#with her i met only two real life people who know about bastille

[theunknownintrowert]

ohmygosh ohmygosh ohgooooosh another one colleague has listened to bastille in the past and now when i started to talk about them she said that it makes her remember good times and that she wanna listen to some of their songs again oh myyyyy

[linguinis-mansion]

Pleaseeee tell me about your backstory for Renata. What was her childhood like and how did she end up at Gusteau's? What was her personality and interests? Who were her friends and who were her enemies? How did her relationship with Gusteau go, from beginning to middle to end? And what did she do when she discovered she was pregnant? Did he ever know about it? What did she do for a living and how did she die? What kind of mother was she? I'm sorry if this is too much I'm just inordinately interested in this character we never see sjwjsjehdgs.

SOMEONE IS ASKING ABOUT RENATA? MY BABY GIRL?!! oh anon, you've come to the right person. For years I have obsessed over who Renata might have been and gotten so attached to her despite us knowing NOTHING about her from what we see in the movie.

Should probably put this under a cut because it is LONG. But you asked for ALL the details, so I'm gonna give you the wHOLE STORY.

Let me preface this by saying that back in the day, I had this weird obsession with trying to make everything ~connected~ and this was part of why my old fic ended up so convoluted. But one of the things I just can't let go of to this day was the idea that Renata was actually raised by Anton Ego's older sister Maura, who ran a prestigious boarding/finishing school for girls in Paris. (May or may not have been inspired by Madeline, lol)

Renata Marieta Linguini was soft-spoken, well-mannered, and shy, with a sarcastic sense of humor and a feisty and opinionated side, despite being mostly reserved and quiet. She loved to write and journaled extensively, she was a terrible cook but could always make an amazing pot of macaroni and cheese, always wore knit sweaters or cardigans and a pair of red Chuck Taylor sneakers, and her favorite band in the world was Journey. She loved her son Alfredo more than anything else in the world. She had him at the young age of 19 and wanted to give him the best life possible despite being a young, single mother.

Her parents were wealthy owners of a historical and expensive piece of real estate - a mansion built in the 17th century in Paris by the Linguini ancestors and passed down through the generations. (peep the origin of my username, haha) This was the building used for the finishing school. Renata's parents passed away in an accident when she was a baby, and Maura took her in and raised her alongside the other girls she taught at the school. The girls were from all parts of the world including America, and Renata ended up adapting an American accent from growing up around many American girls. Maura and her brother Anton were not close at this time. They had gone their separate ways after Anton became a professional writer, and she a teacher. Anton knew Maura was caring for an orphan girl but did not know much about her, which is why later on he did not recognize Alfredo despite the fact that his mother was raised by Anton's sister.

Growing up in a finishing school for girls, Renata was very sheltered and controlled, so there was always a part of her that wanted to get out into the world and live a fun-filled, carefree life. She was too cautious and fearful of the world to fully live that out, but her best friend Larousse was her opposite and always doing something crazy. (Yes, the same Larousse from the kitchen, I'll explain!) While he was in cooking school as a young adult, he met his bubbly, charismatic colleague Auguste Gusteau, as well as a couple other chefs who would eventually become the original chefs working in Gusteau's restaurant. Larousse introduced Renata to Auguste and the two hit it off immediately, and their relationship became very serious very quickly. They were both young, just out of school, and wanted to experience the world together. Although Gusteau was still in cooking school, he spent a lot of time traveling and learning about food from all over Europe, and Renata went on many of these trips with him. His outgoing and enthusiastic personality brought out the playful, adventurous side in Renata, and they were very much in love with each other and wanted to spend their life together.

This was just before Gusteau would officially start his career. He was, at that time, learning under the direction of Skinner, an experienced sous chef who saw Gusteau's potential and charisma, but secretly wanted to exploit it for his own gain. Skinner did not like Renata at all and felt he was distracting Auguste Gusteau from their plan to open a restaurant and build a world-famous menu and brand. At the time Renata found out she was pregnant, it was just around the same time the restaurant opened, and the two had actually already separated on good terms due to pressure from Skinner. (They still loved each other, but it was one of those things they felt was necessary at the time, perhaps praying one day they could reunite.) Not wanting to draw any negative attention or bad press to Gusteau, Renata never revealed the identity of her baby's father; only a few of the people closest to her knew, even if she never actually told them. She ended up living a quiet life in Paris with her son, still maintained her friendship with Larousse, but distanced herself from Gusteau so as not to cause any further problems for him or his career, even though it broke her heart to do so.

Being newly-single with a child made it difficult for her to start life on her own. She received some help from Maura to secure a place to live and get child care for her son, so she could find a job. She ended up taking a job at the school library where Alfredo would attend classes, so they went to school and came home together every day. The two were very close, and Alfredo subconsciously took on the role of a caretaker for his mother when he became old enough to realize that raising him alone was difficult for her at times. Alfredo did not have many friends, and neither did Renata, but she always did the best she could to make him feel special and loved on his birthday when no one from his class would show up, and Bastille Day was their favorite day of the year spent together celebrating the Parisian festivities.

In her late thirties, Renata unexpectedly developed ovarian cancer and had to quit working, leaving her teenage son desperate to find jobs to keep them afloat. Alfredo cared for her while she was sick and took her to her cancer treatments, which meant he often had to call out of work, and made many of his employers frustrated. Most of the time he ended up getting let go of jobs for this reason. Renata contacted Larousse near the end of her life and made sure he knew that she would be sending Alfredo his way, and left Alfredo with the letter for Skinner since she knew he would most likely turn her son away. After she passed away, Alfredo could not afford to keep their home, and was forced to move into a small apartment while he scrambled to keep his head above water. Despite Renata's family being wealthy, they had left her no inheritance, so she had nothing to pass on to Alfredo besides a small amount she had set aside for his college, but he ended up having to live off of it instead, until he landed the job at Gusteau's.

I still feel like there is SO MUCH I left out, like I have extensively fleshed out this character if it wasn't apparent already. Thank you anon for reminding me of how much I love Renata and how much I want to go back to editing some old fic pieces about her haha

[king-finnigan]

Looking Up For Heaven - Oneshot

Summary: The first time you touch your soulmate, you remember things - the other life, people call it. Jaskier's heard the stories of this other life: witches, wizards, magic, medieval but not quite medieval. His flatmate, Yennefer, has already met her soulmate, and remembers the other life, but Jaskier is still not sold on the idea, and would rather not be a part of this bullshit.

Pairing/Warnings: Geralt x Jaskier, Modern AU, Soulmate AU

A/n: Look this is either the most creative fic I’ve ever written, or just one big pile of flaming garbage, that’s honestly up to you to decide. Title and idea from Glory by Bastille (and my fav song ever!). As always, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy, and don’t hesitate to leave a like and a comment if you feel like it!

You can also read this on AO3! M A S T E R L I S T

Jaskier sighs as he stares at his reflection the mirror, hand threading through his hair. It’s slightly greasy and he remembers he forgot to take a shower today. Again. For the third day in a row. Goddammit.

He sighs again, looking at his flatmate in the reflection of the mirror, as she pulls her raven curls up into a ponytail. “Do I really have to go, Yen?” He ignores how whiny he sounds, instead leaning on the wash basin with his forearms, chin resting on them as he pouts at Yennefer’s reflection.

She scoffs from where she’s sitting on the edge of the once-white bath, tying her ponytail with one of her girlfriend’s scrunchies, the bright yellow a stark contrast with the rest of her exclusively black outfit. “Yes, you have to go, Julian. You promised a week ago that you would, and Triss will be really upset if you don’t show up.”

She gets up from the side of the tub, taking the half step towards the wash basin, pushing him aside. “Scoot, idiot.” She takes her eyeliner from the open cabinet next to the mirror, uncapping it, leaning her elbow next to the sink as she slowly, deliberately, traces a line over her eyelid. “I swear to god, if you make her sad, I will throw all your food in the trash and bend the needle of your record player.”

He frowns, leaning back against the edge of the sink, arms crossed in front of him. “Fine, whatever, I’ll go, then. Just don’t break my record player. It took me five weekends at bloody Starbucks to afford it.” He suppresses a shudder at the memory of working customer service.

Yennefer finishes her eyeliner, grabbing her mascara from the cabinet. He takes the eyeliner from where it’s lying on the sink, twirling it in his hands, as she rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t even know why you want a record player so badly, but okay. You know you can just stream music, right?”

He scoffs. “Oh, please, everyone knows vinyl sounds better than digital.”

She side-eyes him, eyes widening for a bit as she looks at her reflection again. “Okay, grandpa, if you say so.”

He sighs again, still twirling the eyeliner in his hands, as she finishes her mascara, pulling her ponytail taut again – even though it’s not sagging in the slightest. She finishes her makeup with a dark lipstick, before casting a last wink at her reflection and turning her back to the mirror, leaning against the sink, next to him. “Alright, what is it, Julian? We’ve been living together long enough for me to recognize an ‘I’m so sad please ask me if I’m okay’-sigh when I hear one.”

He side-eyes her for a moment, but she simply stares at him, dark-painted lips pursed, violet eyes stubborn, waiting for him to speak. After a few moments he sighs again, relenting under her unforgiving gaze. “Fine, I really don’t feel like going to this party.” He looks at her, cutting her off before she can scold him again: “Yes, I know Triss would be upset if I didn’t show up, but, like, I don’t know anyone there, and you know I hate crowds.”

She rolls her eyes. “Here’s an idea: maybe if you made some fucking friends for once, you’d actually know someone at this party. You really need to go out more, you can’t just sit in the flat all day, pretending to study.”

He gapes at her. “I do study, like, all the time! Hell, I have two essays due next week that I need a lot of time for. And if I didn’t go to the party, I’d actually be able to finish them in time.”

She scoffs, shaking her head slightly as she looks at the once-blue tiles of the wall opposite them. “Yeah, sure. I know you procrastinate, Julian. A lot. You’re just using these essays as an excuse to stay at home. We’re both well aware you wouldn’t do shit.”

He sighs, throwing his head back a bit. “Okay, fine, maybe I would spend all evening bingeing Netflix. Still, that’s a hell of a lot more fun than standing in the corner of some bar all evening. I love Triss, I really do, but I’m not willing to spend all those hours bored out of my mind and getting panic attacks when there’s too many people.”

She sighs, bumping into his shoulder slightly. “I know, alright? I know you can’t really talk to people and that crowds make you anxious, and I know that this evening is probably going to be a waste of time for you, but you promised, okay? You promised Triss that you would be there and she’s really looking forward to seeing you again. She’s going to be really disappointed if you don’t show up.” Her voice drops to barely above a whisper. “And so am I. You really need to go out more, Julian, you can’t spend the rest of your life cooped up in this apartment. You’re never going to make other friends or meet your soulmate if you sit inside all day.”

He scoffs at his feet when she mentions soulmates, but she simply ducks her head to meet his eyes. “Please, Julian, just go to this one party. If not for yourself or Triss, then for me.”

He sighs again, throwing his head back, looking at the mouldy ceiling. “Fine, fine, I’ll go. If only to stop you nagging.”

She laughs. “Oh, please, I’m never going to stop nagging. Speaking of,” she looks at him, one perfect eyebrow arched up, “you seriously need a change of clothes before we leave.”

He frowns at her. “As opposed to changing my clothes after we leave?” He laughs as she smacks him in the back of his head.

“You know what I meant, idiot. Seriously, at least wear some jeans, you look like you live in your mum’s basement and play Fortnite all day.” She gestures at his sweatpants, and he rolls his eyes. “And at least wear, like, a hoodie. It’s cold outside and that thin-ass shirt won’t be enough to keep you warm.”

He rolls his eyes, but pushes away from the sink anyway, calling over his shoulder as he walks to his bedroom. “Fine, alright! Jeez, mum. What’s next? You’ll tell me I have to comb my hair and part it in the middle so I can bedazzle my soulmate with my charming good looks?”

He rummages through his closet, pulling out the least crumpled jeans out from the pile of unfolded clothes, as he hears Yennefer letting herself fall on his unmade bed. “Actually, yes. I think you’d look dashing with a middle part and you’d be sure to instantly woo your soulmate once you meet them.”

He snorts as he pulls off his sweatpants, wiggling into the slightly too skinny jeans. “I don’t think I’m going to meet my soulmate, like, ever.” He struggles with the button a bit, sucking in his stomach. “Don’t think I want to.”

Yennefer looks at him, frowning a bit. “Why not? It’s such great fun, honestly. Like, you get all these memories of this cool-ass other life, and you get an added bonus of, you know, having a soulmate. Like, me and Triss didn’t even have to date, I immediately got this amazing girlfriend. It’s a win-win, my dude.”

He scoffs, rummaging through the pile of clothes at the bottom of his wardrobe again, pulling out a light blue hoodie with great difficulty. “Okay, first of all, you got lucky with Triss. There are a ton of people who end up hating their soulmate.” She shrugs, snorting as he struggles to pull the hoodie over his head. “Secondly,” he continues, when he has finally managed to put it on, “why would I want to know about the other life? Huh?”

Yennefer scoffs, as he sits on his desk chair, pulling on his Vans. “Because it’s cool as fuck. Did you know I was a witch in the other life? So was Triss, by the way.” She sighs, looking at her phone. “Though, I do miss being able to portal everywhere, that was really tight.”

He pulls his leg up, tying his shoelaces. “See? I don’t want to miss something I’ll never be able to get back. Also, your other life was cool, sure, but what if mine sucks, huh? What then? What if I died, like, the most stupid death humanly possible? And that’s another thing,” he continues to rant, as he ties the laces of his other shoe, “why would I want to remember how I died? That sounds like shit. Like, you remember how you died in the other life, that’s not a fun memory, right?”

Yennefer shrugs. “I mean, I got stabbed and fell off a tower in the middle of a battle, that’s all I remember. Didn’t hurt that much, really. And I’m sure you were an alright person in the other life. Probably royalty, since you’re so unbelievably stuck-up.”

She laughs as he flips her off. “Piss off, I’m serious. I don’t want to know about the other life. People keep saying you’ll really find your true self when you first touch your soulmate and remember, and they’re all like ‘ooh, you don’t know real happiness until you experience the glory of meeting your soulmate’ but that just all sounds like such bullshit. What’s wrong with this life? Why does everyone say it’s not enough? It’s enough for me so far.”

He sighs, gritting his teeth as he stops his rant, cheeks hot with annoyance. Yennefer simply stares at him from where she’s still lying on his bed, one eyebrow pulled up. It’s quiet for a few moments, until she speaks: “Are you done? Cause it’s nine thirty and we should leave right about now if we want to be fashionably late and not just plain late.”

He sighs, rolling his eyes, grabbing his phone from his desk. “Yeah, let’s go.”

҉    ҉    ҉

“Oh my god, Julian, you made it!” Triss’ voice is loud and clear above the noise of the people at the bar, as she nearly skips her way over to him and Yennefer, pulling him into a tight hug. He’s barely able to return it before she holds him at an arm’s length, beaming at him. “I’m so glad you’re here!”

“Hello, I’m here too,” Yennefer says next to him, and Triss laughs as she pulls her girlfriend into a short kiss.

“Oh, please, Yen, you’re so needy.” The two of them smile at each other and Jaskier clears his throat, kind of uncomfortable. He turns to the bar right next to them, ordering a tequila, only half paying attention to Triss and Yennefer’s conversation.

“So,” Yennefer asks, “who’s here?”

Triss looks around, pointing to different people as she names them. “Mostly friends from uni,” she waves at a group of people in one of the corners, “not a lot of people. Only Sabrina, Fringilla, and Anica. Istredd is still on his way, though.”

She turns her head left and right, stretching her neck a bit to see over the crowd of regular pub-goers. “I invited Geralt as well, but I haven’t seen him yet.” She shrugs. “He might not even show up, though, he said he’s not a big fan of parties.”

Jaskier takes the tequila from the barman, paying before he turns, sipping his drink as he leans his back against the bar. He sees Yennefer shoot him an uncomfortable look, something he can’t quite place, before she turns back to Triss. “Uh… who’s this Geralt-guy?” She glances back at him again for a second. “Haven’t heard of him.”

Triss blinks, visibly confused for a second, before some sort of realization dawns in her eyes. “Uh… oh, yeah! I uh… met him yesterday in the uni cafeteria. He was sitting all by himself and he looked kinda lonely so I joined him.”

Jaskier looks up, snorting a bit. “You sat with a total stranger and then invited him to your birthday party because he looked lonely?”

Triss blinks again, bright smile faltering a bit. “Uh… yeah, I guess I did. Anyways, he’s a really nice guy, I think you should really meet him, Julian. You know, give him a chance?”

He frowns. “What do you mean ‘give him a chance’?”

Yennefer clears her throat, she and her girlfriend sharing another strange look Jaskier doesn’t really understand. “At being a friend. You seriously need to make some friends, remember? Also, he doesn’t know anyone else at the party, either, so you two can be socially awkward together.”

Jaskier frowns again. “How do you know he’s socially awkward? I thought you never met him.”

She shrugs. “Well, he must be if he was sitting on his own.” Jaskier nods, not entirely convinced there isn’t something else going on as well, but he decides against asking about it. Maybe later, he thinks, as he sips his drink, looking at his phone a bit.

It’s rowdy and hot in the pub, and he can already feel a panic attack starting to build, as his eyes dart around, lungs constricting in his chest a bit. Yennefer and Triss have made their way over to their friends, leaving him on his own at the bar. He downs his tequila, placing the glass on the countertop behind him.

He’s contemplating making a bee-line to the side door and slipping away into the night – maybe getting a taxi – when someone stands next to him, ordering a beer from the barman. Jaskier looks to his right, eyes first meeting a black leather jacket, seeing long, white hair as he looks up a bit. He directs his gaze to his phone as quickly as possible, hoping the guy next to him won’t notice how much he seems to be blushing because fuck, this guy is hot.

He chances another look up, startling when he meets amber eyes. He swallows thickly, as the guy looks away again, taking the beer from the barman and tipping generously – Jaskier notices. He expects the guy to walk away, and part of him is already dreading never seeing those amber eyes again.

The guy doesn’t, though. He turns around, leaning against the bar, next to Jaskier, sipping his beer as he looks over the crowded room. Jaskier looks at his feet, fumbling with his phone a bit, unsure of what to say or to do.

He sighs in relief as he hears Triss’ voice, clear above the murmur of the crowd. “Oh my god, hi, Geralt!” She drags Yennefer behind her as they make their way over to Jaskier and the mysterious guy – apparently Geralt. She smiles brightly as she looks between the two of them. “So, I see you’ve already met Julian! This is my girlfriend Yennefer, by the way.” Yennefer gives a small smile and a weak wave from behind her soulmate. “Julian is her flat mate! You two really should get to know each other, I think you’d be great friends!”

Jaskier frowns at her, and he can see Geralt cocking his head in the corner of his eye. Triss smiles brightly, though, and looks behind her at Yennefer, who gives her girlfriend a reassuring nod. Reassuring her of what – Jaskier is not sure yet, but he narrows his eyes at his friend nonetheless.

“Oh! Look!” Triss says. “Istredd is here! And he brought some friends! Come on, Yen, we should go greet them.” She turns back to Jaskier and Geralt, giving them a final wave before disappearing in the crowd, leaving him alone with the guy. Great.

She was right though – Istredd did bring a ton of friends, and the bar feels a lot stuffier and rowdier than it did a few minutes ago. He considers leaving again, but doesn’t want to be impolite towards Geralt, so he stands there, leaning against the bar, heart racing, lungs constricting and oh fuck, he’s starting to have a panic attack.

His hands tremble as he fidgets with the hem of his pale blue hoodie, and he wishes he hadn’t worn it, even though it’s his favourite sweater. It’s too warm in the room, and he can feel sweat starting to form on his brow. He tries to keep his breathing even, but that only results in spots dancing across his vision from lack of oxygen, and his chest hiccupping with every other breath.

After a minute or so of silent suffering, he’s had enough. He throws a tight smile at Geralt, who looks at him weirdly, and mutters a “nice meeting you” before pushing through the crowd towards the side door, his shoulders bumping into several people on the way.

Once outside, he takes in deep, gulping breaths of night air, leaning forward, resting his hands on his knees. It’s blissfully quiet in the side alley, and he closes his eyes, waiting for the rush of blood in his ears to subside.

The door opens behind him, flooding him with light and noise before it’s closed again. He doesn’t look up, waiting for Yennefer to start her rant that he needs to practice conscious breathing when he feels a panic attack coming up, or Triss to ask him if he’s alright and if there’s anything she can do for him.

Instead, he hears a deep voice behind him. “Are you okay?” He stretches out again, looking behind him to see Geralt, amber eyes surprisingly concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just…” he shrugs, looking at his feet “had a bit of a panic attack.”

Geralt takes a tentative step towards him. “You wanna talk about it?”

Jaskier smiles, shaking his head slightly. He hadn’t taken Geralt for a talkative person, so the fact that the guy offered to talk about it means a lot to him, surprisingly. “No, it’s fine.” He shrugs again, hands in the pocket of his hoodie. “Just don’t like crowds.”

Geralt smiles a bit, and oh god, oh shit, oh fuck, he looks so hot when he smiles. “Yeah, same here. Not a big fan of them.” Jaskier looks around, the street in front of the bar deserted. He’s not sure what’s down the alley, but he might find a taxi there.

He looks back at Geralt, who’s shifting from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. “It was nice meeting you, Geralt.” He starts walking down the alley, hands still in the pocket of his hoodie. He hears footsteps behind him and half turns around, frowning as he sees the guy catching up with him.

“Where are you going?” Geralt is walking next to him now, and Jaskier takes half a step to the side in the small alley, making sure their shoulders don’t brush.

He cocks his head. “Why do you want to know?”

And he might definitely be mistaken but he could swear he sees Geralt blush in the dim light of the streetlamps behind them. “Just doesn’t seem very safe, walking into an alley on your own in the middle of the night.”

Jaskier smiles. “And it’s safer to walk into an alley in the middle of the night with a stranger?”

He can see Geralt chewing on his lip, frowning deeply. “I suppose not.” He stops walking, and Jaskier does, too, after a couple of steps, turning back to Geralt. “If you want me to leave, Julian, that’s okay, I’ll leave.”

Jaskier laughs a bit, shaking his head. “Nah, don’t worry.” He keeps walking, signaling with his head for Geralt to follow him again. “Come on, let’s keep moving, it’s too cold to stand still.”

Geralt falls in step next to him and Jaskier can’t help but smile. He looks to his side. “My name’s not Julian, by the way.” Geralt frowns at him, confused, and Jaskier shrugs. “It is, officially, but my parents changed their minds a few weeks after I was born, and named me Jaskier, but didn’t change the legal documents. Yennefer just calls me Julian to spite me, and Triss does it cause she thinks it’s more polite, and I don’t have the heart to tell her no.”

Geralt laughs, shaking his head slightly. “I only met her yesterday, but that sounds exactly like her.”

Jaskier cocks his head. “I am wondering, though, Geralt, why did you come to the party? Like you said, you only met Triss yesterday.”

Geralt shrugs, hands buried in the pockets of his leather jacket. “She was very insistent. And, just like you, I didn’t have the heart to tell her no.”

Jaskier smiles, nodding a bit. “Fair enough.”

He side-steps around a garbage bag, before they reach the street behind the pub. It’s deserted. Well, fuck. So long, taxi. He looks around, the street stretching into the darkness on both sides. There’s a fenced off field in front of him, and he can see street lamps and cars passing by on a street on the other side of the field. He begins walking forward.

“Where are you going?” He hears Geralt call behind him.

He half turns around, pointing to the field with his thumb as he walks sideways. “Gonna hop the fence, go to that street over there and try and find a tax-“

His sentence is cut off abruptly as he trips over a small rock in the middle of the road, painfully hitting his head on the curb as he falls on his side. “Shit!”

He clutches his head as he sits up, but luckily there’s no blood on his hand, as he pulls it back. It is going to be a nasty bump, tomorrow, though. “Jaskier! You okay?” He looks up as Geralt half-jogs towards him across the street, looking both ways even though the neighborhood seems deserted.

He’s almost reached Jaskier, when he trips over his own feet, landing on his knees next to Jaskier. “Shit!”

Jaskier can’t help but laugh, clutching his stomach as he wheezes. God, just a pair of fucking idiots, lying in the middle of the street. He laughs harder when Geralt frowns at him, though the guy can’t help but laugh as well, as tears start to form in Jaskier’s eyes.

He gasps for air between fits of giggles, and leans back, lying on the asphalt, still clutching his stomach as he hiccups. He feels Geralt joining him, lying next to him in the middle of the street. “You okay, Jask?”

He finally quiets down and nods. He turns to Geralt. “You called me Jask.”

The guy shrugs, seemingly blushing again, though Jaskier tells himself it’s just a trick the streetlamps are playing on his eyes. “You don’t like it?”

Jaskier smiles, looking up at the sky. “No, no, I do like it. Just… no one’s ever called me that.”

Geralt shrugs again. They lie there in silence for a few moments, staring up at the night sky, the sound of cars in the distance.

“So, Geralt, what do you study?” He looks to his side again, admiring Geralt’s profile.

“Veterinary.”

Jaskier pushes himself up on one elbow, looking down on Geralt, who smiles softly. “Really? Didn’t take you for an animal lover, honestly.”

Geralt shrugs. “Most people don’t. I just have a soft spot for horses, I guess.”

Jaskier can’t help but smile at that. “Oh? Why horses, specifically?”

Amber eyes grow distant, as if Geralt’s suddenly transported into his own memories. “My dad’s got a horse farm, in the countryside. Taught me how to ride and take care of them at a young age.” He blinks, and suddenly he seems to be back in reality, as he looks at Jaskier. “What about you, though? What do you study?”

Jaskier leans back again, unable to look into Geralt’s eyes too long, for some reason. “English Lit.”

He hears Geralt chuckle next to him. “I wish I could say I didn’t take you for a book lover, but I’d be lying.”

Jaskier laughs a bit. “Alright, fair enough.”

He hears the quiet sound of a cap being unscrewed and looks to the side, seeing Geralt take a swig from a metal flask. “Wow, dude, you’ve come prepared.”

Geralt smiles, handing the flask to Jaskier. “What can I say? Pubs are expensive.” Jaskier laughs, feeling a slight burn in his throat as he takes a sip of whiskey – apparently Geralt’s a whiskey kind of guy. Horses and whiskey.

He laughs as he imagines Geralt, with a frown on his face, downing a bottle of Jack Daniels as he rides on a horse, wearing a cowboy outfit. He sits up as he chokes on the whiskey, coughing violently into his elbow. Geralt sits up next to him as well. “You okay?”

Jaskier gasps for air, coughing the last bit of whiskey from his airway, tears in the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, fine, just thought of something funny.” Geralt shoots him a questioning look and Jaskier shakes his head. “It’s not important.”

Geralt lays back down, taking the flask as Jaskier hands it to him, putting it back in the pocket of his leather jacket, folding his arms behind his head. “Well, watch out the next time you think about something unimportant, then. Don’t want you to laugh until you die.”

Jaskier smiles, laying back down on the pavement. “Honestly, can you think of any better way to choke?”

Geralt smiles as well. “Hmm.”

It’s quiet between them for a couple more moments, as they look at the night sky. The light pollution of the city makes it hard for him to see the stars, but he can make out some blinking lights in the dark abyss above. He points up. “Look, a plane.”

Geralt nods next to him, then points to the right of where Jaskier’s pointing. “Another one.”

Jaskier nods as well. “Very busy night for the plane business.”

And Geralt’s chuckle might be the most beautiful thing he’s heard in his whole life.

“So,” Geralt starts, and Jaskier looks at his profile again, noticing how soft the white hair looks and how much he wants to touch it, “do you do this often?” Geralt turns his head towards Jaskier, and oh god, those lips look so kissable.

He blinks. “Do what?”

Geralt smiles. “Lying in the middle of the road at one in the morning with strangers?”

Jaskier shakes his head. “No, I never do that. See, I know your name and you’ve watched me fall on my face, so we’re not really strangers anymore, are we?”

Geralt looks at the night sky again. “No, I suppose not.” He lets out a long deep breath, and Jaskier can see small clouds above his face in the cold air. “So,” he looks back at Jaskier, “what do you do in your spare time?”

Jaskier scoffs. “You mean besides watching Netflix and pretending to study?” Geralt laughs, and Jaskier can’t help but vow to make this guy laugh as many times as he possibly can, because he can’t imagine ever getting tired of the sound. He shrugs. “I don’t know, really. Lie in the middle of the road at one in the morning, and look up for heaven, I guess.”

Geralt frowns a bit. “What do you mean with looking up for heaven?”

Jaskier shrugs. “Well, people always say that when you find your soulmate you will find glory or some shit, but… I don’t know. It’s always sounded like an empty promise to me. Something that only happens if you find your soulmate, and… what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Wait?” He shakes his head, looking at the sky, watching as another plane passes overhead. “No, I don’t really like that. Life has meaning even if you don’t have a soulmate or if you haven’t found them yet. I can’t do anything with empty words for glory, so I’ll just be here, looking up for heaven, trying to find something else to strive towards.”

It’s quiet for another moment, and eventually he turns his head, looking at Geralt, amber eyes searching his face. Finally, he speaks: “You said ‘even if you don’t have a soulmate’. Everyone has one, though.”

Jaskier scoffs. “I don’t believe that. I mean, my parents were supposedly soulmates. They did the whole thing: touching each other for the first time, seeing the other life, falling in love, marrying, getting a kid. But then they ended up hating each other. So were they really soulmates, then? I don’t believe so.”

Geralt nods, turning his head towards the night sky. “I understand. I don’t know if my parents were soulmates, I never met them.”

Jaskier frowns. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Geralt smiles and shrugs. “It’s okay. I’ve got my adoptive father. He never found his soulmate, though, but he seems at peace with it. I think you’d like him.”

Jaskier smiles as well. “I mean, he owns a horse farm, so I’m already sold.”

Geralt laughs again, and maybe Jaskier feels something flutter in the pit of his stomach, but he’s probably just hungry or something. He sees another plane pass by. “Kind of weird, isn’t it? That there’s a scientific explanation for everything in this world, except for the other life and the whole soulmate ordeal.”

Geralt nods. “Guess we really know nothing at all, when push comes to shove. We can only make the best of what we have, as long as we’re here, and maybe there’s something afterwards, who knows? Maybe another life, where soulmates will remember this one when they touch for the first time.”

Jaskier smirks, half turning his head to Geralt. “Now who’s looking up for heaven?”

Geralt scoffs, half turning towards Jaskier as well. “Not me. I’ll take my chances on the curb here with you, thank you very much.”

Jaskier notices little, dark brown flecks in Geralt’s amber eyes, and has to look away, a blush gracing his cheeks. In the distance a church bell chimes three times. Jaskier looks at his phone, suspicions confirmed: it’s three in the morning already. “Huh, it’s getting late.” He sighs, putting his phone back in the pocket of his hoodie. “I have class in the morning. I should probably get going.”

He makes no move to get up, though, and simply watches as another plane passes overhead. He hears that deep voice again, and feels a shiver run down his spine that has nothing to do with the cold. “What is it, Jask?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t wanna go home yet, I guess.” He looks at Geralt. “I don’t know why, but it’s really easy to talk with you.”

Geralt smiles. “Same here.”

Jaskier looks up at the sky once more. “I just wanna stay here, in the middle of the road, with you, looking up for heaven together.”

Geralt chuckles, pushing himself to his feet, as Jaskier sits upright. Geralt extends his hand, smiling a bit. “Stop looking up for heaven, waiting to be buried.” Jaskier laughs, reaching out his hand to take Geralt’s.

Their skin touches, for the first time that evening, and his eyes grow wide as memories that aren’t quite his own flood him.

“Love the way you just sit in the corner and brood.” “I’m here to drink alone.”

“Respect doesn’t make history.”

“I need no one, and the last thing I want is someone needing me.” “And yet, here we are.”

“We could head to the coast, get away for a while.”

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.”

He lets go of Geralt’s hand, falling back on the pavement as he is pulled back to here and now. He looks up, wide-eyed, shocked, and he can tell Geralt just experienced the same thing. Fuck.

The other life. A Witcher, a Bard. Soulmates.

He breathes out, shuddering breath leaving his lungs in fragments, forming small clouds in the cold night air. “Oh.”

Geralt simply stares at him, then at his hand, as if he can’t believe what just happened. Eventually, he nods, lowering himself back onto the pavement, next to Jaskier. “Oh,” he says as well.

Jaskier looks at his own hand, half expecting a mark, something to indicate something’s – everything’s changed, but his skin is the same as always. Really, he’s the same as always, it’s just the memories that are new.

He looks at Geralt, who’s still staring ahead, amber eyes wide. “What happened in the other life, Geralt? How did you-“ his voice catches in his throat as he imagines Geralt dying.

The guy – the Witcher looks at him, eyes still absent. He blinks, then clears his throat. “I uh… After… our fight, on the mountain, I went looking for Ciri, for my…” a sharp intake of breath “Child Surprise. Never found her. Got attacked by ghouls, died a day or so later. You?”

A memory presents itself to Jaskier, and he shudders, burying his hands in the sleeves of his hoodie. “Got robbed a few weeks after our fight. Got stabbed, bled out.”

Geralt frowns at him. “I know we only just met, really, and that we’re not who we were in the other life but… I do want to apologize for what I said on the mountain. I never meant any of it, and travelling with you for…” he frowns, swallowing thickly “twenty-two years, was an honour and a privilege. You deserved better.”

Jaskier smiles. “I did, and thank you, Geralt. It does mean a lot to me, even if it wasn’t really… me, but… other life me? I don’t know, this is so weird.”

Geralt laughs. “It is. I’m glad we’re here, now, though.”

Jaskier leans his shoulder against Geralt’s, something that feels so natural he doesn’t need to think twice about it. “So am I. And I’m glad we’re soulmates.” He frowns. “I’m glad we got a second chance, Geralt.”

Geralt smiles back, softly, fondness in his eyes. “So am I. I really messed up the first time. I want to do better in this life, if you’ll have me.”

Jaskier leans forward, resting his forehead against Geralt’s, the clouds of their breaths intertwining in the cold night air. “I’ll have you, Geralt of Rivia, if you’ll have me.”

Geralt sighs, softly. “Yes, of course I’ll have you, Jask. No question about it.”

Their eyes meet, and Jaskier can barely suppress a shiver that runs down his spine. He’s drowning in the molten gold of Geralt’s eyes, and can’t help but smile. “May I kiss you?”

Geralt leans forward, their noses brushing, hot breath fanning over Jaskier’s skin. “I fear I might die all over again if you don’t.”

Jaskier laughs. “God, Geralt, you’re so dramatic.” He leans forward further, softly pressing his lips against Geralt’s, and he feels a hand on the back of his neck pulling him closer, the kiss deepening.

After a few moments he pulls back, drawing in shaky breaths of cold night air as their foreheads rest against each other. He can’t help but smile as he takes in every little detail of Geralt’s face. The little freckle under his right eye, the small scar on his left eyebrow, the brown freckles in his amber eyes. He hopes he gets the chance to spend the rest of his life memorizing every single detail, every single imperfection that makes Geralt perfect.

Geralt smiles at him, frowning a bit as he sees Jaskier’s searching eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Jaskier smiles, before pressing a chaste kiss to Geralt’s lips and he could never, ever tire of this. Not in this life, not in the next. “No reason, I’m just… looking up for heaven.”

[anotherarchivesblog]

hi who are most of the people in the relationship charts you posted on insta a while ago?

Like I know you’ve posted some stuff about Nate and Zoe and even Venus but I’m really curious about everyone else!

I wanna preface this by thanking you for your patience since it took me forever to reply to this. I really appreciate it! <3

Anyways, those charts are divided into two parts — the first is Nate’s friend group (which I call the Zodiacs) and the second is the Celestial Council. The Zodiacs are central-focus characters while the Council’s role is more on the back burner.

I’ll talk about the characters individually under the cut, but if you’re not into summaries I’ll include a song that reminds me of each character since I think music is a fantastic personality descriptor:

ZODIACS

NATE SAGITTARIUS:  Nate is an overly ambitious teenage boy who becomes a Regulator at the Venus Villas after discovering that he’s half elf. I’m sure you know the rest of this rant by now.

“Genius Next Door” — Regina Spektor

ZOE SAGITTARIUS:  Nate’s punk-rock older sister, who is much cooler than he’ll ever be. Zoe is a dryad that was adopted by Jupiter Sagittarius shortly after she had woken up in a Bronx alleyway with a bad case of amnesia. Nowadays, she works as a Regulator at the Venus Villas and wields a talking snake shaped dagger named Sabik.

“OHFR?” — Rico Nasty

DANIEL ATKINS: As Head Regulator, Daniel Atkins is known to keep things in line. Daniel is an aloof ghost from the 1910s who hasn't matured much since his death. He’s notoriously bad with social cues and always says whatever he’s thinking, which Nate doesn’t seem to mind. The two of them quickly become best friends, much to Zoe’s dismay.

“Nobody” — Mitski

BRENDA ANTARES: With her competitive nature and innate sparing abilities, Brenda was the obvious choice for Mars’ Lieutenant. When she’s not assisting Mars, Brenda volunteers as a part-time cook at the Venus Villas. Brenda is a sweetheart who befriends anyone she can, which is ironic considering the fact that she shares a body with a temperamental demon named Aries.

“What’s Up Danger” — Blackway & Black Caviar

ANASTASIA CHERNOV: Not much is known about Anastasia’s past and she’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much. Anastasia Chernov is head general of Via’s Army and a recurring antagonist throughout the series. She is a blind vampire who, despite her overall brooding nature, loves cutesy magical girl animes and Vocaloids.

“Oh Ana” — Mother Mother

MAYBELLE SAVURI: Real hot girl shhh! Maybelle Savuri is a top-charting singer and model from the monster world who just so happens to be Venus’ daughter too. She’s a super rich vampire with shapeshifting powers, the cutest outfits, and confidence for days — what else could you possibly want?

“Girls in the Hood” — Megan Thee Stallion

LEO JEMBER: Resident golden boy and honorary funnyman, Leo Jember is one of the first friends Nate makes at the Villas. Leo is a (literal) angel who works the front desk at the Venus Villas, and spends his free time messing with his best friend Scorpius Singh. Leo is extremely popular with the workers at the Villas but he also has the tendency to push Venus’ buttons for fun.

“C7osure.” — Lil Nas X

SCORPIUS SINGH: The only Zodiac more secretive than Anastasia is Scorpius. Scorpius Singh is a witch cursed to kill everything he touches. Nowadays, his hands are constantly bandaged and he tends to keep his distance from other people. Around the Villas, Scorpius is known for his intellect and snippy attitude.

“Goodbye Mr A” — The Hoosiers

POLLY DE DIOS: Just like her father, Polly de Dios is a skilled inventor who helps with repairs around the Villas. Polly and her twin brother, Cas, are a pair of hyper-intelligent androids built by Mercury de Dios. Unlike her lax brother, Polly is a rule-abiding teenager with a love for list making and hard work.

“B.I.T.C.H” — Megan Thee Stallion

ALEX MILTON: Come through, daddy issues! Alex Milton is a blunt satyr who spends his free time committing petty crime. His tendency to use his powers in the mortal world often winds Alex in trouble with the Venus Villas. Despite his unpleasant nature, Alex is both humorous and intelligent… maybe that’s the reason Nate had a slight crush on him when they first met.

“Rich & Sad” — Post Malone

DAX LEE: Dax is good friends with Leo and Scorpius which, by default, makes him Nate’s friend as well. Dax Lee is a deaf merman who has the power to mind control other people whenever he sings. And while Dax may not be the smartest member of the Zodiacs, he certainly is the friendliest!

“This December” — Rick Montgomery

JEONG NA-RI: As a powerful psychic, Jeong Na-Ri is a force to be reckoned with. But after Nate accidentally frees her from a hundred-year imprisonment, Na-Ri quickly learns that the world she came back to is extremely different from the one that she left behind. Not only that but, with her immortal dad still around, Na-Ri now has a new step-mom and an older brother named Dax.

“Cartoons” — Louie Zong

CELESTIALS

**SOL JEMAL: As head of the Celestial Council, Sol plays a particularly important role in the monster world. Sol Jemal is an angel that has been around since the beginning of time so she’s pretty much seen it all by now. Her distant nature has caused an aura of mystery to form around her, but her sons Deneb and Leo reason that she’s not as omnipotent as she seems and, if anything, she’s just a bit uptight.

“YAH.” — Kendrick Lamar

MOON ATKINS: It doesn’t matter that they’re twins, Moon would like to make it perfectly clear that he is Sol’ older brother. (By five whole minutes!) While Sol is known for being the bringer of life, Moon Atkins was assigned the role of ruling over the dead. Because of this, Moon’s presence is seen as a bad omen in the monster world. However, Moon is quite the gentleman with an extreme interest in birds, particularly ravens.

“Lethargy″ — Bastille

MERCURY DE DIOS: The rest of the Council has the tendency to look over Mercury’s existence. Mercury de Dios is a gnome with a knack for inventing. He’s a genius when it comes to innovation, but has trouble when it comes to socializing with other people, so he avoids it completely by shutting himself in his workshop all day. When he’s not inventing, Mercury is either spending time with his children or trailing behind Venus and Mars around the Villas.

“Touch-Tone Telephone” — Lemon Demon

VENUS GALILEI: As both his boss and godmother, Venus spends a lot of time with Nate. Which is unfortunate for him, because while many other adults in the monster world think Nate is old enough to fight against Via’s Army, Venus adamantly believes that he is too young to get involved. Still, despite their many disagreements, the two care very deeply for each other.

“Glamorous”  — Fergie

TERRA GALILEI: Nate’s not the only one with an adopted dryad sister. Terra Galilei is Venus’ younger sister who is head of human relations — meaning that she keeps in touch with the very few humans who know of the monster world. Unlike her sister, Terra is a loud party animal with a love for sports.

“Lightning” — Rico Nasty

MARS HUYGENS:  Oh boy. Where to begin with Mars? Mars Huygens is a cyclops widely known in the monster world for his loudmouth and love of violence. He is one of the three Celestials who work at the Venus Villas — the other two being his spouses Venus and Mercury — much to the Regulators’ dismay. Despite his reputation, Mars gets along swimmingly with Brenda and, despite how often he teases the kid, has a bit of a soft spot for Nate as well.

“PRIDE.” — Kendrick Lamar

JUPITER SAGITTARIUS: Everyone in the monster world knows Jupiter as the elf who had a child with a human. Jupiter Sagittarius is Nate and Zoe’s music loving father who never really grew up. Jupiter supports his children in their endeavors, however he’s not quite qualified for his own responsibilities. Despite his scatter-mindedness, Jupiter puts a genuine effort into everything he does which, at the very least, is why his peers tend to like him so much.

“8TEEN” — Khalid

SATURN HAMILTON: With the exception of Mercury and Moon, no one in the Celestial Council really likes Saturn all that much. Saturn Hamilton is a workaholic satyr who is obsessed with the human world and its history. More often than not, Saturn finds himself butting heads with his eldest son, Alex, despite Saturn’s attempts to salvage their relationship as of late.

“Cemetery” — COIN

URI HERSCHEL: Uri is a man of few words… mostly because he’s a selective mute. Uri Herschel is an ice giant known for his eccentric nature — whether it be his odd choice of clothes or his peculiar love of taxidermy.

“Anklebiters” — Paramore

LEE NEPTUNE: Guess it’s time to release the kraken. Lee Neptune is a picture perfect beach dweller — a handsome surfer dude who plays the ukulele and has the ability to shapeshift into the legendary kraken. He may not be the smartest member of the Celestial Council, but he certainly is charming.

“Drunk Walk Home” — Mitski

PLUTO TOMBAUGH:  While he’s technically no longer a part of the Council, Pluto will always have an honorary spot in these lists. Pluto Tombaugh is a laid-back and likeable dwarf who is obsessed with the animals that reside in the monster world — which he collects and studies in his downtime.

“Jawbreaker” — Injury Reserve ft. Rico Nasty & Pro Teens

**The surname Jemal is just a placeholder and will most likely change down the line.

[kuningannasansa]

A musketeers rewatch (that nobody asked for) 1x08

In which Richelieu almost gets his husband killed 

We start with Labarge (spl?) being escorted through the streets of Paris by musketeers. He is played by that guy who always plays violent brutes with few if any lines of dialogue. 

Red guards show up and demand that the prisoner is handed over to them. Then Labarge beats the crap out of them until the musketeers intervene. Not before a red guard is killed thou. By another red guard attempting to strike at Labarge.

The dead man is called Captain Trudeau. And the red guard who killed him blames the musketeers. 

Now they’re fighting each other! Male egos... 

Treville says Trudeau was given fair warning and it’s his own fault he’s dead. Kind of harsh. Richelieu retorts that Treville had no business arresting a regional intendant without coming to him first. I’m really struggling to see Labarge in the role of regional intendant, but I guess that’s the point. Treville shoots back that he’s a violent criminal who subjected Gascony to a reign of terror. And Richelieu says that the man exceeded his authority and he was in the process of calling him back before the musketeers intervened. I know I’m supposed to take the musketeers side here, but I really see no reason to doubt Richelieu.

Treville is mad and says any of his musketeers could defeat any of the red guards and Louis immediately makes a bet! So there we are, that’s the plot sorted out. I love their bickering thou xD

Richelieu looks so panicked, poor dear! He knows he doesn’t stand a chance but he can’t afford to back down. 

Constance and D’artagnan are being cute and domestic!

D’artagnan apologizes for the rent being overdue. Nice reference to the books! But in the books he doesn’t apologize, he is quite insulted that some commoner would even dare to bother him with such trivialities. Much more realistic to a noble of the era, but I guess not something a modern audience would sympathise with. 

Here Bonacieux actually tells him off thou and that’s too far in the other direction, kind of takes me out of the story. 

Treville is so excited about this contest! Bless!

The entry fee is 30 livres and our boys haven’t got it. It’s time to go womanizing! In the church. 

Aramis knows all the women there, of course. 

“It’s a requiem mass not a party at Madame Angel’s” - and then they cross themselves lol. 

Labarge has destroyed D’artagnan’s farm “as a warning to other local landowners” because Dart’s father was “greatly respected”. But Dart had done nothing to him and his father is long dead? I don’t get this. 

Porthos can’t lie for shit and Alice helps him out cause she fancies him! That’s cute!

Alice has put on a colourful dress and her maid is judging her. 

Porthos says it must be great for her to have all of her husband’s things to remember him by and I thought he was talking of his own lack of things to remember his mother by but Alice responded by giving him her husband’s solid gold candle snuffer! So was he fishing for that the whole time? It really comes across more like he wasn’t but then took the opportunity. 

D’artagnan proclaims he is ready and Athos just smiles. And proceeds to provoke him with tales of Labarge being comfortable in the Bastille with his “every whim attended to”. But we had a scene before of Labarge being fed disgusting prison food and talked down to by a guard, so not true lol.

Doesn’t stop D’art from barging into Richelieu’s office screaming thou.

Richelieu offers him patronage and D’art turns it down. This episode almost feels like the book.

“As a citizen of France I demand my rights” - you are a subject of the King. Shut up.

Milady overheard the whole thing!

“Your fascination with these musketeers seems inexhaustible.” - lol Armand, look who’s talking!  

Milady: “I do everything for you.” Richelieu: “Permit me to doubt that.” - but in the last episode you trusted her to manage the Ninon thing even in the event of your death?

“There was a time I found your independence of spirit arousing. I must warn you, Milady, that time is now past.” - this line is gross and unnecessary. But also, what did she do between last episode and this one to change his opinion like that? I guess the writers just needed him to discard her for plot reasons, but it could have been better written.

Red guards arrest a protesting Bonacieux! This really is the book episode!

Bonacieux: “You want me to spy on him [D’art]?” Richelieu: “I can see you are a man of quick intelligence.”

Why is his office so huge and empty thou, with one little desk in it?

D’artagnan... steals a red guard uniform. And breaks into the Bastille. Wow, okay, totally forgot about that bit. 

And he does the whole “my name is D’artagnan of Lupiac in Gascony” thing again. And tries to force a confession out of Labarge.

And Labarge would have killed him if Athos had not shown up.

Athos: “What did I tell you about thinking before you act!” D’artagnan: “I can’t help it, I’m not like you!” Athos: “You are, more than you know.” - oh, you mean you also didn’t think before you strung up your wife from a tree? Yeah, i see that.

A milathos scene! Athos says he won’t attack a defenceless woman and Milady laughs as though at the idea that she is defenceless, but it breaks my heart cause dude, you very much did do just that.

“I have to make a living somehow, what better patron could I have?” Milady says of Richelieu and she is right!

“I’m a soldier, just like you.” - YES! SHE IS!

She tries to come on to him for casual sex and he rejects her. With difficulty, but still :(( 

She gives him “fair warning” to stay away from her.

Papa Treville looks so proud looking at Athos and D’art training!

Richelieu tells Labarge that he “overstepped his limits” and “ruled Gascony like a petty tyrant”. Lebarge says he just gave people the needed encouragement to pay their taxes and Richelieu replies: “Perhaps if more of the taxes you collected had reached the treasury, I’d be inclined to overlook your excesses.” LOL!

Constance sells her stuff to get D’art the money. And then Milady gives it to him before she can. And D’art doesn’t decline even thou all he knows of her is that she left him to take the the blame for her murder and lied about Ninon. He literally doesn’t give a fuck as long as he can enter this fight! 

Milady looks so pretty in this scene thou!

Porthos and Alice are getting on very well!

So Milady gave D’art some pendant with a flower on it together with the money as a “token of friendship” and now Bonacieux has nicked it.

D’art: “I found a patron of my own.” Aramis: “Wealthy widow?” D’art: “Not as far as I know.” - so like, with Milady telling her that her lover tried to kill her and Athos’s dead wife coming back from the dead to kill him and Athos clearly recognising the woman at Ninon’s trial, D’art still hasn’t had the penny drop? Or he has and just doesn’t want to tell Athos that he’s taking his wife’s money?

Aramis is the best shot, Porthos is the best at hand to hand combat and D’art does pretty well with the sword, but we don’t see Athos try that.

And Richelieu has commissioned Labarge! xD

Who beats the crap out of his other men. That can’t be good for morale! Like for real, what must the red guards be thinking? Richelieu has made a criminal who killed their captain the new captain! And mocks them publicly for not being as good as him in a fight! 

The pendant is also now in Richelieu’s hands.

Treville was spying on Richelieu! 

Bonacieux bought Constance a bracelet to celebrate his good luck of getting a contract. See, I love when the antagonists are not complete monsters and get human moments like this!

“Becoming a musketeer was the best thing that ever happened to me... until I met you.” - Oh Porthos! That was smooth! 

And Alice offers to support him if he leaves the musketeers.

D’art is looking for his pendant and doesn’t tell Constance about it when she asks if he’s lost something. He knows he’s doing wrong but the glory is beckoning so he can’t help it.

Constance runs after him to give him a goodbye kiss and Bonacieux sees them. That’s what you get for flaunting your affair in the open street. I mean, even if he hadn’t been there, these other people are all her neighbours, who would gossip.

Treville nominates himself and the musketeers are like “this is bullshit”. I don’t blame them. But Papa is just trying to protect them and he knows he’ll get their resentment as a reward! So sad! 

“Was your life so bad, Constance? Was I ever cruel to you, did I beat you?” - this is good writing. It would have been so boring if they had made him into a physically abusive brute. 

Threatening her with killing D’art isn’t cool thou!

Athos accuses Treville of having a midlife crisis and wanting “one last moment of glory”. And when he leaves, Treville just rubs his face and he looks so tired! 

And Constance breaks up with D’art! Meaning he loses the fight and her on the same day, I do feel bad for him.

Constance is right to point out that she has a lot more to lose here thou! 

Treville’s plain brown tunic looks really bad without the cape over it. But the tunic he’s looking at in preparation for the fight looks better at least.

There are only two little stands of courtiers, but it could be worse. 

“You only needed 30 livre, not a wife” - Aramis, you gentleman. 

Treville’s fighting outfit looks good, I was right. But he is getting his ass kicked. What must Richelieu be thinking! I don’t think he knew Treville would be the one to face Labarge. 

I went back to check and we don’t get his reaction to Treville’s name. But when Labarge is announced he doesn’t look particularly happy.

He also looks very distracted when the King addresses him during the fight.

Treville stops to grin at the King while Labarge is getting his breath back and Labarge attacks when his guard is down. He’s done for!

D’art steps in and in 30 seconds flat it becomes an all out brawl between the musketeers and red guards. 

Louis says that Labarge broke the rules and Treville may nominate a champion. So D’art gets his turn to shine. But what rules? Attacking when Treville was not looking? Stepping on Treville’s shoulder with his foot? I guess Louis can make up the rules as he goes along lol xD

I feel sorry for poor Treville, being utterly humiliated! 

And Labarge shouts that he did burn D’art’s farm down right in the middle of the fight. A confession in front of the King. He’d be dead even if he won!

D’art kills him and Louis declares the musketeers the winners. And takes the prize money for himself because “rules were broken and we do need to collect our taxes somehow.” 

“I admire loyalty, more than any other virtue” - that’s true I think? I think it holds up during the show, but I’m not a Louis expert lol.

At least he makes D’art a musketeer finally! And D’arts teary face and all the hugging is quite moving.

Milady in her pretty red dress gets told off by the cardinal. I love how he says “comtesse de la fere”, but he does ask an important question. Why did she give D’art money to compete? Because Richelieu threatened her at the beginning of the episode and she was looking for a new prospect? She tells him she wants to bring him over to “their side” but that doesn’t square with giving him money to win his musketeer commission lol. Well, Armand, that’s what you get for threatening your employees I guess.  

And Alice and Porthos break up because she can’t handle that much excitement and he can’t give up soldiering. 

Porthos and Aramis share a cute moment.

D’art moves out with some poisonous words for Constance. I can’t really blame him in the heath of the moment, but if memory serves he never really apologised while she did. 

And Constance sees him with Milady! And closes the curtain before she can see him tuning her down! Poor Constance!

And poor Milady! Her position with the Cardinal depends on this and he doesn’t give a fuck now he’s a musketeer. 

Overall this was a very good episode. Such a relief after last time. Next up, the stupid assassination attempt on the Queen. Oh joy!

Red guards killed: Captain Trudeau

Women killed: none! yay!

Best dressed: Milady and Richelieu! Look, they match!

[olympedupuget]

Gif Request Meme - A Musical of my Choice + a Villain:  Artois and Orléans

↳ Requested by @fallenidol-453

Philippe Égalité: The only legitimate son of the Duc d’Orléans, a prince du sang from birth, Philippe was a very unlikely revolutionary. And yet Philippe showed a strong level of compassion for the lives of the lower class, going down a coal shaft to see the conditions faced by miners, pulling a groom of his from a river with his own hands, and providing shelter for the poor during the bitter winter of 1788-89. 

He was noted for his extravagant lifestyle; a noted lover of racehorses, gambling, architecture, his various and assorted mistresses, and all things English. Despite being the richest man in France, with a truly astronomical income, he nonetheless found himself frequently in debt. That was the impetus for him to totally redesign the Palais Royal over the course of two and a half years, opening it up to shopkeepers and establishing it as a major area for counter revolutionary activity, with the police being banned from intervening. As such, an overwhelming feeling of liberty prevailed there, with people from all social classes gathering to observe the spectacles and walk along the gardens there. 

There was a certain amount of hostility to be expected between the two branches of the Bourbon family, going as far back as the first Duc’s tempestuous relationship with his brother, Louis XIV. Still, the relationship between Louis XVI and Philippe gradually deteriorated over time, despite several attempts to patch things up. Orléans blamed Louis for the loss of his naval career, with the controversial Battle of Ushant in 1778 being a major breaking point in their relationship. In 1788, he spoke up at a “Royal Sitting” where Louis tried to press the Parliament into obeying his will, saying “Sire, this appears to be illegal.” Louis responded, “It is legal, because I wish it to be so.” Orléans spent the next five months in a comfortable exile at his estate, and he returned more popular than ever. 

When the Estates General was called, Orléans sided with the Third Estate, taking his place with the other delegates rather than sitting with the Royal Family as his rank entitled him to. His name was consistently brought up alongside revolutionary activity, with his bust being paraded alongside Necker’s on July 12, 1789, when the rash charge of the Prince de Lambesc into the Tuilleries heightened the people’s fears over an armed crackdown of Paris. It would be in the Palais Royal where Camille Desmoulins would jump on a table and call the people to arms, and even though the exact impact of that statement’s been disputed, the fact that Palais Royal was a huge locus point for revolutionary activity never has been. 

Among the royalists, it was popularly thought that Orléans was behind the entire Revolution, masterminding the Storming of the Bastille, the Women’s March to Versailles, a famine, and various and assorted other disturbances, in lieu of believing that the common people themselves were discontent. However, the sources nearest and dearest to Philippe suggest that he had no intention of seizing power, and Philippe’s own action of going and staying in England at Lafayette’s suggestion between October 1789 and July 1790, when he had a strong chance of fighting back against the charges and seizing power for himself by riding off the highest point of his popularity, strongly indicates that he had no intention of seizing the throne for himself. Overall, while he was a man of undeniable courage, the popular consensus is that he was, by nature, too passive to do it on his own, generally being very diffident to those near him such as his former mistress and longtime friend, Madame de Genlis, as well as her rival for his attention, Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos, and generally disinterested in long-form plans, preferring to throw himself into whims. It is far more likely that, if a plan existed to make Philippe king, it came from one of those brains, as opposed to anything Philippe himself considered in any detail. 

He did, however, become embittered over the increasingly chilly reception he received at Versailles, including one occasion where a courtier shouted “Do not let him touch the wine!” when he entered, with him then being spat on as he made his leave. 

In the latter half of 1792, Philippe faced a bevy of problems, both personal and political, as his long-suffering wife had filed for a separation, his daughter was put on a list of émigrés and was forced to leave the country very shortly after arriving (after Madame de Genlis, who he had instructed to take her back before her name could be added, lingered for too long, causing a final breakdown in their long relationship), his popularity was rapidly fading, and he had been called, as a Deputy of the National Convention, to sit at the trial of his cousin. According to one anecdote, found in William Cooke Taylor’s Memoirs of the House of Orléans, it was in that particular maelstrom that he changed his name, as a last ditch effort to save his daughter and prove his loyalty to the Revolution, to Philippe Égalité. Many options were considered for him to not sit the trial, and there is no reason to believe, despite the long-lasting enmity that the two of them had, that Philippe, when he went to sleep the night before the trial of Louis began on December 26, that he had any idea that when it came time to give the verdict on January 14-15, he would vote “yea,” a decision that shocked the entire room, not the least Louis himself. Perhaps it was a last ditch effort to save himself, perhaps he felt pressured to do it by everyone else in the room, perhaps in that moment he truly believed that Louis’ actions merited the death penalty. It’s impossible to truly know, but in the end that one decision, more than anything else, has defined his legacy. 

However, the Royalists would soon be able to find some comfort, as, on the 4th of April 1793, his son, Louis-Philippe, Duc de Chartres, defected along with General Dumouriez, and Philippe’s enemies had the ammunition they needed.

On 7 April, 1793, he was arrested and sent to Fort Saint-Jean in Marseilles, along with two of his sons. Throughout his imprisonment, Philippe kept up an optimistic front, constantly reassuring his sons, the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais, on the rare occasions he was allowed to speak to them after they were separated, that everything would turn out well, even expressing optimism about his trial in Paris. Whether this was real or simply an attempt at keeping up morale will never be known, but on November 2, 1793, he was sent back to Paris, to be imprisoned in the Conciergerie. He was tried on the 6th and, at his own request not to prolong things any longer than necessary, he was executed on that same day. By all accounts, he met his death courageously, his composure only threatening to break when the cart he was in stopped in front of the Palais Royal, so that he could very clearly see the sign on it that said it was now national property. His last words were to stop the assistants at the guillotine from taking off his boots, saying “You are losing time, you can take them off at a greater leisure when I am dead.” 

Unlike his royal cousins, his body was never found, and to this day, he is generally considered as one of the great villains of the Revolution in media associated with it, though none of the serious charges against him (the October Days being prime) were ever proven.

Charles X- For most of his younger years, like his older cousin, Charles’ defining quality was his wild life, which was punctuated by multiple love affairs, copious gambling and alcohol, and even more copious debts, with his brother, Louis XVI, somewhat reluctantly paying the bills. He also had a close friendship with his brother’s wife, who he shared a love of high living with, the two of them often being seen together at the theatre and balls. This close friendship was much remarked upon, with Artois being a frequent subject of the pornographic pamphlets that circulated about the queen, along with Marie Antoinette’s favorite, Madame de Polignac. In the years preceding and following the Revolution, however, the two of them gradually cooled, with their later relationship being marked by political disagreements. Charles consistently pressured his brother into more conservative stances during the meeting of the Estates General, arguing against doubling the Third Estates’ representation and conspiring to get rid of Louis’ liberal finance minister, Jacques Necker. The dismissal of the Necker would end up being one of the leading causes for the Storming of the Bastille, with Charles’ temporary personal victory being quickly eclipsed by the blaze that the little spark of Revolution had turned into. In the days immediately following the Storming of the Bastille, Artois was ordered to emigrate by his brother, along with the rest of his family.

He wouldn’t see France again for decades, going from court to court in Europe asking for help and trailed by a small army of creditors (who would become some of his most frequent companions, the avid huntsman only being able to go out riding at his estate at Holyrood on Sundays, when his creditors would be unable to pursue him), but with very little materializing, even less of which was successful, with the Battle of Quiberon being particularly disastrous to any hope of a royalist win by military might. Instead, he set up his main residence in London, with his mistress, Louise de Polastron, sister-in-law of Madame de Polignac, upon whose death he swore a vow of celibacy, the former playboy becoming sober and religious in his later years. The family briefly returned to France in May 1814, with the exile of Napoleon to Elba, however his later escape and mustering of the troops led to them leaving the city in February 1815, only able to fully establish themselves back in the country shortly after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Upon his brother, the Comte de Provence’s ascension to the throne as Louis XVIII (the space between XVI and XVIII being taken up by Charles’ young nephew, Louis-Charles, who died in prison and therefore never ruled), Charles became known as a leading member of the Ultra Royalist faction, who were, as the name suggests, “More Royalist than the king.” His brother dying without a male heir, Charles took the throne in 1824, though his highly conservative policies following his more tolerant brother’s reign made him highly unpopular with the public. 

In 1830, he was forced to abdicate. His intent had been for the throne to go to his young grandson, however, it would go to Louis-Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, the son of Philippe Égalite (who would himself end up being deposed.) He spent the remainder of his life similarly to how he spent his exile, traveling from place to place, hounded by debtors.

 Eventually, he would die in Austria, on 6 November 1836, 43 years to the day of his revolutionary cousin’s execution. 

Sources: 

The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow: Gabriel Banat

A French King at Holyrood: Alexander John Mackenzie Stuart

The Journalists and the July Revolution in France: The Role of the Political Press in the Overthrow of the Bourbon Restoration 1827–1830: Daniel Rader

Memoirs of the House of Orléans: William Cooke Taylor

The Perilous Crown: France Between Revolutions, 1814-1848: Munro Price

Prince of the blood : being an account of the illustrious birth, the strange life and the horrible death of Louis-Philippe Joseph, fifth duke of Orleans, better remembered as Philippe Egalite: Evart Seelye Scudder

Revolutions in the Western World 1775–1825: Jeremy Black, ed.

[fume-knight-of-shovelry]

Memory

Lucatiel remembers, and Lucatiel forgets

(LINK VERY NSFW) Art by Soushiyo on Twitter.

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Her first memory was of a long, thin shadow cast across a doorway.

It was a skeletal thing, a spire sticking out across the light in the room beyond, swaying with what could have been the breeze were it a branch. But the knobby spherical shape at the base told her otherwise...if she had been old enough to understand what it meant. But as a baby, all she recognized was something spindled and black, and she gurgled unknowingly.

Her mother stepped across the threshold, weathered sword in hand and extended in front of her, and smiled.

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Drangleic was even more ruined than she’d been led to expect. 

Anything resembling coherent order was gone. Those old Firekeepers hadn’t been encouraging, but the degradation still took her breath away. The few ruins she’d encountered around the ruined town by the cliff were so worn away that their original significance or function couldn’t possibly be determined from the scattered stones and rotten doors that she found. 

The town, Majula, was deceptively quaint, terribly empty, and eerily silent. A bustling community had found solace here, and vanished in their own time. Now it was sparsely populated with scavengers, befuddled travelers, the hopeless, and the curiously inhuman. 

And, perhaps, a woman that might be a valuable ally. The emerald-hooded figure spoke on about souls and a certain King Vendrick, but Lucatiel did not grasp much meaning in what she was told. Perhaps it would serve her well later, but for now it was confusingly distracting. Better to focus on the small joys of this place, before venturing into the unknown. The sun cast soft colors across the bonfire and cliffside, caressing the back of her neck with delicate warmth when she faced away from the sea, and the salt-borne breeze refreshed her senses and left Lucatiel primed for whatever she might yet face.

But it wasn’t long before she was able to recognize just how much devastation had been wrought in this land.

First there was the fort, reclaimed by land and time, a resting place for Giants. The stonework had been dislodged from their original form by erosion and weakened with water and moss, their original color painted over with a brush of greenery born from neglect and abandonment. More than a few walls were held together unsteadily by the petrified trees, stretching towards the sky, sprawling and spidering their roots through the mortar. The trunks encroached at the foundation of the structures that enclosed them, simultaneously unmaking the fort while giving it a new skeleton of plant matter. 

Perhaps the old woman was right. That the Giants, as they fell, had become the trees that now populated this forest, inflicting their own kind of post-mortem vengeance on the fastness that had repelled them for so long by both destroying it and making themselves its only hope of survival. Lucatiel didn’t know the whole story, but if the Giants had lost, they seemed to have found the last laugh: in death, in true death, they’d found a peace that had eluded those that still slaved away at their old duties. Old patrols, old battles, old routines and old units, kept stagnant in the grip of the Curse, fossilized for eternity. 

And still deadly, too. Those old, rusted shell-wearing soldiers left Lucatiel reeling even when they missed, such was the force behind their blows, and their heavy plating meant that her sword had little effect. She only managed to kill them clumsily by stabbing them between the gaps in their overlapping armor...but her blade pierced no flesh. Instead, it met a fierce, writhing heat that shattered and dissipated into a mass of souls and hissed out from their helmet's eyeholes, leaving the armor to crumple lifelessly to the ground.

That was when she had the chance to battle them one by one. Many times, her Hollowed foes gave her no such opportunity, and she had to weave strikes between deflecting with her shield to both guard herself and leaving her opponents that much more open. The worst were those still intelligent enough to lob pitch bombs at her from range or fire arrows at her from battlements that she couldn't reach when she was being swarmed by endlessly patrolling soldiers. The fort was a dangerous and taxing place, replete with more history than she'd likely ever understand. 

In a way, there was a beauty to the forest, to the root-torn stone and crumbling foundations promising new life once the soil was reclaimed from human ambition. Seeing towers brought low, walls breached, and cellars collapsed was disconcerting. If such a sturdy construction could be brought low, then how enduring would her accomplishments be? 

And yet, she found cause to hope. The shattered walls would allow creatures passed into the soil that had long been blocked off from them. The spires would give birds new opportunities to nest in the shelter of the vines and crumpled roofs. And the cellars would nurture fungi in their damp shadows, sprouting up from the refuse of the rest. Maybe, the woods would nurture a new ecology on the graves of two dead armies, and something more beautiful could emerge from the devastation.

But it was hard to imagine that kind of future when the past lingered on like a blot, stubborn and foreign to the picture she tried to paint of a world beyond this eternal moment.

She left the fort behind as soon as she could, the sputtered torches lining its walls leaving no light in her wake. There was nothing left for her there.

The wooden play sword had no bite, no hard edges or real thrusting power. It was even shaved carefully to minimize the risk of splinters, so dearly did her father take precautions. 

She’d seen it as a challenge, then, to find a way to hurt herself with a poor family’s toy sword. The rebellious streak that ran through all children found fertile ground in her growing spirit, and she’d succeeded beyond her wildest hopes.

“Mama!” She remembered crying, stumbling through the street and clutching her cheek. Now that it was blossoming red, soon to be purple, the novelty of finding out how to get harmed by a child-proofed blade was quickly wearing off. “Brother hit me!”

“Not fair! You told me to!” Grubby, dirt-stained shoes carried him across the ground behind her, bearing the boy voicing his protest. “Mama, Papa, I didn’t mean to!”

The parents looked across at each other, and then at their children, sallow-faced but still wild with energy, the exuberance of childhood unmitigated by their family’s poverty and peasantry. They weren’t sure whether to be impressed, proud, or terrified by the early age at which their progeny had started fighting.

“Lucatiel,” Her mother started, cradling the girl in her lap, rubbing the dirty blonde hair that was already growing wild, “let me see.”

Her father softened his gaze, reaching a hand out to her brother. “Aslatiel, don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. Let’s talk about this.”

Lucatiel felt her mother move her hand and winced when a thumb was brushed against the bruise. Fresh tears sprang from her eyes, mucus dribbling from her nostrils all over her mother’s thigh. She shot a look at her brother, who stared back blankly, his eyes more confused than defensive.

Her mother’s voice met her ears. 

“If you’re going to fight, you should learn how to do it properly.”

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Another castle. This one didn’t even have the decency to meld nature with the man-made even in its ruins. All its crumbling was the result of disuse and neglect, the end product of overcrowding turned to abandonment and dereliction of maintenance. The slow progress of erosion was going to bring this entire complex into the sea, eventually, but she intended to be long gone by that point.

Lucatiel had quickly come to understand that it was a prison, a jail intended to sequester the afflicted out of sight, out of mind. A way for the rest of the world to ignore the problem on its doorstep, or thrust it upon the shoulders of a select few. Time had worn away any difference between captors and captives, and rust had granted liberty to most who had once been chained or confined. The empty cells and oppressive blackness gave the place the air of a tomb, awaiting fresh occupants now that the previous tenants had seen fit to wander the halls freely. 

The rich accoutrements of some of the soldiers and the cloying bandages on the lumbering, hulkish pyromancers were the only things she could use to tell apart those who might have once held the power in this place from those who had been on the bottom rung. Now they were the same as the chain-rattling, single-mindedly self-destructive corpses that threw themselves upon her and demanded a precise sword to the chest lest they engulf her in choking mist or charring flame. They were all lost to the Curse.

Lucatiel wanted to say that she’d seen nothing worth treasuring here. Being reminded of the desperate straits so many would go through to shut away others was disconcerting on its own, but to be reminded that the suicidal, mummified revenants that leapt at her used to be people like herself was almost too much to bear. Once, they’d been in her position, so suddenly afflicted and so suddenly abandoned. Would the same fate have befallen her, too, if she’d stayed? 

Her uncertainty didn’t comfort her, and neither did the strange, squishy, lumpy homunculus that she’d found and taken, spiderwebbed with black brambles and eerily warm to the touch. She had no idea what it was, but she pocketed it anyway, oddly disturbed by her treasure. 

But two things gave her comfort. For one, the Bastille, whatever monstrosities it represented, was a grand testament to human ingenuity and architecture, and worth admiring on those grounds if no other. The forbidding battlements and proud walls were enough to convince her that this place had fallen into chaos from the inside, and never been conquered by a foreign foe. The wind-worn guard towers cast the corners of the Bastille in darkness, but the steeples and belfries jutted out towards the moon, its pale light cold and welcome as it shined down towards the sheltered courtyards and peered through the barred windows. Once, some of them might have been stained glass, but any had long since shattered, the jagged panes cutting shadows across the floors where the lunar body’s light could reach. The stories they might have spelled out on their sheets were little more than shards of crystal on the stones, just as lost and eerily tranquil as the rest of the prison.

The other thing that gave Lucatiel comfort was the individual she’d found wandering the Bastille, who did grant her some peace of mind. Her voice felt sore from lack of use, but it had been good to speak with and fight alongside someone else once again, and they had helped give her some hope in this wretched place. Together, they’d conquered their foes, and found solace in their shared power. It was a good start.

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Lucatiel felt the wood come to rest against her ankle with a clank, and then it swept and scooped her off her feet and she was falling, suspended in her descent with her hand on her weapon until the ground knocked the wind from her lungs. She lifted her head to keep her neck from slamming the dirt too strongly and grit her teeth, more out of disappointment than discomfort. 

“Hah! You fell for it again, baby sister! When are you going to learn that feinting’s an option?” Aslatiel’s taunts would have wounded her if he didn’t seem so overjoyed at his success, if his smile wasn’t as genuinely bright as it appeared to be, spreading wide across his sweat-stained cheeks. His golden hair was matted with perspiration and he was breathing heavily, but he was standing and she wasn’t. He’d won, no matter how tired he was.

He bowed, exaggerating the motion with a flourish in his wrist as she righted herself and stood up. “I’ll get you someday, brother.” She tried to sulk, but couldn’t bring herself to stay upset. She couldn’t blame her loss on her youth anymore: they were both adolescents now and coming into their own, even if they still had lots of growing to do.

“Is that a dare, Lucatiel?” Aslatiel’s eyes flashed with glee at the idea of being able to win one more over on her. She stuck her tongue out instead. Juvenile, perhaps, but fitting.

“It’s a promise.”

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Darkness did more than obscure sight. It made shapes dance in the gloom, bringing terrors to life only to fade away with each step, but never so much that one could feel safe. It didn’t help when there were some very real dangers lurking around every shaded corner. 

The raider’s secret cove was a vertical maze of old taverns, docks and fisheries, crawling with the castoffs of the ships that had come to rest in this harbor one last time, never to set out again. The walkways had collapsed into the sea, forcing her to trudge in waist-deep water that chilled her to the bone and left her feeling like she was walking through thick, heavy cotton. The ceiling of the cove seemed to press down upon her, threatening to shrink and wobble the longer she focused on how tall it was, no matter how much she reminded herself that there was no risk of it collapsing beneath the weight of the waves above the rock. 

Everything that wasn’t flooded was sodden with salt from the tides and the dripping roof of the cave, leaving the wood cracked and bulging as it expanded with the suffusion of liquid and the stones sopping and slowly eaten away by the salinity of the spray. What didn’t splash onto the buildings built up in scraggly, bulbous spikes of mud and stone, tapering down from above in perilous points or sprouting up from the ground where the water fell in a steady drip.

Lucatiel could manage the vagabonds and their plagued dogs easily enough, weaving and dodging and counter-attacking no matter how many times they tried to set her alight with boiling oil or hound her across the rotted planks. But it was more difficult to look at the dwellers in the dimness, with their contorted, elongated limbs and eyeless faces. Life without light bred strange creatures, but these jerked and twitched across the stone recesses of the wharf in ways no human could match. 

Unless, of course, they shared more in common with the Hollows than they seemed. If they were once human, too, now repulsed by the glare of the sun that never penetrated their caves...that boded ill for this land, that such monstrosities could find an origin in men. 

At least they died just as the pirates did. However uncanny their movement, a sword put paid to their danger well enough...and waving a lit torch in their faces, an instrument consisting of an oiled rag on a stick, shocked and terrified them long enough for Lucatiel to stab them in the forehead, chest, or stomach, leaving a trail of long-armed corpses in her wake.

But in this dilapidated dockyard, the same ray of hope found her again. Her friend was still the same impenetrable cipher as before, but they were also perfectly willing to make conversation with a lone swordswoman. Or at least listen to her ramble on.

She’d made a gift to them of the strange effigy she’d found, giving it to her ally in lieu of keeping it in the hopes of uncovering its purpose. Their acceptance, quiet and sincere, drove her to move too quickly, to let the terrible truth of her purpose here escape and be known. Her mask was cast off and she felt cool air on her skin in the presence of another for the first time since she’d arrived. But the cracked, crumpled flesh around her left eye felt nothing. No comforting breeze, no flickering warmth from the fire by her shoulder, no rush of heat from the flow of blood to her face as her friend scrutinized her features. It was staid, unreactive, even if she could still move and see using the yellowing eye contained within.

Lucatiel almost wished that her friend had cast her aside, storming away in horror or revulsion or betrayal. Then she might’ve had the comfort of finding someone to blame and rage at in her own quiet, solemn way. 

But their only response was to turn and bare their shoulder, and the swirl of blackness on their skin told her all she needed to know. The Curse had touched them, too.

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The blunted steel swung towards her shin, and she stamped down onto the blade. It didn’t shatter, but the point was well secured beneath her foot. Now all she had to do was keep it there and stab, and then…

“Almost, sister.” 

Before she could react, the body at the other end of the blade hurtled forward, bowling into her shoulder-first while her focus was still on the sword in the ground. Her leg buckled in spite of her attempt to brace herself, and she fell backwards.

She was proud to say that she didn’t drop her blade. Unfortunately, she still ended up on her back, her foot off of her brother’s practice sword, giving him the space needed to grab and redirect its point to her chest. Another lost duel.

“Well done, brother.” Lucatiel extended her hand upwards and felt Aslatiel grip her wrist, hoisting her up in one go. Where once he might’ve struggled to lift her, now he could pull her from a prone position with as little difficulty as swinging a sword. She knew she could pick him up, too, and she had the muscles to prove it. But until she beat him, she’d never get the chance to show that off.

She’d just have to settle for defeating everyone else.

“You too, Lucatiel. And hey, chin up. You’ll beat me one of these days.”

She tried not to chortle. “Is that a challenge?”

Aslatiel shook his head, sheathing his sword. “That’s a promise.”

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The longer Lucatiel was here, the more madness she discovered. 

What hideous geography was at work? Sometimes, her trekking felt pointless in the face of the locales she encountered, and sometimes, she could understand how she ended up from one place to the next.

She did not want to dwell on one of the possibilities that had crossed her mind as to why the layout of this place appeared to elude reason. That her memory was fading, bleeding away from her like a slit in her skin trickling blood, oozing and leaking from her mind without coagulating or letting her choose what she kept. If the path from one place to another did not conform to the logic she knew, then there was a very real possibility that she was forgetting the time in between points of interest. That the Curse was doing its work upon her so insidiously as to rob her of experiences as she lived them, reducing her life from one set of dangers to another.

She tried to comfort herself by focusing on the fact that the world did not always conform to linear models of reality as she knew them. That time and space were difficult, melding together from ages past and future, places near and far. And for all of its confusions, there was much that could fit neatly into how she preconceived the order of things to work.

For one, the way that the cliffs of Majula lined ancient aqueducts that fed to the ruined land of Heide, which led to the sheltered cove of the pirates that she'd explored, fit together well in the puzzle she was making of Drangleic’s map. The resplendent cathedrals, crumbled roofs and sparking lighthouse were once the towering peaks of the land that had come before, but now were sunk so low into the sea that only their very tops had escaped flooding. She supposed that it wasn’t unusual that those at the top would be the last to suffer: the multitudes of people who once had lived in the lower reaches of the city had to have drowned and perished first, before fate attacked the clerics and nobles who called these magnificent palaces home.

Was it a gradual rise of the tides that brought about the collapse of this land, now absorbed into Drangleic? Or a sudden catastrophe? Had the Curse manifested here, too? How many monsters like what she could become had been the root of Heide’s fall? 

When those thoughts entered her mind, Lucatiel struggled to shake them off. No matter how much she told herself off for her speculation, though, she couldn’t dodge the discomfort within her chest at the idea that her kind, that the Cursed, bore some sort of guilt for yet another land’s downfall. Perhaps it had been for the best that she’d fled, lest she bring the same cataclysm to Mirrah.

No, no, she couldn’t let herself fall into that thinking. She’d left...she’d left for responsibility, yes, but not to Mirrah. It had to have been for herself, for fear of shame and dishonor and a desire to…

...To…

For a horrible moment, Lucatiel forgot why she came to Drangleic. For a terrible second, the route of entry, the people she had met, and the fiends she had already slain left her memory. She’d already forgotten so much: the exact moment when her mother had first shown her a sword; the way her father’s face creased when he was worried; the details of the first time she’d lost a duel to Aslatiel. And even more had slipped from the reserves of her mind as she added new experiences to an already draining reservoir of memory. Something larger blocked her mind when she tried to recall the specifics of the things she’d forgotten, and besides knowing that they had happened, the nuances escaped her. How long, too, before she would not even remember that these had occurred, even worse than muddying the details? And when would she forget even more?

Cold panic gripped her, and she loosened her focus on her surroundings, stumbling and clutching the stone railing of the bridge she’d lowered across the chasm in a forlorn, Hollow-riddled wood. In the distance, pine trees stabbed the smokey clouds, cruelly piercing upwards and swaying with the wind that whistled through the chasm, the greenness of their needles almost invisible in the gloom. They seemed to accentuate the sharpness of the bonfire of corpses, the butchery of the torturers, and the confines of the oubliettes in the forest. She tried not to focus on the black birds above her, circling, waiting for something to bring about her end so they could feast. She didn’t consider that they wouldn’t get the satisfaction, that if she died she’d rise again and rob them of the easy meal they longed for.

Her resolve steeled when a sound like wooden blocks falling to the floor came to her attention ahead of her. She looked up and tightened her hold on the hilt of her sword as a skeleton danced into her view, joints creaking, ribs rattling while wind whistled through its empty eye sockets. It fixed her with a vacuous grin, permanently stamped on its lipless skull, and charged, clutching a rusty, blunted blade in one set of thin fingers and a splintered buckler in the other.

Lucatiel stepped forward, lowering her shield. The lessons came back to her while the fear in her mind melted away. The skeleton bulled in her direction without tact or feint, and attempted a clumsy swipe at her arm. Even in such poor condition, her adversary’s weapon could be crippling: if she’d been slower or less prepared, she’d have taken a cut to her left forearm. Instead, she dipped to the right, stopping her breath as the metal whirred by her left wrist. She moved with the momentum by spinning and slamming down on the skeleton’s shoulder with the flat of her blade, loosening her arm to let the shockwave of her strike ripple through to her chest without resistance. The skeleton’s shoulder cracked and its right arm popped out of its torso under the force of her blow, leaving it reeling and wobbling with a missing limb.

She’d long since learned that striking skeletons with the point or edge of her weapon was worthless: it would simply wear at her sword and get it stuck in the bone. Raw, blunt force was her preferred solution. The best way to kill them was to simply shatter them to pieces.

If the skeleton had eyes, it would have stared at her. If it had lungs, it would have gaped and sputtered at being so literally disarmed. Instead, it swung its other arm towards her, spinning on its pelvis to throw more weight behind the blow. 

Lucatiel was ready, her shield already raised to take the strike, feeling the scrabbling fingers slide fruitlessly against the barrier.

She smiled beneath her mask. Yes, this was still there. This was still the same. A quick bracing of her left foot on the ground, knee slightly bent, and then she bashed forward with the flat face of her shield, crunching the skeleton’s remaining arm between the steel and its own ribcage. It never knew what hit it: one moment, its fingers were gripping the rim of her shield and struggling to pull it away, and the next that same bulwark was barreling towards it, shattering its hand and shoulder and sending its skull flying from its neck with a pop.

It stood there listlessly, minus its arms and head, then toppled over into a heap, scattering onto the ground. Lucatiel wasn’t even breathing heavily, and she kept her sword out, still tense and ready: Drangleic rarely presented her with only a single foe to confront at a time. But even in the face of further danger, she couldn’t help but feel reinvigorated. Fighting brought her back to happier times, to the one who was the reason for her journey in the first place.

She remembered why she came. She remembered her own curse, and she remembered Aslatiel. So long as she could keep fighting, she would hold on to that much, at least.

---------------------------------- 

The day they joined Mirrah’s official Order of knights was the happiest day of Lucatiel’s life.

All of the hardship, all of the sweat and blood and tears and bruising and training had built up to this moment, to the time when she and Aslatiel could cast off the chains of peasantry and bring their family up to the most respected caste in society. The day when they could stand alongside their fellow graduates and trainees, in the presence of their mentors and leaders, and call themselves proud Mirrah Knights, swearing themselves in defense of their country against the enemies that constantly assailed it. The day that their family could, at last, reap the rich benefits of rising in the ranks and serving their homeland, and escape the destitution that had trapped them for so long.

She would swear forever after that a tear did not roll down her cheek during the ceremony. She did not cry, no matter what her brother said to tease her.

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Lucatiel respected her enemies when she could. Not doing so quickly led to disdain, which led to overconfidence and underestimation, and that was the path to defeat and death. But she could not respect pure, unadulterated, insidious poison. 

An enemy that used poison to overcome deficiencies in stamina or strength or to otherwise gain equal or even greater footing could still be worthy of honor. Every situation called for a different weapon, a different tool. 

But there was nothing honorable about a blighted land, so steeped in toxic gas and deadly fumes that all who ventured in were choked and brought low by an unkillable, unformed foe. The chained hollows, monstrous laborers, and diminutive overseers painted a picture of a place of forced laboring, where slaves and prisoners were exploited to death working mines in conditions that permitted no survivors. The ragged windmills in the distance spun and twirled, but surely no grain cold survive in this blighted dirt. What, then, were they pumping? There was no hidden life waiting to reclaim this tortured land, no forgotten beauty biding its time to rejuvenate the locale. This valley had worked its laborers to death, and now it too merely longed to pass on. For its ashen, staid soil and empty rock to rest forevermore, untilled and unmined, awaiting the day when it was simply left alone. 

But until then, it would take everything she had to survive here. Lucatiel’s lungs had their work cut out for them as she sprinted through the noxious mines without inhaling. Even skin contact left her feeling burning and woozy, eyes unfocused and mind swimming with an assault upon her senses: dripping tears, pounding ears, itching skin, nostril-curling acrid stenches and bitterness on her tongue. Her vision was wet and blurry: she was bawling nearly as badly as when she’d finally graduated into full knighthood.

It didn’t help that a terrifying ensemble of adversaries arrayed this part of her journey through this overexploited, barren valley. She could bash apart skeletons with ease, provided they didn’t swarm her, but she was far more concerned with the sorceresses that had turned their attention to her, tiring of the Hollow laborers that continued their mindless worship of their mistresses. 

Once, Lucatiel might have been distracted by the pyromancer's smooth, exposed stomachs, thigh-high boots, gloves that extended past their elbows and intriguingly disguised faces...to say nothing of their chest-pieces, which were little more than underclothes. She still had tattered scraps of memories of such experiences during her time in Mirrah. Names and faces now eluded her, though if she struggled she could very faintly recall attraction to, men, women, or people who evaded such dichotomies.

Now, however, such thoughts were far from her mind, especially when the women started giggling fiendishly and casting flame in her direction. An arc of three trailing orbs of fire charred the gray rock in front of her, sprinkling soot onto her shield and ash onto her boots. Lucatiel fell back into her old habits, the instincts of how to defeat one who employed magic rising back up to fill the void where other memories had lain fallow. Shield up and angled straight to avoid a stray conflagration into her face; head lowered to reduce the target available to her opposition; swerving, zigzagging motions to present a less consistent opening. If she’d been less distracted by the poison, Lucatiel could have dashed up to the woman and cut her down right then and there, but her muscles protested too loudly and her lungs heaved too deeply for her to run at top speed.

The pyromancer put one set of gloved fingers to her lips and blew a kiss towards Lucatiel. She swore she could see a smile beneath the shadow of their hood before sparks coalesced before the woman’s face where her hands had touched, collecting into a sphere too bright to look upon, emanating heat that distorted the air around it into a ball before rocketing towards Lucatiel. She knew she couldn’t block such a spell: whatever it was would be too much for her shield to handle. If it wasn’t melted outright, it’d heat the metal to the point where it burned her hand, and she couldn’t risk that. 

So, instead of blocking, Lucatiel exhaled and ducked, tucking her shield hand in and holding her sword point away from her body. The momentum of her motion sent her rolling forward, bearing her weight on her shoulders for a heartbeat with her legs in the air, the boiling heat above her feet letting her know that she’d dodged underneath the path of the ignited globe. When her weight carried her back forward again, she was on her feet and leaping, bringing her sword back in front of her to zip forward in a stab.

Thunk!

Lucatiel looked up at the sorceress, who stared back at the knight dumbly. The mirror her adversary had been carrying fell from her grasp, and she clutched feebly at the blade now buried point-first in her sternum, fingers slipping uselessly against the steel. 

The pyromancer let out a croaking sound, shoulders slumping and head lolling as Lucatiel withdrew her weapon with a wet shlick. The tip and the half of her sword that had been buried in her foe was stained a deeper scarlet than the sorceress’s robes, the slit in the woman’s chest oozing blood with the blade’s exit. She raised her hand, then fell to her knees and forward, bleeding onto the stone as her body began to relax in the sleep of death.

Lucatiel didn’t have time to enjoy her victory: the Hollow slaves that had been attending to the pyromancer rose from their bowed positions, their attention affixed on the killer of their object of worship. And another woman awaited her at the top of the ladder across the gorge.

She readied her blade and shield as the other sorceress scattered a volley of fire towards her and the Hollows approached. Lucatiel would not die today.

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 Lucatiel’s first true kill wasn’t pretty.

One of the many conflicts that Mirrah was constantly mired in had erupted into battle near their eastern border, on an open valley ringed by hills that afforded a great deal of space for warriors to clash in combat lines that flowed and fell back like the river that divided the two sides.

Attacking across a river against an enemy that had a hill to fall back upon was stupid. Suicidal, even. But the Knights of Mirrah were expected to attempt it anyway: such was their duty, and such was their pedigree that they’d be expected to win. The rest of their country needed them to take that hill, to secure this valley to better hold back the next attack or to make room for an advance.

When the battle lines met, confusion reigned. She’d been taught to expect any situation, but training was little substitute for the real thing. Not even the lessons she’d absorbed from the practice mêlées she’d participated in were quite right here. In theory, she knew what to do when fighting in water—go for the lowest point of contact above the water to unbalance her opponent, usually a knee, to try to get them battling both the liquid and her own blows—but her foes refused to be contained. It was chaos; blunt weapons smashed shields to splinters or were redirected for counterattacks on the part of the defender; épées thrust into openings in armor, seeking purchase in soft flesh beneath plates or in between chainmail links; shrieks and shouts assailed her ears, with distant bugle-calls merely adding to the din.

This was the raw, unbridled chaos of an infantry line being met with shock troops. The aggression of the Mirrah Knights was all that stood between them and a muddy grave.

Lucatiel couldn’t hear her orders, but she kept her head enough to not freeze and continued advancing towards the first free opponent she saw. They were more heavily equipped than her, shelled in thick armor that must’ve weighed more than Lucatiel’s whole body, their helmet blocking their features, but the colors emblazoned on their plate told her that they were an enemy. Her boots slammed into the river loud enough to draw their attention, and they hefted their axe and waited for her to approach.

Smart. She’d have to spend more energy to get to them than they would standing still, and they had the superior reach. One strike with that weapon looked like it could split Lucatiel in two. If she wasn’t at risk of losing it in the confusion, Lucatiel would have discarded her shield in favor of speed. She had no chance at blocking that monster head-on, but it was too late now.

She stepped forward with her right foot, keeping her weight on her left, trying to gauge the reach of the axe from its length. If she’d eyeballed it right, then she should be—

Right on cue, her challenger leaned forward and swung from right to left far faster than she’d been expecting, the air whistling in the wake of their blade. Lucatiel leaned back, stepping onto her left foot with her shield held in front of her on reflex. The axe missed the polished surface by a whisker, but she wasn’t in a good position to strike back. If she stepped forward now, she’d get hit on their return swing, and sure enough, her enemy did as she expected, the blade of their weapon dinging the tip of her shield on the reverse motion.

Now was her chance—they were just the slightest bit off-balance from the force of their swing. Why had they put all their weight behind it? Did they not know how vulnerable two-handed weapons left their wielders after such a blow? No matter: it was to Lucatiel’s advantage. Hers was not a thrusting sword, but in a pinch, it could work as one, and her opponent’s unsteadiness left a tiny slit visible between the armor covering their body and their neck-guard, exposing the smallest sliver of skin. Forcing herself forward against the water, Lucatiel slammed the edge of her shield against her enemy’s face, knocking them to their knees and widening their weak point, and jabbed her sword down between the plates separating their neck-guard from the armor of their torso.

It took Lucatiel a moment to realize that the meaty thunk that she heard was, in fact, the sound of a blade sinking into vulnerable flesh, sliding past skin and fat and muscle to open up the insides beneath. Her enemy dropped their axe, clawing weakly at Lucatiel’s blade, red blood trickled up from the puncture point to diffuse into the water. Their grunts sounded...oddly soft for such a large individual, and as she withdrew her blade their helmet came off with the steel.

She beheld a young man’s face, his chin barely stubbled, olive skin pockmarked with the scars of acne and sunburn, close-cut hair flattened from the helmet he’d so recently been wearing. The line of his jaw and the broadness of his shoulders suggested he possessed no shortage of strength, but he couldn’t have been older than nineteen, maybe twenty. He wasn’t gritting his teeth and spitting blood at her, raging in the face of death, determined to see this through.

He was terrified.

His eyes widened, welling up red, tears streaming down his face to mix with the drool and mucus oozing from his lips and nostrils, pooling onto the hollow of his armor. His neck wound, no longer plugged by her sword, began to run, sanguine fluid streaming down to the water. He raised a hand to his neck, weakly, and his fingers slacked as he began to sob and fall forward.

When his face slipped beneath the water, a crimson halo forming around his head, he did not get up.

Lucatiel wanted to vomit, to scream, to rage at the circumstances that had forced this. She’d killed a boy a year younger than her. There was nothing laudable in stabbing a frightened young man, someone who had his own family, his own fears, his own belief in the cause of his homeland. No great pride swelled up in her at the slaying of this threat to Mirrah as his dreams slipped out of his body in the blood that stained the river. A part of her wanted to toss aside her weapon, to quit the field, whatever shame that might entail. That fraction of her had no desire to be a party to this butchering.

Then the yelling and shrieking rolled back over her in a wave. She heard other sounds, too—her fellow knights, struggling and straining and calling out in their drive to seize this hill. Her commanders, behind and beside her, urging unity and direction and targeted pushes. She could not let them down. She could not let her country down, her order down, her family down. Her brother was here somewhere, brawling in the river, and she could not leave Aslatiel to die.

And so Lucatiel stood up, readied her shield, and charged at the closest enemy she could.

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She thought that she’d seen the last of the poison when she entered the windmill at the far end of the valley. She’d been horribly mistaken.

Sure, Lucatiel wasn’t constantly having to hold her breath to avoid choking on gas, but being surrounded by pottery filled to the brim with contaminants and having to fight marionnettes with envenomed weapons, backlit by the noxious pool of sickly-green slime, wasn’t much better. The windmill was stifling, trapping the fumes within its walls that had, when she was outside, found avenues other than her lungs to flee to. Fortunately, the poison was mostly constrained to the muck at the bottom of the tower, but it still stank terribly, and made it difficult for her to properly appreciate how cluttered this building was with mechanical contraptions, walkways, and grinding gears. 

She had to catch herself multiple times, lest a stray strike shatter a vase and leave her coated in acid that, as far as she knew, would eat through her armor and skin until she was as much a skeleton as those she bashed to pieces. Or maybe it would seep into her skin, travel up her veins, and stop her heart or shrivel her lungs or deaden her brain. Either one would’ve been horrible, and she had no desire to find out.

The marionettes, by some perversion of magic, operated without heads or faces. No voices hissed from the empty sockets of their necks, and their bodies did not heave with breath or exertion when she clashed with them. They clung to the ceiling and hung beneath ledges and railings, waiting to leap up and strike at her with thrown knives or arrows, to slash at her with sharpened claws and deadly blades, all coated in a poison that sapped her strength, ached her limbs, burned her skin and left her dizzy and unbalanced while they pressed their attack. 

Fighting someone who had no need to guard a head or neck was unusual: instead of operating with a single point to guard from harm at all costs, these deadly puppets lunged and danced through her swings when she aimed for the face and expected them to duck, flinch, or guard. Suppressing her habits took work, but even in her befuddled, strained state, Lucatiel could adapt. If she didn’t, she’d be finished. 

Fortunately, whatever magic animated them was fragile, as were they, and when she sliced them in twain they did not bleed, merely crumpling into loose, empty clothing, folded on the ground. Their danger lay in their numbers, their poison, and their ambushes: when she had them cornered, they were finished. The toll their toxins took on her body was harder to recuperate from, leaving her mind swimming and muscles protesting a little more each time, but Lucatiel refused to be felled by creatures that were little more than highwaymen, however trussed up and unusual they were.

The gray-skinned warriors were more durable and more straightforwardly dangerous. Their spears never touched her, but when she deflected a blow she could feel an unnatural chill seep through the metal, up her arm, worming its way to her cheeks and tickling her mind with thoughts of terrifying, cold stillness. Lucatiel got glimpses of blanketing quietude, of suffocating drowsiness, and it was only after she’d pulled these wardens off her sword that she felt able to clear her head. Their breath misted through the veils over their faces as they emptied their black blood onto the ground, the fluid oozing out with a stagnation that suggested it had never really been pumping through their veins.

Lucatiel could not endure too much more of this place. She could suffer poison and survive a little chill and take the flames that the sorceresses hurled at her, but altogether it was proving to be too much. She had to ascend to the peak of this windmill, and fast, lest she…

Lest she…

No, she couldn’t. She mustn’t entertain that possibility. She would not perish in this wretched place, and she would not lose herself, sieged as she was by toxins and dark cold and doubt. She was Lucatiel of Mirrah, a Knight, and she would hold herself through this.

Her thoughts turned to her friend. How had she let them slip her mind? She’d seen them so recently, too, when she’d first entered the windmill. How could she have forgotten the encouragement their presence afforded, the security that their shared struggles and journeys passed to her? They were Cursed, just as she, and however disparate their travels, she was not wholly alone.

She’d...she’d discussed him, yes. Aslatiel. Her brother, the reason she was here, to...to cure him, was that it? To seek a cure for him, to find him, to know what they both were and could become?

Yes, that was the one. She had to cling tightly to that, to maintain herself through this haze of fading thought and frittering distraction. All else might fade, and her recollections might distort and warp like burned glass, clouding the details of her past, but she had to hold on to this. The memory brought Lucatiel back to the present, back to her duty and trials, returning her to the knowledge that elucidation awaited. Understanding awaited. This could not be for naught. She would not allow it.

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Lucatiel knew that she should not think of them as people.

Mirrah had staved off whatever calamity brought upon the Curse of the Undead, but the same could not be said of their neighbors. Those that they’d fought against to secure resources and define borders with now came at them with newfound and terrifying purpose. 

The soldiers still wore plate, and still gripped weapons in their hands. But their skin was shriveled and pruned, clinging to bones and divets in various shades of green, pink, and sickly yellow. Their movements were sloppy, uncoordinated, their arms hanging low, posture hunched and steps unsteady. 

Somehow, a Hollowed foe was even more terrifying in spite of this. The numbers and apparent inability to die were concerning on their own, but behind every jaundiced, empty-eyed gaze was a shell that still clung to some remnant of the self, manifested in barely-discriminate violence and rote repetition of habit. For a Hollowed soldier, that meant fighting, and the little flashes of intelligence they manifested in their coordination were just enough to remind her that they’d once been human.

For all she knew, they still were. Maybe the croaks that emanated from their parched throats were attempts to talk, to plead, but their bodies refused to act out the whims of their minds, leaving them trapped in their fleshy, deathless forms. Even if they weren’t, something of a memory persisted there in the bungled attempts to reflect the roles the Hollows had played in life. And every one of them had once called someone else their family or friend. 

Lucatiel tried not to dwell on such things, and it was easier to separate herself from Hollows as she slayed them compared to when she cut down humans...and she’d long since gotten used to killing. But the image wouldn’t leave...and though she was fortunate enough to not recognize anyone, she didn’t want to confront what she might have done if she had. Could she kill a comrade that turned, if the Curse ever came to Mirrah? Could she kill her lord, her fellows, her family, if they were in that position?

She didn’t know. But as she stood with her fellow knights and cut down the Hollows that pressed forward, she couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bud of something ill begin to flower within her. It may have been dread, or doubt, or primal, reflexive fear. But whatever it was, it took root in her heart, and Lucatiel couldn’t shake the sensation that there was something deeply, intrinsically wrong about all this.

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At least it wasn’t poison.

To be fair, flames weren’t much better. The heat was sweltering, the perspiration running down her forehead and over her eyelids faster than she could take off her mask to wipe it off. She could have removed her hat to make it easier on her skin, but the idea was absurd. Lucatiel would never risk losing her headgear. 

But this monument to iron and pride was sorely tempting her. Past the mountain of the windmill lay the volcanic caldera that encircled this castle, but she could not even be certain of that. The elevator had gone upwards, but how could a pool of molten magma rest above a tower? It made no sense. Had her memory erased the transitional journey further towards the mountain, or had the rules of this land proved malleable once again? Neither possibility was comforting.

Still, this keep was intimidating and radiated nearly as much power as it did heat. Whoever had erected it had an eye for the brutal and macabre, with sharp towers, heavy chains for support, and hideous representations of animals, all encased in iron-wrought beams and charred stonework. The place was built with bulk, and if it had not sunk into a lake of fire, perhaps it might have already proven impregnable. The architect of this edifice, or at least their master, also enjoyed bulls far too much: everywhere Lucatiel looked, ugly caricatures of the horned creatures met her gaze. Some spouted fire, while others formed the basis of the pottery, and others simply stood by and watched her with empty eye sockets. Lucatiel tried not to shudder as she passed them.

Similarly terrifying was the legion of warriors that awaited her in this lava-flooded place. The automatons wrapped in shell armor from the forest were here too, in more pristine condition, but the true terrors were the knights with unusual blades and fire-casted armor.

They fought so similarly. Too similarly. Their swordsmanship was in sync to the point of uniformity, their patterns too sharp to have been born of anything but a single trainer. Such a monolithic adherence to style from them all, rather than just a select few, might have suggested that they were automatons, crafted with soul and steel like the behemoths from before. But their armor, and whatever bodies might be beneath, crumpled into ash and soot faster than she could inspect them, and they seemed to leave something resembling blood on her blade.

Whatever they were, they had been engendered or trained by a single artist of the sword, and they fought with a flow and grace unlike any she had ever beheld, jabbing and slicing faster than her eye could follow. Adapting to the intricacies of their blows, to the tells in their posture and the balance of their footing, brought her surety, but never familiarity. She was glad that their creator or teacher seemed absent, at least: that one had to be a true master with a blade.

Of course, those that did not confront her with a blade bombarded her from a distance with arrows as long as she was tall. But whether the knights tried to swarm, ambush, or confront her openly, she was ready. When they feinted, she tried not to smirk as she let them believe she took the bait before attacking from the opposite side, sending them off-balance with a bash from her shield and ending them with a blow from her sword. Lucatiel had never fallen for a feint before, and would not start now. 

Especially not when her friend called on her. They...were a friend, she knew. Yes, she had helped them before, or at least spoken to them...had it been twice now? Or was this the first, and they’d simply made an excellent initial impression, such that she was convinced she’d known them? No, they wouldn’t take advantage of her like that. But if she couldn’t recall, how could she say for certain? She would have to trust her instincts, and they told her that she could count this individual as an ally, similarly afflicted.

It mattered little, in any event. The golem of fire and iron that awaited them did not care if her memory was playing tricks on her: its blade, thick and blunt, a slab of raw metal spidered with lava useful more for bashing and crushing rather than slicing or stabbing, still struck at her all the same. No matter how Lucatiel’s mind wandered, it still boiled the air around it with the convection of the flames that burned in its belly. No matter how difficult it might be for her to recall herself, to remember the elements that made up her past, the demon that she faced alongside her companion still set its sword aflame and charred the air and floor with its swings, demanding her full attention lest her bones be squashed beneath its might, her flesh melting into her armor. It would be a horrible way to die.

She was in the flow of combat, of dodging and striking and advancing, and in her flurry of activity she could almost forget the fate that hung so heavily over her. But she knew that the absences would continue to dog her, inevitable in their promise of oblivion, and that any pretense of not being aware of her condition would fade as quickly as it arrived. So much had already been irreparably lost to the fog of her cursed mind: if killing would slow the degradation, she would never sheathe her sword, and fight to the last.

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 “What’s troubling you, Aslatiel?”

Her brother sat across from her in the banquet hall of the Order, finger tapping unevenly against his wine goblet. He did not respond, and did not meet her eyes. He’d been like this too much lately.

“Brother? Is something the matter?” Lucatiel put her fork down, frowning with concern. It was not like him to brood, or sulk, or do...whatever it was he was doing. He always had a light, easy energy about him. Certainly, in the thick of battle he was as serious and determined as any proper knight, but when it was over he did his best to grin, laugh, and enjoy the bounty he had. It was his way of dealing with the mounting weight that came with the loss of his fellow knights, the threats to his home, and the pressures of his station. Being the shining paragon of Mirrah brought him myriad advantages...and also terrifying scrutiny.

Lucatiel confronted her grief, exhaustion, and frustration with sword practice, the love of her family, and quiet contemplation. And, when she saw a need to indulge herself, drinking, feasting, and carousing. She was careful to ration her celebrations, lest they distract her from her duties or bring dishonor to her Order. Aslatiel knew how to limit himself, and had yet to exceed his boundaries. But he rarely was sullen, and never quieter than she was.

Until recently, Aslatiel had given no indication that anything was wrong. Certainly, life was hard, and being a Knight of Mirrah’s stately Order was no simple task. But in spite of the gnawing sadness that he’d been communicating to her, she was certain that his conviction had not wavered, that his faith had not shaken, and that his will had not shattered. The repeated battles against foes, whether they be domestic or foreign, living or Undead, had not seemed to weaken his exuberance or blunt his hope for her and their shared country.

But now, he was morose, and Lucatiel was worried.

“I cannot help you if you won’t allow me to, Aslatiel.”

“Sister,” he began, resting his chin in his palm and digging his elbow into the table, “have I ever...have you ever found cause to doubt me?”

“Never.” She spoke with clear confidence, leaning forward to get his attention. “Aslatiel, you are the most decorated knight in all of Mirrah. You are the pride and joy of our country and our order. More than that, you are my brother, and you could never disappoint me.”

She stretched her hand forward, and he moved to lock his fingers with hers. A distracted smile crossed his face, and he squeezed her grip.

“Lucatiel.” He swallowed and tried to smile again, but the gesture looked terribly careworn. “If anything happens to me, please. Please protect Mirrah, and Mother and Father. I know you’re always comparing yourself against me...but you’ve a strength and a spirit that I could never muster. Treasure it.”

“What’s gotten into you, brother?”

“Promise me, Lucatiel.”

“I...I promise, Aslatiel.”

“Thank you.” He leaned across to press his forehead to hers. “I love you, sister.”

“I love you too, brother.” She squeezed his shoulder as they moved away. “What brought this on? Why make plans so suddenly? You’re the best among us. No enemy could strike you down. And we have no battles awaiting us tomorrow. You’re not going to die.”

“No.” Aslatiel agreed, raising his goblet to his lips and waiting for her to lift her own, the siblings clinking the glasses together. “I’m not.”

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Poison. Why did it have to be poison?

Deep down, at the very bottom of the world, nameless things crawled and contorted in the darkness. Far worse than the misshapen humanoids of the cove, here, there was truly no sunlight, and in the shadows malformed monsters made their homes beneath the weight of the world above. Lucatiel thought things had been bad when she was struggling through a shantytown of filth and refuse, but even further below, the only light to be found was sickly green, blossoming up from the stone and toxic statues like a cancer. 

Beneath layers of oily muck, circular rows of teeth waited to suck the flesh from her bones, reaching out to her with greedy, grasping mandibles that formed part of their leathery, faceless bodies, a tail extending from the back giving them a shape akin to an inky hand and forearm. When the first one had leapt at her, mouthparts tensing and stretching to try to take ahold of her while its appendages strained to touch her, she knew she could not plunge her blade straight down its maw if she wanted to keep her hand. Nor could she attack it with her shield, lest its grip prove the stronger and it wrench it from her hand, using her unbalance to go in for the kill.

Lucatiel swung her blade in a half-circle from her right shoulder towards her left. A pair of meaty, satisfying thunks met her ears, her weapon carving through the hide of the monster to sever one of its bottom two limbs, the twitching mass falling to the floor separated from its owner, leaving brown-green blood pumping from the stump. Her sword caught in the other, the edge stuck in the cartilage or bone, and even in its injured state it tried to reach for her with its upper trio of fingers. 

She grit her teeth and pulled back, dragging the creature with her by the hold her blade had on its body. The motion forced a sawing motion across the flesh holding her sword, and at last it slipped free, leaving the remaining bottom appendage hanging uselessly by a hinge of flesh, unresponsive and swinging. 

The abomination shot forward in a dive, trying to knock her over, and rather than stand her ground she sidestepped and stabbed downward onto the back of its hand-like “head”, pinning it to the stone beneath through the hurricane of teeth it called a mouth. She could stab again, to make sure she hit something vital...but she wanted to be safe. Instead of withdrawing her weapon to slice and stab again, she released the grip she had on the hilt, trusting her blade to keep the creature secured while she stepped onto its ridged “back.” Her shield fell onto it, another weight holding it down, and she used both hands to take hold of the monster’s middle appendage, dig her foot into the skin near the base, and pull backwards.

Did it understand what she was doing? Perhaps not. She certainly hoped that such an affront to the world had no consciousness. But it still struggled, trapped beneath her feet and impaled on her sword, the limb in her hand writhing to free itself while the other two wriggled and tried to push off the stone. 

Lucatiel would not be deterred. Beneath her hat and mask, her jaw was tensed, brow furrowed and dripping with sweat as she put all of her strength into this motion. Her arms strained from the effort, biceps bulging beneath her armor while her thighs kept her steady and lent her leverage by distributing the weight of her body into the beast she was currently grappling with.

Then, at last, she heard it. It started as a popping, then a louder crack, and then the tension against her hands started to slack as the creature’s body gave way.

With a long, terrible rip, Lucatiel tore one of the monster’s limbs clean off, falling onto her back atop the beast while its appendage, ripped free from its body, thrashed and struggled until she was forced to release it and watch it roll off the ledge into the darkness. The creature heaved and jerked, trapped beneath her weapon, shield, and body, deprived of three of its once-five limbs. Its motions left it dragging against the sword holding it fast to the ground, but its motions weakened as its vital fluids emptied out from the four holes she’d made in its body: three from amputation, and a fourth from the blade still in its back. Before long, it lay still, and Lucatiel had the space to let collect herself. 

A sob tore from her throat, and she had no idea if it was from rage, desperation, horror or mere exhaustion at the ordeals she’d had to endure. Why was she here, where no human was meant to venture, slicing, impaling, and ripping nightmarish monsters apart? There was no hope of refuge, no hope of rescue down here. She couldn’t even remember what had driven her to this land in the first place.

Lucatiel knew she had to preserve her memory. To preserve herself. It was a fragile thing, to have her being tied to something as transitory as her memories, but when that was all she had to hold on to, she had no choice but to cling to them, lest despair take hold of the tattered scraps of her soul. She did not want to die, and more than that, she wanted to exist. No, to live, with the fullness of her self, of herself, as a woman, as a human, as an individual and a person.

For a brilliant moment, a fraction came back to her. She was Lucatiel of Mirrah, second in standing among its Order beside her brother, Aslatiel of Mirrah. She had come to Drangleic to...was she searching for a cure? For him, for herself? Why did he...No, no, she’d held it in her mind again, she’d been so close, and now where did it go…?

She’d conjured up the memories in her mind for the briefest moment, grasping them like tendrils of steam rising from a hot spring, and they had slipped through the fingers of her thoughts.

She wanted to cry, to lash out at the indignity of it all. To push back at the implication that had lurked over her shoulder since she’d slain her first Hollow: that there was precious little preventing her from joining their vacant, shriveled ranks. That the community of rejected souls she had rampaged through on her way through—the demeaned, nearly naked and utterly bereft shamblers she had torn through while they weakly and mindlessly tried to defend their squalid homes—had not just once been fellow humans, but a vision of her own future.

And so Lucatiel made her way to a safe little tunnel in the caverns, apart from the beasts and the bile, and wept. She cried, feeling her memories slip away with her tears, and mourned the uncertainty and cruelty that condemned her and everyone like her to suffer this crisis of identity. She bawled like she never had before, for her stunted recollections told her that she had truly never found cause to weep. Breaking down for the first time in this evil place should have brought her shame, but the freedom to sob openly was too good to pass up.

The arrival of her friend, bearing a torch, barely registered until she was prodded and brought to notice their presence. She did not have the focus to properly communicate her torments...but perhaps her friend shared her burden. They could certainly understand her fears, if nothing else, though they might have seemed impenetrably stoic. And if they were bearing their burden so strongly, she owed it to them, and to...whatever else had prompted her travels to see it through.

Lucatiel had to take after their example, as long as she could. Her fate might yet be unavoidable, but if she did not face it as a knight properly should, then her defeat would be all the more absolute. Following them into the fiery cavern at the heart of this cavern, to destroy the wretched amalgamation within, a writhing, coagulated horde of melting Hollows, provided a fleeting sense of power. And then it was gone, lost without a trace, and she felt as empty, weak, and yearning as before.

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He was gone the next morning. At the height of his status and glory, he had vanished. 

The appropriate searches and inquiries were carried out, but for all intents and purposes, the most celebrated Knight in Mirrah—the man who, alongside his sister, had personified the equalizing power of its armed forces by rising from poor peasantry to glorious knighthood—was gone. 

The worst was the indignity of the rumors. That Aslatiel had finally fallen, brought low from the heights of his victories by some hubris or another. Or, worse, that he had deserted his order and comrades in their hour of need. Lucatiel had fought such scurrilous denigrations, and her allies had stood by her as she defended her brother’s integrity. But the toll it had taken on her left her more exhausted than any war, and more vigilant to the darkness that encroached upon Mirrah from all corners...including from within.

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There was something horribly comforting about the dark. 

It was not the same dark that had seemed oppressive before, and that had harbored monster no human was meant to behold. The murk of the Undead Crypt was stifling, but the pressure bearing down on her was reassuring. Like the weight that rested on her eyes before sleep, or the molasses that worked its way into her limbs when she’d finished a satisfying round of swordplay.

It told Lucatiel that she’d done well, and that it was time to rest. She almost let herself be convinced that it was the right decision. It would be peaceful here, wouldn’t it? To simply...walk into the darkness, to find her tomb, and find her reward. To find a truer sleep, a truer peace, than she’d ever get to know. Would she Hollow, in such serenity? Or remain in a kind of suspended animation, always faded and fading but never vanishing completely? Would her memories fade? Did she even have any to lose? She couldn’t recall why she’d come here anymore, or who she might’ve met, and what paths she might have traveled, or where she’d come from. It was all one mixed, uncomfortably confusing moment.

She sensed no malice in the promise of sleep, and yet she could not accept it. She had to hold on to her purpose, to push forward no matter what. Even if it destroyed her—even if the effort to go forward was more than she could bear—the stumbling attempt to continue was all she had left. If she stopped trying, she was done for certain, and so even if the exertion would too bring about her end, venturing forth was superior to stagnation and wasting away. 

Lucatiel knew that she had passed through an empty castle and a flooded shrine to get here. She knew that she’d faced all manner of adversaries. But she could recall none of them. She could not remember how they conducted themselves in combat, or what they were armed with, or how she had prevailed. She could not even remember what they looked like. She only knew that she had clashed with them, and presumably survived.

Though it was all so distant, and so clouded, that perhaps she had not. For all she could assert, she had perished, and this muddled experience was a half-existence between being living and being dead. The memories of fighting in those places felt...naggingly distant. Had it been hours? Days? Weeks, since it had happened? Lucatiel had no way of knowing. And by the time the thought was done, the recollection of something from before was gone. If she tried to put a description to the places she had been before, her mind summoned forth blank images that she could not attach any significant, identifying details to. She could not even confidently maintain that there had been anything before the immediacy of this moment. The present was all that held sway in her mind, and even that security was tenuous.

She’d battled pyromancers, witches, and guardians in this mausoleum, but the clashes against them were already fading too. She’d found knights and conquered them, but the motions seemed rote, automatic, and by the time she doubled back the way she came, golden ring in hand, she’d been left baffled to find that, no, the soldiers were already dead. Perhaps someone else had come here. But who? There was...no one else she was traveling with. Wasn't there?

Lucatiel’s fleeting perusal of the King, her kin in degeneration, had been swept from her mind before she had even left the catacombs. The mindless shuffling and dragging of his titanic form was occluded from her thoughts with the same obfuscating brush that cloaked any recognition of the significance of the crown on his head.

As was her contact with that lovely, emerald-cloaked woman, her features blurred beyond recognition, who’d looked on Lucatiel so sadly, held her hand, and whispered something comforting that the knight had forgotten before the mysterious woman had even finished speaking.

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Lucatiel of Mirrah had become the greatest knight in the land upon her brother’s disappearance, but her ascent brought her no joy. If she could not share her happiness with him, then it was not worth having, and the melancholy that settled over her distressed her parents in turn. Though weak with age in spite of the comforts the knighthood of their children had granted them, they still held fast to life, sustained by the love for each other, and for their children...and, now, for their only child.

She tried to shake the stupor. To break free from the shackles of her misery, and bring light back into the lives of her mother and father. The peasants who were the parents of the two most celebrated knights in the country. But her torpor would not fade, and the cloud of her sorrow did not scatter. Never had a loss affected her this dearly, not even when her closest allies found their fates on the field of battle.

None would have been surprised by the malaise that afflicted her, given her closeness to her sibling. But Lucatiel’s inability to rouse herself left her frustratingly confused.

Until the day she saw herself in the reflection of her blade, and beheld the darkness coalescing around her left eye. 

Perhaps she should have been panicked. Distraught. Terrified and enraged at what was going to happen to her, now that she had been marked by the sign that touched those counted among the Cursed.

But instead, something solemn rang throughout Lucatiel’s mind. Two epiphanies, alike in certainty, and both terrible and comforting.

One, that she could not stay. Her family, her comrades, and her country had to be protected from what she could become. She had time, and discretion, two resources that many in her position lacked. She could mitigate the damage.

Two, that Aslatiel had to have been similarly afflicted. The morose fugue that had settled into her mind was the mirror of what had come over him. And so, too, must the decision that he had to have made.

There would be no time or opportunity to say goodbye. Leaving destroyed her, but the alternative would be worse. It always was.

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Lucatiel was alone.

Everything that she’d done up to this point was swirling together, lost in the vortex of her mind in jumbled, stretched images that never formed clear pictures for her to focus on. She had scatterings of impressions of snow and sand and the sea, but they lingered like a half-remembered dream, rather than a true memory of any place she might have visited. Even existing in this moment felt stifled and muted. She could walk, and swing her sword, and ache and hurt, but everything felt distant and weightless. There was no heft to her motions, no weight to her feet, and when she tried to center her attention on herself she could not cross the hurdle of that disconnection from her body. She was an observer in her own body, left to watch the dissonance of repetitive motions that she couldn’t attach value to now that they were out of her power.

She’d...she’d found something that had helped her go...here? That had helped her come here, where she could vaguely make out hunched, skittering forms hiding in the shadows of a vacant mansion. Had she gone inside? She must have: she knew that beyond the doorway was an entryway flanked by two pools of water, and beyond, a figure in red. Anything identifying about their features, clothing, or bearing was utterly swept away by the exhaustion leaching faculties from her mind, but something about facing them had felt disconcertingly familiar. Had she beaten them, or fled? Or was the entire thing a poison of her imagination? Maybe she hadn’t stepped through the entrance at all, and this was all hopeless muttering while she wasted away by the bonfire, trapped in her own speculations.

The thought of entering, or re-entering, gripped her chest with cold, encroaching fear, bearing down on her from all sides until her teeth chattered, her shoulders shook, and she heard a noise like a distant, weak whine. It only occurred to her after the fact that she had made it herself. There was something deeply wrong about moving forward, but how could she know, unless she’d gone down it already? And if so, how could she have already forgotten? 

Were the disturbances in the grass from the steps her footprints, or those of someone else? She stood where the trail ended...but she couldn’t recall stepping there. She couldn’t remember if she’d doubled back, or if this was her first time on this path. When had she used her sword, such that it was now stained with blood? 

The weapon felt...heavy, and ill-fitting, rather than an extension of herself. Her shield was awkward in her grasp. Had Lucatiel’s armaments—and she had to hope that they were hers, and that the faint familiarity of their shape and grip was not a figment of her addled imagination—ever felt so alien?

She would rest. Yes, that was what she needed. That was what Lucatiel had to do. To kneel by this bonfire, by the bleached bones and coiled sword that radiated warmth, and rest. 

Someone approached. She tilted her head upwards to glance at them, knowing well that if they attacked, she was already in poor position to defend herself. Had she discarded her mask without realizing it?

“Who are you…” She mumbled, her voice an unsteady croak, the words foreign on her tongue and lips. Something about the arrangement of their shape, of their posture and bearing, was vaguely familiar. 

Yes. She remembered them. A...a friend, someone like herself but still themselves. She’d met them before. Many times.

“Oh...No, forgive me...I know you...Yes, of course.” What had they shared? What was their purpose? If they’d communicated it to her, the empty library of her mind did not retain it. 

“How goes your journey?” She rasped hoarsely, throat constricting against her speech. But she wasn’t thirsty, or hungry, or even in pain. Merely...still. 

“I know not what you seek in this far-away land...but I pray for your safety.”

To whom? If she had any gods, anyone to dedicate her pleas to, she could not remember. But perhaps that was less important than the effort. Less meaningful than the knowledge for her friend that someone like herself had them in their thoughts, however fleeting.

“Take these. Consider this thanks, for keeping me sane.” Even as she spoke, she did not believe her own words, and they felt disconnected and apart from what she had tried to vocalize with her own mouth. Whatever was settling over her, urging her to rest, relax, and let go, it was not sanity, and not certainty. She slackened her grip on her sword hilt, shield and blade leaning towards her companion. The hat on her head was askew, slipping forwards, and the armor on her body felt slacker and looser. She could not recognize her own hands, undoing buttons and straps, working with more focus and purpose than she had yet been able to muster.

The shiver that had suffused her kindled a spark, and her voice rang out clear and desperate.

“My name is Lucatiel. I beg of you, remember my name.” She tried to plead, to beg, but if she was able to muster the energy, she could not say. Her own words fell deaf on her ears, and she did not hear what she said, merely hoping that the movements of her lips had translated the sounds that rung out in her mind. 

“For I may not myself…” 

If her friend responded, it was lost in the haze that enveloped Lucatiel’s senses. Her eyes were clouding, her vision making out little but the other person’s shape, her hearing dull and deaf to their words. The fingers that fell to the ground registered no sensation, and when she looked up, even the other was gone.

The mist that had lurked in the corners of her eyes rolled in, filling her view and mind with the thunder of crashing clouds. Something tanged on her tongue, and when she blinked, she thought she saw something in the distance, buried in the chaos, a speck of constancy. Impossibly small, but it was there. She was certain.

When she reached, she did not see a hand stretch out, and when she walked, nothing seemed to bear weight against the ground. She had no body, no being, only the promise of looking ahead, of pushing forward into the deepness that awaited her.

She peered into the fog, in search of answers. What could possibly await her? Nothing, perhaps, beyond her own urge to move onwards. But even if the future only had the meaning she assigned to it, she would still seek it. If emptiness awaited, it would be the emptiness she seized and sought herself. Such was her fate.

[ofsinnersandsaints]

somehwere to belong

rating: G (for now) word count: 5171 chapter: 1/2 AO3

modern au fluff including but not limited to: college!jester, fjord as the hot neighbor, caduceus and beau as the best roommates and jester fulling expecting to fall in love with the guy next door but not realizing it would feel quite like this

Fjord pushed the sandpaper along the curve of the boat, careful not to put too much pressure on the wood. A Bastille song played from his Bluetooth speaker, but he kept it low enough not to wake anyone in the neighborhood up.

He stepped away to grab the beer he’d left on the counter and the back of his neck tingled with the feeling of someone watching him and turned in time to see a small shadow duck around the door which led from the garage to the backyard.

“Someone there?”

There was a quiet shuffle and then a head popped into the open doorway. Blue hair, big eyes, sweats and a glass or something in her hands. “Oh, hi! Sorry! I didn’t want to scare you, and then you looked over, and I felt weird lurking around your yard-”

“Take a breath,” he told her with a smile, recognizing her from across the chain link fence separating his yard from hers. “You live next door, right?”

Her grin was bright as she all but skipped into the garage. “I do! I’ve seen you around.”

“I’ve seen you too. Did you need something?”

“Sugar,” she said absently, pushing what he could now see was a measuring cup into his hands as she walked towards the half finished project in the middle of his garage. “Did you build this?”

“I’m trying to,” he admitted, trying to see the boat from her eyes. It was a half finished hull and hardly the greatest thing ever built, but the shape wasn’t bad.

“It’s amazing,” she crooned, running her hands over the smoothed out wood. “You must be very smart to be able to build your own ship.”

“Boat,” he corrected more out of habit than anything else. “And not really, I just spent a lot of time around them. How much sugar did you need?”

“Can you just fill it up?” she asked, looking at him in the dim lightning. “I’m making cookies.”

Fjord glanced at the clock hanging from a stud on the other side of the garage. “At two in the morning?”

“I’m a college student.” she shrugged and turned back towards him, “What’s your excuse?”

“Nightmares.”

He blinked, not entirely certain why he’d just admitted that, and hoped to the gods the flush he could feel along his cheeks wasn’t bright enough for her to notice. “I’m going to get you some sugar.”

“Do you like sugar cookies,” she asked as she followed him into the house. He flicked on lights as he went into the kitchen.

“Yeah,” he answered and pulled out a bag of sugar and filled up her cup.

“I’ll bring you some when they’re done, to thank you for the 2am sugar.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s polite,” she argued. “And we probably owe an apology for something or other.”

He looked over his shoulder at her as the granules filled the measuring cup. “Why do you say that?”

She grinned and sat on his table, legs swinging beneath her. “Because we’re a bunch of college students on half an acre who occasionally have parties and probably always have our music too loud.”

Fjord leaned back against his counter and laughed. “Y’all aren’t too bad, I’ve had worse neighbors.”

Her eyes went wide, and he wondered if she was wearing makeup or if her lashes were just that long naturally. “That’s terrible.”

“You guys clean up after yourselves and the cops haven’t been called. Least not that I can remember. I can’t say the same for every group of delinquents who has rented that house in the past couple of years.”

She shook head, blue hair falling around her eyes until she tucked it back behind her ears. “We’d never risk that, Beau has an internship and if she ever got in trouble she’d lose it.”

He thought about the handful of people he’d seen come and go from the house but couldn’t decide which might be the person she was talking about. “And Beau is?”

“The angry one.”

Fjord laughed at the descriptor, but he knew who she was talking about. She went running at least once a day, and he’d seen her more than once out in the backyard working out. “And the big guy with the pink hair?”

“Caduceus, he’s very wise and going to school for grief counseling.”

“And you?”

“I dabble in majors,” she said, clearly evading the question and making no qualms about it.

Fjord shook his head, amused despite himself. “I mean, what’s your name?”

“Oh!” She jumped off the table and ran a hand down her sweats as if it was a dress, then held out of her hand. “My name is Jester Lavorre, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Fjord,” he introduced as he shook her hand. “Nice to meet you as well.”

They stood there for a moment, just holding hands in the white light surrounded by beat up furniture and the quiet of the night. He thought it should be awkward, and if he was honest he felt a bit out of place, but her eyes were so clear, and her face had a kind of serenity he wanted to borrow for himself.

“I really want to know how you got that scar,” she said while she still held his hand, her head nodding towards the white slash above his eye. There was a softness to her voice that didn’t necessarily equate to quiet. Like she knew she pushing on a bruise but didn’t want it to hurt. “But I just came for the sugar.”

“Uh, right.” He blew out a breath and took a step back, his fingers lingering against her palm for half a second before letting go.

Jester reached out and took the cup from his hands, her skin brushing against his in a way he thought might have been intentional. There was amusement at the corner her lips and for a brief, stupid moment, he wanted to taste it. “Thank you for the sugar, Fjord. I’ll bring the cookies by tomorrow. And if we ever get too rowdy, just let us know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

She headed towards the garage door, stopping and turning with her hand on the doorway. “Does the ship have a name?”

“Not yet, no.”

For the first time she looked a little nervous, but he couldn’t say why. “Well. Thanks again, good night Fjord.”

“Night, Jester.”

And for reason completely unrelated to the nightmares which had kept him up, Fjord found himself unable to settle down enough for sleep for another hour.

 Jester was curled up in an armchair when Beau found her in the library the next afternoon.

“What are you doing?” Beau asked, though it sounded a little like a command.

Jester resisted the urge to slam the sketchbook shut and instead angled it so Beau could see it.

“Is that our neighbor?”

It pleased her that Beau could easily recognize the person in the drawing, it meant she’d done at least a reasonable job. Absently she played with the stubble at his cheek. “It is.”

“When did you get close enough to him to be able to get so much detail? Or are you drawing our neighbor as that guy from your books?”

“Oskar,” Jester filled in, because for some reason it felt important to clarify. “And I met him. Our neighbor I mean. Sadly I have not met Oskar in real life.”

Beau smirked as she settled into the chair next to Jester, her phone was already in her hand but she began typing something almost immediately. Jester didn’t bother to ask what she was doing because half the time Beau couldn’t say.

Jester was ninety percent certain Beau was a spy sent to infiltrate the college, but Jester was okay being used as a cover because Beau was a pretty good friend. Instead of asking what Beau was doing, Jester looked back down at her sketch. She really, really wanted to know where he’d gotten that scar.

Had it been at sea, fending off pirates? Maybe he’d come across a damsel in an alley, cornered by thugs and he’d defended her honor?

The sigh she let out was a little wistful but it couldn’t be helped.

“His name is Fjord Tusktooth and he’s owned the house for three years,” Beau announced victoriously and then sat up straighter. “When did you get a chance to meet him this morning? We were almost late to our first classes.”

“I asked him for sugar early this morning before dawn,” Jester answered, bracing herself for Beau’s scolding.

“Jesus, Jessie. You can’t go knocking on a stranger’s doors at fuck o’clock in the morning. That’s how people get murdered.”

“But look!” Jester spread her arms out in front of her. “Not murdered!”

“It only takes once,” Beau warned as Caduceus came up to them, sitting down on the floor and immediately pulling out his carafe of tea. From a few feet away Jester could smell it, grass and something that reminded her of daisies. For all she knew it, it was probably actually daisies.

“Who is getting murdered?”

“No one,” Jester answered at the same time Beau pointed to her. “I went to visit our neighbor and Beau is worried.”

“Beau always worries,” Caduceus commented without judgement. “But there’s no reason to worry about our neighbor, he’s nice.”

Jester perked up at the possibility for information. “You’ve met him?”

“No,” Caduceus answered, the single word meandering a bit before for finishing. “But he’s got a nice vibe to him.”

Beau scoffed. Loudly.

“You think so?” Jester asked.

“Yeah, I think so. A bit sad, maybe, but I seriously doubt he’s ever murdered anyone.”

“And you can tell that just by looking at him across the fence?” Beau challenged.

“Yes.”

He said it so confidently that even Beau seemed to hesitate at arguing and Beau never hesitated to argue.

Jester considered her options. She wanted to see Fjord again, but Beau was very protective and it would be easier all around if Beau just met him. A little company now meant the possibility for more alone time later. “I’m going to bring him some of the cookies I made later, if you guys want to meet him.”

“Do we get some of the cookies?” Beau asked.

“Look in your bag,” Jester suggested, shutting her book.

Beau’s eyes lit up and dug through her backpack to find a brown paper bag with a quickly sketched comic of Beau beating up a tree who was using a bat to fight her.

“A tree using a bat?” Beau asked, gleeful. “That’s so morbid, I love it.”

Jester grinned, happy to have made her friend smile. “Did you find yours Caduceus?”

“I did. Thank you, Jester.”

“Are we done bullshitting?” Beau asked around a mouthful of cookies. “Cause I’m ready to go home.”

“We can go,” Jester answered as Caduceus stood up, unfolding his long legs and walking behind them like a tall, friendly flower.

At home they all went to their respective rooms to drop off their stuff and then migrated to the backyard. Caduceus headed towards his little garden which he’d roped and fenced off to keep out wild animals; Beau stripped off her shirt to reveal the sports bra underneath and began doing jumping jacks, warming up before she started whatever work out she had planned for the day.

Jester brought out her blanket and set it safely between Beau and Caduceus with her school books. She didn’t particularly enjoy college, but she enjoyed the environment so she put up with homework to get the rest of it.

Parties, and people, and independence.

It was nearly everything she had ever dreamed of.

With that thought in mind, she glanced at the house next door but there wasn’t a truck parked in the driveway so she knew Fjord wasn’t home.

Jester was halfway through her chapters on anatomy- maybe she’d be a doctor, who knew? -when she heard the rumble of a truck down the road and trying to be sly about it she kept her head down and glanced next door out of the corner of her eye.

The chain link fence gave her a clear view so she saw the beat up old truck Fjord drove, saw him step out of it and when he looked over and saw her, he waved.

He waved.

Stupid, Jester scolded herself. It wasn’t a declaration of love, there was no reason to get butterflies or for her heart to start skipping wildly and yet…

Jester smiled and waved back, hoping it looked friendly and not like she’d been sketching his face on and off all day.

“Want to head over now?” Caduceus asked, wrist deep in dirt. “I could bring him some carrots.”

“Oh,” Jester fumbled over her words. “No, that’s okay. He just got home, he probably doesn’t want company right away.”

“No, let’s go over now,” Beau encouraged. “I’m super buff and sweaty. I’ll be intimidating as fuck.”

Jester was hesitant but Beau was already walking towards the fence and Caduceus was wiping dirt from his palms. Resigned, Jester got up and went inside to get the bag of cookies and watched with fond exasperation as Beau hurdled over the fence and Caduceus just, walked over it.

Much shorter, it took Jester a second longer to get over but she was agile enough she didn’t get caught on anything and landed on her feet.

If Fjord saw, she hadn’t made a fool of herself.

Brushing a hand down the skirt of her sundress she followed her friends across the yard and watched as Beau banged on the back door. She hurried, so she was there when Fjord opened his door.

He looked briefly startled by the crowd, but shifted his expression quickly to a slow, easy smile. “Howdy, neighbors.”

Beau pushed her way past him and Caduceus held out two carrots Jester hadn’t seen in his hand. They were still covered in dirt.

“For you.”

“Ah,” Fjord looked at Jester who couldn’t do anything but shrug. “Thanks.”

“I’m Caduceus Clay, Jester’s friend. And the very rude person inside is Beauregard.”

“Fjord,” he said as he shook the taller man’s hand. “Would you like to come in?”

“I would love that, thank you.”

Jester watched Fjord’s face for any lingering irritation or mockery but he only looked faintly amused and that was okay; she was often amused by her friends as well.

When he turned his light green eyes on her they were laughing. “Hey, Jester.”

“Hi, Fjord.”

“Want to come in?”

“Thanks,” she smiled and walked past him, maybe a little closer than she needed to, but who could say? She held out the bag, standing a few inches away from him now. He wore jeans and a loose t-shit, bare feet.

He looked at home and comfortable; like he’d be happy to stretch out on the couch for the rest of the night and watch movies.

Naturally she thought she’d probably fit pretty well, stretched out on him, watching movies, but she blinked that thought away. “Here, the cookies I promised.”

“You didn’t have to, but I appreciate the gesture.”

She liked the way he talked. Beau tended to be clipped and blunt, and Caduceus could get lost in a sentence if given the chance, but Fjord strolled through his words like he wasn’t in any kind of hurry.

He looked down at bag, his face breaking into a grin.

“Did you draw this?” he showed the image on the bag, a tan man in a little boat riding a big wave.

“I did.”

“This is pretty good.”

“Thank you.”

They stood there in the kitchen, a funny kind of tension between them, and Jester thought he’d been about to say something when they heard from a few feet away, “Holy shit, you have a boat!”

Both she and Fjord looked over to see Beau’s head disappear through the doorway which Jester knew led into the garage.

“Beau, you really shouldn’t open doors in other people’s houses,” Jester scolded and saw, out of the corner of her eye, Caduceus slowly shut a drawer he’d likely been looking through it.

Beau was nosey, Caduceus was curious.

They were both dangerous if left alone for more than a few minutes. Not that she hadn’t drawn a dick on a wall when left without supervision, but she didn’t do it when people were in the room. She did have some common sense after all.

“It was unlocked,” Beau defended herself and then walked straight through the door.

 Fjord watched as his neighbors just walked through his house as if they’d been over a thousand times, and at his elbow Jester sighed dramatically. “I’m sorry about them.”

“I don’t mind,” he assured her, touching her shoulder. “I’m just not used to it, I guess.”

“I’ll get them out of your way,” Jester promised but he stopped her, tightening the fingers which lay on her bare shoulders.

It gave him ideas.

“Honestly, Jester. I don’t mind. I should probably get to know my neighbors anyhow.”

She bit her lip and watched him as if trying to figure out his sincerity. Eventually she nodded and took the hand on her shoulder and held it in her own. “Let’s make sure they’re not trying to find your porn stash or anything.”

He felt the tell-tale heat of a blush on his cheeks but laughed anyway because she was so effortlessly funny. “Why would I keep my porn in the garage?”

“That’s a good question,” she threw a wicked grin over her shoulder. “Where do you keep your porn?”

“Don’t keep it under your bed,” Beau recommended, apparently having overheard their conversation. “And be careful what you download from the internet. You don’t want a virus.”

“Thanks for the advice, Beau.”

“No problem.” She stood next to the unfinished boat, her clenched fists on her hips. “Why the fuck do you have a boat in your garage? Aren’t they supposed to be on the water?”

“He’s building it by himself,” Jester answered as if disappointed Beau had asked. “Isn’t that impressive?”

“Are you a sailor?”

“Used to be,” Fjord admitted slowly. He could feel Jester’s eyes on him but he distracted himself with the pink-haired man who was staring at the ground in the corner.

“It’s probably a bug,” Jester whispered. “Caduceus doesn’t like it when things get stuck in the house. He’ll just wait it out and when he can pick it up he’ll take it outside.”

“How did you find this group?”

“We found each other,” Jester answered sincerely. “Okay guys, you’re being too weird for Fjord. Let’s go back to the house.”

“That’s fair,” Caduceus said, his hand cupping something in his palm. “It was nice to meet you Mr. Fjord.”

“You don’t seem to suck,” Beau agreed and walked past him, patting him on the shoulder with enough force to knock Fjord a little off balance.

Jester held back as her friends went out the garage’s back door, rocking back and forth on her heels, grinning up at him. “They like you.”

Fjord ran a hand down the back of his head neck, “Ah. Thanks.”

“Well. Enjoy the cookies,” she grabbed his hand and produced a pen from somewhere and started scrawling on his arm. “And if you’re up in the middle of the night, and want company, I’m usually up. Have a great day, Fjord.”

He stared at her as she all but floated out into the sunlight and he looked down to see that in the few seconds she’d had her hands on him she’d managed to doodle a little shark and her number.

His skin still tingled where her fingertips had held onto him, and with a curse under his breath he reached for the sandpaper.

 Jester was painting when she got the text.

Her phone buzzed on the table next to her and she looked over, heart beating a little wild in her chest because she could only imagine one person texting to her at one am.

YOU UP?

Jester grinned at the question, and laughed at the immediate follow up text.

UNKNOWN: I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THAT. SORRY. I WAS JUST UP AND YOU SAID TO TEXT IF I EVER WANTED COMPANY.

UNKNOWN: THIS IS FJORD BY THE WAY.

With a grin, Jester put down her paintbrush and picked up the phone, typing out a reply.

I’M UP! I’LL HEAD OVER IN A MINUTE, HAVE YOU EATEN RECENTLY?

FJORD: NO. BUT DON’T FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO FEED ME EVERY TIME YOU COME OVER.

CADUCEUS COOKED A LOT OF FOOD, I’LL BRING OVER THE LEFTOVERS.

Jester grabbed some of her books so she would have something to do while she was over there, and resisted the urge to check the mirror on her way out for all of five seconds.

“Fuck it,” she murmured to herself, checking her hair in the mirror. It wasn’t bad, and she’d managed not to get any paint on herself so that was a plus, but she did grab her pale pink lipstick and put on a light coat.

She was her mother’s daughter after all.

Grabbing the vegetable stew in the Tupperware container she walked across the yard to the fence and climbed over. She walked to the open door leading to the garage but waited a second before making herself known.

He was measuring something on his counter, making a notation on the wood before putting the tiny nub of a pencil behind his ear.

Jester could imagine the whole thing painted in oil, thick textures and warm colors, his stooped shoulders and worn in jeans. She’d call it Waiting, but she couldn’t say exactly what it was he was waiting for.

She figured the door had been left open for her so she could walk right in, but something about him made her wait for the invitation. “I grew up alone,” she said from the doorway.

He looked up at her voice, his brows lowering. “Huh?”

“My mom was actress, is an actress, a fairly well known one and she was always very busy so I grew up with a nanny and a big house to myself. I’m used to the quiet and while I love Beau and Cad, sometimes I really need the quiet and that’s why I stay up night.”

Fjord shifted a little, leaning his hip against the counter and crossing his arms. “Why’d you tell me that?” the question was curious, maybe a little confused.

“Because when I came over the last time for sugar, you told me why you were up at night. It seemed only fair you to know why I was up.”

“Well, if you’re lookin’ for quiet-“

Jester shook her head, hugging her books close to her. “It’s different with you.”

He shifted his weight on his feet. “Want something to drink?”

Taking that as her invitation, Jester walked in. “Sure. I don’t really drink alcohol, but if you’ve got water or Kool-Aid, I’ll take that.”

“Kool-aid?” His grin was quick and bright, and it almost made her miss a step.

“I like sugar,” she shrugged and settled on the stool at the counter near where he was standing. “And alcohol gives me a headache.”

“Just give me a minute, I’ll rustle something up. Should I get bowls?”

“Huh?” she looked down when he pointed and she saw the plastic containers she’d forgotten she was carrying. “Oh. Right. Just spoons, I think? No sense in dirtying more dishes than necessary.”

“College students,” he laughed and went inside and came back with two bottles of water and a couple of spoons.

“What were you doing when I came in?” she asked, feeling bad he didn’t have a place to sit. “Anything I can help with?”

“I’m just doing some measurements,” he said as he took a bite of the soup. “Damn. This is good.”

“Caduceus is a really good cook, and I’m really good at baking.”

“What’s Beau good at?”

“Hitting things.” She uncapped her water. “Were you in the Navy? Is that how you were a sailor?”

“No,” he leaned an elbow on the counter as he ate out of the container and it was kind of romantic in a way, eating out of the same bowl in the low light in the middle of the night. “Sailor is a bit of a misnomer. I was a fisherman.”

Jester had seen the reality shows on TV, and while she was certain everything was overdramatized it was pretty obvious the job wasn’t an easy one. “Oh man, that’s hard work.”

“Back breaking,” he agreed. “And dangerous as fuck.”

“I’ve never done anything dangerous,” and even she could hear a decade’s worth of regret in her own voice.

“You’ve still got time.”

Jester could think of a handful of dangerous things she could right then; she could wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him, she could strip down naked, or she could tell him she’d dreamt about him the night before.

She didn’t do any of those things because she wasn’t brave enough tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

“If you want to work on your boat you can, I brought some of my homework so you don’t have to entertain me.”

“You really don’t mind? I did ask you over.”

She thought about how to phrase it, tilting her head as she did. “Company doesn’t always mean conversation. Sometimes it’s just having someone in the same room with you, close enough to touch if you need it. I don’t mind being around, if you don’t mind my being around.”

He was still leaning against the counter, his weight resting on his elbow and close enough his arm was only an inch or so away from hers. When his eyes met hers there was the distinct feeling of being knocked off her feet, the air being sucked from her lungs, despite the fact she was still sitting on the stool.

“I really, really don’t mind it Jester.”

“Cool.”

His smile was soft, “Cool.”

Another second passed where they just looked at each other and Jester wondered what the chances were of him kissing her, but instead he tapped her wrist with a couple of his fingers in a friendly gesture before walking towards the boat.

“Do you mind music?”

She felt a little unsteady, and barely resisted the urge to put her hand to her heart or her stomach. “No, go for it.”

He turned up the volume a little and Jester spread out her books and worked through the math she was forced to do in order to graduate.

She doodled in the margins more than she actually worked on the problems; flowers and birds and dicks because she liked people’s reactions when they saw them. Sweet, innocent, naive Jester drew dicks? That would teach them to underestimate people.

“I know I said we don’t have to talk, but I think it’s important for you to know that I really, really hate math.”

Fjord laughed from somewhere on the other side of the boat and he sauntered over to her. He actually sauntered, like some old school cowboy walking into a saloon. She half expected him to tip his invisible cowboy hat and say ‘Howdy ma’am.’

And didn’t that stir up all kinds of fun fantasies.

Instead he just stood next to her, maybe a little closer than was strictly necessary, and looked over her shoulder at the math she was struggling to get through.

“Yeah, that could be Greek to me for all I understand it.”

“Me too,” she sighed, shutting the book with a resounding thud. “I think I’m just going to drop out.”

His eyes briefly widened. “Of math? Aren’t there tutors or something?”

“Yes, but I meant college in general.”

It was the first time she’d said it out loud, and she held her breath waiting for his reaction.

People at school would be horrified, she had an opportunity to go to college and she was turning it down?! Walking away from an opportunity some people would kill for?

She hadn’t even told Beau or Caduceus because despite how understanding they would be, she knew it would make things different if they kept going and she stopped.

“Well, if you’re looking for someone to talk you into staying I’m the wrong guy,” he said casually but she thought she could see how carefully he was choosing his words. “I barely graduated high school and my feet barely touched solid ground for ten years after that.”

“Do you regret not going?”

“No,” he answered, and Jester believed him. “I mean, there are things about college I think I would have liked but ultimately I think it would have made me miserable.”

Jester looked down at the math book. “College makes me miserable.”

“What would you do instead?”

Jester thought about it, looking to her right where the upside down boat still needed to be finished. “I could go sailing around the world.”

Fjord laughed, a big sound that filled the room. “It’ll be a few more months before it’s done, depending on how quick I get my act together.”

She sighed dramatically and poked at the book which mocked her from it’s place on the counter. “Well, I’ll guess I’ll stay in school until it’s done.”

“You can always drop out later,” he agreed. “What would your mama say about you leaving?”

“I don’t know,” Jester winced. “She was really excited about me going to school since she never got the chance.”

“But she loves you, right? I imagine she’d be happy as long as you were happy.”

“Maybe,” she shrugged. “What about your family? Were they okay with you running away to sea?”

“I don’t have a family,” he said in such a matter of fact tone that Jester nearly tripped over it. “I’m an orphan.”

Jester made a quick calculation; either he was so blunt about it because he was comfortable with it, or because it was a touchy subject and he was acting like it wasn’t. “So everything you are, you did yourself. That’s pretty impressive.”

He looked a little stunned and she thought she might have seen some kind of strong emotion in his eyes but the lighting wasn’t good enough for her to put a name to it. She wasn’t sure what to say next, and he seemed equally at a loss for words.

Her phone vibrated on the counter, giving them both an excuse to walk away from the conversation.

Fjord headed back to the boat, and Jester read the text sent from Beau.

BEAU: ARE YOU HITTING ON NEIGHBOR GUY

THINKING ABOUT IT. I’M ALSO DOING HOMEWORK.

BEAU: HAVING SEX DOESN’T COUNT TOWARDS ANATOMY

Jester looked at Fjord who was squatting near the bottom-or was it the top?- of the boat and the man was so sexy it made her toes curl.

OH MAN, I TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT.

[daemonusdea]

Zero and Her Sisters { meta }

  This is something I don’t think I’ve ever talked much about, maybe individually with some people or just vaguely, but with Zero’s sisters being an important key to Zero herself as a character and their roles as a concept in the games I really wanted to lay all of it out!

I guess this is technically??? Spoilers for the game…So uuuuh just be aware of that I supposefnjg. Other than that here we hecking go, under the cut! It’s long, so strap in!

  The first to get out of the way, is to know that her sisters are, put blankly, not actually her sisters– the sisters are more like corpse copies of Zero. In an attempt to preserve itself when she tried to dig the Flower out of her own chest ( which would kill her and the offshoot Flower, as well as any chance to destroy the world like it intended ), it spat out five copies, five little girls each with their own Flower. Along with that, they were given false memories, though each girl differed in what they believed to be their past, how their ‘parents’ were, and how they lived. To make these girls, the Flower used resources from Zero such as a chunk of her magic, split off between the five of them. But most importantly, it took the faces of girls Zero knew or killed when she was alive, and took fragments of Zero’s own psyche to base their personalities off of. Now onto the sisters individually!

Five. Five is the youngest of all the sisters. Five, being extremely promiscuous, gluttonous and greedy, got her appearance from a nun Zero killed while trying to steal food. Lovely irony. Five is materialistic, and has a lust for finding and conquering the ‘next best thing’. Her desires reach out into sex, exotic foods, and clothing, but once she obtains what she desires, she immediately loses interest and moves on to her next conquest. She believes to have a longing for her father who died before she met him. Five is the part of Zero that could never truly grasp her desire for happiness. She turns to meaningless instant gratification, but it fades in an instant to leave her empty and finding the next thing to strive for. It’s shown as well in her final moments before Zero kills her that she has an intense desire to live, even if she loses sight of who she is. When Zero was alive, her sense of self and life quickly dwindled down to nothing as she suffered more and more, to where she shut off all of herself just in hopes of surviving. There was a distinct dream to pursue a life where she was happy, but with how twisted and vacant she’d become over the years, she had no real way to achieve that– she didn’t know how. Life had stripped her of everything, and she wandered and killed and stole until she no longer could. It was an empty way to slowly die, but it was almost a hope that if she kept living, kept surviving, perhaps she’d finally get what she desired. Five continues this and amplifies it, so desperate to live and obtain more she forcefully regenerates herself into a zombie-like monstrosity.

Four. The second youngest, self-righteous and always seeming the morally straight one, her innocence and loathe of fighting are all a mask for a vindictive, cruel, and paranoid truth. Four is plagued with a pride of higher-than-thou, trying to hide a hideous inferiority complex, though if pushed on it is easy to crack that good girl exterior, suddenly switching to insulting your character with any flaw she feels she can expose and twist to make you seem the villain. She holds a secret disdain as well, mostly for anything non-human, going as far as degrading what she thinks as inferior, even going past orders and common mercy to slaughter retreating elven sky pirates, gleefully so. She has memories of Zero being a sweet and caring sister that she looked up to, and hated her parents. Four is a particularly irking one, as Zero sees her just as she was as a young girl while in the brothel; the fighting urge to cling to the last bits of pride she had. This becomes even more irritating with the knowledge that Four, out of her own pride and repressed attitude, is a virgin out of all of the Intoners, who all harbour high sex drives. Four is a culmination of repressed anger, jealousy, and self-hatred. A high paranoia of trusting the people around her, really an image of Zero and her outlook on the world, mostly while she was still alive. A girl trying to hold onto nothing, lashing out whenever she feels threatened.

Three. The third youngest, and the most strange. Lethargic most of the time, she falls asleep in any spot, and seems to fall to laziness whenever things don’t interest her. Which is most of the time. She speaks in riddles that hold no meaning or make any practical sense to anyone but her. When her interest is sparked however, her personality seems to switch. She obsesses over ‘dolls’, creations she makes by her own hand, often monsters operated on to create soldiers she wants in often horrific experiments. When asked about them, she sparks into excited, fast-paced speech and acts quite animatedly. Unfortunately, her experiments have delved into human territory, using them to make mishmashed monstrosities with other creatures, killing many in her attempts to successfully create a doll, others falling victim to tests she’d created to find the core of a human’s strength. She enjoys making toys so much, there’s no regard for the lives she’s brutalized, only interested in why strange things are the way they are. She comes off very childish, an unending curiosity, simple-minded likes, tantrums, and even a juvenile humour. A broken Intoner. She disliked her parents. Even Zero finds difficulty in understanding just where Three even came from, but knows without a doubt that she’s a very dark, twisted facet of herself. The child in her questioning why humans are the way they are, why humanity behaves the way it does, and a dangerous, empathy-lacking disregard for lives she takes the more she goes on. A complete dissolution of her own humanity, the numb carelessness she developed while she was still alive, murdering more and more not even out of necessity.

Two. The fourth youngest, and another oddity Zero finds quite bizarre due to how wildly different they are. Two is bright and bubbly, effortlessly trusting, and endlessly caring ( even continuing to treat Zero kindly, and like a normal big sister NOT trying to kill her ). She runs an orphanage, taking care of the children who were left behind in the previous wars alongside her disciple Cent, and considers them a giant family. Out of all the Intoners, she was the only one to actually form a romantic relationship with her disciple. She enjoys cooking, and takes to carefully watching over all of her people. She is, in essence, very happy. Until her power outgrew her, and her mind buckled under the weight of it as well as the trauma she suffered from having to kill her soldiers and the orphaned children she cared for, turned into zombie-like undead and a monstrous conglomeration homonculus respectively. Two loved her parents immensely, who she noted were very loving. Zero finds however, that Two makes more sense than originally thought. Two is the culmination of everything Zero wished her life could be– who she could have become, if her life hadn’t been so horrid. A girl with everything; a girl who could be happy, who could trust and find love and have a family. Two is what could have been, dead dreams Zero could never reach.

One. The second oldest under Zero, with the face and voice of the rebel Zero briefly knew for the time she was chained up with her outside the Bastille in Cathedral City. With the rebel having been tortured ( her eyes being gouged out ), One’s eye colour defaulted to red, in essence of the blood Zero saw in it’s place. One is intelligent, tactful, and has a strong sense of justice. She is the one who lead her sisters to defeat the corrupt Lords of all the lands and freed the people from the endless warring. She’s the strongest of her five sisters, a formidable match for Zero, not even needing a disciple to help control her power of Song. With this, she is one of the only ones to discover something amiss with their power and place within the world ( the other being Two ), and decides to delve further to find an answer as to why the Intoners exist. One remembers having no parents, only all six of the Intoners living together. With how opposite Zero and One are, they constantly butt heads, and Zero questions once again just where One came from. She speculates for a while that maybe One is a product of the Flower trying to go against her; giving a powerful rival that would keep her from killing them all off. It takes the final battle for Zero to finally understand– One is a true part of herself. A facet that could never be satisfied with given answers, with a so-called truth of her own fate. The pure confusion and anger over the injustices of the world; how she could never accept such a cruel life where she was constantly betrayed, used, and tossed aside. Where the good were constantly stepped on like cockroaches and suffered, where the evil were rewarded and won out in the end. In Zero’s last moments, tried as a murderer and sentenced to death, she hated the world, yet still tried to grasp for an answer. How could she accept something so unfair, how could she ever be satisfied? One is in her entirety the burning dissatisfaction of cruelty and those who perpetuated it.

[the-house-of-the-nine]

In Depths Below: Epilogue, Part 5

Later that evening.... 

[ L.K ]     It would be a rough start to the night. Lazarius had accompanied Jursol back to her hut and patched the broken areas just before the storm let loose. And what a storm it was. No doubt those Tide Sages of Kul Tiras were at it again. But the rumbles of thunder and lightening crashing all around, as well as the torrential downpour, it bound them inside.

Lazarius had stripped down to his shorts in the swampy jungle heat once more. The glistening of his brandings, tattoos and scars evident in the light of what few candles there were to give them a way to see. He sat on the edge of the cot she had given him to rest on earlier, and in his silence, his extended palm in front of him would flicker with small galactic wormholes that would pop into existence and fade. A black purple flame swirling around him. He was simply toying with his magic.

“We once worshipped N’Zoth, the old god of the deep. My former Mistress was the leader of our cult of The Nine. In fact, Nine member all of which lead the rest of the order to its victory and inevitably its defeat. Decades passed... I have been leading us since the times of this great Third War of the mortal races. I know your people have never been too keen on involvement but that is how long.”

He closed his hand around the flame and sighed.

[ J ]       Once back at the hut, Jursol found a few things to patch the hole on the wall up with. With a smile she handled them to the elf. As she watch how surprisingly good he was at patching up such holes, a small laugh escaped her. She knew like him this was no normal storm coming. Those damn Tide Sages had it out for these lands.

[ L.K ]     “In recent months we have shifted further and further away. I took it upon myself to take inventory of what it is we truly do. What we stand for. And it is chaos, but it is more than that. We are saviors of some of the most brilliant and talented minds the world has ever seen. People who would otherwise be killed for their work, or worse imprisonment. We provide a home for like minded individuals who are through fighting others wars and wish to thrive on our own. A nation away from the political nightmare and a place that offers salvation to all who swear loyalty to the cause.”.

In his hand she would see the construct of a void magic made machine. He created it from the shadow to give her a visual representation of it.

“The Void Forge is our greatest achievement. Made from Titan technology, Mogu and ancient earthen wares. It was reversed engineered to take life, not create. Essentially what it does it extracts the void magic from the Ren’dorei. The void elves. It stores it in batteries for us to use.”.

The image would rotate and turn for her to see all the massive gears and devices.  

[ J ]        Zandalari after all had a great naval force that could rival their own. Due to the ongoing war however, Jursol feared this was perhaps their way of hiding ships sent to scout areas ahead of the coming battle. As she listened her eyes wondered to his hands. She was still mesmerized by the beautiful galactic wormholes he was making.

[ L.K ]     “The body is then stripped of its blood which is placed in a dedicated vessel for our blood mages to experiment on. And lastly, the organic husk is used as the fuel source. Perpetually it will run for as long as we provide it with its source of fuel, Ren’dorei.”

He collapsed the construct and peered over toward her, wherever she was at this point.

“We are bad people Jursol, I know this. But we are also true, pure and devoted to one another. Love and compassion are not lost on us. We do this because when the dam breaks, and the old one returns, lives will be lost. Chaos and the Black empire will return, I have seen this. These stores batteries will be enough to provide us with a shield that will allow the world to bypass us safely in the Bastille for generations to come.”

He looked toward her still and smiled.

[ J ]        As he spoke of his people, The Nine, and the old one N’Zoth she listened intently to every word. Like many Zandalari she knew the threat of Old Gods was real. They were coming back and soon. Hell there was already the created Old One who posed a threat, Ghuun. While he may be defeated easier then most he was still a threat to all life. Jursol recalled a old Seer speaking of the coming storm. A storm of blood, death, dark magic not seen in years. An evil that once thought dormant was said to be returning.

‘Could dis be N’Zoth then?’ she thought.

The more he spoke of how his people, and their home far from the political nightmare that most live in, the more she realized how truly misunderstood he was. Him and his people may have a strange way of doing things, but their goal is far from evil. She could hardly believe the structure of the Void Forge was real. The way it worked, how it was made, everything about it peaked her curiosity.

[ L.K ]     “I could not ask for a better person, you...you Miss Jursol, to be there with me, at my side. I would ask you for it is the respected position that you deserve.”.

She watched as he offered his scarred and worn hand toward her, the image of a serpent burned into the palm.

“Join us. You with your Magic’s..you are the prime candidate to offer us a perspective we have never seen. I see in you...a person worthy of a place where she can flourish...”

[ J ]        She only had to think for a moment after he’d stopped speaking.  He bright eyes looking toward him over the glare of the fire.

“You not be bad people my friend. Many forget der be times we must be doen thins we never thought we would in order to save ourselves or others Sometimes it be taken being da bad guy to get da job done.”

She said smiling looking at him.

“Da future of yo people means a lot to ya. Der be nothing wrong with dat in my eyes.”

As his hand was reached out towards her with an offer to go with him, she bowed her head and met his hand with her own clawed and scaled hand.

“I be happy ta be joinen ya Da raptors be happy as well. Dey seem to trust ya as I do.”

As she said this big raptors gave a small grunt sound in agreement. The smaller one leaping up next to the elf and laying down.

“A place to be using me magic in peace will be a nice change. Perhaps be learnen more about da blood magic I began studying before.”

[ L.K ]     Lazarius would listen to her as she explained and answered each of his various questions and requests. Listened to her explain her side of things. It was quite obvious he knew she was exactly the type of person who could work with the order.

“A place for you to work your blood magic and perfect it. Our former Grand Magus. . . .”

There was that pause again when he regarded her.  A hint of sadness in his eyes, but he would clear it away shortly after and continue on.

“ She has written two books on the subject, her parents before her were members of the council of Nine and served my former mistress. They’d written four. Also with the raw essence being reduced down from the forge you can perhaps practice hands on with it. I am sure a Zandalari brain can think of far more interesting ways to use the blood than we elves.”

The compliment was left there, hanging in limbo for a moment as he pondered.

“Blood Huntress Jursol.”. He said with a chuckle.

“Our last Magus took my hospitality and generosity and is currently beginning work on how to utilize this blood. If possible I’d like to put you in charge of how we research the blood within The Bastille. Perhaps you and our resident scientist Doctor Whistletorque can find a way to use the Azerite with it.”

[ J ]       Jursol moved around the hut as she listened to him. Grabbing some things to make something for them to eat. Herbs, spices, dried meat, and fresh looking fish. Using a very small fireplace she worked to mix the ingredients together just so. Her clawed hands seemed skilled as she gut, deboned, and flayed the fish.

Chopping the herbs with a large knife as she placed them into a bowl. Chucks of dried beef were tossed into a pot of boiling water. A small dash of spices were added as well. Grabbing the chopped herbs she added a bit of oil to them. In another bowl she worked to crush the herbs, turning it into a paste.

The paste was rubbed over the fish before she laced it onto a rack over the fire. Some vegetable type things got added to the stew of beef and spices.

“A place to be practicing in peace be something I be happy to have again. Ta learn more den I know would be a great gift to my allies. A curse to mah enemies.”

Her face seemed calm her pleased.

“So ya be having a scientist der? Dat would make finden new ways ta use blood magic much more fun, and if he be able to use Azarite as well, dat be amazing.”

A smirk grow on her lips as she laughed.

“Well I be not letting ya down. Dis magic be something I take pride in, even if he hated by many.”

As she spoke she kept up with the food. It now smelled like herbs and spices in the little hut. Her hands stirring the stew as she watched the fish.

[ L.K ]     “Well then on behalf of the Council of Nine. .  I officially welcome you into our order.  I know that it is not the Grand flare and show of excitement one such as yourself should warrant but...”.

The irony was not lost due to the fact that he was but one of the council, and the rest were not in attendance.  He extended a finger toward the air and from it a little violet spark shot up and burst into a small firework.  The explosion would for a serpent as it slithered around in a circular shape and then into a knot before vanishing.

[ J ]       Jursol gave a fanged smile as she watched the serpent slither around in a circle, then a knot, all before vanishing. It seemed to entertain her to see his use of his skills.

[ L.K ]     “Ive been giving it some thought.  And I think I know how we can get back to the Bastille.  But now comes the true test of our survival.  Getting us to the Eastern Kingdoms.  If we didn’t have to worry about the war I could arrange passage from Kul Tiras if we could get there.  But that is out.  But I need to reach Alterac.  If we can get there... the former Magus I spoke of who should still be there. . .”.

He sneered and shook his head.

“I installed a gateway through her lower sub basement into the Bastille.  It will place us directly where we need to be.  At that point I can sever her portal thus finally putting an end to that link, and reach my sisters hopefully before something terrible happens.”.

Lazarius would give only a glance toward her meal, granted he didn’t choose to eat anymore because of the parasite but he could still appreciate her talent.

“Are you up for the task Miss Jursol?  Any ideas on how we can escape this island?”

[ J ]       Hearing him speak about the order, and about getting back to them, she started thinking. She knew of the Eastern Kingdoms, and heard about the Alterac. However she never ventured there herself. Pondering for a few minutes before speaking.

“Hmm, I be knowing one way ya travel der. Dey be smugglers doe. We be needen ta get off Zandalar before dey can help. But if we be getting away from Zandalar dey can help get us ta Alterac, or close at least. Ta get off Zandalar we be needed a boat. Dat be easy, if not for da war. Mah people don take kindly ta outsiders. We be needen ta get past dem somehow.”

[ L.K ]      “That is good for us then.  Unfortunately the Horde had not actually made contact with your people before this all began.  I never gave the order to send my own operatives into Zandalar.  But hindsight is of course twenty - twenty.”

Lazarius would think for a moment.  His eyes drifted toward his hands.  The edges of his fingers slightly starting to blacked right at the tips.  Alarming but not enough to warrant attention.  

“What if....”.

He slowly smirked and shifted on the bed while sitting on its edge.  His pale flesh glistening in the hot jungle night; the humidity was overwhelming and the rain outside on made it worse.

“You take the guise of a guard.  One of the elite kings men.  Since I can easily pass for a Ren’dorei, you could be doing a prisoner transfer.  Say you’re taking me for a parlay with the Alliance, trading one of theirs for one of “ours”.  We get our boat and sail to where these smugglers are, they’ll never see us again.”

[ J ]       A grin crossed her lips as she gave the stew a last stir. Scooping some into wood bowl before grabbing a wooden spin.

“Dat may actually work. Ta get a guard be easy enough. Get one ta chase ya ta me, and I can use a dart with poison on dem. Can’t be having blood on da armor.”

Jursol took a bite of the stew before speaking again.

“Da dart be covered in jungle frog poison. Works fast and silently. Most be to busy ta question a prisoner trade. One of da Zandalari priest been missing for some time now. If dey ask I can be saying we be trading for her.”

Jursol laughed as she said that last part.

“Don’t worry she not be comon back. Saw her body being eaten by a few stray raptors. Some small men be killing her. Dey were near some strange looking metal things.”

She nodded and smiled, a tusked toothy smile.

“Yes dis may work for us.”

[ L.K ]     He nodded right back, and gazed at the warrioress with a matching grin.

“Yes...dis may work for us.” 

To be Continued in. . . “In Depths Below: Epilogue, Part 6″

[therearemonstersinthedark]

Book 2 Luciferous

Chapter 11: No One’s Here to Sleep

A Guardians of the Galaxy Fanwork

Pairings: Peter Quill / Gamora (one-sided), Peter Quill & Nebula (freindship)

Genre: Adventure, general

Word Count: 5.5k

Rating: T to be safe, mild gore and cussing in some chapters

Links: Fanfiction.net || Ao3

Summary: Peter’s dreams are back, and Mantis begins some lessons of her own.

Author’s Notes: Title is from ‘No One’s Here to Sleep’ by Bastille

No One's Here to Sleep

.

"So you and your father are an element? I have never heard of such a thing as a living creature being an element."

"Elementals, Drax, we're Elementals, apparently, which just means we can control the elements or something like that. I'd never heard of it either."

The rest of the Guardians, minus Rocket, were eating dinner with Peter as he shared the information he had learned with them. Even Nebula, who had joined him on his walk back, had decided to stay to hear his news, though she made a rather obvious point about staying far away from her sister.

"And Cosmo has his powers drawn from one of these... 'Givers?'" Nebula asked from her seat next to Drax.

"Yeah. Ego said drinking from the head on Knowhere should have killed him but, it's not completely unheard of for this to happen. He was just lucky I guess."

Nebula pursed her lips in disapproval at the mention of luck. "This does explain a few things," she murmured.

"How is your progress with your own powers going?" Gamora asked from where she sat two seats to his left, in the corner diagonally across from her sister.

"Oh!" Peter shoved his chair out so he could stand up and step away from the table. "Check this out!"

Peter was still pretty tired from the day's work, so he only managed to form a crystal about the size of a baseball, but it was satisfyingly round and toeing the line of being called truly transparent. "It's usually a bit bigger," he confessed, slumping back into his chair and placing the crystal on the table with a thunk. "But it's a big improvement from this morning and it's getting easier to summon and control the Light."

Drax reached forward to grab it, chewing loudly as he rolled it around in his hand.

"And how is this orb supposed to help us defeat Ronan and Thanos?"

"Well, it's not, but eventually I'll be able to make bigger things. When I fought my father last time I made these massive rock-bodies, like gigantic fighting robots," Peter waved his arms up dramatically to emphasize how very gigantic these bodies were. "It was pretty cool."

"On the subject of fighting," Gamora said, her arms crossed neatly on the table in front of herself as she stared at Mantis, sitting across from her. "Do you know how to defend yourself at all, Mantis?"

Mantis blinked her huge eyes in surprise at this question. "I have never needed to defend myself. Ego is very powerful, and I am always with him."

"No one has ever tried to hurt you?" Gamora asked.

"Well, I have met... unhappy people, but with my abilities, I can sooth them back into a happier state if they come too near. I rarely speak to others, though, so it does not happen often."

"Peter," Gamora turned her eyes on him now. "How did she manage in combat in your timeline?"

"Uh, I guess we looked out for her if it got too physical, but she's tough, and she was learning." He shrugged, not sure if this was the answer Gamora was looking for. Mantis was, compared to the other Guardians, pretty frail in terms of physical strength and fighting ability, but it had never been a big issue in their travels. They hadn't actually had many big fights after Ego's planet, though. Mostly it was some contracts that led to a couple firefights, and Rocket's shenanigans leading to their usual violent endings. Someone was always there to keep an eye on her, and she walked off any bruises or injuries she incurred with admirable grace.

"If you are planning to take her with us, she will need to know how to defend herself, at least." Gamora narrowed her eyes at him like he was an idiot. "You can't take someone with no real experience into battle against my father. She'll be dead in an instant."

"Why don't you guys teach her?" he asked. "I'll probably be too busy with my own lessons to do anything about it, but you and Drax would give her occasional lessons in my timeline."

"I would love to 'take lessons' with you and Drax!" Mantis piped up eagerly. "I have never had lessons before. This is so exciting!"

There was scoff from Nebula's corner of the table, and Peter glanced over to see her glaring into her food like it had personally slighted her.

"It's getting late," Gamora said, glancing meaningfully at the light fading rapidly through the glass panes. "We can start in the morning. There are no lights here, and I don't want you injuring yourself in the dark."

There was a clink of utensils as Nebula set hers down and shoved her chair out. "I'm done," she said flatly when she noticed Peter staring at her with his brows raised in question, her good mood from earlier in the day seemed to have vanished.

"Are you going exploring again tonight?" Peter asked.

Nebula shot her sister a darting look before answering, as though considering whether or not she wanted to give away her plans where Gamora could overhear them. "Yes," she told Peter. "I'll be in the canyon beyond the river if you need me."

"Okay," he said, as she made her way to the open doorway. "Thanks. Let me know if you run into Rocket?"

Nebula didn't look back, but she waved a hand in acknowledgment of his request as she left.

When Peter turned back to the table, Gamora was staring after her sister with her lips pinched in the corners.

-x-

Mantis was apparently eager to get to work, Peter thought to himself, as the pounding on his door came much earlier the next morning. Lifting his head from the pillow with a groan, Peter opened his eyes and could barely make out the features of his room under the starlight glinting through the panes of his window.

"Mantis?" he asked, suddenly wondering if it might be one of the other Guardians instead, but couldn't think of any reason the others would be pounding on his door at who-knows-when in the morning.

The knocking came again, more insistently this time.

"Hello?" Peter kicked off his sheets and groped around for his boots. "Who is it?"

More knocking, this time the door shook in its frame under the abuse.

"It's open," Peter called, giving up on his boots and crossing to the door. "What do you want?"

He flung the door open wide, but there was no one there.

"What the?" he mumbled, glancing up and down the hallway. "That's not funny! Come on. Go wake up someone who your life doesn't depend on their beauty rest!"

Something made a noise from outside.

"Rocket?" Peter asked, suddenly hopeful. Maybe Rocket wanted to speak to him without the other Guardians nearby. Peter stepped out into the hallway and immediately his foot slipped out from underneath him. He had to grab the door frame to keep from going down. "Ugh, what?" he grumbled, lifting up his foot to stare down at where he had left a track through a thick layer of dust that coated the marble floor. Peter swiped at his sock cautiously, but it appeared to just be normal, unremarkable, dirt. A little plume of dust rolled off of his foot and settled back to the floor. As he watched it settle, he noticed that, other than where his foot had just landed, the rest of the dust lay sleek and undisturbed. There were no other tracks in the hallway. So... maybe not Rocket.

Curiosity peaked, Peter stepped out into the hallway, careful of his footing this time, and made his way across to Drax's door. The layer of dust muffled the sounds of his steps, making him feel like a ghost himself.

"Drax?" he hissed, rapping on the door with his knuckles. Unnerved by the silence -not even the sound of Drax's snoring leaked through the walls- Peter shoved the door open. Inside, the room was empty and a thin film of dust coated everything in here as well. The dust sat the thickest in a clump on the bed, but Peter could find no clue as to what could have caused this or where Drax had gone, so he stepped back into the hallway and slid the door shut. He pushed Gamora's door open next, but her room was in the same state, and just as unhelpful.

Peter licked his lips and tapped his fingers against his pants, pausing when he realized something else here was out of place. Peter held his unbandaged hands up, marveling at the perfect, unbroken skin in the dim ghost light of the hallway, and it dawned on him like someone had raised a curtain after he had already guessed what was behind it. He'd known, but not really known, until just now.

Peter was dreaming again. This may be the most real one yet, or at least the most aware he had been without waking up. They were getting stronger.

Peter cast his gaze up and down the empty hall, not sure what he was supposed to be doing here. Was this a test of some sort? Peter closed his eyes and reached out towards the Light. He didn't know if he could reach it in a dream, or whatever this was. If nothing else, it could provide him with a way to light up the hallway. Ego would probably be disgusted at the notion of using his powers in such a way, but as far as Peter was concerned, his father's annoyance was just more incentive to do it. But when Peter felt the familiar sensation of the power drawing to him the world around him began to shudder. Peter's eyes flew open to see the walls dancing and rippling unnaturally. A wild, unreasonable panic seized his mind and Peter quickly severed the connection he had built, pulling away from the Light as if it had burned him.

The world around him settled back into place, and the panic receded, leaving his skin prickling despite the pleasant temperature. So that... was not a great idea...

There was another noise from outside. A grating sound, kind of like a cat scratching at a door, but louder, and it echoed unnaturally through the building around him. Feeling pretty confident that this was a dream and he was safe, Peter shook off the chills and moved towards the front doors to investigate. When he pulled the massive copper door open, he had expected to find the usual scene of galaxies, but was met instead with a bursts of hot air and a bright burning sky. Peter held one hand up to shield his face and peered through narrowed eyes into the wind. The world around him was lifeless and barren- even more so that when he had fallen asleep. All of the plants had died, most of them seemed to have blown away, leaving behind clumps of shriveled up sticks and vines scattered across an endless landscape of dry cracked dirt and sand that blew about and danced in the harsh wind.

"Ego?!" Peter called. His voice was snatched up by the whistling wind and blown away.

The scratching noise came again, this time echoing through the empty world around him like something was trying to dig in through a ceiling that didn't exist. Something moved in the corner of his eyes, and Peter squinted against the acrid wind until he saw it again. In the distance, beyond the softly rolling remains of the garden, something was sending the dirt flinging upward where the wind caught it and carried it off.

Peter tugged his jacket tight against his neck and waded into the wind. The sandy ground and bits of brittle leaves crunched under his socked feet, and the closer he drew to the flinging dirt, the louder the scrabbling noise became, but still the sound echoed from all around, rather than from his destination. As he surmounted a small roll in the desert, he was able to get a look at what was causing the strange phenomena. A series of rectangular holes had been dug into the dry dirt. Eight in total, all lined up neatly, like graves. As Peter watched, another clump of dirt was flung out of the nearest one and he approached with a sense of trepidation to peer over the edge. Inside, some four or five feet down, Rocket's striped tail bobbed as he dug furiously at the dirt with his bare hands, pausing to grab the loose dirt he had churned up and flinging it out from the hole. The scratching noise was louder than ever, and Peter had to shout to hear his own voice over it.

"Rocket?!"

Rocket paused in his digging again and straightened up to peer at Peter looming above him. The scratching in the sky above which had not stopped when Rocket had been throwing the dirt, stopped now. Slowly, his lips split into a wicked grin. "This one's for you," he promised darkly.

"What?" Peter took an unconscious step back.

"I told you to dig," Rocket said. "I was very clear. And that's a very difficult thing to do from here. If you can't dig fast enough on your own, I'll have to help."

"Rocket," Peter said slowly. "Where are the others?"

Rocket paused to look behind himself like he could see the other graves despite being underground. "We're all dust in the end," Rocket said. When Rocket turned back his eyes had changed, but instead of the red and blue Peter had seen on the Starburst, his eyes were flooded with stars and swirling galaxies. "One way or another. All but me. But if you help me dig, it doesn't have to be so bad. If we dig together, it will take much longer."

"What does that mean, Rocket?" Peter asked, ignoring how his skin shivered under that gaze. "None of that made any sense- why would it take longer to dig together?"

"Isn't that what you want, Peter? To delay the inevitable? I want that to, but I can't help you until you dig me up."

"What I want is to wake up," Peter said, crossing his arms and hunching miserably against the wind which hadn't relented in its assault. "I want these dreams to stop."

"Then keep digging." Rocket gave one last tooth flashing grin that was only a step to the left of a sneer and his body began to fall apart like dust in the whipping wind, sweeping away and swirling into nothing. The scraping noise started up again, rattling Peter's bones and filling his skull until he screwed his eyes shut against it.

-x-

Peter did not immediately awaken this time, but fell instead into a black and dreamless void so that by the time he stirred to wakefulness the next morning, the worst of the shudders and disgust had faded. The memory of what had occurred was still fresh enough, but the feelings had grown stale and he did not leap from bed with a shout or awaken in a pool of his own sweat. Instead, he lay on his back, his fingers laced together across his stomach as he stared mutely at the ceiling until Mantis came to alert them breakfast was ready.

"You are very quiet today," Drax told him between bites of his second plate. "Are you feeling unwell?"

"I'm fine," Peter lied, taking a bigger bite of his own food as if to prove it. "I just didn't sleep well."

"More dreams?" Nebula had deigned to grace them with her presence again. She had appeared after everyone else had sat down to grab her own plate and sit down in a chair that Peter was pretty sure Drax had intentionally saved her away from her sister, and while a part of Peter wanted sorely to say something, to tease her for her continued refusal to be a part of life, he was a little afraid she would actually leave if he did, and having all of them here and whole and alive was making him feel better. All but Rocket, that is.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Hey, did you happen to see Rocket last night?"

"I saw him from a distance, but we didn't speak. It seems he is still trying to find a way off of this planet."

"Ego's ship-?"

"-is rubble by now."

Peter didn't feel even the slightest tinge of annoyance or regret at learning of the destruction of his father's property.

Mantis was clearly excited for her lessons. She could hardly sit still through breakfast and was clearing away everyone's dishes almost before they had finished cleaning them off. Drax nearly upturned the table, lunging over it to snatch the last bite from his plate as she pulled it away after he had turned away to say something to Groot and she had thought he was done. She was so upset by her mistake it took Drax taking her hand and placing it across his chest to assure her that he was not angry.

When everything had calmed back down the group moved out into the court beside the cliff where they had first stepped from the horseshoe shuttle. The fountain was out of the way enough that it still left plenty of open space to practice in, and even provided a place to sit for Groot who happily perched on the edge, toying with the false metal fish as they span in their endless cycle.

"Do you have any weapons here?" Gamora asked as she finished inspecting their footing. "A sword, or staff, or anything like that?"

"Oh!" Mantis exclaimed. "I will be right back!"

She vanished into the main cathedral that loomed over the court, returning a few minutes later, face flushed and panting, but held the item she had retrieved up for Gamora to inspect with a proud smile. It was a long staff, almost the height of Mantis herself, a brilliant gold with sparkling emerald carvings that didn't quite resemble dragons, but made Peter think of them nonetheless. "Often, when Ego and I would visit planets, the locals would offer Ego great gifts- things like clothing, or food, or decorative trinkets and weapons," Mantis explained. "Ego has no need of such things, so he either refuses, or disposes of the items later. When Ego and I visited the planet of Kleinert, he saw how much I loved this item, and allowed me to keep it."

She said this with such pride, like a child telling the story of how their parent had purchased them the exact pony they had wanted for Christmas. The sheer joy and gratitude sparkling in her eyes over something that had cost Ego nothing, and he probably didn't even remember doing, made Peter want to reach out and give her a hug.

Gamora took the staff and balanced it carefully in her hands, testing its weight and giving it a few experimental swings before handing it back. "It is actually very well made for such an ornamental piece," she said, loud enough for the others to hear. "Kleinert is known for its metalwork, and prides its self on combining beauty with durability and function. My father had considered commissioning me a piece from their smiths, once."

From behind Peter, Nebula gave a snort.

"This will do," Gamora finished and Mantis positively beamed under the assassin's cool approval.

"First, lets show you the basic stretches and stances."

Peter got comfortable on the steps and let his anxieties melt away as he watched Gamora guide Mantis through the familiar routines she had shown to him once. He was wincing in sympathy as Mantis struggled to find her balance in a stance that he had almost pulled a hamstring learning when he heard the scuffling of his father's shoes approaching from behind him.

"Are you ready to go?" Ego asked in that tone that clearly said 'I'm not really asking.'

"Yeah." Peter stood and stretched, dusting imaginary dirt off of his pants before turning to follow his father down the familiar pathway to their own practice grounds. "Aren't you going to ask what Mantis is doing?" Peter asked as the walked.

"No," he answered with disinterest. "She's yours now, you may do with her as you wish."

Peter's nose wrinkled and his brows drew together into an ugly glare at his father. "She's not a thing." Peter just couldn't understand why Mantis could feel anything but hate for the monster walking beside him.

Ego didn't answer him, and they continued on in silence.

Again Peter was lead to the center of the courtyard. "We're going to begin expanding on your usefulness today," Ego informed him. He snapped his fingers and a bubble of light rose from the ground between them, bursting outward and forming into a wide basin, about a body length across and nearly coming up to his hip. After that, he reached one hand out to hold it over the basin, in his hand swirled a smaller ball of Light. Slowly he tipped his hand over, and water began to spill from the orb, splashing into the basin below. Peter watched the orb carefully, but no matter how much water poured through, the amount of Light never changed. After a couple of inches had gathered in the bottom of the bowl Ego closed his hand and the light vanished, the last drips of water fell into the pool below where the ripples slowly settled into a pristine and unblemished surface.

"How do you-?" Peter began to ask, but Ego cut him off.

"You can take a break when you have filled the bowl to the top," he said, clasping his hands behind his back and stepping back to stare at Peter expectantly.

"But how do I make water?" Peter asked.

"The same way you made rock," Ego snorted. "I suggest you get started, or you'll be here all night."

Peter's lips pulled into a deep frown. He was running out of patience for these cryptic games. With an angry flick of his wrists, Peter held his own hands out over the bowl and began to gather Light. It came easier than ever, and he had a respectably heavy ball of light knitted together in a matter of minutes. He tried to focus on the thought of water, the feel of it, and the light seemed to change in his hands. Instead of growing heavier or denser, like it had when he was forming crystal, it changed in its behavior. Before, it had felt like it was made of strings of lightning, moving in darting, unpredictable ways. Now it was beginning to grow more sluggish and uniform, swirling in a slower fashion and trying to leak out the bottom. Peter tried to hold it together as long as he could, but before the light had cooled from the orb in his hands he lost control and it slipped from his hold. Instead of the explosions of yesterday morning, it burst like an overfilled water-balloon, chunks of still dimly-glowing liquid plopped into the bowl where they sizzled and bubbled into the existing water.

"You should tip it earlier," Ego told him, ever-helpful only after the fact. "And you cannot hold the water between your hands after it is formed, try to change only one section at a time."

Peter tried again, deciding to stick with smaller balls of light for the time being to avoid more big messy bursts of liquid light.

Trying to control the Light in sections was a much bigger challenge than Peter had anticipated. Edges would slough off when they became too heavy, unbalancing the energy still in his control, or the section he was working on would be reabsorbed by the Light if he lost focus for even a moment. Eventually, he tried Ego's trick of tipping his hands and letting the formed bits trickle out, aided by gravity. This way he could put most of mind to the task of making sure the water formed from the center and guiding it out through the same hole. This trick made the process less messy, but it was agonizingly slow. Each ball of Light only produced so much water before it had all been transformed and drained away and Peter had to start back over at the beginning.

The water level in the bowl had only raised a palm's worth by the time Peter had to pause and catch his breath, leaning with one hand against the smooth lip of the basin.

"How am I supposed to fill this?" Peter panted, his head hanging low. "This is going to take forever."

"Keep digging," Ego's voice answered.

"I am digging," Peter snapped, turning his glare from the tips of his boots to the celestial across from him. "This is me digging."

"I'm glad to hear that," Ego said, raising a brow. "Now, if you are feeling comfortable enough with controlling the Light in parts, why don't you try refilling the Light you posses as you drain it away."

Peter huffed out a mouthful of air and straightened himself back up to try again. As he stared into the Light, obediently swirled into existence between his hands, Ego's voice again broke into the silence.

"You're not digging deep enough."

The tiny orb in Peter's hands wavered, but he held it together.

"You're wasting your time with this, keep digging."

The bundle of light he had gathered flickered out with a tiny 'pop' as Peter looked up to shoot Ego an annoyed look.

"What are you doing?" Ego asked. "Focus."

"Gladly," Peter grumbled, not amused by this new game.

Things fell back into silence after that. Hours of practice had left Peter fairly exhausted, and he was beginning to run out of steam. The Light was growing just a bit more difficult to summon every time. He was considering whether he should drag out just a little more before he began trying to summon and modify the Light at the same time, or if he should just give it a go with the Light he already had, when Ego's voice cut into his concentration again.

"You're taking the long way," his voice rumbled with frustration.

Peter huffed his annoyance but didn't want to spare the energy to look up or answer, so he dug deeper and pulled another thread of light into existence.

"You have to keep digging if you ever want to save your friends."

"That's it!" Peter screamed, throwing the ball of light down in a fit of rage where it burst violently against the water's surface below and sent up a spray of water and mist.

Ego's eyebrows shot up at Peter's outburst. "Peter-"

"I'm here aren't I?" Peter shouted over him. "I'm learning to use this stupid Light and doing everything you've asked, so why are you doing this?"

Ego drew himself up to his full height and had the audacity to look shocked and offended. "I don't know what you're-"

"Don't lie to me!" Peter stepped around the basin and pointed one finger accusingly at the celestial before him. "Those dreams were bad enough, but now you're threatening my friends!"

Ego's lip peeled back into an ugly sneer, but his voice remained calm under Peter's storm of accusations. "I have not threatened your companions. I have no need to."

"Yes you did. Just now!"

"No, Peter," Ego's eyes narrowed. "I didn't"

"I heard you!"

"I haven't said anything."

"But you-" Peter's burst of rage was cooling under Ego's confused denial, and a strange spark in his father's eyes.

"What did you hear, exactly?"

"Keep digging," Peter repeated, watching Ego's face carefully. "Keep digging or... or I'll never save my friends."

"And you heard this in my voice?" The dark shadow of suspicion in Ego's eyes was replaced with a spark of understanding and something angrier that was making Peter's skin itch. "Just now? You're sure?"

"Yes?" Peter asked, suddenly not so sure of anything.

Ego ran his tongue over his teeth and made a face like he was tasting something sour.

"What is it?" Peter asked. "What's going on?"

"Celestials aren't the only thing that walk on other planes," Ego muttered darkly. He raised his hand up and placed his thumb against Peter's forehead much like he had the first time they had met.

The immediate result was less spectacular this time, perhaps because Peter knew what to expect, or perhaps because Peter already had some access to the Light so this was less overwhelming, he really didn't know. A strange tingle rushed through his body, and the late-morning forest around him transformed into a landscape of stars over the seafoam court. As Peter stared at the stars in amazement, he recognized the colorful galaxies of his nightmares.

"Finally," Ego's voice rang out from behind Peter, entirely disconnected from the body of his father which still stood in front of him, his mouth unmoving. Peter turned around to find a second Ego standing across the court. His eyes were bright with triumph and lips split into a toothy grin that revealed pointed teeth. "Found you."

"What the f-?"

A hand came down on Peter's shoulder and he risked a glance to find the Ego he'd come with had stepped up to stand beside him. His eyes were narrowed dangerously at his twin.

"Eternity," the first Ego, which Peter was pretty sure was the real one, growled over Peter's shoulder. "What is your business with my son?"

End

[bughead-fic-request]

I would like to thank @leaalda for making these amazing banners.

This is an effort to spread the word about all fan fiction writers in our little fandom. If you would like to be featured or nominate a writer, please contact me. Please reblog this post if you can and check out some of @allskynostars work!

1. First things first, if someone wanted to read your stories where can they find them.

The can find them on my tumblr;  https://allskynostars.tumblr.com/tagged/allskynostars-fics  or on AO3;  http://archiveofourown.org/users/allskynostars/pseuds/allskynostars/works

2. Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Jenna, I am 23 (24 in a couple of weeks!). I have 3 brothers.. It's been a struggle haha. I was born in London, my parents and I moved to New Zealand when I was 6 months old. And just two months ago I moved back to London with my boyfriend. I've written a few fics, and have just finished my first multi chapter Ever Since New York. I am currently unemployed, but looking for Pharmacy work as that's what I did at home and would like to continue.

3. What do you never leave home without? 

My phone! And keys.

4. Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Night owl, 100000%. I suck at mornings.

5. If you could live in any fictional world which one would you choose and why?

Maaan, probably Middle Earth. Like I would kill to be an elf and shack up with Legolas. Or Thranduil, keep it in the family yunno. Or the Harry Potter universe because magic? Yes.

6. Who is the most famous person you’ve ever met.

I've 'met' a whole heap, like I've paid at cons and things to meet Aidan Turner, Dean O'Gorman, Andrew Scott, Karen Gillan. I went to the Age of Ultron prem when I was in London last time and got photos/signatures with Mark Ruffalo (ultimate fav), Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Aaron Taylor Johnson. I got Robert Downey Jrs autograph but no photo. But just by chance without planning too I met Jenna Coleman. We were visiting my family in Wales and just so happened to drive past during filming. Didn't quite get to meet Peter Capaldi though. And then I was in London last time, me and my best friend walked into Jamie Campbell Bower in the street. The story Is actually so cool but I feel like this answer is long enough hahah.

7. What are some of your favorite movies/TV?

Movies: Eternal Sunshine, Only Lovers Left Alive, Big Daddy (my go to movie when I'm sad, I love Adam Sandler). I always struggle to answer this because after I think of one I should have mentioned! Shutter Island. 

TV Shows: There are far too many but right now Riverdale, obviously. And I just smashed through Brooklyn 99. The OC, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, SOA, Friends, Being Human, the list goes on...

8. What are some of your favorite bands/musicians?

SO my first favourite and was Panic! At The Disco. Then My Chemical Romance took over my life. Now I'm into The 1975, Arctic Monkeys, Bastille, Hozier, Tom Odell, James Bay, Ed Sheeran. Thanks to my Dad I love Alanis Morrissette and Radiohead. Thanks to my Mum I have a soft spot for Robbie Williams. My music taste is diverse so I listen to a lot of rap. I'll defend Kanye West to my dying breath, I really like Post Malone at the moment too. It chops and changes so so much. Also I've seen One Direction 4 times so judge as you will, ahaha.

9. Favorite Books?

Pretty generic, really. Harry Potter series, LOTR, The Mortal Instruments series and all that go with it. Fault In Our Stars, All The Bright Places, Lovely Bones.

10. Favorite Food?

I love Mexican food.

11. Biggest pet peeve?

Sidewalk Hoggers who walk SO SLOW.

12. What did you want to be when you were little? What do you want to be now?

I always wanted to sing or act, but seeing as I can do neither.. I always wanted to work in the entertainment industry and sometimes still do, like behind the scenes. Maybe in Media. But for now I love working in Pharmacy and want to train to become a Pharmacy Tech.

13. What are your biggest fears? Do you have any strange fears?

I don't have many fears, I have no issue with the dark or heights or anything like that. I HATE bugs, like any kind of insect or creepy crawly, just no. Sometimes even butterflies irk me.

And as far as strange fears, everyone always looks at me weird when I say this, I have a fear of whales.. Like I don't like the ocean or fish, sharks etc, but I can handle it. But whales? No. I get goosebumps and feel like my throat closes up when I look at them. I think it's to do with their sheer size and power. I don't even know why but I just, I can't.

14. When you are on your deathbed what would be the one you’d regret not doing? 

Seeing the world.

Okay... lets talk about your writing!

15. Which is your favorite of the fics you've written for the Bughead fandom?

Probably Who She Was, How She Loved. It was only a one shot, and it hurt like hell to write, but it seemed to get a reaction from everyone who read it and that's what we write for, right? I don't even know where I pulled that fic from, but I really love it. It feels real.

16. Which was the hardest to write, in terms of plot?

Ever Since New York, just to keep it going. I didn't want to drag it out too much, but it needed a fair amount of content. So I struggled at the end there.

17. How do you come up with the ideas for you fic(s)? Do you people watch? Listen to music? Get inspired by TV/movies?

A lot of it definitely comes from music. Like, if the lyrics to a song resonate with me I always think of a story to go with it. Always, even if I have no intention of writing it. I also pull inspiration from certain movies and things, but it is definitely music at the forefront.

18. Idea that you always wanted to write but could never make work?

I really love the idea of room mate fics, I haven't actually tried though. Maybe I could do it.

19. Least favorite plot point/chapter/moment you’ve written?

I only posted the last chapter of ESNY the other day, and the response has been good, but I'm still not happy with it. I couldn't even read it over. I don't really know what my problem is, I guess I just felt it was very anti-climatic.

20. Favorite plot point/chapter/moment you’ve written?

In my fic And Then? There's a scene where Betty & Jug are in the ocean yelling, and I really loved that moment.

21.Favorite character to write? 

Jughead. Always. He has layers...  

22. Favorite line or lines of dialogue that you've written?

Dark. Brown. Not round, more sleek. The complete opposite of the girl who's face was flashing through Jughead’s mind at this very moment. Which he knew, of course he did. That's why he had picked her. With her dark head of hair, and her dark eyes, he would never have to be reminded of the one he was missing.

Except for the fact that he saw Betty Cooper in everything. And everyone.

23. Best comment/review you’ve ever received?

Every comment someone goes out of their way to write about something I've spent time on is amazing. I think it always makes me smile though when they say they can see it all happening as they read. And you know, making them cry when they say fanfic never makes them cry.

24. How do you handle bad reviews or comments?

I haven't been 'lucky' enough to have to deal with this, yet. But I think I would just ignore and delete the comment. Who needs that negativity.

25. If you could change anything in any of your stories, what would it be?

I think I would have included more characters in Ever Since New York, like Archie etc.

26. What is your favorite story you’ve ever written? Any fandom?

I've only ever written for the Bughead fandom, but my favourite is Who She Was purely for the emotions. I'm a sucker for emotions.

27. What are you reading right now? Both fan fiction and general fiction?

I have 51 bookmarks on AO3. So I am reading basically everything right now haha. But in terms of general fiction, I haven't read anything in a while and I need too.

28. Do you have an advice for writers that want to get into this fandom but might be scared? 

As typical as it sounds, just do it. I was so nervous, but this fandom is hands down the best. Everyone is so, so welcoming, and if there are so many people to reach out too if you’re ever feeling unsure about your own work or anything. Just take the dive guys, it's a fun ride.  

[saad-sack]

The Anchor – Jamie Benn

A/N: Hey guys! Thank you all for the support, I really love talking to you guys! I still have a few more requests to write but they should be finished and posted with in the next 2 weeks! This imagine was written by @had-to-skjei-it and I think it’s actually really cute! This is the first series that we have made so I hope it turns out as good as I hope it will (and since Mel is writing it, I’m 100% positive it well exceed my expectations)!!

Anon Request: Can you write an imagine where you’re friends with Tyler seguin and you’re invited to his and your other best friends wedding. You’re the maid of honor and Jamie benn is the best man and you two start to flirt and by the reception you two can’t stop and he asks you to slow dance with him and then decides right there to ask for your number and to go on a date with him. Maybe make it a series?

Warnings: some pessimism and a couple curse words

Song: The Anchor by Bastille (You should all go listen to it because it is an amazing song!)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Today was a special day. Your best friend was getting married to your other best friend. And where were you? Maid of honor. You knew it seemed silly, but you were waiting for this moment for a very long time. Your childhood friend is going to be Mrs. Tyler Seguin? That’s just about the coolest thing you could think of. You lived in Texas all your life and now your inseparable best friend is getting married to a hockey player? Wow. You met Tyler as soon at they started dating and now, your friendship with him is almost as strong as that with his fiancée.

The ceremony was long and boring, and everything was green. You, and all the bridesmaids were wearing Kelly green dresses, and all the groomsmen were wearing ties of the same shade. You stood there for what seemed like forever, waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle. Of course you were stunned when you saw her in her pearly gown with a long sparkly train. She was holding white roses with green stems (of course). You managed to get a glimpse of Tyler, who was tearing a little bit. You longed for a love like that. Someone who would think about you nonstop, and would be incapable of not smiling in your presence. You got a little sad when you thought about the love you’d never have, but you remembered this was a wedding and you should be happy for the bride and groom. You slapped a fake smile on your face, and let the ceremony continue.

You tried to think about something other than love so you decided to look at the crowd attending the wedding. There were a fair amount of family on either side. On the bride’s side, there were many other childhood friends you grew up with, and on the groom’s side, there were other tall, handsome, muscular hockey players like Tyler. Again with those thoughts? You really wanted to find someone to lean on, but this was not the time. Try not to think about all those nice, single professional hockey players. Just try.

Your mini self pep talk didn’t do you much good. A bright smile caught your eye from across the room. Of course it had to belong to a tall young man who seemed to have a nice build from what you could tell from the fit of his suit. You presumed he was another one of those hockey players. You didn’t follow hockey at all, so you had no idea what name matched that face.

What was that? Did he just, wink at you? No, that couldn’t be. Why would someone like him be even remotely interested in you? But of course you couldn’t resist that, so you shot a wink back at this unknown hockey player. Of course you got one of those one-eyebrow-raised looks back at you from this man, then another wink, and finally that bright white smile.

Little looks like those were exchanged between the two of you throughout the ceremony. Who was he? What was his name? Why does he seem so interested in me? Should I go talk to him? All of these thoughts and more flooded your head when the wedding ceremony finally concluded. 

You couldn’t find this mysterious man during the reception, all hockey players looked the same to you. They all came from Canada, Scandinavia, or Russia. If they weren’t super blonde because they were Scandinavian, they were all dark haired, with either brown or blue eyes. They were all tall, and had very broad shoulders. Many of them also had beards. This man had dark hair, dark eyes, and was clean shaven.

Your search was cut short because you were forced to sit down for the toast from the best man. You found your glass of champagne, and low and behold, this mystery man stood up and pulled out a piece of paper from his breast pocket.

His toast was peppered with jokes and small anecdotes about him and Tyler playing hockey together and what a pleasure it was to captain the team. You knew so little about hockey, that you didn’t even know the name of the captain of the Dallas Stars, who seems to have the same name as this mysterious flirty man from the ceremony. 

His eyes were scanning the tables in front of him while he was reading. He was obviously looking for something but what was it? This man was so mysterious it drew you in even more.

Finally this hockey man’s eyes made its way to your table, and found you. Your eyes locked in for a few seconds. He raised an eyebrow and the corners of his mouth raised a bit. He then looked down at his script again for a second, and when he looked up again, his eyes continued to scan the room.

The food was very “sub-par”. You really wanted to enjoy the lasagna that was served, but it was burned in some places and cold in other places. You ended up using you fork to move the food from one side of your plate to the other to make it look like you ate more than you actually did. Looking around your table, everyone else was doing similar things with it so it make you feel a little better. 

Finishing the food in front of you was out of the question. You knew talking to the bride and groom wasn't a great idea because their hands were full as it is. The table you were placed at was full of Tyler's old relatives, all of them were talking about this person named Jamie. Probably some little cousin causing trouble. They all ignored you anyway so the only thing you could think of doing was check your phone.

You pulled your iPhone out of your purse to see snapchat notifications from about 5 different people. You didn't care to look at them. Your lock screen was of you with Tyler and his then-fiancée. You were such a third wheel. It's because they were your two best friends. Of course you hung out with them a lot. But they were deeply in love and you knew that deep down all three of you knew you were hanging out with them too much because of course everyone wants some private time with their SO to kiss or whatever lovers do. You wouldn't know. You've been single all your life. Not because you were ugly or anything, just the guys who were always hitting on you were the wrong type. They were the type who would make one night stands all the time and you didn't want to be any part of that. How much you wished for love! Real love. None of this one night stand bullshit. Just someone to talk to who you could lean on when you've had a bad day. Someone who will say you looked beautiful when you feel like shit on the inside. You just wanted that special someone in your life. And he would be yours and only yours. And you would be his and only his. You didn't want to be a third wheel, and always awkward because your two best friends were in a relationship and you were just there. You wanted-

“Hey.” A deep voice said as you felt a warm hand on your bare, cool shoulder. These green bridesmaid dresses were suited for the Texas weather, but not for these rooms with excessive air conditioning. You turned around to see the mystery man smiling back at you.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

@had-to-skjei-it would like for me to tell you guys that she is sorry that part 1 is boring (even though I think it’s a wonderful start to the series!) and she promises the next part will be more interesting! 

[fromthedeskoftheraven]

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 92 truths about you. At the end choose 25 people to be tagged. I was tagged by: my lovely friend @hobbithorse19, thank you dear! xo LAST: Last Drink: Water Last Phone Call: Doctor’s office Last Text Message: "Sorry about that” Last Song You Listened To:  Pompeii by Bastille Last Time I Cried: I can’t remember, it’s been a while (thankfully) HAVE YOU EVER: Dated Someone Twice: Yes Been Cheated On: Yes Kissed Someone and Regretted It: Yes Lost Someone Special: Yes Been Depressed: Yes Been Drunk and Thrown Up: No IN THE PAST YEAR HAVE YOU: Made a New Friend: Yes (thank goodness for Tumblr friends) <3 Fallen Out of Love: No Laughed Until You Cried: Yes Met Someone Who Changed You: No, I don’t think so Found Out Who Your True Friends Were: Yes Found Out Someone Was Talking About You: No GENERAL: How many people on tumblr do you know in real life?: One (depending on your definition of real life) Do you have any pets?: No Do you want to change your name?: Nah, I like it What time did you wake up this morning?: 6:30 a.m. What were you doing last night?: Going for a walk with my family Name something you cannot wait for: Vacation to Europe next summer (fingers crossed) Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Yes, all the time  What’s getting on your nerves rn?: The heat! Okay, Fall, anytime you’re ready! Blood type: I can never remember Nickname: It’s a secret Relationship status: Married Zodiac sign: Leo Pronouns: She/her Favorite tv show: Sherlock and Berlin Station College: Yes Hair colour: Brown Long or short: Long Do you have a crush on someone: Looking at you, Richard Armitage (honorable mention to Dean O’Gorman) What do you like about yourself: I’m creative, I think I’m pretty resilient, and I try to be kind FIRSTS: First surgery: Tonsils out when I was a little kid First piercing: Earlobes (first and only) First best friend: It might have been Melanie at school? Or maybe Christy First sport you joined: Soccer, hated every second of it First vacation: Disneyland maybe? First pair of sneakers: No idea Eating: Nothing Drinking: Water I’m about to: Work on a novel Listening to:  The fan Want kids: Two is just right so I’m done Get married: Been there, done that Career: Mom has been my favorite one WHICH IS BETTER: Lips or eyes: Eyes Hugs or kisses: Kisses Shorter or taller: Taller Older or younger: Older Romantic or spontaneous: Romantic Sensitive or loud: Sensitive Hook up or relationship: Relationship Troublemaker or hesitant: Hesitant HAVE YOU EVER: Kissed a stranger: No Drank hard liquor: Yes Lost glasses/contacts: No Sex on first date: No Broken someone’s heart: Yes Been arrested: No Turned someone down: Yes Fallen for a friend: Yes DO YOU BELIEVE: In yourself: It depends on the day Love at first sight: Not really Heaven: Yes Santa Claus: No

Not 25 people but I’m tagging: @the-girl-under-bofurs-hat @letaliabane @tea2go  @kilihotashell @disneymarina and anyone else who wants to share!

[ampersandbastille]

∆ one of the best days of my entire life ∆

Alright. So. I am going to do my very best at this. But here it finally is, in its entirety in post form: On Saturday May 6th, 2017 in Charlotte, North Carolina, I saw my favorite band, Bastille, again. And by some all-powerful grace of a god in the sky or the universe rewarding me for some reason, I got to meet them. Here is the story:

First off, I was not supposed to attend this concert at all. I live in Maryland, and every single being in the universe for a month was not on my side. I have a great friend, Megan, who lives in North Carolina, and it was not working out that I could visit her and go to either this Charlotte show, or the one in Raleigh next week. It was absolutely miserable trying to work out how to go to see them, and because I live with my parents, they were extremely against it. Even though I’m 22 at the moment, for some reason, their opinion on spending my own money, time, and gas was somehow important.

Anyway, I finally figure out a way to get there. Megan and I are ecstatic. I finally get to her place in North Carolina and we are incredibly excited (and nervous). Only issue…she had already invited her other friend with her to the contest she had won through a radio station to meet them. As I said, I was not supposed to somehow find a way to get to them and see them again so soon. My friend was devastated that she had invited her other friend to go already. But I was excited no matter what. I was seeing my favorite band again and I was with an amazing friend...I was so happy for her to be able to meet them regardless.

The day of, we drive to the venue. One of her other friends Reagan, who is a sweetheart by the way, met us there as well. Now keep in mind, not only are we waiting outside to get into the venue obviously, but this venue is outdoors. It was cold, windy, and it started raining. We were in line hours before but it seemed like it was even longer. It just felt so frustrating. I was starting to think that everything was literally and figuratively “raining down on me” and trying to tell me I was an idiot for trying to go to this concert. But regardless, I held hope. I had to be happy anyway. I was here in line with Megan in NC to see my favorite band.

For hours we waited, shivering underneath an umbrella. Dan tweeted out that quote tweet where he had agreed with a fan that the rain needed to go away. It somehow made me feel even worse. I was excited, but miserable standing there outside. Megan’s other friend showed up, and it made me sadder. I had kinda hoped she just wouldn’t show up or wouldn’t be able to make it so that I could somehow go with Megan, but I hadn’t held out any hope at all for that anyway...it was more like a distant wish and mean-sounding dream to have. I felt my friend start to feel sadder and even worse because she wanted me to go so badly. It made me feel guilty too.

Finally the doors opened, and Megan and her other friend had to stay waiting outside for will call to meet the radio station for meet and greet. Reagan and I got into the venue, and headed into the pit. Like last time, I was like one or two people back from the barrier, really close, and on the left side in the middle. Obviously...because I may or may not be in total love with Kyle…so of course I want to be on Kyle’s side, always. I like being in the middle of that left side so I can have a good view of the middle and beyond of the stage as well, and I could still get an angle of Will on the way right.

As we are waiting, me and Reagan are talking to the really friendly and nice younger girls in front of us, talking about our other concert experiences with Bastille and other bands. I do this often at concerts...I am very extroverted and making friends and talking to others comes easily to me. Suddenly, my friend’s phone starts ringing, and she mouths to me “It’s Megan!” and I was confused, because she was supposed to be in the meet and greet. I immediately got worried that something bad had happened. Then this is where EVERYTHING changed.

Her friend asks, “Did you get the text Megan sent you?” and I hadn’t, because I had been talking to the girls in front of us. Then she says, “There’s an extra meet and greet, and it’s yours. Go to will call. NOW!” and my heart dropped. I yelled “WHAT?!” so ungodly loudly that the entire pit and beyond full of people in this venue turned to look at me. I was hyperventilating and freaking out and Reagan is just like “Audrey!! RUN! GO!” and I’m like, frozen. I ask the girls in front of us to save my spot for Megan and I (her other friend that was already with her had a seat with her sister elsewhere) and they were like “OMG OMG YEAH GIRL, JUST GO!”

So I push my way through people and I am running SO GODDAMN FAST out of there. The lady at the gate unscans my ticket so I can get back in for meet and greet and then the pit obviously and I am sprinting to will call. I was a competitive runner for years, and this was the single most important run I have ever ran, no joke.

So I make it there, and I am hyperventilating but also panting from running, and everyone from meet and greet are there, including Megan and her friend, and the radio station. And I just say “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?? HOW???” And Megan is freaking out with me and she points to these other two people in line. And they explain to me that they had an extra meet and greet because they couldn’t find someone else to go. And normally you’re not allowed to just add a random person last minute but the radio guy was like “Well, if I turn around and then there’s suddenly an extra person here…” and so like. DUDE THANK YOU RADIO GUY, I OWE YOU MY LIFE. Thank goodness my friend had been listening in on them talking about it, and she immediately told them “I HAVE A FRIEND WHO WANTS TO BE HERE!”

SO I am there. In line. TO MEET THEM. And I am tweeting up a storm on my stan Twitter (@bastilleaud) and I cannot type. Or breathe. Steffi (@bastillefueled) was the first to respond, and then suddenly I get a huge influx of tweets of my Twitter friends being like WHOA WHAT IS HAPPENING HOW WHY WHERE WHAT. And Steffi was dying for me and it was adorable, because she had seen how much trouble and awfulness I had gone through for weeks even trying to get to this concert. Shout out to you girl, I love love love you.

So we make our way back into the venue, and we are lined up waiting to go inside the inside part of the venue where there were like crew and such, and there was a background set up to take photographs in front of it. I have never been to an official meet and greet for anything EVER, so it was surreal to even see that. It felt like we were waiting for ages and ages, though it was probably a matter of ten minutes. And then.

The four of them walk out in a line. It was literally exactly like that part of the Send Them Off! m/v when they walk out all epicly. My heart dropped. Apparently to my friend Isabella I made waiting in line, I blurted out “they’re REAL” but I honestly don’t remember that, funnily enough. Also, I’ve seen them in concert before? I clearly was just, very excited. Duh. Anyway, the first person I noticed was Will, and they all walked out in order of how they stood in front of the background: Will, Kyle, Woody, and Dan. I was sad but not surprised that Charlie wasn’t there, I would have loved to meet him too.

So Megan and I (and her other friend) were the second to last in line to meet them. We did this purposefully so that we could maybe catch a bit of extra time with them. They told us that we couldn’t take selfies or pictures on our own phones, but that the radio guy would take a couple group pictures on his and then send them to us all. We also couldn’t get anything signed, but I wasn’t heartbroken about any of that. All I was was EXCITED TO MEET THEM.

So finally it’s our turn. I just remember shaking so much. I walked so slowly towards Will, cause I decided to just go down the line in order to meet them. Will had specifically been staring at me while I had been waiting in line and my heart was racing so hard. So when I walked towards him, he winked (like the usual flirty cheeky chap he is) and I was like “Hi Will! It’s so nice to meet you!” and he said “You too!” And I was kinda trying to avoid going to Kyle right away, especially cause I was SOOO nervous to meet him especially, to be frank. So I was like “How are you today?!” and ugh I just noticed how freakin beautiful Will is in that moment. But he was like “Good! But the rain…” and he smirked so cutely, that face he makes when his lips kinda curl. So precious. And I was like “Ugh I know right?!” And then Megan’s other friend walked up towards him. So next was Kyle goddamn Simmons.

So I backed up for a second when I saw him look at me, and I couldn’t help holding my hands to my chest and making like a pretend cry face (only slightly pretend LOL) and I was like “Hey Kyle…” and held my arms out and said, “I kinda love you” to be lighthearted and joke a bit, and he leaned into me (he was a whole head taller than me, and I am nearly 5′8, I was shaking) and he hugged me so tightly and I just remember feeling his shirt on my face and being in disbelief. And he just goes “Awww…” and “it’s okay.” because he probably felt me shaking against him. And by probably I mean definitely. So I force myself to let go so it isn’t awkward, and I show him my tank I am wearing that has this on it:

Now remember...I hadn’t planned on meeting them that day so I had no idea they would even see it. It was just for me to enjoy. I am obsessed with cats (I have three) and I know he used to talk about loving them more than he does now. So I just am like “Look at my shirt!” and he pokes himself on the shirt (obviously the keyboard cat) and squeaks out cutely, “That’s me!” and it’s on my boob. So. He poked my boob. Which I don’t think he noticed. I don’t know. But I was like “Yeah!” and then he’s like “Aw and look there’s Woody!” and almost poked my other boob too (LOL) and then pointed at Dan singing and he laughed at that (”Look, he’s yelling!”), and then obviously Will on bass there. (this is not the end of my interaction with Kyle either, hold for the end…)

So then I quickly noticed Woody wasn’t with anyone so I walked up to him and was like “HIIII Woody!” and he was so so adorable, oh my goodness. He immediately leans in to hug me. And I hugged him back obviously. And I remarked, “You’re a great hugger!” and he smiled so cutely and was like “Thanks!” excitedly and it made me so happy. I interacted with him again towards the end but then I see Dan finish up with Megan.

Dan is her favorite so she had been with him this whole time, and he’s like waiting to hug me so I immediately am like ohhhh my goodness, and he just goes “Oh hello babe!” and I wanted to faint. He called me babe. Like. He calls Kyle babe???? Not ugly idiots like me??? WTF. And he hugs me. And guys. He smells so lovely. They all do, to be fair. And his hugs, y’all. He cuddle hugs, like leans into you and puts his head into your shoulder (much like that tour video when he hugs Kyle after the white water rafting). It was like that. And I just hold on tightly and I was like, “I really love you.” cause I could not think of what to say, and this was the time I was closest to crying.

I was still shaking so hard, and I knew he could feel it. But he just says, in the softest, sweetest voice, “Awwwww, I love you too!” and I just almost fainted right then and there. And I remember him saying something else to the effect of “You alright?” or something when we let go and he could sense I was emotional I assume, and I just nodded and smiled really big and he smiled back SO BIG. His beautiful teethy smile. So then Woody and Dan are both looking at me still so I just blurt out “Oh by the way, look at my hat!” because I was wearing a maroon colored distressed NASA dad hat, with a flower headband wrapped around it that I fashioned onto it. (fun fact, my grandfather actually worked for NASA so I have a weird attachment to NASA much like they do). Woody just peeked up and looked, Dan smiled really big and looked at it (and I think he was about to say something) but Kyle apparently had looked over too and just goes “AHHH WICKED!! Cool flowers too!” and I wanted to DIE. Then my friend showed Dan the small triangles she made for us all and gave him one and said “These are glow in the dark, so we are gonna hold them up during the concert! Here is yours!” And he was like “Really?!” And he was so amazed. “This so cool! I’ll bring it out!” And by the way, he did, and it sat on Kyle’s keyboard the whole show. Any picture you see from Charlotte that shows the keyboard, that little triangle sitting on it was ours!!

So then they make us all cuddle in for the photo, so the order was Will, my friend’s friend, Kyle, me, Woody, Megan, and Dan. Here is one of the photographs we got (we got three but they are all pretty much the same):

So then we are all kinda encouraged to walk out for the last two people waiting, but before I walk away, I jog back to Kyle. Because I just had to. I hugged him so hard and said “I don’t want to leave you” and he hugged back so tightly after I said that, and then he laughs and goes, “Sorry love, but I kinda have a show to do…” and jokingly points behind him, like towards the stage and I couldn’t help but giggle. “I know, I know!” Then I did the most crazy and ballsy thing I have ever done. It is on my bucket list. I had to try. So I go, “Okay so I have a question, and you can totally say no if you want...” And he looked confused for a second and smiles, “Yeah, sure!” Then. I proceeded to ask KYLE SIMMONS. My ultimate crush. If I could touch his facial hair. I said something like, “I have just always wondered, I love it so much!” or something close to that.

I still cannot believe myself. He goes, “Uh, yeah sure!” and giggled like a little amused child. AGH. Then he immediately exposes his BEAUTIFUL jawline to me and sticks it out so I can pet it. Oh my lord. My heart in this moment. I could feel Will and Woody for sure looking at us, probably like what is even happening. I have no idea if Dan was looking, cause all I could see was my peripheral aside from looking into Kyle’s face. So I am like HOLDING the left side of his face at this point. I imagined grabbing the right side of his face so badly and just kissing him but obviously I wouldn’t ever do that to him. Hence why I asked him in the first place if I could even touch him, and told him he could say no. I would never want to make any of them genuinely uncomfortable!

So then I say, “Oh my gosh, it’s actually so coarse!” and then he gives me a look and goes “Oh really?!” in such a strong British accent and my heeeaaart, y’all. Agh. He looked so amused. Then he says, “Usually I’m told it’s soft!” And I reply, “It’s very gritty and manly, I love it!” and he smirks so freakin cutely and matter-of-factly and says “Heyyy, I LIKE that!!” He sounded so seductive and cheeky, my god. And I laughed and Will was giggling now. So then I go “By the way, I am in the pit on your side okay, so look for me, I’ll be waving and looking at you, singing really loudly!” And he was like “I gotcha.” in a silly voice and kinda gives like a half wink and then fist pounded me. Gah. And then I walked away because I was getting looks from the security people. And I see Megan and her friend waiting for me and looking at me like WAIT what was happening?! kinda look on their face. So I join them and we walk away down this hallway. We pause, look at each other, and just proceed to squeal and jump up and down and run down the stairs like idiots. So then we make our way outside, and get escorted back and we go back into the pit and I find our spot again with Reagan and those girls I had been talking to again and I properly freaked out to them. Like full on was yelling a bit. I felt bad cause Mondo Cozmo were on and I love them too, but I was too excited to not just let it all out.

Here is the Twitter thread I made directly after this all happened (it’s in all caps and very emotional lol) so if you’d like to read that as well, here’s the link: https://twitter.com/bastilleaud/status/861010333116370944. This was while we were waiting for Bastille to come out to perform.

So. They come out. And I am excited and freaking out all over again. After the first song, I yelled out, “HI I LOVE YOU KYLE!” like I did at the last show (in which he had last time looked for me when he heard it and I waved and he pointed me out and waved like a little child cutely). And then I stroked my imaginary beard to like, remind him of who I was, just in case. But this time he cracked up laughing and looked at me. Like, he knew it was gonna be me. Then he looks at Dan and they both start cracking up??!!!?!?!? And Dan kinda messes up singing the song at the beginning because he’s just LAUGHING. I can’t remember what song it was but I was freaking out...but I also felt super bad.  (edit: there is video footage of it, and it was Laura Palmer) And I was wondering why he just looked at Dan and laughed, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it is because they talked about me before the show and they were laughing about me being crazy enough to ask to touch his facial hair…but obviously I don’t know for sure. But. Whoa.

The show was obviously going on amazingly as per usual, and then Dan starts his little explanation before Snakes about wanting to be distracted from the world, and the he says something to the effect of “This song is about wanting to have those distractions.” And after he says that, literally Kyle just points straight at me. Like. I was a distraction. And he smiles so big. I was just minding my own business and here he is, calling me out. Cheeky bastard.

So throughout the show, Kyle would spot me and smile. And Dan smiled at me. And I was freaking out. Will came over to our side for a second and winked, but he always does that LOL. So then Things We Lost In The Fire started, and my friend and I held up our triangles together, and then we overlapped them over each other like the WWCOMMS logo when Dan came over, and he pointed at them and smiled while he was singing, and pointed at us and gave us a thumbs up of approval. Agh. And also as last concert, I pointed straight at Kyle during Blame for the bridge at the “I got you, I got you” parts and he saw and smiled and scrunched his nose UGH it was adorable. The concert was just incredible in general, of course. There were a couple mic issues in some instances though, and Dan looked so annoyed at the sound people at one point. He was struggling through Bad Blood, I can remember that very clearly. Also side note, for people who asked me about this specifically, Dan came very close to us during Flaws, but I wasn’t close enough to touch him, nor did I want to try anyway. I was turned around looking at Kyle for part of that time blowing kisses at him again like I did last show, and he blew them back again. Eep.

So then. The song choice from Twitter. They were the exact same choices as the Fairfax show I went to. There, we heard Way Beyond. The other choices were Power and The Anchor. I love ALL of these songs so much, but The Anchor is such an important song to me. It spoke to me the moment I heard it. It perfectly describes how I feel about this band. If I had to pick a favorite off this album, which is close to IMPOSSIBLE, I would have to choose The Anchor not only because it’s a great song, but because of the deep meaning and lyrics that I connect to so much. I cry almost every time I hear it. And by the grace of ANOTHER god up above, The Anchor was chosen, even though Power had the same percentage of votes?! So weird. The song started and I immediately shuttered and almost started bawling. Megan just KNEW, and she held me. I recorded the whole song. I was so emotional. I was pointing and singing to Kyle almost the entire time too, and he saw me. And I just. I couldn’t feel more blessed and honored in this moment. Then the last little anecdote I will include is that the last song, obviously Pompeii, I held up my triangle as high as I could and Dan pointed at it, held his hand to his chest, nodded at me, and smiled as if to say “This is the perfect moment for that.”

Then the show ended. We waited outside the buses for them to come out for about an hour, but Dick came out and told us “I’m sorry to tell you, but they won’t be coming out tonight. 4/5 are already in bed. I was like, “Can you tuck them in for us?!” And he smiled and laughed and was like, “Absolutely, I will!” And he then proceeded to tell us about how they bought those giant stuffed animals at a gas station (the teddy and the frog we have been seeing) and that they love to cuddle them. And that they even have their own bunk, just the stuffed animals. LOL. Thank you for telling us that adorable yet totally unnecessary information, Dick. So we said that’s totally okay, we know they have to drive down to Florida tomorrow. Everyone waiting there was so good about it and Dick was like “Thank you all for being so understanding and nice about it!” and it was so cute. Aw. So then my friend and I head back to the hotel that we were staying in for the night because that was also part of the radio contest she won. It was a perfect end to a perfect (and INSANE) day!

I could obviously go on and on about the concert. But other than that, I am ending this novel of a post here. Thank you for reading, and thank you to my beautiful and incredible Twitter family and community for being so happy for me, so supportive, and in general such amazing people. The amount of “You deserve this so much!”s I got made me cry, and I cannot explain how much you lot mean to me. Whew. And a VERY special thanks to my amazing friend throughout the story, Megan, for opening up her home, family, and pets to me while in North Carolina. And for being such an incredible friend, ALWAYS. You mean the world to me, and you are responsible for this day. I can never repay what I owe you. I LOVE YOU.

THE END

[lady-harrowhark]

Tagged by the lovely @jouissezduprintemps​!

LAST

Drink: Diet Mountain Dew for caffeine since I don’t drink coffee and it has been a Long Day Phone call: I finally got my new kitchen countertops installed after The Great Plumbing Disaster of 2016-17, so it was the installation guys calling to say they were here Text message: My friend who is also coincidentally named Emily Song you listened to: I mostly listen to mixed CDs in my car (I’m perpetually stuck in 2007) and I don’t recall which song was last... Blame by Bastille maybe? Time you cried: I think it was last month when I was back home visiting and I was mad at my mom and sisters

HAVE YOU

Dated someone twice: No Kissed someone and regretted it: No Been cheated on: No Lost someone special: Yes Been depressed: Better question: have I ever NOT been depressed? (answer to that one: when I was very small and then for the past maybe two years, although I’m worried it’s creeping back) Gotten drunk and thrown up: Once Made new friends: Indeed Fallen out of love: No Laughed until you cried: Yep Found out someone was talking about you: Yes, but nothing serious. Met someone who changed you: I can’t think of someone where I could put my finger on what they changed about me, but I know many people have influenced me in more subtle ways Found out who your friends are: Yes Kissed someone from your Facebook list: Not in a romantic way Kissed a stranger: Nope Drank hard liquor: Yes - I actually prefer hard liquor to wine/beer/etc :/ Lost glasses/contact lenses: Nope, never had contacts and have had the same pair of glasses that I rarely wear since 2010 (I think) Turned someone down: Yes Sex on the first date: No Broken someone’s heart: No Had your heart broken: Not really Been arrested: No Cried when someone died: Yes Fallen for a friend: Yes Kissed on the first date: Nope

GENERAL

List 3 favorite colors: Gray, burgundy, light pink How many Facebook friends do you know in real life: All except for a handful Do you have any pets: One dog who lives with me and then three dogs, several cats, one horse, and two miniature ponies who live with my parents Do you want to change your name: Sort of? I like my first name but I have a very goofy last name. I hated it when I was younger and I’ve come to like it (it is very funny and presents lots of opportunities for puns) but I do get tired of every single person commenting on it, laughing, not believing that it’s my real name, etc. It’s not so much that I’m bothered by it, it’s just that I find it baffling that people would so bluntly comment on it without knowing whether I was a person who was okay with that kind of thing (I am okay with it, but they don’t know that - I could be super sensitive about it for all they know) What time did you wake up: Mmmm I was terrible and hit snooze a few times today so I think around 6:30 What were you watching at midnight last night: I was asleep, but I watched The Great British Bake Off before that Name something you can’t wait for: The Southern Festival of Books author lineup was just announced, so I’m excited to see Sarah Dessen and meet her in October! When was the last time you saw your mom: At the beginning of June What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: Right now, I wish I had a little bit more self-motivation and initiative to start and continue projects and hobbies  What are you listening to right now: Just the air conditioner runnin  Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: My uncle Something that is getting on your nerves right now: I found out yesterday that USPS won’t deliver packages to my condo complex anymore, which is frustrating Most visited website: Tumblr and Netflix Mole/s: None Mark/s: A couple of small scars, the only ones with real “stories” behind them are the one on my ankle from ligament reconstruction surgery and a tiny one on the inside of my right elbow from a PICC line I had when I was about nine Childhood dream: Jobwise: Forensic scientist or veterinarian Do you have a crush on someone: No What do you like about yourself: My compassion Piercings: Ears Blood type: A negative, I think Nickname: I don’t really have any that are widely used. My mom calls me Emsy sometimes, and my dad sometimes calls me Em-Star. In high school I got called by my last name a bit. Relationship status: Super single Zodiac: Aquarius Pronouns: She/Her Favorite TV show: FMA:B, ATLA Tattoos: None Right or left hand: Right Surgery: Got my ankle ligaments fixed up/foot bones screwed back together and then just my wisdom teeth out, if that counts Hair dyed in different color: Just blonde highlights and once some temporary red for a Kim Possible Halloween costume Sport: I was a competitive dancer for about 16 years Vacation: I would love one Pair of trainers: Asics Current and all-time best friend: I have a couple of best friends, although only one lives in the same state as me Eye color: Green, but oddly they look blue if you aren’t up close Favorite movie: Kimi no Na Wa

WHICH IS BETTER?

Hugs or kisses: Hugs Lips or eyes: Eyes Shorter or taller: Taller (it’s pretty hard to be shorter than me) Nice arms or stomach: Arms Sensitive or loud: Sensitive Hook up or relationship: Relationship Troublemaker or hesitant: Hesitant

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

Yourself: Somewhat, recently getting more confident Miracles: Yes Love at first sight: Sort of Santa Claus: No

I know this is a cop out, but anyone who wants to should do this and tag me so that I can see it!