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aliatori · 6 months

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caught up in his design

(Bloodplay, primal play, period sex, extremely dubious consent, marking/claiming, magic during sex) -----

All in all, Gab calls tonight a godsdamned good night.

He’s been halfway to the Depths since he arrived along with most of the Squall’s crew; the Matriarch’s favour bestowed upon them—and to Gab specifically, more the marvel—means they’ve been drinking and dancing all night, having been paid their proper respects by most of the fold. Their Tithe flows like thick, coppery lifeblood through the veins of the fold, in no small part thanks to Gab himself. It was his eye that spotted the escorts tucked in a rare bout of fog on the edge of the Umbra, his cutlasses that scythed down an entire watch before they could raise an alarm, his hands that presented his captain with the helm of the heavily laden merchant vessel and its tribute actual and potential.

Yeah, he’s earned a reward or seven. One for each of the hells, and he’s only missing the company of a particular captain.

Until then, Gab takes his place around the bonfire, its leaping flames chasing off the chill from the night and the cold light of the moon alike. His braid swings around in a wide arc as he spins, bare feet stamping against the lichen-dappled stone of the plateau, clapping in time with the drums. He comes face to face with Luc, layered pendants of bone taking the place of a shirt, bare chest glistening with sweat. His eyes are as black as Gab’s own and his grin just as fierce. Together they fall into a mirrored rhythm, bass and tenor joining in the chanted praises of Xeheia.

Time slips by, its passage sped along by amber liquor with a bittersweet bite and several rolled lengths of smokeleaf. Through the bond, the other members of the fold oscillate like dark and distant stars. Only one of ‘em matters to Gab, at least when it comes to getting close enough to touch.

Before his thoughts go too far down that strait, the atmosphere changes. Rustling from the razor-sharp switchbacks of Watcher’s Cove draws Gab’s attention, and sure enough…

The arrival of the Furysworn to the revel ripples through the adorned, undulating crowd like a physical pulse. Not all of them. Mercifully, Eloi must have gone down below, may he die and rot in the Fury’s honour. But there’s Alix and Hervé, and of course Auxier with a bird’s worth of feathers and bone woven into her hair, snarl gleaming gold and lips painted a bloody red.

Gab smoothly drifts out of the circle before he’s jostled out, what with the stillness caused by his staring.

Hugo’s there too. In all his glorious Furysworn pretension, too, hair pinned up by Gab himself before his own summons to the Matriarch. He tilts his head toward Alix as her lips move, one exposed, sculpted shoulder raiding in a half-shrug. Though the conversation drowns in the wild beat of the drums, Gab’s still close enough to make out the bloodless press of Hugo’s lips. Annoyance, most like. Unsurprising. It’s gone as quick as it came; Hugo accepts a flask from Alix and drinks deep of it. Some kind of liquor with that big a swallow. Gab finds himself drunkenly transfixed by the sweat-limned undulations of Hugo’s throat.

Then Hugo meets his eyes, and the plateau falls out from under him.

Eyes brine-black and glittering with paint and menace alike, Hugo stares at him across the clearing like he’s a delectable spread laid out on the feasting tables in the Cove below. A searing flush spreads across Gab’s chest with the intensity of it; the stare goes on long enough for anticipation to leave him more than a little wet between the legs. He raises an eyebrow and an upturned palm, his head tilted in bemusement.

A moment later, it crashes into Gab like a storm-tossed ship on a rocky coast: The asshole’s compelling him.

None of his captain’s touches are particularly gentle, and this one least of all. A thousand hooks of lighting pierce through every inch of his bondmark. It drags a quiet groan of pain from Gab, the sound trampled under the cacophony of the revel. The hooks dig in deep, permeating him right past his marrow and down to the part of him that bears Xeheia’s abyss, calling him in a way he can’t ignore. Literally can’t. Furysworn to acolyte. Like Gab isn’t stronger than everyone here, like he couldn’t drag Hugo down through the bond and drown him dead in it.

Worst of all? Gab knows it’s bait. He knows Hugo knows he doesn’t need to lean on compulsion to make Gab follow him. He’s blessed, or cursed, or likely some awful combination of both with the uncanny ability to shadow Hugo’s footsteps, drawn to his presence as surely as he’s drawn to the sonorous calm and torrential rage of the ocean. Has been for as many Risings as he's got fingers on one hand now.

But when Hugo goes in the opposite direction of his Furysworn cohort, slipping back down the treacherous paths to the grassy cliffs below, Gab’s pissed enough to chase him anyway.

-----

The hunt proves as alluring as employing the Fury’s most terrifying art.

Whatever salt-cursed justification Hugo had for this decision melts in gaps between the sparse trees clinging to the cliffs of Watcher’s Cove. A storm brews overhead, silent lightning illuminating the forest in stark flashes, and this far down the Depths, Hugo senses it for the hallowed reckoning it is. The Fury’s imminent destruction electrifies his blood.

But, blasphemy upon blasphemy, what remains of his rational mind fixates on Gab.

Hugo remembers the vivid agony of the one time the Matriarch found him worth compelling. The steep price of disobedience. It’s exquisite cruelty in triplicate to use this facet of the Fury’s magic on Gab—the physical pain, the spiritual, the way it gnaws with bloody teeth at one of Gab’s deepest fears.

But Hugo is who he is, what he was forged in blood and lightning to be, and so he reaches for Gab’s bond and tears through it again, his cunt pulsing with arousal. Gab’s pained bellow only makes him clench harder.

“You’d better run, Hugo, ‘cause when I get my godsdamned hands on you—”

Bone-rattling thunder drowns out the rest of Gab’s threat. He’s closer than Hugo would like. Too soon for the chase to end.

Hugo slips back in the shadows.

A haunting game of cat-and-mouse beneath the burgeoning storm follows. It’s a double-edged sword to goad Gab through the bond—each time he does, it charts a path straight to Hugo. Tied together, inexorably, aboard the Squall, by their faith, even in this. Through the taunts and curses and promises of violence Gab hurls at him, Hugo keeps his silence, disinclined to give him any advantage.

Overconfidence proves his undoing.

Lungs and legs burning with the exertion of stalking through the forest, Hugo steals a snatch of respite with his back to a smooth-barked tree, the first drops of rain pattering against his closed eyelids.

He opens them to find Gab waiting, a vicious grin of triumph illuminated by an errant flash of lightning.

Cornered.

“Fucking compulsion? On me? I oughta gut you and toss your innards away like slop. They ain’t even fit for auguring.”

Hugo whips his fist out and backhands Gab across the face. A peal of thunder swallows the crack of skin on skin. Gab’s enraged roar rises above it.

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop wasting time with idle threats? Have I taught you nothing? Either follow through or save your breath.”

Were Hugo not adrift in a sea of Xeheia’s magic, brine, smokeleaf, and strong liquor—the revel before the revel for Furysworn—perhaps he could have held his ground.

But Gab crashes into him like a ship wrecking itself on the Fury’s wards, all holy violence. The world spins, this time literally, as Gab lifts him up and slams him to the earth in a dreadful display of strength. Hugo finds himself pinned to the ground, winded and gasping. Gab looms above him, mouth splashed with blood, generous chest heaving. His big hands pin Hugo to the hard soil and sparse grass, heavy as anchors, and his eyes are blacker than brine.

“You want me to follow through? Fine. I'll show you follow through,” he snarls, eyes black and teeth pink.

Gab reaches through the Fury’s waters and into his bond. He’s a storm, a flood, a tidal wave thundering through Hugo’s veins and spirit alike. For too many moments in a row, all Hugo can do is shake beneath him. Gab holds him in thrall, Hugo’s muscles obeying not his own command, but the one Gab fills him with through their shared bond: stillness. He reaches for his own magic, letting it fill him until his myriad pains—the twisting ache of his courses low in his belly, the jagged pressure of a rock in his lower back, the grinding of his shoulders in Gab’s grip—become distant, fleeting.

“Release me,” Hugo says through clenched teeth. Static crackles in the air between them.

In response, Gab rips off Hugo’s shirt in one powerful motion, shredding the silken, shadowy fabric of his Furysworn regalia. After, he runs his hands across every inch of Hugo’s bondmark he can get them on, an intimate blasphemy. The echo of it thrums through Hugo’s spirit, heightening his magic, yet he can’t free himself from the spell Gab puts on him.

Looming above Hugo and backlit by the cold moon between the tree branches, Gab’s every inch a gorgeous terror: torso anointed in blood-brine paint, focus swaying in the air between them, fathomless eyes deep enough to drown in. Lust joins the icy panic and blazing fury in the miasma of emotions buffeting Hugo.

“Since you wanted my attention so godsdamned bad, seems to me you should have thought through what would happen when you got it.” Gab hoists Hugo up like he’s a sail to be raised, lifting his hips and stripping him of his sleek black trousers in three fierce yanks. “Bet you’re regretting teaching me everything you know now, huh? ‘Cause the fact of the matter is I will be Patriarch, and there ain’t nothing of the Fury’s gifts beyond me. Including this.”

The words bring back a memory from the Covenant, the one that drove him to this godsawful, possessive compulsion in the first place, filling in the gap from earlier. Fragments swim in his thoughts—the Matriarch’s weathered face, her dreaded words: Given your recent success, perhaps you have no further need of my wayward successor aboard the Squall. It’s high time he resumed his training.

Hugo trembles, this time in a brilliant moment of unadulterated rage.

Gab smirks, the curl of his lips unbearably arrogant, running his palms down Hugo’s inked, scarred chest until they reach his bare hips. Then he pauses, his nostrils flaring as he breathes in deep. The change in Gab’s demeanor becomes apparent when Hugo catches the heavy scent of iron on his next inhale, wafting up from between his own legs. A soft moan rumbles in Gab’s throat, a hungry sound mirrored in the roil of their shared bond, his thunderous power filling Hugo until he fears he’ll dissipate into the Depths entirely.

He shoves his fingers roughly between the blood-slick lips of Hugo’s cunt then drags them upward, stopping at his stomach and drawing messy circles. Hugo imagines his belly smeared with streaks of his own blood—though he still can’t move his head to see. Words, slippery creatures in the torrents of the Fury’s magic and the throes of mortal intoxications, dissolve altogether at the pressure of Gab’s thumb on his clit, circling it in a ruthless rhythm.

Tangled in the strangling net of Gab’s compulsion, all he can do is rut into his hand, Hugo’s body apparently free to do as it pleases so long as it's not at his conscious direction. Gab groans, a shadow passing over his face before he bends down from his position astride Hugo’s thighs and captures his mouth in a bruising kiss.

Hugo sucks Gab’s split lip into his mouth. A metallic tang coats his tongue and quiets him for a heartbeat; biting down and swallowing his first mate’s curses and blood alike drives appeasement into an approximation of pleasure. Then he goes to reach for Gab’s braid to draw him closer, finds he can’t, and seethes anew.

And yet, traitorously, wits addled, he keeps kissing Gab back, drinks him down even though he’s vowing a new method of revenge with every thought. His generous chest presses to Hugo’s own, slick with rain and sweat, the beads of their focuses clicking together, and Hugo grunts into Gab’s mouth at the feast of sensation, the tension mounting as Gab drives him toward his peak.

The moment Gab lifts the smothering weight of his compulsion, Hugo bursts at the seams, control a distant memory.

He comes against Gab’s hand with wracking, violent pulses, and at the same time, the Depths subsume him. He entwines himself with Xeheia, with Gab, losing the edges of himself to storm and salt and sea and blood.

He is sacrifice and salt price, but on whose altar, he cannot say.

Lightning plunges down from the sky and explodes in the forest nearby, as close to them as the quarterdeck of the Squall is long. It’s a release of a different kind, one that drags a reluctant moan of relief from Hugo. Ozone joins the iron curtain hanging heavy in the air, and when Hugo levers himself up on his elbows, Gab regards him with equal amounts hunger and rapture.

Hugo does not give him long to admire.

Though his knees are weak, he lunges at Gab, the indignity of being bound against his will driving a fresh surge of adrenaline through him. It’s a familiar struggle, with familiar wounds. Hugo sinks his teeth into the swell of Gab’s tit and luxuriates in his bellow of pain; Gab heaves him away with a grip that will leave a constellation of bruises along his hips. They crash again, nails gouging bright wounds on tender flesh, the taste of salt joining copper as teeth meet skin. On one of Gab’s escapes, Hugo takes hold of the waistband of slops and yanks them down his massive legs; the resulting tangle around his ankles makes him stumble and gives Hugo the opportunity he needs.

He straddles one of Gab’s broad thighs and pins him to the ground, one hand at Gab’s throat and bearing down in a threatening squeeze, the other on his muscular shoulder. The shared current of their bond swirls like a riptide as their eyes meet. Gab looks as feral, as wild as Hugo feels, braid in disarray with forest detritus sticking from it, skin covered in marks and bruises.

He’s not the only one who can take what he wants.

Hand still at Gab’s throat, Hugo begins to rock his hips back and forth, his cunt slick with arousal and blood alike. He marks him in the same way Gab was marked with brine paint for the revel, smears the evidence of his presence in a crimson tide along Gab’s skin, claims him and makes him into an offering for Hugo alone. Meanwhile, he delves into Gab’s bond, their shared trance heightening the physical pleasure of sliding his cunt against Gab’s thigh.

They are two men possessed—by each other and by the Fury, and in Hugo’s case, by a deep-rooted possessiveness with ominous midnight tendrils; it makes the mirrored scars on their palms seem a child’s game by comparison. Gab reaches for Hugo with a red-stained hand and grabs him by the hip, encouraging him to go faster, while his other hand works at his cock, jutting proudly between his legs.

Hugo should punish him, should slap his hand away. He doesn’t deserve the pleasure. But different urges move him now. Not content with marking just one with his own blood, Hugo moves to the other thigh, which draws a ragged groan from Gab, his fingers moving faster on his cock. It’s hard to tell whose pants and groans belong to who, just as it’s impossible to separate them where they’re entwined in the Depths.

Though he relishes the taut swell of Gab’s coiled muscle beneath his palm, Hugo releases his shoulder in favour of tucking his hand between his legs, grinding his clit against his fingers. He’s already close again, swept away in a storm of his own making.

Once his fingers are coated with the salt and iron of his wetness, he presses them to Gab’s mouth, hips never faltering as he chases his peak. When Gab doesn’t immediately yield, Hugo squeezes his throat in warning. His lips part in a strangled gasp.

Hugo uses the opportunity to shove his fingers into Gab’s mouth, his own breath coming short and quick. Gab’s initial resistance vanishes as he sucks on him with relish, tongue sliding between each digit and licking them clean, Xeheia-touched eyes lidded as he moans loudly around them.

It’s enough to drive Hugo to the brink.

His back arches as he bears down on Gab’s thigh, groaning as a second climax takes him, cunt pulsing at the sight of Gab’s beard and lips stained with Hugo’s blood. It’s even better with the immense presence of Gab threaded through his bond, beneath his skin, his own power rippling and rising in response to Hugo’s.

With the hand not stroking the firm, swollen ridge of his cock, Gab reaches between Hugo’s legs again, openly moaning as he coats his fingers in the pale red wash of blood and arousal. Seized by a rare craving, Hugo presses Gab’s thick fingers into his soaking cunt, in part because he wants the satisfying fullness and stretch of being filled, and in part because he knows this will happen: Gab comes apart beneath him, hips bucking, voice infused with the Fury’s power as he cries out. Thunder peals overhead, responding to his trance.

The Matriarch may want him for the fold, and Xeheia may have most of him, but Xeheia cannot undo him like this.

Hugo spends the remainder of the night proving it.

He proves it by taking Gab while he’s on his hands and knees, one hand tugging Gab’s focus behind him like a leash and the other buried deep in his slick hole, rivulets of pink running down his massive thighs as the sudden downpour of the storm washes him clean. It is not the Fury’s name he calls as he’s fucking himself on Hugo’s hand like an animal, swearing and sobbing as Hugo violently brings him off, clenching around his fingers in torrid pulses all the while.

He proves it again when he braces himself against a tree and shoves Gab’s face against his cunt, and Gab worships it heedless of the blood and mess. His tongue delves between his folds, lapping up every drop Hugo has to offer. When Hugo comes, shuddering and gasping, Gab soon follows; the wet noises as he pumps his fingers in and out of his hole are dizzying, as is his feral groan against Hugo’s mound when he breaks.

When he finally lifts his face from between Hugo’s legs, he’s stained with uneven streaks of crimson from nose to neck, and the ardent fervor in his midnight eyes belongs to Hugo and Hugo alone.

He proves it a final time when, bodies spent but spirits raging as tempestuous as the storm around them, he compels Gab to a howling release from the Depths without so much as touching him. Filthy curses fall from Gab’s lips even as he draws Hugo close, tits and belly pressed tight against Hugo’s bondmark, teeth buried in the inked tendril of his neck as he rides out the trembling aftershocks.

Again, and again, and again, he will prove it.

As many times as it takes to drive his doubt away.

#the forsaken and the forsworn #hubriel #hugo melançon #gabriel berthelot #my writing #if you got this far and were like 'this seems a lot like the getting together fic from way back when'#you win because this is absolutely meant to mirror that #just way down the line at the beginning of the end

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thestraggletag · 2 years

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The Changeling, Chapter 1

Rating: M

Summary: Belle and Lacey had always been as different as two twins could possibly be, but always ready to do whatever it took for each other. Which includes Belle putting her life in pause to replace Lacey in hers as she checked herself into rehab to kick a drinking habit that could potentially end her modelling career. All she had to do is attend some fittings, do a couple of photoshoots, avoid if possible the slimey and two-timing Killian Jones and steer clear of Lacey's boss, Mr Gold, and his suspicious nature.

How difficult could it possibly be?

A/N: This is my Rumbelled version of A Change of Place. Fic will have a total of around 6 (or perhaps 7) chapters.

“Lacey, honey! So good to have you back! How was the West Coast?”

Belle blinked, trying not to jump out of her skin when a tall woman dressed in a red maxi dress ran over to her and embraced her. ‘Be Lacey’, she told herself over and over, like she had done often in the past, when they had played at being each other to fool people.

“I missed you too Ruby.”

It was easy to recognise her from Lacey’s descriptions, even without the bright red streak in her hair. Like her sister had told her she was loud and charming, personality exuding out of her. She could easily picture her and Lacey being best friends, going to parties and turning heads everywhere. She was glad she was on their side and knew of the whole damned mess.

“We have so much to catch on, hon. Let’s go somewhere more private, ok?”

She barely got time to admire the well-preserved Gothic revival details of the main foyer of the House of Gold, a building reminiscent of the Barbizon. Its sheer size and appearance spoke of power and wealth, but also of style and elegance. She wished she had the time to take it all in, wished she was simply visiting her sister at her place of work instead of trying to pass herself off as her. She told herself not to touch her hair, held up by bobby pins, a lot of hair lacquer, and a prayer, and followed her sister’s friend up an elevator.

She was soon whisked away to one of the middle floors, where she could tell most of the clothes were produced. It was all a mess of fabrics, feathers, rhinestones and forms, with people hovering over sewing machines and aligning sequins in different patterns. Ruby walked straight to a corner partially covered by folding screens. Behind was a small couch and a coffee table. It was clearly a well-used hidden little nook, one Lacey had mentioned was in constant use whenever the time came to start fitting the dresses to the models, before they were even finished. Given that the fashion house was meant to be months away from the nearest showing it looked like things were rather advanced, to Belle’s admittedly untrained eye. From what she knew from facetiming Lacey this was supposed to be a rather quiet time, specially for the models. It was the main reason why Lacey had chosen then to go visit her in California and why she had agreed to the switch, really, especially since it was supposed to be for months.

“You’ll hardly have to do any work, I promise! You’ll get to hole up at my fabulous apartment to do your thesis and enjoy a bit of life in the Big Apple! It’ll mostly be like a vacation.”

To Ruby’s credit, she waited till they were sitting down to lose it on her.

“Is Lacey mad? What the hell was she thinking? What the hell were you thinking? From what Lacey told me about you you were supposed to be the responsible twin! The level-headed one! You should’ve said no!”

Belle had thought that, over and over, on her plane ride from California to New York. It was a stupid idea and would never work. But Lacey was her little sister. Younger by minutes but still. Her responsibility, now that both their parents were dead. She owed her this. This chance to turn things around.

“You wanted me to tell Lacey that I wouldn’t help her get into rehab? Help her quit drinking? When I’ve been wanting for years for her to even admit she has a problem?”

She had told herself this too, when Lacey had shown up out of nowhere in the small apartment in Rosindale, near Berkeley. California reminded her a bit of Australia, which was nice, but the real reason why she had chosen to move there after graduating from Columbia was to pursue her PhD in Library Science and train, at the same time, at the North West Document Conservation Centre. She was hoping, after finishing her degree and the courses she was taking, to be able to work for museums or, if she was lucky, in the curatorial department of some major library. Her work at the university library was nice, but antique books were her passion.

She hadn’t expected Lacey to show up at her home at all, taking into account she was supposed to be on the other side of the country, living the glamorous life of a Manhattan-based model. And though she had at first acted flippant, as if she had simply decided to impulsively visit her sister, she had eventually come clean about things. She had spoken in vague terms, and Belle hadn’t pushed for more, about increasing blackouts, bad decisions and regrets that were beginning to pile up. Then she talked about how when they were younger they used to play-act as each other and see whether they could fool their parents. Belle had read between the lines and told her she was crazy if she thought she was going to try a switch, like they did when they were girls.

“I’m scared, Bluebelle. I’ve never been scared this way before.”

That had decided her, then and there. She would see it through, how difficult could it possibly be? She had told herself over and over as she drove Lacey to a very private rehab centre and later took a flight to New York. She could continue with her thesis long-distance, her advisor preferred they meet virtually anyway. It was doable, and worth it. And it would only be for three months. Lacey needed that opportunity and she owed it to her sister to help her get it. Ruby, on the other hand, seemed to be more pessimistic about the whole thing.

“It’s just a couple of photoshoots and some fittings, right? I can do that.”

“Except that Lacey checked into rehab before I could tell her the house is pushing the fall show forward to avoid the competition getting wind of our designs like it happened in the last two shows. They bumped the date by six weeks, and Lacey’s program does not allow for contact with the outside world except in case of emergencies for the first whole month. So this means you will have to do a lot of the preparatory work and the pre-show, at least till we’re able to contact Lacey and get her to come back. Bosses want to give a sneak-peek to a few select names to further avoid being scooped.”

“A show? What do you mean a show?”

Ruby was looking her up and down, as if he was analysing every detail of her body. Surprisingly it did not feel creepy or objectifying, though it did make her feel anxious. Though Lacey and her were twins, she knew she wasn’t in shape the way Lacey was.

“Your measurements are not exactly Lacey’s. You have a bit more of a waist and thighs, and less breasts. Some padding will take care of the latter, and I suppose I can secretly get Granny to let out some of the clothes, but it won’t be enough. You gotta lose some weight or Joanna, the main fitter, will notice. We gotta get you ready for the pre-show events at least, and then we can adjust the clothes again for Lacey when she comes back. Granny will see to that. And so Lacey will handle the actual show, don’t worry about it. We’ll give her a call as soon as we’re able."

Belle took a few moments to be indignant about the remarks on her body. Sure, she wasn’t as thin as Lacey, and her breasts were more on the modest side, but that was because they were real. Then the reality of her situation sunk in and she began to panic.

“I can’t do this. I can’t do a show, or a pre-show, or whatever the fuck you’re talking about. I was psyching myself up for a fucking photoshoot, but a show? With an audience? No fucking way!”

Ruby seemed to be fully in agreement with her, which was nice.

“I know! Look, no offence, but fashion shows are gruelling and they’re an art form. Lacey is the face of the collection, so she’ll feature centre stage on that night. It’s more than okay to go get her back. Her career is everything to her. I’m sure she can arrange for a rehab stay later.”

It was that last sentence that gave Belle pause. She had accompanied her sister to the rehab centre at her request, so she would not chicken out last minute. Lacey had been determined but clearly uneasy, as if it had taken a lot to convince herself to take that last step. She could not undo the effort her sister had put into confronting her problem and making the decision to get better.

“If I pull Lacey out of rehab she’s not going to return. I can’t do that to her, Ruby. At least not right now, not when she’s taking the first steps. We’ll call her after the first mandated 28 days if we have to, but only if we have to. She needs this.”

To the model’s benefit she seemed to agree and be equally worried, before a determined expression settled across her face.

“If you’re staying then I’m helping you. Lacey’s a great friend and she deserves a break. She’s helped me more than once, I would be a bitch if I didn’t return the favour.”

Belle could see in Ruby the fierce loyalty that her twin tended to inspire in people, and though she hadn’t always been grateful for it she was now.

“Thank you, Ruby.”

“Don’t mention it. By the way, we gotta go visit Jefferson. He’s been asking about you and I told him I’d keep an eye on you and send you up to him when you got here. Gave me the perfect opportunity to intercept you and catch you up to speed.”

Jefferson’s office was as chaotic as Lacey had described, sketches, fabric samples and rhinestones littering every single surface not covered by half-finished dresses draped across forms or splayed across tables, a moodboard dominating the back wall. The man himself fit his environment, from the top hat barely clinging to his head to the mismatched socks, the brown brogues he must have arrived with carelessly kicked to a side of the desk. His hair was dishevelled, as if he had pulled at it till it was sticking in all directions, though the mess added to his handsomeness. Lacey had described him as “sinfully beautiful” and Belle could see why.

“There’s my Chesire cat! Lacey, darling, so good to see you!”

Jefferson was as exuberant as she had been led to believe, dramatically flinging himself at her, his long arms easily lifting her off the ground before unceremoniously letting her go. Like Ruby had reassured her the designer was respectful, his hands never wandering and his gaze warm and admiring without being predatory. Clearly Lacey and him got along like a house on fire, so she hoped the extra work that pushing the launch of the collection would produce would keep him too busy to interact much with her. He would surely notice the difference otherwise.

“I’m so glad you’re here, it’s been so chaotic with the new launch date and everyone making insane demands upon my artistry. Gold in particular has been a veritable beast. Man walks around like he’s about to bite someone’s head off. His accent has gotten out of hand. I would say something, except it’s kind of hot, you know?”

Rowan Gold. Founder and owner of the fashion house that bore his name, where Lacey had gotten her big break in spite of her less than ideal height and her sometimes problematic temper. A business giant in the art world, who had dealt in antiques before turning his attention to fashion and creating one of the leading fashion brands in the world, known for its whimsical, cutting-edge designs. And, according to her sister, an asshole. An irredeemable, unlovable asshole. Mean for sport. The type of man who would for sure fire any model that wound up caught in a scandal of any kind, even one as tame as doing a stint in rehab for substance abuse, something almost provincial in the modelling world.

“He’s just got this stick up his ass which I am almost 100% sure it’s because he hasn’t gotten any since the Great Depression or something.”

Lacey had never had a good thing to say about him, other than he dressed sharply, something her twin always thought important and partly the reason why Belle herself had developed her own very curated sense of fashion. Though both twins had different tastes, Lacey had always approved of her bold choices and her eye for quality.

“There’s no reason to dress like a librarian simply because you want to be one.”

Most of Belle’s admittedly expensive wardrobe came from Lacey, whose connections in the industry guaranteed her heavy discounts and often free clothing, a lot of which wasn’t her particular style and got sent straight to her. It was always a nice surprise to find a package waiting for her, with a note attached in Lacey’s careless handwriting: “Got this and thought of you!” It was the sort of thing that made Lacey so easy to love and so difficult to say no to, the reason why Belle was determined to not back down. All she needed to do was one measly fashion show. With a bit of practice and Ruby to help her she was sure she could do it.

“Yeah, well, Gold can relax. I’m here and ready to work!”

“And thank God for that! By the way… have you gained weight? Cause that’s gonna be a problem.”

Belle felt she couldn’t relax till she was in Lacey's apartment, alone and free from having to pretend to be her sister. She hurried towards the bathroom, wanting to get rid of the heavy make-up and the spray that kept her hair in the teased updos her twin favoured. No matter how much she had prepared for it, how much Lacey had told her about what to expect from anyone who could potentially want to speak with her, it had all been an utter disaster. She was glad no one had noticed how she’d clung to Ruby as she was caught up on the exciting news regarding the new date for the fall fashion show and what it would mean for her upcoming schedule. Afterwards Ruby had sympathetically offered her a pep talk before guiding her to one of the company cars with the express instruction to get some rest.

“The real work starts tomorrow. Might want to consider an early morning run by the way. Gotta get as close to Lacey’s measurements as possible. Granny can help with the bra padding, but you gotta do the rest.”

Lacey’s building was blessedly near, where the Garment District met Chelsea. It was a renovated rowhouse, preserving as much of its historical charm as possible. Not the type of building her twin would’ve picked, but apparently she had gotten the apartment through some sort of arrangement with the fashion house at a discounted price, certainly nothing to scoff at in the competitive real estate world of NYC. Belle loved the soft blue and gold wallpaper along the walls and the plaster crown moulding with its faded patina and spidery cracks. There was a French balcony with a few potted plants she quickly tended to and a reading nook with a built-in bookshelf bellow that sported the few books Lacey owned, mostly murder mysteries and spy thrillers, with the occasional biography sprinkled about.

She unpacked what little she had brought and did a bit of research on the neighbourhood, looking up a couple of promising running trails before opening the website for the New York Public Library, to make an appointment for a virtual consultation from an expert in the Rare Books division. There was a good chance something in their repository would be relevant to her research topic, and it felt helpful to do something she was good at. Tomorrow she would worry about fittings and fashion shows. Tonight she had books.

Waking up at five in the morning to fit in an early run before meeting Ruby for a coffee and some strategizing was a bad start to what looked like a lousy day. It took them the better part of it to devise a master plan of sorts regarding the next four weeks. Belle would need to be available to the House every day, for fittings and the like, so she would wake up early to sneak in a morning run and be at work promptly at 8 AM. She would meet with Ruby and Granny so the seamstress would know what dresses she needed to let out from previous collections, based on the photoshoots scheduled that week. Belle would model them to make sure they fit. After that Ruby would secure a corner somewhere to teach her how to walk the runway. It was a blessing that Belle was already fond of sky-high heels and so balance and endurance weren’t a problem, but there was more to walking like a model than being able to stand stilettos. There was a certain strut to it, a way to move the body and command attention, that Belle despaired over ever mastering to the extent her sister did. Lacey was magnetic, always had been, the twin most people gravitated towards. And that had always suited Belle just fine, except that now she needed to learn to step into the spotlight.

Jefferson, as it turned out, commanded a lot of her time. He had begun to sketch feverishly, which was welcome news after their original sketches for the fall show were compromised. This meant that the designer was absentminded, his head somewhere else half the time. This suited Belle just dine, since Jefferson’s familiarity with Lacey meant he would’ve likely spotted the switch otherwise. Though he seemed to sense, or at least feel, that something was different about her, it wasn’t enough to make him overly suspicious.

Though it was nice when all of his attention wasn’t on her, Belle soon found it preferable to being around Ashley. The young model was cute in a very girl-next-door way that Jefferson seemed to find somewhat lacking, often comparing her All-American looks with Belle’s- or rather Lacey’s- more interesting features. This clearly did not endear her to the blonde, who was borderline rude every time they shared the same space. Her constant digs at her age- at twenty-nine, it was true that Lacey was well past the usual age for retirement in the modelling business- did not bother Belle, but she could sense Ashley could become a bigger issue if her behaviour escalated.

“One last twirl? Mmh, still not sure about that silhouette, it’s not sitting on you the way it was a few weeks ago. Next one?”

Belle smiled at Jefferson, biting back a sigh of disappointment. She felt like she had been trying outfits for days now, but the designer seemed not to notice, looking feverish as he scribbled notes on the sketch corresponding to the outfit she was wearing. She trudged back to the set of folding screens that had been set up for her privacy, grabbing a nude-and-black outfit that did not make much sense on the hanger. When it was on she was glad that clearly Granny had gotten to it at some point and made the necessary alterations. It was more akin to a bondage garment than a haute couture piece, and the skirt tight, and the skirt in particular was meant to wrap around her legs in what she imagined was an alluring way, but paired with heels it made walking a chore.

She was halfway across the room, thinking that perhaps she was getting the hang of the skirt, when she tripped, her stiletto heels slipping from beneath her. The skirt didn’t allow her to compensate for it, sending her tumbling to the floor. Out of nowhere, however, someone grabbed her by the waist, giving her the leverage she needed to find her footing. Looking up she found that her saviour was a mysterious new person, a man dressed sharply in a dark grey suit and black tie, with the only nod towards colour being the burgundy swath of silk peeking out of the breast pocket. He had greying hair a tad longer than what was fashionable and though he looked older than most people she saw in the building, he made it look good. Lacey had always teased her about her preference towards older men, which Belle had always thought was a bit of an exaggeration, but she could not deny the man was her type. A silver fox through and through. Belle could not help but smile up at him, for once not feeling shy at the idea of meeting someone new who she was supposed to already know, since she was pretending to be her sister.

“Thank you, that was a close call.”

The man blinked, as if confused by something. Belle smiled wider, hoping to put him at ease. If anything it seemed to confuse him more, his soft brown eyes glued to her mouth for what felt like forever. Then he blinked, and the warmth seemed to seep right out of his face. His expression turned glacial and he let go of her waist, so suddenly that she stumbled before righting herself.

“Seems a bit too early to be drinking, doesn’t it Miss French?”

As Belle felt indignation curl deep in her gut her mind quickly processed that this was, most likely, Mr Gold, owner of the fashion house and, according to Lacey, one of the main reasons why her going to rehab had to be kept secret. It seemed obvious, both from what her sister had implied and from what the man himself had just said, that he had not only suspected Lacey of having a drinking problem, but also seemed to not be very tolerant of it. And though he was technically not wrong in his suspicions Belle resented his assumption and was in no mood to entertain his petty power trip, delicious accent or not.

“You’re more than welcome to step into Jefferson’s cocktail bondage fantasy dress and strut around in it if you have a problem with how I do it.” She turned to look at the designer, scrunching up her nose and trying to look apologetic. “I’m not really feeling this one, Jeff, gonna pass on it. Maybe Ashley could do it?”

Jefferson made a dismissing gesture.

“Don’t worry, Lace, I agree with you. Does not suit you at all. I think I’m gonna scrap it altogether. I’m shooting for intimacy for this collection but I think I’m going to go a different way with it.”

She smiled, relieved, and continued to flat out ignore the other man in the room, feeling nothing but satisfaction when it became clear that it seemed to piss him off.

“You’re a darling. Anything else you want me to try while I’m here?”

“Bless you, but no. I’ve imposed upon you enough. I’ve many ideas fluttering around my head after seeing all the looks, so expect some fresh new outfits in a few days. Right now I need to put pencil to paper. You’re free to go.”

Belle did not need to be told twice, turning around with as much grace as she could muster and slinking out of the room without even a glance towards the Scotsman still looking at her, his eyes hard and judging.

“What is this about some new sketches? Are you finally inspired?”

Gold had tried striking a delicate balance between letting Jefferson know how urgently the fashion house needed a new collection for the fall show and trying to keep the designer stress-free so he could work in peace. For weeks he had dragged his feet when it came to new designs, bemoaning the idea that he was expected to simply “have another vision”. Now it seemed Jeff was finally past his artistic temper tantrum.

“It’s all Lacey. She’s come back like such a breath of fresh air. There’s something… different about her. She’s as luminous as ever, but whereas before she commanded the attention of the room she now seems… lost in her own world. I’ve found that novelty quite inspiring.”

Gold grunted, unwilling to do or say anything that would upset Jefferson now that he seemed ready to be productive. And he did not entirely disagree with him. There was something… odd, about Miss French. That smile she had given him… He had never seen her look like that before.

“It’s like our Chesire Cat has turned into a Little Rabbit. Curiouser and curiouser. I’m thinking… soft. See-through, gauzy fabrics in soft shades of gold, like sunlight, and pale rose. Something fantasy-inspired, as if catching sight of a sprite deep into the woods, the intimacy of stepping into someone’s fantasy world.”

A picture began to form as the designer described his new vision, something that Gold could not deny seemed more than appealing.

“Let me see those sketches once you’re done, Jeff. I might want to tweak one or two.”

“Can do, boss.”

#The Changeling #rumbelle #rumbelle fic #thestraggletag fanfiction

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legiomiam · 1 year

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FIND THE WORD

Tagged by @awritingcaitlin my words are: step, look, broken, warm, song, cheer, answer, gape (no dice surprisingly), quick, sleep

I tag: @mariahwritesstuff, @carrotblr, @mr-writes, and anyone who would like to participate and sees this.

And your words are: smile, charge, under, and change

This will more than likely be the last 'find the word' I'll do for this draft of TDADP as I start the second draft.

☙❦❧

STEP

A soft hand so feather light like a breath of starlight touched their father’s shoulder. Sunset eyes so pink in hue followed the curve of horns before drifting across the room to look at her son, “while I agree Chandra is old enough, it would make me more at ease if you would at least lead her to the border. I’m sure that your friend wouldn’t mind you skipping your weekly excursion, Brahm.”

His lips pulled down in the corners. The disapproval of her son’s bed partner evident in the lines that appeared as she narrowed her eyes at him. The stars under her skin shifted with each step off the dias towards him, the constellations shifted and realigned to create new ones on her dark skin. The gold paint decorating her palms and the soles of her feet made the night sky so much darker, lightning flashed somewhere over her shoulder and down her back. As if on cue thunder rolled in the distance and rain fell in fat heavy drops on the roof.

A loud hammering that echoed throughout the compound.

“There, you’ll have plenty of time to take your sister to the border and make it in time for your extracurricular activities.” The snorting laugh from his sister beside him was muffled in the crook of her elbow, her coils bouncing with her shaking shoulders. With the flooding that this storm would cause on the coast would swell the rivers and make it difficult for the water fae to come into town. And by the time the dangerous waters would have cleared Brahm would have been long gone through the territories.

☙❦❧

LOOK

Something deep within her ached, she didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was the longing to see her parents just once, or the oncoming last of the winter snow that was to come. Since her park walk with Klaas the two had built a comfortable routine when he was home, they would either enjoy dinner in the dining room or his study. Then retire to the library or sitting room with a pile of books, she would lounge on the settee and either read her own book as her companion would look over paperwork and letters similar to what her father would do. Sometimes he would sit in the chair next to her and read to her form his favorites or listen to her read.

Today was different to her, as the snow started to drift in she found herself staring more out the window, the snow would not stick here on the cliffs like it would around the mountains.

The snowfall would remind her of many winters of her youth where her parents would snuggle on their couch wrapped in blankets with cups of cider. She would lay between them as her mother would read. The smell of the wood crackling on the fire would just amplify what her father’s smell was as it lingered on the blanket she would be wrapped in. It would surround her as he carried her up the stairs to her room when she’d fall asleep during story time.

The soft press of lips that left a kiss to her forehead was what was left.

The feel of shadowed hands drifting up from the foot of her bed to wrap around her ankles is what woke her that night, gasping from that endless falling that she had experienced she realized that the house was too quiet, too dark. Soft feet padded down the hall from her room until they descended the steps to the main floor. The doorway to the kitchens was open, and round brown eyes were slow to adjust to the dark. When they finally did she was startled to find the flour canister on the wooden flooring, her breath ghosted out of her mouth as she stood frozen in place by her mother.

Her hair was softly lifting in a created breeze as she doubled over, hand white knuckled on the counter. Dark substance was spattering in drops between her legs as the other hand smoothed down the swell of her stomach.

☙❦❧

BROKEN

“She won’t open the fucking door!” Chandra had her arms crossed from her sitting position in front of said door. Dawn had broken and the two men who shared a room a few doors down rose not much later. “She’s been quiet.”

A sigh sounded from Brahm when he knelt to look at the lock, simple and easily pickable. The satisfactory over the would be small victory was lost when the door was pulled inward before he could touch the handle. The sun lightened teresses of her hair weren’t neatly combed like they would have been normally at this time, the towel still tucked around her. He expected a witty retort to grace her lips along with a sneer, instead she motioned to the towel before taking a step back and shutting the door once more sorrow still glazed over her eyes.

The silent command was easily understandable.

Clothes.

☙❦❧

WARM

Looking through her hair she took a careful assessment of her surroundings, last remembering clearly the feel of warm blood soaking the front of her dress.

“Honestly it’s like she gave no regards to her surroundings. Stupid.” A deep voice reached her, making sure to shift enough towards that voice she grew even more confused. Fae males were gathered, three of them, two in the middle of a discussion while the third with green hair would look at her long enough, counting in his mind.

She’s still breathing good, I wish they’d stop arguing.

“What do you want me to do?” A man with crude glasses leaned back on his heels, “Brahm, I can’t tell your father ‘she attacked people willingly’ from the looks of her, and if she was found with bodies and this toolkit — thank you by the way, it seems they are progressing,” progressing? It hit her just a little bit, Fangers. She was attacked by Fangers.

“I don’t care what you tell my father—”

“Brahm,” a booming voice interrupted and even Rashka held her breath at that prickle of magic that filled the room, she’d remember him anywhere. The man who stopped her carriage on the way to Regina’s wedding. He had looked at her as if she was an anomaly, something that didn’t belong with her company. Her mother too.

☙❦❧

SONG

With the incandescent chirping of the songbirds that filtered in through the window that was left open to let the spring air in for enjoyment, or to air out the stench of death and decay that a starving Vampyre gave off, Rashka awoke in a bed not her own. If not from memory then from the scent that was so unfamiliar to her. Radiating pain burned when her eyes opened, the offender was the light streaming in, she hissed as it continued to fall on her and she burrowed under the thick covers as quickly — slow — as her weakened state could. A sigh leaves her and on the inhale something delicious alerts her, wiggling just enough to open a small hole for her gaze she looked and locked onto the goblet on the bedside table. The smell of blood assaults her nose again and she lunges, scrambling to get it, one thought only in her head as it overwrote all her senses. Feed.

That need to feed. To fill up her veins. She needed to feed, she needed something to regain the strength she had lost..

Pulling the cup to her as she twisted in the covers, her mouth latching around the rim as she greedily gulped it down. Air barely passed through her nose as she filled her stomach and began to run her finger in the cup to catch anything left, the animalistic way she licked her fingers clean. More.

She needed — wanted — more.

“Here,” she jumped and at her lack in alertness she remembered why they were a danger, Fae knew the most vulnerable time for a Vampyre was when they were feeding, all their guards were down. Though, after willing her racing heart to slow down, she noticed in his hand wasn’t a blade ready to cut her head from her shoulders but a pitcher. The loud growl or a stomach in hunger is the answer. Brahm held the pitcher where that the delicious smell was now coming from. His free hand clasped the cup from her as her hands found purchase on the metal pitcher, tugging it close so she could tilt it up over her open awaiting mouth, ignoring the way it slid down her skin as she tried to drink faster than it was pouring.

A disgusted noise makes it up his throat and out his nose.

☙❦❧

CHEER

“Hello,” she wanted to roll back over, a day that she did not wish to rise before early afternoon, curling in on herself she winced against a cramp. “I’d like a few minutes to myself.”

“I can not sadly,” the woman smiled, “Klaas would like to have lunch with you before he heads off to the meeting today.”

Sighing she tossed back the top covers and sat back up, blinking against the bright light. The heavy door opened and more maid hands dressed in white shifts. Their hair was all the same smoothed back into braids, faces fake cheery. They came carrying a light food tray with just some toast to have before lunch which would have been soon anyways, cloth that she had known by now was a dress fancier than theirs but still tube like and long, formal. Her dark hair would be brushed and braided before the braid was wound into a bun and pinned up. Rouge would be smoothed onto her cheeks and lips so she’d have a rosy glow that Klaas liked.

Her stomach lurched once more with cramps and she clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, breathing in through the nose and out her mouth.

Was she hungry or was it her seasonlies that born Vampyres had gotten.

“A bath, quick. Come on girls.” The all too human rotating staff smiled wider, faker and two rushed to her personal bathroom as Marjorie ran down the to do list for the day.

“Klaas wants to do lunch, then after he thinks a walk around the gardens would benefit you, then maybe a few piano lessons—”

“I know how to play piano, my Ba taught me.” She nibbled on the toast sat before her and looked, “Marjorie, I have a new letter to my father there on the desk, do you mind sending it to him for me?”

“Sure,” she fingered the embossed teal wax seal that I had brought with me to use. “You should switch to your fiance’s colors, show unity. It would make him happy.”

☙❦❧

ANSWER

Opening her mouth to answer just caused her throat to burn and as she started to tilt her stomach emptied itself. Dark red splashed against the hardwood floor, droplets flew and hit the skin of her face, it burned and made her throat raw as she was offered a moment of relief when the torrent stopped. Not bothering to wipe her mouth as her stomach rolled again.

“Shouldn’t have moved around so much, especially when you downed a whole body’s worth of blood in your malnourished state.” Gritting her teeth she weakly hissed in his direction, “oh stop, you’re about eighty pounds soaking wet.

“I guess you said that when you broke your nose headbutting my fist.” That stocky dark skinned Fae that was patrolling with him covered his own mouth but, from where she had laid in her own vomit, she could see the shake of his shoulders that he was trying and failing to not be amused. Even the bastards’ own father had reacted. Krishorn had turned his face away to smile, a star struck look crossing his face and making his mouth a little slack when a beautiful woman entered the door, her sunset pink eyes trailing the room.

Rashka is suffocated by power. A power that was familiar and strange, a power she remembered feeling when suckling from her mother so many lifetimes ago. Power that had filled her mother’s veins that day of their argument over Rashka wanting to leave. It was so familiar that had controlled her, pulled her into an action that had happened when she was nothing more than a young child.

Thema, goddess of storms. Made of the night sky herself.

She walked as if she was floating across the wood floor, stars rippled across her skin as freckles, they shifted into constellations and lightning would flash in patches. The tight braided ropes of her hair were the color of the sky during a thunderstorm at night, the blue that made up the clouds as purple and white would streak across the sky. Rashka could taste the lightning on her tongue, she smelled the rain water in her nose. The power in the woman called to the power in her, storm and winds, rain and ice. Something darker pulled at the deeper seams demanding to over take.

Swallowing that feeling down and steadying herself with a deep breath.

The starlit woman placed a hand on his chest and Krishorn’s face softened as one of his own covered hers, their fingers intertwining, as she stood close there was a moment that just seemed like it was the two of them. There was one braid that the blue was interrupted by black strands, and in Krishorn’s own bundled hair one lock had blue twisted in.

☙❦❧

QUICK

The noise that escaped him was pleading as she descended on him, hair knotted from where he had held it. As if something finally thawed him as she got closer his arm lifted quickly, the blade of the knife slicing diagonally.

“Shit,” the word tumbled from her lips as she smelled her own blood drift into the air. Mind trying to find purchase on his to hold it. To quiet him, keep him placated enough for her to think of what to do. He never gave her the opportunity to decide not when the entirety of his weight slammed into her, blade slicing her thigh and arm as he swung wildly.

Monster, she’s a monster. What is she? A demon, she’s a demon.

“I’ll bring your head back,” a hand was back in her hair as he raised his weapon. “Let the local doctor cut you open to study your damned insides.”

Just as he went to plunge the blade into her, Rashka struck, fangs sinking deep into his shoulder as she tore a mouthful of flesh from him. Wailing loud he dropped his weapon, open to her fangs sinking deeper into him at the junction of his neck where it met the dip of his collarbones. Enjoying the grunt that left him as warmth splashed on her skin, a cough that quickly turned into a gurgle led blood to leave his lips. Shock crossed his face as he weakly pawed at her.

In his absorption of being in pain he had missed her taking the discarded knife and plunging it into his abdomen. “I think the horned bitch,” she spat, his own blood spraying his face with her spit. “Was the least of your worries.”

☙❦❧

SLEEP

Her gaze had wandered out the window and froze on the young man from last night. She couldn’t tell from the recollection of her weird hazed induced memory but there, seeing him stand outside face upturned to the sky.

“He’s tall, we know. It makes people in the nearby villages worry.”

She knew what they meant, it made the humans worry, made them uneasy. But that’s not why she froze, just there over his shoulders was the hint of shadows, of something that should be more solid. Now that she was no longer under the fog of sleep and pain she could tell something about him, just him, made part of her body want to run. Similar to the Grievers, but so unlike them as he was living flesh. But are they not living flesh too? That voice that had guided her for so long whispered after a day of silence.

I have got to stop getting help from random strangers who—

Who what? Make your hair stand on end? Are there others?

Rashka jumped, elbow knocking against the wood as the man, Varyn, didn’t move even though his voice was so clear to her. Pale hands were helping her steady herself, Wystan’s murmuring above her as he made sure that she didn’t reinjure her back.

“Eat please, there’s blood in the broth it will help you.”

“Blood?” She looked at Psydora who smiled once more.

“Wystan’s father was a Vampyre, or is? I don’t know if he is still living, it was so many years ago. But I make food for him with blood added into the dishes, you need blood too, it looks— no what did Varyn say? You smelled like you were recently seriously injured and just started recovering. Darling tell her how worried you were when her back wasn’t healing.” The lilac haired woman rubbed her palms against her thighs, how she pulled at a braid.

What they mean is that I found you face down in a foot of snow with your fingers turning a deep red almost purple. Any longer and either that Griever would have eaten you, or you would have died from hypothermia.

GET OUT OF MY MIND.

A dark laugh. I wish I could Princess, trust me I wish I could. But you and I are one in the same here in our little mental inn. Whatever you have I can willingly take or in this case unwillingly take.

What?

#tag game #this dark and divine place #godly ruins

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ultraevenmoreinfinitepit2 · 1 year

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River Poems

For Ezekiel (and some of his friends)

And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.

It is a god, and inviolable.

Immortal. And will wash itself of all deaths.

I am at rest and fall to earth the way birch leaves grow small and thin in music. Like coast wind echoes from the sea, faces of autumn emerge in orange and gold and mauve.

I’d like to remember my old name, and keep the watch, waiting for something immense and unspeakable to uncover its face.

Choose my name and paint my scene. After your choice, I am still the river.

I go on casually eating from the bowl of raspberries. If I were dead, I remind myself, I wouldn’t be eating them. It’s not so simple.

It is that simple.

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river is a strong brown god - sullen, untamed, and intractable.

I shall go down to the deep river, to the moonwaters, where the silver willows are.

Silvered at the moon-singing of hidden birds.

Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made.

The river pulled herself up and spread her wings.

I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair.

Along the wharves by the water-house, and through the dripping slaughter-house, I am the shadow that walks there.

If you want to die you will have to pay for it.

It is the other rivers that lie lower, that touch us only in dreams that never surface. We feel their tug, as a dowser’s rod bends to the source below.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Sea water stood in my veins.

Mother, why is the river cold?

For the memory of having once been loved by the snow.

The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

But these coastal rivers! I love them the way some men love horses or glamorous women.

They curve, feathering themselves in free fall: wings flexed, shuddering, not to soar but to pour themselves down, to earth.

If you are going there by foot, prepare to get wet. You are not you anymore.

There are laws of heaven and those place, and those who see the sky in the water, angels in ashes that are the delta’s now.

#the digital version for reference #zeke aesthetic #puddle aesthetic #town of puddle #ocs

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blogbeautifulbrowboutiqueworld · 4 years

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Shape Your Career with Cosmetic Tattoo Training in Gold Coast

If you do not like to spend your life doing a fulltimejob or sit most of your days in front of a laptop, you might consider becoming a cosmetic tattoo artist. If you are interested in the world of permanent and semi-permanent cosmetics, if you love to make people feel more confident and positive about their appearances, consider getting cosmetic tattoo training in Gold coast.

The cosmetic industry is rising by leaps and bounds with no signs of slowing down. The demand for microblading Brisbane and Gold Coast has risen over the past couple of years. In order to meet this increasing demand, more and more academies and cosmetic institutes are offering these courses to train inserted souls. Would you like to know more about microblading training courses in Brisbane and Gold Coast? Then, please read on.

Why a career as permanent makeup artist is fruitful?

There are several advantages of picking up this highly niche and specialized course. First of all, as the profession is highly niche and the expertise required is highly specialized, there will be very few people out there who are good at this. Hence, the competition is less. For example, you will find loads of salons in Gold Coast, but only one or two licensed cosmetologist offering microblading in Gold Coast. As a result, permanent makeup artists or cosmetologists charge higher for their services, resulting in good incomes.

Secondly, this profession, like other self-ownedbusinesses gives you the flexibility and joy of becoming your own boss. You don’t have to work under anyone and be independent.

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Know about eyebrow courses for beginners

The Beginners fundamental eyebrow courses include learning about Feather Touch and Ombre Brows. The class duration is normally one week. The course fees should include the feathering kit, needles, pigments, digital machine, lunch and refreshments. The training for Cosmetic Tattoo Training Gold Coast should be taken from accredited cosmetologist.

What will you learn at the end of the course?

You will learn how to do brow mapping, design a brow shape suited to the face for different clients with flawless consistency. You will learn by feature touch application by ink for hair stroke pattern. You will know how to create microblading stokes to imitate natural eyebrows. You will also learn to create powdery finish for different skin type – same result they get with makeup. You will be able to practice these methods on live models. You will work closely in a live clinic and learn its way of operations.

Who are suitable for the course?

It is suitable for those who are in the beauty industry or would like to opt for a more specialized field. Previous experience is not required, but you will learn quickly if you have brow shaping experience. Learn microblading eyebrows in Gold Coast from Beautiful Brow Boutique. It has expert professionals and certified cosmetologist from whom you can learn the best.

#Microblading Brisbane #Cosmetic Tattoo Training Gold Coast #Feather Touch Gold Coast #Feather Touch Brows Gold Coast #Feather Touch Gold CoastCosmetic Tattoo Training Gold Coast

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beautifulbrowboutiqueme-blog · 5 years

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Feather Touch Brows- Beautiful Brow Boutique

Beautiful Brow Boutique specialises in bespoke cosmetic tattoo artistry. Head cosmetologist, Sarah Campbell has studied advanced master classes in Australia and Canada in the art of micro-blade tattooing and has also studied a bachelor degree of arts in UK in 2005. Sarah now conducts her own master classes teaching cosmetic tattoo artistry when she is not treating clients.

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sungbeam · 2 years

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𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝

▷ choi soobin x reader

▷ The year is 3022. Petrol is far out of use. The ozone layer is at its last breath. As the world searches for answers, a girl and a boy search for gold.

▷ 1k words, sci-fi au, mentions of cancer and suicidal-ish thoughts, mentions of Soobin's panic attacks, angst and some fluff, happy ending (?)

The sky was a darker coal-gray than usual, you decided. You swept past the tattered, red curtain and found Choi Soobin staring at the black ocean before you. You’d been traveling for months now via a small merchant's boat you had scavenged in the Shipwreck Graveyard off the coast of Macau. You wrapped the wool shawl around you tighter and pressed a button on the control panel next to you.

A clear case stretched over the outside deck of the ship and encased you both in a comfortable heat.

You settled next to Soobin on the wooden bench and nestled your head into the crook of his neck. His arm immediately came around your body to tug you closer.

"You miss home," you murmured, following his gaze out at the dark waters. Ever since the sky turned dark, everything else became nightmarish, too.

"Home is with you," he countered. He moved his head just slightly to press a kiss to your cheek. "We'll find it, sweetheart. I promise."

While the world searched for alternate planets to live on, you and Soobin searched for a lifeline. Despite the advancements in science and technology, cancer still provided a considerable amount of chaos. For the two of you, it rocked your worlds when you were told you had a terminal case of rare blood cancer that had recently been recorded just a decade ago. There were no discovered cures yet.

You still remembered that day like it was yesterday. Soobin had been so frustrated at modern medicine that he'd turned to the long abandoned books on magic and myths. That was why you were here—to find a mythical ingot of gold that might not even exist. But Soobin was determined. He couldn't bear to live without you, and with your days constantly decreasing, he was even more motivated than ever.

Sometimes you wondered if it would be better, easier, for you to speed up the clock and end yours and Soobin’s misery. He could go home to his family and invest in one of those Lunar Landers to get off of this damn planet. The Earth was just as dead as you were anyway. But you knew that if you ever expressed these thoughts aloud to Soobin, he might go into a panic attack again. The image of his trembling shoulders and pale blue lips were etched into your memory forever.

From the smog, you could just barely make out the shape of a shadowy form, rising above the gloom. It was a mountain—or at least, it looked like a mountain. Its face was holey and deformed, as if it had been plucked apart for natural resources like a piece of dead carrion swarmed by vultures. Humans were vultures, but that was beside the point. With land in sight, Soobin swiftly stood and made his way to the steering wheel to gently land the boat by the shore.

Once docked, Soobin threw himself into the shallow water, landing with a loud splash in the polluted waves. He gazed up at you with a soft, encouraging smile. He reached his hands up to you. “Come on, sweetheart. You got this.”

You staggered your way onto the edge of the railing, then fell feet-first into Soobin’s arms. He caught you with a small grunt, then let you down into the water with him. The seawater was up to your knees and up to Soobin’s calves, but it wasn’t too cold that your bones ached. The two of you trudged toward the abandoned mountainside with Soobin clutching a metal detector so tightly in his palm that his knuckles were white.

You reached for his free hand as you walked onto the grainy, gray beach. You felt his thumb brush against your fingers with a feather-light touch. It was a reminder of his presence, that he was and would always be here for you.

“I think I got something,” he suddenly gasped, pulling you toward the eastern end of the island. “It’s faint, but there’s a signal.”

“Do you think…?”

For the first time in a long time, Soobin’s eyes were alight with hope. “I read that this mountainside was stripped of its gold, then abandoned. There might still be a chance, Yn.”

Might had become a more powerful word than either of you liked to admit.

But if Soobin could be hopeful, then so could you. Sometimes when you got too hopeful, you imagined the years of life you could share with Soobin. The future the two of you could have together if you found what you were looking for was… well, it was beautiful. One didn’t come to appreciate life until they were suddenly getting it taken away from them.

Soobin led you on a small hike around the mountain, careful to pick his way around chunks of rock and debris that could prove detrimental to your already depleting health. The further you traveled, however, the stronger the signal became, and the more eager Soobin grew. He was grinning fully and widely now—

You prayed that this was it. That Soobin wasn’t getting his hopes up for nothing again. You didn’t think he could survive another letdown.

But then you were stopping at a mound on the side of the mountain and digging your hands through the soot. Both of you had your fingernails and hands stained in ash gray and black as you dug and dug and dug—

A cry pierced the air. Then Soobin’s hand retreated out of the dirt to raise something to the overcast sky.

Pinched between his thumb and forefinger was a pebble of gold, no bigger than a standard pill. It was dusted in soot, but it could have lit up the whole damn sky for all you cared.

Soobin was sobbing now, warm tears streaming down his face, and when you careened into his arms to hug him, he caught you and spun you around. You couldn’t tell if the wetness on your face were his tears or yours, or if the sounds of joy were yours or his.

“You’re gonna be okay, Yn,” he rasped into your hair, clutching the back of your head to his chest. “Thank God, you’re gonna be okay.”

It was enough then. The gold would be enough for the cure. “I love you,” you croaked, clutching his shirt tightly.

“I love you, too, sweetheart.”

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snackhobi · 4 years

Text

pairing: jimin x reader / word count: 11.8k / genre: tea witch!reader, nonwitch!jimin, growing up and finding your place in the world; fluff

summary: be careful, his mother would say. witches don’t care for mundane humans. be polite, do your business, but then leave. don’t linger. it’s not safe.

park jimin feels lost and alone and he’s still looking for home. but something unspoken leads him to your door—a witch who brews tea to match the stories and sadness that spill from his lips. a witch who gives him a question that he has to repay with an answer. (after all, you always have to pay a witch their dues.)

warnings/rating: SFW - talk of negative self thoughts, but that’s it I think! (so I suppose it’s a little angsty but it clears up dw :) )

a/n: thank you to the lovely @hobi-gif for beta reading this, ily queen!! the majority of teas mentioned are by the company bird & blend, and where possible I’ve inserted links to the exact teas I’ve included (so I suppose you could buy them yourself if you wanted to 👀)

edit [24/09/20]: please see the end of the story for an extra author’s note. -- Jimin is wet.

Jimin is tired, and sad, and lonely, but these are all things he's intimately familiar with, monochrome burden curled around his limbs and his heart, dragging him under their relentless weight. A familiar Sisyphean torture. Struggling against gravity only to be brought hurtling down once again. Yes, he's used to it by now.

But the wetness? That's new. Rain paints him with messy strokes, laid slick and cold across his body, soaking through clothes to skin to bone, reaching and curling chilled fingers into the heat of his insides. His shivers are full-bodied, every atom of his soul dripping rainwater, and Jimin—

Jimin wants to go home.

(He just doesn't know where that is, now.)

(Doesn't know if he's ever going to find it here.)

People rush past him. A sea of lifted hoods, unfolded umbrellas, crumpled newspapers— an array of protection from the downpour, some effective, some less so, but each offering at least a modicum of shielding. Hasty armour against the heavens.

Jimin is not so lucky. His pockets are empty and his jacket has no hood. Sodden blond hair guides tributaries down his face, the back of his neck, rainwater rivers that touch him so soft, so cold. Just more weights on the scale that are tipping him down, down, down.

(He's so tired.)

(He's so lost.)

The city becomes a different beast in the rain, grey and hazy, heaving with bodies, and Jimin has been swept up and spat out, road signs useless, phone dead, passersby more intent on their own destination than his. Too busy to spare a glance for the soaked boy who stands aside, out of the shifting tides of people, out of place.

(He's used to that, too.)

But then: a touch. Feather-light. A breath of wind, the gentlest curl of fingers as it brushes over his rain-slick cheek; a summer breeze, dappled sunlight and rose tinted warmth.

He turns into that touch, turning his head into that ephemeral hand, chasing the sensation of sun-hot air, and then, it hits him—

the smell.

(Sea salt and pale waves, a view that stretches on forever and falls into nothingness, endless skies and deep waters; cold across his skin and in his nose as he breathes in Songjeong beach, fills his lungs with the mellowed chill. The sand is a familiar soft roughness under his feet as he stares across the horizon, out to the world beyond, so close he can almost touch it.)

(Frying pastry, sticky street food, the smell of hot oil as the vendor flips the ssiat hotteok; air sweet with brown sugar and warm yeast, round and plump and full of seeds, a delicious crunch against his teeth. Laughter fills his ears and his lungs, as sweet as the sugar on his fingers, his lips, warmth and happiness and light.)

(Fish tang, salt and wet; the bustling yell of the fish market, fat shrimp and slick squid and rough oysters, fresh from the sea; everything breathing and shuffling and so alive, air full of the brightness of it all, edged with brine, sharp. He cuts through the choppy waves of people, treading a path that’s drawn by his steady feet, guiding him through this place he knows so well.)

Here, Jimin stands in the rain of Seoul, and all he can smell is Busan, Busan, Busan.

All he can smell is—

All he can smell is home.

(Home, that place of comfort, carved out in the heart of his memories, when he was younger and smaller and burned brighter; rose tinted and past perfect, unchangeable.)

Something stirs in his stomach. Something far reaching, but light, that soft curl of salt air brushing past the cold rain that's filled him.

He follows it.

(After all, it couldn't possibly take him somewhere that's worse than where he already is.)

Jimin has only met two witches in his life.

For the first, he was young, all chubby cheeks and small hands—he’s lost the round cheeks but the small hands have stayed.

He can easily recall the grizzled edges of the witch’s face and the deep solemnity in his voice. He’s a cliffside of a man, unbending and awe inspiring in his earthly solidness, almost terrifying; skin with pockmarks like crags, sandstone rough and chipped, eyes flint-hard and unchanging as he squats down to look at Jimin. The only thing that keeps him from bolting is his mother’s presence at his shoulder, hand warm in his, holding him tight and safe.

The witch is a monolith, and that scares Jimin. But whatever concoction the man passes over to Jimin’s mother—after she gives him jars of their family-recipe kimchi, spice and salt and sour—finally clears up the cough that’s been lingering in his throat for weeks, squeezing his lungs and throat, so he’s happy. (Even if his lips taste like sickly sweet aniseed and something deeper, something he still can't name).

For the second, he was all pubescent awkwardness, limbs still so short and yet so ungainly and gangly, a cygnet still shedding the grey plumage of his youth—desperate to reach the signature elegance and grace of a swan, all curved neck and crystal feathers and perfection.

This witch is all hard, perfect edges, glittering diamond, beautiful, untouchable; hair a dark waterfall around her face, lashes long, lips red, perfect curves and yet still so sharp. Terrifying. She eyes Jimin with something bordering on disdain, but disdain would require him to be worth her time. (He’s not.)

But he comes with payment, bundles of samphire he picked from the coast with bare hands, fat and green and salty, and so she deigns to give him a moment of that time. The metal charm is cold in his palm, ice and fire, but it works—Jonghee finally notices him, sees him, smiles at him. (Even if their relationship only lasts two weeks, a short lived school romance, she never would have looked at him twice without the charm that’s tucked in his pocket, drawing her gaze.)

Both witches had carried power like a cloak about their shoulders. Heavy around them, magic weighty and dark, smoke and fumes. Both were so different, but cut from the same cloth; clouds in the distance, sparking with lightning and weighty with rain.

Never cross a witch, they say. Always pay your dues, they say. Never approach a witch without knowing what you want, and never approach a witch without appropriate payment, ready to strike an accord, reach an agreement. One thing for another, tit-for-tat, keeping the scales even.

Witches are dangerous, they say.

(Be careful, his mother would say. Witches don’t care for mundane humans. Be polite, do your business, but then leave. Don’t linger. It’s not safe.)

(But witches keep their word. A promise from a witch is ironclad and unbreaking, written in stone. They’re dangerous, and you should always be wary, but there are rules they cannot and will not break.

In a way, it’s easier to trust a witch more than anyone else, because they’ll always honour an agreement. Jimin might not have spoken to a witch in years, now, but he knows this: if a witch gives you their word, it’s worth more than its weight in gold.)

Jimin’s feet—so skilled at treading the sea slick sands of Busan’s beaches—are unsteady on the firm concrete of Seoul’s streets. But still, he follows them. They tread a path he doesn’t know, tracing directions he cannot see, but it’s impossible to ignore and even harder to resist.

Ley lines cross. They settle here, a soft X drawn in smudged pencil on a finger-worn map, and Jimin stops.

The sign in the window says closed. At least, Jimin thinks it does, but then he blinks, and it’s almost like the words have rearranged themselves: open.

The building is unassuming, nestled between two others, a stunted tree surrounded by towering redwoods, but it’s this shopfront door that draws his eye—duck-egg, blue green, the colour of new life, the morning sea, the ebbing tide. The sign that hangs above is wooden, a little faded, but in a way that suggests comfort and not disrepair; like an old jumper, worn soft with age, but still warm, still loved.

Aurora.

A spark of light catches his eye. A glint, a dazzle, pulling his gaze towards it: below the sign, windchimes, circling a piece of quartz, catching the sunlight that's swallowed by clouds. It glitters at him through the rain. Even in the harsh breeze, the chimes are almost still, gently singing, soft voices whispering under the sound of falling water.

The door seems to swing forward at the lightest touch of Jimin’s gaze, already open, opening further. Beckoning him in.

The smell of sea fills his senses.

The quartz throws refracted light over him, lines between each colour sharp and defined despite the rough hewn edges, a rainbow that shines even brighter on the dark wetness of his clothes as he steps through; the windchimes ring out, a crystalline murmur, and then the door eases shut behind him.

It’s warm. It’s warm, and dry, and serene. Light slants in through the windows, dulled by the rain but still painting the room in white and gold. Everything is in its place, neat and quiet and cheerful, a spray of pastel crocuses in a lopsided, handmade clay vase on the counter. The counter is clear while the rest of the room is full; busy shelves and wall hangings and a garland that has the shifting phases of the moon, crescent-quarter-gibbous-full; glittering geodes, polished crystals, water smoothed pebbles; half burned candles, jars and bottles and shells, all crowding against each other.

The whole place hums with magic. But unlike the magic Jimin has felt before, sulphur sour at the back of his throat, burned tobacco in his lungs, this is gentle, all encompassing—like a kitchen warmed by a busy oven, full to the brim with bread, filling the room with its scent and heat.

Jimin feels out of place. He’s wet and dark and sad, drip-drip-dripping dirty rainwater on the hardwood floor. Hair hangs into his eyes, and he’s small and cold, almost bowing under the wet of the weather that clings to him. He shivers, caught up in the chill.

“Jinnie? Are you back already?”

A voice calls to him, out of sight. Jimin looks away from the mug and open book that lies on the counter, ring mark caught by the sliced geode coaster, sparkling copper green and jade.

“Did you forget to bring your charms? I told you to double check your bag before you left. I’m not done yet, anyway, I—”

Blink, blink. Wide eyed, soft and slow, surprised into stillness.

You look like comfort. It’s like someone’s taken a soft winter’s evening and turned it into a person—jumper big and thick weave warm, hair a softened mess, dangling earrings that look like little cherries, bare feet, skin touching the warm wood floor, mug in hand that coils with steam. Like a fireplace that flickers warmth and light in the cold.

Your pretty mouth is a little open, poised to speak another word that fails to come as you blink at Jimin.

“You’re not Jin,” you say, instead.

Drip, drip. Shying away from that doe-eyed gaze, Jimin looks down at his feet.

“The sign said open,” he mumbles, wanting to fold in on himself, a sodden origami crane that collapses under its own weight.

“It did?” There’s a tinge of surprise in your tone, but then a drip of rainwater trails down Jimin’s nose and falls, a teardrop of crystal. Your voice turns soft. “Oh, dear. No, of course it did. You’re soaking. Come on, come in. Take your shoes and coat off, leave them by the door. You look like you need a cup of tea.”

You leave no room for argument, disappearing back the way you came. Jimin is shocked into stillness, but then you reappear with a soft cream towel, an uplift to your eyebrows that looks expectant. Jimin pulls his worn shoes off, leaving them in self-created puddles at the door, jacket hung on the curved arms of an old coat rack.

The towel is warm around his neck and in his hair, cotton soaking up wetness with unnatural ease. The warmth of his surroundings is seeping in, chasing away the chill that’s settled in his bones, and when Jimin perches on the chair you’ve pulled out for him, he feels a little better. Not much, but a little, and that’s more than he can ask for.

The tea room is cluttered, racks of glass jars, some full to the brim, others almost empty, washed-out white and green and brown, some bright with full flower buds, some muted with dried berries and fruit; strings of dried orange slices hang from the ceiling above, surrounded by scatterings of bundled flowers and leaves. And yet, somehow, under the smell of bubbling water and dried tea, that tang of salt lingers, light on Jimin’s tongue.

“You look like you’ve had a long day. Would you like to talk about it?”

(In Seoul, no one has time for Jimin. Their eyes are closed off, hard, absorbed in themselves, their own problems—Jimin understands. Life is difficult, and it can be an uphill struggle, everyone so hungry, starved. Just like him. Trying to scrabble for a foothold in a mountain that’s been worn smooth by generations of grasping hands before him.)

The look you give Jimin is soft, and warm, and open; the look a mother gives a child when they fall and scrape open their knee. No pity, no judgement, just empathy.

“No,” Jimin says. Then: “Yes.” Then, after a long, lingering silence: “I don’t know where to start.”

You let out a little hum, patient, encouraging, reaching for two mismatched cups; one, soft camellia pink, the other, dark blue, bumpy ceramic, deep ocean waves.

“How about you start with how you’re feeling?”

How he’s feeling?

(How is he feeling?)

(Lost. Lonely. Alone. Like he’s caught in a riptide, and no matter how much he swims, the shore is growing further and further away; adrift and out to sea, swallowed by merciless waves.)

(Like he should have listened to the cautious words of everyone back home. Like he’d set himself up for failure from the moment he’d set his sights on Seoul, on success.)

(Like he’s never been good enough, will never be good enough, and he should have known that.)

Jimin doesn’t—Jimin doesn’t want to show you this raw, aching part of him, fit messily between his lungs.

He doesn’t have to tell you anything. He doesn’t have to peel back the skin of his chest and lay himself bare.

But for the first time since he’s stepped foot onto Seoul’s soil, Jimin feels seen.

His words are slow and faltering.

Jimin is out of practice, talking about himself, the things that he keeps small and folded away in quiet corners of his heart, but you listen. You hum and shift and move, opening jars, closing jars, weighing out loose leaves, eyes intent on your work. Maybe that’s what makes it easier.

You’re not staring at Jimin, watching as he strips himself raw. You’re watching the fire that flickers on the small burner, water bubbling and almost boiling, but not quite. Not yet. You’re watching your careful hands as you scoop the blend into a cast iron pot, burnished darkness. You’re not watching him, but you’re listening: how he’d come to Seoul to pursue his passions, his dreams, how it’s left him lonely and lost and aching. A ship on a course without map or compass, sky overcast, no stars to guide him.

“Sometimes I feel like I should have stayed in Busan,” Jimin murmurs. His head is bowed forwards, eyes caught in a knot on the wood of the table, lines coiling together. “Everyone was right. I’m never going to make it.”

The cup set in front of him is empty. Your fingers are curved around the handle as you turn it towards Jimin, and he notices little clouds on your nails, fluffy white against pastel blues. You hum lightly at his words, lifting the iron pot from its woven mat, steady as you pour.

(This is unlike any other place he’s ever known.)

“Do you want to go back to Busan?”

The tea smells lovely, a little floral, a little sweet, mellow and warm. It flows over the sharp salt that’s coating Jimin’s senses, sweeping away the last drops of rain that cling to his bones; washed fresh and clean. It settles in the pit of his stomach, lies light against his tongue, warming him from the inside out.

(A blanket that’s tucked over his shoulders and wrapping him tight.)

Suddenly, Jimin wants to cry.

He swallows down the tears, the rising tide that threatens to spill from his eyes. He thinks about his answer—does he want to go back to Busan? Back to the salt and the sea? Back to the world he knows so well, misses so well?

“No,” he admits. “I miss it, but… no. I want to find my place in Seoul.”

I want to be good enough. I want to find a new home.

The answering smile on your face is a small, tender thing.

The tea stays hot, no matter how long Jimin takes to drink. Rooibos, coconut, lavender, cocoa, earthy and delicate flavours mixing across his senses. His hands wrap around his cup, the shifting blue waves steady around the liquid inside, cotton towel around his neck crowding even closer as his shoulders bow inwards.

He notices, then, that he’s dry, somehow—every inch of him, from his skin to his hair to his clothes, whisked away by some unseen, ephemeral hand. Like he’d never been in the rain at all. His hair is soft on his head, clothes unwrinkled, and he smells like citrus and light, a shimmering garden. Not like rainwater and muted sorrow.

“You’re a witch,” he realises, suddenly.

He knows this place must be home to magic, but he’d figured you some sort of assistant, apprentice, as soft and unassuming as you are.

But, no. The magic he feels in the air, butter rich and sugar sweet, isn’t from the building. It’s from you.

He shouldn’t have told you anything. Witches are dangerous. He owes you now, undeniably so—for the tea he’s drunk, cup empty and cooling in front of him.

No one ever denies a witch their dues. No one would dare. But he has nothing to give you.

“I don’t have anything to give you.” Jimin’s eyes are wide. “I don’t have any money.”

“Jimin.” Your voice is a murmur, but it does nothing to quell the spike of worry in his heart, the realisation that he’d never told you his name, not once. But of course you know it. Witches see the unseen. Witches read the unknown. “You don’t owe me money. Please, don’t panic.”

Jimin tries to swallow down that panic. There’s nothing in his pockets but his phone, dead as it is, an old bus ticket stub, his keys, plain and unadorned save for the tiny puppy keyring he’s had for years, but doesn’t remember the origin of. Nothing a witch might be interested in. “Then what can I give you?”

“You’ve already spilled your heart to me,” you say. “That’s half of the payment. A confession of feelings.”

Jimin’s lashes flutter. He can’t help his eyes darting over you, reading the signs he’d missed before—you might not stink of magic like coal dust and smothered fires, but instead it rests like a garland of flowers about your head, woven into the wool of your jumper like silken thread, gossamer. Delicate and light but undeniable, a fleur-de-lis that blooms over hard marble, strong and steady.

“What’s the other half?”

“That’s up to you.” You tilt your head, little cherries in your ears swinging with the motion. “A secret. A memory. Something you’d like to share. That’s the price; a story you want to share. The final half of the transaction.”

“Do you… keep it?” He’s heard of witches stealing the memory from people, leaving them hollow shells, but you shake your head with a soft laugh.

“No. You share your story, Jimin. You don’t give it to me. Your words and history are yours, not mine. I promise you: anything you give me remains your own.”

A witch’s promise. Unbreakable truth.

(What does he have that’s worth a witch’s time?)

A memory. A good one.

Climbing the trail of Geumjeongsan, warmed by the sun overhead, filtered by the arching trees, his brother beside him, his parents behind. He was still young, too young to climb all the way up the mountain route, bundled into the cable car that had lifted them towards the heavens, world spread at his feet, a feast for his hungry eyes. Their dinner had been roasted duck, fatty and crisp, leaking oil over his lips and cheeks as he’d eagerly bit in after a day of hard work. His family had been laughing, surrounding him with their love, liquid sunlight spilling over him. Happiness.

Your chin rests in your palm as you listen, hair a soft frame around your softer eyes, smile lingering at the edges of your lips. Jimin’s words trickle and slow, and for a second he wonders if it was enough, if this years-old memory, fuzzy around the edges, pays his dues—but as his mouth curves around the final syllable, listing the room back into warm quiet as he smiles at this remembered joy, he knows. Something in his heart knows. It is. It’s enough.

“Thank you for sharing that happiness with me, Jimin. It was lovely.”

For the first time in a long time, Jimin’s heart feels less like a broken thing. It feels like someone’s starting to take liquid gold to the cracks in his heart, protective resin that brings his broken parts together, the soft touch of kintsugi that shows his flaws but also lets him see that his heart can work despite them.

Broken and imperfect but still here. Still whole.

(He may have paid off his debt, but Jimin feels like he’s taking away something that’s more than just a cup of tea.)

His shoes are dry when you return to the door, and when he reaches for his jacket, it’s like he’s just peeled it off a washing line, smelling of sun and fresh laundry. His trainers fit better on his feet, not rubbing at the heel like it should. Small, little things that change so much.

“It’s still raining,” you say. “There’s an umbrella in the stand that you can have.”

The umbrella is a long, sturdy thing, plain black, but when Jimin lifts it, there’s a small charm tied to the handle. A tiny string of rose quartz beads, polished pale pink.

Witches never give things away for free. Jimin knows this.

“The price is that you have to share it with the first person you meet who needs it.” The words fall from your smiling lips before Jimin can ask. “You’ll know who it is when you see them.”

The arms of the umbrella spread so wide above him, engulfing him in protection, keeping him dry and safe. He turns to look at you. You're leaning against the doorframe, still barefoot, fingers that bear the sky barely peeping out of the sleeves of your jumper. Untouched by the rain and grime of Seoul, a lit candle in the night, vanilla scented wax, dribbling hot and sweet. So unlike any other witch Jimin has ever heard of.

There’s no smell of sea, any more. No lingering memories of Busan. Just petrichor, rain and concrete, an undercurrent to the fresh smell of his clothes, his hair, washed clean by a magic that’s softer than anything Jimin has ever known.

The only thing that’s softer is the smile on your face, the curl of your fingers as you wave goodbye. The door swings shut as you step back, windchimes trembling at the gentle parting, quartz throwing glitter over Jimin’s cheeks and catching in his lashes.

(The sign in the window remains untouched.

As Jimin turns away, it says closed.)

The rain has lessened, a drizzle that threatens to sweep over him, but the umbrella keeps him safe, draped over the air around him, warding away the cold that tries so desperately to claw back into his chest. Jimin doesn’t know where he’s going, just like before—but he steps onto the street and immediately stops.

The string of rose quartz pearls swings into his wrist.

“Hello. Would you like to share my umbrella?”

Jimin has to hold it up high, shorter than the long-limbed boy who stands in front of him. His eyes are dark and almost solemn, sliding across Jimin’s face as he seems to pull himself out of some faraway, unseen place. He doesn’t seem to notice the rain that’s starting to soak through his clothes, peppering his handsome face with small, cold kisses, but then he smiles, gratitude written across his grinning teeth.

“Hello.” His voice is so deep. “Thank you.” And then, after only the briefest pause: “My horoscope said I’d be helped by a Libra today.”

Jimin startles, umbrella scattering rain with the motion. “How did you know I’m a Libra?”

And so—this is how Park Jimin meets Kim Taehyung. With a witch’s blessing warm in his belly and overhead, umbrella a shield against the heavens.

And so—this is how Park Jimin meets Jeon Jungkook. With Kim Taehyung at his side, a witch’s charm around his wrist, rose quartz a soothing calm against his skin.

And so—this is how Park Jimin starts to build a home in Seoul, brick by brick, larger hands working alongside his own; Taehyung’s palms large, Jungkook’s fingers steady, laying the foundations to happiness. Together.

His feet find their way back to Aurora again and again, a moon that pulls at his waters, caught in its gravity. Quartz to citrine, aventurine to hematite, windchimes singing like bells whenever he passes underneath them, door swinging open at the lightest of touches.

Your wide eyed surprise ebbs like the tides. The second time, and then the third, and fourth, you’d stopped in your tracks at his arrival, hands a tumble of confusion whenever he’d appeared at your door, but now you’re always ready and waiting.

(“How did you find this place the first time?”

Today’s tea is sencha, salty sea-buckthorn, bright spearmint, delicate lemon verbena, tinged blue with cornflower and butterfly pea, the ocean waves in a cup, brewed just for him.

“I followed the sea,” Jimin answers. “The salt air. Didn’t you do that?”

“No.” The same tea lies in your own cup, a shared moment in the past and present. “You called out and you were answered. This shop is older than you or me, and even Jin doesn’t know the magic that lies in its walls. We don’t control this place. We just live here.”)

The stories he pays you with change over time, memories from years past, growing closer and closer to the present, an autobiography that lays out the peaks and valleys of his life; the happy, the sad, the embarrassments, the triumphs. The tea changes every time, too, mellow greens to bright fruits, smoky blacks to delicate whites, whisked matcha and woody lapsang souchong. Matching the timbre of his voice, reflecting his words, letting him dwell on happiness, or pulling him out of sorrow.

Sometimes Jin is there. Oftentimes, he isn’t. The tea room is sacred ground when Jimin is paying his dues, stories and secrets falling from his lips, but otherwise Jin will bundle in, all energy and noise, leaving plates of flaky pastry and tiny biscuits and soft bread, brioche lined with chocolate, melting and hot. They leave Jimin warm and full, no matter how much or how little he eats. Two kitchen witches that give, and give, and give.

Jimin pays for a plate of rose shortbread with a recollection of the time he’d spilled juice over his brother’s homework, only to blame the dog, who was refused his usual after-dinner gravy bones. Jimin still lives with the guilt. Jin laughs, and you smile, flower petals soft and sweet in your mouth as you listen to him speak.

He wants to bring Taehyung and Jungkook, share the brightness with them, with you, the things that make him smile and laugh; lifting him out the deep waters of sadness and towards the sun, light dappled waters, bright coral reefs, a multicolour display of life. But Aurora doesn’t call to them the way it calls to Jimin, which means he goes alone.

Taehyung’s eyes widen when Jimin mentions his disappointment.

“Jimin-ah.” His mouth is round with shock, a sweet pomegranate, red flushed lips. “Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

Jungkook’s cheeks bulge with lettuce and samgyeopsal, but he swallows it down in one go, a gannet with the metabolism of a god. (Lucky.) “Finding witches in Seoul is hard,” he says. “You have to actively search them out. Do you?”

Jungkook has met more witches than any of them, a little golden spark of magic nestled deep in his chest, a magnetised needle that points him forward like a compass. But even he can’t find Aurora, no matter how much Jimin tries to guide him.

“I just… walk,” Jimin says, unsure. “I just feel it and I walk.”

“I’ve alway wanted to get a cup of tea from that shop. They say the best way to solve your problems is to share it with a witch, but I’ve never been able to find it, no matter how hard I’ve tried,” says Taehyung. An empty leaf of lettuce lays in his palm, curled up, almost sad in how small it looks. (The same would be a riverboat in the tiny cups of Jimin’s hands.) But rather than jealousy sparking in his eyes, he just seems happy for Jimin, toothy grin appearing on his face. “You’re so lucky, Jimin-ah. I bet it’s incredible.”

(Jimin is a nightjar, a singing bird, calling out into the darkness. The dawn bursts over the horizon, light heavy, laden with brightness, aurora shimmering rose and gold, welcoming hands.)

(Jimin sings. You listen.)

This time when he finds Aurora—or maybe it finds him—it’s snowing.

Seoul is blanketed in white, pavements worn smooth with a thousand busy feet, roads salt slick and slush. The wind bites at his cheeks, apple crisp and sweet, the air a soft whisper that runs its chilled fingers through his hair and turns his head.

(The rose quartz lies warm around his wrist.)

The winter sun overhead casts short shadows, pale light flushing down Jimin’s face as he leans into that fleeting touch. It’s not Busan that fills his senses this time; it’s the smell of mulled wine, hot cinnamon, melting chocolate, but more than that—dark evergreen and sweet cherry-wood fires, dusty pepper and star anise, sticky caramel.

(Homely.)

Open, the sign says.

Today, the windchimes circle a shard of snowflake obsidian. It trills out a greeting as he touches his fingers to the door, tiny bells that tinkle their hello as Jimin steps over the threshold, Aurora just as warm and inviting as it had been the last time he’d stepped foot here. As warm and inviting as it always is.

(Closed, the sign says.)

He’s warm too, today. He’s wrapped up against winter, hand knitted hat on his head—a recent project by Taehyung—and his hands are nestled in his pockets, curled around the small hand warmers that Jungkook sneaks into his coat without comment. Reminders of the love of his friends even when they’re not beside him. His cheeks are flushed pink from the cold and his eyes are sparking happiness, smile wide as he stomps snow off his feet.

But there’s no one to greet him. No candles are lit, no half-finished drink on the counter, an unintentional offering to the quiet building. It feels like a held breath, light, heavy, ephemeral, weighty.

(Every moon hanging from the garland is waning.)

Jimin’s socked feet are quiet as he steps the familiar route to the tea room, hallway beckoning him forwards; the door is shut, and he hesitates, but even as he watches, it quietly swings open, untouched.

You’re bowed over the table. A hand rests over your eyes, your body held still, a rictus of—of deep thought, maybe? The weight of decision, indecision. Maybe. Something that hangs heavy about you, usual shimmering magic pulled down, osmium heavy; still glittering and beautiful, but sharper edged, burdensome.

The cup in front of you is dry, empty, matte ceramic the colour of bone, muted white, brittle cream. There’s no smell of warm tea today. Just still air.

(No matter how many times Jimin has seen you laugh and smile and tilt your head, the truth is that you’re a witch, and Jimin has only just started to map your world. He’s a cartographer with nothing more than his own hands and the aching need to find the stars, to trace those celestial bodies overhead that shine out so bright.)

The floor groans under Jimin’s unmoving feet and your head snaps up.

“Jimin?” Your eyes are wide and startled. All at once the air lifts, sunlight seeping from the floorboards; an open window that’s been thrown open to pull in the summer breeze. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

(The windchimes had been as loud as always, announcing his presence.)

“I’m sorry,” apologises Jimin. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

You shift away from the table and straighten, magic coiling around your neck like a scarf, thick and warm. (Covering your mouth and muffling you.) “I just wasn’t expecting any customers,” you say. “You never have to apologise, Jimin. Come on in, take a seat. What do you want to talk about today?”

Jimin had wanted to share his happiness. He’d wanted to talk about Taehyung, and Jungkook, and the dancing job that’s turned steady, all the bright little pieces of his life, glistening opals, precious stones. But he realises, then, that’s not what he needs, really.

(Not what he wants, really.)

“Nothing,” he says. His voice is soft and sweet, white milk bread, fluffy and light. “I just wanted to see you. How are you?”

The fire under the water flickers, a sun flare that dies as soon as it’s born, settling into its usual ring of tiny flames. The magic around your neck turns into a stole, slipping away from your mouth, settling about your shoulders. You’re silent, for a long moment, as if you’d been in some unseen place and Jimin has pulled you back.

You glance at him through the curl of your lashes. “Busy,” you say, eventually. “Distracted, I suppose. Trying to work things out.”

Why? Jimin wants to ask. Work what things out?

But he knows better than to pry for a witch’s secrets, as open armed and soft palmed as you might be. So he just says: “I hope it gets better soon. I’m sure you’ll find the answer.”

The bundles overhead shift in an unseen breeze, dusty cinnamon sticks and fat berries and handfuls of clove, stirring the spiced smell of winter. Jimin would swear he hears the windchimes singing, a tiny choir of voices that swells and breaks as quickly as a wave crashing against the shore.

You let out a small laugh. It’s edged with something Jimin can’t put a name to. “Oh, this is the kind of answer that’s given, not found, so I have to wait, even if I think I know what it is,” you say. “And it’s… not one I was expecting. Witches don’t do well with being unable to take control of the situation, but I can’t do anything about it.”

Jimin pauses. He realises then, in a way, he’s been selfish—always speaking, never listening. But you don’t offer yourself up in the way Jimin does. A witch is a library of knowledge and secrets, locked to the outside world; Jimin wouldn’t dare to try and find the key. It would burn his hands, sear itself into his palm. The door has to be willingly opened by whoever’s inside.

He thinks about those words he’s heard you so many times, now, mouth so gentle around the syllables, the lilting question. A flickering constellation that guides his feet. One that he can trace, lines between the stars.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

The smile you offer him is one he hasn't seen before, crooked, a whispered secret. Sending the pages of all those books fluttering, stirring on their shelves. “Do you want to strike a bargain, Park Jimin? I give you a story, and you pay me in turn?”

A tiny shiver prickles over Jimin’s skin. Your question feels like a test you both know he can't complete, but—there's something inside him that flickers bright at that challenge.

He’s not a witch and has no magic glowing in his spirit, but a contract takes two people, mundane or not. He’s never considered himself bold, softer and gentler than he wishes he was, sometimes, but—there’s that unrelenting part in him, reckless and brave, hungry for more, that pulled him from Busan and set him in Seoul, that bruises his knees and rubs blisters on his feet from his endless dancing; the part that brings him to a witch’s door, over and over, heedless of the magic that lingers like crystallised sugar about his wrists and ankles, almost painful were it not so sweet.

(Bravery isn’t always about being bold. Sometimes bravery is trying again, and again, even if it seems hopeless.)

“If that would help you?”

The delicate hanging chains of your earrings tremble, tiny sparkling hearts of crystal, your eyes widening imperceptibly in surprise. Witches are forces of nature, relentless, but for a second—just a second—Jimin stops you in your tracks. Not as an imposing seawall built against the crashing waves, but rather, a soft hand that’s lifted, palm first, fingers spread wide.

(Bravery is this, too: being gentle and open where others might expect you to be cold and distant, worn bitter by the cold world around them.)

(Jimin has always known this, but you’d reminded him, when he’d almost forgotten.)

The air smells like mulled wine, heady and sweet, a bonfire of spice and tannin. For a moment, Jimin fears he’s misstepped, craggy cliffs crumbling underneath his feet and throwing him into the merciless waves below—but then you step back, cast your hand at the wall of jars, almost endless in width and height.

“What tea do you think I need today, then?”

Jimin smiles, all full lips and shy teeth, and says: “You have to tell me your story first. That's how the transaction goes.”

And for the first time, Jimin sees you truly laugh. You shed every piece of armour that’s girded about you; you might be quieter, and gentler, but your magic is coiled close, plate metal that shines so bright but falls so soft. Your heavy iron door opens, just a crack, the smell of leather bound books and old manuscripts curling outwards, letting Jimin catch a glimpse of the wonders inside.

“I can’t tell you a story that hasn’t finished yet, but I have plenty of memories,” you say. “Hm. How about the day Jin and I found this place?”

Jimin doesn’t know how to blend tea. He doesn’t know how to balance flavours, top notes, heart notes, base notes, curling tastes together in a way you do so effortlessly. But he knows how to follow his heart, and as always, Aurora helps guide him.

He listens to your words the way you listen to his, with soft encouragement and gentle laughter, eyes bright as he swallows down the secrets of witchcraft that are banal to you but utterly fascinating to him. A glimpse into a world he’s barely touched. He traces unseen vibrations in the air, reaches for jar after jar, none of them labelled, but perfect each time he pulls them open and breathes in their scent. Almost jumping into his hands. He thinks of a feeling, a flavour to match each memory you lay in front of him, and the magic responds; not under his control, no, but letting him drift in its flow.

He plants a garden: fat rosebuds, yielding petals, bright lemongrass, earthy raspberry leaves, flaky cocoa shells.

(Jimin doesn’t know these ingredients, but you do, eyes intent and sharp as you watch him move with an ease no one else has ever displayed here, moving around the room that’s entirely yours—a part of your heart nestled safe in Aurora’s walls, one that even Jin could not traverse, if he tried.)

(But here he is. With no magic in his bones, here he is, treading a delicate path through this sanctum, weaving the energy around him without knowledge or thought. Just human, but also so much more.)

The iron pot is heavier than Jimin realised, a solid weight that you always heft with ease. The scent that fills the room when he pours is delicate and light but it washes away the spicy scent of winter warmth, and instead smells like floral enchantment.

He slips into the seat across from yours. It’s a reversal, tipping the world on its head, an entirely unfamiliar perspective; the wall behind you isn’t lined in the tools of your trade. Today, Jimin sits in the master’s seat. Today, you are silhouetted by the dried bouquets that hang from the crooked branch that coils from the ceiling, muted colours even quieter in the nimbus of your magic, dawn light and warmth, dripping honeycomb, gold and saccharine.

“Would you ever leave Aurora?”

(Even the fleeting thought sends disappointment through every part of him, an echo of loneliness for something that hasn’t happened. Jimin’s always been possessive, in a way, wanting to keep a tight hold of the things he cares about.)

(You’re one of those things, now.)

The smile you give Jimin is answer enough. “Once a witch finds their home, there’s no turning back. No matter how long I’m gone, or how far I go, I’ll always find my way back home.” And then there’s a little glitter in your warm eyes, gold dust under a sun-laden river. “Time for tea, I suppose?”

It’s rosewater sweetness, dark chocolate bitterness, a citrus undercurrent that flows around it all. Biting into Turkish delight, coated in rich chocolate, yielding to the press of your teeth, an explosion of flavour. Jimin has never tasted anything like this— rich and creamy but also fragrant and light.

Judging from your wide eyed stare, you haven’t, either.

(It’s perfect.)

(It takes that indecision that’s been settling around each of your bones, sweeps it away, Jimin’s eyes as large as the moon and just as bright. This cup is so much more than just a warm drink, a hot touch down your throat; it’s the world telling you something, showing you something, something about Jimin, something you thought you'd been wrong about.)

(Jimin has no magic of his own, but he burns so bright. A lovely, sweet, strong, talented boy, stronger than he knows, lovelier than he knows. The world fits around him so well, a backdrop to his beauty, shaping itself to his touch.)

(Your magic shapes itself around him in a way that's as easy as breathing, and it should frighten you.)

(But it doesn't.)

With any contract, the witch sets the price. Your story for this cup of tea should be enough, a parting of the curtain into a world he shouldn’t be allowed to see—but something still pulls in Jimin’s stomach. He feels a little empty. Like he’s eaten a meal and could be content to finish now, but he’s waiting for that final course, that bite of dessert. Something to satiate his lingering hunger.

You still need to pay the final part of the price.

“You need to give one more thing,” says Jimin, reciting the ancient law that he’s never been taught but sings in his bones.

Your silence is summer lightning. Light sparks in the distance, flashing hot and bright, but without the weight of thunder, without the promise of rain.

“A secret,” you decide. “I’ll give you a secret.”

If a witch’s word is worth more than gold, then a witch’s secret is worth more than rhodium; stronger, rarer.

“I’ve told you that Aurora answers people who call out, if they need our help?”

“Yes.” Jimin remembers this well, thinks about it every time he’s led back here, the guiding hands that helped him find the path he’s treading now. “You’ve told me that.”

“Witches can find the shop and come here often,” you say. “They come to buy things and leave again; they have to keep their magic safe. You see, a witch’s power is most potent in their own home, and weakest in another’s, so you’ll find witches won’t drink one of my teas, or eat Jin’s food, unless they’ve left the shop. It’s a sign of absolute trust to do something like that.”

You snack on Jin’s biscuits all the time, spread homemade jams over freshly-baked bread, watch Jin drizzle honey into soft camomile, slip lemon slices into hot Earl Grey. Mixing your magic and trust together like a tangle of fresh sheets.

“But humans, without magic? Even if you try, you can’t find this place unless it wants to be found. Neither Jin nor I control that, really, but the sign helps control the flow,” you continue. “If we put it on closed, the shop won’t beckon people in. But if it’s open? People come with their burdens and their sorrows, and I’ll sit, and I’ll listen. My magic isn’t what helps them. Sometimes all people need is a listening ear and that’s what I offer: a single moment of quiet in their busy lives before they leave again. You want to know what the secret is, Jimin?”

“Yes,” says Jimin, eager. Not just as a payment of something that’s owed, but for his own curiosity, digging its fingers into his stomach and lungs. “I want to know.”

The smile you deliver now is the final jolt of lightning, white hot and flooding the air with crackling energy, before the clouds part to reveal the quiet night sky, the vibrant colours of the Milky Way naked for the eyes to see.

“My secret is this: you shouldn’t be able to keep finding this place. I didn’t realise anyone could, but here you are, again and again. You’re the only non-witch who’s ever stepped foot in here more than once.”

Clink.

“My secret is this: you are the only thing in my life that I cannot answer with magic, and it’s completely out of my control. Even if the sign says closed, you can walk in, regardless.”

Clink.

“My secret is this: I know I won’t be able to find that answer I'm looking for, because it’s not in me, or my magic, or my shop. It’s something in you.”

Clink.

Three falling secrets that fold into one. A handful of coins tumbling over themselves into the waters of a wishing well, slipping into that liquid quiet. Throwing ripples across the glass surface.

Jimin has always thought that witches were gods of their domain, endless fonts of wisdom, magic cast over the world around them that catches knowledge in its weave, Indra’s net. “But I’m—I’m just human.”

Your eyes are soft. “There’s no just about it, Jimin,” you say. “Witch or not, we all have our place in the world, as small or large as it may be.”

“But I don’t have any magic. Jungkook does, and even Tae does, a little.” He always knows when to say bless you before someone sneezes. “But I’m just… completely mundane.”

“I know you don’t have magic, Jimin. But do you know what the word mundane originally meant? It doesn’t mean boring, or dull. It’s rooted in the world. The earth. There’s nothing more powerful. Don’t you know how brightly you shine?”

Jimin tilts his head away. The truth is that for all the happiness that’s started to grow across his heart like blooming roses, trailing wisteria, some days the river at his feet feels less like sun flecked waters and more like tar, thick and dark, ready to pull him back under. It’s not so easy to cast off sadness once it’s found you. Sometimes his chest feels like it could cave in under the weight of his own failings, each and every one of his flaws stacked up high, pressing on his lungs, his heart.

He doesn’t feel like he shines.

“Oh, Jimin. You really don’t see, do you?” The magic that curls around him is silken, light. Touching the rose quartz around his wrist with recognition. “Remember earlier, when I said the answer I wanted has to be given, not found? It’s because you need to find it. You can give it to me, once you do.”

“What if I never find it?” He looks back at you, back into your eyes, endless and deep. You’re a witch with power that drapes about you, a cascading mantle spun from silver and gold—if you don’t know the answer, how could Jimin possibly find it? “What do I do then?”

“I promise, you will,” you say. “You will. Sometimes the things we need to find appear when we’re not even looking for them. After all, you found your way here, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Jimin answers, truth settling quiet between his lungs. Easing that weight that presses down on them. “I did.”

He did. And he does. And he will.

You stand in the open door and watch Jimin go, wrapped up once more, a Christmas present of woven wool and thick socks.

“By the way,” you call, and Jimin stops, turns back. “You said that your friends wanted to come here too, right?”

“Yes,” answers Jimin. Taehyung asks him endless questions and Jungkook might pretend like he’s not interested but he’s always nearby when Jimin recounts his tales of the witch’s shop. “They really do. But we can never seem to find Aurora when we try, even though Jungkook is normally so good at finding magical places.”

“Next time, don’t focus on Jungkook.” Above your head the windchimes tremble, obsidian spiralling. “You said he was a compass, didn’t you? But he’s not the one with the map. You are. Don’t forget that, okay? Trust in yourself, Jimin. Be your own guide.”

The next time Jimin stands with his friends flanking him, he thinks about the moon. How its silver light is loved so dearly, even if it’s just a reflection of the unseen sun, shining with someone else’s flames.

He might not have the strength of fire, but he can still shine.

The windchime’s call is throaty as Aurora comes into sight, brushed by a stone of lapis lazuli, door falling open at their arrival, the building filling with sunlight as Jimin steps in. Welcoming him. Jungkook and Taehyung are far more hesitant, staring at Jimin like he’s a voyager into unknown waters, here there be dragons, at risk of being swallowed whole, never to be seen again.

Jimin laughs at them. The lapis swings into the windchimes in a way that sounds like a giggle, too.

“Holy shit,” Jungkook says, once he’s inside. A candle sets alight. “Jimin, what the fuck.” Another.

“It’s Jimin-hyung,” Jimin says, but Jungkook ignores him, staring at the candles that start to catch flame one by one as he watches them.

“It’s so nice, Jiminie.” Taehyung’s eyes are huge. “Aren’t those flowers pretty?”

On a nearby shelf, the bowl of pansies blooms brighter under Taehyung’s gaze, every plant in the room standing tall, trying to catch his attention.

But of course, the thing that’s stronger than any of the candles or plants or trinkets here—you, stepping into sight, every inch as overwhelming as always, swallowing the room with your magic. Souffle soft and sweet, with all the rich headiness of melted chocolate.

You’re barefoot, as always, cardigan overlarge and draping, nails adorned with tiny butterflies. Jimin’s never met another witch like you, but now that he knows you, it’s almost laughable how he hadn’t noticed from the instant he’d seen you; you’re a witch, through and through, magic dripping through the air like nectar, ambrosia. God touched.

“You finally made it,” you say. “Jimin's told me a lot about you both. Your timing is perfect; I’ve just put the water on to boil. Who wants to go first?”

“Holy shit,” murmurs Jungkook.

The final candle bursts alight when you smile.

Jimin is always surprised at his capacity to find new happiness.

His parents had been heartbroken when he’d announced his decision to leave Busan, and pain had turned to anger, and anger had turned to arguments; he wanted too much, asked for too much, was never happy with what he was given. (All has been forgiven, now, but as always, the memory still lingers.)

Seoul had been so lonely, at first. He’d felt like the bottomless pit his parents had accused him of being, hungry, demanding ceaselessly for more, more, more—his heart had felt like a shrivelled thing, only good for holding onto sadness and bitterness. No room for happiness in any of the weeping corners of his soul.

But, now, Jimin realises that he’s sated.

He’ll always strive higher, work harder, that little edge of hunger in his core, but life has been given to him in its fullest measure. Unconditional friendship stuffs his heart full, but it can grow and grow, more and more, shuffling around to make room. Taehyung and Jungkook, and now Hoseok, then Yoongi, then Namjoon, each one burning bright, another star in his growing galaxy.

(Things he’d needed to find without knowing, appearing when he hadn’t even been looking.)

He still doesn’t know what answer it is he’s looking for, to give to you, and really, he’s not sure what the question is. He’s been given so much, and he’s so grateful, but there’s still that tiny hollow inside him, waiting for his hands to close around the final puzzle piece. Waiting for him to slot it into place.

But winter passes, sliding into spring, and then spring rolls into summer, and Jimin realises—he has time.

He has time. There’s no rush. He’s so used to chasing and running and aching, and that momentum will never leave him, but he’s starting to learn that it’s okay not to always sprint forwards. He sparks bright with progress, a glistening shine, but the things that shine out greater still are these: the moments of stillness. Taehyung and Jungkook sprawled around him, cheeks full of takeaway food. Hoseok in the dance studio, all the energy of his limbs brought to a quiet standstill as he sits and drinks water, staring at Jimin in the mirrors and wiggling his eyebrows. Yoongi beside him on the subway, eyes shut as he listens to the music coming from his earphones, tilting his head at Jimin’s questioning touch and taking one bud out to share. Namjoon, brows furrowed as he reads the book in front of him, large hands flipping the pages with such care, but turning his attention to Jimin the second he appears.

You, ankles hooked around the legs of your chair, cup of freshly brewed tea in front of you, letting the steam curl over your nose and cheeks. A cup of the same tea in front of Jimin, sometimes made by his own hands. Not often, but enough to find out more about you, the building blocks that have shaped you into who you are.

Jimin learns about witchcraft, and magic, and how it’s far less complicated and somehow entirely more complex than he thought. You’ve pulled the library doors wide open and invited Jimin to browse at his leisure, through ancient tomes written in languages he doesn’t understand, vellum covered in calligraphy too faded to be read, but you’re his Rosetta stone, translating it all. He always thought that magic was a secret thing, and it is, but you’re letting him look in. You give him knowledge, and patience, and time. You give him an open door, a place that always welcomes him, no matter the time or weather.

He doesn’t know exactly when it happened, but Jimin doesn’t have to wait for Aurora’s call any more. He doesn’t have to wait for that crest of that nascent dawn on the horizon. He follows the curvature of the earth and walks towards the sun himself, chases that luminous aureole and finds it all on his own. And there you wait for him, at the base of that shining star, your magic a halo that’s settled in your hair, the north on his compass.

He still comes empty-handed, no answer to offer you; but you seem content to wait, so Jimin is, too.

He’ll wait.

He has time.

Jimin returns to Busan for the weekend. He sleeps in his childhood bed, eats food that never tastes the same when he tries to cook it himself, thinks about how tall he feels compared to his parents now, even if he hasn’t grown at all. He feels a little off kilter, like he’s pulled on an old t-shirt that used to fit him perfectly, but doesn’t anymore; too loose around the neck, too tight around the arms. Wearable, but different. Still comfortable, but not the same. He’s outgrown it now.

(Busan will always have a piece of his heart, but it’s not home anymore.)

(Home is somewhere close, he knows, but he’s still waiting to find that key, final tumbler of the lock sliding perfectly against its metallic teeth. He’s close, so close, but not there. Not yet.)

He’s walking past the fridges in the supermarket, on a quest for fresh radish for his mother, when he catches a smell that dredges up an old memory, smoke and ash.

Jimin turns his head.

The witch looks just the same as before: ageless and perfect. Long dark hair in perfect curls, nails and lips blood red, eyebrows perfect arches, imperious ice. She’s already staring at him, and once their eyes touch, a flicker of recognition passes over her face, and then surprise, gaze darting over Jimin.

“Well, look at you. You finally grew into those cute cheeks of yours. I thought you would.” Although her words might be patronising, Jimin is shocked at her tone. It’s polite; almost friendly. Nothing like the aloofness she’d shown him all those years ago, when he’d come to her with the reckless desperation of a youth in love. “You’ve clearly done well for yourself.”

Jimin’s jeans are ripped more from wear than fashion, his shirt is from the discount rack at the Lotte mart, and his trainers are scuffed and worn. He might have grown into his face but nothing about him shouts success—and yet this witch is looking at him with something like mutual respect. “Pardon?”

“I can smell the power of the magic on you from here,” the witch says, and Jimin startles. “Like warm banana bread. Or the bark of a maple tree. It suits you.”

“That’s—that’s not mine,” Jimin admits. His heart races in his chest. He hadn’t known that he carries some brightness of your magic with him, some sweetness, motes of light swirling around him even after he’s left Seoul. He hadn’t known that other witches could smell that magic the way he can smell theirs.

(He hadn’t known that he would smell like you.)

The witch tilts her head. Her earrings are interlocking hoops, circling each other, sliding at the motion. “Oh, I know that,” she says. “It’s been given to you. It’s not yours, but it’s a part of you. It just takes a special kind of person to control that flow of power, and I’ve never met a mundane who can do that. Surely you must have realised?”

Jimin’s lashes flutter. He mixes tea, sure, but—that’s not him. It’s the shop guiding his hand. Isn’t it?

It’s been given to you. It’s not yours.

That promise you’d made Jimin, last year, the first time he’d stepped over your threshold, dripping rainwater and sorrow, so sad, so small: Anything you give me remains your own.

You just hadn’t mentioned it was the same for you, too.

(Hadn’t mentioned that you’d given him anything at all.)

(But you’ve given him so much, haven’t you?)

(It’s a part of you.)

(Jimin is changed by every person he meets, the sum of every part that’s ever been given to him by someone else. But he’s also more than those parts; he’s himself, something he’s made, is still making. Working towards being the best he can be.)

(He's himself, controls himself, the world around him. When he lifts those jars from the shelves, he's following his heart. He's his own guide. He trusts himself. Oh, it's not the shop after all, is it?)

(Is it?)

“Ah.” The witch lets out a knowing hum. “Understanding will come with time. Magic can seem such a fickle thing to the mundane, but it’s not. A witch’s magic is a reflection of who they are.”

He thinks of your magic, warm and honey-sweet. Dawn light; sun bright. A reflection of you. One that adorns him with its brilliance, even when you’re miles away from each other. You’re the silver lining to every cloud in his sky, when they’re white and wispy, or heavy with rain, torrenting water, weathering every season that turns in his heart. In the bittersweet death of autumn, the cold loneliness of winter, the emerging life of spring, the buoyant joy of summer. You’re a shelter against the elements. You’re the place Jimin feels safest in. You’re his—

Oh.

(There it is.)

(Home isn’t a place. Home is a feeling. You carry it with you, in your heart; that comfort, that belonging. Somewhere you want to come back to, that you know is waiting for you at the end of the day, any day, every day. That knowledge of love. Your friends; your family. Familiarity. Contentment. Feeling at peace because you know no matter where you are or where you go, home will always be there with you, and waiting for you back where you started, or wherever you finish.)

(Dropping that answer into his hands, feather light, rays of the morning sun cast over his palms, weightless in his grasp.)

(The key finally fits into the lock, and turns, door bursting wide open, letting life and light into Jimin’s heart, filling something that he already thought was full.)

The dark haired witch gives him a smile that’s equal parts pleased and self-satisfied. She sweeps away, leaving Jimin lost, and found.

Jimin steps down in Seoul with an utter lack of grace. Like the world has been pitching beneath his feet and has only just turned steady, sea legs buckling on the solid earth.

His bag is heavy with everything he’d brought to Busan for the weekend, and he’s tired after the train journey, and it’s hot, so hot, the summer heat oppressive in its height and weight, pressing sticky hands over his sweaty skin. Even so, he’d spent almost all three hours of travel with his leg jiggling up and down, wound up, pent up, every thread of him coiled around the knowledge he holds. The answer he’s been looking for, inside him all along.

Part of him wants to run. That hungry part of him, still scared of not being good enough, terrified that if he doesn’t grab something with both hands it’ll slip away like quicksand; that the river at his feet will pull the earth up in its rush, leaving an empty canyon in front of him, lonely and deep.

But another part of him—the part of him that’s grown so bright, watered by the love of everyone around him—quells that fear. It’s the part that gently reminds him that he has time. It’s the part that carries him gently in its current, guiding him through the swell of bodies and busyness that’s all pervasive in Seoul, guiding him north.

(His north.)

His feet aren’t a stumbling rush. He doesn’t have to hurry, after all. No matter how long he takes, he’ll get to his destination.

(Home is always waiting for you at the end of your journey.)

The windchimes orbit rose quartz today. The same pastel pink that circles his wrist.

“Hello,” says Jimin. “I missed you.”

The windchimes shiver and spark out a note of happiness, and Aurora’s blue-green door swings open. He’s hit with a burst of cool air that pulls the sweat away from his skin. Stepping into the shop feels like a shot of caffeine in his veins, and, besides, he’s found what he’s looking for.

He has the question, and the answer. (He’s had it all along.)

(Where is your home?)

He sheds his shoes and bag, cast carelessly on the floor, and doesn’t hesitate to step forwards. The door to the tea room swings open before he reaches it, as always, feeling his urgency and responding without being asked.

And there you are.

Your hair is bundled up out of your face, arms and legs bare in the summer heat, tiny pineapples on your nails, a sweating pitcher of tea dripping rivulets of water on the table as you pour yourself a glass, ice tumbling around slices of fresh peach. You glance up at his arrival, and when you smile, Jimin feels how the magic in the room lifts and swirls around him.

It’s the tart sweetness of fresh-squeezed lemonade; the soft chill of vanilla ice cream; the rich cream of mango parfait. It’s all happiness and tender affection, and Jimin wonders how he’s never seen the depth of it before now.

“Hi, Jimin.” Your voice is brighter than the summer sun outside, stronger still. “Did you just get back from Busan? You must be exhausted. How was your family?”

He answers by stepping forwards and wrapping his fingers around your glass. You watch in stunned silence as he lifts it to his lips, swallowing down the mix of flavours; rooibos, apple, hibiscus, rosehip, orange peel. Peach melba, sugary and mellow against his tongue, cold biting pain against his teeth.

He wipes away a stray drop of tea from his lips. Sunlight ripples in the room as your eyes flicker over his mouth. “Ask me.”

Your eyes tear back up to his. He can feel how the magic in the air slides away from you, pooling on the floor, swirling about your ankles; it’s like the brush of sand against his skin, treading across wet beaches, sticking to the soles of his feet. “Ask you what?”

“I need to pay for the tea. Ask me for a story.”

Jimin can feel the tug in his stomach, that telltale sensation that he has to pay his dues. Still, you seem surprised. “Okay, Jimin. What story do you have to share?”

“I met a witch, once. I was sad, and lonely, but she listened to me, every time I went to see her, again and again.” Jimin can feel your magic rising with each of his words, the gentlest tide. “And one day, she let me listen to her, too. She asked me to give her an answer for an unspoken question. But she didn’t press me for it. She just let me come back, again and again. She gave me a part of her magic. She’s not like any other witch in the world. I’ve been waiting to find that answer to give to her, but then I realised I had it all along.”

(Where is your home?)

Your mouth drops open, but Jimin speaks over your intake of breath. That tugging in his stomach is still there. That pull towards you. “Ask me for a secret,” Jimin says.

“Okay, Jimin.” Your voice is quiet, but your magic has never felt stronger, spilling out of you like morning dew, shimmering, opalescent. “What’s your secret?”

“I think I’m in love,” he says, feels how the magic in the room swells, but he knows he still has more to give. “Ask me for a confession.”

“Okay, Jimin.” A whisper. Your magic is as bright as a solar flare, glimmering crystal, spun sugar. “What’s your confession?”

“I want to kiss you,” Jimin confesses.

And then he does.

Every window and door flies open, every plant bursts into bloom, every candle catches light, windchimes singing, breeze rushing through every room, but Jimin doesn’t notice any of these things. All he can feel is the warmth of your mouth against his own, the sweet taste of peach, how your magic fizzes on his tongue like champagne, a heady rush.

Your breath is a flicker of candlelight in his mouth, one that grows into a bonfire, one he readily fans, watches how the flames leap high. One kiss turns to two, then three, your lips fitting so perfectly against his own, parting so readily at the first press of his tongue; your mouth a sweet little curve, dripping honey and syrup, as lovely as the rest of you. The world narrows down to this, to you; your hands warm where they cup his face, run through his hair, soft touches, how perfect those feel.

He’s breathless when he finally pulls away, resting his forehead against your own. The magic is a heat shimmer, glistening air, surrounding the two of you in its embrace—but it doesn’t shine as brightly as you, your beauty, the sheen on your lips, kiss-swollen and exquisite.

“Oh,” you breathe. “Oh, Jimin.”

You’re so warm under his hands. The summer air that fills the room is swirling motes of brightness, brushing over you both with its delicate touch, and Jimin breathes you in. Not your magic, but you; a little salt, summer sweat, a little sweet, perfume soft. You feel so perfect like this, wrapped up in his arms, a powerful witch that’s opened up for him, the yielding petals of a flower, the sweet nectar at its core. Jimin’s always hated feeling so small, almost dainty, a slip of a thing compared to Taehyung’s height or Jungkook’s strength, and yet you fit so perfectly against him.

For all the magic that drips from you like liquid gold, divine and powerful, here you are: all comfort and tenderness and affection, open arms, calling him home.

“I’m giving you my heart.” Jimin presses his words into the lovely swell of your cheeks, the line of your jaw, your neck, lips trailing over your skin, drinking down the way you shiver. “It’s still mine, I know, but I’m giving it to you, too.”

The smile on your face is all open happiness, laughter brighter than every star in the sky. “A witch never lets a payment go unreturned,” you say. “My heart for your heart. Sound fair?”

Jimin’s answering laugh is echoed by the windchimes outside, tickling and light. “I think that settles the score.”

(Where is your home?)

(Wherever you are.)

taglist: @beyoncesdragon

[24/09/20] author’s note: hi, guys. so I’ve recently been on a bit of a rereading binge, digging up old favourite fics of mine and enjoying them all over again, and I was horrified to discover a scene in a fic that’s eerily similar to something I’ve written here: namely, the scene where Jimin first comes across the shop and pays for a cup of tea with a happy memory.

I genuinely had not read the fic in over two years and don’t recall many details at all, but I must have remembered it without realising and echoed it in my own writing. I was reading the fic and my heart genuinely stopped in my chest and I started to freak out because I would never, ever want to plagiarise someone else’s work, intentionally or unintentionally.

however, on a reread of both the other fic and my own, the scene in question is somewhat similar but not the same. I just feel uncomfortable at the idea of benefiting from someone else’s time; writing is hard work and publishing things online takes a great deal of courage, and I know people who’ve had their work plagiarised, and how much it hurts. so I want to state for the record that when I wrote finding home it was without reference to anyone else’s story, so any similarities were coincidental.

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bibliocratic · 3 years

Text

I was going to write this for the Aspec Archives week, but I got overexcited, so here we are.

AU: Mythical creatures. OG Archive team.

Some CWs apply, see tags.

The sea is more than water, her elder brethren taught her, warned her, chided her. It is home and harm and hungry, and you should not face it alone. Her siblings were older, ever knowing better, boisterous and boasting braver, but even they worried, scolded and fretted when she swam out too far alone into deep waters.

It will love you, but it will not always be kind, her eldest sibling bit out, snapped to mask their anxiety. There can be no bearings, in the deep-deep down, no anchors to denote where the sky lies.

When her people sleep, they rest wedged into some secure rock or crevice, tails looped around tails so no one is lost while dreaming.

You cannot be a shoal of one, my dearest, my youngest and bravest, the oldest of their shoal had said, when she told her she was planning on taking the rising when the waters warmed. Ascending landward on the tide swell, letting the shimmering scales of her tail split into skin.

She had not used the name Sasha at that time because that was a landward name she chose with care. Her folk gather names like a garland of pearls, to be constantly strung longer through life as age advances them; names for qualities, for momentous events, for hopes and desires. Her first name, gifted by her shoal, was guttural. It starts at the back of her throat, trails off into a susurration through gills. Mer is a difficult language to learn, though not impossible.

Tim tried. There is no one singular language of those who skirt the deepwaters, so he attempts to mimic her dialect. His pronunciation stumbling, he makes tentative sentences with the butchered grammar of fry. Martin’s grammar is even worse, though he picks up the eddies and waves of the sounds easier.

Jon, like most things in life, takes it as a challenge. One day, almost stubborn with nerves, to perform his task to perfection, he pushes out a juvenile approximation of her first name. Clipped and textbook and the stress in the wrong places, but Sasha smiles, showing her sharpest teeth in delight. Instructs him where to hold the hum at the back of his throat, how to roll the third phoneme upwards like an air bubble. Jon repeats it and repeats it, quietly smug and pleased at his achievement, and the sea in her soul rocks fondly at the sight.

She broached landward in the rising two moons after her age of maturation. She was one of a handful to come to shore. A sibling in Brighton who she phones every week, another two in Holyhead. Her first shoal traverses to warmer waters when the season shifts, and she would feel the rock-hollow absence of them if it was not for Tim, inviting her to participate in a hundred-and-one inane activities that keep her from feeling swept out; Jon, with his libraries of questions and intrigues, his quick-silver tongue; Martin, who sometimes swims a little further out from them but who finds her small knick-knacks in charity shops and craft markets and leaves them on her desk for no reason other than he has thought of her.

She makes three necklaces, plain with a strong chain, a single pearl attached. And on a day where her folk traditionally string garlands of seaweed and mangrove roots and colourful plants from coral reefs in a celebration of family – there is no one word in her language for this idea; it poorly translates into hierarchies like sibling and brethren and elders, but these are not concepts that fit it exactly – she gifts them to the shoal that will anchor her in the depths of the sea, and bestows upon them names. Most Mer names are wishes for quick fins, calm waters, safe shores, and so she wishes these for them in a language they are not quite proficient in yet.

Her landward shoal is smaller than is traditional. But she loves them as treasures of her heart, and thinks she understands what her siblings told her, about anchors.

His parents, both harpies from local nests, are perplexed when his wings start coming in.

Must be a colouring from your mum’s side, his dad hums thoughtfully when Tim’s primaries grow in long and shining like struck bronze. He runs a careful finger down the central line of the rachis, and the wing shudders and jumps, the feathers still sensitive, and Tim complains that it’s ticklish. His wings are too small to fly away as his dad dives in, captures him in careful arms, corkscrewing upwards a little off the ground with Tim squirming and squealing and squawking in play, but they flutter and flap nonetheless.

The wing span’s from your dad’s side, no-one from my nest ever went more than five foot, his mother says, rubbing at the dark brown of his downy secondaries. Tim stretches them out wide, eager to boast at their length, the tips of his longest feathers reaching past his arms held out wide.

Danny’s wings are smaller. Magpie like, bold lines of white broken up by blue and black, the same as his parents. Tim’s wings, broader, a colour like beaten brass that tips into gold at the ends, draws attention, but he’s never been embarrassed. His family never treated him differently, so he didn’t dwell on it.

He can fly, though he doesn’t often. After his parents died, and after… after Danny, he moved to London, where there’s tighter airspace regulations and permits involved, so he mostly doesn’t bother. This doesn’t mean never, however. He has learned, while working in the Archives, that from the ground, his wings have enough lift to pick up both Jon and Sasha by at least a foot. He thinks he could probably manage Martin as well, if it wasn’t for the unfortunate fact that Martin is mildly allergic to a whole host of things, including feather dander, meaning he gets a bit watery eyed whenever he gets too close to Tim’s wings, and he’s a sniffing, red-eyed mess come moulting season.

Anyway, he can always fly when he leaves the city. When it’s been too long since Sasha’s scales touched seawater, she invites him out to the coast. Jon apparently has had enough of the coast to last a lifetime, and Martin gets funny about large bodies of water, so it’s often the two of them. She swims out, the greenish scales of her tail catching the sun-struck water, and he, above, feeling the breeze brush through his cramped wings, follows her wake. When she breaches the surface in a playful arc, he swoops down, trying to catch her at the same time as she tries to splash him.

“You never thought to look into it?” Jon asks. Always brewing with questions. Tim is obligingly holding out one of his wings, and Jon, who takes everything like a project, has books out and webpages up but with no further clue as to why his colouration and span differ so from his parents.

Tim shrugs. “Doesn’t matter really, does it?”

Jon hums, clearly not agreeing, and Sasha rolls her eyes fondly, and that is the end of that.

Marysia had hoped her child would not take after her husband. She’d lit candles and attended masses during her pregnancy, worn the beads of her rosary smooth. Her child had been born on land, miles from shore, and her husband had been a grounded man, who had folded up his pelt on their wedding night for her and swore to wear no other soul than his human one.

But then her husband leaves, the box where he kept his second soul empty, and Martin is eight years old, and he wakes up one morning glassy-eyed and complaining of nausea, his lip bleeding from where his sharpening teeth have ripped the skin, and she knows her prayers were not answered.

It is not unknown, for the second soul of some folk to flourish later. But it is a rough awakening, to have one’s body grow a new skin out of itself, and Martin is off school for over a week, riddled with fever and fervour, constantly parched, crying and sweating out salt-water.

She watches his skin prickle with grey and black fur, blotching with white over his stomach as he coils up under his covers, throws them off only for his limbs to reduce to shivering. His brown eyes have gone black-shot, his cries a mix of language and barks, and Marysia fears she will lose her only child to the sea.

It will be hard for him to fit in, she tells herself. It would be best to choose one, and he has his friends and family and her on land, and who knows where his father is now, and surely it would be cruel, an unnecessary agony for him to endure some other foreign pull away from all he knows.

She does what she thinks is a kindness, though that is neither excuse nor forgiveness. After nine days, his fur has come through, sleek and soft, his whiskers twitching, and she helps him peel it off as one would do clothes, revealing sweat-sheened limbs, his eyes slipped back into brown again. His gaze still distant and feverish, he tries to cuddle into her, and she soothes him while she finishes stripping off his pelt and folding it neatly.

While he sleeps, she burns it in a fire in the back yard.

When he comes back to himself, she lies and tells him that he’s been sick with a bad fever. And he trusts her, and never questions it. He doesn’t understand that she’s burnt a part of him up, scattered the ashes to the winds, but it was for the right reasons. To keep him safe, and happy, and with her.

He grows up human-limbed and cloven-souled, and she never tells him the truth.

Sasha floats in an ever-dark, stolen away and hidden. There is a knot, a cage-trap around her legs, which have fused into her tail although there is no water. The sea, far away, like the wail in a conch shell, throbs in her soul as she strains and shouts and snarls in the wrapping of spider’s webs.

The sea is the only thing with her in the dark.

Sound has a particular quality, underwater. She hears it first, an echo that shivers through her, like being thrummed on the backdraft of some shallow wave. And then it is a wash of insistence. A command.

The compulsion uses her names, landward and seaward and it pulls and demands her attention, and she shrieks and cries back, struggling in the depths. She is being called home, up up up to breach the surface, and she cannot help but answer.

There is a crack and the sea splits, and she is choking on cold and dusty air.

“Sasha!” someone is saying. “God, is she – she’s not – ?”

“Get that stuff off her, come on. Sasha. Sash, love, can you hear us?”

A series of thuds as she splutters. A twisting, gnarling screech, and several swear words.

“Jesus!”

“Shit – shit, get her out of the way.”

“Boss, move, give me the – ”

The screech degrades into a glitching, warping scream. There is the multi-layered sound of compressed air, and crackling fire,the woosh and stench of something burning.

In time, she cracks her eyes open to the punch of light. Her tail flaps weakly. Someone is pulling great strands of silk that has clumped like poorly soldered iron around her limbs, making visceral noises of disgust. She’s cold-stream shivering, surrounded by broken wood and chippings.

“Hey, hey, we got you. We got you. You with us, Sash?”

The faint scratch of feathers against her cheek. Furnace-warm arms are holding her.

Jon is kneeling down in front of her. Holding an axe and stinking of smoke, and she knows, she knows, that it was his voice she heard, although she doesn’t yet understand why.

Martin throws a blanket over her as she shivers, her tail shrivelling and bisecting into legs. He has silk in his hair, and his fingers are trembling, but his face is broken with a look of such relief.

“It’s you,” he says, and his hand touches at his throat, at the necklace she made for him. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

It’s Martin in the end that carries her out of the tunnels, tucking the blanket completely around her. He is talking in the scatter-gun way he does when he is anxious, babbling, and she can’t bring herself to listen. He smells of soot and saltwater, and she’s never noticed that before.

She falls asleep, curled up into his hold, drained and shaken, but feeling utterly safe.

Jon is human. Completely, one hundred percent, although Sasha had joked once that way way back there must have been some Spinx in the family. Tim’s long suspected that Martin’s not quite human, no matter how he presents, but that’s Martin’s business, not his. Some folks have lineages that are rare, or mistrusted, or misunderstood, and Tim’s not one to pry.

Jon, though. Human through and through. Which is why he’s so worried.

“I shouldn’t have been able to do that,” Jon says. Martin’s with Sasha, making sure there’s no nasty side effects to her imprisonment in the table. Jon’s had a face on him for a while which means he’s Worrying with a capital W, and it’s taken hours for him to untangle himself into a blustered declaration to the rest of the class, spiked with nerves. “That place, it had her. It shouldn’t have… I don’t know what I did, but I told her to leave, a-and she could. And she shouldn’t have been able to.”

“And you think that you did that?”

“I – I know I did that, Tim, I felt it, o-or. I mean, I felt something!”

“Ok, alright. Alright. Let’s, let’s calm down and look at this logically.”

Jon goes over what he said while they struggled to rescue Sasha from the deep. It was something he said, he’s sure of it, which is why he is sitting cross-legged on the floor of the main archive office space with Tim, his trousers getting dusty and his temper scraping frayed, getting increasingly frustrated when he tries recreating exactly what he did with his voice, going through questions and commands and instructions and inquiries. And while Tim answers, it’s clearly not what Jon’s looking for, and he’s rubbing the hair at the back of his head in the way he does when he’s getting increasingly frustrated and is too bull-headed to walk away.

Then Jon, rolling his eyes and seething in annoyance, asks him a throwaway question, one of many he’s been trying – what’s your favourite colour? (seriously, Jon, that’s what you’re going with?!); What did you do at the weekend? (you know what I did, you and Martin were with me!).

“Why did you join the Magnus Institute?”

They both sit, frozen and horrified as Tim’s mouth opens and his words trip over his tongue in their eagerness to leave his mouth. As his eyes grow wide and water with tears as he cannot stop speaking about Danny, about the Covent Garden circus and Joseph Grimaldi. As Jon sits, ramrod-backed and cannot stop listening, a muscle jumping in his jaw. His expression wars between frantic and panicking and hungry.

Tim feels wrung out and hollow once he’s finished. Jon’s manic with apologies. It takes both of them a long time to calm down.

“Maybe… maybe you’re a siren or something?” Tim suggests, but Jon is shaking his head.

“It’s this place, Tim. It’s those statements, when I read them. It’s … I – I think they’re doing something to me.”

Tim looks at Jon and the light strikes off his eyes in a way that it shouldn’t on a human.

He touches Jon’s arm.

“We’ll sort this,” he promises. “We got Sasha out, didn’t we? The four of us, we can get to the bottom of this, yeah?”

Jon nods, and gives a small fragile thanks, and that’s human enough for Tim.

Marysia told herself she was not a bad mother. That her son was simply a hard child to love, that he had all the worst trappings of his father, his brown eyes perpetually caught with a far-away look that doesn’t know where to place its longing. But even as she sickened, and he sloughed off every facet of himself in a pathetic attempt to please her, she couldn’t find anything but sorrow in her heart to look upon the man grown over familiar in face, a growth that grew deep-set and fungal into contempt.

She almost spat the truth out to him. Once or twice, with the thought that confessing might bring them closer. She wished he’d chosen the sea instead, so she wouldn’t have to look upon her amputated, half-formed child who would always be lost.

But she never did.

And Martin finds out alone, cornered in an unlocked office, his hands dropping the lighter as a thousand eyes open and watch satisfied as they pour his mother’s choices down his throat to choke him.

It starts when Martin starts sleeping in archive storage. When Tim watches worms burrow into Jon’s skin at the same time as they latch and gnaw and wriggle under his own. When they get Sasha back, and find Gertrude’s corpse and Jon leaves and gets hurt and hurt and hurt again, and the world around them gets smaller and meaner and there is nothing Tim can do.

He takes to storing food in their desk drawers. Nothing that will go off, or won’t keep. Tins and dried goods and non-perishables. He lines the walls of Martin’s storage room with fire extinguishers of different types, fire blankets, and spare first aid kits bulging with plasters and bandages and antiseptic wipes. He buys blankets and pillows and rope and penknives. He stress-moults constantly, and tucks his feathers out of sight, irritated and embarrassed at the sight of them, and it occurs to him that nesting is not a healthy way to deal with this.

He wants his family safe. He used to think it was such a small thing to ask for.

He thinks about that when the bomb goes off.

He burns, and he is dying.

His rage and fear burn off into a different fury. That it has come to this, his family so threatened, that all he has to his name is his sorrow and trauma and frustration and vengeance.

Tim wants nothing more than to live. To see them safe. To rail and rage against what seeks to harm them. So he burns and he burns and burns, his wings aflame and his mouth twisted in a scream, and does not die.

They dig him out breathing from the rubble. His skin stained grey with ash and soot.

His new wings stretch out red as the sunset.

#tma #the magnus archives #fic #alternative universe #mermaid!sasha #pheonix!tim #selkie!Martin #regularOGhuman!Jon #with added Beholding spicyness #cws for implied child mistreatment #cw fire #cw burning #cw canon typical violence #cw compulsion #ask to tag

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