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paused-waterfall · 10 months ago

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Little Details of Feather Preening

I love reading fics in which a character with feathers gets help preening them from another character. I think part of it is because it explores the alienness of the winged/feathered character in a grounded, tactile way, while also exploring the dynamic between two characters. It's worldbuilding and character development all rolled into one! But another huge reason why I like it is just cause my parakeet sometimes lets me help with her feathers, and it's the best experience ever omfg.

I figured, for the sake of fic writers who don't have access to the cutest most patient bird in the world (and for me, who feels like rambling) I'd vomit out a ton of little details of what it's like to help a bird preen, and how it might translate to characters with both human and bird features:

(Note, this isn't exactly researched. My sample size is literally one bird and some casual reading about other species (sounds like crow feathers work similarly to parakeets, for instance: https://urbannature.blog/2022/09/23/the-unbearable-itchiness-of-moulting/). Please take this as an account of what preening a bird is like, and not as advice for things to do to a real bird.)

The exact term for preening something other than oneself is "allopreening". It's a social behavior and not all species do it. But if you're writing about a bird-human hybrid, ehhh humans have grooming instincts to add to the mix, so IMO the species of bird shouldn't hold you back!

Allopreening is most needed on areas the bird can't access themself. Wings and tails are mostly accessible-- the long feathers can be gently bent into reach. The back of the head/neck is the most prime location for allopreening. A humanoid trying to preen on their own would probably try to use a mirror to see what they're doing, and seriously tire out their arms reaching back there to do such finicky work.

Birds are pretty good at spinning their heads to see and work on anything below their necks, but an avian-ish character without that range of motion might need more help on the base of their wings, shoulders, and back.

My bird gets pissed when I so much as touch any feathers that are critical to flight (the longest wing and tail feathers). Care for those feathers is super important, and trusting someone else with that task would be a huge deal!

To request a preening, my bird angles her head at me, shakes it, and gently poofs up her feathers. If it's going well, she'll stay poofed up and maybe close her eyes.

A completed preening session always ends with feathers being shaken out.

Molting!

Often, the first sign of an impending molt is a fluffy down feather floating in the air. These feathers will cling to anything they touch.

The start of molting involves a lot of old feathers falling out, and some chill allopreening can be involved in this. Just lightly ruffling their feathers can help dislodge ones that are ready to go.

After getting rid of the old feathers, pin feathers start to grow in. They start out covered in a waxy sheath and with a blood supply running through them. While the blood supply is there, these are also called blood feathers, and damaging them can cause a lot of bleeding.

Pin/blood feathers are very sensitive. A wrong move can cause them to poke into the skin. Add this to the general vulnerability of not being at peak flight ability and the body's exhaustion at having to produce the feathers, and you've got an irritable and skittish bird. This is all a whole lot like a feathery version of a period.

Allopreening pin feathers is a lot more delicate than helping dislodge old ones. There's a careful art involved in telling which ones are ready to have their sheaths removed. Learning this art as a non-feather-haver involved, for me, a lot of sudden nipping from an unsatisfied customer. These days, I can tell I'm working on the wrong feather if my bird tenses up or glares at me.

Removing the sheath from a feather is SO SATISFYING. You take a dull-colored, irritating pin, and gently unwrap it to reveal a soft, beautiful new feather. Any time I see my bird all disheveled by pin feathers, it takes serious willpower to resist pestering her to let me fix them.

Non-molt preening!

Fully grown feathers also need daily upkeep

Birds secrete oils that they spread over their feathers with their beaks. A bird-person or their allopreening partner might choose to work other oils into the feathers, similar to how we use skincare products.

Feathers lost outside of the molting cycle can start regrowing immediately. However, a partially damaged feather will not regrow until it is removed or falls out during a molt.

Clipped wings are essentially damaged feathers-- an intelligent bird-person might be inclined to rip these out so that new, full feathers will be faster to grow... but, that would mean going without the partial feathers, and the gliding/slight lift they allow. That's a pretty big risk!

Hope someone gets some use out of this :) Happy bird-fic'ing!

#birds #qsmp #<-- this is definitely inspired by all the fics about the qsmp birdfolk #birb talk #⏸️

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magnificentbirb · 2 months ago

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fall too fast (go down blazing) (4k, ongoing, carlando)

"Lando.” George sounds distraught. “Lando, it is so easy not to shag a footballer.” ~ (In which a podcaster and a footballer pretend to date for PR reasons and definitely don't catch feelings along the way.)

Read on AO3

#carlando #carlando fic #f1 fic #birb fic #455

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f1-birb · 1 year ago

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100% inspired by the tags @nyoomfruits left on my post comparing Oscar's lando.jpg debut to the newest pic of him

Lando takes a lot of photos.

A lot.

The ones he wants to delete are easier, occasionally he's a little hasty and he has to dig them out of the recycling bin, but for the most part they're obvious to him. Too dark, too blurry, too artsy, not artsy enough, a fingertip obscuring a corner of the picture. They're easy.

It's hard to choose the ones he wants to keep to himself, to have and hold close, to be selfish with. It's a lot harder to choose the ones he wants to post, to release into the public eye, to put under scrutiny.

Then there are the photos like this one.

He wouldn't say it's one of his best, it may not even make his top ten, but it's easily one of his favourites. Simple, soft, something so obvious and blatant and yet unspoken.

Lando brushes his thumb across the screen, feels the way the corners of his mouth tick up like a mirror image, knows if anyone was to look at him they'd see the same softness in his eyes that sits behind Oscar's in the photo.

He remembers taking it, walking to the back of the garages and snapping photos, the lights, the boards, the wall of headphones. He remembers following after Oscar, calling his name just loudly enough to get his attention.

And then Oscar had turned. He'd turned, all flushed cheeks and warm eyes, a look more and more common since they became teammates and Lando's heart says, "Oh."

Because Oscar looks at him like that a lot, he realises. That's Oscar's default now. He's taken back to the first - and only - time Oscar has featured on lando.jpg, how the pose was stiffer, less comfortable, more telling of a brand new partnership. This look? It couldn't be more opposite and Lando's heart again says, "Oh."

He adds it to his newest post without even thinking, swipes across filters, something about the black and white screaming something without words. Then he puts it first, for everyone to see, to profess what he now knows and hopes he'll receive in return if he can bring himself to ask for it.

He hits post, watches as the circle completes itself to upload it, and he smiles at the photo he wants everyone to see, even if they don't see what he does.

#drabble fic #landoscar #lando/oscar #the pic wouldn't leave me alone #(and yes i edited the pic a little bit it needed to have more pining)#birb writes

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i-mybrunettelady · 2 months ago

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hail, mighty hero

zaeim and nyra share a moment in kourna. set during long live the lich (lws4). mind the spoilers. 2k words. mature.

Allied Encampment is bustling with life. But it’s not the kind of life that would indicate happiness; in Zaeim’s head, that kind of life is almost a fragment of his imagination. It certainly is for the poor souls of Istan, or even Vabbi. Here in Kourna and the real world, it’s a life of anxiety, a life of uncertainty, of vague hope. People are carrying their restlessness with them and looking up at the leaders of this makeshift resistance group to make sense of it.

Zaeim feels that burden intensely. He guides his Sunspears, makes plans, tries his hardest to not break nor bend under pressure. Every time he sees a wounded or dying Elonian, he sends a prayer to Kormir and it weighs his heart down even further. Every time there’s an accident, or a failed scouting mission, Zaeim wonders if they’re all going to die and Joko will remain the tyrant of Elona forever.

So when he feels this way, he turns to Nyra. She stands tall, proud, indomitable and entirely mad. Her eyes shine with something wild and barely restrained, like fate itself had carved a chasm in her soul so now she’s trying to rebuild it back with parts of the real world. She attracts attention wherever she goes and people flock to her like moths to flame. From a distance, she looks radiant. Up close, Zaeim wonders when she’s going to burn out entirely.

She can’t seem to fight off a sunburn from days in the sands and amongst the army. Her hair, short, messy and in constant disarray, has lightened to a near blonde, a contrast to the areas of her face that caught the beginnings of a tan. She has growing dark circles under her eyes and ever-present dirt beneath her nails, be it blood or tar or whatever else. Comfortable tunics she wears are more filled with creases and dust by the day, patched where they’d gotten nicked in the fights with Awakened. She hardly looks like their leader, Zaeim thinks, as worn out and bitter and restless as everyone else.

He knows deep down, however, that it is her light this whole thing is centered around. And so, he can’t look away. Especially not when they’re discussing tactics, when she’s explaining things in that strangely accented Elonian of hers, or when she settles on a decision and cuts a clear line in the sand. I have listened to your suggestions. From this point on, you are with me or against me.

Hardly anyone dares oppose her.

And thus Zaeim finds himself drawn to the moments where he’s with her. He likes the reassurance in her eyes. He likes the subtle nature of her smiles. “I’ve never been very expressive, in terms of.. Face,” she said one night, reclining against a wall. Zaeim raised his gaze to her face. “Do you mind that?”

“Some people are simply not,” he replied, with more eagerness than he’d intended. “I don’t doubt that you’re genuine about this and about Elona. Kormir knows you want Joko dead as much as anyone else here.”

“There can only be one biggest dick in this desert, yeah?” she huffed and blew a curl of hair away from her nose. “For fuck’s sake, I need my hair to grow faster.”

Zaeim smiled. “That growth spurt went elsewhere with you, it would seem.”

Nyra laughed. It was a solid, deep sound, echoing in the small cottage they’d claimed as their base of command. “I’d say Joko stole it and I wanna get it back.”

“Or Sayida.”

“Sayida is wiser than Joko.”

Zaeim shook his head. “Debatable, but I will not argue with you.”

“That’s smart,” Nyra said, in a gravelly tone. If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve suspected a threat. “You are wise too.”

Zaeim doesn’t consider himself wise. He doesn’t think Nyra herself is wise, either. All he knows is that between them, and supposedly Sayida, and the Olmakhan and the Primeval ghosts, they can take down Joko and see a free Elona.

Sometimes, that is enough.

Other times, though, he wants to see Nyra the woman, Nyra the person behind the legend. Then he watches her movements, and notices, rather quickly, that her right shoulder is almost always stiff by the end of the day. She’s careful to not move her right hand much unless she has to, and the occasional stretch she does brings about a pained expression. She doesn’t bring it up, however.

He understands. He has old wounds too. But in the grand scheme of Alysannyra Ainsaph, that one thing feels like a game changer. She goes from a symbol to a person, and from person to a symbol in a way Zaeim is familiar with, as the Spearmarshal. It makes him want to hold her close, feel the heat of her skin and the roughness of her sunburnt cheeks, in a union that so few people can actually understand.

She comes to him in a dream, once, and there, she kisses him. And maybe Joko kills them all without Zaeim ever having tried to recreate that dream in real life. Zaeim hopes he musters up the courage to try.

Opportunity presents itself rather unexpectedly. There is an Awakened Inquest incursion that Nyra herself chooses to annihilate, and that has her painfully rolling her shoulder to try and relieve the ache of it all day. In a break between planning, when the maps are in the safety of Canach’s hands for the moment, Zaeim takes a chance to lean in and whisper in Nyra’s ear, “Does your shoulder hurt?”

Nyra almost hits his head as she raises hers. “What?”

Zaeim blinks and steps away. “I noticed your shoulder is stiff and I wanted to offer relief. There is something that us Sunspears use and that I have a little bit of in my pack for old injuries.”

“Relief, Spearmarshal?” Canach snickers, still looking at the maps. “I do think our dear Commander would love some relief! She’s had so much on her shoulders for this little war of yours–”

“That’s what you take from this,” Nyra drawls, unimpressed. “Anyone you wanna fuck, Canach?” Zaeim blushes.

“My hand suffices, Commander.”

“Good. Stay out of the poor Spearmarshal’s business then. Maybe his hand doesn’t suffice.”

Miraculously, Canach backs down. He offers Nyra a smile and returns the maps in her hands. “I will ponder on the tactics, Nyra,” he says quietly. “I will also see if Gorrik has any advice on the matter.”

“Gorrik?” Nyra raises an eyebrow. She huffs out a breath and leans in. “Lie better next time, you asshat.”

Canach grins. “He knows more than you think he does, Nyra.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.”

“Get lost, though,” she jerks her head towards the door. “Think about tactics elsewhere.”

Canach salutes her and heads to the door. He makes sure to close them as loudly as he possibly can without breaking the damn thing. Zaeim watches him go and crosses his arms over his chest. His face feels hot still and he digs his nails into the exposed skin of his upper arms. Yes, Kormir curse him, he does want to sleep with Nyra, and is that a crime? Is it a bad thing if a man wants to sleep with a woman?

“Zaeim,” Nyra says, “if you frown any harder, you’ll get a permanent wrinkle.”

“Wrinkles are the least of my concerns,” Zaeim grumbles and looks away. He then clears his throat. “I hope you’re not offended that I–”

“That you find me attractive?” Nyra taps a nail against the table. The wide stance she’d assumed earlier when talking to Canach now becomes a long, lean form. The wood creaks under her weight when she leans against the table. “No.”

“But?” Zaeim looks back at her again. She’s rubbing her clothed arms. She’s the only fully clothed and covered person in this entire camp, barring Gorrik and Taimi. She has bandages up to her knuckles. “Are you hurt?”

“Zaeim, I’m more scar tissue than skin behind this patched up tunic,” she says after a while and laughs awkwardly. Zaeim stares. It somehow never crossed his mind that she too might have insecurities. His head has a hard time wrapping itself around that notion, that the Godkiller and Dragonslayer is insecure about her scars of all things.

“That is hardly a concern to me, if it is any consolation,” he offers softly. “There are a lot of scarred Sunspears.”

She looks him up and down. Her eyes linger on his arms and legs and on the peek of his chest, before she looks him directly in the eye. Zaeim squirms under inspection. He knows he looks older than he is; life of a Sunspear is hardly easy, and beauty is the first thing to go when you choose to defy Joko. In the grand scheme of things, it’s least relevant. But right now Zaeim wishes very hard that he’d been born a noble, a prince of Vabbi or Istan, someone she would find easy to look at.

“For what’s worth, I think you’re attractive too,” she says and Zaeim’s head shoots up. She sounds a little sad.

Zaeim breathes out. “I still have my ointment, if you’d like it.”

She considers for a moment, and as if to prove a point, goes to roll her shoulder. She stops halfway. “Yes,” she says. She rises from the table that creaks thankfully, and carefully pulls some of her tunic down to reveal her right shoulder. Zaeim sees the tail ends of angry, dark pink burns, but when she catches it, she raises the sleeve so they’re covered again.

He doesn’t ask. Instead, he points towards a little stool near him. She walks over, playing with the material of her sleeve, and turns her back to him as she sits. His breath catches in his throat. The scar there is gnarly, deep, like something had tried to tear her spine off. It sits in an uneven line at a weird angle too.

“It would’ve been worse without surgery,” she says, distantly.

“Is there a way to–”

“No.” The finality of her response makes him close his mouth and dig through his pack. He unscrews the little clay pot and a familiar, slightly pungent scent spreads across the room. Zaeim says nothing as he softly rubs the cream into the knotted flesh. The only sounds in the room are the scoops his fingers make and their breathing, rugged and tense.

She has tan lines, he notices. Her skin is hot where he touches it. Every so often she turns her head to look at him, and her eyes seem so impossibly big and insistent, conflicted in a way he can’t possibly decode. The sunburn makes their purple hue stand out even more. Zaeim’s hands itch to touch and caress more of her. He imagines his lips on her exposed neck, his hands in her hair. This close, she’s less of a symbol and more of a living, breathing person, with dark circles and a haunted stare and greasy hair, and he cannot get enough of it.

“Kiss me,” she says. Her voice is rough and rich and breathy. It echoes in Zaeim’s ears like a drum.

“Gladly,” Zaeim mutters and closes the clay pot. He could die tomorrow; it would’ve been a damn shame if he didn’t leap at an opportunity to kiss her. The pot clinks as he returns it carelessly to his pack and washes his hands free of the ointment. Nyra watches him with a strange expression.

“What?” Zaeim asks and his heart wants to beat out of his chest. He feels its thunder in his throat.

“You remind me of someone,” she says softly. “It’s– it was a man as dedicated to his dream and his duties as you are.” The way she implies the man is dead makes it seem targeted, almost a reproach. She’d mentioned a lover before, back in Tyria, but that he is dead. Zaeim has no idea who this man is and senses the topic is too raw to discuss further, but he wonders.

Self reproach is the only thing worse than regret.

Zaeim crouches before her. This close, she smells like the cream he’d put on her and sweat. “Do you want me to kiss you? Truly?”

Her eyes blaze. “Enough consideration,” she bites out, “I’m not fragile, for fuck’s sake!” And she pulls him to her and crashes her lips to his, digs her hands in his locs. Zaeim moans under the attention, and he would’ve felt bad about it if it wasn’t swallowed by the domineering force of her lips on his, even if closed. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

After a moment, she takes her head back a little, as if snapped out of a daze. “You probably wanted something sweeter,” she says quietly. “This was anything but.”

“I will not lie,” he replies, “my usual idea of a first kiss is something that isn’t a metaphorical devouring.”

Nyra blinks. “We can kiss slowly, if you’d like,” she says and plays with his locs. And then adds, with a grief so big it could swallow the world, “It’s been a long while since I had one of those. Probably don’t deserve them either. But..”

Zaeim stands up. “This chair is a little uncomfortable,” he says. Nyra follows suit, close enough so he can feel the heat of her body. “I am certain there are more comfortable places in this house for people to kiss.”

“Walls have hardly ever failed,” she suggests. Finding a little nook that’s big enough for both of them is a challenge, but when they finally do, and when he kisses her again, with his hands on her ass, the world falls away.

Kormir knows they both need this. Kormir knows they both need a lot of things. And thankfully, Kormir, bless Her, provides.

#gw2 #inspo birb has come to town #alysannyra #spearmarshal zaeim #gw2 zaeim #zaeimyra #gw2 writing #gw2 fic #gw2 commander #pact commander #gw2 human #I AM UNWELL ABOUT THEM #this took longer than necessary bc my brain was fried for weeks due to irl stuff #but!#it's out and i am happy #this isn't the otp but like. i ship them #does that count? it does #rarepair hell go brrrr

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vvkingofgaybisciutsvv · 2 months ago

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ISHIGAMI CHISORA!! LOOK AT HER!!!

[ID: Several Picrews of Chisora, stonesparrow's transfem senku. She is a teenager with pale skin, red eyes and hair that fades from white to green, usually in a ponytail. Individual IDs are in alt text.]

Pov: you're Hyoga or Tsukasa and you're monologing

Sora is from @stonesparrow's transfem Senku fic Etymologically Identical! Its SO well written and I love the ways it diverges from canon, especially between the Stone Wars and Treasure Island arcs<3<3<3

#dcst #dcst fic #dcst senku #transfem ishigami senku #guys you dont GET IT Birb wrote this so well that it made me read the manga!!!#GO READ ETYMOLOGICALLY IDENTICAL

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redwayfarers · 2 months ago

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house of grief and sunlight

fandom: wayfarer ship: cassander/aisanne characters: cassander inteus, aisanne bjornsdottir rating: gen words: 1625 note: this is my entry for @idrellegames' three year anniversary event! prompt i'd chosen is paramour - expected of me, i know - but i've hardly written about cass' bisexuality and i felt like it needed to be written about! excuse the ya-sounding title lmao i could not resist also, aisanne is a gw2 oc that i've ported to wayfarer. she lives over on @i-mybrunettelady most of the time :) divider credit

I am tired of grief. I don’t know if it ever goes away, but for fuck’s sake, I’m so tired of it. It’s summer, though, and a part of me feels like the sun will chase it away, if only for a day or two. Our house needs the sun right now. Grief hangs over it like a veil, and we don’t speak of it, but maybe the rays that come through our window each morning help.

Or so I hope. Hope’s a stupid thing by and large, because every time I hope something happens it decidedly doesn’t, as if the gods above or whoever sits and watches this farce of an existence keeps laughing at me and says, “Add more!” But I can’t help but wish, in my heart of hearts, that sometimes, maybe one day in this lifespan that’s entirely too long for one guy, I don’t feel like a tossed out, crapped on kitten on the streets.

It’s summer. That feels important to repeat to self. I am feeling a little less grief. The room around me is loud and messy and sounds jump from one place to another like rabbits, in a cacophony ruled over by the harmonious noise of music. Sanne’s the one behind the harp, golden under the candlelight, and if she was a different woman, she’d be singing in a Meissandic temple.

She cares little for the traditional rites, though. She cares little for the chants I’d attended once or twice when I was a kid. She looked at me all confused when I told her how courtly, Vestran services happen, and said, in a strange tone, “I don’t understand how people like that.” I don’t understand either, and thank fuck I’m not a Vestran aristocrat anymore.

Her place is telling stories of heroes and events long gone, to be a musical wayfarer. She’s doing that tonight. I was drunk when we first met here and she had to hold my hair while I was throwing up, apparently. Can’t say I remember that attractive trait about myself. I’m not drunk right now, however, sitting near the small wooden stage, taking small sips of my cider. The drink is irrelevant; she captures my attention more than any alcohol could.

She’s radiant and shiny, half covered in shadows, which makes her golden crest stand out. The bright sheen of her golden hair disappears and reappears after the movements of her head. I can’t see her freckles clearly from here, but I can see the ink on her neck, the roundness of her full lips, an occasional yellow in the blues of her eyes when the candlelight reflects off them. I’m not blind to beauty, but there’s beauty in a way a finely made building is beautiful, and a way a person is beautiful.

You don’t wanna fuck buildings, do you? And if you do, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?

Others are looking at her too. That doesn’t matter, because it’s my bed who she comes to tonight. Or is it me coming to hers? Not fucking important.

These feelings are new. For most of my life, interest like this fell to men. Part of me wonders if I’m just that desperate for any kind of tenderness in my life that my head would start making up attraction; but the way this feels can’t be anything but a solid fucking reality. Women were always beautiful the way buildings were, but now they’re flesh and bone and soul and personality and there’s something so weirdly appealing about that that it catches me off guard.

Not all women are your mother, you dumb fuck.

I know, but women have never been.. This. I think about Sanne when she’s away. I watch her practice for the performances, mesmerized. There’s peace and blood rushing to my face when we’re laughing in bed, or making lunch, or eating, or just existing in the same space. My insides get all twisted up, like I’m a kid again crushing on older Wayfarers. It’s like Senna again, and I simply forgot how it feels like to be crushing on someone this bad.

Nothing will ever happen between us, however. It would be so crappy to prey on a widow’s feelings. She rarely speaks of her dead husband, but he’s not even that cold as far as dead people go; maybe a little more than us Wayfarers, but not by much. Our living together is a result of loneliness, desperation, not a desire to find a partner again. But I was dumb enough to pretend I didn't see it.

She’s cooking, some days after her performance. Sun is shining through the window, leaving her figure in semi-shadows and catching on the ends of her shiny, metallic hair. She’s not as glamorous as she was at the show; right here is a Sanne that’s more down to earth, more solid, dressed comfortably, not worried about how she’s perceived. I’m folding clothes nearby and doing a half-assed job of it, too. It’s hard to concentrate some days over the deafening noise of all this fucking attraction confusion business.

Every so often she turns back to look at me with a strange smile on her face. “That’s what I wore to Kiaran’s funeral,” she says suddenly. I jerk and drop my gaze to the dress in my hands. Sunlight washes away its dark color in places. There are little holes in it that I want to sew shut, but I don’t have her consent to. She’s weirdly sentimental about it.

My Spire didn’t have a funeral, and us survivors only have ashes as funerary garb.

“What’s this stain again?” I ask, raising the dress and jerking my head in the direction of the big, grayish blob on the skirt. “I keep forgetting!”

She sighs and throws a full, peeled onion at me. It hits me right in the forehead and the poor plant, already under threat, pricks my eyes. “You’re horrible,” I say in mock offense. “You don’t want your dress to stink, do you?”

“I’m not burying anyone anytime soon,” she says lowly, in a tone that implies I’m hitting a boundary. I wince and put the dress down, careful of the location of the onion.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I approach, gently placing the vegetable on the table. She gives me a hard look. “I shouldn’t have joked about the dress. It means a lot to you and I tend to joke around, right, about the things that I’m sensitive about so people don’t attack me for it first? Offense is the best defense kinda thing? And I forget that sometimes - a lot of the time - people don’t function the way my fucked up head does?”

Shut up, Cassander. You’re making it worse.

Something tightens my throat, like hands choking me from the inside out. I grip the table and swallow thickly. My stomach twists up, and the smell and feel of onion fills the kitchen and I can only focus on the dents in the dark wood beneath my fingers and the uneven pattern freckles of my hand.

“Cassander,” Sanne says. Her tone is too much for me to analyze right now, try as I might. “Cass.”

“What?”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Picking at your scar. Stop it.”

I lower my hand from my face and grip the edges of my tunic. The edges of my braid - I need to take care of those ugly fucking ends one of these days - tickles my hand. You’re scaring people. Enjoy your lifetime of solitude, whether you’re actually into women or not. Who would want someone as shaky and deranged as you are?

Vestra should’ve killed you, if you were so determined to go back.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur to my feet.

“I’m not angry. If you pushed, I would’ve been, greatly so. But you didn’t. Stop shaking like a leaf.” There’s something in her tone that feels like cold water to the face. I breathe out and blink away a small selection of tears. Saltiest one always drops first! I’m imagining a little tear race now, little tear spectators cheering the racers on, tear savants testing the levels of salt in each one. The thought makes me giggle and I bury my head in my hands as I laugh.

“I’m not angry with you,” she repeats, gentler than before. Her voice is still as steely, though. “Go finish the laundry while I make lunch.”

Without a word, I retreat to my location at the corner of the room, where still wet clothes wait to be sorted and hung to dry. I put the dress to the side and continue sorting through the clothes; sometimes, I look at her, her back turned to me, and the shaking of my hands grows for a split second.

I try my best not to cry. Better save that energy for the worst of the shitshow that I know is yet to come.

I’ve forgotten that this is a house of grief and no sunlight can fix it. And I’ve walked over her grief in the same way I would walk over my own, but where I’m used to it, she isn’t. And even when we go to the same bed that night, seemingly forgetting what happened, and even when the sun rises the morning after, this is still a place where two grieving people decided to seek comfort because being broken together is somehow better than being broken alone.

No summer nor new kinds of sex can fix the holes in your heart.

I am tired of grief. I don’t know if it ever goes away, but for fuck’s everloving and everlasting sake, I’m so tired of it.

#wayfarer #wayfarer if #wayfarer mc #inspo birb has come to town #cassander inteus #aisanne bjornsdottir #elf oc #my writing #wayfarer fic #wayfarer writing #wanted bisexuality.. got bisexuality and anxiety #two for the price of one!#also opinions written about here are not mine! i am not my characters!#just so we're clear. i am not my character. neato? neato #i know y'all are nice about it but i feel like it needs to be here #also i will cheat and use my europe timezone to post this now bc it's the 9th <3 #wfr anniversary

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