#the cold war was indeed black and white

[katya-1917]

Red Army militarism: Oooh, cool commie tanks! Oooh, pretty uniforms! Oooh, big scary Soviet Bear! Oooh, the good bit of the Cold War! Oooh, patriotism, neat!

American and British militarism: Fuckin' imperialist warhawks! Haven't those soldiers got anything better to do than go on parade and put on these nationalistic displays? Uniforms are creepy even when the army wears them! What's with all this ultranationalist nonsense anyway!? Looks like *someone* never got over the Cold War!

me when i see anything about the soviet space program: 🥰😍 woww 🤩🥰so cool🌌🚀i love space 🥰🚀🌌🚀😍🤩 science is amazing 🥰

me when i see anything about nasa: 😐. military freaks

[dramioneasks]

New Year’s Day Fics (2025):

one for the books by anxiousm3ss - T, one-shot - Working overtime at the Ministry of Magic on New Year's Eve ends with a proposal from Draco - and Hermione is inclined to say yes.

Granger, It's Cold Outside by DreamlikeQualities - E, 8 chapters - Draco hosts the second annual Snakes and Lions night on New Years eve, four years after the war. After last year's unfortunate end, and a year of pining, Draco is determined to set the record straight with a certain curly haired witch. What happens when he thinks he's missed his chance with Granger again on this cold winter's night?

Virtue and Righteousness by saturnovem - G, one-shot - As the countdown to midnight begins, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy share a moment that defies their past while welcoming the New Year.

The Countdown by Wheredoesshego - E, one-shot - There. Standing taller than almost everyone else in the bar, his shock of white blonde hair making him instantly recognisable, even after five long years. His back was turned so she couldn’t see his face and thankfully he couldn’t see hers either. Hermione froze, her drink clenched tightly in her hand, a cold sweat breaking out all over her body despite the heat in the bar. As though pulled by some sort of invisible string, Draco Malfoy suddenly turned and then, once again, Hermione found herself staring into the clear silver eyes of the man who had not just broken her heart, he’d smashed it into a thousand pieces. Or When Hermione makes a New Years Resolution to start afresh, her New Years party plans are derailed by the arrival of a certain blonde wizard who most certainly isn’t ready to move on. What follows is a night of miscommunication, jealousy, sexual tension and angst. But as the countdown to midnight begins, Draco and Hermione finally open up and discover just how much they really have been missing.

Through the Maze of Desire by myeuphoricmindset - G, one-shot - 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳’𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘰𝘯. He stood before her—a figure cloaked in black and silver, his mask intricate and sharp, casting shadows across his face. For a moment, Hermione could see nothing else but him. Their hands hovered just above one another, the faintest spark of magic flickering between their fingertips. “Do you really think a little mask could hide you from me?” he murmured, his tone low and knowing. “I’d recognize you blind.”

How Draco Malfoy Got Dared into Happiness by Calliope_dreaming - M, one-shot - Draco Malfoy’s New Year’s Eve was supposed to be simple: endure the party, avoid humiliation, and definitely not think about Hermione Granger. But thanks to a mischievous game of Dare or Drink, meddling friends, and one unforgettable woman, Draco finds himself in the middle of chaos he didn’t ask for and feelings he can’t ignore. Midnight promises fireworks in more ways than one.

New Year's Resolutions and Reconciliations by Rosewood_Embers - E, one-shot - When the Minister of Magic asks the youngest head of the Department of International Magical Co-operations in over a century to plan the annual New Year’s Eve party, he was unaware it was the one thing Hermione Granger wasn’t the absolute best at. However, when a certain former-Death-Eater-turned-ministry-intern offers his assistance, fireworks indeed ignite.

All Tied Up by Dizzle00 - E, one-shot - Giving him a smirk worthy of a Slytherin, Hermione leaned in, trailing her fingertips down Draco’s chest, barely grazing his skin. His nipples pebbled and his muscles tensed beneath her touch, while his eyes burned with barely restrained desire, arms tugging at his restraints. “What do you think, Malfoy?” she taunted in a breathless tone. “Do you enjoy Theo tying you up like this?” OR In which Theo has a little New Year’s surprise for his wife. Or is it a tradition? [Draco x Hermione x Theo]

Two Steps Back by Kitwrite - T, one-shot - Hermione wants to learn to dance. When Draco overhears her wish, he secretly teaches her.

Desideratum by Secretsofcirce - T, one-shot - After years of war, Hermione Granger attempts to find solitude in the New Year, but fate (and Draco Malfoy), have other plans. An angsty, heartsick addition to the holiday season. Pairs well with wine, tears, and resolutions.

Dusk Til Dawn by Bookworm1222 - M, one-shot - Draco Malfoy is the last person Hermione Granger expected to run into while visiting muggle New York but maybe Malfoy was exactly who she needed to run into...

[sashi-ya]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤAs cold as your heart ･:*:｡𓏲ּ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤDr. ishida uryu x f! reader

Chapter 0: back in town. six years have passed since he left for med school; finally, Uryu is back... as well as that never ending pain.

❄ a/n: not me starting a new -pretty out of the blue - fic. I needed to rest my head from all of the studying and while I was listening to "Yoü and I" by Lady Gaga, I thought of Uryu and a pretty tragic love story that had no closure after TYBW. I must ask for feedback with this one, if you wish for me to continue with this story, please, let me know 💖 ❄ tw: not much, very angsty for now. I want this to be a sweet love story that will -of course- contain smut as we go further into it.

“Stop, stop please… stop ignoring me! This is hurting me!” you plead, knees hitting the ground, drawing blood out of them, allowing the cold cement underneath to soak into that crimson fluid of life. 

His glasses have fogged; it is not the cold, nor the snow as white as his clothes… it’s just the tears sprouting nonstop from the bottom of his heart. 

“I beg you please, leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you… it's been years, forget about me” Ishida whisper, knowing too damn well those words are pure lies. 

How much time has passed? It’s been years since the war, since the “treason”. The scar on your body still remains like a bittersweet memory of those arrows. A single one, just one, it was enough to cross your heart. 

“You didn’t mean it, I know that… please, I have forgiven you! In fact, I’ve never once blamed you!” you scream, a night so cold it could freeze your bones but not as much as Uryu’s heart. 

He keeps walking away from you. Uryu has promised himself not to ever falter, not ever succumb… how could he hurt you? from all the people? That single arrow, a single ray of blue light and reiishii… so deadly, so painful… you, the sacred woman he wished to protect, even in silence, had fallen upon one of his own attacks. Was the fight worthy after all? Saving the world? Avenging his mother? Was it all worthy if in exchange, from all the people, you, the one he swore not to hurt, paid the price of his betray? 

“Please…” you murmur, the pain of that last word unheard by him, hurts harder than any scar imbued into your flesh. 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ“Please, please, please… please… Uryuu, please”

You remain there, with snow pooling on your shoulders, with your thighs getting coated with bloody knees, with tears freezing, and a heart broken… through blurry eyes, he disappears among the foggy night, after all this time, Uryu has left. Again. 

A pair of headlights blink behind you; however, you don’t notice them until the car stops right by your side. 

“My son is an idiot, isn’t he? Come on” Ryuuken helps you stand up. 

You sniffle, looking into the deep blue eyes of that man who you’ve always considered a father. 

“Indeed…” you murmur, sitting on the passanger’s seat. 

Dr. Ishida hands you a handkerchief and starts driving in silence. You know he is probably driving you home, though you don’t care. 

“Ryuuken-sama, I’ve never blamed him. I swear I- I knew the moment he left what he meant to do! I… missed him so much, six whole years away, and now that he is back in Karakura… why?! Why he ignores me? Is he married? Did he find love in med school?”  you ask, in between sobbing, and blowing your nose. That poor piece of fabric might never come back to Dr. Ishida’s hands. 

The snow haired man sighs; he knows exactly why his own son is ignoring you. And he is also aware his son is as stupid as he could be, but he is also noble to no extent… 

“My son, as I always say, is an idiot. But he also has the biggest heart you could possibly imagine, (Name)…” 

Three days before.

“You are back” Ryuuken words, as always dry. However, his dull eyes immediately regain a shine he thought he had lost the day his son left. 

His tiny little black-haired version of him has now bloomed into a young adult. His glasses, still the same. His hair, perhaps a little longer. And now, carrying a document where it says he has become a paediatrician. 

Uryu, in anxious response, clenches his fist on the handle of his carry-on bag. As if time have stopped, the people walking by the arrivals hall of Karakura’s tiny aerodrome seem to disappear. 

His glasses reflect the image of a father that acts tough but is dying to hug his son… and same goes for Ryuuken, with glasses showing a man that turns into a kid and begs for his father’s love. 

“Seems like it…” Uryu’s blue eyes fixed on the floor. 

“Come on, Dr. Ishida” Ryuuken mumbles, with a pride his voice couldn’t conceal, saying nothing but everything at the same time. 

A soft smile garnishes Uryu’s lips, Ryuuken hasn’t change a single bit.

“Six years have passed, and this town still looks the same” Uryu grunts; the big city has probably changed the way he sees the world. 

Ryuuken remains silent, looking at the passenger’s seat from the corner of his eye. It is true, the city has barely changed, though the people living on it did. All of them; some have even married and now have kids… except for one person; you. 

“The city and a person in particular” the Dr. says, with his eyes fixed into the traffic light ahead. The bomb had been dropped… 

“She- she hasn’t left?” Uryu asks, looking at his father with eyes opened big and pale skin turning even paler. 

“Hm… how could she? You idiot”

[next chapter]

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 4: Zeus, God Of Thunder]

A/N: Can you believe we're already 1/3 done with this series?? I sure can't! I hope you enjoy Chapter 4. I'm so excited to show you where we're headed. The times are indeed a-changin'... 😉

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 7.3k

Tagging: @arcielee @huramuna @glasscandlegrenades @gemmagirlss1 @humanpurposes @mariahossain @marvelescvpe @darkenchantress @aemondssapphirebussy @haslysl @bearwithegg @beautifulsweetschaos @travelingmypassion @althea-tavalas @chucklefak @serving-targaryen-realness @chaoticallywriting @moonfllowerr @rafeism @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @herfantasyworldd @mangosmootji @sunnysideaeggs @minttea07 @babyblue711

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

You unzip the floral suitcase that Alicent gave the nurses to pack for you. Inside are the hundreds of greeting cards sent by people from the Atlantic to the Rockies; downstairs, Eudoxia is distributing a dozen bouquets of flowers throughout the house with appropriate grimness, and more arrive each hour. You lift cards out of the suitcase by the handful and lay them down on your bed. Every movement feels slow, every thought muddled, bare feet in cold wet sand that swallows you to your ankles. The windows are open, the sheer curtains billowing. The wind whips in off the ocean, smelling of brine and sun glare, life and death.

Aemond emerges from the bathroom in a gale of steam. He finishes adjusting his eyepatch and then dresses himself: white shorts, blue polo. Aemond wears a lot of blue. It is Greek, is it American, it is the Democratic Party, it is the color of the sky that was once believed to hold Olympus, it is everything he’s ever been or wanted to be. He’s humming The House Of The Rising Sun. It’s the first time you’ve truly been alone since the night before he caught his flight to Tacoma.

Beneath the greeting cards you find the books, cosmetics, and three new sundresses, none of which you ended up wearing home. Alicent bought you a plain black shift dress, matching gloves and flats, and opaque sunglasses to hide your face from the journalists who waited outside the hospital. And there is one last item to unpack. At the bottom of the suitcase is a clear plastic bag containing fabric, white dotted with bruises of common blue violets. At first you are confounded, and then you turn it over to see the dark, saturated stain of crimson. It’s the sundress you were wearing the day you were rushed to Mount Sinai to have Ari. The nurses hadn’t known if you wanted to keep it, burn it, bury it.

“Why didn’t you come back?”

Aemond’s brow furrows, like he’s surprised by the question. He goes to his writing desk and turns the chair around so it’s facing you. He sits, crosses one leg over the other, leans back and hides his hands in his pockets. His tone is gentle, but his gaze is hard. “By the time I heard that you’d had the baby, it was already over. You were out of surgery, he was in an incubator, and that was the immutable reality. I figured there was nothing I could do at that point to improve the outcome. And that’s true. Me flying back early wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“But you should have been there,” you insist, eyes wet, voice quivering. “You should have known him like I did.”

“Winning Washington was important.”

“Washington is a basket of votes, Ari was our child, he was real.”

“No one told me he was dying—”

“Because you didn’t pick up the fucking phone.”

Aemond is incredulous, like he couldn’t have heard you correctly. “It’s not like I was playing golf or drinking myself under some bar, I was campaigning 20 hours a day and it worked.”

“Nothing on earth could have kept me away from you when you got shot in Palm Beach.”

“So maybe it wasn’t just about Washington,” Aemond says, and his words aren’t gentle anymore. They are razored, dauntless, daring you to battle him. “It’s about the whole picture, it’s about the momentum. If I had underperformed in Washington, the dominoes would fall in Kentucky, and Utah, and Virginia, and then at the national convention in August, and then against Nixon in November. I don’t have the luxury of disappearing from the public eye to sit adoringly by your bedside when we both know there isn’t a single goddamn thing I can do to help.”

“It would have made you look like a better man.”

“But not a better president.”

And like a fracture being snapped back into place, you remember what Aegon said on that bloodstained night in Florida: You’re a vessel. You’re a cow. And one day he’ll be done with you. You stare down at the ruined dress entombed in plastic, still clutched in your hands. You don’t dare to let Aemond see your eyes. You’re afraid you won’t be able to disguise the betrayal glistening there. You ask, a whisper, a whimper: “Why aren’t you sad?” I thought you loved him. I thought you were always so worried about him.

“Of course I’m sad,” Aemond says, more kindly now, patiently, like he’s speaking to someone who can’t be expected to comprehend. “But it’s different for the mother.”

You can’t reply. If you do, something lethal will pour out, smoke and poison and arrows, something that shoots to kill. Ari was quietly interred at the Targaryen family mausoleum in Saint George Greek Orthodox Cemetery in Asbury Park. It had felt so wrong to leave his tiny casket there in a silent stone prison full of strangers.

Aemond is behind you now, trying to knead the tension out of your shoulders. And for the first time in two years, you wish he’d stop touching you. Your belly hurts, your head hurts, your heart hurts, you are a garden blooming with bruises and scars. “I know you aren’t in your right mind. Everything will be better soon. I promise.”

Tears gather on your eyelashes. “I miss him.”

“We’ll have others. Here, let me take that…” Aemond grabs the bag holding your ruined dress and it’s out of your reach before you can think to resist. “You should get ready for dinner.”

“Okay,” you reply numbly, now gazing down at your empty palms. Aemond leaves with his grisly parcel, and you never see it again. But once he’s gone you don’t shed your black mourning dress, blood-soaked pad, bandages, and shake loose your hair and step into the shower. Instead, you walk around the bed to pick up the mint green rotary phone on your nightstand. You speak to a series of operators before you reach the Harbour Rocks Hotel in Sydney. While you listen to the ringing through the intercontinental wire, you sit down on the bed. You’ve never felt low like this. You’ve never felt so unmoored from everything you had believed about your life.

A gruff, familiar voice answers. He’s just waking up, slurping on his morning coffee, dabbing his moustache with a napkin. “Hello?”

“Daddy, I don’t think I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

“What?” he asks, and immediately he is no longer groggy but desperately concerned. Your parents are away on a month-long tour of Australia and often incommunicado. By the time they received news of Ari’s death and called Mount Sinai in hysterics to speak with you, you had told them not to rush home. You were about to be released, and they would not make it in time for the funeral regardless. Aemond insisted on a swift, private ceremony, a detour on the drive back to Asteria, like it was something he couldn’t wait to put in his rearview mirror. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

“Aemond, he…” He’s not the man I thought he was. I don’t know him, I don’t trust him. “He’s not acting right, he’s not…he didn’t…Daddy, it’s like he doesn’t care. And I don’t want to be here anymore. Can I fly down to Tarpon Springs when you and Mama get back? Can I stay with you for a while? And then…and then…” You don’t even know what words you’re looking for. They don’t exist in your universe.

 “Listen, honey,” your father says with great tenderness. “Are you listening?”

“Yeah.” You’re trying to stifle your sobs so no one downstairs hears you.

“You’ve just been through something terrible. So terrible I can’t even imagine it. And of course you’re feeling out of sorts. But Aemond is your husband, he’s your protector and your ally, your best friend, your partner in life. He’s not the one responsible for what happened. You can’t misdirect your heartache at him.”

“But he’s…Daddy, there’s…there’s something wrong with him.”

“Oftentimes, it’s easier for women to talk about their emotions, both good and bad. But for men—especially men like Aemond who are so self-disciplined by nature—it can be like pulling teeth to express themselves. They don’t like to be vulnerable. They actually think they’re failing in their commitments to their wife if they let her see how much they’re struggling. Aemond is hurting just like you are. He might not show it in the way you expect, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Of course he cares.”

How do you know, Daddy? Have you cut him open and studied his brain, his ropy nerves, the dark chambers of his heart? “I thought he saw me like you see Mama, I thought he included me in everything because he loved and respected me, but that’s not it. He just needs someone to help him get elected, that’s all Ari and I were to him, and I can’t…I just can’t…the thought of him touching me now…”

“Sweetheart, Aemond is a good man,” your father says. “He does love you. He does respect you. And he’s doing such incredible things for this country. I have friends in Florida who’ve been voting Republican since Hoover, but they’re crossing over for Aemond. They think he’s the one to clean up this mess. Vietnam, poverty, civil rights, the riots, the shootings, the hippies, the drugs, the Russians, the Chinese, someone has to pick up the pieces and create something that makes sense. Do you think Nixon or Humphrey would end the war by this time next year? Do you think either of them would compel the South to enforce voting rights or desegregation?”

“No,” you say, closing your eyes. But that doesn’t mean I can forget what I’ve learned about Aemond.

“Here, your mom wants to say something.” Your father vanishes; your mother’s voice comes piping across the copper submarine cables that span the length of the Pacific Ocean. You wonder—randomly, distractedly—if any of the wires connecting you to Sydney run through Arizona, the place Aegon told you he didn’t want to leave.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here, Mama.”

“Oh, honey,” she sighs, distraught, hearing the exhaustion and misery in your voice. “You’ve got the baby blues, and no baby to hold good and close to help them run their course. I’m so sorry. It’s just awful, so awful.”

You speak before you know what you’re going to say. “I don’t want to be married to Aemond anymore.”

“You’re confused, sweetheart. Your hormones are all over the place, you’re in pain, you’ve just had major surgery, and after this year with all the stress from the campaign and that horrific shooting in Palm Beach—”

“He’s not like Daddy.” Tears are flooding down your cheeks; your voice is hoarse. “I thought he was, but he’s not.”

“You cannot make a mistake like this,” your mother says, and she’s turned from silk to steel. “If you do something drastic now, you’ll wake up in a month or six months or a year and realize you’ve ruined not just your life, but the chance this country had at a better future. Don’t you realize what’s at stake here? Every marriage goes through tough times. Every husband needs to learn how to care for his wife, and every wife how to best support her husband. That’s natural, and you’ve only been married two years. Of course you and Aemond are still learning how to navigate life together. It only seems so much worse because of what’s happened to the baby.”

Is she right? Am I wrong? “I don’t know,” you say weakly.

“If you leave now, what happens?” your mother demands. “You abandon the campaign and Aemond’s support plummets. You are a divorcee, a sinner, a failure. You don’t get your son back. But you do lose everything you’ve helped build. Marriage isn’t an experiment, ‘oh let’s give it a try and if we hit any bumps we’ll call the whole thing off.’ No. It’s a covenant. Marriage is for life.”

Yes it is, in just about every faith, and certainly for the Greek Orthodox Church. You are suddenly consumed by mistrust for your own body, this flesh that failed your son and now is deceiving you with doubt so heavy—like cold iron or lead or platinum—it masquerades as truth. How could you imagine a life after Aemond? What waits for you in Tarpon Springs besides the promise of an eventual remarriage that is banal, powerless, bleak, exactly what you’ve always plotted so willfully to avoid?

“Do you understand me, honey?” your mother asks, and she’s soft and kind again. “I don’t mean to be strict with you. My heart breaks for you, and I love you. I’m not trying to upset you. I’m trying to protect you from yourself.”

“Yes.” There are people getting massacred in Vietnam right now; there are people who can’t afford roofs over their heads. Who am I to complain? Your tears have stopped; your breathing is now slow and measured. “Yes, Mama. I understand.”

After you’ve hung up, you stay where you are for a long time, your hands folded limply in your lap and gazing at the paintings hung on the pale blue walls: small replicas of The Birth of Venus, Romulus and Remus, Prometheus Bound, Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, Echo and Narcissus, Jupiter and Io. Then you get up to sift through the greeting cards you’ve piled on the bed, not really seeing them. Only one captures your attention. Only one jolts you out of the fog like a flash of lightning through dark churning clouds.

You take the card Aegon gave you back when you were still a mother and set it upright on your nightstand, consider it for a while, wander into the bathroom to scrub the despair from your skin and change into something less somber for dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re playing Battleship with Cosmo by the edge of the swimming pool while all the other children splash around, howling with laughter and diving for toys they throw to the bottom and then fetch with their teeth like golden retrievers, G.I. Joes and Barbies and Trolls and even a waterlogged Mr. Potato Head. The nannies are observing intently, poised to leap in if anyone should appear to be at risk of drowning. If Ari had lived, I wouldn’t have wanted nannies to raise him, you think. I would have wanted him to have a normal childhood. I would have wanted to know him.

“Your turn,” Cosmo says with a grin. He’s the one who looks the most like Aegon, or how you imagine Aegon must have looked before the pills and the booze and the long caged decades. His hair is so light a blonde it’s nearly white, his eyes huge and glimmering and mischievous. Battleship is a bit advanced for a five-year-old. Cosmo keeps guessing the same coordinates over and over, so you periodically lie and tell him he’s sunk one of your ships. When you launch a successful attack against his, he seems to think it’s fair game to relocate the vessel to a more advantageous location.

“D7.”

He picks up his aircraft carrier and repositions it. From the record player drifts California Dreamin’. “Nope! Nothing sank!”

“Wow. I’m so bad at this.”

Cosmo is snickering. “Yeah, you are. Really bad.”

“If I got drafted, the Army would be better off leaving me at home. I’d just be a nuisance.”

“What’s drafted?”

“Never mind. Your turn to guess.”

“J12!”

The grid only goes up to 10. Nonetheless, you slap your own forehead dramatically. “Oh no, not again! You sunk my battleship!”

“Yay!” Cosmo cheers, then turns to the Jacuzzi. It’s brand new, just installed last month. “Mom, did you see? I’m winning!”

You glance over at Mimi. She has passed out, her latest Gimlet drained and her head resting atop her crossed arms, propped on the rim of the Jacuzzi. “Uh, Cosmo, run inside and ask Doxie to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, okay?”

“Okay.” He scampers off, toddling on reckless little legs.

With no shortage of difficulty, you manage to stand. Each day your abdominal muscles feel less like they’ve been shredded and then mended with threads of fire, but the pain is still bad, very bad, and there are spots of skin on your belly that are numb when you skim your fingertips across them. You will have a long vertical scar like Aemond’s, an irreparable reminder of the blood you’ve paid to the cause. And for all your anguish, this particular fact doesn’t torment you. It is proof that Ari existed, however briefly, however futilely.

You amble over to the Jacuzzi, your roomy lavender dress flowing in the wind, and shove one of Mimi’s shoulders. “Mimi, wake up. Get out of the water.”

She mumbles incoherently in response. You reach for her before remembering you can’t lift anything. You look around. Alicent and Helaena are on lounge chairs at the other end of the pool; Alicent is trying very hard to look interested while Helaena shows her about 100 different butterfly species pictured in a kaleidoscopically colorful book. Criston is off giving Ludwika a tour of the property, flanked by a flock of Alopekis hoping for treats. Ludwika is Otto’s wife of six months but only newly arrived, 30 years old, perpetually unimpressed, modelesque, golden blonde, if Barbie was from Poland. Aemond, Otto, and Viserys—his sparse threads of silver hair hanging like cobwebs around his gaunt face, grimacing and clutching the armrests of his wheelchair—are conspiring on the lawn between the main house and the pool. They haven’t noticed your predicament. Fosco is sauntering by wearing some of the tiniest swim shorts you’ve ever seen. He is the son of an Italian count, gangly and chatty and from what you’ve seen almost certainly addicted to gambling.

“Will you help me move Mimi, please?” you ask him. “I’m afraid she’s going to drown.”

“Of course, of course, no problem. Let me handle it. Do not hurt yourself.” He has her half-dragged out of the Jacuzzi before Mimi startles awake.

“What’s going on?” she slurs. “Put me down, I can walk.”

“I doubt it,” you say.

“You are alright?” Fosco asks Mimi as he steadies her on the cement, wet with pool water. She clutches at his forearms helplessly.

“I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”

“Mimi, go inside,” you say. “Eat a sandwich. Tell Cosmo you’re proud of him for winning Battleship.”

“Battleship? Well, that’s just ridiculous. He’s five. Five-year-olds can’t play Battleship.”

“And yet you will congratulate him regardless.”

She can feel your impatience, your judgement, sharp like wasp stings. Mimi retreats like a kicked dog to the main house, somehow summoning the will to remain mostly upright.

You look to Fosco. “Do you know where Aegon is?” You want to see him, but you also don’t; each time you’re in the same room now is a disorienting storm of familiarity, curiosity, painful reminders, annoyance, awkwardness, longingness to again feel as close to him—to anyone—as you did during those fleeting moments at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

Fosco chuckles. “Where is he ever? Napping, sailing, drinking, on the phone with one of his lady friends. I could not say. I have not seen him recently.”

“Okay. Thanks anyway.” The music stops—the record needs to be flipped over—and now you can just barely hear what Aemond, Otto, and Viserys are discussing.

“And you criticized me for going too young,” Aemond says to Otto. “What’s your age difference with Ludwika? 40 years?”

“She’s good publicity. She defected from the Eastern Bloc in search of the American Dream.”

“Being married to you?” Aemond quips. “I think she found the American Nightmare.”

“Speaking of wives,” Otto continues. “I assume since yours had one surgery, that’s how all the future children will need to be born, is that right?”

Aemond nods, frowning. “Yeah. And the doctors said she shouldn’t have more than three. It weakens the uterus, I guess, all that slicing and suturing. Do it too many times and ruptures get more likely, and those can be fatal.”

“Very unfortunate,” Viserys rasps. “Children are our greatest legacy. I wanted at least ten, but your mother…well…after Daeron, it just never happened again.” And you know that this is just one of the ways in which Aemond had planned to win his father’s admiration: by contributing more new Targaryens to the dynasty than anyone else. Now that’s impossible.

Otto sighs wistfully. “To have a brand new baby to parade around in the fall…that would have been wonderful.” For the first time in two years, you can sense that you have disappointed him. Fosco is watching you, uneasy, ashamed, sorry without knowing what to do about it.

“Absolutely,” Aemond says, as if this is not the first time the thought has crossed his mind. “But it’s done now. There’s no sense in dwelling on what might have been. We must look forward. It’s feasible that…well…if we try again and get good news by October, we can announce in time for Election Day…”

You can’t listen anymore. Your belly aching, your bare feet hurrying through warm emerald grass, you traverse the lawn and disappear into Helaena’s garden, painstakingly tended and continuously expanded since she was a little girl. There are marigolds and daffodils, tulips and roses, azaleas, asters, butterfly bushes, chrysanthemums, lilies and lupines, sunflowers, violets, life blooming in a hundred different shades. There are tiny statues too, tucked away in random places, stone angels and untamed creatures, alligators and turtles and rabbits and cats, the only sort the Alopekis will tolerate. At the very center of the garden is a tall circle of hedges with only one opening, an arched doorway cut into the thick lush green. You’ve been here before, though only with Aemond. On a property shared with so many family members—and the occasional intrusive journalist—it’s a good place to escape prying eyes. You pass through the threshold with a hand resting absentmindedly on your belly, as if you’re still pregnant. You keep doing this. Each time you remember you’re at the end of something rather than the beginning, it carves you open all over again.

Around the inside perimeter of the circle are twelve sculptures positioned like numbers on a clock: eleven Olympians and Hades, confined to the Underworld. In the middle of the clearing is the largest stature of all, a wrathful Zeus hurling lightning bolts and surrounded by a gurgling fountain of glass-clear water. Under the shadow of Zeus, Aegon is sprawled on the ground and smoking a joint. “So you’re hiding from them too, huh?” He gives you a sly, welcome-to-the-club smirk, then offers you his joint. “Want a hit?”

You shake your head, not taking another step towards him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

He is confused. “Done what?”

“Any of it.” I told him about my life before. I made the mistake of thinking I could go back.

Aegon still doesn’t seem to understand. “You’re scared I’m gonna snitch?”

You shrug, evasive. It’s not just the fact that he knows. It’s the sensation that you’ve unlatched something—an attic room, a jewelry box, a birdcage—and now you can’t get it locked again, and the door rattles with every footstep and storm wind, and you are no longer Aphrodite or Io but Pandora, a hunger growing in your stitched womb like a child.

“What? What’s wrong with you?” And that’s always how he says it, not what’s the matter or are you alright or what did I do or how can I fix it?

“I’m kind of…embarrassed, I guess.”

“Embarrassed,” Aegon echoes. “Because of me?”

“I feel like I said and did a lot of things that were out of character because I was emotionally compromised.”

“They were out of character for who you’ve been trying to convince everyone you are since you married Aemond, sure. But they weren’t out of character for you.”

He’s treading too close now, arrows piercing their mark, a tremor near the epicenter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Au contraire, I have acquired many interesting revelations recently.”

“Where’d you learn French? From Mimi?”

His smile dies. “Boarding school.”

You don’t know how to reply. You don’t know how to be around Aegon without either hating him or letting him see parts of yourself that you’re trying to drown like Icarus in the waves. You glance yearningly towards the doorway cut into the hedges.

All at once, Aegon is furious. “You don’t want to talk to me? You want to go back to how it was before, you want to pretend Mount Sinai never happened? Fine. You got it. Wish fucking granted. Whatever you have to do.”

He turns away from you. You flee from him. But that night when Asteria is hushed and still—Aemond, Criston, and Otto are attending a fundraising dinner in Philadelphia, and you are temporarily excused from accompanying them as you recover—you creep down into the basement of the main house to apologize. Mimi sleeps in a bedroom on the second floor, but here Aegon can keep odd hours and drink and smoke to his heart’s content, and even entertain clandestine guests, girls who are beautiful and giggling and never invited twice.

Aegon isn’t here. He might be passed out somewhere, or at a party, or maybe even upstairs with Mimi, and something about this idea twists through your mending guts like a blade. In his absence, you take a quick look around his room, something you’ve never done before. You hadn’t had any interest; it wouldn’t even have occurred to you. There’s a large green futon, a matching shag carpet, a television, a bookshelf full of notebooks and paperbacks—Kurt Vonnegut, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Ken Kesey—and vinyl albums, a record player, and his two acoustic guitars. The first is unpainted maple wood covered with stickers. I’d rather be nowhere reads one; Burn pot not people proclaims another. The second guitar is the souvenir he bought in Manhattan, an aquamarine blue six-string.

There's something strange on his end table. Along with a dozen empty cups is a full ashtray, and there’s a folded piece of paper tucked underneath. You slide the paper out and open it. It’s the receipt you used to solve the long division problem in your hospital room.

Why would he keep this? you think, mystified. There are footsteps above your head, and you quickly return the receipt to where you found it and leave before your trespass can be discovered.

When you emerge from the basement, Fosco is waiting in the hallway and carrying a Tupperware container filled with something that resembles kourabiethes, Greek shortbread cookies. “I thought I saw you sneak down there. What were you looking for?”

You scramble for an explanation. “One of the dogs is missing. Alicent wanted me to check the basement.”

“Ah, yes, I see.” He passes you the Tupperware container. “These are for you. I hope they are not too bad. I baked them myself.”

“Are they…” You shake it. “Biscotti?”

“They are ossi dei morti,” Fosco says. “Bones of the dead. We make them to remember loved ones we have lost. They are hard, so you should dip them in coffee or tea before you try to eat them.”

You open the lid. Inside are long thin cookies coated with powdered sugar. You inhale almond flour, cloves, cinnamon. And you are so touched you cannot find your words.

“You know, there still places in Italy where mothers wear black for years to mourn their children.” This is not trivia; it is an acknowledgement. Your son is gone. There is no shame in the grief that is left behind. In another house, it would be expected, it would be required.

“Thank you, Fosco.”

He smiles warmly. “We are in this together, no? We are pieces of the same machine.”

Then he plods off towards the living room, sliding a rolled-up horse racing program out of the back pocket of his tight plaid pants.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re in Louisville, Kentucky, where thunder quakes the eaves. An hour ago, Aegon was popping Valium and leisurely plucking at his pool water blue Gibson guitar, slumped against the wall, nipping at a flask filled with straight Bacardi. But he’s not anymore. Now he’s gathered around the small color television with you, Criston, Otto, Fosco, Helaena, and Ludwika. The news is just breaking. There was a civil rights protest at the University of Kentucky in Lexington one hour to the east. Someone threw a rock, or someone claims someone threw a rock, or someone threw something that was mistaken for a rock, and in any event the situation escalated from there and local police who were monitoring the demonstration opened fire on a crowd, killing five students and injuring another dozen.

Outside, word is spreading through the crowd of over 2,000 people that have gathered for Aemond’s planned speech at the historic Iroquois Amphitheater, a New Deal project finished in 1938. Rain is pouring, and the venue has no roof. Aemond is already 20 minutes late. The voices are becoming louder, more demanding, more wrathful. They’re shouting that Aemond is too afraid to face them now, that he’s trying to figure out what his statement will be, that he’s cowardly and calculating; and if President Lyndon Baines Johnson was here tonight instead of cursing his bad stars up in Washington D.C., he would certainly have something to say about the capriciousness of voters who love you, hate you, carry you higher, drag you down, all without ever knowing you.

In truth, Aemond is not stalling on purpose. He’s in the bathroom trying to get his prosthetic eye in. It’s been giving him hell all afternoon. He wears his eyepatch at home, but he’s never made a public appearance without his glass eye clean and perfect in his voided socket.

“He’s going to have to say something about it,” you tell the others as you watch the news coverage.

“Say what?” Otto snaps. “If he doesn’t treat those dead kids like martyrs he’s going to get booed off the stage. If he condemns the police he’s going to lose the suburbs. They’ll run to Humphrey now and Nixon in November.”

The weather report called for storms—which is why Alicent, Mimi, and the children are already back at the Seelbach Hotel for the night after a long day of shaking hands and smiling gamely—but no one expected it to get this bad. The room you’re huddled in is just off-stage, so you can see it all: the wind ripping signs and flags from people’s hands, drenched clothes, sopping hair, snarling faces, rain turning puddles to rivers. The stomping of boots is now as loud as the thunder. Rocks and bottles are being pitched at the stage.

“Is America always like this?” Ludwika asks, scandalized.

“No, not at all,” Otto says. “Goddamn animals…”

Aegon replies, not taking his eyes from the television: “You’d be mad too if cops were shooting your friends and the only graduation present you had to look forward to was getting disemboweled by guerillas in Vietnam.”

“I’ve had it with you and your Marxist bullshit! You want to liberate the dispossessed masses? Why don’t you start by donating your monthly drugs and rum budget to the—”

“We should cancel,” Fosco says. “Just call the whole thing off. Tell them Aemond is sick or something.”

“That’s the headline you want? ‘Senator Targaryen hides from grieving supporters who braved a thunderstorm to see him’?! Just give the White House to Nixon now!”

“I don’t think we can cancel,” Criston says softly. “I think if we tried to leave, they’d swarm the car.”

“It’s a riot,” Otto moans, rubbing his face with his hands. “This is what happens when you court voters like this, college kids and hippies, professional malcontents…”

“Aren’t there police outside?” Ludwika says anxiously.

“Yeah, a handful,” Criston tells her. “And if they try to do anything this will erupt and we can add to the body count in Lexington…”

You leave them and follow a hallway to the men’s bathroom; on the periphery of your vision, you can tell that Aegon is watching you go. You push the door open and find a row of stalls and three sinks, one of which Aemond is standing in front of as he stares into his reflection and attempts to shove the prosthetic eye into his empty, gore-red left socket. His suit is navy blue, his hair neatly slicked back, his shoes so polished they’re reflective like a mirror.

“Fuck,” he hisses, flinching. His right cheek is wet with tears of frustration and agony. It’s July 26th, and tomorrow are the final three state conventions in the Democratic primary. Humphrey is almost certain to take Utah; Virginia will go to Governor Mills Godwin, who is only running in his home state to control the delegates and will hand them over to whoever he feels is most worthy in August. But Aemond is the favorite to win here in Kentucky. Or at least, he was an hour ago.

“What can I do? What do you need?”

“You can’t do anything. It’s…it’s this goddamn nerve pain, it feels like I’m being fucking stabbed, I can’t get the muscles to relax enough…”

Like an apology, you say: “Aemond, the crowd is getting out of control.”

“So you came in here to rush me?”

“No, I’m here to help.”

“You’re not helping. You’re doing the exact opposite.”

“I think you should give this speech with your eyepatch on. It looks good, and you’ll be as comfortable as possible, and the crowd won’t have to wait any longer than they have already.”

“No.”

“Aemond, please—”

“No! FDR didn’t make speeches in his wheelchair and I’m not making mine without my eye in.”

“Do you want me to get you Aegon’s pills? Rum, weed?”

“You don’t think I’ve already taken something?” He tries to force his eye in again and strikes his fist against the sink when he can’t.

Then you ask gingerly: “Do you know what you’re going to say about the shooting?”

“Get out!” Aemond shouts. “You’re making it worse, just get the fuck out! Go!”

You bolt from the bathroom, hands trembling, throat burning. You don’t want to return to the television where the others are standing; you’re worried they’ll be able to tell how upset you are. You go to the edge of the stage, arms crossed protectively over your chest, and peek out into the crowd. Above their chants and jeers and howled threats, lightning splits the sky.

I don’ t think we’re going to be able to find our way out of this one. I think this is the end of the road.

“Hey,” Aegon says, tapping your shoulder. “Back up.”

“I’m fine here.”

“No you’re not.” He grabs your arm and tugs you farther backstage. Seconds later, an Absolut Vodka bottle explodes into crystalline shrapnel where you were standing. You yelp and Aegon gives you a little eyebrow raise. I told you, he means.

“Someone has to go out there,” Otto says, still lurking by the television. Fosco is comforting Helaena, who is quietly weeping; Ludwika is watching the news coverage in horror, surely reconsidering all her life choices. A sixth University of Kentucky student has been declared dead. “We can’t wait.”

“No we can’t,” Criston agrees. Then they both turn to you expectantly.

Your blood goes icy. Tonight was meant to be your first official appearance since the baby. Your hair is up, your dress a navy blue to match Aemond’s suit, gold chains around your wrist and throat, a gold chain of a belt. You thought you were ready. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“Don’t you look at her,” Aegon says, sharp like a scalpel, like a bullet, like something that punctures arteries and lungs. “They’re throwing glass. You figure something else out, don’t even look at her.”

Otto relents, perhaps halfheartedly. “No, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Criston starts heading for the bathroom to get Aemond. Otto is watching the television again, his face vacuous as his ambitions are carried away by a flood of rain, wind, rage, blood. Aegon snatches his guitar from where he left it by the wall. He tosses the strap over his head, gives the strings a few experimental strums and retunes them, starts walking towards the stage.

“Aegon, what are you doing?” you ask, panicked.

“Someone has to distract the crowd.”

“No, stop, you can’t—”

“Hey,” Aegon says. And when you glance past him at the uproarious, storm-drenched frenzy, he turns your face back to his to make sure you’re listening. His hand is insistent but gentle, his voice steady. “Don’t go out there. Okay?”

“Okay,” you agree, startled.

He gives you one last small, parting smile, a flash of his teeth, a daring glint in his murky blue eyes. Then he’s out in the torrential rain, soaked to the skin in seconds. His frayed green Army jacket clings to him; his hair is ravaged by the wind. As he takes his place behind the microphone, a stone that someone has hurled skates by him and nicks the apple of his left cheek. You can see a trickle of blood snaking down his sunburned skin before the rain washes it away; you feel a desperate gnawing dread that someone will hurt him, not just here but anywhere, not just now but ever. The crowd is still seething, shouting, stomping their feet to join the inescapable growl of the thunder. Aegon’s pick flies over the guitar strings as he begins playing, raindrops cast from his fingers like spells. At first, you can barely hear him.

“Come gather ‘round, people, wherever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have grown

And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth saving

And you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times, they are a-changin’”

The audience is settling down now. Some of them are singing along. You can feel that Otto, Ludwika, Fosco, and Helaena are gathering around you, but you don’t grasp anything they’re saying. You can’t tear your eyes from Aegon. It’s like you’re seeing him for the first time, this radiant sunbeam of a man, a light in dark places, a constellation that whispers myths through the ink-spill indigo of the night sky. How could you ever have hated him? How could you ever have thought he was worthless?

“Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again

And don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming

For the loser now will be later to win

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Aemond and Criston appear beside you at the edge of the stage; Aemond’s prosthetic eye has at last been successfully placed with no lingering evidence of a struggle. You expect him to apologize for what he said in the bathroom, but he doesn’t. Instead he says when he sees Aegon: “What the hell is he doing?”

“Saving your career,” you reply simply.

“Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call

Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall

For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled

The battle outside raging

Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Now Aegon peers pointedly off-stage to where Otto Hightower is gawking. Aegon beams, throws his head back to get his dripping hair out of his eyes, comes back to the mic.

“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land

And don’t criticize what you can’t understand

Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly aging

Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Everyone you can see in the crowd is singing and swaying. It’s not just a Bob Dylan song from 1964 but an anthem, a prayer, a rallying cry, a dire warning for the powers at be.

“The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast

The slow one now will later be fast

As the present now will later be past

The order is rapidly fading

And the first one now will later be last

For the times, they are a-changin’”

The audience is applauding and whistling. Aegon steals a glimpse of where you are standing backstage, checks that Aemond is still there with you and that he’s ready.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Aegon broadcasts with a wicked grin. “I am now proud to present the next president of the United States of America, Senator Aemond Targaryen!”

And Aemond is crossing the stage, no trace of pain or self-consciousness or prey-animal fear, no mere mortal but someone chosen by the gods, and the rain is slowing to a drizzle, and the clouds are opening to let through rare pinprick aisles of daylight, and the riotous spectators are now his disciples, exorcised of any rage they’ve ever felt for the scarred senator from New Jersey. He and his family are not the enemy; they are the solution. They are revolutionaries who have bled for the cause. They bring with them the change that is required. Aegon steps back and the rest of you join him in a semi-circle like a crescent moon behind Aemond. When you walk out onto the stage, the cheers swell to screams.

Aegon takes off his guitar and then leans into you. “He’s lucky you aren’t 35,” Aegon whispers, soft lips that curl into a smile as they brush your ear. And he’s teasing you but he’s not mocking, he’s not mean. He’s so close you share the same atmosphere, the same gravity. “Maybe when he finishes up his second term you can start building your resume for your first.”

“I want your endorsement.”

“From the disgraced former mayor of Trenton? What an honor. You’ll have to fight for it.”

You ball up a fist and playfully bump your knuckles against his chin. He pretends to bite at you. And you laugh for the first time since a doctor and priest entered your hospital room 13 days ago. Aegon slings an arm around your shoulders, pulls you against him, soaks you in his rain.

“Today in Lexington, we lost six brave and brilliant souls,” Aemond says, his voice booming through the amphitheater. A hush ripples through the crowd as they listen, enraptured. “Their sacrifice was for the most noble of causes, but they should never have been forced to pay the ultimate price. They deserved long, full lives in a better America than the one we now call home. This tragedy is a symptom of the sickness that has infected this nation, a fatal failure to empathize with our fellow countrymen, a deafness to pleas for justice, a blindness to mercy. But the remedy is within all of us, for it is our own humanity. When we purge the diseases of war, prejudice, and ravenous greed, we will reclaim our best selves—our true selves—and our nation will at last be cured.”

The amphitheater is illuminated with not only strobing lightning but the flashbulbs of cameras. The journalists have arrived just in time.

[absolutelymarshmallow]

This is my favourite scene in the show

I never noticed how complex Crowley’s outfit is in this scene. There’s red embroidery, a black sash. The rob itself is supposed to be rough, heavy, grey.

However, in the first scene in the show, Aziraphale’s robes are light, white, cotton, gold embroidered, and two-pieced. A poncho, and a skirt. His outfit is supposed to look generic, like an angel uniform. Heaven adopted this odd, manufactured, cold neatness after the fall. 

Crowley’s outfit after the fall is more like a dress. It’s being held together by the black sash. It also looks more fitted to his body, and this makes me suspect that he made this himself. The Color scheme is also fitting to his hair.

Crowley had always been naturally dramatic, everyone knows that. However, I think this is his first minor ‘fuck you’ to hell. The heaven Color scheme is grey, white, tan, gold, and primarily purple. However, before, it was primarily gold and white. Aziraphale has ways opted for golds and whites as well, but he also has a love for browns and blues. This is how you know it’s a heaven uniform.

Hell’s color scheme in the beginning is yet to be observed but it’s probably not grey, black, and red. Those are all Crowley’s colors.

He’s been separating himself from hell since the very beginning. I say *first* ‘fuck-you’ because he had been wearing these robes before he gave humans the apple: an accidental good deed, the original good-natured rebellion.

Aziraphale has been accidentally doing ‘bad’ (or minorly negative) things since the beginning as well. He got caught up trying to save an angel, he gave away a sword, and most importantly he the concept invented war and weaponry in the human history.

I think this scene’s importance gets lost on a lot of people.

Aziraphale shielding Crowley is also very, very important, no matter how adorable. He, at this point, remembers Crowley. He looks guilty, nervous even, when he sees him slither up to him. Not just because he’s a snake, but you can see there’s something small and personal that he’s trying his best to hide. I think he knows.

Then, he learns his name for the first time, it just happens to be his demonic one. He never mentions his angel name, *never*, because he doesn’t know it. But more importantly, he doesn’t want to offend Crowley.

And yet they have a meaningful conversation, which is !also! very important. The first time he meets him as an angel,  Aziraphale looks like he’s flustered and smitten. He fell first, literally and figuratively. However,  Crowley isn’t at all interested in making conversation with this angel. He’s just excitedly talking about stars. Which, I admit, is adorable, but it wasn’t in any way of meaning other than that’s when they met.

Aziraphale realises how this *new* first, important conversation is utterly vital, in their relationship. Crowley is interested in Aziraphale, and he *does not remember him* at *all*. To Crowley, he’s lost all his memories now, which he regains later over a few millennia. I suspect, he’s regained all his memories by the book of Job, which is why he acts how he does.

Crowley falls in love immediately. Angels, fallen or otherwise, have shown him nothing but disrespect since he fell. And here’s this Angel trying to help him. Aziraphale indeed has guilt, but seeing someone he knew like this, wiped clean and ‘disfigured’ (or, beautiful), makes him realise what the fall actually *was*.

Just think.

An innocent star maker. And now he sees Crowley, the *real* Crowley. He’s witty, and fun, and outward. He’s making conversation, he’s comforting, he’s sarcastic.

He’s a real being.

And how neat.

So, he holds on. He shields him. Like he was shielded before, equally innocent and new to the universe, as Crowley’s now new to earth.

He sees himself.

Aziraphale is a lot more mature with how he treats Crowley in the beginning than people realise, but he loses that later once they start forming their own side, also in the book of Job.

Emotions are complicated. I know I’ve been talking for a long time, but I think it’s neat is all.

[sapphicseasapphire]

ok, so, this has been bugging me for a bit today, but, what was Sky's reaction to when he first met Warriors? like there's got to be a strong emotion there given that Fi is also a sword spirit.

so yeah, I'm just wondering what you have planed for that.

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(also great artwork it's absolutely stunning and looks really yummy)

((dont question it))

SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO RESPOND TO THIS, I HAD TO DRAW IT.

(Lore under the cut. Sorry, I have a lot to say about this haha)

Sky’s reaction when he first meets Warriors? Awe.

They find Wars last- or, well, they find his sword. The others are notably confused because they were looking for the hero. The temple that they were led to is completely empty except for a single sword atop a pedestal. Surely their lead was wrong- this can’t be it. Maybe this is the hero’s blade? And he will return to the temple? Or is this just the wrong spot entirely?

While the others are arguing with each other about what to do next, Sky steps up to the blade. It’s… a lot fancier than the ones that the heroes are accustomed to. Gems are inlaid into the guard, fabric is woven around the grip in a familiar pattern. There are diamonds that run down the blade and a piece of blue fabric is tied around the ring of the pommel. This level of decoration is not usually suited for a sword to be wielded in battle. In fact, the only sword that he’s known to be this beautiful and but also effective is currently strapped at his side. As Sky walks closer, he can see the blade glow unnaturally, and his voice echoes through the temple:

“It’s a Sword Spirit,” he’d say, reaching out to the blade but not touching. Not yet.

There’s a mix of emotions when Sky looks upon the blade. He’s relieved, for he had feared that Sword Spirits had been forgotten entirely. His heart aches at the cold weight of Fi at his side, empty and quiet where she used to be full of life. It’s good, he thinks, to see a new sword shine so bright. He’s a little afraid, he’d admit, since he has unsavory memories of a different Sword Spirit. Phantom hands at his shoulders, tongue at his ear, black blades arcing in the air.

Still, Sky can’t repress the way his heart leaps in excitement, a smile at his lips, even as his hand falters in the air. Another Sword Spirit, here, right in front of him. Another opportunity to make things right, to fix things. Oh, how he misses Fi.

“This is the hero we’re looking for.”

And the others would approach, their curiosity piqued by the reverent tone of Sky’s voice. (Note that Sky had just joined them about two-ish days ago? He was the second to last to meet the Chain, the last being Wars).

No one else has met a Sword Spirit before, not even Wild or Time (who, at this point, everyone thinks is a spirit), so they’re all a bit hesitant to accept Sky’s words at face value. Sky explains that he’s met Sword Spirits before, that the Master Sword herself is a spirit. Puzzle pieces click into place but they still need more convincing. They’ll believe that Sky’s correct: that the sword in the pedestal is indeed a Sword Spirit, but they don’t agree that it’s the hero that they’re looking for.

At least, not until the spirit bursts from his sword in a flash of white light, floating in the air as Fi had done so long ago. The eight heroes stand, eyes wide, before the glowing metallic figure. Sky could cry in at the joy he feels as the spirit utters his first words to them:

“Hello, Masters.”

. . .

• Sky inherently trusts everything that Wars says because he trusted Fi. Fi didn’t lie, she was always helpful, and she told him exactly what he needed to hear every single time, even if he didn’t like it. She was calculating and intelligent and Sky (well… Link) could not have survived on the Surface without her. He trusted her with his life. Sky has no reason to think that Wars would ever lie to him, either. Especially in the early days, when he’s more robotic and less human. And so, he trusts Wars to always be honest.

• This will totally definitely 100% not be a problem guys, I promise. Wars would never lie to Sky about something dangerous. And it totally would never result in Sky getting hurt. And it’s definitely not why Wars looks so upset in the sketches I did yesterday. You can trust me. I promise.

• Sky and Wars talk a lot about Fi. Wars is curious about her, since he’s met her before in his own era and doesn’t know what happened to her. So Sky would explain that she went to sleep after his first adventure, and Wars would stare at him blankly.

“Sword Spirits do not necessitate sleep, Master.”

“I-” Sky would look away, something terribly vulnerable in his eyes. His voice would be sad and quiet as he continued: “I know.”

• I know I’ve talked about this before, but Sky is the most knowledgeable about Wars. He understands. And so his interactions with Wars are a lot easier for the Sword Spirit than with the others. The others don’t like being called “Master.” They don’t like the matter-of-fact way he talks, how he calculates every sentence before speaking it, how he uses percentages and simulations to back up his arguments. (How he always wins arguments). And Sky doesn’t necessarily like these things either, but he’s always patient. Always gentle. He allows Wars to call him “Master” because he understands how much Wars needs it. When Wars goes off on tangents and describes every bit of data he can think of, Sky sits and listens and they talk and it’s just so easy. Sky is probably Wars’ favorite, just for that.

• The REASON that Sky is so supportive of Wars goes back to the one thing that drives him through literally everything in his life: guilt. He said goodbye to Fi much too soon. She was just starting to open up, to feel and express her emotions, when their time ran out. He never got to know the person she’d end up to be, and he’s not making that same mistake again with Warriors.

I think I’ve talked about this before? How when Sword Spirits are young, they talk robotically and don’t express themselves, but as they mature and are around more people, they kind of adopt their traits and become a more well rounded person? Fi, for example was only around for what? A few months? Ghirahim had thousands of years to develop. That’s the difference between “According to your social customs, I should provide you with my personal designation. Fi is the name I was given,” and “You may call me Ghirahim. In truth, I very much prefer to be indulged with my full title: Lord Ghirahim. But I'm not fussy."

Sky wants to see Wars grow in the way that he never got to see Fi. He wants to know Wars. Not just as a spirit, but as a friend.

[sneak-pieck]

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑚𝑎𝑠 𝑌𝑒𝑡 𝐴𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆

Word count: 1366 Note: Alternate Universe where Eren decided not to reveal himself and attack during the proclamation of war,leaving the Tybur siblings with a mix of feelings and a grim realization.

Pure white snow had begun to cover the Earth long before the month of December even thought to formally arrive, causing a certain blonde haired Lord to shiver in preparation for the cold that was to envelop him and his aging bones once he stepped foot into the white paradise outside his large house. Yet had it been up to Willahelm Tybur, he’d not leave the warmth and comfort of his home ever again. Not after the insane stunt he managed to pull at the festival in Liberio. How and why he was still alive…not even he knows. The plan was well ingrained into his brain, and he was aware of the most probable outcome. He had said his goodbyes, he had made sure his heart was in the right place, he was ready to perish that very night! Yet…that never got to happen. He delivered his speech oh so full of love for this nation that wasn’t even his, he had put his entire soul into it, ready to sacrifice all he was! All he had! And yet there he was.

The man’s beautiful blue eyes had been following the rapid fall of the heavy snowflakes, lost in the beauty of the gathering, untouched mass. It was so weird…it felt as if he was seeing snow for the first time in forever-and can you blame him? The head of the Tybur household hadn’t thought he’d see another Christmas. Lost in thought however, he forgot about someone else that struggled with this sort of feeling. And only when the silhouette of his beloved sister Lara entered his field of view did the man snap back to reality. She wore what looked like a thick long coat to keep her warm,paired with gloves and boots. Was she out on her own?Of course not.

Soon enough, small figures would rush over to the woman, figures that became simple blobs of color as the window the Lord stared out from began freezing slowly.

“Lara-” He’d catch himself nearly whimpering as he stood up from his chair,turning to head towards the door. It had been a few months since that night ,a few months since they’d spoken…a few months since Lara too had been told that something big was to happen…something greater than them, greater than they could ever imagine.

Months since the woman had prepared herself for a fight- or perhaps prepared is a word one would use loosely, for Lara had no training. She’d inherited the Warhammer titan without having any thought that a day may come where she might need to use its power. To be fair, most none of the previous inheritors had any special training…after all, they simply kept the titan safe and contained. That was all they did. So being told one day that the fate of your family and perhaps the entire world will be resting on your frail and fragile shoulders…who wouldn’t break?

“Is that dad?” The voice of a young girl that was tugging on Lara’s coat soon distracted the woman from her thoughts,and for a moment her eyes lit up at the sight.”Is he really going to join us out today?” the young girl would speak again,yet she’d receive no answer.

It was indeed their father,and the man seemed to be rushing towards his sweet children and his sister…so much so that his usually pale face now stung,bright red from the cold air that cut at him. It had been so long…so long since he allowed himself to leave his office, so long since he’d felt like he was not alone or crazy for feeling the way he did. She was right there! The woman that understood, the woman that always understood. Lara,his sweet Lara, who had been by him throughout his life, his struggles,his pains.

The moment Willy reached the black haired woman, he’d not hold back. Throwing his arms around her rather small frame in order to drag her into a warm and tight embrace,the man nearly sobbed as his face now pressed against her soft coat. The cold didn’t affect him anymore,not as long as he had her. She brought him a sort of comfort that not even his wife managed to. Lara caressed his very soul like only she knew how,just by being there. Just by..being.

All it took was one moment for the Tybur siblings to stumble back and collapse into the welcoming blanket of fresh snow with a small grunt- all this causing them to burst into laughter almost immediately. So loud and joyous, it was nearly contagious. And to Willy’s children it was, they’d make it very clear by quite literally allowing themselves to fall over in the snow by their father and aunt.

From then on followed a couple of hours of family fun, with Willahelm’s wife too joining them at some point. The Tyburs would become a normal family for a short while. Building snowmen, having snowball fights and pulling each other around on a sled. Yet as time passed, the weather grew harsher,colder…more and more unforgiving. Just like the world.

“Will you two join us inside soon? The carolers might pop up any minute,and Bruno and Alois wish to hand out the cupcakes we’ve baked together.”Willy’s eldest daughter Fine would speak up, having turned to walk backwards towards the house in order to see her sweet father.

“What’cha need me for, sweetheart?”The blonde man called out,a small laugh caught in his throat…good God, he loved his children so much.

“Well, we need you to try them! We don’t know if they’re good or not,it’s our first time baking!”

“Alright alright, we’ll be in soon, I promise!”

With that, the children along with their mother would vanish into the white winter tapestry,and Willy would sigh.

What followed was a moment of silence as he and Lara sat in the cold snow,feeling their clothes grow wetter and wetter by the minute.

“I- i honestly didn’t imagine i’d see another Christmas-” He finally broke the silence, and Lara almost immediately seemed to understand. “I was pretty sure i-”

“You’d die? As if I'd let such a thing happen.”The woman let out a gentle chuckle, silencing herself rather fast. Yet her brother didn’t seem to notice. And she couldn’t blame him.

“Well, we need not worry about such things anymore. All is good. We will celebrate many things from now on,for nothing will stand in our way. We are alive. We get to live,Lara.”

“You get to live.” Lara caught herself mumbling. She did not mean to speak out loud, for the last thing she wished to do was ruin her brother’s newfound enthusiasm for life, especially on Christmas. Yet it was too late.

As if something had lit up in Willy’s mind, the man would lower his gaze with a small hum…and then a huff. “ R- right. How long uhm-”

“ I don’t remember for sure. But at most…I have one, maybe two Christmases left.” Her voice soft,low,perhaps sad. Sad, yes…for she loved her brother,and she’d not want to go…not so soon. But she had no choice, not in this matter.

“I didn’t…realize- when did the time pass-”Willy muttered quietly under his breath, not really expecting an answer. For why would he? They’d both taken their time together for granted and there was no going back. “Then…let’s make the most of what we have left,hm?” By God did he wish to be able to sound cheerful, yet as he spoke,a hot tear rolled down his freezing cold cheek…yet he’d smile.

“I love you,Lara. Let us live out whatever we have left to live…happily.”

“I love you as well,Willy. Always will.”Lara nodded along ,and soon tears welled in her dark eyes as well.

Pushing up from the ground first was Willy,and he’d help her up,smiling as he began leading his dear sister towards their house. Determined to make the most of this holiday…determined to fill the walls of their home with memories enough for a lifetime.

[gemsofgreece]

Hi! I love the various posts for folk clothing you have here. The clothes are all so beautiful! The Raiment of the Soul ones are especially lovely.

If you don't mind me asking, for men's clothes, how many layers are there?

Obviously there are the fustanellas, the waistcoats (???), the shirts etc. I've tried looking around to find the names of each and just what the looks consist of, but I can't seem to find anything that's actually helpful.

It looks like the tops are seperate shirts tucked into the fustanellas and they have a wrap around the waist, but sometimes they look like an entire garment.

I want to draw a character with this sort of clothing and I just don't want to get anything wrong.

Thank you!

Hi! There are of course variations depending on the region of Greece however the key elements of a man's attire are:

Υποκάμισο (ypokámiso) or πουκάμισο (pukámiso): This is the basic layer that exists in every single type of attire, the shirt, a short descendant of the dalmatica. It is usually white but not always, in Crete for example it is often black. The design can vary a little but the sleeves can be either bell-like or narrower. The traditional shirts are indeed a little long, some may reach a man's hipline or below even, but they are separate garments and they are always tucked inside the fustanella or pants or vraka etc

Φουστανέλα (fustanela) / Βράκα (vraka) / pants: Fustanela is actually not the only garment worn under the waist. Vraka is the garment worn in most of the islands and it's like very puffy short pants. Vraka's colour may vary but the usual ones are black and blue. A lot of traditional attires in mainland Greece have actual long pants, mostly in the following colours: white, off white or creme / light beige, brown and black. Fustanela was a garment most common among warriors and shepherds but it became more popular and widespread amongst regular civilians in central and south mainland Greece during and after the Independence War, let alone the honorary attire of generals and presidential guards. Fustanela is a white very ruffled kilt. The presidential guards wear a shorter version reaching mid-thigh, however the warriors and anyone wearing it in the 19th century wore it longer, knee-length or even slightly longer, especially the older and more respectable they got. So if you are drawing someone from that era, then make sure the fustanela is somewhere close to knee length, depending also on the character's age / status.

Fustanela, long pants and vrakes.

Warriors of the Greek revolution. I chose a painting to give you some drawing ideas.

On top there were many variations. There was γελέκι (yeleki) or γιλέκο (yileko), which was a waistcoat worn in summer or - I think - πισλί (pislí) a sleeved jacket in various colours and almost always intricately embroidered. Sometimes the sleeves were regular ones (see central figure in the painting), sometimes the sleeves were not sewn entirely and they were only connected in a few points (see the first figure down left in the painting). Another variation was one which was like a waistcoat with sleeves which were cut and hanging completely at the back (see image below) and this was called φέρμελη (férmeli).

In cold weather men would wear a dulamas, which was a long coat in various colours and exquisite embroidery (obviously depending also on the wealth of the person). Dulamas could also have sleeves or be sleeveless.

Sleeveless and sleeved dulamades.

For even heavier cold men would also wear a φλοκάτη (flokati), a very thick wool fur cape on top of that.

In this painting the figure down right is wearing a flokati cape.

All men wore a ζωνάρι (zonari), a metallic belt and / or a σελλάχι (sellahi), a cloth wrapped many times in order to create pockets in it. In these belts or pockets the warriors kept their weaponry. Civilians kept a container with water, a watch and, if they were literate, they also kept a feather pen in case they needed to write something. Depending on the region, belts can vary greatly in colour, shape, width, design etc

They wore thick long wool socks, usually white , but this also depends on the region. Warriors of high rank, like generals, had additional thick leggings (so to speak) under the knee that were embroidered like their jackets (see both paintings above).

Footwear involved the τσαρούχια (tsaroúhia) which were initially pointy leather shoes - often black or red - but then in the mainland they got that famous big black pom pom (which hid a knife inside). Alternatively, long boots were also very common, which were made of leather and could be black or white usually. But NO boots with the fustanela attire! All of that can be seen in the photos and art above.

Notice the differences in jacket, kilt length, legging and footwear between the high rank guard and the rest.

Then it was the head dress. I honestly can't describe all the versions of head dress across the country. Men commonly wore a fez, which was mandatory to all subjects of the Ottoman empire. There were numerous variations for the fez, some were very small, some were pompous and tall. Greeks often used to attach a large tussel to their fez. Other Greeks in more peripheral regions would hide their small fez entirely under a wrapped handkerchief. The fez was usually red or sometimes black or blue. (See also the first image above.)

Depending on the region, there were various additional garments or decorations but this depends on each local attire.

Another thing that you should take into account is that if your model / character is supposed to live before late 19th century, then Greek men kept their hair long and also gave it a glow by applying oil on it, especially in the mainland. Islanders could perhaps also have shorter hair but in general most men had long hair, including old men. They also sported as big mustaches as they could (unless they were very young). There were no beards, except in the case of some islanders rarely and all priests.

I think the safest way to go about it is to find a pre-existing artwork that you like and get inspired by it, hopefully also with the help of the information I am giving here.

[prodsh00ky]

from the cradle to the grave

pairing: vampire!seonghwa x reader

warnings: use of words probably, crying, mentions of blood, death, war and violence, seonghwa creeps the reader out by breaking into their house, deja vu era seonghwa look combined with 2023 long haired hwa bc this should be a warning, some angsty stuff, fluff if u squint really really hard, past lives (sort of), reader is referred to using they/them pronouns but i might have left something that suggest they’re female/afab in the way; please let me know if there’s more

wc: ~4.6k words

notes: i tried to finish this in time for halloween (it was sitting in my drafts since 2021...) so this was supposed to be a spooky season fic. it didn’t work but here it is anyways! hope you guys like it. im a big vampire enthusiast and a bIG seonghwa enthusiast which makes me the biggest vamp!hwa agenda supporter so lets gooo

well, at least your gut feeling was probably right.

these last days have been… weird, to say the least. every time you’d go back to your apartment after college you felt like you were being observed, maybe even followed. it was like there was someone always behind you or around the place you were in a way that made you feel like you were never alone indeed, and you didn't like the shivers you got from it. to top it off, the whole thing was giving you even more bad nightmares than the usual; the most recent ones involved big mansions from the eighteenth century or something, a lot of fighting, blood and a pair of piercing eyes staring into your soul. the worst part was that you always forgot in the course of your day that you were having them, only remembering when waking up in a cold sweat from a new one. your friends told you it probably was due to the time of the year since spooky season just began, and you thought it might be it; a scary vibe was nothing less than expected from fall.

but the tall figure standing behind your favorite armchair that welcomed you home seconds ago after you locked your apartment’s door told you otherwise. you automatically move to grab your floor lamp to defend yourself.

“who are you and what are you doing here?” 

“so you’re feisty. i should keep track of that.”

his voice is deep but also smooth. he’s probably a head and a half taller than you and wears a white shirt with a v cut, black trousers paired with a black blazer and his neck is adorned with a sole silk ribbon. when he turns to you, you get to see that his long black hair would probably reach his silver pendant earrings if it wasn't tucked into a fancy hairstyle with a silver pin holding the front and that his eyes are sharp and piercing (and strangely similar with the ones in your recent nightmares, but this time they feel familiar and not frightening as usual), just as the rest of his facial features. he is probably the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. but you still have no idea of who he is or how he got inside your house, so you quietly get your phone and dial 911.

“i'm going to repeat it just once more. who are you, what are you and how the fuck have you gotten inside?” he seems too entertained eyeing you from head to toe for some seconds, but he quickly wakes from his apparent trance and answers you.

“right. i'm sorry for the rudeness... and for the invasion, for that matter, although this apartment was virtually 100% accessible for me. oh, and for the last few days too, but i'm afraid the observing was necessary. i’m park seonghwa, one of the royal eight, and deeply pleasured to know you.” he bows lightly and opens his mouth to continue and it shows you a glimpse of long sharp canine teeth. it makes you interrupt him.

“so you’re the one who’s following me? know what, it doesn’t matter actually, i’m calling the cops.” you turn to open the door and get outside, however the keys aren't in the door handle anymore. with the lamp still in your hold you try to open the knob forcefully, adrenaline beginning to fill you due to despair, but the jittery sound of the keys dangling makes you turn to the stranger once more. he holds the keys with his left hand, the right one leaning in the armchair.

“forgive me for my ways, but calling the police won’t be needed and after you listen to me you’ll see why. i’m not here to hurt you in any way, it’s actually… quite the opposite. i was following you because me and my brothers needed to reach you, and after i finally found you i wanted to know who we were looking for. if you’re willing to give me some of your time, i’ll be happy to explain everything i can for now. please?”

considering your options, either you jump out of the window into a 65 feet fall or listen to him. but you still want to be sure someone is keeping track of you, so you move to open the window hoping today the old couple and the friendly lady who lives in the building next to yours and are always inviting you to spend the holidays and have dinner with them are gaping inside your place as usual and turn on the localization device in your phone.

“you have ten minutes.”

“thank you for considering my offer.” he answers, seemingly more relieved, and starts talking. “i’m not sure how to address it correctly… there probably isn't a correct way to do it, so i’ll be plainspoken. i’m a vampire, such as my brothers, and we need your help because you hold powers that can save our empire from the mass attack it is suffering right now.”

you huff, because it’s the only thing you feel like doing.

“you really invaded my house to fool me into a halloween prank? who made you do it? oh, it must have been yeonjun and kai, right? i'm calling the bastards right now, this is way off limits.” you manage to grab your phone in your pocket again but, just like your keys, you see it appearing in the guy’s hands.

“it’s not a prank and your human friends have nothing to deal with it, swear with my long gone soul. i am indeed a vampire, as you can verify by my teeth. vampires exist, such as some other ‘magical creatures’, as your people like to call us. i’m park seonghwa, the second vampire emperor, or prince, whatever you’d prefer, and am here to plead for your help because my empire is perishing and the eight of us can’t do much without you.”

the serious way he’s speaking almost convinces you, but it still sounds so crazy and nonsensical you keep yourself skeptical. you can't avoid some classical questions, though.

“why aren’t you burning or shining in the sun, then? and i don't see you sweating due to the giant amount of garlic in my kitchen. there’s no proof to your allegations, fang boy.”

seonghwa finds it really hard to suppress a smile. you were much more fun (and cute) than he thought, and seeing you being so doubtful only added to the feeling he had.

“because not all the tales you humans like to tell about us are true. garlic does not affect vampires at all, i have no idea where this... thing came from. we only get paler in the sunlight, as you may perceive.” he moves closer to your window, and you can see his slightly tanned skin turning paler and paler until his veins start to become proeminent and dark blue in his skin. it’s almost as if he's like a living canvas full of paint.

“i don’t believe you.”

“do you expect me to prove my identity then? because the only way to do it is by feeding, and im afraid you’re the only human in the nearer 260 feet at least.'' he steps closer and while he’s talking you see his fangs getting longer. and sharper. he touches his pointer finger with his teeth and his skin rips easily as if a needle had been dragged along it. when you look into his eyes they’re rouge as… blood. fear creeps into you and you step back, moving your head no.

“y-you can go on! i will hear you, i p-promise. i'm not exactly doubting it anymore.” you say, voice weak with fear. you move to your couch slowly, eyes still fixated in his every move. “i-im going to sit because this doesn’t sound like a conversation i’ll be able to take in while standing. feel free to sit too.” he moves to sit in the same armchair he’s leaning, but you start to talk again before you forget and his eyes move up to you again. “oh, but i want my keys and phone. you’ll not be getting my help making it look like you want to keep me in captivity.”

he nods, putting your phone and keys in your center table. you grab them almost immediately murmuring “thanks” because well, look where you are. he nods again and waits until you stop moving to talk.

“i’m shall start from the beginning since you have no familiarity with the vampires situation, right?” you nod, asking yourself what a vampire situation would mean. “the… ‘magic’ realm, i’ll call it this way for now because it’s easier, is hidden from human eyes. we have our own rules that exist to ensure mainly two things: that we won’t reveal ourselves to you with ease and that we will have peace, or anything closest to it, within us. some centuries ago people lived in balance and each kind had their own inside rules and organization besides these two major ones, but a riot some of the folks started created chaos and eventually a war. it was a slaughter; many villages were destroyed and many creatures, killed. it’s one of the darkest chapters of our story.

“wait, what do you mean by ‘creatures’ and ‘folks’? you’re not saying…”

“witches, elves, mermaids and sirens, gnomes, fairies, fauns, they’re all real. at some level, at least. i say this due to the fact you humans love to fantasize about their characteristics way too much, as you could testify with me and the sun belief you had. the majority of things you assume you know about them or about ur are probably inaccurate.”

your frown, “and what is the truth about all of you, then? what is wrong in the things i’ve been taught?”

there’s hints of a smirk in his lips, but he tries his best to keep neutral. “curious, aren't’ we? i’d love to share it with you, but it’s best that you learn it by yourself.” your eyebrows raise and he gets the sign to keep talking. “we’ll get there, do not worry.”

he takes a deep breath, a shadow of something gray crossing his sharp features. “after the war finished, pretty much all that was left was chaos. in an effort to save the survivors, an assembly was arranged so we could fix new rules and try to establish things. it happens that the vampires were the race that had the fewest deaths and casualties during the war and managed to better organize ourselves for that to happen, so it was decided by majority that we would rule all races from then on.”

“holy crap-” you tap your mouth, using the best of your self control skills to not laugh in his face, “this sounds like a bad fantasy book or a fanfic i’d have read when i was twelve. how did you guys manage all the power? and you said majority, not unanimity. there was someone against it, i suppose.”

seonghwa allows himself to smile, happy to observe you notice things rather quickly. you try to suppress your own reaction; if he was already handsome poker faced, it felt like his smile alone could convince you about anything he was saying and more. “we accepted it, since it was what most wanted. some begged, even, at some point of the discussion. it was never easy, though. we have faults and committed many mistakes, some worse than others and some… unforgivable, if i’m being honest. but i assure we hardly did then out of personal selfishness, the weight of keeping things in place is always something that humbles us down. and yes, you assumed correctly, there were people against it.”

he pauses abruptly, looks at you and laughs quietly, which confuses you. the fact that his laughing warms you inside has nothing to do with it, you reassure yourself.

“what?”

“if you thought the previous facts i’ve told you sounded like a… fantasy book or so, you can’t wait for the next bit.” he tries to dwell his laughter down to answer you, but you can see he’s struggling. “guess who disagreed with us being in power?”

it takes you less than a millisecond to reply. “no shit it were the werewolves.”

he starts laughing again but freely, not trying to refrain himself, and this time you can’t control the shocked smile that creeps onto your face along with your eyes widening.

“jesus fuck, seonghwa-” you have to pause for a second to recompose yourself, because you started laughing too hard along with him without even realizing, “it was already hard to believe the whole vampire convo and all, now you’re saying that not only other species of magical creatures do exist but the rivalry between vampires and werewolves is real? how do you expect me not to think this is some sort of twilight remake?"

“oh, no, not that movie,” he says while trying to stop laughing, “i’ve never watched it but it has caused enough misunderstandings already about us.”

you eye him up and down, “have some respect, it’s a masterpiece! i’m sure you just have never watched it because you know you’ll get inferiority complex since you’ll never be edward cullen.”

“i’ll pretend i know what you’re talking about and agree.” you laugh but on your own this time, and he can’t avoid admiring the wrinkles in your face when you do it. “resuming, the werewolves were never exactly comfortable with the idea of us in power in the first place, but as i said it was what the majority wanted. it has been like this for over eight centuries, and everything was going peacefully until around the nineteenth century. the werewolves started a rebellion against our empire, and to do it joined forces with each and every wrongdoer in our realm. they managed to have each and every single creature that had committed horrendous crimes as their allies, which caught us by surprise. we’ve tried to talk to them in the beginning, but it didn't work; they started to kill vampires and pretty much everyone that agreed with our power. it has been like this since then, and we were succeeding in controlling the war until one century ago.”

“oh.” nice way to react, you think. but what would be a great reaction for a narnia x game of thrones crossover of sorts? “i’m… i’m sorry, i guess. i’m not sure how to properly react to all of this, and it’s harder to conceive it as true. and what does it all have to do with me? swear i’m trying not to be a jerk or so, but why are you telling me all of this? why did you come after me?”

seonghwa, once again, has to control a smile creeping in. “because you, y/n, might be the key to saving everything.”

your brain short circuits. “what?” you freeze, wanting to laugh in his face, but the serious and hopeful look he gives you indicates he’s telling the truth. then a detail, a tiny but important detail comes to your mind. “wait- how the fuck do you even know know my name? i haven’t said it to you until now, there’s pretty much no mail you could get that from and most of my friends call me by nicknames, how do you know it?”

despair flashes through his eyes, but it’s only for a second. “well, here's where things start getting… interesting. or complex. i know it might sound crazy but… there’s… you… you’re…”

its the first time he seems uncertain or insecure and maybe even afraid in his speech if you squint, but the next bit that comes out of his mouth makes everything really sound like a big joke.

“i’m afraid there’s no easy way to let you know this, so i’ll have to be straightforward. you’re a living amplifier to any type of supernatural being. this amplifying power is given to a human in earth as a blessing from whatever force that keeps the universe balanced from time to time, but there are always at least a few centuries that part the amplifiers’ births. the last amplifier was a friend, an ally of ours that helped - or rather lead us vampires to our victory and was the sole reason why i and pretty much all of the survivors are still alive. i know your name because it was one of the last words he said before passing after sacrificing so much to guarantee peace amongst supernatural folks. i’m here to ask or rather plead for your help, because although we have more resources and ways of fighting now we’re afraid that it might not be enough for the challenges we might face.”

you blink once. twice. then you sneer.

“you know, i was almost believing you. i’m ashamed to admit it, but it was almost getting to me. but after this i'm afraid i’ll have to call kai and yeonjun and tell them to stop fucking with me every halloween season because this is way off limits. you’re a great actor, though,”, you say, reaching for you phone, “i’m sure you’ll go the distance or so. your costume is very well made too, i have no idea who thought about the eye mechanism but is sure surpr-

he takes your hand with his extremely cold one before you reach your phone.

“please. me and my brothers don’t have much time to deal with your doubts properly, and i’m sorry about that, so i beg of you. it probably sounds way far from your human rationality, but have you never felt anything different? any other type or force or liveliness different from what others feel? have you never seen the way some people thrive when they’re by your side? how they go higher than they probably would if they weren’t close to you? how it’s so easy for your to really connect to the people you love and how pleased they seem to be to love you back? have you ever felt observed? have you never seen that there are beings trying to put their eyes on you all the time, specially in nightmares?”

you head starts to spin. yes. he actually had a point. your presence around people you liked seemed to bring them more joy and great opportunities for some unknown reason, and it has been this way since ever. your childhood nickname was “lucky” due to this; the games and toys were funnier and happier when you were around, even if one of your friends got hurt - it would be fine, after all, right? the foster home you grew up in started to receive more donations after you arrived, and your foster dads were able to house even more children. your presence became a must in problem solvings while you grew up, because, for some reason, the fact that you were there made it all calmer and somehow easier. your friends would get higher grades, nicer positions in the school teams, greater opportunities and happier memories if you were involved or cheering for them; you were a walking lucky charm all over your life. your parents, your foster siblings and the few real friends you have always said the love they feel towards you is different than any type of love they’ve ever experienced. kai and yeonjun even like to joke that you have some type of magic on your blood or something, because they feel that your friendship will undoubtedly last for the rest of your life, no room for doubt.

and the nightmares. they were way more intense and frequent when you were a child. creepy and lone places, destroyed cities, dark alleyways stained with blood, desolated ghost-like faces, cries of help you never knew whom they belonged to. but the worse ones were the ones that had eyes around aware of your every move no matter what you did. they were the ones that offered your nights of sleep no mercy and made you wake up crying hard and shaking up from despair for years. funnily enough, they always seem to happen again frequently each spooky season. 

“i-i suppose you’re right in some way, b-but-”

“have you had a time where you painted a lot? maybe when you were a kid?”

that’s what breaks you.

“h-how the fuck do you know this?”

his lips curve up, a sad smile reaching his eyes. “eden, the last amplifier, was a painter. probably one of the best ever seen in the whole world, if i have a say on that. an amplifier born will always have and nurture the last amplifier’s talents for at least some time, specially during their childhood. if you took on his talent, i bet your paintings were astonishing, even more for a child.”

your memories flash in front of your eyes: how many paintings have you made for your parents’ office? how many times did you spend your early sunday mornings painting in order to gift your siblings? how many of these were still with them, in their houses, becoming part of the scenery of their lives until nowadays? and why the fact you abruptly stopped doing them when you were nine or ten had never made sense until now?

“i’m- i’m sorry, but- this must be some type of misunderstanding or bad taste joke, that’s ithe only explanation, that's it-”

“as said before im deeply sorry that we don’t have more time to do this with ease but…”, he huffs, looking down and then to you again, “this is what will have you believing me. i’m really sorry.”

he stares into your eyes for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight seconds straight.

and then it all hits you.

flashes of some of the places you saw in your nightmares, but this time live, in person, because you were there; a giant castle with an art studio, your beloved art studio, where all your creativity flew through the canvases, where life seemed to make more sense. flashes of people you never met; unfamiliar smiles in their faces, but the lingering feeling there’s no physical building that could carry your conception of home more than they could; nights together singing by the moonlight, but also serious conversations and arguing and fighting but always making up because, in the end, they’re your family; war and horrible battles and you standing in all of them offering everything this force inside of you could because things had to end in peace; crying, seeing red and hearing their last words for you. darkness, solitude, happiness, yearning, melancholy, bliss, doubt, joy, frustration, hope, all types of feelings that weren’t and were yours at the same time.

you snap out of it with the feeling of seonghwa’s cold thumbs drying the tears you didn’t realize were streaming down your cheeks.

“i’m sorry this is so unfair to you,” he whispers, “i really wish this could happen naturally, without demanding so much of you and shattering the world you know with such violence, as it has always been with the others who got to know. im really sorry...”

for a while, you just allow him to hold your face and caress it, too overwhelmed by everything that’s flooding your brain. after what could be some seconds, minutes or even hours, you’re not sure at this point, you move away from his touch and he lets you go, something heavy in his eyes you are not able to decipher due to your state.

“you need time to digest it all, and you’ll have it. i’ll make sure that no nightmares or even visions plague your mind in the next days so you can rest. but i’ll have to come back in a week or two to ask you to come with me and help us if you’re willing to do it. i promise that i’ll answer any of your questions then and that more understanding of what you’re capable of will make it a bit easier. you can share all of this, but be sure to do it only with trusted ones and with as fewer people as possible.”

he gets up and turns to the door, but before heading in that direction seonghwa leaves a black business card in the table in front of you, just a single phone number written in red ink in it.

“if you need anything, do not hesitate to call this number and talk to me. i’ll do anything in my power to help you.”

he opens the door, turning to look at you for one last time. ”we’ll see each other again, y/n.”

seonghwa closes your apartment’s door and in a couple of minutes he’s walking in the street again. he takes his phone, dials a number he knows by heart and waits. the voice that answers him is curious, yet patient.

he huffs before replying, “as well as you would expect, hongjoong. they didn’t hit me with a broom or tried to shoo away with garlic, but also didn’t believe me until i forced them to see.”

“hey, are you fine? how did it go?”

“unfortunately. humans got way too used to believe we’re bedtime stories, specially in this century, so it wasn't something i didn't expect, but i-”

“so you did have to hypnotize them?”

“you’re not entirely comfortable with doing it too, i know. by the way, how did you feel? since it all probably got stronger, was it okay for you?”

seonghwa hesitates for a few seconds. “it was ecstatic, joong. i’m not sure i’m able to fully translate it into words. the more time I spent there and the more I understood about who they are now the more it became hard to let go. this is nothing like anything else that i ever felt, and it’s only the first time i saw them. i feel so goddamn lost but also as if i had finally found something very important inside me at the same time. i… have no idea of what to do.”

“no way. it was hard enough for them to believe the whole thing, it would be twice as hard if they knew- if i told them things probably would have been even harder. they’ll know when the right time comes.”

“maybe telling them, if you already didn’t?”

“sure, then. it’s your choice. are you already coming back?”

“yeah, i’ll call for the car in some minutes.”

“great. thanks, hwa. i know this was probably tough on you. come home safely.”

seonghwa replies with a hushed see you soon and hangs up. he knows his friend just wanted to be sure, but they knew each other well enough for hongjoong to presume nothing of the matter would have been said to you by seonghwa.

because how could he? right after stealing the truth you had been living until and shattering it into pieces? it sounded too cruel for him, he felt it in the moment he laid eyes on you today.

time would say when he’d tell you that besides your name, eden also said that the next amplifier would be his soulmate, and that this would allow to change things forever.

©prodsh00ky 2023. no crossposting or translations allowed.

[hana-no-seiiki]

I’ve been seeing a lot of andweaso’s Agent Red in my YouTube Shorts and I really have to start writing for my other projects

So I present to you:

YANDERE SPY AGENCY! OCS x READER : SHORT INTRODUCTION

from my set of ocs planned for a webtoon called Honey Fatalis (which you can read more about in the tag #HONEY FATALIS 🔪)

YOU ARE THE HIVEMIND. Quite literally the ruler of information and data across the planet. You had dirt on anyone and everyone. You had the power to start and end wars in an instant.

You, are also an actor. Why take such a high profile job when you had such a volatile career behind the scenes? Well that was simple, no one will ever find out. No one ever could anyways. Besides, as an actor, learning multiple skills such as the use of guns, martial arts, and well acting would seem much less suspicious.

You were known for your cold, distant personality. Often inciting scandals due to other celebrities vying for your attention and promptly throwing a temper tantrum when you refused to do so. You have garnered so much hate and danger that your manager went ahead and hired a couple of bodyguards to prevent any mishaps.

That being said, your bodyguards happen to be the world’s two most dangerous spies.

Spy Agencies loved to pluck their workers from orphanages. It was easier to deal with a person that had no attachments after all. But they could not predict that their geniuses Agent White and Agent Black , would be such big fans of you.

Indeed. Both of them had watched every single media you have been (released to the public or not), and monitored you 24/7. They were quite a nuisance when it came to hiding your identity, but nonetheless useful tools.

You agreed to their hiring precisely due to the things listed above. If they were distracted by you in real life, they’d have less time to stalk you like the obsessive bastards they were.

You didn’t have to do much. Both spies were charismatic people. They often approached you. Eyes filled with admiration and lust as they shielded your body with theirs from paparazzi and the likes. You could hear their labored breaths as they struggled — daresay agonized — to hold you properly instead of this awkward dance they had to do for the sake of formalities.

Of course all things must come to end, and your identity had been forced into the surface by a hitman paid to take your life.

“Oh, Hivemind. If you’d only known how much I have wished to ravish you—“

But perhaps they were more interested in taking you in other ways instead.

[kas-e]

The greatest canvas is the one just outside. The world is mad, frustrated, fighting, at war, but I essentially bowed out of the mainstream years ago. Since then I've been living in a little city in a strange region tucked in the valley beside a beautiful mountain range. It's been years now, and my life in America has all but faded from the rearview, all that remains is this tiny dot on the horizon that if I squint hard enough I might be able to make out what it is - but honestly, I don't care enough to strain my eyes.

The so-called friends and family gave up communications around a year ago. It's always been a flimsy connection anyway, so at least I saw that coming. At least my mother still responds sometimes. I'm not looking for pity, it's just the way it is. Reality.

When I was 19 years old I was involved in a horrible tragedy, at which time every person in my life turned their backs on me. Every last one. For a year I heard from nobody, I was hung up on, ignored, and just flat out told to fuck off. I was trying to get myself clean, and there were some months where I was institutionalized. The white walls still haunt me sometimes... but I remember trying to wrap my head around what was going on. The memory is vivid and piercing. Like it was yesterday, despite the fact that it was 25 years ago. It was the greatest lesson of my life.

It was when I realized that I was indeed alone in this life. Every man, and I would imagine plenty of women, come to this conclusion at some point in their life. Some of us are lucky enough to have family, friends, even love. But ultimately, we are alone. When tragedy strikes, this is revealed. The fair-weather friends disappear, and sometimes the family does too. But this doesn't make me sad anymore. It's just a black and white fact of life. Instead it gives me a sense of peace, because with the acceptance of this, I've grown and nurtured a love for myself that is now substantial enough to weather many heavy storms. Furthermore, now, when I do have love, or simply people in my life, I am very grateful for their presence, and it's easier to love and appreciate them back. Now, it's effortlessly reciprocal, whereas before sometimes it was one-sided.

My point of writing all of this is just to remind you, again, that the greatest canvas is just outside. The visions that nature gives us, for free, every day, are mere steps away. This is why I'm a photographer. This is why I shoot incessantly, and have for the past two decades. I'm trying to grab those fleeting moments of beauty and glory, one by one, and present them to whoever wants to see them.

I hope that you enjoy my work as much as I love creating it. Someone once told me that the sun sets and rises every single day, it's our choice if we want to be there for it. Ever since hearing that, I make it a point to be there every chance I have.

Next trip is southern Italy in a few weeks. Can't wait to get out there, and get some good sessions in before the cold grey winter of Eastern Europe sets in for the season.

Peace & Prosperity.

[reconstructionlegacy]

Jedi robe significations

[NB: all of this is headcanon, derived from what clothing items are named in-game, what various Jedi NPCs wear, and also things I just made up because I like them.]

White robes indicates a consular whose work is primarily in diplomatic or other physically “safe” arenas, as white is a hard colour to keep pristine in rough environments and in combat.

Likewise, particularly trailing sleeves indicate the same.

One or two pieces of light leather armor (e.g. shoulder-pads and vambraces) indicate a Jedi regards putting themselves in physical danger in warzones and other combat to be part of their personal duties.

Heavier armour indicates that a Jedi is primarily involved - as in, their current mission is - in war.  This is often a way to spot a Jedi who is more willing to fight than many of their peers are.

The Ansata are a sub-group of Jedi that believe they follow the Force’s will specifically by gathering and protecting knowledge.  Ansata patterns and hair/head jewelry, such as those worn by Jocasta Nu and Atris, indicate a Jedi belongs to the Ansata group.

It’s rare to see a Kyber Jedi away from Ilum, but if you do, they can be distinguished by their kyber crystal being not carried as part of a lightsaber but carried in a clear case or on its own as jewelry.  Their robes are embroidered or cut into fractal patterns, and often have transparent, glowing, or shimmering elements.  Cold-weather gear is commonly worn by Kyber Jedi even in warm environments, and many will never appear publicly unhooded.

Dark grey robes indicate either work with the criminal underworld or status as a Shadow.

Jedi in green robes are, of course, usually Corellian Green Jedi.

While brown robes are extremely commonly worn by Jedi - indeed, a plain brown robe over cream or brown tunics is known galaxy-wide as what a Jedi is “supposed” to wear - and golden elements aren’t overly uncommon, wearing red robes is taboo, due to association with the Sith.  For this reason, dark orange is also best avoided.

Visibly repaired (patched, ragged, re-stitched, etc) robes, when not worn out of necessity, indicate a Jedi who is primarily devoted to alleviating social inequality.

Jedi who wear animal fur, pelts or skins, and are not from a species or heritage that values the use of animal products (e.g., Togruta or Trandoshan Jedi), are animal specialists, training, befriending, and working alongside any animal from acklays to gundarks to zeldrake.

Many Jedi healers wear the medical emblem in an easy-to-see location on their upper sleeves.

Jedi stationed on Coruscant or Tython often incorporate gold-coloured elements into their robes.

“Mismatched” robes, with each clothing element being of a different material, in a different style, and with different motifs, indicates a Jedi whose focus is communication between differing cultures, whether as a diplomat, a translator, or simply someone whose circle of contacts is extremely diverse.

Want to know if a Jedi has just thrown on their current robes to fit what they’re doing today? Look at the boots. If the boots don’t match, they’ve either just switched assignments or this isn’t their usual work.  Similarly, a Jedi’s robes should in some way match the style of their lightsaber(s), and if they don’t, they’re not in robes they wear often.

If a Jedi’s robes and lightsaber are black and spiky, that’s probably not a Jedi.  Move along, now.

[anonymocha]

Celestial Body • Voyager x Kaalaa Baunaa

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” —Carl Sagan

Synopsis — Voyager figured that it’s about time she revealed the true form she hid beneath her uniform to Kaalaa Baunaa, someone very close to her. Understandably, the reveal was quite a shock for the astronomer.

Words — 1.2K words.

CWs — Cosmic horror? I mean if a girl holds the essence of the fabrics of the cosmos in her very form and made me touch it, I would be horrified too.

A/N — This is like an elaborate coffee-induced BRAINSPILL, my bad. Voyager brainrot. May write another fic with this pairing that’s less “fuck it we ball” than this one.

The uniform she held onto for years upon years vanished into thin air, revealing the starry void that is her bare skin, illuminated by the moonlight.

“I told you… It’s nothing like yours,” Voyager chuckled, her voice soft.

And indeed, she spoke true. The only semblance of familiarity in her form was the faint outline of a slender humanoid figure she possessed. Otherwise, she’s a canvas painted with the colors of the cosmos. Kaalaa Baunaa's breath caught in her throat as her gaze trailed the patterns of stardust that danced across Voyager's skin. Cluster of stars, planets, nebulas, galaxies, supernovas, quasars, pulsars, and black holes, all woven together in a mesmerizing, swirling tapestry. Some parts of her body, like her face, arms, and legs, were still veiled by a layer of white. The very thing concealing her true nature from the others.

“Hmm?…” Voyager tilted her head as she approached the astronomer on the couch, giving her a closer look at her form. It’s almost intimidating, truly. Having who may be the essence of the universe itself towering over her in such proximity. Yet, there was no trace of arrogance in Voyager's demeanor, only a gentle curiosity that radiated from her being. It seemed that Kaalaa Baunaa’s reactions were quite a delight to this enigmatic creature. After all, who could blame an astronomer for being completely and utterly awestruck by a beautiful being, beyond her feeble comprehension, baring herself in front of her naked eyes?

To be in the presence of such magnificence was both humbling and exhilarating.

As Voyager drew closer, Kaalaa Baunaa felt a rush of emotions swirling within her like a black hole. She could sense the gravitational pull of Voyager's presence, a force that threatened to pull her into the depths of an unknown abyss.

And that description wouldn’t be too far off.

And in that moment, Voyager took Kaalaa Baunaa's trembling wrist, guiding it to her abdomen. Expecting to feel the warmth of skin, instead, Kaalaa Baunaa was met with a… Truly startling revelation.

“Ah!—” she gasped sharply when the flesh of her hand did not meet the resistance of Voyager’s skin. Instead, she felt her hand sink deeper into the alien’s abdomen. She’s… This… Her hand… It… It felt chillingly, hauntingly cold, and empty. The astronomer retaliated, pulling her hand out of Voyager’s abdomen in a cold sweat. What is this feeling? Horror? Fascination? Dread? Wonder?

“I’m sorry… I… Hah… It was too fast. I wasn’t ready,” the woman panted. Was that actually space, or was it something else? Another realm? A portal? A mirage? No. She couldn’t sense any illusions, or was her intuition failing her? Oh, it’s terrifying. She’s terrifying. She wouldn’t expect her work partner to contain the very universe within her all this time. The implications of what she had just experienced sent shivers down Kaalaa Baunaa's spine. Like an ant meeting a god, yet have no words to describe or comprehend what god is.

Voyager's eyes softened with understanding as she watched the turmoil unfolding within Kaalaa Baunaa's soul. She reached out a hand, her touch gentle, and cupped the astronomer's trembling cheek. It proved to be effective, the woman slowly calmed under Voyager's touch, her racing thoughts gradually subsiding as she focused on the warmth emanating from the alien's hand.

“I'm sorry for startling you…” the usually silent Voyager murmured, her eyes shimmering with a mixture of emotions that the astronomer couldn’t lay her finger on. “But I wanted you to see... to understand.”

“No… It’s alright, truly… I just… I… I’m sorry, again… I hope my reaction didn’t offend you… But what was that?” she leaned into Voyager’s touch, clinging to her hand like a vulnerable tiger cub.

Voyager could only respond by looking up in thought, before closing her eyes and shaking her head with a smile. “It’s okay…” Voyager mumbled, her voice barely a whisper against the backdrop of the silent room. “I understand that it's overwhelming… I don’t think I can describe it myself… But… That was me. As I am.”

Kaalaa Baunaa sighed, taking deep breaths. That wasn’t a satisfying answer at all. But in a way, she understood her place as a mortal, and how hard it would be for Voyager to explain herself to her.

“I don’t think I can ever wrap my head around it. I don’t think I can truly ever understand you, just like how I could never understand the universe itself. But I can do one thing I do best… I can try.” Kaalaa Baunaa looked up at the alien with determination in her eyes, a newfound resolve settling within her. She may never fully grasp the intricacies of Voyager's existence, but she was determined to cherish every secret they shared. This is a chance like no other, she thought. A chance to truly witness, even touch, someone beyond her with her own hands.

As Kaalaa Baunaa gazed into Voyager's eyes, she saw a reflection of her own curiosity and wonder mirrored back at her. That’s everything she needed to see.

With a newfound sense of awe and reverence, Kaalaa Baunaa reached out once more, this time with a steadier hand, and gently touched Voyager's abdomen again. This time, she felt the chill of emptiness and the vastness of space with a sense of reverence rather than fear. Each inch of her skin that passed through the other’s created soft ripples throughout the canvas, as if she were delving into a veil of mist. The stars would gleam against her skin and silver jewelries, casting brilliant colors unto her hand. Truly nothing like anything she has ever since before. Not even in the meditator’s realm.

The initial seconds of coldness were just as piercing as before. But the longer her hand lingered in there, the warmer it was. She couldn’t sense the celestial energies she commonly associated with the stellar. But she could feel something truly other. One that she could only describe as… Voyager herself. A cosmos unique to her. Such a revelation is… Endearing, to say the least.

This is the essence of the Voyager she held dear, a beloved friend and partner who is both beyond her yet incredibly connected to her, the same being who enjoyed playing the violin, the girl who admired animals and their sounds, and the mysterious entity who had captured her heart in ways she couldn't fully comprehend.

She felt… So small compared to this being. And yet, this being is embracing her with her essence, her love, her all.

What an honor. A privilege.

As Kaalaa Baunaa withdrew her hand, a sense of peace washed over her, replacing the initial shock and uncertainty with a newfound sense of acceptance and understanding. She looked at Voyager, her eyes alight with a newfound appreciation towards her.

The uncertainty, questions, bewilderment, and countless indescribable emotions stirred in her heart, but the astronomer smiled tenderly, her cheeks tinted with warmth. Is an answer what she wants? Not really… She doesn’t feel the hunger for explanations or justifications. It’s not something Kaalaa Baunaa wants to put her through. But instead… She wants Voyager to know one thing.

“You’re beautiful, dear, please remember that…” she rose from the couch, lacing their fingers together as she pulled Voyager into a gentle embrace, planting a kiss on the alien’s cheek. Voyager returned the embrace with a softness that belied her cosmic nature, her arms wrapping around the astronomer.

“You truly are… Out of this world. I love you. I truly, truly do love you.”

Despite everything, what matters the most to her, is to let Voyager know that she is loved and adored, no matter the mysteries that belies her.

The alien could only smile, as she always does.

[a-world-of-whimsy-5]

May I please request Daemon Blackfyre with the prompt: Summer Wine? (Feel free to delete this.)

Hello!Thank you for the request! I confess I have not yet reached the part of Daemon Blackfyre in Fire and Blood, but I will try to do my best. I hope you like this!

"Redgrass field"

Pairing: Daemon Blackfyre x Fem. Reader

Themes: Secret love / Lost love / Angst

Warnings: Alcohol use | Brief mention of kissing and intimate activities (very very brief and very very mild)

Word count: 600 approximately.

Summary: It is not everyone who captures Daemon Blackfyre's especial attention. But what happens after that?

Minors DNI | 18+

Rules and tag form here | Prompts for requests here

You could still remember the first time you saw him.

The bastard son of Daena the Defiant, the one known to all as Blackfyre, rode up to the lists, all proud and tall and fierce, with his beaten silver hair and bewitching lavender eyes that could beckon even the most resolute of maidens like a siren's call. His silver spurs jingled sweetly even as they glinted wickedly in the brilliant summer sun. His milky white courser had been resplendent in red and black silks that swirled around it whenever it broke into a run.

It was the most beautiful of days, all bright and golden and glorious. The crowd roared every time Daemon broke his lance and unhorsed his opponent. They would gasp when his foe fell to the earth with a sickening clangor. They would applaud when the fallen knight struggled to his feet. Daena would cheer louder than all the rest, her eyes filled with unbridled pride. Daemon was her child, her light, her life, and her joy. And yet, it was not her he sought out, but you. Out of all the ladies present, Daemon sought you out.

"Victory would be all but assured, sweet lady," he had declared, "if I had the great honor of wearing a token of your esteem."

You honored him, bestowing upon him not just a bejeweled token but a great many other things even as the days melted into each other. It was you he came to for companionship; it was you he turned to in the dances. He would tenderly lead you, his feet as light as air, his touch as gentle as a feather. His laughter would ring across the grounds, as clear as dawn bells. There was magic as light and sweet as summer wine, and the two of you drank deeply during those heady nights.

Oh, how heady indeed were those nights. Daemon wooed you and courted you, his kisses tasting like strawberries and cherries and bright spring mornings. His hair smelled like warm summer nights. His skin tasted of sunlight. You both knew it would never last, for he was the son of a Targaryen princess, and you were of little consequence to be considered a worthy consort for one such as him. Still, the two of you made the most of what the Gods gave you that season, delighting in summer days and summer nights and sweet, sweet summer wine. And when he left, you wept not, content to hold onto the memories that kept you warm many a cold autumn night, thinking that perhaps, some day, he would come for you and take you for his own.

That would never be. He wed another, quarreled, and warred, and now you were here, in this faraway field, standing before the great winged warhelm that was all that remained of his grave marker. The wonder and terror of his age, your summer love, snuffed out in the blink of an eye. If you did not weep then, you wept now, your eyes filling and stinging with uncontrollable tears. Did he think of you, of those glorious days and nights the two of you shared? Had he ever considered seeking you out, even for a moment? Unspeakable grief welled up and spilled over like a mighty flood. The lady he would go on to marry had his children. You had nothing of him, save for his winged warhelm, and, of course, the memories of summer days and summer nights and sweet, sweet summer wine.

[scotianostra]

November 25th 1681 General Tam Dalyell raised a regiment to suppress Covenanters which later became the Royal Scots Greys.

Also known as Bluidy Tam, General Dalyell, became notorious for his suppression of the Covenanters at the Battle of Rullion Green, in the Pentland Hills, in 1666. Little more than a thousand Protestant 'rebels' had marched from Dumfries towards Edinburgh, armed only with scythes, pitchforks and staves. Tam is said to have been disgusted with his soldiers after they killed men women and children, and resigned his commission.

Earlier in his life, while fighting for Charles I in the civil war he had been imprisoned after Oliver Cromwell won the Battle of Worcester. He managed to escape from the Tower of London and fled to Russia where he achieved high rank in the army of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, father of Peter the Great in Russia and is said to have brought back a rather nasty invention back to Scotland with him, the dreaded thumbscrews. It was his time there that gained him the other unenviable nickname "Muscovite De'il", where he also noted while in Russia that it was much more difficult to spot Russian soldiers than traditional "British Red Coats". Therefore he also brought back the stipulation that the Scots Greys wore grey uniforms as camouflage, which was successfully used against the Covenanters. He had also raised a regiment of infantry in 1666, but no records of the foot regiment exist today.

Another interesting legend about the man is connected with a Marble topped card table that it is said during a particularly fraught card match played between the General and the devil was thrown at Dalyell , but missed and ended going out the window, landing in a nearby pond, a marble table was indeed found when the pond dried up 200 years later. The cards, goblet and spoon, supposedly used in the game are displayed in the house. The General is said to have told the Devil, who threatened to blow down his house and its walls, that "I will build me a turret at every corner to pin down my walls".

In August 1685 Lieutenant-General Tam Dalyell died at his town house just off John Street in the burgh of the Canongate where he lived with his fourth wife Marion Abercrombie. But the story didn't end there.......

Following military tradition his boots were hung in reverse from the saddle of his horse while his martial baton was carried on the top of the coffin. Troopers of the Royal Scots Dragoons, the red-coated Scots Guards and six field guns escorted his funeral procession. Watched by hundreds of citizens, who lined the route, the sombre military procession with muffled drums beating wound its way slowly up the hill through Portsburgh leaving the city by the west gate, now known as West Port.

"Old Tom of Muscovy" as he had been nick named by King Charles II was buried beside his parents in the family vault at Abercorn Church not far from the ancestral home, The Binns. Tam's third son John took his father's cavalry boots back to his home at Lingo in Fife but he was forced to return them to The Binns. Every night when he took them off they awakened the sleeping household as they marched around the house. It was said that if cold water was poured into them, it would quickly come to a boil!!!

Although he was long gone, Tam's legend continues to grow. On pitch black nights the General mounted on a white charger could be seen entering his estate by the Black Lodge situated on the road between Bo' ness and Queensferry. Clattering across the ruined bridge over the Errack Burn, the ghostly horse and rider would gallop up the old road to the Binns.

[a-mysterious-wisp-of-mist]

Home sweet home (1/?)

Once again, Eugène has set out to explore the strange realms of the afterlife. This time, however, while walking the dusty road leading away from Monsieur Goya’s cottage, in some undefined direction, through some undefined and vaguely Spanish-looking countryside, he’s starting to connect some dots (or so he thinks).

Both Marshal Soult and Marshal Lannes (or rather "Roi Nicolas" and "Sir Roland" Lannes) have assured him that there must be a way for him to find his own place in these realms. His journey to find Monsieur Goya has shown him that, in order to get to a certain point, he needs to focus his thoughts and energy on it (not that he’s quite sure how this is done), and that, the longer he stays in a place and with people unrelated to his memories, the weaker his grip on this afterlife seems to get.

So, obviously he needs to go to an important place connected to his memories in order to find his own home. Right?

There’s only one problem: Not many places feel like home in Eugène’s memories. Whereever he stayed during his adult life, and no matter how much he loved the place, he only ever was representing somebody else there or enjoying another person’s hospitality. Without ever fully realizing it, and surely without ever resenting it, he has to some degree lived the life of a vagabond. A pampered and spoilt vagabond, but still a vagabond at heart.

Auguste is going to kill me if I ever tell her this.

But even in a life full of war and unrest, there must have been a certain sense of security, of belonging once. He fondly remembers the town of Fontainebleau, the home of his aged grandfather, where he would meet with his mother and sister during school holidays, where his father was present at least in one of the paintings on the wall of the salon, and sometimes even in person, during one of his rare and embarrassed visits. The narrow streets Eugène had roamed as a child, the small buildings with their two or three stories and large shuttered windows, where he knew every gate, every fence, where people would recognize and greet him as he walked by – did this not represent some sort of home? Surely it was the closest thing to a childhood home Eugène had known, and surely this has made big enough of an impact on his mind to allow him to find this place again now?

Maybe it has indeed. Without Eugène even realizing it, his surroundings have changed. The scorching heat and the dusty road have been replaced by a cloudy sky and a gentle breeze on cobbled streets. Houses have grown out of the ground and lined up along the alleys, gathered around small squares. There are people on the streets, wearing the somewhat old-fashioned clothes of Eugène's childhood, only a few at first, but more and more the further Eugène goes.

It takes a while untile he realizes that something is amiss.

The buildings seem to have grown - or has he himself rather shrunk? Passers-by seem to have grown taller, too. Eugène's point of view has turned into that of a child. Both people and buildings tower over him. Is that the reason why there's suddenly so little sunlight anymore, why the sky seems even darker than before, why the shadows seem to have thickened and grown?

No, it's not. The sky has indeed grown black, it may start raining soon, the wind has turned chilly. People are holding torches and wearing dark, hooded cloaks all of a sudden, Eugène cannot recognize their faces anymore, can barely make out if they have any. The buildings have indeed changed, too, they are wider, have far more stories and larger, more decorated portals than those Eugène remembers from Fontainebleau, they sport doors ridiculously wide and high, cold white marble columns rising up until they almost disappear in the twilight, heavy enough to topple over and bury you beneath their weight...

This does not feel like Fontainebleau at all anymore. And indeed, it isn't.

Eugène does not want to, but he is dragged along with the crowd, people all moving in the same direction, gathering like in trance, moving like automatons. In vain he tries to turn, to squirm free, to run in the opposite direction. He does not want to go there. He knows where this is, when this is, as he is pushed closer and closer to a place everyone who's lived in Paris during that time would immediately recognize.

The place du Trône-Renversé.

He can hear the rattling of the cart before he sees it, frozen with shock, his heart beating in his chest as if to compete with the drum rolls echoing through the street, eyes wide with fear. He can see the convicts' heads moving above those of the crowd, as if already detached from their bodies, and while he can make out barely anything in the sudden darkness that has engulfed his surroundings, he can clearly recognise the faces of those in the cart.

Can clearly recognise those eyes that blindly stare into his own.

Papa!