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theshotsheardacrossworlds · 20 days

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Goddess

Lily had a great time connecting with Gale in the astral plane and wonders if that's going to translate to "real" sex. (Spoiler alert: it does.) NSFW.

Lily stared at the moon shield and tried to imagine the stars in the sky beyond the Shadow Curse. Where we made love last night. Well, our souls did? Or something? It was romantic and lovely, but does this mean he doesn’t want to have physical sex? Ever?

She was taken out of her increasingly frantic thoughts by the object of her affection. Gale’s hand touched the small of her back, right at the base of her tail. “I still maintain that the incredibly terrible light here does nothing to diminish your beauty, sweetness. Remembering how you were bathed in starlight as our souls came together makes me feel such utter joy…joy I haven’t felt in some time.”

“Me too. It’s all been wonderful so far, and last night was incredible. Magical.” In so many ways…every way… “I just, well…” she fidgeted slightly. “You clearly enjoy being intimate in the astral but are we…you know…going to…” THIS IS SO AWKWARD! WHY AM I DOING THIS!??! “Have real sex?” Real sex?! Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m done for. She could feel her cheeks getting hotter with every passing second, her embarrassment rising.

Gale’s hand on her back stilled as his mouth dropped open, turning his head to face her. “Of course I do! Did I…oh gods…did I suggest in some way that I didn’t?”

She looked away from him, the embarrassment and now creeping shame too much. “No, but you just really seem to like that and made a point of saying that’s the way the gods do it.” Tears stung her demonic purple eyes. “I’m not a goddess, Gale.”

He shook his head vehemently. “To me you are. And if my beloved goddess wishes to have sex, then,” The hand at the base of her tail suddenly traveled further south, grabbing a generous handful of her behind. Lily let out a small squeak, her cheeks reddening more. “She shall be thoroughly fucked until satisfied by her most devoted supplicant.” His normally soft voice was now a low growl, and when she dared to glance at him, his brown eyes were blown wide with lust. “Would you like that, o goddess of war and beauty?”

It was not the first time Lily found herself speechless around Gale. She could only nod as she kissed him. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The kiss grew more passionate every second. Both of his hands were on her ass now, squeezing as he moaned into her mouth.

“I will treat you like the deity you are, darling. I will spoil you. I will worship you. I will—”

She felt his very large erection against her thigh. “Go somewhere private before someone finds us?” Lily laughed softly, pushing him away slightly.

Nodding, he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “Yes. Of course.” When his eyes opened, he took her hand. “You’re sure? I-oh. It’s your first time, isn’t it? Gods, I—” He stopped speaking as one of her clawed fingers touched his lips.

“Yes it is. Yes I want this. Yes I want you, preferably inside me sooner than later.” She smiled warmly at him. “I love you.” Leaning her head down slightly, their foreheads touched briefly.

“I love you too.” They walked back to camp in a comfortable silence. When they reached her tent, he cleared his throat. “Meet me in the same spot as last night, my sweet. I’m not making love to you on a bloody bedroll in the middle of camp. You’ll have every comfort I can conjure; I promise.”

Oh Gale. “Love, you don’t have to do anything special—”

He grinned. “At the very least, you deserve a bed. And so do I, frankly. Sleeping on the ground has done a number on my back and hips.” Bringing her hand to his lips, he pressed a kiss to it. “Seek and you shall find me…”

Lily did find him a short while later, in the same field as the previous night. But unlike the previous night, there was a giant, four-poster bed in the middle of the field. Gale leaned rather cockily against one of the posters. “And here I was thinking you’d just make a really nice tent for us.” She giggled, pulling him into a hug.

“My dear lady, dream bigger! I beg of you!” He caressed her freckled pink cheek. “After all, I’m your magic man. I can make all your fantasies become reality. I can enchant you as well as the night sky. I can create illusions that exist solely to pleasure you. I can—”

She shook her head. “Gale, I want you. I just want you. I don’t need anything else.” I mean, I could use some chocolate, but that’s another thing entirely. Running her fingers through his gray-streaked brown hair, she pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “You’re enough for me, love. Just as you are.”

He blinked. “I…A-are you quite sure, my dear? I can make this already wonderful night even more so for you. Truly magical.” It was his turn to shake his head. “You’d really have me as I am? A fat, middle-aged failure of a wizard—oh!” Grabbing his face with her hands, she kissed him soundly.

Still kissing him, she murmured, “Shut. Up. Gale. And. Fuck. Me. Senseless.” PLEASE.

“As the lady commands.” With a mischievous glint in his eyes, Gale snapped his fingers, leaving them naked and their clothes folded neatly on a blanket nearby. Of course he magicked them into little organized piles. Of course he did. The wizard drank in the sight of Lily, soulful brown eyes becoming wide. “Gods, you are gorgeous. Just look at you, my love---perfect in every way…” He breathed, hands going up and down her soft sides. “A goddess among us…how blessed am I?” As his lips touched hers, he reached for his bun and undid the tie, letting his gray-streaked locks flow. “Shall we?”

Lily lay down on the bed on her side, an arm trying to cover her breasts. “Sorry in advance if I’m not good.” She chuckled nervously, watching his expression change from playful to serious.

Now laying down and facing her, his brown eyes stared into hers. “Sweetest and dearest Lily, that won’t happen.” His lips captured hers in a slow yet passionate kiss. “I’ve done the calculations, you see, and it is mathematically impossible for you to be bad in bed, darling.”

She giggled softly, running a clawed hand down his hairy chest. “Is that so, Mr. Yummy Magic Man?” Gods, he is so hairy, and I fucking love it.

“Indeed. You cannot fail. It simply will not be. Do you know why, my beautiful flower?” Upon seeing her shake her head, he continued. “Because, no matter what, being with you in any way…in every way…will always be wonderful.” He kissed along her jaw, causing her to moan softly. “You are a goddess of passion---both on the battlefield and off.” His kisses became more frantic as he went down her neck to her chest. “To see you in a rage, wild magic positively erupting from you, as you cleave enemies like a hot knife through butter…gods,” His fingers traced along her ridges and then one of his perfect, just perfect hands began to caress one of her large breasts. “You don’t know what you do to me, my love.”

“I can imagine—oh gods, please…” She teased but then suddenly moaned as he took her other breast in his mouth.

Speak to me, sweetheart. Tell me how this feels.

Really nice. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.

Oh my love, I never plan to. I want to pleasure you. I want to worship you, sweet goddess of passion. Please give unto your humble supplicant a token of your favor.

After spending an equal amount of time worshipping her other breast, he pushed himself up and backwards. Now on his knees, Gale smiled as he nudged a pillow under Lily’s behind. “For your comfort and mine. Now, where was I? Oh yes!” He rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Time for my second supper.” He winked before diving towards the apex of her thick thighs.

Gods, you are incredible, darling. Simply incredible. Is…all this for me?

Yes. Been like this since…well, the night I tried to channel the Weave with you.

Sweetness, that was several weeks ago!!!!!! Are you telling me you’ve been suffering like this for that long?! And you didn’t say anything?!?!? You know I would’ve done something sooner had that been the case. By the gods, you will never go that long without relief ever again. Starting right now, my love.

I-I didn’t…I was really embarrassed, love.

Whatever for? It’s perfectly natural to feel sexual arousal. Goodness knows I’ve had quite a bit of it since we’ve started this journey, and well, until Elminster stabilized the orb, I couldn’t exactly do anything about it.

Are you saying that if you jacked off you might’ve set off the orb?

Yes?

Holy shit. If it weren’t so fucking serious, I’d find it really funny. I mean, it’s not funny at all. Nope.

Lily darling, many nights I felt the intense pull of desire, my loins positively aching—

She tried and failed to hold in a giggle.

You can’t just say loins and not expect me to giggle!

Poor me, my normally sweet lover teasing me when I suffered so.

Lily laughed and reached for his long locks, claws lightly scraping against his scalp.

Oh hush you! My poor handsome wizard, going to explode in another way if he didn’t touch himself.

The only exploding I wish to do, my dear, is inside you…that is, if that’s alright. I can always pull out—

No! It’s fine. I’d like that.

You’re sure?

I am…and thanks for asking. It’s weird to say, but…you know what I mean.

Her face turned hotter by the second between her embarrassment and his ministrations.

Gods Gale, where…how…did you learn to be so fucking good at this?

Plenty of practice, my beautiful flower. With practice, one perfects. I strive for perfection in all things. I would know you as well as you know yourself. Know how to make you sing so sweetly for me. Know how to draw out your pleasure until you’re screaming and begging me to give you bliss. Know how to give you all you desire.

Gale heard her pant and moan softly and felt no small modicum of pride.

Do you like this, sweetheart? Does this feel good?

Yes. Gods yes. Never felt like this ever…

Have you…have you never come before, my love?

No? I don’t think so?

Oh goodness me, well. I see. I must be perfect then. More than perfect. Universe shattering.

Wha—

“Oh gods!” She gasped as a long finger entered her.

If you think that’s wonderful, sweetness, just wait until I put a second finger inside. And a third. Must prepare you for me, after all.

W-what? Are you saying you’re as big as you were in the astral?

My dear lady, I am indeed that big.

He could not help but chuckle when he heard her gasp in as many moments.

What’s the matter? His Majesty got your tongue, Lady Lily?

You’re incredible.

Because I have a large cock, a large brain, or both?

Because you’re you, and I love you…

I love you too. So, so much.

Oh gods, that’s another finger…Gale, fucking hells…

Can you take one more? Just one more, darling.

Fuck yes, of course I can.

As the lady wishes…

His fingers curled inside her, and he felt begin to flutter around him. He sucked more and harder, his hips thrusting from his own arousal.

Gale. Gale. Gale. Oh gods. Gale love. Please. Oh gods.

Lily let out several soft pants as she came. Universe shattering. He was right on the money there.

Good to know.

Oops. Well. Yeah, that was amazing.

In turn licking her spend on his mouth and wiping his beard, he winked at her, head resting on her belly. “You should know, my sweet, I plan on doing that several times a day.”

“Is that so, love?” She traced the shell of an ear with a claw, a languid grin on her face. “Surely not after I’ve been fighting?” Oh please, he gets turned on when I’m covered in blood and guts. And Astarion said he’s always watching my ass in battle.

“I would live between your beautiful thighs if you let me.” Oh shit, he’s serious. “You are undoubtedly the sweetest I’ve ever tasted,” He heaved and positioned himself over her, one hand guiding himself to her entrance and the other next to her head. “Tell me if you’re at all uncomfortable, darling. Promise me you will.” Gale whispered, pressing a kiss beneath the base of a horn.

Her demonic purple eyes met his, and her heart melted into goo. He loves me. He really, really, really loves me. I love you too, my beautiful man. “I will.”

“Good girl. Such a good girl for me. G-good…gods…” Groaning, he stuttered as he began to slide inside her. “You are…so tight…heaven help me, Lily…my love…my goddess…my world…my everything…” It was some time (he went so slowly because he didn’t want me to experience any pain), but when he finally filled her completely, he moaned a long, drawn out, “fuck.”

Which Lily found quite funny! He’s so cute and funny and SO BIG. “Can we stay like this for a second, love?”

“Of course. Of course. As much time as you need, my love.”

Her hands that were on his shoulders moved down his soft sides. “You can be on top of me, you know. I don’t mind.”

He swallowed thickly. “I, erm…I-I worry about being too much—”

This is something we both need to get over, so I might as well have us start that little journey now. She caressed his sides and sighed. “I love you, and you’re never too much for me. Bigger, smaller…it doesn’t matter. It’s you I love. All of you.” It must be the same for me too. Mum always says I need to be kinder to myself. If I can be kind to him---the man I love---then I should at least try to be kind to me.

A noise that sounded like a choked sob emerged from him as he lowered the rest of his body onto hers. Sighing in relief, he whispered, “No one’s ever said that before.”

WHAT?! “Oh?”

“Never. Not until you….so, thank you. And before you think me a terrible lover, I, of course, think the same as you.” He pressed several kisses against her jaw. “You can never be too big for me, darling.” He said with a smile as he kissed her on her lips. OH?!?!?

One of the hands on his side traveled down to his behind, giving it a squeeze. “You can move now, Gale love.”

Rolling his hips slowly, he chuckled as he kissed her neck. “I notice you ignored that last bit, sweetness. Did that bother you?”

“No,” she said a few moments of thinking. “It doesn’t. I guess it’s just nice to know you won’t…” It’s too terrible to even say, because I know he never would. I…I…I need to know. “Leave me once I’m not swinging a sword around daily more.”

His thrusts increased in speed as she spoke. “Good gods, Lily! I would never. Never.” He grunted and did several hard thrusts. “I vow…here and now…I will…always…desire you…always…my sweet Lily…” One of his hands by her head reached towards her red curls at the apex of her thighs.

Come for me again, my love.

Gale…

Please. Please, darling. Please. I need you to come one more time for me. Just one more, sweetness.

So close…

Be a good girl and come for me…

When she cried out in pleasure a second later, Gale felt a joy he had not felt in a very long time.

Lily…my love…I…

With three more thrusts, he came. Feeling sated, truly sated, for the first time in a year, he sighed as her long arms hugged him tightly. Neither said anything for a few moments, content to stay as they were.

As Gale shifted and rolled off her, he conjured damp washcloth and began to clean her. “You feeling alright, my dear? Any soreness?” He murmured, his warm gaze meeting hers.

She shook her head. “No. Could…could I ask you something?” Don’t sound stupid. Don’t sound stupid. He hummed, and she took a deep breath. “Is it going to be like this every time?”

A small smirk tugged on his lips. “Oh darling, this is only the start. Our collective pleasure will only increase exponentially now. We can explore each other, find all the ways to please the other, give all of ourselves to the other…so no, it won’t be like this every time.” He conjured a second washcloth for himself. “It will be better.” His expression went from pleased to frankly smug as fuck. He’s so sexy. Fuck. “Would you like to hear about something I have in mind for a future lovemaking session, sweetness?”

She nodded, utterly transfixed by him.

“You sit on my face, I devour you, and your tail gives me the best…well, handjob of my life.” He scrunched his nose in the cutest way. “I suppose more accurately it’s a tailjob, but the tail is acting as a hand, so it could also be a handjob—”

Lily burst out laughing, her tail whacking him on his leg. “I get the bloody picture! Tail handjob! Got it!” She grinned widely at him. “I love you.”

He laughed softly and rolled his eyes. “I love you too.” Gale curled into Lily’s soft side and entwined one of his hands with hers.

“It sounds lovely, by the way. I’d be into doing that.” She said as her tail gently swayed back and forth. Just be very careful, Lily. Very careful.

“I’m glad.” He paused, his thumb rubbing her gently. “You may speak to me about any desires you have. You know that, yes?” Smiling, his gaze met hers. “And not simply desires, darling! Anything. Everything. I swear nothing can be too strange or outlandish for me. You wouldn’t believe—”

She giggled into the kiss that silenced him.

What I want is to cuddle with you as we sleep. We can figure out everything else later.

Right. Yes. Of course.

He ended the kiss (not a fan of that) and rolled over onto his other side, his backside now pressed against her front. “Darling, forgive me if I haven’t said this before now, but you feel incredible. How lucky am I to have bedded the goddess who walks among us mere mortals?” Her response was to giggle. “Oh, is that all you have to say, Lady Lily Wildheart? Or should I say, The Goddess of Passion?” As his voice became more dramatic, her giggles turned into laughter. “You are—”

“Totally and completely in love with you, Gale.”

He brought her hand that was on his side to his lips. “As am I, my dear. Since the moment you pulled me from that portal.” He murmured, holding her hand to his heart, over the now-silent orb. “I can never love another now that I have loved you.”

Oh fucking hells, there he goes again being so romantic and perfect and amazing and smart and funny and sexy and FUCK. “How is it you put my exact feelings into such lovely words?”

Gale stifled a yawn before answering. “Because, my dear, I’ve ready many, many, many books.”

Goodnight, my love. I shall try to dream of us and this wonderful night we shared.

One last thing…astral sex or what we just did?

Lily, both have their merits—

Gale.

Fine. Nothing can compare to eating your terribly delicious pussy. Absolutely nothing. Dying between your thighs is my preferred way to depart this world, I’ll have you know.

Gale. Love, you can die between my thighs when we’re very old. Not any time soon.

He did not answer her right away, humming softly as she drifted to sleep.

Then she heard him before it claimed her.

For you, my goddess, I will do my best to live.

#lily wildheart #lily x gale #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #gale bg3 #gale x tav #plus size tav #chubby tav #chubby gale #over 3300 words smut and dorks being dorks #tiefling tav #wild magic barbarian tav #fluff and smut

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wheelercurse · 1 year

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I have so many thoughts about byler and how their love for each other is represented by their love and wish to play d&d. They're queercoded using this game.

Playing games is used as a metaphor to their wish to be together, and not just in a platonic way. It's confirmed that Will's feelings for Mike are beyond friendship, so why would it not apply the other way around?

The hidden meaning in Mike's question was: "What did you think really that we were never get girlfriends, that we would spend the rest of our lives together?" "Yeah, I guess I did; I really did."

And in the end, we know that Mike still wants to play. That's why he looked worried when Will put his game in the donation box. Will told him they would use his when he returned if they still wanted to play. And Mike confirmed that he still wanna play, but what if he joined another party, Will told him, "not possible." Mike was worried about Will moving on, and that's impossible (so yeah, this story isn't ending with Will moving on from Mike and finding a new random love interest at the end).

Another significant mention was Hopper's letter's voiceover when he said he was missing playing board games every night. It also illustrates Mike's feelings for Will, as you can see here. Again I don't think they're using d&d as platonic feelings for one and the other romantic. And also, in a scene before that, Mike could not say ILY, and he still couldn't do it until Will pushed him.

In s4, we got more confirmation that Mike still wants to play d&d because he joined Hellfire Club. He's embracing more his nerdy side, but still, he's insecure about it because he feels like a random nerd next to El.

Mike's arc is about accepting himself for who he is, including his queerness. Trying to leave d&d behind comes from his mindset that he shouldn't be playing games because he has grown up, but also he mentions that they have girlfriends. Can you see the heteronormative perspective? He thinks he can't play games with Will for the rest of his life, aka he can't be with Will, because he has to date girls. I don't think he wanted to change to impress El. But another reason he was dating El was that he thought it was cool to date a superhero; he didn't want to be just random guy. Not that he wanted to be cool for El. It goes deeper than that because his actions are coming from his insecurities, from him not being able to accept himself for who he is (yes, he's a nerd, and he's also queer)

In s4, Will painted something d&d related to express his feelings for Mike. He's in love with him because he knows him. He describes him as this boy who leads the party and inspires them. He's the heart of their group friend and also his heart. But those feelings are still disguised. Yeah, the audience knows the truth, but inside the story, they are still a queercode to be deciphered.

And the last thing, Will also told Mike in the van that he wants to play d&d for the rest of their lives. And when he's saying that, he's being illuminated. Because that's Mike's light and his wish for the future, he wants the same thing, but he responds with an unsure "Yeah Totally," because he isn't there yet. He hasn't embraced that truth about himself. But he’s also reaching through the light, he’s almost there.

My point is that Will and Mike are gay and in love with each other. And their love has been queercoded through their favourite game because they're two big nerds. (just as the creators of the show)

#byler #byler analysis #or kinda #d&d used as a queercoding is so fucking funny and it's so on brand for the Duffer Bros #I don't have doubts because I know how to read subtext and what they're doing with their queercoding #but they aren't going to leave this in just subtext like they're bringing to text #Will's turn was in s4 #Mike is coming out in s5 congrats king <3

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pickalilywrites · 2 months

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Aruani going to see a movie on Valentines day. Modern AU fic.

writing this fic made me feel better~ thank you

things best left unplanned

aruani. college au. 2122 words.

Armin Arlert is the type to meticulously plan everything down to the last second. It’s relaxing for him to come up with a detailed itinerary that includes bullets with sub-bullets that have their own sub-bullets that have their own sub-bullets. Crossing out completed tasks gives him a surge of dopamine like no other, but he knows that it’s not the lifestyle that other people would deem normal. The way Armin operates currently leaves hardly any wiggle room for error. Of course, Armin creates different scenarios in his mind and plans out alternative schedules should the original be abandoned due to circumstances beyond his control, but there are unexpected events that can avoid his foresight completely including (but not limited to): traffic jams that span half the city and render nearly every mode of transportation useless, restaurants closing for maintenance, and unplanned power outages. For Armin, these are catastrophic events that might as well be equivalent to the whole world crumbling around him. For Annie, it’s just another day and she takes everything the world throws at her in a stride no matter how unexpected.

Although she’s very different from Armin, she doesn’t seem to mind the to-do list Armin brings to every date. She watched with amusement as he would cross out every activity they completed in their holiday-themed date to-do list even though other people would probably make fun of him. She even waits patiently for Armin if he has to pull out his alternative schedule if their original plans get derailed. She adjusts so calmly to Armin’s rigidly planned itinerary that Armin can’t believe it sometimes, especially considering how laissez faire Annie is with her own plans.

When Armin asks Annie what her plans are for the weekend or the evening, she usually just shrugs her shoulders and tells him she hasn’t decided yet. She could watch a movie or read a book, but she doesn’t tie herself down with a detailed schedule that needs to be followed to the very letter. Maybe that’s why she has such a calm demeanor, especially compared to Armin’s tightly-wound personality that is threatening to snap at the nearest unexpected inconvenience.

Armin knows that his rigid disposition is grating. Even his friends, despite their patience, can grow irritated when Armin displays his inflexibility one too many times. Armin doesn’t want his unyielding nature to wear Annie down, too. It’s a wonder she hasn’t grown tired of him already. He probably should have been more courteous towards her, especially when planning dates in the past. Heck, they had spent the entire winter going through a painstakingly planned list of holiday activities Armin had scheduled, so Armin decided to take a much less structured approach this upcoming Valentine’s Day by planning absolutely nothing besides a skeleton of an idea.

“The movies?” Annie asks, looking up at the theater that Armin has led them to. Her ungloved hand is clasped in Armin’s mittened hand as she casts her boyfriend a skeptical glance. She’s used to Armin pulling out a list by now and going over each bullet even though he memorizes everything the night before, but he’s empty-handed now. She raises an eyebrow at Armin. “What movie are we going to watch?”

Armin gives his girlfriend a strained smile. His hands are itching to reach into his pocket and pull out the schedule he didn’t make. His anxiety is spiking, his heart is racing, and he’s feeling light-headed. If he thinks about it too much, he might puke. He swallows down the bitter bile rising in his throat and says, “Oh, just whatever good is playing. Did you want to watch anything in particular?”

Annie notices his uncharacteristic behavior, but she doesn’t comment on it. Instead, she shrugs at his question and answers, “I’m good with whatever.”

The response should ease Armin’s nerves, but it only makes him feel worse. It’s not Annie’s fault. There isn’t anything that would make him feel better in his current state.

“Right, that’s great,” Armin says weakly. Hand in hand with Annie, Armin marches weakly up to the ticket booth and says, “Two tickets, please.”

The high schooler working there glances up at Armin. He has bags under his eyes like he stayed up studying for an exam. He looks so miserable that Armin almost apologizes, but before he can the high schooler yawns, asking sleepily, “What movie?”

“Er.” Armin glances up at the movies that are currently showing but is soon overwhelmed with all these titles he’s only seen in advertisements or commercial breaks on TV. “Do you have a recommendation? Anything that’s showing within the next hour or so should be fine.”

The ticket stand worker hums and types something into the computer. The computer is a dinosaur, a boxy, old model that Armin hasn’t seen since at least elementary school, and the high schooler bangs on the monitor in the hopes that this will speed up the computer. He sighs through his nose when the computer fails to give him the movie schedule and taps his fingers impatiently, giving Armin and Annie a tight-lipped, apologetic smile as they wait. After a moment, the theater employee says, “Alright. Busy day, but holidays like Valentine’s Day usually are. All our romance movies are sold out until tomorrow evening. The action, sci-fi, and drama movies are all booked, too. We do have some seats open for the animated children’s film that’s screening as well as that horror movie that just came out. Do either of those sound good to you?”

Neither of those sound good to Armin. Nothing about an animated children’s movie or a horror movie sounds remotely romantic to him, although he knows it won’t bother Annie whether they watch one or the other. He doesn’t want to leave the theater without having watched anything, though, and so he grits his teeth and asks politely for two tickets to the horror movie because he figures it would be more appropriate for people his and Annie’s age.

“Are you okay?” Annie asks, glancing at Armin. She’s holding Armin’s hand, but his grip is much tighter than it was before they had stepped into the theater. If Armin were to take his mittens off, Annie would see that his knuckles have gone completely white.

“Yep. I’m fine,” Armin says, although his answer comes out stilted and unconvincing. He tries to smile, hoping that his expression will be enough to fool his girlfriend. “I’m just excited to watch the movie.”

“You hate horror movies,” Annie points out.

“I ... I’m not opposed to watching them with you. I know you find them entertaining,” Armin says, and he gives Annie’s hand a quick squeeze. “Besides, it’s a horror movie that’s being released on Valentine’s Day. How scary can it be?”

“Hmm” is all Annie says in response. She observes Armin for a moment before squeezing his hand back. “I’ll grab some snacks for us. I’ll be right back.”

Normally, Armin would tag alongside her and insist on paying, but his nerves are absolutely wrecked and all he can do is nod numbly as Annie’s hand slips out of his and she heads towards the concession stand. She comes back shortly with a large bag of popcorn drizzled with butter and an assortment of candy.

“Ready to go?” Annie asks.

Absolutely not, Armin thinks, but he fakes a smile and nods before dragging his feet as he follows Annie into the theater.

It turns out, Armin discovers, that a horror movie released in the middle of February can be absolutely horrifying. The movie itself is shot in highly saturated colors, a stark contrast to the typical horror movies that Armin is familiar with where most of the scenes are so dark that he can hardly tell what’s going on to begin with. At least with those types of movies Armin can’t make out what’s on the screen and only the fear of the unknown can scare him. In this movie, Armin can see everything and even the most mundane scenes terrify him because the eerily vibrant colors on the screen are assaulting his corneas.

The movie starts out like any ordinary coming-of-age college movie about a film major with a seemingly normal life going about his day. It’s only the oversaturated color palette and odd shots that linger far too long on characters after they’ve finished speaking that give an indication that this isn’t an ordinary movie about a college student and self-actualization. Soon after the film major finishes a date with his girlfriend, he goes to bed and wakes up the next morning only to find out that his girlfriend has been murdered and all the clues lead to him only he has no recollection of killing her at all. As it turns out, his girlfriends have a habit of being murdered and he’s accused of murdering them each time, but nothing can ever tie him to the crime.

Armin feels queasy after the first murder. The camera focuses too long on the girl’s body, her blood spilled across her bedsheets and pooling on the hardwood floor. The bright crimson blood that fills the screen is even worse than the dull merlot that Armin is used to in gory horror scenes. As the film student descends into madness, unable to recall if he’s really at fault for all his girlfriends’ murders, Armin can feel himself spiraling further and further into a wormhole of despair. He tries to minimize his fear by watching through his lashes, squinting but not quite closing his eyes so that he can at least say he watched the movie if Annie asks, but it doesn’t work. His hands clutch at the arms of his theater seat and he finds himself descending into the darkness as the minutes tick away until it overtakes him completely.

Armin wakes with the theater lights shining in his eyes, flinching at the sudden light. “Wha’ happened?” he mumbles, sitting up in his seat. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and is horrified to find that he was drooling.

“The movie ended. And I think you passed out in the middle of it,” Annie replies. She doesn’t seem at all bothered. In her arms is a bucket that had once been filled with butter but is now being used as an impromptu trashcan to hold the empty candy packages that Annie had somehow finished by herself. Annie notices Armin’s expression of despair and humiliation and assures him, “It’s fine. You’re actually lucky that you missed most of the movie. It wasn’t that good. Not the worst horror movie I’ve seen, but it’s also not one I’d write home about.”

“Oh my god,” Armin groans, burying his face in his hand. He slips down in the faux leather seat and wills the earth to swallow him whole. He’s never been an impressive person, but he at least never wanted to look like a complete loser in front of Annie. It looks as if he’s failed today. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to bounce back from fainting during a horror movie. Annie must think he’s a complete idiot. “I’m the worst. I just wanted to be spontaneous for once, to be cool like you. I wanted to be able to go with the flow and plan things as they came up instead of being a stickler for schedules and rigid plans. I just ruined this Valentine’s date by trying to be cooler than I actually am and I -”

Annie pulls away Armin’s hands and leans over to press against a kiss against his lips. It’s enough to shut him up completely.

“Wh-what was that for?” Armin stammers. He can already feel his cheeks heat up. He can still feel Annie’s lips pressed against his and it takes all his self-restraint not to reach up and touch his fingers to where her lips once were.

“You’re cute,” Annie says. She sits back in her seat and observes her boyfriend to see if he’s calmed down. She tilts her head to the side slightly and says, “I enjoyed today even if you thought it was a complete disaster. It’s sweet that you decided to be spontaneous, but it’s not something you have to do if it makes you uncomfortable. I actually like how structured our dates usually are, and I love that you take so much time to plan everything.”

“Really?” Armin mumbles.

“Really,” Annie replies. She stands up as the credits finish rolling and holds out a hand to Armin to help pull him out of his seat. “Come on. Let’s get dinner together. I’ll take the lead.”

Knowing Annie, she doesn’t have a restaurant in mind at the moment, but she’ll be sure to find one soon enough. If Armin were in her shoes, he’d be nervously scrolling through Yelp for the suggestions and scouring by ratings, recent reviews, and distance. His palms should be itching to pull out his phone, but he feels strangely fine with Annie taking the lead.

“I look forward to it,” Armin tells her. With a smile, Armin takes Annie’s hand. He doesn’t know what she has planned, but he trusts that she’ll lead them somewhere nice by the end of the evening and somehow that’s enough.

#aruani #snk #armin arlert #annie leonhardt #college au #modern au #asks #answered #anon #anonymous #requests

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findmeabowlofundertale · 4 months

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UUUUUGGGHHHHH OKAY! PART 8.... point one. 8.1. Tumblr says I have too many text blocks so this is gonna be in two parts. hhh. 8.2 will be up shortly. [Prev] [Next]

This begins immediately following the last part. Like, immediately following.

There's a lot to say about this whole part, actually...

Firstly, that Asteri's friends have characteristics taken from my two closest friends irl, BUT!! They are NOT them. So, uh, if my irl friends ever see this, hey, just letting you guys know that for all the similarities, Asteri isn't me and these guys aren't you, so this isn't like... truly reflective of our actual friendship. I needed some conflict, and this was how it worked you with these characters I made up that borrow some traits from you guys!

Second, Asteri's got a lot going on. Just... putting that out there.

Third, one of those irl friends really does say "nonetheless" almost every time she trails off so that's in here as a speech quirk bc I think it's funny

Fourth, uhhhhhhhh I continue to have bad pacing. But too bad. I worked really hard on this so even though I know it's not great, I'm not going to be ashamed.

Fifth...... get ready for some emotional discussion. Read this when you have a lot of time, because there's a LOT, and it gets h e a v y.

OKAY HAVE FUN

- - - -

She wanted him to stay.

Comforting soup and good laughs aside, at the end of the night she was still afraid of that darkness. There was no possible way it could “get” her— she couldn’t have reached that place-between-places even if she wanted to— but it was a deeper, primal terror:

She didn’t want to be alone.

But she wouldn’t ask that of him. There wasn’t even a place for him to sleep. She, at least, could shift her magic around to fit somewhere; he was stuck being that tall. No, she wouldn’t ask him to stay, and he wouldn’t offer, but they both wondered if the other would mention it or if they should say something after all. But at the end of the night, neither did. He checked that she was alright and promised to be over at a moment’s notice if she texted him. She thanked him again for everything, and stood on her toes to tap their heads together, and failed to notice that he didn’t move away when she did, and she told him to be safe and text her when he got home. She watched him leave and waved and smiled reassuringly at him before watching him disappear with an unexpectedly silly noise and a dark blur.

And then she curled up in bed with all the lights on, tail tucked tightly around her, and stared at her phone to wait for his text. When it came through she breathed a sigh of relief and wished him goodnight, but then kept staring at the screen hoping he would say something else so she had a reason to stay awake. He wouldn’t, though, and didn’t, and so she just laid there until exhaustion forced her eyes closed.

She dreamt of the blue ceiling stars in their black rock, never moving from their places, always guiding the way home.

⁂

The next morning, she felt a lot better, but she still wished somebody were there with her. Unfortunately, of all her friends, she was the only one who didn’t live in the capital; nobody was close enough to come visit her on a whim. Even so…

She sighed and rolled over, reaching for her phone with her tail and typing out a message with a materialized hand.

Hey, good morning. Do you work today? <

It wasn’t until several minutes later that she got an answer.

> Ohayo! =^.^= (Thats good morning) no work today, just class > why? Did u get more of the japanese figured out??

Asteri sighed.

No, sorry. Not much more beyond what we worked out last time. <

> oh np > What’s up then?

Just wondering if you were busy. No worries. Have a good day at school! <

> oh… ok! Thanks!

Maybe she should try…

Are you guys busy today? Wanna hang out? <

Within moments, there was a response.

> Omg, YESSS! > Asteri! Finally! > I have today off, so we can meetup whenever

Wanna come over now? < I’ll make breakfast <

> Ough, you live so far away, though. You don’t want to meet somewhere instead? I could just do with some company. Idk if I’m up for going anywhere. I had a day yesterday. < > Omg? Are you okay?

Yeah I’m fine. Just… idk <

> That’s okay, gurl. We all get that Funk.

I appreciate it. <

> I have to help my brother with something, then I’ll come over. Maybe more like brunch? > If that’s okay??

Yeah that’s fine! I’ll make pancakes <

Sembie, you’re also welcome to come, even if it’s later <

> Unfortunately I’m busy until after that, but I’d really like to see you guys.

You can come by whenever! <

Rather than wait for them to arrive before getting started, Asteri rolled out of bed and got ready for the day so that she could get cooking. Pancakes were always a solid choice. She made whipped cream, cut up some fruit, and then prepped everything else. Once Kelinn text her that she was leaving, Asteri meant to start on the pancakes, but she had gotten distracted looking over her and Alphys’ notes on Japanese and lost track of time. Before she knew it, Kelinn was at her door.

“Ah crap,” she muttered when she heard the knock. She almost tripped over the chair in her haste to get to her feet. When she answered the door, she knew she looked frazzled but smiled hospitably anyway. “Kelinn! Hey! You’re here.”

“Yeeeaaaah!” the other woman cheered. “It me!”

Asteri blew a laugh through her nose at the wording. Together, the three of them were much more casual in their speech than she was with anyone else. With Alphys, who was still in college and therefore barely out of stripes, she wanted to look like a composed, has-her-life-together adult monster. With Gaster, a lot of her formality of speech stemmed from the fact that many of their conversations were spent on academic topics, so naturally she more easily defaulted to more formal grammar. Not that the way she behaved around either Alphys or Gaster was an act, or fake somehow. It was just different aspects of her personality.

“Come on in. I got distracted, so breakfast isn’t ready.” Asteri gave a grumbling sigh as she led her friend inside. “I had everything all prepped! And then got distracted.”

“Pfft, that’s fine.” Kelinn tossed her things on the living room couch and followed the shapeshifter to the kitchen. “It gives Sembie more time to get here.”

“That’s true,” Asteri conceded as she poured ingredients into a large bowl of flour. “There’s not much to do except mix everything and cook it, so you’re welcome just sit and do whatever.”

“Awesome.” The draconic monster had already made herself comfortable at the table anyway. “So, what’s up? You said you had a day yesterday. Or, do you not wanna talk about it until Sembie gets here? Not sure if you saw the group chat, but she said she was leaving about 10 minutes ago.”

Asteri shrugged. “We can talk more after Sembie gets here, I guess.” Sembie tended not to jump to conclusions as quickly, and helped balance Kelinn’s excitability. “Anyway, what’s been up with you? Is your brother alright? You said you had to help him with some stuff.”

Kelinn heaved a heavy, dramatic sigh. “UGGGH! Don’t even get me started.” She got started anyway. “Okay so here’s the low-down…”

Asteri listened as her friend told her about the mishaps of her brother and his kids, and that ongoing saga. The conversation eventually turned to lighter things, and by the time Asteri was finished cooking, they were busy talking about her friend’s novel that she was writing. Considering the distance from the capital and how long cooking had taken, they opted to wait a little longer to eat, until Sembie arrived.

They didn’t have to wait much longer, fortunately. When their ferret friend got there, they greeted her and ushered her to her seat so that they could eat already. It was almost noon, and all of them were hungry.

They made pleasant conversation and caught Sembie up with the goings-ons of Kelinn’s life, until eventually the conversation came back around to Asteri.

“So, see any more of the Royal Scientist?” teased Kelinn around a mouthful of pancake.

Their disbelief was getting annoying. Asteri looked her dead in the eye. “He was here last night.”

Her friend choked.

Asteri quickly clarified. “He walked me home after we got donuts.”

“Aw, that was sweet of him,” said Sembie.

“Wait, you actually believe that?” guffawed Kelinn.

“There isn’t any reason for her to lie. But nonetheless…”

Kelinn made a face. “I guess so.” She leaned her chin in her hand. “At least tell me he’s been treating you right.”

Asteri rolled her eyes. “We aren’t dating. We’re friends. But yes, he’s very kind, very considerate. Just a little absent-minded.”

“I still cannot believe you accidentally ran into him and then somehow started to just. Hang out.”

“Honestly, neither can I,” admitted Asteri around a bite of food.

Sembie spoke next. “So like, what kind of stuff do you guys do? Just talk, or do you have, you know, hobbies in common…?”

Kelinn gestured wildly until she had chewed enough to talk. “You think the Royal Scientist has time for hobbies???”

Sembie shrugged. “He’s got time to walk Asteri home on a weekday. Nonetheless…”

Kelinn narrowed her eyes and leaned her head back. “This is true…” she conceded, stroking at her chin and looking back and forth between them like she was a noir detective.

Asteri blew a laugh out her nose. “We usually go for a walk around Hotland and talk about linguistics or science, then go our separate ways home. Occasionally, we’ll go somewhere else. I’ve had him and another mutual friend, a lizard monster named Alphys, over here a few times. Yesterday, I agreed we could get donuts because he’s actually been eating real meals all week, for once. Like I've been telling him to.”

Her two friends looked at each other, then her, and giggled. “Wow, you’re really close, huh?”

She made a face. “What? No, we’re not... that close. I just…” Know that he doesn’t eat well so I make him sandwiches sometimes, and we meet up almost every week, and I told him about my insecurities growing up, and I probably know more about skeletons than almost anyone alive at this point, and he’s been to my house and destroyed my kitchen, and he showed me his SOUL, and I’ve told him about my parents, and he’s told me about his magic, and we can talk for hours and hours, and he knows I like lemon donuts best, and I know he likes the ones with sprinkles, and he saw me at my worst last night and took care of me, and…

“You take care of me too.”

She swallowed. “W-Well… I guess we have gotten a little close.”

Kelinn looked at Sembie. “We gotta meet this guy.”

“We’re not dating!! I’ve known him like, six months!”

“No,” said Sembie, more gently. “But you care about him. I’m not saying like that! But nonetheless, you do care.”

“Well… yeah. He’s my friend,” Asteri muttered into her glass of water.

“And that’s great!” Sembie encouraged. “It sounds like you guys must get along if you keep meeting up.”

“But AS your BEST friends!” Kelinn declared, “We gotta give him the what’s what!”

“The… what’s what?”

“Yeah!” She slammed her fist into her other hand with a big grin. “Gotta make sure he’s up to snuff!”

Asteri giggled. “Who even says that?”

“Us!”

“You,” corrected Sembie.

“Me! I say it!”

They all laughed.

“Well, alright. He doesn’t really like big groups, and you’re… a lot, Kelinn,” Asteri pointed out, “but I’ll ask him when he’s free to meet you. And you guys have got to update me on your schedules.”

They did so, and Asteri put a note of it in her calendar. The conversation settled, a little, and they went on to ask about other things she and Gaster had done. She didn’t mention the thing with green magic, or the teleporting, but she did tell them about some of her thoughts about speech and text magic, which they didn’t fully grasp but listened anyway because they loved her. They were always good about that.

⁂

“So why did you want company?” Kelinn asked from where she sat still at the table.

Sembie looked up from putting a plate away. “Yeah, you said you had a day yesterday, but then said you went out with Dr. Gaster yesterday…”

“Oh.” Asteri turned her head, a little farther than looked normal, to look at them while she did the dishes. “Oh, no. He- He didn’t do anything.”

Not on purpose, anyway. They wouldn’t understand, and his being able to teleport wasn’t her secret to share, so she couldn’t explain.

“Okay," Kelinn yielded, still a bit dubious. "But if he ever makes you uncomfortable—!!”

“He hasn’t,” Asteri reassured them both quickly. The SOUL thing was more that she wasn’t used to seeing someone else’s, and his ribs naturally had gaps. Yesterday it was just misunderstandings in the donut shop, she wasn’t uncomfortable uncomfortable.

“We trust you," Sembie said placatingly. "But we still want to meet him.”

“That’s fair,” Asteri conceded.

Kelinn shoved her last forkful of pancakes and whipped cream into her mouth before rising and handing the plate off to Asteri, and squinted in thought. After she finished chewing, she asked, “Hey what’s his name, anyway?”

Asteri made a face at the soap bubbles. “What? What do you mean? You know what his name is.”

“No, his first name.” Asteri looked at her, blank. She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, everyone knows he’s “Dr. W.D. Gaster.” But what’s the W.D. for??”

“I… I don’t actually know,” admitted the shapeshifter with a half shrug. “I just call him Gaster. That’s what he asked to be called.”

Sembie raised an eyebrow from where she was helping rinse and dry the dishes. “You’ve been friends with him for how long now, and you don’t know his first name?”

“A few months… and no, but listen!” Asteri frowned a little and stood straighter to explain. “Skeletons’ given names are their fonts; Whatever font they speak in naturally, that’s what their name is. And he—”

“Wait doesn’t he like, not talk?” Kelinn interrupted.

“He signs,” Asteri confirmed. “That’s what I was about to say.”

“So does he just not have a first name?? Or what??”

She huffed at her friend. “Kelinn! It’s not my business. If that was something he wanted to share, then he would.”

“But aren’t you curious?”

“Of course I’m curious,” she huffed. Her frown deepened as she looked to the dragon monster again. “But if he can’t talk, don’t you think it’d be pretty rude to ask him what he’s “supposed” to sound like??” Kelinn was silent, so she continued. “It’s a lot more than just his name. It’s an identifier, a description. I mean, no, it’s not like there was a class system based on fonts—” Besides that one exception he had never elaborated on— “and your font didn’t define your personality or anything, but…” Ugh, how to explain this! Asteri blew a frustrated breath through her nose. “Something that personal isn’t my business. If he wanted to share that, then he would! But he hasn’t, so I’m certainly not going to ask. Who, if anyone, he entrusts that piece of himself to is up to him. So for the love of God, when you meet him, please do not ask him about it.”

Both of the other women were silent at first. A few moments passed with only the sounds of silverware and plates and the splash of water. Alright, maybe she was being a little defensive on his behalf. But Kelinn was asking invasive questions! Why didn’t she ever ask normal questions??

“He can’t talk, then?” Sembie finally asked, hesitant.

Asteri shook her head. “I’m not... actually sure. He can hum, and he makes sound when he laughs, or if you startle him. Sometimes he’ll say “Ah!” or something. But he never speaks aloud, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Huh…”

More silence. This was getting ridiculous. Asteri finally gave in; she needed to lighten the mood again.

“He likes sprinkles on his donuts.”

Kelinn immediately lit up and slammed her hands on the counter as she leaned forward. “OH MY GOD, YES!! A man who knows what’s GOOD!”

“Sprinkles are great,” chuckled Sembie as she wiped off a plate and set it aside.

“I made another friend, too, you know.”

“Oh, yeah! You said you met a lizard?”

“Yeah, her name is Alphys. She’s an intern, technically, but Gaster insists she’s his “brilliant and valued assistant.”” Asteri grinned. “It’s cute. They’re really close. She’s a pretty nervous person, but the three of us get along really well because we’re all prone to going off on long tangents. But we all like to listen to each other, for the most part, so it works out. Oh! And Alphys introduced me to a… a surface language, called Japanese. We’ve been working on trying to translate it and figure out how it works. It has a completely different alphabet! It’s definitely exciting.”

“Aww, that so nice,” Sembie cooed. “But, you said she was an intern? Isn’t Dr. Gaster sort of… really old?”

Asteri shrugged and sighed in resignation. This was something she had wondered, but never had the courage to ask him directly. “I don’t even know anymore. I think skeletons must just live a long time, because he doesn’t act like an old guy. Well. For the most part.”

“Well," acquiesced the ferret, "I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

“Omg, what if he’s secretly in love with his assistant?? Forbidden romance!!” Kelinn dramatically threw her arm up and bent backwards in a pose, hand on her forehead. “Kept apart by societal norms! Languishing in mutual yearning but unable to act!!”

Asteri snorted so loudly she startled herself, and swatted a wing at her friend. “Absolutely not. They don’t have that kind of relationship at all.”

“Maybe they’re hiding it!”

Sembie and Asteri shared a look and rolled their eyes. “You just like age gaps in romance stories.”

“It’s hot!!” Asteri gave her a look. “…In like an ace way.”

“You just have a thing for older men,” Sembie needled.

“I do because they’re HOT!”

""In an ace way?””

Kelinn crossed her arms and nodded sagely. “In an ace way.”

Amused by their antics, Asteri chuckled and shook her head. “Alphys sees Gaster as more of a father-figure than a peer. They’re still friends, but it’s not the dynamic you’re thinking. Which reminds me—”

She pulled her phone out with her tail and materialized a drippy green hand to type with. She needed to ask Alphys and Gaster about meeting her friends. Frankly, the three of them were overdue to simply have a group chat, so she made them one.

Hey, hoping this goes through. I figured we might as well have a group chat. I was talking to my friends, and they would really like to meet you both. I know big groups aren’t your guys’ favorite thing, so if you’d prefer, it could just be one of them at a time? Otherwise, you we could all meet here at my place (or wherever) sometime, when it’s convenient. I’ll send you the days they said they’re free, then just let me know what works for you guys and I’ll pass it along. <

She looked back up to Kelinn and Sembie after she sent their schedules. “I asked Alphys and Gaster when they want to meet you guys and how they want to do it. I’ll let you know what they say.”

“Sure, that sounds good,” Sembie agreed. “We would just meet here?”

“Yeah. Or, I guess, if there’s someplace in the capital. Then I would be the only one who has to travel. That might be better. I’ll ask.”

“I can do whatever, just let me know!” Kelinn affirmed. “I’m closer to Hotland.”

“Cool. And Sembie, normally I would say your husband is welcome, but…”

She shook her head, entirely nonplussed. “No. No. I get it. Lots of people.”

“Thanks for understanding.”

“Sure.”

⁂

They stayed a while longer and chatted about other things, shared funny things they had seen. Kelinn insisted, at one point, that they FIGHT. They hadn’t had a friendly FIGHT in a while, after all. No major damage was dealt, and afterwards they healed each other. It took maybe a half hour, just a few turns. Kelinn’s magic reminded Asteri a little of her own, with a few key differences that were, somehow, difficult to put into words. Sembie’s patterns were more thought-out, but less flexible, and occasionally utilized orange magic. That led to Asteri excitedly informing them of what Gaster had told her about colors and personality traits, which they found interesting, but not quite on the same level as she had, she could tell.

That was reasonable, she reminded herself. They had very different jobs and interests. Their lives had all led them in very different directions since they were in school together. Perhaps if they had only met at this point in their lives, they would not have become friends, but the many years they had known each other kept them close despite their sometimes drastic differences.

When they left, it was after 4pm. Asteri bid them safe travels and promised to text more, as well as to let them know about the plans for meeting Gaster and Alphys. Just like she usually did after spending time with them, she felt simultaneously exhausted and refreshed. It could be a little frustrating, how they didn’t quite understand her work (or, in Kelinn’s case, frequently offered unprompted suggestions to show that she was interested and listening, when in reality the suggestions just threw Asteri off more often than not), but they were supportive even though they didn’t always understand, and they had always been there for her when things were difficult. Differences in interests and hobbies and jobs and personality aside, her friends would take an attack for her without a second thought, would always be up front about things, and had pulled her out of the darkest depths of her mind more than once over the years. Those things were far more important to her than any petty squabble or disagreement could be. Their friendship was formed of things beyond similar interests or opinions.

They were good friends, Asteri thought. And she… well. She could be a better friend. They were patient with her; The least she could do is be patient with them whenever they didn’t understand something or disagreed with her. But that hadn’t happened today, fortunately. They all had a nice time together.

She should work on those Japanese notes, she thought then, and turned to go back inside. She had a lot to catch up on.

⁂

> GOOD EVENING. ASTERI > I WANTED TO CHECK ON YOU. AFTER LAST NIGHT. HOW ARE YOU?

She was climbing into bed when her phone went off. When she saw who it was, she smiled.

I’m doing much better, thank you for checking in on me ^w^ <

Alphys had taught her some emoticons recently. She wondered how Gaster would react.

> AH! A “CAT MOUTH.” ALPHYS. HAS TOLD ME ABOUT THESE.

She giggled to herself.

I think it looks like my mouth when I smile, because it’s pointy like my fangs. What do you think? Does it capture it, or should I use a regular smiley? <

> I THINK IT LOOKS. JUST LIKE YOU

The typing message came up again, so she waited, but then it went away. This repeated a few times until at last he said:

> UNFORTUNATELY. THERE ARE NO SYMBOLS. ON THIS KEYBOARD. THAT RESEMBLE A SKULL. > TRULY. A TRAGEDY.

She snickered.

A tragedy indeed. How am I supposed to imagine your face? With my imagination?? < > YES. YOU MUST USE IT TO IMAGINE. ME ROLLING MY EYES. AT THAT. Oh well that’s easy enough. XD <

He didn’t respond right away, so she added:

Turn your head to the left. <

That got an almost immediate response.

> OH! > I SEE. YOU ARE LAUGHING

She shook her head, thoroughly amused.

At you, specifically. Which I am now doing even more so. <

> OH NO. MY DEAR FRIEND! LAUGHING AT MY EXPENSE? HOW EVER. COULD YOU WOUND ME SO? > I SEE. HOW IT IS.

Asteri snorted a giggle and rolled onto her stomach. Her tail swayed in amusement, legs slowly kicking in the air.

XD < Truly, your drama knows no bounds. I can just envision you packing up your things in a red cloth and tying them to the end of a stick and then slowly walking away. <

> YES. PRECISELY. IMAGINE ME. DOING JUST THAT. Darn, Gaster's gone. I guess I’ll just have to eat all this soup myself :/ < > YOU MADE MORE??

That got a real laugh out of her. She had never seen him double up punctuation before.

Ah, sorry, no. But I’ll make it again sometime. < I should have you try grape leaves. < > IF WE GO. TO SNOWDIN. WOULD YOU MAKE IT AGAIN? You remembered that, huh? You know what? Sure. If you liked it that much. < > YOUR COOKING. IS DELIGHTFUL > IT IS NICE. TO EAT FOOD COOKED BY A FRIEND. AGAIN. Aww, I’m so glad you liked it so much. ^w^ < Again?" < > I HAVE NOT HAD THAT. EXCEPT. ON RARE OCCASIONS. SINCE THE QUEEN

Asteri’s eyes practically bulged.

You knew the queen??? < > YES. I KNEW BOTH. HER AND ASGORE BEFORE. THEY WERE. THE KING AND QUEEN. > WE. WERE FRIENDS.

She rolled over and got more comfortable. This seemed like a conversation that warranted a better position.

You must have been sad when she disappeared. < > VERY MUCH SO.

Yikes, what did she even say to this?

I’m sorry, Gaster… Do you want to talk about it? < > THANK YOU. BUT. IT IS ALRIGHT. > ON. TO HAPPIER THINGS Okay… but let me know if you ever want to talk. <

It took a bit longer for him to reply this time.

> TECHNICALLY. > I NEVER TALK > DO I?

It seemed like a joke, just like the ‘technically my stomach is always empty’ one, but somehow this one felt… different.

I mean, it’s not like I mind. You know that right? <

> YES.

> I KNOW. YOU ARE KIND. LIKE THAT.

> JUST. A LITTLE JOKE

She smacked her forehead with her tail. Of course it was just a joke!! Stupid! You made it weird by calling attention to it!! She was probably just reading into it because her friends had asked about his name, and therefore his font, so the issue of him talking was on her mind. He was probably joking about never mentioning much about his past, rather than commenting on whether or not he spoke aloud.

Right. Sorry. I’m a little tired. My friends came over today. < > AH. YES. I SAW. THE MESSAGE YOU SENT TO ALPHYS. AND ME. > I WOULD LIKE. TO MEET THEM SOON Whenever you guys are free < > THE END OF NEXT MONTH. WORKS FOR ME. Perfect! I’ll let them know. Can you send that to the group chat so Alphys can see too? < > YES Great! Thanks. < Well, I’m whipped, so I’m going to sleep soon. You should too! < > VERY WELL. I WILL SEE YOU. ON FRIDAY. GOODNIGHT ASTERI. Goodnight, Gaster. See you then! <

⁂

Friday came and went, Alphys joining them that time. Then another week, and they actually met up twice: once with Alphys, once without. The fact that a mostly weekly schedule had remained over the past however six or seven months, despite everything, was impressive in Asteri’s opinion. Every week, she met up with at least Gaster (and gave him a Sandwich of Passive-Aggressive Care or two for his lunches), if not both of them, and they talked, or she made dinner (and sometimes they watched anime with Alphys), or they went somewhere else. Like occasionally they went to get donuts, and the heavyset man who always used exclamation points would greet them all enthusiastically by name. His name was Carlope, she had learned this past month, and he did in fact own the place. Alphys came over sometimes, other days, to work on Japanese with her.

It was nice. And Asteri wouldn’t trade the pleasant routine they had for anything.

- [ APPROX. 3 WEEKS AFTER THE TELEPORTATION INCIDENT ] -

> hey sorry for not responding!! ive been swamped w finals coming up x.x No worries! I completely understand. I remember how college is. I’m not THAT old haha < Well not yet anyway < > LOL > at least you aren’t as old as Dr G

Asteri rolled her eyes. He was technically old, yeah, but he sure didn’t act like it a lot of the time.

How long do skeletons even live? Maybe he’s only old from our perspective. <

Alphys started typing, then stopped. Then started again, but a minute or so later, she stopped again. Asteri watched to see if she would continue, but she didn’t. It really wasn’t her business how old he was anyway. Old, if he had fought in the war. There were a number of types of monsters who naturally lived a very long time without being functionally immortal like Boss Monsters. Shapeshifters, like herself, were one. Even if she had been born the year the war ended, she would likely still be alive today anyway, if she took care of herself. Her parents had known the surface as adolescents, after all. As it was, though, she was born around 10 years after the death of the royal children, but was still a child when her parents were killed almost 20 years later. And it had been… what? 40? Almost 50 more years since then? And she was still fairly young. Not young like Alphys, of course… but aging slowed down considerably after childhood. Gah, had it really been so long since she had lost her parents? It really had, hadn’t it?

It made her wonder just how old Asriel and Chara had been. Something like early adolescence, right? Yes, she was about that age when her parents were killed, maybe a little older. It was difficult not to think about them, after having listened to Gaster reminisce during one of their last meetings. Yes, he spoke fondly of the royal children. He had helped tutor them in areas of science and mathematics, while the queen taught them everything else. He had been, of course, wary of Chara initially, he said, but they had grown on him over the years. They were, after all, just a child, albeit a troubled one.

She was still convinced that they were the only good human.

Her phone went off. Alphys finally replied.

> yknow im pretty sure ur right

What had they been talking about again? Oh yeah, Gaster being old.

I know every type of monster ages differently. TBH he doesn’t seem that much older than me < > Oh yeah? > 🕈︎ I told you those don’t show up on my phone. < > omg right sorry > PLS let me upgrade your phone to understand unicode I don’t know what that is but sure. < What did you mean to send? < > well it was better than this emoticon but thisll have to do > >;P

Asteri’s cheeks warmed.

Oh my god Alphys. < Stop trying to set me up with Gaster, it’s not like that. <

In the many months since their ill-fated meeting at the dump (she couldn’t believe it had been almost a year), she and Gaster, and often Alphys, met up more or less once a week. These last few weeks, though, Alphys had been busy studying for finals. So it had mostly been Asteri and Gaster, which was fine. But having more time just the two of them apparently fueled the rumor mill at the lab.

> if u say so~ I’m not dignifying that with a proper response. < > lmao ok ill stop > but itd be so cute

Asteri rolled her eyes and ignored the way that the sentiment actually pleased her just a little, even if Alphys was just messing with her. It wasn’t like that! It was just because they were good friends. Hmph. She had an idea of how to put a stop to this.

If you see him as a father figure, wouldn’t pursuing him make me your step-mother-figure? < > ……… > shit.

Asteri barked out a laugh.

Aww don’t back out now. Don't worry Alphys I’d be a good mommy to you < > AJKFSMXLSASDJDKDLSJHD;SKX??!?,?!1!??!!! > ATSERI > OMFG > u CANT jsut SAY THAT > I ALMSOT CHOKED ON MY RAMEN

She grimaced, shame swelling in her gut. Too far, given the relationship Alphys had with her mother. She should apologize.

Crap. That was too far, wasn’t it? I wasn’t thinking about your situation. I’m sorry. < That was in bad taste < > wait what

I shouldn’t have made a joke about being a good mother since you don’t have a good relationship with yours. That was thoughtless of me, and I’m sorry. <

Asteri rubbed the magic of her wings together anxiously while she waited for the reply. Stupid, stupid! She should have just let the joke go and let Alphys tease her! It was all lighthearted anyway! Obviously Alphys didn’t actually think she and Gaster would be a couple… It was all in good fun. But rather than let it go, she had gotten weirdly personal about Alphys’ relationship with both Gaster and her parents. Yikes, Asteri!! Have some forethought!

> OH > omg Asteri. Don’t Even Worry About It. > That’s not. Uh. What I was screaming about

Asteri’s eyebrows pinched together in confusion.

You’re not upset? What was that reaction about then? < > uhh > nothing don’t worry about it > i um. > thought you were making a different joke What? What joke? < > omg please just pretend i didn’t say anything > ANYWAY HOW ARE YOU

Asteri rolled her eyes and let it go. She caught up with Alphys about what she had texted her about to begin with, then let her finish studying. It was awfully ambitious of her to take on finals and then agree to meet Asteri’s other friends the following week. But good for her.

Speaking of her other friends, she had another conversation to reply to.

As was frequently the case, the three of them ended up talking for an hour.

…and so the IDEA is that other monsters might be able to detect differences in the text magic of a person’s speech, even if they aren’t a skeleton! < > That’s really interesting > How would you test it, though? See, that’s where I’m stuck. <

You guys know what I’m talking about, with Temmies and stuff, right? < > I mean, sort of? > I guess I don't really pay attention to that type of stuff?? > It might be just you…? But like only bc you’re so used to looking for that sort of thing? I mean I know what you mean, but nonetheless

Asteri deflated a little. She had been trying to work out this theory for a year now. These months of knowing Gaster had given her a lot of information, but it was like she always got derailed when she meant to ask him more about this… Well, actually, it was more that she wanted to have more to show before she presented the whole theory to him. Plus, she was sidetracked working on translating Japanese as a side project with Alphys.

It wasn’t like she had much to go off of, and really Kelinn and Sembie had just given her more information by providing their perspectives. So why did it feel like such a failure that they didn’t notice it like her? Did she just want to be right that badly?

I. Guess it might be… < > I thought you asked Dr. Gaster about this kind of stuff? Skeletons naturally see text as a person speaks. He can’t give me an outside opinion < > Okay but. If nobody else has ever seen people’s words, in all the history of monsters… I’m not saying other monsters can see speech text! Just that maybe we can sense it. Or intentionally change how our speech looks < Like! He said I use interrobangs < Y’know, like this: <

[ASTERI sent a picture] <

> Like in your speech? Out loud?

Yeah. When I ask something intensely. Like if someone kicked my door down and I was like, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Apparently. < Anyway! What I’m saying is that the concept that a monster might be able to deliberately alter the subconscious parts of their speech, like unusual punctuation— as if it were written on paper, or a computer— has such INCREDIBLE potential for language! < > You said that HE said… that everyone’s speech has magic? Yeah. < > Well. Not everyone can manipulate their magic like you… Maybe it’d be easier for shapeshifters? You can change your bullets after all > Do you see what I’m saying?

Asteri wilted, the disappointment weighing on her like a stone. How had she never considered…?

Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s… never occurred to me. < I gotta give that some thought… < But that still leaves no reason for me to be able to pick up on how it sounds different. < > Maybe you’ve got a skeleton in your family!!

For some reason, the suggestion made her want to immediately end this conversation. There’s absolutely no reason for that, calm down Asteri.

No, my entire family is shapeshifters. My parents never mentioned any other kinds of monsters in our family < > Okay but like maybe there was a forbidden romance! That your parents kept secret! > The family shame!

> Two star-crossed lovers, kept apart by their families!!

Asteri’s tail flicked in further irritation against the floor. She did not like the implications of this.

Kept apart? < How would I exist, then? < > Well I’m not saying they STAYED apart There aren’t any skeletons in my family, Kelinn. <

This isn’t a romance novel < > ok but what IF There aren’t. That’s not it <

> But you can’t know for 100% > Tell me that's not cool to think about!! > Alright you two. I’m NOT saying there was some secret love child. But I mean none of us know for sure everyone who was related to us before the war… > I’m not saying that’s what the reason is. But technically you COULD have a skeleton ancestor.

Asteri clenched her jaw.

> I’m not saying you do! > But you’ve got to admit! It would explain a lot about your idea!! Okay you know what I am DONE with this conversation < Shut up shut up shut UP < Im turning my phone off just SHUT UP!! <

She needed to go for a walk. Before she threw her phone across the room or broke something.

What her friends had suggested frustrated her. She had lashed out mostly because they had made valid points, but she berated herself for being so immature about her response. That was not how a scholar reacted when confronted with evidence that contradicted their ideas. She was bitter. Ugh, but why?

Gaster had once said that bitterness was a means of coping with hurt, and in turn a sign of perseverance. Well, he hadn’t worded it quite like that. But what in the underground was she HURT about? Being wrong? No, potentially being wrong? Very mature, Asteri, wow. Fantastic.

She grumbled and kicked a rock into the river. Now she was mad at herself for being mad. Great. What a useful goddamn cycle of emotions!! She picked up another rock with her tail and threw it as hard as she could into the water with an angry shout.

“UGH!!” It wasn’t enough. She needed to burn energy, and throwing stuff wasn’t going to cut it. She glanced behind her to make sure she was alone, then summoned a flurry of bullets and let them fly at the cave wall. She did it again. And then again. Again. …She was out of patterns.

Stupid patterns, stupid bullets, stupid DAMN ASTERI! “Perseverance.” She scoffed bitterly. “Some perseverance I have!” She squeezed her eyes shut, body shaking with barely contained frustration. Subconsciously she wondered if she would shift in anger, something she hadn’t done since becoming an adult, but this felt different. For every word, she smacked her tail against whatever was closest.

“I! Can’t! Even! "Persevere!" Through! Being! WRONG!!” With every word she felt her SOUL grow tighter, her magic shuddering, coiling back like an antagonized snake, until the very end it released in what felt like a shockwave. Her eyes flew open with a gasp and she stumbled back. At first she didn’t see anything. Then, like gossamer threads, cords of violet magic caught the light. She turned. Circles, spaced haphazardly but concentrically around her, went straight outward for a few yards, then stopped. Purple magic. It was just like Gaster had told her. Magic in lines. There was no target though, no SOUL to be affected, so it looked like she had just…. cast the trap part? Now temporarily distracted from her anger by surprise, confusion, and curiosity, she leaned down and tried to touch one with her tail. It vibrated slightly, like a string on an instrument, and gave a strange, incredibly uncomfortable feeling of feedback in her SOUL. It was unpleasant in a way she couldn’t explain. So, touching them didn’t dissipate them like bullets… Oh right, bullets. She summoned a few and tried to send them somewhere above and between the cords. They flew to the lines instead like a magnet had pulled them, and careened along the circles for about the length of a turn, then fizzled out like usual. What did this even mean…? And how did she get it to go away? She was not familiar with casting anything much more advanced than fire magic; bullets were all she ever even considered attempting in FIGHTs, and she had never been particularly interested in FIGHTing. Actually, no, that was a lie. She had a time, following her parents’ murder, where she wanted nothing more than real battle training, and she put a lot of thought into bullet patterns as a means of protection. But that anger had soon enough given way to sadness— depression— and the other stages of grief. And she had moved on, at least as well as she could. Her HP had taken a major hit for a long time after, but as she had learned to cope, it had returned to a normal range for a shapeshifter, and then continued to increase as she got older and life got better. Last time she CHECKed, it was actually at an all-time high. But none of this explained her use of purple magic. And the cords were still there. She did not like how it felt to touch them, and she didn’t know what would happen if she tried to squeeze under them or move overtop of them…

She pulled out her phone and took a deep breath, then dialed a familiar number.

Surprisingly, it picked up. Instantly, she launched into rambling. “Gaster I know calling doesn’t work well for you I’m really sorry but can you come to Waterfall? Please?? I’m not by my house, I went for a walk to let some steam off, b-but I accidentally cast weird magic and I-I don’t know how to make it go away and you’re the only one I know who knows a lot about colored magic—” There was a startled noise at the other end. “Y-Yeah, um, I cast purple magic? I-I think? And I don’t know what to do, c-can you… can you help me?” She took a deep breath, knowing that babbling wasn’t going to help. Her eyes squeezed shut. “I’m really, really sorry to ask you away from work, I… I just, um.” She swallowed. “Can you, um, hum, I guess? If you can come? If not, I-I’ll figure it out…”

He hummed the same tune as when he’d calmed her down after the teleport.

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, so much. Here, let me tell you where I’m at from my house…” Less than ten minutes later, he came running around the corner. “I apologize for taking so long, I had to finish what I was working on,” he explained as soon as he caught sight of her. “What—” “Wait stop!” He froze, almost falling over mid-step. Asteri rubbed the magic of her wings together anxiously. “I don’t know what will happen if you step inside the lines. Can you see them?” She gestured to one with her tail. “They feel really weird when I touch them. I don’t know how to make them go away…” Gaster looked to where she pointed, then nodded offered a reassuring smile. “Do not worry. It should not affect me, and even if it does, the trap will do no damage on its own.” She swallowed, but nodded, and he came closer. When he reached the edge of one of the circles, he carefully stepped over it, lifting his foot high and then continuing toward her. She extended her tail toward him, which he held onto for balance once he was close enough, and with that she guided him towards her. Once he reached her, she inched backward to give him room to stand inside the innermost circle. There wasn’t much space to begin with. He put his hands on his hips and turned, surveying the surrounding magic, then nodded to himself and turned to her. “You are alright?” She nodded. “Good. Admittedly, I have not encountered purple magic since the war, so I am not completely sure how to deal with it. But!” He gave an encouraging smile. “It is very impressive that you cast this!” Looking around at the skewed, uneven lines, Asteri made a face. She still felt miserable. “Well. Thank you. It doesn’t feel very impressive.” Gaster managed to make a tutting sound and gave her an admonishing look. “Asteri, you must be kinder to yourself.” His expression softened. “What led up to this? You said that you went for a walk to “let off steam.”” At this, she turned away, embarrassed. “I had been talking to my friends, and they… said something. I don’t even know why it made me so upset. But I got angry, so I went for a walk. And then got angry at myself for being angry. Nothing was helping, though, so I just…” Her face warmed. This sounded so juvenile. “I… shot a couple bullet patterns into the wall. But... I… ran out of patterns, because I never practice. And then I got even angrier at myself. And then… this happened.” It was hard to look at him, but she had to in order to see what he said. She sighed quietly and turned her eyes back to him. “You are ashamed for feeling angry.” Yeah, nope. She wasn’t ready to look at him if he was going to psychoanalyze her. She swiveled her head away again, a persistent heat in her cheeks. The defensiveness clattered against the inside of her mouth like a rubber ball in a metal box, but she wouldn’t snap at Gaster, she wouldn’t. He had been nice enough to leave his job in the middle of the afternoon to come rescue her from her own problem.

The shame grew in her chest like a cancer. She heard him sigh, and the feeling doubled in size. This was a mistake, she just panicked, she should never have called him, even his patience had to have a limit, and this was it. This was all— “I cannot help you,” he signed with blue hands within her line of sight, “if you do not let me.” “I shouldn’t have called you, I should have just. Figured it out on my own,” she answered, too fast, too harshly, and immediately regretted that it came out like she had spat it. It felt like poison on her tongue, but her feelings were too sharp and cut into the tone of everything she tried to say. “It isn’t your problem.” (I’m sorry for pulling you away from your work.) “It’s my mess.” (I feel like I’m taking advantage of your kindness and desire for a friend.) “And I don’t need a damn therapy session.” (I’m too ashamed to tell you how I acted because if you judged me I don’t think I could bear it.) She glanced up at him, knowing that her anger at herself shot through her eyes like ice at him. He looked startled, then hurt (and god she wanted to wither away right then), then angry, and she jolted, shrinking a little. She felt herself slowly begin to melt, and it wasn’t voluntary but she didn’t try to stop it. That was it. Nobody in their right mind would put up with what she just pulled. He was mad at her. And oh, she absolutely deserved it, but it made her feel like the scum of the earth. Whatever he said next, she had coming, but knowing it was going to be the end of everything made her eyes sting. Stupid. Weak. You brought this on yourself by acting so childish, and now you have the audacity to cry? She tried to blink the feeling away and brace herself. “You,” Gaster began, and him just pointing at her almost brought her the rest of the way to tears, “are pushing me away to try to protect yourself.” ...What? “Whatever it is that happened has you so ashamed that merely mentioning the feeling immediately made you defensive.” He frowned even more. She looked away again, the sight of him angry enough to look at her like that making her melt even faster. He sighed, and she could practically hear the annoyance. Tears welled up in her eyes despite her angrily shouting at them in her head to not do that.

“Asteri.” She ignored him. “Asteri.” She turned her head away. He frowned even more and moved blue hands into her line of sight. “Asteri.” It was finger-spelled that time, he didn't even use her name sign. She squeezed her eyes shut. He couldn’t talk to her if she wasn’t looking, and that that HAD to be rude enough to make him leave. Silence, for a few seconds, then an almost-silent sigh, a strange, cartoonish sound, and a microsecond of heaviness. She opened one eye. He was gone. He was gone.

She dropped to her knees and let the tears well up as a truly pitiful little cry escaped her mouth. That started off a chain of hiccuping sobs as she held her head in her wings, and melted together like the pathetic excuse of a friend she was. This was truly ugly crying, the undignified sounds she made. “Asteri you i-i-idiot!” she bawled, “Now he’s never coming back!” She dissolved into tears, almost literally, and wept until she could finally think straighter. It felt like forever, but once she had calmed down a little, she opened her eyes and looked around. After all, she still needed to figure out what to do about the purple magic. She sniffled as she scanned the surrounding area numbly. Maybe, somehow, she could repair things with Gaster. Oh who was she kidding!? She ruined it. She would still apologize, somehow, but there was no way he would forg— “O-OH MY GOD YOU’RE STILL HERE!!!” The skeleton was standing against a far wall, on the other side of the river, but certainly still close enough to have heard and seen everything that just happened. She flattened all the way against the floor, now all but a blob, and in a brilliant move of pure, instinctual self-preservation, changed to the exact color of the ground and held perfectly still. There was that strange, objectively silly noise again, and suddenly he was standing over her. She squeaked in alarm, but then clamped her mouth shut and pretended he wasn’t there. He sighed and crouched down. His eyelights were tinged cyan blue. At least he couldn’t see where her eyes were. “Asteri, please talk to me.” When she did not, he continued. “I am not angry. I am frustrated, yes. But I am not stupid. You called me in a panic; When I got here, you were relieved. As soon as I mentioned shame, you immediately got defensive and told me to leave. I can piece together that you spoke in anger. I did not truly leave the area, because I wanted to ensure you were alright. I had a feeling that you needed to get some things out considering that me frowning at you almost brought you to tears.” Thank god she was already on the ground, because this was humiliating. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, his expression was softer. “Seeing you break into tears and berate yourself because you thought you had driven me off for good was more than enough confirmation that you did not mean anything.” He offered a tiny, awkward smile. “Frankly, though, nothing you said to me was especially cruel. I think you may be being hard on yourself because most of your anger was directed internally anyway. Even if I had not witnessed that, I would only have given you space, not abandoned your friendship.” His smile turned a little more genuine, eyes softening. “I am admittedly difficult to get rid of, unless you tell me directly. I am not good with subtext, you see.”

Suddenly he brightened, straightening, with a huge grin on his face.

“Only regular text!” He broke into laughter at his own terrible joke— it was barely even a joke, good grief— and Asteri couldn’t muffle a little huff of humor in time. He somehow brightened even more. “A laugh! Good!” She still didn’t want to say anything, though, or un-camouflage. Gaster’s excitement died down and his expressions changed to a more thoughtful one as he looked over the arrangement of purple magic. “Purple magic is trap magic,” he reminded her, though his attention was still turned to the surrounding rings. “It is also associated with perseverance. If you are angry, but feel that you should not be, the desire to persevere through something is there. It is not an ideal form of perseverance, but it is perseverance nonetheless. However…” He looked back down at her, silently noting that she was slowly returning to her normal lavender hue. “…Trap magic with no target can only do one thing.” She peered up at him through still-hidden eyes. “Purple magic, like perseverance, works best with others close to you as support. It seems that purple magic allows you to entrap what is causing you difficulty and analyze it, observe its behavior. But a good analysis needs multiple perspectives. And if your focus is internal when you use purple magic, then the only thing that will be trapped...” Asteri swallowed and found her voice. “…Is me.” Gaster smiled gently at her. “You cannot persevere through your own emotions. You will only sever yourself from others. In order to deal with them, you must ready yourself, then deal with them head-on—“ He summoned a green bone-shaped bullet and grinned hopefully— “with kindness.” She sighed, long and tired, and let her color come back, slowly reforming into something vaguely solid, though not quite her usual form. Most of her was still in a puddle on the ground. The last thing she wanted to do was look Gaster in the eye when he would look right back (because that would mean being seen, and in that moment nothing felt scarier), but she mustered the courage and met his eyes. Immediately, they lit up with a faint green, and he smiled at her with nothing short of pride. Green is absolutely the color of kindness, she thought, if someone can see me after everything and look at me like that. “There you are.” As if she were ever truly hidden, she scoffed inwardly. But just like always, he wore nothing but sincerity on his face. “It’s me,” she agreed ruefully. The worst friend ever. Making him come here, snapping at him, and then being so pathetic that she didn’t even allow him his rightful frustration, she made him put it aside to comfort her. “You do not seem particularly happy about that fact,” he observed. “I just think… you should be mad at me,” she muttered, eyes on the ground. “I think,” he began, forcing her to look up, “that you want me to be angry with you so that you can be angry at yourself.” “I’m already angry at myself!” she huffed. “Yes, because you think you deserve it,” he replied patiently. “Why should I add to it?” “Because I do! And because you didn’t- you didn’t even get to be upset, you had to come over here and coddle me!” Gaster raised a curious brow. “I had to?” Her face flushed, but she held her ground. “Y-Yeah!” He tilted his head and looked down his metaphorical nose. “I did not. I wanted to,” he corrected. “That’s… dumb,” Asteri grumbled. “I know you do not mean that you truly believe that my feelings or desires are motivated by stupidity,” Gaster signed seriously, though not harshly, “but consider what your self-hatred implies when you discredit others’ genuine desire to help you.”

Oh, his words cut deep. Deeper than any possible insult could have. It would have been so, so much easier if he had been angry. But instead, he was forcing her to confront herself.

“Why do you even want to?” she asked, the leftover defensiveness giving her words the effect of hardness but none of the impact. Like tinfoil on a cardboard box.

“Because you are my friend,” Gaster answered simply. “I care about you.”

“You shouldn’t…”

And there it was. ‘You shouldn’t.’ That was what it boiled down to, wasn’t it? That she believed, deep down, that nobody should care about her; that she did not deserve it-- not when she was like this. She should be better than this.

“Asteri.” She looked up. Gaster looked stern. She almost looked away again, but then he signed. “You are important to me. But you do not get to decide who I am allowed to care about.” Her eyes widened. “That is something no other monster decides. Only me. And no other monster can decide who you care about.”

She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “If anybody alive does not deserve to be cared about, it is me. Do you know the things I have done? I am the biggest hypocrite of all. What are kindness and patience when you have slaughtered hundreds?” He looked down. “What is integrity worth when it has been broken?”

A long moment of silence passed before he sighed and looked back to her. “I do not like to think about this, but I do not hide these facts. You knew I fought in the war, and I have not failed to mention the ways I killed. But you care about me regardless of whether I feel I deserve it, don’t you?” “I… do.” She nodded, voice growing stronger. “Y-Yes, I do.” A small smile pulled at his face. “After the things I have lived through, and the things I have done, it will take much more than a few words spoken in shame to truly upset me. You must forgive yourself. Forgiveness is not the same as saying that a course of action was right. It is merely the decision to not let it poison your relationship. I do not think that the things I have done were right. Necessary, perhaps. But not right. Despite this, I make an active effort to forgive myself.” Her eyebrows furrowed together. “An active effort?” He nodded. “It is not easy. Forgiving yourself for something must be a continuous choice, or guilt will paralyze you.” They sat there in contemplative silence once more. Gradually, Asteri returned to her form, filling back into the clothes she had melted out of, until she was all the way there once again, knees pulled up to her chest and wings and tail curled tightly around them.

“That’s a lot to think about,” she said at last, quietly. Gaster saw one of the violet circles at the edge of the magic field fizzle away. “Yes. But it is necessary.” A sigh, and a small hum, and her eyelights flitted over to him for a moment before she allowed herself to lean over and rest her head against his shoulder. “You’re a good friend, you know. Way better than I deserve.” “You are better than I deserve, but we are both here, aren’t we?” Asteri smiled, just a little. “Yeah, I guess we are.” He shifted just enough to look down at her. “Do you want to tell me what upset you enough to cause this? I think it would help.” The way she immediately tensed did not go unnoticed, so he gestured to the edge of the rings. “Look. A few have already disappeared. Talking this through is helping.” “It could just be me getting distracted…” she tried, weakly, but knew even without the look she got in return that it wouldn’t work. She heaved a heavy sigh and let her head drop back against his shoulder. “It’s so stupid. I don’t even know why I was so upset about it. And that’s part of what made me more upset.” She paused, hesitant. “I… feel really childish. It was so immature. I don’t…” Another deep breath, and she confessed: “I don’t want to tell you, because I’m afraid you’ll judge me. Even though you say you won’t. You might not act any differently but your opinion of me could still change. I don’t…” It felt like her throat was shrinking, like her voice couldn’t get any smaller. She turned her head to hide her face against his shoulder. Like a child, she berated herself. “…want you to think less of me.” Rather than answer right away, Gaster tilted his head down and tapped the side of it against the top of hers. “It is possible to disagree with a person’s choices without thinking less of them,” he signed when she turned her head again. “Yeah…” “Is it truly worse than having killed people?” Her cheeks warmed. Well when he put it like that…

She sighed in acquiescence. “My friends and I were talking about my work. They didn’t understand what I meant about being able to sense the difference in speech beyond pronunciation. It… It was a whole thing, but basically they said that maybe…” She groaned a little. This was going to sound far worse than it already was. “…Maybe I have a skeleton ancestor or something.”

She didn’t need to be looking at him to feel the eyebrow raise.

“NOT that that’s what I was upset about!” she clarified hastily. “I told them that I didn’t; all my family was other shapeshifters. Then one of them suggested that maybe, a long time ago, there was some secret… tryst or something, I don’t know. Basically that someone had been unfaithful, or there was some secret child with a skeleton or something, and I was unknowingly descended from them. Just because they didn’t understand! And- And obviously I don’t have any issues with having a skeleton family member!! But if I'm part skeleton, it would mean that… that my theory that other types of monsters can sense text magic is false.”

She faltered, for a moment, then launched back into it with the same frustration as before.

“How immature can I get‽‽ Lashing out at my friends just because they brought up a potential explanation that I didn’t like! Getting so angry that I trapped myself with purple magic— which I have never used before! Forcing you to leave whatever you were doing to come rescue me! Lashing out at you, having a literal meltdown, and then this! I’m a full-grown monster! And a scholar! What kind of scholar punches the wall when they’re disagreed with‽” Once she was finished, she slumped against Gaster again and grumbled to herself. “…You punched a wall?” “Metaphorically! With… with the bullets.” Gaster nodded. “Ah.” “To start with…” the skeleton began again after a beat, “it does seem reasonable to be upset over having your family’s integrity insulted.” “But—“ “Hold on,” he halted her. “I know you want to be angry at yourself, not be validated. But wait.” “Fine…” “From my understanding, you were irritated not only with your friends, but also the implications of what they said: that you did not discover this much about text magic on your own merits, rather that it is simply innate due to some hypothetical ancestor. Am I correct?” Asteri raised her head a little. “Yeah… I guess that is it.” A frown took hold of her expression. “But that still isn’t an excuse for getting that upset.” “The validity of emotions and their intensity is another discussion. I am not finished.” “Alright, alright.” “Your family— which is surely a sensitive topic— was casually insulted, then your accomplishments as an academic, which you have worked very hard toward, were dismissed and excused as being a mere coincidence of ancestry. Then, your feelings were brushed aside, either by your friends or your own mind, as being invalid because your friends “only” brought a new possibility to your attention. Instead of acknowledging your right to be upset, you instantly shamed yourself for having such a reaction, which only made you feel worse for being upset to begin with. Every attempt to brush off your feelings and simply push through them-- because you believe them to be a personal failing-- added to the shame you already felt. I imagine that taking a walk did not immediately remove these feelings as you had hoped, because you were not allowing them their place to be felt and then move on, rather you were feeding them to each other until they grew explosive.” Well. That would certainly explain why her magic had felt like that. But that didn’t mean she liked the fact that he was right. “It’s annoying how smart you are,” she grumbled. “Why can’t I just be angry at myself in peace?” “Because your anger was not peaceful.”

Asteri raised her head. He looked at her and continued.

“Your anger was violent toward yourself. It served no purpose, motivated no change. It was no longer anger; it was hatred.” That echoed in her like a shout off the edge of the pier. The words just kept repeating in her mind, in her SOUL. ‘Your anger was not peaceful.’ ‘Violent toward yourself.’ ‘It was hatred.’

Her eyes stung.

“I didn’t think I hated myself,” she whispered, at a loss. “I… I love myself. I love a lot of things about myself.”

“That is good,” Gaster commended her. “But I do not think that self-hatred needs to be all-encompassing to exist in a person.” “How do I stop feeling like this?” she asked the universe more than her friend. Fortunately, the universe had given her a friend to answer. “Practice.”

She turned to him with watery eyes. “Practice?” He nodded. “When you feel upset, remember that anger is not bad. Emotions are simply emotions. They are not moral indicators. The way one reacts to one’s emotions is what matters. But feeling something is not wrong, nor is it stupid.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to remember all of that when I’m upset,” she admitted.

Gaster smiled softly. “That is why it takes practice.” His attention turned to the space around them. “The circles are gone.”

So they were. She hadn’t even noticed. “Thank god,” she sighed in relief. “I’m exhausted.”

He stood and offered her a hand, which she took with her tail. “I am sure.”

Once on her feet, Asteri checked her phone to see the time. “At least I didn’t keep you too long…”

“Even if you had, the lab would not burn down without me. My followers frequently ask me to take more time off.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Your “followers”?” Gaster looked a little sheepish. “It is a joke between us. When my most trusted assistants were new, they followed me from room to room. They are always nearby, thank the stars. I would lose my head without them.”

He paused.

“Literally, come to think of it.”

That earned a chuckle from Asteri. “Oh, is one of them the guy you scared the SOUL out of?”

Gaster giggled guiltily and rubbed the back of his head. “Yes. He retrieved my head for me once I told him what room it was in, rather than try to lead my body there. He claims that carrying my skull is ‘the worst memory he has ever made in Hotland.’ I do confess that it was likely very uncomfortable to pick up a completely inert skull.”

Asteri snickered. “Did your jaw fall off?”

He perked up and pointed at her. “Surprisingly, no! Some active magic must have remained to hold it together.”

“That’s fascinating. I’m morbidly curious, but also terrified.”

Both hands braced on the sides of his head and lifted it off his neck while a blue pair of hands signed for him. “Are you sure you do not want to see?” he teased.

“Absolutely not!” she laughed, somewhat incredulous. “Put that back before you forget it somewhere.”

“I would certainly hate to teleport without it.” He set it back in place, then rolled it around on his neck to make sure it attached properly.

“Right, teleporting…”

She had given it a lot of thought since her bad experience with it. It seemed too useful and convenient to be afraid of. If he was willing, she wanted to try again.

“You teleported the short distance from here to the other side of the river in an instant.”

“Ah. That is because it is so close. However, teleporting any distance here in the underground appears almost instantaneous, although it feels like more time passes during travel.”

“How long is it in… travel… from here to my house?”

Gaster inclined his head and rubbed his chin, eye sockets squinted in thought. “30 seconds, maybe?”

Asteri rubbed her wings together, tail swaying nervously behind her. “You’ve already done so much for me today, but you mentioning teleportation reminded me: I decided... I don’t want to be afraid of it. So if you would be willing, could I come with you again, sometime? But just a short distance?”

His eyes widened slightly. “Of course! It is no trouble, really. I can take you home, if you are agreeable to trying it now.”

She nodded. “I think knowing what to expect will help.”

He held his arms out, and she fused herself into one mostly solid form, then stepped into his embrace and curled her tail and wings around him as he wrapped his arms around her. It felt good to be held, after everything, even if just like this.

“Ready?”

She swallowed and took a deep breath. It would be dark. She knew that. But he wouldn’t let go, and she would be safe.

“Ready.”

Blue, and then black, and then darkness. She shuddered, but didn’t panic this time. Gaster squeezed a hand on her back, then pulled her toward a speck of light just like before. But this time, it came towards them much, much faster, and it wasn’t even the 30 seconds he had predicted before they were stepping out of the darkness and into the tall grass.

Instantly he was facing her, hands on her shoulders while he checked her over with deep blue eyes that flashed with yellow.

“I’m okay,” she told him with a small smile, her tail coiling lightly around his forearm. He sighed in relief and visibly relaxed, eyelights fading back to their usual white. “Good.” “It isn’t so bad, I think, now that I know how dark it is.” Even the first time hadn’t actually been very long, only a few minutes, but the panic had made it feel like it lasted an eternity. “I am relieved to hear that. It is very convenient, no?” “Extremely. That was a 15 minute walk, otherwise.”

“I am never late to work, either.”

Asteri giggled. “Don’t you basically live at work?” Gaster made an indignant sound, though he wasn’t truly offended whatsoever. “I have been going home at least twice a week lately.”

She gave him a look.

“…I have extra clothes at the lab.”

“Go home tonight,” she urged. “Sleep in a real bed.” She lifted a wing to cup his head and bring him closer so that she could get a better look at him. “You’ve got bags under your eyes again, Gaster,” she admonished gently. He smiled guiltily and looked away. “I will, then, only so as not to upset you.” “I only get upset because I care,” she informed him, doing her best approximation of crossing her wings. “If you neglect your health even though other people want you to take care of yourself, isn’t that the same as me saying it’s stupid for someone to care about me?” That earned her an impressed but unhappy glare. “You are too clever for your own good.” She laughed, and he smiled at the sound, any mild annoyance that she had pinned him with his own lesson evaporating instantly.

“Thank you for cheering me up after everything.” She looked up at him and sighed softly before looking away. “I am bummed out about my theory being potentially invalid, but it wasn’t like there was any way to test it anyway. Not really.”

Gaster looked like he was going to say something, but hesitated.

She frowned slightly, eyebrows pinching together. “What?” “Your theory… is that monsters other than skeletons can sense text magic to some degree?” “Yeah,” she sighed once more, “But like I said, there’s no way to test it.”

“I have more to say on that,” he signed hesitantly, “but you are exhausted and I should return to work. May I come by later? No. Tomorrow. That would be better. Or whenever is convenient.”

Asteri blinked, a little confused, but nodded. “Of course. Tomorrow is fine. You’re welcome anytime, just so you know. That goes for Alphys as well. You can always come by, you don’t need an invitation.” “Thank you. I will see you tomorrow evening, then.” “Sure. And, uh, hey.” She smiled sideways and stood on her toes. “Thank you again, Gaster.” His smile loosened from being so uneasy, and he bent to meet her, letting their foreheads tap together. “It was no trouble. I am glad you called me.”

Nobody else she knew was familiar with colored magic like him (or could analyze it so quickly, come to think of it— he had said he didn’t know much about purple magic, and yet??) so of course she had called him. Still, she understood the sentiment behind his words: when she was in distress, she trusted him enough to turn to him for help. Indeed, how quickly they had moved on from that initial reluctance to reach out to each other. In less than a year they had grown close enough to speak so frankly with each other, to share awful things from their pasts, to see less-than-ideal sides of each other, and to have this, such casual touch.

Asteri’s eyes crinkled. “I’m glad I called you too.”

“Get some rest, my friend.”

“You too! And be safe.”

He nodded, there was a split second of blue, a microsecond of heaviness, a sound she could only think to describe as ‘doodly doodly’, and he was gone. Just like that. She blinked. That was still bizarre to witness.

She turned and went inside. That entire experience was exhausting, so she felt justified in having a bowl of ice cream instead of a meal. She needed to text her friends an apology, one that she was now more confident they would accept, but first she needed a nap.

_ _ _ _

OKAY SO UH. Tumblr said all of part 8 was too long, so this is 8.1, and 8.2 is getting edited next. So have this, and in an hour or two the next part will be up!! This also saves me from writing out the apology to her friends that I forgot to add. But listen. They have been through so much crap together. Kelinn and Sembie are gonna be a little upset, yeah, definitely, but this isn't the first time Asteri one of them has blown up at the other two. It's never fun, but none of them are the type to hold grudges, really, and they all have their own things that set them off. They're really good about communicating. What will happen here is that Asteri will text them and apologize (they probably tried to apologize after she blew up, actually, but she muted the conversation), and they'll talk about why she got upset, and she will tell them that what they said made her feel like they were discrediting her work. And then they'll discuss how to avoid this sort of thing in the future. That's how it's always gone for them. She won't bring up Gaster, or the purple magic, because she isn't about to admit she called the royal scientist and then had a meltdown in front of him. (also it would probably require explaining teleporting, which she isn't going to do.)

ANYWAY. Yeah so. Asteri's got some very internalized issues. BUT TECHNICALLY THIS CHAPTER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT GASTER WHOOPS. More of him in 8.2. So in the meantime I hope you enjoyed Asteri's emotional trainwreck and Gaster's incredible damage control.

Oh also, he wasn't actually angry at her, when she was being difficult. He was a little frustrated, obviously, but not genuinely angry. That was just what Asteri assumed because she was having A Whole Thing.

Ah, one last thing. Kelinn’s repeatedly calling certain things “hot” and then clarifying “in an ace way,” is indeed a reference to the irl friend I borrowed parts of her personality from.

OK IM OFF TO WORK ON FORMATTING PART 8.2 I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING EVERY SINGLE THOUGHT ANYONE HAS ON THIS!! (seriously you could give me a play by play of your thoughts while reading this and I would be freaking over the moon about it)

#THIS TOOK ME FIVE BILLION YEARS #AND SEVERAL HOURS JUST TO FORMAT TO TUMBLR #UGGHHH #ENJOY THIS I WORKED SUPER HARD DESPITE ITS SHORTCOMINGS #gonna eat and then do 8.2 #more Emotions are coming your way #seeker writes #⁂ fic #⁂ gaster #⁂#asteri #seeker oc #hope you enjoyed asteri accidentally and completely obliviously contributing to Alphys’s bisexual awakening #(jk im sure alphys already knows she’s bisexual)

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divinemare · 2 years

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✧*̥₊˚‧☆ﾐ 𝖉𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝖙𝖎𝖉𝖊𝖘!¡ •ଓ.°

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳ azrielxfem!oc

part one

✁・・・ there are some pains that can never be healed, and the heart it’s certainly one of them. he never thought he would see her again, he wish he never had to, but the war is coming, and sometimes a monster is needed to defeat another monster.

𓆝 𓆜 ––––———–––––———–┊⁀➷

The House of Wind was filled with an unnerving silence. None of its inhabitants uttered a word or dared to breathe aloud. The High Lord of the Night Court stared into the void, one elbow on the table resting his chin, the wheels in his head seeming to work at their maximum, trying to devise a good strategy, something, anything, that would help him save his family from the war that was coming upon them. His beloved High Lady looked at him with sorrowful eyes, to see him so concerned and to feel that tug of worry and sadness in the mating bond, twisted her own heart.

But before she could reach for his hand, Rhysand spoke, not lifting his eyes from the place at the table where he was so focused on. His voice was rough, deadly serious.

"We need her."

Feyre raised her eyebrows in confusion. "Who?" She asked down the mating bond. Rhys looked at her, his beautiful violet eyes troubled by so many feelings she couldn't place them all, even if she felt them herself. But before her mate could give her an answer, the light in the room seemed to dim eerily, as if the shadows had invaded it with an unnatural darkness. The air turned cold, a glow of rage could be felt licking its way to every corner of the room, it sent goosebumps across Mor and Feyre, but Rhys and Cassian just sighed, Amren didn't seem bothered at all.

"No," Azriel, who had been as silent as always throughout the meeting, hidden in a shadowy corner, spoke with a deadly low voice as his face struggled not to lose its forced calm. But Feyre knew that this calm was nothing more than his usual mask speaking. Anger, and something akin to resentment, were undeniably hidden behind his unreadable face.

That only made the High Lady of the Night Court ten times more curious.

Mor sighed, and looked directly into Azriel's suddenly too cold eyes. "Az, please, you know we do need-".

"No," Mor froze at his harsh tone, they all did, even Amren looked up from her fingernails at the shadow-wrapped male.

Mor did her best not to look so hurt as she sat back down next to Feyre.

"Who is this she?" The female was beginning to lose a little patients at not knowing a secret that everyone else seemed to know.

"A cruel, selfish female that we'd best keep very fucking far away," before any of those who seemed to think more coldly than the Illyrian could answer, Azriel did so between gritted teeth. Goosebumps ran down Feyre's body, she had never seen Azriel like this, so heated.

"Enough," Rhysand snapped at his friend, his face cold, so much like the High Lord of the Night Court the world feared, but still a gleam of understanding towards his friend softened his eyes a little. "Az, this war is beyond anything we had imagined or feared, we are going to need every ally we can get, and if that ally happens to be a very powerful female with an army of her own, then we will surely need her on our side."

Azriel said nothing, for a moment they all thought the spymaster was going to stop arguing, but they could well see —and sense— the fury still in him.

"She's our friend, Az," Cassian muttered hoarsely, almost as if he was hurting for whatever it was that had Azriel so angry with that mystery female, and testing the waters of his friend's anger.

"She's not my friend," no one in that room had ever heard Azriel lash out at Cassian with such anger. And the male himself seemed to realise it as soon as the words left his mouth, as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to summon his usual mask of regal calm, but found it was impossible.

Azriel was wearing every emotion on his face right now, unable to control them all and bringing them all out of the depths of his being. And he hated it, that much was evident, he hated the way the nameless female continued to affect every inch of him.

"She'll bring trouble, and we already have too much on our hands," he somehow managed to regain the necessary amount of control that allowed him to look at Rhys and not yell at him for the stupidity of this foolish actions.

"You never seemed to care much about that trouble," the High Lord tried to relieve some of the tension that hung in the air with some joking, and failed spectacularly.

Azriel's shadows stirred around him even more wildly, as if remembering things his master loathed to do so, as if responding to the internal war and all the rage he felt at the moment.

Mor rose quickly from her seat and rested a hand on Azriel's grim shoulder, giving him a faint, almost too forced smile. Then turned her head to Rhys with her hand still on the Shadowsinger’s shoulder.

"I'll send her a message right now, Mother knows how the sea wind will carry it and how long it will take for her to receive it and respond, better to have any slightest second of a head start," and immediately she hurried out of the room, she had spoken long enough for Azriel to finally settle his emotions, and in the blink of an eye, the male had disappeared, entangled in shadows and trembling emotions.

Feyre glanced at her mate once Amren and Cassian had left the room as well, now alone, it was time to trust the female with one of the best kept secrets of his court. Rhysand took a deep breath and looked into those beautiful eyes that waited patiently until he was ready to speak. He didn't say much, but what little Feyre learned that night, left her questioning how right Azriel might actually be.

𓆉｡˚ ✧

The sea wind hit her face with a salty breath, blowing the loose strands of her braided hair from side to side. She stared out at the water on the horizon, the vast ocean that had long since become her home.

"Captain, our maps don't show this city of yours, are you sure your contact isn't leading you into a trap?” An old, gruff, masculine voice drew her thoughts away from the vastness of her home, but not her eyes from it.

"Are you suggesting that I would have let myself be tricked into a trap?" She asked in a peaceful tone of voice, calm as the waters around her. And yet, the sailor froze in place and went completely pale.

"No, of course not my captain, I would never suggest such a thing."

Kallistrade stopped looking at the sea in front of her to look at the sailor with an amused smile, the almost completely white haired man who looked much older than her, yet was much younger, swallowed his anxiousness hard.

"Relax, Fuge, I've been to those lands before, and my contact is an old friend, his word is truth."

The human man bowed his head once and then turned his back on her to continue his work, Kallistrade returned to gazing at the ocean once more, letting out a faint sigh that was audible only to her and the wind. Her heart belonged firmly to the ocean now, but it had not always been so. It had once belonged to a city of starlight. Velaris had once been her home, but that had been so long ago that she had forgotten its streets, its colours, its smells. But not its people, never its people.

A call from shore rang through the ship, beckoning each and every one of its members to stop for a second and take in what lay before them, including their captain. Kallistrade held her breath for what seemed like a moment too long, and then, as the mountain and the city came into view, she felt the small tightness in her chest dissipate in a second.

"My dear Bright Nightmare," she shouted to her crew; humans, Fae and Folks alike, all of them turning their impressed gazes to their captain, a smile playing at the tip of her blood red mouth. "Welcome to Velaris, City of Starlight."

Kallistrade, or as she was better known now, Captain Devilsbane, had already been to many parts of the world, if not every inch. From the darkest places to the brightest. It was one of the things she loved most about being a pirate: one was tied to nothing and no one but one’s ship, one’s crew and the sea.

But now, as she approached the shore of her late home, she felt a strange sense of.... Nervousness? She didn't know what it was, it had been so long since she had felt this way that she had forgotten even the name of it. As her mighty, intimidating ship approached the Velaris dock, that feeling only increased.

From the short distance the Bright Nightmare was now at, she could already see their figures on the ground. Bat wings, tall frames and short frames, blond and black and brown hairs, powerful beings waiting for her. Her other family. Or at least, they once were.

A few members —those with the highest ranks— of her crew disembarked alongside her, all walking behind their captain. The sailors and merchants of the port stopped all activity, conversation or song to look at the intimidating ship and the even more intimidating female descending from it like a queen, but she did not spare a single glance at any of them, her gaze was fixed on those ahead, on the High Lord and High Lady, on the General, on the Truth Speaker, on the Angel of Death, noticing then that the Shadowsinger was nowhere to be seen. She was not at all surprised, she was well aware of the hatred the male must feel for her, so surely he would not be there to greet the one who had hurt him the most, even if she had really hoped he would.

Once she turned her eyes back to the High Lord, she crushed that feeling in her chest at the thoughts of the spymaster and forced an amused smile to her lips.

"High Lord," once in front of everyone, she merely inclined her head towards the violet-eyed male, who like her, was wearing a smile of his own. She then stared at the female next to him, and though she did not yet knew her, there was no doubt who she was. "High Lady."

"Do you not bow to your High Lord, Lady Kallistrade? Or should I call you Lady Devilsbane now?" The High Lord’s tone was that of an old friend joking.

A small spark in her chest made her smile even wider.

"My dear Rhysand, we both know I am no Court Lady, nor you my High Lord," anyone else would probably consider her words an offense towards a male as powerful as Rhysand, probably even expect punishment for her insolence, but the male wasn’t offended in the slightest, instead, he tilted his head back slightly in a genuinely amused chuckle.

"It's good to have your ass back, Kallistrade," now it was her turn to laugh.

They both hugged each other. Neither of them had realized how much they wanted that hug before it happened, and neither wiped the grins off their faces once they stopped hugging.

"You bitch! You had no right to make me miss you this much," not a second after they broke their embrace, a blonde haired female leapt into her arms, causing Kallistrade to stumble a little but again laugh and return her friend's embrace.

"Apologies for my busy captain's life," Morrigan laughed and stepped back a little so she could Kallistrade’s her face.

The last time Morrigan had seen her dear friend, she had been a thin female, with pained eyes and a consuming rage and sorrow. Now, she was confidence in all its meaning. Kallistrade was the picture of power, she carried herself in that lethal, silent manner that Mor had seen Rhys do in these centuries of being the feared High Lord of the Night Court. Her skin was now a caramel-bronze colour, surely due to centuries constantly under the sun. Her clothes, almost all leather and fine cotton of surely foreign origin in black and red, did justice to her title of pirate, and the leather hat on her head gave her an even greater sense of power. She was the captain, and she had no modesty about it.

"My turn to hug the captain," Morrigan rolled her eyes but moved so Cassian could get closer. Once the giant male was in front of her, he lifted her off the ground in a big, bone-crushing hug, Kallistrade couldn't help but laugh at the big, adult boy, and then he put her feet back down to earth. "What happened to your ponytails, you look scarier now," he quipped, taking the hat off her head and placing it on his, giving her a small bow with his head and making her smile as she took the hat off him, putting it back on and twisting a lopsided grin. "I cut them off, and thank you, that's what they all said before I cut their throats too," Cassian let out a big laugh and patted her on the shoulder as he shook his head.

"Now, now, stop it, you're making me look less scary in front of people."

"Oh, don't worry, with the pirate outfit and the big ass ship, everyone nearby has already shit their trousers," Amren said, a smile that could only come from a face so far from human on her lips, the captain turned her head towards the short female, her eyes, liquid and foreign, seemed more deadly than the last time Kallistrade saw her, if anything.

Kallistrade chuckled, but cocked her head to one side with a pleased smile. "That's good to know. And good to see you again, Amren."

"Likewise, Kallistrade."

The pirate turned her head towards the High Lady, the pretty female was looking at her with a kind smile, but holding her ground like a queen. "You must be Feyre, I've heard quite a bit about you, High Lady."

The female smiled, "And you must be Kallistrade, I'm sorry I haven't heard as much about you, as I would have liked."

"Oh, don't worry, Rhysand often likes to keep his best treats a secret," she spoke not with any sense of hurt, but rather with warm amusement.

Rhys smiled showing his white teeth, Feyre was certainly surprised at how at ease, how familiar he seemed to be with this female, and how the female that had previously looked so untouchable, so deadly to even approach, was now smiling at her mate with such warmth, it was almost as if they were brother and sister reuniting after a long time.

"You are no treat, my dear Lis, you are a friend."

"And you haven't changed a bit, have you?" The female raised an eyebrow, the movement, combined with that smirk, left a cruel impression, and Feyre thought again that perhaps, what Azriel had said wasn't entirely wrong.

Kallistrade did look positively cruel and evil. Luckily for her, almost everyone around her also had that look, she did not shudder at the sight of the cruel looking captain, but became even more curious about this powerful and mysterious pirate. Feyre had never met a pirate before, but she had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't half as powerful and scary as this female was. She stood up confidently, and the High Lady glanced at her companions. The way they held each other promised nothing but violence, death by the swipe of the blades sticking out of the hilt of their hips, if anyone dared to do more than look at their captain the wrong way, and she was also certain that if Kallistrade hadn't probably told them they were friends, they would have long since tried to slit her mates' throat.

As if confirming what Kallistrade had said, Rhys mimicked that dangerous smirk. "Have I had a chance to tell you how radiant you look today? Of course, the sea looks wonderful on you.

Kallistrade laughed, lifting her head. "Idiot."

Then Kallistrade’s eyes stopped on a new and foreign face. A smile curved her lips again, amused at the sight of the female that radiated danger and death. "And you must be one of the sisters. Let me guess; you're the one who threatened the King of Hybern and broke the motherfucking Cauldron."

"It’s Nesta, Devilsbane."

Kallistrade raised an eyebrow and took a step closer to the female. She felt everyone around her stiffen, even noticed the new paleness on Cassian's golden-brown face.

"Only my enemies call me Devilsbane. Are you my enemy, Nesta Archeron?"

Nesta only raised her head further, her neck large and regal, Kallistrade remembered the years when she had to use the same method to try and defend herself, only for her, it never really worked, Nesta would do it in such a way that it seemed illegal to ignore it, but, after all, pirates aren't known for their followership.

"I think that depends on you, Devilsbane," a moment of silence in which everyone stiffened. Nervous of any next move that might happen.

Rhys looked carefully at Cassian so that he knew what to do in case of anything. The male already knew perfectly well, he'd already moved a few inches closer to Nesta. But then, Kallistrade burst out laughing, so randomly that it surprised everyone around her, but certainly being a more pleasant reaction than what they feared could have been taken as an insult.

"You and I are going to be great friends, Nesta Archeron," she smiled devilishly, a smile full of mischief and slightly wicked.

"We shall see, Kallistrade," the other female replied. Everyone else was a little uneasy about what to expect from both females.

"Very well then, shall we move forward, Captain?" Rhys stepped forward, sketching his best smile, to which Kallistrade responded with a nod.

“Lead the way, High Lord."

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the-chipped-cup-awards · 1 year

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Full List of 2023 Chipped Cup Award Winners

And so we reach the end of the first annual Chipped Cup Awards for 2023. Thank you to all of the creators in the Rumbelle fandom, not just those who were nominees and winners of this year’s awards. Without you, Rumbelle would not exist, and every single one of you, creators, nominees and of course our winners deserve recognition, and many congratulations.

Newbie Spotlight

Shout out to the following Rumbellers who are among our new creators this year

@serenalyon @chick-with-wifi @somethingcleverbutinswedish @boopsterliv @kaylahastoomanyships @tickletorso @personinthepalace @poorobscureplainandlittle

Fic/Art Shoutouts

The following are some of the works recommended by members of our Rumbelle community.

Neverland, by @emospritelet

Always One More Time, by @bad-faery

Need A Lift, by Bar_Purple

Alone In My Tower, by Crysania

For a Good Cause, by @rowofstars

On the Shores of Loch Katrine, by @phoenixtalon

Forbidden Loves and Stormy Nights (multiple authors)

The Rose, by Kayla L https://youtu.be/3jxBT2ctWUo

The Sounding Sea, by @mareyshelley

There But By the Grace of God, by Shepherd23

Sinners and Spinners, by marchionessofblackadder

Stolen, by @thestraggletag

In the Blood, by Megara Bee

Me and Mine, by wandering_gypsy_feet

Finally, under the cut, please find the full list of this year’s Chipped Cup Award winners.

Fluff: Family - To Drive the Dark Away by @bibliosauruswrecks

Fluff: Comfort - The Dark One Doesn’t Get Sick, by @shadowedoracle

Fluff: Reunion - The Other Fork in the Path, by @jackabelle73

Smut: Kink/BDSM - So You Want to Build a Sex Room, by @peacehopeandrats

Smut: Romance - Come Together, by thatravenclawbitch

Smut: Best First Time - Red Lights by, @rufeepeach

Smut: PWP - Rack ‘Em Up, by @eirian-houpe

Angst: Death - In the Shadow of Others, by @peacehopeandrats

Angst: Hurts So Good - Beyond the Door, by @jackabelle73

Angst: Misunderstanding - Our Way to Fall, by @nerdrumple

Romance: Best Date (Overall) - The Worst Date, by @jackabelle73

Romance: Best Courtship - One Thing Forever True, by @deliriumsdelight7

Romance: Best First Meeting - Click, by @jackabelle73

General: Best One-Shot - The Gold Fleece, by @eirian-houpe

General: Best Series - Precious Moments, by @jackabelle73

General: Best Novel Length - Witness Protection, by @eirian-houpe

General: Best Short Fic - Rain, Ruin, Roses, by @kelyon

General: Best Holiday-Centric - Comfort and Joy, by @emospritelet

General: Best Remix -Those We Left Behind, by @peacehopeandrats

General: Best Crossover - The City that Never Sleeps, by @peacehopeandrats

General: Best Dark Castle - An Unconventional Gift, by @shadowedoracle

General: Best Storybrooke - Beauty and the Beast, by @peacehopeandrats

General: Best “Missing Years”- An Unexplored Realm, by @jackabelle73

Special: Best Golden Lace - Hot Cocoa and Stolen Kisses, by @kelyon

Special: Best Woven Lace - One Word, Many Meanings, by @peacehopeandrats

Special: Best Woven Beauty - Prima, by @eirian-houpe

Special: Best Afterlife Fic - Morning, by @peacehopeandrats

Special: Best Drama - The Monster in the Storm, by @peacehopeandrats

Special: Best Supernatural/Sci-fi/Horror - Live Wire, by @kelyon

Special: Best Comedy - The Rare Book Crisis, by @tickletorso

Special: Best AU - Original - Rain, Ruin, Roses, by @kelyon

Special: Best AU - Based On Other Media - A Full Imagination, by @peacehopeandrats

Special: Best Creature - In the Moonlight Deep, by @jackabelle73

Special: Best Unexpected Twist - Inheritance, by @eirian-houpe

Special:Best Trope - Love and Happiness, by @jackabelle73

Events: Best Secret Santa - The Best of the Season, by @lotus0kid

Character: Best Belle - Love and Happiness, by @jackabelle73

Character: Best Dark One!Belle - Dark Mistress, by @kelyon

Character - Best Lacey - Hot Cocoa and Stolen Kisses, by @kelyon

Character: Best Spinner!Rumple - Dark Mistress, by @kelyon

Character: Best Dark One Rumple - Inheritance, by @eirian-houpe

Character: Best Mr. Gold - Received, by @peacehopeandrats

Character: Best Detective Weaver - Doppelgänger, by @celticheartedfangirl

Character: Best Baelfire/Neal - Welcome to Storybrooke, by @peacehopeandrats

Character: Best Gideon - The Visitor, by @jackabelle73

Character: Best (Worst) Villain - One Thing Forever True, by @deliriumsdelight7

Art: Best Graphic Art - If Alternate Universes Exist, by @jackabelle73

Art: Best AU in Art - Rumbelle EF AU, by @serenalyon

Art: Best Fluff Art - Rumbelle x Cockblock Brigade, by @serenalyon

Art: Best Angsty Art - You Can Hate Me If That Helps, by @serenalyon

Art: Best Video- Dance Me to the End of Love, by @jackabelle73

Superlative: Best New Artist - @serenalyon

Superlative: Best Author - @eirian-houpe

Superlative: Best New Author - @serenalyon

Superlative Best Rumbelle Fic - In All Things, by @rowofstars

Superlative: Best Anyelle Fic - Manifesto, by @emospritelet

Rumbelle Lifetime Achievement Award is @deliriumsdelight7

#cca 2023 #chipped cup awards #award ceremony #winner 2023

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reallygroovyninja · 7 months

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Friday the 13th Tradition

The wind howled outside, causing the trees to groan and sway ominously. Inside a secluded cabin nestled deep within the woods, Clarke stoked the fire, casting flickering shadows against the wooden walls. The warmth was a stark contrast to the cold chill that had descended outside, amplified by the date's ominous significance: Friday the 13th.

Lexa leaned against the doorway; her silhouette framed by the dimming twilight. "You know, they say this forest is haunted, especially on nights like these," she teased with a smirk, stepping inside and shedding her wet coat.

Clarke rolled her eyes. "Don't start with those stories, Lexa. It's just a regular day."

Pouring hot cocoa into two mugs, Lexa handed one to Clarke. "You don't believe in ghost stories? Even when we're in the middle of the woods, on the unluckiest day of the year?"

Clarke sipped her drink, feeling the warmth spread through her. "I believe in what I see. Ghosts aren't real."

Lexa moved closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "They say that a century ago, two lovers took refuge in this very cabin, running away from the world that sought to keep them apart. They promised to return every Friday the 13th to relive their stolen moments."

The wind shrieked, causing the windows to rattle. Clarke shot Lexa an annoyed look. "Nice try. But I'm not scared."

Lexa chuckled, sitting down beside her. "I just thought it'd be fun to add a little thrill to our getaway."

"You really believe in all this, don't you?" Clarke finally asked, her tone light yet inquisitive.

Lexa shrugged, her gaze distant, "The woods hold many secrets. Who am I to dismiss them?"

Clarke chuckled softly, taking a sip of her cocoa. "I've always been more grounded, I guess. While these stories are captivating, I can't say I've ever believed in ghosts or spirits."

Lexa turned to her, a teasing smirk on her lips. "Not even a little?"

Clarke laughed, "Not even a little. The world is filled with so many tangible mysteries, so many things we can see and touch. I guess I've never found the need to look beyond that."

Lexa leaned in, her voice playful, "So, if I were to say there might be spirits watching us right now, you wouldn't be the slightest bit nervous?"

Clarke met Lexa's gaze, her confidence unwavering, "Not in the slightest. Though I'd be more concerned about the living watching us than the dead."

The two shared a laugh, finding comfort in their differences and the gentle teasing that came with it.

The wind outside had picked up its pace, and the rhythmic drumming of raindrops against the cabin windows added a cozy ambiance to the room. As the tales and laughter waned, a comforting silence enveloped the cabin, broken only by the occasional pop and hiss of the fire.

Lexa stretched, grabbing a plush blanket from the armrest. "It's getting chilly," she noted, her eyes meeting Clarke's.

Clarke nodded, scooting closer. "Share with me?"

Without a word, Lexa spread the blanket open, allowing Clarke to slide under it before wrapping it around them both. Their shoulders touched, and a rush of warmth spread between them, a warmth that had little to do with the blanket or the fire.

Lexa's fingers found Clarke's, intertwining them naturally. Their gazes locked for a moment, and there was a world of emotion in that fleeting connection – comfort, trust, and an intimacy that went beyond words.

Clarke rested her head on Lexa's shoulder, listening to the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. "This," she murmured, "is perfect."

Lexa hummed in agreement, her free hand reaching up to brush a stray strand of hair from Clarke's face. "Moments like these make me cherish the simple things in life."

The soft glow from the fireplace danced upon their faces, casting the room in a warm orange hue. Outside, the storm raged on, but inside the cabin, all was calm. Time seemed to slow as the two women snuggled closer, lost in their shared warmth and the serenity of each other's company.

The world outside faded, its significance dwindling in the face of the simple, beautiful moment they shared. The storm, the legends of the forest, the weight of the world – all of it was momentarily forgotten.

As the minutes passed and the warmth of their closeness intensified, Lexa found herself drawn inexplicably to Clarke. The soft glow from the fire played upon Clarke's face, highlighting the gentle curve of her lips and the way her eyelashes cast delicate shadows on her cheeks.

Unable to resist, Lexa slowly leaned in, her eyes searching Clarke's for any sign of hesitation. But Clarke's gaze was steady, an unspoken invitation in her cerulean eyes. Closing the gap, Lexa pressed her lips gently to Clarke's.

It was a soft, lingering kiss, filled with the promise of unspoken words and shared emotions. The world seemed to pause, and in that moment, nothing else mattered but the tender connection they shared.

The initial brush of their lips was hesitant, a fleeting touch that held the promise of more. Clarke's hand found its way to the nape of Lexa's neck, drawing her in, while Lexa's fingers gently caressed Clarke's jawline.

Their breaths mingled, and what began as a gentle exploration soon deepened into a more intense embrace. Their lips moved in harmony, each kiss revealing layers of pent-up emotions and longing. The world around them blurred, and in that instant, all that mattered was the profound connection they were forging, one kiss at a time.

Their bodies leaned into each other, the warmth of their closeness intensifying with every passing second. The cabin seemed to fade away, and they were lost in a realm of their own making. The crackling fire provided a symphony of background noise, complementing the symphony of their intertwined souls.

Time became irrelevant as they explored each other's lips, savoring the taste and texture, their kisses growing bolder and more passionate. Their hearts beat in sync, a rhythm of desire and longing that echoed through the room.

Lexa's hands ventured along Clarke's side, tracing the curves and contours, igniting a trail of electric sparks that danced across Clarke's skin. Clarke responded with a soft moan, her fingers gently tangling in Lexa's hair, pulling her closer, deepening their connection.

Their bodies pressed against each other, aching to be closer, to merge into one. The boundaries between them dissolved, and they reveled in the intoxicating sensation of their entwined beings. Their kisses became a language of their own, speaking volumes of love, passion, and an unspoken promise for the future.

Lost in the moment, they surrendered themselves to the power of their desires. The world outside ceased to exist as they explored the depths of their love, their bodies entangled in a dance as old as time itself. Each touch, each caress was an affirmation of their affection, a testament to the unbreakable bond they shared.

The storm outside continued to rage, but within the confines of the cabin, there was nothing but tranquility and the all-encompassing love that enveloped them. The fire crackled and popped, mirroring the intensity of their passion, while the raindrops on the windows provided a gentle backdrop to their symphony of love.

They kissed with a fervor, their bodies moving in perfect harmony, a testament to the profound connection they had forged. Time flew by unnoticed, and the world could have crumbled around them, but as long as they had each other, they were invincible.

Eventually, they pulled apart, their breaths mingling, foreheads resting against each other. Their eyes met, and in that shared gaze, they found solace, understanding, and a love that consumed them. No words were needed; their love spoke volumes.

They remained locked in each other's arms, cherishing the afterglow of their union. The storm outside had lost its power, its fury reduced to a distant memory. In the warmth of their embrace, they found sanctuary, a safe haven where their love could thrive.

Wrapped in the cozy blanket, Clarke and Lexa remained entwined, basking in the glow of the fire and the love that burned within their hearts. The world could wait; for now, they were content to exist in this moment of bliss, where their love flourished, unburdened by the outside world.

As they basked in the warmth of their embrace, Clarke couldn't resist teasing Lexa about the tale she had shared earlier. With a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, Clarke playfully nudged Lexa's side and quipped, "You know, Lexa, if we keep coming back to this cabin every Friday the 13th, people might start thinking we're the modern-day version of those star-crossed lovers." She couldn't help but giggle at the absurdity of it all, but deep down, a part of her secretly cherished the idea of creating their own magical tradition in this secluded haven.

Lexa's eyes sparkled with a mixture of amusement and affection as she gazed at Clarke. She leaned in, her voice laced with playful sincerity, and whispered, "Well, if that's the case, Clarke, I can't think of a more enchanting fate. To create our own story, to defy the odds, and to return to this cabin, year after year, reliving our stolen moments on Friday the 13th. It would be a tradition forged in love and defiance, just like those legendary lovers of old." Her words hung in the air, carrying a sense of possibility and a touch of daring, as if they were embarking on an adventure of their own making.

Clarke gazed into Lexa's eyes, seeing the sincerity behind her playful words. A smile tugged at her lips as she imagined them returning here year after year, building a lifetime of memories in this cozy cabin.

"You know what?" Clarke murmured, "I think I like the sound of that."

Lexa raised an eyebrow, pleasantly surprised. "You do?"

Clarke nodded, snuggling even closer against Lexa's warm body. "I didn't believe in ghosts or fate before tonight. But being here with you, it feels magical somehow."

She glanced around the cabin, the firelight dancing across the walls. "It's like this place was waiting for us, like it exists just for you and me. Our own private world away from everything else."

Lexa smiled, understanding exactly how Clarke felt. In this cabin, surrounded by the storm outside, it was easy to believe they were the only two people in existence.

"Then it's settled," Lexa said softly. "This will be our tradition, our retreat from the world. Just you and me."

Clarke tilted her head up, meeting Lexa's lips in a slow, tender kiss. When they eventually parted, breathless, Clarke whispered, "I love you, Lexa."

It was the first time either had uttered those precious words. Lexa's eyes shone, her heart swelling with emotion.

"I love you too, Clarke. So much."

They held each other close as the fire slowly dimmed, cocooned in their own private world. The past and future faded away; there was only this moment.

Eventually, they fell asleep in each other's arms, still embraced. The storm outside had long settled, giving way to a clear night sky. A blanket of stars shone down on the isolated cabin in the woods, standing as it had for over a century, keeping watch over the timeless love within its walls.

#just a short story I wrote this evening #trying to get some creativity going #it won't be winning any awards #my stories

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asterhaze · 1 year

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Get to Know My OC

As always, thank you @doublegoblin for the tag.

Honestly, I love this OC and I really need you all to love him too. So here is more stupid sexy vampire (Aka Glen) nonsense from my WIP Masterpiece.

Are you named after anyone?

Well, I'm not sure. I suppose sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not. More often, I think I'm named similarly to someone I made someone think of. So, in a way, I probably am sometimes.

When was the last time you cried?

Being a vampire comes with so many benefits. I have watched nature be slowly chewed into towers of concrete and steel. I have watched as artificial light stole the night sky and swallowed the stars. I am stronger than any living man, yet I am helpless to stop the tarnished hands of humanity from strangling the life out of our planet. I have seen humanity gaze at the stars with every plan to abandon our home for worlds that we may never be able to reach in time. I see all of this with unchanging eyes, an ageless body, and a mind that will never mature beyond 25.

So on my birthday when I glanced at my reflection in still water and saw that I look the same as I did a few centuries ago, with no wrinkles to prove my worries or lines to show my fear, I cried. Because I'm so, so, so damn pretty.

I cried because I'm still pretty.

Do you use sarcasm?

Me? Never.

Do you have kids?

It's a possibility.

What's the first thing you notice about people?

I'm supposed to notice the same thing consistently? Well, that sounds awfully boring. Is there something you notice first about everyone you see? Is it because you're looking for that one thing every time, always first, then deciding the rest later based on that? Are you obsessed with eyeballs or something? Or hair color? Or hands?

What if you always notice eyeballs and then find someone who doesn't have any? Does that throw you off guard? Does that ruin your whole viewing experience? Does--

What's your eye color?

Navy blue.

Scary movies or happy endings?

I don't watch television, so happy endings.

Any special talents?

All talents become professions with practice. I've lived a long time and I've practiced many things. So, no. I wouldn't say I do.

Where were you born?

You wouldn't believe me if I told you.

What are your hobbies?

I read whenever I can.

Have you any pets?

No.

What sports do you play/have played?

Well, you see, I wait for a while until I think there will be a thunderstorm. Then I go outside with a small team, a few baseball bats, and-- I can't say that? I can't make jokes?

Fine.

No, I don't play sports.

Favorite subject in school?

Oh, sweetheart. I mean...to answer as closely to the question as possible without rambling...I'd say art.

Dream job?

I've never really sat down and thought about it. In my human years I just did what I had to. There was no aimless dreaming for things that I couldn't achieve. I just did and hoped for the best. Now I'm dead and money isn't an issue. But being unemployed with enough money to survive the rest of your life is a dream for a lot of people, so maybe that should be mine too.

#writeblr #writing #writers of tumblr #writers #writerblr #write #writblr #writing community #seriously feel free to tag me #ocs #writing ocs #writing tag game #tag games #tag game #tag #vampire oc #what a stupid name for a vampire

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razieltwelve · 2 years

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Conversation (Final Rose)

Weiss shifted her hold on Luna slightly as the baby girl cooed and made another attempt to grab her hair. The baby seemed to be absolutely fascinated by the contrasts between their hair, from Weiss’s pale tresses, to Ruby’s darker locks, and Penny’s vibrant red hair.

“Are you talking to the refrigerator again?” Weiss asked, lips curved up in amusement. “Because I’m told he’s a bit of a curmudgeon.”

Penny’s attention shifted from the refrigerator. “I was just checking that we aren’t running low on anything.” She patted the refrigerator. “And I’m afraid that the refrigerator doesn’t really have much of a personality.”

“Oh?” Weiss settled down on one of the stools. Luna finally succeeded in grabbing some of her hair, and she eased it out of the girl’s grasp.

“Yes.” Penny sat down next to Weiss and leaned over Luna. The baby’s eyes immediately shifted to her. “Developing a personality requires a certain level of... technical sophistication. The refrigerator does have some processors built into it, but not nearly enough to allow for anything approaching true sentience.” She grinned. “After all, we have a normal refrigerator. Things at the professor’s house tend to be more... advanced.”

“Like the lawnmower?” Weiss asked. Like many of the people in their circle of friends, she had encountered the infamous lawnmower. He’d sprayed her with a hose after she’d stepped onto the freshly cut grass instead of staying on the path.

“Precisely.” Penny raised one hand, and strands of light appeared, a holographic projection of the link she had to every available device in their home. “One of the gifts I have is the ability to interface wirelessly with other devices. My father and the professor saw fit to give me priority access to the InfoNet, so I can subvert almost any device that is connected to it.” She chuckled and dismissed the hologram. “Although in our house that usually just means I can make sure we’re not running out of milk.”

“That is quite handy,” Weiss pointed out. In her arms, Luna had settled. The baby was surprisingly easy-going despite how active she could be at times. “Does that mean you can tell where Ruby is?”

“I can.” Penny gestured again, and another holographic display appeared. “Ruby’s location is logged via her scroll. For obvious reasons, that information is heavily classified on a need-to-know basis to prevent her being targeted by potential hostiles. In fact, that information is kept specifically on the professor’s servers, so it is, for all intents, impossible for anyone to access without permission. Thankfully, I have permission.”

“You can’t hack the professor’s servers?” Weiss asked, surprised.

“No.” Penny shook her head. “The professor’s servers are protected by multiple layers of security including defensive artificial intelligences. She, Diana, and Raine are kept aware of possible intrusions at all times. I might, at best, penetrate the outer layer of security, but reaching any important information would be beyond even me.” The holographic display shifted, showing a map and zooming in on a particular location. “However, I do have access to Ruby’s location. I asked for it some years ago and was granted access following approval from both the professor and Ruby herself.”

“You’ve never really mentioned you could do that,” Weiss murmured.

“It was rarely necessary.” Penny smiled. “We have been fortunate. Ruby has rarely been injured in the line of duty, and her most dangerous missions have often been undertaken with people that we know personally.”

“True.” Weiss watched the glowing red dot that symbolised Ruby for a moment longer before Penny dismissed the projection. “Thank you again for being the one who gets up to handle Luna at night.”

Penny stood and wrapped her arms around Weiss. “You are most welcome, but it is no trouble. Penny is my child too, as you have said many times, and unlike you and Ruby, I do not need sleep in the conventional sense.” She shrugged. “True, a certain level of rest is beneficial, but I do not need nearly as much rest as a standard human or Faunus. It makes perfect sense for me to tend to her at night.” She smiled gently. “Besides, there is a part of me that enjoys that time alone with Luna. Perhaps I am selfish, but I treasure those moments, even if she is asleep for much of it.”

“I know exactly how you feel,” Weiss replied. “I... I didn’t know if I would ever be a mother. My own childhood was not... ideal.” Penny stiffened minutely, and Weiss pressed her cheek against her arm. Those old hurts had scarred over, but Penny had - and likely always would - feel enraged on her behalf. “But when Luna was born... I just... I loved her from the moment I laid eyes on her. I want to protect her from anything that might harm her. I want her to go through life with a smile on her face without ever worrying about what the future may bring. I asked Uncle Snow about it, and he says he felt exactly the same way when he saw Claire.”

“The professor said much the same thing about her own children, and my father has talked at length about his feels regarding being a father.” Penny nodded. “You know, I was worried that it might be a wholly biological phenomenon, that I might not feel the same. But when I saw Luna for the first time, I too understood the feelings that you speak of.”

Weiss stood. “We should head up to bed. I only came down here because Luna likes to go for a bit of a walk before she sleeps and for some reason she finds it soothing to be in the kitchen.”

“I would guess that the hum of the appliances pleases her,” Penny replied. “My father mentioned that my sisters often liked to be in the laundry room before they slept. They enjoyed the sound of the tumble drier.”

“Is that so? I’ll have to see if that works for Luna too.”

#final rose #fanfiction #weiss schnee #penny polendina #luna

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dailyaudiobiblechronological · 2 years

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5/31/2022 DAB Chronological Transcription

1 Kings 3-4, 2 Chronicles 1, Psalm 72

Welcome to Daily Audio Bible Chronological, I'm Jill. Today's the 31st day of May. It's the last day of this month that was probably busy for a lot of you. It seems like lots of endings closings, coming to an end, school's getting finished up. Teachers are just looking for the little speck of light at the end of the tunnel. And it's exciting as we close out one month and look forward to the brand new beginning of newness. Once again. Today we are reading First Kings, chapters three and four. And then we'll jump over to Second Chronicles, read chapter one. And then we'll end today with Psalm 72. This week we're reading the New Living Translation. By the way, I'm Jill. I don't know if I said that, maybe I did, but it's such a joy to be here with you this week as we read through the Bible together as my daughter China takes a little rest. First Kings, chapter three.

Commentary

So we immediately today see the distinction of Solomon as King. And we know that Solomon prayed for wisdom. He asked God for wisdom. And wisdom is a really fascinating thing in the Bible. It is present at the very beginning of creation. And the Bible refers to wisdom as she. And then it sort of gets buried like buried treasure in the word where if you're not looking for it, you really have to kind of dig to find it. It is just not something that we tend to gravitate toward. And I think it's because we are in a time in our life where we have more information available to us than we have ever had. And let's not be confused, information is not the same as wisdom. Wisdom is a category all its own. Information gives you the facts. And so often we as people find the facts that already align with our beliefs to just solidify those beliefs. And then we keep solidifying, solidifying, solidifying. And the line in the sand gets deeper and deeper. And soon we have sort of built an island and the waters come in and the moat has formed. And we're sort of isolated because we are so deeply in depth with redefining our beliefs so that we are right, disregarding any other facts of any other viewpoint. And we do this with our friends when they're going through crisis. We sit with one friend, we avoid the whole other side of the story. And then we think because we are so immensely informed that we have to be right. But yet there's a whole other side that has left out. And we see that clearly here today. And the story of the two women who have two different children and one sadly dies in the night. I remember the story as a child and I remember hearing his response, thinking, that's terrible, why would he ever I just didn't connect it in my young mind that wisdom would say, the woman that actually gave birth to that child would not want to see that child perish. So I was just sitting with the information, given to me, but my young mind lacked wisdom. Here's the thing about wisdom. Solomon prayed for it and God gave it to him. Wisdom is available to each and every one of us. It is not something that was exclusively for Solomon. She is available to all of us who ask. But wisdom often has to rise above both sides. It gathers information on all sides. But wisdom rises above opinions and facts, and it reaches beyond intellect because so many times it is the voice that we could not have come up with on our own. It's spirit to spirit, soul to soul of where did that come from? How did you arrive at that? I'm not really sure, but it was not me because I could not have thought of that myself. That is my best description of wisdom. And what we will see with Solomon and the wisdom that God granted him is a distinction that sets him apart from all of the other Kings, all of the other leaders thus far. And here's the greatest part of all of this, that wisdom is available to us when we seek it, when we ask for her, when we get one side and ask to hear for the other one and listen and sit with it and allow the voice of the Spirit of God, Wisdom, to speak to us, to make herself known to us.

Prayer

Father, we thank you once again for your word. We thank you for wisdom that is available. I pray that we would reach for her, that we would be a people that would not be consumed with information, and we would be a people that would hear both sides without dismissing the one that we think we automatically disagree with. May we listen and hear and not listen and just wait for our turn to talk, but to really hear the hearts of people so that wisdom has a chance to be seen, to be known and to be administered. We thank you for that gift, that thing that will set us apart when we long for, when we wait on and not be in a hurry for wisdom to speak to us. Speak to us even today. I pray this now in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.

Announcements

Daily Audio Bible That's Homebase. That's the website. That's the app, that's free. Check it out if you have not. There are some great resources available on the app. There is a store that you may not know about that has some beautiful enhancements on your journey through reading the Bible. If you need prayer, you can reach out. We are a community that prays for one another, truly something that sets this community apart. So there are several ways that you can do so 1st, 800 583-2164. Secondly, you can utilize your mobile app or your smartphone app or your phone app or whatever device you may or may not be using. Hit the red circle button it's up at the top right hand corner of your phone and you have two minutes to record. Make sure you hit submit and then turn the wheel over to Chronological for that category specifically. Lastly, you can reach out on the app and the website reach for the prayer wall. That would just have you type out your prayer request and there are people willing available ready to pray for you. It doesn't matter what time of the day, it doesn't matter the crisis. Sometimes we just need someone to be there immediately and that is the place for connection. If this Ministry has been life giving to you and you would like to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, we thank you so much, truly and humbly. We could not do this without you. There are several ways for you to partner with us. Po Box 1996, Spring Hill, Tennessee 37174 and of course that's DAB or a Daily Audio Bible. And then lastly, once again you can utilize your app. Just hit the Give icon up at the top right hand corner and it will guide you through, as well as the Give icon on the website. That's going to do it for me today. I'm Jill. We'll turn the page together tomorrow as we start a brand new month. Letting go of all that we didn't accomplish that is out of our control. Laying it down and giving it at the feet of Jesus where we look forward ahead to the newness the newness of mercy and Grace and possibility because he makes all things new until tomorrow, love one another.

Community Prayer Line

Good morning DABC Community this is Kristen in Louisiana and I just wanted to call in today and pray for seven year old James. His mom called him and said that he's been struggling in school and just seems to be having some sad, dark thoughts and they're planning to pull him from school and I just wanted to pray for his sweet little spirit. I can't imagine how hard that must be to hear your seven year old and say the things that you said he's been telling you when he gets home. So I just want to lift you and your husband up and James and just pray that God just envelopes you in his presence and his supernatural peace. And that James just feels that hug from the Lord and just feels his presence, Lord. And that he just gets filled with a spirit of joy, that he just laughter and joy just bubble up out of him and that God just helps him to guard his heart, Lord, against the lies that he's believing, that he's stupid and that he's not worthy of being here and that he just wants to die. I just pray against that and I speak against that. And I know we all know that that's not God's heart for him at all. Those are lies from the devil. He is uniquely and wonderfully made knit together by God. And I pray that he would just begin to feel that and just know that truth deep down in his soul.

Hello, DABC family, this is Velma from the Virginia side of the DMV. Oh, my goodness. Thanking God this morning, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Inga from Denmark. Oh, thank you Lord, for answering prayers. I was so just excited when I heard the wonderful testimony from you about your daughter's day. I am still walking on cloud nine about it. God is so good and he loves us so much. He wants us to be joyful and he wants us to trust in him. And I thank you. Thank you, Lord, for Inch and her family. I just wish Lord continued blessings on her family and I am still trusting and believing in 100% healing for Inch. So thank you, Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.

Hi, DABC family, my name is NFON and I'm calling from Graham Perry, Texas. My prayer request is inspired by a lady who called. I mean, I listened to her yesterday. Yesterday was May the 22nd about her son that has ADHD attention deficit or something. And I have been struggling with also presenting my prayer requests because some people might not understand. But my son was diagnosed with Mal to moderate autism. And right from the first day, I never believe the diagnostic because sometimes kids can be misdiagnosed. But I accepted to get help. And up till now, I mean, my son is seven years old. I believe the improvement that he has made is based on age he has grown from when he was diagnosed at four till now. And I believe that the improvement is not very the way I expected. So I want to pull him out of that program with the help of God and by faith to see how to put him in a regular school. So I want you guys to pray along with me with my decision and that God will answer my prayer and God that God should perfect that which concerns my son and heal him completely. That's my prayer. Thank you so much. I appreciate all of you. I pray when I get prayer requests and I believe that mothers should assist me in praying for my hey family.

It's Kelly from Greensboro, North Carolina. And I have what is probably considered a minor prayer request, but it is getting to be frustrating for us. Back in February, on the 18th, our son smashed his front end of his car and it's been in the body shop and it's now day 95. And as probably you all are aware, it's very hard to get certain parts for cars to be fixed. It doesn't help that he has a Nissan. Nissan is notorious for not being able to get parts for their vehicles but we have been waiting on one part now for weeks. Out of all the 58 parts, one part is still not there and the body shop has told us repeatedly well, we keep being told it's any day, it's any day and it's just getting to be frustrating and here's what we're waiting on the wiring harness for the engine and so all of you who are in the same boat I'm lifting up your vehicles and your hard to get parts. I know there are many parts that are internationally back ordered which means they don't exist in our country at this point but I know the Lord is teaching our son something through this he's having to share.

Hello, my DABC family this is Patty in Houston. This is my first time calling where hopefully I'm speaking slow enough that it gets recorded. I am wanting to first thank Brian, Jill, China, Ezekiel, all of the Harden family and those behind the scenes for this podcast and just how much it means to me. I've been listening for two years to both the DAB and DABC and I appreciate so much all of the people that pray and I know that we are a community of praying people and lift each other up so today I ask for your prayers for my sister. Tomorrow's her birthday and she is not home anymore. She left today. She struggles a lot with thinking that she will be taken back to her home in Illinois and she lives in Houston as well and I think she left thinking she will be picked up but this time she left and gave information for us to follow up with on all her papers so it has me worried and I just pray that you lift her up and ask God's comfort.

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snehagoogle · 4 days

Text

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

This is a wonderful truth

The Milky Way has become the center

The sky is like the Milky Way here

And in contrast to the Milky Way

The sky is like the Milky Way here

And in contrast to the Milky Way

This is a wonderful truth

The Milky Way has become the center

The sky is like the Milky Way here

And in contrast to the Milky Way

The sky is like the Milky Way here

And in contrast to the Milky Way

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

This is not a dream

It's true that this thinking is out

many centuries pass

the sky is there once again

many centuries pass

the sky is there once again

This is not a dream

It's true that this thinking is out

many centuries pass

the sky is there once again

many centuries pass

the sky is there once again

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

our universe

Which we know as Milky Way or Galaxy

It is possible that we or our ancestors may have never been able to see that sky on the forehead of the Milky Way Universe.

But friends, you will be surprised to know this

We and our ancestors have been seeing the outer sky of the Milky Way Universe as a circular line for centuries.

According to NASA, Andromeda is the universe which we call M31 and there is also a third universe which we call M33.

Both universes M31 and M33 are rapidly rushing towards our Milky Way Universe.

Is our Milky Way Universe also running away like the M31 and M33 Universes?

Does the Milky Way Universe also move?

We can measure the motion of a galaxy relative to a neighboring galaxy, but this galaxy is also moving. The universe is full of huge islands of stars (just like the Milky Way) and each of them is moving in its own way. No galaxy sits still!

First evidence of identification of a planet beyond our galaxy

NASA Science (.gov)

https://science.nasa.gov › exoplanet-discoveries › first-e...

25 October 2021 – M51 will have an exoplanet about 28 million light years away, meaning it will be thousands of times more distant than the Milky Way.

So this means that once we lose a place in the sky, we can never get that place back again.

Can any of our descendants look back at the sky above our foreheads?

Are we seeing the past in the sky?

When we look at the night sky, we're looking back in time

This is how far back we can see. The time it takes for light from objects in space to reach Earth means that when we look at planets, stars and galaxies, we're actually peering back in time.10 Apr 2024

When we look up at the sky we are really looking back in time?

When observing through a telescope, we are seeing light that left some place in the past. Light travels at a specific speed in space (186 000 miles per second). If we know the distance to the point of origin, we can calculate the time it takes that light to get to Earth. For example, the Sun is 93 million miles away.

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

This is a wonderful truth

The Milky Way has become the center

The sky is like the Milky Way here

And in contrast to the Milky Way

The sky is like the Milky Way here

And in contrast to the Milky Way

This is a wonderful truth

The Milky Way has become the center

The sky is like the Milky Way here

And in contrast to the Milky Way

The sky is like the Milky Way here

And in contrast to the Milky Way

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

This is not a dream

It's true that this thinking is out

many centuries pass

the sky is there once again

many centuries pass

the sky is there once again

This is not a dream

It's true that this thinking is out

many centuries pass

the sky is there once again

many centuries pass

the sky is there once again

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

the sky is lost

every moment every moment

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

today here where tomorrow

turns like unrestrained

Translate Hindi

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

एक अद्भुत सच्चाई है यह

केंद्र बने है वो मिल्की वे

होते है आसमान मिल्की वे की यहां

और भी मिल्की वे की वीपरीत में

होते है आसमान मिल्की वे की यहां

और भी मिल्की वे की वीपरीत में

एक अद्भुत सच्चाई है यह

केंद्र बने है वो मिल्की वे

होते है आसमान मिल्की वे की यहां

और भी मिल्की वे की वीपरीत में

होते है आसमान मिल्की वे की यहां

और भी मिल्की वे की वीपरीत में

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

यह न है सपना

सच है यह सोच की बाहर

बीत ही जाता है कई सदियां

आसमान वहां फिर एक बार

बीत ही जाता है कई सदियां

आसमान वहां फिर एक बार

यह न है सपना

सच है यह सोच की बाहर

बीत ही जाता है कई सदियां

आसमान वहां फिर एक बार

बीत ही जाता है कई सदियां

आसमान वहां फिर एक बार

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

हमारा यूनिवर्स

जिसे हम मिल्की वे या आकाशगंगा के नाम से जानते है

हो सकता है मिल्की वे यूनिवर्स के माथे पर वो आसमान को हम या हमारी पूर्वज कभी न देख पाए हो

मगर दोस्तों आपको यह जानकर हैरानी होगी

मिल्की वे यूनिवर्स की बाहरी आसमान को वृत्ताकार रेखा बराबर हम और हमारी पूर्वज सदियों से ही देखते आ रहे है

नासा के अनुसार एंड्रोमेडा जिस यूनिवर्स को हम एम31 कहते है और भी एक तीसरा यूनिवर्स जिसे हम एम33 कहते है

दोनों यूनिवर्स एम31 और एम33 तेजी से हमारी मिल्की वे यूनिवर्स ओर भागे आ रहे है

क्या एम31 और एम33 यूनिवर्स की तरह हमारी मिल्की वे यूनिवर्स भी भागता रहता है

क्या मिल्की वे यूनिवर्स भी चलता फिरता है

हम पड़ोसी आकाशगंगा के सापेक्ष आकाशगंगा की गति को माप सकते हैं, लेकिन यह आकाशगंगा भी गतिमान है। ब्रह्मांड तारों के विशाल द्वीपों (बिल्कुल आकाशगंगा की तरह) से भरा हुआ है और उनमें से प्रत्येक अपने तरीके से आगे बढ़ रहा है। कोई आकाशगंगा स्थिर नहीं बैठी है!

हमारी आकाशगंगा से परे किसी ग्रह की पहचान का पहला साक्ष्य

नासा विज्ञान (.gov)

https://science.nasa.gov › exoplanet-discoveries › प्रथम-ई...

25 अक्टूबर 2021 - एम51 में एक एक्सोप्लैनेट लगभग 28 मिलियन प्रकाश वर्ष दूर होगा, जिसका अर्थ है कि यह आकाशगंगा की तुलना में हजारों गुना अधिक दूर होगा।

तो इसका मतलब हम आकाश की किसी एक जगह को एकबार खोने के बाद कभी भी दोबारा उसी जगह को वापस नहीं पा सकते

क्या हमारा माथे का आकाश हमारा कोई भी वंशज वापस देख सकता है

क्या हम अतीत को आकाश में देख रहे हैं?

जब हम रात के आकाश को देखते हैं, तो हम समय में पीछे देख रहे होते हैं

हम इतनी दूर तक देख सकते हैं। अंतरिक्ष में मौजूद वस्तुओं से प्रकाश को पृथ्वी तक पहुँचने में लगने वाले समय का मतलब है कि जब हम ग्रहों, तारों और आकाशगंगाओं को देखते हैं, तो हम वास्तव में समय में पीछे झाँक रहे होते हैं। 10 अप्रैल 2024

जब हम आकाश की ओर देखते हैं तो क्या हम वास्तव में समय में पीछे देख रहे होते हैं?

दूरबीन से देखने पर हमें वह प्रकाश दिखाई देता है जो अतीत में कहीं छूट गया था। प्रकाश अंतरिक्ष में एक विशिष्ट गति (186000 मील प्रति सेकंड) से यात्रा करता है। यदि हम उद्गम स्थल की दूरी जानते हैं, तो हम उस प्रकाश को पृथ्वी तक आने में लगने वाले समय की गणना कर सकते हैं। उदाहरण के लिए, सूर्य 93 मिलियन मील दूर है।

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

एक अद्भुत सच्चाई है यह

केंद्र बने है वो मिल्की वे

होते है आसमान मिल्की वे की यहां

और भी मिल्की वे की वीपरीत में

होते है आसमान मिल्की वे की यहां

और भी मिल्की वे की वीपरीत में

एक अद्भुत सच्चाई है यह

केंद्र बने है वो मिल्की वे

होते है आसमान मिल्की वे की यहां

और भी मिल्की वे की वीपरीत में

होते है आसमान मिल्की वे की यहां

और भी मिल्की वे की वीपरीत में

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

यह न है सपना

सच है यह सोच की बाहर

बीत ही जाता है कई सदियां

आसमान वहां फिर एक बार

बीत ही जाता है कई सदियां

आसमान वहां फिर एक बार

यह न है सपना

सच है यह सोच की बाहर

बीत ही जाता है कई सदियां

आसमान वहां फिर एक बार

बीत ही जाता है कई सदियां

आसमान वहां फिर एक बार

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

खो जाता है आसमान

पल पल हर एक पल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

आज यहां कल कहां कहां

बदल जाता है जैसे अनर्गल

#nasa #google #facebook #youtube

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marmaladerising · 2 months

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Sisyphus and Skin Care

A group of friends and I were recently talking about generational differences. They referenced something they'd seen explaining Boomers as mindlessly optimistic with an unchecked faith in old-school institutions, Gen Z as overall pretty pessimistic, understandable as we are bequeathing them a burning planet, and Millenials caught in the middle as aware of the failures of all the institutions that Boomers told us to believe in but hopeful enough, most days, to wake up and keep doing our little part.

[Dear Gen X - I didn't forget you, but as you are likely used to, you didn't come up.]

I commented that we, Millenials, sound like Sisyphus.

For those not lucky enough to know mythological-obsessed tweens who keep you informed on such beings, he is the god doomed to push a boulder up a mountain every day- only to watch it roll back down once he finished. We had an accidental moment of quiet at the table, and then someone commented on the realization that I think was sinking in for all of us, that we would never see the better world we were waking up each day, voting and marching for.

Of course, we will see changes, some improvements, and some setbacks, but a world of not just equality—but equity and an end to the violence against our planet and ourselves—will likely be beyond the reach of our lives. So, all we can do is push our little rocks up the hill and hope they will accumulate to take us all higher as they roll back down.

I live a weird, often hypocritical existence between conflicting states of believing that "consumerism is an epidemic actively destroying our world" and deeply enjoying creature comforts as a means to satiate the way the institutions I exist within crush my soul. Locked in a perpetual chicken or the egg, I struggle to live in line with my big beliefs, as I suspect many do.

It's why, while I long for the security and stability that money yields, I am terrified of the moral conundrum that I worry would come with it. How much is 'enough'? What is the line in the sand that it seems so many with wealth cross over regarding how one who purports to care about the world and its troubles uses their money? When does buying all organic to avoid harmful chemicals in your food, which seems reasonable enough if you have the means, slip into, "Well, of course, I need a vacation house/ yacht/ million dollar pair of pants," which I feel safe in saying are all unnecessary in comparison to the good the cost of them could yield. At what point does your wealth, which is power, demand responsibility to limit your wealth in service of the good? The unpolitical, unreligious, equitable good?

I must admit in my most disconnected moments, as a working-class mother of color, I allow myself to fantasize that it isn't my duty. My role as a ferry through life for my children is my sole responsibility, or else my hall pass is to not worry about anything else. Surviving while shaping them to be self-respecting, aware human beings takes so much that any means to get to that end must be justified, right? So another mother's child must dig for minerals I don't even know the names of for phones made to break so I can call mine. If I can play such mental acrobatics in my conscious line of awareness, what are the mental moves of the billionaires?

Now for some skincare, I've been loving.

In 2023, I started using face masks as a little treat. Nothing fancy, just the ones hanging in the skin care section of Target; I'd put them in the fridge, let them chill, slap one on, and instantly feel pampered. No mask was safe in my house for longer than a week, and I think I owe my daughters three masks each from slipping theirs on after lights out at night.

I was obsessed and noticed how healthy my skin looked post-mask. Aware that I wasn't getting much bang for my buck buying one mask a week, not to mention single-use items are embarrassing, I started to search for products similar to the "goo" on the masks. I tried TikTok and Google, putting my writing skills to shame in having no other way to explain what I was looking for. I'd made my own hyaluronic serum after Target stopped selling my favorite Bliss serum with much success; however, this wasn't that. The logical thing might have been to go to a beauty store and ask, but my mental health wasn't up for an interaction with one of their resident beauty queens, so I just accepted that it was a mystery I'd never solve.

That was until I was looking through Target skincare aisle absentmindedly months later and found this:

Versed Dew Point Mostiruinzing Gel-Cream.

GEL CREAM?! What a concise way to say exactly what I was looking for!

And let me tell you- this shit is GOLD.

I am obsessed. The scent is cool and clean, the texture is perfect, and a little—we're talking no bigger than a dime—is perfect for my face and neck.

This is a desert island-level favorite for me, which led me to try the brand's dark spot remover, Versed Out of Sight Dark Spot Gel. A month in, and it has made reasonable progress on some of my most persistent scarring.

Another product in my current rotation is CeraVe's Hyaluronic acid serum, which I got because I love their AM and PM moisturizers. Before the Verse, I used the PM moisturized daily- and the AM on days I knew I'd be out and about.

Honestly, I hadn't tried these before despite TikTok dermatologists insisting they were the BEST because the branding wasn't very sexy. I am a sucker for fun stuff, man- I'm not saying it's right, but Cerve packaging didn't look so different from Preparation H packaging, and I like pretty things.

However, after my daughter's allergist said the brand's Moisturizing Cream was the best for her eczema (since she has a shea, cocoa, AND coconut allergy), I figured I'd give their other products a shot, too, and I am SO glad I did. They do their job, and they do it well. The AM takes a little work/time to soak in and become translucent, but I mix it with my tinted CC or BB cream and concealer, so it doesn't bother me. I also use their Hydrating facial cleanser, which does a fantastic job of cleaning my skin without stripping.

The newest item on my shelf is the Neutrogena Hydroboost Body Gel Cream.

After how much I loved Versed gel cream, I wondered if a similar product existed for a full-body moisturizer. I have always hated traditional lotions because of how sticky, oily, or slimy they left me feeling, preferring to be ashy rather than any of the above. So, I was pretty excited to try this. It is everything I ever wanted in a lotion—it's lightweight, spreads easily, and soaks right in. It leaves a temporary residue on my palms that irritates my sensitive skin, but it goes away within minutes and doesn't deter my use. I've started layering it on my face at night before I put on my CPAP- don't judge, and it's cut down on my CPAP acne and line in the morning.

This isn't a sponsored post (though #target and #versed are welcome).

#skincare #beauty #millenials #capitalism #consumerism #target #versed

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potterandpromises · 2 months

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The Many Vortexes of Autumn: Chapter 3

Unbeknownst to the Time Team, a 20 year old David Rittenhouse catches a stray bullet on an otherwise average mission. When Lucy, Flynn, Rufus and Jiya return to 2018, they find Rittenhouse annulled along with all record of Lucy’s existence. Flynn goes home. Lucy tries to distance herself. Fate has other plans and three mouths later, so does Lorena.

{Chapter 1} {Chapter 2} Also on AO3

Lorena had a plan. The plan involved getting her ducks in a row and emotionally fulfilling sex. The plan did not involve a lighting strike obliterating a power pole.

“It looks like a snake trying to intimidate it’s enemies,” Iris observes from the porch, as if of an abstract painting. “Or like one of those things outside of car dealerships.”

Lorena keeps both hands firmly on her daughter's shoulders, in case she gets any bright ideas like her father, or she needs to shield her from an explosion. A scenario which seems highly unlikely, based on the lack of urgency from the first responders. One stands a dozen feet from the dancing blue, hands on hips. Lorena can’t be sure from this distance, but she thinks he’s shaking his head at the absurdity of it all.

“Come on,” she says. “It’s too cold and wet to stay outside in your pajamas.”

Iris could have satisfied her curiosity through the window. Lorena wouldn’t have let her open the door if she’d asked, but she didn’t ask, and Lucy was next to her, so she let her kid have those few extra steps beyond what made her comfortable.

Iris glances up at her, forlorn, and kicks halfheartedly at the concrete. “But I want to watch the firefighters.”

“You can watch from inside.”

“Fine.” Begrudgingly, Iris opens the door and stomps her unlaced sneakers on the front mat.

Maybe it’s perfectly reasonable to watch from this distance with no cover and she needn’t have given it a second thought. Half a dozen of their neighbors stand on their porches. One walks down the sidewalk welding a camera wrapped in a plastic bag. Perhaps her instincts are misaligned. There’s nothing like having your kid decide to run away— however temporarily intended— actually go through with it, and almost get shot to make one reconsider every little parenting decision.

Lucy stares ahead, too. Mentally elsewhere, she makes no move to follow Iris inside. She’d stayed out when Lorena and Garcia went upstairs, to check on Iris and change clothes respectively. Lorena taps her shoulder, finds her sleeve damp from blusters.

Lucy startles, a half-hop. Her fingers curl into themselves, and down her arms go, pinned to the sides of her ribcage. She looks up at Lorena, searches.

“Are you okay?” She keeps her tone light, causal.

“I’m fine, it’s just—” Lucy gestures with one hand, fingers splaying. Her other hand finds her collarbone. Her fist closes as if to hold a necklace she doesn’t have. “This isn’t normal, right?”

“It isn’t,” she agrees.

They step inside. Iris already stands by the kitchen window, as close to the action as the countertop allows.

“But it happened on our street, so I shouldn’t be surprised, right?” It’s a turn of phrase, nothing more. But she likes that word ‘our’ in Lucy’s mouth.

Something crosses her face. Discomfort. Lorena looked too long, maybe, too eagerly, or else Lucy noticed her own word choice and thinks she’s misspoken. Regardless, she looks away, looks at the floor.

Lorena reaches out, swipes her thumb over Lucy’s forearm. “I’m going to see about Garcia," she says. "I think we’re going to be down here for the night, or at least until he’s decompressed and Iris gets sleepy.” She hesitates. “You’re welcome to sit with us, if you’re staying up, but, um, change into dry clothes first.”

Through the window, emergency vehicles dimly light Lucy’s surprise. It’s a muted version of what’s so sharply familiar from those first few days after she got out of the hospital, when she needed a lot of help but seemed to expect none. Today, rather then unease, curiously is in her dark eyes.

“We would appreciate it," Lorena adds.

Is that, like, way too much? She doesn’t think it is. A weird thing to say, maybe, because there’s actually no evidence to suggest Garcia would appreciate it, based on his behavior tonight, anyway; although she knows for him Lucy’s proximity is like morphine for the recently impaled.

She turns towards the stairs, hindering Lucy's chance to reply, She moves quickly, misses one step in the dark, and doesn’t slow until she’s at the bedroom door.

Garcia sits on the edge of their bed, his hair ruffled, a small towel in hand. He’s changed into a burgundy turtleneck. Next to him, a flashlight illuminates the closet door.

“Iris?”

“She’s fine.” Lorena closes the door. “She’s downstairs with Lucy now. She was actually asleep when it happened. I found her sitting up in bed rubbing her eyes, wondering if she’d dreamed it.”

Instead of a bedtime, Iris has lights out. They made that decision a few years ago, in order to save their sanities, after she began to insist she didn't sleep, not ever, would only stare at the ceiling extremely bored until the sun rose. Never mind that Lorena woke her up for school every morning.

She told him that story, and others, on the drive home, caught him up on his life. Or, the life of his counterpart? She can’t always find the right language for all this.

“Are you feeling better?” As much as she hated it, she hopes the impulse— the danger, the water— helped him.

He balls up the towel and tosses it into his clothes hamper. “More or less.”

“Good.”

He's attracted to violence and danger. He's good at it, too, really truly good. War makes him feel helpful, so he's made that vocation his fate. The fact his vocation consistently leads him to make choices that harm himself has thus far been the hardest thing for her to accept within their marriage. It's harder then the post traumatic stress and the years of Iris’ childhood he lost to Rittenhouse. It's harder then when Iris was five and Lorena felt ready to suffer another pregnancy, and he told her he no longer felt any desire for a second child.

She has accepted it, has checked in again and again and found she still prefers being with him over not. But on their way home, she told him he'd gone back to his old profession for a while, and he scoffed, as if the update were about someone else entirely. She hopes that attitude will stick, this time. Of course—she couldn’t ever forget— that focused helpfulness is also what made her want him in the first place, so.

She crosses the flashlight’s beam and stands in front of him. He gives her his undivided, tired stare.

“Lucy needs to understand that she’s welcome to stay. Ideally she’d hear it from both of us, but I’ll talk to her about it regardless,” she pauses, “whenever we have electricity again and she looks less like a pitiful kitten.”

He nods once, in acceptance but not necessarily agreement.

She hesitates. “I’ll leave the romance out of it unless or until you’re okay with it.”

"I could have handled that a lot better.” He flicks his tongue, looks behind her, meets her eyes. “I'm sorry I didn't."

She hopes Lucy dismissed whatever heated Croatian she may have overheard, but that’s probably too much to ask.

"You were surprised.” She half shrugs, moves to sit next to him. “I thought it was best to make sure about her first, but I still could have told you the day I realized.”

“I’m not sure it would have made much of a difference.” With the flashlight between them, she watches their shadows alive on the closet door, watches him rub his face. “I’ll tell you,” he says, finally, “all the details. But I need us to be on the same page first.”

She leans back, observes the man she loves in profile, this man she thinks she knows so well. “Right now I want that more then anything else.”

He nods, takes a full breath. “Lucy and I never talked about before we were a team, the things I did to her, both intentionally and unintentionally.” He twists his wedding ring. “I was never sure if an apology was something she wanted or if I’d be doing it for me. I didn’t want to do it for me. Now I know I would be because I want to and she— she’s made it clear she doesn’t want to see me more then she has to.”

“I know this is a weird situation,” Lorena cuts in. “I know she relies on us for her needs to be met and there’s a certain power imbalance there. I have thought all this through. It might be a dealbreaker for her, but it might not be.”

“How about the part where she doesn’t like me as a person?” His mouth corks upward into a self-deprecating smile, his eyes a challenge. “Is that a definite dealbreaker?��

She narrows her eyes.

Lorena wants, from deep in her soul, to discredit him. The thing is, so much of her evidence against his viewpoint is based on what he told her about his and Lucy’s relationship before the world changed. It’s true that these days they don’t spend much time together. Most of their conversations, at least that she’s aware of, revolve around coordinating responsibilities with Iris. Maybe he’s correct now, and had previously exaggerated the degree of his and Lucy’s closeness. Maybe he loves Lucy and Lucy hates him and it’s just Lorena's misfortune to love them both.

“I don’t know how else to say it," she crosses her legs, "I just don’t see that. “

He’s unimpressed.

“You saw how much she didn’t want me to touch her.” His voice is low and strained. “You heard her scream when I tried.”

Involuntarily, she rolls her eyes. “That? she was overwhelmed, embarrassed. You know how she is. She thinks she should carry it all on her own. ”

A few days into her stay with them. Lucy, with an empty water glass in her hand, fell, or possibly fainted— Lorena never got a sure answer— and cut her palm open. Garcia went to her. She’d half screamed something, Lorena doesn’t remember what, but it sent her into the room and made Garcia step back. Lorena helped her up and into the bathroom, took care of the minor but bloody wound, and made sure Lucy hadn’t sat on any of the glass shards while Garcia swept up.

What's sharp in Lorena’s memory, is how Lucy made herself stop crying. It was almost immediate. Then she’d apologized, which Lorena ignored.

“She doesn’t want my help,” he says. “She hasn’t wanted my help in a long time. When she was recovering I saw how— how unhappy she looked every time I did anything for her, brought her a meal or clean laundry.”

“You think she wanted my help?" Lorena says. "It made her so uncomfortable, and not just the physical stuff. She hated the situation, she hated needing help.”

Lorena insisted on picking Lucy up from the hospital alone. She wanted to have a full conversation with this women who'd saved Iris' life, who she'd already agreed to let live in her home, and whom she did not know from Eve. Plus, she'd thought it better for Garcia to watch Iris alone sooner rather then later.

She brought Lucy a change of clothes, because most of what Lucy owned had been logged into an evidence locker somewhere and, not having an ID, she could not prove she was not actually a dozen armadillos in a well-made human costume and therefore could not get her possessions back. That had been awkward, particularly for Lucy. She'd clearly expected Garcia, not his wife who could barely be called an acquaintance. There was a rigidness to her exhaustion, a guarded quality that slipped away in the days that followed.

In a gas station parking lot, she tried to use her crutches and fell twice. The instruction she received at the hospital was insufficient and Lorena said as much.

An arm around her shoulders, a body to lean on; she needed a lot of physical help, more then Lucy was comfortable with.

She'd needed so much sleep, which, paradoxically, even the good hospitals barely allow. At home, Lorena let go of her a few feet from the bed, allowed her awkward descent onto the covers. Garcia left a bottle of water on her nightstand and they let her sleep through dinner.

She didn't see Lucy again until that evening. Mysteriously, she sat on the kitchen island, and looked like she was genuinely considering playing it cool. With a tight smile, Lorena repressed her laugh, and asked what she was doing.

"I wanted," Lucy bit her lip, "to take a shower."

"And…?" Lorena prompted, gesturing at her choice in seating.

And she'd been told she should first wrap her bandage in plastic to keep it from getting wet. Instead of asking for help, she had, naturally, decided to hobble out of the bedroom, across the living room, and into the kitchen. She'd figured out the plastic wrap was stored in the top shelf of the pantry, out of her reach on a good day. She then, naturally, decided to climb up onto the island in order to try and reach it.

It did not work out the way she had intended.

And it must have been excessively painful.

Had anyone explained to her how to wrap her leg? No, they hadn't. Well, years ago in what Lorena would have once described as another life, before that term took on a sharper meaning, she had been a nurse. It was easier to just show Lucy what to do then it was to explain it.

Obviously, she could not get off the island by herself without a searing jolt of pain. To gentle the landing, Lorena placed her hands on Lucy’s waist and lowered her to the floor.

Her eyes were shut.

‘Alright?’ she'd asked, and Lucy nodded. The pain hadn't come.

Heavily, Lucy leaned on her. Together, they hobbled to the bathroom. Lorena had her sit on the rim of the tub. She got the plastic wrap from the kitchen while Lucy pulled down her sweatpants.

She wants to think, as she scrutinizes her words, her memories, that when she came back into the bathroom, Lucy looked nervous. She didn't. She looked scared. Not of Lorena, specifically, or at least she doesn't think so. No, it was like Lucy didn’t expect to be treated well.

Because they were, at best, acquaintances, she offered to get Garcia instead. Lucy, with something adjacent to a chuckle, said no. Lorena suspected her answer would have been different if Garcia were again a widower, or if it had been someone else asking. Then again, maybe not, because they were both women and that was how these things tended to go. She did not read too much into it, thank you very much.

She tried to make it as normal as possible, tried to present genuine care as normal. What happened to Lucy, and what certain people failed at, Lorena has her guesses, her leads, although she tries not to assume. She knelt, wrapped Lucy’s thigh in plastic, and Lucy said she didn't have to. But, she did. She told her as much. She should have said more. Maybe that would have helped.

"She was very thankful, though," Lorena muses. "Resistant, but thankful."

“We used to share a bed.” It isn’t news to her. She snaps to attention anyway. “She used to let me comfort her. She used to let me in.”

“But now I’m here.”

He grimaces, closes his eyes.

She knows the reminder of her own death is painful, so she doesn’t point out that he doesn’t have a comeback. “You said it yourself: she was in a similar situation before and the guy didn’t treat her well, so she wanted space.”

“I just don’t think that’s all it is. I can’t think that anymore.” He rubs his temple. “We would have adjusted by now if it was just awkward or a little painful, but we haven’t.”

“Don’t you think I would see it, if it were so much worse then all that? I am biased and I don’t know the full story but neither do you because” —she pokes her index finger into his chest— “you won’t ask her how she feels.”

"Lucy's had a hard year and a worse couple of months.” Garcia takes her hand in his, squeezes it, and lowers it onto the bed. “I don’t want to make things worse for her.” His eyes flick to hers. “Tell me you won’t make it worse by bringing up what I’m going to tell you.”

“I know she’s had a hard time.” It comes out almost a whisper, although she doesn’t intend it. His jaw tightens slightly. “Of course I’m going to be careful with her feelings. And, by the way, if you don’t want her to be uncomfortable, you have a strange way of showing it.”

He flicks his tongue. The little crease in the south-east corner of his forehead deepens. He has the audacity to be genuinely confused.

“When she was telling that story earlier, what was that conversation?”

If he were anyone else, she would think he was referencing some sensual encounter to tease Lucy. But, if such an encounter existed, he would have said by now.

She asked him, outside the motel, what his and Lucy's relationship was. He said he really didn't know how to answer. She asked if he slept with her. No, not in the way she meant. They had shared a bed some nights, not every night, and not because there weren’t enough beds, although there wasn’t enough beds. He made sure to emphasize that. He made sure to emphasize that there was an attraction there, one he’d never acted on, and he’d made sure to emphasize that it wasn’t because of her that he didn’t act.

Lucy didn’t feel the same way, he said. He'd wanted so very badly to be honest with Lorena, and had admitted, unprompted, that they’d never actually discussed it. How Lucy felt hadn’t been something Lorena particularly cared about at the time, so she hadn’t pressed him for how he came about the information.

“She left out some details for my sake,” he says. “I didn’t want her to do that.”

She narrows her eyes, shakes her head, doesn’t doubt it. It’s the kind of fucked up logic he uses sometimes.

(Yet, he’s so emotionally intelligent when he’s not in pain. Funny how that works.)

“Your self loathing isn’t helpful.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you could use the reminder.”

She could argue with him forever. It’s like arguing with herself. But it isn’t getting them downstairs. Sometimes people need a hug. Sometimes they need a shove.

“You know,” she stands up, in front of him, and crosses her arms, “If I believed everything I’d been told about you we’d have never gotten together and Iris would have never been born.”

He inhales sharply, rubs at a mark on his neck. That thought is almost unbearable. It's more unbearable then the knowledge that Iris was dead. It pains her to bring it up, but she needs him to see her side, to see how it's the possibility of joy, that love that become essential, which he’s lived without, that he now wants to say is impossible with Lucy, thus making it so.

“Maybe she won’t be interested, maybe she’ll be horrified at the idea," Lorena says. "But I know if I don’t say anything to her I will regret it. I don’t want to still regret it in 15 years, still think it’s too late.”

Garcia tugs on his turtleneck as if it were suffocating him. "I did something to risk that,” he says, “to risk Iris never being born.”

“What?”

He twists his wedding ring, squeezes his knuckle hard and looks up at her, his eyes full of remorse.

“Gabriel. I saved his life, and I knew the whole time I was planning it there was a chance it might make me disappear, or end up like Lucy is now, and I did it anyway.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I would never do that today. At the time it seemed—”

“Like the right thing to do?”

He loved his mother, did not want her to know the pain he suffered, the pain Lorena could only imagine. So he did the selfless thing, saved the child in front of him and she shouldn’t be angry. But she is.

She fidgets with the fabric of her nightdress, means to pace, to process this, steps forward and hugs him.

His hair is still damp under her fingers, against her chest.

They breathe together in rhythm. The weight is comfortable. She thinks only of this, their bodies, and her relief that this is where time and space ended up.

(Her relief that he did not end up like Lucy)

He stretches his fingers between her shoulder blades, pulls away slightly. “What you said before,” he starts softly, “this is nothing like that.”

She lets go, fingers uncurling in his hair, and steps back to look at his face. “I have no way of knowing.”

She waits a beat to see if he’ll tell now. He doesn’t. She doesn’t really want him to.

“Do you want to be near her?” He closes his eyes and the lines in his face deepen. He looks, momentarily, like he’ll cry.

"Do you want to go downstairs and sit with her? Because I told Lucy we’d be downstairs for the night, or for part of it at least, and I let her know she was welcome to...” she searches for a phrase that won’t make his eyebrows raise, “hang out, with us. You think she doesn’t want to be near you? Let’s see what she does. Maybe she’ll prove you wrong.”

That possibility sparks his interest. “Okay,” he says after a beat, “I’d like that very much.”

She touches his check, because she wants to, and because she’s happy as a clam. Even he can’t find fault with her sound logic, thank you very much. He covers her fingers with his and their hands puddle together on his cheek.

She moves towards the door. Her hand glides from his check. He follows.

“If she’s in her room when we get downstairs, you’ll say she was just tired and it doesn’t necessary mean anything,” Garcia points out.

She pauses by the door, looks at him over her shoulder. “And I’d be right.”

“Yes.” He gives her a bone-tired, rueful smile.

They trudge downstairs and the door to Lucy’s room latches shut. Disappointment twinges in Lorena's stomach. Still, there’s plenty of time. Lucy won’t disappear into thin air.

Iris sits in the leather chair, which she's taken and arranged to face the window. Her feet are flat against the kitchen cabinets. Lorena lets that go on account of her near certainty that this whole situation will literally never happen again.

Garcia walks over to her. “What do you think of all this, sweetheart?”

“Really weird, but kind of cool," Iris says. “I want to sleep here."

He looks back at Lorena. In the low light, she can just make out his raised eyebrows and the hint of a smile. Until now, Iris has only ever declared wanting to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. There’s a first for everything, she supposes.

“Just this once." For all it’s wired them up (pun absolutely intended) there is a beauty in the sparks outside their window. There’s a comfort in seeing the minor catastrophe be repaired. “And you have to scooch a little further back from the window.”

Iris does as instructed, pushes the chair back maybe a few inches. Garcia finishes the job, pulls Iris in the chair across the kitchen, nearly knocks the opposite wall. Lorena sits on the coach and tosses him a stray throw blanket, which he sets in Iris' lap.

Lucy opens her bedroom door, comes out wearing a fresh sweater.

“Hi.” Lorena moves to one side of the couch, and grins at her. She doesn’t try to hide it; the half light will soften it.

Lucy smiles back, and joins her.

Garcia watches, doesn't say anything but slowly meanders towards them.

Lorena turns to Lucy, pride like a purring cat bubbling in her chest. “We should all go to the beach tomorrow.”

Garcia places his hands on the back on the couch, nods. "Just to walk around, get away from all this.”

“To relax,” Lorena agrees. "We could go first thing in the morning.”

“I’d like that,” Lucy says after a minute, “just maybe not the walking around part."

Her voice is steady, but she looks so burdened. Is it by her injury, or the fact her body isn't bulletproof?

“We could bring a picnic blanket and just sit for awhile."

"Just sit," Lucy echoes, and shifts to the middle of the couch.

“Are we going swimming?” Iris calls from across the room. Garcia smiles as he sits down on Lucy's other side. Lorena reminds herself to calculate all risks, to remember young ears are always listening.

“No, it’s too cold,” Garcia calls back.

Lorena twists around to look at Iris; her crossed arms and her straight stare out the window. “No swimming, but we might go to the beach tomorrow just to spend time in the sand.

“And look at the dead things that wash up there.”

Lucy's hand flies to her mouth, stifles a laugh.

“Look, but not touch,” Garcia says sternly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Iris says. “I know.”

In the half dark, his eyebrows raise like a flag, but they don't hold, and his expression quickly crumples into soft admiration. “That’s our kid," he says softly.

“That’s our kid,” she agrees.

Between them, Lucy leans back into the couch, tries to shrink herself.

Lorena reaches for Lucy's hand, rests her fingertips in the slight indent where hand and wrist meet.

Lucy does not relax into her touch. But without looking at her, she intertwines their fingers.

Delight sparks in Lorena's chest. The night air is heavy. Garcia makes no move of his own but his desire shows in his eyes, in the set of his jaw.

Lorena plays with Lucy’s hand, rubs circles in the soft skin of her palm, finds a dent in one fingernail. “Do you remember when we first me met?”

“How could I forget?" She stares straight ahead, expression unreadable. Garcia meanwhile, is made nervous.

"Do you remember going back to your motel room, when you and Garcia were ahead of me on the stairs?"

Lucy exhales. "Yeah."

"You lost your balance and he caught you," Lorena says quietly. "That mattered to me."

Lucy looks at her, searching. "Why?"

Lorena shifts her gaze to Garcia. "You told me about all the bad things you did." His voice had cracked when he said he didn’t know if it’d be right to go home to Iris, if it’d be selfish, if he could still be her father. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. "But you were so—" she searches for the right word and turns back to Lucy, "he was so attuned to you, so caring. That's not something to take for granted in a person. I took it as a sign."

In Lorena's experience, that level of attentiveness towards another human being is rare and not to be dismissed. Garcia had it for Lucy, even when he was staring at Lorena like she might not be real, even when he was in a fog, utterly bewildered she didn’t immediately believe his story.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

“Because I think I should have said it sooner.” She hadn't told Lucy how grateful she was to her. She'd been too focused on trying to alleviate Lucy's discomfort through pretending this was all normal.

Garcia leans into the couch, sighs.

Lucy turns and looks at him. Her hand shifts, and Lorena's fingers find her pulse point.

He offers a crooked smile. "No one should be alone in the dark, Lucy."

Lucy's heartbeat quickens. Her face is as unchanged as a statue's.

"Is that why you're here?"

His smile fails. Caught out, he says nothing. Lorena experiments, moves a little closer, doesn't quite press against her.

"I'm here because—" his voice cracks, softens. He turns to face Lucy more completely, his gaze briefly flicking to Lorena's. "You matter to me, and this matters to me."

Lucy exhales.

"I think we're building something really amazing." Lucy looks at Lorena, their faces inches apart. "What do you think?"

"I think," Lucy's voice is low, almost a challenge, "it could be better."

"I agree."

Lorena doesn’t want to be on the edge, sit on the fence, wait. She presses her hip against Lucy’s before she can second guess herself.

Lucy closes her eyes, opens them, and draws in a shaky breath. She leans back, tilts her head to look at Garcia. Something passes between them, some context Lorena isn't privy to, and the tension melts away.

She relaxes, rubs a reassuring circle into Lucy's thigh. She hears the firetruck drive away, watches the headlight-cast shadows grace the far wall. In the leather chair, Iris is still, her head angled to one side. Their breathing grows deep and even. There's no real reason they can't be together, Lorena decides. She considers how their necks will hurt in the morning.

"You were right," Lucy mummers, almost too softly to hear. For a moment, Lorena thinks it's directed to her, and feels validated.

#timeless #luciana #lorynn #garcy #lorena flynn #garcia flynn #lucy preston #fanfiction #my fanfic tag #Fic: The Many Vortexes of Autumn

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