#spruce is one of the many trees they can eat and like all things they shouldn’t eat only that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

agerefandom · 2 years ago

Text

It Takes A Village (Chapter 2)

Chapter One Here

Fandom: Minecraft

Characters: regressor!reader

Words: 2,150

Summary: The reader visits their favourite villager, gets some presents and affection, and makes a new friend who’s a little shy about eye contact!

Warnings: None! Contains food and brief anxiety but nothing major!

A week later

You run out of your house, recklessly jumping down the riverbank and up the other side. Your path is familiar as you sprint into the spruce forest, no hesitation in your steps. Foxes scatter and you jump over a bramble bush in your way.

You do have to stop and catch your breath halfway through, eating a snack to get your energy back up, then continuing at full speed as soon as you’re capable.

In the daylight, the village doesn’t shine through the trees, but you still know the way like the back of your hand. You burst through the treeline and onto hardpacked ground, trodden by many feet over the years.

The villagers are out and about, some of them pulling up carrots in the garden and others conversing by their doorways. All of them stop to wave as you run past, heading to your favourite house: the same one that you’d stumbled into, that terrible night. In the darkness, you’d gotten turned around and approached the village from the opposite side, but now you knew all of the paths back to your house from here. You came to visit every day, after all!

Your farmer was in their garden, wearing their straw hat and some gardening gloves as they poked new holes for wheat seeds. It took them a moment to see you coming, but they straightened up and smiled when they did.

Taking their open arms as an invitation, you crashed into them and hugged them tight.

“Look!!” you said, pulling back and holding out your newest discovery: a plump watermelon, which had been heavy to carry all the way here. The look on your farmer’s face is worth it, though: they look positively fascinated.

“Hrrm?”

“I found it in a jungle a whole day away!! There are birds and vines and it’s super pretty but really hard to walk around! And there are tons of watermelons! Do you want it?”

The farmer accepts the melon, holding it carefully in their hands as if they’re afraid to break it.

“It’s okay! I have seeds to make more in the garden.” You pull out a handful of seeds and offer them, but the farmer looks overwhelmed by the idea of holding more than one thing, so you put them away again. “I can plant them and bring you more! Do you like it?”

“Hmm!” The farmer nods and brings the melon to their garden, putting it down on the wooden border and returning, pulling a shiny emerald out of their pocket and handing it to you.

“Oh! You don’t have to!” The villager takes your hand and presses the emerald into your palm, smiling. The gemstone is big enough to fill your grip, and you curl your fingers around it. “Thank you!”

The farmer ruffles your hair fondly, and points out another villager standing up on their balcony. “Hrrm.” You don’t quite understand their language, but their body language is clear enough, and with one last grin at your favourite villager, you head off towards the indicated balcony.

“Hello!! Can I come up?” you ask the villager up there, who’s wearing an apron and a red band around their forehead.

They hop to one side, leaving the stairs open for you to climb up. When you hold out the emerald, they smile and hold out what seems to be a steaming meat pie, which smells delicious. You trade the emerald for the pie, and the villager tucks the gemstone away.

“Hmm,” they say, and wave to your farmer over your shoulder.

“Thank you,” you say politely.

“Hrm.” They turn away and resume their work, which you now see is plucking a chicken. That’s a bit much for you, so you also head in the opposite direction.

You have every intention of going to enjoy your meat pie, but on your way, the cartographer stops you. They’re a severe-looking villager, with a golden monocle over one eye: they’re holding a map and put out a hand to catch your attention.

“Hrrm.”

“Oh! Yes?”

The cartographer holds out the map, which shows your location with a nice little arrow and a big red X in one corner. They tap the X and then roll up the map and try to give it to you. You accept the gift, eyes big. A treasure map?? For you?

“Really?”

“Hrrm.” The cartographer also ruffles your hair, and gives you a small loaf of bread before wandering away.

Struggling to hold your meat pie, your map, and your new loaf of bread, you feel both overwhelmed and loved on your way out of the village. Since the day is young, you decide to follow the map: you can tell from the scale that it’s not too far away, and you won’t get lost if you can follow the landmarks back to the village.

You eat the pie as you walk, and it is just as delicious as it smelled. The bread, you tuck away for later. The map leads you into the forest, away from the village, and the trees change from spruce to oak, and then to birch.

You’re pretty sure that you’re close to the marked location, when you hear the ‘zzzzzpop’ behind you. You twist to look for the sound, and sure enough, there’s a fading patch of purple sparks about twenty feet back.

“Hello?” you call out. “Hi?”

You’ve heard this sound a few times, always accompanied by the sparks: it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. There’s a travelling trader that can make himself invisible, so it might be something like that, but the sound is so unusual.

You decide to keep walking, since the sound has never before heralded danger. Arguably, it saved you last week, when it led you towards the safety of the village at night.

Refocusing on the map, you adjust your course slightly, and end up climbing a steep hill. Luckily, there’s a lot of footholds, so you can hop and crawl up the side. Your knees and palms get dirty, and you roll over onto the flat ground on top of the hill when you reach it.

That’s when you register the fresh scent that surrounds you, and poke your head up.

You’ve reached the spot that the cartographer marked, and it’s a beautiful field of flowers. There are roses and lilacs and peonies and dandelions and tulips, an explosion of colour across the entire area. Your eyes grow wide and you scramble to your feet, overjoyed by the sight. It’s beautiful.

You wander into the field, hugging the map to your chest, careful not to step on any of the petals. When you’re a few steps in, you again hear an odd sound: like something swishing from one side of you to the other, very quickly.

You turn your head, and don’t see anything there. But where you’re sure there used to be a poppy on a little rise, there’s now a hole in the ground. Like something just took a bite out of the earth, flower and all.

As much as you don’t want to admit it, you’re getting a little scared.

“Hello? Who’s there?” You hold the map a little tighter in your hands, turning on the spot.

And there, in the shade of the trees, you see movement. The hint of a figure, and then that buzzing pop and it vanishes, leaving those shimmering purple sparks.

Thoughts battle inside you: the instinct to defend yourself, the instinct to call out, the instinct to freeze, the instinct to run.

You end up tucking the map away, and holding out both hands: both defensive and unthreatening. “Hello? Please don’t hurt me?”

Zzzzzpop

It comes from right behind you, and then there’s a light humming sound, like an electrical current made audible. From the edge of your vision, you can make out something behind you, far taller than you, with skin made of shimmering obsidian, black shining rock that shifts with that strange humming sound.

You stand still, waiting. There’s the soft sound of dirt being moved, and then the creature is gone with a pop and a burst of sparks. You finally gather the courage to look behind yourself. There’s a poppy planted by your feet, where there wasn’t one before.

“Is this for me?” you ask the empty air. “Should I take it with me?”

When no answer is forthcoming, you kneel down and inspect the flower. It’s a beautiful one, and you’re fairly certain that it was that had been planted only a few metres away, across the clearing. Why had the creature moved it? Was it a peace gesture? A threat?

You gently touch one of the petals, and hear the sound of the creature appearing behind you again.

This time, you slowly turn around. The creature is bigger than you thought, towering far above your head. You follow its body upwards, and upwards, to a long neck and then the brightest eyes, blinking down at you.

The moment you meet its gaze, the humming distorts: it winces back and then vanishes into thin air, leaving only sparks. This time, you can see it reappear in the shade of the trees, immediately hiding behind one of the trunks.

You blink, startled by the sudden movement.

“Hello?”

It pokes out from behind the tree, but vanishes behind it again once it sees that you’re looking in its direction.

Slowly, you’re starting to understand. You turn your head, so you can only see the patch of shadow that hides the creature from the corner of your vision.

Sure enough, it edges out and towards you, making an low electrical hum as it advances.

It reaches out a hand when it’s close to you, and offers you a cubic rock covered in moss. Without making eye contact, careful to keep your head down, you accept the rock. It’s heavy, but absolutely lusciously soft on the outside. You cradle it in one arm so you can pet it.

“Thank you.”

The creature stays next to you as you pet the rock, inspect it from all sides. The creature vibrates, slightly: a natural warping of the air around it, even as it stands still.

“Would you like some bread?” You tuck away the stone for later enjoyment and pull out the loaf of bread from the cartographer, splitting it in half and offering part to your new shadowy friend.

Sharp, black fingers accept the gift, but then simply hold the bread.

“It’s for eating,” you say, and bring your own half to your mouth to demonstrate. The bread is lifted upwards, and although you don’t turn to look, you hear the sounds of what might be eating, or maybe nails on a chalkboard. It makes you wince but you try not to let your new friend see.

You end up sitting in the flower clearing beside the shadowy creature for a while: when the sun starts to dip down, you get up and dust pollen off your legs.

“I’m gonna go home now! Thank you for spending the afternoon with me, and the nice flowers! I can bring you more snacks tomorrow.”

The creature also stands, unfolding itself to its true height as you look at your feet to avoid making it uncomfortable. It only seems to be repelled by eye contact, but you’re trying to be extra polite.

So it takes you a while to realize the creature is holding out an open hand.

“Um, do you want the flower?” You put one of the yellow tulips into its hand, but it just lets it lie on its palm and shows no sign of accepting it. You take back the flower and inspect the hand. “Do you want to walk me home?”

An affirmative warping buzz comes from above you.

“Oh! Thank you!” You slide your hand into the monster’s: it makes your hand feel so very small, and it’s gentle as it wraps its jagged fingers around you. You start to walk, and then suddenly everything lurches sideways or maybe inside out and suddenly you’re standing in the river, with your shoes wet and your house is just up the hill.

You feel dizzy and a little bit sick, and you stumble but the creature holding your hand catches you and keeps you upright. You’re not sure if you’re imagining the concern in its electric hum.

When you don’t regain your sense of balance, the creature lifts you up and carries you to your house. Again, its arms are surprisingly comfortable.

It’s too tall to get through your doorway, but it opens your door and delicately sets you down, keeping its hands on your shoulders until you’ve gotten your feet under you. Too tired to properly thank the creature, you pat one of its hands and stumble into your house, headed straight for the bed.

In the morning, when you wake up, there’s a circle of many-coloured flowers surrounding your house: gifts from your new friend.

The End (?)

#agere writing #agere fanfiction #sfw agere #fandom agere #minecraft agere #my writing #my stories #chapter two #minecraft

50 notes · View notes

sgt-paul · 3 years ago

Photo

PAUL MCCARTNEY photographed on his farm in Scotland by Linda McCartney ; 1970-1973.

After the Beatles thing became so depressing, Linda and I decided we’d get out of London and start living full-time on our small holding in Scotland. It was quite a difficult period because of the band’s breakup, but it allowed me to see another side of myself. First and foremost, we did everything for ourselves, and at this point it was Linda, Heather, Mary – who was still a baby – and me. If we needed something to eat, we’d go into town in the little Land Rover, come back up, and cook it. We didn’t have anyone helping us, except for one guy, the shepherd, because it was a little sheep farm. It was an experience that allowed me to be a man. If a picture needed hanging, I was your man. If something needed doing on the farm, I’d do it. If we needed a new table, I’d make it.

‘When Winter Comes’ is a series of memories of activities that had enriched me; each one makes up a nice little scene. I would fix fences, dig a drain, keep some chickens, somehow plant a vegetable garden. These are things I’d learnt. You’ve got to put a fence up or the fox will have your chickens. You’ve got to dig a drain because if the vegetable patch gets too wet, nothing will grow there. All these new experiences were feeding into the songs I was writing at the time, like ‘Heart of the Country’. I’d grown up in Liverpool and gone on the road with The Beatles around the world and then around again, and now here I was on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and it was sensational. There wasn’t a bath in this little farmhouse, but there was a big steel tub in which they’d cleaned the milking equipment, so we would just start filling this thing and about two hours later it would be ready. It wasn’t quick, but that was the joy of it. We’d get towels and just run – because the bath was in the barn next door, and it was bloody cold in the winter. We’d run in and jump in this bath, which was not easy to get into. But we were young and vigorous, and the kids were too young to know to complain. We’d jump in the big tub and have this fantastic Japanese-style bath. This was the kind of thing I’d never done, ever, in my life, and it was amazingly liberating. I got to do all the things I think a lot of young people still dream about today – the famous ‘gap year’. I sense a lot of people want that freedom, escaping the rat race.

‘I must find the time to plant some trees’. That was something else I’d actually done, though I’d planted them very badly. But we were learning these new skills, and it was fun, and now I’m a dab hand at it. I just lifted a piece of sod, stuck the roots of a little one-foot seedling underneath it and plonked the sod back down. In Scotland the weather can be harsh, and this was a hill farm, so there weren’t really many trees to speak of. On the hills where we were, the only things that could really survive were Douglas fir or Norway spruce and the like. By the time I wrote this song, around the early 1990s, those little one-foot things I’d planted in Scotland were bloody giants – thirty-foot giants.

Paul talking about ‘WHEN WINTER COMES’ in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.

#paul mccartney #mcbeardy #the beatles #linda mccartney #*m #q #lyrics: book #mother nature's son #hold me tight #💕#(some people make a big deal out of him not shaving in scotland - lads he didnt even have a bathtub)

876 notes · View notes

rose-icosahedron · 4 years ago

Text

Minecraft lore no. 2: Food

this is a guide to all the potentially edible things that exist in minecraft if you want to put game-accurate food in your minecraft-based fics.

meat

chicken, beef, rabbit, pork, and mutton are common in most player's diets, however some other meats are considered delicacies by some.

bats, parrots, horses, polar bears, pandas, llamas, wolves, and strider meats are eaten by some, but considered morally abject by others.

some claim mooshroom and hoglin meat have distinct tastes from normal beef and pork, tests have proved mostly inconclusive in this matter for mooshroom meat compared to normal beef, but there is a notable textural difference between hoglin meat and normal pork

spiders, bees, and silverfish are also quite edible if one manages to defeat one, but some find the taste, and more often the concept of consuming insects rather objectionable. cave spiders however are best avoided due to the large amount of poison stored through out their bodies, and ender mites are best avoided due to the teleportation magic found within them, eating one often produces similar results to eating chorus fruit.

some consider dragon meat a delicacy, though many could do without due to how hard it is to slay a ender dragon, in addition to avoiding the large amounts of acid and magic stored within a dragon's body.

sea food:

salmon and cod are the most common sea food, however they are not the only edible animals found within the oceans and rivers of minecraft.

puffer fish is edible with proper preparation, but it is very ill-advised to eat one without proper training in puffer fish preparation.

some people will eat tropical fish, although due to the large amount of species, it is very possible to end up fishing up something poisonous without knowing

calamari is much less risky to acquire, but is objectionable to some. the eddiblity of glow squid has yet to be tested.

while technically edible, many people have moral reservations about eating turtle and dolphin meat.

other animal products:

there are many animal products aside from meat that can be eaten.

mushroom stew, a substance acquired by milking a mooshroom provides a thin milky stew with mushroom dispersed throughout. it however is not spiced in any meaningful way and in quite bland.

milk is gotten from cows via milking, and while it has very little nutritional value can counter the effects of most magical effects as well as providing being used in cooking in many ways. it can also be used to make butter and cheese, both of which are incredibly useful in a large amount of cooking.

honey can be found in beehives and is comprised of flower nectar and bee spit. it can be harvested to serve as a sweetener in many dishes, and can be drunken if you feel like it.

chicken eggs are used in alot of cooking as a binding agent and source of protein. not recommend, but you can eat them raw. not recommended, but you could mix raw eggs and honey to create rather monstrous drink.

dragon eggs are very rare, but sometimes eaten as a delicacy. they are fairly nutritionally similar to chicken eggs.

salmon roe or salmon eggs are small orange colored salty spheres that are often eaten raw.

the mushrooms that grow on mooshrooms can be harvested via shears and are virtually indistinguishable from other mushrooms.

fruit:

apples are a sweet fruit eaten raw or cooked into desserts

melons are large fruits that grow on a vine with soft red flesh, while they are very tasty they are not recommended for cooking

pumpkins are large orange gourds. the flesh is often used in baking of many kinds, and the seeds are roasted for a nice snack.

sweet berries while they are often eaten raw, they are also great for jam, baked goods, and even wine making.

rose hips not recommended to be eaten raw, they are good for jams, ketchup, soups, and even tea.

cacao beans while they can be eaten raw, are often taken through a process of roasting, drying, and fermentation to be used for cocoa power and chocolate in many deserts and other recipes.

chorus fruit the strange fruits local to the end they are full of teleportation magic and need to be cooked to be safely eaten. they are often eaten raw, but are very dry. they are typically used in baking. they have a unique, but not particularly strong flavor.

vegetables:

potatoes are starchy tubers. they are used in alot of cooking. you know what potatoes are.

carrots are sweet root vegetables. they are eaten raw and used in cooking. you also know what carrots are.

beetroot used in stews, or pickled and eaten, cooked with, or used in salads.

leaves, petals, seeds:

kelp, not typically eaten raw, it is often dried, and used in cooking.

acorns nuts from dark oak trees, they need to be put through a blanching process to become palatable, and are often used to make acorn flour.

alium refers to a large group of plants, this includes chives, onions, and garlic.

tulips have edible petals that are eaten raw or candied

rose petals are edible, and while they can be eaten raw, are often candied or used to make rose water which is often used as flavoring in baking.

dandelions are completely edible, often used in salads.

spruce cones in the springtime when they are green they can be eaten raw or cooked and eaten whole(like a corn on the cob). during the winter the nuts can be extracted and eaten or used in cooking.

spruce tips are the fresh growth that can be found in the springtime, they can be eaten raw, dreid, canied, and used in cooking.

spruce needles are not particularly tasty, but can be eaten in a pinch, and can be used to make tea.

sunflower seeds can be eaten raw or roasted, can also be made into sunflower oil, which is very useful for cooking.

poppy seeds: while the majority of the plant is poisonous, te seeds are often used in cooking to add flavor.

fern tips: the growth tips of ferns, sometimes eaten raw, often pickled.

wheat is a basic grain typically used in baking and occasionally in stews.

fungus:

brown mushrooms are one kind of mushroom found through the overworld, can be eaten raw, also used in cooking.

red mushrooms: another kind of mushroom native to the overworld, usually used in cooking.

crimson fungus is from the nether and is very dry and fibrous, typically used in cooking if eaten at all.

crimson roots are roots put off from crimson fungus trees. when grated they have a strangely peppery taste and are used as a spice.

other:

spruce and birch inner bark are edible and used as flavoring.

some varieties of jungle tree bark is literally just cinnamon

orchids are typically poisonous, but one verifies seeds are used as a common flavoring in baking. (vanilla beans)

water is water, sea water can be boiled to make sea salt.

this has been an overview of all the potentially edible things in minecraft. (the base ingredients) have fun with your fic writing.

#minecraft #mineblr #rose's minecraft lore #mcyt #fanfic

860 notes · View notes

grubloved · 2 years ago

Text

A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the world. Every living thing (and perhaps many a dead one as well) pays heed to that call. To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh, to the pine a forecast of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow, to the coyote a promise of gleanings to come, to the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank, to the hunter a challenge of fang against bullet. Yet behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself. Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.

Those unable to decipher the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there, for it is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land. It tingles in the spine of all who hear wolves by night, or who scan their tracks by day.

Even without sight or sound of wolf, it is implicit in a hundred small events: the midnight whinny of a pack horse, the rattle of rolling rocks, the bound of a fleeing deer, the way shadows lie under the spruces. Only the ineducable tyro can fail to sense the presence or absence of wolves, or the fact that mountains have a secret opinion about them.

My own conviction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die. We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy: how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolfs job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think Like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.

We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.

Aldo Leopold, Thinking Like a Mountain

#birde bookclub #long post #aldo leopold #scraps book #we don't have to live alone!

18 notes · View notes

astriiformes · 4 years ago

Note

Hey Nate! Now that my group is playing dnd in person again, we are thinking of ways to incorporate dnd themed food into game days, because we usually play through a mealtime. As a forager and local cool ingredient expert, do you have any thoughts on non traditional foods or ingredients that can be fun to include? (i am willing to forage but i know. nothing. so maybe easy mode for those suggestions haha)

Hm! Well one of my first suggestions would have been spruce tips, since forest vibes are often good for D&D, they are very accessible and easy to safely identify even if you don't know much about plants, and you can do quite a few things with them (tea, syrups, even just eating as is). Tragically they're just out of season, though, so maybe next spring! The same goes for fiddleheads, which are only tricky in that you need to make sure you are gathering ostrich ferns specifically, but are also one of those things that look so whimsical many people are surprised to learn they're real.

Things that might be more in season right now:

Foraged mushrooms, definitely, some of which are actually pretty beginner friendly. Chanterelles seem like one that have a bit of a fantasy feel, and aren't too hard to learn how to ID safely.

As summer goes on you could also do some berry-picking, which is about as safe as foraging gets if you're gathering something distinctive like blackberries or raspberries, and while they may not be non-traditional, foraged ones are often much more flavorful (plus you get that special satisfaction that you picked them yourself -- maybe even with the friends you game with!).

Elderflower/elderberries are also somewhat entrenched as fantasy staples (thinking about the elderflower cordial that cropped up a lot in the Redwall books), and eminently foragable

Wild roses and rose hips are probably just about in season as well -- rosewater was a common ingredient in many medieval recipes, so it would be perfect for trying in D&D-inspired dishes as well!

Juniper "berries" are a little more of a toss-up, but something you might consider. They've traditionally been used as a cooking spice of sorts and are another one that feels right to me for some fantasy foods

Lastly, if you're interested in making some teas to drink while you play, I have found that ground ivy (also known as "Creeping Charlie," which is what most folks I know have called it) makes for a very forest-y brew. I don't like it as much on its own, but paired with mint or spruce flavors it starts to taste like the closest thing I've ever had to an Entdraught

Also, as the year goes on and we creep into fall/winter: Acorns take a fair bit of prep on the cooking end, but are obviously very beginner friendly in terms of IDing them, feel extremely fantasy, and have a fantastic flavor. My acorn birthday cake last year had almost a gingerbread-y flavor, entirely thanks to the nuts! You also find black walnuts by the dozens here in Minnesota (and nuts are one of the things that are almost always fair game to take in the public lands that allow foraging here). Black trumpets are also very distinctive, beginner friendly muchrooms that grow later in the season here, and make a fun, deep black broth with a sort of magic/witchy feel. And in fall and into the winter, I highly recommend looking for chaga -- it's a weird mushroom that grows on birch trees that is often ground up and prepped as a tea or a cocoa additive (and thus the most Caduceus Clay thing in existence).

Lastly, you also might consider having a look at The Wondersmith's blog! She's a favorite source of mine for fun foraged recipe inspiration, and leans extremely fantasy-oriented. Worth noting that she's in the PNW, not the Midwest, but there's still a fair bit of crossover when it comes to some of the foraged ingredients she uses, and her ideas are all inspired. I highly recommend scrolling through her blog sometime.

#this was an extremely fun ask to answer; thank you for thinking of me for this!#and best of luck with both your foraging/feasting and dungeons & dragons #wild edibles

80 notes · View notes

onceuponawildflower · 3 years ago

Note

Hiiii question about growing veggies & stuff. Can you do it in pots or is it better in a proper garden bed in the ground? And what do you rec for someone who dies t really know much about it? I don’t do house plants — like I’m new to the whole thing basically

There are actually a lot of options for smaller spaces, and depending on the soil chemistry, it can be better to grow things out of the ground and in pots or raised beds, so don't let lack of square footage dissuade you from growing food if you want to give it a try!

I would recommend something easy to start off with. Try determinate tomatoes (this is important, because indeterminate ones will grow like vines and keep on growing larger and larger, whereas determinate tomatoes will stop growing bigger once they reach a small bush size, and produce fruiting bodies from that -- aka, you want compact bushes for pots). To make your search easier, check out these varieties. I get 90% of my seeds from Baker Creek because they offer heirloom varieties and you can grow a lot of beautiful and delicious varieties they for sure won't sell in grocery stores (and they're always way more tasty than store-bought too!) You can also try for peppers. In general, peppers will grow in bushes and not vine out. The opportunities are endless here, sweet, spicy, sometimes a mix, there are so many beautiful and wonderful peppers out there. See what I mean here.

Greens are another good option. Actually most greens you eat are grown hydroponically or aquaponically (aka inside). They don't need much, and growing them inside will actually protect them from a lot of the buggers that like to feast on them outside. Here's a guide on how to grow lettuce inside. You can also grow things like spinach and arugula just like lettuce.

On that note, if you want sprouts of any kind, these can be easily grown with just a mason jar, lid, and a cheese cloth. What's better than sprouts in a salad or a sandwich in spring or summer? I do not know (other than your own homegrown lettuce and tomato, of course!) The Spruce has a great resource for growing them.

Fruits are pretty hard to grow in containers, from experience, and they are usually more picky on what they need to grow properly. They also need a lot of space to grow, and usually come from trees, crawlers (ground covers that keep expanding and rooting), big bushes (that are often thorny), or wonderous vining behemoths. I would dissuade you from trying to grow these in confined spaces, unless you have some sort of hydroponic system set up (but those can be expensive and not always beginner-level).

I'd say start here and see what you think of it! I've been growing food/working on farms/creating my own test garden spaces and scenarios for about 10 years now and I'm still learning. That's the great thing about growing your own food, there's always more to learn and explore. It's also such a proud moment when something you took care creates something you can consume and enjoy; the plant then takes care of you.

I know this was a lot, but if you have any other questions or you want to know more details about planting or caring for your plants, send me a message! I could talk about plants and food all day long.

Happy gardening!

#personal #ask me #gardening advice #gardening #indoor gardening #gardening for beginners #heirloom seeds #baker creek

13 notes · View notes

imagine-lcorp · 4 years ago

Text

Between Two Lungs (One Shot)

A/N: Hello dears, so here it is the infamous fic I’ve been writing. I really hope this fullfils my dream of crushing your hearts once again and that you have a fun time agonizing over this final choice. Because yes, I’ve made this a multiending fic...As always, remember to tell me what you think, is it something you want me to keep doing for other fics? Also, how did you feel after this? pls let me know. Also i made this PLAYLIST if you want to add some feeling to this while reading... Enjoy!

Lena Luthor x R/Hanahaki AU//Word Count: 3,464

-------------------------------------------------

It is possible to die of a broken heart.

You look it up somewhere in the internet. It's similar to a heart attack, caused by a very strong and emotionally stressful event. The death of a loved one, a breakup, a betrayal. It's treatable and rarely fatal. Following the recommendations of your doctor, you can make a full recovery within weeks. Still, it is possible to die of it.

You don't have a broken heart. You wish you had one. Because love, the one only you feel, is growing inside of you and it is much worse than that.

Thankfully, compared to others your condition it's not as painful as it could be.

You have heard about people with roses inside them, how their thorns puncture their pharynges with every breath they take. Others don't get flowers. They get apple or cherry trees with their fruits pouring juice inside their lungs and out of their mouths. Some others have pines and spruces, with cones constricting their organs and rib-cages until they bones break.

So you look at the small white petal that lays in your hand and think that, in your case, it is something almost magnanimous.

Plumerias have no thorns and, even though some can be a bit thick, their branches are soft enough to bend around your heart and lungs without much trouble. Their petals, small and delicate, rise easily up your throat without lacerating it in a coughing fit.

Maybe, you want to think in a very optimist way, if you can keep that love from growing further, you won't have to suffer through it.

Maybe.

So you prescribe for your own heart solitude and abstinence.

The first one is the easiest.

You tell your friends you are sick and need some time to recover. Most of them get worried as they don't know yet what illness has fallen upon you in these troublesome times.

"You know, If you wanted, I could get you a full medical examination." Alex offers with a raised eyebrow, giving you the look of the always concerned big sister.

"Thanks, but it's alright." You assure them with a smile. "I was thinking about spending some time at home anyway."

After a lot of questions you manage to dodge in the end, they decide there's no reason to doubt your intentions. So they leave you to your own devices.

Homemade remedies, or herbicides depending on who you ask, seem to help as you spend your days at home. Drinking some salt water with lemon in the morning, or a couple of vinegar tablespoons in a cup of tea before going to bed. They don't taste that bad once you get used to the flavor and these help you ease the new bitterness that you taste in the back of your throat.

The second is a bit harder.

You have to stop yourself from dreaming her, thinking her, missing her.

She has texted you a few times already, wanting to know how you're doing and offering her help if you don't feel like you're doing okay on your own. You handle it as best as you can. You text back, consistently enough and with measured time and words, so you don't raise any red flags. When you don't seem to answer she calls, but just thinking about hearing her voice makes your chest hurt a little.

You never answer. She doesn't try to call again. You spit your first handful of flowers after that.

It's all fine, you lie to yourself, at least until the pain reaches your insides and white petals come out of you mouth dappled in red.

"You need to tell her." Kara says softly as she pats your back after another coughing fit.

You cover your mouth with your hand, making sure there are no signs of blood or petals as you tight it into a fist. "Tell who what?"

"Tell Lena about the flowers." She sighs when she fells you freeze under her touch. "Sorry. Alex told me if I could get a clear shot at your lungs maybe we could figure out how to help. I didn't expect it to be... well, flowers."

It shouldn't come as a surprise to you but you are still amazed at how easy it is to forget Kara has x-ray vision when she's not wearing her suit. With or without it, she's still the same caring and protective person you have always known. It also explains why she has been so adamant about having lunch together, at least once a week, after your failed attempt at convincing her you were doing well after a month alone. You couldn't expect less from your best friend, you remind yourself as you catch your breath.

"How do you know it's her?" The taste is bitter as you swallow the rest of blood and petals in your mouth.

"It's plumerias, isn't it?" She rubs your back again as you regain you posture. "They are her favorites."

There are a couple of red tainted petals in your palm when you open your hand. "Yeah, they are."

Kara looks at you and you see something in her you don't think you have ever seen before in the Girl of Steel. But you recognize it, because you feel the same way. Hopeless. Helpless. Powerless.

"(Y/N)." She says like she's already grieving. "It's spreading fast."

The easiest way to get ride of the disease is by removing its seed from your heart, the doctor says. No more than an hour in the operating room and your respiratory system would be as good as new. Common symptoms after the surgery can include aches between your shoulder blades, ribs, back of the neck or chest, weakness and hoarseness in your voice, and, in general, some memory loss and the inability to experiment intense or deep affection towards another person. Most of these stop shortly after you recover, except for the last one.

More experimental methods have been developed with the help of biotherapy. Experts in Japan are said to have reduced the spread of the flowers with other plants like kudzu or barberry, while someone in Europe has been using thrips to eat the plant and control its growth. It's like using maggots to eat your wounds, the doctor explains more enthusiastic than you feel.

You could, of course, try the simplest of things and confess your love.

It only takes to be loved in return for you to heal before any permanent damage is done. The seed that grows in your heart will almost instantly wither, the cough will purge the last of the flowers out of your lungs, and your recovery will last only a couple of weeks. You will breathe again.

But, if your love goes unrequited, you'll reach your fatal end in a matter of days. Doctors will give you a double dose of morphine or induce a coma trying to ease your pain. Flowers, fruits and cones bloom, branches and thorns grow. You convulse and gasp until your last breath when the biggest flowers come out of your mouth. All until your thorax is transformed, beautifully and violently, into a garden of flesh and blood.

Anyone who has seen it happen will tell you, how shocking it is to witness such a thing.

Whatever the case, this only serves to confirm what you already know. You can't be optimistic anymore.

You're dying and you will die, soon with flowers in your lungs or after many years with a loveless heart. Because this life and death of yours, you think, cannot be, shall not be, decided by a coin in the air.

And yet.

"It's flowers...in my lungs." You can almost tell which direction the flower stalks take inside your chest as the words form in your mouth.

"Oh." Lena says as she starts to fidget with her hands.

The anger, that had been growing inside her after weeks of vague replies and evasions, vanishes in her eyes the moment she understands what you're going through.

"Have you...talked to the other person?"

"No, not really. Not yet." You try not to lose your composure as you feel the flowers threatening to rise up your throat.

"Will you?" She asks.

You take a deep breath, feeling the gravity pull your already heavy heart down. "It's plumerias."

"Plumerias?" You can see the moment it dawns on Lena, and the look she gives you makes you wish again you could die of a broken heart instead.

"Miss Luthor, I'm sorry but the board meeting will start shortly."

Jess opens the door a second later and it gives you time to look at the other side and place your hand in your chest. As if that could possibly stop your heart and lungs from collapsing.

"Thank you, Jess. I'll be there." Lena dismisses her with a nod and looks again at you.

She doesn't say anything else and you feel a coughing fit building in your lungs. Stronger than you have ever felt it.

"(Y/N)!" She leaves her chair, running towards you.

You cover your mouth as your chest feels like a boxer is using it as a punching bag. I doesn't feel like it will end quick and when it finally does the only thing that remains is pain.

You thank the chair that holds you in place as you catch your breath.

"I'm fine. It's fine." You don't want her to see it, but she manages to catch a glimpse of the bloody petals that cover your palm once you recover.

"No, it's not, (Y/N). You're dying and I-"

"It's not your fault." You cut her off, shaking your head and taking a little napkin from you pocket to clean yourself as best as you can.

The death, the break, the betrayal. You feel it all as worry and pity finally merge in her eyes. There's also guilt when she looks at you. It is there along with everything else she doesn't feel for you. So you don't want an apology, especially not from her, especially not like this.

"You're my friend and I just- I wanted you to know. I got my surgery already programmed."

"Surgery?" You watch her draw back a bit in surprise.

"I'll be fine." You lie again.

"(Y/N), I-"

"Miss Luthor, the board-"

"I know!" Lena snaps and, when she realizes the magnitude of her reaction, she retracts, taking a deep breath for herself before answering. "Sorry, yes. Do you think you could hold it for a minute?"

"You should go." You say with a small voice before any of them can say more. "The meeting, sounds important."

"(Y/N)..." The way she pronounces your name makes you want to be over with this already. You just can't stand it anymore.

"We'll talk later." You say. "We got time."

She wants to argue, you know, but you won't, can't, do it. Still, you pull a little smile for her.

"We'll talk later." She replies with a nod.

There will be time for another conversation. There will be time. There will be time. There will be time. You repeat it like a mantra to help you carry yourself out of her office.

Everything else after that passes like a blur.

You know you reach the front door of the building, with the voice of the receptionist behind your back offering to call for help. You stumble on the sidewalk trying to hold onto light poles and signposts to keep yourself from falling. You clutch your hand in your chest as the pain reaches its peak. Flowers come pouring out of your mouth and you gasp for air as you finally fall.

You're delirious by the time you land on the hospital bed.

Many faces come and go then, doctors, nurses, friends, ghosts, both the living and the death. The only constants are your dying gasps and the painful beating of your heart until the morphine does its work. It helps you see, with certain clarity the only face that can make a difference.

"You listen to me, alright? I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier." You open your heavy lids at the sound of her voice, and you see those emerald eyes for what could be the last time. "I love you, (Y/N), please, I love you."

You hear her words, or you don't, or it is simply to late to care anymore. The coin is in the air and there's no more time.

***

☞ You let yourself drift into darkness as the plumerias are pulled to a better light. The garden is gone and what is left behind is only an empty carcass. You cannot stand the emptiness and your heart does what it should have done from the beginning. It breaks and breaks and breaks...

***

☞ Your mind tries to grasp her words but you find your heart too weak to keep a hold of them. So you let them pass through like a shadow. No need for them anymore as the anesthesia and the scalpel give you a break from all this suffering. There will be no flowers and it is, truly, not as bad as it could be...

***

☞ Her words suddenly hit you in their full meaning and your mind does its best to keep and save them into your heart. Even through branches and petals, it has the effect of an echo chamber, repeating those words like a healing prayer. I love you. I love you. I love you...

#Between Two Lungs #One shot #lena luthor #lena luthor x reader #lena luthor imagine #lena luthor imagines #lena luthor x you #lena x reader #lena x you

196 notes · View notes

queenmuzz · 4 years ago

Text

Happy Mother's Day

I'm terribly sorry, this is supposed to be a happy day between mothers and their children, but you know how I am... Note: Set Between DMC4 and DMC5

Nero’s legs wobbled with numbness as he cautiously got off the bike, making sure that the motorcycle wouldn’t tip. He really didn’t want to bring it back to Lady with a ding in it. But when she had offered it to him to borrow, he couldn’t resist taking it for a spin. The vehicle was a beaut, lovingly taken care of, and...very, VERY fast. How that waif of a woman was able to hold on for dear life, he had no idea.

After he had steadied himself, he looked at his destination and frowned, looked down at the paper in his hand, and looked back up. The address was a match, but this place, right smack in the middle of downtown Redgrave, looked like a dump. A decrepit skeleton of what had once been a magnificent manor that looked abandoned for decades. Even though it looked like a prime location for a demon hang out, Lady had insisted that Dante wasn’t on a job. Nero had gotten the feeling she really wanted him to find the elder demon hunter.

Confused, and more than a little curious, he passed through the broken down wrought iron gate towards the house.

The overgrowth was tall and suffocating, but Nero noticed, just before what had been the entrance, a new path going to the left had been created, freshly trampled grass going around the corner. Nero didn’t see any other sign of disturbance, so this is probably where Dante had gone. So, he trudged along, wondering why of all places the man would have come here.

He pulled around the corner, and instantly came to a stop. Unlike the rest of the property, this area here had been recently maintained, the grass recently shorn (Nero had a sneaking suspicion it was Rebellion’s doing) A large oak tree, with bright green newborn leaves, cast a lovely dappled shadow upon the ground. And beneath the aged trunk was Dante, his back to Nero, facing a pair of granite stones. It took a few moments for Nero to realize...not stones… gravestones.

“Lady,” Dante didn’t turn around, “I told you that I didn’t need you here. I’m fine…” Nero caught the scent of flowers, specifically roses fluttering in the breeze. The young man awkwardly coughed, startling the man in red.

“Sheesh!” Dante rapidly turned around, revealing that the scent came from a bouquet of red roses in his hand. Well, nearly all red. In the middle of the bundle, was a single blue rose. “Didn’t expect to see you here kid! Heard Lady’s bike rumbling down the street, so I thought she was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.” “Yeah,” Nero said, scratching the bridge of his nose. Had Lady used him as a tool to get to Dante? “You weren’t in the office when I came by, but Lady let me use her bike, and gave me directions to...this place.” He didn’t know the significance of this area, but it was probably very important to Dante.

“Did she eh...?” he murmured, slightly annoyed, slightly resigned for some reason.

“Yeah, Kyrie told me I needed to get out of Fortuna, to take a break from rebuilding Fortuna. And the only place on the Mainland that I knew about, was your place.” That was partially the truth. Nero had also wanted to ask if Dante would be interested in a business idea that Nero had come up with: A mobile franchise using the Devil May Cry name, centered in Fortuna, but he had the feeling that this was not the time nor place to bring up business matters.

Dante chuckled, and looked down at the roses he was holding. “I guess Lady didn’t tell you why I was here.”

“Nah, and I didn’t ask.”

“Welp,” Dante rolled his shoulders, the joints popping. “Might as well get this over with. You know what day today is?”

Nero was perplexed. It was just another Sunday in May. He shrugged.

“Ah, maybe they don’t do it in Fortuna. Here, today is Mother’s Day. Where kids and adults spend time with, and thank the women that raised them, and well… I’m visiting my mom.”

Nero felt the pieces of the puzzle falling in the place. Fortuna’s version of Mother’s Day was during the autumn, and Nero hadn’t really cared much about it, considering his background. But to Dante, the day was more significant.

Suddenly, he felt the yank on his sleeve, and before he knew it, Dante had dragged him towards one of the gravestones, the one that was older, and slightly more worn. It was simple, no words on it, but there was flowering climbing roses carved along the edges. The one stone beside it was similar, but newer, and there were no roses, just intertwined climbing thorny stems.

“Hey Mom, I’d like to introduce you to that kid I was telling you about. This,” he pushed the boy further in front of the stone proudly, “is Nero.” He stood there, partly awkward and partly proud at the thought Dante had talked to his mom about him. Dante hadn’t mentioned his mom much, but Trish had helpfully filled in the blanks when Nero had asked why Dante had a pic of her on his desk.

“Oh, that’s not me...that’s Eva, Dante’s mother. It’s complicated, but I was created by Mundus to look like her, to lure him into a trap many years ago. She was very important to him, and while I don’t quite understand it, I know that she loved him dearly she loved the bot-”

She’d been interrupted by Dante coming in the office, and Nero hadn’t pried further.

Nero tried to come up with some words “Uh...hi.. It’s nice to meet you.” God he sounded like an idiot.

Thankfully, Dante swooped back in. “She was a wonderful woman. You’d think she was soft and demure, but the moment you pissed her off, she was as hard as steel. I can still feel her pulling on my ear when she caught me sneaking into the cookie jar before supper.” He chuckled and winced as he rubbed his earlobe, “A fantastic cook, a wonderful violinist and… an irreplaceable mom.” Dante’s voice trailed off, and for a moment all that could be heard was the rustling of the wind through the grass. Strange, despite never meeting her, with no connection to this family, Nero had a feeling he...belonged here.

“She would have adored you…” Dante murmured softly, startling Nero. He turned to find the older man with a wistful, almost melancholy look on his face.

“Huh?”

Instantly, that softness, that rare glimpse of something seldom seen, was locked up behind a steel grin. Dante laughed. “It’s nothin, just me talking without thinking. So, what about you? You’re on the Mainland now, best time to talk about your mom.” Dante must have seen his sudden scowl, and placed his hands up in surrender, realizing this was a sore spot. “Doesn’t have to be your blood mom. Can be any woman that helped you grow up!”

“Well,” Nero mused, “There was Cecilia, Kyrie’s mom,” he explained, “she was a heck of a woman. When Kyrie brought me home after I’d gotten into a scrap with the other kids at school, when they took my lunch, after she made sure I was okay, she gave me a ham and cheese sandwich on two pieces of fresh bread. She was a baker by trade, you see. And every day after that, when school was day, Kyrie would bring me to her, and Cecilia wouldn’t let leave until I couldn’t eat another bite. She was always looking out for me afterwards. Making sure I got my school work done, mended my clothes, and then when the Orphanage didn’t have clothes my size, she got Credo to get me measured up so she could get me several sets of clothes. But most of all…” he continued, trying to figure out why his eyes were getting all watery. Must be from the newly cut grass. “Unlike the rest of the island, she never judged me, never made me feel like I didn’t belong. I…” he took a deep breath, “I would have been proud to be called her son-in-law. But she never got the chance to see Kyrie and me grow up, to become a couple… Maybe if I had been there when the demon attack...” he trailed off, feeling a bit lost and alone. He couldn’t feel the same pain as Kyrie or Credo had, but there was pain nonetheless. He was surprised by a firm hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see the older man giving a smile of sympathy.

“I kinda feel where you’re coming from. My mom, she died in an attack too…she died protecting me from demons.” That smile vanished as Dante looked down at the gravestone...not this mother’s, the one beside it. “Our positions should have been switched” he murmured softly, grief on his face, “things would have been so much different, so much better...” Nero was perplexed. Was Dante wishing he had died so his mom had lived?

“Well, if she’s even half the mom you claim her to be, she’d probably be happy that you’re alive, strong enough to protect yourself, and others….” Nero tried to say what he was feeling, and it seemed to be what came from his heart. It seemed to do the trick, because Dante had perked up, and that mask of a grin was nowhere to be seen.

“You’re a good kid, Nero.” Dante said, and rubbed Nero’s head, laughing at the halfhearted scowl that earned. Dante looked up at the sky, the noon sun shining happily down. “Welp, I’m famished.... How bout we get our asses- I mean butts, sorry mom, back to the office and order some pizza. I’m pretty sure Lady owes me a couple boxes of them, for what she’s done…” Dante glared at her bike, barely visible from their location. Nero didn’t quite understand, but he’d never turn down free food.

“You go ahead, bring that bike back to her, tell her I’ll be there a bit later, just have to do a…” Dante looked down at the pair of graves. “A few more things to spruce up the place.”

Nero nodded. Obviously, Dante deserved some privacy, this was his mother’s resting place, so he turned to leave, his stomach already growling at the thought of pizza. He slightly worried he was turning out like the old man. Next thing he knew, he’d be having questionable tastes in fashion, and have a penchant for shooting old men in the head without explaining beforehand that the guy was trying to take over the world. Strange, he thought as he got on the bike, and looked back at the manor. It didn’t look as decrepit and creepy as before. Instead of a carcass of a house, it was a dignified memorial of happy times long since gone. A place that seemed to welcome him to return as often as he’d like. As he drove off, he remembered that he’d forgotten, in all the emotional unloading, to ask about the other gravestone….

------

When the sound of Lady’s engine had finally faded away, Dante let out a breath that he’d been holding in for longer than he thought. Damn Lady, trying to get him to break down and tell the kid the truth. Well, there had been a few close calls, a few words slipped out, but that façade had been maintained, with the kid none the wiser.

He looked down at the bouquet in his hands, and then at the grave before him. “He’s a great kid, like I said.” He sighed, “I know you’re probably disappointed at me for not being truthful, you were always a big stickler for ‘Honesty’ but…” he pulled out the single blue rose out of the bouquet, and spun it between his fingers. “Bad stuff happens to us Spardas. You, me…” he placed that blue rose before the newer gravestone, “Vergil.... I just don’t want that to happen to him. The less he knows...the better. He deserves the stability that we never got...” He placed the roses down, and knelt down, eye level to the grave.

“I hope, wherever you are, that you’re at peace, and that he’s with you, so you can tell him what I never could, that he was loved just as much as you loved me….” His forehead touched the cool stone, and a few drops of water splashed onto the crimson blooms.

“Happy Mother’s Day”

#Devil May Cry #Dante #Nero #Angst #my writing

59 notes · View notes

westmoor · 4 years ago

Text

the ocean still roars

↞ ↞ | main post | ao3

(2.5k // tw: blood and violence)

When Jaskier left him on that mountain, something had shifted.

Geralt had found excuses for it at first. Told himself it was the sound or lack thereof; songs unsung, no lute strings plucked, no stories told or tangents pursued with details growing grander with each telling. That it was just the lingering smell fading over time, the perfumed oils and musk underneath, the trailing scent of herbs or flowers stooped for and picked on their way. Of dandelions in spring and apples in autumn, of wild berries and clovers at the height of summer.

But Jaskier had left before, too. Taken his voice and his scent and his lute with him, and it was not the same.

Something in the air had changed, its taste or its weight in his lungs. Colours looked strange to his eyes, like someone had changed their hue and no one else could tell. It was as though the world had tilted slightly on its axis, without proof or reason as to why.

Geralt found meaningful excuses for what he could and pinned his heart as the cause of the rest.

He still does.

But too much has happened since, too many solemn notes making his medallion tremble with the beat of the other’s heart to only blame his own.

There is a memory of lights in the forest and a woman in green, the taste of blood in his mouth and gentle hands turning his face to the sky, slipping from the grasp of his mind like fevered dreams.

At the bottom of his saddlebag, wrapped in cloth, is a broken silver bell.

He had hoped that the flicker of emotion that crossed the other man's face had been a sign that perhaps it could be fixed - that he’d be allowed near enough to start to chip away the wedge he had driven between them. That maybe, just maybe, his friend would walk back into his life and he’d be afforded a chance to make things right.

Most of that hope had gone down the storm drains by the time he made it back to Hagge.

Ever since waking up in his half-made camp beyond the forest's edge, head fuzzy and the taste of foreign magic on his tongue, news of his former travelling companion had dwindled. Jaskier hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been anywhere. No note or song, not even a rumour, not for weeks.

It seems that now, for the first time since the day a fresh-faced youth approached him in a tavern in a valley of flowers, the position in his life occupied by Jaskier the bard is truly vacant.

And still, he can’t give up.

He doesn’t know what Jaskier is, exactly, nor where, but he knows now there are places to look. In caverns and hollows where they first crawled into legend, glades and groves where their roots have grown deep with power and patience. Nooks and crannies where, with luck and circumstance, one can slip from this world into the one below.

He also knows that for whatever purpose, if they wish to find him, they will.

There are questions.

He doesn’t give a damn about the answers.

When it comes, it comes in the form of a guardsman with a debt to pay.

Odd things afoot, the man claims. A diseased harvest, unseasonably sour weather. Livestock acting strange and wildlife even stranger. And an overheard conversation in the next town over - word of a band of lawless men having captured the White Wolf’s companion.

If true, Geralt doubts they know what they have captured. In fairness, neither does he, but he knows this: They have his bard.

Geralt takes the bait.

No veiled pretense. No loosened horseshoes or impish little children, no stolen potions or fox tracks in the dirt.

He rides north toward the town in question, a hamlet nestled at the mouth of a river valley, along a road flanked by firs. The trees near the road are willowy and young, felled in rotation to keep the villages with firewood and kindling. But above, further up the slope of the mountain, they tower tall and dark against the afternoon sky.

His medallion stirs before they even leave the road.

He brings Roach as far as he deems safe, until the forest grows too dense to pass through with ease. Too far in and she’ll be more a hindrance than a help. He leaves her at the edge of a deertrodden glade, where the canopy opens enough to retain the light for a few more hours.

It’s a bit of a hike - needles of spruce and dead branches crunching underfoot, nothing to hear but the rustle of wind and birdsong, present but frantic in a way that sets his teeth on edge, as though they too can feel the thrum of foreboding reining him in - but eventually the trunks space out and give way to what seems to once have been a wide trail.

Years must’ve gone by since the last wagon passed this way, overtaken as it is by bushes and undergrowth. Life claws its way out of the grasp of barren darkness, to stretch its shrubs and saplings towards the sun.

There are no tracks but the ones behind him. He didn’t expect there to be.

It had been an outpost once, perched at a height to overlook wide open fields to the east and narrow passes to the north, sheltered from the west by the steep rise of the mountain proper.

Now it’s a derelict ruin, crumbling timber roof cast in shadow by the jagged rock face above. What had been a tidied yard for corralled horses and the loading of carts shrivels by the season as the forest eats its way closer, devouring fertile ground and reaching with many-fingered hands to a weathered tower hunched against the rock from which it once was built.

Standing in front of it, Geralt weighs his options.

It’s too quiet, too still, as though he stands at the shrine of a god he can’t name. Despite the open air and sinking sun, it feels enclosed. Walled in by trees as tall as city gates - their spiny crowns like battlements - the acrid scent of junipers is even thicker than it ought to be; the sound of the woods too uniform and dull.

On one hand, he has no hint, no proof, no true sign at all that the ramshackle structure hides what he seeks. On the other -

The hinges have rusted nearly solid, the frame warped by age and moisture, and he has to put the full force of his weight on it to shoulder it open.

His body blocks the light and when his eyes adjust, he is faced with a rough wall and a narrow walkway, moss creeping along the cracks between hewn stone. The air inside is as cold and damp as an earth cellar, except for the sour coniferous tinge prickling like needles at the back of his throat and burning his sinuses.

He rounds a corner and faces another door - this one slightly agape, tilting at a steep angle from its fastenings. Prying it open and sidling through, he scans another, longer hall, this one winding inwards to the mountain. It slams shut behind him and the world plunges into darkness.

And then it's blinding.

And then the scream.

Guttural and wild like a dying beast. Geralt is knocked back by the force of it, bile rising in his throat.

People never scream like that. In terror or pain, he never heard a human make a sound like that.

His heart knows the sound when his mind doesn’t.

There is a boy in a tavern and a man on a mountain and a creature in a clearing, and Jaskier was never human.

It rises and ricochets too loud in too small a space. Notes bend until they break, echoing and doubling back until he fears his skull might split.

Flashes of light and dark beating at his vision like frenzied wings, too quick to catch and too fast to adjust to. His eyes are burning with it and he screws them shut. Ears still ringing and he can’t see, can’t hear. He needs to get out, but he needs to find Jaskier.

Something scrapes against his shoulder like talons or teeth and he spins around, a lunge for his ankle nearly has him off his feet. When the walls prove too close for swords he pulls his hunting knife instead.

Fighting deaf and blind and hampered by the pounding in his head, there is still a weapon in his hand. He digs his heels in. Roots himself.

He finds his rhythm soon enough. The practiced ease of combat gives respite from his battered senses as he learns the pattern of his adversary.

There are noises around him, differing like voices, but melding together to a single mass of sound.

A shift in the order and a change of pace, his space is empty and he thinks his opponent has retreated - then a cry like a call of a name, and he adapts without thought. Rushing air and the warmt of a body provides direction; near-hits become deflections.

With a twist and a turn his blade hits home, sinking into solid flesh and grating against bone.

If life could give me one blessing -

Blood wells hot between his fingers and the feel of it, smell of it, is so close and so familiar -

Horror turns his gut.

- it would be to take you off my hands.

He can hardly hear himself shouting. Jaskier slumps against him.

Panic consumes the moment and the next, and he is staggering out into the fading light of day.

Jaskier's knees fold in the grass and Geralt follows him down, grappling at his shoulders, his clothes, anything to keep him righted and assess the damage he has done.

It’s a decent hit. Certain. Deep enough to stay embedded between his ribs. Had it been a contract -

He knows he’s talking, feels his mouth curl around Jaskier’s name, swearing, curses, promises he can’t keep - and all he can see is red, and tawny brown, and blue.

Jaskier is staring, silenced for once by shock and the fear rolling off him in waves. But when he is stopped from grabbing at the hilt of the knife to pull at it, he grasps for Geralt like a plea. Like he can save him, in spite of it all.

It can’t be real. He should wake in his camp, clouded and drained and relieved.

Pale silk drenches red, slow and steady, like ripples in a pond.

That fire in his eyes, lighting them like moonlight reflecting in a clear tarn, is burning white-hot, burning out. There’s no grounding but the shaking hands fisted in his shirt. He prays for that grip to stay firm.

He doesn’t know how this works, or if it works at all, but there is no choice but to try.

Geralt gathers him up, one arm below his shoulders and the other under his knees, and he runs.

It seems impossibly far. His own tracks through the grass make an even trail to follow. The forest passes in a blur.

At the sight of Roach, he grinds to a halt and lowers Jaskier to the ground as slowly as he can afford, ignoring the whimper in protest when he goes out of reach.

He ignores, too, the uncertain shift of his horse as he rifles through saddlebags without care for their contents, digging blindly under blankets and supplies for what has weighed on his mind for a month. And there, beyond a scrap of cloth wrapped around a warped piece of silver, his fingers find a bundle of twigs.

Rushing back and cradling his bard in his arms with as much gentleness as he can bear, he nearly hesitates, then. Jaskier is already too pale, life ebbing steadily out of him and this - this is a waste of time.

But the hilt of his own blade moves with each laboured breath and he’s not- he can’t- it can’t end like this. He curls his and around the knife, and braces for the strangled scream and struggle that comes.

Presses the handful of now-dried heather against the wound in Jaskier’s chest as he begs for whatever power, whatever luck or chance has followed them this far to take hold.

The prickly stems soak quickly, white flowers dyed red, then black, in seconds.

Willing his voice to some semblance of steadiness he taps a pale cheek, trying not to cringe at the cold creeping in.

“Jaskier.” He shakes the arm beneath his back to keep him waking, and is rewarded with a flicker of attention. “I need you to sing for me, lark. Can you do that?”

A grimace, or possibly a smile, sluggish and wan but he tries - the notes sound roughened in his throat, words garbled, more a mumble than a song but he tries.

The silver pendant between them quivers in response to each rising sound and for a moment, he hopes, maybe - but the heart beneath the press of his touch staggers on, rabbit-quick and panicked. Geralt can’t see his own hands for all that red.

There are lessons to this, ones imprinted in him since childhood, the cost of loving what is mortal. Reasons for tempering your heart, for why Witchers do not feel. None of them matter now.

In their place is a barrage of moments, fleeting glances, the hand at his elbow by instinct when he comes back weary and injured, half-formed melodies by dying fires hummed to no one in particular. The scent of camomile and lavender and ink, ringing laughter, the rustle of silk. The lightness of a pack with provisions just for one, the deafening silence of a thousand lonely mornings, the chill of a bed too narrow for two.

Jaskier’s voice dwindles and fades and he doesn’t know what to do, he does the only thing he can think of. He pulls him so close he fears his bones might break, and he kisses him.

It’s desperate and too forceful and wet with his own tears and Jaskier gasps for air against his lips, and it’s nothing like the stories.

And nothing happens.

“Please, Jaskier, I can’t -” he chokes out, and it’s all he can muster against the waves that clog and tear at his chest. “I can’t lose you. Not like this. Fuck, I wish I hadn’t let you go.”

There is a deep, ragged breath shaking the body in his arms. His medallion stills on its chain.

And then another breath.

And when Geralt forces his eyes open the ones that meet his gaze are wet and dull with pain, but awake and alive, blinking up at him with confusion and something like disbelief.

“Geralt?”

Something breaks in him, then. A wall or a barricade, something old and rigid, shatters like glass and he crumbles with it.

“I’m here,” he murmurs into Jaskier’s brow, and for now his world is only that: Hair tickling his nose. The smell of blood, still, but less bitter; tempered by earthy musk and summer flowers. Grass under his knees. Jaskier in his arms.

Breath against his neck, calmer, pained but not panicked. Stutters a few times, stops and starts before the words form softly to his collarbones. “Don’t let me go.”

“Never.” It’s barely a whisper, but he doubles down, makes it a promise. “Never.”

And the world tilts slightly on its axis.

--------

Tag list: @llamasdumpsterfire @stinastar @elliestormfound @love-more-today-than-yesterday @fontegagrilledcheese @geraskier-trashh

#geraskier #the witcher fanfiction #the witcher au #geralt #jaskier #*gestures vaguely*!jaskier #the witcher #the witcher fandom #creature!jaskier #inhuman!jaskier

108 notes · View notes

nonsimsical · 3 years ago

Note

All the Gentle Cottagecore Emoji Asks for Theooooo

Thank you, Karlita! Sorry it took me so long to finish these! I forgot I saved them in my drafts! Lmao

🌿 Herb: What is a scent you find relaxing?

"..Lavender and Chamomile!"

🌱 Seedling: What is something you want to begin learning?

"..I honestly don't know, lol. I'm still figuring that out."

🥛 Milk: What is a food you find comforting when you are sad?

"..Something baking! My Mom was always baking something! Reminds me of home."

🍯 Honey: What is one thing you like about yourself?

"..I don't know... I mean, I'm pretty funny. I'm also creative/imaginative."

☕ Tea: How do you take your tea?

"..Depends on the weather! And if I'm drinking tea alone or with my Mom, lol."

🌳 Tree: What is one thing in your future you are looking foward towards?

"..Mmm.... starting a family with Monty! I sometimes dream about us having a baby, or dream about being pregnant."

🍑 Peach: What is a color that makes you smile?

"..I always smile when I see the top of Monty's head bobbing through a crowd. Being a ginger has its perks!"

🌻 Sunflower: What is one thing that brightened your day today?

"..I haven't been feeling so great recently. Monty called to check on me, which always makes my day, but later surprised me by bringing my Mom's homemade chicken noodle soup. He even carried me downstairs so I could rest on the couch and watch TV if I wanted and be closer to the kitchen, lol."

🐓 Chicken: What is a comfort movie/show for you?

"...Oh, hmm.. I guess Pollyanna. My Mom showed it to me and my sister when we were little and it also reminds me of those precious moments all three of us snuggled up on the couch, watching it together."

🧵 Thread: What is a recent creative project that you are proud of?

"..Oh geeze, that'd be the house Monty and I bought. Ripping out carpet, finding original hardwood flooring underneath so trying to get those spruced up and peeling wallpaper off the walls. There has to be up to 14 layers counted now just in the kitchen alone. I shudder to think what the living room and downstairs bathroom are going to look like."

🐈 Cat: Do you have any pets? Are there some pets you really want?

"..We have a dog. A boxer, named Bear. He's the sweetest when he isn't eating my shoes."

🍅 Tomato: Have you ever gardened, and if so, what is your favorite thing to grow?

"..Yes! We don't have much of a yard to start our own garden here, but growing up my Mom ALWAYS had a garden for as long as I can remember anyways. I still go over and help her with it whenever I can."

🍃 Leaf: What is a plant you find beautiful?

"..Idk about a specific plant, but I have always loved Weeping Willows."

🐝 Bee: What is a video game that you find comforting?

"..I don't play video games. Monty is far too competitive, and I learned my lesson when I got smacked in the head with a controller, so I just stick to reading books."

🍞 Bread: Do you know how to bake bread? If so, what is something you’ve baked recently?

"..I do, actually. It's one of my favorite things to make/bake. It can be time consuming and if you do it right, you can lose yourself in the process of making it. And also take out some aggression/anger when beating the dough!" *laughs*

🐇 Bunny: What’s a song that you really like?

"..Oh no, too many just starting playing in my head! I don't think I could choose only one let alone THINK of just one."

🌲 Pine: Do you prefer the cold, or the heat?

"..The cold, definitely."

🧶 Yarn: Knitting or Crocheting?

"..Neither! I have tried everything, but can only crochet a chain! It's insulting."

🐑 Sheep: What is a comfort item you own?

"..My favorite blanket that my Dad bought me the first time my sister and I visited him in Japan. It's still so so soft after all these years. I literally take it everywhere with me. College, road trips, overnight visits."

🍓 Strawberry: Do you own any pink clothing?

"..I do, yes."

🥞 Pancake: What is your favorite breakfast food?

"..My favorite breakfast food... Banana Pancakes with Nutella."

⛰️ Mountains: Would you rather live in the mountains, city, beach, or the forest?

"..Small coastal town! Also known as Rosewood Park!"

🧸 Teddy Bear: Do you ever want to raise kids someday?

"..Yes! It's something Monty and I have always agreed on and talked about."

🕯️ Candle: What is something you can’t go to bed without?

"..Monty."

6 notes · View notes

real-work-of-art · 4 years ago

Text

Falling For You

A winter blurb/Can We Fall sequel.

A/N: This one was hard to write but it’s here! As always, thank you to my girls @oh-honey-styles, @andwhenshesays, @for-fucks-sake-h, and @haute-romance-quotidienne for their encouragement and friendship. This year may have been shit, but I’m incredibly thankful to have you four in my life.

Word count: 715

Winter’s memory always brings festive lights, fluffy snow, and brutally cold winds whipping past your face. It definitely isn’t a season you look forward to, but for many people, it’s their favorite time of the year. Harry is one of the many. He loved cuddling up with steaming mugs of hot chocolate and listening to old holiday songs. Occasionally adding some rum to your cups, resulting in him twirling you around his living room as you giggle into his chest.

It had been a few months since your first date with Harry. An evening spent at a local fall festival, eating delicious treats from local vendors, and laughing at Harry’s numerous and slightly desperate attempts to win at just one of the carnival games. Your date ended in a very quick and nervous kiss at your doorstep, and Harry scurrying down your stairs.

Over the next two months, you saw each other only a handful of times. Harry was out of the country towards the end of October and your work quarter kept you busy in November. Managing to squeeze in a coffee date here or a casual movie night there, it was safe to say things were moving slow.

It all felt a lot like one of the cheesy holiday hallmark movies Harry loved to watch. Which, now that you think of it, you're pretty sure is what sparked Harry’s suggestion to visit the Christmas tree farm. Dragging you to come with him to pick out his tree, claiming that your incredible pumpkin picking skills must cross over into picking out trees.

You knew absolutely nothing about picking out trees, having opted for a fake tabletop tree the last few years that didn’t make it out of the box til a week or two before the holiday. But you couldn’t resist Harry’s adorably desperate pleas. The dramatic bats of his eye lashes and his promise to swing by your favorite bakery on the way back, ultimately convinced you. But all of that was long forgotten, as you strolled up and down the rows of trees, your hand held tight in his, as he spewed out random tree facts. You had a hard time remembering the last time you were this easily happy with someone. Usually relationships were hard for you, rarely making it past the second or third date. But Harry made things feel easy. Sometimes butterflies swarmed in your stomach and your hands shivered with excitement and anxiety, but mostly he made you feel warm and cared for. You have never felt that before. Was it the intoxicating romantic atmosphere of the holiday season, or could you really be falling in love?

“So what do you think?”

Your eyes snapping to his face, his words breaking you out of your trance.

He was gesturing to a large blue spruce tree. The color was unique but you knew it would match Harry’s interior decor perfectly.

“It’s blue,” you stupidly respond. He let out a snort at your very obvious observation. You should have been more embarrassed, but the smile he was giving you truly took your breath away. You were zoning in on every small feature that made up his face. It was as if a light switched off and everything around you went dark. There was a distinct gravitational like force pulling you towards him. You couldn’t ignore it. So with his hand still holding yours, you step into his space. Pressing your body against his, Harry’s smile starts to falter as he searches your eyes for answers to his growing confusion. You know being this vulnerable can be risky, but Harry hasn’t given you a reason to think he’d let you fall.

“It’s perfect,” whispering out your confession. Your sincerity behind the words tells him you aren’t just talking about the tree, and with the smallest tilt of his head, he crashes his lips to yours. A head spinning kiss that made heat spread throughout your entire body.

Harry pulls away first, both of you taking in deep breaths as your eyes lock. “I think so too,” he admits with a twinkle in his eye and a slight twitch of his lips. Any fear you once had, is completely washed away. And maybe, just maybe, winter can become your favorite season too.

Thank you for reading!

#harry styles blurb #harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing #can we fall

123 notes · View notes

slapshot-to-the-heart · 4 years ago

Text

deck the halls

Hi everyone, Merry Christmas if you’re celebrating! Here’s nothing but straight fluff for Petey, hope you all like it! Major props to @hockeyboysiguess for not only getting me to simp for him but also being so wonderful when I’ve needed someone to encourage me to finish, and for everyone else who’s let me bounce ideas off of them or yelled at me in my inbox to get it done. As always, please let me know what you think of it, I love hearing feedback - comments, reblogs (I always read the tags) and inboxes are so so welcomed!

word count: 3.9k+

You could tell something was wrong the minute that you walked through the door, into the living room of your boyfriend’s apartment. It was the first week of December, a time when most houses in the city — and the city itself, for that matter — decked the halls with tinsel, baubles, and cut-out paper snowflakes. You were no exception; really, your love for the season exceeded even the gaudy holiday displays in the windows of department stores, trying to entice passers-by to buy into their “annual-sale-that’s-not-even-a-sale-because-prices-are-so-inflated-anyways” sale. You lived and breathed Christmas as soon as it hit December 1st. Poorly but lovingly-decorated sugar cookies were delivered to your friends and neighbors, tinsel and ornaments hung from every surface imaginable in your apartment, Michael Bublé blasted 24/7. So, aside from those who didn’t celebrate, you expected everyone else to act accordingly. And if their version of Christmas didn’t include pounds of icing and a metric fuckton of ornaments, well then that just wouldn’t do.

So when you crossed the threshold into Elias’ living room, entirely bare and devoid of anything even remotely resembling Christmas cheer, you were more than a little shocked. You supposed you hadn’t quite been paying attention much last year, your first Christmas as a couple five or so months after you had gotten together. Probably still stuck in the honeymoon phase, you thought with a grin. Though, to be fair, you really still were in the honeymoon phase with Elias, after nearly a year and a half of dating. Which wasn’t to say you didn’t have your disagreements; you weren’t a perfect couple, of course you didn’t always see eye to eye on everything and got annoyed with each other on more than one occasion, but that same sense of wonder and unfeigned giddiness that came with a new relationship hadn’t left yet. And honestly, you weren’t sure it ever would. You certainly didn’t want it to. So when you looked in his living room and didn’t see any lights hanging, no tacky-but-heartwarming wreath of Christmas cards, no tree, you didn’t react with anything but sheer disbelief. You looked to the kitchen, but there was nothing. Dining room? Not a roll of wrapping paper to be found, no piney scent wafting through the air from some Glade plug-in you got on sale because the smell from the tree alone just wasn’t cutting it. How could someone live like this?

Elias walked into the room, his hair still damp from a post-practice shower, and flashed a smile at you, kissing you briefly before pulling back and looking at the dumbfounded expression still plastered on your face. “Everything okay?” he said, waving his hand in front of your eyes. “Did they mess up the order or something?” Oh, right, order. You had almost forgotten about the food in your hand, the entire reason you were coming over to his apartment in the first place. Lunch.

You quickly shook your head. “No, everything was fine. Your Pad Kee Mao, my green curry.”

He took the bag from you, placing it on the counter as he opened the cabinets and took out two plates. “You sure nothing’s up? You look like you saw a ghost.”

You gestured around the apartment. “There’s...nothing here?”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean there’s nothing here?”

“No decorations,” you explained. “No lights, no ornaments, no tinsel, no tree? It’s like you didn’t even know it’s Christmas, Elias.”

Elias rolled his eyes. “I forgot about your Christmas obsession.”

“Obsession?” you asked, one eyebrow perched in question.

“Love for Christmas?” Elias tried.

“Better.”

He shrugged. “I have a couple things in the closet, I’ll probably pull them out soon. There’s a string of lights, a little stuffed Santa Brock gave me last year, a tree that’s about this tall,” he gestured at his waist. “Christmas is a thing back home, obviously, but it’s not as...hyped up? Emphasized? As it is here.”

“Such are the pitfalls of capitalism,” you mused.

Elias nodded, digging through the drawers for forks. “And plus, we’ve got Saint Lucia’s Day, so that’s definitely where the more Swedish-specific traditions come out.”

You let out a groan. “I can’t get over the fact that you have a fake tree. It physically pains me.”

“It’s much more practical,” Elias said, trying to justify himself. “You don’t have to water it, it’s not going to drop needles, saves you money in the long run.”

Your eyes almost rolled into the back of your head. “Seriously? You sound like a grandpa, Lias. And it’s not like you’re exactly hurting for money.” You suddenly looked at Elias, your eyes so laser-focused that it startled him for a moment. “I’m going to make you love Christmas.”

He sputtered. “It’s not that I don’t like Christmas, I just have never much been into all of the extra stuff that goes along with it.”

“I won’t allow it,” you said, shaking your head. “Eat your Thai, we’re going to a tree lot.”

The tree

Thirty minutes later, you pulled into a tree lot in South Vancouver. You put the car into park, looking over at Elias. “I take my tree shopping very seriously, as you’re about to see. They’ve usually got some kind of chart or whatever at the front to show you the different kinds of trees you can get—“

Elias cut you off. “I’m going to stop you there. Different kinds? There’s not just, I don’t know, the generic Christmas trees, what are they...firs or whatever?”

You huffed, blowing a piece of hair that had escaped from under your Canucks beanie, one of the first gifts Elias had given to you when you had started dating. “Well, of course there are. But there’s noble firs versus douglas firs, versus blue spruces, versus white firs, versus white spruces, so if you don’t know what you’re looking for it can actually be pretty overwhelming.”

“I can see that,” Elias said dryly. “So what’s the difference between them?”

“Size and color, mostly,” you replied, “but also things like the shape of the branches, how much weight they can hold, even what they smell like. This place has a ton of different ones, so we can walk around and you can figure out what you like.”

Elias lasted about ten minutes before turning to you with a blank expression that caused you to break out in raucous laughter. “I don’t know what I want. I thought I did, but there’s hundreds of trees here,” he gestured wildly, “and they’re all wrapped up, so you can’t even really see them, and all I know is that I want a Christmas tree that looks like a Christmas tree.”

You smiled at your boyfriend. “That’s not nothing, Lias. I think we’re actually getting somewhere. So you want a more classic look, big and fluffy?” He nodded. “Okay, then we’re probably going to want to go with a noble fir or grand fir.”

“How did you learn all this?” Elias asked.

“Trial and error,” you said. “And as for the netting, I think I can fix that.” You pulled your Swiss army knife out of your pocket, wiggling it at him. “It’s the way my dad always taught me. You find one that looks good, give it a good rip and make sure it’s the right shape and that there’s not a crazy amount of space between the branches.”

“Because we wouldn’t want that.”

“You’re learning!” You said, laughing. “No, we wouldn’t. Because even if you’ve got a lot of ornaments, it can still look weird and throw off the whole vibe you’re going for.”

Elias ran his hands against the branches of one of the trees. “I don’t have that many ornaments. Some, yeah, but not a lot.”

“Don’t worry,” you said, squeezing his hand. “Lord knows I’ve got enough, we can stop by my place on our way back and grab what I’ve got left over.”

He dipped his head in agreement. “Sounds good.”

---

Three hours later and you were standing on a chair in Elias’ living room, tongue sticking out of your mouth in concentration as you tried to fix the star to the top of the tree. Elias’ hands were wrapped gently around your waist, looking nervously up at you. “You sure you don’t want me to get it?” he asked.

You shook your head, pumping your fist when you finally got it balanced on top, hopping down to the floor. “I’m good!” Elias had a few ornaments from team parties and events — nearly all of them branded with some form of the Canucks logo — and a handful from back home, the same popsicle stick, glue, and tempera paint creations that dotted your own preschool memories. You had picked up lights from your apartment, plugged them into the wall, figured out half of the bulbs were dead, fixed them, and then finally draped them across the tree branches, hanging a box of your own ornaments alongside your boyfriend’s.

Elias slipped one arm around your hips, pulling you into his side as the two of you stood back and admired your handiwork. “I like this,” he murmured.

“The tree actually did turn out pretty great,” you agreed.

“You sound like you had so little faith in us,” Elias said, a smile on his face. “The tree does look great, but I was thinking about this. Us, being together, decorating a Christmas tree. Starting traditions. It feels right.”

You nodded, resting your head on his shoulder, turning to kiss his neck. “It does.”

The baking

Christmas didn’t stop at a tree for you. Oh no, not even close. Elias’ tree was decorated, his living room and entryway hung with tasteful amounts of tinsel and only slightly cheesy wall hangings — he particularly liked the ‘Eat, Drink, and Be Merry’ — that you had dragged him out to the nearest Canadian Tire for. It was all nice to admire, but for you, the real fun started when you fired up the oven and flipped on the stand mixer.

Elias had been gone for a few days on a brief road trip through California, and you had gladly taken up that time to stock up on any and all possible ingredients you’d need for your annual Christmas baking haul. Elias had a nicer mixer than you did, and his oven had an extra shelf, so with his blessing you had all but set up shop in his kitchen. A good chunk of your time outside of work had been spent running out to Sobey’s, driving back to Elias’ apartment, realizing you’d forgotten something, and having to do it all over again.

But you loved it, you really did, even when his counters were covered in bags of flour, tubes of icing, and three types of sugar, and his fridge had somewhere north of five pounds of butter. You heard Elias’ key in the front door; it swung open and you heard the familiar thump of his duffel against the hardwood floor. “I’m hoooome,” he called out.

You let out a quick giggle, walking around the kitchen to greet him in the entryway. “Welcome back, babe. How was the trip?”

He shrugged, raising an eyebrow at the outfit you had on; you had put on your trusted old apron, the floral print slightly faded over the years and with more than one stubborn vanilla stain that just didn’t want to come out, but you loved it all the same. “I mean, you saw it. Two wins, one loss. Could have done better, I really don’t think we should have dropped that game against the Kings, but it happens. You started yet?”

“Just about to,” you said, squeezing his hand. “I’d love an assistant if you’ve got the time.”

“For you?” Elias said, kissing the top of your head, “Always.”

Elias creamed the butters and sugar while you sifted the flour, turning around to grab the eggs. You handed two to him. “This seems like a lot of sugar,” Elias noted, peering into the mixing bowl.

You shrugged. “It’s a double recipe. There’s got to be enough for us, plus the team — I’ll cry if they don’t eat them, so I’m not against you threatening bodily harm if that’s what it comes to — plus some extra for me to take into work this week. So,” you picked up the bottle of vanilla extract, “lots of cookies.”

It wasn’t just cookies, though; you made somewhere north of 60 sugar cookies, but Elias was once again dumbfounded as you heaved a cardboard box out of one of the many bags you had picked up earlier in the week. “What’s that one?” You spun the box around so he could read the label. “Gingerbread house? Isn’t that mostly for little kids?”

You gasped in mock offense. “I can’t believe you would dare say such a thing, Elias. But yes, typically it is a kid thing. I love it, though. I’ve done one every year ever since I can remember, and they’re so much fun. Genuinely.” You tried, for one year and one year only, to make your own gingerbread; but, as much as you genuinely loved baking, it turned out to be nothing short of a spectacular mess. It wasn’t the Great British Bake Off, as you kept trying to remind yourself when the gingerbread puffed up too much and got too soft while simultaneously burning on the edges, but you had nonetheless been a little deflated as you ran to the grocery store to get a box kit. You tried to look on the bright side, though. One less thing to go wrong in the litany of the day’s bad possibilities. So, you no longer felt guilty about going out to the shop to get a build-your-own box. And besides, putting the house together and decorating it truly was 90% of the fun of the whole thing.

Elias held his hands up in surrender. “Didn’t mean to make you upset,” he said with a smile. “I do what the chef tells me.”

You pushed his hair back with one hand, the other handing him a tube of royal icing. “You, my love, have the honor of making sure this house doesn’t fall down.”

“I think I can do that,” he replied easily.

You really should have had more faith in your boyfriend, you thought as you looked at the completed gingerbread house. He had put just the right amount of icing on; not so little that the walls would simply fall down, but not so much that it would take forever to dry and still be too precarious to decorate. And decorate you did, mini M&Ms lining the roof to double as Christmas lights, a tree piped next to the front door, frosting and shredded coconut snow on the roof and floor. You stepped back to look at the finished product, curling into Elias’ side as he pressed a kiss to the crown of your head. “We did pretty good, didn’t we?” you asked.

“We did.”

The morning

There were many reasons you were grateful that the NHL didn’t operate like other major league sports, with games on Christmas day. It gave a much-needed break after the incredibly fast-paced nature of the first few months of the season. It also gave some time to gain a sense of normalcy for the players and their families; as normal as it could be, you supposed. They could do the same last-minute shopping as other families did, set out milk and cookies with their kids on Christmas Eve. They could attend a service on Christmas Day, invite family over to spend the holiday — as Elias had done the year prior, with his parents flying in from Sweden — or sleep in the morning of. The latter of which you and Elias chose, his bare chest pressed up against your back as you lay in his bed, a well-worn Tre Kronor jersey draped across your body. You twisted over to press a soft kiss to his lips. “Guess what today is?” you asked cheekily. You knew he knew, it wasn’t as if you hadn’t spent the entire month counting down the days and making damn sure he was as informed as you were.

Elias let out a light laugh. “Merry Christmas, baby.” He threw back the sheets. “I’m going to go and get the coffee started, take your time.”

It was Christmas, though, and you were you. You weren’t about to take your time when it was December 25th. You made the bed somewhat haphazardly, padding out to the kitchen to wrap your arms around Elias’ waist as he set the coffee maker to brew. It didn’t take long, and you had just enough time to turn on the Christmas music and carefully curate the morning’s playlist before he was walking out to the living room, holding two steaming mugs of coffee. “Thanks, ‘Lias,” you said, taking your cup as the two of you sat on the floor with your stockings. “Dig in,” you said, gesturing to his while blowing on your coffee to cool it down. “No use waiting.”

He shook his head at you, the edges of his mouth curled in a smile that let you know that no matter how much good-natured ribbing he gave you about your love for the morning and, honestly, for all things Christmas and wintery, he loved that you had let him into a part of your life that you were so excited to share. You had taken a trip to the Swedish candy shop that Elias loved so much, the place was a little out of the way but you’d do anything to give the man you loved a little taste of home for the holidays. Elias laughed when he turned his stocking upside town and tipped it out, the sweets mixed in with some new stick tape and wax he had been mentioning he was running low on. “The team’s got some spare stuff, but I like it a certain way,” he had said earlier in the month, and with a little digging and a call to Brock, you had figured exactly which hole-in-the-wall hockey supply store to drive out to for his favorite kind, the only brand that would do for Elias Pettersson.

He had filled your stocking with your favorite kind of candy and a few boxes of film for your Polaroid. You laughed when a box of chapstick fell on top of the candy. “You’re always losing them,” Elias said, a poorly concealed grin on his face, “or leaving them somewhere, so I figured more couldn’t hurt.”

You could barely stop laughing. “It’s perfect,” you said in between giggles. “Seriously, though. I can never have too many, and it’s sweet that you noticed that.”

Like any kid, you had always loved getting to open presents on Christmas, and as you had gotten older, you’d learned to enjoy the experience of shopping for other people. But you and Elias had agreed that you didn’t want to make Christmas an incredibly elaborate or expensive affair; the more you had to buy, the more you had to stress over what to choose, the less you would enjoy the holiday itself. So Elias gifted you a book you’d been eyeing, then you gave him a leatherbound journal and a pen. You unwrapped some nice lotion and candles, handing him a navy blue wool scarf. Elias had recently gotten into puzzles — you’re not sure who introduced him, but you had a sneaking suspicion it was Brock — so you got him a 1000 piece puzzle of the snow capped mountains of Banff. “Figured it’d keep you busy for a while,” you said. He squeezed your hand in appreciation. You opened up your last present, sliding out a pair of tickets from an envelope. Two concert tickets to someone you’d been dying to see for years, but you’d never been able to snatch up in time. “How’d you pull this one off?” you asked, delicately holding the tickets in your hand, the envelope they came in long forgotten on the floor.

“I tried to get them online when they went on sale last month like everyone else, I stayed on my laptop for something like an hour but nothing showed up. So then it was plan B. I called someone who called someone who knows someone at Rogers, told them the situation and that I wanted to surprise my girlfriend, and they made it work. I try not to name drop too often, but if it’s for you, I’ll do it,” he explained.

You leaned over and kissed him, your hand resting against his jaw. “Thank you, babe. You really didn’t have to, but...It’s going to be amazing. We’re going to have so much fun.”

“You better,” he replied, reaching around the tree to pull out a tiny box from between the branches, one so small you wouldn’t have noticed it if you didn’t know there was something to be looking for. Your heart nearly stopped, and you looked up towards Elias with an expression that was equal parts overwhelmed, panicked, and nervous. “I’m not proposing,” he said quickly. “It’s not a ring.”

You let out a breath of relief. “Oh my God, good.” Now it was your turn to backtrack. “I wouldn’t have been upset if you were proposing, we know we both want that in the future, but it would have caught me a little off-guard.”

Elias nodded. “And I get that. I definitely don’t want to be giving you a heart attack when I’m trying to ask you to marry me.”

“That wouldn’t be good.”

“It wouldn’t. I’d definitely rather have an alive fiancée than a dead one. But,” Elias said, turning over the box in his hands, “I’ve thought a lot about this too, and I’m as sure of this decision as I am that I’m going to propose to you one day.” He finally handed it over to you, gesturing for you to open it. “It’s been nearly a year and a half since we’ve been together, so I figured it’s about time — past time, really — that we make it official, have you bring over the two pairs of pants or whatever that aren’t already on your side of the drawer, stop having to drive the twenty minutes home at midnight after we fall asleep together during a movie marathon. About time we move in together.”

You let out a soft gasp, holding the silver key delicately in your hands, in between two fingers as if it might shatter into a million pieces if you dared grip it any tighter. “And you’re sure about this, ‘Lias? I’d love to, but only if you’re sure too. I don’t want you to feel backed into a corner about anything just because it’s what everyone else is doing, or seems like the ‘next step’ for us as a couple, or —”

Elias cut you off with a kiss, closing your hand over the key. “I’m positive. And I’m not doing this for anyone else other than us.”

Even though you were sitting on the living room floor, you spoke your next words as if you were breathless. “When can we start?”

“We can start whenever you want, baby. The sooner the better,” he answered.

Your eyes met his. “One more question,” you asked. He nodded. “Did I do it? Did I make you love Christmas?”

“Mission accomplished, baby.”

#elias pettersson #hockey fanfiction #hockey imagine #hockey fanfic #hockey imagines #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagine #hockey writing #nhl imagines #nhl writing #nhl fanfic

89 notes · View notes

thatreallyminecraftsmygender · 4 years ago

Text

Some hermits as my favourite weeds

no not like that

JoeHills:

Dandelion, thrives everywhere, resilient, very pretty but considered bad because they grow places people don’t want them to, I was told off for making wishes and blowing the seeds when i was little, but they still brought me a lot of joy. They grow in the cracks of pavement and decorate the world, bringing nature back into urbanized areas and reminding us we are part of the Eco-system on earth.

Cleo:

Daisy. Theres this poem/comment i love which is: ‘i like dandelions, the daisies would be lonely without them’ and it reminds me of Joe and Cleo’s friendship. extremely pretty but very hardy, they look delicate and fragile but are stubborn as hell. You can make daisy chains and tell stories using the petals

Impulse:

Buttercups, bright yellow and wonderful. If you hold one under your chin and it reflects it means you like butter (scientific fact /j). They always make me smile when i see them. They look pretty harmless but, despite the name, they’re poisonous and should not be eaten, people often take them at face value and don’t realise they have this property. They’re easily underestimated.

Jevin:

Nettles, seem very sharp and unforgiving but they’re actually very useful and very helpful. The tea you can make out of them is believed to have anti-inflammatory properties and they make a really good soup. Easy to grow and look after, thrive next to canals and other water sources. Surprisingly pretty flowers, no woodland walk would be complete without them.

Zedaph

Clover, springy and bright green. They’re known for their leaves but their flowers are also wonderful! They’re said to bring luck if you see them with 4 leaves but honestly i love them in all their configurations. Lots of different animals Love them, sheep, cows, i’ve seen some lizards eat them! They’re often overlooked in lawns because they’re the same colour as the grass but a meadow would be boring without them.

Etho

Bittercress. an annual plant that flowers breifly but are very hard to get rid of. They’re prefered method of spreading is via exploding, sending their seeds up to 2m away! Frost hardy and difficult to remove despite lying dormant most of the year. Unconventional but very cool. i love em

Tango

ivy, one of my favourite plants fullstop. Grows in so many places, its a trailing plant that’s highly adpatable suits many different environments. Also vital to the eco-system even tho people don’t realise! it lessens the affect of frost, provides shelter for bugs and allows animals to forage during bitter spells. On trees it houses birds and can be used as a place for a nest. It’s also very good for pollinators when it flowers. It’s the basis for a large part of the wildlife in forests!

Scar

Moss. i love this lil thing so much its a problem. I have a moss garder in my room right now. It makes things so goddam beautiful just by growing there. It grows where it seems like it should be impossible to do so, on walls, on fallen trees on bare rock face. There are so many different types that can spruce up so many different places it wonderful. Excellent at hiding cracks in tiles and other mistakes you may have made. Also the song cosmo sheldrake reminds me of scar sooo

#it sounds like im being mean about jevin but i actually really enjoy his streams and i have nettle plants #any fuck mono culture lawns all my homies hate mono culture lawbs #long post #weird posts eith zaph!#alt image described #i swrar to god i make the weirdest posts #what even is this?m #wow last me maintagged this #bold #i dont condone their actions

235 notes · View notes

jimlingss · 5 years ago

Text

Arcadia

➜ Words: 9.6k

➜ Genres: 50% Fluff, 50% Angst, Dystopia!AU, Utopia!AU

➜ Summary: In a new era, the human race has largely been eradicated through warfare and disease. You are one of the few left, living in the forest and making use of the wild. Or at least that's what you think until a man quite literally crashes into your home.

cr.

It happened in the afternoon. A deafening noise from the sky. A thin whistle that crescendoed. Louder than what you’re used to hearing. Ringing in your eardrums. It shrieked horrifically — rumbling the ground — roaring through the silent forest. And you looked up to see a streak of white in the sky. Immediately, you dropped the animal in hand, abandoned the trap at your feet and ducked your head. But the explosions never came raining down on your skull. Instead, it happened in the distance. An explosion that made the evening sky spark bright white. It took a full minute for it to die down, for the smoke to fade into the horizon as if nothing occurred a moment ago. Yet, you stalked the fumes and commotion, crept in the shadows. You knew better than to approach foreign things, to approach clamor and potential danger. But the forest had been quiet for so long that it provoked your curiosity. What you found past the shrubbery and trunks of spruce is a giant white cylinder with rounded edges. A capsule. So white that it burnt to the back of your eyelids, in no way natural whatsoever. But the colour had been marred by dirt and foliage after it crash-landed. The mud and ground hugged it, molded against the shape after it quite literally smashed into the Earth. Before you could approach the thing and investigate, there was another noise. An unfamiliar whirring. It made you flinch and stumble back, taking refuge behind the trees. But as you peeked out, you saw something crawling out of the open compartment. A groan. Someone. You hadn’t seen another person in years. Immediately, you stepped forward and he saw you. Eyes darting to look into yours. He was in stark white clothing from top to bottom, pants that stopped too short at his ankles, a shirt that was cut awkwardly and too small for his broad shoulders. It was vivid against his dark hair and golden skin, almost made him look ridiculous. But you supposed at the time you didn’t look any better — ripped jeans, dirtied boots, a worn jacket taken years ago from some loot and your hair tucked into a baseball cap with a logo too faded away to discern. “I-I won’t hurt you,” he stutters out, putting up his hands. “I...I’m Seokjin. I’m part of the rescue fleet of Arcadia.” Arcadia? The man, Seokjin, sighs after your ongoing silence. “Sorry. Of course you wouldn’t understand me. I,” he enunciates slowly and points to himself. “Am. Friend.” His hands wildly form a heart for you to see and then he points at you with his left while still making wild gestures with his right. He tries to smile brightly. “I. Help. You—” “I understand you,” you deadpan with an impassive expression. The man is visibly taken aback, eyes rounded as his mouth opens and closes comically. “Y-You can speak?” Your arm lifts and your index finger points at his head. “You’re bleeding.” ... .. . He looks around the interior of the tree house like a lost child, seated on the floor and waiting for his parents to return. It’s a meager shack made of alder, large gaps for windows, tattered backpacks stained and collected in the corner by some pairs of shoes and an old radio. There’s a fishing line hung diagonally across the room and above his head, used to dry clothing. But he finds himself drawn to the radio and crawls over to try to switch it on, tugging on its antenna, turning the dials. Yet, all that answers is noisy static. “It’s been broken since a long time ago,” you pipe up, nearly startling him to death with your sudden presence. But you had simply climbed up the ladder quietly. “I’m still tinkering with it.” Seokjin sets the radio down. “I have a device similar to it. Thought this one would work.” He pulls out a black and thick rectangular piece of plastic from his back pocket and you scarcely recognize it. “A walkie-talkie?” “Kind of. It’s called an Erewhon device. State of the art technology, even if it looks chunky. It transmits radio waves without any limit of range and it syncs to one other device. No third can ever join or hack into it. I use this one to communicate with my base. Or at least I usually would, if the thing didn’t break in the crash.” You don’t understand anything he’s saying, so you chalk it up to gibberish. “It stings.” Seokjin sharply inhales as you apply pressure to his wound. But the ache soon alleviates when you wrap bandages around his head. “What’s your name?” It’s your last roll of bandages. “Y/N.” It’s not like you to be so generous or welcoming towards a stranger. The nature of your upbringing and life has ingrained an innate suspicion to anyone who isn’t yourself. But there’s a characteristic about the man in front of you that doesn’t make you doubt his intentions. It must also be partly because you’ve been on your own for so long and your inner subconscious is willing to dance with danger if it means having some kind of contact with another. But whatever the case may be, you don’t feel wary of Seokjin even if you should. “Are...there any others?” “Other humans? There hasn’t been any for years.” “There’s….just you?” “Just me.” Until now. “Where did you come from?” “I come from a place called Arcadia. It’s a utopian society just off the Zion mountain and Elysian Fields,” he says as if you know what those places are. “It has everything and it’s where the remaining people have gathered for years. I actually rescue people like you who are still alive and bring them back. How...how did you manage to survive on your own out here?” “I just do.” “How long have you been here?” “I don’t remember. The apocalypse happened when I was young.” Seokjin makes a noise of acknowledgment like he understands. “It happened when I was seven.” “I remember celebrating my fifth birthday in an underground bunker with my parents.” He doesn’t ask where they are. If they aren’t with you now, it’s safe to assume your parents are dead like his are. “I had a lot of people help me along the way, a lot of people who died,” you say, “I’ve been in sanctuaries and communities until they fell. Everything was only temporary. So, I’ve been on my own for a while.” “Arcadia is different,” he says with bright eyes, breathy voice full of wonder and hope. “It’s where the new world is beginning. I can take you there.” “Isn’t your flying machine broken?” “You mean my Xanadu Shuttle?” Seokjin scratches the back of his neck and chuckles. You notice how the tips of his ears turn scarlet. “Actually, it was my first time taking it out that far. I’m kind of new to all this. But don’t worry! When it crashed, it sent a notification to headquarters and gave coordinates, so they should find me soon. I’ll try to fix my Erewhon device too.” You don’t pretend like you know the things he’s referring to. “Are you hungry?” “I have dried pemmican!” He lights up as if remembering and pulls a transparent wrapped bar from his back pocket. You wonder what else is in those endless pockets of his. Seokjin must read the puzzled expression on his face since his smile widens. “Want to try it?” “Sure.” You rip open the wrapper and you’re met with a dark red and gray block, and a meaty scent that makes you slightly nauseous. But you’ve eaten worse before, so you take a bite. Seokjin instantly laughs when your expression wrinkles up. “It tastes better the more you eat it. Promise.” “It’s awful.” There’s a temptation to spit it out the window, but afraid that it might be considered rude, you swallow it down and quickly hand back the monstrosity to him. “Do you want rabbit?” “Sure.” … .. . It’s odd to eat a meal with someone — an experience that you’re unable to pinpoint your last memory of. It’s rather mundane, but mundanity has long been a privilege in this era. “You can sleep in the tree house if you want.” “Where will you be?” “I usually like to sleep on the forest floor anyway.” It isn’t a lie. One of the few things you love is drifting off while gazing at the stars, that the last thing you see is the sparkling horizon before it’s blue again when you awake. “How many people are there in Arcadia?” “About twenty five hundred people so far.” So far. But if what he tells you is true, then it’s a big settlement. As if able to see how he’s piqued your curiosity, Seokjin continues, “It’s an amazing place and we’re completely self-sufficient. There’s an agriculture industry that’s growing and greenhouses underground that gives us all the food we need. They developed a water filtration system as well and it’s connected to the mountain springs nearby. There are pods that people live in, schools that kids can go to, jobs, medicine— you’ll see when I take you back.” “I never said I was going with you.” “What? Why wouldn’t you?” You don’t answer. … .. . “Morning.” You watch as he climbs down the ladder and nearly slips off. It’s an amusing sight to see his hair in a disarray and his eyes swollen beyond recognition. “Glad to see you’re finally up.” Seokjin, on the other hand, is baffled at how you’re already moving so energetically. “When….did you get up?” “Since sunrise. Changed your bandages too, if you didn’t already notice. I’m getting breakfast prepared. There’s a stream down this path that you can wash your face in. Collect water for me while you’re at it.” You hand him a silver pail. Walking off, Seokjin finally gets a good look at the forest. It’s quiet, save for the chickadees he notices in the thin branches of the spruce, twiddling as he passes and the woodpeckers hammering against the alder. There was just enough rays of light bursting through to allow the saplings to flourish and shrubs to overgrow. And the verdant green almost blinds his vision with how vivid it is. He’s never been so surrounded in nature before — never has it encapsulated him completely. When Seokjin returns, he’s more alert than before. “Thought you got lost for a second. You can set the water over there. Do you want to help me look at my traps?” He follows you and nearly steps into a trap before you yell at him. But he’s amazed. You’ve designated a whole section full of traps made of loose string and branches, and when he asks, he learns they’re treadle snares to drowning snares. “They don’t yield a lot of food. It depends on the season, but it mainly depends on luck.” “What do you usually eat then?” “I have some canned stuff from the cities, but there’s a lot of berries and herbs around here that are edible. I’m in the process of growing some basil and tomatoes too, so I never really starve out here.” Seokjin is astounded. You can see it on his face, but you don’t know why that is. It’s not like any of these things are impressive. It’s just things you learn once you’ve lived out here long enough. “You’re making a fire now?” He watches as you take out a curved piece of wood with string attached and another piece that’s pointed at the end. You saw it back and forth on some more wood and Seokjin watches the smoke, how the friction creates the heat, how you transfer the embers to tinder. “Is this how you always make fire?” “Nowadays. At the beginning when I still had materials, I would use batteries and steel wool. Even flint and steel. But the bow drill method works fine. I save my matches for when I need them.” “That’s incredible. Is this what you do? I mean, collect food and make fires.” “I guess.” “Do you do anything else? Do you ever get bored?” It’s an interesting question — boredom. A privilege in itself to be bored rather than worried. Though you suppose that in this quiet forest with no one else, it’s a wonder how you never went insane. But while loneliness sporadically plagues you, you’ve never necessarily felt isolated or deprived. It’s always been this way. You’ve learnt to adapt to it. Humans can handle more than they think when push comes to shove. “There’s always something to do. Whether that’s upkeeping the tree house or making more traps or planting. But sometimes in the summer, I go exploring for a few days. Into the cities. There’re lots of places I haven’t been. It’s a good opportunity for me to get seeds, food, and clothes, so I’m never….bored.” “Wow, t-that’s...that’s impressive.” “There’s nothing impressive. It’s just the way things are.” “I...went to Arcadia in its early days,” Seokjin explains, “It was established twenty years ago, right after the apocalypse began, so I’ve never really got to see the outside world.” “They don’t let you leave?” “It’s not that. It just isn’t safe to. Actually, that’s why I wanted to join the rescue fleet. It gives me a chance to see the outside world.” “You haven’t even seen anything yet. If you want….I can take you somewhere. Better than this.” “Really?!” Seokjin’s eyes widen, irises practically glistening. Your lips tickle, threatening to upturn. “Sure.” … .. . Past the stream and thicket is a clearing. A meadow of daisies. It’s overgrown grass that reaches to your knees, white petals spilling over with yellow centers filled among them. The sound of insects buzzing and circling through the field is heard as the sun beats down. You found this place a good year ago and while it doesn’t serve much of a purpose, you left it undisturbed. The apocalypse was a catastrophe, but it did a lot for nature. “This….this….” Seokjin is breathless, unable to force a coherent word out. He looks over at the blue horizon that seems to steal the land as the abundance of flowers overwhelms his senses. “It’s beautiful, huh?” He stays silent, taking in the sight in front of him. He has seen a vase of flowers at best — most certainly not a boundless field of them. Not like this. Not in the entirety of his life so far. Not in a way where he could inhale the fresh air, count clouds, memorize the azure shade of the sky, and not where he is unable to see where the end or the start is. Seokjin is overwhelmed, and he realizes why the choice to stay remains. Why you would refuse his offer of coming back with him to Arcadia. A part of him also wants to stay here. Where freedom lies. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs while still taking in the sight. The colours are so rich that he feels regretful he couldn’t see it sooner. “I didn’t mean to push you to come with me.” “It’s okay. I’ll come with you.” Seokjin finally peels his eyes away from the scenery to gaze at you. Yet you continue to look forward. “You made me curious about this Arcadia.” And the corner of his mouth turns into a smile. … .. . The next few days are spent with Seokjin — noisy at your side, but it’s entirely invited. He goes back to his vehicle, his so-called fancy Xanadu Shuttle, and tries to contact his people. Much like your radio, there’s only static on the other end when he flips and fiddles with switches and the lights eventually die off. He messes with his Erewhon too, the little walkie-talkie device, though it’s to no avail. But Seokjin never becomes discouraged. He remains optimistic, a rarity in today’s climate. The man has no doubts they’ll come for him and even reassures you. In the meanwhile, you show him how to start a fire, how to collect berries and certain plants, and he helps you sharpen the knives you have. But the man looks away when you have to kill the animal you trapped and he makes you kill the bugs that land on him as well. It’s a bit ridiculous and outlandish, but frighteningly natural how quickly he falls into place and adapts. You forgot what it was like to have someone with you. To be able to talk to someone. … .. . “Are you ever lonely?” Seokjin asks one night when he’s laid on the grass, arms tucked underneath his head and staring up at the stars by your side. He copied you after several occasions where he found you like that. You immediately heard the gasp that left his mouth the first time he laid down. It’s beautiful enough that he’s unconcerned with insects and doesn’t get up until you chide him to. “Sometimes. Then I think about how people are more trouble than they’re worth.” He grins. “Why do you say that?” “People mess up things and always have their self-interest at heart. Learned it after I had a gun pointed on me by someone I thought was a friend.” “I’m sorry.” “It’s alright. Just the way things are. Anything to survive, right?” “Is that why you’re on your own?” “Partly. It’s hard when people die too. I’d rather not deal with that.” “Why’d you agree to help me then?” Seokjin asks after a moment. “If people always mess things up.” “I don’t know. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone. I thought talking to you would be worth the risk. And it’s not like you’re not messing things up. I’m leaving with you, right?” Seokjin grins, meeting your eyes. It goes quiet and then you pipe up again— “I do sing sometimes to myself. Helps keep me sane.” “Like what?” “I don’t know.” “Show me.” You outright scoff. “No.” “Please?” A sharp exhale later, you start mumbling, slurring words together in some obscure melody. Your voice is rigid and stiff, out of tune even to your own ears. But you’ve heard it from your parents before. It’s some jingle on television back when electricity still worked. Instantly, Seokjin starts laughing. “Hey, it’s not my fault I don’t know the lyrics!” “No, no, i-it’s amazing, please continue!” Seokjin squeaks out in the midst of a giggling fit and the corner of your own mouth twitches into a subtle smile. … .. . Unfortunately, these simple days don’t last long. Seokjin continues messing with his Erewhon device whenever he gets the chance — banging it on the tree house wall much to your dismay, curling up with it using a screwdriver kit he got from his capsule — and one evening, it suddenly comes alive. There’s the sound of static and someone’s muffled voice. “Hello?! Code White. R-six-four-three. This is Kim Seokjin from fleet seventy two.” “R-four-......three-nine.” It’s difficult to discern, but that’s all the other line says before the device goes silent again. You look to Seokjin, anticipating dejection and disappointment. But instead, a grin spreads into his cheeks and his eyes crinkle ever so slightly. “Y/N. They’re coming soon.” … .. . It’s a morning of checking for traps, of hearing the orchestral songs of nature, of holding your breath as the breeze whisks through the strands of your hair. You’re tip-toeing to the simple snare laid on the ground when the familiar, deafening noise returns to the sky. A thin whistle that crescendos. Louder than you’re used to hearing. Ringing in your eardrums. It rumbles the ground, roaring through the silent forest. And you look up to see a streak of white in the sky. It’s a larger white vessel with glass windows around. So white that it burns to the back of your eyelids, in no way natural whatsoever. And it descends to the same place Seokjin crash-landed. Seokjin finds you and the two of you venture through the forest and shrubby towards it. There’s a whirring and a compartment opens. Three different people step out, dressed in that unnatural white much like Seokjin is, pants and shirt cut off oddly. They look at Seokjin with smiles and incredulous expressions. “I can’t believe you actually crashed.” “It wasn’t my fault, JK!” Seokjin whines immediately and then quickly greets the other two females who he’s evidently less friendly with. “Amber. Lizzy. Good to see you too.” “This something I expected from Namjoon or even Jimin, not you,” the shorter-hair girl named Amber huffs out as she playfully shakes her head. “At least he’s safe,” Lizzy says with a smile. “Saves us from having to transport him back in a stretcher. But….who’s….that?” Her eyes dart over to you and the other two strangers follow her line of sigh, re-directing their attention. Then their mouths drop open, eyes widening in surprise, having not seen you there. Seokjin steps aside, allowing the light to shed on you. “She’s a lone one.” “A-A lone one…?” “Are you okay? Do you need help?” Amber whispers softly, lowering herself to meet your height and connect your eyes with hers as if you were a wounded animal. But then light flashes beneath her irises and her brows furrow. “Right. She might not know how to speak. Where’s my translation devi—” The corner of Seokjin’s mouth tilts. “She does.” You step forward, directly underneath the canopy spotlight coming through the spruce, walnut, and alder. “My name is Y/N.”

Arcadia. It’s protected by a dome-like structure reminiscent of glass, but as one of the strangers narrates, it’s supposedly a magnetic force field to protect against natural disasters. The place is ruled by tall buildings like the cities, but unlike it in the sense that they’re not decaying. They haven’t turned brown under wear and tear, don’t have moss growing on the sides of it. Rather, there are patches of green in between the paved pathways, flickering screens that are seemingly floating mid-air, masses of people walking past one another. It’s a utopian society, they tell you. But you’re not sure what that means. “Welcome to Arcadia,” the voice from above speaks rigidly. The door whirs as it opens. And white is all you see. White floors. White walls. People dressed in white. The white lights burn your vision as you stagger out, being aided by the strangers who were onboard with you. They welcome you. Tell you they hope this place could be your refuge and new home. And you’re taken immediately by strangers until you begin thrashing, calling out to Seokjin until he consoles you. He promises that they mean no harm, that he’ll see you soon, and it’s enough for you to be relieved. They lead you away, give you a new set of white clothing that are soft to the touch and a bin to place your old clothes in. You feel vulnerable as you strip from your grimy clothes and trade them in. You’ve never been able to afford to hold onto sentimentalities. But it’s hard to let them go. … .. . “Hello—” The doctor glances at his clipboard. “You must be the new refugee, Y/N! Oh right, they call it newcomer now, not refugee. Anyway, nice to meet you, I’m Jung Hoseok. I’ll be assessing you today and setting you up to live in Arcadia. You understand me, correct?” “Yes, I do.” “Excellent! Makes things easier for me if we can speak the same language. But feel free to tell me if you want me to slow down. We’ll take things one step at a time.” The man grins brightly and sits on his stool, spinning around to a thin screen on the desk. “We’re going to be doing some tests together today, so I can figure out what I’ll need to help you with and we can make sure your transition is as smooth as possible.” “Okay.” You knew a doctor once. She was similar to him, whimsical as he seemingly is, until she had to amputate her own arm and then bled to death. “Do you have any questions?” “Not really.” There’s an eye examination done until you tell him you don’t know all the letters of the alphabet. He switches to pictures afterwards and is enthused as he tells you that your eyes are apparently fine. He makes you lay down and open your mouth to examine your teeth. You spit into a vial, have your blood drawn. You step into a white capsule with black bars twirling around you. He shows you a picture of your bones and scanned brain with the excitement akin to a child’s afterwards. And he asks too many questions. “So you mainly ate rabbits, berries and other plants? Fascinating.” — “How often do you sleep?” — “So your bowel movements were pretty consistent?” You miss Seokjin. … .. . “Seokjin, can you please tell us what happened on the fifth?” The commander, chief, supervisor and several others are seated on the other side of the table. “Yes. I was dispatched to forty one degrees, twenty four point two eight minutes north. Halfway there, I….became distracted by the scenery, and went off course. I became alert again when the shuttle skimmed along treetops. The console received a malfunction notification and I subsequently crashed into a forest area.” “The maintenance record shows your Xanadu Shuttle was updated on the second of the previous month?” “Yes.” “Then do you accept responsibility for this incident?” “Yes, I do.” There’s no point in putting up a fight. All the evidence is all in the machinery and Seokjin had made no attempt to hide it. “I’m interested in the girl you rescued,” the Commander speaks up, tapping his pen on his clipboard. “When did you come into contact with her after you crashed?” “After I crashed, I exited my Xanadu Shuttle and caught sight of her standing amongst the trees. I think...the accident got her attention and she came to investigate what it was.” He nods and the people on the other side of the table look around at one another. There are soft murmurs and Seokjin stays quiet through their deliberation, keeping his eyes on his own report. After a minute, it simmers down. “The panel appreciates your honesty and integrity, Seokjin. In spite of your circumstances, you were able to rescue someone who will become a valuable member to our society and such a thing should not be overlooked. However, the crash was ultimately on your part and as such, you will have to be put on probation for a period of two months. The panel will also require that you retake your license class. Do you agree these actions are necessary?” Relief washes over him. Seokjin thought this was it. He was anticipating that he’d lose his job. “Y-Yes. Thank you.” “You will have to pass your license class.” “Yes, I will.” “There is one more thing I would like to discuss with you, Seokjin,” The Commander speaks up. “I spoke to our Premier and Minister prior to this meeting and we came to an agreement that it would be in the best interest of everyone involved if you could foster the newcomer you rescued. Typically, as you know, we house newcomers for a while and monitor them. But she...seems to be a special case.” The Chief furrows his brows. “Yes, she was isolated, wasn’t she?” It’s known to all that the lone ones are usually the people that are most unstable. The ones with animalistic behaviour as a result of living in the wild and being socially deprived. The problematic ones. But they’re wrong. Seokjin doesn’t outright refute his own superiors, yet he’s certain that you don’t have any of those issues. You’re not violent. Uncivilized. Barbaric. “Usually people are found in groups or clusters.” “Exactly that. But it seems like Seokjin has built a rapport with her. It might lead to a smoother transition if there’s immediate integration. Or at least, it’s an experiment we want to try. He has a calm temperament as well which makes him an ideal candidate to attempt this new method. Would you be willing to house this newcomer for a period of time, Seokjin?” He doesn’t need a second longer to think about it. “I wouldn’t mind whatsoever.” ... .. . Seokjin finds you and almost bursts out laughing with how relieved you look. “Jin!” He doesn’t mind the nickname either. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” Hoseok twirls around with a blazing smile, his white coat fluttering with him. “But I have a feeling you’re here to see my little guest and not me.” “You’re right.” He enters and stands by your side. “Has everything been alright?” “Of course!” Hoseok interjects before you can answer. “I’m one of the best doctors here, what do you take me for? We had a very fun time together, right, Y/N?” “Uh, sure.” “I’ll take it.” Seokjin smiles and looks at his old friend. “Is there anything…?” “She’s healthy. She’s been taking care of herself well. Nothing that’s too concerning.” Hoseok's eyes meet yours and he grins. “You’re approximately twenty to twenty five years old. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you have any family here in Arcadia, but you don’t have any diseases, so that’s something to be happy about! Minimal dental work that needs to be done. Blood pressure is good. You have a slight magnesium and iodine deficiency, but nothing dark greens, whole grains, fish and eggs can’t fix. I’ll give you some vitamins to be safe and some medication to avoid illnesses you’re potentially susceptible to in Arcadia.” “That’s good news,” Jin exhales. “You’re also healthy enough to have children!” Hoseok announces and if possible his grin widens. You blink at him and he quickly reads your confused expression. “Right, you might not be aware but it’s one of the main ambitions of Arcadia to repopulate society. People with the most compatible genes get paired together into family units. Depending on how your integration goes, you might get paired up in a family unit by the end of the week.” “What?” You’re reeling. Starting a family and having children are things at the very back of your mind, not even in the realm of what your thoughts are, and you’re not sure what to think at this news. Jin sighs at his friend. “You’re freaking her out.” “Am I? Sorry,” the man laughs and looks at you. “Don’t worry. No one will force you. It’s just...highly suggested and recommended.” … .. . “That’s the dining hall.” “What do they serve?” “On Mondays, there’s quinoa. Tuesday is this dried beans dish. So on and so forth. Don’t worry, there’s poultry too, so there are eggs and chicken breast which you can order. There’s corn, milk, cheese and a selection of fruit too. They also serve protein powders you can mix with water that gives you the same nutrition value.” “It’s not like...that stuff you gave me, right?” “You mean pemmican? No, it’s better. Or at least I hope so.” He smiles. “Everyone has the same food. Sometimes during celebrations though, they serve different things.” “There’s not much privacy, is there?” Seokjin follows your line of sight to the glass buildings where you’re able to see the people working on each floor. “I guess not. I’ve never really thought about it.” You suppose it’s something to get used to. “Are...people staring at me, Jin?” “Don’t mind it. It’s not everyday we get a new face around here.” Right as he says that, you lift your head to discover your face plastered on one of the screens at the top of the building as if you were a wanted criminal. Seokjin laughs. “News spreads fast around here.” “I bet it does,” you mutter, a bit unnerved. “It’s a nice place if you follow the rules, trust me.” “What happens if someone breaks a rule?” “Well, there’s a focus on restorative justice for small crimes. So people often do community service or talk to victims or the people they affected and try their best to fix their mistakes.” “What about big crimes? Like if you killed someone.” Yet, Seokjin stays silent for a moment. “They disappear.” Your brows furrow, not sure what he means. But he doesn’t elaborate and you don’t push for an answer, uncertain that you want to know more. Arcadia isn’t as you expected it to be. When Seokjin told you stories, part of you anticipated it being lesser and merely blown up in proportion through his evident love of this place. You had predicted a community ridden with suspicion, like many of the sanctuaries you had been to before they inevitably collapsed. Leaders suppressing their people. Scarcity in resources. Another part of you expected an otherworldly universe, full of gibberish and things you didn’t understand. Much like the technology he carried with him or the shuttle that crashed in the forest. But what is presented in front of you is a sort of familiarity in a changed background. People like you know them, except courteous and independent. “This is my housing unit.” It’s a blinding white, two stories with the top floor off center and extended off the right side. It looks like two boxes haphazardly stacked on top of each other with giant pane glass windows at the front. “It’s not much but it’s my home.” You nod as your eyes drift to his lawn — a tiny patch of grass that surrounds the path leading up to the front door. As if entranced, you launch forward towards it. But it feels different underneath your feet, past the soles of your shoes. The soil isn’t soft. There aren’t any lumps, no grip when you try to root yourself into it. Seokjin notices your reaction. “It’s artificial grass.” “What does that mean?” “It’s fake.” “Fake? You can’t get real grass?” “Guess not.” The interior of his home is less white than all of Arcadia. There are mismatched cushions, wooden tables and bookshelves, fake yellow flowers on his marble kitchen counter, paintings of oceans and cities placed on the wall next to photographs of himself growing up. You glance over the knick-knacks lining the shelves, snow globes and postcards, tiny things you’ve always seen lying around shops in the decaying towns, but never paid much attention to. “Sorry. It’s a bit messy.” “No, I like it.” He shows you to your room, an empty one down the hall. It’s much less decorated than his living space and he quickly excuses himself to tumble back in with heavier blankets and proper pillows. “Had I known you were coming, I would’ve had everything already set up!” “I don’t think any of us knew I would be here.” He laughs. “That’s true.” You walk to the window, taking a peek outside to the white city that towers over and covers the blue sky, the tiny patches of grass that alleviates the brightness of Arcadia, the flying shuttles hovering past the paved paths. “You’re probably tired, right? Do you want to rest a bit? I have a few things to do, so…” “You don’t have to worry about me, Jin. I can take care of myself. Probably.” Seokjin ends up shutting the door after promising he won’t take long. But it’s the first time in hours that there’s finally silence. And you allow the quietness to simmer down on you as you take a seat on the edge of the soft bed that sinks underneath your weight. You stare at the sheets, the white walls and floor, the luminescent sunlight streaming through the windows. You’re not sure how you feel. … .. . You stare down at your slab of white meat, so white that you wonder if everything in Arcadia is dyed in this blinding shade. It’s something you might have to ask Jin, even if it’s a bit ridiculous. You’re just not used to having meat that isn’t charged by the flames of a bonfire. But still, you tear it with your fingers and when you bring it to your mouth, it tastes dry and heavy — like it’s fake. “This isn’t very good, is it?” “It isn’t?” Jin blinks and you lift your head. Immediately, your eyes connect to a stranger who instantly turns away and it occurs to you that people are watching. “Don’t worry. It’s because you’re not using utensils. Here.” He hands you a metal stick with three prongs at the end and another one that’s rounded. Understandably, it’s awkward in your hold, hurts in your grip. It goes silent as you fumble with it. The chicken breast almost flies off your metal tray. “It’s okay.” He smiles at your visible frustration and reaches over to slice it with a knife. Jin gently takes your hand holding the fork and pierces the piece. “Like this, see? Not too bad, right?” “It would be easier with my hands.” He agrees, “It would be.” “Hey, you’re Y/N, right?” A familiar red-head comes prancing up to the table and steals a seat next to you. “I’m Lizzy. We met on the Xanadu Shuttle, remember? I was the one telling you all about the history of Arcadia?” “Yes, I do.” “This is Namjoon. He’s one of our robotics engineers,” she introduces a gawky, strapping male with framed glasses. He takes a seat next to Seokjin. “A pleasure to be of your acquaintance. I’ve heard quite a lot about you in the past two hours or so. I am friends with Hoseok. He doesn’t indulge me in much information, he told me he received a great person of interest in his office. I believe that person may be you—” Seokjin interrupts his ramble, “Namjoon.” “Don’t mind him,” Lizzy laughs, ignoring the two men as she leans over the table to intrude into your personal space. “How are you getting settled in? Everything okay?” “Yeah. I’d say everything’s okay.” “I heard you were living with Jin now. Tell me, is he as messy at home as he is at work?” “I am not messy,” he protests. “Only a little,” you divulge her with a small smile. Namjoon smiles. “I heard you crashed. Glad to see you’re still alive and well.” “Thanks.” Seokjin’s eyes roll as his voice drips of sarcasm. “I’m sorry you couldn’t use my body for your next humanoid robotic experiment.” “Not now, but in due time,” the other man teases then turns to you. “It’s a shame you’re partnered with Seokjin. He can be quite clumsy and forgetful. You’ll end up becoming his handyman like I am.” “His first time he got into a Xanadu Craft, he broke the console,” Lizzy tells, making your mouth upturn. Namjoon swallows down his food before asking, “If I may be intrusive, Y/N, is it really true that you were alone? In the forest, I mean.” “I...was.” “How long were you alone for?” “I’m not sure. I think maybe two years.” “And before that?” “I...uh...traveled around and met different people.” He leans forward. “And what happened to those people?” “Well, some...passed away and others went somewhere else.” “What did they pass away from?” There’s a loud scraping of a chair against the tiled floor, grating to your ears. “I’m stuffed. Aren’t you, Y/N? I think we should head back now. Sorry, Joon, Lizzy. Might have to cut your questions short there. Maybe you can ask more next time.” “Oh, alright then.” They bid you farewell and Lizzy waves with a smile. As you exit, you look at Seokjin. “Thank you.” He saved you from answering, from bringing up memories you had no intentions of returning to. Yet he smiles and then looks away, feigning ignorance. “For what?” … .. . They’re wrong. It’s not a shame at all to be with Jin at all. If anything, you think you’re quite fortunate. Ever since you’ve met him, he’s proven himself time and time again to be thoughtful and considerate — traits that you thought were gone in this era. But it’s him who makes it easier to deal with these changes, to enter into this new world. … .. . “I thought you were gone,” he says, looking down at you with a smile. You’re laying on his lawn in the middle of the night in bare feet. “I knocked on your door and then searched my whole house.” “Where did you think I was?” “I don’t know.” Seokjin plops down on his artificial grass, stretching out his body and laying beside you like all those times before. “I was worried. I thought something happened to you.” “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be.” “I couldn’t sleep.” It’s quiet as the pair of you look to the sky with your hands folded on top of your stomachs. The lamp posts nearby casted warm glows on your visages. The warm breeze making his cheeks rosy. Yet, none of you can see the stars — not with the light pollution of Arcadia, not when all the buildings were towering so high and covering it, not like out there in the middle of the forest. “Remember when we were in the forest, Jin?” “I do. I remember that one time, you didn’t completely put out the fire and my pants almost set on fire.” You giggle and Jin relishes in the sound. “I apologized for that and who told you to sit so close to that spot?” “Hey, I just wanted to be next to you.” You remember the nights when you were able to drift off while staring at the horizon and how you were awoken by the first blush of dawn, sunlight coming through the trees. You have a feeling it’s going to be a long time before you have an experience like that again. It’s going to be a long, long time. If ever again. “I feel homesick,” you whisper, finally being able to pinpoint your emotions and it’s the most honest you’ve been since you arrived. “I don’t want to be paired up with anyone or have kids.” Jin reaches out and you feel his hand against the back of yours. He holds it, clasping it tight. You shift and your eyes meet. “Don’t worry. They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to.” You trust him. … .. . “If you want, we don’t have to eat in the dining center anymore. We can eat at home.” The corner of your mouth pulls. “Is that allowed?” “I’ll find a way around it,” Jin promises. … .. . “Please, Hoseok.” “You know that’s not how the system works. There’s not much I can do anyway.” “But you can put in your recommendation.” He’s silent in contemplation. “She’s compatible with you, but more so compatible with others. Plus, she’d assimilate better with someone stricter.” “I want to protect her. She’s my responsibility. Pair her with me.” Seokjin won’t let you be paired up with someone else in a family unit, expected to stay together and have children. He’ll keep his promise to you and be with you until the end — it’s also his selfish wish to be with you. The other man sighs. “I’ll make a note of it, but I can’t promise anything.” … .. . You’re unfamiliar with the devices at hand — the kitchen appliances with automated voices that speak when you come close, the machines with tens of buttons you can’t read. They’re all things you once overlooked when you scrambled for remaining supplies. “Is everything okay?” “I’m trying to heat this up. You said I could use it, right?” “Yeah. Here.” Seokjin comes behind you and takes your hand, guiding you where to press. “Click this button and then this one.” You don’t understand technology at all. Even the television is odd, an overload on your senses. “What do you think?” he asks, watching your reaction in amusement and how your eyes are as wide as the screen flashing against your face. “It’s...a lot to take in.” “That’s okay. Do you want to go outside instead? We can, if you want to.” You glance out the window. “I’m fine here. I’m not used to there being so many people.” “How about we work on some more worksheets?” “Again?” Jin laughs and the sound is tinkling. “You have to learn eventually. Come on.” He pulls you up and is happy to sit next to you at his kitchen table to teach you how to hold a pencil, how to write each letter and answer your questions. You’re a fast learner. Today your strokes are smoother and you learn how to spell his name. … .. . Seokjin often knocks on your door before going to bed to bid you goodnight. Yet he seldomly finds you there, where you’re supposed to be. He wonders if you’re outside on his lawn again, but instead, he discovers you standing in his living room. You’re gazing out the window quietly with an unreadable expression. “Is there something wrong?” You turn around with a small smile. “I’m just a little homesick.” He joins you, staring out at the city and the lampposts lined on the paved paths. “How do we go outside, Jin? Not just outside, but beyond the dome.” To the forest again. “Most people aren’t allowed outside because it’s dangerous. You would need to have my job or something similar, and that’s after you graduate from a three year program and pass several exams.” It’s quiet and neither of you look at one another or speak when you reach over, discreetly taking his hand into yours. Seokjin laces his fingers through yours and squeezes. He’s the only reason you can starve off the longing sewed uncomfortably in your chest. ... .. . In the following days, he receives a notification. The leaders are interested in you as a newcomer and extended an invitation to the party. So he helps you pick an appropriate outfit and the two of you enter with your hand looped around his arm as he reassures you. “You must be Y/N!” The strangers, leaders of Arcadia, welcome you with tall bubbling glasses, one of which that you receive from a waiter. It tastes disgusting, but you try to not let it show on your face. “It’s good to see that you’re getting yourself accustomed to Arcadia. I see you’re with your future partner this evening.” The man laughs boisterously while you exchange expressions with Seokjin. “That’s supposed to be a secret,” the woman beside him chides. “Right, right. The postings of the new family units go up on Friday. My apologies for ruining the surprise, but I assume it is a happy one.” You look up at him, gazing meeting Seokjin’s at once. The relief is overwhelming and what follows is a kind of excitement. Part of the weight lifted off your shoulders and Jin smiles tenderly. He leans in close, whispering in your ear so you’re the only one who hears— “You shouldn’t look at me like that in a place like this or I might just do something about it in front of all these people.” It’s bold. Unexpected but you know with the heat that rises into your face, it isn’t unwelcome. “Y/N, is it?” The intimate moment is intercepted by other individuals approaching in blue attire, form fitting dress simple and modest. “You must be the newcomer! I’ve heard so much about you.” “Yes, how has your transition been? Are you finding everything accommodating?” You hope they don’t come close enough to feel the warmth radiating off your cheeks. “Yes. Arcadia has been very welcoming to me.” They smile. “It’s so fortunate you can understand us and we don’t have to use those translating devices.” “You were alone, correct?” another asks. “How did you fare in the wild like that? How did you manage to even eat?” “I trapped animals like rabbits and squirrels and roasted them over fires.” Laughter is suddenly roused all around you. “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to do such a primitive thing anymore?” “What I’m curious about is how you’re still alive without any radiation poisoning.” “I used a radon detector. It was given to me a long time ago by an older woman who was with me. She died.” Automatic silence sweeps through the crowd. You clear your throat. “But I used it when I traveled through the cities.” “I see.” Some are fascinated while others aren’t. “How preserved are these old cities?” “Most buildings are still relatively in-tact. There are abandoned cars and buses too, but they’re useless without fuel and everything’s been raided, so there’s not much left. It’s one of the reasons I started to live in the forest.” “Poor thing,” someone sympathizes, “Someone should’ve rescued you sooner. You wouldn’t have to suffer so much.” “I didn’t suffer.” They’re taken aback, clearing their throats and moving on from the subject. A man directs to the refreshment table — all the while Jin pulls you closer to him and away from the prying eyes of Arcadia. … .. . Later on in the evening when Seokjin’s gone to relieve himself, you meet an old man seated alone at the table. “I was outside too,” he croaks. “Until two years ago.” Your eyes find his — past the wrinkles are bright irises — and you remain silent. “Many things happened that the people here would never understand. But my biggest regret is coming here willingly. Arcadia offers many things,” he says, “it has everything but one.” “Freedom.” … .. . The words stick to you. Like flies to honey. Or the magnets on Jin’s fridge. They don’t cease from your mind — a plague that spreads, a pollutant that you can’t shake off no matter how hard you try. Jin worries about you, but he doesn’t ask. He knows every time he does, you’ll reassure him that you’re fine. So one night, he takes your hand and shows you to his television. “Put this on.” He hands you a black, heavy device and smiles at your visible reluctance. “Trust me.” You slip it on top of your head and it sits comfortably over your eyes, obstructing your vision in complete darkness. Headphones are put over your ears and you discover both of your senses of sight and sound are completely disabled. “What are you doin—” The words die upon your tongue the moment the machine flickers on. There are chickadees chirping and woodpeckers digging against the bark. The sound of insects flapping their wings in the beating sun and the whistling wind intensifies. You see the forest, a forest. Canopies of spruce, walnut, and alder cascading light to the verdant floor overgrown in shrubbery. A cry chokes in your throat, but then it bubbles into laughter instead. You jump up and down. “I see it. I see it!” You whirl around, looking in each direction. To the blue horizon and the sound of the rustling leaves. Your home. But when you take it off, it’s all gone. You’re shrouded in darkness with Seokjin’s features barely discernible. You’re trapped in the very utopia you had followed him to. And you cry. For the first time in his presence, for the first time in a long while, sobs break through your frame at what you’ve lost — what you’ve traded in, what you’ve given up. Jin embraces you, arms wrapped around your frame, trying his best to keep you whole. “I want to go back.” … .. . Jin makes it easier to be in Arcadia. He gives you reason to become accustomed to it. He makes you wish you wanted to stay. But he’s not enough to dissipate your constant wistfulness. He isn’t the solution to your plaguing dilemmas, but you’re glad he doesn’t have to bear that burden. You wouldn’t want Jin to harbour the hardship of being your fix. … .. . It’s in the dead of the night that Seokjin comes out of his room and finds you. In the dark, you’re seated on the floor with your knees folded to your chest and the virtual reality headset slipped on top of your head, over your eyes and ears. You’re taking it all in. The orchestral songs of nature, the birds and leaves, the swaying of the grass and flourishing shrubs, bathing in the warm sunlight you cannot feel. He sees you, but doesn’t say anything, merely turning away. At same time, you feel the presence of another and slip the device in time to catch his retreating backside. “Jin,” you call out for him, knowing you’ve been caught. He hums, turning around and the two of you look at one another. “I’m sorry.” The dark-haired man smiles tenderly. “It’s me who should apologize. I’m the one who brought you here selfishly.” “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who agreed to some and I’m...the one having trouble adjusting.” “That’s not it. The problem is you’re not where you should be. Home. Not my home. Not Arcadia. But your home. “ You stand and he meets you halfway. You press your face to his shoulder and he embraces you. “I’ll help you go back,” Seokjin murmurs against your hair. “I thought you would be happy here, but I don’t want to keep you against your will.” “Come with me.” “You know I can’t,” he whispers in spite of your soft-spoken plea. “I have a life here. Like how you can’t leave yours. Arcadia is my home. It always will be.” You hold him closer, shutting your eyes to savour the moment. “Won’t you get into trouble?” “I’ll find some way.” The corner of his mouth turns. “I always end up fine. You will too.” … .. . The year’s posting goes up and just as the man had said, you and Seokjin are paired together. The two of you hold hands as you look at it, taking your time to read it over. It’s slow, but you understand nonetheless. You’re congratulated by those around him, people you recognize and friends you have yet to know. It’s fortunate it worked out that way, but it’s still bittersweet, knowing of your upcoming departure. And that same night, five hours past twelve, Jin takes you across Arcadia. The white shuttle is ready when you arrive in the dark and you scarcely recognize its scratched paint and dented surface. It’s the same one that he crashed in, the one that took him to you. “I programmed the path back. It’ll go automatically without you needing to drive it. And once you close the door, it’ll come back on its own. I’ll erase the data’s history. Take this.” Seokjin gently places the sling of a heavy bag on your shoulder. “There are clothes in here, blankets, medicine, a first aid kit, some canned food and seeds of new plants you don’t have. It should help you out.” Tears threaten to spill from your lash line. “Jin. Wait.” Hope blooms within him, wondering if you’ve changed your mind, that you want to stay. But he knows having such selfish desires won’t help him, so he puts them away. Just for a moment. He tries his best not to hang onto you, to hold you down. “It was because of you that I could even cope so well. You made it so much easier for me. I...I…” But Jin lets his greed slip. He closes the distance and kisses you senseless. The man swallows your soft gasp and comes to cradle the back of your neck as you ease into him. You relish in the gentle touch, his tender affections and taste one another’s lips. It’s bittersweet, yet he pulls away with a faint smile. “You should get in.” You nod, pulling away from him. Everything the two of you wanted to say has already translated through the kiss. Still, you take every moment you can and look to him. “Thank you, Jin.” The doors whir as it closes. He gazes at you till the very last second, till it shuts. The thin whistle diminuendos as it lifts into the air. He watches the shuttle fade from sight and when the sun lifts at the first blush of dawn, what’s left is a streak of white in the sky.

The world is limitless. You have learned of such a fact at a young age, traveling from desserts to mountains, finding all the hiding places and safe spots that others had claimed no longer existed. But they did and you’ve sought refuge in this forest, found a home amongst the rustling foliage and canopies ruled by spruce, walnut, and alder. There was just enough rays of light bursting through to allow the saplings to flourish and shrubs to overgrow. And without the presence of others, you could listen to the woodpeckers hammering against the wood, the wings of insects fluttering about. Everything was the way you left it. Unchanged from the time you left like it was waiting for you. It’s as if Arcadia and Seokjin was a fever dream. Except the mementos brought back with you reminds you otherwise. You dig into your bag, looking through what he’s given you, everything he picked out that he knew would help. But you discover something special at the very bottom. It’s a black, thick rectangular piece of plastic reminiscent of a walkie-talkie, synced up to only one other without a third in between. You hold the Erewhon device to your lips and press the side of the button. “Hello.” There’s a pause. “My name is Y/N.” Silence follows. But then there’s the sound of static and someone’s crystal clear voice. “Nice to meet you. I’m Seokjin.” A wide smile spreads into your cheeks.

#bts fanfic #bts scenario #seokjin fanfic #jin fanfic #jin scenario #seokjin scenario #seokjin reader insert #seokjin x reader #jin reader insert #jin x reader #btsboulangerie #I don't really know if there's 50/50 fluff and angst #there's not really that much fluff and not that much angst in general #but I don't really know how to describe this fic any other way lol #so I went with 50 50 cause it is truly neutral #hope you enjoyed this piece!!

433 notes · View notes