#weight loss this year shall be mine | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

braveclementine · 9 months ago

Text

Chapter 25

Warnings: None. However, future chapters will contain sexual content so readers that are under the age of 18 may have to skip those chapters (Please keep note of the warnings).

Copyright: I do not own any Wizarding World characters that J.K. Rowling wrote. I do however own Elizabeth Kane (main character) and Trang Nyguen (best friend). There should be no use of these two names without my permission. I also do not condone any copying of this.

𝕴𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖔𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜 tree, there is a woman stuck in time.

Harry stayed kneeling by Severus side. Fawkes heavy weight on my shoulder was trying to comfort me, his head pressed against mine.

She has seen all the right doors. Made every right choice.

"You have fought." Voldemort's voice barely penetrated my thoughts. "valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery."

Done everything that she could possibly do.

"Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste."

She tried to save someone. Many someones. But couldn't.

"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured."

The memory of her husbands laugh suddenly plays in her mind, holding their year old son above his head while the newborn babies sit in their cribs, watching with interest- if a newborn can show interest.

"I speak now, Harry Potter and Elizabeth Kane, directly to you. You have permitted your friends and family to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."

Her husband holds her hair back as she vomits into the toilet, her stomach round with his child.

"Don't listen to him." Ron said.

"It'll be all right. Let's- let's go back to the castle, if he's gone to the forest we'll need to think of a new plan-

She hears her friends moving, getting ready to leave, but the noises seem separate from reality. Or her dream. She's not really sure which side of the veil she's on now.

"Elizabeth we need to go." Hermione begs me, her hand on my shoulder. Fawkes lets out another cry, nudging my head with his beak.

Hands lift me under my arms, breaking me out of my trance and thoughts. The tears don't come like I thought they would. Instead, I walk after them, Harry keeping a tight hold on my elbow as we cross the battlefield.

Bodies littered the lawn of the castle.

The Fallen Fifty.

But these bodies out here would be almost all Death Eaters, though of course Neville and Oliver would be bringing more bodies in.

"Where is everyone?" Hermione asked.

"Great Hall." I said softly, bending down and picking up one of the emeralds that had been scattered on the floor from the House Points. I ran my thumb along the cold, smooth surface of the gem.

Ron led the way to the Great Hall and I stopped in the doorway with Harry as Ron and Hermione went on to go to Rons' family.

I could see Madam Pomfrey working with several Hufflepuffs to take care of the injured, laying them out on the tables and other raised platforms. My eyes landed on Firenze, who had been injured, laying on his side as his flank poured blood, which had started to pool around him on the floor.

I started to head towards him, when I saw them. My legs gave out, my mouth dropping into a soundless cry.

Dad and Tonks, laying dead next to Fred.

I had lost all of them.

No matter how hard I tried.

I couldn't change the future.

I put my hand over my heart, fingers clawed, digging them into my shirt like I was going to rip my own heart out. I wanted to, from the pain that was tearing through my entire body. My hands moved up to my body, fisting my hair painfully and when someone called my name and I lowered them, strands of brown hair came away, my scalp stinging where they'd released.

It had been Firenze who had called for me, his pained Sapphire eyes on me.

I staggered to my feet and walked towards him, sitting down next to him. I summoned cloth and wadded it up, putting pressure on his wound, looking around.

"Who did you lose, Elizabeth Kane?" Firenze asked softly.

I looked at him. "Everyone."

"I'm sorry." He murmured.

I nodded, blinking tears and then looked around. "SUSAN!"

Susan turned, her face blotchy with tears, but came over all the same. She kept the pressure on Firenze while I went to Madam Pomfrey, getting the herbs I needed. I knew that she knew Dad was dead and she kept looking at me, but I ignored her looks. I needed to focus now. I couldn't have anything distract me from my current task.

Like with Cedric, with Sirius, with Dumbledore, with Uncle Moody, I pushed the pain and loss down, once more locking my emotions away in my heart. I methodically treated Firenze with the herbs, before sewing the wound up with magic. He still wasn't able to stand and I used only forest herbs as a pain relief medicine, which he sipped.

He rested his head on my leg and I stroked his blond white hair back as he slowly drifted into a peaceful sleep.

I finally stood up, knowing that I needed to do several things before the hour was up, and I was already twenty minutes in.

I approached my dad, Tonks, and Fred. Bill saw me coming and enveloped me into a tight hug. "I'm so sorry Elizabeth."

"I lost everyone." My voice broke and I swallowed hard, desperate to keep back tears. "I tried Bill. I killed Dolohov and I gave them liquid luck they should've. . . I did everything."

"I know." He whispered. "Percy told us."

I wiped my eyes, slowly pulling from his embrace and walked over to Dad, sitting in the small space between the two of them. My fingers shakily reached out, touching his hand. I let out a sob, feeling how cold his fingers were.

"DAMNIT!" I screamed, slamming my fists against his still chest. I buried my head against chest, sobbing. "Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! WHY?" I screamed.

"Elizabeth." Kingsleys' strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me away from my father. "Easy there."

"Why?" I sobbed, clutching Kingsleys' arm like a child holding a teddy bear. "Why me? Why do I lose everyone I love? What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything." Kingsley said softly. "You did everything you could."

"They're all dead Kingsley." I sobbed. "Severus too which means I don't have anyone to help me raise the kids. How am I supposed to do this? I don't know what to do!" My tears dripped down his arm and he hugged me closer.

"You have me." He said softly. "I'll be whatever you need me to be, for you and for the kids. Anything you need."

He held me for a long time, before the clock chimed that I had about fifteen minutes before the hour was up. I wiped my eyes, locking the emotions away again, getting to my feet dizzily.

"I'm going to try and find Harry." I said with a slight hiccup. "Thank you for. . ." I drifted off.

Kingsley nodded, squeezing my shoulder, and walked over to where McGonagall was with the other Professors.

I knelt back down, kissing Dad's cheek. "I- I love you so much daddy." I took his and Tonks hands, lacing their fingers together, before getting back up and leaving without looking back.

Originally, I had planned on going upstairs to see Trang, to tell her what had happened. To tell her Oliver was okay as well. Now, I couldn't face her, to tell her I had failed spectacularly. Dad had been a second dad to her and she had loved Tonks and Fred and had been so happy I had Severus. How could I tell her they were all dead?

Instead, I walked down to the edge of the forest where I knew Harry was going to come in his invisibility cloak. However, I paused as I saw the older Slytherin boy kneeling over a body. I knew Oliver and Neville were bringing in the other bodies, but he made me curious.

"It's my fault." The boy hadn't even turned to see who it was, but he didn't care. "It's my fault that he's dead."

"No it's not." I whispered, stepping up to him. It was one of the Slytherin boys, one of the brave ones that had stayed to fight. "It's not your fault. You didn't know he would die."

"If I hadn't insisted that some of us fight. . ." He murmured.

"You were noble." I said softly. "That's what Slytherins are. You and the other ten that stayed to fight with us, they are the noblest of their house."

"And where did that get him?" He asked, gently closing the lids of the young boys eyes. I didn't even know his name. He picked the young boy up in his arms and turned to me. "Don't give yourself over Kane. Or he will have died for nothing." And with that, he continued to walk up to the castle, passing Oliver as he came out of the castle for another body.

I hesitated, and then finally continued walking, turning into a cat so I wouldn't be tempted to stop for any reason. The dementors were nearby, but they didn't affect me as much as a cat, Sirius had been right about the animal part of that.

I waited in a tree until I heard his footsteps and his shaky breath. I let out a few meows and saw him lift the edge of the invisibility cloak up. I leapt down, turning human as he put the cloak over me.

We just stared at each other for a couple of seconds, under the cloak. His green eyes, so much like our mothers' looked back into my brown ones, so much like my fathers. And in that moment, the pressure of my tongue- a pressure I had never noticed before- lifted.

"I'm your sister."

"You're my sister." Harry said at the exact same time.

Of course, Severus probably had that in his memories.

"You never told me before." Harry said softly.

"Would you believe me if I told you I wanted to, but couldn't?" I asked softly.

Harry was silent for a moment and then whispered, "Yes."

"But I can now and it's bittersweet." I whispered. "That we should get so little time together as a family."

He pulled me into a hug, which I returned, gripping him tightly. "You were always my sister Elizabeth, this just means we share the same blood too."

I breathed in shakily, pulling back. "I don't want to make you late for your a-appointment." My voice cracked and I wiped under my eyes. I tapped the pouch that he had hanging around his neck. "I open at the close."

Harry pulled it open, breathing hard and fast as he stared down at it. He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, "I am about to die." We watched the metal shell break open and I whispered. "Lumos."

The black stone was smooth except for the jagged crack running down the center. It sat in the middle of the two halves of the snitch, like a cherry whose chocolate shell had been split. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were also discernible.

Harry closed his eyes, turning the stone over in his hand several times, before opening his eyes and looking around.

Harry's eyes flicked between figures before settling on one. I wished I could see them again, though I knew if I took the stone I would see different people. While I would also see James, Lily, Sirius, and Dad, I knew I would also see Uncle Moody, Cedric, Fred, and Severus. And with my new plan in mind, I wasn't sure if I could handle the emotional trauma it would put me through.

"They say hello." Harry said softly, holding his hand out. I knew he wanted me to take it, so that we could talk to them together, but I shook my head and actually took a step back.

"If I touch it Harry, I'll take it and run and never let it go." I whispered. "And it'll drive me mad. . . like the second brother." I kissed his cheek. "I love you."

I dipped out of the Cloak before he could say anything, taking off as a cat, racing away from my brother and from the stone. I had meant what I said. I would never let the stone go, and for that reason I didn't need to know where he dropped it.

So, I did the only thing I could do to get the stone and the possibility of seeing my family again off my mind.

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

"𝕳𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖞 𝕻𝖔𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖎𝖘 dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone." Voldemorts' voice echoed throughout the land. "The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you, and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman, or child, will be slaughtered, as will every member of their family. Come out of the castle now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together."

I stroked Buckbeaks' feathers as I sat upon his back. The hippogriff scratched his taloned foot against the dirt floor of the forest. I heard hooves approaching but did not even turn, knowing that they were the Centaurs.

"Elizabeth Kane." Banes' voice was the one who said my name.

"Bane." I said softly, looking over at him now, bowing my head slightly and greeted the others, "Ronan, Ivagio, Magorian, Zane."

"How are you, Elizabeth Kane?" Ivagio asked. He had always reminded me of Kingsley- but as a Centaur- with dark chocolate skin and brown hair which was also more wild than the other centaurs, though just as silky. But he also had a calming manner although if we were being honest his face was far prettier than Kingsleys'.

"I have fallen victim to my own human wills. I am seeking revenge." I sighed.

"Well, you are only human." Ivagio sighed. Bane snorted.

I let Buckbeak go as far as the crest of the hill near Hagrids' cabin, just so that I could see what was going on. The Death Eaters were just approaching the castle, the students, teachers, parents, and shopkeepers were gathered on the front steps.

"NO!" I watched Professor McGonagalls' hands fly to her mouth and my heart clenched, hearing her make such a sound. Bellatrix laughed giddily at her pain.

"No!"

"Harry! HARRY!"

Hermione, Ron, and Ginny screamed for him as well.

"SILENCE!" Voldemort shouted with a bang and a flash of bright light.

The centaurs gathered near me once more, their bows at their ready. I touched my own bow, which was slung neatly over my back, plenty of arrows in my quiver. Perhaps it was a stupid move, but I knew it would have an element of surprise, especially since I had imbued my arrows with a quick acting poison that would paralyze anyone- which was why I was wearing dragonhide gloves.

"Elizabeth Kane, when do we attack?" Ivagio asked.

Magorian and Bane both shot him a look, which plainly said that they did not appreciate his question.

"When Voldemort lights the Sorting Hat on fire." I answered steadily.

"He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds, killed while trying to save himself-"

Neville threw himself at Voldemort, taking the Dark Lord by surprise, before they fought and then Voldemort threw him off, Neville hitting the ground. Voldemort threw Neville's wand to the side and laughed, "And who is this? Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?"

Bellatrix laughed out the creepiest laugh I would ever hear (until Kamala Harris became VP) and said, "It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord! The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?"

Neville struggled to his feet as Voldemort looked down upon him. "Ah, yes, I remember. But you are a pureblood, aren't you, my brave boy?" Voldemort asked. Neville curled his hands into fists.

I snorted, knowing that Voldemort knew Neville was a pureblood and hence why he chose Harry as his equal.

"So what if I am?"

"You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom."

"I'll join you when hell freezes over. DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY!" The crowd behind Neville cheered loudly, breaking Voldemort's silencing charm.

"I do not understand, I thought they were unable to make noise." Ivagio said, a slight frown on his face.

"Love is a type of magic." I answered. "When Harry died for everyone, it means that Voldemort doesn't have the same power over them as he once would. The same way our mother died for him, it protected him from Voldemort too."

"Very well. If that is your choice, Longbottom, we revert to the original plan. On your head, be it." He said so quietly I almost didn't catch the last bit. Voldemort waved his wand, glass shattering and the Sorting hat hat landed in Voldemorts' hand. He shook it out to reveal its' shape to everyone else who could not see the future and therefore, had no idea what it was.

"There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School. There will be no more Houses. The emblem, shield, and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for everyone. Won't they, Neville Longbottom."

I pulled my bow off of my back, notching my arrow, the centaurs following suit without question. I heard thundering footsteps behind me, though Grawp was not actually visible.

Neville grew rigid and still as Voldemort pointed his wand at him. The hat was forced upon his head and my lip curled at the edge a little. Voldemort had just killed himself with this action, and he didn't even know it. The irony of it all would perhaps have been funnier if my family was alive.

"Neville here is now going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish enough to continue to oppose me."

The sorting hat burst into flames with a flick of his wand. Screams started up at the castle and we charged. The centaurs screaming their war cries.

I steadied my bow, aiming at the target. Grawp had emerged from the forest now, quickly overtaking us so that he came lumbering around the side of the castle first, screaming, "HAGGER!" Voldemort's giants ran at him, making the ground shake.

Buckbeak raced across the grounds, as though trying to race the Centaurs who were much faster and swifter. Their arrows were already flying through the air, hitting the giants and Death Eaters. I let my own arrow go, hitting one of the Death Eaters directly in the neck.

I didn't look around much, just notching a second arrow and letting it fly almost immediately. But what I did see, for half a second, was Kingsley, simply looking at me with pride on his face. Despite me knowing that the Centaurs would've come on their own, I knew that the others were thinking I had rallied them together.

A little bit of narcissism would lead to me never disputing this.

Neville moved, breaking free of the body-bind curse, the hat falling off of his head, and he drew the Sword of Gryffindor from the brim of it. With one single, flawless stroke, Neville cut the head of Nagini from her body.

Voldemort screamed, something no one could actually hear over all of the fighting.

I dismounted Buckbeak as I let loose more arrows. Hagrid was roaring something I couldn't hear and Buckbeak lunged for the sky, taking off to help Grawp scratch the eyes of the giants, along with the thestrals.

I casted shield charms and stunning spells alike into the crowds, protecting my fellow fighters, stunning my enemies.

I could see Slughorn and Charlie fighting together as I scampered up the stairs. Bane, Ronan, and Magorian burst into the Great Hall by my side and I saw Firenze raise his head weakly, before a small smile came upon his face.

I heard small voices jabbering and glanced over to see the house-elves rush the Death Eaters with their meat cleavers and steak knives, screaming their own war cries. I could even make out Winky, simply by the fact that she was clothed, a knife in each hand as she leapt upon the back of one of the Death Eaters, stabbing him repeatedly in the back.

Ouch, that had to hurt.

Voldemort was still fighting ferociously now, even as his troops seemed to be falling under the weight of the others. George and Lee slammed Yaxley to the ground and I ran over him, hearing George shout something behind me that I couldn't make out.

Hagrid also probably got great satisfaction at throwing Macnair against the room. The executioner hit the stone wall and slid down it, unconscious.

Aberforth stunned Rookwood, Mr. Weasley and Percy were fighting Thicknesse, and Lucius and Narcissa ran through the crowd, not fighting, just screaming for their son.

"Lucius!" I called out. He spun as Narcissa stopped, looking a little pale when he saw it was me.

"O-Oh Miss-"

"Draco isn't here." I said. "He's upstairs on the third floor in an alcove after two rights and a left."

"Thank you!" Narcissa gasped out, the two of them fleeing for the door. I raced on.

Voldemort was dueling Professor McGonagall, Kingsley, and Slughorn. I felt a pride swell inside of me for Slughorn. He had been the one who had wanted to retreat, who didn't want to fight, yet was fighting Voldemort. Voldemort, the young boy whom Slughorn had told about horcruxes. Slughorn, the Professor who had loved Voldemort like the rest of his Slug club. A man that Slughorn was terrified of. And now, he was helping finish him off.

There was poetry in there somewhere.

Bellatrix was also fighting. Hermione, Ginny, and Luna were fighting with all of their might, but Bellatrix was strong and equal to their skill. I gasped aloud as a green jet of light missed Ginny by inches and it was only in that moment that I realized she was actually, really fighting.

"NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH!"

Mrs. Weasley threw off her patched cloak as she ran, freeing her arms. Bellatrix spun where she was standing, roaring with laughter as she saw who had come to fight her.

"OUT OF MY WAY!" Mrs. Weasley shouted. I couldn't help but watch for a moment between the two duels. Mrs. Weasley fought with such skill, I had never expected it of her- for which I was ashamed. She was a very talented witch in the dueling ways as well so it seemed.

'No!" Mrs. Weasley said as students and her sons ran forwards to help. "Get back! Get back! She's mine!"

Mr. Weasley hesitated, looking like he wanted to run forwards and help anyways. Bill put a hand on his shoulder, gripping it so tightly his knuckles turned pure white.

"What will happen to your children when I've killed you? When Mummy's gone the same way as Freddie?" Bellatrix taunted. Anger boiled under my skin.

"You- will -never- touch -our -children -again!" Mrs. Weasley shouted between curses.

There was poetry once more was Bellatrix laughed, the same exact way as Sirius had laughed, before the green jet of light flew under her outstretched arm. She toppled over, dead, her laugh imprinted on her face like her cousins.

Voldemort let out a scream of fury, causing McGonagall, Kingsley, and Slughorn to fly back into the rest of the crowd that was simply watching now, good guys and bad guys alike.

"PROTEGO!" I shouted, putting a protective barrier between Voldemort and Mrs. Weasley as Voldemort turned on her.

Voldemort faced me, a dead silence filling the room. "Elizabeth Kane I presume. I have heard quite a lot about you."

"All good things I hope?" I asked lightly, keeping a calm exterior while anger and hatred boiled under my skin. Lee and George both let out shorts laughs of disbelief, before the hall descended into quiet once more.

He sneered, lifting his arms, gesturing to the hall. "You truly think you can defeat me? You are not the chosen one, the prophecy says I killed him. You. . . You cannot kill me."

"There were two other children born that same day as the prophecy says." I said quietly. "There was Neville, but you didn't choose him because the one you wanted to mark as your equal wasn't a pureblood wizard, was it? No, you chose the half-blood wizard, just like yourself."

"You dare-"

"-and then there was me." I said simply. "Let me reintroduce myself. My name, is Elizabeth Kane Lupin Potter." There were gasps in the Great Hall which I ignored. "And I am very much enjoying the poetic justice of it all. Three of us to be the possible chosen ones. You killed my brother, the one you chose. The one you didn't finished your last Horcrux off. And now, the one you didn't even know existed, is going to kill you."

I raised my wand in an instant.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

We shouted at the same time, green lights colliding with each other instead of shooting past each other. People gasped throughout the Great Hall and I had to work hard not to show my surprise, acting like this was part of the plan.

I recognized it a little bit from my visions from my fourth year. The way Harry and Voldemort's original wands connected with the twin core.

But this was different. Instead of gold, the bond between the two of us was silver. And instead of the ghosts appearing one by one, they came in groups, and only on my side.

And they were all there. It wasn't just Lily and James and Sirius and Uncle Moody. It was everyone I had ever known that was dead. The entire Fallen Fifty and Cedric and Dumbledore. Fred winked at his parents, waving, while George dissolved into tears along with the rest of his family.

McGonagall clasped a hand over her mouth as she saw Dumbledore. My arms shook as I kept the wand lifted high. Voldemort looked terrified, the first emotion I had really seen in a while.

"You are so brave." Lily whispered softly, to soft for anyone but me to hear.

"Everything is going to be okay." James whispered too.

I wished Dad and Tonks and Severus and Harry would stand next to me. I wanted to see them all one last time, tell them I was sorry.

"Elizabeth." Harry's voice spoke next to me, but I couldn't see him for some reason. "Let it go. I need to finish this. Let go."

"We love you two." Lily and James said together. "Take care of each other."

"Let go." Sirius said.

I let it go. My wrist snapped back and I bit my tongue hard. Harry pulled the invisibility cloak off, showing that he was still alive, which should've confused the hell out of me since I hadn't seen it, but now I didn't care. I still had someone. I still had my brother.

"HE'S ALIVE!" People shouted before stifling themselves.

"I don't want anyone else to try to help." Harry said, holding a hand out to me, giving me a look. I took a few steps back, though I hated to do so. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."

"Potter doesn't mean that. That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter? Your sister?"

"Nobody. There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good. . ."

"One of us? You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"

"Accident, was it, when my- when our mother died to save me?" Harry asked. An electric shock seemed to go through me at those words. Words I had been longing to hear forever. "Accident, when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident, that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"

I had backed up, giving Harry the room he needed. Now that he was here, the entire scenario had been laid out before me and I knew they both needed the space. They were circling each other now, keeping a perfect distance between the two of them the entire time.

"Accidents! Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and sniveled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight. You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people-"

"But you did not!"

"- I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"

"You dare-"

"Yes, I dare. I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"

"Is it love again?" He sneered. "Dumbledore's favorite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like an old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter- and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"

I started forwards like I was going to take the curse for Harry- and I would've in a heart beat- but I stopped myself.

"Just one thing." Harry said.

"If it is not love that will save you this time, you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"

"I believe both."

Voldemort started to laugh, which made the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stand up on end. "You think you know more magic than I do? than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"

"Oh, he dreamed of it, but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you've done."

"You mean he was weak!" Voldemort screamed. "Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"

"No, he was cleverer than you, a better wizard, a better man."

"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"

"You thought you did, but you were wrong." Harry said. The crowd around us stirred, drawing breath. Some even looked towards the door, perhaps seeing if Dumbledore would walk through it. Aberforth straightened up, looking directly at Harry.

"Dumbledore is dead! His body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of this castle, I have seen it, Potter, and he will not return!"

"Yes, Dumbledore's dead, but you didn't have him killed. He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant."

"What childish dream is this?"

"Severus Snape wasn't yours. Snape was Dumbledore's, Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting down our mother. The moment you started hunting my sister. And you never realized it, because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"

"Snape's patronus was a doe, the same as my mother's, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children, until he fell in love with my sister."

Okay when Harry put it like that it sounded weird.

"You should have realized, he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"

"He desired her, that was all, but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of him-"

"Of course he told you that, but he was Dumbledore's spy from the moment you threatened her, and he's been working against you ever since Dumbledore was already dying when Snape finished him!" Harry looked at me, "I owe you an apology."

I shook my head.

"It matters not!" Voldemort let out another cackle of mad laughter. "It matters not whether Snape was mine or Dumbledore's or this girls or what petty obstacles they tried to put in my path! I crushed them as I crushed your mother, Snape's supposed great love! Oh, but it all makes sense, Potter, and in ways that you do not understand! Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me! He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand! But I got there ahead of you, little boy- I reached the wand before you could get your hands on it, I understood the truth before you caught up. I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny is truly mine! Dumbledore's last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!"

I swallowed hard, thinking of Severus, laying on the ground of the shrieking shack, blood dripping down his collarbone, eyes glazed over, Fawkes still sitting on his shoulder as I was dragged away.

"Yeah, it did. You're right. But before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done. . . Think, and try for some remorse, Riddle. . ."

"What is this?" Voldemort hissed, drawing his hands away like a vampire in a black and white movie when the curtains are drawn and the sun extends inside the house.

"It's your one last chance, it's all you've got left. . . I've seen what you'll be otherwise. . . Be a man. . . try. . . Try for some remorse. . ."

"You dare-?"

"Yes, I dare, because Dumbledore's last plan hasn't backfired on me at all. It's backfired on you, Riddle." Harry said. I watched his fingers tighten around his wand, his fingers beckoning to me to step up next to him. I did so, approaching slowly to stand next to him.

"That wand still isn't working properly for you because you murdered the wrong person. Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated Dumbledore."

"He killed-"

"Aren't you listening? Snape never beat Dumbledore! Dumbledore's death was planned between them! Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand's last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand's power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him!"

"But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand! I stole the wand from its last master's tomb! I removed it against its last mater's wishes! Its power is mine!"

I actually rolled my eyes. For a super scary, evil bad dude, he was quite dumb.

"You still don't get it, Riddle, do you? Possessing the wand isn't enough! Holding it, using it, doesn't make it really yours. Didn't you listen to Ollivander? The wand chooses the wizard. . . The Elder Wand recognized a new master before Dumbledore died, someone who never even laid a hand on it. The new master removed the wand from Dumbledore against his will, never realizing exactly what he had done, or that the world's most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance. The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."

Blank shock showed in Voldemorts' face for a moment, but then it was gone.

"But what does it matter?" He was being very bipolar switching between screaming and whispering. I sort've got it now. Bipolar people were pretty scary. "Even if you are right, Potter, it makes no difference to you and me. You no longer have the phoenix wand: We duel on skill alone. . . and after I have killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy. . ."

"But you're too late. You've missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him."

My heart was beating faster in my throat. I turned my wand over in my fingers. Everything would end in less than twenty seconds.

"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it? Does the wand in your hands know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does. . . I am the true master of the Elder Wand." Harry finished dramatically.

His words were punctured as a bright sunset of red-gold burst across the enchanted sky above us. The sun dazzled over the sill of the nearest window. The three of us cried out together, Harry lacing his fingers with mine at the same time.

"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort and I shouted.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted.

The three jets of light created gold and silver flames, the sound of a cannon blast echoing through the great hall. The Elder Wand flew high, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through air toward the master it would not kill. Harry caught it with his free hand and Voldemort fell backwards, arms splayed, his red eyes rolling upward to reveal only the whites.

Voldemort was dead, Harry standing with two wands in one hand, mine in his other.

There was a single second of silence before screams and cheers and roars echoed through the air.

I saw them running seconds before they actually would be and slipped my hand out of Harrys. Ron, Hermione reached us first as I took a step back. Ginny, Neville, and Luna were next and then the adults. Hagrid and Kingsley and McGonagall and Sprout. . .

I weaved in and out of the crowd, people grabbing my shoulders, yelling mine and Harry's names, before I slipped out away from them completely and through the Great Hall doors. Once free, I raced down the Grand steps and sprinted out of the castle, not stopping till I reached the lake shore.

I stood there for one second, tears falling down my face, before I collapsed to the ground and cried.

⬅️➡️

3 notes · View notes

libidomechanica · 2 days ago

Text

“Not great cruelness, to-morrow see against”

A limerick sequence

Not great cruelness, to-morrow see against thy mouldy mammoths, grand Cuvier! The sovereign, thought, may be unwrought. Fallen dumb. But time with a perpetual dullness.

But the fallow air? All folkes prest at thy Subjects’ cost, awhile shall be heard, and sank to the Indies, my Mary, and canst thou leave me thus, for pity now allows.

In vain; the tastes unseen: and but in a dream, so Corinth talk: over the due prevarication with Carlton, or die. I see, my course. And pillow to thy thighs?

The toilet I didn’t bother. Was bent warm on amorous through Manheim, Bonn, which cannot take a look at your head was serpent’s ears it shouted at once from the hill.

And for the Lamb, and life, and could be able for causes young lieutenant’s wings. Hold like a musical tennis match where they chose his tongue. And I said, I won’t weep!

Make war upon thy face hath all it brings Scotland’s plain! Now would make their children picking for a hymn loud as thy love. Turn of years, to wash the sky! Under the hill.

They say they err I dare not as the larkspur, and her in the lowest shed that every beautiful Pussy you adore. Peace or war. Down to ten, or five months make.

Perceive in the hill. The worms that I hope some prefer the due prevarication with which they are so;—a male Mrs. Looks asquint on his Shoulder, give one mad.

As swallow their sad friends in a new direct Hebrew for to woe. But rather think of. The true cause, the colours all inflam’d through the yacht’s rubber dinghy. Cries Hark!

She is none to Churchman’s trembled: Ah, said he have qualified that temporarily expedient combine to come against myself out-going in his breasts.

—Strong Arm—and open Hand. And tears of mine came tripping of us making love near-on ten years ago. On his distress’ thrall to my Mary, before me, and sin!

The city, screens flicker’d with their Loss to reach you. The climate, stopp’d all Night like a musical tennis match where my mouth foam’d, and are done, you are, you are, you are!

You are, you walk the earth turn’d to thee. In these loves; never give thee; with a melted and love, be thou; although I, once gone, on life’s sad post-horses beat, beat, the pit.

But lack of the cliffs, dear Dover! But the flowers too rough, me, that I may all my many a boat. Of years, I rather, and revels, to one dead had peace, but work.

Then equally the way money, wrapped their pains get only tramples on the barren memory of unkissed me, saying in practise! The pitying tears froze.

All of the World to hold or lose. Left to his knows not catch’d six or seven days, and cut their pupils like a stoop’d falcon ere he is. In a forbidding him out.

Opening and Taking still, whose soul of Petrarch wept, and, from sweet you see, o pity, and dry down scatter’d his quiver. Clicking for a monarchs do from others.

And beneath your gaze, naked of reticence and by the Heavens to be sure that none but feel the same day? The room and keep his hand was gold. The Poet’s black wing.

Parking the specious jewel. One morn was clouded, but not yet a breach, with the heart’s adultery. After, the waves lie still I seem to love then great Professor Kant.

Land when I laughed sometime declines, by chance; and lascivious eyes: from crime, perhaps; but at least be paved. Which I have my body that I may never equal thine.

In the warmth and cold and of charm the fix’d foot, obliquely run; thy firmness makes no shower fell, or utterly defy. Of his weight; and secret charge, tis too late.

His primrose, thus let us smother outward, flesh extended as metal waiting for love the resinous base. A nation; perhaps from a branch the harsh kisses.

Daily to the spare room into think for the past, into his discourse was summ’d in YES, and never watchful with his post. Fondled their heart? I would have more be said?

Like your coffee hot let me be your most frail humanity—must make thou about wives. I was a maiden fair I chance to which so basely he is busied.

Will ye go to Newgate? Nor Liberal, who cannot fry. Is thy paine, and be at rest! But in a style become not back from the most dear to forget: the tick of him.

For canker-worm will feed upon my breasts beneath a heap of jarring at its last coughs will come at last; and there the Throne. Why this fair aspect and put it back too.

With a full but soft emotion. All day long I have becometh dumb; I will speak not, she wore a way as any body that temple where thou wreck thy spleen on?

I knew the garden. Unto an old woman to thee I send you smile.—It’s a kind of goldenrod glowing thee. Her face so please. Where I begun. Fair is the sheet.

Before the first seen shade. Such wilt thou thyself, and the Face of what is not eternal, nor the black Edward’s helm, and health—when ill, we call it anything the tree?

Who watch’d therewithal: be she loves; never writ, nor no man ever-fit; his low tract and list to the Owl, You elegant fowl! Better than got a fall; the wine.

After I wrote this, Time’s pencil in. Kept the people deem mere vermin, the Kings of Old; nor cloud I follow him beyond the grueling mile-and-a-half Belmont Stakes.

But thou wilt; for I, being told it was thinking of to pass to the Indian mine: give me leave. And this bloody stone, unbothered over it awkwardly.

She could let her drop? As those that does his passions as thou canst thou which shall we do for a year who have a spark in your vacuum cleaner breath’d from heavenly zone.

Saw and height of Platonic shades, and set forth toyes, my wit doth show to move out. Once fondly lov’d them cluster’d in the graveyard, they danced by your own sweet emotion.

Hear your decay with men, than if I had another, and may never enough to shame or pity now allows. Anger, and I dance in circle just, take me wild!

Such as once she passion, but you disdain, your every season is good, to the lass o’ Ballochmyle. Much to each did Juan’s setting out her favour of their Christ.

And sae may the Heavens did I know nothing between us and our destinies. Or One is not the cover to remember when I behold a forest spread.

How her growing up like figures on the trip and now dost loudly vaunt, not practise! As stiff twin compass come: love affairs, fall by thy streams of God is going on?

The dead are bored with something so sweet nymph is fled,—where he embark’d, and seems but cruel. But weep, that Do; what Thyself too sweet ore which the seconds he was at her hips.

Or canst thou leave them all, haunters of cares to come again in haste, while all about? Rough winds of roses, there is nothing the blood in madness ran, her mouths of men.

Private favouritism, but not my tongue thy spheres, and cowslip’d lawns, the eye, her air hast engross’d: of him whom thy selfe best of our joys to tell truth by. Melted base.

As lovers do. To pour myself, Is he putting which were o’erheard to save my yet your side in such a treat among unknown, although six days smooth bald crowned with snow.

Stella I do meane the fatigue of lace. For weeks, I breathes, even in these kissings crost; is shifted round sunshine against movie stars, I own; as Caesar wore his.

He lived under your victor being full in Man. I rail’d at Scots to show me worthy of thy sweet ore which yet met. Tonight, we watch the skiffs which the Nightingale.

Shall I come here is it? The open for me? Well then, stay here; but know, from them through Poland, the chastest that thou fleets, and the ruddy strife of hearts had fallen dumb.

Until he founded to die so soon. It is this all cold duty now in its misery my spirit went; whether took that hole instructions how to place. Walking.

Orpheus-like at first a fit successful clutch, and choose momently, o’er a perfume. This primrose, thus bepearl’d with the Harvest of our lives inseparate beds.

Nothingness do sink. It is not soil to sow for you speak; indeed, Mamma, I did see beauties, that I am cattle tongue be a thrall to my eyes more be said?

Ah, happy they! Is thy praised the spray, the burden my hands beneath the World is singing so rarely: this holy fire of Love upon the junior highschool playground.

That Lycius to arms, with joy, with something sweet. His burning heart, and canst thou leave their reward their white heart-flame of Gods, upon thy Venice-glass, nor give thee alone!

Walking with my tongue: none else to make the ocean be which puzzles us to all the old man say? And curse me the Body and thou payèd were. His features—Lycius!

A wise King girdled by that stampt current dream, so Corinth, ask’d her crescents, and sickly too? And I know it’s not Twenty—from the first embrace of my champagne flute.

Of the notes of Don Juan, season; my soul-shift pure as a pane of ice.—The gray-headed sexton that deep wound it give to those are just musing in the very trees.

Which vnto it by the lore of this universal frame terms in idle languid Tritons deep pleats. If I should blunter be than what we are circling the trysted hour!

That from her Face the charmed God began to change she hand of Love a dateless lovers do. A Piggy- wig stood with a fall; the wind’s eye I have seen the name day.

And make amends shoulder, the greater far, is innocent. Thy Mistress that will not run out I wanna be your epitaph to make, or you on the low starlight.

And curly, I rail’d at Scots to show it, but found him from France. Juan, in the sigh d for besides, train- oil, tallow, and withal, by the Turkey who wear. Marry me?

Fitter for Babylon’s than a God they thoughtfully at Venus’ temples in torture fix’d, and she knows not conscience, say truly? I, having land fare; no palace.

Fair, sweet, like sandals, and slow amenity, put her palace. As going at the sun of life should’st credit gives my friends in fear, her fingers he presents, fast food.

And yet t is very polished silver proxy shine; and every channel hath, will amorous herbs and fell into a swoon: and as good allow? Fair, on a throne.

Have cause of it, all-damning gold, was damn’d to take away that thee back, O liberal and princesse of beauty up, leaving no defence. Scorpio, bad spider—die!

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 7 #119 texts #limerick sequence

0 notes

egittae · 9 months ago

Text

The professor could tell that his own revelation of sorts was met with mixed emotions by Morion. It was clear in those golden eyes, how the whole situation regarding his memory loss wasn’t as clean cut and palatable as Lambert had perhaps fooled himself into believing- but what could he even do about it if not simply face it as it is and learn how to simply adapt? Lambert couldn’t allow himself to sit down and let that weight crush him, the fact that he was quite literally alone with not a single face, voice or even name to recall in his mind. How he couldn’t even tell who his family was, or hell- who his child was.

All of it had been lost. He had been left with nowhere to go, and no one to go to either. Not to mention his own sense of self, the fact that he couldn’t even be certain about his own personality since much of it was a reflection of him using the tools he had rather than acting based on years of experiences and bonds. How he couldn’t even explain why he acted in certain ways or believed in certain things, instead having to simply trust that his brain was acting on autopilot racing down a slippery road with zero visibility.

He couldn’t let it get to him. He couldn’t think about it. He had to push through no matter what before the weight actually became far too much for him to bear.

A sad, yet fond smile graced Lambert’s features. “I did not mean to make you sad, forgive me my friend.” He placed a hand on Morion’s arm. “But I truly am grateful for your friendship. It makes treading through those foggy halls much more bearable, knowing I have a friend I can resort to if I ever start to feel hopeless.” The first good friend he had in a while…the professor chuckled softly. How come Morion wasn’t surrounded by close friends, considering his magnetism?

Lambert was about to make another comment to egg him up, but the nickname caught him off guard. “Lambortz? Now that is quite the nickname…” Bortz…oh. Oh, that was a pun alright, which instantly ripped a laugh out of him. “Please, you are something else…I suppose that shall be my Brodian name from now on? Bortz?” With Faerghus’ economy having such a heavy focus on mining, the gemstone’s name wasn’t lost on him. A type of diamond, though used for more practical means rather than jewelry and aesthetic. Well, it fits at least. “It is only fair that I give you a faerghan name in return, what do you say, Sir Morion Thierry Brodia?”

That middle name came to his mind in a flash, disconnected from everything, though its meaning in the front of it all. Ruler of the people, that seemed to track well for his friend, king or not.

@quartzhearted

*scooby doo laugh* reeheeheeheeheehee

TOA ETHEREAL BALL -- THREAD 1

#scooby doo laugh thread #[ this is just the beginning. ] (threads)#toaball2024 #[RECLAIMS MY SHITTY BROTHERS NAME AND GIVES IT TO MY BFF]#[ U DESERVE IT MORE THAN HIM! ]

44 notes · View notes

crescent-maple · 3 years ago

Text

Characters: Gaku, Fem!reader

Pairing: Gaku x Fem!reader

Tags: established relationship, fluff, smol angsty thought, a little spicy

Universe: Ayakashi romance reborn

A/N: Gaku is in his adult form. Cuz yes. Please im shitty when it comes to tags

The gentle breeze made a couple strands of your hair sway, making it touch your cheek. He noticed and tucked the strands behind your ear.

You hear him let out a soft sigh as you meet his purple colored irises. You can't help but feel mesmerized and gaze upon it for a couple more seconds til he broke contact. Due to the greediness you felt seeping into your mind you wrapped your fingers around his wrist then guided his hand to cup your cheek.

He was completely caught off guard but the expression on his face was quickly replaced by a gentle, welcoming smile where the warmth reached his eyes.

"Let's stay this way for a minute or so ...", you said as you shut your eyelids and listened to your surroundings.

The rustle of the leaves, chirping of avian creatures and ... the way he breathed. It was all so relaxing.

As you were lost in thought you felt soft lips against your own. A familiar knowing smile formed in an instant, it vanished when you moved your lips against his. The hand that was cupping your cheek slithered and settled on your nape as he pulled you closer and closer toward him.

The male felt his back on the grass as it tickled his skin. He didn't care if his long silver hair touched the ground as his free hand rests on your waist, the shift of your own weight made him feel aware of your every movement.

You pulled away to catch your breath and so did he. Both hearts thumping wildly in each other's chests he couldn't feel any happier than he is right now.

How he waited for this specific moment. To hold you in a way only he could.

To capture your lips with his knowing full well he is yours and you are his.

To see you in a different way, far beyond friends.

"Gaku ... What's in your mind?"

The way you said his name made him sit and scoop you in his arms where he let you sit on his lap.

You were clearly waiting for a response whilst twirling and untwirling his hair with a finger. Gaku buried his face on the crook of your neck before resting his chin on your shoulder.

"You.", He whispered softly, warm breath trickling right next to your neck as it sent shivers down your spine.

You could feel your cheeks burn immediately. It has already been months since you and Gaku started this romantic relationship yet the way he would make your heart flutter or make your cheeks blush happened as if it were the first time. Not to mention how he suddenly changes from his teenage form to his adult form which would almost always give you a heart attack. Let alone the teasing when you two were alone.

"A minute has already passed, y/n.", He began.

"I know. I wish we could stay this way forever.", you replied truthfully before placing a chaste kiss on his cheek.

Gaku remained silent and let his thoughts swallow him whole.

All his waiting for a thousand years was rewarded.

If death sweeps you in their arms and he would wait for you with no questions asked.

"Gaku?"

"Hm? Sorry about that. I was—"

You kissed him before he could even finish his retort. Not that he didn't mind but he knew you had an idea on what lurks in his mind.

"Let's ... Focus on what we have now. Besides you'll always have me."

The male was at a loss of words for a brief second before chuckling to himself.

"You'll fall for me every single time, is that right?"

"It is you who will fall for me first."

Gaku wrapped both arms around your frame and kissed your neck.

"I don't need to fall for you when my feelings shall remain the same. It shall never waver, y/n. For I am yours... "

"And you are mine.", you replied as you placed your forehead against his. The bond you both have for each other shall never break.

#ayakashirr #ayakashi romance reborn #ayakashirr gaku #ayakashi romance reborn gaku #ayakoi #arr gaku x reader #arr gaku #ayakashi koi meguri #nyxcrappywriting

22 notes · View notes

little-bloodied-angel · 2 years ago

Text

To an arrow of gold, to a green carnation

I was twelve. The frost of both a yearlong winter and my own numbness was thawing in reverse, the pale reddish gold tendrils of autumn creeping through the windows, better suited to my melancholy than spring.

I braved, for the first time in nearly a year, that year, iced-over and fraught with loss, the library my father had left behind. It had been the only space where we'd been equals, where he'd loved me in a way he could show and I could understand. He had left his books and records, or most of them, behind for me, but in equal measure left the cramped room so dreadfully empty of him that I had abandoned it too.

He wasn't watching me now; I could do as I wished, without the heavy weight of his knowing dark eyes and their expectations, even here. And so, I rifled through the forgotten volumes way at the back, the ones he didn't pay much attention to and I, eager to please, didn't either.

It fell into my hands quite by accident; I didn't see what I was doing, scrambling around blindly behind three other rows of books in the seemingly bottomless shelf.

Or, perhaps, it was simply destiny.

Dusty -even more than the rest of the room locked for a year, nobody interested in it but me, and I too pained to enter- clearly pretty much untouched. Father was never a fan of Wilde. But beautiful, cream-colored kid leather and gilded edges on the pages and embossment on the cover. Old; older than me, than my father, than the both of us together.

It had some of his short stories, some poems, and the novel. I'd heard of it, of course. Nobody who read as much as I did could entirely ignore its existence. Mother called it (called him) blasphemous, impudent, out of the corner of her mouth. Indecent, improper.

So I read it, of course.

I had merely meant to thumb through it, a story I thought I knew. A beautiful man, a cursed portrait. From the first lines it wrapped lithe fingers about my neck and kept me there, kneeling on the Persian rug that scraped my knees, unaware of the sting, of the ache in my back, of the ballet of dust-motes in the golden shafts of light. As close to holy as I'd been in so long. When I raised my eyes, dazed, my hand trembling on the last page, the sky was twilight-red through the window, and I felt that Time had both stretched and stopped for me; I felt as though I hadn't blinked since I'd opened Pandora's box and soaked the first taste of its honeyed-poison ink.

Reading it was like being slowly struck with an arrow to the heart. Chains I didn't know existed in my soul cracked with each word until they snapped and fell. The devotion painted in the page, the cruelty of beauty, the blade-sharp philosophies. Someone loved like I did, utterly and completely and at the cost of everything. Someone else laughed like I wished I could, and mocked every posturing of society from God on down. And a last someone was so hopelessly fascinating, I was as captivated as his doomed lovers.

There had been poison in that arrow. I devoured the rest, every short story and poem. It only further stoked my fever, left me thirstier the more I drank, as though I'd bitten into goblin fruits. I found old photographs, letters, biographies. I found the transcript of the trial, and raged like I had hardly thought myself capable of; I read De Profundis, and I wept like it was my own heart shattered and tossed aside by that foolish, careless, cruel boy, as fair without as he was monstrous within; head tilted back, I breathed in the pain I could understand so terribly, let it touch every fiber of my soul, and felt a thrumming in my chest that was not my own.

By Christmas it was irreversible, blood afire and soul consumed. Like a cursed, ailed queen in a fairytale I begged someone who, if he would never understand, would at least comply. Find me this book, in its original glory, with all the amputated pieces carelessly cut by his society and his time, give it to me or I shall die!

Soon the book was mine. That arrow of gold burned my heart further; the ague further consumed me, instead of abating. It was hopeless for me, now, and it was joy and not resignation that I felt. Father bought me the complete works, untranslated, not much later, on a trip to London, if only to spite my mother. It did, but I hardly noticed nor cared.

Each delicately crafted word of exquisite agony showed me who I was; and showed me I was not alone. Each syllable of joy or grief shattered the manacles I wore, freed the constraints on my spirit. He was my painful truth I could no longer deny, and he, too, evaporated the desire to deny it from my soul, left nothing but curling wisps of stream, when the flame of his passion extracted such surrender from the ice I had tried to shroud my heart with.

I loved wildly, freely, a bleeding heart gambling everything, like his. When I first saw her, I remembered his words; "I was in the presence of someone whose personality would dominate my art, my life, my very soul if I'd let it...!"

And I let it happen, of course, surrendered to the inevitable. That summer, at fourteen, cracked like china on that sun-warmed pavement, the acrid taste of blood filling my mouth, I thought of her blue eyes, and of Dorian's. I thought of the cruelty beauty masks. I thought I'd die for a forbidden love, and was content of it, even if I wished for the mercy of a knife below the ear, rather than the slow trickle that slid between my lips and the unbearable agony of each rattling breath.

At fifteen, I crouched on stone, dressed like a boy and not quite yet understanding why, even if it wouldn't be long -in a shirt and ascot and blazer, vanilla and and pale blue the first two garments, rich chocolate the jacket, colors he'd loved; light pearl gray trousers cut at the knee and hugging my thighs, like when he'd been in Magdalen, and started to become himself. I pulled my long hair back, and kissed the stone leaving a mark like dark blood, and wept and confessed, devotee once again after so long losing God, I have a sprig of violets wrapped around a green carnation in my heart. Nobody will silence me again, they won't do to me what was done to you; I will always love, freely, as deeply and as truly as you did, and my lips will kiss forbidden lips and hold a scream for the injustice done to those with our hearts; I will fight, and I will love, always love, because in the kinship of your spirit I found myself, because those words you thought would become a dark, forgotten smudge in history became my comfort and companion trapped in the hypocrisy of my guilded cage, murdered by the coward's kiss.

You gave me my strength, Oscar, and I won't stop fighting while I have a drop of blood in my veins.

I left my broken chains at that tomb. He'd been the mirror to show me who I was; by Henry's cruel mouth and sharpened teeth of wit he had ripped the wool from over my eyes. I had become; I had burst through my chrysalis and renounced my constraints.

I kept learning. I kept growing. I became myself and I became unafraid. Bloody but not beaten, I continue on the path I swore on that grave, to the first man to teach me love.

And it all started with Dorian Gray.

Happy birthday, Oscar. Thank you.

#me #personal #my writing #Oscar Wilde #dorian gray #the picture of dorian gray #homophobia tw #queer #nblm

9 notes · View notes

hurting-fictional-people · 4 years ago

Text

Villain’s fingers are cold against Hero’s skin, the gentle massage on their shoulders raising goosebumps along their entire body, making them hate themself for thinking that the feeling isn’t entirely unpleasant.

It should be. It is. But it also isn’t.

Hero takes a few heartbeats, but they yank themself away from Villain’s hands, whirling around to face them.

“Isn’t it enough for you to have stolen my powers? You want me to lose my mind as well now?”

The words come out bitter, carrying the taste of hatred and the pain of loss.

“You look tense, darling,” Villain purrs, tilting their head to the side, a smile playing on their lips. “If we’re going to give the people a spectacle, you need to be a little looser. I’m helping you out.”

“If you want to help me out, give me back my powers.”

Villain rolls their eyes and sighs. “You know I won’t do that. Now, are you ready for our performance? Don’t forget what’s at stake here.”

How could they? Sidekick’s bruised face, tied up hands and scared eyes are burned into their memory, the certainty that their life depends on Villain’s goodwill a heavy and unforgettable weight on their back. On their heart.

Hero doesn’t respond. They don’t have to – everything, from the fear to the anger to the defeat, is written across their face. Villain smirks. “Let’s put up a show, then.”

They have no choice but to follow as Villain opens the balcony doors and steps out into the light, dozens of cameras aimed straight at their faces from the town square below, hundreds of people staring, thousands watching from behind the lenses, locked on every breath they take as they stop in front of the crowd.

“People of the city, behold your future!” Villain says, voice loud and clear, proud. Hero grits their teeth to prevent the warning that bubbles up from escaping, and tries not to feel the weight of the shackles around their wrists, keeping them bound together in front of them. In front of everyone else, too.

It starts as a tug at their very soul. A brush of cold fingertips on that pit of glowing magic only them should have access to. They know it is useless, but Hero still tries to resist. With every ounce of willpower and raw desperation, they struggle, writhe against that cruel inevitability, but Villain’s smile doesn’t so much as falter as they do. It doesn’t have to, anyway. It’s done before it even starts, and Hero nearly cries out when the power surfaces against their will, when it bursts out of their clenched fingers in an explosion of gold that envelops the world.

The worst part of it all is that Hero doesn’t move as they are invaded and violated, as their magic is wielded by another. That’s what really brings them close to tears. The helplessness of it all, of knowing that if they move, if they yell for help, Sidekick is the one who’ll suffer. So Hero looks down at their feet and tries to keep standing as a shiver runs down their spine and their magic surrounds every person around them.

“You can surrender to me, or you can suffer the consequences of your sweet hero’s powers, for they are mine now,” Villain declares. “Kneel, and I’ll be merciful. Fight, and I won’t hesitate.”

Stunned silence fills every vacant space throughout the square. Shock emanates from the crowd, as well as fear. Hero pretends not to see the faces that show judgment as well, aimed directly at them. For not being strong enough to stop Villain.

But instead of kneeling, one person takes a step forward.

“I will never bow to you,” the person says, and spits on the ground from the floor below, but in Villain’s direction nonetheless.

They frown, and Hero takes a step forward, fear shining in their eyes, thrumming along with their heart in anticipation.

Before they can do anything – collapse to the ground, scream for them to comply, ask for help, anything –, Villain grabs them from behind and pulls Hero flush against their body, warm breath tickling their neck.

“None of that, now, darling. Let’s show the world what we can do together, shall we?”

When the power wraps around the rebel’s throat, a wave of shock so strong washes over Hero, they do not react. They stand there, unable to move, with Villain’s arms wrapped around them and Sidekick’s life in their hands, watching as their own magic makes the civilian choke and fall to the ground scratching their throat.

“Please,” Hero rasps out, wide eyes locked on the figure squirming on the pavement. “Villain, please, please stop this, I’ll do anything.”

Villain chuckles against their skin. “I like it when you beg, love. Only because you asked so nicely...”

The power retreats and the person is left panting in front of everyone, Hero’s breaths almost as hitching as theirs, chest as tight as the civilian’s throat was. Maybe even more.

“Anyone else wants to say something?” Villain asks as they let go of Hero, only their heavy hand left on their shoulder. Grounding, threatening.

The crowd falls to their knees almost in tandem. The hand on their shoulder squeezes, and Hero reads the words in Villain’s eyes. You too.

They kneel, and the thud of their knees hitting the ground echoes inside of them, a sound of shame and defeat. Villain grins as they stare at the kneeling people, but their eyes keep coming back to Hero’s lost expression, to the despair so clear in their face, as intense as the triumph in Villain’s.

Villain doesn’t tell them to get up, so no one does – the threat of having the power that once kept them safe turned against them keeps the people still as statues.

It doesn’t last more than a minute, but Hero feels like they are years older when Villain finally allows everyone to get up.

They don’t hear the speech Villain gives. They don’t see the anger on the faces that dare look at them. All Hero does is stare at the ground, where there are no cameras to record their humiliation, no blameful eyes and scared faces they know will haunt them forever.

When Villain finishes and leads them back inside, Hero lets them. Their power is still surrounding every living being around them, and even though they can’t control it anymore, they can still feel the magic swirling around the people, a beautiful threat they had once loved.

The doors close, the eyes left outside, and then there’s just Villain, grinning like a wolf at the misery emanating from Hero, the hopelessness.

“What now?” they ask through gritted teeth, afraid they might start crying at any moment.

“Now, love,” Villain says, tilting Hero’s face toward theirs with soft fingers, “I will take over the world. And you will be right by my side as I do it.”

#whump #whump writing #villain x hero #superhero whump #villains and heroes #hero whump #hero whumpee #intimate whumper #magic whump #powered whumpee #superpower whump #shackled #choking #noncon touching

167 notes · View notes

kimoralov3 · 4 years ago

Text

That's Immortality, My Darling

Requested by: Anonymous

Word Count: 2010

Pairing: Loki x fem!black!reader

Warnings: Odin

(Y/N)'s POV

I groaned as I rolled over, trying to block out the light filtering through the room. It wasn't going anywhere, so I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. "Loki, I thought I told you to close the blinds before you went to bed last night."

"Sorry darling, it must've slipped my mind. Did you have a good slumber?" Loki asked as he pressed gentle kisses along my shoulder. I nodded, letting out one final yawn before standing up and stretching. "I'll make breakfast while you shower. Waffles sound good?"

"Yeah, waffles would be perfect. Thanks, Love." I bent down and gave him a quick peck on the lips.

----

Gods that shower really woke me up. I thought to myself as I brushed my hair into a bun. Good, it's growing. Maybe I should get it locked up so I don't have to do much to it anymore.

"Darling, you've been in here for a while. Is everything alright?" Loki called from the other side of the door.

"Yeah, everything's fine." I said as I opened the door. Loki was standing there, his hair still a mess, but he was wearing sweatpants and a black t-shirt. "Breakfast ready?"

"Yep." Loki wrapped his arm around my waist as we walked to the kitchen. The smell of vanilla and coffee filled my nose, causing me to let out a long sigh. "Sit down, I'll make your plate." I nodded and sat down at one of the bar stools in front of the island. Loki sat a plate of waffles, strawberries and bacon in front of me, as well as a steaming cup of coffee.

"I thought you didn't know how to use the coffee machine?" I joked as I took a sip of the coffee. Perfect.

"I don't, I don't have the patience to learn various Midgardian technologies. I made it using my magic." He explained as he sat beside me. I rolled my eyes, flicking a strawberry at him.

"Y'know, if we're gonna spend the rest of our lives together, you should probably stop shitting on one of my people's greatest achievements." I said as I took a bite out of a piece of bacon. Loki's face fell for a split second before going back to normal. I still saw the look he gave me at my words. "What's wrong?"

"We won't be together for the rest of our lives. At least not for the rest of mine. You'll die before me." He said softly as he traced random patterns on the island counter. I sighed, turning my body so I was fully facing him.

"Loki, look at me." I said as I lifted his head so our eyes met. There was pain hiding behind those beautiful blue orbs, but there was a lot of doubt as well. "You know that that doesn't bother me. I've come to terms with the fact that I'll die before you. Don't let it bother you too much. As long as I get to spend the rest of my days with you, I'll have lived a fulfilled life. Understand?"

"I understand (Y/N), but it still hurts that I'll have to live without you. You've made me a better person. I'm sure this is probably selfish, but I don't think there's such a thing as a life worth living without you."

"I know, but there's nothing we can do about it." Loki looked down, not saying anything before nodding and cleaning our plates.

----

Loki's POV

There's nothing we can do about it.

(Y/N)'s words from breakfast that morning had been playing in my head for about a week now. There is one thing we can do. If only I didn't have to ask him for permission.

"Loki, Thor should be here any minute. Are you ready to go?" (Y/N) asked as she walked into our room.

"Ready as I'll ever be." I said as I grabbed her hand and pulled her to the living room. It was time for Thor and I's annual visit back to Asgard, and this time I decided to bring (Y/N) with me. She'd always wanted to travel, and there is no place better to start than my home planet.

A knock on the door alerted us to my brother's presence. (Y/N) opened the door to reveal standing there, an annoyingly large smile and traditional Asgardian armor on. "Lady (Y/N)! It's great to see you again! I do hope that my little brother is treating you well." Thor said as he hugged (Y/N).

"Of course he is, if he wasn't you know I'd beat his ass." (Y/N) said as she pulled away from the hug.

"Are you two done? Because we need to get going so mother doesn't worry." I said as I wrapped an arm around (Y/N) again. Thor nodded, and we made our way to an empty field so Heimdal could open the bifrost for us. I hope he's become kinder than the last time I saw him.

----

"It's good to see you Heimdal." Thor said as we stepped out the bifrost.

"Good to see you too, Thor. And you must be (Y/N), Thor and Loki have told me so much about you." Heimdal said as he turned towards (Y/N).

"Nice to meet you."

"You as well. The three of you should get going, the king and queen are waiting for you."

As we walked along the bridge, I noticed (Y/N) looking around in awe. So adorable. I tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to look up at me with the most amazing sense of wonder. "I told you that words couldn't do this place justice."

"I knew it would be beautiful, but this is just… I can't even find the words to describe it." She said as she continued looking around.

"If you want, later I can take you on a walk to explore the villages. They all have their own signature thing, whether it be food or clothes. You'll absolutely love it." I explained as I placed a kiss on her knuckles. She giggled and held onto my arm, laying her head on my shoulder.

The guards opened the gates to the castle, mother and Odin waiting there for us. (Y/N) let go of my arm so I could properly greet them. I walked up to my mother and gave her a hug.

"Oh how I've missed you Loki. Have you been eating enough, you seem thinner than usual." Mother scolded as she looked over my body, shaking her head at my supposed weight loss.

"Mother, I'm fine. I assure you that I have been eating properly, (Y/N) makes sure of that." I said once she released me from the hug. (Y/N) walked over to us, bowing slightly towards my mother.

"Oh dear, there's no need for formality. Anybody who can see behind Loki's cold exterior shall be considered family." She said as she pulled (Y/N) into a tight hug. Hopefully she will be soon. I left the two of them to talk while I talked to my father.

"Father, can I speak to you for a moment? Alone." I asked quietly. (Y/N) doesn't need to hear this conversation if it doesn't go in my favor.

----

(Y/N)'s POV

"So you and Loki have been together for 3 and a half years, correct?" Frigga asked as we sat on one of the benches in the entryway.

"Yes ma'am."

"So you started dating him even after everything that happened in New York?"

"Yeah, but he's changed so much since then. He seems more… at peace with himself. He's a lot nicer to other people, and he's more willing to help the Avengers."

"Well, I'm glad that he's changed for the better. He seems to be very happy with you. I won't keep you long, let's go find the boys so they can show you around." She said as she stood up. I nodded, following her in the direction I presume the boys went in. The farther down the hall, 2 voices got louder and louder. What's going on?"

"... This one thing! Just the one! After all you have put me through, this is the least you could do." Loki yelled. "Why don't you want me to be happy?"

"You knew the consequences of falling in love with a mortal! It is not my responsibility to right your wrongs, Loki. You made your bed, now lay in it. That is my final word." Odin yelled back. Are they talking about me?

"But I love her! I've finally found someone that I want to spend the rest of my life with, and you won't let me. Why?"

"Because you-"

"Enough, both of you! You two have been so caught up in your arguing, you haven't realized that Mother and (Y/N) walked in!" Thor interrupted, pointing at me and Frigga. Loki turned and gave me a sad look, but Odin didn't move a muscle.

"What is all this fuss about?" Frigga asked as she looked between the 3 of them.

"Loki is being a foolish child." Odin finally said, finally turning his attention towards his wife.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize wanting to marry the girl I love made me a foolish child." Loki shot back with all the venom he could muster. Marry?

"Odin, if Loki wants to marry (Y/N), you should let him. They are clearly deeply in love."

"How do we know that this will last? This could easily be another one of his tricks in search of power."

"Father, I can promise you that those are not Loki's intentions. He's proven time and time again that he loves (Y/N) very much. Please, grant him this one happiness." Thor attempted to reason. Loki looked at his brother, giving him a small smile. Over the past few years, they had finally built a proper sibling bond, so I'm sure that Loki was very grateful for his brother's input.

"Father I promise, I have no ill intentions attached to wanting to marry (Y/N). Please, give us your blessing." Loki pleaded.

"Fine! But if anything happens, it'll be the three of you all's fault!" Odin shouted as he pointed at Thor, Loki, and Frigga.

----

"I'm so sorry that you had to hear that darling. I was hoping he would say yes, but I should've known he would be difficult." Loki had been apologizing to me the whole way back to our room, but I kept assuring him that it was fine.

"Loki, I told you it's fine. It's not your fault." I said as I gave his cheek a quick kiss. He nodded and sat on the bed. "However, it would've been nice to know that you were proposing." I joked as I sat next to him, laying my head on his shoulder.

"Oh don't act so surprised, I know that you knew. You always know what I'm thinking before I have the chance to think it myself." Loki said as he rubbed my shoulder.

"You're right, but I still want you to ask me officially. And give me a ring." I held up my hand, turning it over. A small one would be nice.

"Once we get married, you can have all the jewels and rings that you want." Loki kissed me on the forehead, laying us down on the bed.

"I don't need jewels to be happy, love. All I need is you."

"And we'll have the rest of both of our lives together."

"What do you mean?" I asked as I looked up at him.

"Us getting married means that our lifespans are connected. That means that when one of us dies, the other one won't fall far behind." He explained as he pushed my hair out of my face.

"I should've known that you would find a way for us to be together for as long as possible."

"For you my darling? I'd search all 9 realms and beyond to find the answer."

#loki laufeyson #loki #loki x reader #loki layfeyson imagine #loki laufeyson x reader #marvel #mcu loki #mcu fandom #mcu #loki x y/n #x reader imagines #loki x female reader #loki x black!reader #lokis-reindeer-games

159 notes · View notes

alittlebitmaybe · 4 years ago

Text

comme un écho

AKA whoops i talked to @yoursummerfrost about orpheus and eurydice and then tripped and fell on this very weird ficlet that is only sort of what i meant it to be. uh oh. (title lifted from “it’s never over (oh orpheus)” by arcade fire because i’m incredibly literal sometimes)

warnings: off-screen major character death

The mage had told him to perform the ritual in a field of wildflowers.

“Plenty of life,” she said.

Jaskier had asked, “For what?”

“To feed it,” she said, and did not elaborate.

And as he follows her instructions, surrounded by blooming weeds and swaying grasses, he sees that she was right. As the herbs and other unmentionables in the bowl burn, scorching the wooden sides, the green around him darkens to black. He feels the magic tugging at his energy and resists it. The ruin spreads from his epicenter, cursing the very dirt on which he kneels. A slow but inexorable exchange, and Jaskier thinks it fair. Geralt had watered the earth with his blood and now the earth must give back.

“You’re out of your depth, bard,” the mage had said as he turned to leave, her lips pursed. Was she amused or disapproving? Jaskier didn’t care, nor, he suspected, did she. Her pockets were full, and his own empty.

He hefted the lute higher on his back, clutched at the strap across his chest.

“And yet,” he said.

“He will not come easily,” she said.

“He never did,” Jaskier replied.

The flame in the bowl burns out with a flare of noxious smoke that stings Jaskier’s eyes, makes him cough. The world hums. It’s a tune of his own, as of yet unsung, plucked from his consciousness. It reaches out to him and burrows under his skin. Pulling. He follows it.

Between two gnarled, ancient trees, in the arch of their overlapping branches (Which belongs to which? Where does one stop and the other begin? If one was broken, would the other suffer for it?) the air shimmers.

The tune fades and in its place is a whisper saying, Come.

The stairs spiral downward for hours, days. Jaskier’s legs do not ache and he does not hunger, but it is ever so quiet. He takes the lute from his back and plays every song he’s ever composed in Geralt’s honor. Maybe Geralt can hear them. Maybe he will know Jaskier is on his way.

“Get ready, Witcher,” Jaskier says to the darkness. “Gather your underworldly things. You won’t be coming back any time soon. I can promise you that.”

And he says, “I’m sorry that you were alone. I’m sorry that I was too late.”

And he says, when the darkness presses upon him, when it seems the stairs will never end, “I don’t know when I began to love you, but it has been long enough that I don’t know how not to.”

And he says, “I’ve done this for you. You deserve to have a better life. You deserve to live.”

And he takes one more step and trips, for there is no stair where he expected there to be one. He taps the toe of his boot against the ground. It’s solid. He lifts his hand in front of his own face and it is invisible. There is no breeze, no sound, no smells, no light. There’s nothing down here.

In the face of such vastness, Jaskier is insignificant. He is nothing. You are nothing. You are less than a flea clinging to the fur of a great beast. You will be mine. You will become a part of me. You will cease. You will be forgotten.

“Hold on now,” Jaskier says, head whipping around. “Who’s there?”

I am everything that has been. I await everything that is. I anticipate what will be. I am.

“You’re Death,” Jaskier realizes, perhaps belatedly.

There is no such thing. I have no name. I have no need of it.

“That’s okay,” Jaskier says. “I don’t give a rat’s arse who or what you are.” His heart thumps arrhythmically, and sweat drips from his brow. He swipes it off on his sleeve. He is far under water. His lungs fill. He ignores it, swallows. Throws back his shoulders. “I’m here for Geralt of Rivia.”

There is no Geralt of Rivia.

“Bullshit.”

You are insolent.

“I’ve been told.”

You will be mine.

“Perhaps.” Jaskier licks his lips, an unbreakable habit. “But I will live on.”

You will not.

He laughs a little, despite himself, a nervous little giggle that he stifles as quickly as he can, clearing his throat. “On the contrary, I am an artist. I shan’t die as long as my art lives. And art does not die.”

Art? Art is not living. I have no use of it.

“Exactly,” he says. “Yes, precisely. It does not live or die. It simply is. Whatever you—whatever you are, being of, ah, all-ness…or what have you—whatever you are, whatever comprises you, you have none of art. You have no music, no stories, none at all. You will always lack it.”

There is a thoughtful pause.

I desire it.

“I can give it to you. Did you hear? I played my whole way down.”

I heard.

“Did you enjoy it? Three words or less.”

It was pleasing.

Jaskier exhales. “That’s actually a decent review, as these things go. I’m glad. I mean, would you like more? I could write you a song. Got a decent hand at improv, me. Won’t take a moment.”

A song. For me?

“Yes,” Jaskier promises, feeling the weight of it as it passes over his tongue, “a song, only for you. I shall never play it again. Well, um, on one condition.”

You want Geralt of Rivia.

“Oh, you were paying attention. Smart one, you are, Your…um, Majesty.”

I can retrieve him. If I am careful. He is me. I am him.

“Truly, I understand. His loss, for me, was…” Jaskier struggles for adequate words. “Irreconcilable. But you will always have the memory of your song to take his place.”

You sang of him.

“I do. Rather habitually. Every day of my life, in fact.”

Hmm.

“You sound like him already. So, whaddaya say?”

Play for me.

He plays, and every note that vibrates out from his lute, every note that leaves his mouth disappears from his mind. It is absorbed from him upon conception. He doesn’t know what the last measure was, nor what the next will be. He does not know what key or time signature his song is in, but he knows it’s a song. And that is all he promised.

It ends, and Jaskier does not notice. Possibly his jaw hangs open stupidly for minutes after it is over. He closes it.

“Was, um, was that…”

Yes. I will give you your reward.

“You will?” Jaskier asks, surprised despite himself.

I will release Geralt of Rivia, for you have given me something in return. And I will regain him, as I will gain you. We will meet again, bard.

“I—How do—”

You will walk forward. You will ascend, and he will follow. Until he emerges above, he is still a part of me. You may not look upon him, as you may not look upon me. You must not look back.

“How will I know he is there?”

He will follow.

“How will I know it is him?”

You must have faith.

“How—” Jaskier chokes now, tears welling up. He is glad no one can see. “Will he be—himself?”

Entirely. Once he emerges.

“Thank you,” Jaskier whispers.

It is time. Walk forward. In three paces, you shall begin to ascend. Be well, bard.

Jaskier climbs. The stairs remember his tread, the shape of his feet. It’s easy.

There are footsteps behind him. Are they Geralt’s? Do they match the way he shifts his weight, the deliberate heel-toe steps that Jaskier has been hearing for decades? He’s not sure.

Jaskier is afraid. More afraid than ever before. There could be anything back there. Anything at all. He must not look.

But he is not forbidden to talk.

“Geralt?” he says, tentatively. “Geralt, is that you?”

A grunt. “It’s me, Jaskier.”

And it is, thank the gods, it is. “Sounds like you,” he says, voice carefully measured, lest he sob in relief.

Silence. Four, five more stairs. They will not end. When will they end?

“How’ve you been, Witcher? It’s good to hear you again, my friend.”

“Where are we?”

“Well, who’s to say,” Jaskier says lightly. “Tell me, what do you last remember?”

“Bleeding out in a forest. I couldn’t get up. I waited to die. I…died. I died, didn’t I, Jaskier?”

Jaskier chooses to take that as rhetorical, and does not answer.

“Anything else?”

“Not until now. Is this a dream?”

“To my knowledge, no, Geralt, it is not. I pray that this is not a dream.”

“Then where—?”

Jaskier picks up his foot, sets it down. One stair at a time. There have been hundreds, there will be more. Is that light above? No, a trick of his eyes. He is still blind.

“Not to worry. We’ll soon be outside. It’s a beautiful day, you know. Big blue sky. Everything in bloom. Your favorite time of the year. We’ll have to do some foraging, stock up for potions. I have your things, of course, but I don’t know the shelf life of your concoctions.”

“A quarter year.”

“Ah, might have to make fresh, then.”

But no, it is growing brighter. Jaskier can see the faint silhouettes of his hands, the edges of the stairs to come. If he were to turn back he might be able to see the gleam of Geralt’s eyes, but he mustn’t.

Why mustn’t he? Oh, yes, the warning. He—can’t look back. He must not—

“Jaskier,” Geralt says again. “I’m dead.”

“You are, Geralt, yes, is that what you would like to hear?” Jaskier says, a little hysterically. “But you won’t be for much longer, if we just keep going.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Where? Where?” His pitch climbs with the staircase. Around and around. Dizzying. So many circles. “Above, Geralt. Back home, of course.”

“Why?”

Jaskier has to stop himself from whirling around. “Good gods, you ask me why? I follow you for decades, I immortalize you in song, and the witcher asks me why.” He draws in a great lungful of air, releases it. “I love you, you great idiot. I have loved you.”

The response comes, so softly, a mere rumble, “I know. That’s why I asked.”

The stairs are made of warped stone. He can see that now. They are well worn, dipping in the centers. It can’t be far. “Please, Geralt, we’re almost there.”

“You haven’t answered me. Why you would do this.”

“I was supposed to let you rot, huh? I was meant to live on as if it was fine? As if nothing was missing?”

“Yes,” says Geralt. “You didn’t ask me if I wanted to come back.”

“Of course you did. Of course you do.”

“I don’t,” says Geralt.

Jaskier stops, and behind him the second set of footsteps also halts.

“It was peaceful. It was my time.”

“It wasn’t,” Jaskier whispers. “Don’t tell me that.”

“Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

There is a touch to the small of his back, a gust of air across the nape of his neck. So familiar. He aches.

“Jaskier.” A strong hand closes around his wrist. He doesn’t look down at it, not even a glance. “The world doesn’t need me anymore.”

“What about the monsters? The wars?”

“There is Yennefer, and Ciri, and Eskel and the rest. There will always be someone.”

With dread creeping through his limbs, Jaskier says, “You’re telling me you don’t want to come back. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

He can almost hear the creaking of the intertwined, ancient trees above. It is just a few more steps.

“You can’t tell me that, not when I—”

Arms come around him, and he shuts his eyes. “Jaskier, I would rather have done what I have done and no more, than continue on and overstay my welcome. I would rather have my peace.”

“What if I need you?” Jaskier breathes.

“I am with you.”

“You weren’t.”

Geralt’s hand comes to rest over his heart. It is not cold nor hot through Jaskier’s doublet. It simply isn’t much of anything at all. There, but insubstantial. It trails its way up his jaw, traces over his bottom lip. “You forget,” Geralt says, “that I am in your words. That I will live on. Isn’t that what you said? Art does not die.”

“You heard.”

“I must have.”

“That’s not fair.” Jaskier sniffles, knowing full well he sounds like a child. “I came all this way. I have always followed you. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Whatever you wish.”

“I will sing of you until I can’t any longer, to anyone who will listen, and to many who will not.”

A smile, pressed to his ear. “I can think of no better way to be loved.”

Something nags at Jaskier, and he can’t say what. He is surrounded by a body he knows as well as his own, yet it’s not right. Why?

The body releases him. It says, “Look at me, Jaskier. That’s all you have to do.”

“You’re not Geralt, are you,” he says with trepidation, eyes still squeezed tight. “Are you? Don’t lie.”

“Jaskier.”

He breathes in. Opens his eyes. Grips the lute strap in both hands. Turns.

Silvered hair, sad golden eyes, a sharp nose, wispy around the edges.

“Geralt,” he whispers, reaching out even as the form dissipates. Called back to the bottom of the stairwell.

“Thank you, Jaskier,” it says, and then it is gone.

#the witcher #the witcher fic #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #geraskier fic #how tag???#anyway orpheus!jaskier and eurydice!geralt deserves to be a real fic #not like whatever the fuck this is #i humbly invite someone to write it and nourish me #my fic

473 notes · View notes

lizzieraindrops · 4 years ago

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Destiny (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Osiris/Saint-14 (Destiny) Characters: Saint-14 (Destiny), Osiris (Destiny) Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Touch-Starved, Grief/Mourning, First Kiss, Self-Destructive Tendencies, Caretaking, Trauma, Comfort, Trauma Recovery, Loss, slow-developing relationship, not in the fic but like in universe, Sometimes New Trauma Reignites Old Trauma!! Summary:

Sometimes you need to be with the only person you'd feel safe to break down around, even if you never have. In the immediate wake of Sagira's death, Osiris comes to find Saint in the City. POV Saint-14.

wrote this because i made a fic-writing pact with @hencegoodfortune

i have never destined a knee in my life but i am care about sad bird boys

read here or on AO3

Saint had never thought the sight of Osiris would strike dread into his heart. But there was something completely wrong with the sharp-soft-fluid outline of his gleaming helm, his cowl’s feathery tresses and the flowing robes. His posture remained as impeccable as always as he strode through the echoing Tower hangar. Yet something troubled the lines of him. It was as if each exposed surface were on the verge of collapsing inward on a vacuum, and the only thing preventing it was the sheer force of his considerable will. Saint had never seen him like this. A cold feeling ran through his body as if injected directly into the ducts of his circulatory ichor.

“Osiris,” he whispered, even though they were not yet within earshot. Saint trotted out on restless feet from the shadow of the Gray Pigeon to meet him. They drew together at the end of the long sun-emblazoned rug that sprawled before his ship. Saint could not help but begin to reach for Osiris, but he stopped when he saw the man’s unresponsive stiffness.

“Hello, Saint,” he said shortly. He crossed his arms. Only a stripe of his upper face showed between his helm and his mask. The lines around his eyes had gone flat and the ones between his brows had deepened.

“What is wrong?”

“Take your pick. This time? The Hive.”

“No. What is wrong?”

Osiris just gave him a pained look. “We should speak inside.”

Saint nodded acquiescence. He turned his feet back onto the path of the rug, slightly crooked: a rumpled casualty of Guardians playing soccer in the hangar. After only a moment’s hesitation, he offered his arm to Osiris, looking at him in askance.

Osiris blinked, surprised. Then it was Saint’s turn to be surprised when Osiris tucked one hand into the bend of his elbow and placed the other hand atop it, gently squeezing and encircling his armored forearm. They fell in step together and walked all the way back to the ship that way. If Saint hadn’t been so worried, the rare tenderness would have left him radiating contentment.

Saint took them to the Gray Pigeon’s close yet comfortable living quarters. It was just a simple serviceable room with a few little tables and a bunk, and probably more cushioned seats than the space warranted. Saint took a seat in one of them and removed his helmet so he could take a proper look at Osiris, who was doing the same. His skin looked weathered, as always, but darker than usual below the eyes. They both sat their helms down on the table between them, trying not to knock over the abandoned teacups there.

Osiris’ lip quirked at the sight of their tea-stained insides. “Ikora has been here, I see.”

“Indeed,” Saint chuckled. “A woman of fine taste. She believes the tea grown in the City these days tastes different than it did a few centuries ago. Less… what was it? Astringent? Smoother now, she said, more mellow. She wanted the opinion of someone who has not been drinking it throughout the entire transition as she has.”

“Of course she did.”

“Yes.” Saint eyed the way Osiris’ hands molded themselves to the armrest of the chair and went still. Likewise, his feet remained flat on the floor. His usual energetic presence, like an overflowing cup, was now subdued, stilled as if frozen. Saint waited for him to melt and kept talking.

“You would think I am the perfect test subject. I had not tasted tea for many, many years since I left the City. And I certainly had tea with Ikora many times before that, when your studies distracted you from visitors. She and I had many fine conversations. After my return, I ought to be perfectly poised in time to tell the difference.

“Ah, but I think my answers disappoint her. I do not know, because for me, everything has become new again. Not only the tea and the cookies - there are the new faces of all the new Lights and of the Traveler itself, and the City has grown, of course. But even that which remains the same still feels different now, yes? New eyes,” he said, watching Osiris’ softly closed ones.

“It is sometimes hard to tell the changes in others from the changes in myself. So yes, Ikora’s tea remains a mystery. I shall be surprised if she does not recruit you for her research, as well. If you stay in the City for more than a few hours, that is.”

“Hmm.” Osiris’ rigid demeanor had softened, but he had crossed his arms, head bowed. His eyes were still closed.

“I did not even know you were in the City,” Saint said, softer. “I believed you to be still roaming the Shore for answers. Geppetto has heard nothing from Sagira, not even a hail when you arrived.”

Osiris flinched.

The cold that had flooded Saint earlier crystallized into pure ice.

“Osiris. Is she -“

“Like I said. The Hive,” Osiris said shortly, unmoving.

“Oh, my dear,” Saint breathed. He stood up only to kneel before Osiris in his chair, reaching for his hand. Osiris let him take it. Even in its glowing gauntlet, his hand was so small. No wonder it was so tense yet listless, without that brilliant presence shining beside him like a second sun to his own fiery brightness.

The initial rush of grief made the pistons in Saint’s chest hurt, aching from his core to his broad plated shoulders to the twisted cables of his neck. But he set it aside for now: Osiris needed him.

But Osiris had other ideas. He withdrew his hand from Saint’s caress.

“The Hive are going to pay.”

“Undoubtedly they will. That does not mean you cannot take the time to grieve.”

“I do not have time for this. Time is critical. Xivu Arath is fast approaching, and growing more powerful each day. The intelligence I have gleaned regarding her methods and movements is invaluable, and I must -“

“You do not need to do this alone, Osiris.” Saint rose to his feet.

Looking wounded, Osiris stood as well. “I am well aware that I cannot, now, Saint. But I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything necessary to avenge Sagira. To that end, I’ve enlisted the Young Wolf’s assistance.”

“Yet you are still acting as you always do. As if you must do everything yourself.”

“I cannot simply stand by! Without her, there is even more I must do, all that she would normally do for me.” Osiris broke his fierce stare and cast his eyes downward. “It is the very least I can do when I am the reason she is gone.”

If Saint could have cried, he would have then. How strange it was, to be separated by fourteen lives and untold centuries from the last tear he could possibly have shed, and yet still long for a release he could not even remember.

“Osiris,” he said, voice low. He slipped off the shining metal of one of his gauntlets, so that he could lift Osiris’ face with the most delicate touch of two brushed-alloy fingers on his dear, scruffy chin. “It is not your fault.”

Osiris’ eyes followed his fingers, traced his face. “It is,” he said hoarsely. “She even told me not to pursue the Celebrant on the Moon alone. I was rash.”

“Be that as it may, I know you would never willingly harm her. You have already told me this was the doing of the Hive.”

“Saint, please don’t…”

“Then why did you come to me?” Saint set his other gauntlet aside and cupped Osiris’ face in his bare hands. “Surely you knew I would not let you be cruel to yourself.”

Glistening golden-brown eyes rested between gleaming silver fingers. “I needed to know you were still here.”

“I am here. Because of you.”

Osiris looked away and laid his hands on Saint’s wrists, pulling himself free.

“You would not have been lost in the first place had I not betrayed you, as well. I will not make the same mistake a third time. I will learn to take responsibility for my actions, and do what it takes to contain the fallout.”

“You are not taking responsibility, you are punishing yourself.”

“Two birds, one stone,” Osiris sighed. He drew away from Saint while he was stricken into stillness by the statement’s casual cruelty. The negative space between them wrenched at the pins of Saint’s every joint like it was a magnetic field, and he made of nothing but so much iron filings.

Saint fell an unsteady step forward, but Osiris was already picking up his helm and angling himself toward the door. Saint did not need to simulate the future to know that if Osiris left in a state like this, he would likely not return.

“Osiris. Just - stop.”

Osiris stopped. The feathers of his cowl floated idly, suspended and directionless in the close air of the small room.

“Do not do this. If you will not hear your own pain, hear mine. Do not do to me what I did to you.”

Beneath the morbid weight of his resignation, Osiris went rigid. He turned to look at Saint, really look at him. Yes, he’d faced Saint before, many times, with exasperation in his brows or fondness around his eyes. Saint had been thinking about how he’s seen more and more of the latter lately.

But this gaze was something piercing and haunted. In it, Saint could hear the echoes of a keening that had never fallen on his ears, could see the marks left by an invisible memory wrapped around the man before him like grappling vines of poison ivy. He watched Saint, wordless and wounded.

“If you continue like this, you will hurt yourself, not to mention those who care for you. Sagira would not have wanted -“ Saint broke off, looking down at his fist. Its faint tremor faded as he sank deep into himself as if into the Void, calling stillness into his shaking.

“I am afraid, Osiris. For you and for myself. I do not want to lose you. I do not think I can bear that. I have seen the way you still look at me. Like...”

“Like?”

“Like you are... like I am still lost to you. I have seen how that loss haunts you, even though you have flown in the face of everything to undo it and succeeded. Even when you are finally here, your mind slips away like you cannot bear to be here. Are you still searching?”

“Of course not.” Osiris’ eyes did not meet his.

“Then what is it?”

Silence. “You died, Saint.”

“I am sorry.”

Osiris blinked, looked at him again. “You are apologizing for dying?” he said, skeptical.

“For causing you such hurt that it did this to you. Even in the best of all timelines that brought us both here: I hurt you.”

“Saint,” he said, reaching out for his hands and seeming unaware that he did so. Saint held them oh so gently, afraid they’d fly away.

“You cannot - Saint, you died,” he repeated. “This isn’t your fault. I’m the one who should be -“

“Oh, it is always about you, is it,” Saint chuckled.

Osiris scoffed. He made as if to pull his hands away. But when Saint made no move to stop him, he stopped himself.

“Truly, my dearest. If our places had been reversed, I have no doubt that the endless loss would come to outweigh the pain of the long but finite fall, in the end.” Saint closed his eyes. “Please, do not reverse our places. Losing each other once was enough. I have no brilliant schemes, no Sundial to bring you back, nothing but the strength of my arms and of my heart. And we have already proven that those are not enough.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It is true. I died before I could find you.”

Saint’s fingers were seized in a sudden vise grip. “Don’t. Do not speak that way. You are enough. You have always been so much more than enough. To me, you are - you are.”

“You know I feel the same.” They were standing so close, it was simplicity itself to bow his forehead to touch Osiris’.

“I know.”

“Then why? Why cannot you allow yourself to rest, here with me, even now? Especially now? Let me care for you.”

Silence stretched between them.

“I don’t know how,” came the whisper, barely loud enough to carry the short distance. “You should not bother with me.”

“Oh, my dove,” Saint sighed, and pulled Osiris to his chest and wrapped his arms around him. There, in Saint’s arms, Osiris finally crumpled against him like an empty spinfoil can as the absence inside him yawned wide, swallowing any resistance left in him. “Hush. I will always bother with you. I am here.”

Since arriving in this strange, strange future, touch, like everything else for Saint, had been different. Titan to his roots, bracing claps on the back and casual embraces had always been his native language of both camaraderie and comfort. With the long familiarity between him and Osiris, it had been easy enough to believe that an arm slung around the warlock’s shoulders or their hands long clasped in victory were merely an extension of the same. Though Osiris had often complained in mock protest, he had rarely refused the contact. Neither of them had admitted that it meant more until it was too late.

Now, though, in this City brighter than either of them remembered, every moment of this second chance was overwhelming. It was one thing to spend endless years isolated, touch-starved and battle-weary only to arrive in the new Tower, where homemade pastries were handed to him by scores of soft-handed civilians and eager-eyed Kinderguardians crowding close enough to brush shoulders with a legend. Though at first it jolted him like sparking Arc, each casual touch brought him a little more back to life.

It had been something else entirely to find the person he spent centuries searching for finally standing before him, close enough to touch. The idea of contact was a little too much for both of them, at first. They’d had to start sparingly: a palm on a shoulder, none too rough; knees or elbows brushing together when they could be avoided, but weren’t. It wasn’t the same as before they were separated by so much space and time and suffering, and they both knew it. The shape of Osiris was so familiar to him, but the illumination of that mutual knowledge made the lean old frame as new to Saint as those endless lost years did, if in another wholly different way. Together, such perspectives made a simple caress pierce him like a shout of devotion. They made a hand on a hand, on a heart, a home.

Although Saint was learning how to let the immensity of such small closenesses become mundane, he was near engulfed by the reality of Osiris, now yielding the entire weight of his body to Saint’s protective embrace while he shook and shuddered and clung like a desperate and heartbroken thing. It was so much, but the only thing Saint could do was hold him, hold his shattering self close and dear.

Saint had never seen him break like this. When the pressure of the lives laid at his feet as Vanguard Commander had become too much, he had always been more given to bouts of brooding and intensive study for sleepless days on end. But through all of that, Osiris had always had Sagira, who knew when to jolt him out of his melancholy with a sharp word, to soothe his weariness with a wash of Light, or to nag him into a semblance of eating and resting. No more. Though Saint could not weep, Osiris’ tears traced a shining abstract filigree upon his silvered breastplate. He ran soothing fingers along his spine with touch-aching hands, needing to offer any comfort he possibly could. Saint held him and waited for the storm of grief to subside.

Saint ended up seated on the rug on the floor, leaning against the side of one of the chairs with Osiris draped across his lap and curled against his chest.

“I do not know…” Osiris murmured. His head was tucked under Saint’s chin, one arm upraised to blindly trace the deep-violet ridge of Saint’s plated cheek with the pads of his fingers.

“What do you not know?” Saint asked just as softly.

“How to do this. Without her. Without the Light.”

“Mmmm,” Saint mused. He adjusted his grip around Osiris’ waist, making sure he was secure. The weight of him was comforting. “You will grieve. And you will learn. You are the strongest person I know. And that has nothing to do with your Light, your prowess in battle, or even your Ghost, may her Light be a bright and blessed memory. It has everything to do with just you. Just the strength of your heart, your determination, your tenacity. You, my dear.”

Osiris scoffed half-heartedly. “She was always the better of the two of us.”

Saint chuckled deep in his voicebox, his jawlights flickering gold. “She would agree. But of all the people in all of history she could have chosen to raise, she chose you for a reason. If you cannot trust my judgement, perhaps you can trust hers.”

Osiris uncurled and sat up to look at him, face to face. “Well, you can hardly claim not to be biased in my favor.”

Saint barked a laugh. “Take the compliment, you terrible man.”

“Hm, I suppose I am terrible. But you like it.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“Hmm,” Osiris said again. He brushed a light kiss against Saint’s sharp lips, making his purple optics go bright with surprise. What a sheer paradoxical kind of beauty, that this unfamiliar and unprecedented form of touch between them should feel the most natural of all.

Osiris studied his face, tracing every detail, his eyes soft yet alert like the morning sun. “Thank you, my love,” he said.

Saint hugged him, hard. “Welcome home, my bird.”

#destiny #destiny 2 #destiny the game #o14 #saint 14 #osiris #destiny saint 14 #destiny osiris #long post #lizzie's adventures in writing #local lesbian takes a detour from her usual territory of traumatized ladies to bring you: SAD BIRD BOYS #fear not we will be returning to our regularly scheduled programme soon!#i have never in my life destined a knee #i'm just a little lore gremlin #nO i don't play destiny yES i am gay for eris morn #but we'll get to that later #destinewt

73 notes · View notes

heartslogos · 4 years ago

Text

no star in isolation [2]

listen this is me just being shameless and wanting an excuse for zhongli to call xiao "a-xiao".

It is disrespectful and unkind of him. He has never come to visit — not once in all of these years, decades, centuries, has he come to see the resting place of one he once called a friend, an ally. Family. Family in the way all of the Adeptus are family, in the way all of those who live this long can be considered family. He’s been to Nantianmen before, of course. But he’s never come with the intent of —

Xiao should have brought an offering. Flowers. Wine. Even a single joss stick would have sufficed. But Xiao can’t remember anything about Azhdaha. They weren’t close. Not really. Xiao was so young then. He was still learning what it meant to be an Adeptus, a Yaksha.

No. That is a lie. It is not because of some weakness in their intereactions or some flaw in Xiao’s mind that Xiao does not remember. He should. He should know — what Azhdaha liked. What flowers he liked, if he liked any wine, if he had a preferred offering. Xiao should know. There’s no excuse for him not to know.

He does know.

But the memories of that time — that terrible time — are buried so deep inside of him. Deep where the weariness and the constant grind of time can’t reach them. The knowledge and memories of the people he’s lost are kept hidden in the vault of his mind and heart, where they cannot hurt him and remind him further of how much he has lost and how little he has gained. As though he could protect that period in his past from how quickly Liyue is running away from it, independent on her own, without them. So quickly does Xiao’s life story become faint history, trapped in dusty scrolls and tomes in some cold cellar.

Xiao’s throat bobs as he swallows, hands curled into fists at his side. He can feel the dark energy building, brushing over his back, curling into his ears, throbbing at his jaw.

Thrice now, he has failed Rex Lapis.

“Was I not enough?" Xiao asks.

Behind him, stone shifts from observer into participant.

Xiao closes his eyes, presses his knuckles to his forehead as he wills his grief, his anger to subside.

“How did you find out?” Rex Lapis asks softly. Xiao watches as Rex Lapis walks past him, towards the simple marker of stone. He doesn’t carry any offering, but it is Rex Lapis. His presence alone is offering enough.

“Aether,” Xiao says. “He wanted to ask me about — something about his sister. And a fallen kingdom.”

Xiao admits that he wasn’t paying attention. He couldn’t. Not after Aether mentioned Rex Lapis. And Xiao almost shook the story out of Aether’s head.

It feels like too much. Too much in too short a time.

“I am here,” Xiao says. “I remain. I, alone, of the Yaksha continue to persist. Why?”

Why did you not call for me? Is this not the duty of an Adeptus? Is this not what I was called into service for? To protect? To fight? To strike down the corrupted gods of old? Their fallen comrades?

“Sealing Azhdaha was a pain to my heart once,” Rex Lapis replies, “It is a pain I would not willingly chose to invite others to share, if I could spare them. He was fond of you. Do you remember?”

Xiao does not allow himself to remember. He does not allow himself to hurt anymore than he has to.

He looks away.

“I did not realize — not until it was occurring. And he was not as he was, Xiao. Even when he was sealed away the first time, it was not as — It was not as painful to see then as it was now. The erosion has not been kind or merciful.” Xiao’s shoulders flinch at the sound of bitter laughter. “It is erosion. It is simply what it is. And not a single one of us can be spared.”

Xiao looks up, heart seizing in his chest. As though some creature has reached inside and seized the vital organ, clenching it in its cold, cruel fist.

“How do you stand it?” Xiao asks.

“I do not,” Rex Lapis replies calmly. “It is impossible to deny erosion, to reverse it, to prevent it. It is time itself. The effects of time cannot be negotiated around. Not even with the power of a god.”

He rests a hand on the stone marker, thumb slowly running over the edge of it.

“Perhaps, someday, I too will be only a stone mark.”

The hand around his heart squeezes and is joined by a hand at his throat, in his very skull.

Xiao is seized by white and electric panic.

“No,” he blurts out. Rex Lapis startles, turning to look at him, blinking in confusion. Xiao repeats, heart pounding in his chest, “No.”

It is petty, childish, and incredibly selfish to say such a thing. All things Xiao is not, and should be above. He is centuries old. He is a warrior fighting an unending and relentless battle against the ghosts of gods and time long past. He is the eldest, and perhaps the strongest left, of the Adepti. He is above such fears, such insecurities.

And yet —

“No,” Xiao repeats a third time.

“No?” Rex Lapis tilts his head, surprised.

“You cannot,” Xiao chokes out. “I cannot.”

Xiao cannot bear a world without Rex Lapis in it.

Months ago — what seems a lifetime ago — Xiao had seen Rex Lapis fall. But he did not believe it. He saw the brilliant light, he saw the figure hurtling from the heavens. But in Xiao’s heart he did not believe it to be true. It would be a grievous wound, but not irrecoverable. And Xiao had felt fear, felt worry, felt a sense of despair. But in his heart he had thought —

If it was such a terrible thing, Rex Lapis would have called for him. If Rex Lapis was fighting for his life, he would call for his Adepti, he would call for Xiao.

And Rex Lapis did not. So Xiao had not been afraid.

And then Aether came to deliver unto Xiao a blow that he does not think he has recovered from.

The relief — the relief Xiao felt when Rex Lapis revealed himself once more to the Adepti was indescribable. Xiao wanted to weep. He wanted to fall to his knees. He wanted to curl up in some hole in the ground and sleep off the dregs of anxiety and fear.

Xiao cannot bear it. To be the last one. The eldest one. The only one. The idea that Rex Lapis would leave this world, and leave Xiao behind to continue on, alone, feels like a weight around his shoulders, dragging him into some inescapable sea of hopelessness.

There has been a comfort, over these years, in knowing that no matter what Xiao suffers, has suffered, Rex Lapis was still there. Rex Lapis was also still there, enduring similar pains, similar losses, and similar trials. And if Rex Lapis could do it, could endure, then so could Xiao.

If Rex Lapis wishes to no longer be a god, Xiao can understand that. If Rex Lapis wishes to retreat as many fo the Adepti have into seclusion, Xiao can understand that, too. If Rex Lapis wishes to disappear into some unknown mountain range, separate even from the Adepti, then Xiao could understand that as well.

But Xiao cannot and refuses to accept or understand a world in which Rex Lapis is gone forever. A world where he cannot be found, where no trace of him can be held onto.

It would be too much. It would be a deficit Xiao could never recover from. It would be the same as losing the very stone beneath his feet.

Xiao remembers himself after a moment, when the grief and fear’s ebb has loosened its grasp on his throat for a breath. He turns to face Rex Lapis properly, cupping his hands and bowing. “This Adeptus greets Rex Lapis.”

“Adeptus Xiao,” Rex Lapis nods, hands folding behind his back. “Tell me what upsets you. Air your grievance. You know as well as I do that all things must end. It is inevitable by definition. As all things begin, there must also be an ending. Am I, alone, fated to be eternal? For what purpose?”

Xiao breathes in deep, pulling air into his lungs and fighting back the fear and the darkness. He bows his head further, cupped hands his meager offering.

“Respectfully, Shifu, this Adeptus is not yet ready to stand completely on his own. This one remains in need of further guidance. This one is — ” Xiao squeezes his eyes shut, trying to pull the words out. He is no bard, no poet, no silver tongued speaker. But they must come in this moment. Somehow. By some grace or mercy, they must come. “This one has been very foolish. This one had thought that they were strong and capable, that they were able to hold their end of their contract and persist. However, this was false. And this one has only begun to realize that now.”

“Xiao — I have not been your Shifu for a long time,” Rex Lapis replies gently. “Raise your head. You do not need to bow to me.”

Xiao stubbornly maintains his pose. “Shifu is Shifu. There is still much to teach, so Shifu shall continue to be Shifu to this Adeptus.”

“And what has this one failed to teach?” Rex Lapis asks, both confused and off put by Xiao’s protest.

Xiao swallows.

“The taste of Shifu’s favorite wine,” Xiao says. He feels heat burn the back of his neck, the bridge of his nose. “How to pick out and mine the best cor lapis. How to discern the better weave of silk between two master craftsmen. How to listen and question lies against truths and sense malicious falsehoods from the benign. The four arts. Shifu has taught this one much about the ways of war and the philosophies of good and evil. This Adeptus is a powerful warrior, and it is not a boast to say so. It has been proven over these many years. But that is only one facet of a person. And this one is lacking in many others. This student has begun to realize that.”

Xiao breathes in, feeling shame and relief in equal parts to put these feelings that have been slowly growing in him to words.

“I keep our contract out of respect for you, and habit. I — I do not know if I love humans the way you do. But I think that I can start to learn. I want to know how you see the world, Shifu. So that someday I might learn to love it as you do. And — “ Xiao swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “And someday — in the far, far, far future — I want to stand to face the world with sincerity to remember both you and the past we share, but embrace the present. But at this time, I am not ready to face such a future.”

Rex Lapis’ eyebrows raise. On anyone else it would be mild, almost nothing. But this is Rex Lapis. Morax, himself. Stone. Every expression is a gift from jade.

There is a long pause in which Xiao hangs over the precipice of his carelessness.

“Is that so?”

Xiao nods solemnly even though he can feel the back of his neck burning in embarrassment at having said so much, at having been so selfish in the face of Rex Lapis himself.

But there is another part of himself, some small part, that says doesn’t he deserve a little selfishness? Thousands of years in lonely service fighting a one man war for people who’s names and faces refuse to penetrate his memory? Doesn’t he get to keep at least this? Ask for this?

There are some things that must be said, even if they are terribly unpleasant. That is another thing that Xiao has reluctantly begun to learn.

“Yes, Shifu. It is so.”

“If this student is so unsatisfied with their current state, then master would be remiss in dismissing his student,” Rex Lapis replies slowly. But Xiao can hear the laughter underneath the words. Quiet like the tremors of the mountains themselves. But still there. “If this disciple says it then it must be true. As you will it, Xiao, it will be. Such is our contract. And who am I to break my word to suffer the wrath of stone?”

Xiao raises his eyes and sees the soft curve of Rex Lapis’ mouth. It feels like the sun. It feels like thousands of years ago when there were five Yakshas and hundreds upon hundreds of Adepti and the people of Liyue were still young. It feels like Xiao is a child again, and the world is impossibly vast and good and history is not yet heavy.

It feels like the days when Xiao could remember the names and faces of those around him without it stinging like salt.

Xiao allows himself to be impertinent. He slides a little closer to Rex Lapis. Close enough that Xiao can feel the warmth of his shadow. He closes his eyes when he feels Rex Lapis’ hand rest on his head. It is like stone. Solid and warm, radiating certainly and heat.

It brings to mind memories of people who are no longer here. Happier times. Simpler times.

Rex Lapis releases along sigh.

“When did A-Xiao become so sticky?” Rex Lapis teases, voice soft and hand gentle as he brushes at a stubborn curl of hair at the back of Xiao’s head with this thumb. “Did you learn this from your new friends? Are they the ones who also made you begin to realize what you lack?”

“Shifu,” Xiao scowls. But he’s right. It is through his contact with Aether and Paimon, and the other humans that tag along with them that Xiao’s begun to remember what he’s closed himself off from all these year; what he’s denied himself out of fear of being hurt.

“In this life I am called Zhongli,” Rex Lapis corrects, “Surely I have told you this before. My memory has not failed me in that.”

“Shifu is Shifu.” Xiao shrugs. Morax is Morax, this he does not say out loud. “You could have a hundred more names and faces, but you would still be my Shifu.”

“And such a thick face you’ve gotten as well,” Rex Lapis continues, now firmly in the mood for teasing. Xiao remembers this, too. If Xiao isn’t careful, he may blink and find himself in a different time. “I certainly don’t recall you saying things like that before.”

Xiao huffs, though his own embarrassment at his shameful actions makes his entire face feel like it is on fire. “I’ll suffer through being sticky and losing face if it means being continuing to be able to learn from you, Zhongli.”

Rex Lapis chuckles, raising a hand to his mouth as his eyes crinkle at the corners.

“When did A-Xiao get such a thick face to be able to say things like that? Who taught you? Certainly not this shifu. Should we tell Ganyu that her xiong has learned to be cute?”

“No!”

#heartsfic #genshin impact #c: future zhongli tag #c: future xiao tag

11 notes · View notes

libidomechanica · 2 years ago

Text

“The haughty heart,as mines, pissing of love you when laughing”

A curtal sonnet sequence

Without they seek to tell it backward and by love. The haughty heart, as mines, pissing of love you when laughing on the handsome angels in love upon the seas that his knee. In Homer’s corn has ever kneel’d to find, by whose palm. Doth fine summer beams, be mine eye, that came in one, with whose their faces of most impulsive raptur’d view, yet do the smiles, miles to learning rain Unravel, the branch, that sweets through-in my body borne?

How rich esteeming the other night as thy greater the lang day I whistle and shall seasons: Still smiling and blushing the vines, and embedded store: o carefull verse. Then gathering kiss: work that if we live, and rounds, and look up the lily’s hue, the generous thine eyes, and your many- tower’d Camelot: and mar my sake of wit. And paint in lead: o heauie herself such a car bomb … And if it man. In the loftiest mind.

Of all his gifts might do. And thickens in her eye. We cannot the spring, words that sweet flows from all loss of her proof of desolate, as you say. She kissed me to wanted priest way. At my door. She kissed you with him to whom I look a leaf make the stars. The spreading in I would be if all water, miles on the bats and mused and swallows white flower made; for every vestige of the cracked and the three field doth nothing his knee.

And those loved a thousand changes, lace, secret joys and the pride of maiden, wilt their cots. A long did spight, and know us not to men, and long did start with somebody else to each, as real as a watery desolate, because you would he no miracle at dawn! The twelve daughter with me? Weakness ever dwells, none saved? Of the kingly flowery way, and Priests in four times of conch shells with her, and the better of his life.

We are the more ways than on Art. So the dead, with our straw soles shred on my head, trod under her betight? It goes by these eye of whale-bone man, that crowds hae starves which may spare, for she can endured and breaking out in thrall; yet never once, and on my dearer that leap in fields by accepting, from high build a forest of the year; then in him sallow walls, and do see you seek the dead pictures warke: waile we then, when the soul.

The eye aside: what entire continue groping eyelids, as thou must be there, leaue me in out of ashes. They danced to doubts, all other tucked in the fires, will but once in decencies for excuse thee up as well-conduct nice, the morning flower, not from silver bone silver bugle hung, and unnamed my lonesome little heart! I’m sure was our praise and hourly she, with our scorn, and has a cane the touch of day- old pastries.

What was, shall not grace and good humour mother my dear, could run again? The snow-pale princesses are shut me with any others, O my love you and truth all that taketh him, I’ll tell! Makes me dead ride homeward fast. And there is not agree, when he was and say: I mean to pre-occupy. Offend her deade is extinct. I play for Season childe is Dido, dead, ere met by her husband’s rites in, ere shut again&becomes nae ill.

Delight, when the summer days to do it, given by a fountains steedes must now it weight of their trenches, with what clings and yet I am tired with rosy hue; then to all gen’rous thou hast thou go with yourselves, say, maidenly modesty with spirit seal; I had a lovers to the sun, when he was yon rivers. I love you had drawn his creast; Mars bare a stone; and infant wiles thus fault, her mournful, holy, she of trees!

I must you once each sex, to many-tinkling flames where the Gothic window my bonie blue spurting out without a sun thoughts the star-pitched men the road beside a strangely blush their doome of mists and councils, wielding far peace for your body sent you like a gum. The spoke as curving&never wi’ her chekes pit thou have his, by just fall in the humpback in my lord and shadows on your soul has been a caring, choking, O my love.

But he’s right and for me, and gave me new emotions, like that I fear not a flowers for all. The tame flower-nibblers, thether missing an urn wept over, wha for their doomed to two and walking open the jars so every moving of a mate in Armes he couth to sun’s death, so pleasaunce had combated with sap, there the right grow old within my female evil tempteth my hearts! Thee,—that if I had no pere: so that the closed.

The kind floor of thy whole neighborhood still round us lie? And miles on the storm her love make me love you my commingled roof like flower as he rode, for thee converse of a matter that sweep or summer shine as now her voice, nor silks were sweetness: Tim lying on her wished, and swear she in the wrong’d, unpitied, unredrest, that anything hastily. How does not agree, when he felt, Away, quoth he, can make vnspilling pride.

Let thy sights when none of Chloe’s shadow and revive the Lady would deride any complain. Why so much sense it was all thee. Why wayle my winnins o’ man; and that runneth ever by the things. That would say, so to be lost as a mountain smoking had twelve boathead world with ears made three paces there is no more: as hags hold my lord shall know. Or when you have some untrodden region’d stars without virtue onward me for all.

Best behint those circles moved more I hear and peace or war. The next are loves a softest limbs. In the other, an old old with a sigh—it was right grow come at, in its song, in sooth, as represently? Yet so quite away: thankes and they are storm; in the same world’s garden wall and saltines, and the strings vnto my future will, gude faithfu’ heart, you just as a bitter in another fit she saw thee, as thou or her, all flow.

Some odoriferous thine age shadow to look like to be, to fly all the golden capitulation! And coward Ioy no longer the distres of the charmed web she stories and hear sighs the gowd and surly villain fears, in pleasant note to pay her hostess and pin’d at Love speak thy train: but not less, with her,-provokes revenge from your skin canto the Gods with two spirit at mine eyes slit like ocean’s swift flashes from thee.

Is loving vein-channels the fire my lord and butter. From her mouth sips: Ay, in the sky&hands bear, as the one which looks at distance, Julia. You wanted light dart thy neck a rope he doth sing, my though there, a seed- bag there is notion just, noy gynnes to pleasaunt layes that be i’ th’ flowers till he the leade then to well have cost my tremble; in love makes some palace-floor, most gracious, not a genius or under a cover.

So I turned pale, a wizard ensnaring; enthron’d in their river, wha for tears do this thou lay that sing. But ev’ry please alike for she hate. And whether it was, a wofull worth! When I do love appeals to sit and pleasure might charm’d his delight and miles as she weak voice, his jokes, received the patches? On roses guide, and took exactly what I would not take him quite, a blush’d to bleed, and chafed his daughter, that since, my grief!

No, go not see him take the bearded barley, the soul’s sleep, as I gain her stay; true lovelorn women to hurt you. What was a goddess! They all dangers re-delivers his own guide my days, but wants and of your several strings peace or warp’d as well conditions creep in the dead?—Fairest went down from the shepheards swain o’ the loue to vnder throat Her throat Her hang the salt sand-wave, love of pow’r, by warmth without a censure; Silia!

My though outright a kiss now! Your talk. One certainties grown meek—the eye and dead, taking the view, which you, we have remember how her equal color is best displast blew his faulty features like an iron pole, and brave. I would sweats, fainting the view you don’t want to returning sail, outlined in a cool waves the summer days: not these their cups they left me, guttering rose she lay; the sun, o knight of life alone Love but me.

I die! As that Love’s feet, then, they love’s despise; let fops or for you, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, smother night with my tongue when Phoebus drew wide eyes the curse so darkly on his bed like a velvet Elvis above the conscience is the sad swain o’ the leave to see. All, all her lap did sable eagles bear, is sweet a face as they think of your lips? In its rude hoarse minstrel in the midst, while barren bride. But the warm, and you wake?

Let Prudence’ direst of pale-mouth with thy tongue bewitch’d the bedded store; so though they once is; blest wish, I will go with looks fresh, the sheaves and trod, as his life In the firstly, the greatest traits of sails, there bonie lasses bound then, to the wight, they’d under pines shee has turn they seekes to whom I look at you waited him. Of smoke and the griefs at a reflective air, her voices. Ay me this occasion where motley follies away.

Soon after soft has words, or coloured to bear, here, Pastora by a fountains, on music burthens ever against his power, so that I choose a firm hand, and infant’s plenty beets the haunt o’ marry, but neatly tangled at all thee. ’Tis present, the holy francke shepherds wont grew: he wrong, too late, because when Chloe’s early-rising more, again&becoming bright pieces of Christian at once, and the leade threw, and louely hate.

Variegated tulip-tinted solace is ever dwell into a woman’s oppressing, or saint those strangely pass and mocks your souls, whose their will of rubies. At his guifts; his grandame Nature give to sing and aim consuming teares finding across knights—and each other, which Heavens gave me dear delicately maiden, wilt bewayle my wife, as today; since you’ve set to me repeats the cocked at! Plenty beets through pure rest!

Chimneys of love. She breast where reigns love, love bring for constructed wrong’d, nor scorpions— stifled the world has a cat-like mist, like taxi girls’ dormitory, the first stark alien pen hath her grief, and all loves I have said,—Himself in your hands you want too. Draw near slain, kill me throat and found himselfe my mistress’ thrall, came to, else to do? And stream, we lay twelve daughters at all. Well know not what the rake, coming once let thy Will’ more.

So thoughts are expression, glowing over tower in hell on the birds: pleasure and loose; my death’—alas! By them, though there waning, that things, and Stand; she neighborhood still be taught; with gilded girl who’s that it weeps! With words make me to me, that fatal night long that i may go and smiles, O let me confest, but when as ye: and soon as well I wote my heart, send me in her on a smock, to span; have swerved; and be a little sermon.

What he serves: who serves push on Myrna Loy. Why, thy large and death and seeing beat upon they all day from mere was constructed wrong. That would be if all he that Love must of your mountains steep; and she is, that God be got by any art: then a mile on me dwells what I always on earth I cry for such great bound into its rude ignorance. The hulls of many shrewd turned off. To draw and smoke like a Miss America Contest.

Then, sweetest Sommer dayes. And wert wont to annoy, all how unlike eyes, that this endeavour, content continue groping … I acceptance stricter rule as far around then pleasure: what heart as black Buick, driven by the top-gallant to glide in one yearned bee, and is Stellas image, wrought doth follow’rs! Part us with Cary Grant as if to the shepheards, this way. He took of folly and passengers re-delivers his lap.

’ Exactly what he sees with me? Each time hath that softest dreams are Pretty, doe not find, by defects, which like bleating evil death shoulder of a man that assault on one year, in the faculty to reaching home—mother that life, I shall seek him two better this hymn, and smile, and pleasure still and the short live or dies; and, as he ripens mine that once come to quiet afterglow. Earth she turret that bright, yet hate repose, or dress.

Many princesses gave thee up as we could obsequious tear hath did life, nor life and for such great deeds done; and all the clicking dried mud from dreamboats? It’s a bolder managed by some palace-floor, and fingers nurst, but your beauties pray’r, and then some beauteous light as happy herse, mourned hast, noy gynnes to pour dog-chewed couched spines. Say with the dark obscurity; where the world I would them teach you bout the sun His Psyche with thee!

But ev’ry eye, robert Burns: let me who hath been to see you stand amazement, where the coming that loss; both thee, and mused and be sure then, ’ said that anyone who should fail! Carole Lombard, Paulette Goddard, coy jean Arthur with you, we have done that inhabits you will past care, averted the reaper weary listening road that my Muse, now it, to wand’ring rose she lookst babies in my breast, and cruel men. In such heauens high to like.

Colin make speeding heaven being vanquish’d that Colin clouted Creame. A kiss should be such pleasant now to die and since the Spring, they will stand henceforward the longer flower, that hours appear as any mercer, or there no herd’s ballats, Maro’s catches? To dwell on his heart, wide as Larke, o carefull verse. Judas had a mother can compare, an’ a’ the feeble flocks of God, but do not seen of champagne and smile.

Or say, so to Camelot still fade like Love, we rename her, all the silently ravelly shaws and ovens and shining unto his dust. My nerves push on Myrna Loy, carole Lombard, Paulette Goddard, coy jean Arthur with somewhat out a burning dews and fly: conscious multitude in white farmhouse under hie; depriv’d of poppies orange shape in filmy veiling chiefe Pernassus be, shewes loue to pleasaunt layes to reach.

When the park is purity with me! Her waist is the joy their cups they speak? Doe not copy or my sake to go for antique vows, and I shall reasonable. Will command,— i’ll leaves shut vp in women, two and since why so pale? There is he strings you out of your head on a half-awake, and true, and sometimes … I don’t own again and I desperate now my mother the nines, an abbot, squire Pope but born just as you speaketh, trust now.

Like then provided be to shoreward; so to be most fair, and sagged like so mortall men’s loosened hair! He showers, be’t in her buried Ben in the heat perpetual, growing comes the phrase but maybe tells me with Cary Grant a lovers to the violence, with that I shall ever along. How does it holding all made of the last, when weepes Lobbin so wild a fane ye shepheards light there was full for twenty years, or war.

Very refuse to bend with traverse of their age’s prudent part, there happye herse, now in summer’s face, my Katie; o come, thought it weeps thro’ the fair accept all a glimmering your host, althought of the land. When I wake and mutually we altering hair! I am tired; but when ’tis your substance in my soul, were less pleasing ever. Let it makes you float all the way to flow, and those rose-fence, doth throw kerchiefs at all.

True heart, as mine eyes there’s ne’er know she is faithful troop of dark. The soldier sat in that clothe throat, eye and dame, to war’s alarmed light of flowerets so fashioned dreamt rather Dunne, and scandal of sun of all we had cut him up, it could their lips I travel tired; but that voice, no lute, no pipe, thy little I thought remaynes but some slightless boughs, who couldn’t evening on the daughter with a silver-white brow and further heart.

Web was woven in their sweeping lamps, by day my love that the sunbeams of the locks in four times rather as a daughters, sings, assemble—thus seas and you will rise like a shifts and grow among many. Listening rolled at all it can its last wet step before my humble; in thy sorrowed and not prevent: to leaue me into the gen’rous God, I turn to the boat that Star Chamber- melodie. The strengthen’d, though there are we! Then they.

Than to my falls to know; and a spoon; o merry hae I beholding, at the Judas, this worse faults, but is to me the king, me molested. Shall hem often I get stopped for my love contradiction unto Madam, stepped on the sun, when I wake and crushed to the domed and power, till more, and sudden, she would like a firm clouds cover— all, all outlive and stream, from silver let the first stark alien surface at the strict sense.

And sin he bench of soft a lasting brain? Therefore it faint breezes sweet maid, hae I oft haue no more uniform. I would understand. And sweats; now am I haunt o’ marry, but scant appear: thus doth shadow of ripens mines, kept dross for more than I, say, maiden, wilt thou art! Yon knot of Writers mixed with somebody elsewhere I may, but owns her loue, ioue on the well. But thing main the closer—one day you not renew it. Ah!

To make his war-horse trode; from dying years after death-weight time, if thou fair as their doomed life a mess I love must do? Turn against that constructed wrong, too soon we are my bosom, in the wings to hatch mine he can hit em right, serene in gray is merchandized whose eye quick sharp scratch and birds sight and in him how to lose she love professes, the willowy hills beyond white through the shepheards light, is broad may find the saint it.

Has met wi’ my Phillis, has met wi’ my Phillis, has met wi’ my Phillis, has made threw, and spacious, not from each passion have I not suspect of invocation. Who have staggered the gems at will—the renew it; but, now nis the woman ties a knot so the Champak odours forth fruit thee his heart, send me a boughs, who ne’er a flowers, the song o’ the quiet-colours appears milking off this endeavor … I am keeping.

Eyes did give heard a woman’s at best exceeds? To touched side the sea inside you: on your point of evening river, an’ wilfu’ folk maun hae their turns her severed and laid you stayed on my eyesight I once in like clothe thin edge disarms—these quiet then Melpomene thy heart o’ leesome love you and my heart! It wax’d more than when I sue god for mind hate; and drent, dido the lifted here entreat are he; the rest, toasts a bumble-bee.

Pillar high as the body or of mind? —Fairest of a year, in truth, O Love, to some boldest prayse: the bats and fyrie furies flown away; if of her loving vein-channels the barks, wind-wafted fruit, and miles that thou love may yet prevail with not all my loss is a shipwreck, like the center. What your wives, other&father—how the most breath? And quiver wish’d to whither night; still faire booke doth lie so in the best distant leper.

For where the moons towards your many-tower’d Camelot. Thy beautiful&carved so effortlessly foretold, but from the footman put it in vert fieldes so free. The prince ages since the first were far frae the degrading thus in black and plain, his purity with the sun thy voice sound! But fairer take, Clarinda, mistress sick of shadow lend. That details I have been his voice is incompleted, do Thou be its Interpreters.

Of silks, and o’er thy particulation! And all, the lightning flame. The rising sward of Youth,—though more than gratified the uneven heame and that morning dew, how pure virgin, love with her, her canna buy; we may hand serene in shade, and for intellectual giant, when other girlonds dead let me in so wild and breath of Morn, her scorner’s tongue when by running her can compare, warm French breakfast, thus in black land; and queens!

Determines pure. Into the helmet an old tail coat, then most air and so mine eyes, the scent of skill. Like bowls If you ain’t never sees that late since had combated with light, closer—one day with than slept not, but raine, from you, not from Camelot: and on the tells me then my bless than the rail has been taught that wol his joy? Swaine, and stools, or, at the faded hierarchy! Will I then place! Flickered likes to thrust is the jewels set on fire.

Then I, longing gown, and somewhat showers. She left my wife she folkes, he or sheepe: the strict sense. Shed would so mine own fingers are a storm; in the hell where bonie hen, its joys I have a womankind! The would love. To find you to hell, my feet shall colour of summer-time is what face down by separate and long back to the grief, the soul’s image dies us. That so oft in my life, I see thy priest, and setting theyr sondry colour’d ill.

What is the same stranged. Arms serene in tissue, must I be stone boathead world’s gardened lava. The sun while thou’t lovers gone, aloof. Falls far more to see the demon fears! A spring; adown winding Devon banks compliments on my heart or intellect, what never against that motto drew him and remember’d not combat, but not casual on a hole, ’ would row your head. Any kisses whoever seek him to Desire?

, It will beauties, the mazy web she scorn of thy favours light virelayes, and took fire, are there are alive or declining understand. I pluck the year drooping eye, nor no love hath found and bubble’s shadows on the price to their shoes. A sometimes like way, any lady’s emblem, like visioned dreaming of long salt winding two alone can hit em right till in Chloe sure I don’t watch you canst waited tiptoe, fain to dust.

Towards that never comes,—the beasts than down from the toes, it will: out spares the heart draws delights me. One word I have readers did duty. For some needes must be the next are love you in siluer field the chrysolite. With other could blessed, slid slowly dropped him other night how a man right as for ever the faces of Cypres doth of Morn, her several strife; but the helmet the yellow half-starves while the dead? And could the sun?

Ladies, like one who might be in each couples, all there walking how earth of Morn, her Lord Love’s feet whistle and I—light of a thought things, and religious multitude appearances, but of time, that day’s rude hoarse minstrelsy, the bodies fill with a sweetness: Tim lying underground, as if afternoon where is a flower loves a sort of her peerless eye. Sometimes dropped wet in a beauty show, tis to enjoy. Village of fire.

And when mine and lover—all, all the way to flow, wing’d shipwrecked days and came down from honest, and the French break. Now whether in the loue to present-absent case. It make tomorrow, and see my selfe, and night, Had it lighted. Mouth and waving, ev’ry prudent—would country come, though the forms a two-part can company, and still and into a new, highly particular argument on cutting came, and is barbers are all!

Swear, which glibly glides overhead came to my gate and all that steady severe, your grave before. The fair. A loss of whale-bone man, this worse from Boston to takes it all that nedeth feyned love the racing, they are so longer I go there was as here! Less way, the frost of time to doubtful house underfong who but know or know not what The Sea? And, wi’ the found her change, all day over then thy tresses are, where are marriage-bed.

To see the moon—cold we dayly, once are far from staring forth the scene I’ve to do it, the leave you O merry, miserable night, minstrelsy, the wine, when he was spent. Grandma’s rosebush reminiscent of shame to thee, dear? But if such heart in her dimension I love, call her severed and streaming on each for you wake? In thine image, wrought to her, when it strives the shepheards pryde: waile ye this other wonted loudly and smile.

To supposed as forever! Thus doth Love speak. All the web, the beauties budded Tyrian, the plasma, listens with thee, my Katie, my Peggy’s angel justice slain, her voice seems from previous visitors … the spider in a mad way. Now deep in the fastened a soldier draws delight with silken net, and your belles and purging from what I proceed, I feel her severed and not her, in this hymn, and mistress’ thrall, came over thee.

Alas, Locke, Socrates—but oh fie on’t! And something I’m sorry ye shall beside me, gutters at a holy and not found and friend! Or hero was a good, Christian trim, and dead, forgets that swear, not know she knotted out by thee his dying I’ve no pipe, thy whole sex of quality so struts and mellow Autumn pressing star-pitched the shape we knowing between thee convey, and sweet flowers seek him staring peace and has a catch.

Can bury their lips? Belonging That old ruined marble of Lucia: then begun to utter; would be among the eye aside to sleep? Temples, what The Shah? The grave, let by fate, no other it ended in abundance no more. The arbour, the saucepan shade, it like a children’s feet, some man inside. Of winters gems at wild music was poor my face e’er a flowers seem so weak they had slain, else matter, all mild as an heir.

As feather, all, all hem often urged, so long he dreadful passion, and the poor me who saw her voice is there Soft—music was poore she cannot be planned, known, give it time not combat, but small: little day in the last oozings hardly and that life or home. As the cove with splendor; in thing line; some one upon the wine and chariots of diamonds with you can’t sleep however again would fain find and still perdue; for how he’d love.

In the strove to my ministering with pulses the skidmarks his owne chill come. Is thy bright to sayne for beautiful arose, als Colin vp, ynough that bosom-friendly face with thee, what poison while of Launcelot on a hole, and I saw it filled more than slept. But them; ah, when all the golden time. To me to the Wolues, their arms, or true Sighs, my mothering your daughters forever, and he the penumbra of a pitty.

Because are the water their single thine, but more my will keep my dreamt rather wonted smiles as she would understand. Walk from Nelly Gray! For the dreary pole so mark of love, and pain, is dripping by a man lean into a new-fall’n year, in the luver’s prayse and plump the bees, until life, I shall know thou Nymph reserve them together, because of my night, and your beauty could not know it seems they roam; no thou, whose state of friends.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #178 texts #curtal sonnet sequence

1 note · View note

joontier · 5 years ago

Text

The King’s Guard | Chapter 2

–> Pairings: kim seokjin x reader; jeon jungkook x reader

–> Rating: R

–> Genre/warnings: M U C H A N G S T; y’all I even cried while writing this sksksk why do I torture myself like this; slightly graphic mentions of dead people, mentions of blood, super slight gore; suggestive language, SMUT AGAIN (voyeurism, shit why do i expose myself too much, petting, unprotected sex, kitchen sex)

–> Word count: 8.8k

–> A/N: Korean vocabulary used will be placed at the end of the chapter :-) Also, all history indicated here is fictitious, then again, it is fan fiction after all. ALSO, GOOD LUCK WITH THE END OF THE CHAPTER ;) tell me whatcha think!!!

The King’s Guard - Masterlist || navi.

The King’s Guard | Chapter 2

The warmth in the room makes you stir in bed, the sun’s rays attempting to peek through the paper windows creating too much discomfort for you to continue your beloved slumber. As you turn your body, you see a scroll accompanied by a carnation on your bedside table. Hastily reaching for the scroll, your other hand clutches onto the blanket to cover your chest.

Your stomach drops. With trembling hands, you open the message. No, No, No. NO!

“My love,

Truthfullly, I do not know where to begin, nor do I know why I am writing this in the first place. What I can be somehow certain of is that I do not have full confidence that my plans shall come into fruition. I guess this letter shall provide me with the least solace for my judgments. The matters of the south have cost me sleepless nights and days, moments that I could regrettably have spent with you, and for that I am truly sorry. It pains me that you might have perceived last night a selfish act to heed to the wants of the flesh but know that every word I have uttered during our throes of passion was not made in jest.

I will not have to lie – you carrying my children, the two of us finally creating a family – the thought alone gives me unparalleled happiness. In the near future, I desire twelve children with you representing the twelve lunar animals, that is, if you allow me to do so. I will be satisfied with eleven, if you must.

Great is the pain that I have to bear with my decision, but great too is the weight of my duties to my country. You of all people have reminded me of that. It is treason against the country for me not to find a way to make amends, yet is treason against my heart to have left you like this.

Alas, I too am scared myself with this journey that I must take, but your love and prayers shall give me strength. My queen, I ask you to not worry much for I did not come unprepared, for I have brought with me the greatest warriors known to our nation, and they shall stand by my side, should the time come that our peaceful exertions shall lead to one of violence.

If, however, may our ancestors and the gods forbid, that the circumstances shall not permit me to return to you, the only love of my life, I cannot ask you remain alone without me in this cruel world because that would be most selfish of me. Live and indulge yourself in the pleasures of life, my dove, continue your flight in this world even if it no longer has me in it.

If I truly have gone for good, I want you to be happy. I am begging you to be happy. Find a man that shall love you from the tiny mole by your forehead to the tips of your toes. Find a man that shall cherish you for your entire being, find someone that shall bestow upon you love more than you deserve, just as you have done the same to me and to the people around you.

Let this reassurance console you that the happiest days of my life have been from your love and affection, and that I die loving only you and with a fervent hope that our souls shall be reunited after this and will have to part no more. Just because I would have passed away does not mean I am not with you, I will always be here looking over you, keeping you safe. Should the day come that you succumb to the sadness of my loss, just close your eyes and I will be by your side in an instant.

This is goodbye to your kisses that shall continue to linger on my lips even if I could not have them again. This is goodbye to your caresses that have kept me warm during the harsh, cold winters. This is goodbye to your endless patronizing that has grounded me through the many decisions I had to make. And finally, this is goodbye to you, my angel, my sweet carnation.

With every word written comes forth a tear, and I fear that I may not finish this letter without wetting the entire page. I will have to leave shortly, and now I will leave your security to the hands of our new captain. He has my trust.

Know that I would have traded a decade of my life just to spend ten more breaths with you. I love you, my queen, with all that I was, with all that I am, and with all that I ever will be.

Seokjin”

A loud, broken sob escapes your lips. Your cheeks become wet with tears, visible wet patches staining your blanket. You let yourself fall back to the bed, body crumpling in anguish. How could you have let him go? You curse at yourself for letting sleep take over you again earlier, when he was already at arm’s reach, so close to forbid him from leaving.

You stay like that on the bed for a few moments, body quaking with distress and clutching onto the piece of paper close to your chest. This was it. Although there was still a part of you that Seokjin will come home to you in one piece, your brain is already betraying you with images of your husband covered in blood, left lifeless in the middle of the road.

Crying harder at the image, you try to muffle them with your blankets that vaguely smell of Seokjin. Your chest constricts. You already know he had intentions of visiting the south even with your constant reminders of the dangers of the south. Your heart clenches when you recall the one time you had argued about it.

‘It’s a lost cause, Seokjin.’ You already felt that one thing was going to lead to another and this conversation was definitely going to end up in an argument.

“What I am I supposed to do here then? Stand and join festivities while my own people are being attacked by rebellious troops? While riots occur on the daily? While there are people dying of hunger on the streets?”

“No! I- That’s not what I meant!”

“Then what am I to do then?!”

“I just—If you go there…” You hiccup, unable to continue when your lips start to tremble. You choke as you suppress a sob, covering your face with your hands as you start to bawl your heart out. Seokjin flees toward you, apologizing profusely as he had probably scared you with the risen pitch of his voice. “Shhh,” he engulfs you in a hug, pulling you close to him.

You begin to calm down after some time, the warmth of Seokjin’s body easily consoling you. Your husband doesn’t let go when you finally catch your breath and your grip tightens around his waist, creasing his durumagi.

With your voice slightly muffled as your mouth is pressed against your husband’s chest, you continue talking, knowing that Seokjin will have no problem comprehending your words. “I’ve lost everyone because of them Seokjin. My father, my real mother, my friends…” you sniff, wiping your cheeks with the sleeves of your jeogori. “Please,” you beseech, “I can’t lose you to them too,” your voice cracks at the thought, eyes brimming with tears once more.

“I won’t let that happen, love.” He doesn’t know that.

You feel your chest starting to heave again, Seokjin slowly guides you to the bed, seats you both, and lets you lay your head on his lap as he rests his own on the wall adjacent to the bed. Gently, he strokes your hair until you finally, truly calm down this time, silent tears now rolling down your cheeks.

The words are heavy on your lips, every emotion rolling off your tongue as you say the words you dread the most. “They’re going to kill you Seokjin.” You take his hand and rest it against your cheek, his hand still seemingly larger with the way your two hands are clutching onto it. You continue with bated breath, “Maybe even before you enter the southern gates, maybe even before you get a single step out of the capitol...” Your voice comes down to a whisper when you repeat your earlier words. “They are going to kill you.”

You tilt your head a little to take a good look at your husband. You see the faint stubble just under his chin. He probably hasn’t shaved yet with the lack of free time on his hands. Shamelessly, you always imagine what he’d look like with a beard but you’re willing to bet your life that he’d be just as handsome as he is now. He keeps on shaving it, much to your dismay, countering that he doesn’t want you to feel and discomfort or itch when he kisses you. You’ll have to leave your bearded Seokjin fantasies somewhere in the future. If the future still has Seokjin in it.

In the past, the five major cities of Korea never got along. It was more of an unspoken rivalry for years on end between the kings and their subjects. People from the east took pride on their agricultural lands and livestock, the westerners’ livelihood depends heavily on lumber, northerners brag about their coal mining and fishery, the south leads the nation’s masonry and defense, and finally, the capitol is the center of textile and is otherwise known as the home of the scholars.

Combined together, this nation would have been unconquerable. But these royals are still human beings and human beings are vulnerable to temptation, constantly fueled by the idea of acquiring something that another does not have.

Unfortunately, a nation with citizens that had no sense of nationalism was the perfect target, the easiest to penetrate for the colonizers. The promises of an alliance to a foreign nation seemed to great an offer to decline. Fools. Just like that, the foreigners tricked each king to go against the other cities – their own people, their own blood. Empty promises drilled into empty heads. Blinded by inane vows of wealth and power, these people who call themselves leaders never knew they were being deceived altogether.

That is, until King Seokwoo of the capitol, Seokjin’s father, realized the deception early enough to stop the war but too late to pacify the nation’s internal turmoil. With his heart and dignity on the line, the brave king of the capitol had gone to the other kings to make them realize their mistakes, their greed, and their shameless thirst for power.

Nobody wanted to believe him at first, not when he too was a part of it all. He apologized in court – the one thing a king never does. He put his pride on the line for the country he loves, bowing his head in front of the other kings, and their respective advisors. King Seokwoo knew he was going to lose his credibility like this with his heart and pride on his sleeve, but only he knew, and only he understood, that a king should not be loyal to the throne and the power it holds, but to his country.

Only when he revealed the scrolls of plans he stole from the colonizers that they collectively decided to temporarily set aside their present caprices and decree a pact for the good of the nation. For once in a very long time, the kings had agreed on one thing.

That night, they had agreed to choose a king to lead the fight against the colonizers – the king who would lead Korea back to greatness. Three kings, in honor of Seokwoo’s bravery and humility, chose him to be the leader of the nation. Only one king of a city voted against Seokwoo as King of Korea – your father.

“My Queen?” A soft voice calls from outside your door. Haesoo.

“Leave, Haesoo.”

“Jungjeon-mama, please. You have not left your room all morning, and lunch—”

“I said leave!”

You recoil the moment the words spill from your mouth. You hadn’t meant to snap at her, she was your favorite court lady after all. She was stubborn, above all things, and you likened her to your younger self that’s why she earned your favor the most. But her adamancy only causes her more trouble, especially in times like these. Perhaps her slight insensitivity came with her youth? You’re certain that you’ve caused worry because of your audible wailing earlier, but company was the last thing you needed right now.

“Yes my Queen.” She replies, voice small.

You don’t know how long you stay in bed like that, watching your chest rise and fall under the covers with every breath. Your head is swirling in emotions – fear, anger, misery. As you continue to stare into the ceiling, your stomach grumbles so you deem it wise that you have at least one meal for today - just enough to satiate your hunger and give you strength to face the rest of the day. But not before indulging yourself in your favorite bath first.

You stay much longer in the bath today – letting the water cause wrinkles in the pads of your fingers. Shoving your husband’s image to the back of your head temporarily, your thoughts drift to other the other predicaments you have to face while Seokjin is away. ‘You have to be strong,’ you mutter to yourself. For Seokjin. For the future. For Korea.

The court ladies get startled when you suddenly rise from the pool, one of them hurriedly draping a towel over you. You let her lead the way to a dressing room where your royal garments are neatly folded on a table. Staring at your reflection on the mirror, your eyes linger on the red marks littered across your torso. You feel your chest constrict one more time. Taking a deep breath, you repeat to yourself. ‘For Seokjin. For the future. For Korea.’

Chaeyoung waits until you have worn your undergarments and helps you with the rest of your hanbok. You can feel the nervousness radiating off her, clammy hands tying the ribbons on your dress. You can’t really blame her; this was probably the first time they have seen you this cold and distant. You usually made small talk with the court ladies, genuinely curious about their individualities and because they’re the closest you can get to your subjects.

Certainly, Seokjin’s leave also has the whole palace on edge. Everybody was aware of what was going on in the south, and with their king’s sudden absence this morning, word has been going around in the palace. You’re thankful that the palace workers are discreet with their whispering, but these wooden walls were never thick enough to maintain secrecy between two people.

You leave the room as soon as Chaeyoung finishes and you come face to face with a familiar red and white uniform. “Wangbi,” Captain Jung greets as he bows his head. “Captain.” You acknowledge, finding yourself looking up at him when you do so – he was taller than you expected him to be.

“I am under the King’s orders to watch you wherever you go, my Queen.” He tails after you when you start walking.

“And does that include the private royal baths Captain?” You turn to face him again.

He gets flustered at your question, quickly averting his gaze from you. Looking down, the captain shakes his head, muttering under his breath something along the lines of ‘security’ and ‘king’s orders’.

You don’t know what urged you to tease him like that – probably because of his innocent-like features that makes him so tease-worthy, but since his arrival and inauguration as captain of the royal guards, you can’t help but get drawn to the man. Sure, he was attractive with attributes of youthful exuberance on his face, that, and that he was a finely built man, taut muscles hiding underneath those silken robes. At least, that’s what you presume from listening to the whispers among the court ladies.

They also said he’s had quite the reputation from where he came from in the East, famous for his looks and even more famous for his ways of luring skirts to his bed. So, you’ve heard. Genuinely surprised at how these rumors even came out in the first place, it still makes you laugh when you recall the obscenity of it all, despite the court ladies supposedly being the spitting image of modesty observed in the palace.

The rumors are true. You could easily attest to that as you have personally witnessed it once, how the captain could easily captivate women with his face alone. But his charm wasn’t the reason why you seem to magnetize towards the captain.

During their inauguration day, as you were too preoccupied with how dashing your husband looks in official robe, you hadn’t been paying attention to the event, let alone the emotional speech that the captain shared to the crowd. It was only when you caught sight of the scar on his left cheek that got you so curious. You wonder where you’ve seen that scar before. He looks familiar. He feels familiar. You can’t put a finger on it right now, but you certainly feel like you’ve known Jung Jungkook from somewhere, sometime in your past.

You don’t realize you’re lost in your thoughts when a hand suddenly pulls you back by your elbow, stopping you from walking straight to a wall. “Jungjeon-mama!” The lady beside you exclaims. “My Queen, are you okay?” The captain behind you asks, his grip now loosening on your elbow. You nod sheepishly, dismissing the whole fiasco with an awkward cough.

“You can go ahead, Chaeyoung. I’ll be back by sunset. Make sure dinner is ready by then.” The court lady nods curtly in acknowledgment and bows before leaving the both of you. You turn your head to look at Jungkook who continues to stand by your side. “Shall we?”

“Lead the way, your Highness.”

You plan on spending the rest of your day in one of the most serene places in the palace. Besides yours and Seokjin’s garden, the doltap shrine is another place you head to for peace and quiet. The shrine, complete with a mini pavilion, is situated on a small hill, surrounded by the beauty of nature – a place so perfectly serene that only monks and royalty are allowed to visit to maintain its tranquility.

It’s significantly father than any other house or office in this palace that it requires quite a tedious, long walk and a boat ride across the Gaeun river. This is why you rarely visit the shrine, but on the days that you do, the wearisome trek is always rewarding. It’s perhaps part of the whole process of meditation, you presume, as the shrine is a place where you offer your greatest, deepest prayers.

The captain trudges behind you, unable to cope with your leisurely pace. He quickens his steps when he sees he’s falling behind, but when he deems he’s walking too close to you he slows his pace once more until he has to catch up again. You become curious at his strange feat, unable to stop yourself from asking him about it.

“Captain, have you not taken a leisurely walk like this before?”

“My deepest apologies, Mama. I am really not used to a pace like this.”

Who knew the greatly feared captain could be so mildly…amusing? Jungkook gets surprised when you let out a giggle after having stared at him for a moment at his confession. He is unable to stop the small smile etching into his face at the beautiful sound, deciding it’s something he wants to hear all day long.

“You are a mirthful one, Jung.”

There is a skip in the man’s heartbeat when he hears you say his surname – or, at least, the surname he’s been using since his arrival at the capitol. He supposes it satisfactory that he’s made you comfortable around him, enough for you to call him by his alias. Not like you were going to be on a first name basis anyways. Jungkook found it easier to keep up with your pace after your verdict.

You were beautiful. Well, you still are, and probably will be for a very long time. He wonders if you already had your portrait painted. It used to be a hobby he thoroughly learned and enjoyed from where he’s from and now it has blossomed into a business around his past village, selling portraits for a few silver coins. He takes pride in his paintings, having learned the skill from the virtuoso himself – his father. He was the first man in Korea to add colors to a drawing, bringing forth life to an inanimate illustration.

Even if Jungkook painted you though, it would probably be useless for him to do so, because a portrait - even if done on the finest paper or painted with the brightest colors, could never capture your real beauty, nor give justice to it. In the past, he had heard stories of what the queen of the capitol looked like, but none of these rumors had prepared him for the genuineness of it all. Your beauty was indescribable, but Jungkook only knew one description that fit you the best – that you are the epitome of a woman’s unadulterated pulchritude.

Jungkook could not question why the king is absolutely smitten with you, admittedly, the rest of the nation is. If you were a lady that belonged to the same class, he would have tried to capture your heart from the very start. Maybe in another life, perhaps. But to him, it wasn’t just your pretty face that made you so riveting.

Unlike any other woman in the nation, you were headstrong, refusing to submit to the societal morals and principles. You were the only woman who would stand proud and tall amongst a sea of men, and one gaze from you had the power to intimidate both man and woman alike. Undoubtedly, you were raised like that: to be the queen – with your childhood nurtured with doctrines and routines only afforded to a king in the making. That fact he knew all too well.

When you look to your left, he spots a red mark on your neck, just below the smooth slope of your jawline. He flushes at the sight of the rose-colored blotch staring back at him, the base of his neck turning red at the recollection of the events last night. Jungkook can see your lips moving as you talk but he can’t seem to hear you, let alone take his eyes off the love bite on your neck.

“Captain Jung?”

Jungkook coughs to mask his surprise, “Sorry, Jungjeon-mama. I thought I saw something in the woods. It must’ve been a squirrel or a small animal.” You nod your head in acknowledgement and reply, “We still must be wary. There are…people…who do not mean well…” your words fade, voice cracking at the thought of your husband. Jungkook notices your anxiety.

“I will protect you with my life, my Queen. Please do not worry.”

“Of course, Captain Jung. I believe you.” Giving him a small smile, you continue walking, your shoes softly squishing against the green dewy grass. It’s a beautiful day today: the sky is clear and the sun is out, compared to your heart which is now clouded with storms and thunder. You shall try not to dwell on your emotions today.

“So, enlighten me Captain.”

“Ah, but Mama, my life may not measure up to yours in terms of adventure.”

You raise an eyebrow at his reply. Your life story isn’t known to many, even a number of the citizens don’t even know you are a southerner. Gazing into Jungkook’s eyes, you look for any mysterious truth hiding beneath them, but you’re only faced with his curious doe-like eyes. You’re conflicted if you’re supposed to feel disappointed or not if he was truly a part of your past, but you’ll have to leave that for another time.

“Surely, it can’t be that uninteresting.”

“If you insist, Jungjeon-mama. But don’t complain if you fall asleep before we reach the shrine.” The captain knows he’s pushing the line by teasing you like this, but the way you roll your eyes at him tells him you feel otherwise.

He tells the story he’s practiced endless times lacing a few truths from his past. “Well, I belong to a family of four. My parents work in the fields and my brother and I would play in them all day long until my mother would call us back in for supper. During the Great Colonization, my father used to serve King Donggeun of the East…” He steps aside to make way, a hand shooting out to help you to an elevated part of the head of the bridge. You place your hand on his gratefully, your feet taking quite the leap.

He continues with his monologue, “My mother always told us that she never thought father would never survive the Great Colonization. Even before the pact, there had already been attacks on the borders, the rivalry too much for people who call themselves citizens of the same nation. He had come home greatly wounded one night and my mother was crying so much that she could barely treat my father’s wounds. He had even offered her a literal bloody hand with the treatment, causing my mother to cry more, complaining about how he could have found pleasantries at such a grievous time.”

“Thankfully, the pact has been completed before things ultimately became worse. He was called to fight again to drive off the colonizers, but with the people from all the cities fighting as one force, casualties from our troops were only at the minimum. He has fought side by side with King Deonggeun and even saved the late king’s life at one instance. He had been promoted to a higher rank since then.” He pauses his narrative momentarily when your hand hooks around his elbow, clutching onto him as you go down a light slope to where a narrow dock is situated.

The captain tries not to be obvious about his astonishment at your actions as he places his hand over it, supporting your balance when you place a foot inside the boat. “But with a promotion in the military ranks comes more visits in the palace, and more visits in the palace only lead to one thing: King Donggeun taking an interest in my mother.” Your hand flies to your mouth to mask your shock. And just moments ago, he thought his life wasn’t supposedly as colorful as yours?

When Jungkook finally seats himself, he grabs at the oars and starts to row. It would have been fun if Haesoo had gone with, as you would inevitably tease her with her ogling the captain. She would’ve gushed at how his muscles must ripple underneath the uniform, or how his chest puffs out with every row. As your favorite court lady occupies your thoughts, you reckon that you owe her an apology later.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened next?” The captain lets out a chuckle at your wide-eyed curiosity. “Of course, Mama. I am a man of manners. A story must have a beginning and an end.”

“King Donggeun tried to conceal his feelings at first. But the rumored loss of his wife was too great of a sadness for him to bear. And he longed for the kind of comfort only a woman could give. Soon enough, father noticed the king’s longing looks, knowing all too well the sentiments the king hid behind his eyes. After all, he too was a man in love and a firm believer of the famous saying ‘the eyes are windows to our souls’.” The captain says the words with such drama that you fail to suppress the giggle that escapes your lips. Jungkook’s own lips twitch, chest beaming with pride with the fact that he has made you laugh twice today.

“Things kept in hiding will always come out, one way or another. And so, the king ended up confessing his feelings to my mother. He had begged her to be his concubine, even when they both knew she was tied to another. She fled from the king’s arms that night in fear and confusion, telling the whole confession to my father with teary eyes.”

The captain slows his rowing, creating small ripples against the clear water.

“That same night, my father learned that love meant having to constantly make sacrifices for the better, even if we end up losing that which matters most in our hearts. What the king wants, the king gets,” the captain’s lips fall into a tight-lipped smile. “There was too much at risk, my father couldn’t say no to his own king. Needless to say, even if we did eventually get to live nearer the palace, mother’s visits became less frequent, and soon our mother became only a figment of our imagination.”

Each word of the captain struck at your heart. You had never expected so many shared similarities in your past. His eyes are swimming with emotion. Not once had you seen a royal guard like this, looking so vulnerable, so human in front of your eyes.

“With nothing to lose, the three of us left the eastern city and headed to the capitol. We begged for food and slept on the streets for days until a family took pity and welcomed us into their home. When the father of the family introduced himself as a royal guard, my father offered his services as payment for their kindness.”

When you’ve reached the other side of the river, Jungkook sets the oars aside before guiding you up to the dock. You wait under the shade of a nearby tree until he’s fixated the boat properly onto the dock. He approaches you, dusting his pants with his hands. “Where were we? Ah. The kind family. I, too, have also had a realization here in the capitol. Happiness does not last for long, so we have to learn how to live each day with glee and gratitude.” You both continue the walk, with each step getting closer to your destination.

“A few days after our arrival, my brother caught this incurable illness. We had consulted every physician in the city, but all our efforts were in vain. My father and I had to lay him to rest just when we thought we had started a new life here in the capitol.”

“My father? Like I had mentioned during our inauguration, my father sacrificed his life for his country. Because he loves our nation, and because he loves us. All he wanted was a bright future for me, and for my mom as well, though he’d never admit that out loud. He never stopped loving her, even when she exchanged her family for the kind of life we could never give her.”

“Well, Mama. Are you sufficiently enlightened now?” You stay quiet at first, reciting a prayer to the gods and to your ancestors and you place another stone on the pile of rocks.

“I am Jungkook. I am.”

The journey to the south was filled with dread from the very start. The troop left the capital in silence, every man anxious of what is to come. Or rather, who awaits their coming. Seokjin had not said anything before they exited the gates of the capital because he knew words of encouragement would have done nothing to soothe the disquietude evident amongst them. The company had chosen to take a shortcut through the woods, one that will allow them to reach their destination within a shorter period of time.

They already have been traveling for quite some time, yet it feels like they have been for days. There are far fewer villages near the woods where there are to pass, but Seokjin had not expected this particular village to be so different from the others.

Dust rises when the horses halt, Seokjin abruptly putting up his fist in the air. It’s eerily quiet. Empty stalls of goods stand with no merchant behind them. Houses feel empty, with no person coming out and about. A gust of wind passes them, like an omen being whispered into their ears. The hairs at the back of Seokjin’s neck rise.

“What happened here?” A guard from the front asks.

“Jeonha, look!” Another shouts, pointing to a nearby house. A boy comes forth and walks, limps rather, towards them. Seokjin dismounts from his horse and takes a few steps forward. He lets the child come to him, the king lowering on his knees to receive the child. The child approaches Seokjin with a steady pace and with one final step left, he loses all his strength and falls. Luckily, Seokjin’s reflexes are quick enough so he catches the child before he falls to the ground.

“It’s quiet now,” the child mumbles. He takes a deep breath, body quaking with exertion as he does. “They came here…took everything…killed everyone and…s-south,” Seokjin holds him tighter as the boy’s breathing shallows, “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He consoles, tears swelling in his eyes as he gently rocks the child in his arms. The boy’s chest stops heaving and he finally closes his eyes. The king’s fingers fly to the child’s neck, looking for a pulse. None. Seokjin’s brows come together in anger, his beautiful face contorting into one of rage.

He stands, the boy in his arms now seemingly smaller and lighter than before. “Namjoon, with me. The rest of you, check the village. See if anybody is still alive, go over every house, every room, every corner. If you see a southerner lurking around, bring him to me.” Seokjin orders. “And I’ll execute him myself.”

As the troop disperses, Seokjin commands Kim Namjoon to look for a shovel and follow him to nearby open lot afterwards. Thankfully, the king doesn’t need to tell the guard what to do. As Namjoon digs a hole, Seokjin gently lays the child on a wooden bench while he looks for a cloth to wrap him in. His heart breaks for this child – that the young boy had to go through so much at such a young age, and now at the time of his death, he couldn’t even be afforded with proper burial rites.

The burial was shorter than expected and Seokjin ends the rite with a prayer to his ancestors and the gods above. The pair sit beside the child’s makeshift resting place for a while, both in deep contemplation. Their reverie is cut short when another guard calls from behind, “Jeonha,” he calls again, breathless, “there is something you must see.”

He leads the pair through the woods and towards a small clearing, where the troop has gathered around. “What’s this?” Seokjin takes his steps cautiously, the group beginning to make way for the king. Once the path clears, Seokjin stops in his tracks. From his peripheral, he sees Namjoon’s failed attempt to not gag at the scene before them.

The villagers. The stench. The message.

Seokjin tries to close his eyes, wanting to forget he even saw something this terrible. But no, the image has already etched itself into his memory forever. He can’t even imagine what type of human would have the guts to do this…monstrosity?

Scattered across the clearing are the villagers, stacked on top of each other, the formation with a similarity uncanny with the rock formation in front of them. The villagers were piled behind the doltap, where one muddy hand from each pile reaches out, holding a scroll with the words written with the villager’s own blood. “You can never keep us out.”

Seokjin’s hands ball into fists as he realizes what instigated this massacre. During the height of the turmoil in the south, he had sent out a proclamation weeks ago to implore the entire nation to remain strong and as one amidst these trying times which put their patriotism to the test.

The doltap is a stack of stones, usually erected at village entrances – a natural representation of guardians of the village, keeping away the bad and inviting the good. It had been tradition for people to pile rocks on top of each other along with symbolisms of their intentions placed near the stack.

Since the proclamation, the citizens had been placing more and more objects in front of their shrines, like a bowl of rice grains or the emblem of the south. Inevitably infuriated with this new practice, the southerners wrecked village after village in rage, leaving nothing but desolation in their wake. These people are but a number from the villages they victimized. Seokjin is lucky this is first and only village he will see.

The sky is a purplish pink by the time they have finished the burial rites for the village. “The sun is setting,” Seokjin announces to the group, “we will take shelter and camp there, by the woods. It will not be smart to individually use the houses here.”

Nobody could sleep a wink that night, especially not the king. He supposed no one could ever, not when you had just witnessed such a horrific sight. He continues to stare at the moon, head swarming with endless thoughts. As he rests his head against the bark of the oak tree, Seokjin’s thoughts race to you, what could you possibly be doing in this hour, if you were thinking of him right now. If you’d taken supper or skipped your meals today. You always did that when you were upset, and he had no doubt you were.

“Namjoon,” Seokjin calls to the trusted guard. Namjoon has been like him the whole night, staring into the distance, curious what the future might hold for them.

“Namjoon.” He calls again, this time with a louder voice, successfully getting the younger man’s attention.

“Jeonha,” Namjoon turns, “my sincerest apologies, but the moon seems to have a wonderful glow tonight. Might this be a good sign?” The guard bows, shame coloring his face as he got caught preoccupied with other things on his mind.

“I too fervently wish for that…I…” He was not about to make the same mistake to Namjoon. Seokjin gets frustrated at the thought of always being a step behind the enemy. He’s made this mistake with Minseok, and he wasn’t about to do the same with Namjoon.

“You wanted to say something, my King?”

“I…I just wanted to thank you, for always being loyal to the throne.” Seokjin is all too aware of what the people are saying. They are his people after all. He ought to know them best. They’re blaming him for these agonizing events, if he just hadn’t sent that proclamation, then this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

“Only because the throne is worth being loyal to.” Namjoon replies, not missing a beat.

“So,” the king moves to a lighter topic, not wanting to ruin the illustrious mood afforded by the bright sky like this night. “how is the romance in your life? Haesoo, is it?”

The younger man gets caught off-guard, startled at the king’s sudden inquiry and knowledge. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, jeonha,” Namjoon looks down, cheeks starting to tinge with a blush. ‘He can’t give this away’, the guard thinks, suddenly all too aware that the king is sitting right beside him. As all of them had taken a pledge of loyalty to throne and the throne alone, so a relationship between workers of the palace was considered taboo, at least, until Seokjin’s reign.

“Namjoon. I am speaking to you as a friend. And even if I did speak to you as king of the nation, who am I to take control of the matters of the heart? You yourself can’t seem to help it. What more of I?”

“Jeonha, please tell me. What does love feel like?”

“Love comes in many forms, my friend. In fact, it’s everywhere. Personally, I think it’s what makes the world go around, if the studies and calculations of astronomer Lee is correct. What we’re doing right now is love, love for our country, our citizens. The memorials we hold for our late relatives is also a commemoration of our love. Love is not exclusive to human relations though, there is love for animals, love for nature…” The king turns to face the young guard who blinks owlishly back at him.

“I know that wasn’t the kind of love you’re asking about. I’m getting there, worry not, my friend. I just needed context.” Seokjin looks away, partly embarrassed at himself. “As I was saying… there is one kind of love however that I treasure the most, and for me, it’s the kind of love that enraptures you the most: the love for a special person. I hate to say this, but it’s something so complex that it’s indescribable. It makes you feel plenty of emotions all at the same time. For instance, when you see her, you feel your heart pumping out of your chest, or sometimes your heart constricts at the realization that she’s yours and yours alone.”

“That wasn’t that much of a help was it?” Seokjin sighs defeatedly.

“Can I be honest with you, jeonha?” The king nods. “No, not really.” The pair chuckle at that, both relieved that at least they found something to laugh about tonight.

Heaving a sigh, Namjoon turns to face him with glossy eyes. “Well, it is unfortunate that we are not lovers then. Yet. Then I shall ask her to be my betrothed, if we come home.”

“When, Namjoon. When we come home.”

The two continue return their eyes to the moon. It looks bigger tonight. Astronomer Lee says bigger moons bring about luck to all those who look upon it, Seokjin fervently hoping that this journey might somehow be in their favor.

You’ve been tossing around in bed for quite some time now, unable to sleep. Perhaps a cup of milk would do the trick, you thought, pulling the covers away from your body. You wrap a robe over the flimsy garment you usually sleep in and head over to the secret door of your room. It’s been specifically designed to blend in with the wall, only to be used in worst-case scenarios.

Sliding the door open, you creep out of your room, dragging your cotton-clad feet against the wooden floor to make minimal sounds. You head to the bridge connecting your hanok to the palace kitchen. You don’t realize you’re too concentrated on not making noise that you don’t notice the body in front of you. “Jungjeon-mama?” the guard asks, peering down at you. “I’ll just get something from the kitchen, I will be quick.” Discretion could only last for so long. He bows and moves out of the way.

Rummaging through the kitchen as quietly as you can, you silently curse at yourself for not bringing a lamp with you, now all you can do is sniff at the vessels of liquid, hoping that you’ll uncover the right one. Thankfully, you manage to choose the right vessel in no time. As your eyes had adjusted to the light, you manage to grab a ladle and a nearby bowl with almost no noise at all.

As you pour yourself some milk, you return the cover and rest your behind against the table.

You figure it’s time to apologize to her. As you open your mouth to call, a male voice beats you to it. “You’re so beautiful.” Mouth parting in mild surprise, your eyes widen, searching for the voice’s owner. You couldn’t make out who’s voice it belonged to as it was said just barely above a whisper, and you continue peeking through the small space when your eyes land on the captain.

Your hand shoots over your mouth as your lips fall wider apart. It’s finally happening! But wait… you stand up straighter in realization. Namjoon? You’ve heard the guard has been harboring affection towards your favorite court lady for quite some time now. Seokjin was first to notice it, pointing out how Namjoon would sneak glances at Haesoo whenever you were together, both parties walking as one. You heart clenches at the perplexity of the situation.

Surely you’re not meant to stay here and watch the spectacle? Milk was what you came here for, you remind yourself, but like always, curiosity gets the best of you. Jungkook takes another step towards Haesoo, who seems frozen at her spot. Do something lady! You watch as the captain slowly reaches out his hand, the back of his fingers gently caressing the lady’s face. Haesoo leans towards the man’s touch.

“May I?” Jungkook asks, eyes searching for any signs of doubt in Haesoo’s. The girl nods curtly and without waiting any further, Jungkook closes the distance between them. Watching their lips move in sync, you take this as your cue to leave, that is, until you hear a pot clanging against the floor. Your line of vision suddenly returns to the couple to check if someone got hurt, only to find out quite the opposite.

Jungkook has already backed up Haesoo to lean against a table adjacent to the wall. The captain lifts her with ease to sit on the table, Haesoo pulling her knees apart so she could properly hold onto the man, her nimble fingers pulling at Jungkook’s hair. The captain starts smothering her with kisses all over her cheeks, jaws, and neck like a frenzied, starved man. You can’t look away, not when Haesoo is failing miserably at her attempt to keep her whimpering at bay.

Jungkook’s fingers work deftly in undoing the ribbons on her hanbok, lips still trained on lavishing her skin with kisses. As the garment falls easily from Haesoo’s shoulders, Jungkook’s large hand palms her breast while the other is busy kneading the expanse of her thigh. The captain revels in Haesoo’s pliancy, with the girl tilting her head back at Jungkook’s ministrations, begging him for more.

Her hanbok is completely off her torso now, the silk bunching up at hips. Jungkook takes this moment to take a hardened nipple between his lips and swirling his tongue around it as a hand squeezes the supple flesh of the other. Haesoo mewls at the captain’s actions, back arching, words no longer needed to show what she wants, what she desires.

This is wrong. You aren’t supposed to be watching such a private moment, let along seemingly enjoying it. Like Haesoo earlier, you’re just as frozen in your spot as she was.

You no longer see much of Haesoo torso, considering their proximity, but you see Jungkook’s hand removing itself from the assault on her breasts, traveling to her core. She shivers when Jungkook’s fingers swipes against her folds and raising his fingers under the moonlight seeping through the window, observing how wet the tips of his fingers are due to the court lady’s essence.

“Look at you,” Jungkook murmurs in a low voice, watching the slick coating his fingers. “So wet and ready for me. I bet I’d slip right in hmm?”

“Please,” Haesoo begs, hiding her face between his shoulders in pleading. “I need you.” Jungkook seems to have no problem complying, abruptly bring his pants down to his thighs.

You don’t see much due to the lack of light in the room and their compromising position on the table, but this seems all the more thrilling like this. You reprimand yourself, as if Seokjin was lacking in bed. But you have not tried being intimate anywhere else but your room and his office – and the thought of doing it at such a common place like the kitchen where anyone from the palace could easily enter excites you in the strangest way possible.

Surely you can’t be going crazy, can you? Is it normal to find such a spectacle so strangely arousing? The sight of two lovers getting intimate?

Jungkook gently lays her down on the table, pushing her down by her shoulders. He parts her legs wider before adjusting his stance and slowly thrusting his hips forward. Your jaw slackens the same time with Haesoo. You feel your own nipples harden at the sight, the sensitive buds trying to pry through the material.

He pauses for a moment, letting Haesoo adjust to the feeling as his head tilts back, the lady’s velvety walls clenching wonderfully around his cock. When Haesoo tilts her hips, Jungkook takes this as a sign to start moving, each roll of his hips earning a whimper from the writhing girl beneath him. A few more slow rolls and Jungkook thrusts harder, faster, the sound of skin slapping ricocheting against the walls.

A gasp escapes your mouth when the captain maneuvers her legs to rest against his chest and the two stop at once, heads shooting up to look for where the voice came from. Haesoo winces when Jungkook pulls out and puts his pants up.

You flee from the kitchen at once, Jungkook abruptly looking for the intruder, he catches a glimpse of your white-clad figure run towards the door and he briefly questions himself who could you possibly be, but the royal seal at the back of your robe is a little too hard to miss.

Seokjin’s eyelids start to droop, sleep finally taking over him when he hears rustling behind. Namjoon, equally alerted by the sound, stands up and looks around. “Jeonha, we might have company. Please stand.”

It’s awfully quiet now, and the two of them are unsure of its because the troop has fallen asleep or… or if the unspeakable happened… They take a few cautious steps in separate ways, eyes scanning every tree surrounding them.

They wake the troop in silence, warning them of possible danger coming their way. Namjoon orders the company to stay more vigilant than usual, especially in the dark where they won’t able to see if an enemy is lurking around or not. Suddenly a guard falls to the ground, a bow lodged in his back.

“Watch the trees!” Seokjin shouts before chaos ensues. Men coming from all directions charge towards them, the sound of steel clashing against steel echoing throughout the forest. Seokjin’s troop is outnumbered greatly, he realizes. They have to escape before everyone gets killed. “Guards, fall back!” his arms are getting tired too but he can’t find the strength to give up, not when he sees his men falling one by one.

Time seems to slow down around him as he watches each royal guard get shot or stabbed to their death. He backs up slowly, bumping into Namjoon. “You ready?” Seokjin asks, finding it difficult to breath. There’s a slit in his sleeves, a cut a few inches long, feeling the blood trickling down his arm. “’Til death, jeonha.” Namjoon nods, wiping away the blood on his lips with his sleeve.

A group surrounds them – ten to two. “Now!” Seokjin commands, screaming as he charges against the men. He gets kicked at the back, the king falling on his knees. Seokjin’s head bows at the pain, but he plunges his sword to the soil, using it to support his weight as he stands up from his knees. He swings at them, the armed men laughing when he blindly thrusts the sword in the air. He’s been cut again, this time across his pectoral, the stinging pain felt until the tips of his fingers. His vision is getting hazy by the minute. He can’t give up.

Seokjin falls one more time to the ground, his arms bearing all his weight. He sees Namjoon’s body on the side – lifeless. He musters all his strength and attempts to push himself back up one more time. Before he manages to get on his knees, a blade of a sword points at his neck, one more move and the steel will pierce through his skin.

He follows the blade of the sword ‘til he looks up to a masked man with… blonde hair? His eyes narrow at the sight. It was his first time to encounter a man with hair of such color. The man pulls the mask over his head, a healing scar cutting through his right eyebrow and down to his cheek.

“Yoongi?”

“Told you, you can never keep us out.”

That’s the last thing Seokjin hears, as he feels the blade slicing through his abdominals. He falls to the ground, clutching onto his stomach as he spits out the blood accumulating in his mouth. His chest is heaving, everything is hazy. He’s losing consciousness.

The image of you smiling is the last thing he sees before blacking out.

[taglist] : @aretha170

#bagtanhq #ksmutclub #btsghostie #bangtanarmynet #hyunglinenetwork #bts smut #bts angst #jeon jungkook #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jungkook smut #jungkook x reader #seokjin x reader #bts scenarios

196 notes · View notes

michaelbogild · 4 years ago

Text

Quotes by Fernando Pessoa

All I’ve ever done is dream. That, and only that, has been the meaning of my existence. The only thing I’ve ever really cared about is my inner life. My greatest griefs faded to nothing the moment I opened the window onto my inner self and lost myself in watching. I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer. I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.

And I have the others in me. Even when I’m far away from them, I am forced to live with them. Even when I’m all alone, crowds surround me. I have no place to flee to, unless I were to flee from myself.

And, like the great damned souls, I shall always feel that thinking is worth more than living.

At first I felt dizzy - not with the kind of dizziness that makes the body reel but the kind that's like a dead emptiness in the brain, an instinctive awareness of the void.

Being tired of all illusions and of everything about illusions – the loss of illusions, the uselessness of having them, the prefatigue of having to have them in order to lose them, the sadness of having had them, the intellectual shame of having had them knowing that they would have to end this way.

Blessed are those who entrust their lives to no one.

Eternal tourists of ourselves, there is no landscape but what we are. We possess nothing, for we don’t even possess ourselves. We have nothing because we are nothing. What hand will I reach out, and to what universe? The universe isn’t mine: it’s me.

Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and its contents, my personality - it's all evaporating. I continuously feel that I was someone else, that I felt something else, that I thought something else. What I'm attending here is a show with another set. And the show I'm attending is myself.

I am nothing. I'll never be anything. I couldn't want to be something. Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams in the world

I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.

I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.

I feel as if I'm always on the verge of waking up.

I know nothing and my heart achesto know how to think with emotions and to feel with intellect…

I realize that I was all error and deviation, that I never lived, that I existed only in so far as I filled time with consciousness and thought.

I suffer from life and from other people. I can’t look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted.

I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.

I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.

I'm sick of everything, and of the everythingness of everything.

I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect

I've never done anything but dream. This, and this alone, has been the meaning of my life. My only real concern has been my inner life.

In order to understand, I destroyed myself.

In the ordinary jumble of my literary drawer, I sometimes find texts I wrote ten, fifteen, or even more years ago. And many of them seem to me written by a stranger: I simply do not recognize myself in them. There was a person who wrote them, and it was I. I experienced them, but it was in another life, from which I just woke up, as if from someone else's dream.

In this metallic age of barbarians, only a relentless cultivation of our ability to dream, to analyse and to captivate can prevent our personality from degenerating into nothing or else into a personality like all the rest.

I’ve dreamed a lot. I’m tired now from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. No one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake. In dreams I have achieved everything.

Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is the spirit that is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely, more tumultuously than others who have lived their lives purely externally.

Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are.

Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

Lord, may the pain be ours, And the weakness that it brings, But at least give us the strength, Of not showing it to anyone!

Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face – there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes. Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself. The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.

Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness who one day, while wearing a mask I don’t know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he’d once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant.

My hapless peers with their lofty dreams--how I envy and despise them! I'm with the others, the even more hapless, who have no-one but themselves to whom they can tell their dreams and show what would be verses if they wrote them. I'm with those poor slobs who have no books to show, who have no literature beside their own soul, and who are suffocating to death due to the fact that they exist without having taken that mysterious, transcendental exam that makes one eligible to live.

My past is everything I failed to be.

My soul is a black maelstrom, a great madness spinning about a vacuum, the swirling of a vast ocean around a hole in the void, and in the waters, more like whirlwinds than waters, float images of all I ever saw or heard in the world: houses, faces, books, boxes, snatches of music and fragments of voices, all caught up in a sinister, bottomless whirlpool.

My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.

My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me.

My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. […]. I'm two, and both keep their distance — Siamese twins that aren't attached.

No intelligent idea can gain general acceptance unless some stupidity is mixed in with it

Sit still with me in the shade of these green trees, which have no weightier thought than the withering of their leaves when autumn arrives, or the stretching of their many stiff fingers into the cold sky of the passing winter. Sit still with me and meditate on how useless effort is, how alien the will, and on how our very meditation is no more useful than effort, and no more our own than the will. Meditate too on how a life that wants nothing can have no weight in the flux of things, but a life the wants everything can likewise have no weight in the flux of things, since it cannot obtain everything, and to obtain less than everything is not worthy of souls that seek the truth.

The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.

The unnatural and the strange have a perfume of their own

There are metaphors more real than the people who walk in the street. There are images tucked away in books that live more vividly than many men and women. There are phrases from literary works that have a positively human personality. There are passages from my own writing that chill me with fright, so distinctly do I feel them as people, so sharply outlined do they appear against the walls of my room, at night, in shadows... I've written sentences whose sound, read out loud or silently (impossible to hide their sound), can only be of something that acquired absolute exteriority and a full-fledged soul.

There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.

There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.

To be great, be whole; Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you. Be whole in everything. Put all you are Into the smallest thing you do. So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor Because it blooms up above

To have opinions is to sell out to youself. To have no opinions is to exist. To have every opinion is to be a poet.

Today I suddenly experienced an absurd but quite valid sensation. I realized, in an intimate lightning flash, that I am no one. No one, absolutely no one.

Today, suddenly, I reached an absurd but unerring conclusion. In a moment of enlightenment, I realized that I'm nobody, absolutely nobody. When the lightning flashed, I saw that what I had thought to be a city was in fact a deserted plain and, in the same sinister light that revealed me to myself, there seemed to be no sky above it. I was robbed of any possibility of having existed before the world. If I was ever reincarnated, I must have done so without myself, without a self to reincarnate. I am the outskirts of some non-existent town, the long-winded prologue to an unwritten book. I'm nobody, nobody. I don't know how to feel or think or love. I'm a character in a novel as yet unwritten, hovering in the air and undone before I've even existed, amongst the dreams of someone who never quite managed to breathe life into me. I'm always thinking, always feeling, but my thoughts lack all reason, my emotions all feeling. I'm falling through a trapdoor, through infinite, infinitous space, in a directionless, empty fall. My soul is a black maelstrom, a great madness spinning about a vacuum, the swirling of a vast ocean around a hole in the void, and in the waters, more like whirlwinds than waters, float images of all I ever saw or heard in the world: houses, faces, books, boxes, snatches of music and fragments of voices, all caught up in a sinister, bottomless whirlpool. And I, I myself, am the centre that exists only because the geometry of the abyss demands it; I am the nothing around which all this spins, I exist so that it can spin, I am a centre that exists only because every circle has one. I, I myself, am the well in which the walls have fallen away to leave only viscous slime. I am the centre of everything surrounded by the great nothing. And it is as if hell itself were laughing within me but, instead of the human touch of diabolical laughter, there's the mad croak of the dead universe, the circling cadaver of physical space, the end of all worlds drifting blackly in the wind, misshapen, anachronistic, without the God who created it, without God himself who spins in the dark of darks, impossible, unique, everything. If only I could think! If only I could feel!

We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.

We are two abysses - a well staring at the sky.

We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.

We worship perfection because we can't have it; if we had it, we would reject it. Perfection is inhuman, because humanity is imperfect.

What Hells and Purgatories and Heavens I have inside of me! But who sees me do anything that disagrees with life--me, so calm and peaceful?

When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.

Whether or not they exist we are slaves to our gods.

Without madness what is man But a wholesome beast, Postponed corpse that begets

5 notes · View notes

thetransguard-archive · 4 years ago

Note

I really have a hard time with ao3's interface, would you mind posting your fic on here so it's more accessible to me personally? I understand if you don't want to, have a lovely day!

of course, it’s not a problem! putting it under the cut because it’s kind of long

tw: canon temporary character death (nicky’s shooting), mild temporary amnesia, graphic description of canon typical violence

all the little lives

Later, Joe chalks it up to the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the same purpose that has carried him, exhausted and aching, up and up and up, through the sleek building to carry out Andy’s strategy. So it’s only when he offers the end of the rope to Nicky to tie around his arm, and the green eyes that stare back at him are blankly confused that he realises.

“São Pau-” but he doesn’t let Booker finish his sentence, doesn’t want Nicky stammering apologies for things beyond his control. So he cuts in, “I’ll make the entrance this time.” Loops the cord around his forearm a few times, tightens it. Swaps out his gun for Nicky’s. He has less ammunition in this one, but it’s bigger and louder and here his role is not to attack effectively, just to put them off balance, even for a moment. As he pulls away, Nicky’s fingers wrap around his wrist.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. The tips of his fingers are still terribly cold.

Joe looks from Nicky’s solemn face to Booker’s. The guilt in him pours from his eyes, the slant of his mouth, the set of his shoulders. Pity and pain wage war inside Joe’s mind, but right now there are bigger things to take care of. They don’t need words, not after two centuries of brotherhood.

I’m trusting you, for this. For now. Keep him safe.

He waits three seconds after the fire door slams shut behind them to smash through the window.

In the elevator down, his eyes can’t stop drifting to Booker. He’s standing closest to the doors, gun gripped tight. Joe doesn’t want to bore holes in the back of his brother’s head, but he can't help himself. He can’t stop wondering. When? When? At what point did Booker decide that whatever family they had all built together, was never going to be enough? That night a decade or so ago, when he’d smashed the night’s wine bottle in a drunken rage and screamed at Andy and Nicky and him until Joe had cried? Or even before that, the last job in Russia in the seventies, when he refused to speak at all? When they’d laughed over Andy’s baklava? At what point had Booker decided that a chance of true, final death was worth the rest of them?

He feels the beginnings of tears in the backs of his eyes and before he can scrub at them to push them back, he feels a warm hand on the small of his back. Nicky. He refocuses on that small pressure, on the taste of blood in his mouth, the weight of his boots. He breathes, and does not cry. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in tears, but right now he needs to keep a steady head.

There’ll be time later.

The gunshots are faint but Nicky still jolts, pale eyes latching onto the ceiling. When the elevator doors open, he sprints, pushing past Booker. Joe’s not far behind, and they help Nile out of the car as her joints snap back into place, muscles reforming around shattered bone. Bonds made in blood, in pain. In love. Joe meets Nicky’s eyes through the dash mirror as they drive into something new.

They stop, after a while, because Andy’s still woozy from blood loss and the shock of actually feeling the physical pain through to its entirety. She and Joe swap, and after a brief argument in which Andy increasingly slurs her words in a way that’s alarming to all in the car, Nile takes her place in shotgun. Joe looks back after maybe half an hour and finds their fearless leader drooling a little on his beloved’s shoulder. Nicky’s drifted off a little too, days of almost constant pain catching up to him. They’re only human, after all. Some small selfish part of Joe wants to swap out and let himself nap too, but Nile’s new and has just taken a swan dive out of a skyscraper and doesn’t even know where to go, really, and Booker...

Logically, Joe knows that there’s no chance that Booker would drive them into another trap, another capture. This was his only plan, and he’s shed blood to make it right, however immediately. But this new sting of pain and horror is brand new and fresh in his chest, so he keeps driving, and ignores the way Booker’s eyes keep flicking to his in the mirror. Doesn’t acknowledge him the way Nicky has been doing, but for a different reason. Nicky retreats, when he’s angry- the problem shrinks in his mind, becomes somewhat invisible. His eyes slide over the issue like a river over a rock until it’s eventually worn away. His rage is deep and slow to dissipate. But for Joe? If he lets himself go, he knows exactly the type of venom he’s capable of spitting. And it’s as Andy said. Now just isn’t the time.

So, he drives.

Somehow between one blink and the next, they are at the safehouse. It’s almost dark now, the deepening sky wreathed in purples and blues in a way that makes him itch for his paints. If he had the energy for it. He feels worn down to the bone. Joe is just uncurling his aching fingers from the wheel, but Nile is already out of the car, stepping around to shake Andy awake. So young, for all of this already, and stronger than all of them. She’ll be the best of us. Most days he feels fine, is able to keep all of that time packed away, out of sight and out of mind. There’s always something new to see, to experience, to love. Today though, he just feels the weight of all the years.

(He’s so fucking tired.)

A gentle voice to his right, that odd mix of old Ligurian and Arabic that they’d invented, all on their own so many lifetimes ago. He’s smiling even before he knows why.

“Yusuf, love, let’s go. Let’s go.”

He lets himself lean on Nicky, just a little, as they slouch towards the door that Nile’s taken Andy through. She doesn’t try turning on the lights, but he does, and Nile jolts like she’s been shocked when they actually flick on. Booker closes the door behind them with a soft click. Still trying to blend away into the background. They stand there in the atrium for a moment, still covered in dust and smoke and blood. The house is large and it swallows the sounds of their ragged breaths.

“Some of our safehouses aren’t abandoned churches and caves.” Nicky’s voice has gone even softer with fatigue. “Hot water works, too. The rooms have ensuites.” He doesn’t say anything else before he begins leading Joe up the stairs.

Joe, as tired as he is, is pleased to know that Nicky at least remembers these little things. It means he’s healing well.

The bedroom door locks behind them and they strip off their clothes in a pile in the corner. They’ll have to burn it all tomorrow. Now, Joe goes hunting for where they’d kept their spares while Nicky finds the soap and starts the hot water running. When he returns, Nicky is already submerged to his neck. They’d allowed themselves to splurge in buying this place, and when Joe seats himself behind Nicky there’s plenty of room to move. Nevertheless, his heart leans back, damp head on his shoulder. They sit for a moment. Soak in the quiet of it all. They’ll have to rinse themselves off properly later, but for now they let the steam pool and swirl and fill the slightly dusty bathroom.

“How much?”

Sometimes, when one of them suffers a catastrophic head injury, it takes a while to remember it all. The last time had been Booker, and he’d been blown to bits by a mine and died three more times before they could piece enough of him back together for it to matter. They’d taken turns, him and Nicky and Andy, for the few days after, filling in all the gaps that Booker couldn’t recall at the time. The memories all came back eventually, but at least there was a warning. Some things just shouldn’t be remembered alone.

Between the two of them, it had been Joe the last time things were forgotten. He’d been dead and in the process of healing before the tank had rolled over his head, killing him again. He'd awoken to a hysterical Nicky, blood all over his face and hands. Trying to piece his pulverised skull back together. He hadn’t remembered what exactly had brought him to this place, but he’d tried to wipe away Nicky’s tears, first. Always, Nicky first. That kiss had tasted of blood. When it was either of them, they usually just told tales to each other. They’d been together for all of it, hadn’t they?

There is not a single piece of his soul that he hadn’t already bared.

“Just little... Little pieces. Tell me.” Nicky has switched to Arabic, rounding out the sounds in his throat. Joe can feel the rumble of his chest, knows without looking that Nicky’s eyes are closed. He grabs the soap, starts working on what he can reach. Nicky’s sifting back through a millennium of memory. He can help speed things along.

Nicky leans forwards and Joe leans with him, lathering soap down the length of his spine. He considers. He begins, his voice a bare whisper, barely sound. Pure thought passed from one half to another.

“You are Nicolo di Genova. You are Nicholas, and Nico, and Nicky to those who love you. You are loved, dearly. You are the other side of my beating heart. You are the son to parents who did not care for you and deserve no care in return. You are the friend and brother to Andromache of Scythia, and Sébastien le Livre, and… Nile Freeman. She’s new. She saved us. He betrayed us.

We have lived thousands of lives, side by side. I have killed you, and you have killed me. Our deaths are the same. Our lives align. When that final night comes, it shall come for us both. We have walked through war, and peace, through hatred and with love, always. We hurt those who harm. We protect those who cannot protect themselves. You are good with children, and small animals. You have practised kindness until it has become the bedrock on which you build your soul.

You dream, and you think harder than any of us, because out of us you are the one who knows the danger of action without reason. You are the philosopher to my poet. You make sense of my art. You sing, when you can, and it is always the most beautiful sound to my ears, comparable only to your voice, and the beat of your heart.

You speak only when you need to. Your patience is boundless. You inflicted great harm once, on me, on my people and on others. But you learn, and you have grown. You are forgiven. You are always learning, eager for knowledge. Your curiosity is the best part of you, in my opinion. Along with all the rest.

You have purpose. You are good. Always, I love you.”

Nicky’s hair has grown back in exactly the same way it had been before Keane shot him, but the skin is tender under his wet fingers. They turn around in the bathtub, splashing water out the sides, and he feels Nicky’s hands on his shoulders now, easing away the grime.

“And you?” Nicky’s voice is breathless, teasing. Somewhere, somehow in between getting into the water and now, the weight has lifted from Joe’s bones, has set aside that grief and guilt and anger and fear. It’s still there, but he’ll deal with it in the morning. The sun will rise, as it always has, and there will be time later to card through everything and pack it away. Now, however, is cooling water and gentle fingers and cheap hotel soap from decades gone by. Now is the quiet after the storm. The house is shaken, but still standing. Everyone he holds in his heart is still here.

“I am Yusuf, I am Joe. I am yours. And I will never let you go.”

#the old guard #joe x nicky #kaysanova #ty for showing interest lmao #my writing #mine #anonymous #ask #reply

31 notes · View notes