this stage in my life. A lot of ups and downs. My first intentional foray into dealing with strange online personalities. Making and losing friends. But, most importantly, re-establishing a creative practice and rediscovering the joy of doing something purely selfish, for no other reason than to rejuvenate my soul.

I've shared before that this is something that I never thought I'd get back to doing. It is so interesting how, as I'm moving through my 30s and as I've grappled with a lot of societal pressures of being a mother, a wife, a working professional, a millennial, etc., I have just given fewer and fewer fucks about being cripplingly selfless. And how I am unabashedly and unapologetically deciding to take up more space, to protect more of what makes me happy and more energized.

That last part, especially, is so hard for me to embrace. There has been a slew of traumatic experiences I've had in my youth and young adulthood that have made it physically painful for me to do things simply because I want to do them.

But, God, after the initial pain and discomfort of taking those first steps of being selfish, it is also so energizing and freeing to make and do something for me. Full stop.

So, as I am wont to do at this time of the year, I'm feeling very introspective about my journey so far. I have a lot of gratitude for what I've produced and shared (Nearly 120k words! 12 works!). I have a lot of grief toward the pain that I've felt when I've had some unsavory interactions, the crippling insecurity when I felt like I wasn't doing enough. And I also have a lot of excitement about how I can continue to grow — as a writer, as a person — as I move into 2023 and continue writing and creating and telling stories.

There are some ideas that I'm excited to tackle when the new year starts. But, before we get to that stage, there are a few commitments that I'm making to myself. I think it's important for me to get these things done first so that I can continue writing with renewed vigor in the new year.

Commitment No. 1: By the end of the year, I will complete the following in-progress fics:

"house of the rising sun"

"straight/edge"

Commitment No. 2: By the end of the year, I will post the following new stories to my AO3:

"purgatorio"

"Gaudete"

Commitment No. 3: I will take a little hiatus in January.

I still plan to work on all my stories throughout the month — I particularly want to get back to working on "sins of our fathers." But I just want to relieve myself of the pressure of putting something out there for others.

Plus, January is my birthday month. I want to treat myself to a little creative retreat of sorts — returning to the little bubble of writing for myself, full stop.

I also just want to write a little note of thanks to everyone who has come along this journey with me so far. Even those with whom I no longer engage regularly. And especially those who still read what I write, who comment and leave me kudos, who send me anonymous asks, who keep me going when this feels a little solitary.

You all have been such special parts of this stage in my life. And I just have so much gratitude and love and appreciation for how you all have formed this experience.

Much love, now and always, Nina 💕

[star--nymph]

3, 9, 12, 30, and 39 for Eurydice! (which btw is a lovely name for a lavellan)

!!! Thank you so much for both the asks and for the compliment! I love her name so much, it's just so pretty and melodic.

3. What is something they really like about themselves and what is something you really like about them?

Eurydice likes that she's quiet and strange. That she can think clearly without letting irrational emotions get in the way and come up with her funky ideas. She enjoys being by herself, enjoys daydreaming and silently hanging, and figuring out things on her own. She also quite likes her hair--hence why she combs it so often! I love everything about Eurydice so it's hard to for me to pick. I think what I love the most is that she's unapologetically very autistic herself and despite everything the world tells her, she doesn't want to change. As someone whose neurodivergent (I have ADHD), I've always felt very...wrong, I guess, for who I was. So creating Eurydice has this unabashedly strange and offputting person who can't ever quite get a grip on social interaction or being anything but brash but 100% doing her best is something that is so freeing for me. I admire Eurydice so much which is funny considering she is my OC, but she's kind of this big power fantasy for me? Weird, mean lady who won't change for anyone and is too powerful to stop!!! Of course I try to write her as grounded and realistic as possible and I don't think she's really special but!! She's wonderful! I want to see her freak people out and tell them to shut up all day!!

9. How would they react if a person they love (friends and family included) gave them a flower bouquet unexpectedly?

Oh, she'd love it. Thank them while her ears flutter up and down (a good sign! it means she's so happy). I think she'd tell them about what's special about the flowers and how she can use them. Maybe out one in their hair because she likes sharing. Enchant them so they won't wilt so fast. If it was someone she has a romantic relationship with, her eyes would be tipped read and she'd stick her face in them. Later on, they could catch her staring them at them and playing with the edges of the petals.

12. What is their safe place? And what does “safe place” mean to them?

Oh! I suppose it depends, right? For Eurydice, her safe space is somewhere that she can't get away from people. They're usually unreachable, dark, quiet. In a childhood, her safe space was anywhere in the forest no one could find her--she'd stick herself up in trees, in caves, on ridges of mountains where one wrong step could send you tumble down to a river below. In Haven, her safe space was the shack in the woods owned by Adan's master; it was away from loud voices and while the army trained near there, the clashing swords were far more soothing than many people chatting within haven.

In Skyhold, Eurydice's safe spaces was the stable with all her mounts, which she loves so much, her workshop in the depths of the fortress, her quarters, and Cullen's loft. Sometimes if she's really feel as if she needs to isolate, she'll crawl up in the rifters of one of the broken towers or hide on the roof above the kitchen.

Basically if she can get away from people and not be seen from any angle, she's safe.

30. What is their love language?

Acts of service and gift-giving! Words are hard and she fumbles them often, but making people eat or giving them a weapon? Useful! Practical! Logical! What are words when she could make you live to see another day! Now THAT's love!

The other is quality time. If Eurydice loves you, she will sit silently in a room with you and just exist.

39. If they could go back in time, how would they reassure their child-self about the future?

"There is nothing wrong with you. You are not empty. You are not a thing. Exist as you are. The world is not made to understand you, yes, but it is not your fault. It is loud and confusing; you can not fix that. You are good to be loved. There are some you will find who will do so without question. Stay with them, not with Papae. Do not seek him out. Do not go near fires with him. It is not good. He is not good. You are, though, yes? Yes. Very good."

[thecreativemisfits]

"Embracing Misunderstanding: How Being Misunderstood Taught Me to Be Extraordinary"

In a world that applauds the conventional and the predictable, there's an extraordinary art to being misunderstood. It's a journey that leads you to blend in while standing out, a paradoxical dance where not everyone grasps your innovative concepts. But guess what? I'm glad I was misunderstood, because it was the very challenge of being misinterpreted that taught me to be truly extraordinary.

The Blessing in Misinterpretation...

Imagine presenting avant-garde ideas to a crowd of skeptics, only to be met with puzzled looks and raised eyebrows. It's like trying to explain a complex scientific theory to a bunch of cats—they're just not on the same wavelength. But hold on a second, because in the midst of this apparent disaster lies an unexpected blessing. Being misunderstood is like finding a hidden treasure chest, brimming with opportunities to refine your ideas, tweak your approach, and emerge even stronger. Those who doubt your creativity unwittingly propel you to refine it, leading you down a path of innovation you wouldn't have discovered otherwise.

The Unseen Path to Extraordinary...

In a world where everyone seeks the safety of conformity, standing out takes courage and determination. Being misunderstood acts as the ultimate test, like the universe's way of weeding out the ordinary from the extraordinary. When you're met with resistance, it's not a sign to retreat; it's a cue to charge forward. The very struggle of convincing others to see your vision hones your skills, making you resilient, resourceful, and ready to conquer uncharted territories.

The Magic of Right Place and Visionaries...

One day, in the land of misunderstood brilliance, you stumble upon a sanctuary—a place where your ideas are greeted not with skepticism, but with intrigue and enthusiasm. These are your kindred spirits, the visionaries who not only comprehend your unorthodox ideas but also amplify them. Surrounding yourself with these unconventional minds is like adding rocket fuel to your creativity. Their belief in your potential pushes you to elevate your imagination, and together, you transcend the ordinary and embrace the extraordinary.

Realization of Self-Worth...

Remember the days when your eccentric ideas were brushed aside? Well, those days were merely the cocoon stage of your metamorphosis. The true worth of your creative genius unveils itself when you break free from the constraints of misunderstanding. As you soar above the clouds of conformity, you're suddenly aware of the majestic wingspan your ideas possess. What was once perceived as strange is now seen as groundbreaking, and what others failed to grasp is now celebrated as visionary.

Triumph in the Symphony of Sarcasm...

And now, the grand finale—where their failure to understand becomes your greatest triumph. They missed the bus to brilliance while you rode the roller coaster of creativity to the very top. Your success is sweeter with a pinch of sarcasm, a wink to the universe that you were always destined for greatness. The very same ideas that were dismissed are now the cornerstones of your accomplishment, reminding everyone that misunderstanding is not defeat—it's a necessary pit stop on the road to success.

What I'm trying to say is...

In this captivating journey of embracing misunderstanding, I've learned that being misinterpreted isn't a flaw; it's a badge of honor. It's a testament to the audacious spirit that drives us to innovate, to challenge, and to redefine the boundaries of creativity. So, here's to the skeptics, the eye-raisers, and the naysayers. Your doubt fueled the fire that forged my extraordinary path. I'm grateful for the journey of being misunderstood, for it's the very journey that taught me to be unapologetically, unabashedly, and unequivocally extraordinary.

Mel xoxo

[mildly-incoherent-ramblings]

Chin Hairs

I was about 11 or so when I discovered I had chin hair. I was with my aunt and grandma when my aunt noticed it. She pointed it out to me, and they both teased me about it, continuously trying to grab it and pull it off me. They made such remarks about how taking care of the embarrassing biological things like a chin hair or two were just part of "being a woman." Now, never mind the problems in that implication, I could not process at the time what about this was so humiliating. I thought it was as simple as this:  I was for the first time experiencing this particular aspect of womanhood where one is made to feel shame about the natural things one's body does like grow hair or have a present odor, things that the Eurocentric, American Colonialist standards of beauty forbade against and looked down upon. As time would reveal, it would seem I am not a woman at all, and these things were far more complicated than that even.

What I was, was a secretly budding young man, who wanted, was fascinated by, and enjoyed my little chin hair, even hoped for more. The anti-trans attitudes that were prevalent in my community and family at the time surrounded me, so I dare not speak of such feelings.

My first boyfriend at about age 14 once embarrassed me on a date because he pointed this out. He himself had blemishes, body odor, nose hair, hair in ‘strange’ places on his face, on his body, and sometimes would still have dried drool on his chin from when he slept the night before. He was less than approachable on such things, and barely anyone would bat an eye anyhow. This was just the naturally expected grossness of "manhood." But on this date in particular, as he would continuously do through our time together, he decided to shift the conversation to that of my one lonely chin hair that had only been visible in the light where I was sitting. He tried to pluck it from my face, and when I pushed him away, actually held my hands down and forced himself, saying over and over "I gotta get it." When I would not let him, pleaded for him to stop and spare me the embarrassment, he made a scene of this by more loudly saying "I gotta get it" eventually pinching it between his two fingernails and plucking it from my humiliated little face in full view of people around us eating. Of course, it was I who got all manner of dirty looks from the other people eating for having the audacity to be perceived as a woman and have hair on my face, and not him for having ignored my boundaries and put his hands on me. He laughed at my misery.

It was in his mind that I as a perceived woman was responsible for my error in having the audacity to allow a hair on my face go un-plucked. It was I who was at fault because I dared to allow my body to do as it does naturally, in the presence of my lover, and the public. 

I was a very shy and insecure teen, and would often have people make remarks of how my body looked, what it did. In an inadvertent way I resented the boys I knew for being so unabashedly disgusting in comparison. Eventually I would attempt to join in this behavior, as though it validated my identity. At the worst of my dysphoria, the peak of my pick-me phase of false womanhood, I embraced provoking disgust through means of self neglect. Not only did I allow my chin hair and nose hair and eyebrow hair and leg hair to grow, but I allowed myself to stink, belched loudly, neglected to wash properly when bathing, wore dirty clothing and made disgusting remarks about farts and shit and vomit and snot in order to feel as though I had an "in" with the boys. I was “not like other girls.”

Now is allowing ones body hair to grow naturally provided your body is clean unhealthy necessarily? No of course not. And with respect to capacity and function, sometimes cleanliness is not accessible, poor hygiene can be unavoidable even. But the other more harmful behaviors like neglecting to brush my teeth or feel as though my face deserved to be washed came along with this, and this was a conscious choice to self harm.

I was angry. I hated my body. I hated these beauty standards, this double standard, these ludicrous expectations.

And secretly, I loved my chin hair. I did. and I wanted more. I wanted a full beard, luscious and long, down to my collarbone. I wanted a mustache that I could comb out and twist into perfect handlebars. I wanted to grow out the hair between my brows and envied anyone who had not been phased by these standards and allowed this to be for themselves, facing the ridicule head on.

What I wanted, though I myself was operating under these misconceived notions of what was and was not considered to be part of this, was not an experience of womanhood or manhood necessarily, but simply a desire to exist as I was. Unapologetic, expressive masculinity in my feminine- perceived body, without limitation. Exactly as I was, as god or the gods or whatever deity of choice or the universe had made me.

Years later as an adult I am still mildly annoyed with but do enjoy the task of self grooming. I enjoy showers, cleaning my skin of its impurities, the healing of the testosterone-educed acne on my face, the scarring and the texture it leaves. I do shave, and am growing quite a few chin hairs now, and hair at my jawline and below my cheekbones and above my lip in a budding little mustache. I love every follicle. Every perceived imperfection. I love all of it. I am finally allowed to love the way my body naturally is. Provided of course I still allow the modifications to be made that suit my personal desires, but that's for another story...

[asimawv]

I write and conceptualize story to music, so I’ve compiled a playlist of 30 Darkest Dungeon-specific songs that I listen to when writing (and subsequently re-writing) in no particular order, which I hope will help you set the vibe too. :+)

Names in bold are links for easy listening - tons of Hozier and Of Monsters and Men up ahead, five minute warning.

1. ‘Fire and the Flood’ - Vance Joy

If you listen to nothing else on this list, listen to this one - it’s the kind of song that’s made for movies about yearning. Folk influences, choruses of trumpets and vocal harmony, and instruments that are layered for a rich, resonant sound. This is the song I imagine Dismas and Reynauld horse-racing through a crowded outdoors market in the hamlet to, and the song I listened to nonstop freshman year when I first started writing The Myth of Sisyphus.

You're the fire and the flood And I'll always feel you in my blood Everything is fine When your hand is resting next to mine Next to mine You're the fire and the flood

The chorus is built around biblical allusions to the fire (the burning bush signifying first contact) and the flood (destruction of the first world), the beginning and end. Every line is similarly evocative of Darkest Dungeon in their simplicity (“I’ve been getting used to waking up with you,” etc.)

2. ‘Soldier, Poet, King’ - The Oh Hellos

By the title alone you can guess who this is for. Even the Guild quote for the Leper approaches these three things as the defining parts of his character (specifically it’s “a ruined man, a warrior, and a poet.”) This song coincidentally has an old world influence to it, with a Medieval Renaissance style from a guitar playing a lute-adjacent melody.

There will come a ruler Whose brow is laid in thorn Smeared with oil like David's boy, oh lei oh lai oh Lord Oh lei, oh lai, oh lei, oh Lord Smeared with oil like David's boy, oh lei oh lai oh Lord

To be smeared with oil is to be anointed by a prophet and thus chosen by god himself to be king, just as David was and his boy after him (presumably Solomon). There’s something strangely wistful about the imagery, which is just how I like my songs about bygone kings.

3. ‘Exit Hymn’ - Bear Attack!

This song is about the end of the world in a version where everyone simply stands together in silence watching, rather than having the masses swarming in panic.

Lovely shapes to the world descending, Brothers and sisters. Lovely shapes to the world descending, Brothers and sisters Mute.

It defies Lovecraftian horror, which is based on the premise that “common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large” - it flies in the face of existential nihilism and the despair that it should bring us. That’s why I like this song for deaths in the end-boss fight; it also has a special place for other death-related ideas, like full-party wipes - entire teams of people vanishing into the dungeons, gone insane, holding hands while the darkness surrounds them.

It’s a bare song which has a sanctity to it, mostly just piano and rain and human voices. Just what you would hear at the end of the world.

More under the cut:

4. ‘Pursuit of Glory’ - Jhameel

This song is laid-back. It doesn’t have the Homeric intensity that some of the other songs here do - it’s a guy with a guitar and vocal harmony. By god is it a great piece of writing though (all of Jhameel’s older songs have that quality to them), and all of it is evocative of Darkest Dungeon.

So many eyes set on the path to glory Too many ties, friendship is for the lonely Can't still my heart, my tongue has tasted folly Thirsty for art, hungry for power and money

This is a song for everyone in the barracks, especially the ‘laundry list’ of people and their approaches to the pursuit of glory.

5. ‘Good Old Days’ - Macklemore (feat. Kesha)

This fucker put a Macklemore song in here. I did, yeah. It’s not even the only song with Kesha in it here (I’m sorry.) 

It’s a sentimental pop song, and I am sentimental to a fault. This is Darkest Dungeon AMV material, and I always mishear one of the lines as “we were underground, loaded mercs in that 12-passenger van” so it’s here.

We've come so far, I guess I'm proud And I ain't worried about the wrinkles around my smile I've got some scars, I've been around I've felt some pain, I've seen some things, but I'm here now Those good old days

6. ‘Past Lives‘ - Kesha

Here it is, the other Kesha song - this was introduced to me by a good friend, also in a Darkest Dungeon context. There’s just something about the lovers spanning time trope and finding each other in one life to the next that is irresistible (for the obvious reason in the context of Darkest Dungeon.) It’s a soft song, totally out of place in Kesha’s typical discography, and has a line about losing someone to the crusades, so... you know.

There's just somethin' about you I know Started centuries ago though You see your kiss is like a lost ghost Only I would know But I, I keep on falling for you Time after time Time after time

7. ‘Viva la Vida’ - Coldplay

You cannot fight this. You know that this is the song for King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, you know it is. Did you know the official name of this genre of music is “Baroque pop”? Yes, that means more songs like this exist. You will live with this information now.

Don’t fight it. Just let it wash over you.

I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing Roman Cavalry choirs are singing Be my mirror, my sword and shield My missionaries in a foreign field For some reason I can't explain Once you go there was never, never an honest word And that was when I ruled the world

Mirror, sword, and shield, the three other members of his party, his missionaries in a foreign field. Thinking emoji. I typed that out so I wouldn’t have a repeat of the crab emoji incident.

8. ‘The Boxer’ - Jerry Douglas (feat. Mumford & Sons, Paul Simon)

Partly inspired by the Bible, Simon & Garfunkle’s ‘The Boxer’ is a folk rock song about poverty, loneliness, and homesickness. It’s written and sung in a style that’s strongly reminiscent of older times, and the final verse about its eponymous boxer is particularly powerful:

In the clearing stands a boxer And a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders Of ev'ry glove that laid him down Or cut him till he cried out In his anger and his shame "I am leaving, I am leaving" But the fighter still remains

This is what I use for Dismas’ life leading into organized crime and his foolish abandonment of stable job prospects in a half-baked bid for fame, as well as being punched down over and over again but with nowhere else to go. That last part is widely applicable across the cast.

9. ‘I Will Wait’ - Mumford & Sons

I am but a simple man. I see 'folk rock' and add it to my Darkest Dungeon playlist. This song I use for Reynauld - it has that sort of “salt of the earth,” somewhat biblical humility in its choice of words and style. 

Raise my hands Paint my spirit gold And bow my head Keep my heart slow

10. ‘Little Lion Man’ - Mumford & Sons

Have we not beaten this song to death yet? Can you blame us? This is the people’s song. We reserve it for all of our favorite fuck-up characters, as primal as Saturn devouring his son. We love this song. Jesus.

Tremble for yourself, my man, You know that you have seen this all before Tremble little lion man, You'll never settle any of your scores Your grace is wasted in your face, Your boldness stands alone among the wreck Now learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck

The line about learning from your mother in particular is why I think of this song for Dismas’ introspection, but I also associate it with the Hellion.

11. ’From Eden’ - Hozier

There’s too much Hozier in my playlists. There is so much of it, and it’s all important to me, says the hoarder. There’s something about profoundly intimate folk music that I love, and god put folk, R&B, blues, and alt rock into a Vitamix for 45 seconds to make Hozier.

Honey you're familiar like my mirror years ago Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword Innocence died screaming, honey ask me I should know I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door

‘From Eden’ is, according to Hozier, about idolizing someone from a distance, written from the perspective of the devil “looking longingly at something he desires - for everything that he does not have.” I associate this song with the Grave Robber for its playfully nihilistic tone - Audrey does say something to the effect of being left for dead by high society and the affectionate bordering condescending address is on-brand.

12. ‘Cherry Wine’ - Hozier

‘Cherry Wine’ is unabashedly about domestic violence, and its sincerity is heartbreaking, the sanctification of the blood spilled in the name of keeping her.

The way she tells me I'm hers and she is mine Open hand or closed fist would be fine The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine.

This song is strongly tied to the Vestal for me.

13. ‘Work Song’ - Hozier

A song about unconditional love - heaven and hell were just words, indeed.

When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her

I think of this song for both Dismas and the Abomination - it’s a song about love transcending spiritual and even physical need, complete devotion, but something about it is also not quite right. It’s morbid and excessive, self-pitying, and almost ugly in its sincerity.

14. ‘Sunlight’ - Hozier

The strong gospel influence with the choruses, church organ, religious fervor - I think it makes a great song for traveling scenes and church/altar scenes.

I had been lost to you, sunlight Flew like a moth to you, sunlight oh sunlight Oh, your love is sunlight Oh, your love is sunlight (sunlight, sunlight) But it is sunlight

15. ‘Arsonist’s Lullabye’ - Hozier

The gospel this time is paired with electric rock instrumentation. Something about the lamentation is unapologetic and matter-of-fact in its disturbing inclinations - this is Paracelsus’ song. Arguably representative of Bounty Hunter and Flagellant as well.

Now that I think about it, it’s great for Abomination as well. Damn.

All you have is your fire And the place you need to reach Don't you ever tame your demons But always keep 'em on a leash

16. ‘We Sink’ - Of Monsters and Men

Of Monsters and Men are closer to the indie rock/pop spectrum with influences of folk, with much less biblical influence and more folklore-inspired lyrics. They make for great trailer and action songs.

We are the sleepers, we bite our tongues We set the fire and we let it burn Through the dreamers, we hear the hum They say come on, come on, let's go So come on, come on, let's go

In Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos, dreams are how the Old Ones commune with humans on the earth’s surface while they slumber in the ocean depths (Cthulhu fhtagn meaning “Cthulhu is dreaming”); I like to think of the ‘sleepers’ as the heroes being tasked to “set the fire” and the ‘dreamers’ being the Heir and Ancestor driven by some unseen force to unearth the antediluvian underground.

17. ‘I Of The Storm’ - Of Monsters and Men

Very somber song, overwhelmingly piano and snare drum and vocals. Also a great death scene song, or for introspection around the campfire, or played to reveal a major event.

If I could face them If I could make amends With all my shadows I'd bow my head And welcome them

18. ‘King and Lionheart’ - Of Monsters and Men

My favorite OMAM song - it’s clearly written about two children, kind of reminiscent of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ in its fantastical nature, and very upbeat about the end of the world.

His crown lit up the way as we moved slowly Pass the wondering eyes of the ones that were left behind Though far away, though far away, though far away We're still the same, we're still the same, we're still the same

This part is reminiscent of the Leper’s journey, but the mentions of taking over a town, howling ghosts, the end of the world, a black sea and creatures lurking below, etc. are all evocative of Darkest Dungeon.

19. ‘Little Talks’ - Of Monsters and Men

Also very upbeat for its subject matter - according to OMAM, it’s a narrative of a woman speaking with the ghost of her dead husband, or going insane and believing that she’s speaking with her dead husband.

Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear 'Cause though the truth may vary This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

The call-and-respond style of the song is haunting. I like this song for expeditions and afflicted heroes.

20. ‘Wolves Without Teeth’ - Of Monsters and Men

Suitable for both Occultist and Abomination, being consumed by an unseen and otherworldly force that inhabits them - well, maybe just rarely seen, in the Abomination’s case. Special mention to OMAM’s ‘Human,’ same conceptual backing but more raw.

You hover like a hummingbird Haunt me in my sleep You're sailing from another world Sinking in my sea, oh You're feeding on my energy I'm letting go of it He wants it

21. ‘Desierto’ (Original Motion Picture Score) - Woodkid

This is a full album, because all of it is dark orchestral cinema music described as ‘unsettling,’ with the sole exception of ‘Land of All,’ which has vocals to it. I reserve this album for writing fight scenes and for particularly unsettling events because it’s tense and wordless. I read Junji Ito to this soundtrack too, it’s insanely high-strung and discordant.

22. ‘Iron’ - Woodkid

‘Iron’ qualifies as Baroque pop - you might recognize this as the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations song. The large-scale, cinematic style of it and thematic lyrics make it great for writing about dramatic encounters or brigands.

This deadly burst of snow is burning my hands I'm frozen to the bones, I am A million miles from home, I'm walking away I can't recall your eyes, your face

23. ‘Never Let You Down’ - Woodkid (feat. LYKKE LI)

Another somber song, orchestral with some industrial noise in the mix - another great introspection song, or one for a scene with some hard decisions to be made.

Will you come along cause I'm about to leave this town In my eyes, a waterfall, all I can hear, a siren call Could you be waiting by the shore, oh I could drown without you Will you be holding out the line when I fall?

24. ‘Run Boy Run’ - Woodkid

Church bells, fast percussion, strong orchestral presence. For chase scenes, obviously, but great for fast-paced sneaking scenes as well. Also has a strong quasi-Medieval fantasy setting style to it.

Tomorrow is another day And you won't have to hide away You'll be a man, boy! But for now it's time to run, it's time to run!

25. ‘I Love You’ - Woodkid

Don’t let the scream effects and aggressive percussion at the beginning deter you (it kind of took me by surprise the first few times too) - it soon fades into more of the church bells and melodic string accompaniment.

Oh yeah, unrequited love song? It’s free (mental) real estate, baby.

Is there anything I could do Just to get some attention from you? In the waves, I've lost every trace of you Where are you?

26. ‘Vagabonds’ - Grizfolk

A rare departure from folk! Grizfolk is alt rock/indie pop. Stylistically it doesn’t match the feeling of Darkest Dungeon, but lyrically it’s almost 1:1 to arrival in the hamlet and the subsequent expeditions. Good song for writing about recruits bonding.

Oh this careless ground, guessing this is home now Oh in no man's land, at least we're still standing And we're all just fighting, some of us will not return And there's no redemption in trying to find your way out

27. ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ - Lorde

Great trailer fuel, if you’ve seen the AC: Unity E3 trailer with this song - I listen to an extended version when writing fights in the Guild, especially one where two heroes are beefing. It’s got a primal kind of thing going on. I also associate this song with the Arbalest - lyrically, it fits her backstory like a glove.

Welcome to your life There's no turning back Even while we sleep We will find you

Acting on your best behavior Turn your back on mother nature

28. ‘Torches’ - X Ambassadors

More alt rock/indie pop - kind of a rallying song for dark expeditions, hopeful but still somber in nature - some gospel elements. X Ambassadors’ more popular ‘Renegades’ is also a fun tavern song.

Come on, carry your flame Carry it higher Leave it in the darkness Carry your torches

29. ‘Passing Afternoon’ - Iron & Wine

This is a song I use for reconciliation or domestic scenes - Dismas with Junia in the garden, for example. It’s soft and kind of meandering, and features vintage piano - you know, the piano you heard in the basement of your church turned community center as a child.

There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

30. ‘Some Nights’ - Fun.

You know this song, your mom knows this song, everyone knows this song from like, middle school. Thought it’d be fun to end this list on an uplifting and very popular song. This is the song that a Disney adaptation of Darkest Dungeon would use in the Training Montage™ - from the point of view of Reynauld. It hits all of the points - being their commander rather than their equal, his stern and antisocial zealotry with no true ideology behind it, the ghost of his wife.

Verse 2, starting with “Well, that is it, guys, that is all / Five minutes in and I'm bored again” is where I see it transitioning to Dismas.

Well, some nights, I wish that this all would end 'Cause I could use some friends for a change And some nights, I'm scared you'll forget me again Some nights, I always win (I always win) But I still wake up, I still see your ghost Oh Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for, oh What do I stand for? What do I stand for? Most nights, I don't know

_____

Well that’s all from me! Feel free to leave your own recommendations in the replies, and I’d love to know what you think about my personal picks. :+)

[gnomehaver]

Essay on Trump and the Apparent Class Character of Oompa Loompas:

Referring to Trump as an Oompa Loompa is actually offensive to Oompa Loompas, who by all accounts seem to be honest & hardworking fae folk. The Oompa Loompas would be more likely to subject Trump to a Sisyphean punishment for his self-aggrandizing behavior and greed than welcome him into their fold for simply sharing a tangerine complexion. Much like the children who won golden tickets, Trump would no doubt meet his demise inside the factory. Overcome by avarice, he would fall prey to the same temptations that entrapped the series' antagonists and reap the consequences while the Oompa Loompas performed their ritualistic requiem.

The Oompa Loompas appear to revile gluttony in particular, but this should not be understood as merely the hatred of excess eating; the Oompa Loompas value candy as a cultural commodity and a product of their labor, therefore stealing sweets is tantamount to exploitation. It is an allegory for overindulgence, which I argue is the cardinal sin of each Wonka-verse villain: Mike is addicted to television, Veruca is spoiled rotten with material goods, and they as well as every other antagonist from major to minor possess an abhorrent obsession with obtaining Wonka’s wealth. The Oompa Loompas serve as the moral center of the story, reciting their scornful song to condemn each transgression of greed. 

This led me to wonder about the class character of the Oompa Loompas and why a community of factory workers would show unwavering loyalty to an industry titan, the king of candy, Willy Wonka. By facilitating his empire of sugar, isn’t Wonka participating in the same culture of excess that he simultaneously criticizes? Isn't a venture capitalist, by definition, profiting off of the same exploitation of candy labor that the Oompa Loompas so detest? 

To answer these questions, I will draw your attention to the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory wiki, which shall provide me with enough insider information to settle this debacle. According to Loompa lore, the Oompa Loompas are a “strange, small people”, who left their ancestral homeland, Loompaland, to work for Wonka. They are excessively loyal to the factory founder despite their “perpetual state of cheer”, which has led many of them to voluntarily “sacrifice themselves to protect Wonka’s success”. What accounts for this unwavering allegiance? Cocoa beans; the Oompa Loompas revere the cocoa tree and have agreed to transplant their tribe to England-- where they are employed in Wonka’s factory-- in exchange for “unlimited cocoa products”. With the little information available, I conjecture that cocoa beans are not a substitute for capital in Loompalandish society. The wiki states that the primary diet of the Oompa Loompa are caterpillars that the Loompas must cook with chocolate to remove their “naturally revolting taste”. While it could be speculated that in Loompaland cocoa beans were an integral commodity in a barter-and-trade system, in neoliberal England, they obviously possess no purchasing power. Essentially, what I have discovered is that Wonka has colonized his factory not with members of the proletariat but with slaves reliant on their bourgeois master for their staple food. Cocoa has divine significance in Loompalandish culture, but among the free folks of England, their beloved beans are about as worthless as a pile of yams at the conclusion of pre-colonial Igbo life. 

/Things Fall Apart/ when we begin to analyze what about the Oompa Loompas accounts for their servile disposition. It was at first my perception that the Loompas were supernatural beings-- as no known genetic expression could account for their orange skin and shamrock locks-- but the fandom wiki does not suggest that they’re a fantasy race subdued by their very nature similar to Harry Potter’s house elves. Upon further inspection of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s “Reception” section on Wikipedia, I have arrived at this dramatic realization. 

Roald Dahl is simply a fucking racist; the characteristic appearance of the Oompa Loompas we’re familiar with was revised for the 1971 film adaptation staring Gene Wilder; originally, the Oompa Loompas were described as “African black pygmies”. The highly acclaimed children’s author, Roald Dahl, the unbelievably disappointing, Roald Dahl, the extremely insensitive, mean spirited, culturally conservative, Roald Dahl, wrote a book criticizing greed that unabashedly includes a “happy slave narrative” only explained by his character’s dark skin. 

So yes, while this post began as an unhinged joke about respecting fae factory workers at the expense of Donald Trump, it has now become a PSA that Dahl’s books should not be relied upon to impart morality on anyone, least of all children of color. I don’t think evoking Oompa Loompas as a pop culture race of little orange people is inherently anti-black, but after reading about Dahl’s unapologetic racism, I don’t think I find them very funny anymore.

[phantombs]

Headcanons. or answers to some questions I’d forced out of you.

What’s Cường’s favorite season and why? What is his favorite memory during that time? @spoiledsovls​

Fall. It's a romantic, leisurely, and tepid time in Vietnam, the cool of coming winter quashing the stifling heat. It rolls wonderfully off the Hanoi lakes, and trees are shimmery in shades of fantastic yellows and others in delicate pinks. Fruit is  plentiful and its a time for festival, and  Cường thinks of chuseok as he spent it with his parents.

Is there anything he's afraid of turning into? @thecosmicsen 

Not really. Cường is a rather unmoved soul by most anything and everything. In fact, even now, I won’t say he’s particularly afraid of this, but he doesn't necessarily like the idea of losing himself -- completely, that is, like slipping forever into slumber. This feeling crops up only when he considers his lycanthropy, dazed out in his drug haze as he’s sat in the tub, but it doesn’t rattle his bones. Just... Makes him think a little, a strange stirring in his chest.

What is his happiest memory? @thecosmicsen​

Like in question one, mid-autumn with his family. In Vietnam (tết trung thu is the equivalent), he beheld this period with its plentiful food and sweet bean cakes, parties and noisy laughter filling the night. He thinks of fruit platters out on the streets, and dances and mother holding his hand. Lanterns at night. Head filled with songs.

Does he believe evil is born or learnt?  @thecosmicsen​

He believes evil can be won both ways. Some things so tire of hurts, abandonment, twisted by fouler things, and others out there aren’t bound by human hearts and feeling.

What first impression does he try giving to people? @thecosmicsen​

Impressions? Funny. Cường couldn’t care less about the impression he gives people, unabashedly and unapologetically himself as he is. Another person’s thoughts aren’t much his problem; he’s too caught up in his to even spare a heart, anyway.

What is his most controversial opinion? @thecosmicsen​

Mhm... Maybe that some monsters do deserve their pity, and maybe that people care too much about nothing. 

Would Cuong rather fight a giant ant or ten chihuahuas? @starscorned

A giant fire ant. Also, are you okay.

Boxers or briefs or neither? @jyargal

Boxers. Catch him shuffling to the fridge late at night in a pair with an oversized shirt.

How does he feel about the knowledge that he will probably outlive everyone he cares about? @jyargal

Ow. Well, it’s odd because he doesn’t quite feel much at all, honestly. That said, I’m not implying he won’t miss them or think about them when the moon dips low, when the sun is gone, but he never truly feels like he’s robbed of their company: in his heart or in spirit, he always feels them near. Of course, he’ll have moments where he thinks he’d like to hear their laughter, or hold their hand when they’re sat by the lakes, but overall, he’s fine and has been for ages. He isn’t bereft by it. He manages quite well.

[greenninjagal-blog]

Weightless (pt2)

Summary: Virgil still hates the human world and humans in particular. But maybe not his strange (definitely not) human housemates

Words: 4297

Pairings: Platonic LAMP

Part One

Read on AO3

“--a week or two. I don’t know I gave him a lot.” Roman’s voice says weakly. Virgil is rather annoyed it’s the first thing he hears when he wakes up. On a good day he hates hearing Roman’s condescending tone, on a bad day Virgil contemplates adding him to the list of humans he wants to kill.

What was Roman doing in his room?

No, wait he wasn’t in his room. Damn, he needed to stop falling asleep couch.

Really, it’s been a month since he’s moved into the building and he has his own room, with a door that locks, the windows that shut all the way, and headphones that blare the sound of the ocean waves as loud as he wanted. He doesn’t need to be out in the common area, taking up the entire couch, headphones on and buried under as many blankets as he can get away with.

He’s sure he’s annoying his housemates with it too. Every once in a while he picks up on the presence of one or two of them skirting through the area---

Wait a second.

“Don’t give me that look! You saw him!”

Virgil’s had that thought before. He knows he’s had that thought before.

“I didn’t see anything.” Logan’s voice replies tersely with an edge that is unlike him. Logan doesn’t rise to emotion, ever. But here he was talking like he ever word was meant to be a barbed attack.

“Oh yeah I forgot, specs!” Even when he sounds like he’s still recovering from being hit by an eighteen wheeler, he manages to sound like the sarcastic asshole he was. “And when were you going to tell the rest of us about the stone eyes ability you suddenly possess?”

Virgil’s missing something. There’s an important bit of information, and it feels like its just on the tip off his tongue, on the brink of his consciousness.

“Guys,” Patton’s voices is strained, but he sounds more worried than anything else. “Let’s not fight.”

Whatever, he’s never cared about his housemates before. Where are his headphones? He wants to crank up the sound of the ocean and pretend it’s dragging Roman under its unforgiving surface again and again and again.

He wants to pretend nothing is wrong.

-ongwroNGWRONG WRONG WRONG

It feels like an alarm that had been going on in his head for years that Virgil hadn’t even noticed until that moment. All at once his brain is screaming, crying, wailing for him to listen. The noise, his noise, the familiar noise of his thoughts comes roaring back and it drowns the dull sleepiness on his brain.

Virgil reacts like someone stuck jumper cables to his temples. The blind panic of it jolts down his spine awakening every limb with a flood of shaky Adrenalin. He’s sitting up before his eyes have even opened. (Granted his vision blurs and waves together and the blood behind his eyes pounds so hard he has to hold back a scream, but he’s sitting up. Ready to defend himself.)

He knows someone else screams. By the time his vision clears enough for him to make sense of his surroundings (common room couch, blankets folded, coffee table cleared and cleaned and his reflection bouncing off the glass window barrier from the peaceful night) Roman, Logan, and Patton are all looking at him with varying degrees of horror. Virgil’s body sways but he’s determined not to fall back down, not to fall back unconscious no matter how loudly it beacons him.

“How the fuck are you awake?” Roman rasps from the opposite end of the couch, his skin pale, and his body tense. There are scratch marks on his arm wrapped tightly with gauze, and a tiny bit of fear in his expression that Virgil’s mind struggles to explain.

“Language!” Patton scolds, but even he looks a breath away from a heart attack, a step away from Logan wearing different dark tinted glasses than normal. Why? Why why why why-

“I gave you enough to kill an elephant!” Roman yells, pressing himself as far away from Virgil as he can get.

Virgil doesn’t know what he’s saying, doesn’t know what is going on. Fuck, fuck, fuck. His brain can’t focus on anything, and his vision keeping dancing between hyperfocus and unrecognizable blur. His chest heaves but every inhale is a fight. He’s panicking. He knows he’s panicking. Something foreign is in his body and it’s trying to smother his awareness.

“What…” Virgil’s words come out slurred, every push of his tongue is a battle, “What did you... do to me?”

A shooting pain in his neck. His fingers feel like led dragging over the spot with absolute horror. There’s indents there-- why are there indents? Virgil’s never had indents there.

“Is this... a bite mark?”

Virgil’s head pounds, that alarm in his head screams so loud he can’t hear any other thought. What happened what did he do what did the human do to him--

He nearly misses Logan straightening in his seat and shifting his glasses ever so slightly. “Interesting, Roman,” he says in the calmest monotone Virgil has ever heard, “I was not informed that one or two weeks now meant roughly an hour.”

“Logan!” Patton throws a hand over his mouth, but Virgil’s certain it’s hiding a smile.

Roman’s head swivels to face to other with a partial snarl on it, “Hey you don’t have room to talk! You weren’t going to tell us that you can transform people to stone with a glance!”

Virgil’s stomach drops out, “What?”

Logan turns that stare on him, the dark lenses of his glasses pulling like a shadow over the other others eyes but Virgil is acutely aware of his iris movement behind them. “You don’t remember?” He doesn’t wait for Virgil to ask what he doesn’t remember; Logan turns accusingly towards Roman, “He doesn’t remember?”

Roman’s nose scrunches up, half a sneer on his face. Virgil’s head pounds and he wonders ideally if this was his time to die. Could he just drop dead right here on the sofa? With his body aching in every sense of the word, his mind stuffed with cotton, and surrounded by people he doesn’t trust?

“It happens sometimes!” Roman says unapologetically, “A side effect! He’s not even supposed to be awake! No human wakes up that fast! I--”

“Human?” Virgil repeats, before he can stop himself.

“Virgil, kiddo,” Patton says soothingly, “why don’t you lie back down--”

“You think I--me-- am a human?” Virgil repeats.

It takes him a moment to remember that fuck, that was not information he was supposed to be sharing. His tongue felt like lead, fumbling over his his teeth as if he could take the words out of the air before any of them heard them.

“You’re no--” Patton blinks

“Of course!” Roman shouts with his booming boastful voice that Virgil hates more than anything else about him. The other flings himself off the couch hands dancing in the air as if he were composing some sort of ballad. “It makes sense!”

Virgil presses his back into the sofa, hands so tight that his knuckles are turning white. He thinks that if Roman has any good sense he’ll keep out of kicking range, because Virgil doesn’t do well being cornered and human kneecaps are very vulnerable.

Except that when Roman twists around to face him again he’s grinning brightly-- too brightly, too charismatically, his lips shining, twisting in that ever appealing way that Virgil still hasn’t figured out how to ignore. There’s sparkles on him again, shimmering on his hair like tiny glittering water droplets. His stance is overtly confident, as he smiles, and his eyes are undoubtedly, unabashedly, red.

“You’re not human!” Roman says gleefully, showing off this pointed teeth. “That’s how you wore off my venom so fast!”

“Venom?” Virgil repeats, a dash of anger breaking through the cotton in his mind. “What venom?!”

“You’re also not human,” Logan notes. Virgil steals a glance at him, as he carefully takes off his glasses with eyes firmly closed and proceeds to clean them. There’s pale green skin around his eyes and eyelids that look like eyeshadow, but with a swoop of his stomach Virgil remembers exactly what Roman had said about Logan turning someone to stone.

Logan’s not human. Roman’s not human. Virgil’s not human.

“Oh dear,” Patton whispers.

From where he’s standing Virgil is acutely aware that Patton could go screaming to the entire city block. Every person who had ever come in contact with the supernatural world would be flooding their little beach hovel and Virgil wasn’t sure he could survive being thrown off a cliff again. It’s what any sane normal human would do.

Virgil feels the water in the house, and he feels it the moment it bursts (all too easily, as if it had done it before). The kitchen sink explodes, the piping in the walls ruptures, a flood of water shoots in the room without a direction.

Logan’s eyes flicker open and shut before Virgil has any sense to blink, and the other man shoves his glasses back on so forcibly they nearly break in his hands. Roman splutters as he gets a face full of the cold liquid, tripping backwards over the coffee table. Virgil dives to the floor, nearly biting off his tongue when his chin his the hardwood floor. The liquid rains, and for a second Virgil is filled with an impossible bliss at just seeing it he can’t force himself to move before he’s also soaked.

(It’s wrong! It’s not salty! It’s not the ocean, ocean, ocean.)

((The ocean will kill him if he touches it without his skin.))

Then as suddenly as it had begun, as suddenly as Virgil had recognized he had done it, it’s gone again. Virgil stares as the room is flooded with the scent of sugar and blue raspberry clouds. The world seems to stop, pause, breathe. The pressure that forced the water to break froze and Virgil can feel it instantly retreat.

Then the water rises up from the floor, pulls back from Roman, draws out of his Virgil’s owe clothes and returns to the pipes it broke out of. The pipe mends itself, the sink fits back in place, and the wall folds back into place until it looks like it never happened before.

Across the room, Patton stands lock in half concentration, half happiness with one hand outstretched, his fingers and the tips of his ears an icy, vibrant, and totally-not-human blue. Unearthly matching blue smoke dances at his feet until the job is complete, then when he lowers his hand it fades like an illusion, leaving him appearing every bit of the human he wasn’t.

Virgil can’t breathe and it has nothing to do with the venom Roman may or may not have injected him with.

There's a silence in the house that none of them can break. Not even Roman, whose voice had annoyingly persisted throughout the house for the past week every time that Virgil had tried to find quiet time. Not even Patton who had been an unending well of happiness and conversation, even when Virgil refused to acknowledge him. Not even Logan’s whose simple side comments made being in the same room as him not suck. The silence stuck in the air as heavy as oil until Virgil couldn’t stand it.

“What are you?”

“What are you?” Roman shoots back, “You’re the one who keeps doing that! The water! Do you know how much time goes into getting my hair--”

“You bit me!”

“You scratched me!”

Virgil hisses, “I probably had a good reason!”

“Yeah, because you’re psychotic!”

“STOP!” Patton yells over whatever Virgil is replying. Virgil tenses, at the sharpness of his voice, instinctively curling away and glaring at Roman. Roman dismisses him shortly.

“I’m not stopping! He’s a menace! Nine months of living in the house with him and he has done nothing but be an ass to all of us! Ignoring us, disregarding us, stealing our blankets--” Roman grabs one from the couch shaking it at Virgil like that could make him regret it. All is does is make Virgil’s shoulders ache again.

“Then he just goes berserk in one night?!” Roman says hotly, “You’re the reason why humans hunt us down and kill us.”

Virgil recoils like he’s been hit-- and really he has been. Every bit of anger in him stirs at Roman’s words, stirs and sizzles and bubbles. What does Roman know about being hunted and killed? What gives him the right to say anything about this? He might not be human but he was close enough: self absorbed and toxic and--

“I’m not the one who brought home a fucking hunter!”

Virgil freezes at his own words. He tries to find the proof in his memory, sifting through the cotton trying to pick out exactly why he’s sure without a doubt that Roman had done something so stupid. He scratches on it, a vague shapeless thing that fills him with terror.

“You brought home a hunter,” He repeats.

“What?” Roman laughs, “No? I--no!”

Virgil throws a hand over his mouth to keep himself from vomiting. Vertigo hits him hard, like it had when he had first woken up and found them all sitting there staring at him.

“I didn’t!” Roman tugs his collar, “He would have told me! They always tell me!”

Silver lip piercing, the curly hair, the ripped vest, and the red bandanna tied around his upper arm, Virgil remembers. He bites into his hand, trying to muffle the scream. He had been right there, Virgil had been standing right in front of one of the men who had ruined his life.

Coldness floods over him.

“Where is he?” Virgil demands hoarsely, “What happened to him?”

Logan makes an uncomfortable sound that has no place coming from his general direction.

“Logan turned him to stone,” Roman says, “So problem solved! No more hunter! No one saw us so no one will be coming here--”

“Roman!” Patton wrings the hem of his shirt, in distress, “Killing people is not the answer!”

“Hunters do it to people like us everyday!”

Virgil barely hears them, “Where is he?”

“There’s nothing to worry about--”

“Where the fucking hell is he!” Virgil shouts.

Roman and Logan both make a point not to look towards the kitchen. Virgil scrambles to his feet nearly toppling over yet again. Blood rushes in his ears, his too-light shoulders make him feel off balanced. He trips into the kitchen area.

There’s a statue there, standing with a face of repulsion on its face. It’s lifelike. Virgil wants to cry, because it’s standing right there and in the darkness of the early morning Virgil can almost convince himself that it’s still living.

“Virgil,” Patton’s voice says quietly.

“Fix it,” Virgil pleads. “Please, fix it like you fixed the wall or whatever, please just--”

“I can’t.” Patton said eyes too big to be lying, “Djinn can’t interfere with life and death. I tried, but he’s gone.”

“He can’t be!” Virgil shudders wrapping his arms around his stomach, “He can’t be dead. I need him to not be dead!” Part of him realizes it’s completely unfair that this is the most he’s ever talked to any of them and here he is asking them to bring a known hunter back to life with the chance that they’ll escape and bring the entire town down on them.

“Virgil,” Patton says again and it horribly sad.

Oh fuck he’s pretty sure he’s crying.

“He can’t be dead,” Virgil says stubbornly. He feels like a little kid again, curled up on the sandy beach to look at the stars in the sky that he couldn’t see from the ocean, and wish, wish, wishing all the bad things away from himself.

And suddenly the ache for that stupid kid is so strong Virgil can’t inhale again. The kid who effortlessly jumped from the cliffs with blackflips and breathed in the salty water, the kid who hoarded shiny pebbles and went to the surface to star at the stars, the kid who thought aimlessly, naively, that the humans weren’t nearly as bad as everyone had always said they were. He wants to go back to that kid and shake him hard, because seeing the stars had not been worth it that night or any of the ones after it.

“What are you crying for?” Roman demands, but Patton shushes him quickly. He kneels next to Virgil--when did Virgil get on the floor?

“Virgil, I don’t know what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours,” he says, “But I promise everything is going to be okay. We’re safe and we’re home--”

Virgil shakes his head, harsher than he means to. Because this place is not his home, because he can’t find the words to explain this, can’t figure out why any of them should care.

Virgil hates the human world. It’s stupid, terrible, and frustrating. Everything he does feels wrong: the air is too thin and their no current in it, the sun is too bright and blistering hot, the people are strange and foreign. Virgil thinks as he sits on the ground in front of a statue probably sobbing, that he hates this world more now than he did before.

Distantly he’s aware of the waves rolling over the shore with malicious sorrow, washing the sand again and again, as Patton reaches out and cups his upper arm in what he supposes must be a comforting gesture. The skin on skin contact feel dry and brittle and Virgil wishes hates it as much as he loves it.

“Virgil,” Logan’s tone cuts through his thoughts like a knife, piercing in to the dull throb of his head, “What did he take from you?”

Virgil hiccups so hard his stomach rolls over. He has a million lies ready and on his tongue waiting to be delivered but none of them come out.

“My s-skin,” He chokes.

“Your what-now?” Roman echoes sounding offended.

Logan nods solemnly like that was expected, “His skin. He’s a selkie.”

“A what?”

Virgil wonders if he can convince Patton that killing people is alright if the only person he kills is Roman. His exhale shudders his entire body, and he leans into the touch of the-- Djinn? Is that what he called himself?

Logan twists his watch around his wrist, “A selkie. They are a water race that primarily tend to stay towards the bottom of the ocean and not cause trouble. Unlike mermaids.” He clicks his tongue distastefully which against all odds makes Virgil want to laugh. “If I remember correctly they have skins that act much like the human form of a jacket. Taking it off allows them to walk on land.”

Roman makes a face. “So you just…” He mimes unzipping a jacket from his forehead. “That’s pretty creepy.” Patton shoots him a glare that Virgil gladly doubles.

“What! Objectively! You’re a creepy cookie!” Roman shakes his arms out and then wraps them around himself.

“I do not think you have room to talk, Roman. You create a narcotic from your salivary glands that can instantly put any creature into a coma, so you can do what exactly?” Logan asks. “I’m surprised humans are not more fearful of your kind than they are of anything else.”

Roman’s smile turns a little to sharp, “Low blows coming from someone with Gorgon blood in them.” He shakes out his arms again, “Besides it’s for emergencies only.”

“And what counts as an emergency to an incubus?” Logan counters.

“I’m not about to explain that in a room that has Patton in it!”

“Patton’s a grown Djinn. He is most likely older than even you.”

Patton made a sound in the back of his throat, “Please don’t fight guys! I hate fighting!”

“Very well,” Logan turned back to Virgil, “Apologies Virgil.” He shifts his glasses and Virgil starts to think that it might me a nervous tick for him, constantly making sure that his glasses were covering his line of vision completely.

“I do not understand why you neglected to tell any of us about this.” He says, “If my research is correct, without a skin a selkie cannot return to life in the ocean.”

“Whoa, wait hold on!” Roman throws up a time out sign, “Why do people care so much about this- ugh- skin? So what, if he doesn’t have one! There’s got to be plenty of other selkies out there without one!”

“It’s not--” Virgil takes a shuddering breath, “Selkies can’t survive without their skins. Salt water literally dissolves us in this form.”

Roman stares at him for a second. “Then why the hell do you people live in the ocean?!”

“Language,” Patton wrings the hem of his shirt with his delicate fingers again, “What would humans want with a selkie skin?”

“What wouldn’t they want?” Virgil snorts, miserably  “They're soft, heavy, and virtually indestructible. Humans love that shit.”

Patton taps him on the arm twice, a warning smile on his face, “I know you kiddos are having a rough time right this second, but the next one who uses one of those bad words I’m going to have to wash your mouth with soap!”

“That’s quite unnecessary Patton,” Logan says, “While I agree that the usage of such profanity could be better regulated, we are all adults here and there is no need for such a childish tech--”

“You’re not my mom!” Roman yells gleefully over him, as if he was looking to challenge Patton’s power. “I can say whatever I want! Fuck! Hell! Da--”

In a second Virgil’s senses are bombarded with that blue raspberry sugar smell that’s so strong he can taste it. Patton’s body doesn’t move but he tenses ever so slightly. Virgil watches in amazing meant as Roman face screws up and his tirade is cut short with gagging. The incubus doubles over and spits out half a bar of soap on the ground.

Logan makes a face at the cleaner and then at Roman, “I stand corrected.”

“Fu--” Roman spits bubbles out of his mouth, and frantically wipes his tongue on his sleeve, “Fudge! I said Fudge! What was that?! Cucumber?! I hate cucumber!”

Patton nudges Virgil with a wink, “Oh sorry, RoRo! I had absolutely no idea about that!”

Virgil can’t help but smile. For a moment he forgets about everything bad that was going on. It just the four of them camping out in between the rooms in various states of ease.

As suddenly as all their smiles come, they melt off again and Virgil is left staring at a stone statue and dead end. His shoulders hunch with an ache he can’t fix and he still hasn’t eaten for the day. Logan turned a man to stone, Roman can tranquilize people with a bite (ew), and Patton--Patton just gives him a squeeze.

“I can’t…” the Djinn says, “I can’t conjure things I don’t know the exact location of. But if there’s anything else I can do to help you, Virgil, I will.”

And for some reason the sentence makes Virgil want to cry some more. “W-what?”

His shoulders tense as Patton removes his arm and undoes his cardigan cape. In a smooth movement he plops it over Virgil’s shoulders and smiles that blinding smile of his. “I live to help people kiddo! And I’d say you need some helping right about now!”

Logan clears his throat, and leans casually, deceptively dismissively against the wall. “I, too, would like to offer my services in your aid, Virgil.” He says, “Perhaps in return you might further enlighten me on the habits of selkies. There’s barely any knowledge about your customs anywhere.”

“You don’t--”

Roman groans loudly, “Stormy Weather! Just accept it! We’re going to help you get your weird swimsuit back.”

“It’s a skin.”

“Whatever!”

Virgil frowns up at him, “why would you want to help me?”

He has the gall to look offended again. “Because I’m a nice person!” He runs a hand through his hair, sparkles dancing in the dim light around them. “Also I want my blanket back.”

Patton claps his hands, far too happy for anyone at the late hour, “Oh! It can be like a family adventure!”

“Family?” Logan repeats incredulously.

Patton motions to the four of them, “Family! Us! Inhumans have to stick together!”

“You do realize that once Virgil gets his skin back he will not be returning correct? That’s how selkies work.”

Virgil blinks surprised. Logan’s right, of course. Even if Virgil hadn’t hated this stupid world, he’d never want to come back. He misses the ocean, he misses the darkness, the coolness of the waters welcoming him home. But even knowing this, he can’t figure out why there’s a bit of guilt in his stomach when Patton’s face falls.

“Oh, well,” Patton brightens just as easily again, “Then I’ll make sure to treasure all the time we have together while we have it!” He stands up and offers Virgil a hand. “What do you say, kiddo? Let’s get your skin!”

Virgil flits between the three of them. He knows humans suck, he’s experienced his fair share of their suckiness. But beyond that he’s never...hung out with other inhumans. He doesn’t know anything about Gorgon’s gazes or incubi or djinn. He doesn’t know where they would start trying to help him, if they could even help him. His head still hurts and his limbs are sore.

But the cardigan around his shoulders means something. It’s a weight, not a perfect weight of his skin, but it's something.

He takes Patton’s hand.

For the first time in nine months he doesn’t feel completely weightless.

[taetaespeaches]

“You inspire me. Maybe I can help you inspire yourself”

The Dearest Boy (Part 4: Mind)

Taehyung x Reader (or oc)

Word count: 1.3K

The Dearest Boy Masterlist 

 a/n: I just really love how clever and deep Taehyung is while also always thinking creatively and uniquely. No one has a mind like Tae’s. This is just kind of about Tae helping you find your inner child in his own creative way. (It’s a tad bit self-serving... whoops.) I hope you babes like it! 

Moodboard by: @la-vie-en-tae

With you, everything was so put together. When you reached a certain age, you started feeling the need to be in control. Whether it was being on time, keeping the refrigerator clutter free, or color coding your closet, everything was neat and organized.

When you were a kid, you were very eccentric. You didn’t have a care in the world what anyone thought of you. You simply didn’t have time to care about what people thought of you, too busy in your own exciting world that existed in your mind.

However, with an overbearing mother who held you on a pedestal, you overtime molded into the perfect child, keeping everything within control. Then, as the world hardened you bit by bit, you just kind of lost the person you used to be.

And then you met Taehyung.

Taehyung was everything you wished you could be. He was free. Unabashedly and unapologetically himself. Creativity radiated from him.

You, on the other hand, had a difficult time shutting off the control freak. Taehyung called what you considered to be your inability to let go “composure” and “stability”, saying things like, “I admire your ability to remain composed. You give our lives stability.” However, he could tell you wanted to break out of your shell. You just didn’t know how to allow yourself the freedom to do so.

He made efforts to pull you out of your comfort zone, without making you truly uncomfortable, such as dragging you along late-night strolls, visiting the local playground, and dancing to jazz music at 3 am in your kitchen.

A long time ago, you would have found it strange that he was asking you to meet him at his art studio at 2 am, but after dating him for a while, this had become normal. When you answered the phone, you were met with a giddy, “Peaches! Come to my studio, I want your company.”

Your reply, of course, was a whiny, “Tae, it’s so late.”

“Is it? I thought it was just very early,” he teased. “You like being early,” he added with a giggle. Biting on your lip to conceal a smile, you huffed.

“Fine, I’m on my way.”

About 25 minutes later, you were kicking your shoes off and stepping inside his studio, your eyes immediately finding the messy head of blue hair positioned in front of a brightly painted canvas.

“What are you working on, Angel?” You spoke gently through your slightly scratchy voice. Tae’s head whipped around, a wide grin spread across his face, happiness meeting every one of his features.

“Come here,” Spreading his arms wide, he excitedly walked towards you, meeting you halfway as he enveloped you into a big warm hug. As soon as you wrapped your arms around his waist, he sighed in content, squeezing your frame in his arms. “Will you just hang out with me for a bit?” He asked sweetly, almost shyly.

“Of course,” you smiled, pulling away to look up at his face. The vibration of the chuckle reverberating from his vocal chords tickled your lips when you pressed them to his Adam’s apple.

Planting a kiss to your forehead, he smiled against your skin. “Make yourself comfortable,” he whispered, his breath tickling your head. As he turned around and waked back to the canvas, decorated with a charcoal drawing of an abstract face, you smiled at how cute he could be. Looking around his studio, you inspected the new pieces he had created since the last time you’d hung out with him as he worked.

There were several drawings and paintings of abstract people, as well as a couple of portrayals of sunrises and sunsets. As you admired his work, you got kind of bashful as his collection of portraits of you caught your eye. You’d seen them before, but they made your heart race every time you looked at them.

All artists have their “muse”, and Tae claimed you were his, not only making paintings and drawings of you, but also writing songs about you, dedicating his favorite music to you, and constantly capturing you in photos.

Tae had five portraits of you so far: one of you reading, one of you cooking, one of you smiling with flowers in your hair, one of your nude form illuminated in the early morning sun as it shined through your window, and one with flowers blooming out of your head and heart.

Looking through them for the hundredth time at least, suddenly, your heart skipped a beat, your eyes widening in surprise when you saw a new addition to the collection of you. A portrait of you as a kid, wearing a big baggy shirt with a picture of Bubbles the Powerpuff Girl (your favorite one, and the one that you always said resembled Taehyung), messy bed hair standing on end, and colorful mismatched socks. You were sticking your tongue out as you held your hands in V shapes over your eyes.

You knew the photo he had used as a reference, though you hadn’t seen the photo in ages. Taehyung’s arms unexpectedly wrapped around your waist in a back hug, startling you for a moment before you settled into his embrace as he placed his chin on your shoulder. Pressing his lips to your jaw in a sweet kiss, he smiled. “This is one of my favorite photos of you,” he told you as he wiggled the photo that he held in his fingers, making you look down and quickly take it from him in excitement. “I just had to draw it. I was inspired.”

A grin pulled at your lips. “Where did you even find this?” Your eyes scanned the photo fondly. It was always one of your favorite photos of you.

“I found it at your house when we visited your family a couple months ago,” he giggled. “I kind of stole it.”

Your smile spread across your face as you peered over to look at your sweet boyfriend. “How did you even recognize it as me?”

Scrunching his eyebrows, he cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a completely different person now,” you told him as if it were obvious. Taehyung immediately shook his head, negating your comment.

“You’re that same little munchkin,” he smiled fondly. “Peaches, I know you feel trapped inside your own mind sometimes. I personally admire how composed you are, but I can see that your control over yourself burdens you sometimes. But this happy and carefree little one is still inside you,” he reached up to lay his palm against your heart.

Frowning, you blinked back some tears. “How do I find them?”

“By letting go, just a little bit at a time.” Kissing your shoulder, he smiled affectionately. Nodding slowly, you cast your gaze to your feet. Lost in thought, it took you a moment before you noticed your socks. Mismatched. Putting two and two together, you realized he started mismatching your socks when he did laundry around the same time you visited your parents.

“You started mismatching my socks on purpose,” you spoke out loud, not quite a question but more of a verbal realization. A light chuckle vibrated against your shoulder as Taehyung’s boxy grin beamed up at you.

“Like I said, just a little bit at a time,” he whispered in his low timbre. Shaking your head in fond disbelief, a big stupid grin on your face, you looked back to the drawing. “You inspire me,” he said more seriously. “Maybe I can help you inspire yourself.”

Staring at the charcoal drawing, as you felt Taehyung’s words soften your heart, your eyes misted. “You know, this is one of my favorite photos of myself” you told him, making Taehyung look from the drawing to your face. “But I prefer your drawing.”

Lips forming into a stunning smile, his eyes twinkled with happiness. “Really?” He asked in surprise.

“Thank you, Taehyung.” As your sweet man squeezed you in his arms a little tighter, nuzzling his face into the side of your neck, you thought, I can see myself in these arms for life. You lost yourself years ago, but Taehyung was the person that would help you find that little kid again, so carefree and happy. He’d help you find yourself.

[julesherondalex]

Enchanted (Elriel) - Part II

Summary: Elain has always known there’s more to her feelings towards Az than just friendly affection. When Azriel and Elain are sent to Adriata on a diplomatic mission, could this finally be the chance for close friends to become even closer?

Word Count: 5821

Read on AO3 here.

Previously on Enchanted...

“Or we could scout the city – see what Adriata really has to offer for a few days.” 

Elain looked up in surprise and, what was impossible to hide, increasing excitement. “You mean like a vacation?” she asked somewhat hopefully. 

Azriel cast her a rather shy but still mischievous glance and nodded. “Like a vacation.”

Part I | Part II | Part III

Is aggressively stabbing at your food impolite? Elain wondered the next morning during breakfast. She certainly felt like stabbing her food – repeatedly at that.

She could see Cresseida’s gracefully long fingers twirl a strand of her pearl-white hair, while the female unabashedly stared at the shadowsinger perched right next to the Archeron. Azriel had just answered one of her unending questions about Velaris. The City of Starlight was well known now, which was strange even for Elain who had barely known about the city and its hiddenness herself.

However, Rhys had explicitly required they try to revive the alliance between the courts – intently staring at the stoic spymaster doing so. Elain knew that’s why Azriel was being so talkative this morning – knew how hard it was for him to openly discuss his home.

She had felt him tense during the beginnings of their conversation, but his tension had eased with time, leaving Elain to wonder whether he had taken a liking to the Princess of Adriata.

Cresseida was quite unabashed with everything she said – cunning even – and she was unapologetically flirting with the handsome Illyrian. She was a princess, Elain thought. A very attractive one at that. Elain wouldn’t be surprised if Azriel invited the female to his bed – which was undoubtedly something Cresseida would approve of.

The fork slightly bent between Elain’s fingers. Shocked at the intensity of her own jealous-ridden emotions, she let the twisted silver disappear in the creases of her sky-blue dress.

Looking up from her lap, she met Varian’s gaze, who was seated right across from her. A muscle twitched in his cheek before he reached for his drink and downed it. Elain wasn’t sure whether the male was trying to hide his grin, but she was certain her cheeks were aflame.

Do not falter, she chided herself. He’s not yours to be jealous of.

But she couldn’t help it. She found herself wishing for her own pair of wings so she could flare them in that terribly territorial way Elain had seen Cassian do countless times.

She believed Nesta secretly basked in that particular showcase of Illyrian territoriality, constantly messing with her mate to provoke that primal instinct. However, Elain had neither wings nor was Azriel her lover in any way. She had no right to claim him whatsoever.

The flower-grower was yanked out of her thoughts by Tarquin, who was seated to her left at the head of the table.

“So, Elain, how is your mate? I met Lucien during one of the peace treaty meetings; he seemed to have taken a liking to Jurian. Are they still on talking terms?” he asked her in his ever kind way of polite curiosity.

Elain felt Azriel’s attention snap to her in an instant.

Though Lucien’s name had caught her off guard – especially while she had been deep in thought concerning her feelings for another male – she straightened almost imperceptibly and looked the High Lord in the eye.

“You see, Tarquin, Lucien and I aren’t mated any longer. But he is, indeed, in the mortal realms with Jurian and Vassa. I have good reason to know he’s doing well there,” she responded without as much as hesitating.

Elain may have mourned the breaking of a bond so sacred to the Mother in the first few weeks, but she was neither ashamed of her decision nor did she regret it. And she would not take anyone’s criticism about it.

Tarquin, to his credit, seemed earnestly surprised at her admission, and slightly embarrassed all the same. He grinned sheepishly at her, scratching his brow.

“I must confess, I am not experienced in the act of collecting gossip that seems to come with the position as High Lord. Please accept my apologies.”

Elain cracked a smile at the male, remembering how truly brief his history as High Lord was.

“No need,” she assured. “Though I could arrange a meeting with Feyre and Rhys for you; I’m quite certain they’d do wonders teaching you the high art of gossiping.”

To her surprise, Varian chuckled – nodding as if to agree with her – Tarquin joining him. Even Cresseida’s attention was directed at her now, the amusement and something akin to acknowledgment clear in her eyes. Elain briefly glanced at Azriel, whose attention she could feel the heaviest – as if his eyes upon her made her skin prickle in a way that shot excitement and alertness through her veins.

Azriel glanced at her with what could only be described as a proudly fond expression, his lips having tilted up at the corners. That was as much of her beloved private smile she’d get in the presence of so many others.

What she’d said to Tarquin about her broken mating bond hadn’t required her utmost bravery to say aloud – the way Azriel looked at her, though, made her feel like she’d just won a prize.

“I know I’ve said this before, but the way you handle Tarquin … that is very impressive, El,” Azriel later told her while they made their way through the narrow streets of Adriata. Faeries were all over the city; the weather so hot, every breeze coming from the sea felt like a fresh breath of air. Elain felt sticky with sweat despite her fluttering dress.

The seer looked up at Azriel, meeting his soft hazel eyes and the honesty in them. He did look impressed, but she only shrugged in response.

“It’s nothing. I am just being friendly,” she said dismissively, curiosity making her gaze wander around the street and the people. Mostly, they were Fae but Elain had even seen groups of the braver mortals walking around and marveling.

Azriel gently pulled her sideways, out of the way of a particularly hurried-looking Fae who was striding down the street at a fast pace.

“There’s a big difference between your friendliness and mine. I couldn’t possibly have entertained a High Lord the way you did by just being friendly,” he admitted with a sheepish smile.

Elain stared right ahead when she said, “Your charm seems to have worked on Cresseida, though.” She felt his eyes on her, probably noting the sharper edge in her voice. Elain cursed herself for being so obvious. Azriel shrugged.

“I doubt it had anything to do with my … charm,” he said rather tonelessly, and now Elain couldn’t help but turn to him in disbelief. Had he any idea what kind of effect he had on others? Even now, Fae turned heads to ogle the spymaster, making Elain’s blood boil in her veins. She’d never considered herself as the jealous type. That struck her as a misconception now.

But Azriel either didn’t care or he actually didn’t notice, despite his shadows being on full display and trailing around his neck and ears – undoubtedly whispering their secrets to him.

“Back when Feyre and the others … visited Adriata, Cresseida made advances on Rhys,” he explained, lifting his shoulders in dismissal. “It’s probably the wings.”

Elain stared at him, wide eyed and dry mouthed. She couldn’t help but let her gaze flicker to said wings – the thin membrane with its veins and muscles – taking in their gloriously large extent. Her fingers itched with the need to brush upon them, and see whether the membrane felt as silky as it looked. “I can see,” she only murmured, averting her eyes from them.

When she turned to Azriel’s piercing stare again, it was surprise and something else, something darker, she was met with. But it vanished from his face as fast as it had appeared. Elain could still feel her blood boiling underneath her skin, though it definitely wasn’t jealousy this time.

It was near afternoon when Azriel and Elain decided they had seen enough of the city and headed out to the harbor and the many booths that lined the promenade leading to the docks. Elain was enthralled with the magnitude of all the small novelties; self-made jewelry, ornately painted and carved rocks, jars of homemade marmalade and pastries, anything the heart desired for, really. She dragged Azriel from booth to booth, excitedly discovering with the male by her side.

When they approached yet another jewelry booth, Elain gasped at the sheer beauty of what lay before her: dozens of bracelets, pendants, earrings – all made of sea glass in various colors.

Her eye immediately caught onto a silver bracelet with three beautifully colored, average-sized sea glass stones perched in the center of it; the silver of the armlet was in plaited fashion while the stones were held together by intricately curved silver wires – strikingly beautiful and glittering. Elain made a squeaking noise and gently touched the bracelet with the tips of her fingers. It was the most gorgeous piece of jewelry she had ever seen, and she’d seen many in the wake of the Tiny Ancient One.

“You like that one?” Azriel asked from beside her, his voice amused.

Elain turned to him, with a Mother, yes on her tongue when she was surprised by a full-on cocky grin, stopping the words of excitement from bursting out of her mouth. Encountering his smiles was rare enough, but this kind of grin? Nearly impossible to catch. Which was why Elain had difficulties breathing for a moment – clearly distracted – before noticing why the spymaster was so smug.

It took a second glance at the bracelet, and the flickering of Azriel’s cobalt Siphons in the well-lit booth for Elain to realize the sea glass had the exact same shade of blue as the wondrous gems attached to her favorite Illyrian. Oh.

Elain had automatically come to love a bracelet gemmed with cobalt blue sea glass, clearly amusing the powerful Illyrian with her obvious showcase of fondness toward him. But the Archeron hadn’t even realized that that, in fact, was the exact reason why she’d inherently admired the bracelet. Elain had instantly thought the color beautiful and immediately wanted to purchase it. Now, though, her cheeks burned pink.

The image of her failed confession of love was still too fresh on her mind for her not to be embarrassed. She hadn’t been this obvious before, so why now? Now that she knew he didn’t even remotely think there might be anything more to their connection but friendship. It had been clear in his confusion; he didn’t even expect there to be more to them than pure camaraderie. Elain winced.

Keeping her voice low, she mumbled at last, “It’s rather lovely, isn’t it?”

She could still feel the pleased grin directed at her, though Elain made a point not to look at it or she might burst into flames of mortification and longing all the same.

She knew Azriel was only teasing her – but that was exactly why she couldn’t look at him. While he was only joking, she was completely enraptured by the shadowsinger – her emotions too intense to allow her to simply laugh about her little slip of fondness toward the male.

It felt like every second of quietly loving him crowded her in this particular moment and she couldn’t breathe around all the hours and weeks and months clawing up her throat to escape and find release. It was as if her feelings were pouring out of her skin; every word and every glance she gave Azriel inherited her love for him, and she feared that seeing it was as easy as smelling the salt in the air of Adriata.

Elain had never once felt like she needed away from her Illyrian friend, but right now she could have used a few minutes of solitude. If only to master the cacophony of her emotions.

“Don’t you want to buy it?” Azriel mused, his own voice even closer than before. The seer could feel where his chest grazed her shoulder as he stood right next to her. She saw his hand enter her line of sight, the scarred fingers softly brushing the blue of the sea glass. Elain swallowed hard.

“No,” she responded, feigning casualty while she turned – and put as much distance between their bodies as she could – to examine a pair of earrings with red-glowing sea glass attached to them. “I have enough jewelry back in Velaris. I wouldn’t even know when to wear this one.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Azriel’s hand stilling and retracting from the bracelet. Her gaze flickered to the jewelry once more. Gods, it was truly beautiful, and she needed to call it her own. She’d come back later and purchase it when Azriel wasn’t there to witness her weakness for the bracelet that so clearly represented the Illyrian and his cobalt Siphons. Even if she wouldn’t wear it around him, Elain knew she’d spend hours admiring the sea glass bracelet.

Elain only gradually came to really take in the jewelry beneath her fingers, having feigned interest in it to get rid of the close proximity to the Illyrian. But those earrings with the red glass … they’d make a perfect gift for her fiery sister. They were not too small, but still subtle and intense all the same. She felt a tiny smile tugging at her lips. This would be an ideal gift for Nesta; it was just convenient her favorite color was the exact same shade of her mate’s Siphons. With a jab to the heart Elain realized that her favorite had been blue – just like Azriel’s Siphons. Only they weren’t together.

Get a grip, girl, she found herself thinking – or was that Amren’s voice inside her head?

Slightly dizzy, Elain reached for the earrings and handed them to the seller, wanting the young, beautiful Fae with glimmering pink skin and turquoise hair to wrap it up for her.

Now she needed something for Feyre, and … there: a necklace with a pure black sea glass pendant caught her eye. She could only wonder where the color had come from, but it was such an intense darkness – it almost seemed to swirl inside the gem. Perfect for the High Lady of the Night Court.

Azriel hummed when she showed him what she’d purchased from the jewelry seller and – with a last lingering look cast at the cobalt colored sea glass bracelet – Elain and Azriel made their way through the crowd on the promenade.

Though her mood had slightly dimmed, the gardener retained herself from succumbing to her sudden melancholy. Instead, she took her friend’s arm and enjoyed the buoyant clatter around them. Adriata positively brimmed with life, and it didn’t take long for Elain to be captivated by the atmosphere again; her spirits lifted.

Hours were passing by in the city, and it had become well in the evening. Elain stood by a booth of various painted rocks: the seller himself had drawn faces with startling detail on white stone, all of random people Elain had never seen before.

She had just come upon a certain painting reminding her awfully a lot of Cassian’s face adorned by a funny-looking dark mustache. She turned around in laughter to show Azriel her newest discovery, when she realized that the spymaster was nowhere to be seen.

She twisted in confusion, surveying the crowd for the tall male in a futile attempt to find him. He must have wandered off somewhere, she thought, and purchased the stone to show him later.

It took Az only a couple minutes to find the seer again. Elain saw the spymaster striding toward her with surprising relaxation – hands in the pockets of his pants and his dark tunic slightly moving in the breeze. The dark whorls of his Illyrian tattoos peeked from under the collar of the fabric, and Elain’s fingertips tingled with the need to brush upon them.

She took a moment to unabashedly stare at the male: his towering frame with the tightly tucked in wings, the fullness of his lips and his sparkling hazel eyes with the green and golden flicker. The lazy, crooked grin upon the perfectly chiseled planes of his face.

How could he not see what kind of effect he had? Especially on her?

His whole existence pulled on the strings of her soul and prickled the skin of her body in ways that heated her blood. Sometimes he would look at her in a certain way, with those piercing, predator eyes and Elain would be hit by a hot and cold wave at the same time. She would freeze under his heated gaze; waiting for him to do something, to say whatever was causing the flush on his skin. The same three words were on the tip of her tongue in those moments, dying to find release. But she would always wait for him – to pounce on her for all she cared – and she would have been ready to devote herself to every wish coming from his wicked tongue and scrutinizing eyes.

And that was the worst; Azriel would simply look at her, his sinful lips could notch up in the slightest way possible, no words could be spoken, and Elain would still feel her existence quivering.

Azriel wasn’t a male of many words, she thought, and that was somehow so much worse for her case.

Elain shook her head, trying to discard the heat of her thoughts, the blush staining her cheeks and bosom, and the thought of Azriel thinking he had no charm whatsoever. It was ridiculous.

“What?” He had approached her by now and was still sporting that lazy grin.

“Nothing,” Elain muttered, and twisted away, looking around the promenade once more.

“So,” she began after a moment of observing the docks. “Where’s that fish stand Feyre was talking about? I am dying to taste what had her so delighted.” Lifting onto her toes to peer over the heads of the Faerie crowd, Elain searched for said stand – to little luck given her fairly short frame. With a frustrated click of her tongue she gave up and let Azriel lead her through the crowd.

“You truly want to eat fish? Here? Now?” Azriel seemed amused with the flower-grower. Elain playfully narrowed her eyes at him and put the hand that wasn’t entangled in his arm to her hip.

“Is there a reason you are doubting me, shadowsinger?”

Azriel stared down at her, his eyes shining in the dim light of the promenade. “I am the least to ever doubt you, flower. In fact, only a fool would underestimate Elain Archeron from the Night Court.”

Elain’s heart skipped a beat at his words. Do not falter.

“You’re only saying that because you are my friend,” she tried to sound mocking and playful but her voice didn’t seem to be on board with her intentions. Lowering her eyes to her feet, Elain worried her lip and tried to ignore the sudden lump in her throat. She’d always doubted herself in many ways; it wouldn’t surprise her if he did, too.

Azriel cocked his head to the side, and then he was gently grasping her arm and pulling her away from the busy crowd, into a little alcove of light and shadows.

“There are not enough days in my immortal life for me to thank the Mother for being your friend, El. You are not only one of the very few seers I have ever heard of, but you have a power in you most Fae could only ever dream of. And it’s not just that; you are smart, funny, and the kindest person I know. Not to mention that whatever you touch, plant or person, it will nurture and thrive under your insistence.”

Elain’s breathing hitched when Azriel’s finger trailed a soft and short path from her temple over her cheekbone. The gold in his eyes was shining as if to compete with the light all over the shimmering promenade.

“Believe me, Elain, your friendship is a gift. There’s not an ounce of doubt in me when it comes to you. And if I weren’t your friend right now, I’d make sure to befriend you, even if it would be the last thing I could do. For I’d rather be standing right beside Elain of Night, the seer and flower-grower, the gentle heart, than anywhere else.”

Oh, holy Mother of all life and death, how did one breathe again? Because Elain definitely had forgotten how to breathe around Azriel. She stood there, completely dumbfounded, and stared at the male, not even close to processing his words – the admiration, the respect and honor in them. All for her.

He was … Azriel was so …

Azriel was chuckling nervously, and Cauldron boil her if he wasn’t furiously blushing under her stunned gaze.

“What are you saying, El? Shall we head to the infamous fish booth?” Azriel mused with his twinkling eyes.

Elain had never needed that fish sandwich more in her life.

…

It turned out there was no fish stand at the docks of Adriata but rather various sailor ships selling fried fish directly from the decks. Elain and Azriel walked along the docks, not being able to decide where to turn. Az had sent his shadows to scout the area; the thin tendrils of black smoke almost invisible to the naked eye – but Elain had always found them too alluring not to notice.

Only the best for the Lady, he had teased her with that little grin of his, making Elain want to fan herself right then and there.

Azriel’s shadows brought them to an aged-looking ship with its beautiful, pastel blue and white colored hull. The shadowsinger talked to the sailor and soon enough Elain held a delicious smelling sandwich consisting of fried fish and an even better smelling creamy sauce, lavishly poured all over the goodness.

Elain was still not over Azriel's generous words from earlier, still thinking about the light in his eyes when he had talked about her.

It was hard not to love him. If she hadn't already fallen headfirst for this kind, loving Illyrian, Elain knew she would have by now.

Her skin pickled wherever he touched her, his words lingered in the forefront of her mind.

She wanted to collect every syllable coming out of his mouth and make a list of her favorite words. If you'd let me Azriel, she thought, I'd love you the way you deserve until the day I turned to dust and shadows and even after that. Elain would love Azriel so much, her love would remain even if she was not being.

The seer watched her shadowsinger talk to the sailor, his back and wings to her, and huffed. In a desperate act of drowning her frustration in delicious fish, she – quite ungracefully – bit into the sandwich … and almost choked on it when bits of sauce squirted right onto Azriel's wings.

Elain stood there, frozen in horror, and waited for Azriel to notice that she'd just made a mess of fish sauce on his beloved wings. But the Illyrian didn't seem to have noticed it; he was still talking to the sailor with that low rumble of his voice.

Elain hastily swallowed the bite, burning her throat doing so, and inspected the spot right at the base of Azriel’s left wing – near his muscled back. From up close, there were only tiny drops of cream, apparently not enough to have alerted the Illyrian and his sensitive wings.

She couldn't just let him walk around with sauce all over him, Elain contemplated. Without thinking twice she reached out and swiped her fingers over Azriel's wings, cleaning them of the dots of sauce.

She couldn't have possibly predicted what happened next – even with her ability of foresight. A startled hiss came from Azriel, and he all but leaped away from her fingers – sending a pile of neatly folded fishnets flying over the deck in the process. Elain stood in stunned silence, her fingers still in the air and stared up at the male in shock.

Azriel twisted in a blazingly fast move, his face a mask of unfiltered horror while he tried to process what – who – had touched his wings.

Elain awkwardly turned her hand, so that he could take in the cream on her fingers. “You had sauce on your wing,” she weakly explained, already feeling the threads of utter embarrassment climbing up her neck and cheeks.

Once Azriel realized there was, in fact, no danger directed at his wings but the fingers of a certain clueless flower-grower, his face took upon a deep scarlet color – he was blushing to his ears in sheer mortification.

He mumbled something along the lines of an apology and bent to pick up the strayed fishnets, collecting them and folding them neatly into their original state – all the while Elain and the sailor stood in stunned silence, not quite knowing what to make of the situation.

Elain didn’t know whether she should be mortified over her own audacious fingers, or the fact that Azriel’s wings must have been even more sensitive to the touch than she’d initially thought. The knowledge clanged through her, leaving her body heated and her face even redder than before. Gods, she was a fool. Why had she thought it was a great idea to touch him without his consent? And he clearly had not enjoyed the stealthy touch of his petite friend. Now they were both a mess of humiliated mortification.

“I’m so sorry, Azriel. Really, so sorry,” she now apologized for what felt like the hundredth time. The flush on Azriel’s face hadn’t left him since they had bid the dumbfounded sailor goodnight and started walking toward Tarquin’s palace. Even now, in the dim light of the corridors to their rooms, she could feel his humiliation of having reacted in such a dramatic way to the simple touch of Elain’s fingertips.

“Stop, Elain. I told you, you don’t have anything to apologize for,” he quietly voiced then, hiding his eyes from her by intently staring at his fast-pacing feet. Elain had abstained from taking his arm, and Azriel hadn’t offered to lead her.

“But I didn’t mean to … the sauce … and I just tried to-,” she stammered until Azriel stopped in his tracks and embraced her upper arm with his long, magnificent fingers. The contact nearly made her jump in her skin, heat pooling in her very core.

“Look, I am embarrassed as it is. Please stop apologizing, all right?” he pleaded, looking her in the eyes for the first time since their little incident.

She could all but nod, words were failing her right now anyway.

His grip eased, though he didn’t let go of her. Elain almost fainted out of relief when she spotted that tiny twitch of his lips, and she thanked the Mother for his steadying hand on her arm when Azriel suddenly began to grin widely – just to burst into full-on self-depreciating laughter.

Elain couldn’t help herself – what had happened was so absurd and comical at the same time. She joined the Illyrian with her own giggling, until she was clutching at his arm to keep herself from actually tripping and falling into a tear-streaked, stomach-hurting mess of a female.

“I have never seen anyone jump so high into the air,” she exclaimed breathlessly, still laughing.

The blush on Azriel’s might have been from their laughing fit or the reminder of his reaction, either way he had never looked cuter with that bright boyish grin, Elain thought.

“The worst is that I didn’t even see you coming,” he mused, more calm than before now. “Normally I would have sensed someone who is about to touch my wings. That’s the very first lesson Illyrian’s are taught: to protect one’s own wings for they are our most precious possession.”

Elain smiled, still recovering from the ache in her belly from giggling too much. “You were talking to the sailor. I caught you off guard. It happens,” she shrugged.

Azriel looked at her contemplatively. “It wouldn’t have,” he added, “but there’s something about you, Elain, that makes me lower all my shields.”

Elain would have blushed at that if she hadn’t been for the past hour already.

“That doesn’t sound very good, does it?” she sheepishly asked, swiping a stray lock of honey brown hair out of her face. Azriel’s focus flickered to that strand for a moment, his mouth notching up into a half smile.

“I think it does. It means I am trusting you with my back, El. I’m trusting you enough to forget all about my observations,” Azriel said, staring down at her out of half-closed eyes. The hazel pierced through her chest right into her heart anyway.

Elain had nothing to say to that, the words lingering in the air between them. Only then did she notice they had come to a stop right at the threshold of her room. Disappointment spread through her chest; she didn’t want the night to end, much less to let go of her shadowsinger friend.

Having noticed her glance to the door, Azriel took a respectful step back, probably thinking she wanted to head to bed. Elain hastily gripped his arm before he left for his room for good. “We’re staying for a few days, right? We’re not leaving tomorrow?”

Azriel’s face lightened up. “Of course we’ll stay. As long as you wish.”

Forever then, Elain thought longingly. But as long as we’re together anywhere would suffice.

She reluctantly let go of his arm and opened the door to her room.

Before she closed it, Elain turned to look at the Illyrian, still standing where she’d left him. “Goodnight, Azriel,” she whispered.

Azriel’s face was partly hidden in the shadows, but his eyes – oh, his eyes – burned brighter than ever. Elain could tell he was as hesitant to let her go tonight as she was. How much she wished to invite him to her room – but that was not possible. He wouldn’t approve the reason why Elain desperately wanted him in her room, or at least that’s what she told herself.

And still, his face seemed to mirror her expression of longing and fondness, when he quietly murmured, “Goodnight, El.”

…

Elain threw the light blanket aside and set her feet on the cold stone, finally giving up trying to sleep that night. She had been tossing and turning, unable to shut her mind off against the onslaught of thoughts and emotions – all consisting of her Illyrian friend.

She reminded herself that they were just friends, and nothing more because the shadowsinger was still in love with the Morrigan and would likely love her until the day he ceased being.

Which is all right, Elain told herself. Mor was great, wonderful even. He probably couldn’t help himself loving her, just like Elain couldn’t help herself loving Azriel.

That was what love was about, really. It would strike you out of nowhere and keep you in its fangs until you were either in the arms of your lover or close but never close enough. It would never truly let you go; the love would remain within yourself – hidden in the shadows but desperately wanting to be dragged into sunlight.

After her failed attempt of a confession, Elain would have thought she’d rather keep her feelings hidden than have Azriel know and be bared open forever. But their time spent together in Adriata had been feeding her hope silently. How Azriel had looked at her before she’d gone to bed … that hadn’t been a friend looking at a friend. Elain found herself trying to object to her own observation, but she had seen it – in that moment before Elain closed the door, Azriel had contemplated staying just like Elain had thought about inviting him to her room. And she had been too much of a coward to just ask him.

Now she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t drown all her doubts and regrets.

Adjusting the strap of her flimsy silken nightgown Elain trotted to the open window, facing the now dark blue glittering sea and the sandy beach.

The moon hung high in the sky, gifting enough light for Elain to see the beach. It wasn’t empty as she had expected it to be. Her heart started to thump in her chest when she spotted a pair of familiar wings and dark tousled hair. Azriel. He was seated on a rock atop the shore right below her window – with no one but his own company.

Without knowing what she was doing, Elain grabbed for her thin dressing gown and exited her room. All her mind could picture was Azriel sitting by the sea; Azriel tracing her cheek with a scarred finger; Azriel looking at her with longing in his eyes.

Her heart hammered by the time her bare feet hit the sand of the beach, striding with light but quick steps, trying to reach the Illyrian. Elain had no idea what she’d say to him but they needed to talk. She needed to confess, or she’d choke on these emotions so intense that breathing had become an issue whenever Azriel was close. Even if he rejected her, maybe she’d be able to at least breathe again.

Laughter echoing from the rocks stopped her in her tracks. One of them was definitely Azriel; she’d recognize that sound anywhere. Elain could grow old and forget her own name, but she’d never forget Azriel’s joyful laughter.

And for some reason, hearing it now was like stepping under an ice cold stream of water. She had spent weeks to be the reason for that laugh; whoever had made him laugh now couldn’t have known him more than a few days. And worse, Elain knew the other husky, confident laugh. She had heard it just this morning, and she had seen the seductive, inviting glances accompanying it. Cresseida was here. With Azriel.

Elain couldn’t help herself; she took a few more steps until she could see them, perched side by side on that rock. She could hear them talking.

Cresseida was leaning into the male. And Azriel? Even from the distance Elain recognized his dazzling smile, the open expression on his face. It was like a jab to the heart.

The Azriel Elain knew wouldn’t have smiled this freely with a lady he barely knew, except … except if he was attracted to her.

The jab to her heart morphed into a punch to the gut, leaving Elain breathless and weak in the knees. She lowered her eyes to check if her knees would be able keep her on her feet. In her haste to get to Azriel, she hadn’t even bothered to change out of the flimsy nightgown – her legs being utterly naked. But it wasn’t the skin showing that bothered her. Elain felt bare and strangely naked within her soul.

The Archeron uttered a quiet prayer to the Mother when she whirled around and her legs did work. She quietly made her way up the beach – leaving the two of them behind.

***

dundundunDUN.  Click here for Part III x

***

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