#the comfort will come later!

[willowworkswithwords]

This is still sad boy hours for Eddie, but I promise it’ll eventually get better!! 

The “Eddie hates his hair -- except he won’t always” series - pt. 1 

----

The theater area of the school is full of props and books and left-behind clothes and knick-knacks. Eddie had wanted to join, but his mom told him there was no way his dad would stand for that, and Eddie got the picture. She may not care much what happens to her, but his mom cares about what happens to him, so he listens.

Being here makes that want surface, but then he catches his reflection in a half-covered mirror and remembers why he’s here.

The hat has started to make his hair look worse. It’s lumpy where the mat has started to clump real bad and he couldn’t get the grease stains out of it from when he’d tried the margarine.

Annie’s late. Eddie tries to push down the worry. Annie’s a smart girl, he knows she’ll get past the bullies best she could. But the worst thing for Annie is home, and if Eddie knows one thing, Eddie knows dads.

She’d been wearing her mom’s makeup that morning.

Just as he’s about to pace a rut in the hardwood, Annie walks in, backpack over one shoulder.

“Jesus, Annie! I thought you’d gotten hit by the fuckin’ train!”

Annie glares at him, the slightest bit of her snarky smile showing through her scowl.

“I’ve lived by the train for my whole life Eddie, if I was gonna get hit by it I would’ve gotten hit when I was a kid.”

Eddie groans but laughs at her. It’s hard to stay mad when it’s Annie.

“So…”

Now that she’s here, the mat seems like it’s taken up sentience, like it’s attached itself to his soul and knows it’s about to be taken away. He’s all of a sudden terrified.

“Hey, I know what I’m doing, ok?” Annie walked over to one of the big mirrors with lightbulbs around it like Eddie’s seen in old Hollywood movies. “Sit down and take off your hat.”

It takes for-fucking-ever.

They fall in and out of silence. Eddie tells her all about Middle Earth, about Sam and Frodo and the ring and the journey to make the world better. She’d read The Hobbit a little bit ago, so she listens and asks questions like “why didn’t Bilbo leave just the ring in Erebor?” and Eddie tells her what he thinks. She tells him about the story she’s writing about kids given a quest by an evil old witch who’s really not evil at all, and before they know it, the sun is setting.

“Well, I got, like, the bottom done. What do you think?”

Eddie looks up from his lap. Annie is right behind him, watching his face in the mirror and his hair…

…Looks so much better.

“Oh my God, Annie, I love you.”

“It’s not even done.”

“Yeah but now I can put it in a ponytail to keep it out of my way and I can throw away this fucking hat.”

Eddie squeezes her in a tight hug and she laughs and laughs.

“We’ll meet here after school tomorrow? And I can finish it?”

“Yeah! Just don’t get caught on the wrong side of the train, yeah?”

Annie laughs again and they start their walk. Eddie lives four blocks away from her, and he lives seven blocks from school. He contemplates walking her back, hates that she’s gotta walk alone because she stayed late for him. But she tells him her dad will lose his shit if he sees Eddie and knows she took the hair stuff, so he grips her in another hug and tells her to call him when she gets home.

As they part, Eddie realizes there’s a car sitting in front of the door to their building. His dad is home.

The night is a blur. The morning comes so different from the day before that Eddie almost thinks it was a dream. Eddie’s in the police station, social worker sitting by his side with a clipboard and a massive stack of papers. Eddie feels himself answering her questions but all he can see is his mom’s body on the kitchen floor and his Dad sat at the table, head in his hands, and shattered dishes crunching beneath Eddie’s feet.

They tell him he’s going down to southern Indiana, to live with his uncle. They tell him he’s lucky he’s not going into the system, that he’s lucky he’s leaving the city and the shitty apartment, that he’s lucky he wasn’t home. But he just keeps seeing his mom on the floor and hearing the way his own scream had echoed against the shitty linoleum floor and wonders if someone is going to grab his backpack before he’s taken away.

A garbage back is set at his feet and a police officer gently puts a baseball cap on Eddie’s head. It says IMPD and Eddie feels numb. They don’t let him say goodbye to Annie and Eddie is shuffled into the social worker’s car. They drive and drive, city to suburbs to country to way out nowhere. The social worker, Sherry, tells him the ride is only about an hour and a half, but Eddie doesn’t feel anything, so he doesn’t care.

Hawkins has a cheery little sign as they cross over its border, and the downtown is the size of the block between his old school and the convenience store he and Annie would steal caramels from. The trailer park is on the far side of town. It looks like the one in Kentucky, just smaller. He remembers Wayne faintly, from his earliest faded memories.

He can’t make himself get out of the car when Sherry stops. Wayne is sitting on the couch on the porch smoking, and Eddie feels numb, sees his mom on the floor, hears his own scream.

Wayne comes over, meets Sherry at the foot of the short steps to the front door. They talk for a little, Wayne glancing into the car every few seconds. Sherry pats him on the shoulder then goes into the trailer and Wayne starts walking towards Eddie.

He opens the driver’s side door. Eddie is numb. Wayne looks at him, studying. Eddie can feel that. They wait together in the car until Sherry comes out. Wayne comes to the other side of the car and opens it for Eddie.

“Can I hold your bag for you, kid?”

Eddie grips the garbage bad closer. Wayne lets out a hum and steps back.

“Ok, kid. Come on in, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

Eddie doesn’t really know why he got out of Sherry’s car. Maybe it’s Wayne, maybe it’s the need to keep going, or maybe it’s the barely there, faint feeling, the glimmer he can feel just beyond the sight of his dad, the sight of his mom. It doesn’t really matter, because he does get out of the car, and Wayne doesn’t put a hand on his should even though it looks like he wants to, and Eddie walks in to see a bunch of Wayne’s stuff on the couch and he gets to place his trash bag by the neatly made bed in the trailer’s only bedroom. Wayne lets him have his TV dinner in the room, and when Eddie goes to bed, he presses himself up against the wall, cocooned in the blankets Wayne had piled high, and wants his mom.

[kaiju-krew]

stargazing⭐

[the--nightcrawler]

On shore leave ✶⋆.˚ Part 1 ♡ Part 2, Part 3

[cooking-with-hailstones]

A few good words from @gendersauce on Instagram

They were helpful to me and maybe they'll be helpful to you. We will get through this. This is not the end.

[ruporas]

drank too much

[ID: Digital Art of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. Vash’s body is turned slightly away from the viewer as he holds a staggering Wolfwood by his shoulder. He has one foot ahead of the other, the foot in the back used to stabilize himself from tipping over. Wolfwood is tethering into Vash, his weight pressed into him with his arms wrapped around Vash’s waist and his face is hidden away as he leans against Vash’s shoulder. Vash’s expression can be seen, his eyes wide and mouth tight-lipped, and his face is flushed red. A speech bubble comes out from Wolfwood, saying a drawled “Spikeyyy...”. The background are desaturated pastels of blue and green, showing night time, as they stand in the middle of an empty street that is also lit by the moon not depicted. Yellow light is seen coming from the inside of a saloon. End ID]

[milkamel]

Hanahaki disease my beloved.. such a cool concept that has so many opportunities >:3 And no fluff today, just angst with no comfort!! <3

Killer belongs to rahafwabas Cross belongs to jakei

[caycanteven]

"You are a stubborn little thing, do you know that?"

"I do. Though, would you have me any different?"

"No, I would not."

"Why?"

"I would miss the way your soul burns with passion for what you believe in."

"How romantic. Anything else?"

"...and with how adorable it is that you think you can challenge me."

"Ah, there it is."

[foldingfittedsheets]

I start my new-old job on Wednesday selling beds. I’m antsy. It’s gonna be a new routine to get into and it’s gonna be an official pause on game jobs for a year unless I wanna burn this bridge to the ground.

I need to get some button ups today, pick plums because I promised my nana, ideally groceries would happen but like. Who knows. And I need to bust out story illustrations.

I’m already so tired.

[starry-bi-sky]

Okay so this is almost a direct copy-paste of my earlier reblog but only the Xin Yuan parts, because its long enough to be its own post and i want to share it! It deserves it's own post <3 typical starry stuff to write a 2k word long reblog, unfortunately.

I say almost because I went through to proof read and ended up adding more stuff.

I've been cooking on this idea for the last two days since I saw the Xin Mo!Shen Yuan post but??? I can't find anything on Xin Mo's backstory or how it came to be -- which means that's free fucking plot right there baby. That's a sandbox and im making LIFE SIZED CASTLES. I'm so excited.

The idea of Shen Yuan transmigrating centuries before the events of PIDW as Xin Mo -- but when he wakes up, he's not the sword. He wakes up in the body of a young boy named Xin Yuan. Now it makes sense for this boy to be a demon, but the drama, the intrigue, the spice of Xin Yuan being a human child.

SY wakes up as a boy below the age of ten, and the System tells him where he is, and SY is excited to meet his favorite protagonist -- only to gradually realize that he's like, a thousand years or so before the events of the novel. The rant he gives the system is legendary.

Bc what's the point of getting dropped into PIDW if he's never going to meet his favorite character??? This is a scam! BUT he settles into his new life, he's like, some orphan street rat or some other tragic airplane-esq backstory.

The system gives Shen Yuan his first mandatory quest: become a righteous cultivator. Which was like, kinda his plan/hopes anyways, except! There's like?? No official cultivator sects anywhere? The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect hasn't even been established yet, and there are pockets of cultivators running around, maybe some groups or schools popping up and then sinking back down, but nothing's really taken root!

If he asks someone how to become a cultivator, there's no straight answer. No "oh you can go to X to do that". He's pissed! How can he become a cultivator if there aren't any schools around to teach him? Deus ex machina, that's how.

Out of sheer luck, SY manages to help save a rogue cultivator, and promptly gets adopted by said rogue cultivator, who gives SY the name 'Xin Yuan'. He is ecstatic. And you know what? It's actually pretty fun!

He's getting to travel the world of PIDW in its early stages, and gets to see the building blocks for the eventual main story. He's discovering all this local flora and fauna that are foreign to his old world and unmentioned in the book, and he's learning cultivation! Granted, its unsafe, newly(ish) discovered cultivation, but it counts!

Wistfully, he thinks about perhaps he'll do something grand and get his name carved into legend. Something that would eventually help the protagonist later down the line in his quest for revenge.

The system remains silent to his thoughts.

But Xin Yuan doesn't take much stock in that daydream anyways. It's nothing more than fantasy to him; wish-fulfillment. He does discover however, that he is positively brimming with spiritual energy. Overwhelmingly so.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as it puts a strain on his meridians if he's not careful, and leaves him prone to qi deviations for the exact same reasons. He already has a heart demon or two from a few traumatic experiences in the past.

(bc hey! angst a day keeps the writer sadism at bay, and all that)

I'll say he's about... eight when he gets picked up by the rogue cultivator, who I'm calling Lin Kai bc he deserves a name. They travel around PIDW up until Xin Yuan is twelve, where he goes through a traumatic experience that results in a heart demon.

It's after that that Lin Kai decides to put a stop to his wandering, and find a place to settle down to raise Xin Yuan in. Coincidentally! They settle down in a nice mountain region that's thriving with spiritual energy. The mountains at the time were called something different, but they will be eventually known as the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect

Coincidentally, the mountain Lin Kai and Xin Yuan end up on is Qing Jing Peak. XY does not realize that the mountain he's on is Qing Jing. The System does not tell him. But he likes it there, more than he was expecting. And as much as he's traveled around, he really does enjoy being in one place.

He has a tendency to go down the mountain and help the village setting up down there, and when he's a teenager he starts venturing out more and more.

Xin Yuan forgets sometimes that he's in a novel, especially after settling down on Qing Jing peak. The system becomes remarkably quiet since there's no quests for him to do and not a ton of opportunities to get B-Points. He cultivates with Lin Kai, helps tend to the garden they're growing, goes down to the village to play with the other kids.

There's one boy he's best friends with, a boy whose not all that good with words, named Liu Zhihao. He's got potential for cultivation though, so Xin Yuan drags him up the mountain when he can so that Liu Zhihao can sit in on lessons with Lin Kai. He drags him all over the forest at the foot of the mountain to go look at bugs and animals.

(One time, when they're fourteen and Liu Zhihao has been learning cultivation for a few years now, Xin Yuan drags him out of bed late one night to go look at the stars. Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao about ascension -- something that still feels like a far off dream to many in this time -- that night, while they're sitting on the wet grass.)

("We should ascend together." Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao, jade eyes gleaming. Never let it be said that Xin Yuan doesn't love deeply, no matter what kind of love it is. He was always so lonely as Shen Yuan, Liu Zhihao is his best friend. "We'll become immortals, and then we won't ascend until the other is able to.")

(Liu Zhihao stares at him silently, his face unreadable. Then, quietly, he asks; "Promise?")

("Promise.")

When he starts adventuring outwards, further away from the mountain and the village, Liu Zhihao sticks to him like rice. Not that Xin Yuan's complaining, that's his best friend after all, and Liu Zhihao has become a formidable cultivator. He deserves to show off his skills.

He starts making something of a name for himself by the time he's, like, 18 -- although that name is in its baby steps, along with Liu Zhihao. They're slowly growing renown.

Perhaps XY uses his knowledge of PIDW and cultivation in general to help make advancements in the cultivation field. Although the system prevents him from sharing too much, it doesn't mean he can't practice it himself. Perhaps he's one of the first cultivators to develop a golden core. One of the first known immortal cultivators. One of the first to have a spirit sword.

(Although I don't know the logistics of any of this since my knowledge on xanxia/cultivation stuff in general is all still pretty new and google wasn't all that helpful lol.)

Either way, its my excuse to eventually make Xin Yuan come across as ethereal to other people. Peerless beauty SY for the win. Hs wifebeam is too strong, Xin Yuan has a line of suitors following after him and he's completely unaware of it. The rest of history is not.

Demon realm stuff has been stirring up since Xin Yuan was a kid, but at the time it was rare and in the beginning stages. Its been steadily ramping up and the system is sending him on more and more treacherous quests -- some of them mandatory, some optional. SY doesn't often take the optional ones unless it comes with a sufficient B-point reward.

for all intents and purposes though, he's a wandering rogue cultivator with Liu Zhihao, going from place to place to either help a town or village, or to discover more creatures or artifacts (although there aren't that many). Just all around living his life. He participates in a few major quest lines that are sure to get him mentioned in legend, even if it's a background character way.

(Unbeknownst to him, rather than being a side character in these legends, he's named directly. You can't become one of the first immortal cultivators and NOT get name dropped for clout.)

He has a spirit sword named Shā Mó, (杀 shā - to kill/weaken/counteract/reduce) (魔 mó - evil spirit, demon, possession). He routinely goes back to QJP to see Lin Kai, or to rest when traveling has worn down on him and he wants nothing more than to sleep somewhere he knows he'll be safe in. It becomes more frequent as Xin Yuan becomes more famous. Liu Zhihao often comes with him.

it all comes to a head though when the rifts between the demonic realm and the human realm become too great, and the balance between both realms becomes unstable. A demonic emperor's influence, wanting to merge the two realms so he could conquer both to satiate his own greed.

Typical evil king stuff. This comes to a climatic head in a great battle between every cultivator available and the demon emperor's army. Xin Yuan was one of the many who helped lead the charge.

In the end, it was Xin Yuan who ends up defeating the demonic emperor, but the rift that the emperor used to cross between worlds is destabilizing as well. Except instead of trying to close, it's getting bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow the heavens and earth and demonic realm whole.

You know how Yue Qingyuan's soul is bonded to his sword due to a qi deviation? Let's take it a step further >:)

Xin Yuan uses himself and Shā Mó to close the rift. However, it takes all of his spiritual energy to do so, as well as him filtering the demonic qi into his body to redirect it back to the demon realm.

In the end, Xin Yuan and his beloved sword Shā Mó fuse. Xin Yuan's soul becomes trapped in the sword. His physical body is unable to handle the immense amount of power it takes to close the rift, and is destroyed. He is immortalized in legend by his grieving cultivators.

(Liu Zhihao ends up ascending alone. He ascends with the hope that one day he'll see Xin Yuan again, even if it's in the face of someone else. Lin Kai does not ascend, too weighed down by the grief of losing his son.)

Xin Yuan, now Xin Mo, falls into a stasis. He's very confused and disorientated when he regains 'consciousness'. The system has been silent for most of his life, only popping up to give him mandatory quests, hints, points, or to answer any questions.

But once he wakes up, it cheerfully pops up again, congratulating him on completing the origin story of Xin Mo. SY freaks the fuck out. he'd shake the system screen if he could, but he doesn't have arms. or legs. or eyes for that matter.

He can sense his surroundings, but its all like imprints to him. He can sense the energies, but he can't see anything. It's all very disorientating and horrifying after years of being human. Like a sensory deprivation chamber.

The closing of the rift and the cycling demonic qi tainted both Sha Mo and Xin Yuan irreparably, and it did some kind of damage that resulted in SY needing to feed in order to use the spiritual powers. Kinda like how Xuan Su uses YQY's life force for it's spiritual energy, but instead of feeding on his own lifeforce, Xin Mo feeds on others.

The rest is history. Xin Mo is originally tied to the story of Xin Yuan -- believed to be all that remained of the man after he sacrificed himself to keep the realms separate. It's believed that the force of the realms closing permanently infused Sha Mo with demonic energy, turning it into Xin Mo.

But, like many stories do when faced against the tide of time, things get lost; chipped off; changed. Xin Mo is steadily separated from Xin Yuan, especially once it becomes clear how parasitic the sword really is, until they are all but separate entities themselves and the origin of Xin Mo's creation all but forgotten.

The years blur together when Xin Mo is not being wielded, and at first Xin Yuan was agonized by the fact that he stole the lives of all his wielders. He knows it's only a novel, but his decades spent in this life have softened him, and he's grown attached to the world around him.

But time erodes the mind like water erodes stone, and he becomes numb to it, then eventually anticipating of it. He forces himself to remember what he knows of PIDW's plot, and kinda fixates back on his old obsession on Luo Binghe. But while PIDW stays in his mind, his memories as Xin Yuan fall to the wayside.

Not forgotten, per se, but... tucked away. The system prevents him from forgetting fully.

Xin Mo isn't fully a demonic sword either i think, but instead harbors an ugly cocktail of both spiritual and demonic qi. Special circumstances and all that. Everyone just assumes he's a fully demonic sword because that's usually at the forefront, his spiritual qi weakened from the initial fusion and from years of not being fed spiritual qi. It's part of the reason his wielders always end up destroyed by him, other than the whole, yk, 'overwhelming qi' thing.

Nobody would recognize Xin Mo's human form as Xin Yuan other than some truly ancient demons. Of which Meng Mo might. But even that's iffy because there's a lack of surviving paintings of Xin Yuan, but also because of XM's demonic appearance and supposed lack of connection to XY.

Xin Mo has never spoken to his wielders before, not in the same way he does Luo Binghe. He tells Luo Binghe this, and he also tells Luo Binghe down the line that he is both spiritual and demonic -- something he also never told his wielders because there was no point to it.

okay okay i've got to end it here because its already gotten ridiculously long -- of which im both apologetic and unapologetic for -- but i DO think the Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meeting (and reveal) would be fucking hilarious. Especially if SY has learned how to pop between sword form and human form by then -- although i guess it doesnt matter either way because SQH's reaction is still the same.

And that reaction is internally screaming and going "hey what the FUCK?? WHY DOES XIN MO HAVE A HUMAN FORM??? WHAT IS THIS??? SYSTEM??? EXPLAIN???"

meanwhile from his place on the sword hilt xin mo is squinting at Shang Qinghua in bewilderment and going "aren't you supposed to be dead" but doesn't pay too much mind to it because its not like its going to change anything.

...up until he catches shang qinghua going "WTF" silently from his little corner while all eyes are off him. One moment SQH is standing beside his king, and the next he's been tackled to the ground by one wild-eyed, human-shaped Xin Mo.

everyone, including SQH, thinks Xin Mo is going to kill him. It is a surprise to everyone when he does not, and instead dissolves into deranged, uncontrollable laughter after spitting out some phrase in some ancient tongue and watching SQH's eyes grow wide in recognition.

[ryllen]

[ But i wish, the '"interesting" him' I am talking to right now, Hold some part of truth of the 'true him'. ]

----

( a bit of thought after seeing their 2 interactions on x & x )

[scarlct-vvitch]

do you think jenna marbles knows how appreciated and irreplaceable her presence on youtube was? does she know that she mastered the craft of making a video feel like hanging out with a treasured friend? do you think she knows that she was one of the last youtubers to feel genuine in her craft, making videos for the fun of it rather than making everything polished, elaborate, and distanced? does she know that even four years later we still miss her? does she know that an era of the internet ended when she left? i hope she knows we saw her. i hope she's having a great time.

[st-hedge]

The only benefit of my arm not working properly rn is that I’m cornered into getting the story for these idiots ready for posting in August

[twstjam]

Book 7 Spoilers ahead!!!

hmmmmm Lilia x Reader where you're a member of the Silver Owls but you have no loyalty to them so you betray them by secretly playing spy for the fae in exchange for peace, quiet, and safety if you help them win. The fae don't really trust you, especially Lilia, but he knows opportunity when he sees one. They just have to be careful about how much they trust you.

Because of the nature of your agreement you end up meeting up and exchanging letters with the Phantom General of the Briar fae a lot to relay information. At first it's just that and your meetings are all really just pure business, but then Lilia complains about Princess Malenoa and everyone pushing jobs onto him. This spurs you on to complain about Henrik and how all he does is order people around and lounge around all day. The two of you end up bonding over your demanding and tiring jobs and gradually grow closer each letter.

Aside from exchanging information, the two of you begin to exchange stories and tales and knowledge. You begin to know each other on different facets that no one else knows and confide in each other your deepest thoughts, fears, and insecurities. The two of you have a lot in common and understand each other so well that it just makes it so easy and natural and comfortable to be open like this. No one else have ever made either of you feel safe enough to share your most deepest secrets (not even Malenoa and Revan in Lilia's case. They're his best friends but they're also his superiors. There's just some things he can't talk about with them.) so it's so nice to finally find someone that does.

The two of you fall slowly, but you fall hard.

Neither of you admit this to each other of course. A war is no time for something as silly and trivial as love and romance and you both know that neither of you have time for a relationship. So you both pine and yearn in silence, either from your fortresses miles away from each other, or several feet apart on the rare occasions you meet up in person—so close yet still so far.

In one of your letters you relay to Lilia your worry that someone might be catching on. Lilia's heart twists in fear and his mind races with paranoid thoughts and possibilities. He doesn't show any concern in his response aside from acknowledging your worry, but he does tell you to be careful. He reasons that it would be unfortunate for the fae if their most valuable informant were to be discovered. (he activated tsundere mode to cope)

He sends the letter and goes about his duties. Days pass. Weeks. He realises during some off-time that he hasn't heard from you in a while. More time passes. No sign of a response from you.

Lilia says to himself that it's fine. It's nothing. It's no big deal. You're probably just occupied, or finally realised how dangerous it was to keep associating with the enemy. It's fine. The fae forces have managed before without your assistance. It's fine it's fine it's fine

he's not fine

(Part 2)

[monkeybebop]

“This dude looks handsome, no?”

Still tryna figure out how to draw Lalo, bear with me here.

[knownoshamc]

my HC that Louis didn't go in the 1500k smut of his sex with Armand, like he did with his first time with Lestat, not because sex with Armand was mediocre, but because simply Armand isn't that comfortable with that and he prefers the fade to black version.

[varpusvaras]

There was no actual dating involved when it came to being a royal.

At least not officially. Officially speaking, things started with establishing an interest, then doing some light mingling and talking that was strictly supervised, and then getting to have talks that were private, which, most of the time, were done by letters and other forms of messages. Then started the proper courting, which would gradually escalate to public courting, and finally to engagement. The engagements could last for a while, too, especially if both parties were young.

Unofficially, of course, especially during this age, all royals and nobles dated. It was just a bit of an quieter affair than other people tended to have, but it was still dating. Breha and Bail had definitely dated for a long while between their official talks and courting. Breha's parents had wanted to give her a bit more of a relaxed experience, as they had become a lot more careful with her after the fall. Bail's parents had been much the same, but Bail suspected that they were also secretly relieved over the fact that Bail had truly decided to adhere to his status, so they were willing to give him a bit leeway with some things, so he wouldn't feel pressured and get cold feet.

Not that he would've. Bail had been smitten with her from the moment she had said her first word to him. He would've given away all his other hopes and dreams, if that meant he could be with her.

Still, despite all of this, because of Breha's status as the Crown Princess, in public, they had to follow the rules. Which meant, amongst other things, that many of their activities before being engaged were severely limited by what was considered proper.

Not that Bail cared, again. He loved every second he got to spend with Breha, not matter what they were doing.

Walks were the one thing that was permitted to do in public from the very start. They did that a lot. Morning walks, if Bail was staying in Aldera and could come visit her before any other daily obligations. Afternoon walks, when the courts and lessons were on pause, and Breha wished to get some fresh air after hours of studying. Evening walks, when Bail could stretch his visit just a little further, when the city had quieted down and the stars were bright, and he could reach over without anyone batting an eye and hold her in his arms and kiss her sweetly, with his nervous heartbeat sputtering inside his ribcage.

They still did a lot of walks. Maybe it was because of nostalgia, or maybe it was so Bail could spend time with her after being away for weeks on end, and still enjoy Alderaan to the fullest. These days, their walks were longer and could take them far away from the Palace, as there was nothing that could limit them anymore.

It was precisely because all of those reasons why they were currently making their way up the trail outside Aldera. To get away from the city life and enjoy the clear skies and clean air, to clear their heads after long days of working, and to spend time together, as just Breha and Bail, and not as the Queen and the Senator.

It was a bit windy, but in all honesty, it also felt refreshing after spending so much time in the stale air of Coruscant. Bail glanced up. The lookout point was still some ways away, with newly constructed path of hardwood stairs leading up to it for the rest of the way. The view from up there would be spectacular.

Not that Bail was in too much hurry to get to the destination. Not when the whole way there was the point.

He turned back to Breha.

"I hope the path is not too steep", he joked.

Breha laughed.

"I have climbed higher mountains with much less paths", she said. She squeezed his hand. "I'm much more worried about you. The only thing you have climbed in a while are the carpeted stairs of the Senate."

Bail laughed as well.

"I climb those stairs enough times that I would already be on the top and back down again", he said.

Breha grinned.

"It's good to have you back home", she said.

Bail smiled back at her.

"It's good to be back home", he said. "I missed you."

"I missed you too", Breha said. She turned her head, and looked down, towards the city and the Palace visible in the distance. "The view is stunning."

"It is", Bail nodded. "And it will be even better from the top."

Breha didn't answer. She just looked out to the city. The wind was whipping her hair around and pulling it out from the neat braid they had been arranged into earlier that day.

She wasn't smiling anymore.

Bail frowned.

"Breha?" He called out to her. "Is everything alright?"

The wind was seriously picking up now, and was suddenly cold, like it was in the middle of the winter, instead of a bright summer's day.

"I missed you", Breha said. Bail tried to squeeze her hand comfortingly, but there was nothing in his grasp anymore. When had he stopped holding her hand?

"Breha", Bail called, and tried to reach for her hand again, but she was standing too far away for him to do so. He was already uphill, on the stairs, while she was still standing at the trail, looking down over the side of the mountain. She wasn't looking at the city anymore, just staring straight down towards the foot of the mountain.

"I missed you", she said, again. "Aren't we missing someone?"

She stepped forward. Bail hadn't noticed that she had gotten off the trail before she was already falling over the edge.

He had no time to move. He could only stand there as she fell, quickly disappearing from his view. He still heard it when she hit the ground, the hard cracking of bones breaking and the body spilling over.

Bail tried to scream. If he did scream, the sound disappeared into the roiling wind.

"Why did you do that?"

He turned around to look up the stairs. Fox was standing at the top of them, looking down at him. The red of his armor was casting a stark, red refliction on the stone surface of the stairs, that was spilling over each step, until it pooled beneath Bail's feet.

He had his helmet on, but Bail could still see his eyes. The sun was shining straight at them, but it was like he didn't even notice. He just stared at Bail with his dull, dark eyes.

They should've been golden. Fox's eyes had always been a mixture of warmth of a autumn bonfire, the same depth that reminded Bail of Alderaan's night sky, and a burst of gold every time light hit them, like the most beautiful sunsets casted over Aldera from behind the mountains.

His eyes should've been golden, with the harsh, white light shining straight at them.

They were black.

"Why did you do that?" Fox asked again. "Why didn't you help her?"

Bail tried to open his mouth to say something, to say how sorry he was, to scream and cry, but he could make no sound to defend himself.

It was because there was nothing for him to say that would ever erase his mistakes.

Fox stared at him from behind the black visor of his helmet.

"Why didn't you help me?" He asked.

His mouth didn't move as he spoke.

"I am right here", he said.

He was. He was right there, just up the steps. If Bail could make his way up in time, he could help him.

He took a step forward. His foot made a hard thud when it hit the stone surface of the step, and the red shadow underneath him rippled, and the ripple turned into a wave, traveling at an impossible speed up the stairs, all the way to Fox, who toppled over when the wave reached him. His neck twisted to the side and cracked open before he even hit the hard stone, and he fell down on to the step, his limbs splayed out and his head turned towards Bail.

He was still staring at Bail.

"I am right here", he said, even though he was already dead.

Bail tried to scream, but there was no air inside his lungs. It had all disappeared into the wind around him, to the wind that was now a storm and was tearing off the moutain from the ground, and Bail woke up with his breath strangled inside his throat.

He laid there for a moment, staring at the darkness above him, before his body reminded him that he could still breathe by making his chest burn, and Bail gasped and desperately drew in a lungful of air.

He turned to his side and heaved the air back out, before he realised that it was in the middle of the night and that he was not alone in the room. He snapped his mouth shut and tried to breathed back in quietly through his teeth and calm down his painfully thundering heartbeat while doing so.

Then he remembered who were in the same room with him.

Bail turned around. Breha was sleeping in the middle tonight, after Fox and Bail had deemed her sufficiently pleased and had wanted to keep her in their holds afterwards. She wasn't wearing much more than a thin nightshirt, and through it, Bail could see the soft, golden glow under her skin, showing that she was breathing and her heart was beating.

Fox was sleeping with his face pressed onto Breha's arm, his blanket for once not draped up all the way to his shoulders, for which Bail was very thankful for, since now, when he sat up and and leaned over, he could see the same soft, golden glow under Fox's skin as well, running as a line from his neck down to small of his back.

Bail could finally breathe properly.

He looked at them for a little longer, and then laid back down. He breathed. His heart was gradually slowing down.

There were tears in his eyes. Bail wasn't sure if they had appeared there just now, or if he had been silently crying in his sleep, while he had not been able to do so in the dream.

Dream. That was all that it was. A dream. A nightmare.

Breha was alive, Fox was alive. It had just been a nightmare.

Bail let the tears fall down before wiping them away.

It was a good thing they had had some fun before going to sleep that night, because it looked like both Breha and Fox were still knocked out because of it, and had not woken up because of Bail's distress. Good. Bail wouldn't have wanted them to wake up.

He knew both of them would be disappointed in him if he ever admitted that to them.

Bail let some more tears fall down, and wiped them away again. He listened to Fox and Breha breathe, and breathed with them. Softly and slowly. He should go back to sleep.

He couldn't make himself close his eyes.

There was a knock on the door. Bail blinked, and lifted his head.

The knock came again before he could do anything else, this time much louder, very much as hard as a tiny fist could knock onto the door. The slow rhythm of Fox's breath stopped, and he lifted his head up as well. He saw Bail awake as well, and looked at him for the short moment it took for his brain to wake up.

"Is it Leia?" He mumbled.

"From the sound of it, yes." Bail was surprised how level and calm he managed to make himself sound.

Fox hummed.

"Are you dressed?" He asked.

"Sufficiently", Bail answered. Fox hummed again, and pushed himself up. Breha was waking up now as well, and she rubbed her eyes and slowly propped herself up on her elbow as Fox slid out of the bed.

"Bad dreams?" She asked, her voice quiet because of the sleep clinging to it.

Bail knew that she meant Leia.

"Maybe", he said, thankful that it was dark in the room.

Fox got the door open. He didn't even get to say anything, when Leia darted past him, her tiny feet sprinting as fast as they could, her breath coming in high-pitched hitches. She ran around the bed and clambered up on it, pulling at the sheets, and threw herself on Bail's chest.

Bail wrapped his arms around her on instinct, his body moving before his mind could.

"Leia?" He called. "What's wrong?"

She only crawled up on him when he spoke, putting her little arms around his neck and squeezing.

"Leia?" Bail tried again.

"Don't be scared", Leia said against his shoulder. "Don't be scared, Papa. Mama and Buir are here."

Oh. Bail felt a sting of guilt. He had not wanted to wake Leia up with the nightmare, either, but it seemed that his feelings had bled over to the real world much more strongly than he had even realised.

"I'm not", he said, squeezing her back. "I'm not, don't worry about me."

Fox had gotten back to bed now, and flicked the nightlight on.

"Oh", Breha said. She sat up properly now as well, her brow furrowed in a concerned frown. "Is everything alright?"

She reached her hand and brushed her fingers over Bail's cheek under his eye. Bail looked at her, and then at Fox, who had a very similar expression on him. Bail knew that he had not managed to dry all the tears properly enough.

Bail patted Leia gently on her back.

"Yes", he said, and gave Breha and Fox a look, hoping that they would understand that it meant that they would talk about it later.

It seemed like it worked, because they both nodded.

Breha then took her blanket.

"Move over", she said to Bail, and moved closer to the edge of the bed. Fox took his own blanket as well, and walked around the bed, sitting down in the edge and gently nudging Bail with his shoulder.

With Leia still in his arms, Bail moved to the middle of the bed, and laid back down when Breha put her hand on his shoulder and just as gently pushed him there. Fox draped Bail's blanket over both him and Leia, and then scooted so close that he could press his body against the side of Bail's.

Breha turned the light off and moved closer as well, resting her head against Bail's shoulder.

"Go back to sleep", she whispered. "We're right here."

She pressed her lips lightly on the skin there. Fox reached his hand and put it over Bail's, where it was resting on Leia's back.

Bail closed his eyes.