#the irony of me wanting to put her in a jar and study her.
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newtedison · 3 years ago
Note
Teresa
thank you!
it got long so here's a read more
favorite thing about them
i know it's kind of trendy lately to be like i love evil women <3 and like while i don't think teresa is evil i do love exploring the aspects of her character that other people and the narrative dislike about her. at the end of the day this is a girl who genuinely just wants to do good. she wants to leave the world better than she found it, she wants to solve problems, she wants to help. but she takes this motivation to such an extreme that she sometimes actively causes more harm in the process. but to her the net outcome is worth it. i love exploring that morally gray area, of someone who is willing to do despicable acts in the name of the greater good, someone who will torture you for data but the truest part of them is that they are kind. she is so complex and i love that about her.
least favorite thing about them
i am going to contradict myself but like she do be torturing people though :(
no but to expand beyond that i do think she is a bit too willing to go by the whims of her authority figures and not question them. she seems convinced there are no alternatives because WCKD says so, but if she took the time to think of it for herself rather than try her hardest at their procedures, would she find another way? a better, more ethical way? it's possible. but she's so blindsided by her belief in WCKD and what they are trying to achieve that she doesn't stop to consider alternate approaches. i feel like this could extend beyond this or even canon to other aspects of her life; the idea that once you have decided one way is the correct way, it takes a lot to stray you from the path.
favorite line
"There are millions of people suffering out there. Millions of stories, just like mine. We can't turn our backs on them. I won't."
oh i just thought how this is sort of a parallel to newt's line earlier in the scorch trials "You can't give up. I won't let you." like okay guys........
brOTP
I said on the Newt ask that I think they would be best friends outside of their canon circumstances so he's still my answer
OTP
brenderesa babeyyyy <3 <3 <3 it's literally all made up in my head with no canon basis but it is SO REAL 2 me
nOTP
thomesa. i'm sorry to all the thomesa babes out there.........but i just can't do it. first of all teresa is a lesbian to me. secondly i just really hate a lot of how their arc was written and i think a lot of their story could have been so much more powerful if they were siblings. the telepathy would make more sense. the moral split between the two would feel more dynamic, the complications it would cause them..........god the potential of it all!
random headcanon
in my current WIP i have that she has OCD and also is a germaphobe. i also see her as the type to carry a first aid kit in her purse and stress over her friends' health and habits (did you put on sunscreen? etc)
unpopular opinion
that she is a LESBIAN i'm kidding i've seen some other people think this too. um i'll say i like it when she's mean and evil and fucked up <3 i think it makes her interesting i like when she does things the narrative frames as morally wrong <3
song i associate with them
i'm gonna list two:
good morning by two door cinema club
I'm a sinner, I am the victim I'm an alien when I'm myself I'm a healer, I am a fixer I'm a present danger to my health
I'm so strong Doing what I'm supposed to do There's something wrong With somebody like me
i am not a woman, i'm a god by halsey
i already made an edit of her with this song here
favorite picture of them
any of the ones from the cliff scene in the scorch trials are sooo beautiful. here's the one i'm using as my icon. had to edit it to hell and back because of how god damn dark the movie is but what can ya do
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send me a character!
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yo-namine · 4 years ago
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Some scattered thoughts about Melody of Memory. Spoilers galore under the cut.
So I want to start by saying that I did read the spoilers ahead of time, and that the reddit leaks made everything sound a bit worse than it actually was. But even after having watched everything in-context... It’s still kind of a mixed bag, lol. And I haven't finished the actual game yet, so this post is mostly just about the twenty or so minutes of story development that I spoiled myself for.
Anyway:
The look on Kairi's face when she realizes she's about to be told to stay behind again 💔💔💔💔 And I'm sorry, but I have to rant about Riku for a sec: Remember when he laughed at Sora for wanting to help save Aqua in KH3, putting him down in front of not only their friends but also the master Sora was still trying to prove himself to? And then Sora had to save him from Anti-Aqua anyway? And then he spent the rest of the game bailing Riku (and everyone else) out of trouble? Did Riku not, I dunno, learn something about underestimating his friends there? And now he's totally fine with Kairi getting left behind yet again because apparently she just isn't good enough to help him? He really thinks it’s better to go into this other world all by his lonesome with 0 backup? Also, what do you want to bet that Riku's gonna get another level reset in the next game and have to relearn everything, meaning he and Kairi would've essentially been at the same skill level anyway? And the irony won't even occur to him? Oi. I’m just really not interested in the next game being Dream Drop Distance 2: No Dialogue for Women Boogaloo. Base KH3 left me feeling like that’s what we’d get next, but I went and let Re:Mind get my hopes up for something better. Bloop. 🤡
And how much more training does Kairi need at this point? Sure, she’s not a master, but I think KH3 showed (intentionally or not) that that title really isn’t worth much. And I know that whole thing was just an excuse for Nomura to spare himself the ordeal of having to write anything substantial for an icky girl, but Kairi was apparently good enough for memory!Xehanort to remark on her skill, and she did solidly kick the real Xehanort's ass in Re:Mind. The only pre-keyblade training Sora and Riku got was smacking other island kids around with sticks, and then miraculously they were both totally capable of fighting full-fledged monsters. Uh???? Anyway, Kairi's essentially right back where she started in KH3. I do like that she specifically asked for Aqua, and I guess it's something that she's at least studying under a real master now, but I'm not going to get my hopes up for anything major coming out of this just because I know this series too well.
One thing I did really like, though, was that scene between Kairi and the memory!Xehanort. The two of them actually getting some dialogue together was exactly what I wanted from Re:Mind to make their battle feel more personal.  And during their fight in MoM, Kairi's actually pretty inventive with some of her moves. Like there are two instances where Xehanort grabs her keyblade, and she escapes by dismissing her weapon and resummoning it to attack. She also makes to strike Xehanort right in the back the same way he did her in KH3, which I thought was a nice detail. But part of their conversation sort of seems to contradict what we learned in Re:Mind, doesn’t it? Xehanort here states point-blank that he "destroyed” her because he knew what Sora would do to save her. So... Which is it? Did he "crystallize” Kairi because she was a PoH that he could use should his main plan fail, or did he really just straight-up kill her to get to Sora? Or maybe Kairi never learned what he actually did to her in the Graveyard, so this memory!Xehanort is just speaking based on what she knows? Hm.
Anyway, Sora then shows up to take Kairi's place in battle after Xehanort knocks her down. And I get that they wanted some big surprise to throw in this game, and I won't lie, it is kind of sweet to see that Sora's still looking out for Kairi despite not physically being with her anymore, but considering the fact that Kairi doesn't get any boss fights in this game? lmfao come on. Why not just have Kairi fight the battle with Kingdom Key instead? That way, the whole point of the scene can stay in-tact without robbing her of a battle that should be hers to fight. As much as I liked seeing Sora and hearing his theme kick in for a second there, none of that should have been at Kairi’s expense. Let the girl have her moment, ffs.
At first, I thought Xehanort’s “Now I’m certain of where your heart is” line was saying that Sora’s heart was within Kairi’s, but I think he’s really talking about Quadratum here. I guess since Sora and Kairi’s hearts are connected, he can show up like that to save her (if she’s in the Final World, anyway) from wherever he is? Or something? But if that’s the case, could her connection to Sora have potentially served as a bridge to Quadratum in the same way Nameless Star did? I dunno, I feel like Sora appearing was a really big deal, but no one even talks about it afterward. It’s weird. Anyway, if it actually turns out that Kairi’s connection to Sora can be used to track him down, that’s going to be hilarious. Imagine Riku getting to Quadratum and then realizing he ditched the one person who was already in touch with Sora.
I do have to say that I really like Christopher Lloyd as Xehanort, though it can be a little jarring at times just because I keep thinking I'm listening to King Graham. And while Hayden Panettiere will probably always be my favorite Kairi VA, I liked Alyson Stoner's voice in this game. Her narrations were nice to listen to.
Other positives things: Uh......... I still love The Final World’s title card. And music.
Oh, and I thought it was really cute how excited Riku and Kairi were to see each other in the lab. The way they hurried toward one another made me think they were gonna hug, but alas. 😞
So, uh. Yeah. I’m still looking forward to playing through the rest of the game, but knowing that it all ends with Kairi getting put on a bus yet again is a pretty lame pay-off. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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divineluce · 4 years ago
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Under the Needle’s Point || Morgan & Luce
Location: Ink Inc.
Timing: August 13th
Tagging: @mor-beck-more-problems & @divineluce
Notes: As a result of a scheduling mix up, Morgan winds up getting a tattoo done by Luce instead of Ulfric. The two have a nice little chat.
Warnings: Needles tw
Morgan couldn’t stop thinking about the dead supernaturals she’d brought out of that witch’s lab. Not even bodies, just pieces jarred and labeled according to parts, their usefulness. She’d sourced some weird shit from shops back when she was alive, but something about these just waiting, knowing what it was for, seeing the way Jo had looked her over as if she was prime stuffing material for her magic turducken. There were no names, no conveniently left behind ledger to tell Morgan the story of who these remains had been. They were just pieces, next to nothing. And what was left of her? Of the person she’d been? No one at work even knew she’d died, except for Anita. There was no family to notify. If she hadn’t dropped off the radar for two weeks, no one would have realized. And sometimes it seemed like people thought the person she’d been before was still in her, whole and bright and unchanged. How could she tell them any different. She didn’t know how to explain what “I” and “Me” signified now. She didn’t have any alternate words to pick from without drawing too much attention to her deadness, which was usually not the best idea. But even if some of her pieces had come back, Morgan felt different and rearranged all over, and she could only talk Bea’s ear off about it so long.
Walking into Ink Inc, Morgan tried to let the stupid, angsty knots inside her unwravel themselves. Ulfric usually had something good to say, and her idea of a solution would at least provide a few hours’ distraction. “Hey, Ulf?” She called. The shop was quiet, though she wasn’t sure how busy it usually was. “I’m early, but maybe we can get started--Oh.” When she saw Luce Vural approach the front desk, Morgan found her stomach knots switched out for a whole new platter of them. “You’re...not...Ulf.”
Flipping through the ancient book that lay on her workstation, Luce frowned as she looked at a few strange sigils drawn in the margins. What did these have to do with ghosts? She wasn’t familiar with anything surrounding ghosts and it was times like this when she wished she knew a decent exorcist. But, even in a town as magical as White Crest, there weren’t many of those running around. Luce mimicked the circular wards drawn in the book with the tip of her finger, tracing the shapes into the wood of the table. They didn’t feel like anything she’d ever drawn before, but she’d never been good at wards to begin with. What exactly did these things mean?
The sound of the bell ringing over the front door caught her attention and Luce shut the book and tucked it away into her backpack. She didn’t need people asking her what she was reading. As she emerged from her room, Luce launched into the typical speil, “Hey there, what can I do--” Her words trailed off for a moment when she saw Morgan standing in the middle of the shop. Leaning against the receptionist desk, Luce’s lips pressed together in a thin line. Shit. The last time she’d seen Morgan was… fuck, when they’d rescued Remmy? Christ. “What gave it away? The height? The distinct lack of a red hair and a beard?” She asked, the sarcasm coming out on reflex.
“Wow, you really are this friendly all the time, even to people you haven’t lashed out at.” Morgan deadpanned. The irony of lashing out was not lost on her, but it was too late to take the words back now. And as far as Morgan knew, Luce hadn’t exactly tried to smooth things over with Remmy since stomping on their heart. “A-ny-way...I have an appointment. A rib piece. Ulf and I talked it over already. I think there’s already a stencil and stuff, but I don’t know if you need anything fancy for working with um, zombie skin. Are you gonna be able to help a dead girl out?”
“What can I say, I’m a ray of goddamn sunshine.” Luce said, tone matching Morgan’s. If this was how this was gonna go down, she could play the game. She wasn’t sure why the woman was coming out swinging like this, but she could hazard a guess. Morgan was someone who cared about Remmy and… it wouldn’t surprise her if Remmy had told her about what went down at the carnival. “An appointment. Huh.” Blinking, Luce looked over at the computer and scrolled through the schedule. Well shit. Ulf had definitely booked her, but it looked like their evening receptionist has fucked up and double booked him. “Looks like there was some kind of scheduling fuck up, but… Yeah. I can do that.” She said. If the stencil was already drawn up and Morgan had already put down her deposit, she wasn’t going to argue. Work was work. “C’mon back. And, no, no fancy tools needed.” Luce thought back to the day Remmy had entered the shop, when they’d met the first time. Oh, for fucks sake. “So, what are we doing today?”
“Of course there is…” Morgan sighed. Not for the first time, Morgan wondered if Constance had made some backdoor bargain with the universe to keep the suffering going as long as there was some miserable creature named Morgan Beck on the planet. She had come here for herself, for the promise of having a sustained goddamn feeling that didn’t strain Deirdre’s muscles, for the talk about the universe and their personal stresses they always shared, and...not Luce and her crabby emotional bullshit. But this was what Morgan had. She’d sectioned off this day carefully and timmed the distance from the start of fall semester so she could have it done, follow ups and all, before classes. No one at work would see, but she liked the idea of having something complete and beautiful that was a part of her. Maybe she just wished marking herself with sigils still did any good. 
Morgan followed Luce to the back, explaining, “A rib piece, with color. It’s sort of sizable. I was talking about breaking the whole thing up into sessions, maybe.” She cleared her throat. “Does that, uh, sound good…?”
“Does Ulf know that you’re… a zombie?” Luce asked as she scrolled through the shared files on her laptop. Thank christ they had a good internal filing system for shit like this. She was able to locate the design that Ulf had already drawn up without too much difficulty. It wasn’t her personal cup of tea, but their styles weren’t that far off and she could do color nearly as well as she did black and white. “I ask because I’ve-- I did Remmy’s tattoo a while back.” She said, unable to hide the stutter-step in her voice, the slight hitch in her words. “They healed almost instantly. It’s how I knew they weren’t exactly human. So, you might not actually need a couple of sessions. Could save you money.” She said with an offhand gesture before pushing away from her desk. “This look like the one?” She asked, gesturing for Morgan to look over at the stencil that was on her computer screen. 
“Yes,” Morgan said. “He said he’d never done one on, you know, someone like me before. But that’s good to know. Maybe this isn’t gonna be the worst idea after all.” She kept her eyes on Luce, watching as she choked on Remmy’s name and stiffened with awkwardness. “If you’d rather we get this done in one go and it won’t mess with your schedule that sounds fine.” She stepped closer to Luce awkwardly and took a look at the design she’d worked out with Ulf.
There was a deer skull, positioned at an angle so you could see the two wide holes where its eyes once were without feeling them looking straight at you. Bluebonnets and Evening Primrose and rich red Winecups, flowers she hadn’t seen since she left Texas, sprouted from one of the sockets. The blues, pinks, and reds on their petals were dappled with color as if from the tip of a watercolor brush. More flowers, goldenrod, blackberry, and meadow-rue, hung from the antlers, garlanded loosely in a way their real stems would never allow. A fine chain studded with small pentagram stars and crystals settled between the horns like bunting and dangled down beneath the skull by several inches. It was elaborate, but Morgan felt better about herself looking at it already. “Yeah, that’s the one. If you can do it, I guess we better get started.” She pulled off her shirt, bunched it around her chest, and waited for Luce to take on the challenge and show her the way.
“It’s your call. We can do whatever works for you.” Luce said, her voice measured and careful to avoid the halting tone it had taken on with the mention of Remmy. “Why don’t I get the outline of it done first and then we can see how it goes? It’ll be a long one session, but I don’t have anything up on the schedule. I was just hanging around in case we got a walk in. And… low and behold. A walk in.” Besides, she needed the money. Hospital bills were still rolling in from her stay after Bea’s resurrection and at the rate that Nell was going, she’d probably need to help her younger sister out too. 
Staring at the design, Luce found herself marveling at Ulf’s work. He was, after all, the one who had inspired her to take up their chosen profession. His linework was impressive, the color pallet beautiful, the composition well balanced and perfectly in line with the mystical elements of the tattoo itself. She’d studied his work long enough to be able to emulate it-- the shading might not be quite how he wanted it, some of the lines might go thin in places where he preferred something a bit more bold. But, they could duke it out over beers at Dell’s if it came to it. “Alright, let’s get rolling.” She laid out her tools, fixing a new needle in her machine, laying out her pallet of inks on the rolling tray she kept by her chair as the stencil printed. The placement came easily enough and Luce snapped on a pair of gloves before settling back on her stool. “Just let me know if it feels like it’s too much and we can take a break.” She said before turning the machine on and putting the needle to Morgan’s cool skin.
“Well that’s nice and completely non-committal,” Morgan said. Probably because Luce was giving her an out. And, if she really wanted, she could take it. She could throw her money and her tip at Ulfric instead. She could forego, what, at least eight hours alone in a tattoo parlor with Luce Vural? It made a certain kind of sense and Luce would know how Morgan felt about the way she handled her bullshit with Remmy to boot. But Morgan had come here with the intention of getting her tattoo and she was not going to let her anger and bewilderment at Luce get in the way of that. They could handle a transactional meeting. “But if you’re really free all day, let’s get started.” She settled down on the seat, glancing over her shoulder at Luce to see how she was muscling up to the prospect.
“Oh, please,” she snorted, dryly. “I had a pole go in one end and out the other. I don’t think anything is going to be too--oh!” Her sentence died in a squeak as the needle made contact. There was...something alright. Like a deep scratch on her insides, one that reverberated throughout her whole body. She couldn’t remember any sensation this immediately potent except for the punches Mina threw in their practice sessions.  Morgan dug her hands into her shirt and squeezed tight. “Jeez. That’s one hell of a rush.”
A part of Luce had almost hoped that Morgan would decline the offer for a full length session. It was a huge tattoo and the lengthy sessions always left her drained, her back sore from leaning over someone, her hands cramped and tired. But, the other woman seemed set on getting this done, and who was she to argue with it. “Yeah. Like I said, we can play it by ear.” She said, her tone calm and neutral.
As Morgan reacted to the sting of the needle, Luce raised an eyebrow as she continued to work. “You good?” She asked. When she’d done this on Remmy, they’d hardly reacted at all. It’d been a big part in how she’d known they weren’t human. It wasn’t that they were being macho about it, like most of Luce’s clients, they just hadn’t seemed to feel any of it. There hadn’t been any involuntary twitches to the muscle when she’d been working, nothing. “I’m guessing it must be weird, going from not feeling hardly anything to being able to feel this?” She asked, the echoes of a memory that belonged to Morgan returning in a swift wave. “Like I said, if it’s too much, we can break this up into different sessions.”
Morgan had to keep her laugh somewhere tight in her chest. “Oh, it’s definitely weird, like the world’s tiniest jackhammer is dancing on my bones. But the other thing is I have to do a whole round of mental gymnastics to trick myself into feeling things or almost feeling things, or I just get in a really great tension workout trying to make myself press into things hard enough to feel like I’m really here. But I guess you kinda know how that is, huh?” She turned over her shoulder, eyeing Luce’s reaction. For someone who pretended to have the emotional capacity of a toothpick, she’d taken Morgan’s memories mostly in stride with the brain biter and her own valuable memories had been full of feeling too. “You’re good, Luce. Although, we should probably pass the time with more than just complete awkward silence, right?”
“The tiniest jackhammer? Never heard that one before, but sure.” Luce commented blithely as she kept her hand nice and steady, following the smooth curves of the stencil, tracing over the skull design. She was already planning out how she’d do the shading of the eye sockets, the way the flowers lay against bone, but Morgan’s words took her out of it for a moment. Blinking, her hand faltered before she focused back on her work, the needle continuing to move. “Yeah. I guess I do.” She muttered, reminded of the fact that their memory swap had been just that. A swap. Morgan had seen her memories, had experienced them. The moment from her childhood when her sisters had sat on the living room floor, braiding each other’s hair. One of the many midnight margs celebrations, usually done after coven meetings or some other ritual. Morgan had seen good memories, happy memories. Memories Luce didn’t share with anyone. “Depends on how you want to fill it.” She said as she dipped the tip of the needle back into the small container of ink and resumed her work, “Are you going to try and talk to me about Remmy? I know you two are close.”
“You brought them up, not me,” Morgan said. “But yeah. We’re pretty darn close. I don’t know how much you’ve been keeping up with them or how much you actually care, but they really have been through the wringer lately. And that’s on top of all the other stuff they had to deal with before, including me.” She sighed as Luce’s needle brushed against her bone again. Who knew that something so sharp could feel so much like relief. Was this why people got hooked on getting them? “What I’m trying to say is, handle with care. Remmy can take a lot of hits, but that doesn’t mean they should have to. And maybe figure your shit out before they get their hopes up again.” She drew in a shallow breath and tried to extend her attention around her body, feel the novel tingles of air and the buzzing prick of the needle as it traveled away from her bone again and grew faint. It was all she could do not to pout. Everything about existing was work, was an act of management in concentration and willpower. At least when her bones were catching onto a feeling for her she could let go. But that would’ve been easy, and universe forbid Morgan have anything like that for long.
Luce let out a sigh as she continued to draw, machine buzzing in her grasp. Well, shit. She had been the one to bring them up. Fuck. But, it was better to rip the bandaid off now, right? Better now than to sit in awkward silence or let it hang over their heads while she worked. “Yeah. I know they have.” She said off handedly. She knew that Remmy had been through it. How could she not know? She’d held them that night when they’d re-lived their experiences at the Ring, she’d seen the collar around their neck drop them to the ground, she’d seen just how fucked up they’d been after the rescue mission. And now, the latest pile of bullshit-- she’d seen Nadia drag them out of Pat’s Place, seen them brought to their knees by poison. She knew. “Including you.” Luce echoed, remembering what those words meant. Remmy had been the one to turn Morgan, to save her. “You think I don’t know that they shouldn’t have to deal with all the bullshit life’s thrown at them? I’m real aware of that fact.” She said, though her words lacked bite. “They don’t deserve any of the fucking stuff that happens to them.”
It was hard for Morgan to get a read on Luce while she was halfway down her torso, inking out the curves of deer horns. She sounded tense, bitter, but those might’ve been part of Luce’s factory settings for all Morgan knew. “Well, I couldn’t tell from here,” Morgan said, more accusatory than she’d meant to sound. She frowned, waited a moment, and tried again. “I’m glad we can agree on Remmy needing a break. I’d guess we could also agree on Remmy deserving some basic kindness. We can’t control their circumstances much, but we can be good to them, right?” She didn’t think this was a controversial point and so didn’t wait to press on to her real question. “So I guess I’m just..really curious about why you handled your side the way you did. I know you tend to come out swinging, which I don’t follow either a lot of the time, but this...wasn’t that.”
Lips pressing together into a thin line at Morgan’s tone, Luce said nothing and instead focused on her work. She wasn’t going to fuck up Morgan’s tattoo just because the other woman was being a bitch about things to her. Even if she really wanted to. All it would take is a few little lines-- nope. She valued her work too much to fuck up someone’s tattoo on purpose. Drawing the machine back, she wiped the stray flecks of ink off with a paper towel, not bothering to ease up on the pressure. Morgan wouldn’t be able to feel it the same way people did. She dipped the needle into more ink and set back to work. “What do you mean, how I handled things?” She asked flatly, her tone emotionless. “They wanted more, which wasn’t part of the deal. From day one, I made my intentions very clear.” Luce said as she started on the curves of the deer’s eye sockets, staring blankly back at her. Almost accusingly. Oh, fuck off. 
Morgan waited for Luce’s words to settle before speaking again, just in case she started snapping all over again. This was, technically, not her business. But she was upset with Luce for how her words had affected Remmy and how it had surprised her as well. She didn’t even know what, specifically, had happened. But even the vague strokes were so unlike the person she’d thought Luce was. “You were cruel,” she said at last. “What you want or don’t want to intentionally invite into your life is your business, and if you want to put boundaries around how much you really care about Remmy, go for it, whatever, I guess. But you can still be kind when you’re telling someone ‘no’ or ‘not right now.’ You can try to make the hurt as small and possible. I didn’t think you were the kind of person to do that, especially to someone kind of close to you. Which, okay, we don’t even know each other that well, really, so maybe it was my mistake. But it was still...really weird to hear about, after all you did for them.”
“What can I say, I’m a bitch.” Luce said callously. A nosy bitch, getting into other people’s business, doing things that pissed people off just because she could. And she was more than happy to live with that reputation. It was fine, it was normal. As Morgan continued to talk, Luce began to start on the outlines of the flowers, their delicate petals requiring a lighter hand. She rolled her eyes at that-- a lighter hand. People would like it if she handled things that way, wouldn’t they? If she was kinder, if she wasn’t as rude, as rough, as angry. “They weren’t close to me.” She insisted. “We just fucked.” Luce said, though the words didn’t hold quite as much weight as they once had. They hadn’t just fucked. They’d held her that night when she’d broken and told them about Bea, she’d done the same for them after they’d been torn to pieces. She’d broken them free from the Ring, destroyed the building, taken lives… for Nell, yes. But, for Remmy too. Looking at her gloved hands, Luce’s jaw clenched. “I did shit because I wanted to. Not because of them.”
“Okay, I know you didn’t just fuck,” Morgan said, rolling her eyes. “I know you made yourself emotionally present for them in some really rough, vulnerable moments. They told me how safe you made them feel, and how it seemed like you were opening up. And you were ready to kill everyone at the ring before you knew they had Nell too.” She gasped as the needle circled over her rib bones again, making her insides almost come alive. “And maybe we’re not close, but I know enough about you to know you’re not just a bitch. What I don’t get is why it’s so important to you that other people see it that way. No one is vulnerable about everything all the time, and for some people...yeah, kindness and softness has to be earned. But...you still haven’t answered my question. Did their question make you feel...betrayed or upset somehow? Were you scared?”
Luce sucked in a breath at Morgan’s words. Of course, Remmy told her about shit. Of course they did. “Maybe I got a taste for it. Who knows.” She said in an offhand tone, brushing past her quick leap to destruction. She continued to do her work, keeping her hand nice and steady as Morgan continued to talk at her. So they’d swapped memories once, that didn’t make Morgan an expert on her, or her feelings. She didn’t fucking do feelings, not like that. But, at the last question, her eyes widened in surprise. If she didn’t have literally years of experience, of people saying stupid shit that caught her off guard, she might have fucked up her lines. Instead, her hand remained steady. Even so, there was no way to hide how her breath hitched slightly. “You don’t need to know why I did what I did. You’re not Remmy’s keeper and you’re sure as hell not mine.” Still the word echoed in her mind. Scared. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t. Wasn’t she?
Morgan caught the way Luce doubled down on her tension. So, getting warmer, maybe creeping up on a nerve. It probably shouldn’t have felt so surprising; fear made fools of everyone. Hadn’t she learned that one a dozen or so times over? “You’re too interesting to be selling yourself short like that. But…” She gasped again. Why couldn’t she just shut up and enjoy this again? Luce was right, she wasn’t Remmy’s keeper, and even if she was still mostly playing by their request to ‘not yell at’ Luce, she was...definitely skirting around things. But it itched at her worse than this needle, knowing Remmy had been hurt out of, what, recklessness? And Luce was cutting herself off from a relationship she had seemed to care about right until it was brought to the surface and made real. “You’re right,” she said at last. “We don’t have to get into this. We can go though the next eight hours talking about something else. Like...this is the first feeling-almost-feeling I’ve had that didn’t give someone at least an arm workout...well, actually, I guess you will have one by the time we’re done, but, it’s the concept for the thing. Or uh…” Stars, they really didn't have that much in common, did they? “You know, if this thing that doesn’t matter to you at all is also for some reason too much to talk about, maybe you should pick.”
“Damn right we don’t.” Luce said firmly. She’d dealt with longer sessions with worse people before. Then again, they weren’t usually people she had to deal with outside of the shop. But, someone who knew her the way Morgan did? Someone who knew her family? It made things trickier. She knew she could keep her cool about this, that she should just keep her mouth shut and deal with it. So Morgan wanted to bitch at her about how she’d hurt Remmy. So fucking what. She could handle it. Then why did she feel anger creeping in the pit of her stomach? Pulling the machine back from Morgan’s skin, Luce tossed the machine down onto the tray next to her with a loud clatter. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me, Morgan, which is exactly how I like to keep things. You don’t get to tell me what I should do, that I need to pick and choose. I already made my decision, I already chose. And you don’t need to know why I did.” She said, staring at the woman with fire in her eyes. 
Morgan groaned deep in her throat. Now she wasn’t even feeling anything. But now without having the precision of the device to worry about, she could turn and look at Luce fully. She was angry alright, but nothing she was saying was making sense. “I am very certain I already conceded that first point, she said. And as for the rest, I didn’t say literally any of those things. Which makes me wonder who exactly is? Who is telling you what you need to do or that you have to pick and choose between...whatever it is you think your binary options are? Or that you can’t change your mind about your decision later? Because I just wanted to know why you went out of your way to be mean to someone we both care about, and then I offered you an out. So what are you really upset about here, Luce?”
Startled, Luce stared at Morgan for a moment. She had said those things, hadn’t she? Or had Luce been reading too deeply into things, looking into things that didn’t exist? Either way, her outburst had dug herself an even deeper hole than she’d started in. Fuck’s sake. Luce rolled her eyes, though the action was more for show than anything. It was a way to get people to leave her alone. But, she couldn’t unhear the other woman’s words. What was she upset about? Really? “What am I upset about? The fact that Remmy went off and fucked everything up. Things were fine, just the way they were. It was all just for fun. And then they wanted more. I fucking told them that I’m not interested in more, because I’m not go-- I don’t do more.” She said before rolling back from the chair, her hands up in the air. “Look. Ulf’s appointment ends in ten. Get him to finish your tattoo. I’m done.” Luce said with a shake of her head.
“Luce…” Morgan said softly. “Hey, you...are a good person, Luce. You’re good. I mean, I kind of hate that word, it’s so arbitrary, but as far as I’m concerned, you are. And I’m not the only one, okay? Whatever it is you need out of your relationships, whatever you choose, as long as it’s really what you want and need, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re good. And if your needs change, you’re still good. You’re good and you deserve to be happy, whether that includes ‘more’ or not, or Remmy or not. You deserve to be more than just okay. You know that, right?” She cleared her throat, looking down at her wrinkled shirt and the only mostly done outline of her tattoo. “But uh, if you need a break or you’d just rather not anymore, that’s...fine.”
You deserve to be more than just okay. Luce had said similar things to Remmy before and now they were being turned onto her. She wondered if they felt just as false to them as they did to her. She didn’t deserve someone like Remmy, didn’t need someone like them in her life. Because what would happen if she did let them in? If she said sure, let’s try, let’s be something? She’d open up to them and that scared her. But, Luce was startled to realize, what scared her more than the vulnerability of it all was the wanting. She wanted to open up to them. To be honest with them. But, what would happen then? Nothing good. Staring at the outline on Morgan’s side, she sighed. “I’ll finish it. But,” She grabbed the remote to the stereo system from her desk, loud music filling the room. “No more talking.”
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thaumaturtles · 5 years ago
Text
Begin ANGELQUEST
The other day, I was doing some.......
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...... studying.......
When I came across an advertisement. This isn’t at all an unusual experience; I’ve been on the internet for a decade and change and I’ve come to accept that ads are a part of the experience. This was an ad I’d seen many times before, too. I’m so accustomed to seeing it that my eyes often skip right over it. However, I’ve been reading a lot of articles about Enlightenment, lately, and I’ve been trying to put that into practice in my everyday life. I’ve been attempting, to varying degrees of success, to become more aware of myself and my environment, to probe onward into my mind’s own blind spots. In short, I’m trying to blitz my chakras. (Don’t worry, am Indian, can reclaim.)
And so, for perhaps the first time, I took a moment to truly see the ad in front of me. To stop and smell the dogshit hiding behind the roses. And, goodness, was it a sight to behold. Ladies, gentlemen, and all who fall betwixt, I present to you, THIS:
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Take a moment, if necessary, to take it all in.
Have you collected yourself? Good. You’re holding up the rest of the class.
I don’t know how I’ve managed to let this pass without mental comment on more than one occasion. How did I look at this image, think “angel reading? yeah, sure, that’s a thing that exists” and then shuffle along? The only explanation I can muster is Divine intervention, which would ironically lend this product some legitimacy. I need to understand. What does Angel Reading mean? How could such a process be personalized, and, furthermore, how could it take place over the Internet? Who is this “Celeste”? What is she after? Why does she look vaguely disappointed in me? Can she see my soul? What is an “Angelic Medium”?????
Clearly, if I want answers, I’m going to have to dive in. I place my Crocodile Dundee hat on my head with no small measure of trepidation, though I must confess a moiety of excitement deep within. As I hike up my Adventurin’ Shorts and stuff a few hundred metres of rope into my backpack, I consider the long road ahead. And then, with my cosplay explorer’s outfit put on to my approval, I sit down at my computer. I’m really not sure why I felt the need to do all that when I’m just gonna be here at home.
I steel my will, and I click.
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This loading screen appears, and I’d like to mention that the URL for this page is perhaps longer than any URL I’ve ever seen before in my 16 years.
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Okay, let’s just take a moment to get our bearings here and-
HOLY MACKEREL, THERE’S A COUNTDOWN!
And only twenty-seven minutes left! Sakes alive, I clicked this link just in time! Imagine If I’d wasted more time farting around and dressing up like Indiana Jones!
Although, weirdly enough, whenever I refresh the page, the timer restarts, and it always restarts at 27 minutes and 50ish seconds, which is a random-enough number to seem legitimate.
Hmm. Odd.
I wonder if maybe the countdown isn’t actually real and is just there to pressure you into typing your info more quickly so you don’t notice how fishy this whole opera-
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OH MY GOD ONLY 26 MINUTES!!!!!!!
OK, gotta think quickly here. Gosh, they’re asking some personal questions right off the bat, but I can’t let them know it’s me; they might recognize me from tumblr. If this sting operation’s gonna go forth I gotta lie my ass off. My name? Uh, uh.. My name is Dyl-Dy- Uhhhh, shit, okay, it’s Dylan-NO, Dylllllllll...... Delilah? Delilah. Like from the Bible. Yeah, that’s fitting, especially since I’m swindling these fools. Soon, Celeste, your hair will be mine.
They’re asking for my date of birth, which I’m hesitant to put because my 16th birthday party was kind of a big deal and Celeste might’ve heard about it, in which case she’ll know it’s me AND things will be super awkward cause I didn’t invite her to the party.
I put 4/13/1969 obviously
They’re also asking for my e-mail address, which I can’t give out because it has my full name, address, and social security number in it, so let’s just pull this ripcord real quick and parachute out of this nightmare zone, and over to a quick, free, secure e-mail client. That is, protonmail.com, which is not my usual e-mail server and will thus throw Celeste’s goons even farther off my trail
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Wow, that was a surprisingly quick and painless process! I might just have to use protonmail in the future
So anyway here’s my info, sent in right under the wire, with a mere 24.3 minutes left! God that was close. Picture that classic scene in Indiana Jones where he slides under the door and then reaches back in to get his hat, only it’s an out-of-shape teen and also the door hasn’t even started closing yet.
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I went with my actual country because, c’mon, there’re a lot of people in Jamaica. Statistically speaking, how likely is it they’d find me through that?
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You know I didn’t. You know I fucking didn’t. Why are you asking.
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Also, here’s a quick rundown of what Celeste is actually offering in case anyone was curious. It does somewhat tickle me that she claims she’ll “get to work immediately” as soon as anyone clicks the link and subscribes, as though the process isn’t completely automated. It evokes a clear image of Celeste, in full angelic garb, sitting at a computer screen and answering calls while also typing into three discrete keyboards simultaneously.
The idea that she could personally take the order of every individual who clicks this ad betrays either a complete lack of confidence in the desirability of her product, or an incredible amount of confidence in her own ability to multitask.
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Who is “she”? Celeste? That doesn’t make much sense in the context here. Peter’s Guardian Angel? But earlier Celeste made it sound like all angels use he/him! Also, what does “bring her back” mean if it’s the angel? Can angels leave and later be found again? I feel like if you find your guardian angel once, that should be it forever, but apparently they can leave and you have to ensnare them again?????
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Hooray! A link from an unknown source to an unknown destination! I sure can’t wait to click it all day long!
The things I do in the name of science, I swear to God Celeste.
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It took a minute but here it is. Sidenote: I rather enjoy the irony of an inbox which consists of three e-mails about encryption and ways to curate a safe internet experience, and one which is an automated link from a bullshit ad for a product that doesn’t exist. There’s a subtle poetry to this image. I almost want to frame it, and then sell it for an exorbitant amount of money.
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Here’s the e-mail, folx. If ever you needed proof that this was a scam, look no further.
Who on this good green earth would think beginning such a missive with, “Thank you for your trust,” would be a good way to garner MORE goodwill? When I go to my local grocer and I purchase a party-sized bag of Tostitos to eat by myself over the course of a day and a half because I’m in control of my body, goddammit, the bag doesn’t say, “Thank you for believing in us! We promise we won’t give you dysentery!
Like, what the fuck? “Thank you for your trust.” Your product should be able to stand on its own two feet and proudly proclaim, “I’m gonna give you a fucking angel reading or die trying!”
That initial line has honestly made me more scared than ever for this process. I’m confident I’m going to click that link and it’s going to auto-download a terabyte of obscure Norwegian pornography to my hard drive. I did just update my computer this morning, however, and all my data are backed up, so I feel somewhat more secure than I might otherwise.
Did I really just say “data are”? I know it’s grammatically correct and all, but it’s still jarring to hear. Messes with my mental flow. And wouldn’t the proper, descriptivist thing to do be to use “data is” to avoid confusion? Using “data are” feels clunky, is more difficult to say, and makes me look a bit snobbish. I’d delete it but that would require hitting the backspace button on my computer and I’m frankly quite lazy about that sort of thing. What was I talking about again? Oh, right. I have to click the link.
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 Again with the “thank you for your trust” bullshit! Whatever, I’m going to let it pass. They’re clearly going for a friendly, approachable persona here, even if they’re doing it in the most threatening, ass-backwards way possible.
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This next email took a seemingly endless eight minutes to arrive, during which time I meditated, raised a bonsai tree to adulthood, watched Marley & Me, grappled with intense feelings of loneliness, and worked on some of my homework.
Or maybe I just played games on my phone. You decide!
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Okay, not quite what “hereby” means, but sure. It’s a common mistake, likely exacerbated by the presence of the word “here” within “hereby.” Sort of a “wherefore does not mean where” situation I suppose.
Anyway, I’m submitting to the mortifying ordeal of clicking the link yet again.
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Christ get a load of this shit. How fitting that the Angelic stone for someone born on 4/13 would be Jade. My archangel is Megatron apparently??? His info claims he’s some sort of scribe. My major planet is Neptune, and my secondary planet is.... the sun? Is anyone going to tell Celeste what stars are or do I have to do everything myself around here? I do like that ram up in the top left though. I’m naming you Ram Elliot.
Now for the pièce de résistance. Meet Mahasiah. Mahasiah is not my guardian angel; Mahasiah is the guardian angel for anyone born between April 10th-14th. My guardian angel is Yerathel, apparently. A few things I learned while researching this: both Mahasia and Yerathel have “feminine energies” (???) and both have Fire as their associated classical element. Also, Yerathel rules over Intelligence, which is one thing I actually somewhat like about myself. This is actually kind of neat to learn about!
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I mean come on. That’s pretty fuckin cool. His name means “He Who Punishes Evildoers” which is beyond epic, and his associated gem is Smoky Quartz, aka the only Steven Universe character.
You know, maybe this whole Angel Reading business isn’t a scam after all. Maybe it’s a perfectly safe process and I’ll be totally fine, what am I worrying about? At the very least, it couldn’t hurt to explore her site a bit more..... for research’s sake.
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yeah baby tell me more
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h-
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certainly, miss celeste, anything for you
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wait, aren’t I already in a relationshi-
JAZZERCISING JUNIPERS BATMAN THERE’S ONLY 28 MINUTES LEFT
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holy shit! I want accurate readings!
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Oh god oh no okay i’ll do whatever you want celeste please don’t leave me i need my tarots
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THEY KNOW ABOUT ME ALREADY OMG
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Well, okay, even in my currently addled state I can still see that “Duo-Telepathy” is complete bullshi-
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OH WELL IF AMANDA GAVE THEM THREE WHOLE STARS I HAVE TO TRUST IT
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Amazingly, my info was pre-filled in. Almost like this site is linked to Celeste’s in some way, or perhaps even run by the same group of scammeUPSTANDING CITIZENS IS WHAT I MEANT TO SAY
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Ooh, another e-transmission from my good friend Celeste! Oh, how I’ve missed her! And apparently large and surprising discoveries have been made concerning me! She’s presenting me a Guide? I sure hope I’ll be able to open it, hassle-free, with no additional purchases/information required!
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OHOHOHOHO
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bro i’m shitting my drawers rn
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I have no fucking clue what that means but you said FREE so i’m in!
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oh my god there’s still so much left. just shut the fuck up and take my money you fools
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AW TITS YEAH
....i think
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Okay, I know the original thing said FREE and I should be “mad” or watever, but look at that bargain! that’s more than half off! It might as well be free! I’d be stupid NOT to buy it!
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I’ve invented a lot of secondary information for Delilah. The phone number is merely (559) YOU-SUCK, as a subtle way of establishing the power dynamic at play here. I’m sure Celeste will appreciate it.
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Hmmmmm.............. It would seem my method of “just input numbers randomly” won’t work here. Such a shame. Credit card fraud used to be so easy. I’ll have to put that on the backburner, though, because look what just appeared in my inbox!
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You can see where this is going.
I’ll take my leave now, this post is getting long enough as is, but I do feel it’s important to note that doing a quick bit of research shows that Celeste & co. are famous for emotional manipulation, as well as getting people addicted to their products and forcing a sort of dependency upon them. It’s important to do your research, and remember basic internet safety tips like don’t click popups or check if a site is legit before downloading from them. It’s incredibly easy to get trapped down this sort of rabbit hole, where you wind up buying more and more of their products like you’re stockpiling for the Rapture. Not me, though, I’m obviously fine and can quit anytime I like. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go try a bunch of credit card numbers until one works.
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seasaltmemories · 6 years ago
Text
Rosea Puella: Year 8
Rating: T
Summary: He gave it a month.  A month to see if there was any room for him in that little house anymore, if Gyoku would give him the decency of disdain, if the eunuch would grow some balls and kill him like he wanted to, if the girl would ever elicit any emotion from him besides plain old fear
~
Judal paced back and forth as he waited in the backyard.
Patience had never been a virtue of his, but knowing the eunuch, he enjoyed making him wait.  Once he had processed that Judal wasn’t some ghost or other shit, he had been quick to return to the sharp-tongued snob he always was.
“What do you want?” Ka Koubun threw the words out like a knife as he cradled the child against him.
In the past, Judal might have adopted the same sharpness, maybe add in a jab just to piss him off some more.  But as he imagined how such a scenario would play out, he was overcome with exhaustion. “Just want to talk to Gyoku,” he sighed.  Honesty tasted unfamiliar on his tongue, but he swallowed it down all the same.
“You think she wants to talk to you!?”  It seemed Judal’s less snarky attitude only made him grow angrier.  “After you defiled her purity, burdened her with a child, then abandoned them both?!”
“’Course I wouldn’t be surprised if she hated my guts--” Judal groaned.  As unsure as he had been about returning, spite half-tempted him to go ahead and march right into the house as if he had only gone out for a walk.
What kept him glued right in place was the pair of wide red eyes that studied him fiercely.
“--but then why do you expect a monster to care about what others think?” He knew he was showing teeth, but he wasn’t sure if it was in a smile or a snarl.  He waited for a reaction, but they only continued to look at him in confusion and that tiredness returned full force.
“If she doesn’t want to talk to me, then I can make sure you never have to see me again.”  Judal grew dead serious.  “I’m not doing this for myself you know?  It’s for her.”
Ka Koubun wavered, eyes darting back and forth as he thought.  Then out of nowhere he shoved the child into his arms.
“If you hurt her, I’ll rip your fucking throat out.”  There was no heat to the curse, only a deadly chill.  Before Judal could react, Ka Koubun had already scrambled inside.
That was what brought him here: waiting as if this was his execution.
The child had stopped playing and simply sat quietly on the steps.  Despite having been so full of energy before, she kept to herself, fidgeting back and forth.  Every now it then she would glance over at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice.
He always did though, because he kept doing the same thing.  Ugh, why did Ka Koubun stick the brat on him?  Did he hope mere proximity would get those nonexistent paternal instincts going?  It was difficult seeing the use in letting her presence affect him before he had even made it one step back into the house.
But it was even more impossible to keep that nagging feeling in the back of his head from bugging him.
“Oi, kid!”  The child sat up straight and her face turned red, as if she had been caught with her hand in the sweets jar.
“Who are you?”  Her words were high-pitched and indistinguishable in that way all children sound identical when young, yet there was a quiet fear to them.
Judal chewed the inside of his cheek.  “An old friend of your mother’s.  What about you, kid?”
“I’m Taohua.”  Taohua, now he could remember Gyoku choosing that.  It was like her to try and make something good of a situation that had just been plain bad.  
“And that was Ka.”  Taohua pointed at the door as if she was excited to have finally drifted back into territory she knew.
“Oh don’t worry I know the old bastard.”  It only occurred to him then that he probably shouldn’t curse in front of a...two year old? four year old?  Whatever the case he quickly dismissed the concern when he considered the actual war crimes he had committed.
“He takes care of me and Mama.”
“I’m sure he does, he even took care of her when we were children.”  He had talked with kings and queens, faced down the most powerful warriors in the world, and yet somehow this was the most tense ordeal he had ever experienced.
“Are you Judal?”  From the top of his head to the very blood in his bones, he froze.  His body was still functioning, he could see her curious expression, but his brain couldn’t put the pieces together to form an actual thought.
Before his terror could show however, the eunuch popped back out of  the house with his cold smugness.  The mere air around him made Judal annoyed, which at least was better than petrified.
“Gyoku is not feeling well, so you can’t see her today.  Still she’s willing to let you stay for the week no questions asked.”
“Guess that will do.”  Judal ran a hand through his braid.  “I’m gonna wash myself up.  Tell me when it’s dinner time, eunuch.”  He traced the steps back to his old room yet was surprised when he got there and found that it had been left untouched.
With a sigh he plopped down on the sleeping mat.  Was this supposed to be when you said home, sweet, home?
~
He didn’t get to see Gyoku that evening.  When the eunuch called him for dinner, it was only the kid and him sitting at the table.
“Gyoku’s feeling unwell,” was the only explanation that he would give.  As simple and logical as it was, his defensiveness made Judal suspicious.  When the same excuse was parroted the following morning, it became impossible to contain his restlessness.
“If she didn’t want to see me then why didn’t she just say so?  Didn’t have to fake the fucking plague.”
Ka Koubun flinched before his scowl grew even deeper.  “Then why don’t you try making her feel better?  You’re obviously successful at that aren’t you?”
He had prepared another insult before he had even finished processing the eunuch’s, but as he readied to cast it like a spell, he was struck by the pettiness of it all. It wasn’t as if respectability ever meant much to him, but god were they old.  The little vanity he still held had to admit it hardly looked any good on them.
“Have you taken her breakfast yet?”  Without thinking, Judal scraped his leftovers onto a clean plate.  “Might as well be useful if I’m annoying.”
His bluster managed to carry him out, but as he approached Gyoku’s room, his sails began to lose their wind.  So far Xiaoshi had been completely predictable.  The eunuch was a pain in the ass, and the kid was terrifying in her normalcy.  But there was no predicting what Gyoku would be like.  Back at Rakushou she had been uncertain yet blindingly determined.  If someone had told him she would later become a simple farmer in the middle of absolutely nowhere, he would have laughed in their faces.  Yet could she have changed even more drastically since then?  And even if she hadn’t, did she only want him around so she could work up the strength to tear him limb from limb?
Judal shook his head.  Questions were useless if you weren’t willing to face their answers.  Before he could lose his nerve, Judal knocked on her door.
“Come in,” A quiet voice wisped.  And so Judal took a deep breath and did as he was ordered to.
He didn’t know what he was expecting when he entered, but it hadn’t been for the sight to be so familiar.  Her room still managed to be somehow bare yet disorganized and cluttered.  In the middle of the mess laid Gyoku on her sleeping mat.
“Judal...”  As she sat up, her blanket fell back to reveal some things had changed.  There was a round softness to her body after having to bear the weight of a child.  He didn’t know why he focused on that.  Maybe so he didn’t have to look her in the eye.
“Yeah it’s me...”  He ran a hand through his braid.  “Did the eunuch not deliver the news?”
Silence suffocated the room.  He must have lost his tolerance for pain because for some reason he thought looking at her might make things easier.  Bad decision.  That sad, soft pink managed to hook its talons into his heart and refused to let him look away once their gazes met.    
It probably wasn’t the best decision, but if he couldn’t look away he wanted to at least see less of her.  He approached her without speaking, until they were face to face.  Striking distance, idly he thought.  But Gyoku just continued to stare and stare at him, as if she had forgotten how to do anything but that.
“Your hair’s a rat’s mess.”  Probably not the best comment to make, but it helped him break eye contact and focus on her unruly tangles.  “Do you want me to do something about that?”
He waited for an answer but wasn’t surprised when nothing came.  Still he needed some sort of motion to break up his restless energy, so he grabbed her comb and sat next to her all the same.
Tentatively he brushed it through her locks.  
“Ouch!”
“Sorry,”  From this angle she couldn’t see him, but he ducked his head all the same.  “I’ll be more gentle.”  Slowly he pulled apart a nasty knot with his hands.  After years of keeping his hair neat and presentable, maybe even he could do more than mess this up.
“I’ve done a lot of traveling lately.”  The irony didn’t escape him, but those words seemed less crude than the full truth.  “You should see Balbadd now, can barely recognize the place anymore.”  It wasn’t like him to chatter away, but it was something to fill the room with.  The lesser of two evils.
“Your old fiance managed to turn into a somewhat respectable king.  Has two little pups with the Fanalis bitch that used to trail behind him.  Might be cute if the perfection of it all wasn’t so sickening.”  He rambled on like that--telling all he knew of their old friends and foes, of the weird mishaps he got into on the road.  He wasn’t sure if she was even listening to it all, but he told those stories for himself first and foremost.
He didn’t mention his third and final trip to a destroyed village that had never been his home.
When he was finished with her hair, he got up to leave, but before he could take even a single step, Gyoku grabbed his hand.
“Judal...”  She drew in a deep breath, as if it was taking all her effort to mutter those two syllables.  “...I don’t forgive you.”
Even without the influence of magic, her words still felt as cold as Vinea’s iciest of waters.  “What reason should you?”  He tried to brush her words off, but he was sure if he looked at her again this time he would never be able to move again.  Time to be serious for once in his life.
“Look, I don’t care to pretend I’m redeemed or any of that bullshit.  Just want to take responsibility for the mess I made for you.  Do you want my help?”
He waited for an answer once more, and it seemed even less likely to come.  Maybe that is how she would enact her revenge--leave him waiting here until he withered away into nothing but dust and bone.  And through it all she’d probably stare without blinking once.
But if that was her plan, she must have decided to save it for later, because eventually Gyoku spoke.
“You can stay.”  It wasn’t a complete yes, but it definitely wasn’t a no.
Maybe that was the best they could do for now.
~
Life in Xiaoshi proceeded from then on, but something about it never felt real.
For one thing, the following day Gyoku was up and running chores.  The fact that no one commented that she had been cocooned in a pile of blankets for the past few days would have stood out to him, but soon that observation was eclipsed by an even greater one.
Nobody seemed to react to his presence either.
It wasn’t as if he was a ghost, he was given chores to do and acknowledged and spoken to (although glaringly Ka Koubun never left him alone with the child after that first morning).  No it was more subtle than that.  They treated him as if he had never left, as if three years hadn’t passed between them.
Well that wasn’t true either.  Gyoku didn’t seek him out at night nor scream his name in a fit or whisper it like a love-song.  It was back to before they had even knew Xiaoshi existed--when the demon child and whore’s daughter had grown up and were trying to be Kou’s sacred oracle and precious 8th princess.  Back then he had welcomed the change, had probably been the first to temper their relationship into something cold and professional in search of people like Hakuryuu.  He hadn't needed a sad, lonely girl, just someone who could offer him the power to free himself and burn down the system that had so mistreated him.  But here in the middle of nowhere, he couldn’t take Gyoku’s bland greeting and neutral stares.
Tell me how I hurt you.  Cry, rage, just don’t act as if I mean nothing to you.
He didn’t know he had cared when during those early Xiaoshi years she had been the one chasing after him.  Maybe it was his ego.  A monster liked to know they were still feared.  And oh he hadn’t felt like one in such a long time.  On the road you’re just another face.  He had never experienced anonymity before.  It was so freeing it made his head spin, and he had thought there would be no greater joy than to die in a forgotten grave.
But then Balbadd had changed everything.  It’s funny, that was where he had first remembered Gyoku existed since becoming oracle.  In the same streets where she had saved his life, he saw dear old idiot Alibaba wave around his newborn daughter for the world to see.  He had been just another face in the crowd, probably wasn’t even noticed by him, yet something about the parade seemed to scream, “Isn’t there some place you belong?”  Call it whatever you like, the voice of the rukh or delayed guilt, but those words had stuck with him even after he had left town.  Without much thought he followed their call until it took him back to Xiaoshi.
But what was the point in sticking around if that wasn’t the case?
He gave it a month.  A month to see if there was any room for him in that little house anymore, if Gyoku would give him the decency of disdain, if the eunuch would grow some balls and kill him like he wanted to, if the girl would ever elicit any emotion from him besides plain old fear.
Things didn’t change.  So that morning he packed his stuff and left.
He didn’t even make it out the backyard before Gyoku was screaming her banshee scream and chasing after him.
“Bastard!”  He had barely any time to process the insult before she tackled him face first in the snow.  “You don’t get to just show up again and then pull the same shit!” She shoved his head further into the ground, her grip against his scalp so tight he wondered if her nails would draw blood.
Hmm, maybe it would be her instead that killed him.  It was a dangerous thing to do, yet he couldn’t help but laugh at the thought.
Gyoku’s confusion at his reaction gave him enough breath to choke out a few words.
“Nice to be in your thoughts so early in the morning, princess.”
She grew still at that.  From the sound of footsteps, he gather that their kerfuffle must have awaken the others.  He counted his breaths quietly and once he reached ten, Gyoku got off him and helped him up.
A sarcastic grin tugged at his lips.  There was that endearing softness she had never grown out of.  Even in her worst rages, she had always been too good to completely lose control.
The smirk got knocked off his face when her right hook sent him back sprawling against the ground.
“You don’t get to joke at a time like this. You don’t get to call me, 'princess.'  And you certainly don’t get to leave right after I got used to having you around.”  There was Vinea’s ice again.  No, if she could summon it twice, then it must be her own now.  Still this time the chill didn’t last because slowly tears melted against her eyelashes.  “You don’t get to live in our doorway, half-in, half-out.   If you’re going to go then you must leave for good.  I told myself I wasn’t going to depend on you anymore.”
It’s funny, that those tears brought him so much relief.  At the same time he wanted to wipe them away so bad, yet he knew that would probably earn him another punch.  In a sorta compromise, he played with the fabric of her sleeping robe.
“Was just taking a morning walk.”
“Liar,”  There was no venom in her voice, just truth.  “Make your decision now, but I have a family to look after.”  She lacked the fine silks of her old life, yet she had never looked so regal before, baby fat and all.
As if he was the eunuch himself, Judal couldn’t help but stand up and trail three steps behind her back to the house.
~
As they moved into spring, they slowly but surely reached a sort of homeostasis.  For the most part they went through life in the same quiet manner.  There were no more beat-downs, no more solitary walks, just preparing the fields and getting through another domestic day.  Still now Gyoku and him had landed somewhere between the distance and closeness they had oscillated between.  Some days they would simply live and work beside each other nothing more, but the barrier didn’t feel so forced because she was just as likely to spend an evening with him playing card games and chatting about nonsense.  It was strange and unfamiliar, but not unwelcome.
“You have such an obvious tell.  When you twirl your braid around your finger like that, I just know I have you!”
“Like you’re much better.  Your poker face is so weak I’m sure a blind man could read it”
“You know those first few weeks what I missed the most about you was the sex.”
“Eh it was only a distraction for me.  Haven’t fucked anyone else you know.”
“Hey don’t think I don’t see you sneaking that card under the table!”
“As if I don’t see the way you scrape your nails against each card before choosing one.  You have your tricks and I have mine.”
“I think what hurt the most about you leaving was the embarrassment of it all.  I thought you would change and then you left me at my weakest.”
“I had thought I had changed too.  But I guess I’m my most evil when I’m at my weakest.”
“King’s Court, I win!”
“Bullshit!”
They didn’t have their old post coitus heart to hearts anymore, never even touched each other anymore.  He could only pick up those blunt truths when she deemed to drop them.  Gyoku had changed.  There was still that same bluster to try and do things right, act as if she was perfectly fine, but it no longer felt so desperate and pleading.  She tried to move the stars for no one’s benefit but her own and she would do it whether he liked it or not.
It wasn’t what the selfish beast inside of him wanted, for her to be the pitiful, predictable princess of yesteryears, worried about upsetting him.  But more of him could work with it.
Farmwork begun up again, and as they worked side by side, they truly felt like equals for the first time since they had been children.  Maybe he had caught her discarded nostalgia, but he didn’t think it hurt too much to savor it when he could.
You can’t hold onto to anger forever.
~
In another world, it would have been enough.  Even if Ka Koubun hated him for the rest of time, navigating a normal life within an abnormal household would have been a fine enough purgatory to land in.  Hell, for all the crimes he had committed, it would be a far better fate than he deserved.  There was just one mistake holding him back from his content ending.  The girl.
He hadn’t been able to avoid her, as much as it seemed to annoy the eunuch, but to say he had really spent time with her was an exaggeration.  They existed in similar spaces together.  She would mutter quiet “thank you’s” whenever he passed her food during dinner and he’d return a gruff “you’re welcome” as he searched for somewhere else to look besides her face.  In theory she knew his name, but despite her question back during that snowy first meeting, he didn’t know what it meant to her.  If she saw him as either a terrible demon or a returned god, she didn’t show it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be either of those things, but the fact she already had some preconceived notion of him before he even appeared before her eyes wore on his nerves.
He tried asking Gyoku about it once.  It was most likely that she had been the one to bring him up to Taohua in the first place.  However, she had skirted the issue with a less than subtle hand.
“You could always talk to her about it.”
“You think a child would be better at explaining things than you are?”
“Maybe not about about everything, but Taohua would know herself the best.  It shouldn’t be hard to get her talking, she’s a chatter-box,”  Her robe slipped off her shoulder as she wiped the sweat from her brow.  He stole a few glances at the scrap of peach skin before going back to work.  The summer sun was hot.  He didn’t need Gyoku getting self-conscious and wrapping herself up in a bundle of layers. That would only make the work take a lot longer, he told himself.
“It’s your decision to claim her or not, but I will not lie to her about her parentage.”  Gyoku’s response was so unexpected, he almost missed it.  “My father was just a name.  I wanted to give Taohua more than that.  I thought you would feel the same.”
Decades old jealousy stirs at her words.  Even a name was more than he had.  Al-Thamen had deemed things like a heritage and family to be ill-suited for a tool.  Hell, even his own name had only been chosen to erase any trace his parents might have left on him.  It would take an unusual amount of cruelty even for him to wish that fate on anyone.
Still he didn’t know if his presence would be much better.  Even without a father, the girl had two parents in Gyoku and the eunuch.  Were they perfect, of course not--years living with them had exposed all their deepest darkest flaws.  But they loved her, and that was a gift Judal doubted any of the three of them had ever had.
He wasn’t sure if he could love her though--or if his love would bring anything but disaster.  Just look at how it had ruined Gyoku.  He thought that he would try to make due with the current status quo.  He’d let those red eyes haunt him in exchange for a roof over his head and something like forgiveness.
But then something in the rukh shifted.
Even after losing his command over them, Judal had never lost his ability to see the rukh.  It had been a cruel joke, salt on a wound that refused to heal, but slowly he had learned to live with it.  Even if their sight sometimes gave him phantom pains in limbs he hadn’t technically lost, he got better at managing the aches.  It had been his only option between that or letting the loss consume him, and well somehow he was still here.  One of Xiaoshi’s few blessings was that its rukh were quiet and listless.  They were rarely ever riled up, so it was easy enough for him to let them fade into the background.
But as he was returning to the house after a full-day’s work, he saw the rukh fly and race like he hadn’t seen in years.  Without thinking, he followed them, frantic and half-wild.  
Their trail ended in Taohua’s room, where she sat playing with her dolls.  She looked up at him, completely confused as if she hadn’t just put together a spell that was only one or two rukh combinations away from freezing the entire house.
“What--” Judal took a deep breath.  “--the actual fuck!”
The girl looked as if she was about to cry.  With her concentration thoroughly broken, the spell fell apart into harmless individual rukh.  Relief flooded his veins, but before he could enjoy it fully, a new problem was upon him.
“Ka!”  The girl pushed past him.  When Judal turned around he found the eunuch cradling her against his legs as he brandished a kitchen knife.
“What are you doing?” His words were just as sharp as the weapon in his hand.
“What are you doing pointing that thing at me?”  After the years of contempt and disdain Judal had suffered from him, his tolerance was worn raw.
“You’re the one I found in an upset child’s room. You do the explaining.”
“God, what delusion did you come up with?  That I’d try to eat her or something?”
“I’m gonna give you until the count of three. One--”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!”
“Two--”
“She was using magic, goddamnit!”  Judal gripped Ka Koubun’s shoulders.  “Does your pea-sized brain have any idea of what that means?”
After all his big talk, he seemed to forgot all about the knife in his hand.  Bewildered golden brown eyes stared into red. “What?  But she’s so young?  Were you teaching--”
“If I was teaching her, then why would I be so surprised?”  Slowly Judal let go of him.  The wheels in his head were spinning at top speeds.  If he’s going to be able to convince him of the necessary action they must take, he must appear calm.
Now free, the eunuch was preoccupying himself with the child.  “Taohua, what were you doing?” He stroked her head in a comforting manner, but Judal couldn’t tell who it was supposed to comfort.
“Playing,” She muttered, still twirling the doll in her hands.
“What were you thinking about?”
“Kazue needed a new dress--”  She wouldn’t look him in the eye.  “--and I was hot.”
The eunuch closed his eyes and sighed.  He seemed just as pissed as before, but thankfully he put the knife away and turned to address Judal.
“Is she a magi?  Like you?”  
“Don’t know,”  Judal shrugged.  He racked his brain for any information Al-Thamen had gathered about the children of magi.  It had always been a rare occasion, but in theory there were only supposed to be three of them at a time in the world.  You couldn’t just breed an army of them.  Still the brat magi had messed things up and bumped the number up to four.  No reason the rules couldn’t be broken again.  Besides maybe since he lost his magic, he was dead to the rukh.  “What I do know is that she needs training.”
The eunuch stiffened.  “I will not let her be made a weapon.”
“Do you think I want her to have to suffer what I went through?!”  Judal was holding his temper in check by the skin of his teeth.  The only thing that was keeping him from fully exploding was the fact that doing so would hurt more people than just the eunuch.
And he was so tired of innocents getting caught in the crossfire.
“Look, I can teach her the basics of the rukh, what it feels like to channel them and how to properly guide their course.  It’s better she knows what she is capable of so she can control it.” Judal clenched his fists.  “So she doesn’t become me.”
Ka Koubun studied him with those distrustful eyes.  But before he could speak, Taohua waddled over to Judal.
“You see the butterflies too?”
By the end of the month, they fell into a routine.  Once a week, Judal would sit down with Taohua to teach her a different aspect of the rukh.  In theory the lessons were only supposed to be theoretical, but sometimes he would slip in a spell or two when no one else was around--like how to ease the pain of a bruise or produce a light.   Such a move might make the eunuch pull out the knife on him again, but he had a rational reason for once in his lifetime.
It gave him a chance to observe the child and see what she would do with the material she was given.  If when given power her baby fat and pudgy hands would melt away to reveal a monster beyond imagination.
And as autumn fell, he pulled together all the information he had gathered, and judged.
The child was perfectly normal.  Sweet and energetic, but flighty and stubborn at times.  She really did chatter away any spare moments of silence she came across as Gyoku said.  She didn’t like being told what to do, but hated to see others upset.  She loved to use ice magic, just like him when he was younger, and laughed and laughed and laughed without a single ounce of shame.
And with every smile of hers, a bit of the fear faded away.
~
Judal was just getting used to things when Gyoku had another episode.
The eunuch and child didn’t seem at all surprised by it, going about their routine as usual, but for Judal all the regrets and worries of winter returned full-force.
Your presence is a poison.  Go before the child catches it.  It doesn’t matter how much you try to change, you will always be a monster.
But for some reason he didn’t run, and the next day Gyoku came out after lunch to sit next to him and bask in the sunlight.  They didn’t speak for a long time, just watched the day pass by in one peaceful breath and out the next.  Despite the pleasant atmosphere, dark clouds in the distant signaled that a cold front was on its way.  While such weather was normal around this time of year, it still unnerved him all the same.
Will you still be tolerated after they are forced to see the real you?
“Will you comb my hair?”  Gyoku’s words were such a surprise, Judal did a double-take to make sure he wasn’t imagining them.  While her gaze was trained firmly on the horizon, there was a certain tautness to her shoulders that seemed to demand she be acknowledged.  “I’m so tired...but you always look so good no matter what.  I figured you would do a better job than me.”
Judal took a deep breath.  “Sure, no problem.”
Carefully he brushed through her red locks.  He was almost certain he’d end up pulling too hard at some point, perhaps accidentally rip out a chunk of hair, but as they fell into a rhythm, Gyoku gave a content sigh.
Perhaps she is lying and--
“I thought I was doing so good--”  Gyoku’s voice brought him back down to the real world.  “--but I guess the cold always brings the voices out.”
“I didn’t know what I would find when I returned.”  Judal spoke slowly, feeling around for the right response.  “In the back of my mind I always wondered if you might give up on living.”  He was glad she hadn’t, but such affection felt dangerous in this no-man’s land they cohabited.
“Oh I thought about it a lot--”  Gyoku gave a sad laugh, “--but funny enough it was you who kept me going.”
Judal held his breath as he waited.  For what, he couldn’t say: maybe another verbal slap across the face, another cruel damnation.  But what followed instead was much more tender.
“I had this dream about you a few years ago,”  Like a nervous child, Gyoku fiddled with the fabric of her robe.  “The peach trees were in bloom, and we just sat under them--together.  Sometimes neither of us said a word, and sometimes I would yell horrible things at you, but you were silent most of the time.”
Judal’s grip on the comb grew tighter.  Somehow this was a crueler choice.  Self-flagellation was becoming his bread and butter, but if she was going where she seemed to be...
“Dreams are just dreams,” Judal muttered.
“Maybe, but in the last one, you told me that if I wanted happiness, I should go ahead and just grab it.”  A light blush dusted her cheeks.  “Even if it was just a figment of my imagination...it really meant a lot to me.”
Judal screwed his mouth shut.  He didn’t trust his tongue at the moment.  It was a stupid, sentimental creature that would only hurt her more in the long run.
“I remember those dreams as well...”
“Done with your hair,” Is what he said instead.
Gyoku turned around to look him in the eye.  The fading sunlight gave her a gentle elegance.  She looked nothing like her past self--all done up in elaborate hairstyles and fine silks.  Still with the way she let her long hair flow freely past her shoulders, she looked more mature and at peace with herself than ever before.
“I’ve told you this before, but I will say it again: I promised to never depend on you again.  I don’t want to tie my happiness to someone who has hurt me.  Still--”  She looked up at him through soft eyelashes.  “--have you ever considered starting over?  Trying things out again?”
“I always thought I would be dead by now.”  Judal blurted out.  It was a non-answer, but when had they found the time to grow up?  He wasn’t used to second chances.  Wasn’t used to imagining a future for himself that didn’t end with him alone and dead in a ditch.
He should have remembered he was a monster.  He should have ran right then and there and forgotten everything about Xiaoshi.  Instead he grabbed her hands in his and brought them to his chest.
“Is this what you were thinking of?”  He waited for her disapproval, that his hands were too rough, his grip was too tight.  But Gyoku only smiled at him sweetly.  
“It’s just what I wanted.”
A.N.  Another year wait between chapters, I guess I pulled a Judal, I feel I’ve grown and changed as much as the characters have so it took a while to fall back into them (especially to find Judal’s voice again after how long it had been) but I hope to have finally brought some catharsis
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nightwingwhatdidisay · 6 years ago
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“Jason and the Words That Burn”
Summary: jaykori/dickkory, AU where Jason Todd is a thief with an ear for poetry. 
ff.net ao3
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Chapter 1: The Words of King [Chapter Summary: Jason runs into Kory after a drunken bender]
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I never pointed out to her the irony of breaking up with me for being a thief, when it was something I stole that won her heart in the first place.
A poem, of all things.
It’s funny how poetry is the most embarrassing thing in the world, until it has the power to pry your sleepy eyes open in the middle of an American Literature class, all because your professor recited a configuration of words you didn’t know existed.
But by the time I finally sat up to listen, the professor was speaking farther and farther away from the poem, and I couldn’t recall any of the words I had just heard. Only the way they made me feel.
Whatever he said, it forced me to look at her.
She was sitting a few rows down in a seat that hugged the left wall of the classroom, leaning her head against the window. It was an 8am class and the sun was just beginning to pour in, its light spilling wildly through her auburn hair like fire.
Now I’m not an idiot; I knew Kory Anders was way out of my league. But that’s the power of a pretty girl way out of your league, she can have you in the campus library at 11pm flipping through a whole damn book, trying your luck anyway. When I found the words that clicked, I tore the whole page out, jammed it into my pocket, and left.
The next morning, I watched from my seat, hood pulled over and face propped in my hand, trying to look as nonchalant as possible, but failing to stop the furious bounce in my leg. She rushed in a few minutes late, wringing the rain out of her hair and sliding into her usual seat, surprised to see something waiting for her.
I’d Sharpied everything out except for those twelve words, and from where I was sitting, I could only see thick bars of black on the paper. I remember watching her pick it up, and suddenly thinking what a shitty idea it was. As far as plans for picking up girls went, this plan wasn’t just plain terrible, it was fancy terrible; it was terrible with raisins in it. I lost the rhythm of normal breathing, mortified with the realization that I’d actually written my name on it.
And just like that, the curl of her lips hit me right in the gut, and I swear I was seeing stars.
... ...
I remember the first time I kissed her, I stole that too.
It was during a time when I thought a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger at a college party was as close as I was ever going to get to a sun like her. I thought I was dreaming when she grabbed ahold of my jacket as I was pulling back, drawing me to her for more.
Starfire. My pet name for her. I’d wait outside until her classes ended and call out to her, loving the way she’d wrinkle her nose at the name. I liked to whisper it into her ear at the worst moments, like in the cinema, waiting for a change of scene to illuminate her face so I could see the flush in her cheeks. It’s the name that spilled out of my mouth—along with a string of dark words—whenever she’d spend a night at my place and the writhing of her body under me left me with no self-control.
I dated Kory with the uneasy feeling that it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. There was no way the universe would let me have someone like her for long. I stole that time anyway.
But Kory Anders was a criminal justice major, and the boss hated that the most. It’s just a matter of time, he assured me. Just because she’s climbing up your leg now doesn’t mean she'll stay when she gets wise about the job.
He was right, of course. She didn’t stay long when she found out the truth. But by the time it was over, love had already infected the bones.
I don’t know. I’m drunk.
... ...
I slide the empty bottle back at the bartender and drop the cash on the counter, grabbing my pack and leaving with a wave of my finger. I can’t stay long; the cash—40k in clean stacks—burns through my bag and all I want to do is throw it in the safe at my place until the boss and his men pick it up in the morning.
I figure I’ll sober up after a good shower, and I’m relying on muscle memory to get me back home. By the time I fall out of the elevator in my building, I argue sleeping in the hall for a second, until I worm my way to my door and jam the key into the doorknob repeatedly until finding the hole.
My jeans and shirt are off without a thought and I’m yanking the fridge door open, squinting through the light to see what could help me with my drunchies. I don’t even recall buying lasagna, but I don’t think too hard on it as I inhale the whole thing in seconds.
By the time I drag my body to the bathroom, I’m stark naked, and I let the shower run hot until I pull myself in, wincing a bit when it hits a fresh wound I’d earned from tonight’s heist.
A memory opens: me piling suds on top of Kory’s head while she runs her fingers over my body.
“Where’d you get this one?” She asks, thumbing at a fibrous scar on my shoulder.
“Motorcycle accident,” I lie, as I sculpt cat ears out of the bubbles.
“And this?” She’s pointing at my chest: clean white lines the boss rewarded me with for being stupid on a job.
“Boy scout dare,” I say dismissively. When my masterpiece is done, I bend down to kiss her forehead.
“What do I look like?” She asks.
I step as far back as the shower will allow me so I can marvel at her, grateful that I get to be the guy who sees this brilliant girl naked, wet, and in cat ears. “Like a kitten, Kitten.”
And suddenly I’m on my knees for her, pulling her leg over my shoulder and letting the numbers on my water bill rise.
Holy shit.
It’s the scent of the shampoo that sobers me right up. I look around in horror: epsom salts, bath bombs, bottles and jars of girl potions in an array of feminine colors that make me want to vomit at the realization. I rip the curtains aside and hurl my body out of the shower. In a panic, I’m pulling my boxers on and rushing out of Kory’s bathroom.
But God is dead, my friends. I hear mumbling out in the hall and the doorknob starts to wiggle before I can reach my shirt. A line of light cracks open as two figures enter and I dive wildly into a nearby closet of her hallway.
“Hm. I thought I locked this,” Kory says absently, and I hear the door shut.
“You think someone got in?” Asks a vaguely familiar voice. “Let me look around for you.”
“What a gallant way to get yourself into my bedroom,” Kory commends with a laugh.
“I can get you a better place in my building, Anders,” says the voice, not giving into her tease. “Something about you living here rubs me the wrong way.”
“And me living in your building will rub you the right way?” Her voice is playful. The other voice stammers and she’s laughing again. “Relax, handsome. I’m just a forgetful girl. Let me put on some music.”
An Elvis Costello song begins to play as their exchange ends and the whole thing makes me bitter, because (1) I hate the way Kory is comfortably Kory no matter what guy she’s with and (2) I fucking introduced her to Costello.
Insert kissing scene here, I imagine, as the room goes silent for a while and there’s the soft sound of fumbling and small giggles escaping Kory’s mouth.
“Anders… the essay.”
“Mm? Oh sorry,” Kory says, and I see her figure pass by. She returns with an open laptop balancing on her bicep as she taps her password in. “I’m having a problem with these three paragraphs, and as far as citations go, I’m completely lost.”
I hear the dip of the couch and the clacking of keyboards, and suddenly they’re both in their own collegiate zone when I begin to think: I’m naked in a closet, with my clothes scattered in various rooms of my ex girlfriend’s apartment; I have a backpack of stolen cash in the same room as two criminal justice majors; and in the kitchen lay my jeans, its pockets holding an unsilenced phone that can go off any minute, a wallet with all my IDs, and a Glock 17.
I’m in the middle of contemplating how truly fucked I am when I hear the guy’s voice. “Damn, I forgot a laptop charger.”
“I think I have an extra one. Sit tight.”
I don’t have much choice when Kory opens the closet door and sees me. So I pull her in and slap a hand over her mouth. “Keep quiet, cutie—oof.” I receive a knee to the baby-maker and it takes everything within me to keep from keeling over. I watch the recognition hit her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” She asks when I drop my hand.
“Accident. I swear.”
She eyes me with suspicion, but accepts the answer, and I begin to wonder how badly I must reek of alcohol for her to believe me.
“I’m fine,” I say, looking away. It comes out defensive.
“You’re naked...” she points out mildly. “And wet.”
I shrug. “Made it to the shower.”
The look she gives me is a mixture of anger, wonder, and pity.
“Listen,” I say, suddenly irritated. “I don’t wanna ruin your cute little study date here. Just help me get my shit together and I’m out.”
“I want my key back.”
“Fine.”
A voice calls from the living room. “Anders? Charger? My laptop’s living on a prayer.”
Kory gives me a look and pulls a white cord from a shoebox on the overhead shelf and steps out of the closet. “There’s an outlet behind the couch,” she tells him. “Let’s move it aside so you can plug in.” She says this loudly and slowly and I recognize my cue. I hear the sound of the couch sliding over carpet and—like a college girl in a co-ed dorm who forgot her towel after a shower—I run.
I slide into the kitchen and I see that my jeans are inside-out in front of the fridge, and I fish for the balled-up sock in each leg before slipping them on. My phone is still tucked in my back pocket, and I quickly switch it to silent mode before it becomes any type of inconvenience. I give myself a pat down and freeze at the realization that my gun isn’t in my pockets.
Fuck.
Kory appears down the hall, looking into the closet and discovering I’m no longer there. When she turns and sees me in the kitchen, she lifts up a shirt in her hand and raises her eyebrows, simultaneously saying Is this yours? and Are you serious?
When she steps into the kitchen, I snatch the shirt from her and shrug it on.
“Where are your shoes?” She asks.
“I have no clue,” I answer honestly.
Kory throws a sharp expression over her shoulder and walks back into the living room.
And just like that, my phone flashes a notification: Change of plans. Picking up stash tonight.
Shit.
I’m in the middle of typing up an excuse that I think will hold when I hear Kory’s voice. “I don’t know if my works cited page is in MLA format.”
“Well I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
I glance at a butter knife on the counter and imagine harakiri-ing myself with it. But something catches my eye: a piece of paper tacked onto the refrigerator with a magnet. I move to touch it, gaping in disbelief, when I hear Kory’s voice again.
“D-dick.”
My blood chills at the name as I fly to the edge of the kitchen entrance and peer into the living room. Kory’s pinned to the floor with her dress hiked up to her hip, running her hands through black hair as he licks my girl’s neck. I see her tremble in pleasure and all of a sudden I’m down for a good throat punching.
“Dick, let me get us some wine,” she says, then shivers.
“Don’t need it,” he mumbles, as he runs a trail of kisses down her chest. But she slides herself gracefully out from under him and brings his lips to hers. “Two minutes,” she whispers into him. “Promise."
They end up making out for a little longer and I pry myself away from the sight, grabbing the wine glasses from the top shelf and pacing wildly back and forth. She enters the kitchen, a little flushed, pulling her dress back down. “I’ve moved your shoes to the door. Get ready to go.”
“Grayson?” I say, almost spitting out the name as I place the glasses in her hands. “You’re hooking up with Dick Grayson?”
“It’s truly none of your business.”
I open the fridge door for her and she ducks for the wine. “He’s a prick, Kory. He’s Daddy’s Money. He’s the type of guy who can pay his way through the system if he hits a kid with his Lambo under the influence. Wealthy people like Grayson think they're above the law.”
“You’re a thief. Do you happen to see the pot and the kettle in that?” She asks as she grabs the bottle, but her eyes widen in shock, and she pulls out my gun from the fridge. Kory looks back at me incredulously and I immediately take it from her.
“At least I work for my stash,” I mumble sheepishly and tuck the gun in my jeans. Kory orders for the bottle opener. Without looking, I pull at a drawer and gesture for her to hand me the bottle.
“He’s a criminal justice major too,” she defends, as I twist through the cork. “Top of the class, volunteers on the weekends, networks of friends—”
“Well I’ve never been a billionaire before, but I bet I’d be good at it too.”
“No, instead you move through life with a gun in one hand and the orders from your boss in the other.” The cork shoots off into nowhere with a clean pop and she holds out the glasses for me to fill.
“So that’s what happened between us?” I mutter, as I pour. “Dating a bad guy is conveniently checked off your college-girl bucket list without you having to be aware for most of it. And now it's time for Boy Wonder, who walks around campus with his Father’s money and a huge—”
“Dick,” Kory calls out to the living room. “Switch the music for me, will you, handsome?”
“...ego,” I finish, staring at her balefully. The song changes, and the smile Kory is giving me is smug.
And see, that’s the thing that undoes it: a look between us that goes on a little too long. Long enough for my nerves to unsteel themselves and her stare to soften. And suddenly all I can think of is that poem I stole from the library that one night, and the way the morning spilled through her hair as she leaned against the window. All those nights and showers and words that happened between us before the rough hands of my job pulled me away from her.
“Starfire,” I hear myself say.
Kory bristles. “That’s not fair.”
January embers.
I take the wine glasses from her hands and set them aside before lifting her up onto the kitchen counter.
“That’s not fair,” she says again, and I’m kissing her.
Elvis Costello sings from the living room about how the sun may rise and burn through yellow skies, and I trace my fingers over her jaw and revel in the way she kisses back into me. “I begged you to quit,” she says with a breath as her hand finds the back of my neck.
“Can’t, cutie. Turn around.”
But suddenly Wonder Boy cuts through with a, “Kory? Do you need some help in the kitchen?”
Kory rips herself out of the moment and pushes herself back onto the floor, shaking her hands in panic.
“I’ve had a few punch-ups with Grayson before, I’d be happy to do it again,” I say through my teeth, the adrenaline from finally kissing her again pulsing through me.
“Get out,” Kory says instead.
I look at her, and suddenly I hear footsteps heading toward us.
“Anders?”
Kory runs back into the living room, and from where I’m standing, I see her barrel into him, smashing her mouth into his. “Bed,” she orders.
Grayson is chuckling through the kisses. “What happened to the wine? What about the paper?”
“Bed,” she answers, a pleading in her voice. And Grayson graciously responds by picking her up and wrapping her legs around his waist. I watch breathlessly as she moves her mouth to his neck, glaring at me over his shoulder and cocking her head to the door.
When the bedroom door closes, I pick up my heart off the kitchen floor, grab my bag and shoes, and leave.
… …
Kory makes a point to come to class early so she can get the key from me. She inspects it, and I’m offended that she thinks I’m stupid or desperate enough to give her a fake.
“How do I know you didn’t make copies?”
I snort. “I’d rather die than watch Grayson rub his billion-dollar boner on you ever again.”
When class starts and the professor begins to talk about literature of the Harlem Renaissance, I pull out a piece of paper from my pocket and unfold it, looking at the blackened out lines and the twelve words that started everything.
Kory had it hanging on her fridge, and I had to steal it back, a poetic justice type of deal.
... ...
“Your hair is winter fire January embers My heart burns there, too.”
― S. King
...
...
Chapter 2: The Words of Thoreau 
Summary: He's in a year-long spiral to rock bottom and Jason pretends he's loving the journey. Because at least it's a direction.
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go-diane-winchester · 6 years ago
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Misha Collins cant keep track of his own lies.
Misha ''I was a homeless kid' Collins was interviewed by an art magazine, because apparently he is very artsy fartsy.  Whilst given the opportunity to speak about his supposedly favoritist subject: himself, Misha couldn't  remember all the fallacies he had spouted over the years.  I guess Misha figured his mostly underage, deranged fanbase might be too busy, furiously fingering themselves to badly written fanfiction, to actually read something from an intellectual source.  Something tells me that, just like in the mugging case, this reporter wasn't quite buying his lies.  Here are some of the highlights, with Misha's self-indulgent rambling in italics, and with my running commentary in bold [the interviewer is in bold italics]:
''Like most kids, I liked making things with my hands, and my mother helped facilitate this when I was pretty young. But I followed that impulse to an apprentice-level devotion. I would seek out woodworkers when I was 10 or 11, going into shops and learning how to use a lathe or – just asking. I grew up in western Massachusetts, and by the time I got into high school I was fully into this – just talking to people and learning things from them in person.''
So his hippy, drug addict mom who stashed pot down her youngest child's underwear for fear of being arrested, and who, for a short time, raised poor Misha in a car, honed his artistic skills when he was pretty young?  When?  When they were living in the woods?  And using a bowl of ice as a refrigerator?  So either his story of his childhood is greatly exaggerated or....yeah, that's all I got.  How gullible does he think people are?
Then in high school, I needed a job, so I started doing some manual labor.
So whilst at his elite private school, where there are rich dads and moms dropping off their darlings every morning, Misha chooses manual labor.  He likes to talk to people but he didn't speak to Mr and Mrs Moneybags?  He could have been a petty gopher in one of their companies and fared better.  After all, he needed a job.  I wonder why he chose ''manual labor''?  And why he chose to word it like that, instead of saying ''I became a carpenter's apprentice''.  I guess it sounds honorable.  That's is nothing dramatic about  saying that you flip burgers at McDs.  Saying that you work in a menial, underpaid job for a multimillion dollar company, does have a more dramatic feel to it. 
I built that barn on my mother’s property. Our house had burned down, so with the insurance proceeds, we built that and...
Wait, wasn't Misha's mom a pothead who lived in a car for some time with her two children?  Now, not only does she have property but she has the money to pay for insurance.  When did you live in the car, Misha?  When the house burnt down?  Why didn't you live in that house you showed footage of, on twitter?  Its a nice house, complete with Christmas stockings.  It doesn't quite gel with your underprivileged childhood narrative, but nice nonetheless.   
I worked a lot when I was in college, probably 30 hours a week most of the time. I did some handyman stuff, some carpentry stuff. After sophomore year, I took a year off. I interned at the [Clinton] White House, worked at NPR, became an EMT, started a summer camp for kids. It was a great year.
What is he?  A career whore?  So he was artsy fartsy, but he worked everywhere doing jobs that were unrelated to each other, instead of staying in his field of carpentry, and making money from that.  He got EMT certification.  Was it free?  Did he pay for it with his tuition fees?  What was the purpose of it, if making money for fees was of paramount importance?  That doesn't make sense, because if he was working 30 hour weeks, when did he have time to study?  The average work day is a tad longer, about 40 hours a week.  And if he was studying and working, when was Superman sleeping?  Why was he working so hard?  To put himself to college, don'tcha know.  Even though colleges offer student loans and don't accept their fees in installments.  And yet, he took time off for one year after sophomore.  Was it to make a lot of money for his tuition fees?  Nope, it was to become an EMT and start a summer camp for kids.  I guess summer camps are big business and you can pay off great debts if you start one.  Good to know.  His internment at the Whitehouse only lasted four months, and yet he has acquired all the knowledge there is to acquire, to become a political knowitall on twitter.  Sidenote:  Is it normal for internships at the Whitehouse to last, such a short time.  I am genuinely curious, because it doesn't sound right. 
This is where I think the interviewer started to sound like she was side-eyeing the wood working maestro and his yarns of tall tales.
After graduation you got into acting, and in 1999, you moved with Victoria to Los Angeles for film and television work. There, in 2001, you bought your first house. Tell us about it. You were a starving actor?
Yeah. Right after we bought it, our realtor said, “There’s a TV show that would like to shoot your house.” They brought this [house-hunting] couple through, and when we saw the episode, they had surveyed the house and were like, “We don’t want to touch this piece of s---.” It was a real wreck, had been seriously neglected. It was built in the 1920s, and built by people who weren’t carpenters, didn’t know what they were doing. It was built so poorly, and everything was sagging – the window frames, the eaves.
Can you believe that?  The starving actor bought a house.  Let that sink in.  He recognized that the house was built by non-carpenters [how was this building standing.  Twas a miracle, I tell you.]  And despite being a starving actor with a small amount of money, and a knowledge of carpentry, he bought a house that was badly built by non-carpenters.  So he knew he was buying a liability.  Why?
The kitchen floor you put in is beautiful. Yes, that’s gunstock, from a gun manufacturer in Northern California.
Mr Gun Free supporting the Gun manufacturing industry.  Man, this guy is a hypocrite. 
You lived in that first house for 11 years. Do you still own it? We rent it out to some lovely people who love it, so it’s good.
Fun fact:  Mr Humble Pie has two pieces of property.  And he is making money off of one, but he chooses to attend cons with the same torn T-shirts from years ago, or has to fleece off of Jensen's wardrobe and generosity, otherwise he would be doing his panels naked, poor thing.  Why doesn't he stop his cruises for a year, and use that money to buy decent threads?  One shirt can last a few years.  The lies are  embarrassing, but miraculously his minions believe him. 
On the way to this house, you became very successful with this hugely popular TV series. Life changed. Do you still manage to make time for handwork? 
Yeah. I’ve discovered that I really like working. Work can be respite for me, and switching gears is really key. Going from working on scripts to working with my hands is therapeutic, for sure. I am still managing to work with my hands. I was just doing some woodworking yesterday. I do a lot of cooking. That’s a big part of my life, and also I think a barometer of emotional health. When I’m not cooking, it’s a sign that I’m too stressed out and I’ve got to dial things back a little bit. I do a lot of canning. I put up 120 jars of blackberry jam this fall.
What an irony!  One of the greatest instigators of stress for his co-workers and their fans, gets stressed out himself.  Yeah, guilt can do that.  Plus, he likes quantifying accomplishments.  That is why Gish exists.  Quantity over quality. 
Which artists inspire you? I love Christo and Jeanne Claude, because of the mind-bending scale on which they’ve created things, like they’re rethinking what’s possible. I’m somebody who kind of likes to break rules, to bend rules when appropriate.
I could write a whole big post, on Misha's rule breaking and bending.  From stealing Whitehouse property [and bragging about it] to telling fans about the scratched line in the Crypt which got Jensen a barrage of abuse on Twitter.  The one thing that he spoke about that doesn't make sense is his story about almost getting arrested for reading a book on a building rooftop.  It makes no sense.  There is a portion of the story that is missing, I'm sure.  Misha is a great exaggerator.
Have you turned any Supernatural castmates on to craft? On a set, there’s tons of downtime, a lot of sitting and knitting and crocheting. And I have occasionally been in the mix there. Last year Jensen [Ackles], my co-star, walked up and saw me knitting, and he just looked at me and said, “Really?” But I could tell there was jealousy behind it, more than criticism. So I’ll teach him to knit, and it’ll be fine. We’ll get through this.
Will you look at that?  There are around 70 people on set at any given time.  Many of them must have seen Misha knitting.  And look who Misha decided to mention.  Was that a ''just in case, a nutty heller is reading this'' insertion?  No mention is made of Jared, because who cares about him, right?  Got to give the crowd what they want.  I am side eyeing the knitting claim myself, because I do knit and having seen a photo of him knitting, I can safely say that, that is not how you grasp at the yarn.  You knit with loose fingers because yarn is abrasive. 
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The first big project we did with Random Acts was we built an orphanage and community center in Haiti. I would not have thought that was a tackle-able enterprise if I didn’t have a background in building.  Our biggest fundraising driver for the projects that we do – like building a school or an orphanage – is we bring folks down in groups of 25 or so to Haiti or to Nicaragua, and they help in the building process. We roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.
Wow, he built the 500K orphanage with his own hands, but didn't think about lights for the children.  His response regarding the lights was ''it's Haiti and it takes three f*cking years to get an electrician''.  Wow, I am a third worlder too, but we have electricians.  How backwards is Haiti that he couldn't find a single electrician in the whole country, to light the place up for the poor orphans?  He couldn't squeeze in one electrician in the group of 25 or so.  Are there no philanthropic electricians in his circles?  My word, electricians are such selfish people, don't you think?  They don't want to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.  Why couldn't he just pay for one instead of waiting three years?  Fun fact:  According to their website, the orphanage, aka, the Jacmel children's center houses only 15 children, but another page says there are 27 children living in the house.  They don't know how many children they are looking after.  But that is still a small amount.  So where did all these kids go?
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Misha either staged this picture with school kids on an excursion or all those kids got adopted by the staggeringly high quantity of rich couples living in Haiti, right Misha?  SMH
This question made me smirk.  The interviewer had to know Misha has never been to public school.  Look how Mr Bleeding Heart answers the question.
As we know, art programs in K-12 public schools these days are in decline, especially shop class, manual arts. How can we nurture creativity in kids, and why is that important? When I was 9 years old, I had a paper route. One day my younger brother and I were collecting money, and Mr. Haigis answered the door. He started talking to us, and he discovered that our parents were separated, and we didn’t live with our father. In the 1960s, he had run a woodshop for little kids. He had stopped doing it because he got busy with his career. Now he was retired. These two boys show up delivering papers on his front stoop, and it just comes to him: “I’ve got to do the same thing for those kids.”
So Mr Haigis left all the poor, underprivileged children and decided to help these two boys who were going to an elite school?  Sounds legit.  What about public school children, Mr Haigis?  Don't you care about them?   
I was a starving actor for at least a decade.
Misha was a starving actor who worked on 24 projects before getting SPN, but he still managed to buy a house.  Fun fact:  he was an  associate producer on a docu-movie, ''Loot'' which won best documentary at the LA film festival.  His movie didn't need sock puppets to win this one.  Misha should produce more.  That way he wont be on screen, festering up the frame.  The less we see of him, the better. 
http://www.jacmelchildren.org/about/team/
http://www.jacmelchildren.org/
https://craftcouncil.org/magazine/article/builder-baker-angel-maker
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princecardan · 8 years ago
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Taking a break from finals studying! I wrote this one shot where none of the Red Queen characters can get a jar open, and basically, everyone just slowly gets angrier and more annoyed.
Takes place sometime in the second half of King’s Cage at the Scarlet Guard camp. Enjoy!
A loud thud followed by a distraught “UGH” is what brought Mare into the kitchen that morning.
“Here Gis, I’ll do it,” she says, reaching for the jar that was in her sister’s hand.
Gisa shuts the sink off and lets out another huff. “I swear I’ve been trying to open this for twenty minutes.”
“Oh come on, now your just being dramatic,” she says with a smile.
“Mare calling someone else dramatic?” Kilorn says, walking into the room. “The irony…”
She fixes him with a glare and debated punching him for that. Before she could get violent, she gives the jar a twist and unknowingly started what would be an infamous story for years to come in the Scarlet Guard camp.
“Damn, that IS stuck!”
“Let me try,” the fish boy says.
“No just give me- a second- I almost-”
“Yeah, looks like it,” Kilorn says, laughing at her aggravated expression. “Give it to me.”
Mare scowls, but hands it to him with a sigh.
“All that training with Mr. Perfect Prince and- you can’t even- op- shit.” The lid didn’t budge.
“Ha ha,” she teases.
“Told you,” Gisa sighs.
“Give it to me let me try it ag-” Mare starts to say, but gets cut off by Kilorn.
“Oh, so you want to try to open it after I’VE loosened it and claim MY victory?!”
“You mean after I loosened it!”
“You did no such thing,” Kilorn counters.
Mare grabs the jar from his hands. “Your grip is all wrong anyways.” She gave the lid another twist.
“Smart ass,” Kilorn mutters.
Mare responds by kicking him in the shin.
“OW WHAT WAS THAT-”
“GUYS just give me the jar back I’ll find someon-”
“No!” Mare exclaims. “I almost have it!”
“It hasn’t moved an inch!” Kilorn argues back.
“What’s going on in here?” says Bree, walking into the kitchen in his soldier gear. “Mare, getting violent this early in the morning already?”
“Yes,” Kilorn replies, rubbing his leg and sitting down at the table.
“UGH,” Mare says, still making no progress. She marched over to Bree, who had collapsed at the table, and demands, “Open this.”
Bree gives them all a look. “This is just because you can’t open a JAR?!” He lets out a long laugh. “My colors- maybe you both should have joined the army,” he says, picking up the cursed thing. “I bet then you would- have- you would have- had– the strength-”
Bree practically throws the jar onto the table in annoyance. “I see your point,” he grumbles.
The entire room seems to sigh in defeat.
“If the four of us can’t open it then what do we do?” Kilorn wonders out loud.
“Can’t you just zap the thing Mare!?” Bree offers.
“Mom said no lightning in the house,” Gisa says from the back of the room.
Bree raises an eyebrow in amusement. “I don’t even want to know what she did to warrant that rule.”
“There was a spider,” Mare says with a shrug.
Bree laughs, but then picks up the jar again continues the seemingly-impossible endeavor. “You couldn’t have just stepped on it??”
“I wasn’t wearing shoes!”
Kilorn reaches across the table for the jar. “I want another try.”
Bree sighs. “At this point I just want someone to open the damn thing.”
“Same.”
“Me too.”
Everyone watches with rapt attention as Kilorn attempts, this time with the ends of his shirt, to open the jar.
“Your grip is all wrong,” says Bree.
“Funny, your sister said the exact same thing.”
“Bree’s right. Your hand needs to-”
“Neither of you very successful, so I don’t think you’re in much of a place to correct him,” Gisa says.
“THANK you Gisa. How do you know YOU’RE not both doing it wrong??”
“I’ve opened hundreds of jars in my life, Kilorn. I’ve been a soldier for years. I THINK I know what I’m–”
“What exactly am I walking in on?” says an amused Cal from the doorway. “I knocked, but heard shouting so I came in–”
“OPEN THIS!” they all 4 practically shout at the same time.
Cal puts his hands up in defense. “Wow okay okay. Wait, what exactly am I opening?”
Kilorn begrudgingly hands him the jar.
Cal just sighs. “I didn’t think a jar would cause this much commotion.”
“We’ve all 4 tried opening it,” Mare explains.
“Ah,” he nods. “Well, I’m surprised you haven’t tried zapping the thing yet, Mare.”
Gisa jumps in. “Mom said no powers in the house-”
“I swear, you better have all those muscles for a reason other than impressing your lady, Calore,” Kilorn mumbles. Mare catches it and kicks him again in the other shin.
“-and,” Gisa continues, “I don’t think lightning would actually solve the problem. It would probably just shatter the entire thing.” Kilorn pantomimes an explosion.
“True,” Cal admits.
“Hey! What do you mean shatter?? I have EXCELLENT control of my abilities thank you very much.”
“Except for the spider incident,” Kilorn counters.
“Do you want a third bruise, Warren?” Mare glares back.
“Well this has been fun, but break time’s over and I really must be getting back to my post-” Bree starts to say, but then is suddenly cut off by Cal.
“Shit” he admits, “this IS hard.”
“See?! Let me try again!” Mare says, walking over.
“Damn I really thought Calore had it.” Bree mumbles under his breath. “Guy does a million push-ups all day and can’t even-”
“You’ve been trying for the past ten minutes Mare, nothing has changed!!” Kilorn laughs.
“Can’t you just get another jar?” Cal offers.
“That’s the only one in the entire camp left,” explains Gisa. “But at this point I’m starting to think–”
“Actually, I want another turn!” Bree declares, reaching for the jar in Mare’s hand.
“I thought you said you had to go just now,” Mare eyes him suspiciously, keeping a possessive hold on the jar.
“I DO, but now I just want to see what’s going to get the damned thing open!”
“Can you all PLEASE quiet down?” yells a half-asleep voice from the other room.
“Is that–” Cal starts.
“TRAMY!” the entire room yells, practically tripping over each other to get into the bedroom down the hall.
“What in the name of my colors is goin-” Tramy says with his eyes closed.
“Open this,” Bree demands, handing him the jar.
Tramy groans and pulls the blanket over his eyes. “You woke me up for this??”
“Come on, do it!” urges Kilorn.
“The sooner you open this, the sooner we’ll leave,” bargains Mare.
Tramy sighs, knowing he’ll never win against his stubborn family, and sits up. “The next time one of YOU works the night shift I’m co-” he stops when he sees Cal and throws a hand up. “Why don’t you just have this guy do it?? He’s always doing push-ups everywhere he goes!”
“Oh yeah,” Kilorn points a thumb- “Mr. Muscly Fire Pants couldn’t open it either.”
“Kilorn, do you really have to broadcast that to the entire camp?” Cal says, trying to save his pride.
“Fire pants??” Gisa questions, fighting a laugh.
“Why? Don’t want everyone knowing your weakness is plastic?” Kilorn continues. “If that’s all it takes to overthrow the monarchy then maybe I should let Farley know.”
Mare stifles a laugh, and Cal looks to her in mock betrayal.
“Sorry, it’s not. It’s not funny. It’s a horrible joke in bad taste-”
“Kilorn’s speciality,” Bree comments.
Mare continues, “-but I just really thought you would be able to open it!”
“Can you guys get out of my bedroom now?”
“Not until you open it,” Bree tells him.
“I’ve been trying! It hasn’t budged.”
“It must be glued shut,” Gisa mumbles.
“I think it’s more a wrist thing,” Cal says, still trying to defend his honor. “Not really a matter of brute strength.”
“Whatever makes you feel better, babe,” Mare says, sliding her arm around his waist in the name of a truce.
“Have all of you really tried to open it??”
“Yeah we all suck,” from Kilorn.
“And no one tried running it under hot water?”
“I did!” Gisa says.
“And I’ll admit,” Cal adds, “I may or may not have possibly burned a part of it when I was opening it. Just to see if it would budge.”
“Tsk tsk,” Kilorn replies. “No powers in the house.”
“I think that was only for Mare,” Gisa says.
Mare glares at everyone. “I hate you all.”
Suddenly, they’re interrupted by a loud knock at the front door.
“Great, that’s probably my unit asking where the hell I am,” Bree sighs.
Everyone perks up.
“More people?” Mare says eagerly, and looks up at Cal.
Everyone seems to get the same idea at once, and they all go bolting out of the bedroom. Even Tramy is running, in an attempt to see if ANYONE would be able to open the jar.
Bree whips open the front door to a very angry looking officer.
“Barrow! Where in the h-”
“I’ll scrub the entirety of our barrack if you can get this jar open,” he interrupts.
Everyone goes silent.
The officer’s anger melts away into confused shock as he stares in disbelief at Bree.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Soldier.”
Someone from the group of soldiers outside pipes up. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not,” Bree says, deadly serious. “We’re not.” At that he opens the door, revealing Mare and Kilorn and Gisa and Cal and Tramy. “All of us have tried, and haven’t been able to.”
He stares at them deadpan for a moment, then launches into a giant laugh.
“What the hell, those barracks are filthy anyways,” he says with a shrug, and gives the jar a twist.
After 30 seconds of contortion in attempts to open the lid, he’s just as angry as the rest of them.
“Alright!” the officer says, turning to his unit. “Anyone who can open this jar gets out of laps for today. Except for Barrow,” he continues, spinning back around. “You’re running double no matter what.”
“I figured as much,” Bree mumbles.
The entire unit is baffled by the importance everyone is giving to this jar, but no one says anything at first.
As the jar makes its way through the ranks, through 20 or so fully-grown soldiers, it still refuses to open. The unit slowly breaks out into chaos, each failed attempt adding fuel of the fire. Everyone’s shouting, some are taking bets, others are just outright hurling insults.
“I want another try!”
“That’s not fair, you already took the longest out of all of us!”
“I did not!”
“I’m not going after him, his hands are all sweaty!”
“Why do you think you’d be able to open it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be able to open it?”
“Maybe because you have tiny thumbs!”
“Don’t insult my-”
“QUIET!”
Everyone stops at the sound of that voice.
Farley comes strolling up, carrying Clara in a sling close to her chest. She’s covered her ears to avoid all the shouting, but baby Clara seems amused by all the pandemonium.
“What in the hell is going on here?” she demands to no one in particular.
No one dares answer her. She turns her attention to Bree’s officer.
“Sergeant, explain to me why your unit in in such disarray. Now.”
He gulps. “Well uh- Barrow didn’t show up to his post this morning, so I came to retrieve him, but then…” he trails off, unsure of how to explain their ridiculous predicament.
Cal picks up where he left off. “You see… we were uh… trying to open this jar…” he rubs the back of his neck with his free hand.
“Oh for fucks sake,” Farley rolls her eyes, looking as pissed off as ever.
She grabs the jar from the nearest soldier and opens it without a second thought. “We’re in the middle of a revolution, I don’t have time for this.”
Everyone’s mouths drop to the floor.
She hands the jar back to the nearest soldier, then smooths down a tuft of hair in Clara’s head. Farley walks away without waiting for a response.
Gisa walks out, retrieves her jar, and heads back inside the house in silence.
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sylvaetria · 8 years ago
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Hi Hi! I've been interested in secular witchcraft for a long time, but i'm finally starting to stop just researching, and I want to try and start practicing! I've collected a bunch of resources, but what are some of the first things you'd suggest picking up from the store? Candles, herbs, oils, etc? Also, any beginner posts you could link me to would be wonderful. I'm all ears! Have a wonderful day
Hey, congrats on deciding to practice and doing your research! Are you excited? Nervous? Enjoying what you’ve seen so far? Is Tumblr your primary resource? :)
I wanna learn so much from new witches omg. (There’s irony in there.)
Well, it honestly depends on what you wanna do and use yourself. Because personally, I picked up a few of each - I got some tealights from WalMart, bought some cheap incense from somewhere else, picked up some dried herbs from the grocery store that I didn’t already have in the kitchen, and found like five or six crystals I liked from Green Earth. I spent maybe like twenty bucks. That was my beginner’s witch kit.
But, again, it all comes down to what you want to use. Are you more interested in working with candles in magic? Candle magic *is* a really easy but effective method of magic, and candles are everywhere, and really cheap. Most spells use candles in them, not necessarily as the focal point of the spell, but they also do wonders for boosting energies. A bag of 100 tea lights goes a long way in witchcraft. Color correspondences can help, but isn’t necessarily required.
Or maybe crystals are where you wanna go. Crystals have amazing energy, but are a bit more on the pricey side. It can also be hard for people who don’t know a lot about them to tell them apart - the “danger” in this is being swindled by people claiming their crystals are something they’re not. Doesn’t mean they won’t work for their “declared” intent, necessarily, but it means you just dropped a lot of money on something worth a tenth of that. 
That doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile to work with them, though. Because they’re an amazing tool, really - you just gotta do some more research, and be confident in where you’re buying from. Finding a reliable dealer with decent prices is where it’s at. But then, once you’ve got some crystals, they’re really versatile. They can be used on their own, or in conjunction with other spells, put them in jars and sachets, or in poppets, make grids, use them to charge other things, just stick like ten of them in your pockets - boom, witchcraft. 
Oils aren’t something I necessarily recommend, to be honest. Not because they aren’t useful, because they are, just like any other tool can be (just gotta know how to use them). I just don’t know a lot about essential oils. xD If that is the area you wanna go in, however, it’s worthwhile to know that you’re gonna want to do some more research on the topic, and be wary of any allergies you may have, and for the love of god don’t put a crapton of pure oil straight on your skin.
Herbs is a little bit of a tricky area too, especially when using them as medicine. It requires a lot of research and safety if you plan on ingesting herbs for actual remedial purposes. If you just want to use dried herbs in, like, jars and spell bags, it isn’t nearly as bad, but you still want to keep an eye out for any poisonous / toxic plants and allergies. The stuff you can get pre-dried from grocery stores and dollar stores are honestly enough in most cases, and there’s lots of substitutes for more expensive or exotic plants, depending on intent.
If you wanna grow your own herbs too, that’s an option, but another area I don’t know a lot about, so I can’t give you any more advice on that besides do some more research. (It seriously never ends, so I hope you like studying.)
I guess this sort of answers your questions, but not really in the way you wanted. So, long story short, what you pick up depends on what and how you want to practice. However, I’ll give you a list of items I would recommend, purely based on my own craft, but I feel they’re pretty good staples to have all around.
candles - versatile as all hell; can be used on their own or in any other spell; bags of white tea lights are super cheap and easy to find; worry about colors later; scents can be used as correspondences as well but don’t hinder in any way
also, if you can’t have open flames for whatever reason, they have LED / battery powered candles in some dollar stores now; not to mention, tech magic?!
matches - they smell nice, and can light candles; suuuper cheap, but in bulk; unless you’re allergic to sulphur, then just a lighter will work
herbs - dried herbs from the grocery store seriously do the trick just as well as fresh / organic stuff; Bulk Barn / Barrel has a lot of awesome stuff for super cheap too; start off with just a few general / all-purpose ones, and then add to your collection as you go along; it starts to build up over time, trust me
sea salt - cleansing and protection; can be used as a base for most herbal mixtures
rosemary - considered a substitute for most other herbs
basil - has like a shit ton of correspondences
cinnamon is useful to have too
if you wanna curse, pepper flakes, paprika, or cayanne pepper should do the trick
jars - do I even need to explain?; dollar store, man; even thrift stores have some pretty amazing and cool looking bottles and stuff
notebooks - not something necessarily overly witchy, but more so to write down what you learn; trust me, you’ll wanna do that, especially with correspondences; also, sigils
also, though, keeping a blog can be a great way to have a magical book; can be password detected / kept secret; tags are useful for organiazation; and then you have us assholes in the community to hang out with too xD
writing utensils are also kinda required to, you know, write in books; black Sharpies are useful for actually drawing on stuff - candles, sachets, etc.; good for sigil work
scrap fabric - but some cool patterns from thrift stores or whatever; useful for making sachets and poppets
sealable plastic bags can do in a pinch though, really; also can be drawn on with Sharpie for easy sigil application
string / thread - tie up bags, herb bundles; make sachets and poppets; also useful for bindings, and that’s a good skill to know
mini sewing kit - super useful to have in general, and all parts of it can be used for something, somewhere
tea bags - seriously, tea has magical properties too; super discreet; and easy as hell; play around with different flavors for intents
crystals - clear quartz is super cheap and all-purpose; buy like five of them and just use them over and over; again, another thing it might be useful to have like three or four basic ones and then build your collection over time; that’s how most of us get our arsenal of supplies
clear quartz - substitutes for any other crystal
amethyst - super cheap and easy to find; variant of quartz; good for sleep and peace and divination; also purple
tiger’s eye - I’m biased because this is my favorite crystal; good for protection and courage; did I mention it’s awesome to look at?
incense - not necessarily required, but I like to have it; smells nice, useful; so many scents; can be found pretty cheap all over too
again, if you can’t have open flames in your place, you can try those wax melters; definitely pricier, but versatile for magic as well; and I mean, they just smell, so, good; my mom has one with like sugar cookie wax cubes; and I come home and think she’s baking, and I get super excited; but it’s a lie
So, yeah, that’s my list, and reasons for what I wrote. That’s just some ideas to get you started. If you choose a path that doesn’t need those things in them, obviously don’t bother then. And depending on what “type of magic” you wanna do, your basic supply list might be very different. For instance, a sea witch probably won’t care so much about kitchen herbs, and stock up on sand and seaweed, sea shells and salt water. 
Since you asked for beginner’s posts, too, you can have my whole list:
Advice for Witchlings: [Part 01]; [Part 02]
[How to Start Being a Witch] (an ask)
[How to Begin to Do Magic, and Other Questions] (an ask)
[Advice to Baby Witches]
[Becoming a Witch] (an ask)
[For a Beginner] (an ask)
[Getting Started]
[How Do You Even Begin?] (tw: gif)
[“I’m Interested in Witchcraft, Where Do I Start?”]
[The Newbie Witch - What Others Often Don’t Tell You About Beginning the Practice]
[9 Practical Tips for New Witches]
[NSFW (Not Safe For Witches): Staying Safe in Magic]
[100 Tips for the Secret Witch]
[St.’s Short and Sweet Guide to (Not Asking Her) How to Get Started in Witchcraft and Magic]
[10 Common Misconceptions of Baby Witches]
[Things I Wish Somebody Had Told Me in the Beginning: Witch Edition]
[Tips for Beginner Witches] (an ask)
[Tips for Beginners] (an ask)
[Tips for Extremely New Witches] (an ask)
[Tips For Those Who Are Considering Witchcraft]
[Top Witch Tips]
[What I Wish I Knew Starting Out]
[“Where Do I Start?”]
[Where to Start] (an ask)
[Witchcraft, Where to Start?]
[Witchling Tips]
I did it! I made a post that wasn’t mostly links! :o Anyway, sorry for my smartass mouth, I was having fun with this. I hope you enjoyed reading, and I hope it gave you some ideas, and helped you out! Good luck! And if you need any more clarification or have more questions, you know where to find me. :D
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fairytalegf · 8 years ago
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middlemist day - cssv
Hello @survivorjace! I’m your CS secret valentine! It was a lot of fun getting to talk to you over the past few weeks. I sincerely hope you like the Enchanted Forest AU fic I’ve prepared for you <3
Note: I realized I stupidly set them in spring/summer when it should’ve been winter so enjoy the Enchanted Forest ~love~ holiday I just made up.
*
Mornings with her cousins are grand, especially when her parents are out of the kingdom and it’s just the four of them at the breakfast table.
Not so much when it’s Leo’s favourite holiday.
“Happy Middlemist Day!”
Everyone at the table groans, save Anna, share the same groan as Leo walks in and announces his greeting, carrying a bowl of food.
“Nobody cares, Leo,” Emma says flatly, spooning food into Henry’s mouth. Her brother flicks a bit of oatmeal at her, bringing a laugh out of her son.
“See? My nephew is the only one with sense in this household.”
“Ahem,” Anna interjects. “I happen to be very fond of this particular holiday.”
“Nobody cares, Anna,” Elsa replies from beside Emma, now bringing a laugh out of Leo.
Their red-headed cousin sticks her tongue out at her and picks at her sausage. “You don’t have to be so cynical. It’s a nice day to find someone or something to love.”
“I love being single,” Elsa declares.
“Okay, not you, but most of us have some sort of appreciation for romantic love.”
“Love is fake,” Emma asserts.
This time, Leo gasps. “My own flesh and blood. I cannot believe.”
Emma flicks her own oatmeal back at him before turning back to feeding Henry, who is very much amused by the situation in front of him. 
“Smug little baby,” Leo observes. “What does he know? He’s two.”
“Babies are awfully smart,” Emma says, bristling. “He just - doesn’t have the skills to communicate the way we’re designated to.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, I have a date tonight.” He waits for Elsa and Anna’s teasing chorus of ooh’s to finish, waving his hand nonchalantly before continuing. “He’s very cute. So I can’t come to the meeting with the pirate you hired, Emma. Sorry.”
The sudden reminder jolts her, but she forces herself to stay neutral and instead sigh, not entirely disappointed. “It’s fine. It won’t take long, anyway.”
“Who hires a pirate to hide something?” Anna wonders. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll just steal it?”
Emma has to keep reminding herself that they assume Killian and her have only met once. “I offered him a quite a bit of money. Trust me.”
“My apologies but,” Elsa says, “you’re nuts. And my sister nearly married a man thirteen minutes after she met him.”
Needless to say, a total of three people ended up getting flicked with oatmeal that morning.
*
She doesn’t like waiting.
But it’s been one month and four days exactly since she’d last seen him, and she tells herself if she can push herself through that, she can wait half an hour more for his ship to dock.
It’s nearing sunset as she waits, watching Henry chase after butterflies and shake the rattle Belle had brought him as a birthday gift. He ran through the meadow as fast as his two year old legs could carry him, the rocks at the edge of the hill acting as a boundary for when he went too far. She’d told Belle to go back to the castle, preferring to spend the little time she’d been able to procure over the last few hectic weeks with her son.
Also, she needed to meet him alone.
Her hands twist the seashell pendant on her necklace as the soft breeze pushes her hair in front of her face. It’s hard to tell what she’s feeling at the moment. Nervousness, for sure. Excitement? She’d be embarrassed to feel more than what was necessary.
This is stupid, she thinks, for the thirtieth time that day. Her default answer for when it was difficult to articulate something.
“Mom!” She looks down at her son, jumping on the balls of his feet and holding up a middlemist flower, looking proud of himself and anxious to get more. She laughs at the irony and accepts, kissing his face and letting him run off after a hummingbird.
People often asked if she hoped he would be like his father. It’s been a year since his death, but the constant questions and queries of their private life was enough to fill seven more.  
Being mindful of her reputation,, Emma would smile, nod, and say she hoped so. He already has his colouring and his eyes. Emma would also want him to be brave, strong and wise, just like his father had been, because of course someone with only those noble qualities was worthy enough to marry the Crown princess.
(It’s not like Rumplestiltskin had threatened her parents and her land.)
(It’s not like Emma had been forced by duty to take Baelfire as her husband in the first place.)
(It’s not like Emma ever loved him.)
He had died in a carriage accident, of all things, after a run-in with bandits. The kingdom had mourned, and expected her to do the same. To most, her neutrality (the demeanour she’d mastered in her short time as the monarch) seemed like suppressed despair. Surely she was devastated after the loss of someone so dear to her.
But a part of Emma, now unbound from a promise she had been forced into keeping, feels nothing but relief.
In a way, she’s unhappy that Henry will not only have to grow up without a father, but grow up hearing nothing but praise about him. She couldn’t tell her son her true feelings. God knows how much his heart would break.
She would have to live a lie for the rest of her life.
A ray of orange light hits her face and she decides she needs to get Henry home soon for dinner, and is about to pack up and resign that he wasn’t able to make it when a black-clad form appears from behind the rocks.
Emma collects herself and surveys him. He’d exchanged his black vest for a red one (not that she’d noticed) and his hair was fairly longer (not that she’d noticed) than from when she’d last seen him in April. Eyes lined black and a fair amount of jewelry than most people would wear. The hook in replacement of his left hand gleaming. Devastating eyebrows.
This is stupid.
The flower slips out of Emma’s hand and she struggles to compose herself, He gives her a grin and climbs over the rocks, eyes flitting to Henry sitting on the grass attentively studying the hummingbird.
“Well, I really wasn’t expecting company, your highness,” Killian says by way of greeting, strolling up to her, one hand on the strap of the bag he was carrying.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you can make room for my toddler, captain.”
“Depends. Two year olds do tend to be talkative.”
“Bird!” Henry shouted at that moment, leading a huff out of Emma and a chuckle out of Killian.
She licks her dry lips. Memories of a dark alley and smoke and lips fill her mind, not quite suppressed despite her immense attempts to do so over the past few months. “How was your journey?”
Why did you take so long? she wanted to ask.
“I spent a few weeks in jail.”
“What?”
He laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s not the first time, don’t worry.”
She’s stunned at his nonchalant demeanour. “Well - did - how did you get out?” She manages to sputter. “What were you in for?”
Which she really could’ve answered herself, given his long list of crimes, but she accepted his shrug and “wrongly accused, for once. A jewelry store was looted, and we were the only questionably-dressed sailors in the area.”
She shakes her head. The last thing she had in mind was a run in with the law enforcement.
(Which was ridiculous, really. She was dealing with a criminal here.)
“How did you get out?”
“Smee broke me out three weeks later,” he answered, rolling his eyes. “You would’ve thought it’d take a pirate less than that to pick a damn lock.”
“Are you talking about Smee or yourself?”
“That wounds me, your majesty.”
She allows herself to laugh. “Did you find - Henry don’t go there!”
Henry’s finally decided there’s a better world beyond the rocks and has his hands gripped on the stone, jumping as far as his legs would let him. Emma’s not too worried - the rocks are taller than him - but she runs anyway. Hook manages to get there first, picking him up and carrying him away from the boundary as Henry gives a yell and struggles to escape.
“Henry!” She says to her son, exasperated. “What did I say? Rock-,” she points to the rocks. “Bad.”
That brings a snort out of Killian as Henry gives her a sheepish look.
“Oh, for god’s sake, he’s two,” she snaps.   
“Rock bad,” the pirate nods earnestly.
She shoots him a flat look, noting Henry’s look of curiosity at the stranger holding him, hands reaching for his necklace. Killian shoots him a smile. “You’ve got a rebellious little lad over here, Emma.”
Emma. He’d last whispered her name that one night in the alleyway. She nearly blushes at the memory. 
Henry picks at KIllian’s seashell necklace, much like the one he’d given her as a gift three months ago. “Shell,” her son says, looking pleased with himself.
Hook laughs, the red of the setting sun making his eyes sparkle. “That it is.”
Emma can’t keep a soft smile off her face, even as a thread of panic ran down her chest. He’d spent all of this morning talking about the gardener and her tulips. Now he wouldn’t be able to talk about anything other than the seashell-wearing tall man down by the meadow.
A queen seen with a thief? They’d assume the worst.
(And “worst” was for them to decide. Her brother would never let her live it down.)
“Okay,” she says suddenly, jarring even herself. “May I have my son back?”
Hook’s smile melts at her tone, and neutrality takes over his expression as he hands Henry back, amid soft protests from the younger child. “I talked to the tailor that you wanted,” he says, his voice lacking the joking manner it had before. She regrets it suddenly, but her feelings were the hardest to run away from.
(And thus, the hardest measures had to be taken.)
“He gave me the pouch but I had to give him all your gold.”
“Right.”
“I did! I gave some of mine, too.” He rolls his eyes. “Greedy little git. Anyway, he gave me the pouch, in which I put your pendant. It’s safe now, so you can rest.”
Emma gives a sigh of relief. “Thank you, so much.”
“All in a day’s work for a man indebted to the Crown.”
Right. He was only doing this because she’d saved his life.
And like that, something in Emma’s chest melts as well and they fall silent, the only sound the breeze that made the grass flutter and the distant calls of villagers.
She swallows. “Well, I should get-”
“Princess Emma!”
She turns her head and sees Belle running towards them, basket and skirt in her hand. The panic suddenly stabs her in the chest, and her breath catches in her throat.
Oh, god. This is the end.
“It’s nearly dinn-oh, hello.” She stops suddenly when she sees Killian, eyebrows scrunching and eyes darting between Emma and him, taking note of the situation. She makes up her mind and focuses back on Emma, who was trying not to pick up her skirts and run away. “It’s nearly dinnertime, and your parents are wondering where you are, and Henry must be hungry-”
“You’re right,” she realizes. The panic crashes back down and guilt fills her heart instead. “Would you take him? I’ll be there shortly.”
Belle nods, taking Henry, and gives one last curious look at Hook before smiling at Henry and striding off. Emma gives him a small wave, smiling softly, before Killian’s voice brings her back to the shore. “I should leave.”
She turns to him as he looks away and picks up the flower she’d dropped from the ground. It’s hard to read him at the moment. Sheepish? Yes. Embarrassed? She hoped not (but wouldn’t blame him if he was).
“Thank you,” she says again, trying to cover for their lost sense of direction with gratitude. “Truly, it-” He gives her an expectant look, thumb running down the leaf of the flower. She exhales, finishing her sentence. “It means a lot to me.”
He reaches out instead of replying, taking her hand and placing the flower on her palm. His fingertips brush hers as he closes it over the stem, leaving tiny, phantom sparks that travel up her wrist and arm. She really should’ve worn a long-sleeved dress today.
“It was nothing,” he answers quietly.
She smiles ironically. “You went to jail. Doesn’t that account for anything?”
“Told you, it wasn’t my first.” The grin is back, albeit a little subdued. “You should go eat. You family is waiting.”
They were.
And so Emma kisses him.
The panic and guilt and excitement that had pursued her the past few months suddenly resurrects and drives her forward, all thoughts of reputation and other nonsense flying out the window as she finally, does one thing for herself and only herself.
(Oh, and for Killian too, she guesses.)
She releases his lapels once a good amount of heavy breathing has passed, knowing she’s mirroring his stunned expression at what had just occurred. And Emma, being Emma, gives only a sheepish grin.
“Happy Middlemist Day?”
*
After, when it’s nighttime and a few hours after answering two dozen questions about the horrendously-handsome-and-possibly-dangerous (he looked very dangerous Emma) leather-clad man who Henry couldn’t stop babbling about (you couldn’t have everything), he sneaks in through the balcony with no more than three middlemist flowers.
“Seriously?” Emma’s only half exasperated, a laugh escaping her. “I have an entire garden.”
He gives her an impish grin, leaning over to peck her cheek as he sets the flowers down. “I needed an excuse to be walking down the castle path.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“They think they’re for Elsa.”
She laughs, pulling him in and shutting the balcony door.
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leagueofbane · 8 years ago
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“A part of the pit will always be with us.”
Bane and Talia have a proposition for their old friend from the pit prison, in this next installment of my fic FROM THE ASHES.
(This story is also available at Ao3 and FanFiction.net)
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Chapter 24
             Abrams awoke to a chorus of birds somewhere nearby, strange calls that didn’t match anything he was used to hearing in any of the countries he had spent his sixty-odd years of life. He couldn’t remember how old he really was. Too damn old, he thought, as he considered his body aches when he cracked his eyelids to morning light streaming in through open veranda doors to his right. There were birds perched on the veranda railing, and some hopping about on the tiles, pecking at obscure morsels. Lying on his back in bed, he grunted with the effort it took to crane his neck, trying to see what lay beyond the veranda. Only a sky of pink and blue, with brushes of gold. Obviously he was several floors up. He tried to remember arriving last night, but the drugs made his memories vague. Well, considering the décor of his room, Bane must have made good on his promise of bringing him to Talia’s grandmother’s place. Obviously Talia’s grandmother was fucking loaded.
           Considering where Bane had grown up, Abrams almost laughed at the irony but knew laughter would cause him physical pain, so he refrained. Instead he took stock of his surroundings, noting every potential escape route, if needed. The large room’s walls were a soothing dark yellow, not quite gold, with colorful Persian rugs on the rich wood flooring. No photographs in frames anywhere, but several paintings, depicting Middle Eastern life, contemporary as well as historical. Gilded mirrors on two walls. A ceiling fan above him, breathing down a comfortable flow of air.
           He listened but heard nothing except the chattering birds. Where was Bane? Still in bed maybe? No, Abrams had a feeling his old prison mate was one of those lunatics who was always up before the dawn.
           Abrams sighed and closed his eyes, enjoyed the spacious bed. It had been a long time since he had slept in a comfortable bed. While a part of Darzi’s network, he slept either on a mat or on a bare mattress on the floor of his Brussels’ flat. Before that, in Germany, his bachelor’s pad had nothing more than a futon. But all of that had been heaven compared to that fucking charpoy in that damp, stinking, freezing pit prison.
           Memories of the pit tried to creep in upon him, but he fought them away, reached for the remote control to turn on the 55-inch TV across the room to provide a distraction.
           He had to admit he looked forward to seeing Talia, regardless of what she had tried to pull off in Gotham. Though he had watched her on television during the siege, it had been difficult to equate that treacherous young woman with the ragged, shorn-headed child of the pit. It was easy to remember the day of her birth, though he was no great lover of children. Seeing something so innocent and new in that wretched place had somehow given him hope. Of course that hope had been short-lived as year after year went by, but at least Talia’s activities and chatter provided a distraction from the monotony of nothing but male prisoners after Melisande’s death. Another day he could never forget from that place. 
           He had been away from his cell when Melisande had been attacked. Hearing her screams and the shouts of inmates, he had rushed back, expecting to find Bane in some sort of trouble because of her. Instead he found a roiling mass of men, fighting each other to get inside Melisande’s cell, to get their moment of violation before the woman was completely destroyed by those already inside. Abrams knew instantly that he was already too late to help Melisande, and when he saw nothing of Bane or the child, he figured Bane had gotten the five-year-old to safety. He did, however, spot Dr. Assad, the man who had inadvertently left Melisande’s door unlocked. Assad struggled amidst the chaos in a suicidal attempt to quell the frenzy. Unaware of Assad’s part in the insanity, Abrams had rescued him before he could be killed, himself suffering a flurry of kicks and blows that nearly ended them both.
           While in prison, Abrams had had little to no real relationship with Melisande. The woman never came out of her cell, which was two doors down from his. They rarely spoke. He avoided conversing with her. To even look upon her was torture for every man in that hellhole. Young and beautiful, exotic, unattainable. A constant reminder of what they would never sample again. Many prisoners came to ogle her on a daily basis, to taunt her self-imposed isolation, to say what they wanted to do to her. Some even masturbated in front of her. Bane, though a mere boy, had done everything he could to chase such intruders off. When his mother failed on occasion to restrain him, Bane usually suffered a beating from the man he attacked, yet that didn’t stop him from trying to protect his mother’s honor. It was one of Bane’s qualities that had piqued Abrams’s interest in the boy.
           If Abrams was to identify a particular moment when he had connected on a personal level with Bane, it was shortly after the death of Bane’s mother. The day after she had died, a prisoner who lived on the other side of Bane’s cell had befriended the boy. Abrams suspected the wretched little man known as the Vulture to be a pedophile. He had no proof, of course, only a sixth sense honed by having been a victim of just such a predator when he had been about Bane’s age. He warned Bane without revealing anything about his personal experience or specifics about what he thought the Vulture capable of. Bane, of course, refused to listen, as stubborn in his youth as he was as a man. The boy missed his mother, of course, and the Vulture had plied him with friendship and crafting a chess set, like an expert game hunter luring its victim with bait. And Bane didn’t want to lose that companionship.
           The relationship ended badly, as Abrams had expected. The Vulture finally showed his hand. Bane defended himself with the knife his mother had hidden in his Teddy bear, slicing the Vulture’s jugular and leaving him to bleed out. Abrams admired the boy’s courage; if only he had been able to do the same to his attacker all those years before. From then on, Abrams had offered Bane what little friendship he was capable of offering.
           A knock on the door jarred Abrams from his reminiscing. “Good morning, sir. Are you awake? I have brought your breakfast.”
           An Indian accent. Abrams frowned. Bane had servants? “Come in.”
           A middle-aged man entered, pushing a serving cart. His brown face showed little emotion, only duty, as he drew closer, bringing with him the heavenly scent of warm food. Abrams couldn’t remember when he had last eaten, and realized he was extremely hungry.
           “I am Hisham, sir. I will be helping you during your recovery here.” He moved across the room to a small cabinet. “Before you eat, I will change your dressing.” From the cabinet, he produced medical supplies then returned to the bed.
           Abrams started to remove his loose cotton shirt but winced and hesitated.
           “Allow me, sir. Slowly lift this arm…yes, that’s it. Now the other.”
           Once the old dressing was removed, Abrams got his first real look at his wound. It was ugly and stitched but appeared pretty typical otherwise. He wondered again how Bane had arranged his medical care. Of course he had asked, but Bane refused to divulge anything.
           “Save your breath,” Barsad had said, sharing a cigarette with Abrams after Bane had left them.
           Abrams studied the cigarette before handing it back to Barsad. “Bane ever tell you I used to sell these in prison? I had a source among the resupply guards who’d get a cut of whatever I made off of them.”
           Barsad took back the cigarette, enjoyed a long pull, flicked away the ash. “Bane hates cigarettes. Always bitchin’ at me to quit. Throws a fit if I smoke around him or Talia.” He shrugged. “I try not to.”
           Abrams offered a wry grin. “You must be paid well to put up with him.”
           “Paid?” Barsad laughed. “Even if a salary was a part of this gig, there’s no amount of money in the world worth putting up with Bane.” He winked and grinned before returning the cigarette to his mouth.
           Now that he was at this palace, on the road to recovery, Abrams hoped he had more opportunities to talk with Barsad about Bane, to fill in the blanks from all these years. He liked the man and his sharp wit, as well as his interesting balance of respect and playfulness with his commander. It was a brotherly relationship, Abrams could easily see, and he was glad Bane had someone like Barsad to keep him balanced.
           Balanced was not a term Abrams had expected to use now for Bane. Having closely watched the occupation of Gotham play out on television for months, Abrams figured Bane was quite unhinged, as did the world. He assumed something had separated Bane from Talia, his anchor. Perhaps the girl was dead. That would certainly explain Bane’s seemingly insane, suicidal actions. But when Abrams found out with the rest of the world that Talia had spearheaded the campaign against Gotham, Bane’s actions made more sense to Abrams. While some looked upon Bane after the occupation as Talia’s lackey, Abrams knew there was more to his motivations. Even if Bane hadn’t wanted to be the face of Gotham’s reckoning, Abrams knew he would do whatever Talia asked, not only because of his love for her but because of the adulation for Rā’s al Ghūl that he had seen in Bane’s eyes the day Rā’s had helped them climb out of the pit. And no doubt Bane had felt an obligation, a debt, to Rā’s for his liberation, the same debt Abrams felt for Talia for her inclusion of him on her list of inmates for her father to preserve. No matter what craziness those two had indulged in with their murderous plan for Gotham, he owed them his life.
           Hisham finished dressing the wound then left Abrams alone to eat his meal, which he did in short order, then wished for more. By then, another knock sounded at the door.
           “Come in.”
           The door opened to reveal Talia, with Bane behind her. Abrams was momentarily dumbstruck by not only her beauty, more stunning than any television screen could reflect, but by the transformation from the last time he had seen her in person—a waif sobbing in the arms of her ravaged protector as the sands of the Thar Desert swirled about them. How could this even be the same person? Bane’s eyes crinkled with pride from behind her, as if he could read Abrams’s thoughts.
           Talia glided quickly to the bed. “Good morning.”
           Abrams couldn’t help but return her smile. “Well, look at you. If I hadn’t been told, I’d never guess who you are. Nothing left of Henri from the pit.”
           Hearing not only her assumed name from her charade as a boy in prison but a name that had once belonged to her father tempered Talia’s expression. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Unfortunately, in truth, a part of the pit will always be with us.”
           Abrams’s own expression faded. “True.”
           “Here, let me take that.” Talia removed his breakfast tray and returned it to the cart. Bane set a padded wooden chair next to the bed for Talia.
           “And here’s Bane, still at your side. I should’ve known you were there all along in Gotham with him.”
           Sitting in the chair, Talia looked up at Bane and momentarily took his hand. The warm, private smile Bane shared with her from behind the mask gave Abrams pause.
           “How are you feeling?” Talia asked.
           “Okay. A little sore from the trip, but ol’ Hisham fixed me up before breakfast.” He eyed them with amusement. “Servants? You have servants?”
           Talia blushed. “He is my grandmother’s servant. This is her home, not ours. We are merely guests, like you.”
           “But servants? That’s quite a step up from what you grew up with.”
           “Indeed,” Bane said, placing a hand on Talia’s shoulder, which she covered with her own hand. “But let us not linger upon memories of our unfortunate past.”
           “I couldn’t agree more,” Abrams said. “The more important topic is my being here. Being alive, that is, because of you. Thank you.”
           “Considering we got you into this situation,” Talia said, “seeing to your recovery and safety is the least we can do.”
           “Where am I exactly? Or won’t you say? I’m guessing India, from the servant, the weather, and the décor.”
           Talia glanced up at Bane before saying, “Actually, you are not too very far from the place where we first met.”
           “Well, there’s some irony for you. Will I be meeting your grandmother so I can thank her, too?”
           “Yes, Jiddah will be in after lunch. Or if you feel up to it,” she gestured to a folded wheelchair against one wall, “you can join us for lunch.”
           “I think I can manage. I’m not very good at lying around.”
           “Very well. I’ll have Hisham fetch you when it is time. Another old friend of yours will be there as well.”
           Abrams’s brow furrowed in confusion. “The only old friends I have are you.”
           “Not true,” Talia said. “Surely you remember Yemi from the pit.”
           Abrams stared. “Yemi? How the hell—”
           “He is one of our brothers,” Bane said proudly.
           “Well, holy shit. Yemi.” He laughed. “I’d almost forgotten him.”
           “He’s looking forward to seeing you,” Talia said.
           Abrams considered her youthful face, a face that lacked the mileage of Bane’s with his worldly gaze and physical scars. “Hopefully the years have been as kind to Yemi as they have to you. You look well. Bane told me about your injuries at the end of the Gotham siege. It appears you’ve made a full recovery.”
           Again she exchanged a secret smile with Bane. “I wouldn’t say a full recovery, but I am getting there. Bane’s injuries were far more serious than mine.”
           Bane scoffed. “That is hardly the truth.”
           “Mine weren’t life-threatening; yours were.” She turned back to Abrams. “I thought I might lose him.”
           “Well, I’m glad you didn’t.”
           “Bane tells me you should fully recover. He also told me of your bravery during the operation.”
           Abrams scoffed. “All I had to do was sit there and get shot.” His grin lay crooked upon his harelip.
           “I don’t remember this dry wit of yours so much in prison, old friend,” Bane said. “It would appear Barsad is already influencing you. Perhaps I should limit your contact with him.”
           Talia chuckled.
           “And to the point of your recovery,” Bane said, sobering, “we are concerned with your plans afterwards. As we have discussed, Darzi’s men might seek revenge, if they feel you were indeed responsible for our operation.”
           “I’m not worried about it,” Abrams said.
           “Well,” Talia said, “we are. And I know this is rather early to discuss, but we wanted to give you plenty of time to consider our offer.”
           “Offer?” A stab of pain in his side curbed Abrams’s laugh. “I’m not joining your organization, if that’s what you mean.”
           “No,” Bane replied. “We figured you would not be interested in that. No, this is something different but something we feel will afford you safety. It may not be a perfect solution, but I think it would benefit all of us.”
           Abrams rubbed the salt and pepper stubble on his chin. “I have a job waiting for me in Germany. I’m really not in the market for anything else.”
           Talia frowned. “You won’t be safe there.”
           “Like I said, I’m not worried about it.”
           Talia frowned. “Won’t you at least listen to our proposal?”
           The sincerity on their faces struck Abrams. They genuinely seemed concerned about him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen such emotion in anyone connected to him. This made him both uncomfortable and intrigued.
           “Well, okay. Sure. No harm in it.”
           Bane expounded: “Here at the palace and whenever she leaves the grounds, Talia’s grandmother employs a small, personal security detail.”
           “Your men?”
           “True that while we are here we have some of our own security forces with us. However, those who protect Maysam are in her employ only.”
           “And why does Talia’s grandmother require security? Just because of her relationship with you or for some other reason?”
           Talia said, “Do you recall the circumstances around my mother’s condemnation to the pit?”
           “Something to do with her bastard of a father, if I recall.”
           “Yes. He sent her there. Long after we were free, we learned that he actually owned the prison.”
           “Jesus.”
           “He could own something like that because he was a very wealthy man. Some of his wealth was inherited but much of it was acquired, both legally and illegally, often brutally. He was a warlord in this region, greatly feared and very powerful.”
           “Is he still alive?”
           “No, he died some time ago. One of his brothers took over his empire, but recently he was assassinated. Another brother, Nashir, has ascended the throne, one who is a bit more moderate yet determined to preserve the family legacy. Though my grandmother has no direct role in any of her husband’s family dealings, she prefers to live here, where she is comfortable and where she can provide us with a sanctuary when needed. But you can imagine how the family’s enemies might wish to use her against Nashir. That is why she has a security detail of her own.”
           “And,” Bane said, “we would like to offer you a place on that detail.”
           Abrams raised his eyebrows. “That’s quite a leap of faith on your part. You don’t know me, Bane, not really.”
           “I know you, Abrams. I know what we owe each other. That is something that transcends the years between our last meeting.”
           Abrams considered this and nodded. “You’ve talked to Talia’s grandmother about it?”
           “Yes, over breakfast,” Talia said. “If you decide that you are interested, she will conduct her own interview and background checks.”
           “We hope you will consider it,” Bane said.
           “It’s a generous offer. Looks like I’ll have some time to think about it.”
           “You’re welcome here for however long you desire.” Talia dropped her gaze for a moment before looking at him again. “We know you don’t have any family back in Germany, or wherever you may go. But we want you to know, you have family here, among us. You are always welcome, even if you decide to leave.”
           The unexpected lump in Abrams’s throat rendered him incapable of doing nothing more than nod.
           Talia smiled and stood. “We’ll let you rest now. As I said, I will send Hisham to fetch you for lunch. My grandmother is looking forward to meeting you. She has heard many tales about you over the years from Bane.”
           “I hope you haven’t told her too much, Bane,” Abrams said with a small grin. “She might reconsider the job offer.”
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alrunemara · 4 years ago
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Dream Consistency
***TRIGGER WARNING***                        
Mentions & Implications: Depression
If you are experiencing suicidal ideations or feel like you will hurt yourself,
DO NOT READ THIS!
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It was like living in a story. A very twisted story. She was so paranoid that others were watching her, studying her. They were all waiting for her to mess up somehow. She just knew no one would understand. Her mind was too morbid, too... abstract for the common folk to understand. So she’d keep to herself holed up in her room. Rarely she went out with the exception to do her parents’ bidding, or to be with her tiny clique of friends. Still at night, when she suffered her insomnia, she would write. What she couldn’t place vocally, she would record on paper. Volumes of her work were boxed and placed in storage for safekeeping. Her favorite escape were the times she would sleep. To drift into dreams was a pure paradise.
In one dream in particular, she always found herself in a wooded area of black and white. There, sitting in the clearing was a large boulder. And each time, she would climb on this boulder and stare straight up to the stars.
In another dream was the hue of blue. Winter was the season of this dream for Winter is the death of all things. When she entered the dream, she’d watch her feet, for she would always glide, then look up to see the garden of stone. The scene would be the same; running her hands along each crumbling stone, begging her mind to read the etched words. Not only gravestones of old peeked from the Earth, but elaborate mausoleums as well. She always found herself at the same death shrine.
Though different, a similarity arose between these two dreams. A young man with forever starry blue-gray eyes and tawny hair lingered nearby. And they would talk, these two, in either dream. And she remembered his first goodbye to her, “I’ll always be your friend Alrune.”
*~*
He decided that the majority of the people in the world were stupid. And he wanted to escape that. There was no solace in his life. He was full of sorrow, and he laughed at the irony of this for his name and emotion were one and the same. He was the same as the first, never leaving the sanctuary that was his room unless he had to. And he too was an insomniac. He longed for eternal slumber, though he knew that should he receive it, there still would be no peace. And yet, when sleep found him, he would dream repetitively.
One dream showered in black and white; a solo boulder bulging from the ground as if purposely placed for him to sit. And thus, he obliged the dream and sat on the rock. The scenery would remain the same. He would sigh at the appropriate time, for his dream demanded consistency. And the same thing would happen. A girl would walk up behind him and place her hand upon his shoulder. He would turn and smile, and then place his hand atop hers. Although everything was consistent, the conversations were not. They would speak of all matters big and small. For the most part, they would sit in silence, content in each other’s understanding. There on the boulder, would they sit for hours until one or the other was called away. And for the longest time, neither would smile, and this, the sorrowful one knew it would always be difficult. He knew that she too hurt more than one thousand words could ever describe. But he did manage to make her genuinely smile only once. “My name Tristan means full of sorrow.”
*~*
“You need to hurry up and get that stuff done before the night’s over!” the woman yelled at Tristan. “And sweetheart... smile a little, okay? I don’t like this mood you’re always in.”
Gratefully, Tristan took his leave from his mother, staring at the tile as he exited his house. This was no longer a home to him. No longer was it a sanctuary as he had known it as a child. Slinking into his transport, he sat there a moment, almost reluctant to go. Yet, Tristan did so, and as he backed into the road, Covenant blared into his ears. He did nothing to dull the sudden ringing. What for? he’d ask. There be no point. And he proceeded to his destination to conduct his mother’s bidding.
He concluded the tasks appointed to him and decided to not return as of yet. Brushing his dirty blonde hair from his blue-gray orbs, he ventured toward a game store. There behind the counter was a good friend by the name of Jerome. His friend was truly a complete opposite of him. Ever happy, popular, and very laid back. A teasing, bright smile happy enough to stop anyone no matter how busy. Beautiful hazel eyes that could change like the seasons. Yet, Tristan admired none of it. And so he walked up to Jerome and was greeted a smile. He returned none of his own, and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Hey Jerome.”
“Tristan! I haven’t seen you in forever! What’s been goin’ on?” Jerome smiled once more. He was so ecstatic to see his friend, he failed to let him answer. “Dude, new Armitage came out. Saved you a copy. Almost sold them out.” He would have said more but for the jingle of the bells on the door brought him back from the clouds. Tristan turned slightly to catch the silhouette of a girl walking past. “Yes ma’am?” he could hear Jerome exclaim.
“Hi. I’m looking for a copy of ‘Princess Mononoke’. Do you have one?” a small voice asked. A familiar voice. But whose? Tristan was intrigued. Looking up, he saw a girl in short stature with long, medium brown hair. He noticed that she too kept her eyes low to the floor, probably in hopes of disappearing into the overstuffed blue jacket she had cloaked about her.
“As a matter-of-fact I do! Let me go find it for you.” Jerome left for the stockroom, leaving the two strangers in the front. Feeling eyes upon her, the girl turned to eye her watcher, inadvertently piercing him with her eyes of dried blood. Yet, he did not look away, and for that, she managed to offer him a smile.
“Okay I got it!” Jerome called out as he came to the register. Handing the girl the DVD, he rang her up, and took her money. Then Tristan and he watched as she timidly walked away. “She’s hot. Too bad she looks like she’s going to kill herself all the time.”
The other scoffed, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dude, look at her! she doesn’t even smile. She looks as if she’s going to cry all the time. But she’s still hot. I’d ask her out if she’d say something other than ‘can I’ or ‘thank you’.”
“What’s her name?”
Jerome never saw the expression on his friend’s face as he answered him. He kept his eyes to the counter as he stacked some games, “I think it’s Alrune.”
*~*
Each time they would lay eyes upon each other, a smirk might appear. Yet mostly the meetings were humble. Side by side, Tristan and Alrune would sit upon their rock, staring at the unfazing moon. The scenery always remaining the same, the conversation always changing.
“Would you think low of me if I asked if we could meet outside of our dreams?” Tristan questioned with a worried face.
“No. You know I will always think highly of you, Tristan. I like the idea of meeting you in real time. But how will we know we see the person sitting here tonight?”
Brushing a strand from her pale face, he stared into Alrune’s eyes. “As I look now, I will look the same when you look upon me. I trust that you will be the same.” He watched her for awhile before letting out a sigh of regret. “I can hear my alarm. I will see you again, my love, my Alrune.”
The demon princess watched as he faded from sight, as he did each time they parted. She stayed perched on that rock and stared at the still moon, yet did something she never attempted. A mourning melody flowed from her lips as if light honey poured from a jar. The song lasted not long for the next thing she knew, she had awaken to light piercing through her windows. Sighing to herself, she pulled the covers over her head and kept her eyes shut to the world. But she eventually put her feet atop the mounds of paper that littered the floor. A few reams of recycled trees that held endless words of sorrow. Not caring about a one, Alrune made way to the washroom to prepare for the long day.
After an hour or so, she left the solace of her room, and went to the kitchen for her obligatory breakfast. Her mother had no need to spot her daughter, as she could hear her chair move away from the table. “Good morning my little ray of sunshine!” she spoke enthusiastically. In return, Alrune gave a solemn “Morning.” As she sat down, she eyed the bubbly person she called ‘Mom’. She often pondered if her parents had bad days as she slowly ate her food, but she never came to a conclusion.
The next thing she knew, her plate was taken away and was replaced with a glass of juice. “Drink it sweetie. It’s good for you!” And as Alrune picked up the glass, her father walked into the house. Apologizing for being out for so long, he grabbed his daughter’s juice and sipped it before returning it to her. “Thanks Al. Well I’ve got to go grab a shower and head back. It won’t be a long day though. I’ll be home for supper. Try to smile today, okay Al? Pretty girls look even prettier with smiles on their faces!” And with that, her father left the room. Alrune turned to look at her mother, who for a moment let a frown cross her face. She turned to the girl and smiled, “Hurry up. It’s almost time for school.”
*~*
He sighed in frustration as the annoying buzzing sounded off in his ear. Pressing the button appropriately labeled ‘snooze’, Tristan rose reluctantly from the encased comfort. He readied himself for the day, and with much time left, he sat at his computer, and stared at the monitor’s wallpaper. For forty-five minutes every morning he did this before forcing himself to pick up his book back and leave his room.
“Will you try to smile today Tristan?” a warm voice inquired. Turning to see his mother he simply shook his head. He wouldn’t lie to her. Watching her sigh, he turned and left the house and headed to the hell most commonly known as school.
“Hey you going to come to my house tonight after you get off work?” a friend asked as they entered the building.
“I don’t know. Depends on how tired I am.”
“You always say that.”
And as the bell rang, Tristan nodded and sighed, “Yeah, I know.”
*~*
Alrune opened her eyes to watch her feet glide over a worn footpath beside the tombstones. Looking up she saw the decay of Winter set in a blue tint. She reached out as she did every time to run her fingers along the decaying stone. She tried to read the words, begged herself to, yet the eyes of her dream refused her. And still, her gliding stopped at the same mausoleum. It was grande and made of dark marble with a glare from the blue light of the moon.
“Your dreams are always elaborate aren’t they?” breaking the silence, Alrune looked to see Tristan walking toward her. She quickly looked to see her still hovering and shrugged.
She held out her hand for him and together made their way across the worn dirt path. “You’re just now noticing? Outside, a person can appear to look a simpleton. But appearances can be deceiving. On the inside, that same person can pour their soul into perfecting the intricate details that make up who they really are. Who are you Tristan? Who am I? Is this your dream or is it mine?
Watching the snow fall, he gently caressed her hand. The clouds slightly parted to give way to the stars, yet the snows continued on. “There is no true way to answer the questions you asked. I know that I am who I am. I know you’re Alrune. For some reason, we share two dreams. I don’t know if that is meant for something or not. What I do know is that we’re here together. And I know I want to see you outside of these dreams.”
“Then we will meet.”
*~*
They were incredibly shy, speaking as if they were strangers passing on a darkened road. As time wore on throughout the year, the two grew fonder of each other’s company, and eventually they held hands and showered affection openly. Seeing his beloved Alrune’s smile coaxed his own to shine through. The rainy cold days seemed to dissipate. Friends noticed drastic changes in each of them.
“Just be careful Alrune. Boys can break your heart,” a friend warned. She nodded and shrugged the advice off for she was sure Tristan would never bring her sadness. Alrune learned the same message was being told to him as well. The pair laughed the words away and walked out of the doors to the school.
Holding fast to her hand, Tristan gazed at the great trees that made the edge of the forest. “I love you.” He would not look at her then, but closed his eyes in silent apprehension for her reply.
Alrune did not seem to be caught off guard. Moments passed as she pondered on the phrase. Should she cite it back to please his fast pacing heart? Or should she acknowledge him wholly with her heart? Nodding to herself, she eased his tension with the simple gesture of squeezing his hand. “I know. I always knew. I think that now we can both be happy.”
And for a number of years the pair emitted naught but positive energy. Their families were pleased at their gleeful demeanors, and when the rain fell in shades of gray, they would dance as if the sun itself sang in the sky. It would seem that in dreams the sun, instead of the moon would shine, but ‘twas not so. Little changed in the backdrop of their minds.
*~*
The Winter of their dreams seemed colder, more sorrowful as they met by the blurred mausoleum. “What’s wrong my love?” Tristan inquired as he brushed a strand of her brown hair from her eyes.
She kept her head down, trying to hide her falling tears, “I’m moving away. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back to see you.” Moments of silence passed between them before Alrune gathered the courage to look at him with dull brown eyes. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you. You’re the only thing that makes me happy.”
He wrapped his arms around her and breathed in her sweet scent of lilac as he nuzzled his face against hers. “I don’t want you to go either. I don’t know what I’d do. If you go, only our dreams would bring us peace. We’ll be with each other again. I just know it. Then we’ll be happy.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yeah. Just close your eyes, and you��ll see me again.”
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dungeonsandberries · 5 years ago
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Session 19: Infiltration
The party returns to where they never wanted to...
Before we set out to rescue Veilour’s mother, each of us had some errands to run. Maevia seemed to want to get the skull of the spider-snake abomination prepared as a trophy, and her lugging it around has definitely been the least pleasant part of the last few weeks. As if it wasn’t distasteful enough when it was attached to its body, now it was beginning to rot. To my immense, though withheld, displeasure, she actually succeeded. I had really hoped to be rid of that thing.
More interesting to me is that she mentioned a mentor, a dwarf named Grandar. Maevia hasn’t spoken much of her past and I was curious to hear more of this. I had assumed up until now that she’d simply left home and started killing things, her style of fighting has always seemed wild and unrefined. She’s as likely to bash herself into her foes as she is to use her weapon on them. But, as it seems, this is a style of dwarven fighting called battleraging. I hope we run into this Grandar on our journeys at some point, it should be interesting to pry some stories out of him about Maevia.
Felfedau sent a letter to her sister back in Tidesoria, and then slipped away to ask Ayre about her dreams. She seemed to want privacy during the meeting itself, but she was willing to speak about what transpired later. Ayre supposed that the red light in her dream is actually someone trying to make contact with her by means of a spell. I am uncertain about this, however. I may not be a magic scholar, my spells are derived from my draconic ancestry, the magic is more something I feel and will into existence than something I earned through study, but it seems to me that if this were simply a communication spell, they would have a clearer message than an ominous red light.
Veilour also went shopping, and he found a merchant who was selling armor of a higher quality than what could be found elsewhere. I worked with the leatherworker to get a suit fitted for myself, and I fear I may have splurged a bit on the result, but I rather think that the end result was worth it. You can’t put a price on comfort and beauty.
With our business here concluded, we sadly had to make our way back to Gunnato. The irony here was not lost on me. I had wanted nothing more than to escape Gunnato and come to Ursalia. And now that I am here, I have to return. It was for a good cause, of course, but the trip felt longer than any other part of our travels so far. Every step took me closer to the same prison I had risked everything to escape from.
At least Maevia’s cooking was still good. And we got out wagon back, so I didn’t have to walk.
Along the way, Felfedau woke up to a disturbing nightmare, saying she saw a second light in her dreams. I still assume this has something to do with Aurmilx. We really need to eradicate them as soon as we’re done here, for poor Felfedau’s sanity if nothing else.
We arrived on the border of Gunnato not long after this. But I had been working on a new spell along the way to try to help us go unnoticed. The sisters know what we look like, and my master lived in this same city, so I did not want to go in looking as we did now. I used my magic to disguise us, and I put a great deal of work into making each of my companions as beautiful or handsome as I could manage. Except, I fear, for Felfedau. She was far lovelier without the illusion, and I felt a pang of guilt as I disguised her features with magic, as though I was covering up some fine piece of art.
I was particularly proud of Marv’s disguise. No longer an emaciated orc, he was now a strapping man with a fine beard. Veilour was simple, as he was already a handsome fellow, so I simply altered his features a bit and changed his skin color, and turned his horns into amami ears, and his long tail into an adorable cotton one. I wouldn’t tell him that I deliberately made it as fluffy looking as possible, of course. Airika was also along with us on the trip, and she told me she believed she was once a cait, and so a cait I made her again.
Maevia is where I decided to have a little fun. She had asked me to turn her into a small human, but I didn’t think anyone would believe that disguise. So I decided to make her into the most adorable looking halfling I could think of, complete with a wide gown. She was so cute, and her annoyance with me over this only made her cuter. I was going to enjoy this while it lasted.
We made our way through the city to the von Freitz mansion, where we had no choice but to wait for nightfall to make our move. But even under cover of darkness, the mansion was tightly guarded by well-armored mercenaries. Kicking in the front door, while possible, would likely have attracted ire from the city guards and caused a commotion, not to mention put Veilour’s mother in danger. So we decided to let Veilour do what he does best, and try to sneak his way through.
I used Silence to deaden any noise as he pried open a window, and then placed an invisibility spell on him, and wished him luck.
I was not witness to what happened within, so what comes next is a second-hand account from Veilour’s own words. He snuck through and saw his ladies in the living room together, not to mention he saw a number of other armored guards, making the whole operation more dangerous than we had anticipated.
He was familiar with the layout of the mansion, but there was one room which was under tight watch. Suspecting this was the room where his mother was being held prisoner, he used a vial of alchemist fire to cause a distraction. With their backs turned, he assaulted the remaining guard under the cover of invisibility, but somehow the guard didn’t die from the attack.
Alarm was raised, though the guard didn’t know what had hit him. She asked another guard to stand watch as she went hunting, and Veilour summoned Camilla in the form of a cat and used her to distract the secondary guard. He was then able to slip into the room, where he found his mother at last, alive and unharmed. We had made it in time.
He was able to convince her that he was her son and here to help, despite his new appearance. But before they could leave the room, the female guard from before returned, with a second guard with better equipment than the others. They couldn’t see Veilour, but decided to take his mother and relocate her, forcing Veilour to act.
Summoning a cloud of darkness, he grasped his mother’s hand and slipped by, but there was no longer any question that there was an intruder.
Meanwhile, outside, my companions were ready to bust through the windows and come after Veilour. I tried to keep them calm, but as soon as there was a sound of commotion, Felfedau acted, running straight up the wall and through the window. I called after her and scaled the wall after her, while Marv, Maevia and Airika crashed through the windows below.
Veilour and his mother were trying to make it to the window, while Felfedau ran ahead and straight into the guards, where she was quickly taken out and captured. The female one Veilour had attacked earlier transformed into a massive demon, and picked her up, aiming to take her somewhere deeper in the mansion. I used my magic to befuddle the guards near the stairs, and then uttered a word of healing for Felfedau, bringing her back and allowing her to  attack the demon’s pressure points, stunning it and giving us an edge. But the heavily armored guard was hot on Veilour’s heels, and proving too much to handle in a duel.
Down below, the fight was going better. Marv animated a bag of nails, using them like a swarm of bees to overwhelm his foes. Maevia, still in the form of a distractingly cute halfling, took the guards by surprise and delivered hammering blows to them. Airika’s cait disguise also mislead them, as she used her tail to attack them.
I nimbly dodged out of the way of all attacks used in my direction, aided by my illusion magic to create doubles of myself. But I suppose I got overconfident, because when one of our foes managed to hit me, he struck true and delivered an incredibly painful injury. The jarring pain caused me to lose concentration on the magic that was keeping the guards pacified, making our situation worse.
I watched Veilour’s mother escape through the window. Veilour tried to follow, but the well-armed guard transformed into a demon himself and incapacitated him. Felfedau and I began to back away to the window, but we were pinned in. In desperation, I called out for Maevia, and she appeared, cleaving her axe through both of the demons and banishing them back to their realm. But that still left the human guards to deal with, and I could tell that they were proving a challenge, because Maevia looked more winded than usual, and another deadly blow was struck to me, leaving me on my last legs, and with no more magic left to protect myself.
I could only hope that Marv and Airika were in better shape down below…
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canadasearchtk · 5 years ago
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Do you allow you to pay for yourself on dates or in the spirit of the times offer to split the bill? And then how does the man react? New research in this area may surprise you. Irina Gil is looking for a formula that would suit everyone. “Girls, the first time I paid for myself on a date)) With a debut!” - the phone hummed with disappointment, disguised as irony. I looked at the calendar: autumn, 2016. It’s time. The burning issue of paying for shared leisure has been of interest to me for a long time. Looking at the bill until the man decides to pay it? Or do not compromise with the internal feminist and honestly report for yourself? Society easily adapts to new technologies and circumstances of life, which cannot be said about stereotypes - "a man must, a woman must." In 2008, American sociologists conducted a large-scale study based on the responses of 17 thousand respondents about the traditions of paying dates and sharing entertainment. 82% of men confirmed that they incur romantic expenses, even if the couple have been together for a long time, and only half of the women are ready to participate in these expenses (more precisely, to pay a certain part, provided that at least six months of relationship). Six years later, in 2014, the NerdWallet website conducted a similar survey, but the dynamics were minimal: 77% of the polled representatives of both sexes spoke in favor of paying for the evening with a man. My installation system “Nobody owes anything to anyone” is not very popular among friends. We argue about traditions, rituals and banal slander. The discussion is emotional, but entertaining. We are sitting on the freshly restored Postal Square and looking at the flocks of young people ... Recently, I discovered online dating and run on first dates - in the end there were fourteen! Unfortunately, the second does not add up. In words: “Well, we paid and went to the subway ...” the friends fall silent and look at me in bewilderment: - Do you pay for yourself? - Well yes. “And they don't refuse?” Do not protest? - You know, somehow not. - Any redneck you come across. I began to protect the negligent fans, which drove into the asphalt a minute ago. Then the fragile blue-eyed A., thoughtfully looking at the fountains, said: "I would very much think whether to go with SO on a second date." “It seems to me that the Universe specially sends SUCH to you,” the smart O. supported her. We argued for a short time, and I ran for another meeting. By the way, it also did not work out. A few months later, the topic of money surfaced again in our chat: O. paid for herself on a date. It had to be discussed. I asked in what situation my friends would have pulled out their wallets. “If I wanted to get down early and never write to him again,” O blurted out in a chat instantly. You can’t argue here: I want to forget failed meetings as quickly as I could to run away from them. And split accounts are a good start for such an escape. - And if he forgot his wallet or his credit card was not accepted? “I would pay, but I would never see each other again.” If the meeting is planned, but he forgot the money, then this speaks of the man’s negligent attitude, - A. cut short my attempts to shake the “man should” system. And if it's not about a date? Meetings with colleagues, friends, a “third” with a couple? Nothing has changed: friends "provided an excellent opportunity to pay a man." At least this was expected of him. On the female side, however, a stuffing was allowed on the little things - "if not enough." I had one last question: - And if your (already permanent) boyfriend regularly pays for other girls? At the same friendly or working meetings? O .: - I would normally react to this. A .: - This is his money, and he decides who to pay for. I have good friends after all. They don’t consider other people's money, and they don’t say what to do to others. - Good. Now imagine: you live together, the rent, the total budget, which, as always, is not rubber. And so he pays for other women in the company. Pays regularly. Because the “man should”, and you yourself would expect this in a different situation. Your opinion will not change? A .: - Well, I think the question is whether you are going for a walk or not. - Already gone. And the bill is paid. A .: - And if so, I will bear it, but then I will say that it was not very ... economical. There was silence in the chat. The system was to blame, but my friends were angry with me. Nobody likes to think about the causes of our social habits and even more so to question them. Yes, modern girls were the first to make dates, but despite the rule of etiquette (who invites, that is the bill), many still adhere to the traditional payment of the evening by a man. So, on the one hand, we have historical gallantry and custody based on a banal monetary imbalance: only a hundred years ago, men used their own money mainly. On the other hand, social trends and traps of the first meetings. Men are used to taking out a wallet on dates. For some, this is a kind of investment in a pleasant evening. Such gentlemen use the words “dynamo” and “breeder” after a rendezvous, on which funds were spent but not “paid off”. For others, paying dinner is a statement of oneself in the female eyes as a getter, standing firmly on the dead mammoths. For the third - social service, which is not always to their liking. And then there is this progress ... In women's handbags, a rustle of money was heard, and the need for material protection of the “earner” seemed to disappear. As well as the need to worry that I ordered a too expensive steak or cocktail, putting the right bill on the table is no longer a problem. But to be honest, we spend money on a date before the account appears on the horizon. Every month, Ukrainians spend more than one and a half thousand hryvnias on maintaining their “presentation”, which exceeds the minimum wage established by the state Regular visits to the hairdresser and beautician, compulsory hair removal, as well as eyebrows, eyelashes, nails ... And that's not counting the jars in the bathroom and the tubes in the makeup bag. Women are still convinced that appearance is their main duty and the largest investment. Due to social pressures, we are constantly on the lookout for XS size and the revolutionary “timeless makeup” technology. Because our natural eyebrows are irregular in shape, our lips are not puffy enough, our breasts may be the only aesthetically correct shape, and you can enter the bedroom only by first destroying all the hair on the body. The value of a woman as a person still boils down to "eye delight," and she constantly has to comply - with the only difference being that she is now able to pay for this tuning herself. The beauty industry has earned $ 57 million over the past year. And this is only in the United States. The most popular section of online shopping remains women's clothing, ahead of books and software. Every month, Ukrainians spend more than one and a half thousand hryvnias on maintaining their “presentation”, which exceeds the minimum wage set by the state. The final amount of the beauty calculator is impressive. Even the most expensive dinner in the restaurant, to put it mildly, is not enough. Not to mention the lonely rose in cellophane and a walk along the promenade. Amendment to a country also matters. I turned to my friend S., who had long been disappointed in the domestic candidates for the status of Mr. Big and gave myself to career and travel. She knows exactly the average temperature in the international monetary chamber. In answer to the question: “Remember your dates by country - who paid?” S. adjusted her stylish glasses and issued a list: “Georgia - yes, the USA and Canada - yes, Israel - yes. Europeans (Italian, Spaniard, Frenchman) generally did not pay. But in Ukraine it’s easy for them to be generous: the exchange rate is good for chivalry. ” By the way, the Americans have a good phrase for “purse dance” at the end of the evening. They ask: is it okay if I pay? (“Nothing, if I cry?”) This simultaneously underlines the man’s interest and respect for any woman’s answer. Progressive Americans easily offer to split the bill: 40% of them prefer to pay for themselves and would consider offending companionable behavior as an insult. Almost the same number (39%) will offer the man the 50/50 option, but would like to hear “no” in response. According to David Frederick, a professor of psychology at Chapman University, “people are happy to accept changes that make their lives easier, but they resist changes that make it harder.” Gentlemen like to be in the lead, but do not like being a “free dinner coupon”. Girls like to be led, but are reluctant to be obliged to "thank" for a purchased cocktail. Surprisingly, we often get frustrated by the economical scenario of meetings, if the date was ... none. That is, we were not interested and, worst of all, not funny. Then we look around, note the minuses of the establishment, the cheapness of the flowers presented - and it already sounds in my head: “And for that I prepared so much?” Many punctures and inconsistencies easily say goodbye after a pleasant evening with an interesting person. For such a rarity, we ourselves will pay. DRY RESIDUE 44% of men think about breaking up a relationship if a woman does not offer to cover part of the expenses during a date 16% of men think they have sex if they paid 30% of women feel less pressure, refusing sex, if they also paid the bill.
http://www.canadasearch.tk/2019/12/who-should-i-pay-for-days.html
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pitz182 · 6 years ago
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Microdosing Marijuana at 9 Years Sober
Microdosing. All the cool kids in Silicon Valley are doing it, and anyone who got sober before 2015 has been left out of the fun. At least, anyone with an all-or-nothing recovery plan, which is most people, but definitely not yours truly. Anecdotally, it looks like it’s better to have Silicon Valley hooked on low doses of LSD and psilocybin than abusing Adderall, but more empirical data on the therapeutic benefits of this trend is needed. Though I’m not going near psychedelics without a doctor’s note, I have dabbled in some microdosing on weed, and I still consider myself 100% sober.Alcohol was my problem. It was a gnarly problem. I put the kibosh on that problem in 2009 and haven’t looked back.Google piqued my interest in microdosing on weed by feeding me a headline that claimed one puff of it could blast away depression. I double-clicked. Since I deal with bipolar disorder and have benefited from using CBD (the non-psychoactive component in marijuana), the article seemed relevant.According to the study, one drag of low-THC and high-CBD dose of weed can knock out depression immediately, unlike traditional antidepressants that often take a few weeks to kick in. But, there’s a catch: Continual use of THC could worsen depression, so this had to be an every-now-and-again smoke. I stored that information in my brain for future reference, noting that if I ever experienced an intense depression that didn’t abate I could give it a try since I’m fortunate enough to live in Los Angeles (pot shops on nearly every major street).About two months after I read about the study, I got stuck in a morass of negativity and self-deprecation and self-doubt for about a week. Everything was out of alignment, and no matter how much meditation I did, I just couldn’t snap out of it. Sure, I have bipolar II, but because I take meds, 90% of the time the symptoms are manageable. Still, there are those days when stress or neurochemistry or hormones or a bad fight with a boyfriend can throw me off.Sometimes I find relief in jogging or dancing, calling my therapist or going to a meeting, but there are times where I don’t have the energy or ability to do the very things I know will help (Depression 101). Since I’ve dealt with the condition for so long, I know when I’m dealing with a chemical imbalance and when I’m dealing with a psychological imbalance.This time it felt like both.I was curious to see how the weed would work, especially since I’d heard so much about the benefits of microdosing on psychedelics from friends. Because the CBD succeeded in quieting my anxiety and smoothing out my thoughts, I figured why not try something with a bit of THC.Anyone who smokes pot can tell you that it triggers euphoria, thereby alleviating depression; you don’t need a study to tell you that. But I’ve never been a huge fan of weed, for several reasons.For starters, my sister smoked way too much of it when she was 18, and she wound up with a permanent case of acute paranoid schizophrenia right after a three-month-long binge. Her doctor said the weed probably triggered a dormant case of the illness inherited from my schizophrenic grandfather, one that would have emerged with or without the pot, it was just a matter of time. So, that instilled in me a well-warranted dose of fear.After staying far away from weed until my early 20s, I started smoking it every now and then, but not very often, and I certainly never purchased any or had it around. You’re probably wondering why I’d even risk smoking pot at all given my sister’s condition. Well, the doc also pointed out that she displayed many early signs of the disorder from childhood, and that my emotional and expressive--albeit mood-disordered--personality was opposite of what you’d typically see in a child predisposed for schizophrenia.I also had passed adolescence by the time I started smoking, and the science says adolescents are the ones most at risk. Strength and frequency also play a huge role, and my sister admitted that she holed herself up in her dorm room smoking bowl after bowl after bowl all day long for months until she literally couldn’t think anymore. I had no intention of smoking more than a hit or two off a blunt.My highs were a total mixed bag: Sometimes they relaxed me, sometimes they brought on unstoppable fits of giggles; one time I had waking dreams about dancing tortilla chips, and a few times I found myself in the midst of very uncomfortable paranoia. The one and only time I smoked way more than two hits, I wound up with full-blown psychosis that ruined an entire Halloween for multiple people. Even when smoking did bring on an enjoyable high, I still had to endure those moments of not remembering the last word I spoke, which I found, and still find, utterly horrifying. Plus my head felt like it weighed 100 pounds and my face felt like it was going to burn off.Pot just didn’t provide an alluring buzz. I never developed a craving for or addiction to it.If the weed I smoked had had even a small percentage of CBD, those episodes of paranoia would likely have not occurred since CBD actually curbs the anxiety-inducing effects of THC. In fact, in a bizarre twist of irony, studies have shown CBD effectively treats schizophrenia.Sadly, whoever bred weed in the 90s and early 2000s grew strains that had little or no CBD because it decreases the psychoactive effect. (Remember chronic?) Now, CBD is making a comeback among health-conscious, microdosing millennials who are sensible enough to want a more balanced high. This is good news for a paranoid Gen Xer.Now, you can walk into the local dispensary and see a smorgasbord of pot goodies that include CBD, from all-CBD vanilla bean cookies to 1:1 taffies to 100% CBD oil cartridges. There are salves and gums and pre-rolls and mints and a white CBD dust that looks just like cocaine, and all of them are labeled with the milligrams and the percentages of THC and CBD. This is heaven for someone like me who might want to try some pot without getting paranoid or stoned.I have to say, I love budtenders. Mitch, who manned the shop by my house, was extremely sympathetic to my terror of coming down with pot-induced paranoia. He emphasized that dosing, strain, and CBD content made a world of difference when trying to avoid it and pointed me in the direction of 1:1 taffies. Each taffy had 5 mg of CBD and THC, which sounds low, but it’s no microdose for someone like me. According to Mitch, 5 mg of CBD and THC can lead to a strong high for someone with zero pot tolerance, and I wasn’t looking to get stoned — I just wanted that mild euphoria, for the bell jar to lift.I ended up buying the taffies and slicing them into thirds, which Mitch suggested. In the end, I was ingesting about 1.5 mg of THC and 1.5 mg of CBD, which a lot of doctors would consider an ineffective dose, but not for me! My brain is super sensitive. After two hours, I ended up feeling a very small effect, but of course it grew.Ultimately, the high — if you’d call it that — was a powerful feeling of ease and positivity. My thoughts quieted, and yes, a mild euphoria fell over me. It was, without a doubt, a nice buzz, but a buzz no more intense than a glass of wine sipped slowly and on a reasonably full stomach. Despite this buzz, I had no craving for more pot. I was so pleased to not be paranoid or forgetting my thoughts as they spilled out of my head, the last thing I wanted was more. More might have induced those adverse effects. (Oh, the benefits of legalization!)I am not ashamed of that pot buzz nor do I think it nulls my sobriety in any way. My sobriety is just that — my sobriety, and it’s not some stringent moral code that demands I never feel any psychoactive pleasure whatsoever just because I used to drink myself into rages, sobs, and blackouts. If the pot buzz was harmless and actually beneficial for my mental health, why not embrace it? One of the main reasons I got off the booze is because how seriously destabilizing it is for my mood given my bipolar diagnosis. When I drank too much, it sent me crashing down into suicidal depressions.Normal drinkers get a slight buzz — if not a big buzz — from their drinks, and they’ll admit it. It’s a social lubricant and a relaxant that well-adjusted and healthy folks leverage all the time to take the edge off and have fun. When they manage to leverage these positive aspects of alcohol without destroying their lives, we tip our hats to them.Being out of AA for nearly three years no doubt helped me take the microdosing plunge with zero guilt.Now, if I wanted to gorge myself on those taffies after this experience, that would be problematic, at least for me. Someone else might not care if they engage that behavior, but I’m not in the mood to pick up any new addictions.I’m still very wary of using weed on the regular given my familial history of schizophrenia, though at this age my chances of developing the illness are low. Some studies have shown that heavy and regular use can fry your short-term memory, and I’m not down for that either: I need all the synapses I can get as I push 40. So, I don’t plan on using it very often.After having the weed, the positive mood lasted for a few days without ingesting any more taffies. I basically just returned to baseline. I didn’t eat any for weeks after that episode. Since then, I’ve probably had two or three, each time cutting them in thirds or halves. After a while, the package just sat there in the fridge, and eventually I ended up tossing them when I moved out of the apartment.So, now I have no taffies, and I could frankly care less. If I feel like one might help me in the future, I’ll take it. If I go out to the desert, maybe I’ll take some for recreational use. Either way, I know my limitations, and I know I don’t want to do it often. Because I don’t experience a craving, I doubt this will be a problem. I experienced a craving for alcohol from Day One. From the very beginning, I needed more.“Marijuana maintenance,” or smoking pot in recovery, is generally frowned upon by your standard AA member. Historically referred to (incorrectly) as “the gateway drug,” 12-step philosophy looks at it in the same way, cautioning that if you start smoking it in recovery it will open up the floodgates toward drinking again.The problem with this thinking is that it doesn’t take into account the vast differences that exist between all of us, be they physiological or psychological, or, hell, even spiritual. After reading much about recovery, from Lance Dodes to Marc Lewis to Gabrielle Glaser to Bill Wilson and all the stories in the rest of the Big Book, I feel that it's unconscionable to argue that we are not unique, as so many people do in 12-step programs. We are highly unique, and observing this and tailoring treatment plans for each individual will increase success at recovery. One-size-fits-all recovery modalities are, according to my research, quite dangerous.Imagine if a woman with breast cancer walked into a doctor’s office and the doctor said, “Well, there’s no reason to take any additional imaging because all breast cancer patients are the same. You’re not unique. Mastectomy it is!”Even in the dark ages medicine was probably more sophisticated than this. So why are we in the dark ages when it comes to addiction treatment? If our bodies are this unique, then so are our minds. The field of psychiatry also takes our differences into account, with medication and other treatment prescribed according to individual circumstances.I am not encouraging anyone to microdose, but I am trying to encourage the sober community to keep an open mind about new psychotherapeutic treatments and to accept the fact that some people can stay away from their drug of choice while indulging in a substance that wasn’t and isn’t problematic. Studies have shown that marijuana can benefit our mental health; let’s continue to study this promising medicine instead of closing ourselves off to it out of fear.Microdosing on anything while in recovery is a very nuanced topic, and drawing blanket conclusions won’t do anyone a bit of good. But in order to make room for these conversations, we have to be open and accepting. We have to be willing to say, “Okay, she can take a little THC every now and then and enjoy it. I know it’s not a good idea for me since I smoked too much pot in the past, so I won’t do it.” We all need to be in touch with our own limits and accept them while not imposing them on others; otherwise, we resort to reductive fear-mongering that has no basis in reality.
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alexdmorgan30 · 6 years ago
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Microdosing Marijuana at 9 Years Sober
Microdosing. All the cool kids in Silicon Valley are doing it, and anyone who got sober before 2015 has been left out of the fun. At least, anyone with an all-or-nothing recovery plan, which is most people, but definitely not yours truly. Anecdotally, it looks like it’s better to have Silicon Valley hooked on low doses of LSD and psilocybin than abusing Adderall, but more empirical data on the therapeutic benefits of this trend is needed. Though I’m not going near psychedelics without a doctor’s note, I have dabbled in some microdosing on weed, and I still consider myself 100% sober.Alcohol was my problem. It was a gnarly problem. I put the kibosh on that problem in 2009 and haven’t looked back.Google piqued my interest in microdosing on weed by feeding me a headline that claimed one puff of it could blast away depression. I double-clicked. Since I deal with bipolar disorder and have benefited from using CBD (the non-psychoactive component in marijuana), the article seemed relevant.According to the study, one drag of low-THC and high-CBD dose of weed can knock out depression immediately, unlike traditional antidepressants that often take a few weeks to kick in. But, there’s a catch: Continual use of THC could worsen depression, so this had to be an every-now-and-again smoke. I stored that information in my brain for future reference, noting that if I ever experienced an intense depression that didn’t abate I could give it a try since I’m fortunate enough to live in Los Angeles (pot shops on nearly every major street).About two months after I read about the study, I got stuck in a morass of negativity and self-deprecation and self-doubt for about a week. Everything was out of alignment, and no matter how much meditation I did, I just couldn’t snap out of it. Sure, I have bipolar II, but because I take meds, 90% of the time the symptoms are manageable. Still, there are those days when stress or neurochemistry or hormones or a bad fight with a boyfriend can throw me off.Sometimes I find relief in jogging or dancing, calling my therapist or going to a meeting, but there are times where I don’t have the energy or ability to do the very things I know will help (Depression 101). Since I’ve dealt with the condition for so long, I know when I’m dealing with a chemical imbalance and when I’m dealing with a psychological imbalance.This time it felt like both.I was curious to see how the weed would work, especially since I’d heard so much about the benefits of microdosing on psychedelics from friends. Because the CBD succeeded in quieting my anxiety and smoothing out my thoughts, I figured why not try something with a bit of THC.Anyone who smokes pot can tell you that it triggers euphoria, thereby alleviating depression; you don’t need a study to tell you that. But I’ve never been a huge fan of weed, for several reasons.For starters, my sister smoked way too much of it when she was 18, and she wound up with a permanent case of acute paranoid schizophrenia right after a three-month-long binge. Her doctor said the weed probably triggered a dormant case of the illness inherited from my schizophrenic grandfather, one that would have emerged with or without the pot, it was just a matter of time. So, that instilled in me a well-warranted dose of fear.After staying far away from weed until my early 20s, I started smoking it every now and then, but not very often, and I certainly never purchased any or had it around. You’re probably wondering why I’d even risk smoking pot at all given my sister’s condition. Well, the doc also pointed out that she displayed many early signs of the disorder from childhood, and that my emotional and expressive--albeit mood-disordered--personality was opposite of what you’d typically see in a child predisposed for schizophrenia.I also had passed adolescence by the time I started smoking, and the science says adolescents are the ones most at risk. Strength and frequency also play a huge role, and my sister admitted that she holed herself up in her dorm room smoking bowl after bowl after bowl all day long for months until she literally couldn’t think anymore. I had no intention of smoking more than a hit or two off a blunt.My highs were a total mixed bag: Sometimes they relaxed me, sometimes they brought on unstoppable fits of giggles; one time I had waking dreams about dancing tortilla chips, and a few times I found myself in the midst of very uncomfortable paranoia. The one and only time I smoked way more than two hits, I wound up with full-blown psychosis that ruined an entire Halloween for multiple people. Even when smoking did bring on an enjoyable high, I still had to endure those moments of not remembering the last word I spoke, which I found, and still find, utterly horrifying. Plus my head felt like it weighed 100 pounds and my face felt like it was going to burn off.Pot just didn’t provide an alluring buzz. I never developed a craving for or addiction to it.If the weed I smoked had had even a small percentage of CBD, those episodes of paranoia would likely have not occurred since CBD actually curbs the anxiety-inducing effects of THC. In fact, in a bizarre twist of irony, studies have shown CBD effectively treats schizophrenia.Sadly, whoever bred weed in the 90s and early 2000s grew strains that had little or no CBD because it decreases the psychoactive effect. (Remember chronic?) Now, CBD is making a comeback among health-conscious, microdosing millennials who are sensible enough to want a more balanced high. This is good news for a paranoid Gen Xer.Now, you can walk into the local dispensary and see a smorgasbord of pot goodies that include CBD, from all-CBD vanilla bean cookies to 1:1 taffies to 100% CBD oil cartridges. There are salves and gums and pre-rolls and mints and a white CBD dust that looks just like cocaine, and all of them are labeled with the milligrams and the percentages of THC and CBD. This is heaven for someone like me who might want to try some pot without getting paranoid or stoned.I have to say, I love budtenders. Mitch, who manned the shop by my house, was extremely sympathetic to my terror of coming down with pot-induced paranoia. He emphasized that dosing, strain, and CBD content made a world of difference when trying to avoid it and pointed me in the direction of 1:1 taffies. Each taffy had 5 mg of CBD and THC, which sounds low, but it’s no microdose for someone like me. According to Mitch, 5 mg of CBD and THC can lead to a strong high for someone with zero pot tolerance, and I wasn’t looking to get stoned — I just wanted that mild euphoria, for the bell jar to lift.I ended up buying the taffies and slicing them into thirds, which Mitch suggested. In the end, I was ingesting about 1.5 mg of THC and 1.5 mg of CBD, which a lot of doctors would consider an ineffective dose, but not for me! My brain is super sensitive. After two hours, I ended up feeling a very small effect, but of course it grew.Ultimately, the high — if you’d call it that — was a powerful feeling of ease and positivity. My thoughts quieted, and yes, a mild euphoria fell over me. It was, without a doubt, a nice buzz, but a buzz no more intense than a glass of wine sipped slowly and on a reasonably full stomach. Despite this buzz, I had no craving for more pot. I was so pleased to not be paranoid or forgetting my thoughts as they spilled out of my head, the last thing I wanted was more. More might have induced those adverse effects. (Oh, the benefits of legalization!)I am not ashamed of that pot buzz nor do I think it nulls my sobriety in any way. My sobriety is just that — my sobriety, and it’s not some stringent moral code that demands I never feel any psychoactive pleasure whatsoever just because I used to drink myself into rages, sobs, and blackouts. If the pot buzz was harmless and actually beneficial for my mental health, why not embrace it? One of the main reasons I got off the booze is because how seriously destabilizing it is for my mood given my bipolar diagnosis. When I drank too much, it sent me crashing down into suicidal depressions.Normal drinkers get a slight buzz — if not a big buzz — from their drinks, and they’ll admit it. It’s a social lubricant and a relaxant that well-adjusted and healthy folks leverage all the time to take the edge off and have fun. When they manage to leverage these positive aspects of alcohol without destroying their lives, we tip our hats to them.Being out of AA for nearly three years no doubt helped me take the microdosing plunge with zero guilt.Now, if I wanted to gorge myself on those taffies after this experience, that would be problematic, at least for me. Someone else might not care if they engage that behavior, but I’m not in the mood to pick up any new addictions.I’m still very wary of using weed on the regular given my familial history of schizophrenia, though at this age my chances of developing the illness are low. Some studies have shown that heavy and regular use can fry your short-term memory, and I’m not down for that either: I need all the synapses I can get as I push 40. So, I don’t plan on using it very often.After having the weed, the positive mood lasted for a few days without ingesting any more taffies. I basically just returned to baseline. I didn’t eat any for weeks after that episode. Since then, I’ve probably had two or three, each time cutting them in thirds or halves. After a while, the package just sat there in the fridge, and eventually I ended up tossing them when I moved out of the apartment.So, now I have no taffies, and I could frankly care less. If I feel like one might help me in the future, I’ll take it. If I go out to the desert, maybe I’ll take some for recreational use. Either way, I know my limitations, and I know I don’t want to do it often. Because I don’t experience a craving, I doubt this will be a problem. I experienced a craving for alcohol from Day One. From the very beginning, I needed more.“Marijuana maintenance,” or smoking pot in recovery, is generally frowned upon by your standard AA member. Historically referred to (incorrectly) as “the gateway drug,” 12-step philosophy looks at it in the same way, cautioning that if you start smoking it in recovery it will open up the floodgates toward drinking again.The problem with this thinking is that it doesn’t take into account the vast differences that exist between all of us, be they physiological or psychological, or, hell, even spiritual. After reading much about recovery, from Lance Dodes to Marc Lewis to Gabrielle Glaser to Bill Wilson and all the stories in the rest of the Big Book, I feel that it's unconscionable to argue that we are not unique, as so many people do in 12-step programs. We are highly unique, and observing this and tailoring treatment plans for each individual will increase success at recovery. One-size-fits-all recovery modalities are, according to my research, quite dangerous.Imagine if a woman with breast cancer walked into a doctor’s office and the doctor said, “Well, there’s no reason to take any additional imaging because all breast cancer patients are the same. You’re not unique. Mastectomy it is!”Even in the dark ages medicine was probably more sophisticated than this. So why are we in the dark ages when it comes to addiction treatment? If our bodies are this unique, then so are our minds. The field of psychiatry also takes our differences into account, with medication and other treatment prescribed according to individual circumstances.I am not encouraging anyone to microdose, but I am trying to encourage the sober community to keep an open mind about new psychotherapeutic treatments and to accept the fact that some people can stay away from their drug of choice while indulging in a substance that wasn’t and isn’t problematic. Studies have shown that marijuana can benefit our mental health; let’s continue to study this promising medicine instead of closing ourselves off to it out of fear.Microdosing on anything while in recovery is a very nuanced topic, and drawing blanket conclusions won’t do anyone a bit of good. But in order to make room for these conversations, we have to be open and accepting. We have to be willing to say, “Okay, she can take a little THC every now and then and enjoy it. I know it’s not a good idea for me since I smoked too much pot in the past, so I won’t do it.” We all need to be in touch with our own limits and accept them while not imposing them on others; otherwise, we resort to reductive fear-mongering that has no basis in reality.
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