#the idea being a place rebuilt from the memory of a sanctuary in a world long dead

[luc1d17y-ffxiv]

Philoxenia

So, since dead bird app will officially be dead to me by the end of this month, I'm reposting/posting my housing builds (and maybe some snippets of WoL headcanons? maybe? if I feel like it...?) here, starting with my personal house build "Philoxenia" (Exodus, Lavender Beds, Ward 27, Plot 42... at least until I win a medium)

More screenshots under the cut!

[avelera]

Speaking of Behind the Scenes stuff for my dreamling fic Giving Sanctuary, I've got the last two arcs pretty firmly plotted but there were a few scenes along the way that got cut and a few ideas for scenes that just never found a place. At the risk of them showing up later, which at this point I doubt, I thought I'd discuss a few that never made it in and some reasons why:

(Cut for spoilers)

1 ) More stuff about Eleanor. Specifically, to have one of Hob's nightmares (aka, PTSD episodes) tied to holding Eleanor's hand as she died in childbirth.

This is my biggest regret for a plotline that did not make it into the story but that I really, truly, don't see a place for given what is left. Most likely, if it occurs at all, it would be off-screen and mentioned at some later point as one of the nightmares Dream eventually dispatched for Hob.

There's a few reasons why more about Eleanor and her death did not make it into the story. I think the primary one is that it felt somewhat repetitive with the Robyn nightmare of losing a loved one and unlike the loss of Robyn, Eleanor's death isn't something Hob could bond with Dream over to quite the same extent.

All it would really do in practice is reiterate some stuff we already more or less know about Hob's trauma: that he lost his wife in childbirth. Nothing really new is learned there and, if anything, it would more likely distance Dream from him rather than draw them together as Robyn's death memory did because Dream would be shown in great detail someone else Hob loved, even if he lost them. It's not equivalent to Hob meeting Calliope at all, since Hob was eventually shown that Calliope really is done with Dream (and has been for millennia) but Dream would understand and perhaps in his fatalistic way attach to the idea that Hob is still mourning and therefore in love with Eleanor (unlikely to move on) if he was exposed to that memory of Hob's.

Also, I don't want to belittle Eleanor's role in Hob's life or the impact of her loss on his trauma (as a married person and a woman, the last thing I want to do is imply Hob's chosen wife was somehow lesser in his life!), but it was categorically less traumatic for him than Robyn's death, for a variety of reasons. One being: Hob has had many lovers die at this point. It's awful and tragic but it wouldn't have been an entirely new experience for him.

Second, he had someone there for him after and someone he had a responsibility to look after in return after he lost Eleanor, which was Robyn as a ten year old child. Hob didn't have the luxury of wallowing in Eleanor's lost, he had a young son to care for.

Third, just based on my own anecdotal observations over the years, widowers don't necessarily bounce back from losing a spouse, (indeed many many people are utterly destroyed by losing a partner) but losing a child tends to hit parents much, much harder than even losing their spouse. And Hob doesn't strike me as someone who would fall into the spiral we see in the 1600s just from the loss of a lover. He's lost lovers and partners before. He was resigned to the fact he would one day lose Eleanor, if not so soon. He lived in a world with an average 20% chance of a woman dying in childbirth, he would know many people who had lost a spouse that way.

But losing a child who had successfully reached adulthood, Robyn at age 20, an accomplishment that can't be overlooked for the time. As the person that Hob had rebuilt his entire life around with Eleanor gone, it was Robyn's death that really knocked him down into the spiral that lasted 80 years. Hob didn't take serious lovers after Eleanor in GS, specifically so there'd be no challenge to Robyn's birthright, no question of dividing up Hob's fortune. He really had his entire life focused on Robyn at that point. Losing Robyn left Hob completely unmoored in the world.

So, anyway, there's multiple writerly and plot reasons not to show the impact of Eleanor's death on Hob. It was plotted to be there at the beginning indeed, at one point I thought the structure of the entire story would be based around Dream finding and dispatching Hob's points of trauma with flashbacks. But then the Robyn one was so powerful, at least for me, that backtracking to show Eleanor after seemed repetitive and a distraction from the plot by that point, which was Dream and Hob falling in love. The Naxos arc really spelled the end of that, given how long it got, and how it really refocused the story specifically on their loss of their sons and Dream and Hob's love story that emerges from that.

(At the risk of this post already being too long:)

2 ) Another plotline was going to focus on Hob leaving the manor house to walk around London with Dream and having some panic attacks around that. This was another casualty of the Naxos arc, where obviously Hob left the house and had a different sort of panic attack about being left alone in the world by Dream, such that one that takes place in London would be redundant and while based more deeply on his recent PTSD triggers, a panic attack around his own ability to survive alone would be less realistic given he's already been shown to be able to survive in London and would eventually pull himself back together if abandoned there (as we know from 1789 in canon). At least in London, Hob would have more resources at his disposal (like knowing his way around surviving there and speaking the same language) than he does when he has the full on panic attack in Naxos at the prospect of just how entirely screwed he would be, short of getting lucky enough to happen upon an English merchant ship of some sort of hitching a ride back to England as a crew member.

But originally, going back into the city of London was going to be a PTSD episode of its own for Hob. Some elements of this still might happen later in the fic, but it made more sense when the story was focused on finding and dispatching his PTSD triggers specifically, rather than the more back-and-forth of care between him and Dream established by the Naxos arc. Among the things Hob might have encountered in London that set him off were loud, intrusive crowds, people staring at him, a public execution/bodies of executed young men (ie, reminders of Robyn), and the sight of blood in stockyards (reminders of Eleanor's death in childbirth).

Short of it just being a misery tour and a history lecture on life in the 1600s, there were only a few fleeting moments in it that I was particularly attached to and again, I prefer how the Robyn memory worked out, as it was originally going to be much bloodier when triggered by a walk through London, showing Hob seeing his son's body as the point of trauma, but the fact it ended up being the lack of closure and saying goodbye to his son that really kicked off Hob's spiral of misery and agoraphobia felt less overdone and more poignant.

tl;dr Those really are the two biggest ones that don't really have a place with where the story is going. I feel some loss at them not making it in, mostly for how it leaves a bit of a bait-and-switch in the structure where it seems like Dream's focus is just going to be pinpointing and eliminating Hob's PTSD triggers via magical hypnosis therapy, but IMO the way the story has evolved since Naxos is richer and more interesting than that structure, and what Hob actually needs, more than magical hypnosis therapy, is someone he loves to be there for him in his life, and the same applies to Dream, and that theme is the one we'll be exploring in greater depth, over and above the specific traumatic episodes of their past, except where those intertwine and have a mirror in one another.

[ravnicaforgoblins]

Ravnica for Goblins

Bars & Taverns

It may be a Dungeons & Dragons cliché, but the reason is solid enough. Bars & taverns are a good place for characters to meet up, adventures to start, information to be gathered, and spontaneous fights to break out because the Fighter/Barbarian wants to hit something.

Seeing as Ravnica is only ever one person’s absence from descending into complete chaos, it’s very important to have places for its citizens to have a drink, have a bite, sing bad songs, and blow off steam. Whether you are an Izzet researcher looking for people to bounce invention ideas off of, a Rakdos cultist looking to build up your fanbase, a Boros wojek getting off a three-week shift in the Rubblebelt, or a Dimir agent eavesdropping on persons of interest; a bar can offer something for everyone. All the establishments listed below are canonical, aka from official Ravnica Lore, but in keeping with the tradition of said lore, there’s very little in the way of description and a good number of them exist outside the District 10 map you have to work with. Are you even surprised anymore? Anyway, here are some of the most intriguing watering holes to grab a drink in.

The First Vineyard

Located in Old Rav (Ninth District), one of the deeper & older areas of Ravnica, lies a Golgari tavern whose main claim to fame is that it is Ravnica’s oldest tavern. How old? Who knows. Considering the Golgari have embraced death, rot, preservation, and fermentation as a way of life, it’s a reasonably safe bet you’ll find the oldest and most well-aged wines in the entire plane in this spot. Some of these bottles are probably older than the Guildpact.

If you need to impress someone fancy and you don’t mind being surrounded by the smell of death, this is the place to go. Orzhov believe expensive taste coincides with great taste and thus place high value on objects of (predictably) high value. Hence they have pretty much cornered the market on the kind of expensive goods they value, meaning one has to buy Orzhov to fit in with Orzhov and one has to be Orzhov to afford to buy Orzhov. If you want to skip all that, this should be your first & only stop. This vineyard won’t break your bank, and a little prestidigitation is all it takes to prepare it for the most snobbish of advokists. As with most things Golgari, the recipient is always much happier not knowing where (or who) the cuisine came from.

Titan’s Keg Tavern

Also located in the Ninth District, in the burned-down & often rebuilt neighborhood of Merrytown, lies a pub designed specifically for clients of particularly advanced vertical prowess, aka, GIANTS. At least 4 different guilds include giants among their ranks (Boros, Orzhov, Gruul, Rakdos), and while the city has gone to notable lengths to accommodate these individuals in all city establishments, whether a chair can withstand one sitting down can still be pretty hit or miss. But not here.

This bar is the best place in Ravnica to find a giant, regardless of guild. This is also the best place in town to eat in silence without causing any fuss. Not because it’s quiet, it certainly isn’t (can you even imagine giant karaoke?), but because every patron in this bar is at least 12ft tall, smashes things for a living, and comes here so they can forget about little people for a while. If you are the little person who disrupts that, you are going to have a giant-sized tavern full of angry giant-sized GIANTS teach you some manners. And it doesn’t matter what level you’re at, 25 giants will kill you.

Just getting into this tavern can be an adventure. As the tavern’s main draw is that it’s built specifically for giants, not being one gives you a definite disadvantage. Imagine walking in and a 15ft-tall host (in a suit) asks you if you have a reservation. Imagine trying to muscle your way in passed a Giant in sunglasses who has skipped “bouncer” and gone straight to “splatter”. Imagine a heavily tattooed Bolrac Clan Smasher meeting you at the door with “Welcome to Giant’s Keg Tavern. How tough you?” Imagine a line scrawled on the entrance that says “you must be this tall to enter”.

The Smoking Wreckage

Located in the 4th Precinct of District 10 (huzzah, something actually on the map), the Smoking Wreckage is a (you might have guessed it) Izzet League bar. Expect mixology taken to places it’s never been before. Your drink may bubble, fizzle, explode, polymorph you into a viashino, trigger a wild magic surge, or teleport you into Ral Zarek’s personal laboratory. Or worse, it might get you drunk enough to try another one.

Most likely you won’t have to worry about bar brawls in here, the beer itself is far more dangerous than the broken bottle. Remember, the name isn’t just for flavor in here. This bar is still an Izzet facility and prone to spontaneous uncontrolled reaction; i.e. blowing up. The setup that makes all of this possible makes The Smoldering Wreckage just as much a laboratory as anything in Nivix, except with booze added to the equation.

And you thought Rakdos clubs were dangerous.

The Broken Toybox and Gore House

Speak of the Demon and his pubs shall appear. Hidden discreetly in Precinct 6 are Gore House, a club notorious even by Rakdos standards, and The Broken Toybox, a tavern/brothel that definitely doesn’t have anything strange going on in the basement. You don’t really go to either of these places for the food.

(Dramatic Voice) You go looking for trouble.

What can you expect at a typical Rakdos club? Blood, pain, fire, sharp objects, and entertainment that is guaranteed to take someone’s breath away. So for Gore House, expect that dialed up to eleven. This is where the heavy hitters of the Cult of Rakdos do their biggest shows. Judith the Scourge Diva, Masters of Cruelty, Blood Witches, and rising stars desperate to give the audience a show they’ll never forget, no matter how hard they try. Attendance is synonymous with madness; if you aren’t crazy going in, you will be walking out. If waking up with no memories of the night before next to a dead body and covered in someone else’s blood was a club, it’d be Gore House.

As for The Broken Toybox, if the name alone doesn’t steer you away, you may already be beyond hope. "Den of Sin” just barely scratches the surface. This is where the Cult brings your most twisted and depraved dreams to life behind closed doors with spiked chains on them. If you or a member of your party wants to go here alone, you might need to have a serious conversation with them. This is not a fun toybox. The only rational reason for delving into this dark sanctuary is trying to find something nasty. A Sire of Insanity lurking in the basement suites, a lead on Massacre Girl’s safe house, or an influential figure with dark secrets. You may wish you didn’t have darkvision after a visit.

Bitter End Tavern

Hidden within Avaric, an official Orzhov territory, but one harboring deep anti-guild atmosphere, lies the Bitter End Tavern. While not officially a Guildless-Only bar, you can definitely expect some nasty looks from the patrons if you are flashing any Guild insignias. It technically exists outside the Ten Districts, so put it wherever you want. Guildless don’t have a ton of lore, which makes this a good location for any storylines or NPCs you might have designed that don’t really fit in with any of the 10 Guilds or even Ravnica as a whole. You can basically hang a sign over the door saying “Homebrews Welcome”.

You might find ancient worshipers of the Nephilim gathered here, or groups plotting a coup against a powerful member of a particular guild. Sooner or later, any notable Guildless or Anti-Guild individual will end up here for a bite. Same time, you can also find large groups of people willing to help out other un-affiliated citizens navigate this confusing cityscape world. Heroes of the Precinct likely drink for free here, and they’re always willing to help someone in a bad place with no one else to turn to. A certain mad Voidwielder might also pop in for a nightcap between insane schemes as well. Or just your garden-variety NPC commoners in bulk, lest we forget half the population of Ravnica is Guildless.

[justjessame]

The Deal Chapter 59

There were three communities that didn’t need much rebuilding and one that needed extensive rehab. And I wasn’t very welcome in any of them. How would I know this? Because, ALL of the population of ALL three were at Hilltop in the beginning, at some point on another. And while Daryl had promised that I wouldn’t be subjected to the abuse of their collective feelings of disappointment and irritation with me, and I’m downplaying it trust me, he couldn’t be with me twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Not that he didn’t try his damnedest.

I spent my days getting used to my bow again. Soon, my Simon target was fully beheaded, and I had to grin as I made a new one. Sometimes I took Judith with me, sitting her on a blanket at my feet, telling her stories about Carl as I notched arrow after arrow and kept an eye on any danger that might try to sneak up on us, walker or human. She was walking now, and I would take her hand in mine, fold the blanket and sling my bow over my shoulder as we took our time getting back to the rest of the world.

She came with me to visit Negan on most days, even once he’d been removed to a more secure spot. I’d sit by him as she toddled around and I hoped he found some measure of peace from our time with him. On the visits that we were alone, he’d touch me more often. Taking my hand and kissing the knuckles, or leaning in to smell the side of my neck. I knew, once we returned to Alexandria, that he’d be the first real visitor to Morgan’s cell and he wouldn’t be able to get as close to me as he did in Hilltop, so I savored it as much as he did.

We knew it wouldn’t last. The quiet, the ease of our visits, but we also knew that we both found comfort in them. Negan’s lips brushing my neck, my fingers linked with his, such simple signs of affection, yet we knew what they brought to each of us. Pain. Whispered threats. And the dirty looks. When I was alone with him, I could care less about what was being said or who was shooting those damn looks my way. And then I’d leave, and the strength of his presence was gone, and I’d have to walk with my chin up and back straight as though I could give a shit.

I did though. It hurt me to know that people I barely knew thought so little of me. It hurt worse to know that the people who did know me, and quite well, seemed to share those same thoughts. Unlike my brush with falling apart from those days before meeting Negan, however, I didn’t fight feeling it. I was wide open and I owned my emotions. I cried when I felt like crying, and as Daryl and my family were learning quickly, when I was pissed they knew it now.

“Damn it, Dad,” I was glaring at him as we sat together discussing what came next. He wanted Daryl, and me clearly, to head to the Sanctuary and get it back on track. “You promised.” Not just visits with Negan, but damn it, I just got back to seeing Judith every damn day. “How the hell is this supposed to work? Plus, don’t you need all fucking hands on deck at Alexandria? You said that it was a mess that needed rebuilding.”

I knew that Daryl’s eyes were on me. I also knew that Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, Carol, and Ezekiel were watching me intently. Too fucking bad.

“Jessi,” Dad was using his patient parent voice and I nearly growled at him. “Honey, you know the place better than anyone here.” I shook my head. “You do, I can’t put one of the former Saviors in charge, not yet.”

“I barely left-” I stopped, feeling Daryl tense. Shit. “I wasn’t really given much free reign, Dad.” Not until I was ready to run away from him, I added in my head. I sighed. “I don’t know his people, I don’t know what they fucking did there.”

Daryl’s arms wrapped around me, trying to calm me down. “Jessi,” his face was practically buried in my hair. “We can go and get an idea of what needs done. We’ll visit Alexandria as much as ya want, I swear.” I wanted to fight free, but I knew that he was trying to compromise. Trying to make me see that fighting against it wouldn’t help my cause at all. And so I relaxed into his touch and sighed again.

“Fine.” I agreed, looking up at Dad with hard eyes. “What are we expected to do?”

What we were expected to do, I learned quickly, was determine who was trustworthy and how to tame those who would undoubtedly fight back. Daryl and I were supposed to take stock of the Sanctuary and learn not just what it used to be, but what it COULD become now. And so, with me at his side, dealing with the reports and people that Daryl didn’t have the patience to contend with, we started to reteach Negan’s people how things had to be from here on out.

Corn ethanol fuel, that was the plan for the Sanctuary. No one seemed to want to hear that we didn’t have nearly enough fertile ground for crops. And Eugene as a constant presence wasn’t exactly welcome for me either. Dad tried, during my trips to Alexandria, to remind me that Eugene was intelligent and he had helped win the war. Sure, thought, but you keep forgetting that I care for Negan and that smart asshole could have killed him with that backfiring gun. And, there was that memory of why I ran away from Negan, the fear that another Eugene would come and as his newest girl, I’d be expected to entertain him.

I helped where I could. Learning that the majority of Negan’s people were go with the flow types. They transferred their loyalty strangely easily, and I had to hold back an absolutely hysterical laugh when they tried to kneel for Daryl and then Dad. Once they were told those types of displays were no longer necessary, most of them fell in line quickly. There were hiccups. People not feeling safe when Daryl insisted the walker security line be killed for good. People fighting against the more open, no points, system of being fed and clothed. These were easily squashed, mostly. Daryl’s biggest issue was his discomfort in leading this way.

Nights were spent explaining that he had to understand it from their point of view. They’d been here, some of them at least from what they’d told me, for years. Negan had kept them safe. He’d given them jobs and security. Learning that he was gone AND that all the rules and ways they’d learned to live were different wasn’t an easy thing to get used to. Daryl would counter with the ones that had easily changed, and I’d point out that most were Negan’s true soldiers, the ones that were leaders because they could sense the change in tides. When you’re looking at grunts, or even the lower totem Saviors, you’re looking at people who want stability, change is hard.

I fell back into mediating easily. It was natural for me. As was hunting, which Daryl and I did regularly. Mostly for his sanity, because being trapped behind the walls of a huge brick building was never going to suit him easily. I rested easily in knowing that Daryl, and not me, would eventually be asking Dad for a reassignment. He hated it here as much as I did, even if I was growing used to navigating through the people’s issues and finding solutions to the rising problems.

So we’d hunt. Sometimes just to get away, and other times as we left to visit Alexandria. Daryl never let me go alone. I tried to tell myself it was because he wanted to check in with Dad. I tried to convince myself that he wanted to keep me safe, even if I was more than capable of it myself, or that he wanted to see the progress in rebuilding our former home. I even tried, as he and I sat with Judith and watched her paint and listened as she told ME a story, that he wanted to visit with her. But, I could feel his eyes on me as I walked to the cell that held Negan, and all those illusions I’d try to build in my mind for his presence here with me would fade and I knew. He was here to make sure I didn’t release him, that I didn’t stay behind with him, that Negan never got to know me as intimately as he already did again.

It took around eighteen months to rebuild and for us to all be back in the flow of things. The Sanctuary wasn’t in perfect order. Not even close, but it was better. As long as no one wanted to stay in any of the rooms that held the broken windows. Windows that were gone thanks to gunfire from a war that never had to be. The crops, still not nearly enough, were growing, but for how long? And the corn ethanol was being produced as it could be.

Alexandria was almost better than it had been. Wind mills, flowing water, and rebuilt homes along with crops of their own and a new hope filled the air. I didn’t check on Hilltop or the Kingdom personally, but regular reports and updates came in over the radios or in person. We were getting back to normal, or most of us were.

Daryl was chafing under the strain of leadership and having to walk the same path that Negan had walked. He begged me, more than once, not to remind him of whose apartment we lived in. Not to mention that I’d slept in the bed, that I’d made love in the bed, with anyone other than him. He chafed at the reminders of Negan, and I chafed at the absence of him. This wasn’t right. Not the building, not Daryl’s body on those sheets in this bed. Nothing was right, even if the flow of life continued, everything felt wrong.

[sasorikigai]

The Fire Gardens || of its significance.

The Shirai Ryu Fire Gardens are quiet, despite its effervescent radiance and flamboyant magnificence clashing against the paradoxical atmosphere of solace and serenity embedded; it’s the place where idealization meets reality, and Hanzo can only describe the intensity as the grounds continue to thrive and transform under the power of man and nature combined. Sprinkled with streams of countless twinkling crimson stars, Hanzo welcomes the autumn air that wraps around him like a worn blanket - familiar and warm. Then he closes his eyes and feels the manifestation of home that has been lost to him since his own slaughter - of his inevitable death and resurrection. The echoing waves created by the wind reminds him of the soothing sounds of his family’s laughter, while the rustling leaves themselves the beloved clan members. The synergy brought upon by the Sky Temple’s existence above the Gardens brings Hanzo’s restless heart to resume its wonderful beat. 

While he had conformed to the idea of being always in pain -despite the reconstructed grounds existing, he is the sole Shirai Ryu residing here - as if this had always been the game he plays, with the price he pays as his family and clan’s life, not his own. And he remains the one who still believes in dreams; for he’s a perpetual dreamer striving and hoping for the best, even in the nadir and the chasmic depth of abyssal void. He’d chase them - chase them until he’s out of breath - as he’d continue to survive and grow through trauma and transformative justice. 

The mountains in the distance are as if made of magic; magnificent with wooden benches and stone statues, plotted around the verdant assortments blooming with flowers. A thematic color accentuating the entire scene, as engulfing red and oranges, along with evergreen of the green saturating a lily pink sky. And as his echoing footsteps resonate through the inset stone steps of the courtyard, leading towards the temple shrine, nestled close to the overlooking, steep arch of the wooden bridge, separating the sacred area and the training ground, along with his private quarters and other mixed complexes, including infirmary and armory. 

Now situated on one end of the courtyard, he stands ever so still, slightly pale-faced in contrast to his soiled, roughened contours of his well-developed muscles and blood streaks, adorning him with the alluring fragrance of copper and death. He reminisces the cruel harshness of the Netherrealm’s fire amidst the hopeful eruption of wildfire, creating such a contrast from the deep onyx darkness within the temple. The sanctuary of his being is also the manifestation of his subconscious - as the bleeding heart had painstakingly sought to paint and recreate his own realities, as if his own heartstrings had been pulled, in order to be knotted to intricate amalgamation; the verticality of the manmade structure, along with the entwining, twisting, snaking trunk of the vehement oak, serving as the heart of the Fire Gardens. It is also his heart manifested, as their stretching, twisting limbs extend and slant further along with the amorphous shadows, it signifies the ever growing continuum of his own growth and evolvement. 

The waves of deep shadows create such cooling shades against the shimmering effervescence of the sun, shimmering in tandem with the rustling petals raining from the trees. How time slows to allow every freed petal to gently caress his skin, offering his iridescent silhouette to come alive beneath the mellifluous recreation of his past life, unmarred with tragedy and afflictions. How everything reverberates into inexhaustible heat, trickling down to a sound that shakes his heart in momentum. Even in its inertia of permeating stillness, it’d chase way 

Maybe this is the beauty of it all - him not knowing what might happen, but trying to make it work anyway. There is something about the way the moon shines over them like a spotlight; all the world is their stage and they are stars, the brightest in the sky that would make all the difference in the universe to those who are inexorably lost. The way they glow commands the eyes of many, but never demands them; they may be perfected and flawed simultaneously beneath the natural aura of the combative pierceness of their eyes, with their past, as pawns that had switched sides, redeeming themselves without staying and stagnating in the shallow end. The Fire Gardens itself is a manifestation of Hanzo Hasashi’s unfurled reverie, of his consciousness. Something intangible like a cloud obscuring the sun becoming tangible like the permeating sun tinting the color of his skin.

And only those who could shed light on expressions of accumulation, towards the rebuilt perfection of his clan, is worthy of his invitation, deserving of the gravity of staying. The familiar allies - Raiden, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang and Kung Lao - all gather, along with the valuable members of the Special Forces, hoping to stitch together realities (many of which didn’t still exist), erasing memories with brutal defiance of their changed intrinsicness and replacing them with the better tones of their true life, felt beneath the pain and heaviness felt from living and struggling on their own.

[torestoreamends]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Fic: Bluebell and Birch

9.7k words, G rated

Albus and James find a ramshackle shed in the orchard at the bottom of the garden while they're playing one day. With Harry's help, Albus rebuilds it, and over the years it becomes a hiding place, a sanctuary, a place for tears and romance, and ultimately his favourite place in the world.

This is a belated birthday present for my friend @hestels2. Over the summer she asked Theo where he thinks Albus runs to after the blanket scene, and he told her about Albus's shed – a place where he can hide and feel safe when things are too much at home. This is based on that idea. It's the saga of the shed.

Beta'd by the wonderful @abradystrix.

Read it here on AO3.

*

Albus’s earliest memory of the shed is of it being a ramshackle wooden hut, surrounded by overgrown grass, full of cobwebs and broken bits of metal contraptions left behind by the Muggle who owned the house before they did. He and James discovered it one day while they were playing in the orchard, nestled between a gnarled old apple tree and the bit of crumbling stone wall that separates their land from the sheep field next door. 

It was locked when they found it. James wanted to pick the lock, but before he got the chance to find a suitable implement, the strength of Albus’s curiosity had already made the padlock click and fall into the grass. 

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Albus said, looking down at the tiny glimpse of rust-browned lock that can be seen among the jungle of undergrowth. He actually felt a bit proud of himself. It wasn’t often that he did accidental magic, and every time he did it gave him a secret thrill of joy. 

“You did do it though.” James patted him on the shoulder as he brushed past and gave the door a shove. “Come on. I want to go inside.”

It took both of them to get the door open; it was so stiff. The boards making it up were bent and warped by years of damp. It looked like the paint had flaked off, leaving only the bare, unprotected wood behind, and the odd rusty nail sticking out. 

Inside it smelled of musty damp. There were mushrooms growing in one corner, little white ones peeking through a gap between floor and wall and ground. The leaves that had blown in through the broken windows were now a mulch on the floor. As James stepped through the door the whole structure creaked and cracked. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t go in,” Albus whispered, without knowing why he was whispering. “It might be dangerous.”

“It’s fine,” James replied. “Look.” He stomped his foot on the floor, which buckled beneath him, making him grab at the door frame. When he was sure it wasn’t going to completely collapse he turned to Albus and gave him a bright smile. “See? Come on Al.”

Albus tiptoed over the threshold, trying to put as little weight on the floor as he could, and avoiding James’s hole. As he stepped further into the tiny space a pair of field mice came skittering out of nowhere, making him jump.  He jumped back, straight into James, who shoved him off.

“Ow, you stood on my toe.”

“Sorry!” Albus gasped. “They made me jump. This place is creepy.”

“It is a bit,” James agreed. He ran his fingers over the fractured plastic handle of something Albus thought might be a lawn mower. “It’s like a graveyard for Muggle gardening stuff. We should bring granddad here.”

“I think we should tell Mum and Dad it’s here,” Albus murmured, watching a fat black spider making improvements to its web. It seemed oblivious to their presence, focused on the delicate spin of silk, which shone gold in the dappled sunlight streaming diffuse and soft through the dusty window. 

“We could make it a den,” James suggested. “Or a broom shed!” His eyes went bright and his gaze more distant, clearly imagining the glory of this room stuffed with broomsticks and Quidditch gear. 

Albus pulled a face. “No. We already have a broom shed. I’m going to tell Dad about it, then we can decide what we do. It can’t be a den with holes in the floor and mushrooms growing in it.”

James shrugged. “Okay. Race you back to the house to tell Dad.”

---

They did decide to make the shed into a den. 

“But not just a den for you, James,” Ginny said, giving James a significant look. “You have to let Albus and Lily play there too.”

James pouted. “Fine. It can be a boring den. I don’t mind.”

It didn’t take long to clean out with magic. They spent a couple of hours scrubbing it clean, or rather Harry did. James did laps of the orchard on his broom, dropping by every half an hour to check on progress, and Albus sat cross-legged in the grass and watched his dad work. Lily was too young to be interested in the redevelopment project, so she was inside with Ginny. 

Once everything was stripped clean, Harry started rebuilding, with Albus as his assistant. They replaced the rotten boards, completely redid the floor and roof, and Harry showed Albus how to fix things together the Muggle way, only instead of using a hammer to push the nails home, they used magic instead. 

The most fun bit, not that any of it wasn’t fun, was painting. Once the shed was all rebuilt and water tight, and the new windows had been put in place, gleaming with polished perfection, they went to a shop in Diagon Alley to pick out the colours for the inside of their new den. James wanted bright crimson and gold, because of course he did. Albus wanted more muted shades, pale blue maybe, or green. In the end they compromised and went for a cheerful sunshine yellow. 

Albus did most of the painting, at least of the bits he could reach. It was actually quite fun, sweeping the brush down the lines of the boards to create a perfect wash of colour. Watching the inside of the shed slowly transform from the silver of plain birch boards to buttercup yellow is still one of his favourite memories. When he could no longer reach to paint anymore he sat on the floor and watched Harry do it, and when they got to the ceiling, Harry lifted him up so he could paint that too. 

It was really nice, spending time just Albus and Harry. Albus didn’t get to spend enough time with his dad, because he worked so much, so that weekend was precious to him. At the end when he could look around at the drying paint, and the little hut they’d made together, he felt a warm glow of happiness. They did this together. It was theirs. Their memory. Their place. 

“Are you happy?” Harry asked, seeing Albus’s smile. 

Albus nodded, unable to speak against all the joy welling up inside him.

“Good.” Harry ruffled his hair with a paint spattered hand. “Come on. We can come back once it’s dry.”

Albus couldn’t stay away. He spent all that evening sitting on the doorstep, staring out at the spot in the orchard where he knew the shed was. Only when it was time for bed did he leave, and even then he couldn’t sleep. The next morning he was up with the sun, gathering all the things he wanted to take to the shed: a couple of blankets, cushions, a lamp, a Mimbulus Mimbletonia, and a regular Muggle cactus. By the time his parents came downstairs he was sitting by the back door, surrounded by a heap of stuff, desperate to be allowed to get going. 

Harry and Ginny glanced at each other. 

“Come on then,” Harry said. “Do you need help with any of this stuff?”

They carried it together, lugging it across the dewy grass that sparkled, crystalline in the pale heather dawn light. 

The shed was cast in shadow as they approached, nestled in the pools of darkness beneath the trees. They hadn’t painted the outside, just cast an Imperturbable Charm to preserve the wood, so It was still protected while maintaining the silver sheen of the boards. Harry had put a spell on the door too, so it only opened when any of the Potters touched it. Albus had tested it several times the day before, pressing his palm to the door and waiting for it to click open, but this time it was for real, which made it all the more thrilling. 

The door swung inwards, and he stared in at the room. It was bright and airy, all the mushrooms and spiders and rotten boards long gone. The smell of fresh paint and wood chips floated out and he inhaled, closing his eyes. It was solace and peace and home. 

Dust motes danced in the rising sun as they stepped inside and started decorating. Albus arranged the blankets and cushions on the floor, placed the cactus and Mimbletonia on the window ledge, and set the lamp down in one corner. Harry drew his wand and started draping little beads of light across the walls, making the place even brighter and more welcoming. Finally he cast a bit of bluebell flame into the lamp, and Albus sat down in the middle of his new den, looking around. 

“I like it,” he said. “I like it better now it’s not all mouldy anymore.”

“It’s not about to collapse either,” Harry said, resting a hand against one of the walls and inspecting the paint. “Will you be happy out here?”

Albus nodded. “Definitely. As long as James doesn’t visit too much.”

Harry laughed and pushed his glasses up his nose. “You might have to compromise on that. It is meant to be a den for both of you, and Lily.”

“Lily can come,” Albus said. “And I might let James. If he’s very nice.”

“I’ll have a word with him,” Harry promised. “Now, do you want some breakfast?”

Albus thought about that. “Can I bring it back here to eat?”

“Of course,” Harry said, putting a hand on Albus’s shoulder. “It’s yours now.”

---

It didn’t take James long to get bored of the shed. He loved it for that first summer, and he would sometimes hang out there afterwards. For a while Albus couldn’t go in there because James was always there with Rose and the other Weasleys. Even Teddy came to visit at one point. But James always preferred being outdoors. He liked running around in the orchard, or whacking Bludgers at people. He didn’t go in for being cooped up inside or sitting quietly in the shade, so the novelty of the den wore off after a while. 

But Albus didn’t get bored of it. He loved having somewhere to hide from the chaos and noise of his family. He liked being able to disappear and not be bothered for hours, until his mum came to fetch him for dinner. The shed became his favourite place to be, and then it gradually became the only place he wanted to be.

It started around the time that James went to Hogwarts. Even though there was one less person in the house, it seemed as though, gradually, everyone had less time for Albus. There were letters to write to James every week, and he became all anyone ever talked about: his classes, his Quidditch, his detentions. Albus was doing well with his basic schooling, so Ginny’s attention was focused more on making sure Lily was up to scratch. Harry became busier at work, thanks to a swell in dark activity, and gone were the days when he’d come home and read Albus a bedtime story, or lift him up so he could paint the ceiling of a shed. 

Albus started going to the shed because he was lonely, and he hoped that if he was the one inflicting the loneliness on himself it wouldn’t hurt so much. But it still did. 

One rainy spring afternoon, just after Albus’s eleventh birthday, when his parents were fretting about James’s exams, and Lily was struggling to memorise her times tables, Albus slipped out of the house and went to the shed, even though it was a weekday and he wasn’t meant to go there on weekdays. 

The weather outside was mild, but the shed was cold. There was no sunshine, just murky grey, so the shed was dingy. Albus uncovered the bluebell flames, the same ones his dad had cast for him all those years ago, and wrapped a blanket round his shoulders for warmth. He huddled up in the corner, shivering, curling as close to the jar of flames as he could get, and feeling entirely lost. 

Sometimes, on days like that he might as well have been invisible. No one really saw him, even when he was standing right in front of them. There was always something or someone more important than him. They probably wouldn’t even notice he’d gone. 

He rubbed his hands together over the bluebell flames, trying to get some warmth into them, but he felt cold all over. And as he lay there in the dim blue glow, he began to worry, the way he‘d begun to do when he was alone with no one to fill the silence. 

He worried about the impending doom of Hogwarts, and how well James was doing, and whether he’d ever be able to live up to expectations. He worried about his schoolwork, whether he’d managed to learn enough – what if he turned up on the 1st of September in a few months’ time and everyone knew things he didn’t? He worried about his dad, because Harry used to have all the time in the world for him but that seemed to have changed. Maybe his dad didn’t really love him anymore. What if his family had got bored of him?

And on and on. Black doubts niggling away about friendship and family and school, making him feel grey inside, cutting him off from the world, until all he could do was hug his knees and rock and try not to cry. 

He must have worried himself to sleep at some point, because next thing he knew a door banged open nearby and he jumped awake, staring wildly into the darkness for the source of the noise. As he tried to get his bearings, a sudden blinding light shone right into his face, and he shrank back, terrified, squeezing his eyes shut and ducking his head to make the painful brightness stop. 

“Albus!” Someone shrieked his name, and then there were hands on him, holding his arms, and then dragging him into a hug. “Harry, he’s here. I’ve found him.”

He realised his mum was holding him, and that she was very warm and comfortable, and he hugged her tight in return without really knowing why. All he knew was that he wanted a hug, and that hers were better than anyone else’s. 

After several long seconds she pulled back, and he saw that she was clutching her wand and wearing a cloak over her pyjamas. Her face was pale and desperate with fear. 

“What happened?” He asked, bleary and confused with sleep.

“We thought you’d disappeared,” she said, squeezing his shoulders and patting at his arms like she was trying to convince herself he was real and solid. “We couldn’t find you, and-“ she shook her head and pulled him into another hug, stroking his hair. “Albus. You’re freezing cold. Why are you out here? How long have you been here?”

Albus’s stomach dropped like lead and he released his arms from around here. “I came here after lunch,” he murmured. “I didn’t think you’d notice, if I just- I think I fell asleep.”

“Since lunch,” she breathed, pulling back to look at him. “But-“ She didn’t get chance to finish, because the next second Harry came flying into the shed, hair a mess, glasses askew, looking wild. He flung himself on the ground and pulled Albus into his arms. It was the first time he’d hugged Albus in a year, and although it should have felt good it made Albus feel sick, because he knew it was the middle of the night. They hadn’t noticed he was missing all afternoon, or at dinner, maybe they hadn’t even noticed until they came to check on him before they went to bed. 

He was invisible. 

“We’ve been looking for you for hours,” Harry said. “We were worried sick! Don’t you dare do this again.” He pulled back from the hug and looked at Albus, expression turning to thunder. “Do you hear me, Albus? You’ll stay in the house. You’re not to come out here without permission ever again, do you understand?”

Albus gave a tiny nod. “Yes,” he whispered. 

“Good. Now get back inside. It’s late and we all need to sleep.”

So you can go to work tomorrow, Albus thought. Where you’ll forget all about me.

His mum kept an arm round him as they went back to the house. She tucked him up in bed and gave him another hug, while his dad hovered in the doorway, still storming with anger and upset, and not saying a word. 

---

It was hell being banned from the shed, and that was before James came home for the holidays. Suddenly the house was full of noise and chaos. He’d forgotten since Christmas just how loud James was. It was physically painful to hear him yelling to Ginny in the kitchen that yes, he would like a cup of tea, thanks, or to hear him screeching as he play fought with Lily on the stairs, or to hear him crowing and singing with glee after scoring a hat trick during a Quidditch game in the orchard. 

Without the shed to escape to, Albus hid in his room and feverishly read his new spell books, trying and failing to block out the noise, and trying and failing to remember practical tips about wandwork and potion making. 

“Al is worrying again!” James yelled one afternoon in July as he burst into Albus’s room uninvited, flopped down on the bed, and grabbed Albus into a headlock that didn’t feel anything like a hug.

It hurt. Tears flooded Albus’s eyes and he felt as if he was being choked. He tried to fight his brother off, but James was two years older and an athlete, so he was bigger, heavier, and used to fighting with kids twice his size. It was futile, so Albus gave up and lay there, James on top of him and the book crumpled beneath him. 

“You need to stop worrying, Al,” James said, digging his knuckles into Albus’s scalp. “Everything’s fine. Of course it is, I’m your brother.”

Albus squirmed and pressed his fingers into the mattress, trying to alleviate some of the pain by clawing it out. It didn’t work, and his wriggling just made James sit harder on top of him. Albus gasped in a breath. 

“James,” he groaned. “Get... off... me...”

“Aww, But I’m giving you a hug!” James said, squeezing him tighter.

Albus started struggling again, trying to kick his brother off, and as he did he heard the pages of the book beneath him tear. That was the final straw.

“Get the fuck off my bed!” He yelled, anger rising red inside him and boiling over. He kicked James as hard as he could in the shin, and James yelped and let go, just as Ginny came charging into the room. 

“What in Merlin’s name is going on in here?”

“He kicked me!” James said, rubbing his shin and glaring at Albus. “And he swore.”

Albus sat up and pulled his ruined book out from beneath James. He was too angry to bother defending himself, so he just started inspecting the damage, flipping through pages and trying to straighten them out. 

Their mum took in the scene for a moment before sighing. “James, go downstairs and help your dad with dinner. No, don’t bother arguing, just go.”

James pouted and gave Albus one last punch on the arm. “See you, Al.” Then he sloped out of the room and banged his way down the stairs, while Ginny came and perched on the edge of Albus’s bed. 

“You shouldn’t talk to your brother like that,” she said. 

He ignored her and she sighed. 

“Are you okay?” She asked gently. 

“Fine,” Albus lied, not looking at her and leaning across to grab some Spell-o-tape for his book. He flattened the pages down and tried to make them line up properly, but the book was all creased and ruined, making it nearly impossible. 

“I know he was hurting you,” his mum said. She shifted down the bed, closer to Albus, who ripped off a bit of tape and started sticking the pages back together. “I’m going to talk to him later,” she said. “He shouldn’t just walk into your room like that. This is your space. He has to learn to respect that.”

“I had a space he wouldn’t go in,” Albus muttered, hoping he was speaking too quietly for her to hear. “But I’m not allowed to go there anymore.” His voice cracked as he said it, and a tear dribbled down his cheek, splashing onto the page of his book. Annoyed at himself, he brushed his sleeve across his cheek and sniffed. 

“Albus,” his mum murmured. She reached out to try and hug him, but he dodged away, right down to the other end of his bed, and started patting at the stupid, uneven, wrinkled bit of tape. “Would that help?” She asked. “If you could go back to the shed? I know it gets loud and busy in this house. It can get a bit much, can’t it?”

He half shrugged, and started picking at the tape, trying to even it out. The page wasn’t straight, the words didn’t quite line up right. It was unreadable, unusable, useless, and it was all James’s fault for ruining it. 

Frustration bubbled up inside him and he threw the book away from himself, so it tumbled onto the floor and landed pages down, while he buried his face in his hands and started to sob. 

“It’s shit. I hate it.” He didn’t know if he was talking about the book or the noise in the house or his whole life, but whatever it was, his mum recognised that it wasn’t good because she didn’t lecture him for his language. Instead she hugged him, and he didn’t resist. He curled into her arms and buried his face in her shoulder while she held him. 

“It’s alright,” she whispered in his ear. “We can fix it. I promise.” And he didn’t know which thing she was talking about either, but he thought it might be the book, because how could they possibly fix everything else? 

He clung to her and cried until all his tears dried up and he started to feel exhausted and headachy, and his face hurt from the tears. Then he pulled away and wiped his nose, while she stooped down to pick up the book. She inspected the damage for a moment before looking up at him. 

“I’m going to talk to your dad,” she said. “About the shed. I know he was worried that time, but as long as we know where you’ve gone I don’t see why you shouldn’t spend time out there.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“I don’t like seeing you unhappy like this,” she said. 

“No,” he murmured, picking at a hole in the knee of his jeans. He hated feeling unhappy like this too, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. 

“Maybe the shed will help,” she said. She looked at him for a moment, waiting for a response, then she sighed and drew her wand. She tapped it on the edge of the pages, and all the crinkles melted from the book, and the tears sealed up, so when she handed it back to him it was good as new, apart from the bit of Spell-o-tape sticking out of the middle where he hadn’t quite cut it to size. 

He took the book and turned it over in his hands, wishing that fixing himself could be that easy. But there’s no spell you can cast to cure loneliness, or make someone stop feeling invisible and overwhelmed. 

“Thanks, Mum,” he murmured, hugging the book to his chest. 

She smiled and kissed the top of his head. “Any time,” she said. “Now, dinner should be nearly ready. Get your hands washed and I’ll see you downstairs.”

---

The first time Albus spent the night in the shed was the next summer. It was a bright, warm day, and he stayed out watching the sunset. He’d asked his mum if he could and she’d said yes. By the time the sun was finally gone, leaving behind fading pastel streaks of gold and blue and green, the lights were out in the house and everything was quiet. 

Albus hugged his knees and looked up at the dark window of his bedroom. He knew he should go back inside and sleep, but it was peaceful out here. The warm summer breeze ruffled his hair and cooled the sticky night air. Being out here under a blanket was better than being in a bed in the attic of a hot house. And out here he could watch the fairies flitter back and forth across the garden, glowing like embers of firelight. 

He felt freer in the garden, away from his family, away from everything that was difficult about life. The only thing he wished was that Scorpius could be here. 

A small pang of loneliness, the same loneliness he’d felt last year before he started at Hogwarts, made his heart ache, and he rested his chin on his knees. It would be nice to bring Scorpius here. It would also be nice to stay out here on the edge of the wilderness and not have to go inside, with the noise and the walls and the knowledge that he didn’t fit in with his family. It would be nice to stay in this place where he could be completely himself. 

It was silent. The household was sleeping. His parents knew where he was. If everyone was already asleep no one would miss him. He could just stay here. So he did. 

He lay on his back on a bed of cushions and stared up at the ceiling he’d painted all those years ago. Silver moonlight streamed through the window. Crickets chirped in the garden, and a gnome giggled as it rushed through the long grass outside. The breeze stirred the leaves in the orchard. He felt safe. He felt at home. He felt free. 

Sleep took him, gentle and peaceful, and although he knew his back would ache from sleeping on the floor, and he’d be woken far too early by the bright morning light, he didn’t care. This was the one place in the world that he felt good enough for. It wasn’t Hogwarts, it wasn’t his parents’ house, it was here. In his shed. And for that night everything was as perfect as it could be. 

He started sleeping in the shed a lot over the summer and no one noticed. James made noticing anything other than himself impossible. There was this strange divide inside him, between the loneliness of being overlooked by his family, and the knowledge that he’d come to terms with it and was making the best of a miserable situation. He didn’t really feel sad in those days, just numb and quietly at peace. 

“I haven’t seen much of you this holiday,” Ginny said on the last day of the holidays, when Albus was sitting on the back step of the house watching her prune the Flutterby Bush – he wasn’t in the orchard because James was playing Quidditch and more than once already Albus had been almost killed by a stray Bludger flying through the window of his shed. “Have you had fun?”

Albus didn’t think that fun was quite the right word, so he shrugged. “It’s been okay.” Better than school, he thought. 

“Are you looking forward to going back to school?” His mum asked, glancing up from the bush and wiping her forehead on the back of her gardening gloves. 

“I miss Scorpius,” Albus said. 

“Maybe he can come and stay next summer,” his mum said. 

Albus closed his book and looked at her, trying to suppress his excitement at that prospect. “Do you think?”

His mum smiled and nodded. “I don’t see why not. Why don’t you invite him?”

Albus’s grin broke across his face like dawn in a summer sky. “Okay! I will.”

---

Owls had long since learned that if they wanted to deliver a letter to Albus, they had to come to the shed. The people who wrote to him had worked that out too. His Hogwarts letters were addressed there, as were the letters Scorpius sent him, as were the few magazines and correspondences he got from the Wizarding Library in London, the Esteemed Guild of Potioneers, and the couple of other societies and things he was a junior member of. He plastered the walls of the shed with those letters, and a couple of photos, and every time he got new ones, especially from Scorpius, he felt the brief thrill of excitement that came with being acknowledged. 

The summer after second year he didn’t get any letters. At least, he didn’t get any letters from Scorpius, and those were the ones that counted. Even though Scorpius had immediately said yes to Albus’s invitation to come and visit, the likelihood of him actually coming grew slimmer every single day, and Albus got more and more miserable. The only thing he’d been looking to about this summer was Scorpius coming to stay, and he didn’t even have that anymore. He had nothing and no one, and he’d never felt so lonely. 

At the beginning of July, his mum came to visit him in the shed, something she hadn’t done for a long time. She knocked on the open door and hovered outside, looking at him huddled up in the corner, draped in his blanket and staring back at her. 

“I wanted to come and see if you were alright,” she said slowly, taking in the sight of him, and he could tell from her face that she already had her answer. “You haven’t been inside for a while. I was wondering if you’d like to eat with us tonight, instead of out here on your own.”

Albus picked at the corner of his blanket. “I don’t know,” he murmured. 

His mum nudged the door open a bit more. “Can I come in?” She asked. 

Albus looked at her for several seconds, then he nodded. He missed her. Of everyone in the house she was the one he most wanted to spend time with. Her and Lily. He missed talking to them. 

His mum stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind her. She came over and sat on one of the cushions near Albus, her skirt splaying out around her. “Is there anything I can do?” She asked. “I still don’t even know what’s bothering you. But I can tell there’s something, and you can talk to me, Albus. You can tell me anything. I hope you know that.”

Albus thought about everything that was buzzing round inside his head, in a dark cloud that obscured the rest of the world and left him trapped in himself. He thought about exploding potions, and failed spells, and people laughing and tripping him in the corridors, and broomsticks that would never obey him, and the bright emerald green that felt right on his body but left him so far estranged from everything he’d ever been taught to value. Putting any of it into words was impossible, so he didn’t try.

“Scorpius hasn’t written to me all summer,” he said instead. He stared down at his hands and swallowed at the first prickle of tears in his eyes and throat. “I don’t... I don’t get it. We were fine at school. He said he’d come and stay. He said he’d write to me every day, and... he hasn’t.” He looked up at his mum and he could barely see her through the blur of tears that suddenly flooded his eyes. “What if he’s forgotten about me? What if he doesn’t want to be friends with me anymore. What if I’m- I’m not good enough for him either?” 

And with that he broke. He buried his face in his knees and started sobbing. All he ever seemed to do in front of his mum these days was cry, but he couldn’t help it. There was something about her presence that let him express his emotions the way he couldn’t in front of anyone else. 

“Sweetheart,” she whispered. “Come here.” She sat beside him and gathered him in close, holding him and rocking him in her arms while he cried. It was like he was young again, letting her comfort him when the world felt like it was falling apart. Back then it was normally because James had stolen his paints and wouldn’t give them back, or because he’d fallen in the yard and hurt his knee. Doubting whether anyone in the world, including his best friend, cared about him was a lot bigger than that, but his mum’s hugs could heal anything. 

“I-I miss him,” Albus gasped between sobs. “I wanted to see him. What if I made him unhappy?”

“I’m sure you haven’t done anything,” Ginny said, stroking his hair and squeezing him hard. “He might just be busy. Maybe he’s gone on holiday, or-“ she hesitated. “It could be that he’s busy taking care of his mum. It won’t be your fault, Albus. And it won’t be his either. I know it hurts, I know you’re upset, but I doubt either of you are to blame.”

Albus tried to swallow back his tears and calm down. He gulped in several breaths as he hugged his mum as hard as he could. “What if he forgets me?” He asked. 

Ginny tutted and ruffled his hair. “Now you’re just being ridiculous. Of course he won’t forget you. You’re his best friend.“

“Are you sure?”

She brushed her fingers through his hair and looked down at him. “Completely positive,” she said. She studied him for a moment, then she brushed the tears off his cheeks with her thumb. “Will you come in for dinner?” She asked. “It must get lonely out here, and we miss you inside.” She smiled, expression going soft and crinkly round her eyes. “I miss my voice of calm. You’re the perfect antidote to James. It’s far too noisy without you.”

“I don’t like the noise either,” Albus sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. 

His mum handed him a tissue from one of the pockets on her skirt. “I’m making dinner tonight,” she said. “Would you like to help me? We’ll ban the others from the kitchen so it’ll be nice and quiet. Just the two of us.”

Albus thought about that for a moment before nodding. “I’d like that.”

He didn’t get a letter from Scorpius that summer – he forgave Scorpius for that the second he found out about his mum – but he did eat with his family every evening until the first of September. It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it might be. 

---

He fled. His feet clattered on the stairs and tears stung his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. He was numb to everything apart from the words echoing round and round inside his head. “Well there are times I wish you weren’t my son.” No one obstructed his path, not James or Lily or his mum, and his dad had been left far behind, still standing in the middle of the room stammering empty, meaningless apologies. 

He flung open the front door and sprinted headlong into the beautiful, late summer evening. Warm, sweet air filtered into his lungs, and he could smell honeysuckle and almost taste the tang of freshly mown grass. Loose gravel crunched under his feet as he ran, until it turned to the soft squish of dew-dampened grass. The chickens scattered in front of him, squawking and squabbling, but it wasn’t long until he was past them, past everything, halfway across the garden with only his own tearful snatches of breath and his heart pounding in his ears. 

The setting sun behind him lit the whole world blood red, but the shadows of the orchard were deep silver-grey, and the branches welcomed him in. He was on the edge of his world, as far as he could run away without really running, and he was safe here. 

He pressed his palm to the shed door and it swung open to let him in. He stepped into the cool, dark interior and lit his wand, letting the pale light flood into every corner. It glowed off the sunshine yellow walls, and the room felt bright and cheerful. 

Albus had painted these walls with his dad, many years ago. That was a beautiful time, sunlit, carefree, happy. He’d felt special, to be able to build something so amazing with his dad’s help. It was a proud moment, walking in here for the first time and looking at the space they’d made together. 

And now what? Now he knew for certain that things had changed, just like he always suspected. He was too far removed from the others, too Slytherin, too quiet, too useless at magic. He wasn’t a hero or a star. He wasn’t getting good grades. He was a mess. A useless mess, and he barely deserved to be called a Potter. 

He slumped against the back wall of the shed and slid to the ground, staring out of the open door at the conflagration of the sunset. That was what every interaction with his dad felt like: fire, burning hot, sparks ready to take hold at any moment and flare up. It was always dangerous, never certain. Long gone were the days when love flowed easily in both directions. Clearly there was none of that anymore.

The jar of bluebell flames was sitting just a foot away, covered, the way he always kept it when he wasn’t in the shed. He leaned across and pulled it towards him; uncapped it, letting blue tinge the pale wandlight that already flooded the room.

Those flames were so gentle, so harmless, but he knew he could fan them, make them spread. He held his hand over the top of the jar, feeling the warmth on his skin, then he dipped his wand in and scooped up a bit of the flame, so it crackled and flickered on his wand tip. It would have been so easy to take those flames that his dad gave him and set this place alight. He could have burned the whole thing to ashes, erasing all the painful memories of a time when his dad seemed to care for him, when he was part of this family. 

But even with his heart lying in shattered pieces, he couldn’t do that. Despite the cruel irony that his dad helped him create his refuge and became the one chasing him to it, losing this place was not an option. He’d already lost enough. 

Just one more night, he reminded himself. One more night and then back to Hogwarts. The next day at 11am he would escape, because at that point even going back to school was an escape. 

Or he could try something else. He could change everything. He could prove to his dad that he was more than useless, that he was worth something. He could prove it to the world. 

His dad didn’t care. His dad didn’t love. His dad didn’t feel remorse and sadness. But Albus did. He knew exactly what it was like to be the spare. He knew that pain, a pain that might have been made bearable with just a little bit of love. If he could bring that love to someone else then wouldn’t that be a worthwhile thing? That would be something to pay attention to. 

He let the bluebell flames pour back into the jar and set his wand down on the floor, casting the corners of the shed into deep shadow. Outside the sky was going dark and the sun had gone. It was getting chilly, so he pulled the blanket over his knees and huddled up. 

Of all the nights he’d spent in this shed over the years, this would be the worst. But there would be hope in the morning. In the morning he would start fixing everything. 

---

“And this is my shed,” Albus said, gesturing at it as he led Scorpius towards the orchard. 

“Your shed,” Scorpius said, with that dubious tone that meant to he was trying and failing to reserve his judgement. 

Albus nudged him. “Yes, my shed. It’s like a den. It’s quiet. You’ll like it.”

“Does it have books in it?” Scorpius asked. 

“It can do if you want,” Albus said, poking him in the back to get him moving. “Bring some next time you come.”

“Next time,” Scorpius said, like he was taking the words as a promise. 

Albus grinned. “Next time.” He grabbed hold of Scorpius’s sleeve and started dragging him across the grass. It had been too long, far too long, since he’d visited the shed. That summer had been busy, between visits to the Manor, forced (and unforced) bonding activities with his dad, and Potions projects to try and prepare for his O.W.L.s. There hadn’t been time to even think about hiding away, and even if he had had time, he wouldn’t have wanted to do it. 

But now Scorpius was here, Scorpius was visiting him at home for the first time. The only place they could possibly go where no one would bother them was the shed, and Albus was quite keen that they wouldn’t be bothered – spending time with Scorpius was too nice to be wasted by irritating interruptions. 

“Is this it?” Scorpius asked, walking up to the undecorated door and looking at it. “I was expecting something...” he looked at Albus. “I think I was expecting it to be green.” He reached out and gave the door a push. “Is it locked?”

Albus stepped up next to him and nudged him out of the way. “Why green? And yes it is. You have to be a Potter to open it.”

“I imagined it might be the colour of your-“ Scorpius swallowed and gave a little shrug, looking away from Albus. “Green is one of your favourite colours, and you’re a Slytherin.”

“I like it being plain on the outside,” Albus said, pressing his palm to the door so it swung open. 

“Is it green inside at least?” Scorpius asked, peering in. “No, it’s yellow. It’s quite cheerful!” He stepped inside and looked around, eyes bright. “There aren’t any books. Oh, but there are plants.” He went over to the window ledge and started stroking the leaves of Albus’s Mimbulus Mimbletonia, while Albus leaned in the doorway and watched him, unable to keep the smile off his face. 

“This is the shed,” he said. “It’s not much exactly, but it’s okay. I like it.”

Scorpius turned way from the plants and looked around. The dappled sunshine flooding through the window made his hair glow silver, and his eyes sparkle like stars. Sometimes seeing him like that – bright, attentive, glowing – took Albus’s breath away, although he could never quite explain why. 

“I like it too,” Scorpius said. He looked at Albus with a smile that made all of Albus’s words dry up in his mouth. “It’s very you. Cosy and tidy and bright. It’s... congenial.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Albus said, because it was all he could get out. 

“It’s good,” Scorpius said. “It’s a nice thing.”

Albus nodded. “Good to know.”

From the days when the shed was home to his loneliness and pain – a hiding place, tear-stained, where he was estranged from the whole world – over that summer and the one after it became the opposite. It became a place of slow, gentle revelations and whispered confessions. A place to bare the soul. There were tentative touches, featherlight kisses on sunlight summer days. It was heady and bright, and Albus forgot what it felt like to be lonely, because he wasn’t anymore, not even a little bit. 

He realised that for the first time at twilight one night, when they were sitting on the step up to the shed door and watching the fairies flitter from bush to bush across the lawn, chattering and arguing. He looked down at his and Scorpius’s interlinked hands, and it hit him in a sudden burst of warmth and joy that this was real, he and Scorpius were together, and he would never be alone again.

He brushed the back of a hand across his watering eyes, sniffed, and put his head on Scorpius’s shoulder, squeezing his hand tighter. 

“I love you,” he whispered. “Have I mentioned that before.”

A smile broke across Scorpius’s face. “Maybe,” he said, drawing the word out in joking uncertainty. “But you should say it more. Just to make sure.”

“I do,” Albus said, looking up at him. “A lot. And I’m glad you’re here.”

Scorpius looked down at him. “I- are you crying?”

Albus shook his head and brushed away his tears, giving a shaky laugh. “No.”

“You’re such a liar,” Scorpius laughed. “Look at you.” He dropped Albus’s hand and pulled him into a tight hug instead. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. I love you too.”

Albus squeezed him as hard as he could. “I know. I’m happy.” He sniffed and smiled, wiping his eyes again. “Happy tears.”

Scorpius ruffled his hair. “I’m happy that you’re happy. Even if you are dripping tears on me.”

Albus sat up and immediately spotted the tear stains on Scorpius’s top. “Sorry,” he said, trying to mop himself up. “Sorry, I’ll stop.”

“You don’t have to,” Scorpius said, rubbing his arm. 

“I can’t see the fairies,” Albus said. “Just a lot of tears. I can’t see you either.”

“Oh,” Scorpius said, wrapping an arm round his shoulders. “Well that really is a loss.”

---

The last evening before seventh year was weird. Albus felt restless and unsettled. There was an edge of emotion that he couldn’t quite get rid of, and he didn’t really know what to do with himself. Normally he’d sit still and read a book to calm himself down, but that night he couldn’t concentrate. It had been a long time since he’d needed to go to the shed because he couldn’t handle being in the house, but that night he did. 

He finished packing his trunk after dinner and snuck out across the yard towards the orchard. The shed was dark when he arrived. The sun wasn’t really set yet, but the trees were heavy with leaves, and they’d been growing recently, so they blocked out the last of the evening light. When he got inside he trailed beads of light across the walls, making the butter yellow walls shine like the sun, then he sat down and buried his face in his knees and tried to work through every one of the thoughts and worries buzzing round and round in his head. 

He felt a similar pressure then to the one he’d felt when he was 11 years old and waiting to start at Hogwarts. The pressure to succeed, to live up to expectations, except this time the expectations were his own rather than anyone else’s. There was so much he wanted from this year, so much he knew he was capable of, and that was the most terrifying thing of all. He didn’t want to let himself down. 

Lost in stillness and quiet, thoughts and seconds rushed by. Outside the sun sunk below the horizon, and the garden turned dark, but the lights in the distant house stayed on. When the knock on the shed door finally came, Albus had no idea what time it was. He’d almost forgotten where he was and what he was doing, and he jumped at the sudden sharp sound. 

“Yes?” He called, lifting his head. 

The door creaked open an inch and his dad peered into the room. “Hi,” he said, with a small smile. “It’s me. Do you mind if I come in?”

Albus shook his head and sat up properly – he’d slumped further and further down against the wall while he’d been sitting here. “No, it’s okay. I thought you’d be asleep or something. What time is it?”

“Late enough. I was too busy thinking to sleep. It’s a big day tomorrow.”

Albus nodded and looked down at his hands. “Yeah. It is.”

His dad slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. “How are you feeling?”

Albus shrugged. “I don’t know. Weird? A bit scared. It’s just... odd.”

His dad sat down on a cushion next to him and nodded. “It is a bit. I can’t believe you’ll be 18 this year.”

Albus pulled a face. “Don’t say that. It makes me sound so old.”

Harry snorted. “How do you think I feel every day?”

Albus nudged him and smiled. “I didn’t mean that. I meant... I don’t feel that old. I thought I’d feel like a grown up by now, but I don’t. I have to take my N.E.W.T.s this year and get jobs and stuff, but I don’t feel responsible enough for that. It’s terrifying.” He sighed. “I know you were saving the world when you were my age but you’re not normal.”

“Thanks,” Harry grinned. He ran a hand through his hair and straightened his glasses. “If it helps, I don’t think you ever feel grown up enough for anything. I don’t.”

Albus looked at him. “But you’re Harry Potter. You’re Head of Magical Law Enforcement, and you have like, responsibility and stuff. You’re in charge of everything that Hermione isn’t.”

“True, but I’m terrible at paperwork, my best friend regularly breaks into my office to swap my biscuits for Canary Creams, half the time I’m making everything up as I go along, and my second child is in his last year at Hogwarts and I still haven’t figured out how to be a good dad.” He ticked the list off on his fingers as he talked it through, and Albus stared at him in amazement. 

“That’s not true,” he said. 

Harry considered for a moment. “No, I think it is.”

Albus shook his head and twisted round to face his dad. “It’s not. You’re a really good dad. Probably the best.”

His dad looked at him. “Do you think?”

Albus nodded emphatically. “Yes. You are. You helped me build this place, you’ve put up with me – and the other two – for years, you’ve helped me with my spells, you’re good at listening to problems, and you make the best cakes – better than Draco’s, but please don’t tell him that.”

Harry laughed and stretched his legs out in front of him, smoothing his hands over the creased knees of his jeans. “I’ll try to remember not to mention it to him.”

“You’ve been really good,” Albus repeated, nudging him again. “I promise. Not all the time, but these days.”

Harry’s smile turned to a grim line. “I’m sorry about all the times I wasn’t good,” he said, looking right at Albus. His eyes had dimmed to the same shade of green as a wilty plant, deep and miserable. “I truly am. You deserved better. You’ve always deserved better.”

“It’s okay,” Albus murmured, thinking back to long, cold, dark nights spent out here on his own; all the times he hadn’t felt comfortable in the house; the times it was too loud; the times when he was too different to feel allowed. “I like to think it was character building.”

His dad’s expression twitched into a tiny attempt at a smile, which faded almost as soon as it appeared. “I don’t know what it was like,” he said softly. “Feeling the way you felt. I can’t pretend I do. But I hope you know that I love you, and that I’m proud of you every single day. I’m proud that you’re my son. You’re Albus Severus Potter, and you’re brilliant.” 

Albus leaned against his dad’s side and thought about that. He thought about how you had to be a Potter to open the shed, and even when he didn’t feel like part of the family he’d always been able to do that. He thought about his messy black hair and bright green eyes. He thought about Lily and James – the older versions, his grandparents – and the glint of recognition in his grandma’s eyes when she’d looked at him.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I suppose I am.”

Harry reached out and ruffled Albus’s hair. Albus tried to bat his hand away but missed, so he flopped against his dad’s side and hugged him instead. His dad wrapped an arm round his shoulders and gave him a comforting squeeze. 

“When tomorrow comes,“ he said, “you’re going to show it who’s boss. You’ll be ready for it.”

“I hope so,” Albus said softly, allowing himself for the first time to believe that his dad might just be right.

---

“You were,” Scorpius says as Albus finishes talking. “Ready for it.” He gives Albus a light punch on the arm and grins. “Mister overachiever.”

Albus snorts. “Barely. I didn’t get five Outstandings like some people.”

Scorpius waves a hand. “Details details. Compared to an average sample of the population you are an overachiever.”

“That I’ll accept,” Albus says with a grin. “I’ve done okay.”

“And I’m proud of my exceptional boyfriend.” Scorpius squeezes his hand. He falls silent for a moment, gazing at the little wooden structure, nestled between the stone wall that marks the edge of the Potters’ orchard and a gnarled, bowed old apple tree. Harry’s spells have kept the years off. The silver wooden boards look the same as they did the day he restored them. It’s like no time has passed at all since Albus was five years old, but in reality so much time has passed, so much has happened, and nothing is the way it was. 

“Are you going to miss it?” Scorpius murmurs, glancing at Albus. 

Albus nods. “Yeah,” he breathes. 

“It’s meant a lot to you, hasn’t it,” Scorpius says. 

Albus nods again, and this time he doesn’t say anything. recounting everything the shed has been to him over the years, all his memories of it, has ached, but it’s felt good at the same time. And now Scorpius knows everything. He knows the importance of this tiny, insignificant-looking little hut in the orchard. It’s strange that a pile of wood and glass should hold so many memories and emotions, and be a chart of Albus’s whole life to this point, but it does and it is. 

“I hate goodbyes,” Scorpius says quietly. “Even when they’re not mine.”

Albus presses himself against Scorpius’s side and holds tight to his hand. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m okay. No more tears.”

He’s spent the whole last month crying – when they’d left Hogwarts for the last time, when his exam results had come, when he’d packed up his room earlier ready to move to his new house with Scorpius – and he’s going to try not to do anymore. Or at least he’ll save it for saying goodbye to his parents and sister. 

“One day, when we get a proper house, I’ll get you a new shed,” Scorpius says, and Albus glances at him and smiles. 

“Will you?”

Scorpius nods. “Yup. It’ll be better. It’ll have lots of books in it. You won’t miss the one.”

Albus laughs. “You and your books.”

“Books make everything better,” Scorpius says, with a great deal of superiority.

Albus elbows him. “Don’t insult my shed. Or I might decide to stay here and not move in with you.”

Scorpius pouts. “That would be mean.”

“Be nice to my shed then.” Albus lets go of his hand and crosses the overgrown stretch of grass. He runs the tips of his fingers over the silver wood, then presses his palm to the door one final time to open it. It creaks inwards and he steps inside. 

It’s neat and tidy in here, all the blankets folded and the cushions stacked. His plants are growing happily on the window sill, and he’s set up spells to water them when they get dry. They’ll be fine there, waiting for him whenever he visits. There’s nothing else in here that he needs, nothing else to sort out. It’s all ready for him to go. 

He stands in the centre of the space and inhales. The scent of fresh paint and wood chips are long gone. These days it smells of dust, the citrus scent he likes to cast through the room, musty blankets, and cactus flowers. It smells familiar. It smells of home. But of course it’s time to leave home now, and move on to whatever’s next, and while that’s a tiny bit sad, it’s mostly exciting. 

He feels once again like that little boy who was thrilled to discover the unknown, and make himself a space to hide out in, all of his own. It’s going to be good to do that again, this time with Scorpius for company. There’s no point dwelling on the past when the future has so much promise. 

Squaring his shoulders, he turns back towards the door, but as he does he spots the little jar out of the corner of his eye, the one that’s filled with the bluebell flames his dad cast for him when he was so much younger. They’ve burned ever since, and they’re still going. He walks over and uncovers them, letting the soft blue light flood the room. 

For a moment he gazes down at the crackling, dancing flames, then he leans in and blows them out. Instantly the shed goes dark. The colour of the yellow walls seem dull, and all the life has been extinguished. Albus sets the empty jar down on the ground beside his stack of pillows and re-covers it.

“I’ll come back and visit,” he promises to the space at large. “I don’t know when but I will.” He pauses, then, even though he feels stupid, he looks around the space and says: “Thank you.”

And with that he turns towards the future where Scorpius is waiting for him, and he leaves the shed, closing the door behind him. 

[haprilona]

DL chapter 5, first three scenes

As promised, anon. Hope this is enough for now.

Water drops trailed down the dirty surface of the boat cabin’s only mirror. Taking a towel from a nearby rack, Noctis wiped his freshly shaven face dry. Today was the day Luna would be put to her final resting place. Noctis had enlisted his former Crownsguard to escort Lady Lunafreya with him to the town rebuilt from the ashes of Fenestala manor.

His smooth chin felt foreign after years of neglect. He hadn’t needed Aranea, Cid, Iris or Prompto to leave hints about shaving as they had for the past six years, because today he wanted to be presentable. She would be watching. Straightening his father’s old black suit he had been given to be worn at the wedding that never came to be, Noctis stood back and studied his reflection. The tired blue eyes staring back at him appeared to be dull grey in the faint light of the flickering incandescent lamp and the once raven black hair was closer to the shade of ash from Ravatogh Volcano. Sleep and rest had been luxuries he could barely afford ever since the world was turned upside down.

Noctis had seen only thirty summers yet he felt ancient as if having lived past his intended lifespan. It felt like being forced to linger in a world that changed too fast for him to keep up with, which by all logic was utterly ridiculous, since the world had been in the same state of decay for a decade. Despite that Noctis felt as if he didn’t belong anymore. The more he tried to bury such troubling thoughts by distracting himself with dangerous escort and retrieval missions, the more it felt like he was running away from his calling. Luna’s unexpected appearance had brought a welcome distraction from such bleak musings, but unfortunately her current absence and his idleness allowed his restless mind to wander once more.

In the back of his mind Noctis couldn't help but wonder if Ardyn wasn't so different from him after all. Being bound to a world that had no room for him and living in an age that shouldn't have been his to witness. Noctis had tried to do his duty after the escape from Gralea, but the former chancellor wouldn't take him seriously and refused to even entertain a duel between kings. Without his powers, Noctis' death wouldn't give the cursed man satisfaction nor the release he so desired. The four men had been cast out of the Citadel, shame weighing their heads and shoulders down all the way to Hammerhead.

‘Come back once the Draconian has given you a second chance!’ Ardyn had called after the men as daemons chased them away.

Noctis hadn't intended to give up, but what could he do when none of them had any idea where to even begin? His only link to communicate with the deities was about to be entombed and there had been no sign of Gentiana after the High Messenger had entrusted Luna’s trident to him. The thought of asking Little Luna for guidance had barely even entered his mind while being so busy trying to enjoy their limited time together. Yet again he had let emotions get the best of him, the selfish urge to keep those dearest to him close and safe taking priority over the greater good, just like with the guys back in Gralea. Another failure to add to the tab.

Grimly the hunter fixed the silken tie and combed his hair before turning on the tap to wash his hands. The water’s temperature heated up unexpectedly and fogged the mirror. Cursing, Noctis turned the tap to receive suitably cool water. As the light of the swinging incandescent lamp hit the spotty, reflective surface, he saw sad, light blue eyes stare back at him. Blond hair framed the youthful feminine face, but it was the angry red cut that pulled his gaze to the cheek that had been previously disfigured with ugly stretched holes. Noctis’ hand shot up to touch the misty surface of the mirror and watched in mute fascination as the reflection’s hand mimicked his action. A prickly sensation flowed through him in subtle waves that gradually intensified to the point he could no longer ignore it. It was a well-worn feeling he had become accustomed to burying in order to not burden the people closest to him; a forlorn longing for something he could never have. His gaze dropped to the familiar silver ring adorning her finger and the tiny scar next to it.

A hoarse whisper escaping from his parted lips broke the tension Noctis hadn’t realised was stiffening his shoulders. “Luna.”

Just as before she imitated him, but appeared to mutedly mouth his name instead. Only the sound of forgotten tap water running brought variation to the creaking of the boat’s hull as the vehicle fought against the restless tides of the Sathersea. While they continued to motionlessly stare at each other, her facial wound began to expand as if an invisible surgeon was flaying her with a scalpel until the incision reached the width of her cheek. He watched helplessly, clammy palm against dirty glass, as a bony, pasty hand rose to grab the edge of the broken skin and pulled, undressing her facial muscle from the useless strip of flesh. Pearly white teeth peeked beneath the muscle tissue and grinned at him even as her stoic features remained grave. Slowly the fog began to clear and with it Luna’s haunting reflection as the room’s temperature returned to normal.

“Wait!”

Thinking quickly, Noctis switched the water’s temperature to steaming hot, but she was gone. However the image of her undead grin would be forever imprinted in his mind's eye.

-

The rest of the boat ride was thankfully devoid of any nightmarish visions. Noctis kept hoping to catch a glimpse of a white dress and pale, bare feet prancing about the slippery deck without care towards the less than favourable weather. He tried writing to her, but she didn’t appear or reply. The closer the boat took them to Tenebrae, the more Noctis felt anxiety tearing at his insides like a rabid sabertusk. Would he not be given a chance to say goodbye?

The shores of Ulwaat were shrouded in darkness, only broken by a faint light shining in the distance. It pinpointed a fragile civilisation that clung to familiar territory in spite of the threat of daemons. As far as Noctis was aware, there were no other scattered villages around Piztala, the eastern region of Tenebrae. Only Ulwaat and the area surrounding the former residence of the Nox Fleurets were supplied with enough hallowed lights to survive,  isolated pockets stranded from the rest of the world.

The first thing Noctis noticed when he set foot on Tenebraean soil was the smell of salt that was so obtrusive he could’ve tasted it had he stuck his tongue out. The low howling of gale force winds and the lashing of a downpour were nothing like the relatively balmy climate of Cape Caem. Glancing down at the black, featureless body bag laid on a stretcher, Noctis adjusted his freezing hand's slipping hold on the handle and resisted the urge to let go to wrap arms around his shivering frame. He could imagine Little Luna sighing in exasperation and giving him the look for not having the foresight to take a proper coat with him. In Noctis' defence, his last hasty visit through Tenebrae had been during summer time. Back then he’d had the luxury of enjoying the warmth of the sun on his back for the brief duration of the fading daylight hours. He had hardly expected to be completely drenched within the first ten minutes.

They were welcomed by the Tenebraean ambassador who was accompanied by a small group of locals dressed in formal Tenebraean gear, each holding an umbrella in one hand. White gloved hands reached to relieve the Lucians from the burden of the Oracle’s corpse. Even if Noctis squinted, he couldn’t make out their escorts’ expressions through the semi-transparent light blue material of their hatchet-shaped visors. With a wave of her wrinkled hand, the ambassador silently signalled the rest of the men to offer shelter to their honoured guests. Once each head was covered by a star-shaped umbrella, she took point and led the grim retinue through the darkness.

Although Noctis had missed Tenebrae and its people, he didn’t have the heart to look around and compare the present scenery to that of his memories. Instead he concentrated on staring at the back of the Tenebraean man walking in front of him, quietly admiring the dark teal velvet of his uniform and the silver ornamental armguard and shoulder pads that reflected the hallowed light of his pocket torch.

The rain abruptly stopped once they were clear of the shoreline. Fortunately the storm clouds hadn't reached the grassy highlands. The promise of sanctuary quickened their steps as the sombre retinue silently headed towards a small settlement protected by hallowed floodlights. No distance was short enough when a traveller's safety was concerned, not while so close to the source of the daemon outbreak. They didn't stop once reaching the settlement, but continued to trek past the scattered villages towards the heart of Ulwaat; the yet-to-be named town rebuilt from the ruins of Fenestala manor. People paused whatever they were doing when they recognised the ambassador and saw the gleaming formal uniforms. Word spread fast and soon heads of curious locals poked from the windows and doorways of ramshackle.  Noticing the hundreds of eyes on his person, Noctis fixed his posture that had slouched languidly from both bad weather and painful memories. Spine ramrod straight, for once he carried himself with all the grace and dignity befit to a king. He could see Prompto follow his example from the corner of his eye.

“We shall part ways here”, the ambassador informed them. “We will clean the Oracle’s body and dress her in proper clothes fit for her status. You may rest and dry up by the hearth in the guest quarters assigned to you.”

“This way, Your Majesty”, the uniformed Tenebraean closest to him gestured forward. Wordlessly Noctis nodded his consent and followed the man, his Crownsguard closely trailing behind.

-

“Do you need a moment alone before the ceremony begins?” Ignis’ modulated voice woke the former king from his musings.

The younger man’s gaze remained on the open coffin. “Yeah.”

“Just don’t take too long. The church’s gonna get full in an hour”, Gladio reminded.

“Go find us decent seats, then”, Noctis retorted back.

Prompto lingered for a moment longer after the two men had left. “Do you think Luna will come? I mean the little one?”

Noctis lowered himself to kneel next to the coffin and fingered the bouquet in his hands. “She might. I’m more worried she won’t come back after this.”

“It was nice having her around. I mean, she knows how to cheer you up.” Prompto’s chin lowered slightly as he offered Noctis a tentative smile. “But maybe it's time to let her go. I mean, she doesn’t really belong here.”

Noctis sharply turned to look at his friend. “What are you saying?”

Booted feet nervously shuffled against the tiles. “She's dead and should be resting in the Reaper's halls, right?” When the kneeling man did not reply, Prompto hesitantly took a fortifying breath as if bracing himself. “I don't think she can be at peace as long as you cling to her.”

“I never denied her peace!” Noctis tautly snapped, his fist nearly crushing the fragile flowers in its tightened hold. “We’re attending her funeral, aren’t we?”

Prompto raised his hands defensively in a peace-offer, tone timid as he attempted to calm down the vexed man. “She’s here only for you. Why else would she linger if not for you?”

The dark-clad man's glare gradually melted into a pained grimace and Prompto had to strain to hear his friend's brittle voice. “You think she’s stuck here because I refuse to let her go?” His gloved hand lowered to gently stroke Luna’s hair that had been brushed and cleaned from seaweed. Previously slime-covered skin had been washed with pleasantly scented soap and her torn dress was replaced with a new white linen gown. Her parted lips had been closed, but a single clouded eye continued to stare into the beyond.

Prompto followed Noctis’ gaze. “I heard they tried to close the eye, but her eyelid won’t even budge. Reminds me of the saying we had in Insomnia ‘open eyes know no peace’. You can’t tell me this isn’t a sign”, he gently argued.

With an irritated sigh, Noctis stood up. “Fine. I can’t let her go. I barely had the chance to be with her before she was taken from me. You can’t fault me for wanting more.” He dropped the bouquet of freshly picked sylleblossoms into her coffin and left the chapel with quick, angry strides.

Hurt shone in the freckled man’s eyes as he watched his friend stomp off. He picked up the bouquet and carefully placed it beneath Luna’s arms before following the suited man out into the harsh blue light of hallowed street lamps, but Noctis had already disappeared from sight. Prompto contemplated between hunting him down and letting him be, until noticing the faint, pale figure of Little Luna disappear behind a grassy hill. If anyone could talk Noctis into letting her go, it was Luna herself.

[specialtourintzfatytav629-blog]

5 Simple Techniques For Bar Mitzvah In Safed

The Tzfat Bat/Bar-Mitzvah Facility The Tzfat Bat/Bar-Mitzvah Center In current years, this has really ended up being an actual trend. A boosting number of households stemmed from around the world to honor their child's Bat Bar-Mitzvah in the special areas of the ancient city of Tzfat, in the Upper Galilee. It appears nowhere else around the world offers such a distinctly optimal atmosphere, product as well as experience for such a significant and additionally remarkable experience.

The intriguing parties are suitable for audiences from every history as well as additionally design, and also are conducted in different languages. The Only Overview for Bar Mitzvah In Safed Israel The Tzfat Bar/Bat Mitzvah Center can additionally set up any type of kind of essential lodgings in the area for your party, in a large variety of enchanting shop resorts or B&B s.

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Leave on your trip to Israel in addition to begin an impressive journey. Invite to Israel! Get To Ben Gurion where you will definitely be satisfied as well as assisted for your transfer to the Carlton Hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel's most of modern city. Take a while to freshen after the trip or stroll along the boardwalk, indulging in the Mediterranean Sea wind as well as likewise feeling the city's vibe.

As the largest bullet manufacturing facility throughout that time, it created 2.23 million bullets in between 1946- 1948, while maintaining the trick from the ruling British armed pressure. Listed below you will definitely have the chance to grow a tree in the dirt of Israel. Drive back to Jaffa to uncover the rebuilt Musicians' Quarter with its galleries as well as also boutiques.

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( B) Overnight: Tel Aviv Resort Drive to Caesarea, the "Desire by the Sea" created by Herod the Great in between 22 as well as additionally 10 BC and also called after Caesar Augustus. Get a kick out of a breathtaking excursion of the rich stays prolonging from the time of the Romans to the Islamic duration: the 2,000-year-old Roman sector, the Crusader harbour, along with Herod's royal house all will be brought to life in an all new multi-media show devoted to the occasions in addition to personalities who created this seaside marvel.

Pay attention to words of the prophets as you thresh grain, rotate woollen, press oil from fresh olives as well as also a glass of wine from fresh grapes, and call for to the course on donkeys. Leave a Homing pigeon as well as send a distinct message back to Kfar Kedem as you release the pigeon on his training course back home.

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We'll https://www.shvilhalev.co.il צפת סיור begin shooting array to review your capturing skills this is terrific delightful for all in addition to an emphasize of the journey. Following this, we have actually established for a rare reward based on the political circumstance, we'll go to an Armed forces Base, speak with the soldiers that secure the north boundaries as well as observe the life of an active fight gadget.

Tonight we'll indulge in a typical Israeli dinner adhered to by an amazing jeep journey beginning in the golden hr taking a trip into the darkness. Taking a trip in open jeeps, we'll listen to the sounds of the evening as well as observe the energetic wild animals. (B.D) Overnight: Kibbutz Kfar Blum Following morning dish and additionally resort checkout, Remain to Safed, the old city that was house to the mystics of the Kabala.

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Drive with the Jordan Valley, homeland of the Prophet Elisha, to Beit Shean. See the Roman divine location, artisan workshop, public bathrooms as well as a wonderful amphitheater that is still utilized for performances. En path to Jerusalem driving via the Judean Desert Roadway. Upon arrival in Jerusalem, choose up an event of Shehecheyanu, a true blessing that honors unique events in thanks for brand-new and additionally unique occasions, while absorbing the sweeping views of the Old City.( B.D) Check-in at Orient Hotel in Jerusalem.

( B) Overnight: Orient Hotel After one more delicious early morning dish at the hotel, drive to the City of David, a fascinating area of exploration in the heart of old Jerusalem- home to a variety of among the most superb finds of existing years. You might discover the trendy damp Hezekiah's Passage, or choose the lately opened (and completely dry) passage which brought water to the city in the time of Herod.

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The Details Concerning Bar Mitzvah In Safed Israel Revealed Go back to the hotel as well as Meet the Rabbi for a final practice prior to the wedding Unique Dinner: drive to Genesis Land (Eretz Beresheet), situated in the heart of Judean Desert. Have an opportunity to experience life as it remained in scriptural times.

Complying with morning meal at the hotel, descend through the Judean Desert to the Dead Sea, one of the most cost effective factor on World planet, continuing straight to Masada. Ascend the hill by Cable Car to this last garrison of the Zealots that picked fatality instead of surrendering to the Roman Variety in the Jewish Revolt versus Rome some 2000 years back.

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After, picturesque excursion Herod's Palace, the synagogue, the bathroom home, the water supply and also the intriguing storage room. Descend Masada as well as drive to among the hotels at the Dead Sea for lunch as well as swim; float quickly in the restorative mineral-rich waters before proceeding to Ein Gedi for a strolling using this eye-catching sanctuary to the sensational falls an ideal household day to remember.

Proceed to Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum & Memorial- purposefully situated on the green inclines of Har Ha Zikaron (" Mount of Remembrance"). Scenic scenic tour this stretching facility as well as check out the Grove of the Exemplary amongst the Nations, the Kid's Memorial as well as take element in an unique "Yizkor" (funeral service) in Bikat Ha Kehilot (The Valley of Communities).

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Continue to Mt. Herzl, the website of Israel's nationwide burial ground which is called after Theodor Herzl, the maker of modern-day political Zionism, whose burial place pushes top of the hillside. Value the Machane Yehuda Market as well as also submerse by yourself in the dynamic energy of Jerusalem's Shuk (market). Roam around the many neighborhood vendors using scrumptious cheeses, breads, flavors, nuts and much more.

Tonight we have actually intended a Cheery Bar/Bat Mitzvah event in honour of the youngsters's effort as well as the commitment they have really shown. It will certainly be a night to keep in mind. (B.D) Overnight: Orient Hotel Jerusalem. Following morning meal as well as additionally hotel checkout, head to Tel Maresha in the place of Beit Guvrin, genealogical residence of King Herod, and additionally sign up with a historical dig.

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ARE YOU CONCERNING ISRAEL FOR YOUR BAR MITZVAH? Welcome! You're welcomed ahead to our Stockroom with your household and also pals for a remarkable volunteer experience and see close exactly how we deal with appetite in Israel. Aid us pack food baskets which are dispersed throughout Israel each week. Call Miri at feedisrael10@yadezra.net!.?.! to learn more as well as to schedule your check out. A Bar or Bar Mitzvah is the.

ideal possibility to honor this essential turning point in your family with a remarkable Jewish experience in Israel. Ascent's Bar/Bat Mitzvah trips satisfy families and teams seeking a meaningful, enhancing, and memorable experience. Old-city alleyways, old synagogues, breathtaking views, and also captivating historic places make Tsfat a dreamland for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah event that is charming, intimate and upliftingan experience to bear in mind! Bar Mitzvah event in an ancient synagogue. Excursion of the old city of Tsfat, gone along with by an artist. See to an IDF Base An incredible opportunity to go to an IDF base in Northern Israel. The visit will incorporate lunch with the soldiers, live music, and also a tour of the base. Personal Torah Codes workshop locating the name of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah in his or her Torah section, with a personal interpretation. "Letters of Experience" Workshop a cutting-edge and also.

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interactive media presentation on Jewish scribal arts, where participants learn to compose with a feather quill, only in Tsfat. Other workshops:" Tree of Life" Judaica Art PresentationThe Definition of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah TodayCandle-making WorkshopChallah-baking WorkshopCreative Art Workshop Eyal Zuchman eyal@ascent.co.il!.?.! 1-800-30-40-70. A really unique New york city bar mitzvah boy called Josh Wasserman lately gave the.

Ethiopian community of Safed, a tiny city in north Israel renowned for its history and nature, a renovated basketball court, unique uniforms, as well as a brand-new trainer for a year-long training program, for free. Opting to contribute his bar mitzvah presents to the Give a MitzvahDo a Mitzvah program, Wasserman selected to enhance the lot of impoverished Ethiopian kids in Israel and strengthen the ties between the American and Israeli Jewish neighborhoods. The task permits individuals to brainstorm suggestions as well as then add their time, energy, as well as a section of every one of their presents to this mitzvah job." Josh's job is absolutely remarkable. Not just does it give various other young youngsters a fantastic instance of how to come to be a lot more included in philanthropy, it also aids to reinforce the relationship in between the Jewish area in New york city and in Israel, "she said. A 2008 record by the Israeli State Controller discovered that 20 percent of Ethiopian Israeli children don't go to school, and.

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that medicine abuse and criminal activity prices are dramatically greater in the Israeli Ethiopian young people populace than they remain in the basic Israeli community. "I was trying to find a way to do something special and significant about my bar mitzvah." I'm so lucky that I'm able to offer the youngsters in Safed the chance to play affordable basketball on a genuine group with their own instructor and also.

new court." Josh's brother or sisters, inspired by their bros good deed additionally added to the reason. His older sibling Daniel is additionally standing for the United States in the jr soccer group of the 19th Maccabiah Gamings and also his more youthful sibling Adam enjoys basketball too. Checking out in addition to honoring in this Biblical city lends stamina to the Jews who keep a Jewish visibility in Hebron in order that the second holiest city globally remain to be open, offered as well as additionally safe for individuals of all religions to see. Mozel tov you're memorializing a Bar or Bat Mitzvah! Prevent Mitzvah tours to considerable archaeological sites are prominent. Check out our style ideas to make your celebration or event http://edition.cnn.com/search/?text=bat mitzvah in tzfat also less made complex to achieve. Customized tees memorializing your event are a fun and also very easy method to supply your site visitors with.

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customized bar mitzvah cost-free presents and also bar mitzvah prefers. There are 43 pre-designed concepts, from" Occupation" to" Stroll of Popularity." With these alternatives, you make particular to uncover a style that fits the character as well as price of rate of interests of the important invitee. When they expose it to their friends, your site visitors will think of your event each time they turn with their personalized flip book or! We know you desire your celebration to be unforgettable for your visitors. If you're preparing an event, Enjoyable Flips Turn Books can make your occasion much more impressive along with enjoyable by including a little enjoyable. Entirely adjustable to your taste as well as additionally 100 %food safe, these individualized support bags will definitely be an appealing enhancement to your boy's Bar Mitzvah items. Instead what is thought about the prime mitzvah of the event is tefillin, as well as not just covering them once.

as well as then forgeting it, yet acquiring a set for his very own, to put on every day except Shabbat as well as Yomtov. After such a challenging check out to Yad Vashem we need our relaxing time in addition to to transform our state of mind by having a look at to the Ben Yehuda Road in Jerusalem where it is occurring, lots of locals are celebrating the resulting the weekend by hanging around on this attractive exciding in addition to taking.

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location road of Jerusalem, Cafes, search to look into.

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Tet Vav St 7, Safed

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Columbine High School Could Be Torn Down to Deter Copycats

Twenty years ago two Columbine High School students armed with guns and explosives killed 12 students and a teacher. Since then, the school often attracts curious and obsessed tourists from around the world hoping to walk the halls, to look for the two teenage gunmen’s lockers. If you were on the Columbine Board of Education, would you vote to tear down the building and rebuild a new one at a different location to put an end to becoming a tourist attraction: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

In the 20 years since the massacre at Columbine High School, the building has become a macabre tourist attraction for the curious and the obsessed. They travel from as far as Brazil or Japan, hoping to walk the halls, to look for the two teenage gunmen’s lockers. They come every day, and more come with each passing year.

Now, in an effort to stop the escalating threats against the school and lessen Columbine’s perverse appeal to copycats and so-called Columbiners, school officials are proposing a radical idea: Tear it down.

“The morbid fascination with Columbine has been increasing over the years,” Jason Glass, the superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools, wrote Thursday in an open letter titled “A New Columbine?” “We believe it is time for our community to consider this option.”

School officials said they were still in the early stages of exploring what to do, but one idea was to scrap much of the existing structure and rebuild it farther from the road, where entry onto the school grounds could be better controlled and tour buses could not get such an easy glimpse.

The school would keep its silver and blue colors and mascot, the Rebels. Its name would remain Columbine High School.

The idea has divided a tight-knit community of current Columbine students, survivors of the 1999 attack and victims’ families, who share a fierce love for the school. It has also stirred a debate about whether schools, churches and other places devastated by mass shootings can ever exorcise their legacy by demolishing the buildings where the violence unfolded.

“My heart says, ‘No way,’” said Josh Lapp, 36, who was in the library that day when the two teenage gunmen entered and started shooting. “It’s not changing anything.”

Some survivors said that their memories of hurt and healing were still bound up in Columbine’s concrete walls, and that the school should be preserved. Others doubted that school officials could actually succeed in erasing Columbine’s dark allure if they simply rebuilt the school on the same grounds and kept its name.

On Friday, Ana Lemus-Paiz, 18, a recent Columbine graduate, said most students she had spoken with were against the idea of razing the school. She counted herself among them.

Ms. Lemus-Paiz was not even alive in 1999, when the shooting took place, but she said she had been part of a process of community healing that involved reclaiming the school. While the world may look at the building and see the Columbine of 1999 — a symbol of tragedy — the community, she said, had moved on. “That building is a symbol of strength,” she said. “Our community really did bind together to show that we are stronger than what happened.”

Ms. Lemus-Paiz also said that she believed the school’s demolition would do little to stanch the flow of visitors. “As long as the name stands — which it should — people are going to keep coming.”

In April, the 20th anniversary of the attack, in which two students armed with guns and explosives killed 12 students and a teacher, was a reminder of that. It had been planned as a time for prayers and memorials, but instead hundreds of schools in Colorado were closed as the authorities frantically searched for Sol Pais, an armed 18-year-old woman who law-enforcement officials said was infatuated with the massacre, made threats and had traveled to the state from Florida.

For John McDonald, the Jefferson County Public Schools safety director, it was one more example of an onslaught of Columbine obsessives that two full-time officers confront every day in the parking lot or on the edges of campus. The school was extensively renovated after 1999 and is now protected like a fortress. It has cameras, doors that lock remotely, and security monitoring 24 hours a day.

“At some point we have to stop being the poster child for school shootings around the country,” Mr. McDonald said. “I think it’s time.”

Mr. Glass, the superintendent who oversees Columbine, said that school safety officials stopped hundreds of people each year who try to enter the school or are caught trespassing on campus. This year’s numbers were the highest on record.

“I know all of the severity of the threats,” he said. “We don’t tell everybody all of those things. I think if people knew, they’d be really scared. And they should be. If I didn’t think this was something we should consider, I wouldn’t have brought it forward.”

The school has become a model institution when it comes to safety measures, he said, “but people need to know that it is tested constantly.”

The school district released an online survey on Thursday for residents to consider a ballot measure to allocate up to $70 million for a construction project. One idea was to preserve the high school’s library — where 10 students were killed — and make it a cornerstone of a new campus.

Some former students and family members of victims were surprised that school officials were re-examining what to do with Columbine after so many years. They still remember yelling “We are Columbine!” at a rally to reopen the school after the attack.

“Twenty years ago, there was no blueprint,” said Frank DeAngelis, who recently retired after serving as Columbine’s principal during the attacks and for years after. He supports the proposal to take down the original and rebuild the school.

He added: “If I would have known 20 years ago that we were still going to have tour buses showing up, we were still going to have people infatuated with the two killers, I would’ve said maybe we need to look at relocating.”

The school superintendent’s letter said that experts recommend tearing down a structure after a school shooting. But schools reckoning with what to do with a bullet-scarred building have few easy choices.

In Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the school district demolished the building and built a new school on a different part of the same property.

In Parkland, Fla., crews are expected to break ground this summer on a project to replace Building 12 of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed. The new building is expected to be ready for the 2020 school year.

Other survivors have decided to maintain mass shooting sites to honor victims.

Last month, the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Tex., opened a new sanctuary next to the original site for worship. The congregation converted the old church, where a gunman killed 26 people in 2017, into a memorial to the victims.

“We don’t want it to look like a fortress, but we also wanted to make sure everybody could feel safe on the inside,” Pastor Frank Pomeroy said at the dedication of the new building.

Not surprisingly, security was also a key consideration in the construction, though Mr. Pomeroy, whose daughter was killed in the attack, would not disclose details about the safety features. A refurbished bell from the old building now tolls in the new church.

In Orlando, a foundation created by the owner of the Pulse nightclub, where 49 people were killed in 2016, is planning to establish a museum and memorial on the site of a massacre.

Columbine is not simply a magnet for obsession. It is a place where survivors and victims’ families say they still find meaning. Over the years, some have returned to show their spouses and children where they had run from gunfire or hidden under tables.

Coni Sanders, whose father, Dave, a teacher, was killed in the attack, said that a floor tile with an image of the purple columbine flower lay near where her father had been shot. Ms. Sanders was skeptical about the idea to rebuild, and said that $70 million for construction would be better spent on student-focused programs like mental-health treatment or community centers.

“When they say they’re going to tear it down, rebuilding it in the same spot and still call it Columbine, that’s not solving the problem they’re claiming it’s going to solve,” she said.

Some survivors choose to keep their distance from the building. They do not want to attend anniversary gatherings there. Mr. Lapp said he does not even drive by when he visits family in the area.

On Friday, Columbine High School looked just like any another school on a June day: The sun beat down on its tan bricks, the parking lot sat half-empty and a park next door was filled with children in bathing suits, who ran with glee around a fountain.

Only a few signs indicated that something darker had happened here — a placard pointing visitors to a memorial and a large sheriff’s truck parked horizontally in front of the school’s doors.

“It’s only a building,” said Salli Garrigan, 36, who ran through Columbine’s auditorium and halls as the sounds of gunshots exploded around her. “All of those memories will be there, whether the building is or not.”

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Day Five: The World Is Small

So today’s entry is going to begin with last night. Some of the girls on my trip wanted to go out to get a better idea of what the Berlin night life is like. We went to a neighborhood recommended by the concierge at our hotel which had a bunch of pubs. The pubs here are much grungier than what we’re used to in the states. Everything has graffiti on it. After the fall of the Berlin wall, East Berlin went from being horribly gray to colorful. People used graffiti as a means to express their freedom. At this random pub, we met a group of people who were on an organized pub crawl in their hostel. I noticed that there were some Americans in the group and we began talking. One person said he was from Boston so I mentioned that I was too. It turns out, this person that I met goes to Brandeis with the two group leaders on our trip and just finished studying two weeks in Israel at a yeshiva with Meor. Evidently, he’s been following our trip on Facebook through CJP’s website. He was also very involved in Conservative Jewish life growing up and turns out we attended the same International Convention in 2013 in Boston. It’s incredible how small the world is. Out of all the places to run into someone you know-- a random pub in a random city in Europe. Another cool thing about Berlin as a city is that many of the people that I’ve met so far are not of German origin. Similar to New York City, this is a city with many immigrants who are from all over the world. I met people from Uganda, Australia, Brazil, England, and more all in one night. People who don’t speak English have a likelihood of speaking German, Spanish, or French. Luckily, each of us on the trip speaks at least one of those languages so we had our bases covered for the night. I very much enjoyed interacting with the locals. 

Today we attended the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum. It is all about the immigration in the city of Berlin and how the area known as Kreuzberg became a hub for immigrants and developed its diverse culture. The museum itself was a little odd and most of the information available was in German. On the first floor was a bunch of printing press machines which were used to make newspapers back in the day. The lack of labels on the machines made it difficult to determine where they came from or what their significance was. On the top floor we had opportunities to listen to stories of immigrants who moved to Kreuzberg and their experiences. Much of the lives of people in Berlin were and still are heavily affected by the divide of Berlin which ended in 1989. Other floors contained historical information about what the neighborhood used to look like as well as other cultural information. On one floor there were segments about Kreuzberg through the ages including before, after, and during WWII as well as before and after Soviet rule in East Berlin. I found the segment on the Jewish doctors and hospitals most interesting-- obviously.  In the 1800s, Germany was very advanced in its medical and health care practices. Overall, I didn’t find the museum to be a true highlight of the trip because it was not all that engaging, but it was cool to listen about something new. On the way to the next activity, I passed by a place selling Philly Cheesesteaks. I guess you truly are never so far from home. 

For lunch me and a few girls went to the Restaurant 1840 for lunch. I had a stew potato soup that is traditional in Germany. It was delicious and warm. Berlin today was rainy and cold with snow later on in the day. Not ideal weather for touring around so it was nice to get inside and eat something warm. 

After lunch, we met up with a tour guide nearby to journey through the old Jewish neighborhood of the city on the Stolpersteine Tour or Stumbling Stone Tour. A Stolpersteine is a cobblestone-size concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. These stones are placed by the last voluntary living place of the victims in Berlin before they fell victim to Nazi terror, euthanasia, eugenics, was deported to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. A tour guide took us through to tell us a little about the stumbling stones as well as about the old Jewish neighborhood and who lived where. There were a few memorials along the way and she was not afraid to criticize them which I liked. Not all memorial cites in Berlin are done well. Often times, they will take a statue and recycle it in a Holocaust commemoration site which does not fit. For example, in a location where the Nazis housed Jewish people and made them log their possessions before deporting them out of the city, lies a statute originally created for Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. The statue has emaciated Jewish women huddling together in camp garb. Clearly the people who were put in this holding site did not have camp garb and were not get emaciated. At that point, they still had all of their belongings with them. They were though, without a doubt, petrified of their unknown future. The Jews of Germany had an idea of what was going to happen to them. People were disappearing and not coming back. Giving up all of their possessions was a strong indication as well that they would not be returning. Our group is going to be sponsoring a stolpersteine for Berlin after this trip to symbolize the meaning of this trip, restoring their names. During the Stolpersteine Tour it was snowing fat, wet flakes of snow that was just treacherous. By the end, we couldn’t feel our feet. Most of us chose to go back to the hotel to get warm during our free time before Shabbat services. I took a little nap and then went to a local tourist attraction. Before, I talk about my adventure I want to mention the picture shown above. What is shown is two apartment buildings with an empty space in between. In that empty space, used to lie an apartment building where Jewish people lived before the Holocaust. During the bombings in Berlin, the apartment was destroyed and never rebuilt. One day a person was walking by and noticed that there must have been something there. A literal and figurative void if you will. This person did some research and discovered that this indeed used to be an apartment building and so he had plaques made which can be seen on the left and right. These plaques hold the name of the family that used to live in that unit on the proper floor where their apartment was. The site serves as a reminder that people used to fill that empty space at one point. 

My adventure during our break time was to the most famous, and oldest chocolate shop in Berlin, the Rausch Schokoladenhaus. Above you can see giant chocolate replicas of the Titanic, the Reichstag, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. They smelled so strongly of chocolate. I bought souvenirs there for the family. Something I’ve noticed is that Berlin is similar to New York in that there aren’t really traditional things to bring back as souvenirs. No beer steins or cultural garb. Really just “I Love Berlin” merchandise which I don’t find too appealing. 

After the chocolate shop we went to services at the New Synagogue. I didn’t really know what to expect other than knowing we were not going to an orthodox shul. A little on the New Synagogue’s history. The Synagogue was built 1859–1866 as the main synagogue of the Berlin Jewish community, on Oranienburger Straße. This synagogue was of the few synagogues to survive Kristallnacht, but it was badly damaged prior to and during World War II and subsequently much was demolished. The reason this synagogue was able to mostly survive Kristallnacht was because, as the Nazis were looting it, destroying the Torah scrolls and catching it on fire, the German police ran in and made them stop. They claimed that the synagogue was a protected historical landmark and could not be destroyed. They also might have been concerned that the fire would spread to the neighboring German homes. As a result, the New Synagogue avoided this initial catastrophe. Today, much of this synagogue is reconstructed and the services are located upstairs. The old sanctuary no longer exists. This Synagogue contains high level security. There are multiple guards in the main entrance and you have to go through a metal detector and security similar to the airport in order to enter. I asked some congregants if this is ever a problem for other Jews who do not wish to use technology on Shabbat, but they said that they don’t know of anyone having an issue. Now comes the most exciting part about this synagogue. It is conservative. Upon arrival, I saw the familiar Siddur Sim Shalom created by the USCJ and the Etz Hayyim texts which are used for Torah readings on Saturday morning. Being at the New Synagogue felt exactly like being at Synagogue back home. The tunes were the same, the book was the same, and I felt completely connected to the community despite the many differences we share. Because the Shabbat services is in Hebrew, not knowing German was not an issue. The Rabbi of the egalitarian shul, a female, and the cantor were extremely welcoming. Both spoke English and the Rabbi even have us a short English summary of the d’var Torah after she shared it with the congregation in German. The service wasn’t large, about 20 people, but the ruach was palpable. Having the incredible opportunity to daven Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv in the exact Shul that the Nazis attempted to destroy in November 1938 brought tears to my eyes. To pray over 70 years later at the same synagogue who’s congregants were stripped from their homes and and sent to the death camps was one of the most spiritual experiences in my life. I had the opportunity to pray today in Berlin because the Nazis were not successful in their final solution. They could not silence the congregation of the New Synagogue and still today they stand and worship. Having the service be in my native style made the experience all the more meaningful. Halfway across the world, and the German Jews sing the same prayers with the same tunes as we do in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Tonight, after a week of feeling confused, frustrated, and disheartened, I felt the full presence of community and warmth through prayer. I had heard on my way in that a woman in the synagogue tonight was from Philadelphia. After services, I said hello to her and asked her where she was from. Turns out, she is from Lower Merion, PA and went to the Paoli synagogue. Again, this world is small. She now lives in Israel and is through Berlin with her friend who lives in New York City. Her friend’s grandmother belonged to the New Synagogue back before WWII. She survived the Holocaust. We gave her tips on where to go in Berlin while she was in town.

After reluctantly leaving the Synagogue, we went back to the Hotel for a wonderful Shabbat dinner. Tomorrow we leave Berlin for a layover in Dublin and then back to Boston. This trip was truly remarkable and I feel so lucky to have been a part of it. My perspective has grown and my only hope is that I can harness it into something productive. I’m going to try to speak up more, get involved in issues that I am passionate about, try to make a difference in the present. While studying the Holocaust is a hugely important aspect of my life, this trip helped me remember that I need to apply it to the present in order to make a difference. Remaining an activists for human rights is what we learn. I have to look to the past for guidance on how to approach the future. I will still continue to study the past because we have a duty to remember and document, but I wish to also focus on the present. The only question is how. That’s the next project. 

[specialtourintzfatytav629-blog]

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The Tzfat Bat/Bar-Mitzvah Center The Tzfat Bat/Bar-Mitzvah Facility In recent years, this has in fact ended up being a real fad. A boosting number of families originated from globally to celebrate their youngster's Bat Bar-Mitzvah in the unique locations of the old city of Tzfat, in the Upper Galilee. It seems no place else around the world offers such a distinctively excellent environment, material along with experience for such a considerable as well as likewise unforgettable experience.

The fascinating parties are ideal for target markets from every background as well as also design, as well as are carried out in various languages. The Only Guide for Bar Mitzvah In Safed Israel The Tzfat Bar/Bat Mitzvah Facility can in addition schedule any kind of kind of necessary lodgings in the place for your party, in a big series of lovely shop hotels or B&B s.

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Leave on your trip to Israel as well as begin an amazing trip. Invite to Israel! Get To Ben Gurion where you will certainly be pleased along with aided for your transfer to the Carlton Resort in Tel Aviv, Israel's the bulk of multicultural city. Take a while to freshen after the trip or stroll along the boardwalk, enjoying the Mediterranean Sea wind as well as also feeling the city's ambiance.

As the largest bullet production center throughout that time, it produced 2.23 million bullets in between 1946- 1948, while maintaining the technique from the ruling British armed force. Below you will absolutely have the possibility to plant a tree in the dirt of Israel. Drive back to Jaffa to find the rebuilt Musicians' Quarter with its galleries and additionally boutiques.

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( B) Overnight: Tel Aviv Resort Drive to Caesarea, the "Dream by the Sea" created by Herod the Great between 22 as well as additionally 10 BC and also called after Caesar Augustus. Get a kick out of a scenic tour of the abundant remains prolonging from the time of the Romans to the Islamic duration: the 2,000-year-old Roman arena, the Crusader harbour, as well as Herod's imperial residence all will certainly be brought to life in a brand name new multi-media show dedicated to the celebrations in addition to characters that developed this seaside wonder.

Pay attention to words of the prophets as you thresh grain, revolve wool, press oil from fresh olives as well as also a glass of a glass of wine from fresh grapes, and also call for to the route on donkeys. Delegate a Homing pigeon as well as send out a distinct message back https://www.shvilhalev.co.il שבת בצפת to Kfar Kedem as you release the pigeon on his training course back home.

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We'll begin shooting variety to examine your catching skills this is wonderful enjoyable for all in addition to a highlight of the trip. Following this, we have actually established for an unusual treat topic to the political circumstance, we'll go to a Military Base, speak to the soldiers who safeguard the north boundaries along with observe the life of an energetic fight gadget.

Tonight we'll delight in a standard Israeli dinner followed by an interesting jeep journey beginning in the twilight human resources taking a trip right into the darkness. Traveling in open jeeps, we'll hear the audios of the evening and also observe the active wild pets. (B.D) Overnight: Kibbutz Kfar Blum Complying with breakfast as well as additionally hotel checkout, Remain to Safed, the old city that was house to the mystics of the Kabala.

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Drive with the Jordan Valley, homeland of the Prophet Elisha, to Beit Shean. See the Roman holy place, artisan workshop, public baths and also a splendid amphitheater that is still used for efficiencies. En course to Jerusalem driving via the Judean Desert Roadway. Upon arrival in Jerusalem, choose up an occasion of Shehecheyanu, a true blessing that commemorates unique occasions in many thanks for new and also one-of-a-kind celebrations, while soaking up the sweeping sights of the Old City.( B.D) Check-in at Orient Hotel in Jerusalem.

( B) Overnight: Orient Hotel After another delicious breakfast at the hotel, drive to the City of David, an interesting area of exploration in the heart of old Jerusalem- home to a number of one of the most exceptional finds of present years. You might check out the stylish wet Hezekiah's Passage, or choose the recently opened (and also totally dry) passage which brought water to the city throughout Herod.

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The Information Regarding Bar Mitzvah In Safed Israel Revealed Go back to the hotel in addition to Meet with the Rabbi for a final practice prior to the wedding Unique Supper: drive to Genesis Land (Eretz Beresheet), situated in the heart of Judean Desert. Have a possibility to experience life as it remained in scriptural times.

Complying with breakfast at the resort, descend via the Judean Desert to the Dead Sea, the most economical factor on Planet earth, continuing straight to Masada. Ascend capital by Cable Automobile to this last stronghold of the Zealots who selected death as opposed to quiting to the Roman Myriad in the Jewish Revolt versus Rome some 2000 years back.

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After, scenic trip Herod's Royal residence, the synagogue, the bathroom house, the water system as well as the interesting storeroom. Descend Masada as well as drive to among the resorts at the Dead Sea for lunch in addition to swim; float conveniently in the corrective mineral-rich waters before proceeding to Ein Gedi for a strolling via this attractive sanctuary to the stunning falls an excellent family members day to bear in mind.

Remain To Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum & Memorial- tactically located on the environment-friendly inclines of Har Ha Zikaron (" Mount of Remembrance"). Picturesque tour this stretching facility as well as check out the Grove of the Exemplary among the Nations, the Children's Memorial in addition to take part in an unique "Yizkor" (funeral service) in Bikat Ha Kehilot (The Valley of Communities).

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Proceed to Mt. Herzl, the site of Israel's nationwide cemetery which is called after Theodor Herzl, the developer of modern-day political Zionism, whose burial place rests on top of capital. Appreciate the Machane Yehuda Market and also submerse on your very own in the dynamic energy of Jerusalem's Shuk (market). Roam around the various area vendors using delicious cheeses, breads, flavors, nuts as well as much extra.

Tonight we have in fact planned a Joyful Bar/Bat Mitzvah party in honour of the kids's initiative and the dedication they have really revealed. It will be an evening to keep in mind. (B.D) Overnight: Orient Resort Jerusalem. Abiding by breakfast as well as additionally resort checkout, head to Tel Maresha in the place of Beit Guvrin, genealogical residence of King Herod, as well as likewise join a historical dig.

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ARE YOU INVOLVING ISRAEL FOR YOUR BAR MITZVAH? Welcome! You're invited to find to our Storage facility with your friends and family for an unforgettable volunteer experience and also see shut up exactly how we battle hunger in Israel. Aid us pack food baskets which are dispersed throughout Israel weekly. Get in touch with Miri at feedisrael10@yadezra.net!.?.! for additional information as well as to schedule your go to. A Bar or Bat Mitzvah is the.

excellent opportunity to celebrate this vital landmark in your household with a memorable Jewish experience in Israel. Ascent's Bar/Bat Mitzvah scenic tours deal with families and teams seeking a significant, enhancing, and memorable experience. Old-city alleyways, old synagogues, breathtaking sights, and also lovely historic venues make Tsfat a suitable area for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah party that is enchanting, intimate and upliftingan experience to bear in mind! Bar Mitzvah event in an old synagogue. Scenic tour of the old city of Tsfat, come with by a musician. Check out to an IDF Base A remarkable opportunity to go to an IDF base in North Israel. The see will certainly combine lunch with the soldiers, live music, as well as a trip of the base. Personal Torah Codes workshop locating the name of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah in his or her Torah portion, with an individual interpretation. "Letters of Experience" Workshop an ingenious as well as.

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multimedias presentation on Jewish scribal arts, where individuals find out to create with a plume quill, only in Tsfat. Other workshops:" Tree of Life" Judaica Art PresentationThe Significance of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah TodayCandle-making WorkshopChallah-baking WorkshopCreative Art Workshop Eyal Zuchman eyal@ascent.co.il!.?.! 1-800-30-40-70. A really unique New York bar mitzvah boy called Josh Wasserman just recently gave the.

Ethiopian area of Safed, a small city in northern Israel famous for its background as well as nature, a restored basketball court, special attires, and also a new coach for a year-long training program, cost free. Opting to donate his bar mitzvah presents to the Provide a MitzvahDo a Mitzvah program, Wasserman selected to enhance the whole lot of impoverished Ethiopian kids in Israel and also reinforce the ties in between the American and also Israeli Jewish communities. The task enables individuals to conceptualize concepts and after that contribute their time, power, as well as a section of every one of their presents to this mitzvah project." Josh's task is truly outstanding. Not just does it provide various other young kids a great instance of how to come to be much more associated with philanthropy, it additionally aids to strengthen the partnership in between the Jewish community in New york city and also in Israel, "she stated. A 2008 record by the Israeli State Controller located that 20 percent of Ethiopian Israeli children do not go to college, and also.

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that medicine abuse and crime rates are substantially greater in the Israeli Ethiopian youth population than they are in the general Israeli http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bat mitzvah in tzfat community. "I was trying to find a way to do something special as well as meaningful about my bar mitzvah." I'm so fortunate that I have the ability to offer the youngsters in Safed the opportunity to play competitive basketball on an actual group with their own coach and.

new court." Josh's siblings, inspired by their brothers kind deed additionally contributed to the reason. His older sibling Daniel is additionally standing for the USA in the junior football team of the 19th Maccabiah Gamings and also his more youthful sibling Adam enjoys basketball also. Visiting in addition to memorializing in this Biblical city offers stamina to the Jews that keep a Jewish presence in Hebron so that the second holiest city worldwide proceed to be open, supplied and additionally risk-free for individuals of all spiritual ideas to see. Mozel tov you're honoring a Bar or Bat Mitzvah! Bar Mitzvah tours to significant historical sites are prominent. Consider our style principles to make your occasion or event also less made complex to accomplish. Custom-made tees memorializing your occasion are an enjoyable and easy way to supply your site visitors with.

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personalized bar mitzvah totally free gifts and also bar mitzvah chooses. There are 43 pre-designed concepts, from" Conquest" to" Walk of Appeal." With these alternatives, you make sure to uncover a style that fits the personality along with price of interests of the important invitee. When they expose it to their friends, your site visitors will certainly believe of your event each time they transform with their custom-made flip publication or! We understand you desire your occasion to be remarkable for your visitors. If you're preparing an event, Pleasurable Flips Turn Books can make your event also more amazing as well as entertaining by consisting of a little fun. Absolutely customizable to your preference as well as additionally 100 %food risk-free, these personalized favor bags will definitely be an appealing enhancement to your child's Bar Mitzvah products. Rather what is taken into consideration the prime mitzvah of the event is tefillin, and not simply covering them once.

and afterwards neglecting it, however getting a pair for his extremely own, to put on every day except Shabbat and also Yomtov. After such a tough browse with to Yad Vashem we require our enjoyable time as well as to change our frame of mind by checking out to the Ben Yehuda Road in Jerusalem where it is happening, large amounts of residents are commemorating the resulting the weekend by spending time on this stunning exciding along with taking.

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place road of Jerusalem, Cafes, search to check out.

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