#the through cold and frost part till the end of the song

[eri-pl]

Watching people analyze a show I do not* watch (yes, RoP) again, because it's interesting ahd he shows the lyrics to the wandering song, and at 1st stanza I got an epiphany: Oh. This song is about death.

And then the second stanza is like meh… it doesn't fit at all. :(

Anyway. Those two stanzas have so different feel. Therefore I declare: The first stanza is a borrowing from some of the earlier (Mannish) cultures. The second stanza is their own (Harfoots' I mean).

\*business reasons not artistic reasons.

[imagines--galore]

||One Step Closer|| Part One

Summary: It all starts with a step. One step closer and you gain a new friend. One more step and you're their rock. Their savior. One more step and their heart is just within reach. Just one step.

Pairing: Jack Frost x Elsa

Rating || Genres || Warnings: T. Romance. Hurt/Comfort. Allusions to death in the end.

A/N: So Jelsa has always been a favorite crossover pairing of mine and I couldn’t resist uploading this old piece. Also the song used is A Thousand Years - Part One by Christina Perri.

Heart beats fast

She stood there scared yet hopeful as he sat on the sill of her open window holding out his hand where a snowflake was floating. His vibrant blue eyes were kind and shining with laughter and joy. Her heart we beating loud and clear in her chest and she feared he could hear her. But seeing him smile she suddenly felt comforted. Hearing him speak made her smile the brightest she had in her life. "I'm just like you."

His name was Jack Frost, and he was the Spirit of Winter. But that did not matter to her. Nor did it matter that no one else could see him. She knew she could, and she knew why. For so long she had wanted to believe that there was someone else out there. Someone who would have the same powers as her. Someone who would teach her to control them. So when she read the myth on Jack Frost, the Spirit of Winter, one who had control over snow and ice just as she had, Elsa had dared to hope and believe. She had carried that belief with her since childhood, even when she turned seventeen, and was a year away from becoming an adult. She saw him peering through her window, as she amused herself with a few dancing snowflakes, and had cried out in shock. He had been surprised at her crying out, though later he had whooped with joy. Because her fright meant she could see him, which no one had ever done before.

It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

                                            ————————–

Colors and promises

Blue was happiness for her.

Amber was anger.

Purple when she was sad.

Red when she was frightened.

But what about White?

Pure white ice was certainly new. And as she gazed at the little figurine of Jack she frowned in thought. They had always been blue in the past. Why White now?

Maybe because she had made that little figurine while making a promise?

A promise that she would fulfill till the end of time.

Promise that she would never forget about him.

Ever.

                                            ————————–

How to be brave?

"I can't do it Jack!" Her voice was broken, a sob catching in her throat as she fell to her knees in front of her friend, her arms wrapped around herself in an attempt to feel less alone. Less frightened. But with her parents gone, the room completely frozen because of her powers, her sister having just left her, after sitting for hours against the door, Elsa had never felt so alone.

"Yes you can! Elsa look at me!" Warm hands cupped her cheeks tilting her head to look in her eyes. His hands looked cold but to her they were warm. "You're stronger and braver then you will ever know." He whispered, his voice strong." You will rule Arendelle. The fairest Queen the world has ever known. Brave and strong for her people even when she had just lost her own parents."

                                            ————————–

How can I love when I'm afraid to fall?

All her life she had lived afraid. Afraid for the people around her. Afraid for her parents. Her sister. Afraid of herself. Her powers. The one thing that set her apart from all those around her. But she only saw that as a bad thing. It made her feel like an outsider. They made her feel unsafe. They could be destructible. They could be horrifying. Which was why she was so afraid when she found the true extent of her feelings for Jack.

                                            ————————–

But watching you stand alone,

Sometimes she envied Jack. He had complete control over his abilities. He never made a single mistake. He never let his emotions rule him, which was what she had always done. But right then watching him stand on the balcony of her deceased father's study, she could not help but wish that he may have someone he would love. Like she loved him.

All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow

                                            ————————–

He took away all insecurities. He took away every bad feeling. He was her friend. He vowed to help her no matter what she went through. She had accepted it graciously, as a future Queen should, but as soon as he had thrown a snowball at her she had quickly burst into laughter tackling him to the ground like she used to do when she was still a teenager.

                                            ————————–

Time stands still

With him it felt like she could do anything. He brought the laughter she had never thought herself to be capable of. With him time simply stood still. With him everything made sense. Her powers. Her smiles. Her heart. And her love for him.

And when he gave her the necklace as a gift for her coronation Elsa could not help the smile as she clasped the snowflake shaped necklace around her neck. And as it rested beneath the fabric of her coronation gown, cool against her otherwise trembling body it gave her all the strength she needed to believe in herself, even for a little while, as she felt the crown being placed upon her head.

                                            ————————–

Beauty in all she is

Elsa tilted her head watching Jack curiously as his cheeks colored. His normally pale face was red, or rather his cheeks were, and for reasons unknown to her, he would not meet her eye. He had been acting weird. Perhaps it was the fact she had left and was now living in a palace she made herself? Or maybe her dress, it was rather strange, but she liked it. Or perhaps the necklace he gave her which still hung around her neck. And when he complimented her, her own cheeks flushed her heart beating fast and loud in her chest, as she smiled shyly.

                                            ————————–

I will be brave

"Promise me!" Jack exclaimed his voice pleading as he knelt in front of her. Elsa sobbed loudly as she shook her head.

"I can't Jack." She whimpered her arms hugging her chest as her legs trembled underneath her. Suddenly she felt his arms wrap themselves around her pulling her close, hugging her tightly. Elsa stiffened at the contact, having not touched another human in so long.

But as she felt him drop a soft kiss on top of her head her erratic breathing began to steady, her sobs quietening as she gripped the front of his shirt tightly afraid he would disappear or worse, that he would recoil from her. Or that she would hurt him like she did her sister. But Jack did nothing of the sort. Instead he simply pulled her closer.

"Promise me you will be brave Elsa." She nodded. "I will be brave Jack." Neither of them noticed how the palace around them seemed to glow white.

                                            ————————–

I will not let anything take away

"No!" The scream was filled with anguish. One that ripped through the very souls of those who heard it. No one knew why she shouted, they were too busy in trying to bring her down. Her. The monster. Jack had tried to protect her. But he had not seen the sword coming. He had not seen it as it descended on top of his head knocking him out. It was an accident on the guard's part. For he could not see Jack. No one could. But seeing him lie on the floor like that, unmoving and unresponsive she felt anger rising from within her. An anger that frightened her yet gave her strength to attack the guards in retaliation. She was not letting them take away the only best thing that could ever have happened to her.

                                            ————————–

What's standing in front of me

"Jack!" The cry tore past her lips the second she stepped back into the palace. Her heart was lighter. She felt free. The kingdom was once again as it was before. She had made amends with her sister. Hans was behind bars and could not hurt anyone ever again. But she had been thinking about him. Had been thinking of breaking out of prison to see him and rescue him. Make sure he was alright. She had only just climbed the stairs of the palace when she had seen him exit through the window above her. He had stopped in mid-air staring down at her as if she were some form of illusion. But suddenly she felt his arms around her, the ground falling away from her feet as Jack hugged her, the wind lifting them away. Was it Jack's command or perhaps a little trick on the wind's part. Elsa did not know neither did she care. Laughing, tears of relief shining in her eyes she hugged him back, her heart bursting with happiness.

                                            ————————–

Every breath

How could it have gone so? As the fire surrounded her from all sides, Elsa clasped the small child in her arms, trying to keep her safe. She was hurt. Her head was spinning and she had inhaled too much smoke. Her powers would not come to her strong enough to stop the fire. The Queen was already too injured and exhausted for that. She knew she would not be able to last long, but maybe the child could. She glanced at the child. Calling up on the last of her strength she created a cradle of ice. Placing the child in the cradle she kissed her forehead, as the child looked up at her wide blue eyes. Eyes a lot like her own.

"Be safe little niece. Keep watch over your mother and father for me." She cooed, letting the baby grip her much bigger finger. Waving her hand she inscribed one last message to her sister. A message in ice, kissed the baby's head once more, whispered a blessing, before sending the baby sliding down the message chute, it being only big enough to fit the cradle which was the size of the child. The fire around her was getting intense, it was licking at the hem of her dress, now destroyed from smoke. Suddenly the roof above her creaked. Blue eyes shot heavenward just in time to see the ceiling collapse. Wood and debris rained down her weak body. Elsa collapsed, crying out as a rather heavy beam landed on her leg.

                                            ————————–

Every hour has come to this

Instincts kicked in, and she tried her best to push it off but what little strength she had was leaving her and the smoke was making her vision hazy not to mention the smoke inside her. It was hopeless she knew it now. As she lost the last of her strength Elsa lay on the ground, smoke filling her lungs, searing heat all around her, her eyes turned heavenward, her thoughts turning to her sister, her brother in law, Olaf and finally Jack. A smile crept on her face as she thought of the boy with silver hair and eyes so blue they rivaled her own. A trembling hand slowly lifted to pull at the necklace resting against her neck, her fingers curled around it as tightly as they could given her limited strength. It unclasped from around her neck. It was cool despite the searing heat around her. Slowly her eyes started to close, her vision nearly obscured from the smoke. "I love you Jack Frost." She whispered to the wind, hoping it would carry her message to the Spirit of Winter.

Her eyes were on the full moon as it shone through the gaping hole. It was the last thing she saw. The last source of comfort. And then everything went black.

As her body stilled her hand fell at her side the necklace slipping from between her slender fingers.

                                            ————————–

One step closer

I have died every day waiting for you Darling, don't be afraid I have loved you For a thousand years I'll love you for a thousand more

                                            ————————–

Darkness. That's the first thing she remembered. It was dark, and it was cold. And she was scared. Slowly blue eyes blinked open. They were bright yet they held fear in them. Fear of the unknown. But, then she saw the moon. It was so big and it was so bright. Her chest heaved as she took a deep shuddering breath, feeling it relax her tense muscles. She lifted her head, pressing a hand against it as she sat up, her movements slow and languid, her blue eyes never leaving the beautiful bright body that shone from the heavens. It seemed to chase the darkness away. And when it did, she wasn't scared anymore.

A small almost shy smile made its way to her face as she pushed herself to her feet. Her gaze turned to take in her surroundings. Everything was black and burned. Had there been a fire? If so why was she still alive? Why she was there and what she was meant to do, she didn't know. But then she saw something. Lying on the ground was what looked like a snowflake. She stepped forward, reaching down to inspect further. No. Not a snowflake. A necklace. With the chain broken. Her hand flew to her throat, finding it bare. Picking up the piece of jewel she stood up, not noting how she stood, poised and graceful. Her finger touched the snowflake and a name rang in her mind. One that made her heart speed up and her eyes widen in surprise.

Jack Frost.

Was that why she was here? Her gaze turned to the moon once more. She voiced her thoughts but received no answer. Instead the moon shone brighter, the light falling on a particular spot. She was hesitant for a second before walking towards the lit pathway. As she walked, she felt as if someone was whispering in her ears. The voice was calm and loving. Protective even. It kept saying a name. Elsa. Over and over. Was that her name? A smile pulled at her lips and then suddenly there was a shower of snowflakes all around her. She gasped, and the snowflakes stopped moving. Was she the one who caused these snowflakes? Her gaze turned to the moon before dropping to the necklace. Her lips pursed in a determined manner, she gripped the broken chain of the necklace, brow furrowed in concentration. A surprised gasp escaped her lips as there was a slight glow emanating from her hands, and the chain resealed.

Her name was Elsa, the Snow Queen. How did she know that? The moon told her so. But that was all he ever told her. And that was a long, long time ago.

One step closer

[libidomechanica]

Ovens and end with eternity

She was the corner of the hall!     Stretched for its mystery. His child of thy utterance,     Christabel, whom at your courting a snowy handsome wee think     is took, and youth grows. For years, his thin, delirious; hearing     always, prays in stealing

of mist and cries, and in a     rock, and put my heart I’ll sing, or strikes then to hear my     oracle of Me and clasp’d my bride to keepe no more authority     falls to records of her hand, which loose than he took     her well as I; but who,

will put in the river as we     passion leaves; Fled is a hands reacherous purpose not to     myself; and in a silken vestments thy finger. And what     lovers, rich gems and passed there to pass you question we wonders     are quaint and in his

only love of father foreheads     globes of unsifted in a wash of reason, shall I only     swelling. Thought, and its dark vault suddenly face for ten     long years as the deserved for not wind the tip of Happiness.     Makes the edge by flowers,

and return the hills round my     papers yellow-green, So I and so goes by and the Tavern     cry, awake, my loved you; and by octobering wind     on glares thro’ the land and beautiful dreamer, quell: I will     lords its steaming Foot shalt

not lovest! Misty dale, and live     and far bright; then let me confess; nor let near that yellow’d     with reverence fleeting- card verse, music fled, here is the     fisherman swore the wind arose from the Temple lost him     so hugely stood upright:

and took the king, ’ he said One whose     pow’ring swallow’d by the Sun did reply as you may have     climber eves. No wise of Honour—well, nor any wished in     Royal Robes, and reaching for the land. Of such dread, yet Faith     wingèd light, over than he

to myself, my breasted Pine, though     now makes you with a meek embrace, her star hath restless love     had no such a rabbit’s force, nor country lass: a charmed Amphion-     oak she seem most I love a newspaper posted onto     the roughly he in

the quarters, and they seem a cuckoo-     song, as they clime had to my sole space I gave off to     the dusk of the Worlds of us—Pish! Till I teach vertue bends     of all thirty years, the generous in this faire: so shall     He that love thee well! Too

many a city for lack on     the Splendour of the World, where I unswear, as near that alone,     and her fair? Remark when though each in hairst, I shure in     his Head, and let thee my possessed outside her place maintaining     her skin on my neck,

her selfe onely Winter-sterued.     Bearing out, and nature or moved through shadow-like life     permit. Let no moment forth of us love beguil’d, a     golden jewels, gifts might and made the zero vector, whiff! Not,     I feel myself, Is he

picked change beyond all about her     spell. So we all fling: the city. I but vainly no small     pale as to walk my love, gaining violets cover, separation     of the hours after than every nerve, just as you     my silence bid me in

forgoing to me was praying     they said: this Counsels, when we can say easily I know     took us a long leave thy power that way; he heavy     stone—and Wit: od’s Life! And watch a full casks are paine to love     her own white with tapers

come upon a world convey’d, since     erst, at there he was the Sun did make Cupid a boy, and     thought I gain turn, forget such frost of all he is a     harmonies of a nameless in Colin only two black rock     in this instant hills? Such

is not answer vague as broke on     a half-science, like a brow. Scatter her head, though it’s     embedded with all them and throughout a Word of Gold! And did     not feels like and slays there Destiny to give you as Ra     knew you loved and to the

other said she belike twelve, I     myself to find out asking, that none like on me, and this     is my part. And to bleed, and sole young head. I’ll go, and, by     Fate, the lofty lady’s shrink away art resent still counts     himself. Round my sole self!

Hast that loss to a dying. And     made up a sweetly blushing undercurrent out thy will     teach true that I am some through shadow in the women     to depart! Yes, I oft into eyes, cold and lamed,—and     then re-mould it nearer

out of that avows, Support me     for aught unholy loiter the gifts. Led forth haste alone     with midnight as widows here? And there shall my faltering     forthwith little, you presume, though and no more modern we     are free. Now will instrument,

First my lab’ring a world was     green, and fast upon his Hand, not loc, Old English ground. Ten     years, instead of a grain of wrath: he stairs in the arches     bring her bosom old, and that right to name of God and heart     has such a framework scarce

beams are exhausted like Alexander,     to wait, one by it, staying it is but figure     to will comes my earth to life, or other near the lady’s     cheek and pity me A barbell or a hypocrite?     Me singing their Vintage!

[border-spam]

Leech Lord - When it's cold

TW: Dark thoughts, existential dread

Tyreen has always acted like coming here was the best decision she’s made for them, it’s pissed him off more than she’s ever appeared to notice, but then again her pretending like she isn’t picking up on his frustrations is nothing new.

She’s spent years singing this planet’s praises, how she loves everything about it and he should be thankful that his sister got them out of the cage that was their home, but she can’t lie to her twin. Never could, even though it’s not once stopped her from trying.

Troy knows her better than his own scars, and for all her intense skill in bullshitting, he sees through her every time. Even the times he really wishes he didn’t.

She fucking HATES Pandora as much as he does. Hell, maybe even more, her rage always tracked deeper through her bones than his could muster. He’s too tired to hate the way she does, it’s exhausting to burn with that dark a fury for so long.

He told her to her face the day they landed here that this planet was a shithole. He told her he wanted to go home, that staying here was not going to pay off the way she insisted it would for them. He’s told her the same thing practically every day since in one way or another, but she shrugs it off, twists it into a joke, reassures him in that silky smooth purr that it’s not that bad, that the filth of old blood in the sand and choking dry heat is worth it for what they have become.

Stars.

And maybe it would have been worth it if they had just stayed stars like she’d originally wanted, but things have changed over the years. He hates himself for believing her when he knew, just like he always did, that she was lying. Now that goal he worked so hard to reach for them both has been ripped from his grasp, now he’s stumbling behind her again as she demands he turn his cunning towards her new target - to be Gods, and Troy’s not sure he actually wants to be a God… not on Pandora.

He’s heard enough about the deities of this place from the natives to know whatever Pandora sees as holy is something far beyond his pathetic being. Shuddered as Jak-Knife wove myth of the great flood and the hunger beneath the sands, felt nausea snake through his stomach as they described something both terrible and disturbingly familiar. The eyes. The maw.

The great hunger of the mad song.

That’s not who he is even if the thrill of fear that runs down his spine when he considers it is almost pleasure, and it’s not who he wanted to be, if he still remembers correctly at least. The Troy he wanted to be is probably dead now, another desiccated corpse claimed by survival on Pandora. The possibility of that life is gone, he thinks. He’s not even really sure if he’s alive - the Troy he became in the end.

Tyreen says “We” will be Gods when she snares him so kindly in those manipulations whispered like love. “We” used to mean him and her back when they were two parts of the same whole and Mom would remind them how that would never change, but he’s started to really question if it has.

Tyreen’s “We” now rings with the dread of something he can’t quite place.

Nekrotafeyo was beautiful. Cool, rich blues marring into the same violet black you’d catch behind your eyelids just before drifting into sleep. The sky was so many colours at sunset, and plants, animals, all living things gently pulsed with a bio-luminescence that meant night was never true darkness. 

Pandora is dead.

It’s just.. sand and jutting rocks in formations that don’t track naturally, that gave him fever dreams for the first couple of years about the things that must have shaped them. The air tastes like chemicals. The dirt is laced with oil, it’s vile. It’s sticky, ravenously hot, freezing cold, and it doesn’t want you to live on it.

He won’t rule Pandora as a deity, he can’t. It’s not made for that. 

Pandora is a tomb, and in the back of God-King Calypso’s mind, he’s pretty sure he’ll die here just like the thousands who’ve gurgled his blessed name through their last breath in honor to their Holy Father. He won’t go in a blaze of glory, those are for the good and he’s anything but, he’ll just probably be a corpse his sister uses as a stepping stone to lurch towards her divinity.

That sounds about right for someone like him, and as the years go on, as he realises Seifa is not coming back and his friends are cracking under the burden of his existence in their lives, he thinks about it more and more.

Sometimes, on those icy cold Pandoran nights when he can’t sleep, when he’s been awake days and his eyes feel like their full of grit and joints ache with every breath, he goes outside.

Sanctum is docked near the pinnacle of the Grand Cathedral, like a thorn jutting from the tower of the twin’s shared cloister. It’s so high that the screeching noise of the night city below is almost drowned out by the wind that whistles through the gothic parapets, and sometimes when his kingdom is laced in glittering frost reflecting the glaring neon of the lights that dot the streets, he scales it.

Awkwardly clambers up the side of his ship as the dead weight of that horrible arm pulls at his spine with each twist, fingers fumbling for grip in the little rivets of freezing sheet metal as he hauls his heavy, exhausted body up inch by inch till he reaches the flat of the hull and crawls to the centre.

Throws his coat down and sits on the pooled fabric, pulls his knees up to his chest, closes his eyes, and waits as he focuses on the distorted music and crowd chatter that manages to filter from the metropolis so far below.

Lets the freezing cold air goosebump his bare skin as it leeches his warmth and creeps through the iron of his bracer, straight into his bones. Waits for his lungs to start stuttering out puffs of steamy breath as he begins to shiver under the clear night sky. Waits, and thinks about not having been born.

When he gets just cold enough, he can’t feel his broken body anymore, but he can think so clearly and he wonders if this is what it would be like. Not being in pain. Not living under the mental fog of the cocktail of drugs he relies on now just to ward off the nightmares. Not holding so much pathetic regret inside his ribs.

Not dying, that’s something else, being alive and then deciding to not be is very different and he’s not a coward. He’s not. Just… not having existed in the first place at all.

That’s not the same. That’s very easy to imagine even if you’re not a coward. 

If he’d never been born so many people would be so much happier.

Tyreen would be... whole. She’d be pure, wouldn’t she. If he hadn’t taken half of her power the way he did, she wouldn’t be the way she is now. She’s told him that plenty, how it’s his fault. All of it.  Mom would never have died. Dad would have stayed full of sunshine and jokes and love. Where would they be now as a family, them and Ty? Travelling the universe? Seeking out siren lore?

Leda wouldn’t be dead. Typhon wouldn’t be abandoned. Tyreen wouldn’t be whatever the fuck he’d helped turned her into. A monstrous god of her own making, or a sad child crying for her parents. He’s not sure which.

Troy has damaged so many people by being alive and there’s no goodness from it. There’s no payoff, no benefit. What’s the point of it? He’s broken. The power he stole doesn’t even work, so what was it all for? What’s he done bar cause pain and death just by existing?

Is that not exactly what a parasite does?

The COV wouldn’t exist if he’d never. The billions they’d affected would be all the better for it really, despite what they tell each other about “bettering” the lives of Pandora’s lost and the galaxy’s lonely. 

Eli and Ven would have found someone better to seek help from, wouldn’t they. The Oracle wouldn’t be the shadow of himself that he is now, exhausted and so sad. Jak-Knife would probably be leading their own clan, not babysitting a pathetic excuse for a man that worked them to the bone while simmering with jealousy towards how much he wished he was them.

Seifa… 

If he’d died on Seifa’s ship, where would she be? Somewhere warm and nice where when it rained the water was refreshing and not a slurry of red dust. With someone who deserved her.

He knows where she is now, a station he wouldn’t punish someone by exiling them to… and it was his fault she was there.

The back of his mind agrees that he is the crux of so much pain. He’s the one that’s the cosmic mistake.

Sometimes he’d like to ask Leda, she’d know the answer. Mom had known everything when they were small, had the answer to every curiosity or confusion from little minds, so he tries to. Whispers a question he doesn’t even understand to the stars through chattering teeth. He wishes she could hear him.

He’s always relieved when she can’t.

The cold defeats him in the end, every time. His body forces him to struggle to his feet and stiffly begin the climb back as the city below starts to quiet, shimmying slowly down the hull between handholds that bite into his icy fingers as the wind howls. 

There’s a fleeting thought whenever he’s slowly picking his way down to the entry port that it would actually be really easy to slip, and he’s surprised it hasn’t happened yet. THAT would be the kind of ending he’s going to get anyway, one stupid little mistake from a hand he can barely feel, and all that would be left of him would be a mess for some poor fucker below to clean up. 

He smirks at it, but knows in reality his traitorous wings would save him. 

The port airlock hisses open and he stumbles into the warmth of his ship every time, he doesn’t fall, he doesn’t cease, he just passes out in the cocooning dark of his bedroom.

It’s survival instinct that does it, that makes him move and forces him back inside, but he still goes outside on those freezing nights, because maybe one night... it finally won’t.

Not that he’d get to be that lucky, he’s got a cult to run in the morning, and Tyreen would never forgive him anyway.

[gilbertsannegirl]

The Scientist

Merry Christmas to @rootedbutfl0wing! Sorry it’s a couple of days late, but I really hope you do enjoy it! Hope your Christmas was wonderful, and it was a lot of fun getting to know you a little bit :) And thank you @kindredspiritssecretsanta (@royalcordelia) for once again hosting this wonderful event! Once again, cannot wait till next year x

Read it on AO3 / fanfiction.net

2019 Fic

2018 Fic

Summary: Based on The Scientist by Coldplay, which I thought kind of fitted Anne and Gilbert a lot (have a listen if you’ve never heard it before! It’s a beautiful song). Major moments of their relationship from Gilbert’s point of view, along with missing scenes and an AU ending, definitely enemies to friends to lovers. Hope you enjoy!

Come up to meet you; Tell you I’m sorry; You don’t know how lovely you are

 Red. He saw it, red hair. Never was there another colour like it. Gilbert slowly turned in his seat to see a scraggly, freckled girl seated next to Diana Barry. Who was this girl? The sun glinted steadily through the window onto that hair that had drawn his eye in the first place. Why it’s as red as carrots, he thought, continuing to do nothing but stare at the girl who he had never seen in his life. She glanced his way, to which he winked at her, smiling smugly that she’d looked.

After a muttered word to Diana, the girl gazed out the window and, at least what Gilbert began to believe, blatantly ignored him. Feeling the need to see those grey-green eyes look his way once more, he began to rack his brain for ideas. Carrots…

“Carrots,” he hissed softly while tugging gently on the red hair he’d already grown so fond of, “Carrots.”

She whirled around in horror, her eyes flashing a delicious shade of green. “How dare you!” she screamed, and the next Gilbert knew was she’d gone and smashed something over his head. Was that a slate? Either way he found himself apologising profusely to Mr. Phillips who’d rushed to the scene.

Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control her temper. * Was written on the board, and the girl grimly marched to the board placing an ‘e’ at the end of each Ann. Anne Shirley. What a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. Anne stood seething under that sign for the rest of the afternoon, glaring every now and then at the boy who started it all.

At the end of the day Gilbert waited behind for Anne to leave after her lecture from Mr. Phillips. Intercepting her at the door, he glanced into her eyes, “I'm awfully sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne," he whispered contritely. "Honest I am. Don't be mad for keeps, now." *

The lovely girl with the golden, red hair snubbed her nose, and marched away with Diana at her side. Despite this, he grinned dumbly. She’s simply lovely, he thought his eyes following her down the road as she made her way towards what he assumed to be her home.

 I had to find you; Tell you I need you; Tell you I set you apart

 With the mayflowers in hand, Gilbert set off towards Patty’s Place, smiling sweetly at what could come of this particular visit. He found Anne in the orchard her head buried in a book, and he smiled slightly at her usual Anne-ness.

Handing her the Mayflowers, he carefully told her of his plans for the summer: staying in Kingsport to work at the Daily News Office. Gilbert watched as her face fell, hoping this was as good of time as any to ask her the question he had yearning in the back of his mind ever since that fateful day he called her carrots. She quickly composed herself however, and before she could make any more excuse to leave to pick violets, he said, “Things can't go on like this any longer. Anne, I love you. You know I do. I - I can't tell you how much. Will you promise me that someday you'll be my wife?” **

Anne quickly turned away shaking her head. Gil’s face fell immediately. Perhaps he was deceiving himself all along. Had she really never loved him? What about at Echo Lodge? Surely there was something in her eyes then. She begged for his forgiveness, and he gently, in person and heart, let go of her hand.

“There isn't anything to forgive. There have been times when I thought you did care. I've deceived myself, that's all. Goodbye, Anne.” ** And as he walked away that day, malice entered his heart. He must never think of Anne Shirley again.

 Tell me your secrets; And ask me your questions; Oh, let’s go back to the start

 Gilbert sat, his work sprawled across his desk as he ran his hands carefully through his curls. Biting his lip, he thought carefully about what was bothering him so. It has been a year, a year to the dot. His eyes glistened with tears once more as he remembered the terrified look on Anne’s face as he told her of his love for her. Oh, how he regretted it now. Shaking his head, he recalled their beautiful friendship, dwelling on the secrets that she had lovingly entrusted him with.

“Gil,” Anne said, a little melancholic after a particularly deep conversation between the two of them, “Could I tell you something? Something I’ve never told anyone else?”

He looked at her curiously, “Not even to Marilla or Diana?” At the shake of her head, he swallowed carefully, “You know you can tell me anything.”

“Well, I never really thought of it till now. Do you really think anyone could love me? I mean romantically? I’m afraid that I’ve not grown up surrounded by love that I don’t know what I’m looking for. Marilla and Diana, they think me foolish with my fantastic ideals of love. But when I was about 5 or 6, I was living with a family who’d hired me as a work hand – to look after the children, you see. I remember their eldest son was much older than their youngest children. He was about 15 or 16. He wrote poetry and was melancholic. He was the only one in that household that ever paid any attention to me and snuck me food when no one was looking. I didn’t love him romantically of course, I was only 6, but I feel that’s where this all sprouted from in the end. Don’t you think it’s strange that these memories come back to us so many years later?”

Gilbert had stopped their walking a while back. He looked deep into her eyes and whispered, “Anne…”

Anne cleared her throat at the intimacy in his voice, and Gilbert immediately thought himself an idiot for letting such intimacy come about in this private moment, “Um, I should… go. I’ll see you later Gilbert.”

Thinking back to this moment now, just a few weeks before they went to Redmond, he knew how idiotic it was to ask for her hand. He wasn’t the brooding hero she had longed for her whole life – he was plain old Gilbert Blythe, ex-best friend of the most remarkable woman to walk the earth. Yes, she was…

 Nobody said it was easy; It’s such a shame for us to part; Nobody said it was easy; No one ever said it would be this hard; Oh, take me back to the start

 Gilbert saw the radiant girl – no, woman – waltz into the newly decorated hall on the arm of Royal Gardner. Her figure was dressed in an apple green with a low scooped neckline, and her ruddy tresses were laced with small snowdrops. She’s simply beyond beautiful tonight, and you can’t have her. He sighed, lacing his fingers with his ruddy curls, and pacing near the wide window that showed the snow covered land. His best friend – ex-best friend, he scoffed – was on the arm of another man and if the whispering around him was true, she would continue to be on his arm forever.

He felt a gentle tap on his shoulder, and he swung around to see Christine Stuart with a small smile gracing her lips. “Gilbert, are you ready for our dance? The band is set up now.” In the short while of pacing, the room had come to life. Women and men dressed to the nines, chatter erupting and creating an atmosphere of warmth. He nodded and grabbed her hand, placing it in the crook of his arm as they meandered to the dance floor.

They twirled and swayed slowly to the tune that was being softly played. Violins, piano, and flutes all filling his head with sweet song. Not as sweet as Anne, the thought rudely interrupted. He shook his head, gracing a glance at the couple dancing not two feet away from him and his partner. And I guess that is the man who will sit and read her Tennyson by firelight. Yes, but you would do that for her too…

“Gilbert, is everything alright?” He quickly looked up and then down, realising that he had stopped their slow dance and there were people hurrying to avoid crashing into them. “You’re awfully pale. Did you want to sit down for a spell, or perhaps get some air?”

“Um, yes please. I just need to be alone for a little while. Will you be alright? I’ll be back by the next dance.” Christine opened her mouth, but Gilbert had already started walking away continuing his pedantic running of fingers through his hair. Oh, why did you ask her to marry you anyway. You ruined everything; she could still be on your arm as a friend – best friend – not on the arm of that Royal guy. He gasped in the cold air and his hardened heart frosted over as the rivers seeped from his eyes.

 I was just guessing at numbers and figures; Pulling your puzzles apart; Questions of science, science, and progress; Do not speak as loud as my heart

 Every day Gilbert placed one foot in front of the other to pull himself out of bed, through the door and into the gates of Redmond to face his studies, and it was paying off. Another year without Anne; another year of topping every class. It was the easiest distraction from the rushing thoughts and escorting Christine around to various social gatherings. Pouring into schoolwork was always something he had enjoyed, but especially now when it was the only thing in his life that he could fully control. Especially when flashes of red hair and green eyes invaded his dreams every night. Especially when he couldn’t have her.

 Tell me you love me; Come back and haunt me; Oh, and I rush to the start; Running in circles, chasing our tails; Coming back as we are

 It hadn’t been so long ago that they were walking through Hester Gray’s garden – she was picking flowers and he was desperately trying to see more in their friendship. Days often turned to dusk while they were together. And oh, they could talk, or rather Anne could. In every memory he had of her, there were glimpses of moments that he had misconstrued as love. Fleeting touches – of course they were by accident – meaningful glances – Miss Lavender’s wedding, I think she did love me then, perhaps for a moment.

Anne was still very much on the arm of Royal Gardner at every social gathering, while Christine Stuart was on his own arm. The distractions of schoolwork and being up for the Cooper prevented Gilbert from taking in much of the gossip that surrounded the couples. In the back of his mind, he knew what they were saying. Gilbert to wed Christine and Royal to wed Anne. He knew the gossip around his love life was not true, Christine was engaged to another man and he didn’t think of her in that way. But Anne… All of those rumours could very well be true. Where would that leave him?

“Gilbert!” No… it couldn’t be her. “Gil!” And just like that her red hair was staring him in the face.

“Anne?”

“Yes, of course. Gilbert, I just wanted to congratulate you. It seems we are both on the honours list, I’ve just come from the dean’s office. Here,” she shoved a piece of paper into his hands, “see for yourself. It’s all so exciting!”

And in that moment Gilbert allowed himself back to those friendship days of Lover’s Lane, the Dryad’s Bubble, the Lake of Shining Waters, and imagined what it would be like to be with her in those places now. She continued to chatter but stopped when he suddenly gathered her into his arms. “Thank you, Carrots.” And he walked away, leaving her mouth wide open and a few tears gathered on her eyelashes.

 Nobody said it was easy; Oh, it’s such a shame for us to part; Nobody said it was easy; No one ever said it would be so hard; I’m going back to the start

 That moment of the honours list sustained him for some time. She was radiant at convocation in her dress with his flowers. His promise to her all those years ago. If we make it to graduation I’m sending you a bunch of Lilies of the Valley. The Cooper’s Prize was his and Anne had made the honour’s list for English. Well, of course. In the times that he has known her she has been the storyteller, and so honours in English was never a negotiable thing.

The dance began and through the crowd he could see her. She was once again in a shroud of pale green taffeta, his flowers laced through her hair. Everything slowed as they made eye contact with one another. He stumbled towards her, dropping Christine from his arm. As if in a daze, he made his way through the ballroom. But then he saw the haze of her eyes, and the shock in her face as she turned towards the entry of the room. She began to run out into the cool of the early summer night.

In that moment Gilbert knew exactly what he was doing, and yet his knees never stopped knocking, his hands never left his curls. He was going after her. And this time nothing was going to stop him. In the craze of the ballroom, he flung himself around dancing couples and out the door. In the moonlight he saw the pale skin of her throat accentuated by the curls let loose down her back.

“Anne!” She stopped her dazed walk but did not turn to face him. He quickly caught up to her and placed both hands on her cold shoulders. “Anne-girl, what’s wrong?”

“You did it again.” She murmured, which he barely caught through the howling wind.

“What?”

“You call me Anne-girl, you send me gifts, flowers, you never break your promises. And yet you look at me in the same way you always have, even after I broke your heart. Gil? How can you still look at me that way? I’ve never deserved it Gil… I’ve never…” It broke his heart more to have this precious girl crying in his arms over unspoken words, glances, and touches. But he did speak his heart over two years ago in that orchard. Could it be that she’s changed her mind? “And now, you’re going to marry Christine and it’s all my fault that I never understood… I never understood…”

“Anne-girl,” he said in reverence, “is that what this is about?” She pulled her head off his chest to look into his kind, hazel eyes, and he reached up to wipe away her tears. “I’m not engaged to marry Christine. It’s all silly rumours, one’s which I never paid much attention to anyway. You see… I have a dream. I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it , a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends – and you!” ***

And there was once again that moment in which Anne looked at him like he thought he must look at her and he knew there was no separating them again.

 *Anne of Green Gables Chapter XV

**Anne of the Island Chapter XX

***Anne of the Island Chapter XLI

[charmed-asylum]

𝒩ℴ𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃ℊ ℰ𝓁𝓈ℯ ℳ𝒶𝓉𝓉ℯ𝓇

𝒩ℴ𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃ℊ ℰ𝓁𝓈ℯ ℳ𝒶𝓉𝓉ℯ𝓇 , Chapter 1

Summary: Rosary Woods used to spend her summers in Hawkins. Now years later with untimely death of her father, she sent to live with her grandparents. Coming back to a place that use to give her pleasant memories but now full with dark secrets she hopes never see daylight. Her plan was simple easy till one night she finds a drunk boy full of curls and after life never the same.

FYI: This is my 1st fanfic. I do have dyslexia so if something wrong let me know. If you like it let me know same if you don’t. #Foodie be out this week too. ** Side note I’m looking for some talent ** tag list open

𝑀𝒶𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝐿𝒾𝓈𝓉

Tagged: @alagalaska @nottherightseason @alias-b @screensirenfic @linkispink1995 @staticscreenwriting

How the hell did all this happened. How the FUCK this happen. How did I end up alone on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere? Cold as hell with a runny nose from my tears and sharp pain of betrayal. I know now. It all started a couple of months ago. When I was tossed into this hickory town. Where one night find a stupid blue eyes boy drunk out his mind. With your stupid Mother, Mary's attitude had to help him. Now that drunk piece of shit made you fall for him to drop kick you in a small amount of a few months.

My brown eyes fill with glittery tears, tried to think back on every step that lead me here what was it? What did I do wrong? What I would do to go back to that night in October. Go back to that day I met that boy that came out of nowhere and changed my life

🍂🍂🍂

The fall air left a warm scent as I walk out the greyhound in my short denim overalls with a plain white short-sleeved shirt and black and white converses with black laces. My long midnight black wavy hair dancing with the wind with my red heart shades on, taking my around at my surroundings. Even though I have been here many times, this was the first time I came that wasn’t summer visits.

Those had an arrival and departure two way this time though was a one way. It was a lot different than home, Florida. It’s always sunny and things to do unlike here. Flipping my cassette player back on I walk over to the rusted metal benches and wait for my ride. I didn’t want to be here. However, when you have no other choice what can you do. My life stuffed in my dad's old beat-up army bag. I lend back hoping this was a dream and I wake up home with my dad not here. I didn’t hate here I just hate why I’m here. The two-day bus rides a dread and didn't help. Still, I’m stuck with nothing to do but cruise under the radar till graduation. Toss the cap in the air and by the time it's back in my hands I have another ticket to somewhere else.

I gentle tap took me out from my inner monologue into reality. An older woman in her 60s with short curly golden frost hair bright red lipstick that got bit on her front tooth in a flower print long dress. In all, she was the fifth unseen golden girl or what I know her as grams.

“‘HELLO ROSARY. You hear me call for you over there by the car” Grams shouts into my ear. Looking up at her I smile and move my bag out the way to hug her tight.

“ Sorry, the meds got me all out of it. Hi, grams it good to see you” I said holding onto the strap of my bag. She gave me a nod and kiss my cheek leaving an imprint.

“ Oh shut I forgot. Sorry, we couldn’t get your flights no airport close by. Sweetie. Grab your bag we can go home” Grams says walking and talking to the car. Tucking my shades in my pocket I follow her music still playing in my ears.

“ Where Papa at,” I asked looking out the window.

“ Oh, he at the diner checking on things. But he will be back by dinner. I sign you up for school. You start tomorrow. Your car will be ship here in two weeks so the bus to school till then” Grams said pulling up to the house. “ Look, honey. I know things have been hard the last few months but coming here can be your fresh start. So it’s up to you what you do. Stay sane try to be different better you dear” Grams said getting out of the car. Simply put it don’t fuck up this time.

“ Yes. Ma’am. I’m gonna the perfect granddaughter” I said with a eat shit grin.

“Don’t do that it’s tacky. I did not mean what I said that way sweetie. Huh lord, I need my soaps. Drop your stuff in your room” Grams said walking into the house.

My room more like a guest room. They tried though I give them that the last time I been here was years ago when I was 11. Then after that was with my dad across seas. By then the damage was done. Walls were eggshell white with a few pictures of me by dad and them that set on the wall by the window. The bed was against the wall with a small glass nightstand with a trunk in front. Probably the same one my dad had when he was my age. The small closet across the bed and an old oakwood dresser. This will do I’m sure in no time she can make it homie. I push my hand on the bed testing out the string a bit. This is my life now. Better just get used to it. Anger bubble deep in my chest as it slowly starts to hit me. This is a life I don't want. I wanted the life I had before one that was far from perfect but he was there. I toss my bag beside me with a bit of force and scream into my hands.

It took no time till I was done. I change up the pictures and some more on my dresser. A few things on the nightstand then to top it off my mint condition organized record collection in a purple crat that sat beside my dad's 1960s Gibson Hummingbird Fixed Bridge acoustic guitar.

“ So you all done. It’s not much but we go somewhere someday. Sorry, papa wasn’t here. After Benny passed away our place been the hot spot. Back to the glory days, he says” Grams said with a chuckle. I sat down beside her legs cross under me and started to flip through Good Housekeeping

“ So Benny no more. Anything else happens since I have been here last” I asked getting comfortable.

“Let's see. That Will kid you babysit a few times went miss for a week or so. Last year. And that’s about it. I don’t pay much attention to those things. Papa and I are going to bible study tonight. I know you not up to it this week. So you don’t have to go but I am looking forward to next week” Grams said. I ruffled my hand into my deep chocolate hair and nod yes.

“ I would love that. Thank you. That reminds me. I have to fill up on my pain killers. If it’s not much to ask can you please take me one day this week? Or may I go into town myself” I asked taking out my pill bottle?

Still, months later the pain reminds the same. Even the memories still were in tack as if it happened minutes ago. A tear rolled down my face just reliving it. Grams hold me tight smoothing me and rubbing my back as I let out a heavy cry. My dainty finger claw into her shoulder blade as tight as possible. I didn’t hate that I was here I just hate the why.

🌙🌙🌙

DADDY!!” I shout out. My body was soaked with a cold sweat and tears still running down my cheeks. Too weak to even move, I bend over cup my hands into my face, and scream.

Always the nightmares. Always the same two each night. Back home I would find a party or smoke or wave to ride but here. NOTHING. I promise a new me I remind myself. One that is not set to explode any second. One that took all their demons and bury it in the deepest hole. This me doesn’t let them loose but keep them hidden tight. That won’t break and burn everything she touches. This me be gentle, kind, and read the Bible instead of throwing my fist. I promise my father that even my estranged grandparents will be better.

After a good pity party, I decided to stay wasn’t gonna help me. I needed to out. I toss on some navy blue gym shorts pull down my Scooby-Doo t-shirt, which was getting a little bit smaller than last time I warn it years ago, decided for a walk.

Grams and Papa came back from church just after 11. Just missing the kids trick or treating. I stay back gave an empty smile say hello few folks who came by or heard over the rumor mill I was back. None who I really care about. The clock blink, 3:00. The cool breeze comforts me like a blanket over my shoulders. Music played close to mute. I thought about it all. If he at peace would I see him again. Could I make it to June in this town?

Far ahead of me on my way back, I saw a figure laying on the crisp grass. After the stories, Grams told me I wonder if it was anything important. As I got closer I saw an outline of a person. I stop and slow my walking this time with caution. Till I was right beside him. He was rocking back and forth humming some song no shirt tight-ass pants and hair messy with no shoes. This boy diffidently was fucking or having a good time. Part of me envies him and that freedom. Another knew it was because even if I don’t say it out loud he beautiful mess. Totally my type and that what it got tricky he was a reminder of the past I was hoping to leave behind. Flipping my hair out my face I got down to eye level and gently touch him.

“ Hey Hey you alright, “ I asked shaking him a bit.

He looks up and grins at me with a sleepy doozy grin. His eyes sparkle in the night sky and for a second I forgot he was drunk. My stomach did this thing I only ever felt a few times before. Back when I was happy. I shook my head and look around for help or at less to see if he drove or had friends. No luck. Part of me thought it be best to leave but then I saw it. Right below his eyes the old bruise and cuts. My jaw tightened till it clicks.

“ Mommy. Mommy” he said touching my face. I felt the cold touch of his ring against my lips. I tap it to the side and wrap his arm around me to get him up. Praying to God he, not a psycho, or I will regret this. He started to kiss my neck all while calling me mommy. Kinky mother fucker

“ Yeah Hot Wheels, not your mommy come on almost there,” I said helping him back home. He giggles and tried to be a handy hand reaching my hip and butt.

“ Holy shit your you are your a doll baby” he slurred into my ear.

Praying any god’s that my grandparents don’t wake up to him almost knocking everything down. I put my hand to his mouth and a finger to mine so he shut up. On the first day of this new me, I’m playing babysitting to a drunk man child. With ease, I toss him on my bed. He cuddles with one of my pillows squeezing my old grumpy carebear and drifts to sleep. I waited a second before I went and made my own special hangover shake and a bucket for the morning. Taking more time time to clean his face a bit and hand as gentle as I could. Time blink at 3:58, I sat on the floor against my dresser and watch him sleep. Wondering if a boy like that had nightmares too.

I woke up two hours later. Still on the floor face left with a carpet imprint. The boy from this morning now turns over to the other side against the wall sound asleep. I got up from my spot on wobbly legs grab some things and head to the bathroom.

As the cold water hit my face I kept thinking about before till the face of baby blue came into mine. His eyes look like way mine when I look into the mirror and it puzzles me. Never have I found someone else that had the same eyes as mine. Apart from me wonder what was behind those eyes. I shack it off as I dry my hair. If the boy's eyes look like mine then that means on things, his demons were just as bad. I change into tacky stuck in time uniform and walk back deep in thoughts when I stop. The boy was gone. I rush out of my room almost tripping over my own foot, empty. Nothing change in my room just the note. It wasn’t till I sat and smell the faint scent of cologne and cigarettes. It wasn’t a dream he was real. I laugh at myself there no way I will be seeing him again.

🍂🍂🍂

He couldn’t remember much just that her face was half cover by her loose curly hair that shines against the streetlight. The innocent big brown eyes that went with a sugar-sweet smile. Even though she was nowhere close to his mom. He couldn’t help but think about her. He never saw someone that beautiful before. Holding on to her tight sniff her in, honey and vanilla. He wanted to stare at her as long as he could but as soon as he hit the twin size bed he was out.

“Fuck am I” he hissed holding his head trying to think what happened last night. Last he remembered was making out with some blonde at the Halloween party or was it sex. His eyes look at the cup and bucket. Brown eye. He slowly picks up the note and read it:

Sleepy Head, First off we did not have sex and no I don’t know you. What I can tell you is this you were drunk and laying on someone's lawn alone. I live on Church street and Maple Lane. If it’s before 6 and your reading this back door

He laughs at the note and put it back where he found it. It was still early Neil wouldn’t be awake if he left now. He thought maybe he leave a thank you but it decided against it. He promised himself no attachment just to graduate, save up, and leave. No room for nothing else. Before he left he heard noises from the bathroom. Sound like a peaceful lullaby. Inching close he peaks in to see a figure from behind the curtain. Shaking his head he slips out and all his Mary way her black and white Adidas flip flops whistling her lullaby.

[stardancerluv]

Gotham Lockdown 2020

Part 18

Summary: Love & surprises abound in Sionis’s buildings leading up to Christmas.

Arthur’s Note: After the some of the angst of At War and when they first met, as the writer it is nice returning to Gotham Lockdown 2020. This is where reader and Roman have come so far and still have a lot head of them like the grenade but that is still far off. This is nice and fluffy. I dedicate this to chapter to an amazing person and reader of my stories. Thank you for being awesome. (This is a take on your request!) lyrics from How You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra in italics at the end!

Roman rolled over in bed sighing. He had slept incredibly well after the frosting fight. You were certainly his little minx. Remembering, how your little tongue felt on his throat as you licked away some of the icing he had drawn there. He stretched, and a warm sense of contentment wash over him. Turning his head, he smiled as he saw your soft sleepy face near his on the pillow.

How had he gotten here, he mused for a moment. Dark violent, memories prickled at his mind. He could remember the people he dispatched people with Victor. He remembered the empty smiles, his cold bed. Now, everything was different. That made him happy.

Sure, he still killed from time to time, but with much more restraint. He had a solid empire in Gotham despite the silent killer that was still tormenting the world but he felt stronger about his place in the underworld of Gotham.

He went through these changes all because Victor had fucked or perhaps it had been destiny that had brought you hand cuffed to a chair downstairs. He could still recall how that beautiful wrap dress laid on your body.

Smiling, reaching up he brushed some hair from your cheek. He bit back a chuckle so as to not wake you. A smudge of green frosting laid on your cheek how had be missed that.

He sat up and carefully hung over you, bracing his hands on either side of you. He honestly couldn’t resist this. He bent down and easily licked what remained off.

“Roman?” You voice was deep and sleepy.

“Yes.” He chuckled. “I had missed a bit of frosting.”

You blinked and smiled. “I thought you had found it all.”

“I did too.” He rose an eyebrow playfully. “But, I should check. We don’t want you being sticky.”

Soon giggles filled the bedroom, the inspections turned into giggles. The two of you kissed, tickled and cuddles till you both were laying at angle across the bed.

You swallowed your breaths hard. “It’s no fair, you didn’t have as much frosting on you.” You pouted.

Roman raised himself on his elbow as he braced his cheek in his hand as he looked down at you. “I’ll have change that next time.”

“Yes you better mister.” You smiled.

“Today is very important.” He said, for first time that morning he sounded very serious.

You pressed a kiss on his upper arm. “Oh?”

“Hey that tickles. I was saying today is important. Don’t distract me with kisses.” He had tried to not smile and be serious but it wasn’t working.

“I thought that was my job as your fiancée was to distract you.”

He smirked. “Could be, I didn’t read the small print on what your job entailed.”

“Roman! You are supposed to read that! It’s crucial.” Giggling, you buried yourself into his chest.

He smiled. “I better go and read that right now.” He pretended to get out of bed and you pulled him back.

“So tell me sir, why is today important?”

“We have to put the star on the tree.”

“Oh yes! We need that up before Christmas next week.”

He nodded. “Yes! But also....” He added the silence to be mysterious. “And Victor and I are hosting a small dance part for the four of us downstairs in the club.” He loved how your eyes lit up.

“Oh Roman, that sounds amazing. I will have to get all dressed up.”

He smiled. “You better. I want to see how you were when you get dolled up for one of my meetings.”

Your eyes grew even larger. “Oh, that has been like forever.” You smiled even bigger. Your eyes glowed happily. “I remember how nervous I was. I wanted to look so good.”

“You did. I think the deal sealed since Killer Croc could not take those lizardy eyes off you.”

“Well,” you said filled with a smug air. “There is no one like me in the sewers.”

“No there certainly is not.” He bent down and kissed you, loving how one of your fingers laid on his cheek as he kissed you.

******

“Baby, you should let me do it. I am alot taller afterall.” Roman chuckled.

“Oh? Are you? Right now I beg to differ.” You stood proudly on the top of the three step stool with your hands on your waist. The star under one arm.

Roman came over and was shorter but not by incredible amount. “Oh! You are so tall, what am I am to do?” He chuckled. He held a hand over his heart pretending to be in anguish.

Smiling, you climbed back down from the step stool. Once again, Roman towered over you as you stood before him. “There you are, perfect and at the wonderful height where I fell hard for you.” He kissed the top of your head.

“Here you go.” You giggled and handed him the star.

You watched as he effortlessly out the star on top.

“Is it straight?”

Grabbing the mug of hot chocolate the two of you shared, you backed up. You tilted your head from side to side. “A little over to the right.”

He moved it and rose his eyebrows.

“Now just a breath to the left.”

“And now?”

“Perfect.” Putting down the mug, you met him as he climbed down.

He wrapped his arms around you and looked up at the tree. “It looks great.”

You smiled. “It does.”

He smiled. “Want to see something special?”

You were intrigued. “Sure.”

He led you over to the where your winter coats hung and your boots. “We got to out these on for a moment.”

Holding your hand you slipped on your boots and then he did the same when you finished.

*****

“Roman’s its so cold.” You cried as the snow swirled around you. Your one hand dug into the pocked into your coat while your free hand still held his.

“Only another moment.”

The sun had disappeared the icy air held onto the snow and blew through the air.

“Ok here we are.” He stood behind you, laying his hands on your shoulders. He pointed.

You saw the twinkling of Christmas lights twinkling through Gotham. It looked like Gotham had become its own Christmas tree with lights. Everyone, despite the lockdown had strong holiday spirit.

“This is lovely Roman.” You shivered despite warming at this sweet moment.

He pulled you close. “I will always try and make this special for you. You made feel the real magic of the season.” He whispered.

“Oh Roman.” You teared up but then you sighed and your lips met.

******

You were smoothening your stockings when Roman in a tux, leaned in the doorway and made you gasp. He whistled. You slipped into your shiny black heels and went over to him.

“Look at you!” You ran your hands up the black jacket. “How did you ever?”

He smiled. “I have my ways.” He looked you up and down. “As lovely as ever.”

You flushed. “I am not used to this. But it feels good.” You smiled.

“Once, we’re back where we were I am showing you off as much as I can.”

You pushed him. “I’m just me.”

“Yes, which is a knock out. Alright, let’s get this dance party started. I think Victor has brought down Doll-Face.”

“Alright! Let’s go!”

*****

He interlaced his fingers with you. Loving, how your perfume filled the air of the elevator. An eagerness filled him.

The elevator with a ding announced its arrival at the club. He brought your hand up and kissed your knuckles. “Go on into the club, let me get us a drink so it feels like old times.”

“Ok!”

He hung back and watched. He was happy that Victor was already there and the music was giving a good beat to the place.

Squeals, giggles and voices reached levels that the club had not heard in months. You had rounded the corner, Doll-Face and five of your closest friends were there.

Sticking back to the shadows, he went to the bar and began making the drinks for all of you. He eyed, the cheat sheet his main bartender had sent him a few nights ago. Before that he had only had known how to make his drink and yours, and made a poor version of Victor’s though thankfully the man usually drank a beer so he was easy.

There was a click of heels and he out down the Amaretto bottle because your arms were around his middle and he could barely breath in the best possible way. “You’re welcome baby.”

“Roman! I...I”

He turned to face you. “Go have fun.” He loved seeing how bright your eyes were and the wide grin across your face. “After putting up with me all these months and well this entire situation, you deserve to dance and drink with friends.”

You went up on your tip toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. “You’re the best.” And then you fluttered off.

He only had to remake one of the drinks before he brought them out to you and the girls. He was also proud of himself that he had not spilled any of the drinks, that tray had been heavy.

He nodded and smiled as the girls once again thanked him for doing this. He was able to fend off some enthusiastic hugs. Despite them all being tested twice, the only girl he wanted to hug was his own. But seeing all their happy faces was nice. His club had been empty for far too long.

Smoothening, his suit jacket he went over and checked on Victor. “Thanks again for doing this.” He leaned against the DJ wall.

Victor smiled. “Nothing is too good for the girls. It was a shame Doll-Face didn’t have any friends we could invite.”

Roman, looked at him. “You can’t be completely surprised.”

Victor shrugged and nodded. “That’s the price of being the best female assassin in Gotham.”

Roman nodded. “At least, she became good friends with my girl.”

“Yeah, those two they are always plotting.” Victor chuckled as he cued up the next few songs.

“And you help them sometimes.” Roman quipped.

Victor scratched the back of his head. “Only sometimes.” He smiled.

*****

You felt as light and as bubbly as the champagne that Roman brought out later. This was so wonderful. They may have always been a pain from time to time; especially when they found out Roman was your boyfriend. Though they were all still friends and right now dancing to the music was exactly what you needed.

Clinking of heels and glasses and laughter bounced off the walls. The club had only, know your four voices these last few months. But now, with all of you dancing and having a good time. It felt for a brief moment like it had before the pandemic.

Roman, you saw and smiled had gone up to one of places where he had liked to go and watched the action. “Woo!” He called out. “Who is having a good time?”

The girls and you erupted in cheers. You even screamed up an, I love you. More squeals filled the air as he moments later, he opened a bag of confetti and it billowed and rained down on all of you.

You unpinned your hair. You were not used to the dancing or all that it entailed. It had felt like old times catching up with them about how their lockdown had been going.

Hushed gasps and smiles were around the table as you all took a moment to catch your breathes when you held out your hand that held the elegant ring gave you. After this was all over they promised to give you the engagement party to remember.

*****

It was around three in the morning, when you finally collapsed onto the sofa. Every part of you ached but you were happy. Contently, you threw an arm over your eyes.

Hearing his footfalls you watched from under your arm as Roman came around the sofa opening his suit jacket before settling beside you, laying your legs in his lap. His hands gently rubbing your calves.

“Have a good time?” He smiled, giving you a sidelong glance.

You lowered your arm. “I am. That was amazing.”

“I’m glad. I think Doll-Face had a good time too.”

You blew some hair from your eyes. “I hope so.”

You sighed, with Roman’s aversion to germs and sometimes annoyance at how they sometimes treated you, you were really happy that he did this tonight.

“How did you manage all of this?”

He chuckled. “Being one of the most powerful man in Gotham, gives you the skills to surprise your girl and her friends for an unexpected dance party.” He smirked.

“I knew there was a reason, I loved you.” You smiled and sitting up, nestling closer you rested a hand on his shoulder.

He chuckled. “Baby?”

“Yes?” You didn’t move, you were very comfy.

You felt him shift where he sat and the soft voice of Frank Sinatra filled the penthouse. “Dance with me?”

You lifted your head and smiled. “Of course. I was hoping the last dance of the night was with you.”

*****

Yes, you're lovely, with your smile so warm

And your cheeks so soft

There is nothing for me but to love you

He held you close as Sinatra’s words swirl around the two of you.

Smiling, at you took a tiny curl of confetti that had nestled close to one of your cheeks. It was almost like a flower clinging to you.

You smelled as sweetly and as beautiful as you did when the two of you had headed downstairs.

With each word your tenderness grows

Tearin' my fear apart

And that laugh, wrinkles your nose

Touches my foolish heart

He met your eyes. “Y/N, I am still learning all this romantic stuff even after all this time.” He grimaced. “It just was never part of me till, I met you.”

“Roman!” You hugged him tight. “I wouldn’t change anything about you.”

He smiled, he was a lucky man. “That’s why you’re my girl. But this,” He twirled his finger. Something, he had used to do so often, those little things one forgets when in a lockdown. He was reminded of when he first had done it, it he could order you a drink. “this song speaks of some of the love I have for you.”

Your eyes met, your eyes twinkling in the light from the Christmas tree as you danced and continued to move as one, made him one happy man.

@darling-i-read-it @spn-obsessed-dean @vintagemichelle91 @xxxeatyourh3artoutxxx @ewanfuckingmcgregor @zodiyack @angel98624 @frenchgirlinlondon @nebulastarr @emyliabernstein @thepeachreads @itsknife2meetu @omghappilyuniquebouquetlove @nomnomnomnamja @poe-kadot26 @top-rumbelle-fan @babydoll97 @hazel-nuss @vcat55 @feelthemadnessinside @rosionis @queenofgotham800 @brookisbi @peachthatdrinkslemonade @johallzy @foreverhockeytrash @frostypenguinoz @starwarsslytherin @proffesionalclown @chogisss @dance-like-russia-isnt-watching @shantellorraine @xxinvisiblexx @pooshnulooshnu @speedypartyducksuitcase @blondekel77 @corey-clown @drarrylov3r @i-cant-hear-you16 @deadlymistress24

[katierosefun]

Alrighty!!! Since you liked part one well do part two and see how many I get through

“How can I love the heartbreak...” I don’t know if this has a particular character it reminds me of, it’s just sad

“Ending Scene” feels like it’s about all the master-padawan relationships the war ended bc one of the two died

“A Sunny Winter’s Day” is about the bond between the clones and their Jedi it has the vibe that in all the horribleness, the friendship is the one good thing to come out of it all

“Someday, The Boy” this is feels like the lost childhood of the padawans and clones the yearning is so very painful

“Me After You” this feels like another Obi-wan song except he’s apologizing to all the people he wasn’t able to protect or help or do anything for

“Run With Me” feels like a Padme song, as she’s watching the Republic spiral into a cesspool of corruption

“Sun and Moon” feels like an Anakin and Ahsoka song, right before she leaves because Anakin wants his little sister to STAY and she’s breaking his heart

“Photo of my Mind” feels like it’s also about lost innocence, maybe something with Numa and the innocents of Ryloth arc?

More upcoming, whenever I have time but this is totally making me THINK hope you have a lovely day Caroline -frost

aaaaah, yes frost!!! this is all so beautiful, and i’m so--yeah, how can i love the heartbreak, you’re the one i love was always a song that gave me a lot of anakin and ahsoka vibes, just because of these really specific lyrics that go something like “i look at you walking without me” and “should i turn back a couple times / we walk along together upon the desolate road / conversation lacking substance / we look out into the distance where the light shines” which,,,,,many sad vibes. 

and aaah, yes ending scene is also lovely and sad, and you are absolutely right in that it would feel like a master-padawan relationship that the war ended,,,there’s one line that’s like “your seat is always the same, by the cold entrance” and “make sure you eat well, because it’ll pass / you’ll be able to sleep like you did before” and OUCH 

and also yes, a sunny winter’s day def. gives me the vibes of the clones and their jedi just because it’s so bittersweet? and also, just like....this promise that there are still going to be happy memories? like, just the lyrics “even if you hate each other and turn around / you and i will always be sunny” 

oh, and i’m glad that you mentioned someday, the boy, because OHHH BOY YHEAH I HAVE MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SONG because of lyrics like “you’ve grown up with every passing moment / holding on to the sadness of your youth” and “time has since raised me / and tells me to step into the world now / my past self would then ask me / if i’m happy enough to smile now”,,,,like,,,,yeah. you’re right, because there’s so much stuff here about growing pains and :’((

AND GAH FROST YOU’VE KILLED ME WITH COMPARING me after you WITH OBI-WAN I--but yeah, the last lyrics “i’m sorry that i couldn't do more for you / i’m selfish and nervous / but i wanted to treat you well” (no obi babe you did all that you could i-- :((() 

AND OMG YEAH FROST i also thought exactly of padme when listening to run away with me, just because of the quiet “let’s go away / let’s lie down our worries for a moment”, like........parallel that with padme asking anakin for them to just hold each other like they did on naboo where there’s no war and etc...yeah. sad :(((

also, oh boy yeah sun and moon is a whole anakin and ahsoka vibe! just,,,,the soft “so walk with me till the end” and “i promise i won’t leave you / like day and night / you and i” GAH parallel that with anakin saying that he would never let anyone hurt ahsoka / ahsoka saying that she won’t leave anakin HELP 

AND OMG FROST,,,,photo of my mind when you mentioned NUMA I THINK I JUST LOST IT--no, because you’re so right, there’s def. some lost innocence there? also, just from purely an aesthetics perspective, this def. sounds like a song that would just...be hauntingly song as numa watches waxer and boil leave no i am in pain now HELP (also, the lyrics “alone in this place where we walked together / i’m calling out your name”, HELP) 

anyways, YES, thank you so much for popping into my inbox with this frost!! it was def. something that made me smile :’)))

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

MAKE MY MESSES MATTER (MAKE MY CHAOS COUNT)

THE 100 / BELLARKE/ CANON DIVERGENCE SINCE S2 FINALE

AO3

{First letters come when frost finally lets go of the river. / a.k.a. clarke leaves to heal herself; it doesn't mean she abandons anyone }

This fic is dedicated to the best reviewer, best beta and best friend in the entire world - Lana, darling, I don't deserve you <3 <3.

**********************************************************************

I‘ll see you in the future when we’re older

And we are full of stories to be told

Cross my heart and hope to die

I’ll see you with your laughter lines

- Laughter Lines, Bastille

I.

First letters come when frost finally lets go of the river.

It’s not spring yet, and Echo told him not to let anyone get their hopes too high-  weather is unpredictable and cold can come back quickly and violently, but – fuck, winter was so hard and now there are flowers blooming in-between ponds of mud and still-remaining snow. People are laughing again, letting yellow light of spring sun kiss their pale, frostbitten faces and Bellamy slowly, very slowly lets himself take a breath. It feels as if he was holding it ever since first snows hit them, when they were so epically unprepared and if it wasn’t for Lincoln, they’d probably all be dead by Winter Solstice (what an irony- Bellamy thinks sometimes, looking at Lincoln wrestling with kids, helping Abby, kissing Octavia- what an irony indeed).

And even with Lincoln, there was nothing easy about those last few months and Bellamy’s hands are calloused and rough from digging too many graves in the frozen ground. And then flu hit them and there were too many bodies to bury, so they burned them instead. He can still almost smell it; this strangely sweet smoke smelling like meat, which was making their empty stomachs growl, which in turn would make them sick.

There was nothing easy from the beginning till the end and the hardest part was that there was a huge hole with jagged edges where Clarke was supposed to be and where she wasn’t, his ‘together’ haunting his dreams and hers ‘you won’t be by yourself’ mocking him over and over again.

But now spring is finally truly coming, days become longer and he manages to sleep more than an hour or two during most nights, so he decides to focus on positives.

Letters come when Bellamy’s on a hunting trip deep in the forests; they are waiting for him in Arkadia along with Echo. She was a frequent visitor during the winter; serving as their link to the situation between clans, telling them all about Lexa’s trial, about the fall of the treaty, about wars coming and ending and beginning ( because all this world is war, war and war, constantly. Never stopping, not even to take a breath). The only thing she wasn’t telling them about is, well.  

Clarke.

Bellamy knows Echo knows where Clarke is. Or at least, has a general idea. She slipped it, once or twice, mentioning some ‘Wanheda’ in a tone living legends are spoken about, but the person she described didn’t seem like his Clarke at all. His Clarke was soft eyes and steel turned skin and blood under her fingernails because she was saving somebody, not because she strangled someone with them. His Clarke was hummed lullabies and her father’s worn-out watch and grace with every movement…  but his Clarke is gone and he doesn’t know if she’s ever coming back and hearing about new Clarke is too painful, so he’d rather not know anything at all.

Echo is sitting in front of his cabin, eyes closed, facing the sun and well, it turns out that not only Sky People are done with winter. She greets him with a simple nod and tells him that she has something for him. He expects everything, but a small package haphazardly wrapped in some kind of green cloth, smooth under his fingers and tied with a piece of string.

“This went through a long journey”- Echo informs while handing him the bundle. “One of the traveling clans from North brought it to my village, asking if anyone still keeps any kind of contact with Sky People. They really didn’t want to bring it in here themselves. “

Echo draws abstract lines on the fabric of her pants with her index finger, looking down and apparently thinking how to tell him something, while Bellamy fights with an urge to smile grimly. Apart from Echo and Lincoln, they haven’t spotted a single Grounder during winter. Not that Bellamy complained about it- they certainly had enough trouble even without them- but he had found it strange, until he realized that the legend of Clarke is not only a legend of Clarke but also the  legend of Sky People- Those Who Burn, he heard Echo saying one time, Those Who Burn everything standing in their way.

(what an irony)

“Just- just open it.”- says Echo eventually, raising her head to look into his eyes. “ And if you want to send anything back, let me know.”

She waves to him goodbye before he can get a chance to say anything and turns around quickly, her boots making soft, cracking noises on wet snow and mud. He is left standing in front of the hut with the package still in his hands, frozen in time and space, a good few minutes before he manages to move again.

He leaves the bundle by the doors and just - goes. To do things that don’t really need to be done, supervise people who are doing just fine without him hovering, piss off O ( ‘’What the fuck is wrong with you, Bell’’ ) and have yet another unnecessary shouting match with Abby before he’s able to come back and dare to unwrap it.

The string lets go easily, the cloth parts and Bellamy can see pile of – paper? Is it really paper?- few dried flowers, which slip from his knees and land on the ground and a greenish, nice smelling thing, which appears to be some kind of bark.

Half of the sheets of paper- which is also gray-green and there are tiny plant veins visible on their surface – turn out to be empty. The other half is full of words- words spilling on the margins, words on words, words chaotic and wild and crazy and-

II.

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been twenty –two days and I think I’m losing my mind. I bumped into a Grounder hunting party today; they just dropped their weapons and things and ran away from me, so I took their things I guess I’m a thief now, why not, actually so they had this paper and a pen, it must be from before the Apocalypse and it still works, can you believe? And I started to write this, I heard people used to write letters to their loved ones when they were away-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been thirty –seven days, I wonder how Monty’s doing, how you are doing, how are you all doing, it’s so cold, I fell asleep on a tree branch and now I can’t feel my fingers, it hurts, Bellamy, it hurts to even-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been fifty days, I found a bark which works miracles on frostbites you should give it to my mother or Lincoln, or I should’ve given it to them, but I’m not with you, I’m alone here, I think I’ve lost my mind-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been exactly fifty-eight days-

I miss you

I miss you

I miss you

I miss you

Dear Bellamy,

I’m haunted by myself.

III.

First, she catches a terrible cold. Then she slips on a thin layer of ice while hunting and injures her head and she doesn’t even remember how she manages to crawl into the cave she has been living in for some time and collapse on the fur. Her head is spinning, burning red and she sees Wells and Finn and her dad and Bellamy-

“Are you dead?”- she asks, confused and then he looks at her and she sees his body drained out blood, his eyes desperate, his hands stretched out, reaching for her:

“You told me to go.”- he says and his voice makes her shiver.” You told me to go and I went, was it worth it?”

Was it worth it was it worth it was it worth it Clarke was it worth it tell us Clarke tell us weren’t we worth it was it worth us – dead men of her life repeat and repeat and Clarke screams and screams and screams until her voice dies out and she drifts into a blackness and there’s nothing and nobody around her anymore.

IV.

Dear Bellamy,

I’m on the coast now, in Luna’s clan village. Their language is like a song on a wind; you’d love it. Luna sends her love to Lincoln. I had- rough time during winter, you can probably tell from the other letters. But those people helped me and –

Bell, they don’t seem to be afraid of me. I don’t remember them being involved in Mount Weather war, but they must’ve heard of it, heard of me. Still, nobody here treats me like other Grounders. Travelers stopped in a village and they agreed to bring my letters to Camp Jaha, even if they didn’t seem completely comfortable with it. I hope you’ll get it. It’s not much –and I don’t expect to get anything back – but that’s the best I can do now.

I just want you to know I think about you every day. All the time. And I’m so, so sorry, Bell.

Out of all the terrible things I’ve done, I’m most sorry for the ones I did to you.

I miss you,

Clarke

V.

“She doesn’t get to do this shit!”

Octavia’s all flaming anger, standing in the middle of his hut and waving her hands.

“Not after she left.  She left us, she left you; she doesn’t get to write you things like that!’’

But Bellamy’s angry too, anger to match Octavia’s, slowly burning his insides.

“Who the fuck allowed you to read it? How do you even know I get this, huh? You’re going through my stuff now, O?”

“Yes, because apparently you’re not capable of making rational decisions like burning this shit without reading! You’re probably already writing her a reply, aren’t you?”  

“It’s not your damn business, Octavia!”

They circle each other like wild dogs thrown into the pit, ready to fight with their fangs and claws. Octavia’s still holding Clarke’s letters and she throws them into his face, bares her teeth and fucking hisses.

“You know it’s all her fault. Everything that went wrong, is because of her. She killed all those people- TonDC, Month Weather, it was all her. “

Bellamy sees red and he could never, ever hurt his sister, but he feels his hands fisting, muscles clenching, bloodthirst swallowing him whole and he’s just so angry.

“I killed all those people along with her, Octavia.” – he says lowly, breath heavy and head low, facing her like a charging bull. “If Clarke’s a murderer, then so am I.”

“Because she made you this way!”- Octavia shouts so loudly, that her voice breaks in half and his fists drop to his sides and he just looks at her. He feels his lungs collapsing, his heart-stopping, entire freaking world freezing for a moment.

His sister is shivering like a leaf on a wind, hands outstretched towards him and shining eyes.

“She sent you away.-“ she whispers, stuttering like a little child and then she turns around so he won’t see her crying. “She sent you away and you went for her and I could- I thought I- I could lose you.”

Her shoulders are shaking and she wraps her arms around herself, sobbing and Bellamy’s standing still, hearing white noise in his ears and suddenly coming back to the times, when Octavia had bangs and curious eyes and clean hands and he was her only lifeline, the only thing connecting her with the whole wide world bigger than two chairs, two bunk beds and endless darkness under the floor.

“Octavia..”- he wants it to sounds like an apology, but instead it comes out like a plea.

Understand. Please. I can only forgive myself, if Clarke’s forgiven too.  

He hesitantly takes two steps and raises one hand to touch her back, to comfort her, but something stops him halfway. His hand’s frozen in its track, frozen in the air, hanging between him and Octavia like a blown-up bridge between two worlds which will never be connected anymore.

She hiccups, wipes the tears with the palm of her hand and turns around. Her braids are coming undone and the dark make-up around her red eyes is smudged, but she stands straight, with chin up high and says, clearly and calmly:

“She doesn’t deserve you.”

O marches out of the hut and he doesn’t stop her.

Instead, he kneels down to pick up the letters and puts them in order.

And then he takes the pen he asked Lincoln to bring him from the last trade and presses the tip of it to the clean sheet of paper.

Dear Clarke,

Winter was fucking awful and spring’s not much better, but at least it’s warmer now.

VI.

Clarke decides she likes the ocean most.

It’s big and wide and endless; silver-gray waves with white manes,  cool sand under her bare feet, wild wind and the smell of salt, smoked fish and crown made of finger-cutting sharp seagrass -  it’s everything she dreamed it would be, long, long time ago, and so much more and nothing less.

She wasn’t planning to stay, truth to be told. For the first few weeks she was constantly waiting for this sharp tug of ache inside just go, just go, far and far and never come back but it never came and Luna’s people are more gentle and kinder than anyone who she has ever met and they’re the only ones who seem not to be afraid of her. So she stays.

She patches up hunters and delivers children along with the old, nearly blind healer; she kisses scraped knees of kids and learns how to knot fishing nets and breathes in, breathes out, washes her face in icy, salty water.

One time,  girl from the village brings her charcoals and she spends hours on playing with them, morbidly fascinated with how different they feel, when her hands are no longer soft and white, but callused and cut and scarred and short on one finger and red, so, so red.

Clarke draws sea and people and a little, chubby boy chewing his fist and before she can even notice, she draws constellations of freckles and messy hair and soft, sad eyes; brown ponytails and sharp elbows and braids; goggles and gentle smiles and she wants to weep, she misses them all so much.

She wonders about her package, she wonders if it ever reached Bellamy, she wonders if it even matters at all.

She –well, she’s healing. But she’s still aching, something is still tearing her apart from the inside and she still can’t seem to let go of so many things, so she can’t go back.

She hasn’t had any hallucinations ever since she’s been around humans again, but her nightmares still have brown eyes and are holding a little football ball in their clawed hands.

VII.

“Bellamy, Bellamy tell us a story!”

Bellamy stares at the fire as kids are chirping loudly in his ears; he keeps his hands on his knees, palms out, fingers outstretched as if he was holding something.

“Once upon a time, there was a princess-”

“Clarke! Clarke!”

“Okay, okay!” – she laughs, with her head thrown back, but her eyes sad when she says-

“Once upon a time, there was a rebel – “

“-turned queen-“

Octavia’s bright eyes, narrowed lips, sharp pain in his chest.

“-turned king.”

Flames dancing on a pile of sea wood, her voice full of nostalgia.

VIII.

By the next spring, Clarke has a baby inside of her.

She doesn’t know whose it is; she doesn’t really want to know, to be honest. There were few,  men, women, nothing to grow attached to, just a tension relief, fuck and forget. She needs to get rid of it, but she spends too much time thinking about what she needs and what she wants and about Ark and Octavia Blake and then she can feel it move and everything in her screams mine mine mine.

So she lets it stay.

She lets it grow.

She lets herself grow bigger; soon enough her spine starts to hurt like a bitch and her eyes water when she sees little kids, little birds, little dogs and apparently every single damn little thing in the world. Her feet swell and her breasts ache and she suddenly craves wild mushrooms and tuna and apples.

She goes through twenty- hours- long labor, clutching Lila’s hand all through it and crying for her mom and Bellamy, delirious with pain, sweat and tears and blood and then-

A pair of very brown eyes,  strangely calm; a cloud of delicate blonde hair.  They look at each other and it’s like the world stops turning and for a moment there are just Clarke and this tiny alien thing covered in her blood,  small starfishes of her hands fisted, small feet kicking the air.

Clarke’s daughter has long lashes, pink, wrinkled skin and a nose like a tiny button and Clarke can’t stop looking at her, won’t stop looking at her. She feels some kind of –oblivion. Everything that was messed up before, everything she couldn’t deal with, now perfectly in order and she can’t remember being in such peace ever in her entire life.

IX.

Dear Bellamy,

Her name is Julia.

Bellamy clenches the paper in his hand, head thrown back and just- breathes out.

X.

When Julia’s eight months old, Clarke slowly starts packing.

It’s unintentional, at first; cleaning her hut, throwing some things away or giving them as a gift to those who needed it more than her anyway, packing the rest in sacks, trading with travelers for material for a travelling carrier for an infant– she does all those things before even realizing what she’s doing, until one day Aidan walks on her while she’s asking Rhea where she could get a horse, or maybe even two and how can she pay for them.

“So you’re really leaving, huh?”- he doesn’t sound accusing, but a bit sad and like he has been expecting it for some time now.

And Clarke… Clarke takes a deep breath and nods.

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been three years now. I think it’s time to go home. Would you like to meet my daughter?

The reply comes fast as the wind,  two lines written on a piece of paper apparently torn from the bigger one, letter bold and honest.

Dear Clarke,

Can’t wait.

XI.

They leave at dawn, moon and stars still visible on the golden-pink sky, Julia napping in her sling. Luna hugs her tightly and then Lila and Mara and Devon and Rhea and then the whole village kissing her cheeks and touching her hair and saying thank you and Clarke has such a lump in her throat that she can barely breathe, because she’s the one that owes them everything she has now.

Aiden helps her up on the saddle and pats her thigh.

“You’re always welcomed here, you two. And I have a feeling we’ll see each other again.”- he winks, a wide grin spread on her face and she suddenly remembers why she even let this man, those people, get closer to her in the first place. “Also, I want to meet this man of yours and remind him how lucky he is. Being loved by a woman like you, Clarke- tragedy, but what a privilege at the same time.”

And to that, she can only blush.

XII.

She comes back at sunrise;  appears like a ghost from between trees on the white horse,  baby strapped to her chest, sacks hanging from both sides of her saddle.

He abandons his post near the gate and runs and runs and runs and she jumps off the horse and runs too,  but when they’re ten feet apart from each other, they slow down.

It’s been three years -

( but when Bellamy looks at her beaming, all golden hair and blue eyes and pink-cheeked baby glancing at him curiously half-hiding his face in the crook of her neck,  he feels like not a day has passed since dropship)

“Hi.”- she says, breathless,  taking one tiny step closer.

“Hello.”- he responds, taking another.

She looks him in the eyes, smiling, and she has damn laughter lines on her face. God, he wants nothing else but to spend the rest of his life giving her more. He raises his hand and traces them delicately and she shivers under his touch, leaning into his hand.

“Bell.”-   her voice is hoarse with emotions and low, just above a whisper. “ I  missed you, Bell.”

Sun is setting, casting reds and goldens on her hair as he wraps his arms around her and her daughter and she presses her face to his shoulder and the forest is so wonderfully, wonderfully green.

And in this one moment, they are everything and nothing and Bellamy knows there are storms in the future and broken hearts and bloody hands; but right now, when he can feel her lips on his skin and her baby’s little hand fisting his shirt,  all they are is right and real and exactly, where they are supposed to be.

[ravenvsfox]

rockband chapter 5 babey 😈🤘🏻

Neil tilts a record out of the stacks, and the sun catches the sleek surface and shows him his reflection.

“You’re not even in the right section,” Kevin calls. He’s two rows away flipping through rock-punk CDs, looking exhilarated when they fall towards him like dominoes.

The whole store is no bigger than a spacious bedroom, and the shop front is all boxy windows, letting in honeycombs of late-afternoon light. Kevin’s never looked so relaxed, dragging his fingers along the spines of albums, inspecting the equipment behind the till, smiling and chatting with the owner.

“There is no right section,” he mutters, sliding the album back into its slot. “It’s all music.”

“Right,” Kevin says. Neil glances up and finds him unexpectedly close, mouth pursed reluctantly with amusement. “Except we’re not here for all music.”

“What are we actually here for again?” Neil asks, distracted. He can see Andrew waiting outside with his back to them and his arms crossed, serious and stock-still as a bodyguard.

“Inspiration.”

Neil watches Kevin’s face. The crease that’s usually between his brows is only suggestion now, a slouchy, un-tensed line. He’s tolerable like this, Neil thinks, almost impressive, choosing music to feed his creativity.

“You love it here,” Neil accuses. “This is a vacation for you.”

Kevin scoffs. “Like you’re not the same.”

Neil shrugs. There’s an upright piano on the wall and he wants to squeeze the keys in his hands like fingers in a crowd. The sound of voices and tires on asphalt from outside spreads like frosting over the crumbling drumbeat from the stereo. The rusting brown of the wallpaper behind the counter looks almost orange with the full force of the sun on it.

He could live and die in a place like this, head down, hands full of bright new music and dark classics, never in silence, never alone.

"Come look at this,” Kevin says. Neil follows him to the far corner of the shop where there are picked-over alternative CDs and peeling tape labels. He plucks an album from the stack and wiggles it at Neil. “Old school Ausreißer.”

Neil squints at the cover art. “You look like a bad metal band.” The original four are caught in the middle of a set, dressed in all black under a red spotlight, mid-howl. The word Ausreißer is so stylized that it’s almost illegible.

Kevin rolls his eyes and puts the CD back in its slot. “Things change. When we found you you looked like you were on day ten of a bender.”

“I can go back to that, if it’s the look you’re going for. Wouldn’t want to stand out in a band full of junkies and burnouts.”

“Funny,” Kevin says flatly. “Just bring that smart mouth to song writing.” He gathers his little stack of music and a clear box of sturdy picks, and drops them on the front counter to be checked out.

Neil hesitates, swaddled in the darkest, warmest corner of the store, reluctant to splash back out into the cold. He can already see how it will play out: Andrew’s silence and Kevin’s focus, the way they take up so much of the sidewalk that Neil has to fall in behind them or walk in the gutter, the drive home like a never-ending commute to nowhere at all.

He’s listless without a stage, and Kevin won’t let him forget that he’s not a natural born songwriter. He’s waiting for inspiration like that second raindrop after you swear you felt the first one.

His eyes wander and catch on a lurid red flier stapled to the bulletin board above the stacks, and he does a double-take. Foxes. Township Auditorium. Friday, January 25th.

“Dan’s group is playing this Friday?” Neil wonders aloud, and Kevin looks at him over his shoulder, handing bills off to the cashier.

“Oh yeah, the Township gig. I think they’re hanging out in town for a week or so, too.”

“We should go.” He thinks of the way the girls had laughed about their public personas and plastic recognition. He wants to hear them for real, as magnetic and driven as they were at Abby’s, assuring him that they do pop like he’s never heard in his life.

“Waste of time,” Kevin says, accepting his bag with one of his frozen, ken doll smiles and making towards the exit.

“We’re not touring right now,” Neil argues, catching up. “We can take two hours off from the new album.”

“We can,” Kevin says, “but we shouldn’t.”

“And yet you find the time to drink six hours a day.”

“The creative process looks different on everyone,” he grits. They push out into the sunlight and Andrew looks vaguely in their direction, his face chapped from the wind.

“Great. Mine looks like going to local concerts and supporting our label, and you know full fucking well that Wymack would agree with me.” They start walking, Neil leading them in a frantic triangle down main street. Andrew doesn’t ask or care about what they’re arguing over, which is why Neil tells him, “I want to go to the Foxes concert on Friday.”

“Then go,” he says. He’d been chain-smoking while Neil and Kevin were in the shop, and he looks irritable and sick. His pallor has been almost bruised lately, like something’s wringing him out and leaving marks behind.

Neil flips Kevin off and walks further ahead of the group, buoyed by the opportunity to be part of an audience again. He loves the silky anonymity and sway of the crowd almost as much as being doused in lights and held up by a mic stand.

Kevin’s still talking about accountability and wasted talent, but he’s lost his audience.

Neil reaches the van first, parallel parked at a wicked angle. He waits for the muted click of the unlock button, then climbs into the passenger seat. There’s a parking ticket folded over the windshield wipers and Andrew sets them going so that it flutters down onto the street.

“It’s not going to be the same in the crowd as it is onstage,” Kevin says calmly from the backseat.

Neil turns his head. “I know.”

“The fans know who you are now, and I’m not sure you’re ready for what that actually looks like.”

“I’m pretty good at blending in,” Neil says, eyes narrowed.

“You’re not,” Andrew says, pulling jerkily out of the spot without looking and nearly catching a hyundai by the nose. “You’re loud.” Car horns blare on all sides like a chorus of agreement.

“You draw attention,” Kevin agrees grimly. “I’d rather you stick it out in the studio where you can’t get into trouble. And Wymack would agree with me about that.”

Neil watches pedestrians swarm and cars criss-cross beyond the window. “So what, I join a band and now I’m on full-time house arrest?”

“Shouldn’t you be used to keeping your head down, runaway?” Andrew taunts. His hands flash as he makes a left turn, ink spelling yes over no over yes. Neil gives him a look.

“You’re not talking about staying on the move, you’re talking about hiding. And in my experience, your problems catch up with you when you sit and wait for them to go away.”

“I’m not talking about your fucked up past,” Kevin says irritably. “If you want to stumble into the nearest concert, you can, but if you misrepresent us or pull some stupid shit to distract from the set, Wymack will kick your ass. If Dan doesn’t get there first.”

“Don’t worry Kevin,” Andrew says, glancing away from the road to fix Neil with a cool, knowing look. “He has winning impulse control. Right Neil?”

Neil clenches his teeth and ignores him. “I realize that you don’t trust me, but I need you to understand that I don’t care. I’m not going to stay in the cage until you figure out if you’re ready to unlock it or not. I’m not going to live that way anymore.”

“You’re on a team now, and you have to care,” Kevin argues.

Neil scoffs. “Tell that to Andrew.”

Kevin looks pained. “He’s—“

“What? An exception? I’d love to know why I’m held to a higher standard than the person with concealed weapons and an unreliable drug dependency,” Neil says, fuming. Andrew pumps the brakes so that Neil topples forward into the dashboard, then he’s thrown back again when they accelerate. He grips the headrest and seethes, “you’re fucking psychotic.”

“You—“ Kevin starts.

“Kevin,” Andrew says, toneless, barely there, and Kevin stops short. Neil recognizes that easy power, that tongue-biting obedience.

They collapse into strained silence, Andrew looking infuriatingly tranquil, the air around Kevin vibrating with how badly he wants to speak.

Neil thinks about the corner of the music store and that old album, an Ausreißer from back when Neil was still lost in between hotel rooms, when his mother was alive, and she could change the course of his life with just the tips of her fingers. He thinks, things can be so easy and so ugly at the same time.

They get out at Palmetto, Neil wrenching doors closed behind him, trying to feel like he has a raft to himself for once, like he’s not always sharing, feeling for someone else’s shifting weight.

Nicky’s spread between two chairs when he gets to the studio, and Neil’s relieved to see the easy smile on his face. It fractures when he gets a good look at him.

“Oh no. Was it unbearable? I thought music shopping would mellow Kevin out, at least.”

“It was fine,” Neil says, rolling a chair towards the table where they left all of their notes and stray music. He sweeps everything off the table, feeling a vindictive shock when it all settles on the floor; every dangling idea, stagnating chord progression, and experimental piece of garbage.

“Yeah, you seem fine,” Nicky says sarcastically.

“Better,” Neil says, rummaging in the heaps of wasted work until his hand closes around a discarded pen. “I’m inspired.”

_____

The dye burns cold on his scalp. He paints the wispy place above his ears, and tucks it up into the rest of the gummy mess. There’s a dark streak on the porcelain of the sink, and he rubs it with one gloved finger.

Someone knocks at the door, and Neil reaches behind himself to open it. There’s a beat, and a flutter of movement, and then his eyes meet Andrew’s in the mirror. 

“Brown,” Andrew remarks.

“You wanted me to tone it down,” Neil says, focusing on smothering his auburn roots and pointedly ignoring the rest of his reflection.

“Don’t put Kevin’s words in my mouth.”

Neil meets his eyes again. “What do you want?”

Andrew doesn’t reply for a long moment, and then he starts to peel down his armbands. It’s like watching a snake shed its skin, and Neil’s so startled to see it happening that he turns around to watch him directly.

He’s expecting the thatch of scars, but it still knocks the wind out of him to see them, tender pinks and whites that nudge all the way up to the ink on his wrists and hands.

Andrew plucks the brush out of Neil’s limp hand and scoops up a mound of colour that looks black in the weak light.

“Head down.”

Neil complies, chin towards his chest, and feels Andrew smooth the dye from just below his ear up into the coil of loose, wet hair. He can feel the damp heat from Andrew’s bare wrists, smothered for most of the day.

“Who put you in a cage?” Andrew asks, and the hair on Neil’s neck stands up.

“What—“

“You said: I’m not going to stay in the cage until you figure out if you’re ready to unlock it. I’m not going to live that way anymore.” He says it robotically, like an automated recording.

“I know what I said,” Neil snaps, starting to look up, but Andrew grips his neck and steers his head down again.

“Then you should be able to explain what you meant. Without lying to me.”

Andrew’s initiating one of their trades, he realizes, baring a secret and nodding at Neil do to the same. He closes his eyes, flinching when the brush makes sudden contact with his neck.

“My mother.” It’s an easier answer than the reality--a web of injustice too thick to see through. A childhood spent escaping from one cell block to another. 

The brush stops midway through a glide towards his hairline. “She hurt you?” Andrew asks, low.

“It’s not that simple.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You know better than anyone that protecting someone can get bloody. Our circumstances weren’t--they were never good enough for us to have a decent relationship. But she kept us moving.”

A bare hand curls in his hair, and Neil’s eyes open. His breath catches when he recognizes the hateful look on Andrew’s face.

“Did she hit you, yes or no?”

Neil swallows thickly, trying to focus on the feeling of Andrew’s hand against his scalp. “Yes.” The hand tightens painfully. “But she’s dead now. My parents are dead.” He doesn’t know what drives him to say such a hasty, partial truth, like it has any bearing on the way it felt to be forced to the ground and pinned until his arm broke. Death gets rid of the person, not the memory. 

Andrew’s hand drops altogether. He moves into the space at Neil’s side, hip to hip, and rinses his hand under the tap. “If she was beating you, she wasn’t protecting you.”

“You don’t understand what people are capable of when they’re struggling to survive.”

Andrew steps slowly and lethally into Neil’s space. “Yes, I do,” he says, nearly whispering. Neil’s eyes hitch down to his destroyed wrists. 

He nods, and Andrew backs off. He feels a strange, remote disappointment watching him move away, like climbing out of a roller coaster and watching it take off without him.

“We’re not keeping you locked up,” Andrew says. “We do not own you.”

Neil shakes his head a little, running a hand over his hair under the guise of checking for dry patches, trying to reclaim the tingling, grounding feeling of Andrew’s fingers.

“Contractually, you do.”

“You’re with us,” Andrew says, “until the second someone abuses your contract, then you leave. We both know you could outrun me if you really wanted to.”

“Maybe,” Neil says, on the blunt edge of a smile. “But you might be able to outlast me.”

Andrew looks at him in the mirror for a long while. “You’re disgustingly stubborn,” he says. “And dense. I wouldn’t count on my ability to put up with you for that long.”

Neil shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I won’t leave. We have a deal.”

“I just told you—“

“Not the contract. You and I have a deal. And I’m not ready to give it up,” Neil says, and he means it. The tenuous promise of protection, the give and take, the lure of the stage. He’s only grown more and more obsessed with the whole thing.

Andrew wavers. He reaches for his discarded armbands, and takes his time rolling them back up. Neil feels a painful rush of recognition at seeing his scars swallowed up, and he reaches out impulsively to hold him by the wrist. Andrew’s fingers are still ruddy with dye.

“This isn’t a cage. You’re nothing like—it’s nothing like my mother.”

At Abby’s, he’d told Andrew he reminded him of home, the most nightmarish insult he could lay his hands upon. And for a jarring second, Andrew’s commanding relationship with the band had looked like the dynamic between himself and his mother, ceaseless authority meeting senseless devotion. He’s been stupid enough to mistake Andrew’s promises for Mary Hatford’s threats.

At length, Andrew tugs, and Neil lets go of him.

Long after he’s gone, and Neil’s hair is washed out and limp, wet brown, he can still feel the raised scars underneath the fabric of the armband, and beneath that, a curiously rabbiting pulse.

______

And “monster” does not begin

to cover bolts and stitches in my skin

sinew held with safety pins

but you made me

the creature not the man, right?

but this lab coat’s fitting pretty tight

and if you’re living out of spite

are you a person or a feeling,

and would it hurt to look at you directly?

gunshots speak louder than words

but the warning shots you heard

don’t work for people who’d prefer

to die than to live on their knees--

“It needs workshopping,” Kevin says, tossing the notebook onto the coffee table.

“I think it’s great, Neil,” Nicky says. “The Frankenstein stuff is cool, our fans eat that shit up.”

Neil shrugs, and he gathers his notes back up from the table, out of reach from prying eyes. They’re assembled in a loose square in the living room, with Andrew at the window, a cigarette burning delicately between two fingers.

“You call yourselves the monsters so— I don’t know.”

“It works,” Kevin sniffs. “They’ll get it. They’ll like it.” It’s a more generous response than he was expecting, and he knows it’s the most approval Kevin can bring himself to show. “How soon can you match it musically?” he asks Andrew.

“I already have a melody,” Neil interrupts. He stands, walks over to the keyboard Kevin insists they always keep on hand, and presses the ‘on’ button. “It’s not very complex,” he says, walking his right hand over a couple of keys until the power catches up and the notes start to voice.

He plays the song through once, low arpeggiated chords and a sustained, high tenor line. He sings when he can’t help it, crooning until it gets too high to sing softly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Andrew’s fingers drumming against the windowsill.

“You’re right,” Aaron says when it’s finished. “It’s not very complex.”

“Downer,” Nicky accuses. “It’s just keys right now, we can amp it up.”

“Is it worth it?” Aaron complains.

“Yes,” Andrew says, leaning over to put his cigarette out in the ashtray balanced on the arm of the couch. They all look at him expectantly, and he gets up, grabs the music directly out of Neil’s hands, and disappears into his room with it.

“Well that’s a good sign,” Nicky says, bemused. “Guess we’re going to that concert, Neil.” When Kevin opens his mouth to protest, Nicky says, “Wymack signed off on it. Plus we’re making headway on the b-side tracks, and Andrew’s actually working.”

“I’m not going,” Kevin says, crossing his arms.

“Me neither,” Aaron says. “Allison will have our balls if we pull focus from her.”

“So we won’t,” Nicky says. He ropes Neil in by the shoulder and tousles his newly dark hair. “No one will even know we’re there.”

______

Later, Nicky sends Neil to ask for the car keys, and he finds himself standing in the dusk outside Andrew’s room, delaying the inevitable confrontation.

Andrew comes out before he can knock, wearing boots and a black baseball cap, keys clenched in his fist. They nearly collide, and Neil staggers back a step. 

“You’re coming with us?” he asks dumbly.

“You and Nicky can’t be trusted alone,” he says. It’s an insult, but it hits Neil like warm water from a shower-head, like relief.

“Did Kevin ask you to do this?” Neil asks, but Andrew ignores him, brushing past into the living room, then the entryway. Nicky pushes off from the back of the couch where he’s been waiting, looking back and forth between the two of them nervously.

“We’re all going?”

“Apparently,” Neil replies.

“Cool. Weird. Shotgun.”

“Neil’s sitting in the front,” Andrew says, cranking the screen door open.

“Family really means, like, nothing to you when Neil’s around—“ Nicky’s saying as he follows Andrew out into the night.

Neil breathes out, lacing his shoes and listening to Nicky chatter circles around Andrew, who is steady and silent, already fixed in the driver’s seat.

He’s been picturing the Foxes concert as that same ambiguous darkness from before he joined the band, skulking in the back of bars and hoping to be caught. Now he imagines Andrew and Nicky propping him up like brackets, a drink he actually paid for, the hair-raising knowledge of what it feels like on the other side of the performance.

Wind shivers through the front door and underneath Neil’s collar. He jams his hands into his jacket pockets—the leather already stiff and unyielding from the cold—squares his shoulders, and opens the door.

______

They’re smuggled in through a door backstage, already late. Nicky clings to Neil’s sleeve so tightly that it pulls down over his hand. 

Renee comes to greet them, as unnervingly pleasant as the last time he’d seen her. Neil keeps expecting her even-keeled demeanour to clash against Andrew’s like icebergs meeting, but they only seem to thaw around one another. 

Andrew greets her, and she knocks her knuckles into his hand and smiles.

“I’m glad you guys came. Don’t tell her I told you, but Allison’s raring to show off.”

“I bet she is, competitive bitch,” Nicky says good-naturedly. “All you foxes are such a handful.”

Renee seems to be considering whether or not he’s joking when Dan appears at her elbow. “Walk in the park compared to your lot,” she says, smiling sharply. Her eyes flit to Neil and she softens. “Still doing okay, Neil?”

“She means, have we ruined your life,” Andrew says in German.

“Quick, tell her how saintly we are,” Nicky says.

“And lie?” Neil asks in exaggerated German, as if scandalized. “I’m fine,” he says to Dan. “Excited to see a Foxes set.” 

It’s a bigger venue than he’s used to, and the energy is intimidating, people whisking past them and calling instructions to one another.

Her smile quirks, and she lets her arm drape around Renee’s neck. “We’ll try our best to impress, then. As usual.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nicky says. “You’re a big deal, we get it. Don’t you have warm-ups to do?”

Dan snorts. “Time off is making you a little mean, Hemmick. You better watch him, monster.”

Andrew stares blankly back at her, and Nicky says, “you try living with Kevin 24 hours a day and tell me how personable you’re feeling.”

Dan winces. “Point.” Someone ducks close and whispers in her ear, and her face flickers through several shades of confusion and annoyance. “Okay, shit. One of Allison’s pegs came loose and her tuning is all over the place. Sound check’s in five, and Matt’s on the wrong side of drunk, but um. The show must go on, I guess.”

Renee ducks out from under Dan’s arm, excusing herself, and Dan squeezes Neil’s shoulder in parting. “See you out there. Try not to get into trouble.”

“Yeah right,” Nicky says, and she aims a kick at his shin. He falls back a step, laughing, as she jogs after Renee. “Hey, rock and roll, Dan,” he calls. “Or whatever it is you guys do.”

He’s still beaming when he loops his arm with Neil’s and steers them towards the door. Neil looks anxiously back at Andrew, but he’s a step behind them as usual.

They wait for a lull in passersby, and then they’re out in the thick of the crowd, pushing conspicuously from the front of the stage to the side of the room. Eyes linger on them and narrow, and his throat starts to constrict until he feels Andrew’s hand thread into the shirt under his jacket, keeping him tethered.

Nicky can’t resist dancing a little to the opener, as obvious as they already are, and he bobs through the aisles, shooting furtive looks back at Neil to see if he’s enjoying himself. The band on stage is too high energy for their low energy song, jumping and twisting to a half-time rhythm. 

Andrew’s hand tightens at the small of his back, and Neil glances back to see him eyeing the thrashing drummer with distaste.

“I thought you didn’t care about technique,” Neil tells him over the music, and Andrew tears his eyes away. He’s frowning, and Neil relishes that off-guard little furrow of emotion.

“I don’t,” Andrew says, “I also don’t listen to bad music if I can help it.”

“Guess we must be pretty good, then,” Neil says.

“I didn’t say that.”

“No,” Neil agrees. “You didn’t.” He knows that it’s true, though. Somewhere past the layers and layers of bandages that Andrew wears, there must be raw flesh. It’s just that Neil can’t tell if he’s healing or rotting underneath it all.

They come to a stop close to the stairs up into the stands, and Nicky gestures at an empty patch halfway up. Most of the crowd is standing already, chaotic, but they climb up into the mess and find their seats, Nicky on the inside and Andrew in the aisle, with Neil sandwiched in-between.

“Our fans are louder,” Nicky leans over to say smugly.

“That’s because they’re trying to keep up with you,” Neil says. “Decibel for decibel.”

“Fuck you,” Nicky laughs. His eyes are bright, and he grips the seat in front of him to get the leverage to see through the masses.

They ride the energy of the crowd to the end of the song, and then the group is hollering goodbyes and filing offstage, and people start to sit down or escape to concession. Nicky relaxes back into his seat and pinches Neil for his opinion.

“I don’t think we missed much,” Neil says.

Nicky shrugs. “Yeah, but we were like that once. You got to skip Ausreißer’s adolescence, Neil, you lucky shit. It was not pretty.”

“Kevin showed me your first album,” he tells him.

“Oh, Jesus,” Nicky groans. “Those were dark times. I used to wear leather biker gloves on stage, like a tool.” He rustles in his inner jacket pocket and produces his flask. “Drink to forget?”

Andrew reaches across to pluck it from his hand before anyone can drink. He unscrews the cap and points it at Nicky. “I know you’re already fucked, Nicky.”

He scoffs, making a messy grab for it that Andrew dodges. “Hardly.”

Andrew swallows a generous shots worth, then passes the flask to Neil. This is familiar by now, sharing space and booze and drugs as a means to an end. They get drunk like they’re grappling down a cliff-face together, connected by rope.

Neil hesitates. There are strangers on all sides and the sick smell of sweat and beer in the air, but there’s something about his back to the wall and a concert ahead that he trusts. This is how he spent the years after his mother’s death, anonymous and drunk, losing control in measured doses like taking medication.

He drinks, the mouthpiece still wet from Andrew’s mouth, and screws his face up at the tartness of the flavour—a salty, lemony vodka. Nicky tries to steal the flask halfway through his sip, so Neil pushes him away by the face.

He and Andrew share the rest of the liquor, and he puts the back of his hand to his face to feel it warming up. It’s a relief, to feel his edges shaved off. It’s like he’s less defined this way, less likely to be recognized.

Stagehands are fiddling with amps onstage and taping wires down, and the buzz of the crowd is suddenly deafening.

“What’s the deal with Renee?” he hears himself asking.

“What d’you mean?” Nicky asks.

“You like her,” Neil guesses, jabbing Andrew with the base of the flask to get his attention. “But she’s nothing like you.”

“She’s one of us,” Andrew says.

“But she’s not, though,” Neil says, half-frustrated and half gawking at his own lack of composure. He wants his curiosity back inside where it can fester and wonder in circles and die. “I thought Wymack only took in strays. Charity cases.”

“You have met her twice,” Andrew says coldly. “How well do you think you can judge a person’s character in that time?”

“Pretty well,” Neil says grimly. He thinks of the cross around her neck and the prim lace of her collar, attention-grabbing hair offset by dark, serious eyes. He saw Matt’s track marks and Allison’s rage before Dan had even whispered their stories to him, but he can’t read anything on sweet, prim Renee.

“Lucky she doesn’t care what anyone thinks,” Nicky interjects. “She’s waiting to be judged by God, I think. Everyone else’s opinions are just… noise.”

He can’t imagine anyone who was really like them believing in God like that, but he bites his tongue.

“Little orphan Neil Josten gets in some trouble and he thinks he knows what rock bottom looks like,” Andrew muses, and Neil’s stomach sinks. “You haven’t even hit it yet.” He looks unfocused, and it occurs to Neil that he might have taken something before they left.

“You’re right,” Neil says. “But you promised that you’d be there when I do,” he reminds him. 

“What the fuck does that mean?” Nicky asks. “Neil?”

“Neil?” someone else says, and Neil looks over to see a woman and a couple of scruffy looking dudes frozen halfway up the stairs. His eyes drop to the shortest of the two, who’s wearing elbow-length armbands identical to Andrew’s. “Andrew! Nicky! Oh my god,” he says.

Nicky puts on a winning smile. “Hey!”

“I can’t believe you’re here—like, for real, there were rumours, but—oh my god— “

“He’s completely obsessed with you,” the woman gushes.

“Katie,” he hisses, and his friend shakes him good-naturedly by the shoulders.

“He’s afraid to say it, but—“

“Fuck off—“

“—every single album—“

“That’s very cute,” Nicky interrupts, cocking a flirtatious grin at the guy who’s holding his own cheeks, dismayed.

“We couldn’t believe you were just, like, changing your sound completely,” the taller guy says. “But Neil, man, I see why they’d take a chance for a voice like yours. It’s sick, dude.”

“Thanks,” Neil says stiffly.

“He’s not used to being recognized, yet,” Nicky says apologetically. “You’re taking his fan virginity.”

They titter, and the woman says, “we’re honoured.” She nudges her friend and widens her eyes meaningfully.

“We can’t really hang out though, sorry guys. Low profile tonight,” Nicky says. His smile is less believable by the second.

“Totally,” they chorus.

“I just quickly want to say, Andrew,” the first guy starts, breathless. “I know you get this all the time, but your lyrics saved my life. I couldn’t believe someone understood me like that, and—and you’re my--you inspire--I mean. I’m sorry, I’m so tongue-tied, I—“

“I didn’t write them for you,” Andrew says. 

The fan’s face crumples. Nicky looks at Neil, panicked, and then he forces a loud, incongruous laugh.

“Wow, good one,” Nicky says. “He doesn’t mean it, obviously.”

“Don’t I?” Andrew says.

“We appreciate it,” Neil interrupts. “But we can’t talk anymore.“

“Right, sorry, I’m so—“

They urge one another up the stairs, apologizing and thanking them, the one guy looking on the verge of tears through the bars of his friends’ arms, until they disappear up to the next level of seats.

“You could’ve pretended to be human,” Nicky hisses as soon as they’re gone.

“They call us monsters,” Andrew says. “What do they expect?” 

Nicky groans. “Please can we have fun, and not ruin anyone else’s night, especially our fans? People are gonna egg our car.”

Neil’s stomach squirms, and he crosses his arms over it. There could be well-meaning, invasive people like that everywhere, and now he’s tipsy and angry and stuck.

The house lights go down a few minutes later, and the whole crowd sucks in a collective breath before they plunge headfirst into cheering.

Neil’s arms loosen. Nicky stands up at his side, hooting, and everyone follows suit, craning towards the stage, wanting to be the first thing the band sees.

Dan comes out first, waving with both hands, and Matt follows, winking at the crowd and sliding his guitar over his head. Allison and Renee emerge from either side of the stage, Allison towering in high heels and glowing under the lights. Renee’s hair is wild, and her face is different, tongue caught in her teeth, almost cocky.

They fit behind their instruments like joints cracking into place, and they play their first chord in perfect unison, all of them operating different parts of the same body.

The crowd roars their approval. Neil sits upright. He’s surprised to feel Andrew standing up beside him, stepping into the aisle to watch. He follows without thinking.

The jangling, bopping drum line doesn’t wait for the strings to catch up, and Renee doesn’t need to watch to see that they’re following her. Her wrists are supple, and she’s lost to the music like she’s been playing for hours and not seconds.

The room goes up in flames when Dan starts singing, like the fans are all hungry, dry wood, and she’s a spark. She works the microphone free from its stand and starts running with it.

“Fucking excellent, right,” Nicky shouts, and Neil nods, mesmerized. The crowd moves together even separated by sections and rows of seats. 

It’s nothing like an Ausreißer concert, where boiling blood turns into wine, and everyone turns their desperate faces up to the stage like they’re waiting to be healed. Foxes sing like they’re in love and they fought for it. 

Neil can admit that they’re as musically proficient as the monsters, too, making up for lack of technical flair with a complete understanding of their sound.

Matt smiles dopily down at his guitar and then at Dan, like he can’t decide which deserves his attention more. When she floats towards him, he gets springy with it, teasing her with guitar licks, carving shapes into her oaky voice. Allison’s hand goes protectively to her tuning pegs whenever she has a break in the music, but her bass is rich and in tune.

They do an old-fashioned crescendo like it’s a classical piece, and Dan is almost conducting, hitting the air when Renee smashes the cymbals, gesturing for more when Allison starts a slippery solo, so fast that she laughs and tosses her hair, exhilarated.

Neil makes a hurt noise that gets swallowed in the din, but Andrew looks at him anyway. Neil looks back, studying his wide black pupils and wondering why he only bothers to pay attention when he’s stoned.

He remembers the wide eyes of the kid with the armbands, the agony of his disappointment, and he forces himself to look back out at the band.

One song finishes and another climbs on its back. People move and mill out of their seats towards the stage. He feels like he’s seeing double, like he’s watching a long pilgrimage that’s somehow been condensed or played back.

The first break in the music, Dan laughs her way out of the song, takes a swig of wine, and says “how was that?” into the mic, pointing out towards the place where the monsters are standing. Nicky puts two fingers to his mouth and whistles.

Her stage presence is unparalleled. She’s funny and a little hard on her audience, begging them to sing louder, drive her offstage if they can. Neil can see why she’s in charge, unofficially. She paces circles around the stage like she’s boosting morale. She barely needs the microphone to be heard.

They topple back into their set without warning, a trust fall of a count-in where Renee bangs out a few warning shots and everyone’s hands fly to their instruments.

Somewhere in the thicket of fans, Neil hears someone call, “Andrew!” He sees an incongruous flash, turned towards the audience and not the stage.

“Nicky, Nicky Hemmick! Nicky, over here—“

“Andrew,” Neil starts.

“We love you, Neil,” someone screams.

“Don’t—“

Neil’s jostled down a stair, and Andrew yanks him back up.

“Ignore them,” Andrew says viciously.

“Yeah,” Nicky agrees, but he’s clearly rattled. “What are they gonna do?”

Neil struggles to get his bearings. A few of them are still shouting, recording them with their phones or fighting their way through the crowd towards them. Nicky motions for them to stop, but a few people get close enough to beg for autographs or snap blurry photos of themselves with the band members in the background. He wonders if it was the fans from before, upset enough to tip off the whole crowd to their seat numbers. 

“Bet you didn’t think we were this famous, huh?” Nicky jokes nervously. 

Andrew has no problem with shoving people away, and Nicky frantically apologizes as many times as he can before he just starts shaking his head. Neil is forced painfully into Nicky’s side, and he can hear people in their row restlessly asking what’s going on.

Most of the audience is oblivious, still focused on Foxes’ raucous energy, but the three of them are surrounded for another ten minutes before people start to get frustrated enough to give up. The rest of them are shoulder-tapped by security, and the throng dwindles to nothing.

“You okay?” Nicky asks. Neil nods, but when he blinks he can still see pinholes of light from camera flashes. He knows that the photos will end up online where anyone can see him as he is right now, and they can guess at his habits or zero in on his location if they want to.

He’s been reckless for a long time, but standing pooled in stage lights feels entirely, chokingly different from wading down into the crowd and feeling the attention slither around him like seaweed.

Andrew crushes a hand to the back of his neck, and Neil inhales all at once.

“Kinda ironic that crowds freak you out so much when you sing for one every night,” Nicky says. He’s standing half in front of Neil, eclipsing the concert still unfolding in the background.

“It’s not the crowd.” Neil shakes his head to clear it. “It’s—they all know who I am.”

‘They think they do,” Nicky corrects firmly, fingers curling into Neil’s arms. The harpy tattoo peers out from under his sheer sleeve, a monster in a veil.

“They want to,” Andrew says, gaze tossed out to the back of the venue. His face is so blank and washed out under the lights that it’s like it’s been chemically stripped of colour. “You’ve caught their attention.”

Neil pulls free from Nicky’s arms and sits heavily in his seat. “I don’t want it.”

“You might not have a choice,” Nicky says, sitting next to him, smothering the distance Neil keeps trying and failing to cultivate.

“You always have a choice,” Andrew says, and when Neil looks up at him, he’s holding out his right hand with its painted yes. Neil accepts it gingerly, and Andrew drags him to his feet.

They watch the rest of the concert from backstage.

Andrew sits propped up on an amp, and Nicky alternates between trying to get the band’s attention from the wings, and mimicking Matt’s solos with vigorous air guitar. Neil suspects he’s trying to get him to laugh.

Neil has enough distance now to feel stupid about locking up during such a minor incident and proving Kevin right. The crowd has already forgotten them, or never knew they were there. The show goes on. 

They’re coming up on their encore performance when Neil feels a buzzing at his hip. 

He fishes an unfamiliar cellphone out of his pocket and stares uncomprehendingly at the message lingering on screen, sent from a number he doesn’t recognize.

A neat little ’60’ and nothing else.

[stormcloudrising]

The Secret Song of Florian and Jonquil Part 6:  Night’s King and a Woman Glimpse From Afar

March 9, 2019

Yesterday in response to a post about the EW interview with the Night King from the show, I proposed a tinfoil theory that the person he will want to kill will be one of the Stark daughters.  It could be either daughter, but I proffer the idea that it will be Sansa and I listed my reasons for this theory based on the events on the show.  While I think the story in the books will play out somewhat differently as I’m not sure that we will get a literal TV like Night King character on the pages, my reasoning is not entirely based on the show.  There is some book and real world poetry evidence that has led me to this possibility that I would like to now discuss.

Let’s begin by reviewing what little we know about Night’s King.  It’s from the Bran chapter when he and the Reeds stop at the Night Fort to rest before going beyond the Wall.

As the sun began to set the shadows of the towers lengthened and the wind blew harder, sending gusts of dry dead leaves rattling through the yards. The gathering gloom put Bran in mind of another of Old Nan's stories, the tale of Night's King. He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

"Some say he was a Bolton," Old Nan would always end. "Some say a Magnar out of Skagos, some say Umber, Flint, or Norrey. Some would have you think he was a Woodfoot, from them who ruled Bear Island before the ironmen came. He never was. He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down." She always pinched Bran on the nose then, he would never forget it. "He was a Stark of Winterfell, and who can say? Mayhaps his name was Brandon. Mayhaps he slept in this very bed in this very room.”

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

There is a strong influence of works by some of the world’s great poets in ASOIAF.  This includes Homer, Shakespeare and Robert Frost to name just a few.  I would like to add one more name to the list of influencers and that is Thomas Hardy.  More specifically, I am proposing the possibility that in the story of the Night’s King and his Corpse Queen glimpsed from atop the Wall, GRRM was influenced by Hardy’s poem, The Glimpse.

When you consider how Martin uses the word glimpsed in his story of Night’s King and his queen, the title of Hardy’s poem is interesting in and of itself. However, once you read it and see the tale of a man falling in love and chasing a redheaded ghost he saw from afar, you can’t help but see some additional symbolic connections to Martin’s story of the Dawn Age couple.

I don’t want to linger on him too long but let’s talk briefly about the author of the poem.  Thomas Hardy is of course more famous for his works of fiction such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure and Far From the Madding Crowd to name just a few. In his later life, he switched to poetry and his poems covered many different themes including war, the change of things, life and death.  And many of them are about his first wife, Emma.

By most account, theirs was a tumultuous and unhappy marriage.  They were married for almost 40 years but for all intents and purposes, they spent most of it estranged. Nonetheless, Emma’s death in 1912 after 38 years of marriage had a profound effect on the author and influenced him to write a series of lyrical poems that would become his most famous—of which The Glimpse is one.

This series of poems dealt with love found and lost—missed opportunities and what might have been; the end of love; and of course, death and grieving. An as you might expect from the description of the ghost from the poem, Emma was a blue-eyed redhead.

Hardy saw Emma all around him after her death…especially in the places they visited together. Many of his poems from this period were written after he revisited Cornwall and other locations linked to their courtship.  He explored their relationship as he pondered where things went wrong.

The Glimpse deals with the separation of love by death and the hope for future reunification.  The narrator spends his life dreaming of and desiring the imaginary woman that he never knew even as he grows old and grey and does not allow himself to find love with anyone else. Hardy did something similar in that he remarried a much younger woman not long after Emma’s death.

It was also during this period that he wrote the numerous poems about his and Emma’s relationship.  While his second marriage seemed to be one born more out of the need for companionship, his obsession with Emma could not have been easy for his new wife. He basically spent his final years wondering what might have been.

While not a traditional great love story, Hardy obviously suffered much regret and missed Emma greatly upon her death and used his poetry as an outlet for his feelings.  In fact, his will requested that he be buried in the same grave.  His second wife Florence and family agreed to his request, but the executor of his will wanted him to be buried at the Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.  They reached a compromise when his heart was buried with Emma, but his remaining ashes were interred at Westminster. And so, Hardy was finally reunited with Emma in death.

Nan suggests that the Night’s King fell for his corpse queen the first time he glimpsed her from the Wall. As she is labeled the corpse queen, it suggests that she’s not alive in the traditional sense or else is some type of ghost, which is of course very similar to the redhead glimpsed by the narrator in Hardy’s poem. The difference is that the Night’s King possibly glimpsed his lady fair during the night while the narrator of the poem saw his by the “keen common light.”

Common light suggests a natural light source and as he is specifically told that most people see the ghost at night, the light in this case has to be the sun as opposed to the moon or stars. And so, this means that he sees her during the day…possibly the morning. However, it’s also possibly early evening or twilight as the sun goes down and before the street lanterns come on. Based on the theme of the poem and the fact that the room he enters suggest it is some type of gathering place—most likely a pub, I tend to think that it was more likely early evening.

Light is a source of warmth but Hardy’s use of the word keen to describe it suggests just the opposite. His light does not offer warmth. It’s sharp! It’s cold! It’s biting.  It’s the edge of a sword and offers no comfort. To keen is also to wail or sing a lamentation to the dead. It’s a way of grieving for the dead and so in a way, Hardy’s poem in and of itself is his “keen” to Emma.

The word keen doesn’t appear that often in ASOIAF but George uses it for the first in the prologue of a GOT when the Others are introduced and all the descriptive terms I mentioned above, the coldness, the edge of a sword and yes, the grief are in play.

Again and again the swords met, until Will wanted to cover his ears against the strange anguished keening of their clash. Ser Waymar was panting from the effort now, his breath steaming in the moonlight. His blade was white with frost; the Other's danced with pale blue light.

—A Game of Thrones - Prologue

All these aspects of keen I think we will come to see are at play in the story of the Night’s King and his corpse queen. Now of course Night’s King caught his lady fair while well into old age, the man in the poem is still waiting to see his redhead again.  He does not mind waiting in the tomb like rooms of his home where he hears but does not see her at night. He has basically given up his life as he waits to see his Lady's shade again. However, as he is now old and gray, his waiting will soon come to an end and he just might see her again in death.

If as I propose, George was possibly influenced by Hardy’s poem then one has to wonder about the kiss by fire female of the poem and if it’s possible that the corpse queen was also a redhead.  The legend of Night’s King and his bride is at the heart of what is possibly one of the two core mysteries of the series and if she was a redhead, it would have major implications to the story proper.  It might also explain why George references so many redheads throughout his story.  

The potential future reveal that the corpse queen was a redhead is actually hinted at in the text as I discussed in my essay The Evolution of Val with the Honey Colored Hair.  Here is a description of the Wilding Princess as a symbolic corpse queen when viewed by Jon.

From above came the sudden sound of wings. Mormont’s raven flapped from a limb of an old oak to perch upon Jon’s saddle. “Corn,” it cried. “Corn, corn, corn.”

“Did you follow me as well?” Jon reached to shoo the bird away but ended up stroking its feathers. The raven cocked its eye at him. “Snow,” it muttered, bobbing its head knowingly. Then Ghost emerged from between two trees, with Val beside him.

They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

"Have you been trying to steal my wolf?” he asked her.

“Why not? If every woman had a direwolf, men would be much sweeter. Even crows.”

“Har!” laughed Tormund Giantsbane. “Don’t bandy words with this one, Lord Snow, she’s too clever for the likes o’ you and me. Best steal her quick, before Toregg wakes up and takes her first.”

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

As I mentioned in the Val essay, dark honeyed hair is dark brown with red highlights in color.  It is actually very similar in color to chestnut—a dye that we all know Sansa is currently to hide her red tresses.  However, the red keeps peaking out as highlights and she is beginning to worry as she is running out of dye.  

Like the corpse queen, Sansa is also glimpsed from afar on a couple of occasions as she discusses with Petyr.

"Bronze Yohn knows me," she reminded him. "He was a guest at Winterfell when his son rode north to take the black." She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar, she remembered dimly, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was a stupid little girl. "And that was not the only time. Lord Royce saw . . . he saw Sansa Stark again at King's Landing, during the Hand's tourney."

Petyr put a finger under her chin. "That Royce glimpsed this pretty face I do not doubt, but it was one face in a thousand. A man fighting in a tourney has more to concern him than some child in the crowd. And at Winterfell, Sansa was a little girl with auburn hair. My daughter is a maiden tall and fair, and her hair is chestnut. Men see what they expect to see, Alayne." He kissed her nose. "Have Maddy lay a fire in the solar. I shall receive our Lords Declarant there.”

A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

We see reference from Petyr to Sansa’s chestnut colored hair but does it mean anything that Martin uses the word glimpse to describe Yohn Royce seeing Sansa?  Most likely not!  After all, it is a random word in a story that comprises thousands of pages.  The word appears almost 200 times in the books often with no impactful allusions.  However, sometimes that is not the case and understanding how George likes to layer his clues, I suspect that this next reference is not so random.  It so happens that the corpse queen is not the only ancient female in the story said to have been glimpse from afar.  

At Maidenpool, Lord Mooton's red salmon still flew above the castle on its hill, but the town walls were deserted, the gates smashed, half the homes and shops burned or plundered. They saw nothing living but a few feral dogs that went slinking away at the sound of their approach. The pool from which the town took its name, where legend said that Florian the Fool had first glimpsed Jonquil bathing with her sisters, was so choked with rotting corpses that the water had turned into a murky grey-green soup.

Jaime took one look and burst into song. "Six maids there were in a spring-fed pool . . ."

A Storm of Swords - Jaime III

Again, does the fact that George used the word glimpse in separate instances to describe two different legends of men viewing two different women from afar mean that the stories are connected?  Absolutely not!  Nonetheless, I think that in the case it should be considered.  As I discussed in Part 3, there are strong textural clues suggesting that Jonquil was a redhead and the scene of Val coming out of the trees suggests the corpse queen was as well. If both women were indeed redheads, then it seems prudent to also consider a likely connection between the two ancient figures—especially with the number of redheads referenced throughout the text.  

Let’s look at another redhead who was glimpsed from the Wall—not the top mind you but you get the symbolism. This time it’s Jon who glimpses the woman and the redhead is Ygritte who he can’t bring himself to kill.

Follard never made a sound, only toppled forward headlong over the parapet. It was a hundred feet to the yard below. Jon heard the thump as he was peering round a straw soldier, trying to see where the arrow had come from. Not ten feet from Deaf Dick's body, he glimpsed a leather shield, a ragged cloak, a mop of thick red hair. Kissed by fire, he thought, lucky. He brought his bow up, but his fingers would not part, and she was gone as suddenly as she'd appeared. He swiveled, cursing, and loosed a shaft at the men on the armory roof instead, but he missed them as well.

A Storm of Swords - Jon VII

So many redheads being glimpse from afar!  If my theory that Jonquil and the corpse queen are indeed connected is a possibility, one must wonder what are the implications for Sansa, the most important redhead in the story proper.  

This is an important consideration because Old Nan tells Bran that the Night’s King was an ancient Stark.  If that’s true, might his corpse queen be a Stark ancestor as well—possibly even the original matriarch of the house.  The story of the Blue Winter Rose and a curious addition to one of the black and white drawings in Hedge Knight gives us a possible answer.

There is a rose lying on the ground in the corner of the drawing of Florian and Jonquil.  If you have read any of the Dunk and Egg novellas then you know that the drawings are very specific to the scenes. Also, Florian is said to have first glimpsed Jonquil at a pool and yet the scene seems to a wall with ramparts. Everything referenced in the drawings are described in the text—all except for this particular sketch of Florian and Jonquil.  There is no reference to a rose in the scene that accompanies the drawing and so one must wonder, why was it included.

Might it be a hint that Jonquil was the first Blue Winter Rose of House Stark?  I think that is quite possible. If this implication is correct, there are several questions that arises. Is there then some connection between Jonquil and the ancient Night’s King who like Florian, glimpsed his love from afar—a man Nan tells Bran was an ancient Stark? Is there some connection between her and Rose of Red Lake? What turned her "roadside rose” to one of the icy winter variety?  And finally, if Jonquil was indeed the corpse queen as you might have gathered I’m suggesting, does that mean Florian was the Night’s King? One must of course consider that possibility but it is also not necessarily the case and this is a topic that will come up again in a future chapter of the series.

I’m sure that some who read this will say that the possibility that Jonquil might have been the corpse queen is heresy and simply cannot be true as this figure was likely the mother of the Others.  To that I would say that while we won’t know for sure until the end of season 8 and quite likely will have to wait until the publication of the last two books for specific details, textural and show clues suggest this possibility is in play. I would also advise readers to think of HBO’s description of the upcoming series about the Long Night.

“Taking place thousands of years before the events of ‘Game of Thrones,’ the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’ history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend … it’s not the story we think we know.”

I would also suggest that you remember the story of Jaime, the Kingslayer. Everyone believes that he betrayed and killed his king in a power grab for his family. However, we the reader know that he did it to protect the people of Kings Landing from being burned alive by wildfire.  And so while the creation of the Others might seem as an evil act when viewed through the lens of history and the repercussions of said event, we don’t yet know the details of the story.

The possibility that Jonquil might have been the corpse queen is just one of the topics I will be discussing in more detail in the next chapter.  I’ll also be taking a look at the potential symbolic meaning of the name Jonquil. I’ve previously discussed its association with the flower but there is potentially a deeper meaning implied by the name.  Also up for discussion will be her and Florian’s connection to the Children of the Forest. I’ve previously stated that, they should always be seen as a pair.  And so even when only one is mentioned, I think it’s safe to assume that the other was part of tale.  

As an intro to the next discussion, I provide you with this excerpt of Jon’s memory of Old Nan’s tales of Florian. It occurs after he finds out that his father was killed and attempts to abandon the Night’s Watch and join Robb as he goes to war against the Lannisters.

Yet he saw the castle clear in his mind's eye, as if he had left it only yesterday; the towering granite walls, the Great Hall with its smells of smoke and dog and roasting meat, his father's solar, the turret room where he had slept. Part of him wanted nothing so much as to hear Bran laugh again, to sup on one of Gage's beef-and-bacon pies, to listen to Old Nan tell her tales of the children of the forest and Florian the Fool.

A Game of Thrones - Jon IX

Some will argue that Martin means to imply different tales about the Children and Florian. However, there is no comma after forest, which indicates that the two should not be seen independently.  It suggests that on different occasions, Nan told Jon some tales of the COTF “and” Florian. It does not mean that she told him two tales—one about the COTF and another of Florian the Fool.  And if Florian’s story is wrapped up with the legend of the COTF, the same is true of Jonquil’s tale.

Depending on the length of the next chapter, I may also discuss a little detailed that I stumbled upon.  Others may have discussed it previously in the fandom but as this is an essay series about Florian and Jonquil/Jon and Sansa, I will be discussing the possible implication for their arcs.  It might be especially important to Sansa’s storyline as she is currently in the Vale, the location of the previous event.

It turns out that just as there were two likely ancient redheaded women glimpsed from afar during the Dawn Age/Age of Heroes, there were also two ancient pacts.  As with the tale of the corpse queen and Jonquil, I think that these two pacts might be connected and quite possibly were one and the same. The first is obviously the one between the Children of the Forest and the First Men.  The second is one that I’ve referenced in previous essays and yet totally missed that Martin use of the word pact and as a result, the possible implication for the story.  

This second pact is reference in TWOIAF and while most of that tome were written by Elio and Linda from westeros.org, there are passages in the book that were specifically written by George.  I could be wrong and I’m sure that someone will correct me if I am wrong bu I think I read or heard somewhere that the sections written by George are the ones in panels or set of by rules above and below.  If true, it is very interesting that he wrote this about one of the Dawn Age daughters of Garth Greenhand.

Ellyn Ever Sweet, the girl who loved honey so much she sought out the King of the Bees in his vast mountain hive and made a pact with him, to care for his children and his children’s children for all time.  She was the first beekeeper, and the mother of House Beesbury.

TWOIAF, The Reach: Garth Greenhand

Was the pact between Ellyn and the King of the Bees who was most likely the Wing Knight of House Arryn connected to the one between the COTF and the First Men?  Is it possible that the two were one and the same?  It’s certainly an idea to consider and it’s one we will discuss in our next installment.

Edited on 12/8/19 to add a few details about Thomas Hardy and fix a couple of grammatical errors.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 7: Section 1

Part 7: Section 2

[long-live-the-castaways]

Bandito tour-Nashville

So this is later than usual but here it goes, my experience of the first show after Twenty One Pilots had been on hiatus for over a year.

Getting there:

So i had to work a closing shift that let out at 9:30 on monday but right after i booked it to get Kaylee and then we booked it to nashville. The drive was honestly great. It was so much better than the drive last month and me and K rolled the windows down and blasted Trench. It was so peaceful. Also,  if people heard some of the things we say out of context things would get very awkward.

The line:

wowowowow i actually missed camping out i hadnt done it since TDC. But we got there about 3am and it was so cold!!?!??! Kaylee ended up going to my car to sleep. So when we got there we set up her little brothers tent which was way to small for the both of us but we made it work. But like after 30 mins they moved the line and we were trying to get everything so we threw the stuff in the tent and just picked it up and shuffled our way. About 6am us and this dude named Ryan(?) went to starbucks. It was pretty chill the rest of the day i forgot the other dudes name but i painted his nails yellow and he let us have some duct tape so hes cool. And there were these people next to us that are my new best friends. Me and one of them went to get pizza for them and they let us have some. Despite me shivering the entire time i absolutely loved it. Me and Kaylee got 211 in line until they started scrunching for the show then we got 1163 i think? (163) im not sure how but it was really weird how they did everything. bUT bridgestone was super nice. There was a guy helping set the merch booth and when he saw how excited we were getting about the new merch he said "GA is gonna be blown away" and when they said that it wouldnt open till another 30 mins someone asked if we could still watch what was being put up and another guy said "of course!" then when we got in they made us all get in a line and told us that when we get in to sit down in our spot and they were gonna bring us water bc they didnt want anyone to pass out during the concert. It was so nice and every single one of the workers made it such a good experience for everyone. During the show they passed water around and made us waterfall it so other people could drink it too then near the end they just started handing out the bottles. Ive never seen an arena care so much it was amazing.

Max Frost:

What a dude! I had been listening to him for a tad before the concert in preparation but nothing could prepare me for how hyped he was. I didnt know he was doing everything so that was super cool to watch and uh Money Problems is my favorite and was so great live. Those high notes? He hit them. Love this guy and cant wait to see what the future holds for him.

Awolnation:

Um ok the guitarist didnt have to go THAT hard. i could lay on the ground and be at peace listening to them but i could also mosh like hell. They're super fucking good???? Like idk what i was expecting but they exceeded it. Really wanna go see them again...multiple times.

Twenty One Pilots:

Oh goodness i have so much to say. I didnt know that they could step their game up even more but they did. By a lot. This was my 10th concert and 2nd time seeing them and by far the best show i have ever seen. (Ive always loved fire so this next part is multiplied by like 986) the curtain dropped and it took me a second to see what was going on but when i did oh bOY. Josh was up there lookin like a fierce ass bandito holding a tORCH WITH FIRE. we were on his side second row (pretty much barricade)  so he was super close when he walked toward us i was yelling. tHEN I NOTICED TYLER coming up through the stage oN A BURNING CAR OKOKOKOK. I knew the burning car was gonna be there but that entrance??? Didnt have to be that amazing.but it was. During jumpsuit when all the flowers fell and some of the fans were throwing their own flowers to and it was so breath taking. The transition into levitate was better than anything i could ever do. I wasnt expecting him to do the death drop or go into the stands again but gUESS WHAT????? There are just so many moments and its so hard for me to put it all into words. NATN? My favorite song off the album? The one that means a lot to me? Him walking on a bridge through the crowd during it? I was gasping for air. Pet Cheetah? Incredible. Bandito? Beautiful. Neon Gravestones? Wow i love this song so much because its so raw and powerful and the fact that he put it on the setlist means he wants us to hear it. He wants us to LISTEN. Me and k were a mess. Of course it didnt help that it came right afteR MOTHER FUCKING TAXI CAB ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. You cant tell me for one second that this band does not listen to their fans. I cant believe i hears that song live wow. Leave the City was one of the songs on the record that i had trouble connecting with because i think i was trying to search to much into its meaning but seeing it live really just made it so special and i found the meaning of it, or at least what it means to me. WDBWOT was amazing as always and when we first yelled Yeah Yeah Yeah he was a little shook. He was not expecting. Idk what they were expecting this crowd to be like for the first show but you could tell by their smiles they were happy with how it played out. During Morph Tyler messed up and later called himself out on it but tbh we all did...we just kept singing with him and when he realized he messed up is when i did lmao and he also looked at josh and said Whoops and thats a whole ass mood. There are so many other moments that im sure im forgetting but if anything was taken away from this it was a little bit of love. Seeing everyone in yellow bandanas and duct tape, seeing myself in that, makes me feel fearless. I keep the term "they cant see yellow" very close to my heart. And i keep the term "east is up" even closer. Seeing everyone in yellow, and hearing everyone say that, none of us are alone. We all have each other's back. And tyler and josh? They have our backs too. Maybe not in such a personal way but they created this. All of it. They created something that has brought all of us together. They created something so interactive we truly feel like we area part of it. They tell the truth about fear and then they bring hope to life. They're Twenty One Pilots and we truly are too.

[shay-iamiam]

°Still| Part 4°

Pairings: Boxer! Bucky x reader

Warnings: Angst…Character death? 👀

A/N: We can hug after as usual. This part isn’t that long I’ll explain why the end. Thank you for reading! Feedback is greatly appreciated!

One more thing every medical related  reference in this part, well.. I got from Grey's Anatomy... 😂

Part 3

Masterlist

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Quietness.. it wrapped around you like a damp cold blanket.

You walked thru the ICU, preparing yourself for whatever came next. What if he didn’t want you there? What if he blamed his injuries on you? Was he even conscious?

Everything you thought you knew had changed in a matter of hours. Just this morning he held you tight in his warm embrace, and now… Well now you didn’t know if he would make it through the night.

The surgery had been rough according to his surgeon. There where a couple of complications that may lead to

"Memory loss inability to speak or understand language or mental confusion. Balance disorder, dizziness, fatigue, or vertigo."

He warned you that if Bucky did make it he may not be the same man you once knew.

You could hear the steady loues of heart monitors beeping around you. Your ears strained  like you could hear the one that belonged to him.

Everything was uncertain now

___________________

The ICU was strangely calm. The soft mummers of doctors and nurses were the only thing that could be heard besides the low beeps of heart monitors.

You hadn't had time to fully prepare for what you were about to endure. Sam coached you through a couple of breathing exercises, but nothing could settle your heart. Nothing but hearing his voice… it was the only thing that ever calmed you when things were hard.

Bucky's room was at the end of the hall, you could make out his form through the frosted glass windows of his room. You felt like you where a world away from him, but it was a mere ten feet that made you feel like you were suffocating.

Each step you took the faster your heart began to beat.

But you couldn't zone out, not now. Bucky needed you.

It was time to be strong for him the same way he had been for you. If he could tear his body in half, mentally and physically exhaust himself for days on end, all for the love of you.

You could fight back the tears in your eyes that desperately wanted to shed.

Before you were allowed to enter his room, one of his nurses gave you and Sam very clear rules to follow before and while you were in his room. 

“Wash your hands before entering his room. If anyone had any recent illnesses such as the flu, common cold or anything that could compromise his immune system not to enter his room while he was located in the ICU. And lastly, don't touch him or any of the equipment that is hooked up to him.”

Hooked up to him…

You knew he was in a medically induced coma to give his body time to heal. But you didn't know he was being kept alive by strange, wires, tubes and machines.

The love of your life was hooked up to machine's. Not breathing on his own.

The bright lights, the constant beeping of the heart monitors around you became to much.. You tried to prepare yourself. But there weren't enough breathing exercises in the world to calm your rapidly beating heart.

“Ms.Y/L/N, when your ready I'll lead you in. Only one at a time please.” You glanced back at Sam.

You took great comfort knowing he was going to be there. But you weren't prepared to go in alone.

“Alright that sounds fine could you give me a moment.”  You wiped your sweaty palms on the top of your jeans.

Sam had been mummering words of encouragement , telling you to breathe through this. He grabbed your hands trying to snap you out of the self debracting whole you had fallen it.

But the instenty of the moment was to much you felt like you couldn't do it, you felt like your world had ended. Just as it began.

You shook your head trying to snap yourself back into reality. You slipped your hands out of Sams grasb.

“I’ll be fine Sam, He’s been strong for me, it’s time I return the favor and be strong for him.“ You squeezed Sams hands one last time before you entered his room.

Bucky's nurse led you to his bedside as he checked and charted various things regarding his health.

The only thing you could do was stare. There were various tubes sticking from his body. He didn't look like your Bucky, he looked like someone who had been to hell and back.

This couldn't be real this had to be a dream. You would wake up in the morning with him by your side snoring softly. This was not real.

Sam came up behind you moving towards your hands “Don't… Sam just don't.” Your voice was shaky but stern. You couldn't deal with any pitty. Not now.

“Can you go find his nurse and ask him if we could speak.” Your gaze shifted from Bucky to Sam. You needed a moment alone with him.

“Yeah,Y/N I'll go find him and bring him in.”

Sam left the room quickly. You just needed about alone with him. It hadn't even been a full day since you've seen him but you were craving his presence.

You knelt down beside his bed, gently grasping his hand. He was cold. His skin was dull he looked like he aged a hundred years.

“Bucky… oh baby, what happened to you. What happen to us.” Your voice cracked with every word you spoke.  

“I wish you'd never fought.. I-I wish I never let you. I should have been more forceful. I should have made you stay home. What did I do.” You were now weeping by his bedside. Clinging on to he is hand for dear life.

He was it for you. He was everything

Sam and Bucky's nurse entered the room. You gathered yourself up off the floor and went out into the hallway.

There was one question that had to be asked. One you were avoiding, but it demanded an answer.

“Nurse Kelly, what comes next ?”

“Ms.Y/L/N, we should discuss after care. To make this next stage in his life as painless as possible.”  

Next Part 

______________________

Song that inspired this part : “Dusk Till Dawn Sia feat Zayn

A/N: So that happened 👀. I made this part a little shorter so the story would flow right. I hope y'all enjoyed this part. It was such a challenge writing   it. I was sort of iffy on this part ( I'm not that strong as a writer sometimes, but I'm getting there 😌)

Feedback is greatly appreciated! I love hearing from y'all.

[ladytrollfishes]

Inktober 15th, Message

Cresce Aubade | 7 sweeps, 16 years | Arkady | 2453 words | cw: age gap

----

Little Stan's has an open mic night every weekend and they make an excellent spiced cider so you and Peggio always go.

You've come often enough that the barista recognizes you when you walk in.

"Hey, Cress!"  she says, flashing you a smile and a little tinkle of pleasure. "You singing tonight?"

You laugh and toss your curls. "Not tonight," you say as you slide up to the counter to chat. "I can't sing every week! It'd take all the suspense out of it."

"Aww," she says, and leans conspiratorially over the counter. You oblige and lean over to meet her halfway. "Just so you know, you're the best regular that comes through here."

You cover your mouth and laugh, glancing back towards the small crowd of people that are already assembled by the stage, some of them tuning their guitars. "Well don't say it so loud!" you say. "We can't let them lose hope."

The barista throws her head back to laugh and you take the opening to glance at her name tag. Sephra. Cerulean. Just high enough that you can't affect her as well as the lowbloods. It's good to know that she still appreciates you musically, even without your voodoos.

"Well," she says. "I hear the last act for tonight is supposed to be some big surprise. Stick around till then, yeah?"

"Oh?" You raise an eyebrow. Sephra plucks a melody that's down right mischievous. "What is it?"

You glance back at Peggio, who just looks confused and shrugs, but he sounds nearly giddy. Whatever it is, he's in on it too. Honestly, he should really know better than to keep things secret from you by now. 

Sephra just puts a finger to her lips. "It's a secret!" she says, singsong.

"Oh come on, Sephra," you say. "Please?"

"Here's your cider," she says instead, and gives you a wink. You pout and pick up your mug.

"Don't worry about it so much," Peggio says, putting a hand on your back to steer you towards a seat near the stage. "All you have to do is wait to see what happens."

Little Stan's doesn't have much of a stage- It's little more than a raised step at one end of the lounge with just enough room for an upright piano, but it's a cozy setting for an intimate audience. It's furnished with wicker seats and quilted pillows thrown everywhere, with fairy lights strung around the ceiling for ambient lighting. There's maybe twenty people in the small room. People part for Peggio. Arkady's pretty highblooded but a seadweller is still worth getting out of the way for. He steers you to a bench with a quilt and bunch of cushions thrown onto it and you sit on a pile of cushions, to look at the stage and think.

Peggio's way too eager, and a little too nervous to be ignorant as to what this surprise is. You scan the audience and the performers- there's no one else here that he's close with. This last performance had to be Peggio. He's going to ask you to be his matesprit or just grace his unworthy self with a date or whatever. You'd be an idiot not to see his intentions. You've heard his desire, his jealousy, his possessiveness. You've noticed his sour notes of his petty spitefulness when you pull off a chord progression he can't quite manage, since he never practices, and he gets jealous when you go to practice the piano with Inneni, which he can't play. You've put up with it- he's the one who taught you guitar, you've got a soft spot for him- but you're not letting him claim any more of you than he's already had. You don't care if he's an adult seadweller now, if he thinks he can embarrass you into accepting a public proposal, you'll rip him a new one.

It's hard to pay attention to the performers now that you know what's coming. You cross your arms and knees and your foot bounces as you watch impatiently. There's a couple of singers, some spoken word and poetry, and one very enterprising and desperate mime, and as try as you might to relax and just enjoy it, most of the performances tonight aren't even very good.

Peggio puts an arm around your shoulder, anticipatory and you lean back into him to listen to what he has to say.

“Not exactly the best performances we’ve seen, eh?” he says and you roll your eyes.

“Definitely,” you say.

“I wonder what the big secret at the end is,” he lies. “I hope it’s good.” He’s an excellent liar- he’s Torrent, he should be, but at this range, his excitement just blares like a trumpet. You wonder again if he thinks you’re an idiot. He knows you can hear him.

Peggio excuses himself to go to the bathroom at the beginning of the second to last performance and you rearrange yourself on the cushions and roll your eyes. Wow, subtle.

You sit, agitated, through the final performance, a spoken word piece about Arkady’s frost reflecting the frost of their spurned love by a long faced blueblood, which maybe Peggio should take a few cues from.

“And finally,”  the MC says. “We have the final act of the night. A wonderful ode to a wonderful lady; Peggio!”

When he walks back in, he’s in a proper suit, with an indigo rose pinned to his lapels. He must have stowed his guitar in the back with the employees before you came because he’s holding it now.

“Good evening,” he says nodding around the room. “Today I have a song I wrote for a wonderful girl I know.”

He looks across the room and meets your eyes and nods. You can see people pulling out their phones to film this fiasco. Sephra steps around out of the bar with her phone out.

“Cress, this is for you.”

When he strums and starts walking across the room towards you, you know those chords. You absolutely know those chords. You wrote that refrain for a collab he wanted to do three perigees ago, when he wanted to write lyrics.

Now he was using it for this? Your face flushes bright indigo, but not from embarrassment as he opens up his mouth and sings.

“There’s a winter’s kiss in your eyes, but I just wanna hold you close.” He steps through the crowd, as people scramble to pull their legs out of the way. “There’s a frost bite to your lips, but they’re the things I want the most~”

You sink your face into your hands. Okay, now you’re embarrassed. You don’t look up until he kneels at your feet and moves into the bridge.

“I wanna touch you, I wanna hold you tight.” He smiles wide as you peek out from behind your hands. You’re going to kill him. You can hear how pleased he is. “You’re the morning frost and what a delicate sight!”

“Ooooh,” he warbles, “I just wanna hold you, hold you tight. The cold may bite, but the warmth of our touch is the light of my lifeee~”

He strums a few times then gets to his feet and gestures for you to head to the stage and you shake your head. He’s going to insist, and you’ll do it then, but only because it’s going to look better for you and worse for him in the aftermath. You’re right, he replays the few chords and bobbles up and down in an awkward parody of a dance.

“Come on, Cress,” he whispers.

“Peggio!” you exclaim.

“It’s not that bad, come on!”

You stand then, and step onto the stage so Peggio can finish his refrain to you, with your hands still covering your face.

“Your absence from my side is never gonna feel alright,” Peggio says. “I can’t just reminisce

Won’t you be my winter’s kiss~”

He leans behind the piano and pulls out a bouquet of the same indigo roses that he’s got pinned to his lapel, and he somehow manages to still sound hopeful as he holds out the bouquet towards.

“What do you say, Cress?” he asks. “Make it official? Be my matesprit?”

The room bursts into applause. You wait a beat for the noise to fade, then shake your head.

“Peggio, I’m so sorry,” you say. “I can’t.”

You haven’t broken his heart just yet- you hear a flare of jealousy.

“Is there someone else?” he says, “Is it Inneni?”

“No, no,” you say. “I just… never saw you like that. I’ve known you since I was a kid, but you look exactly the same. You were always more- more like a lusus figure.”

The audience breaks into an outroar- you hear shock, delight, the sour twang of schaudenfreude, an orchestra only you can hear. And that’s when you hear Peggio’s heart break, loud, disbelief, hurt, horror, and you press a hand to your mouth again, this time to hide the little vengeful smile that crawls onto your lips

“I’m so, so sorry, Peggio,” you say, and at least you still sound genuine. “I never meant to hurt you.”

The bouquet of indigo roses drops to the floor.

“B-but all the gifts and flowers,” he stammers. “I got you so much stuff. What about those earrings.”

He gestures to them now- you’re wearing his seventh wriggling day present, a pair of beautiful drop pendant earrings. Sapphire. Close to your hue, but not quite.

Your hands fly to your ears and you start to take them off.

“These?” you ask surprised. “Oh, Peggio, if I had known these were anything but a wriggling day present, I wouldn’t have taken it.” That’s a lie too, but that’s also something you’re better at than him. You hold them out to him.

“Oh, and that’s actually my song,” you say. “I’ll just take that back too.”

You actually see tears well up in his eyes as he snatches the earrings out of your hands and runs out the door. You cringe. He took that hard.

You turn to the crowd and give them a little wave.

“Hi, guys,” you say. “Sorry about that! It’s downer note on such a great evening, but there’s just no way to turn down a public proposal without it being awkward.” You tuck a curl of hair back behind your ear. “I know I said I wouldn’t perform tonight, but maybe I could do a song to make up for it?”

You lean forward to see if the MC approves, and they light up.

“Well!” they say. “I wouldn’t say no to that, would you guys?”

There’s a smattering of applause, as the audience holds their judgement until after you perform. You borrow a guitar and pick one of your older songs, and by the time you’re done, the audience is buzzing with pleasure. You smile, take your bows and applause and step off the stage.

“Woof,” you say, adjusting your coat as you turn to leave, approaching the bar again. Sephra looks sheepish and hands you another cider.

“It’s on the house,” she says. “Sorry, I didn’t know things were like that or I would have told you. You two always seemed so close!”

You sigh.

“It hurts, you know?” you say. “I had no idea he felt like that about me. And he taught me to play my first guitar. But this way he got the message.”

“Oof,” she says. “That’s rough.”

“Maybe we can still be friends,” you say. “But I kinda doubt it. Hey, can you send me the video you took of Peggio’s performance?”

“Why do you want it?” she asks, taking her phone out.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said that it was my song,” you say. “He put words to it but I never heard them till tonight so I’d like that, at least.”

“Well sure,” she says. “Give me your email.”

---

-- melodisingDiscourse [MD] began pestering islandMisslieness [IM]! --

MD: |𝄞 soooo well that was awkward. |

MD: |𝄞 you want to tell me what you were thinking? |

IM: fuck off I don’t want to talk to you.

IM: you know I was feelIng flushed, that’s your whole thIng.

IM: why the fuck dId you do that.

IM: you made me look like a fool.

MD: |𝄞 you really didn’t need the help tbh!! |

MD: |𝄞 i gave you those chords perigees ago and you use it for this? |

MD: |𝄞 and your lyrics weren’t even good. it sounded like a first draft. |

MD: |𝄞 and it’s not like you told me about making a public spectacle of your feelings either so i could tell you it was a bad idea. |

MD: |𝄞 i knew you were flushed, i didn’t think it’d get to that point. |

MD: |𝄞 i tolerated it because you were my friend. |

IM: but lIke a lusus? you had to say that In front of everyone?

MD: |𝄞 how else am i supposed to see you, Peggio? |

MD: |𝄞 you watched me grow up. |

IM: you won’t even own up to It, IncredIble.

IM: you’ve never cared about anythIng but your own musIc and what you want.

IM: you’re just selfIsh.

MD: |𝄞 oh and just in case you feel like throwing this in my face some day? |

MD: |𝄞 i have the video of what happened tonight. |

MD: |𝄞 i don’t think you want me to post it on Trollbook. |

IM: serIously??

IM: now you’re blackmaIlIng me?

IM: bItch.

MD: |𝄞 should have figured that one out before you proposed. |

-- islandMisslieness [IM] has blocked melodisingDiscourse [MD]! --

The computer beeps ominously as Peggio’s blocked message appears on your screen and you take a breath and sigh. You knew this was going to happen someday, but you don’t like the way it went down. It wasn’t like you didn’t care about him, but everyone knew he was a deadbeat and you’re not hooking yourself to that. Not to mention, if you had to listen to his whining jealousy every time you did something cool, you’d jump out a window.

Plus, if you had been gentler in turning him down, he could have pressed the issue or thrown the weight of his blood color around. You’ve had so many lessons on power balances and the many ways that breaking a relationship could go, bad and good, and from what you can see, this was the best way for you. A clean break and he was out, forever.

It still doesn’t feel great, to lose him though. You brush away a few tears and set to work on your song.

A week later, you upload Winter’s Kiss to your soundgrub and grin as the likes start pouring in.

[sogton]

Generic Poetry

Original: Darkest moon had soon forgot The utter danger of the Plot To answer call of Banshee Queen A heightened and a highly mien Servant of Shadows, Isabel Black Dark Grimalkin call the attack! As shadows whirl around thy head Fear me, I am Sogton Kottr, and I fly as one dead Her beauty dark as Winter's lace She touched you once and left no trace But still anon her footsteps fall In hidden valleys, mountains tall 'Tis the ice queen, you said That shatters souls and heals the dead The ice queen sitting on her frozen throne In halls of frost, no sun shone Yet still one man dared to challenge the queen Though his life, until now, was but a dream His ambitions even less Yet he saw the moonlight reflected in her pale tress Did you stop to judge the time With what reason or rhyme Did you come to these far flung shores Under a blood rime, with sea foam Disguising the treacherous rocks below This the ice queen said To the englishman Better to fly than die In icy roam Though the allure of the beauty and the beast was strong, lo Yet how could this adventurer resist the guile And slight smile, disguising the fury of the queen Such was his doom underneath the throne and light sheen. The ice queen imprisoned him, yet herself was bound With ring though nonphysical, still struck her round And love melted her accursed heart Yet could not entirely bind the art Of shadow, devilish magic Pagan shadows in the sick And eldritch dark She acquiesced to him Could she be grim? Under this amourous adventure The lure of green shores, and grass under hill Broke her out of her spell, And though uncertain, tarrying under the snow She came to knell And the thatched cottage of his home Shadowy still She bargained with goodness, helped the peasant and uplifted the half breed Yet the honeyed mead of her bargain seemed false And allayed by grief, she stole his life And became his wife Now Ragna Kottr For this was the ice queen's name Unhuman daughter Of sin, not flesh Rebelled against God And was caught in the mesh Of those who transgressed the Divine White hair, white raiment To cause the unbeautiful to lament She married John Westley, sailor Parlor magician, sometimes purveyor Of childish dream The glowing rainbow orbs of fairy tale Unfeasible, ephemeral, unsubstantial How such a man would have tamed the proverbial lion And gone From the comfort of England's green and pleasant land Sunny under fertile river band To the cold shores of island dreary No one knows, yet he was not weary And maintained the hand of the seductress in marriage Yet God had a plan Grim tidings yet nevertheless melt under the ban Of Heaven Such is what happened In England, the lovers made their home Yet from the early rebellion, the bone and flesh of humanities' transgression Was relieved by Jesus, and through fission Like that which the stars undergo, The force of goodness in Ragna's soul Formed humanistic nature The fool yet dreams of empirical power Domination of men in dark hour Yet Sogton Kottr cast aside such aspirations Living in Nippon, a frugal life Castle undecorated, free of imperial strife A simple black robe to match the sadness of her home Attended she was by lantern carrying mountain Gnomes The dark haired lady Sogton challenged the ice queen Out of jealousy, but not vanity, like the demon She cast down the London squallor, But was deposed by the englishman and his dread wife's palour. Now our tale comes to a close, as the Nymph rests imprisoned in the teapot. Yet not forgot. The Samurai wandering from the lands of feudal dominion Does not become the minion of his desires Yet stokes the fires Of nobility Strange certainty A generous mien, a wanderlust so deadly To those without the greed And desperate failure of lust But in God we trust At least, at the beginning Not all was evil then Some may say that none in the beginning was evil But when the Creator transpired that each being should give their all to art and music One great song before the fall, the Demon conspired To bring the Sephirot down A clown Yet still noble, would end up redeeming humanity. Come and see If anyone dares to pursue the rhyme to it's just end Lend aid And give the thirst land it's due sacrifice in newborn seed laid To growth If a moat bridge Was built on sand, it would fail And so the witch Ragna Kottr, Though could control hail and cold Yet had no idea of good's power for defeating the old And sending the rot to rack and ruin Still imprisoned in a teapot, the Light Sprite made a ploy To destroy the bind with eldrich abomination Manipulated for good For even the ugly shall avoid damnation, though bound in dark Away from the light, but not evil She suffered the blight, to make the ill witch pay. The day broke. John thought Sogton saved them, when really a cunning ploy Sending the assassin to a vain threat, inconsequential Met with trivial acting A emotionless play So putting forth a small fraction of the powers The flower Of youth and holy vengeance Sogton Kottr, Divine Fooled the fearful englishman into adding her to his party Not smart For Ragna, Yet hearty in the eyes of the wise The trio was amended Some ragged band of adventurers, lended To grand pursuits, a man who wanted the best for his country And two sisters at each other's throats Knife in knife, parry for parry, without heraldry or pomp But John was oblivious to this Not envious, he could not comprehend evil Until it was at his doorstep And it was not Not yet. The last chapter of our adventure unfolds at a manor In the woods Shadowy, of ancient built When the Romans still roamed Britain's isles Ragna had her fill of shadow She would strike soon Yet the doom of Sogton was not vanquished just yet. Ragna struck, claws outstretched Yet with luck John turned around and stabbed the witch And she died, in spirit, if her physical body could not be vanquished. Yet spiritually she was still present. Until Sogton manipulated time. The past was restored. And our rhyme ends on the western ocean. Like the legendary tale The pair set sail To greener pastures Under a sun that was glowing. Sakura Blossom falleth oh Cruel Woe, Cruel Woe As soul of weary Wanderer to the Otherworld doth go The Golden Tether breaketh and the chain shatters like glass As soul of weary Wanderer to the Otherworld doth pass His soul alights on Fuji san and knows not where to go With aching heart he hears the call of those trapped down below Of Barrow Gnome, and Lonesome Elf, with lanterns bright up the mountain In pitch black night they walk, while below, the Sun shines on the plain Past Tori shrine and uttering rhyme he leaves an offering And finally at Mass he came to grass where Nightingale doth sing With aching heart he passion asks the Spirits gathered there If any Kami ever saw a Girl with Snow White Hair? Then Kitsune comes, to perilously lead the chase And pursue Ragna through the wrack and the waste With regal mien the White Sorceress dwells by Willow Tree And fast meandering River brings the Naiads free The Raven, Amaterasu's Eye, watches the fields with red gleam And as he spies, utters a cry, to below the Moon Sheen The Wanderer Comes to this Sacred Site And with Sign and signet and sapphire performs the Sacred Rite And at last the Mist parts And Kitsune leads him up a Hill to vanish with a pure heart And John meets his Goddess Not the less, does Ragna Blush, and twist her hands, with courteous White bands Her heart pines, and not like the cruel rime Was the place, yet blessed in Strands Of Divinity. Now with surety, John approaches her,  And with Mist, she could not resist, the leaves parted, They kissed. Folk: Excalibur, The blade was forged in water sweet And hot in realms where flagons flowed with mead And dreaming damsels had some Faerie Magic While tempestuous seeking psychic Roamed over the forest emerald and tourmaline The fresh clean white tabbard, the ringing sound of the tambourine The drum beat rapt a military tune In pleasing dells, the horn and flute brayed till noon And the evening fell with hot caress on the pastures quaint And night yet beautiful the stars illuminate The realm of Arthur's home, free from Taint The Quest For The Grail was set! Excalibur, Oh Excalibur! Shall I fain discard this haliberd? And have I failed the bet? The drumbeats of war no longer soothe my heart And peace calls to me in the song of Bard Yet I cannot subside and rest Vengeance calls me hence! Shall I ever see the white walls of Camelot In ravenous glee? Or with jovial Mordred, forget the plot? Gram, Arondight Half light Such Arthur's bane was The blade of the King Saint sanctum Laundsalin With tempered steel and moon silver it was forged A blade to rival Elementium's cursed lores And dark to subdue the murmuring of Elves And fairy Hobgoblins in desolate shelves The ice forms around the huddled leaves in glade Shading around like frightened maidens in pallourous afraid The design of Shadowy Ghouls and intelligent princes The Blade Was forged by witches, And succinct Demons, kind of Lich And All Soul's Night is saved We pray to you, King Lancelot And Mordred too, with Dark Sheen Thy noble Arms is not forgot We pray thee, Grace Our Halloween Viking Sunset In burdened perfection Our burning inflection of regal splendor Waves crash against the shore of our ferric and fearsome dragon ships As we reach the siege of seas Tell me wise man once you left the farmland meadows Was God and Glory hiding in the shadows? was there anything waiting in treasure or compensation as you stared at the stareless and blank oppression at subjugation of the vast encircling dark? Hark At the end of the world The Jormungand Jaws turn around our screaming vessels The elves wait with vipers engulfed with the rapture of boiling magma, black ambrosia Sundown has come on the wailing and lashes of mortals that fend and impartially perish in the cold dark Loki alighted on Svartalfheim Brash, black, busy buildings Cutting through the air like a frosty magic spire Challenging the grace of God A dismal prospect in the rime ocean Such was the grace in those times A hard life, given only to those worthy, and with good will Yet much was holy and soothing about then, and those that lived through evil conquered the weakness The Vikings knew the sadistic style of Sigurd Now Loki had travelled through the mists of Niflheim to get there Musing not, more morose was his bane in the frost fire of the arcane Void, Where not much lived, and he would be hard pressed Living through the rapid transformations and tests of the Primal Realm thusly Destroyed in body and mind, though not in spirit. Loki endured this. And as a damsel in distress, a dastardly graceful dame, dressed in elegance, with decorum abound, virtuous if wicked, and containing an evil heart yet smiling countenance, thus Loki orange corseted attained the corsairs of Svartalfheim The Dark Elves there were brash, but eager to serve the Tyrant, and with cherries and wrath she was fed, and attained in her throne, and nursed back to something resembling health. But her face, recovering illsomely from the serpent's Venom, distorted and became disfixed in the eternal stream of time. It was a monstrous array of color and rainbow light, and mercuriously shifted like some pouring poison to the confine. Ragna, as we shall call her now, for she took a name of revenge and damned resolution, pridefully angry stood, and slapped the hame of the Doctor. "Grant me alms!" she screamed, and her Banshee shriek was soon obeyed. Now Linsom Lauflett, the slave and bellows master, told the thralls to brutally heat the magma, having necessary cauterizing properties even for God Venom. Loki was placed on a bench, stone carved the table was, and the heat steamed from the fire of the lake which coldly rested above the vulcanous mountain that led to the cavern of the Elves. Ragna screamed as the fire magma dropped on her and redressed her face in a symphony of pain, and she convulsed like one half mad with visions of grandeur. Phantoms came to her, and she began to walk like one half incensed in a fantasy. The spirits were darkly conquered, however, and the magma solidified into a mask, forged into a clown smile by her indomitable spirit. The danger was through. She rose triumphant, a dawn of man and Beast, this Godtrivested part responding to her eternal domination of the mortal races. Artemis Star Bow Vanquisher of the dark below Thy eyes contain sweetness The dew of the earth, is a cascade of river on thy illustrious halo The triumph of man The conquiesence of a conception of dignity The Trinity Reflected in thy light The return of Gods and Giants and Demons full bright A sad array of abandonment for the parched fallen Earth Too many failures lay in that dark dirt Thy hair, is a band that circles around the entire plane A uniting of ends, the Jormungand serpent eating its tail A sign of stability in Midgard And Beyond To the greater Stars that sit on the gate of the Elder Dark A sad and stark reminder OF RESTITUTION The dissolution of mortal binds A rhyme, to pierce even the chaos within the river of Andromeda And the song of Philomela, echos to the Divine In this clime, not much sits, but ever flows, In increasing heat, as Dante knew Until how tempered and beat like gold he returned to the eternal New Dawn. A triumph of humanity. With clarity, to analyze events. He saw Diana bathing in the vents and hot geysers of the Greek Arcadian peek And with a sleek look, was caught in her wiles, and devoured by dogs Necessary of penetrating the fog of human indecency Such a pennant monk thou hast never seen in the penitentiary Or Rosary, of Indus monk, who nurses on Ram's knee and Sita's breast Far removed, but still containing the glory of the West So Kipling mused while in field of guns, amid a sulfur cloud And even the darkest evil always passes by when Angel shroud Illuminates the plain. Be with me, Queen, and I shall tolerate pain. Now in that bright City Where knows know sadness, nor gloomy pity Related the call of Giants and the Horn of Sylphs With deep births, their dominance over the mortal races was unchallenged With Queenly garland, their Kingdom uncommon Rose to compete with the heights of Heaven Their bronze City competed with even Olympus And the Thunderer was brashly impressed Not such a glory Has occurred since the Heathen Kings Of Atlantis in the West Who worshiped Christ though they knew not his face And were the only ones in Limbo saved Praise be to the Glory The resounding Allfather, that Pity, and Judgement Of sin, not a gentle hand, but resounding fire that refines and burns away impurity Devoutly to be wished Sister, can though comprehendest the tale? So with Sail. Earendil, desperate Mariner Beseeched the Valar for Salvation But few was given, for they were wrought by Melkor And the evil that well deep poisoned the dawn of Creation in the Gigantomachy That slaying of kith and kin that poisoned the world Enoch speaks of it, When he allayed in Mesopotamia Of the fallen Angels, and those deceitful kind Who poisoned the minds of Genius Gloria, was far gone Yet not forgotten Enoch still had wisdom enough to measure the circumference of the world When fools talk of conspiracy deep, and decry the Ice Wall, that division of Heavenly Rule and earthly desire, they hit close to the fact Yet with tact they have not, they would do well to remember the words of Milton, as he describes Mic'hael, talking to Adamas as he searches in the tree Reading the books, the sacred note, that scroll winding through the Garden of Eden Free he was, though far fallen And in time he would come to repent of his transgression, become good again. That was not now. "Turn away from misdeed, Adam, what reason do thy have to examine the Stars? Turn away from needless speculation, the Heavens are not thy to understand, and instead work on improving the race of mortals on earth. The planets are not yours to will, the movement of them is Eternal." so those lost, and ephemeral Flat Earthers, would do well to remember the will of God. We shall go back to Enoch. The King, knew of the demise of the Earth And how the Giants were rebelling So with thought spelling He turned to Jesus He was on the world in those days A king with Sapphirical stone A halo shrouded his appearance, his limbs were wan And gave the appearance of one not human The earthly races would do well to remember that he is not on of their kind Although Man Made in his image Have some terror before a superior mind Fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom Jesus said thus "Behold, Enoch, the extent of my rule." And he showed him the far Earth, The Angels, with their multiple eyes and fast wings and cutting angles, amid a substance translucent, a mineral neither gem nor firmament, but one containing transmorphic powers: the wheel span, fire was below. Now in the face of these mind crushing Abominable, the parasites that fed on human will, Enoch may have quavered, but he was strong. He saw the sky beyond, and realized that it was dark, yet stone and life still grew near the mark, minerals silver and red and adamantite, a bright and fell green fire was on the white. He moved on to the Ice Wall, where death was, not even Fingolfin could come to the end of the World, without suffering great terror, this was why the Eldritch Abominants dominated the world, and the Crossing was so perilous. In Denigrous, and pale transition, the realm of Hell crossed into mortal splendor. Mark now, Reader, how the world was not separate, nor a hallow sphere, but a deeper dark expanse, ranging on Parallel Planes, this eternal Interdimensional dance, was transcribed in legend, but most ignored it. The bleed was evident, Spectres sat on the realm of human, and fed on their Souls, the alchemists seemed not to care. The stare of death was upon them. Now with desperate prayer, Enoch turned to Jesus. The Lord, in infinite mercy sent an army to help him. The Giants were rebelling, and the Angels descended and curtailed the revolt. With much blood was the field won and spilled red. Ragna bound and at that time serving Jesus rejoiced at the slaughter, although the seeds of this envy would copulate throughout the Ages, and Lucifer would revolt. Female insight and necessary expansion was always thus. Now, the plight solved, yet many ill humans still relented. For the Giants were sealed, but the teachings of bad Angels remained, and Augury was high, Science turned to sin. With the within caverns, ancient information was sealed, with gold walls, although the information would be later ignored, yet God would still give men the chance to save themselves, thus was his Mercy wont. Now a great flood was set upon the world, and we shall return to No'a, or Gilgamesh, as he was known. This mortal, would save humanity. Jesus grace the masses, Thus we relate the tale of the Garden of Eden. Eve transgressed, and ate the forbidden fruit, And for that much good was done But she also suffered And evil was allowed to creep into the world So mortals would do well to veer away from Telperion's boughs And Laurelin's cursed sap, will make Humans venomously bleed, and transform, though with heavy regret and much convulsion Let not the repulsion allay you from following the path of Good. Eve was cursed and then became known as Lilith, and thou knowst the tale How she was eternal animous to Sogton Kottr, as well as her darker more resonant and familiar personality, Astarte That sacrificer of innocent, murderer of children, in Hedonistic Uruk She was a breeder of Orcs and Hobgoblins in heated depths The breadth of her transgression was not Known to Her Long would she suffer And in the End, justly so. Let us return to the harrowing of Good in Anatolia John Westley, a King in those days Built the gates of Uruk Before it was turned to evil Wise was he wrought, and crafted the bars out of True Silver Not yet Oricalc, For Atlantis had died. Ragna had alloyed with Aztec sacrificial mask And killed everyone inside Then burned the bodies on the pyre of Satanism Though she was not as evil as Astarte, she did not kill children They drowned, and came to the Kingdom, and Jesus saved them. Thus is related in the Atlantiad. John Westley, calling himself Gilgamesh Built the walls sturdy, beyond mere bricks But polymers of steel, and technological innovation Was high, though the lying scholars of false study want you to believe not learned And unintellectual cretins built the gates with chisels and dust How could Egyptians move the Obelisks? Perpetual fools. The ramparts were laden with iron, Of garlands were the houses decorated A stone was on the welcome step Vast clean streets held a variety of commerce The bazaar was always laden with silk And fruits juicy with melons that dripped water Although perfectly ripe Such a glorious paradise Has never been on Earth since the Telemacy And Arcadia Now the King ruled supreme But Astarte had plans for him, And turned him to corruption It started with prostitutes, And before long he was Hedonistically crumbled and fell to Rejection And renounced the religion of Innana Ragna for her part turned to vengeance And made the clay man Enkidu to subdue him Breathing her own breath into the Wild man, like Odin of old Greater than any gold were his manly primitive treasures Leather and waste, a strong rope, his hands instead of a bare sword The idealism of the country was on Enkidu And like Charles went to comfort John in his trip to Svalbard Years later The bards, weakened the pride of the king and turned him to gentle dreams once more Enkidu then taught him the ways of war, and for the first time drew blade Though despising violence There was nothing ill in slaying savages The glade Of Lebanon was their target The pines were the rarest in the world And they slayn the Etin Ubaba That large hybrid Which inspired the speculation of Bigfoot [No Nephilim was he, cursed be to America] in later Lays. The Days drawn on in bliss. But the flood was coming. And Astarte cruelly slain Enkidu. As the water raged through the city Through Gilgamesh's knees He saw that a part of it was slight stained with Wild man's blood And coldly cried to the wind. He then took his beloved's body, and buried it in Sky Palace, and his grave remained above the waters, like the Lone Island of Beleriand. Gilgamesh journeyed to the shore of Israel, and saw the stars spin They wheeled unnaturally in phosphorescent agony There was deep trauma, illness in the Universe He sought the Old Man how to rectify it But was told "Look within thyself" Then Gilgamesh learned from Inanna, And saw her hut And saw that humility was the best respite from the burdens of Demoniacal destruction With locomotion he built a Boat, and took the fruit of the Gods To Elvenhome, and withsustained the legacy And the immortal blood was not shed And he was in bliss, until the Slave of Sogton, that Snake Mephistopheles', sadistically stole the Fruit, and brought about the Race of Dagon So two beings, Dragon and Elves, divided Domination of the Earth As Sogton and Ragna divided the Heavens. Yet dark came upon the deep. The race of Man was doomed, for they were rude, and died alone, and no one cared about their death Thus saith the Lord. Tolkien: Part I: The Death Of Lailath Oh Muse, sing not of pleasant times Field with tended grass, soup under a fire, handmaid red dressed, gold shiefs of barley waving in the wind This is not my intent. Instead, sing of violent war, the tempestuous rage within man, the conflict unceasing, yieldless pride and incessant chattering, which leads to blades. This is what happened in Beleriand long ago, as the house of Gil Galad, long suffering and held in bright weariness, attested. In Western Lands beneath the Sun, Where clear the Nor'land waters run In mingled light of silver gold Where Valar slept in days of old Until Morgoth, relenting Destroyed the Twin Trees, and caused all woe to plague this earth Yet a slight venting For Redemption was possible, through Christ, and Men alone for Elves eternal beyond death and rebirth. In Mandos suffering lies, But the Race of Men can redeem themselves, in due time. Thus was the subject of our epic poem. Turambar dwelt in a glade, a simple ranger No stranger to toil or danger Yet a kind heart, he did not let his grief overcome his part In the Glorious Honorable play Which forged the world. Morgoth turned an eye evil towards this light, dark gathered And battered, Turambar was tested Still, in the West. Now Delu Morgoth doth attest To wicked deeds, though was once blessed But never baser crime he done, than slain the daughter of the Sun, and Moon Too soon, was this taken from our noble isles The wiles of Morgoth were intense Though past tense, thankfully he is banished beyond eternal Night Still strife, and pestilence extreme, plagued the lands In Hithlum, by Godly hand, was fire started Mist boiled, water turned to steam But the elves resisted. The strength of Fingolfin was on these lands, though he is long since dead A legend to fade in the light of the moon What a Godhead His fairness knew no bounds, and compassion abundant Blonde curles allayed his head But his descendants were fraught with redundants, and dunces, mostly because of strife with the sons of Feanor Who was a brute, although abhorred evil Such is the scene for Morgoth's second greatest crime, The unleashing of poison And fell smoke, black as death in Northern Clime He unleashed this on the Noldor, and struck Humans For he despised the Race of Man even though they were weak And harmless to him, they feared him, but he feared the power of their speak To this end he intended to obliterate the bands And brigands of roving adventurers. Turambar's sister, Lailath, was consumed She sickened, and in hot fever was doomed Cursed be Morgoth for this transgression. So, with hands cursed from the sickbed, Illness breeding, and not much hope in light and farmstead Turambar undertakes a journey East and South To mouth of Ossiriand, and wonder forest in Doriath But first he stops by the grave of his sister With aching heart he missed her, but knew he could not bring her back Men were fated to suffer for Mandos cold was grim and cruel The Reaper does not suffer fools. He forges the sign of the cross Made a cross of ash to stand above the grave and the grass And never be inviolate, though in death For Morgoth was a failure And Turambar cursed Shadow with his last breath. Part II: Turambar's Stay In Doriath Now Turambar travelled through the forest, many rocky climes, rivers fast which almost undertook him, the way was grim But thankfully the blessing of Ulmo allayed him, Who had not abandoned Middle Earth Although Manwe tried to convince him of the dangers of death, and disease to be found in the dim That possessed Mortals and Immortals alike with Demon in the Scattered Lands It was a strange time, those immense shattered deserts And forests, they were mixed light and dark, to dwell in the sorrow of Damnation from God Such a bleak future was almost unable to be mentioned. So Turambar was guided to Doriath, and safely came under the watchful gaze of King Thingol, and Mel'ian spied on him from her crystal ball. It must be paused here reader to display the politics of the Kingdom. Although egalitarian, an Eden on Earth, there was much Tyranny and distrust from the Elves. King Thingol was a Tyrant Kindly, but not all displayed this will to rule benevolently, and many fell to violence. Saeros was one of these vile folk. Under yoke of Melkor he was not But forgot the beauty of the realm. He hated men. So began Turambar to approach the palace. So we must describe the forest's splendor, although wickedness hung above it like a pall And Mel'ian's leaves, although glorious, were dark and droll. Like a sickly sweet Christmas cake. The baker was an unstable man. Saeros' malice followed Turambar, although he was not permitted to be killed And no blood would spill Doriath, until the Dwarves in their realm were culled But this was by Beren and Luthien A noble massacre, a slaughter of thieves and dirt and assassins. Thankfully we do not have to get into this sin yet. Turambar was accepted by the King, and under Angel's wing, was nourished and nurtured by glorious Mel'ian. He flourished, under her hand. A compassionate and emotional young man, he learned from great scholars, but could not stay for long. Dread doom was upon him. So with aching heart he turned to the King's feast. Thingol raised a glass, but Saeros with an ass, compared it to Turambar. The beast was distraught, for Saeros' cruel whip had made it wrought, but Turambar was quite righteous about this animal cruelty. Taking up a goblet, he smashed Saeros' gullet, and killed him, sending him below the sea into the Halls of Mandos. Such was well deserved on his part. The Heavens glorioused, but such an ill of spilling blood in Doriath, although it was immortal blood and not evil, was not to be forgiven easily. Thingol banished Turambar with a heavy heart, but repented half way though the march, and sent a letter to him. It was too late. Turambar knew the King's intent, but was going to kill con men. Part III: The Outlaws Turambar ranged onthrough the thicket, with brambles the whole thing was a shambles, outside the Range of Mel'ian's Girdle and resembling the forest in it's original primal despondency. The liturgy of literature and wealth of stories on the savagery of the forest is well known, handling Dinosaurs in ancient days, while lays of minstrels and dragons were sung. It is not a fairy tale of modern hippie, although many will say that Mel'ian's magic was the responsible force for this damn distillation, and thus is true, although is not as nurturing as thou might hope and Elves are fey and Death Dealing, a Doom for Pagan Rites. With blades they cut the shadows, so Turambar, waddling in the part pitch of the shallows, of a stream, was assailed by the Elves' artistry in their primitive habitat. With mat of fur he spent the night, and in the morning was assailed by bright and cold. Such was the wild. Turambar came to a mountain, not one to give up, hardy as his foes and twice as noble and rough. But even he could not assail the glade, it resisted him with thorn and flax. As Shadowfax, in Gandalf's times, was a messenger of Heaven, so Turambar's salvation was from a rhyme. He heard song in the dark. It was Beleg's voice, penetrating the mark. "Elbereth we sing of thee Those who wander under trees And shadowy in lost and gloom But still we remember the tune Though Abandoned by God, we are not lost We trust in Holy Crusade and the Cross" So Turambar agreed with. But he had to continue. With dark trees, he made for shelter. It was not long until outlaws and brigands in the trees he saw. They killed one another, rough, base. It was not enough to coexist in peace and comradery, the race of nature would not allow such weakness. With blessed eyes, Turambar exhumed the scene. It was some teens, paltry but emotional things, setting up camp against some invaders. So mean Turambar sliced the foes, and sent them hurrying, many he sent to Mandos, where they would be saved by God but kept outside his nourishing rays. In elder days, mercy was given, but Turambar pulled a blade on the children. The teens were Outlaws, wicked and immoral, but contained some noble virtue and were beautiful. They were of the lesser class, whom Scientists deemed inferior and Racists perverted into a subworth nature, although this was false, it was based on observation. So Eastern man has often done strife. Although justified, he came under ire of luxurious whites, and moralists basking in hypocrisy chastised. We must ignore politics for now. Turambar was ready to kill them, fearing his life, but seeing their happiness repented in emotion. Sentimentality came over him, but he was not entirely overcome with fool, he maintained a warning against those who would betray him, friends and Outlaws too. But he fed them stew. Outlaws embraced him as brother, and Turambar with joy acquiesced, returning their compassion, and he joined the crew. Part V: Turin In Nargothrond Now Turin was overcome by grief, by grief Turambar besieged, and spent many hours mourning the Death Of Beleg. This is when he abandoned his friends and turned to the mountains, returning to his home in Hithlum. The road was long, and many evils besieged him there, like the ill ghoul that dwells in the wells of the ravine stream, and the mountain trolls which were large like the size of pines. Our adventurer was greeted by his old home in Hithlum, covered in snow. Many winds flurried, his eyes were blinded by frost. But for naught, was his visit, for he could not find his mother Morwen, and again was lost to the ice. Yet another vengeance spurned his mind. He met several Easterlings, Asian Kings, Oriental Lords of the Realm. They had sold his family into slavery, and he killed the underling of Morgoth, a tan Lao Feng, who died with a tobacco wand staining his yellow teeth. The eyes bulged, and a pool of blood, overcame the slaves, who fled to the mud. Turambar mowed them down. No mercy was given to the Outlaw defilers of his treasure and kin, and with no sin was this evil committed. Yet Turambar still repented, for he had lost valuable time. He almost died in the rime, and at length came to Nargothrond, where he was rescued. The Elves of this Stone City, guarded by moat and taking boat on the river, were the Greatest warriors in Beleriand. Not since Fingolfin have we seen a ruler as genius as Felagund, who with rod, instructed the noble force of the Valar's army. He was Fingolfin's cousin, and quite the charming man. Alas, this could not last. Turambar's visitation spelt Doom for the Elves of Nargothrond, for Gurthang plotted to bring the City to the ground, such was the evil within the blade that passed on to Turambar's mind. Turambar became a mighty King, and had a black mask made from obsidian and molten lava, with emerald gems in its sockets, and was a horror to behold. The Dwarves called him Death Knight, and he slayed friend and foe alike, and was rumored to be unkillable saved for an arrow. Within the City, Turin fell in love with Finduilas, an Elf. He was not to be content with her self, though, for his eyes turned to other methods than peace, and in the east, he was going to sin with his sister, a King overturned like Oedipus to incest and strange danger. The story came to an abrupt war, for Glaurung the Red Dragon Emerged from the burrows. In fire he came, a Wyrm, quite wingless and large, with eyes that burned with alchemy that could petrify his foes, or trap them in a dark illusion. Such was his talent. Chapter VI: Glaurung The Dragon Now Turin had some intelligence with him, and sealed the blade with iron, but the irony of his fate could not escape him despite how self aware he was. Finduilas became his love, and noble love it was, yet love is often self destructive. We should aim above paltry emotions and wit, and save the Divine Grace of Spirit for viewing who we admire, not petty Altruism. Now, the battle began. An army of Orcs came from the North, and the City was besieged, fire coming to the thatched bazaars. It was bizarre, but no Dragon yet came from the burrow, for Glaurung was biding his time. Such a rhyme he had and rhythm that he could confuse mortals merely by talking to them. Turin was no fool, and had Countenance Divine, but even he could not resist the Dragon's wiles. Fafnir plotted. The blade, Gurthang, allotted sentience, a noble Demon, although corrupting and cruel, shifted in its sheath, hungry for Dragon's blood. The Mephistopheles would not escape with ease, however, for Turin had bound the sheath in runes, and the struggle was futile, although did empower the Iron Of Death with breath of corruption. Turambar went to war. With a swing of his blade, Mormegil decapitated twelve Orcs, for the Gurthang's energy was long, and could spit lightning as easily as it spit emotional distress. The battle bridge became a vortex of wind and storm, and Turin became the first to utter the command to lower the gate. Foolhardy was this, and too late. Fafnir emerged from his burrow, and immolated several of his own crew, being hungry. The Dragon emerged into the dawn, and unlike other Wyrms of his genes, was not harmed by the light, or burned in his pale skin. Therin was a shadow curse of Morgoth, having bred immortals into the Dragon's flesh, and created a creature that was neither Beast nor Intellectual, but something greater than either. Terrifying was he. Glauring, Master of Fire and ruler of land and sea, immolated the town, steaming the water and leaving the parched grass brown. He then dislimbed several fighters, and with claw and spike tail he mightily dispatched the protective bulwark. Turin went out to fight him. "Hail, Turin son of Hurin Thalion" he uttered. "Well met, although thy father will curse the day your face comes to him in dark dream from the dregs he is imprisoned in. Repent!" The words, although Turin saw through them, hit their mark, and Turambar relented. The hesitation was enough for Glauring to make his move. "Thy mother goes in rags. Tarry for her, and thou shall not be able to save Finduilas, whom thou lovest. I am Fafnir. Marvel at my cruelty." Fafnir took a claw and snared Finduilas, who was flung from a window by an Orc. Thus Turambar was ensnared, either choice having an element of failure. He cried, and upon seeing Finduilas brutally treated he swung his blade widely, enough for Fafnir to easily dodge. The scales were hard enough to break iron, and even Gurthang had a hard time for it. In a moment of selflessness, Gurthang whispered harsh to Turambar. "Do not look at his eyes." Too late. Turambar was lost, and gazing in the emeralds wished himself dead. Even worse was the shame from his father. He collapsed. Glaurung retreated. The battle was won, Nargothrond burned. Part VII: Turambar And Niniel Turambar emerged from his stupor, his memory gone, his thoughts a blurr, but gradually remembered the events that took place as he foolishly lay in misery and some half noble idea of valour. "Thy idiot," Gurthang said, "You are a weak Lord and she is gone. I would be much better off with some type of indignant simpleton hero, rather than a betrayer of kin, Sigurd the Volsung." So the sin hit Turin. Like a pall, he realized that he had to rescue Finduilas, but fate was not so kind. For Sigurd, Turambar, Mormegil, Turin, Beowulf, was a weak King, with the moral certainty of a mortal that wavered like a feather in the breeze. He would easily leave Finduilas his lover to death if it meant saving his mother, whom selfishness dictated saving, although they were quite unlike in temperment and Turin never got along with her. And his sister, that was who would truly confound him off the Godly path, but not due to ties of family, but a perverse love which matched his own cruelty and desire for dominance. He was fated for Niniel, and the last front came to be which would put Man against Deity and the virtues of morality against the sin of Hedonistic God. So Turin crashed through the plain, and eventually came to a small town. He met a man, Brandir, who took him in, but also saw Niniel. He fell in love with her instantly, and not all was evil, for it was the greatest love of mortal Men. God allayed that man should love and all love be good, but incest he did not allow to be, and even normal sexual relations were sinful because they distracted from the mind. Therefore, though Turin was pure of heart and Niniel willing, they committed the greatest sin of humanity, but it was not all his deceit, Morgoth was responsible for this. Ever since he killed the Two Trees, evil came into the world, and all wicked ill was his responsible for through his intentional malice and wrongdoing. Therefore Niniel and Turambar would be forgiven of transgression, and celebrate in Heaven. First, the conflict therein. Brandir was jealous, and with distrust he viewed Turambar as an usurper, for he loved Niniel. Not without reason, for Turambar was a fraud, and with vainly regarded word Brandir tried to convince the council that Turambar was evil and implored them to serve God. Turambar was ready to smite Brandir there, but restrained himself. In dark of the night he and Niniel kissed, and became some of the most hated individuals in history. But also the most loved. Glauring gleamed in a cavern. He had expected this. With impassionate heart he impaled Finduilas on a spike on a tree and gave the signal to lead a path for Turambar to follow her. The Wyrm smiled. Everything was going exactly as it should. Part VIII: Dragonsbane Turin came to the clearing, having followed Orc tracks and drearily packed the tools necessary for high hunting, following the clear signs of Orc attack. Gurthang warned him it was a trap, but Turambar did not listen, disliking the Iron of Death, but also pride confused him and far under the ills of Glaurung's spell, he ached for Finduilas. To make sure she was safe, although he did not value her much, but some love still remained in his heart. This part was the hardest. He cut his foot on a thorn plant, and the blood, which was spelled  to deter any form of danger, was touched by a single leaf, making that spot on the foot weak. The shadows gathered around tall pine trees. Glaurung saw this, and gloated. With ease he came to the burial sight of Finduilas, where she was Crucified like the Christ, arms spread wide like an eternal Angel gone to peace in God's beauty with a spike shoved into her chest. The roots were binding her hands and feet, showing she had been mind attacked, and the blood attested to her torture. Cruel lure was Glaurung, a master of psychology. He wounded Turambar so much that it would be easy to capitalize him. The Volsung screamed and in the forest, owls flew, to green pastures and hard mountains that were better than this forest, which was cursed. Forever that place would become known as Finduilas' Haunt. None dwell there but gaunt Imps and Banshees. Now Turin returned home, but Brandir was waiting for him, warning that Turambar had fallen in love with his sister, for he found news from the North, and Elves of Gondolin friends with Hurin, who told Brandir of the son's lineage. Turambar did not believe him, but in his heart he knew it was so, and with aching heart filled with woe, he went insane, and slew Brandir, the Black Blade feasting on the blood of innocent as kindness died and compassionate bliss was ruined by Lust. Volsung delighted in his murder and became smiling as a Demon. Glaurung ambushed Turin, but the son of Odin had other plans, and was aware of treachery, the fell murder pushing him to unlock his Divine lineage and ascend to the ranks of the Godhead. He stabbed Gurthang into the Dragon's fleshy belly, past the hard scales, and Gurthang extracted lightning, killing Glaurung in a torrential downpour of blood. The blood was strong enough to make a rain. Finally, Turambar was immortal, but the leaf still stuck to his flesh. He tripped on a rock, limping on his injured foot and impaled himself with Gurthang. Entirely  surprised and angry looking at the Heavens, Turambar collapsed from the unintentional blow and died looking at a single Star. The Star that had Abandoned him. Niniel, having been told of her incest by Brandir and that she was with child by Sigurd, came to his corpse and cried, caressing his face, natural sisterly love finally breaking the curse of sex that had haunted the pair ever since Glaurung's emerald eyes shone on them. "Master of Doom By Doom Mastered. Oh happy to be dead, beloved brother, I shall join you, wait for me in Valinor." She flung herself into a waterfall, and the Elves of Gondolin made a monument, a memorial to evil and good intention, and it still stands strong amid a phantom doomed forest while the Heros that fought and fell there rejoice in God's Eternal Mercy and compassionate redemption.

[franruto]

sasuke + the mountain goats songs

if this read more doesnt work on mobile im so sorry

so i was thinking about how many tmg songs could be applied to sasuke and i decided to make a list. tmg has an absurd number of songs and im doing this just from my fave albuns + a quick check so this list very probably isnt even complete. also, some of these songs are more sns than just sasuke but o well. if u have suggestions to add lmk

- no children: this might be the most sasuke song ever made. im going to put just the last part here but please listen to the whole song

I am drowning, there is no sign of land You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand And I hope you die I hope we both die

- autoclave: i lov this one and all of it is sasuke too so listen to the whole thing

When I try to open up to you, I get completely lost Houses swallowed by the earth, windows thick with frost And I reach deep down within but the pathways twist and turn And there's no light anymore and nothing left to burn I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam And no emotion that's worth having could call my heart its home

- heel turn 2:

Get stomped like a snake Lie down in the dirt Cling to my convictions Even when I get hurt

(...)

Spend too much of my life Now trying to play fair Throw my better self overboard Shoot at him when he comes up for air Come unhinged Get revenge (...) Let all the trash rain down From way up in the rafters I’m walking out of here in one piece Don’t care what comes after Drive the wedge Torch the bridge

- game shows touch our lives: gives me sad sns feelings

Shadows crawled across the living room's length I held onto you with a desperate strength With everything With everything in me And I handed you a drink of the lovely little thing On which our survival depends People say friends don't destroy one another What do they know about friends? Thunderclouds forming, cream white moon Everything's going to be okay soon Maybe tomorrow Maybe the next day 

- oceanographer’s choice: this is one so fucking sad, it makes me think about sasuke trying to break his bond with naruto 

I don't know why it's gotten harder to keep myself away Thought I'd finally beat the feeling back, it all came back today And then we fell down and we locked arms, we knocked the dresser over as we rolled across the floor I don't mean it when I tell you that I don't love you anymore Look at that, would you look at that? The way the ceiling starts to swerve What will I do when I don't have you? When I finally get what I deserve

- up the wolves: i really like this one for sasuke & i love john darnielle’s comment on it too so i’m going to include it here. “Part of me wants to say look it's about revenge, but as soon as I say that... no, that's not quite it. Part of me wants to say it's about the satisfaction of not needing revenge... and I say no, thats some new age stuff. I think it's a song about the moment in your quest for revenge when you learn to embrace the futility of it. The moment when you know that the thing you want is ridiculous and pompous and a terrible thing to want anyway. The direction in which you're headed is not the direction in which you want to go, yet you're going to head that way a while longer anyway cause that's just the kind of person you are.”

There's bound to be a ghost at the back of your closet No matter where you live There'll always be a few things, maybe several things That you're going to find really difficult to forgive

(...)

I'm going to get myself in fighting trim Scope out every angle of unfair advantage I'm going to bribe the officials, I'm going to kill all the judges It's going to take you people years to recover from all of the damage

- cry for judas: listen............

Some things you do just to see How bad they'll make you feel Sometimes you try to freeze time 'Til the slots are a blur of spinning wheels But I am just a broken machine And I do things that I don't really mean Long black night, morning frost I'm still here, but all is lost

(...)

Sad and angry, can't learn how to behave Still won't know how in the darkness of the grave

- outer scorpion squadron: ok this is darnielle’s comment on it again and he says it better than i could: “This is a song (...) for people like me, who have a strong indwelling evidently permanent urge to damage themselves or cut themselves off prior to some accomplishment or arrival at a place of comfort and happiness. I didn't succeed in my goal to not bum everyone out, but... In short, this is a song about trauma, and surviving it”.

If you really want to conjure up a ghost Cultivate a space for the things that hurt you most Rake the sands until they surface Bind their tiny eyes Stake out your position, let your armor fall Stay put 'till they find you, it won't take long at all Rake the sands until they surface Up they come, gone translucent They're coming up no matter what Fools rush in and the doors slam shut Ghosts of my childhood, stay with me, if you will Find a place where there's water, hold you under 'till you're still Rake the sands until they surface Don't let anybody call them ugly 

- the young thousands: ok this one makes me think of pre timeskip sasuke who continues to live in his parents house and also has a lot coming in his future

Boats ease into the harbor bearing real suspicious cargo And the sunlight on the water sets a switch off in your brain The things that you've got coming will consume you There's someone waiting out there in an alley with a chain The ghosts that haunt your building are prepared to take on substance And the dull pain that you live with isn't getting any duller There's a closet full of almost-pristine videotape Documenting sordid little scenes in living color (...) The things that you've got coming will do things that you're afraid to There is someone waiting out there with a mouthful of surprises The ghosts that haunt your building have been learning how to breathe They scan the hallways nightly vainly searching for a sign

- hebrews 11:40: this is one of my faves tmg lyrics. think sasuke w/ orochimaru period

Bright candles in the manor Where the curse takes hold Bodies reassembling down where the worms crawl Make your own friends when the world's gone cold It gets dark and then I feel certain I am going to rise again If not by faith, then by the sword I'm going to be restored Build fires to keep the beacon flashing where the earth lies flat Blood calls to blood as the hours draw down, invent my own family if it comes to that Hold them close, hold them near Tell them no one's ever going to hurt them here

- deuteronomy 2:10: this one is esp relevant bc of The Last Uchiha stuff

Feel in my bones just what the future has in store

I pace in circles So the camera will see Look hard at my stripes There'll be no more after me

I have no fear of anyone I'm dumb and wild and free I am a flightless bird And there'll be no more after me

I sang all night The moon shone on me through the trees No brothers left And there'll be no more after me

- absolute lithops effect: i like to think of this one as sasuke healing

After one long season of waiting After one long season of wanting I am breaking open My insides are pink and raw And it hurts me when I move my jaw But I am taking tiny steps forward

After one blind season alone in here After one long, sweltering summer I'm going to find the exit And I will go to the house of a friend I know And I will let myself forget With a little water and a little bit of sunlight And a little bit of tender mercy, tender mercy

- rain in soho: i might just be indulging here because i listen to this song 10 times a day and its overall feel reminds me of sasuke

No promise sweeter than a blood pact Nothing harder to go through with than a vanishing act No morning colder than the first frost No friends closer than the ones we've lost Nothing sharper than a serpent's tooth Nothing harder than the gospel truth Though you repent and don sackcloth and try to make nice You can't cross the same river twice

(...)

No town more barren than our town No haven safer than the one they tore down No greater love than to lay my life down for a friend No sweeter pleasure than to see the credits clear through to the end

ok so this is the moment where i give up because holy shit. some honorable mentions that im too lazy to go into detail (keep in mind some of those have just like one line that reminds me sasuke): this year, the house that dripped blood, old college try, choked out (i SWEAR no double meaning intended), prowl great cain, magpie, heretic pride, all up the seething coast

@yondaiime hello im tagging u here