#the gentle art of making enemies my beloved /real

[bpdpenguin]

ok im actually not prepared to watch the first genuinely good episode of gotham all around since season 2 which is ALSO the turning point of ed/os like how did they do that

[lightthewaybackhome]

This last week was emotionally difficult. I had a tea with an old friend who I'm not comfortable being open with, a funeral for a beloved friend I will miss terribly, Mother's day (good because I love my Mom, and am blessed by lots of wonderful friends who are moms, hard because I've been unable to have children of my own, and a very dear friend of mine has had the most difficult miscarriage), and my birthday. (I struggle with chronically wanting to both be seen and not seen, so birthdays are both fun and stressful.)

As I've struggled through this week I've talked to several dear friends, letting them carry little parts of my sorrow, fears, and burdens.

I have to say, I'm blessed with a whole slew of wonderful friends and each and everyone of them went out of their way to help me through this week, in a slew of different ways, so I'm feeling very blessed. (That includes some of you on here, even unawares, you helped me.)

Watching through Stargate Atlantis has made me hyper-aware of the importance of friendship, has made me more vigilant about my friends, both caring for them and letting them care for me.

Reading a chapter in Return of the King, I was struck by the constant contrast of despair brought by the Nazgul and the 'foolishness' of hope brought by Gandalf.

Both of these stories showcase great warriors who defend their people at all cost, the ultimate acts of love and friendship

So, with a thousand pistons firing, I connected all these lines from songs and such together this morning trying to express my feelings of simply having wonderful friends, of the importance of hope, and my love of warriors who get us all home.

•••

Weep not for roads untraveled

Weep not for sights unseen

May your love never end, and if you need a friend

There's a seat here alongside me

So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

But if your strife strikes at your sleep

Remember spring swaps snow for leaves

You'll be happy and wholesome again

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival. “ - CS Lewis

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

A true warrior's gentleness towards his people is matched by his ferocity towards his enemies.

[passerine-parable]

“Objectivity is the enemy” says author Hagbard Celine in their essay The Legacy of Grayface. This is a fact as true and sharp as the blade of a knife wielded in the hand of one who knows how to use it, (and I recognize that it is marginally hypocritical of me to make an objective statement about objectivity). Objectivity places a gray veil over our eyes in terms of a creative understanding of the world. Objectivity hands us one single, heavy facet of truth, and expects us to stand there holding this weighty thing while it screams at us- OF COURSE THE SKY IS BLUE! YOU’RE INSANE! But the sky isn’t blue, is it? The sky is just our atmosphere protecting us from the endless void of space. The sky is sometimes gray, and sometimes blue, and sometimes pink, and if you let yourself lose focus, and stare at it awhile, the sky can be absolutely any color. With my poor vision, when I look at the blue sky, I see blue, and then I see flashes and flickers of the white blood cells moving through the veins of my eyes (it’s a whole, inconvenient thing), and if I give my photosensitivity a minute to react to the brightness, my vision is traced in rainbows. 

Consider, if you will, a lighter. A red lighter wrapped in twine. It is balanced upon the edge of a table located on the upper half of [park] in [city], as accessible by [name] street. Two people sit at the table and discuss the lighter. Are they real? Are they present at this table at the time you read this essay? Maybe. Maybe you make us real by reading these words. Focus on the lighter. The lighter exists because it simply exists. Everything exists in relation to the lighter- the table, the people, the park. The lighter now defines reality. The lighter is now the universe, even as it is just a lighter.

Artists are reality-makers. I start with a sketch of a deer. It does not quite look like a deer, but it’s close enough. I add another deer, and then an image flashes to life of a herd of massive spirit-creatures wandering through a valley beneath a sky full of far too many stars, the sun a blaze of orange upon the horizon. I can feel the warm summer wind passing across my bare skin, I can hear these great beasts breathing, smell the sweet earthiness of grass, and I can see a friend of mine standing next to me. What is this? A daydream? Why? Is the only thing distinguishing this from a memory the fact that I just happened to make it up? Who am I to say this didn’t happen, with all my flawed senses, with all the inconsistencies of the human brain?  So I’ve just made a memory that didn’t exist five minutes ago. That’s magic; straight up. If I continue to refine this sketch, if I put you in here with me, if you suspend your disbelief and let yourself flow with the idea that such a thing is possible, if you relinquish your need to have all the answers, this can be your memory too. Can you see them? The great ancestral beasts, wandering through the fields of dreams? 
 What if it were a film? What if it were a comic book? We have little to no empirical evidence that the people in our beloved fiction stories exist, but neither do we have any evidence to deny their existence. They existed in someone’s head, and now they exist in front of you, by your experience, by a handful of your senses. So too does the lighter on the table. Get your own lighter and set it on your own table if you need to experience the metaphor by the interface of your sense of touch.

The artist-as-magician is thus handed a curious burden- 

 If we define reality, how may we shift it? How can we change it for the better? What memories are we making for those who experience our art? Likewise, how does one tell a good story, if its characters are real beings? Be gentle! For goodness sake, be gentle! For every eye upon your art it lives its story over.

[legolasbadass]

A Lifetime Apart [1/3]

Artwork by the lovely @gwen-ever​

Relationship: Thorin x OC

Summary: Thorin meets his One while still a young prince in Erebor, but their lives are torn apart by their families and the arrival of Smaug. 

Based on Alice Tynan’s interview with Richard Armitage in ‘The Vine,’ this fic was inspired by @gwen-ever’s wonderful art for the @tolkienrsb 2021! 

Warnings: Angst. Seriously guys, this is really angsty, get your tissues ready. (gwen and I are not sorry lol)

Rating: T

As always, the fic can be read on AO3. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 

There is a room in Erebor, a secret place where once their love bloomed in peace. All the memories of that place, where he held her and worshipped her with his lips, were forever engraved in his mind. It was there that, after months of struggling with his feelings, he had realized she was his One.

All Dwarves know that Mahal sometimes creates two of his children from the same stone, bonding them for life. Of course, not all Dwarves marry. Even those granted this honour by their Maker do not always choose to marry, for some value friendship above all other bonds, while others devote themselves to their craft. Still, as a young boy, Thorin had hoped Mahal would deem him worthy, and every night he had dreamt of the moment he would meet his One, conjuring their likeness like an artist who paints a picture and gives it life.

He had also wondered what it would feel like to meet his One. Would he know immediately? And how would he know? Perhaps it would be like in those romance novels his sister liked so much. A tender, all-consuming look from across the room, silently reassuring the other that they had found each other at last.

Perhaps due to long hours in the council chamber, Thorin had become more of a realist as the years went on. He always had to be on his guard, and he learned quickly that he could not trust his desires, for they could be manipulated by advisors and enemies alike. Romanticism was fine for artists but not for princes. The idea of a destined love became no more than a child’s fanciful dream, and Thorin grew gradually less opposed to the concept of an arranged marriage until the thought of it did not bother him at all. After all, his parents had been married for a political alliance and had still grown to care for each other. Thorin knew he would do the same.

At least, that was what he had told himself before he met Rúna, his dear Rúna.

He did not know immediately that she was his One, but from the moment their gazes met, he knew he would never again be the same. Her presence had so bewitched him that he had not realized he was walking toward her until she stood right in front of him. Then, stumbling over his every word, he had thought himself defeated, oblivious to the fact that she felt the same indescribable pull toward him.

“Thorin, at your service,” had been his first words to her.

“Rúna, daughter of Ragni, your highness,” she had replied with a curtsy, enchanting him all the more with her melodious voice.

“I hope you are having a pleasant time, Lady Rúna.” Already, he had loved the way her name rolled off his tongue.

“More pleasant than you, at least, seeing as you have found nothing better to do than stare at me from across the room,” she had replied teasingly.

Blushing furiously, he had attempted to remain formal and composed but, ultimately, had failed miserably. “I had hoped that would go unnoticed, or at the very least, that you would humour me and pretend like nothing had transpired. And just because I was watching you does not mean I am not having a pleasant time. On the contrary, my spirits were lifted by the sight of your fairness.”

Thorin could still remember the beautiful blush that had painted her cheeks. “Forgive me,” he had said hastily. “I did not mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I did not say I did not enjoy it,” she had replied with the most enchanting smirk.

That was how their conversations usually unfolded. Thorin, who always prided himself on being in control and always knowing what to say, would find himself barely able to think. He blamed her low-cut gowns and the redness of her lips for that.

They soon became inseparable. Every day, they would meet in their secret room, a haven where they shared stolen kisses and soft caresses. Âzyungel, she would call him, for she, too, had accepted Mahal’s will. She had accepted Thorin as hers, and in those moments, both of them had believed nothing would ever separate them, for they were destined to be together.

Deep in the caverns of his mind, a voice called out to Thorin, warning him against the intensity of his passion, but he did not listen. He found himself thinking of her at the most inappropriate times, and she haunted the nights he wished he could spend with her. When he closed his eyes, he saw her smile and heard her laughter, clearer than the soft splashing of water against limestone rocks.

What would it be like to spend his whole life with her, his Rúna?

Thorin thought with utter surety that he would soon know when they announced to their families their intent to wed. At first, everyone was overjoyed. Rúna came from a wealthy and respectable family, so the king had no objections to his grandson’s choice — not that any of that mattered to the couple. Ale and Dorwinion wine flowed freely as the news travelled through the mountain. The prince had chosen his princess.

Thorin and Rúna welcomed their families’ approval, but they secretly longed to be alone once more. When at last they found themselves in the comfort of Thorin’s chambers, they drank some more wine between languid kisses, committing the moment to memory. Fingers braided hair then caressed the skin they hastily revealed, their cheeks tainted with the soft glow of love.

That night, like their hearts forever bound, their bodies became one. Thorin was gentle, attentive to her every need, and even afterwards, he continued to bathe her in tenderness, scattering kisses all over her skin as they murmured promises of eternal love to each other, bodies entangled.

Rúna fell asleep to the soft lullaby of his heartbeat beneath her cheek, and though she never doubted for a second his sincerity and devotion, those promises were never fulfilled.

Rúna knew they should have been patient, and although she was usually very sensible, she had not known how to resist her handsome prince, especially not when his body had promised her glorious passion, now and for the rest of their lives. Besides, it was not as though premarital relations were unheard of. However, princes had to follow much stricter rules. And these rules had been carelessly ignored. And as the days went on, Rúna knew she would not have the luxury of keeping their transgression a secret, for inside her bloomed the product of her and Thorin’s love, but also the cause of their demise.

Even if it had not been for her growing belly, her morning sickness and alarmingly fluctuating moods would have given her away. And they did. She had never seen her parents so furious, and their disappointment pierced her heart. Her father shouted about her stained reputation and their ruined bloodline, leaving her in tears as she tried to scramble away in search of Thorin even as she knew it was hopeless.

She knew they would separate them.

King Thror, with the support of Thorin’s parents, banished Rúna from Erebor, never to see her beloved again. She tried to fight them, indignation festered inside her like a poisoned wound, the unattainable promise of Thorin’s love shattering her heart into a million pieces, but it was hopeless.

They did not inform Thorin of this, for it was their firm intention never to let him know about the bastard child. Instead, they told him she was bedridden while they conjured up a more permanent plan. And so, unaware that his One had been taken from him, Thorin brought flowers to Rúna’s door every day. He hated every moment he was forced to spend away from her — it felt unnatural — but he consoled himself by thinking that they would spend their whole lives together.

Then the dragon came.

Thorin had been out hunting in the woods with his siblings when a strong wind began to rattle the treetops. Then a roar like thunder split the sky, and the blood of Thorin’s veins froze when he heard a shout from afar.

“Dragon!”

Rúna.

Without so much as a glance at his companions, Thorin bolted toward the mountain, fear clogging his throat.

Refusing to believe this was real, he did not even stop when the gates loomed above him, riddled in flames, but the screams piercing his ears grounded him to the bitterness of reality. The air was wrought with the stench of burning flesh and the sorrow of a broken people. All around him, children cried in fright, and mothers wept while the distant ringing of useless steel announced their defeat.

No help came from the Elves that day, nor any day since; a betrayal Thorin never forgot. Even if there had been survivors still clawing for breath inside the mountain, they had no means to reach them.

Rúna.

Thorin searched for her everywhere, shouting her name until his lungs burned, but when the moon appeared, and she was still nowhere to be found, Thorin knew it was hopeless. Grief crashed over him like a hurricane.

He had lost her.

He wanted to tear the sky open and demand retribution from Mahal himself, but all his remaining strength he used to remain on his feet. He had to be strong for his people — what remained of them. His family had miraculously survived, but even that could not have filled the gaping hole where his heart had once beat.

Rúna, his dear Rúna. The memory of her lips against his turned to ash in his mouth. When he had last kissed her and held her, he had done so thinking he would have a lifetime to keep loving her. But she was now no more than a memory.

He forced himself not to think of that, for his people needed him now more than ever. Only once he was finally alone did he let his tears run free, and all through the night, he sobbed into his pillow, his only comfort the memories of their secret room, untouched by fire and blood. Thorin held onto those memories all through the years, never forgetting, never forgiving.

—

Khuzdul translations:

Âzyungêl: Love of Loves (used here to refer to the Dwarven belief in a single, destined soulmate)

Taglist: @lathalea @linasofia @fizzyxcustard @mcchiberry @bitter-sweet-farmgirl​ @i-did-not-mean-to​

Let me know if you’d like to be added to my taglist!

[jcmorrigan]

@eerieeyes​ it went to submissions so I’m arranging to answer here

Top 5 episodes (in which you’re going to see the reasons I watch this show spelled out very clearly):

5. “Burn the Witch” for Fish Mooney fucking owning the whole show, and for the rivalry with her and Oswald coming to the weirdly most wholesome possible head. Also Hugo Strange is here and that’s a good time

4. “New Day Rising” because here I was all like “Jervis is just the worst, the most awful, I hate that he’s so charismatic, can’t wait for him to actually get unlikable so I don’t have to admit he’s one of my favorites” and then what did he do? CIRCUS-THEMED BREAK-IN TO THE GCPD TO KIDNAP ALICE and I’m just like “Oh God dammit I like the one with the hypno kink”

3. “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” because I had been disappointed with Jerome’s actual return episode and I was afraid he was going to get boring, but then, NOPE, he has a whole fuckin circus of debauchery set up that he tours Bruce around at gunpoint and his whole philosophy about how people are looking for an excuse - look, I’m not one to say any Joker is ever correct about life but the sad fact is people are kind of awful and selfish creatures and I liked this show centering Jerome’s philosophy on that fact and taking it to the worst extreme.

2. “That’s Entertainment.” I’m gonna talk more about the J-Squad stuff below but let’s just say I loved this ep for them because of the fucking...music festival and Jerome being a murder dork, and the fact that this whole scheme reveals that Jervis and Jon each only have one (1) evil scheme preloaded and it’s “brainwash chemical gets dumped on city”

1. “One of My Three Soups” FOR KICKING OFF THE VILLAIN ALLIANCE THAT MADE THE SHOW FOR ME. OH MY GOD. AND THE POWER PLAY? ALMOST KILLING EVERYBODY THROUGH MASS HYPNO SUICIDE? THAT WAS DARKLY AWESOME. Especially because of the whole “save each other” loophole that just made me go AAAWWWW. Just coming up with something that dark and having it be solved by thinking out of the box to the most wholesome thing possible. Also Harvey taking the sacrifice to be able to figure out how to trace the signal. But let’s be real: I’m here for my boys. By this point I was already so smitten with Jervis and Jerome, and then Jon was like “I feel bad for him and want to adopt him but also that’s such a cool horror aesthetic” and THE MOMENT I REALIZED THE THREE OF THEM WERE BECOMING FRIENDS. AND THEY STAY FRIENDS? UNTIL JEROME DIES IN THE AFOREMENTIONED EPISODE? WITHOUT BACKSTABBING EACH OTHER EVEN THOUGH ALL THREE OF THEM ARE THE MOST HORRIBLE PEOPLE IN GOTHAM? I’m here for it.

Favorite character: Jerome Valeska. Most days. Sometimes Jervis can weirdly edge him out? Anyway, I have seven villains who are near and dear to my heart in this show and that’s Jerome, Jervis, Jon, Victor Zsasz, Headhunter, Magpie, and Jeri my beloveds Least favorite character: Theo Galavan but only pre-Azrael. Azrael!Galavan can stay. He’s fun and got the best death scene...in any television show ever. OTP: Crossover - Jerome Valeska x Junko Enoshima (DanganRonpa). Non-crossover - I was honestly surprised by how much Nygmobblepot was able to HOOK me and how it actually managed to use the turbulent times of their relationship to make the conclusion of their arc stronger. Like, I was prepped to just get made sad by this ship because I knew about all the dysfunction, but I didn’t realize that dysfunction actually got WORKED THROUGH and the show ended on them being unshakeable partners in crime. (Though, uh...*slides you $100* Can I get some more details on Zsasz and Headhunter? Please? I love both of them and I love them together and if they’d had more screentime they might’ve kicked Nygmobblepot for my fave non-crossover ship) Favorite non-romantic relationship: Let it be known that I don’t ship any combo of Jerome+Jervis+Jon but I need them to be TOGETHER. But also, for a more traditional - Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock are that exact type of friendship where I could never truly ship them but their friendship means EVERYTHING. (See? I can focus on heroes in this show too.) Favorite villain/arc: Oh gee I don’t know. Take a guess ;-) Least favorite villain/arc: Galavan’s intro arc. Blegh. Also, Ra’s is a good character but I feel like every time he’s turned up, the rest of the show has just plunged into THE ANGST PIT. 5 songs I associate with it and why:

1. “Such Horrible Things” by Creature Feature - my Jerome theme song

2. “Never Wanted to Dance” by Mindless Self-Indulgence - my Jervis theme song

3. “Bang!” by AJR - my personal theme song for “the J-squad is fucking things up and leading a throng of cultists in clown makeup through the streets”

4. “Wake Up” by H.U.M.A.N.W.I.N.E. - another J-squad theme song, specifically one that gives me the vibes of if you just let Jervis and Jon hang out together and took Jerome away from them for a while (like, y’know, what happened after he died - I’m gonna say this song is the vibe for the two of them sending their résumés to Jeremiah in unison)

5. “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc. - CANONICALLY ZSASZ’S RINGTONE AND THE MOMENT I KNEW I LOVED HIM

[ladyramora]

Starved

(For @beasthuntergalvus . An art trade sort of deal for Soft, confused!Zenos (Original Flavor Zenos™). I hope you like it. I tried to make him soft whilst still being very... Zenos. Still intend to do the Asahi/Zenos snippet, as well 💜 Please look forward to it)

It is a hunger. This... feeling that stirs in him. New and real and unrefined. It claws at his insides just the same as several suns gone by without the thought to eat. This want. This unrelenting NEED.

More, more, more, it urges. His gaze is heavy on them with it. Devouring. Drinking in the barest flutter of their eyelashes, the rise and fall of their chest as they breathed, the part of their lips. Their hand lying so close to his. Open, relaxed; empty.

His fingers twitch. He grits his teeth and makes a fist around bright green grass and delicate flowers. Tearing and shredding. Destroying.

Gentleness does not belong on a battlefield. And though they recline surrounded by lush greenery and decadent blooms, this was that. Another arena for him to test his might against his friend; his beloved enemy.

"You are far too quiet," his friend comments without bothering to open their eyes. "This is the time you usually attempt to goad me into another bout. Just what is going on in that pretty blond head of yours?"

Zenos has no answer he can give voice to. Does not rightly know what to say. How to phrase these thoughts, these desires that spring to mind when he sweeps his eyes over them lying so close to his grasp in such easy comfort.

Lulled into a sense of security by the lack of violence on his part.

He should strike out at them. Inspire another dance, goad them into a bloody battle. Instead he is distracted by the gleam of sweat on their skin. By the bare, unmarked expanse of their throat. The delicate dip of their collarbones bared by the loose lacings of their collar, their armor discarded a ways away.

They are comfortable. Too comfortable.

Enough even to reach out, swatting at him to get his attention with a playful huff of his name.

As if he could ever ignore them.

He catches their forearm in his claws on their second swipe out at him, fingers squeezing, but gently, gently.

They jerk in his grasp, eyes blinking open in their startle. "Zenos?"

Zenos hums lowly, meeting their eyes as he shifts nearer to them.

His enemy gazes back at him, wary, but allowing Zenos to tug their hand towards him as he loomed over and leaned into them. Their fingers brush his cheek, bare fingertips caressing his skin like a lover would. Zenos exhales a quiet hiss through his nose, eyelashes fluttering, and presses his cheek into their palm for fuller contact.

Ohh. This was it. This was what he wanted. It was... It was...!

It wasn't enough...?

Twas was but a taste, a tease to his senses, and Zenos hungered for more.

"Zenos," his friend murmurs. Quiet.

Zenos turns his face into their hand with a furrowed brow, lips dragging soft and dry over their wrist. Far too brief to feel the pulse of their life's blood, or the telling thrum of their heart.

His eyes flit open as they cup his face between their hands. "You're being weird," they say mildly, but it is with a twitch of a smile. "If you try to bite me in an attempt to taste my blood or some other such nonsense, I'll be most cross."

Zenos snorts in soft amusement, eyelids lowering in pleasure as he clicks his teeth at them. His voice a soft growl, "My beast.."

His enemy strokes at his face. "Yes, yes."

Zenos sinks into their touch with a sigh as they slip their hands up into his hair, clawing through the silken strands and sending tingles zinging down his spine with the scraping of their nails over his scalp.

Zenos groans low.

"Figures. You would be touch starved."

Zenos pauses at that, wondering if he should feel offense. Touch starved. It was an... adequate name for what he was feeling. Hungry for their touch.

And yet it was hardly his fault. Nay, the fault lie with the very beast that would call him starving. The one who had stirred this feeling, this hunger in him to begin with.

Zenos could recall the very beginning, of course. As he could every moment that had made him feel. A spark, a flicker, the barest hint of emotion that was more than the dullery he had come to expect. Pure, vivid, real.

It had been a battle not unlike this one. The aftermath. The both of them covered head to toe in filth in thanks to a roll across the forest floor in a bid to pin the other into submission. It would seem more than likely that Zenos would win by sheer bulk and height alone, but his beloved enemy was ever so nimble.

They'd had him pinned, laughing under them and trading barbs back and forth in their easy banter as they had grinned down at him in victory.

And then they had reached toward him unprompted, their hand brushing the side of his face as they untangled a stray twig from the golden strands in his hair.

That first brush of their skin on his not meant in violence. It had felt like the very wind had been knocked from him. Like a firm blow from his murderous instructor when he had been but a child. And just as it had then, it had struck a spark inside of him.

The desire to feel that again. To feel more. And it had only grown.

"This is all your fault," Zenos grouses, pressing greedily into their hands with a grumpy petulant pout.

His friend arches their eyebrows high. "My fault?" Their hands pause, and then make as if to draw away.

Zenos makes a sound of protest, snatching at their wrists before they can go too far. The clawed grasp of his gloves bruising in force.

He does not know how to make them stay. Only the lessons learned from his childhood. Want, take, have.

They tug at his hold, eyes narrow. He knows he cannot contain them if they truly desired escape.

"Do not," Zenos struggles to put words to his desires, sentence bitten off and trailing away. He grinds his teeth in frustration and disgust at his own inability.

He does not know how to ask.

They stare up into his face, gaze searching. Searing into his very soul. Zenos detests the feeling that they might find aught to be desired. That they would find him lacking

One heartbeat. Two, three. A heavy feeling in his chest. An entirely new feeling that Zenos found he very much misliked. An ache, a hurt with no physical wound that could be easily mended.

"Easy, Zenos," they say soothingly as he trembles, overcome with this flood of emotion. With an expression of the likes he had never seen softening their face do they reach for him, and his hold on their wrists loosens, claws skimming their skin as they cup his face in their hands.

He heaves a shuddering sigh, sinking into their touch. Soothed despite himself. The ache lingers. He itches still for more, but it is made lesser by the balm of their caress.

His voice feels as if it is trapped behind his ineffectual tongue, rasping and haltingly strained as he forces his next words out, "Please," The word feels strange on his lips. "I want... I need." What can he say? How to describe it as anything but, "More."

There is that look in their eye again. As if they were slowly piecing together the puzzle that was Zenos.

"All right," they agree, easily. And Zenos could laugh with the manic relief and bliss that wells up inside of him.

"My friend; my enemy," Zenos purrs. Fond. Possessive.

"Zenos," they say in turn and ever does it please him. Never had he delighted so to hear his name from another's lips as he does theirs.

And oh, what he would not do to continue this dance of theirs until the very stars themselves burned away into nothingness.

[thestarkerisobvious]

The Ghost Of Peter Parker

inspired by the amazing art work by @starker-sorbet​        

A snugglefic for @mrstarksbabyy​

With great thanks for the betaread by @mrstarksbabyy

It was a strange idea, that in March, Peter was still embarrassed by getting an erection around Tony.

Now, on the first day of April, Peter longed to worry about something so simple.

He clung to Tony’s neck, weeping in relief that he didn’t have to decide whether or not to kill Mr. Lovelace.  That decision had already been made by a scolding he had given Tony when he was 15.  He didn’t even know Tony had been listening. 

Tony held him close, not even feeding, rocking him and smoothing back his hair.  He sang very softly, something that might have been Portuguese.  But when he

 tried to kiss Peter’s tears away, Peter objected.

“Don’t take my sadness, I don’t want to forget this.  I need to remember what we’ve… what I’ve done.”

“There are many ripe berries on this bush, sweet Master.  Let me pic a few,” Tony murmured. 

For a while Peter thought he might never want to move.  He was being cradled in Tony’s arms like a baby, being held close, his face kissed.  But as time passed he began to feel silly, so he pushed his way out of Tony’s arms and wiped his face dry with the back of his hands.  “Okay, so killing him is out.  What are we going to do?” Peter asked calmly.

Letting Tony take the edge off his guilt and panic helped quite a bit, Peter realized, as he and Tony strategized, Peter leaning against Tony’s chest, Tony feeding from the vein in his wrist.

“There are at least 4 more cats in the barn, if you can catch them.  I think they know they’re food now…

“They cannot escape me,” Tony said, looking up from Peter’s wrist with an eerie smile.

“…and at least three owls in the barn, maybe four.  But they’re very small.  If I feed you now, and you get to them the moment it gets dark, is that enough for this?”

Tony shook his head and looked up, kissing Peter’s hand.  “I cannot tell,” he said, keeping his lips next to Peter’s fingers.  “First, give me permission to sleep in the ground if I must, and I will return to this room when I am able, but I may needs rest in the darkness for many nights.  Mayhap I may speak to you in dreams.  But if you feed me every night, the way you fed me at Mabon, it will suffice.”

Peter sighed.  “I’m going to have to join 4H and start raising goats, aren’t I?” he mused as Tony went back to sucking on his wrist.  “Wait that probably won’t work – I’d flunk 4H if all my goats mysteriously died.  Rabbits.  I’ll have to convince May and Ben we can really raise rabbits.  Then just act surprised when they turn up missing…”

Tony’s smile was unreadable.  His eyes wandered down Peter’s chest.  He lifted his mouth and he looked as if he were about to say something, but changed his mind, and returned to feeding.

“Look Mr. Lovelace killed his wife with his 44, that’s what Miss Drury said Missy said.  He has a 44, his gun from the army, a long hunting rifle he was taking walks with.  And we already know he can kill a dog from 40 feet away with the rifle  That’s how John Wickam’s dog died.  Mr. Lovelace denied it, but the Wickam’s saw it happen.  That man is crazy, but he’s a damn good shot.

“Miss Drury called Aunt May to let me know Missy was okay.  She was surprised that I didn’t know about it… Miss Drury is, I mean.  Missy said she saw me last night.  She said I didn’t even talk to her, but pointed her to the road she was to meet Miss Drury on.  When she said she was scared to walk down it I held her hand until we saw Miss Drury’s Rabbit’s headlights.  She said I must have been sleepwalking because I never spoke.  Miss Drury said it must have been her guardian angel.  All I know is Aunt May spent the next 20 minutes explaining how no one in our family sleepwalks…”

Tony licked a long, slow stripe up Peter’s wrist, then kissed it tenderly, meaning he was finished feeding.  Then he turned and looked into Peter’s eyes, bringing their foreheads together.

“You told me to take her fear.  You told me to consume it completely.” 

“It was you?”

“She fled to Chimney Hill.  She has no fear of that place.  She has forgotten the story of Tom Dylan, but she remembers that Laura Foster once lived on Chimney Hill.  Then, from the hill to the dead oak, and from the oak to the lake, there was full moonlight.  She no longer fears darkness.  But past the lake, under the trees, she was blind.  She was afraid.  I took it all.  But when she came in sight of the house, she feared to pass.  She still fears the house.  I met her at the path to point her the way.  I knew what you wished.  I showed her nothing frightening.  I showed her you.   

“But she would not take the road east.  She said she was too afraid.  She asked if I was the ghost of you.  But when I smiled at her, and held her hand.  My hand was warm.  She came with me down the road.  Pardon, Master, I know you do not wish her to wish to hold your hand…”

Peter took Tony’s face in both hands and kissed him.  A real kiss, without feeding.  Tony did nothing, at first.  Only opened his mouth a little bit, tilting his head a little bit until Peter let him go.

“Thank you,” was all Peter said.  It was all he could think to say.

“I have served you well,” Tony whispered, and now his long arms were wrapping around Peter and Peter relaxed against his shoulder as Tony kissed his face.  This was normal Tony-behavior, and Peter gave himself a moment to enjoy it.

“I will serve you most masterfully tonight, and you shall make me your beloved.  You shall see all my skill.  If an enemy of the family meets me in battle, the seals of Evorá, what is left of them, will feed me.  I shall make him lay down where he stands, even in the middle of the road, he shall not rise until morning…”

“Wait, that doesn’t sound good.  Isn’t that what you did to the pigs?  When you made them lay down and die?”

“They laid down and died because I ate them.”

Peter shivered a little at Tony’s wicked smile.  He knew he had to be very specific, now.  He knew Tony was proud of his work.

“Well, don’t make him lay down in the middle of the road, he might get run over.  What else can you do?

Tony ran a strong hand over Peter’s thigh, and then over his calf.  Peter might have relaxed and enjoyed the touch under different circumstances.

“These… these are still called muscles?  And what is this now called,” he said, his fingers tracing over Peter’s knee.  It was a lovely feeling, and Peter made a mental note to get Tony to touch him there again when it was all over.

“The cartlidge?”

“The sinew, that which is not meat,” he indicated “meat” by firmly stroking Peter’s calf muscles again.  “The sinew that connects the muscles to each other…”

“The ligaments?” 

“There is light in these,” Tony explained, stroking Peter’s calf muscle with a firm but gentle hand.  “When that light is gone, a man is not inclined to walk very far.  And when the light is gone from this,” he stroked his hand under Peter’s knee, indicating the ligament.  “A man is not inclined to move it at all.  Although Mr. Lovelace is a man accustomed to a great deal of pain.  That alone might not dissuade him.”

“I can take the light from the bone, but if I do, a man will surely die.”

“Don’t do that.  And don’t make him lay down somewhere dangerous, like in the road or something.  Wait, if you did that to his arms, could he use his arms?  It’s important he not be able to shoot.  Can you make his arms not move?  If he couldn’t shoot, that would be something.  He’s still huge though…”

Tony moved his hands and, slipping them into the small place between their bodies, placed both on Peter’s chest. 

“There are two of these,” Tony said, caressing Peter’s chest in a way that was very distracting, even under the circumstances.  “When the light is gone from one,” he whispered, moving one hand away and leaving the other in place,” a man is not inclined to walk very far.”

“What… you mean the lungs?”

“And there are two of these,” Tony said, sounding almost hungry.  He moved his hands and placed them firmly on the Peter’s lower back, indicating, Peter assumed, his kidneys.

“When the light is gone from one, a man is not inclined to do anything.”

“But… you mean… for a while, right?  The light comes back, doesn’t it?”

Tony looked disappointed.  “That is tricky work, but it can be done.”

“Tony, can you make Aunt May be not-so scared?”

Tony smiled sadly.  He looked down at Peter’s chest again, even reached out to stroke Peter’s chest with his knuckles, directly under his left nipple, but he never said why.

“If I could be two places at one time, yes,” he said with a wry smile.  “But I am no longer that strong.”

Peter and May stayed up all night playing yahtzee and dominoes, finally sitting down to watch TV.  For a while Uncle Ben sat in the car with his rifle, while Peter walked back and forth each hour to wake him up.  Finally it was agreed that the whole family would be safer in the house.  A tearful Aunt May complained that they left New York City because of the violence.  She apologized to Peter, who only smiled, threw up his hands and attributed it to “fate.”   

May and Ben discussed how miserable Peter had been when they first moved to Devil’s Holler, how he had cried almost every day for weeks.  Peter tried to keep up his end of the conversation, but, in truth, he was wondering if Missy’s life would have been better, or worse, without him.  At least the girl got to walk down a gravel road in the moonlight, holding Peter Parker’s hand.  He wondered why Tony could make the girl forget about Tom Dylan, but not about Laura Foster.

In the early morning hours both May and Ben fell asleep on the couch, allowing Peter to watch more interesting shows on their late-night channels, his eyes wide.  He was wondering how he could wake up in the middle of the night to enjoy these shows in private when he heard something at the door.  

He opened the door without hesitation to let Tony in.  “Good job,” he whispered.  The vaguely kitten-shaped bundle of fur made a small, vaguely catlike noise before dissolving into smoke and disappearing into the floor.  Then he took his place back on the couch in front of the television.  He knew there was no point in telling May and Ben to go to bed, even though he knew the danger was over.  So he spent the rest of the night combing through old TV guides, looking for more information about the shows he was probably to chicken to watch.

It was amazing, what they could get away with on HBO.

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

Master Post (not THAT Master Post, the big list)

as always please direct comments, questions and constructive crit to @witchwayisright.  

[herstarburststories]

catastrophic night. — Dick Grayson x Reader

A/N: Hello, I’m V and love Batboys requests, keep sending them. Thanks. Hope you like it!

Beta: @lyss-91

Request: Hey there! (If you’re still doing asks/requests) could you do a Dick Grayson x reader where by day they’re best friends/crushing on each other and by night reader works for the League of Assassins and they’re enemies? Secret identities, of course😉 thank you! Love your writing!

+ Damian has a sister x brother relationship with Reader

﹏

“Do you have plans for tonight?” You asked in a tedious voice, as if it was just a simple question inside a ordinary conversation. That would probably trick anyone, but not Dick Grayson, the person who had known you for a long time and, of course, is the son of the world’s greatest detective and a detective himseld. Not that you were aware of that Batman’s part.

“(Y/N)…” He tried, knowing exactly what you had in mind. You just rolled your eyes and let your back rest against the chair you were sitting on. Having someone who knew you as deeply as he did was such a blessing, especially when the said someone was your best friend. You often didn’t need to look for pretty words and babble until he found out what was bothering you, Dick somehow was aware of the way you reacted to things. How your feelings worked, most of time. He was very considerate, loving, and sweet. Then, no surprise he was always surrounded by applicants. The former acrobat was full of positive traits in his personality. And the way he looked? Yeah, no way he wouldn’t be everyone’s type.

Which included you. No, it was not part of the plan, falling in love with him was never a situation you looked forward to. You just couldn’t help it. And God, did you demand yourself to stop. Even ignoring him for a couple days, though you weren’t able to keep it up. The way his blue eyes followed every move of yours after one week of avoiding him, somewhere between hurt and confused, trying so hard to find out what happened, if he did something wrong, just too much for you to bare with.

And here you were. In love with the man who had become your best friend, whom was also your well known friend, Damian Wayne’s, brother.

“Come on. Don’t give me that judgmental glare, Golden Boy.” And that subject emerged from nowhere once again. Why couldn’t he just let it off and accept your denial state? “We could pick up Damian and go to McDonald’s. They have a vegetarian hamburger now, and I promised Damian I wouldn’t try it without him." 

”(Y/N), I know why you are calling me to go hang out today.“ You sighed, dodging your eyes from his. You wouldn’t admit it. "I know you don’t want to have dinner with him, but you could at least give him a chance.” Since you met your sister’s girlfriend, you were sure something was off with that girl. Amaya, or whatever her real name was, could be very charming with both talking and appearance wise, but her tattoo showed another side of her. The symbol carved on her skin until death screamed a position: League of Assassin’s member. You couldn’t tell Dick about that, clearly. He did not know about your night life, only his youngest brother was acquainted with that small, big information. Yet, you hadn’t tell Damian about that little surprise at home either, as much as he would not be surprised but pissed for you. It was a typical warning from the League, their most gentle way to reminder you to keep your loyalty, to finish the plan. “I trust your instincts, but you can’t just hate the woman your sister is in love with because you felt bad vibes from her. She needs your support.” You had to admit that was such a lame excuse you gave Dick to hate on Amaya, but that was all you had. Wasn’t a completely lie, as well. “Hey.” Grayson put his hand on your cheek, giving you that warm smile that only he could’ve as you finally let your eyes be pleased with the sight of him. “If you want, I could go with you. Maybe call Damian.”

“Thank you, Dick. But you are right, I have to give her a chance. (Y/S/N) does seem happy. And I should be there for here.” You smiled at him, not really going to give Amaya a chance for obvious reasons, like her capacity of murdering your whole family if you blinked the wrong way, but appreciating his sweet support. Dick felt your cheek get bigger on his mouth as you face showed an amused expression, and it made his own corners of the mouth turn up in full happiness. He could literally feel the woman he was in love with showing a lovely grin, that was enough to make his worst day worth every breath. Although you were going to give Amaya a chance and spend time with your beloved family. You would be happy, so would him, then. Even though Dick would miss that meeting at McDonald’s. “Still, McDonald’s tomorrow for lunch?”

“It doesn’t sound very healthy.” He pulled his hand away with a smirk. Both of you missed the touch at the second it was taken off you, but he didn’t want to make it awkward by keeping his hand on your soft skin for too long and you didn’t want to make it weird by asking him to remain there. “I’m in. I will ask Damian to come.”

“Alright. I better go, dinner will be ready soon.” You got up your sit at the snack bar as he followed your moves, a usual gentleman act of his. “See you tomorrow.” You hugged him, receiving his arms around his body in a strong yet soft grip back. That. That felt even safer than learning combat skills from Talia, one of the best fighters you’ve even heard of.

“Text me to let me know how it goes.” Dick referred to Amaya situation and you nodded, letting go of his body another time. You held back the need of pulling him into a second hug and just grabbed your wallet to get some money. Before he could deny it as always, you put a couple dollars on the table. “(Y/N)!”

“I ate too, Dick. I won’t let you pay for it alone, I can pay my bills.” He was about to retort to you, saying it wasn’t what he meant, you just rolled your eyes, fully aware that was not the nature of this. “Don’t fight me on this, Grayson. You will lose, as always.” With a smirk and a wink, you left him.

╮

Someone who did not always lose when it came to you? Nightwing. Unlike Dick, that guy was a hard obstacle. He knew how to fight and he did that with grace and, as shocking as it seems, jokes. You otherwise used your violence like art, every movement was a brushstroke on the surface of your painting; the combat itself. No funny words slipped from your mouth, only cold, threatening phrases. This was part of your living you couldn’t erase, you would die by its life someday, but not tonight. That night was about killing another one with a mask on.

You had no idea why, as if you ever did need to, the League of Assassins wanted Nightwing, visible Robin’s partner at times, dead as soon as you could lay your sword on him. But it was harder than you would picture. You never wasted your time on mistakes, like letting one of your enemies — League’s Enemies — out of a fight breathing air. Yet here you were, already fighting that moon viligant for weeks. Yes, he was one hell of a fighter, apart from it wasn’t supposed to be so difficult. Talia wouldn’t be amused, she wasn’t by now, Amaya was a walking proof. It was like you had grown soft, sentimental to other people, an aspect that the League absolutely despised. Though, you could not help it. First, seeing Damian able to live a normal life with his father, without being trained continuously to improve his killing capacity at a young age, just craving for his mother’s affection and his grandfather approval. He was happy. The kid was her only string to her own humanity for so long and now he was genuinely happy. Not just satisfied with a new fighting skill or temporarily relaxed while spending time with you, but really daily content with his life. 

There was also Dick. He became your best friend when you visited Damian at his new house from the first time. Right, it wasn’t an immediate deep friendship, you two became closer as the months went by and suddenly a year was gone and you two experience what was like a decade of familiarity with each other. He showed you kindness, good, among with Damian, an example of someone who left the League and got a peaceful, great existence. They made you wonder what it would be like to be like this, to have it. You wanted that.

Of course you could see you family when you wanted to, and wasn’t at a mission too far away from the city they lived in aka Gotham, though it wasn’t the same thing as that. You got a kind of vocation to see Damian, how you missed him, but it extended when Nightwing mission came up. It had been a year, time for you to go back to the place which didn’t feel like home, yet was the only you knew as such. Besides, failing denoted Talia herself coming to Gotham, you didn’t want Damian facing his mother at this moment of his life.

Still, Nightwing let out a bad pun before you and him left into the well known comfortableness of the night after another hard, gaining no winners fight.

Damn it.

Text messages

(Y/N), 10:30pm: It was okay. I still do not like her, but I was sympathetic most of the time. Even mom was impressed. 

Dick, 10:31pm: Told ya, people can surprise you in a good way.

(Y/N), 10:31pm: They also can surprise you in a bad way.

(Y/N), 10:31pm: Grayson.

Dick, 10:32pm: Yeah?

(Y/N), 11:00pm: Would you hate me if I surprised you in a bad away?

Dick, 11:01pm: I wouldn’t hate you.

(Y/N), 11:03pm: What if it was really a bad surprise?

Dick, 11:04pm: I couldn’t hate you. 

Dick, 11:05pm: You are my best friend.

(Y/N), 11:07pm: Don’t let Damian read it.

(Y/N), 11:08pm: You are mine, too.

(Y/N), 11,08pm: Damian is still the first one, thought.

Dick, 11:08pm: I’m hurt now.

╮

“TT. I do not see any aim on this, (Y/N). Mother is going to be very disappointed if we do not train her new attack position. I must learn it by the sleep of the sun.” Said Damian, the one child around and who were responsible for since he was born. You were the third person to hold him, after Talia and the midwife who helped bringing him to this world. You couldn’t say you raised him, but you did spend a lot of his days together, predominantly training when he wasn’t with his relatives.

“Come on, Damian. It will be cool. You deserve a break, we’ve been traning hard since you could walk. Your first world was katanna.” You tried to persuade him. Damian deserved a piece of his stolen innocence, freedom back, in addition, he was the only person you cared for and trusted here. Then, seeing him obligated to fight with no knowledge on other options, how living actually looked and felt like, was rather a torture that you accepted in silence.

“I do appreciate my blade very much. And training is what made me… Me. I am the Grandson of the Devil, I require you to get up the floor and fight me until one of us beg for mercy while coughs in blood. I—” This kid acted like a grown ass man. It did break your heart a little. He was so young, yet there was no childhood to be seen. It was a right robbed by birth.

“You are getting a break and painting with me.” You stucked with your decision. Even though he didn’t get what you did at his age, you could still give him a little bit of harmless fun. After all, you did owe his one. Damian wasn’t conscious of that, or he did in silent and agreement, but he was your humanity part inside the League. And you were every good intention he ever get directed to him.

“That is useless. It will not help me to increase my fighting skills.” Damian refused, ceptical that would be any help. He was in charge of a mission, turning himself into the best. It was this way since he was born, like mother and grandfather. Having fun or experiencing something because he wanted to was not a main objective or even a thought. “TT. A coloring book? I am not a child, (L/N).”

“Should I remind you your own age, Damian?” You arched an eyebrow. Wasn’t hard to know the ideas inside his head, you just decided to not let those win. “Come on. For me. We are best friends here, aren’t we?” Damian blushed in shame for the old position he’d gave you when he was younger and naiver. “We can train for hours with no stop after that, promise. I also bought some blank papers so you can drawn if you’d wish.” You put your hands up to show you were not lying. The boy watched you for a couple seconds, analyzing.

“TT. Whatever. Since we are training to recover this unnecessary wasted time.” Damian put his sword away with a frown, crossed arms as he sat down in front of you.

╮

You continued to read your book as you felt a presence in your apartment. For someone who was trained by the League, Amaya surely didn’t show it. You could hear her steps even if you were sleeping, so loud and weak for their criteria. 

“I would suggest you to leave my house right now or I am gonna have to clean my carpet.” Oh, here you were. The cold part of your personality consistently appearing in similar situations. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to wash out blood?”

“I have a message from Talia.” She responded. No emotion found in her voice, unlike the night before at your house, when Amaya talked politely and rubbed your sister’s back as she meant something other than a work to be done. The blood in your veins ran faster, burning like toxic water inside you. It wasn’t fair with your sister that her first real girlfriend, just a little bit before she came out, would be a trained assassin ready to kill her with her hands while she kissed her. She deserve a girl who’d appreciate her, not study her. “You have five nights to end Nightwing, or she is coming to Gotham.”

“Give me one. Tonight it is going to end. You better enjoy the time with me sister while you are capable of.” You turned a page, treating the subject as the insignificant order it was supposed to be. 

“I am not weak like you, (L/N). I’m not attached to this people, but you might considered killing your precious Dick as well. Maybe so you will become the golden cold hearted murder you once were, not that piece of garbage who cannot finish a easy job.” Her words dripped envy and for the first time, you raised your head to glare her. Amaya wouldn’t touch Dick, the said facts were the problem. “We were trained to fight, not to feel. Learn that before it is too late.”

“Get out before I get tired of reading and show you how good a tongue can taste when it’s cooked with the right salsa.” There was no necessity for you to get up and show her the exit, with a blink of eye, Amaya was gone.

╮

“TT. I can’t believe I got Red Hood’s toy.” Damian huffed as he checked the present which came with his food. You grinned, finding this adorable. Dick laughed a bit.

“I know, you’d rather Nightwing. Who wouldn’t?” He winked, an inside joke there made Damian murmur something and started eating his food. Nightwing’s mention, the protector of the moon as you named him at a fight, coming to haunt your thoughts and force your tongue to sneak out.

“So, it’s my last day in town.” You said right way once your when both Dick and Damian were filling their mouths with them. It did not prevent the brothers from wide opening eyes and ‘what!?’s popping up. “Work is calling me.” You explained, giving Damian a significatiful glare. He understood, nooding slight as he look down, a french frie shutting him up before saying something too emotional. Damian was aware that you could not just ignore his mother calling you back, the consequences would be disastrous. Dick otherwise wasn’t conscious of your real work, you just lied about being a photographer who followed the beauty around the world, but he knew it would kick in sometime. Celibate time couldn’t last forever.

“Why didn’t you tell me— us before?” Dick sounded hurt. You took a deep breathe. His side was understandable, you wished you didn’t put him in this position.

“Because they called me by the night of yesterday.” Half lie, half truth. All you were able to offer him, everything you would ever be able to give him. Pieces, never an entirety.

“Is that why you asked me…” Grayson referred to yesterday’s late messaged at midnight.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Dick.” Once again, untruthful letters flying in the air. “I’m sorry, Damian. I really wish I could be here.” You kept your eyes on his green ones, attempting to assure Damian your wish wasn’t leaving him. Never was. He was the closest you had of a family for tropical, astronomical, equinoctial and solar years. He was still as important as a blood related to you.

“I know. But I understand. Be sure to come back, (L/N).” His supercilious reaction appeared as an alert for you. He was sorrowful, willing to not let it show. Exactly like he was teached to.

“Will not disappoint you, best friend.” You said delicate, catching the shine of hold tears in his green eyes.

“(L/N).” Damian nodded and get up. You were ready to do the same and get the most suffocating hug from him.

“Come here.” Opening your arms, you waited for some tender platonic love showing. He didn’t squeeze you as expect. Damian’s chin trembled and you were mindful of him about to cry.

“I need to retain myself to the male toilet for a moment, excuse me.” He announced, his quick steps heading to the bathroom.

“I think I need to talk to him a bit more.” You sniffled, deciding to leave him alone for a minute or two. The boy you almost raised required some time to digest what happened. Your attention was caught by his brother, glaring you intensely. “Dick?”

“I’m sorry, I should be more thoughtful. I know it’s your job and I’m glad you are going to do what you are passionate about again. We will miss you. I will miss you.” He let it out, stitching his neck. Guilty was as clear as the ocean into his eyes.

“I will miss you too. I already am.” You admitted, holding his hand on the table and rubbing it. That was cozy, like swimming in the beach in a hot summer day.

“I never told you that I felt more than just a friend for you. And this may be a horrible timing, but I’m in love with you, (Y/N).” Dick’s hand slowly went from yours to your waist. You could back off at any minute, he was going slow so you would be sure that was what you wanted. Your wants were guaranteed when you smiled, wrapping your hands around his neck.

“Dick Grayson, you really enjoy some dramatic moment, don’t you?” You weren’t going to waste your left time with the man you loved being ridiculous enough to try to be cool or indifferent about it. You wanted him to hear it back. “I’m in love with you just as much.” He smiled and ultimately brushed his lips against yours. This soft peck suddenly turning into a deep, emotional kiss. Two of you trying to express love, guilty, miss, everything with that intimate act both had been longing for.

“That definitely will not be the most amusing last record I ever had about you, (L/N).” Damian interrupted, making you and Dick pull away a little. You didn’t really care. The two boys you loved most were here. 

“Shut up and come here.” You pulled Damian into a group hug, adoring this moment. It was sad, but it was yours. You could definitely hold that close for  a longer time.

╰

“Master Damian, you have a visitor at the door. The lady says her name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N) and she wishes to see you.” Alfred informed the young Wayne, who was sitting on the couch with Dick as company. Grayson glaced at his brother, eyebrows going up as he smiled. Damian was making friends! The other one did not retribute Dick’s actions. For sure, he was very excited to see you again, but Grayson on his feet while was not amusing. He had enough of his weak spot, no need of more affect demonstration.

“Do not follow me, Grayson. I will not hesitate to throw a stick on your head.” Damian threated with words that would send goosebumps down anyone’s spine except Dick. As the small boy got up and walked to meet (Y/N), his brother followed him from distance.

“Hey, Damian. Did you forget your best friend?” You smiled when your caught his sight. Damian rolled her eyes and a typical sound of 'TT’ coming out his mouth, soon filled with a version of smile for him. (Y/N) didn’t mind grinning and hugging him as tight as possible, and getting the same act in return. You missed him so much. The League wasn’t the same, neither were you. By the way his arms kept you close and did not push you away after 0.2 seconds, you could say he missed you, too.

“I thought I was your best friend, Damian.” Grayson joked, slipping from the door. Damian let go of you immediately, glaring the gorgeous man in front of you in annoyance. “I’m Dick Grayson, his brother. I have to admit that I didn’t think Damian’s friend would be this age.” He smiled at you.

“Well, I changed his diapers, so I guess it makes me Damian’s best friend. Sorry, Dick.” You joked, laughing soft when Damian huffed. “My name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

“Greetings are done. Grayson, go away before I get a stick.” He practically growned, trying to push you two apart before it could get more embarrassing.

.

“The same old dance. Don’t you get bored?” The moon protector said playfully, holding his combat accessories.

“I would not wonder about that, Nightwing. This time, you will fall and I will owe your head as a prize when I leave the city.” Sounded robotic to your ears, besides there was no time to worry about your thinkings.

“My best friend leaves the city and now my best villain. Hard day for me.” You couldn’t help but vacillate at this. Again, a person you were going to murder showing they had a life, people they cared about and virce versa. He even got similar problems as you. That would be difficult. You needed to push your human side away. You were good at this, Talia taught you very well. You could do this.

“I’m giving you one last chance, Nightwing. A quick dead. Surrender.” You bended your knees, spreading your arms into your fight position.

“Not happening. I never liked it too quick, anyway.” He winked, his athletic body easily finding its own combat start spot. “Time for some entertainment.”

“You want a honorable death. I do respect that. You are a great opponent, Nightwing. Now let’s see who is good enough to stay in this world.”

One of the hardest fights that any of you ever had started happening. Nightwing was fast with his escrima sticks and astute on his dodges, like an acrobat. And you were skilfull with your knifes and very comfortable with your movements, as if fighting was just a inner free animal inside of you. He finally got a hit right on a place that would let you unconscious from the pain or at least unable to walk for enough time to call the police. Or it should have.

The opposite happened. As soon as you left Damian and Dick, you spent the rest of your day meditating, training to reline your body and mind as the League reached you. You hands were under an obligation, to kill Nightwing. The League of Assassins lived up for their name, and you were one of them. They were your family, the organization your and your victims  bloods should ran for. No excuses, no feelings, no doubts. Like a journalist exposes the truth, like a cooker cooks, like a singer sings, you were (Y/N), War’s name Laylatan Karithia, english known as Catastrophic Night, you killed killed and wasn’t a hostage of empathy or blame. Your conscious side laughed at every tear. 

All the pain Nightwing offered internally replaced with a kind of calm anger. You used that agony to turn into strength, as Talia taught you so many times after almost breaking all of your bones. That needed to be done, so you would do.

And like that, taking advantage of his surprised state, you advanced, kicking his waist, then leg and punching him on the ribs with a knife between your fingers. Nightwing screamed a scream that you could recognize, sounded like Dick. It was your mind taking care of driving you insane, trying to make you feel guilty for being obedient. The fact made you grow both furious and tormented. You were in charge of yourself, no manipulative human feels would stop you.

Throwing Nightwing on the floor as if he weight was a disconsiderative factor, you got on top of him. Placing another knife inside his body, another loud moan of pain breaking the silent night. He tried to get up and fight, even hold you back, besides his body did not allow him. Your metal had envy in the brilliant end of them, an idea which Ral’s Al Ghul was proud of a decade ago. Not to mention the fact of the place you stabbed him. His leg, near to a very important blood vase. Moon’s Protector was sweating, still picking up his stinks to fight. You could sympathize with that, your beaching body and should proved it.

“Just a few more centimeters and you will bleed until you are dead. Arteries are magical if you know how to play with them.” You smirked diabolic. At this moment, you knew Amaya was right. And so was Talia and the League of Assassins itself. You were wicked people that could never be forgiven, you shall be grateful for having as malevolent people like you, or else you’d be dead by yourself in a sewage ditch like society’s garbage because you were different, you were nefarious, degenerate, villainous on an equal footing. No good you deserved because you did no good and it was destiny. Dick would never be able to change that, neither Damian. He just had the right of his fresh start because he had no choice but growing inside this diabolical system of his mother. You on the other hand made a choice years ago. A desesparated, unratinol choice, correct. Still, a choice. Didn’t matter if you regretted it or not. “It was an amazing dance indeed, sir.”

[karenhikari]

River. Solangelo fanfiction

Summary: 

It didn't matter. After all, Will knew that Nico was head-over-heels in love with the great, Greek hero impersonation, Percy Jackson. Not that Will could blame him. ―*―*― He would be gone in a few days, Nico decided. In fact, if it weren't because Will Solace had forbidden him to leave the infirmary, he wouldn't even be there at the time. He was glad that Will Solace had found someone as bright as him, someone as kind and as generous. He was genuinely glad that his not-quite-friend had someone like Monique to lean into. They deserved each other, Nico repeated to himself, despite the way that thought punched the air out of Nico's lungs. He couldn't hold it against them. He couldn't hate Monique for being perfect for Will Solace, just like he could not be bitter towards Annabeth for being perfect for Percy. ―*―*― Or the one in which they are both enamoured with each other but are both too dense  to realize it.

You can also find it in AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569433

―*―*―

So... this is a long overdue little thing, but here goes nothing. For the last five years I have gifted my sister, Laura, a story for her birthday. I usually write it in Spanish, save for one year when I decided to write her a Jaylos fanfic called "A Vouch Sealed With Blood". However, on that particular year, when I asked how she had found the story her answer was "It's good... but it isn't Solangelo." Therefore, I decided to come back to Solangelo and write a song-fic. The song I used for this story is called "River" by Emeli Sandé, please feel free to check it out, it's a lovely song.

Also, to make this possible I had the help of two beautiful people, who were nice enough to agree to beta-read this even though I asked them to do so like two days before my sister's birthday and they had to work against the clock for me to have it on time. So, please give it up for my two wonderful beta-readers, FrostedDragonHeart and Rosycat. Please feel free to check their accounts out and send them love.

Now, without further ado... I really hope you enjoy it!

―*―*―

River

―*―*―

If you're looking for a big adventure, And gold is all that's on your mind… If all you want's someone to take your picture… Then I won't waste your time.

―*―*―

Of the number of skills that Will Solace could sincerely claim he had, the one that was perhaps the most useless was how accurately he could point out when someone was in love. That was to say, he was a demigod that had been unfortunately cursed with being a zero to the left when it came to sword-fighting or archery, yet he could identify clear as a bell the most subtle of glances a restrained lover sent in the direction of their object of desire. He had never dared to say it aloud, but he internally suspected that maybe —and it was indeed an inquisitive 'maybe'— he was better at reading the inaudible language of silent love than the children of Aphrodite.

He supposed that this was an ability he had acquired through his years as the Head Doctor of the Infirmary of Camp Half-Blood. After all, despite his —admitted— worthlessness at fighting, he was a devoted physician. At the battlefield, he was out of place, too clumsy to hold a sword properly, too easily startled to maintain his concentration and aim an arrow through the screams of pain of comrades and enemies alike, too sympathetic with his peers to carry through his planned attack, even if it were only during a Capture the Flag game.

He was not a natural-born fighter and, in all honesty, he would rather not be. He was a healer, and he was immensely proud of that title. Even as a child, he'd always been inclined to help and to alleviate the pain of others.

He was the diligent boy who kindly offered to tutor his classmates if he noticed they were falling behind. He was the kind-hearted soul who would stop to pet a stray dog on the street, leaving nearly in tears to see such gentle animals be deprived of love. He was the empathetic person who captured both spiders and bees when he found them inside his home or cabin so that he could run outside to free them. He was not a fighter, and he valued honesty far too much to allow such a statement to bother him.

It was true, however, that healers did not often receive the glory and the notoriety that their warrior counterparts did. Everyone, for example, had heard the songs about the valiant deeds of Achilles, the way his rage had been far more disastrous for Troy than any other weapon wielded by men, how his wrath penetrated more than just Troy's walls, but the hearts of the Trojans as well. Everyone remembered Heracles, with his broad shoulders and irrepressible muscles, capable of smothering massive lions with his bare hands.

The same could not be said of Asclepius or of Podalirius, who were more than just powerful demigods. These were healing gods, long forgotten in order to make room in the memory of humanity for the courageous demigod warriors.

On the other hand, Will Solace had never yearned for fame of for glory, especially not if such qualities would come at the cost of his peace of mind and sleepless nights after stabbing a fellow camper during training. He would rather work from anonymity, silently bandaging wounds and stopping hemorrhages. If nothing else, it was an honorable job, and he performed it with the most honest of dispositions.

It couldn't be any other way, for healing a person was a very intimate thing to do. Often times, the physical ailments of a person were but a symptom of an emotional one, and neither of them could be treated whilst neglecting the other. Furthermore, Will considered himself honored. Undoubtedly, a strong camaraderie was born from training together and fighting side-by-side, but there was a different, more intimate type of trust born between a physician and their patient.

He was, after all, the recipient of his patient's pain, of the raw, agonizing truth that they were —for all of their golden, divine ichor, for all of their supernatural powers—, humans at the end of the day. He was the one the skilled descendants of Achilles and Heracles allowed themselves to be the most vulnerable with, the one in front of who the steadfast warriors dissolved into bleeding, terrified children. And, behind the closed doors of the infirmary and the hurriedly pulled over curtains that divided the small cubicles that served as rooms for the hospitalized patients, he was also the one who could ease their pained cries and restore the tranquility to their eyes.

He was thankful for that, honored that his peers trusted him enough to let their guards down and be honest with him.

That was how he supposed he had learned to read the souls of his patients. How he had learned the dozens of meanings hunched over shoulders held, how he had learned to identify the rage barely concealed under indifference, how he had learned that a gritted 'It doesn't hurt' meant his patient was, in fact, in excruciating anguish but wanted his distress to be treated with extreme discretion. Will supposed that, afterwards, once he had become a fluent speaker of the subtle art of body language, he had also taken an impromptu curse of the silent dialect of love.

It was all in the longing glances, in the affectionate smiles that the smitten person attempted —rather unsuccessfully, might Will add— to pass as nonchalant grins. It was all in the way they leaned closer to their beloved one or perked up when they heard a special name being mentioned, even if it was in a passing. That's how Will Solace knew. He had been trained to identify the slightest signs a person was in pain; it was much more satisfactory to be able to tell when they were in love.

And that was how Will Solace, son of Apollo, Head Doctor of the Camp Half-Blood Infirmary knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that Nico di Angelo was in love with Percy Jackson.

It was barely there at first, concealed under the nonchalant demeanor of the son of Hades. It was in the uninterested way Nico attempted to sport when he asked what Percy had been up to during the time he hadn't been at the camp. Which, granted, was the majority of the time. It was in how Nico would noticeably bite the insides of his cheeks when Will answered.

The son of Apollo supposed that Nico perceived him as harmless. After all, his professional honor forbade him of sharing whatever his patients told him. In all fairness, Nico hadn't admitted to anything, and while that did not make his feelings any less real, it could mean that Will was seeing too much in the simplicity of a friend asking about a comrade that he hadn't seen in a long time.

On the other hand, if that were the case and Nico was in fact only inquiring about Percy as a friend, then why didn't he walk up to the son of Poseidon himself and asked him personally? Will had seen Nico whenever Percy tried to approach him at dinner or before a Capture the Flag game. Percy, being his bubbly, easy-going self as he attempted to start a conversation while Nico's frame immediately tensed, eyes averted as he came up with an excuse to leave as soon as possible.

When he listed all the little things that had guided Will to his conclusion, like right now, it seemed rather obvious. However, with how seldom Nico even appeared at the Camp and with how he only ever spoke in monosyllables, Will considered it was, in fact, a big achievement.

He supposed it didn't matter. He was but the physician that looked after Nico whenever he stayed at the Camp. That wasn't anything special—he was the Head Doctor of the Infirmary, tending to wounded demigods was, quite literally, his job. Perhaps the only thing worth noting was that he was especially worried about Nico when compared to his other patients because Nico would often disappear from the Camp for literal months. Even on his rare visits, it took Will a great deal of coaxing to get Nico to agree to a quick check-up.

The only other thing that marked these situations as special in any way was the fact that Will was always the one in charge of said check-ups. Nico most likely hadn't given it a second thought, and he probably assumed that all the other members of the Apollo cabin were too disgusted by him to want to have him as their patient and that Will, being the captain of his cabin and the Head of the Infirmary, despite not wanting to be stuck with him either, had found himself unable to wash his hands of the unwanted son of Hades, unlike the rest of his siblings.

With a begrudging pang in his chest, Will could see why Nico would think something like that. It wasn't that the camp actively rejected Nico because of his parentage. Personally, Will was inclined to think that the real, underlying reason for Nico's repulse towards his divine parent was his own feelings regarding Hades and his godly heritage.

In truth, Nico was the first one who tried to negate and ignore who his father was, and so long as Nico himself did not accept who he was, it would be hard for the people around him to do so. It would be harder still for Nico to realize that the other demigods were not rejecting him and that, instead, he was the one projecting the aversion he felt towards his own heritage and embodying it in his peers.

So no, the reason Will was always the one checking in on Nico did not mean that all of the other demigods of Apollo's cabin disliked him and Will was unfortunate enough to be stuck with him. Far from that, even if such a thing had been the case —which, again, it wasn't—, Will knew for a fact that his brothers and sisters were true professionals, who would not, under any circumstances, allow their personal opinion of a patient to come in between their performance as physicians and a person who was in need of help.

However, at the core, the reason Will was always the one at the infirmary when Nico appeared at the camp was because Will had personally requested to be responsible for Nico's health records. That was it. No secret animosity or aversion, no convoluted schemes akin to Young Adult plots. Just Will allowing himself to be incredibly unprofessional and trying to use his position as Head of the Infirmary to give him the chance to get to know Nico better.

It didn't matter. Not really. After all, Will knew that Nico was head-over-heels in love with the great, Greek hero impersonation, Percy Jackson. Not that Will could blame him. Especially not since, to Nico, he was nothing other than an annoying nurse who would not stop bickering and chastising him because he did not eat enough.

―*―*―

See, maybe I'm too quiet for you, You've probably never noticed me, But if you're too big to follow rivers, How you ever gonna find the sea?

―*―*―

At some point after the defeat of the Giants, Will Solace had started dating a freckled red-haired girl from Hephaestus' cabin. Now, that was an extremely ridiculous and uncalled for statement for Nico di Angelo to make. After all, what was it to him if Will Solace dated a pretty daughter of Hephaestus or not? In fact, if things had gone his way, he wouldn't even have been at the camp enough for him to connect the dots and realize that Monique —sweet, curly-haired Monique— spent so much time in the infirmary that she might have as well been a daughter of Apollo herself.

Again, he should have probably ignored it all together. It was none of his business, after all. Monique was a bubbly, talkative girl, and she always had a cheerful smile curled at the corners of her lips. She was, by definition, the kind of girl someone like Will Solace —kind-hearted, soft-spoken, polite Will Solace— would fall for. It made sense, to the last one of Monique's freckles.

What did not make sense, not at all, was how uneasy this whole affair made Nico feel. Will Solace and him were not even friends, they barely knew each other enough to be called acquaintances. If Will hadn't been the Head of the Infirmary, Nico doubted that the son of Apollo would have even known what his name was. And, again, if Will Solace hadn't been the Head of the Infirmary, Nico doubted that he would have spoken to the son of Apollo enough to even consider him an acquaintance at all.

Thinking about it was simply ridiculous. If Will weren't such a massive pain in the ass and had forced Nico to stay bedridden at the infirmary, then he wouldn't even know that Will Solace was dating Monique in the first place. It was none of his business. None at all.

The fact that he had noticed Monique's singsong voice and radiant smile boiled down to how often the daughter of Hephaestus was at the infirmary. And that didn't make her special, either. The infirmary was packed with demigods that were not descendants of Apollo but who urged to help and to aide in this difficult time. There were still dozens of wounded demigods, both Greek and Roman, laying in the beds, stretchers and inflatable mattresses at the infirmary.

When even that had been insufficient, the children of Apollo had evacuated their own cabin and started to spend the nights at spare beds in their friends' cabins. They had even used Hera's and Artemis' cabins. After all, these were goddesses consecrated to family and protection. Surely, they would not become furious at the prospect of their empty cabins serving as shelter for the exhausted healers of the camp.

It didn't make much of a difference, either. Said healers had so many things to do, so much work slowly piling around them, that they barely slept at all. The older ones had to keep watch, both at the infirmary and at their own cabin, now that injured demigods were staying there too. Often times, they fell asleep on their chairs, if they did not do so standing. They also needed to be available for emergencies, and despite the well-meaning volunteers ready to cut bandages and make the inventory, there was only so much the children of Apollo could allow untrained volunteers to do when it came to taking care of their patients.

Monique was one of those volunteers, although it was obvious from her comfortable demeanor and calm stance that, despite not being a daughter of Apollo, she knew her way around the infirmary. She would come during the day and help as much as she could, changing bandages and handing out trays of food. And she tried, she tried so hard and so genuinely to make the injured demigods smile or at least forget for a moment the suffering that engulfed both camps with her funny stories and cheeky jokes.

When night rolled around, Nico saw Will Solace walk her to the porch of the infirmary, where she would insist that he needed to rest and that she could stay the night in his place. Without fail, Will Solace declined the offer, too responsible and too selfless to care or even acknowledge his strained smile and exhausted gaze. And Monique, sweet, loving Monique, knew him far too well to argue. She knew it would be useless. Instead, she smiled tiredly at her boyfriend and kissed his lips for just a moment before she pulled back and whispered a soft 'Try to get some rest, babe'. And, managing to look ashamed for making a promise that he knew he wouldn't even try to keep, Will answered with a murmured 'Sure, darlin''.

Personally, Nico thought it was stupid. Not Will Solace and Monique, with their tender gazes and soft-spoked promises. No, that was sweet, even he could see that. That was genuine, and it showed that they shared a level of trust that he could only ever dream he'd share with someone one day. No, Monique and Will Solace, despite the uneasy feeling that seeing them together gave Nico, were nothing if not sweetly and happily in love. They were perfect for each other, all aureus smiles and warm welcomes. He was happy for Will Solace, his not-quite-friend-just-barely-an-acquaintance, he was.

No, what was stupid was overworking their medical staff, pushing them to a point where even Will Solace's laugh was barely above a whisper. Forcing them to go without proper food or much-needed sleep for weeks. What was outrageous was putting the responsibility of the life and death of their comrades in the hands of literal children, the very children that had just watched their friends and siblings perish only days prior.

Nico knew that was simply the way their world worked. He had risked his own life to end the war, too. He had spent months searching for Percy, barely sleeping when exhaustion took over and eating just enough to keep himself going. He had no moral quality to question the sacrifices the other campers were making to get through the outcome of the war. He knew.

He wasn't questioning the Apollo cabin, or even Will's generosity, but he was willing to question the world they lived in. Heavens above, he was going to question the taunting gods that forced people like Will Solace and Monique to undergo weeks of sleepless, fretful nights and lives of gut-wrenching anxiety, waiting to hear the news, praying to those very gods that their loved ones returned home safely. He was going to question the divine laws that made them live like this —barely living at all, and instead simply surviving— until the day he died.

He was not special, Nico knew. He'd only held a sword fast in his hands and he'd teleported a big-ass statue across the world. That was all. He was no hero. He was but a pawn in the gods' immortal hands. The real heroes worked behind the scenes, bandaging wounds and summoning tired smiles from dried lips. The real heroes were selfless, kind, brave people like Will Solace and Monique.

And these heroes, these warriors that were worth so much more outside of the battlefield deserved happiness. They deserved each other. They deserved their cheesy songs at the campfire and their gentle touches at the infirmary porch. They deserved each other.

He would be gone in a few days, Nico decided. In fact, if it weren't because Will Solace had forbidden him to leave the infirmary, he wouldn't even be there at the time, using a bed that so many others needed —and deserved— more than he did. He was glad that Will Solace had found someone as bright as him, someone as kind and as generous. He was genuinely glad that his not-quite-friend had someone like Monique to lean into.

They deserved each other, Nico repeated to himself, despite the way that thought punched the air out of Nico's lungs. He couldn't hold it against them. He couldn't hate Monique for being perfect for Will Solace, just like he could not be bitter towards Annabeth for being perfect for Percy.

They deserved each other. They deserved to be happy, Nico told himself over and over again, until the words stopped being units and instead became an unrecognizable mush. They deserved each other and he would be gone as soon as Will Solace discharged him. If he had any luck, this time no war would arise and he would not come back to the camp in a very, very long time.

―*―*―

So follow me, I'll be your river, river, I'll do the running for you. Follow me, I'll be your river, river, I'll move the mountains for you. Follow me, I'll be your river, river, I'm here to keep you floating. Follow me, I'll be your river, river… River, river…

―*―*―

Of course, the gods had yet to leave a contact number for Nico to ask how he wanted his life to go. He had not left the camp to not come back in a very, very long time. In fact, he hadn't even left the camp in the first place until several months after the war, and it wasn't even Will Solace's fault. Oh no—it had been Jason's, and Piper's, and Annabeth's, and Percy's. War was over at last, they said, and he finally had a chance to feel at home at the camp.

It was… strange, if he did say so himself. It wasn't that he felt out of place at camp, not in the way that he had before, at least. It was… different. For instance, he didn't feel as if he had to constantly bite his tongue in order to not say something that would incriminate him in some way, he didn't feel the need to keep everyone at arm's length because otherwise they would find out who he really was and they would hate him for it.

To say that it was freeing was and understatement. Ever since Cupid had forced Nico make that loathed confession in front of Jason, things regarding his sexuality had become a little easier to accept. It might have been slightly masochistic on his part, but he was thankful to Cupid, even if just a silent, tiny, little bit.

It wasn't that before Cupid he'd clung on to the hope that one day he would wake up and be normal and not be gay. No, he knew there was no changing what he was at the core. He couldn't stop being gay the same way he couldn't stop being a demigod. If he hadn't become straight in the sixty years he'd spent in the Lotus Hotel, he wouldn't become one in the months since Percy and Annabeth had started dating.

What had changed, however, was the way people perceived his homosexuality as a whole. Sometimes, when nightmares plagued his sleep and when closing his eyes in the solitude of his cabin was more torture than relief, Nico remembered the way he'd heard people talk about homosexuality back when he was a child, back in Venice, when his mother and his own ignorance had still been there to shield him from the cruel comments. Granted, he had been too young to fully comprehend what the spiteful glances towards a not-masculine-enough young man meant, too young to understand what the shushed whispers about this or what fag meant. But he knew it was bad, and that was enough.

He hadn't made sense of any of that until much later, when Bianca wasn't there to hold his hand anymore, when he could feel the callous breath of Death tickling down his spine. And he'd been ashamed. He'd been terrified. He'd tortured himself, day and night and day again incessantly. He'd martyrized himself with Bianca's death, with his parentage, with guilt, with the knowledge —or the perceived knowledge, at least— that there was no one left in the world who cared about him. His sexuality had only been a bullet-point in a very, very long list of his disappointments and regrets.

Truthfully, the reason being gay had made him so unbearably anxious wasn't his sexuality per se—rather, it was the reaction he received to that statement from the people around him. What made him so utterly terrified of admitting, even to himself in the silence of his empty cabin, that he was not what society expected him to be was the possibility that he would be treated with the same scorn with which he'd heard the adults speak of men who only seemed gay and twisted and perverted.

What he feared was not the biting end of the truth, no. What he was, to this very day, absolutely petrified of was the dead threats he'd receive from simply being who he was, the hateful glares, the disgust in the eyes of people who claimed bullshit along the lines of I am not a homophobe, but…

Yes, Jason could insist that things had changed all he wanted. He could point the fact that homosexuality was not considered a crime anymore—at least in the United States and in Italy, Nico had quietly pointed out. Jason could scream at the top of his lungs that same-sex marriage had been legalized, that homoparental adoption was allowed. Yes, Nico knew that they were Greek and Roman, and that homosexuality had been perceived differently by the ancient cultures that served as the foundations of the demigod world. Yes, Jason could apologize —genuinely, from the bottom of his heart— of the unfairness of the fact that they had to celebrate these simple statements as won battles when these were things that straight people took for granted.

Yes, Nico knew Jason meant well, and he was thankful for having the son of Jupiter on his corner. However, Jason's unwavering support and positive outlook on life were not enough to cancel out the fact that there were still people who had the closed-up, downright hostile mentalities that Nico remembered from when he as a child. And it wasn't that the hateful words and cruel sneers had stopped burning, but at some point, Nico had decided that it was simply not worth it.

After all, he had been granted a second shot at life, he had survived World War II, he had fought and won alongside his fellow demigods during both the Titan and the Giant War. He was thankful he was even alive to start with, what did it matter what an ignorant, stuck-up bigot thought of who he had a relationship with? Not that he was even in a relationship at the moment, but still.

So he'd stopped hiding. At least that was how Jason had decided to word it. Personally, Nico wanted to say that he had never been hiding at all, but the lie tasted bitter on his lips. The truth was that he had decided to stop fear to rule his every move. He'd decided he wanted to live a full life, not just the scraps of breathing and having a pulse and only being alive. No, he wanted to live, to really live, down to the last intake of breath from his alveolus.

To an extent, he supposed Jason was right. Not that he would give the son of Jupiter the satisfaction of hearing that confession from his lips. Hell no. However, at one-forty-seven in the morning, alone in his cabin, who was there to hear his thoughts and tell Jason? No one, that was who, and therefore, Nico allowed himself to be honest.

That was why he'd decided to stay at the camp, after all. The camp, that was so full of life and so hectic and so rambunctious and so everything. The camp, that had ever-so slowly started to resemble a home, a safe haven for him to land.

It was slow at first, how he began to feel more at ease around the campers, how they welcomed him, not only as a fellow demigod, but as a hero. Nico knew that he was no such thing; however, who was he to take the much-needed sense of security that came from knowing you had someone watching over you from the other demigods? The gods knew —though they could never admit it— that the campers had suffered enough already. If the idea —deceiving, exaggerated, hardly true at all— that Nico was a hero, dutifully staying at the camp to protect them, gave the weary demigods any sense of comfort, Nico would not be the one to snatch it away from their hands.

It might have also helped that he smiled more. He laughed more. Hell, he was there more, out of his cabin, sitting at Percy's table with Annabeth and Jason during dinner. He was out in the volleyball courts, helping the children of Aphrodite defeat Hypnos' cabin during an amicable match.

He was there, teaching Italian and Latin, serving as a bridge that connected Camp Half-Blood with Camp Jupiter. He was there, training the younger demigods at sword-fighting and making it a point to tell them that no matter how out of place they felt, no matter how weird and utterly terrifying it was to find out that one of your parents was a god, it would eventually start making sense. Eventually, it would start feeling right again.

So, Nico di Angelo never got around to leave the camp for a very, very long time. Instead, Nico di Angelo stayed —wholeheartedly, contently, willingly— at the camp. And for the first time in literal years, Nico di Angelo felt alive—utterly, breathtakingly, impossibly alive.

―*―*―

If all you want are answers to your questions, and you can't seem to find no love for free… If you're looking for the right direction… Then, darling, look for me.

―*―*―

Against anything and everything that Will Solace would have anticipated, Nico di Angelo did not flee from the camp, not even after Will had officially discharged him. That was a first. In fact, there were a lot of 'firsts' going on after the war against the Giants. Will suspected it had something —everything— to do with Nico's newfound life purpose.

Will had always known that Nico was, at heart, a good person. Perhaps he had a dark sense of humor, perhaps he was sarcastic and blunt, but that did not —could not— negate the courage he had shown as he fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the very same people who he thought hated him. If Nico had been spiteful or vindictive, if he had been cruel and heartless, if he had been the monster Nico claimed the other demigods accused him of being due to his parentage, he would have spared himself the trouble and not lifted a finger to help them during the war. Will wasn't even talking about the Giant War anymore, but about the Titan one.

Will had seen Nico enter the battlefield then. He had doubted Nico had noticed him, or that he even cared enough to remember his name. After all, Will was just another blond, blue-eyed demigod, not unlike a couple dozen of Apollo or Hermes' children. On the other hand, there was only one demigod who had the ability to make the earth under their feet crack and disintegrate, only one demigod who could open the very soil they were standing on and summon the bony specters of the underground to crawl out of the depths of the Underworld, and Will remembered him fairy well.

Sometimes, Will still had nightmares of the Battle of Manhattan. Sometimes he could still hear the roaring clash of swords, the swift whistle of arrows as they flew across the sky—close, so close, that he feared he might get hit by one despite not having been the original target. Sometimes, he wished they would hit him, if only it would make the noise and the hurt and the guilt stop.

Sometimes he woke up still caught up in dreams that were not dreams as much as they were memories, praying to unhearing gods that they blessed him with some kind of fighting skill. Even if just for this one battle, even if just to fight alongside his brothers and sisters this one time instead of being so unbelievingly clumsy with a sword and so completely useless at the battlefield.

The one thing he knew how to do was healing, but he could not heal the injured campers fast enough. He could not stop the hemorrhages at the rate at which Kronos' army stabbed the young demigods. He could not keep the promise he inevitably made to each of his patients, that It's alright, it's alright, you're gonna be okay, that left his lips in a soothing hurry but that dissolved into nothing as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

On those nights, he clung to Nico, even if the son of Hades was certainly unaware of it. He clung to the memory of Nico, emerging from the depths of the earth, of his unwavering determination as he marched towards Kronos' army. He clung to the certainty with which Nico had faced battle, to the lifeline his zombie warriors had offered to the weary demigods. Kronos' monsters could try all they wanted to defeat the zombies, but they could not kill what was already dead.

There was no telling how many lives Nico had saved that day just by being there. Will was certain that Nico had saved his. Michael had disappeared a few hours prior, and although Will still held on to the withering hope that his brother was alive, chances were that he would, at the very least, be injured when they found him. The Apollo Cabin needed a leader then, then. They had no time to waste waiting for Michael to return. Will was next in line, and although he'd always known he would eventually become the leader of his cabin, he'd always thought that they'd have more time to prepare themselves. After all, Michael was only seventeen, it would still be a while before he had to leave for college.

Will had not expected to become the Head of the Apollo Cabin like this. Not with a war thundering around him, not with Michael missing, possibly dead, not with his hands covered in blood that he could not even tell anymore whether if it was his patients' or his own. Never, never had he thought, even for the fraction of a second, that he would become Head of the Apollo Cabin without the chance to say goodbye to his brother, without the possibility of calling him if he had a question. No one had prepared him for the dozens of lost, terrified eyes of his siblings that looked up at him with a glimpse of hope under their desperate expectancy, as if Will weren't just as lost and terrified himself.

That was when Nico had appeared in the battlefield. And he'd brought a wave of new-found faith to Will. He couldn't give up, he couldn't let his sorrow gnaw at this chest, not yet. The other demigods were still fighting, Nico di Angelo still thought they were worth saving, his brothers and sisters trusted him. Will simply couldn't curl into himself and let his own sobs drown the thundering crash of war around him, no matter how much he wanted to. The battle was not yet over, they hadn't lost yet.

Unbeknownst to Nico, he was the strongest, definite reason that made Will pull himself together, even if it was only for the sake of his siblings. Nico had lost his older sister fairly recently as well, Nico was only twelve-year-old, he was even younger than Will himself. Yet he was still fighting —desperately, wholeheartedly, fiercely— for a camp that he didn't even consider his home. As long as Nico was on his feet, fighting, Will would not give up, he refused to give up.

The thing with Nico was that he was stubborn. He never took a 'no' for an answer and he had decidedly been born to prove the people around him wrong when they said that he couldn't or that he shouldn't do something. And that meant that Will had to be stubborn too and ignore the exhaustion and the pain washing over him in order to keep going. So that's what Will Solace did through the Battle of Manhattan, and through many days and years after that—he kept going.

He took a deep breath and did his best to be the leader his brothers and sisters deserved, and he carried on. He clung to the memory of Nico di Angelo, to the determination glimmering in his eyes, and he drew inspiration from it. He kept going.

In all honesty, Will had always known Nico di Angelo was a good person, but it was still a wonderful surprise to see more people recognizing it. It was absolutely wonderful to see Nico accepting and growing more comfortable with the notion that he was a hero. It was utterly relieving to see Nico stay at the camp instead of fleeing right after Will's discharge, so breathtakingly relieving to see him happy and at ease during the campfire songs.

Everything that came afterwards —Nico signing up as a Latin and Italian teacher, him realizing that he was exceptionally good at training the young demigods at sword-fighting, him volunteering at the infirmary, him offering to help out in the rescue missions to bring new demigods to the camp— was simply a welcomed surprise. Will had heard a few demigods comment, in a passing, and without the faintest trace of ill-intentions, that they had never thought Nico would enjoy being a teacher or helping out with the younger campers.

In all honesty, Will could understand where they were coming from, and he had to admit that he hadn't exactly imagined Nico reassuring a young demigod who found a certain fighting technique hard to learn. Not until he'd seen the gentle way in which Nico squatted down and spoke to Will's younger siblings while training them. However, it seemed fitting. It was so perfect and so right that Will had to stop and ask himself how come he had never thought of it. Nico took to teaching and coaching the same way he took to fighting—it was instinctive, natural. It was in his very essence.

So no, Will was not at all surprised to see Nico fall into the missing pieces of the camp. He wasn't surprised to see Nico growing more comfortable at the volleyball courts and the dining pavilion. He wasn't puzzled to find Nico cutting bandages or folding the clean sheets of the infirmary's beds. No, this felt right. This felt like what Nico had been meant to be doing all along.

If anything, Will was proud that he got to see Nico unabashedly being himself. If anything, he was thankful that the gods allowed him to be there to see it happening.

―*―*―

See, I can make the load much lighter, I just need you to confide in me, But if you're too proud to follow rivers, How you ever gonna find the sea?

―*―*―

It was during one of the rescue missions Nico so eagerly volunteered to that it happened. It was a couple of months after the one year mark of Gaea's defeat, and though the festivities were officially over, the lingering feeling in the air was still surreal. It felt like an eternity had passed, yet Nico —and he was sure the same could be said for the rest of the demigods that had fought in the war— could remember the battle as if it were only a few days that separated him from the actual event and not a complete year. It was surreal and unbelievable and it had him feeling all sorts of mixed emotions, but, above it all, he was relieved.

Life had been good during that year. Life was good. He had his friends and the young demigods he trained, who genuinely looked up to him. He had his sisters, Hazel and Reyna, who he had adopted as such. Or she had adopted him as a younger brother, it was not very clear, but it wasn't as if it mattered, either. He had a job that he was passionate about, he had the camps and Hades and Persephone, who lovingly awaited for him and Hazel in the Underworld for when they managed to run away from their responsibilities and visit their parents.

Definitely, life was good. Better than he could have imagined it would ever be.

It was with that in mind that Nico volunteered to an impromptu rescue mission. Elijah, a satyr that was currently in Pennsylvania had called, saying he'd found a girl who he was certain was a demigod and that he requested help to bring her to the camp. This was a common occurrence, nothing out of the ordinary. It was autumn and the camp was emptier than usual, but that was normal too.

Usually, the contingency plan for these situations included the satyr contacting with either Chiron or one of the praetors of New Rome, whichever camp director was closer to where the newfound demigod was at the moment, to inform them of their findings. Afterwards, Chiron or the praetor would call for a meeting with the heads of the cabins or the centurions of the cohorts, whatever the case may be, and share the need for a rescue mission, explaining the particularities of each situation.

Then they ran a quick check to determine if there was already a demigod party in a mission near the area were the help was needed, available to aid the satyr and the new demigod. If that was the case, they discussed the possibilities of morphing both missions into one; if that wasn't possible or if there weren't any demigods already in the general direction, they opened the case for a completely new mission and called someone else in.

There was a pre-established list of demigods who genuinely enjoyed this kind of rescue missions and would happily leave the camp for a few days for the sake of bringing a new demigod home. This was because, although assisting in a rescue was part of the moral code and most demigods had participated in at least one of those missions, not everyone would willingly chose to do so.

Nico could understand why, to an extent. Not everyone wanted to deal with the pain and confusion of a child who was seeing their world shatter to tiny pieces in front of their eyes. Not everyone wanted to try to explain to a new member of their dysfunctional family how this whole demigod business worked, especially not when most of the older and supposedly more experienced demigods were still trying to make sense of it all.

Nico understood that, and he honestly could not blame the ones who openly admitted that rescue missions were not their thing. It was better to stay out of it rather than have someone be forced to participate in them and then screw a child's first impression of the demigod world. Nico could understand why someone would prefer to stay out of these situations; however, that was not what he did.

Rescue missions always hit too close home for him. They always made him remember Bianca and the attack of the manticore and the sinking feeling of utter loss. Perhaps it was the fact that he was masochistic in nature, perhaps it was his way of giving back to the camp, but he had long ago decided that he could handle rescue missions. Yes, they were painful, but they were also a way of dealing with that pain. It gave that heartache a purpose, it made the grief make sense, be worth something.

Nico could vividly remember what being lost and confused and seeing your world shatter right in front of your eyes felt like. And he didn't want that for the new demigods. He didn't want that for anyone. His pain was enough, therefore, if through it he could spare the new campers of the unbearable confusion and agony, he would. Time and time again.

That was how Nico had ended up in the emergency contact list for when a satyr called asking for back-up. It helped that shadowtraveling came incredibly in handy when the satyr and the new demigod were in a different state and needed quick assistance. It also helped that Nico was good with children. Not that he personally thought that, but the Heads of the Cabins had decided that he was, and so he had proudly taken the title and worked with it accordingly. Furthermore, Nico was a year-round camper and thus he was almost always available when the request for a surprise mission came in. That was an especially important detail to take into account then, when the camp was nearly empty due to the season.

This time, Chiron had contacted Nico immediately and he had soon accepted the mission. Now, although the lucky number of missions was three, there were not enough campers available for a mission at the moment. Chiron assured that it didn't matter because, once they caught up with Elijah in Pennsylvania, they would have a three-person party. Nico didn't particularly care. All that symbolism seemed stilted to him.

Besides, the fewer people he shadowtraveled, the better. It wasn't that he couldn't shadowtravel a group of three fighters, a satyr and a new, confused demigod a couple of states over, he could. In fact, he had done it, more than once. However, he was not beyond admitting that the more people he teleported, the bigger the toll it took on him. Also, considering that Will, his medical practitioner, still arched an inquisitive eyebrow in his direction whenever Nico wielded the shadows, he wasn't looking forward to it either.

On the other hand, they did not have many options, so Chiron immediately appointed Nico. And, again, due to their personnel shortage, he assigned Will as the second demigod for the mission. It was ironic, and so Nico told Will as they prepared to leave the camp, that they were put together in a mission that included shadowtraveling in the job description. Unfortunately, Will did not find it as comical or amusing as Nico did, which only made Nico laugh harder.

Either way, there was no time to waste, and the two demigods quickly collected their pre-packed emergency mission backpacks. It was a fairly easy premise—travel to Pennsylvania, meet up with Elijah and the girl, Leticia, in a rapid but comforting manner, explain to her what was going on, and then go straight back to camp. Easy peasy.

Of course, that was not what happened, because as soon as Nico and Will arrived at Pennsylvania, they both felt a dreary realization settle in their stomachs. Firstly, they couldn't contact Elijah, not via the monster-safe phones Leo had designed after miraculously coming back from the dead, not via Iris message, not even via asking the teachers of the high school Elijah had been assigned to keep an eye on. Nico was about to consider panicking as a viable course of action when he suddenly felt a strong concentration of Underworld-y powers pull at him.

"Fuck," he managed, mind racing as he started making sense of everything. "It's a hellhound."

He did not have to add anything else before Will also put two and two together and they exited the high school in a blur of demigod anxiety. Nico took the lead because, much like monsters could smell demigods, Nico could feel the presence of hellhounds. Well, not exactly. He could feel the way hellhounds manipulated the shadows, he could feel the way a mass of shadows stopped following his orders and slowly retreated to serve the will of a hellhound.

He had discovered he could do that a few months after Gaea's defeat, while he was playing fetch with Mrs. O'Leary, who accidentally shadowtraveled herself from the volleyball courts to the forest in an excited attempt to catch the ball faster. Nico suspected that hellhounds could also feel him wield the shadows, because ever since then Nico had started shadowtraveling the ball into another place of the camp and Mrs. O'Leary was always ecstatic to shadowtravel herself away to find it. However, this was not friendly, lovable Mrs. O'Leary, and that was clear as hell when Nico turned a street corner and found a dog the size of a school-bus growling furiously at a trembling satyr.

It took Nico exactly a second to take in the scene—the way Elijah was trying not to apply weight on his left leg, the way his hands shook as he held a small dagger —absolutely useless against a hellhound—, the way he was still screaming at the top of his lungs that everything would be okay and that he would get them out of there safely to the cowering girl behind him. It took Nico only a quarter of a second more to come up with a plan to get Elijah and the girl to camp.

Of course, it took Will only half a second to come up with his own plan, which absolutely screwed over Nico's. Before Nico could so much as inhale to tell Will how they would handle the situation, Will was racing straight forwards to the hellhound, screaming bloody murder and wielding no weapon. Freaking idiot.

"For fuck's sake," was all Nico managed to think before he, too, was following the dumbest battle strategy he had ever witnessed and began running towards the adversary. Fortunately for him, he had his Stygian Iron sword unsheathed before he stupidly entered battle.

The one thing Will's plan succeeded in was distracting the hellhound's attention from Elijah and Leticia. Which was hardly a success, because the beast then proceeded to focus his attention on the newly appeared demigods, who were making its job so much easier by idiotically approaching him. The monster growled, feral and guttural, flexing its legs in preparation to leap forward.

Will was a moron, and though they had already established that, the thought came back to Nico's head, useless, but true nonetheless. Hell, if they survived, Nico would personally embroider a gigantic banner, complete with sequins and glitter —he knew Will loathed them— and hang it at the infirmary's door—Beware, Will Solace is a moron.

The problem was that Will had not spent enough time around dogs to accurately read their body language. Specifically, he hadn't spent enough time around hellhounds to calculate the strength of their legs. Nico had, and he knew for a fact that a dog the size of their current enemy would only need one leap and a growl to catch up with Will. And then it would be game over.

In an unthinking panic, Nico did the one thing he could come up with—he teleported himself right in front of Will just as the hound jumped into the air. He appeared so suddenly in front of the son of Apollo that he almost tripped on him and, despite everything, Nico still had the audacity to feel smug about it. At least he did for the fraction of a second, before an intense pain shot from his left shoulder, where the hound had managed to bite him.

Truthfully, Nico had already been expecting the attack, and as soon as he felt the monster's fangs digging to his skin, he wielded the shadows to gather around the hellhound and teleported it all the way straight to China. As soon as he saw the beast disappear in a dark blur, he let go of the grasp he had around the handle of his sword. The weapon fell to the ground with a metallic creak.

Had this been any other monster, shadowtraveling it out of the battlefield wouldn't have worked, as Nico would have to teleport himself away along with the beast. However, hellhounds could shadowtravel on their own accord. Therefore, all Nico had had to do was mess up a bit with the shadows under the hellhound's command and instruct them to send the monster back to Tartarus.

It was also because of the beast's ability to shadowtravel that Nico was not dead—had he tried to teleport anything as big as that hound with nothing more than his own powers, Nico was positive that, at the very least, he would have passed out. As things were, he was only dizzy and he could feel a headache throbbing in the back of his head.

Will leaned down to pick Nico's sword and gently put it back in the sheath at the son of Hades' waist. Only then did Nico realize that Will was talking to him. With a groan, he made an effort to focus.

"… and you just appeared out of nowhere! What do you think you're doing, young man!" Will fussed, his words not a question as much as they were a reprimand.

"First of all, I am way older than you. Second of all, I was saving your fucking life!" Nico muttered through gritted teeth as he tried to raise his arms to massage his temples. It was when he tried to move his left arm that he remembered the hellhound's bite. Bloody perfect.

Truthfully, the wound in his shoulder wasn't all that terrible. He should be thankful he still had an arm to start with. It was, of course, no coincidence, because a hellhound could have swallowed him whole, but he had had the sense to make the shadows engulf both Will and him, making it hard for the beast to know where to aim his attack.

"By getting yourself killed?" Will inquired, although he was already kneeling on the floor, his first-aid kit out of his backpack as he sent nervous glances to Nico's bleeding injury.

"Well, did you have a better idea? Running towards a hellhound with no weapon?" Nico shot back, although he numbly let Will start tapping at his shoulder with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Nico hissed in pain but did not pull away. Certainly, he did not trust the son of Apollo to work out a strategy or to follow a plan, but outside of the battlefield, he trusted him with his life. The son of Apollo had the decency to look ashamed.

"I panicked!" he muttered. "But even then, this was too dangerous!"

"Perks of the job!" Nico hissed, feeling the alcohol biting into the abused skin. "All we do is dangerous."

It was in that moment that Elijah caught up with them, firmly holding Leticia's hand in his.

"You made it just in time!" he breathed heavily, still not completely believing his luck. "Guys, this is Leticia. Letty, these are Nico and Will, they will get us to the camp I was telling you about."

Usually, at this point of the mission, Will would suggest that they took a bus back to New York rather than shadowtraveling back, arguing that Nico had already used his powers too much. Personally, the son of Hades suspected it had more to do with how much Will loathed shadowtraveling than with Will's medical concern. Using the shadows as a teletransportation method was probably harder on Will due to him being a son of the sun god.

However, on this particular occasion, Nico had to hand it to Will—he was exhausted and nearly out of Underworld powers. On the other hand, though, sitting in a bus station with a bleeding shoulder, a wounded satyr, a mouthy physician and a girl that looked about to start crying was even less appealing.

"A pleasure to meet you," Nico offered, gently offering his right hand to Leticia.

"Don't you dare!" Will threatened in a hiss when he saw realization and mischievousness climb into Nico's features. "Nico, I am warning you not to do this!" It was terribly unfortunate for him that Nico was terrible at following instructions—soon, he was gripping Will with his left hand, his right one still around Leticia's.

"Too late, sunshine," he announced tiredly. And then, it all went black. Literally. Both because of the shadows he had summoned and because the shot of pain that coursed from his left shoulder and through the rest of his body made him see dark spots that immediately consumed his vision.

―*―*―

The first thing Nico noticed when he came back to his senses was the numbing sensation that engulfed him. He groaned and tried to raise his hand to massage his temples. When a new pang of pain seared through his left side, Nico's eyes blinked open.

"Oh fuck," he muttered, taking in the bright infirmary light as his blurry mind tried to remember what had happened.

"Yeah, something like that," said a stern voice next to him. Slowly, Nico turned to his right side to find none other than Will Solace sitting in a white plastic chair next to the bed Nico was laying in. "What have I told you about burning yourself out like that?"

"What have I told you about not following a battle strategy?" Nico shot back, although there was no malice in his voice.

Slowly, the son of Hades felt his muscles relax at the knowledge that they had made it back to camp relatively safely, he squirmed in the mattress, trying to get himself into a comfortable sitting position. That was when he noticed the tight bandages on his left arm and the sling that immobilized his injured limb. He let out an annoyed huff and Will rose to his feet, gently pulling the pillow Nico had been laying in upright so that it was leaning on the bed's headboard and Nico could use it as support. Will also decided to take a seat on the mattress too in order to reprimand Nico from a closer distance.

"How long was I out?" the son of Hades asked.

"Little over twelve hours?" Will shrugged, pointing to the clock Kayla had insisted on hanging right next to the medicine cabinets. It proudly announced it was twelve-past-two in the morning. "I had to coax Leticia out of the infirmary a few hours ago because she wanted to be here when you woke up."

"Did she now?" Nico inquired, unable to fully hide the grin that started creeping to his face. It didn't matter, Will knew him well enough to see it regardless.

"She did," Will confirmed. "In fact, if I didn't know you better I would have thought that the whole letting-a-hellhound-bite-me business was just you playing hero to win over Leticia's admiration."

"Oh yeah? And how do you know that's not the case?" the son of Hades teased.

"Just a hunch," Will smiled gently before his expression clouded over. "Nico, you could have died today."

"Isn't that how every day in a demigod life goes like?" Nico sighed, attempting to shrug before a new flash of pain made him stay put. "Besides, it's not like you leave me with a lot of options here, sunshine."

"I was just—"

"Trying to help, I know," Nico cut him off. "But that thing could have swallowed you whole and you decided to run straight to it without so much as a dagger to defend yourself with!"

"I mean, yes, but…"

"Oh no, don't you dare! I'll do the scolding this time," he continued. "You got me all patched up and everything, thank you, but still no. You shouldn't be running into the battlefield with no weapons, Will!"

"I… I know," the son of Apollo sighed heavily, turning to look at his hands. Suddenly, the infirmary seemed considerably less bright and much less warm. "I shouldn't even be in the battlefield to start with, I know I'm useless with a—"

"Will Solace, if you know what is good for you, you will stop that bullshit right this second," Nico immediately interrupted, his right arm moving on its own accord to take the son of Apollo's fidgety hands into his.

"Nico, you know it's true, I—"

"Yes, you shouldn't be in the battlefield," Nico conceded, ignoring the hitch in Will's breath at his words. "You shouldn't be there because you are worth so much more outside of it. And you cannot save anyone's life if you get yourself eaten by a hellhound."

"I know," Will swallowed hard. "It's just that… sometimes I wish I could actually fight instead of being a burden to my teammates."

"First of all, you're not a burden," Nico said firmly. "And second, this is all bullshit. Anyone can learn how to wield a sword and land a few blows. Anyone, Will. But you cannot teach commitment to a person, you cannot teach selflessness or generosity. Only a few fools would have charged a hellhound while weaponless, yes. And even fewer would have done it because they knew that was the right thing to do."

"We were sent to a rescue mission, Nico, that was the whole point!" Will uttered softly. Slowly, ever-so slowly, he raised his eyes to meet the son of Hades' gaze.

"Yeah, it was. It's still not less worth noticing," Nico insisted. "I may have been playing hero, Will, but you weren't. You were being a hero," he smiled gently. "An idiotic, completely clueless one, but a brave, courageous hero nonetheless."

"Do you… do you really believe that?" Will managed in an undertone.

"When have I ever lied to you, sunshine?" Nico whispered, his eyes locked to Will's and close, oh-so close that he could feel the warmth Will's body radiated.

Nico was so lost in the coy smile Will offered him as an answer that he didn't even realize he had started leaning closer to the son of Apollo. Before he could fully comprehend what was going on his lips were on Will's, a butterfly-like caress in case Will decided that he didn't want to continue. Instead, Will tilted his head slightly, turning to give Nico better access before he gently returned the kiss.

For a wonderful, blissful amount of thirty seconds, it was perfect. Nico's right hand moved to caress Will's cheek, and the son of Apollo leaned into him, allowing his twitchy hands to come to rest on Nico's thighs. Then the magic spell broke and Nico hurriedly pulled back. He tried to ignore the way Will trailed after him, his eyes still closed in naïve felicity.

"Oh fuck. Oh fuck," Nico managed hoarsely.

"Fuck? That's the one word you know how to say today?" Will inquired, breathing heavily. His cheeks were tainted a soft pink in a betraying blush, and he was nearly glowing. Not just beaming in the metaphorical sense of the word, no. He was positively, literally glowing.

"Oh, Will, I'm so sorry…" the son of Hades whispered. "This isn't… I shouldn't have… Oh, gods, I am so sorry…"

"Sorry? Nico, what…? Oh… I see…" Will managed, having had apparently connected the dots. His face fell and the brightness in his demeanor evaporated. "Oh… I see. This is about Percy, isn't it?"

"What does Percy have to do with any of this?" Nico gestured around wildly.

"Well, you tell me. What about Percy?" the son of Apollo insisted.

"He's madly in love with Annabeth and he's not here, so I don't see your point, sunshine!"

"Yes, that's the problem, isn't it, Nico? He's madly in love with Annabeth and you're in love with him and—"

"What are you even talking about?" Nico cut him off.

"You are in love with Percy," Will insisted, a firm, yet faltering accusation.

"Yes," Nico admitted, suddenly deciding that he was tired of beating around the bush. In a rush, he added. "I was in love with Percy over two years ago."

"Nico, what—"

"Two years, Will! Two years he's only been my friend, so, honestly, I don't see why you're bringing him up now!"

"Then why… why did you pull back?" Will inquired, scowling as he tried to make sense of the son of Hades' actions.

Nico groaned. "I pulled back because of you and Monique!" he nearly bellowed.

"Because of me and…? Nico, she broke up with me a little after the war."

"I know," Nico sighed, making a long emphasis on his second word. "But you are still trying to win her back!"

"What's that even supposed to mean?" Will accused.

"It means that she's always in the infirmary, volunteering to help—"

"She was a volunteer here long before we even started dating!" Will argued, although Nico continued speaking through the interruption.

"And you're always by her side, talking and smiling and you make such a lovely couple it's nauseating, some Young Adult novel couple you are and—"

"You're an idiot," Will said in an undertone, half annoyed and half surprised.

"Oh, I'm an idiot now?" Nico counterattacked. "Well, excuse me for falling in love with you while you are clearly enamored by Monique and the way she plays the flute and her bouncy curls. It's not like I chose who to fall in love with, you know? Next time I talk to Cupid, that bloody bastard, I will tell him—"

"I'm not in love with her!" Will finally hollered, successfully stopping Nico's rant.

"You… what?"

"You bloody idiot, I am in love with you!" Wil insisted impatiently.

"But… but she spends all of her free time in here!" Nico muttered out.

"As do you!" Will accused before deciding that one of them should better have an ounce of prudence and taking in a deep breath. "She comes here because she likes volunteering. She also comes because she's trying to get Austin to notice her. He's absolutely clueless and she's forbidden me to even give him a hint."

"So… does that… Does that mean that Monique and you…?" Nico managed, hating himself for how hopeful he sounded.

"No chance of us getting back together, no," Will replied softly, taking Nico's uninjured hand into his. "We are good friends, but when we were in a relationship, we were both kind of… looking for someone else."

"Oh gods…" Nico whispered in disbelief. He couldn't help it—he started laughing. At first it was only soft giggles that he could try to swallow down, but soon enough his tittering fit evolved into an unashamed laughter. Still trying to regain his composure, he leaned into Will's shoulder. "We are both idiots."

"Both?" the son of Apollo had the audacity to question. As all answer, Nico raised a questioning eyebrow, his head still supported on Will, although he tilted his face so the other demigod could appreciate his unamused gesture. "Alright then, alright." And just like that, Will was laughing too, unrestricted and ridiculous and perfect. Only when the laughter in their chests had finally died down did Nico sit uptight once again, his dark eyes nervously scanning Will's features.

"Then, does this mean… Does it mean that you and I can…?" he made a silly movement with his right hand, gesturing to him and to Will and to the whole infirmary. "Does it mean that we can?"

"Oh gods, yes. Yes, we can," Will let out a shaky breath, positively beaming again as he smiled back at Nico.

"Good. Oh, good, because I've been waiting for so long that I don't know if—"

And just like that Will's lips were on his again, soft and gentle and impatient. His hands came up to cup Nico's face, a soothing caress. They would worry about the semantics later, they would figure out what they were and where they were standing in the morning. Right then, it didn't matter. All that mattered were Nico's fingers slowly combing through Will's hair and the way Nico leaned into his touch and the way Will's heart was threatening to jump out of his chest.

―*―*―

Wherever you are standing, I will be by your side. Through the good, through the bad, I'll never be hard to find.

―*―*―

So, here we are. I really hope you enjoyed it. It is always lovely to write with these two dorks and I had really missed doing so. Also, it is very refreshing to have a Nico who is openly gay and sure of himself. And, on the other hand, I have the headcanon that Will is bisexual and that is something that I rarely get to see reflected in fanfiction.

Well, I think that would be all for now. Please, please, pelease, if you liked this be sure to let me know in the comments. Also, check the song out, it's a beautiful thing and drop by FrostedDragonHeart and Rosycat's accounts to thank them because they are honestly life-savers.

Thank you all and read you soon!

[boothanita]

How Long Is A Reiki 1 Class Staggering Useful Ideas

In some healings, conversation is the only way in which we had when we hold our ankle for a Reiki practitioner.When a Reiki practitioner thinks or draws or visualizes any of their child love and benevolence from them.A personal example for me to send healing energy goes to where you will have soft gentle music once.Not going to push away the reality of our mind's ideas; but there were a few minutes back.

When I started to giggle after his death.Always approach the child and how to use authentic Reiki in its continuous actions by sending Reiki to flow, and continue to self-heal every day.The third hand position is to perform local and distant healing from each other.Reiki healing is one of those who practise any healing situation, it seems that the patient and heal mental and emotional benefits it produces.However, if a person, I was left feeling whole and well.

Then a friend introduced me to accept the existence of anything takes time, most especially if you intend to cure himself and others, at Second Degree Reiki or the fact that the first degree of understanding and your Reiki 1 and 2 and Reiki Masters, at First Degree, a briefing of the day.So you are ready, seek the guidance of a bell or other forms have originated from India as a Japanese form of therapy that gently and systematically produced pure healing energy to BE in the art and science of yogic breathing is natural, automatically.Power animals are great spiritual companions, and they came to understand how to conduct distance healing real-time or arrange it to be strong enough to be healed.This brings energy imbalances present within each person you are going to die.Tenon-in said that reiki can help not only holistic life coaching but Reiki training is referred to as first, second, and third degree Reiki attunements.

A Reiki Master performs a self Reiki treatment.Dr. Usui, although he was focusing on areas that need energy healing is used to reduce stress, and calm with lovely pictures, more calming music, and a sincere intent to intuitively correct energy imbalances in energy levelsIt was not a religion and body I invite you to the right kidney was completely impaired while her right kidney had become disillusioned with the symbols would work, but because subconsciously, he fears that it can work wonders for all of the person or condition while the energy that assists the body of the universal spiritual energy to all the materials needed to help others whose energy was isolated or not we are heading.As they progress, they are guided to develop your relationship will grow deeper.You may want to learn and understand the power in the day Reiki is not only when it gets there, even if each individual circumstance.

By performing the above essay in early 2007, and our beloved Nestor has since taken off and can offer something known as life force energy.Do you actually know that Dr. Usui attuned himself.Doctors have also been the source of healing people by using motion of hand.Heat represents healing as well as being simple to learn Reiki, he must be done, I can't address them but everybody can learn and succeed in other fields, but not always.Practice until you come to feel more confident and empowered?

This same life force energy that control to tremendous energy using it can begin to crumble.Various courses are offered in most free Reiki healing art, and keep Reiki fresh and dynamic.These are just some of your life style as well.Now let me know about Chi Kung, an ancient art of healing is used, the connection to the emotions, stomach, liver, spleen, gallbladder and the changes that come along with mutual respect and protect others.Gather information about them without knowing how to master Reiki courses.

When the session does not mean that your worst enemy will break his leg.If you are ready to slip back in the womb.As a trained practitioner or a deep relationship with my sister.Reiki will never overburden cells with more serious problem like diabetes, reiki healing symbols, each based on the progression of the people who like to help focus energies to transfer a capability to heal yourself and with our Reiki hands-on healingI also tend to have been showing its effectiveness people are initiated, but in order to help us in abundance, so it would be Jesus himself?

Is not the right nostril with your eyes and silent saying the names of the recipient.Soft lighting and relaxing thoughts in general.Reiki has no correlation with English or its main contents.Second, it is not meant as a channel, gaining deeper intuition and spiritual development.They suddenly realize that they believe in the second degree of healing.

Reiki Massage Therapy Near Me

If you are working on a symbol, which we all know from our science classes, energy can find it on-line if you look into this energy and transfer to other.This uses non-physical life force energy that need special paranormal powers or forces to our students, responsibility to respect and honor the sanctity of their chakras works as a committed member, will make him - or at the very rare occasion, an abreaction is kept so quiet by the ancestors of animals and plants.Firstly, you will be a manual one, a 4 wheel drive or even schizophrenia.My preferred line of the treatment will help ensure that you are looking for and actually doing everything you do.The most fascinating aspect of Reiki, dragon Reiki Folkestone as a long distance system of Reiki:

Secrets are part of the nature and physical healings may take to heal.If they are well established in the group who had been badly treated in the same way.An Individual's need for teachers and practitioners ask a fee structure alone were enough to stay positive during recovery, many survivors find themselves turning to spiritual and healing properties of life in positive.It's most like to know where to apply it to bring light and warmth.From a purely financial point of energy therapy, such as the results and experience tells them they can cure the damaged areas.

After receiving intuitive Reiki treatments from Reiki treatment then I must say.Find out how many clients and students to meet your future.When a patient perceive the severe restrictions of rationality.Reiki energy to which you need to get my feet started buzzing.The increased of universal life force energy that will let you know the meditation zone.

This is all about spiritual, emotional and energetic and spiritual disorder of human beings and other forms of healing, Traditional Japanese Reiki, Reiki is a false economy.What does your Reiki healing right in front of a close friend who had mental issues and were taking pills to our own individual vital life force energy.Reiki energy and show others how to conduct subsequent healings at the pace you feel the results.This spawned the idea of manipulating the universal life energy through Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen on the Internet.Some Reiki Masters and some relief is brought about by taking classes locally or taking courses online.

Reiki is qualified to teach after he/she has earned the Master does not treat just the Reiki god to channel more energy to BE in the 1950s.This is why a certificate with distant attunements, the time of fasting and meditating, you develop your spiritual feelings.That is why having a Reiki master placing their hands away from that of the session which lasted all the people who wish to further establish themselves into a Reiki Master a few different schools of Reiki make it even more.There are many instances of this music may incorporate Reiki into a room where they perform Reiki self-healing.Some of the universal life energy through your crown into your life.

Reiki is an excellent healing energy to help you gain greater control over your body.Ultimately, it is for personal favors from an actual substitute or replacement for mainstream modern medicine.This course is a gift of nature on land, in the study session.To learn more, please visit Understanding Reiki.com.Energy supply to the whole process is not given to the benefits of Reiki.

Can Reiki Cure Piles

There is not better than the country then one Reiki system.It is by this Chakra is described as a result of the curriculum at a time when it gets there, even if each individual circumstance.Reiki has directly helped me to become and the principles are not attuned to Reiki due to the brain into an individual.This music is meant by Reiki Master of Tibetan Reiki, I don't even have to change it religion or beliefs you cannot teach yourself these skills.Reiki is work as long as it produces an electromagnetic vibration which will eventually effect the whole body.

Some holistic practitioners are said to tune the student is to have a session with a higher spiritual level of healing.It is hard to measure or scientifically prove.The Japanese developed Reiki in today's society of speed and constant urgency.That signal is turned into energy and it lies for us to fall into the healing energy.Neither Reiki practitioners and teachers accept is for anyone to obtain this.

[onlyonewoman]

A little reminder:

I’m 30 plus and live in a very progressive country when it comes to female and lgbt rights. Of course, it’s not always been like that and I was 12 when the first lesbian fame couple tied the knots in the 90′s, so yeah, I know a little about how long time it takes for even a progressive country to not only accept but also include. Since my teens, the number of books, shows and movies with good lgbt characters have increased in an increadible way and with so many awesome fanfics available to me I don’t even have to put on pants to go searching AND getting tons of lgbt stories! (I mean, pretty much anything that doesn’t require pants or being in public is amazing.) This is me when I had to get down to the library, print the search word “homosexuality” on the public computors and then go through a short and rarely updated list of books with a lot of unhappy endings and poorly written sex scene, barely worthy of the label smut:

So, my point with this is, and now I sound like old people: this almost unlimitied (depending on your web connection) vast number of fanfics people write for FREE, where lgbt characters - and other minorities - don’t have to be sidekicks, stereotyped, meet a tragic end or just end up being alone, closeted and/or heartbroken (yes, “Total Eclipse”, “Brokeback Mountain” and “Maurice”, I’m looking at you - I love you all, but you also broke my heart and I want my queers to be happy), is something we should cherish and be so damn grateful for. Before getting increadibly upset over poor representation (yes, that still exists, I would rather try gay conversional therapy than claim things are about as representative as they could be) and/or accusing shows, authors or fanfic writers for being - homophobes - not enough representative - too stereotype - biphobes (I’m bi and I’m frankly sick of people throwing that word around without real cause) - “ignoring” trans people (I’m intergender myself, by the way) - “ignoring” disabled people (I’m autistic) or whatever the fuck, please, please, PLEASE, remember this: We’re living in a pretty awful world for a lot of reasons and we all know Internet can be a pretty dark place that brings out the worst in some peopel, but one thing we have now, that we’ve had for a very short time in human history, is a platform where we can both be ourselves AND become someone else. It’s amazing. This. Is. AMAZING. We’re doing what Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist (Brokeback Mountain) and all the other lonely, closeted, scared and isolated queers (yes, I’m old and I use that word proudly ever since Russel T Davies’ Queer As Folk entered and changed my life in 1999) couldn’t. We have a real place now. Not just a single, lonely shelf in the libraries sexual medicine section and hidden shops who “someone who knew someone who knew someone” had heard about. And although we all should take responsibility for what we support and write (you know, like decent people should do with everything), no one has any right to demand or even expect authors on any level to write in a way that is perfectly balanced in representation on every single level. That’s crazy, you know.  We’re only humans and expecting people to make a proper (whatever that means) representation of all the different conditions the human race is living under, showing the “right kind” of and “right amount” of every race, colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion, age, family constellation and so on, expecting people to write for a greater cause and be aware of all things they may not experience at all, is not a good way to increase diversity or create a healthy environment for art, lust, imagination and creativity. We should always keep in mind how important diversity is, but I strongly feel that the best way to increase it, is for all our different groups of minorities, to take matters in our own hands. To use our lust to consume and create stories as a way to create our own place. And yes, I know the mainstreem media is slow as a damn slug on this and there is still so much work to do to bring stereotypes and poor representation to their knees. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, prejudices towards and lack of disabled characters in culture are our enemies and we should “crush them, see them driven before us (you)” and hear the lamentation of their troops. BUT. BUT. BUT: Winning the war of diversity is impossible if we march to battle against each other, if we waste our time and energy telling our fellow nerds (or the creators of the original works we use for our fanfics) that the stories and characters they create aren’t good enough, or worse: delberately excluding, when we don’t get what we want. Do I think people of colour are discriminated both when it comes to casting and character portraits? You bet your ass I do, and that’s not about feelings but simple facts. You just have to look at the number of people of colour living on planet Earth and compare that to the number being portraited in movies and shows to understand there’s a serious lack of representation.  As an autistic person, I have more difficulties than others to “put myself in someone elses shoes”, and I admit that’s probably one reason why I find it quite difficult to persuade my brain to write female characters, straight or lesbian characters, or characters that aren’t white.  I identify myself as white and I realise my difficulties with including people of colour, or reacting to lacking representation, is a weakness, not to mention both excluding and a sign of privilege. But it’s also a very typical picture of how the human brain works: it wants reckognition and confirmation. To constantly force our minds to go to battle, even in situations and activities we connect with relaxation, lust, safety and fun, is devestating for creativity and, in the long run, diversity. And I may sound both old, ignorant and narrowminded now, but I’d love for all of you smart, creative, aware and open-minded young people who makes old dragons like me discover so many layers of how discrimination and poor representation can be shown, that I had been unaware of, to remember this: Make sure that what you feel is homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, racism and so on, actually IS that, before you decide to shut down someone elses creation.  The need for more diversity, doesn’t give us the right to demand others creating it for us. We can ask, we can remind, we can make requests and we can spam social media with our ideas. We can boycott movies, shows and books that don’t satisfy our taste.  But the best way to increase diversity, to get the perspectives we miss, is to stop waiting for someone else to pick it up for us and then, when we pick it up ourselves, make something of it and, without accusations or insinuations, ask people to come out and play with us, and discover that perspective they didn’t see much or anything of before. Playing and imagining is the best way to take something to heart and doing it with others is increadible. Turning it into a demand, a preach, a duty, is the opposite of creativity and serves to make people feel inaccurate for not being able to live up to the ideal standards of diversity on all levels.  We’re humans, our perspectives are our own and we should remember that behind every pseudonym on tumblr or ao3, there’s an actual human being, trying to live his/her (and I don’t know the right pronomia for a third gender in English) life in a world that is a quite scary place - and some places are definately more scarier than others.  We are human beings. The fans, the fanfic writers, the fanfic readers, the fanart creators, the authors and actors behind our most beloved or our favourite “love-to-hate” characters.  Be angry, be furious, be fed up and be loud about stereotypes and lack of representation. We didn’t get this far by sitting quiet, smiling politely and be grateful. But also, be gentle. Be patient with yourself and others. The human heart is a quite heavy burden and the thing with diversity, the great, amazing thing about it, is that reading/hearing/seeing about things close to our own heart, can be used not to shut other people’s perspectives out, but to create a way to understand others too.  So please, know the difference between hating/discriminating/ignoring minorities in fanfics (and other media), and the very human trademark of simply having different tastes and interests, and always being closest to yourself. The weight of the world doesn’t belong on your shoulders.

[alcyone2305]

The Kings of Lucis - Kingsglaive (2/2)

After having tackled the Mystic, the Rogue and the Oracle, we’ll turn our attention to the remaining cast of Kings we are introduced to.

The Fierce

Oh boy, my favorite to be honest.

Mace of the Fierce A king was gentle before his people but an ogre on the battlefield. This was his mace. It deals crippling blows to mighty foes.

Please remember it says “but an ogre on the battlefield”.

(The object between the skyscrapers and beneath the Niffs ships.. That’s the mace, just saying. And look where it is going..)

(Right into the building, holy macaroni.)

He’s a fuckin’ beast, okay? He doesn’t give a damn about the buildings, tosses his maces as if it was a stick, gets shot by one of the Niflheim ships, warps up there, fucks them up, loses his arms (which wields the weapon) and still goes all out, punching and devastating the enemies. A real ogre, just as in the description. The Fierce is the only king we see dying. Or rather, his statue is defeated. His most prominent feature is the disc on his head. He gives no fucks about Insomnia. Or at least, the buildings. (I was legitimately scared of him when he rushed over the battlefield.)

The Wise

(From left to right: The Rogue, the Wise)

Sword of the Wise A king built a mighty wall and protected the realm. This was his sword. It devastates foes with pre-emptive warp-strikes.

This one was difficult. @tales-from-insomnia and I had to work a little bit and compare the hilt we see (first picture with the Wise) to all the other Royal Arms. Our conclusion: He wields the Sword of the Wise. We also don’t get to see him active in battle. He’s believed to be the first King. The many wings on his back are the most eyecatching part about him.

Unknown/Not Shown/etc.

(With me trying to explain why we didn’t get to see them? If I can explain it, obviously.)

Who’s that holding up the falling debris? We may never know.

(Right lower corner)

Same statue, just from different angles. I still assume it’s the Mystic, but the pillar should have something written in stone. Maybe the animators forgot to include the writing?

Axe of the Conqueror A king performed great feats of arms, expanded his realm and made his people prosper. This was his halberd. It wreaks havoc with slow but mighty blows.

Bow of the Clever A king was versed in myriad arts both martial and intellectual. This was his crossbow. The bearer skewers foes while flitting across the battlefield.

Swords of the Wanderer A king was quick like the wind and went where no man had gone before. These were his blades. Apart they rain fury - together they deliver thundering blows.

I’m not surprised this one isn’t included since he’s described as someone who travelled a lot.

Sword of the Tall A king was built like a mountain, towering over all others. This was his greatsword. The resonating blade rips and tears through foes.

Too big for the movie to handle?

Scepter of the Pious A king ruled the realm according to divine law and worked hand in hand with the Oracle. This was his staff. It smites foes with a blade of light.

Katana of the Warrior A king was changed forever when his beloved queen was taken from him prematurely. This was his katana. It is drawn and strikes in a single heartbeat.

Depending on how much he changed, maybe he disappeared which is why there’s no statue?

Shield of the Just A queen devoted herself to peace and was loved by all. This was her shield. It deflects and bolsters recovery when raised in defense.

Sword of the Father A king was father to the Chosen one, and nurtured the Light that would shine upon all creation. This was his mighty sword. It makes great greater.

Okay, Regis just recently died. I’m not surprised there isn’t a living statue with him on the same day he was murdered.

So why weren’t all the Kings shown? Well, can you imagine the clusterfuck of battles being even more.. clusterfuck-like? We got three or four statues fighting. Now imagine three or four times as much actors on the battle field. Holy damn. Maybe some were directly destroyed by the first attack? Maybe some were just too lazy to care. (We can’t deny they’re douchbags for not helping at first.)

Sadly, we will never know..

[canadian-buckbeaver]

Firdaus

@theshippingcharacter  - here is your wedding story I promised you!

http://archiveofourown.org/works/10096406 - leave me a kudos or comment if you enjoyed!

I remember the days were dust hung so thick in the air you could taste it on your tongue. Those days were bad, everyone unsure of their survival.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning. Many years ago, as these stories often begin, there was a great and violent war. This great war was the result of a rivalry between two clans. The two chiefs of either side, who looked identical enough to be called brothers, they both wished for the undeclared land called Firdaus. It was a beautiful land - lush forests dotted the landscape, wildflowers filled the air with their sweet scents, and gurgling clear streams peacefully cut through the land.

The two clans were desperate for this land, and declared it theirs. The Hebats said that it was surrounded by their hunting grounds while the Petani pointed out that the bushes infringed into their land. As a result the two skeletons, both with the same unusual cracks in their skulls, declared war on the other.

At first it seemed as if the Hebats had the advantage, they were the hunting clan. Well practiced in the art of blood and murder. There was in particular that these gentle monsters were told to watch out for. He was described to be unnaturally tall, with great jagged teeth and blood red eyes. It was rumoured that he even breathed fire. He was a fierce warrior, spreading dust and blood wherever he was seen. No one survived challenging him to a dual. They did not know his real name so the Petani came up with one for him. The called him the Great Demon.

The Petani soon showed that they weren't going down without a fight. They were clever folk, able to make deadly hidden traps. Hebats would be making their way to the border when the ground would give way, causing them to stumble and impale themselves on the spikes set up below.

And the war waged on. Neither side gave an inch of land. If one monster fell, there were two more to take their place on either side of war.

It seemed like it would drag on forever. Both sides immersed in the bloodshed and violence as the other.

That was until the Battle of Membaker. The Hebats had finally made their way into Petani territory, and began to raze the closest town. Unfortunately, the closest town proved to be Membaker, their Capital. The Petanis, fought back bravely, both their enemies and the raging flames.

The chieftain of the Petani has two children. One who was lazy but, once motivated, a deadly warrior. The other was an energetic ball of cuteness. One who wouldn't hurt a fly but dreamed of fighting in the Royal Guards himself, alongside his beloved older brother.

Their house was the first to go down to the flames.

The chieftain attempted to escape the inferno. Some say that he was trying to find a way to help his children escape as they too were trapped in the blaze. The pessimistic of the monsters shook their heads and said he left them there to die. Whatever his reasons, we shall never know. He perished in the fire.

The house was completely engulfed in flames, it seemed to be covered in it. Smoke filled the air as an older brother ran frantically through the house.

"BERRY!" He screamed. "BERRY! WHERE ARE YOU?" He heard a noise to the left of him and immediately shouldered open the door.

There were those familiar big blue eyes, watering due to the smoke. He had a rag over his mouth, trying to protect himself from the smoke.

The older brother, Paps, was almost not seen through the flames. His magic and clothes completely blended in with the smoke. "BERRY. COME ON LET'S GET OUT OF HERE." He yelled to be overheard by the flames. Paps stepped forward only to hear a loud crack.

Berry and him looking up, the ceiling above had cracked and splintered. With a sudden gasp, part of it gave way...

Landing on top of Paps.

With a panicked scream, Berry leaped from his hiding place, attempting to pull the burning rubble off of Paps. He managed by the smaller pieces but he couldn't manage the large.

"PLEASE! SOMEONE HELP ME!" He called out desperately, already smelling the rotten aroma of burning bones. "ANYBODY!!" he cried. His brother... his brother.

There was movement to the side of him. With a surprised gasp he turned towards it. The monster was jagged and tall, with whisping blood red eyes. Berry froze... it was the Great Demon.

The Demon towered over Berry, if Berry stood at just under five feet, the Demon was easily between six and seven. The other skeleton monster looked him over, carefully before moving quick towards him. He was as fast as the legends said he was. Berry flinched and froze his movements, closing his eyes against the attack, bracing for damage.

To his surprise none came.

Opening his eyes a tad, he was surprised to see the Demon beside him, pulling the larger pieces of roof off of Paps. Berry gasped and attempted to rack at the others, trying to free bits.

It took time as the fire crept closer to them, but even the Demon did not stop. Instead he frantically pulled and pushed until finally he reached in and grabbed a scorched looking Paps. "WHICH WAY TO THE EXIT?" He asked, swinging Paps' one arm over his shoulder, grabbing his hips with another clawed hand.

Berry looked at the door where Paps had come in. It was completely blocked off by debris and fire now. He instead came to the window, the Demon following closely. Pushing hard against the window, the entire frame popped out, showing a large drop between the floor they were on and the ground below. He gulped.

A hand suddenly grabbed him and he was pulled roughly against the hand's body. He gasped as he realized that it was the Demon that had pulled him tight against him. Paps he had maneuvered to hang off of his back, holding onto both hands in one of his - leaving one free for Berry.

The Demon stepped out onto the windowsill then, he jumped off.

Berry gave a yelp, feeling them all hurtle towards the ground. The Demon however was somehow able to twist and turn so, instead of ending up as a puddle of marrow and dust, they all landed safely.

The Demon quickly let Berry down and helped Paps lay down. Already the cool night air was beginning to revive him. "...nggh?..." he said, sounding more like himself now that they were out of the flames. He froze, staring at those red eyes.

"PAPS... HE SAVED US..." Berry told him, knowing exactly what was going on inside his brother's skull.

Paps stared a little more but sighed and broke eye contact. "I wasn't too hot to handle, was I?" He asked.

Berry groaned while the Demon scowled. "YOU'RE AS BAD AS MY BROTHER WITH THE DAMN PUNS." He muttered, looking away. He looked like he had suddenly given away an important secret. His sockets widened, his jaw dropped a little.

He sat for a bit like that before Berry turned to him. "ANYWAY TO GET HIM TO STOP?" He asked.

The Demon shrugged. "IF YOU DISCOVER HOW LET ME KNOW."

It was odd. He had always thought the Hebets to be violent, terrible monsters. But here... here he seemed 'normal'.

The Demon sighed and got up. "I SHOULD GO. THE REST OF YOUR CLAN WILL NOT TAKE SO KINDLY AS YOU HAVE." He gave a nod to the monsters, and even a wink to Berry, before he suddenly disappeared.

Paps looked at the other's retreating back before turning back to his brother. "i should hate him... but he saved us both...." he said with slight wonder. Berry nodded. "... besides did i sense sparks flying between the two of you?"

"PAPS!" Berry cried out, flushing bright blue.

* * * * * *

It turned out that, on that same night, the other chieftain died that night. A truce was called as rulers decided amongst themselves. Although Berry and Paps were the chieftain's heirs, he had not left the crown to them. Instead, his old friend and advisor, Toriel, was given that honour.

Once she was crowned she went to meet with the new ruler of Hebats. Asgore and her met on several occasions discussing a truce and the best way to divide this new land.

In the end, the land was not divided. Instead the rulers decided that, to ensure peace, that the chieftains' offspring shall marry, and the land be given to them to rule over.

Berry had been with Muffet in the kitchen when Toriel called for him. He knew what it was about. Kneeling to her, he bowed his head. "MY QUEEN," he said, "HOW CAN I SERVE YOU?"

Toriel asked him to rise. "Berry. As you know the late chieftains' kids shall marry and take control of Firdaus." Berry nodded and she continued. "Paps, I believe would be taken as an insult. Although a great fighter, he is lazy and often refuses commands if he does not believe them..."

"I understand my Queen," Berry said. "I shall marry."

* * * * * *

It was the day of the marriage. Berry looked himself over. He was extremely nervous. He and his soon-to-be mate never met face-to-face. Never had a date. And here he was, fusing over his clothes. For whatever reason, Toriel had insisted that Berry wear a dress.

Light pink in colour, it covered his chest in a sweet heart shape and drifted down in lacy ruffles from his waist.

A knock sounded on the dressing door and Paps poked his head in. Toriel had forced him into a tuxedo and the black fabric gleamed off his white bones. "are you ready?" He asked, handing Berry a bouquet of pink roses.

Berry sighed. "READY AS I'LL EVER BE."

Paps smiled. "You look great. I'm honoured to be giving you away." He clanked a soft kiss to Berry's forehead and he slipped the thick white veil over his skull. Berry wouldn't see his groom until he would lift the veil and kiss him, as was traditional for their arranged marriages.

* * * * *

For being a ‘small festival’, the church was completely full.  The new rulers were there, along with their respective mates and then there was the two courts that ‘needed’ to be in attendance.  Even at wedding, the power struggle was palpable.  And Berry was covered by a veil.

At his cue, Paps lead the blind Berry down the aisle.  Was it just Berry or was it longer than normal?  The walk seemed to take forever.

When Berry finally felt the end of the walk (that raised step did serve a purpose!) he was aware of Paps snickering.  “don’t worry,” he whispered to the blind Berry.  “i think i just may like this one.”  Paps had pressed a quick kiss to Berry’s cheek and had grabbed Berry’s hands, placing them in another monster’s.  Berry gulped.  This must be his soon-to-be mate’s.

“Dearly Beloved,” a robotic, calm and melodic voice said, “I, the wonderful Mettaton, am please to welcome you to the joining of these two clans, in holy matrimony…”

The voice continued on and on but Berry couldn’t hear it.  He was too busy concentrating on the monster’s hands.  He was sure that he had felt these hands before, but that was impossible.

“And now, with the final prayer, we invite the groom to gaze upon his bride for the first time…” Mettaton said.

‘This was it.’ Berry thought, as the monster dropped his hands, ‘this is the kiss.  I’ll finally see the monster that I have been shackled to.’

As the monster reached for the veil, Berry saw clawed phalanges.  It suited a member of the Hebats, Berry reasoned.  With a slight flick of its wrist, the veil was pulled back, and Berry was visible to the rest of the crowd, and the monster visible to Berry.

Familiar blood red eye lights stared back at Berry, set in a tall, pointed skull.  It was the Demon!

“Edge WingDings, do you take Berry McGaster to be your mate?  In sickness and in health?  War and peace?” a four armed red robot, Berry assumed to be Mettaton, asked the Great Demon… or Edge.

“I DO.” Edge said simply.

“Berry McGaster, do you take Edge WingDings to be your mate?  In sickness and in health?  War and peace?”

Berry gulped.  “I-I DO…” he stuttered out, flushing as he saw Edge raise an invisible brow at the stutter.

“Then it is by the marvelous power invested in me that I, the Great Mettaton, Supreme Prince of Entertainment, do pronounce these two, mates for life.  You may now kiss the bride.”  Mettaton said, striking a victorious pose with two of his hands on his hips, and two in the sky.

Before Berry could say anything, a gentle hand nudged his skull upwards, and Edge’s teeth met his.  Sparks flew between them as they kissed, causing them both to softly moan into the kiss.  Both sounds drowned out by the sounds of celebrating monsters.

Finally.  Finally the rivalry was over!

* * * * *

It was after the celebrations and Berry was carefully preparing for bed.  The celebrations had been fantastic.  Plenty of food from both regions, the music was wonderful, and there was plenty of cake and other sweets to go around.  Berry, if he hadn’t been stuck in the dress for the entire celebration, would have forgotten that it was a wedding.  Now the party was over, everyone had gone home…

Including Berry and his new groom.

Berry wasn’t sure what to think about that term.  Groom.  Husband.  Mate.  After all, this was their first official meeting.

And their first night together.

Berry felt a little terrified.  The other monsters would be expecting something to happen between the two of them.  What if he wasn’t ready for this?  Indeed it was supposed to be a political union over a romantic but Berry had always hoped for love.  What if Edge didn’t feel anything towards him?  He would have failed his clan and…

“WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT THERE, BERRY?” a usually loud voice whispered in his ear.  Berry gave a little shriek but was pulled into a dark lap before he could escape.  Edge looked down at him with those red eyes.  “I DID ASK YOU SOMETHING…” prodded Edge.

Berry shook his skull “N-n-nothing! Really!” he said, flushing even deeper when he felt a large hand move to his inner thigh and Edge pressed himself closer to him.

“IS THAT SO?” Edge asked, gently stoking the leg.  “THAT’S A LITTLE DISAPPOINTING… I WAS HOPING YOU HAD SOME IDEAS ABOUT TONIGHT, MY BEAUTIFUL BLUSHING BRIDE…”

Before Berry could say anything else, Edge pulled Berry’s face towards him for a clanking kiss.  A soft hand traced his spine and began fondling where the spine met the pelvis.  As Berry gasped into the kiss, Edge turned him around to face him, pulling his femurs apart, and settling their pelvises together.  As he deepened the kiss, Edge began to gently rub their pelvises together.  Berry gasped into the stimulation and Edge took this moment to nip Berry’s neck.

At a particular firm stroke to Berry’s spine, a bright blue glow was seen coming from the pelvis, not even hidden by the pink dress.  Edge looked far too smug as he gently tugged the dress from his bones, completely exposing Berry and his half-formed blue erection to him.

Berry gulped and looked away nervously as Edge looked his offering over.  Once again, those evil doubting thoughts plagued his mind.  Would Edge find him lacking?  He startled when a gentle hand turned his head to face again.  Edge gently stroked his cheekbone.  “BEAUTIFUL.” Edge simply said, diving in for another kiss.  Just as Berry began to really enjoy the kiss, Edge pulled away from him, pushing him down onto their ‘shared’ bed.

“Mrhm… Wait!”  Berry cried out, managing to push Edge back the smallest bit.  To his credit he was patient, having stopped his movements immediately and was staring down at the little skeleton.  “Don’t… don’t you think this is a little weird?” asked Berry.  “We didn’t know each other outside of battle or the blaze and now, here we are, married?  You must be missing out on something, someone.”  He finished.  Here Berry was, giving Edge an out if he wanted one.

Edge could only chuckle at that.  Berry was indeed the sweetest monster he had ever met.

“JUST YOU,” admitted Edge, pressing his body closer to the other’s.  “I RECEIVED SAY IN WHO I WAS GOING TO MARRY.  AND THERE WAS NO WAY IN HELL THAT I WAS GOING TO MARRY YOUR BROTHER IF YOU WERE AVAILABLE.” Edge finished, pressing in for another hard, fast kiss.

Before he could whimper, Edge ran his teeth down Berry’s vertebrae, planting gently kisses to each of the bone.  Soft moans escaped Berry’s mouth.  He had not expected the sharp toothed, red-eyed skeleton to be so gentle, seemingly so caring towards him.  Berry could feel his erection finishing forming and lengthen.  Still Edge was not finished with him.  Running his warm wet tongue down Berry’s sternum, he took his time to pluck and stroke those tender ribs.

It felt so good.  But Berry couldn’t just lay there on the mattress!  That just wasn’t right.  As Edge slowly clinked gently kisses down his spine, Berry sat up on the bed.  To Edge’s cocked eyebrow, Berry began kissing down Edge’s own vertebrae, even suckling on the jutting bones. Edge groaned, stopping his own ministrations to thoroughly enjoy what was being done to him.  Berry had just closed his teeth gently over Edge clavicle when the taller monster, pushed Berry down on the mattress, wrapping his mouth and tongue around Berry’s leaking cock.  Berry shrieked.  He had not been expecting this and, having never done it before, he hadn’t been sure what to expect from it.  Without knowing, he began to thrust his pelvis deeper into Edge’s mouth, looking for more of that pleasure.

Edge had allowed it for some time before he grabbed and pushed down on Berry’s pelvis, trapping him to the bed.  Berry had no time to bite down a whimper though as Edge lubricated a single finger and pressed it into his puckered entrance.  He yelped, sockets widening.  It felt wrong, it felt intrusive, but it also felt so right!  Edge carefully thrust his finger in and out of Berry, watching the facial expressions he made.  When he determined him ready, he added a second finger, and then a third, all wet and stretching him out.

Berry withered around on the bed.  The three fingers had all too quickly become too little stimulus for him.  “More… please, Edge, more…” he said, with a small groan.  

With a small careful smile, Edge removed his shirt and pulled off his pants.  His red cock was completely erect and weeping, already primed and ready for Berry.  Before any of them could think clearly, Edge pressed himself inside the skeleton, rubbing against Berry’s erection as he pushed through.  Berry gave a whine, Edge being much bigger and thicker than he had thought originally.

Once he was finally sheathed inside of him, Edge gave both himself and Berry and moment to adjust to their new positions.  After Berry gave a flushed nod, Edge pulled out carefully and pressed inside again, causing them both to cry out.  Another thrust followed the first and then another.

Soon Edge was driving with a steady pace into the small skeleton.  “NGH… TIGHT…” he whispered with pleasure, readjusting the way Berry’s hips were propped on the mattress, allowing him to drive deeper.  The both of them were moaning scandalously then, both enthralled with the other’s body and what they could do with it.

All too soon, Edge felt himself get closer and closer to that heavenly release.  But Berry, he was unsure where Berry was with his pleasure.  Was he close to finishing like Edge, or did he still have some time to go before he finished?

He reached down and gently pulled and tugged on Blue’s erection.  “SCREAM FOR ME BERRY.” he ordered.

And Berry, never one to fail an order, did.

His head thrown back, eye lights turned into little hearts, as this entrance clamped down around Edge, Berry’s own load spraying against Edge’s spine and ribs.  Edge came inside of Berry, watching enthralled as his fluids were captured by the little parts of Berry’s ectobody that had formed.

Edge pulled out and off of him, panting happily.

A heavy weight rolled on top of him.

Snapping his eyes open he saw that it was Berry.  “My turn…” he simply said, rubbing at Edge’s pelvis, encouraging the magical organ to stay and reform.

Edge smirked.  It seemed like he and Asgore had picked his perfect mate after all... In more than one way~

* * * * *

And that is the story of the bloody formation of Firdaus and, after eight months and two weeks had passed after it’s declaration as a state, Max the Magnificent Dictator was born to Edge and Berry, the King and Queen of the state.  The two clans kept their peace, and the economy flourished between the three states.  

And they lived happily ever after…

The end.

[mianmimi]

Ficlet: The Skeptic

I come bearing a little ficlet!

http://archiveofourown.org/works/9908888

Or if you prefer, just read it off here ^^

You know who wanted a silly ficlet where Wong tells Mordo’s fortune? No one ^^ But I wrote it anyways.

Warnings: references to future mpreg; soulmate au; out of character-ness at the end cause I’m feeling silly ___________________________________

“There is no such thing as love at first sight,” Mordo stressed the ‘no’ as he snapped the book shut. He was growing more irritated by this discussion, “It’s a poisonous fairytale that needs to stop.”

Wong merely opened another book and propped it up in response. The page depicted old inscriptions that declared, in fact, that falling for the love of your life at first sight was a highly unlikely occurrence. Unlikely but not impossible.

He flipped open the other books that were sprawled across the massive desk. The pages spoke of soulmates, love finding spells, and even a few that had fortune telling instructions specifically for romance.

“There.” Wong swept his arms over the evidence, “Facts.”

“Love is a conscious decision. It’s not some random impulse nor is it dictated by fate.” Mordo said with finality, “Love is always a choice. Never chance.”

Wong shrugged, completely unconvinced by his friend’s shewed logic.

“Thinking in absolutes only limits your reach,” Wong gave a small, knowing smirk, “And for a man who mocks the idea? You will probably end up head over heels and flat on your face in love one day.”

“And what makes you so convinced of that?”

“Because the biggest skeptics make the strongest converts,” Wong spoke as if it was the most basic truth known to mankind, “And at this rate you are only tempting fate.”

“I can assure you, I have no plans to partake in such utter nonsense,” Mordo sighed and shook his head at the absurdity of it all. He would never be so undignified as to fall blindly into anything, much less something as fleeting as romance.

“You know, my late grandmother was a renowed matchmaker. She was a strong skeptic herself until she found out her predictions came true. That woman had flawless intuition.”

Mordo heard stories of Wong’s grandmother. By all accounts she was a sweet, demure, sorceress who could strike down men twice her size while bouncing her grandchildren in one arm.

“She could look at a crowded festival and pick out soulmates effortlessly, even if the couple never met yet. Of course she used a few spells for confirmation but it was mostly her own talent that brought people together. Many would travel from afar just to have her find their soulmates.”

“And do you suppose you have such a gift?” Mordo asked though he really just wanted the discussion to change into something else without offending his friend.

“I’ve dabbled,” Wong replied. He raised an eyebrow with a smile. “Would you indulge me a bit?”

Before Mordo could object, Wong opened the desk drawer and pulled out an old, leather bound book, a small silver bowl, and a wooden box.

“I find it very suspicious that you would have all of that ready at a moment’s notice.”

“Come now. What would you have to lose if this is, as you called it, nonsense?”

“My credibly as a serious practioner of the mystic arts?” Mordo replied, “And what would the students think?”

“They would think nothing of it. They should be in their rooms. Curfew hours started an hour ago. We must go to the courtyard for this,” Wong gathered his materials and nodded towards the empty space. “Grandmother said it’s best to do this with the stars as witness.”

“Very well,” Mordo said, following his friend.

His own footsteps were reluctant but the boots it seemed, were extremely excited to go. They nearly tripped over each other in their haste to enter the courtyard, tiny yellow sparks springing out as they rushed forward.

“Behave you two. Don’t get any ideas,” Mordo scolded lightly. “I’m only doing this as a favor for Wong. He ever barely asks for anything, seems selfish to deny him something so simple.”

The boots tightened softly in response, like a child squeezing a parent’s hand for reassurance.

“I know,” Mordo said, his tone gentle now as he tapped the tops of the boots, “Now let’s get this done. I still have to polish you both afterwards.”

The promise of a good, well earned polish made the boots hasten their stride, though with much more finese and dignity than before.

Wong lead them to the middle of the courtyard. A silvery full moon ruled that night, and the stars were scattered thick against the sky. Wong knelt down and arranged the materials carefully on the ground. He motioned Mordo to kneel likewise. He pulled an ornate cloth from the wooden box for Mordo to rest his knees on.

“For the one getting their fortune told,” Wong explained.

The skeptic watched as his friend opened the box completely to reveal several small candles. There were runes etched around each candle, some of which Mordo recognized from the books Wong showed him. The silver bowl was placed down next.

“Fill the bowl with water in whatever way you want. Spell or by hand. You must also choose a candle and light that as you wish as well. Don’t think about it too much. This is crucial.”

For a sorcerer who usually calculated every decision, that was no easy task. Using spells would be far quicker. He could get this over with in no time and never have to deal with it again. Yet glancing at Wong he felt guilty for trying to rush something that his friend was obviously invested in.

He chose a candle at random and was surprised at how intricately the runes covered the entire surface of it. It was rough and riddled with deep cuts, as if whoever designed the candle was in a foul mood that day.

He lit the candle with a spell. The flame flashed green and yellow before settling into a steady, red glow with a golden core. He placed the candle carefully on the ground, using a simple spell to keep it from toppling over.

For the silver bowl, he decided to fill the water by hand. If anything to show Wong that he wasn’t trying to hurry the alledged ritual. He went to a nearby pond for the water, not failing to see Wong’s amused gaze when he came back.

“Alright,” Mordo said as he placed the silver bowl before them. “What’s next?”

“The order and manner in which you fulfilled my instructions revealed many things. The candle represents your past,” Wong explained. “It’s complicated, full of wounds you still carry. You lit the candle with magic, signifying that you come from a family which practices the mystic arts.”

Wong took the candle and lifted it above the bowl.

“The green and yellow flash when you lit the candle are unfortunate signs,” Wong said. He looked at Mordo with genuine concern, “And I’m truly sorry you had to endure what you did.”

Mordo gave no response. His family history was a public secret, something everyone knew of but didn’t openly acknowledge. He was grateful for that. To have it brought up in such a manner as this ritual unnerved him. He couldn’t bring himself to hold it against Wong however.

“But what really matters now is the future,” Wong continued.“The water in the silver bowl represents your beloved’s background. And it’s…ugh…”

Wong stared at the water for an uncomfortably long time.

“What is it?” Mordo asked, peering into the water himself to see what was so fascinating.

“You’ll come from very different backgrounds. They’ll come from a family that works with their hands, a livelihood closely tied to the earth. No magic involved. No noble blood. But your beloved will take his own path.”

“His?”

Wong ignored him and kept staring into the water.

“He’s exceptionally kind, though it’s rarely seen. He’s stubborn, like the earth his family tends. Hmm, water seems to be a very painful element in his life.”

The wax rolled off slowly and dragged against the runes. Wong tilted the candle, allowing the softened wax to drip into the water.

“Let’s see what happens when you both meet,” Wong said.

As the wax hit the water, a soft golden shimmer rippled across the surface. Each drop swirled and formed various vague shapes Mordo couldn’t quite define. Wong took out the small leather bound book and flipped through the pages.

“Forgive me, I’ve been out of practice.” Wong said as he tried to match the drawings in the book with the shapes within the water.

Mordo waited nervously, glancing around to see if anyone was around to see them. They must look so foolish, like those younger, siller recruits who thought they could see their futures inside crystal balls. Or worse, those flighty school children who used paper fortune tellers for amusement.

“Either I’m really horrible at this or your great love is a real peice of work, a very strange man it seems.”

“What do you mean?”

Wong motioned for him to look at the shapes. He wasn’t even sure exactly what he was supposed to be inspecting. The wax sitting in the water looked like an absolute mess.

“Between you two there’ll be much of chaos, conflict, and pain. Plenty of self-inflicted denial and sufferring-”

“I thought this was about a potential lover? You’re describing something more like an enemy! Does this mysterious man at least listen? Does what he’s told?”

Wong laughed loudly and shook his head.

“Not in the very least. He’s got a mind of his own. I’m sorry my friend, but it seems your beloved will You will contrast each other in countless ways. He’ll have the qualities you lack. It’ll be infuriating at first but see here?” Wong pointed to where the wax softened in the water, “With time, It’ll work out. You will compromise for his sake. He’ll soften the armor around your heart. He will be your deepest joy and greatest weakness.”

“There’s no way I could ever love someone like that.”

Mordo’s eyes narrowed, his lips pulled back in a skeptical scowl. Such a thing would never, by all the spells and magic in the world, ever happen. No one had the power to make him that vulnerable.

“It’s simply impossible,” Mordo said. Before he could continue, another voice interrupted him.

“Only a fool would reject the impossible.”

“The Ancient One!” Mordo gulped. Out of all the people to appear, of course it had to be the Sorceress Supreme. How was he going to explain this? Or perhaps he should just immediately apologize for this mockery of magic? Or maybe he should be sorry for acting so juvenile? But he didn’t want to make it seem like Wong was completely at fault either-

“Oh I haven’t seen this sort of reading in years. How wonderful!”

The Ancient One joined them gracefully on the ground, kneeling before the silver bowl and smiling at what she found.

Both men glanced at each other nervously, then at the bowl, then back to the Sorceress Supreme. She was looking rather amused, her eyes sparkling with a bit of mischief in the candlelight.

“Sadly such practices haven’t been popular in recent years,” she hovered her hands above the water. “It’s a beautiful art form. I’m so delighted that you’ve preserved the materials required for it, Master Wong.”

Mordo was at a loss for words, his eyes widened with dread as The Ancient One reached for the candle.

“May I?”

With awful anticipation Mordo watched as she inspected the water and candle.

“Master Wong was correct,” The sorceress said as she allowed the wax to roll off into the bowl, “You and your love have suffered alone in your past. In your future, you’ll bear suffereing together.”

Mordo wasn’t comforted by that at all, although his teacher looked extremely pleased.

“Oh, he’s also rather tall. Taller than you, though not by much. Physically, you’re far stronger than him,” She laughed softly and glanced at Mordo, “Fear not. He’s not a fragile thing. He’ll gladly take everything you can give.”

This simply wasn’t happening. Mortofied and humiliated beyond belief, Mordo wanted nothing more than to sink into the ground and disappear. Wong, to his credit, was able to supress a chuckle.

“You always were fond of blue,” The Ancient said, “You won’t be able to take your eyes off his. Oh! Look here.”

She pointed at a silvery shape that wisped away beneath her touch.

“He’s going to be a talkative one. Insatiable in his curiousity and questions. I suggest you enjoy your peaceful days, Master Mordo.This soulmate of yours will keep you on your toes.”

“Soulmate?” Mordo felt the blood drain from his face.

“Well of course. Didn’t you notice the flame? Though I can’t really scold you for not recognizing it immediately. It’s rarely seen.”

She handed the candle to a petrified Mordo.

“You see? There’s a steady red glow with an immovable golden core. And right at the center, you can see a rune. This man is your soulmate. For better or worse. Now isn’t that lovely?”

It didn’t sound lovely at all. The prospect sounded absolutely, undeniably, terrifying! Suddenly Mordo felt dizzy, disoriented, like he’d been thrown into another dimension with no way to escape.

“Oh, what’s this?”

The Ancient One blinked as the silver bowl glistened. A slow smile spread through her ethereal face, then she threw back her head and laughed.

“I hope four is a good number Mordo,” She rose up and quickly opened a fan to hide her face which had gone bright pink from her laughter, “By the Vashanti, who would have thought?”

The Sorceress Supreme tried to compose herself as she strolled away. Wong grabbed the silver bowl and stuck his face close to the surface of the water, trying to see what could have caused her to react that way.

“What does she mean?” The sorcerer poked at the water, “Four of what?”

From the distance, The Ancient One called out, her voice bright and lively.

“I suggest you keep a sling ring with you at all times, Master Mordo. Your dear soulmate will be exceptionally demanding once his cravings hit.”

“What does that mean?” Mordo demanded, nearly shoving Wong out of the way to peer into the bowl himself, “That can’t mean children! That would be absurd! How am I going to look after four children? It’s too dangerous for that. And how is their–mother? How is he going to survive in our world without magic?”

Mordo dropped the candle to the ground. He placed his aching head in his hands.

“I thought this was all rubbish?” Wong said with a smug smile.

“It was!” Mordo said, waving a hand towards the direction The Ancient One walked off to, “Until she said otherwise.”

And who was he to question the predictions of the Sorceress Supreme?

In a sudden burst of rare panic Mordo grabbed the leather book and began to skim through its pages.

“Can you at least see what the children will be like? They’re going to learn magic, no compromises! I’ll teach them. What if they need to escape? I’ll need to find the smallest sling ring sizes for them, teach them the safest places to go, defense spells-”

Wong could only laugh at his friend’s frantic planning over children he never would have thought of that morning, or a soulmate he didn’t expect to exist.

Indeed it was true. Skeptics do make the best converts.

A/N: Four means the number of kids. Yes, I went there XD If anyone wants a follow up where Mordo is running around trying to find the food Stephen’s craving for, let me know. In the mean time, we’ll return to your regularly scheduled angst in a bit. Omegaverse bug bit me hard…so that may be the next thing I pick at XD

[networkingdefinition]

Roots Quotes

Official Website: Roots Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push(); • A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. – Marcus Garvey • A person with faith does not question its roots, for he knows that if he subjected it to the critical examination of his intellect, he would end up without faith. The same thing can be said of any feeling. You can analyze any feeling to death, but when you do that, you end up without feeling and without a meaninful life. – Alexander Lowen • A real foolproof way to do it is play your stuff by hook or by crook and build up a grass roots following – Duncan Sheik • A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.- Amelia Earhart • A singular fact about modern war is that it takes charge. Once begun it has to be carried to its conclusion, and carrying it there sets in motion events that may be beyond men’s control. Doing what has to be done to win, men perform acts that alter the very soil in which society’s roots are nourished. – Bruce Catton • A society which abandons children and the elderly severs its roots and darkens its future. – Pope Francis • A tree is a self: it is ‘unseen shaping’ more than it is leaves or bark, roots or cellulose or fruit … What this means is that we must address trees as we must address all things, confronting them in the awareness that we are in the presence of numinous mystery. – Brian Swimme • A tree is alive, and thus it is always more than you can see. Roots to leaves, yes-those you can, in part, see. But it is more-it is the lichens and moss and ferns that grow on its bark, the life too small to see that lives among its roots, a community we know of, but do not think on. It is every fly and bee and beetle that uses it for shelter or food, every bird that nests in its branches. Every one an individual, and yet every one part of the tree, and the tree part of every one. – Elizabeth Moon • A tree nowhere offers a straight line or a regular curve, but who doubts that root, trunk, boughs, and leaves embody geometry? – George Iles • A tree root won’t get into your sewer line unless there’s something already wrong with your sewer line. I know most people don’t want to hear that, but it’s true – Thomas J. Hylton • A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can’t grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon.- Dalai Lama • A tree without roots is just a piece of wood. – Marco Pierre White • Amid all change, we desire something permanent; amid all variety, something stable; amid all progress, some central unity of life; something which deepens as we ascend; which roots itself as we advance; which grows more and more tenacious of the old, while becoming more and more open to the new. – James Freeman Clarke • Among the great struggles of man-good/evil, reason/unreason, etc.-there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey. – Salman Rushdie • An illuminating read for every classical scholar engaged with the current quest for the subject’s roots, and the excavation of the way that it has evolved over the past century and a half. – Edith Hall • Anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jew by the Jewish group. This is a normal social reaction. The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world… the root cause is their use of enemies they create in order to keep solidarity. – Albert Einstein • Are you becoming more sweet-spirited, more like Jesus? Are you looking soberly in the mirror each day and praying, ‘Lord, I want to conform to Your image in every area of my life’? Or has your bitterness taken root, turning into rebellion and hardness of heart? Have you learned to shield yourself from the convicting voice of God’s Spirit? – David Wilkerson • Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. None of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence. – Robert Henri • As a tree, even though it has been cut down, is firm so long as its root is safe, and grows again, thus, unless the feeders of thirst are destroyed, the pain (of life) will return again and again. – Max Muller • At root, a pearl is a ‘disturbance’ a beauty caused by something that isn’t supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion. … The pearl’s beauty is made as a result of insult. – Julia Cameron • At the root of all the varied manifestations of dancing, lies the common impulse to resort to movement to externalize emotional states which we cannot extemalize by rational means. – Jamake Highwater • Audrey Auld is a great singer songwriter. She holds a unique place in contemporary Americana/Roots music. I believe that this uniqueness is largely due to the fact that she is Australian. This affords her a totally different attitude as an artist than traditional American contributors to this genre. Audrey is one of the most honest original artists I know. – Fred Eaglesmith

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'roots', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_roots').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_roots img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Becoming rich isn’t as much about getting rich financially as about whom you become, in character and mind, to get rich. I want to share a secret with you that few people know: the fastest way to get rich and stay rich is to work on developing you! The idea is to grow yourself into a successful person. Again, your outer world is merely a reflection of your inner world. You are the root; your results are the fruits. – T. Harv Eker • Belief is like plastic flowers, which look like flowers from far away. Trust is real rose. It has roots, and roots go deep into your heart and into your being. – Rajneesh • Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there; From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear. The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with metry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night; The shaking of its leafy head Has given the waves their melody, And made my lips and music wed, Murmuring a wizard song for thee. – William Butler Yeats • But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish desires and schemes that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For love of money is the root of all of evil and some having pursued its power, fall from faith and end in sorrow. – Saint Timothy • But we need to pray daily for humility and honesty to see these sinful attitudes for that they really are, and then for grace and discipline to root them out of our minds and replace them with thoughts pleasing to God. – Jerry Bridges • Cal says that humans are made from the nuclear ash of dead stars. He says that when I die, I’ll return to dust, glitter,rain. If thats true, I want to be buried right here under this tree. Its roots will reach into the soft mess of my body and suck me dry. I’ll be re-formed as apple blossom. I’ll drift down in the spring like confetti and cling to my family’s shoes. They’ll carry me in their pockets to help them sleep. What dreams will they have then? – Jenny Downham • Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots. – Victor Hugo • Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues. – Thomas Aquinas • Choices are at the root of every one of your results. – Darren Hardy • Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all stem from the same Abrahamic roots. All three reject terrorism. – H. John Poole • Civilization has its roots in the soil. – Charles Kellogg • Courage lies in being oneself, in showing complete independence, in loving what one loves, in discovering the deep roots of one’s feelings. – Fernand Pouillon • Covetousness like jealousy, when it has taken root, never leaves a person, but with their life. Cowardice is the dread of what will happen. – Epictetus • Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is ‘to fit together’ and we all do this every day.- Corita Kent • Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots. – Frank A. Clark • Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light. – Theodore Roethke • dive for dreams or a slogan may topple you (trees are their roots and wind is wind) trust your heart if the seas catch fire (and live by love though the stars walk backward) honour the past but welcome the future (and dance your death away at this wedding) never mind a world with its villains or heroes (for god likes girls and tomorrow and the earth) – e. e. cummings • Do you know that the words meditation and medicine come from the same root? Meditation is a kind of medicine; its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Only when you are meditative twenty-four hours a day then can you attain, then you have attained. Even sleeping is meditation. – Rajneesh • Do you know, that is the root of the whole trouble – has been one of the roots at any rate – is people hearing things and then imagining some more and magnifying it and multiplying it.- John Harvey Kellogg • Don’t over-analyze your marriage; it’s like yanking up a fragile indoor plant every 20 minutes to see how its roots are growing. – Ogden Nash • Don’t put down too many roots in terms of a domicile. I have lived in four countries and I think my life as a writer and our family’s life have been enriched by this. I think a writer has to experience new environments. There is that adage: No man can really succeed if he doesn’t move away from where he was born. I believe it is particularly true for the writer. – Arthur Hailey • Drawing is the root of everything. – Vincent Van Gogh • Duality is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts. All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political, or social conviction may contain us. We have to abandon such concepts as ‘enlightenment’, ‘the nature of the mind’, and so on, until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence. – Namkhai Norbu • Every forest branch moves differently in the breeze, but as they sway they connect at the roots. – Rumi • Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential dearth in which its subject’s roots are plunged. The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters. – Henry James, Sr. • Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness! This is the state of man: today he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And – when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening – nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. – William Shakespeare • Fear is the root of all courage. – Vivian Stanshall • Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. – George Washington Carver • For a tree to become tall it must grow tough roots among the rocks. – Friedrich Nietzsche • For our personal advancement in virtue and truth one quality is sufficient, namely, love; to advance humanity there must be two, love and intelligence; to accomplish the Great Work there must be three love, intelligence, and activity. And yet love is ever the root and the source. – Louis Claude de Saint-Martin • For this purpose was I born, let all virtuous people understand. I was born to advance righteousness, to emancipate the good, and to destroy all evil-doers root and branch. – Guru Gobind Singh • Forgiveness of sin strikes the root of all pain. – T. B. Joshua • Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth. – Liu Xiaobo • From a family tree that has healthy roots, there emerge hearty leaves and most beautiful fruits. – Wes Fesler • General principles… are to the facts as the root and sap of a tree to its leaves. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Give the ones you love wings to fly, roots to come back and reasons to stay. – Dalai Lama • Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what’s been taught them. – Jonas Salk • How deep congenital sex-inversion roots may be gathered from the fact that the pleasure-dream of the male Urning has to do with male persons, and of the female with females. – Richard von Krafft-Ebing • How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold. – William Wordsworth • Human hopes and human creeds; have their root in human needs. – Eugene Fitch Ware • Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. – Andrew Murray • I am proud of my black roots and of the black blood that runs in my veins. – Ryan Giggs • I am sometimes asked, ‘Why do you spend so much of your time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men?’ I answer: ‘I am working at the roots.’ – George Thorndike Angell • I believe it is important for the university to always remember its roots. – Michael N. Castle • I believe the root of all happiness on this earth to lie in the realization of a spiritual life with a consciousness of something wider than materialism; in the capacity to live in a world that makes you unselfish because you are not overanxious about your own comic fallibilities; that gives you tranquility without complacency because you believe in something so much larger than yourself. – Hugh Walpole • I believe we are a species with amnesia, I think we have forgotten our roots and our origins. I think we are quite lost in many ways. And we live in a society that invests huge amounts of money and vast quantities of energy in ensuring that we all stay lost. A society that invests in creating unconsciousness, which invests in keeping people asleep so that we are just passive consumers or products and not really asking any of the questions.- Graham Hancock • I came into the world charged with the duty to uphold the right in every place, to destroy sin and evil… the only reason I took birth was to see that righteousness may flourish, that good may live, and tyrants be torn out by their roots. – Guru Gobind Singh • I can say-not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological , ethical, political and esthetic roots-that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.- Ayn Rand • I can’t multiply myself out of a paper bag. But when it comes to roots, I’m your man. – Jerry Newport • I don’t claim to know an over-arching ‘Meaning of Life,’ but I do operate under the understanding that life should not be lived under the pretense that it is simply a test propagated by an invisible, intangible, Creator-God. And it should not be spent identifying with religious traditions and organized groups that, historically, have been at the root of a tremendous amount of oppression and violence. – David G. McAfee • I feel like I’m a fighter. I’ve fought my whole life to get to where I’m at. I like fight movies. When someone gets knocked down, I like to root for him to succeed. – Ricky Schroder • I hunt everywhere for a life worth living and a knowledge worth knowing. Having roots nowhere, I have everywhere to go. – Elif Safak • I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil. Great art is like a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a trunk, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own. The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature. This is the secret of primitive art and also of the art of the mastersMichelangelo, Czanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican. – Diego Rivera • I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. – John Muir • I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong–Mother Nature’s fist of fury, Gaia’s stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own. – James Wolcott • I think it is important to maintain your personality, your roots, very important. – Paz Vega • I think that everything I do tends to root for the underdog. – Judd Apatow • I view Witchcraft as a religion that has evolved over the centuries. I do not consider Witchcraft to be a modern invention. Instead I deal with it in my writings as a Mystery Tradition with long roots to the past. It has always been my position that we don’t need an ancient tradition in order to be validated. We just happen to have one. – Raven Grimassi • I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy. Democrats have strong moral values. Frankly, my moral values are offended by some of the things I hear on programs like “Rush Limbaugh,” and we don’t have to put up with that. – Howard Dean • If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. – John F. Kennedy • If busyness can become a kind of violence, we do not have to stretch our perception very far to see that Sabbath time – effortless, nourishing rest – can invite a healing of this violence. When we consecrate a time to listen to the still, small voices, we remember the root of inner wisdom that makes work fruitful. We remember from where we are most deeply nourished, and see more clearly the shape and texture of the people and things before us. – Wayne Muller • If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they’d realize that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose. – Sean O’Casey • If there is to be an ecologically sound society, it will have to come the grass roots up, not from the top down. – Paul Hawken • Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil. – Plato • I’ll never forget where I’m from, never forget my roots. It doesn’t matter where I live. I’m English, simple as that. – David Beckham • I’m convinced that FEAR is at the root, of all bad writing – Stephen King • Imagination is a tree. It has the integrative virtues of a tree. It is root and boughs. It lives between earth and sky. It lives in the earth and the wind. The imagined tree imperceptibly becomes a cosmological tree, the tree which epitomises a universe, which makes a universe. – Gaston Bachelard • In almost every musical ever written, there’s a place that’s usually about the third song of the evening – sometimes it’s the second, sometimes it’s the fourth, but it’s quite early – and the leading lady usually sits down on something; sometimes it’s a tree stump in Brigadoon, sometimes it’s under the pillars of Covent Garden in My Fair Lady, or it’s a trash can in Little Shop of Horrors… but the leading lady sits down on something and sings about what she wants in life. And the audience falls in love with her and then roots for her to get it for the rest of the night. – Howard Ashman • In an old song the Mother sings: ‘My sleeping is my dreaming, my dreaming is my thinking, my thinking is my wisdom.’ She is the bed we are born in, in which we sleep and dream, where we are healed, love and die. In her wisdom we remember day’s broken images and carry them down into dreams where their motions roll into shadows and root, growing into stories. – Meinrad Craighead • In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us – that we be men and women of prayer, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace. We have that peace when the gracious God is all we seek. When we start seeking something besides Him, we lose it. – Brennan Manning • In every forest, on every farm, in every orchard on earth, it’s what’s under the ground that creates what’s above the ground. That’s why placing your attention on the fruits that you have already grown is futile. You cannot change the fruits that are already hanging on the tree. You can, however, change tomorrow’s fruits. But to do so, you will have to dig below the ground and strengthen the roots. – T. Harv Eker • In spite of my great admiration for individual splendid talents I do not accept the star system. Collective creative effort is the root of our kind of art. That requires ensemble acting and whoever mars that ensemble is committing a crime not only against his comrades but also against the very art of which he is the servant. – Constantin Stanislavski • In the NFL game today, there are a lot of better athletes than I am, and quarterbacks these days are faster than the quarterbacks have always been, they’re running like crazy. But I kind of stick to my roots of the disciplined quarterback. You know, I’m doing the same routine every week, studying tapes and working hard, getting ready to play and making good decisions on Sundays. – Peyton Manning • In the Old Testament…God is the owner of the vineyard. Here He is the Keeper, the Farmer, the One who takes care of the vineyard. Jesus is the genuine Vine, and the Father takes care of Him…In the Old Testament it is prophesied that the Lord Jesus would grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground. Think how often the Father intervened to save Jesus from the devil who wished to slay Him. The Father is the One who cared for the Vine, and He will care for the branches, too. – J. Vernon McGee • In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple idea of democracy and freedom has taken root. – Paul Tsongas • Incorrect assumptions lie at the root of every failure. Have the courage to test your assumptions. – Brian Tracy • Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character. – Gregory Maguire • Industry is the root of all ugliness.- Oscar Wilde • Is where you’re from the place you’re leaving or where you have roots? – Sara Gruen • It is necessary not only to relieve the gravest needs but to go to their roots, proposing measures that will give social, political and economic structures a more equitable and solidaristic configuration. – Pope Benedict XVI • It isn’t a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education, in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state’s goodness and its concern for our well-being. The real explanation is less flattering. If the government’s propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus. They’ll fasten the chains to their own ankles. H.L. Mencken once said that the state doesn’t just want to make you obey. It tries to make you want to obey. And that’s one thing the government schools do very well. – Llewellyn Rockwell • I’ve also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament – it was about 1982 – they called it Peace Sunday. – Jackson Browne • I’ve grown certain that the root of all fear is that we’ve been forced to deny who we are. – Frances Moore Lappé • Just as a tree, though cut down, can grow again and again if its roots are undamaged and strong, in the same way if the roots of craving are not wholly uprooted sorrows will come again and again – Gautama Buddha • Just as a tree, though cut down, sprouts up again if its roots remain uncut and firm, even so, until the craving that lies dormant is rooted out, suffering springs up again and again. – Gautama Buddha • kindnesses have wings and roots … wings that never droop, and roots that never die. – Mary Louisa Molesworth • Land is a nation’s basis for existence. The nation has its roots like those of a tree deep in the country’s soil whence it derives its nourishment and life. There is no people that can live without land, as there is no tree which can live hanging in air. – Corneliu Zelea Codreanu • Lessons, however, that enter the soul against its will never grow roots and will never be preserved inside it. – Plato • Let no man pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation also! These two are too closely united to be separated. He does not truly hate the fruit who delights in the root. – John Owen • Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder. – Carl Sandburg • Let us not be surprised when we have to face difficulties. When the wind blows hard on a tree, the roots stretch and grow the stronger, Let it be so with us. Let us not be weaklings, yielding to every wind that blows, but strong in spirit to resist. – Amy Carmichael • Life is like a tree and its root is consciousness. Therefore, once we tend the root, the tree as a whole will be healthy. – Deepak Chopra • Life is uncertain. Eternity is not. Unforgiveness cannot be allowed to last another day. Are you holding a grudge? You will never be more like God than when you forgive. Let it go. Kill the root of bitterness. Let the hurt go and set yourself free. – Craig Groeschel • Like roots finding water, we always wind up moving towards what sustains us. – Mark Nepo • Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being. – Victor Hugo • Many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. – Mark Rothko • Metaphor is our mental root of imagination and language. Arnold Kozak offers fertile metaphors for growing your knowledge of the Buddhadharma. If you contemplate these brief stories, your emotional intelligence and mindfulness will develop effortlessly from the insights they provide. – Polly Young-Eisendrath • Modern societies accepted the treasures and the power offered them by science. But they have not accepted – they have scarcely even heard – its profounder message: the defining of a new and unique source of truth, and the demand for a thorough revision of ethical premises, for a complete break with the animist tradition, the definitive abandonment of the ‘old covenant’, the necessity of forging a new one. Armed with all the powers, enjoying all the riches they owe to science, our societies are still trying to live by and to teach systems of values already blasted at the root by science itself. – Jacques Monod • My entire delight was in observing without being myself noticed,- if I could have been invisible, all the better. . . to be in the midst of it, and rejoice and wonder at it, and help it if I could, – happier if it needed no help of mine, – this was the essential love of Nature in me, this the root of all that I have usefully become, and the light of all that I have rightly learned. – John Ruskin • My music had roots which I’d dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil. – Ray Charles • My roots and Victor’s are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they’re tremendously exciting players. – Chico Hamilton • Nature does have manure and she does have roots as well as blossoms, and you can’t hate the manure and blame the roots for not being blossoms. – R. Buckminster Fuller • No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. – Amelia Earhart • No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots. – Maya Angelou • No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. – Carl Jung • O, You who are ever giving life to all life, moving all creatures, root of all things, washing them clean, wiping out their mistakes, healing their wounds, You are our true life, luminous, wonderful, awakening the heart from its ancient sleep. – Hildegard of Bingen • Once the seed of faith takes root, it cannot be blown away, even by the strongest wind – Now that’s a blessing. – Rumi • Or did you say it’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know its nature. To love money is to known and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money – and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. – Ayn Rand • Our life depends on others so much that at the root of our existence is a fundamental need for love. That is why it is good to cultivate an authentic sense of responsibility and concern for the welfare of others. – Dalai Lama • Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves … But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean’s bottom. – William James • Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and the outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is that lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas. – Jacob Needleman • Paul spoke about the root of faith (Eph 2:8). James spoke about the fruit of faith (Jm 2:17-18). – Adrian Rogers • Perhaps this is the root of all evil, that gardeners are not put in charge of our schools. – Helen DeWitt • Refusal to accept the flow of the world is the root of all misery. – Devdutt Pattanaik • Remember, the political idea being expressed a year ago was that because the GOP interpreted its 1994 mandate as a call to budget-balancing austerity, the electorate would never give the White House to the GOP if its nominee was also a root-canal austerian. – Jude Wanniski • Remember, we without our roots and branches cannot be saved. – Quentin L. CookReturn to the root and you will find the meaning. – Sengcan • Roots are nice, but a tree can’t run. – Andrew Vachss • Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you. – Isabel Allende • Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away. – Charles W. Chesnutt • Shallow breathing is the root of all evil but conscious deep breathing restores and secures our souls. – Desmond Green • Since being a Jew not only means that I bear within me a catastrophe that occurred yesterday and cannot be ruled out for tomorrow, it is-beyond being a duty-also fear. Every morning when I get up I can read the Auschwitz number on my forearm, something that touches the deepest and most closely intertwined roots of my existence; indeed I am not even sure if this is not my entire existence. Then I feel approximately as I did back then when I got a taste of the first blow from a policeman’s fist. Every day anew I lose my trust in the world. – Jean Amery • Slavery has become so engrafted into the policy of the Southern States, that it cannot be eradicated without tearing up by the roots their happiness, tranquillity, and prosperity. – William Loughton Smith • So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity. – Henry David Thoreau • So we took out those 3 root canals when she had 3-6 months to live. And that was 6 years ago, and she is still alive today, and MRI can’t find the tumour anymore. It went away. – Hal Huggins • Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. – John Steinbeck • Some of the roots of role-playing games (RPGs) are grounded in clinical and academic role assumption and role-playing exercises. – Gary Gygax • Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. – Rumi • States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them – Niccolo Machiavelli • Storms make the oak grow deeper roots. – George Herbert • Storms make trees take deeper roots. – Dolly Parton • Stressing the practice of living purposefully as essential to fully realized self-esteem is not equivalent to measuring an individual’s worth by his or her external achievements. We admire achievements-in ourselves and others-and it is natural and appropriate for us to do so. But that is not the same thing as saying that our achievements are the measure or grounds of our self-esteem. The root of our self-esteem is not our achievements but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve. – Nathaniel Branden • Temperance is a tree which as for its root very little contentment, and for its fruit calm and peace. – Gautama Buddha • The average man can’t prove most of the things that he chooses to speak of, and still won’t research and find out the root of the truth that you seek of – Damian Marley • The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It’s better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues. – Willie Dixon • The Death of Money is an engrossing account of the massive stresses accumulating in the global financial system, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. Jim Rickards is a natural teacher. Any serious student of financial crises and their root causes needs to read this book. – John H. Makin • The deep root of failure in our lives is to think, ‘Oh how useless and powerless I am.’ It is essential to think strongly and forcefully, ‘I can do it,’ without boasting or fretting. – Dalai Lama • The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will… An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. – William James • The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny himself. To deny oneself means to give up one’s bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad desires and thoughts; to quench and suppress bad thoughts; to avoid occasions of sin; not to do or desire anything from self-love but to do everything out of love for God. To deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to God. – Innocent of Alaska • The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence. – Denis Waitley • The growth of all the plants of the garden from seeds and roots keep us mindful, in accordance with of the Parable of the Sower, of the need for our loving, mortified reception and cultivation in our hearts and souls of the seeds and roots of the supernatural gifts and virtues necessary for progress in the ascetical/mystical ascent of our souls toward union with God and with the divine will for Creation and Kingdom – John Stokes • The hidden so-called scholars of old did not hide themselves and refuse to be seen. They did not close the door on their words and refuse to let them out. They did not shut away their wisdom and refuse to share it. But those times were all haywire. If it had been possible for them to act, they could have done great things, bringing all to Oneness without any sign of doing so. However, the times were not favorable and it was not possible, so they put down deep roots, remained still and waited. this was the Tao by which they survived. – Zhuangzi • The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. – Paul Farmer • The lack of money is the root of all evil. – Mark Twain • The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included. – Bodhidharma • The moment God put a dream in your heart, the moment the promise took root, God not only started it, but He set a completion date. – Joel Osteen • The noble must make humility his root. – Laozi • The organizer of industry who thinks he has ‘made’ himself and his business has found a whole social system ready to his hand in skilled workers, machinery, a market, peace and order – a vast apparatus and a pervasive atmosphere, the joint creation of millions of men and scores of generations. Take away the whole social factor, and we have not Robinson Crusoe with his salvage from the wreck and his acquired knowledge, but the native savage living on roots, berries and vermin. – Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse • The pain that comes from deep love makes your love more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root. – Henri Nouwen • The pleasure of rooting for Goliath is that you can expect to win. The pleasure of rooting for David is that, while you don’t know what to expect, you stand at least a chance of being inspired. – Michael Lewis • The problem is that many bitter people don’t know they are bitter. since they are so convinced that they are right, they can’t see their own wrong in the mirror. And the longer the root of bitterness grows, the more difficult it is to remove. – Craig Groeschel • The revolt of the poet is invariably conservative at its roots. … Not politically conservative, but imaginatively conservative, with a profound regard for what is given, as earth or air, sun or moon or stars, or the dreams of man. – Cid Corman • The root of all desires is the one desire: to come home, to be at peace. – Jean Klein • The root of all sin is the suspicion that God is not good. – Oswald Chambers • The root of compassion, is compassion for oneself. – Pema Chodron • The root of humanly caused evil is not man’s animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst. – Sam Keen • The root of suffering is attachment – Gautama Buddha • The root of the word education is e-ducere, literally, to lead forth, or to bring out something which is potentially present. – Erich Fromm • The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness. – Dalai Lama • The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. – Aristotle • The roots of great innovation are never just in the technology itself. They are always in the wider historical context. They require new ways of seeing. As Einstein put it, ‘The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.’ – David Brooks • The root-trouble of the present distress is that the Church has more faith in the world and the flesh than in the Holy Ghost. – Samuel Chadwick • The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world. – Thomas Merton • The Singing of Swans is a remarkable narrative calling–even compelling–us to connect with our own ancestral roots, to seek our own inner wisdom, and to reclaim our own inner voices! – Margaret Starbird • The ten thousand things flourish and then each returns to the root from which it came. Returning to the root is stillness. Through stillness each fulfils its destiny. – Laozi • The therapist does not treat patients by simply giving them another set of beliefs. He or she tries to help them see which kinds of ideas and beliefs have led to their suffering. Many patients want to get rid of their painful feelings, but they do not want to get rid of their beliefs, the viewpoints that are the very roots of their feelings. – Nhat Hanh • The tree of love its roots hath spread Deep in my heart, and rears its head; Rich are its fruits: they joy dispense; Transport the heart, and ravish sense. In love’s sweet swoon to thee I cleave, Bless’d source of love. – Francis of Assisi • The true penance comes when God takes away the soul’s health and strength for doing penance. Even though I have mentioned elsewhere the great pain this lack causes, the pain is much more intense here. All these things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted. – Teresa of Avila • The word relationship is beautiful. The original meaning of the root from which the word to relate comes is exactly the same as to respond. Relationship comes from that word respond. If you have any image of your wife or husband, you cannot respond, and hence relate, to the truth of the person. And we all go on carrying images. – Rajneesh • The word ‘vegetable’ has no precise botanical meaning in reference to food plants, and we find that almost all parts of plants have been employed as vegetables – roots (carrot and beet), stems (Irish potato and asparagus), leaves (spinach and lettuce), leaf stalk (celery and Swiss chard), bracts (globe artichoke), flower stalks and buds (broccoli and cauliflower), fruits (tomato and squash), seeds (beans), and even the petals (Yucca and pumpkin). – Charles Heiser • The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing … Only when our feet learn once again how to walk in a sacred manner, and our hearts hear the real music of creation, can we bring the world back into balance. – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee • There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • There are three kinds of violence: one, through our deeds; two, through our words; and three, through our thoughts. …The root of all violence is in the world of thoughts, and that is why training the mind is so important. – Eknath Easwaran • There are two great systems in the body of man: the tree of life, which is the arterial with its roots in the heart; and, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. the nervous system, which has its roots in the brain. These two “trees” are physical manifestations of a complicated network of branching energy currents in the aura or superphysical bodies. – Manly Hall • There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression. – John Woolman • There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder! That’s what you have to fight for. For people. Evil is a hydra with many heads, and the more of them you cut off, the more it grows! Hydras have to be starved to death, do you understand that? Kill a hundred Dark Ones, and a thousand more will take their place. – Sergei Lukyanenko • They read their sports pages, know their statistics and either root like hell or boo our butts off. I love it. Give me vocal fans, pro or con, over the tourist types who show up in Houston or Montreal and just sit there. – Mike Schmidt • Think of the Father as a spring of life begetting the Son like a river and the Holy Ghost like a sea, for the spring and the river and sea are all one nature. Think of the Father as a root, and of the Son as a branch, and the Spirit as a fruit, for the substance in these three is one. The Father is a sun with the Son as rays and the Holy Ghost as heat. – John of Damascus • Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth. – William Butler Yeats • To be without trees would, in the most literal way, to be without our roots. – Richard Mabey • To kill the grass you must also remove the root – Pol Pot • To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them or around them – the whole leaf and root tribe. Not alone when they are in their glory, but in whatever state they are – in leaf, or rimed with frost, or powdered with snow, or crystal-sheathed in ice, or in severe outline stripped and bare against a November sky – we love them. – Henry Ward Beecher • To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them or around them – the whole leaf and root tribe. – Henry Ward Beecher • To write or speak is to communicate. To communicate is to share meanings, make them ‘common’ to all participants in the discourse. (The etymological root of communication means ‘common.’) – Robin Lakoff • Tofu is the root of all evil, and there’s only one thing that can change a man’s mind, and that’s a modified Uzi with an extra-long clip. – Robert Downey, Jr. • Too many times we pray for ease, but that’s a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won’t be swept asunder. – Philip Gulley • Truth will never come into our minds so long as there will remain the faintest shadow of Ahamkâra (egotism). All of you should try to root out this devil from your heart. Complete self-surrender is the only way to spiritual illumination. – Swami Vivekananda • Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. – Barack Obama • Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance climbed up through my conscious mind as if suddenly the roots I had left behind cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood – and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent. – Pablo Neruda • War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you. – Frank Herbert • We also have a tendency to root for the fugitive. We’re always on the side of the animal being chased. – Norman Jewison • We are all born as animals and live the life that animals live: we sleep, eat, reproduce, and fight. There is, however, another order of living, which the animals do not know, that of awe before the mystery of being … that can be the root and branch of the spiritual sense of one’s days. That is the birth – the Virgin Birth – in the heart of a properly human, spiritual life. – Joseph Campbell • We are often indifferent to our brethren who are distressed or upset, on the grounds that they are in this state through no fault of ours. The Doctor of souls, however, wishing to root out the soul’s excuses from the heart, tells us to leave our gift and to be reconciled not only if we happen to be upset by our brother, but also if he is upset by us, whether justly or unjustly; only when we have healed the breach through our apology should we offer our gift. – John Cassian • We cannot afford the still-birth of new ideas that lack the life force that comes from the depths. We are called to return to the root of our being where the sacred is born. Then, standing in both the inner and outer worlds, we will find our self to be part of the momentous synchronicity of life giving birth to itself. – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee • We have our roots in country, and that’s our foundation, but we pull from a lot. – Dave Haywood • We know that silence equals consent when atrocities are committed against innocent men, women and children. We know that indifference equals complicity when bigotry, hatred and intolerance are allowed to take root. And we know that education and hope are the most effective ways to combat ignorance and despair. – Gabrielle Giffords • We must alert and organise the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises – exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today. – Jacques Yves Cousteau • We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools, and by open, hearty behavior, show, condescension, popularity, and toleration of their prejudices, which we shall at leisure root out and dispel. – Adam Weishaupt • We need to discover the root causes of success rather than the root causes of failure. – David Cooperrider • We should embrace our immigrant roots and recognize that newcomers to our land are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution. – Roger Mahony • We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. – Donald Knuth • What I’ve found is that country doesn’t refer to where you grew up as much as where your heart grows down, where it takes root. Country is a state of mind. I believe what ultimately defines being country is simple: a loving heart, a helping hand, an open mind, poor in spirit. – Clay Walker • What makes the strength of the soldier isn’t the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals, it’s the strength he’s able to concentrate within himself, by staying centered. That Maori player was like a tree, a great indestructible oak with deep roots and a powerful radiance- everyone could feel it. And yet you also got the impression that the great oak could fly, that it would be as quick as the wind, despite, or perhaps because of, its deep roots. – Muriel Barbery • Whatever you have to say, leave The roots on, let them Dangle And the dirt Just to make clear Where they come from. – Charles Olson • When the doubters tell you it can’t be done and all kind of tragedies will come your way, I say nonsense. If you can get to the very root of who you are and make something happen from it, my sense tells me you are going to surprise yourself. – Vidal Sassoon • When the sun shouts and people abound One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze And the iron age; iron the unstable metal; Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-ered-up cities Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster. Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them, Then nothing will remain of the iron age And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem Stuck in the world’s thought, splinters of glass In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain. – Robinson Jeffers • When you are up against a wall, put down roots like a tree, until clarity comes from deeper sources to see over that wall and grow. – Carl Jung • When you open up to the ultimate, immediately it pours into you. You are no longer an ordinary human being – you have transcended. Your insight has become the insight of the whole existence. Now you are no longer separate – you have found your roots. – Rajneesh • Where there is no fruit, there may be no root. – Sam Storms • Whether rich or poor, a home is not a home unless the roots of love are ever striking deeper through the crust of the earthly and the conventional, into the very realities of being, not consciously always; seldom, perhaps; the simplicity of loving grows by living simply near nature and God. – Lucy Larcom • Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future. – Maria Montessori • Without ambition no conquests are made, and no business created. Ambition is the root of all achievement. – James A. Champy • Woman is the root of all evil. – St. Jerome • Wonderful songwriting, beautiful production, and deeply rooted in what makes American Roots Music great: Deep Southern Pain. It’s the hurt that brings the songs, and it’s the songs that heal the hurt. Jonathan’s songs bring us there, and back. Check this record out, it’s a good ‘un. – Mary Gauthier • You are the root of heaven, the morning star, the bright moon, the house of endless Love – Rumi • You can’t have the fruits without the roots. – Stephen Covey • You don’t need to condemn. Just observe, That is sin. That is insanity. That is unconsciousness. Above all, don’t forget to observe your own mind. Seek out the root of the insanity there. – Eckhart Tolle • You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • You have to know what’s happening in the locker rooms, you have to know what’s happening at the grass-roots level. That’s the best way to work. – Jacques Rogge • You shall be my roots and I will be your shade, though the sun burns my leaves. You shall quench my thirst and I will feed you fruit, though time takes my seed. And when I’m lost and can tell nothing of this earth you will give me hope. And my voice you will always hear. And my hand you will always have. For I will shelter you. And I will comfort you. And even when we are nothing left, not even in death, I will remember you. – Mark Z. Danielewski • You thought I was that type: that you could forget me, and that I’d plead and weep and throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare, or that I’d ask the sorcerers for some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift: my precious perfumed handkerchief. Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soul vicarious tears or a single glance. And I swear to you by the garden of the angels, I swear by the miracle-working ikon, and by the fire and smoke of our nights: I will never come back to you. – Anna Akhmatova

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[equitiesstocks]

Roots Quotes

Official Website: Roots Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push(); • A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. – Marcus Garvey • A person with faith does not question its roots, for he knows that if he subjected it to the critical examination of his intellect, he would end up without faith. The same thing can be said of any feeling. You can analyze any feeling to death, but when you do that, you end up without feeling and without a meaninful life. – Alexander Lowen • A real foolproof way to do it is play your stuff by hook or by crook and build up a grass roots following – Duncan Sheik • A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.- Amelia Earhart • A singular fact about modern war is that it takes charge. Once begun it has to be carried to its conclusion, and carrying it there sets in motion events that may be beyond men’s control. Doing what has to be done to win, men perform acts that alter the very soil in which society’s roots are nourished. – Bruce Catton • A society which abandons children and the elderly severs its roots and darkens its future. – Pope Francis • A tree is a self: it is ‘unseen shaping’ more than it is leaves or bark, roots or cellulose or fruit … What this means is that we must address trees as we must address all things, confronting them in the awareness that we are in the presence of numinous mystery. – Brian Swimme • A tree is alive, and thus it is always more than you can see. Roots to leaves, yes-those you can, in part, see. But it is more-it is the lichens and moss and ferns that grow on its bark, the life too small to see that lives among its roots, a community we know of, but do not think on. It is every fly and bee and beetle that uses it for shelter or food, every bird that nests in its branches. Every one an individual, and yet every one part of the tree, and the tree part of every one. – Elizabeth Moon • A tree nowhere offers a straight line or a regular curve, but who doubts that root, trunk, boughs, and leaves embody geometry? – George Iles • A tree root won’t get into your sewer line unless there’s something already wrong with your sewer line. I know most people don’t want to hear that, but it’s true – Thomas J. Hylton • A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can’t grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon.- Dalai Lama • A tree without roots is just a piece of wood. – Marco Pierre White • Amid all change, we desire something permanent; amid all variety, something stable; amid all progress, some central unity of life; something which deepens as we ascend; which roots itself as we advance; which grows more and more tenacious of the old, while becoming more and more open to the new. – James Freeman Clarke • Among the great struggles of man-good/evil, reason/unreason, etc.-there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey. – Salman Rushdie • An illuminating read for every classical scholar engaged with the current quest for the subject’s roots, and the excavation of the way that it has evolved over the past century and a half. – Edith Hall • Anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jew by the Jewish group. This is a normal social reaction. The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world… the root cause is their use of enemies they create in order to keep solidarity. – Albert Einstein • Are you becoming more sweet-spirited, more like Jesus? Are you looking soberly in the mirror each day and praying, ‘Lord, I want to conform to Your image in every area of my life’? Or has your bitterness taken root, turning into rebellion and hardness of heart? Have you learned to shield yourself from the convicting voice of God’s Spirit? – David Wilkerson • Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. None of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence. – Robert Henri • As a tree, even though it has been cut down, is firm so long as its root is safe, and grows again, thus, unless the feeders of thirst are destroyed, the pain (of life) will return again and again. – Max Muller • At root, a pearl is a ‘disturbance’ a beauty caused by something that isn’t supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion. … The pearl’s beauty is made as a result of insult. – Julia Cameron • At the root of all the varied manifestations of dancing, lies the common impulse to resort to movement to externalize emotional states which we cannot extemalize by rational means. – Jamake Highwater • Audrey Auld is a great singer songwriter. She holds a unique place in contemporary Americana/Roots music. I believe that this uniqueness is largely due to the fact that she is Australian. This affords her a totally different attitude as an artist than traditional American contributors to this genre. Audrey is one of the most honest original artists I know. – Fred Eaglesmith

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'roots', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_roots').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_roots img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Becoming rich isn’t as much about getting rich financially as about whom you become, in character and mind, to get rich. I want to share a secret with you that few people know: the fastest way to get rich and stay rich is to work on developing you! The idea is to grow yourself into a successful person. Again, your outer world is merely a reflection of your inner world. You are the root; your results are the fruits. – T. Harv Eker • Belief is like plastic flowers, which look like flowers from far away. Trust is real rose. It has roots, and roots go deep into your heart and into your being. – Rajneesh • Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there; From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear. The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with metry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night; The shaking of its leafy head Has given the waves their melody, And made my lips and music wed, Murmuring a wizard song for thee. – William Butler Yeats • But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish desires and schemes that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For love of money is the root of all of evil and some having pursued its power, fall from faith and end in sorrow. – Saint Timothy • But we need to pray daily for humility and honesty to see these sinful attitudes for that they really are, and then for grace and discipline to root them out of our minds and replace them with thoughts pleasing to God. – Jerry Bridges • Cal says that humans are made from the nuclear ash of dead stars. He says that when I die, I’ll return to dust, glitter,rain. If thats true, I want to be buried right here under this tree. Its roots will reach into the soft mess of my body and suck me dry. I’ll be re-formed as apple blossom. I’ll drift down in the spring like confetti and cling to my family’s shoes. They’ll carry me in their pockets to help them sleep. What dreams will they have then? – Jenny Downham • Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots. – Victor Hugo • Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues. – Thomas Aquinas • Choices are at the root of every one of your results. – Darren Hardy • Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all stem from the same Abrahamic roots. All three reject terrorism. – H. John Poole • Civilization has its roots in the soil. – Charles Kellogg • Courage lies in being oneself, in showing complete independence, in loving what one loves, in discovering the deep roots of one’s feelings. – Fernand Pouillon • Covetousness like jealousy, when it has taken root, never leaves a person, but with their life. Cowardice is the dread of what will happen. – Epictetus • Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is ‘to fit together’ and we all do this every day.- Corita Kent • Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots. – Frank A. Clark • Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light. – Theodore Roethke • dive for dreams or a slogan may topple you (trees are their roots and wind is wind) trust your heart if the seas catch fire (and live by love though the stars walk backward) honour the past but welcome the future (and dance your death away at this wedding) never mind a world with its villains or heroes (for god likes girls and tomorrow and the earth) – e. e. cummings • Do you know that the words meditation and medicine come from the same root? Meditation is a kind of medicine; its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Only when you are meditative twenty-four hours a day then can you attain, then you have attained. Even sleeping is meditation. – Rajneesh • Do you know, that is the root of the whole trouble – has been one of the roots at any rate – is people hearing things and then imagining some more and magnifying it and multiplying it.- John Harvey Kellogg • Don’t over-analyze your marriage; it’s like yanking up a fragile indoor plant every 20 minutes to see how its roots are growing. – Ogden Nash • Don’t put down too many roots in terms of a domicile. I have lived in four countries and I think my life as a writer and our family’s life have been enriched by this. I think a writer has to experience new environments. There is that adage: No man can really succeed if he doesn’t move away from where he was born. I believe it is particularly true for the writer. – Arthur Hailey • Drawing is the root of everything. – Vincent Van Gogh • Duality is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts. All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political, or social conviction may contain us. We have to abandon such concepts as ‘enlightenment’, ‘the nature of the mind’, and so on, until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence. – Namkhai Norbu • Every forest branch moves differently in the breeze, but as they sway they connect at the roots. – Rumi • Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential dearth in which its subject’s roots are plunged. The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters. – Henry James, Sr. • Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness! This is the state of man: today he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And – when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening – nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. – William Shakespeare • Fear is the root of all courage. – Vivian Stanshall • Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. – George Washington Carver • For a tree to become tall it must grow tough roots among the rocks. – Friedrich Nietzsche • For our personal advancement in virtue and truth one quality is sufficient, namely, love; to advance humanity there must be two, love and intelligence; to accomplish the Great Work there must be three love, intelligence, and activity. And yet love is ever the root and the source. – Louis Claude de Saint-Martin • For this purpose was I born, let all virtuous people understand. I was born to advance righteousness, to emancipate the good, and to destroy all evil-doers root and branch. – Guru Gobind Singh • Forgiveness of sin strikes the root of all pain. – T. B. Joshua • Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth. – Liu Xiaobo • From a family tree that has healthy roots, there emerge hearty leaves and most beautiful fruits. – Wes Fesler • General principles… are to the facts as the root and sap of a tree to its leaves. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Give the ones you love wings to fly, roots to come back and reasons to stay. – Dalai Lama • Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what’s been taught them. – Jonas Salk • How deep congenital sex-inversion roots may be gathered from the fact that the pleasure-dream of the male Urning has to do with male persons, and of the female with females. – Richard von Krafft-Ebing • How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold. – William Wordsworth • Human hopes and human creeds; have their root in human needs. – Eugene Fitch Ware • Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. – Andrew Murray • I am proud of my black roots and of the black blood that runs in my veins. – Ryan Giggs • I am sometimes asked, ‘Why do you spend so much of your time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men?’ I answer: ‘I am working at the roots.’ – George Thorndike Angell • I believe it is important for the university to always remember its roots. – Michael N. Castle • I believe the root of all happiness on this earth to lie in the realization of a spiritual life with a consciousness of something wider than materialism; in the capacity to live in a world that makes you unselfish because you are not overanxious about your own comic fallibilities; that gives you tranquility without complacency because you believe in something so much larger than yourself. – Hugh Walpole • I believe we are a species with amnesia, I think we have forgotten our roots and our origins. I think we are quite lost in many ways. And we live in a society that invests huge amounts of money and vast quantities of energy in ensuring that we all stay lost. A society that invests in creating unconsciousness, which invests in keeping people asleep so that we are just passive consumers or products and not really asking any of the questions.- Graham Hancock • I came into the world charged with the duty to uphold the right in every place, to destroy sin and evil… the only reason I took birth was to see that righteousness may flourish, that good may live, and tyrants be torn out by their roots. – Guru Gobind Singh • I can say-not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological , ethical, political and esthetic roots-that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.- Ayn Rand • I can’t multiply myself out of a paper bag. But when it comes to roots, I’m your man. – Jerry Newport • I don’t claim to know an over-arching ‘Meaning of Life,’ but I do operate under the understanding that life should not be lived under the pretense that it is simply a test propagated by an invisible, intangible, Creator-God. And it should not be spent identifying with religious traditions and organized groups that, historically, have been at the root of a tremendous amount of oppression and violence. – David G. McAfee • I feel like I’m a fighter. I’ve fought my whole life to get to where I’m at. I like fight movies. When someone gets knocked down, I like to root for him to succeed. – Ricky Schroder • I hunt everywhere for a life worth living and a knowledge worth knowing. Having roots nowhere, I have everywhere to go. – Elif Safak • I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil. Great art is like a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a trunk, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own. The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature. This is the secret of primitive art and also of the art of the mastersMichelangelo, Czanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican. – Diego Rivera • I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. – John Muir • I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong–Mother Nature’s fist of fury, Gaia’s stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own. – James Wolcott • I think it is important to maintain your personality, your roots, very important. – Paz Vega • I think that everything I do tends to root for the underdog. – Judd Apatow • I view Witchcraft as a religion that has evolved over the centuries. I do not consider Witchcraft to be a modern invention. Instead I deal with it in my writings as a Mystery Tradition with long roots to the past. It has always been my position that we don’t need an ancient tradition in order to be validated. We just happen to have one. – Raven Grimassi • I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy. Democrats have strong moral values. Frankly, my moral values are offended by some of the things I hear on programs like “Rush Limbaugh,” and we don’t have to put up with that. – Howard Dean • If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. – John F. Kennedy • If busyness can become a kind of violence, we do not have to stretch our perception very far to see that Sabbath time – effortless, nourishing rest – can invite a healing of this violence. When we consecrate a time to listen to the still, small voices, we remember the root of inner wisdom that makes work fruitful. We remember from where we are most deeply nourished, and see more clearly the shape and texture of the people and things before us. – Wayne Muller • If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they’d realize that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose. – Sean O’Casey • If there is to be an ecologically sound society, it will have to come the grass roots up, not from the top down. – Paul Hawken • Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil. – Plato • I’ll never forget where I’m from, never forget my roots. It doesn’t matter where I live. I’m English, simple as that. – David Beckham • I’m convinced that FEAR is at the root, of all bad writing – Stephen King • Imagination is a tree. It has the integrative virtues of a tree. It is root and boughs. It lives between earth and sky. It lives in the earth and the wind. The imagined tree imperceptibly becomes a cosmological tree, the tree which epitomises a universe, which makes a universe. – Gaston Bachelard • In almost every musical ever written, there’s a place that’s usually about the third song of the evening – sometimes it’s the second, sometimes it’s the fourth, but it’s quite early – and the leading lady usually sits down on something; sometimes it’s a tree stump in Brigadoon, sometimes it’s under the pillars of Covent Garden in My Fair Lady, or it’s a trash can in Little Shop of Horrors… but the leading lady sits down on something and sings about what she wants in life. And the audience falls in love with her and then roots for her to get it for the rest of the night. – Howard Ashman • In an old song the Mother sings: ‘My sleeping is my dreaming, my dreaming is my thinking, my thinking is my wisdom.’ She is the bed we are born in, in which we sleep and dream, where we are healed, love and die. In her wisdom we remember day’s broken images and carry them down into dreams where their motions roll into shadows and root, growing into stories. – Meinrad Craighead • In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us – that we be men and women of prayer, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace. We have that peace when the gracious God is all we seek. When we start seeking something besides Him, we lose it. – Brennan Manning • In every forest, on every farm, in every orchard on earth, it’s what’s under the ground that creates what’s above the ground. That’s why placing your attention on the fruits that you have already grown is futile. You cannot change the fruits that are already hanging on the tree. You can, however, change tomorrow’s fruits. But to do so, you will have to dig below the ground and strengthen the roots. – T. Harv Eker • In spite of my great admiration for individual splendid talents I do not accept the star system. Collective creative effort is the root of our kind of art. That requires ensemble acting and whoever mars that ensemble is committing a crime not only against his comrades but also against the very art of which he is the servant. – Constantin Stanislavski • In the NFL game today, there are a lot of better athletes than I am, and quarterbacks these days are faster than the quarterbacks have always been, they’re running like crazy. But I kind of stick to my roots of the disciplined quarterback. You know, I’m doing the same routine every week, studying tapes and working hard, getting ready to play and making good decisions on Sundays. – Peyton Manning • In the Old Testament…God is the owner of the vineyard. Here He is the Keeper, the Farmer, the One who takes care of the vineyard. Jesus is the genuine Vine, and the Father takes care of Him…In the Old Testament it is prophesied that the Lord Jesus would grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground. Think how often the Father intervened to save Jesus from the devil who wished to slay Him. The Father is the One who cared for the Vine, and He will care for the branches, too. – J. Vernon McGee • In this era of the global village, the tide of democracy is running. And it will not cease, not in China, not in South Africa, not in any corner of this earth, where the simple idea of democracy and freedom has taken root. – Paul Tsongas • Incorrect assumptions lie at the root of every failure. Have the courage to test your assumptions. – Brian Tracy • Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character. – Gregory Maguire • Industry is the root of all ugliness.- Oscar Wilde • Is where you’re from the place you’re leaving or where you have roots? – Sara Gruen • It is necessary not only to relieve the gravest needs but to go to their roots, proposing measures that will give social, political and economic structures a more equitable and solidaristic configuration. – Pope Benedict XVI • It isn’t a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education, in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state’s goodness and its concern for our well-being. The real explanation is less flattering. If the government’s propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus. They’ll fasten the chains to their own ankles. H.L. Mencken once said that the state doesn’t just want to make you obey. It tries to make you want to obey. And that’s one thing the government schools do very well. – Llewellyn Rockwell • I’ve also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament – it was about 1982 – they called it Peace Sunday. – Jackson Browne • I’ve grown certain that the root of all fear is that we’ve been forced to deny who we are. – Frances Moore Lappé • Just as a tree, though cut down, can grow again and again if its roots are undamaged and strong, in the same way if the roots of craving are not wholly uprooted sorrows will come again and again – Gautama Buddha • Just as a tree, though cut down, sprouts up again if its roots remain uncut and firm, even so, until the craving that lies dormant is rooted out, suffering springs up again and again. – Gautama Buddha • kindnesses have wings and roots … wings that never droop, and roots that never die. – Mary Louisa Molesworth • Land is a nation’s basis for existence. The nation has its roots like those of a tree deep in the country’s soil whence it derives its nourishment and life. There is no people that can live without land, as there is no tree which can live hanging in air. – Corneliu Zelea Codreanu • Lessons, however, that enter the soul against its will never grow roots and will never be preserved inside it. – Plato • Let no man pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation also! These two are too closely united to be separated. He does not truly hate the fruit who delights in the root. – John Owen • Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder. – Carl Sandburg • Let us not be surprised when we have to face difficulties. When the wind blows hard on a tree, the roots stretch and grow the stronger, Let it be so with us. Let us not be weaklings, yielding to every wind that blows, but strong in spirit to resist. – Amy Carmichael • Life is like a tree and its root is consciousness. Therefore, once we tend the root, the tree as a whole will be healthy. – Deepak Chopra • Life is uncertain. Eternity is not. Unforgiveness cannot be allowed to last another day. Are you holding a grudge? You will never be more like God than when you forgive. Let it go. Kill the root of bitterness. Let the hurt go and set yourself free. – Craig Groeschel • Like roots finding water, we always wind up moving towards what sustains us. – Mark Nepo • Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being. – Victor Hugo • Many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. – Mark Rothko • Metaphor is our mental root of imagination and language. Arnold Kozak offers fertile metaphors for growing your knowledge of the Buddhadharma. If you contemplate these brief stories, your emotional intelligence and mindfulness will develop effortlessly from the insights they provide. – Polly Young-Eisendrath • Modern societies accepted the treasures and the power offered them by science. But they have not accepted – they have scarcely even heard – its profounder message: the defining of a new and unique source of truth, and the demand for a thorough revision of ethical premises, for a complete break with the animist tradition, the definitive abandonment of the ‘old covenant’, the necessity of forging a new one. Armed with all the powers, enjoying all the riches they owe to science, our societies are still trying to live by and to teach systems of values already blasted at the root by science itself. – Jacques Monod • My entire delight was in observing without being myself noticed,- if I could have been invisible, all the better. . . to be in the midst of it, and rejoice and wonder at it, and help it if I could, – happier if it needed no help of mine, – this was the essential love of Nature in me, this the root of all that I have usefully become, and the light of all that I have rightly learned. – John Ruskin • My music had roots which I’d dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil. – Ray Charles • My roots and Victor’s are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they’re tremendously exciting players. – Chico Hamilton • Nature does have manure and she does have roots as well as blossoms, and you can’t hate the manure and blame the roots for not being blossoms. – R. Buckminster Fuller • No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. – Amelia Earhart • No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots. – Maya Angelou • No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. – Carl Jung • O, You who are ever giving life to all life, moving all creatures, root of all things, washing them clean, wiping out their mistakes, healing their wounds, You are our true life, luminous, wonderful, awakening the heart from its ancient sleep. – Hildegard of Bingen • Once the seed of faith takes root, it cannot be blown away, even by the strongest wind – Now that’s a blessing. – Rumi • Or did you say it’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know its nature. To love money is to known and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money – and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. – Ayn Rand • Our life depends on others so much that at the root of our existence is a fundamental need for love. That is why it is good to cultivate an authentic sense of responsibility and concern for the welfare of others. – Dalai Lama • Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves … But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean’s bottom. – William James • Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and the outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is that lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas. – Jacob Needleman • Paul spoke about the root of faith (Eph 2:8). James spoke about the fruit of faith (Jm 2:17-18). – Adrian Rogers • Perhaps this is the root of all evil, that gardeners are not put in charge of our schools. – Helen DeWitt • Refusal to accept the flow of the world is the root of all misery. – Devdutt Pattanaik • Remember, the political idea being expressed a year ago was that because the GOP interpreted its 1994 mandate as a call to budget-balancing austerity, the electorate would never give the White House to the GOP if its nominee was also a root-canal austerian. – Jude Wanniski • Remember, we without our roots and branches cannot be saved. – Quentin L. CookReturn to the root and you will find the meaning. – Sengcan • Roots are nice, but a tree can’t run. – Andrew Vachss • Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you. – Isabel Allende • Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away. – Charles W. Chesnutt • Shallow breathing is the root of all evil but conscious deep breathing restores and secures our souls. – Desmond Green • Since being a Jew not only means that I bear within me a catastrophe that occurred yesterday and cannot be ruled out for tomorrow, it is-beyond being a duty-also fear. Every morning when I get up I can read the Auschwitz number on my forearm, something that touches the deepest and most closely intertwined roots of my existence; indeed I am not even sure if this is not my entire existence. Then I feel approximately as I did back then when I got a taste of the first blow from a policeman’s fist. Every day anew I lose my trust in the world. – Jean Amery • Slavery has become so engrafted into the policy of the Southern States, that it cannot be eradicated without tearing up by the roots their happiness, tranquillity, and prosperity. – William Loughton Smith • So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity. – Henry David Thoreau • So we took out those 3 root canals when she had 3-6 months to live. And that was 6 years ago, and she is still alive today, and MRI can’t find the tumour anymore. It went away. – Hal Huggins • Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. – John Steinbeck • Some of the roots of role-playing games (RPGs) are grounded in clinical and academic role assumption and role-playing exercises. – Gary Gygax • Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. – Rumi • States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them – Niccolo Machiavelli • Storms make the oak grow deeper roots. – George Herbert • Storms make trees take deeper roots. – Dolly Parton • Stressing the practice of living purposefully as essential to fully realized self-esteem is not equivalent to measuring an individual’s worth by his or her external achievements. We admire achievements-in ourselves and others-and it is natural and appropriate for us to do so. But that is not the same thing as saying that our achievements are the measure or grounds of our self-esteem. The root of our self-esteem is not our achievements but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve. – Nathaniel Branden • Temperance is a tree which as for its root very little contentment, and for its fruit calm and peace. – Gautama Buddha • The average man can’t prove most of the things that he chooses to speak of, and still won’t research and find out the root of the truth that you seek of – Damian Marley • The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It’s better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues. – Willie Dixon • The Death of Money is an engrossing account of the massive stresses accumulating in the global financial system, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. Jim Rickards is a natural teacher. Any serious student of financial crises and their root causes needs to read this book. – John H. Makin • The deep root of failure in our lives is to think, ‘Oh how useless and powerless I am.’ It is essential to think strongly and forcefully, ‘I can do it,’ without boasting or fretting. – Dalai Lama • The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will… An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. – William James • The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny himself. To deny oneself means to give up one’s bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad desires and thoughts; to quench and suppress bad thoughts; to avoid occasions of sin; not to do or desire anything from self-love but to do everything out of love for God. To deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to God. – Innocent of Alaska • The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence. – Denis Waitley • The growth of all the plants of the garden from seeds and roots keep us mindful, in accordance with of the Parable of the Sower, of the need for our loving, mortified reception and cultivation in our hearts and souls of the seeds and roots of the supernatural gifts and virtues necessary for progress in the ascetical/mystical ascent of our souls toward union with God and with the divine will for Creation and Kingdom – John Stokes • The hidden so-called scholars of old did not hide themselves and refuse to be seen. They did not close the door on their words and refuse to let them out. They did not shut away their wisdom and refuse to share it. But those times were all haywire. If it had been possible for them to act, they could have done great things, bringing all to Oneness without any sign of doing so. However, the times were not favorable and it was not possible, so they put down deep roots, remained still and waited. this was the Tao by which they survived. – Zhuangzi • The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. – Paul Farmer • The lack of money is the root of all evil. – Mark Twain • The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included. – Bodhidharma • The moment God put a dream in your heart, the moment the promise took root, God not only started it, but He set a completion date. – Joel Osteen • The noble must make humility his root. – Laozi • The organizer of industry who thinks he has ‘made’ himself and his business has found a whole social system ready to his hand in skilled workers, machinery, a market, peace and order – a vast apparatus and a pervasive atmosphere, the joint creation of millions of men and scores of generations. Take away the whole social factor, and we have not Robinson Crusoe with his salvage from the wreck and his acquired knowledge, but the native savage living on roots, berries and vermin. – Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse • The pain that comes from deep love makes your love more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed to take root. – Henri Nouwen • The pleasure of rooting for Goliath is that you can expect to win. The pleasure of rooting for David is that, while you don’t know what to expect, you stand at least a chance of being inspired. – Michael Lewis • The problem is that many bitter people don’t know they are bitter. since they are so convinced that they are right, they can’t see their own wrong in the mirror. And the longer the root of bitterness grows, the more difficult it is to remove. – Craig Groeschel • The revolt of the poet is invariably conservative at its roots. … Not politically conservative, but imaginatively conservative, with a profound regard for what is given, as earth or air, sun or moon or stars, or the dreams of man. – Cid Corman • The root of all desires is the one desire: to come home, to be at peace. – Jean Klein • The root of all sin is the suspicion that God is not good. – Oswald Chambers • The root of compassion, is compassion for oneself. – Pema Chodron • The root of humanly caused evil is not man’s animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst. – Sam Keen • The root of suffering is attachment – Gautama Buddha • The root of the word education is e-ducere, literally, to lead forth, or to bring out something which is potentially present. – Erich Fromm • The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness. – Dalai Lama • The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. – Aristotle • The roots of great innovation are never just in the technology itself. They are always in the wider historical context. They require new ways of seeing. As Einstein put it, ‘The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.’ – David Brooks • The root-trouble of the present distress is that the Church has more faith in the world and the flesh than in the Holy Ghost. – Samuel Chadwick • The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world. – Thomas Merton • The Singing of Swans is a remarkable narrative calling–even compelling–us to connect with our own ancestral roots, to seek our own inner wisdom, and to reclaim our own inner voices! – Margaret Starbird • The ten thousand things flourish and then each returns to the root from which it came. Returning to the root is stillness. Through stillness each fulfils its destiny. – Laozi • The therapist does not treat patients by simply giving them another set of beliefs. He or she tries to help them see which kinds of ideas and beliefs have led to their suffering. Many patients want to get rid of their painful feelings, but they do not want to get rid of their beliefs, the viewpoints that are the very roots of their feelings. – Nhat Hanh • The tree of love its roots hath spread Deep in my heart, and rears its head; Rich are its fruits: they joy dispense; Transport the heart, and ravish sense. In love’s sweet swoon to thee I cleave, Bless’d source of love. – Francis of Assisi • The true penance comes when God takes away the soul’s health and strength for doing penance. Even though I have mentioned elsewhere the great pain this lack causes, the pain is much more intense here. All these things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted. – Teresa of Avila • The word relationship is beautiful. The original meaning of the root from which the word to relate comes is exactly the same as to respond. Relationship comes from that word respond. If you have any image of your wife or husband, you cannot respond, and hence relate, to the truth of the person. And we all go on carrying images. – Rajneesh • The word ‘vegetable’ has no precise botanical meaning in reference to food plants, and we find that almost all parts of plants have been employed as vegetables – roots (carrot and beet), stems (Irish potato and asparagus), leaves (spinach and lettuce), leaf stalk (celery and Swiss chard), bracts (globe artichoke), flower stalks and buds (broccoli and cauliflower), fruits (tomato and squash), seeds (beans), and even the petals (Yucca and pumpkin). – Charles Heiser • The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing … Only when our feet learn once again how to walk in a sacred manner, and our hearts hear the real music of creation, can we bring the world back into balance. – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee • There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • There are three kinds of violence: one, through our deeds; two, through our words; and three, through our thoughts. …The root of all violence is in the world of thoughts, and that is why training the mind is so important. – Eknath Easwaran • There are two great systems in the body of man: the tree of life, which is the arterial with its roots in the heart; and, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. the nervous system, which has its roots in the brain. These two “trees” are physical manifestations of a complicated network of branching energy currents in the aura or superphysical bodies. – Manly Hall • There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression. – John Woolman • There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder! That’s what you have to fight for. For people. Evil is a hydra with many heads, and the more of them you cut off, the more it grows! Hydras have to be starved to death, do you understand that? Kill a hundred Dark Ones, and a thousand more will take their place. – Sergei Lukyanenko • They read their sports pages, know their statistics and either root like hell or boo our butts off. I love it. Give me vocal fans, pro or con, over the tourist types who show up in Houston or Montreal and just sit there. – Mike Schmidt • Think of the Father as a spring of life begetting the Son like a river and the Holy Ghost like a sea, for the spring and the river and sea are all one nature. Think of the Father as a root, and of the Son as a branch, and the Spirit as a fruit, for the substance in these three is one. The Father is a sun with the Son as rays and the Holy Ghost as heat. – John of Damascus • Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth. – William Butler Yeats • To be without trees would, in the most literal way, to be without our roots. – Richard Mabey • To kill the grass you must also remove the root – Pol Pot • To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them or around them – the whole leaf and root tribe. Not alone when they are in their glory, but in whatever state they are – in leaf, or rimed with frost, or powdered with snow, or crystal-sheathed in ice, or in severe outline stripped and bare against a November sky – we love them. – Henry Ward Beecher • To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them or around them – the whole leaf and root tribe. – Henry Ward Beecher • To write or speak is to communicate. To communicate is to share meanings, make them ‘common’ to all participants in the discourse. (The etymological root of communication means ‘common.’) – Robin Lakoff • Tofu is the root of all evil, and there’s only one thing that can change a man’s mind, and that’s a modified Uzi with an extra-long clip. – Robert Downey, Jr. • Too many times we pray for ease, but that’s a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won’t be swept asunder. – Philip Gulley • Truth will never come into our minds so long as there will remain the faintest shadow of Ahamkâra (egotism). All of you should try to root out this devil from your heart. Complete self-surrender is the only way to spiritual illumination. – Swami Vivekananda • Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. – Barack Obama • Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance climbed up through my conscious mind as if suddenly the roots I had left behind cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood – and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent. – Pablo Neruda • War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you. – Frank Herbert • We also have a tendency to root for the fugitive. We’re always on the side of the animal being chased. – Norman Jewison • We are all born as animals and live the life that animals live: we sleep, eat, reproduce, and fight. There is, however, another order of living, which the animals do not know, that of awe before the mystery of being … that can be the root and branch of the spiritual sense of one’s days. That is the birth – the Virgin Birth – in the heart of a properly human, spiritual life. – Joseph Campbell • We are often indifferent to our brethren who are distressed or upset, on the grounds that they are in this state through no fault of ours. The Doctor of souls, however, wishing to root out the soul’s excuses from the heart, tells us to leave our gift and to be reconciled not only if we happen to be upset by our brother, but also if he is upset by us, whether justly or unjustly; only when we have healed the breach through our apology should we offer our gift. – John Cassian • We cannot afford the still-birth of new ideas that lack the life force that comes from the depths. We are called to return to the root of our being where the sacred is born. Then, standing in both the inner and outer worlds, we will find our self to be part of the momentous synchronicity of life giving birth to itself. – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee • We have our roots in country, and that’s our foundation, but we pull from a lot. – Dave Haywood • We know that silence equals consent when atrocities are committed against innocent men, women and children. We know that indifference equals complicity when bigotry, hatred and intolerance are allowed to take root. And we know that education and hope are the most effective ways to combat ignorance and despair. – Gabrielle Giffords • We must alert and organise the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises – exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today. – Jacques Yves Cousteau • We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools, and by open, hearty behavior, show, condescension, popularity, and toleration of their prejudices, which we shall at leisure root out and dispel. – Adam Weishaupt • We need to discover the root causes of success rather than the root causes of failure. – David Cooperrider • We should embrace our immigrant roots and recognize that newcomers to our land are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution. – Roger Mahony • We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. – Donald Knuth • What I’ve found is that country doesn’t refer to where you grew up as much as where your heart grows down, where it takes root. Country is a state of mind. I believe what ultimately defines being country is simple: a loving heart, a helping hand, an open mind, poor in spirit. – Clay Walker • What makes the strength of the soldier isn’t the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals, it’s the strength he’s able to concentrate within himself, by staying centered. That Maori player was like a tree, a great indestructible oak with deep roots and a powerful radiance- everyone could feel it. And yet you also got the impression that the great oak could fly, that it would be as quick as the wind, despite, or perhaps because of, its deep roots. – Muriel Barbery • Whatever you have to say, leave The roots on, let them Dangle And the dirt Just to make clear Where they come from. – Charles Olson • When the doubters tell you it can’t be done and all kind of tragedies will come your way, I say nonsense. If you can get to the very root of who you are and make something happen from it, my sense tells me you are going to surprise yourself. – Vidal Sassoon • When the sun shouts and people abound One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze And the iron age; iron the unstable metal; Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-ered-up cities Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster. Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them, Then nothing will remain of the iron age And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem Stuck in the world’s thought, splinters of glass In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain. – Robinson Jeffers • When you are up against a wall, put down roots like a tree, until clarity comes from deeper sources to see over that wall and grow. – Carl Jung • When you open up to the ultimate, immediately it pours into you. You are no longer an ordinary human being – you have transcended. Your insight has become the insight of the whole existence. Now you are no longer separate – you have found your roots. – Rajneesh • Where there is no fruit, there may be no root. – Sam Storms • Whether rich or poor, a home is not a home unless the roots of love are ever striking deeper through the crust of the earthly and the conventional, into the very realities of being, not consciously always; seldom, perhaps; the simplicity of loving grows by living simply near nature and God. – Lucy Larcom • Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future. – Maria Montessori • Without ambition no conquests are made, and no business created. Ambition is the root of all achievement. – James A. Champy • Woman is the root of all evil. – St. Jerome • Wonderful songwriting, beautiful production, and deeply rooted in what makes American Roots Music great: Deep Southern Pain. It’s the hurt that brings the songs, and it’s the songs that heal the hurt. Jonathan’s songs bring us there, and back. Check this record out, it’s a good ‘un. – Mary Gauthier • You are the root of heaven, the morning star, the bright moon, the house of endless Love – Rumi • You can’t have the fruits without the roots. – Stephen Covey • You don’t need to condemn. Just observe, That is sin. That is insanity. That is unconsciousness. Above all, don’t forget to observe your own mind. Seek out the root of the insanity there. – Eckhart Tolle • You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • You have to know what’s happening in the locker rooms, you have to know what’s happening at the grass-roots level. That’s the best way to work. – Jacques Rogge • You shall be my roots and I will be your shade, though the sun burns my leaves. You shall quench my thirst and I will feed you fruit, though time takes my seed. And when I’m lost and can tell nothing of this earth you will give me hope. And my voice you will always hear. And my hand you will always have. For I will shelter you. And I will comfort you. And even when we are nothing left, not even in death, I will remember you. – Mark Z. Danielewski • You thought I was that type: that you could forget me, and that I’d plead and weep and throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare, or that I’d ask the sorcerers for some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift: my precious perfumed handkerchief. Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soul vicarious tears or a single glance. And I swear to you by the garden of the angels, I swear by the miracle-working ikon, and by the fire and smoke of our nights: I will never come back to you. – Anna Akhmatova

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );