#to be clear this would terrify and distress her beyond measure

[blujayonthewing]

I feel like 'gets feebleminded' is the flavor of problem melliwyk needs right now

[delimeful]

breathing cleaner air (1)

winner of fic poll, a new BTHB fic for halloween month! the prompt for this one was "Painful Transformation"!

warnings: body horror, painful transformation, fighting/violence, dehumanizing language, antagonist (but not unsympth) virgil, religious terms borrowed to name original monsters (no actual religious connections), miscommunication/language barrier, mortal peril, thinking youre going to die

extra note: this is a multichapter fic, but this first chapter ends on a very concerning note. there is an eventual happy ending in later chapters, promise!

-

Roman wasn’t sure exactly when he’d been separated from the rest of his entourage.

One moment, Logan was at his shoulder, his firm hand keeping Roman from stumbling over gnarled tree roots, and the next, he was alone, with only faint echoes of his own voice to keep him company.

Their quarry was certainly powerful, to be able to warp so much of the woods around them with thick fog and unnatural darkness. He should have expected as much.

After all, this was the same monster that had been infiltrating the Dimiour kingdom at night and stealing away children from their families. It would have to be strong in order to pull that off.

His right-hand knight would surely recommend retreating and regrouping in more neutral territory, but this was the first time they’d actually caught the fiend in the act. Seraphs were notoriously agile, with the maneuverability of the three sets of razor-sharp wings that had earned them their moniker. Once one was out of sight, it wasn’t likely to be seen again.

This time, though, the tracer spell on Roman’s compass was still active and locked on to the target.

There was no way he could return to his court empty-handed. He was the crown prince. He couldn’t be a failure. Not when there was so much at stake.

Firming his shoulders, he pushed onwards, his sword drawn.

The forest was eerily quiet around him, making the scuff of his shoes against the ground seem harsh enough to lead any enemy right to him. He shook off the thought; he was the one pursuing here. Let them come and face him.

Roman glanced up from his compass, and paused at the sight of a familiar-looking rotting tree trunk. He’d noticed one just like it about thirty paces back because it had a rare strain of fungus that Remus would have liked. What were the odds that the same rare fungus dotted the same side of a different identical rotting log?

Sure enough, another thirty paces and the log popped up again. Despite following the needle of his compass devotedly, he was being led in circles. A mind-altering ability, along with the manipulation of light and water they’d already seen? Roman shuddered, imagining what the monster could be planning with so much power at its disposal.

Luckily, Roman had more than enough faith in Logan’s spellcasting.

He closed his eyes, letting the clink of the needle guide his steps closer and closer to his target. His mind rebelled, senses muffling as though he was walking through thick honey instead of air, and then, with a pop, he was though.

When he opened his eyes, there was a small house in a clearing in front of him.

It was less ramshackle than he would have expected, the candlelight in the windows looking almost cozy compared to the dark forest surrounding it.

Assured that the kidnapping culprit lay just ahead, he tucked the compass into his pocket, strode forward, and kicked the door down.

Immediately, his eyes were drawn to the figure in the middle of the room, who had spun around at his arrival.

It looked startlingly human, wide eyed and messy haired, but the single set of dark wings taking up half the room were a dead giveaway to the seraph’s true nature. Those fragile core wings could be hidden, protected, even glamored away, but they never vanished entirely. They were the most reliable way to expose a seraph hidden in a human guise.

The seraph swore lowly, flaring the feathery appendages out to make itself look bigger.

Roman could just barely make out the small figures crowded against the back corner of the room, anxious eyes peering out at him. He felt something in him loosen in relief at the sight of the children still alive, if undoubtedly terrified. He’d half-expected the horrific alternative.

“I’ll tell you this once, you feathery fiend,” he said, pointing his sword at the monster directly. “Release the innocents you’ve kidnapped, and I won’t make your end painful.”

Its pupils narrowed to slits, and it spread its wings wider, hiding the children from view. When it spoke, there was a high, grating discordant note under the words. “Not. A. Chance.”

“Then face the consequences!” Roman shouted, and lunged.

The seraph was surprisingly adept at defending, flexing its hands and using long, sharp claws to block his blows and get in some of its own. Even in battle, it always remained between Roman and the children it held hostage, and the poor things were too frightened to respond to his calls for them to run.

Frustrating, but nothing he couldn’t overcome. In the end, Roman had been trained with the sword since he could stand, and no child-abducting angel impersonator could best him in battle.

When the inevitable opening came, he seized it, pushing forward until the seraph’s back was to the wall. Cornered, it hissed lowly at him before catching his next strike on its claws. It strained against his sword, its shaking arms the only thing keeping his blade from reaching its throat. Only a little further, and--

“Stop it!” A small voice shouted, on the edge of tears. “Don’t hurt him!”

Roman’s head jerked up, his attention caught by the distressed call.

The children were still huddled together, but one at the front of the group had stepped forward, fists clenched and gaze angry.

“Leave him alone!” she demanded, glaring directly at Roman.

Something fluttered at her back, and Roman’s eyes widened.

“You’re--,” he started, and then the seraph twisted in his grip, and he only barely caught the motion of its hand toward his head before glass shattered against his skull.

He staggered back as thick liquid spilled over his head, too cool to be blood.

Rather than pursue the opening, the seraph stepped back, wings finally settling back against its back. The lack of aggression was strange, after it had so fiercely responded to his challenge. Seraphim weren’t known for mercy.

Roman stepped forwards, his mouth shaping the first syllable of a question, and then abruptly understood as his body began to burn coldly, like he’d pressed ice directly to every inch of his skin. His sword dropped from numb fingers, clattering to the floor.

He’d been poisoned.

“New plan, we’re moving tonight,” the seraph began to speak, addressing the children, but Roman’s heartbeat was too loud in his ears to make out the rest of its words.

He fell to hands and knees, a line of burning pain along his spine. Some of the children sent him looks, nervous or pitying or angry, but most were busy scurrying around and gathering everything that wasn’t nailed down. He could see now, the small sets of wings on each and every one’s back, marking them as his kingdom’s enemies.

Why had he been told they were human? A leak in the court? Who had lied?

The seraph crouched in front of him, gaze unreadable. Its eyes were mismatched, Roman noticed nonsensically as another wave of pain shuddered through him.

“Well, that didn’t go to plan.” It brushed the remains of a glass vial from its hand, and Roman stared at the dark liquid left on the pieces.

“Wh--at did you do. To me,” he grit out between pants, struggling to keep himself upright.

“Congrats. You get to see how it feels to be us. To be hunted,” the seraph told him with an unfriendly smile. “Maybe it’ll change your perspective a little. Or maybe you’ll just bite it.”

It shrugged and flipped up its hood, rising to its feet, and kicked Roman’s sword up into its grip. Roman protested the theft on principle, but his voice came out strained and feeble like he’d never heard it before.

Before it followed the last kid out the door, it paused, glancing at him one last time.

“Once the bones are done, it gets easier,” it told him. “Good luck.”

Roman didn’t realize just what that meant until he heard the first resounding crack.

He finally lost his battle with gravity, collapsing to the ground with an agonized cry. That noise-- from inside him--?

There was another crack, and a series of pops like dislocating joints, and then his skin was melting and he was fading in and out of consciousness, roused and put under by the same overwhelming, all-consuming agony. Each time he woke, he could hear grinding and shifting inside of him, as though his insides were rebelling against their natural placement.

The seraph hadn’t been lying: the bones were the most painful part, and once the last one had clicked back into place, there was a palpable difference in pain levels. He still hurt, ached beyond measure, but it was no longer so much that he couldn’t even think past the pain. It almost felt like relief.

Roman focused on breathing, slow and deep, until he felt a little less like he was going to shake apart. He didn’t know of any poison that could do something like this. It was magic-- strong, cursed magic, and unlike Logan’s, there was no softness in it.

It took what felt like hours for him to gain the resolve to push himself up, and even longer to maintain the motion even as every nerve ending in his body protested. His vision was blurry, and his balance felt entirely off, even more so than that time Remus had dared him to jump off the roof and he’d gotten a concussion.

When he finally properly looked down at himself, he found feathers and bone lining his hands, transforming them into sharp claws and rigid armor. Familiar, but only because he’d seen them on his enemies time and time again.

The shock of adrenaline at the sight was helpful in pushing his aching muscles to the back of his mind as he rose to his knees and twisted to look at himself, staring at the three sets of bright wings draped down from his back.

Golden and white feathers lined them, lined his ears and throat and chest, framing the white exoskeleton pieces inset in his skin.

He sat back on his haunches, and took a few deep, whistling breaths before trying to speak, to say anything in his own voice. To prove he was still himself.

The sound that emerged from his throat was hollow and resonant, like woodwind instruments in harmony. It sent chills of anticipation down his spine, for he’d only ever heard the uncanny call before battle.

There was no denying it, however much he might want to. His body had been warped, transformed into the worst enemy of his kingdom, the beasts that plagued their people day and night. He was a seraph.

He had to get help.

Surely, there was someone among the court who knew about this curse, who could procure a solution, some kind of cure. He couldn’t be stuck as a monster, he was Dimiour’s crown prince!

He pushed himself up to his feet and found he was taller than before, limbs thin and spindly. All six of the wings lifted and curled around him automatically, creating the shell of bright feathery limbs that marked a seraph on defense. They were lighter than he would have expected, seeing as he knew the true form feathers were as sharp as any knife.

He stumbled through the door into the open forest air, taking a significant chunk out of the door frame as he went. His limbs were unsteady with inexperience, the gait distinctly different, almost hunched over to counterbalance the weight of his-- the wings.

In the distance, Roman heard voices calling his name.

He loped towards the sounds with barely a thought, attempting not to overthink every staggering movement. The underbrush scraped and rattled around him, announcing his presence well before he cleared the treeline and found himself faced with the weapons of his own squadron.

He tried to speak automatically, to show them that he wasn’t what they thought, but all that left him were those discordant, eerie notes, like overlapping birds of prey. He sounded like a nightmare come to life, and he noticed with abrupt horror that some of the newer trainees were faltering, clapping hands over their ears.

A blade flashed in the corner of his vision, and he raised an arm automatically. With a clang, the attacking knight’s glaive rebounded off his arm so sharply that the man wielding it nearly toppled. Another knight quickly moved between them, weapon raised defensively as their fellow recovered.

Roman stared at his arm, now covered in an extra layer, a hardened shell of bone. The armor had appeared-- had ossified into place, quicker than he could think.

“Hold!” A familiar voice called, and Roman turned to it like it was an oasis in a drought. Logan. Logan was here, he was the smartest person he knew, if anyone would have a solution, it would be him.

An odd crooning note bubbled up from his chest, but it cut off sharply at the sight of his right-hand man.

Logan stood sturdy with his scythe staff held up in one hand, and not a glint of recognition in his eyes.

“Move on, continue searching for our liege,” he directed, voice firm. “I will handle this opponent.”

Roman screeched, wings flaring in upset, trying over and over to manage anything recognizable as human speech. Anything at all that would let his closest friend identify him.

Logan didn’t even flinch at the sound, well-practiced in filtering out the skull-splitting calls of seraphim. He’d been in more battles than Roman ever had, out on the field while Roman was stuck learning courtly etiquette.

He’d earned himself the mantle of ‘Executioner’, and the thought had never sent a chill down Roman’s spine the way it did now.

But then, Roman had never been the one on this end of Logan’s casting, had he?

The others continued forward on their commanding officer’s orders, searching for someone who stood right before them, and abandoning him to a fight he couldn’t win.

Logan knew seraphim better than anyone else, how they functioned on every level.

Roman barely knew how to operate this new body, and more than that, he was terrified of it, of the damage he could unknowingly deal his best friend. It could hardly be called an equal match.

Still, it was almost a surprise to feel the impact of Logan’s first cast, a draining spell designed to weaken the enemy. He didn’t want to believe this situation was real, any of it, but the burning pins and needles racing through him were undeniable.

His wings wrapped around him more securely, he intended to turn, to flee the way no prince should. Perhaps it was this cowardice that resulted in the way he only made it two steps before exhaustion made him stumble.

Or maybe it was the way the most painful transformation of his life had turned his body inside-out what felt like mere moments ago.

Either way, he was in no position to dodge the next spell, or resist the darkness blooming in his vision as he tipped over that precarious line into unconsciousness.

His last glimpse of the world around him was Logan, weapon in hand, striding closer with his face set determinedly. Roman’s foolishness had never managed to outlast or outwit that expression before, and he had no doubt that this instance would be much the same.

At least, with any luck, his friend would never know what he’d done.

[wallwriterstuff]

Chalk Lines || Alec Volturi x Reader ||

Summary: Alec has met his mate, but he isn’t quite sure he wants one. With a few revelations from Marcus and the discovery of a hidden talent, Alec finds that having a mate isn’t actually all that bad. 

Warnings: Implied homelessness, a brief mention of your standard Volturi violence 

Words: 3427 

The witch twins had quite the reputation and none of the adjectives used to describe them were necessarily pretty.

Deadly.

Cruel.

Sadistic.

Terrifying.

It was a useful reputation given their occupation, but it wasn’t necessarily a true reflection of either twin’s character. Though she may have been hot-headed and quick to torture her adversaries, Jane became far less terrifying when one knew about her penchant for collecting coins; she’d sworn both Demetri and Felix to secrecy when the pair had stumbled across the tiered briefcases in her room, specially designed to hold centuries worth of different coins in varying types and shapes. Alec on the other hand was considered less likely to explode with rage but seen as the quiet and calculating type, yet if anyone saw him squirreled away in Volterra’s library, nose glued to the pages of a book as it so often was, the jagged edges of his cold silence suddenly became a lot softer and he looked far less threatening.

Sadly, people rarely looked beyond the surface in this modern world. It was for that very reason that Alec had not seen his mate in the two weeks since you’d been brought to Volterra. It had been pure coincidence that as they tracked the abnormally large nomadic coven, they’d stumbled right through the alleyway the young human was huddled in. Alec had been locked in place the moment he set eyes on you, your tear stained cheeks turning his muscles rigid until the others had been forced to stop with him. You were about the same age as he had been when he was turned he thought, which only made it all the stranger that the young human would be alone in a filthy alleyway so late at night. He couldn’t just leave you, not when he could smell the oncoming storm and all you had was a flimsy looking jacket and a leather-bound book to your name. Of course, they also couldn’t have just left the hunt, not when those nomads had drawn too much attention already.

The human hadn’t particularly appreciated being forcibly removed from their alleyway to witness the execution of five vampires, or maybe it was the fact said vampires tried to kill you as Alec and the others flitted about tearing them limb from limb? Either way the violent spectacle had not been the best introduction to the supernatural world, and the fear in your eyes whenever you saw Alec, Demetri, Felix or Jane ever since that moment was something that irked Alec more than he let on. He didn’t even necessarily want a mate, so the instinctual upset he felt at your obvious distress had only made his irritation worse the longer the situation dragged on for. Caius was getting impatient to, insisting the little human be turned and the threat to their secrecy you represented eliminated. Aro was of a different opinion, wanting you to have some time to adjust to your new life in Italy and to start feeling comfortable amongst the Coven members, lest you be thrown into a heightened state of anxiety and terror when you were turned.

Alec hadn’t even seen the damn human he had being trying to avoid and track down in equal measure. If Caius’s ranting hadn’t been enough to drive him mad Jane had been giving him an earful about making himself miserable by ignoring you. He knew he was being a little petulant, but the truth was he was forever frozen at 13 (maybe 14, he wasn’t too sure since the date wasn’t kept as religiously in the medieval era and his human memory was blotchy at best) and didn’t want to be eternally bound to a lover. It was in the library, his eyes rereading the same page he’d been stuck on for the last twenty minutes, that Marcus found him. He greeted his master with a gentle inclination of his head, mildly surprised when the older man glided to the opposite end of the sofa he sat on and sank down into the leather.

“Haven’t you read that one before?” Marcus asked. His voice was no more than a breath of air, a sigh carried on a gentle breeze. He was not known for being loud or brash. Alec glanced at him, not surprised to find his master staring straight ahead with the same mournful expression he always held. Well, it was Didyme’s portrait that hung above the fireplace after all, she had loved reading to.

“I have read everything in here at least five times over.” Alec pointed out, bringing the ghost of a smile to Marcus’s lips. It wasn’t necessarily unusual for Marcus to join him in the library, though it was far more common for their evenings to spent in silence since he wasn’t the best conversationalist. That was okay though, since Alec wasn’t particular keen on conversation either, preferring the quiet and the calm it brought. The last moments of his life were spent full of screaming and shouting and he found himself rather adverse to loud noise now.

“I wonder, has your mate seen this library?” he mused. Alec frowned slightly, the familiar irritation bubbling within him at the mention of his mate. Maybe he didn’t want to share something with someone who clearly wasn’t keen on sharing even a sliver of their time with him, had no one though of that?

“I would not know.” He replied, though he couldn’t quite keep his voice even. Marcus hummed slightly under his breath, his eyes never once leaving the painting across from him. Alec felt the usual sympathy that bubbled within him when Marcus looked like this, when it was clear his coven and his duty were all he had left but all he wanted was to be ash on the wind, finally free. Marcus called his name softly, forcing Alec to turn his attention from his book (that he was no further through than he had been when he started reading almost two hours ago) and look back at the ancient one.

“I do not think they want a mate either.” He said, surprising him. Alec thought he had hidden it rather well, but he should have known that Marcus would see. He read relationships, he saw the bonds that formed between people and no doubt had acknowledge how weak the one Alec shared with his so called mate must have been. Hell, he was surprised it hadn’t withered and died yet.

“They…don’t?” he questioned. Marcus shook his head.

“Relationships look different, for everyone. Romantic threads tend to be a different colour, yours…yours resembles something more akin to friendship.” He informed him. Alec’s brows tugged down into a frown.

“Mates don’t have to be romantically involved?” he questioned. Marcus chuckled.

“No, platonic relationships between mates are more common than you think. Perhaps there ought to be another name for these kinds of mates, but I believe, what yours would like more than anything else, is a friend.” His voice was calming to the turbulent thoughts in his head, and Alec found himself nodding along as if part of him had known that all along. The problem was, Alec wasn’t exactly sure how to go about making friends either. He didn’t have all that many, and he supposed that you didn’t have all that many either given the state he’d found you in. Looking back on it, he couldn’t honestly say he found that he was as curious as a mate should be. The mates he knew were all romantically involved and completely devoted to everything about their other half, yet he’d never really felt that intense sort of pull towards them. There was a pull there for sure but…it wasn’t strong.

“I’m not sure how to be a good friend.” He admitted quietly, setting his book aside.

“Sometimes souls are joined together not because they are the missing other half, but simply because the halves that already exist compliment each other so well.” Marcus said, his eyes turning back towards Didyme’s portrait. Alec followed his gaze briefly, finding himself a lot calmer somehow when he thought of his mate as something other than a life partner. Now he wasn’t caught up in the worry of expectations, he felt guilt start to creep in. His mate had been left alone in an unfamiliar castle after a terrifying experience, and he had done little to soothe them since their arrival. He sighed quietly, pushed to his feet, and bid his master a quiet farewell before heading to Demetri’s room. What was he even supposed to do when he found you? What was he supposed to say? What could make up for a fortnight of ignorance on his part?

“Alec, are you planning on knocking or will you continue to dwindle away the evening hours by standing like an idiot at my door?” Demetri wondered, opening it just enough to lean his shoulder against the wooden frame. His face was smug, like he knew already what he was here for. Alec didn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Do not waste my time and less of it shall dwindle away, then.” He retorted, face unchanging. Demetri cocked his head, his smirk widening slightly as the silence settled between them. For those who knew Demetri well, it was easy to tell when he was using his gift. It was practically instinctual for him at this point but Alec saw the brief lapse of his attention, his eyes shifting from sharp and keen to vacant as he reached for your tenor, not seeing the hallway anymore but a variety of what he had described as colourful cords once.

“Same place they’ve been the past few weeks.” He said finally, his smile falling slightly, “One floor up right at the end of the corridor above us.” Alec frowned slightly. That corridor was abandoned, what was his mate doing there? With a slight nod of appreciation to Demetri, Alec turned on his heel and moved swiftly down the corridor towards the stairs leading upward. A lot of the upper floor had been destroyed in Marcus’s rage after he had lost Didyme. He had torn through most of the castle in his rage, rumour had it, but some of it had simply never been restored. Alec slowed his pace, eyes cutting through the gloom. The ripped tapestries and the leaves and dust that had blown in from broken windows left the whole place feeling rather eerie. He wondered briefly how his fragile mate could stand to be in such a place. Didn’t humans prefer lighter, warmer places? Then again, you had been left in an alleyway for some bizarre reason and Alec had know idea how long you’d been there.

A faint glow came from the room at the end of the corridor, the soft yellow light of a lamp he realised, as he moved closer. He could hear a gentle humming to, the melody building to the lyrics of a song he didn’t recognise drifting through the quiet toward him. He paused in the doorway, taking a moment to stare in awe. Unbeknownst to them, you had turned this abandoned room into your own personal haven, away from the vampires and the rest of the world. The floors were swept clean, the ivy that was creeping through a few other windows stripped away and cut back. The tapestries were removed from the walls and artfully ripped to create overlapping, mismatched pieces for an abstract, faded carpet in one corner. The shelves had been cleaned and polished, Alec recognising some of the books as those that had been provided in your room by them, but there was also a myriad of art supplies he knew hadn’t been. Currently, some of the tapestry was being used to soften the stone beneath your knees as you continued to add to a small, colourful piece in the corner of the curved wall.

It took him a moment to realise you were holding chalks, blending the light and dark to make varying shades for grass. One half of the large expanse of wall opposite the window was dark, in shades of grey and black and white. The one thing that did stand out was vibrant red of a figures eyes, and as Alec looked closer he realised that the blended figures were cloaked, depicting exactly what his mate had seen the night they met. The other half was still taking shape but was clearly supposed to be a brighter image.

“You have incredible talent.” He complimented. You jumped at the sound of his voice, heart jolting and speeding up in your chest as you dropped the chalk. With wide eyes, you stared back at Alec before scrambling to your feet, wiping chalky hands on the cloth protruding from the pocket of your jeans. Swallowing nervously, you glance back at your artwork before dropping your eyes to the floor, scuffing the toe of your shoe against the tapestry carpet. Alec thought you looked quite small like that, like you were embarrassed almost or expecting him to berate you, to laugh, or worse.  

“Thanks.” You mumbled. Alec hadn’t heard your voice sound like this before, the soft tones soothing and mellow, much different to the harsh sounds of screaming the night you’d met.

“May I come in?” he asked. He felt like he was intruding. You had set up plenty of lamps about and cushions on the carpet to make a small seating area, this was their space, not his. Slowly, his mate nodded, and Alec looked back at the chalk art on the wall once more.

“I…can rub it away.” You said, sounding uncertain. Alec immediately shook his head.

“Please don’t. I meant what I said, you have talent.” He lifted his hand without thinking, placing his index finger on a section of white and rubbing softly. Running his thumb over his finger, he marvelled at the slippery feel of the chalk dust between his fingers. “All of this is chalk?” he asked, the surprise in his voice obvious. He had never used chalk before as a medium. You nodded your head, pointing to the bucket of chalks at your feet, they were small and worked to stubs in some cases, but you clearly had made do.

“Did you never draw on the pavement with chalk as a kid?” you asked him. Alec’s lips twitched upward, a hint of mischief glinting in his eyes.

“When I was child, we barely had roads.” He answered. He heard your heartbeat falter a little in your chest, the shock registering on your face. Now he took the time to look you over, he realised you looked quite calm here in your little space. You clearly felt at ease here, your (Y/E/C) eyes soft and open for him to read. Despite that, you were clearly still a little wary of him to, unsure of what to say, what his intentions were in coming here. “How long have you been drawing?” he asked, hating the way the silence grew so easily between you both. You shrugged a shoulder, moving towards your little cushion area and settling yourself cross-legged on the floor, looking up at him curiously. Alec folded his arms, remaining standing. Truthfully, he’d be no more comfortable on the floor than he would be standing, but he also didn’t want to invade your space when you were quite obviously sizing him up.

It was odd to feel like he was intruding in his own home.

“A while, my Mom taught me.” You answered. It was no more and no less than he had asked for. Alec nodded along, uncertain what to say next. How did people make friends? Drawing your knees up to your chest, you dropped your chin on top of your legs, looking up at him. Come to think of it, you hadn’t taken your eyes off of him yet. Alec let his eyes wander once more, taking in the books and supplies scattered about.

“You need some new chalk.” He noted. Maybe he could do something about your passion to try and gain your trust a bit?

“I can make do.” You answered immediately. Alec frowned.

“You’ve barely any left.” He retorted stubbornly. You shrugged at him again, like you didn’t really care much either way. “Well, we can go out tomorrow and get more maybe…or some new books for your shelf, if you like.” He offered. You tilted your head, regarding him like you were watching an interesting experiment through a microscope.

“You don’t have to.” You murmured, looking mildly bewildered by him. Alec got the impression not many people offered to do nice things for you.

“You’ve yet to see the city. I think that should change.” He said, and with a time to pick you up at your room tomorrow he left you be. He wasn’t even half-way down the corridor when he heard the scraping of chalk on the stone once more. Alec wasn’t honestly prepared for just how much time it took. He had thought you had been quite calm and comfortable with him that night he first went to you, but it was weeks before you held a fluent conversation with him, letting him freely know your thoughts without being prompted by questions, some of which you wouldn’t answer. You were clearly not used to trusting others, but over the weeks Alec spent learning to draw from you, reading with you, helping you further decorate your nook of the castle, he couldn’t deny you had developed a strong friendship. He felt complete, calm, happy even. Marcus had been right. Fate had drawn the two of you together not because you were meant to be his missing piece, but rather you were meant to smooth over the cracks and heal one another so that when the person who was meant to fill the gap came along, they got something a little less broken than before.

“Alec? I don’t think I ever said thank you, did I?” you asked, four centuries later while overlooking the Parisian skyline. You were on a mission to eradicate an idiotic nomad with a terrible habit of torturing humans, something Felix was very upset he was missing out on. Alec looked at you with a raised eyebrow.

“Thank you for what?” he questioned. You grinned at him.

“For choosing this little sewer rat to be your best friend.” You poked and prodded his side as you spoke, making him squirm slightly as he tried to bat your hands away. His serious expression faltered, melting into a carefree smile before he laughed and snatched you up, threatening to drop you over the edge. It would have been a lot less terrifying if you weren’t on one of the highest beams the Eiffel Tower had to offer.

“You want to keep trying your luck? Well? Do you?” he demanded, grinning wildly as you squealed, fingers curled tight into his arms. Alec reeled you back in, settling you on the beam beside him so you could go back to swinging your legs back and forth. For a moment the sound of your laughter fading into the night was allowed to settle, drifting away on the breeze as the silence grew between you. It was then Alec spoke. “You don’t have to thank me. I think I did it as much for me as I did for you.” He confessed. He could feel your eyes burning holes in the side of his face and risked a glance sideways, seeing your understanding expression. You knew all of his past, the same way he knew yours. You had both healed each other from a considerable amount of trauma.

“Well then…here’s to us.” You declared, standing to grip the metal beam behind you and you leaned out, chin up high and free hand on your hip in a ridiculous, ostentatious pose. You looked oddly like you were trying to model for a statue pose. Alec snorted.

“I am not doing that.” He said.

“What? No! Come on! You can’t leave me hanging like this!” you protested. Alec stood, shaking his head and starting to climb down.

“Watch me.”

“No!”

“Goodbye, Y/N.”

“Best friends don’t let each other do stupid things alone!”

“You are never alone, I just prefer to watch your stupidity from the side-lines so I can be as affiliated with it as little as possible.”

“I’ll race you then!”

“Y/N don’t you dare jump off of the top of the Eiffel tower! Even we’re not that indestructible.”

“You ruin all my fun.”

[kunstpause-archive]

FFXIV Write Prompt #1: Crux

Around her the battle sounds had morphed into one soothing blanket of background noise as Cassia gripped her book tightly. They had set into a sort of rhythm where she barely even watched the battlefield in front of her anymore. Every now and then she let the magic flow through her, rebuilding their defences and helping her friends take their enemies down, but her mind wasn’t really taking it all in anymore.

Every fight felt a little bit like the last, and Cassia knew there was little variation between them. And so her thoughts kept wandering. Into a very specific direction, back to Camp Dragonhead and to blue eyes behind silvery hair. 

“Cassia!”

The distressed sounding voice of her sister cut through the air, pulling Cassia out of her thoughts and her nose out of her book. There was an urgency in Adriene’s voice as she shouted,

“Please pay more attention, this could have gone south any moment!”

With a furrowed brow Cassia looked over the rim of her book, assessing the situation before her. All three of her friends were standing upright, still battle-ready but their opponents lay defeated on the ground at their feet.

“I fail to see the issue,” Cassia murmured. Next to Adriene, Saran was inspecting her bloody knives before she sheathed them with a shrug.

“The issue is that Nayan almost got knocked out!” Adriene said in that moment, a bit of leftover tension still in her voice. 

“I’m good,” Nayan said with a wide grin, shouldering his axe before taking a deep breath. “This was fun!”

Adriene shot him a look full of disbelief before turning back to Cassia. “Regardless, as our designated healer…”

“I’m not,” Cassia interrupted her sister, making Adriene pause in confusion.

“Huh?” her sister asked with a frown. “Not what?”

“A healer,” Cassia clarified. She had volunteered to take on a more supportive role when they had decided to breach the Stone Vigil without her cousin Layanna being there for their usual backup, but Cassia wouldn’t go so far as to think the could do the same things Lay did. When the other three gave her a skeptical look Cassia shrugged.

“I am really not,” she repeated before she turned slightly to point at the little fairy hovering behind her shoulder. “She is the healer, and she is doing an amazing job so no criticizing of Eos please!” There was a distinctively sharp undertone in her voice for a moment, making it clear that no one was allowed to say anything against their smallest companion. With another shrug Cassia added, “I am just here to calculate the shielding you guys need, though if you’d have gone along with the tactical plans I made beforehand…”

“Those would have taken us forever!” Adriene mumbled. Next to her, Saran nodded.

“I agree with Adriene actually, sorry Cass, the plan was good but we’d been at this for hours if we followed it.”

“That might very well be, but if we had stuck with it, we wouldn’t have fought a single enemy,” Cassia pointed out. 

Nayan let out a short burst of laughter. “And where would have been the fun in that?” he gripped the bloody hilt of his axe a bit tighter as to emphasise his willingness to jump right back into the chaos as he winked at her. “Besides, I never felt like I was in danger, I trust Cassia - and Eos for that matter.”

“For a while you did look like you were about to fall over any second,” Saran said plainly, and from the cuts and bruises on their friend, Cassia knew she did have a point after all.

“And I was just worried,” Adriene added, her voice a little softer than before. 

Before Cassia could say anything, Nayan brushed their worries aside with a wave of his hand. “Ah, don’t be! That is half the fun about this.”

Adriene frowned. “What is half the fun, almost getting knocked out or almost keeling over from exhaustion?”

Nayan’s eyes lit up with a spark. “Yes!” he said, enthusiastically.

Cassia chuckled lightly at the familiar eagerness in his eyes that sparked up whenever the talk was about battle. “How about a compromise, I’ll pay a bit more attention to Nayan’s well-being and I promise, I won’t let him go down and you two,” she nodded at Adriene and Saran, “you try not to stress out about his condition and just do your thing?”

When she closed the distance between them, stepping close to Nayan she murmured under her breath, “Don’t worry, I’ll throw an extra shield your way every now and then but I won't heal you up unnecessarily.” Cassia had realized quite a while ago that her friend was much happier if there was a little bit more risk involved in their activities.

“Awesome!” Nayan beamed back at her before setting out to check the next room for more resistance.

“I’m not the healer, Eos is,” Adriene said with a light, playfully teasing tone as she walked up next to her with a small grin and a shake of her head. “You know you can’t lie to me, right? I know you far too well, and something has you very distracted!”

And just like that Cassia’s mind was back on the original issue. A certain, kind, but very forward Elezen, who’s friendly banter had managed to thoroughly confuse her.

“Alright,” she mumbled, letting out a sigh of defeat. “It’s Lord Haurchefant,” Cassia admitted, not looking into Adriene’s eyes.

“Ha,” Saran perked up next to them. “I knew it, pay up Adriene!”

“Now wait a second,” Adriene interjected, “we don’t know the details yet, I might still win this!” 

Cassia looked back and forth between her sister and her friend with confusion spreading through her. “What is going on?”

“I bet Adriene that it would take no time for him to make a move and she said he’d play it slower! So, has he? Made a move beyond all this obvious flirting you two have been doing?”

Saran looked at her with an expectant grin and Cassia felt herself blush ever so slightly. “He might have invited me to dinner in his quarters, once we get back,” she said sheepishly.

Saran let out a small laugh while Adriene groaned. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about that, but now I owe Saran 100 Gil…” A moment later she chuckled as well, though. “Ah, whatever, at least I know why you have trouble paying attention now,” she said, giving Cassia another wink. “So, what are you going to wear for the dinner?”

Cassia swallowed briefly as she recalled some of the more insinuating things both her and Lord Haurchefant had said leading up the the invitation, and she shook her head. “No idea yet. If I am really honest I am not sure I should go, this could complicate things after all.”

It was a flimsy excuse, and she knew it. She wanted to go, after all. It wasn’t like Cassia was a stranger to casual dalliances with all sorts of people. No. Her problem lay more with the fact that this didn’t feel entirely as casual as she was used to. The uncomfortable truth about the whole situation was, that Cassia had never before been tempted to start something with someone she genuinely liked and admired. Casual non-commitment she could deal with just fine, but this was certainly something else. And it posed a whole new set of problems.

“I think I should maybe…”

“The next room is clear,” Nayan shouted in that moment before his head appeared around the corner again. “And while I absolutely feel for you, maybe you could solve your dinner invitation problems after we take care of these annoying dragons.”

He sounded admonishing, but his eyes were full of humor and Cassia couldn’t help but laugh as she nodded and started moving again. “You’re right, it can probably wait!”

“We are still going to talk about this,” Adriene added as both her and Saran hurried along with the other two. “I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t go at all!”

“Neither do I,” Saran added, sounding just as amused as Adriene did. 

Cassia sighed. At the far edge of the corridor they were hurrying through, she could see a shadow move. Another dragon. 

“So apparently we are talking about this now, after all,” she said with a sigh as she mentally went through the calculations she needed for a magicked barrier that would withstand at least the first round of fire thrown at them.

“Did you expect anything else?” Saran said with a grin as she briefly nudged her with her elbow. A moment later a shimmer settled over both her and Adriene as they disappeared from view, getting ready to surprise their target.

“I, for one, genuinely don’t see the problem,” Nayan said, swinging his axe around once more for good measure. “The man is hot, you obviously think so too. Go to dinner and hopefully enjoy more than the food!” And with those encouraging words, he gripped his axe tighter and broke into a run. 

Behind her, Eos fluttered nervously as Cassia threw the shields on her friends just in time before the fight broke out. Perhaps Nayan’s advice, in all its crude straightforwardness, was worth considering. And as they kept fighting, surrounded by more and more heretics and dragons, Cassia had to admit that if she could manage all that, then maybe having dinner with someone she actually liked, even if it was downright terrifying, might not be the problem she thought it was.

[sonicringbond]

Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey - Scene 29

At last, we come to part 1 of the end of of what I’ve been dubbing the first cour of season 1. From here Sonic and Rosy are going to be forced to really learn about the dimensional layers of the world they’ve ended up in and decide how big of a part they will play in the events to come. Before that though, they have to deal with the battle Kukku Armada in...

    ~Everything should have been better. It was Sonic. It was really him! I finally found him! I don’t even know how long it’s taken or if I remember everything I’ve been through searching for him. Yet, just finding Sonic alone didn’t make things better. Things were so, so bad.~

    Pipes and valves screamed and crackled with arcs of electricity within the heart of Battle Kukku Island. The spectacle terrified the pirates who called it home, but within those labs, Doctor Fukurokov, who had taken over the band of pirates as his own after their first terrible defeat by Tails smiled gleefully. The old owl’s twisted beak appeared even more twisted as the light within the lab he stood in flickered and flashed. Long shadows punctuated by moments of darkness and piercing flashes of light. From beyond his round spectacles Doctor Fukurokov was hypnotized by the glow of the Red Star Ring. His laughter though echoed far more hauntingly through the island than did the glow of the Ring.

    “So much power! It seems unlimited! So unlimited!” The mad owl laughed in maniacal glee. “With this! With this the Battle Kukku Armada and the name Doctor Fukurokov will become history itself! Who cares about the fool fox! We shall rule and plunder everything!”

    ~According to Sonic, at some point during his own travels, he had caught wind of the mean old pirates who had caused us to end up in these strange lands and had given chase. His current goal was to put an end to them once and for all. But… well…~

    “Sonic, you can’t! They aren’t robots or golems or anything else of the sort! They may be bad people, but they’re still people!”

    With Draw clinging to her back piggyback style, Rosy tried to plead with Sonic as they overlooked Battle Kukku Island from a vantage point provided by the torn apart ruins held high above by the vortex of sea water. Above them the mysterious little planet that seemed to always be watching Rosy observed the argument, perhaps amused from its nest within the storm.

    “Look kid,” Sonic began as he stuck his pinky finger into his ear and scratched around, “you haven’t seen what these bird brains have been up to. If you did, I doubt you’d be surprised how hard it’d be for you to forgive them too.”

    “Are you really in any shape to fight such a big battle?” Draw asked from Rosy’s back and Sonic cocked his head to the side to look at him.

    “You’re still here? Heh! You got guts tyke, but I think it’s time you take a Ring Gate somewhere safe.”

    “Not happening,” Draw shook his head. Sonic placed his hands on his hips in response, and as his foot began to tap Draw attempted to explain. “Mote says I have to stick with the medium, no matter what. Since I can’t run as fast as you two that means I’ll be staying right here.”

    “Not a good idea tyke,” Sonic warned Draw as he rubbed his nose with a finger. Looking back over his shoulder at the floating island below, Sonic eyed the red glow starting to seep through the whole of the island. “Things are about to get ugly either way, and I’d rather not involve any more of the locals than these bird brains already have. No reason for you to get hurt.”

    “Mote says it can find the Red Star Ring,” Draw started, but tilted his head and looked down at the fairy where it hid behind Rosy’s spines. “…And apparently make me as fast as you too.”

    Rubbing his nose more, Sonic exhaled loudly. “I have a hard time believing that. I’m the fastest around if you hadn’t heard, tyke.”

    “It doesn’t look like it at the moment,” Draw challenged.

    “Please don’t fight you two!” Rosy butted in having been overwritten by the two boys. “If the pirates have been that bad, and if Mote wants Draw with me, and if you’re really still that hurt Sonic, and, and, and…”

    Her eyes starting to swirl about from the weight of everything happening at once, Rosy began to lose her balance and footing. Able to free himself from her back, Draw found himself helping Sonic stabilize the distressed hedgehog girl and the two exchanged challenging and untrusting looks.

    “Look you two, maybe I’m not one-hundred percent yet, but that’s nothing a few extra Rings won’t solve.”

    “Then let Draw, Mote and me go get the Red Star Ring,” Rosy suggested as she let the two boys support her. “I shouldn’t have any trouble taking it from wherever it is. Knowing you’re here… Knowing you’re here Sonic, I can do anything!”

    Beaming at Sonic, Rosy’s good cheer and ever limitless energy made him take a nervous step back as he smiled awkwardly. Rosy was forced to take a step forward towards him though as she had not fully regained her own balance yet. As she stepped though, she put a firm foot down and her bright smile was promptly replaced by a threatening pout. “But no fighting Sonic! If you have to, wreck all their ships while you get the Rings you need. Wreck them so badly they they’ll never be able to repair them and have to live the rest of their lives here. But don’t hurt anyone! Please!”

    “Honestly, kid,” Sonic scratched at the back of his head as Rosy pleaded of him with her words and her eyes. Before he could say anything else though Rosy produced a Ring that was significantly smaller than a normal Ring and pressed it into Sonic’s free hand. “A Ring Gate?”

    “For when you get your Rings,” Rosy explained as she released Sonic’s hands and produced two more Rings of normal size. “And at least one more Ring to keep you safe. Come save me when you’re done, okay~♥”

    “Really?” Sonic asked with a sigh and roll of his eyes as he accepted the ring. “You really think the bird brain in charge is going to catch you?”

    “Yeah!” Draw butted in defending himself from an unintended attack. “Pirates may not be golems, but I can keep you safe anyway!”

    “Even from my back?” Rosy teased as she turned and offered Draw the second Ring she had. Draw swallowed loudly knowing what it entailed and Rosy giggled at him. “It’s either this or letting Sonic send you somewhere safe.”

    For a change, Mote presented itself before Rosy and shook itself to and fro in violent disagreement. “See~♥ Even Mote agrees with me. Though I think I should give you two some privacy~♥”

    “Don’t make it sound weird you weirdo girl! It’s already bad enough!”

    “It’s fine,” Rosy giggled as she let Draw take the Ring she offered him and turned back to Sonic. She could barely keep her giggling contained as she saw Sonic quickly change his own amused expression. “Having fun Sonic?”

    “It’s never boring at least when you’re around, kid,” Sonic admitted as he turned his back on Rosy. He could not ignore his curiosity though and looked back a moment as a golden light washed over the area as a new Ring Bond between Draw and Mote began. He could not focus on it though as Rosy embraced him from behind and pushed him to the edge of the piece of ruin they stood on.

    “You already know how those work. Though I have to tell you about a worse bad guy than these pirates who can also make them.”

    “What!”

    “See Sonic, we have to hurry,” Rosy refused to answer as she knew she was going to have to let go of Sonic. She could not miss the growing intensity of the red glow that was spilling out of Battle Kukku Island.

    ~It was hard to tell that it even still came from the island. Everything was engulfed by that eerie red light now. But Sonic’s eyes still shone like brilliant emeralds. Even with him not in his usual top form, those eyes, and that smile… Ooh~! Sonic is so cool and dashing! I just know he’ll be okay. But it still hurts letting him go. But Draw and I had to go to the heart of the pirate island if we were going to retrieve the Red Star Ring before those mean old pirates did something really bad. And maybe the ghosts agreed with me. And something more too.

    ~As Draw and I let Mote lead us into the heart of the island full of pipes and metal everywhere, the ghosts from the castle and the ruins filled it and the pirates were helpless against them. I feel kind of sorry for them. But doing bad things it was only natural that they would have bad things happen to them. But I can’t explain the plants that were starting to take over the island.

    ~I had seen Battle Kukku Island more times before than I cared to remember, even out of what I could, but I know there were never any plants growing there. It was all rock and metal. Those mean old pirates really didn’t care about making anything beautiful. They just stole the beauty from other people and hurt them too.

    ~Maybe Sonic was right, and I shouldn’t have been so forgiving of them. But they’re still people. If we stop treating them like people, can we still call ourselves people? Ooh~ I don’t know! And the mean old owl who leads them doesn’t make it any easier.~

    “Ah, the fool fox’s friend,” Doctor Fukurokov sneered as Rosy stepped out into a laboratory toward a glass sphere in the middle of a wild contraption she could make no sense of. Within the sphere though a Red Star Ring spun faster and faster, slowly becoming difficult to even make out as a Ring at all. “Come to steal my treasure, have you?”

    “Well, I won’t take it if you give it to me,” Rosy replied sweetly as she clasped her hands behind her back and began to sway her body back and forth. Just to make it clear that she was asking though, she added one more word for good measure. “Please~♥”

    “Don’t be absurd you flightless rodent,” Doctor Fukurokov scoffed at Rosy’s request. “I may be impressed that you made it this far at all, but your luck has run out. A pirate never gives up their treasure, and I rule over all of them! You need merely die so I can stuff and make a trophy out of you to torment that fool fox!”

    “That’s taking it a step too far isn’t it,” Draw asked as he stepped out from the shadows behind Rosy, his bow drawn back with a notched arrow ready to fly. “I never would have guessed there were people so nasty.”

    “Ha! I don’t know who you are boy, but be glad I need a survivor to spread word of the terror of my armada and the unlimited power I wield!”

    “You mean that Ring?” Draw asked nodding his head towards the Red Star Ring.

    Even behind his thick glasses, it was obvious that Doctor Fukurokov’s eyes widened. Pressing a finger to her muzzle, Rosy looked at Draw concerned.

    “Draw, what are you and Mote thinking?

    “This.”

    *Thwip!*

Scene 29 · CLEARED Mark of a Red Star, to be continued

-----

Not as action heavy as last time, but the end game with Doctor Fukurokov is at hand. I hope everyone is feeling the tension as things get ready to go sideways. Just one more scene and cour 1 will be finished. Please look forward to it and get ready for cour 2. it’s coming hot on the heals of cour 1.

-----

Special Thanks to Cutegirlmayra Story by @JoshTarwater/SonicFanJ Inspiring Song – Second Advent – Tsutomu Narita, GRANBLUE FANTASY – Granblue Fantasy Original Soundtrack: Chaos

Fair Use Disclaimer

Sonic the Hedgehog and all affiliated characters and logos are the express property and Copyright© of SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS used without permission under Title 17 U.S.C Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 in which allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. “Fair use” is use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be considered copyright infringement. The Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey alternate universe (AU) consumer written work of fiction is a non-profit transformative work primarily for personal use and can and will be taken down without warning or prior notice at the request of the copyright holder(s) should it not be recognized under “fair use”.

*Sonic Ring Bond logo created by DEE Art – twitter.com/daryliscute.

Sonic Ring Bond AU and Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey are the creation of Joshua David Tarwater/ynymbus/sonicfanj/@Joshtarwater and is to be, including all contents herein considered for all legal purposes the property of the Sonic the Hedgehog intellectual property (IP) and copyright owners, SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS. All story contributors via prompt, suggestion, written scene, art, and all and every other contribution acknowledge that all contributed material is forfeit for legal purposes to SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS upon official request from SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS.

[hugotontheonbiquiffinarians]

hi omg i just read the clown protestors arthurxyou and i’m mind blown by your writing. i’ve never read anything with such detail. it didn’t even have smut but i enjoyed it so much- please, write more!!!!

Tonight...

Tonight was the night you had decided to venture beyond the confines of your comfort zone. To be sure, it was an average Saturday night, rife with studious affinity and booked arrangements with your vivid inner workings.

Tonight, however, was a night of errant impulse. One that enticed you to attend the Murray Franklin show, unescorted. Completely, utterly alone. Normally, the contrived atmosphere of televised events would make you recoil violently. But, tonight compelled differently. Your repulsion to the nature of insincere smiles and orchestrated laughs was retired instead to an unusual appetite for reality.

Tonight’s fabricated reality was especially seasoned. Mortality was indiscriminate to tonight’s audience. The puppeteer’s strings were fraying. The time, sedated. The cue cards, delayed in presentation. The audience’s response to riveting, murderous climax, expected, but no less unnerving to the imperious conductor. No less improvised and deserving of penance.

Then, there was him...

The celestial body of comedy cosmos. Orbiting aimless through an unforgiving galaxy, if only for a number of tense, uninviting minutes. The clown of the evening. Dressed to the cat o’ nines. At least, to you, he appeared as one to « live on the edge ». Front row, his visage was an unseasonably vibrant palette. Yet, you couldn’t be fooled. Beneath the suit and makeup, he was nothing short of Death’s Head Upon a Mop-Stick. An emaciated, miserable fellow seeking to exact a rather noble agenda. Albeit poorly executed.

In spite of his near skeletal composition, it was precisely this that attracted you to him. Ineffable, poetic beauty making a xylophone of his rib cage. Skeletal beyond physicality. An imaginative X-ray scan of eyes, hollow and sunken, yet defiantly verdant with a preserved seed of life.

Sparse about the chest and famished for attention, the compulsion to make daring strides to the soles of his sensitive feet was close to irresistible. Yet, you concede to refrain. At the moment, the man was reading from a notebook. A joke, it seemed. A classic knock-knock variation. While you, alone, were listening intently, quite eager to indulge the dulcet lull of his voice, to endure, in unwanted company, the audience’s dissent, was vexing and oppositional.

Yes, his delivery was morbid and untimely, but did it truly warrant such a wounding brand of ignominy ? Did the fair jester deserve to be pilloried by insolent townsfolk, demanding of entertainment, yet nevertheless poised at the pinch with peanuts of discontent ? His harmless touch of humour, reversed to inflict irreparable damage ?

Ah, but this wreaking of havoc would appear to double The Fool, himself, as A Hanged Man. In spite of this, the cards are yet shuffled in his favour. Tonight, The Hanged Man was dealt to another. The man positioned to the left of celestial coordinates, insouciant to the adjacent star’s warning pulse of blinding luminosity. One which would ultimately unleash the fatal gasp of supernova…

Only to be reborn to a less conspicuous state of matter. Bright enough to be observed from a distance measured by all planets, yet no less forbidding in its modest size. Commanding appreciation and respect, thereby.

Before the cycle of this reformation could reach completion, a hist had to be ushered. A solemn yet forceful call for silence, attracting attention. With such gale of conviction, the man was, at present, asserting statements of truth to the unofficial court.

”I killed those guys because they were awful.”

The audience is uncomfortable with this incisive appeal.

“Everybody is awful, these days.”

All, except you. Threatening to clamor in resistance. Still staring intensely at the man, more engrossed than repelled by his refreshing presence.

“It’s enough to make anyone crazy.”

A small, insignificant nerve of morality twinged at your conscience. Deliberating… at all odds, misconstruing, his claim. Wondering if you, alone, were ‘crazy’ for the polarity of your thoughts in the midst of this confused course of judgment.

Above all, you craved the impending strike of chaos. Beyond the deafening brevity of silence, the intrusive, whispering assent of disorder was quickly approaching. And you hadn’t a mite of disagreement to contribute to those misleading murmurs of the jury. In fact, their repugnance was instead vocalised by the arbiter and defendant, currently at wit’s end in contentious argument.

Helplessly, your fight or flight response was evident by an increased rate of breathing. Rising blood pressure, spectral ringing in the ears, concentrated pulsations of your heart throbbing against scattered areas of flesh.

When the trumpet sounds, your ears fall deaf. Glazed vision registers the stark splatter of crimson staining a distinct name with the permanent mark of quietus.

It’s all just a dream, you think weakly. The noisome screams to which you wish all tongues were made dumb. Silence is what you hunger for. The mouldy TV dinner awaiting at your squalid dorm was forgotten. Silence was vital. If only for reasons of rejecting all activity that didn’t declare the (now criminal) clown as sole focus.

And, it seemed, you had captured his attention as well. Still in a daze of adrenaline, he does his little dance, effectively ignoring the damsel in distress embraced by her saviour in sooted armour. The quacksalver named Sally. The sleazy husband of another, portraying the begrimed white knight. Both petrified in their respective roles, yet nothing more than minor characters in this bizarre lover’s tale.

He makes muted steps in your direction. A trajectory that is strangely fearsome in its perplexing gait. He walks as if he balances between the border of reality and fevered paracosm.

To think, it is not the camera he aims towards…

The pleats of his slacks point keenly to you with each gradual erase of distance. In contrast, his unfocused gaze is at once conflicted yet resolute. Still, the distant cries of terror bleed profusely into the juvenile squall of night. Still, your form, secured to the seat, adhered by delayed presence of emotion. Stoic as the stone cushion.

Just as well, tonight’s moon is noticeably full. Its lunar radiance captivates the expanding vacancy of studio. Amid the disruption of regularly scheduled programming, the light fixtures had begun to flicker. Sparks projecting in variegated asterisms. The tapestried windows began to transpose themselves to hyperrealism, admitting the grace of its silver radiance in full force. The intensity of its glow outlines his wingless form as a fledgling seraph. When his lips part, the voice bespeaks with the striking cords of angels.

“You’re not like the rest of them, are you?”

The question was a paralysing tickle of rhetoric. Inexplicit in answer. His tone was doused by curiosity. Incurably childlike. Sickly saccharine words dispensed from sugared teeth as a soothing balm.

Despite these futile attempts to remedy, you were still unsure if any of tonight’s events were not fabricated illusions of a sleep deprived student. Yet, you examine this clown with careful consideration, eyes wide shut, scrutinising his alluring visage, a painted mess of hidden message. The goofy curl of his lip, crooked and exposing of snaggletooth. The crinkle of his emerald eyes, dancing with the moon, illuminating the dim expanse. Glimmering with a dangerous combination of mischief, hope and promise. That, as well, of the silly hand gesture lacing each slender finger through yours, surprisingly chilled to the bone with sudden contact.

Failure to restrain his impending laughter is stimulated by your undue flinching, accompanied by the provocation of a slight gasp as visceral reaction. Failure to respond in time, to oblige his gentle clutch and flee the scene, was magnified by the abrupt entry of two hefty figures looming in the twirling shadows. Failure to react when these figures move swiftly to apprehend and wrest the hand from yours rather viciously.

In that moment, it was serpents against swine. A blur of stiffened and flailing limbs alike in mismatched choreography. Unlike the clown, you don’t resist when the medics wrench you away, divorcing you further from your self-prescribed medicine. And, still..., your attempt to inject a potent dose of belief was persistent.

It couldn’t be real... None of it was real.

But, his smile...

His laugh...

If nothing else was certain, the lingering stretch of that wounded, boyish smile, replete with delusions of dreams and splendor... was terrifying evidence of this obvious truth.

In pristine, white corners, two orderlies stand idly, mildly perturbed by your manic echoes of laughter. Heedless and indifferent to quell the chorus of its reverb as the trembling intensity of its sound gives a semblance of struggle against the straitjacket’s harness.

You think them fools for misjudging your benign mirth as an attempt to escape. Why would you wish to escape that which would finally aim to spread joy to needless misery?

Three consecutive seconds from the clock remind you of your place. When the click of the door’s handle reaches your ears, pure laughter subsides to shaky relief.

When your eyes open again, the vision is a clear frame of vivid spectacle. Two men in the throes of primitive aggression were dragging a half-starved man, limp and comatose, to a destination unknown.

The rhythm of your lungs return to a steady pace. The blood beneath lukewarm skin streams a settled flow through calm rivers.

The studio is emptied. Effectively purged of its pathogens. Still and all, the reality of the ordeal has yet to process its candid rendering. Fatigued and disenchanted, your steps to departure are light and heady.

——————————————————————

As a matter of blinded course, Arthur reveled in his sprinkled delirium. Quite literally basking in its fiery glow as the street lights and infernos merged to one. Perhaps the first in three decades of listless existence, Arthur could finally say, with sincerity, that he was truly, undoubtedly, happy.

Yet, he couldn’t help the risible itch of something missing. A shard of mosaic to complete the tessellating puzzle of this midsummer night’s dream.

Mere moments before the kaleidoscope of crash fractures his drunken taste of giddy liberty, he thinks that no such freedom can exist without the force of another to share the view.

———————————————————————

Then again...

——————-—————————————————

Was there not you ?

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: AN INTRODUCTION TO HADITH: Part 22

Muslim Fellowship

Ibn Umar reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“A Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. He should not wrong him nor surrender him to his enemy. Allah will take care of the needs of anyone who takes care of the needs of his brother. On the Day of Judgment, Allah will dispel the anxiety of anyone who dispels the anxiety of another Muslim. On the Day of Judgment Allah will veil anyone who veils another Muslim.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Mazalim, 3; Sahih Muslim, Birr, 58).

Abdullah ibn Umar

It is reported that Abdullah ibn Umar was born in the third year of Prophethood.

He embraced Islam at a young age, along with his father, and emigrated to Medina again with his father.

He was raised entirely in the Muslim community and with an Islamic training and education.

He participated in all battles alongside Allah’s Messenger from age eighteen onwards.

He passed away in 74 AH, aged 84, 85, or 86.

EXPLANATION

This hadith, first and foremost, declares Muslims brothers and sisters, precisely as is declared in the tenth verse of the Qur’anic chapter Al-Hujurat.

This fellowship has been Divinely determined and is a powerful fellowship encompassing both this world and the Hereafter. For instance, if the brother or sister of a Muslim has lost a loved one, they must attend their funeral and offer their condolences. The Muslims must visit their brother or sister if they are ill, give them morale and attend to any of their needs. It is reported in one hadith that Allah will say on the Day of Judgment:

“O son of Adam, I fell ill and you visited Me not.”

He will say:

“O Lord, and how should I visit You when You are the Lord of the worlds?”

He will say:

“Did you not know that My servant So-and-so had fallen ill and you visited him not? Did you not know that had you visited him you would have found Me with him?”

Just as there is a great deal that falls upon the believer—such as responding to the greeting of their fellow Muslim, entreating Allah for their forgiveness, for instance saying “May Allah have mercy on you” when they sneeze, counseling

them when they request advice—the virtue of desiring for their fellow believer what they desire for themselves is also expected of them. And this is only possible through true love, such that Allah’s Messenger stresses its importance saying,

“By the one who has my soul in His hand, you will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another.”

The second point that is demonstrated in the hadith is that a Muslim does not wrong their fellow believers.

In other words, they do not violate any of their rights or encroach on their life, property, and honor. So important is this matter that Allah’s Messenger, upon him be the most perfect of blessings and peace, made a point of stressing, that “the life and property of every Muslim [is] a sacred trust,” in his Farewell Sermon, or that these protected. No Muslim can hurt or offend their fellow Muslim in these matters or violate their rights. When describing the bankrupt in one of his Traditions, the Messenger of Allah presents, as it were, a vivid scene pertaining to the Hereafter:

“The bankrupt of my community are those who will come on the Day of Judgment with Prayer, fasting and charity but (they will find themselves bankrupt on that day as they will have exhausted their funds of virtues) since they hurled abuse upon, brought calumny against and unlawfully consumed the wealth of others and shed the blood of others and beat others, and their virtues would be credited to the account of those (who suffered at their hand). And if their good deeds fall short to clear the account, then their sins would be recorded in (their account) and they will be thrown into Hellfire.”

To that end, a believer shies away from unjustly distressing their fellow believer, let alone encroaching on their sacred values such as life, property, and honor. They shudder at the prospect of having to face the repercussions of their injustice in the Hereafter. In the continuation of the hadith under discussion, it is stated that a Muslim does not surrender a fellow Muslim to the enemy. Just as a person cannot consent to have his or her own siblings handed over to the enemy and subjected to torture and punishment, a Muslim cannot accept this for their fellow believer and is obligated to approach the matter and behave in exactly the same way.

The hadith also states, “Allah will take care of the needs of anyone who takes care of the needs of his brother.”

This expression provides great incentive and inspiration to a person. In a hadith narrated by Muslim, the Messenger of Allah says, “Allah comes to the aid of His servants so long as His servants come to the aid of their fellow Muslims.” This matter is presented here in such a way that it is though what is expected from the Muslim is this characteristic of being at the aid of their fellow believers becoming their second nature, so to speak. Moreover, the Prophet enjoins believers to “Help [their] brother, whether they are an oppressor or the oppressed.” When it was then asked how it would be possible to help them if they are an oppressor, he replied, “By preventing them from oppressing others.That is to say, one should not forego providing aid to others in any case. The Prophet indicates this in the hadith, “Believers are like two hands: one washes the other.”

The last section of the hadith proclaims that whoever screens the shortcomings and flaws of their fellow believer, Allah will screen their shortcomings and flaws on the Day of Judgment, at the most dreadful hour and terrifying place where a person is to be disgraced and does not abase them before all humankind.

What a great proposal is this!It is for this reason that Allah has not charged any of His servants with seeking out the faults of others. Moreover, in the words of a blessed servant, “Allah does not grant anyone authority to expose the faults of another.” Allah is the All-Veiler, Who veils the shame, shortcomings, faults, and sins of His servants, and He commands His servants to veil both their own sins, as well as the sins of their fellow believers.

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED

Allah has associated and connected fellowship to firm foundations through such vivid examples.

Allah has guaranteed that the reward of such fellowship between believers will be conferred upon them, beyond measure, by Allah Himself.

Mutual trust between human beings is essential for a much more livable and happy world.

[yeenybeanies]

g/t prompt list

6. catch

clark kent / superman & borrower!reader ( 3rd person pov ).

 2848 words

mild language warning

i wanted to keep going with this, but i got tired of looking at it lol 

please keep comments to the tags!! thank you!! 

There’s a scream. Clark jolts up in his seat, knee banging against the underside of his desk hard. He mutters a few almost-curses under his breath, picking up the ( thankfully already empty ) mug he’d knocked over and collecting anything else he’d disturbed. Had he imagined that scream? It sounded so real, so–––

“ You alright over there, Smallville? ”  He glances up to see a familiar face peering over into his cubicle, her features twisted in mild confusion. Apparently his little jolt disturbed more than just his desk items . . .. 

“ Uh. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, Lois, I––– ”  Clark pushes his glasses further up onto his face and stands, dusting himself off.  “ Y’know when you’re, uh, about to fall asleep and you suddenly feel like you’re falling? Apparently I’m more tired than I thought, so––– ” 

“ No no no no–––! ”  There’s the voice again––the same voice that just screamed. It sounds . . . distressed. Clark hones in on it a moment, forgetting that he was in the middle of a sentence until Lois pulls him back. 

“ Hell–ooo, Clark? ”  Now her confusion isn’t so mild. Clark’s attention snaps back to Lois, his eyes wide. 

“ Hunh? Sorry. I think I just––I think I need some more coffee. I’m fine. Sorry to bother you. ”  Now he knows where the voice is coming from. He can hear it still. It’s strange––bizarre, even. It’s so quiet; logic dictates it would be far away with that kind of volume, but it isn’t. Lois doesn’t seem too satisfied with his explanation, but Clark excuses himself nonetheless. Thankfully, the voice seems to be coming from the break room, which gives his would-be coffee break some merit.

What could it possibly be? As he approaches the break room, Clark focuses his senses, and utilizes his x-ray vision, peering through the walls. Nothing seems too out of the ordinary–––

What the hell? Dangling from an ajar cabinet door, there seems to be a tiny . . . person. There’s no way that’s right. His mind must be playing games, or he’s just seeing things, mistaking them for little people, or––or–––

No, that yelp sounds very real. Clark walks a bit faster, his anxiety rising. The little being obviously needs help. They look like they’re about to fall! He sucks in a breath, forcing himself not to move too quickly, as not to draw attention, all while trying to get to the room to help in time. He damn-near dents the doorknob as he twists it, pushing the door open. Clear as day, nothing but air to block his view, he sees them: a very tiny, yet utterly unmistakable person. And they see him. Now that all his focus is on them, he can hear a little heartbeat within their chest, buzzing away. Never before has he seen anything like this; it actually has him a little taken aback, confused. 

Once more, though, Clark is yanked back to reality. The being’s grip––what’s left of it––slips from the wood. Their sharp, terrified yelp hits his ears, and Clark rushes forward, hands outstretched. He closes the space between them in the blink of an eye, catching them after only a couple-inches fall. The weight now in his hands is so small, so light, that he isn’t sure he would notice it were he not looking right at the little being. 

“ Are you okay . . .? ”  He keeps his voice low, and his hands steady. What he isn’t prepared, for, though, is the being’s shrill scream of terror once they realize that they’ve been caught. They try to scoot away from him, forcing Clark to close his hands around them, trapping them in the darkness between his palms. 

“ Woah––hey! ”  Tiny fists and feet bang against his skin harmlessly. Clark feels bad, but he doesn’t want them to fall again and hurt themselves, so he keeps his hands closed.  “ Please, I’m not going to hurt you. I just––– ” 

There are footsteps approaching. Clark glances over his shoulder, unsure of what to do. It’s Lois. Notoriously tenacious Lois Lane is headed his way––their way. 

�� Someone’s coming, ”  he whispers, looking around for somewhere to put the little being. Eyes settle on his breast pocket. They’re small enough to fit in there unnoticed, provided they don’t squirm so much.  “ I need you to stay still and trust me. ”  He curls the fingers of his lower hand around them, much to their protest, and lifts them up to his pocket. They don’t make things easy for him, but he manages to stuff them in just as the doorknob turns. 

“ Clark? ”  Her inquisitive tone makes the man freeze. The little one seems to freeze too, going dead still in his pocket ( save for their shaking ). Their poor heart is just zooming. After a tense moment, Clark turns around, forcing a sheepish smile. 

“ Lois! Hi. Hey, uh––– ”  oh boy, he needs an excuse ASAP. He glances around discretely, looking for something, anything.  “ Coffee tasted funny. I was going to make a new pot. ”  

Bad excuse. 

One dark brow raises on Lois’ face.  “ You’re a terrible liar, Clark. ” 

She’s right. He is. The little being tenses further in his pocket as he searches desperately for a way out. 

“ I . . .––I’m sorry, Lois. ”  He bows his head a little, unhappy that he even has to lie about what’s really going on ( though it’s not the only thing he’s keeping from her ).  “ I’m just . . . I’m not feeling well. I think I’m gonna head home, finish my work there. ” 

It’s better, but still not great. Lois stares at him for a moment longer, leaving Clark to believe that she’s going to call bullshit again, but she doesn’t. ( Thank God. ) She sighs, clearly unhappy, clearly not done with whatever this is.

“ Go on. I’ll talk to you later, Smallville. ”  She steps aside, arms crossed over her chest. 

“ Er––yeah. Right. Of course. ”  Swallowing his guilt, he puts on a slightly brighter smile, truly appreciative of Lois’ cooperation. He hurries past her, and calls back over his shoulder,  “ I’ll have the article ready tonight! ” 

Perry wasn’t too pleased with Clark’s sudden speeding out, but it’s not exactly anything new. Clark has always had a habit of disappearing unexpectedly. But now that he’s out of the building, onto the Metropolis sidewalks, Clark finds himself at a loss for what to do. The little one still hides within his breast pocket, their shaking stopped for now, but their body still very tense. He already feels bad enough for scaring them; kidnapping them doesn’t seem like it would smooth things out. 

Pace brisk, Clark walks along the sidewalk, taking careful measures to keep his gait as smooth as possible for his passenger. He ducks into a nearby alleyway, out of sight of anyone that might be passing by. 

“ Would you like to come out now? ”  

Their tiny body curls in now that his attention is back on them. Clark sighs softly. He’s prepared to wait, let them move at their own pace. He can only imagine what they’re feeling right now. 

Luckily, though, they don’t make him wait long. They shift and squirm in his pocket, eventually pulling themselves up, their head and tiny, tiny hands poking out over the fabric rim. Clark listens to their heart rate spike when they look down at what, to them, amounts to a very high fall, and then back up to his comparatively massive face. It’s a very stark reminder that they are, in fact, on Clark’s person. He smiles, hoping to ease some of their fear, but the success is questionable. 

“ Sorry, I . . . don’t mean to scare you. Didn’t mean to, er, take you, either, but you didn’t seem like you really wanted to be seen . . .. ”  How does one apologize for kidnapping? Clark glances away, awkward.  “ Anyways, uh, hi, I’m Clark. Do you have a name? ” 

They stare up at him, silent. 

“ . . . okay. Well, I can take you somewhere, if you’d like . . .. Anywhere, really. ” 

Once more, they look down at the ground far below. Clark brings his hand up to the pocket, offering to let them out, but they duck back down with a startled yelp. He feels a guilty pang in his heart. 

“ Hey, I promise I’m not going to hurt you. ”  But his hand falls away nonetheless, and they pop back up again, slowly but surely. 

“ You . . . hid me from the other bean . . . ”  Their voice is so soft, so tiny ( fitting for them ). Clark almost thinks that anyone without super hearing wouldn’t be able to hear them. 

“ Yeah, well––wait, ‘ bean ’? ” 

“ Human bean. ‘ Lois.’ “ 

Ah. Human being.  “ Bean. ”  That’s kinda cute. 

“ Right. Yeah––I just . . . I dunno, you seemed terrified enough with me; I didn’t think you’d take too well to meeting another, er,  ‘ bean.’ ”  He shrugs the shoulder opposite the little one.  “ I take it you don’t really . . . interact with us very often. ” 

“ Borrowers avoid being seen. It keeps us safe. Beans can be very . . . cruel to us. ”  Their tiny body shudders, which makes Clark suspect that they’ve got some first-hand experience. He doesn’t want to think about what kind of  “ cruel ”  things people have done. 

“ Well . . . ”  He assumes that  “ borrower ”  is what they call themselves.  “ I’m sorry to hear that. Tell you what: for as long as you’re with me, I’ll keep you hidden. ”  He offers what he hopes to be a reassuring smile. To his delight, he does feel the borrower release some of that tension. 

“ I . . . live in that building where you found me . . . ” 

“ In the break room? ” 

They nod. 

“ Do . . . you want me to take you back? ”  That would be awkward, walking back into the Daily Planet just minutes after leaving. He could probably make the excuse that he forgot something . . ..

“ N–no, it’s . . . it would be weird for you to go back when you’re  ‘ not feeling well. ’ ”  

Yeah, they get it. Clark sighs and looks back to the street beyond the alley. He doesn’t want to just take them home with him if they don’t want to come . . .. 

“ If you, um–– . . . you could, uh, put me down here, and I––you could put me down and I could get back on my own. ” 

His attention snaps back to them, making them flinch at the sudden movement. There was a fair amount of fear not just in their voice, but in their heart. They didn’t like the idea, and neither did Clark. What if they got stepped on, or caught by an animal, or–––

“ You don’t have to do that. I don’t want you to do that. If you’re––if you’re okay with it, you could come home with me, and I’ll bring you back tomorrow. ” 

He can tell that they don’t care for that idea either. 

“ And if I’m . . . not okay with that . . .? ”  There’s a slight quiver in their voice, like they’re fearful of retribution. 

“ Then . . . I guess I could stay here. Or somewhere else hidden. ”  Not ideal, but he’s done worse. The borrower squirms, twisting in his pocket to better face him. They look quizzical––stunned, even.

“ Y–you’d . . . do that? ” 

“ Sure. Well––maybe we could move to a library or a coffee shop so I can work, but . . . I won’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go. ” 

They fall silent, looking thoughtful. Clark is patient, letting them think and ponder their options. His eyes wander away from them, to the alley, and to the things beyond the alley. There’s someone walking a dog the next street over, some alley cats fighting a ways down . . .––geez, he really doesn’t want to leave the borrower here if there are cats around. 

“ I’ll . . . I’ll come with you to your home, ”  comes the little voice once more. Clark looks down, his eyes softening. 

“ You sure? ”  

They sink back into his pocket, hiding away for the journey.  “ Yeah. ” 

Alright then. Clark waits until they’re settled, then heads back out of the alley. 

As it turns out, having a borrower in the house is actually quite stressful. Clark had anticipated a transition period for himself and his new companion, but, upon releasing the little being onto his kitchen counter, he quickly realizes that he is the only one in need of adjusting. They seem perfectly at home, rushing off towards the wall to climb something he hadn’t even thought to be climbable ( much to Clark’s fright ). Immediately he has to fight back the urge to grab them again, scoop them up and protect them. They scale the wall expertly, jump up onto appliances, clearly at home. His fingers twitch. 

“ Right then . . .. So you clearly don’t need my help getting around . . .. How long have you been living at the Daily Planet? ”  

The little one pauses, seemingly a little startled, as if they’d forgotten that he was right there. Based on their current path, Clark assumes they were heading for the top of the fridge, where he keeps some cereals and fruits. 

“ Uh . . . a few months. ”  From how their voice lifts, it sounds more like a question, like there could be a wrong answer. 

“ Really? How have you been there that long and not–––hey! ” 

He extends his hands under the borrower, but they sail right over, high and far enough to catch the edge of the fridge. They struggle for a moment to regain footing on the smooth side, then pull themselves up on top, looking pleased. Now Clark’s starting to get an idea of how they ended up in their earlier predicament . . .. 

“ Clark . . .? ” 

He snaps from his momentary shock, eyes wide as they settle on the borrower. 

“ Sorry, you just––do you do that often? ”  

“ What? Jump? ”  They regard him with a quizzical look.  “ Yeah. I’m not as tall as you beans, so I kinda have to jump. ” 

Of course. Makes sense. Clark hides his hands behind his back, feeling a little foolish. It’s second-nature for him to be protective, especially of the helpless. ( Then again, the borrower doesn’t seem too helpless. ) How should he offer help without seeming condescending? 

“ Okay. Well . . . you know I can . . . get whatever you need for you, right? ”  It sounded better in Clark’s head. He grimaces.  “ Not––not that you really need me too, but . . .. ”  There really is no way to make that sound good out loud, is there? 

“ I’ll keep that in mind. ”  Soft footsteps scurry over to the bunch of bananas, where the little being starts tugging at the peel. Clark has to stifle the urge to reach up and help them with it. 

This . . . is going to be an interesting night. He’s going to have to be extra careful, extra aware of everything if he’s to avoid accidentally harming his house guest. 

“ So, uh . . . you never told me your name. You do have one, right? ”  

The borrower pulls their head from the fruit, oblivious to little bits of banana stuck in their hair. They finish their chew and swallow, then answer:  “ It’s [ Y/N ]. ”  Then it’s back into the banana for them. Clark suspects they don’t get much access to fresh fruit in the break room. Maybe he should start bringing some fruit . . .. 

“ Right. Okay, [ Y/N ]. I’m gonna set up at the table to work. Just shout if you need me, okay? ” 

They’re preoccupied with the banana, but they do shoot him a tiny thumbs up. Interesting. Clark smiles to himself, and heads off to do as he said. Perry’s going to be pissed if Clark doesn’t deliver like he promised. Still, he can’t help but glance over fairly often, checking up on the borrower to make sure they’re safe. 

[snowbellewells]

“A Private Revolution: Part Two”

Friends - Your lovely little response to this fic I posted pretty much just for fun to try something different has really made my week and warmed my heart!! :)  Thank you so much for reading (please remember that I have not done tons of research in history or French geography here) and I hope you will enjoy the conclusion to this little venture!

Part Two

by: @snowbellewells

Their flight lasted through the evening hours, as soft dusk lengthened into deep indigo shadows and then turned over to black night, punctuated here and there by what seemed to be large fires in the distance (Killian tried not to place just where) and the occasional frightening roar of a large crowd piercing the night and running their blood cold. Once they had slipped from the grounds of his family’s estate, as silent and unheeded as shadows themselves, they dared not stop, uncertain what the nightmare nipping at their heels might bring, but sure it would devour them whole if allowed to catch up. The angry horde that had been gathering when Emma came to rouse him to action would have already torched the Jones family manor no doubt, but how far would they pursue to find the nobility they meant to punish?

Pulling each other onward hand-in-hand, Killian and Emma were both breathing heavily, nearly dead on their feet and hours into the forest after crossing fields, streams and roads of their once-familiar countryside, when they finally stumbled into a small clearing, run off their feet and unable to go any further. Stopping was a terrifying decision; being caught so obviously fleeing the chaos and destruction all around them could be tantamount to death.

Killian had almost resigned himself to that fate as he had sat alone in his apartments at the family villa, knowing the mob was on its way, and that he had perhaps lived far too sheltered and coddled a life, that the universe might well take its due for the ease that he had enjoyed. Once Emma had come to him though, he had been inspired to save his own life. That she would go with him, leaving everything - the only world she had ever known - behind, made him desperate to make it out, to reach safety, if only for her sake. She had to survive. In his life, there had always been her, a light brighter than any of the gold or finery, and though he had not always understood what that meant, he did now. Emma was everything - all he had left - and seeing that she was not hurt and did not pay dearly for standing by his side when all else fell away was the only thing that mattered.

The sound of her dropping heavily to the hard-packed dirt and dry grass under their feet, brought him back sharply from his inner thoughts, alarmed that she didn’t move or speak , but merely huddled there silently shaking in cold or fear, he wasn’t sure which. “Emma,” he gasped, barely retaining enough sense not to cry out in distress, and rushing to her side.

She shook her head, and he could see her try to wet her lips, though both of them were parched dry from exertion and it did little good. Her hand fluttered exasperatedly at her side, as if trying to wave off his anxiety on her behalf, just as she had always put off his help when he wanted to aid her in dusting, washing, or whatever chore she had been assigned in their chateau and she was trying once again to convince him it wasn’t his place to clean with the maid, just talk and entertain her, keep her company. She always said that would make the work time hurry by. “I am not hurt, Killian,” she managed, her voice still a bit breathless and thin, but the tone of consternation at the second son of the Jones family fussing over her somewhat reassuring and familiar. “I am fine... I promise.”

He tilted his head to search her face more closely in the dark, not sure if he should believe her and relent in his concern, or if she were merely being strong for his benefit. Quite spent himself, he only managed to huff, “Are you certain, Swan?”

Her lovely pink lips quirked up at the corners a hint of mischief sparkling in the pale green light of them as she looked back at him, in spite of her exhaustion. “I am, truly. What about you? You’ll pardon me for saying, my Lord, but you appear near collapse yourself.”

Ducking his head to hide from her all-too-knowing gaze, Killian found his hand trailing up to brush against his earlobe, worrying the skin just behind it in an endearingly awkward gesture he’d had since childhood. Sheepishly he nodded, though not deigning to admit her triumph aloud, and accepted that they were both in as good a shape as could be expected.

He grew a bit thoughtful, as the stiff breeze rushing through the branches overhead began to cool the sweat on both their skin and the chorus of owls, frogs, and crickets began a nighttime symphony. A small part of him wished to take a measure of comfort from the normalcy as it began to erase some of the terror that had drove them onward. Yet, he hardly dared grow complacent, when the young woman at his side had cast her lot in with his own.

Neither spoke for a time, though their harsh painting slowed to steadier breaths and eventually blue eyes met green with tentative momentary relief.

“Shall we stay here for the night?” Emma ventured hopefully, biting her lower lip with pretty white teeth and worrying her hands together in her lap. He could see tremors in her thin frame and cursed himself for a fool at not seeing the chill she must be suffering sooner.

“Aye,” he affirmed with a short nod. “Seems as fine a place as any.” As he spoke, Killian attempted to subtly unclasp the fine traveling cloak his mother had once gifted him from his shoulders and lay it, along with a  comforting arm around Emma’s own. Were he too obvious, she would certainly chafe against his hinting at weakness, but he could not stand to see her cold and shivering; not after all she had already sacrificed for him this night.

Emma’s eyes cut to him sharply with the action, in spite of his attempted stealth; however, she held her tongue, and after several breathless minutes on his part, leaned into Killian’s side. Much relieved, as he too was feeling the night’s chill rather more than he cared to admit, Killian pulled her a bit nearer still in his grasp, burrowing his chin against the downy-soft blonde halo of hair at the crown of her head, and closing his eyes for a moment against the dark, disorienting world in which they were set adrift. If nothing else, they still had each other. That thought slightly dulled the chill trembling that had begun to quake through his own veins, though he continued to feel them run through Emma from time to time, and he tried to shield her further in his surrounding embrace in response.

After some time, with their combined body heat thankfully diffusing between them, and the shivers besetting them both subsiding, Killian found the courage to ask Emma at least one of the questions which had haunted him since they’d stolen from his home. “What of your parents, Swan?  Do they know where you’ve gone? They cannot have approved you taking such risk simply to help me… your employer.” There was a heavy pause before Killian stumbled over the label to their association, not feeling it quite right, but uncertain what other to apply. He cared for Emma far beyond her station in society, but he would not assume he meant the same to her. Though she had come back to urge him to save himself, to see his own worth through his blame and self-doubt, and prod him into flight, she was so good - loyal and true - that she would quite possibly have done much the same for anyone of her acquaintance.

For her part, his golden-headed Swan looked up at him for some time, her emerald-hued gaze studying him carefully in the bare moonlight, as if trying to decipher whether or not she could say whatever truth was hovering on her tongue. Finally, she drew in a deep, fortifying breath and ever so lightly, still holding his gaze with her own, pulled back from him just enough to raise her delicate hand to his chest, tentatively brushing her fingertips along the open collar of his loosely buttoned (blouse?) under his heavier woolen jacket. Her breathing sped up even as she did so, and the heat that coursed through him at the sensation of her light, curious touch through the dark hair that furred his solid chest effectively drove away any lingering night chill he felt.

“Well,” she hedged, eyes dropping from his at last, “Papa did try to forbid it,” she gave him a tremulous little half-smile while shaking her head slightly. “He wanted to be sure I was safe with them...but...Mama...she loved your mother so much...and she has always adored you and Liam as well.  She - she got him to see that I really had no other choice. I had to come to you, to help if I could… I couldn’t let you…” her voice trailed off then, as if the too-terrible alternatives still waiting on the tip of her tongue could not be voiced. Where she had sought out his eyes when their conversation began, Killian now felt keenly how she avoided meeting his gaze. She had told him why back at the chateau, but it was only now, as she struggled in a way that pained him, that Killian dared to believe her previous words.

Still, he had to be sure. “What is it?” he finally urged on a whisper, tilting her face up to search her eyes once more, gentle fingers still cradling her chin. “Someone who…?”

Emma seemed to smile at him with a sort of affection only she could muster, that warmed those dazzling eyes of hers as well as curling her lips and dimpling her cheeks prettily. She gently pulled back from him just slightly, as if needing to gather herself before she went on. When she at last shook her head and blew out a breath, he almost chuckled easily along with her self-deprecating words, “I am not at all sure why I’m the only one baring my soul here, Milord.” Mischief flitted across her face along with the mix of embarrassment and amusement which had already been present, but Emma’s expression quickly turned serious once more. “I told you, fool that I am, being just a servant girl and all. I couldn’t leave someone I care about - someone I love - alone in their misery. The rioters and looters were gathering in the streets. It frightened me, what some of them were planning. I know you feel horribly that some have so little, so much so that you rack yourself with guilt you don’t deserve. They were making for the fine estates first, and...I feared if they came for you… that you might not fight back.  Living with myself if I had stayed away and you… you were…” Unshed tears beaded her lovely long eyelashes as her words floundered to a halt, and Killian found his breath stolen away as he put his fingers out to cover her trembling lips, soothingly pressing in a gesture that tried to convey he understood. He couldn’t yet speak around the lump in his own throat.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, could barely even blink, much less give Emma the answer she was obviously waiting on tenterhooks to hear. She had always been a bright spot in his life, even before he knew or understood what that might mean. Even more so after the loss of his beloved mother when so much of the place he had grown up in and the things he had so treasured went dull and grey. But even after he realized what the pull towards her meant, he had never put it into words, never spoken it aloud. She was so fiery and brave, so sparkling, sharp, and charismatic. The world might say that her class made her less than him, but to Killian’s mind it was reversed. How could he ever hold the attention and love of an angel like her?

However, as he felt her breathing falter and a tear tremble and finally escape to trail down her cheek, he knew he must speak. Emma attempted to pull away, embarrassed, and he gathered her close again tightly before she could. “Wait, Emma… please…” he begged. She shook her head where she had buried it against his chest, now blatantly refusing to meet his eyes, though he had heard the sniffle she tried valiantly to hide and cursed himself for being its cause.

“You don’t understand,” he attempted once more, hoping he could forestall her shutting herself off from him after the risk she had taken with her heart as well as her person. He simply had to make her see. “Emma, I feel the same. Surely you must have had some idea. Please believe me. I was merely shocked for a moment. I never thought that you could feel the same.”

Her delicate frame stilled in his arms; all fighting against his hold ceased, and big, beguiling green eyes stared back at him, blinking away the tears that had started. The look on her face seemed suddenly so hopeful, so awed, that he could not contain the answering smile that broke across his own face - even if they were freezing, lost, on the run, and their next day no longer a given. “I believed it once,” she murmured, her voice low and her fingers, as if finally freed to do so, reaching up to trace along the planes of his face. “But I did not dare hope that it would still be true.”

Killian shook his head, stunned, and having to laugh at them both, and how foolish they had been, each devoted to the other, but afraid to let them know. Leaning his head down to rest his forehead against hers, he breathed out in a comforted voice, “Strange as it may seem, my Love, I felt exactly the same.”

Emboldened by their mutual confession, he gathered Emma’s slight frame to his chest and allowed his lips to sip and taste the sweetness of hers, set alight by the feel of her kiss and of Emma in his arms.

She responded in kind, and the flame growing between them was enough to warm them both through the darkest watches of the night.

~~~**~~~

Nearly two weeks later, as they stumbled through the gates of the estate where they had learned along the road that French soldiers were sometimes stationed between campaigns, they were ragged, beyond fatigue, and half-starved, but still together and buoyed by the simple twining of their fingers together hand-in-hand.  That they had been lucky enough to find the very regiment Killian’s long absent elder sibling marched with was beyond their wildest dreams of blessing. Being able to fall into his strong arms; broad-shouldered, warm and steady Liam gathering both of them in his grasp with tears in the corners of his eyes as he happily brought them to the campfire and shared his own rations, was like finding themselves safely home.

Tagging: @therooksshiningknight @searchingwardrobes @spartanguard @jennjenn615 @bmbbcs4evr @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi @darkcolinodonorgasm @gingerchangeling @revanmeetra87 @mayquita @kingofmyheart14 @nikkiemms @blackwidownat2814 @vvbooklady1256 @ilovemesomekillianjones @charmingturkeysandwich @resident-of-storybrooke

[sleepyfan-blog]

Don’t let them see you cry, Dreamtale? Your writing is wonderful and I love reading what you post!

Don’t Let Them See You Cry

Fandom: Dreamtale

Characters and pairing: Dream, Nightmare, nameless ocs, Dreammare

Warnings: Illness, cursing

Word count: 1,108

Summary: Dream has been trying to heal the sick for three days, and is close to passing out from exhaustion

Three days. Three exhausting, miserable days. He’d been doing all he could to help the villagers - a plague had come through the small village, having been spread by a passing traveler, who was just as miserably sick as everyone who had caught the illness. The illness was transmissible between humans and monsters - which was unusual, in Dream’s somewhat limited knowledge of illnesses, and spoke of more of a communicable curse, rather than a true sickness of one kind or another. Dream had been doing all he could to heal the sick, or at least to bring them comfort - working non-stop since the moment that the two humans had first shown up and literally dragged him away from Nightmare who had been sleeping peacefully at the time, keeping him quiet with a hand wrapped around his mouth, and a plea to “Stay quiet and let us explain!” which he had.

But Dream had been unable to go back to the tree - or to see his other half in that time, worked down to the metaphorical bone and trembling with exhaustion. All he wanted was to go back to Nightmare and curl up and sleep… Especially as several of the humans and monsters who he’d been trying to keep alive had died anyways. The monsters having just finished fading into dust before him, the humans souls floating above their bodies and shattering apart as they drew their last breath.

Several members of their families were glaring at him, as if this was somehow his fault. Tear tracks were clear on their faces, and all of them were quite distressed… And he could only do so much to soothe their ragged pain - particularly as he was running very low on magic. He needed to sleep as there wasn’t enough positivity in the village for him to draw on to continue to help anymore. He started to walk carefully towards the door, trembling with exhaustion when one of the mortals spoke up, voice full of anger, grief and spite “Where do you think you are going? You can’t leave! We’re still sick and dying here!”

“I… I need to rest.” Dream responds, doing his best to continue to stay positive and some semblance of cheerful - which he did not at all feel. “I will be back as soon as I can, to continue to help.”

“We… You couldn’t help my sister! Why did you let her die, but keep the others alive! It’s not fair! You… You p-promised to help! And all you’ve done is let them continue to suffer! It’s not fair that you and that thing can’t get sick, while we all suffer and die!” One of the humans hissed, full of a terrifying sort of rage as they charged at him, looming over the little guardian.

Dream shrinks down a little, trying to reduce some of the human’s anger - flinching a little and shrinking down, staring fearfully up at the other, robbed of his voice as he took several steps backwards, shaking a little “I… I d-didn’t let any of them die… I-I really did t-try to save everyone… B-but I have… H-have to rest. I c-can’t help anyone else if I’m t-tired.”

“Bullshit! Neither one of you really get tired! I’ve heard the stories of what you both are! Some sort of godlings protecting the sacred tree. Tireless and powerful beyond measure! And yet you can’t save anyone! All you do is -” The human hissed, lifting Dream up and shaking him a little, glaring at him.

The human abruptly stopped speaking because Nightmare had suddenly appeared at the door, pulled Dream out of the human’s grasp with magic and pushed his mate behind him protectively “So this is where you’ve been for the past few days. I’ve been worried… And I’m guessing that they haven’t let you out of this place since they dragged you?”

The positive guardian nodded, on the brink of tears, clinging to Nightmare and shaking a little “Y-yes… I a-asked them to tell you where I was but I… I guess they didn’t have anyone to spare to send you. A couple of the v-villagers dragged me away when you were asleep. I c-couldn’t speak or I would have called out to you.”

The look on his childhood friend’s face hardens a little before the expression clears, and he smiles a little at him “I see. I’m not mad at you, Dream. Let’s go home. I know that you’re exhausted. Once you’re fully rested, we’ll both come back and I’ll help you tend to the sick.” He pulls Dream in close and presses a light kiss to the other’s teeth as he teleports them off.

As soon as they are at the base of the tree, alone but for the two of them, Dream clings tightly to Nightmare, sobbing into the other’s chest, trembling “I… I c-couldn’t s-save them. Th-they’re dying and I… I d-don’t know if a-any of the s-sick will survive! A-and then… The-then…” He couldn’t continue talking, as he’d been terribly frightened that the human would have tried to hurt him in their anger. As he’d been so low on magic, Dream wouldn’t have been able to defend himself.

“I could sense your fear and distress - that’s how I was able to find you, actually. Don’t worry. I’ll come with you the next time, alright? So that when you start to get tired, I’ll be sure to take you back here, where we can rest safely. I won’t let them overwork you like that again. Okay?” Nightmare murmured, holding him tightly and continuing to rock him back and forth, soothing his distraught mate.

“O-Okay. Th-thank you Nighty. I d-didn’t mean to go to pieces like this.” Dream managed out, wiping his face clean of his tears.

“Hey… It’s alright to cry in front of me. We were created for each other, as well as to protect the tree, remember?” Nightmare pointed out gently “Although… I… Please promise me one thing?”

“Sure, anything.” Dream responded earnestly, leaning exhaustedly into the negative guardian.

“Never let them see you cry? I think that they’re under the impression that you’re unable to feel negative emotions and I… I don’t want them to see you when you’re vulnerable like this.” his beloved mate asked, violet eyes full of concern.

Dream blinked a little bit in surprise at the other’s request, but he nodded “I… Okay. I try to put my best face forwards when we talk to the mortals anyways, but sure. I promise.”

“Thank you.” Nightmare responded, smiling softly “You should sleep now. Don’t worry, I’ll keep watch.”

“Okay… Thank you moonbeam…”

“You’re welcome, starlight.”

[girlsagainst-archive]

GA Bookclub#1 // Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay - written by Alice Porter

‘Books are often far more than just books’ writes Roxane Gay in her essay ‘I Once Was Miss America’. This statement rings true to me when writing this blog post and epitomises why I want to use this book club to discuss important issues. The meanings and implications that many of the books I have read have helped shape my perspective of the world. ‘Bad Feminist’ was one of these books, as I first read it a couple of years ago when I was beginning to discover feminism as something that aligned with my beliefs, but was fearful to outright call myself a feminist in fear of ‘getting it wrong’. This book allowed me to realise that I could still be a feminist even if some of my past and present habits did not align with my beliefs, as long as I was working on improving these things. As the last line of the book states, ‘I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.’ ‘Bad Feminist’ is very accessible, not only because of its conversational voice throughout but because of Gay’s complete willingness to admit that she is far from the ‘perfect feminist’, if such a thing really exists. The book also begins with the claim that feminism is flawed ‘because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed’. This is important to remember, especially for people who are quick to denounce feminism, and the statement allows a reader who is sceptical of feminism to find a middle ground with Gay, perhaps making them more willing to listen to what she has to say. ‘Me’ The first set of essays have a confessional tone, as does much of the book, as Gay, amongst various other things, goes into detail on her competitive scrabble wins and losses. These essays are humorous and portray Gay as relatable and charismatic to the reader, allowing her to discuss the hard-hitting issues this book is about whilst remaining approachable to the reader. This aspect of the text makes ‘Bad Feminist’ a really great book for someone who is still finding their feet as a feminist and is perhaps feeling overwhelmed, and Gay’s discussion of popular culture would also be useful for this reader as it is something most people can use as a reference point and reflects how the promotion of intersectional feminism is still absolutely necessary. My favourite essay from this section is ‘Peculiar Benefits’ as Gay discusses the necessity of acknowledging privilege but the dangers of completely silencing those with it, which would create ‘a world of silence’. She claims: ‘we need to get to a place where we discuss privilege by way of observation and acknowledgment rather than accusation’, which is crucial as I have witnessed how excluding individuals from conversation has dwindled discussion rather than encouraged it. ‘Gender and Sexuality’ These essays have an autobiographical format, which allows Gay to use her own experiences to discuss gender and sexuality, whilst also considering their portrayal in popular culture. In ‘How We All Lose’ Gay denounces the view that women should be grateful because of the progression of our position in society over the last 100 years, stating, ‘better is not good enough, and it’s a shame that anyone would be willing to settle for so little.’ As a woman who has been told that the cat-calling that makes me feel physically sick from vulnerability should be taken as a compliment, I can vouch for the fact that just because our rights have improved, we are yet to gain total equality. Gay states ‘if the patriarchy is dead, the numbers have not gotten the memo’ and, from my experience, neither have the men who shout sexual remarks at a women walking home alone at night. ‘The Careless Language of Sexual Violence’ is an essay that explores how damaging the casual ways in which we deal with rape can be, from living in a time that ‘necessitates the phrase rape culture’ to it’s gratuitous portrayals in television and film. Gay discusses how language is often used to ‘buffer our sensibilities’ from the brutality of sexual assault, leading to sympathy for the perpetrator and isolating the victim. This is something that is hugely relatable for me as someone who would shrug my soldiers when I was sexually assaulted at gigs saying things like, ‘they only pinched my bum, it’s not a big deal’ whilst feeling completely uncomfortable for the rest of the night, Even at a gig around a year and half ago when I spent the last two songs being grinded on and groped despite my clear unease and efforts to move away leading me to leave the gig early, I refused to accept to myself that I had been sexually assaulted and even attempted to make up excuses for the perpetrator in my head. Being sexually assaulted felt a great deal more significant than being ‘felt up’ but had I immediately accepted that that was what had happened to me, I know it would have been much easier to remove any responsibility for what happened from myself. This essay does a great job at bringing the importance of the language around sexual assault to light that, as Gay states, is not just careless but criminal. In ‘Beyond the Measure of Men’ Gay discusses how the actions of women are often compared to and measured against those of men and portrays the prevalence of this this through certain books written by women being labelled as ‘women’s fiction’ but similar books written by men being simply fiction for everyone. She states ‘narratives about certain experiences are somehow legitimised when mediated through a man’s perspective’. This is something that I had never considered but found really interesting as a book-lover. In the essay ‘Some Jokes Are Funnier Than Others’ Gay considers the humour behind rape jokes. She concludes that they not only serve to remind women that their bodies are open to legislation and public discourse but also that it is because sexual violence is embedded into our culture so deeply that people feel comfortable in making these jokes. Gay talks about her experience of rape in this book and, for me, her story alone would be enough to make rape jokes unfunny and completely insensitive. She also explains why women are allowed to respond negatively to misogynistic humour, ‘We are free to speak as we choose without fear or prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.’ The final essay I’m going to discuss from this set is ‘Blurred Lines, Indeed’ as it discusses how music and feminism are linked - something that is particularly relevant to Girls Against. She looks at how rape culture is embedded and accepted in popular music such as in Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ that ‘revisits the age-old belief that sometimes when a woman says no she really means yes.’ Gay comments on how the culture that supports entertainment that objectifies women also elects lawmakers who work to restrict reproductive freedom. Gay describes this as a ‘chicken and the egg’ situation and as ‘trickle-down misogyny’. If we cannot deduce whether it is the lawmakers influencing the media or the media influencing the lawmakers should we really be willing to treat these songs as insignificant? ‘Race and Entertainment’ The next set of essays are significantly shorter, seemingly because they are much more focussed and specific than the previous set, as Gay discusses how race is portrayed in entertainment through considering various films and their significance. The first essay is centred around The Help and Gay’s take on a film/book that I initially enjoyed was really interesting and helped me to see it in a different light. She explains how The Help is a white interpretation of the black experience and is ‘an unfairly emotionally manipulative movie’, offering us a ‘sanitised’ picture of the early 1960s portraying life as hard for white women, and slightly harder for black women, when in reality life for black women was immeasurably more difficult in segregated America. Gay also describes the black women in this book and film as ‘caricatures…finding pieces of truth and genuine experience and distorting them to repulsive effect.’ After reading this essay I can see that this film that I initially enjoyed was seemingly created for the purpose of enjoyment alone. It uses real historical events that are distressing to provide entertainment and not to truthfully portray the painful history of black Americans because if this were the film’s purpose, an accurate depiction of their experiences would have undoubtedly been more of a priority. Gay feels similarly about Django Unchained, a film that I have not seen and so have less authority to comment on, describing it as ‘obnoxious’ and ‘indulgent’ as Tarantio uses a traumatic cultural experience to ‘exercise his hubris for making farcically violent, vaguely funny movies that set to right historical wrongs from a very limited, privileged position’. She also touches on the Oscars and how ‘Hollywood has very specific notions about how it wants to see black people on the silver screen’, as critical acclaim is often dependent on black suffering or subjugation. She asserts that despite this, audiences are ready for more from black film and I certainly agree with this- there is a great deal more to black experience and history than slavery. In a further essay ‘The Last Day of a Young Black Man’ Gay discusses the detrimental effects of demonising young black men in contemporary cinema in reference to the shooting of 22-year old, defenceless Oscar Grant. The effects of the demonisation of young black men in society are terrifying and Gay’s examination of how this is reflected in film is harrowing. Orange Is The New Black is the subject of the last essay in this set ‘When Less Is More’ as Gay explains how its source material concerning a privileged white woman serving a prison sentence will never be anything more than this. She also states that ,as black woman, she is tired of feeling like she should be grateful ‘when popular culture deigns to acknowledge the experiences of people who are not white, middle class or wealthy, and heterosexual’ and that the way in which we are focussing on OITNB’s attempt at doing this shows the extent to which we are forced and willing to settle. ‘Politics, Gender and Race’ These seven essays cover a broad range of issues and are much less focussed than the previous two sets. In the first essay ‘The Politics of Respectability’ Gay discusses the danger of encouraging respectability politics, stating that the targets of oppression should not be wholly responsible for ending that oppression. She uses examples to portray the problems in suggesting that just because one person from a marginalised group has been successful this does not mean everyone is able to reach this same level of success. This is an interesting essay that shows the many ways in which different groups of people can be diminished and the difficult consequences of this. In perhaps my favourite essay of the entire book, ‘The Alienable Rights of Women’, Gay discusses reproductive healthcare and why it is so important to women’s freedom. Repeating the phrase ‘Thank goodness women do not have short memories’ throughout the essay, Gay explores how trivially reproductive freedom is discussed by certain politicians and why the ongoing debate surrounding it, usually instigated by men, is ‘the stuff of satire’. People have actually questioned me on why reproductive healthcare is a women’s rights issue and although I usually have a long and detailed answer to this, Gay sums it up neatly, ‘There is no freedom in any circumstance where the body is legislated, none at all.’ ‘The Racism We All Carry’ explains how racism is embedded in pretty much all of us because ‘We’re human. We’re flawed. Most people are simply at the mercy of centuries of cultural conditioning.’ Gay comments on the fact that for many people, there are times when you can be racist and times when you cannot, depending on your company and setting. Sadly, I feel this is true for a great deal of people, proving Gay’s previous point. ‘Back To Me’ In the final set of essays, Gay plainly states that she ‘falls short as a feminist’ and describes the ways in which she does. Not only this but she describes how feminism has been ‘warped by misperception’ and that her main issue with it is that it ‘doesn’t allow for the complexities of human experience or individuality.’ Gay’s rejection of a prescribed form of feminism is really what makes her approach so accessible. She concludes in stating that although she might be a ‘bad feminist’, she is committed to the issues feminism promotes despite its issues and that it’s importance and necessity cannot be denied. I enjoyed reading ‘Bad Feminist’ this time round as much as I did reading it for the first time, however there are some small issues I have with it. Gay’s complete acceptance in sometimes falling short as a feminist and straying from the principles that she believes in provides reassurance for the reader but perhaps too much leniency. It’s okay if some of your habits don’t completely align with your views but I think rather than completely accepting it, it’s important to work on changing them and improving yourself and Gay’s approach is often a little too laidback for me. I would have also liked Gay’s essays to have been more focussed on the topics they were supposed to be centred around according to the sub-heading they were under. Although I enjoyed the essays themselves, I felt like the way in which they were organised into sub-headings was a little bit lazy and last-minute and this is especially relevant to the penultimate set of essays, ‘Politics, Gender & Race’. Despite these arguably minor issues I took with the book, I think it is great because it covers such a wide range of topics in an informative, thought-provoking way and I would recommend it to feminist newbies and veterans alike, so much so that I rated it 5 stars on Goodreads, which is rare to say the least! If you can’t get hold of the book, many of her essays are available online including some of the ones I have mentioned. For the month of August, the Girls Against Book Club will be reading ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker. If you aren’t familiar with this feminist classic, it’s a novel, first published in 1982, set in rural Georgia that focuses on the life of women of colour in the 1930s. I’ve wanted to read this book for a while and I hope that you will join me in reading or re-reading it! If you do have any thoughts on ‘The Color Purple’, the Girls Against Book Club would love to hear them and we will feature any comments we particularly enjoy in the September blog post. You can send them to us any time before Sunday 3rd September using the hashtag on twitter #GABookClub, email us at girlsagainstbookclub@gmail.com or join our GoodReads group and contribute to the monthly book discussion here. All credit to the wonderful Alice Porter

[inbonobo]

During five days of struggles in Halifax's largest #hospital, he'd languished for six hours in a chilly #emergency room hallway, had a broken IV in his arm, and was bumped from his room by another #dying patient. On his last day, he heard staff yell the clincher: "If he stops #breathing, don't #resuscitate."

Not long after, the retired businessman turned to his wife and made slicing motions on his Halifax Infirmary identity band.

"He said, 'Cut it! ... Cut it!"' recalled Kim D'Arcy, who sat by the 68-year-old's bedside as he fell into despair.

"I believe Jack was terrified. ... He wanted to go home."

Webb died hours later on Feb. 1, after receiving care that Dr. Alan Drummond, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, says is an example of "the distinct level of human suffering associated with crowded emergency departments and crowded hospitals" plaguing Canadian medicare.

Hospitals overcrowded

Canadian emergency rooms are increasingly issuing special "codes" indicating they're too full — a process that sets off a domino effect where gravely ill people like Webb are pushed into regular hospital units already operating beyond capacity.

D'Arcy says her husband had multiple sclerosis, but was a "fighter" and carried on a vigorous and active life as a walker, canoeist and world traveller. He was also a regular volunteer patient, offering himself for interviews with student doctors.

Born in Wolfville, N.S., Webb was the former owner of a Mad Man McKay home electronics franchise.

On Jan. 12, he was told by a doctor at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre that he had pancreatic cancer, and it had spread into his adrenal glands and liver.

The diagnosing doctor discharged Webb to his suburban Bedford, N.S., home, yet D'Arcy says she doesn't recall receiving detailed instructions on diet, palliative care options or medication for her critically ill husband, and said she was uncertain of what to expect.

Struggling to breathe

In a single week, Webb declined so quickly he lost the ability to manage his medications for cancer and his multiple sclerosis. On Jan. 27, he was struggling to breathe, prompting a rapid return to the Cobequid emergency room, the suburban facility where he was first diagnosed. Webb was transferred to the Halifax Infirmary's downtown emergency department.

Later, she said she learned Webb should have been seen by a specialist from the hospital upon arrival, according to a patient complaints adviser she later contacted.

Instead, as the clock ticked past midnight, Webb lay on a gurney shivering in an ER hallway, as other patients rapidly filled a lineup a

"We felt like screaming. We felt very sad, very frustrated, helpless," recalled D'Arcy.

"When an ER doctor saw Jack at about 7 a.m., he told us that Jack was the sickest man to arrive into emergency that night."

Chaotic emergency room

D'Arcy, a senior property manager who has worked in quality assurance, found herself growing confused, exhausted and disoriented by the chaotic atmosphere.

What she didn't realize was the ward had repeatedly been going through a process called "code census," an overcrowding protocol that spills excess patients into the main hospital's hallways, sets off bed bumping and is a wider sign of a hospital beyond its capacity.

The overcapacity code — used widely across Canada under various names — allows a hospital emergency room to declare an "unsafe" situation and start shipping out patients to other floors.

The Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union brought the protocol to public prominence last month, releasing data showing that what was supposed to be an occasional measure to deal with ER overcrowding had become a regular event through the winter months at Halifax hospitals in the Nova Scotia Health Authority.

ER regularly overcrowded

In the Halifax Infirmary, the code was called 23 out of 31 days in January, including the days when Webb was there.

The data also provided a portrait of a hospital caught in a winter-time pressure cooker. Its ER was receiving the highest rate of patient visits — at times surging to about 250 patients per day — in over two years. Overall, the average number of patients showing up daily at emergency had gone up by about a quarter in eight years, from 161 to 204.

Dr. David Petrie, the co-lead of an emergency program planning committee at the health authority, said in an interview that his hospital is facing a problem common in Canadian medicine — the reaching of capacity in terms of acute care beds.

"In order to work in a system like this you need 15 per cent search capacity. Your average day your occupancy should be 85 per cent (in the hospitals). We run our hospitals across the country at 90 per cent and sometimes at 100 per cent," he said during an interview.

"We have hit that point where capacity is the issue."

Struggling with capacity

The hospital's goal is to see seriously ill patients within an hour to an hour-and-a-half, he said.

"Seven hours in an ambulance hallway, we try to avoid that as often as possible. That's where we struggle with our surge capacity... That, any of us would agree, is not reasonable," said Petrie.

D'Arcy said as they moved from the hallway into the ER, she continued to see a facility struggling to cope.

IV wasn't dripping

When Webb was admitted to an emergency room, D'Arcy noticed that after three hours his intravenous wasn't dripping.

"She (the nurse) told me they had run out of pumps for the IVs," recalled D'Arcy. It was fixed shortly after the problem was noticed.

The next day, Jan. 29, things briefly looked better for Webb, when he was shifted from ER to a private room with a telephone and television.

But it was a short-lived period of hope.  

Bumped by another dying patient

On Jan. 30, as code census protocols kept ER patients flowing through the hospital, he was informed another patient who was dying needed his space. He was shifted to a teaching unit room shared by three other patients, one whom had a viral infection sign posted on their curtain.

"He was placed in a corner far away from the nurses' station. This was concerning, as Jack was bedridden and his mind confused ... which meant if he got into distress he may not have the ability to ring for help," said D'Arcy.

On Jan. 31, Webb was unable to lift his food tray or consume solid food, but he was booked for a scope procedure that D'Arcy thinks was pointless due to his weakened state.

'Don't resuscitate!'

She said after it was complete, one of the attendants in the recovery room yelled over to a paramedic.

"They said, 'By the way if he stops breathing, don't resuscitate!' Unfortunately, Jack heard that, he was awake enough to hear that. I heard it, my sister heard it. We were very hurt he heard that," she said.

That night, she witnessed her husband making the slashing motions at his wrist and "trying to pull off his IV."

She is still awaiting details of how he died a few hours later, but worries he wasn't able to signal a nurse.

'Health care system is broken'

Distressed by her husband's experience, D'Arcy said she launched a public complaint process, but after several telephone conversations concluded it was pointless to pursue the matter and agreed to close her case.

"The Queen Elizabeth II health care system is broken and puts patients at risk," said the 51-year-old.

Brian Butt, the patient services manager with the Nova Scotia Health Authority, said he can't speak to an individual patient's case, but said in general it is not standard practice to shout do-not-resuscitate orders in cases like the one described.    

Even gravely ill patients can be moved to make way for other dying patients, said Butt.

Trying to do their best

Petrie said Webb's case is nonetheless the type that "keeps us up at night."

"We need to move patients around as creatively as we can to create spots to allow patients to come in. To reduce that seven-hour offload time we have to do things upstairs (in the hospital), so there's a constant tradeoff and that creates this tension. Health care workers are trying to do their best for the patient in front of them at the time," he said.

Butt says the hospital is doing a review of the use of acute beds in internal medicine and in the Victoria General hospital, an older facility that is part of the same central zone of the Nova Scotia Health Authority as the Infirmary.

He said after those reviews, it's possible the authority will officially state, "we need additional beds in the system."

Operating too close to the edge

However, Drummond — who has been commenting on crowding issues for over a decade — said the reality is that hospitals are already operating too close to the edge, both in Nova Scotia and across the country.

The calling of over-capacity protocols like code census simply is a symptom of the problems, he adds.

"Where's the value of an over-capacity protocol if you're continually in an over-capacity protocol? Doesn't that say something about hospital capacity?" he says.

Many questions remain

Meanwhile, for D'Arcy, the questions remain, disturbing her sleep and her grief.

Why didn't somebody provide her with clear information about her husband's diagnosis earlier?

Why did her husband lie in a hallway without seeing a doctor?

Why was he bumped from a room where his death might have been more peaceful?

Why the shouted comments about his resuscitation?

"It was hard," she says, weeping after requiring almost four minutes to list off her list of issues.

"When you're there, every day, you could see the deficiencies."

(via 'We felt like screaming': Wife says crowded hospital failed her dying husband - Nova Scotia - CBC News)

Julia Lamb is happy and fulfilled.

The 26-year-old works in her chosen field of fashion marketing, spends lots of time with friends and lives in an apartment with roommates in British Columbia's Fraser Valley.

But she's also facing the fact that her body is "in decline" as she continues her struggle with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic, neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure. She's never been able to walk, but her range of motion in her upper body and dexterity with her hands has decreased over the years. Even breathing and swallowing were easier when she was younger, she says.  

"I know that potentially, given the nature of my disease, it is progressive, so there may come a time where I could be grievously ill and suffering," Lamb says. "Things like not being able to breathe properly and communicate, not being able to write, not being able to use my hands.

Medically assisted dying has been legal across Canada for almost a year. More than 1,300 people across the country have chosen that option since it was legalized, CBC News has learned.

But because the timing of her death might not be "reasonably foreseeable" — a requirement that's written into the federal law — Lamb says she wouldn't qualify for medical help to die.

As her condition worsens, Lamb worries her disease could force her to suffer for years — without killing her.

"Those are all things that bring me a lot of distress and fears."

The one thing that would relieve those fears, she says, is knowing that if that time comes, she can ask a doctor to help her die.  

Lamb is not asking to give consent for her potential assisted death in advance. That's a separate legal issue that doesn't fall under the parameters of her court case. But she does want to change the law so that her death doesn't have to be "reasonably foreseeable" if she decides it's no longer bearable to live.    

'The way he wanted': Why 1 Canadian chose a medically assisted death

So on June 27 last year, just 10 days after Bill C-14 passed and made medically assisted death legal, Lamb and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) filed a lawsuit against the government of Canada to do just that, saying that the "reasonably foreseeable death" requirement is in violation of Canadians' charter rights.

The federal government filed a response defending itself against Lamb's lawsuit last July, but a date for the case to be heard in the Supreme Court of British Columbia has not yet been set. When it happens, the legal battle is shaping up to be fierce and deeply emotional, as other people with disabilities line up on the opposing side.

"We're actually on the side of government," says Dean Richert, co-chair of the Ending of Life ethics committee for the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.

Before Bill C-14 passed, the council was a vocal opponent to the government's move to legalize medically assisted death. It argued that the law would make people with disabilities vulnerable — either through direct coercion or through society's view that living with a disability equals a lesser quality of life — to choosing to die prematurely.

Now that medically assisted death is legal, "the genie is out" and the council won't fight to reverse the law, Richert says. Instead, it is focusing its efforts to "keep the vulnerable somewhat safe" on making sure the criteria for medically assisted death aren't broadened.

"At least reasonably foreseeable death is a protection.  And we don't want that taken away," he says.  

A question of protection?

Amy Hasbrouck, executive director of Toujours Vivant - Not Dead Yet Canada, agrees that fighting Lamb's court challenge is the next frontier in making sure vulnerable people don't feel pressured to die with medical assistance rather than living full lives with proper supports.

A significant risk of broadening the availability of medically assisted dying when death isn't reasonably foreseeable, she argues, is the "devaluation of the lives of people with disabilities."

"If you're surrounded by people who think that your life is a tragedy because you're disabled, of course you're going to believe that because that's the message that society gives you," says Hasbrouck, who is blind and suffers from severe depression. "Of course you're going to feel like your life is worthless if everyone around you is telling you that."  

In its response to Lamb's claim, the Canadian government says that section 241.2 of the assisted dying legislation, which outlines the eligibility criteria including reasonably foreseeable death, was included, in part, to protect vulnerable people.  

"The objectives of s. 241.2 ... include affirming the inherent and equal value of every person's life without regard to age, illness or disability and protecting those who may be vulnerable to persuasion or influence to take their lives in a moment of weakness or suffering," the court document reads.

But Caily DiPuma, acting litigation director for the BCCLA, says there are safeguards in place to protect against that — including physician guidelines around consent and capacity when requesting a medically assisted death. She argues that people with disabilities should have the same right to choose that option as other Canadians.  

DiPuma also says the imposition of the reasonably foreseeable death requirement strays from the Supreme Court ruling (Carter v. Canada) that ordered the federal government to legalize medically assisted dying in the first place.

That ruling stated that competent adults who could give informed consent could "access medical assistance in dying because they have a grievous and irremediable illness and they're suffering intolerably," DiPuma says.

According to DiPuma, a person could be "suffering an illness that is serious that the medical profession cannot help them with and they could be left out of the law if it's going to take a long time for their natural death to occur.  So their suffering will persist in the meantime."

Fear of 'intolerable suffering'

That's exactly what Julia Lamb is afraid of.  

"I feel quite abandoned by [the law]," she says. "I could really become, like, trapped in a state of intolerable suffering and because [death] is not reasonably foreseeable, I would not have an opportunity to alleviate that suffering."

She also disagrees with the argument that medically assisted death perpetuates the view that life with a disability is not worth living.

"I live a great life and I'm very happy.  And I do not want to die right now," Lamb says. "But I do want the option to have dignity with death and to be able to alleviate any severe suffering I might come into at the hands of my disability."

"It's a deeply personal decision and it should be mine to make."

(via cbc)

On Friday Jan. 6, Rob Rollins and his husband John MacTavish woke up just as they would any other morning. John got his brother Bobby MacTavish, who is unable to speak or walk, ready to go to his day program. But this time, before he left, Bobby spent about an hour with Rollins in his bedroom. The two were saying goodbye.

One of the couple's closest friends, Claire Crowley, soon arrived and sat in the living room with Rollins and MacTavish. The three were chatting "like it was any other morning," MacTavish says. "Which was weird, because I kept looking at the clock, knowing that, you know, the doctor was going to drive in that driveway."

Before the doctor arrived, Rollins, 56, wanted to make sure some practical things were in order.

"[He] tidied up his desk, made sure I knew where things were and gave me the passwords," MacTavish, 54, says. "You know, made sure that I knew how to run the dishwasher."    

A nurse from their rural village of Delta, northeast of Kingston, Ont., who had cared for Rollins as he battled throat and neck cancer, arrived at about 10 a.m. and inserted an IV tube into his arm. His family doctor also came, although he wasn't required to, and the group kept chatting.

MacTavish says when the local doctor who would do the final procedure arrived at the house "he talked to Rob to make sure that Rob knew what was happening and still agreeable."

The couple walked down the hallway of their small house and Rollins had a cigarette, while MacTavish held his hand. Then, they came back to the living room.

"He said goodbye to Claire, who's his best friend, to the doctors and the nurse," MacTavish remembers. "We went into the bedroom, he got into bed.  I covered him up with his quilt.  I laid down beside him. The doctor came in and asked if there was anything we needed to say to each other."

Then, he administered the lethal dose of medication through Rollins's IV tube.

"I just told him I loved him, held him," MacTavish says through tears. "And it was over in about five minutes.  Very peaceful."

More than 1,300 medically assisted deaths

Rollins is among the more than 1,300 people in Canada who have died with medical assistance since the option became law. For most of the country, that's been less than a year, as Bill C-14 governing medical assistance in dying passed on June 17, 2016.  Quebec legalized medical assistance in dying six months before that, on Dec. 10, 2015.

Although CBC News has counted 1,324 medically assisted deaths in Canada through data requested from health ministries and coroners' offices in each province and territory, the actual number is likely higher, as some provinces were unable to provide up-to-date information.

Across the country, cancer was the number one underlying condition cited for medically assisted deaths, followed by neurological disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis.  

Because it was the first province to legalize medically assisted death, Quebec has numbers for a full year.

The night before he died, Rollins typed a letter for MacTavish to read to friends and family at his memorial, thanking them for their support during his illness and explaining his decision.

"I have decided to do pain management and let nature take its course — with a bit of help," Rollins wrote.

"We are fortunate enough to live in a province that allows medical assistance in dying. I've always been an advocate of this and now I have the privilege to attain it with deepest conversations and the support of my wonderful husband."

'We need to talk'

Rollins only made the decision to die after fighting for more than a year to live.

The discovery of a bump on Rollins's throat in July 2015 led to chemotherapy and many rounds of radiation, MacTavish says. At first, his health-care team thought things had gone well, but they later noticed the cancer had continued to grow. A year after diagnosis, they asked if Rollins would undergo a throat dissection to remove as many tumours as possible, and he agreed.

"He wanted to live, so he would do anything," MacTavish says.

MacTavish looks through photo albums filled with memories. The urn containing Rollins's ashes is on the table in front of him. Rollins helped to design it before he died and a friend custom-made it for him, incorporating his favourite flower, the bird of paradise, as well as MacTavish's handprints set in the clay. (Nicole Ireland/CBC)

But the surgery left Rollins unable to eat. He relied on a feeding tube in his abdomen, and found it hard to talk and to swallow. In October 2016, the doctors told him there was nothing more they could do, and gave him about six months to live.  

Rollins decided he wanted to set the wheels in motion so he would have the option to end his life. In November 2016, they contacted the local palliative care agency, which connected them with a doctor in the area. The doctor came to their home and went through the assisted death process step-by-step.  The paperwork took a couple of weeks, MacTavish says, and it was clear that if and when the assisted death happened would be entirely up to Rollins.

Rollins died in his own bed, in his husband's arms, 'the way he wanted,' MacTavish says. (Nicole Ireland/CBC)

Christmas was normally a big event in their home, and the couple usually took great joy in their tradition of hosting about 35 people. But last Christmas, they celebrated quietly, with Rollins enduring trip after trip to the hospital by ambulance as his pain worsened through the holidays.  

"The next step in palliative care would have been sedation," MacTavish says. That means Rollins would have been kept either completely or mostly unconscious until death.

"And he just said, 'No. That's not for me. That's not what I want.'"

MacTavish was heartbroken, but not surprised, when he came home on Tuesday, Jan. 3, and checked on his husband in bed.

"He just rolled over and he said, 'We need to talk,'" MacTavish says. "He said, 'Can you make the call?'"

Division over assisted death

Legalizing medically assisted dying has sparked deeply passionate debate in Canada. Some of the fiercest opponents include the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, which called the approval of C-14 "the utter failure of government, and indeed all society, to care truly, authentically and humanely for the suffering and vulnerable in our midst," as well as the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, and advocates concerned about elder abuse.  

Normalizing medically assisted death, these advocates say, sends a message that the life of a person who is ill, disabled or elderly is not worth living. The government should instead be investing in improving the quality of their life, they argue, by investing in better supports for people with disabilities, as well as better palliative care.

They also worry that people will feel they are a burden on their families and friends, and choose to end their lives because they feel obliged to.

"This is very personal for me," says Amy Hasbrouck, who is legally blind and speaks for Not Dead Yet Canada. "These are public policy decisions that end up sacrificing the lives of old, ill and disabled people."  

Jonathan Reggler, a family doctor in Comox, B.C., who performs medically assisted deaths and is chair of Dying with Dignity's Physician Advisory Council, says he understands those concerns. But he says rigorous safeguards are in place to protect the vulnerable — including a requirement that two separate doctors or nurse practitioners must be involved in approving the death.

Read more about how opponents are fighting medically-assisted death in Canada

Some Canadians still travelling to Switzerland to end their own lives

"We are actually very, very careful to make sure that when we talk to the patients that we speak with them in such a way that we can work out and ask them directly whether or not  there is any pressure on them," Reggler says. "Most providers would have that part of the discussion with the patient alone, and not with family members present."  

Reggler and others in favour of medically assisted dying believe the Canadian legislation is too restrictive due to a requirement that death be "reasonably foreseeable."  Data gathered by CBC suggests in some provinces, many requests have been denied. Reggler estimates that about 30 per cent of the patients he personally assesses are ineligible, mainly because "the patient's natural death is not reasonably foreseeable or they have lost capacity by the time I see them."

As a full-time caregiver for his brother, who has a brain disorder and cerebral palsy, John MacTavish adamantly rejects the notion that the availability of medically assisted dying devalues the lives of people with disabilities.

MacTavish and Rollins moved back to MacTavish's family home in the rural village of Delta, Ont., northeast of Kingston, to care for MacTavish's brother Bobby MacTavish, who has a serious disability and can't walk or speak. (Nicole Ireland/CBC)

"I fight every day to make sure that he gets everything that he should have in this life," he says. "My brother has a great life.  He's on the go Monday to Thursday. He's spoiled rotten. He has everything he wants."

Three months after Rob Rollins died, MacTavish says he has no regrets about his role in his husband's death.  

"I miss him every day," he says.

But he takes comfort in the relief — even happiness — Rollins had in his last three days, "because he had control" over how he would die.

"The way he wanted.  In our home.  And together."

(via cbc)