#stained-glass-cicada reminded me of this

[ghosteso]

I don’t think people appreciate Kat Gray enough in the GW finale. Her and Cosa really carrying the backs of it.

[trulyumai]

too soft for your own good

—Synopsis: Remmick is finally brought in with a warm softness. The evening unfolds with a quiet domesticity—soft candlelight, the smell of fresh herbs, and the clink of silverware over a lovingly prepared dinner. He can’t eat, of course, but he sits across from you like a man who once had a family, who’s almost forgotten how to live like this. He watches with an aching reverence as you move about the kitchen, barefoot and warm, bathed in the gentle familiarity of home. You ask nothing of him. He expects you to flinch, to fear. But you don’t. Not once. And in that stillness, that trust, something fragile begins to take root. —Warnings: Talk of violence, blood.

He doesn’t touch the plate.

Just sits there, long fingers folded on the edge of the table, watching you with a stillness that hums like tension wire. You’re standing by the stove, dish towel slung over one shoulder, hair pinned back in a loose twist, humming like always—some old tune that feels like it belongs to the house more than to you.

You serve two bowls.

You always do.

You ladle out red beans, set down thick slices of buttered cornbread, pour iced tea until the glasses sweat. You do it like muscle memory, like prayer. Because even if he doesn’t eat, the gesture matters. The illusion of it. The hope.

Remmick watches your every move like he’s memorizing a ritual. Like your hands stirring the pot are some holy liturgy he’ll never be clean enough to speak aloud.

The kitchen is warm—alive. Smells like garlic and thyme, like something bubbling low and soft for hours. The air clings to you, golden with lamplight, sweat at your temple catching the glow. It’s cruel, in a way. How human you are. How here.

He, by contrast, is all silence and restraint.

No breath.

No heartbeat.

Just that faint unnatural pallor beneath his eyes, the kind that deepens the longer he sits too close to heat.

“Smells good,” he says. His voice is smoke—thin and quiet, something that slips under the door and vanishes before it can be answered.

You glance up. “I can make you something else. If it’s the garlic—”

He stops you with a small shake of his head. “I ain’t hungry.”

But he is.

God, he is.

Just not for what’s on the table.

Your eyes linger on him. His collar is open. No tie. Just the pale line of his throat and the faint stain of dried blood at the seam, nearly scrubbed clean. He looks better—less like a corpse, more like a man caught halfway between hunger and salvation.

You sit.

He watches the steam rise from your bowl.

Your spoon clinks gently. The softest sounds in the world, but to him it’s thunder. Because it reminds him he doesn’t belong here. Never really did. And yet—

“You used to?” you ask suddenly. “Eat, I mean?”

A pause.

He nods. Slow. “Years back. Another life.”

“What did you miss first?”

He thinks about it.

“The feeling of fullness,” he says. “Not even the taste. Just knowin’ you’d had enough.”

You nod, quiet, spoon paused halfway to your mouth.

He reaches out. Doesn’t touch the food, but lets his hand hover near the plate like the heat from it might singe him into something real again.

“I still remember what it’s supposed to taste like,” he murmurs. “Cornbread. Real butter. Salted beans. I close my eyes and it’s there, like a ghost.”

Your throat tightens.

You push your bowl closer to him anyway.

He looks at you like you’ve just offered him something impossible.

“Humor me,” you say. “Just hold the spoon.”

He does.

Awkwardly at first. Like it’s foreign in his hand. Like it burns with its memory of purpose. But he lets it dip into the beans, lift, steam curling upward in a soft spiral that kisses his wrist.

He doesn’t bring it to his lips.

He just holds it there. Eyes locked on the bowl.

“I used to eat like this on Sundays,” he says, like he’s somewhere else now. “Mama’s table. Window open. Cicadas loud as hell. Always had sweet tea, and my uncle used to say if the cornbread didn’t crumble in your hand, it wasn’t worth a damn.”

You smile.

“He’d like this one,” you offer.

He laughs—but it’s a small, strangled sound. Half-buried. Something folded up inside him, trembling.

“You don’t have to pretend,” you whisper.

But he does.

He wants to.

Not for you—but for himself. For the boy he used to be. For the man who might’ve had a kitchen like this, with a woman humming across the room and oil popping in a skillet, and the holy silence of two people who don’t need to speak to be full.

He sets the spoon down carefully.

“I can’t eat,” he says, finally. “But if I sit here long enough, I think maybe I almost remember how it feels.”

You rise and move behind him. Lay your hand on his shoulder. He leans into it, slow and soft, eyes fluttering shut.

“You’re here,” you murmur. “That’s all that matters.”

The beans go cold. The cornbread stiffens at the edges.

But Remmick?

He stays.

Lets the illusion wrap around him like a warm quilt. Listens to the tick of the stove, the song of your breath. Pretends, for one long, golden moment, that this is his house too.

And in that stillness, in that fragile peace, he is full.

The kitchen’s long gone quiet. Dishes rinsed, lights dimmed to a low glow. The air still smells faintly of thyme and scorched sugar.

He hadn’t left.

You didn’t ask him to.

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

Now he sits on the edge of your couch, long legs bent, hands folded between his knees like he’s afraid to unfold too fast and shatter the moment. The living room hums with warmth. You pad in barefoot, skin still dewy from the bath, the thin fabric of your robe clinging like a second skin. Every step is deliberate. Every breath careful.

He doesn’t look at you—not at first. Just stares at the floor like it holds the answers to all the questions he won’t let himself ask.

“I can hear it,” he murmurs, low and hoarse. “Your blood.”

You stop in front of him.

He doesn’t lift his gaze, but his hands clench tighter.

“It’s not just sound—it’s… a pull. Like somethin' remembering its way home.”

You kneel between his knees. Slowly. Gently.

His eyes rise to meet yours—and God, they’re starving. Not red. Not monstrous. Just desperate. Heavy with restraint. Guilt. A hunger he’s buried so deep, it’s gone feral in the dark.

“Remmick,” you whisper.

He shakes his head. “Don’t... Darlin'. You don’t know what you’re—”

But your fingers reach for his. Steady. Grounding.

“I do.”

He closes his eyes. A tremble runs through him—like a shiver breaking loose from the spine.

“You think this is kind,” he says. “But it’s not. It’s giving in. And once I do—once I taste—”

“You won’t hurt me.”

He laughs, but it’s hollow. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

You reach up, tilt your head.

The robe slips just slightly, revealing the slope of your neck. That tender spot just beneath the ear. The place where your pulse flutters like a moth trapped in your throat.

His breath catches, ragged and dry.

You wait.

You don’t coax. Don’t beg.

You just are. Calm. Present. Offering.

He leans forward, slow as death, slow as forgiveness.

His lips ghost your skin. Not a kiss, not yet. Just a reverence.

Then a breath. Sharp. Inhaled like incense.

“Say stop,” he whispers. “Say it and I’ll—”

You don’t.

You tip your head farther, baring yourself with a softness that borders on holy.

He groans, quiet and wrecked, and finally sinks in—not with violence, but with ache. With restraint so taut it might break him apart. His fangs pierce skin like a prayer, and for a moment the world stills.

No pain.

Just heat.

Just the throb of your pulse against his lips, the way his hand cradles the back of your neck like you’re something breakable and beloved. His other arm slides around your waist, pulling you closer—not out of hunger, but out of need.

The kind of need that says don’t leave me here.

You let him drink. Not much. Just enough.

Enough to stop the shaking. Enough to soothe the ache behind his eyes. Enough to remind him he’s still tethered to something human.

When he pulls back, he’s shaking. His mouth red, his pupils blown wide, and yet—he looks cleaner somehow. Less haunted.

Your blood stains his lower lip.

You reach up slowly, wiping it away with your thumb.

[archangeldyke-all]

can you do a pt 2 to my "slow living" rec but this time it's about reader jarring/canning, pickling, freezing, or drying literally everything? probably mid-summer when everything is overwhelmingly abundant and wife!sev is just in awe of the work reader gets done lol (also just wanted to say i absolutely adored what you with my request! it was so cute! you really are a blessing for the gays starved a sevika content)

yes yes yes yes yes! i haven't stopped thinking about this prompt since u sent the first request in!

men and minors dni

bushels and bushels of herbs, garlic, and corn are hanging from the rafters of the screened-in wrap-around porch of your home.

it's summer, which means you've been busy as a bee trying to tend to, harvest, and preserve all your garden's abundance. you're blessed to be able to sustain yourselves all year from the food you grow, but that doesn't mean it doesn't come without some elbow grease.

cicadas and crickets are singing outside as the sun begins to set, bathing your property in sparkling gold light. in the kitchen, with all the windows open and the fan whirring, a radio is singing and sevika is sipping on her nightly glass of whiskey.

you're dancing to and fro in front of her, chopping produce and throwing it in jars of vinegar, pressure canning the jams you'd made this morning, filling reusable bag after bag with chopped veggies and fruits that will go into the deep freeze until winter.

sevika's been busy too. experimenting with making goat cheese, fermenting wine in your basement, tinkering away at your broken AC all day. now, she's finally got a moment to rest, and she's using her free time to admire you.

you've got a filthy apron wrapped around your body, covered in stains and crumbs. right now, you're chopping squash and stringing it on a fishline, so you can hang it to sundry tomorrow. your hips are swaying to the beat of the gentle music, and you've got a glob of apricot jam on your forehead. sevika chuckles.

"what?" you ask her from across the counter. she grins.

"you're so amazing." she says. you smile.

"you say that every summer." you tease. sevika shrugs.

"doesn't make it any less true." she says. you chuckle.

"stir that pot on the stove for me?" you ask, gesturing to the giant pot of simmering tomato sauce you've got over a low flame. sevika nods and follows your command, licking the wooden spoon once she's done stirring and groaning.

"delicious, baby." she grunts. you giggle.

"it's your recipe." you say. she smiles.

"yeah, but you made it." she says. you giggle and swat her with the towel over your shoulder.

"did you finish grinding the cornflour?" you ask. she nods.

"and the wheat." she says. you sigh and wrap her up into a hug that she quickly reciprocates.

"you're the best." you say. sevika chuckles.

"you just married me for my muscles." she teases. you laugh against her.

"i can't lie, that was a pretty big motivator for me." you say. sevika giggles and reaches up to wipe the jam off your face, licking it off her fingers when she's done. you laugh.

"can't decide if i like summer or winter more. this is fun, and i love the long days and sitting out in the garden with you, but i also like winter. cuddling by the fireplace and bein' all cozy with you." she says. you press a kiss to her lips.

"i like spring." you say. sevika smiles, already knowing your reasoning. "'s when we got married." you say. she smirks.

"and when we met." she reminds you. you laugh.

"and when we first got the ducks." you add on. sevika snorts and rolls her eyes.

"fuckin' ducks. did i tell ya ms. quacker shit on me this morning? not even my shoes. she flew up to perch on my shoulder and took a duce all the way down my back." she says with a shudder. you giggle and kiss the frown off her face.

"i love you." you hum against her lips. sevika smiles.

"i love you too, baby." she says.

taglist!

@lesbeaniegreenie @fyeahnix @sapphicsgirl @half-of-a-gay @ellabslut @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner @shimtarofstupidity @love-sugarr @chuucanchuucan @222danielaa @badbye666

[indigrassy]

Cicada wings remind me of stained glass

[stardust-in-my-mind-blog]

wing crafter

I only understood the clear wing scales like dragonflies

or opaque scales that come off like a moths and butterflies

but today I found a cicada wing as I was swinging nihilistically

and something made me pick it up and focus on how it is

constructed because that's how I understand things

and the cicada wing was stronger than the butterfly

just from a human holding a bug wing comparison

it has the structure design of birds wing

and then a clear foil like hammered substance all over

like a stained glass outline with fortifying glass sandwiched over

it looks like its made of copper with an accent of bright orange

I remember the summer of the last time these cicadas showed up

they still scare me when they get fresh and fly into me

but they have little bunny faces and I like their song

it also could be that the universe was reminding me

to stop procrastinating and come up with a design

for my pride wings that is on Saturday

which means another stupid timeline to get a huge project

done in a matter of days but then again

no one is really holding me to the commitment

that I make for myself spontaneously

so no one but me will know

but I also remind myself

that myself is rather vindictive

when I ignore my own promises so

we'll call this energy spent with intention

toward the imagined project idea

my old butterfly wings were attached at the throat

and that will not do anything for my sensories

especially it's it's hot and I want something adaptable

if I don't want to wear it on my shoulders

it's fun to think about so call this the first step

toward my new pair of wings

[murderbot-moodboard]

@stained-glass-cicada Just saw on my dash a video about solarpunk (and discussion in the reblogs about what makes it authentic solarpunk) which I thought you might find relevant and interesting (link below). I won't give too much detail because I think it's more informative to experience the info in the order the post presents it. But the discussion specifically mentions the idea of having food available to everyone, in contrast with the way we (in the US and several other Western cultures at least) think of making food available, which especially reminded me of your post.

Oookay it's been over a week since I finally read Home habitat range niche territory and not to sound like a traumatized ex-corporate but I'm not normal about the free food

Cuz It's not just necessities, mensah is going out to grab more syrup! Theres seasoning packets and cold bottles of tea! fucking nice things are free too?? damn

Preservation is just delightful to read about

[samuoni]

not many works of fiction have portrayed the idea of love as perfectly as my liberation notes. it speaks of a love that's raw and unpolished, rough around the edges. one you can't help but poke your finger at despite the knowledge that you might bleed. it's a painting buried in an ugly swirl of colours but when you take a few steps back, its beauty is more than apparent to make your soul shake with something. something that falls awkwardly between joy and grief, rage and serenity. it's a single morsel of food, a tissue tucked softly under a plate. it's lingering glances, distant walks, comfortable silence. it's a clang of glass bottles ensuring your presence is known. it's staring so far into the void that you forget what's real, that your body is a home you can never escape. sometimes, you can't help but leap regardless of your weary feet. sometimes, you learn that you're allowed to let them rest. a love like this reminds you of sunflowers, farm fields, fabric stained with sweat. buzzing of cicadas, whirring of fans, rustling of leaves - it's all of them at once or none of them at all. it's worry sprawled across a mother's face. it's a father's calloused hands, picking up a tan underneath the blazing sun. it's tainted photographs, childhood traditions, alcohol crawling through your veins. the loss of a love of this kind leaves you handicapped with no limbs to pick from. yet, you're not concerned with maneuvering yourself. not until a love of the same kind hands you purpose, meaning, reason. you, a child with your palms facing the sky and eyes peeled open, all too ready to drink it in. it's finding a footing of your own, realizing that the world can be just as wide as your wingspan if you let it. loneliness does not stir your being like cotton soaking blood, faces and voices have never felt less bothersome. it's sharing the tiniest of accomplishments, wanting to lay down parts of yourself and remoulding them so the winter does not cut through your skin. eat before you go - i care. sit next to my younger self - i will be here. you scare me - you're the flame, i'm the moth. love is gentle hesitance for some and headstrong impulsiveness for others. but most of all, it's salvation disguised as worship, persevering with steady steps. by the end of it all, its only aim is to fill the gaping chasm of your heart, leaving you whole.

[ddullahan]

hadestown au 1

HI SO My anxiety has been through the fuckin roof for the past few weeks and in a fit of stress I deleted the first look of the bees hadestown au that I posted a few weeks ago. I’m feeling much better now and I wanted to repost it because I really am super excited about it >< Anyway, second verse, maybe same as the first, here we go! ---------------- it’s an old song As all tales begin, there comes a moment of question. The precipice we all stand at, toes hanging over the edge, eager to take the plunge. The question, different for every eye and ear turned to the story, starts as a feeling. It buoys us through the long swathes of paragraphs ahead. It seeps into our minds, and pushes us off the edge. We have that moment of freefall. Of realisation. We have to trust in something to catch us. Like most fairy tales, it begins with once upon a time. There laid a railroad track.   If you've ever heard the rails sing on a good, windy day, you'd know the sound sticks to the back of your mind. There to stay until the dark of night, when it creeps up to whisper wanderlust into your bones. The song of the rails is a low and resonant thing, humming into the willows scattered along the railroad sides. They used to say the rails were the Fates groaning in your ears. Urging you along. Waiting in anticipation for the train to come to call. Waiting for the story to start its freefall. The metal likes to wail beneath blackened wheels on hot, summer days. Days much like the one in which our story begins. Once upon a time - Metal chatters under the weight of an ancient, scorch-marked train. Decorated with blacked out windows. Panes of glass soot-stained, like they’d been brushed with fire one too many times. Coal smoke bursts from its chimney with a grudge, flooding the gray skies in the type of black smog that you can taste in the back of your mouth, long after the train’s disappeared. It was painted white once, a long, long time ago. A gift from the boss man down below for his flowering wife; but it’s one of those gifts you shove in the back of your drawer. One of those things that you spend your nights lying awake in bed, thinking in guilty chords. The train still runs, but the old white sides are now black and cold. Like the panting of dogs on the skin of your heels, the wind still blows hot behind it. The only thing it tows are souls to their final destination, but it won't take you if you ain't got the gold to board. It’s a fact almost everyone knows. ‘Cause the old legends say the road to hell could lead you out of poverty, but you gotta pay the toll to get that good money. The wind cracks and snaps after the train; sends the short ribbons of inky black hair whipping. Snapping into the brown-skinned face of a hungry young woman.   Blake Belladonna’s eyes glint like knives with a debt to pay, and her steps are sure footed against the rolling rocks under her boots. She wears a weathered bag slung over her shoulder, and a once-warm leather duster now worn to shit and hole-y. She seems small among the billowing willows and smoggy skies. She doesn't know where she's going or how she got to the railroad at all - but she knows how to turn her collar against the wind. And she knows how to run.   Metal shrieks, pulling her eyes up like a hand to the chin. She’s left to watch as the ruined, black omen of a train screams past a small, dilapidated station. It’s the only structure for miles. The cicadas are screaming along to the wailing of the tracks in a symphony, until the locomotive vanishes over the curve of a distant hill. The station's dry, mud-caked windows send silt drifting to cracked, rotting floorboards. The coke-bottle thick panes rattle angrily in their fragile frames, and then come to find their peace once more. Damn this is a dump, the young woman thinks, approaching the station. But it'll have to do. The sun's rays sink into her skull and turn her warm brown skin hot to the touch. It's far too hot for April. Stepping into the shade is an immediate relief, until the hot wind kicks up again. It blasts in her face as if to remind her it's there. As if she could ever forget. She's used to the way it whispers starvation in her ears. She throws the door open and escapes from the wind; stumbles her way into the empty station. Small and dusty like it’d been forgotten, filled with only two benches facing each other and a single door hiding behind them in the gloom. There's a sign on the door that reads "End o  th  line Caf ". Faintly, she can hear music behind it. Blake doesn't hesitate, and heads for the door. The knob breaks off in her hand, but it feels familiar and solid so she pockets it and heads inside. Follows the hallway and the pull of her feet to the music. The walls grow darker and thicker with polished wood. Her steps don't seem to echo and the music has since paused. The quiet starts to make her anxious. She doesn't like dark hallways. She's dreamt of them enough for a lifetime. The further she goes, the more her unease starts to grow and the more she starts to wonder if she's been here before. It's ridiculous, really. This is the farthest south she'd ever gone. Or was she in the east? Her anxious heart speeds up for a reason she can't see, and it's like her feet already know where to go. The hallway turns suddenly and she finds herself standing at the rim of an amphitheater of sorts. The music fades back in. There's a band jamming to soft jazz in the stands, people crowded and conversing at tiny tables scattered about the flat floor at the bottom. There's a man at a piano playing a diddy, there's a flicker of gold in the kitchen beyond. It's alive in a way that she hadn't seen in a long time, and she finds her feet eager to join the dancing 'round the tables below. She takes a step and nearly runs into another woman, decked out in a crisp white and red suit. She’s older, maybe late thirties or mid forties - has this eternally kind, yet melancholy smile. Her features are fair, but tired. Her black hair is pulled back like Blake’s, but tipped with red like the ends had been dipped in paint. Blake apologises immediately - "E-excuse me, sorry," and starts picking her way down to the tables. "No worries dear," She hears faintly behind her, the older woman's face already blurred from her memory. She blinks and suddenly she’s on the bottom floor, with the movers and shakers rattling cups with their stomping jive. She wants to move with them, but she's already reaching for an empty chair, like her hand was following its own storyline. The flash of gold catches her attention again. Her feet slip into a shallow groove in the floor, and she is rooted. Something crashes, and her eyes follow the clattering sharp shards of porcelain. One piece with purple trim bounces off a brown boot. She notices a hole near the big toe. Blake looks up, and her heart decides to freefall.   All the way across the floor stands a young woman in an apron. A bucket of newly broken dishes lay at her feet.   Her eyes are so pale and pretty they have their own orbit amidst the aging lights above. Her blonde hair ripples into liquid gold, twisted messily into a bun. Broad shoulders are cinched into position with suspenders and there's an off-white shirt rolled up to her elbows, the hem tucked into a pair of trousers. The skin of her strong forearms are tanned and riddled with freckles, spreading constellations all the way up her neck and across the gradual slope of her nose.   Oh, there's something familiar about all of this. Blake feels it in her bones. There’s something familiar in the ‘o’ of her startled mouth. Something about the empty hands she hovers, still holding an imaginary bucket of plates. She's got those sharp lilac eyes pinned on something in front of her.   It's a jolt to realise she's staring right at Blake. Though suddenly, that older woman in the white and red suit sweeps by that freckled face, and it's with a smile and a wave that their staring contest ends. No one claims the victory as the spell breaks. The older woman asks something that Blake can't hear, but she knows her voice is soft and sweet. Her feet move like she’s skating on air, and Blake decides to focus on that. She focuses on that instead of the heartbeat in her chest. She doesn’t think about how her pulse no longer feels like it belongs to herself. The golden woman nods stiffly and turns. Follows the gliding woman to the back of the house, and Blake is left with a heart migrating into her throat. The hungry young woman quickly tears her gaze away, uproots her feet from the grooves in the floor, and sits at the table she'd claimed. Her skin feels clammy. Her body is buzzing. She shrugs off her bag and coat, then pulls her bag into her lap. As if there was anything in there worth protecting. It could be minutes, it could be hours. She's really not sure, when a shadow falls over her table, and the sight aches like an old friend. A bottle of some fizzy drink is set gently before her, the bottle cap rattling towards her side of the table. Sunflower Pop, it reads. She looks up. The poor young woman, with her liquid gold locks wrapped in a messy topknot, stares right back. They're both struck speechless.   If there was ever a moment where destiny fills the lungs, it was then. Anticipation strings itself between their ribs, the cords like telephone wires humming their universal tune. I found you. I found you. I found you. But neither of them say a word to each other. The anticipation feels closer to a noose than a cup-and-string, the longer they spend breathing in the other's presence. The hungry young woman with hair black as night, just couldn't look away. Couldn't make her voice work right. The gold haired woman's jaw seems to work, but there was still no sound to be heard. Eventually the woman just turns around and walks away, toddling and tripping like her knees were unsteady. Blake sits where she left her, feeling much more than sympathy. She feels like her chair would collapse with her if she tried to follow. And again, there are voices whispering in the back of her mind. The wind already found her inside this place, its voices groaning and hollow. It always finds her, and she knows. She knows it always will. But as her slender fingers wrap around the neck of the bottle left on her table, Blake tastes the fizz and hums. Feels the crackle of carbonation all across her skin as she tracks the tall blonde with her eyes. The wind doesn’t feel like a whip in this vibrant, lively place. That has to count for something. Maybe she should stick around, just for one day. Maybe she would stick around and wait for the band to play.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

The Crane Team (End)

This is also the final end of the MC from the ReWritten series. I won’t feature her in any future work. I feel like this is a fitting and canon compliant end for where our character would naturally end up given her origins. I tried to tie everything together here in a nice little bow. 

Black Swan Bay, Herzog, Caesar... all of it.

Thank you for reading.

Late afternoon light filtered through the dense canopy of green leaves, peeking through, flashing like shattered bits of sunlight. The breeze sent them dancing, the smell of a waning summer wafting through the air, the rattling cries of cicadas buzzing through it. This plus the cigarette smoke calmed Crow’s heart to the point that he felt that maybe he could go back to the Bliss Hall Memorial Garden. The Bliss Hall was surrounded by forest on all sides but a few grassy trails were cut into the forest to allow people to escape the heat of summer and observe the deer that made the woods their home. Even now, two does were standing in the shadows, ears out, watching him. He looked back at him, suddenly struck by the beauty amid so much sorrow.

He felt it was a little cowardly to run away, leaving Yoko Uesugi there with her bouquet of white roses and shame followed on the heels of his calm heart. It caught him off guard to see Sakura Yabuki enshrined in the memorial statue. Her face was so beautiful. The memories came flooding back. Meeting her, getting to know her, hoping for her happiness with Chisei Gen. But now that was all gone, nothing was left but her smile in bronze. He tapped the grey ashes from the cigarette and quietly cursed to himself. “Are you just going to stand there, Yoko?”

Yoko Uesugi was beautiful in that lavender colored kimono, her black hair tied up in a bun and adorned with a spray of white flowers. She was still holding the white roses in her hand. He knew she was shadowing him for a good distance. Now, she reached out to him. Her hand was ungloved and sparkled with clear scales on her knuckles. The two of them faced each other, a distance between them that seemed insurmountable a few weeks ago. Now they never felt closer.

“Come on, Crow. I want to go lay the flowers with you. I want to. We don’t have to stay,” she said.

Crow pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “You’re a stubborn lady.”

“That’s for a reason.” She smiled. “A lot of reasons. I didn’t used to be like this. Once upon a time, I had completely given up on life. It was understandable, given my situation. I’d lost everyone I’d ever known, everyone I ever loved. I was surrounded by strangers. It wasn’t until a brash young man from Cassell College inspired me that I could even look ahead to the future again and not see anything more than darkness. He was my light. He still is. He taught me to live, taught me to hope, and taught me how to inspire that hope in others. To invest in the future of others, even on my darkest day. He assigned me to inspire hope in the Japan Branch. That is my mission here.”

“I’m stubborn because of him. I know the future isn’t as bright as he promised. I’m aware of the gathering clouds and shadows. That’s why after today, I will leave Tokyo. The threats to my life have become too great.”

Crow was stunned. “Too great even for Hydra?”

“Yes.” Yoko lowered her voice. “Herzog did not work alone. Some people who worked with him are now hunting me, and they are now behind the Sons of Amaterasu. I am their special target for assassination. Me and Miss Erii. It has nothing to do with my blood. They are cleaning up after themselves.”

Crow let out the breath he’d been holding. “More goodbyes huh?” He looked into her eyes, their golden light shrouded by colored contacts. “Don’t be mad but, you left a hair in my car. I had it tested. It showed that you and the Young Chief were distantly related. I had a feeling just looking at you. You reminded me of him. That’s what I meant.”

Yoko’s eyes widened slightly, then she laughed. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised after all. Turning families against one another… is what Herzog did best.” She shook her head, smiling, a thin strand of hair drifted across her nose.

“So what are you going to do?” Crow asked.

“Now? I’m going to walk with you to the statue and lay the flowers. And then I will leave.”

“Who will take care of the job then?” Crow blinked.

“You, if you’re willing. You get along well with everyone I’ve introduced to you. You’re a man of heart and feeling. You’re sincere. I have no better candidate. I’ve already told the High Matriarch. She will support you.”

Crow nodded. “Mrs. Nanami and I have also been talking. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about this either.”

“Then. Shall we?”

Crow crossed the space between himself and the Devil Girl, Yoko Uesugi and took her hand. Her hand was cool and dry despite the heat. He ran his fingers over the scales there. They weren’t hard, but they were smooth and slightly bumpy. She looked into his eyes and smiled. He smiled back.

Yoko and Crow stepped out of the forest together. The sky opened up from under the dark shadowed forest, a clear blue with wispy clouds. The breeze tossed a few strands of her hair. The heat was much milder now but he could observe the slight sheen of sweat on her face. She was young, beautiful, and carried a heavy burden with effortless grace. They returned to the statue, standing side by side.

“Who are the kids at the bottom of the statue?” Crow asked, looking at the happy faces of children enshrined in bronze. There were three children, two girls and a boy, laughing and sharing a hug.

“They are children I knew from an unnamed port in the arctic. Herzog’s first victims, where I was born. I’m not the only one who knows they ever existed now. It’s a comforting thought.”

“Your friends who died from before…” Crow said. The three children looked exquisitely happy, without a care in the world.

Crow watched Yoko look down and then they bowed in unison, heads lowered solemnly. They stayed that way for several seconds. Crow’s mind returned to the last time he saw the Young Chief, at the ruins of Tokyo Tower, with Sakura Yabuki as he received his swords. Gen Chisei wasn’t part of this memorial. Why not? He glanced at Yoko who was still bowing. A smile traced her cherry red lips. But before he could ask why Chisei wasn’t part of the memorial, the girl suddenly grimaced and moaned. A dark red splatter of blood suddenly painted the memorial statue and she fell forward before he could catch her.

“Yoko!” He picked her up off the ground, his suit stained red. 

People were starting to fall all over the garden. The peaceful mournful scene turned into screams of panic. 

“Snipers! We’ve got snipers!” He yelled.

A steady throb of rotors made him look up. Three black helicopters were heading in, firing on the memorial from a distance. Crow picked up the wounded Yoko and ran for the trees. Crow laid her on the soft grass and stuffed his jacket into her wound, breathing hard in panic. “Hold on! Hold on!”

“Go!” Blood streaked a grotesque smile out of the corners of her jaw and painted her teeth. “Save the others! I’ll be fine!” 

Pain like a fire scorched Crow’s entire body! While he was at heart a kind person, he was the quintessential gangster, the son of a gangster, and that kindness withered under the hot desire to kill every one of these sons of bitches.

He raced towards the black vans parked outside and slammed open the doors to an arsenal of weapons. He picked the heavy antiaircraft gun that came standard with every van of the Executive Board. After they’d been caught flat footed at the Tokyo Tower, it was made sure that there would never be a convoy without heavy artillery ever again. He walked out, stood against the first helicopter and fired. The white smoke trail followed the missile and took out the first gun on the aircraft. 

“Take down those choppers now!” He roared. “Get everyone to the safety of the woods!” He knelt down to reload. “They’re not aiming for me. They’re aiming for the civilians.” He snarled to himself.

Crow’s phone suddenly rang and he picked up.

A man’s low voice sounded. “Are you sure you’re on the right side?”

“It’s not my job to decide what’s right. That’ll shake out in the end. Right now, I’m acting with the authority of the High Matriarch and anyone who’s against that is a target!” 

He shouldered the missile launcher again and fired. This time he aimed for the rotors. The boom thundered through the air and the smoking helicopter dropped.

Meanwhile, the two others had arrived and men on ladders swung down, firing on everyone that moved. Crow took cover behind the statue and loaded his guns. “All available personnel kill those guys!” He shouted over bullets and shrapnel landing all around. After a pause in the shooting he returned fire with his pistol, aiming at the people on the ladder, they dropped to the ground but still a few of them made it down.

“Sir!”

“Ryuusei!” 

The young former Devil Clan member handed him a submachine gun. “For you, my friend.”

“Find Miss Erii and get her to safety.” He said with a solemn nod.

“Yes sir… but … Ms. Uesugi…” Ryuusei still loved Yoko it seemed. But now it was too late.

“She’s fine in the woods! Go!”

Bullets uprooted garden plants, shattered the bark of trees and sent dirt flying as the beautiful garden beds became war trenches to hide behind and fire from. The Sons of Ameterasu were in full body armor and it was only a matter of time before the casualties of the Japan Branch became too much and they were overrun. Three of those maniacs were gunning specifically for Crow. He couldn’t move from behind the statue for fear of getting shot, much less return fire. While they were shooting it seemed they were taking pleasure in destroying the statue. The smiling faces of those children were suddenly full of bullet holes.

He just had to wait for a pause. He listened carefully. He couldn’t die here. He wouldn’t.

Sudden screams made him peer from behind the artwork. A small figure had pounced on those men and fought them like a mongoose in a cobra’s den. He only saw flashes of her pale white skin and golden hair as she dispatched those Amaterasu members with the efficiency of a trained assassin. 

Crow’s phone rang again. A cold female voice, the one he  had heard before, came over the phone. “There are explosives in the helicopters. I need you to take them out. Let me take care of the men on the ground.”

“Are you from Cassell College?”

The cold voice took on a deadly air. “This has nothing to do with Cassell. Yoko is my sister.”

The phone call ended abruptly. Sister? His eyes turned to the statue of the young children. Was this voice one of those children from the unnamed port in the Arctic? Crow scrambled to get back to the vans. He glanced behind him and saw the girl, lying on the ground, giving him cover fire. He could only peer at her back, but her figure did resemble one of the children on the statue. Crow suddenly realized that this story was full of unknown stories, a history as deep and dark and vast as the Japanese trench. It was one of friendship, sorrow, love and loyalty. It was a story that he wanted to be a part of.

He got back to the van and armed himself as much as he could. Yoko had put her whole heart and soul into the reunification of the Japan Branch and it was up to him to maintain her work. Did she know she was going to die here? He cursed and swore loudly, shoving magazines into his weapons. Why? Why did he always lose the people he was assigned to protect? He lifted up the missile launcher and fired one of the helicopters. A cloud of flames and dark debris rained down on the garden and set it alight in a cruel parody of both Bliss Hall, Black Swan Bay, and the Red Well. The last of the bricks of the house that Herzog built was now under assault and his ghost was still haunting them.

But in a stark contrast to those times, Cassell, Hydra and the Devil Clan fought back and put up a united front to battle the phantom of that man’s murderous and evil intentions.

Crow didn’t know who ran up to him to tell him that a man had run into the woods. He could have been a former devil or Hydra, or from Cassell, He didn’t care. He knew who that man in the woods was after and he had to protect her.

At the edge of the garden, Ryuusei ducked behind a tree just before bullets ate through the bark and into the soft white wood. He ran again and barely escaped the bullets whizzing by his head like angry bees. He was out of ammunition and could only hide. They knew he was out too. As he crouched behind a statue of Buddha, he smiled bitterly. “You warned me, Yoko… people who fall in love with you… tend to end up dead.” He squeezed his eyes shut.

When he opened them again, a pair of crimson eyes blinked at him. Before he could shout, a small pale hand covered his mouth. She raised one finger to his lips and then closed her eyes. When she opened them, that crimson had turned to gold.

She opened her mouth and an ugly frog-like snarl rolled out of that pretty throat. Her thin arms wrapped around the buddha statue to hug it from behind. She picked up that stone statue, leaving a square patch of bare dirt exposed, and then threw it like an olympic javelin. This statue weighed a few hundred pounds and immediately crushed the people who were pursuing Ryuusei.

Then she grabbed his hand and together they ran into the forest. Darkness closed around them. Ryuusei could smell the smoke. “Miss Erii… right?” He could scarcely believe what he saw. This girl didn’t need his protection. She should be out there fighting like all the others!

Erii suddenly skidded to a halt. Her eyes widened. She backed up. A man all black, a mask, and body armor blocked their way, holding two dark pieces of wood. He started to tap them in a pattern and Erii grabbed her head and started to whimper and cry, tears falling from her eyes. She collapsed completely thrashing on the ground as if in terrible pain.

“What are you doing to her?!” Ryuusei leaped forward.

The man then drew a pistol and shot Ryuusei in the stomach. Ryuusei fell next to her, unable to inhale, breath frozen, eyes wide. The blue colored sun mark of the Sons of Amaterasu was on his sleeve. Ryuusei couldn’t believe it. Not here. Not now. He could only watch the assassin calmly and silently change one pistol for another. This time, aimed for Erii’s head.

A loud yell from the woods distracted his attention and Crow came from the brush, howling like an angry bear and tackling him in a line drive straight into a tree. The man dropped the gun and the two men fell to the ground, wrestling for it, tumbling over and over. Ryuusei’s hand was wet and sticky with blood and he grunted. “Erii… Ms. Erii… please get up!”

Erii was just whimpering. “Yoko… Yoko! Sister! Help me! Please help me!”

Crow’s fists struck the helmet and then the mask. The man grabbed his head and slammed him hard with a headbutt and leaped to his feet. Then he gave him a savage kick in the side. “You’re no better than that Chisei Gen. Soft. Soft to Devils that will ruin our future!” He stood over Crow and drew his pistol. “This is the last stand of the bloodline. All Devils must die! You used to be one of us. You used to be a Devil Slayer. What poisoned your mind?” He grabbed Crow by the throat. “You know the truth better than anyone.”

Crow snarled, back at him, unafraid of death. “I do know the truth better than anyone… and even better than you!”

Crow still had his gun, a pistol, modified by the Equipment department. It wasn’t meant to be used at such close range but he had no choice. He drew it and blasted the man in the chest. Even the body armor couldn’t save him from this powerful round. The force of it crashed into his ribs, snapping them like dry branches, taking his breath away. Crow swept his legs out from under him and pinned him, yanking his arms behind his back. “You want to know the truth? We Hydra were killing at the orders of a killer. Someone who was creating monsters and then sending us to destroy what he created! The truth isn’t what you know. The truth is what I know. We were pawns. All of us!” Crow roared. “I’m not going back to being a pawn by continuing to follow that bastard’s orders! And anyone who does will be eliminated by the family. These are the orders of Chisei Gen and I always follow his orders!”

The man laughed. “Then look. Look at what your precious orders have led to.”

A movement caught Crow’s eyes and he lifted his gun. Then he lowered it. A woman, naked, white like a wraith, now stood on the path, her long, ragged black hair draping over her golden eyes. She was tall, almost seven feet, long and thin with heavy claws for hands. She was covered in crystalline, mirror-like scales that reflected the shadowy greens of the forest. Bone wings, white as snow, extended from her back. Her legs were willowy, like a cross between a dragon and a mythical elf. Had her dragon evolution progressed further her legs would have fused into a serpent’s tail. 

But as monstrous as her form was, he could still recognize the white flowers that dangled from her long hair. His strength left him and his face paled. “Yoko… no…”

“I had to… I had to survive.” Even her voice was different, gone from that deep softness, to something a little more like a rattle. “I have to go. I won’t be able to turn back.”

“Are you really going to let her escape Crow? That woman… She's a ghost. She’s turned fully into a ghost. Like they all will somed-”

Crow’s fist smashed into the man’s head. “Shut up! This is your fault! You! She was fine! She was fine! Until you shot her! You shot her, you bastard!” He battered the guy into unconsciousness, tears streaking down his face. This wasn’t inevitable. None of it was. Everything could have been fine! Then these people…

He finally stopped beating the man and sighed, defeated. “Executive Department policy says I have to kill you. But…”

“That’s right. I raised my blood too high in order to survive the gunshot wound. This is the price I had to pay for my life.” She regarded her crystal claws thoughtfully. “There’s a third option for us. If I can’t live as a human… or a ghost, then I would like to choose my place to die please.”

Crow lifted his head. “Choose?”

“Yes. You’re still in a war against dragons. And I’ve learned that the only thing that can kill a dragon is another dragon. You need me. And when you do. Call.”

Her eyes shifted to behind him. “Ryuusei!”

“I’ll get him a doctor!” Crow staggered to his feet. The pain in his head was starting to finally hit him and he swayed with dizziness. 

“Good. I have to go.” She hurried to Erii’s side.  She carefully gathered Erii up into her arms as easily as if she were a child. “Thank you… Crow.”

“Don’t thank me.” He stood up and dropped his gun from a limp hand, tears ran down his face. “Don’t thank me.”

“Thank you, Crow.”

“Damn it! I said- Augh!”

Her wings swept upward.  The wind created by them was unnatural, dark clouds swirled instantly into the sky, the trees swayed under the gale. The elements were becoming unmoored from their natural order by Yoko, and stirred up by her.

The downbeat of her wings knocked him back and she rocketed upward into the sky with Erii. The dense clouds let loose a sudden downpour that smothered the flames consuming the garden and turned the ground black. She hid her presence behind this gray curtain. Crow’s voice calling out to her was drowned out by peals of thunder, but he ran chasing that retreating form, those dark immense wings, until they disappeared.

Crow stood in the middle of the garden looking helplessly up into the sky.

“What are you doing?” Said a cold female voice. “She’s gone. And she’ll never come back. Don’t just stand there. We have wounded people.”

Crow turned to her. “Who are you?”

“My name is not important.” The doll-like girl with pale white skin and golden hair turned her back on him and walked away alone.

Crow took a breath and clapped his hands together to steady himself. Then he turned and started barking orders at the security team. 

Months later, Crow stood in front of a line of young men and women, some from the Devil Clan, some from the cadres of Hydra, new recruits for the Executive Branch of Japan. “You’re a select group. I selected you because you’re the ones who stood side by side and fought for the unification and healing of Japan. The first of its kind. A mixed-blood group. Some of you were Hydra some of you were Devils. But now you’re one.”

“You are now, the Crane Team!”

[jooohoneybee]

thank you @trashybtsqueen for tagging me!!! this was rlly fun 💕💕💕

rules: bold the aesthetics you relate to and add twenty of your own aesthetic qualities for others to bold

(soft!)

baby pink | iridescent | glitter is always a good option | no bra | minimalistic tattoos | cherry patterns | sweet scented perfumes | wearing generous amounts of blush | doodling hearts | getting excited to pet an animal | fun nails | rewatching old barbie movies | hair sticking to glossed lips | heart shaped sunglasses | taking pictures of the sunset or sunrise | stuffed animals | protecting nature | stickers everywhere | teen movies | the light rain that falls from a clear sky at the beginning of the night |

(dark academia!)

neutral tones | masculine outfits | studying languages | worn down copy of books | grey skies | turtleneck sweaters | loose fitting pants | hair tied with a silk ribbon | trying to remember a cool difficult word you read somewhere to use in a convo | thick belts | minimal makeup | windows fogged by rain | vintage jewelry | blouses with cuffed sleeves | reading a murder mystery and trying to solve it | oxford style shoes | sweater vests | subtitled old movies in a language you don’t speak | leaves crackling as you walk | annotating books to express your emotions about the story |

(edgy!)

closet full of dark clothes | fishnet tights | makeup sweating off | neon signs | searching for unknown songs | chokers | band tees | doodling on old converses | finding smoking aesthetically pleasing but not doing it | weird humor | accidentally very dramatic | dim lights | layered outfits | chain belts | chipped nail polish | messy hair | low quality pics | piercings | combat boots | scribbling on desks |

(seventies!)

colorful wardrobe | doodling flowers | wearing short shorts | using a bikini top or bra as a normal top | listening to ABBA | flowers in your hair | DIYing everything | jamming to songs alone in your room | drunkenly telling your friends you love them | patterned bandanas | mid heeled shoes | messy braids | flared sleeves | walking barefoot on grass or sand | bold sunglasses | the good kind of tired you get after doing something you enjoy for hours | feeding stray animals | fun patterned socks | room decorated with succulents and other plants | likes to go roller skating or skateboarding |

(preppy casual!)

collared clothes | drinking juice out of a champagne glass | getting excited to see the met gala looks | thick headbands | small pastel cardigans | making your friends take your ootd pics | plaid mini skirts | tweed two pieces | watching reality tv to pass time | frilly tops | watching old hollywood movies | academically driven | long manicured nails | new year’s eve fireworks | colorful tights | layered golden jewelry | yearns for luxury brand items | decorating your room with fairy-lights | cursive and neat handwriting | lace details

(masterninjacow!)

rainy mornings | sweet steaming tea | cats’ purrs | daydreaming about fantasies | back hugs | glinting necklaces | loud video games | grumbling thunder | constantly chewing gum | wearing nothing but a t-shirt and underwear to bed | watching horror movies at night | nibbling on chocolates | talking to yourself | short hair | sad lofi music | messy sketches | sweet-scented body wash | spicy noodles at midnight | hating physical affection but craving it at the same time | ending all texts with lmao or rip

(cinanamon!)

gold jewelry | slow dancing in the kitchen with a lover | sun on skin | red-tinted lip balm | lazy mornings | getting lost in foreign cities | scent of bakeries | high-waisted jeans | kissing someone’s neck | writing reminders on your wrist | sleeping in braids to have waves in the morning | growing an herb garden | gentle touches | sketches tucked between pages | flushed cheeks | tandem bikes | floating in a pool | vintage gold hand-mirror | deer grazing | softly singing while doing chores

(4-sun!)

color coded notes | happy endings to coming-of-age movies | mismatched socks | wavy hair | loose sweaters | staying up until sunrise | patterned scrunchies | late night showers | snowflakes on eyelashes | quiet night drives | keychains dangling from a backpack | shy glances at a crush | cucumber infused water | watching dust float in sunlight | glitter eyeshadow | paint stained carpets | cicadas on a summer night | dozing off near a fireplace | the smell of fresh laundry |

(trashybtsqueen!)

long skincare routine | vintage clothing | wearing pastels | the smell of books |staring at the moon | taking multiple naps| late night study sessions| elaborate eyeshadow| the smell of coffee in the morning| perfume on your wrists| crop tops| falling in unrequited love too often| binge-watching multiple tv shows| loud singing in the shower| freckles| being kind to animals | wearing fuzzy socks| winged eye-liner| dreams of traveling the world| constantly wanting cuddles|

(seokjinniesmoon!)

over the top eyeshadow | glitter on cheeks | constantly sleepy | blaring your favorite song | pink everything | horror movies | falling for anime characters | driving with the windows down | lingerie | always horny | platform heels | getting high | loving your friends | mirror selfies | always ready to eat | glasses | lgbt | composing music | interested in history | psyc major

I'm gonna tag @bitoftaewithsugaandkookie , @penicillinjimin , n @kimsoupjin

[souptaastic]

thank you @seokjinniesmoon for tagging me in a thing!!!!! I looked up how to format things for this 😁

rules: bold the aesthetics you relate to and add twenty of your own aesthetic qualities for others to bold

(soft!)

baby pink | iridescent | glitter is always a good option | no bra | minimalistic tattoos | cherry patterns | sweet scented perfumes | wearing generous amounts of blush | doodling hearts | getting excited to pet an animal | fun nails | rewatching old barbie movies | hair sticking to glossed lips | heart shaped sunglasses | taking pictures of the sunset or sunrise | stuffed animals | protecting nature | stickers everywhere | teen movies | the light rain that falls from a clear sky at the beginning of the night |

(dark academia!)

neutral tones | masculine outfits | studying languages | worn down copy of books | grey skies | turtleneck sweaters | loose fitting pants | hair tied with a silk ribbon | trying to remember a cool difficult word you read somewhere to use in a convo | thick belts | minimal makeup | windows fogged by rain | vintage jewelry | blouses with cuffed sleeves | reading a murder mystery and trying to solve it | oxford style shoes | sweater vests | subtitled old movies in a language you don’t speak | leaves crackling as you walk | annotating books to express your emotions about the story |

(edgy!)

closet full of dark clothes | fishnet tights | makeup sweating off | neon signs | searching for unknown songs | chokers | band tees | doodling on old converses | finding smoking aesthetically pleasing but not doing it | weird humor | accidentally very dramatic | dim lights | layered outfits | chain belts | chipped nail polish | messy hair | low quality pics | piercings | combat boots | scribbling on desks |

(seventies!)

colorful wardrobe | doodling flowers | wearing short shorts | using a bikini top or bra as a normal top | listening to ABBA | flowers in your hair | DIYing everything | jamming to songs alone in your room | drunkenly telling your friends you love them | patterned bandanas | mid heeled shoes | messy braids | flared sleeves | walking barefoot on grass or sand | bold sunglasses | the good kind of tired you get after doing something you enjoy for hours | feeding stray animals | fun patterned socks | room decorated with succulents and other plants | likes to go roller skating or skateboarding |

(preppy casual!)

collared clothes | drinking juice out of a champagne glass | getting excited to see the met gala looks | thick headbands | small pastel cardigans | making your friends take your ootd pics | plaid mini skirts | tweed two pieces | watching reality tv to pass time | frilly tops | watching old hollywood movies | academically driven | long manicured nails | new year’s eve fireworks | colorful tights | layered golden jewelry | yearns for luxury brand items | decorating your room with fairy-lights | cursive and neat handwriting | lace details

(masterninjacow!)

rainy mornings | sweet steaming tea | cats’ purrs | daydreaming about fantasies | back hugs | glinting necklaces | loud video games | grumbling thunder | constantly chewing gum | wearing nothing but a t-shirt and underwear to bed | watching horror movies at night | nibbling on chocolates | talking to yourself | short hair | sad lofi music | messy sketches | sweet-scented body wash | spicy noodles at midnight | hating physical affection but craving it at the same time | ending all texts with lmao or rip

(cinanamon!)

gold jewelry | slow dancing in the kitchen with a lover | sun on skin | red-tinted lip balm | lazy mornings | getting lost in foreign cities | scent of bakeries | high-waisted jeans | kissing someone’s neck | writing reminders on your wrist | sleeping in braids to have waves in the morning | growing an herb garden | gentle touches | sketches tucked between pages | flushed cheeks | tandem bikes | floating in a pool | vintage gold hand-mirror | deer grazing | softly singing while doing chores

(4-sun!)

color coded notes | happy endings to coming-of-age movies | mismatched socks | wavy hair | loose sweaters | staying up until sunrise | patterned scrunchies | late night showers | snowflakes on eyelashes | quiet night drives | keychains dangling from a backpack | shy glances at a crush | cucumber infused water | watching dust float in sunlight | glitter eyeshadow | paint stained carpets | cicadas on a summer night | dozing off near a fireplace | the smell of fresh laundry |

(trashybtsqueen!)

long skincare routine | vintage clothing | wearing pastels | the smell of books |staring at the moon | taking multiple naps| late night study sessions| elaborate eyeshadow| the smell of coffee in the morning| perfume on your wrists| crop tops| falling in unrequited love too often| binge-watching multiple tv shows| loud singing in the shower| freckles| being kind to animals | wearing fuzzy socks| winged eye-liner| dreams of traveling the world| constantly wanting cuddles|

(seokjinniesmoon!)

over the top eyeshadow | glitter on cheeks | constantly sleepy | blaring your favorite song | pink everything | horror movies | falling for anime characters | driving with the windows down | lingerie | always horny | platform heels | getting high | loving your friends | mirror selfies | always ready to eat | glasses | lgbt | composing music | interested in history | psyc major

(kimsoupjin!)

purposely typing in lowercase | sitting on the floor in front of the tv | staticky air before the storm starts | nostalgia for a home you never had | everything is a shade of blue | ink in napkin rainbows at lunch | crawly snake straw wrappers | the reflection from the pool through the window | arranging your books by height | the shimmery gauze layer on old dresses | when the tension melts into uncontrollable laughter | clouds that look like pillow foam | cows laying down next to the highway | spring cleaning with the radio so loud you have to scream | using twenty words when three will do | slow blinks from your cat | christmas lights in august | multi colored lego castles | historical districts that look closed at first glance | glitter gel pens |

Ok this was fun! I'm not gonna tag anyone but if you wanna do it you can say I tagged you

[lokishornns]

Cicada’s Song

—

masterlist

—

— send requests!!

pairing: loki x reader (fem)

type: oneshot, this is so much angst i stg what is wrong with me

rating: pg13

word count: 2,650

warnings: death (sort of suicide but not really), blood, guns and violence, implication of sex, cursing probably

notes: this is for @whirlybirbs​ endgame nostalgia writing contest and uh,,, yeah so :) also it was SO hard to incorporate a mood of nostalgia without actually like mentioning a wishing for the past too much like there are little splotches but my god a mood for nostalgia is so hard

summary: A mission intended for intel is a facade for something much more ruthless.

send requests

—

Warmth seeped in through the wooden frames of the windows, escaping the stained and dirty glass that sat delicately. The cicada’s wordless song drifted into the sky, molding into clouds that floated aimlessly among the stars. The salt wafted from the sea, staining everything on the island with a sweet, ocean smell. Moonlight struck through every crevice, curling around every corner, alighting the island in an eerie glow. Sprinkles of houses, created with dried mud, converged and convened in colonies that decorated the shores and heart of the island.

In the swell of the night, caressed by the murky mix of darkness and moonlight, breaths met. Lips ghosted over skin and muscles ached and shuttered. Legs danced around one another, constantly clashing in something dangerous. Hands traveled the length of bodies, grasping for stability and yearning for more. Precise words were whispered next to ears, and low murmurs and groans were spilled into the air.

Your chest heaved as you pulled away, the sticky sheen of sweat encasing your body as you closed your eyes tightly. Your thoughts had been dammed for only a minute, sated by the distraction of passion, the rushing flow of them now crashing into you in the inescapable heat of the night. Your eyes met the ceiling, where cracks danced and tread lightly among the dried mud, as if afraid of crumbling.

Your spine straightened and your muscles clenched as the weight fell back onto the bed, greeting you once more. Your eyes don’t shift, only trained above. You feel his eyes on you, studying the grooves of your face. You pretended to not notice as you closed your eyes once more, your ears straining to hear the crashing waves. A large hand slid to your thigh, rubbing the skin leisurely.

“We have an hour,” he says, and you swallow, your dry throat a sweet reminder of the panting and cries that poured from your mouth just moments ago. You wish to mold into the bed, never to see the sky again.

“Okay,” you breathe, your voice hardly above a whisper.

The walk to the restaurant wasn’t any different than the last week or the one before that. The sun had set far too early in this part of the world as children played among the cobblestones and women were still humming songs that drifted from the villas. The town was the same, mainly natives strut around with the occasional splash of a peaceful foreign. You glanced around, walking the same distance to the restaurant.

But the air didn’t feel the same. Something careened and whisked among the stars.

Your heart jolted as you remembered your first days among the Avengers. When the shadow of Thanos had passed and you had risen up the ranks in the training program. Steve had given you one look before nodding, confirming your place among the others. If only he were to see you now, fucking a co-worker.

A hand at the small of your back should have been an anchor. A sense of comfort. Instead, ripples of distress climb and crawl over your skin, begging you to go back to the villa. Go back to some sense of comfort. But you swallow the feeling, pulling up the corners of your lips the best you can.

“Relax, we’re gathering information and leaving.” His breath is hot as it fans against your ears and it rivals the cicadas in their sweet song. You almost shiver as the feeling of his presence clouds over your senses and curls over your frame. You look to him, clearing your thoughts of any hesitations as your eyes meet him.

The thin white dress that flows with every huff of the wind is a blessing against your skin, relieving you of the constant cover of sweat that seems to be some sort of permanent sunscreen. It will be a nice contrast. Your eyes were drawn to the opposite building of the restaurant, glancing to the top. Loki doesn’t make any move to follow your eyes, so you let them linger on the top, hoping to meet the eyes of whoever sits up there, waiting.

“Darling, are you alright?” Loki asks, his eyes on yours now, and you let out a breath, nodding softly. You smile at him, delicately threading your fingers through the stray locks at the back of his neck, pulling him down towards your lips. He meets your lips with a gentleness that promises a pleasant chill in the constant heat. You allow for his lips to stall, letting the kiss hang in the air even as you two break away. You see the dangerous mixture of adoration and lust swirl in his eyes and you wish to sate his desires, but you turn yourself to the building in front of you, your sandals scraping against the stone.

“Let’s go,” you say, stepping into the building.

The nerves in your legs trail up and down your skin, teasing the stray hairs that always seem to evade the razor. No matter the amount of will you put towards keeping your legs still, they seem to fight back with equal force, scraping from the inside, begging to be let out. Luckily, Loki hasn’t noticed the nervous ticks your body seems to be pleading to do, a far cry from the ever-observant god that you had first met.

His eyes had seemed to be scrutinizing every inch of your skin as you trained. You were toying around with the punching bag, hyper-aware of the pair of eyes that had not seemed to move from your form the entire time you had been in the gym. You had finally had enough, turning to chew the god out as a smile only toyed at his lips.

Those same eyes scan over the menu – no matter having read the words countless times – unable to make his mind up. You had already decided a long time ago, not one to stray too far from what had become your new favorite. You’re now only hyper-aware of the occasional brush of Loki’s thumb over your knuckles, restraining your breath every time, as if waiting for some other action to erupt from the simple touch.

You give warm smiles as the waitress takes your orders, watching as Loki’s lips curve and form around every word as he orders, then flushing pink once you’re caught. You ask for extra bread and she nods, announcing that it’ll be right away. Loki and you play the part of a married couple well, almost far too well. You both exude fresh love and sex, and the expressions you wear are more than just acting. They’re perfect to each quirk of the lips and flash of the eyes.

Your attentions are quickly drawn to the rowdy group of men that seem to trample anyone in their path. Your targets were more like blaring billboards in LA, screaming for attention. You were almost tempted to use the weapon that weighed against your thigh whenever you first saw your mission. They were regulars of the restaurant, men who had traveled for business or prostitutes – you didn’t know which– to a small Greek island. You had managed to pick up the most basic of information from their drunken stupors, but the mission called for more. Or at least, you knew that.

You engaged in faux conversation with Loki, a shield for if the men tuned in, they would be disinterested far too quickly. The restaurant was small, leaving the men off to the table behind you, Loki’s eyes occasionally brought to their party. Loki’s thumb brushes over your knuckles again.

You feel your heart thrum loudly against your ribs, practically breaking through your chest. You close your eyes to fight back tears as your hands grapple the glass of wine that sits to your left. You lift the glass to your lips, savoring the taste of the alcohol as it trails down your throat and into your stomach. Your eyes are trained on the glass, no longer caring to focus in on the god in front of you as he stares at the men behind you. You tap your glass with your pointer finger once.

Then twice. And chaos erupts.

The first shot rings loudly, Loki and you both jumping back from the table. Your legs swivel on themselves and you grasp your gun from its holster, pulling the trigger swiftly. You skim through the men, one by one, allowing for some to miss a shot at you before pushing a bullet through their heads. The screams don’t stop, not even as the men fall dead, some with their glasses still in their hands. Loki runs to check the pulses as you stand there, scanning the scene.

The first shot wasn’t shot by you or Loki, nor was it shot by the men behind you as they laughed into their drinks. But it did hit you, straight through the abdomen. And you stand, your fingers still wrapped tightly around the gun as the heat begins to pool in your stomach. It didn’t hurt, not really. Not until after everyone was dead, but even then, it was a burning sensation that didn’t make you cry out in agony. You forget about the blood until you feel it running down your navel, soaking your panties as it continues down your legs.

Your eyes are pulled down to the white dress, that now is pressed against you with your own blood soaking through the fabric. You want to laugh. You had pulled it off. You had succeeded. But as Loki turns and you stare at his face, you feel as if you did anything but success.

His face is gruesome to watch, a sight you wish you could pry your eyes from. The first emotion is alarm, surprised that a shot had hit you. Confusion and anger wash through him quickly before he’s even able to register what had happened. Then all you see is a concoction of fear and agony. The fear that he’s somehow going to lose you. The agony of knowing he’s already lost you.

“No.” It’s barely a whisper, and it barely dances on his tongue, but it’s sung louder than the cicadas. It’s loud enough to reach your ears. Loki’s feet are uncoordinated and unbalanced as he stumbles to your side. His eyes haven’t left your stomach. “No.”

You both know you’re not going to be fine. In about fifteen to thirty minutes, you’ll have bled out. In about five to ten, you won’t be able to stand anymore. You both know how close the nearest trauma hospital is or the extent of what Loki’s healing can do. You both know you can’t be saved. So, you don’t know what drives Loki to say his next words. You can only credit it to desperation.

“You’re going to be fine, I promise,” he breathes as his hands tremble over your wound, kneeling in front of your stomach. Your heart aches at the promise. He’s going to break it. You let out a sad laugh and his eyes finally reach yours, bewildered beyond belief that such a sound could leave you.

“I’m not,” you say, and for the first time in a long time, you feel tears spring into your eyes. The wave of emotions that washes over you at the sight of a tear running down Loki’s cheek makes you gasp and sit back in your seat, the wood groaning beneath the limp weight. The regret and sadness are the most prominent among your emotions, poking through every crevice and pore in your body as a tear of your own runs from your eye. “I’m not going to be okay.” You press a hand against Loki’s cheek, cradling his face.

Loki’s actions become much more unhinged. He takes your dress, ripping it from the bottom to open widely to the pulsing wound that plunges deep into your middle. You stare at the imperfection on your skin, swallowing dryly as the warm liquid seems to bubble from it freely. His hands snatch a napkin from the table, balling it up tightly before pushing against the hole. You hiss, the contact being the first thing that truthfully pains you.

“Yes, you are,” his voice cracks. He opens his mouth to yell, screams erupting from his lips as people have begun to calm down, directing them to call for a helicopter – to do something.

But you don’t listen to the sounds, only looking at him. His hair has moved from its normal position, and loose strands stick to his skin. His eyes are pleading and panicked, screeching for help. His brows are furrowed, and veins stick out on the pale skin that’s now starting to turn a bit red. You can’t tell him. You know you can’t tell him this was all your plan. That you knew when you made this mission, you were coming here to die.

“Loki,” you call his name and his eyes glue themselves to yours. You feel your stomach churn – not because of the bullet wound – and you feel your throat tighten. “I love you,” you say, and his mouth drops open.

“Don’t you dare say that,” he begs, his free hand pressing into your thigh. “Don’t you dare tell me that, not now,” he murmurs, and you choke out a sob. “You can’t tell me that before I’m about to fucking lose you. That’s not fair. You can tell me that when we’re back at the compound and-”

“Loki, I’m not going back to the compound alive,” you raise your voice, stopping when his eyes widen. “I’m dying here, and I love you. I love you more than anything. So, please, if you don’t love me back, don’t tell me,” you choke, fully aware that you must look like a mess, but who can blame you?

Loki closes his eyes, pressing his forehead against your legs as a sound of agony rips from his throat, the vibrations making your heart throb. You become aware then that your eyelids are tempted to droop and that your breaths are slower, now only a small murmur in your chest.

You miss the compound. You long to be back at the compound, curled up near a window, humming a song as you read a book. You long to be back in Loki’s arms at a game night, your body thrumming with the force of your laughter as Sam forces out another joke. You wish to spend another night sneaking into the god's room in the depth of the night to avoid the prying ears of the assassins.

“I love you,” he says into your skin, his head still pressed against your legs. Loki’s arm comes to wrap around your back as he begins to straighten up, pulling you from the chair and close to his chest. You almost smile at the motion. His lips press to yours and you savor in the taste, your lips cradling his with the most passion you could muster.

The kiss is searing. It’s gentle and sad and passionate and desperate. It tastes of salt and fire and you wish you had shared more touches like this. You only pull him tighter, biting his bottom lips whenever your wound sends a shot of burning pain through you. You both know this is goodbye.

You’ve had enough experience to know that not every bullet wound brings pain and that you were lucky to fade away with as little as you did. But you wish you could have had more. You wish you could have felt a physical toll just to distract you from the pain that you read on Loki’s face. You wish the bullet was too painful to even speak.

Because as you seeped into nothing, your blood soaking the tiles and pouring onto the street, Loki screamed your name, becoming another song amongst the cicadas.

—

taglist:  @quenilla @darkprincessloki92 @jessiejunebug

[nadiarizavi]

a different definition of stars- chapter 1: blue, a color, a feeling

@planceminibang​ SUMMARY: 

Lance McClain was born for the spotlight. But after a surprise scandal, his mom gets worried that the fame’s starting to get to his head-- and Lance gets shipped off to live with his brother Luis and his family in the countryside town of Garrison, in the middle of Altea County, population barely breaching a thousand. In a new place where no one knows his name, Lance should be grateful to have a break from the lights and cameras-- but being a farmhand isn’t the life of glitz and glamour he was used to. And it’s definitely no picnic when the girl next door has blackmail on you.

RATED: T, TAGS: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Minor Injuries, Cows, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Car Accidents, minor kallura

CHAPTER ONE ON AO3!

A/N: huge thank u to the mods !!! huge love to @zoedozy for making SUPER LOVELY ART that’ll be shared soon !! the fic is below the cut or you can read it on ao3! <3

Slap.

Lance withdrew his legs with a hiss, turning to the driver--his sister in law, Lisa-- who by now had turned her eyes back to the road, a satisfied smile on her face.

“The hell was that for?!”

“I told you four times to get your feet off the dash, Lance.”

Lance gestured to the dash, then at her. “It’s--look! I didn’t leave a mark!”

“And you’re adorable if you think that attitude’s gonna fly here.”

“Attitude--?”

“Lance.”

He slumped back into his seat, the dirt road causing the truck to bump and jostle along as it did. His eyes wandered back out the window-- miles and miles of grass and trees, cattle, hazy purple mountains in the far off distance. Not another car for miles. No music played on the radio--white noise. An unrelated buzz--Lisa told him that it was cicadas in the late summer--hummed in the air, and the sun was high in the afternoon sky. Cloudless. An infinite blanket of blue.

“How’s Veronica?”

Lisa was asking him questions again. Lance looked down at his shirt, tugging at a loose string, brows furrowed. How’s Veronica?

Mad at him. 

Well, he couldn’t blame V for being mad at him. He was still trying to ice the burn from his parents being mad at him too.

He heard the shutter of a secret camera click in his ear, and Lance planted his forehead against the window.

“She’s fine.”

“Mami told me she didn’t come to send you off.”

“Busy at work. She has a life too, yanno. Outside of being my babysitter,” he grumbled. They drove past one, two cows. He should add on to that. “Sorry you got stuck with babysitting, by the way.”

“You’re family.” A pause. She was thinking of something to add on, too. “We want to take care of you too, Lance.”

The cicadas buzzed on.

--

Nadia and Sylvio were his next assailants-- running down the porch steps of a wooden, white ranch house at full speed, down the dirt driveway, and into his arms. He only ever saw the kids when the family came to Hollywood for the holidays, for summer vacation. They wore wide smiles, their teeth bright white, Nadia’s dark hair braided down her back, Sylvio’s hands were dried with mud. Lance couldn’t help but laugh.

Despite the circumstances, he could never resent seeing his favorite niece and nephew.

“You guys keep getting bigger. Stop eating your vegetables.” Lance said, bending his knees for Sylvio to wrap his thin arms around his neck, lifting him into a piggyback ride while Nadia skipped alongside them.

“Do actors need to eat their vegetables?” Nadia asked, a curious twinkle in her eye. She wanted to be just like her uncle Lance, she had said at Christmas the last year. Just like him.

For the moment, the reminder made his stomach twist in knots.

“Well, kinda.”

“Then I won’t stop.”

Sylvio wriggled against his spine, chirping directly into Lance’s ear. “Me too! I won’t stop, too!”

That made him laugh, the knot undoing itself for the thirtieth time that day, and he let the boy down as soon as the porch steps came to view. It was a big porch. It was a big house. Stark white, freshly painted. An oasis in the middle of a lifeless world. Lisa whistled for him, back down the driveway.

“Lance, you don’t seriously expect your pregnant aunt to get your bags, do you?”

Lance bolted back down, ignoring the sting in his chest when he reached the truck and looked down to his shoes; once pristine, white, now dusted. Lisa gave him a curious glance as she handed him his duffle.

“What’s wrong?”

“My shoes.”

And then she rolled her eyes, dropping the duffle into his arms. “You’ve got money. Buy new ones. Probably something better suited for the farm.”

He followed her dejectly--her and his rolling suitcase--back up the driveway, feeling perspiration on his forehead, in his hair. The late afternoon was hot, the sun oppressive against his neck. Sunscreen. That was definitely first priority once he’s settled in.

The air inside the house was cool and inviting, a welcome reprieve from the hot summer sun. The kids followed their mother and Lance like ducklings up the stairs, into the spare bedroom, inspecting Lance as if he were a new toy.

In a way he kind of was. All city and no country on him. He was dressed for first class travel, not for the dirt roads and cattle and buzzing cicadas.

The bedsheets were a shade of wet soil and smelled faintly the same. The lacy curtains were open, and he could get another view of miles of grass and purple mountains and an infinite sky. The wallpaper-- blue, white, floral--right out of a homestead decor magazine. There was a desk and a closet, empty save for boxes labeled ‘WINTER COATS’ and ‘XMAS DECOR.’ Lance dropped his duffle on the bed, watching the dust float up and catch in the light. Sylvio and Nadia set to inspecting the room itself, and Lisa let out a content sigh as she looked around. She threw him a smile.

“Nothing like Beverly Hills?”

“Don’t see an infinity pool out there,” Lance said, hoping he sounded funny. Please think I’m being funny, Lis.

She outstretched a hand to him, adjusting the sleeve of his shirt, following his gaze out the window to the sky and the mountains and the grass. “You don’t need a pool to see infinity out here, mijo.”

She started out the door again. “Let’s get the rest of your bags and get you settled in, right? Sylvio, Nadia, can you two go check on the chicken coop?”

The two were glad to oblige, racing down the stairs in fits of laughter, and Lance could only follow Lisa, dumbstruck, hand out to help her if she needed a hand down the steps. “You guys got chickens here too?”

She laughed, throaty and warm. “You’ll get to meet them tomorrow, I hope. I don’t know what Luis wants you to do yet.”

“Probably wrangle a cow.”

“We don’t wrangle anything here. You’re a farmer now, not a bull rider,” Lisa let out a breath, looping her arm through his as they left the cool air of the farmhouse and started back down the driveway, kicking up dirt as they walked. She was quiet, until they were back to the car, back to the luggage Lance toted from sunny California. “Your mama didn’t tell us everything, you know.”

Lance bit his lip, hoisting his luggage out of the truck bed and onto the road. “You can probably just google it.”

“I’d rather hear it from you, Lance. Not the tabloids.”

That was reassuring, considering his parents and Veronica preferred to read the tabloids.

He looked Lisa in the eye, and the knot in his chest twisted itself right back up. Lance wondered if there was a chance he could get an Eagle Scout badge for his impressive knotting skills in the last month, because this was one hell of a situation to be tied up in. And, hell, no sense beating around the bush with her.

“Uh, it was a DUI.”

Her expression fell.

“Lance…”

He remembered his luggage, one hand reaching for it, the other gesturing at Lisa. “No, no. I, uh, I don’t want you to say anything. It was my fault.” 

She was still looking at him with a furrowed brow. Pity. Worry. Other emotions he wished he couldn’t see, couldn’t understand. “No one was hurt. Just me,” was tacked on quickly, almost too quickly.

She picked up the other luggage, and she squeezed his arm again, but pulled away quicker. “No, yeah, of course. You got lucky.”

There was ice in her words, and Lance could taste bile. His free hand went subconsciously into his hair, eyes back up at the sky, tracing the bumps and grooves of a healing, stitched wound, the sweat on his hands sliding against the sweat in his hair, and the infinity of blue began to break up and crack like a shattered windshield.

Lance closed his eyes.

He got lucky.

--

His first task was dishes, drying as Lisa washed, and the sound of a car honk outside and the ecstatic shouts of his niece and nephew almost made him screw it up. He sat the plate down on the counter, giving Lisa a wild look. She snorted.

“Luis is home.”

“Where’s he even been all day?”

“Hey, farm work is more than just staying on the farm.” She dried her hands, following the kids outside, and Lance could hear them chatter, hear his name be shouted in excitement by Sylvio. He shuffled along, tail between his legs; the nerves, the anxiety building back up again as he peered through the screen door. There was Luis, and a dog, and the door swung open. Lance stumbled back. The stranger just raised her brows.

“Oh. My bad.”

Lance peered down at her. She wore her hair pulled back under a baseball cap, eyes behind large, round glasses. She was dressed for work, dusty denim jeans and a loose tee covered in suspicious red stains, and in her arms was a crate full of mason jars labeled by fruit (and Lance’s suspicion of the stains dissipated). She looked around his age, maybe younger. Her amber-toned eyes eyed him curiously, and Lance wondered for a moment if she recognized him. They had television here in the middle of nowhere, didn’t they? She had to know who he was. Maybe she’s starstruck.

Her curiosity quickly turned to annoyance.

“Can you… please move?”

Right. He was blocking her path. Lance obliged.

“Sorry. Uh. Hey, I’m Lance.”

He followed her into the kitchen as she set the crate down, setting to unboxing the jars, reading the labels, organizing them by fruit on the counter. Lance watched her for a minute, listening to the sound of glass tinkle. He had about a thousand questions. Many revolving around the stranger in his uncle’s kitchen unboxing fruit preserves like her life depended on it.

“I’m Lance.” He said again, louder, hoping her silence was just because she didn’t hear him. “I’m, uh, Luis’s little brother.”

“Uh-huh.”

Silence. She picked up the now-emptied crate, turning around to face him. Nothing. No reaction, not even a little one. Lance blinked at her.

“Lance McClain.”

“Yeah. You’ve told me your name three times already.”

“I… I did.” He did. “And you are…?”

“Not staying.” She brushed past him, and Lance stared after her. No way. There was no way. He knew his brother was disconnected, but even Luis watched TV.

“Wait, you don’t… do you watch TV? Ever?”

She stopped, turning around, holding the crate against her hip as she gave him a bewildered stare. “You’re kind of a weirdo, Lance McClain.”

“You don’t know who I am.”

She shifted her footing.

“I do now. Why’s that matter? You’re special or something?”

“Yes. Wait, no.”

She raised a brow again, and maybe he was imagining the amused twinkle in her eyes. “O-kay. See ya around, Lance.”

Good brother manners told him to follow the girl back out, greet his uncle. But at the moment, Lance was having a reality check.

Out in the middle of farmer country and the first person he thought would recognize him… didn’t. Was this what a blessing was? Or maybe it was just a blow to his ego. Either way, it was devastating. He peered back out through the screen door, watching the stranger laugh and smile with his brother and Lisa, giving Sylvio and Nadia hugs. And he watched her whistle for the dog, and watched them disappear down the dirt road. He turned toe back towards the kitchen, grabbing the next plate they used for lunch and began to scrub it down, listening for the door to open, for anyone’s voice. It was a relief when the laughter finally carried itself through the foyer, through the kitchen, and Lance felt a calloused hand clap down on his neck.

“What, didn’t want to come say hi?” Luis pulled him into a half-hug, and Lance splashed dish water, a laugh escaping him.

“I wanted to finish these, man.”

“Dishes! I thought Mami was making up urban legends when she said you still knew how to do these.”

“Dickhead.”

Luis laughed, setting to drying Lance’s dishes, his eyes wandering to the jars stacked up neatly on the counter. “You met Katie, at least?”

“Was that the girl?”

“Isn’t she great? Smartest girl we know.” He gestured around the house. “Set up the wifi and TV and even fixed the truck last spring with her mechanic buddy. Complete wonder girl.”

“What the hell? She set up your cable and she apparently has no idea who I am.”

Luis slowed his motion with the dish towel, rolling his eyes. “You can’t be serious. You’ve barely been here a day and you have expectations.”

“It’d be like if you didn’t know who Leonardo DiCaprio was.”

“Leo is an international icon and you’re on a daytime drama. Perspective.”

Lance took a step back, eyes on the preserve jars. “It was just… weird.”

Luis glanced at him, smiling. “A good or bad weird?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, get used to it. Mami sent you over here because she knew you’d be out of the spotlight while this whole thing simmers down.”

He winced, involuntary, leaning back against the counter. Simmer down. That’s all this was, right? The press will stop seeking him out and some other celebrity will do something equally or more insane, and Lance and his car wrapped around a pole would be old news. Simmered down. Cooked and salted and chowed down and passed right through and the next meal comes along and the cycle repeats itself in a vicious self-sabotage.

It didn’t sit well with him, suddenly. A headache spiked where his skull had split opened and flowered, however many salted and simmered days ago. The bile came back.

“Yeah, when this all simmers down.” Lance said, a little too loud, and he faked a yawn. “Anyways, I’m beat. Jet lag and shit. When should I set my alarm?”

“I’ll cut you some slack. Seven A.M. sound good?”

“Good god, no.”

Luis threw him a well meaning smile. “Let me or Lisa know if you need anything, okay?”

“How about building a luxury pool and spa in the backyard?”

“Anything but that.”

They laughed together, shoving and shoulder-checking, and Luis followed Lance as far as the stairs, a grin on his face, a crinkle at the corners of his eyes.

“Make sure you stay knocked the hell out, because you’re going to need all the sleep you can get. You’re on farm time, now.”

Lance shuddered hard, overdramatic. “That’s scary shit, Lu. Love you. Goodnight.”

He bounded up the stairs a little too fast, sinking down into his four-post bed, onto a blanket of soil and stared up at a dark ceiling. The buzzing of cicadas was replaced by the chirps of crickets, and Lance squeezed his eyes shut, rolling onto his stomach. His fingers itched to check his phone, google himself, see if his co-stars were texting him; but he knew better. Now was not the time.

Simmer, simmer down, Lance.

The jet lag caught up to him, eventually, and he breathed in the scent of earth and sky.

[sympathyfortheblinderdevil]

Serious Things: Chapter 4

Chapters 1, 2, 3

While on the road to meet Capone, Arthur meets Mollie and finds that he has a connection with her. Tommy acts like a diva when he finds out that some things are beyond his control.

Arthur doesn’t get enough fic love, and I seek to change that.

Mollie shows Arthur something that makes him wonder if she could be the one to save him from himself.

Mollie had dressed for the path that they would walk on their adventure. Her hair was braided into two plaits and tied up with a dark blue bandanna. She had on a shirt that she hadn’t worn in a couple of years because she didn’t want to wear any of her “good” clothes where they were going. She had gained a little weight since she had last worn it, and her breasts strained at the buttons, but she didn’t think Arthur would mind. Her curves filled out her denim overalls which were tucked into a pair of tattered lace-up work boots.

Arthur had to stifle a laugh when she came out of her bedroom. “I’m sorry, love, but those boots!” he wheezed.

Mollie arched an eyebrow at him and warned, “Well, look at how you’re dressed! You won’t be laughing when you are plumb eat up with chigger bites and I’m checking your balls for ticks.”

“Checking my balls for what?” he sputtered and looked down at his attire: a plain cotton shirt with no collar, his usual brown trousers, and a pair of oxford shoes. He became more serious as the meaning of her words settled on him. “And what’s wrong with my clothes?”

“Ticks. And you don’t want to leave the bottoms of your pants open. I’ll find a pair of my brother’s boots for you to borrow. You can tuck your pants into them. Where we are going, there are things that crawl and bite and will keep you awake for weeks scratching like a hound dog. It’s best to limit possible points of entry.”

With Arthur properly suited and booted, they set out across the scrubby field behind Mollie’s house. Arthur carried a gunny sack that Mollie had packed with cheese sandwiches, homemade pickles, and jars of icy well water. The field was lush with sage grass and hay up to the waist, and she hastened across it, leading Arthur to the wooded thicket beyond. He could now understand why she was dressed the way she was and why she had insisted on his wearing her brother’s boots.

After they had walked for a while, Arthur asked, “Are there snakes out here, Mollie?”

“Not many,” she answered, with a sideways glance.

Arthur quickened his pace, practically running until they reached the coolness of the woods. Mollie caught up with him, giggling as she collapsed, sitting on the ground beside him. They settled under the canopy of shady trees while they caught their breath, and Mollie took the gunny sack from Arthur. She pulled out a jar of water and took a drink, offering it to Arthur when she was finished. It was still cold from deep in the ground from which it was pulled.

“You’re a hard man, Mr. Shelby. Don’t tell me that you are afraid of snakes.”

“Nah, they’d take one look at these boots and slither off in the other direction.” Arthur took a drink and passed the jar back to Mollie, stealing a sidelong glance at the way her shirt skimmed over her damp skin.

He then looked up into the treetops, and as he took in his new surroundings she studied his face. He had a rough handsomeness that she had never seen the likes of before. His freckle-dusted complexion and deep blue eyes didn’t seem to go with his inky black lashes, but she was glad that they did. The contrast was mesmerizing. She gingerly traced a scar that ran from his eyebrow to his cheekbone, then leaned up to kiss it. His eyes fluttered closed and he took a deep breath.

“I like it here. It’s peaceful,” he exhaled.

“I do too. It reminds me of being on the road when times were good. My ma would take me foraging. We’d find berries, greens, mint for tea, then we’d take it all back to camp. My pa would make a big deal of it all, going on and on about how I had found it with my sight. He really made me feel special.”

“Do you miss him?”

“I miss the way that he used to be. Before everything was about money, and deals, and fighting.”

Arthur got a faraway look in his eyes. “I used to fight…quite a lot. Now I just run the matches.”

“Why’d you stop?”

He looked at her, searching her face for a sign if he should give an honest answer. Something in her eyes told him that she’d understand. “I killed a boy.”

“Oh.”

“Does that scare you?”

“No,” she quietly replied, and took his hand. She ran her thumb over his scarred knuckles. “Honey, we’ve all done things that we’re not proud of, things that we regret. But when I look at you, I see a soul worthy of redemption.”

As she spoke, she moved closer and closer to him until he could feel her breath caress his cheek. Her plush red lips gently kissed his jawline, and his eyelids drifted shut. At that moment, if all the rest of the world fell away it would be alright with him. Still, after a moment of peace, the nagging memory of all of his bad deeds came creeping into his thoughts. He felt that he could never escape the judgment that would surely come for all of the beatings, the cuttings, and the murders he had committed in his short lifetime.

He dropped his head down to his chest and sighed. “Oh, Mollie. If that were the only horrible thing that I had done…” After a moment he cleared his throat and pulled one of her braids. “So. Are you going to tell me where we are going?”

She grinned at his obvious attempt to lighten the mood. “No. You’ll have to wait and see,” she teased while she pushed herself up off the ground and dusted off the seat of her overalls. “But we need to get moving if we are going to be back in time for me to cook supper for Y'all.”

They picked their way through the woods for what seemed like hours, stopping from time to time to rest or just to talk. Mollie kept the conversation light, and Arthur could not remember a time when he had felt so free. He was weightless. All of his worries with his family, with the business, with the noise inside of his head, was gone. All that remained was the soft laughter and tender touch of the girl who was walking beside him.

“Are you hungry yet?” her voice broke into his thoughts.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Good, because we are almost there. It’s a long way to go for a picnic, but I think that you’ll find that it was worth the trek.”

She jogged ahead of him, looking back over her shoulder and shouting, “Come on!” as she bounced toward a break in the tree line.

When they reached the clearing, he was amazed by the sight before him. Majestic granite columns rose skyward into nothingness. Pieces of walls, here and there, seemingly held up by the honeysuckle vines that twirled their way around the crumbling red bricks. Arched windows that once held stained glass were draped with bougainvillea and yellow jessamine. She had brought him to a ruined church.

Cicadas rattled in an unrelenting ebb and flow as Arthur made his way to the crumbling steps where Mollie stood. Strands of her auburn hair had escaped her bandanna and fanned out in wisps around her head, catching the sunlight and glowing. She looked like an angel.

She put her arms around his neck when he reached her. “Do you like it?”

“It’s amazing. I mean, we have these in England, but not like this.”

They stepped inside and he whispered, “What happened here?”

“Your tribe helped us redecorate the first time it was gutted,” she playfully replied as she led him further into the decaying bones of the church, “but it was destroyed for good when Sherman came through on his march to the sea.”

“During your Civil War.”

“Yeah.” She stopped, and Arthur stood beside her, still holding her hand. Mollie stared wistfully into the trees beyond the ruins. Spanish moss cascaded thickly from every branch. Arthur’s eyes followed her own, and when she turned to look at him she couldn’t help but smile at the placid warmth she saw on his face.

She rested her head against his shoulder and quietly spoke, “It’s strange how a place like this, a place that saw so much violence and destruction can become beautiful, even peaceful over time.”

“Like a sort of redemption?” he mused, and he leaned his head over onto hers.

Mollie brought his hand to her lips, tenderly kissed his scarred knuckles, and whispered, “Yes, and I believe that people are the same way.”

[francescaswords]

Chapter One | The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes

Prologue / Chapter Two / Chapter Three Read Chapter Four and the rest of the novel on my Patreon!

The Kingdom of Mirrors, the loudest, southernmost and most magical of the Three Kingdoms, filled the bottom third of the crescent moon with olive trees, fishing boats and about ten thousand mirrors. It was ruled by the Durante line of the House of Stars, whose family tree was dotted with the types of people whose exploits are written into ten-minute songs about burning cities and eccentric fashion sense and enormous acts of courage in the face of fire-breathing dragons. Princess Amelia, the youngest of the Durante family, knew from early childhood that she, too, would one day have to defeat a dragon.

Nobody initially expected Amelia to face the dragon in question, partly because she was a girl and partly because she had been born second in line to the throne. Her older brother, Prince Nicholas, was both dashingly handsome and perfectly capable of embarking on such a heroic quest by himself. Unfortunately for Amelia, by the time she reached her teens Prince Nicholas found himself indisposed, so although most people were too polite to mention it, the task of dragon-slaying ultimately fell to her.

Amelia was fourteen, and in happier stories she would be learning how to dance or dabble in magic. In this story, Amelia was in charge of olive oil production. She was also kingdom treasurer, head of the royal family’s public relations department, occasional fisherwoman and part-time carer to her ailing father, the king. For someone born into a centuries-old dynasty, she spent a lot of time with ancient legal documents and recently gutted fish.

Amelia’s path to notoriety began one overwarm Monday evening in early spring when she had finished a day’s work in the kingdom treasury and was heading through the Kingdom of Mirrors’ busy capital city, Lumiere, to evening lessons in the castle. Today she would be learning mathematics with her tutor—which seemed redundant when she ran the entire kingdom’s budget from a piece of parchment and an abacus—so she dragged her feet as she walked through Market Street towards the castle.

Market Street was the epicentre of Lumiere and Amelia’s favourite part of the city. Lumiere looked like a fairytale, or a dream. It was a dream, of sorts: Amelia’s great-great-times-something grandparents designed the city themselves after the previous one was ravaged by one of those wars disguised as a marriage. Wait, no, this one was a war disguised as a war.

Neither grandparent was particularly conventional when it came to architecture, so every corner of Lumiere demanded your attention. White stone buildings rose into spires with forty sides, each one mosaiced with tiny chips of glass or ceramics. Colourful tiles trimmed every window and door, forming intricate patterns that drew the eye in a hundred directions. Only a few windows in each building held clear glass: almost everywhere boasted a stained-glass frieze of pictures or spirals. Even regular stone walls were round and misshapen, like someone plucked all the cobbles from the street and piled them on top of one another until they resembled a building. On every wall in the kingdom, from the tiniest cupboard to the largest battlement, hung a looking glass. No one was sure who had started the tradition, but they all appreciated how easy it was to check if you had food stuck in your teeth. Brightly painted doors, each competing for attention in violent shades of fuchsia or lavender or buttercup, were elegantly latticed with wrought iron. Some buildings were mosaiced entirely in silver, others in turquoise or tangerine. There wasn’t a grey space in the country and according to rumour, every colour in existence had been pressed into use somewhere in the kingdom. A staple of every primary school education in the Kingdom of Mirrors was a day spent naming the colours of each public building.

On some walls Amelia passed, mosaics formed cheery squares like kitchen tiles. On others they made bright, childlike images telling the history of the Kingdom of Mirrors. There were the olive trees, there was a woman brewing a potion, there was a boat next to some fish. The mosaiced fish were consistently bigger than the little people on the boat, which always made Amelia wonder whether the artist had no sense of scale or if they wanted to emphasise how brave the fishermen were, sailing out to face enormous krakens and territorial mermaids and climate change.

As she walked, Amelia gazed across Market Street to the little boats in the harbour, bobbing about on a minuscule breeze. Something moved near the hull of a dinghy, perhaps a school of fish or a merperson. The boat’s owner dozed on deck, oblivious. Up in the hills, lights twinkled from the peaks of each mountain. Lime green parakeets hollered over tiny sparrows, shouting over hulking seagulls.

Amelia stopped at one of Market Street’s twenty food carts to buy a snack before lessons. After a small diplomatic incident in which a local butcher replaced fresh lamb with fresh cat without mentioning it to anyone first, Amelia had lost her taste for kebabs, so she chose a cheese pastry and orange juice, praying that the cheese came from a farmyard animal. ‘You don’t have to pay, Your Majesty,’ the vendor told her as she rummaged through her purse. Although Amelia was dressed exactly like her subjects in a loose cotton dress and had the same umber skin and jet-black hair, the market knew her well. She frequently hid there to avoid going to the castle.

‘Of course I do…’ Amelia searched for the vendor’s name. ‘Sarah. Of course I have to pay, Sarah, I’m not going to go around stealing from my own people!’ Especially when you’re one of the few tradespeople who pays their taxes, she added silently.

‘Well, if you’re sure… can I put some magic in it, on the house?’

‘Oh, go on then.’ Amelia yawned and fanned herself with her sunhat. ‘Something to revive my desire to go to my maths tutorial.’

Sarah smiled and reached under her little counter for a vial labelled enthusiasm: medium strength. She flicked a couple of drops into Amelia’s orange juice. ‘Bad day at the office, Your Majesty?’

Amelia gazed across the square at children her own age. Walking home from school with cloth satchels slung over their shoulders, wearing faded patterned dresses or shorts, they jostled each other along in a way that always struck Amelia as very comradely. She tried to push back a pang of jealousy. Until Amelia’s father suffered a stroke when she was twelve, Amelia attended the same local school, wearing the same faded patterned dresses. Amelia hadn’t especially enjoyed formal education when she was forced to go, but after years of squeezing in private tutoring between royal business and gradually losing touch with her friends, Amelia would have given anything to spend eight hours with other people her own age. Especially since public schools let children take a class in brewing potions, and Amelia’s parents wouldn’t let her near any magical substances since an unfortunate incident with a dog and a growth potion when Amelia was ten.

‘Oh you know…’ Amelia shrugged. ‘Eighty per cent of our teachers and healthcare professionals have gone abroad in the last five years and we can’t afford to train anyone new. There’s also a shortage of sorcerers who know how to bewitch the weather, so we’re in for a long summer.’ She scowled and chomped her pastry. ‘Oh, and the Earl of Star’s Reach spent half an hour telling me how he plans to convert an entire room in his house into a shrine to the gods of gratitude. Gratitude! He’d do better praying to the gods of lost causes.’

Shrines in the Kingdom of Mirrors were like pairs of shoes: everyone owned at least one, but to people who considered themselves fashionable, they were the ultimate status symbol. Each building housed a shrine to one god or another, each made from chips of mirrored glass or colourful tiles. Some were the size of a post box, others the size of a shed. Some people, like the Earl of Star’s Reach, dedicated an entire room in their house to their shrine, replacing all the windows with stained glass and filling the room with candles, incense and tiny prayer scrolls. The Earl fancied himself a priest and a magician, although the rest of the court fancied him a nuisance, especially when his attempts at magic resulted in a castle-wide evacuation.

‘Is he thinking of going for any particular design?’ Sarah asked. Her kiosk’s little shrine to the water gods was the size of a milk jug and made from blue glass chips. It sat on the till, which Sarah had bewitched to open only when she touched it.

‘The Earl wants a plain mirrored mosaic floor in the shape of his family crest to remind him of his respect for the gods of hearth and home,’ Amelia recalled. ‘But his wife doesn’t like to be reminded of her mother-in-law.’

‘Maybe she should pray to the gods for a new husband, then,’ Sarah suggested. ‘Or send him south to Scavenger’s Ruin. The Sapphire Dragon will take care of him.’

Amelia tried to laugh, but something stuck in her throat.

She finished her food at the communal iron tables, soaking up the atmosphere as the evening sun reflected off the mirrors on each building, casting the entire street in strange beams of light and duplicating the market one thousand times over. When she was little, Amelia thought that every mirror contained another world, where another Amelia sat, looking into another mirror.

The temperature was starting to drop, so Lumiere was coming alive. Children scampered around fountains while parents chatted at cafés. Amelia could hear restaurants getting ready for the dinner shift, lighting fires to roast lambs and goats on spits, and she could smell oregano and bougainvillea plants. A cicada chirruped somewhere, almost drowned out by a marching band performing at one end of Market Street. The band appeared to be in direct competition with an orchestra holding a performance at the other end of the street. Babies’ cries mingled with dogs’ barks as street vendors contended with everyone. ‘Salted olives, a jar for a silver coin!’ Amelia could get two jars of olives for a copper coin; there were more olive trees in the Kingdom of Mirrors than there were people. A wasp buzzed near Amelia’s pastry wrappings, close enough to count its legs. She waved it away. Another vendor hollered, ‘Feather pillowcases, plucked from swans this morning!’ Very few swans lived in the Kingdom of Mirrors. Possibly the manufacturer had skinned several pigeons.

It was well past time to go to lessons, so Amelia hauled herself from her seat and brushed her sticky hands on her dress as the loudest voice of all cut through the crowd. ‘Magical gold amulets—guaranteed to keep your marriage healthy! Just five gold pieces for two!’

Amelia stopped at the stall, waving another wasp away from her face. Anything for another two minutes of fresh air. ‘What do those amulets do?’

‘They spice up your marriage, Your Majesty.’ The vendor, a sun-wrinkled old man called Harry, bowed when he recognised her.

‘My marriage?’

‘Or your parents’ marriage!’ Harry seemed to remember who he was talking to. ‘Not that the King and Queen need any help in their marriage! I am sure they’re blissfully happy!’

‘Yes, blissful,’ Amelia agreed. She rubbed her temples. The enthusiasm was taking its time kicking in. ‘Couldn’t the marching band and the orchestra perform at different times?’

‘Course they could,’ Harry grunted. ‘But that would be too easy. The orchestra is starring in a musical.’

‘Remind me never to see it,’ Amelia muttered.

‘You might want to, Your Majesty, it’s about the war with the Sapphire Dragon.’

‘Why on earth would I want to watch a musical about the war?’ Amelia demanded. Why couldn’t people stop bringing it up? First Sarah with her joke, now Harry. For ten whole minutes as she strolled through Market Street, Amelia had forgotten all about the war her people waged against their unfriendly neighbourhood dragon.

Harry shrugged. ‘Search me, Your Majesty, I’ve never been much of a theatre person. Can I interest you in a shell for calming headaches?’

‘No, no, I’ll take a tonic later on.’ Amelia knew that Harry’s ‘magic shells’ came from Lumiere’s beach. Although blood red and very pleasant as a table decoration, they held absolutely no magical properties. Amelia didn’t have the heart to tell him she knew the scam: not everyone in the kingdom was a magic user. Amelia never quite got over the fact that her mother, Queen Hazel, excelled at casting protection spells, while Amelia, Nicholas and their father, King Emmanuel, possessed about as much magical ability as a pair of socks.

She left Harry there as he called into the market once more. ‘Magical shells! Endorsed by the Princess Amelia!’

Miraculously, Amelia arrived earlier than her tutor. Madame Louisa taught every subject on a different day in their little room at the very top of the castle tower. Ten floors up, Amelia could still hear the orchestra and the marching band battling it out. While she waited, she flicked through the pile of newspapers they had used for her current affairs lesson the previous week. There was the war, again, on almost every page.

 ‘The Sapphire Dragon razes another town!’ screamed one headline. ‘Is he heading north from his cave at Scavenger’s Ruin?’

 ‘King Richard of the Valley of Dreams sends more troops to the Kingdom of Mirrors’ aid,’ announced another paper. ‘Meanwhile, King Emmanuel has borrowed money from Queen Margaret of Stormhaven to pay for another siege at Scavenger’s Ruin, to force the Sapphire Dragon from his stronghold.’

 ‘King Richard’s troops are killed in a failed siege of the Sapphire Dragon’s lair,’ bemoaned the most recent. ‘The latest failed attempt to oust the Sapphire Dragon, who has laid waste to the south coast of the Kingdom of Mirrors for 20 years, brought the military death toll up to 32,892 troops, and the civilian death toll to—’ Amelia stopped reading. She knew the numbers already.

What really depressed her was that these newspapers could have been from any year in the past two decades, ever since the Sapphire Dragon blew in from the Western Ocean on a terrible storm. Villagers spotted him curled on the beach at Scavenger’s Ruin, a fishing town at the southernmost tip of the kingdom. According to survivors, his wicked blue scales reflected the sun and his wicked grey claws left welts in the sand. Fire spat from his nostrils as he torched every building in sight, along with most villagers. War was declared immediately, of course. There’s a saying in the Three Kingdoms: sticks and stones might break your bones but they don’t do squat to dragons, so you’d better bring something stronger.

Everyone was hopeful for the first few years. Hundreds of well-trained soldiers marched south each spring, although barely fifty would make it back, and most of those spent months in the Lumiere hospital being treated for horrendous burns. The Valley of Dreams, the Kingdom of Mirrors’ closest neighbour, sent troops and extra weapons. Dragons are creatures of habit and prefer to live in secluded, enclosed spaces, so the Sapphire Dragon existed mostly in the hard-to-reach caves below Scavenger’s Ruin, venturing out occasionally to hunt fish from the once-plentiful sea or to meet the latest contingent of soldiers. Once or twice a year he would fly north, razing more towns and extending his territory just a little bit closer to Lumiere. Within some six years of the dragon’s arrival, half the nation was inhospitable and hundreds of terrified families had fled to Lumiere. Others went further north still, to the Valley of Dreams.

Lumiere soon started to creak under the extra pressure from its new inhabitants. Tensions built up in crowded communities as the war dragged on. After a few more years of state funerals for fallen soldiers and emergency aid relief for refugees, someone cracked and threw a brick into the tent of a refugee family, starting the famous Midsummer Riots. Amelia remembered watching the carnage from her bedroom window as a terrified six-year-old, counting the fires that spread across the city. ‘Dad will sort it out,’ twelve-year-old Nicholas assured her. ‘He has an army.’

‘He doesn’t,’ Amelia argued. ‘They’ve all been eaten by the dragon.’

‘The Sapphire Dragon doesn’t eat people,’ Nicholas assured her. ‘He just sets them on fire.’

Amelia refused to go near a lit candle for weeks after he said that. Emmanuel and Hazel finally bowed to political pressure and began to borrow money from Queen Margaret of Stormhaven to train even more soldiers. They signed an agreement with the Valley of Dreams, allowing thousands of refugees to relocate to safer lands in exchange for access to the Kingdom of Mirrors’ ancient magical scrolls, something no monarch had allowed for centuries. Eight years later, the kingdom’s debts were crippling its economy and all those extra soldiers proved about as effective as a comedian at a funeral.

‘Your Majesty!’ Amelia jolted out of her reverie as Madame Louisa swept into the room. ‘Apologies for my tardiness. Let’s get started with some mathematics!’

Madame Louisa didn’t set particularly difficult exercises today —but then, Amelia recently balanced Louisa’s family’s bank account. Amelia scratched away at algebraic fractions, trying not to think about dragons. She glanced out the tower window. All the way up here she could see the entire city, nestled amongst the mountains and olive groves, temple spires sparkling. People would soon be making their way to evening prayers, if not just stopping for ten minutes to light a candle in the nearest shrine. If she had magical vision, which wasn’t unheard of in the Three Kingdoms, she could see around the coast all the way down to Scavenger’s Ruin. From this distance the road looked like it was scratched into the mountain by a dragon’s claw. Her fist clenched around her pencil. Would she ever go anywhere without being reminded that her kingdom was on its knees?

The pencil snapped. Across the room, Madame Louisa raised her eyebrows and handed Amelia another.

Copyright © 2019 by Francesca Burke

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

[and-beastly]

The Waterlogged Docter

A Astoria: Fate’s Kiss inspired Fic I blame Leah. Not only was she the start of all this, she helped write some of it too. So sit back, relax, grab a bag of popcorn, and hopefully enjoy this new adventure!

It all started out as just another day. The end of summer was fast approaching but the undulating heat still refused to give way. The sounds of cicadas and a melancholic piano could be heard drifting through the marshy forest. Meanwhile lazy moss balls and fat turtles could be seen bobbing in the cool lake waters. Every so often the wind would shake the leaves in the trees, and animals could be heard rustling all around, a reminder that the forest was full of life.

Yet the serenity of the space was broken by a fast paced young couple making their way along a well-worn stone path. The shadows cast by the towering pines accented the anxiousness and worry in the female’s eyes. She tightly held on to the accompanying male’s hand as they made their way forward. Their footsteps simply faded into the forest around them, as if isolating them from the world. Words of doubt followed by reassuring promises could be heard passing between the two as they continued on.

Breaking past the tree line they quickly shaded their eyes from the sudden increase of sunlight. Once their eyes were adjusted they were momentarily stunned by the sight before them. A small earthen shack with large stain glass windows and a slow moving water wheel, sat nestled between a beautiful lake and a large towering medical garden. A young satyr in a large straw hat, bright green apron, and matching gloves could be seen diligently weaving his way through the garden pulling weeds. As if sensing the new arrivals he quickly stood up and stretched, his deep green eyes zeroing in on the pair before him.

“Yo Doc! Ya got yourself some new patients!” A jarringly strong southern accent left his lips as he yelled towards the house. Brushing the dirt from his gloves he removed them and shoved them into his apron pocket. Easily jumping the garden fence he trotted over to the new arrivals, knocking the dirt from his hooves along the way. From under his hat a pair of droopy silver studded ears and curly auburn hair could be seen. With a knowing smile on his freckle covered face he reached out and happily shook their hands.

“Welcome to Doc Lylin’s magical miracle medicine menagerie! Haha! Try saying that five times fast! I’m his assistant Wallace. Wallace Van Hovet. But y’all can call me Wally. Y'all got an appointment? Or maybe y'all’re here for a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ to spice up your night with? The ol’ Doc’s got things even Miss Aphrodite will swear by-” All of a sudden a green flash flew from the house smacking loudly into the back of Wallace’s head cutting off his growing tangent.

Stunned the couple watched an odd little green ball bounce away quickly towards the lake, as if fleeing the scene. Afterwards they turned their attention towards the shack the ball had been shot from. Past the staggering and grumbling satyr, the soft sound of footsteps could be heard. From the door a petite and frail looking young man was currently making his way towards them. He had on a pair of slacks and a plain white button up that was open slightly, drawing ones eye to a large star shaped scar splashed across his neck and collar bones. Messy silver hair and lingering dark circles under his dull gray eyes made him look like a picture book example of an exhausted college student.

Ignoring the grief filled looks coming from Wallace he lazily stepped before the couple giving them a once over. The guy was aggravatingly tall and had muscles that would even make ‘The Rock’ jealous. With his lightly tanned skin and lively eyes shining from beneath his fluffy brown hair he looked like a walking embodiment of the sun. Resisting the urge to gag, Lylin turned his attention to the girl instead.

She was much smaller and mellower in comparison, making Lylin secretly thankful, he had a hard enough time dealing with Wallace, he didn’t need another sunflower child around. The young lady had long black hair that gracefully framed her face before casually draping over her shoulders. Her dark eyes where brimming with intelligence and seemed to draw in all the light around her.

Coming to a conclusion he snapped his fingers and textbook style words formed from water began to appear between them.

[I’m Dr. Lylin. You must be the ones Hades informed me about. Come on in and let me see if I can do something to help with that problem of yours.]

Not bothering to see if they read everything he turned and made his way back towards the shack the water words vanishing as he left. Having recovered from the earlier attack Wallace glanced between the pair and Lylin while scratching his head apologetically.

“Please excuse the Doc, he’s not a bad fella he just can’t talk ya see. But if it gets to the point where ya have any trouble keeping with his subtitles don’t be afraid to let him know. He’ll slow’em down for ya no problem.” Having said that Wallace smiled and lead them towards the house.

Once inside the strong scents of coffee, lavender, and rosemary wafted over them. Different types of ivies hung all around swaying in rainbow colored sunlight coming through the windows. Glass bottles full of a verity of liquids and the occasional moss ball lined nearly every surface. What wasn’t covered in bottles or aquariums was instead packed down with large leather bound books, or a patchwork quilt or two. Amidst the organized chaos, sitting expressionlessly on a hand carved wooden stool, was Lylin. With a coffee mug in one hand and a clip board in the other he watched as Wallace lead the pair forward. While pointing towards the worn leather couch across from himself, watery words began to form again.

[Take a seat. Wallace, go prepare some tea and a couple of snacks. Preferably the sweets that Persephone dropped off last time. Now then, how about you both introduce yourselves and enlighten me as to why Hades was insistent that I see to you.]

The tall, muscular man spoke up first, a disarming grin on his face. “I’m Cerberus; nice to meet you! Hades said that if anyone could help us, you were the man! I mean, help Leah, that is.”

He gestured at his companion, who had been looking around at the plants, books, and hand-made home décor with obvious admiration. She quickly smiled at Lylin and held out her hand. “Hi, Dr. Lylin; I’m Leah Chung. My issue is, well… It’s kind of a long story.”

She shrugged and gave a short, wry laugh before glancing at Cerberus. He nodded encouragingly and she turned back to Lylin.

“The short version is… Uh, I have an Aura, but I didn’t know it until a few weeks ago. It flared up on accident, and since then I haven’t been able to activate it on my own. Cerberus is trying to help me learn to control it, but the whole unpredictable activation thing is making it kind of hard.”

“Leah’s got a case with H.E.R.A,” Cerberus explained. “Her case worker suggested we look you up, and then Hades heard about it and told us he’d put in a good word. So… do you think you can help?”

The puppy dog eyes he gave the doctor were so insistent it was almost as if he needed the help instead of Leah.

               Looking at the puppy dog eyes being beamed his way, Lylin internally blanched. Forcibly ignoring the pleading looks he started jotting things down on his clipboard. While he wrote new watery words began to replace the old ones.

               [When Hades said that he was sending me something odd, he wasn’t kidding. So since your problem seems to be a lack of aura control I’m assuming, Zeus have mercy, that you’ve come here looking for a way to fix that?]

               Looking up from his clipboard, he glanced at them for conformation. At the moment Wallace finally returned along with a tea and snack covered tray. With a surprising amount of grace he placed the tray on the only clean table close by. With nimble hand he easily poured two cups before passing them off to Cerberus and Leah.

               “Here ya go! Two pippin’ hot cups of my own special blend.” With a proud smile on his face he enthusiastically watched the two, hoping to see their reaction. However the aggregated tapping he heard coming from Lylin’s direction rapidly reminded him of the other things he should be doing. Awkwardly nodding his head he quickly excused himself from the shack retreating to the safety of the garden.

               While watching Wallace escape, Leah brought the tea cup to her lips. An energizing earthy aroma with hints of raspberries attacked her senses. Taking a sip she couldn’t stop herself from sighing. Living up to its aroma, almost as soon the tea pass down her throat, a burst of invigorating energy seemed to spread through her body. Lost in the feeling she quickly took one sip after another. As if a blazing desert getting its first rain, her body eagerly absorbed the energy that was coming its way.

               “Wow, this teas amazing! It’s like I’m overflowing with energy!” Cerberus exclaimed, as if stealing the words from Leah’s mouth.

[Overflowing energy… oh no… Shit- WALLACE I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!]

Horror filled words suddenly started to flash through the air as Lylin franticly jumped from his chair. Sensing the impending disaster he grabbed ahold of Cerberus’ and Leah’s wrist. Completely ignoring the falling teacups and their shocked expressions, he quickly exerted his strength easily pulling them off the couch and towards the door.

As if on que, Leah felt that a dam had broken open inside of her. No sooner was she out the door, did an awe inspiring explosion take place. Having nowhere else to go, the excess energy from the tea, with the help of her already unstable aura, violently burst from her body. Time seemed to come to a screeching halt, as the majestic cry of an unseen bird resonated from the point of origin. Blinding silvery light brightened the surrounding area like a miniature sun. The force of the blast ripped Leah form Lylin’s grasp, before sending both him and Cerberus tumbling into the distance.

Unsteadily pushing himself off the ground, Lylin silently gagged as he coughed up the mud he’d been forced to eat on impact. While taking wheezing breathes he whipped the trace amounts of blood and remaining mud from his mouth. The blast had come so suddenly that he’d been unable to form his own aura in defense. Baring through the pain he surveyed the scene around him. Not too far off he saw Cerberus also struggling to get up looking just as miserable. Turning towards the cause of the blast, what he saw nearly made him black out. As the dust settled a disheveled looking Leah could be seen sitting solely in the middle of a three foot crater. Other than a few rips on her clothing, she appeared to be completely unscathed.  

From the garden a fearful Wallace poked his head. Upon seeing the wretched sight before him he started to panic. Darting towards the back of the house he went in search of a first aid kit. Lylin has just managed to get to his feet when Wallace came bolting towards him. An overwhelming urge to strangle the satyr bubbled up in Lylin as he watched the guy approach.  

“Lylin are you alright?!” Skidding to a stop by the staggering man, Wallace quickly let his aura loose. A large translucent lavender plant blossomed from behind Wallace, covering Lylin and even the distant Cerberus. Pale purple light cascaded down, slowly soothing and mending the pair’s wounds. Finally regaining he bearings Lylin begrudgingly pushed his was past Wallace, making his way towards Leah.

[Just focus on healing Cerberus.]

Leaving those words in his wake he carefully approached the dazed female. Taking a deep breath he gently released his aura. From the top of his head appeared a fragile waterlily. Yet as it bloomed the tiny bud became shockingly more glorious and ethereal. Its snow white petals slowly grew stretching out towards the horizon. A sweet smelling mist fluttered from the center of the petals pouring down with a strong healing power. Watching the healing mist gently cocoon around Leah he sighed.

[Well, you certainly know how to make an impression don’t you.]