#the pink/purple of her eyes is from the pigment having been stripped out

[moth-in-retrograde]

What a wild few years it's been. The bottom 2 are a year apart (2020 and 2021 respectively)!! The top one is from just this year.

This is Arachne Weaver, a fashion designer who gives local supers practical and beautiful uniforms. She also, through a perception ability, can tell a person's motivations, which is invaluable to those trying to keep their identities and families safe.

[awrldalone]

31st July 2022, 10.26am

My eyes are still puffy, the back of my throat still tastes like mucus and salt. This is a house of criers.

Yesterday I cut for the first time in almost two months. The 3rd of August would have been the day, but I was too weak. It was not even for a big reason, although I guess I might have done it because of everything else.

I was painting lilies. I bought cheap children’s paint, the pigment weak and dull. I like doing manual things, it takes the mind off of things for a long time, and regardless of the result I feel grateful I managed to finish something. Everything around me feels unfinished. If what I create looks pretty, I am glad I have brought something beautiful into this world. 

I asked M. if we could call. He said in a bit. I did one of those teeth whitening strips. Then I made myself rose tea, it was bitter, more than it should have. On my way out of the kitchen, I heard my mother sobbing quietly while cutting off tags from white clothes. It was probably new underwear, but I did not look at it as I asked her if everything was okay and she replied saying she just had a hard day. I gave her a tissue. She said she wanted to be left alone. I closed the door behind me.

The green of my paint tubes was too cold. Too blue. I mixed orange in it until it became warmer, sunnier. It was the dark color of leaves under the late-September sun, when the light has gotten orange and red and gold but the trees have not yet started to undress. I gave a first coat of paint on the yellowish page.

I called M., putting in my blue earphones and moving the lamp on my desk away from my face, to prevent harsh shadows from forming. He always looks so pretty, but yesterday night he was sad. It was a quiet call. His presence, albeit digital, was comforting: it’s so hard not to be able to leave my house, walk twenty minutes and ring at his doorbell to stay in his arms. 

The green of the page got covered in blue, teal, then green again, the ripples of the water starting to show. He told me about how he packed all the things from his old apartment. He broke his TV in the car with his mom. I started mixing other greens, for the lily pads, and he seemed sad.

I heard my sister cry from the other room as I started brushing on white and pink for the flowers, so I sighed and whispered in the microphone I would be back in a second. 

Her mascara had traced dark clouds around her eyes. The purple LED lights of her room made her red skin look redder. She hugged me tight, she said she did not want this any longer, that she wishes for things to go back to what they were. I told her it is normal, that it is okay for her to cry, and that things will get easier with time.

I am starting to feel guilty about the fact I will be moving out. I do not have an apartment yet ------ which scares me, because what if I end up not having a place to stay? Will I just have to stay home? ------------ but the idea of leaving my sister home alone feels wrong, unfair.

We went to the bathroom and I helped her wash off the make up, then I put her to sleep. 

M. was still there when I got back. It was around midnight. I added white ripples to my painting with a marker. Next time I will paint you, I said, even though I would never do him justice. Even if I had the proper skill, even if I were Caravaggio, I doubt I could fully capture his beauty. Pictures cannot either, because it is not a purely physical allure. There is something about him that makes him shine even when the sky is cloudy and sun cannot kiss him.

He said he misses me a lot. Before the call ended, he was about to cry. I live in a room built on tears. He said it was late, that he had work in early morning, that we should go to sleep. 

I went to the bathroom and I cut. The blade is not dull, not as much as I expected, but it pearled up slowly on my leg, red and dark and shameful.

Then I cried, uncontrollably, for hours.

-c.

[zhaozaipalooza]

Your Weekly Drabble! - Day 1 | Festival

The missing drabble for LuZhao mini-week where I brought to you Holi? — here it is! ✨

The court painter fiddled with the array of tools at his side - paled slightly, lips forming a curse - then quickly bit it down, stammering about getting a few supplies before he excused himself. Red curtains framing the prince’s portrait-to-be settled behind him.

Lu Ten sprang from his seat. He paced to drum out his annoyance through the silks lining the floor. When that didn’t work, he ducked out of the same opening. 

A massive, tiled chamber cleared of the average riches piled in a palace room, sunlight streaming from the corridor outside, gave him more breath than his lungs knew what to do with. When the day glowed, he couldn’t resist the same - not as a child, not as a princeling aware of his place in a turning world, fire in his heart and fingers. Dance with me, sing with me, run with me, said the sun… and Lu Ten followed.

The rays guided his eyes over ornate fixtures, twisting pillars and rosy walls, to a guard stationed beside the open door. His helmet was clutched in a free hand to keep it from slipping over his eyes. He caught Lu Ten smiling, and mustered a look of confidence. 

Peace that uncommonly smoothed Zhao’s face - in his presence, no one else’s - was knocked off when Lu Ten jabbed a fist into his side. “Yip!” His eyes bugged, rubbing at the sore spot.

“Loosen up! You’re only in charge of me and the, uh…” he cleared his throat, “snail sloth. And no thief is going to steal the wallpaper.”

“It’s only been half an hour.” He gripped the helmet. “Anything could happen. Do you know how much this sort of position pays? To serve inside palace walls? I’ll never go hungry again.” His lips turned firm. “I wouldn’t have managed to land it without your pull. I can’t go risking it now.”

Zhao grabbed in air when the headpiece slid neatly off his topknot. The prince tucked it in the crook of his arm. “You won’t go hungry again. Ever.” 

“I promise.” Their eyes met, something of more absence than they knew what to do with fleeing their lungs. 

Lu Ten blinked off the daze first, hauling him by the arm behind the curtains, where the painter had abandoned his things. He was first to press his lips to his and linger slowly, sweetly.

Zhao’s laughter was between a rumble and a sigh. “You thought you could get bored when I was right outside?”

“Pah... I have you around for more than that.” He strung a lock of Zhao’s hair around his knuckle, thumb skimming his cheek. Within an instant, Lu Ten tugged free, jumped onto the chair where he was meant to sit motionless for hours - looking so daring and heroic that it was comical. “We’re adventurers! The gods threw us together, watched us train together, conquer together. We’re meant to make history, not lounge around waiting for history to make out who we were from a painting.”

“Hm, now there’s a good point.” His disbelief mingled with awe in Lu Ten’s shadow - one he barely noticed. Zhao laughed more, the sound crinkling with a soft snort. How are you so full of life?

“We could cross the tundra, climb mountain ranges where airbender ruins still whisper to the living,” Lu Ten pantomimed an otherworldly sensation, with a swirling mock of airbending - Sozin’s descendants weren’t taught much in the way of regard. Neither was the nation; Zhao fought a grin. “Or! We could master our firebending under the greatest there ever were… the very first benders to learn from the dragons.”

“The Sun Warriors?” He leaned against the wall, hoping it wasn’t indecorous - some part of him would always feel like an ugly blot in the lap of luxury. Zhao’s memory tingled, “I read of them. Once. Sounded like a tall tale to me. If they existed, they’re far gone now.”

“I say they’re alive and well.” He hopped down. The legs of the chair jerked back. “Fire of every color thrives there. Blue, purple, green, all blazing hot. Colors that don’t have names! There’s a thousand stairs to reach the golden temple behind a sea of clouds, and once you-”

“Come on, green fire? Your head’s stuck in a sea of clouds. I say tundra.”

“Stuck in a- you hate snow!” The prince’s huff spoke easily for him after all the time they’d spent together: dream a little! He gave Zhao one of his father’s looks and went to the pigments sitting in neat boxes in a larger hinged case, and grumbled again. This one stood for that sore loser…

“He hasn’t even mixed the powders into paints. I can tell where he sourced some of them - the white is crushed seashells, it looks like. Fragile, tiny shells… Four hours is starting to look like ten.”

“Green fire, purple fire, ooh,” Zhao was teasing, “What’s next, each of them stand for a pillar of society? Yellow for contracts, green for tea, pink for… hm, intercourse? I think we should start with that one when we get th-”

A creative itch had sprouted a full-out snarkfest; the prince suddenly twisted, flinging a fistful of ground powder in his guard’s direction. Outside of these walls they were lieutenant and ensign, soldiers homeward-bound if luck was on their side.

“Or maybe it stands for paying a little more respect.” Lu Ten smirked, hands at his hips. “Not that you’ve ever followed that pillar of society.”

Zhao shielded his face too late, swiped off the glimmering traces. Face ajar and upturned at his nerve.

Here, they were a lot younger, and they were home. As young as they should be.

“So that’s how it is.”

One half-hour stretched out for twenty more minutes, the seconds passing like snow in a blizzard. Fun thinned time, after all, dragging the sun higher into the sky, melting down their reservations. “You want to learn from the Sun Warriors? Well, I’m twice the warrior you are, and Agni knows my family has the divine blessing of the sun - so why not learn a lesson or two?”

“You’re on.”

Lu Ten ripped each box loose and scattered them outside the curtains; clouds of mushed petals, the deep green of palm leaves, a reddish rust like clay shingles, and pale alabaster shells - all drifting in the air like trails of smoke. The prince was splattered, his friend powdered head to foot like a circus novelty, and their laughter shook the gleaming (once spotless) hall.

“Get back here, get back here- oh no you d- ack!” Fingers smudged like they’d been rooting in the royal kitchen and licking off cream, sleeves rolled and rumpled, armor stripped so their feet could race lightly back and forth on the slippery floor.

“I’m over here, old man!”

Endless, Zhao thought, let this moment be endless. Bare skin freckled in a dizzying prism of sight and scent; he’d thrown something of tartness, plunged through the aroma of flowers to streak Lu Ten’s beaming face. He ceded him the point, returned with a swipe of orange made from dried seeds, dusting the top of his head like a showy plume. He puffed out a pale wisp. Lu Ten folded, cradling his colorful, aching gut.

They ended sprawled wide, one on top of the other, undistinguished from anything. Littering the crook of his collar, neck, cheek, and ear with kisses, the one pinned muffling a fit with the back of his palm.

“Hey,” Zhao rolled aside, the both of them heaving, trained on the hazy light pooled in the ceiling. “Don’t fire that painter.”

“Huh?” Soaking in the quiet, Lu Ten glanced over.

“He’s new to this. Wracked with nerves. Who knows if he’s trying to make ends meet? Give him a chance.” Like you did me.

The prince thought it over. “Of course. Snap judgements are more my uncle’s thing.”

“Oh gods, does he scare me.” They spent the little breath they’d scraped together snickering.

The Firelord’s firstborn accompanied the worrisome painter to pay his son a visit… No sooner had they entered the corridor did the spray of lavender on a flowerpot clue the artist to go lightheaded.

Iroh hurried to promise his compensation, divined the prince’s likely attitude to having to wash off and remain statuesque until dinner, and decided the best course of action.

The painter was redirected to capture the fiasco in a sketch, nearly abstract: both boys with their arms looped over shoulders, a smile held in their eyes as long as their warmth was close. The young man tutted under his breath as he improvised, following the stains and speckles on Lu Ten and Zhao with a deft fingertip. In the final touches, he seemed to have enjoyed himself, too.

“You should join us for dinner.” It was sundown. The prince held the piece of parchment gingerly, softening whenever his eye crossed it again.

Adventurers.

His father had extended the gesture, son nodding along. “No, no, I couldn’t.” Zhao held up his palms, still tinged with a sea of floral and earthen smells. “The pay as a royal guard is plenty, even for a temporary station… I can look after the rest myself. I know how.”

“It would be bad manners for us to let a guest leave without experiencing the most of their stay.” The general’s eyes twinkled. “And here is the best of the best! Meals so fulfilling they leave room for fifth helpings.”

“You are more than a royal guard here.” A warm, heavy palm took Zhao’s shoulder. “As close as you are to my son, I think of you as my own.”

All he knew, even decades after the best meal of his life, was that things would have gone a lot differently if he had refused.

- - -

What a dark path, the one that lay down the other fork in the road. Thankfully, in this life, Zhao had not strayed.

The city was rife with celebration, lanterns dazzling the canals as their reflections bobbed in the water. Brilliant red, jade, and silvery powders made from starch and ground herbs coasted the night air. 

A young girl in braids scampered down the pavement - chin purpled, hair smattered with blues and greens - and leaped into Zhao’s arms. He spun on a heel with her momentum, hearing a shriek of delight before her fists anchored themselves in his front. 

“This is the best! I never want to sleep again. And Ma bought me these!” She placed a warm cake before his face, expectant, and he nibbled off one end. Sweet bean paste.

Her smile revealed the gap between her teeth; snuggling to his chest again, she sighed in content. “It’s so pretty… How come this wasn’t around when you were a kid?”

“Well,” Zhao rocked her gently, an unconscious swaying that soothed her since she could crawl. “It’s actually for someone very special. He was alive when I was young. I knew him. Firelord Iroh wants the world to know him, too.”

Her eyes lit up. “I read about him in school. I tell my friends, ‘My daddy knew a prince!’ and they ask so many questions.” Zhao laughed softly, and she asked, “What was he like? Really like?”

He thought it over. “… Like this. Just like this.” Like what? Lights and colors flickered over the darkness, an endless sun, a glow that rose and went on forever. 

“Wonderful.”

[yukizakii]

like cherry blossoms

The brown eyes that stare back at her in the mirror are familiar, but the skin underneath is creased and purple with dark circles. Her lips are pale and chapped, her skin dry and tan from the sun. Chizuru recognizes this girl, but at the same time she does not.

Chizuru comes to face with her femininity after years of hiding as a man in the Shinsengumi.

posted on ao3

A hard day's work.

She looks at herself in the little mirror on the desk after she lights the oil lamp, the flames illuminating the small room with a warm glow. The mirror is a new addition to the sparse furnishings of her room, courtesy of a gift she had received this morning from the ever-so-kind Kondou, coming back from a trip to Osaka—How could I let a young lady live like this? Surely you must want a mirror and a comb. I insist you take this gift, for all that you have done for us. She has grown used to seeing herself only in the reflection in the well in the courtyard to tie up her hair in the mornings (the mirror she had packed from Edo had broken during her travels to Kyoto) but tonight she kneels and holds up the beautiful wooden mirror up to scrutinize her appearance in detail for years.

Chizuru is shocked to see someone that she barely recognizes staring back at her.

The brown eyes that stare back at her are familiar, but the skin underneath is creased and purple with dark circles. Her lips are pale and chapped, her skin dry and tan from the sun. There is a flush of ruddy pink on her nose and cheeks, courtesy of a bad sunburn she received a few days ago on an extended patrol. Chizuru knows that she has lost some weight after years of running around Kyoto and the compound with the Shinsengumi, and she is startled to see that it reflects in her face as well; her youthful rounded cheeks have sharpened around the edges. She looks…older, but not in a way that she expected.

She peeks at her reflection one way, tilts her head another to examine her appearance from a different angle. She parts her bangs to the left, right, and then raises her arms to work apart the thick knot in the heavyweight cord to let down her hair. Chizuru shakes her head to loosen the hair, running her fingers through the stiff locks. The humidity of the summer heat has made it frizz, and it curls in wayward directions at the tips. Normally silky straight in the drier heat of Edo, her hair seems to have grown a mind of its own in the Kyoto summer. Her hair reeks of sweat after spending the day patrolling the town in the blazing heat to ask about her father, but there is no time to go to the public bathhouse until tomorrow afternoon, when she can slip away after morning chores and return in time for dinner preparations.

Chizuru looks at her reflection again with her hair down, and frowns. She looks a bit more like a woman with her hair down, but the frizz and the length of her bangs seem to completely swamp her feminine features. Kondou’s gift had been thoughtful, but every glance she takes in the mirror alights further disappointment in her heart. Chizuru recognizes this girl, but at the same time she does not.

Everything she does on a tight schedule. She is busy, she tells herself. She has a purpose and things to do here, and the daily rush and routine should be enough to keep her content. And it does, truly; Chizuru has always been at her happiest when she has things to do. Although her heart hurts for the years it has been since she has seen her father, her days are filled with warmth and fulfillment helping out around the headquarters and laughing with the men of the Shinsengumi. She has adventured out and around Japan more than any other girl her age likely would have, and she cherishes the memories and knowledge she has gained with her time at the Shinsengumi.

But for a moment, Chizuru self-consciously brings her fingers up to her dry lips, her fingers catching on the peeling skin. She pretends that her finger is a brush sweeping red pigment, as if she were a beautiful geisha like the women in Shimabara. She thinks of that beautiful young woman she met on the streets of Kyoto. Nagumo Kaoru, who had had a face eerily similar to hers, but with a beautiful mature elegance that even in retrospect sparks a twinge of jealousy deep within Chizuru’s heart.

She closes her eyes and imagines her life back in Edo—yes, when she was simply Yukimura Chizuru, beloved daughter of the revered Western doctor Yukimura Kodo. Yukimura Chizuru, who wore her hair twisted up with fashionable hairpins and dressed in beautiful kimonos that her loving father had bought for her. She remembers the Yukimura Chizuru who had perfect porcelain pale skin that attracted the fishmonger’s son, Souichirou, into begging her to take her out to a local teahouse for a meal (she had cowered in the back while her father reduced him into a puppy with its tail between its legs). When she allows her mind to wander and melt the real world away, the vision of the carefree, just-a-daughter-of-a-doctor Chizuru is almost real.

But who is she now? She is now Yukimura Chizuru, daughter of Yukimura Kodo, a Western doctor who experimented on the Shinsengumi with a horrible serum that has turned men into monsters. She is Yukimura Chizuru, a girl with no swordskill masquerading as a boy in the Shinsengumi. She is Yukimura Chizuru, a demon with a target on her back, but with no real value to her other than her supposed pure bloodline.

She sighs and drops her hand from her face, absentmindedly rubbing her fingers together. The frictional force sets pain alight again in a burn she received while cooking dinner (a particularly nasty one from an open flame, although it is already well on its way to healing), and Chizuru lets out a gasp before she drops her hands to her sides. She silently chides herself; she has no time for something like personal vanity. She is masquerading as a boy, after all. It is only natural that she should lose some of her feminine characteristics, and maybe for the better, she tells herself. She has already drawn a fair number of questions and suspicions, and she is certain it has caused more of an inconvenience to the Shinsengumi than anything. Her hair goes back up and she stands up and moves towards the door, slipping her feet into her sandals. The Shinsengumi is protecting me and has risked their lives to help me. I need to do what I can to be of use to them.

Business as usual. She leaves her room to fetch burn ointment for her hand, and stops in the kitchen to brew two cups of tea, one each for Hijikata and Kondou; she had seen the two men head into the common room earlier to discuss business, and she knows that they will appreciate the warm refreshment. She pads around the compound to the common room to deliver the drinks to them, the steam from the cups warming her cheeks. Upon her arrival, Kondou is grateful and lauds her kind nature; Hijikata simply chides her for staying up so late and tells her to Go to bed, Yukimura, his piercing violet eyes giving no room for excuses. Chizuru has no choice but to agree, and exits the room as their low voices resume talks about the Shinsengumi’s recent activities.

The moon has moved across the sky by the time Chizuru finishes, and she returns to her room just as the heat from the day shifts into a cooler chill. She hurriedly strips off her clothes in exchange for a sleeping yukata; she must get up early tomorrow to help Saitou with breakfast, and it will be an embarrassment if she oversleeps. Saitou is stricter than anyone on punctuality, and she knows that being even a few moments late will earn her a cold stare. The sooner she is able to fall asleep, the better. Exhaustion from the day’s nonstop activities soon sets into her bones as she lays down in the futon, and the world turns to black.

It is the sunlight drifting through the thin paper walls that pulls her consciousness to the surface. Chizuru jolts up, adrenaline shooting through her veins as she remembers that she is on breakfast duty. She rushes through getting dressed and hurriedly combs her hair with her fingers, ignoring the mirror and wooden comb on her desk. Her fingers quickly twist the cord around her hair as she rushes to the door, her thoughts racing about all of the side dishes she would need to prepare. Chizuru tightens her hair and then slides open the screen door, ready to start into a jog to the kitchen—and stops.

A small bouquet of wildflowers lay tucked just in front of the sliding door to her room, the stems tied together with a neatly knotted loop of grass. Despite her earlier rush, Chizuru cannot help but stop to kneel down and look closer at the bouquet; the blooms are a perfect capture of a Kyoto summer, and she cannot help but smile at the simple beauty of the flowers. Although stunning, confusion quickly takes over her initial excitement and joy. This was after all, the headquarters of the Shinsengumi—what soldier would be sending or receiving flowers? Chizuru picks up the bouquet, and notices a scrap of paper tucked under the loop of grass; when she pulls the paper free, she widens her eyes when she realizes her name is written in brushstroke on the outside. Fingers shaking, Chizuru unfolds the sheet of paper, and her breath catches as she reads the short note.

A lady always deserves flowers.

Throughout breakfast, Chizuru catches Heisuke and Nagakura constantly looking in her direction as if to try and read her expression, and Harada is far chattier to her than normal. She asks about their morning to make conversation, and Heisuke is quick to complain about the morning heat by the riverbank during his patrols. When Inoue curiously interjects to ask why Heisuke walked to as far as the riverbank for his patrol, Heisuke stumbles and prevaricates him, allowing Nagakura to hurriedly jump in on the conversation to ramble about taking early morning walks to clear the head for the day. Chizuru giggles at this rambunctious display and conversation; she has a strong feeling of who the culprits are, she thinks.

When she returns to her room, Chizuru sits by the desk again and pulls the bouquet of flowers out from behind a stack of books. A pity that she cannot display them in a vase of water; they are already starting to droop in the heat, and the petals of the beautiful wildflowers look as if they will crisp up in any minute. But to Chizuru, they are just as beautiful as they were a few hours ago, and her heart feels even warmer than the Kyoto summer as she gazes at the flowers.

Chizuru stretches her hand to the other side of the desk to where the wooden mirror lays, and she holds it up to herself once more. She pulls down her hair, combs it through, and ties it back up again. She surveys her reflection: dark eyes, sunburned cheeks, hair that is already curling up from the humidity. The sunburn well on its way to healing on her nose, but there is still the slightest flush of redness, and sweat from the heat of the day is already sticking her bangs to her forehead. But despite all of these little nuances and flaws, she does not hate what she sees.

Like the bouquet she received from the men of the Shinsengumi today, she thinks, beauty is fleeting. But like the cherry blossoms in Kyoto that she has come to adore every spring, it changes but does not go away; even in winter, the trees have their own unique elegance without their blossoms. The woman she sees is no dignified geisha, but she is a woman who has earned her place in the Shinsengumi. Chizuru is not the same kind of girl that she was in Edo, but she feels no disturbance in her heart today as she gazes at her reflection.

She is Yukimura Chizuru, daughter of Yukimura Kodo, and she knows that she will need to bear the weight of her father’s sins. But she is also Yukimura Chizuru of the Shinsengumi, an attendant and page to the commanders, and an assistant medic. Although she cannot fight like a swordsman, nor is she as elegantly dressed as a normal woman her age, Chizuru still holds her head up high as she smiles at the girl staring back at her.

Today, she feels beautiful.

---

Chizuru is honestly a great character, imo, and you really get to learn more about her thoughts and how she feels when you play the game. At the start of it all, she's a 16 year old girl, and suddenly over time she really grows up to be this young woman that has done so much and affected the lives of so many. 

for everyone who complains that she doesn’t know how to use her sword, just stands around uselessly--ya, she’s literally a girl at the beginning. She’s also processing an immense amount of trauma and loss. Her father basically left her on her own for months (abandonment in teenage years not great), and now he’s missing (the only family she has, gone) all while adapting to a new lifestyle in a new city (leaving everything she knows behind). Yes, anime/manga is unrealistic and this story is fiction, but Otomate gave all of us the feels by creating complex personalities for all of the boys--let’s give Chizuru one too. 

With that said, she is a girl at heart, and that comes out whenever she sees Kimigiku/Kaoru and talks with Sen, so I've always wanted to write a bit about what she might feel living her life disguised as a man for years while the rest of the girls her age live "normally" so to speak. Sorry if it’s a little rough around the edges hehe.

[official-impravidus]

5 Times Peter Did Someone Else’s Makeup

By @official-impravidus for @littlemissagrafina

Rating: General

Relationships: Tony Stark & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter Parker & Happy Hogan, Happy Hogan/May Parker

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Happy Hogan, May Parker, Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones, Morgan Stark

Summary: and the 1 time he did his own

(written for the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange)

1

To put it simply, he had been in a rush. Competition season was just around the corner, and MJ was pushing the team to their limits with extra practice, which meant morning practice and after school practice. Peter had barely gotten out of the door once he remembered that he had to get to the school, being in the middle of a deep concentration as he perfected his winged eyeliner. Then, the after school practice ran a half an hour late because everyone was slacking on their ancient Greek philosophers. 

So there he was, scurrying out of the metal doors of Midtown and nearly ripping the car door off its hinges as he rushed into his seat.

“Hey Happy! I’m so so so sorry I’m late. MJ made us stay late because Flash didn’t know difference between Hypatia and Aspasia even though they have over a century apart, and then she started quizzing us on which philosophers specialized in Pythagorean, Peripatetic, or Pyrrhonist, and everyone kept mixing them up and we had to go over it for like twenty minutes until we all had it down and…”

“Don’t need the whole run down, bud. It’s okay,” Happy stated. “Couldn’t understand it if I tried.”

“Right. Sorry,” Peter said sheepishly. “How was your day?”

“Same old, same old. Once I drop you off, I’m heading back to the apartment.”

Peter’s eyes lit up. “Oh, it’s date night! Where are you taking May?”

“Do you remember that new restaurant near that bike shop?”

Peter’s mouth went agape. “That super fancy one where they put chocolate in everything?!”

Happy nodded with a soft grin. “That’s the one.”

“She always looks through the window when we pass by there! She looked up the menu and I swear she was drooling when she read about the bacon mac and cheese.” Peter smiled. “She’s gonna love it, Happy.”

“I hope so.”

“She will,” Peter reassured. With a content sigh, he pulled out his laptop. “I should probably get started on my research paper.”

“You know Tony’s rule,” Happy said.

“No lab work until homework is done,” Peter recited with a nod. “I know, I know. Which is why I’m doing it now.”

“Is it a blackout kinda day or a white noise one?” Happy asked.

“I could go for some of that boring piano music you like.”

Happy shoved Peter’s arm. “It’s not boring.”

“It just strips all the tenseness from my tight, aching muscles. It lulls me to sleep.”

“If it lulls you to sleep, then you shouldn’t be listening to it while you’re doing homework,” Happy said.

“Then, what do you suggest?” Peter asked.

Happy pressed the radio screen and a string quartet of Panic! at the Disco’s “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” began to play.

“Oh, you know me so well.”

Peter fell into a deep focus and had barely realized the car ride was over until Happy had said a soft “we’re here.”

“Thanks, Happy. Have a good evening!” Peter said cheerfully.

“You’re staying here tonight, right?” Happy asked.

“Yeah, I am. It’s a Compound weekend. Why…” Peter’s faced morphed into a disgusted grimace. “Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” He shook his head. “See you later!” Happy gave a gentle wave before pulling out.

Peter let out a breath, shoving his hands in his pockets, as he headed into the Compound, fiddling with the watermelon gum wrappers crumpled deep in his jeans.

With a skip in his step, he entered the lab, plopping his backpack on the floor and hopping into his rollie chair with a little spin.

“Hello to you too,” Tony said with a laugh. “Bad traffic?”

“Late practice,” Peter corrected.

“She’s really drilling you guys, huh?” Tony asked. “Well, at least you’ll be prepared.” He looked up from his project, but stopped as he caught sight of Peter’s face. “New look?”

Peter furrowed his brows in confusion, but froze. He hadn’t used a makeup wipe on the drive there. “I… uhm… I… it’s not what it looks like.”

“Well it looks good. Would’ve barely noticed if it weren’t for the eyeliner it’s so natural. I mean really, you’re glowing. How do you get your skin looking so dewey and fresh?”

Peter’s brain could hardly catch up. “I mix highlighter with my foundation.”

“See, I’ve never thought about that. Mine always comes out so dull and flat. I’ll have to try that.”

“You, uh, you’ve worn makeup?” Peter stammered.

“When you’re on camera as much as me, you’ve gotta get at least a little pick me up. I mean, some of that shit is high definition. Do I really want people seeing my pores and pimples in high definition? No thank you.”

“Oh. Uh. Wow.”

“You can’t be new at this. I mean, it looks great. I’m jealous if you are.”

Peter shook his head. “I’ve been doing it for a couple months.”

“And why haven’t I seen it?” Tony questioned.

“I, uh, didn’t want you to think it was weird,” Peter admitted.

Tony softened. “Why would you think that?”

“I mean, I worry you think a lot of things are weird. I just, want to... impress you, I guess.”

“Well, wanna know what impresses me? That winged eyeliner. It takes Pepper ten minutes of fiddling with makeup remover on cue tips when she’s doing hers.”

Peter, nearly rendered speechless, nodded again. “It took a lot of practice.” He paused. “You’re really… you don’t think I’m weird?”

“I could never think you were weird, kid.” He pursed his lips. “Well, yes I can, because you put sour skittles in your chocolate ice cream, but that’s what makes me love you. Don’t be afraid to be weird. I’ve been weird all my life. Embrace the weird and conquer the world with your weirdness because one day, what used to be weird will be brilliant and people will want to be weird like you.”

Peter looked to his feet bashfully. “Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

“You know, Pepper has a big charity thing tonight. She could really use your help with her smokey eye.”

Peter perked up. “Really? I’ve… I’ve done makeup on May before, but I’ve never done it on someone with an eye shape like hers.” “Then this will be perfect practice!”

Peter got a little mascara on her eyelid, but he made up with the perfect blend of silver sparkle and charcoal shades.

2

“Stop squeezing your eyes, you’re gonna make the eyeliner bumpy.”

“Well, it’s a little hard to relax when you’ve got a pencil pressing against my eye.”

Peter sighed. “Ned, you just gotta breathe. I’m not gonna poke your eye.”

“It sure feels like you’re poking my eye,” Ned grumbled.

“I’ll do it even lighter,” Peter reassured.

It was 9AM, and Peter was trying to use as much precision in his rush to finish Ned and MJ’s makeup for the pride parade. He had finished his look, a blend of pinks, purples, and blues with silver glitter eyeliner, and was finishing Ned’s rainbow look, or at least, attempting to.

“You were doing so good, man,” Peter whined.

“Because it was all fluffy brushes before this!” Ned groaned. “Just get it over with.”

“I could if you would stop freaking squeezing your eyelids!”

MJ sighed. “Some of us are in the waiting dock, Ned.”

“I’m sorry! I’m not used to this!” Ned exclaimed.

Peter pulled gently at the skin on his browbone, making the skin pulled taunt enough to slide the eyeliner on with one smooth swipe. He followed suit with the other and slumped back into his chair. “Okay. You’re done.” 

“Oh, thank God, because I had to go to the bathroom at like the contour.” He scampered out of the bathroom, legs held tight. 

“What’s in store for me?” MJ asked.

“I was thinking a sharp edged blend of pink and to the dark pink to brown in the crease with a cut crease,” Peter thought out loud.

There was a knock at the door.

“You expecting someone?” MJ asked.

“No?” Peter said, confused. He went to the door, eyes widening in shock at the sight.

There was Tony Stark in a bright blue, pink, and yellow vertical striped suit.

“Mr. Stark! What are you doing here?”

“Today is pride, right?” Tony said with a cheeky grin on his lips.

“I-it is.”

“Great! Then, I’ll give you three a ride. I’m meeting the gang later.”

Peter’s nodded, mouth still wide open. “Because New York pride is endorsed by the Avengers. Right.”

“So, what do you say? I may or may not have pulled out my holographic chrome Ferrari.”

Peter rolled his eyes but let out a light chuckle. “Of course you did.” He stepped out of the way. “MJ’s look will be quick. If you want, I can do something for you?”

Tony grinned. “I’d love that.”

Behind his tinted shades, Tony rocked a pink crease, yellow lid, and blue lower lashline, a big smile adorned by a bright pink lipstick.

3

After the big robot invasion of 2025, the Avengers were beyond exhausted from the dealing with the repercussions and volunteering for the rebuilding.

For the first time in weeks after being preoccupied with volunteering, charity work, and clean up, they could finally relax for a group get together outside of work.

“You know what I could use?” Tony asked to no one in particular. “Really crappy, artificial, not at all traditional Chinese food. Who’s in?” The team all muttered words of agreement, melting into the cushions of the recreation room’s couches. 

“Text me your orders. I sent the menu in the groupchat.”

More mutters of acknowledgement.

Peter settled on the floor, makeup scattered on the coffee table, mouth agape as he stared intently at his reflection, fake lash in hand.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked.

“Graduation is just around the corner and I need to perfect my look for commencements,” Peter explained. He blinked, checking for any warping. “How does it look?” 

The team let out a low murmur of “oo”s and “ah”s and “nice.” 

“That looks fantastic,” Natasha praised.

“The adornments to your face are absolutely astonishing!” Thor praised. “Would you be so kind to apply your pigments to my eyes?”

Peter’s eyes widened. “You want me to do your makeup?”

“I’d love if you did mine, too,” Natasha said.

“I bet you could do some great red, white, and blue for me,” Steve said.

Peter looked around. “That could be really cool. Avengers inspired makeup looks on the Avengers? I mean, that’d be an honor.”

So he got started. As they feasted on fried rice and General Tso’s spicy chicken, they jammed to ABBA and looked fabulous while dancing to Dancing Queen.

4

“So, I made you some of that green juice you like so you can sip on that while we get you ready. We also put together a playlist of all of your favorite dishwashing music which we both know is also your hype playlist and you need to get a little hype! Let loose! In addition, we also brought you some of your favorite hors d’oeuvres such as chocolate covered strawberries, that basil spread with the tomatoes on the crunchy bread, caprese salad, and just a big pile of prosciutto because I know you like to stress eat salty meats.”

May smiled softly. “Thank you, baby. This is amazing.”

“How are you feeling?” Peter asked.

“Nervous. Excited. Mostly excited. How are… are you okay? With this?” 

Peter nodded. “Of course I am. You’re happy, Happy’s happy, and I… I’m happy. I’m happy that you could find something like this after Ben.”

She let out a shaky breath. “I’m getting married.”

Peter grinned. “You are.” He spun her chair. “Now sit there and be pretty while I do you even prettier.”

“You know, you were at my first wedding.”

Peter looked up. “I was?”

“You were just a baby, but Richard and Mary didn’t want to leave you at home after you had just gotten over your pneumonia. You were wearing a little onesie with a tuxedo printed on it, and you had your foofie.”

“I remember my foofie!” Peter smiled nostalgically as he envisioned the fluffy scarf that he snuggled with for years.

“You had just gotten it, and you would just run your fingers on the blue fluff, entranced by the texture on your little fingers.”

Peter chuckled. “Yeah. I loved that thing.”

“But, you caused a little bit of a scene.”

Peter furrowed his brows. “I did?”

“Well, your mom had just come back from feeding you and Ben wanted to make you giggle, so he was dancing with you, twirling and spinning you around, and I guess he jerked you around a bit too much and you vomited.”

“Oh no.”

“In his mouth and all over his tux.”

“Oh no.”

“So, really, there’s no reason to worry about messing anything up because at least you’re not doing that,” she said with a teasing grin.

“Well, I’ll try my best not to do that again,” Peter said. He softened, squeezing her hand gently. “You’re gonna make so many new memories and it’s gonna be awesome, May.”

“So are you,” May said. 

“I’m really happy for you.” He shook his head. “Now don’t you start crying and streak this amazing foundation I just put on.”

She let out a wet laugh and held her arms out. “C’mere.”

Peter gave her a tight hug, snuggling next to her in her cushy chair.

She placed a soft kiss to his forehead. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” He pulled away. “Now, c’mon. Stop stalling. I have to get this done so I can do mine.”

5

“Tony. Stop crying.”

“This is an emotional time and I am an emotional man!”

“It’s just homecoming.”

Tony crossed his arms and scowled at Peter. “Well you’re not one to talk about just homecoming.”

Peter pouted. “You crash a plane and nearly get killed by your homecoming date’s dad one time…”

“Look at my beautiful girl.” He pet her hairsprayed locks gently.

Morgan rolled her eyes with a smile on her dark red lips. “You’re so embarrassing, Dad.”

“So, when are we meeting this boy? Because then I’ll really be embarrassing.”

“Dad!” Morgan whined.

“You still have told me nothing about this boy. What are you hiding? Is he an Anti-Avenger protestor? Oh, oh! Or is he a scheming supervillain turning you to the dark side?” He gasped. “Does he work for Oscorp?”

“His name is Miles, he’s an artist, and he’s really really nice so please don’t screw this up for me because I really really like him.”

Tony softened. “I’ll behave.”

“Please,” Morgan pleaded.

“I’ll behave!” Tony repeated.

“He won’t,” Peter stated. “And we both know that.”

“Hey! I take offense to that,” Tony said.

“Well, as much as I love this wonderful family chat, I really gotta finish Morgan’s makeup, and when you stress her out, it makes her eyes scrunch up and I can’t get the blending right so… shoo. Scooch your booch outta here.”

“No. I want to stay,” Tony stated.

“Are you not gonna distract her?” Peter asked with a raised brow.

“Maybe…?”

“Tony!”

“Okay! Fine. I won’t say a word. You won’t even know I’m here.” Peter turned back to Morgan, packing a shimmery white on her lid, but flipped around when he heard a choked sob from behind.

“Tony,” he said exasperatedly.

“She’s just growing up so fast!”

1

Peter’s gloved hands trembled as he filled in his eyebrows in a room that did nothing to block the shutters of cameras and excited murmur from the large crowd on the other side of the wall.

Tony took his hand in his and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Are you sure you wanna do this? Because you can back out any time you’d like.” Peter shook his head. “It’s time. The new generation of Avengers deserve to have a real face to lead them, and for the public to trust us, they need to know that I trust them too. The world knows Spider-Man and his good. And now, they’ll know Peter Parker too.”

“They already know Peter Parker,” Tony said softly. “Peter Parker conducted the widest reaching scientific climate change campaign. He promoted carbon storage, protected and expanded forests in every country on every continent on the planet, and invented a reliable and accessible long-term energy source cheaper and easier to manufacture than fossil fuels. God, Peter. Once they find out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, they’re going to love him even more.”

Peter’s face flushed a warm red. “Thanks, Tony.” He looked to his reflection and smiled sadly. Looking at his brown eyes, red blended to his crease and blue lining his lashline, he realized that this was the end to a lifetime of secrets and a new beginning where he could finally share the whole person he was.

“You ready?” Tony asked.

“How do I look?” Peter asked meekly.

“You look amazing.” He pulled him into a tender hug. “They’re gonna love you, kid.” He placed his hands firmly on his shoulders and gave a little squeeze. “Do you know how proud I am of you? Because I am. You’re really proving yourself to be quite the hero, and I don’t just mean in your bright red and blue, which really, are you sure we can’t negotiate something a little less gaudy…”

“Says Mr. Hot Rod Red and Gold…”

“I mean, bright blue? Even I have enough class and taste to know that bright blue is a little much.”

“Tony,” Peter said.

“I’m so proud of you kid. You’ve grown into a fantastic young man, and you’re gonna keep growing into a visionary for this next century. You might even outshine me.” He shook his head. “No. I know you will. Because I know you, and I know that you’re an intelligent, selfless, innovating, tenacious, unbelievably incredible person, and you’re gonna change the world.” He smiled a tight, teary smile. “And the world’s not gonna know what hit it once you give it all you’ve got.”

Peter slipped his mask on and took one last shaky breath. “Let’s go do this.”

My name is Peter Benjamin Parker and I am Spider-Man.

[lyorofthequill]

The Runaways

                                                 Chapter 1.                                               The train stop.

''Hey Mam, I know that was a lot. But please, when you get on Lunch, please respond. The train comes soon and the others come sooner.''

''See ya soon Mama, I love you. Even after everything.''

She tapped the hardened finger against the side of the Broadcast Transmitter. A small device, like a holigraphical-pad. It was a communication device, a small rectangular cube, that acted as a phone, yet could also send digital letters, it was called texting. She kept her head down as she walked to the train station. The sounds of currus's were distant. This part of Nihon, of Osaka had currus's. Large, metal vehicles that had seats on the inside. It was engine driven, by Flectomancy and Aeromancy. It had these metallic semi-circles that would push air out to the direction that you would want to go in. She once had been in one, when she was helping Hiroaki and his parents when they were bringing supplies in to their shop. Currus would be used mostly for heavy transport or for the elite that could afford the sleek ones that had lounges on the inside. He chewed her lip, reading the texts. There was only one check-mark to show that her mother did not have the B.T.P on, but the messages were delivered. She paused as she felt the smack of cold metal hit her forehead. Tears welled in to her eyes as she stumbled back and looked straight up for the first time. The metal pole next to the door, she sighed as she took a step to the left and entered the large railway station. A retail shop was on the left, it had tourist trinkets, children's toys, books and hats as well as magazines and a shelf full of snacks beside a wide drink refrigerator. On the other side, was a small coffee shop. She came to the barriers and put her ticket in. It came with the letter. It let her in as it walked behind her and simply jumped over the machine. She smiled as she walked in to a small cafe, that had a view of the other platforms, it was up some stairs. It was like a cafe and dinner mix. She ordered a sweet tea and a toasted cheese and bacon sandwich. She paused as the woman frowned and looked over her shoulder. ''No animals allowed Ma'am.''The cashier sighed and gestured.

''Oh! No! It's a familiar and a Yokai.'' She smiled. The cashier stood slightly on her tippy-toes and looked down at it. Before nodding and picking up her ticket, ''Sorry about that. Does it shed?'' She paused and looked down as she felt it climb up her head and then sit on her bag. ''No, fully spirit.''She explained, the woman nodded as she took her money and placed it in the till, then handed her, her change. She placed it in the side pocket of the duffel bag, her make shift purse. She paused as the woman cleared her throat, ''I'm sorry. Can I get your name for the order? First and second name, please.'' ''Oh! Charna Dracul,'' She smiled as the woman paused. Charna spelt out the first name for her, then sat down in the corner and window seat. The Yokai joined her. It had the body of a ferret, yet the head and front legs moved about like a cats. Its grey fur ended with a black triangle at the end of its tail, which looked like a fluffy beaver tail. The back legs had hooves at the end for when they climbed trees and rocks in their natural habitat. Four, dark red wings with dark grey on the top, while the wings could not fly, they were there for them to float and from branch and ledge. The wings were connected together at the stumps. It had two more legs, in between the front ones and back ones. They were the same dark red and had two massive claws either side for them to hook on to prey and berries. The front legs were sort of like cat or raccoon paws. Its head had four wide eyes, fully black as it stared up at her. The ears were like foxes, and they also had some black markings on the  top. It's three horns were used for jousting, two were hooked slightly at the side and the other was like a unicorn horn, and they all sat on the forehead. It had a dark red mane around its neck, to  indicate what diet it has, like a flamingo. The red marks mean it has mostly being fed on meat. Which it was. They got a more pink or blue-ish purple colour when its berries. Shorei was her Uncle's Yokai, one he had picked up on his own journeys. Yet Shorei was always more fond of Charna, so it was coming with her to Qnao Academy. 

Hiroaki was coming to say goodbye, he was always up early since he did have to help with the shop, she wondered if she should have ordered a drink for him. But, it would have probably cold by now. So it did not bother her to much.

She paused as she looked at herself in the reflection of the glass. Her dark purple eyes stared back at her as her dark, almost crimson hair flopped from side to side. She still remembered her Uncle, Corvus Dracul, reaction to her saying she wanted her hair cut this short. Most of it barely reaching the nape of her neck. He had taken out his sword and said that he should do it to save money. She managed to get Hiroaki's mum to do it. Her large black hoodie slumped over her frame, she frowned as she saw her wrist. The bone sticking out, she was quick to pull the sleeve over it. Hiding it, that was why she wore hoodies so much. To hide her body. Mostly from herself. She paused as footsteps tapped against the floor, heading her direction. She raised her head and a smile spread across her face. 

Hiroaki Genkei, son of two local shop owners. He was chubby and had his square glasses on. Those were his new glasses. He was wearing his school uniform, as his blue eyes scanned her. He pulled a chair to the table and sat beside her. ''Charna! Excited?''He chuckled, she smiled and nodded as he stretched. Yet he frowned, ''And the hoodie.'' He leaned down on his arms as they were crossed on the table. She looked down, her eyes drifted along the hoodie. He, never did approve of her hiding her body so much. He was quite in to body positivist. Even if it meant he got hit a few times for calling a girl, ‘The perfect type of roundness’. Charna laughed, she remembered that so clearly. ''You know how I feel about my body.''She muttered, he nodded as he sat back and then laughed, ''Still! So what? A little hard skin and some bones are showing. Not like we can see your spine and rib-cage! You just have a quick metabolism, so what?'' He paused as Charna's name was called. Shorei sat on the table and Hiroaki was quick to give the creature affection. He tilted his head as she returned with the toasted sandwich with cheese leaking out and the sweet tea with ice bobbing up and down in the cup. ''Treating yourself are we?'' Charna paused before laughing, Hiroaki smirked at the success to make her smile. Her laugh faded as she sipped at her tea, just as she liked it. Could be colder she supposed, but it wasn't homemade so she would not argue. A thought came to her, she slowly placed the cup down. She supposed this was the time to tell him, they had been friends for years and she would feel guilty if she left without telling him. She felt her nerves build a ball up in her throat, a lump jiggled as she spoke. ''Hiroaki? Can I admit something to you?''She asked. He narrowed his eyes and sat up straight as he readied himself, ''What is it?'' She swallowed as she took a swig out of her tea. Letting it roll down her tongue as Shorei jumped on to her lap. ''We never talked about my Discipline did we?''She asked, he nodded as he scanned his eyes up and down her. He opened his mouth, and then closed his mouth, he raised a finger. She nodded as he laughed, ''Don't tell me! You are a Double?''He joked. Hiroaki laughed.

To be a double was a unique affliction. For humans usually they stuck to one Discipline. They had to. They did not contain, their soul did not the magic needed to diverge. Magic could be dictated by your ancestry. Seeing how Umbramancy, was a part of her ancestry, she had an easier time learning it. To be a double wasn't unheard of it. But it was rarer then being left handed. So that was fun. All you needed was strong enough magic and the right genetics. She felt her heart go hollow and her heart beat go fast. Hiroaki's eyes went wide as he sat up fully, almost jumping out of his seat as he saw her nervous and ashamed look, ''Charna! What!?'' He paused, before going in to a quiet whisper, ''Your a Double? That is so cool!'' He exclaimed. She smiled faintly at this. That was not what she was going to tell him, but it wasn't far from the truth. He stared at her as he smiled.

''Calm down. But yeah. I am...'' She watched him fall back in his chair, processing the information, ''It is a bit weird. And before you say anything, I ain't doing Hyrdomancy,'' Little white lines, that would do, ''I don't like that whole. Pyromancy and Hydromncy thing. I'm doing Umbramancy and Pyromancy. A little odd, I know.'' He lifted up a hand, stopping her. She nodded and gave a nervous giggle as he facepalmed. ''Okay, Mrs Edgy.'He sighed in disappointment. She frowned before realizing something as the biggest smile stretched across her face, ''You just mad I'm not doing Hydromancy.'' He frowned as he rolled her eyes. ''I don't care. Is Umbramancy and Pyromancy even good together?'' He raised an eyebrow at her. She frowned as she looked down, thinking about the question. A minute of silence filled the table. Hiroaki wasn't surprised. ''Shut up!''She snapped. He laughed as she ate her sandwich, Shorei eating crumbs that would fall on to the table. Hiroaki paused as he was about to start to talk, but stopped when Kira Senshi appeared, her footsteps soft as she smiled at them. Kira had Vitiligo, its when certain parts of your skin don't have pigmentation. Her skin should have been this soft, almost light chocolate skin color. The parts where the Vitiligo affected her skin was still pretty. She had very pretty clear skin. She was also every pretty. Charna looked down as that crossed her mind. She shrugged it off, it was just appreciation of a close friend. She had a long strip that went over her eyes, it went just above her nose and a bit above her eyes. There was also a line that went up her cheek, with pointed end. There were two lines that wrapped along her right arm like rings they were just below her shoulder. On the other arm the lighter shade was like a glove that went a bit below her elbow.Just below he shoulder on the left arm, there was a another line. It was like the spike on her cheek, but it was smaller and had two ends both curved and spiked. She had a almost exact copy of that patch on her right leg. But it was surrounded by spots. Below that patch was a few bumps of the light shade that poked out of her boots. On the opposite leg was a ring like the left arm had, it went right across her knee. On the back of her right leg was a heart shaped patch with spots surrounding that as well. She was wearing her usual outfit. Her pinkish, wine tank-top and ripped jean shorts with long brown boots. Well they weren't supposed to be shorts. But Kira made them that way. Charna had a special kind of respect for Kira because of her outfit. The fact she wasn't afraid to show her skin despite of her condition. Also because they were friends for so long and Kira had escorted Charna to her Uncle's house when her parents kicked her out. Kira was raised by her Granddad, he and Corvus were good military friends when they both served in the army. Hiroaki raised an eyebrow, a silent question which Charna nodded. Kira knew the full truth. Of course Kira already knew, she had partially taught Terramancy to Charna. Her lank, dark purple hair fell down to her shoulder blades as her dark, rusted yellow eyes scanned them both.

Hiroaki eyed Charna. Kira nodded, yet did not stand. Instead looked on to the counter, obviously she had ordered some food. ''Hiroaki, I've known Kira for longer. Don't be butt-hurt that she knew before you.''Charna pointed out. He shrugged as Kira walked up to the counter and collected her food and drink. She had two sweet teas, two water bottles and some sandwiches. She sat down beside them. Placed two of the sandwiches in front of Hiroaki and Charna. Hiroaki paused, ''Oh! Kira, you didn't need to buy me food.'' She ignored him as she placed a water bottle in front of him as the two sweet teas were placed before Charna. She smiled as she devoured all the food in front of her. Hiroaki opened the cap of the water and flicked up his finger, blobs of water moved up and in to his mouth. ''So, what is the hardening skin then?''He asked. She paused as slowly she rolled up her shirt. Revealing a patch of hard skin, Hiroaki paused as they were parted, a crack in it. Kira pulled Charna's  shirt down, grunting as she eyed the other people. Charna could see why Kira did not her to show off the hardened skin.

''So where is Riku?''Hiroaki asked. Kira looked up, before shrugging and then eating her food. Riku was the last of the friend group. While Hiroaki was not going to Qnao Academy, Riku was. Charna took a sip out of her tea as she thought. ''He'll come when the train comes. He always shows up exactly on time.''She reasoned. Hiroaki nodded as they all ate. Shorei was purring as they moved from lap to lap. Getting the attention it wanted. Hiroaki paused as he sat up, ''Oh yeah!'' He turned to Charna, ''My friend! Kaito! He's the Captain of the swimming club and Hydromancer at club. I told him he can join you guys.'' She paused. She had heard of Kaito, his mum always made pies and crumbles for the school bake-sale. Now that she thought about it, when Kira once hit Charna in the face a dodge ball during gym class once, it was Kaito who had brought her to the Nurse's office. ''Oh, yeah. Him. Cool, but you really should have asked first.'' Charna said. Hiroaki shrugged as they ate.

A half hour went by. Hiroaki was saying his goodbyes, hugs and tears were had. Charna and him had to be pried away by Kira. They waved goodbye as they walked away. Kira hand rested on her back, leading her as Shorei sat on Kira's shoulder. Charna frowned as she asked, ''Do you think I'll have to keep it a secret as well in Qnao Academy?'' Kira paused as she thought for a moment. She sat them down on a bench next to the platforms. Finally she shook her head, Charna knew that was her answer. She smiled at that thought, of not having to hide anymore. She smiled as Kira ran a finger along her hairline, stopping at the scar. She became stiff at that. She pushed Kira's hand away. The other nodded as Charna pulled out the panflet. Checking the time table. The train for Qnao Academy was called 'The galactic frontier', a little cheesy for both their tastes. The name was on the board, on its own special one at that. The platform would be open in a few minutes. It was like a building of its own, black glass and black heavy doors. No one could see the train enter or exit, nor the platform itself. ''Do you want to wait outside the doors?''She asked, Kira nodded and stood up. Shorei in tow as Charna scrambled to get her bags and ran after them. Kira frowned as a crowd was already gathering in front of the door. Charna could hear all their voices, asking each other about themselves. She froze as a girl smiled at her, ''Oh! Whats your Discipline!?''Her two friends smiled at Charna as her throat tightened. 

She found it hard to breath as she stared at nothing. The girls frowned as her body went rigid. Kira pushed Charna behind her eye and grunted at the girls. Who got the message and stepped away. Kira wrapped her arm around her shoulder as Shorei hissed at people.

''Kira. I'm fine!''Charna smiled as she took a step away from her friend and in to the boy that was running in to the crowd, in a panic. She yelped as a shoulder hit her back and they fell down, on to the cold floor. She gasped as air were pushed out of her lungs. She rolled on to her back, as people stared. Kira stared in horror, and tightened her hands in to a fist. The boy clambered up to stand as he stared down at Charna. He had peach coloured hair and bright yellow tips at the end, with yellow eyes that complimented him well. He was wearing a soft yellow shirt, and dark pink cargo pants. He was quick to help her up, she laughed. She paused, his shirt was for the swim team, a uniform, like a jersey. As he turned to grab her bags for her, the name 'Kaito' was on the top with 'Junpei' on the bottom with a number one in the middle. ''Oh! You're Kaito! Hiroaki's friends.'' He scooped up her bag and smiled.

''Yep! Nice to fall in to you! You must be Charna.''He shook her hand and then handed her the bag. She smiled down at him, ''Oh? How do you know I'm not Kira?'' She joked. Kira eyed everyone else. Her gaze burning in to all of them, moving the crowd away from the three, ''Because your not scary as Hiroaki described her to be! Heh, also because he told me... Well.'' ''Hiroaki told me that your a...'''His voice trailed off. Charna's eyes widened as Kaito continued, ''He was just rambling on about it.'' He smiled, before pausing as he saw the horror on Charna's face and Kira hitting her fist against her open palm. ''B-But don't worry! I think it's cool! I... I actually really want to be your friend because of it! I want to see what it's like to combine all those two things in to one fighting style!''He explained. She paused. The words not reaching their target. It took her moment to think, she had never used more then one type of magic in a fight before. So the thought of using combinations was not something she really thought of. ''Yeah... I suppose.'' He smiled and then he stared at Shorei. ''Is that a spirit!?''He exclaimed, Shorei seem to be taken back by the excitement. Charna nodded as it eyed him, ''I love spirits.'' He muttered an almost whisper. Charna laughed and nodded as she spread her arm out and Shorei twisted and crawled along it, till it reached her wrist.

''A well trained one, the carnivorous spirit! Shorei of the cherry tree forest! Familiar of Corvus Dracul, and companion of Charna Dracul!''She announced like a ring master announcing the next act of a grand circus. Kaito clamped his hands together, excited as the other children stared. Charna paused, she had an audience as an idea came to mind, she smirked. ''Shorei?''She called, the creature knew what to do as Charna threw her arm up. Shorei spread it's wings and twirled in the air like a ferret-dolphin hybrid. It dropped down, floating as it landed on to one of the low rafters. It strutted along it, one paw in front of the other. Once it reached the end, the middle limbs came out and struck the column. It used the claws to throw itself up and backwards, doing a cartwheel as it flew along the side, about to do the landing on to Charna's wrist, and then dangle by the tail. But before it could, it's tail was grabbed as it fell limp with a squeak. Everyone look and saw, the boy with the black glasses and sleek black hair. He was wearing a white button up shirt and black business shoes and trousers. His watch was rested tightly on his wrist as he brought the creature down, to eye it.

''Charna?''His stern voice called. She laughed nervously as Kaito took Shorei from him and cradled the creature, ''We are to be getting ready for one of the most prodigious school known on Gaia, not some slum circus training!''He snapped. She nodded slowly as he adjusted his glasses.

''Hello to you too, Riku.''She looked down, Kira eyed him with distrust and a strong dislike. Riku eyed everyone, ''The door opens now.''He walked to the front, and as he said. The door opened up when he placed his ticket against a scanner. Charna froze and was quick to copy, Kira gently pushed Kaito forward, letting him do his ticket first and then hers before the rush started. The inside was surprising. A lounge, with large chairs and a pool table. Even vending machines and some arcade games. All the other kid's sat down, or started to play the games. Charna stared as she turned back, you could see the outside from in here. One way glass she supposed. Kaito was quick to grab Kira and drag her to the air hockey table. Charna laughed as she joined them. She wondered if all the train stops would be like this one. She hoped it was way. Yet, she also hoped that Kira was right, and she wouldn't have to hide. As she watched the others, even some showing off their magic.

She decided there and then. Charna Dracul, would hide no more.

[fightevilandthengetblownup]

FIC: With Wax Melted II

---

“That tickles!” Jo squirmed and gasped loudly as she tried not to react, but as he leant down to brush another smooth stroke of the one of his finer brushed along the line of her floating rib, she gave another loud giggle and twitched. “I’m sorry! Oh, oh I’m sorry - it just tickles with that brush a lot!”

“That’s okay-” “No it’s not, did I ruin the picture?”

“Jo,” Grey gave his own deep chuckle at the was she twisted her head back and forth, the tips of her blonde hair getting dark and splodged with the different paint colors covering her shoulders. It was just an abstract mash of colors at the moment, a gradient that his inner artistic eye could see was supposed to become a blooming sunrise like the ones he saw creep through the bedroom window each morning. He was in the middle of doing finer details though in the foreground - of a dancers form slowly spinning across the sunbeams - when Jo’d started to get ticklish at the switch from the thicker brushes to the finest point. “It’s alright - I can change the picture if you aren’t comfortable with this brush anyways.”

“Noooo!” She whined quietly as she stretched her back a little and tugged her hair around to her front, mindless to the smudges of paint getting on her hand and then neck and face as she looked back at him. She was a colorful mess of a masterpiece on her back, but the line of yellow and orange blending across her hands and cheek bone was a sign it’d be the same at the front too before he was remotely done with this project.

It had been a joke. He hadn’t meant it at all to be taken seriously when they’d gotten home and unbundled their coats off and made sure to water Nana and give her a little more kibble since it had been such a light lunch for such a big dog. He’d just rubbed Jo’s hip through her jeans and asked if she thought the Sharpie had stood up to the walking, and then made a joke about how pretty it and her permanent tattoo were both pink flowers from the cold and exercise. He hadn’t expected Jo to say he should color it whatever he wanted and get that wild look in her eye at some new idea crossing her mind, nor for her to double down and ask him to bring his paints up to the bedroom. By the time he’d been there, the bed had been stripped back to only a mattress protector and covered in the oldest towels and blankets they had in the house that were due for a wash that weekend as it was. And Jo laid out naked across the top of the bed and the absolutely hilarious line to be spoken asking him to paint her, “but not like one of your French girls. Cause you aren’t allowed any girls but me. And you should put the paint on me anyways.” Grey had managed to only just follow the request and joke as he was distracted drinking in her form before she’d rolled onto her front and presented her back and tattoos for him to color her in all the colors of love he could think of.

Shaking his head as he leaned down to press a kiss to her shoulder and then lips, uncaring of the red paint that would pass between her skin and his and then back again at the movement - it was non-toxic as it was, it didn’t matter where the paint got so long as he could show her how beautiful a canvas she was. As he pulled back, Grey grinned widely back at Jo’s own bright red smile before she ducked her head with a blush and rolled back into the position at his gentle pressing.

“Shh, Jo, it looks fine.” Grey said gently as he picked up a thicker brush and used that instead to delicately draw in the dancing forms that he couldn’t help but envision with hair dyed golden and sharp by the waking sun. He found himself unconsciously leaning down to press kisses along each footstep, smudging a burst of red and black across her back in his wake as well as his chin. Rubbing the paint from his own skin and uncaring to it along his arms, Grey finished off a few splashes of the deep purples of night being fought away before he moved to set his brushes down. “I think that’s done for now... And now,” He unconsciously reached a hand out to tilt Jo’s hip up so he could start in on the darkly inked flowers that bloomed under her skin and started imagining the bright golds of the sunflowers and deep burgundy of the peonies that would mimic the life and soul underneath their existence. “For these-”

“Nuh uh, hun, my turn!” “What?” “Gimme that brush-” “Huh?”

“Yoink!~” The singsong tone cause him off hand as the brush of bright yellow was gently tugged from his grasp and Grey found himself with a brush positioned towards his face and then suddenly swiped across his nose in a playful bat. “Now for the rest-”

“Oh no you don’t,” Grey growled the words out teasingly, leaning forward to grab at the brush with one hand while the other dragged the blonde in to rub the wet yellow paint against her nose as well before delivering a black and red kiss against her lips. There was a wet feeling in his hair and across his ear that had to be the paint brush from their playful struggling, and bundling her own hair up in a hand Grey nibbled gently against Jo’s lips until they were both gasping away for air.

The brush was dropped almost in sync from both of them to fall on the towels beside them as Jo shifted about to sit upright, hands tugging at his tshirt at the same time his hands were tight tugging her hair to angle a follow up kiss right. Parting for the pull of his tshirt over his head, Grey let out a startled yelp at the feeling of slightly cold paint against his chest as Jo’s fingers had seemingly swiped across the palette that rested beside her hips before sliding across his chest in a trail of blues and purples and oranges. Her hand moved to his shoulder, coating it likewise in a faded array of the colors as her fingers lost the pigment but it was like the spark of blending between them to both see the colors so stark across his skin.

A press of lips together and his hands moving to run straight down her back before swirling around the roundness of her hips to run up her sides to her breasts left a trail of mottled colors in its wake - yellows and oranges and reds mixed but stood apart still from the dark eggplant and blues that crept over her curves as his hands moved back and forth from the sweet but disappearing image scape of her back to coat her twitching stomach all the same. And likewise, her fingers seemed to seek out the palette again before her nails dragged the color in splashes across his chest, back and arms in a rainbow of cool tones that as they tugged each other closer mottled the brightness against the darkness and left each marked with a bit of both.

Trailing kisses along her neck, Grey worried for a moment before moving one hand away to start wiping away as much paint blindly from it as possible while the other continued to massage at the warm skin and breast beneath it. Tweaking and teasing her nipple with one hand, he let the moans and gasps and then the sharp squeaked noise as a slightly harder tug guide his movements as he sucked and bit gently along the pale expanse of neck until it would be as purple as the paint covering his chest. Jo whimpered and sighed and moaned beneath him, and as he moved to lay her back gently, the rise of her hips up against his drew a groan from him at how clothed he still was.

“Jo, pretty one, give me a second-” Grey panted the words against her collarbone before trailing more kisses along her skin and down towards her other breast. His words and actions wrung another gasped moan from the other as her fingers moved from his back into his hair, tugging gently and directing his lips to the perked point that was waiting for him. Giving a final careless wipe of his free hand on the nearest clean part of towel, he moved to shove and shake his jeans off his hips and kick free of them as his hand trailed instead up the currently clean inside of Jo’s leg until his fingers found their quarry between them. The warm and already wet centre that was just waiting for him as he slid his hand over her and then a finger between the slit. “Did you... Were you expecting this, pretty one?”

“Huh?” Jo groaned the word out with her head thrown back against the bed, and it took a moment before the gasping sound hitched out of her throat as he was able to slide a finger straight inside of her and crook it against the gorgeous spot that made her shiver delightfully with how wet she already was. “Oh god! No, no I wasn’t, oh Grey, I promise I wasn’t.” Her breathy words didn’t do much to convince him right then, but as he let out a chuckle at the way her hips canted up towards his hand - a second finger sliding in as he ground his palm gently against the bud of her clit in time - Grey left a trail of kisses across her chest with the knowledge that she didn’t lie either. “Oh, please..”

Grey groaned himself as Jo’s hips tilted up towards him and her fingers raked down from his hair along his neck to scramble at his back. Twisting his own slightly as he slowly worked her up, he couldn’t help the hum of pleasure at the way that she moved beneath him and let out a quiet laugh as he felt Jo tightening around his fingers. “You sure about that, Jo?”

“Ma...ybe a little.” Her little hitched gasp, breaking up the word, got another deep laugh from him as Grey trailed his lips back up her chest to catch her lips in his for a second. Pulling back and leaning away to look down at her, drinking in the splashes of color that painted an extra layer on top of her beauty.  “Maybe I...” Panting, Jo rolled her hips up towards his hand and scrambled to tug at the towels and then her own chest and then scraped her nails down his chest in turn, twisting beneath him. “Hun, please! I didn’t think but your fingers were so close, and you were so close and teasin’ me.”

“Well, I’m sorry to have teased you so much, pretty one,” He spoke the words softly against her skin but the words were deeper than that, deeper than even the way he was thrusting and twisting his fingers into her. Pressing gentle kisses against her cheeks and lips, Grey closed his eyes as he tried to push back the feeling that he’d done something wrong - that he’d done something he was trying to avoid and had stepped too far that way - from distracting him from the way Jo felt and was reacting to his touch. “I’m so sorry, I hope you’ll forgive me,” He murmured over the sounds she was making were those hollow gasps for air that went straight through him, and crooking his fingers inside carefully while speeding up the movement of his thumb against her clit, he could feel her legs tensing and then releasing as she let out a loud moan around his name that sounded like music to his ears as she came around him. “Please, pretty one, pretty please.”

Jo let out a confused sounding noise, like her tongue was too big for her mouth and all quiet and soft in the afterglow as he continued to pepper her nose and forehead with kisses before pressing his against hers with a sigh. Breathing heavily through his nose, Grey opened his eyes to watch hers slowly blinking open as she came back into herself. Those eyes were so forgiving, he thought that every time he caught a look into their depths after every failing, and the love pouring out of them right then felt all the same to him as she tilted her chin to kiss him sweetly as she finally found her footing and voice again. “Of course, hun, always.”

Shaking his head for a second once they parted, Grey gently wrapped his arms under her arms and around her back and shoulders to press her close. It felt like the searing heat of the sun to be wrapped this close around her, but he wouldn’t want to be free of it at all. Jo’s arms wrapped around his own shoulders gently, stroking passages on his back that might be left in visible pigmented paths after them when they finally separated, and then slowly shifted her hips to wrap her legs around him as well, pressing her core up against him with a soft moan that wrung the same from him.

He slowly moved his hips in turn, sliding for a moment against her such that he could just grind up against her, mumbling quietly asking for permission before he tilted his hips and slid into her on the next jerk of hips to the sound of their moans crying out together. Grey shuddered feeling her lips on his skin, trailing along the underside of his chin and then sucking on his neck the same bruising kisses he left to hers as his thrusts and her hips rolled together.

“Grey, fuck,” Jo gasped the words along his neck, teeth grazing here and there as he moved a hand to tangle and wrap in her hair in encouragement as the other gripped her hip tightly. Her fingers scratched gently along his shoulders and he could feel the way she rocked her chest up against his as they moved together in their favorite dance. “Hun, Grey, please fuck, more.” The way she moaned quietly around his neck and the dip of her tongue out against his collarbone brought another shiver to his spine as Grey thrust harder still at her pleading encouragement. “Ah, just like that!”

Gripping her tighter, he gently tugged her hair back to catch up her lips with his and smothered both their cries together in a tangle of tongues and lips and teeth as he slid the hand from her hip around to tease at her clit with a deft finger as he increased his pace. The rhythm was faltering, but the way Jo was working her hips up against him and the pressure that was building around him from her muscles tightening  was just as obvious that she was as close as he was as they moved tightly as one. Wrapped up in her arms, Grey couldn’t help the rush running through him at how hot and perfect it felt to be held by such burning passion as Jo let out a small squeaked sound that cut through her own moans and he could feel her cuming around him. Burying his face in her hair, he couldn’t hold back like a small part of him was screaming to do - to hold off and take her through again and again and again - and instead followed a few short, sharp thrusts later with a cry of her name smothered in her hair as he let himself go inside of her.

The warm embrace was too good though to pull back from, and tucking in against her neck, Grey stilled as much as he felt Jo still shivering and shuddering through the afterglow around him as he just enjoyed the scent that was uniquely them. Their love, their love making and the faint vanilla that clung to her at all times mixing with the smell of their sweat and the citrus tang of the oil paints coating them both. Rubbing his nose against the curve of her neck, he couldn’t of made himself move if he had to right then.

After their heartbeats had finally cooled down, and the cool air of the room began to sink into their skin, Jo finally shifted and squirmed underneath him with a quiet giggle. “Oh hunny...” Pushing up on her elbows as they finally rolled to the sides and Grey watched her face transform into the most beautiful smile as she took them both in with a louder laugh still. “Oh my god! Look at the mess we made!”

“Huh?” “We’re goin’ ta have to put the washing on.”

“Oh?” Grey slowly arched a brow at her before following her gaze to see the mottled array of colors that decorated the both of them as well as the bright splashes and parts that had blended to a murky black all over the towels where Jo’s back had been. Shifting up and leaning over to look at her back then, Grey could see the path of his hands stretched through parts of what had once intended to be a sunrise and now looked like a Dali melted sky and black blurs in other spots. Smiling, he reached out to trace a black blob that had once been a dancing figure and now was a black mess with a streak of yellow through it. “I don’t see any mess here though.”

“That’s cause you’re an artsy-fartsy boy.” Jo giggled in response, leaning up to kiss him gently and as she pulled back Grey really took in the pain that covered her smile then - a bright yellow streak on her nose and purple against her neck and chin, the orange blob covering one check and the bright red smeared around her mouth and a green streak across her forehead and one eye that he had no idea where it could have come from. “You’re all purple and blue, my hunny.”

“Oh good, cause you’re all yellow, my sunshine.” Grey nuzzled his nose in against hers with another quick kiss to the tip before laughing loudly at the purple and red imprint it left behind. “Oh... Okay, maybe we’re a little messy right now.”

“Nah, ya think?” “Just a little one though.” “Only the littlest.”

“Guess we better get cleaned up then?” He suggested with a smirk as Jo had flopped back onto her back, stretching her mottled arms above her head and the range of colors darkening her hair into a sunrise all it’s own as he slowly shifted to stand up. Holding a hand out, he wasn’t surprised at all for her smaller one to slide into his and tug him in for a kiss once they’d both found their feet. “Shower time, again, pretty one?”

“But no messin’ ‘round this time-” “No?”

“Maybe just a little bit!” Jo giggled as bright as the yellow paint on her nose, and Grey smiled wide as those brown eyes filled with mischief but none of the burning desire that would have made his stomach flip right then to think of following up on. “But mostly washin’ up.”

“Agreed.” Grey sealed their agreement with another bright kiss, arms wrapped tightly around her waist and smooshing the colors that had been distinct but still blended all the more together as he simply enjoyed holding her to him for a moment before they had to part and wash away in streaks down the drain the masterpiece they’d made of one another together.

---

Jo was the one wearing the apron today, and Grey couldn’t help but think she looked utterly precious as she moved between the fridge and bench top moving ingredients out for whatever she had planned for dinner. Grey himself had a tea towel tucked over one shoulder and another in the front pocket of his jeans, and was instead busy washing his hands after taking Nana out to the toilet and a few throws of the ball. When he’d come back inside, it sounded like his playlist was playing through and it’d been sweet to watch Jo throw her hands up and dance about their girl to avoid touching her but still give the attention for a moment.

“Babygirl, fluffy puppy, baby princess, Mommy is cookin’ darlin’ girl,” Jo crooned as she leant down towards the happily prancing dog, but stayed upright enough she wouldn’t get any surprise kisses or tackled into a cuddle. “Mommy can’t play right now, but she left a lot of toys out for you. Pup wanna go upstairs? Up to Nana’s room? Goin’ ta be a good girl?” Jo gestured a few times towards the stairs while cooing towards the fluffy animal as if she were a real baby until the confused look on the dog’s face slowly shifted to boredom and annoyance before finally recognition at the gesture to upstairs a few more times. As the dog headed in the suggested direction, Grey watched as Jo clapped her hands happily in time with the swishing wag of the pup’s tail. “Oh what a good girl you are, Nana. Go on girl!”

“You really have been upping her vocabulary, haven’t you, Jo?” “Just a bit. She’s a very smart girl-” “Oh yes, soon we will need to get a tutor for her-” “Hey, don’t tease me!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, oh my most knowledgeable love,” Grey placated as he moved over to wrap his clean hands around the other’s waist from behind for a moment, tucking his chin over her shoulder again and pressing a kiss over the purple mark that rested there and hadn’t washed off in the shower like the rest of their antics. “So, do I get to know what we’re doing for dinner yet, Jo?”

There was a pause as the other raised a brow towards him for a moment, head twisted slightly to catch and hold his eye for a moment, before she bobbed her head a little and pressed a sweet kiss to his cheek. “Well, somewhat. I’ve gotta get your help with it anyways-”

“You’re letting me help?” “I thought you might enjoy it?”

“You thought right, pretty one.” Grey practically beamed at her request for him to help prepare whatever it was she’d dreamed up for their meal. Pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth, he squeezed her tightly for a moment, before finally letting go with a small spin of her out from where their hands had joined in turn with the crooning song over the speakers before she span back in with a giggle. “So - what’s first?”

“Well, Mr. Masterchef,” Jo teased as she finally pulled from his hold and moved to get more items out of the fridge before holding up and juggling poorly with two relatively big eggplants as she looked back at him. “You can get started on the eggplant parmesan while I get the beef ready for the carnivores version - or we can do it the other way round if you want?”

He moved over to pluck the two fruits from her hands with a smile. “That what we’re having tonight then, huh? That’s a lot for the two of us-”

“We’ve got guests, comin’ over, hun.” “Oh?” “Yeah, your family are coming round, and Harry too.”

“So, a dinner party with the sisters and Harry?” Grey asked gently as he moved towards the two trays covered in parchment paper Jo had set out beside the chopping board. Setting the eggplants down, he moved carefully to top-and-tail the stem and base off before slicing into decently sized slices and laying them out on the tray as he heard the clink of bowls and the quiet sizzle of a fry pan start to heat up oil behind him. “You’ve really thought of everything, you know that, Jo.”

“Awwww.” Jo cooed back at him, and quickly rattled off the instruction to oil the eggplant when he was done as well as season them as she cracked some eggs and set up the crumbing station for the flattened beef steaks.

As soon as he’d finished the eggplants, Grey span about with the trays in hand to see Jo opening the heated oven for him to slide them in with one hand while she gently dropped a beef schnitzel into the heated oil away from her to avoid the splashes with the other. It was honestly sweet to him to watch the way Jo worked, and as he closed the oven door on the eggplants, he waited until she’d dunked the next schnitzel that would be all that would fit into the pan before jumping in for another quick squeeze.

"Hunny!"

"Sorry," he chuckled quietly at Jo's flapping her eggy, crumbed fingered hand around even as she leaned her head back against his shoulder. "Couldn't help it. I'm just... In a good mood is all."

"Oh?" "I'm just really enjoying getting to spend today with you-" "And Nana." "Yes, and Nana. And I just... I just wanted you to know it."

Sighing into her hair, Grey pressed a quick kiss against the slightly damp locks and tucked a stray piece back behind her ear.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. I wanted you to have a good- no, a great - day today." Jo's words were soft and warm and wrapped about his heart like a vice as he pressed an extra quick kiss against her ear before letting her free as he'd glanced down at the fry pan. The other moved quickly to flip the schnitzels over for another minute on the other side before she quickly pulled them to dry on some paper towel and dipped in the next two schnitzels.

Looking around at the rest of the ingredients, at a loss, Grey frowned for a second before spotting the tins of tomatoes, the garlic and basil sitting out.

"Hey, did you want me to start on the tomato sauce for the parmesans?" "Oh, yeah actually. That'd be great!"

Nodding to himself, Grey quickly bundled up the ingredients and pulled out a pot to splash in some oil and start the garlic sweating off as he double checked what was out on the bench. "Tomatoes, garlic and basil - did it need anything else from here, Jo?"

"Umm, actually you'll want to put some diced onion in now too and add the tomatoes after they're sweated off." Jo mumbled, more talking aloud to herself as she watched and flipped the schnitzels before doing the last two into the pan, and glanced into the pot beside her skillet. "And if you can find some sun dried tomatoes in the fridge, there might be an open jar, then I'd blitz those up in the food processor with the tinned tomatoes before addin' them in?"

Grey raised a brow at the suggestion for a moment before turning towards the range of ingredients set out and then checking in the fridge if there were any allusive tomatoes hidden in a jar somewhere. It was just like Jo to buy a range of jarred things for one recipe and then leave half or more of the jar in the fridge for ages until it had to be thrown out or she came up with another use for them. He found a jar, tucked between a pot of lemon butter Jo had made a few days ago and the ketchup bottle that they were in constant odds of if it should be in the fridge or not, and checking the date on them he figured they must have been a relatively new buy given how long was left to be used.

"Found some!" "Oh awesome! I forgot to buy some at the shops so I thought that must mean we had some already or I was just forgetful." "You? Forgetful? At the shops? Never."

Jo batted his arm at the teasing with a laugh of her own as he moved past to place all the tomato options together into the food processor, whizzing quickly and then emptying them into the pot on the stove as the onions had turned translucent and the garlic smelled nutty and delicious. Jo's hand reached past him to grab the processor bowl, filling it with a little bit of water to splash about and get all the very last of the tomato out as well as add the liquid to the tomato sauce that would simmer away for a while. Grey noticed all six beef schnitzels were finished and drying on paper towel, and that Jo had started to clean up when he took the eggy bowl she was holding.

"Since you know what's next, how about you start the prep work and I get the dishes started, pretty one?" Grey suggested teasingly as he hip bumped her out of the way gently from the sink. It wasn't like he disliked doing dishes the way that Jo did, even if she still insisted on doing them when he had cooked if he'd left any. "And then by the time they're done, you'll have a new job for me?"

Jo looked indecisive for a moment - her dislike for the dishes clear on her face as well as her uncertainty about letting him do a chore she hated on today of all days - before she finally nodded. "Okay, sounds good, hubby." Grey felt his cheeks flame as they always did hearing that term of endearment from the other, especially as it always seemed to be simply a slip of the tongue or an unconscious thought from the other that got through. Jo didn't seem to notice as she grabbed up the flour and yeast from her ingredient pile and waved a hand behind her towards him. "Oh, can you also stir the sauce occasionally? Don't want it to catch."

"Sure thing, Jo."

Grey was focused on the dishes, and on stirring the sauce as requested, but neither task required much of his focus and instead he found himself taking glances over his shoulder to watch Jo working.

First she seemed to whip up a bread dough in no time, hands flying through the mixing and kneading in a bowl then the clean bench surface, and had the dough resting with a tea towel over it on the kitchen table in no time where it'd usually take him even ten minutes using the stand mixer.

Next, there was a pile of flour poured into the bench and Grey's eyes widened to see her cracking eggs and pouring olive oil directly into the center before he realized what she was making. The next dough, a bright yellow pasta dough from the fresh eggs, was equally quickly made, but Jo wrapped it in cling wrap and laid it out in the fridge before Grey finished the last of the dishes so far.

He grabbed up the cleaning spray instead, wiping down the floury remains on the bench before Jo could get to it, and was rewarded with warm lips against his neck and a pair of arms wrapped around his waist like he had her.

“Grey, c’mon,” Jo whined a little, but leaned into him as it was and tossed her head forwards against his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have ta keep cleanin’ up like this.”

“Oh, but you see, I like cleaning up. It means I get to watch you cook more and it means you’ve done more of the cooking so everything is guaranteed to be delicious.” “That’s... So ridiculous, hunny, honestly.” “How so? Your food is always the best, Jo, honestly.”

The blonde gave one of those tight, self-conscious laughs before she tugged away from his back with a smile. “Okay, fine. I’ve got one of two tasks for you then since you’re worried ‘bout doing the cooking side of things.”

“Shoot away.” “First off, a basil pesto for with the pasta.” “I’m guessing some of the basil, the - hmmm - pine nuts, the garlic and the olive oil?” “And a little bit of the parmesan cheese and some lemon zest and juice.” “Interesting! You’ll have to taste test and show me though.”

“Fine,” Jo singsonged the word out as she span into his arms, and Grey shifted one hand to tug teasingly at a tendril of hair that had fallen forward before stealing a handful of kisses from the other. They’d kissed so much that day, but every second he wasn’t he felt drawn to do it again with how relaxed and over flowing with love the day had felt. “Hunny...” The other whined quietly against his lips, and biting gently for a second on her bottom lip before releasing, Grey made sure to attempt to look as admonished as possible.

“Sorry, sorry, what else do you need from me, chef?” “Oh stop with the teasing!” “Never!”

Grey thought the bright and light laugh that got from the other was so much more musical and beautiful than the previous laugh he’d wrought from her, and leaning in he couldn’t help but to brush his nose against hers before pulling back and holding his hands up when it looked like she was about to reprimand him again. “Sorry, chef, hands to myself and no more kisses until I’ve been assigned my tasks.”

“That’s much better,” Jo giggled as she reached out to take his surrendering hands into hers. “So the second thing is some garlic and herb butter mix to go on the bread sticks-”

“Garlic bread bread sticks?” “Yep, exactly.” “I’m guessing - melted butter, chopped garlic and some chopped herbs?” “I even bought some Italian seasonin’ to make it easier. And don’t forget the salt.”

“Well now, I can definitely do both of those for you, pretty one.” Grey replied gently, smiling to himself at the easy tasks and he lifted her hands to his lips for a quick kiss before letting them free. “I’ll get right to it.”

“Brilliant - I’ll start work on dessert then, and let me know when you want a taste on the pesto.” Jo smiled brightly up at him for a moment, a flash as bright as the sun to his wanting eyes, before they both turned towards their tasks.

Grey found his were relatively easy and gave his mind the chance to not only wander but to fill with the tunes of his favorite songs slowly floating through the air around them. He hummed along and on occasion quietly sung along as he minced a lot of garlic, chopped a lot of herbs, and pulsed mixes together or melted the butter carefully in the microwave so as not to explode it.

The few glances he spared towards Jo as he worked, not including the odd moment where they would have to intersect or interact or reach past one another for something which would turn into a slow spinning turn of a dance and an opportunity to share a more than fleeting touch, he was once again entirely transfixed by how much work she managed to complete. He watched as she seemingly miraculously made her own honeycomb that expanded and bubbled and was the exact right shade of gold while filling the air with the sweet smell of caramel. She made actual caramels and turned it into salted caramel and then filled tiny tart cases from what looked like previously made short crust pasty to make tiny caramel tarts that she covered with a thin layer of dark chocolate. And she made equally tiny little lemon meringue pies and then just dollops of meringue kisses as well. And through it all, she continued to taste the pesto he worked on, put the tray of bread sticks into the oven to bake, and finish off the tomato sauce for the parmesan sauce with a dash of balsamic vinegar and some of the fresh basil leaves.

Jo had started rolling the pasta dough through a pasta machine Grey hadn’t known they had until it was almost thin enough to see through, as Grey was finishing the second round of dishes from all their cooking and preparation, when there was a knock at the door.

Jo grinned as she finished the last pass through of the pasta maker and laid the long strip into a thin little book folded up on itself and brushed off her floury hands with a smile. “Hey hun, you free to get that while I get some drinks ready? It’s probably Harry or your sisters runnin’ early.”

“Sure thing, Jo.” Grey smiled in response, wiping his own slightly wet hands from the inside of the dish gloves off after rinsing them quickly, before he headed out to greet their first guests and inevitably start an amazing evening to match just how wonderful the day had been so far.

---

Harry took the can with a quiet thanks as Grey sat down in his own chair across from him. Jo had been right in her call that it was likely the researcher, and while Grey’d suggested they hang in the kitchen, they’d both been chased out within a few moments with a tray of cheese, dips and crackers from the cooking space once Jo’d been sure who had arrived. “No point you distractin’ me and both of you getting in the way of my settin’ the table.” She’d cried as she shoved the trays and a bowl of cut vegetable dippers into Harry’s hands as Grey had fished the drinks from the fridge.

As he relaxed into the armchair, Grey smiled across at the other man. “Thanks again for coming, I don’t know if you had other plans but-”

“Dude, stop always thanking me for coming to hang out.” Harry interrupted with a laugh, cracking the lid to his soda with a smile. “It’s more Sophie being put out than me, but she’s got some busboys now to help around the bar - which I haven’t gotten to thank Jo for okaying yet.”

“I don’t know if Jo really has all that much say anymore.” “Oh?” “I mean, Sophie’s pretty much managing the place these days isn’t she?” “That’s true. I’m sure that Jo’d agree too-”

Grey nodded as he took a sip of his own drink with a sigh. “I think Jo appreciates the help, actually. I can’t remember how she ended up with the place, but I’m pretty sure Jo is happy there’s someone so actively involved with it,” There was a pause as he swallowed his drink before his eyes widened as he thought about how that might have sounded to the other. The liquid caught in his throat for a second and coughing it down, Grey looked towards the other with an awkward flush. “Not to say you’re not, of course. Just-”

Harry let out an even louder laugh at that point, no trace of any offense in his smile as he shook his head. “Nah, man, you were right. I’m not great behind the bar, not like Soph, but I’m definitely a better help upstairs than pouring drinks.”

Grey nodded, relieved the other hadn’t been offended at all, before he ducked his head for a second. It was odd to think about the bar and everything to do with it - ever since Jo’d moved in with him, Grey had rarely visited without the blonde and tended to offer that Harry come relax at theirs instead, and it was a long time since he’d heard Jo talk about the operations itself. He shook those thoughts from his mind with a quiet sigh before he glanced back over towards the other man. “So, you’re up to calling her Soph now?” Grey smirked a little, having noticed the tiny change for him to latch onto instead.

“Oh, don’t you start. Your sister got me into so much shit-” “Which one?” “That’s a good point - they both definitely contributed-” “Well, you can supposedly yell at them tonight about it.”

“Oh, I will.” Harry chuckled himself, shaking his head as he took a swig of his drink and then moved forward to take a cracker and some cheese with a smile. Grey could see the way his ears were tinged red, and figured that whatever trouble the researcher had caught wasn’t actually all that bad in anyone’s mind. “Tell them to stop trying to play matchmaker if they’re bored.”

Grey let out a laugh of his own, well thinking that his sisters both must have made a few comments before he’d arrived, and more than happy to join in on helping his friend find happiness. If the barmaid is what would do it, then Grey was entirely on board - besides, his own barmaid had turned out to be the most astounding love for him.

When he leaned forward to get himself his own cracker with a swipe of the hummus dip on it, Grey was surprised to hear the sound of raised voices in the hall. There was no stress to them though, just a lot of laughter and the sound of the door closing, so he didn’t make to move to check just yet.

As fate would have it - both his sisters came wandering into the loungeroom after a few minutes, each with their own drinks, and moved towards the open spots on the couches and armchairs about the space with joyful greetings to both the men. Ombre plopped down beside Harry, a little too close for the normal expectations of personal space, but all wide smiles and her wide petticoats under the baby pink dress needed the extra space to sit; and Harry barely shifted other than to raise his hand across the back of the couch so he could talk freely. As for Shada, she slipped over to the other spare armchair and crossed her knees carefully as she found the most comfortable position to see and talk to everyone.

“How has your day been so far, Grey?” The brunette shadow asked with a gentle smile as she looked across at her brother. Grey thought she seemed a tad over dressed for a family dinner with her nice dress and the glittery shoes she’d been gifted the year before for Christmas, but then again, Shada only dressed down when she had to. “Jo looked very relaxed all things considered, especially compared to last year.”

“It’s been a very... relaxing day.” “Why did you pause over the choice of word, brother?” “Because, I don’t kiss and tell.”

“No, you just kiss and leave glaringly purple marks behind you.” Harry cut over the two shadow’s conversation with a bemused grin, getting a loud laugh from everyone as they settled in to relax for a while. “I mean, unless Jo took on a changeling or pishtaco hunt recently?”

Grey shook his head ruefully at the ribbing, especially as both Shada and Harry took great delight in explaining the joke to the confused blonde when she’d asked what they were all laughing at despite having laughed along herself. He didn’t mind being the butt of the joke when it made everyone else have a good time, and if Grey really needed to, he could always bring up the barmaid again for his sisters’ to target the other about. As he dipped a carrot stick into the pumpkin dip on the table, Grey watched quietly as the other three continued to talk and banter between themselves. Ombre was talking about how she’d seen a dress on the internet and was crazy about it, and Shada talked about how she’d spent several hours taunting other players into outing themselves in Among Us when playing alone, and Harry actually talked about some sci-fi comic show that had just come out that he was excited for and got both other women very interested in it as well as Grey.

It wasn’t until Shada got up to collect a new round of drinks that Grey thought about how long they’d been talking and that Jo hadn’t moved everyone in for dinner despite everyone being there. She would have normally come in to talk when the other two women had arrived and likely suggested they head in for dinner by refill time, but Grey hadn’t seen her for a good forty-five minutes at that point.

“Hey, no don’t worry about it, Shada, I’ll go get them.” Grey jumped up as the other started collecting the glasses and empty cans of soda, bustling quickly now that the thought had caught in his mind. “You guys chat, I’ll go see if Jo needs a hand with dinner too anyway.”

“You sure, Grey?” “Yes, I’m sure. Sit down, those shoes are made for showing off, not walking.”

“Actually, they’re very good at both,” Shada remarked with a flip of her hair as she flounced back down into her seat, kicking up her heels and waving them towards him as if to demonstrate their immense use and practicality. As if a six inch heel could in any way be practical. “Let me know if you or Cupcake need any more help though, brother.”

Grey waved a hand in acknowledgement as he heard Harry continue to explain the plot lines and theories he’d heard about the show - “and the soundtrack is insane!” - before he headed into the kitchen quietly. His playlist seemed to have looped, but Jo’d made no move to turn it off as she’d worked it seemed. And work is what it looked like she had done since being left to her own devices.

The oven was on and the scent of melting cheese, tomatoes and basil was in the air from where the two casserole dishes were tucked away heating through, as well as garlic dancing on the air with the rest from the fresh garlic breadstick loaves that seemed to be warming through underneath. There was already a large serving dish on the table that looked stunning with the thick slices of a range of heirloom tomatoes - from the deep inky reds to some bright yellow flashes and orange tones in between as well as just vibrant reds - and what looked to be fresh mozzarella alongside the prettily scattered basil leaves and drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette. A wine cooler was sitting on the table as well with what looked to be a white wine of some sort that Grey was fairly sure only the girls would touch, and the bread basket was waiting quietly for the golden brown breadsticks to be deposited soon enough, with a few pot mats beside it ready and awaiting the parmesan bakes when they were ready. Grey frowned as he noticed that the table was laid for six, not five, and he turned back to Jo in confusion.

“Jo?” “Yeah, hun?” “Who else is coming to dinner?”

“What?” Jo turned about from the boiling pot of water she had just turned to a simmer, and raised a brow across at him when he simply gestured to the sixth table setting. “I told you, your family is coming for dinner.”

Grey frowned in confusion as he tried to work out who she could mean, before the look twisted as he tripped over the only person he could think of who might need a seat that could fit that bill. There was no way that that was who Jo meant though, he tried to rationalize to himself as he stared at her in abject fury at the idea. There was no possible way that that could be who they were waiting on.

“Who else is coming to dinner?” He could hear himself hiss the words out in a snap, almost biting his tongue as he tried to rid his mouth of them as much as he wanted to rid his mind of the idea that had snagged. There was no way. “Jo?”

“Jesus Christ, Grey,” He watched as Jo continued to move about the kitchen, and even through the building confusion he could tell she seemed far less relaxed than earlier. Her hair was a slightly frizzy mess, clearly having worked up a bit of a sweat that boofed her hair up, and she kept rubbing her hands on the skirt front of the apron. Grey even noted she appeared to have changed into one of her nice sweaters that usually he appreciated on her figure very much, but wasn’t even able to get lost in the smooth curve of her waist and hips. Jo patted her hair down before freezing at a rather loud knock at the front door, jerking rather abruptly in a panic. “Oh of fuckin’ course he shows up right now!” The blonde cried in alarm quietly to herself, and Grey could feel the ire building as he thought his suspicions were getting confirmed.

“Hun, can you grab the step ladder please- Coming!” Jo shouted the last word out as she struggled to pull off the apron and then tuck her hair back behind her ear as she flung a hand towards where they kept the stepladder by the back door.

Grey frowned all over again at the request as he instead moved to follow the blonde down the hall, well and truly intending to slam the front door in the face of who he suspected would be on the other side and then maybe just storm up to the spare room and deal with the swirl of emotions he was feeling about Jo inviting that asshole of all people. He couldn’t leave, even if his very being was screaming at him that he would have to, but he could very well prove how much of a stupid idea such an invitation would be to the blonde for doing so. His stomach hurt as he followed after her, tying itself in knots.

That was until he noticed Jo grabbing the entry mat and rolling it up quickly, before she shoved it up against the side of the wall where it wouldn’t unroll. The movement itself was crazy - they hadn’t moved the rug since she’d brought it home with the Devil’s Trap woven into the very pattern of the rug so delicately that not even the cleverest or sharpest eye would notice it - but as Jo tugged open the door to reveal someone who was decidedly not the absolute bane of his existence, all of Grey’s pent up anger popped like a balloon.

“Hiya, sorry for the delay - oh, wow, you are so tall!” Jo’s greeting was so strange to Grey’s ear, as was the way her hands were flapping about as if to offer a hand shake and then like she thought better of it and then like her arms had jerked up intending for a hug before slamming them by her sides again. It was disarmingly adorable to watch, as was the way she seemed to flounder awkwardly under the somehow serious and dubious look she was getting from the man standing at the doorstep. “Like holy fuck, you are seriously- You’re as bad as Sam, I’m goin’ to crick my neck.” Jo babbled as she took a step back holding the door open and one of those self-conscious smiles formed on her face under the scrutiny of the taller man. “Oh, fuck, sorry, hey. Come on in- Hun where... Hunny where is the step ladder?”

Grey found all and any confusion disappear as he moved up beside Jo to be able to catch the familiar aura coming from the stranger in an instant, confirmed by the flash of gold to his eyes before it disappeared. The question and importance of it completely pushed to the back of his mind as he realized that the demon was standing in their doorway in a guise other than the massive, shaggy wolf form that had been how Grey had always known him to be. It felt truly special to be able to grin up at the other.

“Amon,” Grey smiled widely as he took a hold of the door over Jo’s head, not sure how to keep the fact that the other was there and obviously the last person meant to be joining their dinner. The fact he got a correspondingly approving head-nod and a small twitch of the lips into a smile in return felt otherworldly for a moment to him. “Hey, I didn’t realize you were going to be able to make it.”

“Jo had mentioned she was planning a dinner a few weeks back,” The taller man remarked, shrugging a shoulder as he seemed to look around the hall of the front door with a speculative look. Grey was somewhat surprised by the accent and how the other was still hovering on the door step. “She suggested that if I wished to, I’d be more than welcome to attend. I-” There was a pause as Amon’s eyes finally drifted upwards and focused on the ceiling for a long moment. “I had assumed it would be hard for everyone to accommodate the space at the dinner table had I just come as usual.”

Grey found himself biting down on the corner of his lip as he tried not to laugh at the dry humor, and was about to hold out his hand when he was suddenly pushed gently out of the way. He’d completely lost track of the blonde in his surprise, and took another step back realizing why Jo’d asked for the step ladder as she returned and set it up quickly. Amon’s eyes were focused on her for a moment, a brief flash through his eyes as the hunter climbed up the steps quickly to scrape briefly at the paint work to break the UV-painted trap that blocked the door way as a failsafe.

Holding onto the steps as soon as he realized, Grey glanced back across at the demon on the threshold before smiling as the taller man finally took a step into the house once the trap had been broken. As Jo clambered back down with a gentle punch to his shoulder, he couldn’t help but catch her hand to press a kiss against her knuckles at the surprise she’d managed to pull off.

“Well, come on in then,” Grey replied finally, and as Jo folded up the step ladder and disappeared back towards the kitchen freeing up the space in the hall, he moved to shut the front door behind the other man. As soon as it was closed, he turned before moving to pull the other in, giving a warm, welcoming hug and letting out a quiet laugh at the slow reaction from the other to return the gesture. “Jo didn’t say you were coming at all.”

“Oh?”  Amon pulled back first and clapped a hand on Grey’s shoulder in a gesture that Grey took to be both friendly and to place some space for the both of them. “She’d hinted that you’d appreciate it.”  

“Well, she said family, so I guess she did, but she managed to keep it a secret.” “I hope it was a nice surprise at least.” “Of course! I wasn’t expecting to see you today, but I’m glad you’re here.” “Likewise. I was.. surprised by the invitation.”

The arched brow from the taller man at the sounds of laughter coming from the lounge gave both of them an excuse not to ponder over the blonde’s motivation or suggestions, and Grey grinned as he waved a hand towards the door. “Well, come say hi to everyone else. You haven’t met my littlest sister yet, so watch out for her.” Grey chuckled to himself as Amon gave him a slightly sharp look at that, well aware that this was possibly the least frustrating way for the demon to meet the youngest shadow. “Your lucky, normally she might have tried to pull on your tail.”

“Ah.” There was a second of hesitance as Amon paused outside the lounge door, before Grey found himself laughing even louder as the other man’s eyes slowly turned yellow and a wolfish grin formed on the demon’s lips. “At least this way she will keep her hands at the end of the night.”

---

[carmenlire]

Marshmallow World

Flufftober Day 5: Wet; Tentaclober Day 5: First Time

read on ao3

Alec walks into his room and shrugs out of his coat. The movement leaves him wincing and whatever injuries he’s sustained are just one more worry in a cast of thousands right now.

There’s no way that Jace and Izzy are going to just magically believe that he saved their asses in the river due to a lucky hit on the water demon.

No, Alec scowls. He has maybe an hour before they’ll be barging into his room, all skepticism and self confidence.

It’ll have to be enough, he decides, and tosses his phone onto his bed. Stripping out of his clothes as he heads to his ensuite, Alec pauses in front of his sink. He drops down to his haunches and opens the door to the cupboard where he keeps his bathroom storage.

There’s a box there that’s far too ornate for its contents. Peeling back the black wooden top, Alec studies his options.

Finally choosing Marshmallow World, Alec turns to the bath. He places the stopper in and then turns the hot water on, waiting a few minutes before dropping the bath bomb in. Immediately, it’s fizzying out into purples and pinks and yellows. Vanilla steam clouds the room and Alec’s shoulders lose not an inconsiderable amount of their tension.

He feels keyed up. He feels calmer than he has in weeks, since he last allowed himself this little ritual. It’s a combination that’s become all too familiar since he turned thirteen a few years ago.

When the tub is mostly full, Alec steps gingerly into the scalding water. He feels a tug at his gut but steels himself.

Just a few more seconds, he chides himself.

Settling into the water, Alec sighs and with it, allows the change.

He closes his eyes, breathing deep, and feels his tentacles stretch. One navy tentacle in particular pokes out of the water and splashes him in the face without restraint.

Alec huffs and opens one eye to throw it an aggrieved glare. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I know I shouldn’t have waited so long this time.”

It dips a little, as though to acknowledge his words, and then drops back into the water. The bath bomb soothes the sting of all the little aches and pains his extra limbs had to deal with earlier in the afternoon as they’d fought off a few water demons while also keeping the three of them from drowning in the icy Hudson.

They’re exhausted and Alec knows that he’s sure as hell tired after a brutal patrol.

He loses track of time as he lets himself drift. The water feels so good and his tentacles haven’t been given a chance to play in weeks-- far longer than they should go but then Alec’s been inundated as he’s started taking more and more work from his parents as he steps into his role as Acting Head of the Institute.

There’s been no time for him to just be in months and keeping his tentacles glamoured away has been hell on him. His back had taken to aching constantly, his tentacles itching to get out, and just taking one of his militaristically short showers the past week had been torture, taking all of his control and focus to keep his body completely human.

Alec’s startled out of his haze, then, when he hears his sister in his bedroom, obviously walking toward the bathroom. He straightens hastily and tries to get rid of his extra appendages, glaring at them when they refuse to submit, when they instead seem to revel in writhing under the water so that he next fears a tsunami wave crashing gallons of water onto the Institute’s antique tile.

To his utter horror, however, a tentacle slithers up the side of the tub out of the glittery water and drapes itself over the ledge. Alec lunges forward and tries to shove the damned thing at least back into the water but it’s little suckers stay glued to the porcelain. With a burst of adrenaline at his secret being revealed, Alec pries the tentacle up until a little pop sounds as a single sucker is removed from the tub.

It stings and Alec winces as he hisses at his own body, “Get back in the fucking water or I swear to Raziel I’ll--”

“Alec?”

Alec’s eyes fly up to see his sister and parabatai staring at him like he’s lost his mind. Alec does what he does best when his siblings are being their own particular brand of annoying-- he scowls and blusters.

“Get the hell out of here, Iz, Jesus. Can’t you see I’m bathing? Can’t a guy have any privacy in this goddamn Institute, by the Angel--”

“Relax, bro, it’s not like we haven’t all been scarred by being hosed down together in OPs before. Besides,” Jace says, his voice taking on a tone that makes Alec want to drown himself, “It’s not like we can even see anything besides your shoulders. What the fuck is that water?”

Before he can scramble to reply, Alec sees Isabelle’s eyes light up at the glittery colors swirling around the surface of the water. “That, Jace, is a bath bomb.” The glint in her eye turns maniacal as she looks up to meet Alec’s resigned gaze. “Why, brother dearest, I didn’t even know you knew what bath bombs were.”

Glowering but grateful that his little ritual has captured their attention, Alec just sinks further into the water. “They help with soreness after missions. I passed a Lush on patrol one evening and one of their employees had me sniffing things before I knew what was happening. I left with four that day and keep a stockpile for rough nights.”

What Alec doesn’t also say is that whatever ingredients are in the bath bombs, his tentacles love them. Alec doesn’t know if it’s the pigment that turns the water murky or if it’s the way the water is silkier over the skin but every week, Alec’s made the habit of taking a bath and letting his tentacles go hog wild.

He doesn’t get to the ocean as much as he might like-- though he makes it a point to go several times a week during the summer-- but this is the next best thing. Plus, well, Alec’s not immune-- the bath bombs smell divine and feel rather decadent. It’s a luxury that he’s become rather fond of over the past five years.

Jace is rolling his eyes and turning back toward the bedroom and Alec is breathing a quiet but fervent sigh of relief at the fact that they’ll be out of his hair in just a moment, when Izzy’s eyes catch on the goddamn tentacle laying stubbornly limp over the ivory lip of the tub.

Everyone freezes as Isabelle whispers, “What is that, Alec?”

Swallowing hard, Alec tries to urge the tentacle to slither back in the water-- maybe he can play it off as bath bomb residue-- but it doesn’t move and to his utter bafflement-- do they have no sense of self preservation, what the fuck-- another tentacle comes out, reaching further from the tub like it wants to reach out to his siblings.

Alec spends a long minute just staring at his traitorous body parts before he looks up at Jace and Izzy. Before he can say anything, though, Jace is narrowing his eyes and staring at the dark blue limbs.

“I knew that wasn’t your arm wrapped around me earlier!”

Groaning, Alec lets his head fall back and stares at the ceiling. In a dead tone, he confesses, “I have tentacles.”

The bathroom fills with radio silence at his announcement. Alec waits for his siblings to make noises of disgust and leave, for them to take him to The Silent Brothers, anything that would betray their contempt for this- this curse.

What he does not expect is for Izzy to ask, “Are they sentient?”

Alec doesn’t open his eyes as he mumbles, “They have a mind of their own but I can control them. They’re a part of me like my arms or legs. They just like to test their limits.”

“What do you think we’re gonna do, Alec? Leave you?” Jace's voice is half scoffing, half scolding.

“What else can I expect, Jace? Now that you guys know about this anomaly, I don’t figure you’d want to hang around long.” In a dull voice, Alec continues, “I know I should’ve told you sooner, Jace, but I just couldn’t. I guess this is the end of the parabatai bond,” he mutters morosely.

He flinches when he feels something trail along one of the tentacles hanging over the tub. Opening his eyes, he’s stunned to see both Iz and Jace have stepped closer to the tub and are watching in amazement as a tentacle wraps around each of their wrists, giving them its own version of a hug.

“What-- what are you guys doing,” he asks, voice cracking.

Looking up, Jace just levels him with an unimpressed look. “So you have a few extra limbs. It’s nothing to sever our bond over, by the Angel, Alec. I’d have to be a dimwit not to have noticed something was up with you anyway and this totally explains it.”

Alec can’t stop his confused expression and Jace rolls his eyes. “There’s always low level discomfort coming from you. I can feel it through the bond. Sometimes, whenever we’re done with patrol, I can tell that you’re injured but can't figure out where. I’d apply an iratze and it would work-- mostly. But sometimes it felt like the injury was deeper, somehow. Now I can see that it must have been your-- uh, your tentacles not responding,” Jace breaks off, a little unsure at saying tentacles out loud.

“How could you think we would care, hermano. You’re our brother and nothing could change our opinion of you.” Alec’s discomfited for a moment as it sounds like his sister is alluding to something else but he focuses on her next words as they spill out of her mouth. “Besides, how could we not like something so adorable?”

Alec scowls. “My tentacles are not adorable, Isabelle. They’re weird and off putting and a pain in my ass.”

It’s Izzy’s turn to roll her eyes as she runs a finger over the top of a tentacle. “You should’ve seen them right after you confessed, Alec. They were drooping over the tub looking so sad and dejected when you were, apparently, waiting for us to storm out in disgust. But then as soon as we came nearer they reached out and wrapped around us.”

“I’m surprised they trust us,” Jace says, eyeing the tentacles. His eyes have that calculating look they he usually only gets during a mission briefing or when he’s debating what toppings he wants on his pizza.

“You’re my family,” Alec grumbles. “And they’re apparently incapable of not shamelessly begging for attention.”

“Huh.” Jace studies the tentacle wrapped around his wrist. “So, would you say these are an extension of yourself? Does that mean you’re even more of a marshmallow then you let on?”

“I’m not a marshmallow at all, Jace, what the hell.”

“You are,” Izzy says, cutting him off with a grin. “There’s no way you’d do half the things you do for us and Max if you weren’t.”

“Whatever.”

Jace and Isabelle laugh before they start gently disentangling the tentacles wrapped around them. Alec wants to disappear into the floor when he sees the marks on their hands from the tiny little suckers.

Jace frowns a little before before shrugging. He looks up and grins at Iz and Alec. “I have a date tonight and I can totally impress her by telling her about how I fought off a killer octopus and won.”

Izzy rolls her eyes. “You’re such a disaster.”

They’re walking away before Izzy turns back to Alec and asks one last question. “Why do you have tentacles, hermano?”

Alec studies her face for a moment but, after the past half hour, he figures she deserves to know. “It’s a family curse,” he explains. “The eldest son of each Lightwood generation carries the mark. It’s a last holdout from our great great grandfather contracting demon pox. I keep them glamoured away most of the time but they need let out regularly. Dad told me about it on my thirteenth birthday.”

Jace chortles. “Demon pox, man, that’s always the reason. How hard is it to not fuck a demon, goddamn.”

Alec shrugs. “They were all snorting cocaine back then. It’s a wonder we’re still here at all.”

“Well, I’m glad we’re here and I’m glad you’re alright, hermano.” She wrinkles her nose. “We’ll let you get back to your tentacle time now.”

Both Jace and Alec recoil instantly.

“Jesus, Iz--”

“Izzy what the fuck, do you know how that sounds--”

She holds up a long suffering hand and sighs, closing her eyes and obviously counting to ten. “You know I did not mean it like that. Stop being teenagers and get your minds out of the gutter.”

When she opens her eyes again, she gives them very stern looks before turning on her heel and walking out of Alec’s room without a backwards glance.

Jace follows right after her but now before looking over his shoulder and waggling his eyebrows in a truly appalling gesture.

Alec groans as the door to his bedroom is closed and sinks down into the water until he’s exhaling bubbles.

He glares at his tentacles who do nothing more than slide through the water, all of them happy as clams.

Alec has to admit that there’s a weight off his chest now that his family hasn’t disowned him after finding out about his little affliction. All things considered, his first time revealing his tentacles went much better than expected.

Alec relaxes into the bath and lets his tentacles enjoy their play time.

--

Magnus arrives to an empty home after a long day of seeing to clients. Hiding a yawn behind his hand, he heads toward the bathroom. Alec had mentioned something about making it a late night at the Institute tonight and Magnus resigns himself to falling asleep soon without his his husband wrapped around him.

Now that his day is done, he allows himself to run a hand through immaculate hair, easing through product in preparation of a shower that promises to be a lovely balm to sore muscles.

Running around New York is not for the faint of heart.

Entering their bedroom, Magnus pauses as he sees the light on under their bathroom door.

“Darling?” Magnus’s voice is curious, considering that it’s only seven or so and Alec had made it seem like it would be ages before he wandered back home.

“In here,” Alec calls out and as he nears the door, Magnus’s grin widens at the sound of splashing.

He opens the door to a familiar sight, though still not one that he takes for granted. Alec looks up as Magnus leans against the doorjamb and smiles over at him.

So do his dozen tentacles, all lifting out of the multicolored water to do their own little wave, beckoning Magnus closer.

“Hey, you.”

Crossing his ankles, Magnus takes in his husband looking so comfortable and relaxed. His voice is unforgivably soft as he replies, “Hey, yourself.”

Alec’s reclined against the tub-- the much larger tub that Magnus had installed after figuring out Alec’s secret a couple of years ago-- and Magnus bites back a laugh as the dark blue tentacles, shimmering with tonight’s bath bomb glitter, reach out of the light pink water towards him.

He watches as Alec glares at his shameless limbs before sighing back into the water. Finding himself unable and unwilling to resist any longer, Magnus pushes away from the door and closes the distance between them. Keeping eye contact as he eases to his knees at the bathtub’s side, Magnus raises a hand and sweeps it through dark, messy locks he loves so much.

“Rough day, darling?”

Alec closes his eyes, turning his face until he can kiss Magnus’s palm. “Just long,” he murmurs. “Glad I’m home now. I’m glad you’re home now, too.”

“Me too, Alexander.”

Leaning close, Magnus starts kissing a trail across Alec’s cheek and down his neck. He feels something nudge between his shoulders, smiles against his husband’s throat as he feels something else slide around his waist.

When he pulls away a few moments later, Magnus looks down and grins. Alec’s tentacles are tugging him-- lightly yet insistently-- toward the water.

Looking up, Magnus watches Alec grow sheepish. “I’ve been here a little while. They’re restless.” He glares at the offending limbs. “As soon as you came through the portal, though, they perked right up.”

Magnus holds out an arm, doesn’t have to wait more than a second for a navy tentacle to twine around his wrist, wrapping all the way up his arm until Magnus feels the tip brush against the side of his neck. “Tell me, darling,” he asks, smirking from underneath his lashes. “Are they the only things that perked up at my appearance?”

Alec groans, rolling his eyes before leveling his husband a truly deadpan look. “That was terrible,” he chastises.

Magnus raises a brow.

“And no,” Alec mumbles.

Magnus laughs out loud, enjoying his husband’s put upon look and the smile he can see peaking around the edges of the scowl.

Taking that as his cue, he stands. Waving away his clothes at the same time, it’s just a moment later before he’s lowering himself into perfectly hot water, waves of pink crashing against him as he straddles Alec.

Almost immediately, he’s covered in a dozen limbs, all as greedy as the others to have a piece of him. It never gets old, that little possessive streak Alec likes to deny, the ample evidence that Alec wants him.

He feels Alec’s hands on his chest and meets his love’s study with warm eyes.

It’s silent for a minute before Alec finally breaks it. His words don’t break the little spell that seems to have fallen over them, though.

“I love you,” he says, staring into Magnus’s unglamoured eyes. “I’m so lucky I found you, someone who doesn’t care about these,” he tacks on, tightening the tentacles around Magnus infinitesimally.

“I love every part of you, Alec, and think every inch is utterly gorgeous. How couldn’t I, when you love me with everything you have?”

Alec doesn’t respond but Magnus startles as the bands around his middle suddenly tip him forward. His gasp is caught by Alec, though, and Magnus loses himself to a hold that’s become home.

There’s no doubt about it, he thinks hazily. Magnus loves Alec’s tentacles as much as he does those beautiful hazel eyes and that mile-wide stubborn streak.

And luckily for him, they love him right back.

[xoxodropletsscenarios]

Everexas

This ship is Everett x Rex x Lukas who we have so kindly nicknamed the disaster trio. I wrote this last night in the discord and the prompt is, bad hair dying with Lukas. Also, to all of you that have sent in asks, I’m sorry that I’ve been so absent. School and band have thrown me for a loop but I’m back for a little while longer.

      Everett stared at his boyfriend as he pushed the cart up and down the aisles. He bit his Starbucks straw between his lip as he sipped on his caramel frappuccino. Lukas paced up and down the aisles, picking up boxes of hair color and then shaking his head silently and putting them back down again. He’d been doing that for almost 10 minutes and frankly, Everett was starting to get bored and annoyed. The only reason Everett hadn’t told him to just hurry up was because he like staring at his boyfriend’s ass too much to let it bother him. However, Rex had left him 5 minutes ago to go look for something to eat and Everett was trying not to rip Lukas’s head off at his indecisiveness. 

      “Just pick a color,” Everett said, his annoyance coming through his voice loud and clear. Lukas looked over at Everett and blushed in embarrassment as he apologized. 

      “It’s just, I kind of want to go with a color other than orange this time. To spice things up a little bit,” he explained. Everett could see that the color on the box in his left hand was a deep midnight blue and in the right was neon green. Wrinkling his nose, Everett came over to Lukas and starting grabbing colors off of the shelf. When he successfully had collected no less than ten colors in varying shades of the rainbow, Everett went back to the cart and said, “Let's go.” 

      They went to the register and found Rex paying for their food, three club wraps. Everett took his and opened it, taking a bite as he waited for Lukas to check out.

      “Are you sure you need that much hair dye?” Rex asked, watching Lukas check out the different colors. In total, 13 colors went into 3 different bags and Lukas just shrugged and said, “I suppose I can just return what I don’t use.” 

      Nodding slightly, Rex followed next to Everett and slightly behind Lukas as they headed back to Mrs. Kaiser’s car. She smiled at the boys as they approached, her black hair pulled up into the most perfect messy bun Everett had ever seen on anyone (yes, even Rex). “Welcome back, boys. What color did you get, Luke?” she asked, peering over her shoulder as she backed out. 

      “Oh, um, I just got a couple and then what I don’t use I can return later,” he explained. She nodded and they ate their wraps and talked on the way back, Lukas showing Everett and Rex something interesting on his phone. When they got back to the house, Lukas set down his bags from the store and went downstairs to get a bowl. He winked at Everett and Rex on his way into the bathroom, holding the glass bowl carefully so as not to drop it and invoke his mother’s wrath. Once he was safely inside the privacy of his bathroom, he grabbed his hair dye brush with a smirk and readied himself, stripping out of his clean shirt and into his dye shirt, which is permanently stained orange. 

      Carefully, he put colors wherever his artistic side let him, the hair dye being the paint and his hair being the canvas. Lukas made sure not to leave any hair unmarked and by the time he was done, he felt rather proud of himself. Having used about 10 different colors of hair dye, Lukasrecapped the tubes and put them back into the box. He had aborted his original plan to mix all the colors together as he remembered his art teacher telling him when he was in 3rd grade that if he mixed all of the colors of the rainbow he’d get black or brown. When he was done cleaning, he spent the last 15 of the required 30 minutes talking to Everett and Rex through the door before announcing that he was getting in the shower to rinsing out the dye. He could see the pigment swirl in the water, a deep murky color rushing down the drain. 

      Sticking a towel onto his head, Lukas talked to Everett through the door. “It’s going great,” he reassured, “Don’t worry about it!” Grinning, Lukas rubbed the towel vigorously on the top of his head before removing it and nearly shrieking, though he was almost certain he let out a pitiful whimper. His hair looked like someone had dumped paint on it, splotches of green, blue and red intermixed with hot pink, bright purple, and highlighter orange. There were patches of awful mixed colors where he had overlapped the dye on accident and Lukas checked himself over in the mirror. 

      “There is no way to save this,” he whispered quietly, deciding that it was for the best if he just, cut it all off. Plugging up the electric razor that he normally only used to shave the sides of his head, Lukas looked over his hair and was suddenly glad that his roots were coming in, it meant that he didn’t have to go bald. With a deep breath and a prayer to God, he cut away at his hair until only the black roots remained. The clippers were put away when he was done, looking over his impromptu buzz cut. It wasn't too bad and as he surveyed it in the mirror amongst the remnants of his failed dye job, he could feel it start to grow on him.

 Lukas cleaned up his bathroom, tossed on a clean shirt, and left the bathroom, a proud smile on his face. 

      “What the FUCK did you do to your hair?!” Everett asked in shock, getting up to quickly run his hands over the new haircut. Lukas chuckled nervously, bending his head down for Everett to get a better look at it. Rex came over to look at the haircut, running gentle fingers over the black hair before a soft smile crossed his face. 

      “I like it,” Rex said simply and Lukas looked up hopefully at him. “Though, what did happen to your hair?” And with that, Lukas launched into the entire hair debacle, complete with his first idea of combining all of the colors at once, his rainbow spots, and finally shaving it off. Everett and Rex gave him matching deadpan looks and Lukas tilted his head in confusion, “What?” 

      “You could have just fucking dyed it black again, dumbass,” Everett said angrily. He was personally upset by the fact that he would no longer have Lukas’s soft hair to run his fingers through. “Or you could have just gone back to the store and gotten dye remover,” Rex said, arching an eyebrow at Lukas. Lukas, who hadn’t taken the time to consider these two options at first, reddened considerably and opened his mouth to defend himself before shutting it again.(edited)Everett sighed and stretched up, pressing his lips to Lukas’s to help make his boyfriend feel better. “You can’t shave away stupid, unfortunately,” Everett whispered with a chuckle as he pulled away. Lukas frowned before saying, “It was a good idea in my head.” 

     “Yeah? And so was trying to backflip off of the large communal garbage bin in the back. We had to help you back to the apartment so that you could get cleaned up. You were just lucky not to have broken anything in the fall,” Rex said. Lukas opened his mouth to protest before remembering that, of course, that was exactly what had happened and shut it again. Rex gave a soft laugh before kissing Lukas too, first on the lips, the on point of his newly exposed widow's peak. Eyes lighting up, Lukas said, “Fine, alright. But it’s not that bad and in a month it’ll be long enough so that I can dye it again. And this time, I’m sticking with orange.” 

    “That’s the best thing you’ve said all day, Jack-o-lantern,” Everett teased, kissing Lukas cheek before dragging both Rex and Lukas to the bed for some quality cuddles. 

[lordnelson100]

Abundance (Nerdanel) - Fëanorian Week 2018

For @feanorianweek  Yes, I am early for Nerdanel day.

Read or comment on Ao3 here.

Summary: Of artistry, women's bodies, and loss.

I. Journeyman

On a summer day, she began the work that would become the most famous of all the creations of her hands— except for one.

It began as if from nowhere (or so it seemed to her at the time).

True, by then she had spent many years as her father’s apprentice, praised for her skill and her industry, her patience and her delicate touch in shaping surfaces.

Also true, that when she had turned from forge work to creating likenesses— when she had found her own proper gift in sculpting the faces and forms of her people, and of the living animals and growing things— then she had begun to win great praise. Then the Noldor rejoiced in her work, and passed her figurines from hand to hand, and set them upon pedestals and hearth-mantels.

They began to say that Mahtan’s daughter had his spirit in her fingertips. A few, even, whispered that now they understood how she had caught the eye of the prince, her father’s master student (thought they managed to sound as if it were Fëanor’s achievement, discovering her hidden worth, more than it were her own merit for having it).

But this new work: this was different.

She had returned upon the eve of summer from a long ride at Fëanor’s side in the distant wild edges of Aman. There lay in her studio an enormous length of wood, hard, dense and richly colored, with a scent redolent of warm far-off forests far to the south. It was the huge bole of a mighty tree, split and stripped and dried, and brought here as a gift by a travelling friend of her father’s.

Till now she had had no idea what to do with it.

But on this day, with the golden treelight just rising, and the air promising summer heat to come yet still slightly chill, so that she had wrapped an old shawl about her shoulders when she came out to her workshop—

On this day, she took up her tools and began to carve, and worked as she had never worked before.  With axe and adze, she roughed out the form that took shape in her thoughts. Before the light changed, a great figure had begun to spring forth from the wood, as if it— as if she — had always been there.

Yavanna strode forth, in the woman’s body in which she cloaked herself in Eä. In Nerdanel’s shaping, the noble body, twice as tall as an Elf, walked amidst her meadows, a long robe in graceful carven folds swirling after her, which yet did not obscure the curve of a mighty hip, the generosity and delicacy of her broad bare bosom, the merry roundness of the belly, the vulnerable, powerful cleft between her legs.  Her curling hair flowed in a river over her shoulders, with flowers all among her endless, wild locks.

Nerdanel’s own cloak had long been dropped into the sawdust and shavings on the floor; her red hair was damp and tangled with sweat; her arms ached. She was half aware of sending several people away with abrupt words, when they intruded into the corner of her vision. Water was left at her elbow, and she drank it; bread, and she put it into her mouth. But she did not cease.

When nightfall came for second time, her mother came and urged her to take rest; and sometime later, Mahtan followed. He watched his daughter at her work in silence for some time, without comment; and then at last said, “Not as your father, and no more as your master, do I speak: but as your fellow artist. Only you may say how the hours of your inspiration run: when to take up and when to cease. But you are making my wife, your lady mother, worried.”

Abashed, Nerdanel laid down her tools at last, and went into the house, and embraced her mother, and her father too, and allowed them to bring her food and send her to the bath and bed. But the next day she rose early and fell at once to work, and the next, and the next.

After some weeks, the as yet-nameless work had grown in size till it stretched for many yards down the enormous slab of hardwood. She had begun in the very middle, with the centering figure of Yavanna. Now on either side, as if emerging from the wood in the Vala’s wake, were laughing maidens and youths with their arms full of fruit, were tree boughs swaying laden with blossom, and meadows full of ragged wildflowers. With chisel and mallet she refined each figure in minute detail; hollowing the space between until the figures seemed all but ready to leap from the background.  Deer paused among the shadows of the woodland, shy and fleet. Small plump birds cocked their tiny heads and gave a sideways look. Rabbits ran among tall grass, throwing up their hind legs in saucy pride at their speed.

At some point, Nerdanel realized that Fëanor was standing in the studio; his arms folded and his gaze intent. She had not seen him in — some time, and yet: he was in everything, in all of this. He gave her a very small smile and cocked an eyebrow at her. She did not say, “I am working; I must do this; this is the best thing I have ever made, and it is the most important thing right now.” For she saw that he saw; it was one of the reasons she loved him.

She went back to work, and he went away. But he came again and he brought with him apprentices carrying many trays and vessels. “I had an idea,” he said gruffly. “It is an experiment. You need only use them if you like!”

The workmen set their trays on the side table, and wiping the sweat from her brow, she came to gaze at the array of bowls and jars before her. Colors in dense, rich liquids, opaque as milk, were found in some jars. Red ochre she recognized, and yellow orpiment — but here were shades of pigment she had never seen in any artists’ work, even among the most cunning Noldor artisans. In one jar, gold was made liquid. Scarlet bright as winter berries pooled in another, while a blue as of a living iris-flower filled its neighbor. Yet again,  a translucent glaze like the delicate skin of wrist wherein the blood gives faint color to the surface. Beside this, in other samples, rich powders of crushed crystalline minerals glistened; when mixed with oil, they smeared into a hundred subtle gradients.

Delight swelled within her.

Fëanor was talking now, half nervously: “The greens and blue were difficult: that one is copper acetate, and that one, azurite — you must wear gloves, and mind you do not bite your brushes —”

She threw her arms around him, tucking her head into his muscular neck, and he fell quiet. She took in his scent: chemical buzz of the laboratory and warm work damp of his skin and ash of the fire and the good plain linen of his work-robe. She held him tightly, saying little, but she felt his heart beating within his broad chest. Soon she returned to her work, but Fëanor went smiling when he left.

The great sculpture went on towards its final form. Now Yavanna’s cloak in its swirling folds was edged with gold, and the silver stars sprinkled on it were picked out against a background of deepest blue. Now each fruit was touched with glistening red, or bright yellow tinged with green, or wine-dark purple, and tree-blossoms were dressed in frothy white just tinged with pink.

She had a brush in her hand — sable fur, just freshly dipped in gold flake— touching the tracery of jewels around the neck of a dancing handmaiden — on the day that Mahtan came to her and said, “Aulë has come to our house, daughter.”

Of course she gave it to them, to Aulë and Yavanna, without their need to ask. In all the time of working on it, she had never stopped to think what or who it was for, only that it come to be. And the Giver of Fruits and the Smith set it up in a great plinth amid her own meadows, the ever-verdant gardens of the Kementari, where it could be visited by all who came that way. Often in the days of festivals, the Elves would come and raise their voices in song at this place, and children would run and play near it and shyly touch the wooden figures in their lifelike joy.

In later years, Nerdanel was to make statues of all — of most — of the Valar, as well as of the famous and the great among all the Eldar kind. She worked in those later eras in many noble materials — marble and bronze, truesilver and alabaster, ivory and basalt — for wood came to seem a material rather humble for the splendors of Aman at its noontide.

And yet the image of Kementari, Queen of Earth’s flowering,  made in the very freshness of Nerdanel’s heart in its first youth, remained her most famous and beloved work for many a long age.

II. Innovation

Down at her waist, right over each hip, nodes of a curious warm tenderness bloomed, almost but not quite painful. Her breasts grew sensitive to the touch: they felt as they were swelling, like buds on the tip of a branch in springtime. Even her walk changed, she felt: It was far too early for any real weight to belong to the small form inside her, and yet she planted her feet differently, as if she carried in her hands a vessel that she must not spill.

Many months later, when her time drew near,  her belly swelled out before her like a ship in sail; her back ached, and other parts, and it was wearisome to sleep or to rise from sitting. Sometimes cramps and pains ran through her like a hot knife:  her own body stretching and rolling in its new, unpracticed art, in which her own self was the material from which an experiment was shaped. Inside her the coming child moved and shifted, a stranger and yet an utterly known and familiar companion.

Despite these ills, never had she felt as strong: she was as full of satisfaction as a feast-cup overflowing with wine. At her side Fëanor was both joyful and tense, prideful to the point of arrogance about his coming fatherhood, and strangely timid as he touched her rounded belly. He ran to fetch her tea, a silken cushion, sandals when she would walk: shouted at the servants to quiet the least sound of their work; came back again and again to the house from his own workroom, still smeared with soot, to see if she were well.

Her mother took her to the warm springs to rest in the water, on a time. There came suddenly about them the feeling of awe and strangeness that presaged the goings of the Valar. Suddenly, Estë and Irmo were there among the Elves who bathed amid the mossy rocks, and their attendant Maia with them. The mists of the hot springs swirled into shapes of half-seen winged forms and ghostly hands, which caressed the two tall beings as they passed, and faint silvery bells and sighing chants were heard as if at a great distance.

With gentle hands, Estë reached down to Nerdanel from her own great height, and touched her shoulders and then her swollen belly. At once, her aches and tiredness lifted, and she felt the child within her leap and play as if in response. And Nerdanel to her surprise saw that there was a sort of wonder in on the strange, fair face of Estë, who reached out a hand in turn to Irmo beside her. With a look of sorrow, the Lady of Healing said to her spouse, “But this pain to come — must it truly be so?”

The Lord of Dreams, as ever, walked with with his face shrouded in shadows under his deep hood.  If he shared his lady’s emotion, they could not see it. But he bowed his head and answered in his strange cold voice: “So it is with the gifts of Ilúvatar in Arda marred. Great works are achieved through pain and labor proportionate to their excellence; and abundance creates the potential of absence, as an object brings with it its own shadow.”

When they had gone away, Nerdanel said this aloud to her mother, surprised: “Surely Estë has seen many Eldar bear their children, in the ages since we came came to Valinor, and knows the workings of our bodies? The pangs of childbirth are hard, you all say, but I am strong and ready!”

“You see,” said Nerdanel’s mother, whose face was troubled: “They do not themselves give birth. Bodies are as garments to them: a thing which may be cast off or altered, and are not in essence themselves. And seeing children is not like having them. They who have always been, and always will be, how can they understand what our children mean to us?”

“I suppose,” said Nerdanel, musing,”we Eldar are like unto their children, in some senses.”

“It is not the same,” said her mother with finality.

Soon after, Nerdanel’s labor began: the pangs that tore a shout from her, the gush of fluid and blood, the hours-long striving that drenched her in sweat and made her grind her teeth and clutch her mother’s hand. And then in her arms and Fëanor’s, at last the small, warm, and well-made child, a fine red-gold down on his head: he peered at their faces with enormous eyes, his spirit reaching out wordlessly, instinctively, to touch their own.

“Look what we have made!” she said to Fëanor.

III. Masterpiece

On the road between Tirion and Valmar, there was an unlovely place where the road passed through a narrow, rocky valley.

On a morning when the heat of the Sun beat down and the air was like the fiery breath of a forge door opened,  she took her chisel and began to carve.

Week after week, she worked at it. Her hands were worn and bruised, the skin dry and cracked with stone dust, her nails broken. Her boots and leggings were covered in a thick paste of slurry, and even her tunic and other clothes were frankly unclean. Her hair was stuffed carelessly into a rough cap, from which it escaped in ragged ends.

Figure after figure, body after body, began to take form.

She made no portraits: scrupulously, she did not shape the image of a warrior one-handed; or single out a figure with a harp or a hunting hound; she did not make a king with a seven-pointed star on his armor, a son beside him as like as a young tree to a mighty oak; she did not add a pair of twins.

It was not her own emptiness alone that she made visible.

First, she carved a file of tall warriors with high-crowned helms and swords in their hands; grim faces, glimpsed beneath, fell and fair. And at the feet of the striving warriors, other figures, fallen; pierced, dying, broken.

But she was not done.

Dark forests of trees twisted and infected she carved, and between their rotten trunks the figures of swollen spiders and slinking wolves. And she did not forbear to add amidst them torn and twisted bodies, dragged away as prey.

But she was not done.

Out of the rock she brought forth the images of Morgoth’s thralls: their bodies attenuated to  near-skeletal thinness, loaded with chains, surrounded by leering, monstrous guards, who mounted with triumphant lust over dishevelled captives.

Rivers of flowing fire rolled down from grim mountaintops. Fell winged monsters sped aloft. Fragmented skulls and the shattered bones of once-lovely bodies were scattered before broken towers.

Nerdanel had never seen the Aftercomers, the Children of Men, or Aulë’s people, the skilfull Khazâd, but she used her artist’s eye to guide her hand. Her tools worked out the shapes: there in stone the younger peoples fought their hopeless war against the Imprisoner, amid a sea of raging foes. Little villages burnt away, and helpless beasts of the field ran distraught, and children raised their hands to an empty sky.

On a time, her father came to her. “Daughter,” said Mahtan. “What are you doing?

“They said,” Nerdanel replied. “That this land of bliss has been fenced against those across the seas, so that even the echoes of the Noldor’s lamentation should not come to our ears. And so they raised up the mountains to these terrible heights, and set their nets of dark enchanted seas to bar all comers. They call me the Wise, and yet I am confounded: for it seems to me, Father, that they have walled out repentance, if it comes, as well as guilt — and shut out as well the screams of those who never saw a Silmaril as effectively as those who went forth to avenge Finwë.”

She threw down the weighted hammer she had in her grasp, and wiped her dusty hands on her cloak.

“But there are tears and cries of anguish closer than Middle-earth, if They have not stopped their ears. You know as well as I the dark tidings that have reached us, ever bloodier as the centuries pass. Would you know what I see of my sons in my tormented dreams? The great towering mountains do not keep those out!” Her father made a sorrowing gesture, as if he would bid her to peace, but she clenched her fists defiantly. “Praise I was given — I did not ask for it — because I did not join in Fëanor’s rash rebellion, because I bid patience to my people to wait on the Valar’s acts when we were foundering in a sea of dark that Morgoth created. I would ask you: how was that patience rewarded?  If the Valar do not like my grieving — well, I would remind them that they were not the givers of all I have lost.”

She took up a fresh sharp chisel. “I ask nothing of Them, but that if They pass by, They may look — or close their eyes, if They will. Some are skilled at that, methinks.”

Mahtan went sadly away.

At first she labored alone. And then one day, she found some women standing in a knot behind her on the edge of the road, looking upward. Ladies of the Noldor: once she had known them, though not well, when all her own hours were overflowing with children and mate and her art.

There stood a tall matron whose own husband had gone with Fëanor: and with them went her sister and brother, also. She lived now all alone in a tall white house, where a single lamplit room was visible in the evenings to passersby.

There was another, a fierce politician and mistress of a weaving-guild, who had been a partisan of Fingolfin. Yet she had stayed behind, a tiny babe clasped in her arms, when her haughty grown sons had marched out of Tirion with their father. It was whispered that her spouse and children alike had been shades in the halls of Mandos before ever the new Sun rose, dead among the salt waves of Acqualonde or on the grinding ice of the crossing.

Others there were, both young and ancient, all soberly cloaked and solemn. And one came forward bearing a lamp and said to Nerdanel, “Sister, the shadows grow long here, and your eyes must be weary. Let me light your work.” Another lady came with a jug in her hands and begged her to ease herself with a draught of wine. Yet another, a brawny maid with the arms of a smith said, “Mayhap you do not remember me. I was in Mahtan’s shop when you were a little red-haired thing still playing at carving with an apple. An you give me the task, I would help you with the rougher work.”

Father and brothers, sons and nephews: men came too, mostly Noldor: and they spoke or sang of the brothers and sisters, the betrothed maid or the the beloved student, who had rebelled and gone into Exile unrelenting with their Kings and lords. And even, to her shock, there came a few from Olwë’s people.  “We have not forgotten Alqualondë,” they said grimly. “But what of our kin and cousins long parted? What of the Woodland Elves who tarried on the journey, or lingered in the ancient forests east of the Ocean, or cling to the last seaside havens of its shores?” And so she added these, too, to the unfolding tale of stone.

And so the work went on faster.

And one day, they came. Yavanna as she paced slowly down the road had a crown of winter thorns in her hair, and a sober robe as of snow; Aulë had his great golden beard and long locks closely bound, and had put off the beautiful jewelry of craft and wonder that once he had rejoiced in.

The crowd of Elven men and women moved quietly aside, as the Vala approached.

Yavanna ran her hands over the stony trees of the sorrowful forests, and touched the carven forms of children amid their ruined homes. Aulë, his brow drawn, put a great work-roughened finger to the place where she had shown small, brawny warriors, beards flowing, as they lifted carven axes in defiance. They both lingered over the panel in which she showed a fallen king in the dark pit, torn by wolves, and a pair of lovers bravely striving to overcome a cruel foe amid the broken world.

And they turned to her with sorrow and sympathy in their eyes.

“Someone is coming,” said Yavanna. “He is on the road even now. The salt wind of the wide ocean stains his cloak, still, but now the white dust of Aman gathers on his shoes as he treads the empty highway to Valmar. And in his hand he bears a treasure that you know of old — for in your home dwelt he who made it.”

Her heart raced, and she turned to them with a question in her eyes. The Great Smith saw it, and shook his head. “He who bears the Silmaril is a stranger, in more ways than one. Alone among all the mortals of the world he has been permitted to alight on our shores. Out of love for all the Children of Iluvatar, the Eldar and Men, he has come to call out pity and aid from the Lords of the West.”

“The world is changing, and a new era dawning,” Yavanna followed in her sweet ringing tones. “The cry shall be heard at last: for pity, pardon for the exiles, and succor beyond hope for those who suffer in the darkened lands, ere Morgoth ascends to final and lasting victory over all.  And it will be given! War against the Enemy who has despoiled the world — it is coming!”

Then Aulë said, with pity softening his craggy looks: “But lady, the tale is not yet all told. For I foresee that this jewel that comes back across the sea is the only one of the Three that shall ever come here. But of those who were your own treasures, they have soiled their claim in blood unjustly shed, falling from noble war against the Enemy to needless crimes against their own kin. A choice still lies before the few who remain, ere the close; to choose a path of repentance or despair. But a dark cloud lies over their end, and little hope, I ween. My guess is that none of your own shall come among us again, unless first they pass through death and the halls of Mandos and win release. And maybe that will not be until the world is remade.”

Yavanna had tears in her eyes, and on her sun-burnt cheek. “Perhaps it would have been more merciful to you if such sons had never been, then the fates to which they have come. To have them and to lose them all, ending in such evil downfalls: perhaps it is worse than never having — “

“No,” said the sculptor with finality. “Would you rather your Trees had never lived? Or that they grew, and once were happy, but were destroyed?  And it is not for myself alone that I have been laboring. A million mother and fathers have lost their sons and daughters since Morgoth passed over the seas. And all is all: if a mother had only a single child, and lost them, then she has lost her whole joy, as much as I who have lost seven. My poor Fëanor could not bear it — to make and to love and to lose. But love in full brings with it the risk of losing and parting, as all things in the world cast their own shadow.”

She swiped a grimy hand across her cheek: ”If something is to be done about all this, at the last — good. Now I will finish.”

Then Nerdanel put down her tools and rested.

Link on Ao3 here. Comments and feedback loved and welcomed. And sharing!

[felinehypocritical]

different

stan first sees that bill is his soulmate when he's around fourteen. he's sitting in his homeroom next to bill, spacing out, when bill grabs his wrist and pulls him up so that he gets out of his seat, since the period is over.

the first touch always stays forever, so there's a lot of value put on what it is- there are even superstitions and predictions based on where your first mark is.

stan never considered bill could ever be his soulmate, since they've been friends for so long and stans never believed he even had a soulmate, but he looks down absently at his arm, and he sees it- a bracelet of bronze, slightly shimmering pigment all around his left wrist- his dominant wrist. he has no question in his mind who left it there, he can still feel bill's wrist on his arm as they walk side by side down the hallways even though it's long gone, but stan still cant believe it- bill denbrough, his soulmate?

so he keeps it to himself and doesn't tell bill anyways. and stan, since he's so obsessed with order and meaning, does not touch bill for weeks so he can plan how he touches bill. first of all because he wants it to be special, but mostly because he's scared. he knew sometimes soulmates didn't match up- just look at bev and ben. beverly had a bronze shimmering mark too, on her hip, from bill, and ben had one on his shoulder, in forest green- beverly's color. his gaze on beverly had never changed, he still had a glimmer of hope, but he can't bear to look at bill without a feeling of humiliation now, since it only confirms his feeling of being cheated.

so stan doesn't touch bill for fear of that happening to him- there's already a chance of that happening, though it was thought and proven many people do have multiple soulmates, and only one is true, while the others are one sided. so yeah, there was a chance, a sizable one, that if stan touched bill it would leave no mark, the same way when ben touched bevvie there would never be a mark (or so they all thought, until ben ran a hand down beverly's arm in 1985 after they defeated it and a streak of soft yellowy orange was left behind, and the mark on her waist paled somewhat- though it never disappeared, no, it never did, ben's just stole some of the luminescence). and there was an even bigger chance that stan would touch bill and it would leave a mark, but it was an empty mark, one with no meaning. and there would never be  any way of knowing whether that option was the case or not until stan was rejected by bill, which was somehow worse than no mark at all.

so stan waits and doesn't touch bill, until finally he works up the courage since he knows exactly where he wants it.

he musters his small self up and he just goes up to sit by bill on his log in the barrens, and grabs his right wrist with his long, thin fingers.

and stan holds it there for a little bit of time, just because he's scared to let go, until he cracks an eye open to see bill looking at him in amusement and lets go as if he's been burned. and when he does pull away, there's a band of pastel, matte (so matte it seems to destroy all light, there's absolutely no reflection) robin's-egg blue around bill's pale wrist. so bill looks where stan is looking, right at bill's wrist with a kind of creeping wonder, and his face becomes a sunrise- that is to say, there's a sort of dawning on it.

"did you do that?" bill asks, his voice bewildered and warm, and stan has to look away because bill's blue eyes are so warm.

"yeah, i did, i think," stan says, his voice muffled even though nothing is covering it.

bill rubs at his wrist, keeping his eyes on stan as he does so, and he exhales a little. "that one felt different," he says.

"different?" stan looks surprised. bill nods.

"yeah, i- i've got. others. but yours is different."

"others?" stan sounds a little hurt.

bill just nods and lifts his shirt up a little to show a little handprint on the bottom of his rib in neon red, and stan knows instinctively its richie's. and then bill shows up his other hand- the one bill says is always covered in paint and he always stuffs in his pocket, stan realizes- his left one, and the palm and some of the places between the fingers are covered in a soft, satin bluish purple. and that one can only be eddie, that's eddie's favorite color, stan thinks. bill lifts up his collar and shows an imprint of pretty forest green pair of lips that stan recognizes as beverly's color.

"that's so many," stan breathes. "i don't have any but yours." and he holds up his wrist and shows bill his bracelet of shimmery bronze, and bill nods.

"that's okay, though," he says again, "yours felt different." and stan doesn't question it, and they just hold their marked wrists close as they hold hands by their sides.

and for the next months, its beautiful. stan suddenly constantly has ever-fading and changing marks all over his body from bill's touch. his lips, his arms, his torso, his neck, they’re all covered in where bills touch and fingers and lips have burned through fabric and skin to make the fiery marks that signify to stan exactly who loves him the most.

his neck, stan thinks, is the prettiest, though it is often sore, for bill's kisses always get heavier and deeper there, and the little bruises of purple and pink and blue all mingle with the beautiful bronze hues bills lips leave with them, and whenever stan moves his neck in the light of his own room in private they glitter and wink back at him, even in the dark pools of raised, sucked-at skin.

bills blue marks from stan are much less in volume, but the things stan draws and does with his power over bill's body are all beautiful. bills own marks on stan or messy, they’re constantly rotating, they’re haphazard- they show bills inability to literally keep his hands off of stan for more than a day. stans marks are a monument to how careful he is in his touch and his patterns.

for example- bill's collarbones, his jaw, the line down his back, and the tips of his ears- they’re all kept perfect pristine with lines and contours of blue. stan has bill strip his shirt off once every week so stan can renew the fading lines. he has bill lie on his front and talk to stan as he takes his two longest fingers and runs up and down bills back, up and down, and then on his back, and he traces bills collarbones the same way and kisses up and down bills jaw, cleaning it up with his index finger so that there's a strap of blue around it. he plays with bill's hair (sometimes wishing he was rich enough to buy the treatment that makes your hair able to be color-altered by your soulmate, bill looks so good in stan's blue) and lets his fingers brush the tips of bills ear lightly for hours until it works and there are rosy patches of blue. but there are days where stan lets himself touch bill however he wants, and he messes up his designs hardcore. they are all smeared and streaked, and bills back is a mess of lines and finger marks. bills face is covered in blue patches from stans lips, and his hands and arms are completely blue. there are, of course, other areas, but i'm sure you can imagine just how much stanley would let himself go on what he likes to think of as cheat days, since they always line up with the days he eats a full three meals and a snack, and sometimes has dessert, too, but he usually discards his dessert to go over to bills and hang out.

he sees how the others look at him, he hears the jokes richie makes about him and his colors, and while he does feel guilty, he can't help but feel proud. everything about bill is good, is  strong, is desirable, and stan gets to have everything about bill. he gets the good, he gets the strong. and he gets the desirable, especially the desirable. he's a little scared for this all to end, sure, that he'll wake up and bill will tell him he's ugly and he's fat and he's worthless and that he wasted his time. but that day never comes. bill keeps loving him, touching him. stan keeps loving bill and devoting himself to bill, not touching bill as much, but yes, touching bill.

it never ends, and suddenly they're twenty seven. they're both out of school, in their own condo that bill rents for them. not married, not yet. just eternally engaged, until they get the motivation to get married in a way they deem better than the way they were married 13 years ago, when skinny, sick little stanley uris grabbed stuttering bill dead-brother denbrough's wrist and there was a mark there.

one day stan will always remember is a day in november. they turned the heat low, since they are nearly always attached to the other one with a blanket over the both of them and they don't need much heat, and they're sprawled out over their california king sized bed while cold light streams in their windows. stan is doing his ritual of replacing his marks on bill's back. thats the only one of two that hasn't gone- bill's collarbone is still there, but his jaw and ears are long gone- soulmate marks are no longer trendy when you hit your twenties- visible ones, at least. they’re like tattoos, they're unprofessional and seen as bragging. but collarbones and the back are not visible in formal shirts, so stan keeps them together.

bill is humming along to the radio as stan works over his back, wincing occasionally as stan pops the occasional blackhead on it. stans always liked popping blackheads and pimples, especially on bill, since they left the blue splatters he loved so much.

and so stan says quietly, "hey, bill?"

and bill stops humming and says "yeah, peach?"

stan blushes at the old pet name and says in his quiet way, "when you... when we first marked each other, you know... you said mine felt different."

"yes."

stan keeps his work going, and asks, "what was different?"

and bill cranes his neck to look around and says "what, you mean about the touch?"

"yes."

"well, it was on my wrist, stanley." bill feels a swat on his butt and smiles deviously.

"for real, you jerkwad."

"im not sure i want to be real if thats what happens when i'm not." another swat, this time on his shoulder blades. "you know those leave marks, right? both of those do?" bill asks, and stan huffs.

"yes, but i'm assuming no one is gonna be looking at your ass, so i'm not too worried." bill bites back laughter- his fiance is too cute for his own good when he's huffy- and shrugs.

"i dunno, i was assuming you might want to, though."

"answer the question, please." stans voice sounds pained. so bill turns over, ignoring stans chirp of protest, and takes stan against his chest as they spoon. he simply hums the first few lines of ‘that's my desire’ by buddy holly in stans ear, before saying, "you know how you always feel when you're about to go on a drop on a roller coaster, and you're preparing yourself for it, but it isn't enough and you still have one of those mini heart attacks?"

stan frowns. "no, i don't ride roller coasters." the redhead laughs.

"no, of course not, stanley, but you understand the sentiment, i suppose."

"yeah, i guess," stan grumbles, but he stops the whining tone when bill wraps an arm around stans waist and pulls him way too close for anyone but stan's comfort into his chest. his breath ruffles stans curls.

"and you know the feeling of seeing something so cute you want to go and steal it?"

"yeah."

"and the one where you do something right and you feel all the pride crash over you? and when you know you have all the answers to the test and you ace it no problem?"

"mhm."

"those are the feelings i got when someone put a mark on me," bill confirms. "all at once." stan frowns and moves his head a little.

"anyone?"

"anyone," bill confirms as he begins to press his little kisses all over the back of stans neck.

"not too heavy," stan says softly, but bill only moves a tad lower and kisses harder, where you can see above the collar. "and what do you mean anyone? i asked how mine was different!"

bill just smiles into stans neck and presses another kiss into the crook of it, and sighs a little, the most content and loving sigh that stan had ever heard.

and he says, "stanley uris, you big selfish idiot, your mark felt different because it was you who put it there."

[thesiteofstyle]

ALEXA SANTORY 

The Site of Style’s Editor in Chief shares her curly hair secrets, bomb beauty products, and how not to fall victim to fast fashion.

“My name’s Alexa (@iconicsoul__) , I’m 23 and I was born and raised in New York City. Let me start this interview by saying that I'm so grateful for each and every one of the readers on the site. I came to Kara with the idea for this series while going through a lot in my personal life and it's been a dream come true for me to work on this and have it be everything I envisioned and more. I love talking about beauty and I love to hear others talk about it, too. Thank you for giving us the space to do so. Growing up in New York has taught me everything I know about about fashion and beauty and how to appreciate it. There’s a lot to look at and take in in New York; you’re always getting inspiration from somewhere. I like to think I’ve mastered the ubiquitous beauty routine. It’s become a personal joy of mine to talk about and try different things with makeup and skincare. I’m wearing a face mask as I write this.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had pretty okay skin for most of my life. My mom really only dealt with adult acne and my dad has never had a pimple a day in his life, so thanks guys!! I personally deal with hormonal breakouts or stress breakouts, which I’ve (kind of) learned to control. I’m obsessed with Lush’s Coalface cleanser; I use it morning and night. Then I tone with Witch Hazel, followed by a nice layer of Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel moisturizer. If I’m wearing makeup, I apply a thin layer of Priming Moisturizer Rich as a primer. It looks really beautiful under makeup. I tone with Pixi Glow Tonic at night maybe twice a week, to help fade scarring and to brighten my complexion. It has glycolic acid, which is great for hyper pigmentation, anti-aging, and brightening overall. It burns a little, but I kinda like it. I use the Hydro Boost serum for extra hydration (lots of hyaluronic acid; good for keeping your skin supple), then a thick sexy layer of Priming Moisturizer Rich. It’s everything. I love the Mask of Magnaminty from Lush, and Catastrophe Cosmetic. I’ve tried just about every sheet mask from The Face Shop; their “Solution” line is crazy. I have keratosis pilaris on my arms (aka KP, aka chicken skin; it’s not as serious as it sounds) so I’ve been using Lush’s Buffy bar. It’s a game changer. Palmer’s Cocoa Butter is and forever will be the only body lotion that matters to me.

Doing my makeup is almost as therapeutic as my skin routine. Even though it’s simple, I take it very seriously. I try to only do it in natural light because it’s the most realistic. I want to look as natural as possible, but still kind of extra. I start by mixing Glossier’s Perfecting Skin Tint in dark and deep, because that’s my actual skin tone but I live in a place with real weather. Then, I put a little Stretch Concealer under my eyes. Just a little, though, because trying to hide my dark circles is futile at this point so I’ve accepted them. They’re kind of sexy in a bedroom-y sort of way. I always wear a ton of mascara; I like gaudy lashes, what can I say? Better Than Sex is my go to, but I’m using Tarteist Lash Paint right now. I used to do eyeliner everyday; I love blue eyeliner because it enhances brown eyes really nicely. I use Boy Brow on my eyebrows. I don’t let anyone touch my eyebrows ever; I don’t even touch them that often. Their natural shape is perfect to me. Pink or coral blushes are my go to, like the Pixi Multi Balm or Cloud Paint. I love Colourpop highlighters; the formula is buttery and the pigment is really intense for only $8. Forget Me Not and Butterfly Beach are my two favorite shades. I'll put a little on my finger then spray my Pixi Glow Mist setting spray on it, then pop it on my cheekbones. It makes the highlight blinding. I never wore lipstick until college, which was where I tried my first dark lip, and I haven’t looked back since. I’ll try any color once, though; I wore purple lipstick (like purple purple) to a Beyonce concert (love you, Bey). Again, Colourpop because their lipsticks are fantastic too and also very inexpensive. Their greatest hits for me are: Love Bug, Toolips, Lost, and Stingraye (RIP). Cruella by Nars is my favorite red. I pretend to know a lot about makeup, but in reality, I know jack sh*t but fake it till you make it, right? Contouring, baking, all that, it’s a higher art form I don’t really have the patience for but I still admire watching others do it. That’s why I like to keep it as simple as possible and only wear eye shadow once a year.

My hair is, to put it lightly, a lot of f*cking work. I have a mass of curly hair that does what it wants when it wants. I’ve been doing braid outs since the beginning of summer and it’s honestly been a game changer. My hair has grown immensely, especially now after the haircut I gave myself. That and I’ve FINALLY found products that really work. I wash with Organix Extra Strength Argan Oil conditioner. Sulfate free shampoo and conditioner is so important, especially for curly hair. And because of my hair’s texture, it has the tendency to look and feel very dry, so I don’t want to use products that strip the oils away. I dry my hair with a cotton t-shirt to reduce frizz and then apply Organix Penetrating Argan Oil to my ends. I follow with a nice, even coating (code for: a sh*t ton) of Shea Moisture Curl and Style Milk, then Curl Enhancing Smoothie, then I braid it. Deep conditioning is essential; their Jamaican Black Castor Oil masque has changed my hair for the better, as well as the serum. For slicked back styles, I use the Raw Shea Butter conditioner as a leave-in, some Queen Helene styling gel, a very old hairbrush that will forever be in my possession, and a lot of hope. When I straighten it, I make sure to deep condition before, because if I’m going to burn it between two extremely hot metal plates, I might as well give it some tender love and care first. I use L’Oreal Straightening Balm that acts as a heat protector and it also smells like candy, which is nice. My flat iron was all hype, but it’s by Remington. Once it’s straight, I wrap it into two low buns, put on a headband, and MOST IMPORTANTLY sleep with a satin bonnet. It lasts about 4 days.

CLOTHES!! Aw man, I love shopping, I always have; my grandma and I used to spend hours in Lord and Taylor and Macy’s and Century 21 when I was a kid. My family always let me take the lead on picking the clothes I want, which has definitely helped cultivate my champagne tastes on beer budgets. I’m sooooo picky when it comes to my clothes. I love anything easy, minimal, kind of lazy but still put together. When I shop, before I spend my money on anything, I always ask myself “will I see something like this on the rack next year? What about 5, 10 years from now?” If the answer is yes, I'll buy it. Fast fashion has sort of become this vortex of really corny fads, but if you look hard enough, you can find gems that can be timeless. I shop at Zara, H&M, and Uniqlo the most. Uniqlo’s jeans are the best jeans for me. I don’t wear a lot of color. That’s not to say I don’t like color, it’s just not what I gravitate towards. I’m very appreciative of the timelessness and simplicity of the t-shirt and jeans; so simple, yet so much can be done with it. It’s my uniform. High waisted anything is for me, especially jeans, and especially ones that hug my curves perfectly. Florals and stripes are the only patterns I really f*ck with. Give me ankle boots over any other type of shoe, or give me death tbh. I’m a shoe snob; I feel like Cher from Clueless when she says how picky she is about her shoes even though they only go on her feet. I’m a bag snob, too, unfortunately. I get it from my mom. Lately, I’ve been carrying a classic Coach backpack. My aunt gave it to my mom as a gift years ago, and now my mom has given it to me. I wrapped a vintage scarf from Spain around the top handle to add a personal touch.

My everyday jewelry is essential to my personal style; I feel naked if I go out without it. I wear: 5 rings (friendship knot, mermaid, arrow, snake, number 3), a Miansai screw cuff, a pastel stone bracelet (thanks Allyson!!!), a mal de ojo and red string (both blessed and given to me by my superstitious Cuban grandmother), a watch, earrings, and two necklaces. I mix gold and silver because I don’t follow the rules.

My Dolce Vita ankle boots from Urban that I found on a fluke visit. Kind of metallic, very pointy, just perfect.

I have a 100% silk robe my aunt bought in Hong Kong. It has a dragon embroidered on the back and two smaller dragons on the front. I wear it while I get ready; it makes me feel fucking fabulous.

Having a signature scent is very important; you don’t want to smell like everyone else. I’m hesitant to name the exact scent I wear, but it’s by Nest. It’s woody but floral, sweet but a little spicy. Overall very, very sexy. No one wears it like me.”

Alexa Santory interviewed by The Site of Style

[lykegenia]

The Things We Hide Ch. 16

The Southern Water Tribe stood for a hundred years against the Fire Nation, indomitable until Sozin’s Comet tipped the balance in Fire Lord Ozai’s favour. Now, as planned, the South is decimated, Chief Hakoda is a puppet on his throne, and Princess Katara is a political prisoner held in the Fire Nation capital to ensure his good behaviour. But Ozai has little time to gloat. A vigilante masquerading as the Blue Spirit is causing unrest among the people, rebel ships still hound his navy, and right under his nose the South’s most powerful waterbender waits with the patience of ice to strike at the very heart of his empire and bring it crashing down.

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

Words: 5893 Pairing: Zuko x Katara Chapter Summary: The Fire Lord’s New Year party gets a bit more explosive than expected.

The nobles glittered under the lights. They fluttered through the courtyard like jewelled humming-bees, arrayed in brightly coloured silks shot through with golden threads that caught the flare of the fireworks popping at the distant edges of the sky. Every corner of the Fire Lord’s palace blazed in celebration of the New Year, making up for the dark of the new moon with paper lanterns that shone with characters for luck and prosperity, and wafts of perfume floated on the air from fluted vases of dusk roses in every shade from pale pink to scarlet to blazing, violet-hearted orange. Even used to the pomp and circumstance of the Fire Nation court as she was, Katara couldn’t help but stare at the luxury of her surroundings as she stepped out of her palanquin next to Bato. As she was getting ready, Hama had scolded Nila for making the purple and gold of her outfit too ostentatious, but judging by the golden calligraphy on the scrolls flanking the main gate, she would fit right in.

“Stop fussing,” Bato told her as she patted the arrangement of braids woven into her hair. He was also wrapped in layers of purple, the cloth dyed with pigment taken from polar lichen, all tied together with bright bands of gold that brought out the colour of his skin.

“I’m not fussing,” Katara said. “I’m just…”

The Third Fleet was on its way. She had to make it through the night, through the next few days, and then they would all be free.

“They’ll make it,” Bato reassured her. “And we’ll be ready when they do.”

Arm in arm, they strolled through into the plaza with the growing tide of nobles, making conversation with those who dealt with Bato during his days as the Water Tribe ambassador, and as more people arrived, they ended up separated, comfortable enough to go their separate ways and meet up at the feast later. The twinned, hunched forms of Li and Lo passed Katara briefly in the crowd, as did half a dozen other well-wishers, and she smiled and complimented all of them, wielding her politeness like a blade. It was just another exercise, like Hama’s teacups, a puzzle meant to stretch her mind and keep her sharp, and without Bato hovering over her shoulder, she could afford to be more daring to the Earth Kingdom dowagers who smirked behind their fans at her. Being cooped up behind her walls for the past few weeks was clearly making her reckless.

“You’re doing well.”

She turned to see Mai step out of the crowd, her dark robes dour under the lanterns, though when she moved, the lights caught the shapes of birds and leaves woven into the cloth in subtle shades of crimson and pink. Noticing the appraisal, Mai sighed and twitched her fingers over the fabric.

“My mother picked it. She’s over there in the cream silk, talking to Kaori and Xiuling, probably telling them how she came back from Omashu just to attend the feast. It’s a lie, though.”

“What do you mean?” Katara asked, alarmed by the sly expression Mai tilted her way.

“There’s been an uprising,” came the reply. “The rumours are that the avatar and the Southern rebels were involved. She’s here because my father wants the Fire Lord to send an army to take back the city.”

Katara’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So Azula can’t catch you out, of course. I’ll see you later.”

Mai glided back towards her mother’s side with the same graceful, predatory walk that marked her apart from the rest of the crowd as much as her silence, her disinterested stare cautioning the other nobles to part before her – though they never acknowledged that they moved, and passed hesitant looks along in her wake. Katara tried to shrug away the nervous feeling the other young woman gave her, but it lingered nonetheless as she took a drink from one of the servants wandering through the crowd.

A rebellion in Omashu, huh? She sipped at her drink, tasting hibiscus and orange lychee and something with a bitter touch, like quinine but not quite. I didn’t realise they’d be moving already.

A gong crashed at the top of the dais that led into the palace proper. The milling conversation fizzled into silence, replaced by anticipation as Ozai appeared before his subjects, in full imperial regalia with Ursa, Zuko, and Azula behind him.

“Honoured guests!” he called, his voice projected across the space by the large drum set behind him on the steps. “Tonight we gather to celebrate the New Year, to count our victories, and our successes. The Fire Nation remains the shining example of civilisation in the world, a beacon to all who would embrace the warm light of progress. We have won great victories and reminded our enemies what it is to fear us, we have reasserted our strength over those who would cause our ruin. Now is the time for us enjoy ourselves, to relax, and to welcome in a year of even greater fortune and strength!”

As the Fire Lord descended among the nobility, Katara closed her eyes and concentrated on the taste of her drink, using the rim of her glass to hide the sardonic curl of her lip as she thought of the fleet of Water Tribe ships, borne at this very moment towards the shores of the archipelago. First they would rescue the rest of the Southern waterbenders, then she would swap the face of the Painted Lady for the battle mask of her title, and then they would bring this whole, glittering, rotten place crashing to the ground, and she would deal Ozai a cut deeper and deadlier than the one she had been able to land on the day of Sozin’s Comet.

She decided not to think about Zuko, or what their plan would mean for him. He caught her eye across the heads of the nobles that parted to let the royal family lead the way to the banqueting hall, but in the presence of his family, with Azula and Ozai watching, he dared nothing more. She offered him a smile anyway, and stretched her hand up to where a carved jade hair comb nestled among her braids – a gift from him.

Bato appeared at her side again. “That was an enlightening little speech, don’t you think?” he checked.

“Very eloquent,” she agreed. “I’d expect nothing less.”

“Hmph. We’d best get moving.”

They followed the crowd from the plaza into a high-ceilinged room with broad, red-painted columns, where servants waited to usher each guest to their assigned seat on tables set around a broad, open space in the centre of the hall. The open walls, with slides drawn back to let in the evening fragrance of the gardens, made the space seem even bigger, though more comforting without the glare of the myriad lanterns outside. Katara seated herself on a plush scarlet cushion next to Bato. The others on their table were merchants and diplomats from the Earth Kingdom.

“This your first New Year?” asked an older man from the other side of the table. She recognised him as Wen Bao, a coal merchant who did good business with the Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom. “You’re in for a treat. The food is the best I ever had – and as you can see, I’ve had a good sampling!” He laughed and patted the round belly under his layers of green silk. “I might have to write a letter to Lord Ozai’s steward, mind. This wine has an odd aftertaste. Must be the late rains.”

Katara smiled and glanced over at the place settings, the gilded chopsticks and the plates and the empty space where the imperial dishes would be placed. “What’s the paper and ink for?” she asked.

“Oh, that’s simple,” Wen Bao chuckled, pulling a strip of paper and a wetted inkbrush towards him out of the pile. “There are so many friends here, and not all of them will have time to talk before the night is over, so a tradition arose to send good wishes on pieces of paper instead.” As Katara watched, he painted a set of characters onto the paper, then folded it up into the elegant shape of a black crane and beckoned a servant over to take it. “Of course,” he added, “a lot of youngsters have found other uses for these over the years. I’m a bit past that now.”

A throat cleared behind Katara.

“A message of good will for you, my lady,” the page said, offering a lacquered tray with two folded pieces of paper on it, before turning to Bato. “And one for you also, my lord.”

With a wry glance at each other, Katara and Bato opened the messages sent their way. She recognised Zuko’s handwriting immediately.

I’m glad the hair ornament suits you so well. It’s lucky I listen to my mother’s taste in matters of fashion.

She turned to Bato, a joke on her tongue, but it stalled there when she caught the look on his face. His gaze was turned wistfully towards the royal table, where Ozai sat with his family and their closest retainers. Ursa was turned away from them, a clear glass chalice raised to her lips, but in the warm glow of the lanterns, her faced looked more flushed than usual.

“Bato…?” How had she not realised before?

He turned at the sound of her voice, and coughed when he realised he’d been caught. “Not here – and don’t give me that look. There’s nothing any of us can do, not until this is over at least.”

“Does she know?” Katara demanded in a hiss, in their own language.

“Does your prince?”

She scowled down at her plate, hating the way she felt her cheeks heat.

“Listen, Katara,” he sighed. “The old general might warn you away from him, tell you to focus on the plan, but it’s been too long since she went outside our city walls. Take advice from a soldier who knows you should find happiness while you can. The world has a short enough supply of it.”

“Even if I know it won’t – can’t – lead to anything?”

To her surprise, Bato laughed. “Did you know, your dad used to have a real sweet tooth. When we were young, nothing could stop him getting at the red taro cakes – I think he saw Gran-gran’s traps as a challenge, and if she tried to double bluff him and leave them open, he’d take them anyway. The point is, he once ate so many he got stomach cramps, and smug runt that I was back then, I asked him if he regretted it.”

“Did he?” she asked.

“Of course he did – he was writhing in agony when I found him. But he said he would have regretted not doing it, too, and if he’d done that, he wouldn’t have got to eat the cakes.”

Katara pushed back the stab of homesickness the image brought, and took a sip of her drink. “That does sound like Dad.”

“What are you two whispering about over there?” Wen Bao enquired jovially from his seat. “I do love a good intrigue.”

“No intrigue, I’m afraid,” Bato replied. “Just giving some life advice.”

“And sorely needed, it seems,” the Earth Kingdom merchant replied, tugging pensively at his beard. “My advice would be to write to this sweetheart of yours, whoever he is. Tonight is the night for it.”

Katara flushed again. “What makes you think I have a sweetheart?”

“What else could make such a lovely young woman as yourself so melancholy?” he answered, tipping her a broad wink. “Or if I’m wrong, then perhaps you can put off your sorrows for just a few hours – the food is here!”

It took nearly ten minutes for all the dishes to arrive. Hundreds of platters were carried in from a door at the far end of the hall in the hands of a small army of servants, the savoury aromas of roasted meat and herbs carried with them. The ostentatious, spicy dishes native to the Fire Nation were to be expected, but Katara also recognised the fine slices of Earth Kingdom tudou si and niang dofu, and among everything else, a few dishes that were more intimately familiar to her.

There are sea prunes here – real sea prunes! she wrote to Zuko.

The chefs like trying new things, and we are allies – Azula’s eaten three already but I haven’t told her they come from the South Pole.

She was halfway through loading her plate when she got the reply, and smirked, dropping her chopsticks delicately against the small mountain of food to take up her pen again. You probably shouldn’t tell her at all. It might be better for your health.

I think you’re right. Make sure you eat some of the fish in red sauce. It’s lucky for New Year, and it goes well with the egg rice. He grinned at her from the royal table, just for an instant when his father couldn’t see before he turned away to talk to the woman in general’s armour on his left.

What happens to all the food that doesn’t get eaten? And what’s the big space for in the centre of the hall?

Wait and see. But I don’t know about the food, I’ve never asked.

She frowned at that, disappointed but not surprised. Whenever there had been a feast at home, the preparation of the food and its eating was shared by everyone, and leftovers were never truly wasted. Still, she had learned enough from her time in the Fire Nation to know the royal servants took pride in providing delicious food in greater quantities than their charges could handle, and that refusing to eat from a misplaced sense of equality would be a great insult, both to the servants themselves, and the master they represented. She had little choice but to pile her plate high, taking a bit of everything within her reach, including the fish dish Zuko recommended.

Finally, the last of the servers retreated through the kitchen doors, leaving the tables all but groaning under the weight of food. The hall filled with chatter and the distant pops of commoners’ fireworks as people ate their fill. Only pages flitted between the tables, passing luck notes between friends and enemies alike, and as the wine flowed more freely, the greetings were folded into ever more elaborate, sloppier shapes. Katara received enough to surprise her, and spent too much time trying to work out the identities of all the well-wishers to even think about writing back to most of them.

“Wen Bao, who’s Lord Beifong?”

“Over there, the nervous-looking fellow in the green and gold,” her new friend replied around a mouthful of dumpling. He was one of the few still eating. “It’s his first time being invited despite having tried to get His Majesty in his holdings for years, so no wonder. He’s the one who brought the entertainment tonight.”

“Entertainment?”

The lights dimmed. An anticipatory thrum rippled through the assembled guests as servants clad in black padded in to close the shutters in the walls.

“What –?” Bato started to ask, but before the word was even out of his mouth, a yell went up from somewhere in the darkness.

Two pillars of sparks shot up into the ceiling beams at the far end of the hall. Smoke billowed, and through it leaped a golden lion-bear, gaping its red-silk mouth wide to the crash of unseen cymbals and drums. Despite herself, Katara gasped. The acrobats inside the costume pranced and played through the open space in between the tables, shaking the tasselled mane on the paper head in time to the beat like a real animal might. The sparkler light bounced off the beads sewn into its back, the great eyes blinked, the music came faster as it roared, halted, reared onto its back legs. Katara wondered how heavy the head must be, but the performer in the back of the costume tossed their partner forward like they weighed nothing at all, and the lion leaped again.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Wen Bao asked her over the music.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she replied.

The drums beat faster now, the cymbals had lost their rhythm and shivered in time with the lion. With one last final roar, it lunged forward into a graceful bow before the Fire Lord’s seat and froze when the beat that sustained it ceased. In its place, a solitary flute quavered, and through the shadows at the end of the hall a parade of dancers stepped with streaming ribbons or juggling balls, followed by acrobats who danced with twisting shapes made out of their own firebending. The spectacle spilled out over the floor, the performers making sure to show off to everyone in the room, not just the Fire Lord, and in the distraction they provided, the servants returned to clear away the plates.

A young man with shaggy hair and a pair of hooked swords strapped across his back stepped out in front of the dancers once the servants had retreated, and bowed to the Fire Lord. The music once again tapered into silence.

“And now,” he announced to the room, “All the way from the Earth Kingdom, we are proud to present the Gaipan Fighters for your enjoyment.”

He bowed again and turned to face two more warriors dressed in the same green-dyed leather, one a towering giant and the other younger, slender, with a mass of brown hair and streaks of red paint across her face. A gong clanged and the three of them settled into starting stances, the girl drawing daggers from her belt, the youth who had announced them with his twin swords. The giant held no weapons at all.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Ozai demanded when the silence stretched. “Begin!”

The leader was the first to move. He dashed across the space, swiping his swords for the girl with the daggers – there was a gasp from the nobles – but she dodged away, then turned and met her opponent in a flash of sparks. They darted back and forth to the awe of the crowd, a battle that went three ways, an exhibition of skill that wouldn’t have been out of place in the elite corps of the Southern Water Tribe Army. Their footwork was faultless, and Katara watched as each one used their own strengths against the other two.

Something nagged at her.

The three fighters held back. It might be expected if they were friends wary of hurting each other, but there was a distracted tension in their movements that couldn’t be accounted for, and as she realised this she noticed too that the fight was edging closer to the royal dais. Suspicious, she stretched her qi out for water, to have it at hand just in case – and felt nothing.

She gripped Bato’s wrist, unsurprised by the grim expression on his face, or the stiffness in his muscles. Warriors survived as long as he did only by having good instincts.

“What is it?” he asked in a low voice.

“My bending’s gone.”

“But they don’t –”

“The wine,” she whispered. “They must have put something in the wine. That’s why it tasted bitter. They’re not after me, it’s –”

The sound of a bird call rang through the hall. A signal, Katara realised, as the world slowed. The dagger girl ran at the giant and jumped. He caught her foot and flung her into the air, twisting, perfectly balanced, blades flashing. Katara’s gaze snapped to Ozai as the dagger left the girl’s hand and flew straight for his head.

Only lightning reflexes saved him. The screams of the nobles echoed as the girl landed and rolled into a crouch behind the youth with the swords, and for a moment the scene froze, and all Katara could see was the look of shock on the Fire Lord’s face, the same one she had seen when she gave him the scar on his cheek. Outrage, maybe a trace of fear. And she didn’t have her bending.

Ozai began to laugh. It grew from a low chuckle into a sound as cold as the crack of sea ice. “Did you think that would work, little assassins? Did you think you would succeed?” He stood, gigantic next to the low table. “I will burn you to a crisp myself.”

The three fighters stood defiant. Katara wondered where the guards were, but given the Fire Lord’s callousness, it was likely they were keeping out of the way of stray blasts of fire. She fisted her hand in her skirt, unable to turn her head away as Ozai drew his arm back, remembering the last, awful time, the stench of burning meat and hair…

Nothing.

Ozai punched again, his face a mask of disbelief, but only the thinnest wisp of flame spewed from his knuckles.

The boy with the swords laughed. “Having a bit of trouble there? We put a little something in your drinks to screw with your qi. You’ve got no bending. None of you,” he added, when Zuko and Azula started to rise.

“You’ll pay for this,” the princess spat. “Guards!”

“They won’t be bothering us,” came the casual reply. A smile twisted the boy’s mouth.

Ozai, raising a hand to forestall any retaliation from either of his children, regarded his opponent with detached amusement. “Such arrogance from an Earth Kingdom peasant. Who do you think you are?”

The boy straightened. “My name is Jet,” he declared. “And these are my Freedom Fighters, Smellerbee and Pipsqueak. We’re here to repay the Fire Nation for the atrocities committed against the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes, and everyone else you’ve decided to step on over the years. We watched our homes burn, our families get killed, and we won’t stand for your tyranny anymore!”

“How amusing,” Ozai purred. “And you thought this demonstration would could stop a century of progress? I will so enjoy watching your execution.”

“Oh I’m not finished yet,” Jet snarled. “Once I’m through with you, I’ll make sure this is a celebration the people of the Fire Nation won’t ever forget. It’s going to be an explosive New Year.”

Bato laid his hand over Katara’s, feeling her itch to move, to intervene. “Wait,” he muttered. “Let’s see how this plays out.”

“You want to set the world on fire?” Jet shouted, gesturing around the room full of elegant fittings and gold paid for in blood. “How about we start right here?”

An arrow hissed out of the darkness, between his outstretched arms. At first, Katara thought it missed its mark, but then flames began to spread from the arrow’s tip, along the path of the liquor spilled from the cup it knocked over. The silk strands of the carpet caught, licked at the varnished boards beneath it, but the Fire Lord didn’t move, so his guests checked their impulse to flee.

Jet laughed. “What’s wrong, Your Highness, can’t stand the heat?”

Still without moving, with the firelight dancing in the shadows of his eyes, Ozai gestured to Azula and Zuko, poised on either side of him like polar bear-dogs on the scent of prey.

“Bring me his head.”

They both lunged over the table at Jet, forcing him back, but the hooked swords flashed out, and they were driven back. The other two fighters closed in.

“We have to get everyone out!” Bato shouted, fighting to be heard over the noise of panicking nobles.

Katara tore her gaze away from Zuko. Absorbed as she was, she hadn’t seen Ozai disappear from the hall with Ursa, but with the Fire Lord’s departure, the spell of terror that held the banquet guests in their places had snapped, and there was panic on every side. More flaming arrows shot down from the rafters. People screamed. As the flames spread, a dull thought crept through Katara’s head, wondering why the Fire Nation of all places wasn’t more flame-resistant, but she saw the young inferno roar as it caught the lacquer on the nearest pillar and leapt towards the roof.

“The garden,” she said, turning to Bato. “The courtyard isn’t safe – that’ll just go up too. The garden might still be damp enough to keep the flames at bay.”

She tossed one last look over her shoulder, tugged by her worry for Zuko. He stood back to back with his sister, his face fixed in a snarl as he battled Jet and the giant called Pipsqueak. He was holding his ground better than Azula, whose strikes gave too much room to manoeuvre, unbalanced without her bending. Another figure stood close by, a spot of calm in the sea of hurrying people, and Katara felt a stab of annoyance.

“Mai!” she called.

The noblewoman turned at the sound of her name, still with the cool, detached expression she had worn earlier. Here, it was just creepy.

“I wanted to see how Azula would do without her bending. I’m impressed,” she admitted, though a thread of disappointment wove through the words.

Katara didn’t have time for it. “Or you could help, instead of standing there?” She gestured to the room, to Bato trying his best to guide the guests through the burning hall to the only narrow way left into the gardens. The fire had spread to all the pillars now, dim light and thick smoke. Hypnotic. The heat of it seared against the skin.

“Smellerbee!”

Jet’s voice broke Katara from her trance. She looked over in time to see Azula catch her opponent with a vicious kick to the midsection. The girl crumpled, the daggers falling from her hands, and before she could react, Azula beat her back again with a centreline jab that sent her sprawling to the floor. With the speed of a rat-viper, Azula swung down and snatched up one of the daggers, ready to land a killing blow.

An arrow whistled from above. It struck the Fire Princess’ shoulder as she brought her arm slashing down. The blow went wide as she screamed. She staggered away, with Smellerbee following.

“I see him,” Mai snarled before Katara could open her mouth. “Leave it to me.”

She disappeared into the smoke, leaving Katara dumbfounded until the sounds of fighting reached her ears again and she turned to see Zuko now even more outnumbered, without either weapon or bending to help him. He had managed this far by being light on his feet, acrobatic in a way that felt familiar though the smoke made his movements hard to see, but with Pipsqueak at his back and Jet advancing with his swords, he wouldn’t last much longer.

She snatched up a food tray, barely thinking before she called his name and threw it to him.

He caught it, raised it just in time to block Jet’s downward strike. The swords pierced the thin wood of the tray, but the hooks stuck. Zuko twisted with a grunt of effort, and the weapons spun away across the floor.

“Katara, get out of here!” he shouted.

“Not without you!”

“Katara?” Jet glanced between him, his confusion condensing into a snarl as recognition hit. He picked up his swords, kicking aside the remainder of the tray. “I remember now. You’re even worse than them.”

“Katara!”

She glanced in Zuko’s direction, but he was being beaten back by Pipsqueak and Smellerbee, and there was no mistaking the threat in Jet’s voice as he prowled towards her. Instinctively, her stance lowered; she felt for the water that still wasn’t there.

Jet charged. He swiped for her with both swords, but she’d seen that move already. She bent backwards as the blades flashed over her head, so close she felt the breath of air disturbed by their passing, and as they swung away she followed the momentum of the move and wheeled backwards to put more space between them.

“Nice move, traitor,” Jet snarled, coming on again.

She snatched a chair from where it had fallen in the middle of the floor. “Do you think you can goad me?” she spat back, parrying his attack. “What was your plan here? Did you think if you killed the Fire Lord they were just going to just let you go? That the war would end?”

“I’m doing to them what they did to us!” he roared over the surge of the fire. “I’m just trying to redress the balance!”

Katara choked on the heat. They were running out of time. “This isn’t balance, this is madness! You can’t repay one slaughter with another and expect everything to be alright!”

“These people aren’t innocent!” His voice cracked on the words. “Every one of them has had a hand in all the pain and suffering caused for a hundred years!” He charged again, bashing at her with his swords, all finesse lost. “They’re soldiers –” bash “– or they’re in factories –” bash “– or they’re collaborating with the ones giving the orders to tear down our homes.” He swiped again, smashing her improvised weapon out of her hands. “You know this – you have to! How can you defend them? How can you sit and share food with them? It makes me sick!”

“I do what I have to,” she coughed, eyes stinging. “For all my people, not just for myself.”

She backed up, aware of the fire and the toxic smoke from the lacquer burning her lungs, aware she was being herded deeper into the conflagration. Dim shadows moved behind Jet, the hulking shape of Pipsqueak and Zuko’s lighter, quicker form trying to get to her. A table stood next to her, as yet untouched, still with the decorative tablecloth set beneath the plates. Water still wouldn’t come to her, though even with a full moon she would be hard-pressed to find any moisture in such a blaze. She had promised Hama she wouldn’t use her bending.

Jet lunged. She dived over the table, ripping up the cloth so the settings scattered over the floor, and surged to her feet with it taut between her hands, a ribbon of fabric almost as good as her water. She parried a strike, then another, left an opening for her opponent to follow. He took it, pushing forward with both blades at once, and time stretched to show her the surprise on his face when she snared both hooks in the cloth and used his momentum to throw him across the floor. When she stood, she caught Zuko staring at her.

If you thought that was impressive, you should see what else I can do, she thought, as she turned her attention back to Jet.

The ceiling groaned above them.

Someone screamed.

The dagger girl, Smellerbee, lurched out of the haze, batting frantically at the flames licking along her sleeve. Behind her came Azula, smirking, her palms lit with tiny globes of yellow-white fire that licked blue around the edges. Jet scrambled to his feet and put himself between Smellerbee and her opponent.

“And that’s our cue to leave!” he called over his shoulder.

“You’re not going anywhere.” The fire danced in Azula’s eyes.

“That’s what you think.”

Behind Jet, Pipsqueak grabbed the end of a table, shaking the trappings from their places with a grunt of effort.

“Katara!”

The table swung for her head. Smoke was in her lungs, her brain. She had no waterbending, no room to dodge out of the way.

A rough arm grabbed her around the waist and barrelled her to the floor with such force her head smacked off the smouldering silk of the carpet. Through the pink lights sparking behind her yes, she watched in slow motion as the table collided with one of the screen walls and smashed clean through. Fire rushed in, greedy for the new air being sucked through the gap, and someone was shouting at her to get her head down, to close her eyes – Zuko, she realised, as the wave of heat washed over her.

When she looked again, the Freedom Fighters were running for the hole in the wall, but Jet turned and pointed a finger at Katara.

“You got lucky this time, traitor,” he spat. “You’d better not get in my way again.”

Zuko was tugging on her arm, and suddenly Bato was there as well, looming through the smoke to help her out into the garden and the fresh, clean night air. Coughing, she glanced back and watched dimly, outside herself as the remains of the hall coiled a fat, lazy column of smoke into the sky, lighting scurrying figures in silhouette as the servants did their best to fight against the blaze before it could consume more of the palace complex. The stench of smoke matted in her hair, dredging up other smells from her memory, a wash of lurid purple light and the sight of her mother walking out like a shadow self into a wall of fury.

“… I’ll get her home, don’t worry.” Bato’s voice, swimming in and out of focus as if her head were dipping under water.

“She should see a healer.” She was still leaning on Zuko, felt his voice rumble through her arm. “I’d rather not…”

“Please, Your Highness. She ought to be with people she trusts.”

Fingers tightened on her shoulder.

“I want Hama,” she managed to croak. “She’ll be missing me. She’ll be worried.”

Jet’s last words rang in her head, the accusation of traitor going round and round until it made her dizzier than the smoke. In the cool of the garden, she felt her water coming back to her, in the dew on the grass and the sweat on the skin of those standing next to her. With it, the tremble in her limbs fell away, and a whisper grew in her mind, like the shadow of a monster beneath the surface of the sea: Tui’s demon aspect, the spirit she took into herself with the mantle of the Sea-wolf, the face shad had been forced to hide to protect herself and her people. As the palace burned, she felt herself pulled down with it into the depths, where everything was silence and cold, unyielding purpose.

She had wavered. She had lost the plan, forgotten her vengeance, allowed herself to be beguiled from her purpose when nothing else should have mattered. She pushed herself away from Zuko towards Bato’s anxious embrace, and turned on the Fire Nation prince.

“I’ll be fine, I promise,” she told him with a small smile that wavered at the edges, just so.

There was something searching in his gaze, beneath the worry for her, but he nodded. “I can’t let you go alone – I’ll have the guard called.”

“Of course.” She bit her tongue to keep the argument at bay. For the sake of the plan, she had to stop Jet before he made a mess of everything, and a having a contingent of royal guard dogging her steps would only slow her down, but she couldn’t risk breaking her façade. She would have to play the delicate, sheltered princess for just a little longer.

But as Jet said, it was going to be an explosive New Year.

[lemoncakesandlipsticks]

The best long-lasting liquid lipsticks

You have to admit that when liquid lipsticks first dropped onto the market back in 2015 the idea of being able to lock lips over and over without smushing colour over the entire lower half of your face, was nothing short of a godsend. Cut to 2017 (nearly 2018) - lip stains have had a surprising resurgence and glittery/metallic lips are all the rage. Come next week, your lips will be standing to attention everywhere you go so you need to check out our list of kiss-proof lipsticks to make your days easier (and kissy-er):

Fenty Beauty Stunna Lip Paint in Uncensored, £19

Already a fan favourite, Uncensored has only been out for two weeks and has been adorning the lips of many a beauty lover on Instagram and who can blame them for loving this iconic red shade that looks good on absolutely every skin tone? Better put them lips to work work work work work work (sorry).

Lime Crime Metallic Velvetines in Raisin Hell, £16

The originators of the liquid lipstick that paved the way for new lip crazes, Doe Deere’s fairytale brand knows a thing or two about seriously trendy colours and creating a lipstick that has a surreal amount of longevity. Raisin Hell is a flawless metallic blackberry shade for NYE that will last late into the night and into the next morning.

Stila Cosmetics Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Fiore, £16

Fiore is a hotter-than-hell pink that will blow away your dedication to nude lips with a single swipe and has a lovely fruity scent, which will start to fade long before the colour does. Your lips will enter the room before you do with this electrifying shade.

Giorgio Armani Notorious Lip Maestro, £29

One for those who love a bit of luxury and don’t care who knows it. Yes this is a bit pricey but it’s Christmas and that’s the perfect time to treat yourself after a hard year of adulting. Exclusive to Selfridges, this classic Hollywood-red lip hugging lacquer is velvety matte in texture, highly pigmented and stays put for eight hours.

Sugarpill Cosmetics Trinket Liquid Lip Color, £14

Sugarpill’s most Instagrammed lip colour ever, Trinket is many women’s go to shade. Mauve with golden sparkles, Trinket is not quite metallic - but not quite matte - but is way more lightweight than other lipsticks, is lightly fragranced and extremely long lasting.

MAC Atomized Retro Matte Liquid Lipsticks Metallic, £17.50

MAC has done it again! When will our purses get some rest? These are brand spanking new and we are living for the colours. Atomized is an amazing wintery shade of violet that will sparkle wherever you go. You can build up these liquid lipsticks as the night goes on

Anastasia Beverly Hills Stripped Liquid Lipstick, £20

These definitely do not budge and the colour payoff is insane. ABH liquid lipsticks will be your lip bestie until it’s time for it to be taken off. One for the lovers of nude lipstick, Stripped will not divert attention away from your dramatic eye makeup but bring the whole face together.

Chanel Choquant Rouge Allure Ink, £28

Advertised as a second skin for the wearer, Rouge Allure Ink liquid lipsticks are so bloody comfortable they are akin to pyjamas on the lips with intense opacity and are kind to your mouth thanks to their natural oil ingredients. You also cannot go wrong with shade Choquant for those who want to kill two birds with one stone and have a deep red pout that is impeccable for dress up and dress down days.

Kat Von D Miss Argentina Everlasting Liquid Lipstick, £17

Ms Von D can do no wrong in the beauty world and with her everlasting lipsticks; you know that you’re onto a winner. Famed for being vegan and cruelty free, Kat Von D’s artistic input is in every facet of the brand image and the bizarre colour range (hello black and white lipsticks). If you want something a bit more…party friendly then try the wonderfully shimmery crimson colour of Miss Argentina.

Lancôme 379 Matte Shaker, £19.50

The size of Lancôme matte shakers is sheer genius. Totally pocket friendly, you can pull these mini bad boys out of your handbag and top up when need be. But you won’t need to. Part lipstick, part lip stain, matte shakers will never come off so you will have a colourful pout for days and days… because we literally can’t take them off.

Dose of Colors Los Anjealous Matte Lipstick, £16

Before you say anything, yes red is the dream shade for the Christmas party season but there is also something oh so perfect about a muted ruby red lip that you can dress up with a wing or use as a showstopper by itself.

Beauty Bakerie Cinnamon Roll Metallic Lip Whip, £16

A gorgeous red toned bronze for the ones who want something that is a beautifully balanced mix of glittery brown and red hues. Lip Whips dry down really quickly too which is ideal minutes before the countdown.

Morphe Unsettled Liquid Lipstick, £12

A true Christmas bargain, Unsettled is a deep rose shade that flits between being nearly nude and a soft pink. Think of these as lipstick jumpers that hug your curves and keep you comfy until it’s time for bed. 

Charlotte Tilbury Show Girl Hollywood Lips, £24

The perfect soft glam makeovers that A-listers on Charlotte’s Instagram receive for award ceremonies may not be in easy reach for those of us regular people at home but even if you won’t turn into Emma Roberts anytime soon that doesn’t mean that your lips cannot be dressed in full coverage, Hollywood approved, dusty pink velvety shades like Show Girl.

Dior Addict Natural Berry Lip Tattoo, £25

10 hour wear, transfer proof, comfy on the lips and beautiful on every skin tone, Dior’s natural berry lip tattoo will stain the lips for hours with a face-warming berry hue, long after you’ve kissed your chosen one… and maybe the next one.

Buxom Criminal Wildly Whipped Lightweight Liquid Lipstick, £15

For the vampy NYE party dwellers, Criminal is a deep plum purple, which will definitely pair well with cat eye flicks and a seducing soul. The lipstick – or lip butter – will give your pout a soft matte finish and won’t dry your lips out but instead give them a little helping hand with some collagen stimulants.

3INA 505 The Longwear Lipstick, £7.95

Relatively new indie brand 3INA launched quietly in Covent Garden with their extremely well priced beauty collections and insane shade range in 2015. Walking into their shop is like stepping into a rainbow full of fun makeup products. 3INA’s liquid lipsticks have great wear, only need one coat and are extremely pigmented. Win win.

Smashbox Girl Gang Always On Matte Liquid Lipstick, £19

You’re young, you’re hip, you’re walking like Gigi Hadid on the Tommy Hilfiger runway and you’re feeling fine. You’re going to own the party wearing this chic plum lip colour that will last a cool eight hours - plenty of time to lean in and pucker up.

Yves Saint Laurent 20 Tatouage Couture Matte Stain Liquid Lipstick, £29

Lip tattoos are in and we aren’t complaining especially if it’s by YSL, which promises to perfect your pout with this elegant violet colour and keep it there.

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40 BEAUTY QUESTIONS TAG - 06/01/16

SKINCARE

1. How many times do you wash your face? - I wash my face twice, once in the morning and once in the night. But I may wash my face a few times throughout the day with just water and a light face wash if I feel like I need a "freshen up".

2. What skin type are you? - I have dry to combination skin. My skin can get pretty dry if I don't cleanse and moisturise. But it can even get oily and sensitive around parts of my cheeks and chin.

3. What is your current facial wash? - I did have a long skin care routine but i've cut it down because i've broken out a bit and I decided it'd be best if I used less products, so now I just use Simple Skin Refreshing Facial Wash Gel.

4. Do you exfoliate? - Yes I try to do it once a week. It can be drying so I try to use it where I get oily.

5. What brand is it? - I'm currently using The Body Shop Seaweed Pore Cleansing Facial Exfoliator.

6. What moisturiser do you use? - At the moment I'm using Embroylisse Lait-Creme  

7. Do you have freckles? - Nope

8. Do you use an eye cream? No, but I use Sweet Almond Oil as an eye cream, it really helps moisturise my under eyes and eyelashes.

9. Do you or did you have acne prone skin? - I never really use to think that I could ever get acne, I use to use whatever I fancied on my skin, but quite recently i've broken out with a few blemishes that kind of look like acne, which makes me think that I may have blemish/acne prone skin.

10. Did you ever have to use pro-active - Nope

MAKEUP

11. What foundation do you use? - I tend to use lightweight sheer foundations. But for everyday I like using NARS Tinted Moisturiser or Estee Lauder BB Cream and concealer for areas that need it.

12. Do you know your undertone? - Yes i'm definitely more warm tone. I'd say i'm medium dark\yellow

13. What about concealer? - Concealer over foundation any day! If i'm going for a no makeup kind of look concealer really helps with getting rid of tiredness and blemishes that tinted moisturisers and bb creams can't do.

14. What do you think of fake eyelashes? - I think they're great in terms of making your eyes look bigger and more defined. But when it comes to putting them on i'm useless at it, I hardly ever wear fake eyelashes, pain is beauty, but I don't like the feel of them, they are definitely one thing I don't mind living without. They can also pull your eyelashes out and mine is already thin so i'd like to hold onto the ones I already have.

15. Do you know you are suppose to change your mascara every 3 months. - Yes, but i'm guilty with not doing that. I do try to change my mascara frequently but unfortunately it's not that frequent.

16. What brand of mascara do you use? -   Drugstore - Loreal Telescopic    High end - NARS Audacious

17. Sephora or MAC? - I haven't tried any Sephora makeup so I can't really say, so i'll have to go with MAC.

18. What makeup tools do you use for makeup application? - Undoubtedly Real Techniques Makeup Brushes have become a must for me. But I quite recently got my hands on some brushes from Spectrum Collection, which I have been loving and do a great job at makeup application. I like using my fingers a lot as well, if you consider them as a tool. But they really can be the best thing for when applying makeup.

19. Do you use makeup base/primer for your eyes? - Hmm i've tried a sample of the Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer but I haven't really gone back to purchase one. I never really think about priming my eyelids with an actual primer I just usually use a natural coloured cream eyeshadow. The one that I tend to use is by Topshop in the shade Stripped.

20. For the face? - I have the Benefit Poreless Face Primer and Vitamin Skin Reviver by The Body Shop that works really well for a face primer. But I don't really prime my face everyday not unless I'm going to be wearing foundation then I do.

21. What is your favourite eyeshadow (colour or shade)? - I don't really have a specific branded eyeshadow colour that is my absolute fave. But I tend to go for natural colours, like browns, pinks and whites for highlight. I really like Urban Decay's Naked Palettes. But if I had to choose I would say my fave is the Basics one as I like that it's all matte and perfect for everyday.

22. Do you use Pencil or Liquid eyeliner? - Pencil is something that I hardly use, unless i'm going for a more dramatic look, which is almost rare. Liquid and gel are the ones I tend to use. And it's 50/50 with the two, as I use them both equally the same amount.

23. How often do you poke your eyes with eyeliner pencil? - Not often as I don't really use it, but when I do i'd say it'd only happen if i'm rushing.

24. What do you think of pigment eyeshadow? - They can be a lot of fun as they allow you to pack on a great amount of glitter to the eyes and the colour is so much more pigmented as well, of course. It can be messy, but a little can go a long way with it.

25. Do you use mineral makeup? - Nope, but I have been wanting to try out Bare Minerals.

26. What is your favourite lipstick? - They change from time to time. But at the moment i'm using Taupe - Mac a lot.

27. How about lipgloss? - I use to be obsessed with lipgloss when I was little. But now it's all about matte lips, although I do occasionally go for some shine, as matte lipsticks can become drying for the lips.

28. What is your favourite blush to use? - My go to favourite has got to be Milani - Berry A'more.

29. Do you buy makeup on Ebay? - Nope, but I have been wanting to try out Jessup Makeup Brushes. I know its not actual makeup but its makeup related and its something I wanted to get get from Ebay for a while.

30. Do you like drugstore makeup? - Yes, of course, I don't know anyone who wouldn't like at least one drugstore makeup product?

31. Do you go to CCO's (Cosmetic Company Outlets)? - Yes I do, I recently went to one where they sold high end products such as MAC and Estee Lauder for a cheap price.

32. Did you ever consider taking makeup classes? - Yes I have, I would love to, but I haven't come across any classes that I would like to attend where I live. But there is always youtube!

33. Name a makeup crime? - Not taking your makeup off properly or completely and sleeping with your makeup on. It's not healthy for the skin at all!

34. Do you like colourful shades of makeup or neutrals? - Definitely neutral for most times and parts, but I do like wearing colourful lipsticks from time to time, such as reds and purples.

35. Which celebrity always has great makeup? - It's fair to say Kim Kardashian even though i'm not a big fan of her, her makeup is always flawless and so is Kylie Jenner's. I think they've played a huge part to how girls put their makeup on now.  

36. Could you ever leave the house without any makeup on? - I was able to before but now I feel like I need to.

37. If you could leave the house just wearing ONE sort of makeup, what would it be? - Hmmm it use to be lipstick, but now I think I need concealer more! ^insert emoji crying face!

38. Do you think you look good without any makeup on? - Hmm not completely but I did use to think I looked okay before, as my skin was a lot better and I could get away with wearing little as possible. But because of recent breakouts it's kinda left me feeling like I need to put makeup on, without it I kinda feel like a mess, which sucks! It's nice to wear makeup because you feel like it not because you have to.

39. Are clumsy with makeup? - I can be with my eyes.

40. What do you think of makeup? - I'm not amazing at applying makeup but I do love it. I love hearing the history of makeup and how its changed over the years, I love learning new ways to apply it, I love collecting it and finding out what suits me and what doesn't. Cheesy as this may sound, makeup is fun!