this world wasn’t made for children — any of us, whether we be palestinian, queer, autistic, or whatever.
tw for death, transphobia, zionism, racism, genocide, and a heavy vent about them all
i’m sitting in my room and i feel so…empty? heartbroken? distraught? i don’t know the right word to describe how i feel after hearing about nex benedict.
nex was a 16 y/o member of the diné/cherokee (i’m so sorry if that isn’t the right term, no ill-intent whatsoever) nation in oklahoma.
they were murdered by three girls in their high school class in a bathroom on february 7th, just this year.
i won’t talk about the system that failed them — that is failing so many others like them, myself included — because i genuinely don’t know what more to say. my heart aches for them and the knowledge that, regardless of them being non-binary, they were a child. nex benedict was younger than me, and should’ve lived a long, happy life. instead, they’re fucking DEAD.
as i sit at my desk, complaining to my own friends my woes and worries, i can feel my heart ripping itself in half. nex benedict deserved just as happy and prosperous of a life as the rest of us. i think about how that could’ve been my own queer friends in my own far-right state, hell, it could’ve been me, and it would hurt all the same. as another non-binary person myself i cry for the life that was stolen from a fucking CHILD. nex benedict was younger than me, and it’s haunting to think about.
i feel the same about the thousands of children being fucking carpet bombed in gaza and lebanon. again, i won’t go into detail about the system of zionist apartheid that is causing so. many. children just like me to toe the line between life and death. i feel the same about the babies starving to death in south sudan, the uyghur women that won’t be able to have children because they’ve been sterilized against their will, the queer tweens in conservative, red-leaning states that have to fight to live in peace.
what is this world, if not made for children? when black kids are shot because fucking pigs see them as threats instead of CHILDREN? when muslim girls are beaten up for wearing hijabs because ignorant bigots fail to see the internal struggle that comes with it, and see nothing but fascist, conservative propaganda? when autistic kids are abused and punished for not being able to conform neurotypical conventions that they physically can’t uphold?
when will this world start giving a fuck about kids like us? kids like hind rajab (6), nex benedict (16), and ahmed mansara?
wake the fuck UP.
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thinkin' about dancing with eula, in your favourite place to be with her—
it's cold out, it always is. dragonspine's climate is harsh and unforgiving, but to those of steel will, the wintry terrain is easy enough to temper. her hand is gentle around yours, the slightest flex beneath her gloves as she steadies you at the slightest hint of ice upon the ground.
(don't worry. she'll catch you, before you so much as harm a hair on your pretty head upon the snow.)
there's a precious spot—well, several, really—that you both come to often in search of refuge and respite from the trials of society. the snow is pure and untainted, untouched by the unjust jeers of those who call mondstadt home; it's quiet, here, a shelter in some ruins with evidences of your prior visits. a memory to return to with fondness.
you share a drink by the campfire, some dandelion wine fresh from the tavern. you watch as she prepares it, skilled and delicate, the slightest furrow in her brow as her cryo vision pulses and cubes of ice form in her palm. cheek on hand, you can't help but smile as she deposits the ice into the cups she'd brought: goblets, really, stolen away from the stash at the lawrence manor.
"so much silver gone to waste keeping up appearances. at least, with these, they'll serve a more priceless purpose," she huffs the first time she brought them, engraved with sapphires and dappled with gold embellishments. you should've felt like royalty then, as you swirled the wine; like nobility as you took a tentative sip. but the sight of her, tufts of silken arctics and sunset eyes and tender smile, made you feel like a witness instead.
(a witness, you remember thinking, to divinity itself.)
eula glanced at you when she concluded, then. an unspoken message that you already understand, that already warms you. much of it took time to learn, the little tells that gave her away (with some help from amber, of course), but you relished memorising each: her indignant scoffs and denying looks away when she's flustered, the furrow in her brow as she ponders her next strategy.
you thank her when she hands you a goblet, the dandelion wine chilled to the perfect cool. she wouldn't normally go through the trouble and hassle of the tradition, but for you, she would dredge up every crumb of history branded upon her skull.
it makes you appreciate her all the more. you smile, and she looks away, and you know her fair cheeks are already rosy before she does.
eula drinks less often, when she's around you. every moment is too sacred to be enjoyed drunk; you are a thorn in her side, but you are also the plaster and the sweet kiss and the tender touch that mends it with care enough unworthy for a pariah such as her.
you find that she sets down her cup, after no more than two sips. eula slips her gloves from her hands, tucking them into her sleeve, before extending her palm to you in wordless invitation.
it's soft, but firm as you take it. you can map every scar on her skin in your mind's eye, born of fumbles in her ascent to knighthood, her sisyphean struggle to be as the roil of waves: free, and unbridled. liberated from her guise, a pursuit of vengeance.
you brush your thumb over her knuckles, knowing the strength in them; these are the hands that have clawed their way out from the grave her ancestors dug for themselves, the hands that cleave a path towards a breeze-ful future. hands of a captain—the hands of the woman you love.
there's a twitch in her lip that you want to catch with your own, but she's already tugging you onto your feet.
"may i have this dance?" eula murmurs, bowing some. she has never been one to abide by her clan's customs, yet she shares the sanctity of her favoured past time with you. her favourite person.
and you laugh, because she doesn't need to ask, she never has to, because your answer would always be yes.
yes, of course i will.
yes, always.
her face colours, and you beam, radiant as the unsullied snow. you are her peace, and her trouble, and her quiet and her noise.
"yes, you may."
permission given, eula lets out a misting breath of relief, as if this wasn't already something she had done many times before with you. one step, and another, just to close the distance, lithe arm slipping around your waist to tug you flush against her, and your breath leaves you.
your clasped hands entwine, and eula brings them to her lips, soft petals brushing over your flesh. she has a way of that, stealing the air in your lungs, but you'd let her. every single time.
her lips trace the bone in your wrist, your inner forearm, through the sleeve of the coat she'd tucked you into before your hike through the snow. eula is cold but she's everything warm, the dawnlit sun and the duskfall's set; she kisses to your elbow, to your bicep, all touches reverent in every capacity. worshipful.
mondstadt's archon has never been her god, for you were the visage and her oath.
your eyelids flutter, your smile unbidden as eula finds her way to the curve of your shoulder, her breath warm against you. with a turn of the head, your nose brushes against her jaw, and you nestle into her, pressing a kiss of your own there, too.
"i thought you wanted to dance?" you murmur, soft with a hint of play, and she scoffs in your ear.
"that i did," eula exhales. "is this not our own?"
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