#under the sky a coal black river

[venfaaniik]

So What if all your dreams would slowly wither And with time were to pass away?

[lunarmoves]

Your grandmother used to tell you stories of the gods. 

How the world came to be with the snap of their fingers; the wind that came from their breath and the water from their tears. She told you of the ones who lived in the trees, giving life to all the flora and fauna that graced the Earth. The ones who sparked hope in the darkness of places, or supplied warmth at the hearth of people’s homes. 

She told you of Suj’asti, the Sun god, who gave life in the form of light that brightened the sky into a gorgeous blue. Who watched over the Earth as he guided the sun over your heads and shaped the way your days were made. He was the being of prosperity; he was the being of energy.

She told you of D’armil, the Moon god, who decorated the night sky with stars and kept an eye on those who slumbered. Who rotated the moon every night and controlled the push and pulls of the tide by the shore. He was the being of protection; he was the being of dreams. 

You listened to her tales with utmost devotion, intrigued by the way she wove her words to form these intricacies that—to your young mind—revealed all the mysteries of the universe and how it worked. You spent a lot of time in your village’s record collection, reading over scrolls and books alike that contained legends, myths, and theories. It was interesting—it was utterly fascinating. You learned as much as you could and still craved more. It sent you across the lands—this thirst for knowledge—and had you dappling in all manners of magic, folklore, and science. 

You enriched your life with the deep history of magic and mythicals—the powers they possessed that saturated the world over time. You taught yourself how to decipher the languages that connected different beings and that encompassed the words of magic. You wrote, in a little journal you bought in the capital, spells and incantations that you were able to recite—as well as those that you couldn’t. And you always made sure to return to your grandmother’s little cottage at the edge of the woods, recounting to her the things you’d learned. The things you’d seen and experienced. She always appreciated it, you knew.

Before she passed, your grandmother gave you her necklace that she told you had been blessed in the Rivers of Rosoi. The waters that ran through them were said to contain a powerful magic that came from the gods themselves. It will protect you, your grandmother told you as she clasped the fine, golden jewelry around your neck with trembling fingers. It was a gorgeous thing with a pendant made from a jewel that reminded you of smoldering coal. From anything that will bring you harm. It became something you wore more out of habit than necessity, tucked under the collar of your tunic. 

Eventually, once you’d had your fill of adventure and thaumaturgy, you settled down in your late grandmother’s cottage. You busied yourself with flora—documenting them in one of your journals—and the magic some of them contained that could be used for a variety of actions. And since the cottage was seated at the point where a wide, expansive field kissed the beginnings of the woods, you were able to stare out its windows at the open sky above you. Watching as the sun climbed lazily across it as its bright blue transitioned into a deep, deep navy and reminiscing about the tales your grandmother told you of so long ago.

It was peaceful. It was easy. You were content. 

And then… the sky went dark.

You woke up one day to the sight of void-like clouds stagnating over the sky. At first, you paid them no heed, believing that a thunderstorm had decided to descend upon this region of the world. But as days and nights went by without a drop of rain, nor a flash of lightning, you began to realize that something was… wrong.

You weren’t the only one who’d noticed either. A trip to one of the villages nearby showed that everyone was talking about it, worriedly looking up at the black clouds. It was everywhere, they said. From the high mountains of the north to the low beaches of the south. The sky had turned caliginous. And no one had a clue as to why. 

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and there still was no break of sunlight or moonlight through the clouds. You were beginning to wonder if there ever would be. You overheard many talking in quiet whispers about the prayers they sent up to Suj’asti and D’armil—calling for them. Wondering where they had disappeared to and why they weren’t performing their duties. But the sky gods had gone silent. There was no one to answer. 

And as you sat in your little cottage—looking out at the open field before you that resided under that tenebrific sky—you decided that there was something that needed to be done. 

You packed a bag with necessities—food, money, water, your journals—and locked up your home. Then you were off, setting out on an adventure you hadn’t had the taste of in a long, long time. It made something spark in your bones—a feeling that brought you a nostalgia you found to be oh so dear. You were struck by the burning question of what happened? And you’d be damned if you returned empty-handed. 

You walked and walked and walked. You went to the capital to poke around and see if anyone knew anything. You explored villages in the forests and by the sea. You ventured into the lands of mythicals to ask if they had an inkling of what was going on—for surely as beings of legend, they would be more connected to the gods than simple mankind? But no, there was nothing. Not a peep, nor a shout. You searched on. 

You learned of the lost temple of the sky gods in a quaint village that rested at the foot of a red-tinted mountain. Where the people there were tuned to the earth and the air. They told you it was somewhere in the Forest of Isdu—a haunting place, where time seemed to stand still. Rarely did people venture into its looming trees, and rarely did they ever come back out. It was, in essence, the perfect place to hide secrets. The perfect place to go looking for something thought to have been lost. 

But that’s just it, the villagers reminded you, the temple was lost. Then they said no more. And you thought to yourself—well, you had nothing to lose. 

So you walked the long path to the Forest of Isdu and found yourself peering into the gloom that peeked out at you from between tree trunks and wild bushes. You clasped at the pendant that hung from the necklace around your neck in one hand and raised the other to allow a small light to dance around your fingers. Then you set one foot forward and disappeared beyond the treeline. 

The air was different here. It was settled in one place. And where the outside of the forest was teeming with the bumbling sounds of wildlife—chirping birds, rustling leaves, a whooshing breeze—the inside was quiet. Not dead, no. Just quiet. It unnerved you even more—made the soft hairs along your arms raise in unease. You dared not even breathe too loudly, for fear of what lurked around you.

But you pressed on, letting the golden light in your palm guide you around roots and low-hanging branches. Everything was darker here—a result of the thick canopies overhead and the dark sky beyond them. You whispered a spell into the still air to help lead you to the place you sought. You walked until your feet ached—until your shoulders pained you from bearing the weight of your bag. And just when you began to think that perhaps this was a fruitless endeavor, you spotted it—nestled deep between two leaf-ladened trees and covered in ivy. 

The lost temple of the sky gods was a mix of obsidian and swirling gold. Its architecture was noble yet ancient, with spiraling pillars on both sides of the dark, gaping entrance. There was no sign to tell you what it was or who it belonged to, precisely, but if you squinted, you could see the etchings of a crescent moon and the sun just above the entrance. You stared into it and had to suppress a shiver at the cool air that gently wafted out. Amid your unease, there was delight and relief at having found your destination. You internally thanked the magic you used to aid you. 

You let out a breath of air, squared your shoulders, and walked up the few steps of the temple. And before you could let your second thoughts sway you, you ventured forth into the temple and let your light shine brighter to illuminate its inside. It was even quieter in here, if that was even possible. 

The temple wasn’t too wide, but it was certainly tall, you noticed, as you gazed up and around. From what you could see, there was a rather large hole in the ceiling that let you see the inky sky. It was directly above a rather large, stone pedestal that had the remains of incense dusted atop it. You lowered your hand and looked to your left, where there was a gold-stoned statue of a tall, lithe being. It had its arms splayed up and out in a grandeur gesture. Triangular protrusions stuck out of its head, and its face was blank apart from a set of two eyes that were closed. You stepped closer to the base of the statue to peer down at the engraving upon it. 

Suj’asti, it read, E Kuz We-Suj. The god of sun. 

To the right was another statue, this one made of obsidian. It was also tall and lithe, with its arms splayed downwards at its sides and a long cap of sorts resting on its head. If you squinted, you could also see that its eyes were closed. The lack of a mouth was something you thought was strange, but not enough to greatly question it. You walked over to the statue to read its engraving as well. D’armil, E Kuz We-D’ar. The god of moon. 

Finally, you brought your hand forth to look at the last statue that rested directly beyond the pedestal—at the back of the temple. It was tall—taller than the two at its sides in a way that had your neck craned back to an uncomfortable degree. Unlike the gold and obsidian statues, this one was a deep burgundy that glinted in the light in your palm. It had four arms, two of which were crossed over its chest in an ‘x’, while the other two were clasped in front of it like it was saying a prayer. It too had its eyes closed and no mouth, along with many triangle protrusions around its head that varied in length. 

You looked at it curiously—it was not a deity you recognized. And in your curiosity, you rounded the pedestal to stand at its feet and look down. 

There was no name etched at its base. Instead, there was a sentence—one that you read quietly aloud. 

“E Suj kaamo, e D’ar muuso,” you murmured, your lips gently forming around the familiar words. “Taayta, e K’es.” The Sun rises, the Moon follows. Awaken, the Eclipse. 

The temple seemed to hum around you. 

It was a sudden thing that reverberated in your bones and sunk deeply into your heart. Your head snapped up and you spun around to dart your gaze about. From the still Sun statue to the Moon statue. And then you noticed a light was starting to appear from above—through the hole in the ceiling. You stepped closer to the pedestal so you could look up and through the hole in surprise and awe. The light started off as a faint pink, but as you watched the dark clouds above finally, finally part to make way for the sky, it suddenly deepened into a blood red that spanned across your face. 

Your wonder was replaced by a sinking feeling of horror in a heartbeat as the sun revealed itself, covered by the moon and turning the sky into a deep hue of orange. 

An eclipse. 

Cold washed over your figure. The temple hummed louder around you and shook minutely. You stumbled away from the pedestal, gripping at your pendant tight, tight, tighter as you felt this burning feeling land upon you. What was happening? You had no idea—there was only this sense of dread, so thick and potent that you were getting choked up. You looked at the two statues at your sides again before your gaze finally darted to the one standing in front of you, separated from you by the pedestal. 

Its eyes were wide open—burnt mandarin with tiny void-like pupils. 

And it was staring right at you. 

Your heart skipped a beat. 

In a surge of motion the statue stepped forward—only, it wasn’t a statue anymore. It was a living, breathing being of sorts, with vibrant eyes that lit up half the temple on their own in a hellish glow, and a face and body that was half black and half blood red. Darkness seemed to cling to it, draping along its torso and shoulders. Its arms unfolded from their positions, stretching out stiffly before they pulled up and around its body in a foreboding manner that made you step back. Claws—sharp and wicked—extended from its fingers. It loomed crookedly towards you over the pedestal and seemed to stop, head cocked to the side as it continued to stare at you. 

You froze immediately, the golden light in your hand trembling slightly before it shrunk and disappeared. Its absence made you feel cold, but you couldn’t find it in you to summon it again. You swallowed thickly and watched as the protrusions from the being’s head rippled around it like a wave. Its head rotated in a way that was inhuman. There was something heavy in the air—something that made you press your lips tightly together until you were sure they were nothing but a thin, straight line. 

You were locked in a staring contest with it. One that you weren’t certain how long would last. 

You weren’t sure what it was doing, frozen like that over the pedestal. Maybe it was assessing you like you were assessing it. Your eyes darted about at the slightest of twitches it made in its fingers and its head. Those small, black pupils did not once leave your form. You didn’t know what to do—didn’t know what to say. You had never heard of such a being before. Maybe it was a deity, maybe it wasn’t. Either way, you were dead if you didn’t do something soon. Your bag seemed to weigh heavily against your back. Your muscles tensed. 

And with all the strength you had in your body, you took a small step back. 

Immediately, the being’s pupils dilated until its entire eyes were a midnight hue, cutting off one of the sources of light illuminating the temple. It jerked and shuddered, then seemed to grow even bigger as you stepped back again—towards the temple’s entrance. Its voice cut through the air—deadly, swift—from a mouth that did not exist on its face.

“Käwshka, käwshka!” the being—K’esyo, Eclipse—hissed out in a deep, grating voice that made something drop in the pit of your stomach. He spoke in a language you did not recognize—something ancient that had been lost eons ago from your people. But you didn’t need to understand what he was saying to know that you were in terrible, terrible danger. You scrambled backwards with a yelp and he surged forward, stepping easily over the pedestal and covering the distance you’d made in a few, powerful steps. “J’a syo twe— k-käwshka! Onyi méfe! Shash jawt, shash jaaawt.” 

You wanted to scream, but your voice was caught up in your throat. And before you could spin yourself around on your heel to sprint out of the temple, Eclipse lunged at you. You threw your arms up over your head as though that could protect you and braced yourself for impact.

Only—nothing happened. And after a few seconds of standing there, cowering under your arms, you tentatively peeked through them, wondering if your death had been so swift that you hadn’t even noticed.

Eclipse’s sharp claws were inches before your face, glinting in the blood red light. The sight made your heart hammer in your chest, adrenaline shooting through your veins. You blinked at them, then lowered your arms as you realized he was straining to reach you. But he couldn’t touch you, even as you were before him, doused in his ominous shadow. You gaped up at him, then looked down at your hand clenching the ruby pendant atop your chest. It was slightly aglow. Your grandmother’s words whispered in your ears. 

He couldn’t hurt you. Not when you had your necklace on. 

The thought was oddly empowering. 

Eclipse snarled—a viscous thing that scratched at your ears—and reared back so that snarl could turn into a tumultuous roar. “Mbanpe, mbanpe! Onyi méfe! Shash jawt!” His voice seemed to switch between a rough, deep sound to one that was a bit higher pitched, though still as sharp as a blade’s edge. You backed away slowly as he appeared to fight with himself, bloodlust tinging his every movement. His upper arms grasped at the protrusions on his head while the lower two curled outwards like he was still trying to grab you. “Těmbiiiing. Mahù go mběl— těmbing! Käwshka syo twe p-p-ponkul.” 

He growled frustratedly after a moment, upper hands starting to claw viciously at his head. Perspiration rolled down the side of your face. Whatever was going on with Eclipse, it was certainly nothing you were prepared to deal with. You swallowed thickly and seized a chance where he was distracted with himself to look behind you. The temple’s entrance wasn’t too far away from you. Maybe you could make a run for it—use the shelter of the forest to hide yourself away. 

Resolute in your decision, you glanced back in front of you out of precaution and immediately let out a yelp as Eclipse lunged towards you once again. You ducked down, your arms shielding your head, and watched his shadow pass over your body. Then you lowered your arms and twisted your torso around to stare behind you—through the temple’s entrance that Eclipse had flown through. 

He had landed just outside and was staring up at the sky through the canopies that lay oddly still above him. The red lighting from the eclipse cast everything in a devilish glow, falling upon the leaves and ground in a way that made them look like they were drenched in blood. Your breaths bated, you watched Eclipse jerk and shudder, his arms moving sporadically before he suddenly stilled. His head snapped towards a direction—you could not see his face from your angle—and before you could even blink, he growled and bolted. 

You stared, dumbfounded, at the spot where he had just been. You’d been forgotten just like that, it seemed. But instead of relief, you only felt this mounting sense of horror—so strong that you scrambled to your feet and took off after him, following the sounds he made as he crashed through shrubs and trees alike. Your mind raced as you mapped out the surrounding land in your mind. The Forest of Isdu wasn’t too far from a small, sleepy village that was positioned to the East. The paths and trails that led to it tended to have the occasional passerby or traveler wandering about. Your jaw clenched as you realized the direction he was heading in.

Eclipse couldn’t hurt you, but he could certainly hurt others. 

And you couldn't let that happen.

[npookie0]

The Forbidden Fruit.

Ther x Ronin, Adam and Eve retelling, Spread the Rot.

cws: religious themes

Etherality, one of the two humans created by God on his perfect earth, a perfect woman for Craig, perfect hair, perfect eyes, perfect body. Everything in her was meant to fit Craig's tastes, after all she was to be his wife in this beautiful garden.

She was sitting on a cold stone by a river, like a nymph, beautiful, flawless. Her eyes locked on the reflection she could see in the river, long red hair falling down her back, milky skin, blue eyes dark like the night's sky. Somehow this person, this woman, she felt foreign, like a complete stranger who copied her every move.

Ethereality ran her hand across the surface of the river, disrupting the water and causing her reflection to disappear for a second. It was an idiotic thought, she's a woman, a woman created by God to be Craig's wife. She was ethereal, a true beauty. She couldn't feel alien in her own body, it would mean that she's questioning God's creation, that would make her imperfect.

"Ther, Ther, sweet Ther, when will you open your eyes?" A man in the form of a serpent was resting on one of the branches of the great tree, the tree holding all of God's wisdom of what's right and wrong. His serpent form was red, with eyes as black as coal. His eyes locked on the human on the other side of the river.

Ronin - because that's the man's name, the name he picked for himself at least, is an angel, one of God's favourites, or at least he was until he cut the wings binding him to heaven off. He hated heaven, hated the strict rules, hated the forced perfection.

He wanted to break free from heaven, create his own damned world, chaos and sin, freedom. To do that he needed to create chaos, destroy God's perfect plan, and dispose of all the virtues God created.

He planned on using Craig to do it, an empty headed man like him was easy to manipulate, whisper to him about power and he'll take the fruit like it's the only thing that matters to him. But something, or rather someone else caught his eye, Ther, or Ethereality, he watched them for a while now.

They were like him. Hated the form He put them in, hated the man they had to share a paradise with, hated everything about this holy place. He saw that, and he saw how much they fought their feelings, tried to bury them deep inside, yet they couldn't. They couldn't fight the truth, they just needed a push to accept it.

And that's when a magnificent idea popped into the man's mind. He could feed the fruit to them, he could help them and take them away from that damned place. Craig didn't deserve them anyway and Ronin? Ronin could give them everything, the whole world would be on its knees for them.

Ronin waited for them to pass the tree, he saw the curiosity in Ther's eyes. They were thinking about taking one of the fruits, he saw it, he saw the spark in their eyes.

"Oh, why won'tcha give the fruit a try, love?" Ther jumped. Hearing the man's voice from behind them. Their eyes widened when they saw who he was.

"Who are you?" They asked, their eyes moving between the void in his eyes and the broken halo on his head.

The man's hair was white, it was probably the only clean and holy thing about him, he was wearing a black cloth over his hips that reached his to his knees, under his chest there were two scars. The scars caught Ther's curiosity.

"An angel." He whispered, taking a few steps towards them.

"Really?" They asked, not believing him.

"Nah." He waved his hand dismissively and put his hand under Ther's chin. "But I can be your saviour, I know how to give you answers to the questions about yourself and your purpose." He whispered into their ear, while he pulled one of the many fruit's from the tree.

"Wh-what? But God sai-"

"Shh, what He said doesn't matter. He wants to toy with you and that bastard, you will never be a full fetched being if you listen to Him." He cupped their cheek and  caressed it with his thumb, like a lover would.

"Come on, gain your freedom, take it with your teeth, raw and bleeding." He smiled and put the fruit to their lips. "What do you say, Ther?"

Hearing this name, it made something in Ethereality squeeze. The name... it felt just right. Like freedom, like it was who they were meant to be. If it's just the name that made them feel that way, then maybe eating the fruit would do even more?

Maybe... Just maybe they could find their own reflection?

[ultimate-worldbuilding]

CITIES

A full list of what a modern / sci-fi city needs. You can incorporate many elements into your fantasy city as well. Of course you don't need this many things, but sometimes it can help your story if you understand and think about how your world works.

Electricity and energy resources

If your city has electricity, or anything similar to it, it's worth considering where this energy comes from. Is it renewable energy, or not? Is it something else entirely? (Is it magic?) These buildings and facilities are usually located on the outskirt of cities.

Windmill Location: Flat planes, maybe even deserts. Tailor it: break up the structure of a today's windmill: e.g. what if they are way bigger, or people live in it, etc

Nuclear Power Plant Location: Anywhere, in space, under the water, in the sky, inside the terrain. Prompts: What about accidents? Secret labs inside the plant?

Storm Power Plant Location: Almost anywhere, in the sky, in space, on space ships, planes, etc. Further ideas: tornados, harvesting lightning, harvesting the power of the wind with fortified windmills, sun storms in space.

Water related power plants Using the energy of a flowing river,sea waves, or even a vortex.

Burning power plant Burning trash, coal, diesel, gases or your world's fuel. This can be very polluting in your world, which can add up to your worldbuilding: green activist wants this plant closed, people getting sick aournd the plant, etc.

Geaothermal Power Plant Using the planet's heat to generate energy. You can put this anwhere on your ground or under.

Solar Power Plants These need a lot of place. If you are also making a map, be sure to add these on places where they actually get sunlight. (Don't put them on the north side of a mountain.) prompts: what if somebody covers them on purpose?

Health, Life and Death

All health and mental health related facilities (even for pets). Tailor these to your worlds problems, diseases and conditions (e.g. cyberpsychosis in Cyberpunk 2077) You can put these fqacilities, together, or even in a very different location, for example a floating private clinic above the city. You can even use virtual worlds as a twist.

Hospitals and clinics General hospitals, clinics and private ones.

Doctor's office

Ambulance station

Cyberware repair clinic

Drug Rehabilitation Centers

Vets Vets for people's pets, you can even add robot vets, for robot pets.

Nursing Homes Home for the elderly.

Asylums Home for people with serious mental health problems.

Pharmacies Are these private? Are there black market versions? What medicines can you buy here?

Dentist Promp questions: Are there any unique procedures? Do people's teeth are different? What about dentists for different species?

Sanatorium These usually are in the nicest parts of a city in the outskirts. They do have big gardens too. It can be even in space too, or even virtually.

Morgue Story tips: you can include a place like this for investigations or horror elements.

Cemetry Before diving deep into this one, state how your people bury their loved ones. The method the whole cemetry. Here are some burial types from the world:- Leaving the body in nature (or space)- Embalming, and preserving- Leaving in water (or space), or let it sail away on a ship- Burning the body (by fire, or by sunfire), and placing the urns in a sacred place (space, ground, buildings, etc.)- Buring the body under ground

Crematorium Used if your people burn bodies.

Quarantine zone

Misc Essentials

As these are essentials, they can be targets in a conflict. This can help your story further.

Fire station

Water tower (and storage) If it doesn't come from a pshysically higher place.

Server buildings

Lighthouse

Transportation and Travel

Transportation can change a lot in a scifi high tech world. I often grab a real concept and put into a different enviroment. Train? Space - Train. Jetski? Sun wave - jetski.When building transportation, think about:- where these vehicles are stored- where you can access the service,- who repairs them and where- where do they go when they are no longer used. These types of transports all have office centers, and they are usually different corporations and companies.If the parking lots or hangars are abonded, it can be a place where homeless people gathered, and live.

Bus stations, depot, stops and repair garages

Spaceship (or airplane) ports, hangars and repair hangars Don't forget to add ports and hangars for military, trading and public transport spaceships.

Metro stations, metro depot

Taxi stations, depot

Ship ports On rivers, sea, ocean, or the sky. (for flying ships but not spaceships.) Don't forget to about military, trading and public transport. These ports can be just platfroms.

Parking lots Multi storey car park.

Rental Renting the vehicles you have in your city, spacehips, cars, ships, etc.

Travel agencies

Fuel stations gas stations for cars, taxies and buses, and fueal stations for spaceships, and ships.Prompts questions: Where are these located? Is there possibility of shortage?

Package receiving point (or drop point)

Warehouses (personal, corporations, cars, etc)

Housing & Homes

Housing is an interesting part of building a city. I advise you to look around in your enviroment, and in the world how people live in different countries. You can always twist these ideas by putting them into a different enviroments (e.g.: shipping containers as living space, in a frosty enviroment, and people use fur to cover the insides for insulation.)

Luxury flats, and houses

Middle class flats, and houses

Lower class flats, and houses

Huge flat blocks (all are the same, available for all classes)

Prebuilt houses (all are the same, available for all classes)

Houses made of different elements You can vary as you want, example: Mass Effect colonies

Shipping containers as homes

Discarded vehicles as homes

Shelters For people, sentient robots, animals, robot animals.

Hotels

Motels

Food and Plants

Questions: Where does food come from in your city? Is it from outside of the city, or does it have some facilities to create food? Where does that food go? How is the food situation in your city? Do people make food at home, or order, or eat prepackaged food?

Grain Processing Plant

Crop fields If you have crops, is there a fungi or incest that is destroying crops? Or an organization?

Restaurants

Cafés

Drive-ins

Fast food restaurant chains

Bakery

Pastry Factory or any factory that makes food that is in everybody's lives, out of the plant the city has on its crop fields.

Food Packaging Factories

Food Processing Plants

Green houses

Nature reserve

Plant nurseries

Ranches for livestock

Slaughterhouses (or syntethic meat producing facilities)

Pastures

Brewery What type of alcohol does the people drink? What are they med of? Are there traditions related to them?

Education, Science & Knowledge

What general education system does your city have? What subjects are there? At what age do usually people finish their studies?

Elementary school

Kindergarten

High School

University

Music School

Library

Science center

Research Facility

Museum

Conservatory

Entertainment and Services

Entertainment and Services are a big part of every day lives. How much fun people have in this city? How much time do people have? Does this have black and extreme sides? Are there regulations in place? Is there a disctrict just for party time or doe poeple do this all around the city?

Ferris-wheel

Bars and Pubs (eg. Vape Bar)

Skating rink (ice, scifi ice skate, etc)

Brothel

Arcade

Arena / Stadium (depends on the setting, and nature of the events held here)

Stripper bar

Dance studio

Barber

Beautician Explore every aspect, different species, and cyberware (if you have these in your world)

Gym

Amusement park

Spa

Aquapark

Fighting rings People, robots, animals, etc. Where is this ring? Are these illegal?

Aquarium

VR café

Circus

Theatre

Zoo

Bowling alley (or any other alley for this type of entertainment)

Racetracks Animals, robots. How much of are these legal? Are there any bets placed on the racers?

Communication

Where do people get their information? Is there internet in your city? What happens when somebody disrupts communication on purpose? Does people/ the government / corporation manipulate the media?

Post office

Media studios TV, Internet, Talk shows, VR, whatever media your cuty uses.

Radiotower

Community centre

Employment agency

Open Spaces

Where people can organize events.

Forum, Square You can include a statue or a monument.

Park (It's scifi or fantasy, you can add floating parks too.)

Skate park (or any other equivalent of extreme sport park in your world, e.g. solar surf park)

Religion & Politics

What religion do people practise? Are there any banned religions? What sacred spacse do they need for that? Are there any districts heavily influenced by one religion? Are their beliefs go against the city council's views? Is religion and politics are connected or not? How do religion and politics influence each other?

Parlament/city council

Mayor's office

Convent

Oracle

Religious spaces Buildings, parks, monuments

The Force and the Law

Military , Police and Law. Do these mix with religion or not?

Military headquarters

Military training centre

Military base

Shooting range (or archer range)

Police Station

Jail & Prison

Military vehicle and gadget repair

Courthouse

Lawyer's office

Market & Financies

What currency does your city use? Are there any undergound currencies? What items and resources can be currencies?

Bank

Shop franchises Apparel, jewelry, furnishing, stationery

Broker's office

Armor shop

Cyberware (or body enhancment) shop

Weapon shop

Market (farmer's , junk, flee, vehicles, etc.)

Black Market

Drug Den

Malls

Corporate Shops (workers can pay from their own salary)

Building & Production

What do people need? Is there a shortage of certain types of products, or oversaturation and overproduction?

Factory: Electronics devices

Factory: Furniture and cutlery

Factory: Home gadgets

Factory: Weapons

Factory: Military equipments

Factory: Vehicles Cars, spaceships, flying cars.

Mining operation

Construction Site

Waste

What types of wastes are produced in your city? Where do they go?

Sewage system Pipes, old pipes that are no longer in use, cisterns. Are there any people living down here?

Junkyard Regular junk, old spaceships, broken cars, broken machines, broken robots. Do people live here or not?

Selective Trash Sorter Facility If your city recycles.

[p1325]

Song: Hoppipolla/Með Blóðnasir

Artist: Sigur Ros

-2001: A Space Odyssey, 3:10 to Yuma, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 12 Angry Men, 12 Years a Slave, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea -42nd Street, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Ace in the Hole, Adam's Rib, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The African Queen -Airplane!, Alambrista!, Alien, All About Eve, All Quiet on the Western Front, All That Heaven Allows, All That Jazz -All the King's Men, All the President's Men, Amadeus, America America, American Graffiti, An American in Paris, American Me -Anatomy of a Murder 1959, Angels with Dirty Faces, Annie Hall, The Apartment, Apocalypse Now, Apollo 13, Applause -The Asphalt Jungle, Atlantic City, The Awful Truth, Baby Face, Back to the Future, The Bad and the Beautiful, Bad Day at Black Rock, Double Indemnity, Down Argentine Way, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb -Badlands, Ball of Fire, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Bambi, Bamboozled, The Band Wagon, The Bank Dick, The Bargain -Beauty and the Beast, Becky Sharp, Being There, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ 1925, Ben-Hur, The Little Mermaid -Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Club Field Day,The Best Years of Our Lives, Beverly Hills Cop, The Big Heat, The Big Lebowski -The Big Parade, The Big Sleep, Selena, The Big Trail, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Fantasia, The Birds, Grease, Rebecca -The Birth of a Nation, The Black Pirate, The Black Stallion, Blackboard Jungle, Blade Runner -Blazing Saddles, Bless Their Little Hearts, The Blood of Jesus, The Blue Bird, The Blues Brothers, Body and Soul -Bonnie and Clyde, Born Yesterday, Boulevard Nights, Boys Don't Cry, Brokeback Mountain, Boyz n the Hood -Bread, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Breakfast Club, Bride of Frankenstein, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Bringing Up Baby -Broadcast News, Broken Blossoms, Iron Man, Jurassic Park, Bullitt, Bush Mama, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -Cabaret, Cabin in the Sky, The Cameraman, Carmen Jones, Carrie, Casablanca, Cat People, Chan Is Missing, Charade -Toy Story, Wall-E, The Cheat, The Chechahcos, Chinatown, A Christmas Story, Cinderella -Citizen Kane, City Lights, The Wizard of Oz, The Clash of the Wolves, Clerks, A Clockwork Orange -Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Coal Miner's Daughter, Compensation, The Conversation, Cool Hand Luke, Cooley High -Cops, The Court Jester, The Crowd, Cyrano de Bergerac, D.O.A., Dance Girl Dance, Dances With Wolves -The Dark Knight, Shrek, Daughter of Dawn, Daughter of Shanghai, Daughters of the Dust -The Day the Earth Stood Still, Days of Heaven, Days of Wine and Roses, The Deer Hunter, Deliverance -Desperately Seeking Susan, Destry Rides Again, Detour, Die Hard, Dinner at Eight, Dirty Dancing, Dirty Harry -Do the Right Thing, The Docks of New York, Dodsworth, Dog Day Afternoon, Dracula, The Dragon Painter -Duck Soup, Dumbo, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, East of Eden, Easy Rider, Edge of the City, El Mariachi -El Norte, Ella Cinders, The Emperor Jones, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Employees' Entrance -Enter the Dragon, Eraserhead, Eve's Bayou, The Exiles, The Exorcist, The Lion King -A Face in the Crowd, Faces, The Fall of the House of Usher, Fame, Fargo, Fast Times at Ridgemont High -Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Field of Dreams, Five Easy Pieces, Flesh and the Devil, Flower Drum Song -The Flying Ace, Wuthering Heights, A Fool There Was, Foolish Wives, Footlight Parade -Forbidden Planet, Force of Evil, Forrest Gump, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1921, Frankenstein -Freaks, The French Connection, The Freshman, From Here to Eternity, From the Manger to the Cross -The Front Page, Funny Girl, Fury, The Gang's All Here, Ganja & Hess, Gaslight, The General, Titanic -Gentleman's Agreement, Ghostbusters, Giant, Gigi, Gilda, Girlfriends, The Godfather Part 1 and 2Show less

[bcrtiesjr]

i look inside myself and see my heart is black i see my red door i must have it painted black maybe then, I'll fade away and not have to face the facts it's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

— 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓 𝐈𝐓 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊. THE ROLLING STONES.

002. 𝐁𝐄𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒. THE WHO.

no one knows what it's like to feel these feelings like i do and i blame you (you, you, you) no one bites back as hard on their anger none of my pain and woe can show through

003. 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐍. CAT STEVENS.

oh, how can i try to explain? 'cause when i do he turns away again ot's always been the same, same old story from the moment i could talk i was ordered to listen now there's a way and I know that i have to go away i know I have to go

004. 𝐒𝐘𝐌𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐘 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐋. THE ROLLING STONES

please allow me to introduce myself i'm a man of wealth and taste i've been around for a long, long year stole many a man's soul and faith i was 'round when jesus christ had his moment of doubt and pain made damn sure that pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate

005. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑. IGGY POP.

i am the passenger i stay under glass i look through my window so bright i see the stars come out tonight i see the bright and hollow sky over the city's ripped back sky and everything looks good tonight

006. 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐀𝐑. BOB DYLAN.

you that never done nothin' but build to destroy you play with my world like it's your little toy you put a gun in my hand and you hide from my eyes and you turn and run farther when the fast bullets fly

007. 𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃. STEPPENWOLF.

Like a true nature's child We were born, born to be wild We can climb so high I never wanna die Born to be wild Born to be wild Get your motor runnin' Head out on the highway We're lookin' for adventure And whatever comes our way

008. 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐈𝐃. BLACK SABBATH.

i need someone to show me the things in life that i can't find i can't see the things that make true happiness, i must be blind make a joke and i will sigh and you will laugh and i will cry happiness i cannot feel and love to me is so unreal

009. 𝐆𝐈𝐌𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐑. THE ROLLING STONES.

ooh, see the fire is sweepin' our very street today burns like a red coal carpet mad bull lost your way war, children, it's just a shot away it's just a shot away war, children, it's just a shot away it's just a shot away

010. 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐘. THE STOOGES.

look out, honey, 'cause i'm using technology ain't got time to make no apology soul radiation in the dead of night love in the middle of a firefight honey, gotta strike me blind somebody gotta save my soul baby, penetrate my mind

011. 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐍 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆. THE CLASH.

the ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin engines stop running, but I have no fear cause london is drowning, and I live by the river

012. 𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐆𝐒. DAVID BOWIE.

this ain't rock and roll this is genocide as they pulled you out of the oxygen tent you asked for the latest party with a silicon hump and your ten-inch stump dressed like a priest you was, todd browning streak he was

[malfiora]

I hope you lie on a grass soft and green, pliant under the first pearls of the morning dew

And like an ogive the trees raise their brambles over you

I hope you are stricken, where you lie on the grass

By shards of the night sky, shifting like live stained glass

I hope the night takes you, in the street, in the park

The smoke and the asphalt and the lamps and the bark

The butterflies turned black by the coal in the trees

Seizing the restless in your teeth

Riding the wing of a breeze

Gaining speed the moment you breathe

The hundred lights of a hundred cars

The lights below as above the stars

The hubbub, the chorus

I hope you hear the horses.

I hope you catch the midnight train

Standing up in the passenger seat of a convertible

I hope you scream and drink the rain

Become incomprehensible

I hope you find in yourself the movement

Arch in an electric current

Become the becoming

Not the preybird, the flight

All which blooms in my chest when I listen as you speak

Sharp rather than cold, soft rather than weak

All of the love I see in you

Become your love and know it too

I hope that tonight your heart unleashes

Into those heights that your spirit reaches

The poet and the poem too

The wind waterfall rushing through

Gaining momentum reading the first verse

You are a river in reverse

I hope you blossom like a spring

Into a geyser, like a wing

I hope you sing

Like no one is watching, and the whole world is listening

Dear, the whole world is listening

Holding its breath to best hear you

Not the bird, the singing

Not the bird, the flying

The starlight on the morning dew.

AHHHHH

I actually love you (platonically), you're the best 🥰

[ccohanlon]

unmoored

Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

Sterling Hayden, from Wanderer (1963)

I sense the weather as I wake, even before I open my eyes.

The hull is still, save for a faint, gravitational shift of tension starboard, between it and the wooden pontoon to which it’s tethered. A shift of tide, not wind. The only sound is my wife’s breathing as she sleeps.

The air in the cabin is cold for a summer morning. The moisture in it has substance; you can almost swill it around your mouth. There’s a thin taste of salt, diesel and wood.

Fog.

I open my eyes to peer through a perspex hatch above my head. Sky the colour of stale milk has fallen across it. I sit up, wrap my duvet around my shoulders, and check the small, brass-encased barometer and clock on the bulkhead above the foot of my bunk. 6.30am: four hours before high water.

In an hour, my wife and I will warp our old sloop from its berth and sail a mile or so north-west across the Tamar estuary on the flood to thread a narrow channel edged by mudflats, at the mouth of a nearby tributary, St. John’s River, to reach a ramshackle boatyard where our boat is to be lifted ashore for repairs.

Fog and unfamiliar waters will make what might have been a careless twenty-minute transit more testing. Up-river are commercial wharves and a naval dockyard. Large ships and ferries ply the buoyed, deep-water fairway in the middle of the river, heedless of small boats like ours — mere pin-pricks, if seen at all, on their radar screens. In such poor visibility, the percussive thud thud of heavy diesels will be the only hint we get of their proximity and course.

Our boat has no radar. No GPS either. The VHF radio has seen better days. Wrack is an impoverished vessel, sea-worn and ill-equipped, almost half a century old, but capable enough under sail. With a fair breeze today, we can make do with a salt-stiffened mainsail, steering compass, and a rough plan of soundings with a small section of shoreline that I’ve traced in pencil from a large-scale chart on the harbourmaster’s office wall.

We moved aboard four months ago, at the beginning of what turned out to be a cold, wet spring. The boat was berthed on a listing pontoon, on the lower reaches of another river, the Itchen, 150 sea miles east of where we are now, alongside a bank of coal black mud that dried at low water and smelled of rotting seaweed and industrial waste. The capricious eddies of a semidiurnal ebb and flow tugged at the keel. Mooring lines creaked as they strained against their cleats.

It took a while to get used to the constant movement of the boat and the noises the river — and the relentless equinoctial wind — drew from its hull and rigging, but they were the least of other things we had to get used to: cooking in a tiny galley, pumping waste from the toilet by hand, even moving back and forth in the narrow cabin or outside, along rope-strewn decks. I had spent my youth living and working on the water but that was nearly half a century ago; my wife had grown up in the rural north of Oklahoma, far from any sea. I’m not sure what we expected but our first month aboard was an unsettling hardship. The cabin was gelid and condensation dripped from the deckhead, portlights and hatches. Brown water puddled at the bottom of every shelf and locker. Mildew and mould were everywhere.

Yet the boat was a refuge. We had wandered in search of somewhere to settle — or, more precisely, somewhere we would be allowed to settle — for four years, moving between whatever cheap, temporary accommodation we could borrow or afford to rent in seven countries, until this unkempt but graceful vessel suggested a possibility of shelter, of ‘fixedness’, even as we were compelled by circumstances to remain mobile, unrooted. We saw it — no, not her — as a floating vardo, spartan but functional, and by the time we slipped our lines from the pontoon and headed downriver, with a spring ebb hurrying us towards the open sea, where we would turn westwards, still uncertain of a precise destination, we had accepted the idea of ourselves as waterborne Gypsies, seafarers not yachtsmen, finally cut adrift from a shore that, we felt, no longer had a place for us.

We reach the edge of the ship channel as the sun rises above the low hills inland. A light northerly and the press of a strong spring flood againt the leeward bow fills the mainsail just enough for a slight wake to trail aft from the transom. By the time we’re reach the other side of the estuary, the fog has begun to dissipate but we’re still taken by surprise when a pair of large tugs, steaming seawards in company, materialises suddenly, as if out of thin air, and crosses our track close astern.

My wife and I stand together in the cockpit and peer forward under the boom, hoping to spot small, plastic, red and green buoys that will guide our course towards the boatyard. I study my hand-wrought chart and try to make it fit with the few features we can see: a pub, a car park, jittery water over shoals that fringe the low-lying shore.

Within a few minutes, we are picking our way across those same shoals. My wife calls out readings from an electronic depth-sounder, none of them reassuring. Our keel is close enough to the river bottom that I can feel a swirl of turbulence around it through the rudder. Two hundred metres off the port bow, through haze, I make out the rusted steel hulks of two river freighters, aground on the mud; they suggest a makeshift breakwater. Several metres to starboard, another improvised breakwater: the large, weather-worn wreck of a wooden fishing boat, its seams swollen and seeping rust, also aground and listing precariously against a high concrete quay. I assume the entrance is somewhere in between. My chart, such as it is, ends at these motley barriers.

We douse our sails and start the engine; with the throttle in neutral, we let the tide carry us closer over the murky shallows. There’s a volley of small arms fire. Then an explosion.

“I’ve seen this movie,” my wife says.

When I was a boy I dreamed of pirate utopias.

They were everywhere in the 17th and 18th centuries, refuges for outlaws and dissolute outsiders. From the island of Madagascar, the renegade captains Henry Every and William Kidd preyed on Arab traders and ships of the East India Companies off the coasts of East Africa and southern India; there were corsair strongholds in the Mediterranean — Ghar al Milh in Tunisia and Algiers — and the Muslim pirate Republic of Salé on the Atlantic coast of Morocco; there were a score of well-known Caribbean refuges, among them Port Royal, a British buccaneer sanctuary on the Jamaican coast, Tortuga on the French-held island of Haiti, and New Providence in the Bahamas, the last an uninhabited island until it was claimed by an English privateer-turned-pirate Henry Jennings and became the hideout of a pirate admiral, Benjamin Hornigold, and later the infamous ‘Blackbeard’, Edward Teach.

These were rough, anarchic places, their shores often defended by ramparts arrayed with cannons, behind which lay improvised settlements of victuallers, armourers, shipwrights, canvasmakers, boarding houses, bars, brothels, illicit traders, ‘fences’, and slavers, all in service to the pirate fleet and its crews. During fair weather seasons, the anchorages would swell to become water-bound townships themselves, with ships of all sizes, many of the captured ‘prizes’, lying in close proximity to each other, a steady traffic of oared lighters and cutters navigating the narrow waters between them.

I was forty-two years old when I came across a copy of Peter Lamborn Wilson’s 1995 book, Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes, which connected, obliquely, Wilson’s somewhat idealised take on these unruly havens to his by-then-notorious notion of Temporary Autonomous Zones. First published in 1991 under the pseudonym Hakim Bey, just two years after Timothy Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, Lamborn’s book, T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, described a “socio-political tactic of creating temporary spaces that elude formal structures of control”. It also suggested real and virtual ‘territory’ within which anarchic concepts of unrestricted freedom, beyond the reach of government, might be explored. Similar ideas, sparsely defined, in relation to sea-borne communities, had inspired me as a young man, when I first slipped away from a privileged, if peripatetic, upbringing to live alone aboard a tiny sailing boat.

If my younger self had been pressed to describe what a 21st century ‘pirate utopia’ might look like, he might have come up with the ramshackle, almost dystopian seascape that we are entering, tentatively, on a sluggish flood.

Astern of the rotting wooden trawler on the starboard edge of the entrance, a small, former naval ship of some sort with high freeboard lists against the quay, thin water barely covering its propellors, while to port, a row of aged, fibreglass sailboats are berthed along a rickety pontoon secured to the corroded river freighters-turned-breakwaters; the sailboats’ keels are sunk in a glutinous shoal that, we later find out, is submerged just twice a day, for two hours either side of high water. As we drift deeper within, we pass iron-hulled narrowboats in various states of disrepair, rafted together, but disconcertingly out of place on these tidal flats, far from any canal — two young women in long floral dresses atop one of them, sipping from colorful mugs, which they raise to greet us.

Every boat looks lived in, every deck strewn with jerry cans, pot plants, and mildewed canvaswork, coachtops and rigging draped with laundry and improvised awnings. The effect is of a shanty town, a floating favela thrown together by the vagaries of wind and tide, as if the disparate vessels were caught by the tendrils of a slow-moving gyre that eventually stranded them here, in this shallow rural backwater.

A once graceful, large motor-launch, its wooden superstructure gone to seed and patched with random off-cuts of marine ply and sheets of clear plastic, marks the end of the entrance channel. We turn ninety degrees to port into a rectangular pool of oily, brown water enclosed by cement quays and wooden pontoons. Arrayed along the quays, a handful of buildings, some more permanent than others, in stone, timber, and corrugated metal.

We steer towards a slipway; at the bottom of it, lapped by the rising tide, is a insect-like steel structure, a U-shaped gantry on wheels, from which are suspended a set of canvas slings. Men are perched atop the steel beams above the slings which, as we approach, are lowered and the whole structure moves further down the ramp, into the water. We kill the engine; there is just enough way on to drift the boat into its skeletal maw. The slings are raised, slowly, either side of the keel. The hull ceases to respond to the movement of the water. The deck becomes solid underfoot. Then, like some arcane Victorian mechanical stage effect, the boat begins to rise from the sea into the air.

More volleys of gunfire and the muffled thud of an explosion. A whisp of pale smoke rises above a line of trees on the other side of the harbour. Someone shouts a series of indistinct instructions.

“Bloody commandos,” a young woman says. She stands at a counter at one end of a somewhat chaotic kitchen in a small, open plan shed that serves as the harbour’s canteen.

“Training,” says an old man with arthritic hands and rheumy eyes, sitting alone at one of the few tables. Ex-military himself, the small sailboat he has lived aboard, alone, for six years is berthed just a hundred yards from the grassy foreshore that is the staging ground for a series of practice assaults by armed soldiers aboard rubber boats. He has retreated to the café to get away from the noise and for company.

There are three other customers, besides the old man, my wife and me. One is a former marine in his fifties who was discharged with post-traumatic stress and found insulation from his past and a necessary solitude aboard a different boats over the past decade. The others are a gangly, middle-aged South African guy who does freelance maintenance and refitting for the local yard, and a transexual English shipwright with Barbie-esque hips and bust but large, gnarled hands and a waterman’s weathern-worn face. All live aboard boats here and like the old man, come to the café as much for random social encounters as for food.

Everyone converses with each other easily: there is commonality in our lives afloat. But there is also the impression that we are all untethered and adrift. The lack of individual fixedness (that word, again) is stark. We talk of boats, sea passages and ports of call but there is no sense of place, of belonging. None of us have a home in our heads to return to — maybe this last defines the elemental difference between recreational sailors and sea-dwellers, between the guests of high-priced marinas and the liveaboard outsiders moored here and elsewhere in the obscure reaches of other estuaries and tidal creeks around the British coast — but very few of us have been pressed into this circumstance. It is a choice, or sometimes a lawless inclination, driven only in part by a desire to feel free of some of the strictures and conventions of life ashore.

Disappearance is an art and those drawn to a life on the sea are adept at it. Community among seafarers is temporary and non-committal at best. Even here, among a fleet of decrepit boats that rarely put to sea, the comings and goings of individual liveaboards — some of whom crew other people’s boats for a living — are like hauntings. For all the 20th century theorizing about pirate utopias and temporary autonomous zones — the former focussed on the consensus and lack of hierarchy at the heart of piratical decision-making (and a lack of tolerance for autocratic captains) — and the history of rigid command structurea and iron discipline imposed over centuries on sailing ships’ crews at sea, most seafarers are now, as in the past, introspective proto-anarchists, resolutely solitary, who, when ashore, might be mistaken for ghosts.

At sunset, the quayside is empty. The boatyard’s tradesmen and office staff have retreated to their homes and whatever awaits them there. A few, dim lights can be glimpsed through portholes or perspex hatches but few people. The light winds in the estuary have dissipated and the air has begun to cool. The tide is at its lowest ebb — in the harbour, now empty of saltwater , the keel of every vessel has been swallowed by an expanse of grim sludge

Standing on a short jetty, my wife chats with a much younger woman who is taking in bed linen left to dry along the boom of a small, gaff-rigged, wooden sailboat.

“How long’re you around for?” she asks my wife.

“Until the boat’s done,” my wife says.

“And then?”

We both shrug, not knowing.

First published in Dark Ocean, an anthology from The Dark Mountain Project, UK, 2024.

[okruchlodu]

The air outside is sharp and cold, wet with the promise of rain. A stillness hangs in the air, a dead-weight. There’s a sense of foreboding in the chilling frost that encroaches upon the city of Cidaris; a warning, something desolate and hungry about it– too much ice. Winter will soon come, harsh deep and pure, drowning the Continent in its frosty darkness. Yennefer does not mind it; she is shadow and frost herself, a sharp shard of ice, will not warm under a warm touch; has only ever warmed for him; and now he's gone and she has shut that warmth inside an icy heart, unyielding, fixed, unreachable, malefic. There's only cold water under the ice, only sharp winds. She does not mind it; here, in her winter, she is powerful; here in her winter, she does not wilt: she thrives. No one can touch her. Nothing can crawl under her skin; only what she allows.

Yet, life remains, around her. The city is vibrant and thriving in breathless anticipation of the ball meant to be thrown at Vartburg castle tonight, pulsing with energy, the strident bustle of Seaside Bazaar at noon, the ornate streets full of people from the world over. White houses adorned with sloping roofs which glint like shards of shattered glass under the harsh glare of a cold sun, swarm the square and from an open window, a child can be heard, squalling like a seagull. A flock of crows abruptly rises from the frozen cobblestones like dark brume, crowding the skies above. Murmurs of song, and roars of laughter pierce the air which too thrums like a thing alive, and merchants bawl and shriek over the roaring of the furious ocean, flaunting their goods, the many curiosities brought to the port from the world over, many of them, truly astounding. The sea on the horizon burns like a jewel. The creaking of a carriage through the streets, then, black horses snorting and stamping their hooves as it comes to a halt. A man emerges from it, undoubtedly a sorcerer in his coal black garments, the sharp, coldness of his eyes. He has dark, slightly waving deep brown hair that falls to his shoulders, a sharp jaw bristling with stubble and hooded eyes, fire bright and full of amusement. At his ear, some magical symbol, a singular earring, glimmers.

Yennefer of Vengerberg, swathed in black silks and velvet, soon follows, grasping at his forearm so that she might not slip; she descends from the shadows like river water, dark and mysterious, gleaming obsidian. Her violet gaze, cold and aloof, dispassionate and menacing, drapes to her feet as she gathers the rich silks of her black skirts in one lace-gloved hand, flowing around shapely legs; her face, pale under the sunlight, radiates with fierce, provocative beauty. Dangerous. Shamelessly alluring. And dazzling. She tosses her head and draws the hood of her ink black velvet cloak trimmed with white fur back, shakes out her hair, and a mass of raven black curls cascades down her back to her waist. They ripple and shimmer under the sun, like spun silk. She deigns to smile at their driver, bestows an apathetic, cool look upon him. The mage draws her closer and she links her arm with his, says something sharply when he asks her a question. She's beauty and menace, loose hair and an excessively tightened belt round a willowy waist, a lace halterneck, plum lipstick. Wonderfully narrow, full lips press into a sharp smirk as she hastily unfastens the brooch from her cape, revealing white lace under its velvet, enveloping her breast. The sweet scent of crushed lilacs and gooseberries fills the air around her, mixing with the sharp tang of the sea coming to her in long slow drifts as they begin to pick their way down to the square, as she huffs coldly, says something to her companion, nervously toying with the obsidian star hung upon her slim throat, its active diamonds pulsating, sparkling like silvered flames.

The sky above them crackles with distant thunder.

@itinerunt

[hawksblooded]

Rain's coming down far harder than it has any right to this time of year, nearing the dead of winter as they are in these parts. Storm clouds that gathered nearly a tenday ago haven't yet broken, and the downpour drenching the town reeks of a fetid sea. Where frost typically crept across the cobblestones and icicles grew long under awnings now run shallow rivers of salt water and unassailable curtains of rain, and the fog that's risen from the streets seems to wrap tightly around those still willing to brave the deluge. Discontentment and unease keeps even those deep in their cups from truly enjoying themselves, and it's to this grim atomosphere and the endless drumbeat of rain upon the roof of the tavern that Soot makes his move. "Gotta job." A chair protests, creaking mildly at being pulled out and away so suddenly, and without so much as a by your leave he's sitting across from her. Stained fingers tap-tap-tap an uncertain beat upon the table as his flinty eyes regard her warily. Carefully. "Heard ya know 'bout reburying th'dead. That true?"

IT'S TOO LOUD IN the tavern, too full of noise and smoke. She wishes she slept outside, as she always does, under the black sky and a hundred thousand stars. But this place hasn't seen stars in a long while, not with this accursed change in the season. The inn is filled to the brim with the scent of fire, watered down soup, and the wet clothes that stick to travelers. Chatter is unending in this place without rest. Business and pleasure alike are heard on quiet voices, although the latter is rare and so thoroughly drowned by the weather. Yes, it smells like wet dog, and it sounds like misery. Ah well. Beats the rain.

She's three cups deep when a stranger seats himself right in front of her. It's all she can do not to tell him to fuck right off - she's halfway through the fourth mug of ale, as watered down as the streets outside and piss-warm. Though the place is packed to the brim, most give the hunter a respectable berth. Well, not all men are born smart, she thinks. She's about to slam her cup down in a clear display of impatience when he speaks just the right words. Alizebeth's amber eyes dart immediately to his', coal-black, thin gashes of light on her dark face. She doesn't bother with his question.

"What makes you think I want to get involved with whatever trouble you're in?"

[primalobscurite]

✒️ He pulled the woollen scarf closer about his neck, tucking it into his jumper with red, shaking and painful fingers as much as the insidious increasing numbness would allow him to do. For all he was wearing layers and dressed hardily, the wind seemed to carry with it a sharpened bite, like freezing unseen needles that bit through the toughened oilskin. The wind was not alone in the threat that it posed. For, obscuring all but the road in front of him and the desperate faint gleam of still-lit oil lamps, snow fell with the tempestuous force of a maelstrom, the flakes of white like a sinister murmuration. It landed on the collar of his coat, melting, trickling down his neck and spine, a river of cold that made him jolt and swear under his breath.

Shuddering and stubbornly putting one foot in front of the other, the coal dust near fully shed such had been the duration of his trudging up to that point. There was the grim realisation in the back of his mind that in truth? He was not entirely certain where he was. The protected lit oil within the flanking lamps told him that he was still in the village somewhere, but whether he was passing the home-shop of the butcher in the main throughfare or was further out on the fringes was a question that he feared attempting to answer. Going street by street, each step threatening to take him into the hedge-marked fields and from there, the bleak yet heartwarming mist-caressed domain as rich in stories as it was imposing unfettered by attempts at control that ever lasted for long.

Another gust and he collapsed to one knee outright, coughing and spluttering. Steadying himself with a hand that now began to be completely incapable of sensing anything, he paused for a moment as the sound of… he frowned. He couldn’t make it out clearly at first. Branches being blown over a slabbed pavement? Debris over cobblestones? Coughing heavily, the weight of his body seemed threefold and there was a growing desire in him, that scared him as much as offered relief, to simply find solid brickwork to lean against, to draw his limbs against himself, to tuck his head down and wait for the vicious blizzard to pass. Just as he began to crawl towards the wall that he was offered a tantalising glimpse of, did he hear a baying note that made itself distinct from the wind.

He'd heard stories of the Shuck. All of those that had reached his ears were warnings. ‘Don’t travel the roads at night without a lamp and iron’. ‘If the sky begins to darken and light falls, find shelter. Better to settle the night with a stranger than walk the roads and risk crossing the Shuck’. Then he heard the clattering again and registered it as the distinct clack-clack of canid claws on stone. The sound provoked a bittersweet ache in his heart, as he remembered the recent loss of Luther, his hunting dog who had been unfortunate in a recent journey out to put meat on the table that wasn’t painfully priced. The guilt and pain was dull and sharp in both-felt measure.

Then his eyes widened as he saw, materialising from amidst the snow, a blackened shape emerged, darker than the pitch-black night that reminded him of when the lamps ran out in the mine. Lengthy legs moved the forming shape forwards before stopping a hearse’s distance away. Still the shape appeared to be drawing on the snow and darkness itself to become apparent to the eye, and he felt his throat clench in fear as his heart raced when he saw the lengthy snout lead up to… he tried to focus but could not, so whether it had two eyes or the glow from each made it appear as though singular was left eerily unanswered. Where any other might well have turned and ran or turned and resolutely not looked back for fear of drawing attention, he did not have the energy in him to do so.

It watched him steadily, then partially turned and let out a new baying note again. For a moment, just a moment, his heart jumped in delight as the sound sounded so close to – no, was – the same sound that his hound had made when celebrating in a flushing rewarded. Looking over its shoulder, it then narrowed its eyes before making the same note again. Warmth seemed to suffuse his limbs, as though he was by an open fireside freshly fed, the crackling wood coaxing in heat like one would an eager lover. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to his feet, then took a step forward. When he began to move again, the clack-clack sounded as it trotted a little way ahead, the fathomless depth of its shaggy-furred… shadow-edged… darkness making it just within sight through the flurries of snow. Another step, then another. Running his hands up and down his arms and moving stiffly, step by step, he let himself be led by the beast.

He did not know how much time had passed, and neither did he focus on anything but he wept tears of relief when his hand found the familiar gargoyle door knocker of his home. Caressing the wood that he had bartered for with a trembling hand, he then looked over his shoulder and partially turned. Not quite in the middle of the road, the hound watched him steadily for a moment before turning. Within a few steps, all he could see was snow and blackness, and the barely-there beacon of the nearest lamp. He couldn’t quite shake off the last vestiges of the warning raising the hairs on the nape of his neck once the cold was banished but, after he had retired exhausted to prepare himself to face the early hours, he could no more force himself to focus on it than he could fight the tiredness that claimed him within a handful of slow, fireside-warmed breaths.

Image - Andrea Boloch

[inquisimer]

HELLOOOOO MER I come a-crawlin and a-beggin for Ariya & Loghain with "We're a strange pair, aren't we?" from the Fall list?

HI RO thank you for this one, I'm holding them gently🥺 they're friends dammit

for @dadrunkwriting

~~~

Ariya’s daggers thrummed as she thrust them deep in the hurlock’s chest, sending wave of the Blighted song up through her arms into her mind. She pulled her blades free in a spurt of black blood and the corpse fell to the ground with a surprisingly mundane thud.

She scanned the field, ready to leap on the next foe, but it was empty save for a lone warrior. Loghain was already wiping his blade with a thoroughly stained cloth, cleaning the acidic darkspawn blood from the silverite edge.

“Took you long enough,” he said.

“Sorry we aren’t all muscle-bound giants with swords,” she muttered, dragging the felled hurlock over to the pile. She pulled her flint and striker from the pouch at her hip and set the sparks to the corpses, quickly stepping back as flame roared, consuming the putrid flesh.

“If you wanted to take the time to learn, there’s a spare blade right here. Even your spindly arms could lift one, in time.”

Ariya scowled, but there was no bite in the gesture. “You’ll be eating those words next time your caught in one of those claw traps.”

A good natured smile curled his lips as he held his hands up in surrender. “Say no more, serah. Shall we make camp?”

The sun had dipped below the horizon as they fought, leaving only dregs of light across the greying skyline. Ariya wrinkled her nose at the decaying bonfire before them.

“Downwind, perhaps?”

Scant weeks had passed since they put the Fifth Blight to bed. Every morning and all day long Ariya caught herself tripping, jerking upright, as though she’d forgotten a treaty, an alliance, some angle that would give them leverage against an irrational, mindless opponent. She dreamed of Blighted dragons, roaring in her face as her companions turned away, and she woke with an aching heart and sweat slicked hair.

But the archdemon was dead. Her companions had left her, but not until the end, and they would come back if she asked, she was sure of it.

Well, most of them.

Loghain had a proper fire stoked and chunks of potato roasting over the coals by the time Ariya had pitched the tents and returned from a quick bath in the nearby river. He took his turn to rinse the residual darkspawn blood from his skin and armor; just because it no longer posed a deathly threat to them didn’t mean it was any more pleasant when it lingered.

Dinner was ready when he returned and they ate in mutually comfortable silence, taking turns scratching Rinn behind his perky ears and slipping him scraps of meat when they thought the other wasn’t looking.

“We’ve largely cleared this region,” Loghain finally said, clearing his throat and staring up at the moon that had long since risen in the sky. “Where will we go next?”

Ariya hummed thoughtfully. The Thaw was well underway and there were few resources to combat it. Despite Alistair’s mitigating influence, the Arls and Banns were loathe to allow any Orlesian force—even one under the Warden banner—to cross their boarders. The last word she’d had was that they were mustering a force from the Free Marches, but communication there was sparse, at best, and they had to travel across the Waking Sea to boot.

So really it was just the Ferelden Wardens against the lingering darkspawn. All two of them.

She sighed and dragged a hand through her damp hair, shaking it out in the heat of the fire. She had a few haphazardly drawn maps, a slapdash list of areas to go, squirreled away to her by Zevran and Leliana in their underhanded ways. It felt as though she’d never have anything more official, despite Weisshaupt’s clear treatment of her as the local Commander.

“Up toward West Hill, I think. Seems to be where they’re fleeing.”

“We can skirt around Highever, then, clear out any stragglers along the border.”

Ariya nodded. “Teryn Cousland has a handle on his lands, but I’m sure he’d appreciate the help.”

“From you, perhaps.” Loghain snorted. “I’m sure he’d rather I not come within ten leagues of his territory.”

“Ah, but it’s good you’re traveling with such a scrawny elf, then, no?” Ariya chucked her empty stake into the flames; they flared, sent a shower of sparks into the inky night. “A scrawny elf who earned the unending devotion of Highever by saving their country and avenging their mutiny.”

“Howe was a fool.”

“He wasn’t the only one,” she remarked, but there was a smile in her quip. They’d hashed and rehashed, screamed and stabbed their mistakes and regrets to death. Perhaps strangers looking in wouldn’t understand, but Ariya took great comfort in a companion who, at the very least, was no worse than she had been at times.

Life went on, as her mother had liked to say. Their hearts beat out a Blighted duty and it was only that which held them to answer.

“I’ll take first watch,” she offered, reaching for her whetstone. “Can’t have the old man drifting off when there’s darkspawn on the fringe.”

His bemused snort tickled her ears and she smiled. It was a Blighted world, but they made it work.

[auros-writing]

Black Blade Aldwin

This was a ballad I wrote for a creative assignment. The entire piece is in tetrameter-trimeter, so each pair of lines is 4 beats followed by 3 beats.

One merry morning midsummer’s day

A fleet doth dock in landing

For King Edward’s great French campaign

Had come to a beginning.

The bright July sky-beacon shown

The port of which they met

The great men of Saint Vaast la Hogue

Who would see no sun set.

Bretons, Germans, Welsh, English,

Did Edward send to fight

Did take the port-town those great men

Who fought until the night.

What anger seethed under his skin?

What upset that great lord?

King Edward wanted Gascony

To stay upon his board.

And so he marched his many mounts

Down South into French ground,

And on he marched towards River Seine

To sack a lovely town.

From town to town they came and went

And burned down every home,

For Edward wanted Gascony

To keep an English throne.

In Caen they burned and drank and stole

And ate their own good fill,

They all indulged save one good man

Who not had the same will.

He stayed and watched from a distance

With disdain in his heart,

This Black Blade soldier, his good soul

Denied that he take part.

That great sword, Aldwin, held his hilt

He looked over the town,

And as the smoke poured into night

Could not he but look down.

“Not ye want to take your fill

Do not ye want indulge?”

Asked one soldier unto the Blade

So did the Blade divulge:

“I take no part, this vile game

Does not entice my soul.

Had I stolen and drunk my fill

My heart be not but coal.”

The soldiers sacked Caen for five days

Yet not did Aldwin once,

He led the capture of the town

Yet not he led the hunts.

The first of August did depart

King Edward’s many blades,

And leading the front of the march

The great Aldwin’s brigade.

Across the Rivers Seine and Somme

The English fought their way,

For they needed to feed themselves

And North they made their way.

Black Blade Aldwin led the charge

That broke the French’s line,

He was no knight nor man-at-arms

Yet still he spilled blood-brine.

Further North outside Wissant

As night blazed into day,

King Edward held a council meet

Which chose to take Calais.

“Hark here my good kin, listen close,

For we have decided.”

The great King spoke, his men agreed,

No opinions divided.

“We’ll siege their gates and block their ports

Deny them any goods,

We’ll cut off all their food and drink

Deprive them of their woods.”

And so as the leaves fell from high

And changed from green to brown,

Great Edward sent his hefty men

To rupture Calais’ ground.

The men-at-arms and cavalry

Went charging at the gate,

Yet Black Blade Aldwin led no charge,

He chose to lie in wait.

Calais’ walls were heavy wrought

With moats and marshy swamps,

The charging forces stood no chance,

Their boots no place to stomp.

So settled then did King Edward

A settled camp he built,

Dubbed Nouville did the English stay

Till’ Calais’ red had spilt.

Yet Edward came and bade of him

That fabled blackened Blade,

He asked for Aldwin’s swordsmanship

Under his small tent’s shade.

“Aldwin I come to ask of you

To lead one final line.

I wish to break Calais’ thick gate,

That great door’s armored pine.”

Aldwin sat and rest his helm

Upon his leathered knee,

He thought about it long and hard

A decision made he.

“Great Edward, sir, I will oblige,

I’ll take your final run,

But do not expect blackened blades

To glisten in the sun.

I honor thee with my own soul,

I offer it to you,

For loyalty to my great land,

I’ll birth my blade anew.”

And so he led his men in front,

He tamed that wild crew,

He manned Edward’s tough men-at-arms

And led them through cold blue.

Through water, mud, and embankments

He marched his plate and steel,

He led the knights and cavalry

To Calais’ wooden seal.

Aldwin came upon the gate

That blocked his return home,

To take down this final defense

He’d sacrifice his bone.

Unleashed upon great Edward’s men

Calais fired its volley,

And out came iron pike-bearers

Who led Aldwin to folly.

Fight hard to breach the walls did he,

Did Aldwin wish to fight,

Yet to the ground his left hand fell,

Sliced by a nasty pike.

The English slayed those pike-bearers,

And fended from the arrows,

Yet before they could make their way,

Calais’ entrance had narrowed.

Much longer did the English wait,

Yet not could they shed blood,

They kept trapped the town of Calais,

Encased in bloodied mud.

‘Twas a rough day for Englishmen

For a defeat they felt,

Still not could they breach those thick walls

Yet further, Aldwin knelt.

No longer could he join the fray,

No longer his sword swung,

That Black Blade soldier, now a knight,

Was sent to see his young.

He returned to his English town,

Far sent from his short home,

Yet the battle still followed him,

And came for his land’s throne.

King Philip wished to save his folk

And act as such did he,

He called upon those noble Scots

To venge that land of thee.

And so the Scots, noble in deed,

Did they choose to comply,

At Neville’s Cross King David came

To light ablaze the sky.

The English had very few men

To protect their homeland,

Yet outnumbered ‘round two to one,

Ralph Neville did command.

He led those men of Edward’s kin,

Struck Scots from far and wide,

And of those men who Ralph had led,

The Blackened Blade did ride.

Although he only had his right,

His left did still do work,

For a plate shield mounted his wrist,

Under a blade doth lurk.

Upon his hilt, that blackened blade,

As wrought as it was born,

He entered for the final time,

A battlefield long torn.

For countrymen and kinsmanship,

Aldwin chose to protect,

The slaying of his families

A concept he’d reject.

For country, honor, and the crown,

Aldwin did dedicate,

For just a man he truly was,

Yet death he’d aggravate.

For long did he with scratch and wound,

Continue on his steed,

Until the final Scotsmen fell

And David’s push would heed.

A sad day for the Englishmen,

Again did the skies gray,

For no longer did Aldwin breathe,

Nor live another day.

The next midsummer did arrive,

One morning they did go,

His family sought to honor him,

And flowers did they grow.

They took them to his burial

And laid them on his grave,

Then came a many men for him

They wished to do the same.

For honor, glory, rectitude,

For kinsmen and for young,

The great Black Blade gave up his life,

Brought silence to his tongue.

For honor, glory, rectitude,

For family with no strife,

Great Black Blade Aldwin gave himself

For his young’s gentle life.

[duskandstarlight]

Embers & Light: Chapter 43.5

Notes: So when I posted last week I realised a few hours later that I hadn’t posted the whole chapter! So, here you go. An early, albeit short, update. Thanks as usual to my beta @noirshadow, who is incredibly patient with all my E&L ramblings and makes sure my writing actually makes sense!

Chapter 43.5

Nesta

Cold air snapped at Nesta’s body as Sala flew her to Lorrian and Frawley’s. Cassian travelled behind her, trailing her path, the beat of his wings grating on her until she wanted to scream. 

Of course, he hadn’t let her fly alone. He’d had to make sure that she was safe. That bond again, dictating his desires. Nesta didn’t understand why he couldn’t see that.

By the time she landed, Nesta had whipped herself into a fury that was frantic in its making—quivering with an energy that made her want to roar and sob until she was consumed with it.

“You’ve done your job,” she spat at Cassian, as he landed softly on his feet beside her with a neat retraction of his wings. “Now leave me alone.

They had landed just before the pine trees of the Eastern Steppes, where the forest decided to part for its witch and her home. The pine needles blocked out the sparkling stars above, casting the forest into smudgy shadows that made it near impossible for Nesta to pick her way across the ground, despite her fae eyesight. 

When she stumbled, Cassian flared his magic to light the way but, thankfully, he did not dare reach for her. Loose roots and fallen branches created obstacles underfoot, but Nesta let her body tackle them blindly until she cleared the tree line and suddenly she could see again.

Nesta picked up her pace, storming along the paddock fence as the cottage came into view. The building’s shape was blanketed by a coal-night hue, save for the buttery light that fogged around Lorrian and Frawley’s bedroom window. Besides the smoke puffing from the chimney, the night was alarmingly still, as if had taken in a gasping breath in anticipation of what was to unfold beneath it. 

The absence of Illyria’s fierce wind in Nesta’s anger felt foreign and infuriating, so Nesta walked faster, creating her own breeze. But the soft caress against her cheeks rather than the hurricane she longed for only served to sharpen the blade of her anger until it was lethal.

“Running away again,” Cassian growled from close behind her, his resolve to stay silent clearly breaking as Nesta stormed past the paddock entrance. He caught her wrist with a leather-clad hand and Nesta’s body jerked backwards as she was pulled towards him. 

“Why are you fighting this?” he asked as she snarled at him with such savagery it sounded like a wild animal. His voice cracked like ice over a river. “Why are you fighting something that I know makes you happy. I can make you happy, Nesta.”

“Stop it,” Nesta cut back, the slash in her voice a warning just as much as her words. Because Cassian sounded so agonisingly sad it bruised her lungs, every breath coiled with pain. 

“I’m not letting go,” Cassian told her, and they both knew the meaning was figurative as well as literal as he searched her face for something that would tell him to stay. “You can shout and scream and bite all you want, but you are not running away from me again. Not this time.”

Go home, Cassian.

“I don’t need someone to make me happy,” Nesta spat. “I can be happy independently of you.”

“You can have both.”

A cold, cruel laugh bubbled out of her. “Is that what you tell yourself every day when you pretend you can wear me down? Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing? That you’re hoping I’ll give in and accept a bond I have explicitly told you I do not want?”

Cassian didn’t let go of her. Instead, he pushed her hand back to her as if it disgusted him to hold onto her. Nesta caught how his black hair sifted, the strands shining in the starlight, just before she turned her back to him.

It wasn’t too late to catch the curl of his lip and the way hurt seized the green and brown of his eyes. “You think I lie to myself? Nesta, you pull the wool over your eyes every damn day!” The last three words were staccato, thudding after her as she all but spirited away from him on a storm wind. “You have wanted me since you met me. Admit it. You want me and I want you. It’s simple. It’s all simple if you’d just stop fighting—”

The audacity to insinuate that Nesta’s feelings were inconsequential was too much. It hurt more than anything else Cassian had ever said, the rest of his barbs merely needles to this blade. Because none of what was between them was simple. It was a tangled web of terror and confusion and a desperate need Nesta did not understand.

The ignorance—the implied slight at her intelligence—had Nesta whirling, cutting Cassian off mid-sentence. Magic thundered through her veins, her power barrelling to her palms. She had to expel it—had to let it out like a curdling scream. Without thinking, she flung out her hands.

Nesta’s magic flew, roaring silver flames closing the distance between them. All she cared about was making Cassian recoil when her fire sizzled into nothing millimetres from his face. All she needed to see was the froth of his anger as it finally boiled over and met hers. 

But Cassian moved quicker than Nesta had ever seen him. Red light shot from his siphons but this time there was no shield like there had been all of those months ago. Magic barrelled from his chest, his shoulders, his knees, the backs of his hands to meet hers—all of that magnificent power channelled towards her. 

Scarlet and silver lit up the clearing, bathing their surroundings like glistening blood. Nesta braced herself for the slamming impact, expected for them to both be thrown backwards, but that wasn’t what happened. Instead, her body was seized with a sudden vigour—like a wonderful, gasping breath. And their magic… it didn’t clash. No, their jets of power melded together, silver meeting red until it formed a smooth running stream. It glimmered, quiet and calm in contrast, like the calm and tranquil night sky.

It felt right and wonderful and infuriating. Even Nesta’s magic was betraying her. Even her power couldn’t help but want him, even when she was incandescent with rage for the warrior before her.

Unleashing a growl of anger, Nesta dropped her hands in defeat. They hung at her sides, a useless deadweight. She was panting hard, even though what she’d just done hadn’t exerted her—it had been easy and right and thrilling, as if she’d just woken up from a very long sleep.

For a moment, there was only silence. Cassian’s chest was heaving, his hair as wild as hers. His hands were still outstretched towards her, each and every one of his siphons activated and glowing. Like her, he was staring wide-eyed at the magic that hung overhead like a mist, their very own canvas of stars.

When his eyes flicked to hers, the shock in them was still stark. In fact, Nesta could have sworn she spied terror in them. He stepped forward—her Cassian—but Nesta stepped back. A disgruntled growl rumbled in the back of his throat, and then he was striding towards her before she could even think about moving away from him. Stopped when he was a breath away from her.

Pine and musk wound around her body in an invisible embrace and Nesta’s face crumpled at the familiarity of it. She wished she was curled up beside Cassian in bed, her limbs tangled in his, her nose buried in his neck. She wished she’d never challenged him for answers in the bedroom earlier. Wished she was still living in blissful ignorance.  

Two calloused hands came to frame her face and Nesta couldn’t find the will to shake them off. Couldn’t. 

“Nesta,” Cassian rasped.

Nesta managed to shake her head. Go away. Please.

Cassian’s expression broke even as it remained still. Nesta didn’t understand how, but it did. It was something behind his eyes—the faint flicker of his eyebrows as they dipped in and out of a frown. 

But Cassian didn’t drop his hands from her cheeks, as if he knew she didn’t really want him to leave her. Brushed his thumbs over her cheeks—wiping away the tracks of fury that had fallen from the corners of her eyes.

“Do you want me or not?” Cassian asked quietly, after a long while. His eyes searched into her silver eyes—pierced her soul. Flames danced in the reflection of his irises. And Nesta knew that this was taking everything for him to ask it out loud. “Do you want me, Nesta?”

Run, run, run, the Cauldron mused in Nesta’s head, as it cast that sleepy eye on her. 

Nesta shrugged out of Cassian’s embrace. Her movements were syrupy, as if the air around her had thickened, but still she managed to turn. Her entire body was shaking—whether it was from that leftover rage, or because her heart was breaking, Nesta wasn’t sure.

A sob heaved through her body but Nesta caught it before she made a sound. She couldn’t let Cassian see it. Couldn’t let him know how much she was affected by him. 

Slowly, Nesta walked to the cottage. She was still coated in Cassian’s magic, his scent on her tongue both divine and hellish. And that alone made her want to cry even more. It served as a reminder that she was constantly at war with herself. This battle that had been thrust upon her, chaining her free will and making her question everything.

“Leave me alone,” Nesta ordered flatly, without looking behind her.

Nesta didn’t know why she expected Cassian to stay. To fight. But the sound of beating wings filled Nesta’s ears just as she reached the backdoor. It felt as if someone had closed a fist around her heart, squeezing and squeezing until the blood ran dry and veins popped under the pressure. 

Frawley was waiting at the threshold, her expression grim. The witch held the door open in invitation.

But Nesta paused. Turned back to the paddock.

Cassian was gone.

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[balladofthewhitehorse]

I saw the post you reblogged about eye nation's colours. I thought I'd share mine on eye-related headcanon.

Arthur's eyes due to his magic and connection with his Gaelic family are that bright acid day-glow green. but if you catch him as his just was and look into what you expect acid green. You'll several different things. Brown, brown-hazle, hazle-blue, blue or this green-blue. Arthur's eyes have changed in reflection of his demographics along with his hair. the which went from bright orange-ginger to that the dirty blonde-red. he's been paling it with lye for centuries and then once dye became available dying it to even out the blonde and red in his hair.

If he's out of England too long his eyes fade to greenish blue until they turn this vibrant deep sapphire blue. if I'm honest his brown-eyed flaming bright orange hair looks from before the Saxons came is very striking.

By the time the Vikings left he was a bright strawberry blonde and after the French settled that's when he actually became blonde.

That's pretty interesting, I like your HCs a lot - the idea of eyes and hair changing to match demographics isn't something I've considered before. That's a very unique take on it, NGL. I'll put down some descs of some of their eye colours below so you can see my takes on it. I've already talked about their hair colours before. England: Green-blue, like the sea you remark. Except it ripples, white foam cresting around his pupil as he stares menacingly at you. There is not even a smile offered as you drown in that murk, tugged under by an unseen phanthom. The smell of salt clings to you, followed by a menacing tang of gunfire; the sea is his eyes, you realise, paralysed as you watch a towering wave form and shatter against flecks of dark brown - rocks, you realise, jutting from the throes of the sea. You can almost hear the distant boom as waves crash again and again. He blinks and the illusion is replaced by the slow flow of meandering rivers, intercepted by the creep of black branches against a grey sky. Another blink and its a more verdant green, and another and the illusions are gone entirely. Oh. His eyes were only blue. Or are they green? You can never remember, each time this surly customer comes around. Scotland: His eyes are a bright blue, though you have sworn once they were a dark grey; flashes of light behind his iris, though he smiled placidly, fury thudded like distant thunder. You were carried away, adrift on monstrous gales that lashed you high, clouds scudding below you. Another look at it is the same fathoms as an earlier customer, except that it swirls, churning and twisting and tugging, the depths of a vaguely recalled body of water coming to the fore of your mind, something about the Corryvreckan and its depths. You get lost there, and by the time you get your focus, he is gone now. Whenever he returns now, he does not meet your eye, though on occassion you have regarded the Corryvreckan and watch the swirls of white drift through, torn between a storm-fraught sky and the din of the sea's might, unable to choose which scenery is your liking. Oh well, his eyes are really beautiful, you muse, worthy of a painting or two. Wales: Her eyes are brown. You swear they were always brown and will always be, but there is a glint of gold you spied once, reptilian and proud, the furl of a banner held high and a dragon's gaze snapping wide open; You'd stumbled and caught yourself in her arms, and what was brown was like fire, the cracking and peeling of bark, and then she blinked, and there was a gleam of bright red, like berries, the bent bows of flexible yew. She apologised, and you swore that her pupils had turned to slits, the wakening of something deep in the earth, stark brown giving way to something welling deep inside. Another occassion, you had called out to her with a cheerful smile, and her eyes were as black as coal, mournful and smoggy. She said she was having a bad day. You saw that sight too many times, but she never explained. She insisted her eyes were only brown. You swore to yourself otherwise. It was coal fires, yew trees and dragon scales. But she insisted it was brown and you were mad. Ireland: Her eyes are hazel. On occassion, they seem greener - more vivid, until they almost seem to hurt to look at, sharper than any thorn. This comes and goes, of course, and others swear they were more pale brown, withered and dry stalks, poor eating. Sometimes you swear, that her eyes are many colours - shifting from gold to orange to yellow to a faint dusk, the sun setting - though she never explains. She never says anything to you really, only passing by on the few occassions she visits family or friends. Hope, you decide is what her eyes are, forged a long time ago when times were harder, burned into her gaze. You overheard a claim that her eyes were once gold a long, long time ago. You wished you could've seen it. But no, it was hazel.

[imgoingtofreakoutnow]

An old friend - Part 3

Summary: The picnic has come and so the time to face Anthony on what you discovered, but will everything go as planned?

Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton x Fem!reader

Other characters: Hyachint Bridgerton, Eloise Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington

Words: 3.0k+

Warnings: slight angst (?), fluff, again some yearning

A/n: This has been quite difficult to finish, I had different ends in mind but none seemed to fit well the flow... I hope you’ll like this! Also, I may post other parts in the future but for now, count this as the final one. ENJOY!

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Gif's not mine, credit to the rightful owner

When the time came to attend the picnic in Hyde Park, the day was nothing but perfect: the sun, for the special gathering, had decided to come out of the clouds to honor everyone with its presence and a warm breeze enveloped every figure walking through the gardens or simply resting on the grass with its embrace. Even the London sky didn’t look like its normal self, with no grey clouds all over; just a few white stripes painting the bright blue canva. In other words, the epitome of a summer day.

However, sat under the gazebo playing cards with Hyacinth, Eloise and Penelope, you felt much worse than a rabbit caught under the wheel of a carriage.

"Miss Y/N/L". You turned towards Hyacinth, who was pointing at the cards. "It's your turn"

"Very well..." you sighed, throwing in the space between the four of you the first card that came in your hand. Winning the game was the least of your problems.

You had spent all night rolling from one side of your bed to the other, playing and replaying every possible scenario in your head, looking for the right way to ask Anthony what you wanted to know without sounding too accusatory. Nevertheless, it was hard to face the man when he was nowhere to be found!

He had just a moment to greet you with a quick kiss on your hand - which, you couldn't help, had made your heartbeat rise as a river during a flood - before being taken hostage first of many beautiful debutants, second of their meddlesome mothers and lastly of some old friends from boarding school.

Right now he was somewhere in the park with them, possibly reminiscing of that one time they put black ink in the professor's shoes... or something similar to that, you imagined. You weren't so sure of what sort of jests could boys come up with.

"Miss Y/N/L". Hyacinth's voice reached you again through the bubble of your thoughts. You put down another card. It took you a second after that to realize that Eloise had no cards in her hands anymore, thus making her the winner.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry" you apologised, putting your left cards back in the deck. "I hope you didn't ask me anything while I was lost in my mind"

"Just if you were alright, miss" explained Penelope. "Did you sleep well last night? You look quite tired"

You sighed. There was no sense in keeping that a secret. "Not quite. Some matters just seemed to be stuck in my head and decided not to leave for the night"

Eloise's eyes sparked in interest. "What kind of matters?" she asked, eating a strawberry.

"Nothing relevant at all" you assured with a smile, but from the look on Eloise's face, you knew she wasn't finished asking.

"No irrelevant matter could keep anyone awake for an entire night" she pointed out. "But I know what matters could..."

Penelope sighed. "Eloise..."

"Family matters" she started, raising her index, "and heart matters". She bent slightly towards you with the Bridgertons' signature smile on. "Which does apply to you?"

You scoffed. "Neither, of course". As you lowered your gaze to the messy deck, the rays of the sun felt suddenly more focused on your face than on anyone else's.

"Heart matters, that is!" Eloise exclaimed with a single clap, her eyes smiling brighter than her grin. "Do we know the lucky gentleman who caught your eye? Or perhaps he is from the countryside? Don’t tell me: are you two secretly engaged?"

Before your cheeks became the same shade of wine, a deep voice intruded the conversation: "You shouldn't badger our guest with your inquisitiveness, Eloise"

Your head shot up to meet Anthony's gaze. Even though your feelings towards him were mixed at the moment, seeing him washed you over with a warm, soothing sensation, as the need of his touch grew within you.

Eloise huffed, standing up from her seat, immediately followed by miss Featherington. "You are a bore, dear brother. I have nothing else to say on this matter". Then, taking Penelope's arm in hers, she walked away, already whispering in her best friend's ear.

"Anthony, do you want to play with us?" asked Hyacinth, already preparing the deck for another round.

Anthony smiled gently at her. "Maybe later" he said, pinching lightly her cheek. "Why don't you go play with Gregory now? I've heard he wanted to see if he could find rabbits near the bushes... or perhaps even goblins"

Hyacinth gasped. "Without me?!". She quickly and clumsily got up in her dress and, after a small curtsey to you, she was running on the grass to who-knows-where.

Now that the cover was clear, Anthony laid down next to you, pointing his elbow on the ground to keep himself up. After adjusting in a comfortable position, he sighed, looking in the direction in which Hyacinth ran off.

"Should you think she'd be angry to find out I lied to her?"

You smirked, taking a card from the deck and fidgeting it in your hands. "About Gregory or the goblins?"

Anthony turned to you, raising his eyebrows. "Both?"

You shook your head, giggling ever so slightly. "You, Lord Bridgerton, are incorrigible: lying like this to your youngest sister... what a rascal"

A corner of his lips tilted upwards. "You should not talk like this to a viscount, miss Y/L/N" he murmured. His hand moved to your arm, his fingers stroking your bare skin, lighter than a feather touch and equally tingling. "I would say it was quite improper"

At this words you moved away from him, just enough so that his fingers could only touch the empty space between you. He searched your face but you were still staring at your card.

"I believe we should talk, my lord” you said, your voice still and steady more than what you expected. “However...", you looked at Benedict and Colin, who had just appeared in your sight and were directed towards the gazebo, "...maybe a walk would be best suited for such matters"

Even with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion, Anthony nodded, standing up again and offering his hand to help you. You gently accepted and he pulled you up. Nonetheless your feet got caught in the cover, making you lose your balance and ending up in his arms.

"I-I'm terribly sorry" you muttered, raising your gaze to his and finding him already staring at you. The warmth of his hands, steadying you, got past your gloves terribly easily and you found that being there, pressed against his chest, so near to his heart, was the only place were you wanted to be.

You took a couple of steps back, smoothing your wrinkled dress and taking a deep breath in. His closeness was like opium to you: even the slightest hint and you lost your mind; and unfortunately right now, you had to be present.

He cleared his voice, handing politely his arm to you. "Shall we go?". You nodded joining your arms and moved with him on the beaten pathway.

A few minutes passed in complete silence, as you tried to find the right words to start. Apart from sporadic pairs walking the opposite direction, you were the only ones strolling in the park at that time of the day, when the sun shines so bright it could make the blood in your veins boil; only birds kept uninterrupted their concert.

"Are you upset because I didn’t honor you with my presence all morning?" guessed Anthony, raising his eyebrows. “Trust me, I would’ve gladly spent more time with you than with any of my other acquaintances”

You shook your head, a smile gracing your face. "Certainly not, my lord: your family was very kind to me in your absence" you assured him. "Besides I'm not upset... I just want answers to what I've heard"

"And what, pray tell, have you heard?"

You moved your gaze from his; there was no way to sweeten the pot. "I've heard that, in certain circles, you are considered a rake; and" you added, before he could stop you, "that you've been spending time with various women last season, opera singers from what these rumours told me"

"And you believe these rumours, miss Y/L/N?". His voice didn't show any emotions but his muscles were tense as an arp string.

"That is why I'm asking you, my lord. I wish to believe it a lie, but your actions yesterday, as appreciated, had boldness in them... quite like Sir Feversham's"

Anthony stopped in the middle of the path, his jaw clenched. "Don't compare him to me, I am nothing like him”. His dark eyes seemed coal ready to be set on fire. “I would've never forced you into anything-"

"I know". You squeezed gently his arm against your side. "I know that, Anthony. Nonetheless, I’ve been wondering since last night if you consider me just as one of those opera singers and you’ll leave me alone like you did to them: my honor undermined and a broken heart to fix..."

"Do you really think I would do something like that?"

You raised your eyes to meet his. The lump in your throat, seeing the hurt look on his face, triplicated. "Haven't you done it before?"

Anthony clenched his jaw again, avoiding your gaze. Many emotions crossed his eyes before he closed them for a moment. Then, after giving a quick look all around, he started guiding you towards an almost hidden path through the hedges.

"Where are you taking me?" you asked, confused and slightly frightened by the sudden change of course.

He glanced towards you with his lips curved. "You did want answers, didn't you?". When you nodded, Anthony slid his hand in yours. "Then there is absolutely no need to worry, miss Y/L/N, I can assure you that" he whispered, preceding you in that natural maze.

As you followed him, jumping over ponds of mud, protruding roots and avoiding overhanging branches, it felt for a moment like you were back in one of the fantasies you two came up with as kids, exploring the deep amazonian jungle in search of a lost civilisation or a hidden temple behind a waterfall; you couldn't believe they belonged to such a long time ago...

The hedges surrounding you ended abrubtly, opening on a clearing that looked like an illustration from a storybook: the grass, kept perfectly cut in the rest of the park, reached knee height there and, in between the stems, flowers popped out in the vivid green, their bright colours catching your eye.

However what left you mouth agape was the modest pavilion in the centre. Its classic columns, with ivy crawling around them, had almost invisible cracks on their surface, and the marble, if once polished, was now covered with a thick layer of dust and dead leaves. Still, even so neglected, its ruined beauty left you speechless.

"How... how did you manage to find this place?" you asked in a whisper, your fingers caressing the tall grass as you approached the pavilion.

"In the most common and simple way”. At your confused glance, he smiled mischievously. “Hiding from my mother"

“You even hid from your mother, my lord?” you smirked.

“Everything to escape her matchmaking schemes” Anthony laughed before a sad smile appeared on his lips. “Nevertheless, it was years ago, when I was still allowed to act as a foolish young man, from time to time”. He left your hand and started unbuttoning his tailcoat.

As he took it off to put it on the marble bench, your gaze wandered on his shoulders and down his arms, framed by his tight waistcoat and usually concealed under that thick layer of blue velvet.

"Shall we start?" he asked, gesturing for you to sit next to him.

You took a seat and noticed how Anthony was wringing his hands, his body again all tensed up. Without uttering a word - it was his time to speak - you took his hand in yours, stroking your gloved thumbs on his skin.

"I must say" he started, "that the market’s gossip is quite accurate... but still not enough to be a reliable source” - then, after a sigh - “because yes, I am a rake - or at least I can be consirered one - and yes, I spent most of last season at the opera house. However, unlike what those women told you, my only company was one beautiful and indipendent lady, whose name I’d rather keep unknown"

He looked at you, almost asking for your permission. "Of course, my lord, I understand". Anthony nodded thankfully before letting his tongue on the loose.

He told you everything you needed to know, his gaze fixed on nothing, eyes lost in memories that you could only try to picture in your head. Every emotion he’d felt in the past crossed his face as he spoke of every step of the affair, from their first meeting to their very last goodbye. You saw how difficult was for him to remember that latter part, even though months had passed since then. After all, no love can ever be truly forgotten.

"Looking back, I’ve realized only recently that she broke my heart just as much as I broke hers" he admitted, his gaze falling on your joined hands. “She deserved much better than the transitory pleasure I was able to give her... I still slightly regret what we could’ve been, but there’s no use in mourning the past”. He stroked gently the palm of your hand. “I’ve found the present to be an unexpected and more appreciated bearer of happiness”

You blushed as his eyes set on you, a welcome sincerity lighting them. However, there was still something, in a deep corner of your mind, that wouldn't let you enjoy the moment completely.

"Thank you for telling me all about it, Anthony" you said, watching him trace abstract figures on your hand. "But I do have one last question"

He moved your hand to his mouth, placing a kiss on your covered wrist and lingering with his lips on that small spot. "You can ask me anything, Y/N"

After a deep breath, you fixed your eyes in his. "What am I to you?"

He furrowed his brows, confused. "I beg your pardon?"

"I do believe you fancy me" you started, looking away and fidgeting your hands as you spoke, "but I can't quite understand if your intentions with me are honorable or if you're simply using my company to your likings"

Anthony shook his head. “That’s nonsense, I would never-”

"Then do you intend to propose to me?" you asked, a rush of boldness flowing in your veins. “You know me, more deeply than any man I’ve ever met, and I found myself drawn to you in a way I’ve never experienced before... and I believe you feel the same”. He stared at you in silence. "I thought you wanted to marry as soon as you found a suitable lady..." you added, his stillness making your heart ache. "Am I not enough to be your wife?"

"Don't". Anthony cupped your face, his hands warm on your skin. "Do not say something like that ever again. You are not only more than enough, but more than I could've ever hoped to find... your intelligence astounds me just as much as your beauty hypnotizes me and I do believe you shall become one of the most accomplished Viscountess of Bridgerton that ever walked this Earth"

As his words beat in your mind ritmically with the pounding of your heart, you held your breath. "...but?"

"But I've rushed things in the past and burned everything I'd built to the ground, myself included. I don't want to make any mistakes with you, and if that means doing things properly, then be it". He stroked your cheek gently and you unconsciously leaned in his touch. "I've lost you once and I surely shall not make the same mistake twice"

You smiled, tears menacing to roll down your cheeks at any moment.

"Don't cry" he whispered, leaving a light kiss on your forehead and you laughed. His lips were as soft as you pictured them in your dreams.

"Don't mind my wet eyes... I'm just- I've never felt this happy before"

He smiled, placing one hand on yours. "Let's hope this will never change then". You nodded, smiling even wider.

So, as the sun went down and the wind kept blowing, you stayed there, talking, laughing, making up for all the lost time, in that little clearing out of time, and you wished you could stay there forever...

“We should go now” Anthony got up from its place. “It’s getting dark”

Making your way back in the reality it felt like waking up from a long, sweet dream, one that makes you wish you could sleep forever.

Your carriage was already waiting you at the edge of the park. Anthony helped you get into it as the gentleman he was. “Goodnight, miss Y/L/N”

“Goodnight, Lord Bridgerton” you smiled down at him, your hand still in his. “And thank you for the wonderful day”

He smirked and kissed your knuckles lightly, lingering again on the same spot where he kissed you for the first time. “The pleasure was all mine, my lady. I shall see you soon”

“Of course” you whispered not capable of even breathing. Anthony smiled, letting go of your hand as a footboy closed the door of the carriage. Then the coachman incited the horses and you were off in the night.

Resting on the soft pillows inside, you sighed, your eyes fixed on the stars outside the window. “Until next time”

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