#wooden brushes supplier

[silver-dragonborn]

I have this Rhaena-centric fanfic idea where she decides to go on a little shopping spree in Spicetown but finds herself distracted by a book supplier and is so engrossed in the various books and scrolls that she doesn't return to Castle Driftmark on time. Team Black, who have visited Driftmark, notice that Rhaena's not at the dinner table. Worried for his betrothed, Lucerys leaves the table and heads toward her room. He knocks once, twice, three times, and even calls her name for good measure, but she doesn't answer. Lucerys slowly opens the door and peeks inside only to find her chambers empty and a few things gone. There's a deep misunderstanding and suddenly, the whole family thinks that Rhaena took the gold she'd been saving and ran away. The Blacks start panicking and nearly tear Castle Driftmark apart in their search for Rhaena before mounting their dragons, flying across the sea, searching ships, and ports, and frantically posting rewards for anyone who might have seen her.

While chaos ensues, Rhaena is happily continuing her little shopping spree and is in the process of buying new fabric to make a new cloak for Lucerys when one of the guards gets a clue and escorts her back to Castle Driftmark where she's being hugged and kissed by her family who acts as if she died and swear to do better by her. Poor Rhaena is just so confused, and everyone in the family has appointed themselves her personal bodyguard, growling at anyone who looks at her funny. They hover over her, practically riding her back

Poor Lucerys throws himself into training like never before and dedicates himself to his studies because he can't be Lord of Driftmark if his betrothed isn't safe. Joffrey clings to her and becomes her little shadow, wielding a wooden sword and poking anyone who dares to come near her without his say-so.

Rhaenyra attends every single one of Rhaena's lessons and then sweeps her away to join her for long walks on the beach where they search for beautiful seashells.

Jace hires a taste tester for Rhaena's meals and escorts her to her chambers during the night to make damn sure that she won't disappear in thin air.

Baela drags Rhaena with her to the training yard so that she can keep a close eye on her while she's practicing her archery (Rhaena is disgruntled but cheers whenever Baela makes a perfect bullseye).

Corlys gently takes Rhaena by the hand and shows her his ships or regales her with LONG tales of his adventures. Rhaenys reads dragon lore with her in the castle library and brushes her hair or has her try out Laena's old jewelry.

As for Daemon, Rhaena doesn't need a sworn shield anymore since the guards have proved themselves incompetent and has taken it upon himself to drag Rhaena with him EVERYWHERE. Oh, someone needs killing? Okay, but Rhaena is coming with me. He'll commission a twin murder hoodie for Rhaena and she accompanies him on another mission to have someone killed. In the mood for dragon riding? Daemon plops Rhaena in front of him on Caraxes and they enjoy a flight in the sky. Why are you sitting so far away? Sit right here next to me. Daemon makes sure that Rhaena sits riiiiight next to him during dinner.

[nelapanela94]

Nelaaaa!!! BB TODAY I AM HERE FOR SOME NELA X LEVI HEADCANONSJDJD .. tell me the little stufff toooooooo 🤍

Hi lovely. This one was so fun to write. <3 thank you for the request and please let me live in my delulu world 🌎

Levi and I currently live in Marley (What's left) in a coastal town where the streets finish at the beach.

Levi, though he doesn't admit it, is still afraid of the elevator. He just can't trust it. It jars him when it quivers right before stopping, and he hates it's tight and stuffy. He prefers swallowing the pain in his leg to risking getting stuck and climbs the stairs up to the third floor. And it is worse when the chains start to screech pleading for maintenance. In his defense, he claims it is a great exercise. He takes his time and says hi to the brats who live in the second floor. Sometimes he brings them desserts from the tea shop.

Levi loves sea food, specially shrimps. That is why I took some cooking classes with Niccolo. Steamed, stir-fried, tempura, in pastas, salads, rice and ceviche, I had to learn every preparation. Though we usually eat at home, we love trying new restaurants in town. From fancy to fast food. Once I tried to cajole Levi to a street food stall but he refused, questioning their cleaning procedures.

Levi owns a tea shop downtown that has been awarded twice by the city's chamber of commerce for excellence, quality and service. He was interviewed and his photo appeared in the newspaper, with Gabi and Falco thumbing up behind him. We still have the clippings of the articles, and Levi had the stars framed. He spends all day drinking tea, doing accounts, making payments to suppliers, bossing everyone around, the latter his favorite. When he loses his patience, he jabs the staff with his walking stick on the back of their knees. He also likes to go on Sundays to the spice market where herbs and spices from all corners of the world are found. He takes them home and experiments with them to develop new blends. Although sometimes we have purged by accident.

Meanwhile, I work at the post office right across the street and in my break time we had lunch together in his office and take naps.

We spend hours in the cleaning supplies aisle because Levi can't decide between lavender, cinnamon and apple or citronella. In any case, he decides on all three. One day after work, he brought home a wooden barrel with a crank handle. He explained that it was for washing clothes, although it took me a while to understand how it was operated. He acquired it at a home novelty fair after the inventor convinced him by promising to make our lives easier. I thought it was a scam, but he made it work! It really saves us time and I don't have to ruin my manicure anymore.

On my last birthday, Levi got me a gramophone. We love dancing in the living room despite our clumsy feet, and we’re often off the beat. But who cares, with a drop of wine sprinkling the mix, we hardly notice it. I’ve been collecting discs from thrift stores and garage sales, cramming our place, so Levi felt compelled to build a box to store them safely.

As you might guess, Levi is little fond of PDA. He only feels confortable holding hands, however, from time to time I’d steal a kiss to tease him. He grunts and mellows right after, blushing like a teenage boy kissing his crush for the first time. In private, on the other hand, he’s embarrassingly clingy (don’t ever mention it). When we’re reading in the sofa, he’d snuggle on my chest and loves it when I drop kisses on his head and coddle him. He loves hugs from the back and unexpected kisses on the cheek. Levi is milk with sugar but needs to keep a reputation.

We love traveling. For our honey moon, we visited a tropical island in hizuru. Roasted on the beach all day. He’s still wary of the sea water, can’t stand the slimy animals brushing his legs. But he enjoyed the scenery, the food, drinks and long loving sexy sessions in our suite with ocean view. We’ve been to other places, even though the voyage makes us seasick. We’ve seen temples, museums, archeological sites, lavender fields, all captured in photo albums.

Levi and I live a slow, tranquil life after the war. I think that we deserve that respite. <3

[foggyfanfic]

Leandra's Labrynth

Summary: “One day, we woke up and got out of bed, tried to leave our room to go down to breakfast only to find ourselves stuck in a labyrinth of caves.” Bruno has some anxieties to iron out.

Main Story

The tablet showed a familiar image, a slim old man with wiry curls holding a plump old woman with her hair in a large bun. The woman had her hand on the man’s chin and she smiled at him with warmth and devotion. The old man looked at her with a peaceful smile of his own, looking for all the world like he’d never had a worry in his life.

Bruno, being the guy who would someday be the old man in the image, knew for a fact that the geezer had spent his life worrying constantly. Usually for no good reason.

Point in fact, this was the fifty second time he’d had this exact vision. He knew his visions were certain, he had been looking into the future for thirty one years now, and the things he saw always came true. No matter how terrible.

Or wonderful.

Hopefully.

He sighed, closing his eyes. Their future was still happy. She still loved him.

To be fair to Bruno, she had snapped at him earlier. He had walked into the kitchen and found her mopping with Félix and Agustín. Well, she was mopping, Félix was doing the dishes, and Agustín was taking inventory of the pantry. Leandra and Félix seemed to be trying to purposely throw off Agustín’s count, throwing out random numbers of food items.

“There’s ten pounds of corn flour,” Félix called over his shoulder.

“No there isn’t, hush,” Agustín huffed, scowling at the bunch of bananas he’d been trying to count. 

“32 eggs,” Leandra said, grinning at her old friend’s back.

“Shut up,” Agustín groaned. Ever since Luisa had gotten her gift she’d needed twice as much food and the familia was still adjusting their grocery budget. Or more specifically, Agustín was attempting to adjust their grocery budget. This involved keeping track of how much their family consumed month to month so he could get a good average.

“Negative ten ears of corn,” Félix said, and Leandra laughed while Agustín threw him a dirty look over his shoulder.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“An infinite supply of bruised mangoes,” Leandra joked, and both Agustín and Félix chuckled ruefully.

With so many mouths to feed, the Madrigals now got their groceries delivered straight from the farms. Their usual mango supplier had gotten a new delivery boy, and he was not particularly careful with the goods.

“Actually, I have good news,” Agustín said, “it would seem we are finally almost out of mangoes.”

This was met with cheers.

Leandra noticed a stain on the floor, something sticky that clung to her mop as readily as it clung to the dust it had collected. She scowled at it and worked at it with the mop while Félix and Agustín joked about the state the next mango delivery would be in. After an unsuccessful couple of minutes, she sighed, set the mop aside and got down on her knees to pull a scrub brush out of the bucket of sudsy mop water.

Bruno had inadvertently announced his presence by knocking out a quick rhythm on the wooden door frame.

The first sign of trouble was that Leandra’s face had paled. Agustín and Félix had exchanged a look, and both had done their best to look very focused on their individual chores.

“Here mí vida,” Bruno said, walking quickly toward her, “l-let me take care of that.”

“Bruno, we talked about this,” she hissed, glancing nervously at their audience.

“I know, I know, b-but this is-. I j-just want to help with the scrubbing, you can still mop! I’ll do-.”

“Oh gee, may I?” she cut him off, rising to her feet, “Are you sure?”

“Umm…?”

Leandra sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Bruno, I am perfectly capable of a bit of cleaning.”

“I know, I know, b-but I didn’t marry you so you’d be my maid, I-.”

“So you’ve said, and I’ve said that I want to clean, I want to contribute, and you said you understood and would let me,” Leandra frowned at him, “a-and the fact that I have to argue just so you’ll let me use a mop is-.”

“You can still use the mop, I just want to take care of the hard part for you,” Bruno rushed to say.

“The hard part?! Of cleaning the floor?!”

“You shouldn’t have to-.”

“The only thing I shouldn’t have to do is keep having this argument,” Leandra snapped, all but yelling, “I love you Bruno! I don’t feel taken for granted, or taken advantage of, or like a maid. And I’m not going to leave you if I get a splinter from the mop handle!”

Bruno paled, “You got a splinter?!”

“Oh for the love of-. Out!”

“What?!”

“Get out, go look at World War Three or something. I am cleaning. And you’re not going to stop me this time!”

“But-,” he started to say, but it seemed Casita was on Leandra’s side today, because the tiles moved beneath his feet ushering him out of the kitchen. He’d tried to walk back in, but Casita blocked him.

Meanwhile, Leandra got back down on the floor and began angrily scrubbing at the stain.

Reluctantly, he’d walked away, some voice in the back of his head telling him if he let Leandra do too many chores she would start to resent marrying him. She already did so much for him, gave him so much of herself, was so patient with his visions and migraines and the sand in their bed. Was it fair to make her clean too? He knocked on the nearest piece of wood he could find, and threw salt and sugar over his shoulder, but the worry remained.

So, he came up to his vision cave and had the same vision of him and Leandra, old and in love, for the fifty second time.

With his foot, he cleared off the only stone in his sand pit, then threw the vision down onto it. Being the fifty second copy of the same vision, the magic faded out of the emerald shards almost instantly. He gathered them up and sorted through them, putting the clear ones in a box to sell to the merchants, and the ones with parts of the picture in a bag for him to use in a mosaic later.

Evidence cleaned up, he left the vision cave and spent some time with his rats. Leandra’s dog joined him, watching the rats play on her massive paws.

Eventually, the door opened, and he heard Leandra’s footsteps coming down the stairs. He placed the rat he had been petting on his shoulder and got up to greet her. She entered the tent and then stood there, hands on her hips.

“I-I’m sorry about earlier,” Bruno said.

“Are you? Or are you just saying that because you don’t want me to be angry at you?”

He didn’t respond. Leandra sighed and suddenly rushed forward, she used both hands to gently cup his face, forcing him to look her in the eye.

“Listen to me, por favor, listen. I love you, I am happy I married you, I want to contribute to the familia, and I don’t care that our lives aren’t perfect because you’re worth it.”

Bruno smiled at her, gently taking her wrists and stepping closer to her, “I love you too mí reina.”

She searched his face, for what he didn’t know, but she must not have found it because almost desperately she repeated, “I love you.”

“Sí? I love you too,” he also repeated, using a slightly different tone in hopes of giving her whatever it is she wanted from him.

She groaned, crumbling forward to lean on him, “You don’t believe me.”

“What?! Of course I believe you,” he squawked, “y-you tell me you love me ten times a day. And well, n-nobody would put up with the things you put up with if it wasn’t for love.”

“And in your mind, what exactly am I ‘putting up with’?”

Bruno hesitated, feeling it was fairly obvious what she was putting up with. Despite her valiant efforts to improve his reputation, he was still the town boogeyman, and that had consequences for the way their marriage was viewed. For the way she was viewed. Not to mention the knocking, the salt, how often she had to take care of him because he had one of his migraines. He wasn’t smooth, he stuttered all the way through his vows. He snorted when he laughed, which reminded him, he snored. He wasn’t manly, in fact if she kept lifting weights with Luisa she would probably be stronger than him pretty soon, which he thought sounded really sexy, but he was pretty sure that was weird of him.

Dios, that’s another thing. All the other weird stuff he was into. She hadn’t seemed to mind being tied down, or tying him down, but he knew it must have been strange for her. And he was turned on by weird things, like her feet, or when she squeezed him with her thighs just a little too tight. She had outright refused when he’d asked her to hurt him a little, he knew for a fact that had freaked her out.

And he wasn’t an idiot, he knew it annoyed her when he stopped her on her way out of their tent to suggest she wear her shawl in case it was chilly, or insist she wear the new boots he got her in case Pepa was in a bad mood and it rained. She had thought it was sweet the first few times he did it, but since he’d started doing it every other day… not so much. He worried, he tried not to, but he did.

When he didn’t respond for a long time she sighed again, squeezing him tight. He held her back, feeling, for now, quite reassured that she did indeed love him. Despite it all.

They went about the rest of their day, Bruno feeling a little better, even if Leandra was slightly quieter than usual. At dinner he swooped up the last of the soup for her, since he knew it was her favorite, and she tensed but thanked him with a polite smile.

Then they went to bed and she kept sighing, tossing, turning, and occasionally sniffling. Bruno stopped feeling better. 

He lay on his side and watched her silhouette as she stared sightlessly at the tent’s ceiling. Clarity dripped through the cracks in his anxiety and he wondered what the hell had he been thinking earlier. Leandra hated when he tried to take over her chores for her, she had said so multiple times. Why was it every time he saw her tackle anything even a little bit difficult he forgot that and panicked?

“I don’t know why I’m like this,” he whispered in the dark.

“Is there anything I can do to make you happy?” she said, voice tight and shaky.

He closed his eyes, “You already do.”

That was the problem. It made him happy that she tried so hard to get the village to treat him better. It made him happy to have somebody to care for him when he had a migraine. It made him happy that she put up with the salt and the sand and the snoring.

And he was getting used to being happy.

Leandra didn’t ask for clarification, she just turned towards him and after a few shaky breaths whispered, “We’ll figure it out.”

He chuckled almost bitterly, and wondered how long she’d be able to put up with his anxiety. How long would it take for his fears to wear down her confidence.

She settled into a fitful sleep shortly after that, he stayed up a little bit longer, listening to her breath. Occasionally she would sigh or groan, or mutter his name in a pleading voice. Apparently he’d managed to infect her dreams with his bullshit.

Slowly, being careful not to disturb her anymore than he already had, he closed the distance between them and held her to his chest. Her curls tickled his nose, and he fell asleep trying to get up the energy to care.

All too soon, he woke up, and found her already awake. When she saw his eyes open, she started playing with his hair, and he drifted back to sleep.

When next he woke, it was because she was slipping out of his arms to get dressed. He watched her, trying to memorize every curve of her body as she stripped out of her nightgown and stepped into her underwear. She’d gained weight since they were married, most of it going to her hips and thighs, and some to her belly, but enough of it going to her chest that it had started hurting her back. At the advice of the town doctor, she’d transitioned to more structured underwear. Mostly corsets since the town tailor wasn’t that up to date on the latest in womans’ underwear.

Bruno was a fan of the switch, although it meant if he wanted to use her soft belly as a pillow for napping a bit of planning had to happen. That said, he loved the way she looked, and he loved that she wasn’t wincing every time she went down the stairs.

Since Luisa had gotten her gift almost a year ago and Leandra had taken up weight training, her shoulders had broadened, and the muscle she had had before moving into Casita had come back. Bruno wondered if it made him even more of a freak that he was happy to see her biceps return. He’d caught Leandra flexing once, looking very pleased with herself, so it couldn’t be that weird that he liked her like this, right?

She turned, and caught him staring.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her.

She smiled gently, then got that mischievous twinkle in her eye that sent a thrill up his spine, “Not that it’s a competition, but I would say my husband is just a little sexier than your wife.”

Bruno snorted, “Yeah, well, apparently my wife is a much better liar than your husband.”

“I’m pretty sure your wife is telling the truth and you should listen to her.”

“You would say that, you always take her side,” he huffed, but couldn’t keep a small smirk from pulling up the corners of his lips.

She chuckled, “Well, she tends to be right about most things.”

“Hmm,” he slowly got out of bed, stretched, grimaced at the cacophony of sounds his back made, then walked over to her, “she does, but this time she’s trying to argue that I’m sexier than her while she’s standing around in her corset and panties.”

Leandra looked down at herself, he doubted she was able to see past her rather prominent chest, “Hm, I suppose the outfit does hurt my argument a little.”

“Hurts it? Mí reina, it murders the argument, brutally,” Bruno wrapped his arms around her and muttered next to her ear, “it’s very gruesome really.”

“Yeah, well if you could hear what your voice sounds like when you first wake up in the morning you would know that your argument is just as dead,” she retorted, even as she leaned her head so he could better access her neck.

He smiled as he pressed a kiss to the place her broad shoulder met her sensitive throat. He opened his mouth to leave a love bite right below her chin, when the rats started squeaking at him. Hearing the squeaking, Leandra’s dog bounded through the tent flaps and began nosing at her leg. They both sighed.

“Yours started it this time,” Leandra grumbled.

“Oh believe me, I’ll be having a word with them later,” he said, even as he exited the tent to give his beloved little assholes their breakfast.

The cave’s entrance was gone.

He stared at the stone wall where it should have been.

It did not reappear.

“Um, mi reina? Did you uh, did you move the door?”

“What?” she stepped out of the tent, buttoning up her blouse, “Oh. Huh.”

“Sí.”

They stared at the stone wall some more.

“Where’s the light coming from?” Leandra asked, stepping further out of the tent so she could better look around. She stared up at some holes just below the ceiling, that were filled with glass prisms in order to channel the light in, “Huh. If this doesn’t turn out to be an emergency, that’s actually kind of neat.”

Then she turned and began looking around the rest of the cave. Bruno joined her inspection and quickly noticed two things, the first was that their pool was gone, the second was a new tunnel behind the tent.

Leandra came to stand beside him and they stared at the new tunnel together. 

“Boof,” Leandra’s dog, Queso gruffed, sitting next to her empty food bowl.

“Do you mind? We’re sort of dealing with something,” Leandra said to the dog.

Unconcerned, Queso replied, “A-woof.”

With a chuckle and some eye rolling, Leandra walked over to the cabinet they now kept their pet supplies in and fed her dog. Meanwhile, Bruno took care of his rats, putting the three girls away so the four boys could wander around the cave to their hearts’ content. Once all the pets were sorted, they returned to staring at the new tunnel.

“I-I guess we should see where it leads,” Bruno said, rubbing nervously at his arm.

“I guess so,” she nodded, then glanced down at her boots, she was wearing one of the very fashionable pairs Bruno had gotten for her, “I’m going to put on some better walking shoes.”

Bruno looked down at his pajamas, a ratty old shirt and comfy linen pants, “Hm, I’ll get dressed.”

They returned to their tent and Leandra went to her wardrobe to switch out her boots. Bruno took off his shirt and tossed it on the bed then startled when his wife wolf whistled at him. He blushed, grinning sheepishly as he took his pajama pants off as well. She responded by clapping.

When he put some trousers on she booed.

“W-well I’m not going in there in my underwear,” he said, trying not to laugh as he pulled a shirt on over his head.

“Naked is also an option,” she pointed out.

“Reina,” he groaned, giving her a look of fond exasperation.

“Guapo,” she breathed, giving him a look that usually ended up with them in bed.

“We- we- need to get this whole, uh tunnel thing figured out,” he said, blushing crimson and hoping she would argue.

She pouted and heaved an exaggerated sigh, “I suppose you’re right.”

“I mean, I-I could be wrong.”

Leandra giggled, kissing him on her way out of the tent. With a last forlorn look at the bed he pulled his ruana on and followed her. He found her standing at the edge of the tunnel, hands on her hips. When he joined her, she wrapped one arm around his and together they marched into the tunnel.

The sunlight channeled into the cave by the glass prisms faded and darkness slowly swallowed them. Up ahead, the tunnel was lit by glowing green rectangles in the walls. Bruno watched those rectangles approach, and wondered what visions they would be. Maybe a few of his favorites? Or some that had impacted him the most over the years?

They reached the visions and Bruno gulped, very carefully not looking at Leandra as they passed the same image over and over and over.

“I uh, I can’t help but notice a theme here,” Leandra pointed out, after the silence had become too heavy.

Bruno let out a high nervous chuckle, “Y-yeah, a lot of uh, o-of rock.”

“I was referring to the fact that the tunnel is lit by that vision of us old and happy together.”

“Hm? Oh, sí, I uh I guess it is.”

“Bruno-.”

“Oh look, sunlight,” he all but shouted, as a glimmer of golden light appeared just in time. He disentangled himself from her and jogged ahead, reaching the light seconds before her. He could almost swear he’d seen an exit out of the corner of his eye, but when turned to look at it, it was gone.

“Huh, so that’s where the pond went,” Leandra noted.

Indeed, the natural pool that used to be next to their tent now sat in the middle of this new cave. Shattered visions sparkled in the walls and ceiling, and more of those prisms channeled light in from the outside. There were rocks along the pool’s edge now, some perfect for sitting on, some perfect for lying on, and some perfect for jumping off.

“It’s nice,” he said.

“Oh yeah, real pretty, but where’s the exit?”

“Well…” he trailed off, pointing at another tunnel on the opposite side of the cave.

Leandra puffed a sharp breath at a wayward curl, “Getting to breakfast is going to take forever.”

“Ay dios, I do not want to wait this long for my coffee every morning,” he wiped a hand over his face.

“Come on, we got this,” she took his hand and all but dragged him onward. After a few steps he matched pace with her, glancing back over his shoulder at where he thought he’d seen the door. Probably just an optical illusion, he told himself.

Like the last tunnel, this one was lit by visions, or rather the same vision. Them, old and in love, again and again.

Leandra kept sending him pointed looks.

Unlike the other tunnel, this one had twists and turns. They walked for a long time without seeing another cave or scrap of sunlight. The entire time Bruno did his best not to look directly at his wife, or the visions on the walls, while she did her best to catch his eye.

“They’re getting bigger, if you’re interested,” she suddenly said, and Bruno looked up to discover that yes, the tablets were getting bigger. Certainly much bigger than he could ever produce with a vision.

He watched them grow as they passed by.

“I-I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything,” he muttered and she made an unconvinced noise.

They walked on.

When they finally came to another cave, it was mostly empty, but the walls were filled with little pathways perfect for the rats. Bruno made a sound of interest and spent some time looking around at the little obstacle courses and mazes carved into the walls. He turned around grinning, only to see Leandra standing under the glass prisms, knocking on the solid stone wall with her ear pressed against it. She was frowning deeply.

Rather abruptly, he remembered they were a little trapped in here. He waited for her at the entrance to the next tunnel.

Eventually she shook her head and rejoined him.

Now the silence was punctuated by her occasional sighs. Bruno stared down at his toes as they ate up the ground below him. 

The ground tilted upward, so they were climbing a gentle hill. The visions on the wall were getting so large they were pressed together without an inch of stone between them. Bruno glanced guiltily at them, then looked at Leandra.

“So uh, I-I should probably, maybe tell you something,” he said.

“I think you probably should.”

Bruno grimaced, but powered on, “I’ve had this vision fifty two times.”

Leandra stopped walking, “Fifty two?”

“Fifty two.”

For a long time she didn’t respond, she just examined him, then in a quiet voice she asked, “Do you really doubt me that much?”

“Doubt-? What?! No! No, no, no. Of course not,” he shook his head quickly while holding his hands up as if to ward off the very idea, “I-I’m just checking-.”

“That I’ll still love you? That I’ll be loyal? That I won’t leave you?”

He pressed his lips together, “Ok well, when you put it like that it d-doesn’t sound great.”

Leandra shook her head and started walking again, her steps quick and closer to a stomp than anything else. Bruno followed inches behind her, waiting for her to say something.

They reached the next cave before she did, this one filled with shelves carved into the walls and big armchairs under ornate lamps.

“What do I have to do so you’ll trust me?” she asked, staring once again at the prisms that funneled in light.

“I do trust you,” he insisted.

“If you trusted me you would trust that I love you, that I would keep my vows,” she whirled around, her voice bounced off the smooth floor and ceiling of the cave, but the slight hitch in her breath was swallowed by the empty shelves, “you would trust that I’m committed to you.”

“O-of course you are,” Bruno stepped closer to her, reaching out to hold her, but she took a minute step back from him, he sighed, “ok, come on. It’s n-not that I think poorly of you, b-but I mean, being married to me isn’t easy. You probably wouldn’t have had to deal with anything like this i-if you married Omar.”

“I also never would have had a real orgasm,” she retorted, then advancing on him kept going, “or had somebody throw me a private ball, or laughed so hard I fell out of bed, or seen robots on Mars! If I had married anyone other than you, I would be just as dissatisfied as all the other poor wives in our village.”

“I-I mean they’re not all dissatisfied-.”

“Well, they’re certainly not as lucky as I am.”

Bruno gulped, staring at her as she crowded into his space, poking a finger into his chest. She opened her mouth to say something, made a frustrated sound, tried again, then with a snarl whirled away from him and into the next tunnel.

He stood for a few seconds, listening to her steps echoe away. Just when they had faded, the walls under the prism began to shift. With a great groan, a door opened in the wall.

“Leandra!” he yelled, running to the mouth of the tunnel, “Leandra quickly! There’s an exit!”

Her footsteps came back and soon he could see her emerging from the dark tunnel. He stood back, waiting for her, watching the door. Then, just as she got near, it began to close.

“No!” he shouted, rushing to the opening as if he could stop the rock, “no, no, no, no.”

The last crack of sunshine sealed itself up just as he reached the wall, and she entered the cave.

“It closed?!”

“Sí,” he banged somewhat desperately on the wall.

“Ugh,” she joined him and gave the wall a frustrated kick. Then she turned and sat against the wall, scowling at her knees.

After a moment’s hesitation, he sat next to her.

He twiddled his thumbs for a while.

Finally, he quietly cleared his throat then said, “I-I doubt every married woman in Encanto is unsatisfied.”

Leandra snorted, “I will admit, your sisters are probably very happy. And so is Rosalie. But that’s it, the rest chose crappy husbands.”

“You’re saying there are only four good husbands in the entire village?”

“Sí.”

“That’s unrealistic.”

“Oh yeah? You dated a man, how attentive to your needs was he?”

Bruno rolled his eyes, “Alberto doesn’t count, the only one of us with good taste in men is Julieta.”

She didn’t have to ask who “us” was, “I mean, Pepa did end up with Félix.”

“After dating some of the worst men god ever created, claro.”

Leandra didn’t initially respond, and when she did it was to change the subject, “You know, when most men start feeling insecure about their marriage, they cheat.”

“What?!” he wrinkled his nose, “No way, that’s-. If the goal is to not lose your wife, why would you do something guaranteed to make her hate you?”

“It’s true, why do you think Jose Sanchez cheated? First he was down at the cantina complaining to Felípe about how it was only a matter of time before his wife stepped out on him, then he was banging little Ellie.”

He gasped in horror, then hissed, “She’s barely nineteen.”

“I know, right?!” she shook her head, then shrugged, “But an older woman would have seen straight through his lies, soo…”

Bruno frowned, wondering what a man their age would even have to talk about with a nineteen year old. Then again, talking probably wasn’t the point. But still. Bruno had never understood people who could tell right away whether or not they wanted to have sex with somebody, he needed to have at least three conversations before he knew whether or not he was attracted to that person.

He’d had passing conversations with Leandra when buying cheese from her what must have been hundreds of times before he realized how beautiful she was. He remembered the moment it clicked for him very clearly, he had handed her a vision of dead goats and she had sighed morosely, then said, “Well shit. Thanks for the warning. Hope it wasn’t too gruesome for you, watching it happen I mean.” He had stuttered a response, and she had wished him well before leaving to take the vision back to her father, the goat herder. 

It was only a year or two after that, that he started to get to know her, and fell in love with her.

“My point is, you start feeling insecure about whether or not I love you, and suddenly I have to fight tooth and nail to do chores. You’re a good husband Bruno, a wonderful, amazing husband, in fact.”

He looked at her, searching her face, “It-, I-I know you think that… now. It’s-do you really want to spend the rest of your life being Bad Luck Bruno’s...”

He trailed off, not daring to repeat the nickname he’s overheard some of the less pleasant men in the village call her.

“Being Bad Luck Bruno’s whore?” she finished for him, “Better your whore than the madonna of any of the guys who call me that.”

“B-but just the fact that people call you that at all! You shouldn’t have to deal with that!”

“And you should?!” Leandra huffed, “Come on, I knew people were going to be assholes about us when we married. Honestly, it’s kind of fun.”

“Fun?!”

“Well yeah, makes me feel like I’m some sort of rebel,” she gave him a small smirk, “here I am, married to THE big bad Bruno, reputation be damned.”

“The ‘big’ bad Bruno?” he asked, flatly.

“Alright, the normal sized when he stands up straight but otherwise short, bad Bruno.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle, “Now there’s a title.”

“I like being your wife, I don’t know how many ways I can say that before I start sounding like a broken record.”

Bruno let his head fall back against the rock and blew out a long breath, until his lungs felt like flattened balloons, then he took just as long breathing in. It didn’t calm him down like he was hoping, but nothing really ever seemed to calm him down.

“Bruno?”

“I-I just, I just want to make it all worth it.”

“Bruno, if you’re trying to pay me to love you, then I really am your whore.”

He squawked indigently at that, “What? I’m not-. I just want to give you as much as you give me.”

Leandra shook her head, then leaned over so she was resting against him, “And I’m trying to tell you that you already do.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

He leaned his cheek against her hair and scowled at one of the armchairs.

“Because why, Bruno?”

“Because being married to you is easy,” he finally said, “you don’t have migraines, you don’t snore, you don’t have surprise visions of the future, you’re not the reason there’s always sand in our bed, the village didn’t hate you until you married me, you have a cute laugh-.”

“Hey! You have a cute laugh too!”

“I sound like a donkey choking on a kazoo.”

Leandra pressed a hand to her mouth, trying not to giggle, and despite it all it still gave him a sense of satisfaction that he said something his wife found funny, “That’s- no you don’t. I mean, it’s a bit loud, and you do sorta wheeze a little, but it’s sweet. Charming.”

“Charming?!”

“Sí. It’s charming, I am charmed by it.”

“Well, at least I’m bringing good taste to this marriage,” he muttered, “that’s clearly something you don’t have.”

She elbowed him, “I have great taste!”

“You think asphyxiating donkeys are charming.”

“Oh hush! You’re wonderful, deal with it.”

He smiled quietly, and for her sake made an effort to believe that. When he couldn’t he sighed and turned his head so he could kiss her curls. 

“We should keep looking for the exit,” he said.

“It was right here,” Leandra retorted, “clearly there’s some trick to making it appear.”

He made a thoughtful sound, thinking about what he had been doing when the stone walls opened up. Honestly, he had just been standing there, listening to her leave.

“What were you doing when I called your name?”

“Muttering angrily about my stupid, sexy husband.”

“Hm, I guess we might as well try it.”

“Claro, why not? ‘Fucking Bruno, been married six years and he doesn’t even trust me’-.”

“I do trust you though,” he interjected.

“Right, which is why you’ve felt the need to check whether or not I’ll still love you when we’re old fifty two times.”

He huffed, and stood up, “You don’t get it.”

“No, no I don’t,” Leandra also stood, following him as he stormed into the tunnel, “I don’t understand how you can’t see how wonderful you are. I don’t understand why you don’t believe I love you.”

“I believe you,” he said, insisted really, since he’d already told her he believed her.

“If you believed I love you then you wouldn’t be worried about me leaving when the going gets tough.”

“The goings already tough, the goings been tough, and it’s going to keep being tough. For the rest of your life. Do you really want to put up with that?”

“Yes. Of course I do, why don’t you get that?”

“Because I wouldn’t,” he whirled around, and she stopped abruptly to keep from trampling him, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being the bad guy. I hate the way-. I’m stuck with this, but you’re not, you can leave. You can have a better life.”

Leandra frowned, “If our situations were reversed, w-would you not want to be with me?”

He froze, brought up short by the question, then quietly said, “They wouldn’t be. If you could do what I do, you’d probably, I don't know, you’re always so good at putting a positive spin on my visions. You’re good at-, you’re good with people. It’s-. If you were-. Of course I’d want to be with you, you’re amazing.”

“But say I didn’t put a positive spin on the visions, I have a shorter temper than you, say I got frustrated with people and started throwing the tablets at their heads and everybody hated me for it. Would you still want to be with me, if it came with the same challenges I face being with you?”

Bruno gulped, because he knew the answer, but he didn’t know what it meant. He thought about lying, just so he could avoid losing this argument, but he couldn’t hurt her like that.

“Yes, I would still want to be with you.”

“So why are you so worried about me leaving you?”

“I-I…”

She waited for him to come up with an answer. He stared at her helplessly, but looking into her warm brown eyes he could see her settling in to wait forever if she had to. He could see her preparing herself to give him all the time he needed. Abruptly he turned and sped walked away.

Behind him she made a frustrated sound.

After a few beats, he heard her start to follow him.

He reached the next cave, there was a doorway on the far wall but as she approached, it closed.

A horrible thought crept in from a dark corner of his mind. He tried to shove it aside.

“Oh, well, this is interesting.”

Bruno turned to see what she meant, then wished he hadn’t. The only thing in the cave was a plush chair on a raised dias. He would have called it a throne, but thrones don’t have chains and manacles. Leandra drifted closer to it, then abruptly stopped and backed away.

“Do we want to discuss this?” she asked him.

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about why you’re worried I’ll leave you?”

“Also no.”

“Do you want to spend the rest of our lives in these tunnels avoiding necessary conversations just because they’re hard?”

Bruno didn’t answer.

“Bruno?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Leandra rolled her eyes and crossed the cave to the next tunnel, he watched her go. Waited as her footsteps faded. Then he turned to the wall under the glass prisms. 

When he couldn’t hear her anymore, the stone shifted, opened. Slowly, Bruno walked through the doorway. It closed behind him.

He turned, for a second worried he wouldn’t be able to get back to her, but when he reached for the stone, it opened again. Bruno breathed a sigh of relief. He stood in the doorway, so it couldn’t close again, and looked out at his room. They were halfway up the canyon.

He re-entered the cave and followed her down the tunnel, trying to figure out how he would explain his discovery to her.

Leandra was waiting for him in the next cave. A room that seemed to be devoted to arts and crafts.

Under different circumstances he would be thrilled.

Idly playing with some scissors, she asked, “So, if you don’t want to talk about our marriage-?”

“I uh, I figured out how to make the exit appear.”

She put the scissors down, surprisingly, her face paled. There was dread in her eyes as she waited for him to continue.

“It-. You-. I can leave. B-but uh.”

“But I can’t,” she whispered.

He nodded.

Leandra closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, “Alright, we’re hashing this out.”

Bruno looked down at his toes, he braced himself for her next question.

“Why are you worried I’ll leave you?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “Leandra, I don’t know why I-. I know it isn’t logical, I know you love me, I know my vision will come true. I know you’ve already faced so much by being with me, a-and it hasn’t changed how you treat me. B-but I just can’t stop worrying-.”

He paused to groan and stalk over to one of the crafting tables. He threw himself down on the chair by the table and put his head in his hands. 

Her boots clicked closer and a warm hand appeared on his shoulder.

“I-it’s not just that I worry you’ll leave. I worry you’ll get sick and-. O-or every time you get a cut or splinter I worry it’ll get infected and Juli won’t be able to-. I worry I’ll lose you. That my life will go back to the way it was before w-we started dating, only worse. Because now Pepa and Julieta are so busy with their kids-. Why am I like this?!”

Leandra wrapped her strong arms around him and a sense of peace flooded him, he closed his eyes while he leaned on her.

“If I didn’t have to deal with the knocking, and the salt, with the obsessing and the worrying and all the stupid rules I make so I can feel ok, i-if I could just, just, not have these problems,” he shrugged, “I wouldn’t.”

Bruno didn’t say anything else, he didn’t have anything left to say.

He listened to Leandra breathe and tried to match his breaths to hers. She drew in a breath as if to say something, then slowly blew it out.

“I-I guess that makes me a little selfish, if I had the opportunity to get rid of all your obsessing, I don’t know that I would,” Leandra finally said, “I would be too worried that if I changed any of the inconvenient things about you, that would change the wonderful stuff as well.”

He turned in the chair so he could wrap his arms around her waist.

She started rubbing his back.

“Although, I- now that I’ve seen how much it hurts you, I guess I wouldn’t be able to not-. Bruno, your obsessing and knocking and worrying sometimes drives me up the wall, or makes me feel concerned about you, but it doesn’t hurt me the way it’s hurting you,” her voice wobbled, “I-I won’t be driven off by all that stuff because it’s just not as big a problem for me as it is for you.”

“It is now,” he said, voice muffled against her stomach.

There was a pause, then he felt her shift, he was pretty sure she was shrugging but didn’t care to lift his head to check, “We’ll figure this out. I won’t be trapped in here forever. We’ve got this.”

“Ay, I love you,” he breathed.

“I love you too.”

They drifted into a contemplative silence. He turned what she had said over and over. She had long since shared her opinion that you couldn’t love somebody unless they occasionally annoyed the hell out of you, so he felt alright hearing that his worrying annoyed her. He could deal with that.

And he was glad she wasn’t suffering from this stuff the way he was. 

But now that she had put the fact that the obsessing was hurting him into words, it was suddenly hard to ignore how much pain he was in. He sniffled, then tried to swallow back the tears. It didn’t work and they started flowing, swiftly followed by sobs.

Leandra held him, waiting it out.

Her feet must have hurt by the time he was calmed down, but she didn’t budge or complain.

“Sorry, I got your blouse all uh-,” he pulled back and gesture at the stain of snot and tears on her shirt.

“That’s alright, my stupid, sexy husband is constantly buying me gifts I don’t need,” she said, “I have a bunch of blouses I haven’t had the chance to wear.”

He chuckled, then groaned, “I have bought you a lot of stuff, haven’t I?”

“You really have.”

“What are you going to do with all the scarves I got you? You don’t wear scarves!”

“I don’t know, but I appreciate the thought.”

“Do you think the fact I’m always buying you expensive gifts is why those men…”

“Why some people assume you’ve bought your way into my heart? Probably. Although it’s sorta a weird assumption considering you very publicly saved me from being raped. You would think the number one theory would be I fell in love with you because of that.”

“It’s what I thought.”

“It’s a very straight forward assumption. Incorrect, but straight forward.”

He sighed, staring at her stained shirt, “Even now, even though I-I’ve just listed all the reasons this fear isn’t logical, I’m still-. Why am I like this?”

“Maybe the constant worrying is a side effect of the visions?”

“Maybe,” he said, then with a slight grimace, countered, “although, sometimes the ability to, you know, check to make sure the thing I’m worried about isn’t going to happen, well, sometimes it helps.”

“Hm, well that was my only idea, sorry.”

Bruno chuckled dryly, then slowly he stood, “L-Let’s go back to the tent, a-and try to figure out how to get you out of here.”

Leandra nodded, and held out her hand for him to take. He did so and they started the journey back down to the beginning. The visions on the walls had returned themselves to a normal size, which Bruno took as a good sign.

When they got down to the first cave Queso was laying down on her bed, cleaning one of the rats. Leandra had tried training her to see the rats as herd animals to be guarded, but had to compromise and instead train her to see them as puppies. Apparently, small furry things that made squeaking noises when they wanted food had more in common with mountain dog pups than they did goats.

Queso thumped her tail at them, distracted by their entrance long enough for the now very damp rat to escape his bath.

Undeterred, Queso found another rat and began bathing him instead.

Bruno sighed, “I thought you got her to stop that.”

“Box likes it when she bathes him, so he’s been undermining me,” she said, pointing out Box, who was creeping ever closer to Queso.

Bruno narrowed his eyes at Box. He was one of the younger rats, and a bit of a trouble maker. To be honest, Bruno wouldn’t be surprised if Box was only pretending to like doggie baths because he somehow knew Leandra was trying to train Queso out of them.

He shook his head and pushed through the tent flaps, he would have to figure out how to get Box to behave after he figured out how to free Leandra.

Bruno sat slowly on his cushion pile, and once she had changed into a clean shirt, Leandra followed, pressing herself to his side. After a split second of hesitation, he wrapped himself around her, and pulled her legs over his lap. Leandra didn’t protest, seemingly content to let him cling to her like an octopus. Her chest could be best described as pillowy, so he rested his head on it.

“So.”

“So,” he agreed.

They both thought for a little, then she asked, “What would make you… not worried that you’ll lose me?”

“Well, first of all you need to be immortal,” Bruno muttered, “and second, you have to let me trap you in a labrynth so you can never escape. Oh wait!”

“Come on Bruno, we’re trying to solve this, remember?”

“I know, I know,” he said, “b-but now the self loathing is setting in.”

“Does it ever go away?”

He didn’t respond at first, then decided to change the subject, “So, getting you out of here. M-maybe if I go have that vision again-.”

“You’ve had it fifty two times, are you going to have to have that same vision every time I want to get out of bed in the morning?”

He made a thoughtful noise, “Well, there are definitely worse visions to have everyday.”

“What if… what if you had a worse vision,” Leandra gulped, “if you saw something you don’t like, that disproved something you’re afraid of, w-would it help?”

Bruno didn’t like the sound of this, but asked, “What are you thinking?”

“You said you're worried about me dying any time I get a little hurt, so what if you had a vision of, you know…”

“Leandra,” he breathed, lifting his head, “I-I don’t want to watch you die.”

“I know, but would it help? If you knew for sure when it was going to happen, would you stop expecting it to happen every second?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, but nodded once, tensely saying, “Sí. It would help.”

Leandra also nodded, then shrugged, “Ok, then let’s put that solution in the maybe column and try to come up with something we like better.”

Bruno nodded, he desperately cast about for another solution to suggest, something to knock that one down to an unneeded last resort.

After a while, he groaned, cheeks warming up as he thought of something.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Um.”

“Do you have an idea?”

“S-sort of? Actually, uh, no. No I don’t.”

She paused, then said, “Bruno.”

He sighed, “Do you uh, do you remember when I-, when we-. You know what? It’s-, I can think of something else, just give me a moment.”

“Now hold on, now you got me all curious,” Leandra gave him a squeeze, “when we did what?”

He screwed his eyes shut and in a rush said, “When you let me tie you up?”

“Oh,” he didn’t dare open his eyes while he waited for her to say more, in case his embarrassment had taken a physical form and was waiting for eye contact to attack, “sí, I remember. That was good.”

He peeked an eye open, so he could search her face for sincerity, “Was it?”

“Sí, it was,” she said, and she seemed sincere, “did it live up to your expectations?”

“I uh, sort of? It,” he gulped, but forced himself to keep going, “I-I ended up liking it in a different way than I expected.”

“How so?”

“Well, I um, I thought the best part would b-be being able to do what I want without you rushing me,” he admitted, “b-but I actually-, I just kept thinking about h-how much you must trust me, t-to let me do that.”

“Oh, of course I trust you, you’d never hurt me,” Leandra said, and he felt both very warm and very hot.

“A-anyways, after we uh we did that, I-I felt, I don’t know, not as worried. I guess. More confident.”

“So, would you like to do it again?”

“If you don’t mind, we don’t have to, we can think of-.”

“I want to, Bruno, I do,” she began playing with one of his curls, “honestly I would have asked sooner but I assumed it wasn’t as fun for you as it was for me.”

Bruno felt surprise ripple through him then slowly asked, “Why? Did- was tying me up not uh, not fun for you?”

“Meh, it was a few extra steps, I didn’t mind, but uh you usually let me do whatever I want anyway,” she gave him a somewhat sheepish grin, “and you know how much I hate waiting. I liked when you let me blindfold you though.”

He blushed, and averted his eyes, chuckling nervously, “I-, yeah. That was good. But it’s like you said, I thought it was more fun for me than it was for you.”

“Ay, por favor, you have no idea how impossible that is,” she chuckled, shaking her head.

He smiled, but didn’t say anything. When they first got together, they had each made a list of things they wanted to try, and for the first year of their marriage they had worked their way through it. Leandra had asked to repeat some of the things she’d liked a few times, but he’d never had the courage. Eventually, Leandra had stopped asking for any of the fancy stuff, probably because he never got up the nerve to tell her how much he enjoyed all that.

Bruno braced himself, “I liked playing the villain too.”

“Really?” Leandra said, voice becoming rather eager. The Villain was a favorite of hers, well theirs, but he’d never told her that before.

“Sí. It was nice, you know, actually being as horrible as everybody thinks I am, and still being wanted,” he said, managing not to stutter through some miracle.

“You are very wanted, villain or no villain,” Leandra said, then added, “but also, The Villain is very, very wanted. I like how confident you get, and it always seems like you’re having the time of your life.”

“It is fun, and not just in a sexy way.”

“It is so fun,” she agreed, “I keep telling you you need to try out for the town play. You are such a joy to watch.”

He rolled his eyes, rasping out a dry laugh, and almost gave her the usual excuse. Then he paused, and instead told her, “I don’t think I could-. If I tried out a-and did well, and they still turned me down just because… because I’m me, I don’t think I could-.”

He cut himself off, swallowing thickly. 

Leandra didn’t respond at first.

“Oh,” she eventually said, “I never thought of that.”

“Really?”

She shrugged beneath him, “Since you do seem to be unaware, I am absolutely smitten with you. Head over heels, sun shines out your ass, in love with you. I don’t really-, I’ve never really understood the Bad Luck Bruno thing, even before we got to know each other. And now you’re my wonderful husband, who buys me too many expensive things, and tries to take over my chores, and has stopped letting me go down on him because even when he’s feeling insecure he’s still the sweetest man ever. I would throw myself into every mud puddle I could find if I thought it would make you laugh, work my fingers to the bone if I thought you wanted diamonds and gold, and walk to the end of the earth and back just to spend time with you. I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t.”

He squeezed her tighter, when he couldn’t think of anything else to say, he said, “I don’t mind if you go down on me.”

“Except, apparently you fucking do,” Leandra huffed, “because you haven’t let me in five months.”

“Oh, it hasn’t been-.”

“It has though,” she pushed him until she could look him in the eye, “it’s enough to make a girl think you don’t like what she’s doing down there.”

“No! No, I love the things you do.”

“Then let me do them!”

“Ok, claro,” he held his hands up in surrender.

“Do you promise? Because you are always saying you’re going to let me do chores and then-.”

“Sí, I promise,” he nodded, then mimed crossing his heart.

Leandra examined him, then pulled him back into her arms while muttering, “Test it after this is taken care of.”

He gulped, and kept his lips sealed tightly shut.

She took a few deep breaths, calming her irritation.

They both waited for the other to say something.

Leandra eventually sighed and said, “I’ve been feeling off kilter, I don’t want to make you feel bad, but having you constantly dote on me makes me feel like the relationship isn’t even. Like I’m trying to catch up to all the nice stuff you’ve done, but you won’t pause long enough to let me. I feel like-, like if I say the wrong thing, I’ll completely destroy you, and I hate that feeling.”

“I kinda figured,” he admitted, “sometimes the anxiety settles long enough for me to actually think straight, a-and then I start thinking about how not fun this all must be for you. Which, you know, just ends up feeding right back into the anxiety, so. It’s a whole-, it’s this whole vicious cycle thing.”

She sighed again, “It’s not fair.”

“The way I treat you?”

“The things you have to deal with,” she corrected him, and when he lifted his head from her chest, she was pouting up at their tent’s ceiling, “you have all these visions that ram into you like a steam engine, migraines, fears that defy your sense of reason, the villagers are all assholes, and nobody knows how to help. It’s not fair.”

Bruno almost started crying again, he closed his eyes and lay his head back on her shoulder, with a stuttering breath he said, “I-it kinda helps hearing somebody other than me say that.”

She kissed his head, “I’ve been thinking it a while, I didn’t see the full extent of all this when we were dating. I knew things weren’t great, but I just didn’t-. Now that-. It’s not that I haven’t noticed your life is hard, or that being married to you has challenges, it’s just that I don’t have the right words to-. I feel like a toddler stamping her feet, but all I can think to say about all of it is it’s not fair.”

“You’re overwhelmed?”

“A little,” she paused, “you?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he squeezed her and muffled his words against her shoulder, “this is what my life’s been like since I was five.”

She took a few aborted breaths, started a few aborted sentences, then repeated once again, “It’s not fair.”

Bruno lifted his head again, he examined her face and met her warm brown eyes. They sparkled with unshed tears. He shifted his weight so he could rest his forehead against hers, “It’s alright mí reina, I’m alright. I’m better, happier, with you in my life.”

“I’m still pretty sure I have married the most wonderful person in the world,” she told him, “I don’t think a better life is possible, than the one you’ve given me.”

He smiled softly, and kissed her. They lay there, gently sucking on each other’s lips for a while. When they parted, Bruno lay down next to her on the cushion pile so they were both staring up at the cloth ceiling.

“Anything else you can think of that’ll help?” she eventually asked, “Should I stop bringing up budgets every time you get me another super expensive gift?”

He laughed sheepishly, “A-actually, since we’re uh being honest, the gifts are uh are more of an ego thing.”

“They-, what?”

“I mean, they do make me feel a little better, temporarily of course, but um for the most part I just like that I can give you those things,” he said, turning to look at her, “I don’t know, I don’t usually care about feeling like a man, b-but that must be what that feeling is, right? When I see you wearing something nobody else could have afforded to get you and I feel all tall. That must be-. It’s definitely some sort of pride.”

Leandra looked a little more shocked than he felt his admission warranted, then she laughed a little, “It’s never occurred to me that you might have a bit of an ego.”

“I uh, I don’t about most things,” he allowed, then shrugged, “b-but for some reason, I do about this.”

“Huh, ok, we’ll have to talk about that later,” she said, “I still would prefer if we had some sort of budget.”

Bruno bit his tongue to keep from pointing out that they didn’t need one, that for all of his gift’s many faults, it turned him into a walking emerald mine. He could basically just make her gems out of thin air, or technically out of sand, but still. Monetarily, he could give her things nobody else could, and a part of him wanted everybody in town to know it. He remembered how much people had pitied her when they first got together, a part of him wanted to not just shower her in emeralds, but rub the fact that he was showering her in emeralds in everybody’s face.

All the same, he decided he would at least hear her out before he ignored the budget and got her another pair of earrings.

“So! Other things to help you feel secure,” she barreled on, and he turned his head once more to watch her screw her face up in thought, “renewing our vows? Would that help?”

“Maybe on our tenth anniversary,” he shrugged, “it’ss… it really isn’t you, mi reina. It’s me, it’s all this stuff I’m bringing to the relationship that, that-, well, that you have to put up with. A-and I know, to a certain extent, that you don’t mind as much as I do, but I-. It’s like you said before, I feel uneven, I feel like I’m constantly trying to make up for how much I put you through.”

“But you’re not putting me through it, none of these extra challenges are your fault.”

“I know! But it doesn’t matter what I know, I still feel-. There’s a big difference between knowing something and believing it,” he slowly shook his head, “and I just can’t get myself to believe it’s not my fault I’m like this. That being me- I mean, being with me, could possibly be worth it.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Do you mean ‘being with you’ or do you mean ‘being you’ isn’t worth it?”

Bruno didn’t look at her, he let the sentence revolve around his head for a few seconds and very carefully didn’t look at her.

Eventually, finally, he said, “Both. Depending on the day.”

Leandra sighed and they sat in silence for a few beats.

“When I’m with my sisters, when I’m with you, or any of the kids, or even Félix and Agustín, I like my life. All this stuff, the visions, the obsessive worrying, the sand in uncomfortable places, it’s worth it to be somebody who gets to be with my familia,” he kept going, voice a quiet croak, “b-but then I worry that I’m asking too much, being too clingy. And sometimes I get overwhelmed you know? Sometimes I need time alone even if it means being alone with my thoughts. It all just feels like such a burden, and I can’t get over the feeling I have no right to ask you to help carry it.”

“I’m catching the theme that it doesn’t matter what I say, I can’t change how you feel,” she said, voice wobbling just a little.

“Believe me, I’ve been trying to talk sense into myself for years,” he answered, squeezing her hand.

“All the same, I’m happily volunteering to help carry any and all of your burdens,” she said, then paused and thought for a little, “Do you want to do chores with Agustín, Félix and I? Without having to take the sponge out of my hand mid scrub?”

“Would- would that be alright? I don’t want to-, you deserve time apart from me.”

“Ah yes, because that’s what I was hoping for when we got married, time apart from you,” she muttered sarcastically, then in a brighter voice said, “Sí, if I really need some me time, or to discuss something in private, I’ll just tell you that. I know you’ll understand, I trust you.”

“Then uh, yeah, I would like that, if you think they won’t mind,” Bruno nodded.

“Of course they won’t, they love you,” she waved his worry off, “you’re their brother.”

He smiled quietly, “I hope so. That they see me as a brother, that is. I uh, that’s how I see them.”

“They do.”

He rolled back onto his side and she followed suit. They stared at eachother contemplatively for a while.

“I do genuinely believe my life is better with you as a husband,” Leandra eventually told him in a quiet voice, “in case you’ve forgotten, I broke up with Omar because he didn’t believe Rosalie, even when I was vouching for her. I didn’t think I would have been as happy married to him as I am with you.”

“There are other men in the village.”

“Most of whom also refused to listen to Rosalie and I,” she argued, “you’re sweet, and you respect me, and you care about what I want in life. Add in the fact that you’re sexy as hell and I really hit gold.”

He snorted, rolling his eyes.

She didn’t have to ask what part he doubted most, “Hey! You are sexy, really, really sexy. Don’t roll your eyes.”

“What can I say, I’m not my type.”

“Then you really do have crappy taste in men.”

He scoffed, “You’re the one who thinks asphyxiating donkeys are sexy.”

“Ay, I do not think asphyxiating donkeys are sexy, I think they’re charming, keep it straight,” she swatted his shoulder, “I think your hair, your cheekbones, your jawline, your beard, your stubble, your voice, your hands, and your chest hair are sexy. Also your calves… and your eyes, when they’re glowing. When they’re not glowing they’re beautiful, which is just as good as sexy, but a different vibe.”

“Well I think your eyebrows are sexy so clearly I’m better at picking a spouse than you.”

“Your eyebrows are sexy,” she said defensively.

“Nuh-uh, you don’t get to add things now, you made your list-.”

“Well, if we only get one shot, then the only thing on your list is eyebrows, so clearly-.”

“Wait, hold on, that’s different.”

“No it isn’t, I win, you lose, my spouse is sexier than yours. So there.”

He laughed, then when he caught her giving him a warm grin made a couple of donkey noises at her. She giggled, curling forward until her forehead was against his.

“This is worth everything,” she breathed, when her giggles petered out, “do you think everybody gets to feel this way?”

“They should,” he responded, “if the world was fair, everybody would get to feel this way about somebody at least once.”

She nodded minutely, the motion limited by their point of contact, then tilted so that she could kiss him. He smiled into the kiss.

When she pulled back he asked, “Can you see why the thought of losing this has me acting crazy?”

“Sí. Can you see why the thought of losing this keeps me sane?”

He inhaled sharply, blinking a few times, then muttered, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.”

“Have to be an idiot to give this up,” she pecked him on the lips again.

“And you’re not an idiot,” he murmured.

“Thank you for noticing.”

“De nada,” he said, faintly, automatically. She giggled a little.

The light from outside the tent shifted, becoming just a tiny bit brighter, the change was so small that Bruno almost didn’t notice it. He sat up and stared at the tent flap, slowly, barely daring to hope, he stood and walked to the tent’s entrance. He heard Leandra get up and follow him.

He opened the flap.

Leandra laughed out of sheer joy, “We did it!”

She raced past him to the newly formed exit, well, newly reformed exit to the cave. The sand curtain didn’t split for her like it did for him, but she didn’t let that stop her from running straight through it. 

He followed her at a much more sedate pace. When the sand curtain opened, she was standing by his storytelling tent, grinning at him.

He smiled back at her.

“Come on, don’t you want some coffee?” she said.

“Breakfast is probably over by now,” he pointed out, even as he started up the stairs.

“I’m sure Juli left some food aside for us, actually, I’m kinda surprised they didn’t come looking for us,” she caught up with him and grabbed his hand.

“Maybe they did, found the cave sealed up, then left to get mining supplies,” he shrugged.

She laughed, “Then we better let them know we’re free. Come on, let’s go eat, then we’re gonna come back here, and you’re finally going to let me blow you.”

Bruno felt his cheeks burn, “Only if you promise you want to.”

“I do want to,” she gave his hand a squeeze, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said, mostly because he didn’t know what else to say. It seemed that no matter how much time passed, he still struggled to respond to her advances.

Bruno stopped at the door, he needed to make some changes, he knew that. And there was no time like the present.

“After uh after you do that, I um would like to do one of the other things we talked about,” he told her, not quite meeting her eyes.

She kissed him, a long, lingering kiss that was filled to the brim with promises, “I would like that.”

“Great,” he said, although it sounded like a choked squeak, he cleared his throat and tried again, “I mean, great.”

Leandra gave him one more mischievous grin, then grabbed the doorknob and opened the door.

He was almost bowled over by the wall of noise that greeted them. Leandra’s grin dropped as they raced over to the railing and looked down into the courtyard. It was filled with people, many of whom were shouting. After pausing for a second, Bruno realized they were shouting questions and one voice kept saying, “Please, save him!”

Julieta suddenly raced out of the kitchen with their Má at her heels, shouting, “Step aside, everybody move.”

The crowd parted, revealing the last person Bruno had ever expected to see again. Kneeling on Casita’s tiles was Señor Gutiérrez, he clutched a baby to his chest with one arm, and with the other supported the head of a young boy who was laid across his lap.

The boy was bleeding and bruised, he didn’t seem to be either conscious or unconscious, he muttered unintelligibly, awake but unaware to the world around him.

Bruno rushed down the stairs, still holding Leandra’s hand. After a few steps, she seemed to process what was happening and began walking even faster than him. They reached Señor Gutiérrez just after Julieta had placed a shred of an arepa in the boy’s mouth.

The boy didn’t respond, and the arepa shred hung loosely from his lips. Señor Gutiérrez made a high, distressed sound.

The baby started to fuss.

Bruno was closest to the baby, without having to think about it, he stepped forward and gently pried the infant from the other man’s arms. Señor Gutiérrez barely noticed, so focused on trying to get the boy to chew.

He gently cupped the baby's head, like he had done with his nieces and nephew so many times before. The baby blinked up at him, struggling against the blanket they were swaddled in, eventually a pudgy little hand reached out for him. He gave the baby his finger and they gripped it with all the strength an infant could muster.

It wasn't that all of Bruno's fears suddenly disappeared, on the contrary, he suddenly had triple the worries he did before. But he knew how to do this, he knew how to hold a baby, how to comfort a fussing child.

That was what he did, took care of the baby girl in his arms, allowing everybody else to focus on saving Gabriel. The rest of the day rushed by in a confused panic, and by the time he and Leandra had a minute to talk about the labyrinth they'd woken up in, they were parents.

Somehow, every worry Bruno had the day before seemed to pale in comparison to that.

[kmbtpvtltd]

Stainless Steel Rods Supplier in Andhra Pradesh

Company Overview: Keshar Bhawani Metal & Tubes Pvt. Ltd is a leading provider of Stainless Steel Rods Supplier in Andhra Pradesh, India. Our manufacturing unit is in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Keshar Bhawani Metal & Tubes Pvt. Ltd. is a leading supplier and manufacturer of stainless steel rods, catering to diverse industrial and commercial requirements. Our stainless steel rods are designed with precision, ensuring superior durability, corrosion resistance, and strength. Whether for construction, manufacturing, or specialized industrial applications, our products meet the highest quality standards and provide unmatched performance. Types of Stainless Steel Rods: Round Rods Flat Rods Square Rods Hexagonal Rods Threaded Rods Custom Rods Specifications of Stainless Steel Rods: Material Grades: SS 304, SS 304L, SS 316, SS 316L, SS 321, duplex steels. Shapes: Round, flat, square, hexagonal, and custom profiles. Sizes: Diameter: 3 mm to 250 mm (custom sizes available). Length: Up to 6 meters or as per client specifications. Finish: Polished, matte, brushed, and bright finishes. Standards: ASTM, ASME, DIN, and ISO certifications. Packaging: Packed in bundles, wooden boxes, or as per customer requirements. What sizes of stainless steel rods do you offer? We provide rods in various sizes, from 3 mm to 250 mm in diameter, with custom lengths available. Are stainless steel rods resistant to corrosion? Yes, our rods are highly resistant to rust, corrosion, and chemical reactions, making them ideal for harsh environments. Can stainless steel rods withstand high temperatures? Yes, they are heat-resistant and suitable for applications involving extreme temperatures. Keshar Bhawani Metal & Tubes Pvt. Ltd is a Stainless Steel Rods Supplier in Andhra Pradesh, India Including Anantapur, Chittoor, East Godavari, Guntur, Krishna, Kurnool, Prakasam, Srikakulam, Sri Potti Sriramulu Nellore, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, West Godavari, Kadapa, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Nellore, Kurnool, Rajamahendravaram, Tirupati, Kakinada, Srikakulam, Yemmiganur, Nagarjunakoṇḍa, Rajahmundry, Adoni, Amaravati, Chandragiri, Dowlaiswaram, Eluru, Guntur, Kadapa, Kakinada. Contact us today for more information or to request a quote. View Product: Click Here Read the full article

[teackcraft]

Tips & Tricks on How to Clean a Wooden Bath Mat?

Shower Mat  contemporary teak wood furniture, how to clean shower mat, teak bath mat, wooden bath mat, wooden shower mat

Does wooden bath mat need extra cleaning and maintenance? Is that stopping you from investing in a charming yet sturdy bath mat made of excellent wood? Well, let us help you come out of this dilemma. Believe us or not, owning a wooden shower mat is a completely low maintenance thing. You can do it at your convenience without worrying about how make it look new, all the time.

The AREN, Teak Shower Mat Large 30 inch$94.00Read more

The GRIM, Teak Shower Mat 23$79.00Read more

How to clean shower mat made of wood?

There is a simple formula to follow when it is about cleaning a wooden bath mat. You need to scrub off any dirt particles with a non-abrasive sponge. Use mild soap water to clean after scrubbing and then rinse off with normal water. Allow it to dry in the sun, if its summer. Or, align it adjacent to the wall or bathtub to dry with heater. Make sure that it dries well. That’s it!

How to clean a teak bath mat?

Teakwood has a special quality of repelling water that falls on its surface. This prevents mold formation over it so, cleaning it becomes easier. Here, you need to use mix a small amount of detergent, vinegar and water. Apply this solution over the bath mat and gently brush off any dirt over it. Rinse it well with normal temperature water, allow it to dry in the sun. Apply teak oil whenever needed.

For contemporary teakwood furniture that is placed outdoors, it is important to cover it with a porous cloth. This helps to prevent mold formation due to rain, snow or dew. It is an additional tip to care for teak furniture. Regularly wipe off the dust that accumulates over the surface. Check the screws and fix the lose ones. Color or polish whenever required.

How to clean a bamboo wooden bath mat?

Again, the steps are basic! Dusting on a weekly basis is enough to begin with. Wipe off the surface with a damp cloth, to clean up spots of any kind. Use mild cleanser or soap water occasionally to remove extra dirt from the surface. Scrub without applying any force and rinse well with water. Bamboo can swell due to extra water so, make sure to dry it immediately after wash.

Sun drying is the best way to go about it. In winters, keep the mat near the heater for few hours. Apply linseed oil to prevent it from being brittle due to over exposure to radiators. For soft bamboo wooden shower mat, following the instructions on the product manual, would be enough.

Where to buy the best teak bath mat?

Now that you know much about the maintenance of wooden bath mat, it is easy to decide upon which one to buy. TeakCraftUS offers all kinds of contemporary teak wood furniture including shower mats. We are manufacturers and suppliers of the best wooden shower mats in the USA. You can check our warehouse or website for the best deals. We offer eco-friendly teakwood furniture at affordable prices. We custom make products so, feel free to connect with our customer care team. A bonus point is that we offer free shipping on most products. You can make good savings by ordering teakwood furniture online, from our website. What else do you need? Check the site, select, order and enjoy! Happy shopping!!

Source:https://www.teakcraftus.com/tips-tricks-on-how-to-clean-a-wooden-bath-mat/

[nookaraju]

ACP Sheets Manufacturers and Suppliers in India

Aluminum composite panels, also known as ACPs, have become increasingly popular in recent years for their versatility and durability. These lightweight, yet strong panels are made of two thin ACP sheet manufacturer bonded to a non-aluminum core, making them easily moldable and perfect for a wide range of applications. And when it comes to ACPs, one name stands out above the rest- Alumaze.

Based in Visakhapatnam, Alumaze has quickly risen to become one of India’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of ACP sheets. What sets Alumaze apart is not just our advanced technology, but our unwavering commitment to quality and collaboration. Our journey has been one marked by resilience and constant evolution, thanks to the tireless efforts of their fabricators and architectures who strive to bring their vision to life.

With a production capacity of 18 lakh sq. ft. per month, Alumaze is the sole ACP sheet manufacturer in India with advanced 5-roller calendar machines. This showcases our dedication to excellence and our determination to continuously push the boundaries of what is possible. And it’s not just limited to South India- Alumaze has expanded its services to Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Maharashtra, with plans to further expand to Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Sikkim in the next six months.

But it’s not just our reach that sets Alumaze apart, it’s also our diverse range of products. From marble and sand to sparkle and brushed finishes, Alumaze offers a wide variety of ACPs to suit any project. We also have options for mirror, stone, texture/antique, wooden, and HPL series ACPs, giving customers endless possibilities to explore and create stunning designs.

[kanubrushcare09]

Wooden Brush Handles In Delhi And India - iKMBP001

Kanu Brush Care is the best brush manufacturer, supplier, exporter in Delhi India. Deal in makeup brushes, Industrial brushes, shaving brushes, Art Brushes. Cosmetic Brush Suppliers and Manufacturers In India

To See More Information : https://www.kanubrushcare.com/product/b1/

[yakubali7842]

Spray Paint: Essential Hardware Chemicals in Various Industries

Introduction

Spray paint is a popular and efficient solution for applying coatings to surfaces. Its ease of use, versatility, and quick-drying properties make it an essential tool for both professionals and DIY enthusiasts. This article will delve into where spray paint is commonly used, the significance of hardware chemicals like wood glue and fillers in conjunction with spray paint, and the benefits of sourcing these materials from reliable suppliers in the UAE.

The Importance of Spray Paint

What is Spray Paint?

Spray paint is a liquid coating dispensed in a fine mist through a spray nozzle. It is available in various formulations, including acrylic, enamel, and lacquer, making it suitable for a wide range of surfaces and applications. Its quick-drying feature allows for rapid project completion, essential in industries where time is critical.

Applications of Spray Paint

Automotive Industry The automotive sector frequently uses spray paint for touch-ups, refinishing, and custom paint jobs. The ability to apply an even coat without brush marks makes it ideal for achieving a professional finish on cars, motorcycles, and other vehicles. Additionally, specialized spray paints designed for automotive use are formulated to withstand harsh weather conditions, UV rays, and road debris, ensuring a durable finish.

Construction and Renovation In the construction industry, spray paint is often used for marking areas on construction sites, applying protective coatings, and finishing touches on buildings. Its efficiency allows for large surfaces to be covered quickly, reducing labor time and costs. Contractors often prefer spray paint for its ability to create a uniform look across various materials, including wood, metal, and masonry.

Arts and Crafts DIY enthusiasts and artists widely use spray paint for various projects, including murals, home decor, and furniture refurbishing. Its versatility allows for creative expression in multiple mediums. Different finishes, such as matte, gloss, or metallic, offer artists the opportunity to experiment with textures and effects, making it a staple in art supply stores.

Industrial Applications In industrial settings, spray paint is utilized for equipment maintenance and protective coatings to prevent rust and corrosion. Industries that operate heavy machinery benefit from the durable finish that spray paint provides. Furthermore, spray paint is often used for safety markings and labels in industrial environments, ensuring visibility and compliance with safety regulations.

Home Improvement Homeowners frequently turn to spray paint for quick and easy makeovers of furniture, fixtures, and decor items. The availability of different colors and finishes makes it a popular choice for interior design projects. For example, a simple coat of spray paint can transform an outdated piece of furniture into a modern statement piece, adding value to a home.

Complementary Hardware Chemicals

While spray paint plays a crucial role in many applications, it often works in tandem with other hardware chemicals, such as:

Wood Glue: Used for bonding wooden surfaces, ensuring strong and durable connections in furniture and construction projects. Wood glue is particularly essential when creating or repairing wooden structures, as it provides a seamless finish that can be painted over with spray paint.

Fillers: Essential for repairing surface imperfections before painting, fillers provide a smooth surface for spray paint application. Using fillers allows for better adhesion of spray paint, resulting in a more polished final product.

Adhesives (like Fevicol): Used for various bonding applications, these adhesives ensure that materials stay securely attached during the painting process. A strong bond is crucial in projects where multiple materials are combined, as it contributes to the overall durability of the finished product.

Why Choose Quality Spray Paint?

Consistency and Performance

Quality spray paint ensures a consistent finish and superior adhesion, which is crucial for long-lasting results. Inferior products may lead to peeling, fading, or uneven coverage, ultimately affecting the integrity of the project. High-quality spray paints often contain advanced formulations that enhance durability and resistance to environmental factors, making them suitable for outdoor applications.

Health and Safety

Choosing high-quality spray paint also involves considering the safety of the product. Quality brands comply with safety standards, ensuring that the chemicals used are less harmful to both the user and the environment. Additionally, many reputable brands offer low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) options, reducing harmful emissions during application.

Availability of Spray Paint in the UAE

In the UAE, the market for spray paint is diverse, with numerous suppliers offering various brands and formulations. When sourcing spray paint in the UAE, it is essential to choose reputable suppliers that provide reliable products for specific applications. This ensures that users receive consistent quality and can rely on the performance of the product.

Tips for Using Spray Paint

Surface Preparation: Properly prepare the surface before applying spray paint. Clean the area, remove any dust or debris, and ensure it is dry for optimal adhesion.

Use a Primer: For best results, apply a primer before using spray paint. This can improve adhesion and ensure a more even finish.

Apply in Thin Coats: Rather than applying one thick coat of spray paint, use several thin coats to prevent drips and achieve an even finish.

Ventilation: Always work in a well-ventilated area when using spray paint to avoid inhaling harmful fumes. Wearing a mask and goggles is also recommended for safety.

Practice Technique: If you're new to using spray paint, practice your technique on a scrap piece of material to get a feel for the spray pattern and distance before working on your actual project.

Conclusion

Spray paint is a vital hardware chemical used across various industries, including automotive, construction, arts, and home improvement. Its ease of use and versatility make it a favourite among professionals and DIY enthusiasts alike. Coupled with complementary hardware chemicals such as wood glue and fillers, spray paint can enhance the quality and longevity of projects.

By selecting high-quality spray paint from trusted suppliers in the UAE, individuals and businesses can ensure they achieve the desired results while maintaining safety and performance standards. As the demand for spray paint continues to rise, understanding its importance and applications will help users make informed decisions for their projects. With careful consideration of the right products and techniques, spray paint can significantly enhance both functionality and aesthetics in various applications..

[interiordesigner4321]

The Future of Interior Design: Trends in Natural Stone by Karst Galleria.

As interior design continues to evolve, natural stone remains a timeless and versatile material that can transform spaces. At Karst Galleria, we are at the forefront of integrating innovative trends in natural stone into modern interiors. Here’s a look at some of the exciting trends shaping the future of interior design with natural stone.

1. Sustainable Sourcing and Eco-Friendly Practices

Consumers are increasingly aware of their environmental impact, leading to a growing demand for sustainably sourced materials. Natural stones, such as marble and granite, can be sourced responsibly, ensuring minimal environmental disruption.

Trend Insight: Opt for locally sourced stones to reduce transportation emissions and support local economies. Look for suppliers like Karst Galleria that prioritize eco-friendly practices.

2. Bold Colors and Unique Patterns

Gone are the days of monochromatic designs. The future of interior design embraces bold colors and striking patterns in natural stone. Rich hues and intricate veining can serve as statement pieces in any room, elevating the overall aesthetic.

Design Tip: Use colorful marble as a focal point in kitchens or bathrooms, or incorporate uniquely patterned granite in living spaces for an eye-catching look.

3. Textured Finishes and 3D Applications

Texture adds depth and interest to interiors, and natural stone offers a range of finishes that can transform flat surfaces into dynamic elements. From honed and brushed finishes to textured 3D wall panels, the tactile quality of stone enhances the sensory experience of a space.

Application Idea: Use textured stone wall panels in living rooms or commercial spaces to create visual interest and a sophisticated ambiance.

4. Mixing Natural Stones with Other Materials

The future of interior design sees an exciting blend of natural stones with other materials, such as wood, metal, and glass. This combination creates a harmonious balance between organic and industrial elements, resulting in modern yet timeless designs.

Trend Combination: Pair granite countertops with wooden cabinetry or mix marble flooring with metal accents to achieve a contemporary look that feels warm and inviting.

5. Large-Format Tiles and Slabs

Large-format tiles and slabs are gaining popularity due to their sleek appearance and minimal grout lines. This trend allows for seamless installations that create a more spacious feel, making them ideal for both residential and commercial spaces.

Design Consideration: Utilize large-format marble or granite tiles in open-concept areas to enhance the sense of space and continuity throughout the design.

6. Natural Stone in Unexpected Places

Designers are increasingly using natural stone in unexpected applications, such as furniture, lighting fixtures, and decorative accents. This trend not only showcases the beauty of the material but also adds a touch of luxury to everyday items.

Creative Use: Consider marble side tables, granite accent walls, or stone light fixtures to bring elegance and sophistication into various areas of your home.

7. Integration of Smart Technology

The future of interior design is also about integrating smart technology into spaces. Natural stone can be combined with smart home features, such as heated flooring or integrated lighting, to enhance functionality without sacrificing style.

Smart Design Concept: Install heated stone floors in bathrooms or kitchens for comfort while enjoying the aesthetic benefits of natural stone.

8. Indoor-Outdoor Living Spaces

The trend of creating seamless indoor-outdoor living spaces continues to grow. Natural stone, with its durability and resistance to the elements, is perfect for patios, outdoor kitchens, and garden pathways, creating a cohesive flow between indoor and outdoor areas.

Design Tip: Use the same natural stone for both indoor flooring and outdoor patios to create a unified look that blurs the lines between inside and out.

Conclusion

Natural stone will continue to play a vital role in shaping the future of interior design. At Karst Galleria, we are committed to embracing these trends while providing high-quality marble, granite, and other stone products that elevate the aesthetics of any space. As you explore your interior design options, consider the enduring beauty and versatility of natural stone as a foundation for your creative vision.

[paintbrush125]

Decorative tool with wooden handle paint brush

[touchwoodfloorings]

Artificial Grass Flooring in Delhi: The Smart Benefits You Need to Know

Artificial grass flooring is becoming a popular choice for homes and businesses in Delhi. It offers a range of benefits that make it a smart investment for anyone looking to enhance their space. In this blog, we’ll explore why artificial grass flooring is gaining popularity in Delhi and which is the Best wood flooring company in Delhi, and the advantages it offers, and how it links to other flooring options.

Why Choose Artificial Grass Flooring in Delhi?

Artificial grass flooring is an excellent choice for those seeking a low-maintenance, aesthetically pleasing solution. Whether you’re looking to transform your garden, patio, or commercial space, artificial grass can provide a lush, green look year-round.

Best Artificial Grass Flooring in Delhi is designed to withstand the city’s varying weather conditions. From scorching summers to heavy monsoons, it maintains its vibrant appearance without the hassle of regular upkeep.

Benefits of Artificial Grass Flooring

1. Low Maintenance: — One of the biggest advantages of artificial grass flooring is its minimal maintenance requirements. This is particularly useful in a bustling city like Delhi, where busy schedules leave little time for lawn care.

2. Durability and Longevity: — Artificial grass is highly durable and can withstand heavy foot traffic, making it ideal for both residential and commercial spaces. It is designed to endure various weather conditions without fading or deteriorating. This durability ensures that your investment lasts for years, providing excellent value for money.

3. Cost-Effective: — While the initial cost of installing artificial grass might be higher than traditional options, the long-term savings are significant. With minimal maintenance and no need for watering or fertilizing, you’ll save on water bills and gardening expenses. For those looking for cheapest artificial grass flooring in Delhi, the long-term savings often outweigh the initial cost.

Cost Comparison: Artificial Grass vs. Wooden Flooring

When evaluating flooring options, cost is a crucial factor. Artificial Grass price in Delhi can vary based on quality and installation requirements, but it often proves to be a cost-effective choice over time. The key advantage of artificial grass is its minimal maintenance needs. Unlike natural grass, which requires regular watering, mowing, and fertilizing, artificial grass simply needs occasional brushing and rinsing. This translates into lower long-term expenses for water and upkeep, making it a budget-friendly option in the long run.

On the other hand, wooden flooring service Delhi are known for their aesthetic appeal and elegance, but they often come with higher ongoing costs. Wooden floors may require frequent polishing, cleaning, and maintenance to keep them in good condition. These additional expenses can add up over time, making wooden flooring a costlier option compared to artificial grass.

How to Choose the Best Artificial Grass Flooring?

Selecting the ideal artificial grass flooring requires careful consideration of your needs and budget. Start by exploring different options from reputable Artificial Grass manufacturers in Delhi. Quality varies, so it’s essential to look for products that offer durability, a realistic appearance, and low maintenance. Compare features like pile height, density, and material to ensure you choose the best artificial grass flooring in Delhi for your specific requirements.

Consider factors such as the area where the grass will be installed, whether it’s for a high-traffic area or a decorative feature. Additionally, check customer reviews and ratings to gauge the reliability of different brands and suppliers. Budget is also crucial; while higher-quality options may cost more initially, they often offer better performance and longer lifespan, providing greater value over time. By taking these steps, you can find artificial grass that meets both your aesthetic and practical needs.

The Role of Touchwood Floorings

At Touchwood Floorings, we excel in delivering top-tier flooring solutions, featuring both wooden flooring and artificial grass. Recognized as one of the best wooden flooring contractors in Delhi, we pride ourselves on offering exceptional service and premium products. Our wooden flooring services in Delhi are designed to meet a variety of needs, from elegant wooden laminate flooring to robust solid wood flooring solutions.

For those interested in wooden laminated flooring services in Delhi, we provide detailed and stylish options that enhance any space with both aesthetics and durability. Our experienced team of wooden flooring contractors in Delhi ensures each project is executed with meticulous care and precision.

If affordability is a priority, we offer cheap wood flooring service in Delhi without sacrificing quality. We also cater to local needs with best wood flooring service in Delhi near me, ensuring prompt and effective solutions. Whether you’re upgrading your home or commercial space, choose our company for expert advice, superior products, and outstanding service.

Explore Our Premier Flooring Services

At Touchwood Floorings, we offer a range of specialized flooring solutions to suit your needs.

Herringbone Flooring in Delhi: This classic pattern adds a touch of elegance to any room. Our herringbone flooring in Delhi features meticulously arranged wooden planks that create a distinctive, stylish look. It’s perfect for both traditional and modern interiors, providing a sophisticated appearance that enhances the beauty of your space.

Laminate Wood Flooring in Delhi: For a versatile and cost-effective option, consider our laminate wood flooring in Delhi. It combines the look of real wood with the durability and ease of maintenance of laminate. Ideal for high-traffic areas, this flooring provides a sleek, stylish finish while being budget-friendly.

Solid Wood Flooring in Delhi: If you seek timeless elegance and durability, our solid wood flooring in Delhi is the perfect choice. Made from high-quality hardwood, it offers unmatched sturdiness and a natural beauty that can transform any room. This flooring option not only adds value to your property but also provides a lasting, classic appeal.

FAQ

What is the cost of artificial turf in Delhi? The cost of artificial turf in Delhi varies but is generally affordable, with prices depending on quality and installation.

Is artificial grass permanent? Artificial grass is durable and long-lasting, but it’s not completely permanent. It can last 8–15 years with proper care.

What is the cheapest way to lay artificial grass? The cheapest way to lay artificial grass is by preparing the base yourself and opting for DIY installation to save on labor costs.

Conclusion

Touchwood Floorings offers an array of high-quality artificial grass flooring options to complement and enhance your space. We are committed to helping you create beautiful, functional spaces with our comprehensive range of flooring solutions. Our team of experts ensures that every project, whether involving artificial grass or wooden flooring, is executed with precision and care. We focus on providing exceptional Cheap wooden flooring price Delhi and high-quality products to meet your unique needs and preferences.

For more information about our flooring services or to explore our full range of options, visit Touchwood Floorings. Whether you’re interested in artificial grass or high-quality wooden flooring, we are here to assist you in making the best choice for your space.

Other Links:

Engineered wood flooring in Delhi

Hardwood flooring in Delhi

[mb-epoxy]

Trending Epoxy Art Resin Projects for Beginners

Epoxy art resin has revolutionized the world of DIY crafts and home decor, offering endless possibilities for creativity and customization. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced artist, epoxy art resin provides a versatile medium that can elevate your projects to a professional level. For beginners looking to dive into this exciting art form, here are some trending epoxy art resin projects that are easy to start with and deliver stunning results.

1. Resin Coasters

Creating resin coasters is an excellent introductory project for those new to epoxy art resin. Coasters are small, manageable, and offer a perfect canvas for experimenting with different colors and designs. To get started, you’ll need:

- Epoxy resin and hardener

- Silicone coaster molds

- Epoxy pigments or dyes

- Mixing tools and cups

Begin by mixing the epoxy resin and hardener according to the instructions provided by your epoxy resin suppliers. Once mixed, add your chosen pigments or dyes and pour the resin into the silicone molds. You can create swirls, layers, or add inclusions like glitter or dried flowers. Allow the resin to cure fully, typically 24-48 hours, and your custom coasters are ready to use or gift.

2. Jewelry Making

Epoxy art resin is ideal for creating unique and personalized jewelry pieces. From pendants to earrings, the possibilities are vast. For this project, you’ll need:

- Jewelry molds

- Epoxy resin

- Epoxy pigments

- Small inclusions (e.g., glitter, dried flowers, beads)

Mix the epoxy resin and hardener, then add pigments to achieve your desired color. Pour the resin into the molds and add small inclusions to enhance the design. Once cured, attach the necessary jewelry findings, such as earring hooks or necklace chains. The result is beautiful, handcrafted jewelry that makes a statement.

3. Resin Art Panels

Creating resin art panels allows you to produce larger, more expressive pieces. This project is great for those who enjoy abstract art. You’ll need:

- A wooden or canvas panel

- Epoxy resin

- Epoxy pigments

- Mixing tools

Prepare your panel by ensuring it’s clean and level. Mix the epoxy resin and hardener, then divide it into smaller cups to mix in different pigments. Pour the colored resin onto the panel and use tools like heat guns or brushes to manipulate the resin and create dynamic patterns. This project offers a fantastic way to explore your creativity with epoxy art resin.

4. Resin River Tables

While this project is more advanced, it’s become incredibly popular due to its stunning visual impact. A resin river table involves creating a “river” of resin between two pieces of wood. For this project, you’ll need:

- Two slabs of wood

- Epoxy resin

- Epoxy pigments

- Clamps and woodworking tools

Prepare your wood slabs by sanding and positioning them to leave a gap for the resin. Mix the epoxy resin and hardener, then add pigments to create a water-like effect. Pour the resin into the gap and use a heat gun to remove any bubbles. Once the resin cures, sand and finish the table to your desired look. The result is a breathtaking piece of furniture that showcases the beauty of epoxy art resin.

 5. Decorative Trays

Creating decorative trays is another beginner-friendly project that combines functionality with artistry. You’ll need:

- A tray mold or a wooden tray base

- Epoxy resin

- Epoxy pigments

- Mixing tools

Mix the epoxy resin and pigments, then pour the mixture into the tray mold or onto the tray base. You can add inclusions like shells, stones, or metallic flakes to enhance the design. Allow the resin to cure, and you’ll have a unique, decorative tray perfect for displaying items or serving drinks.

Finding the Right Epoxy Resin Suppliers

When embarking on your resin art journey, sourcing high-quality materials is crucial. Reliable epoxy resin suppliers provide detailed product information, safety guidelines, and mixing instructions. Look for suppliers with positive reviews and a variety of resin options to suit different projects. For those ready to buy epoxy art resin, exploring reputable suppliers ensures you get the best results for your creations.

Getting started with epoxy art resin projects is an exciting and rewarding experience. From coasters and jewelry to art panels and river tables, there are numerous projects that cater to beginners and allow for creative expression. By using high-quality epoxy resin and pigments from trusted epoxy resin suppliers, you can achieve professional-looking results and enjoy the process of creating beautiful, customized pieces.

For top-quality epoxy art resin, trust MB Epoxy to provide the materials you need to bring your artistic visions to life.

[home360seo]

Maintaining Wooden Flooring: Tips for Long-Lasting Beauty

Wooden flooring adds a touch of elegance and warmth to any home or office space in Hyderabad. Whether you've recently installed new wooden flooring or have enjoyed its beauty for years, proper maintenance is crucial to ensure its longevity and beauty. Here are essential tips to help you preserve the allure of your wooden floors for years to come.

1. Regular Cleaning Routine

One of the simplest yet most effective ways to maintain wooden flooring is by establishing a regular cleaning routine. Sweep or vacuum the floor daily to remove dust and debris that can scratch the surface. Use a soft-bristled broom or a vacuum cleaner with a floor brush attachment to prevent scratches.

2. Gentle Mopping Techniques

Periodically mop your wooden floors using a damp mop with a mild wood floor cleaner. Avoid using excessive water, as moisture can damage wood. Instead, lightly dampen the mop and ensure thorough drying after mopping. This routine helps in removing stains and keeping the floor looking fresh.

3. Immediate Spill Cleanup

Wooden floors are susceptible to water damage from spills. Act quickly to clean up spills using a dry or slightly damp cloth. Avoid using harsh cleaning agents or excessive water, as these can penetrate the wood and cause swelling or discoloration. For stubborn stains, consult with your wooden flooring supplier in Hyderabad for recommended cleaning products.

4. Preventive Maintenance

Place doormats at entry points to trap dirt and moisture before it reaches the wooden floor. Use felt pads under furniture legs to prevent scratches and dents when moving furniture. Trim pet nails regularly to avoid scratches on the wooden surface.

5. Seasonal Care

Wooden flooring can react to changes in humidity and temperature, especially in Hyderabad's climate. Use a humidifier in dry months to maintain consistent humidity levels, as excessive dryness can cause wood to shrink and crack. Conversely, use air conditioning or a dehumidifier during humid months to prevent expansion and warping.

6. Professional Maintenance

Periodically, consider professional maintenance services from a reputable wooden flooring supplier in Hyderabad. They can provide deep cleaning, polishing, and refinishing services to rejuvenate the floor's appearance and extend its lifespan. Professional inspection also helps in identifying early signs of wear or damage for timely repairs.

7. Avoid Harsh Chemicals

When cleaning or maintaining wooden floors, avoid using harsh chemicals, ammonia-based cleaners, or abrasive cleaners. These can strip away the floor's finish or cause discoloration. Opt for pH-neutral cleaners specifically formulated for wooden floors, recommended by your supplier.

8. Regular Inspections

Regularly inspect your wooden floors for signs of wear, scratches, or damage. Promptly address any issues to prevent them from worsening. If you notice significant wear or damage, consult with a professional wooden flooring supplier in Hyderabad for guidance on repair or replacement options.

Conclusion

By following these tips for maintaining wooden flooring, sourced from a trusted wooden flooring supplier in Hyderabad, you can ensure that your floors retain their natural beauty and durability for years. Remember, proper care and preventive measures are key to preserving the elegance and longevity of wooden flooring in your home or office.

For more expert advice and high-quality wooden flooring options in Hyderabad, contact Home 360°. As a leading wooden flooring supplier in Hyderabad, we offer a wide range of premium wood flooring solutions tailored to meet your aesthetic and functional needs.

To know more: https://home360degree.com/project/wood-flooring/

[derbykitchen]

Cooking for Beginners: Essential Kitchenware Starter Kits

Embarking on a journey in the culinary world as a beginner can be both exciting and daunting. Having the right kitchenware supplier is essential not only for preparing delicious meals but also for mastering fundamental cooking techniques. A well-equipped kitchen with essential tools not only simplifies the cooking process but also enhances your confidence and enjoyment in the kitchen. Here’s a detailed guide on essential kitchenware starter kits for beginners, covering everything you need to kick-start your culinary adventures.

### Essential Kitchenware Starter Kits for Beginners

#### 1. Basic Utensils Set

A basic utensils set forms the foundation of any kitchen. It typically includes:

- **Chef's Knife:** An all-purpose knife for chopping, slicing, and dicing vegetables, fruits, and meats.

- **Paring Knife:** Ideal for detailed cutting tasks such as peeling fruits and vegetables.

- **Cutting Board:** Choose a durable, non-slip cutting board that won't dull your knives.

- **Kitchen Shears:** Versatile for cutting herbs, trimming meats, and opening packages.

- **Vegetable Peeler:** Makes peeling vegetables quick and easy.

#### 2. Cookware Set

Invest in a versatile cookware set that includes:

- **Saucepans:** Different sizes for boiling, simmering, and making sauces.

- **Skillet or Frying Pan:** Essential for frying, sautéing, and searing meats and vegetables.

- **Stockpot:** Large enough for making soups, stews, and boiling pasta.

- **Non-stick Pan:** Ideal for cooking eggs, pancakes, and delicate foods without sticking.

- **Baking Sheet:** For roasting vegetables, baking cookies, and sheet pan meals.

#### 3. Essential Tools and Gadgets

Include these essential tools and gadgets in your kitchen:

- **Mixing Bowls:** Assorted sizes for mixing ingredients and preparing salads.

- **Measuring Cups and Spoons:** For accurate measurement of ingredients.

- **Spatulas and Wooden Spoons:** Essential for stirring, flipping, and serving.

- **Whisk:** Used for mixing, whipping, and incorporating air into ingredients.

- **Can Opener:** For opening canned goods effortlessly.

#### 4. Bakeware Essentials

For baking enthusiasts, these items are indispensable:

- **Cake Pans:** Round or square pans for baking cakes and brownies.

- **Muffin Tin:** For baking muffins, cupcakes, and individual quiches.

- **Pie Dish:** Essential for baking pies, quiches, and savory tarts.

- **Baking Tools:** Rolling pin, pastry brush, and cookie cutters for pastry preparation.

### Tips for Choosing Kitchenware as a Beginner

#### Quality Over Quantity

Prioritize quality kitchenware that will last long and perform well over time. Invest in durable materials such as stainless steel, cast iron, and silicone for utensils and cookware.

#### Consider Your Cooking Style

Choose kitchenware that suits your cooking preferences and dietary habits. For example, if you enjoy baking, focus on acquiring quality bakeware essentials. If you prefer quick stovetop meals, invest in versatile pots and pans.

#### Budget Wisely

Start with essential kitchenware items and gradually expand your collection based on your cooking skills and needs. Look for deals and discounts on quality kitchenware sets to maximize your budget.

### Setting Up Your Kitchen for Success

#### Organize Your Kitchen

Create designated storage spaces for your kitchenware to keep your countertops clutter-free and your tools easily accessible. Utilize drawer organizers and racks to maintain order and efficiency in your kitchen.

#### Learn Proper Care and Maintenance

Follow manufacturer's instructions for cleaning and maintaining your kitchenware to prolong its lifespan. Proper care ensures optimal performance and hygiene.

#### Seek Inspiration and Guidance

Explore cooking resources such as cookbooks, online tutorials, and cooking classes to learn new recipes and techniques. Experiment with different cuisines and ingredients to enhance your culinary skills.

### Conclusion

Equipping your kitchen with essential kitchenware starter kits for beginners sets the stage for enjoyable and successful cooking experiences. By investing in quality tools and learning basic cooking techniques, you'll build confidence and proficiency in the kitchen. Whether you're preparing simple meals or exploring complex recipes, having the right kitchenware enhances your journey as a beginner cook. Start with the essentials, explore new flavors, and enjoy the rewarding experience of cooking homemade meals with quality kitchenware designed to support your culinary aspirations.

[sharmaandsons]

2 Axis High Speed Brush Tufting Machine Manufacturer & Supplier

This might be the very first time when you have to get your hands on industrial brushes. Some are defined as hair colour brushes and then you have Flat Washing Brushes in use as well. It is mandatory to get your hands on the best brush tufting machine, which will help in creating such brushes in bulk order within a short span of time. Looking for the 2-axis brush tufting machine is important as it is the most common option available from the house of Sharma & Sons. 

Being a reputed 2 Axis Brush Tufting Machine Manufacturer for such a long time, we know the kind of technologies used for manufacturing these machines. We have tested out the working capacity of these machines big time. Therefore, we are ready to present premium-quality tufting and brush-making machines to cover multiple industrial uses. 

These machines are becoming quite popular among industrial users these days. As we use modern technology for its manufacturing, there is no need to worry about the speed of its work. Even if you have a tight time schedule, these machines are able to produce bulk brushes in no time.

What makes our machine the best?

Our company has 2 Axis Brush Tufting Machine apart from the 5-axle one, which is known to have higher speed production capacity.

With such machines, you are able to create a wide range of brushes in no time. 

Some of those are toilet brushes, double hockey brushes, single hockey washing brushes, Zala and Goby toothbrushes, toothbrush heads, brooms, short filament brushes, and more.

You are further able to create disc brushes, roller brushes, and similar other industrial brushes with the help of our 2 Axis Brush Tufting Machine from Sharma & Sons. 

The materials we use for manufacturing the brush filaments are PVC, PP, PET, nylon, Tampico, horse hair, and pig bristle, to name a few. Therefore, the end result is always on the higher side.

The length of the filaments is subject to vary from 10mm to 120mm. It depends on the kind of brush you want to manufacture.

The hole diameters will also vary between 3mm and 5mm. 

These machines are known to house either single or double-colored filaments, based on the client’s needs.

The maximum tufting speed of our 2 Axis Brush Tufting Machine will be 5 holes every second.

We use servo motors as the main power system, which will ensure a clear-cut and smooth solution all the time.

We have teaching mode with our 2 Axis Brush Tufting Machine. Here, the operators will put the tufting head manually into each one of the holes one after another. The hole’s position will then be saved by computer. This way, all data for the tufting position will be entered and saved within the machine.

Another data input for the tufting position will be the digit mode. Even in this section, the operator will enter the digits manually with X and Y axis coordination for covering the tufting position.

Our machines have touchable screens as well as 5.4 inches. This monitor controller has an interface in not just English but in other languages as well, as mentioned by our clients. It can be operated in dialogue mode as well, which is easy and simple to operate.

When it comes to speed, the machine from our 2 Axis Brush Tufting Machine supplier comes with frequency-conversion step-less adjustable speed. 

Our machines can save a total of 8000 holes, which will make creating bulk orders of brushes a lot easier.

It follows the Programmable Logic Controller and the entire machine will weigh around 1000kgs. 

It has FMS-type replaceable grippers. So, it helps operators to make different forms of brushes once they are able to change the grippers.

In terms of the tufting method, our 2 Axis brush module has staples or anchor type mechanism. 

The items are packed into wooden cases and delivered to the given address on time. We ensure to take complete care of the transportation means so that nothing happens to our main machine. 

There are separate hair color brush-tufting machines from our side, along with flat broom tufting machines as well. All you need to do is give us a call at our official number or email us your needs, and we will get back to you ASAP.

Dealing with customized machines too:

We have the set standard brush tufting machine from our reputed 2 Axis Brush Tufting Machine making company. But that’s not the end of the story as we follow customized orders too. Our team knows that the needs are subject to vary from one user to another. That’s why we have a separate team working on customized machines with different spare parts. In the end, it becomes easier to complete your task of bulk brush orders. Our team from Sharma & Sons is always ready to help. All you have to do is give us a call and we will start working on your order ASAP. The rates are also cost-effective to help you with your tight monthly budget plans.