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linneatanner · 1 year

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Catherine Kullmann The Husband Criteria #RegencyRomance #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub@CKullmmannauthor @cathiedunn

FEATURED AUTHOR: CATHERINE KULLMANN I am pleased to introduce Catherine Kullmann as the featured author in The Coffee Pot Book Club Blog Tour held between August 29th – September 19th, 2023. Catherine Kullmann is the author of the Regency Romance, The Husband Criteria (The Lorings, Book #3), published by Willow Books on 24th August 2023 (297 pages). Below are highlights of The Husband Criteria, Catherine Kullmann's author bio, and an excerpt from her book. Tour Schedule Link: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/blog-tour-husband-criteria-by-catherine-kullmann.html HIGHLIGHTS: THE HUSBAND CRITERIA The Husband Criteria (The Lorings, Book #3) By Catherine Kullmann (Blurb) London 1817 The primary aim of every young lady embarking on the Spring frenzy that is the Season must be to make a good match. Or must it? And what is a good match? For cousins Cynthia, Chloe and Ann, well aware that the society preux chevalier may prove to be a domestic tyrant, these are vital questions. How can they discover their suitors’ true character when all their encounters must be confined to the highly ritualised round of balls, parties and drives in the park? As they define and refine their Husband Criteria, Cynthia finds herself unwillingly attracted to aloof Rafe Marfield, heir to an earldom, while Chloe is pleased to find that Thomas Musgrave, the vicar’s son from home, is also in London. And Ann must decide what is more important to her, music or marriage. And what of the gentlemen who consider the marriage mart to be their hunting grounds? How will they react if they realise how rigorously they are being assessed? A light-hearted, entertaining look behind the scenes of a Season that takes a different course with unexpected consequences for all concerned. Buy Links: Universal Link: https://mybook.to/criteria Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CBKZCBVX Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBKZCBVX Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CBKZCBVX Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0CBKZCBVX AUTHOR BIO: CATHERINE KULLMANN Catherine Kullmann was born and educated in Dublin. Following a three-year courtship conducted mostly by letter, she moved to Germany where she lived for twenty-five years before returning to Ireland. She has worked in the Irish and New Zealand public services and in the private sector. Widowed, she has three adult sons and two grandchildren. Catherine has always been interested in the extended Regency period, a time when the foundations of our modern world were laid. She loves writing and is particularly interested in what happens after the first happy end—how life goes on for the protagonists and sometimes catches up with them. Her books are set against a background of the offstage, Napoleonic wars and consider in particular the situation of women trapped in a patriarchal society. She is the author of The Murmur of Masks, Perception & Illusion, A Suggestion of Scandal, The Duke’s Regret, The Potential for Love, A Comfortable Alliance, and Lady Loring’s Dilemma. Catherine also blogs about historical facts and trivia related to this era. You can find out more about her books and read her blog (My Scrap Album) at her website. You can contact her via her Facebook page or on Twitter. Author Links: Website: http://www.catherinekullmann.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/CKullmannAuthor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catherinekullmannauthor Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/catherine-kullmann Amazon Author Page: http://viewauthor.at/ckullmannamazonpage Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15549457.Catherine_Kullmann EXCERPT: THE HUSBAND CRITERIA Chapter Eleven Cynthia had been intent on their discussion but now she saw that they were being subjected a great deal of covert glances from the assembled ton. She smiled at Chloe who sat in the barouche-landau with Rosa opposite old Lady Loring and Lord Swanmere. They had drawn up beside another carriage containing another old lady and Lady Benton. Chloe said something and all heads turned towards Marfield’s curricle. The lady beside Lady Benton beckoned imperiously. Marfield groaned. “My grandmother, the dowager Marchioness of Martinborough. She who will not be gainsaid. I cannot pull up beside them; would you object to our drawing in here at the side and walking the few steps back to them? Tom will stay with the horses.” “No, of course not.” In fact, Cynthia would have preferred not to be presented in such a public manner, but she could not refuse. She sat quietly, admiring the skill with which he eased his equipage into what seemed a very tight space indeed. He jumped down and came round to assist her alight, then offered her his arm and led her through a gap in the rails that separated the lawn from the carriages and horses jostling on the ride. “You know my mother, of course,” he said as they walked back to the Martinborough carriage. “I have had the pleasure of meeting Lady Benton several times,” Cynthia agreed. She was relieved to see that the Swanmere carriage had moved on. Marfield stopped beside the barouche and bowed. “Good day, Grandmother, Mother. Grandmother, may I have the honour of presenting Miss Glazebrook?” “Good day, my ladies.” Cynthia sketched a curtsey—anything more would be too extravagant here in the Park. “Of course I know Miss Glazebrook,” Lady Benton said with a friendly smile. “I am happy to see you again, my dear.” Her mother inclined her head a scant inch. She must be at least as old as Great-Grandmamma, Cynthia thought, noting the dowager’s sharp eyes and wrinkled face surmounted by a pile of carefully arranged silver curls protected by a green silk calash bonnet lined with pale pink and tied with green and pink ribbons. She clutched an ornate lorgnette, which was aimed balefully at the newcomers. “Don’t just stand there, giving me a crick in my neck,” she snapped, gesturing to the seat opposite her. “Sit down. You too, Marfield.” Cynthia felt rather than heard him sigh. “Just for five minutes,” he said as he handed her up. “I cannot keep the horses standing for longer than that.” “You gentlemen—your horses are always more important to you than anyone else. Why have you not called on me?” “I was not aware that you were in town, ma’am. When did you come up?” “Yesterday,” the dowager retorted. Cynthia bit her lip to repress her smile. Lady Martinborough turned her magnified gaze on Cynthia. “Glazebrook. Are you related to the Nabob Glazebrook?” “He is my grandfather, ma’am.” “Hmm. And your mother? Who are her people?” “She was Miss Raven.” “Raven? Ransford’s daughter.” “Yes, ma’am.” The dowager snorted but before she could say anymore, Marfield intervened. “Enough, Grandmother. You will put me to the blush if you subject Miss Glazebrook to any further inquisition.” “It would take more than that to put you to the blush, you scapegrace. Don’t you agree, Miss Glazebrook?” “Now how am I to answer that?” Cynthia said. “Reluctant as I must be to contradict a lady of such advanced years and standing, you cannot expect me to agree with your characterisation of your grandson; I have always found him most gentleman-like.” “Well said, Miss Glazebrook,” Lady Benton said. “I should like to talk more, but we mustn’t keep the horses standing any longer.” She held her hand out to Cynthia. “Goodbye, my dear. Pray come and call on me.” Cynthia touched the proffered fingers. “Thank you, ma’am.” Marfield rose. “We’ll take our leave of you, ladies.” He hopped down and held his hand out to Cynthia. She placed hers in it, made a half-bow and with a polite “My ladies”, gratefully stepped down onto the lawn. Another bow and a wave, and they were able to depart. “Ooof!” Marfield let out a long breath. “I am so sorry; I had no idea she would go for you like that.” “I was beginning to wonder would she demand to see my teeth and run a hand down my calf,” Cynthia said. “You handled her very well. I liked your reference to her advanced years and standing. She couldn’t really take umbrage at being called old in that manner.” “Thank you for drawing her fire. Still, there is one thing we may be grateful for.” “And that is?” “You saw the carriage that was drawn up beside hers earlier? Lady Swan-Loring and Miss Loring were in it.” “Yes?” “The old lady sitting opposite them was my great-grandmother, Lady Loring. Just imagine if they were still there when we reached your grandmother.” “Good heavens! It would have been lorgnettes at dawn, you think?” “It is very likely.” © Catherine Kullmann 2023 Instagram Handle: @thecoffeepotbookclub Read the full article

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prose-for-hire · 4 years

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Always read your tea-leaves

Pairing: Giles x reader

Request: Requested by me! Reader comes and drinks tea on an afternoon with Giles every week. He soon finds out that reader hates tea and has just been doing it to spend time with him.

A/n: I had an ask asking if I included any personal experience in my fics, I hate tea so this is as explicitly autobiographical as my reader inserts will get (...that I’ll admit to anyway lol)💖💖

You adored Giles. You think now, looking back on it, you always had. He rendered you somewhat flustered and bashful when you realised you harboured feelings for him though. Which was wholly unlike you.

You were kind and polite but you weren’t usually afraid of speaking your mind or voicing your thoughts. Most people saw you as an open book and with your friends you definitely were.

But, most recently, with him you had been concerned of making the “correct impression”. Wanting him to think you were smart and witty. Had good humour and weren’t ridiculously shallow and watched a lot of tv. Which, he already knew you were guilty of and didn’t mind in the slightest - in fact he liked it because it gave him an excuse to watch with you.

It had fast become a routine of yours. A cherished moment you and he shared that could just be your own. He had invited you one afternoon to come over, he offered to brew one of his special teas. The kind that took a while to make rather than just shoving a tea bag in there and hoping for the best. There was some tiny sieve involved or something.

You had expected the entire gang to be invited but you realised it had just been you. Your heart skipped a beat, in fact it must have skipped several - you were sure it was loud enough to wake the dead. But you sorely hoped that it wouldn’t, hoping for uninterrupted time with the man you were interested in.

You loved his mind. His intelligence. That soothing tone he used, especially around you. He was a complete gentleman. So much so you didn’t realise just how much feeling he held for you.

Giles was in love. A feeling that he had become consumed by, in the very best way. He submitted to it wholly and just wished he had the courage to admit it. He wasn’t sure he would be pushing it, risking your friendship if he did and thus the dynamic of the entire group. You were older than the others but still a big part of the group so he didn’t wish to ruin this friendship he shared with you. It was too special.

You smiled and he asked what flavour tea you would prefer, listing the options. You decided to tell him that you trusted him and he should choose which made him smile at you.

The truth was in your excitement about being invited to his house, you had seemingly forgot something very important. You didn’t like tea. No matter what the flavour, temperature or how ethically sourced the leaves were - the taste just didn’t sit right.

In fact you couldn’t stand the stuff. You never had.

However, you didn’t want him to think you were rude or even decide not to invite you into his home this way again. So you just didn’t mention it. Instead, when he returned you thanked him in a perhaps slightly over exaggerated manner.

Not even the horrible taste of the tea could dampen the mood though, you and Giles discussed everything. Books and research. Mythology and demon lore. Even the latest tv show you had been enjoying that he now knew more of the plot than he knew what to do with. He adored hearing it though and you appeared to brighten when he encouraged you further.

You had been trying to avoid mentioning the tv but you had become so relaxed in his presence you couldn’t help gush. He put you at ease. He made you feel as if you were the only person in the world. In his world. And, on these afternoons you were. He adored them. Looked forward every week. Began to miss you as soon as you said your goodbyes.

It became a regular thing. You talking and pretending to drink tea. It was worth it to have him sitting so close. His attention was yours. That sweet affection growing with every syllable passed between you.

“I, ah, do enjoy your company” he murmured the most recent afternoon you shared. It had taken every scrap of courage he could muster to admit such a thing. As if he was professing too much even by thinking it. But he was so relaxed by your side that he said it through a gentle sigh.

You practically glowed, turning to him and smiling. He loved your smile more than anything. He was sure nothing could ever replicate your smile, not art nor literature. Much less so the way seeing this smile made him feel. It was wholly unique to you and he felt almost blessed to be in your presence.

“I love spending time here!” You nodded with that small smile he became entranced by. You had never meant something more.

You wanted to pour your feelings. The way the affection you held ran so deep. How you wanted to wrap your arms around him in a never ending embrace. You were sat beside him on the sofa now and you had both subconsciously leaned in. Your faces close together, you could feel his body heat radiating against you in his proximity. You wished to lean further still.

If you had moved even a fraction forwards, you would have brushed against him. Your face against his. A heavenly graze against his lips that would surely change the course of the future. Together you could rewrite prophecies. Bend fate to your will. It would be only you and him against it all.

Your eyes fluttered to his lips before looking back to his eyes. You saw the way the corners upturned into a wry smile. One that he always had in your presence. Lips that spoke so eloquently. That spoke to your very mind. Words that made you feel safe. Tone that could be so strong and yet so tender at the same time.

You were about to reach for him, your hand started to move to slide against the side of his face but something made him jump up. The tea. He had forgotten about the tea.

He left your side and you felt such loss. To have him ripped from your side, the potential of that moment left you simultaneously ridiculously hopeful and empty at the lack of contact with his skin at the same time. You were sure you had seen something in his eyes though, some glistening intention that he wished to kiss you too.

“Well, the-the tea should have finished brewing by now” he said, excusing himself and leaving you so disappointed. Not just because you were now faced with a further disappointment in liquid form.

He shook his head at himself as he busied in the kitchen. He had so wanted to kiss you. Pull you into him with such unwavering passion it almost made him dizzy. You made him feel so much. Even a minute in your presence turned him into a lovesick fool.

He brought the tea out and handed it to you. He sat further away from you now on a different seat. Having to distance himself or else it would be too much.

You couldn’t even trust your face to hide it though. It was the worst tasting one yet. So much so that when he turned his back you had to lean in and pour it into one of his houseplants. You silently apologised to it but it was either the plant or you. A true ethical decision had to be made, for the good of your blossoming relationship.

Your afternoons became interrupted once Giles received a house guest in the form of a defanged vampire. You still came to spend time with him but it wasn’t as intimate as it had been before. The only plus side was that he didn’t make as much tea because he was either arguing with spike or making him meals.

In fact the week previous you hadn’t even come to visit (through no fault of your own you had a prior engagement). But this left Giles sorely missing you and hating Spike even more. Not only because he was forced into watching Passions with him but because he feared that you felt neglected by him. That your friendship wasn’t what he wanted anymore. Which just wasn’t true.

There was a Scooby meeting and Spike was involved only so much as he was living out of the house and the tv was in the same room. You were supposed to be there but you were having to travel to Giles’ from the other side of town.

Giles was in a sour mood. Couldn’t make the move he so desperately wished he could. He just wanted you to be comfortable. To be happy and to feel just as strongly as him. He was sure you would have expressed an interest if you felt something. You were usually so bold, he admired your nature so much.

Giles sighed and cleaned his glasses as he was in deep thought. His mind only ever wrapped around you at the moment. The close proximity you held but at such a disappointing distance. The Scoobies noticed this sigh and as always immediately pick him up on it. He didn’t even have to say anything, they just knew it was about you and your mutual pining.

“Well, have you even tried to make a move?” Buffy questioned with a little squint.

“We drink tea together...” He said vaguely which made the others laugh. He looked up, frowning at their reactions.

“There’s no way!”

“Well, ah, we do...” He said, putting his glasses back on and squinting back around the room at why this would be such a ridiculous notion.

“Y/n hates tea, Giles” Willow answered honestly. She had to sit through one of your rants about it when she had offered it to you once.

“Yeah, even I know that. Doesn’t touch the stuff called me a freak of nature for even suggesting-” Spike began with a shrug, he didn’t even look up from the tv as he spoke.

“I think they called you that for offering a “secret ingredient”-”

“Blood compliments everything I’ll have you know” Spike pointed her way and she grimaced at how gross he was.

“Will you both stop babbling and allow me to think straight! Th-they don’t drink tea? Ever?” He asked, a furrow deepening on his brow. This meant something. Of course, it must do. But just what it meant, he couldn’t be entirely sure. He knew what he hoped it meant though.

“Never ever”

“Not unless...” Willow tailed off and everyone gave him a look as if to hint at what they meant. They were implying that his hopes were true. You liked him and took any excuse you could to spend time with him.

“But they are usually so open about everything, especially matters of the heart”

“Well, love makes you do the whacky”

“They couldn’t possibly... hold such affection, ah, could they?” Giles, uncharacteristically pondered aloud which made Spike scoff. It couldn’t have been more obvious if you had a t-shirt printed that said ‘I heart Giles’ on it. In fact, the vampire was sure you probably had one.

While everyone was talking Xander had moved towards the corner of the room where Giles’ usually dead looking plants looked more vibrant than ever. He was inspecting them. He had seen one too many movies and figured he might know the true extent to your tea drinking.

“Well, they might have mentioned something...”

“And I think I figured who’s been drinking your tea, G-man. Check out the little corner of horrors” Xander said, gesturing with his head at the jungle of plants. You had been feeding his plants with the tea.

“And you thought the potted plants had magically started to grow. They’ve been bloody drinking tea!” Spike scoffed and rolled his eyes. But Giles wasn’t listening anymore. He was smiling at the idea that you had been pretending to enjoy drinking tea just to spend time with him.

Just as this was revealed, you walked in closing the door behind you and calling into the room, “Hey guys sorry I’m... late” you tailed off glancing around the room. There was an unusual vibe as if

“We’ll give you some space...”

“I won’t” Spike said unhelpfully, crossing his arms and smirking ready to watch a potential social disaster in the making.

“You bloody well will” Giles warned. When the vampire didn’t move and Giles looked as if he may pop a blood vessel, Buffy sighed and hauled Spike into the bathroom with the others where they would sit and wait in their hurry to give you space.

“You don’t like tea?” He asked, barely hiding the ghost of a smile on his face.

“Oh... so you found out about that? I’m sorry, I was just so...” You nodded at yourself. It was long since time to admit this, “I was so excited that you wanted to spend time with me alone that I forgot and then it had been too long... I didn’t want you to think any less of me” You said slowly, looking at the ground.

“I, uh, just wish I had known your feelings. It would have made it much easier to gauge whether you were interested”

“Giles-” You said, taking his hand in yours. You liked the way they looked clasped together in this way.

“Rupert, please” he offered comfortingly, rubbing his thumb against your hand which made you smile down at your entwined hands.

“Rupert, I love you... I think I always have”

“And I love you” He admitted, one hand sliding up your upper arm. The other moving to cup your cheek. This had been everything you had both wanted for so long. You and him. Like this.

You leaned in, catching his lips with yours. He grasped the hair at the base of your skull, willing you closer. This kiss was the sweetest, it tasted better than you ever could have imagined. It brightened your soul. Made your heart beat more rhythmically. In perfect timing with his.

You parted briefly, but he couldn’t help pressing light kisses against your cheek, trailing a path to the corner of your mouth as you spoke. He wished to cherish you in the way he felt you so deserved. Couldn’t move from your contact, not now he knew how you felt this as deeply as him. It was real. So real and he couldn’t waste a moment of it.

“We should have read our tea-leaves” You smiled, you were so sure that they would have told you that you were meant for each other. It would have at least meant that drinking your water-weight in tea would have been worth it. Either way though, of course it was worth it. Because it meant you spent time with him. Got to know him in this way.

He nodded gently but he didn’t wish to speak now. He just wished to show you his devotion. His lips had barely moved from your skin as your shared admittance enveloped you. He caught your lips again, such tenderness evident in his kisses. He wished for you to feel just how passionately he loved you. He fit so perfectly against you.

“Can we come out now?!” Buffy shouted from the bathroom where the others were all crushed in together but neither of you heard her. You were too wrapped up in each other.

#Giles #Rupert Giles #Giles x reader #Ruper Giles x reader #Rupert Giles imagine #Rupert Giles x you #Giles imagine #Giles x you #btvs #btvs x reader #btvs imagine #btvs x you #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffy the vampire slayer imagines #buffyverse fic #btvs fic #gn #gender neutral reader

156 notes · View notes

shadow--writer · 4 years

Text

Bittersweetness

Julian x mc (no pronouns used!) -- set in universe -- after upright endish

Word count: 4.5k

TW: none!

Tags: hurt comfort, fluff, angst, loneliness, Julian works too much, a little spicy at the end but nothing nsfw

~~~~

Some days it was hard for me to fall asleep. Some days it was even harder to wake up. Julian was always out or working, leaving me with the small ache in my chest as I thought about him.

He was working when I fell asleep at night and was gone when I woke in the morning.

Some days I’d wait up for him, reading and practicing spells. He’d come through the door, smelling sweet like mint and cinnamon and bitter like medicine. His hair would be a ruffled mess, eyes tired and sagging. Purple bags made permanent residence under his eyes and his lashes would brush his cheeks lazily as he blinked.

Tonight I pretended to be asleep when he came in. Just to see what he’d do.

His voice was thick with exhaustion as he watched me pretending to sleep. “Ah asleep again,” he whispered, peeling off his gloves and boots. Off came the shirt and pants and then his sleepwear.

He never wore anything much during the summer. Just some low hanging pants a friend made for him. Venezuela was always sticky and too hot during the summer months making wearing anything else a chore.

The bed sighed under his weight as he sat down, running a hand through his hair. There was a small chuckle from him, it rumbled from his chest and sent a spike of warmth threading through my stomach.

“Hey there sweetheart,” he said, scooting closer to me. He brushed my hair out of my face. I struggled to keep the peaceful look on. He planted a gentle kiss against my forehead, combing my hair away from my face and across my pillow. “I love you, you know. Even if I can’t be around as much...work is picking up now that the clinic is being talked about. More and more housecalls and people getting sick.”

There was a sigh as he settled into bed, arms wrapping around me. His legs tangled into mine, his nose buried into the back of my neck. His breath was warm against my skin. I let out a small sigh myself, sinking into his touch.

“I promise I’ll take a day off soon. I just need some time...to get back into things,” he murmured, lips ghosting my neck. “Thank you darling. Thank you.” A whisper. A breath.

And he was out.

I let out a small gasp of breath, feeling warm tears slide down my cheeks.

I missed him.

I missed him so much it hurt.

He was gone when I woke up. The only sign he was really there was the small cooling dent in the bed and the feeling of breath on my neck.

I got to my feet, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. It smelled like him. Like leather, cinnamon and coffee. Something bitter lay under all of it. Something bitter coated my tongue and heart.

As I moved to the kitchen I noticed that the apartment smelled nice. Like honey and coffee beans.

I shuffled into the kitchen, tears springing to my eyes when I saw he made coffee and breakfast. The source of the good smell. By my plate of pancakes was a little note. His handwriting was messy as ever but over time I learned to read it.

Hello my love,

Sorry I had to go so early. I swear I’ll be home earlier tonight. Things are getting very busy and I might need to hire new help soon. Which is both exciting and scary I’ll admit.

I hope you like this peace offering of mine. Pasha taught me how to make these. It was a lot of trial and error.

I love you more than the sun in the sky darling dear of mine. One of these days I’ll prove it to you.

See you tonight.

Yours,

Ilya

I held the note to my face, tears stinging my eyes. Weeks. It had been weeks since we really talked. Talked without one of us sleeping or pretending to sleep.

I kissed the note softly, bringing it down to hug while I sat down.

The coffee was sweeter today. He knew how I liked it. The pancakes were perfect if a bit toasty. I smiled a little. He wouldn’t stop until they were absolutely perfect. Even if I was happy with how they were now.

My smile faded at the edges as I looked out the window at the rising sun. The day was already warm and sticky. It always was like this in the summer. Couldn’t catch a break.

I knew Julian was right next door. Easy enough distance to go.

But he was probably busy. He always was.

I finished my breakfast, getting up to wash the dishes and think for a moment. Spotting the rest of the dirty dishes in the sink I knew I had a few good hours of washing with my thoughts.

As I scrapped off the plates I thought about what I could do. I could try making him lunch and bringing it over.

My heart fluttered at the thought.

Yes. That’s what I’d do. Make him something too.

I quickly finished up the dishes in the sink. Forks and spoons went into their drawers and I set a few pans on a towel to air dry.

Tucking the dish I held into a towel I set to work.

I knew he liked warmer lunches and soups. Even in the summer. But there was something said about eating something that left a trail of warmth as you ate it.

I was no Mazelinka but I knew he’d appreciate the sentiment.

I got to work on a sweet potato mushroom soup. We had extra potatoes that I didn’t know what to do with. So what better way to use them than for lunch?

I peeled and mashed the potatoes, slicing up the mushrooms with care and a small hum. I grabbed a clean pot, setting it to simmer over the stove. In went the potatoes then spices. It made the house smell like butter, cumin and sweet potatoes. While I waited for that, I sliced up some plain bread with sharp cheddar.

I made lemonade and tucked it into a cooling glass. I had extra, maybe I’ll freeze it and make lemon popsicles to share later today.

I quickly made my own lunch, standing back to admire my hard work. Breathing in I coughed a little. The air was stifling already and it wasn’t even noon yet.

But soon his lunch was ready. I packed it into a paper bag, hoping he’d be there so I could give it to him myself. I quickly got dressed and tugged my shoes on. It was a quick trip next door, then I’d go to the market to get things for dinner.

He...he probably wasn’t going to be back in time for dinner anyways.

I bit my cheek as I pushed my way inside the clinic. Inside was the same as always. Large bookshelves filled with different books ranging from research to adventure novels. Kids lay on the ground with little toys and colouring books as they waited for their checkups.

The secretary brightened when he saw me walk in. “Ah! Dr. Devorak is in his office around back, you made it just in time he just finished up with his last patient before housecalls!”

I blinked, and then smiled. “O-Oh thank you! I brought lunch for him.”

The secretary’s eyes sparkled with mischief as they took in my barely thrown together appearance. “I’ll keep people away for as long as I can,” he said with a wink making me blush.

“No need we won’t be doing much! I’m just bringing him lunch.” Another smile. “Just lunch.”

“Whatever you say. He’s back in his office, last door down the hall.”

Face red and heart racing I whisper another thank you and move down the clinic quickly. There voices from some of the other doors, but I ignored them, knocking gently on the door labeled ‘Devorak’.

“Ah yes? Come in! I was just heading out to lunch!” Julian’s voice.

My heart skipped a beat at it. We were both awake this time.

I pushed the door open a bit more with a smile. “Hey darling,” I said. His eyes went wide, and he broke out in a grin.

“Sweetheart! Y-You came to see me!” I closed the door with a small click, making his eyes jump to the sound. His cheeks warmed but he still smiled. “Mmm and what’s that smell?”

“Lunch. I made you something. And of course I came to see you, you silly duck. The shop is closed today for restocking. Asra was going to drop by later to help out so I’m free.”

“And you made me something to eat?” His eyes welled up. “Darling you didn’t have to do that!”

“I did. And I won’t be taking no for an answer.”

“At least eat with me!”

My eyes widened a fraction. I did bring my own lunch, I was going to see if Portia wanted to eat with me and then go around the market.

But now that this opportunity appeared…

“Are you sure? Don’t you have work to do?”

His face was ashen pale. He really needed sunlight. “No no I’m on my lunch break now! Besides, I’d like to spend this time with you. I haven’t seen you in weeks!”

I bit my cheek from snarking at him. It wasn’t his fault, but it still hurt.

Even so, I smiled softly. “Yeah. I’d love that.”

He grinned, patting the chair next to him. I sat down, handing him the paper bag. “Mmmm sweet potato soup?”

“I warn you I’m no Mazelinka-”

“Darling, you made this, making it even more special to me.”

I turned away with a smile, my cheeks warming. “It’s nothing special.”

“It is for me. And it smells so good, darling you are a wonder.”

I giggled. “Well you already made breakfast for me so I thought I’d return the favour.”

He kissed my cheek, digging in.

I ate as well, slowly to savour these stolen moments with him. We talked about this and that. The leech dealer and her wife. About the different kids that would come in. How excited he was to get his day off and spend it with me.

“Where would we go?” I asked at that question.

He stopped talking, his hands dropping what they were doing. “Huh?”

I tucked my legs up into the chair under me, scooting closer to him. His eye twinkled. “Where would we go?”

“Well...I was thinking we could go for a boat ride in the fixing up flooded district.” He was leaning in closer to me.

“And then?”

“After rocking the boat with some fun activities…” I let myself smile. I had an idea what activities he’d do in that poor little boat with me. “We’d go for a walk up in the meadows right outside town. Into the fields and by that great big willow tree by the stream.”

“And?”

“We’d have a picnic! We’d fool around in the wheat, maybe play hide and seek.” I giggled. That sounded lovely. “And once it gets dark I’ll take you down the stream and up this little rock formation I found. There we’ll stargaze together before you fall asleep and I have to carry you home.”

“And when I wake up at home all cozy in our bed…?”

He kissed my forehead, then moved to kiss my cheeks. “I’ll hold you. Cuddle and talk together. Run my hands through your hair, press your body against mine. Never let you go. We’ll fall asleep like that together and in the morning wake like that together.”

“Then I’ll get up first and make breakfast.”

“I’ll come down tired and grumpy that you left me.”

“I’ll kiss you as an apology and give you your coffee and we’ll talk some more.”

He kissed my nose, my browbones. “After breakfast we’ll call on some friends and go out together and maybe stay the night with them.”

“Going to the Rowdy Raven for a pint first.”

“Of course.”

I laughed, throwing my mouth open and my head back. He grinned at the sound, kissing my chin and the skin just below. “I love you,” he murmured.

I let out a small hum, brushing my hands up his arms. He shivered at the small caress. I opened my mouth to respond. “I-”

“DOCTOR!” The secretary burst in. He caught my eye, and winced with apology seeing where we were positioned. I didn’t feel embarrassed.

Just...sad.

“Ah! What’s wrong?” Julian snapped back, getting to his feet. I watched it all unfold, hurt snapping through my bones.

“House call. Broken leg. Fell off a horse. Bone is sticking out. Mother is frantic with worry. Kid is fifteen.”

Julian winced, quickly packing his bag. “Tell her to wait a moment and I will be right there.”

He turned to look at me. I must’ve not been hiding my hurt very well because he frowned. “I’m so sorry darling I’ll make it up to you-”

I waved him off, forcing a smile. “No no! I can’t ask you to pull away from a kid in need. Go on and help him. I’ll be here.”

His eye swam with worry and concern. “I’m still sorry, my love. I’ll be home tonight. Early. I promise.” He kissed my forehead, and hurried out the door.

I knew that was a lie. Things always got bad after dark. The night got sticky and warm. Heat strokes, bar fights, sneaking out. He wouldn’t be back until late.

I looked down at my lap, at the empty dishes on his desk. At the mess of paper and messy handwriting. My picture was at one end of the desk, another frame of us together next to it. Our friends all smiling at the ocean.

I curled my knees to my chin, looking at the door he left from.

“I love you,” I whispered to nothing but air.

Dinner went cold two hours ago. I put away the leftovers an hour after waiting. I fell asleep soon after that, angry and bitter at the world for taking him from me like this.

I missed him so much that it was clear on my face.

I startled awake at three in the morning from a dream. A good dream or bad dream I didn’t know. I just knew I trembled alone in the dark, my skin clammy with the summer heat and my own sweat.

My cheeks were stiff with the salt of unshed tears as I got to my feet. I pulled socks on over my toes, trying to keep as quiet as possible when I snuck down into the kitchen to get some water.

Julian was fast asleep on his side of the bed, legs sprawled out like a starfish. He looked peaceful and I didn’t want to disturb that.

It was a nightmare I decided. I had a bad dream. My stomach was tied in knots and my hands still trembled as I got water from the sink. My tongue was coated in something bitter and I just felt...empty.

The bad dream aches would go away soon, only to be replaced with the almost homesick feeling.

I loved him. Don’t get me wrong I loved him so much.

But I didn’t know how much longer I could keep going without hearing his voice in the morning, eating with him just...being with him.

I stood by the counter, swaying my hips a little as I drank water. The water washed away the stale taste in my mouth but did nothing to help the bitter feeling. My hands slowly stopped shaking and my body stopped aching as I moved.

“What’re you doing up so early?” I stopped what I was doing, turning to see Julian running a hand through his hair. His pants hung very low on his hips, his feet bare. The moonlight seemed to make him glow. His eyes softened as he looked at me. “Bad dreams?”

Wordlessly I nodded.

He crossed the distance between us, wrapping me up in a hug. “I know I’m late to comfort you. I know I haven’t been the best in these last few days. These last few weeks,” he whispered to my hair.

I didn’t say a word, not wanting to interrupt this moment. I just closed my eyes, breathing him in. We swayed a little, rocking from foot to foot.

Then he pulled away from the hug, letting my hands slide down his arms into his waiting palms. He held my hands gently, slowly drawing me into a slow dance.

Letting one hand go he spun me. The movement was slow, his other hand brushed my hip. A whisper of a question.

When I stopped spinning I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him in closer. Almost immediately his arms went around my waist, his face buried in my neck and mine in his.

His hands shifted my nightshirt up, his fingers cold as ice against my sticky warm skin. I let out a small gasp, making him smile.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I leaned into the touch. His fingers danced up and down my sides, running down my ribs and resting on my hip bone. I pressed a soft kiss into his neck making him let out a small gasping breath.

“I want you,” he whispered.

“I want you,” I responded.

“I’ve wanted you for so long. Here. In my arms. With me. Alone,” he said, kissing the side of my neck and my jaw. “Soft touches and kisses. Just you and me. I want...I want to touch you.”

“Touch me then,” I breathed, my voice seeming to come out in a gasp.

He smiled, kissing my cheek. “As you wish.”

His hands moved from my sides to my face. Down my shoulders and arms. His fingers were so cold, but they felt nice against my clammy skin. His brows were pinched in worry, love and guilt shining in that eye he always kept covered.

“It must’ve been one hell of a nightmare,” he said, brushing at my cheeks with his thumbs.

I nuzzled into the touch making his breath hitch. “It must’ve been but I don’t remember it now.”

He brushed a kiss at the spots he touched. I wanted to huff in annoyance. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted him to spin me out of control until all I could see and touch and taste and feel was him.

We danced around the kitchen in slow swaying movements. He was humming a slow bittersweet tune. One that made me feel as he did.

He was guilty. He hated leaving me alone. Leaving me missing him as he missed me.

He pulled out of my touch, bringing my hands down to his face. He planted small kisses on my palms and fingertips. Then following the trail he lay with his fingers he kissed up my left arm. My skin tingled with goosebumps at the touch of his lips.

He pressed soft kisses on the inside of my wrists, tongue flicking over the veins and skin. He was gentle with me. Oh so heartbreakingly gentle.

He moved up my arm. To my forearm and then my elbow. His lips were a ghost over my skin, making me arch my head back as he moved.

Farther up my arm now, kissing my biceps and the soft skin right before my underarms. Then he planted kisses on my shoulders, nipping at the skin there. The muscle where my shoulder met my neck. When he bit down softly I let out a gasp, my hands tightening against his arms.

He smiled, tongue flicking over the spot as he resumed kissing up my neck. When he reached my face he planted one final kiss on my jaw and left me craving his warmth once again.

Holding his hands I swung our arms up and down a bit as I planned my move. He was here with me. I had him all to myself in these quiet moments in the morning. The moon was our only witness, the only light to see him by.

He was strong, my Julian. Broad shoulders and strong arms. Broad chest leading into a small waist that I could wrap my arms around so easily. A face with strong lips always with a smile on them. Grey eyes. Grey eyes filled with so much adoration for me it hurt. Messy auburn hair falling around his face in soft waves.

I haven’t gotten to look at him, truly look at him in a while.

I repeated what he did to me moments prior. I kissed his hands. His large calloused hands that had seen so much blood. Helped so many. Let go of more. His breathing hitched as I kissed each of his fingertips.

I kissed his wrists, biting softly at the skin there, just kneading it between my teeth for a heartbeat. His heart thudded softly. Soft feathery kisses up his forearm and against his elbow. Up his biceps, pausing at each scar to give it it’s own kiss.

“Oh darling,” he breathed.

I said nothing, just kissed his shoulders. “You have very cold hands,” he whispered as I ran my hands up his chest.

I kissed the skin of shoulder meeting neck, raising my eyes to meet his. “I should say the same about you.”

He chuckled, the sound cutting out as I took the skin between my teeth. “Oh,” he said, his voice turning into a soft moan that warmed my stomach.

I let it go too soon, and I knew it was too soon when he let out a small huff. Hiding my smile with more kisses I moved on.

Up his neck, biting softly and kissing as I went. He squirmed a bit, hands moving down to my waist. Fingers drummed along my hips, drumming to the tune of his choked hum.

I came to the spot I knew he liked biting best. The muscle behind his ear, meeting his jaw. I kissed it softly, before biting down.

The noise he made sent sparks through my veins. A breathy mix between a sigh, moan and groan.

He made it again when I flicked my tongue over the spot I bit.

“Careful now darling,” he breathed, chest heaving against my fingers. His heart thudded so quickly against my touch. “I might just need to have you noooooooo-” he let out another moan, cutting himself off as I bit down on the spot again.

“Hush now my love,” I whispered, moving on to kiss where his jaw met his ear. He let out another hum of pleasure.

“Mmm I love you,” he whispered.

I planted a kiss on his jaw, his cheeks, the tip of his nose. The bridge of his nose. I had to stand on my toes to kiss his forehead, him bending down to the touch.

“I love you too,” I whispered as I kissed his temple.

“Mmm kiss me,” he murmured.

I let out a small giggle. “I am kissing you.”

His eyes snapped up to meet mine. “No I want a real kiss.”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Please.”

The pleading tone of his voice made me pause. I grinned, making him wilt a little bit, the two of us still swaying and shifting our weight from foot to foot.

“Say it again.”

“Please.”

I held his face in my hands. “One more time?”

“Only if you say it back.”

I giggled. “Please?”

He didn’t respond, just kissed me. I didn’t care that he didn’t say it again. I didn’t care that I felt sticky and warm.

I just cared that he was here with me.

I moved my hands from his face, wrapping my arms around his neck again. He leaned into me, making me hold onto him for balance as he pressed me against the counter.

His lips were needy. Begging mine. Pleading with me. They whispered things we left unsaid. They whispered apologizes and littles pleas.

I only hoped mine held the answers.

“Darling,” he said, lips brushing against mine with the word.

I slowly opened my eyes, he was so close. So close. So heartbreakingly close. Illuminated by moonlight he seemed like some ethereal being.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

I blinked. “Julian...you don’t have anything to be sorry for. You got caught up in work that’s f-fine.” My voice caught on fine. It cracked.

He knew it wasn’t fine.

“You stuttered,” he said, nuzzling my face. “That means you’re lying. It’s not fine. I know it’s not fine.”

“But-”

“Let me finish. I got caught up because everyone is getting hurt all the time. There aren’t many doctors or help in my clinic. I really do need to hire.” I let out a breathy laugh. “I’ll set that up tomorrow. I swear it.”

“You haven’t come through with your promises as of late.”

He kissed my cheek. “I know and I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. For not...trying.”

“Darling you of all people have nothing to be sorry for!” He sounded offended.

I offered him a small smile. “But I do. I didn’t try. This is a two way street. If I want something I need to give something in return. I love you Julian, and I’m sorry for not trying. Not trying to see you. Not trying to see if you can take a break.”

“Sweetheart. Love of mine. My darling. Dearest. You understand how important work is to me, and that’s why you stayed away.”

I looked away. “I do. But I still care about your wellbeing and I should have said something.”

There was a small rumble from him. A chuckle. “We both should have to be honest.”

I laughed. “Yeah, we should’ve.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

He took his face out of my cheek, kissing me softly. “For loving me. The mess that I am.”

I didn’t argue with it. He was a mess.

And so was I.

“Thank you for loving me. All my broken pieces,” I said, pulling him closer. “And for helping me find my pieces still missing.”

He kissed me again. And again.

“Broken is not the same as unfixable my dear. And you are wonderful and perfect no matter how many pieces seem to be broken or missing.”

I sealed my mouth over his, breaking away after a few moments of just enjoying how he tasted. Smelled.

Felt.

“Well Dr. Devorak. I’m here now. With you.”

His eyes lit up with mischief and something more. “Alone…” he said.

I kissed his cheek. “So what are you going to do about it?”

He picked me up, making me let out a small squeal. I wrapped my legs around his waist, clinging to him like ivy. His arms fell back around my waist, squeezing my butt making me laugh.

With another sweet kiss to my lips he whispered, “I guess we’ll have to see.”

The door to our bedroom clicked as it closed.

103 notes · View notes

myfanwymusings · 4 years

Photo

TAYLOR SWIFT / EVERMORE

The following is a collection of lyric sentence starters from Taylor Swift’s ninth studio album evermore. Some lyrics have been slightly modified for ease of role-playing. Feel free to change any tense or pronouns. May contain mature content. This has been reposted from my old blog.

WILLOW

I’m rough on the surface, but you cut through like a knife

If it was an open-shut case I never would have known from the look on your face

Lost in your current like a priceless wine

The more that you say, the less I know

Wherever you stray, I follow

I'm begging for you to take my hand

I'm begging for you

I can feel you sneaking in

There was one prize I'd cheat to win

They count me out time and time again

Anywhere else is hollow

That's my man

I come back stronger than a '90s trend

Wait for the signal, and I'll meet you after dark

I'll meet you after dark

Show me the places where the others gave you scars

This is an open-shut case

I should’ve known from the look on your face

Hey, that's my man

Yeah, that's my man

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS

You booked the night train for a reason

Your heart was glass, I dropped it

You told your family for a reason

You dropped my hand while dancing, left me out there standing

Love slipped beyond your reaches and I couldn't give a reason

This dorm was once a madhouse

Well, it's made for me

Soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls that we once walked through

I never was ready so I watch you go

She would've made such a lovely bride, what a shame she's fucked in the head

Sometimes you just don't know the answer til someone's on their knees and asks you

You won't remember all my champagne problems

GOLD RUSH

I don't like a gold rush

I don't like that anyone would die to feel your touch

Everybody wants you

Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you

What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?

I can't dare to dream about you anymore

My mind turns your life into folklore

I won't call you out on your contrarian shit

‘TIS THE DAMN SEASON

If I wanted to know who you were hanging with while I was gone, I would have asked you

There's an ache in you, put there by the ache in me

But if it's all the same to you it's the same to me

You could call me "babe" for the weekend

We could call it even

Remember how you watched me leave

You can run, but only so far

And the road not taken looks real good now

Hear me out, we could just ride around

The road not taken looks real good now and it always leads to you in my hometown

I won't ask you to wait if you don't ask me to stay

I wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm faking'

The heart I know I'm breaking' is my own

Even though I'm leaving' and I'll be yours for the weekend

'Tis the damn season

TOLERATE IT

I notice everything you do or don't do

You're so much older and wiser

If it's all in my head tell me now

Tell me I've got it wrong somehow

I know my love should be celebrated but you tolerate it

I take your indiscretions all in good fun

I made you my temple, my mural, my sky - now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life

I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life

You assume I'm fine, but what would you do if I break free and leave us in ruins?

Believe me, I could do it

NO BODY, NO CRIME

He did it

Her husband's actin' different, and it smells like infidelity

That ain't my Merlot on his mouth. That ain't my jewelry on our joint account

I think I'm gonna call him out

No, there ain't no doubt

I think he did it, but I just can't prove it

No body, no crime

I ain't letting' up until the day I die

Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was fifteen

I've cleaned enough houses to know how to cover up a scene

She was with me, dude

They think she did it, but they just can't prove it

Good thing his mistress took out a big life insurance policy

I wasn't letting' up until the day he died

HAPPINESS

I see this for what it is

All the years I've given is just shit we're dividing' up

I can't face reinvention

There will be happiness after you

There was happiness because of you

Haunted by the look in my eyes that would've loved you for a lifetime

Tell me, when did your winning smile begin to look like a smirk?

I hope she'll be your beautiful fool, who takes my spot next to you

No, I didn't mean that

Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury

You haven't met the new me yet

There will be happiness after me

There was happiness because of me

I can't make it go away by making you a villain

I pulled your body into mine every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties

No one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you and you know you hurt him, too

All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness

After giving you the best I had, tell me what to give after that?

All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness. You haven't met the new me yet and I think she'll give you that

DOROTHEA

Do you ever stop and think about me?

A tiny screen's the only place I see you now

I got nothing but well-wishes for ya

This place is the same as it ever was but you don't like it that way

It's never too late to come back to my side

You're a queen selling' dreams, selling' makeup and magazines

From you I'd buy anything

But are you still the same soul I met under the bleachers?

I guess I'll never know

If you're ever tired of being known for who you know, you'll always know me.

CONEY ISLAND

If I can't relate to you anymore then who am I related to?

And if this is the long haul how'd we get here so soon?

Did I close my fist around something delicate?

Did I shatter you?

Sorry for not making you my centerfold

What's a lifetime of achievement if I pushed you to the edge but you were too polite to leave me?

Do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?

Will you forgive my soul when you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?

We were like the mall before the internet

Were you waiting at our old spot: in the tree line by the gold clock?

Did I leave you hanging every single day?

When I got into the accident the sight that flashed before me was your face

IVY

Your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

I just sit here and wait, grieving for the living

My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand taking mine, but it's been promised to another

Stop you putting roots in my dreamland

I wish to know the fatal flaw that makes you long to be magnificently cursed

Your opal eyes are all I wish to see

I'd live and die for moments that we stole

What would he do if he found us out?

Dare to sit and watch what we'll become

It's a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

It's the goddamn fight of my life and you started it

COWBOY LIKE ME

Dancing' is a dangerous game

I'm never gonna love again

I've got some tricks up my sleeve

Takes one to know one

Never wanted love, just a fancy car

You're a cowboy like me

I’m telling all the rich folks anything they wanna hear

You're a bandit like me

Never thought I'd meet you here

We could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it

The skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this up

The old men that I've swindled really did believe I was the one

Now you hang from my lips like the Gardens of Babylon

Forever is the sweetest con

LONG STORY SHORT

I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me

I was in the alley, surrounded on all sides

Long story short, it was a bad time

If the shoe fits, walk in it 'til your high heels break

I clung to the nearest lips and long story short, it was the wrong guy

Now I'm all about you

Actually, I always felt I must look better in the rear view - missing me.

If someone comes at us, this time, I'm ready

No more keeping' score, now I just keep you warm

Past me, I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things

Your nemeses will defeat themselves before you get the chance to swing

He feels like home

Long story short, I survived

MARJORIE

Never be so kind you forget to be clever

Never be so clever you forget to be kind

If I didn't know better I'd think you were talking to me now

If I didn't know better I'd think you were still around

You're alive in my head

What died didn't stay dead

You're alive, so alive

Never be so polite you forget your power

Nevеr wield such power you forget to be polite

I should've asked you questions

Should've kept every grocery store receipt cause every scrap of you would be taken from me

I know better but you're still around

I still feel you all around

CLOSURE

It's been a long time and seeing the shape of your name still spells out pain

Yes, I'm doing better

I don't need your closure

Yes, I got your letter

Don't treat me like some situation that needs to be handled

I'm fine with my spite and my tears, and my beers and my candles

I know I'm just a wrinkle in your new life

Staying friends would iron it out so nice

EVERMORE

Gray November, I've been down since July

I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone trying to find the one where I went wrong

I couldn't be sure

I had a feeling so peculiar that this pain would be for evermore

Guess I'm feeling unmoored

Can't remember what I used to fight for

Can't not think of all the cost and the things that will be lost

To be certain, we'll be tall again

Is there a line that I could just go cross?

And when I was shipwrecked I thought of you

It was real enough to get me through

I dreamed of you

I swear you were there

I had a feeling so peculiar, this pain wouldn't be for evermore

RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT ME

Friends break up

I'm right where you left me

Help

I'm still at the restaurant

I swear you could hear a hair pin drop

What a sad sight...

I felt the moment stop

They expected me to find perspective

Everybody moved on, but I stayed there

You left me no choice

You left me no choice but to stay here forever

Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?

Time went on for everyone else

Did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion?

Breakups happen every day

I was still the one you wanted

If our love died young, I can't bare witness

If you ever think you got it wrong, I'm right where you left me

IT'S TIME TO GO

He's insisting that friends look at each other like that

The words of a sister come back in whispers

She's a crook that was caught

She was not in fact what she seemed

You know when it's time to go

Twenty years at that job, then the boss of the son gets the spot....

Keeping it how it was will only break hearts worse

Sometimes giving up is the strong thing

Sometimes walking out is the one thing that will find you the right thing

Sometimes to run is the brave thing

I gave my all

He gave me nothing at all

He's got my past frozen behind glass but I've got me

You will know in your soul that it's time to go

#inbox memes.#rph #rpc #roleplay memes.#taylor swift lyrics.

31 notes · View notes

dancinginmydressinthesun · 4 years

Text

Favorite lyric per song

willow: Life was a willow, and it bent right to your wind, but I come back stronger than a '90s trend

champagne problems: "She would've made such a lovely bride, what a shame she's fucked in the head," they said, but you'll find the real thing instead, she'll patch up your tapestry that I shred

gold rush: I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush

‘tis the damn season: So I'll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends, who'll write books about me, if I ever make it and wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm fakin' and the heart I know I'm breakin' is my own, to leave the warmest bed I've ever known

tolerate it: I made you my temple, my mural, my sky, now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life // Break free and leave us in ruins, took this dagger in me and removed it, gain the weight of you then lose it, believe me, I could do it

no body, no crime: Hе reports his missing wife and I noticed when I passed his house his truck has got some brand new tires and his mistress moved in, sleeps in Este's bed and everything, no, there ain't no doubt, somebody's gotta catch him out, 'cause

happiness: Haunted by the look in my eyes that would've loved you for a lifetime // When did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt? I hope she'll be your beautiful fool who takes my spot next to you, no, I didn't mean that, sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury // In our history, across our great divide, there is a glorious sunrise // After giving you the best I had, tell me what to give after that

dorothea: When it was calmer, skipping the prom just to piss off your mom and her pageant schemes and damn, Dorothea, they all wanna be ya, but are you still the same soul I met under the bleachers? Well...

coney island: And I'm sitting on a bench in Coney Island wondering where did my baby go? The fast times, the bright lights, the merry go, sorry for not making you my centerfold // And do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?

ivy: I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones in a faith forgotten land // And the old widow goes to the stone every day, but I don't, I just sit here and wait, grieving for the living // My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand // Oh, I can't stop you putting roots in my dreamland, my house of stone, your ivy grows and now I'm covered in you // I wish to know, the fatal flaw that makes you long to be, magnificently cursed // I'd live and die for moments that we stole, on begged and borrowed time, so tell me to run or dare to sit and watch what we'll become and drink my husband's wine // So yeah, it's a fire, it's a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it, you started it, so yeah, it's a war, it's the goddamn fight of my life and you started it, you started it

cowboy like me: Now you hang from my lips like the Gardens of Babylon with your boots beneath my bed, forever is the sweetest con

long story short: I always felt I must look better in the rear view, missing me at the golden gates they once held the keys to // Now I just keep you warm (Keep you warm) and my waves meet your shore, ever and evermore // Long story short, it was a bad time, long story short, I survived

marjorie: You'd always go past where our feet could touch and I complained the whole way there, the car ride back and up the stairs, I should've asked you questions, I should've asked you how to be, asked you to write it down for me, should've kept every grocery store receipt ‘cause every scrap of you would be taken from me, watched as you signed your name: Marjorie, all your closets of backlogged dreams and how you left them all to me

closure: It's been a long time and seeing the shape of your name still spells out pain // It cut deep to know ya, right to the bone // I'm fine with my spite and my tears, and my beers and my candles // I know I'm just a wrinkle in your new life, staying friends would iron it out so nice

evermore: I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong, writing letters, addressed to the fire // I rewind thе tape but all it does is pause on thе very moment, all was lost // And I couldn't be sure I had a feeling so peculiar, this pain wouldn't be for evermore

#taylor swift #evermore #canadaprince

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hooraynium · 4 years

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Willow Reiher for @gothaliens Judith Ward Bachelor Challenge

Bookworm | Geek | Good

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Age: 21

Sexuality: Lesbian

Occupation: Student

Hobbies: Reading, writing, art (particularly sketches), scrap booking, embroidery, knitting, volunteering

More below

Willow loves to learn and has always been a good student, maybe even a bit of a ‘goody two shoes’ at school. She loves to read and will happily spend her time alone with a good book. Comics are her favourite but she also loves sci fi. She’s a bit shy and can be awkward but she has a heart of gold and will go to great lengths to make others happy. Her interests can be a bit niche but she’s always willing to gush about them, even if people think she’s weird.

Willow is caring and empathetic which has lead to activism for a number of different causes and she volunteers for several charity projects.

She is a hopeless romantic and a bit too trusting, never having had her heart badly broken. But being shy, she finds it difficult to start conversations and is hopeless at flirting. She’s entered this challenge in the hope that the format will break the ice for her and maybe this will be her chance at true love.

CAS pic

#ts4 bc challenge #willow reiher #sims 4 #ts4

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genyathefirebird · 5 years

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the haruspices sing on

this is my @hdmholidayexchange gift for @s-irensongs and i think you’ve moved to @woolysocks

If you want an alternative Christmas themed title it would be 'hark, the herald angels sing’. I hope you like it. I loved all the quotes you posted up :)

7.3k, Lyra/Will, post-His Dark Materials, with a lot about the Bench

...

There is a tree in the mulefa world with its uppermost canopy brushing up against the open skies, bird wingtips, and the Dust-coated edges of the universes. The golden ebb and flow moves from this world to the next, and then onward further.

In another world, where there are no mulefas, there is a tree. Not nearly as old and not nearly as tall, its willow branches stoop low, reaching down to brush the grass. Under its fringed embrace sits a bench, rather ordinary; scratched from years of use and scuffed from bags and boots. It quietly weathers the rainiest and icy days, and it is nothing more than it looks until Lyra brings Will to it.

As Dust courses along the treetops in the mulefa’s world, the seed pods begin to fall in abundance. In Lyra's and Will's worlds, Dust falls onto humans and witches and panserbjørne alike. It reaches out to touch consciousness. It seeks and finds without judgement; in the only way Dust knows reality, through love. It swirls across worlds, crossing through all existences, pushing on to fill those with future promise.

In the two Oxfords, the flow of Dust streaming through ebbs, then slows, and swirls around the branches of the willow tree at the far end of the Botanical Gardens. To the human eye there is no indication although angels flying through the invisible tears between worlds recognise the arc of dust; ever-bent, ever-falling to this single spot mirrored across the two separate gardens.

It waits for them.

xxx

At midday, on Midsummer's Day, Lyra takes her seat on the bench and says the words she has been waiting an entire year to say.

"I love you, Will."

They were always going to be her first words to him. She had decided that months and months ago. After that, she had been a little unsure, and so she had taken to writing little scraps in a notebook she kept in her pocket or in her bag, so that it was always at hand to make sure she wouldn't forget things. She saves all her thoughts for him and then makes her way through the pages, edges torn and crumpled from overuse, scribbles cutting through pages in those fleeting moments of happiness and anger, joy and regret.

"Oh, and the school is actually more fun than I thought it would be. I mean the classes can still get boring, oh and there's one old teacher, Mrs Stevens, and she really doesn't like it when I come into class after break times with a ripped skirt or mud on my shoes."

Lyra snorts and leans back against the bench, slouching into a comfortable heap, "But I like the fun lessons, and the headteacher has lots of interesting friends who come to teach special classes at school assemblies."

When she sighs, it's a happy one. "Dame Hannah came to teach at one, about three months ago. She brought one of her big books, and we all got to read through some of the pages."

She remembers the feel of the old pages under her hands, turning them carefully so as not to shake the words off the dried paper, marvelling at the fine script, and then worries at her lip. Beside her, Pan shifts and settles to rest his head on her knee.

"Will, it was about the alethiometer. The book normally has to stay in the library, but she requested special permission to sign it out, and I got to read about the symbols.”

She falls silent, unsure what else to say next, and watches Pan’s tail flick from side to side before reopening the little pocketbook. “Oh, I spent the Michaelmas and Easter breaks in London, as an assistant to one of Dame Hannah's friends who's working in the archives at the Arctic Institute."

Her fingers grip the side of the book, "Dr Corera is an Arctic researcher. She's been studying the bears, but a lot of her research was based on Iofur Raknison's ways, which wasn't true to the real panserbjørne."

She snorts loudly, making Pan jump, and he flicks his tail across her leg in return. "So when I told her that it wouldn't be a good idea to take a crate of gold and jewels, she needed me to explain why bears didn't care for things like that. After I suggested taking a rare metal instead, like Greek steel, she sort of came around to the idea."

Abandoning the pocketbook to her lap once more, Lyra’s eyes search across the small corner of the garden for movement, something to address in the absence of him beside her. There is the soft bending of flowers under the breeze, the ripple of grass, and the familiar swish of the willow branches, but nothing else and so she turns back to the empty spot on the bench, shifting side wards and pretending to make believe a shadow, a hint of an arm or neck, anything at all.

"I asked her to take a message for me, to Iorek, and that I was going to go North someday, again, to see him, and Will, you'll never guess what-" She became breathless with excitement, "She invited me to come North with her the next time so travels!"

Her hands fly up, and she exhales sharply. "I'm working at the Institute this summer, and she'll be sending her research back, and I'm going to read all of it. I'm leaving tonight on the last airship to London, and then I'll get to wave her off. She's travelling up a big research ship that's going to be going all the way to the Pole. It's a lot different to travelling with Gyptians, I know that much."

"It's funny, we're so far away, miles and miles, from the North and it takes days to get there, but you're here, right here, and I can't see you or hear you."

Lyra smiles gently, the thought of seeing him warming her heart greatly, but then her smile slips, and falls. Beside her, Pan freezes, his tail still and paw outstretched to reach her, only she's lost in her own thoughts again.

It takes her a while to break away from the idea, and instead of shoving it away from her as she had done for a whole year, she decides to say it.

"But I know you're there, Will, I just know it."

xxx

Worlds remember the girl who paid the highest price, who unknowingly carried out a great betrayal and saved whole universes while trying to make amends.

Dust carries the message far and wide, immaterial but full of the faith that delivered it, and word spreads from mouth to mouth or with ink dipped and written with the feathers fallen from witches' daemon to be passed out to embassies across the world. It flies on icy winds high above the Arctic, and through jungles and barren wastelands too.

The Gyptians sing a song to their children as their boats rock gently along the waterways in the West. Those who sing have been touched by the story of the missing children, and others had been so unfortunate to have lost their sons and daughters to the gobblers and the child-cutters. They sing a song of love; the bond between a child and their daemon. It tells them to hold their daemon close, and to listen to their own hearts. Where the lullaby carries across the waters to reach the ears of landloper's children, they fall asleep to the weaving melody and know that the most precious thing in the world sleeps alongside them, with scales and fur and feathers.

In the far North, the panserbjørne roar a promise to the refreezing ice and the howling winds after their return to the homeland. Stepping out onto the snow, they vow; never be fooled once more, never let their traditions tarnish, never let their sky metal armour become dishonoured. They rebuild their palace under the guidance of their new king, their true king, and their deft claws work each piece of metal with the intention to pass their story down to all bear-kind.

They add a new etching across the cave's entrance to the King's Hall, the panserbjørne welcomes truth speakers in the memory of Silvertongue.

xxx

Will holds his hand up in the air and sticks out his finger, until it's aligned with the invisible line he imagines runs through the bench. Half is his, in his Oxford with its buses and cars, and the other half is Lyra's, with its witches and bear-kings and Gyptian boats puttering down the canals he walks along on his way home from school.

Above the invisible line across the bench he draws a circle with his finger tip, imagining a window to another world hovering in the air, imagining a knife with a more gentler blade; one that could split the fabric of the universe with a more delicate intention of bringing two hearts back together to make one whole.

Here in his imagination, the air ripples like water. Light refracts in on itself to turn silvery before parting like a receding tide slipping away from the shore, silent and peaceful. It gives no resistance and splits like a curtain, or mist unfolding, and behind is Lyra's face, full of immeasurable joy like his own.

It wouldn't be the most impossible thing in the universes, he tells himself, feeling the jagged edges of his heart.

Kirjava curls around his legs, passing through and under the bench. Then she hops onto the arm and sit beside him patiently. Her black fur is speckled with pollen from the flower beds and he reaches back a hand to brush it off her ears.

"Tell her, go on, I'll keep watch."

He doesn’t need the encouragement, not for a moment he’d waited all year for, but it helps. With a final swipe over his daemon's soft fur, Will watches her leap down onto the grass and slowly walk towards the bridge to guard his privacy in the far corner of the garden. His heart flutters, and he turns back to the empty side of the bench, that he knows is empty only in his Oxford, and thinks, Lyra, Lyra, where do I start?

"My mum asks about you. She wishes she could have met you. I don't even have a photo to show her."

Will pauses, feeling foolish just for even saying it aloud, even though he had practised in his bedroom, on his walks home from school, even while he was supposed to be doing his homework. He had waited all year to fulfil his promise to her; he would always come to the bench on Midsummer's Day, no matter what.

"We had the radio on in the kitchen, while I was doing the dishes. She likes to dry, so I have to wash up. Anyway, I heard a song..." He smiles to himself, feeling the warmth in his chest again with the tinkle of piano keys echoing in his thoughts. "It reminded me of you, and I turned it up so she could hear, and I told her, this, Lyra is like this!"

"So, there's that, I keep thinking of you, Lyra. I can't help it, and I don't think it'll ever change. I don't want it to, because I love you."

xxx

Mary Malone gives the mulefa's gifted seeds to a gardener who worked at the Botanical Gardens after she makes it back home. She doesn’t pass by often but when she manages to, she pops her head in and checks on them. He is a simple man, retired from a life of suits and briefcases, and more than happy to replace it all with a pair of muddy gardening gloves and a trowel.

Inside the greenhouse, the seeds turn to saplings, they thrive.

“They’re four inches tall now, Mary.” He tells her, tapping his feet along to the jazz wafting out of the radio.

He always leaves the radio on, no news, no talk shows, just music. By the time he reaches her, the song changes and he has to rejig his feet to match the new rhythm. “Doing alright, but I can’t compare it to anything, can I?”

She dips her head to take a look at the little shoots of green before tapping her nose and saying, “Trees. Big trees.”

“Fruit? Nut? Domestic? Exotic? I can’t tell at all.” The gardener asks, always unanswered, and then waves her off with a toothy smile as always before turning back to the small saplings. “Never you mind. A splash of water, and we’ll figure it out as we go along. A bit of tender, loving care is all anything needs, isn’t it?”

The years pass by.

They grow taller.

His son plants them in the three corners of the Botanical Gardens in his honour and the one closest to Magdalen Bridge flourishes.

xxx

Lyra travels North a few summers later, after she gets her permissions from the Master and from Dame Hannah. She leaves straight after Midsummer's Day with promises to be a responsible and mature young lady for the duration of her trip. It takes ages for the sun to set as the airship flies up to Edinburgh, and Dr Fiona Corera sleeps the whole way there while Lyra flips through the pages she carefully copied out of Dame Hannah's books on the alethiometer for studying purposes.

"What do you think, Pan?" She asks drowsily before she turns of the bedside lamp in their Edinburgh hotel.

"I think you'd better sleep now," says Pan, curled up at the top of her pillow.

Lyra rolls over onto her stomach and blows a puff of air onto his head, flattening the downy fur around his ears. "Come on, do you think any of it will have changed?"

It seemed to her that growing older meant that there was more room and more time to consider bigger questions, and often she found herself struggling to match them with answers, and after a moment she whispers into the dark, voice all fretful in another moment of doubt.

"Do you think Iorek will recognise me?"

"He's a bear, Lyra. If you can't lie to him, then obviously it means he'll know the truth. He'll know you." Pan trails off, and she falls fast asleep to the soft patter of rain on the windows.

A week later when she stands in front of the king of the bears, in all his majesty, she wonders why she was worried at all.

"Lyra Silvertongue."

He greets her with a hot puff of breath and dips his head so that she can embrace him. It's true, her arms are longer and she's taller, but all it means is that she can reach more of him. He looks older, sounds older, but no less kingly. The bears around him orientate themselves so that he is always walking ahead, always leading them, and she's in awe as she walks alongside him through the palace.

While Dr Corera sits among the bears working on their sky armour and fills notebook after notebook, Lyra and Iorek walk out onto the snow until the palace is small enough to be pinched between her fingers. She flops down onto the snow, and he settles down beside her to lend his warmth just as they had done so many years ago.

"You seem happy, Iorek." She declares, looking on at him.

"Bears are happiest when they are living free lives. We are free to hunt, and live here. Free to work our sky-armour. There is nothing more we need now that the ice has returned and there is enough to eat."

Lyra considers his words, and asks slowly, "Iorek, do bears ever miss people?"

There is a low grumble, and she disparages herself, thinking it's a silly question to ask Iorek, a king among subjects, who doesn't have a daemon who argues back or can be held close to his heart. Iorek, who doesn't understand human ties in the same way, because bears don't have friends in the same way.

"It is good to see you, child." He turns his head to tell her solemnly, and it warms her heart. She tips sideways to rest her weight against him and he rumbles again, "Tell me, who do you miss."

"A lot of people…" She wants to say, but knows that just the half of it. "Lee."

There's another gravelly rumble from under her back.

"Lee was the only human I considered a friend. He was as brave as a bear." Iorek tells her, and she recognises the pride in his voice because she feels it too. "Lee's time came. No matter what I feel now, it will never change, it is better to honor the memory."

She lets Iorek walk ahead on the way back, stepping in his paw prints to save her energy. Pan climbs up her neck to nibble on her ear when she's lost in her thoughts, and then he slips into her fur lined hood, just like old times.

"What do you make of that, Lyra? Did it help?"

She finds it a bit annoying when he already knows the answer, because Will isn't dead, he's still living in his world, and when she huffs, Pan seems to already know what to say, "You made promises to each other."

"Pan, they were easy to make, they were words! What else were we supposed to do, let Dust fall out of worlds? Never!" She breathes out harshly into the cold air. "It's harder than I ever imagined. I'm only human, and it hurts my heart every day when I wake up and remember that...I'm here and he's not, and I can't be where he is. What am I supposed to do with all my love for him?"

"You still promised." Pan's claws press against her throat, and she knows she'll live and die by her words, no matter the heartache, no matter the weight of her memories. "Anyway, you're not only human, you're a bear and a witch too...and whatever Dust made you."

xxx

In another world, far far away from Lyra's or Will's, Dust had been absent for millennia upon millennia. It was dark and cold, and entirely desolate. Life had not existed there in any sentient form for so long, the memories of the scents of flowers had been lost entirely.

It was as dead as a tomb until a small sprinkle of Dust found its way through. It followed an angel who had flown the furthest of them all. He swooped out through a window deep underground and pulled the two edges together to seal them shut. Dust stopped floating and falling away, and instead began to wind along an ancient and forgotten path, high in the skies above a canyon that had once been filled with the deepest, bluest water. It began to fall gently over the cracked, dry earth and where it landed, it coaxed out those long-forgotten instincts.

The grass returned first; small and persistent, and eternally pleased to soak up the Dust that continued to fall.

The angel remained there to tend to the garden, as angels did in days of old, and as all angels longed to do, before the Authority had bound them up in its control. It reaped the reward as the world bloomed, in a multitude of colours and forms, into a paradise fit for life again.

xxx

Mary speaks to Will soon after they return with an eagerness and her eyes fixed on the top of the fridge where her daemon sat, invisible to his eyes but not hers. ”It’s about seeing the things that are already there.” She tells him with the aim to encourage, and he takes the words to heart, more than he initially realises.

As the years pass, he finds it's like learning to use a new sense or muscle, because it's not like it stops working when he's not using it. Or that he can use it in only one way. When he helps an old lady up onto the bus, his hands brush against her wrinkled skin and he can feel her old bones, hollowed out and arthritic. He feels it in the same way he manages to get a glimpse of her daemon, a stumpy looking badger climbing up beside her.

When he sits on the bench to talk to Lyra the next Midsummer’s Day, the second thing he says to her is, "I'm applying for university, here in Oxford. I'm not going to leave the city, I've got mum to think about, and Mary too."

Together they had been reviewing as much information and research about Dust as they could. Mary had even published a few articles anonymously, but enough interest had been piqued by small scientific communities. Each of them would fit into a wider pattern, a lattice of knowledge that could help to explain Dust to people. He listens, more often than not, and when he can, he'd relate a small piece of practical information about how it felt; to use the knife, what it was like to be separated from his soul, and to be reunited.

Kirjava butts up against his leg and it makes him smile. When she curls against his foot, he's brought back to the thought of Lyra.

“I’m going to study medicine. It’s funny, it feels like I’m following in my father’s footsteps again, in a way..."Lyra, I've been learning something else too, and I keep trying, but I think it's like you learning to read the alethiometer again."

Will looks down at Kirjava and feels his heart clench, and he still tries anyway.

But he can’t see. He’s not practised enough or calm enough. Not when there was an electrifying rush in his blood just from returning to the bench, with the idea that she was there, in her Oxford, on the other side of the looking-glass.

He knows there’s a trick to it, just like feeling for a gap in the fabric of the universe and then splitting it apart. But the seeing would come with practise and although he knows they are worlds apart, it doesn’t feel as far away, not now.

xxx

In an Oxford not too unlike Will's, the cars zip down the streets to the city centre and a group of girls cross the street in front of the far side of the botanical gardens, pushing and nudging each other as the chatter. They pass a row of black railings in front of the gardens on their way to the high street and they barely break their stride because there is nothing worth noticing about this unloved corner.

Some years ago, there had been a volunteer gardener who had deweeded the flowerbeds and planted fresh bulbs each winter, but when it became harder for him to get about, he had to give it up.

So everyone passes by, and no one spares a second glance at the bench under the willow tree at the far end of the gardens, at the unruly, overgrown grass that spills out onto the weed lined path and the moss-covered walls.

Until one day they do.

And sure it's unloved, and the city council want nothing to do with it because there are potholes to repair and a million other concerns to take care of before they can turn their attention to a forlorn patch of garden, but it's fixable.

The girls start with the bench. They borrow an electric sander and use up a half-empty tin of outdoor wood varnish until it's almost new and glossy looking in the late afternoon spring sunshine. In the weeks that follow, they dig up the flowerbeds and do what they can for the time being, but by the turn of summer the garden truly comes to life, awash in flowers and greenery.

On Midsummer's Day, the willow fronds sway in the humid air and the girls bring picnic blankets stuffed in their bags along with armfuls of snacks and fizzy drink cans. In the winter, when everything is dusted in snow, they bring their boyfriends and girlfriends to the bench. Hidden away under frosted evergreen leaves, they exchange nervous mistletoe kisses under fronds with fairy lights strung up in the lowest branches.

Above them, Dust begins to fall more golden and heavier on the children and the adults in that little comer of Oxford, surrounding them in its gentle glow.

xxx

"Will, I applied for the scholarship, and I've got it. I get to study the alethiometer. It's all I've ever wanted; it feels like I'm finally getting things done."

It’s been years since she’s needed a pocketbook to hold her thoughts, and occasionally when she thinks back to it, she marvels at how her younger self had been unnerved by it. She sighs and tucks her hair behind her ears, leaning back far enough to swing her legs. It feels like rain in the air, and when she draws a breath there’s a metallic smell that makes her glad that she’s brought an umbrella along with her. The flowers around the bench face upwards, waiting for the raindrops to fall, but she had crossed her fingers on the walk over, hoping that it would hold out until the evening.

"Dame Hannah's shown me where I'll be working- in an office, with my own desk and everything! Her daemon is a marmoset. I think I’ve already told you that- He's so clever and quick, you should have seen the way he was moving across the bookshelves and pointing out all the books I'm going to have to read."

Lyra sighs a happy sigh and moves onto her big news, the news she had been waiting to share for the past two months.

“I’m going North again. Serafina sent me a letter. Isn’t that a funny thing to imagine, a witch writing a letter with a pen and ink." She pauses to consider the mental image again and it makes her grin wide at nothing and no one in particular. "I'm leaving later this evening. It's going to be an adventure, just like the ones we had."

Lyra falls silent, and then plucks up enough courage to speak words she had been afraid to say aloud this time around They had been weighing on her, always, but there was something about them that begged to be set free.

"I hope you're having adventures of your own. I hope they're marvellous and make your heart race, and you smile. I wonder if you'll be studying at a college in Oxford, or with Mary. Or if you're working. I tell myself that whatever you're doing...you're doing great things."

"I wish I could know if you're happy." Lyra brushes her fingers at the corners of her eyes, feeling Pan’s gaze on her. "I wish that you knew I'm trying, I really am."

She stays as long as she can, until the sun sets, and the night air made the hairs on her arms prick up. There is a rumble inside the darkening clouds above and it prompts her to stand. With a heavy sigh, she leaves the garden to pack quickly, and it feels as painful as ever to leave her heart behind.

While the journey North takes her mind off things, Lyra finds herself missing Fiona Carero's company. The last time she reached Trollesund, she had been in the company of Gyptians, and this time when she approaches the Embassy it is alone, but she’s awaited. At the front doors, she is met by a witch's human son, and he takes her further north across the taiga on a sleigh pulled by giant grey and white dogs who are as eager to race through the snowy landscape as she is. When night falls on the third day, Pan nestles in amongst the blankets and they watch the aurora ripple slowly above them.

"I think I saw a witch."

Lyra whispers it and he tips his head far back so she can scritch at the soft fur behind his ears.

"It was a cloud."

"No, I think it was a witch." She drops her chin down over his back so he's lightly tucked under her chin. “Pan, why do you think she asked us to come?”

“I don’t know Lyra, but you’re right.” He climbs out from under her chin and onto her shoulder, face turned up to the illuminated sky. “It’s an adventure.”

When they finally arrive, Lake Enara is everything and nothing like she had imagined. All of her books and all of the reading undertaken at the Arctic Institute pales in comparison.

Serafina greets her at the edge of the lake beside a fire built up her honour, as the clan queen’s invited guest. They sit and eat, and then as the dark velvet of night drapes over the lake and the surrounding woods, they take a walk between the oldest trees and Kaisa plods through the snow beside Pan to talk about the things daemons talked about.

Lyra's fur lined boots make the snow crunch, but Serafina's bare feet are silent as she explains how her sisters remain busy, and how some of those who had listened carefully to the words on the wind have learnt of a great work that needs to be completed and were flying across worlds to help the angels close all the tears.

Her heart thumps louder than ever and she dares not even to breathe, but then Serafina goes on to explain how even witches need to return back to their homelands to recover from crossing through the worlds and it feels like a knife in somewhere small and soft that needs to be protected.

Instead of speaking, Lyra continues to walk beside the clan queen and listens to her talk about the few brave witches who have ventured further than ever before, and how the farewells between sisters are considered differently now, more permanent with the threat of being trapped in a world where the next gossamer tear that needed closing may require years of searching.

Lyra comes to halt in the snow when she feels the guilt tighten in her stomach. "I wish I could fly like you. I could help to close the windows!"

Serafina regards her with an odd look and takes her hand, "Tell me, my sister, how is your work?"

"I'll be studying when I go back. There's books with all the knowledge of everyone who's ever learnt how to read the alethiometer, all of their notes and their attempts. It's lifetimes worth of work, they all grew old peering at the symbols and trying to work their way down the ladders."

Lyra grows still, fighting off a shiver, "It makes me scared if I think about it for too long."

"Why?"

"Because they died without being able to read it the way I could. All that studying and learning, by professors and doctors, people all across the world. And then there's me. Just me, and I could do it better than all of them without reading a single page."

She frowns at the silhouettes of the trees around her, because that’s how she feels some days; a tree in the middle of the woods and just as deathly quiet. "And then I forgot."

"Let me show you something." Serafina tells her after a moment and leads her by the hand to the darkest part of the wood where the tree trunks were wider than any she'd seen before.

It's still and quiet, yet beneath her feet Lyra knew that the world felt so alive.

They come to a stop in a small clearing and are greeted with a regal nod by an old witch with silver hair like moonlight, much older than Serafina. She moves slowly, like a dancer, and there are fine, faint wrinkles around her neck and hands, and at the corners of her eyes. Lyra doesn't stop the comparisons there as she notices Pan fixed stare on the witch's beetle daemon. Every other witch she had seen or read or heard about had a daemon in the form of a bird, a witch without a bird daemon wasn’t supposed to exist.

“Hello,” Lyra says, and was waved over to sit down beside her.

“This is Ilmatar Tuulisdottor, she is the oldest of my clan, and the wisest.”

The old woman tips her head at Serafina and offers a grin before pointing to a pile of sticks encircled by stone. Lyra grins back, and Serafina helps them to build a fire. Once it’s done, Lyra jams her gloves back on, letting the flames warm her fingers up again until she can feel them properly. After, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a half-loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese.

“It’s a bit stale, but it should be fine toasted.” She tells them both and Ilmatar waves her on.

As Lyra crouches down, there is a soft murmuring behind her. She knows there are two sets of eyes on her back and glances at Pan who merely raises his head from where he’s curled up by the fire, dozing happily in the warmth thrown out.

“They’re talking about you.”

“Fun.” She quips back, and hastily pulls the first piece of toast out before it burns.

They eat in comfortable silence, and she listens to the crackle of the fire. The smoke is light and drifts upwards slowly, reminding her of the days she could sit in the kitchens at Jordan by the giant fires and listen to the hubbub around her. It brings smile back to her face as she's enveloped in the peacefulness this quiet corner in the North holds. It feels so far from the horrors of Bolvanger or the wild tales her father brought back to her when she called him uncle and hung onto every word about the land he seemed to belong to.

She had come to know it, after all.

“Why are we here?” Lyra asks eventually while stooping to lift up another large log to toss onto the fire.

The two witches exchange a look, then Serafina stands and Ilmatar reaches into her small bag. She pulls out a curved piece of wood and pops it under her foot, bending it further to slip over a piece of string. Suddenly, Lyra recognises it as a bow and the wood gleams in the firelight. A strange urge passes over her, calling her to reach out and touch the wood, and it takes her a long, uneasy moment to realise it felt like how the alethiometer felt between her hands.

Her hand falters, and she feels weak until Serafina speaks to her, a guiding hand on her arm helping her to stand straighter.

“Ilmatar is unlike the rest of my sisters. She lost her cloud-pine branch many, many centuries ago, as a young girl. When her feet touched solid ground after her fall, her daemon settled to the form he is now, and her fate was sealed.”

They both looked down at the beetle that had inched its way across the log so that it was bathed in the firelight. “She is skilled with reading the skies in a way no other witch is, and for that reason I have asked for her help.”

“To do what?”

Serafina moves to stand behind Lyra, and places her hands on her shoulders, letting her tip back to look up at the sky. “Watch closely for no human before has ever seen this, and there are only a few living witches who observed this too.”

“Choose.” Ilmatar asks, speaking for the first time while drawing her bow back.

Her wrinkled fingers brush up against the apple of her cheek and hold the tension in the string. Lyra barely breathes as she turns to the thickest parts of the trees above them and points. Then, like a silent ghost, Ilmatar nocks her arrow and moves her lips quietly.

She says something Lyra can’t catch in a hurry of a whisper and then lets the arrow loose into the dark, clustered branches above.

A flock of birds take to the air in a rush of cries and flapping wings in a moment of chaos and disturbance. It is deafening and shatters the silence Lyra had fallen into so easily. Suddenly she feels as if she's stepped into a different North, the witches' North, where there is more to see than what first meets the eye. It takes her breath away and not even the weight of Serafina's hands on her shoulders can ground her as she watches the last of the wings and feathers melt into the night sky.

The old witch speaks when the trees fall silent again, and when she does Lyra takes her words to heart, and carries them through her life.

“We have great need for truth speakers in this world, Lyra Silvertongue, and for one who has seen so much, you have a duty to share that knowledge so that the rest of us are able to learn to understand and love what you already know.”

xxx

Dust waits for them each Midsummer's Day.

Like a fisherman, it is patient. It casts its net wide and far, and here at the second centre of world, it falls gentle against the love that calls to it.

Like the tide to the seashore, it rolls out to crash on distant shores, ever connected to the current that sent it there.

Underneath the willow tree in Will's Oxford, there is a bench. A little further from the path, there is a small sapling of a tree that has grown from a leafy sprout to a young tree. Protected by the old willow from the gusts and the heat of summer, it inches upwards, unfurling its emerald green leaves and flowering each spring. Each petal stretches out, drinking up the sun and the breeze to capture the falling Dust until there is a small, hard seed pod hidden within the branches.

They fall throughout the summer, each landing hard in the grass to be picked apart by the squirrels and birds. Some are taken home by children under the assumption they were collectable like acorns or conkers or pinecones. Where they land on concrete and crack, oil seeps out onto the grass and into the ground.

Then, in the deep auburn hues of autumn, laced with the last Dust-drenched leaf falls, the final seed pod of the first flowering drops.

And rolls.

And another path unfurls.

And atoms from the start and the Fall, and the two loose ends are reunited; Dust calls to Dust in a silent and ever-ringing chime pulling the walls of the world closer together until they’re more aligned than ever, and it bridges the last gap

xxx

Kirjava sits beside Will and nuzzles her black cheek against Will’s palm. It's a muggy afternoon, heavy with the promise of a fast-moving thunderstorm bringing fresh, cool air and he tips his head back to watch the grey clouds push on.

He feels a phantom breeze drift over his mind and closes his eyes, allowing it to sweep away his thoughts, gently tucking them back into place until the inside of his head felt like a lake at dawn, crystal clear and undisturbed.

Then, and only then, does he open them, seeing beyond plain looking.

In another Oxford, Lyra sits on the bench and toes at the dry dirt with Pan waiting patiently a little way off. They listen out for the bells to chime at midday, having watched the shadows grow short through the morning, and with the final chime ringing over the city, she speaks, “Will, I love you.”

It feels like the world has dropped out from under him.

Beside him, Kirjava leans against his thigh, claws digging into his skin with her surprise and elation but he has a firm grasp on his sight, and he looks across the divide and sees her.

Lyra shifts, leaning backwards and carries on. “Will...there’s something I want to try. Something Serafina taught me when I went North. She said that you would have been learning how to do this too, and that we might...one day be able to see each other.”

Although she’s hidden the thrill of it in her voice, in the stillness of her hands resting on her lap, it’s not far from the surface and the hint of a smile curls around her lips and erupts into a self-conscious snort.

“I was so cross with her for not telling me earlier. If she had told me when we’d left each other, or in any of her letters, I would have gone straight there. I would have followed her in through any of those tears in the universes the witches have been trying to close. I would have even tried to steal a cloud-pine branch to fly and catch her-”

She twists her arm, reaching for Pan and his nose bumps against the soft skin of her palm, centring her again until she’s settled again. There is no futility in it, or any kind of resignation, and when she speaks again she seems transformed into sereneness.

“She could tell. But we talked by the fireside until dawn, like the witches do, and Will, she looks the same and I felt like a child all over again.” Lyra whispers under her breath, hearing voices from beyond the bridge. “We talked and talked, and I realised she was right.”

When she sighs, it’s almost wistful, “If she had tried to teach me how to do this then... well, I wouldn’t have thought about anything else. I wouldn’t have slept, or eaten, or moved from here.”

Her smile returns, full of fondness and her eyes are golden in the afternoon sunshine. “I’ve been practising, Will. And I want to try.”

Settling her back against the bench, she quietens herself until the soft thump of her heart was the loudest thing around her and closes her eyes.

“Lyra!” Will breathes in awe from his seat at the other end of the bench.

She turns to the sound of his voice, and he’s staring at her with a wonder that would never fade from her memory until her dying day. She thinks she could die there and then, that her heart might explode from pure joy of seeing him again. All the years that had passed since she last saw him had unfurled back, and the force of it had pinned her to the spot.

Lyra could barely breathe, flicking her eyes away to look at the row of pansies growing on the edge of the garden to try and keep the stillness, the sight in her grip.

“Look at him,” Pan whispers, nipping at her ear. “Don’t waste this time now, Lyra. Not with another whole year ahead of us.”

“Lyra! Lyra! I’m practising too.” Will tells her, quick to get the words across. “Mary’s teaching me. Sometimes I can see people’s daemons. I watch them walking down the street. And I’ll keep practising. I’ll practise every day. So that, one day, we can speak to each other again!”

He blinks and then his eyes search for her, but the other side of the bench in his Oxford is empty once again.

When Lyra turns to look back at him, she sees his outstretched hand lying inches away from her own, and she edges her own closer.

And yet, they were barely apart, she always knew that he was there. “Serafina said it’d take a lifetime. But I won’t give up, and I know you won’t either.”

In the other Oxford, without thinking, without breathing, Will does the same, until the two of them are separated by millimetres and the gulf of entire worlds was just another impossible thing to conquer.

#his dark materials #hdm #his dark materials fanfiction #hdm holiday exchange #lyra x will #rupzydaisy #also on ao3

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whumpeinsamkeit · 5 years

Text

tw: referenced child abuse

Rowan steps into the living quarters, trying his best to keep his palms from sweating. He’s seeking out his father, which is terrifying because usually, it’s the other way around and almost always means Rowan is going to be punished.

“I fixed it,” he says, breathless. His father doesn’t look up from his book.

“Fixed what?”

Rowan swallows hard.

“Me.”

Silence. His father licks his finger and flips the page.

Look at him. Look at your son.

Rowan uses his telepathy, instantly regretting it. Must he rely on his magic so much? He despises himself, his powers. That’s how he was raised. Hated. Punished for something out of his control.

His father finally turns his head. When he sees Rowan, something changes in his eyes.

“Holy stars...” the man murmurs. His surprise gives Rowan hope. Maybe his trick will work.

“Do you see it, Da? I’m...I’m not a maji anymore.”

[[MORE]]

His father grunts and stands up from his chair, moving to look closer at his son.

“So you dyed your hair, eh?”

“It’s not dyed.” A lie, smooth and spoken without hesitation. His hair wasn’t colored by any natural means. Magic turned it from the color of fresh snow to an oaken brown.

“Your demon eyes. They’re changed too.”

Rowan holds back a flinch. Demon eyes. He forces a small smile. “I like them better this way, don’t you? They’re the same green as yours.”

This is how I would have looked if I hadn’t been born a maji.

The man reaches to take hold of Rowan’s hair. The boy flinches, expecting the same harsh grip used to drag him to the hand-carved mahogany cabinet where his father keeps the willow switch. Instead, he feels soft fingers combing through his hair. His father pulls his hand back, staring at it. Inspecting it, Rowan realizes, for traces of dye.

“I...I promise I’m different now.”

The man looks up sharply, glaring into his eyes. Is he looking for any flecks of amethyst he might have missed?

“Are you lyin’ to me?” he growls.

Rowan swallows around the lump in his throat, desperate tears welling up in his eyes. “No, Da. No, I’m just like you now. I’m...I’m normal.” Then, with great pain: “You don’t have to be afraid of me anymore.”

He feels a hand strike his cheek, heat rising across the skin. Be still, he begs his magic. It listens.

“I’ve never been afraid of you,” his father hisses, and Rowan waits for another slap.

He waits for that hand twisting through his hair, pulling at the roots as he’s dragged out of the room and cast into a corner. He waits for the sound of the cabinet opening, closing, and the sound of a switch thrashing through the air to strike him like it has so many times before. He waits for pain, more excruciating pain, so when his father pulls him into his arms and embraces him, he doesn’t know what to do.

His father’s shoulders shake and it takes a moment for Rowan to realize he’s crying. It takes every ounce of strength for him to wrap his arms around the man who has despised him for so long. His cheek still burns from the slap, but he ignores the pain.

“It’s okay, Da. It’s...everything’s okay.”

He stands there for a long, long moment, familiarizing himself with the feeling of his father’s arms wrapped around him. It scares him, finally experiencing this love he’s ached for since he was a small child. He wonders if it’s real, or if he’s only imagining it. At any moment he’ll snap out of this magic-induced daydream to find himself facing the wall, choking on a scream, tears streaming from his amethyst eyes as the switch slices into his bare back.

But he doesn’t because it’s not a dream. It’s real. As real as the magic still pulsing through his veins.

“I can’t believe it,” mutters his father. “I...I can’t believe it.”

Then he pulls away. Rests his hand on Rowan’s shoulder.

“Stay here,” he orders. He leaves the room, and Rowan hears the back door creak open. The boy doesn’t move an inch. He stays exactly where he is, as if his feet are made of heavy stone. He will obey. He’ll prove he is a good son, not a detestable maji.

Minutes pass. Rowan begins to doubt himself. Was it the back door? Or did his father open the cabinet? But if he did, why would he take so long just to get the switch? And Rowan had done so well too, spending hours in front of the mirror altering his strikingly maji appearance. Changing every strand of white hair, every fleck of purple in his eyes. And each time his father has punished him, he’s forced his magic down, training himself to stay in the present moment instead of letting his power take his mind to other places. He chose to feel every stinging slice of the willow switch with perfect clarity, reminding himself it would all be worth it if he could just keep his magic from protecting him from the pain.

But what good will all of his work do if his father has caught him in such a falsehood?

He wonders if this was too much, too obvious. His father is an intelligent man. No doubt he has seen right through Rowan. At this very moment, he must be deciding how to deal with his disappointment of a son. The willow switch would be too kind now. He hasn’t learned his lesson, so something harsher will be in order. A night in the stocks, how the servants are punished, would not be enough. He imagines he’ll be beaten with a whip, one with uneven shards of glass embedded in the cords, then locked in the cellar, left in the cold, damp and dark. Forgotten.

Rowan shudders. The more he thinks of all the horrible punishments his father could inflict, the more he wishes he hadn’t tried to pretend in the first place. Painful as the beatings were, he could take them. But he has never lied so greatly to his father, and the fear of being caught in such a horrible lie is overwhelming.

His heart begins to pound heavily in his chest, beating too fast, too fast, too fast. When he tries to breathe, it’s shallow and comes in soft gasps. He lied. He lied to his father, and nothing good will come of it. He’ll never get another chance.

“Rowan.”

His father has returned, a frown marking his face. It doesn’t look to be an angry frown, but Rowan convinces himself it’s the calm sort of look his father wears when he’s at his worst.

He takes a step closer and Rowan jolts backward. Pressing his back to the wall, he throws his arms up to shield himself. Tears stream down his cheeks. He shuts his eyes tight, whimpering as he waits for his father’s blows to fall upon him without mercy. He’s going to kill him. This time, he’s going to kill him.

“Rowan,” barks his father.

“Pl-please...d-d-don’t hurt m-me,” he begs, choking back sobs. “I’m s-sorry...f-for being a d-d-demon...I just...I just w-wanted you to love...love me...please, I’m s-sorry.”

“Rowan, stop crying.” He flinches as his father’s calloused hands grasp him by the arms and pull him up. “Look at me.”

With a soft whimper, he forces himself to open his eyes.

“You’re perfect now,” his father murmurs. He’s smiling. Smiling. At him.

Rowan swipes a hand across his wet face. “You...you d-don’t hate me?”

“Why should I hate you? Are you still a demon?” The man laughs and gestures toward the door. “It’s time for supper. The servants have set the table outside. Come.”

A moment passes before Rowan wipes his face and follows him outside. Lanterns hang from the rafters, orange flames mimicking the sun fading in the dusky sky. Servants stand nearby, ready to serve their master from the assortment of delicacies arranged across the table. Rowan feels their eyes lingering upon him and his altered features. Do they know? Can they see through his lie?

One of the servants slowly moves forward, setting an empty plate on the rug beside her master’s chair. Rowan hesitates. This is where he always sits, not at the table with his father, but at his feet like a housepet. His plate is never filled with rich foods, only table scraps. In Illesindam, maji are plentiful yet still respected by nobles. Anywhere else in Réaltra, to be in the presence of a maji is a great honor. But in his father’s house, Rowan is held even lower than the servants. The dirt under his feet is more respected.

But this time, his father waves the servant away. “No, Seriph. My son will dine at the table tonight.”

She nods and sets the plate on the table while another servant pulls out a chair for Rowan to sit in. Across the table, his father smiles. It’s so kind it makes Rowan’s heart sink inside him. “And every night after this.”

Rowan returns the smile, but his stomach turns. He’s gained his father’s affection by lying. His magic still swirls inside him, bitter and angry like the scars that line his back and arms beneath his tunic. Years of abuse, all for being maji. Years of torment forgotten by his father in an instant.

Lifting his fork, he spears a piece of seared dragon fruit. He locks eyes with his father and smiles again. Behind Rowan’s soft green eyes and brown hair is the same maji who has inhabited this body for nineteen years. The same maji offspring his father despises. And as he smiles, a single thought forms in his mind.

I hope you’re happy now.

#whump #whumpblr #mine #tw abuse #my ocs #rowan #backstory #masking #past trauma #i liked rowan a lot #so i gave him a backstory #so...yeah

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mimiplaysgames · 5 years

Text

the stars bear witness

Terraqua Week Day 2: Future Masters

Summary: Underneath the responsibilities of Keyblade Mastery are two adults who are still figuring out what to do. Terra and Aqua sneak away for a quiet moment together.

Notes: Today is the day - this was supposed to be my Terraqua Zine piece but I scrapped it for another idea. It’s given me plenty of grief but I’m glad that I can dust it off and finally share it. I hope it’s enjoyable! @terraquaweek

Read on AO3

Some nights, like tonight, are stronger than the friends I have with me.

There’s a place deep in the woods, right by the riverbank, were the Master used to meditate. He believed the energy there gives us second chances - something about the way the water strolls without a care to look back or to know where it’s going. Right now, it sounds like a fantastic idea.

When I say I want to go, Aqua doesn’t bat an eyelash even though it’s the middle of the night; it’s late enough that we both know sleep has left long ago and shut the door behind it. She’s more than ready to peel herself off the most boring book in the library and her eyes have already frozen themselves open.

I get why she’s taking her teaching duties so seriously, but I don’t see the point in making it that much harder to be awake for her lessons.

In spite of that, she gives me a lazy smile, and invites herself. “I know you want me to go with you, anyway,” she says, and it’s completely true. I used to get so annoyed at her for reading me so easily.

We whisper and tip-toe across the castle, even though it’s humongous and there’s no way the other students would hear us. I know this for a fact. I know because I can hear their heartbeats, doors away, slowing down as they fall into slumber. That sounds completely crazy, I know - it’s a power that stayed with me since my days in darkness. I’ve been a literal bodyguard on behalf of anyone who used me this way for over a decade, and so… the skill is burned into me. Aqua doesn’t know yet, and no, I’m not proud.

Yet for some reason, I can’t bring myself to speak to her at a normal volume and tell her that they’re soundly sleeping when she’s darting looks around to see if we bothered anyone. She takes my hand when the cold breeze nips us, and I lead her down a trail that sneaks far away from the security of the training grounds.

We used to hold hands like this as kids: always stay together and keep each other safe, per the Master’s rules. I can’t lie, I’m glad we haven’t dropped this habit even though we don’t need it anymore.

Or maybe I really do need it. I never wanted to go alone, and… I guess there’s always that one possibility something might go wrong.

Remembering what I’m capable of almost makes me want to cancel this night out, tell her to go back inside and try to sleep as I walk it off into the forest, where the lanterns don’t shine.

But I know her, and she hates conversations like this.

She’s stubborn too, conjuring herself a little companion, an orb of light, to lead us the way into the ticket so we don’t get lost. It drips dotted sparkles on the ground, like a pathway back home when we’re done. Very handy. It’s almost like she nearly expected me to object on her behalf, because I know the dark isn’t good for her, and she’s already nipped the conversation before it can happen.

Yeah, it’s good that Aqua is with me. She’s usually the smarter one - usually, when she’s not mad. Despite her expertise, I’d say she’s probably fire where I’m icy. She’s soft when I’m rigid, understanding when I’m short-sighted. She’s light when I’m darkness. When I’m blind, she sees.

We approach the river hidden by weeping willows, where logs wait for us to sit and watch the ripples stroll by. There’s more than a million lanterns in the sky to see out here, but I think I now realize I’ve never needed one to guide me back home when I have her.

It’s nice, just being away from the castle and be… us. Terra and Aqua, instead of respectful Keyblade Masters who are admired and perfected in the minds of others.

Masters… I start talking about the Master, how he said the stars keep watch over us. It’s what keeps us all connected through a stronger light. The three of us believe that he’s up there somewhere, watching what we’re doing right now.

“He used to say that if you cried out here, under the stars, we’d be able to hear you from the other side of the mountain,” I say.

“That’s right, I completely forgot.” Her whisper gives out, shivering until it makes sound. Her fingers are locked with mine, and her gaze travels somewhere else. Whatever she’s remembering is a happy thought. “I’m glad you haven’t changed.”

Of all the things she could have said, I’d never understand what possessed her to say that.

“You know what I mean,” she corrects herself when she sees my face. “I’m glad you remember these things. It makes me feel like I’m back home.”

“You mean, you don’t feel like-?”

“It’s not the same.”

“Yeah,” I sigh, “it’s not.”

When it’s this quiet between us, I hear the crickets. I can even feel them rub their wings together.

“Well,” she says with a kick in her voice and a squeeze of my hand. I hear how proud she is of herself for being a teacher. “Ready to practice?”

No, thank you.

“Sure.”

It’s a good distraction for her, giving me private lessons. No one really tries to treat her any different, and certainly Aqua would prefer to befriend our students. At the same time, in the classroom, she is Master Aqua, Survivor of the Realm of Darkness.

But when Aqua has her mind set on something, it’s tunnel vision, and there’s something nice about that when I’m unsure.

It’s probably why she encourages me to do it here, away from the scrutinizing glare of the castle walls in a forest that doesn’t care what our names are. Here, there’s no talk about how to define a Keyblade Master, or what our next missions are and how long we’ll be separated.

Straddling the log underneath us, Aqua holds out her hand, her glowing orb as white as a pearl hovering above her palm.

I ask her for the third time if she’s okay with this.

I don’t know if she ever tires of reassuring me, but she does again with no complaints.

I can’t really compare to how she’s so willing to face the darkness despite what she’s been through. She’s braver than me.

What I can say for sure is that we’ve never once considered there would be a day when my hand would hover above hers like this, that I’d will darkness to pour out of it slowly, skating the surface of her light, its tendrils wrapping it in a small embrace.

Eerily, it feels like brushing her cheek, or rubbing her palms. Whatever I’m touching feels as real as holding her. Which terrifies me.

The point is to cover the orb entirely without smothering or destroying it. But it’s an accident that happens too frequently, like I hurt her without meaning to, even though she keeps saying she’s not in pain.

It happens because her light is vivid and powerful, and I have to exert a tremendous force just to do a decent job of covering it, and I always do too much.

I hate it when I do that.

I hate that I still have darkness.

Aqua wants me to stop feeling ashamed over it, but she doesn’t understand what a hard request that is. I can’t not feel ashamed, and of course I stop before I even try.

“Terra,” she says when the tendrils let go, when I draw the energy back into my hand and pull away. “I don’t want to push you but…”

“I know.” We all have darkness. We all have the capability of getting swallowed by it. Since it will stay with me forever, might as well be at peace with it.

After all, if I don’t ever want to hurt her or Ven again, it’s something I have to control properly.

Her other palm rests on the back of my hand, leading it back over the orb and she keeps it there, sandwiched in-between her touch. I like it too much to tell her that it’s distracting.

Then of course there’s that nagging need at the back of my mind that wants to impress her, that wants to prove myself so I stop thinking about what her touch feels like and try again.

I hold her with my other hand. It’s palm on dorsal on palm on dorsal, like we need to delicately contain the light and darkness in-between, like what we hold in our hands is a safe space for me to make mistakes, to make her light flicker, to make darkness spit and burst out from the sides. As long I don’t destroy what she has, I can find some way to sleep without feeling like shit about myself.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she says to me.

There’s nothing to be afraid of. She says this to herself each and every time before she walks into a dark room when she thinks no one can hear her… when she thinks I don’t notice how her shadow quivers.

“The castle is safe,” I reply and she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “I can’t say the same for myself.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Maybe I am. “There’s more to it.”

If there’s anything I appreciate about Aqua, it’s how she doesn’t let me go. It’s how she waits for me to finish without prodding. She knows me, she knows I’m scared to say what’s next.

So I start the only way I know how.

“There’s a rabbit too terrified to move out of a hedge back there.” I point behind me, listening to the escalated heartbeat hiding in that bush. “Let’s see, there’s an owl watching for prey and it doesn’t care we’re here.” I nod my head towards the direction across the river, where the shadows are very still.

The more I speak, the harder her stare becomes. I speak with ordinary words but nothing is making me sound like a normal person.

“What are you talking about?”

I breathe first. It does shit to calm me. "I can tell where everyone's shadows are. I can feel them move." It takes a second to realize that I'm staring at our fingers, where darkness slips through the cracks because it's too intimidated by the light underneath. "Think of it as a leftover tip from the Thing."

The Thing, of course. The other Keybearers call it the Guardian but I've never felt like I did a good job with such a title. We've talked about the Thing many times, and I'll hear stories of how the others came across it, and how it stalked them during fights, and I simply get too tired to even broach the subject anymore. I don't know why I even bring it up now. This darkness comes from the Thing and I would rather scrub myself clean of it.

But she laughs, and I swear my heart forgets to beat. "Is this what Ven meant when he said it was impossible to sneak up on you?"

“Did he seriously say that?”

“Yeah,” she sniffs. “He doesn’t understand how you always know where he is when he hides.” She hums, like she’s grateful for the laugh. “He thinks I’m crazy for not noticing but I thought he was exaggerating.”

“He wasn’t.” Thinking about him automatically makes me think about rolling around, about excited conversations and Chirithy patiently waiting on the edge of the bed. “Right now, Ven’s not even sleeping. He’s just talking to Cheers.”

“Is that right.” Sounds like he’s going to get the surprise of the morning when she’ll bug him about procrastinating on his beauty rest.

She takes a moment to think, a small smile breaching her face. “So, when I ask you if there is something creeping around the castle...?”

“There’s really nothing.”

She smiles, gripping my hands harder. Tears fall, like she’s been told that she’s going to survive. Her eyes thank me. Wow, I never really thought about it, if I did that much good for her.

“Why are you still so hard on yourself, though?” Her smile fades away.

There’s a thousand easy answers to that. “Because I don’t want to have this. Everyone else gets to grow up as typical Keyblade Wielders but…”

She nods.

“I also have an unwanted gift from the darkness.” At first she doesn’t look at me when she says that, her smile morphing from its temporary joy to a familiar melancholy.

I wonder if she knows how sad she sounds all the time.

She lets a hand go free, finding its way to her chest as she flutters her eyes closed. Suddenly I’m reminded of her first magic lessons, when I thought it would take her forever to cast Fire because she needed to take ten minutes to concentrate before even trying.

Now, I can’t gauge how much time passes by in silence before something finally happens. A cold, humid wind trickles by us, despite that it’s summer.

Here I am, vulnerable and unprepared with my legs wide over a log, and I’m surrounded by many Aqua’s, her orb of light almost shedding through them. Most of them look down on me, angry, disappointed, confused, sad. As sad as she sounds a lot of the time.

These phantoms have no shadows, so to me they don’t exist even though I can clearly see them. They’re scary.

When it’s more appropriate, I’ll joke that the only thing creeping around the castle is her.

“I can’t control them,” she explains quickly, and I hope she’s not assuming that I’m taking their stares personally (I am). “I can’t even make them move.”

I shrug. “They’re pretty badass.”

Aqua snorts. “You always have a way of making me feel better,” she says and I’ve never realized.

When she lets go of them, they swiftly disappear, but the cold lingers and it almost makes me suspicious that they’re still around, despairing about things she won’t talk about. Like there are thoughts she keeps secret.

“I never meant to make you sad,” I say. We’ve talked a little about what the last twelve years were like for her. I know where those phantoms come from.

“You don’t,” she says with such confidence just to remind me that she doesn’t blame me for anything and I almost want to force her to.

To punish me or get angry with me. To stop kissing me goodnight or confirm to me that the Master must be so disappointed, wherever he is. But she never does. Why not?

“Why not?” I blurt out.

At least she’s smiling again. “All I’ve ever wanted was to have you back. I mean, I’m angry, yeah. I am. But I feel better when you’re around. I need that.”

She scoots closer to me, the smell of her shampoo with blends of vanilla and lavender in my face. The white sheen of her orb makes her eyes bluer.

“Terra, I’m glad you’re here. It’s spotty, sure. I always feel bad when you stay awake just to help me sleep but... we’re Masters together. Just like we wanted.”

It’s my turn to snort. “I don’t mind staying up, obviously.”

When her smile reaches her eyes, that’s when I think she’s prettiest. “I don’t either.”

I do mind it when she leans away from me when I try to kiss her.

“The stars are watching,” she says, like a teacher bringing the entire class’ attention to shame one student.

I don’t have a good enough retort, so I huff. Think about the usefulness of my foreign, unwieldy powers. If this is the way she wants me to kiss her, so be it, I’ll get the tendrils moving again to cover her light.

“We should try some pranks on Ven,” I whisper.

“Between my clones and your honing abilities-”

“It’d be hilarious.”

“See, you haven’t changed.”

“Excuse me?”

“Twelve years later, and pranks still make you smirk like a child.”

“Ven deserves it.”

“... I’ll only deny that a little bit.”

I don’t say out loud that I’m grateful for her - I really should work on expressing myself better, and I only hope she knows.

Aqua has always been good with magic but it’s a special sort when she makes me forget about what worries me despite the fact that I can’t heal from this.

I snigger about the darkness with her for a simple night in the woods and it’s suddenly a miracle that I can wrap her light in a black veil, like it’s no big deal. A hovering, black orb as deep a hole in space with all the energy locked inside, floating in between our hands. It’s hard work, yes, and I tremble from the effort, but now she wants to see how long I can keep it up.

I’ve forgotten how dark it is out in the wild.

But she’s like a star, and they shine best in a night like this.

They’re too far away to really give me anything to see, but she’s close enough that I slowly make out the blue in her eyes.

One simple kiss is never enough and always leads to a second, a third.

I let go of the veil to hold her face, her sheen blinding after several seconds of being caressed by the darkness, bright enough to stop us from seeing the stars.

#terraqua #terqua #terraquaweek #kh fanfic #terra #aqua #kingdom hearts fanfiction #terraqua week #OH. MY. GOD.#i'm so nervous about sharing this one you have no idea #my fic

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