#this is in honor of my mother who just returned from a trip to New Orleans

[little-pup-pip]

Could you make a Mardi Gras themed one with a BUNCH of bright colors and sparkles, no paci please

(it doesn't have to be on time for the holiday, take your time! I'm just feeling home sick because they don't celebrate it here :[ )

Sure!!

[sophie-looks-at-stuff]

As You Wish

Pairing: Aemond x wife reader

Summary: Aemond's new wife has a moment of reflection wondering if her new husband truly cares for her. Aemond is determined to prove to her that he is utterly devoted to her.

Warnings: smut, some slight angst? maybe idk honestly haha, Aemond loves his wife he just has issues expressing it lol, p in v, oral (f receiving) man is a champ when it comes to that, praise, 18+, vulgar language lol, slight breeding kink

AN: hey y'all! long time no see haha, I finally watched the season 2 hotd premiere last night and had to finally write something! this is my first go at a legit fic and not just headcanons so don't be too judgy haha. but I hope y'all enjoy it! :)

PS: it is unedited rn, but I was just too excited to post it, so I'll edit it later!

The rose-scented bubbles of the bath water lapped soothingly against your flesh. This had become your routine, after the evening's supper or feast you would call to your handmaid to draw a bath. Scalding hot water, warm enough to turn your skin pink upon contact. The boiling water and the familiar scent of the roses were one of the few things that brought you comfort after your marriage to Prince Aemond. Your family had come seasonally to court for many moons now, your mother being a friend of Queen Alicent. As your brothers sparred with the young princes in the training grounds, you took more kindly towards the gardens. Wandering around the maze of flowers and bushes searching for faeries and nymphs. Of course, you had been only a child then and had not yet known that such silly things don’t exist. 

It had been the Prince himself that informed you of such. You had been crouched on your knees before a bed of yellow roses, looking between the stems and leaves for the little creatures. The skirts of your dress soiled and stained brown from the earth beneath you. You had been so preoccupied with searching for them, that you hadn’t heard the crunching of grass and footsteps behind you.

“What in the Seven Hells are you doing?” Aemond had asked you, voice bitter but curious. You stood up hastily, nearly tripping on your own two feet as you spun around and curtsied clumsily. 

“I am searching for faeries my Prince. Mother said that they can be found amongst the stems of the most beautiful flowers!” Your small hands began to nervously dust themselves off on your already dirty skirts. Aemond’s eye followed the motion, his upper lip curling in disgust. It had only been a couple of moons since the young prince had lost his eye. The scar was still fresh and red around the edges, the eyepatch clearly bothering him. For it appeared to be fastened too tight around his head. 

“Don’t be absurd, such pathetic things don’t exist. All you’ve succeeded in doing is soiling your clothes.” He motions down towards your skirts, your cheeks heating in embarrassment. Feeling ashamed to be talked down upon by someone you hoped to be a potential friend. Even though his eye, or lack thereof, scared most, you had found it intriguing. Your father had told you stories of men in faraway places who wore their scars like badges of honor, like trophies of war. The marred skin being a testament to their victories in battle. Your father however did not return to tell the tails of his own scars, for he had passed in the Stepstones, aiding Lord Corlys and Prince Daemon in their war. 

“My apologies my Prince, for I-” you dared a look up into face, his brows knit together, arms crossed over his chest. You lowered your eyes in shame once more “I shall go change my skirts at once.” And with that you darted off, not waiting for a response from the young Targaryen. 

That had been many years ago though, and you were no longer a child, and nor was he. Prince Aemond had grown into a handsome man, not just physically, but intellectually as well. The water of your bath had grown tepid as you recalled the memory, a slight frown adorning your features. Why had he wanted to marry you? He hardly had shown any interest, more likely it was because his mother and grandfather craved the military prowess your family possessed. They needed it for the impending war. So a proposal for your hand had been made, and your eldest brother eagerly accepted. After your father’s passing, and your mother grew older in age he had taken it upon himself to attend to the coming and goings of your house. 

It wasn’t that Aemond was exactly an unkind husband, he just wasn’t present, ever. There was always a reason or excuse for him to leave a room once you arrived. The only full night you had spent with him had been your wedding night, in your marital bed. He wasn’t rough, nor was he gentle, but he possessed an air of duty and responsibility when it came to the consummation. For once he spilled his spend inside of you he had fetched a cloth for you to clean yourself. Then turned his back to you and slept, not uttering another word. 

The sound of your chamber doors creaking open drew you from your thoughts. The clanking of a sword and heavy footsteps made their way towards you in the bathing room. You were met with the sight of your rather disheveled lord husband. Before you could offer him a greeting, however, his eye lifted to your face, and he asked: 

“May I join you?” Taken aback slightly by the question there was a pause, the room silent. Then, you nodded, “Yes, yes of course you may husband.” 

Aemond had waited for your approval before stripping himself bare of his clothes, riding clothes by the looks of it. He must have been out on Vhagar. You observe him as he untethered his belts and the laces of his boots. The years of training had done him well, his arms and back muscles lean and corded. Sometimes you wondered what it would be like to drag your nails down them, as he fucked into you–

“Wife? Did you hear me?” Shit, he must have asked you something, looking up from the muscles of his arms to meet his eyes you shook your head. He chuckled a bit, smirking, you had been caught in your staring.

“I asked you, how was your day my lady wife.” A hint of amusement laced his voice, he had rid himself of his clothes, having placed them neatly over the back of one of the armchairs in the rooms. 

“Oh, well, it was alright. Nothing too exciting I'm afraid. I did have tea with your mother and sister though. That was quite pleasant, Helaena was telling me of the butterflies that come for the roses this time of year. She said we must go see them once they arrive.” As you spoke Aemond made his way around the tub, to behind you. It took an embarrassingly great deal of effort not to stare as he had presented himself bare before you. To look only above his waist and not let your eyes drift down towards his cock. 

“Mmh, yes we must see them then,” his cold hands met your shoulder blades, rubbing small, soothing, circles on them. This was his way of telling you to move forward, so that he may join you in the tub, taking his place behind you, and pulling you onto his lap. 

“You take such tepid baths wife. You’ll catch a cold one of these days.” He mumbled into your ear as he made himself comfortable behind you, his legs outstretched beside your own. It wasn’t that such small talk was uncommon between the two of you when he was around. Besides, you two did share chambers, so despite his avoidance during the day, he was bound to return to you at night. 

Turning fully to face him now, with a surge of annoyance, the water sloshing around the two of you with your sudden movements. “Why do you care? You are hardly even here to see me as is, I doubt you would even notice.” Aemond’s singular lilac eye widens, not from anger, but rather from surprise. His lady wife was always so sweet, so silent, this was new, and dare he say exciting. 

“A woman can only take so much you know–” You go to stand, to leave the tub, and go to bed, done with whatever this conversation is. Aemond’s hand shoots out to grasp your wrist, stopping you from doing so. 

“Wait!” It came out more harsh than he had intended. “I do care for you my lady, truly I do. I did not know that you–”

“Prove it.” You say interrupting whatever he is about to tell you. You keep your eyes level and voice steady. “Prove it to me then husband,”

Aemond says only one thing before attacking your lips, “As you wish,” He is not gentle in his kisses, he does not know how to be gentle. Perhaps you could teach him. His grasp on your wrist moves to your waist as he continues his assault on your lips. His hands roam the flesh of your waist, your hips, your thighs, his lips move down towards your neck. Biting and nipping at the flesh there, sure to leave a mark for all to see.

“Aemond–” 

“Shhh, let me take care of you tonight. Let me prove to you how much I desire you, my love.” He murmurs between bites and kisses. He pulls back, only for a moment, “You are beautiful, I am sorry I have not told you this enough,” his lips attach themselves to one of your breasts, suckling at the nipple. You let out a surprised breath as he bites down, a wave of pleasure shooting straight to your core.

His roaming hands have found purchase on your ass, his deft fingers kneading the plump flesh. Suddenly his grip becomes tighter as he rises from the tub with you in his arms, water spilling over the sides and onto the floor. You hurriedly wrap your arms around his neck, in an attempt to steady yourself. 

“Aemond! You’ve made a mess–” He laughs, fully this time, not just a chuckle. It’s a lovely sound you think.

 “Fuck the mess, the maids shall deal with it in the morning. I’ve neglected my dear lady wife and that must be rectified immediately. One of the hands on your ass pulls back and gives it a small slap. You gasp in surprise, tucking your face into his neck, peppering small kisses there, just as he had done to you moments before. You could get used to this side of your husband. Aemond lets out a hum of satisfaction at your ministrations, soon after playfully throwing you down onto your shared bed. 

“Aemond the sheets, they’re soaked now–” you began to protest cut off rather abruptly by his grip on your ankles. Pulling you down towards the end of the mattress, your cunt now level with his lips. 

“That should hardly matter, we have others–” he places a kiss on your inner thigh. “Besides the only thing I care to see soaked is your cunt after I am done–” Without another word or hesitation, Aemond licks a hot stripe up the center of your core. Then a second, and a third, until he loses all control. He devours you like a man starved. His strong arms wrap themselves around your things, pulling you impossibly closer to him. His tongue continues its assault on your cunt.

“You taste of the finest ambrosia–” the vibrations of his voice sending shock waves of electricity to your clit. Aemond is only spurred on further by the sound of your sweet moans. His name falling from your lips like a chant, like a prayer to the Seven. His lips find purchase on your clit, sucking and licking till you're writhing beneath him. Your hands shoot down, finding purchase in his long silver locks.

“Aemond, oh Aemond–” the words spill from your lips like nonsense. The only thing you are able to focus on is his lips and tongue lapping at your cunt. The man between your thighs devouring you like this is his last meal alive.

“Cum for me, cum on my tongue. And then I shall reward you with my cock. Cum for me my love–” As if on command, you feel the muscles of your lower abdomen contract, and then all that lovely pleasure overflows, and bursts from you. With a strangled cry of his name, you cum on his tongue. You look down at your husband between your thighs, his lips glistening in your release. 

“Good girl, my good, sweet, perfect girl. You did exactly what I asked,” he crawls up your body, stopping only to place the occasional kiss to your hot skin. His lips return to your neck, sucking love marks into the skin over the faint ones he had left before. A newfound favorite of his perhaps. He gives his cock a few strokes, his thumb collecting the beading drop of arousal from his tip. Wordlessly, he brings the digit up to your lips, pressing down gently on your bottom one. You open your mouth, sucking the essence from his finger, swirling your tongue around it, eager to please him. He groans in response, resting his forehead on yours, 

“Perhaps another night my love, I need to be inside of you now.” You release his thumb with a slight pop. 

“Fuck me then, husband–” Not needing any further encouragement, Aemond sheathes his cock inside of your cunt. The warm, velvety walls squeezing him perfectly. “Fuck–” he moans breathlessly as he slowly begins to thrust into your weeping cunt. The squelching noises from his movements turn your cheeks red, you move to hide your face in the crook of his neck once more, but a hand on your chin stops you. From above, Aemond’s lilac eye bores into your own, like a spell, you are unable to look away.

Aemond’s thrusting becomes faster, harder, like a man starved. The grasp on your chin returns to your hips. As Aemond rolls back slightly, sitting on his knees, he brings your hips to meet his, your back still on the bed. From this angle he has full control over your body, not that he hadn’t before. But now he could control his thrusts, making them sharper, harder. Beneath him, your eyes screw shut in pleasure, consumed by his ministrations. 

You look beautiful like this, he thinks. Cheeks red, hair a mess, sweat glistening on your skin. He had been a fool before, not indulging you more often. Not being by your side, it was a mistake he would make no more. He had been too afraid of your rejection, too afraid you would find him repulsive because of his scar. The scar that he himself found so disturbing. But clearly, the way his name fell from your lips, as your face contorted in pleasure, this was not the case. 

“Shall I cum inside of your perfect cunt? Shall I plant my seed, and watch you grow and swell with my child?” He barely recognized the words coming from his lips, too lost in carnal desire to notice. 

“Yes, yes Aemond, yes–” the words leaving your lips like a hymn, a prayer to your lord husband. Aemond’s fingers began to circle your bud as he continued to rut into you. 

“Together then, I can feel you little wife–” As if he possessed some kind of magic, you did as commanded. Aemond’s release coating your walls, both of you warm and well sated. Once more he leans down, leaving a small peck on your lips before resting his forehead on yours. 

“I have been a fool, a complete and utter fool. I am not a great man in many ways my sweet lady wife. But for you perhaps I could be,” He places another kiss on your lips. 

“I would like that very much Aemond,” you smile a bit as you say this because it is true and it would be unfair to not allow him to prove as much. After all, that is what you asked of him is it not? Without pulling out or away from you, Aemond rolls to his side, tucking you into him, desperate to keep you in his arms. 

“Stay like this with me tonight, please?” He asks, afraid you’ll send him away. 

“Tonight and every night if you behave,” you give him a slight pinch to add emphasis to your comment. You feel his chest vibrate against your cheek with laughter. 

“As you wish,” he says one final time, as the two of you drift off to sleep, held safely in the arms of one another.

[aelenavelaryon]

Daemon Targaryen x Selene Hightower

Summary: 𝓓𝓪𝓮𝓶𝓸𝓷 𝓣𝓪𝓻𝓰𝓪𝓻𝔂𝓮𝓷 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓛𝓪𝓭𝔂 𝓦𝓲𝓯𝓮 𝓟𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓬𝓮𝓼𝓼 𝓢𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓮 𝓗𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻 𝓣𝓪𝓻𝓰𝓪𝓻𝔂𝓮𝓷

Warnings: not edited? Nothing too crazy maybe some age gap

When Daemon's wife, Lady Rhea Royce perished on a trip across the narrow sea, his brother began to look for a new match. The king, had just married not too long ago. He had just named his daughter his heir but he had no children with his new wife just yet and his daughter was not married either. He wanted to secure his line. And what better way than through marriage?

Selene Hightower was Otto Hightower's youngest daughter. She was just like her sister if not more dutiful. Daemon had never paid attention to her as she had been back to Old Town with her family. Her return was a surprise to her as was her wedding to Daemon. Daemon didn't bother to meet her or nothing of that matter. Selene knew to not expect much from him. She cared very little for him but she was here to do her duty and she did. 

Selene Hightower and Daemon Targaryen married in the in the third moon of the year 105. Nine moons later they welcomed their first child, a son who they named Baelon in honor of Daemon's father. Lady Selene showed off her son every chance she got and the lords and ladies loved the boy who earned their love and affection. Daemon, despite being his moody self loved his son. After all the young babe took after him in every way. He took him flying across the skies a few days after being born, just like his mother had done with him when home was born. Baelon's dragon egg hatched that same night.

Daemon tried to be there for his son, that meant he would have to spend time with his wife, Lady Selene. Selene and Daemon welcomed their second child, Aemon just a year after Baelon. Daemon was there this time, he held her hand as she brought their son into the world. The maester held the baby before passing it to the nursemaids. "A boy, my prince, my lady" he said and she smiled. It was one of the rare times when he smiled at her. A genuine smile. The nursemaids let her hold her child and allowed her feed him too.

Daemon often took his sons on Dragon rides, their mother often watched them fly through the city from her window, a smile always gracing her lips. It was well known that Daemon and his wife did not love each other but they did their duty so graciously that even the king was surprise at his brother's change. Daemon no longer visited the streets of Silk. He no longer looked for other companions. Of course, as the prince and his lady wife made a life the king and his new wife had no children, every pregnancy queen Alicent had came with a stillborn or never made it past the second or third moon. Prince Aemond came a year after his brothers, and for a while prince Daemon and his wife choose to stop there. But, not for long.

Two years had passed. Baelon was now five, Aemon four and Aemond three when prince Aegon and princess Helaena were born. By then, Rhaenyra had two children of her own, prince Jacaerys and prince Lucerys, two children who looked nothing like their father or mother. Everyone knew of their true parentage but Selene and Daemon always kept to their business and their business alone. Helaena had been Daemon's firstborn daughter. His sweet dragon he would call her.

When Aemond was born, their relationship changed. Daemon wanted to spend time with her even when the children were not around. He wanted to hold her hand as they walked the gardens or as they walked to a room. He wanted to dance with her for hours if she would let him, he wanted to take her on dragon back across the Narrow Sea. After the twins were born, Daemon took his family and never looked back.

Pentos welcomed the family with open arms. Daemon and his wife began to ally themselves with those who needed protection and in return they got everything they desired. Selene, remained by his side, for years. There was never a time or place where Daemon was without his wife. Their children grew up with the best comforts and luxuries money could give. They all had dragons, except for Aemond.

Ten long years and Daemon and his wife had yet to stop having children. In Pentos they welcomed a few new members. Just nine moons after their arrival to Pentos they welcomed another set of twins Baela and Rhaena. Daeron and his twin sister Daenerys. Lady Serene was pregnant with her tenth child when the news of Laena's passing reached Pentos. The return of Daemon's family came as a surprise to many but throughout the years Laena and Selene had form a friendship as Laena had married a lord from Pentos and both women had been their for their children's births.

When people heard Caraxes everyone was surprised. They were surprise that Daemon had made an appearance but then, behind were eight dragons, most of them the size of Rhaenyra's dragon. Baelon rode Selene, the dragoness was named after his mother. Aemon rode Balerion who he named after the black dread. Aegon rode Sunfyre, Helaena rode Dreamfyre, Baela rode Moondancer, Rhaena rode Morning, Daeron rode Tessarion and Daenerys rode Meraxes, a dragon she named after queen Rhaenys' dragon. Daemon's wife, lady Selene arrived by boat as she was pregnant to ride with her husband. Aemond had come with his father. All of Daemon's children looked like him, some shared a few similarities with their mother but they were more like Daemon.

As the ceremony began people kept glancing at Daemon's children and princess Rhaenyra's children. The prince's children were the very definition of Old Valyrian blood children while Rhaenyra's children were the definition of the first men blood in their veins. The ceremony felt long but not because it truly was but because of the awkwardness between the Velaryon's and Rhaenyra. Daemon kept to himself and his family. He could feel Viserys watching his every move. His children were consoling Laena's daughter's Jocelyn and Rhaella while his wife was with Rhaenys.

Alicent, her father and Ser Criston watched Selene, she was happy and healthy as far as they could see. They watched as Daemon watched her and their children. He cared for her, Alicent could go as far as to say that he loved her. When Selene turned to look for Daemon she quickly spotted him, she gave him a warn and wide smile one that he returned happily. She went back to speaking to Rhaenys who was glad to have someone who truly cared for her daughter.

Viserys then approached his brother. "Daemon" he greeted him. "Your girls are the very image of their mother" he began. "A comfort and an anguish as I well remember" he said as he looked at his younger brother. Daemon on the other hand had a look on his face that was almost as if he was trying not to laugh at his brother's words. "The gods can be cruel" the king said as he looked at Daemon's wife. "It seems they've been specifically cruel to you" he replied feeling some time of way about how he was speaking and looking at his wife. The king chuckle before mumbling a yes. Daemon's hard gaze on his brother softened.

From where she stood, Selene could see princess Rhaenyra looking at her husband, her gaze towards him was intense. Rhaenys noticed too but said nothing. "You should return with us to King's Landing" the king offered. "It's time that you came home." he added. "Pentos is my home and that of my family" Daemon replied. "Daemon..." the king began. "I know we've had our differences, but let them pass with years. There's a place for you in my court if that's something you should need" the king said but that upset the rogue prince. "I need... nothing" he replied with a stern look before looking down and walking away from him. "Brother.." the king said but that Daemon had already walked away.

Otto Hightower stopped him. "It was time for you to bring my daughter home. Where she belongs" he stated. "She is far better off away from you and your family of leeches" Daemon replied to his good father. "She is a Hightower, my prince. A lady of Old Town" there was a silence. "Her loyalty is with her house, her blood. Do not forget that" he told Daemon before he walked away.

Selene decided to take a walk. She decided to take a walk by the beach, there she saw Daemon with Rhaenyra. She could hear their conversation but truly paid no mind. "You once told me I was the woman for you" she told him. She watched Daemon smirk. "I said this when you were young and I wanted the throne" he replied. An honest replied his wife thought. "Selene is not like you, Rhaenyra. She does not lie, she does not use people for her own benefit. She is kind, good, and loyal. Something that you've always lacked" he replied. "Laenor could not give me the sons I need it and you know that!" she replied. "I know and truthfully I do not care" he said. "You promised you'd stay by my side through it all" she said.

Daemon watched her, she was begging for him. "I will stand by your side when you come to the throne but I cannot do anything that puts my own family in danger" Rhaenyra scoffed. "You are just like my father a fool lovestruck with a Hightower whore" Daemon grabbed Rhaenyra by the neck. "You call her a whore one more time and I swear to the old gods that I will kill you. You are nothing to me! Nothing! Selene is everything to me! You hear me?!" Rhaenyra nodded frantically before he let her go. The two saw Vhagar, Laena's dragon fly by. Selene smiled, she knew, somehow someway her son was on top of Vhagar.

She met her son, by the caves under Driftmark, she was waiting as she watched him get off his new found dragon. Aemond stopped when he saw her standing there, he rushed to hug her. "See? I told you you'd have a dragon one day" she said before she pulled him close to his chest. In that moment, the birth pains began. "Aemond, find your father and tell him the babe is coming!" Aemond nodded and rushed in to look for his father. Selene laid in the sand, leaning all her weight into a rock. She saw a dragon fly in the sky, she thought it was one of her children's dragon, or another dragon from the Velaryons but as the dragon descended on the beach she saw the dragon as clear as day. 

Daemon spoke often of it. Caraxes who was near by rushed to see his riders wife, he felt her near by. Ever since Daemon's and Selene's relationship got closer and better, Selene and Caraxes created their own bond, kind of like a rider but not really. He was there to protect Selene from this Dragon. After Caraxes arrived other two dragons flew by, landing on the sand of Driftmark. Those dragons were Vermithor, Silverwing, and the Cannibal. Selene had no more time to wait as she heard other dragons, her children's own dragons. Lady Selene Hightower gave birth alone to three babes that night as the dragons of her children and husband roared welcoming the babes into the family.

Selene loved to carry scarfs and such with her, after birthing the first babe which was a boy, Vermithor approached the new born child before letting out a roar that made the child stop crying. "Jaehaerys" she said in a whisper before another pain came. After a few more minutes a daughter was born, Silverwing approached her. "Alysanne" she had named her. The last one did not want to come out. She was struggling, the Cannibal began to approach her, it was then that Daemon arrived with Maester's and the whole family behind him. But they all came into a halt when they saw the dragons of the old king and queen near each other and two bundles near his wife.

The cannibal was careful to not hurt the babes or disturb the dragons as he softly nudge her. A few pushes later, a baby girl was born. "Alyssa" she said said. The Cannibal stood there, watching the new born child, her children, born mere minutes ago had bonded with dragons that flew across the Sea to bond with them. Selene gave the dragons a nod and each and every single one flew away. Daemon who did not way another second rushed to her. "Look, Daemon. Three babes!" she said happily. "But, no more children, please" he nodded. "Whatever my beautiful dragon wants" he said as he kissed her. He brought the two babes to her as the children rushed to them. "This is Jaehaerys, and his twin sisters, Alysanne and Alyssa" she said before looking at Daemon who felt the tears forming in his eyes.

The births of the last Targaryen children of Daemon and Selene was known as the rebirth of Dragons. Some said she brought back House Targaryen. She gave birth to twelve Targaryen children. Six boys and six girls. And, all of her children had their own dragon. King Viserys gifted Dragonstone to his brother. Daemon moved his family into his ancestral home, the one he loved so much. Peace was in the family more than it had been before. Jocelyn and Rhaella would often visit their cousins, aunt and uncle as they like to call Dameon and Selene. Princess Rhaenys and lord Corlys visited them too. Rhaneyra had married Ser Harwin after Ser Laenor's "tragic" death. Rhaenyra was losing and she knew it.

Six years later, princess Selene was happy as ever. Prince Baelon was twenty and one. Prince Aemon was twenty, and prince Aemond nine and ten. Aegon and Helaena were seven and ten. Rhaena and Baela five and ten. Daeron and Daenerys were ten and their younger ones were six. Daemon and his wife often took them on dragon rides around the island. Things were fine for the most part until a raven arrived from Rhaenys. Prince Lucerys legitimacy was being question by Ser Vaemond Velaryon his "uncle" therefore the lord thought he should be the next lord of Driftmark if lord Corlys were to pass.

Daemon and his family stood next to king, he was hearing the whole ordeal to of course make it fair but everyone knew he would pick his daughter over anyone else. Daeron, Daenerys, Jaehaerys, Alysanne and Alyssa had stayed back in their chambers since they were too young to be in the court hearing. Vaemond had made a speech about his blood and line and how he would not see it end through bastards. Rhaneys was allowed to speak and it was then that she express the marriage proposals between Jocelyn and Aemond and one between Aegon and Rhaella. (Both twins are seventeen).

Rhaenyra looked at the woman thinking she would side with her. In a sense she had because she knew if she were to expose her things would soon spin out of control. Rhaenyra then spoke. "I propose a match between Jacaerys and princess Helaena, Luke to Baela and Joffrey Rhaena" Daemon looked at his wife, waiting for her permission and she nodded. The crowd had seen it. "We well consider your offer, princess" she replied with a smile. Daemon knew that if his daughter married Jacaerys she would be queen.

Although princess Helaena cared very little for such things he knew that Jacaerys was a good man. That, she was sure of. Baelon was to marry Nymeria Martell, Aemon Lyarra Stark. Daenerys was also bethroth to Qoren Martell, while Daeron to his cousin, lady Ceryse Hightower. The other three children were too young to even consider a match.

After the whole ordeal it was decided that Luke would be the lord of Driftmark. The whispers did not stop there though. It was said that the people believe prince Daemon and his lady wife would be better rulers than princess Rhaenyra and Ser Harwin. After the incident in Driftmark involving lady Selene people took that as a sign that her children were worthy of the crown. Unbeknownst to Selene her father was planning to usurp the throne from Rhaenyra and make his grandson, prince Baelon his heir. Selene was not supposed to find out but after an argument with Alicent the queen let's it slip.

Alicent had invited her to her private chambers. Selene, at her age, thirty and six she was still a beauty.

Alicent could see her, her beauty was radiant and pure. "You were always father's favorite child" Alicent began. Selene shook her head, to her it had never felt like that. "You were. Initially, he had plan for you to go to the King's chambers that day. But, he changed his mind, stating that he would find you something better. And I thought, what is better than a king? I see it now" Selene was of course confuse. "You are the queen, Alicent" she told her sister who scoffed.

Alicent looked at her. "Yes, I am. Yet, I bore the king no sons. No daughters. Nothing" she said back. "You on the other hand gave your husband twelve children. Healthy children that made it to adulthood. Your daughter might marry the future king. Your other children are marrying into good houses. Whilst me, I'm here. Alone. I've been alone after you left I had no one" Selene felt for her sister. Of course, she did. Alicent was her sister, her blood.

"Father never loved me. It may have seen that way to you but to me, he always made me do hard labour. I will not deny that at first my marriage to Daemon was not perfect. We hated each other. We hated what we stood for and what we believed in. I did my duty, I married, I gave my husband children, I was his wife, his servant, his nurse, his maid, his nymph, I lived to attend him, he used to make me do too much labor. I love him, i do. With all my heart. Daemon changed, he showed me how to be free, how to live, how to love. Our children are the light of our lives. And I am sorry that you were not as lucky as me. I wish, I wish you did not have to go through this, sister. I truly do" she said as she tried to hold her sisters hand but she had pulled away.

Alicent looked much older than she was. Way older. "Father has been planning to install Baelon as the new king. He wanted to do it for you" she said. "What?" Selene asked. She could not believe her own ears. "Alicent. What you are saying can be considered treason!" she yelled. "It's the truth. I swear it" Selene did not wait for her sister to say another word as she rushed out of the room in search of her father.

Otto was in his private office when she burst in. "Is it true?" Selene asked. Her face was red, the anger was noticeable. "Is what true, Selene?" Otto asked. "You're planning to take the throne from princess Rhaenyra?" she asked in a low voice. Daemon spied them, his guard told him his wife was seeing seething in anger walking towards her father's office. "Rhaenyra cannot rule after her father" he replied, making Daemon and his wife scoff. "Rhaenyra will be a good queen" she told him. "It won't matter if she's Jaehaerys born again. She's a woman" he replied. "I did not raise my son to take his cousins crown" her father laughed.

He stood and walked over to her. "When you married Daemon you hated him. Now, you love him? Better yet, you think he loves you?" he asked, mocking his daughter. "Daemon loves me. I don't care what you think about our marriage but keep my children out of your schemes. Or I will allow Daemon to kill you. I will not have my family destroy by your ambitions to take the throne that does not belong to us or our family" she said before she began to walk away. She stopped at the door.

"I love Daemon" she began. "I fell in love with him. He gave me the happiness I never thought I would find in our marriage. I have the same happiness you had when mother was alive" she turned to face her father. "I know mother would be disappointed in you. She would have never allowed you to marry Alicent and I off to our husbands" Otto stayed quiet. "So, are you saying you wished you never married Daemon?" Otto asked trying to twist her words. "Daemon was Daemon. I believe that one way or another he and I would've ended up together. We're meant to be. You may not see and you may hate it but I love him. I will always love him and my loyalty will always be with my husband and our family. I'm glad mother is not here to see what kind of man you've turned into" she said before walking away.

In the walk back to her room she didn't know what to do. This scheme had been going on for two decades. For as long as her son had been alive. She didn't find Daemon in their room and she was glad. The wine was set on the table, she had pour herself a cup and drank it quickly. She looked out the window. Her children were down there, the king had enjoy their company, especially the youngest, from Daeron to Alyssa. They loved to hear him tell them stories of old Valyria and from around the world. The older children spoke with their cousins and future betroths. She smiled at the sight. When she saw Baelon her smile dropped. Her son was in possible danger, if word got out of what was happening between the walls of the keep her son could pay for their mistake.

Selene was so engulfed in her own thoughts that she did not hear the door open. Daemon leaned against the door. He watched her watch their children. "My love" she heard him say. She turned to face him. Her face was full of worry and fear. Daemon, although knowing what worried her rushed to hug her. "Are you alright?" he asked and she shook her head no as she pulled him close. "I'm afraid, Daemon" she said in a whisper that he barely even heard. "Of what, love?" Daemon asked. Selene, told him the whole story that he already knew.

He pulled away, grabbing her face, making her look at him. "No harm will come to our children, you hear me? None. I will protect them with my life. Always have, always will" she nodded. "Do you wish for our son to be king?" he asked. "What mother wouldn't?" she replied. "All I want is for my children to be happy and content with what is given to them, with what they have and with what they have earn. I just want them to live a long and happy life" she cried. Baelon, Aemon and Aemond had walked in to their father consoling their mother, the three instantly got worried.

They rushed to their mother. "Mother! Are you alright? Are you hurt? Who has hurt you?" they all asked frantically scared for their mother. Daemon smiled proudly. Him and his lady wife had raised good men. "I am well. Just sad" she replied with a smile. Baelon and his two brothers were the exact copy of their father. It was like having a young Daemon in front of her. Aegon and Helaena shared their traits but Aegon was like his uncle Gwayne while Helaena was more like her aunt Alicent in her youth before marriage. Baela and Rhaena were the vivid image of their mother except for their purple eyes and their two strips of white hair.

Daeron was all his mother from the hair to eyes while his twin was all his father. Jaehaerys, Alysanne and Alyssa all looked like Daemon. Alyssa had one purple eye and one green, sharing the eye color with both of her parents and like her grandmother she had the same eye condition. She looked at her sons. "When I see you guys together, it reminds me to when you were all young, I missed my babies" she said as the tears began to fall once again.

Her children hugged their mother. Despite being men grown, they loved when their mother would sing to them, when she would play the harp, when she would rub their bellies as they laid on her lap while she read or when she would play with their hair. Daemon told their children their situation, they all knew they did not want the crown but soon enough they would realize the crown was meant for them.

It was a rainy night. Prince Daemon's family would be departing back to Dragonstone soon. In the hour of wolf, a Kingsguard arrive at the door of the prince and his wife. The king had called upon them. A important meeting. When they arrived, it was only the king, Harwin and Rhaenyra. No one else from the council was there. Daemon and his wife tensed up instantly. "What is the meaning of this?" Daemon asked as he held his wife close. "This morning, Rhaenyra came to with a petition" the king began. "She wishes to renounce to the throne" the room, was even more silent then it was before they arrived.

Prince Daemon and Selene were confused. Why would she asked that? Rhaenyra replied, as if she had heard their question. "The legitimacy of my sons has been put loudly to question since the day they were born and I am tired of it. I just wish to ride on dragon back and see the wonders across the narrow sea and eat only cake" she replied with a smile. Selene, saw it. Rhaenyra was given a heavy burden since the day she was born. She was married off to Laenor who everyone but her father and his father knew favored men over women. It was a marriage set to fail from the beginning.

So, the princess seek comfort elsewhere. Harwin Strong. "And what does that have to do with us?" Daemon asked. "Well, since I have no other children aside from Rhaenyra, and seeing as Rhaenyra's children do not want the throne either, you Daemon are the next in line to the throne" Selene looked at her husband. Being king was all he ever wanted years ago, but now it was different. "Would you, allow us sometime to think about it?" Selene asked and the king nodded. She grabbed Daemon's arm and began to walk into their room.

"Daemon" she whisper to him as he say by the window. "When I was younger all I ever wanted was to be a great warrior and the best dragon rider. I wanted to be the best of the best. I never wanted the crown as everyone always believed. Viserys was more fit to rule, I was too wild and untamable to rule. I was made for the battlefield not a council meeting" she nodded. "All I ever wanted was for my brother's love and support. He has been king for years and he has never asked me to be his hand but now he wishes for me to be king?" he asked. He knew his brother meant well but, truth be told Daemon was scared. The throne was the most dangerous sit in the realm.

When the morning came, her eldest son, Baelon was called into their chambers and the situation was explained to him. "I will do my duty, father, mother, always" Selene pulled him into a tight hugged one that he returned. "I am so proud of you, my son" he nodded and kissed her hand.

Daemon and Selene returned to the council meeting and gave the king his answer. Days later, prince Daemon and princess Selene became King Daemon Targaryen and his Queen Selene Hightower. They were crowned in a beautiful sunny day, the city seemed fresh and new. It was a new beginning for the Targaryen family and dynasty.

Soon after came the weddings. Baelon, Aemon and Aemond married moons after their parents coronation. Daemon and Selene were having déjà Vu as they saw their sons married dark haired women. Daemon remembered the day he married his dragon. He did not like her but now, nearly twenty two years later they were together, with twelve children and now a crown on their heads. Daemon was in a place he never imagined himself to be. But, he had Selene, his Selene by his side. And as long as she was by his side nothing else could get on the way of his happiness.

King Daemon Targaryen died at the age of ninety and two while his wife, Queen Selene, as she was called even after her son and wife became king and queen died at the age of a hundred and five. She was the longest living queen. She lived twelve years after her husband. She saw a few generations of her blood raise to the throne. She saw hers And daemon's bloodline expand and live on through their children and through her children's children.

She lived a happy life. A long happy life. As she got older she liked to be read to. Her children and later on children, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren and such would read to her. They would visit her and tell her about their day. The queen lived her last days happy and content. Baelon and his son made a statue and a castle in the name of their mother, and another statue of their father. Her great grandson adding one more of both Daemon and Selene. House Targaryen prevailed and continued thanks to Selene Hightower the "Grace and Love of Daemon Targaryen"

[jarofstyles]

Stay Right Here- the first meeting

The first meeting between omega maid Y/N and alpha prince Harry!

Enjoy my lovebugs.

Check out our Patreon!

Hellooo. Here is alpha prince Harry’s experience first seeing Y/N 🤭 enjoy!

—

It was a cold day when Harry first saw her.

Arriving back from his journey, the palace was buzzing with people and a celebratory dinner was being hosted in his honor. People milling about preparing for the dinner, decorating with winter florals and garlands, Harry felt a bit of the tension in his shoulders drop. He was home.

When the time came for dinner, Harry was ready for a night of drinking, full bellies, good music, and wonderful company.

What he hadn’t been ready for? A beautiful little omega maid who brought out the finest bottle of wine.

The dining room was made up and decorated to the finest degree, the most precious dinnerware set out, people sprawled across the rooms at different tables. His was filled with the highest class. His father, mother, sister and a few of his cousins, aunts and uncles. The highest ranking and the ones meant to carry the lines. He was supposed to be paying attention to the story his uncle had been saying but there was a scent that caught his attention. It was hard to pinpoint with so many in the room, but it was driving him mad.

It was only when he felt it get closer, the scent strong as he found the source standing beside the table with her head bowed that he realized it was her. That scent that made his cock swell and his teeth clench, the thing that had been distracting him most of the night, was standing right in front of him with a bottle of wine to pour. Only the finest bottle, too, which meant she was in good standing with the staff. They wouldn’t send a bad maid to pour the wine to the highest people.

Harry’s body ached. It burned as he watched her with a sharp glare as she moved around the table, filling glasses with a curtsey each time. It was when she got to him that it changed. It had to- Harry wanted to see more.

“Give me your eyes.” He commanded quiet yet tersely., anticipation riding in him as he watched her tense. She shook a little bit as she raised her face to him. seeing the fear unsettled him. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him.

He realized his error, knowing most royals wouldn’t speak to her unless there was a problem or she was in trouble. His demeanor gentler than before, he tried again. “There is no harm to you. I just wish to see them.” His tone softened for her.

Her beauty was far better than anything he had seen in all of his trips. How she wasn’t one of them, a noble, at least the wife of a nobleman or woman? He had no clue. She took his breath. Stole it from his lungs. Beauty surrounded this omegalike an aura, crystalline visions popping into his head as he observed her. The curve of her lips was something he had seen painted in the most priceless pieces of art, her lashes long and soft. Harry felt displeasure rise when he saw the unease under her gaze, but he could see the interest in it as well. That soothed the beast.

“What is your name?” He questioned, ignoring people around them looking at him for speaking with staff. It was very unusual but he didn’t really care for the normalities at the moment.

“Y/N, your highness.” She peeped, the soft voice wrestling and wiggling under his skin. He wanted to hear more. His hands clenched around the chair again as he tried to reign himself him, his stare seeming to beam through the woman. Her hand still shook as she waited for him to address her again.

“Y/N.” Tasting the name on his lips, he decided it was his new favorite flavor. Until he could taste those curved lips or the honey between her thighs. “Thank you. You’ve done excellent tonight.” He thanked her. “You may go.”

Letting her walk away was something he felt against his inner nature. The alpha in him was thrashing at the idea of her walking further from him but he composed himself, returning to his conversation without addressing why and how he did that.

The entire night he could smell her. His eyes tracked her as she walked across the room, eyes avoiding his even though he knew she was well aware of his stare. She had to feel it. She was polite and graceful, curtseying and pouring the wine, carrying trays. It seemed wrong to him. In his mind, she was someone to be treasured. A beauty, a smell like that? She would be sat at this table in his lap. Like the other omegas did, curled happily into their alphas. His more primal mind couldn’t comprehend why he couldn’t just grab her and do the same. It was a scent match, at least on his end. That’s how it should be done.

If he wasn’t a royal, maybe he would. He wasn’t so out of his mind yet to do so, but he hatched a plan that night. One that would definitely raise waves.

-

“I want a chambermaid.” He spoke to his father, sitting across from his desk. The day after the ball to welcome him back, he sat with his finger stroking over the stubble that had grown that night.

“I thought you didn’t. For your privacy?” His father raised a brow, placing the paper in his hands down on the wood. “I suppose you can. It is your right. I can look and see who is available, set you up with a skilled-“

“I want Y/N.” It was rare he interrupted his father. But he didn’t want just anyone. Just any maid. He wanted the one that had made him go mad the night before, chasing her scent every time she walked around the room and unable to look anywhere but her when she entered the room. “The one who served us wine last night. She was very polite. I wasn’t aware we did more hires when I was gone.”

The king looked over at him with an unreadable gaze, clasping his hands together. “I see.” He let the words sit for a moment. “She’s very pretty, too, Harry.” His brows turned, looking over his son. “I know you know of your duties. Your honor. I don’t mind that you have a chambermaid you have affection for so long as you know it is not something you can keep. If she is willing to change her positon for you in the kitchens… I will see to it.” He paused, looking over his son. “I know you are a mean of honor and will not make this woman do anything she is not willing to do. But be mindful. Be aware. Omegas are delicate creature emotionally. Lay out your bearings and conditions if you move in that direction. I will not have a scandal. Am I clear?”

The king was no fool. He knew exactly why. After seeing him speak and stare at the omega all night, he wasn’t surprised that Harry was interested. The woman caused a commotion with others as well, despite her knowledge.

“Yes, Father.”

If only they knew.

[dreamwritersworld]

I could fall in love! (? 🤫 x reader)

This is a new story! There will be a love interest 🤭 I hope you enjoy it for now! This will have music incorporated in it!

Y/n was a breath of fresh air to her people, she moved the water gracefully, and held herself to great standards. But because of her gift from Eywa, she was the most searched for. She is the person that parents would tell their children about, ‘a myth’, not real unless you are within the clan.

Y/n’s parents were Tonowari and Ronal, clan leaders of Awa’atlu. Y/n’s arrival caused the clan to celebrate and create a cultural of dance and music, seeing as the little girl moved her body with the water and enjoyed it all.

Until. She was taken away as a young child…into the deep reef, the unknown part of the sea, for her gift. They lived so deep, no one could get her because of how much water pressure was down there. She adapted to a new life style, never forgetting her home, and being put to work endlessly. Y/n was only a kid. She was kept in a beautiful village…it did not come without a price, she was never able to experience any other areas of the world, not allowed to return home. Afraid the girl who held the city down, would be taken from their arms too …the same way they had stole her from the Metkayina people.

It was said if you listened close enough and were above the village, Y/n’s cries could be heard from the bottom of the seas, where her heart laid…broken. The clan was devastated when Y/n was kidnapped, they continued their once in a year celebration carnival, in honor of her. She had won the people’s heart at a young age, she was meant to be their future.

So Eywa granted y/n another chance, a way out. Y/n was fast and stronger than anyone in the underwater city she lived in, so the one time the people decided not to drain Y/n of her powers, she took the chance and swam faster than she ever did rushing and had the help of the ocean find her way home. When she did arrive back home, she was in deep pain, fighting for her life, and asking for the Tsahik’s supplies in order to heal her own body. She could heal her own wounds far better than any Tsahik could, her hands held great power. Once healed she was greeted properly by her clan and once again reunited with her family.

However Y/n’s past was so dark, she didn’t ever like talking about it, so when she was asked she would freeze up and say “I-I was young and I will not discuss it, as it wasn’t my best days. I would not like you to see me in that light. Please accept my wishes.” She only ever told her family the ‘on the surface areas’, “I was kidnapped and overworked. I left once Eywa heard my prayers to her, begging for a way back home.” She was so affected the only way she knew how to process it all was remaining strong and having a smile on her face. Being the first in line as a leader for the clan was a lot of pressure yes, but being that and the way of the ocean was more difficult. Everyone counted on Y/n to keep their ocean safe, Y/n promised her life to the clan.

There was a place with another clan where Y/n was sworn to be safe, she had to make a long difficult trip for. This trip was meant for the Tsahik to learn and show their work, however her mother was pregnant and is in risk of traveling. Before leaving for almost a month she recited the words she had said to her clan when she was only 9.…”I promise my life to the clan and swear to never let any threat graze against this island and my people.” Just because she left to put her part in the clan doesn’t mean they were happy she was leaving for awhile, even with the stronger warriors by her side nothing will ease the fear of losing their future leader again.

Until she arrived just above the surface, smiles appeared on the people’s faces as she returns back to her island safe and sound. This is the longest they have gone without her…

I arrive on the island sending a wave and a smile. They don’t deserve to have anything less than a happy face just because they don’t know how draining the trip was, doesn’t mean they should feel my discomfort.

“My daughter has returned!” I smile at them as I approach my father, sending respectful greetings to them before embracing them and my siblings a hug. “Sister! You must meet-“ I laughed at how excited Tsireya was until her sentence came to an abrupt stop as we hear singing in the crowd, coming closer.

(begin playing song)

“Ah,ah ah,”

Oh please no, not in front of everyone. I try ignoring the singing coming closer “Meet who-“ suddenly I was now put to a stop as I feel my mom hands hold my arm and sending a smile with a look I know too well, telling me to listen. This is going to be awkward.

That’s when he came out the crowd, only creating more suspicions that we are promised to each other.

“Look at her shining.”

Ahh it’s happening, he’s coming out the crowd…please.

“Now the ocean is smiling cause our baby’s home.

Can you feel what I feel?”

I send comforting smiles to the crowd as i try to remind calm from all the nervousness he is sending me, and not in a good way.

“Our precious Y/n has returned! I’ll be the first to say welcome back. Oh, welcome back!”

I smiled and go to shake his hand respectfully

“Thank you-“

oh he’s not done..?

“I said, welcome, w-w-welcome back, w-w-welcome back!”

I quickly let go of his hand once the song is over and try to brush over the gesture once again.

“Thank you Imrik! I appreciate the gesture from you and the clan!” I turn to the clan “thank you again my people! You may enjoy the rest of your day!” I turn to my family sharing a knowingly with Tsireya. “I know you’re excited to tell me sister and I can assure you I will return to you, so you can finish your sentence but please can I slip away for a moment to freshen up? It’s been a long trip and eclipse is almost coming.” She gives a bright smile and agrees with my request saying maybe tomorrow I will have time. I sure hope so…

I freshman up and quickly go to rest, after checking with my parents if everything is alright and if anything is needed.

…That rest was everything I needed before I was up early to help around in the morning. “Sister I know mother and father haven’t had any time allow you to meet the ou-“ she was cut off again by my mother and one of the clan members requesting me from afar. “Sister I am so sorry perhaps we can continue this another day? I’ve just been so busy, whoever it is I can assure you I will meet them as soon as possible! You have my word.” I send a reassuring smile and quickly turn away to do what was needed of me. It continued like that for the next day…unbeknownst to Y/n, Tuk who Y/n was supposed to already know about and meet was watching her from afar excited to meet the girl Tsireya has spoke highly about.

Tuk had just finished off making a shell necklace, still stuck in her head ‘She’s like a…a dream? She’s so pretty! This is taking too long I think I’ll just walk up to her! The warrior ocean…what’s the word dad said? p-…princess! ’

So it was decided she was going to walk up to Y/n, lying to her siblings about her going to hang with the other kids …well technically not really lying..? “Hi! I am Tuk” Y/n turns surprised, looking at the girl who’s family she had been excited to finally meet! “I-Hello Tuk, how are you? I have been wanting to greet you and your family for so long! I am so sorry I never got the chance to approach you first.” Tuk smiled at the girl who was before her “It’s ok! What are you doing?” Y/n rushes with excitement ready to tell the sweet girl in front of her how festival carnival worked for the Metkayina people. “I am helping for the festival approaching I-“ Tuk jumps with excitement “what’s that!” Y/n laughs at the joy of the little girl “Well festival Carnaval was first created to celebrate my arrival! You see yawntutsyip, (darling,little loved one) I can move the ocean and I always danced with it as a child. The Metkayina people do the festival every year once our brothers and sisters, the Tulkan’s come to visit. The clan invited them to the party since I grew very close with the animals! Now festival carnival is what I call ‘Celebration of life’” Tuk looked at Y/n with pure joy with questions springing out of her.

“Can you teach me a small dance? I want to dance in the crowd while the people sing!” To this I smile and agree. We spent a few minutes on dancing while I hum the music for Tuk to follow to. “You’re a quick learner Tuk! That’s just one of our dances, we have a few! We do it for the next two nights! How about I teach you one of the lyrics?” Tuk immediately nods her head “Please! I want to be able to sing along your voice!” I laugh at her cuteness. “Definitely! Theres a part by myself for the song on first night, you can sing right along side the people and I will be sure to show you off while you sing! The lyric is ‘never alone cause this is our home, magic can happen for real in rio.’ I have to get back to work but as long as you got that down beautiful, you will do great!” Tuk smiles and recited her words while Y/n calls for Tsireya to bring Tuk back home.

“You have met Tuk! Cute isn’t she?” I smile to this looking at the sweet girl who was so happy to be included. “Definitely! She’s perfect, In my eyes she is one of the people! May you please take her home safely while I finish stuff up before eclipse?” Tsireya agrees. However on the walk home she couldn’t help but giggle at how highly Tuk had also talked about Y/n. “She’s just like you! Sworn in from Eywa herself! So pretty! It’s unreal! You guys are like the ocean’s princesses!” After saying her goodbyes to Tsireya, Tuk entered with a proud walk, heading to her brother Neteyam and her mother Neytiri to tell them about the older sister Y/n!

Tsireya returned home to tell Y/n of the sweet girls words, telling y/n the family’s background, how she had a slight liking to one of the boys names Lo’ak, how the children were having trouble settling with Ao’nung and his friends terrorizing the siblings.

“How dare Ao’nung show any sign of disrespect to good people? They’re clearly earning their spot in the clan. Mmh how about we bring them into dance with us during the song tomorrow? Singing and dancing with them will show unity and respect, the clan will see what we see.” Tsireya’s smile rises enjoying the idea of dancing with the new family. “So be it, we will invite the family to dance alongside us and our family!” Festival Carnaval will be tomorrow…

!💙!

This is not the official title!! If you guys have an suggestions please let me know!! 💞 if you’d like to be added to tag list please lmk as well!

Tag list: @noodlesfics @eywas-heir @itshype

@zatarias-pandora @yeosxxx @arminsgfloll

@abbersreads @elegantkidfansoul @goodiesinthecloset21 @lv9su @ssc7514

@useryourbut @nikotokitaswife @eatassskatefast12

@simp-erformarvelwomen @luciddasher

[charmsandtealeaves]

Well despite a very busy week, I actually also managed a lot of reading! Big win for me personally. This week is still predominantly Jily (no surprises there - especially with gift exchange fics dropped)

Read This Week:

Pinkest Bluestocking of the Ton by @wearingaberetinparis (Ch.11-)

WIP, Regency Jily, Rated M

Dearest Reader, the ton are abuzz with the latest gossip, and so it is my honour to impart to you the news that the Duke of Peverell has returned to London at last! A year after setting off on his tour of Europe, Lady Peverell's son has returned and rumour has it that his mother is preparing for the most joyous of occasions: a late summer wedding that sees her son wed the next Duchess of Peverell. It is my sincere hope that you have stored a bottle of wine for this most delightful of upcoming events for if ever there were a more determined mama, this writer is Icarus and this society paper has been scorched for flying too close to the sun. A Jily Regency Romance inspired by Shondaland's "Bridgerton".

Down Comes The Night by Wearingaberetinparis (Ch.1-)

WIP, Hogwarts Jily, Different Houses, Rated M

As the Wizarding World grows ever darker, the threat of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters looming, James Potter – Gryffindor at heart, pure of blood, traitor by nature – and Lily Evans – Ravenclaw of mind, Muggle by birth, solitary of soul – are appointed Head Boy and Girl.

To Bring Down A Kingdom by @mppmaraudergirl (Ch.1-)

WIP, Forbidden Love Jily, Rated M

“If we do this…” “For all of time, they will say it was our love that brought down a kingdom.” A story about forbidden lovers, the battle between duty and love, and the cost of betrayal. Inspired by the film Tristan and Isolde.

Your Friend, James by @thelighthousestale

Complete (5.3k), Letters, Hogwarts Jily, Rated T

It is the summer before their 7th year, and Lily and James spend the entire holiday writing letters to each other as their relationship slowly changes from friends to something more.

Miss Evans and the Impossible Task (of finding a husband) by @annasghosts (Ch.9)

Complete (22.2K), Regency Era Jily, Rated T

Miss Lily Evans, the youngest daughter of a widow with a modest fortune, at one and twenty years of age knows what is required of her: to find a husband willing to support her and her mother. The problem? Men of the London society aren’t swayed by her lack of a dowry and brazen attitude. Luckily for her Mr James Potter has just come home from Cambridge and she can enlist his help to find out what men really want.

A Tale of Two Sisters by Annasghosts

Complete (2k) Lily and Petunia Evans, Rated G

This is the story of Lily and Petunia Evans, two sisters who couldn't be more different, but once upon a time, when they were little girls, thought their bond unbreakable.

Theogony by @clare-with-no-i

Complete (120k), Ancient Greece/Time Travel Jily, Rated M

The trip that Lily Evans expects to go on is the annual pre-dissertation jaunt to Athens with the rest of her Classical Civilizations PhD program. The trip she does not expect to go on is to 479 BCE, right on the cusp of one of the most important battles in the Greco-Persian war. Now, she has to navigate antiquity as she tries to find her way back to the 21st Century, God—or gods—help her. James wants to win this war. No, James needs to win this war. He is a man of honor and duty, and even if it means dying a gruesome, bloody death, he will go down in history as one of Athens's great warriors. He will suffer no distractions; not even beautiful ones who speak strangely and refuse to listen to his orders.

Drunk on You by @kay-elle-cee

Complete (4.3k), jily in a tub, Rated E

While on a weekend getaway with some friends, Lily steals away somewhere private to cool down from the sweltering heat and the alcohol in her system. James Potter, a (very fit) friend-of-a-friend who's tagged along, has a similar idea. Spilled wine, bare skin, and bold flirting do not help them cool down one bit.

Accidental Magic by @missgryffin

Complete (9.1k), Jily smut, Rated E

What else is there to do after confessing feelings in the middle of the night than spend a lazy Saturday in bed?

The Three-Minute Initiative by @annabtg

Complete (1.9k), Jily Speed Dating, Rated T

The first bloke Lily meets at the speed dating event is too cold and distant; the second one lacks enthusiasm; the third one doesn’t look like the type to take initiative. The fourth bloke is when she stops counting.

The Couch Chronicles by @jamesunderwater

Complete (3.1k), jily/jilypad cuteness, Rated G

Lily Evans thought Sirius Black wasn't her friend, but she also thought James Potter was just her colleague. She was wrong on both accounts. written for the lovely AnnaBtG as part of @jilymicrofic's 2024 Jily Gift Exchange, and inspired by this fanart.

Loose Ends by @abihastastybeans

Complete (1.7k), Enemies to Lovers, Thieves Jily, Rated M

Written for Jilymicrofics' Valentine's Gift Exchange 2024!! "He walked up behind Lupin and scanned the map, tracing his finger over the hand drawn lines, determinedly. “You’re part of the team now and you’re going to help me show Lily Evans who’s who.”"

Thrice Defied by abihastastybeans

Complete (2.4k), First Wizarding War Jily, Rated M

Written for Jilymicrofics' Valentine's Gift Exchange 2024! James and Lily defying Voldemort three times

there's nothin' like a mad man by @athenasparrow

Complete (1k), Jily smut, Rated E

Order Jily love confessions

Never Far Behind (Those Vivid Knuckles) by @uncertainwallflower

Complete (742), protective jily, Rated E

To wrong Lily Evans is to face James Potter's wrath.

As Good A Reason by @fiendishfyre

Complete (9k), jily enemies to lovers, rated G

James and Lily enter a competition to become apprentices to a famed Potion master.

Operation Jily by @nena-96

Complete (3k), jily, meddling friends, Rated T

Marlene is tired of putting up with James and Lily, so she seeks the help from Sirius and Remus in order to get those two idiots together. Operation Jily is set and ready for action.

Sweethearts’ Special by @tinyluminaryzombie

Complete (1.6k), Jily Coffee Shop AU, Rated T

What happens when your coffee shop nemesis, asks you to pretend to be a couple? "I’ve been staring at the stupid cupcakes for the past hour, and they look way too good. Anyways, would you be willing to join forces and pretend to be together for the free cupcake and coffee?”

Hell is Empty (and all the devils are here) by @nodirectionhome-ao3

Complete (11.4k), canon divergent Order! Jily, Rated M

When an Order mission takes an unexpected turn, James and Lily find themselves stranded together. In the aftermath of the chaos, sheltering together through the storm, a fire catches between them.

Between the Desire and the Spasm by @uncertainwallflower (ch.10)

WIP, canon divergent, modern with magic jily, Rated M

Trains are arguably the centre of everything. The sinew of civilisation for muggles and wizards alike. They are where all walks of life converge. Congregate. In synchronised traversal. Shared agony inflicted by the piercing screech of metal on metal, bonding all patrons aboard a carriage. And outside. A passing glimpse of someone you thought you’d never see again. Trains. They change everything.

Quest For Camelot by @petalsinwoodvale (Ch.10-11)

WIP, Quest for Camelot Jily AU, Rated T

All Lily has ever wanted is to be a knight, like her father, Sir Lionel. After Camelot is attacked and the magical sword Excalibur is stolen, she finds herself teaming up with James, a young blind hermit, as they embark on a quest to find the lost sword. Together, they face the threat of the evil Ruber, navigate challenges with a two-headed dragon and an ogre, and discover that they're more alike than they initially thought. Will they manage to return the sword to Arthur in time, or will they lose not only each other but also their dreams and the precious Excalibur? Based on the 1998 movie Quest for Camelot, but more plot and less singing.

The Librarian of Hogsmeade Village by @ohmygodshesinsane

Complete (8.2k), modern jily AU, Rated T

Lily's work as a librarian in the small village of Hogsmeade has kept her occupied for the past six years, forever keeping the wheels of the town on the track. As the holidays approach, she prepares to settle in with a nice mug of tea and a well-thumbed old book. When a new resident and his son arrive at her weekly story-reading, with cheeky smiles and big hearts, those plans are tossed out the window in favour of chasing love, for once - not escaping it.

Heart Transfiguration by @siriuslychessi

Complete (2.8k), Hogwarts Jily, Rated G

James and Lily have a study session on their 6th year where James starts to notice some changes in Lily's behaviour.

Get a Room by @chierafied

Complete (1.3k), Modern Jily AU, Rated T

The long-awaited trip to London goes awry when Marlene chooses to spend time with her boyfriend - forcing Lily to share their room with none other than James Potter.

The Duel by @reality-exodus

Complete (3k), First Wizarding War, Rated G

While the Marauders are studying in Hogwarts the first wizarding world blooms on their societies with the threat towards Muggleborns getting greater, unfortunately Hogwarts its not a safe place anymore, as the slytherins carry on the believes of their families in school grounds. What happens when Lilly is a targeted Muggle?

Just The Two Of Us by @arianatwycross

Complete (10.2k), Hogwarts Jily, Rated T

Head Students James and Lily face a perilous twist when a malicious potion surfaces in hate mail directed at Lily. Dumbledore orders a week-long quarantine in the Head Students' suite. With unspoken crushes lingering, the duo navigates close quarters, leading to unexpected revelations, lingering looks and forehead kisses.

The Wait Was Worth It by @rose-of-the-grave

Complete (3.3k), Hogwarts Jily, Rated G

James is trying to move on. Lily thinks it's too late. With some help from their friends them might finally be on the same page.

The Boy (In The Bedroom) Next Door by @eastwindmlk (Ch.1-5)

WIP, Canon Divergent Jily, Rated T

1986 Lily Evans has to move in with her new potion's teacher to finish her apprenticeship. There is one small issue, said teacher? Fleamont Potter, father of infinitely annoying and frustratingly fit former rival James Potter. Who she has not seen after leaving Hogwarts after her third year.

The Queen of the Quills (Jily Edition) by @elliemarchetti

WIP, Regency Jily, Rated T

James Potter, London's most evasive bachelor, an impertinent libertine, has decided to get married. He has also already chosen his wife, the debutante Lily Evans, a self-confident young woman who has not the slightest intention of being seduced by such a man.

[silver-dragonborn]

Here are some of my thoughts on a few fics I may or may not finish due to work, real life, and depression. Episode One of HOTD gave me some new insight into Alicent Hightower and the family dynamics of the Blacks as well as the dragons...specifically Cannibal (got a crack theory for this one).

-) 1. When news of Lucerys' death breaks out, Rhaena steals a horse in the middle of the night and sneaks off to claim the Cannibal. Don't get me wrong, I love Morning and I want Rhaena to hatch her pretty pink Barbie dragon, but I'm angling for a darker turn in which Rhaena swears a terrible oath of vengeance and claims Cannibal.

I have a theory that Cannibal is a dragon-like alien who fell from the deepest corners of space and has lived this long because dragon eggs and hatchlings provide him with the nourishment he needs to replenish his strength to make the long trip back to his home planet.

However, if he were to eat a much larger dragon, like Vhagar, he'd grow in size and never have to eat a single egg again. Cannibal is unnatural and does not belong on this planet, but when this slip of a girl approaches him with promises of a grand "feast" his interest is piqued and he lowers his wing for her to climb upon his back. It's only after Cannibal devours Vhagar's corpse (bones and all) that he realizes that he finally has plenty of strength to return to the stars...but this little human has shown much courage and kept her end of the bargain...it wouldn't hurt to stay. After all, his human is a delight, and this funny human war will provide him with more dragons to feast on and make him even bigger...and stronger.

Rhaena claiming the space eldritch monster is what I need and poor Sunfyre and Tessarion are next on the menu. Also, Rhaena the Devourer has a nice ring to it.

-) 2. The older Black kids, Jace, Baela, Rhaena, and Luke, are sent back in time to avenge their family and crown Rhaenyra. Super dark because they're war-torn adults trapped in children's bodies, dealing with issues ranging from PTSD, lack of sleep, trauma, short tempers, etc. They're not in a merciful mood and will go scorched earth on the Hightowers as well as re-establish House Targaryen once more as the House not to be fucked with. Poor Rhaenyra will wonder what happened to her sweet boys while Daemon can barely recognize his daughters who are suddenly far more vicious than him.

Expect lots of gore, senseless violence, political machinations, and each Green meeting their demise. Dyana will also be making an appearance and serving as the right-hand woman of Baela because damn it, if anyone deserves justice and a happy ending it's her.

-) 3. Mourning over the loss of his son, a drunken Aegon accidentally stumbles upon Ser Cristol Cole and his mother messing around in Rhaenyra's chambers and loses his shit. His wine-addled mind causes him to blame their pair for his son's death and he proceeds to put them on trial, but not before gelding Ser Criston and flogging his mother. From there, the Greens unravel from the inside and turn on each other like rats because, by the end of the day, there is no honor among thieves. In short, Rhaenyra takes back her throne without losing any more children because the Greens turned on each other.

It just goes to show that traumatizing your kids, physically abusing them, forcing them to obsess over their older sister, and cruelly denying them their true heritage all because its "queer customs" make you uncomfortable will blow up in your face and then some.

Alicent is going to find out real fucking quick that the men she has fought for her entire life will happily throw her into the fire to keep themselves warm and that the cruelty of the Faith knows no bounds.

-) 4. Aegon makes Ser Criston Cole his Hand after sacking his grandfather. Now the second most powerful man in Westeros, Criston proposes marriage to Alicent, but like Rhaenyra before her, Alicent rejects him, reminding him of his low rank and their incompatibilities. Once again, Criston turns against another noblewoman for rejecting him, except now he has the power to make Alicent's life a living hell. Alicent realizes with cold clarity the type of man he truly is and that she should have left him to rot on Driftmark.

There is...a special kind of horror of being at the mercy of cruel, powerful men who have no respect for women. Remember, this is the same man who bashed. another man's face and tormented Rhaenyra for YEARS all because she refused to be poor with him. I will be writing Criston as he is: A petty, cruel incel who has no business being in charge. Emphasis on the cruel part...poor Alicent is not prepared for what he has planned for her nor is she prepared for how Aegon and Aemond will turn a blind eye like Viserys did. After all, Criston is the dad who stepped up, and his "sons" have inherited the worst of his traits from him.

[picklesonjupiter]

On AO3, for @hp-yuletide-bliss

Severus knew better than to pester his parents for presents for Christmas. On Christmas morning, he never awoke to wrapped gifts under an evergreen tree or a stocking. Unlike at Lily’s home, his home was never decorated for the holidays. It was a hostile environment, devoid of holiday cheer.

They lived a frugal life, never going on unnecessary trips and never eating out. Their money was spent on food, second-hand clothes, and medical bills for his mum. (His father also spent a large amount of the money on booze.)

One luxury he enjoyed was the hot cocoa his mum bought from a diner. The food and the beverages weren’t spectacular, but spending the day with his mum without his father was enjoyable.

The diner was a regular haunt for them every Christmas Eve. Severus knew the owners as well as their children. Mrs Batley was a kind lady who often pointed out that Severus needed to eat more. In the end, she would bring out more food than they ordered and give it to them for free. Mr Batley once gifted him gloves and a scarf because he hadn’t worn any. The children were a few years younger than him, so he never grew too close to them. However, he did help one of them with their winter assignment.

Even after his mother's death, he returned every Christmas Eve. It was his way of honoring his mum.

That diner became special to Severus, and he refused to share it with anyone else, not even Lily. Therefore, for him to be visiting there with Potter was monumental.

At the behest of Dumbledore, Severus took custody of Harry Potter when the Dursleys died in a car accident. He wasn’t looking forward to looking after a spoiled child, but what arrived at his doorstep was a terrified little boy, looking no older than six when he was actually nine years old.

Potter refused to eat anything Severus offered him, only eating the leftovers and stealing crumbs when he thought Severus wasn't looking. Tired of trying to force the child to eat, Severus decided to take him to the one place where food felt like safety and home.

“Hello, Severus.” He was greeted with a kind smile as he entered the diner. "Who is this darling boy that you brought with you today?”

The boy crossed his arms defensively and hid behind his unruly hair.

“This is Harry. My new ward.” Severus guided Potter into his usual booth before ordering for them. “Two hot cocoas, my usual, and what would you like?” He looked at the boy, who was staring at him with wide, green eyes.

“Um, dunno. What’s good?” A famished look crossed his face.

“Just about everything my husband cooks is good, but just for you, I'll order the best. How do two eggs, sausages, and toast sound?”

The boy nodded his approval.

Mrs Batley went off to the kitchen.

“Thank you,” the boy mumbled.

“Why are you thanking me?” Severus asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“I know I was a nuisance for not eating what you cooked. I don’t deserve to eat out, but here we are on Christmas Eve. You should be with your family or friends instead of taking care of a useless boy.”

Severus sighed.

As the Head of Slytherin, he dealt with children from less than ideal homes, but they were easier to deal with as he didn’t need to raise them. Teaching was bothersome enough, and now he had to worry about rearing Harry Potter, the boy revered throughout the British magical world.

“You have not inconvenienced me, Mr Potter. I come here every Christmas Eve. You may ask Mrs Batley if you do not believe me.”

“Oh,” the boy said, his cheeks flushing.

“Besides, if you will not or cannot eat the food I have prepared, I must accommodate you. You are in my charge now, and I refuse to neglect my duty.”

The misgiving lingering on Potter’s face dispersed, and as immense relief seemed to overwhelm him, he slumped in his seat.

Mrs Batley brought out the hot cocoas while they waited for their food. Potter’s face lit up in delight, as if tasting something sweet for the first time.

“It’s good. Never had it before.” Potter licked his lips, not squandering a single drop of the drink.

Severus grimaced at the boy’s lack of table manners. If Potter was to survive in the pure-blood society, then Severus would need to teach him. The journey would be long and arduous, but for now, all he had to worry about was feeding the boy.

When the food arrived, Potter waited for Severus to eat before he touched his own. He doused his food with syrup and ate a forkful of the food. Severus smirked when Potter went for a second bite of his food.

“Pace yourself. You don’t want to make yourself sick.”

Potter heeded his warning and savored his food carefully.

After they finished eating, they left the diner full and satisfied.

“Can we come back next Christmas Eve?” Green eyes glistened with hope.

His tradition with his mother now seemed to have become a tradition with Harry Potter.

“You’ll come with me every year.”

Potter grinned. The corners of Severus’ lips tugged upwards into a faint smile.

[assorted-fics]

Fics of the Week

Avatar: The Last Airbender

a nation, held by snowdarkred

It doesn’t take long for the rumors to start.

The Fire Nation prides itself on its civilization. It isn’t like the other, lesser, nations who throw their children away by sending them into war. Those uncultured and unfeeling savages who are destroying their own future faster than the Fire Nation can save them from themselves.

Every Fire Nation child goes to school. They learn reading and writing, the illustrious history of their country, and what will be expected of them as proper, upstanding Fire Nation citizens. They are to be protected, because children are the future glory of the nation.

The crown prince is thirteen when his father burns his face in front of an audience of hundreds.

All The Gentle Creatures by Haicrescendo

It’s said that you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat animals. Zuko may be loud and stubborn and sharp but all the woodland creatures love him.

The Good Vanilla by Haicrescendo

Sokka’s beautiful friendship with Zuko doesn’t start with breaking Dad out of jail. That’s just what he tells people.

Sokka’s beautiful friendship with Zuko started the day he realizes that he knows how to cook.

Feat. breakup cake, an attempted assassination, and eating out of the pan like dirty heathens.

Merlin

From the Start by CrzyFun

"You... assisted me in my fight against the bandits. For that, you have my thanks. I'm an honorable man and I repay my debts. Leave now and I will not hunt you."

"Assisted? I'm pretty sure I saved your life."

"I had the situation perfec- Are you trying to make me reconsider letting you go?"

It was supposed to be a one time thing. Arthur let the sorcerer run off with his life in return for him saving Arthur's. He had never expected to see the boy again, especially not only two days later in Gaius's chambers.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

non native ceramics by silentwalrus

Ed opens up the catacombs on the first of September, clapping his hands and then watching the stones part like the swish of a theater curtain, pouring over each other to reveal the dark, blocky tunnels beneath.

An Interesting Trip by ShanaStoryteller

Everyone's born with their soulmate's first words to them written on their skin, and that should make things easy, but it really doesn't.

"Roy has alternatively despised his mark and clung to it like a lifeline. Colonel. Just one word, right at the back of his foot. His literal Achilles’ heel."

Spider-Man

of things unknown (but still longed for) by aloneintherain

Peter Parker can’t walk around with the same daemon as Spider-Man. But she’s going to settle one day, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Silence is Golden by GloriousBlackout

Peter doesn't say a word during his first six months with the Ravagers. Yondu learns to adapt to having a silent shadow following him around.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by BeanieBaby

I kept him ‘cause he’s small and fits into spaces others can’t. Good for thievin'.

Harry Potter

Spider in the Roses by HauntingOpal

When Pansy Parkinson, Tracey Davis, and Daphne Greengrass start 4th year, they expect a silly tournament and more study time. Instead they get an abused Harry Potter who isn't a Potter at all, a mother who wants her son back, and a Slytherin Triwizard competitor who owes a debt to Harry Potter. Not to mention a twinkly eyed headmaster whose careful plans are being torn to shreds by very protective Slytherins.

House Proud by atolat

His house liked Draco Malfoy more than him.

All the Little Things by MyWhiteKnight

Oliver just wanted to beat the Slytherin in the House Cup this year, and find a good seeker to replace his friend and mentor, Charlie Weasley. Instead, he found the beginnings of an unbreakable bond between himself and one curly-haired witch.

What started as helping a lonely first year gain her bearings in a new world evolved into having their own analyst for Gryffindor. As time goes on, life develops in a way he never saw coming.

Series: we must unite inside her walls or we'll crumble from within by dirgewithoutmusic

stories for the ladies of hogwarts, who cry, waver, giggle, trespass, and who deserve our respect all the same

First Fic: overemotional: in defence of cho chang

Cho cried and she survived Pansy Parkinson's cruel jabs about a dead boy. She wept and she passed all her classes, kept up with Quidditch, watched fairweather friends scatter in the cold wind. She got very good at wordlessly summoning tissues and she joined the DA against her parents' wishes.

They had told her to behave, begged her, ordered her, as the threatening darknesses of the world clung close even inside Hogwarts, and Cho walked out to the little pub in Hogsmeade and wrote her name down on Hermione's list.

I hope someone in the DA told Cho that she ought to have been in Gryffindor.

I hope she laughed at them, hard.

Integrity. Truth. Honor. Dedication. These were the tenets of her House, of the blue and the bronze, the eagle called raven (called nerd, called stuck-up, called so many things that were not their names). Bravery was only one way to be a hero.

[free-for-all-fics]

Here we are at the final part! I hope you’ve enjoyed this fic. Part 7/7 💜📸📝

“Go out to the car, Jim. You needn’t wait for me.”

“We’ve got no place special to go. It’s just the house. We’ve both been there many times before.”

“Just the house I grew up in. Just the house that’s the venue for my parents’ wedding…again.”

“All right. In that case, we’ll have to rush.��

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Don’t tell me you’re going to the wedding with that beard.”

“Well, there’s a Tibetan tribe that considers a clean shaven face a mark of disrespect.”

“Well you’re not in Tibet. You need a shave.”

“What, again, darling? Oh, never mind.”

“You can borrow my razor. It’s up in the top drawer.”

You imagine yourself lying amongst rustling grass, up on the hillside above the bay. Those embryonic oaks lay upon the grass, their browns a gift to the eyes. You could watch them a while, those acorns, let that moment of bliss extend as much as the light is spreading over the horizon...but the path wends onwards and there is much journeying ahead. It is the day after the rain, you can smell the green on the breeze. The skies are blue, now, with only wisps of cloud. The bell of a cow clanks nearby, as she rips and chews at the grass. You close your eyes and listen to the world. You wander over the face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the seas your fame, your money, or only a crust of bread. Your trip from the Californian countryside to the bustling city of Charles Street was eventful, to say the least. Now that you’re here, you’re not entirely sure you should have come.

You can hear Dr. Jaquith’s voice in your head, telling you to just remember that honoring one’s parents is still a pretty good idea, that you’re gonna be a shock to her. He advised you to soften the blow. Give her time to get used to you. Remember that whatever she may have done, she’s your mother. You didn’t want to give her a shock. You won’t, but you don’t know that. Suppose your mother doesn’t come up to scratch, and turns out to be pure undifferentiated female grievance-nursing, grasping, selfish, without imagination, not at all contrite like your father described her to be in his letter to you? But in some ways things have worked out better than expected. Your family will (hopefully) be happy to see you. You can hear Dr. Jaquith’s voice in your head telling you to remember that every cloud has a silver lining. You look out the car window from the passenger side while Jim drives, your luggage sitting in the backseat. Your surroundings become all too familiar, and you know you’ll be arriving at the house in less than fifteen minutes. Putting your arm through Jim’s, you cling to him for the rest of the car ride, indeed, as to a support in a world grown suddenly difficult and strange. The car soon pulls up the driveway and approaches the house. Jim puts the car in park and steps out to open your door for you and hand you down.

“Oh. Oh no, it’s raining. Oh, we’ll catch our death.”

“Better death than gossip. You will enter that drawing room with your head held high.”

You take his hand and step out. Jim opens the backseat and hands your luggage to you before grabbing his own. Soles moving upon such solid ground, the walkers make bold progress. With your shoe soles upon the walkway, you and Jim have come as your vulnerable selves as you step up to the front door. You’ve come back to New York quite as you might have come to a strange town. You had made almost no effort to see anyone on your way here, except the gentlemen at the bank who were directly concerned in your affairs. It seems to you that going home must be like going to render an account. You’ve returned to face your superiors, your kindred, your friends—and you guess the last part of the trip is your mother and those like her—those whom you obey, and those whom you love; but even people like Jim, who have neither, the most free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,—even those for whom home holds no dear face, no familiar voice, —even they have to meet the spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees—a mute friend, judge, and inspirer. Your anxiety for your parents had been an absorbing matter. You had thought about calling at the house twice to let them know you and Jim were coming, but still feared that doing so would be a dismal experience. You thought about calling the Lemp girls, but worried that you’d been away for too long. You hadn’t contacted them since you wrote them a letter telling them of your most recent trip to California. That was four or five months ago.

December 1939

Dear Lemp Family,

Jim and I are back in California. The first time was to visit friends and see Jim’s hometown of San Francisco. But you’ll never guess why we’re here for the second time or who we’re visiting in California— Alexander Hollenius, your “favorite” composer! He’s renting a lavish apartment in Los Angeles (between you and me, I think it’s a bit too much, but it matches up with his personality, I guess) and, after hearing about my booming art career, including my successful art exhibitions in India and seeing Jim’s work as a journalist, he called to invite us both up here. Actually, he didn’t really invite me - He invited Jim, and Jim invited me. When Hollenius recognized my maiden name and realized who my father was, he allowed me to come along. I sold a painting to him, and I hope the money will carry Jim and I to wherever we’re going next. I just hope this isn’t another one of his silly attempts to grab publicity. Some people can be a little too rich and a little too famous for their own good. According to Alex, he’s getting death threats, but he won’t go to the police—so he wants Jim and I to do some investigation work. Nothing too deep or dangerous, just enough to spark public interest in his upcoming concert since he’s finally finished the concerto he was working on since last winter. As if there isn’t enough attention on him already! How can I imagine anyone not liking Alexander Hollenius, a man who is an egomaniac and believes himself to be God’s gift to music? A paranoiac, a perfectionist to the point of acting as dictator during rehearsals. Have we abolished dictators in politics to find them cropping up in music? I’ve had enough of dictators. A power complex, that’s what it is. The insolence of a megalomaniac. Setting my sarcasm aside for a moment, I have a sneaking suspicion there’s more to this than meets the eye. Something else is at work. Ulterior motives? Foul play? I’m not sure. I’ll call you later to tell you more.

Your friend and neighbor,

Mrs. Masters

They’re all wives and mothers now, busy with their own lives, and you imagine they’d be rather reluctant to take up an old friendship where it had been dropped. Jim observes closely to determine your standing in the town. So far as he can tell, no one seems to sense you’re anything but a shy and reserved young woman whose tastes keep her away from home during her leisure time. It would have been pleasant, you think, to have talked with the Lemp girls in person about nature, love, travel, and such things. But there’s no time to urge and pursue friendships that don’t seem to be welcome. You sigh again. You somehow regret that you can’t be grieved about the Lemps. You know that it’s not the fault of the town that you feel yourself so much a stranger. Your own detachment follows certainly on an attitude of your own, and your isolation, outside of your actual work, is greater than Kay’s when she was living in a shack near her husband’s lab for his scientific research. And now here you are, coming home to meet your fate. But you aren’t alone. Jim is with you.

“How do you feel, my dear?”

“Honestly, Jim, not that great.”

“Well, would you feel better if you called me Jimmy?”

You smile, thinking back to when you first met. “No, Jim.”

“Good.”

Your head is high, and your spirit up in arms. You ring the doorbell. No turning back now. Once more into the lions’ den you go.

Soames is the first to greet you when he opens the door.

“Hello, Soames.”

He stares at you in silent disbelief.

“Yes, Soames. It’s me.”

“Welcome back, Miss Skeffington.”

“Actually, it’s Mrs. Masters now. But thank you. This is my husband. You remember Jim, don’t you, Soames?”

“Of course. Your mother’s getting ready upstairs in her room.”

“And my father? My sister?”

“Your sister is upstairs with your mother and Manby. Everyone else is gathered in the library. There’s tea in there, if you’d like a cup.”

“Thank you. We’ll go see them first before heading upstairs to Mother. Tell Manby to keep her occupied just for a while longer, and don’t tell her I’m here yet. I’d like to keep it a surprise for now.”

“Of course, Miss Skeff— I mean, Mrs. Masters.”

Jim stops when he sees Clinton.

“Jim, are you coming? I know Dad is eager to meet you. You can leave our luggage with Clinton and he’ll take care of it for us.”

“Coming, dearest.” Jim hands his luggage to Clinton and nods to him. “Hello, Clinton.”

Clinton doesn’t say anything, but gives Jim a formal nod. Jim follows you to the library, smiling after you.

The library was one of the few places frequented by your father. He must have read almost every book in that place, living a thousand lives on paper, traveling around the world in eighty days and through the looking glass. But you? You were an intuitive, with no mind for business. You dare say you never touched a single book in your father’s study or the library that didn’t have pictures. Mathematics, science, linguistics—all the things that fascinated your scholarly father bored you to tears. He really loved those dusty old tomes, didn’t he? You never read many books, just listened to your father and Uncle George’s war stories. They made you want to go out on an adventure of your own. Were they enough, you wondered? Your father’s books, did they make him feel alive? You preferred reading the American landscape as you went along. Every bump, rise, and stretch in it mystified your longing.

Fanny was your perfect mother. In the foyer she was the finest socialite you’d ever seen. She was spoiled, a renowned beauty with many admirers and suitors. She put everyone at ease, drew them into loving her and wanting her to love them. She got everything she wanted as a woman, everything she needed. It had often been said, she was easy on the eye but the moment she showed you a slice of her personality, you'd feel for the first time, something of magic was walking on this earth. She had the sweetest, most handsomest company, taking over their minds for a song while they grinned and hung on her words. but she loved it. It was a thrill for her to turn them over while they gushed about what a great woman she was. She did the same to her lovers and boy toys; no-one was indispensable to her and everyone in her life fulfilled a purpose. In the twenty years you knew her, you never saw a genuine emotion other than greed. Whenever you saw her, you thought: I wonder which face she sees when she looks into the mirror.

But in a strange way, you pitied her more than her “victims”. Other people were simply pawns to her. Your mother lived in a world where the funeral mattered more than the dead, the wedding more than love and the physical rather than the intellect. Where she lived, people hated each other with a lovely smile. She lived in the container culture, which despised the content. You couldn’t think of yourself boxed up and examined with wide-awake affection and sympathy, because you weren’t being lulled into absent-mindedness by her circle’s unceasing and curiously monotonous flow of eloquence.

You were more at home in your father’s world. People like Mr. Molloy did not trap you with innocent questions to make fun of you; even Father was not highly critical unless you said something stupid. Ladies seemed to live in faint horror of men, seemed unwilling to approve wholeheartedly of them. But you liked them. There was something about them, no matter how much they cussed and drank and gambled and chewed; no matter how undelectable they were, there was something about them that you instinctively liked…they weren’t—

“Hypocrites, Mrs. Blye, born hypocrites,” you remember Mrs. Rutherford saying.

In the library sits Johnny Mitchell, your Uncle George, and your father. Whatever conversation they were having stops immediately once you enter the room. Johnny and Uncle George stand up to greet you and shake hands with Jim. Of course, they both remember him. And Jim remembers them too. They’re very glad to see you here and congratulate you on your marriage.

Your father, on the other hand, doesn’t move from his seat. “Is it my daughter?”

You find his lack of movement odd, and his question even more so. ‘Is it my daughter?’ For a moment you can’t speak. The others, every one of them, had at least recognized you, even if with evident shock, but here is your father, white-haired and shriveled, sitting under the lamp at the other end of the long room, not recognizing you at all. His eyes, except when gazing at you and they became wet with pride, had been as keen as a hawk’s. Now they’re hidden in the dim light, and you can’t tell, though his head is turned towards you, whether he’s looking at you or not. But he must be looking at you; he can’t help it, with his head turned that way towards your voice.

“You don’t—know me?” you ask, swallowing. Maybe he’s disappointed in me, you think, he doesn't know I never gave up looking for him, never gave up hope he’d return.

He says slowly, after another silence, “The voice is my daughter’s.”

And you snap inside, snap like brittle glass and feel the shards tearing at your guts. You can’t speak, the blood leaves your face and you grip at Jim’s suit lapels. He stops, watching you break right before his eyes. Your voice. Nothing left of you now, for your father, but a voice. Your father begins getting up, but his movements are deliberately slow. Is he afraid that you, too, will run away and leave him, as your mother’s suitors did when she grew old? He seems to have difficulty in getting up. He fumbles, feeling his way along the arm of the chair with the hand that isn’t holding the cane. When your father steps from the shadows you understand why he didn’t want to explain to you what had happened to him in writing. Why he spoke to you from darkness. Though his voice is the same, had you seen him first you would have denied it was him. Your father’s face comes from the shadows, craggy features suspended between grief and joy. In the split second that he is illuminated by the flickering lamp your face falls from elation to horror and then to a controlled visage of concern.

The man that comes into the light looks like an aged version of himself. At first his eyes are cast to the dusty earthen floor and then he seems to suddenly realize he is at his destination, at your rendezvous. He lifts his head. His face has the same structure as you remember, high cheekbones and symmetrical. He has the same deep brown eyes and tanned skin. He’s still slender despite his years, toned and not at all stooped. Around his eyes are laughter lines in just the right amount. You suppose that he’s often happy, but at this moment he’s deadly serious. In his hand he clasps a large envelope and your heart skips a beat. Photographs perhaps, possibly of Mother and your babyhood.

Seconds pass, your brain taking him in, struggling to comprehend that he isn’t one of the pictures you keep beside your bed, that he is real. Your brain can’t formulate a thought, at least not one based in any language. You knew if he was whole you’d be running forwards at this point, throwing yourself into his arms but you can’t. Not just yet. But you know that if you don’t touch him soon your atoms will tear themselves apart. He steals your breath and the heat from your skin. But when he trips on the rug, and the cane is jerked out of his grasp, suddenly your defenses are just paper, paper that is being soaked by the rapidly falling, briny drops of your tears. How the ground between you was erased you’ll never recall, but one moment you are apart and the next you are morphed into a single being. He would have fallen if it hadn’t been for your and Uncle George’s quick reflexes pulling him back into the chair. Instinct is too much for you and you fly to him, holding out your hands. He takes no notice of them—you, his daughter, holding out your hands to him, and he taking no notice of them,—while his face, upward turned to yours, has the same queer, blank, listening look you had noticed when he heard the door open. Something in it, now that you can see it up close, something invisible but felt, freezes you.

“Daddy,” you whisper, as if you’re a little girl again, hardly able to breathe, “you’re not—they didn’t—you can’t be—“ But the word won’t come out, and he says it for you.

“Yes,” he says, bowing his head, speaking very gently, as if anxious to avoid the smallest appearance of complaint, or even of criticism. “Blind.”

“Not the—?” But terror comes into the room, into the quiet, safe, Charles Street room, at the bare approach of the word you were going to say if he hadn’t stopped you.

“Hush, hush—” he whispers in quick panic, showing his first real sign of life, fearfully turning his head, as if to see if anyone is hiding behind his chair, his body suddenly going tense, instinctively getting ready to be hurt.

Your father is being broken up into a sort of frightened animal. How can one live, while such things are going on? How can one endure consciousness, except by giving oneself up wholly and forever to helping, and comforting, and at last, at last, perhaps healing? You stare down at him, struck to stone by the terrible implications of his movement. This, then, is life, beneath the smiles. Before you can draw in the air your body needs you have melted into his form. You can feel his firm torso and the heart that beats within. His hands are folded around your back, drawing you in closer. You can feel your body shake, crying for the missed time you will never make back, crying to release the tension of these nearly four long years. He says nothing. He’s listening intently, but not to you. His head is turned towards the door, while you, overwhelmed by an agonizing pity, hold him to you, protecting him, daring anyone to harm him, incoherently whispering words of love and reassurance. There’s a noise coming from in front of you, quite an ordinary, everyday little noise, a noise you wouldn’t even have noticed, but it’s enough to make your father start and clutch the sides of the chair; and this second movement, again appalling in its implications, brings you to your knees.

Flooded by a passionate tenderness, you kneel down and gather him to your heart. “No, no,” you assure him, holding him close, almost rocking him, as though your roles have been reversed and he’s the baby and you’re the parent, “they shan’t—they never, never shall again—you’re safe—you’ve come home— You see it’s only Jim,” you anxiously assure your poor father, just as if he is a frightened child being coaxed to believe that there is nothing to be afraid of.

“Yes, sir. And very glad to finally meet you, sir,” says Jim, taking one shocked glance. "I hope you are—” He was going to say keeping well, but how can a poor gentleman be keeping well who is so old, such a skeleton, and, worst of all afflictions, blind? Even on his wedding day?

Then you move close enough to touch, and you can see his eyes are the same, still that vulnerable man from the meadows of your youth. One of his hands clasps around your lower back, while the other hand raises silently and touches your hair, running his hand through it and stroking it, as if he can’t quite believe you’re not part of an almost forgotten dream. It’s clean, but you wish you’d washed it today so that he could at least enjoy the fragrance of your shampoo and conditioner, both of which are faded now. Had you known… But he doesn’t seem to mind. Even without his sight, he knows it’s you. The warmth of his body meets your cold skin, giving you hope like he always did before the war. With each soft touch more tears fall, tears neither of you wipe away at first, too caught up in your emotional reunion. When he kisses you on the forehead and your cheeks, it’s sweet, gentle, and it tastes of your tears.

You feel like a little girl again, being dropped off at Cascade for the first time. You want to speak but all you can do is croak, “Don't go, not again.”

His face stays blank but something shifts in his posture. “I’m sorry, darling. I won’t go. I’m here, and here is where I’ll stay. I promise.” He pulls his head back. His mouth paints a soft smile and he nods once and wipes your and his tears away with a calloused thumb before folding you in his arms again. Even this roughness brings more relief than your heart can hold. After so many years you have the chance to make new memories and wasting time isn’t on the agenda.

Just before you exit the library to see your mother, your Uncle George stops you and Jim at the door, his voice low so Job won’t hear. “It’s all right, darling. Now, no matter how old your mother becomes, your father will always see her as young and beautiful. Jim, would you care to join us in the kitchen for a drink? It might be good to have something stronger than tea while we wait.”

Jim grins knowingly. “I have just the thing.”

Meanwhile, your mother smiles, lifting her eyebrows— but only half a smile, because really George, and Soames, and the house generally, are behaving too mysteriously for comfort. If it’s more money George wants for his charities, so soon after what she gave him a month ago, that might explain his embarrassment; but it doesn’t explain why Soames looks as if he’s seeing ghosts, nor why the house is hushed in a kind of alarmed expectancy. Fanny is extremely sensitive to atmospheres. She hasn’t felt this particular atmosphere in Charles Street since she cast back her mind through the years, and found, to her great surprise, that she hadn’t felt it since the time when Job was last here, before he left for Europe and took you and Fanny with him. There’s a knock on the door. Not thinking much of it, Fanny bids whoever is on the other side to enter on the second knock. Who’s that? She glances up and, through the mirror’s reflection, sees you standing just inside the doorway, not moving. Your mother, in her distant chair, doesn’t move. An old woman, with hands folded nearly in her lap. She’s quick to turn around and face you. Are you really here or are you another hallucination? She has to be sure. With Manby’s assistance, she stands up and slowly walks towards you, holding out a hand. She steps forwards, keen that you shouldn’t go. You stand still and let her approach. She takes her sweet time, but you don’t rush her. You don’t say or do anything. Whether it’s because you don’t want to startle her or she doesn’t want to startle herself is unclear. Maybe it’s both. She reaches for your shoulder, and her hand makes contact with your flesh and the fabric of your clothes. Solid. Warm. She squeezes your shoulder, can feel it rise and fall as you take slow and steady breaths. When you were a hallucination, she couldn’t touch you. She’d pass right through you whenever she tried. To be able to touch you and feel the warmth of your skin, your breath, must mean that—

“You’re real. You’re really here. My darling daughter.”

“The very same, Mother. And a bit miffed I am, too, finding myself forced to expose my best pair of boots to so many miles of country road on your behalf.”

“What—? I don’t believe it!” Yet once she knows you’re there, those eyes light up behind the drooping eyelids. “Why didn’t you say to expect you? Why didn’t you let us know you were coming? Why didn’t you write?”

Unbeknownst to your mother, you tried to draft a letter to her. Many times. Ever since your father’s letter came. But each one ended up crumpled in a ball and thrown into the waste bin. You wasted so many pieces of paper, not because you couldn’t find the words, (you and Jim are talented storytellers. Jim is a journalist, for crying out loud. You could find the words as easily as breathing), but because you didn’t want to write home in advance and say yes or accept the invitation to your parents’ wedding prematurely, afraid you’d end up making a promise you couldn’t keep. Your mind wasn’t susceptible to changing at the drop of a hat, but you and Jim were both so busy with work that you were worried something else would suddenly come up at the last minute and interfere with your availability and it’d be out of your and/or Jim’s control. You needed to confront your mother in person, without the usual RSVP or two weeks’ notice. You kept your last draft of your letter to her but, instead of mailing it, you stuffed it into one of your notebooks. Even now, you’re unsure if you should give it to her to read. You’re here, so maybe her reading your letter would be redundant.

May 1940

Mother,

Knowing how you probably feel about me marrying Jim, I can almost picture you staring at this letter as it lay on the table in front of you. This is why I also wrote to dear Fanny, knowing that she could easily convey the sum of this letter to you verbally, if only to get you to open this and read it for yourself. I sit here now, writing you about how I forgive and love you despite what you have done to me over those last few months I spent at home. You only wanted what was best for me, and for me to be happy. Well, I am most certainly happy now with Jim, who has provided me with every bit of love, tenderness, comfort, and joy I could ever want. Despite all of the hardships we have faced, we are very much in love. We show it in every kiss, caress, and look we give one another. I give him all of my heart, for I know I already have his. Neither of us could ask for anything more than that.

I am lucky with Jim. He has managed to pass fifty without going doolally, getting depressed, splashed by nerve poison, changing his nature, trusting demented therapists, chasing after little girls as some men do, forgetting to zip up his flies, dribbling his food, champing false teeth, shuffling in slippers, quarreling with neighbors, cursing his enemies, or shaking his fist Lear-like at the skies. All the things — Gloria was quite right — that men tend to do as they get older. Older men are better companions; they are seasoned lovers, they know the world, they know themselves. Unlike younger men, they hold their emotions in balance. They are more interesting. They have read more, seen more. They are warmer, kinder, less boastful, more tolerant, less violent. They could choose a wine based on which tasted the best rather than just blindly picking the most expensive bottle to impress people. The only drawback to marrying late in life—otherwise, I considered, so wholly admirable a thing for a man to do—was that by the time one’s children were grown up one would be too old to be of much, if any, use to them. Of the age of grandfathers, not fathers, one would be; or even of great-grandfathers. When his daughter, Buff, who was also his youngest child, came of age, he himself, was in his forties, at an age that had completely freed him from temptation to be or do anything else. It’s fortunate that I don’t and never will want children, because, as much as Jim loved and still loves his daughters in his own way, he wasn’t cut out to be a father. He just realized this truth too late.

Mother, I know you doubted Jim’s wealth, but know this: We’ve traveled throughout the American, European, and African continents and still have plenty left over to keep on traveling. We’re mindful to save for a rainy day or stormy night. I know what you’re thinking, but Uncle Fred only gave us money once, and we didn’t ask for it. If you really know how he is, you know he has a generous heart and is just as stubborn as I am. He can’t take no for an answer, (remember what he did for Fanny and I’s eighth birthday?) especially when it comes to wanting to help the people he cares about. Though Jim’s wealth will never amass to Sir John’s, he is more than capable of providing for the both of us, even without any of my money. Unlike Trippy and myself, his brain is wired similar to Father’s. He’s very smart and conscious about how our money is spent and saved. He manages it because he knows how much I struggle with numbers and mathematics, but he doesn’t lie to me or keep me in the dark about how it’s spent or where it’s being saved. We have equal access to and control over it. We’re frugal when we need to be, but neither of us mind. Our way of life isn’t rich or grand, but it’s comfortable. We’re comfortable. Jim is a wealthy man in his own right, as well as a good one, and I am sorry that you could not look beyond his past marital status and his apparently empty pocketbook to see the great man and genius that he truly is. Jim is a brave man. There are many different kinds of bravery. There’s the bravery of thinking of others before oneself. Now, Jim has never brandished a sword nor fired a pistol at another human being, thank heavens. But he’s made many sacrifices for his family...and put away many dreams. Where did he put them, you ask? He put them in a drawer. And sometimes, late at night, he takes them out and admires them. But it gets harder and harder to close the drawer. And that is why he is brave.

However, I have not written to chide or lecture you. Instead, I have important news. Jim and I are coming to your wedding, and afterwards we’re going to renew our own vows while we’re in the States. For a long time, we didn’t think we wanted to marry. We were happy just being together. Though we didn’t have rings or a signed piece of paper, in so many ways, we felt as if we’d been husband and wife for years already. We didn’t need a piece of paper and a pair of rings to keep us together. We both thought: What difference would it make? We didn’t need it, but we wanted it. It came down to whether or not he loved me, and whether or not I loved him. That was it. The rest was just detail. And I do love him. So very, very much. And I know he loves me in a way he thought he’d never love again. So we’ll be all right in the end. We’re due a lecture on the sanctity of marriage, but Fanny wouldn’t dare. I have a feeling that if anyone will lecture us, it’ll be you. I am sorry that I could not tell you this sooner, but I cannot help but feel that you have not yet forgiven me for my actions. I know this decision may very well possibly mean I’m disowned from the family, but I went through with it regardless. Just as you have always known I would never marry a pauper, I have known for years that I should be part of the Masters family. I do not wish to be loved for my family any more than Sir John Talbot wishes to be loved for his $40,000 a year. Therefore, I will return to see you so I can be sure of your feelings towards my marriage to Jim and to our very different way of life.

You might be pleased to know that Jim and I have decided to stop giving you the runaround and have found a way to have something of a permanent address. We’ve rented an apartment and are on an annual lease. You may send any and all messages through the landlady, Mrs. Hall. She has a list of the addresses where we will be staying during our long trip and will either forward them to us or, if the post is too unpredictable where we are and your letter is at high risk of getting lost, keep them safe for us until we return. There is nothing I want more than for you to correspond with or even visit us. I hope to hear from you soon.

Love,

Your daughter

“Because I wasn’t sure until I got on the train. I didn’t call, Mother, because I knew you would be there and Manby or Soames or Clinton would pass the phone to you, and I couldn’t do it if they did. I had to see you in person.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Can you not ask me that for the rest of the day?”

“Fine is good but you need some blue skies every now and then. Manby, could you leave us for a moment?” Fanny sits back on her heels, and looks up at you through wet eyelashes. Her face is the face of grief itself, but the grief shines through with hope and resolve.

No need for help here, Manby thinks, suddenly aglow with pride; her lady is going to do the right thing, and she’s more beautiful to Manby at this moment than she had ever been in the days of her glory.

“You don’t have to go, Fanny.”

“Believe me, I’ve been part of this relationship for quite long enough. It’s for you to manage from here.”

“Jim is waiting in the kitchen with Dad, Johnny, and Uncle George, Fanny. I’m sure they’d enjoy your company also.”

“That’s it. I’ll join the men in the kitchen and leave you to it. We’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

Just before your sister leaves, you grab her by the arm gently to stop her. After all the tears, hugs, laughs, and advice she had given you in your relationship, you want - no - need her honest opinion. After all, had you and she not been so close, you probably wouldn’t have confided in her in the first place. You won’t blame her if she admits that she almost wishes you hadn’t told her anything at this point. But you need to know. “Fanny, you must tell me the truth as a sister, which is a relation stronger than marriage. Do you mind at all?”

“Oh. Oh, no. I was surprised. Mind you, I had it on good authority that you would never be a wife, and now you’ve gone and gotten married. No, I don’t mind. I was never like you, making plans about the great things I’d do. I never saw myself as anything much. Not a great artist like you.”

“Oh, Fanny, I’m not a great artist.”

“But you will be. We’ll talk later, but I’m very happy for you.”

“Just as I am happy for you. Can you believe it? Both of us married. Both of us happy. And maybe someday there’ll be a baby on the way to make me an aunt in the future.”

You share a warm smile and kiss each other’s cheeks before Fanny goes downstairs to join the others, leaving you and your mother alone.

So this is the temple of beauty. Undoubtedly, this house was the epicenter of social life in New York once upon a time. Time remained at rest. For a moment, you have the feeling that guests will suddenly start arriving. How still the room is. A curious quiet seems settling on it, now that only she and you are here—like dust falling softly on ancient, finished things. For a few moments more you gaze at each other, without speaking. But it’s not awkward or suffocating like it used to be. It’s comfortable. You know by the way she’s pressing her hands together—a trick familiar to you whenever she’s in difficulties, that she is absorbed in what she is trying to say. You don’t press her. Instead you take this time to look at the woman in front of you, really look at her. An old woman, so entirely unlike the Fanny you remembered that your wrath all dies away. How could anybody be angry with a pitiful stranger? Could this really be your mother? Your mother who kept her hair curled and her figure trim. Your mother who used to work so hard to hide her wrinkles. Your mother whose bathroom would be a dazzling display of every remedy on the market, all of them in fancy small bottles, perfumed and delicate. You’d be up early, voice blaring. Your mother would be upstairs, “putting her eyebrows on,” as she used to say. Then she’d shush you and you’d complain of her reducing your rights to freedom of expression, only to hear her stock response, “I’m not seeking to reduce your rights, love, just your volume.”

You wonder if a part of her wishes she had put on the makeup she’d been saving for your father’s return. The makeup she has since discarded. She has followed Dr. Jaquith’s advice and has stopped all that. You wouldn’t have believed Dr. Jaquith when he wrote to tell you about your mother’s change in daily routine and beauty regimens if you weren’t seeing it now with your own eyes. So your mother has come to realize that Dr. Jaquith had been right. He wasn’t being insulting when he told her that quiet nights were very important for women her age. He was being considerate. And your mother has not only heeded his advice, but taken it to heart after all. She doesn’t seem to mind the tired eyes. Now she lets the creases deepen and magnify unimpeded, but she looks well-rested. When you saw her last, never having had cause in her life to be afraid of personal remarks, she took what the children said as so many compliments, except that she rather wished they would keep off her hair. She was sensitive about her hair since her illness, and not quite sure whether Henri had got the color right. He said it was exactly the original color; but if it was, it didn’t seem to go quite so well with her face as it used to. Certainly if it made children think of the yellow crocuses on the lawn, Henri had got it seriously wrong. She said she would see him about it the first thing. Now, she still wears false hair, but it’s done in a color and style that suits her much better. Though gray hair would be most becoming to her. She isn’t an eyesore anymore.

She enjoys quiet nights at home with your father and plays bridge with Uncle George whenever he comes over, preferring to spend time with people she loves and who love her, instead of throwing extravagant parties for the sake of keeping up appearances, surrounded by superficial people that couldn’t care less about her. It’s like she woke up one morning and just decided to get old. Perhaps fighting it was just too hard. While you’ve been traveling the world with Jim, the map of wrinkles on her face tells of the most incredible journey. Her eye lines tell of laughter, of warm smiles and affection. Her forehead tells of worries past and worries present. But mostly they’re so deeply engrained they tell of a woman who has traveled through five decades to that moment; to stand here as an old woman, no longer beaten and forlorn, but glowing with radiance that only a happy bride can have. So this is Fanny, you’re thinking, while feeling as if you’re looking into a picture. This is what she’s really like, must always have been like, beneath the wonder of her beauty. How easily her lovers and admirers dismissed her as “old” when she’s so much more than the sum of her parts. All this sudden radiant sympathy and eagerness to do kind things—is it, then, nothing but the effect of perfect health, and perfect contentment with her lot? Is it possible?

And as she looks at you, Fanny is thinking, Job had given me precise coaching on what to say, and I had dutifully rehearsed it. Unfortunately, when the time came to actually utter the words, as I was instructed to, so as to build up the anticipation for her grand entrance, my jaw dropped instead. She’s hating me. I’ve shocked her beyond recovery unless I do something quickly. I must hurriedly explain. George, Fanny, Job…everyone has worked so hard for us to be close again, and I can’t risk blowing it as soon as she’s come home for the first time after being absent for so long. I can’t let her go. I can’t lose my daughter. Even if she had been misjudging me, I can’t lose her. Not again. I won’t survive it a second time. I already lost my parents, Trippy, and, for a very long time, Job. She is one of the few family members I have left. I can’t lose her too. I shall have to tell her why I behaved so badly. One humiliation more or less doesn’t really matter. I’d rather she know what a fool I am than think me hateful and hard.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Mother, the last time I saw you, you all but threw me out for saying I loved Jim. Now Father’s whistled and I’m here, but I don’t know why.”

“I was amazed you came at his call.”

“His letter was very eloquent. I was quite persuaded.”

My darling daughter,

I have come home and I’m going to stay for good. George, who clearly saw Fanny’s treatment of me cruel and spiteful, was the one who pursued her to reconcile with me. Though you may not recognize this handwriting as my own, know that every word you are about to read comes from me, your father, and no one else. I can no longer write to you myself, so I have asked Miss Cartwright to transcribe what I’m dictating to her, but believe me when I say every word in this letter is my own and that your mother hasn’t put me up to this. As I sit down in my study to dictate what I want to say to you, your mother is downstairs in the parlor with Dr. Jaquith and won’t be done for an hour, or maybe two. She doesn’t know anything about this. The reason I haven’t been able to let you or Fanny, my darling daughters, know that I’ve come back sooner than now is because… Well, when you see me, you’ll understand. Something unexpected but not unwelcome has happened. The fact is, darling, your Uncle George found me in Battersea Park. He was walking across it, and I was on a bench seat, sunning myself. Me, Job Skeffington, sunning myself. Me, Job Skeffington, having leisure to sit and sun myself. Me, Job Skeffington, wanting to sun myself. This indeed was strange, that I, a man of offices, of board meetings, of a thousand irons in the fire, of power, importance, and ceaseless activities, should want to sit and sun myself. It was very unlike me, and I’m sure you would agree, but George found me much altered… An apathetic figure on the seat in Battersea Park, rousing only at a sudden noise or movement behind me; that patient, unarguing listener to George’s impetuous proposals; that obedient follower wherever he led, even if it were into Fanny’s own house; could such a positive emotion as love still be expected of me? And agonizing love, too. “Poor Skeffington”, your Uncle George must’ve thought when he found me. “He had had enough of every sort of agonizing. Miserable, of course, for poor Job to have to be broken up, but at least his misery wasn’t going to last.”

I didn’t see him. But he saw me, really saw me, not in the way your mother had been seeing me. (Yes, she told me all about the hallucinations that plagued her in my absence. Figments of me staying in the room the whole time while she undressed, and insisted on kneeling down and putting her slippers on for her, and actually kissing her feet. Dreadful for her, to have a figment kissing her feet. And she’s been experiencing them again. That’s why she’s called on Dr. Jaquith to help her. She sent a telegram for him to catch the next train, and he just arrived here around tea time), but since George is of the same blood as herself, when he took the plunge and told her he had seen me, Fanny thought perhaps he was seeing things too which weren’t really there. Nobody she knew had ever seen me since the divorce. I had disappeared. Gone abroad. Gone, the rumor went, to Mexico, and stayed there. But that’s not the truth. I’m not in Germany or Mexico anymore. I’m here in New York. I had been in a concentration camp. You’d hardly recognize me, darling. George had the greatest difficulty getting me to talk, getting anything out of me. But bit by bit… I told him that I had first begun losing money in Mexico, where I got mixed up in politics, and revolutions, and God knew what, and when things got too hot for me there I had come back to Europe, and gone to Vienna and started again, and with my usual skill had managed to get richer than ever when the Nazis walked in. Vienna wasn’t exactly a healthy place for a Jew, and I was soon in serious trouble—

For a moment you didn’t seem able to read on, seemed to be staring, with incredulous horror in your eyes, at something you could hardly credit. Shriveled, you were thinking. The man you saw so often in your mind’s eye was just as you remembered him after the divorce, when you and Fanny left him behind in Berlin to return to your mother in New York at his urging. An agile, sinewy, small man in the very prime of life. You tried hard to imagine the change. There must, you knew, be a change, but it gave you a curious stab that your father, too, should have had to submit to one. That live-wire, that over-rider of any and every obstacle, now sitting shriveled on a seat in Battersea Park, doing nothing. One more of your past role models and heroes gone to pieces, one more of them tamed into an old, tired man. And this time it was your father.

—such serious trouble that I was lucky to get away with bare life, if bare life could be called lucky. I was a broken man. They took everything away from me. I haven’t got a cent. Stranded. On the rocks, if ever a man was. How cruel, how utterly beastly what the Nazis did to me. People forget how vulnerable they are despite their shirts and shoes and briefcases, how this hungry and cruel world could strip them, put them in the same position as the beggars. Circumstance makes hypocrites of us all. But that’s a conversation for another time, one better suited for when we are face-to-face. I don’t wish to spend the bulk of this letter lingering over it. Instead, I wish to talk about you.

My darling daughter, it is my honor to be your father. I know you believed otherwise for many years, but you’re not a mistake. You were never a mistake. You’re a miracle, a God sent miracle. Before you and your sister were born, I had no family at all. Before I met your mother, I hadn’t expected to ever marry, to ever be a father. The night your mother and I consummated our marriage was the first and last time we ever shared a bed. Your mother believed in the importance of keeping to her marriage vows, but after one night, she considered her marital duties to be fulfilled. On my proposing to join her in her bedroom, she had vehemently assured me she would never, never be my bed partner again. We ended up in separate rooms and separate beds rather quickly after our honeymoon and were never again intimate, which must have seemed odd even in 1915. Chances of her becoming pregnant were incredibly slim. Within a year of our marriage, your mother and I were both surprised, but I was very happy to learn I was going to be a father… And then we were surprised again when you and your sister came.

After I got that phone call from the hospital telling me I had not one, but two healthy baby girls, my world changed, filled with love for you, my precious daughters. You and your sister made up for a lot of things. I was glad you were girls. I could go on kissing you and Fanny for the rest of my life. With a boy? After a while I’d have to shake hands. From the day you were born, I treated you like princesses. I gave you everything, in part because I knew I wouldn’t have any more children, but I did my best not to spoil either of you too much. I vowed that I would maintain the delicate balance between authority and sympathy. I can’t say it was always easy to do, especially as you both entered your teenage years and I could hear my mother’s voice in my head telling me things like, “Nothing good ever happens after midnight!”

Preserving her youthful appearance was an important influence in your mother’s avoidance of any future pregnancies. “Children are the curse of a woman, for when they come, they drive away Beauty, which is the best gift of the gods,” she had once said. If she hadn’t had children, maybe she’d be planning her summer vacation with her friends instead of going to live with your Uncle George in California. She didn’t want anyone to see her all “puffy and ugly”. Everyone else was out enjoying life, and she just wanted to do the same, even after having her daughters.

While your mother had big dreams for you once you blossomed into womanhood, I had big dreams for you from the moment I knew you were growing in your mother’s womb. I wanted a wild, brave child. I wanted that for you. I wanted you to grow into a strong woman with a penchant for exploring, so, even unconsciously, I’d pushed my wanderlust onto you. And you have grown to become the daughter I’ve always dreamed of. Beautiful, smart, and fair. But I hadn’t wanted this. I hadn’t wanted you to wander away from safety during the most dangerous war in over a hundred years. When you were very young, it was for me to defend you, to care for you, to help you mature into who you were born to be - not a small version of myself or your mother, but your own self. When you were first learning to walk and you were still unsteady on your feet, you often would stumble and fall, landing on the ground with a small thud and a quiet huff. You never cried; only scrunched up your face in frustration, before pushing and pulling yourself back onto your feet. A determined little girl, just like your mother. Just like me. It was our God given duty to protect you from harm, but it was never for me or your mother to toughen you up. That was her mistake. Over time I taught you, my smallest daughter, that you were beautiful inside, but your mother tried to teach you never to sacrifice your outer beauty or “toughen up”. Result? You learned how to be a “good hypocrite”. Dr. Jaquith is helping to show your mother that it was for us to find a healthy way for you to express who you really are.

We never really talked about what happened between your mother and I. But now, I need to tell you a few things before your marriage separates us forever. We had just been married and were on a cruise ship, surrounded by other married couples. The way the wives were looking at their husbands, you couldn’t miss it. Fanny pretended to know what I meant, thought that it was the way she was looking at me. But… No. Her look was cordial, not connubial. I married her, but I hadn’t won her. No. So far, I’d merely taken her away from the others. That night I broke into her party... Do you think that was the first time I’d seen her? No. I’d seen her many times before that. Dining at Sherry’s. Dancing at the Waldorf. She never noticed me. When I saw her the night I came to see Trippy...she looked very beautiful. Very unattainable. That’s why I commissioned Vanyi to paint her portrait. At least, I’d have that. Your mother tried to tell me that, with our marriage, now I had both. The portrait and her. What she meant was that I owned both. But it wasn’t quite the same thing. Not quite what I wanted. But I was a very patient man, darling.

When Trippy was killed in action while flying for the Lafayette Escadrille in France, I heard her tell George she was “stuck” with me, and our marriage then became wholly loveless, continuing only for your and little Fanny’s sake. George and I also enlisted but were stationed near home. The affairs I had with those secretaries twelve or so years ago and our ensuing divorce broke our family apart. I can’t imagine exactly what was going through your or Fanny’s heads during that time… “My mother no longer exists for me. I can only trust my father…” You’ve been through a lot and I know things haven’t always been easy, but remember what the school principal said during his speech at Fanny’s highschool graduation: “Faced with the Dragon, one must brandish sword and shield… Sometimes one has to know when to kneel before the Dragon...” I’ve always thought of you as a fighter, who, faced with the toughest challenges, is capable of brandishing all the weapons necessary to fight courageously and heroically. Now that you’re an adult, it is your right to take your own reins and judge your own risks. But you need to eat, you need sleep, you need to look after yourself. Fanny is aware of the misadventures that have befallen you both. She knows of your strife with the world, the most insidious of evils. You can’t explore the world from the inside of a casket and, baby, neither I nor your mother can live without you. No mother or father should ever have to bury their child.

The writing stopped abruptly before starting again a bit lower.

I’m balling my goddamn eyes out, darling. But thankfully Miss Cartwright is a very patient scribe. I pray that my care of you leaves you able to be autonomous, to have control of your own life, able to fully love and care for those blessed to share life with you. I hope so. Also, there was my own sense of moral conduct. I taught you as a child that hypocrisy presents itself in many forms and is not always wrong. Acceptable hypocrisy is often called politeness. “If ever you get invited into someone's home,” I said, “you go into the sitting room and you say, ‘Oh, what an attractive room!’ even if you think it's hideous.” “Do not treat others as you would not like to be treated” frees one from hypocrisy. “Treat others as you would like to be treated” enslaves one with insincerity. Hypocrisy and insincerity can coexist. Together they can prevent people from saying the wrong thing to the wrong people and mitigate social damage before they become the causation of irreparable harm. Even so, we should still remain true to our beliefs. But for someone as vain as your mother that didn’t work. You have so many dearly held and cherished values and this world is so broken that she must be a good hypocrite. Your mother was about to turn thirty when she married me, and this fact seemed significant to her. She had a sense that the decisions she was making then would determine the rest of her life. Like with a ship, the trajectory set was critical; a fraction of a degree in the wrong direction could send her to a wildly different place. Your mother tried to set you on a path she paved for you, but the more she tried to keep you on the path, the more you drew away from it, away from her, just as I drew away from her. Was this your understanding mother? Had I been married for years to Fanny without getting an inkling of what a woman’s vanity could be, how it could seep through her whole character, drowning every good impulse on the way?

We’ve all got these trauma brains now, brains that developed with less love than we needed, bland food, and violence. We’ve all got these short attention spans and the need to pull people close only to push them away when things get hard. It’s that urge to run, that fear of trust, that uncomfortableness with nurturing love - addicted to the dysfunction and rejecting the cure. I don’t think Fanny ever meant to be maliciously selfish, I really don’t. She wasn’t like that when we were together. She’d been kind and gentle and considerate. She had the selfish streak for sure, but she wanted everybody to love her then and, in hindsight, that was all that made her behave. Your mother didn’t know what a poor, vain creature she’s been fond of all her life, what an absurd— Ever since I’ve known her, she’s thought only of herself. She never loved anyone but herself. She spent her life in front of a mirror...unaware of the people around her or the world she lives in. She was, of course, as self-centered as a child. Luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and infantilizes you and prevents you from knowing the world. That is its purpose, the reason why luxury cruises and great hotels are full of fatheads who, when they express an opinion, seem as though they are from another planet. It was also my experience that one of the worst aspects of traveling with wealthy people, apart from the fact that the rich never listen, is that they constantly groused about the high cost of living - indeed, the rich usually complained of being poor. She was so self-absorbed that she just didn’t care about anyone else, not even her daughters. For her the world that mattered stopped at the tip of her nose. I came to think of her as emotionally blind. She just couldn’t see, couldn’t empathize with what other people thought or felt.

You couldn’t get within a mile of her. There were always a hundred fellows ahead. She treated everyone like they were too frightening to get close to. She interacted of course, she laughed and joked, she would even make nice gestures from time to time. But ask her a personal question and she would recoil faster than a snapped high-tension spring. After that you’d be in her no-friend zone for a while, isolated until you learned your lesson. Those men and women were so predictable. Their doors were already open even before she put her hand on the knob. But your mother’s door was closed shut, and so beautifully painted. Everyone liked her, but couldn’t get her to open up. I knew there was something more behind that pretty paint. Something behind her bright smile. But on the other hand, being able to spend time with her was a good enough blessing for me. Enough to make me want to never leave her side. But then Trippy died and my love goggles came off. We’ve reconciled and the goggles are back on but, this time, I can still see clearly. I think it was an act. Come right down to it, she kept the family and the house from falling apart while I was gone. She couldn’t afford to look weak. She was a bit of a bully, your mother. She liked her own way. But there’s another side to her. I see that. I loved Fanny agonizingly, you know. And I still do. Say what you will about your mother but, as I’ve had time to reflect, going to sleep every night with somebody, as she had dutifully done with me till the secretaries started trouble, does make—well, a link.

Your mother believed you were seeing through rose-tinted glasses and needed her help to see clearly. She believed you and Jim were from too different of worlds and couldn’t be together. She thought you were living in a fairyland of idyllic make-believe and were at risk of getting taken advantage of due to your naivety of youth and idealism. She thought you were an open book. But what she didn’t realize was that your skin is a cover to a book nobody can open until you want to give them the key. It is a boundary, your boundary, for in that sacred home of body and brain, you live there. The fires are in the hearth, the lights are on and there is both beautiful music and aromas of home baking. Few would have said your Great Endeavor is on the verge of completion. That very threshold which has eluded the members of our family down the ages lies before you, and you have the keys within your grasp to open it. Yet recall, that nobody can read your pages without your key. But Jim was always welcome in your world. You gave him the key to it. Even if he lost it, he could always come back to your world to find it. To your mother, while she considered herself pretty open-minded, she still thought there were some things that we should just not do, not even once. And Jim was one of those things. Jim meant trouble was coming. Then what was going to happen? The inevitable. She thought you brought out the very worst in each other, each of you backing up the other’s vices as if they were virtues. It was the “right” thing to spend all of your money on yourselves, to not let others “push you around”. And while Fanny liked to buy some nice things too, there was just nothing right with taking off for an expensive vacation when you “wouldn’t be able to” afford to feed yourselves or buy new clothes when you outgrew or wore out the others. But that’s just the way you and Jim were and there was nothing she could do about it. She loves you but she can’t control you. Despite the anger and distress of your mother, you rejected the expected role for a woman of your status to become a mother. You worked hard to educate yourself in the art and science of photography and painting, in the face of opposition from your mother and the restrictive social code for affluent young women. You are and always have been a very unusual and independent person.

You know, you’re like your late Uncle Trippy in many ways. He was extravagant and dishonest and, while you’re neither of those things, you’re headstrong, stubborn, and temperamental at times, with a certain flare for picking odd names and places...just like he was (that’s not meant as a reproach, it’s just who you are). You’ve just always been that way. At first, we were all befuddled by your behavior. Your mother and I, your Uncle George, as well as your nanny and the servants. We didn’t really know what to do with you. As you were growing up, we often asked ourselves, “Why do you have to be so angry all the time? Why do you do it?” We didn’t know, and we wondered if maybe you didn’t know either. “Who did you get it from?” Not from your grandfather. He was a grand old gent, wasn’t he? Then we thought maybe you got it from me. I have a bit of a temper sometimes, though I did a very good job at hiding it so as not to scare either you or Fanny. But I’ve gotten angry before. But not at you. Never at you. Do you remember when you were nine? You excelled at P.E., but were struggling in everything else, including reading and writing… You were slower than other kids your age, but I was sure you’d catch up and pass them soon enough…

It was an appalling school. Your spelling was atrocious, your pronunciation absurd. When I had you and Fanny wait outside while I confronted Mr. Davis in his office after the parent-teacher conference, he said it was as useful to educate a Jew as to educate a female cat. I really could’ve strangled Mr. Davis! I thought I ought to go over there and beat the tar out of him with his own stick! It would’ve served the scoundrel right! But I had to set an example for you and Fanny. I had to teach you to be the better person, to take the high road, to keep your head high and do what you had to do to defend yourself, but do it without stooping to their level, no matter how much they hurt or wronged you. So instead, I took you and Fanny home, and I tended to your hands myself once Manby told me what had happened, though you’d wished she hadn’t. As you cried and sniffled from the sting and went on and on about how you’d like to hit Mr. Davis back but ten times harder, I said, “Darling, we must not embrace violence. I’ll write this man a letter.” You scoffed at me, “A letter? That’ll show him.” “Mr. Davis, what right have you to strike a child? In God’s eyes we are all children and we are all equals. If you hit and humiliate a child, the only lesson she will learn is to hit and humiliate. I withdraw my daughter from your school. I shall henceforth undertake my daughter’s education myself,” my letter concluded. At the end of the next week the school principal received it, and I supervised your education as you disciplined yourself to learn from home, until you were brought to Cascade and, from there, Dr. Jaquith and Charlotte took over and oversaw your education. Under their care, you were already doing so much better, not only showing signs of improvement but thriving. You were never stupid, you just needed accommodations the schools couldn’t or wouldn’t provide for you. What I’m trying to say is, when I did get angry, it was never like the way you got angry.

Your mother was the first to realize who you must’ve taken after. The realization was a horrific one. As you know, your late Uncle Trippy had embezzled funds from me. He was the brother of the most sought-after girl in New York, and believed he had to live up to it. But that was no excuse for doing something so dreadful. I was his boss at the time and attempted to confront him, but was instantly smitten by your mother. Indeed, there was nothing she didn’t do, for it was because of your uncle that she had pursued and married me, your lovestruck father, in order to save Trippy’s skin from prosecution and facilitate a comfortable life for herself. Fanny was nearly ten years older than Trippy was, but she loved him and there was nothing she wouldn’t have done for him. Her dear only brother had been the person on Earth she had most loved. She would’ve done anything to help him. But your Uncle Trippy was disgusted by the arrangement, in part because of his prejudice against me being Jewish. Trippy left home to fight for the French in the Lafayette Escadrille in the last war, where he was immediately killed.

So, you see? To her, whenever she looked upon you and witnessed firsthand your volatile behavior, it was as if she was seeing her darling brother in a new body, as if his ghost possessed you and was haunting her, punishing her for marrying me, even from beyond the grave. Even now, you remind her of him. That scares her. That’s why she always left the room whenever you had your episodes. I think she was worried that you wanted to follow in your Uncle Trippy’s footsteps and that you’d share his fate if you went down a similar path as he did, especially when she found evidence that said you wanted to contribute to the war effort. She nearly fainted when she found the letters that told her of your ambitions, and you nearly gave her a heart attack with every application you sent behind her back. It sounds awful, but of course she was glad you got rejected by all of them. How could she not have been? It meant you weren’t going to prison and you weren’t going to be killed like Trippy was. If you had taken after her or myself more, or even your Uncle George, maybe she would’ve known what to do with you. But you didn’t, and so she didn’t either. That’s what frightens her. You’re stronger than she is, really. Or as strong. And she’s not used to it. And isn’t the unknown always a bit scary?

Fanny, as vain as she was, did not deal well with her daughters’ own youth and beauty. Perhaps the toughest time for a mother is when her children surpass her, when her task is complete and they are stronger and better than she. To be a protector and realize that you are no longer needed to protect, that is tough. Yet it is also a time of great pride, of realizing that she has done her job well, that it is over. You and I both know she didn’t do her job as your mother well, but she’s ready and willing to try now. She learned that there are a lot worse things in this world than losing one’s beauty. If she had a do-over, she’d do things very, very differently. She’d give up something that is much more precious to her than her beauty so that you got one decent shot at life. Can you guess what it is? With your return, she’d have a chance to do something for someone else. When she had finally worked up the courage to tell me everything that transpired between the two of you in my absence, how she had irreparably betrayed your trust, and that she had done the wrong thing by deluding herself, I said, “Love, what’s convenient and what’s right is rarely the same thing. To shy away, feeling awkward, when someone is in need of help, is a form of social cowardice. I guess we all need to choose how we exert ourselves and for whom, but for our daughter, someone who loves you, promise me you’ll try a little harder?” I wanted your mother to promise me that she wasn’t going to let me down.

You figured out a long time ago that you got your wanderlust from me. I loved the idea of meeting new people, experiencing new things. I always wanted more—more travel, more sights to see, more feelings to feel. And you came into this world infected with wanderlust. The old wanderlust had gotten into your blood, the joy of the unbound life, the joy of seeking, of hoping without limit. I had wanted you and Fanny to see that the world was a much broader, more complex, and indeed more interesting place than we could fathom, and I accomplished this and then some, instilling in you your own wanderlust, your own curiosity about other people and places. There’s something about arriving in new cities, wandering empty streets with no destination. You will never lose the love for the arriving, but you were born to leave. Everything was different when it came to you. You never played with dolls, never played house, you never wanted any of the things that most little girls dreamed of wanting: A steady job, a reliable car, a mortgage, a traditional family. That wasn’t the kind of life for you. You were seventeen, and already there were young gentlemen who were lining up at our front door, thinking to marry you, but I said you weren’t of that mind yet. You’re not a woman a man brings home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Mr. Masters is never going to sit at your feet and write you poems, which is good because you hate poetry. You never wanted a poem-ish life, a tender, subtle love story. You wanted a dramatic whirlwind of a life, a titillating romance filled with adventure, danger, the unknown, and the unexpected. It’s totally fine if no one else gets it as long as Jim does.

Wanderlust has a reputation as the epitome of unrequited love, something the young and naive chase after because they don’t yet realize it’s as futile as a dog chasing its tail. Turns out, ever-burning wanderlust is a good thing. Your love story is written only for his eyes. Together you’ve seen a chunk of the universe, true, but there’s still so much more to see. What great beauties, what bounteous paradises, may lie beyond the walls we confine ourselves to? Surely, it will lead to the Arctic deeps, to the megalithic structures in Brazil, to anywhere within our world. Yet you may go further. Wanderlust is never truly quenched. If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. I doubt you’ll ever cure this wanderlust, but I want you to know that this is what happens when you meet the person you are supposed to spend the rest of your life with: That restless feeling doesn’t leave you, but it becomes shared. If you’re content with dedicating your life to failing to sate it, then that is more than I could ever hope for you and your future. The best journeys, like the best love affairs, never really end. Yet as one chapter closes, another opens. Nature abhors waste and your skills will be called for once more. A new chapter will begin.

There is a natural time for a bird to leave a nest, and this is healthy and right. Leaving can be part of loving, of showing that you are strong enough to do what you’ve been raised to do. As such, our loving bonds are ever there, ever strong, ever tangible. My darling, I think it’s a good time for both you and Jim to come back now, even if it’s just for a day or two. The fact is, darling, your mother and I have decided not to put it off any longer. We’re getting married on Thursday. And all I’m asking you to do is to get on a boat and come home to be with us on this very special occasion. If you’re apprehensive and worried it’ll be a huge society affair, don’t be. We don’t want to have that kind of wedding. It’ll be a small, private affair. Something quiet, held in our house, just like when your mother and I married the first time. It’ll just be your mother and I, your Uncle George, Manby, Fanny and her husband, and the officiant. So will you come over for the wedding? Please say yes. I want you and your husband to be here to celebrate with us. I’d love very much to meet Jim, the man who has won your heart. You’ve been hither and thither all of a dither, and it’s time to settle down, even just for a day, so we can appreciate all of you as one big talent.

I can picture you in my mind’s eye now. You’re an artist, your hair is rarely tamed and sometimes you sleep till noon. Your house is messy and you speak to the moon. You care less about the materials that you share with the world and more about the passion inside yourself. You’re an artist, what more can one expect? You are full of soul, love and all the rest. Even your so-called flaws have turned out as crucial benefits to seeking your quest end. This world needs more like you. But it’s your mind and it’s up to you to make it up. Whatever you decide, know that I love you with all my heart and I always will. Even if you decide not to come, I will not, and never will, hold that decision against you. Just know my love for you is eternal, that it will always be in the ether to comfort your heart should you ever have need. You are the internal light in my heart. Although there is nothing I want more than for you to make peace with your mother before any of us leave this earth, enjoy your time in the sun, my darling girl.

Love,

your father

“So will you stay now? Please.” After so long without you, Fanny thinks she’ll just die if you leave now. She needs you, and while she knows you don’t need her, she hopes you’ll still want her. When she tries to speak, her voice falters into unintelligible croaks. She wants to tell you she loves you but she doesn’t think you’ll believe her and she’s afraid it will sound hollow.

“Hmm. Well, I suppose I’ve come this far. Why miss out on a good wedding? But, Mother, I don’t know what I’m doing here. You broke my heart. I’m not blaming you, exactly. I know Jim’s not what you were looking for in a partner or husband for me. I know why you felt you had to—”

“Dr. Jaquith and I talked about how marriage should be equal. It has nothing to do with position or money, simply that a couple should be equal in both strength and passion. You were right. You and Jim are in love with each other. I’m not sure why I fought it but I’ve stopped fighting it now. I can’t bear another year pretending we know what we’re doing when, really, we’re just going around in circles. No more running.”

“So, you’ve given in? I’ll at least thank God for that,” you answer, your brows relaxing a little. “But I don’t understand what you want of me. What are you asking?”

Your mother is determined not to forget again and goes to you, her daughter, now an adult, and tells you what she thinks. Then she explains it in the way only a heartbroken and repentant mother can. “I want us to make peace with each other.”

“Just like that?”

“Whenever you choose, but...that’s what I want. Would you believe me if I said I couldn’t live without you?”

“You’ve done a pretty good job of living without me so far.”

“I’ve done a very bad job. You know I’m sorry.”

“I assumed you would be fairly sorry unless you’re actually insane.”

“I’m not insane but I am sorry. I don’t know why I did it. Not really.”

“I told you. Because you were unhappy so you wanted me to be unhappy, too. Now you’re happy again, you’ll be nicer...for a while. But nothing’s changed.”

“I’ve changed, darling.”

“Well, if you have, you haven’t said a word to me about it. I don’t believe you’d have spoken now if Dad hadn’t come home and written to me about the wedding.”

“I would have, I promise. We thought you might not come if it were me who wrote to you.”

“Well… They were right there.”

“If that’s what you feel, then why are you here?”

“Because, in the end, you’re my mother, and we can either take our experiences and try to improve the way our lives move forward, or use them as an excuse to stay stuck. I meant what I said the last time we spoke. As my mother, I love you, but I have tried and failed to like you. I’m sure you can say the same about me. I know you love me because I’m your daughter, but I saw how much you tried and failed to like me over the years. But if together we choose to move forward, then one day our shared memories will mean more than our mutual dislike. I don’t know what else to say. I think I was so desperate to get away that I forgot I already knew what mattered. I knew who you were. I’ve known that my whole life. I see you when I look in the mirror, and at Dad, and at everything you loved. And I hear your voice, whenever the world is quiet enough. You look nice, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

You watch her, face entranced, as the morning light reflects off the brown hair of her wig and her pale skin, highlighting the eyes that belie her years. She has laughter lines from her gift for smiling easily. Her personality is all there to read in those creases. She’s no longer the blank page she was in her wedding pictures. Then her face takes on a look of delight.

“Should I ring for more tea? A cup of tea, darling, let’s have tea.” So you do, always made in a china pot, milk in a little jug, proper little cups like in an old movie. “Are you always so cool and collected now?” she asks. “I do hope so.”

“Dr. Jaquith’s support and advice, and time away from you and the house worked wonders. Finding myself was a form of discovering parts of me that had been suppressed, yet also developing new skills, new self-control, greater creativity and logical thinking skills. By being present in the moment, by being willing to analyze myself and my motivations from many perspectives, I got there. You can too. Let me be your cheerleader. I believe in you.”

“I’m sorry I never understood you, never tried to understand you. But I’m starting to now. I never thought rage was an emotion worthy of a well-bred woman. But you used it. You used it to endure pain.”

“It’s okay if you can’t be proud of me. Because I finally am. You may see in me all of your greatest fears squeezed into one person—”

“I spent most of your childhood praying you would not end up like your Uncle Trippy. But you turned out to be stubborn, aimless, a mess. Just like he was. But now I see that it’s okay that you’re a mess. Because just like your Uncle Trippy…the universe gave you someone kind, patient, and forgiving to make up for all you lack. I don’t want you to live your life like I have lived mine, my love. I want you to be free from the past, once and for all.”

“So you’re finally ready to move forward, to embrace the future. No more time wasted on vain attempts of trying to wind back or freeze the clock. I’m glad to hear it. Now, about your wanting to make peace with each other… If I agreed, which is a big if, would you welcome Jim into the family? I mean, really welcome him. No conditions or stipulations, no ultimatums. He’s my husband now, so—”

“So now you’re settled. Or as settled as you and Jim can be. You two kids. Oh, I never was sentimental about marriage, and I’m not gonna start now. But I’m relieved to hear it. I’m very happy for you. And yes, of course I would welcome him into the family. Your father and Uncle George would too, but you already know that. Maybe it’s like you said. Maybe there is something out there, some new discovery that will make us feel even smaller, more insignificant. Something that explains why you still went looking for me through all of this noise. And why, no matter what, I still want to be here with you. I will always, always want to be here with you.”

“So what? You’re just gonna ignore everything else? You could be anything, anywhere. Why not go somewhere where your…where your daughter is more than just…this?” you laugh bitterly. “Here, all we get are a few specks of time where any of this actually makes any sense.”

“Then I will cherish these few specks of time. But you must promise that you will always be close by, or at least close enough to be reachable by phone or mail. I couldn’t bear losing my daughter again, and neither could your father. Darling, I’m not asking you to give Jim up or to come back home to live with us. Though an occasional visit here and there wouldn’t be unwelcome, if it’s not too out of the way for you and Jim. we’re more than happy to receive letters, postcards, and phone calls whenever you have a chance to sit down in between your wonderful, hectic life.”

“So I take it you’re not going to disown me after all?”

“No, never. I want you to believe me when I say you’re always welcome in this house. The house is my family’s and you’re entitled to it just as much as I am. I want you, my darling daughter, back in the family, and everyone happy. I was just shocked and frustrated, and in the heat of the moment—”

You melt at once. A woman who readily melted before any kind of distress, the distress your mother is evidently feeling at having to say all of this, leaves you wholly tender and sympathetic. “I’m glad you’re going to be reasonable about it. In that case, this is my offer: I will stay one week to avoid the impression I’ve run away, and because I don’t want to spoil your and Father’s wedding. Then Jim and I will resume our travels, and we will send occasional letters and postcards informing you of where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. And if anyone ever wishes to visit, we will linger for a few days so we can properly meet up. Whoever wishes to visit us will be very welcome.”

“Now that I can live with!” she beams as she pulls a rope that rings a bell, summoning Manby to her. “Manby, Miss Skeffington— I mean, Mrs. Masters has come home,” she says, “she and her husband will be staying with us for one week.”

“Yes, m’lady. Should I—” a small pause, while Manby struggles with, and triumphs over, an inconvenient and unseemly feeling in her throat which easily might have ended as a sob, “should I tell the housekeeper to prepare a room?”

“Her own room,” says Fanny.

“Yes, m’lady.”

After Manby leaves you alone to fulfill her orders, your mother takes your hand in hers and holds eye contact with you. “I just need to hear it from you, to know for sure, for my own peace of mind…so you don’t regret it?”

You smile. “No, never. He’s a wonderful, wonderful man. We’re evenly matched, Jim and I. He’s strong in his beliefs, so am I. We’re a marriage of equals. We’re very happy. Somehow none of it seems to matter when we’re traveling together. Social status and all that just seems to fade away. I’m Mrs. Masters and we get on with our lives like millions of others. I love going out of my way, beyond what I know, and finding my way back a few extra miles, by another trail, with a compass that argues with the map…nights alone in motels in remote western towns where I know no one and no one I know knows where I am, nights with strange paintings and floral spreads and public radio that furnish a reprieve from my own biography, when in Jim’s terms, I have lost myself though I know where I am. Moments when I say to myself as feet or car clear a crest or round a bend, I have never seen this place before. Times when some architectural detail on vista that has escaped me these many years says to me that I never did know where I was, even when I was home. The apartment we rented doesn’t look like much, and it isn’t on the right side of town, but we’ve made a home out of it.”

Your mother nods in understanding and gives you an affectionate touch. “I think I see that now. Not at first, you’re right. But now.”

“What about you? I need to know that you’re certain about remarrying Dad.”

“When he proposed to me, he said…”

~

“We’re not going to be polite and formal with each other, are we, after all these years? Now, let’s get this clear. You and I are both in the prime of life.”

“Oh, Job, you’re not going to get romantic now, are you? At this time of life?”

“Why not?”

“I suppose you want to cheer me up.���

“I don’t want to cheer you up. Fanny, Fanny, I want to marry you. So what do you say? You’re going to need someone to boss around in that great big house of yours.”

“Job… Is this a proposal?”

“I’m a divorced man who’s loved you for over twenty years, and ever since the day I set foot in that house again after being away for so long, I’ve been trying to tell you how much I love you, how much you mean to me. Have you forgotten? Fanny, feel that. Feel that. Feel that thumping? It’s all because of you. Fanny, my darling, we’ll have a glorious life together. You can’t use words like ‘age’ and ‘old’ about us. We’re just beginning the best part of our lives. I love you. I love you, Fanny.”

Job’s proposal was much more genuine, much more heartfelt than Edward’s. Edward was no one but an optimist, a man of great natural exuberance, an ignorer of second thoughts, and used, during years of power, to getting what he wanted. He would have supposed so easily that he was going to marry Fanny. In the old days she had obstinately refused to let him marry her, but this, though he well remembered it, cut no ice with him then, because those days weren’t these days, and a woman will do things at fifty which she wouldn’t at thirty, and often be jolly glad to. He had kept careful track of her. He knew all about her—how she had never gone in for any more husbands after her Jew, still lived in Charles Street, still, therefore, was well off, had been so ill that she almost pegged out, and in a few days was going to celebrate her fiftieth birthday. So that by that time, having had lots of rope and presumably done all the silly things she was ever to have a chance of doing, she must be as ripe for settling down as himself. He was sixty. Neither of them had any time to lose. Each had reached an age at which, if one was going to marry, one had better do it at once. He saw no reason why he and she shouldn’t. They might’ve even done it on her fiftieth birthday, which would’ve been distinctly chic; after which he would’ve taken up life with her prepared, for the rest of his days, to love and cherish what there was left to love and cherish, as a good husband, not as young as he was but not, either, as old as he was going to be, should. An admirable plan, Edward considered; a first-rate plan. Both would benefit. She would have someone to take constant and devoted care of her, and he would be able to pay his debts. But he was bald, and he called her things like “his girl” or “bad girl”. It wasn’t just his outward appearance which put her off, it was his manners, or lack thereof, with which he proposed. With Job, however…

~

“His words made my heart pound at such a rate I’m surprised he couldn’t hear it. And I said words of love, words he would have given his life to hear a tenth of a century ago. I’m hot, cold and can’t breathe. All because of him. I must say, he carries it off well. I am certain. I believe I’ve met my match. I have. I’m not twenty, trembling at the touch of his hand, but I know that if I leave him now, I’ll never be as happy as we could’ve been together.”

“He’s not twenty either but he still trembles at the touch of your hands.”

“Me, too. I don’t know why I said that.”

“Oh, Mother. Thank God for you and Dad.”

“And… You’d ask, wouldn’t you, if there was anything you wanted me to tell you. I mean, I’m sure you know.”

“More than you did.”

Your mother exhales.

“And relax. I’m a married woman now, Mother. There isn’t anything I need to hear now.”

“Because when two people love each other, you understand, everything...”

You raise your eyebrows, waiting for your mother’s response.

“…Is the most terrific fun.”

You laugh. “Careful, Mother. You’ll shock Manby if she hears you. Jim and I… We’re going to try lots of things. Maybe not sex, but there is more to do in the world than that, isn’t there?”

“Yes, there’s so much more. It’s a wide, wide world out there. I know I’m nearly four years late, but will you accept an old woman’s apologies?”

“So you were wrong about Jim?”

“I think I was.” At her words, you smile in a way she hasn’t seen you smile in years. “Why are you smiling?”

“Show me a daughter that doesn’t smile when her mother admits she’s wrong. Heh. It’s so uncharacteristic of you.”

“We’re not fighting anymore, remember?”

“Right. Sorry, I just… I just wish you knew him.”

“Darling, I will know him. I’ll know him and value him. I promise. We all will.”

“I know mine was a wild runaway marriage, Mother, and yours is the one everyone wanted, but what’s so thrilling is that this is every bit as romantic.”

“Thank you. For being so sweet.”

“Anyway, I best go down, make sure Jim’s not too suicidal. Last time we were here, he felt so patronized, and he hated it.”

“Yes, you’d better go down and see to him. Oh, and, darling, if I were you, I wouldn’t let Janie Clarkson know about you being Mrs. Masters. She may not be at the wedding, but she’s got ears like a cat and friends like hawks, ready to swoop down and gobble up the tiniest piece of gossip.”

You agree with an amused shake of your head. “Even without Janie, there are people out there who know the truth. There could be gossip. Are you ready for it?”

“Well, I hope to avoid it, but I’m ready if we can’t. The only thing I’m not ready for is to spend what remains of my life without you.”

To your mother’s credit, you really believe she wants to make up for her betrayal of your trust. It’s strange. When you first boarded the boat, you expected to still be angry with her, but you’re not. Your anger seems to have burned itself out on the way here. You know her motivations were good, even though her actions weren’t. And looking at her now, you see how much she’s missed you. You think you should keep in touch with her. That’s what your father and Uncle George would want you to do. You have more understanding for your mother and resolve to be even kinder to her.

Just as you’re about to leave, You hear a short, rapid knock on the door. You call for whoever it is on the other side to come in, and the doorknob turns slowly as the door opens even slower.

It’s Jim. All you and your mother see of him is his head as he peeks in at first, as if apprehensive about what kind of scene he’ll walk into and wanting to make sure the coast is clear before entering fully. “How’s it coming?” Once he sees you and Fanny, his shoulders drop from their tension as he lets out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good, neither of you are at each other’s throats, so I hope that means you’re making progress!”

“Speak of the devil.”

Jim fully comes in, holding one of your gloves. “Here’s your glove.”

“You’re under discussion, Jim. Maybe you’d better leave,” you say teasingly.

“I don’t mind being the center of attraction. The question is, am I worth it?”

Your mother smiles brightly. “Hello...Jim. Welcome to Charles Street.” She approaches Jim with her hand outstretched, expecting a handshake.

Jim takes her hand. “I hope I am welcome, Fanny.”

“Of course. Although… Is it a Californian tradition?”

“What?”

“She means not changing,” you clarify.

Jim looks down at his plain clothes.

You’re irked. “Of course not, Mother.”

“It might have been. You don’t change on the first night of a voyage.”

Jim isn’t pleased by the conversation either. “No, Fanny. I don’t own a set of tails. Or a dinner jacket either. I got rid of my dinner jacket shortly after I left your house. I wouldn’t get any use out of them.”

“Well, I hope you own a morning coat since you’re here for a wedding.”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“We live a completely different kind of life, Mother.”

“Obviously. You should buy a New York wardrobe and leave it here. Then you won’t have to pack when you come.”

“What a good idea.” You smile at her suggestion, just to appease her and close the subject.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t turn into somebody else just to please you.”

“More’s the pity. Oh, Jim, I’m only teasing. Now why should you change to please us?”

“Oh, Mother! You wicked…” you trail off as you playfully push her shoulder, the tension leaving your body and voice. She really could’ve been an actress, you think.

“We heard you were in Greece or somewhere. You’ve been much occupied with journalism, I am sure.”

Jim visibly relaxes, the tension in his shoulders and eyebrows gone in an instant. Maybe he should be offended, but Fanny is his mother-in-law now, so of course she is well within her right to rib him and give him a hard time. He could take anything Fanny threw at him before, and that hasn’t changed in the time that’s passed since they last saw each other. The fact she can not only make fun of him, but make fun of herself at the same time has shown Jim how much she’s grown. “I’m not pursuing journalism just now. I decided I should concentrate on something much more important for a while.”

“Which is?”

“Being a good husband and keeping my wife happy,” he laughs to himself. “In all seriousness, I’ve gone into business. It’s a much more promising field and would allow my wife and I to still travel, just without the stress of living almost paycheck-to-paycheck. Although I haven’t found a very exciting position yet, I know that will change.”

“I’m sure. And maybe Job and I could change it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Have you given any thought to being an investment banker? If so, here’s what I propose. You have heard of the Isaacson brothers?”

“Who hasn’t, Fanny?”

“They’re expanding fast. And they invest in many ventures.”

“They’re big players, Mrs. Skeffington.”

“Job and I could speak to Ted Isaacson, if you’d like.”

“Not about me?”

“Certainly about you, Jim. You have no objection to their being Jewish, I suppose?”

“Not at all. How could I have any objections when my father-in-law is Jewish and a fine gentleman, Fanny?”

“Good. As I say, Job and I could discuss you with Mr. Isaacson and he might be prepared to take you on as a broker, with excellent prospects. In a few years, you could be a rich man.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, nothing need be decided now. But think on it, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“And what about you, darling? How’s your art coming along?”

“I went to Europe to paint the great cathedrals but I couldn’t get you and Father out of my mind. So I painted something special for the both of you as a wedding present. Something good that I keep in my memory. Dr. Jaquith always told me that, ‘Painting is not about using fancy tools or techniques. Let your feelings do all the work.’ Well, this is how I feel.”

“Oh, darling, how lovely!”

“Jim says It’s beautiful, but it’s not as beautiful as I wanted. It isn’t what it should be, But I am still learning. I hope you’ll like it, Mother. Your praise will improve it.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it. And your father will too, once we describe it to him in vivid detail.”

You turn your attention to your husband. “I was just about to come down and see how you were faring, darling.”

“Well, our great minds must think alike because here I am coming to see how you’re faring, sweetheart. I hope I’m not interrupting.” Jim then looks over from you to your mother. “And here we have the blushing bride. I’m annoyed with you, Fanny. Here I am lots of gray, more than my share of wrinkles. You? You’re as young as ever. You fought off age and refused to recognize time. You always were stubborn.”

“Jim, in 1934, I was forty-eight. I had most of my hair, All my teeth and hardly a wrinkle. Two years later, I contracted diphtheria. Look at me now. In four short years, I’ve turned into an old woman, while you haven’t aged at all.”

“I’ve never seen you look more beautiful, Fanny.”

“A woman is beautiful only when she’s loved. Isn’t that right, darling?”

You smile. “Yes, Mother.”

Once Jim stands next to you, taking your hand in his, Fanny is able to get a clear side-by-side view of your wedding rings. Your rings suit the way you are as a couple, practical yet with an eye for clean styling. Each of them have a broad platinum band to the edges where they meet a brilliant stripe of gold. They clearly must’ve been selected from your Uncle Fred’s extensive diamond collection. Fanny has no doubt that as soon as your godfather discovered your plans to marry, he let you choose whichever diamond you wanted and had them made into wedding rings for you and Jim, free of charge. He loves you like a daughter and has always been very, very generous, to the point that she and Job worried he’d spoil you and Fanny too much if they didn’t watch him closely and carefully. No doubt any husband of yours would be like a son to him, so he’d give you whatever you both wanted, regardless of how much of his own money it would personally cost him to do so.

“I was just telling Mother that we’ll stay one week before continuing our travels. I hope you don’t mind too much, darling,” you tell Jim as you wrap your arms around his arm and squeeze it, resting your head on his shoulder.

“No, I don’t mind. In fact, I think that’s a wonderful idea. Tangiers can wait for a few days.”

“Tangiers! Oh my.”

“Are you going to make a show of trying to stop us?”

“No, of course not. Even if I tried, I know it would be useless and you would go anyway.”

You make a noise at that.

“But… How are you getting all the way over there? Is there a boat that sails direct?”

“Actually we’re flying. For the first bit, anyway.”

“What?”

“I know. It does seem rather daring.”

“I do not envy you.”

“I don’t know. Now the commercial airlines are starting to operate, I dare say we’ll all be flying hither and thither before too long.”

“I like the way Jim makes no bones about it.”

“Anyway, I rather doubt that. But at least for today, we’ll all be a family as we always should have been.”

“Fanny, Johnny, Jim, and I are going to try and get together at least once or twice every year. Wherever Jim and I happen to be, we’d love to have the whole family together, in the summer.”

“Won’t it be too hot?”

“We hope you and Dad will join us and come and find out, Mother.”

“Oh, no. No. That’s—that’s all over for us. Of all the places I could be, why would I want to be there with you? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re teasing us again!”

“Yes, my darling, I was teasing again.” Your mother turns her attention to Jim. “I am happy to know you, Jim. I think we’ll get on pretty well from now on, don’t you?”

“I think we will.”

“You weren’t quite what I had in mind for my daughter, but I got past it. And that’s life, isn’t it? Getting past the unexpected. And perhaps learning from it, which I think we can say we’ve done.”

“You’ll be a good friend to me through the years, Fanny. I hope I can be a friend to you. I do so wish we could have parted friends the last time I was here.”

“And what about you, darling? Did you want to part friends?”

“I did. Although I didn’t expect to.”

“Then can we at least part as friends after today?”

You catch your mother’s look. “Not quite. But not as enemies either. I don’t like bitterness. I forgive you for all you’ve done, but that’s only the first step. There’s still work to be done in rebuilding our relationship. One step at a time.”

“You’re a marvelous person, Fanny. Do you know that?”

“I will take it as my consolation prize.” She then pauses before saying, “All right.”

“What?”

“Well, I can’t stop you, nor do I want to. I see no profit in continuing this petty quarrel. You’ll have a very different life from the one you might have lived, but if you’re sure it’s still what you want.”

You turn to look at Jim and smile at him before turning back towards your mother, still smiling. “I am.”

“Then, contrary to what I said before, you may take my blessing with you, whatever that means. Some people would regard it as the equivalent to a witch’s curse.”

“Oh, Mother. It means more than anything!” You hug her with delight. “More than anything! It’s all we want.”

“Then let’s end this story once and for all. We haven’t always been there for each other, but I hope you’ll let me be there now.” Your mother turns her gaze to Jim, lifting an eyebrow as she pretends to scrutinize him. “There is just one stipulation.”

“Mother, you promised there’d be no stipulations.”

“Let her finish. What is it, Fanny? Just tell us.”

She raises an eyebrow. “If you mistreat her, Jim, I will personally have you torn to pieces by wild dogs.”

You and Jim both let out a laugh as you exhale in relief.

“I’d expect no less. But you won’t regret this, Fanny.”

“And there’ll be some money. But not much.”

“That reminds me… Mother, tell me, did you send the money to get us over here? I asked Father and Uncle George, but they said it wasn’t them. Please say yes.”

Your mother looks confused. “What money? Well, I’m very glad you’re here, but no, it wasn’t me, I’m sad to say. Someone sent you and Jim the price for the tickets to come over?”

“Yes.”

“Does it matter who it was? It meant we could be at the wedding.”

“Of course, I wish it had been you, Mother, but I don’t mind. I thank them, whoever they are.”

“Well, I love a mystery. Who could it be? My guess is your sister. She always likes to stick her oar in.”

“I’m going to ask her.”

“For Heaven’s sake, it was me.” You all look up in shock at Manby, who’s stood in the doorway. Manby finds you like that. It’s she who, to her great vexation unable quite to control her hands, bumps the tea tray she’s carrying against the door. After that single moment’s bungling at the door, she advances into the room. Even Fanny is shocked out of her nervous state, and Jim looks up in surprise.

“You? But it wasn’t your writing.”

“No. Taylor who works for the Thorntons did it. Like all ladies’ maids, she lives for intrigue.”

“You wanted me to come here?”

“I wanted both of the Skeffington daughters and their husbands to be here for their parents’ wedding, yes.”

To Manby, the only husband her mistress had ever had was still the master. She slid over that long-past lapse into the Law Courts, being unshakably of the opinion that once God had joined people together, no amount of talk by gentlemen in wigs could put them asunder. She applied the same school of thinking to you and Jim and Fanny and Johnny. Long ago she had discovered that the only way to approach the varied situations in which her lady so easily became involved, was to behave as if nothing were happening. A single glance at Fanny’s face, as she peeped through the door at her walking along the passage to the stairs, had convinced her that yet one more of these situations was upon them, and hurrying back into the bedroom she telephoned down to Miss Cartwright, and asked her if she knew what it was. The answer she got made her first hold onto the table, because her legs gave way, and then, recovering her breath and her courage, immediately rise to the occasion. Now indeed her mistress and her daughter must be helped. You and Fanny had both behaved in a way ladies shouldn’t have, but ladies weren’t gentlemen, and ought to be forgiven. By this time her mistress ought really to be able to forgive, and so should you, she thought.

“Why keep that secret?” you ask, furrowing your brow.

“Silly, wasn’t it?”

“I’m very touched. I’ll admit it. Makes me think maybe I’ve been mistaken in you, Manby.”

“I am a woman of many parts. After all, Masters, you are a me— I mean, Jim. Ha. You’re a member of the family now.”

The corner of Jim’s mouth turns up into a smile.

“You’ll find the Skeffingtons stick together.”

You smile and hug Manby, kissing her on the cheek to show your gratitude, not caring if it goes against propriety. She’s like a second mother to you, in a way.“What you did for us was really awfully swell and we’re very grateful, Manby. We never would’ve gotten here if it wasn’t for you.”

“I’d do it for myself.”

“How is everything downstairs?” you ask your husband.

“You know, when I crashed into the dining room and slipped into a chair, I looked pretty calm and comfortable. Well, I can still show the bruises where my knees were knocking together. Your Uncle George, your father, Fanny, Johnny, and I were all in the kitchen, chatting about this and that. This is one fine house. No beer.”

“Well, I’ve been gone for nearly four years. They’ve let the place run down. We’ll soon institute some reforms.”

“In the meantime, I made them all some of the white wine of the Mahabus to try.”

“Signifying an eternal friendship, huh?”

“‘Would you like a little wine? I can make some very nice homemade white wine for us while we wait for our brides to come down, Job. Nothing like a little homemade white wine to warm you up a bit. That’s what I always say. ‘Well, I don’t care if I do,’ your father said. Just as I poured everyone, including myself, a glass, your sister came in to check on us, so I invited her to join us and have a drink too. ‘I made it myself. Would you like to sit down?’ I said. ‘I hope you know what you are doing. She’s quite a handful, you know,’ said Fanny with a smile on her lips as she arched an eyebrow. ‘Who’s a handful?’ I asked. And she didn’t even hesitate before saying, ‘My beloved sister. Well, she is beloved by me, anyway.’ And so we shared a toast. I said, ‘To eternal friendship and your very good health. Drink hearty, everyone.’ ‘The things we do for a friend,’ your uncle said as he took a swig, only to immediately spit it out into the sink at the same time as Johnny! ‘Eternal friendship or no eternal friendship, we’re going for a beer later.’”

The three of you share a laugh.

“That sounds like Uncle George and Johnny.”

“Your father and sister seemed to like it, though. Or at least tolerate it. They actually swallowed it down, though your sister’s face was like that of a child swallowing syrupy cough medicine that was much too thick and tasted most foul. Your father didn’t seem affected though and drank it without so much as a grimace.”

“To calm his nerves?”

“No, he’s not nervous at all and he has no reason to be. He’s about to marry the love of his life.”

“Yes, it’s about that time, isn’t it?”

“Now, Fanny, no more tears. Would you like to go to your wedding wet or dry?”

“Dry.”

“Feel any better?”

“I’m all cried out. So I must feel better.”

“A little powder wouldn’t do any harm,” Jim teases.

“Now, won’t you send me to my wedding happy?”

“Of course. We best go down, Jim. What do you want to do after the wedding now that we’re back in the States? Go to the registrar’s office and renew our marriage vows? Make it official?”

“Well, I have a confession. I procured a license so we could marry at once.”

“Oh? Good old America. Some things never change. How did you manage that?”

“I have my methods. But the point is, it’s still valid. So shall we get married now?”

“Now? Like, now, now?”

“Since we’re here…” he turns to your mother. “How about it, Fanny? Why don’t we make this a double wedding?”

You playfully hit Jim on the chest for suggesting such a thing. He must be joking.

“Sure, why not? I’m ready.”

You gawk at your mother. Is she being serious?

“Come on, darling. It’s only the rest of my life,” says Jim, on one knee and with his arms stretched out.

You take him by the hands and pull him to stand with you. You look down at yourself and what you’re wearing. It’s the nicest outfit you have. A pant suit that gives the illusion of a dress, but is neither a skirt nor a dress. You wore this same pant suit to your own wedding when you and Jim got married in Switzerland. You never cared about what others thought of what you wore. But that ceremony was private, and you didn’t need to worry about what your mother thought because it wasn’t her day. It was yours. But now it’s her day, and you’re feeling self-conscious. This wedding is supposed to be for her and your father. It’s their wedding day, and you don’t want to intrude or take away from either of them. Finding it too difficult to find the words to voice all these thoughts, you simply ask, “But… I don’t look much like a bride, do I?”

“Of course you look like a bride. All married women do. There’s no need to fret over your appearance. You look perfect as you are.”

“But won’t I embarrass you? You look very fine in your new white lace. If we’re really going to have a double wedding, maybe I should change. I can wear the pink velvet.”

The pink velvet is old, from three or four seasons ago. From before you left. But beggars like you can’t be choosers. Surely it’d look nicer than what you have on?

“No. The pink velvet is pretty, but it doesn’t suit you. You never liked skirts or dresses. You only wore them begrudgingly and under protest. You should come as you are. It’s not like Jim cares what you look like or what you wear. Do you, Jim?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t love the clothes nearly as much as the woman wearing them. My suit is far from black tie, but you won’t refuse to marry me again because of it, will you, sweetheart?”

“You’re right. To wear anything else would be denying who I am. And I love you, Jim, more than the clothes you wear on your back. Okay. Let’s do this. I mean, if you’re both sure…”

You still find it so out of character for your mother as to be mystifying. You have to be sure this isn’t a dream.

“I am.”

“And I am too. So long as you don’t let me fall,” your mother says jokingly. “And your father will agree, so no need to worry about that.” She takes her bridal bouquet but then removes a handful of the flowers to give to you.

You take them with a soft “thank you”.

Jim holds out his elbow for you to interlace your arm with his. “Well, darling, shall we?”

“Here come the brides.”

You and Jim walk away, hand in hand, leaving your mother alone with Manby. Her mouth tight with determination, the thumping of her heart sternly suppressed, as a preliminary to steadying and helping, she begins measuring medicine into a small glass. Her ladyship’s tonic. Dr. Clark’s Blood Mixture. Recommended by Manby herself, and administered every evening at three o’clock. It’s now three o’clock. Habits, in her experience, if punctually kept to, are invaluable as reminders that there are other things in life besides shocks. Look at breakfast, for instance; look at brushing one’s teeth. And having measured, she puts the glass on a tray, takes it down with the composed tread and impassive countenance of one performing a daily duty at the appointed hour, and says, her eyelids respectfully lowered, “Your drops, m’lady.”

“No, thank you, Manby. I told you, I’ve given all of that up. You can throw it away. I don’t need it anymore. I never needed it.” Fanny takes one last look in the mirror.

“Never wish for beauty,” her father told her, as he handed her an old ring. “For if you do, you risk the envy of the thing that lives in your mirror. Do not wish for beauty, or it will try to take it for Itself.” Having had a sculptor for a grandfather, a knighted sculptor of the Victorian age, the old lady in her youth had heard great talk of moulding and of bones, and is able to recognize that the bones and moulding she now sees are undoubtedly what her father and his friends would have thought highly of. The line of the brow, for instance; and a peculiar graciousness, almost innocence, about the temples. Still, bones aren’t everything, and don’t make up for her make-up—she dwells a moment, pleased, on this sentence, glad to find she’s retained her early aptitude for turning a phrase. She had been the one of the family with a sense of humor. Her father used to say so. “Fanny,” he used to say, “you should send that to Punch.” So that, though she might be fifty-four in the years of her body, she is nothing like so much in those of her mind; and after all, it’s minds—isn’t it?—which keep bodies alive.

Her face that is battered by weather and wrinkled beyond recognition is her own. In her mind’s eye it is youthful, the face her mother and father kissed so many decades ago. There is every excuse, though, she reasons, for the hollow cheeks, after such a day of blows following on a tormented and sleepless night. Still, five years ago, even perhaps only a single year ago, no amount of blows and sleeplessness would have prevented her reflection from shining back at her with very nearly its usual loveliness. That horrid illness had done all this. To be as ill as that on the verge of fifty was very different from being as ill as that on the verge of thirty, and as she would probably never now get back her beauty she had better think out what had best be done with her boring, senseless future. But her future isn’t boring or senseless, is it? No. The mirror tells Fanny otherwise. Part of her wants to erase all those lines, wind back the clock and begin again. But there is another part that loves every crease, because they are part of who she has become - no longer a girl but a mother and maybe someday a grandmother. Yes, she and Job had had children. But she hadn’t thought that they too, by this time, would be all scattered and anyhow. Grown up. Married. While you expressed vehement disinterest in becoming a mother, Fanny, of course, might end up making a grandmother of her someday. Incredible, the things one could be made by other people. Fancy being forced to be a grandmother, whether she liked it or not! But— grandchildren. She turns the word over on her tongue cautiously, as if to see what it really tastes like. Back when she had had that awful illness in the spring, with her temperature up in the skies for days on end, her hair, she knew and once deeply deplored, wasn’t what it was. Nothing, since then, seemed quite what it was. She might’ve hid for years from people who didn’t look her up in Debrett that she had had a fiftieth birthday, but she couldn’t hide grandchildren, they would certainly insist on cropping up. Just as well, then, that there weren’t any yet. Who wanted to be dated?

But now, she welcomes change with open arms. Now she thinks—don’t grandchildren fill a gap? Don’t they come into one’s life when it’s beginning, like one’s hair, to thin out? She looks at the face in the mirror. It is the face of someone who has lived, suffered, loved, and grieved. Fanny cannot be anyone else and this crumpled face is part of who she is. Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart. Grandmother. Grandma. Granny. It has a nice ring to it. Fanny stares at the sun through the bleary fog of happy tears that she’s quick to wipe away. Not because she’s afraid of smearing her makeup, she’s not wearing any, but because she’d rather go to her wedding dry than wet. You had once told her that wanderlust is like a pretty girl, you wake up one morning, find she’s grown old and decide that either you’re going to commit your life to her or you’re going to walk away. The light of the afternoon burns through her and fills her with epiphany. With the ring her father gave her safely in the palm of her hand, the choice is clear. She sees it now, and she’s never been more certain of anything.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to join together this man and this woman...and this man and this woman in matrimony. Will thou pledge thy troth to him? In love and honor? In faith and tenderness? To live with him and cherish him?”

“I will.”

“I will.”

“Have you the rings, gentlemen?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Good. You will both repeat after me. In token and pledge...”

“In token and pledge...” Jim and Job recite in unison.

“...of our faith...”

“...of our faith...”

“...and abiding love.”

“...and abiding love.”

“By authority committed unto me as Justice of the Peace...I declare Job Skeffington and Frances Skeffington née Trellis, and Jim Masters and Y/N Masters née Skeffington are now husband and wife...according to the laws and statutes of the state of New York. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s a privilege of the justice of the peace to kiss the brides.” The Justice of the Peace says as he gives both you and your mother a kiss on the cheek.

May 1940

Dear Dr. Jaquith,

The wedding turned out to be a double wedding! Jim and my sister got married again alongside Mom and Dad. It was like something out of a Jane Austen novel, and it was very sweet. For Mom and Dad, the double wedding included a Jewish Cantor who sang the Psalm in Hebrew and the Christian minister spoke the Palms in English. They broke the glass. “Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one” found in Deuteronomy 6:4,. the Jewish Shema, was part of Mom and Dad’s wedding text. It was a lovely display of interfaith love. The Lemps were invited, but this was purposefully kept secret from Jim and my sister. They were unfortunately too late for the ceremony. There was a family emergency or something that came up. But they made it in time for the reception. My sister was so surprised when Adam, Etta, all four girls, and their families came over. When she saw them, she dreaded approaching them...but the four daughters brought this painting with them that they all made together when they were kids. They kept it after all these years… And then they presented her with a new painting that they all made together as a family. Even the littlest kids participated.

“While we’re waiting for Mr. Masters...”

“What is it?”

“We painted this for you as a way of saying thank you for all your years of friendship, but...”

“But what?”

“We just realized it’s like asking for our work to be hung alongside all of the old masters.”

“I assure you I will value it highly, oh...for many reasons.”

And then there she was, crying at the kitchen table. They asked what was wrong and she was thinking about how we all used to be friends and how much she’d taken for granted...but instead she told them about school and Mother and Jim...and then how sorry she was that she wasn’t their friend anymore. They gave her a big group hug and said it was going to be okay. And she believed them. Maybe there’s hope their friendship can be rekindled after all. But then she snuck away and disappeared shortly after. Not even Jim saw where she went. After an exhaustive search, Dad and Uncle George tracked her down in the gardens, sitting on a high tree branch like she used to do as a girl, and convinced her to rejoin the family. Years of Mother’s manipulation left her a bit suspicious of the offer at first, but she finally agreed, provided she could paint a mural at Battersea Park dedicated to the memory of the lives lost in the wars. Father and Uncle George loved the idea, and wrote a letter to the city formally requesting permission for her to do it. The city agreed, and we all consider it the first meaningful step towards not only rebuilding our family, but strengthening the community.

Between Mother and her, there was still an armed truce. Mother threatened, but she didn’t act. My sister followed your advice: She stuck by her guns but didn’t fire. For years, they were in a stalemate. Now they’ve finally waved their white flags and have called for an official truce. While they still have a lot of issues to work through and it’s not water under the bridge yet, the water that was once a sea of turbulent waves crashing on top of each other has at least calmed to a gentle, trickling stream. There’s still rocks in the stream, but they’re mostly small, the size of pebbles. During dinner, Dad locked her in a serious gaze. “You know,” he said, calloused finger pointing right at her nose, “you kids have it easy. When I was a lad, the real work was in setting the snares for the wild parsnips.” She mock fainted on the table and Mother snickered. Sometimes there’s just no being serious past the age of fifty.

“Well, then, how did you become so successful?”

“I don’t wanna go on with the story of my life. It’s routine, rags to riches. Of course, I sold newspapers. I was a messenger during the day and went to school at night. You can fill in the rest.”

“There’s one difference. You didn’t marry the boss’s daughter.”

“No. But I married the woman everybody else wanted to. That makes up for it.”

She had just finished telling us the highlights and lowlights of her and Jim’s camping trip in Australia, when Mother showed us all the wedding gift she made.

“And then she painted this, Job. It’s a portrait of us in our old age…”

Mother went on to describe in great detail the painting to him. As she did, his eyes sparkled. Even if he can’t remember what colors look like, his imagination no doubt created a beautiful picture from her auditory description.

“It’s inscribed to us on the side.”

“How was the miniature painted? We didn’t sit for it. Did you paint it from memory?”

“Yes and no. I went for a walk one day, and there was a shop where a man was taking photographs. It reminded me of my own collection of photos. While I painted Mother from memory, I dug through my photos until I found the most recent one I had of you from Europe, and copied it from that. At the same time as I was painting it, I scribbled Mother a silly letter.”

“You wrote me a letter?”

“I never sent it. Of course, I should have burned it. It doesn’t matter now. Everything that’s in that letter is what I’ve already said to you in person.”

“Still… I would like to read it. May I?”

“Sure. It’s tucked in one of my notebooks. I’ll fetch it for you later.”

“I confess, I have unsent letters I also wrote to you, darling. I’ll give them to you to read before you leave. Remind me, in case I forget.”

“I look forward to reading them, Mother, but let’s not think on any of that now. Now is a time to celebrate.”

Over the years, you’ve become a great friend to us and I hope I’m not overstepping when I speak for all of us and say that we think of you and Charlotte as family. Thank you so much for everything, David. We couldn’t have gotten where we are today without you. We hope you’ll join us for holidays, birthdays, and other special occasions in the future.

Love,

Fanny Mitchell

[boldstarks]

When Jasper Met Rhaenyra (Part 2): Jasper Dayne Blurb #3

112 AC 

At the age of seven and ten, Jasper Dayne became the Sword of the Morning. Dawn had sat in its place of honor until House Dayne decided that Jasper was worthy of the sword and its accompanying title. And now that he had achieved his goal, Jasper had a new one: to reunite with his beloved Princess Rhaenyra. 

With the tournament to celebrate the birth of King Viserys and Queen Aemma’s first son coming up soon, Jasper had the perfect excuse to return to Kingslanding. And now the newly made Sword of the Morning was preparing to leave for the Red Keep. 

The maid who was packing Jasper’s clothes walked into the study that Jasper had begun using in the year since returning to Starfall. “Your father is requesting your presence in his study, Lord Jasper.” 

"Thank you, Becca," Jasper replied, rising from his desk and putting down the novel he was reading.

Jasper makes his way to his father’s apartments, where he has spent most of his time these days since falling ill a few months prior. He quickly reaches Samwell’s door and comes face to face with his father’s sworn shield, Ser Desmond the Silver. He was a former hedge knight who was known for his odd silver hair and who had protected Samwell since before Jasper and Ardyn were born. 

“Is your father cross with you again?” Desmond asked, his usual good-natured smirk gracing his face. 

Jasper shrugs. “Who knows?”

Desmond opens the door, and Jasper steps inside. Samwell is sitting on a couch, hunched and pale. In the past few months, Jasper had noticed his father had lost a sustainable amount of weight. Whenever anyone mentioned it to Samwell, he would raise hell about how he was fine, but everyone knew differently. He had taken to walking with a cane on Rhea’s instruction after falling about a month ago. Samwell Dayne was on his last leg; it was only a matter of time until Ardyn would become Lord of Starfall. 

“Father, what did you need to see me for?” Jasper asks, sitting on the couch next to his father. 

"Even though I know your mind's made up, I'm asking you to postpone your trip to Kingslanding once more," Samwell said, letting out a short wheeze. “I would hate to see you hurt.” 

“I know winning the princess’s hand is a long shot, but I at least have to try,” Jasper said. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t try.” 

Images of the princess’s lovely face swam in his head. He wondered how much she had changed in their year apart; Jasper sure had. He had grown into his awkwardly long limbs, and his shoulders had become broad, and his skin had browned from his many hours in the sun. He had a full beard now that his mother hated, and his curly brown hair was nearly long enough to touch his shoulders. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the white streak in the back of his hair and his distinctive purple eyes.

The older Dayne chuckles and pats his son on the shoulder. “I know, my son. I hope you win the girl’s heart.”

With his father's reassurance, Jasper set off for the Red Keep. Little did he know that by the time he reached the city, Queen Aemma would already be gone.

_________________

“Rhaenyra,” Jasper said softly after searching for the Red Keep for the princess. 

She's sitting in the godswood, wearing a black gown and her long silver hair loose down her back, with an open book in her lap. The princess doesn’t respond to Jasper’s call; she just continues to look at the sky. He calls her again. She still doesn’t talk, but she looks at him this time. 

“They’re ready for you,” Jasper said quietly. 

Since King Viserys no longer had a dragon, it was up to Rhaenyra to give Queen Aemma a proper Targaryen funeral. Rhaenyra rises from her place at the foot of the tree, letting her book fall to the ground, and walks to Jasper. She halts in front of him. With her so close now, Jasper can see her nose and eyes are red from crying. 

“I don’t know if I can,” she whispers to him. 

To Jasper’s surprise, Rhaenyra wraps her arms around him and presses her cheek against his chest. Despite his shock, he returns her hug in a bid to comfort the princess.

“I don’t know what to say to make you feel better, but your mother deserves a proper funeral for someone of her standing,” Jasper tells her. “And you’re the only one who can give it to her.” 

“I know,” Rhaenyra said in reply. 

She loosens her grip on the knight and looks up at him. Her Arryn blue eyes are filled with tears once again, and they begin slipping down her cheeks. Jasper uses the sleeve of his black doublet to wipe them away gently. Rhaenyra lets Jasper lead her through the castle and to the waiting parade of carriages in the courtyard. Rhaenyra climbs into her carriage that usually takes her to the dragon pit, and Jasper goes in after her. Jasper frowns when he sees Lady Alicent already inside of it. The young man did not have any personal quarrel with Alicent, but Jasper would be wary around anyone with a father like Otto Hightower.

“How are you feeling, Rhaenyra?” Alicent asked. 

Rhaenyra doesn’t answer; she only plops down on the carriage bench across from her friend. Her blue eyes focus on the floor. While watching Alicent, Jasper relaxes on the bench next to his princess. She doesn’t acknowledge his presence; maybe her concern for Rhaenyra is too great, but Alicent had never been thrilled with the presence of Dornish people in the Red Keep. 

When Alicent finally seems to notice Jasper. She looks up and down, unimpressed. “Hello, Lord Dayne. You must forgive my impudent conduct; this has been such a strange day.” 

“The Queen is dead. I would say this day is more than strange,” Jasper replies with a raised eyebrow. “I guess some may see this as an opportunity.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Alicent said, her anger rising. 

“I think you know,” Jasper said, tilting his head.

“Enough, both of you,” Rhaenyra groaned with a deep sigh.

The carriage lurched and began to roll out of the courtyard.

Masterlist

[shigerussato]

WIPS LIST ! 

inspired by ira’s post + with palletshipping week down the corner i want to let you all know what is coming up for my fics since I’m excited ! i am introducing my palletshipping week works first as it is the ones to look forward to as they are most upcoming ! after palletshipping week works i am introducing my later upcoming works that are still palletshipping based but not associated with palletshipping week, thank you to those who’ve been supporting me, hope you’re as excited as i am ! 🤍

[Palletshipping Week Works]

A Road Of Memories 

As a new year of the Oak Summer Camp takes place, husbands; Gary and Ash are asked by Professor Oak to host his annual summer camp with him. With reliving short childhood memories of he and his husband, Gary makes it a goal to get a child from the camp to like him, and to be better at bonding with children. 

Could You Love So Young? 

Gary reminiscing how he fell in love with Ash, recalling how he fell in love so young. 

Distance Means Nothing, When It’s Love

Gary stays at Delia’s house missing his husband and feeling lonely without him, in a process he is offered to be a gym leader for a new gym being built in Pallet. Receiving a postcard from Ash, Gary seeks advice and motivation from him. 

Mother Knows Best

Doing her usual housework, Delia gets a surprise visit from Gary. Catching up and hanging out, Delia hints emotions she suspects about her son, noticing mutual feelings from Gary.

To Get Along With An Umbreon 

Dating can seem difficult at first, but for Ash dating isn’t the difficulty of his relationship with his boyfriend. It happens to be, being likable to his boyfriend’s Umbreon. 

Palletshipping Week Day 6 (title undecided)

Gary and Ash set onto a road trip like journey, the excitement then blows away as their romantic adventures turn into complete chaos. 

Difficulties of Anniversaries 

One of the biggest challenges of anniversaries for Ash is gifts, in attempts to get the perfect gift he also puts a special remark into his gift. 

[Other]

In love your honor [lawyer x lawyer au]

Two rival lawyers; ash and gary. ash going years of losing cases against gary, and as much as the luck seems tough ash somehow gets chosen to take a partnership with gary in a newest case. only time will tell who goes insane first. 

title not decided yet ): [lowkey kid fic ! / professor x social worker/lawyer !]

Ash is a lawyer and social worker, getting his next case he meets a man named Gary who is fighting for the custody of his 4 year old daughter Cleo, as any other lawyer would. Ash makes it his priority to grant Gary custody of the little girl. 

Just For Rent Sequel  Undecided on the proper topic for this one but planning along the lines of them revealing their relationship to their family possible ex’s drama all of that stuff ! 

Chaperones, Chaperoning!

With their kids going on a camp resort, single dad’s Ash and Gary meet as they volunteer to chaperone for the camp. seeing it as opportunities to bond and get close to their distant children they see difficulties and drive one another insane sharing a tent. but chaperoning might not be so bad when giving each other advice. 

They Are Back! 

Returning home for a get together, Ash and Gary meet up with old friends! bringing along their teenage son with them who seems to be uninterested in whatever has to do with his dads. with get together and meeting old friends comes along with teens meeting other teens. 

[overwatch-archive]

[CORRESPONDENCE] Post for Toshiro Yamagami

Haikei, Toshiro, beloved husband:

The cherry blossoms are in glorious bloom after a gentle winter, soft clouds of pink against the green trees on the hillside. The season returns me to the winter day when the Hashimoto took you away from us, when snowflakes fell as the petals do now.

Strange that we are so close, yet we can visit you only when our current "masters" wish it. I hope they value your work enough to bring us together soon. Our daughter appreciated your recent gift, though I pray the blades you forge for the Hashimoto aren’t nearly so sharp, that what you craft for them is only equal to their sordid selves.

The forge of Yamagami Blades remains locked up tight, and since we last saw you in the autumn, we have moved into the upper level. It helps us feel close to you in many ways. In other ways, I feel your absence even more keenly. The musical hammering of the hot tamahagane, the song of the steel, is missing from this place. So is your own voice, your singing to the sword as you brushed it with yakibatsuchi, and the crackle of the fire when the blade hit the forge and the hiss as it cooled in the water. Sometimes I think I hear you there, yet it is always only the wind.

But I will not linger here. For as winter leads to spring, let me write a letter of lightness—a warm breeze bearing drifting blossoms. Perhaps it will grant us both a little peace, even as I turn my blade to keep the peace here from shattering altogether.

Many things remain unchanged, of course, in these eight years since your last trip home. You will doubtless be pleased to hear that Ichiko refuses to change the family recipe at Gozan Ramen, and the black garlic oil is as delicious as ever. It was crowded today, as many have come to celebrate the cherry blossoms. Yui’s dog, Mochi, is getting on in years, but his likeness still spins on the sign of the pottery school. Most of our favorite places are kept alive thanks to the tourists who delight in visiting quaint old towns such as ours. They eat ice cream from the cat café and burn their yen at the arcade or the new shopping mall you have yet to behold. Then, happy with their souvenirs, these day visitors skitter back onto the train before nightfall, when the lanterns flicker to life and the Hashimoto pound on closed shop doors, taking their “share” of what is earned by the labor of others and funneling it up to their betters through the aptly named Tora no Sumika.

Shimada Castle still sits high in its place of glory, overlooking our city like a stalwart stone temple awaiting a benevolent deity. You and I know well enough, we two who make and wield the sword, that while their castle was indeed strong stone, the Shimada were no gods, but people—and criminals at that. But the Shimada understood that honor and loyalty forge the strongest bond between ruler and ruled.

Lately, the Shimada have consumed my idle thoughts. They asked much of those who followed them, but they inspired us to give it. And in return, the Shimada clan led with integrity and treated us with respect. As you know, my mother and hers before her were honored to tend the fox shrine far from the clamor of town. But when it was clear my soul longed for the sword and I excelled at kenjutsu, the Shimada chose me over all others as their swordmaster. They knew that Kanezaka was not just the seat of their power, it was their home . . . and ours, too.

But where the Shimada gave, the Hashimoto take. After all, when one has many homes, one has none—and the Hashimoto clan claws at nearly every city in this nation. We are nothing special to them; one day they will drink us dry and move on, leaving us empty and broken. Even now, some twelve years on, I see the mark they have left on our city.

I regret that, even though the old part of Kanezaka appears outwardly unchanged, it has suffered under the cruel hand of the Hashimoto. Our view of the motherly mountain now encompasses the jut and arrogance of skyscrapers and neon, not the warm comfort of wood and wind and stone as it once did.

I stand, as Kanezaka itself does, between the old ways of the mountain and the Shimada and the new, sharp, hard ways of the city and the Hashimoto. We both know that the Hashimoto have you in their “care” not only for your skills, but also to keep me in my place—to ensure that I do not falter in their charge to keep peace in this city, among these people whom I respect so much. I will obey our current masters, for to do anything else will put both you and our friends here at risk.

I had hoped that over time the Hashimoto would grow lazy. That they would see we are an honest people whom they need not oppress.

Not even the most faithful dog could take such a beating without biting back—and the people of Kanezaka are great of heart. We are being worn down. The demands upon the populace are increasing, and tempers are rising. Missed payments are met with more vicious abuses. And now someone has given the Hashimoto further reason for anger.

Over the last few months, shipments of Hashimoto contraband have gone missing. Their men have been badly beaten or robbed when returning from their rounds. Perhaps most boldly of all, messages painted in bright, conspicuous colors have started to appear, though they are quickly painted over.

These fools are not so subtly throwing in-nen at the Hashimoto, and their acts are received as well as you would expect. These vigilantes think to rise strong against a tide of violence. Instead they strike fast—and hide faster—while the good people of Kanezaka take their penance. And so my job—to keep our own people, our friends, in submission—has become both more delicate and more vital with each passing day. There are moments when I can scarce believe the world in which I walk now: You, making beautiful work for undeserving pigs. I, who trained the scions of Sojiro Shimada, forced to turn my swordmaster’s blade against my own. The children of this town, growing to adulthood with only the brutal, thoughtless Hashimoto to determine what is good or bad . . . our daughter among them. It is dangerous in this city now.

I will walk through Kanezaka today not simply to imagine you walking beside me or to greet our neighbors. I have made an offering to take to the Tetsuzan Shrine of my ancestors: A bowl coated with brilliant blue-green yuyaku from the pottery school, into which Ichiko has ladled a splash of dashi. A rice ball from our neighbor. From Kenta, a piece of red bean mochi—our daughter’s favorite. To all this I have added a generous pour of sake. I may have poured a small cup for myself as well.

I will ask the fox spirit for strength to continue this fight and for wisdom for myself and for all of us. Then, after sunset, I will take the sword that you gave me so long ago at our yuino and patrol the streets of this place that both fills my heart and breaks it. I will find these self-appointed “guardians,” who, if not deterred from this path, may be the spark of a misguided and deadly fire that will consume us all.

May you and I both be as your blades are: strong and sharp. Obey the Hashimoto, as I must, and give them the outward show of respect, even if you cannot give true respect a home in your heart.

I will close on the lighter note that I promised and say that I know if you were here you would remind me, “The kitsune can change your luck with a flick of even one of her tails.” May she flick all nine of them and send some much-needed good fortune our way.

Kashiko—

Asa

[cheerfulnihilismqualitysuffering]

Because recent events in my professional life have triggered old work-related/existential traumas, I'm going to tell you all the story about what happened around the time that I started the Facebook page cheerful nihilism and why I started it.

Roundabouts 2016 I was in grad school for my fourth degree, if you can imagine. I already had a BS and MS in psychology, and then I had gone back to grad school after a brief stint working in social work because I got so burnt out. I got a master's degree in health behavior education, and went on to attempt to get my PhD.

Getting a PhD had always been an ultimate life goal, for me. I'd always gotten high marks in school, and been involved in honors and gifted programs. When I was applying for my PhD program, I noticed that a lot of the professors that I spoke to about getting a reference had some reservations about the mentor that I was going to partner with. No one would be direct with me and tell me exactly what the problem was, they would just say that she was "difficult to work with." This was true, all the collaboration that she did was with people who worked at other institutions not at the University that I was attending in Florida.

But I had grown up with a mother who can be difficult to get along with, so I thought I could handle it. I was also involved in a really abusive relationship, so people talking down to me or trying to make me feel bad about who I was in order to make themselves feel better was just my normal at that time.

I was unable to afford the trip to present my research at the American public Health association National conference in Denver. Imagine my surprise when a mutual who had no immediate connection to my advisor posted a picture of my advisor standing in front of a poster board presenting my research, without my name on it. She was presenting my research as if it were hers. It felt like a gut punch, I had kind of heard that these things could happen but I had never thought that it could happen to me.

I screenshot the picture and sent it to the dean of the college. That was a mistake. This initiated an investigation that would ultimately end in me not being able to find a new mentor because during the investigation my advisor blackballed me, wrote a letter to the fellowship funding committee that was funding my phd, and claimed that I hadn't done any of the work that I was supposed to be doing to earn my fellowship. I found this ironic because she was just presenting my work... But everybody just believed her. They just assumed that she was telling the truth, that I was insane. Even after a human resources investigation did find that she behaved and unethical ways, because she had tenure, she was just prohibited from taking on any new mentees for a couple of years.

I was told that I could continue in the program if I could find a new mentor, but at this point I was untouchable. I ended up dropping out. The craziest thing is that the department actually sent me a letter demanding that I return the fellowship funding for the last half of 2016. This was on the grounds that, according to my former advisor, I hadn't been doing any work. I sent them a letter with a good faith repayment of $1. I explained to them in the letter that if they disagreed with my explanation they could take me to court. They stopped bothering me after that, but they probably sold it to a collections agency.

While all of this was going down and I was being completely broken by academia, I started a meme page on Facebook. Because I had been unmored from everything that had previously given my life structure or meaning, I became very nihilistic. But it wasn't the depressive nihilism that I often see characterized elsewhere, it felt almost liberating to me. I had grown up going to Catholic school for 9 years, my father was career military, the belief in a judeo-christian God was a strong foundation in my family of origin and all of them still regularly attend church.

The idea that life didn't have any ultimate meaning meant, to me, that I was actually free to just create my own. I'm not staunchly atheist, I'm generally agnostic. What I have personally experienced/witnessed throughout my life characterizes a deity with a morality that I cannot understand or connect to in any meaningful way.

Academia broke me. I'm glad I broke, tbh, I lost a lot of the ideas about myself that were programmed into me by society and my family of origin. That was a good thing. It rapidly sped up the process of de-culturing. Instead of scrambling to put myself back together in a semblance of what I assumed society wanted from me, I just let myself reassemble in whatever way I ended up reassembling.

I started the Facebook page on a lark. Parasocial relationships are dismissed by self-help gurus, but they were the only safe way I could connect to other people at that time. Strangers on the internet were more authentic and genuine with me than the people I saw face to face.

Oh there's tons of trash comments, too. But interestingly, if you're visible to a million people and get hundreds of cruel comments you start to realize that the only ones that hit the mark are the comments that echo the voice of the inner critic in your own head.

[cleliacleliadatura]

Things My Younger Self Would Have Screamed...

*On the topic of breakups*

When I knew in my heart I met someone my soul was supposed to meet (only to be met with heartbreak later on) I rushed in because I felt it was destiny. Perhaps the words of a hopeless romantic, a fool or someone longing to hear the language of her mother's culture spoken to her, even if she could not return with much agility or elegance. In the process, I hurt someone who was kind to me, but I didn't take the fool's way out. Instead of sending a one line text like "hey its over" I drove up there (two hours north) and told him to his face, as he held out flowers for me which made it even more heartbreaking, that I needed to break up with him before "accidentally cheating" on him for this new love interest. A tactic many rely on just to cave in to the immediacy of the moment. I dreaded facing this situation and my heart sank, because I loved him too, but the person waiting for me on the other side of that sad day convinced me on a deep level that we needed to be together.

Cheating is such a toxic behavior, it does happen, but I always wonder with serial cheaters-why not just communicate this need? So much heartache could be prevented. Easier said than done....

The timing was so unfortunate...I hated that I had to hurt someone I cared about in order to align myself with someone who nurtured a part of my soul that felt numb. Dead in the wake of teenage years saturated in forgotten friendships and gas station mad dog.

Even at the age of 20 I had better instincts, manners and consideration for others than some humanoids walking the scourge of this earth at the not so tender age of 40+.

Cue a few years ahead and I've found similar situations, in my own life and in others.

Is it really that hard for adults over the age of 18 to have the actual cajones to break up with someone to their face? To give the decency of more than a brusque phone call they have to get out of the way as their "new" (or old) honey is breathlessly waiting right beside them for the wretched conversation to be over?

I can understand with dating apps its different, sometimes you meet someone, you have a great vibe but you're not ready to invest in a relationship.

However, when it crosses weeks of knowing someone, going to their house, meeting their family, sharing intimate details of your life and conversations (perhaps due to one too many glasses of wine), it seems pretty rotten and cowardly for someone to either 1) ghost someone or 2) break it off the cowardly way aka a shitty text or 45 second phone call, that even a 7th grader could pull off with more finesse, dignity and respect.

The worst one is ghosting. It's so completely rude and avoidable. I truly believe people who do this get a weird power trip from it, its a way to do onto someone else what someone important in their life did to them. They don't have the respect to honor or acknowledge how much they benefitted, mutually, from spending time with you and enjoying the various aspects of that time together.

Instead, as apropro for the instant gratification culture of today, something better gets along or they can't handle the depth or breadth and just nix it with about as much etiquette as a cow rod in a factory where Temple Grandin didn't get involved in time with her humane cattle slaughtering methods.

Weird example, but I thought it would drive the point home since a lot of readers have secret obsessions with gory shows like the Walking Dead and other stuff to do with brains, guts and glory.

It starts off like this for some, and ends like:

Cold hearted and over it.

There is no excuse for rude behaviors with dating and sex, and unfortunately so many people today have ridden the wave of the new age so completely and wholeheartedly that they've embraced being a total jackass with zero heart, who only think of their next pursuit, their next score and their next in the moment good time-regardless of who they plow through to get there....

Is it really that hard to ask for a text that is at least a paragraph long, or perhaps a phone call, maybe even meeting somewhere in person for a 30 minute talk? I guess that's too old fashioned.

At least with the text you can use ChatGPT to craft something remotely resembling a polite and caring attitude.

[walker-extended-universe]

Emily Fanfic Masterlist

This is a list of fanfiction I've written in which Emily is a main/major character.

Camping 101- You know that infamous 2017 camping trip that August insisted required double-checking all the supplies on the list for because they left the tent at home that year? Yeah. This is that.

Don't Cry- AU where, instead of dying, Emily ran away with Geri

Family Matters- AU in which Emily left her family behind shortly after August was born and showed up 15 years later.

Don't Get (A)Head of Yourself- Cordell and Emily are taking a couples camping trip. Things don't go exactly to plan.

Just Like That, Everything Changes- On April 18th, Cordell Walker’s life is turned upside down when he learns his beloved wife is the serial killer he’s been investigating. Everything is changing and he feels powerless to stop it. He just wants to feel normal again and keep his kids safe. Is that too much to ask?

Missing You- A short little exploration of a wortld in which Cordell died instead of Emily

Wildest Dreams- (tw for rape/non-con) This wasn’t normal. Cordell wasn’t like this. Cordell was always soft and gentle with her, even during the times she gave him permission to get a little rough. It was like he was a different person. “Cordi- Cordi, stop. That’s enough. I-I’m not-” Part 5 of Henry Winchester 'Verse

Foundlings- The driver of the car was long gone as far as he could see, but that wasn’t the most concerning part. Nor was the thick envelope that felt stuffed with paper. No, the most concerning part was the two children left sleeping in the backseat.

Things Don't Have To Be Good To Be Good- Ruby escaped the Winchesters just before they could kill her. Many years later, she's a loving mother and wife known as Emily Walker. No one knows her secret, not even her husband. Until now…..

An Unhappy Reunion- Takes place during 2x01 "In My Time of Dying". Sam calls Cordell and asks him to come to the hospital. Emily insists on tagging along to keep the peace. When she finds out how far John is willing to go to save Dean, she tries to find a better way. Things don't go according to plan. Part 3 of Henry Winchester 'Verse

Play Dangerous Games, Win Dangerous "Prizes"- One morning, Cordell Walker is found dead in a ditch as a result of what it believed to be a drunk driving accident. No one who knows Cordell believes this and when Emily gets an email from her deceased husband, it only confirms her suspicions.

Something strange is afoot in Austin and our band of merry heroes are determined to uncover it. Will their efforts be worthwhile? Or are they destined to meet a terrible fate?

Sometimes All You Need is a Miracle- Emily finds a lost dog while wandering the ranch. When returning him to his owner, she finds a new glimmer of hope in her dark world

Of Love And Honor- Cordell is the knight assigned to Princess Emily's personal protection. They were never meant to fall in love, but they do.

At The Fair- Cordell, Emily, Geri, and Hoyt usually had to keep things under wraps. But they could have plenty of fun out and about at the local fair.

In Another World- What would've happened if Cordell and Geri had been the ones to die? Would Hoyt and Emily have found their way to each other? What would that have looked like?