#the first pass i did on this design had way less white flecks but i was super unhappy with how she looked

[strawberryfrostedkitties]

[binniesthighs]

call me babydoll | reader x chan

soooo shhhh this actually a part one shhhh but i’m just trying out writing out different things and getting out some of my ideas outta my head that i’m really excited about, this one being one of them!! for now...just pretend that this is just a regular ol’ drabble hehehehe. this part is the set-up chapter (shhh i mean drabble) 

One

Pairing: self insert, female reader x bang chan 

Genre: fluff, smut, and angst 

Tags: (overall) bodyguard au, moderndayprince!chan, bodyguard!reader, secret agent au, royal au, action and peril, plot driven, running out of time, slow-ish burn, growing feelings, softswitch!chan, hardswitch!reader, some skz side characters, jeongin third wheel and comedic relief LOL, travelling, chan being expensive and having a lil bit of a superiority complex, flirtyyyy chan, bits of mystery, explicit language, mentions of food and alcohol, idk think like 007 vibes hehe 

CWs: guns and gun violence, a shooting in a ballroom, mentions of blood 

Word count: 4.6k 

Parts

ONE | TWO 

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here early.” 

“Well, expect the unexpected.” 

“Don’t turn the motto back at me. I’m sick of hearing it so many damn times.” 

“What? You and I both know that it’s true. You’re here early too, so, technically you don’t get to say anything.”��

Jeongin straightened his bow tie, then patted down the sides of his perfectly ironed tux with not a crinkle to be found. Knowing him, it was a miracle that he hadn’t messed it up in some form yet. He promptly took out his pocket square to clean off his glasses. 

“You’re looking nice. Seems like they don’t mind spending money now on you these days.” He blew off the flecks of dust on his lenses. 

“They know that they get their return on their investment. And thank you.” 

You smoothed down the sides of your dusty pink dress that nearly went all the way down to your ankles. Had you any other choice, it would’ve been something different, but, dresses were really good at hiding your thigh holster compared to the slacks you usually favored. You didn’t mind the times that you would have to put on a pretty dress, it somewhat reminded you that there was normal life outside of your job. Not to mention, they had started sending you jewelry as well. You always had liked the look of a diamond necklace. 

“You do your research for tonight?” 

Jeongin nodded, then took from his pocket his phone to read over the details. 

“I’ve done a background check on everyone attending, we shouldn’t have any issues. It’s already a low risk event anyway. Charity is never something to get too worked up over, but, you never know with the detail that some of these people come with...who they might be tied to...” 

“--The only people we can trust is ourselves.” You nodded with arms crossed. 

“Expect the unexpected, I know.” He slid his phone back into his inside suit pocket to adjust his cufflinks. 

“--Nervous?” You took note of his fidgeting actions. 

“Nervous? No. I’ve been through this before. You know that.” 

You flicked your partner right on his forehead strung with his white hair. You had really wished that he had picked a less conspicuous color, but he had strings to pull that you didn’t. 

Jeongin cleared his throat, “You do your once over?” 

“Do you even need to ask? I did it hours ago and when we arrived. You know that I’ve done this before too.” 

“I know. I know.” 

Jeongin looked out at the vast circular atrium that made up the center of the hotel. Several stories down under the glass rooftop, you could hear the faint sprinkling of the intricate fountain which smelled of copper. A bit further down, you could see the tips of the tree branches from the indoor landscaping. Across the way, a door slammed with residents tucking in their ties. The two men you had recognized from the roster: a simple thing which made you feel at ease. Your young partner must’ve started to have an effect on you. A sense of unease seemed to quell in your neck. You always listened to your hunches. 

“W-what do you think he thinks of us?” Jeongin broke the silence. 

“Well,” From inside the room you had waited outside, you could hear his distant murmuring, so you lowered your tone. “I think that he has yet to trust us. It’s only been a few weeks. He doesn’t seem like the kind to give himself up easy. That, and I’m sure his resentment of his father must have some influence.” 

“You think he hates us?” 

“I think he hates his father for hiring us. I mean, wouldn’t you? His old security detail, he had them for years.” 

“I guess so. But, we’re not like his old detail.” 

“No. We’re not. I don’t think he gets that yet. I think he sees us as one more way his father has a hold on him.” 

“It’s not like he can do much else about it when his dad’s a kin--” 

“--No, no, thank you, really, it’s lovely. Some of your best work. Thank you.” 

Chan swung open the door to his room, stopping Jeongin right in his sentence. 

“Ah. You’re here already. That’s...punctual.” 

As dazzling and showy as ever, Chan looking nothing short of a magazine model. For a prince, he had certain...appearances that he had to maintain. Today, it was a velvety and maroon suit jacket with a white button up. On the collar, two matching brooches had been perfectly placed, and they were silver like moonlight in the shape of English ivy and adorned with diamonds. On his lapel, he wore the royal insignia of the lion and the wolf. Behind him, you could see his slew of stylists cleaning up their makeup kits and obscene assortment of designer dress shoes for him to pick from. You had thought before that he even smelled like royalty: stuffy white roses with a hint of priceless cognac. 

Jeongin bowed his head respectfully. “Everything has been prepared for tonight. The rest of your guards are surrounding the building, and I’ll be corresponding with them as needed, your Highness.” He tapped at his earpiece. 

Chan drew his attention over to you, giving you a rather lusty glare. Over the past couple weeks, you had gotten used to it. He was a prince to every extent of the word. If there was anything that he had wanted, he simply had to ask. It drove him insane that all he could do was merely look at you. You had  wondered if he harbored anything else for you besides the way that he would devour the curves of your shoulders and hips. 

“Fox. Bee. You look nice tonight. I like seeing you dressed up. Makes me feel less out of place.” 

You couldn’t help but let out a little sound of discontentment over his rather affectionate nickname for you. You and your partner had been introduced to him as F and B. Quickly he had figured out Jeongin’s codename as Fox, considering that he had done a poor job picking out one that wasn’t related to him at all. Anyone could tell that boy was fox-like, and he also just wasn’t that creative when it came to picking out a name for himself. B, or Bee as he had decided, was your name; as in bumblebee. After learning about Fox, he figured that there was an animal theme going, so Bee seemed to fit best in his oponion. 

You tested his glare with your best, “Thank you, your Highness.” 

Jeongin gulped. “Your assistant should be waiting downstairs with your itinerary. She told me that you should meet her first off.” 

“You work too hard F. Have some fun tonight, hm? But don’t...drink too much. You’re responsible for my life remember?” Chan clapped his bodyguard on the back. 

Your partner nervously laughed and adjusted his glasses once more: his preferred tic. 

“And Bee?” Chan rose a brow to lean into close and whisper. “Stay close, alright?” 

“Of course, your Highness.” 

Chan let out a little scoff after getting one more proper look at your frame. “Damn. You really are stunning. Just a little too dangerous for me though.” 

You rolled your eyes, dishing him outa, “Whatever you say, your Highness.” 

Jeongin threw you and annoyed glare before tracing after Chan as he sauntered down the hall to the glass elevator. 

“Bee? You coming? Or do you have something better to do?” Chan’s voice called down the hall with an echo and a little teasing gesture of his hand. 

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

It had been seven years since you had chosen this line of work, and each time that you had to go to one of these things, you hated them more and more. Not because they were hard to control--they were easy--but you just hated how many superficial and self-absorbed people that they could fit into one room. 

The air was filled with the scent of champagne bubbles and too much Chanel No. 5. From corner to corner of the room, and even next to the ice sculpture of the lion and the wolf crest, silk, satin; velvet and the best cotton could be found. Long gloves covered the arms of ladies with wrinkling skin, and tweed vests held in the guts of men who indulged in their food just as much as their mistresses. All this effort just to appear as if they had given one care about the philanthropic efforts of the royalty.

Several neatly dressed waiters passed you with golden platters of hors d'oeuvres made of ingredients so expensive, they would’ve cost the same amount as the generous donations made by the attendees. If you could’ve, you would’ve scooped up as many of them as you could, just to eat all of their copious amounts of money yourself, but, there was somewhere a rule that you had to keep your hand to yourself when you were on duty. The best that you had to look forward too was take-out to eat at 3 in the morning with Jeongin later. 

Buzzing chatter filled your earpiece while each of the additional guards gave their hourly report. 

“Damn. It’s fucking colder out here than I thought. It’s fucking summer.” One of them joked to the tune of the other guards laughter. 

“Stay focused.” Jeongin scolded over the line. “Don’t leave your posts until your shifts change.” 

While he was a timid man, Jeongin was not one to mess around. Son of the director, he knew that he had big shoes to fill. After pleading for years for her to admit him into the academy, she had agreed. Everyone knew the reason why she didn’t want him in this line of work. Too many dead. Too many missing. In some ways, he was also yours to look after. 

You trailed after Chan who was busy talking to his assistant and his publicist. While he nodded at their words, you knew that he must’ve been barely listening. Chan never really was one for formality, but much rather enjoyed simplicity and pleasure. Jeongin and you had somewhat of a bet going: out of all the guests, you had liked to bet which one he would take with him to his bedroom. Since you had all the profiles of the guests, you liked to bet a little money on which one it would be. 

Jeongin had guessed it to be the heiress and daughter of a tycoon who had made a multi-million won donation in the name of his company. It was ironic; his very company was a big-scale pollutor who liked to make nice with the crown. She was conventionally very pretty: long legs, a thin frame, she was educated and looked as if she could hold somewhat of a conversation...not like that mattered to him. 

You had predicted it to be the foreign CEO who had just started business dealings with the crown. While she might’ve looked a bit stuck-up and prim, she was intimidating, and a challenge. Chan loved challenges. Chan also had a pension for pretty boys with a bit too much money on their hands--usually inherited--and with nothing much else to do other than dote on him. There were plenty of those attending the gala tonight. 

Chan snaked through the crowd, bowing his head at all of the Good evening, your Highnesses and the It’s a pleasure to meet you, your Highnesses. Every few moments or so he would take a bite from a golden plate and then pop it into his mouth. The whole night long, he would hold his glass with him and it would get refilled for him without him even needing to ask. You sometimes liked to pretend that in some places, they must’ve assigned someone to watch him from afar to make sure that he would never need anything before it was given to him. It wouldn’t have surprised you. 

“Having fun Bee?” Chan languidly rolled his head back, swirling his glass. 

“As much fun as you are.” You quipped. 

“Anything that I should be concerned about?” 

“Nothing of concern.” You stated matter-of-factly. Had you matched his flirting tone, you knew that you wouldn’t hear the end of it for the rest of the night. “Fox. Report?” 

“Nothing that I can see. No one has been tagging you.” Jeongin had staked himself up on the upper balcony of the banquet hall room, and had been watching for as long as you had been following after the prince. “You sensing anything strange?” His voice tickled in your in-ear. 

“Just a bunch of the normal crowd.” You kept your tone down low. “He’s rubbing noses with the usual. You’ve seen too?” 

He chuckled. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

You followed Chan to his seat nearest the front of the room which had been fashioned into a stage with a clear glass podium in the center. Right in front there was one more crest decorating it. Chan had ensured it to be so: he had wanted everyone to know that this was all for his charity. 

“It seems like our bets aren’t working out. He hasn’t talked to either of the...suspects.” Your partner changed his choice of words knowing that the other guards were listening. 

From the opposite side of the room both the heiress and the CEO stood with thin glasses of wine in their lithe hands. Chan had in fact walked right past them, and didn’t even notice. 

“Tonight is going to be a long night.” Jeongin sighed over the line. 

You politely pushed past attendees with a raised hand and a sweet smile. You had found that when you smiled, you had appeared less intimidating. 

“Oh wait...what’s this?” 

“What?” You whipped your head around after Jeongin’s interjection. “What? Do you see something? What’s the call?” 

“Relax! It just looks like he’s approaching someone he wants to talk to. I think both of us are about to be proven wrong.” 

“Ah, shit.” You sighed. “Don’t put me on edge like that.” 

“I’m only trying to entertain myself.” 

“Name. Who is it? You’ve got the roster.” 

You partner was quiet for a minute, and you watched from a distance as Chan approached the man leaned over a martini seated at one of the perfectly decorated tables. 

“Uh, I think that he’s Lee Minho. Some kind of royalty from somewhere else. Pretty low ranking from the looks of it. I think that he made a donation himself...and it’s...damn, larger than you would expect.” 

“Should we be concerned?” 

“No. Seems harmless.” 

“Thank you for coming,” You made out the words that Chan had mouthed. He drew a chair next to the unknown man. 

From what you could tell, Lee Minho was handsome to the full extent of the word: nearly all of his physical features were exemplary and his suit appeared to have been fitted to perfect for him; likely one of a kind. He too wore an insignia on his lapel, but it was one that you hadn’t recognized before. He had immaculately styled hair that had some kind of rebellious and boyish charm to it. The man had a kind of mystery about him too: you had been able to pride yourself in being able to read people, and it had saved your life on more than one occasion. But with him, there was something that you couldn’t place. 

“Do they know eachother?” You asked Jeongin. 

“Not that I know of. School friend maybe? Seems like all the royals send their kids to the same schools.”

“Hm. That would make sense.” 

“Enjoying yourself?” Chan said. 

Lee Minho nodded, and rose his glass to clink it with the prince’s. 

“Do we think that he’s our...suspect?” 

The stranger dipped his head into his hand as he listened to Chan speak. A flirty gesture that you had seen a hundred times or more. Still, the way that he inspected Chan, it wasn’t adoring. Or at least, you didn’t think that it was.

“No. I don’t think so.” 

“What the hell are you yapping about?” One of the other guards snapped over the line. 

“Um, classified stuff.” Jeongin quickly explained. “Above your paygrade. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Fox. Watch out for him tonight.” You snuck over to a corner of the room where you could watch the two of them more discreetly. 

“Affirmative....” Your partner paused. “Babydoll.” 

“Pffff--Babydoll??” The same guard stifled his laughter. “You call her Babydoll, Fox? Damn, you all must be closer than I thought. Didn’t know that I was missing out on some of the action--” 

“--Ever heard of a codename, Three?” 

“Babydoll’s her codename.” 

A grin crept over your lips. “Expect the unexpected.” 

You had almost gotten distracted enough to miss how Lee Minho had leaned over to whisper something into the prince’s ear. After he had done so, Chan laughed out a little, then reached his arm around the other man’s chair comfortably. 

“They’re...cozy.” You updated your partner. 

“I’m trying to cross-check where he might know him from.” 

Chan’s assistant and publicist finally slipped away with giddy little smiles. In many ways, you were jealous of them. They could leave whenever the wanted, eat what they wanted...

Jeongin scoffed. “Well, turns out...nothing. I can’t find anything.” 

“Nothing?” 

“Negative. I’m not seeing any crossover.” 

“So they really are strangers?” 

Your partner sighed. “Looks like neither of us are cashing ou--I mean--finding the suspect.” 

Under your breath, you wondered aloud, “Who are you...Lee Minho?” 

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

The night drew on longer with the rest of the formalities: the formal dinner, followed by several speeches from important people while dessert was being served. It all led up to the final act: His Royal Highness, Prince Chan’s speech. On several neat notecards marked with the crest, he held them in front of him while he ate his last bits of Mont Blanc Chocolate Pavlova. Even the name of the sweet itself sounded pretentious. Granted, it smelled delicious--as many expensive things did. 

You stifled a yawn from your little set up on the edge of the room. At least you should’ve been able to sit, but it turns out that sitting is also against the rules in this line of work. A couple other security and bodyguards had joined you at the edge: some of their heads nodded with sleep, and the others looked as if they had taken one too many energy shots. Luckily, your stamina had been well crafted. 

A fancily dressed MC made his way up to the podium and the room filled with applause after the last speaker had said all of their correct mandatory words. 

“It is my honor to introduce to the stage, our wonderful head benefactor of this organization, His Royal Highness, Prince Chan of the Crown. 

Applause tenfold of before erupted through the whole room and it wasn’t even an afterthought for the every attendee to stand up from their seats in an ovation. It was a force of habit for you, but you found yourself clapping as well. 

Chan rose with grace, and re-buttoned his jacket with finesse. A blinding spotlight found him and it made the diamonds adorning his beck wink brilliantly. Even more blinding was his pearl white, and perfectly trained smile accompanied by his wave. 

Thank you. Thank you. He mouthed. 

“It’s like he’s a frickin’ movie star.” Jeongin groaned. 

“Might as well be with the way that they treat him. You know deep down they’re all just terrified.” 

Chan made his way up to the stage in all of his regality, and the applause didn’t stop until he cleared his throat. A collective groaning of a couple hundred chairs squeaked when everyone sat back down. 

“Thank you everyone, really. I wanted to thank you all for your generous support in your donations to this organization, as well as your association with the crown. I’m sure that all the beneficiaries of your donations are beyond thankful compared to me. Without you, this would not be possible.” Chan spoke with grandiose gestures, as usual, but this time, he had found you on the side of the room. “Listen, aside from being a prince, I’m also just a person. A person who knows what it means to struggle, to--” 

“--I can’t listen to this anymore.” You whispered into the quiet room, and to your partner. 

“Just a few more hours.” He droned. “I almost wish that something would happen so that we don’t have to sit though much else of this.” 

“Be careful what you wish for.” 

In the corner of your eye, Lee Minho shifted in his seat, but still kept his undivided attention to the stage. You figured he must’ve been just like the rest of them: enamored by the flashiness of the crown--and Chan. He had a way of putting a spell on people: it was the kind of spell that a prince of deception had crafted after years of being kept under lock and key. 

“--Anyway, what I’m trying to say, royal or fanciful we all might be, in the simplest way, we’re all just people, therefore this is what connects us all. Thank you.” 

Chan was gifted yet another standing ovation that was somehow even more thunderous than before. 

“Yeah right.” You scoffed. “People born into money. There’s a difference.” 

Chan gave his last waves, then a clamor echoed from the back of the room. At first, it had just sounded like the same raucous laughter you had heard all night, but then it shifted to something different. The sound of laugher turned into shouting, then screams: high pitched and piercing. You had seconds to respond, head whipping around the room to catch sight of the confused prince. In your in-ears, the the sound of gunshots echoed with rapid-fire speed. Machine guns. Shouting commands barked in your ear, and muddled with Jeongin’s string of demands and questions. 

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE? REPORT! REPORT!” 

Your heart instantly started beating into hyperdrive, and your legs sprinted as fast has physically possible 

“THEY’VE GOT GUNS!” A shrill and cracked voice of an older woman wailed from the back of the room. 

Immediately after she had said so, shots fired into the darkened room with sparks, and the metallic sound of bullets hitting the marbled ground followed. 

Chan looked around in his panic for you, petrified on the stage. You slung your gun out from your thigh holster and latched onto him with all of your might. 

“TH-THEY JUST CAME OUT OF NOWHERE IN THESE VANS. THEY’RE ARMOURED, WE CAN’T--” 

“Get the fuck down there and secure the exists!” Jeongin growled into his mic. “B--is the prince secure??” 

“Secure!” You yelled back. Using your body as a barrier, you led the cowering prince through the mass hysteria of the crowd. 

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Shit.” Chan shook under your iron grip. 

More shots fired into the room and bodies parted like the sea and fell over each other. 

From the balcony, you had caught Jeongin aiming his own gun at the chaos below. 

“I’ll cover you! Fuck! There’s so many of them! Get him to the car out back--Three, Six, meet B out there! Three!? Six!? Report!” 

“Three and Six are down F!” One of the guards panted. “I can provide cover out back!!” 

“Who’s speaking??” Jeongin bellowed, then aimed from above at one of the intruders. Your only focus was on weaving you and Chan out of there, but you had seen one of them in a blur. Each of the men with guns wore dark grey suits with black ties and leather gloves. Each of them wore their own crest: and it was all red. 

“Bee?? Bee???” Chan shouted out for you, and jumped every time the crack of a shot echoed in the ballroom. 

“I’ve got you, your Highness. We’ll be out soon. Keep your head down and listen to me.” Your arm held to him tightly, and you soon found the exit nearest. There was no telling if there would be more of them outside, but you loaded your gun quickly just in case, and pointed it out. 

“Jeongin, get your ass down here!” 

“Jeongin? Who the fuck is that??” Chan ducked down to hide himself behind your frame. 

His name had slipped on your tongue, but that hardly mattered. 

“I’ll be down in a second!!!” 

“Don’t fucking waste time up there when I need you down here!!” 

“Two! Two Reporting!!” A man suddenly yelled in your in-ear. “I’ve made it out back and I’ve secured the exit. The car is safe!!” 

“FOX! Now!” 

Your partner heaved, “I’m coming, I’m coming!!” 

You kicked open the exit door, gun’s still blazing, however one one else could be found on the other side. 

“Thank God,” You sighed. 

“Oh shit, I’m gonna be sick.” Chan had turned paler than white, then stumbled in your arms. 

“Hey, HEY!” You held him upright. “It’s gonna be alright. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You need to trust me. Your life is in my hands and I’m not giving it up easy, got it?” 

“O-okay.” He stammered, then attempted to straighten himself. 

“The Prince is outside, repeat, The Prince is outside. Two, are you in position?” 

“Yes. Yes, I am.” 

Other than the fact that you had just escaped absolute peril, the evening was unbearably pleasant. Crickets chirped in the summer evening, and the humidity of the night smelled gorgeously of the lake that was near-by as well as the vast array of flowers that had been purposefully landscaped around the hotel. Chan’s uneven steps scraped at the gravel walkway. 

Since you had canvassed the whole building well, you had known exactly where the getaway car was, but you were still careful. 

“Bee. Bee!” Chan blabbered. “Have-have I told you yet that I-I’m in love with you?” 

“No, you haven’t Your Highness.” 

“I fucking am. If I die tonight, I want you to know that I am ridiculously in love with you, and fuck, I wanna--” 

“--I’m sorry, Your Highness, respectfully, but now is not the time for this and you are not dying on my watch.” 

Somewhere off in the distance, frogs croaked, and the splashing of fish in the lake plopped at the surface waters. You turned a corner to finally see Two waiting his his gun raised. He was a bit of a shorter and scrawnier man, but something about him told you that where he lacked in strength, he must’ve made up for in agility. 

“I’m out! I’m out!” Your partner gasped, and over the in-ear you could hear his running footsteps. “I’m almost there! I’ll be there in a second!” 

“Your Highness,” Two bowed and opened the car door. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You can call me Two or J. Either you prefer.” 

Jeongin came bounding around the corner with heaving breaths and his clothes askew. His glasses which just barely held onto his face had a crack on them and his knuckles were covered in blood. 

“Let’s go.” The younger man prompted. 

“In the car you go, Your Highness.” You motioned for him to do so. 

Chan whimpered like a toddler. 

You shoved his body in, “Stop that. Get in the car.” 

“I’m in love with you Bee!” He yelled out, “I’M FUCKING IN LOVE WITH YOU BEE!” 

Jeongin slammed the door in his face with a bit of a chuckle. 

“He’s delirious.” 

“Mm.” your partner smiled. “Sure.” 

[silvormoon]

Soulmates

For Soulshipping week, here’s one for the prompt “Soulmates”. Past Life Juudai and Yubel go on a little adventure, and Juudai gets his fortune told.

The two children pressed themselves against the wall and tried to stifle their giggles as they waited. The sound of laughter and cheerful talk drew closer, and then five of the castle maids strolled past in a cluster, all of them chatting happily. One of them, at the fringes of the group, happened to glance to her side and noticed two people hiding in the shadows. She gave them a smile and a knowing wink before hurrying to catch up with her friends. Juudai grinned.

“Come on, let’s go,” he told his companion in a whisper, and the two of them scuttled down the hall in the opposite direction.

“We’re going to get in so much trouble for this,” Yubel whispered, but they were still smiling as they said it.

“I know,” Juudai whispered back, “but we’re doing it anyway, right?”

Yubel nodded.

Actually, what would probably happen would be that they would be scolded and obliged to do extra chores and lessons tomorrow, but Juudai didn’t mind. He had done so before and would doubtless do so again. Privately, he thought his parents approved, although custom dictated that they never actually say so. They probably would have worried more if Juudai had been the sort of boy who took orders meekly and did everything he was told. Someday he would be ruler of his kingdom, and would have to think for himself and know which advice was worth taking and which should be disregarded. Right now, he knew which rules were fairly arbitrary and therefore breakable, like, “You must be in bed by nine” or “you must not play stickball with the serving boys,” and which rules would have serious repercussions if he disobeyed. He would break the former on occasion, but never the latter.

Today, the rule was, “You should not skip classes to sneak into town” and Juudai and Yubel were intent on breaking it. They had arranged for Juudai’s history professor, who was also the castle librarian, to be called away by a small problem among the stacks. While he’d been away, Juudai had slipped out of the room and went on the run. Now he and his partner in crime were on their way to the kitchen, where they knew they could sneak out through the back door through the herb garden.

When they arrived, the castle cook gave them an amused, indulgent look, much the same way the maid had.

“You two scamps again?” she said. “You should be at your lessons, your highness, and you, Yubel, should be at your training.”

“I know,” said Juudai, “but the maids said there’s a caravan in town today selling stuff from the Saffron Empire, and I really want to see. There’s supposed to be dancers and jugglers and stuff and... and everything!”

“Well, I’d like to see them too, but I have my work to get on with the same as you,” she said sternly. Then her face relaxed into a smile. “Oh, well. You’ll be a grown man soon enough, and there won’t be so many chances for you to go out and enjoy yourself.” She turned back to whatever she’d been stirring and said, “Not my job to keep tabs on you two. If your teachers can’t keep tabs on you, that’s their problem.”

Juudai grinned. He caught Yubel’s hand and the two of them darted through the busy kitchen together. Along the way, they each acquired an almond bun, courtesy of one of the junior cooks. Munching happily, they made their way through the fragrant herb garden.

“I guess she’s right that we’re going to have to stop doing this someday,” said Yubel. “I mean, you’re fifteen already. In three more years you’ll be a man. You won’t be taking any more classed then so we won’t be able to skip them.” Juudai shrugged. Three years sounded like a long time to him.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “Once I’m grown up they won’t be watching me so closely all the time. I’ll still be able to get out and do stuff, at least until they decide to make me king. That’s when I’ll really have to start behaving myself.” He made a face. He hoped his father would stay hale and hearty for a long time. Being a prince was fine by Juudai, but being a king seemed like a lot more work. The idea still seemed to be troubling Yubel.

“I’ll be grown up soon, too, though,” they said. “I’ll have to start doing a lot more work around the castle, then.”

“You’ll work for me, though,” said Juudai encouragingly. “Where I go, you go.”

“Are you sure?” Yubel asked. “You’ll be able to choose anyone you want - all the best people in the kingdom are going to want to work for you.”

“I’ll always choose you,” Juudai promised. “Don’t worry - you and I are always going to be together!”

Yubel smiled. “I sure hope so.”

“No doubt about it,” Juudai promised. “Now, come on. We don’t have all day, and I want to see those jugglers!”

They darted out the delivery gate. A guard there made a half-hearted effort to call them back, but Juudai just stuck out his tongue and kept running. They continued their wild dash for a few blocks, less because they were worried about being chased and more because the buildings closest to the palace were mostly stately homes of nobles and rich merchants, and did not offer a lot to interest a couple of active teenagers. They didn’t slow down until they passed the next gate, which led into the business district. Juudai raised the hood of his cloak. Most of his subjects were friendly, good-hearted people, but his parents had drilled into him how important it was not to flaunt his status as prince in public. All it would take was one bad apple attacking him and the fate of the entire kingdom would change. Yubel would defend him to the death, of course, but...

I don’t want that to happen. I want Yubel and me both to stay safe!

The regular marketplace activities were going on. Juudai had intended to walk straight through to the main attraction, but he couldn’t exist stopping to look at a few of his favorite shops along the way. They charted a zigzag course, stopping here to look in at the gadgets on display in an artificer’s shop, pausing there to admire the rainbow of colored cloth at the drapers, lingering outside a bakery to breathe in the smell of fresh bread. They paused outside the flower shop, not because Juudai had any interest in flowers, but because Yubel loved them. They were so taken by a white bloom with purple flecks on its petals that Juudai bought it for them. Yubel tucked it proudly behind their ear and preened while Juudai made a show of admiring the effect.

But in the end, the two of them couldn’t resist hurrying to the main market square where the real action was. The Saffron Empire was a long way from Juudai’s kingdom, and traders from that realm only arrived here once or twice a year. It was always a big event when they arrived, with their exotic spices, their distinctly patterned cloth, and their tales of faraway places. There was always a lot of competition to get hold of whatever they brought with them, and Juudai hoped that he and Yubel weren’t too late to get any of the good stuff. Juudai had saved some of his allowance for just such an occasion, and he was hoping to find something that would make it worth giving up all the all the other fun things he could have bought with it.

“Wow, look at all this,” he said, as he took in the caravan wagons with their bright bunting. He knew that while on the road they purposely made themselves look drab to avoid attracting bandits, but they made up for it when they reached town by covering themselves with flags, banners, ribbons, and shining brass bells that set up a constant tinkling in the breeze. Juudai turned this way and that, trying to take in every flash of color. “Where should we go first?”

“I think they’re selling knives over there,” said Yubel.”And that one has jewelry, look! The colors on those enameled bracelets are so bright! I wonder how they do it?”

Yubel ended up buying a small wrist cuff worked with a design of red flowers and gold bees against a backdrop of twining vines. Juudai admired a selection of knives and other hardware, finally settling on a belt buckle in the shape of a dragon. Then they wandered around a bit, looking at this and that, occasionally chatting with a merchant but mostly just moving on. They bought some sort of grilled cakes filled with unfamiliar flavors and nibbled them while they watched a pair of tumblers put on a show. They picked up a few more little trinkets - a bowl painted with leaping hares that Juudai took a shine to, a flute made of wood and animal horn that enticed Yubel, a silk shawl Juudai thought would make a good gift for his mother - and then wondered what else they might find to do. The day was getting on, and soon they would be expected back in the palace for dinner.

“Just one more stall,” Juudai decided. “Where should we go?”

“Um...” Yubel looked uncertain. They turned around, trying to find somewhere they hadn’t been yet.

“You haven’t been to my booth yet,” said a pleasant voice.

Juudai turned to see that a woman dressed from head to toe in blue was watching him with a bright and knowing gaze. Her face was partially hidden by a veil that made her eyes stand out even more in comparison.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am this caravan’s... your language hasn’t got a word for it. ‘Seer’ might do. I am the Lady Who Looks in the Water, and I can tell you your future if you like.”

Juudai frowned, puzzled. “What do you look in the water for?”

“Because water goes everywhere. It is part of all of us. It is full of life. If you know how to look at it the right way, you can see many things in it,” she said. “Come. Two copper coins, and I will tell you things worth knowing.”

Juudai and Yubel gave each other a look that said, “Here’s something worth doing!” There were a lot of magicians in Juudai’s kingdom, but none quite like this. It was an adventure, and Juudai was always up for an adventure.

“Sure,” he said.

“Right this way, then.”

The lady led him inside one of the wagons, and he and Yubel followed eagerly. It was a tight fit, so Yubel volunteered to wait outside until Juudai had finished having his fortune told. That was probably the right choice. A table had been set up near the door, with just enough space for a little stool where Juudai could sit down, and a second, more comfortable seat for the lady herself. Behind her hung a blue curtain, but through the gaps Juudai thought he could see a little bunk and a hint of some shelving, which must have been part of her living space. The table itself contained only a pale blue bowl filled nearly to the brim with water.

“Now, your payment,” she said.

Juudai handed over his coins, and she made them vanish with professional speed.

“So. We shall see what we can see,” she said. “Is there anything you would like to know? Your future career? How to obtain a fortune? Or perhaps the name of your soulmate?” She gave him a wink.

“Can you really find all that?” Juudai asked.

“Sometimes, yes,” she said. “Often the water does what it likes. But I guarantee you will see something, and whatever you see, it will be the truth.”

“Okay,” said Juudai. “Show me.”

“Give me your hand, then.”

He did as he was told. The lady took his hand and guided him to touch the surface of the water with a fingertip. It rippled... and went on rippling, much longer than normal physics dictated that it should. Curious, Juudai leaned forward, trying to get a better view of this phenomenon.

He nearly jerked back again in surprise. Somehow, though, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off what he was seeing. There were images in the bowl, vague, as though they were only reflections, but still comprehensible. He saw an island, bright and sunny, with a volcano smoking at the center of it. People in strange clothes were there, busily taking notes while a man who looked a great deal like Juudai’s own history professor lectured to them all. Then the image shifted, and Juudai saw a figure in dark armor standing before a legion of monsters. Another shift, and now Juudai could see something that was both like and unlike his own face: older, the lines of it sharpened by time and experience, and his eyes weren’t the friendly brown of Juudai’s old, but rather, shining a mismatched orange and teal...

...and then there was Yubel’s face.

“Juudai? What are you looking at in there?”

Juudai looked up to see his friend leaning over his shoulder, trying to peer into the water.

“My future, I think,” he said. “Not that it made a lot of sense.”

“The future often doesn’t, until you see it,” said the lady. She turned to Yubel. “And would you like to try as well?”

Yubel shook their head. “I’d rather go home. I don’t mind getting a scolding from Doctor Chronos, but I don’t want a lecture from the king if I’m not there to wait at table.”

“Oh, darn, you’re right,” said Juudai. “They’ll skin me alive if I’m late to dinner tonight. Thanks, Water Lady, but I have to go!”

He waved goodbye before darting out of the wagon and back into the street. He and Yubel began jogging towards the castle.

“So,” said Yubel slyly, “did you see your soulmate?”

“Don’t think so,” said Juudai. “That’s okay, though. I don’t need a fortune teller to tell me what I already know.”

“What’s that?” Yubel asked.

“That you and I are going to be together forever,” said Juudai.

“As long as we live,” Yubel agreed.

Juudai nodded. That was about all anyone could hope for. Still, he thought, remembering what he’d seen in the bowl, maybe there was life after this one. Some of the court wizards said there was, and Juudai didn’t know enough to disagree with them.

If I have another life, I’m sure Yubel will be there too. They’ll follow me anywhere.

And with that reassuring thought in mind, he hurried home to dinner.

[jihyosforehead]

soulmate au where the world is black and white until you fall in love with your soulmate for mihyun please im begging u authornim

THANK U FOR THIS !!! this was v fun to write and i almost got carried away and u have been so so patient im sorry this is so late, i dont even rly have an excuse its just due to who i am as a person 

...

also on ao3

dahyun doesn’t think much of it at first. barely even notices the difference anyway because mina’s hair has always been so dark. 

dahyun’s world had been black and white all her life, she didn’t notice when it had begun to change. 

first, it was mina’s hair. 

it’s pretty impossible to not be looking at mina’s hair all hours of the day, if she’s being honest. 

dahyun watches a row behind in their advanced algorithms lecture. their professor had been going over some data structural problems and was enthusiastically expanding more in-depth about splay trees. or it might have been splay trees. dahyun had zoned out about ten minutes into the lecture. out of her peripheral, she can vaguely see notifications lighting up her phone, every 3 minutes or so. normally she would have picked it up by now and replied to chaeyoung’s snapchat spam and meme-tagging spree.

but, she’s completely distracted by mina’s slender, graceful fingers lazily twirling strands of silky dark hair, head slightly tilted and pen absentmindedly tapping at her chin. probably going over the equations in her head, running them back and forth easily. she’s always been so smart and consistently at the top of their class. mina’s wearing a fitted white sweater that hugs her shoulders just the way dahyun likes and wire-rimmed glasses, sitting almost carelessly at the end of her nose. she still manages to look so soft though. dahyun exhales deeply.

the change was subtle. she almost doesn’t register the way the fluorescent lighting dances on the crown of mina’s head. bending the light back and forth until mina’s hair flashes a colour that’s neither black or white. 

her eyes flicker back to the screen when the lecture slides change over, displaying a long sequence of diagrams lining the wall. she should really be paying more attention, she was barely scraping in this class. her eyes involuntarily wander back to mina again. the lighting plays on mina’s hair, making it almost shine a dark brown? dahyun blinks a few times and forces her eyes to focus. it’s a tone just barely lighter than black. the light plays over it again and dahyun squints.

she’s jolted out of her reverie when their teacher claps their hands and wishes them a good rest of their day. while students move around her, some rising from their seats to bolt out the door, others packing away their things at a more relaxed pace; dahyun removes her glasses and presses the heels of her palms into closed eyes. she really needs to spend less time in front of a screen.

odd, dahyun thinks when she steps into the sunny hallway, feeling the heat tickle her skin. had it always been so bright? 

…

it’s two thirteen. and mina’s late. a highly unusual occurrence. 

dahyun taps at her phone and scrolls through her recent messages. there’s none from mina. she glances around at the courtyard. some students were casually sprawled on the grass, laughing at each other, or eating. others had laptops open, typing furiously at their keyboards. 

her phone begins vibrating in her hands and she fumbles hastily, trying to answer it. mina’s voice is soft and gentle in her ear; apologising for running late but she had run into a lecturer she needed to speak with and then another friend for a quick chat but was now on her way with some food and a powerbank for dahyun’s dying phone. dahyun pictures mina speed walking down the hallways, her voice growing more breathless the longer she talks. pictures silky black hair trailing behind her, tucking her bag more securely across her shoulders while dodging passing students. 

she can’t really bring herself to be annoyed when mina looks so adorably sheepish and apologetic while handing dahyun a homemade lunch. it was neatly packaged in a shiny metal lunchbox. today it was a chicken sandwich, with grapes and pear and apple slices on the side. there was even a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice, lemon slices cheerfully floating on the top. dahyun feels her heart hammer wildly in her chest.

mina’s always doing cute things like bringing her food while they study because she knows dahyun cuts it close between her classes and doesn’t have time for anything other than a protein bar. sometimes an apple she snags on her way out of her apartment. dahyun would probably be surviving on fruit and protein bars if not for mina. 

mina hands her a tissue and then flashes her a wide, bright grin right before typing something into her calculator, eyebrows furrowed. dahyun carefully sets down her sandwich and dabs the corner of her mouth. the sunlight is reflecting off her laptop and into her eyes. she looks up for a moment and watches as the light weaves itself into mina’s hair, setting it alight into a copper blaze. dahyun blinks, dumbfounded. 

she tilts her head slightly and watches the light move from strand to strand. she moves her head back and forth and side to side, the copper follows when mina adjusts her position. dark hair, with shadows? different shades of black strands? was that even possible? it did look a lot richer, flecked with dark brown and golds. 

dahyun blinks again and chalks it up to a trick of the light. mina gives dahyun a soft, fond smile, her eyes slightly squinting, right before returning to her work. her fingers clacking away at her keyboard and then occasionally scribbling at an open notebook. 

…

it was mina’s eyes next. they were a steady, solid black, that dahyun loves. sparkly and shiny and expressive. bright when she’s excited and duller when she’s sad. 

over the next month or two, far too slow for anyone but dahyun to notice, mina’s eyes acquire the same richer colour as her hair. almost the same shade of lighter black, but not black. it wasn’t just black anymore though. her irises were a warm, shiny dark brown and the pupils, black. they dilate slightly when mina looks up at her. but there isn't an overt difference. 

dahyun thinks likes this colour more. 

...

it was a coat next. 

dahyun had fallen asleep on her notes. she jolts awake and blearily blinks at her surroundings, sleep still weighing heavily on her eyelids. she swats a paper stuck to her cheek and is met with amused, fond eyes. she sits up and realises she’s covered in mina’s thick coat. dahyun blinks down at the heavy material and just stares. 

the fabric is beige on the outside, a tan sort of colour that errs more white than it does brown; but the inside of the coat is lined with a subtle tartan pattern. most notably, there’s red stitching. red. dahyun runs her fingers over the checked print design and blinks dumbly at it. she thinks she’s still coming out of her sleepy haze, but five minutes later when she looks down at the coat again, the stitching is so obviously more than black and white. red lines woven through pattern, sticking out like the obvious thing in the world. mina is happily typing away at her laptop, completely oblivious to dahyun’s realisation.

then it was a sunflower she’d spotted sticking out of chaeyoung’s backpack. a bright, happy, obnoxiously yellow sunflower. loud and cheerful. dahyun had seen sunflowers before, but only ever in light grey. sometimes white. sometimes even black. she was so entranced by it that chaeyoung insisted she keep it. dahyun picks it up and holds it to her chest until she was safely in her apartment. 

that night, she set it in a transparent glass vase on her countertop so she could look at it everyday. 

she learns that sunflowers have a pale green, almost yellow centre. that the colours grow into a gradient of orange and black seeds, surrounded by full yellow leaves. the petals have this faint orange that looks like it’s been carefully, painstakingly painted on each individual leaf. 

the next day, on her way to class she spots a rose growing on a bush. it was a striking deep red, a stark contrast to its vibrant green stem. she sticks it in the vase with her sunflower.

dahyun came home everyday, and stared at her sunflower and her rose over dinner, and wondered who they were for. could they see colours this bright? did they know yellow and red looked this pretty? that sunflowers had oranges painted on the petals? 

mina had gone back home to japan over the christmas holidays to spend some time with her family. she hadn’t seen them in over a year, it made sense for her to go home. but. mina is also one of dahyun’s favourite people; it was perfectly natural to miss her. however, dahyun misses her a lot more than she anticipated. her days seemed to be a lot more empty and dull. 

dahyun finds it difficult not to miss warm brown eyes, and mina’s pretty smile. she misses having lunch with mina after class. she misses turning up unannounced at the other girl’s dorm and planting herself on the couch for an afternoon nap. she misses their dumb, playful arguyments over what take-out they should get for movie night; that almost always end up with mina asleep on dahyun’s shoulder, fifteen minutes into pressing play. 

luckily, there was so much else to see. the bushes growing on the edges of her apartment grounds were a deep green, lush leaves sticking out of thin, woody brown twigs. sometimes there were ladybugs on the leaves. dahyun hadn’t realised their shells were red with tiny black dots. one time she even saw a bee sitting on a flower. she didn’t think she would ever be this delighted over discovering that bees had yellow and black stripes. her downstairs neighbour had a golden retriever. and her fur was as gold as the sun, with a pink lolling tongue and sweet, honey brown eyes. 

the new colours could keep her occupied for so long though. 

the sunflower and rose had long died. leaving only the petals behind. they’d drifted onto her wooden countertop, with the flowers blackened and dead. dahyun missed their colours too. 

who were they for? 

sometimes mina would facetime her while she was out and hold up plushies and toys she thinks dahyun would like. the plushies, were big and colourful but dahyun can’t help but think they look dull next to mina’s flushed cheeks. other times, mina would send her photos of the scenery and her food. dahyun can’t help but wonder what they’d look like in person. 

she finds that she doesn’t ever really stop thinking about mina. it’s starting to become a bit of a problem. 

most of all, she just misses mina. a weird ache in her chest that she doesn’t realise is there, just deepens. 

two weeks later finds dahyun nervously pacing the airport lobby. airport crowds never fail to make her uneasy. but honestly, she’d do anything for mina. 

she spots her from a distance, heart thudding loudly. she feels her pulse quicken, hammering obnoxiously in her eardrums, like clanging cymbals together. the most irritating percussion she’s ever experienced; she’s half convinced that everyone around her can hear it. mina was wearing an oversized sweater, her lips stained rose red. a maroon sweater, with gold stitching on the sleeves wrapping around her wrists. dahyun’s breath catches in her throat. she swallows hard around a lump of clear understanding. 

oh. 

mina. it had always been mina. 

dahyun watches as mina’s head cranes around, carefully searching the crowd. her eyes find dahyun’s, as they always do, and dahyun can feel the fondness wrap around her heart and take firm hold. the ache in her chest deepens, like a dam breaking. the crowd seems to part when mina runs towards her and throws herself at dahyun’s torso, not caring at all about dahyun’s heart, beating wildly out of control. mina’s arms wrap around dahyun’s neck and she buries her face in dahyun’s shoulder, nuzzling into the fabric. dahyun can smell mina’s shampoo, clean and fresh.

they just stand there for a moment, swaying a little as dahyun adjusts her hold around a slender waist, fingers finding its home at the small of her back. she keeps a palm resting there and brings her other hand to the back of mina’s head, massaging the base of mina’s skull. she can feel mina huffing a relieved sigh into the side of her neck, the tip of her nose is cold against her skin.   

she hears mina whisper that she missed her and asks if dahyun had been waiting long. dahyun barely hears it over the almost immediate snap of vivid colour encompassing them. the blues, and oranges and greens and pinks colouring the airport scene and moving outwards. dahyun’s world had transformed completely. 

everything suddenly made sense, slotting itself perfectly in place. 

it was beautiful and bright and brilliant. but dahyun hadn’t noticed it at first because she only had eyes for mina. like always.

mina, whose hair was a deep chestnut brown, with flecks of copper and bronze when the light hits it in the right spots. she must have dyed it while she was away because the gold has disappeared now. mina’s lipstick, red and rich, she can see the ridges where it’s redder in some areas, and more faded in others. mina’s sweater, maroon with gold stitching. mina’s earrings, a deep emerald green, flecked with golden marbling, and wrapped inside a delicate gold circle. 

dahyun blinks rapidly at the change, taking it all in. slowly, the colours swirl around them as everything gradually finds its place. her eyes wander up and down mina’s face and hair and clothes and nose (had the mole on the corner of her mouth always been a dark brown?), finally landing on mina’s eyes. dark brown and sparkly. honey and gold and cinnamon and chestnut and dusky all at once. had mina’s eyes always had those colours? 

mina looks at her softly. fondly. like she always has. the corners of her eyes crinkle when she smiles and mina’s eyes shine even more brightly when the light bounces off them. 

then the colours didn’t really seem to matter anymore. dahyun studies mina’s features closely, glances at the moles that dot her nose and decides that without mina, what did it matter if there was colour or not. without mina, dahyun’s world may as well have remained black and white.

for mina, it was distinct. 

absolute certainty. 

the very first time she ever laid eyes on dahyun, her whole world burst into a million different colors all at once.

[ask-the-clergy-bc]

Your Zenith Fades (Big Bang 2019)

Summary: 

Papa Emeritus the Third, former star of the ‘Ghost’ project, is not taking very well to retirement. After assaulting Cardinal Copia in front of an entire party, Papa seeks out advice to come to peace with both the end of his career and life in general. His father is less than impressed, per usual. But the Third finds his Catharsis in the most unexpected places- his two older brothers. Who have their own burdens to bare when it came to retirement. 

 Tags: Violence, property destruction, Copia getting sucker punched, yelling, made up first names, mentions of sex, drinking, smoking, mentions of drugs possibly, possible blood, and Three being a huge hedonist in general.

(Amazing Art by @sleepybatart, find the original here!! -> [Link] )

Read Entire Fic Under the Cut! (Long!!)

He had that dream again. 

He had been suffering the same one for so long he forgot what a decent night’s sleep felt like. Just the same damn scene playing in his mind night after horrid night. A broken record stuck in a loop with no end in sight; seeking to torment him like an everlasting Hell.

He never remembered the dreams no matter how many times he awoke in a cold sweat. Only the recurring feeling of shame and humiliation lingered in his gut as the memories fled. Even if the images faded they always manage to reduce him to a shaking, flustered mess. Scared like a child with the fear of a boogeyman under his bed. If he thought hard enough, he might remember an inkling of the vision... 

The beginning was always the same, masquerading as the one recent memory he desperately tried to repress. The same that haunted him every moment of his waking life. Rising from the depths of his subconscious like a vengeful spirit no matter how hard he ignored the truth. The last fleeting glimpses of his final performance flashed before his eyes.

He saw the lights of the show beaming down, drowning the band in multi-colors. Him being on stage front and center, where he belonged. Arms in the air, heart beating to the cords of the Bass. The air buzzing with the chanting of the crowd as their last song rang out. Most importantly, his basking in the glory of it all. The audience cheering- their praise, their adoration sounding out all for him. The audience loved him, and he loved every moment of it.

In the dream it replayed how he went from preening to the attention to being ripped off his feet. Plucked from the stage as painfully as a feather ripped from a wing. Two sets of hands viciously grasping his arms and tugging him from his perch above the crowd. Confusion and panic blinded him as he kicked and flailed, struggling to break free. Head turning to the shocked faces of the crowd who cried out for him- demanded he be brought back! His own cries dying in the thunder of hysterics and instruments being dropped. 

Above it all, one voice booming out slow and distorted- piercing through his entire being like a dagger through the heart. 

‘il medioevo comincia ora...’

The two security guards dragging him past the backdrops and curtains where none could see. The backstage slowly turning pitch black and oppressive. He would gape helplessly as the floors start to become sticky and dark, like tar. The unrelenting grips never yielded, and carried him on as though he weren’t stuck on the ground. 

Shadows churned the farther they plunged into the dark. Twisted tiny forms pulled out of the tar, hunched and deformed and dripping from the sludge. His eyes were never fast enough to discern what shapes they mocked. Only able to hear the hisses of the little monstrosities as the spit and snapped at his ankles. Their beady eyes bright pin pricks amongst the suffocating darkness. The sickening squeaks slowly dying into fits of choking laughter. Jeers and cackles that grew into a crescendo of booming voices from every direction. Louder and louder until it pounded in his ears like a demonic heart beat. 

The sticky shadow shapes always stretched and grew as they shrieked their mirth. They danced mockingly in the periphery of his vision. But he knew what they had become as they pointed and mocked him as he passed. Their bright eyes now shining in the masks of nameless ghouls. All of them screaming after him, chanting the same word over and over.

Failure. Failure. FAILURE! 

Before he could ever beg them to stop, the darkness would break into sudden neon light. His feet now dangling at the mouth of a vast chasm. Fire and brimstone rolling within its belly as an orange glow painted his face. He gazed down horrified as he realized it was Hell itself. His mouth opened to scream and no sound came out. The heat unbearable and the flames far below burning his skin as sweat broke on his forehead. 

He turned to plead with his captors one last time for salvation- knowing they were eager to cast him into the abyss. To his horror, the guards behind him were gone. Instead his own abandoned ghouls, Alpha and Omega, leered back at him. Their masks now twisted and senseless with mouths cracked into their surface, one a smile the other a frown. One to mock his predicament, and one to weep for his damnation.  

Shamelessly he begged for their forgiveness. That they return and join him, like old times. If only they accepted and set him free. He could prove himself worthy of their respect and loyalty. Their fate could be different this time!

Alpha laughed a cruel, sinister sound that made his blood run cold. But not Omega. Omega only sighed remorsefully. The only ghoul he ever admired shook his head softly. Pity and sorrow shining in his blue eyes before they blinked into black depths under his mask.

“Can’t you see that you’re lost?” 

He screamed as he was plunged into the mouth of the underworld. 

---

Smoking.

Since when was the last time he smoked? An awful habit that ruined his tailored clothes and threatened to stain his teeth. Yet there he was, ruining his good designer button up with the scent. It reminded him of how many cigarettes his father and his serpent of a mistress used to suck down growing up. Papa had hated it then, and he hated it now- despite inhaling another lungful of noxious fumes. But it was intoxicating and comforting, nonetheless. It’s not what Papa had particularly wanted… but it’s what he needed right now. 

Aside from countless bottles of wine and staring at the wall, the nicotine was the only thing that seemed to calm his nerves. Truth be told, it was a nice change of pace. Papa was getting bored of guzzling down his prized collection of vintages. His wine cellar was virtually bare and his personal liquor cabinet was now bone dry. Worse yet, he took up drinking alone. Not willing to find company, Papa become content to hold himself in his chambers and become a social hermit. 

Hell’s Gates, it had been weeks since he even adorned his chasuble and greeted his adoring masses in sermon. The idea of facing the outside only made him drown in resentment- let alone finding a single being to spend time with! It was much easier for him to drink and scowl at nothing. At least the walls didn’t need to be woo’d and charmed into his bed… Papa’s nose scrunched at the thought. How long had it been since he last had a full bed? 

Lately, not even his favorite past time brought him any joy. His once hedonistic luxuries only made him feel hollow and bitter. It had been one too many times that he cast out Sisters from his bed too early in the night. Him feeling as jaded and unfulfilled as they did when they sobbed on their way out. Papa lost count of the Sisters that fled from his chambers with disheveled habits and tears from broken promises.  After one particularly bold and scorned sister screamed at him, Papa stopped trying to sate any carnal hungers. 

Her words constantly rang in his head after their short stint together. The Sister shrieking that he was a fiend, dried up, and worse, a total has-been. The sheer amount of willpower it had taken to not throw her out on her ass was astronomical. Instead, Papa had slammed the door behind her so hard the hinges broke. He was not proud to admit it, but it set him off to the point he ripped the door off its frame altogether. 

Papa slammed his hand down on the table next to him- making the ashtray tremble. It royally pissed him off thinking back on the memory! To think a lowly child of sin could talk to him so terribly, so LOWLY. What was he? A groveling ghoul? A piece of dirt? Papa could recall many sisters who would eat their habits before even THINKING of addressing him so disdainfully. And now what? Just because his singing career ended, he was no longer worthy of their respect. 

The glowing end of his cigarette consumed the last of the white paper, letting the ashes flutter down as he inhaled too quickly. His black and white lips pulled back in a sneer as the grey flecks fell down his white shirt. With one last resentful puff of smoke, he finally squashed the butt of the damned thing into the marble tray. Papa watched with fleeting interest as the embers died in burnt ends and scorched varnish.

Much like he did...  

Papa barely registered the sound of his chamber doors being opened. He was far too engrossed with his thoughts to even care. Lucifer himself could have strolled in with all the gold and whores in the world and Papa would not have paid any mind. A sardonic side of him was tempted to wish for an assassin. How amusing would that have been? Papa doubted many would have minded, including his own father or the snake of a woman running the damned Church...

The Anti-pope continued to stare ahead at nothing as footsteps quietly approached. The shades of his sunglasses concealed his mismatched eyes as they followed the figure coming out of his periphery. 

“Do you have what I asked for?” 

Blunt. The charming lilt to his honeyed words long gone. Papa doubted he could even force himself to be polite if he tried. All he cared about at that moment was the Brother of Sin in front of him. The man looked ready to keel over and die from nerves alone. Shaky hands held out the all too familiar shape of a magazine- something Papa found himself hoarding lately. He was keen to see why the newest publishing of that Rat was causing such a stir. 

“Y-yes, your Unholi-”

Papa snatched the book from his hands. The laminated cover almost ripped from the sheer force. With a yelp the Brother relinquished the magazine. If he had claws, he might have torn the Brother’s hands to shreds. The Brother looked ready to turn heel and flee. Papa scoffed at the pathetic display and flicked his bare hand- long shed of his perfectly tailored white gloves.

“Go.” 

He didn’t even bother watching the young man retreat, too engrossed in satiating his curiosity. The only reason he would stomach holding ANYTHING with that Rat in it. Papa had expected to see a flattering portrait- like the ones he used to take. But he was met with the sound of his own shrieking before he could even process what he saw. 

There, staring back at him was a mockery of his own face. 

His own HEAD- messy and decapitated. Held in that RAT’S arms as he looked stupidly at the camera. His own FATHER even posed behind the man- trying to look intimidating. The page didn’t need words to illustrate their meaning. 

An era was dead. Killed in cold blood by the next. HIS era was gone. 

Ashes were sprayed everywhere as the side table was sent soaring across the vast chamber. The marble of the ashtray shattered as cigarette buds littered the floor. The cover was torn from the book, the mockery of his visage destroyed as it was ripped to shreds. Pieces of the laminated paper fluttered limply to the ground in messy piles. Soon page after page followed until the magazine was no more. Papa stomped on the shreds with the heel of his black shoes- crushing them with all his weight and might.

Another howl and his hands were in his hair- pulling at the raven locks and digging into his scalp. But the pain from his nails brought him no respite. Instead he reached for the chair. There was the splintering crack of wood and it too was thrown the opposite way. Glass shattered as the ruined chair crashed through the balcony doors. The curtains that covered them soon followed, and the decorative vases were next. Piece by piece, the sitting room was destroyed; every tasteful decoration, every rich tapestry and painting. All ripped and shredded until nothing covered the walls, and the floor was cast in ruin. And in the center of the storm was Papa, rage the only thing that registered in his mind. 

It might have been minutes, it could have been hours. But the third Emeritus did not stop until the entire chamber was in total carnage. The rage did not subside as one might have hoped. Instead, the wreckage only fueled it. Papa’s whole body shook, boiling with barely concealed wrath. Taking his anger out on his sitting chambers was not helping. It only made him feel worse.There was no rational thought as he stomped over the broken furniture; only the unquenchable need to rend and tear anything and everything that crossed his path. And that path ended with one goal.

Papa Emeritus the Third didn’t even notice walking over the disappointed look of his father’s face. The stoic visage of the Grand Papa on the sliver of paper was swept aside by a new breeze and lost in the chaos. 

----

Even being consumed by near blinding rage did not stop Papa from navigating the vast halls of the cathedral. The distant cacophony of laughs and muted chatter aided him in his search. The third Emeritus stumbled all the way down the corridor, following the noise. His haze prevented him from making out the words, but it wasn’t necessary. Papa merely focused on the distinct, awkward gait of one voice. The annoying pitch of one man that stoked his hatred into hot coals.  

When he crossed the threshold of the hallway, he found himself in one of the many open rooms. There were many bodies around, yet none he cared to even focus on. They were blurs to his racing thoughts and need for blood. Papa was only distantly aware of being acknowledged. The pleasant greetings and his title being acknowledged were ignored. Instead, Papa’s eyes instantly locked on one red figure in the back of the room. One that was chuckling and nodding along to a conversation, as though Papa had not just entered. The Emeritus pushed pass all of the confused outstretched hands and eager faces, leaving a trail of shocked eyes following him. 

His eyes never left the damned Cardinal, watching as Copia continued his conversation nonchalantly. The red of Copia’s cassock bothered his eyes as much as the man’s face. The rat like way the man moved almost made Papa sick. From the twitches of Copia’s mouth to the beady eagerness of his eyes, Papa hated every inch of the Cardinal. Worst of all were eyes that looked far too much like Papa’s own. The Anti-Pope felt unbridled fury wash over him the closer he got. His whole body trembled with more violently with every step to wear he could barely see straight. 

The small ghoul speaking with Copia must have noticed Papa first, staring wide eyed under his chromed mask. He doubted Copia would have noticed his presence at all had his conversation not halted. The Cardinal has the audacity to seem shocked at Papa’s disheveled appearance- but offered a polite smile anyway. Copia bowed his head in proper respect and sheepishly raised a gloved hand in greeting. 

“Good evening, Papa. How are you this-?”

The question was cut off by a chorus of shrieks and gasps. 

Papa towered over the crumpled figure of Copia, his knuckles screaming in agony from the strike to the Cardinal’s face. His foot came down on the Rat’s side. Listening to the high grunts Copia let out only spurred him on. The sound made Papa ravenous for blood, for the chance to maim and destroy. Lifting his leg back Papa brought it down heavily for another series of blows to the Cardinal’s gut. He paid no mind to the mortified crowd that shrank away from attack. Copia desperately tried to pull away with them, retching and gasping for breath as he clutched his stomach. The Cardinal would not get the chance to run as he was kicked onto his back once more in a shower of stomps. 

A metallic skittering on the floor was what brought Papa out of his savage mindset. He saw the glint of crystals shining up at him as something hit his foot. Papa realized Copia’s Grucifex, made of the finest stones to signify his meager office, had become detached by the violent assault. It laid face up, somehow in one piece despite its snapped chain. Papa’s nostrils flared as he saw a tight, leather clad hand weakly reached for it. A sickening crunch echoed as Papa’s dress shoe heel came down on the hand. Copia let out a howl of agony before retracting his arm, holding it pathetically to his body like a wounded animal.

Another crack and the Grucifex was mangled under his shoe. Papa kicked the offending jewelry across the tiles, ignoring the stray crystals that flew in every direction. 

“You might have all of them fooled,” he spat, a wide hand gesturing to the horrified onlookers, emphasized by another jab with his heel. “You might have the world groveling at your feet, now. But you are nothing.”

Papa didn’t stop, he physically couldn’t if he wanted to. Had it not been for the large ghoul that ran up, he might have kept going until Copia was bloody pulp under his feet. The ghoul shoved the Emeritus away by the shoulders. Papa snarled and fought back to hurl more abuse at the Cardinal. 

“You are nothing but a leech, trash- a rat!! And that’s all you will ever be! Envious of our noble blood, but never worthy for the crown. We all know it! You’ll never be good enough, no matter how much paint they put on your face!!”

Had he been in his right mind, he might have been taken aback by the look Copia sent him. The pretender’s own white eye blazed as he laid on the floor. As white hot as his own anger. Could looks kill, Papa would have been murdered a thousand times over. The Emeritus did not relent, even as a second ghoul tried to pull him away. To his credit, he fought with all the demon blooded strength he could muster. All to get at the rat writhing under his gaze.

“You are just the dirt under our shoes, Imperator's LAP DOG! A laughing stock! Wait until you fail!! We’ll be the ones laughing then!!” 

He kicked and shrieked, hurling incoherent abuse after abuse. A third ghoul was forced to stand up and restrain Papa. Finally able to haul him off of his feet and past the gawking crowd. The youngest Emeritus made a spectacle of himself as he was carried out. His legs flailing, as his arms were locked back by the burly ghouls. He continued to shout until his voice was hoarse, lost as echoes on the walls. So many eyes stared at him, as though watching an active car wreck. Just like his last ritual…

Papa managed to get out one last shriek before the double doors shut. 

“RAT!!”

---

The next morning he awoke to a fieresome headache. One that made his ears ring and his temples pound. Papa imagined this is what it must have felt like to have a rubber band threaten to collapse your skull. The bright sunlight streaming into the office windows did not help. Even with his designer sunglasses, it was hell for his hangover. Papa gave an exasperated sigh as he looked around. Anything to avoid the disappointed look the painting of his father gave him from beyond the ornate desk. The youngest Emeritus wanted to flip the portrait off. But why settle for a painting when he could do it to the real thing? 

As if on cue, the door behind him creaked open. Papa didn’t bother to stand or acknowledge his father as he shuffled in. The unmistakable wheezing and clinking of the air tank wheels did nothing to bother him. The Third Emeritus kept his seat, fiddling with his water bottle as the decrepit figure lumbered into view. There was a screeching of chair legs as the elder man settled, followed by a quick bout of gasping. Papa didn’t bother to meet the set of cataracted, dead eyes glaring across the desk. 

Grand Papa Nihil looked less than pleased to see his youngest son. More disappointed than usual, if such a thing were possible. 

“Antonio,” rasped the elder man’s voice- strong despite his rotting lungs. 

Antonio, when was the last time anyone had called him that? Not since  his ascension to Papacy, at least. The name almost sounded foreign coming from the older man, as though summoning a spectre long since passed. Antonio could barely make the connection to himself. But here he was, forced down to the man he was under all the paint and lavish robes.

“Good Morning, Father.” Began the youngest, bitter expression betraying the lilt in his voice. “And how does this absolutely FINE day find you?”

“Enough with the mindless prattle, boy. You know why you are here.” 

Antonio winced, and clutched his head. Despite being barely a rumbling growl, Nihil’s voice managed to pierce his ears. The hangover was unforgiving. He supposed this was his punishment for drinking in earnest last night. Anything to drown out the anger and bitterness after the stunt he pulled. The memory made his temples pulse again, and he rubbed a thumb into the side of his head. Willing the pain to subside long enough to get out of this relatively quickly. 

“Care to enlighten me?”

 Nihil slapped a large hand onto his desk. His age did not betray his strength, and it sent a tremor through the wood. The rattle of papers and knick knacks made Antonio want to vomit from the noise. The younger Papa hissed at the sound, and the snarl of his father. 

“Don’t dare to play coy with me, Antonio! Once again, your actions disgrace both the Clergy and myself! Causing such a scene at the party last night. Have you no shame, boy?” 

Nihil held up a shaking hand before Antonio could respond. A noise of protest leaving the younger man’s lips. 

“I do not want to hear it.”

Antonio watched bitterly as his father bent down. Lifting up the oxygen mask from his tank. With a rattling breath, the Grand Papa inhaled deeply. The old codger gaped like a fish out of water, trying to suck down as much air as he could. The youngest Papa had often wondered how much the geezer had left to him. It was moments like this he figured the old man would never die. Fitting. Nihil was probably keen to haunt Antonio for the rest of his natural born life. Antonio waited for his father to speak once more. After an uncomfortable silence the Grand Papa hissed out a sigh. 

“Would it be too much for you to conduct yourself properly? Is wearing your crown proudly too much of a burden? No dignity, no regard for your rank! Such disgrace- An utter embarrassment!” 

Antonio winced as the Grand Papa’s voice boomed around them. The sound made his headache feel that much worse. In another life, he might have cared that he was being belittled yet again. Antonio was that much tempted to respond the way his always did. Take it for every word. Letting the disappointment of decades soak in. Only to eventually slink out of the office with his tail between his legs and resentment permeating around him. All that was stripped away as soon as Nihil gestured to his son with a gnarled hand. An angry wheeze making him snap to attention.  

“Are you listening, Antonio?” 

“Oh, I am listening, father. You know I’m alway so EAGER to learn how I’ve failed you.” 

Far from their first back and forth, this much was true. Yet venom dripped from the younger man’s tongue. Nihil hissed through his mask as though his son spat acid at him. His tone low with warning as he wheezed another breath. 

“Boy, you-”

“No, father! I WILL NOT sit here and be demeaned yet again! Have I not heard it entirely before?”

“Antonio-”

“What? No longer enough to just scold me like a child? Instead, why not REALLY speak your mind, father!” 

His voice rose to unreached heights. Never, even in his rebellious years, did he have such audacity to raise his voice so high. He could tell the Grand Papa was taken aback. His cateracted, cloudy eyes blinking in disbelief. Anotino stood, ignoring his throbbing skull’s protest. His hands slapped down on the strong wood as he leaned face to face with his father. 

“Might I suggest switching it up? We all know you’ve been dying to say so much more! Even after I bring you home success? Followers? FAME? But no, tell me again how much I am a failure.”

The old man’s jaw snapped shut in indignation.

“Antonio-”

“I know! Why don’t we call our precious Sister Imperator down! She’s usually in the spirit of helping you carve me down! These were mostly her thoughts weren’t they? After all, we know how you can’t think without the snake-”

“That is ENOUGH!!”

The large chair screeched as Nihil pulled to his full, frightening height. As a child he would have been cowed by the monstrance difference. Antonio remained steadfast as his mismatched eyes bore into the challenging milky depths of Nihil’s. A smarter man might have kept his mouth shut- backed down. Even ask for forgiveness! Hurt would not let him. Not after the agony of his current position- all the humiliation, degradation, and long buried transgressions coming to light. Antonio flashed his canines at the older man. Practically challenging him then and there. The Grand Papa snorted and wheezed. 

“Never speak so poorly of Sister Imperator in my presence again.” 

“Forgive me, O’ Grand Papa- I tend to forget. She is far more valuable than any of us humble beggars.”

“Sit down, Antonio-”

“Let alone the meager soul of your youngest-”

“I’m ordering you to-”

“So much more beloved than your own CHILDREN!”

“Sit DOWN-!!”

The proud, sturdy wood of the desk splintered under the ancient Papa’s hand. Nihil struggled to catch his breath, but refused to yield to his son. His tall form shook with age and the demonic blood that sung in his veins. Antonio could only blink in disbelief for a heart beat. Then a dry, bitter laugh rasped from the Third’s throat. Lifting his arms up and out, tilting his head up to get that much closer. 

 “Or what, Father? Tell me. What possible punishments do you have for me? What fate could you possibly deal that hasn’t already broken me?”

Antonio snarled before his father could even open his mouth. The shouting bounced off the old walls in a cacophony of anger. He raised a finger, a claw slowly coming out of the tip as his inner beast came to light. 

“What more could you possibly do! Drag me off the stage again? Take away all I have ever truly loved? Then I’m sure you and your precious sister could have a good laugh! Just watching your ‘idiot son’ be humiliated in front of the world again! Surely that will bring me to my knees! I can already feel myself seeking penance for it. Here father, why not strip and lynch me in front of the whole Clergy. Let them see how shameful I truly am!”

The younger slammed a fist hard on the desk, scattering knick knacks to the floor with barely concealed might. His voice broke and became a shrill cry.

 “After EVERYTHING I’ve done for you! Done for THIS ministry! Rub salt in the wound! Quarter me, bury me- CRUCIFY ME for last night! I am already dead to the empire I BUILT. What could you possibly do now that hasn’t already been my damnation?”

He didn’t even feel the tears running down his face. Nor did he savor any self pity or sorrow they brought. His head was too gone and his heart in too much turmoil. It was a miracle his father, the instrument of his life long misery, had not interrupted. Had let him vent everything welled up and festering in his soul for so long. Antonio could not even bare keeping the Grand Papa’s cloudy eyes. He finally dropped his own to the desk as he began to sulk. Shoulders dropping and pulling away from the fine would that now sported two sizable dents. 

Papa Emeritus the Third did not wait to be dismissed, and turned tail. 

The large ornate door slammed shut without so much as a glance back to the Grand Papa.  

It was for the better that he didn’t. Antonio might have broken if he had seen the look of pity in his father’s eyes. 

--

Here they were again in the little sitting room. Neither of them were Papas in this moment, just brothers. Albeit rather estranged in their old age,  and hurting for time to visit. But they were still brothers. 

As with his father, his title didn’t matter. He was no longer Papa Emeritus The Third, Unholy Vessel of Lucifer and the World of the Clergy. 

And his brother was no longer Papa Emeritus, First to bear his name. 

They were simply Enzio and his baby brother Antonio. Like they were decades ago, and like they will be in the future and, eventually, afterlife. The only thing missing from their quiet little meeting was their middle brother. Understandable, as he was always quite preoccupied with meetings, both of the business and intimate sort. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, his other sibling’s absence. It gave Antonio some much needed one on one advice he desperately sought… 

Just like they were as children, Antonio found himself sitting in his big brother’s chair watching the older man work. Maybe if he was small he would have been kicking his legs contently. Antonio still watched with the same childlike rapture as his older brother worked. Enzio, per usual on his down time, was bent over his sprigs of herbs that he meticulously grew by the windows of his office. The eldest brother had once described them as ‘crucial’ to his rituals. But Antonio suspected the older man simply enjoyed gardening. The eldest Emeritus was rather good at it, as well. There were pots of luscious, full green leaves on every available window sill. Vibrant, yet trimmed lovingly by their vigilant and patient care giver. 

The youngest couldn’t help but chuckle as he watched Enzio work. The elder man muttering to himself and pouring pre-measured cups of water into marble pots. Antonio had always found it such an endearing sight to see how his brother fussed over his plants. Babbling about their leaf length, color, and even soil moisture. Such minor details to many, yet a world of difference to this one man. These little details was why Enzio was such a good Papa to their Clergy, Antonio thought. Even if he was the least favoured among their Ministry by the youths, Enzio was by far the most nurturing. 

A shame really, but Antonio understood the disconnect between their followers and Enzio. The eldest Emeritus, despite his caring and love of his flock, was the most intimidating of the three brothers. Enzio’s first offense being his unfortunately frightening appearance. Age giving him no favors to his sharp, hooked nose, beady eyes, or tall hunched figure. The second being his preaching style, in which he conducted sermons in the same fire and brimstone passion one might find in some cartoon villain. Finally, and most tragically, was his often wispy, monotone way of speaking. Often blunt and almost TOO to the point, betraying any hint of compassion he might be trying to express. Siblings of Sin regularly accused the oldest Emeritus brother of being hard to confide in for all these reasons. Yet, to Antonio, it was hilariously to the contrary. 

Antonio used to laugh at all the Siblings of Sin who would cower under the Enzio’s gaze- as though expecting him to strike them down the moment they skipped their unholy hymns or arrive late to a sermon. If only they had known what he did! That the man they feared was nothing but a frail old scholar, who obsessed over his plants and studies. That Enzio would rather scold a book for being out of place before he ever raised his voice to a Sibling needing guidance. For Antonio, it was almost like having a dirty little secret knowing that he saw the real Enzio. That underneath the mitre, incense smoke, and impassioned speeches was just his brother. 

Then again, Antonio knew he was biased as he watched his oldest brother again. A fond smile tugged at his lips as Enzio consulted his growth charts and watering schedules. How could Antonio ever be afraid of the man that practically raised him from childhood? If only their flock could see the soft, caring man that raised his two younger siblings. The man that, in his youth, dutifully studied, worked every hour, and still found time to give to his needy younger brothers. 

 Enzio was only ten years their elder, yet much more of a parent than their father ever had been. Grand Papa Nihil far too busy with running the clergy and attending to his mistress than raising three boys. Enzio had given everything for his two younger siblings and the Ministry. There were times Antonio remembered Enzio being sleep deprived, but insisted he help with his brother’s studies. Or the countless childhood nightmares making Antonio beg to sleep in big brother’s bed. Enzio agreed every time, and used to read to Antonio enough to let him fall back asleep. 

Antonio remembered being heartbroken the day Enzio left for his Seminary after turning eighteen. It was a blow to his little heart watching his beloved brother disappear for a whole decade. Only eventually to return with black robes and a wickedly painted face. Nothing kept Antonio then, a new adult himself, from embracing his newly promoted brother- like nothing had changed. Truthfully, nothing between them did, other than a busier work schedule and less time to bond. How lucky Antonio felt thinking that one of the only stable aspects of his life was always in front of him, wrist deep in soil and foliage. 

There was a sudden curse that pulled the youngest Emeritus from his thoughts. He watched as a pot teetered on the edge of the table, Enzio recoiling form having smacked into it with his elbow. Antonio raced to Enzio’s side as it plummeted from its perch, snatching the pot mid air before it struck carpet. The younger man hopped up with sage triumphantly in one hand. Enzio couldn’t help but grin at the theatrics and happily accepted his potted friend back from his brother. 

“Thank you,” rasped the eldest Emeritus with a grateful nod. 

“My pleasure,” Antonio huffed, catching his breath. 

“You are much more spry than I am. I was fearful that I might be mourning good sage.”

Enzio carefully sat the plant as lovingly as one might a child. Once in its rightful place he offered Antonio a grateful pat on the shoulder. His firm touch betrayed his old age yet Anonio did not mind. He fondly watched Enzio shuffle past back to the pair of plush armchairs. The older man quickly made himself comfortable as he waited for Antonio to join him. Enzio cleared his throat as Antonio dropped down next to him. 

“My thanks for your patience, Antonio” he began in his slow and deep voice. “My plants were overdue for their watering this week. You understand.” 

“I should be thanking you for taking the time to see me. Tea?” 

Porcelain clinked as it was picked up from the full tray Antonio had requested be brought to them. Two cups, one decorative pot, and a plate of small finger sandwiches waited for them. Warm steam rose up as Antonio poured the tea water into Enzio’s favorite cup. The elder brother clicked his tongue in thanks, savouring the herbal smell. Antonio plucked one of the delectable bites up as his brother fixed their cups. 

“You haven’t been sleeping.” 

The sandwich stopped halfway up to his mouth, Antonio dropping it in surprise. He cursed as the cucumber filling splattered onto his designer waistcoat. Damn it. How could he be stupid enough to believe he could fool Enzio’s supernatural levels of perception? A plastic like smile graced Antonio’s features as he tried to compose himself. Producing a napkin he dabbed at the new stain with a stiff chuckle. 

“Pardon me?”

“You haven’t been sleeping,” his brother reiterated, pointing down at the cups. “You only drink Mate-blends when you have insomnia.” 

Antonio hesitantly looked down at the offending tea bag, and frowned. Sure enough, ‘Mate-Green’ was on the tea bag label. The man could read him like a book, that much was obvious. 

“Does something trouble you, Antonio? It’s not like you to not sleep.” 

The younger Emeritus bolted upright and stiffened straighter than a board. Antonio wanted to argue, to play it off like it was one of his many week long stints. He was a man of nightlife, wasn’t he? He could blame it on the dinners, parties, and orgies he was no longer having. The look in his brother’s eyes made Antonio immediately reconsider. Antonio had never been able to lie to Enzio, not even as a child. The look in Enzio’s eyes was far too sympathetic and trusting. The older man must have seen Antonio’s sudden look of apprehension. 

“You know my door is always open for you, Bambino.” 

The use of his childhood pet name is what broke Antonio. Shamefully, he broke down like a dam with all of his emotions flooding out. As he did so many times in his youth, he wept in front of Enzio. Barely able to string a comprehensive thought, let alone speak- the youngest continued to sob. Everything he had been holding it was too much, and Enzio had seen through his nonchalant facade. 

Maybe if he was in his right mind, Antonio would have admitted to being at his lowest point. Everything was crashing down around him, and he wept in front of his beloved brother with the ferocity of a toddler having a meltdown. Antonio buried his face in his hands for what felt like hours. Shoulders heaved as he cried out every last drop of frustration and sorrow that plagued him for weeks.  

“S-sorry-! My apologies, I was not intending to-”

Enzio lifted up an open palm, quieting down his brother immediately.

“Antonio, when have I ever scolded you? I’ve always asked you be nothing but honest with me in your feelings. Now I will do the same for you. You must understand how you have nothing to be ashamed of. Like us before you, you carried great pride for your work and your duties. Bowing down gracefully is an act of strength and humility- so much against what we’ve been taught, no? Let it be a solemn time for you. You’ve dedicated so much to the Ministry and to His Infernal Majesty. It is only fitting that you weep for that which you have sown. ”

Enzio- so genuine in his lack of judgement, so kind in his understanding. Granted, a tad on the preachy and rehearsed side, but Antonio appreciated it more than the other man could know. Yet he couldn’t help but pull a sour face at the comforting speech. Antonio finessed a finely embroidered handkerchief from his breast pocket. Wrinkling his nose in distaste he soiled the fine silky fabric with tears and smudged paint.    

“I don’t remember you sobbing like a babe when you were demoted.” 

“Demoted? No. Stepping down for the good of the project? Yes. Antonio, you understand, I knew it was inevitable. I was prepared to hand over the role for the success of our Church. Yet that does not mean I was not heartbroken, like yourself.”

“‘Heartbroken’? You must be joking. Enzio, you practically handed away your title on a gold platter!” 

“Remember what I said about humility?”

Enzio chuckled dryly at his little brother’s puzzled expression. 

“Antonio,” he began again softly, “Though we must bask in Pride, as Lucifer has taught us, we must know our place in the grander scheme of things. The Ghost Project is only a small piece of our roles. You must know that there is more to you than this one act. Lucifer wills you to continue, that he needs you for something grander. Have faith in Him.”

Rolling his eyes wasn’t intentional, but Antonio found himself scoffing at the advice. He crossed his arms and pouted like a child. 

“What does that have to do with how “Heartbroken” you were? That’s not what I asked!”

Another whisper of a laugh sounded from Enzio, the same one he gave whenever a younger Antonio would fuss and complain. The younger man was tempted to snap at his brother, but chose to bite his tongue. 

“I was incredibly heartbroken that my time was up, Antonio. You know this pain well. It is never an easy feat to give up one’s place. Yet I know that this was not the only plan our Dark Lord had for me. Yes, I could have kicked up a fight and scrapped for my position back. But I had faith that this was not the end for my duties, nor my life’s work. As they say, dear brother- the end is also a new beginning. I rather prefer to step down when the time comes and welcome a new chapter- both for the Clergy and myself. I have no doubt our times end when they need to in light of another path. This is what comforts me.” 

The brothers sat in pregnant silence when Enzio finished. With shaking hands Antonio sipped his tea, trying to calm himself. Faith in Lucifer? He was devout, but never as zealous as his eldest brother. How could he have faith in something so drastic and unforgiving?

“Enzio-?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s say I do not have the ‘graciousness’ to step down so humbly as yourself. That I’m not ready for a ‘new chapter’.” The older man arched an eyebrow but nodded along quietly. 

“Let us pretend I am virtually incapable of such a feat. Perhaps my own pride is too great. What do I do then?” 

“You do not give yourself enough credit-”

“Brother, please- humor me.” 

Surprisingly, Antonio watched as Enzio leaned back in his seat and stared off into the distance- his tell-tale sign of seriously considering the question. The dregs of his mate-tea were slurped down as his knee bounced, waiting for the infinite wisdom to come spouting from Enzio. He was sorely tempted to wave a hand in front of the older man’s face when it did not come quickly enough. His patience was rewarded as Enzio stared back and nodded matter of factly. 

“I do not think I am the one that can help you, Antonio.” 

“Then who should I speak to about all this if not you?”

“Our Brother.” 

--

Idle time was hard to come by in the life of the Papacy. Despite all of the perks and benefits of being Papa, it left luxuries like family bonding as some sort of commodity. Schedules were tricky to match when all three siblings rotated between obligations, Clergy meetings, and chasing one’s own private pleasures. Antonio had been extremely fortunate to have found an afternoon he could spend with Enzio. The stars aligning just right so he might speak with his eldest brother relatively painlessly. On the other hand, arranging a night with his middle brother had been much more frustrating. 

Papa Emeritus the Second, Antonio’s brother and predecessor, was an incredibly busy man. 

The younger Emeritus had bothered the Second’s secretary for two days straight until he had a definitive date. Finally finding an exception to their harrowing schedules for one night, so they might meet. The secretary bullied enough to jot the exact time down in the fancy, leather bound planner. Antonio even insisted on sending a text reminder, making sure no precaution was forgotten. This being the first time in months he was able to speak to the Second uninterrupted, and he was not going to squander it! 

Antonio chose a favorite restaurant of theirs as the meeting place. The younger brother could think of no better way of spending time than at such a fine establishment. After all, dining was a passion they had developed together as soon as they were young men. A particular favorite sin of indulgence they shared together, outside of their similar tastes for women and luxury. Not to forget, an unblessed excuse to get away from Ministry grounds for the evening.  

The youngest Emeritus arrived first. A classy yet quiet Italian place that had been around for decades. It boasted a long history of hosting the finest and richest guests. The food alone was well worth the bribe it took to squeeze in a last minute reservation. He booked a secluded table table for two on the outside balcony. That way they could enjoy the sunset and the subsequent city lights when night followed. A cool breeze marked the perfect time of year. Fresh air and lovely scenery would pair well with their meal. Antonio was confident his brother would never turn down such a night! 

With a flourish he sat down and placed a wine order immediately. Their finest, of course, only lightly chilled. He was content to tide himself over with the fresh bread and oil laid out. No orders were placed as he waited, insisting on nursing his new glass of Masseto Toscana. Though the burgundy elixir was downed in minutes before Antonio anxiously poured himself another serving.  After being alone for so long the new wait for company was becoming borderline excruciating.

Minutes ticked by, and soon he found himself waiting for half an hour. The waiter would meekly ask if he would like to order, but Antonio declined- seeming nonchalant. The bread kept his stomach from being too empty, thankfully as he got half way down the bottle. After the third glass was polished off he frowned, the temptation to cut his losses almost had him requesting the bill. Thankfully, a firm yet smooth voice banished all of his fears. 

“Pardon my Tardiness, the meeting ran later than anticipated.”

Antonio grinned wide, the first time in ages. The younger stood up and held out his arms in greeting.

“And here I worried you stood me up again.” 

There was a shadow of a smirk from Papa Emeritus the Second as he regarded his younger brother. There was no embrace, nor handshake from the two- and there didn’t need to be. Only the meaningful chuckles as they both took their seats. Antonio wasted no time in pouring them both a fresh glass. The older Emeritus took it gratefully and swirled it, weary from the day’s events. His brother’s deeper, rich voice finally broke the silence. 

“Stand you up? There’s an idea. But then who would pay for my meal?” 

“I could name plenty of Sisters who would gladly,” Antonio said, laughing light-heartedly. He cleared his throat as he offered a small grateful smile to his curious brother. 

“It really is a pleasure for you to join me, Giovanni.” 

The Second Emeritus glanced over his signature sunglasses at the mention of his first name. Very few ever called him by it since his own ascension into Papacy. Antonio knew he was always an exception to this unspoken rule.   

“It has been far too long,” Giovanni agreed. 

The waiter was quick to scurry over as they settled. Neither of the brothers were phased by the interruption. Instead, they were happy to deliberate their order together- a bit of a past time in lightly debating wine would pair perfectly with their meal. It took a few minutes of light bantering before they settled on two bottles of Pinot gris with their entrees. Giovanni refused the Wine List and picked the finest bottles in the restaurant stock. Both men grinned at one another as the waiter dashed away, chuckling as he hastily complimented their choice. 

Fresh bread and oil were brought out and swapped with the old basket, as their wine was poured. Excellent service, thought Antonio as he and Giovanni sipped their topped glasses. Definitely worth a decent tip should it continue. The pair sat in peaceful silence as they patiently waited. Together they basked in the quality of their drinks and the nice breeze over the balcony. Antonio hadn’t realized how hungry he had actually been until two steaming plates of seafood were served in record time. The waitstaff, he concluded after inspecting his perfectly cooked scallops, would be getting their usual %50 tip. 

Giovanni was the first to speak after they had their fill of exquisite pasta and shellfish. A thoughtful look graced his normally stern face as he poured more of the white wine. A leather clad finger traced the rim of his glass as he looked up to Antonio. 

“You look troubled, dear brother.” 

Antonio scoffed as he grabbed for the bottle, unceremoniously filling his empty glass.

“Would you believe me if I said I was quite tired of hearing that?”

“Absolutely not- considering what I’ve been told of the good Cardinal’s Congratulatory Party.” 

A smirk was shared between the brothers as Antonio carefully pressed the glass to his lips. He took a long, easy sip as he regarded Giovanni’s words. There was a chuckle as Antonio tried to play coy. 

“Oh, you heard about that?”

“The whole Abbey was in an uproar over it. Not to mention I was the one stuck hearing about it from Father. He had some colorful words about the ordeal. So I’ll thank you for that fun afternoon.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m buying you dinner,” Antonio muttered with a grimace. 

“Oh, you’ll be treating me for a week- I can assure you. Just be grateful that’s the only slap on the wrist you were granted.”

They snickered quietly, polishing off their glasses. Another blanket of silence fell over the pair as the air started to cool. Antonio shifted in his seat as he turned to study the scene below. lights dancing awake on the streets as the sun dipped under the horizon. He could not bear the quiet for long and eventually cleared his throat.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you for not doing the same to me when I ascended…” 

Giovanni gave him a thoughtful look as he smirked. 

“In all honesty, I was very much tempted. Someone should have wiped the smug look off of your face.”

Antonio could not fault him there. His arrogance at his new title was apparent from day one. It only grew as Antonio became more successful. At the time he felt he deserved to be vain, selfish- entitled to anything and everything he wanted. That was his thinking then, before everything crashed down around him. Antonio was not as confident now, and suspected Giovannin could sense it. 

“Though I would not have gone as far as you might have for your little predecessor- I must congratulate you on your boldness. You’ve certainly made your impact on the Higher Clergy, Antonio. I doubt they expected that from you of all people.”

“Yet you did nothing when you stepped down?”

For the first time in a while, Giovanni perked an eyebrow up at him, confused. His voice was not annoyed, nor contained any hint of malice. 

“Pardon me?”

“Why did you never lash out at them? You never resented me… Or, at least I’m SURE you never did. But you never fought back when they demoted you from the project. You practically loved-”

“-Loved the stage more than you. Yes, I know.”

“Then why? Surely they would expect such a thing from you.” 

“You speak of it as if you wanted me to maul you in front of the whole congregation.”

“Not me, but the Higher Clergy.”  

The mouth of the wine bottle clipped the lip of the wine glass as Giovanni poured himself more- emptying the last of it as he huffed to himself. The wine was gone in one undignified chug before the glass clattered on the table, startling Antonio. Giovanni slapped his hand on the table, looking over his glasses with a sudden serious gaze. 

“Simple,” came the firm answer, “I choose not to live my life for them.” 

“You could have continued had you not been ready.”

Fingers drummed violently on the table as Giovanni pushed his glass aside. 

“Did you invite me all the way out here to antagonize me, or just to speak of my apparent lack of effort in holding my spotlight?” 

“Incidentally, I did.”

Disbelief painted Giovanni’s face at the admittance. A small, apologetic smile was offered before his older brother could retort. Awkwardly, Antonio cleared his throat while looking his brother dead in the eyes.

“Giovanni… I need your advice. I’m afraid- quite bluntly, I’m afraid I have not been as strong as you.” Giovanni grunted and lifted up a gloved hand.

“With all due respect, Antonio- what exactly do you want me to say? Do you want me to pity you for fulfilling your purpose? I will not add to your self imposed pity party.”

“That’s not what I want!”

“Then what? What could I possibly have to offer you?”

Had he not known his brother, Antonio would have missed the anger in his voice covering up the hurt. The old wound that made Giovanni the wounded, bitter old man many accused him of being. His brother had nothing to offer him because he had no idea himself. 

“I just want to know- how did you get past it all?” Antonio bit back, failing to keep the emotions at bay. “You were the star before me. You said it yourself, you loved the stage! The work and music meant everything to you…. Just please, give me this. You’ve always been the hard ass among us. How?” 

Two sets of mismatched eyes stared at one another for a long moment. Antonio barely took a breath as the tension set between them. Giovanni closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Not to keep his legendary temper down, Antonio knew, but to will away the deep pain. He poured his brother another glass like an offering on the chapel altar. It was gone in a heartbeat and Giovanni sighed. 

“I already told you, Antonio. Live for yourself. I- you might feel worthless and expendable by Them. Like some little puppet to sing and nothing more. But we are so much more. We as greater than them, without their little project. Without their stupid band that pales in comparison to what our blood has built for centuries. I refused to bow to their wants, and refuse to feel any less because they decided my time was over. Understand?”

Without looking at his brother he looked out onto the streets below. They were empty save for the few flickering lights of the street lamps, like fading stars in the distance. In that moment his mind flashed back to all the city lights from his tour bus. All the arenas, the cheering, the love and energy of the crowd. He remembered the interviews, and the one glorious moment where he held the golden award in front of thousands. A tear threatened to fall down his eye. 

“Don’t you miss it?”

“Every day.” 

The tear streaked down his face, and he was none the wiser that it would be his last one. 

“Antonio- look at me.” 

By some miracle, Antonio willed himself to meet his brother’s eyes- now softer, if such a feat were possible. Giovanni leaned in, his tone in a serious growl. 

“You are much more. Remember your worth.” 

Dinner ended in a blur as the final drops of wine were shared. Antonio suspected that the chat had lifted weight from them both, but never dared to question it further. His brother’s final pieces of advice rang in his head as he bid Giovanni a good night. Per usual, they had departed in their own vehicles- Antonio to the Clergy and Giovanni to who knows where for pleasure seeking. Antonio stayed quiet as he watched the city lights from his car door window. Suddenly a new appreciation had bloomed in his chest, and he felt a calm like he hadn’t known for many nights. 

--

The repairs of his sitting room went surprisingly well. The work had taken a few days, but the repairmen were thorough and swift. It was definitely worth the inconvenience of having workers in and out of his quarters all week. The glass door of the balcony was finally fixed, as were the sconces that lined the walls. Antonio had even put in a special order to replace them with more ornate pieces. The gold fixtures went well with the new chandelier and a fresh coat of paint on the walls. He had tipped his interior designer handsomely for the suggestion. Ivory and gold made the space grander and more lively!  

Antonio stood in the middle of the chamber, arms contently tucked behind his back as he admired the new room. The new carpet beneath his shoes felt great, and the colors brought a smile to his face. All that remained were the furnishings that were scheduled to be delivered soon. Fine mahogany chairs and tables, with soft yet bold upholstery. A darker wood than he was used to, but what fine contrast he was sure it would make. 

When it was time for the room to come together, Antonio was sure it would end up more Victorian in style. A slight, brighter look than the Gothic appearance he was used to. He assured himself the change would be worth it. The lighter colors already brightened his mood and made him feel lighter. Antonio had all the time in the world to contemplate the rest of the decor. 

 He mused over the idea of skipping curtains over the balcony doors, altogether. The sunlight was more refreshing in recent days when he left the doors uncovered.The glass door eased open as he stepped onto the balcony. Lifting his chin, he smiled to himself as the rays of the morning sun warmed his face. Only weeks, yet it felt like years since he last greeted a new day. There was something invigorating about the feeling. Hands found the railing as he gazed out into the world. The same trees, the same sky- but something different in the way he saw it. A new appreciation for the sights below him. 

Antonio let the gentle breeze play through his hair and smiled again. Same, yet brand new. Just like he felt. 

[deathduty]

Mother || Solo

Siobhan Dolan had a presence so grand that all others were dwarfed by it. She could claim a room simply by entering. One word could spark tremors and her face with its severe features struck awe and fear in equal measure. 

Her daughter, by comparison, was a flicker. 

Siobhan entered Deirdre’s house not by knocking, or ringing anything as pedestrian as a doorbell, but by swinging the door open hard enough it smacked back against the door stopper. Deirdre looked up, having resigned herself to staring at her kitchen counter hoping the swirls of marble would spell out an answer to her---some kind of new divination she might discover if she just kept at it. 

Rather than being struck with confusion, or anger; Deirdre's composure shrunk under her mother's force. There was a push and pull between them, one had to fall for the other to rise, and Deirdre always did the falling. Her posture straightened, and a confident voice quivered into the meek imitation of language. 

“Deirdre,” Siobhan kicked the door closed behind her, tossing aside her suitcase and striding through the house as though she’d lived a hundred lives here. 

There was something about the way her mother looked at her always gave her the sense that she'd done something wrong. And most of the time, she had. 

"I didn't—why are you here?" Deirdre asked, her brows furrowed together. She got a glimpse of her face in the reflection of her black TV screen. Where her mother had edges and angles, Deirdre had rounded corners and cushy landings. She was a chameleon in all respects, capable of twisted smiles just as much as she was kinder glances. 

Her mother was no such creature. Even her happiest expression was coated in venom. Her face showed no weakness—all sharp with nothing blunted for safety. Her jet-black hair contrasted against the paleness of her skin, and her deep, almost impossibly black irises, consumed any shine. 

"Can a mother not visit her daughter?" Siobhan's voice took an insulted huff, but Deirdre was attuned to the nuances. She both beckoned her daughter to cross a line and threatened her not to. "You texted me. You said that we'd have a banshee soon."

It was obvious enough what the outcome of that venture was. With a pathetic sign hung loosely by tape in front of her, reading ‘IT’S A BOY’ with the ‘OY’ crossed out to make space for ‘ANSHEE’. And enough sweets to feed a small army, sitting on her table with a bone centerpiece---it was easy enough to see that there was no new banshee in sight. 

Deirdre turned back to her swirling marble of soft greys and sparkling whites. She shrunk further, set ablaze with the impending weight of her mother’s disappointment. Anger, she could take. Sadness could be handled. Disappointment she could never stomach. Her mother's appraisal was intoxicating, so rare and so gratifying, it was the only thing she could cling to for any sense of self. Like a lighthouse, Siobhan could cull any boat. At her shores, all questions had answers. There was a home, if only the rules were followed. It was better than finding herself lost at sea, with its choppy, uncaring waters. 

People flocked to her mother not for any faked charisma, not for her brilliance in acting out pleasantries, but rather her absence of it. They flocked to beg for her attention, dolled out so rare, lapped up like parched dogs. 

Deirdre had perfected a different kind of inspiration. The kind of charisma that came with effort, but found itself tinged with something darker. Her confidence was a learned trait, though no less deeply ingrained in her than her independence, one that withered completely under her mother's crushing presence. 

Diminished, Deirdre slumped, worried that if she sank any further she’d fall to the floor. And then where would she go? She’d told her mother enough about Regan’s situation to regret sharing her excitement at all. "She didn't scream." 

Her mother tapped her lip, mulling this over despite her face showing no signs of concentration. The nuance here was that she already had an answer, she always did. She went through the act of pretending to not know, perhaps to draw attention to the fact that there was no conundrum she couldn't solve. Deirdre knew this, watched and waited, caught by the anticipation of an answer she already knew too—her mother's daughter in thought, if not features. 

( Perhaps that had been by design too, etch her teachings so far into Deirdre's mind that she couldn't separate her thoughts from the echo of her mother ) 

"Kill someone then," she answered a moment later, sauntering through Deirdre's kitchen, opening and closing cabinets in the mock search of something. "You know how, my dear. And what more value can you give a human's life than this? They exist as fodder, now they can serve a sacred purpose." 

"But you said—" Deirdre swallowed thickly, watching her mother grow disinterested in poking her head around drawers. "But you said that we kill when it's foretold. When it's—"

"Oh, Deirdre, they're just humans. What else would they be doing? Sleeping? Eating? Shiting? Fate had been denied to this woman once, she's owed our corrective hand." 

Deirdre’s eyes searched the marble again, she hadn’t noticed the flecks of black in them before. 

“What have I always said we are?” Her mother hummed, surveying the dining table next. Deirdre glanced away from the countertop long enough to liken her mother to a hawk, except she knew there was nothing on that table she wanted to eat. 

Deirdre didn’t answer, and so her mother continued.  

"Sand. Layered and settled into sediment. Then rock. Then set into stone," her mother hummed again, strolling casually up to her daughter, "that's what life is, dear. Decided the moment we are born. You have a duty, the highest purpose life can offer." She lingered in front of her, though shorter by a number of inches, she never once looked up at Deirdre. She reached out a thin finger and tapped it against the stone of her daughter’s necklace. "Best not forget it. Though, I'm sure the horses still remember you, their darling shit picker." 

Deirdre paled. She did, after all, understand her mother and her nuances better than anyone else. Nothing Siobhan did was without meaning. 

“I don’t--It’s a--it’s just--” Deirdre babbled like a child.

Siobhan smiled, stepping away. “We can pick through your failings here, but I trust my daughter not to disappoint. Not when I’m so proud of her work here.”

The way in which they communicated changed the moment Deirdre killed her first human. Siobhan had never been kind or gentle, matronly at times when the occasion suited it, but never the warm hand. When her daughter displayed traits beyond her age, she turned proud. Then shrewd. When Deirdre's great-great-grandmother passed, and weakness flickered upon the face of the daughter she always held conditional pride for, she became callous. A stern hand was needed, the same that forced her daughter's head under water so she could learn to hold her breath even when it burned. She wasn't cruel, these were simply lessons that had to be learned.

And Deirdre just needed a reminder of the fundamentals. 

"So, sleep on it, my dear. Nothing good comes with a worried mind. Sulking is what humans do. And the worst thing you can be is—"

"Too human," Deirdre sighed, "I know." 

"Hm, I was going to say weak, but how nice of you to finally remember that. Now, where will I be sleeping?"

[nixalegos]

With Good Intentions

AUTHORS NOTE: I put a read more, as this story blurb has alot of squick in it, and it’s also likely my LONGEST story to boot, and nobody wants their dashboard cluttered up. Body horror, death, all that. Darker then usual for me, maybe not for most of you, but wanted to give the heads up anyway.

Somewhere in Jade Forest

“Never had to knock to be let in before, why is the whole town locked up and boarded?” He asked as he was finally let inside. “Oh, we’ve got troubles.” The barkeep said with his warbling tone, the Jinyu who owned the joint coming to double lock the door behind the familiar warlock. “One of the gatherers came back running, saying a dark ripple was spiralling in an open field, not less than half a day away.” They explained. “A dark portal? Is that why the call came out for the willing to get to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms? Are void portals forming on Pandaria? What of the Shado-Pan, surely you called for their help.” The hooded elf said as he pulled back a chair at the bars slightly damp counter. “Oh sure, sure, the mayor did...but they didn’t say when they’d be able to help.” Nix considered, the Shado-Pan were notoriously curt and dismissive of outsiders, and not without reason...and if a general call for -anyone- to come aid the Golden Fields...it was likely Pandarias shadowy defenders were already out-manned and unable to respond to something as petty as a small village way out on the coast. The hooded man looked at the Jinyu who for the first time since he met them, nervously washed and cleaned a glass, over and over. Such expressions had only recently been seen, the fear of the Sha manifesting from such negative emotions more than enough reason to suppress such displays in the past. “We’re just a fishing village..” “Tell you what, I’ll go check it out, make sure nothing crawled out, see if I can’t close it.” “You will?!” The jinyu replied, hope in their tone. “Sure, and in exchange, you have an order of that fried calamari waiting for me, alright?”

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“Oh hells, thats a larger portal then I expected.” Nix said outloud. “I’m measuring seven by six, and it’s stable.” He said as he clamped the spyglass shut to look over to where his Shivarra was still cloaked by magic. “But no cultists, no monsters...no ritual implements. Thoughts?” “Reality is weaker than you imagined, and whatever is going on in this Valley you were suppose to head to is a dire situation that is starting to spill out as far as out here, like ripples in water.” He grumbled and looked back they way they’d come, to the lush rich healthy greens that gave the forest its name. Then back towards the portal. “I keep my bargains.” “You should abandon such foolishness.” Nix considered the demons chastisement, then looked back again. “What better way to cause havoc then opening a second front with only civilians in your way? If a single void creature crawls out via this hole who knows what ruin they’ll bring after finding it. No. I’m shutting it down.” He said with an air of finality. “How, you said it was stable?” The demon said as it strode after its master. “I’m going to go in and sabotage whatever is keeping it open on the other side. There’s nothing out here powering it.” “You are not one of the Faithful, you’ll go mad.” The demon stated. Nix scoffed. “Still think the Big S had the right idea huh? Protected you from the nightmares? Weird to think we actually share an enemy.” “My first coven sisters died being dragged into such a portal, I am not following suit to die along a mortal fool I want to gut myself.” The demoness snarled with contempt dripping in its voice. “I can’t summon Negatrax to hold this end. Anyone else who stumbles on this portal with a Voidlord standing guard might do something stupid. You at least can’t be seen and the portal is still more a curiosity than a threat, and Vilynn would throw herself to follow me, which does me little good if the portals set to close behind me.” He explained. “So what is your plan?” The demon countered. “I jump in, destabilize it just on the other side. If it starts to close early, you reach in, and pull me out.” “And if there is the might of the Void on the other side?” “Then I leap out and we warn the village to evacuate.” Nix looked over himself, gauntleted hands roaming over his gear, double and triple checking his armaments. “Ok. Here goes nothing.” He stepped forward.

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Somewhere....Other

He was expecting shadows. Nightmares. Monsters. What he wasn’t expecting was stone walls that seemingly reached higher than the sky. He wheeled around..only to be met with another wall boxing him in. There was no portal to jump out by. “Oh fuck me.” He swore to himself as he realized he just how much trouble he might be in. He raised his hands, fingers curling as he sought to cast his own magics back to the real world. And nothing happened. He reached for his emergency teleporter. It wouldn’t turn on. His dimension rippers too bore no power. Even his hearthstone lacked its normal cooling blue glow. He was stuck. He turned around and slowly, carefully made his way down that seemingly unending corridor.

Hours passed. Even his pocket watch, the first gadget he’d built and been proud of had frozen still. He tried to keep time by counting in his head. He soon realized that the hall bore an end, but it was a maze, an oubliette, lefts and rights and over again.

Hours turned to days by his best guess, and it wasn’t until hunger drove him so that he made due with lichen that clung to those too high walls, and fetid water that pooled in low spots on the stone floors to soothe his thirst. He gagged, his body tried to hurl it back up, but it clung and slid into his gullet like lead. But it wasn’t enough after the week mark. 

Even starving, he walked, he was half tempted to chew some of his own flesh clean off, if it meant keeping the hunger down long enough to get out. Something had to be keeping him here, something had to be aware enough to keep his magics and means from working.

That was when the torture started. Light filled his vision. Colors that were -wrong- somehow. Colors the warlock had never seen before, never considered possible danced and strobed and cavorted inside his eyes, penetrating his thoughts, and as he discovered as he tried to sleep, his dreams. His hands covered his eyes and it did nothing. He slammed his head against the wall for unconsciousness and it did nothing, even as he felt his blood running down his face still those foul colors were all around him, forcing him to walking by feeling the closest wall for support. ‘Do you remember how many of our Eyes you blinded?’ A voice just like Nix’s said in his mind. The warlock, throat too dry to scream gave a dry hack, and he fell to the stone floor as his vision returned after days of being flooded with light. He sputtered and tried to push himself up, tried to blink the memory of those awful distortions away.

The sound of a hundred hundred goblin designed cannons went off next to his head when he realized he couldn’t cry, leaving him falling back onto the stone floor. ‘Do you remember the words you silenced from the mouths of our Speakers?’ That voice said, louder now. Loud discordant sounds flared and whizzed and banged in staccato misrhythm. Worse was when they stopped, and snarls and chattering sounds of claws scraped along the floor behind him, half starved warlock limping his way faster despite how tired he was. He didn’t want to stop and let the sounds catch up to him, knowing in his heart it was worse then moving forward. Time passed, and Nix shuffled his way onto stone colder than the crispest mountaintop. The air so frigid his breath spooled out in white waves, and his lungs hurt from trying to take it in. Only to stumble into a literal oven. Despite the fact the stone corridor never changed, showed no heat distortions, he knew his flesh was cracking from the temperature. ‘Do you remember how many of our hands you broke?’ The voice taunted now.

“I’ll kill you.” The warlock whispered between cracked and bleeding lips, still going forward despite the effort.

A day, or a month had passed. It was impossible to tell when he stumbled upon the others. A woman holding two bundles in her arms stood with her back to him. Despite knowing it was a trick. Despite knowing it would hurt him he reached up, tried to call out, to hail them.

The woman turned around, both it, and the ‘children’ it held were faceless. Nix stopped then, paralyzed on his journey for the first time at the otherness they radiated. A sickening parody of something that itched in the back of his mind, like Deja Vu. The children melded into piles of bloodied jelly and teeth as the thing pretending to be a woman glowed from the center of her forehead, red hot. Its skin turning to ash around the new thumb sized hole in its head, flaking away and floating towards him. He tried to lift his arms up to cover his face, but his gauntlets were too heavy for him now to react in time. He could only meekly sputter to keep the remains off his lips and chin. ‘Yes, kill is all you do isn’t it.’ The voice said again. ‘It’s all you ever wanted to do.’ The stone floor and high walls suddenly weren’t. He was free falling, his ash covered limbs splayed helplessly. Even the dark was wrong, the inky blackness he was streaking down was off color, echos of that first torture glimpsed in that midnight that he prayed was delusions brought on by adrenaline, the oily rainbow caught in a storm drain. ‘If you do not serve us, then we will hollow you out...and let the new you crawl out.’ That voice boomed in mocking parody of Nix’s own. He was falling faster now. Dust perhaps, slapped and strung across his paper thin skin to leave dots of his blood trailing behind him. His robes slowly, grew tattered, flecked, ripped by the micro impacts of invisible objects too tiny to possibly see. If they even existed. ‘We will give you purpose.’ The voice Nix couldn’t tell was his own head or not said as he landed in water. He knew he tried to scream as his legs broke upon impact the pain had been so great. ‘We will fill you with vision’. The escaping content of his lungs was the only screen he had from a sickening gaunt face staring back from those liquid depths. Its eyes a frenzied red, but its face...was the same one Nix had seen in every mirror, but drained, withered and thin. A mockup of flesh and skin that clung cheaply to the bone under it, but not mistakable for anyone else. ‘We will give share our words with you to speak’. A tendril of mightnight the color of oil slithered up and pried the warlocks mouth open, its tip gripping his tongue. He felt pincers cut his frenulum and insect like legs crawled along the inside of his mouth from that oily tentacle. He wanted to thrash. He wanted to fight back. Some instinctive animal part of him tried. Other whip thin shadows now raced up to join the first, hideous abominations of tendril and eyeless piranha and beetles, coiled and bit into his flesh. Each one nibbling and devouring in tiny all too painful bites from sphincter like mouths with too many teeth. ‘You cannot fathom how long we have waited for this’ The voice spoke so loudly in his mind he couldn’t think straight. ‘You’ve barely touched what eternity feels like’. Nix’s eyes widened in horror as he tasted meat upon his tongue as one tendril burrowed into his stomach with a sickening glee that wasn’t his own. He was being fed the taste of his own entrails, and the enjoyment the tendrils had for it. He couldn’t even weep nor drown properly as that gaunt face floated closer, more flush with stolen vitality. You will soon be me, don’t struggle. It’s not as if a single soul would have ever come to rescue -you-.’ That self same voice said smugly. He lacked the strength to even bite down on the crawling horror filling his mouth, no last biting remarks, no threats. He felt himself convulsing from the pain the bites and their psychic torment was inflicting, that sick gooey rush of pleasure from his own flesh. He was going to die here, alone, forgotten at best… And at worst another monster to be killed on the other side. A strong hand gripped him by the shoulder, narrowly by chance alone not grabbing where a tendril dug in, hauled with infernal strength. The gaunt face contorted in sheer rage and bellowed “NOOOOOOO” as Nix was dragged out. The shivarra grunted as she retched her...screaming, convulsing, sweating master from the closing portal to the glades lush floor, the shadowy edges of manifested darkness swallowing upon itself shut. Only to look and see he was throwing up what looked like coffee grounds...and a thin line of blood from his nose. Every one of his gadgets blaring in warning, discharging and failing and then she realized as Azeroth faded from their perception, his grip on her the only link she had to Azeroth, that she was back in the Nether…what had happened? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Jade Forests northern climbs was rustled with a cool breeze and the occasional falling leaf. The corpse, clad in dark purple robes laid there undisturbed until pin pricks of light started to show in the sky. The corpse coughed, sputtered, and wretch on itself as what was dead by foresight of magic alone brought it back to the world of the living. He tried to scream as he awoke, but could do little more then empty the contents of his stomach onto himself, and collapse on his side into the pile of dried long dead grass that encircled him. He spat his mouth clear of backwashed acid, and reached for his stomach...where he was whole, even his robes, despite their foulness, was still intact. The man lay there, and tentatively checked the rest of his body between breaths. He rolled over back onto his back and sat up, looking at the nearby corpse of dead trees near the glades edge that met the dead circle he sat in. He reached up and snapped, a flicker of will behind it as hellish fire lit between forefinger and thumb, and was just as quickly dismissed. His tools, intact, but mostly useless. Everything that had boasted a battery was drained. The warlock came to lay back down, grip the dead grass and leaves between his fingers and idly tossed a small handful of them up. He wanted to cry, to scream in rage, to burn everything around him to cinders and soot...but he needed to know. So he dragged himself, half pushing with solid legs up til he back was against the tree, and called upon his only witness to ask a single question. “How long…” He asked as soon as his summon went off. “What do you mean how long, you didn’t go anywhere.” The demon replied. “Didn’t...go?” The warlock asked as his blood ran cold and his stomach dropped. “You leapt in, the portal started to close, I pulled you out. Three, maybe four seconds. Then you seemingly suffered a heart attack, a stroke, and suffering from hypothermia and you died? What happened in there?” The warlocks reply was a half mad laugh, that broke into sobs as he slid onto his side. “Well, get up, you’ve your calamari to collect.” The demon said exasperated. The warlock threw up again in reply. He didn’t leave the glade until the morning light.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

All Is Well (widomauk courtesan AU)

How Mollymauk Tealeaf came to work at the Lavish Chateau

Please consider reblogging or leaving a comment on Ao3! 

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Sometimes Marion would miss it.

When she sat in her office, which she kept purposely aside from the rest of her brothel, soundproofed and even decorated in a completely clashing scheme from the rest of it all, she would sit alone with books of numbers and order forms and client lists and miss being out there. This had always been what she’d wanted, to own her own house, keep her own place, know that everything was exactly how she wanted it and that everyone who passed through her doors was safe. She had been in enough places that were… otherwise… to have it mean a lot to her.

But still, she would miss it. Never for long, never enough to regret anything, but enough.

If she had the time, if there were no jobs immediately demanding her attention, sometimes Marion would indulge the nostalgic longing that lived in the back of her mind. She would leave the accounts and books and go linger in the bar room, in the booth that was kept clear for her. The bartender would never need to be asked, within a minute there would be a flute of her favourite fruit and champagne cocktail by her hand, and the music would shift and swim in accordance with her tastes.

It was nice to watch it unfold in front of her, the games they all played, subtle, intricate little games barely perceptible to the clients or anyone who didn’t live this life. Knowing when to approach, when to lean just a little further in. When another drink was called for or when to give the server a sign in the hand language unique to the Lavish Chateau workers that the next order needed to be watered down. How to read a client’s wants and wishes, the ones they could barely admit to themselves, in slight shifts of muscle. How to subtly wave over a partner to join the conversation and the eventual revels that would happen upstairs. It was an art in itself, the foreplay and build up, as much as anything that went on in the floors above.

Marion could watch it all and fondly remember when she had been the best at it.

She chuckled to herself that night, sipping her glass, noting happily that it was peach today. You’re getting old, she admonished herself gently as the bubbles popped on her tongue, sitting here with your glory days…

She could imagine most people would think it was a terrible thing, a bitter sad irony, to be a courtesan growing old. Marion smirked in their hypothetical faces.

She came back into the room as a different song began, something softer and sweeter than before, mostly piano. And that was when she noticed the marr in her perfect view. The oddity.

Yasha had spied him too, she noticed, probably before Marion. She was a brand new hire, young and quiet but very good at her job, of course she’d already seen him and was subtly, inconspicuously making her way towards him. Marion held herself stiffer than before, ready to stand and insert herself if trouble was on the cards. Of course she wasn’t as physically intimidating as her new bouncer but she knew how to eject difficult clients.

But, as Yasha reached the figure hunched over the bar and spoke a few, stern words- the only kind of words Yasha was really capable of speaking- she didn’t move to grab him or ferry him to the door. She only looked back to Marion and it wasn’t annoyance or exasperation in her eyes.

She looked worried.

Within a heartbeat Marion was on her feet, heels clicking sharply against the floor as she crossed over. As she grew closer, she noticed several things about the stranger in quick succession, her well honed skills of observation and reading people supplying her quickly and smoothly.

He was filthy. He was young. He was thin.

And he looked terrified.

Marion sank into the stool beside him, bringing herself to his level. He was a tiefling like herself, though an unusual deep purple colour she hadn’t come across before. So not from around here. He was dressed in a dark robe, though dark by design or by the soil and dirt that clung to it, she couldn’t immediately tell.  And underneath it… well he didn’t appear to be wearing anything apart from some tattoos. Not as unusual in a brothel as it would be in some places but still, odd.

“Good evening sir,” Marion smiled as if nothing was amiss, “Are you enjoying your time here?”

He didn’t seem to have heard her at first; his pointed ears, bracketed by an impressive set of horns, didn’t even flicker. But then his cracked lips moved slightly and he murmured something softly.

Marion leaned in, frowning delicately, “M… T? Is that your name?”

“Empty,” Yasha corrected, voice soft so as to use the chatter around them as a cover, “That’s all he said to me too.”

A very bad feeling stirred in Marion’s chest, “Sir? What’s empty?”

The tiefling just gave the barest shake of his head, his curls too matted with dirt and grease to move with the motion.

“Do you need us to get you some medical attention, sir?”

Again, nothing, just a slight intake of breath like he was trying to repeat his only word but couldn’t manage. But Marion could make her own assessment.

“Call for my daughter please, Yasha, if you would be so kind?”

Yasha hesitated, looking between her boss and the young man as if worried to leave them alone.

“I’m just going to take him up to my rooms and help him get cleaned off.  We’ll be fine,” Marion assured her gently.

That answer didn’t seem to assuage Yasha any but she just nodded, “I won’t be long.”

Moving the young man was easy, there was no resistance at all in his muscles and he just half stumbled in the direction he was pointed. Now they were drawing glances, her workers picking up on the snag in the usually calm and relaxed atmosphere, but Marion gave reassuring smiles all around, answering them in their shared language of hand movements that could be so easily missed by clients. All is well.

The young man- the empty young man, as Marion was starting to think of him in her head, as horrible a name as that was- sat on the bed in her private suite, staring into thin air. Like the shadows on the wall were forming an elaborate, absorbing puppet show that only he could see.

Marion set the shower running for him and tried to gesture him to the en suite, “Shall we get you cleaned up?”

Nothing. No kind of response.

Sighing softly, Marion went over to him and guided him to his feet. The dirt clinging to him seemed to be mostly soil, there were green flecks to it if you looked closely. It was particularly crusted under his nails, as if he’d been clawing at the stuff like some kind of digging animal. The robe he wore was far too big for him, seen in close proximity, not just because of how thin he was underneath. It looked as though it was more shroud than cloak.

Marion set her jaw and helped him into the bathroom. He gave absolutely no resistance to her undressing him, like he didn’t feel the fabric against his skin. He was trans, she noted, adding that to her scant information on him. The gently warmed water falling on him drew no reaction either. Though after a moment, when she turned back to him after throwing his robe in the hamper, she could almost see less tension in his muscles, like he’d relaxed ever so slightly in the warmth.

She heard the door to her apartment open behind her. There was only one person who would ever come into her rooms without knocking.

“Mama?” Jester’s voice called, curious. Clearly Yasha had told her a little about their current mystery.

“One moment,” Marion returned, putting a hand out under the water to gently touch the man on the shoulder, not caring when rivulets of scented soap ran under the billowing sleeve of her dress, “I’ll be back soon, alright? My daughter will check any hurts you have.”

She was expecting nothing, more speaking because it would be rude not to. But he inclined his head ever so slightly, water now streaming through his filthy hair and down his face.

“Empty…” he whispered, so soft that it could just have been part of the water’s gentle voice. He sounded so young, so frightened.

Marion gave his shoulder a squeeze, feeling a slighter, smaller version of the same love and fear she held inside her for her daughter. He did look so much like her after all, he could hardly have more than a handful of years on her.

“We will fix this,” she promised, meaning it as much as she could, “And you’re safe here until we do.”

The young man didn’t say his word again and he moved back slightly, as if allowing her to go. Marion went to go but her eyes were suddenly caught on something. They fixed on the young man’s hand, fallen limply by his side. Now it was clean she could see with perfect, horrible clarity just how torn they were, how the skin of his hands was full of ragged splinters, how his knuckles had split, the awful gashes on his fingers.

And they weren’t the only wounds he had. They were simply the only fresh ones.

Every inch of his skin was covered with white, slim scars like a falling of snow. Some were nicks, some were long, all of them cleanly done with a sword that must have been as sharp as a razor.

Marion’s shout for Jester caught in her throat.

There were always spare rooms available in the Lavish Chateau. Marion didn’t have a high turnover in her staff but new faces were always welcome, provided they fit in.

Not that their new guest fit in. But he was welcome all the same.

Marion went to check on him whenever she could spare the time. When she couldn’t, there was always Yasha, who seemed to consider herself in charge of their visitor. It had started as a need to guard him, worrying that whatever violent impulses had earned him so many scars might suddenly reawaken. But now it seemed to be more protective, sitting with him while he slept for when he inevitably woke with nightmares, encouraging him to eat when he was reluctant.

Of course she was there when Marion pushed back the door after a gentle knock. She sat cross legged on the bed with the tiefling opposite her, mirroring her position. He did that a lot, copying others when he was unsure of what to do.

“How are we doing today?” Marion smiled fondly, letting the door close. Of course everyone was maddeningly curious about their guest but he needed his privacy.

“Good,” Yasha gave her a smile, “Watch…”

She faced Molly and clearly, rather formally signed to him in the house’s language. Hello. How are you?

The tiefling bit his lip and signed back to her, his own movements nervous and unsure but it was unmistakably an answer in the same language. I am fine. All is well.

Marion smiled delightedly. The difference in the young man was clear, just how much he’d improved from how he’d been a month ago. He moved on his own, his face held expressions. He still couldn’t talk but he asked for things after his own fashion. He seemed to want to be alone most of the time, the noisy brothel seemed to frighten him a little, but his hands were bandaged and his eyes were clear and present.

And now he could speak to them.

“Yasha, what a wonderful idea,” Marion patted her back fondly, “This is brilliant, it will help him so much.”

Yasha coloured a little, shocking against her pale skin, “I just thought it would be nice if he could  talk to us and if he can’t use his voice… he’s the one that’s picking it up so quickly. He’s learned that in just a few hours.”

He fidgeted a little, looking pleased by the praise. He didn’t always understand what people said to him, like it all came to him through a fog and some things would get lost along the way. But he was good at picking up on tones in people’s voices.

“Well, Mollymauk, well done to you too,” Marion smiles, happy to see him pleased.

Yasha blinked curiously, “Mollymauk? Is that what we’re calling him?”

Marion gave a delicate shrug, sitting in her reading chair, “Well, I had to call him something until he remembers his name. And people are asking about him.”

“It’s a nice name. What does it mean?”

“Well, it’s a kind of albatross,” Marion said thoughtfully, watching Molly who had retreated inside himself a little, practising the hand motions from before until they were sure and certain, “And that seemed to fit him. He’s clearly from the Coast and he just seems like he’s travelled so far. And he looks so unusual, he deserved an unusual name.”

His ears seemed to pick up at that, glancing over at the two of them and giving a small smile. A smile that looked like it might grow.

“Mollymauk,” Marion repeated, “Would that be okay with you?” She translated the name and the question into the hand gestures as she spoke. It took a while to spell out, her hands flitting through the shapes with grace and delicacy.

He tilted his head a little as he processed that, then he looked pleased, answering her with more confidence than before.

Yes. All is well.

Marion always wrote her letters to Ophelia Mardun carefully. They were good friends, lovers on a few occasions when she was back in town and the mood had taken them, but she would never be someone Marion wouldn’t watch her words with.

She was partway through the letter when the knock came at the door. She looked up and spoke a soft welcome, knowing who it would be before he entered.

A year at the Lavish Chateau had changed Mollymauk more than she’d ever have thought possible. He stood much taller than he had before, he wore his own clothes comfortably- patterned leggings and a billowing shirt under a fitted waistcoat- and his horns held bands and caps of gold. Though he’d never be anything but slender, wiry at best, he was fuller than he ever had been and a smile sat comfortably on his face like it was the norm. There were tattoos on his skin that hadn’t been there a year before and his fingers held no trace of ever having being damaged.

Though the scars everywhere else remained. Marion didn’t think they’d ever go away.

“Good afternoon, Molly,” Marion smiled easily, “Tea?”

“Yes, thank you,” he came in and sank into the chair opposite her desk, the one with the plush velvet cushions. Marion never wanted her guests to feel uncomfortable.

At first Molly’s voice had been wobbly and uncertain, just like his sign language had been the first few times. It had come back in drips a few months after his arrival. He’d remembered words here and there, a lot of it copied from Yasha or Jester or Marion, like a parrot in behaviour as well as his colouring. But once he’d mastered a few small sentences, it came to him quickly, his natural skill for quickly picking things up helping him massively. It was a nice voice in the end, gently accented, quick to laugh and joke.

Before long, Marion returned with a little clay teapot, just big enough for two, soft whorls of jasmine scented smoke emerging from the spout. She filled both their cups, not wanting it to be over brewed and bitter.  She knew Molly didn’t like that, he could be quite particular about his tea.

She’d chosen his first name for him, he’d chosen his second. It seemed to amuse him, given how the first few days he’d been here- days that seemed so long ago now- he couldn’t be persuaded to take any nourishment other than weak tea. He’d also more recently gotten into different methods of fortune telling, tarot cards being his favourite but tea leaves had been his first attempt.

Marion found that passing strange, someone with no past being determined to peer into the future. She supposed she could understand it. With one being lost to him, maybe he just wanted to reach forward and have some sense of control. She’d never asked.

He still did love his tea though.

“What’s on your mind, dear?” she asked softly, watching him blow on his tea to cool it, cupping the little clay mug protectively.

Molly didn’t look surprised that she already knew he had something to say. He’d gotten used to her rather eerie perceptiveness.

“I wanted to ask you something…” he sat back, not lifting his eyes from his tea, “Seeing as I’ve officially been here a year and all.”

Marion nodded, the significance of the day hadn’t been lost on her either.

Molly seemed to take a breath, like he was steeling himself a little, “I want to work here.”

Marion absorbed that, blinking steadily, “Mollymauk… you know I’m happy to have you here. But there’s still so much you don’t know? Yet you’ve never shown any interest in looking into it…”

“I know,” Molly said hurriedly, red eyes wide and worried, “And it’s not like I haven’t thought about it. But I don’t want to.”  

“You don’t want to? Molly, there could be a life out there waiting for you…”

Molly’s face twisted with unpleasant memories, “A life that ended with me in a grave. Whatever happened back then, I have no idea and I don’t want any idea,” he sighed softly, “All I know for sure is I’m happy right now. I’m happy here. And I want to stay here.”

Marion tilted her head gently, “There’s...there’s other places, Molly, different kinds of work, if you really wanted a fresh start. Some people wouldn’t call what we do here an honourable life or even a good life.”

He didn’t seem surprised by that, the clandestine nature of their home was obvious in a number of subtle ways and inferring from that wouldn’t be difficult, “I don’t understand that. How is it any different from the city market? People need touch and comfort as much as they need anything on those stalls and giving it to them is important. It’s fun here, it’s bright and there’s always laughter and… and it’s safe. I like that. I want to be part of it.”

Marion reached out and put her hands over Molly’s where he held the cup, “Molly, if this is really what you want then of course you can work for us. You’re already part of our family.”

Mollymauk looked relieved at that, smiling hugely, the lamplight catching on the points of his teeth, “Thank you! Thank you so much, I’ll be as good as I can possibly be, I’ll always show up on time, I’ll do whatever you need…”

She laughed brightly, wondering if she’d ever had anyone be so enthusiastic. A year ago, she never would have let someone in Mollymauk’s condition sign up to be a courtesan. But looking at him now, he was so far from the scared, flinching man who’d stumbled into her Chateau just looking for warmth and light. His thoughts were his own, his words were his own, his decisions were his own.

Marion smiled warmly and withdrew, giving him her reply in their own hand language, just for old time’s sake.

You are welcome. All is well.

If she had the time, Marion liked to come linger in the bar.

It was strange how much had changed in a year and how much hadn’t. The taste of peaches and champagne on her tongue was the same. The sound of laughter and love would always be the same. The pride she felt as she sat back in her booth and let her golden eyes slide across the scene in front of her was the same.

What was different were the faces, the clients and some of the workers. Yasha was taller where she stood by the door, a greatsword visible over her shoulder that would have been near impossible for her to heft two years ago. Beauregard, a runaway from some high ranking family she wouldn’t reveal but Marion could guess, was laughing with her daughter over at the bar.

And Mollymauk Tealeaf was in the middle of it, laughing louder than anyone, playfully perched in the lap of a lawmaster, whispering something in his ear while simultaneously signing over to Yasha an unkind but hilarious comment on the scent of his client’s breath.

Marion rolled her eyes fondly, catching his eye and signing for him to play nice. Molly grinned, completely unabashed, and gave her a wave.

He wasn’t always on time. He wasn’t the most reliable of her workers. But Marion still felt a strong love for him, the same she’d felt when he’d first sat at her bar, the feeling that reminded her so much of her love for her daughter.

That hadn’t changed. And it never would.

[elleberquist6]

Play Upon Me Like This Piano - chapter forty-four

Summary: In many ways, Phil’s life is perfect: he loves his life in London, he has a wonderful brother and parents, and he has a great job as a radio DJ for BBC Radio One. There’s only one thing missing in his life… A rumor reaches an executive at the BBC about a talented local piano player named Daniel. The executive decides that Daniel would be the perfect guest on Phil’s radio show, so she sends Phil to speak with the evasive and mysterious piano player.

When they finally meet, Phil starts to think that he has found the person who will make his life complete. Unfortunately, Dan has a secret that will make getting close to him difficult.

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 4951

Warnings: Smut

—

The Myth of Orpheus: The mythological tradition names Orpheus as the pre-eminent musician of the "Golden Age" of heroes. Orpheus' music and song are said to have been so enticing that they could charm the very birds from the trees, soothe Cerberus and bring the Furies to tears. Orpheus' parentage is unclear and though all sources agree his mother was the Muse of epic poetry, Calliope, there is dispute over the identity of his father… although it appears as though his mother and aunts taught him to sing and play the lyre.

Although one might not expect a famous musician to be a "hero" per se, Jason sought out Orpheus to join him and the other Argonauts in his quest to recover the Golden Fleece for King Pelias… Orpheus' sole weapon was his lyre, which he used to raise the spirits of his fellow Argonauts, and to charm fish from the sea as food for their long journey. Orpheus' most famous contribution to the quest was, however, his dealing with the Sirens.

The Sirens were three bird-women, who lived on an island meadow scattered with the bones of their numerous victims. These monsters would sing a seductive song to passing sailors, luring them onto jagged rocks where their ships would be wrecked and the mariners drown. When the Argo neared this island, Orpheus began to play his lyre and to sing an echoing song in order to confuse that of the Sirens, thus preventing the crew from being seduced into a shipwreck. [http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/GreekMyths/Orpheus/]

“How do I look?” Dan asked, straightening his tie as he stared at his reflection. Over his shoulder in the mirror, he saw Phil watching him intently and looking like he enjoyed what he saw.

“You look lovely,” Phil responded, and his voice had an odd intensity to it, which Dan had come to associate with arousal.

Noting this, Dan had to bite his lip to hide a pleased smile, and he also had to force down the stirring of his own arousal – this wasn’t the time for that, though it was good to know that he looked that good to Phil. Dan turned to face Phil with a flippant response, “You always say that about me. Even when I have a cold and look all gross.”

As Dan turned, Phil continued to unashamedly check him out. He responded, “Maybe I wasn’t just talking about your appearance.”

Dan blinked. “What?”

Phil’s gaze rested on Dan’s face. “Maybe I meant you’re beautiful, inside and out.”

“Oh.” Dan took a step closer to him, and his gaze dropped shyly to Phil’s shoes. They were very nice shoes, black and polished to a shine. The rest of his outfit was just as nice – a tailored black suit that was buttoned at Phil’s trim waist. Dan’s eyes traveled up Phil’s body, noting how nicely the suit fit across his broad shoulders. Phil was wearing a brilliant blue tie that almost perfectly matched the color of his eyes, and Dan reached out to fuss with it, as if to straighten it. Really, he had just needed a task to busy his hands.

Dan wasn’t sure why he felt so vulnerable and fragile right now – Phil knew how Dan felt about him. Luckily, Phil also knew him well enough that he didn’t question the odd way he was acting. Phil just waited to see what Dan wanted to say.

Eventually, Dan cleared his throat and told Phil, “This is a really nice tie. It makes your eyes pop.”

Phil glanced down at his tie. “Oh, thanks.”

With the intense eye contact broken, Dan felt a bit more confident, and before he lost it he blurted, “You’re lovely, too. The most amazing person I’ve ever known, both inside and out.”

As Phil looked up, he smiled and his eyes sparkled with it. He leaned in to give Dan a lingering kiss. When they pulled apart, Phil was still smiling, but a shadow seemed to have passed behind his eyes and Dan could tell that he was holding something back. “Phil?” he asked. “What is it?”

Phil shrugged. “I was just thinking about saying something while we’re on the topic of heartfelt and borderline cheesy confessions. So, I’ve decided I don’t like the phrase ‘falling in love’. I didn’t know that before you, since you’re my first love. Whenever I was with someone before you, I always waited for this inevitable moment where I… fell, but it never happened. And then I met you, and it was nothing like I had expected. I had butterflies in my stomach and my heart beat so fast that I thought it was going to fly out of my chest. I feel like I flew in love with you, if that makes sense.”

“A bit more than borderline cheesy,” Dan said with a laugh, but he leaned forward so that his forehead rested against Phil’s. “I know what you mean though. And I like that. It’s kind of appropriate actually.”

Phil blinked and his eyes were so close that Dan could see every fleck of yellow in the blue, and the glint sunlight on his ginger eyelashes. He asked, “Huh?”

“I was thinking of the sirens from old Greek myths,” Dan said. “They weren’t from the sea like sirens you see in pop culture today. They were birds. So, you see they didn’t swim, they soared. It’s kind of fitting then that you say I made your heart fly.”

Laughing, Phil wrapped his arms around Dan’s waist, lifted his feet from the floor, and spun him in a circle in the air. Dan whooped in delight and held tight to Phil’s shoulders.

Dan had been raised around the supernatural, yet still it surprised him sometimes. Perhaps hypnotizing a roomful of people with a voice was a true feat of magic, but Dan couldn’t help being more impressed by what he saw now: a wedding party at a 5-star venue in full splendor, all arranged and organized in less than a month. He stood in the parking lot by the event, and the scene before him looked fit for an appearance in any wedding magazine. Dan shook his head.

Phil noticed the gesture and that Dan had stopped walking, and he nudged him with a shoulder. “What is it? You okay?”

“Yup.” Dan nodded and started walking in the direction of the wedding party again, eyes on a chain of white paper lanterns strung between two nearby beach houses, the lanterns swaying in the breeze. “I was just thinking about my mum. I mean, how did she do all this in such a short time? She must have used her talent. There’s no other explanation.”

As they were walking between the houses, almost at the beach now, Phil opened his mouth to respond. He didn’t get the chance.

“But of course there is,” said a familiar female voice.

They both turned, and Dan saw his mum walking down the back-porch staircase of one of the beach houses. She was dressed in a white sundress that looked designer with a string of pearls looped twice around her neck, and her brown hair hung loose around her shoulders in carefully-styled waves. Dan nervously met her eyes, thinking she might be annoyed by his comment. Instead, he saw that her brown eyes creased at the corners with wry amusement as she beamed at him. Reassured, he walked over to give her a hug in greeting, as he said, “It’s good to see you, Mum. You look beautiful.”

She hugged him tight enough to make his ribs creak. “Thank you, honey. And thank you so much for coming.”

As his mum released him from the hug, her hands stayed on his shoulders like she was reluctant to break the contact, and this made Dan feel a rush of warmth in his chest. This was the one person in the world whom he knew he shared blood with and touching her seemed to make the blood thrum in his veins. Looking at the emotion on her face, it seemed like she might be feeling the same thing.

It had been a while since he had last seen her, but as they stood there the time they spent apart fell away, and suddenly he felt like a kid again, safe and happy in the hands of his mother. She had always seemed so strong to him, and the impressive sight of the party today had only reinforced this. Dan nodded to Phil, who had been standing a couple feet to the side to give the family some privacy during their reunion. He told her, “Mum, this is Phil, my boyfriend.”

Surprisingly, Phil looked a bit nervous – his cheeks even got pink – but he composed himself after a second and nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Howell.”

“Please, if I’m going to call you Phil, then call me Monica.” She laughed and leaned forward to greet him with a friendly kiss on the cheek. “Besides, that’s not going to be my name for much longer. I’m about to be Mrs. Monticello.”

Dan glanced at the scene behind them and asked, “It looks amazing. How did you pull this together?”

“You mean without using my voice to hypnotize some hapless florists and bakers into getting free things fast?” She grinned at him. “Why, money. Of course, there’s nothing that can’t be easily acquired when money isn’t an issue – remember Nathaniel owns a vineyard? – and you can find good help.” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “My wedding planner, Fiona… now there’s a woman who must have supernatural talents. She’s the one who really organized this all, so she’s the one you should be impressed with. Oh! And speaking of, there is somewhere that I’m supposed to be right now. Fiona has a strict schedule for this party. She’s tiny, but scary, and I don’t want to get on her bad side.”

Dan laughed. “Don’t let me hold you up then. Go stand on your mark so this party can get started.”

She reached out to give his hand a squeeze. “Remember, you have a mark to stand on, too. I want my boy at my side when I get married, if you’re willing to do that for me.”

“Of course, Mum.” He returned the squeeze.

“Thanks, sweetie.” She laughed and dropped his hand. “I should go.”

“Yes, let’s avoid the wrath of the fearsome Fiona.”

Mum gave him one last smile before turning and hurrying in the direction of her party, nimbly navigating the path in her sparkly sandals.

Phil stepped closer, also watching her go. He commented, “She’s an interesting lady.”

Dan glanced at him. He had been so distracted by his own reunion that he hadn’t bothered to worry about the fact that his mum was meeting his boyfriend for the first time. Now he wondered, had they made a good impression on each other? Would they get along? As he looked at Phil, it seemed like the remark had been genuine. Everything had gone well.

Dan nodded. “She is. I’m glad you thought so. Um, are you ready to head over to the wedding?”

Phil smiled and took Dan’s hand as they followed the path that his mum had taken. Eventually, they stepped onto the beach, which had been carefully prepared for this event. It looked like the sand had been combed and evened as much as possible before the chairs, garlands of flowers, and archway had been placed here, all of which were a pure shade of white. The most vibrant color on display here was the vibrant blue of the ocean in the background, which was sparkling in the sunlight. It was breathtaking.

They had both paused a couple feet away from the chairs, looking around, but a man in a white suit rushed up to them and asked, “Bride or groom?”

As he gestured to the chairs – two groups on either side of the aisle – Dan realized that this man was an usher. Phil answered, “Bride.”

The usher started to lead them to two empty seats on what was apparently the section for the bride’s guests, but Dan said, “I’m actually the bride’s son. She said I’m supposed to stand with her, um, somewhere?”

As Dan scanned the crowd for his mum and some sign of where he was supposed to be, a woman overheard him and flew to his side. “There you are!” A short red-headed woman glared at him through her glasses, and he knew without introduction that this was the fearsome wedding planner. She beckoned him with an insistent gesture. “Follow me.”

After waving in farewell to Phil, who was following the usher to a chair, Dan turned to trail after Fiona as she walked brusquely. When she glanced over her shoulder to see that he was following, he smiled at her.

She shook her head before facing forward again, grumbling, “You know, you could have at least come to the rehearsal. This day would be much less chaotic if you had.”

“Sorry, I didn’t exactly get much notice about this wedding,” Dan said, bristling slightly.

Fiona snorted. “Tell me about it.” She stopped walking and turned to face him, looking less hostile – it seemed like she had decided to bond with him over the inconvenience of the hasty wedding. Her eyes flicked over him, and she nodded in approval. “Nice suit. I usually approve the outfits of those in the wedding party to make sure they look like a cohesive group. If I’d had a chance to approve yours, that’s exactly the kind of thing I would’ve hoped you would wear.”

Dan was wearing his white suit, which he thought made him look like a stormtrooper. His shoulders lifted slightly with the praise – it sounded like he had avoided the wedding planner’s wrath. Then, an arm looped through his. He glanced over, seeing his mum smiling at him.

“I told you my son would look nice,” she said to Fiona. Then she met Dan’s eyes and asked, “Ready to walk me down the aisle?”

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Let’s go.”

The reception was taking place only a short walk away from the beachside wedding – in the backyard of the beach house. Dan lost track of Phil during the walk to the reception, but he had a guess of where he might be. As most of the wedding party strolled over to pose for photos, listen to live music, or partake of the generous open bar supplied by Nathaniel’s vineyard, Dan headed in a different direction. The tables on the lawns, decorated with elaborate centerpieces and embossed name cards, were empty except for a few elderly people who sat down for a rest. Servers in bow ties flitted between the tables, carrying trays laden with hors d’oeuvres as they hurried in the direction of the guests.

Tucked in a corner away from the chaos of the party was a white cake adorned with frosted flowers, fondant ribbons, and the figurines of a bride and groom. Phil was standing before the cake, seeming to be admiring it. Dan crept closer, until he was right behind Phil without having attracted his attention. Then he whispered, “I thought I might find you here.”

Phil gasped and whirled around. “Don’t do that!”

“Do what?” Dan teased. “Catch you trying to sneak a taste of the cake?”

His cheeks got pink. “I wasn’t. I swear.”

“Sure, you weren’t…” Dan drawled, but he relented as he turned his attention to the frosted confection. The figurines on top had such a likeness to his mum and Nathaniel that they must have been custom-made – the bride had brown curls hanging loose around her shoulders, and the groom had salt-and-pepper in his beard.

Phil was also staring at the cake. Slowly, he asked, “Can you see yourself having one of these someday?” He hesitated as Dan’s wide eyes shifted to his face, but continued, “A party like this… the cake, the ceremony, and the vows?”

“Phil, are you asking me if I’d want to get married someday?” He was sure that was what Phil was asking, but he stalled by saying, “What made you ask that?”

Phil shrugged. “When I saw you standing by that arch with your mum while she made her vows. You looked so beautiful up there in your white suit… it made me wonder what you thought our future might be like.”

“Oh.” Dan looked at the cake again, this time picturing it with a figurine of himself and Phil atop it. After a moment, he answered, “It’s a terrifying thing to envision – standing in front of all those people, making those oaths, and starting a new chapter of my life tied to someone. It’s not something I ever thought I wanted for myself, but with you? I think it’s possible. You’re the only person in the world who I can see myself doing something like that with. You make me brave.”

“You make me brave, too.” Phil opened his mouth to say something else, but then his phone buzzed. Sighing, he extracted his phone from his pocket, and read the name displayed on the screen. “It’s my mum.”

“Answer it!”

“Now?” He gestured between them with the phone in his hand. “We were in the middle of something…”

“Yes!” Dan whined. “I’ll marry you someday, and when I do I’d like to be on good terms with my mother-in-law. Now, pick up the call before she gets voicemail!”

Smiling, Phil accepted the call, which was a video call. He put it on speaker phone and Kath’s face appeared on the screen. “Hey, mum! I’m here with Dan.”

She smiled and creases appeared at the corners of her eyes. Her voice came, small and tinny from the speaker, “Philip! And hi, Daniel! I was just calling to make sure that your flight went safely.”

“Hi, Kath!” Dan said with a wave.

“We’re fine, as you can see,” Phil assured her. “The flight was great, and we made it in time for the wedding. Everything is going great. And I promise to buy you some nice American candy while I’m here!”

She laughed. “You might buy it, but I’m sure you’ll eat it before you get a chance to give it to me. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts!”

He opened his mouth to defend himself, but he was surprised to see Dan’s mum had approached them. She was grinning wide and grabbed the phone from Phil’s hand. Dan’s mum said, “Hi, is this Phil’s mother? I’m Monica. I thought I should introduce myself because based on what I just overheard, we might be in-laws someday.”

There was a pause before Kath said in an inscrutable voice, “Oh?”

Phil exchanged a look with Dan, who appeared apologetic. As Phil sorted through his own emotions, he just shrugged and decided to see what would happen next, as their mothers continued chatting on the phone. This might be entertaining…

“I’m Dan’s mum,” she said by way of explanation to Kath. “The boys came here for my wedding. Did they tell you that?”

“Yes, they did.” Kath was speaking in a firm voice, which she always used when trying to get her way. “Now, what was this you were saying about another wedding?”

“Oh, are you interested in weddings? Let me tell you about mine. Everything has gone perfectly today! The ice sculpture is stunning, the sun is shining, and the flowers are absolutely amazing. There are white roses everywhere. The centerpieces are so beautiful. Let me show you one!” Monica wandered off in the direction of an empty table where a centerpiece was resting.

Phil blinked. “I’ve never seen someone deflect my mum like that before.”

“My mum has a talent for deflection,” Dan said with a sigh. Then as he watched his mum in the distance, rambling without pausing to take a breath despite Kath’s attempts to cut in, he couldn’t help laughing.

Phil joined in with the laughter, his blue eyes sparkling. When their laughter died down, Phil nodded to the microphone and speakers mounted on a small stage on the corner of the lawn. He asked, “Are you going to perform soon?”

Dan nodded and checked the time on his phone. “Yeah, I’m supposed sing in a moment.” He shot Phil a worried glance. “When my mom asked me to sing for her, I didn’t explain the choice I’ve made to use my real voice. What if she hates it? What if she doesn’t like the choice I’ve made for myself?”

“Dan, I’ve heard you practice this song for today.” He took Dan by the shoulders and squeezed gently. “Your voice is beautiful and your mum is going to be proud of you. I promise.”

Dan swallowed heavily before nodding. Then he smiled and said, “Thanks, Phil. For always believing in me.”

Dan glanced at the stage and sucked in a steady breath. There was a small orchestra playing, just a half dozen people performing relaxing background music for the people strolling around the yard, chatting with cocktails in hand. The orchestra seemed to be wrapping up the piece they were performing, and this seemed like the perfect moment to go over. Mum had already made the arrangements, so the orchestra knew that Dan would be performing, and even what song he would be doing so they could accompany them. There was nothing holding him back.

Dan locked eyes with Phil, finding his courage in the ocean eyes. He said, “I’m ready. Let’s go.” They pushed through the crowd of guests until they made it to the stage, where the orchestra had just wrapped up a song and were organizing their sheet music before the next one. Dan addressed a cellist near the edge of the stage, “Hi, I’m the bride’s son? She said she would like me to sing a song? Is this a good time?”

“Ah! You must be Daniel.” The cellist got up from his chair to carry a mic stand to the center of the stage, which he then raised to Dan’s height.

Phil took Dan’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze. He whispered, “You’re going to be great.”

Dan gave the hand a squeeze in thanks before releasing it and climbing onto the stage. He was breathing in slow and steady breaths so that he didn’t panic as his gaze swept the crowd, seeing the party guests turning to look at him curiously. For the first time in his career as a musician, he was facing the crowd without a piano before him and it felt like he was naked without it. This scared him even more than the fact that he was about to sing without his siren voice.

Dan’s eyes searched the crowd for familiar faces. He found his mum easily in her white dress. She was standing beside her new husband, Nathaniel, whom was also watching Dan expectantly. Mum waved, and then pointed to the phone in her hand. The phone was still displaying Kath’s face. Apparently, he would be performing for her today, too. His eyes roved further, and finally he found Phil’s face, shining bright with joy as he gazed back at Dan. That was all he needed to see.

He sucked in a deep breath before leaning into the mic. “Hello. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Monica’s son, Daniel. In honor of my mum’s happiness today, I’d like to perform a song. I hope you all enjoy it.”

The orchestra began to play a soft melody, and a few people in the crowd gave short, excited claps as they recognized the familiar tune. Dan began to sing in his normal voice, “I found a love for me. Darling just dive right in and follow my lead.”

Phil smiled at that line, and Dan could guess why – he had quite literally taken a dive when he fell in love with Phil. Knowing that their minds seemed to be in the same place, Phil shot him a wink, which almost made Dan laugh.

Shifting his gaze to less distracting people in the crowd, Dan focused on his mum and her new husband as he sung, “Well I found a woman, stronger than anyone I know. She shares my dreams, I hope that someday I'll share her home. I found a love, to carry more than just my secrets, to carry love, to carry children of our own. We are still kids, but we're so in love.”

Mum clasped hands with Nathaniel, lifted them to her lips, and kissed the back of his hand. Nathaniel smiled at her and placed a kiss on the top of her head, but Mum never took her eyes off Dan and she didn’t even blink.

Dan had been worried what she would think about him singing in this voice, but he was starting to relax. His mum didn’t seem disappointed. Quite the opposite. “Baby, I'm dancing in the dark, with you between my arms. Barefoot on the grass, listening to our favorite song. When I saw you in that dress, looking so beautiful, I don't deserve this, darling, you look perfect tonight.”

As he came to the close of the song, Dan found his eyes drawn to Phil again. He had the odd urge to burst with thanks in the middle of this performance for Phil. If Phil hadn’t suggested singing in his real voice, then none of this would have been possible. This entire crowd would be hypnotized right now, and Dan would hate himself for it. Phil had given him everything. “I have faith in what I see. Now I know I have met an angel in person, and he looks perfect. I don't deserve this. You look perfect tonight.”

It was hard to tell at this distance, but it seemed like Phil’s cheeks got a bit pink.

Dan’s fingers roved across the sheets, searching for warmth. He didn’t find the soft skin he was searching for, and he blinked sleepily before calling, “Phil?”

“Over here,” a voice answered from the other side of the room.

Dan rolled over, rubbing his eyes as they adjusted to the moonlight streaming in the window, which seemed impossibly bright as it glinted off the nearby sea and glazed Phil in blue light. As Dan fought to full consciousness, he took in the visage of Phil standing before the open window. His inky black hair was tousled from sleep, he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and he was nude except for his boxers. The planes of his leanly muscled body were washed out by moonlight, and he looked too lovely to be merely mortal. The sight of him made Dan’s heart squeeze in his chest. How had he gotten so lucky?

Dan asked in a sleep-roughened voice, “What are you doing there?”

Phil nodded to the view. “It’s not every day that I have a view like this outside my window. Sleeping and missing this seemed like a waste.”

Dan couldn’t argue with that, so he stayed silent.

“Hey, I have a crazy idea…” Phil crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. His face was shining with excitement. He asked, “Will you come take a swim with me?”

“What? Now?” He glanced around the room for a clock but didn’t see one. It must be around 3am. Then his gaze flicked back to Phil’s face, and he saw how much he wanted this. Reluctantly, Dan said, “Alright.”

Helped by Phil’s hand, he slipped out of their warm bed in just his boxers. They didn’t turn on any lights and tiptoed through the beach house, wary of waking anyone. As they stepped outside, the chill of the night air nipped at Dan’s skin – like Phil, he was clad in just his boxers. He felt exposed now under the light of a bright full moon but kept jogging onto the beach. His hand was still linked with Phil’s and he felt brave with him at his side.

The tide was high, pulled in by the moon, and the sea had swallowed most of the beach. A wave rushed fast and foamy in the sand only a few inches from Dan’s toes. He gasped in surprise and stopped in his tracks, his hands slipping from Phil’s grasp.

Phil turned around. The wind was whipping at his messy quiff, and his brow was furrowed in confusion. He asked, “What is it?”

Dan bit his lip and looked at the water. “Sorry. It’s just that besides that one time that I went into the sea to save you, it had been years since I went anywhere near it. It scares me a bit.”

“Do you want to go back inside?” Phil stepped closer, and this time he took both of Dan’s hands in his. “Or do you want to keep going?”

For a moment, Dan considered it. He had avoided the sea for a long time not only out of his fear that the water would expose him, but also because it felt so good, like he might sink into the water one day and never come out. As he looked at Phil, those fears fell away. He didn’t have to worry about Phil rejecting him for his webbed hands, and he didn’t think that he would be tempted to never get out of the water. Dan smiled to show Phil that it was okay, and he walked into the water with him. Wherever Phil went, Dan knew that he would want to go, too.

[theinsatiables]

First Impressions: High Life

The way Wim Wenders tells it, it was his co-producer on the set of Paris, Texas who insisted she’d found her. The perfect assistant. A young woman who would, according to Wenders, guide him “safely through this journey into unknown territory.”

Thirty-six years later, and calling to mind Wenders’ West Texas desert—how it cites the pure vacancy of a lunar landscape—we enter real space. But not the sort of space one hurtles through, dutifully. And not the sort of space flecked with stars and dust, sanctifying some great, beautiful beyond. No. This space, as conceived by director Claire Denis—that young woman who once guided Wenders safely into unknown territory—is decelerated and grisly, spiraling yet carnal. It’s the filmmaker’s English-language debut, a difficult albeit awing movie cleverly titled High Life. In it, Denis administers somatic doom at nearly every turn, telling the story of Monte (Robert Pattinson), the sole survivor—along with his infant daughter, Willow—of a twisted, failed mission where the government has sent death row inmates into space to collect energy from a black hole.

Monte and Willow’s life is incremental. Hermetic and isolated. One tiny step at a time, one lullaby, one sleep. Like the three notes of a familiar tune, reprising over and over, Monte and Willow’s life is eerie-anticipant. Somehow amateurish. They are the only ones.

What is it about fathers and daughters that feels predisposed to imagery of what’s left? Or of what’s been left behind. Of winging it while on the road. What is it about a father and daughter that so easily resembles two souls on the lam? Seeking and lost in a lovely way, but not free.

**

Paper Moon (1973) is a movie played by a real-life father and daughter. Ryan O’Neil and Tatum O’Neil are Moze and Addie, con artists during the Great Depression. Polly Platt’s unequaled production design and her material vision of Midwestern flatlands, windswept and wide open, give rise to an environment—much like space’s inhospitable wonder—that evokes the end of something or the very start. The film’s poster features father and daughter, sitting on a crescent moon, cold sober among the stars. Theirs is a high life, too.  

The poster for High Life. Two hands, holding on. The tagline reads “Oblivion awaits.” Like some fugue-state invitation playing into that funny feeling which exists so long as the outcome isn’t fully known: anticipation. That the father-daughter pair are in space is clarified only through the father: his fingers are gloved in his space suit. Hers are pudgy. A baby’s wrist marked by how it doesn’t totally taper. A baby’s grip marked by its remarkable strength. We cannot help but remark on the baby’s grip. So strong, we’ll say.

While Moze and Addie are sitting on a crescent moon, as if the moon were a swing bench, Monte and baby Willow are holding hands among lush, medicinal-green growth. Little yellow mushrooms sprout. This zone is damp, misty, cared for. The sort of green not associated with space but with sativa. Green is High Life’s incongruous strange. It’s the film’s attempt at Arcadia, so long as Arcadia—in true Denis form—is portioned and untenable. Denis’ vision for High Life is both void and overgrown. This paradoxical, amazingly plotless torpor represents only a small portion of why High Lifedefies category. Of why High Life is near impossible to metabolize. Of why High Life’s use of green is matched only by its use of red and magenta (green’s opposites on the color wheel). The inmates’ uniforms are dyed a maroon-red. (André Benjamin plays Tcherny, an inmate who wears his uniform while nursing the garden.) The ship’s interiors radiate an oxidized red. (Juliette Binoche plays Dr. Dibs, a wanton doctor wearing a Renata Adler braid, who navigates those interiors, deliberately, lasciviously.) Red, in this case, represents what’s cosmic but also what’s bodily. Glowing, pulsing, planetary light. Blood, fluids, insides, throb. The red and magenta, and the green, recall Paris, Texas. Harry Dean Stanton as Travis Henderson, lost in the film’s opening, wearing his red baseball cap—a panorama of green mountains behind him. Nastassja Kinski’s Jane Henderson. Her bright pink sweater. That room with red accents like a phone, the lamp, the curtains. She’s separated by a pane of glass like Monte in space, in his red room, also separated by a pane of glass: his helmet, the shuttle.

**

Why does High Life feel like a Western? Its irreverence? Or maybe it’s all this talk of Wenders. Sam Shepard, who co-wrote Paris, Texas (finishing it over the phone), feels close to a Monte. That cowboy sensibility that neighbors monastic, that feels like poetry. Like Monte himself, who practices quiet, measured restraint. Who keeps to himself. Whose proximity to violence is indistinct.

In Denis’ Nénette and Boni (1997), Gregoire Colin, who plays Boni, also has shorn hair and sharp features. He is a brother caring for his estranged sister, Nénette, who re-enters his life seven months pregnant. As Roger Ebert wrote in his review, “They form, if you will, a couple. Not one based on incestuous feelings, but on mutual need and weakness: Boni provides what emotional hope Nénette lacks, and her pregnancy adds a focus and purpose to his own life.” Denis gives the family a feeling of fringe. Denis portrays family as an impression; as the people we can count on to interrupt our lives.

**

What is it about fathers and daughters, in film, that seems suited for the sky? That certain stupor that being up there delivers. There’s Armageddon, for one. Fly Away Home and Interstellar, too. Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann was certainly, perfectly, out there. Monte is an outlaw. Moze is a conman. In one of High Life’s earliest lines, Monte is tending to Willow. He says, “Don’t drink your own piss, Willow. Don’t eat your own shit. Even if it’s recycled. Even if it doesn’t look like piss or shit anymore. It’s called a taboo. TAH-BOO. TAAAAA-boo.” The first word he teaches his daughter explains who he is, in part, or how Monte is categorized: someone, something, banned. And yet, the way Pattinson says TAAAAA-boo, seems to hint at what High Life raises and dismisses. The closeness between father and daughter. This isn’t a story of what gets passed down.

While Wim Wenders was preparing production for Alice in the Cities (1974), the first film in his road trilogy, a friend took him to see Paper Moon. Wenders—shaken by the film’s similarities to Alice (the black and white; the road; the searching men Philip and Moze; the girls, nine-years-old yet persuasive, tough equals)—nearly cancelled his film. Eventually, and thanks to the advice of Samuel Fuller, Wenders rewrote the script to differentiate it. His poetic, plainspoken script which brings to mind Platt’s dusty, terrestrial design for Paper Moon, is perfectly articulated by a line in Alice. Describing the view from a plane, as captured in a Polaroid—the plane’s wing, its shadow, the sky’s vast cozy of clouds—Alice says, “That’s a lovely picture. It’s so empty.”

**

In an essay by the writer Siri Hustvedt, titled “My Father Myself,” Hustvedt describes how as she got older, there was a shift in her relationship with her father. “He seemed unavailable to a degree that startled me,” she writes. “It could be difficult for him to say, so sometimes he would do.” Hustvedt recounts a tearful, painful visit to the orthodontist where she was fitted for braces. On the way home, her father stopped at a gas station, left the car, and returned with a box of chocolate-covered cherries — her father’s favorite. “I was eleven years old and, even then, I felt poignancy mingle with comedy.” She didn’t like chocolate-covered cherries and couldn’t possibly eat them having just been fitted for braces. “The mute gesture has stayed with me as one of infinite, if somewhat wrong-headed kindness, and as a token of his love.”

Monte calls Willow his “little package.” She was delivered to him; he carries her though he didn’t carry her. Monte is a reluctant father who studies his daughter’s approach to life, like some kind of loving, curious reconnaissance. The soothing doesn’t come naturally. There is no intense identification. He handles her undecidedly. Theirs is a solitude that feels both invented, but also, a means for recovery. Wordless gestures that seem to say, we’re in it together. The film’s last line—“Shall we?”—submits to this notion, as if answering High Life’s tagline. “Shall we?” is less of a question and more of a pact.

**

My father recently spent a month in the hospital, in isolation. One evening, I went to see him after work. I stayed with him for four, five hours, not saying anything while he slept. He was in agony—of which he tried to show little. But there it was—the pain—in how he slept, curled up and head covered by his blanket. He’d become thin. He wasn’t eating. There were tubes and beeping sounds, masks, and hospital gowns. I sat on a daybed near the window, my palms growing sweaty in latex gloves. It was dark and we felt deserted. Like the entire world outside my father’s hospital room no longer existed. Or if it did, once, it was now abandoned. That particular hush, like an aftermath, like the phone lines had been cut. That hush, like the science of a hospital room—engineered to monitor life, yet devoid of it, somehow. There was nothing to do but be the company and comfort my father’s subconscious needed. My mind wandered to a singsong Bengali refrain my father used to say to me before bed, when I was a kid. It went:

Akashey aakta chand, arekta chand koi?

(There is a moon in the sky, where is the other moon?)

And I would shout: Eiijey!

(Here I am!)

Sitting in the hospital, on the daybed just five or so feet from my father, I kept wanting to whisper, Eiijey! Eiijey, Baba!

In that dark room, we felt like two moons alone in the sky.

-Durga Chew-Bose

[and-it-freezes-me]

Schemes Of Mice - Part 2

Schemes Of Mice is the first part of the What Happened In Lichmai series.

{Part 1} {Part 3}

Summary: Virgil gets his car collected, and ends up running an errand for the guy at the coffee shop.

Word count: 5,809

He could leave, of course. 

He could stand, cross the room - he couldn’t see it, but he knew exactly how many steps it would take to reach the archway. They had left the staircase unblocked: he could have left this darkness at any time.

He wouldn’t leave, though.

-

It took Virgil approximately four hours to conclude that he probably wasn’t dreaming.

They drove for another half hour after night suddenly turned to day, through the outskirts of the town - Lichmai, he reminded himself - and then stopped outside of a small motel.

Ethan, who hadn’t said anything since welcoming Virgil to town, was out of the van even before Roman had parked, although parked may be the wrong word. Slammed the brakes on in the middle of the mostly empty car park and blocking four or five different spaces was probably a more accurate description. He came around the side of the van and opened the door on Virgil, who was now clutching his bag to his chest: Roman had made several very sharp turns and he had been sure they were going to hit every other (seemingly redundant) lamppost and tree in the place.

“Mechanic opens at nine on weekdays. They can give you directions inside.” It was quite clearly a dismissal.

The deafening music clicked off.

As they had drawn closer to Lichmai, Roman’s manic laughter had subsided, and he seemed to have become more twitchy. The random comments he had thrown over his shoulder had become less frequent; for the last ten minutes, the three of them had been sitting in silence.

If it weren’t for the fact that he was being abandoned in a strange town, Virgil would almost be relieved to be leaving his suddenly taciturn companions.

“Thanks,” he murmured, unbuckling himself and getting up. Ethan offered him a hand for balance, which he took before jumping out of the vehicle. “I owe you one.”

Ethan flinched as though Virgil had raised a fist to him, hand jerking out of his.

“Watch who you say that to.” Now it was Virgil’s turn to flinch, because Roman’s voice came from right behind him. He didn’t remember hearing the driver’s side door open. He turned to find Roman staring at him, the white strip in his hair hanging between his intense neon eyes, and swallowed hard. “People take that kind of thing seriously around here.”

“Uh. Right.” Virgil glanced back to find that Ethan had disappeared into the van. “I’ll… Be careful.”

“Good luck.”

Roman moved past him, and a second later the door slammed closed behind him. Ethan must have been pinning blankets up over the windows, because Virgil couldn’t see into the van anymore. Were the two of them going to sleep here? In a poorly parked vehicle just outside of a motel with actual beds?

Actually, Virgil wasn’t sure he was surprised. The two of them were certainly weird enough that sleeping in their van wasn’t that bizarre.

Shouldering his bag, Virgil headed into the reception. If the woman sat behind the counter thought it strange that he was buying a room for one night at half past three in the morning, she didn’t say anything. She simply took his money and handed him a key - Virgil wasn’t sure she had said more than ten words to him, and he the same to her. Not that he was feeling particularly chatty just then.

The first thing that Virgil did when he got into the room he had paid for (12, good, he didn’t think he could handle being in room 13) was put his phone on to charge.

As he slid the curtains closed (they were thick, heavy things that completely blocked out the light from outside. Good. The orangey sky was making Virgil feel ever so slightly queasy), he glanced out at the car park. Ethan and Roman’s van was still there.

He didn’t bother changing out of his jeans and hoodie. Instead, Virgil tugged his weighted blanket from his bag and wrapped it around his shoulders, kicked off his shoes, and slid under the covers of the single bed beside him. He was so tired that even the unfamiliar surroundings couldn’t keep him awake for long.

-

When Virgil woke up, he expected to be in his car. That was how dreams worked, after all: one sleeps, one dreams, one wakes up in the place they originally went to sleep. The fact that he was not in his car, and was in fact in the motel room he had booked in what he had hoped had been a dream, suggested that maybe he hadn’t been dreaming at all. He had run out of petrol, made the stupid decision to hitchhike with a guy wearing slippers designed to look like very dangerous rabbits, and ended up in a town where it apparently didn’t get dark at all.

He could still be asleep, of course. This could be one of those weird dreams that feel so much like real life that it’s almost impossible to tell the difference. Maybe he was lying in a coma somewhere after making the idiotic decision to get in a van with some strangers.

With no better options, Virgil decided to pretend that he believed that he wasn’t asleep anymore. That way, if this did turn out to be real life he wouldn’t have wasted any time making a fool of himself - he was done with being everybody’s fool. And if he did wake up in a few hours time? Then none of this would matter anyway.

The minivan was gone from the carpark when he opened the curtains, and Virgil could see the edge of the sun peeking over the buildings in front of him. The sky seemed to be gradually shifting from the unsettling pastel yellow to a cool blue.

Virgil changed into a pair of slightly less rumpled jeans and a fresh t-shirt, then repacked his bag and went to hand his key in at reception. It was only as he returned it to the tired woman at reception that he actually looked at it properly: the key itself was just a typical metal key, a few flecks of something that was probably rust nestled into the grooves, but the attachment was a little more bizarre. Rather than a rectangular piece of card or wood bearing his room number, it looked like a long, off-white stick with the number ‘12’ burned into one side. A ring of translucent white beads wrapped around one end, and a beige ribbon was tied around the other. It almost looked like a bone.

Weird.

He must have been standing there for a while because the woman - she had a nametag, he realised suddenly, although rather than being pinned to her shirt it was perched on her short afro like a bow - cleared her throat. “Anything else I can help with?”

Oh - right. “Actually, um - my, my car’s kinda stranded.” Virgil shifted, pulling his bag closer to his side. “Do you know if there’s a mechanic, or…”

“Off mainstreet, opposite the clinic.” He waited, and after a second she smiled faintly. “Sorry. Out of here, second left, first right, ten minute walk. It’s signposted. Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks…” He craned his next to read her nametag. “Stacei. Have a good… Day.”

She snorted. “Not planning on returning any time soon, then?”

“Not really. Leeshmay wasn’t on the itinerary, and the whole sky thing is… Unsettling.” He tugged the strap of his bag higher up his shoulder and turned to go.

“Lichmai. Emphasis is on the first syllable. Sky gets a lot of people when they first arrive.” There was the squeaking of a chair whose wheels didn’t get enough oil, and then a soft jangling as Stacei returned his key to the pegs on the wall. “Mechanic won’t open ‘til nine - even if you drag your feet, you’re gonna be waiting around a while. I’d recommend the Eyes-Wide Café. They’ll be open. Tell Remy Stacei sent you.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Remy turned out to be an attractive guy with tight cornrows, maybe a few years older than Virgil was, wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket with a badge reading ‘My pronouns are he/they’. The Eyes-Wide Café was only a few buildings up from the clinic and the repair shop opposite (identifiable only by a tow-truck sat outside; apparently ‘signposted’ meant something different in Lichmai than it did everywhere else), and a queue of about three people were already waiting for various drinks.

Virgil spent his time in the queue rehearsing his order: One plain black coffee. He could add sugar later. No - that wasn’t polite enough. Good morning. Could I have one plain black coffee, please? No, that sounded too… Or maybe it wasn’t enough? He had just about settled on Morning. One plain black coffee, please, when the person ahead of him placed their order and moved away and all of his planning was put to waste.

“And what can I get for you, babe? Oh - hello, you’re not from around here, are you?” Virgil winced. Was it that obvious? Remy had pushed their sunglasses back from their eyes to get a better look at him. “You’re not! When’d you roll in, sugar?”

“Uh… Five hours ago, give or take…” Virgil would far rather have this conversation after he had gotten some coffee. Or, preferably, not at all. “I’m not staying.”

“Just passing through - you must’ve slept at the Sunny Motel, huh? That’s where most people end up.”

Didn’t Remy have better things to do? Wasn’t there anybody behind him in the queue? Virgil glanced over his shoulder to see that no, there wasn’t. He licked his lower lip. “Yeah. Girl on reception, Stacei, told me I could get coffee here?”

“She didn’t try to get you to use the machine there first?” Remy sounded almost incredulous. He was leaning across the counter on his elbows now, and as Virgil watched he pulled a packet of sugar from the jam jar by the till, ripped it open, and tipped it onto the countertop.

“No. Is the coffee good there?”

“Bless you, babe. It’s like making love in a canoe,” Remy replied, dragging their index finger through the small pile of granules in front of them.

Virgil waited, but when no explanation seemed forthcoming he resigned himself to the fact that he really couldn’t let that go without asking. “That’s… Good?” If they did coffee at the motel, why hadn’t Stacei just said that? He could have saved himself this weird interaction.

“Good?” Remy licked the pad of his thumb and pressed it against the sugar crystals. Virgil really hoped that the countertop was cleaned regularly. “It’s fucking close to water is what it is, babe.”

Virgil couldn’t help the unattractive snort of laughter that left him then, although he was aware enough to cover his mouth with his hand. Remy politely ignored the sound, chuckling faintly, and then turned to one of the large coffee machines to their left.

“I’ll tell you what. It’s your first day in town -”

“And last,” Virgil interrupted, and then felt like an ass.

Remy just raised a finely sculpted brow. “We’ll see. Either way, I’m gonna whip up something special for you - on the house, if you’ll do me a favour.”

Virgil hesitated, immediately on edge. “What… Sort of favour?” If this guy asked for his number, he was walking straight out. Not that Remy had seemed particularly dangerous so far, of course - but all Virgil had wanted when he had walked in was a coffee, and now he was having this ridiculous conversation.

His suspicion was obvious enough for Remy to look up from the second large drink he was filling. “Nothing dodgy, babe. Relax. Just hoping you’d drop some drinks off for my… Friends. I’ll have yours waiting when you get back, how about it?”

He gestured dramatically at the two drinks now on the counter between them. One of them was in a very large cardboard cup, the dark liquid and the rich, earthy scent betraying it to be coffee - almost exactly what Virgil wanted to order. It had another scent, too, one he couldn’t identify off the top of his head. The other was in a clear container, droplets of condensation running down its sides and mixing with the sugar Remy had left on the table. The drink was bright pink and topped with enough whipped cream to make Virgil’s teeth hurt just looking at it.

Virgil glanced at the clock behind the barista. Half past eight. He had the time. “Uh… Sure. Why not. Where?”

“You’re a real doll.” Remy pulled a rectangle of card from under the counter and unfolded it into a drinks carrier, then put the two drinks into opposite corners and pushed them toward Virgil. “The clinic, third floor. The coffee’s for a Mr. Sanders - he’s the short one with the glasses. The rainbow frappé’s for Picani, pink hair, office full of cartoon merch. Got it?”

Virgil nodded, adjusting the strap on his shoulder with one hand and taking the drinks with the other. “Sure. Be right back.”

He really needed to stop doing things for people. As he stepped away, Remy called out, “Next!” and somebody stepped forward - there was a whole queue of people waiting now. Virgil didn’t remember seeing a single one arrive.

Well, at least Remy’s eyes had been a regular deep brown, rather than some other neon shade. And he was getting free coffee out of it.

It took him barely three minutes to reach the clinic and climb the stairs to the third floor - the person sat at the reception desk had looked up when he had entered, seen the drinks in his hand, and gestured toward the elevators. Clearly this was a regular occurrence; couldn’t Remy have waited for a break and then carried the drinks over themself?

There was a sign on the wall just opposite the elevators on the third floor. It read,

Dr. Emile Picani, Therapist, Room 3.1

Dr. Juliette Sho, Therapist, Room 3.2

Mr. Patton Sanders, Therapist, Room 3.3

Dr. Amelie Frost, Child Therapist, Room 3.4

Well, that made finding Picani and Mr. Sanders a lot easier: Virgil had been worrying that he was going to actually have to ask somebody where to find the two of them. He was definitely not in the mood to talk to more people this early in the morning.

The elevators and stairwell opened into a small open area with a few couches, a table, and another reception desk (this one empty), with a corridor visible on the other side. Its walls were painted a soft pastel blue, broken here and there by pale doors that looked wooden but were probably covered in a plastic veneer to give that impression. A few posters had been tacked to the walls, all bearing slogans like Talking is the first step to mending or Everyone needs someone to listen. It was… Well, it was just like the other hallways Virgil had sat in on his way to therapy sessions.

He swallowed briefly and patted the lump of his camera with his free hand before walking over to the desk. Remy hadn’t said he had to deliver the drinks directly into their recipients’ hands - he could just leave them here, he supposed. That way he wouldn’t have to actually interact with anybody - but it might mean that Remy’s friends didn’t get their drinks until they were cold. Or warm, in the case of the pink monstrosity that Virgil suddenly noticed was decorated with rainbow sprinkles.

Virgil had put the drinks carrier down on the desk and was glancing nervously from corridor to elevator, reasoning that a receptionist was likely to show up in the next few minutes and know who the drinks were for so he could leave now, when the nearest door opened.

“-you, Ruby? Did you get my email about the- Oh, you’re not Ruby.” Virgil’s heart sank. This must be Picani: he had hair almost exactly the same shade as the cold drink Virgil had brought him, and was wearing a dark blue cardigan that would have looked perfectly normal if it hadn’t been for the pale blue stomach and the line of antennae that ran up his back (Virgil could see them and the large ears on the hood when he turned to close the door behind him). “And you’ve got my drink! Remy must have persuaded you to drop them off as a favour, right? Ah, you’re a gem - I’m thinking Amethyst, given all the purple and the way you look like someone setting out to prove themself, but that’s only the most obvious choice - and we’re not taking your personality into account at all!”

Virgil blinked at him, pulling the bag at his hip a little closer to himself. Was everyone in this town missing a few buttons?

“Am I coming on too strong? Sorry! Let me start again - Emile Picani, therapist, in desperate need of that drink. I don’t think we’ve met. You are?” As he had spoken, Picani had approached the desk and scooped up the frappé, then taken a long sip from the paper straw sticking out of the top before looking at Virgil expectantly.

“... Virgil Insmyre,” Virgil muttered reluctantly. “And I’m just passing through.”

“That’ll explain the bag! You’re clinging to it like it’s your last connection to your past lives! So, Virgil, what do you think of Lichmai?” The universe seemed determined to make him talk to people this morning.

It would be rude not to answer - but it would probably be rude to say what he really thought, which was that this place held more crazy than a children’s birthday party in a candy factory. Licking his lower lip, Virgil cast around for the right words. “Well, it’s very… Different. A little unusual. Very unusual. The sky is definitely… Not what I’m used to.”

Picani chuckled. “Trying very hard not to offend, I see.”

“It’s that obvious?”

“I’ve only lived here for a few years now - I know the cultureshock firsthand.” He took another slurp from his drink. “Remy probably bribed you with a free drink to bring these over, right?” Virgil nodded. “You’ll want to get back. He’s a wizard with those drinks - never guesses wrong, and always brewed to perfection. The Uncle Iroh of coffee - or any drinks, I guess. I’ll take Patton’s coffee through.”

“Thanks.” Virgil bobbed his head once in an awkward approximation of a nod, then shifted from foot to foot. Picani didn’t seem to have anything else to add: he was picking up the coffee cup with his spare hand, apparently unconcerned by the hot liquid in the thin card cup.

Turning to go, Virgil made it halfway back to the staircase before Picani’s voice reached him again. “Hey.” He glanced back over his shoulder. The pink-haired therapist was still standing by the reception desk, watching him with his large, dark eyes. “You’re gonna be just fine out there, Virgil Insmyre. Nothing bad’s gonna happen to you. Everything’s going to work out.”

Just when he thought his day couldn’t get any weirder. Virgil was about to reply, politely but firmly state that he wasn’t here for therapy and didn’t want any free samples; a violent sneeze left him instead, and stinging his nose and making his eyes squeeze shut.

When he opened them, Picani was beaming once more. “Have a good day, Virgil!” He called cheerfully, before turning and heading down the corridor, presumably toward Patton Sanders’ office.

Virgil watched him go, the hood of his cardigan hanging down his back and the large ears attached to it bouncing slightly as he walked, then hitched his bag up on his shoulder yet again and let his shoulders hunch.

It wasn’t until he left the building that he managed to put his finger on what was really bothering him about that interaction: Picani’s parting words, the ones about everything being okay. They hadn’t sounded like reassurances or encouragement.

They had sounded like an order.

“Getting paranoid there, Verge,” he scolded himself, then shook his head once and made the short trip back up the road to the Eyes-Wide Café. “He’s just a slightly intense therapist with no filter. You never have to see him again.”

The queue in the coffee shop was still there, although its components had changed. Virgil found his fingers itching to pull his camera from his bag, to sit in the corner of the café for the rest of the day and document the way it grew and shrank, the way that it always held to the same structure no matter the people making it up. They would be the kind of photographs he would take now, and then come back to in several years time, maybe when he’s made something of a name for himself, and touch up to release as a proper series. Something about permanent patterns arising from impermanent moments…

Remy caught his eye and gestured to a table by the door, where a clear takeaway cup was sitting, a black-and-purple striped straw sticking jauntily out of the top. (Virgil had no idea where the straw had come from: the only straws on the counter were red and white. Picani’s had been pink.) The drink itself was almost black in colour, but it was quite obviously iced - and it was going to be really bitter, wasn’t it? Virgil knew he should have made off with Patton’s coffee when he had had the chance.

Still, a free drink was a free drink, and he had no desire to stand in the queue and offend the barista. Virgil glanced at the clock behind the bar - nine o’clock. Perfect. Grabbing the cup from the table, he left the café to the soft jangle of the bell above the door and started back down the street (again).

He would speak to the mechanic, get his car filled up, and be out of here before midday. Then he could forget all about the weird sky and the people here. Halfway between the café and the repair shop, Virgil lifted his drink to take a brief sip, braced for whatever concoction the barista had assumed he would like.

It… Wasn’t what he had been expecting at all. It was obviously coffee based, but there was no trace of bitterness in the cold liquid. It was somehow creamy despite its dark tone, and the taste of caramel lingered in his mouth after he had swallowed. The coolness sent a shiver down his spine and left a buzzing in his fingers, but he was spared the uncomfortable tingling in his teeth that usually made him avoid iced drinks like this. It was sweet enough to satisfy his tastes, but not so sweet that it became sickly or like eating pure syrup.

In short, it was really good.

Maybe Picani had been right and Remy really was some kind of coffee wizard, he thought. Didn’t stop either of them from being the second and third weirdest people he had met in his life (with Roman taking first place, and Ethan coming in at a tidy fourth).

Taking another long mouthful and enjoying the smooth caramel flavours, Virgil turned the corner to find that the garage door on the repair shop was slowly being raised, a blonde woman in stained blue overalls (cliché, much?) standing beside it with her fingers on a control box in the wall. The disemboweled form of a large car was gradually becoming visible inside the building.

“-ait!” Virgil was just lifting a hand to wave awkwardly at her when he became aware of shouting behind him over the grinding din of the door opening. “Wait! Wait up!”

The highstreet was not busy. There was no doubt in Virgil’s mind that the shouting person was trying to catch his attention. He briefly considered ignoring them, already having passed his limit on social interaction for the day, but turned when the sound of running footsteps met his ears.

It was the barista, still wearing their purple apron and with an empty coffee cup in one hand. Remy looked almost panicked, and Virgil glanced over his shoulder in the hope that somebody else was behind him and had skipped out on their bill - his hopes were proven false when the other skidded to a stop beside him.

“Did -” He paused, clearly trying to catch his breath.

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “You’re out of breath after running past four shops?”

Remy straightened up, clearly about to snap back at him, but paled when Virgil took a wary step backward. His eyes flickered to the half-drunk coffee in his hand.

“Is there a problem?” Virgil looked at the coffee as well. Remy had definitely made eye contact with him and pointed at it; there had been nobody else around, so it wasn’t as though he had just stolen somebody else’s coffee and walked off. So why did Remy look as though they were about to pass out?

“The - the cream.”

“What?”

“The, the cream, babe.” Remy pressed a hand to their face, pushing their sunglasses further up their nose. “I didn’t check if you were, uh…” He waved a hand, and Virgil’s eyebrow rose higher.

“Lactose intolerant?”

Remy nodded frantically. “That’s it. You’re… You’re not, right?”

“Bit late now, isn’t it?” Virgil gestured with his cup, then lifted it to his mouth again. He regretted the move when the barista’s dark skin moved a few steps further down the path toward grey. “No, I’m not. I’m fine. Did you really just abandon your shop to check that?”

Another nod, this time less desperate - but Remy didn’t seem relieved. Instead, they seemed… Resigned? Virgil was definitely imagining things now.

“Right. Good. Okay.”

They glanced left and right, then at Virgil again, and Virgil found that he couldn’t read their expression anymore. He held up his drink awkwardly again. “It’s… A good drink. Thanks.”

“Good.” Remy seemed to shake himself then, drawing his shoulders up a little and straightening his back. “Good! Okay, I’ll - good luck with your car, babe!” The sudden return of the brash barista was almost as surprising as the exaggerated swagger with which they returned to their café, and felt just as forced.

Virgil’s first assessment had been right. Great coffee or no, Remy was just plain weird.

Didn’t matter. Who cared about some strange guy in a strange town that he was never going to visit again? Taking a deep breath, Virgil counted slowly to five in his head before pushing them from his mind and heading into the repair shop.

-

He was grateful that the mechanic seemed more or less normal. She didn’t hand him any keychains made of bone or have glowing eyes or try to learn his life story. There was nothing weird about her shop at all: it was just like every other small shop Virgil had ever visited, slightly greasy and covered in spare parts, bolts and coils and tyres and pipes. He had passed a pair of petrol pumps on his way in to find her - she had been under the car in the shop, and had introduced herself with a brusque, “People call me Yana. What ya need?”.

Virgil had apologetically explained his situation, and she had slapped him on the back with an oily hand (he was going to have to wash his hoodie) and announced that it happened all the time: sometimes GPS just didn't work around Lichmai.

"That's not weird at all," he commented dryly, and Yana just laughed.

"Not around here, shortie." Grabbing a rag from by the door, she wiped some of the dirt from her fingers and then swiped a set of keys from a workbench by the door. "I'll head out and grab ya car, fill it up when I get back. Probably be an hour 'n a half?"

Finishing the last of his iced coffee, Virgil followed her out of the shop and watched as she lowered the sliding door once more, then flipped around a wooden sign he hadn't noticed before. The now-visible side read 'Back later.' "Do you want me to come with you to help you find it?"

Yana shook her head, already climbing into the battered orange tow-truck. "Only two roads in 'n out of town, 'n ya already told me which one you took. Just be here a little before eleven, yeah?"

“Just before eleven. Right.” What was he supposed to do until then? Go and sit in the Eyes-Wide Café and hope that nobody else tried to make conversation with him? It wasn’t as though he could go back to his room at the Sunny Motel, given the fact that he had handed his key in that morning.

Virgil lifted his free hand to shade his eyes from the morning sun as Yana’s truck turned the corner onto mainstreet and disappeared, then sighed. He supposed he could just sit on the wall outside the repair shop until she got back - boring as that might be, it would mean that he’d be able to leave as soon as was humanly possible. On the other hand, if he had a little over an hour, maybe it would be a good opportunity to stretch his legs. If he took the time to walk around now, whilst he didn’t have the option to be driving, he could realistically push back his mandatory driving breaks and try to make up some of the time he had lost by getting… Well, lost.

Maybe he could find a small park and see if there was anything worth photographing.

Setting an alarm for an hour’s time, Virgil returned to mainstreet and started walking in the opposite direction to the coffee shop and its weird owner, keeping a careful map of his route in his head. It was made more difficult by the fact that half of the turns he made seemed to be onto streets with no name, or rows of cookie-cutter cottages with identical gardens. Not that that was all that weird - plenty of places ended up with a given construction service building repeatedly from the same blueprint. It just made it rather difficult to find his way around.

At one point, the houses he was walking past seemed to thin out a little, and he found himself beside a small orchard.

Cresting a hill, he came across what must be the town’s highschool: he could see a game of lacrosse being played by a group of teenagers, and the words ‘LICHMAI MIDDLE SCHOOL / LICHMAI HIGH SCHOOL’ were stencilled across one building. (Actually, he only assumed it was lacrosse, but he thought it was probably a fairly good guess given that he could hear a teacher yelling at somebody to stop hitting their friend with a lacrosse stick).

Following the road down the other side of the hill, he found himself on the highstreet once more, this time further up than before. Weird. He didn’t remember doubling back on himself.

Somewhere - Virgil had given up trying to remember a route - he found a small square with a fountain in the middle, and the town hall stretching across one side of the plaza. The image of himself striding inside and demanding to see the mayor to complain about the lack of darkness briefly crossed his mind, and he chuckled at the thought. What was an elected official going to do about a localised breakage in the solar system? And he could definitely see himself as the sort of person that barges into the mayor’s office of a town he doesn’t even live in to make complaints. Not.

The soft chiming of his phone startled him out of his reverie, and he slipped it from his bag to glance at the screen. He didn’t need to: nobody would be messaging him, and he wasn’t expecting any phone calls, so it was obviously the alarm he had set.

Well, that made everything easier. A short walk back to the garage, pay Yana, get in his car, and forget this weird little town ever existed.

Virgil deliberately ignored the fact that it only took him five minutes to arrive back on mainstreet, despite the fact that he had gotten slightly turned around and ended up walking down a road he had never seen before (he would have remembered seeing a shop called ‘Midge’s Supplies: For All Your Protection Needs’ and what looked like several large bulbs of garlic, painted blue, hung in the window. What did they sell there? Herbal voodoo nonsense? Guns? Condoms? A mixture of the three?).

He pointedly didn’t mention the fact that Yana had tied a small pouch full of what looked like crushed flowers to his rearview mirror. He could take them off as soon as he had pulled away from the repair shop.

Virgil turned onto the highstreet. As he passed the Eyes-Wide Café, he glanced sideways, and found that Remy was watching him through the shop window. No - they were staring out of the window, watching the cars drive past. Virgil couldn’t even see his eyes behind those sunglasses. They weren’t watching him.

The first time he found himself stopped at a traffic light, he unhooked the small pouch Yana had left him, unbuckled his seatbelt, and leaned out of the passenger side window to drop it into a trash can.

Virgil only hit one more red light on his way out of town. In fact, he only saw one more light - did the place just have an unusually small amount of traffic control? He pushed the question aside as the buildings grew more sparse, and by the time he was driving passed what looked like a small farm Virgil was already trying to guess how long it would be before he reached a place where his GPS would work again. His phone had signal now, but was flatly refusing to load a map.

The woods, when he reached them, were almost completely silent. The trees had been cleared for about twenty metres on either side of the road, leaving a grassy strip pockmarked with what looked like the occasional overgrown stump. To prevent a treefall blocking one of the two roads into and out of town? That made sense: easier to stop a problem from happening all together than have to deal with it when it did happen. Finally, something about Lichmai that wasn’t completely bizarre. Not that that gave him any desire to stick around any longer than was completely necessary, though. Virgil pressed his foot down gently, encouraging his old blue car to pick up speed and get him back to some recognisable roads.

That, of course, was when smoke, thick and black, began to pour from under the bonnet.

Virgil swore.

[ladybuvelle]

Bravura; Part One

“Now darling, this is important. So please pay attention.”

It was so hard to pay attention to any one thing that evening when so many maids were flitting about her; pulling the strings of her corset, helping her into her dress, adjusting seams and fit and the small jewels and pearls affixed to it. Sona hardly needed even a dab of perfume as she was surrounded by the soft, powdery scent of roses that sat in various vases all over her room. Rose like the deep color of her lips and the blush swept on her cheeks that was contoured around to give her a more Demacian standard of beauty.

There was just so much going on, and her Common language still wasn’t perfect. But if it was important she’d at least try.

“Tonight is very special” her mother said with a kind of warning tone to her voice, and Sona turned her head to better hear. “This isn’t a normal gathering. This is a royal banquet at the Lightshield royal family’s castle. Everyone who’s anyone is going to be there! Many people. Do you understand?”

Sona nodded, understanding it was certainly something important.

But nothing could have prepared her for the sea of well-dressed people, nor the brightly lit banquet hall of gleaming white walls and carved designs and statues. It reminded her of her new home, the Buvelle manse, where the walls seemed near covered in art. Though here it was so much bigger. So much grander and less diverse, and things were spread out more evenly. Her slender neck craned up and back to look upward along one of the massive statues that was the visage of some nameless knight.

Petricite. It didn’t effect her very much, but she could still feel the heaviness in the air. She’d felt it ever since she first came to Demacia; as if someone had turned up the gravity somehow. Even when she’d left Ionia to come to Valoran, this whole continent just felt so strange. The air was different. Not just the smell or the temperature, but the way it invisibly touched one’s skin. Demacia’s air was twice as heavy, and thrice so within it’s city’s inner sanctum. Which made sense enough, really. But she couldn’t help wondering if she’d ever get used to it, or if other people had ever noticed. Did they even know a difference?

The Etwahl wasn’t with her, so it was fine. On her own Sona had no magic. Few yet knew of her ability as a musician, and today wasn’t going to be her true debut either. Today was simply exposing her to high society on a grand scale. She was supposed to “mingle”.

What did “mingle” mean again...?

“Lady Buvelle!” a high-toned voice called, and turning toward it she gave a small frown. It was Flavius, her personal attendant. She’d already asked how they were able to be here, being a fae creature and using a glamour and all, but Flavius had insisted only that ‘Demacians aren’t as clever as they think they are’.

Still, Flavius looked pretty uncomfortable being so close to all this white stone... But who else was going to translate her sign language?

“You’ve been avoiding me since we got here!” they spoke in a more casual, hushed tone so that no one could hear them being inappropriate toward their mistress. “Madame Buvelle said you need to introduce yourself and socialize. If you don’t, she’s going to lead you around by the hand and do it herself, you know... And you know how she gets.”

Even as her attendant spoke, Sona could see her adoptive mother in the corner of her eye merrily chatting it up with some of the Laurents and Spiritmights. Which was an odd assortment of people if ever there were, according to what her mother had told her. The Spiritmights were a political powerhouse even before Catherine Spiritmight had married Jarvan III. It made other members of their House even more “up their own arses” than usual, according to Lestara. The Laurents on the other hand had much of her mother’s favor, particularly the head family’s youngest daughter Fiora.

Fiora had such a nice accent. She could hear it faintly even over the bubbling chatter surrounding her at this distance. Her mother seemed so happy... would she have been happier if Sona could talk to her so casually? If she were more of a fighter and assertive? She’d failed her fencing lessons with the Laurents, and painfully recalled how disappointed her mother had tried not to sound. But it was there. There was no mistaking it.

Right now she wasn’t “mingling” because “mingling” felt impossible. Her voice was never her own, and groups often regarded her very strangely since she was a foreigner. Her Common wasn’t all that great, and worse when she was nervous. Like now, with her hands wringing together.

“... are you listening to me?” Flavius tilted their head, and Sona slowly turned hers back and blinked away the daydream of anxiety. She had been, distantly. But none of it interested her.

“I don’t want to meet anyone” she signed with her hands dismissively, turning away to go look at more statues or sample some of the banquet, leaving Flavius to stand in shock and frustration. She wasn’t making their job any easier.

“What a brat” they blew a stray stand of blond off their cheek before turning to go back to Lestara.

Sona wandered along the outer walls of the room, gently touching the cold stone with her fingertips. Her nails were long and painted like small lavender sunsets; when the sky bled from the orange dying light of the sun to the cold purple expanse of stars. The color was somewhere in-between and smooth and shiny and lovely. Everything on her person was lovely. Her long blue hair was lovely, as was her dress, as was her makeup that slightly stung her eyes when the mica on her eyelids decided not to stick very well. It sparkled on her eyelashes with tiny golden flecks, like stardust.

It was still all so hard to believe no matter how many times she happened to pass a wall mirror and see her own reflection, or looking back at the crowds of noblemen and women behind her. Laughing and drinking and speaking in languages she didn’t know but loved to listen to. It was still so overwhelming...

‘I’ve been alone for so long’ she thought pitifully to herself, ‘yet now that I’m here, I can’t bring myself to socialize. Why am I do scared...?’

Even her own reflection scared her slightly. She was beautiful, but unrecognizable. Her heart-shaped face had grown up at some point into something else, framed by thick blue fringes tipped with gold. Never in all her life would she have imagined looking this way...

“Darling! There you are!”

Sona nearly fell over to hear her mother’s booming voice suddenly calling, the large woman all but stomping her heels as her long legs swiftly brought her to her daughter’s side. “What in the world are you doing hiding all the way over here? I’ve been looking all over for you!”

By her tone, Sona knew what was coming. Her mother’s way of dealing with difficult things was to change them to suit her mood, whether those involved were willing or not. Her personality was just so strong that few dared object - or were even given a chance. Before Sona could even attempt some kind of response, her ear turned to the sound of music. Strings. Lyres to be exact. All of them expertly tuned, accompanied by drums and a trio of low pipes. In her sudden daze, Lestara grabbed Sona’s hand and lead her along.

People were gathering along the edges of the dance floor now, with some couples already swaying and turning and bouncing on the floor itself. Sona had to stop herself from turning pale; she was terrible at dancing with others. It’s not that she didn’t know how to do it, or that she hadn’t already been given lessons on Demacian dancing, but she always seemed to move to her own rhythm when it came to dances. It often ended with her stepping on someone’s feet and being unable to apologize.

She knew what her mother’s ultimate intention was. This was ‘punishment’ for being such an introvert at such an important party. But she had no idea it could get worse. Lestara hadn’t randomly picked some poor sod to dance with Sona, nor did she seem interested in any of the young men standing pensive and scanning the eligible single ladies on the opposite side. Lestara lead Sona by a raised hand right past everyone, practically pushing people out of the way if they failed to notice her coming - which was a hard thing to do given the woman’s height and grandeur in her long velvet robe and high collar of brilliantly iridescent plumage and pearls.

Sona nearly had to trot just to keep step, pinching one side of her long dress just so she didn’t trip. But her eyes suddenly widened to realize where they’d been going. There, at the only end to her mother’s warpath, was the royal family. She’d never met them in person but it was obvious whom they were. The king wore gleaming white and gold, his face beyond his natural age but still very dignified and well-kept as one might expect. The crown he wore, Sona felt, was rather simple for a king. But then, it was a party. Perhaps he kept the real one for other functions? The queen stood with him, the two talking between themselves as they watched and smiled at the people dancing. Attendants surrounded them, filling Catherine’s wine glass as needed, bringing trays of hors d'oeuvre. Little sausages and cheeses. Sona liked cheeses. They didn’t really have those in Ionia.

This was no time to think about food.

“Your majesty!~” Lestara’s voice grew higher and airier, taking Sona’s hand much more gently and taking her steps just a hair more lightly as they approached the royal couple. Immediately the king’s guard turned their heads toward the two women, but Lestara was undeterred. She knew just how close she could get without getting into trouble. And she’d take every inch.

Catherine’s jovial gaze only slightly withered to see the Buvelle’s matriarch, keeping a polite smile and setting her glass aside. “Lady Lestara Buvelle. Thank you for accepting our invitation.”

“Yes, it’s a pleasure to see you again, my lady” the king agreed, looking from Lestara to the younger woman standing beside her who seemed far more interested in the spearman at the king’s back. He looked nothing like the other knights that flanked the king and queen, with hair nearly as long as her own in a high ponytail, and a face that looked anything but merry. She wouldn’t have even called him “relaxed”. She would have called him Ionian, however, which is why she stared as she did. Sona hasn’t seen a fellow countryman in all her time here...

“And who might this be?” the king gestured toward Sona with the slightest smile. She was lovely and clearly a young woman, but still had a sort of child-like wonder in her eyes that he thought quite charming. Catherine didn’t seem as impressed. She was already aware of Sona via the adoption arrangements.

“This,” Lestara made a grand show of her daughter by stepping back from her with the young woman’s pale little hand still held lovingly upward, “is my darling daughter. Lady Sona Buvelle.”

Sona’s attention snapped back to the king and queen, away from the strange spearman, and she nearly flinched at realizing just how many eyes were on her. Quickly she set her feet right and bent at the knees, pinching her dress with her free hand to lift it as she curtsied the way she was taught. It had to be just right. She couldn’t give a verbal greeting, after all, so Lestara had always emphasized the importance of physical grace and gesture.

“Ah, I see” the king nodded in understanding, returning a small bow of his own with a white gloved hand to his heart. “Welcome, Lady Sona, to our kingdom. Though it is now your kingdom as well, isn’t it?” He chuckled, though not as happily as Sona would have thought. Perhaps he was tired? “It’s a long way across the sea to Ionia... I hope your new home agrees with you?”

Sona set herself upright again, staring at the king as he spoke while trying to bite back her own nervousness before giving him a confirming nod and a smile. She was nervous, and perhaps had moments of doubt or bouts of culture shock, but ultimately she was very happy here. Happier at home with her mother and practicing the Etwahl, but happier than she ever was at the orphanage certainly.

“Wonderful” he smiled back, “And I hope you’re enjoying the party as well?”

“Ah” Lestara interjected, raising her free hand and gesturing it about in a curious fashion. “On that matter, your majesty, my daughter would enjoy herself far more if she had a dance partner! Where is that darling son of yours? I think she’d like to borrow him for awhile, if that’s agreeable.“

Sona’s eyes went wide and incredulous, turning sharply to look upon her mother and nearly dropped her jaw at such sudden claims. And there it was - the true punishment. Not only was her mother going to make Sona dance, but she was going to make her dance with the crown prince of Demacia. She was going to step on the toes of the king’s son and heir!

‘... I’m going to be exiled’ was her first thought, still visibly in shock.

[nickscorza]

This is a story of mine I’ve been unable to find a home for.  I don’t normally do this, but I’ve decided to post it here, because it seems kind of scarily relevant in a way it wasn’t when I first wrote it:

To the Backers of the New Tongues Anthology of Poetry in Translation

This morning I received a package—a jumbled scree of handwritten notes, in no discernable order, stuffed into a Manila envelope that looked like it had passed through three layers of hell.  The handwriting is Allison’s.  It is the last word I have received from her, and I am afraid it is the last I ever will…

Forgive me, let me start again.

I owe you an explanation, or at the very least an apology. You have generously shared your support for literature that as I’m sure you know receives far too little attention in the English language, and now it’s my unfortunate duty to inform you that there will be no New Tongues anthology.

As to why that is, well, I will share with you the same information I shared with the police.  Perhaps you will be able to make sense of it where they or I could not.

The anthology was to consist of poetry from twelve languages little-read in English, translated by Allison, myself and ten other poets of note, each paired with a native speaker and scholar of her or his nation’s literature.  It is a reflection of the high esteem I hold Allison’s abilities as a poet that I chose [redacted] for her.  I understand it is somewhat notorious among linguists.  It certainly had nothing to do with our history. As for the country itself, I hear it is one of those tiny European principalities whose main industry is serving as a tax shelter.

The thing is, I know I did research when planning New Tongues, but I can hardly recall anything about [redacted].  I can’t even seem to find it on a map.

For weeks, my messages went unreturned.  When I came to her apartment, no one would answer the door. Then I received the notes.

I have tried my best to put them into readable order, and to take other precautions I hesitate to believe are necessary, yet which I cannot also bring myself to do without:

--M                      

…just my luck this ‘Mr. Note’ lives miles from the nearest subway, in a part of Brooklyn that’s all dingy old townhouses like rows of molars.  It’s the kind of place you can’t tell is safe or not from first glance because it’s so quiet, like a De Chirico painting with uglier buildings – a blank street that could be anywhere in the world.

What kind of a name is ‘Mr. Note,’ anyway?  Is he English?  I thought I was supposed to be working with a native [redacted] speaker.  Then again, I wouldn’t put it past Malcolm to beg me to participate in his little project, then give me an assignment designed to make him look good by comparison.  Good one, Mal.

I feel compelled to point out the falsity of this.  I chose [redacted] for Allison because she is the greatest poet I know.  The past is dead, and I harbor no more hard feelings.            -M

Mr. Note’s building looks just like all the others – four units each, with buzzers by the door.  His just says ‘NOTE,’ an imperative sandwiched between three other names whose ethnicity I can’t determine.  Maybe we’ll hit it off and he’ll let me call him by his first name. Maybe it’s ‘PostIt.’

“Who are you?” his voice crackles in the speaker, old and gruff.  What kind of accent is that?  I can’t place it.

“Allison Mandel, the poet, from the anthology.”

“The what?”

“New Tongues, the poetry anthology.”

“New tongues adorn the palace gates.  They blacken in the sun.”

The speaker dies in a burst of static.

A few moments later, the door unlocks with a buzz like angry wasps…

“You are a poet?”  His first words are a brusque question, as if he cannot believe what he sees.

I grimace, bracing myself for a fresh pile of old world macho bullshit. I’ve heard it all before; all the bitter, fungal professors that see your mere existence as a desecration of their favorite literary corpse-host.  Every university seems to sprout at least one.

Watching Allie lay into a pompous Pound scholar at a faculty luncheon is among my most cherished memories of our time together.   -M

Cable news is on a constant drone in the background. Oh lord, Mr. Note is some kind of political nutjob.

Then something in his pinched little face softens, and I think, it’s not that, it’s something else.  He’s small, no taller than my shoulder, and stooped.  His skin is etched everywhere by age, creased and blotched.  Only his hair could be called beautiful, fine and almost pure white – so delicate it is like the ghost of hair.

“Forgive me,” he says.  “It is only that poetry means something different in our language.”

Well, I have my work cut out for me.

Most good translations are the work of a poet and a scholar – and both will tell you good translations are impossible. Classical Chinese poems, for example, gain significance by their characters’ lateral as well as vertical arrangement – a web of meaning we can’t echo in English.  Languages have different tenses and thus different views of time.  Vestigial lumps in one tongue are the beating hearts of others.  If you keep at it long enough, you start to think we’re not all living in the same world.

I brought a copy of Bridal Flats with me in case Mr. Note wanted to read my work. He stares at it, confused, through little half-spectacles, as if I have handed him a pinned insect.  At his shirt cuff I can see the blue-black lines of a tattoo that must creep further up his arm.  I wouldn’t have picked him as the tattoo type.

He smiles as he reads my collection, real delight showing in his face, and I feel bad for my early appraisals of him.  Then he seems to remember something troubling – I can almost see the other shoe dropping in his brain.  His face sags into a frown.

“This will not work.  It is a terrible idea,” he says.

I swallow all the things I want to say to him. Instead I point to the table.

“Show me.  Teach me about your poetry.”

He laughs, short and bitter, but he obliges me.

We open a musty old book in his language. The alphabet is Latin, but the words are flecked with accents and strange marks I can’t guess the significance of.  Neither my fluent French nor my smattering of German is of any use.  Not a single word evokes anything familiar.  I cannot even imagine the pronunciation.

“What do you know of [redacted]?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“I am not surprised.  We are so small, and ours is an orphan tongue, with less family than even Finnish, Hungarian or Basque.”

He hands me a battered spiral notebook.

“These are some transliterations I began.  In [redacted] the originals have a rhyme and meter which is quite complex.”

I am surprised he has done even this much—he seems so opposed to the project, but I think I can see a glimmer of desire as he watches me read over his rough, literal translations.  Some secret part of him has wanted this very much.

“The apple has a radius of

1.9 inches.  It is light red,

The variety known as Gala….”

Here I picture the perfect, questioning arch of Allison’s eyebrow, the subtle narrowing of the opposite emerald eye.  A look I knew well...                    -M

“What’s the significance of this?” I ask him. “Are they big fans of William Carlos Williams in [redacted]?”

“The apple is something real.  Something on which to hold in troubled times.  It is… safe.  Read another.”

“There are precisely 740 steps

In the National Stadium, provided

Of course you do not neglect to

Count the two emergency stairs,

Which many often do.”

He nods at this, though he winces slightly at the words ‘National Stadium.’  What kind of government does [redacted] have, anyway?  I remember Malcolm saying it was one of those little countries that never bothered to abolish the monarchy.

Something on the TV sets Mr. Note off, and we turn away from the book.  On the screen one of those dictators the West pretends is not a dictator because of favorable trade agreements is addressing the UN.  Nothing to do with [redacted], as far as I can tell, but Mr. Note is engrossed, shifting as he watches between anger and an acid, hopeless humor.

“Kim Jong Un spends millions to bring basketball stars to his birthday parties while his people starve.  They say his father forced them to listen to him sing rock and roll songs, dressed as Elvis Presley.  Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan erected a golden statue of himself that rotated so as to always face the sun.  Moammar Qadafi, before he was deposed, was guarded always by a harem of warrior women.  There are stranger things, worse things.  You do not understand, here, what it is like.  An absolute ruler styles himself a father to his people, when in fact the opposite is true.  He is a child, and nothing is so terrifying as to be ruled by the cruel whim of a child. You want to laugh, but heaven help you if you do.”

He speaks these words in anger.  Then, after they have escaped his lips, he grows pale and looks around the room nervously.  When he sees nothing out of the ordinary, he smiles.

“Let us read another.”

He leans over the notebook.  I can see the lines of the tattoo peeking out of his collar, creeping up his neck.  It’s strange, but they almost seem to be moving—little drops of blue-black blood flowing in reverse.

He lets me take his notebook home with me to read. I confess I’m surprised by the trust. He was happy when I left; smiling like a little boy who’s just founded the world’s greatest and most secret club. I’m glad at least one girl was allowed.

It’s raining outside, and the streetlights make the drops of water on my windows into little flecks of light.  Inside my apartment is small and empty.  I remind myself I can get a pet of some sort anytime I want to.  I can leave all my clothes in a big pile in the middle of the room.  I can paint the walls whatever stomach-churning color I desire. Malcolm is gone.  Why, after two and a half years, does it still feel like he’s looking over my shoulder?

I’m sure I was hard to live with.  I don’t pretend otherwise, but if only-  

No, I have run out of words on this subject.  Perhaps if I had listened and kept my mouth shut more often, the past would have been different.    -M

I stare at Mr. Note’s precise, blocky handwriting, trying to imagine what the poems of [redacted] sound like in their native rhythm.  On the page they seem constructed to be as flat and dead as possible – a poetry of the mundane.  According to his notes these go back hundreds of years, unchanged.  When everyone else was writing dense, metaphorical sonnets, the poets of [redacted] were talking about the ideal type of wood for barrel construction. They were either modern way before it was cool or else the world’s most boring culture.

The square of [redacted] contains

34,000 bricks, and a fountain…

And that sort of thing.

In the town of [redacted] they grow

Barley, and their little lives rise and

Are cut down like stalks of grain

Beneath their master’s scythe…

That’s odd… I was trying to copy a poem in Mr. Note’s manuscript that was all about agriculture in [redacted]—I don’t know what made me write those creepy lines. Looking back at the original, they’re not there.  It’s all about the yearly size of barley crops.

Reading too many of these poems must be numbing my brain.  I’m spending more time staring at my desk than reading.  Stupid Malcolm, I bet he did this on purpose.  Anything to look good in his own anthology.  

Then, as I stare at the wood of the old desk, I see something… a face.  Funny I never noticed it before, it’s uncanny—not just jumbles of lines that look kind of like eyes and a mouth, it’s an unmistakable face.  It’s simple, abstract, but every time I look at it I see something more.  The mouth and nose are an impassive mask, but the eyes…  I can’t believe what I’m looking at is just the grain of cheap wood. I have never seen eyes so hard or so cruel… I quickly look away, back to the book—only all the poems have changed. I can barely bring myself to scan the words.  Everything is blood and death.  The square is lined with crow cages, the palace walls with severed heads.  New tongues adorn the palace gates.,,

I have to leave the room after that.

The next morning, yup, nothing but the plain old wooden desktop, with two knots in the wood grain that might have been those eyes that freaked me out so much.  The poems are all as boring as I remember them.  Am I becoming one of those people who sees the risen Christ on a piece of toast?  Way to go, Allie.  Malcolm would swoop in here with the word pareidolia, then explain that it means the human tendency to see patterns and images in random nature, even after I tell him yes, I know what it means.

Of this I am certainly guilty.   -M

But I can’t forget seeing those eyes…  It’s crazy, I know, but some part of me thinks they saw me too.

I try to start planning for the fall semester, maybe even start on a new poem, but I can’t.  Whenever I sit down to write I see those eyes.  The only words that come to me are the ones I saw in the changed notebook, all blood and power and madness.  What’s going on here?  What was Malcolm thinking, giving me this?  

This afternoon I ring Mr. Note’s buzzer until he opens the gate and keep it ringing a few seconds longer for good measure. I’m furious and still shaking from last night.  This is too damn weird.  He looks happy to see me at first.  His smile crumbles when he sees the look on my face.

“What is going on here?”

He stays silent; his face drained of color. At least he doesn’t pretend not to know.

“What is the big secret with these poems? What’s your real name, anyway?”

“Names are not given lightly where I’m from.”

“Are you a refugee or something?”

“To be that, I would have to believe in refuge.”

“Ok, this isn’t going to work unless you tell me some things.  Who or what is the prince of-“

“Do not say it!”

His face is white, his body trembling.  He is feeble, a dry old leaf, but his hand reaches out to grip my arm, and his fingers close with a desperate, shocking strength.  The blue-black lines of his tattoo stand out like fresh wounds.

He starts to talk.

“Once, perhaps we were like other places.  We knew history.  We knew the freedom of our own language.  His poets changed past and present, meaning slipped away from the words we used, replaced with things we did not feel in our hearts.  Now he has always been there, and always will be. He leaves nothing pure, seeping into every corner of our lives.  With a few strokes of the pen, so much is gone.  People are gone.  You never see them again.  He has eyes everywhere, hounds trained for the hunting of men, and traitors hang from his palace wall.  You have already seen too much.”

“Don’t worry.  Take your notebook back,” I said.  “I’m done.”

I practically throw it at him.  I don’t need this in my life.  He lets it drop to the floor.

“It was foolish to want this,” he says. “Forgive me.”

As I turn away he stoops to pick it up.  The ink from his tattoo has crept down his hand and on to the page, its blue-black tracery spreading across the papers he is holding.  Something is putting down roots…  I do not stay to watch.  I cannot.

My walk home is silent, and I fight to keep from breaking into a run.  The first chill of fall is in the air, and the sky looks like it could rain on a whim and stop a moment later.  Everything is gray and waiting.  I met a Czech poet once, one of the samizdat guys, who said there were always two types of secret police – the ones everyone knew were secret police, there to remind you, and the ones no one knew were secret police, there to deal with you.

Oldřich—I always hated the way he looked at you.   -M

I keep my eyes on the street on the way back, try not to meet anyone’s gaze, and when I get home, I lock and bolt the door and collapse against it, breathing heavy.

For a moment, I almost consider calling Malcolm. Luckily, that foolishness passes quickly.

I wish you had.  Oh Allie, what happened to us?  What happened to you?  -M

In my dream, I am in a dark place.  I have forgotten the light.  I know myself by feel, but the face I touch does not feel like mine, nor do the hands that touch it.  My body is no longer related to itself, its parts are discrete, unknowing. Mr. Note’s voice is in my ear:

“The worst thing is how easily it happens. The people are willing to believe, to do whatever is asked of them.  You must merely present it as normal, as the logical choice, and it has always been thus.”

Then there is light—ghastly, painful, and white corridors, and hands on me, washing me, a mirror.  Is that really my face?  So thin, so lost.  There is a humming by my arm, and a burn as I feel the first bite of the electric needle, see the blossom of blue-black ink on my flesh, the lines that are taking shape… words, volumes I dare not read are scrawled on my skin.

[redacted]

[redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]

I will not leave the apartment.  When my phone rings, it is all clicks and whispers, the whirr of listening machines.  I have unplugged it from the wall.  When I creep out to get my mail I find it has been opened.

I will not leave the apartment, but I can’t stop thinking of Mr. Note, the last look of sadness giving way to terror on his face as the blue-black lines spread from his hand to the pages he held.  One day I cannot stand it anymore, and I take the subway, then the bus, then walk to where he lives.  I know I am followed every step, though I see no one.  When I get there, I find another name on the entrance to the building.  I ring the buzzer, and a woman answers, speaking a language I cannot recognize. I speak into the box, asking about Mr. Note, but there is no response.

The new semester will be starting soon.  I have already missed two faculty meetings. I don’t know what I will do once classes start.  It’s been days since I’ve written, and I’m too afraid to read even the newspaper.  I know what words I’ll find there.

My chair is heavy wood, old, scarred and pitted and stained-over many times.  It was purchased at a yard sale.  My desk- no, don’t look at the desk.  The eyes. The face.  My apartment is about 600 square feet, pre-war, with off-white plaster walls.  My walls are lined with bookshelves, some dark wood, some that cheap wood-composite stuff you get at IKEA, a mix of plastic and organic.  My books are the only thing I really keep organized, alphabetical by author, poetry and fiction and theory and general nonfiction.  The titles are all familiar and dear to me.  The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson, Millay, the Rossetti’s, Elizabeth Bishop, Lyrical Ballads, Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Four Quartets, Les Fleurs du Mal, The Glory of the Ruler, The Exalted Prince of [redacted], the baying of the hounds, the heads of traitors hung from his walls, wreathed in flies.  New verses are writ each day in his honor.  New tongues adorn the palace gates, they blacken in the sun.

That’s the end.  But there is more, or there was.  When I read these notes the first time, there was a poem in ink on the back of the last page, a true translation.  I confess it chilled my blood.  It is gone now, and I would not reproduce it here even if I could.  Allison is gone with it.  Not even a trace remains.

It is seventy-five steps from my office to my car. The sun is setting.  The parking lot is empty, but I know I am followed all the same.

[frankthomas090-blog]

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" "Uh, yeah…" I muttered, confused by her sudden appearance. " she asked as I drifted into waking. "Failure to appear will result in forced compliance. " With a perfunctory nod and smile she tore a slip of paper from a booklet she was carrying, and proffered it at me.

There was definitively something off about her, and not just by the fact that she appeared to have broken into my apartment overnight; her neon green pixie cut, numerous piercings, and prolific tattoos of cocks and tentacle monsters savaging women didnt seem to gel with her matter of factly work-a-day demeanour; none of which was helped by her wispy, transparent clothing that seemed designed expressly to tittilate and show of her flesh rather than conceal anything.

" "Well", I suggested, stretching to feel my morning glory blooming under the covers, "perhaps youd be down for a bit of practice? "You are served with appearing at the Capital City Temple within fourteen days for a union with Her Grand Majesty the Most Exalted, The Goddess Persicima, Glory of all the World and Mother to All.

" With a quick flick of her wrist she threw back my covers and gave my cock a long, hard stare. " she said, pulling gently at a band around her throat, sending her clothes (if you could call them that) falling to the floor. "I would advise you to bring your A game.

" "Now…" I said, looking over the slip of paper, "when you say union…" "Fucking, yes. "Normally I wouldnt have time, but your laziness means that youre my last stop for the day", she said with a disapproving click of her tongue and a shrug, "so why not, I suppose? " "Much the same, isnt it? As far as Saturday mornings go, this one wasnt much out of the usual, or, rather, wouldnt have been, but for the woman standing over my bed as I woke up.

"Now get off of your lazy ass and show me what youve got. " Obediently, I got to my knees and shored up behind her, guiding my cock into her already wet slit, my burying it to the hilt eliciting not so much as a shiver. " I asked as she climbed up onto the bed and wiggled her ass at me. As I looked down at her back I was greeted to an ornate scene tattooed into her milky white skin, of a burly man grabbing a woman by the hair and riding her like a stallion, so I decided to do much the same, her short hair smooth and hard to grasp under my annoyed fingers.

" she asked, looking over her shoulder at me. "Not in the slightest. "If thats all you have to work with…" she said with a shrug. "So her majesty and all that likes it rough, is what youre saying? "Im not here to ride you, and what you need practice at is pounding password abby abbie winters a cunt, not getting ridden.

"I hope you do as well, then. "Do try and make an effort. " Annoyed, I let go of her hair and grabbed her hips instead, taking a firm grasp with both hands. A couple of minutes of hard riding later I came, filling her up as best I could with a torrent of hot jizz, having elicited not so much as a single moan from her. "If thats the best you can do, I fear for you.

" I asked, using the purchase gained by grabbing the angels mane to drive myself even deeper. " I offered, before drawing back to put every muscle in my body into pounding her. " she said, ignoring the stains the cum dripping from her pussy left on her lacy garments. " she said with a bored sigh.

Angrily, I balled it up and tossed it into my wastebasket; let them try to force compliance all they want… As far as Saturday mornings go, this one wasnt much out of the usual, or, rather, wouldnt have been, but for the four women standing over my bed as I woke up. " With an idle shrug she vanished into thin air, leaving behind only a wet spot on the bed and the slip of paper on my night stand.

" the tallest of them said. As I fell back, exhausted, she was already well on her way out of the bed and gathering up her wisps of silk. " another one chimed in. "You are expected at the temple. It had been two weeks since my encounter with the angel of Persiwhateverthefuck, and Id not put much more thought into it, a decision I was now rather regretting.

Each of them had much the same look as the last angel had, albeit with slightly less in the way of tattoos and piercings, and slightly less in the way of clothing. With the quickness of a great cat I was on my feet, the bed between me and the four of them, and quickly I made for the door. "You can come quietly, or not.

"Just let me put some clothes on, and Ill come quietly. " I suggested, immediately regretting it as the shortest of them threw herself headlong at me in a gloriously well-executed tackle, sending me sprawling on the floor. "Do we have to tie you up?

"Youre fine the way you are. " the tallest of them said. " Boxing me in, the four of them walked me naked up main street, but not until after affixing a ring around my cock to secure my erection. " she said, squeezing abby winters girls hard. " Kim exclaimed gleefully as she spotted me, but as I turned around to offer my dissent one of the angels prodded me hard with a finger to drive me on.

Fortunately, a summer Saturday morning left the streets all but deserted, but nonetheless I ran into Kim and Alice outside the corner store. Reaching under me to grab my balls, she was quite clear about how this was going down. " I shouted in her face. "Ignoring a summons isnt a good idea! "Oh yeah, Ive been up the temple a few times. " With a shrug, the angel stopped, and let me exchange a few brief words with Kim.

" she said, nodding at the big marble building in the distance. "Youve got some experience with this, then? " "Apart from Dont ignore the summons in the first place. " she asked, staring off thoughtfully in the middle distance. "Is there that much of a rush?

"The second time I got to bring Alice, and we all had a lot of fun. " I asked, and she gave a grin and a nod. " the tallest of the angels said, waving the rest of the abby winters girls out. "Take a deep breath and relax, I guess. " "I dont follow…" I said in puzzlement, but before Kim could answer the angels drove me i love abby winters models winters on.

"Her Grand Majesty will be with you shortly. "In future", a voice came, ringing like a fine silver bell, "see that summons are responded to promptly. There was no imperfection to her near as I could see, and as the moment went on for what felt like a thousand years, I could easily be brought to believe that I had seen everything about her a million times over. " On opening my eyes I was confronted with what was easily the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on, before or since; tall, soft, just the right everything, from the curve of her breasts to the round of her belly, nothing about her hidden from view; if her angels wore revealing clothing, she wore nothing at all, were it not for the fact that she did.

"Try not to embarrass yourself. "I… I will…" I stammered, words hardly finding their way to my mouth. The rest of the journey passed quickly, even with the hot pavement burning my feet, and before long I abby winters.com winters clips was dragged down into the sanctum below the temple and tossed bodily into the massive bed covered with flower petals. " she asked, looking back at me.

" As she slipped out with the rest of them I laid back on the bed, waiting for Perwhatever, my cock throbbing against the cool metal ring around it, my eyes closed against the dim lights of the sanctum. " The strange atmosphere tangling itself about my wits I could barely get on my knees, but somehow I managed, and brushing away the wispy silk covering her rear I got my cock brushing against her eager wetness, immediately eliciting a low, growling moan.

With my first thrust I drew a deep, ringing moan from her, filling the room, and on the second I came, spurting a torrent of seed deep into her. "Now…" she said, climbing up into the bed and getting on all fours, "show me what men are made of.

" she said at length, rolling over onto her back, a finger darting to her pussy to grab a fleck of the juices oozing out of her and tasting it with great relish. " "Well…" I panted, the golden ring falling from my cock as it receded, "theres not much to do for that. "Far too quickly over with, though. " she said with a grin, quickly springing up and pushing me down on all fours and getting behind me.

" As I felt the prod of a ghostly construct prodding against my ass, Kims advice suddenly made sense. "Do let me know if Im being too rough. "Now is when the fun begins. Grabbing my hair and yanking me back up to my knees, the goddess nibbled softly at my ear, before quietly whispering to me. As I filled her up, she loosed a scream of joy, her body twitching against me in orgasm, a glorious celebration of the most perfect sex.

" With a deep breath I grabbed her hips and plunged deep into her, her heavenly cunt forming itself to my exact desires; tight, but not too tight; warm, but not too warm; wet, slippery and deep. " she whispered, driving her magical cock up my ass.

[mredwinsmith]

A Smart Approach to Urban Sketching (and a Demo!)

Capturing Fall in Full Swing

One of our resident artists, Marc Taro Holmes, delivers a great urban sketching demo to us based on his jaunts out and about in Montreal, Canada. Enjoy the gorgeous fall colors of the turning leaves against crisp blue skies. Marc takes you for a fun “tour” and gives us all the insight we need on how to make the scenes we see come alive through watercolor sketching.

Take in all the sketching goodness and be sure to get our exclusive On-the-Go Sketching Collection, featuring many of Marc’s bestselling tutorials. Enjoy and cheers to your next sketch!

Courtney  

Sketching in Watercolor: Urban Sketching Tutorial

Fall is in full swing in Montreal. It’s getting brisk. Hats and gloves are coming out of the closet. Very soon it’ll be too cold to comfortably paint outside. It might be my last chance to take a day off work and enjoy painting the fall colors.

I recently headed out to Montreal’s Île Saint-Hélène. There’s a little stone tower called the Tour de Lévis marking the highest point of the island. It used to be a water reservoir. These days, it’s used for weddings and fancy parties. The view up top is supposed to be great, but I’ve never had the opportunity to see it. I think this simple stone structure will be a perfect anchor for a sketch that’s really all about the trees.

Above, left: Reference photo. Above, right: Marc’s finished piece. (Pin this demo for future reference!)

Time Is On My Side

In a field sketch like the one I’m sharing today, I’m usually finished in about an hour. It can go much faster if I’m working very small, or if I’m bold with simplification. I’ll aim to do it all in three passes of watercolor–one pass for the large shapes in lighter (transparent) color, then two over the top with darker accents for midtones and tiny dark shadows.

Skies the Limit

I’ll often start with the sky–it’s usually the biggest, lightest shape. And I can let it dry while I’m moving on to the rest of my first pass. By the time I’ve touched the whole painting once (depending on the weather), it will be dry and ready for more.

But before I paint, I’ll usually do a quick pencil sketch. In the image above, you can see my faint under drawing, with the first sky-wash in place.

In the past I’d make a very detailed drawing, but with more experience under my belt, I find myself wanting a simple outline: just the bare bones. If I let myself get carried away drawing, I know I’ll put in every little thing I see.

Forest for the Trees

This scene is almost entirely trees and foliage. I certainly don’t want to be drawing every leaf and branch. It’s not necessary to create the forested impression I’m after–and it might well distract from the central focus. Neither do I want to get caught up drawing the stones of the tower itself. At the small scale I’m working (10×15), it would get too finicky.

Compositionally speaking, I have a phrase: “The Three Big Shapes: Sky, Ground and Subject.” Sometimes a picture needs more than three shapes–but I try to do it in as few as possible. If I can fuse a forest of trees into one contour line, all the better!

Making Memories

As well, I’ve downplayed some intrusive light fixtures bolted onto the tower, ignored a set of picnic tables and some garbage bins, and many, many small leaves on the ground. We could get into a whole discussion about this philosophy of less-is-more. It might not be for everyone, but my goal is a memory of this place. To be able to say I was here, and I painted this, enjoying my time watching the leaves falling.

I don’t need anything more than this to look back on it later. Instead of making my sketches as a perfectionist, my preference is to keep moving and find another spot. Sometimes I can capture five or six sketches in a day. I’d rather have more experiences and more paintings than spend too much time making any one of them more “real.”

Edges and Shapes

I like to build each of the silhouette shapes in the composition with fused strokes of color, painted wet-on-dry. Wet color placed right next to a previous stroke–just touching–will merge into a single shape. Every few strokes I’ll adjust the color mix, aiming for plenty of variety within a passage. I want colors *inside* a wet shape to blend freely, but I want hard edges *between* shapes. I like to say the edges are the drawing, the shapes are the painting.

What to Leave

Within a shape, I’ll often leave small white flecks of paper. These will become sky-holes in the trees or glinting sunlight on upward facing planes.

I like to compare my three color passes to the liquids tea, milk, and honey. Each layer of paint uses more pigment, less water–going from transparent tea-like washes, to a pigment-rich milky glaze, and ending with almost pure pigment in a honey-like consistency.

So, here’s the first transparent wash complete – the Tea.

I have four, maybe five silhouette shapes here, depending on how you see it. The sky, the tower and two chunks of forest: the more distant trees on the right (with the flash of red leaves), and the wall of forest to the left–which merges with the foreground shape at the moment.

Supporting Your Marks

So, the next step is to look back at each of my silhouette shapes, and see how I can subdivide the basic design with smaller, darker details. I want to describe what’s there, while supporting this pattern I’ve designed.

I begin by building up smaller bushes and hedges with darker foliage, and bringing leaves in the canopy over the sky. As well, I’ll start breaking the yellow-green forest silhouettes up into individual trees. It’s important that the first pass has dried. Sometimes I’ll need to take a break, setting the painting in the sun. I want to use my richer pigment over top of dry washes so I can control the hardness of edges.

I still resist trying to paint every tree trunk or branch, but aim to create the impression with broken brush strokes, allowing the underpainting to show through the gaps.

In my three passes, each one touches less and less surface area of the painting. The “tea” floods everything. The “milk” is about 25% of the paper, and the final touches of “honey” are only tiny adjustments. In this manner the sketch is completed very quickly and each layer builds on what went before.

Parts to Savor

I’ve been waiting for a while to put in these raking shadows across the grass. They’re one of my favorite parts of the scene. The long shadows describe the slope of the earth, adding depth while at the same time making a subconscious set of steps leading up to the tower. I had seen these cast shadows when I first arrived on location, and had made note that I’d get them in, even if the light changed. It had indeed gone by the time I got to this stage, but if you look back, they’re lightly indicated in the drawing. Just enough that I’d remember them.

I did, however, downplay them–they were darker in real life–but I want the viewer’s eye going toward the tower, not to be drawn to the ground. So they’re a favorite part, but they can’t be over stated.

Now it’s just a matter of smaller and smaller details, such as looking at the shapes within shapes, and seeing where any tiny shadows can help define the foliage. These small touches are scattered all over. They’re only a tiny percentage of the surface area, but in a way they change the entire painting. Each one refines a silhouette edge or grounds a form with a cast shadow.

In the final painting the three (well, OK, five) big shapes have been enriched with details. There are now many overlapping forms, but they’re organized by that underlying plan. At the same time, the dark accents have been designed to reinforce the composition.

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The dark ridge line of bushes on the left and the diagonal passages of darks and lights on the right all direct the eye toward the front door of the tower. The tiny door itself is a bullseye pattern of concentric dark and light, placed directly over the rule of thirds–an unavoidable eye-catching target. Everything in this simple sketch has been building up my story of discovering this romantic stone tower in the woods. The perfect postcard of a blustery fall day.

Marc Taro Holmes is the author of the instructional handbook: The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location. He has recently released four video demonstrations on ArtistsNetwork.tv about sketching on location in pen and ink and watercolor; Sketching Birds, Travelling with a Sketchbook, Painting Panoramas and Sketching Street Life.

Marc blogs at CitizenSketcher.com, offering regular free updates featuring painting demos like this one, interesting experiments with art tools and materials, art book reviews and stories from his own travels with a sketchbook.

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