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theforgottenmcrmy · 2 years

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Honor~ Part 1/2 (Ser Harwin Strong x Reader)

᯽ Please note that this is an overall part 8 of the series “Growing Strong”, the masterlist of which can be found HERE ᯽

Pairing: Ser Harwin Strong x Tyrell! Female Reader

Warnings: GOT typical sexism, canon divergence, suggestive themes, violence

Summary: Honor was subjective; it meant different things to different people. That was one of the most difficult concepts you’d ever had to come to terms with, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a lesson worth learning.

A/N: Happy Halloween! 🎃 👻 I hope you guys are having a much better day/night than I am, cause your girl is going through it rn🥲 *handing out tissues* so, how are we feeling about the season finale, everyone?🥺 … on that note, I regret to inform you that these next two chapters will have some angst. I just ask that you hold off on throwing tomatoes at me until you’ve read it all. Part 2 will be up on Thursday 11/3.

As always, thank you all for the love🖤 eat all the candy you want today/tonight/whenever, you deserve it!🖤

Ser Laenor Velaryon was many things.

He was kind; he’d never laid a hand on Princess Rhaenyra. He’d been knighted at a young age, and had proved to be an asset to the Crown during the war in the Stepstones. He was daring; he’d claimed Seasmoke, one of the more nimble and faster dragons that the Targaryens boasted.

But, like all others, Ser Laenor also had his shortcomings.

As you purposefully entered the banquet hall you’d been directed to by a chambermaid, you frowned immediately at the sight that you were met with.

Ser Laenor was seated upon one of the tables in the middle of the room, apparently having decided that a chair was not suitable for such a purpose. His most recent companion, Ser Qarl Correy, was seated upon the table as well, right beside him. The pair talked loudly about something you couldn’t quite pick out the specifics of amongst their inebriated babblings.

You continued to watch with dissatisfaction as Ser Qarl raised a goblet of wine to you as a poor form of greeting before handing off said goblet to his drinking partner.

A few servants waited in the periphery of the scene, ready to jump in and assist the prince consort with whatever he may require at a moment’s notice. The looks on their faces ranged from neutral to weary.

“My Lord.”

Ser Laenor flinched at your bellow, but regained his composure fairly quickly. “Good morrow, Lady Tyrell!” He took another gulp of wine and before wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “How fare thee? Ser Qarl and I were just breaking our fast.”

The near empty plates beside and around their seated rear ends had gone unnoticed initially. You’d been far too distracted by the notion of Princess Rhaenyra’s husband and his companion already indulging themselves at such an early hour of the morn.

Ser Laenor inquired curiously, “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I was told the Princess’s labors are drawing to a close,” you informed him neutrally. “Perhaps you might be a bit more… coherent, when you go to her?”

“... Ah, yes, yes. Of course.”

Despite your increasing irritation with the situation, you knew better than to show it. You bowed your head and gave the pair a strained smile before excusing yourself without another word.

Ironically, Ser Laenor Velaryon’s degree of interest in his family was like the weather over the sea: constantly changing with the seasons and tides.

And, for all the many things that he was, Ser Laenor Velaryon had never been a particularly attentive father- a fact that had cultivated a dangerous situation for you and the ones closest to you over the past decade.

As you made your way through the halls of the Red Keep, headed back from whence you’d come, you realized with dread that the castle had begun to awaken for the day.

You were not naive; cruel whispers had never been foreign among the halls of the Red Keep. But it appeared that the vipers had only become more venomous over time.

And those brazen whisperers had not spared you as a subject of their poisonous words.

Though… you had hoped they might have.

You were the Lady of House Tyrell, Mistress of Highgarden, Defender of the Marshes, Lady Paramount of the Reach, and Wardeness of the South. In the ten years you had taken up your family’s seat, you had come to live up to both your father and brother’s names. With your husband’s unwavering support, you worked tirelessly to ensure that you earned your right to the family titles that King Viserys had declared belonged to you. Sleepless nights preparing contracts for the crops trade, countless hours of council meetings regarding the issues facing the noble and common people, and thousands, perhaps even millions of gold dragons invested back into your homeland and the people who lived and worked there had finally begun to pay dividends.

Most of your time throughout the year was spent in the Reach, as was what you deemed necessary to adequately fulfill your obligations. You were well respected there, with only some, though plainly, expected, dissension… primarily from the likes of those who resided over in Oldtown.

You’d have been content to stay in the Reach, but your loyalty and friendship to the Princess had repeatedly called you back for visits to the capital. At first, you had been regarded with the respect you had earned over your years of service to the Reach and the Crown.

But with each passing year, the esteem the other lords and ladies placed upon you slowly began to diminish. And now, most of your noble peers did not hesitate to reveal exactly what they thought of your… circumstances.

In passing, most of them only seemed to offer you one of three looks: a look of pity, sympathy, or disgust.

Pity, for how could you have “failed to keep” your husband’s attention?

Sympathy, for how could you be held responsible for your husband’s lustful “wiles”?

And disgust, for how could you have “allowed” your vows to each other and before the gods to have been soiled so easily?

If only they knew…

…

You must have had the gods’ favor that morning, for you managed to make your way through the Red Keep without happening upon too many others. That was just as well; you’d gotten hardly any sleep the night before, and if you had to tolerate another single pitiful look at that moment, you might not have been able to properly mind your tongue.

And that would be an awful slip that neither you, your husband, nor Princess Rhaenyra could afford.

As you entered princelings’ chambers, you were pleasantly surprised to be greeted with the voices that had been suspiciously absent when you’d awoken that morning.

All four of the boys had their backs turned to you as they played in front of the fire with their miniature knights and dragons. They were so consumed in their games of pretend that your sudden reappearance had gone unnoticed.

But you hadn’t gone unacknowledged by your husband.

Harwin, who had been ever so carefully watching over all four of them, saw you enter immediately. As you walked further into the room, he rose from his crouched position and gave you a soft smile.

You watched the boys in silent amusement for a few moments before finally deciding to make your presence known. “There you are. I had wondered where the four of you might have wandered off to this morning.”

Just a few hours before, you’d been given a bit of a start. Right before the sun rose, you’d stirred from a less than pleasant sleep to find yourself alone in the room, despite having succumbed to your dreams sometime in the night to the sound of animated whispers of four young boys filling your ears. But you’d known there’d been little cause for panic; Prince Jacaerys and Prince Lucerys seldom made a move without eyes upon them. And wherever the young princlings went, your own sons were never too far behind.

Upon hearing your voice, all four of the boys turned and lifted their heads in your direction. They smiled and rose, before bounding over to you with excitement.

“Has there been any news?” Prince Jacaerys, or Jace, as Princess Rhaenyra had nicknamed him early on in his life, asked. He was the Princess’s oldest son, and nearly ten years of age. Though being third in line for the Iron Throne would have deemed him worthy of such attention regardless, additional interest had been placed on him shortly after his birth. Prince Jacaerys had been born with dark hair and eyes; he blatantly stood out in the sea of the other Targaryens he lived amongst.

“None yet,” you answered him truthfully. Upon seeing the disappointed look on the boy’s face, you quickly promised, “But soon.”

“We went to the dragon pit this morning!” your oldest son informed you enthusiastically, coming to stand beside Jacaerys.

Derrik, despite having been named in homage to your predecessor, bore little of the physical characteristics that had been passed down through generations of House Tyrell. At nearly ten years of age as well, just a few months younger than Prince Jacaerys, you imagined that he was a spitting image of what Harwin must have looked like at that age. His grandsire, the Lord Hand Lyonel Strong, had frequently made such a comment to that extent. Derrik was already the tallest of the four boys, and had even begun to encroach upon your own height. In addition to all the other traits he took from his father, he also shared Harwin’s dark curls. But his eyes were your own, as was his generally agreeable temperament.

Upon your oldest son’s admission, you looked at Harwin with surprise and mild concern. “Did you, now?”

“Look, Lady Y/N!” Prince Lucerys bid, running to the table beside you. You hadn’t noticed the sizzling pot upon it until the youngest of the Princess’s sons called your attention to it. But you knew what it contained, even without the young boy having to remove the lid.

“Jace let me pick out the egg!” Prince Lucerys, or Luke, beamed up at you. The youngest prince was over seven years old, though closer to eight. Like his older brother, Lucerys also had dark hair and eyes. But there’d never been any doubt as to who his brother was, nor his mother- his smile mirrored Princess Rhaenyra’s perfectly.

You returned his familiar smile with genuine ease. “I see that. Well, I am certain that your little brother or sister will be very grateful, Your Graces.”

It had become a custom during King Viserys’ reign for all newborn Targaryen children to have a dragon’s egg placed in their cradle. While you were wary of Princes’ safety whilst they underwent whatever necessary to secure the egg before you now, you were relieved at the thought that Princess Rhaenyra would be spared a trip to the dragon pit. Though she was likely to be exhausted, the Princess’s stubbornness had not diminished in the slightest over the years. Both of her older son’s eggs hatched in their cradles, and there was no doubt that she would wish the same for her next child.

While the Princes smiled to each other at your praise, you almost lost your footing when the fourth boy, your youngest son, threw his arms around your waist in an impromptu hug.

The boy looked up at you with wide eyes pleadingly. “We’re sorry we didn’t wake you when we left, Mother.”

Your resolve faded; it was extremely difficult to be cross when such a look was being given to you.

Selwin, the youngest of your boys, was a few months Prince Lucerys’ junior. He had been named after Harwin’s grandsire. Despite this, and in contrast to that of his older brother, not many physical traits of House Strong were made apparent in him. In fact, your youngest son resembled your late brother Derron so greatly, you found it to be unnerving at times. Selwin, though also tall for his age, was more lean and slender than Derrik. His hair matched your own, but he had your husband’s hazel eyes. Like Harwin, it seemed that he had inherited a bit of a fiery temper… which had been discovered fairly quickly after the boy was old enough to spend time in a training yard. But, also like Harwin, Selwin treated his family and those he cared about very sweetly, and never showed them anything but the utmost kindness.

You patted Selwin’s hair soothingly as silent acceptance of his apology. In the gaggle of young babbling boys surrounding you, you had failed to realize your husband had made his way over to join you.

Harwin, dressed in his armor and gold cloak, gave you an apologetic look.

Your family’s recent trip to King’s Landing had become less of a visit, and more of an extended stay. As he usually did, upon your return to the capital, Harwin had resumed his old post as a captain within the City Watch.

But through extenuating circumstances, the Commander of the City Watch had been forced to resign recently, and King Viserys had appointed Harwin in his stead… A perk of being the son of the Hand of the King, and retaining a close friendship with Princess Rhaenyra, you supposed.

It had been an unexpected appointment, but Harwin took it in stride. Though your family would eventually depart King’s Landing, he was determined to serve dutifully until that time came. In fact, just the previous evening until early that morning, he’d been out in the city, on patrol. Despite the tiredness that you could see lingering in his eyes, you knew he’d never let it show in front of the children.

Now that the boys had greeted you, their attention quickly returned back to their games. The boys fled back their miniature knights and dragons, but you remained where you were, watching them fondly as Harwin took another step towards you.

“When I returned this morning, you were still asleep,” he explained quietly. “I thought it might be best to let you rest whilst I escorted them to the dragon pit myself.”

Before Princess Rhaenyra had begun her labors the previous evening, she had asked you and your children to keep her sons company in the princes’ chambers. She wanted Jacaerys and Lucerys to be comfortable, and more importantly, kept distracted. Your sons, who had become close companions to the princlings throughout the course of their lives, fit the bill. You’d never spoken of it with her, but you suspected the fate of her late mother was never too far from her mind. Watching over her sons while Princess Rhaenyra labored was a small price to pay for ensuring that she had some peace of mind.

You gave Harwin a small but appreciative smile. “I am surprised the boys were already awake,” you confessed. “They were talking and playing well into the night.”

All of the boys, but particularly the Princes, were ecstatic with the idea of another addition to the royal family. At some point past midnight, you’d given up on encouraging them to get some rest. They would fall asleep wherever and whenever their bodies told them too, and not a moment sooner, you had realized in defeat. While the boys had engaged in another spirited game of pretend, you had drifted away on one of the sofas.

“Well, the Princes and Derrik were awake,” Harwin recalled, somewhat hesitantly. “I may have had to stir Selwin a bit…”

You gave him a mock look of disapproval at this revelation.

“In my defense,” your husband added hastily, “He was sleeping at a rather odd angle. I feared his neck would ache and pain him this morning, if I continued to let him lie as he was.”

On the contrary, and comically so, your youngest son briefly caught the room’s attention by breaking into an energetic sprint about the room, maneuvering a toy dragon to soar through the air as he did so. Prince Lucerys was just a step behind him, flying a dragon of his own.

“Although, he certainly doesn’t look to be in any discomfort,” Harwin observed bewilderedly, letting out an amused chuckle. “... Come to think of it, I don’t believe there is much at all that is able to truly dampen his spirits.”

You accused teasingly, “He gets that from his father, you know.”

“Funny,” Harwin exhaled, looking down at you with an amused twinkle in his eyes. “I always thought he got it from his mother.”

A comfortable moment of silence passed between you. Only the sound of the children’s laughter and the crackling of the fireplace was able to be heard.

It was an oddly peaceful moment that made it so very easy to forget that there had been any strain at all between you and Harwin as of late.

A knock on the door shattered the moment of calm.

You gave Harwin a forlorn look as you went to answer it. You opened it slowly, revealing one of Princess Rhaenyra’s handmaidens. She reported the information she’d been tasked to relay, excused herself, and you shut the door once more. When you turned around, all five of the room’s other occupants looked at you expectantly.

You announced, “The Princess has had a boy.”

All four boys broke out into cheers.

“A brother?” Lucerys exclaimed with a smile.

Derrik asked, “Is he healthy?”

“Is Mother alright?” Jacaerys added on.

Selwin demanded, “What’s his name?”

You held your hands out in a gesture you hoped would calm all of them. “I was told both the Princess and the young Prince are well. And, as for his name- I do not believe he has one yet.”

“Be patient, lads,” Harwin encouraged the Princes upon seeing their fallen faces. “I am sure your mother and your brother will join us in a few hours.”

“In the meantime, perhaps we might call for some food?” you suggested then, immediately piquing the group’s interest. “After your trek across the city this morning, I dare say the five of you must have worked up quite an appetite.”

The boys agreed, and after a servant had been called to request the meals be brought up, they returned to their games once more.

None of them noticed the uneasy look exchanged between you and Harwin.

When Princess Rhaenyra entered the room some time later, you were pleasantly surprised to see that she was accompanied by her husband. Ser Laenor looked vastly more coherent then when you last saw him. That was much to your relief, considering he was holding the newborn prince in his arms.

Harwin, who had indulged the children by participating in their most recent game, stood tall, and you rose from your seat on the sofa nearby.

Upon noticing their parents' attention had been diverted, Derrick and Selwin also rose to their feet, and quickly bowed to Princess Rhaenyra and Ser Laenor.

You couldn’t help but smile at them, happy that despite the commotion, their manners had not been forgotten. For all the shame you had felt as of late, your two sons had never made you feel anything but pride.

“Mother!” Jacaerys greeted, swiftly rising and rushing over to the door. The other three boys were quickly on his heels. When he reached the table near the door, he removed the lid of the pot sitting atop of it, revealing the dragon egg. Crackles of embers filling the pot in the effort to keep the egg warm filled the room.

“We chose an egg for the baby,” Lucerys explained to his mother.

“Ah,” Princess Rhaenyra mused, flinching as she carefully took a step towards the sofa. “That looks like the perfect one.”

It was obvious by the Princess’s voice that she was still in great pain. You immediately grabbed two nearby cushions, fluffing and putting one upon the seat of the sofa, and the other up against the back of it. Harwin came up from behind the both of you and offered her an arm, which she took gratefully, before cautiously lowering herself down onto the sofa.

Jacaerys lightly swatted his younger brother’s curious hands away from the egg, and your own children leant closer to it as they tried to get a better look.

“Not everyday an egg leaves the dragon pit, Princess,” Harwin informed her. “I thought it best to escort the lads.”

Princess Rhaenyra smiled at him genuinely. “Laenor and I thank you, Commander.”

“Another boy, we heard,” you chimed in. You lowered yourself onto the sofa beside the Princess slowly, so as not to disturb or cause her additional pain. “Congratulations, Your Grace.”

Princess Rhaenyra looked at you with a veiled expression and gave you an appreciative nod. She was clearly tired, and in decent discomfort, as was to be expected. But there was still a sheen layer of sweat upon her face, meaning that either the midwives had not bothered to wipe her brow, or something else had happened more recently that had caused her to strain herself further.

You suspected the latter.

“Might I?” Harwin asked Ser Laenor, his eyes darting downwards towards the babe in the prince consort’s arms.

Princess Rhaenyra turned away from you. To her husband, she said, “Ser Harwin wishes to be introduced to Joffrey.”

Joffrey.

You took care to hide any facial response you might have had to the announcement of the newest prince’s name. A well enough name, you supposed, but it was greatly unlike the names of his older brothers. It didn’t take much thought to surmise who the responsible party must have been. Come to think of it, the name sounded awfully familiar…

Ser Laenor nodded understandingly. “Of course.”

Harwin gently took the newborn prince from the other man’s arms. Despite everything, as Harwin smiled down at Prince Joffrey and began to bounce him lightly, you couldn’t help but feel warmness begin to stir in your heart. Seeing Harwin with a babe in his broad and protective arms reminded you very much of when your own children were that young. It was a sight which you were unsure if you would ever witness again.

“Father?” Lucerys asked Ser Laenor, “Please, may I hold Joffrey?”

“No, no, no,” Ser Laenor said, patiently, but firmly. As the second-born prince made grabbing hands at the babe in Harwin’s arms, Ser Laenor had little choice but to calmly redirect him, and his elder brother, towards the door. “Back to the dragon pit for you two, before they send out a search party.”

The Princes grumbled as they were led out of the room.

You looked at Derrik and Selwin, and asked them both pointedly, “It is about time you both reported to your tutors for the day, don’t you think?”

Your sons also grumbled in protest. Thankfully, your husband caught on to your not so subtle hint at once, and he gently deposited Prince Joffrey back into Princess Rhaenyra’s awaiting arms.

“Come now, lads,” he beckoned Derrik and Selwin, before placing guiding hands on their shoulders. As he led them towards the door, he continued, “Let the Princess rest. We shall see your mother later.”

Harwin’s eyes lingered on you as he closed the door. You gave him a grateful look before he disappeared from view.

Once you were finally alone with the Princess, your focus was able to be solely put on her and the babe.

“How was it?” you dared to ask, though you knew her answer.

Princess Rhaenyra deadpanned. “A perfectly pleasant experience, as it always is.”

It was quiet for a moment, before you both let out a few hearty laughs. But when Princess Rhaenyra abruptly hissed in pain, you sat up straight.

“What is it?” you demanded worriedly, reaching out to support her hold on Prince Joffrey if needed.

The Princess gritted her teeth. “‘Tis nothing,” she attempted to dismiss your concern. “... It seems I have simply overexerted myself.”

“Then let me take him,” you offered readily, glancing down at the newborn prince in her arms. “Or, I can call for the wetnurse, if you’d prefer.”

“No, no,” the Princess insisted. “It is not that.”

“Then what is it?”

Princess Rhaenyra’s eyes never left the babe when she spoke next. Perhaps it was in an effort to keep herself composed. In the years since you had both become mothers, you had noticed it was nearly impossible for the Princess to be in a foul mood whenever she was around her sons. She loved them deeply. They gave her great joy, and, to put it simply, she was completely devoted to each of them.

“The Queen requested that Joffrey be brought to her at once.”

You blinked. “Now?”

“No. After. Laenor and I have just come from her chambers.”

Your brows furrowed. “... Surely you do not mean-”

“But I do.”

“Gods.”

The thought of Princess Rhaenyra, minutes after giving birth, being forced to walk the halls of the Red Keep to present her newborn son before Queen Alicent was appalling. You wanted to believe it was a joke, but you severely doubted that Princess Rhaenyra would ever jest about such a thing. And the hardened look in her eyes confirmed to you that it was anything but.

You leaned closer to her, attempting to get a better look at the babe you had yet to hold. “Why in the Seven Hells would she-”

Prince Joffrey fussed slightly, causing the blanket he was wrapped in to shift. The fabric around his head fell, revealing a crown of dark brown hair.

You fell silent.

Princess Rhaenyra quickly adjusted the blanket, covering the babe’s head once more. But the damage had been done.

“... I suppose the blood on his father’s side runs strong,” you found yourself commenting tactfully, referring to Princess Rhaenys’ brunette locks.

Princess Rhaenyra laughed once, shortly, and looked thankful for having been offered an out. But she said nothing further after that, choosing instead to focus back on the squirming child in her arms.

A very uncomfortable silence took over the room, and the pair of you had no choice but to endure it.

Later that night, you laid in bed, wide awake and restless, staring blankly up towards the ceiling of your chambers as your own thoughts tormented you.

…Another princeling born bearing little resemblance to that of his father… more fuel for the fire… those reprehensible whispers that you now knew would never cease…

The only person in the world with whom you wanted to talk to about your thoughts and feelings was lying right beside you. But he was fast asleep, and despite everything, you did not have the heart to wake him.

If sleep claimed you that night, you do not recall it.

…

Little did you know, Harwin had not slept that night, either.

Like you, his own thoughts only ever came back to two things… the third princeling born with hair and eyes unlike either of his parents… and the cruel rumors swirling about the Red Keep that he knew would only become more twisted because of it.

The following morning, you found both of your sons awake in their chambers.

You entered without announcing yourself, genuinely curious about the scene that awaited.

Selwin was already dressed and sporting his training armor. As he fought an invisible enemy with an invisible weapon of his choice on one side of the room, Harwin was assisting Derrik with securing the last few straps of his breastplate on the other side.

Once Harwin was satisfied with his work, he looked at the armor appraisingly. Your son looked up at him patiently, and somewhat timidly, waiting for his father’s opinion.

“It looks as though you’ll need some bigger armor soon, at the rate you’re growing,” Harwin decided, causing Derrik to smile widely. The pride was very evident in your husband’s voice. As Selwin suddenly ran past them, Harwin fondly rustled his hair in passing, and added, “You too, lad.”

You couldn’t help but beam at the scene.

Harwin had taken to fatherhood like a duck to water. He’d always been fiercely protective of his younger brother and sisters, and when it came to you and your children, it was no different. He’d been hands on with their learning and training since the day they were born, as had you. It hadn’t always been easy, but you had no doubt that there was no other man in the Seven Kingdoms that you would have wanted to raise your boys with.

Though initially you’d both been nervous at the prospect of parenthood, it was later proved that neither of you had any need to worry. Your children loved you as much as you loved them; and in turn, they’d always been decently behaved. In due time, they’d make fine lords in their own right.

“I can’t wait to take on Prince Aemond!” Selwin declared excitedly.

You weren’t sure why he had called out that young Prince specifically, but you made a mental note to speak with him about it later.

Derrik countered with a disapproving frown, “Prince Aemond is several years older than you.” He was right. Prince Aemond was closest in age to Jacaerys and himself, but even so, the Queen’s second son was still older than both of them.

“But we’re about the same size. I’d be more than a fair match!” Selwin argued lightly. He looked up at your husband with pleading eyes, giving him the same look the boy had given you the day before. “Please, Father? Can I spar with the Prince?”

Harwin sighed, and shook his head regretfully. “Sorry lad, but you know the rules. You are to sit and watch- and only watch- until the Princes’ training is done. I’ll work with the both of you after that.”

“But we’ve trained with Jace and Luke before!” Selwin protested.

“Aye, and that is only because the Princess Rhaneyra gave you permission to do so,” Harwin reminded him patiently. “The Queen has not given you such permission. Prince Aegon and Prince Aemond are to have more attentive instruction… as they deserve.”

Selwin did not look too happy, but he relented nonetheless.

“Besides,” Derrik said to his younger brother then, “You know Mother doesn’t like us sparring with the Queen’s sons.”

“She worries too much,” Selwin denounced.

“Come now,” Harwin frowned disapprovingly at the boys. “Your mother has every right to worry about you, as do I.”

Derrik and Selwin looked up at their father, slightly taken aback by the seriousness of his tone.

“What I am about to say is not meant to scare you, but it��s about time that the two of you hear it,” Harwin cautioned them. He let out a small sigh as he visibly contemplated his next words. “... Those around you, especially those here in the Red Keep, may treat the two of you with respect, but that is only because your station commands it. Some of them may even be pleasant enough to you… But that does not mean that they will have your best interests in mind, or that they are able to be trusted.”

Though he had prefaced his warning, your sons still looked alarmed by the gravity of Harwin’s words. You didn’t relish in the fact that they seemed scared, but it was necessary.

The plot against you the night before your wedding; the scheme devised to swindle your birthright out from underneath you… Ten years had passed since both had occurred, and you had no more answers now than you did back then. Over the years, you’d wondered if your brother Derron had been able to uncover any more information into either of those matters, particularly in regards to those who may have been orchestrators…

But if Derron had discovered anything, that knowledge had died with him.

With the exception of the gossip swirling about the Red Keep, neither you nor Harwin had been the target of any further conspiracies since then. But just because an enemy was dormant, that did mean that the threat was at bay. You had children now, and the reality of the situation was that you and Harwin were more vulnerable now than ever before.

Noting the sudden fear on the boys’ faces, Harwin placed one hand on each of their shoulders comfortingly. “But you can always trust that your mother and I will look out for you,” Harwin promised them, smiling softly. “And that is why we worry. That is why we want you to study, so that you might become wise, and be one step ahead of anyone else who may target you. That is why we want you to train, so should the situation ever call for it, you will know how to defend yourself.”

Derrik and Selwin looked up at their father with large eyes as they clung on to his each and every word.

“Do you understand?” he coaxed.

The boys nodded eagerly. “Yes, Father.”

You decided that that was the best time as any to make your appearance known. You stepped further into the room, putting a smile on your face as you did so. “Good morning.”

“Mother!”

You braced yourself, and smartly so, as your boys rushed over to hug you. You laughed and patted their backs lightly; the metal of the small armor was still cold to the touch. “Look at the two of you… You look as though you're ready to go man the Wall!”

“We’d never go that far away, Mother!” Derrik corrected quickly.

“Good,” you affirmed. “I’d miss you both terribly.”

“Run along to the training yard, lads,” Harwin suggested then, his eyes locking with yours. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Derrik and Selwin gave the pair of you knowing smiles before promptly heeding their father’s suggestion.

“Be careful!” you called after them cautiously, though only half-heartedly.

The sounds of the boys’ laughter slowly dissipated the further they ran down the corridor. When it was just the two of you left in the room, you turned to Harwin expectantly.

You weren’t sure what look you anticipated him to have, but it definitely wasn’t the one upon his face at that moment. Sadness lingered in his eyes… or perhaps guilt.

“Might we talk?” he asked, nervousness and uncertainty plain in his voice. It reminded you faintly of when you’d first met him, “Later, I mean. Over supper, perhaps?”

You did have a great deal to talk about. “Of course… That sounds quite lovely, actually. I’d like that very much.”

Relief visibly washed over Harwin’s face at your agreeable response. He nodded firmly once, though it looked like it was more to reassure himself than to confirm anything to you, and went to leave.

You stood still, expecting him to walk by without another word to follow your sons to the training yard, as promised. But instead, Harwin came to a halt beside you. You looked up at him curiously, your guard slightly raised.

Harwin leaned down and placed the lightest of kisses upon your forehead. Any emotional shield you tried to craft crumbled at the simple but extremely meaningful action. Despite his gentleness, you could feel the emotional depth behind it. Your heart lurched at the feeling of his lips upon your skin, and you found yourself feeling remorse when he slowly pulled away.

“I shall see you tonight, My Love.”

And with that, he left.

It was only when the room was quiet and still that you breathed out your response, despite the fact that there was not a single soul around to hear it.

“Until tonight, Dearest.”

A/N: Thank you for reading! Part 2 will be posted this Thursday, 11/1. If I remember, I’ll try to post a link to it here. Either way, I’ll make sure it is added to the masterlist. I hope you all have a wonderful week!🖤

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pixeldistractions · 3 months

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Maria felt tender and deflated about her sister’s underwhelming reaction to her news, and she didn’t know what to do about that, so she just took her sorry butt to work. For the last time, perhaps. If she was going to move her whole life into her boyfriend’s camper in a few days’ time, quitting this job was a necessary first step.

She had been so excited to tell Lou. But maybe that was dumb—Lou was always going to be Lou, too practical and grounded and allergic to joy. But if not Lou, Maria wondered who else would possibly be happy for her and this huge moment in her life?

Not her parents, for sure. Not her boss. Not her co-workers.

Thankfully, Maria could delay any more announcements until the end of their shift. It was all hands on deck tonight. Tonight was the reason she could only visit Jordan for twenty-four hours, so that she could make it back to help with this big lunch catering order they had due on Tuesday morning. And didn’t that feel silly now, knowing that she was going to quit and run straight back to him? If she didn’t have JoJo to come back for, she might have just blown them all off.

But, no, she couldn’t do that to Stephanie. Stephanie was a sweetheart and she didn’t deserve to lose the sous chef she’d poured so much energy and knowledge into. If Maria had learned anything at all about cooking, she’d learned it from Stephanie.

When Maria came here two years ago, it was just a lowly kitchen job. It was just something to fill her time and pad her budget as a widowed single mom. Who could have guessed that the people she met here would change her whole life so much?

As the night slowed down, Stephanie wandered off into the greenhouse, and Maria was left alone with Sharon in a perfectly quiet kitchen. The prospect of another disappointing conversation felt so daunting. How did Jordan do this? He was so much braver and stronger than she was. Maria only wanted to go home and cry, although the prospect of disappointing Stephanie made her want to cry, too. And the prospect of being yelled at by Sharon made her want to hide in the pantry.

Two conversations to have, and both of them were going to suck. So she delayed having either of them and just stood in the kitchen, texting her boyfriend instead.

He was just home from climbing, he wrote, freshly showered, and wrapped in only a towel.

Maria: Oh, is that right? Pics or it didn’t happen.

Jordan: As you wish.

Maria’s phone went *ding* with an incoming photo. So much glistening, wet skin, taut muscles, and such a very loosely draped towel.

“Oh, my,” she said with a small gasp, pulling her screen to her chest, even though Sharon was the only person in the room and she wasn’t paying any attention.

Maria longed to be there in that bed with him, pulling off that precarious towel, instead of having to be here in this kitchen, dropping her terrible news on everyone’s bland Monday night.

Maria: 😍😍😍 You’re making me blush in front of my boss.

Jordan: You asked for it! 😆

Maria: I guess I literally did ask for it.

Jordan: Be careful what you ask for. It’s my mission in life now to give you everything you want.

There’s the motivation, she thought. That feeling, that love, and nobody could tell her that was stupid. No matter how ugly this process became, it would be worth it to run straight back into his arms when it was all over.

Maria: So, did Sharon yell when you told her?

Jordan: No, she didn’t yell. She won’t yell at you. That wouldn’t be fair. You’re allowed to quit a job. You’re allowed to make choices for yourself and JoJo that other people might not agree with. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Maria: Okay. I’ll remember. Wish me luck!

— from “boxes and squares #4.5: home is wherever you are, part 3” (7/11)

Next ->

#ts4 #sims 4 #simblr #sims story #sim stories #maria #jordan #stephanie

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nokingsonlyfooles · 1 year

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youtube

Over an hour of pro-mutant content deserves another chance, and nobody's interested in voting on what I oughta talk about, so here we go again! Brigitte Empire could use your clicks, and I need inspiration for more deep dives - win-win!

So while I have your attention, let's talk about why Magneto and the whole of mutant-kind are more useless than one average protester with silly dyed hair and a brick...

You've seen the Pyramind Of Capitalist System around, but here's a refresher.

A funny thing about pyramids is that the bottom layer has the most bricks.

Thank you, Marsha, for demonstrating proper brick usage to us all. Rest in power.

And, like, it needs it to stay where it is, or else the whole thing comes crashing down. Humanity has crashed quite a few pyramids in its time, so everyone taking part in that broken system knows this, even if they want to pretend it'll never happen again.

So what does Everett Christensen mean when he calls the X-Men's ability to take up arms and fight back against injustice a "power fantasy"? We have that ability and we do it all the damn time. You, too, can move metal with your mind... and your hand and arm, and throw it at a cop. Hell, if you've got your friends with you, you can flip the damn cop car, and de-arrest each other, if it should come to that. You can get yourselves killed that way, but look at the pyramid. They can't kill all of us or they won't eat.

When it gets so bad that individuals stop seeing their individual lives and happiness as worth fighting for, they become willing to do things we do not want them to do, things that kill lots of people and make big changes. We know that. We like to pretend the people who founded our nations were the good guys and any violence they did was mild and justified, but you know that ain't how it is. So where does the "power fantasy" come in?

What I think he means, sadly, is that he's internalized the abuser's lie that if you get knocked down, it was your fault for standing up. The "fantasy" is that you'll be allowed to hit back and accomplish something. The cycle of progress and backlash that's scaring the hell out of us at the moment (we're still dealing with the backlash) can be parsed as "WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME HIT YOU??" If mutants use their power, they might hurt someone with it, and if it looks like minorities might hurt someone with their power, the majority will never stop hitting us. So mutants can't win. That is not something we can allow the minorities in our audience to see, because the majority will see it too, and beat the crap out of us. Progress is not a real option.

I would say that eternal victimhood is not what we're after either (and that sort of existence tends to produce people who DGAF anymore and hurt others anyway), and we could probably stand to see a few cautionary tales about minorities who perpetuate the cycle of abuse, just in case any of us happen to acquire a smidgen of power.

"Can't poor people just BUY housing?"

"Can't trans people just BUY rights?"

I would also say that you're probably not going to get the nuance and continuity to tell that sort of story well from a blockbuster Marvel product that has Disney clinging to its shoe like a turd. I don't know how Secret Empire - United shook out (long-running comics with dodgy continuity are not for me, and that's okay), but I'm guessing everything went back to normal or everything took place in an alternate timeline that we won't revisit unless another writer picks it up way later. 'Cos that's how shared universes roll.

Waaaay back in web 1.0 days, I ran a message board-based story with multiple writers in a shared universe, so believe me when I tell you: people do not like it when you tear up a world they are using. They're busy trying to tell their own stories and they expect things to stay approximately where they are. Everyone ends up doing a Hero's Journey where their characters return changed and the world stays right where it is. Character development can be slow and realistic (but not always in comics, where dueling writers may want to take the same character in totally different directions), but anything done to the world will be sharp and swift and involve as many characters as possible... Then it will get reset and forgotten.

How many post-Endgame plotlines needed the blip, or gave it more than a throwaway reference? And nobody mentions the stillborn god egg, because that movie didn't do well.

The X-Men and their Marvel friends live in a universe that's very close to ours, with more kinds of people in it. That's the baseline, and we need to get back there because the other writers can't be expected to put their plotlines on hold to deal with whatever shit Magneto crushed recently.

"A minority terrorist just destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge and led an all-minority attack on San Francisco? I'm sorry, but Ant-Man is having daddy-daughter time with Cassie and he will not lift even one tiny finger to help clean that up. And nobody else cares either!"

When you hear about the latest mass shooting, you hold your breath, cross your fingers and mutter, "White, male and uncomplicated... White, male and uncomplicated..." or something similar, don't you? You know if the bad guy belongs to any marginalized groups at all, there's gonna be a backlash. In the comics, that doesn't happen unless it's needed for a specific plot, and then it only lasts as long as that specific plot. There are only so many panels in an issue and Ant-Man's BAE doesn't have room to note anti-mutant sentiment is really high right now 'cos of what happened in Wolverinicon #47 or whatever, unless it has something to do with what Ant-Man is up to.

Ultimately, that is the real power fantasy you'll find in the comics, and it's never going away because it's a structural issue. You can push for change all you want, and suffer, and win small victories, and your friends can even die, and everything will stay basically the same and no one will care.

Oh, no! Jean Grey died again?! Well, I hope she comes back in time for our weekly Bridge game, because Colossus is a terrible partner!

Tony Stark can have more money and tech than God, and fly around in his little suit punching all the terrorists he wants, and have zero effect on global politics. Reed Richards can be the superest genius of all time, but if he actually fixed anything there wouldn't be any conflict or plot, so he builds cool toys instead of ending world hunger. Do you want all your problems solved or do you want an engaging narrative? You can't have both!

And that's why long-running comics are not for me! If I need a little nihilism in my life, I'll just watch The Big Lebowski again. At least it's funny.

Some people, and I think the author of the article I'm looking at might be one of them, equate the structural issues of shared universes to the systemic issues we have in real life. Well, the Arc of Justice is long, maybe too long for me to see it, or for anyone I care about to benefit from it in my lifetime. It doesn't need me to stand up and make sacrifices and maybe get my friends hurt or killed. The best I can do might be to keep my head down and try to survive.

Sometimes that is the best you can do, yes, but not always. Tellingly, Mr. Christensen's words are from 2017, before the summer of BLM. A whole lot of people got together, stood up, pushed, and yelled. And there was violence. And people got hurt and died. And the majority got real scared and started screaming and lashing out... But we got some motherfuckin' legislation out of it! You know how goddamn hard it is to cram anything meaningful through our broke-ass system these days, but look at how fast it offers us folks in the bottom tier some concessions when we unsettle the pyramid. And we're not done yet. "Defunding the police" is part of the conversation now, and no matter how much they yell and scream and distort what it means, it's not going away.

We go back and sanitize revolutions and revolutionaries. The fantasy that the good guys don't do violence takes hold, and when a real revolution takes place (near us, because I didn't see many conservatives in the States flipping out about the Arab Spring), even the people who would benefit from the changes are tempted to pull back and say, "No, you can't do it that way."

I remember reading an editorial from a Black mayor in the South, equivocating about her son's desire to participate in the BLM protests. Yes, intellectually, she knew the Civil Rights protests of the 50s and 60s were a thing, but there were buildings on fire and angry white people and her kid might get hurt. Maybe it wasn't going to make any difference and he didn't need to do that, ya know? But this is a mayor we're talking about, a person with enough authority to reign in that scary police presence and make things a little bit safer for her son and others like him. She could've used that editorial space to yell, "Hell yeah! Mess with my kid and you mess with ME!" But she saw violence, she got scared, and she thought it was more important to say, "I don't want this."

Violence isn't the answer. Violence isn't a solution. However, when violence happens, it snaps a lot of people out of their ignorant comas and makes then realize there is, in fact, a problem, and it affects them. Then they start groping around for a compromise, fast. Anything to make it stop, with the least upset possible, so those guys at the top of the pyramid don't fall off and the property and capital stops taking damage! PLEASE!

"Oh, God, come baaaack!"

Well, not anything. We've collapsed a lot of pyramids and there's a procedure. First, they offer concessions to some of the folks on the bottom. The good guys. The ones who just want to be normal. "Hey," say the folks at the endless dining table, waving a small bunch of carrots, "we know you guys don't like violence either. We'll let you be normal if you help us make this stop. Could you just hand us the bad guys? The freaks, losers and weirdos? The ones you don't like either? We'll clean them up for you and then we can all get back to our lives, okay?" And the stick, if they need it, is, "There's going to be a backlash and people are gonna get hurt. The longer this goes on, the worse it's gonna be!"

Oooh, boy, and we DO know who we're willing to throw under the bus for a carrot, don't we? The bottom of the pyramid has its own underclasses, which are meticulously maintained with the help of the folks on the higher tiers. Divided, we are much easier to control. After Stonewall, trans people, poor people, and minorities got kicked to the curb, so that Ellen could have the privilege of sitting next to George "War Crimes" Bush at a nice dinner, with smiles and tolerance. The Ellen-tier gays are still out there, kicking trans and minority folks in the face and saying "Get your shit off our flag!" And there are some trans and minority folks who are willing to aim a kick at the folks under them on the ladder too. (I'm multi-racial and nonbinary, and I know exactly what level of standing that gets me. If "real" trans minorities get a carrot, I'm toast!)

There are endless intersections and complexities and the State is doing violence that benefits all of us, though some more than others. If you use money and own property (or hope to) then the police are willing to shoot uppity people in the face to preserve that privilege for you. And they will present you with a bill, subtly addressed to your anonymous tax dollars. It doesn't matter if they would just as eagerly shoot you in the face on an individual basis; as a group, we are part of that pyramid. If we don't take it apart, we're helping to hold it up. Even if the goddamn thing is crushing us.

But if we do take it apart, people are gonna get hurt and die. The State gets an automatic pass on all its violence and its body count is so huge it's invisible. The good revolutions, the ones that existed in the past and are over, also get a pass. If you and your friends get together and fight back right now - inconveniencing people who just wanna buy a coffee and go to work - you're gonna get screaming, crying, pointing, and the blame for the inevitable backlash. Maybe history will clean up your revolution after you're dead, and maybe it won't. In the meantime, the upper classes are gonna play Deal or No Deal and keep upping the amount they're willing to offer you to give up your suitcase of progress. No matter what, people will eventually get tired and settle down, and then it's time to see what the backlash will grab away from you.

That's the reality. You have the power to fight back, and they have the power to offer whatever it takes to stop you from fighting back; you can't fight forever, and then they'll yank back whatever progress they can. Oh, and some of your friends will probably help them do it.

"Jean, for fuck's sake, we just want to live our lives in peace!"

That is why, despite so many well-documented collapses, we seem to keep rebuilding the same damn pyramid every time. It's frustrating, but it's entirely different from the endless resets needed to keep a shared story universe intact. We can change. The violence is not meaningless spectacle, it's part of the process. We real-world mutants can fight back, and win, and fuck each other over, and fuck up, and fight back some more, and still win.

However...

...when it happens, look to your left, look to your right, and make damn sure you're actually fighting for progress, not a reversion to an imaginary past where nothing needs to change ever again or even a safe space to eat your damn carrots. I know it hurts and you're tired, so don't waste your energy picking up a bucket and trying to help the tide go out. It's just gonna come back in again - bigger, stronger, and more disruptive than ever...

(It's a metaphor for the cycle of progress and backlash, Bill.)

...but that's how beaches are made.

#Youtube #x men #brigitte empire #long reads #deep dive #violence #systemic injustice #power fantasy #mutant and proud #is jean grey dead or not right now?#i can never keep track

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theadventuresofgarlandodra · 1 year

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The Adventures of Garl and Odra Manyboots – Battle at Dimborough

Prev.

Traveling with Aunva and her party was quite enjoyable. Even if things started off on the wrong foot by Aunva announcing she’d gotten horses for the whole party and Odra screamed in terror, Garl quickly resolved things by plopping Odra on his back and declining to take the draft horse that she’d secured for him- even an enormous steed like that would struggle to carry a pure stone gargoyle. That was fine, they’d just use his horse to carry their supplies, and by every god masked and unmasked Aunva did not know how to pack light.

It was fun traveling at first. Aunva’s men always competed with each other to see who would be lucky enough to sleep in the same tent with her, striving to always have her approval. Dullahan was a hell of a story teller, keeping them all preoccupied in the daylight hours when they had to stop since Aunva couldn’t travel then. Sylvia’s dark sense of humor had Odra laughing and Sahsi looking paler than ever.

It was a great time… until they reached their destination.

“Now, the Black Knight should be reaching this next town within a few days,” Aunva said as the party walked down the road. “We’ll be there to make sure he doesn’t cause a fuss. I’ve sent a letter ahead to the mayor of this town, he’s expecting us and will have rooms ready at his home for the time being. I can’t wait to arrive, I need a bath. And a real bed.”

Sahsi glanced down at Odra, who was nodding and taking all of this in stride. “Is she serious? Doesn’t she have a bedroll stuffed with swan feathers?” she whispered.

“Miss Aunva knows what she deserves,” Odra said with a shrug.

“Damn right I do,” Aunva said with a wink. Sahsi blushed and stammered out apologies as the drow laughed.

They’d almost reached the bend in the path when Ficas came to a stop. “… Wait. Does anyone smell that?” he asked.

The party all frowned, sniffing once or twice before it all hit them.

Smoke. Strong, bitter smelling smoke.

Aunva’s casual countenance immediately changed, she pulled her daggers from her belt and flipped them forward. “Leave the horses. Everyone, be as quiet as you can, ears open, eyes peeled… you see something, strike first, ask questions later,” she ordered.

Odra’s heart thumped in her ears as the party slunk quietly around the bend, weapons drawn at the ready. Past that turn was Dimborough, just down the hill… or what was left of it. Odra skidded to a stop as she stared at the smoldering remains of the town.

Razed to the ground.

Odra walked through what was left of the iron gates, only one left barely hanging on by its hinges. What was once a beautiful marketplace was a ruin. The smell of burnt wood and flesh hung heavy on the air. Stores had their doors busted in, the stalls turned over and anything of value taken from them. Anything that wasn’t worth the time was stomped into the paving stones. Bodies laid still on the ground, twisted in agony and burnt beyond recognition. Other than the crackling embers of buildings that would occasionally collapse into nothing but charcoal and ash, it was dead silent.

Aunva took a deep, shaky breath and rested her hand on Ficas to steady herself. “Nuo, Odra, scout ahead. Everyone else, start going through the stores. Quietly. They… maybe someone’s still alive and needs healing. And I don’t think I need to remind you all that whoever did this could still be here, so exercise caution.”

Garl scowled but Odra patted his leg. “We’ll be back in a bit, don’t get all weepy on me,” she tried to tease, but it came out sounding hollow. Rather than try to recover with another halfhearted joke, she scampered on ahead, Nuo following close behind.

Odra’s skin crawled as she walked through the burnt town, stepping over corpses and rubble in silence with her new partner. This couldn’t be right. Aunva said they had days before the mystery Black Knight showed up. How could she have been so wrong?

“Holy… fuck,” Nuo spoke, breaking the painful silence that had stretched on for the hour they’d been searching for anything. “Did they just destroy everything?”

“Probably everything that they didn’t want,” Odra paused as she looked at the remains of a grocery cart. “If they can’t use it, no one else can. Greedy much?”

“That’s rich coming from the goblin,” Nuo snorted.

Something about that set Odra off and she spun around. “Hey, I’m not in the fuckin’ mood today, so let me set this straight- my village used everything we took. We never wasted a damn thing. If the thread’s not long enough to sew a new pair of boots, then use it to sew one, that’s what we said. We never just destroyed everything that we couldn’t carry. There’s no point in that.”

Nuo balked for a second before he recovered. “So… past tense.”

“Huh?” Odra glanced up, cocking an eyebrow. “What’s that mean?”

“You talk about your village in the past tense. Something happen?”

Odra swallowed the forming lump in her throat before she responded. “Some adventurers, humans like you, came on through. Wrecked the place. The survivors scattered after that.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Odra snorted. “Unless you were there, and I know that for a fact you weren’t. You’re a fucking ginger, the only bastard that got away was-”

It was just a moment too late that Odra spotted a quick movement behind a mostly whole wall.

“NUO!”

Odra flew herself to the ground to dodge the incoming arrows, but Nuo wasn’t so lucky. The human stumbled back, staring at the arrow sticking out of his gut. He fell to his knees, red blooming across his shirt.

Shit.

Odra tried to grab Nuo, but he shoved her back and clumsily unsheathed his shortsword. “Go! Fucking go and get Aunva!” He said, trying to get up but immediately collapsing again.

A lot of other adventurers would insist on holding their ground. Never leave a friend behind, all that jazz.

Odra was not like most adventurers. She took off running the moment Nuo told her to go. The villains started coming out of the shadows like wraiths, all wearing black cloaks with a golden bird inscribed on the hoods. Charming. They had a theme. Assholes.

An explosion rocked Odra’s ears and she was on her knees before she realized there was blood spilling from her side, accompanied by a hot burning pain.

… Oh. I’m bleeding.

“Leave it to the goblin to start running the moment there’s an opening.”

Odra grit her teeth as she stumbled back to her feet, turning around and clamping a hand to her bloody wound. Unsurprisingly, the smooth talking bastard was the black knight in the wanted sketch, golden axe and all. The raider next to him had flicked his hood off, a hobgoblin wearing goggles and carrying a strange device in his hand that Odra could only describe as a hand sized cannon.

“Shall I shoot its head off, master?” The hobgoblin asked, flicking the device and watching it spark. “It won’t know anything.”

“Get FUCKED!” Odra swore as she unsheathed her rapier and held it at the ready. “Put the toy away and fight me, goblin to goblin!”

The black knight cocked his head to the side. “… She speaks Common,” he noted in a flat, bored tone.

“Huh.” The hobgoblin popped its goggles up, Odra flinching as she saw that both of his eyes were bloodshot, like he hadn’t slept in days. “Interesting. Maybe it will know something then. I’ll just blow its legs off then so it can’t run away.”

It. He kept. Calling her it. It was bad enough coming from elves or humans, but hobgoblins were just a step away from goblins! Odra breathed in slowly before lowering her hand from her bloody wound. It looked worse than it was, she told herself as she glanced around for any escape.

The black knight hummed softly before he took out his axe. “I’ll handle her,” he said as he started walking forward.

Odra felt the blood drain from her face as the black knight walked up to her. “Right, didn’t your mom tell you to pick on people your own size?” she said, keeping her blade up.

The black knight paused for a moment… and then he laughed.

“Oh, you’re stupid. The fun part about this is that you don’t know that you don’t stand a chance, little Manyboots.”

The axe came crashing down and Odra shrieked as she rolled out of the way.

What the fuck he knows my name what the fuck-

“It’s your piercings on your right ear.” The black knight hefted up his axe for another blow. “The Manyboots clan specifically used two piercings of bone and one leather loop in between. Come on, I thought you’d recognize an old friend.”

“Your face escapes me,” Odra deadpanned before she jabbed at the knight’s leg. Her sword just bounced off the armor and she barely avoided another blow. That axe embedded itself so deep in the earth Odra didn’t have a doubt if he actually landed a hit, she was one dead goblin. “And I have met so many assholes, you all just kinda blend together after a while.”

The black knight laughed again, twirling his axe before coming in for another sweep. “I’m hurt. I haven’t forgotten you. It’s surprising, you goblins are a dime a dozen. I’d take a bugbear or a hobgoblin any day compared to you little pests. You’re barely worth the slop it would take to feed you.”

Odra swallowed as she and the black knight circled each other. “Then why do I stick out to you?” she asked.

“Because you’re different, little Manyboots. Back then, you didn’t have so many scars on your ears. You’ve put yourself through the wringer over these long three years, haven’t you?”

Odra froze.

No.

No fucking way.

The black knight laughed against before he reached up and took off his helmet, shaking out his dark hair. If the situation was different, he’d be called beautiful, with clear blue eyes that had a luminescent glow to them.

That face was a punch to the gut.

“You going to run again?” The black knight cocked his head to the side, smiling like the smug prick he was. “That’s the only reason you lived, you know. The only survivor from the anthill I kicked over.”

“Fuck you!” Odra charged forward. Her mistake.

The flat of the black knight’s axe whacked her and sent her flying, her rapier bouncing out of her hand. Her head swimming, Odra pushed herself up onto her elbows as Crowley walked up, dragging his axe behind him.

“Well, to be fair, the only reason I lived was because I happened to get up for a drink of water. By the time I returned, two of my party members were already dead. The rogue killed with his own rapier, the ranger still asleep in his bedroll when you landed a killing blow. The cleric was bleeding out next to the fire, and you’d cornered the fighter. You made him beg before you pierced his throat. Did seeing what I did wake something in you? That sneaky little side in all goblins just magnified in you a thousand times over? You followed us to our campsite, waited for your chance, and killed my party when they least expected it.”

Odra almost managed to get up when the black knight stomped on her chest, knocking the air out of her lungs before he leaned down. That cold smile on his face was like nothing Odra had ever seen before as he picked up her rapier. He twirled it around in his hand before he lifted it up and drove it through her shoulder.

Odra screamed as the black knight tilted his head to the side, drinking in her pain. “For that level of cleverness, I commend you. You made yourself an exceptional little ant. Tell me, Manyboots, do you want to know what it sounded like? When I tossed the torch into that pen of squalling goblin brats and watched them burn?”

The black knight twisted the blade and Odra shrieked again, blood spurting out of the wound.

“I have to say, your screams are much more impressive. The babies died far too quickly.”

Tears streamed out of Odra’s eyes as she tried to grab at her rapier’s handle, but her vision was starting to swim. This wasn’t real. No way she was the only one who got out. She wasn’t the only one who survived this actual monster of a man.

No… no…

Out of nowhere Nuo popped up from behind the black knight, a warbling scream ripped its way out of his throat as he brought his blade down. The black knight instinctively ducked, but Nuo still slashed open the back of his head. The black knight finally released Odra’s sword and Odra grabbed onto it. She gritted her teeth and finally pulled it out of her shoulder, with more swearing than she’d done in her entire life.

The black knight grabbed his axe and got to his feet, blood dripping down the back of his neck as he glowered at Nuo, who was white as a sheet. “Oh, you’re going to wish you hadn’t done that,” he snarled as he held his weapon forward.

Nuo glanced down at Odra and mouthed ‘run’.

And Odra ran. She darted down the street, away from the mad black knight and his fucking insane raiders. She wasn’t even sure where she was going, she just wanted to be far, far, far away from all of this.

She wasn’t sure when she stopped. She just knew she was on the ground, soaked in blood, in agonizing pain as she sobbed and sobbed.

No. I couldn’t be the only one. I’m not the only one. I’m not the only… one… I’m… not…

Before her eyes closed and everything went black, she saw a shadowy figure standing above her.

… Garl?

#writeblr #writers of tumblr #creative writing #writeblr community #fantasy #dnd homebrew #goblins #short stories #spilled ink #the adventures of garl and odra manyboots #fantasy comedy #fantasy stories #short fantasy stories

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primoredial-jade · 3 years

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who are your fav tumblr authors + your fav piece(s) from them???? u said before that u read a lot of fics, so i am curious to what u read and where inspo comes from. thanks in adv!

hi anon, thanks for stopping by and giving me the pleasure of answering this question! i apologize for having it on the back-burner for so long, but that is solely due to the fact that i spent hours searching for fics that i’ve bookmarked on tumblr over the past few years, and i honestly might still be missing a few authors!

first and foremost before i get into this very long list, i want to preface this by saying that before i am a writer- first and foremost, i am a reader. i’ve been a reader of fanfiction since i was ten years old, and i have consumed many content before picking up the pen myself- and i’m sure every single one of your favorite authors can share the same sentiment.

before i began to share my work publicly on tumblr, i never really reposted/left comments on any author’s work. and, i take full responsibility for being a contributing factor that may have caused a writer to have burnout and leave the site. now that i have experienced both sides- the reader and the writer, i’ve come to understand how much just a little comment will mean to someone, motivating them more and more! this content is already free- show them how much you appreciate it! support your favorite authors, it really means a lot to them 🤍

without further ado!~ under the cut will be my favorite authors + fics from them that i highly, highly recommend checking out. thanks for reading!

EDIT: this list will be seldom updated, as i continue to consume such amazing pieces of work! 🤍

disclaimer: these are all reader inserts!

@wyvernne — for reasons wretched and divine (diluc - NSFW)

ok, i know i talk about frw&d literally all the time, but i am never going to shut up about it. it is seriously just a masterpiece, and miss wyvernne has put so much love into every word she put down. this piece of work seriously made me look at diluc in such a different light, and my love for him only grew so much more. it is a criminally underrated fic within the community, and while it is quite the read at 70k words, every second is worth it. i genuinely cried, laughed, and felt like a horndog within the span of the three hours i committed into reading it. and the MC in every single one of her works have such great personalities and life put into them! miss wyvernne has much more shorter diluc fics, but this one is one i would recommend time and time again.

@glazelilyy — you, yourself (diluc) + drunken words are sober thoughts (diluc, kaeya) + over and over again (kaeya) + dry your tears (diluc, kaeya, childe, scaramouche)

i don’t think i’ve ever reread anyone’s works as much as i have reread luce’s- and for some reason, everytime i do, it’s a whole different experience. you, yourself, dry your tears, and drunken words genuinely makes me cry every single time i read them, regardless of the fact that i’ve basically have them all recited from memory at this point. miss luce is just incredible, and a trum gem within the community.

@witch-hazels-musings — in my hands (diluc, thoma, kaeya) + confined confessions (childe + diluc + zhongli) + impurity (diluc, zhongli, childe, kaeya - NSFW) + versatility of a workspace (diluc, kaeya - NSFW) + i can’t swim (diluc, kaeya) + can you help? (diluc, childe)

miss hazel has contributed so much to the genshin x reader community, and to my diluc brainrot!! there are so many breathtaking works within her anthology that deserve so much more praise and credit. the way she uses her words to depict the actions and love the mc and character have toward each other is just immaculate, there is no other way to describe it. there is a reason as to why she is looked up to so much as a writer, and it isn’t a coincidence that a lot of genshin writers sing praises about her and her work.

@tartagliaxx — the five wishes you fulfilled for me before i died (various) + color me surprised (childe) + it’s a bright future ahead of us (childe, diluc, xiao, zhongli)

miss lei.... five wishes genuinely wounded me. i have never cried so much in one sitting while reading a fic before. it is one of the best fics i have ever read, period, and i feel as if it didn’t get much attention from the community. the absolute angst and bittersweetness of five wishes is unparalleled, and every word miss lei put down left you hanging and wiping your eyes for more. she has such great understanding of the characters and the relationships she makes within just a few pages feels so real. highly, highly recommend.

@favoniuscodex — say i love you + masquerade + we’ll see each other again + firsts + sleepy whispers (diluc) + limerence (childe) + rumors, rumors, rumors (diluc, kaeya, zhongli) + nursing itto back to health (itto)

um, *devours axia’s work* thank you for contributing to the diluc brainrot. no, like i am serious, axia was one of the first genshin x reader authors i first read from on ao3 with one particular fic that holds a dear place within my heart, before i moved to tumblr and found her on here as well. something about how she writes resonates so much with me, almost like i can feel the cadence within the writing as i read the relationships and love formed between the characters. she also has so much knowledge and understanding of the characters she writes for, not once have i felt someone be out of character.

@xiaowhore — yours truly (various) + aftermath of a breakup (childe, zhongli, xiao) + genshin men in a fantasy otome game + put a ring on it (ayato)

@kazewhara — sick and tired (diluc, childe) + jealousy, jealousy (childe, gorou)

@lupically — #3B797A + #FFF8EA (xiao)

@xiaosmoon — accidental kisses (diluc, childe, kaeya) + your roomates in college (xiao, albedo, childe)

@windblooms — i don’t want to hold back anymore (various)

@primofate — somewhere you can’t follow (itto, diluc, thoma) + let’s stop seeing each other (diluc, kaeya, albedo)

@wangshengs — in bloom (diluc - NSFW) + kaeya character analysis

@astairekin — three names (childe)

@monocaelia — royalty (various) + lingering touches (various) + philophobia (childe)

@amatxs — antagonizer (childe) + tending to their injuries + campus encounters (thoma, itto, childe)

@dulcesiabits — memento mori (various) + the value of a lotus (zhongli)

@genshin-impacted — lost & found (diluc)

@dandelion-dreams — excerpt that won’t be finished (childe)

@izukxnnie — a pyre for the trusting

@souglias — 9:22pm (ayato) + the drive of two (childe)

@sohyuki — our faith is a bullet (thoma) + saturn (various) + hands of my heart (various) + beyond this town lies a life much sadder (crepus)

miss mint is such, such a good writer. she has all the tools to make a smile stretch across your face to the point it hurts, or to make tears run down your face. it is so unbelievable how well she can write all types of genres with such fluidity and beautiful characterization with natural relationship building! i literally cannot believe what i’m reading is free so many times when reading her works!!! miss king also has such a natural affinity for writing angst and heartbreak, it is unrealllllll, my heart always feels so heavy even if it’s just a small little excerpt. for sure one of my favorite writers, hands down!

below are non-genshin impact works!

@hoe-imaginess — kalopsia (madara/tobirama) + arranged marriage (tobirama)

hoe-imaginess is literally the sole reason the naruto flame hasn’t died out in my heart after so many years. i have read almost all of their work over the course of a few years, both on this blog and their previous, and let me tell you, their writing is just so incredible and hilarious, delving deep into character interactions and personalities, everyone just feels so in tune regardless if it is a generally more crackfic. their longer fics are just masterpieces, and with the naruto community dying out within the past 5+ years, it’s a shame they don’t get more recognition. truly, still one of my favorite blogs after years and years.

@titan-fodder — service to the crown (reiner - NSFW) + deflowered (zeke - NSFW)

not once did i bat an eye in reiner’s direction prior to reading this fic a few years ago. seriously, not even once!!!!!!!!......... and then i read miss mel’s work of art that is service to the crown and OMG. she changed the game for me, i am not even joking. sttc is seriously one of the best attack on titan fics i have ever read, and i loveeee a good childhood friends to lovers trope, but this is dialled to the tens. the relationship feels like it progressed so realistically, and i really felt as if i was growing up as the mc with reiner. made me see him in a whole different light, and he became one of my favorite aot characters after. i am so thankful for having rediscovered mel’s work again after missing it for a few months!

@ecrivant — under the yoke (porco) + tendresse (reiner)

@artemelle — last dance (artem/marius) + confessions (various tot)

andddd that is all! in a way, this is my own archive of works that have left a mark on my heart and heavily influenced my own writing today. i want to thank all of the authors for your hard work - readers like me really appreciate what you do for us. hope you all have a wonderful day!

#recommendations * ੈ♡‧₊˚#talks * ੈ♡‧₊#woooooo!!!! this was long haha #took quite a few hours but it was worth it... everyone here deserves it so much

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closetedbumblebee · 3 years

Text

White Wedding (Addison Montgomery x Female Reader)

Weddings are supposed to be full of love, happiness and gratitude. A wonderful celebration of two souls coming together as one. Today was one of those days. Callie and Arizona were finally and officially tying the knot.

It was supposed to be a happy celebration all round; all the happy couples loved up, attending the wedding together. Meredith and Derek, Christina and Teddy, Owen and Amelia, Richard and Catherine, among others showed their support for the sweetest couple who were currently reciting their vows.

You sat alone in the third row from the front, extremely proud of your friends. You were smiling from ear to ear as they each walked down the aisle. You knew their story like the back of your hand, and couldn’t contain the happiness you felt when Callie and Arizona finally came through for the other, especially after the accident. They had come so far.

You felt a pang of sadness, taking a look around the room at all the couples. You wished your girlfriend, Addison was here with you, but she had to fly back to LA after Sofia’s delivery. You barely spent enough time together as it is, both of you living in separate cities, leading separate lives. You did, however have a relatively strong and healthy relationship, taking the time to have long phone calls, FaceTime, and send as many text messages as you could. You tried to sneak weekends away to LA, also.

But, things felt strained for the last few months, and you both felt the need to remedy that.

The last time you and Addison saw each other was during her stay, which was 4 days long. You hadn’t seen each other for five weeks, and you could tell the strain was getting to you. But, you both pushed those feelings down to focus on your friends. After all, you were both doctors.

When you did catch up, you and Addison had a slight argument the night before she was set to jet out of Seattle. You sort of made up, but you hadn’t really spoken since, just the odd text and call here and there.

You reminisced…

“Honey, I really want to stay longer, but I can’t. I’ve got patients to get back to and-“, Addison said sadly.

“We’ve barely seen each other for weeks on end, and when we do, you suddenly have to rush off again. I get that you have a new life now and I respect that. Of course I do, but where the fuck do we fit in?! When you took the job in LA, we promised we’d make each other a priority regardless of whatever happened. You only fly back to Seattle when Richard needs you. I’m busting my butt every other week, rearranging schedules, going out of my way to see you. Because guess what, Addison? I love you! Clearly you don’t love me enough, otherwise you’d be making some sacrifices” you snapped.

Addison was taken aback. You had never seen her look so sad and upset. You just missed her so much, and wanted to be with her. You instantly felt guilty for snapping because you didn’t mean to go that far and before she could say anything, you jumped in again.

“Shit. Baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just miss you so much. You know that. I’m so so sorry”, you said, equally sad as you reached for her hand.

“We’ll, I’m not going to say that didn’t hurt, because it did. But I understand. I guess it was deserved. I’m sorry too, sweetheart. I’m gonna do better, I promise”, she said.

You held each other tight, “I love you”, you said in unison.

Addison was about to say something else when -

Her watch beeped, reminding of her flight and you drove her back to the airport where you shared one last kiss.

It wasn’t the way you wanted to make up, but it was a start.

Upon arriving back in LA, she texted immediately.

‘I’m back. I won’t say back home, because it isn’t home. Never has, never will be. My home is with you. FaceTime with me tomorrow? I love you baby xxxxx’, she texted

“Me too, my love. I most certainly will. I’m so sorry again. I love you too xxxx”, you replied.

Things improved between the two of you over the next four weeks, before she told you she couldn’t attend the wedding…

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I really wanted to be there, but I just can’t get away”, she said, evidentially disappointed.

“Oh…okay. It’s fine. I can try and film it for you. It’s not going to be the same without you. I love you”. You were sad, but you didn’t want to push her.

……………..

Drawing you from your thoughts, you noticed the last of the guests arriving before the brides made their voyage down the aisle.

“Excuse me, beautiful, is this seat taken?”, you heard a voice say.

You thought you were dreaming. It couldn’t be. You looked up, to see a familiar, beautiful face smiling sweetly at you.

“Addison?!”, you shrieked

You both started crying as she pulled you up into her arms, holding you tightly.

“Surprise”, she whispered huskily into your ear.

“What are you doing here?! I thought you couldn’t come”, you cried.

“I couldn’t bear being away from you anymore”, she said, smiling through tears.

You kissed her with everything you had, before she pulled back.

“I mean it. I’m miserable in LA. I can’t stand it there. So, I’m coming home - for good”, she said.

You didn’t exactly comprehend what she said at first, but then gasped in delight, wrapping her up in your arms. Looking around, your friends were watching you both, all clearly happy for you.

You and Addison still had a lot to talk about, but right now, you put it to the side when Callie and Arizona appeared….

Everyone cried during the vow exchange, and you and Addison shared sweet, knowing looks, never letting go of each other’s hands.

…………..

At the reception, everyone gathered around Arizona and Callie as they had their first dance as a married couple.

Addison wrapped her arms around you from behind and rested her chin on your shoulder as you watched the happy couple. You hugged her arms, and she reached around to peck you on the lips. You two couldn’t get enough of each other.

When it came time for other couples to join the dance floor, you and Addison wasted no time walking hand in hand to the floor. At this point, everyone was in their own worlds, all content and happy, buzzing from the day’s events, while you and Addison were completely wrapped up in your own little bubble.

“So….”, she said, arms wrapped around your waist, holding you close as you swayed to Shania Twain’s ‘You’ve Got a Way’.

“So…”, you repeated.

She jumped right into it.

“I’ve missed you, my love. I really have. You are everything to me. I’m so sorry for making you feel otherwise. I shouldn’t have been neglecting us”, she said softly, her eyes not leaving yours.

“Addie, hey… No, please. I’m sorry - I had no right to go off at you. I should’ve been more understanding. You uprooted your life and that’s a huge deal; because you’re a big deal, babe. I thought about what I said to you that night, and it was completely unfair, way out of line, in fact.. I was just projecting my feelings onto you. I was so scared that by you moving would have jeopardised our relationship without thinking about anything else. It was me, I was selfish”, you said, sheepishly.

“In other words, you thought I’d cheat on you. That’s it, isn’t it?”, she asked.

You felt tears in your eyes. Blinking them back, you smiled sadly and nodded.

“Come on now, you know I would never, ever, do that to you”, she said.

“I know. I…know. I just should've been more supportive of you. I know what this opportunity meant to you”, you said, your tone apologetic.

“It’s not all on you, okay. I realised I was working longer hours, and I turned my back on us because I was so overwhelmed with all of it, and avoided you, because I think deep down, I was scared too. I was afraid of hurting you, and was terrified the long distance wouldn't work at first. So, I can see how you must’ve felt that way”, Addison said, gently touching your face.

You looked into her eyes, to see the tears shimmering like white diamonds.

“Baby…”, you said.

“Being away from you, not being able to see you, or hold you, or kiss you, made me realise that you, that what we have, is worth more to me than any job. So I told Naomi I quit, called Richard, and he offered me a new job”, Addison smiled.

“Oh, Addie, that’s great!”, you said gleefully.

“Yes, yes it is. But, the best part is that I am now Grey Sloan’s Chief of Neo-Natal Surgery. I’m officially the boss now, baby. You know what that means. This is going to be so good for us!”, Addie said.

You were crying softly and gently touched her face. You knew what this meant; Addison being in charge of her own specialty, back on home soil meant everything to her. She was determined to fight for her relationship with you, so being the boss meant she could make her own rules and schedule. But, not only that, she deserved that title; worked hard for it her whole life; and you were determined to fight to the ends of the earth for her.

It hit you then that she was really back.

“You’re home?!”, you asked, almost in shock.

“Mm-hmm. I’m home, baby”, she beamed.

“No more messing around, no more arguments. This is it - you and me. No more turning back. I want to fight for us”, she continued.

“I want to fight for us too”, you said back.

You smiled brightly at each other, feeling more connected and more in love than ever.

She was just about to kiss you when you heard the clinking of champagne glasses, as Callie’s father, Mr Torres called for a toast.

“Thank you everyone for coming to celebrate my beautiful daughter, Calliope and her wonderful new wife, Arizona on their special day today. These two have gone through hell and back to be together. I have never felt prouder of my little girl, than I do today. I look around the room, and see it filled with such love. It’s a really beautiful thing. Real, true love is a once in a lifetime feeling, so if you’ve found it, hold onto it with both hands and never let it go, because it’s one crazy ride. Ladies, I congratulate you both on overcoming your obstacles and finding your way to each other. I love you both so much, my dear daughters. To Callie and Arizona!”, Mr Torres exclaimed, full of pride.

“To Callie and Arizona!”, everyone said.

The newlyweds kissed, before turning their attention to the wedding cake.

You and Addison watched the whole exchange, extremely proud of your friends, grateful to be a part of their special, historic day; however, deep down, you both pictured this day of your own, in your not so distant future.

Addison and you shared a look, and you both just knew. This was the path you wanted to take.

“Forever and always, Addie”, you said, winking at her.

“Forever and always, Y/N”, she repeated, clutching your hand, bringing it to her lips.

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the-last-kenobi · 3 years

Note

If you’re still taking requests (feel no pressure to do this) 14 with Obi-wan and a knight Anakin because that sounds very much like him

A fluff prompt!! I’m so excited, thank you! 🤍

From this various prompts list.

Requests are currently closed.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had not slept in three nights, and his Lineage was not happy about it.

Ahsoka and Anakin watched with narrowed eyes from a balcony as the Jedi Master mingled with the crowd, smiling softly at anyone who engaged his attention, keeping close to the side of Chancellor Palpatine and Vice Chair Mas Amedda.

For a man who was running on very little sleep and hardly any sustenance, Obi-Wan was managing to maintain the image of the perfect Jedi — civil, humble, charming, wise. Power concealed just below the surface.

Every so often, Palpatine would draw the Jedi deeper into some conversation or other, or pat him on the shoulder in a strangely paternal fashion.

“Why does he keep doing that?” Ahsoka hissed to her Master. “Master Kenobi hates strangers touching him!”

“The Chancellor isn’t a stranger,” Anakin said defensively. But he watched again as Palpatine settled a hand on his former Master’s arm and saw the slight tension creasing Obi-Wan’s forehead, and had to concede that Obi-Wan was feeling uncomfortable. “But yeah. I don’t think the Chancellor knows, he wouldn’t do it if he did. He’s probably just too used to working with me instead. We’re more like friends.”

Ahsoka raised her eyebrows. “And would he have let you go home by now? We were supposed to be able to leave almost two hours ago.”

Anakin sighed. He leaned on the railing, absentmindedly picking at a carved design in the metal with his mech hand, creating a small clicking noise. He scanned the room again, searching for unlikely threats, and then returned his gaze to his Master and his friend, still penned in the center of a colorful crowd all waiting for attention. To see and be seen. Vultures.

Obi-Wan had more patience for this sort of thing, it was true, but it was apparent to those who knew him well — to Anakin — that he was run ragged. That every new face turning in his direction, awed and pettily delighted by meeting both the Supreme Chancellor and a High Jedi General, was another weight on his shoulders.

Anakin glanced over at his Padawan. Ahsoka’s eyes lit up as she saw the look in his eyes.

“How do you wanna do this?” she asked, tapping her fingers excitedly on the banister. “I know you like explosions, but if you set something off, Master Obi-Wan will definitely have to flee with the Chancellor to safety and then he’ll be gone for ages.”

“You’re right, Snips,” Anakin said, and a smirk pulled at his lips. He ruffled his hair proudly, ignoring Ahsoka’s eye roll, and said, “So I’ll take a leaf from Obi-Wan’s book. I’ll just go right down there and use my words.”

Anakin beamed.

Ahsoka looked as if she suddenly preferred an explosion.

“Yes, hi, hello, excuse me, coming through, yep, pardon me, just walking here,” Anakin threw scattered, inane apologies in every direction as he plowed a path right through the entire gala.

Ahsoka trailed in his wake, smiling awkwardly at the people who scattered with startled looks and scowling ferociously at those who dared look cross.

Obi-Wan spotted them first. He was deep in conversation with a representative from the Core, but his blue eyes flickered to them briefly and his smile became slightly taut; he raised one of his hands in what might have passed for a wave but was, to his Padawans, a clear signal to turn around.

Anakin disregarded this subtle warning immediately.

He strolled directly up to Obi-Wan, bowed slightly, and put a hand on the Master’s shoulder, smiling blindingly at the representative. “Good evening. I’m afraid it’s time for Master Kenobi to depart. The Jedi thank you for your time.”

The representative raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

Palpatine, on the other hand, suddenly popped up right beside them, a wide smile on his grandfatherly face. “Anakin, Knight Skywalker, how good to see you! I thought you’d gone home hours ago, why, surely you need your rest after that last campaign.”

Anakin kept a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. Ahsoka shifted to stand behind them, smiling a little too widely, the points of her teeth glinting, at anyone who looked at them askance.

“We had quite the victory,” Anakin agreed. He preened slightly. But — “And you’re right, Chancellor, we do need our rest. General Kenobi has served very well, and we’re all eager to rest and prepare for our next deployment.”

Palpatine’s smile widened still further. “Ah, yes. General Kenobi is an incredible public servant, he’s such a delight to have at events such as these.”

This time it was Anakin who tensed slightly. Ahsoka sidled up surreptitiously and linked her arm with Master Obi-Wan’s, flanking him between them, drawn up as tall as she could make herself.

Anakin looked intently at Palpatine, trying to communicate to his friend that now was not the time for politics. He’d thought this would be easy, but the Chancellor seemed determined to keep Kenobi with him all evening. The crowd had begun to disperse, realizing they weren’t going to be receiving any attention for awhile, but they milled about nearby, clearly listening in.

“I—” Obi-Wan began, but Anakin decided to risk his Master’s wrath and just cut him right off.

“And he and I are always happy to be invited by such gracious hosts!” he blurted out quickly. “But sadly, we will have to wait for another invitation before we get the chance to enjoy one another’s company. We really do have to be going.”

Palpatine studied him for a moment.

Go on, Anakin urged him silently. Please. Come on. You know we want to leave.

The silence dragged.

“Master Kenobi,” Palpatine said warmly, turning to Obi-Wan, and Anakin felt a wave of relief. “What do you say? Shall we… let you out of your duties for the sake of your valiant friends?”

Oh, what the fuck?

It had the ring of a joke but was worded like a trap. And Anakin could see, in slow-motion, the flicker of resignation and bitterness deep in Obi-Wan’s blue eyes, just behind the friendly smile, and knew what was about to happen if he didn’t do something about it.

Anakin let out a loud laugh and clapped Obi-Wan on the shoulder again. “Sorry, everyone. We’re on a time crunch, we have to get back in time for dessert.”

Ahsoka laughed, too, and clung a little tighter to Obi-Wan’s arm.

Obi-Wan looked somewhere between confused and horror struck.

Palpatine’s smile froze.

Anakin chuckled and waved at the surrounding crowd, shrugging in a you-know-how-it-is sort of way. “Hey, he promised us milkshakes. General I may be, but I still demand my old Master fulfill his promises of unhealthy desserts.”

“Hey, I think out of everyone, I deserve milkshakes the most!” Ahsoka interjected, her tone teasing.

A few of the politicians shot her amused smiles. Ordinarily she would have bristled, but in this instance she just shot them knowing, conspiratorial looks, like a child deliberately making mischief. There was a ripple of laughter.

“I don’t know about that,” Anakin said. “I think I definitely took out the most droids.”

“Riiiight,” said Ashoka. “After I took out the battlement. By myself.”

They ribbed back and forth. The gala was eating it up, their faces amused and indulgent, intrigued by the display of youthful frivolity and friendship the Jedi were giving them. Obi-Wan was still pinned between them, rooted helplessly to the spot.

Anakin looked back at the Chancellor, expecting a smile.

Instead he got a blank expression — which quickly turned into a loud bark of laughter and a grandfatherly grin. He clapped his hands to gain the attention of the crowd and said, “Oh, I believe our brave Hero and his friends have earned themselves a night out for something as innocent and delightful as milkshakes, don’t you say?”

The crowd laughed and nodded; there was scattered applause, and it was done.

Anakin winked at the Chancellor and then turned on the spot, he and Ahsoka striding out the room with Obi-Wan trapped in the middle, waving and bowing at anyone who smiled in their direction.

The three of them escaped out of the ballroom, down the flight of stairs, and out onto the grand balcony overlooking the landing platform, where their ship was waiting in the semi-darkness of the Coruscant night.

Anakin and Ahsoka turned at the same time to look at Obi-Wan, each of them still holding on to one of the Master’s arms.

There was a long silence.

Obi-Wan stared tiredly down at the speeder for a very long time.

Anakin looked at his Padawan nervously.

But then Obi-Wan’s lips twitched beneath his beard, and then he chuckled, and then he burst into uproarious laughter. The sound was infectious; relieved and excited, the other two clung to him and laughed, all of them half-leaning on the railing, cackling like idiots.

They laughed until they ran out of breath, and then laughed a little more.

After a long while, Obi-Wan disentangled his arms from their controlling grips but immediately settled them back, one on Anakin’s shoulder and the other resting on Ahsoka’s back. “I think,” he said, “I promised you milkshakes. Dex’s?”

“Oh, I definitely remember you saying that!” Ahsoka said. “Dex’s is great.”

“Yeah, and you also definitely said you’d pay,” Anakin wheedled.

“No,” Obi-Wan said firmly.

“Awww. Worth a shot,” Anakin whispered to his Padawan.

Obi-Wan smiled. “I said I’d pay for Ahsoka’s. You, my Knighted former Padawan, can pay for your own dessert.”

Ahsoka cheered. Anakin groaned. They strolled off into the night, ambling without haste or urgency or fear, connected by light touches of the hands and arms, and by something deeper and unseen and familial.

There would be time for the war and politics later.

Right now, they were late for dessert.

fin

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insomniac-dot-ink · 3 years

Text

Headlights Girl

Genre: Urban fantasy + wlw romance

Words: approx. 8k

Summary: The story of a girl with headlamps for eyes and the moth-girl she meets along the way.

My book 🌸 Ko-fi 🌸 Patreon

--------------------

Most humans carry the night with them. Even during daylight hours, they can shut out the sun, turn off the light, recede into themselves and into that soft secret place behind their eyes.

Did you know certain animals don’t have eyelids? Gecko’s have nothing between them and the violent sun which wishes to cook the colors of their world. They have to use their tongue. Dust and sand and rain, can you imagine? I was obsessed with lizards as a kid.

I stacked up books on snakes and lizards and skinks. I traced the way that sand snakes crested across the dunes, sideways and wrong. I put glue on the pads of my hand and tried to climb the walls of my room— I didn’t even get one handhold up. I went to the zoo and peered into their cages, up on my tiptoes, trying not to smudge the glass or breath too hard. I tried make out their triangle heads and slow tongue-flicks, but they each shrank away deep into nooks and crannies of their cages. Most things do when I look at them.

Most humans carry the night with them, right there behind their eyelids is an entire world of darkness. I have something else inside me, not quite, not soft, not secret. They called me “headlights girl” in the newspapers.

There were even stranger kids born in the Age of Spirits. I checked. Every morning of fifth grade, I scanned the papers for mentions of “oddities” growing into anomalies.

A boy who could breath fire. A girl with leaves sprouting from her head. A kid with antennae that could taste the wind. There are stranger things than me in the age of beasts and magic. My father called it the “Epoch of Bastards,” sons and daughters of flickering fire elementals and wind ghosts who seduced half-asleep ladies from their beds.

He didn’t look at me much growing up. And I knew what he meant. I knew what he was getting at by calling it the Epoch of Bastards. Growing up, I played in my little puddle of carpet on the floor as he blustered in and out of rooms like gale force winds. He’d be looking for his keys or a left shoe or wallet since he was going out, out, out. I think I missed him at first, in the way you miss strangers you’ve never met.

Later, still on my puddle of carpet, still on my island, I would glare at him with that sour, acid taste in the back of my throat. Acrid, smoky, I would barely blink as he passed; he’d jump when he turned too quickly and accidentally fell into my path. Later still, I would begin to wish they were both like that—blustery and calling people names, gone more often than not.

It sometimes felt better than hearing my mom weep to herself on the couch. I wish she’d do it in her room or outside or anywhere else than that theatrical sobbing in the middle of the house, a naked heartbeat to the place. She spoke to her friends on the phone in that same watery voice, handkerchief in hand and sniffling, she spoke to them more than me.

What else am I supposed to do? This isn’t how it was supposed to be. She’d wail, just a bit, and then find a new thing to wail over. They could barely afford to send me to That School. They could barely afford the special doctor’s appointments for my eyes. They barely knew what to do with me.

Sometimes, I wanted to shout right back: It’s not like I didn’t want to be here either!

But she wasn’t talking to me.

School wasn’t much better. We weren’t the same, not really. None of us were the same age or had the same affliction. Plus, most everyone else stayed in dorms where they bonded with secrets and whispers and hiding from matrons. It wasn’t the same.

They called me The Lighthouse and Car Face and Nightlight. Sometimes they’d give me a few bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face. I did it. They’d laugh and reassure me I was as ugly as you’d think. Or beautiful. Or perfectly average-looking or I had a pig-nose or unibrow. I’d never seen anything but the blinding light of my own eyes in the mirror so I could never contradict them.

A boy with antlers handed me a twenty for a kiss in the 6th grade. I closed my eyes for that too. It was chapped and dry and he ran away with a screaming laugh afterward. There are stranger kids than me, I reminded myself. So why do I feel so much stranger than the rest of them?

I was 16 when I heel-toed my way down the stairs toward the front door. A duffel bag slung over my shoulder stuffed with loose clothes, change, a bath towel, three books with broken spines, all the tampons in the house, and a Swiss-army knife.

I hoped to stuff as many cheddar-cheese sandwiches in my sack as possible before the midnight bus came, but he was at the kitchen table. I don’t think either of us expected it, like running into your teacher at the mart and you’re both buying the same brand of toilet cleaner. There was a beer in front of his idle hands and he still wore his rumpled work shirt. He glanced at the bag on my shoulder for a long minute.

Finally, he sighed like I cut him off in traffic.

“Gimme a moment.”

My father leafed through a wad of cash he kept in a safe. He handed me almost three hundred bucks and we nodded at each other. At the time, I thought there was a kind of satisfaction to that nod, an endnote.

I was out the door before the midnight bus arrived.

Only three people were at the terminal. None of them looked at me with my pack and my knife stuffed in one hand and my eyes glowing. They did look at the glow, but not for long.

Remote and empty like maybe the world had ended and the last bits of if were nothing but strangers not making eye contact.

Finally, I watched the headlights of the midnight bus approach through dense summer night. I was struck by the thought that it was like looking at like, the glow of my eyes against its eyes. Can a bus be your father? Can your father be a man after all this time? Will your mother come looking for you?

I got on the bus and kicked my feet up against the seat in front of me. Scrunched into a ball, crossed my arms over my chest, and watched the trees turn into flickering bodies of shadow with each passing mile. ------------- My feet moved like tides. They tossed me against nameless city streets and toward empty forested slices of land. I stumbled into the painted deserts toward the west. I dipped my toes into the neon districts of the east with lights brighter than my own. I slept on benches and in kid’s treehouses and hunched my shoulders against brick walls of back alleys.

No one touched me. Maybe they’d approach now and then, but I’d open my eyes and they’d see nothing but heaven or devils or an absent lightning-God father that would smite them. I was the daughter of spirits after all.

I found my way to the ocean; beaches where other stragglers gathered and it was easy to stretch out on empty pieces of warm sand. I didn’t talk much by then, I didn’t like to; people stared whether I was speaking or screaming and clamping down on my jaw so hard it ached. Sometimes I get yelled at: Turn that off! No phone lights in here. You’re blinding me, bitch!

I’d never seen a movie in any theatres, but I could imagine what it’s like.

It was crowded, but I liked that ocean city, despite myself. It had pale buildings built into cliffs, narrow winding sidewalks where cars couldn’t fit, reckless bikers, and crushed seashell parking lots. I liked the tang of salt in the air and the way my hair crinkled from the ocean water as it sun-dried. I camp out on beaches and bummed cigarettes and hotdogs off strangers. I was good at taking care of myself once I got into a rhythm.

I had a tent by then and even an enormous sun umbrella to keep any prying eyes away. I still liked to sleep under the stars most nights though.

I often dreamed of sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I dreamed of descending on pointed ballerina-feet to the silted black bottom. I’d be weighted down through the cold and the silence to where no human being had ever been. I’d open my eyes there, open them all the way, lightning-bright, and unflinching. In my dreams, the salt didn’t even sting. I lit up the world, the whole untouched world of whales and fish and terror and maybe I’d do something good then. Maybe I’d do something good and bring the sun to places that had forgotten it.

I hated those dreams.

I met Mags on the beach after one of those dreams. Mags had one eye and twelve teeth and carried around nothing but string and scissors everywhere. She smelled like seawater and burning kelp, dank and crusted over. Her clothes were neat despite her leather-cracked skin and arms and neck covered in tattoos of shipwrecks. We ran into each other at some bum gathering and she cackled and pulled me aside.

“What’s your name?” Her voice was old creaking wood. I didn’t answer. “I could give you one.” She offered with a grin that was more empty space than anything.

“Nana.” I gritted out. “You want something?”

“Not sure. What do you want, kid?”

I glared openly, my beam of light slanting. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come here.”

I didn’t know why I was chosen.

Mags liked me more than I deserved. I pocketed her last pair of socks when she wasn’t looking. She never mentioned it and dragged me down to the community showers to get clean with soap and shampoo. She took me to the soup and salad restaurant for something that wasn’t burnt or freeze-dried or from a convenience store. She cackled, she spat when she talked, people shot her looks as well.

I thought she was normal, not touched by the spirits, but she liked me more than most people and I didn’t know why.

“You like art, kid?”

I snorted. “No.”

“Why not? You broken?” Yeah. Probably.

“How am I supposed to know?” I snapped back.

“Lippy squirt. Come on, I’ll show you something worth your forked tongue.”

She heated the needle before she used it, red hot and untouchable. She dipped it into deep black inks, only black and sometimes red, she called them the only colors that matter. She shows me how to prick the skin and clean it. She showed me how to slowly, painstakingly etch images. I wasn’t sure I liked it, there was something so permanent and intentional about the act.

I watched her lessons though: stick and poke to her right foot, all over those fine little bones that must hurt, in and out, a little bloody.

It took her six hours to make a tiny shipwreck right above her big toe. It was a narrow schooner going under and I was the only witness. She made the waves come to life and crash against its sides and sometimes I forgot to blink. She didn’t seem to mind.

She washed another needle. She heated it red-hot. She dipped it in ink and handed it to me.

I still wasn’t sure I liked the permanence of it, but I told myself I was bored and it was something to do. I decided quickly I did like the bite of it, I liked the focus it took, and the ability to pull something from nothing.

I practiced all over my thighs first, there was enough meat there and it was easy enough to reach: a lizard design that looked like nothing but squiggles, a TV set playing static, a tiny smudged skink with its tongue out. I practiced designs in the sand and then on paper when Mags splurged on pen and paper.

Mags took me to the museum on Sundays. They were always free on Sundays.

Something stirred in my chest, even as the guards yelled at us about how flash photography wasn’t allowed in the museum. Even as I was shooed out of exhibits for ruining the paint. Still, an ache so old it rotted roared to life in my chest.

I stabbed in and out, gentle, a collection of stars right above my right knee. A winding sand snake on my wrist, and then finally, something good, something that gave people pause and reason to stare. I made it in the mirror: a ghost on my collarbone. Shadowed and intricate and yet simple, I put a ghost right above my collarbone and it bleeds more than any of the others.

That was a good year or so; one of the best I could remember.

I didn’t want to leave the ocean city though and Mags said she had to keep moving. She had places to be. She gave me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“You're a gem, kid. You’ll knock ‘em all to the pavement.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You’ll be back?”

She cackled. “Wouldn’t miss it. You know me.” She winked as she turns to the bus, my second father. “You think I’ll miss your great becoming, kid? I’ll be back.”

I wanted to make her pinky-promise like I was a kid again begging one of the others to tell me if I’m beautiful when I close my eyes. I couldn’t do that; I waved as she tottered up the steps of the bus and was taken away with the tides of her own feet.

A had a moment of thinking it was the end then; I was ready to get back to my real normal. I was ready to disappear again. But even shipwrecks with no witnesses leave things left to be found.

------------ I got an apprenticeship. Technically, Mags talked them into it and I just followed up when I had nothing better to do.

I didn’t think I’d like it much, but couch surfing and camping out was the pastime of the especially young. And I’d lost my giant umbrella.

It was a small shop that smelled like bleach and dried flowers. A tattoo parlor in one of the steep arts districts neighbored by food trucks and beaded necklace shops.

Penguin Davies and Bitch-Annie ran it together. Davies walked like he’d never encountered land before, and Bitch-Annie had a throw-pillow embroidered with “If you don’t have anything nice to say then come sit next to me.”

Davies was covered in nothing but birds and dizzying M. C. Escher house-designs up and down his chest and arms. Bitch-Annie had topless mermaids and pinup girls across her shoulders and legs. She’d been asked to leave a number of stores before the children started staring or thinking thoughts.

Neither of them had ever met someone like me. It was not that type of town. I rankled at most their questions, a cat meeting a steel brush. Where are you from? What’s your family name? What kind of school did you go to? Is your sight better than other people you think?

I brushed off anything more personal than my favorite type of soda. Bitch-Annie called me “Shadow” probably as a joke, probably. Davies said I must be possessed by the ghost of some dead star: a blackhole that takes everything in and lets nothing out.

Neither of them let me touch a needle in those first six months. They had me practice on pig skin and trace designs and stand by their shoulders as they worked. I felt like a dental assistant except I was the hanging light shining into open mouths instead of anything with a pulse. I stood at their shoulder as they drew thick lines and thin dots and made hearts and wolves and names of dead lovers come to life.

They asked me to stand still and stop wiggling the light. I almost walked out several to find a new cliff to crash against, almost.

No one had ever expected anything of me before. They never expected me to show up somewhere or do something well. No one really cared if I went to school or if I did my homework, if I dressed well or went to bed on time. And no one kept any tabs on me at all after I took that first bus. That’s how I liked it.

I should’ve left, tattooing didn’t mean anything to me, not really. But Bitch-Annie stomped up to my attic-apartment one morning and threw pants at me.

“Get up, Shadow,” she barked. She was sterner than Mags, no hint of humor in her eyes. “I told you 9am so I expect 9am.”

“The fuck!?” I was eloquent in the mornings.

“Pants, shirt, shoes, and bra if you don’t want that desk idiot staring at something other than your eyes all day.”

“Are you serious?”

“Serious as a root canal. Mags swore up and down about what you. Let’s see some of that, up, up!”

I grumbled. I put on everything but the bra. No one ever expected me to be anywhere before and 9am shouldn’t have even been a concept much less a real thing. I told myself I hated it. I’d leave the next week. Or maybe the week after that or in just one more month. I kept a bus ticket under my pillow but every time the date arrived I shrugged and made myself busy.

There’d be no harm in having a savings too and seeing what all the fuss was about with having a dishwasher and a kitchen.

I wasn’t an artist of course. I didn’t understand what everyone else was seeing when they looked at the “old masters” paintings of water or war or lovers pulled apart. I didn’t feel anything in front of stain-glass windows in churches or mosaics on walls. Maybe there really was something wrong with me, my eyes. I didn’t let up though. I put on pants for it after all.

Penguin Davies hovered by my shoulder when I made my first real design.

“Mm.” He rumbled deep in his chest. He’d gone grey at an early age, had tired eyes and quick hands. The desk kid said he’d been in medical school once, a surgeon. It was hard to tell. Davies muttered a lot, stared off into space too much, and laughed like it was always a painful surprise

“Perfectionist,” he muttered at me as I start over on a crappy unicorn design. “That line was barely off. You’re being a perfectionist, Nana.”

I scowled over my shoulder and let the full weight of my light hit him across the face. “Got a problem with it?” I challenged. He chuckled darkly. His grin was crooked like a broken door handle. I tried to hide my work from him with my shoulder. “It’s not done yet.”

“It’s late.” The rest of the street was dark. I knew that.

“I said I’m not done yet! You can go home.”

“Hmm.” He scratched his grey beard.

“What?”

“Look at you. You know who makes the best artists, Nana?” He was always a bit of a philosopher. Maybe he used to study that before medicine.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up. I’m working on it.”

He gave my shoulder a light push. “The ones that don’t quit.”

They let me touch a needle gun after that. I told myself I’d only sign my new apartment lease as an experiment. I didn’t have to actually stay. I’d just run from the ink on paper and hope no one chased after girls with eyes that glow.

I didn’t break my lease. I drew suns and moons, trees and fireflies, hunks in speedos on tipsy college girls who swore they were sober and erotic vampires on the chests of men getting their first divorce. I had to give two refunds for a duck that turned out lopsided and a tattoo of someone’s dog which I swore really was that ugly to begin with.

There was one at the end of that next year though, another college girl with perfectly white piano-key teeth. She asked for a stick and poke, that was what I was best at anyway, she asked for a butterfly. Butterflies were easy, I could do the little ones in my sleep. She wanted one all across her back, she said I could make it look however I wanted. So I did. Wings like fringed shawls and straight heavy lines combined with wispy swirling ones. It was dark, black ink with red highlights and gray shadows under each wing to give it movement and flight.

I hid my smile when I finished and showed her the results in the mirror. She went to my bosses and jumped up and down. She pointed and babbled, ohmyspirits, the best thing I’ve ever seen! Fuck. I should pay you double! Where did you get this girl?

I held myself perfectly still and studied the ceiling until my eyes dried out.

I took the long way home that night. I stopped once, at the corner where the midnight bus arrived, and watched the the passengers trudge off. I didn’t expect to see Mags again so soon, not really, but sometimes I wanted to show her: Hey, maybe your work wasn’t all wasted. Maybe I did start to become.

---------------- “I’m getting you chocolate.” Annie spat, her thick arms flexing as she cleaned off the spotless counter. “I’m getting you fucking chocolate, Shadow, ‘less you tell me what flavor you actually like.”

I hung at the back of the shop next to the narrow window that faced the road. I let the sun warm my face in thick strips and watched the bicycles pass. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Tell us what your actual birthday is then, you sugar-toasted tart.”

I shrugged. “Not today.”

“Well happy fucking birthday. You’re turning two. You came to work for us two years ago today, washed up from the beach like a deranged feral cat, so this is your birthday now.”

I rolled my eyes which served to look like a flashlight given a shake. Annie spent another minute splashing disinfectant on anything that might have had even a passing conversation with a germ.

“You talk to Birdie?” She asked, but mischievously this time. I responded by setting my mouth in a hard line. “You’re turning twenty-something and you’re not even talking to Birdie, are ya?”

“I’m not telling you what I’m turning. It’s still not my birthday.” I dodged inelegantly.

“Birdie will give you a proper go-around. Even shadows like you must need a little rub now and then.”

“Go dunk your head, Annie.” I huffed.

“Afraid you’ll blind her in bed?”

I turned with a snarl. “I’ll start with you.”

“I’ve seen you flipping through those poetry books, every word about hands or mouths or rosebuds.” She gave me flat a once-over. “You’ve got a sweet tooth in you.”

I dragged myself over to the desk to snarl at her some more, but Annie was already putting her hand up and going toward the backroom.

“I’m getting you a chocolate cake either way.”

There must have been a proper way to get her to never look at my little leather poetry books again, the ones with watermarked pages, the spines broken-in, and words that oozed. No one had to know that I could read, much less that I read that.

The door dinged instead.

“Excuse me.” She walked in. Her. “Is someone, um, named Nana here?” I turned before I could stop myself. That was still my name. And it was still my work.

Twenty-something, curtains of straight black hair falling in her face, pinched nose, thin energetic lips, shorts that gave way to milk-dipped legs that never seemed to end. A slight girl in a university t-shirt. College kids came in often during their breaks, but this one was a bit different. My eyes dragged up and fish-hooked there.

Feathered tendrils sprouted from her head and reached toward the ceiling. Long and searching, a pearly green color that reminded you of leaves or plumage.

I knew within a moment where I’d heard of this: Antennae Girl. The newspapers ran our stories close together along with the boy that breathed fire and the girl with roots growing from her head. We were all born in the same year during the epoch of monsters and bastards.

I think she recognized me too.

We stopped like heartbeats seizing up before the ambulance could make it. A confused, unnatural silence. I glanced at the door and considered making a run for it.

She cleared her throat first.

“Someone said that Misty’s butterfly tattoo came from here?” She blinked once and I noticed how her feathered antennae seemed to twitch. I averted my eyes so I wouldn’t blind her. She took a step forward. “So are you . . . Nana?”

The door was right there.

“What do you want?” I had been spending too much time with Bitch-Annie.

“A tattoo?”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then why are you here?” I grunted. Footsteps came in from the back room. I was examining the smudged off-white tiles of the floor one by one.

“I wanted to . . . hey, you can look up if you want.” She said, curiously, softly. I didn’t look up. “I’m still figuring out the design.” She trudged on ahead.

“Fine.” I pivoted away. “But we’re busy. Come back later.”

A hand slapped across my shoulder. “This is Nana.” Annie stopped me from leaving. “Don’t let her eyes fool ya, it’s her personality that’s actually the problem. You saw her butterfly you said?”

“Yes!” She gushed. “It was gorgeous.”

“It was fine,” I corrected.

“It’s her birthday today.” Annie shared because she could and because she was a failed evil villain still trying to get her kicks in.

“Oh cool, happy Birthday.” A deep pause followed that could fill oceans. “You can look up. I don’t mind.” She repeated.

I opened my eyes wide and lifted my chin in one jerky motion. A beam of fluorescent headlights hit her across the face. “Is this what you want?” Venom dripped from my lips. This was why I tried not to talk too much.

The young woman squinted for a moment before covering her eyes and nodding. “I read about you,” she stated as if it was nothing. “I’m turning twenty-two this year . . . so I guess, you are too?”

“What?!” Delight filled Annie’s entire expression. “Hot damn! Twenty-two?” I groaned deeply. “Hey, you, girlie,” she addressed antennae-girl, “you want to come out for drinks tonight?”

I tried to protest as quickly as possible, but somehow didn’t summon the words quickly enough.

“Sure.” She agreed. ----------------------

The night was humid and clung to us like a second skin. I wandered through the hilly streets with Penguin Davies wobbling beside me. The desk kid—Daft Jeff, said Davies had some inner-ear problem that made it hard for him to keep his balance. Annie said he just didn’t belong on land— he couldn’t walk straight unless something was tilting and rolling under his feet.

Davies made his way up the hill, faltering and missing the musical beats of it. He refused to let me steady him and I refused to have him sing to me. It was apparently my birthday.

“Someone saw your design.” He noted on the downhill.

“Yeah. Some college girl.” I grumbled.

“What’d you think?” He asked in his usual mysterious way.

“She just wants a good look.” I returned in a neutral tone. “She read about me in the paper. All she wants to do is look.”

“She saw your design.” He paused. “And Jeff said she was like you.”

I blinked hard so the path ahead was eaten by shadow and Davies stumbled. “Not all of us have to be friends . . .” I said sourly and didn’t fill in the rest. “I’ve met kids with antlers and frog-hands before. I doesn’t mean anything.”

“Any of them come visit?”

“They’re smart enough not to.” I snark. “But the ones who manage to be pretty don’t have the brains to stay away.”

“Mm.” He made a soft sound. “What kind of tattoo do you think she’ll get?”

“How should I know? A heart or anchor or something dumb like that.” I walked on ahead. “Maybe I’ll give her a quote from some dead poet.”

“You like poetry.”

I huff dramatically, “Not what I mean. Girls like her don’t like my type of poetry, you know I’m saying.”

“What kind of girls?” Davies was patient. I hated that about him.

I stopped at the corner to let him catch up. “Don’t play dumb. Hot ones, college ones, getting a degree in money or music. They don’t watch over their shoulders enough or know when to stay away.” I scuffed my shoe on the ground. “Whatever.”

Davies was still thinking. I considered pushing him over. He finally spoke up again as we approach the bar, “That sea witch ever show up again?”

“Mags?” I snorted. “No. Why?”

“Cause I’m sure she’d like to see this.”

I didn’t say anything else as we reached the doorway. -------------------- The bar was loud. More people than I liked came to my “party.” I should have seen it coming. If the cliff city liked one thing it was an excuse to drink.

I crammed myself up against the bar and ordered a gin and tonic before the rest of the night crowd could arrive. Birdy was holding court at a corner table and waving at me. “There she is! Someone put a blanket over Nana, lights out, party up!”

Her puns usually left something to be desired. She sang “Blinded by the Light” every time she saw me for half a year.

I drank half my gin and tonic in the first gulp as a new stream of townies burst in. They arrived to buy me birthday beers and shout their opinions on the shitty new chain restaurant on 3rd street. I was almost tasting the bottom of my second glass when someone tapped on my shoulder.

I barely looked over.

The girl with sheets of black hair and a practiced-appearance stood before me—like she was at dress rehearsal and expected everyone else to know the lines as well. She carried a baby-blue bike helmet in one hand, and I noted there were two hand-drilled holes in the top.

“You.” I was tempted to shake her hand like I might make this a transactional hello and goodbye in short order.

“Hey.” She smiled, hesitant, like maybe the food on the fork might be too hot. “Nana, right?”

“Yep.” I sighed the word real long and heavy. “Listen, I really can’t give you a tattoo if you don’t know what you want.”

“No, no, I get it. But I want you to know . . . I didn’t know it was you.”

“Uh, okay. Though I’m pretty hard to miss over here.” I was looking at the dirty wine bottles stacked near the ceiling. Her antennae hang over both of us like fern fronds.

“No. I mean, when I saw the butterfly. That’s when I wanted to come here. Not after.”

“After what?” I was gonna make her say it.

“After I found that it was, well, you know, Headlights Girl.”

“Mm.” I was spending too much time with Davies. “You want something to drink?”

She sighed as well, real long and heavy. “Sure.” She took the seat next to me. “I’m Park by the way.”

“Park.” I rolled the name around in my mouth. “And you already know me.”

“I don’t think I do.” She laughed, sharp and bristly like something you can get cut on. “And I’ll have a beer. . . but only once you look up. Come on, I’m not like that.” I looked up. Her face was bright, round like the moon, her grin was sneaky and unearned. “There we go.”

She waved over the bartender Kipp and ordered her dark beer.

“It’s not really my birthday.” I informed her, dumbly. Every word felt dumb and clumsy all at once.

“Why not?” She was teasing. I knew that.

“That’s not how birthdays work.” I informed and wished I could backtrack into hostility again.

“Oh darn,” she winked. “And here I was about to make it my birthday too.”

“Uh, well,” I really should have left when I had the chance. “It’s not too late?”

“That’s the spirit!” She laughed, fuller this time and rounded. I looked her straight in the face and then quickly looked away again. Her grin was aimed at me, somehow, and seemed to reach high cupboards inside me you usually needed a stool for.

“Park,” I repeated the name and shifted in place. “So did you go to Haveryards or Simmons?” There were only two schools in the country for spirit bastards like us. Haveryards was close enough for me to get bussed to—an hour one way and then an hour home.

“Neither. I went to public and then Bakerville Uni.” She rapped on the counter. “Hey, you want another gin and tonic? Or I’ll mix you up something.” Her eyes flickered over everything. “I bartended my way through college so I can make a mean margarita.”

“Oh, Bakerville U., yeah. That ones close.” I stuttered a bit. She was leaning across the counter and trying to get Kipp’s attention a second time. My words were feeling dumber and dumber by the moment, perhaps losing all shape and meaning altogether. “That’s where you went?”

“How’d you guess?” She said playfully and pointed to her t-shirt. She finally got the bartender over. “Right, you want something hard? Vodka maybe? A mule?”

I scratched my chin. “ . . . I don’t care. I’m easy.”

She rolled her eyes and I knew she must feel me staring. “I can’t imagine shopping for you for today then.” She snickered and climbed over the counter. “Happy birthday, how about one chocolate mule for a free tattoo?”

“You wish.” I made a face. “You don’t even know what you want.”

“And you do?” She was still grinning, somehow. “I’ve decided I’m making you the equivalent of all the soda flavors mixed together at once. Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes and I tried to turn off my thoughts. It was bright as knives inside my skull; I carry the daytime with me. Panic threatened to rise up (for no reason of course), but a soft hand brushed against mine, soft like sheets in fancy hotels and flower petals. I peaked and Park slid a full murky glass toward me.

“Drink up.”

It was sweet. It wasn’t even my birthday. I didn’t care. She called it a chocolate-mule-Park Special and maybe chocolate really was my favorite flavor. -------------- Park started coming around. She rode a sky-blue bike with a white basket and rusting hinges. I couldn’t imagine doing all the hills in the city without any gears, but she managed. She said she was figuring things out after graduating. She said she liked it here.

I grumbled when she came by. I complained like Annie when Wicker the cat visited: Get that thing away from me. I hate that. Smells awful. I’ve got allergies. Put that away, it’ll kill me.

I never said anything when Annie left fish heads out and bowls of milk of course.

Park smelled like sunscreen and breath mints. She had strong opinions on everything from street paving techniques to which sun hats went with which dresses. She invited me on walks. She invited me to help her change a flat tire. She invited me to the corner shop to help her pick out bottle can openers.

I said no. Sometimes I said no. I started to say yes.

“Look at this,” she liked to show me things. She liked to show me pictures of squirrels on her phone and weird pieces of glass she found. She liked to point out new restaurants (that I’d already been to) and play videos of funny traffic jams.

This time she held up a seashell. It was rounded and flat with a swirl in the center.

“I’m looking.” I said carefully.

“Watch how it catches light.” I shun my eyes on it and she moved it back and forth. There were bits of silver veins caught in the cracks of it.

“There’s tons of those.” At this point, I had valiantly refused to be impressed by even her cutest squirrel pictures.

“Ugh.” She pouted. “Are you kidding? I spent all morning looking for this.”

“They're right by the surf. I could find you five bigger ones than this before sunset.”

“Alright, hot-shot.” She jut her chin out and jabbed my shoulder. “Prove it.”

I said yes to that one. I left right after my shift ended with the sun setting in the waters like a stabbed orange bleeding out. I met Park by the parking lot with drooping palms trees lining the sides and lost flipflops everywhere.

“This is where you went wrong.” I announced. I couldn’t help it. “This is the tourist beach. You have to go somewhere real.”

“Alright, alright. You’ve already established you’re the hot-shot here. Lead the way.”

She followed me. I ignored how she lingered by my side. I ignored how her hand wrapped around my arm as she stopped us to look at a tiny horseshoe crab. Her hand was soft, like velvet, soft enough to smother something in my chest.

I found two seashells with streaks of silver and rainbow through them, both bigger than my palm. The sun was a flat line on the horizon before I could find a third and Park hooted.

“You said before sunset! It’s sunset, baby, pay up.” She called. “And you were so sure you were a better seashell hunter than me.” She tsked.

I scanned the ground more quickly. “It’s barely nighttime.” I pointed to the sky. “And I can keep looking. I have the built-in equipment for it.”

“Oh I know.” She planted herself on the soggy crusted sand and sat down in a heap. “But can you find why kids love the taste of not doing that? Take it easy. Take a seat.”

“So pushy.”

“You know me.” It was fond. It had only been a few months, but there was something fond there.

I ran a hand through my short choppy curls. “Fine.” I sat next to her, not too close. “It’s your loss.” We both looked out at the gently lapping waves, foaming and anemic. She let a long breath of air and for a moment I considered brushing her hair back. It was always in her face.

It was a quiet moment, bottled, and pitching toward something. Like the the moment where you miss a step on the stairs and the certainty of the fall was right there.

I was the one that scooted a little closer.

“I’m considering getting a storm cloud,” she commented off-handedly. “Can you do storm clouds?”

I made a sound of consideration. “Sure.” I glanced toward the opposite corner of the night sky. “I think I’ve seen one of those before. Big puffy wet things?”

“Kinda fluffy? You’re getting there.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” I’m smiling, which is alright since there’s no way she could see it. She’s silent for another moment longer.

“Or would you make fun of me if I got something like a butterfly? Like your other one.”

“A storm cloud butterfly?”

“No. The cloud would it’s own thing.” She chewed on her bottom lip, ragged and chapped. “I mean, I’ve been doodling some ideas. And tattoos should be personal, right? So I thought a storm cloud might be fitting. Kids used to pay me a couple dollars to predict the weather. It could be a memorial to childhood entrepreneurial spirit.”

I watched her speak and something beat inside my chest like a second animal. I wanted to be closer. I wanted to feel velvet again.

“Why?” I rasped after a moment.

“Uh, why did they pay me? It’s just something I can do. Whenever it's going to rain or storm or be sunny out. I dunno, I don’t know why the rest of you can’t sense it.”

“And you didn’t become a meteorologist?” I smiled a bit bitterly.

She made an indignant noise. “And you didn’t become a professional lighthouse?”

I choked on a laugh. “Not yet.” A quiet consumed us from both sides, I made sure my light didn’t crash into her. I made sure to look at anything but her. She’d have to squint if I did and cover her eyes and I’d be there, ready to run her over.

“Kids in my class paid me too.” I barely realized I started speaking. “They slipped me a couple bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face.”

“You got money for that?”

“There wasn’t always much to do. Teachers were quitting all the time and sometimes it was just the TV. I dunno, they paid me. Then they’d giggle and run away afterward.” My voice sounded automated like the announcer at an airport, informing travelers their flight was canceled. “They always said I had a pig nose or a unibrow or looked like the lead singer of that Minx girl band-- super hot, but you know, it didn’t matter.” The laugh that escaped was high, girlish in a grotesque way. “Since, you know, no one would ever see it.”

“Kids are fucked up.” Park contributed simply.

“Adults are too.” I sniffed. “Everyone wants a light show.”

“Oh.” She said slowly. “Is it . . . is it bad I wanted to meet you then? I mean, I wanted to see the art first, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor.”

“No.” I said quickly. I lit up my own lap and empty hands. “Does it matter?”

“I never went to those schools,” she said hesitantly. “My parents fought them, said the schools were unfit. They shouldn’t be able to force us there. And that I wasn’t even dangerous since,” she gestured helplessly upward, “I just have these. So then, well, I never really met anyone else like me.”

“I mean, everyone’s different. It’s not . . . a big deal.”

“You’d think so,” she commented sardonically.

I folded up into myself like a complex origami piece. “Yeah, well, sometimes I wish I was dangerous. Actually dangerous.”

She giggled. “Didn’t you just say everyone’s different? I’d say everyone’s dangerous too. Just gotta find the niche.”

“Oh yeah,” I dared to turn toward her. “What’s yours then?”

“My danger niche? Hmm.” She was leaning now, pitching forward like a wave come to drown me. “I do have a few tricks up my sleeve I’ll admit.”

“You have a pair of wings hidden away?” I stopped breathing as her hand lifted up, strange and all at once. I wasn’t ready.

“Here.” Her skin was against mine. She cupped my cheek with one velvet-hand. It was heated cashmere, tiny feather-light hairs on her palm. “Feelers.” She whispered with a hesitancy there.

“Ah,” I was indulgent. I closed my eyes. I leaned in. “And you want to put a needle over these?” I put my hand over hers, loosely, so she could pull away if she wanted to. Tiny hairs pulsed there with some kind of life all their own.

“I wanted . . .” She paused and I peaked open my eyes. I could see every detail of her face, illuminated. “I dunno.” She finished. “I guess I just wanted whatever I saw there, before.”

“In the butterfly?”

“In the butterfly.” I turned toward the ocean, but my hand remained over hers. “I’m not sure how good it will be a second time. It’s not like I’m really an artist. . .”

“What did you want to be?” Soft.

“Who knows. I mean, I’m glad my parents didn’t try to fight the schools. Being there during the day was better than being home, listening to my mom crying all the time and my father exploding . . . They wouldn’t have wanted me home.”

Before the sunset, when I was walking over, I thought maybe we’d kiss that night. I thought I’d feel that first electric pulse and maybe we’d climb into the ocean and swim in circles, laugh until the moon rose. I thought maybe I’d get something out of my system and there wouldn’t be anything left to say or do.

I’d kiss Park, once, and she’d be satisfied. She’d understand. She’d go on her college path and I’d go on on mine.

But the words spilled out, unbidden. Park stayed in place, steady and unflinching. That made it worse, so much worse.

“My parents weren’t like yours.” There was an accusatory edge to it. Don’t you know? I wanted to shout. Don’t you know? Even without the eyes or the school bills or the bus.

“Hey,” she cradled my cheeks with both hands now and smeared the tears away from one eye. “Hey, listen, I know. Alright? I know.”

I scowled back at her feathered little feelers.

“It’s not about the damn antenna or head beams or anything else.” I tried to pull away. “Even the kid with the antler’s kissed me and I didn’t stop him. I ran away from home and my mom never came looking. It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter! You wouldn’t even get it. You wouldn’t get it!” I squeeze my eyes closed. “You were wanted.”

Slowly, like an awkward animal burrowing into soft earth, she pressed her forehead to the crook of my neck. I could feel us both breathing in, strong and steady. She was lean and silky, and I swore I can feel her heartbeat hammering through my throat.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. I inhaled her sunscreen scent. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know. But I could.”

“Why are you here?” It was miserable and wet, I hated that my eyes were so different and yet still the same. Could still spill over like theirs. She took a long breath but didn’t move away.

“My last girlfriend broke up with me for being . . . sensitive and I thought maybe if I got a tattoo, I’d stop feeling so much. I’d prove something. I’d feel everything less, you know? It would hurt and then it wouldn’t.”

I took that in a parsec at time. “Are you,” I sniffed. “Are you alright?” Her legs and arms were plastered over mine. “You’re so soft, but, but I don’t want to,” I wipe at my face like it didn’t matter. “Hurt you.”

“I know.” Her face was still pressed to my neck and her lips fluttered across the hallow of my skin. “I didn’t want to hurt you either.”

A stillness settled into my bones. I glanced toward the moon, and it was like looking at like, a terrible moon to another moon. I gathered myself. I took a deep breath. I flattened.

“I shouldn’t have said all that.” My voice had dried up. “We led different lives.” It wasn’t her fault if she was wanted.

“No.”

“I wasn’t thinking . . .”

Her hand wrapped around my wrist. “I talk to Annie sometimes when you aren’t there.”

“Okay?”

“And Davies. And that front desk guy.”

“Daft Jeff. Yes.”

“They all say the same thing . . .” I blinked a couple times. “That I really should wait for you to give me the tattoo. You have a steady hand and an eye for detail.”

“Alright . . .”

“That someone taught you tattooing the right way. They wanted to show you the right way to do it.”

I snorted despite myself. “It’s not that hard. Mags was batty. Who knows why she showed me how to pick up a needle.”

“Don’t you see? They say they wouldn’t know what to do without you.” She was still there. She wasn’t moving, almost in my lap now. “You were wanted.”

“Park?” My voice cracked like a question.

“And you come with me to restaurants and help me buy bottle openers. You find shells for me and help me fix tires.” Her breath was hot and dragged across my cheek. “You are wanted.”

I blocked out her face, her voice, I turned on the sharp white sun inside and for a moment I imagine never opening my eyes back up again. Maybe I could make it night forever inside myself as well. Wouldn’t you rather have something quiet inside?

She wrapped herself around me, fully, one long arm at a time until it was cocoon. Soft. “Listen, sometimes the first people aren’t the right people. Sometimes your first relationship isn’t the right relationship. Sometimes you’re sure the world is one way, and like, always one way . . . and then it rains and the whole world is different again. You know? People pass.”

“My parents aren’t the weather.”

“But they’ll pass.” I should have pushed her off. But even against that, even those words— I liked being held, indulgent as chocolate and twice as guilty. “People sometimes feel forever, especially those kinds of people.” I was off again. “But it rains. And hey, I always know when it’s going to rain.”

I hiccupped; a smile found its way uninvited onto my face, unsure and just wobbly on its feet as Davies. I glanced down after a deep breath. Park grinned back at me and it reached the highest shelves of me all over again.

“So what happens when it rains again? Do you people like you pass?”

“Nah, not me. I don’t know how.” She winked. I didn’t notice that we’re lying flat now, stars and carpet of black above. “You can’t get rid of me. You haven’t given me that tattoo yet.”

The sound of shushing waves filled the midnight air and the moon looked down like that very first bus arriving to get me all those years ago. I wrapped my arms right back around her. She didn’t seem to mind that I was sticky or strange or sometimes kept tearing up all over again even after we’d stop saying anything worth tearing up over. ------------------

It happened. I felt like I should have been more prepared, brought flowers or poetry or earned it through honored warfare. But it happened. I was wearing ripped jeans, a spotty t-shirt and my breath smelled like coffee. We were looking for Park’s lost earring along an overgrown hill she usually biked along.

I found it, one shiny red dewdrop in all that green. Park pointed at some clouds that looked like my last “abstract” tattoo. We lay back in the grass and let the sky pass overhead. She giggled and touched my wrist, side by side. I let her.

“Summer’s almost over.” I mumbled it first.

“Yeah?”

“You find your next step then, college girl?” I tried to keep my tone light. She turned to be on her side.

“Maybe.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Oh, you know. This and that.”

“That does not sound like a college-girl plan.”

“Maybe I’ve got other plans. Maybe I’ve got other priorities, huh?”

“Ridiculous.” A playfully push her shoulder. “A lousy seaside town really isn’t priority material. There’s only one bookshop you know.”

“Two thank you very much. And that’s not my priority either.” Her voice wavered.

“Are you going to share with the class?”

“Is the class ready?” She whispered and I turned toward her as well now, taking in her perfect round face and question-mark mouth.

“I have been.” I matched her whisper. I tremor from my center outward and hopes she can’t tell.

“Do you know what they say about moths?”

“What?” I gave a breathy laugh. It wasn’t what I was expecting. “I’ve heard of them.”

“They tell your fortune.” She was grinning in that way that put out a stool and reached up. “I used to cry a lot growing up, because some kids said that moths are just evil butterflies. I was sensitive and ran all the way home. I threw myself at my mom’s feet and threw a fit about how moths were just evil butterflies. They were just ugly, wicked versions of a good thing.”

“Evil? Well, I suppose you are rather sinister when you haven’t eaten.”

“Shut up. I’m telling you something.” She put a hand on my shoulder. I inhaled deeply and turned over in place to face her. Only the shallow breeze kept us apart.

“I’m all ears . . . though maybe not as many as you.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“What can I say? The sun is adorable. I take after him.”

A finger ghosted over my cheek, tracing the arc of my cheekbone. “Well, you’re not so bad behind those headlights too. Some of us have good day vision you know. And good taste.”

I wished those words didn’t make my chest do funny things. “Thanks.”

“Do you want to hear what my mom said or not?”

“That you shouldn’t worry about evil butterflies?” I wiggled closer. “Because you’ll be really hot and funny and smart one day. So who cares if you’re evil?”

“Yeah, those were her exact words.”

“So?”

“So,” a firm hand took my chin. “Look at me.” I looked at her. I was glad she couldn’t see the flush in my cheeks in any way. “Moths show good fortunes she said.”

“Right. Lots and lots of good fortune.” I breathed, dumbly, of course. She was close and sweet and there was hair in her face. The fronds of her antennae tickle right past my ear.

“They can help you find good fortune. They’re good omens. You know why?” Park’s lips were barely moving as she spoke, hypnotic and unhurried.

“Why?”

“Because they follow the light.”

It happened all at once. Like every cheesy love poem or bad lyrics I wrote in my journals at night. It was every cracked-spine of a book using words like “rosebud lips” and every overdone song about people who find their way to each other.

I kissed her, leaning in with no life vest on or readied crash-landing position. She kissed me and my chest filled with her, breathless, drowning, soft as dreams and stranger than hope. I cradled her and she dragged me closer and closer until it was nothing but floods and brimming.

I’d been nothing before I think, I’d been an island that waits, a bus that leaves, a shadow that hides. And then I had been hers. ----------------- I was strolling home from work along the main road. The thin strip of sidewalk was streaked with bleached sunlight and the salt air was thick enough to burn throats. It was the long way home, but I was in the habit of going back to this corner.

The bus pulled up with little ceremony. It was an interstate one that crisscrossed over empty bellies of land. I stopped in place to watch, just in case, as I had many times before.

A silver head bobbed down the steps and planted herself on the concrete, unbelieving. She took an enormous noisy sniff of the air. “Not so bad!” She bellowed.

“Are you?” That wasn’t meant to be my first word. She was more stooped now and wearing shiny things on her wrist that clanked. She’d lost another tooth. “Mags.”

“Eh!” She yelled and waved frantically as if I hadn’t shot up another inch since I last saw her and started wearing clothes without holes in them. Her eyes sparkled as she tottered over. “So how’d you do, kid?”

“See for yourself.” I smiled. It was nice when the tides came back in. Mags gave me a thorough appraising. “Like this I guess.” I held up my hand. I wiggled my ring finger at her, heavy with a silver band and glittering opal.

“That’s my girl! Always knew you’d find your feet.” She cackled. “Am I too late to give you away, kid?”

I shook my head. She waddled over to me so I could take her hand. I took her home to show her my art and new tattoos, I showed her our terrible one-eyed kitten, Basket (Wicker’s son), and the little house we styled ourselves. I showed her our shoe closet and our queen bed, our messy kitchen and busted screen door. I showed her the moth tattoo over my heart, and Park showed her the matching lighthouse one over hers.

I tried to thank her, of course, I tried to say I owed her more than she knew for picking up an angry, dirty kid and seeing something in her. I owed her everything. But she just patted my hand and said that it’s not about our debts in life, kid. It’s about the becoming.

-----------

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craptsukii · 4 years

Text

genshin boys and terms of endearment they'd use

a/n: this is my first time writing headcanons and ngl i found them quite difficult to format :( i’m liking this style for now, but things might change later on teehee anyway, lemon cake update next week, i promise!

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let’s get something out of the way first

diluc is not a jerk

sure, he might have tsundere tendencies but he’s definitely not as cold as people make him seem

in my opinion anyway

i like to call him a classy, but also a very private, softie

i can totally see him as someone who’d use terms such as darling, love, doll

a major factor here is the time and place

in public, he tries to seem more indifferent and will most likely refer to you by your name

however, in a more private setting, he has no inhibitions and actually prefers using nicknames!

I feel like diluc would want to really reassure their partner he truly cares about them, but in a direct yet indirect way

and calling you sweet things seems to get the message across.

listen to this while reading!

If only time could pass faster. Who knew waiting could be such an agonising activity? Such a simple but repetitive thing. Waiting for your cake to finish baking, waiting for the morning to arrive and even waiting for your lover to come home turned out to be much more of a challenge. It wasn’t unusual for Diluc to spend hours on end at Angel’s Share, but it was rather odd of him to break his promises.

A sad smile took over your features, remembering last night. Remembering his words, so sweet and benign, promising to dedicate you all of him and his time. His crimson red eyes, full of love and admiration for the person he held so dearly to his heart. His voice, so demure and nothing but a soft whisper, as if raising it would ruin the moment. The moment he shared with you in a little dark corner of Mondstadt, away from curious eyes and sharp ears. The moment he so desperately wanted to hold onto. Yet, the darknight hero was nowhere to be found.

By the time he finally arrived, your eyes were already closing. It was a gloved hand that pulled you out of your somnolent state. Yet again those same red eyes were looking into yours with the same devotion, if not stronger than the night he made his promise.

“Forgive me, love,” he pleaded in a shushed tone, “Kaeya came in and started causing a commotion and I couldn’t just leave.” he continued, his thumb brushing over your cheek delicately.

Too tired to say anything, you placed your hand over his, silently asking him to join you in bed. You had all the time in the world to discuss tomorrow... Hopefully. After discarding his black coat on one of the chairs and taking off his shoes, Diluc plopped in your shared bed, not even bothering to change into something more comfortable. Soon his arms were around your waist, bringing you closer to his chest. His smell reminded you of grapes and it completely enveloped you as you nestled into him.

“If only I could turn back time…” Diluc murmured to himself, kissing the top of your head. “Nothing will come in between us and our time together tomorrow. I promise you, darling.”

Turns out that, in the end, he does keep his promises.

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listen to this while reading!

my very polite baby

like sure, he’s straightforward

but he be treating everyone with respect

you might be wondering why that matters

well that's because i think xiao would see it as a little rude to not refer to someone important to him by their name

names play a major part in xiao’s past

with rex lapis re-naming him after taking him under his wing and such

so, in my opinion, xiao finds calling out your name way more meaningful than nicknames

although if he were to use one it would probably be dear

it’s short and he can still address you as “dear (name)”

it does sound quite formal at times though

Moments like this were rare. Usually, sleep doesn’t concern your lover in the slightest, as it rarely comes to him. Although you couldn’t help but admit how much you loved it when he did come and sleep. Cuddled up next to you was the vigilant yaksha, the well known protector of Liyue. And dare you say, it was truly a divine sight. In the wash of the morning light, his face took the appearance of an old photograph, so nostalgic, so at peace. Slowly, one of your hands brushed past his face, placing the few rebel aquamarine strands that were cascading down his cheek behind his ear. For a moment, you find yourself in perfect silence, Xiao’s soft breaths being the only sounds that could be discerned. Without realising, you started softly rubbing his back, your heart leaping at the content purr that followed shortly after.

It was almost impossible to put into words the joy this brought you. Although it was such a simple, mundane thing, seeing Xiao so at ease was by far your favourite memory with him. The more you studied his features the more your sight fell upon his lips. The sudden urge to kiss him overwhelmed you, wanting nothing more than to cherish and show your lover the affection he deserves.

If only the sudden chirping of birds didn’t scare you, barely a few inches away from his face.

Curse those birds and their awful timing! And so, you backed away, laughing to yourself in self-consciousness, thankful that no one was aware of your little mishap.

Or so you thought.

You felt your face get warmer the moment you saw Xiao looking at you, drowsiness still coating his eyes. Yet again, for another short moment, no sound could be heard.

“____ my dear” he said, his voice deep and hoarse, snaking his arms around you as he brought you closer to him, “if you won’t do it, I will.” it was then the flush across his cheeks became apparent to you. Shame you didn’t have time to savour it, his lips immediately finding yours in a sweet, dream like kiss.

Moments like this were truly worth treasuring.

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in contrast with xiao, childe loves calling you cute nicknames

in fact, he barely uses your name!

sometimes he likes to tease you and pretend he forgot your actual name

of course that’s not true,he could never do such a thing

I can totally see him use pet names such as comrade, girlie, cutie, shawty, sweetness, princess/prince, baby

ok i know shawty is kind of random, but i think he’d use kind of ironically?

I think he’d also use big sister/brother just to tease you, even if you’re younger than him

he heard teucer refer to you as such one time and it honestly melted his heart a little bit

as a side note, seeing his siblings get along you makes him genuinely happy.

listen to this while reading!

Spring was such a beautiful time. Especially in Liyue. Especially on a date with the one and only Childe, eleventh of the Fatui harbingers. For someone with such a fearsome title and reputation, it wowed you to no end just how charming, just plain adorable, Tartaglia can be. Albeit, it was only your second date, it was expected of him to at least try to be nice.

And on time.

As you waited, under that beautiful sky, a hue so gentle between cloud and baby blue, you watched each bird upon wing. It was one of those spring days with a kiss of coldness that somehow heightened the warm rays of the sun. You paused to admire the flowers, to sense their aromas, to be in the moment with their transient beauty.

“Lovely, aren’t they?” asked Childe from behind you, a shy, perhaps slightly embarrassed, smile painted on his lips. “Sorry I’m late, I really overestimated my juniors’ capabilities and I had to step in.” he continued, gingerly taking hold of your hand, kissing the back of it.

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at his gentlemanly antics, although you enjoyed them nonetheless. “Don’t worry about it, you’re here now.” you reassured him, as you took a hold of his hand, already leading him towards nowhere in particular.

Another thing you liked about him. Things were so casual, so easy-going. One might call this date nothing but a hangout, but not every date has to be a luxurious five star dinner or a fancy show. Sometimes just a simple walk along the Liyue port was enough. Enough for you to get to know Childe, enough for you to like him even more.

Suddenly, Tartaglia was in front of you, his hands lightly taking hold of your face.

“Hold on cutie, there’s something on your face,” he answered your silent question, seeing as you looked a little confused. The next thing you knew, his lips descended upon yours. It was a sudden but very much welcomed kiss. A kiss that unfortunately ended just as abruptly, “it was me.”

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favourite peepaw

also prefers using your name rather than nicknames

but he’s not completely against them

he finds them quite nice actually

and he actually enjoys being referred by one!

like imagine going for a stroll with him and all of a sudden you go "darling, look!"

he'd look so content oh my lord

in my opinion anyway

he’d usually call you honey, my beloved or even my one and only!

you could be doing the simplest of things like reading with him under a tree

and he'd go "you're my one and only love"

no, he isn’t aware of how cheesy it sounds.

listen to this while reading!

Who knew the God of contracts could be such a romantic? Usually, Zhongli wasn’t a big fan of fancy, elaborate dates. He’d usually say something along the lines that “spending time with you was enough for him to feel like the richest man in the world”, which he technically was even without your presence. But, quite frankly, it was because he lacked the funds to do so that he didn’t pamper you every moment of the day.

So when you found yourself face to face with an array of different foods, meticulously prepared and arranged on a soft picnic blanket, you couldn’t help but wonder —

“Why the sudden change?” you asked, sitting down on the plush cover, to which Zhongli only chuckled.

“Am I not allowed to change my mind?” he replied in a teasing tone, flopping next to you.

“Oh, you are more than welcome to do so,” you winked, pouring some tea for both of you. It smelled like chamomile, “I was just trying to say it’s a nice change.” you continued, taking a few sips of your tea.

Zhongli only hummed, content with your response. Sometimes, sitting in silence, all while eating delicious brunch foods and drinking sweet tea, was much more enjoyable than small talk.

And so, you spend the rest of the day with your lover, basking in the sunshine and each other’s company. In his embrace, there was something so right, something that felt right, smelt right. You let your body sag, your muscle become loose. In that embrace you felt your worries loose their keen sting and your optimism raise its head from the dirt.

“You’re so beautiful, my beloved,” he whispered, cupping your face and kissing you gently.

♡༚࿐ 🇰‌🇦‌🇪‌🇾‌🇦‌

avid user of nicknames

partially because he finds them cute

and partially because he loves teasing you

he’d use them in public and try to get a reaction out of you

like let’s say all of a sudden kaeya is back hugging you, pampering your neck with kisses

saying something like “what’s wrong, baby?”

he’d also use hot stuff, sweet cheeks, gorgeous, handsome, cutie pie, treasure

sometimes they’re really sweet, other times they’re really silly

side note, i feel like this one got a little out of hand sorry yall i lowkey can’t take kaeya seriously

listen to this while reading!

There was something so heavenly about a kiss in the rain, a tender moment that just wouldn’t wait. It was that burst of love that is expressed, not caring if the water soaked through to chill the skin. You felt yourself gasping for air as Kaeya’s lips left yours, doe like eyes searching for his. Behind that brilliant shade of blue sparkled a glacial attraction. So complex and mysterious, it was magnetic. It made you want him even more.

Upon seeing your dazed state Kaeya smiled, clearly enjoying the effect he had on you. His hands found yours. “Let’s get you of here before you catch a cold.” he said, leading you down the streets of Mondstadt. It was the middle of August, and you got caught in nothing more than a summer rain. You weren’t even cold, but alas you let it slide, enjoying seeing Kaeya worry about you, even if it wasn’t as serious as he made it seem.

There is something about a rain-washed pathway that invites playful feet, that says each new step will be rewarded with a splash. And soon, you found yourself splashing around, making the most out of this accidental rain shower.

The moment you finally reached your home, Kaeya wasted no time, his arms already wrapped around you in a tight embrace. Yet again, a gasp escaped your mouth, Kaeya’s cold lips leaving goosebumps behind each carefully placed kiss on your neck.

“You know what’s the best way to get warmed up, treasure?” he asked, his hands ghosting over your hips.

You shook your head softly, awaiting his answer.

“A good old dance party!” he exclaimed, spinning you around as he started humming a cheerful. “Nothing gets the blood going like a little movement!” it was obvious he found great pleasure in seeing your more than confused, if not disappointed, expression. Still, he paid you no mind and continued dancing with you all while singing a cheery melody.

It was quite save to assume there was never a boring moment with this man.

♡༚࿐ 🇦‌🇱‌🇧‌🇪‌🇩‌🇴‌

my favourite elevator boy

doesn’t love nicknames but doesn’t hate them either

i see him as an action speak louder than words guy

and although he’s aware that, as his partner, you know that

he still feels sorry for not being as vocal as other people when it comes to talking about his emotions??

so cute terms like these are a simple way he can show his appreciation for you

for some reason, i think he would really like using diminutives??

he’d call you things like little star

or baby or lovebug

i think it really matches his vibe ngl

listen to this while reading!

The breeze blew warm announcing the coming of summer's hottest days. The aroma of the tall grasses were an intoxicating perfume and the starry night above was a painting more sublime than any man could create. The clarity above became reflected in your mind.

Being with Albedo meant putting up with the unholy amount of hours he’d spend on whatever research he’d be conducting at the time. And luckily for you, his next big discovery involved the stars. On the black sky above you, there were a multitude of stars and there were lighter patches, clusters of faint and bold light, the constellations altered according to the time of year. These were the same stars that greeted the ancients, the same ones that would be there in millions of years.

As you enjoyed your little midnight snack, your gaze fell upon the chief alchemist. His eyes were fixated on the landscape above him, utterly fascinated by the world’s mystic beauty. Seeing him so consumed by his studies made your heart feel warm. It was adorable to see him like this.

Your sudden yawn made both you look at each other. Albedo’s gaze was filled with compassion, and perhaps a little remorse for making you come with him so late in the night just to stare blankly at the sky.

But you knew this wasn’t such a trivial thing.

You pet the spot next to you, silently asking him to sit down with you, to which he immediately obliged. As his head found its place on your shoulder a little sad smile made its appearance on his face.

“Sorry for making you come here with me, baby.” he said, his hand drawing patterns along your thigh. “I know this isn’t your idea of quality time.”

“Any time spent with you is quality time, silly.” you giggled, kissing the top of his head. “And besides, who doesn’t enjoy a little bit of stargazing?”

♡༚࿐ 🇻‌🇪‌🇳‌🇹‌🇮‌

ok now for venti

i feel like with him the tone he uses is very important??

i mean this also applies to the rest of the guys

but for venti even more so

he could simply refer to you by your name and it would still feel all special and bubbly

nonetheless, he loves using pet names!

i mean as a bard, he can come up with poems and such on a whim ( flashback to the signora moment :) )

so his nicknames for you always have a certain meaning or funny story behind them

oh, you love pumpkins or had an unfortunate accident involving one? now he calls you pumpkin all the time

he’d also call you things like sunshine because to him you bring so much joy and you warm his heart just like the sun.

with that being said, good luck to those pulling for him! <3

listen to this while reading!

“There you go! You’re really good at this!” Venti complimented you, observing in great detail the way your fingers touched the strings of his lyre.

Judging by the curious stares and even odd looks you’d get from time to time, that wasn’t really the case. What was supposed to be a simple walk around the city turned out to be a full concert. Although Venti couldn’t find it in his heart to tell you, who asked him so eagerly just a few moments ago if he could teach how to play a song, just how… Poor was your attempt.

A relieved sigh could be heard the moment your fingers left the strings, although Venti’s reassuring smile never left his face. “Don’t let a few strangers discourage you! Even the greatest geniuses had to start somewhere!”

“Are you saying I’m a genius?” you asked teasingly with a raised eyebrow, laughing at his flustered face.

“Let’s not go that far…” he murmured, winking cheekily.

“And here I was, thinking I could wow you with my insane musical skills…” you whined sarcastically, handing him his lyre as you continued your stroll. It was then Venti stopped in his tracks. Upon his face, shock was written all over, his expression soon turning sympathetic. For a moment, he left you alone, diving into the crowd of people, only to return to you with a single cecilia flower. Its fragrance was sweet and fresh and its color a perfect white. Shortly after, he gently placed it behind your ear, smiling to himself while looking at you.

“You don’t need fancy tricks to win over what you already have,” Venti said, kissing your cheek lightly. A cheerful tune could be heard across the street, Venti’s soft melody attracting a lot of attention, “I’m all yours, sunshine.” he said loud enough for more than a few people to hear.

He has such a way with words, doesn’t he?

#genshin impact #genshin imagines #genshin x reader #soft hours #fluff #genshin xiao #genshin Childe #genshin diluc #genshin headcanons #genshin zhongli #genshin kaeya #genshin albedo #genshin venti #genshin one shots #i’m sorry kaeya stans #i love him but i deadass cant take him seriously 😭😭#kaeya supremacy nonetheless

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ethan-torchio-angelo · 3 years

Text

Yesterday

Summary: A moment alone on a balcony and being grateful that today is a new day

Warnings: A few swears, a kiss, not much tbh

Word Count: 1500

A/N: So, I took a break. But I'm back. Life has been hell and the only time I can find myself happy is when I'm writing. As always, likes, reblogs and feedback is always appreciated!

“I love you”

She knows that if she had heard those words yesterday, she would have been thrilled, and would have deemed it the best day ever. She would have been happy and smiling because he finally, finally said them. But today is not yesterday and things have changed.

“I wish you were saying those words because you mean them, and not because you're scared of me leaving.”

She grabs her bag from the chair beside her and makes her way to the door, refusing to turn back and look at him as he yells out her name. She makes it half way down the street before the tears start falling. She’s not necessarily sad at the circumstance, more angry that she let this go on for as long as it did. She’s caught him cheating more times than she can count, been stood up for dates and before today, never heard those three words leave his mouth in the almost year they’ve been together.

But none of that matters now, she’s left him for good and she won’t be going back.

The first thing she does when she gets home is grab everything that belonged to or reminded her of him and throws it into a box. Then, she grabs a bottle of wine and plops herself down on the couch to drink away her sorrows. She pulls out her phone and dials the only number worth remembering. It rings once, then twice, and she’s afraid he won’t answer, but halfway through the third ring the call connects.

She doesn’t leave him anytime to greet her, jumping straight to the point, “I finally fucking did it!”

He chuckles into the phone, “Finally had sex, did you?” He jokes.

“I’ll have you know that I am far past that milestone, Dami. I finally dumped my duche of a boyfriend!”

She hears him let out a string of yells, very enthusiastically telling her how happy he is to finally hear that. He, and even the rest of the band, have been telling her to do it for months now. Not that they didn’t like the guy in the beginning, but after he stood her up on her birthday and she came home to him in bed with someone else, they’d had enough.

“Well, this deserves a celebration. Dinner tonight, Vic will bring wine, Ethan and I can cook, Thomas can pick up a cake!”

She laughs at his enthusiasm, but agrees nonetheless.

After hanging up the phone she heads into her room to get ready. It’s just dinner with her friends, but she’s in the mood to look good tonight, so she grabs out one of her favourite dresses and a pair of flats. She’s ready and out the door in under an hour, stopping to pick up some fresh flowers before making her way to Damiano’s apartment.

It’s a nice evening, not too hot and not too cold, the sun at that perfect spot in the sky. She feels good, not at all like how she thought she’d feel. She loved him, but she’s not sure she was in love with him, and she’s glad that she feels no sorrow for closing that chapter in her life.

She arrives at his apartment, shooting him a text to buzz her in and when she enters she’s immediately wrapped in Victoria's arms. “Ah, amore! So good to see you! Come in, let’s drink!”

She giggles at the greeting, always loving how enthusiastic Victoria is when they see each other. She graciously accepts a glass from Thomas, downing the sweet wine in almost one sip. He chuckles at her actions and refills her glass before she has a chance to put it down. She hears the sound of dishes in the kitchen and makes her way over to the two boys cooking. “Buonasera. It smells wonderful in here.”

She hops up on one of the counters, placing her glass beside her, and is met with a round of protests, “Counters are for glasses, not asses miss!” Ethan yells at her.

She giggles but stays put, pointing to her glass beside her, “Ah, but my glass is on the counter.”

He shoots her a glare, but she can see the laugh he’s trying to hide as he turns to continue cooking. Damiano comes to stand in between her legs, wrapping his arms around her in a comforting hug. “How are you mi amore? You okay?”

His voice has a hint of worry laced in it, but she nods her head. “It was a long time coming. I’d mentally done it, just hadn’t physically done it yet. I’ve felt single for months now, and he’s sure been acting like it for longer.”

Damiano moves so he’s standing beside her, keeping an arm wrapped around her shoulder, “Well, good riddance!”

She lets out a snort and the two boys begin to laugh, drawing the attention of the other two who walk into the kitchen a moment later.

The night flies by in a flurry of wine and laughter. They enjoy a lovely meal of pasta and chicken, the best salad she’s ever had and an array of cheeses and fruits. They catch each other up on all of the things that’s been going on in their personal lives, and a toast to new beginnings. Thomas brings out a lovely cake with the words “fuck romance” inscribed on top and they forgo dishing it out, everyone grabbing a fork and digging in.

It quickly turns into a drunken mess, Victoria tripping over Ethans legs and dropping cake into his hair. He in turn picks up some frosting and wipes it on her face. Thomas laughs and is met with a glob thrown at him. It’s utter chaos. She turns to get away before she can be brought into the food fight, but Damiano is quick to grab her around the waist and pull her back to the group, shoving a handful of the sweet dessert in her face.

Soon, they are all covered in frosting, giggling like mad men. The dining room is a mess and somehow there is pasta sticking to the walls, and when it’s pointed out they all burst into another fit of laughter. Ethan is quick to take on the roll of housekeeper, moving to the kitchen to collect the cleaning supplies. Victoria and Thomas follow him, clearing dishes and whipping down the walls. Damiano lets them be, knowing they’ll return his apartment to its previous state.

She watches for a moment, before disappearing down the hall to steal a quick shower, not wanting to walk home with frosting crusted in her hair. When she immerges, everything is back to the way it was when she arrived, but the rest of the band is missing. Damiano is lounging out on the balcony, a cigarette between his lips and a coffee beside him.

“Hey,” she says quietly.

“Hey. Wondered where you snuck off to.”

She smiles shyly, taking a seat beside him. “Wanted to rinse the cake out of my hair before I walked home.”

He nods at her, returning to taking small drags from his cigarette. He offers it to her and she graciously accepts it, letting the smoke envelope her lungs in a warm hug. She sighs into the night, knowing she should go home but not wanting to leave. He turns to look at her and it’s like he’s seeing her in a new light.

He’s always felt something towards the young girl, ever since they met back in school, but now it feels different. There’s a feeling brewing in his chest, something he can’t quite place. She turns to look at him then, catching him in his staring act. “What’s going on in that head of yours, Dami?”

“Too many things.”

She nods, knowing exactly what he means. Her head is filled with thoughts, too. There’s a cool breeze that floats around them, raising goosebumps on her arms. Damiano notices and moves to wrap his arms around her, rubbing his hands along her bare arms. They stand like that for a moment, his head buried in her neck, arms wrapped around her.

She’s sure he can hear the beating of her heart, a rapid thumping in her chest. She hasn’t been this close to him in a while, not with the freedom she has now. Ever so slowly, she turns around in his arms until she’s face-to-face with him. Their eyes lock and he leans his forehead down to be touching hers.It would only take a breath for her to be kissing him. Before the thought has even fully crossed her mind, he’s leaning in.

A soft brush of lips, a shot of electricity shooting through her at the contact. He pulls away first, one hand tangled in her hair, the other resting on her hip.

“I love you,” He whispers, and she’s never been more thankful that today isn’t yesterday.

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thatrandomwriter · 3 years

Text

Rooftop Romance

merle x reader

warnings: swearing, gore, sexual language

“You sure he’s worth it?” T-Dog asked, skepticism written across his face.

“Him and Daryl are our best hunters. They may both share about three brain cells, and Merle is about the biggest asshole I’ve ever met-“

“Hey, fuck you,” Merle cut in. I ignored him.

“But the fact is we need them to survive. We’ll make it out of the city, but you need to go before the others leave without you,”

T-Dog looked conflicted, but after a few seconds he dashed out of the door, racing down the stairs. I pulled the door shut, locking it behind him. There was a strong chance that I had just ensured my own death as well as Merle’s. The sound of the dead beating on the door almost as soon as T-Dog had left seemed to give Merle the same idea.

“Well fucking come on then princess, I ain’t getting any younger over here.” He had that god awful smirk plastered across his face. “You know, there’s a lot I can do with these hands. Maybe I can show ya once I’m free,” he made a crude gesture with his cuffed hand.

“Maybe if you didn’t say shit like that all the time, someone might actually wanna fuck you. You’re disgusting, you know that?”

Instead of waiting for his no-doubt even worse reply, I walked over to see what had been left in Dale’s toolbox. It was mostly screwdrivers and spanners, nothing of any use to me, but I noted a hammer and most importantly a hacksaw. Hopefully it would be strong enough to get through the metal of Merle’s handcuff.

“Call me disgusting all ya like, everyone knows you want a piece of this,”

My cheeks grew hot and I fumbled the saw, almost dropping it as I walked over to him. It was a humiliating feeling to know that he was right. To know that despite what a piece of shit he was, over the few weeks I’d known him, I had developed some form of feelings for him. Merle had found me while out checking the camp’s perimeter with Shane. Having just escaped the city, I was exhausted and terrified, and just about ready to collapse on the forest floor and give up. Of course, Merle’s reasoning for taking me back likely had more to do with wanting to fuck me than anything else, but I wasn’t entirely convinced that Shane would have taken me back if Merle hadn’t been there to bear witness. We weren’t exactly close, but we shared a fondness for drinking and he taught me a few things about using a crossbow. I didn’t fool myself into thinking he wanted anything more than a one time fling with me; he flirted with just about anything with tits. But some small, stupid part of me still hoped for more.

I sat next to him, pulling his hand toward me to get a better look at the handcuffs. When I looked up, he was staring into my face with another stupid grin. I sent him a glare back.

“Come on now, don’t be like that. Last I checked we’re all alone up here, no-one needs to know, part from maybe a few walkers,”

“Would you quit it? I’m trying to save your life.”

“Jus’ trying to lighten the mood. You should really try lightening up sometime, wouldn’t kill ya,”

I rolled my eyes, corner of my mouth twitching upwards slightly.

“Looks like cutting through the cuffs is gonna be a no go, but this pipe you’ve been cuffed too looks pretty old. It’s worth a try at least,” I lined up Dale’s saw, and began working at the metal.

“So I’m gonna be stuck with a friendship bracelet from Officer Friendly?”

The thought made me laugh a little.

“It’s not like you don’t deserve it; threatening everyone with a gun wasn’t exactly your best moment.” I teased. In his defence, he had most definitely been high as a kite when he’d started pointing the gun. Not that that really made it any better.

“I wasn’t gunna shoot em. Definitely wasn’t gunna shoot you, ya far too beautiful,” Merle said.

“And so’s Andrea, right? And Lori, and Jackie, and every other woman who isn’t trying to eat us,”

“I dunno, some of those walkers ain’t too bad,”

I hit him on the shoulder.

“Can’t I make a joke? Or are ya gunna get jealous, hmm?”

I stopped talking to him after that, focusing instead on trying to make any headway with the pipe he was handcuffed to. After an hour or so, I had only made a tiny dent in the metal. Merle was getting increasingly annoying, and the sun was starting to slowly set in the sky. If we wanted to leave today I’d have to hurry; travelling the city in the dark was a death sentence. At least the walkers at the rooftop door seemed to have given up, or gotten distracted by some other unfortunate souls. They had stopped pounding on the door some time ago.

The saw blade bent slightly, but I persisted, determined to succeed, speeding up. Under the strain of my sawing, the blade bent sideways, and suddenly snapped under the pressure, coming clattering to the floor.

“The fuck did you do?” Merle demanded.

“The blade wasn’t strong enough. It couldn’t get through the pipe. I’m sorry.” I felt suddenly numb. I couldn’t look at him. I’d failed. I’d failed him. He was stuck here, to starve or to be eaten by walkers.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’m gonna fucking die up here, god fucking damnit. Look at me, the fuck did you do?” He grabbed my shoulder with his free hand, gripping me hard, shaking me, forcing me to meet his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” It was one of the first serious, genuine things I’d said to Merle, and it was a death sentence. Tears pricked my eyes. I didn’t have the energy to hide them.

“No. Fuck that, we’re ain’t done yet. You got a knife, right?” He was still staring into my face, but desperate anger had shifted to urgency.

“Yes, but it won’t cut through metal,” I said.

His grim expression told me that he had already figured that out.

“You can’t be serious. You want me to- I can’t,” There had to be another way.

“You got no choice. It’s my hand or my life.”

It took me a few seconds to process this. The only way out would be to cut off his hand. And I would have to be the one to do it.

“Fine. But I’ll do it first thing in the morning. We don’t have time to get out of the city before it gets dark, and I don’t want you bleeding out overnight.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you cared about me,” His shit eating grin was back. Only Merle could look this smug after discovering his hand was about to be cut off.

“Good job you know better then,” I smiled and sat next to him, looking out over the darkening city. At least we were stuck somewhere with an impressive view. The setting sun sent orange streaking through the sky, bathing buildings in a warm glow. I glanced to my side. Merle appeared to also be taking in the sunset in a rare moment of silence.

“I’d do the same for you ya know,” Merle said, breaking the silence after a few minutes.

“No you wouldn’t.” I replied. It wasn’t something that upset me, it was just a fact - if the roles were reversed, I had doubts that Merle would have stayed on this rooftop even for Daryl.

“Course I would. Yer one of the only people I can stand in that group, not to mention ya got a mighty fine ass,” He grinned over at me. I couldn’t help but smile back.

“You mean it?”

“Yeah, course I do. I could stare at it all day,”

I hit his shoulder with mine.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I ain’t good with the mushy stuff, don’t push it,” He was still smiling, eyes looking into mine for once instead of straying to glance down my shirt.

“Sounds like you care about me, Merle. More than you usually let on at least,” I was teasing him but this moment meant a lot; in short, Merle was shit at showing anyone affection. For him, this was like a declaration of love.

“Yer not gonna make me say it again so drop it,” he huffed.

“I’m just kidding around. And I didn’t just stay here because you’re a good hunter,” I confessed, staring pointedly into the distance to avoid his eyes.

“Course ya didn’t, ain’t no way you’d let me die without getting a piece of this,” It seemed to be his way of lightening the mood, diverting the seriousness of the conversation.

“We should get some sleep, busy day tomorrow.”

When the hot sun awoke me the next morning, I found myself nestled into Merle’s side, head on his shoulder, his free arm wrapped around me. I took a moment to enjoy the feeling of his broad body against mine, before pulling away to wake him up. The sooner we were gone, the better.

“Mornin’ “ he grinned lazily.

“You ready?” I asked, and his expression dropped to one of determined focus.

“As I’ll ever be,”

I retrieved my knife and a lighter from one of the pockets of my rucksack. It would have to do as a means of sanitising the blade as I had very little in the way of medical supplies. Shrugging off the button down I wore over a tank top, I folded it ready to use as a bandage for Merle. I could have sworn his eyes slipped down to my cleavage, far more noticeable now the shirt was off, but I wasn’t in the mood to bring it up.

“Can I have your belt?” I asked.

“Don’t need to ask me twice,” He said, the implied innuendo obvious. He unbuckled it with his free hand and tugged it loose.

I strapped it around his forearm, tight as I could make it, a makeshift tourniquet that would hopefully do something to stop the bleeding. It had to be enough.

Merle reached inside his pocket, and withdrew a small bag of white powder.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” I asked, very aware of the dangers we’d face in the city even if he survived losing his hand. Merle being off his face wouldn’t do us any favours.

“Need a little somethin’ to take the edge off,” He tried to form his usual smug grin, but his mouth wavered slightly. I nodded. Who was I to make that decision for him?

I gave him a minute or so, and when he nodded at me, I took my knife to his wrist and began to cut. There was far more blood than I had thought. And despite Merle’s best efforts to remain stoic, and the effects of the drugs, he was in an unbelievable amount of pain. I had to fight the urge to just give up and cry in a corner, but I did it for him. Even when he begged me to stop, to just make the pain stop. His yelling had begun to attract walkers, a few were banging on the rooftop door and the longer this took the more there would be. He gripped my arm as I cut, hard enough to bruise.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I muttered over and over again as I finished, his hand dropping to the floor with a sickening thunk.

Merle was breathing heavily, gasping through the pain. I pressed my shirt against the wound, tying it tightly and leaving the belt in place. There was so much blood. On my hands, my pants, the rooftop.

“Stay there. I’m going to clear the stairwell, I’ll be right back.”

He nodded.

I unlocked the door and wedged my foot under the door to prevent it opening all the way, a walker slamming forward and right onto my knife. It slumped to the floor. Another was quick to take its place. I worked my way through several before they finally stopped coming. Hopefully only a few had been close enough to hear Merle.

I hurried back toward him. The bleeding seemed to be slowing slightly, though it still showed no signs of stopping. He was losing too much blood. But I wasn’t willing to face that reality.

“You think you can stand?”

“Course I can,” he replied through gritted teeth.

I grabbed his good arm and pulled him forward, helping him stand, putting the arm around my shoulders so I could take some of his body weight. He was heavy, but any help I could give him I would.

We walked to the door and I lead him down the stairwell; it wasn’t wide enough for the two of us side by side, but he leaned on my back and I did my best to steady him on the way down. He stumbled a couple of times, no doubt the blood-loss making him dizzy, but we moved as slowly as I dared, me supporting him when he needed it. At the bottom, another walker lunged towards us. It took me a moment to grab my knife and stick it between its eyes, and I kept the blade in my hand after that. One free hand would have to do to help Merle. It was strange, having to protect him like this. Normally I was certain he’d object to me coddling him like this, but he had no choice but to rely on me for once. We made it to a fire exit around the back of the building in a room with several gas stoves. Merle wasn’t looking his best, blood dripping through the makeshift bandage on his arm. He seemed to have the idea at the same time as me.

“Do it,” He nodded grimly and I grimaced, but didn’t hesitate to light the nearest stove, placing a metal tray on top on the flames to heat through enough to cauterise the stump of his wrist.

“We’re gonna make it back, you know. “

“I know,” He said, but it was easy to see the uncertainty in his eyes.

The metal tray seemed hot enough, and I could tell he was gathering the will to do it, slowly, reluctantly unwrapping the open wound. I wasn’t entirely sure Merle could bring himself to. Gently, I took his arm in my hands, unwrapping it myself. Instead of watching the shirt unravel, he stared down into my face. Despite the circumstances, he still made my cheeks hot with the intensity of his gaze which I somehow managed to meet. I reached up, hooking an arm around his neck and a smile tilted the corners of his mouth. He waited for me to move closer first, and when I leaned my face towards his, he wasted no time in bridging the gap between us with a searing kiss. He was perfectly distracted. It was a shame to waste this moment but I did what had to be done, and drove his wrist down onto the hot metal on the stove.

“Son of a fucking bitch!” He exclaimed, yanking his arm away from the stove, and I winced.

“Shit, I’m sorry, but the bleeding’s stopped, right?”

He glared at me through the pain. “You serious?”

“I said I’m sorry, and I did just stop you from bleeding to death,” I smiled tentatively, and he shook his head, still cursing.

“So ya kiss like that fer a distraction? I’d love ta know what the real thing feels like,”

Kissing him had been stupid. But I was in the mood to be stupid, and I couldn’t resist kissing him again. He somehow mustered up that stupid, endearing grin as I pulled him towards me, lips meeting as his good arm found my waist. I could lose myself in the feeling of kissing Merle, all teeth and tongues colliding with no need to be gentle. His hand scooped me in closer until I was pressed up against him, before drifting to my ass with a squeeze. I hummed in pleasure, forgetting to breathe as he kissed me harder. When we finally broke apart all I wanted was to lean back in and kiss him again and again, to stay like this, pressed as close against him as I could be, not thinking about anything else.

“Knew ya wanted a piece of this,” Merle smirked. God he was insufferable. But I was willing to suffer, so long as he kept kissing me like that.

#the walking dead #twd #merle dixon #merle dixon x reader #daryl dixon #twd fanfiction #t dog #oneshot #imagine #rick grimes #reader insert

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dadsbongos · 3 years

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Rot

A/N: this is a crosspost from another website i used to be on just to have something posted till i can get my shit together, sorry for being so inactive lately :)

Movie/Game/Show: My Hero Academia Dynamic: Tomura Shigaraki/Reader (Platonic) Warnings: emotional manipulation, spoilers for tomura's backstory?, fem pronouns Summary: He doesn't want another sister. He doesn't want another sister. He swears. ~~~

"Go on, you can do it. Destroy her. Use your power and destroy her, Shigaraki, Tomura."

"You don't have to do that, you know," Tomura grumbled, watching as his foster sister carefully cleaned a cut on his knee, "It's just a scrape."

(Y/n) didn't bother listening to her younger brother, "Scrape or not, it could get infected. Already sucks I have to deal with you reeking and not showering, I'm not gonna let you get an infection too."

"I don't need you looking after me," the young boy's lips curled into a snarl; he pushed her away because he didn't need her. He didn't want to need another older sister. He didn't deserve another older sister.

"Sure you don't," she nodded, but continued with her delicate care on the boy's bony leg; she only pushed back harder.

"She's a weakness, Tomura. You can't have her around. She'll only drag you down."

"Hey."

Tomura jumped, tearing off his headphones and whipping around in his chair. Wide, red eyes staring at his older sister in his bedroom doorway, a furrow in her brows and clear disappointment on her face. He was supposed to be asleep five hours ago.

"I know the old man doesn't care when you go to bed, but I do," (Y/n) carefully took the headphones off her little brother and set them on his desk, "You need sleep or else you'll go crazy."

The boy huffed, turning off his computer and storming to his bed, "What if I'm already crazy?"

"Alright, buddy," the teenager assisted her eight-year-old brother into bed, "if I come back up here and you're not asleep I'll have to hurt ya, got it?"

Tomura rolled his eyes, grabbing at his blankets and pulling them over his tiny body, "Why don't you have to go sleep?"

"Are you kidding?" she squinted playfully at the little boy, "It's midnight, what kind of baby goes to bed at midnight?"

"You ass," he turned on his side, still staring up at the girl, "it's not fair... you're only six years older than me..."

"Six years is quite the difference," (Y/n) ruffled her brother's ratty tangles of hair before handing him a stuffed bunny, "Fixed him up for you."

A few seconds of hesitation before Tomura took the plush animal with a four-fingered grip, "I decayed him for a reason, you know."

"Master doesn't have to know," the older of the pair whispered, a tiny grin on her face, "I may or may not have used my Quirk without permission."

"You could get in trouble for that," the young boy murmured, though obviously distressed.

Her Quirk was on strict lockdown; only to be used when All for One said it would be used. If she disobeyed, she was isolated from her brother - from everyone - for days, maybe weeks. She wasn't even let out for food, it would be brought to her by Kurogiri's warp. No entertainment, no people, no light aside from the one window.

"Eh," she waved it off as though it wasn't torturing to live through, "it's worth it, I know how much you loved him."

A tiny, tired smile stretched over the thin, cracked lips of the boy, "Thank you..."

"Of course, little man."

"Don't be fooled. She's only trying to stop you, all she wants is to stop your goal."

"He... he did what?"

"One of us is clearly more affected by this than the other."

"Stop deflecting," Tomura seethed, restraining himself from crumbling the glass in his hand, "Why would you let him do that?"

(Y/n) shrugged, wiping down the bar counter with a cloth, "My Quirk is just gonna go back to you anyway. I never got to use it, so what's the point?"

"Do you understand the weight of what you've done?"

"Of course, I do," the woman shrugged, "I'm Quirkless but that doesn't mean I'm any less your sister. I gotta look out for you, if that means handing over Regeneration then fine."

"But..." he shook his head, as if his fumbling would provide room for an answer, "why? Why would you do that for me?"

"You're my little brother, I'd do anything to keep you safe."

"Go on, you can do it. Destroy her. Use your power and destroy her, Shigaraki, Tomura."

Tomura stood over his sleeping sister, the words from his master repeating in his head. He was to kill his sister. He was to kill his weakness; the girl that practically raised him was a poison and his Quirk was the antidote.

She was sleeping on the couch, as Himiko had recently taken up her room for some practice with her Quirk. A quilt hung over her body, one familiar from childhood. The siblings had shared it when they were little, it was slung over their shoulders on movie nights. On nights where Tomura would wake up in a cold sweat remembering the family he killed. By morning it didn't matter anymore, this hand-sewn blanket was there. (Y/n) was always there.

His fingers flexed and he took a step closer.

(Y/n) turned onto her other side, face now visible to her little brother. He stopped.

Her face hadn't changed all that much from when they first met. It was less chubby and more mature, obviously, but it could still be held to that eleven-year-old and he'd know. He'd know it was his older sister.

Tomura stared down at the face from his darkest times and reached out.

His hand hovered over her head for a few moments.

A weakness, for sure. If someone held her captive, he'd do anything to get her back to safety. But a weakness he would rather be dead than let die by his hand.

The outstretched hand quickly retracted. Tomura watched the woman peacefully sleep for a second more before turning around and walking up the stairs to his room. He wouldn't do it. He'd let the poison consume him before using the antidote to wipe it out.

He'd be in his grave before he let harm come to his sister.

#bnha x reader #bnha x reader platonic #tomura x reader platonic #tomura x reader #tomura shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x y/n

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mysterytickingnoise · 3 years

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Someday

Pairing: Merlin x Reader

Genre: Bittersweet Angst

Word Count: 2,058

Summary: After getting caught and accused of doing witchcraft, and failing to prove your innocence to Uther, you have to take desperate measures to flea the kingdom. Unfortunately your escape plan works a little too well, and without your knowledge the people close to you end up mourning you.

Request from @joyismycenter : "If you’re asking, I’d love some bbc Merlin x reader where he though the reader was dead but she/they turn out not to be. Love me that happy angst"

Authors Note: Thank you so much for sending in the first request for this blog! Fair warning I'm doing all my writing on my phone at the moment and I couldn't really get the ending to flow how I wanted it to so it's not perfect, but I really hope everyone likes it!

[Image Description: A gif of Merlin (from the BBC Show Merlin played by Colin Morgan) looking over his shoulder. End description]

It was such a silly mistake.

You trusted someone too soon, tried to help them.

Next thing you knew you were being accused of witchcraft. It was true but considering your accuser had no real evidence you thought perhaps you could argue your way out of it. You called them crazy, demanded proof, spouted off any alternative explanation for what had happened to no avail. Uther didn't give a damn about proof, the moment the word magic was held against you it was up to you to prove you hadn't used it.

Even if you hadn't, how do you prove a thing like that?

Pleading your case was useless, and the one person who could help you had left with Arthur and the knights before any of this had begun. Even if they somehow showed up before the execution, you wouldn't want Merlin's help.

He couldn't be caught helping you, not with his destiny. You weren't worth the risk, though he certainly would've argued otherwise if he'd had the chance.

No, you only had one choice left in your small cell. You would have to find an opportunity to use something that you saved for a situation such as this. When an old friend came to visit, to say goodbye, that was your opportunity.

You asked them to come back with the blue vial tucked in the back of your armoire. "It's a poison," You had told them. "I don't want to give Uther the satisfaction."

Tearfully, they obliged. In the middle of the night you chugged it down, and not one hour later your 'body' was wrapped in a sheet and wheeled out of the dungeons 'To be buried in the morning.' But the enchantment on the potion wore off before then, and you woke up alone and free.

You crept out of Camelot at the break of dawn with nothing but the clothes on your back, making it to the treeline before your will broke down and you turned back to look at the old castle peeking out over the tall walls.

Your home was behind those walls, your friends lived there, and the man you had surely fallen for. Tears stung your eyes as you thought about him, the fact you never got to say goodbye, how long it would be until you would see him again.

You could risk waiting for him to return, but if someone outside of Arthur's party were to catch you...you would be forced to do something you'd regret. You'd have to cross the line of no return and goodbye at that point would surely be permanent.

'Someday,' You thought, 'Until then, he'll understand, he might even come find me.'

Little did you know the guard who discovered the empty cloth had no intention of telling the king that the body of a prisoner had gone missing on his watch. No, he had a family to tend to, he wasn't losing his position because of some witch. It didn't even cross his mind that you might not be dead.

There was an empty grave in the pauper's field the next morning, and any questions on your whereabouts were contained in the mind of one underpaid guardsman for two years.

Meanwhile, Merlin had been devastated when he heard the news, even confused. Gaius told him the whole story, what he knew of it anyway, but he could never wrap his mind around it. It didn't make sense. He had spoken to you only a few days before, you smiled and hugged him and told him to come home safe. And just like that you were gone? The irrational fear of someone you tried to help, and the blind tyranny of Uther, that's all it took and now nobody would ever see that smile again. No, it didn't make any sense at all.

He eventually did what he had to do, put on a brave face and got back to work. And yes, a while after that night things got somewhat close to normal again. But there were always moments where he'd think to himself that he'd have to tell you about his day or a joke he heard, and then he'd remember. In other moments, he'd see Uther laughing at dinner or be forced to hear one of his speeches and his jaw would clench just a little tighter than it had before. And when he found himself awake in the middle of the night, when the world was dead silent and the only light in his room came from the moon, it was because he had found himself caught up in the memories you had together.

You had those nights too.

You had been dead on your feet by the time you stumbled into the small, reclusive village you'd learn to call your home. You'd been told that nobody really ever passed through on purpose, and they liked it that way. You told them that you could use a life like that, and then asked if they had need a physician. They did.

Sure, a reclusive person probably would've loved the little life you built for yourself. You had a small but cozy spot to live on the edge of the village, not long after you showed up you began to tend to minor wounds and ailments, making a few friends along the way. Occasionally two farmers would ride into the city to barter off crops for supplies and other things, eventually they began to bring you back a book or a small trinket each time to thank you for your work. It was nice.

But still loneliness tugged at your heart, more than you imagined it would when you took that last look at your home. On the most random days, doing the most random things, you'd find yourself thinking about everyone again and crying for up to an hour before you could pull yourself together again. Those moments became more rare over time, but they never hurt any less. You were never quite back to normal.

Finally, you were wrapping a farmers broken finger, speaking about the state of the kingdom and how you were surprised Uther had felt the need to improve anything it all, when you heard the news.

"Oh, no. The king died months ago, Arthur's in charge now."

You knew you must've gone pale, as the next thing the man said to you was a question of your health. You were quick to respond with a growing smile, "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

He shrugged at you, "I'm not all that concerned with politics. These men, they're all the same to us out here, you know?"

But you knew the difference.

Your life depended on it.

You finished his treatment and sent him away without much else to say on the matter. You had to pack, after all. Later on that day you pleaded with a neighbor to let you borrow her horse, and your friends gathered around as they overheard you say you needed to go to the capitol. You honestly felt a bit bad leaving in such a rush, but after you relayed a safe version of your story, why you came here and why you had to leave, they all seemed to understand.

With many promises from you that they could send for you if they ever needed to, and many words of encouragement from them, you took off. Even when you stopped in the night to allow the horse some rest, you never got any yourself, too excited and nervous and overwhelmed all at once. You spent hours contemplating what to say to everyone, but nothing seemed right.

Another days journey, and you were home.

The response you got to your return wasn't what you expected. Your first stop was to check on the friend who got the potion to you in the first place, and strangely they let out a short shriek before slamming the door in your face. You knocked again, speaking through the door. "It's me...I'm back?"

"Go away!"

You furrowed your brow at them, hurt and confused. But ultimately you walked away, thinking a reaction like that might be deserved considering what you must've put them through that night. As you continued down the street there were a few people who recognized you and proceeded to clear out of your way with gasps and whispers, pulling along anyone they were walking with.

Last time you were here you had been accused of witchcraft, and two decades of fear don't just disappear with a new king, so you simply accepted that as the reasoning and started to make your way up through the lower towns.

On the other end of the city, Merlin had just reached the end of an extremely long day. It had dragged on so long that it felt as though the walk from the armoury to his room took another hour. He didn't even bother to get something to eat, he just wanted to sleep. So naturally when he had just layed down in bed when someone decided to knock on the front door, he didn't know any better than to be annoyed.

At first he thought Gaius would take care of it, then he remembered that he wasn't home.

Maybe they'll just go away.

Whoever it was knocked again and he pulled the pillow over his head.

Please go away.

The front door creaked open and he heard a familiar voice call out. "Hello...Gaius? Merlin?"

He sat up, a heavy feeling settling into his gut as he realized where he had heard that voice before.

But...it couldn't be. Could it?

He shook his head, leaving his bedroom to shoo out the person who couldn't have been you.

But there you were, flipping through an old book that had been sitting on the table since the day before. When you noticed he was standing there you looked up with a sad smile, saying the only thing that you could think of; "Hi..."

"Hi?"

"I uh- I know it's been a long time," You started, crossing your arms over your chest in an awkward stance. "I wish I didn't have to leave like I did but..."

"Leave??" He repeated what you said once more. Finally you registered how strangely he was looking at you, not angry or upset but bewildered, and maybe even scared. What he said next confused you even more. "How are you alive?"

"I thought you might've had more faith in me than that." You joked, but he wasn't amused. "Am I missing something?"

He was hesitant to approach you, unsure of how he was supposed to say it but he tried. "They told me you were gone, that you'd poisoned yourself. I mean...Gaius saw you."

"It was meant to look like that, but it was a trick." You said. "I left when I awoke, they didn't tell people I escaped?"

He shook his head no, tears starting to stream down his face. "...I can't believe this."

As the reality of the situation hit you, you couldn't help but cry as well. All you were guilty about, what you thought you put your loved ones through, it had actually been so much worse. "I am so sorry, if I had any idea I would've- well I don't know what I would've done. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm just, I'm so happy that you're here, and you're okay." Striding over with a grin, he pulled you into his arms. "I've missed you."

"And I, you. More than I could ever put into words." With a laugh you continued. "Things got so boring without you."

"I'm sure they did, you won't believe some of things I have to tell you."

And that was all it took, you both sat down at a table as you filled each other in on everything that had happened in the last two years. It took hours, there were multiple times you had to stop and collect yourselves as certain stories had you laughing until your stomachs ached. Gaius came home and after another tearful welcome back he made you all something to eat and had plenty of his own twists on things that had happened.

As if no time had passed at all, the world felt normal again. You were back where you belonged.

You were home.

#Merlin x reader #bbc merlin x reader #bbc merlin fanfiction

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