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nikethestatue · 3 years

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Elucien’s Bond

And what’s wrong with it?

*crack-ish theory*

This is a theory and an opinion, just based on observations and reading of the text. If you are a huge Elucien fan, you are probably not going to like this.

First things first--I think that the bond is real. I don’t think it’s a fake bond, because Elain literally felt it inside of her when tugged on it. Azriel can smell it. So the base for the bond is real.

But there are some odd things going on with that bond:

Neither party seems to be struggling with its presence, beyond it being an inconvenience to their other budding romances.

We know that Elain was never into the bond, and her first words to Lucien, when he walked in on her back in HoW was ‘you were there. You betrayed us.” 2 years later, she is even less into the bond, because she’s been avoiding Lucien every time he’s been around, doesn’t use his gifts, ‘shrinks into herself’ in his presence, and of course, now we know that she is interested in Azriel.

Lucien was definitely more affected by the bond, at least initially. He reacted strongly when Elain was thrown into the Cauldron, and once she was spit out, he gave her his cloak. Now, interestingly though, when Rhys and Mor winnowed them all away from Hybern, Lucien did not attempt to follow, but yelled at Tamlin telling him to ‘get her back!’ Feyre, while in Spring Court, observed that Lucien was not interested in any women as a ‘newly mated male’.

When they returned to Spring Court, Lucien’s first thoughts were about Elain. He wanted to see her, wanted to get to know her, wanted to be in her presence. That was pretty regular mate behavior.

And then came the famous, uncomfortable scene, where Lucien was trying to figure out what was ‘wrong’ with Elain, and they were sitting and not drinking tea, under the supervision of Nesta, Feyre, Amren (I do kind of feel bad for Lucien, not gonna lie), with Rhys and Cassian outside, and Cassian peacocking in front of children Nesta, and her craning her head like crazy. But I digress...

Of course, at that time, none of us were aware of Lucien’s paternity. He is Helion Spell-Cleaver’s son.

And then, he tugs on the bond. And Elain reacts.

And after that, things begin to change and unravel for the two of them.

While before that tug, Elain seemed to have been at least tolerating the thought of him around her, after the tug, things turned a different direction--for her, but also for him.

He volunteered to go find Vassa, soon after, leaving his mate behind. It’s unusual behavior, for a mated male to willingly leave his mate, but let’s say he felt unwelcome, useless, and wanted to give Elain some space. That’s what he told Rhys and Feyre.

Now, let’s go back to what Feyre said--that he wasn’t interested in other females when the bond was new. Fast forward a VERY short period of time, literally a few months, and he is living with Vassa and Jurian. Not only that, he is clearly interested in Vassa, and not just as a friend.

Elain, in turn, was still pining for Graysen, and told him that the bond doesn’t matter and that it ‘means nothing’. Fast forward a few months as well, and by Solstice, she is placing special orders for headache powder for Azriel.

While we know that the bond is not as strong for females, especially not ‘accepted’ bond, Elain’s is remarkably weak. Let’s take Feyre and Nesta--both were willing to sacrifice themselves for their mates, BEFORE having accepted the bonds. Both went feral and wild when Rhys and Cassian were hurt. Elain, in contrast, saw Lucien go, without any protection into the Human Lands and it seems that she’d never even asked after him, and whether he was alive. He might not have been in any direct danger, but it seems like her bond did not indicate anything to her. Now, we know that SHE was in danger, when Hybern stole her, but Lucien never questioned it, and it seemed that he remained unaware that she was kidnapped.

Furthermore, while we know that Rhys felt Feyre and Tamlin through the bond, and suffered for it, and Cassian was certainly aware, and it’s hinted that he felt Nesta and her paramours as well though the bond, neither Elain, not Lucien seem to notice that the other party is interested in someone other than them. We don’t know what’s going on with Lucien and Vassa, so I don’t want to speculate about a sexual relationship. Obviously by 2nd Solstice we know that Elain and Azriel are interested in each other sexually, but of course they haven’t acted on it.

Yet, while Azriel is nauseated and very greatly affected by the Elucien bond, can smell it and is so traumatized that he can barely stand being in the same room with them--it’s so apparent that even Nesta notices it--Lucien, seemingly feels or senses nothing. The only time he ever reacted to Azriel was in the very, very beginning, when Azriel brought Elain into the townhouse and took her to the garden. ‘Azriel is not the ravishing type,” Lucien was told.

So, what’s the point of all this?

I wonder if when Lucien pulled on the bond, he unwittingly began to unravel it. Bonds can’t be broken, at least that’s what Amren said, but can they be weakened? It IS a bond, a tie of sorts. Often described as a thread or a string, and that’s what Elain felt--a sting pulled on her rib. It’s a string or a cord that wrapes around couples during consummation.

What if his power--that of a spell-cleaver, inherited from his father--gave him the ability to do just that? Untie the bond?

And that instead of the rejection, breaking, and all kinds of dramatic things, it will be a gentle un-making of the bond for both of them. To be sure, the thread may remain forever. But perhaps, this is why Elain does not feel compelled to act on it, and doesn’t really care about it at all. Maybe, she stopped feeling it? And so did he? The presence is still there, hence the smell that only apparently Azriel can scent (that’s another post though). But they don’t feel the push and pull of the mating desire, and therefore, neither one wants each other sexually? We know that the bond is primarily sexual in nature, and drives people to extremes and offers endless desire. The Elucien bond doesn’t do any of it, even for Lucien. Sure, he is a well-mannered, polite, cultured male, so he is not going to be ravishing or pressing Elain against the walls, but someone, somewhere, would’ve observed so sexual interest from him towards her. We know that the last time he came to the NC, he didn’t even meet with Elain. Why is his bond not raging inside of him at the close proximity to her?

Finally, Helion. What if Helion, and we assume that LoA is his mate, was able to untie their bond, so it didn’t torment them, when she had made the decision to remain with Beron. Yes, they still acted on it, and the fruit of that acting is Lucien, but perhaps, Helion, not wanting to bring this constant push of the bond on LoA, especially in her situation, was able to loosen it? It also allowed him to be rather amorous as well in his life.

Now, this is a total speculation (though there was a tiny hint at this in the book). We know that Tamlin did everything to try to nullify the bond between Feyre and Rhys. And he sent Lucien to Helion and other places, to find a method to do just that. Now, if the bonds are so permanent, why would Tamlin--who IS a High Lord after all, and isn’t without knowledge--assume that it could be broken? By someone else? He began, of all people, with Helion. Helion the Spell-Cleaver. He assumed that of all people, it was Helion who might have possessed that power and ability. Helion declined. So Tamlin went to Hybern. But what if Helion does know? And what if Helion maybe told something to Lucien, in passing? And Lucien, maybe even unwittingly, acted on the suggestion?

And what if this weakened bond allowed for another bond to sneak in?

But that’s another post.

#e/lucien #e*lucien #azriel #elain archeron #mate bond #mate behavior #helion #helion and loa #acosf theory #acosf spoilers #acosf #acotar #lucien vanserra #vassien #lucien and vassa #elriel

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mechaneyi · 4 years

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Little bit of fanfic for The Wayhaven Chronicles, featuring Detective Azar Balar and Adam du Mortain. It's been a story in my head for a long time and I finally wrote it. By no means am I brilliant writer, but it brings me joy. Thank you @seraphinitegames for the amazing work you've created, the inspiration you have provided and being a light in dark days.

Criticism is welcome, but please keep it constructive and civilized. Please keep in mind that this is my interpretation of the characters and they may not agree with yours and even less with what Mishka has planned.

If you enjoy it, please share. It's incredibly rewarding and motivating. Thank you for reading.

---

Blood & Rain

Azar can’t even remember when it really started to go sideways. Was it when they split up to look for firewood? When he investigated what looked like blood on the forest floor or when he triggered the trap that had driven a wooden spike into his side under excruciating pain? Or maybe his scream that alerted the Trappers.

This was supposed to be a week of vacation - just Adam and him in the wooded mountains. Time spend away from the knowing smile of Nate, the prodding quips from Felix, the amused grin from Mason and the agency, as well as Rebecca. It wasn’t that Azar disliked any of them, but it could be difficult finding some privacy with Adam, something he enjoyed greatly, now that the stubborn vampire had allowed the walls to crumble.

But instead of a well deserved break, Adam is running through the rain, with Azar over his shoulder, in an attempt to put some distance between them and the hunters.

Both are bleeding, though Azar noticeably more severe.

He doesn’t know how long Adam has been running, all he knows is that every stride he takes, agonizes the wound in his lower abdomen and all he can do is to try his hardest not to scream and give away their position. And so he focuses on the fast breathing of Adam and the sound of the heavy rain hitting the canopy high above him.

It feels like an eternity until Adam finally slows down, his breath now ragged.

“You have to stop.” Azar says with gritted teeth. Despite his own pain, he’s worried about his vampire. He’s expecting Adam to argue but to his surprise, he is not.

“We’ll rest here for now.” He says instead and gently lifts Azar of his shoulder, who lets out a low yell when he’s moved. Before he leans against the broad shoulders of Adam, he can see the large stain he left on his shoulder. He knows he’s in trouble - that they are in trouble. They are out in the middle of nowhere, no agency facility nearby, no town close and their communication abilities limited, when they had to leave their equipment behind.

This area was supposed to be safe. There had been no reports of Trapper or rogue activity.

When he finally turns around, he can see why Adam stopped. It’s a small cabin, probably from human hunters. No smoke is rising and no lights can be seen. It appears to be deserted.

Azar slings his arm around Adam’s waist tighter. The difference in height doesn’t allow him to place it around his neck. But Adam does what he can to support him, moving closer to the wooden structure.

“Let us hope they have a first aid kit and possibly a radio.” The imposing vampire attempts to sound optimistic but looking at the tiny cabin, Azar has his doubts. He wouldn’t mind a nice surprise though.

“At least it will be dry.” Azar says between heaves.

When they reach the door, Adam snaps the lock that attempts to keep them out and opens it.

The inside is the most welcoming thing Azar has ever seen. A couch, a fireplace, a tiny kitchen area and a few armchairs and two doors. All of the furniture seemingly selfmade. No wonder, considering how far off the beaten path they are. Everything bought was small enough to be carried here by a person.

Before he can distract himself further by the new surroundings, Adam slowly places him on the couch and once again, a pained groan escapes Azar’s lips. Automatically, he clutches his side and he can feel the warmth of blood slicking his freezing fingers. He leans back, eyes closed and takes a deep breath, something he regrets immediately but it helps to calm his nerves a bit. When he finally opens his eyes again, he sees Adam.

Those green eyes are filled with exhaustion, pain and deep concern, his brows furrowed as he stares at the wound. There’s something else in those eyes, something Azar never thought he would see - hunger. But despite everything, he’s not concerned. He trusts Adam and he trusts his self control. He had brought it up before - that he’d be willing to give some of his blood to help, but Adam wouldn’t have it.

But now… they’re options are severely limited and the modified weapons of the Trappers had not left Adam unscathed. His coat shows signs of burns at several spots, and there are a few smaller injuries on his hand and face that haven’t healed. Adam was supposed to have his ration this night but that obviously didn’t work out and now he’s running on fumes.

“I will look around. Keep pressure on the wound. I will see what I can find.” With hesitation, Adam turns away and starts to search the small cabin. Azar attempts to take off his coat. It’s soaking wet and he can feel the cold creeping into his limbs and bones. It’s not a good sign and he knows it. He knows, that even if there is a first aid kit… it may not change anything.

Ever since his car accident during his rebellious youth, that required him to be resuscitated, he’s felt, when his life hung in the balance. Just as he felt it, after Murphy had torn into his neck. And now… now he feels it, too.

With a lot of effort, grunts and curses, he finally rids himself of the drenched coat. He’s scared to look at his side and when he finally does, he wishes he hadn’t. It’s an angry looking, bloody mess. If it had been any other situation, leaving the spike in the wound would have been preferable but the contraption had hit him with enough force to first impale him and when throw him off. He wonders if that was the intention, to ensure that the victim would bleed and be easier to catch. It would make sense for supernatural folks, who often have an increased healing ability - something Azar severely lacks. It would weaken them but they could heal, after they were caught.

And so he pushes the coat against the exit wound and presses his hands against his abdomen, gritting his teeth hard, not to scream. He closes his eyes, trying to calm his breathing and keeping the nausea at bay and only listening to the drumming of the rain against the roof…

“Azar!” He hears his name being called but opening his eyes is hard. “C’mon, look at me, Azar!” The desperation in Adam’s voice gives him the strength to open his eyes - ever so slowly.

Adam is kneeling in front of him and Azar can literally feel some of the tension dispersing from those broad shoulders when their eyes meet.

“You have to stay awake.” He says, placing a hand on his leg. “You cannot give up.” The softness in his expression is one that Azar has become incredibly fond off and he doesn’t want to leave it behind, not if he can help it.

“I found a radio. We may be able to contact the agency.” While that certainly would be a good thing, Azar isn’t sure if that will matter. The numbness that has started to spread through his body, the fact that even lifting his head seems to be an insurmountable task, tells him that his time is limited. He doesn’t want to die, but he has to be realistic about it. And yet, he can’t bring himself to tell Adam. He’s not sure, if the vampires knows - deep down - or if his own condition and weakend state hides the truth from him.

Azar tries to get up but fails miserably. He’s too weak.

“What are you doing?” Adam asks, deep creases on his forehead.

“Going to the radio with you.” Azar responds with slurred words. When Adam shakes his head, Azar says what has to be said, even if he doesn’t want to.

“It could be the last time I can talk to my mother.” Adam tilts his head and squeezes his eyes shut. He knows.

“Do not say that.” The expression on his face when he next looks at Azar is heartbreaking. “I cannot lose you.”

“Adam…” is all he can reply and with all his strength, he reaches for the large hand still resting on his leg. There’s no need for further words to convey their feelings.

But there is something he needs to say.

“I want you to drink from me.” Adam’s eyes shoot open in shock.

“No, absolutely not!” The determination behind those words is a bit annoying.

“Adam, you need to feed. Without you at full strength… there’s no chance…” If he’ll die anyway, he wants Adam to survive, to get rid of the Trappers or at least escape from them.

“You lost too much blood already. If I would drink from you…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. But the severity in those words tells Azar that Adam won’t budge. At least not now. He sighs.

“Help me up, then?” Azar eventually says and despite clear hesitation, Adam eventually does so. Being lifted up doesn’t hurt as much anymore - not a good sign. And so they make their way to the other room. It’s small, like the rest of the cabin and just about fits the radio setup and two people in. Adam places Azar on the chair and after giving him one more concerned look, gets to work on the radio.

It takes a while and Azar loses track on what he is doing, only occasionally hearing Adam’s voice calling for the agency and stating his name. But then, suddenly, there’s a response.

“Adam? Thank goodness! You were due to call hours ago! What’s happening? Are you two ok?” Nate’s soft voice gives Azar some energy. It’s good hearing the others again - even if it’s one last time.

“Negative. We encountered Trappers. Azar is seriously wounded. We need medical assistance immediately and an extraction. Over.”

“Adam? Where is my son? What happened?” This time it’s Azar’s mother, Agent Balar. The fear is thick in her voice.

“He was caught in a trap and is severely injured. I am sorry, Rebecca.” It’s information he never wanted to share with the Agent again. Of that, Azar is certain. Adam has an incredibly respect for his mother and with everything, he’s likely blaming himself for what happened.

“Give me the radio.” Azar says and reaches out with a shaking hand. Adam nods and hands him the device.

“Mom?” He says and he hears a relieved sigh on the other line.

“Azar! What happened?” She cannot hide the trembling in her voice.

“Mom, I’m hurt - badly. I…” he swallows hard. “I’m not gonna make it home.” Adam stares at him with such a mournful expression, that it tightens his chest.

“No! No, you’ll be fine. Give us your location and we’ll send help!” She cannot cope with the words a mother never wants to hear.

“They won’t make it in time.” The truth. “I don’t have long and the Trappers could be here any minute.” Adam falters and sinks to his knees. Azar wants nothing more than to embrace him and tell him that everything will be alright.

“No, no, no! You don’t know that.” She wants to believe it so badly that all her experience, all her years on the job means nothing.

“Mom…” He addresses her but he looks at Adam. The green eyes shining lighter, now that they are filled with tears. He says her name but he really is talking to the man in front of him. The man he loves.

“I don’t want to die.” He says and he feels his sight begin to be less clear, as his own eyes tear up.

“I… I want Adam to turn me.” Adam’s head snaps up, clearly shocked at the statement.

“No!” Rebecca shouts almost immediately. “It’s too risky!”

“Don’t ask that of me.” Adam whispers only for him to hear.

“It can kill you and we don’t know how you’re blood would interfere. You can’t!”

“I’m dying, mom. I’m getting weaker and more tired by the minute. If it kills me… at least I can still save Adam and give him a chance until reinforcement arrives.”

The pleading is now in his own voice.

“And if it doesn’t… If Adam doesn’t mind the idea of me being around…” It’s foolish to think of eternity and immortality when he’s currently actually dying but he cannot help it. The idea that he would experience decades - centuries not only with the man he loves, but the friends he’s made with unit Bravo… is so very appealing.

“Azar…” His mother is now sobbing on the other end. He cannot imagine what she must be going through.

“Mom… I want your blessing. For me and for Adam.” His eyes have never leave Adam. He knows that his emotions, along with his instincts are fighting a fierce battle inside of him. He sees the hunger and the longing but also the fear, concern and care.

“Don’t make me do this,” Adam whispers again.

“I don’t want to die in vain, Adam” he whispers back. “If you don’t want to turn me, at least drink from me. I’ll rather die giving you strength than for no reason at all.”

The thought of bleeding out, his blood spilled uselessly over this cabin and Adam getting caught, hurt or worse by the Trappers is unbearable. He can accept not being turned, he knows that it may not work to begin with… but he needs Adam to recover, needs him to be able to fight, to survive - to be safe

Adam still shakes his head, though less vigorously than before.

“Is that really what you want?” Rebecca’s shaking voice comes through.

“It is. I don’t want my death to be meaningless… I don’t want the Trappers to win… I don’t want to lose… don’t want Adam to lose. He’s hurt, too, he needs blood.” There’s a long moment of silence but their eyes never break contact, even if it’s harder to keep them open and to hold the radio to his lips.

“Adam… I couldn’t safe my husband and I can’t safe my son. But you can give him peace…” she sobs loudly.

“Thank you, mom. I love you. And I love the others as well. Tell them that.” He too can’t hold the cracking of his voice back anymore, tears now freely streaming down his face.

“I love you, Azar, my baby boy…” after that, she breaks down and Azar can hear her wailing and crying and as he lowers the radio it slips from his grasp.

“Adam…” he begins but Adam’s head whips around, towards the door.

“They found us, didn’t they?” Azar says slowly, his speech now becoming more slurred and Adam nods. “Please…” Azar begs.

Almost in slow motion, Adam gets up. He stands in silence and motionless for what feels like an eternity. But he then moves closer. For the first time since all of this went to hell, Azar can feel a smile forming on his cracked lips.

“Thank you.” His words drag. When Adam reaches him, he leans down, resting his forehead against Azar’s.

“I’m so sorry…” He says and tears soak into Azar’s bloody shirt.

“It was never your fault. None of it.” He says between slowing breaths. “Thank you and no matter what… I love you.” Despite their relationship, they never tossed those words around freely. Both feared the implications behind them, but not now. Now it was the ultimate truth - the only thing that matters.

“Meus amor aeternus…” Adam whispers and even though Azar doesn’t understand the words, he understands the meaning and he lets his head slide to the side, baring his neck.

Even though his senses are beginning to dwindle, he can feel lips placing a gentle kiss on his neck, before sharp teeth pierce his skin. And before everything fades to black, he is blessed with one more moment of bliss.

---

Adam’s tears fall freely, as he sinks his fangs into the neck of his dying love. Nothing had prepared him for this. Nothing could describe the sorrow he feels. He wants to believe that his bite will take, that Azar will wake up again - changed but alive - but he knows the chances are low. He had lost so much blood already, was so weak… but he cannot deny him his last wish, even though he feels like he would rather die with him than to go on without him.

But he bites and he drinks and he gives him his own venom as he has asked. When the blood hits his tongue, his senses explode. Even now, as he lays dying, Azar gifts him with power beyond belief. He stops and his eyes roll into the back of his head. Adam’s wounds heal instantly, his senses so sharp, that he can hear the panting of the Trappers even through the rain and wind. No shadow can hide things from him anymore, no shrub can camouflage the Trappers that have now become lambs that are marching to their own slaughter.

His overwhelming sorrow changes to nearly uncontrolled rage. But before he gives in, he lifts Azar up and gently places him on the couch. He cannot feel a pulse, cannot hear his heart beat anymore, cannot see those dark blue eyes and that regret he feels, that pain, just fuels his rage.

The hunters would not survive this day. They would never cause this pain to anyone again. They would become the hunted. And with one last look at the body in front of him, he turns around to stalk his prey.

---

“I am so sorry, Rebecca.” He says, his voice empty and flat. He had waited for hours, had hoped for Azar to open his eyes, wild with hunger… but he had not. He was still on the couch, just as he had placed him there.

“I will bring him home.” It’s all he can offer. To bring Azar back to his mother, to give him a funeral, to have a place where he can visit… though he doesn’t know if he can. Not for a long time… maybe never.

He ends the call, returns to the living room, steps over the bodies on the floor and picks up the shell of the man that meant everything to him. He feels so much lighter now as if something important has left Azar’s body, and with great care, he begins his march to the extraction point, holding the body close to him as if he were still alive.

He doesn’t know how he can face Rebecca or the rest of the team. Despite Azar’s last words, he is responsible. They should never have split up. He should have never taken his eyes off of him.

He continues his way down the mountain. The rain had finally stopped and at an exceptionally beautiful spot, he stops for a moment. The sun against the dark sky gives the yellow autumn leaves an almost magical glow. He knows, that Azar would have loved it and he can feel his chest tighten. He would never be able to share this with him again.

He looks down at the body in his arms. His heart stops. Dark blue pools glance up at him and the wind picks up as the leaves dance above, just as the two hearts beneath them beat as one.

"Adam..."

#the wayhaven chronicles #wayhaven chronicles #adam du mortain #fanfic #dark #twc detective #seraphinitegames

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winchester-with-wings · 4 years

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You’re Not Alone

Sam Winchester x Bella (@dreamingforthosewholost)

A Coronavirus-related story.

@dreamingforthosewholost commissioned me!

Request: Unfortunately someone in my immediate family has caught the coronavirus and me myself I’m feeling kind of ill. I’m going to test for it sometime this week. And I would really appreciate it if you could write this fic! So the request is that Sam Winchester is my boyfriend and he is taking care of me.

Word Count: 2200ish!

Author’s Notes: This was an interesting commission! One of the first ones I’ve gotten in a long while and I really appreciate Bella’s support <3 The title is actually kinda relevant too since it’s been such a prominent message during the pandemic. This is personalized with Bella’s name and physical features. promise it’s more fluff and comfort than anything else.

Triggers: family member is covid positive, Bella is assumed positive too.

Wanna get previews, early access and make exclusive requests? Become a Patron! You can follow my Patreon for free too! Can’t become a patron? Please consider a donation to my Ko-Fi (Tips are appreciated!) Commissions are open too!

Mobile Masterlist / Patreon & Commissions Masterlist / Commissions are Open

-----------------------------------------------------------

Sam and Dean Winchester have officially declared 2020 cancelled.

They'd endured plenty of end-of-world scenarios so far…too many really. But usually there was something for them to do. Something that they could do to stop it, fix it, save the world. It's not really a savior complex when history time and time again proved they were truly heroes.

Not that Bella was going to tell them they were bonafide heroes.

Dean, in particular, didn't need the ego boost, and she didn't want Sam to do something stupid out of obligation to deal with the current situation. Because he couldn't.

The coronavirus, Covid-19, was not of the supernatural realm and couldn't be solved by the best hunters in the world. No, the world was sick and the virus had sprouted from nature and humankind's carelessness. Monsters, ghosts, and demons were now the least of their worries. The creatures even seemed to be sitting it out, doing their own part to give humans a break from hunting and hauntings. This meant that Sam and Dean were left with nothing but terrible headlines, of which they could do nothing about. Humankind's own negligence--failure to react, to test, to take precautions--this was on them. And while the Winchester brothers had been known to face human "monsters," a global pandemic was wildly out of their pay-grade and abilities.

And so over the first few weeks, Sam and Dean read the headlines. Scouring them for anything unrelated to the virus. They came up empty, thankfully.

They took the necessary precautions themselves, going to a "big box store" in town for more than just the supplies often acquired at a gas station convenience store. And as much as Dean loved food, he'd never seen the Impala so loaded with groceries…and toilet paper.

"Dean, we don't need two giant packs of toilet paper," Sam had scolded him, sighing. Dean frowned and had followed through with tossing the toiletry into their cart.

For what it's worth though, the bunker had earned this moniker. All supplies Sam and Dean picked up went towards their stockpile, which had been greatly depleted when they'd taken in refugee hunters from another dimension.

"We'll need this eventually," would be Dean's response to Sam's groans of disapproval as countless bags of chips and cases of beer and frozen packages of meat were piled on.

They'd also expected that more hunters in their newly-formed network would seek shelter for the quarantine. But no one came to the bunker. Instead they stayed away, as recommended, you know…because of social distancing.

Castiel visited when he could, but angel radio was overwhelmed with prayers and he couldn't ignore them for long. Cas had cured someone with the OG plague before, this should be nothing.

Bella--another hunter who lived in town--tried to stay away from the brothers. She'd never forgive herself if breaking quarantine meant weakening them; surely there was some Big Boss fight on the horizon.

Bella had not immersed herself into the hunter's life just yet. She'd recently moved back home and it had only been by a chance meeting in the park during a morning jog that she'd met Sam and soon after, her eyes were opened to the world of the supernatural.

Hell, if she hadn't known any better, Bella would've thought Sam was some sort of god, or an angel. Or a soldier, but no. He was a hunter, and the best way to cultivate her relationship with him had been to become a hunter too, although he hadn't been happy about that. How was she supposed to live life like a normal person, going to work at a restaurant when day-to-day life could be plagued by literal demons? It really put things into perspective. Sam Winchester changed Bella's life, and as long as she was with him, it was for the better.

The quarantine brought with it a personal predicament. Stay home with her family, or with Sam and Dean in the bunker? So far, Bella had only spent time at the bunker during the day in the archives, and even more recently had she spent the night there. But the quarantine could mean practically moving in. Who knew how long it would last? If the articles were to be believed, the rising numbers of infected people could mean at least a month stuck inside.

The stay at home order for Kansas went into effect at the end of March. Yet despite this, Bella's job at a restaurant was considered essential.

"Stay with me," Sam asked her, leaning on the trunk of the Impala. Bella was poised between his legs, his hands resting on her lower back. "We won't get sick and neither will you. It's the best way to keep your family healthy," he reasoned as his thumbs traced a pattern along her back. It was a logical suggestion and she was open to considering it. But how her family would handle the quarantine without her still weighed on her. How could she possibly predict how they'd cope with the isolation? She pressed her forehead into the curve of Sam's neck and nuzzled him.

"But where would I sleep?" she murmured. It's not like she had her own room at the bunker. A deep, throaty chuckle reverberated in Sam's chest and his arms coiled around her.

"Oh I think you know the answer to that."

Bella moved into the bunker that night.

----------

She stayed in touch with her family, of course, occasionally dropping off food on the front porch and retreating to her car. Phone calls with her grandmother and video chats with her parents too, but then what she'd dreaded came to pass.

Her grandmother tested positive. Her symptoms were rather mild for someone her age, but that didn't stop Bella from worrying. There was a night after a longer shift at work that she came home to the bunker and broke down and cried while Sam held her.

"They're all at risk now!" she cried. Her grandmother had come to stay with her parents so that she wouldn't be all alone. She was both thankful she hadn't stayed there but also felt guilty that now her family was facing the virus without her.

Dean cooked them all a dinner of comfort food and reassured her that he'd reach out to Cas, asking for a miracle.

Even with the orders in place, Bella felt a flexibility that others may not have because of her essential job. Yes, she dealt with rude people who just couldn't cope with the state of things, but she also had a reason for leaving the bunker and being out on the road. Although no one stopped her or questioned her; these stay-at-home orders weren't enforced very well.

She'd put together a care package for her grandmother and, while wearing gloves and a mask (oh and foggy glasses), and managed to stop by her parent's home. Her grandmother had been fortunate enough to not require hospitalization, but the idea that she might be struggling was overwhelming--enough that Bella was willing to take the risk.

She was young and healthy, confident that she could beat the virus as well if it came to it. Still, she planned to stay a safe distance away and avoid touching things. It broke Bella's heart that she couldn't hug her parents, couldn't hold her grandmother's hand.

"You're going to be okay," was the only reassurance she could conjure up.

--------

Not even two weeks later…

Bella called in sick.

It started with a sore throat. Dean wanted to chalk that up to her snoring.

"I do not snore!" Bella contested. "Sam! Tell him!" His grin was wiped away when called to defend her, and with a serious face, he nodded.

"Yeah Dean, she doesn't snore. I do." Literally behind Bella's back, Sam's eyes widened and he shook his head. "She totally does. So loud." he mouthed to his brother. "Still, just to be safe, babe, you should rest."

Sam went out on a small supply run and when he returned, Bella was laid up in bed, coughing.

"Oh sweetheart," Sam sighed, coming to her bedside. Using the back of his giant hand, he reached out to touch Bella's forehead, gleaming with sweat.

"No, don’t!" She recoiled from his touch. "I think--I think I have it." Saying the name out loud would only make it more real. Sam just smirked and made contact with her skin.

"You're burning up."

"I told you," she said, just before breaking into a fit of coughing.

"We need to get you tested. Come on." Sam scooped Bella into his arms with ease, taking her blanket with them.

He held her hand as he drove her to a testing site in town and held her hand while her sinuses were swabbed. He was wearing a facemask but his reassuring smile reached his hazel eyes; she loved the way they crinkled at the corner when he smiled.

"I should probably stay in another room when we get back," Bella suggested, rather quietly. Was she ashamed? Embarrassed? Or was she just scared? She'd been careful and perhaps even a little cocky that she could handle it, and where did that land her? Sucking wind.

"No. It's fine. I'll crash in another room. I want you to be comfortable." Sam rested his hand on her knee. He looked so good behind the wheel of the impala, such a shame that Dean doesn't let him drive more often. "Besides, your germs are already all over my room."

"I don't want you guys to get sick," Bella mumbled as Sam pulled into the bunker garage.

"Baby, we've already been exposed. We'll be okay. We just need to focus on you getting better now."

Sam opened the passenger door and carried Bella again, despite her complaints.

-----------------------

The results didn't take very long to come back positive. But it also wasn't a surprise either.

Cas returned to the bunker and with a touch of his hand, he was able to determine that Sam and Dean were healthy and safe.

"Can you help her?" Sam asked the angel. He sat on the bed next to Bella, brushing her long brown hair away from her face. Once, while she was resting and they were streaming something on Sam's laptop, he'd tried to braid her hair. It hadn't been too successful but it did the trick of pulling her hair away from her face and neck, preventing it from frizzing up more than it already did.

Cas sighed. "I can try but it's taking minor miracles to heal the people in the hospitals. Even still, I can't wipe it out of a person's system completely. It would be suspicious and could hinder man's search for proper treatments and cures. But for Bella, I can try." Cas stepped forward with his hand outstretched. Bella's tired brown eyes suddenly widened and held up a hand.

"W-wait, wait no. Stop," she managed to rasp out. Castiel looked utterly confused. Who would refuse a miracle? "If you can heal people. Make them better. Don't waste it on me."

"What? Baby, it's not a waste," Sam argued.

"No, you don't understand." Bella started coughing. "I'll be okay. But if Cas can do this…can I ask that he visit someone else?" Realization ran across Sam's features.

"Your grandmother." Bella nodded.

"Oh, of course," Cas agreed without further questions. Dean led his friend out of the room, offering to get him your address.

"I'm so sorry, Bella. I should've thought of that too. I'm sorry," Sam said, his face twisted up in guilt. He settled deeper into the bed beside Bella and she shifted so that she rested her head on his chest rather than a pillow.

"It's okay," Bella said, and she really meant it.

"I can't stand seeing someone I care about in pain." Sam seemed to be speaking into the silence filling his bedroom, the room he'd relinquished to Bella. A room he didn't sleep in right now, but spent just about every other waking moment in. Bella winced as she readjusted, snuggling closer to Sam.

"You care about me?" Sam's chuckle reverberated in his chest, muffling the sound of his heartbeat--Bella's favorite lullaby.

"You must be really sick because you sound crazy. Of course I care about you, sweetheart." Sam pressed his lips to the top of her head.

"My body hurts," Bella said a moment later, the pain bringing tears to her eyes.

"What can I do?"

"Just hold me? Maybe get rid of the blanket?" Just moments ago, she'd been shaking, so cold and sweaty. Now it was too much.

"Yeah, okay." Sam slithered out from under Bella. He did as she asked, removing the duvet and then adjusted her position in bed with more pillows. He turned off the light as well, setting up his laptop per their usual lounging routine nowadays.

"Sam?" His giant figure had been lost to the shadows of his room. But hearing the fear in her voice, Sam returned to the bed.

"Hey, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Bella sighed. "But you could still get sick. You shouldn't be here." Sam removed his shirt. Bella blinked and somehow missed out on watching him change into his pajama pants. And then he climbed into the bed.

"I'm not leaving you. I won't leave you alone. So many people are going through this alone but I won't let you, Bella. I'm not going anywhere."

-----------------------------------------------

Tagging: @abbessolute @book-loving--anime-chick @faithtrustandpixiedust95 @fabinapercabeth4179 @sanya-gryff @softdudebro @thinkwritexpress-official @autoblocked @karazoiel @therealcap @mathle0matle @whoopxd @bookworm4ever99 @geeksareunique @pottxrwolff @ravenhaviland @clockblobber @melaninspice11 @gryffindorable713 @feelmyroarrrr @mrswhozeewhatsis

#my writing #sam winchester #sam winchester fanfic #commission #spn #spn fic #sam winchester fic #sam winchester fluff #covid_19 #coronavirus #comfort fic #fluff

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brynwrites · 7 years

Text

The Marshmallow Aesthetic: A Romantic, Fantasy Short Story.

Blurb: A socially anxious man with a magical condition known as Spontaneous Anti-Singularity Syndrome accidentally teleports into the house of an audacious woman.

Themes: Light and fun, showing people who are both flirtatious and dorky at the same time, and putting value on the ability to laugh at yourself and move forward. I tried to mimic a more witty, carefree style. You’ll be the judge of whether or not I pulled it off.

Length: About 3,400 words.

** Warning for typos.

Read it below or on AO3.

He appeared there, an instantaneous shadow hovering in the dark corner of the lavish woman’s bed chambers. He appeared there as an instantaneous shadow for two main reasons: mostly because he forgot to appear anywhere else, and partially because he forgot to appear as anything other than a shadow.

He quickly righted that.

Now he stood properly situated as a Tall, Dark, and Handsome figure. He was Tall specifically in a way that made him slightly taller than everyone else without appearing gangly or disproportioned. He was Dark in the sense that his hair gleamed like ebony and his features revealed a darkness of soul — not his soul of course, but a soul, somewhere, and a very dark one indeed — but he was dark also in the sense that his skin shone like the moon, which is to say that once a month it went entirely black. He was Handsome in a manner which could bring most women to their knees, as well as all men, and some species of small animals for a reason he could never figure. This annoyed him greatly because it meant he spent far too many hours a day telling people would you please just stand up and no, no point those lawsuits somewhere else! It’s my fairy god-uncle’s fault, damn him.

His name — his Tall, Dark, Handsome name — was Cabreyustian Crustaciono Cyanrebellum the XIII. The one and only peace that awful name brought him was the knowledge that before his birth, twelve other men, women, in betweens, and exceptions had been given the despicable curse of bearing it too. He commiserated.

Cabreyustian Crustaciono Cyanrebellum the XIII, who much preferred to be called simply Lord Cabrey the Almighty Vanisher — just Cabrey for short — stood in this lavish woman’s bedchamber like the least almighty person ever to live.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said. He shouldn’t have been talking out loud either, but thinking things felt far too anti-climactic. He was already about to do something very anti-climatic by fleeing for his life, and two anti-climatic things in such a small period of time would be much too dull.

Cabrey fled.

His high black boots made ominous squeaks against the polished wood flooring, and then splooshes across the plush rug, until the squeak of hinges cut him off. One of the room’s two smaller doors opened, revealing a woman in a nightgown. This nightgown was probably a very thin, silky nightgown, revealing curves of just the right amount of curvature and a chest with just the right amount of those things that women generally have on them, though he didn’t know what just the right amount was so he couldn’t be certain. He also couldn’t be certain, because, like any respectable man caught fleeing a woman’s bed chambers, he immediately looked away.

“Who are you?” the woman shouted. “How in the purple pigeon’s name did you get in here!”

Cabrey stared aggressively into the small fire crackling in the hearth across from the bed. If he looked hard enough, perhaps his face would begin to smolder in a brooding, mysterious expression, and his fingers would simultaneously stop trembling.

“Speak!” She sounded closer. Or perhaps only louder.

Fires are very nice, all elegance and passion. Cabrey had read that in a book somewhere. He wondered if fires looked just as nice when you climbed into them, and whether there was a burning inferno big enough to incinerate his damming social anxiety and terrible luck. Giving the hearth a glower of death, he managed to make a noise somewhere between a grunt and the letter h. It sounded rather low and foreboding, somehow. Perhaps the brooding mystery of scowling into flames was taking effect.

“How did you enter my room!” she repeated, her tone all but scorching.

Agonizingly, Cabrey forced out a reply, his voice moving deeper from the effort. “I cannot tell you that.”

A shuffling followed, though he dared not look away from the fire lest he find her aiming some deadly weapon at him. If it came to that, he much preferred to die without knowing what had hit him.

“Cannot tell me, or will not?” the woman asked.

Cannot, actually. He wished he could. If he knew why he suddenly plopped into a random, nonsensical places whenever his mind wandered too much, then he would have some hope of changing it. But in the literal heat of the moment and the hearth, entirely different words came out of his mouth instead. “Are you implying I’m a liar?”

“A liar…” She moved again, stepping in front of him. “No, not a liar. A snake.”

Instead of a large, sharp weapon, she had a robe covering her gown, fluffy and teal. It hid curves, probably, but it was her face it accentuated, her wet, blond hair hanging in waves around sharp features. Her large, perfectly hooked nose made the delicacy of her brows look brave and triumphant. A smudge of eye makeup smeared under her right eye, a dark red to accent the dazzling brown of her irises.

She was beautiful.

As though that beauty had a life of its own, it rose to choke the words from Cabrey’s throat. “I suppose I— I must have inherited the snake from my mother. The— the snake-likeness, that is. Snakliness— snake-ili-ness… ness…” His face lit up like a stroked hearth, threatening to burn him from the inside out, yet not quite hot enough to murder his pathetic ass where it wavered.

She laughed, a sound more lovely than anything in the visual realm. “And your cunning tongue? From where did you inherit that?”

“My dastardly cunning tongue,” Cabrey objected, managing to pronounce every word without a hiccup. “That skill is purely my own.” He took a step, drawing so close that he could gently boop her nose if he wished.

The line of her shoulders grew stiff. Then she moved forward, forcing him to tilt his head down to meet her gaze properly. “What do you see in me, hmm?” A smile pierced her features, filling them with hunger and purpose. “A mouse, perhaps?”

Cabrey swallowed. “Mice should not look at snakes like that.” Somehow the words sounded almost sensual when the left his lips.

“Are you the mouse then?” She tapped a single, delicate finger to the center of his chest, her motion so light he could barely feel it.

He inclined towards her. “Do I look like I fear you?”

When she stepped away, she trailed a hand along his collar, tugging him forward with the smallest twitch of her wrist, yet one which extended through her body, her entire being calling him to come. “Not anymore.” Her shoulders hit the mantel above the fireplace as she backed up, but her smile only widened, the twinkle in her eyes brighter than any flame.

Cabrey leaned in. Her face blurred as he neared, replaced by golden curls on skin and the flutter of lashes as his breath met hers. Then her words fully hit him. “Not — not anymore?” He stammered, standing straighter on wobbly heels. “That was not fear!”

“Pray, do tell?” She smirked, her lips twitching in something which might have been laughter.

Laughter. Well, I do deserve it. He put on his smuggest mask, spreading his arms wide. “Self-preservation.”

She did the same, her palm pointed towards the room’s decorated entrance. “The door’s just there. No one will stop you from fleeing.” Her shoulders rose and fell as she spoke, and she brushed past him, moving toward the bed. “But I certainly wouldn’t force you to leave either.”

Drawing a deep breath to steady himself, he turned to watch her move. “Where else would you propose I go?”

“I can think of a few places.” Her eyes moved down the length of his body, her smile broadening.

He swallowed. And then followed her. “I’m accustomed to seeing other people on their knees before me.” Somehow he made it sound sexy, instead of a frustrating occurrence his fairy god-uncle had caused while he was yet a pathetic, squirming mess in crib.

“Prove it.” She lifted her brow.

“First, your name.”

“Inessa,” she replied. Her voice dropped, and she grumbled a series a words which caught his heat. “Inessa Ironika Imunician the second.”

Another alliteration. Someone else had as dumb of ancestors as he did. We’re made for each other. “Cabreyustian Crustaciono Cyanrebellum the XIII.”

A brilliant bout of laughter rose in her chest. It filled the world like a thousand stars, catching in Cabrey’s chest and weakening his knees. Or perhaps that was only a giddy lightheadedness.

“Your name is so much worse!” Inessa scolded, cupping her mouth with her hands, her cheeks flushed ever so slightly. “No wonder you need self-preservation.”

The sight of her made his not-so-dark soul leap. “Cabrey does well enough,” he muttered. He pressed a smirk across his face as her features only grew more lively. Carefully, he wrapped a hand around her waist, waiting for her body to sink in to the touch before lowering his face to her neck.

Inessa tipped her head back, a sigh escaping her lips. Cabrey’s heart rattled in his chest, but her scent engulfed him, dreamy and soft with a hint of flowery bath scents and chamomile. Somehow the combination made him tingle. He pressed his mouth to her skin. She trembled in time with him, but her body gave in just as his did, a moan escaping her like music.

“Mm, you’re right,” she whispered. “Cabrey is a fine name for a snake — a tall, dark, handsome snake.”

“That’s a gross stereotype, which I reject.” He kissed her neck again, tugging at the skin with his lips. She seemed to melt, both putty in his hands and a fire under his touch. Tender yet fierce, he pushed her backwards, pressing her towards the wall. Whatever tension remained in her bones vanished then, her breath leaving her like a sigh as he worked his mouth up her neck and along her jaw.

With one hand, Cabrey caught her wrist, holding tightly to her as though his whole world might become a dream if he drew back even a moment. He set his lips against hers waiting for her to return the motion in full force before pressing her any harder. The simple fire in the hearth seemed long gone, his own soul alight in a way no meager flash of energy could portray.

He shoved his hips against Inessa’s, forcing her body to the wall. A sharp squeak left her, and her form went rigid. In an instant, Cabrey pulled back.

“I’m sorry!” he whispered the words, lifting them higher as he repeated the apology. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to push so far. I encroached.” He backed away — two steps, then a third, glancing towards the door. “I… I can leave?”

“No! No.” Inessa leaned against the wall, her shoulders curled forward, suddenly looking much smaller than she had before. But she gave him a soft smile, shaking her head quickly. “Please stay, if you’d like. I’d love just to talk for a while. If you’re interested in that.”

Cabrey paused. His gaze went to his feet, the shiny tops of his black boots somehow helping him find the words. “I would like that. I talk real good — I mean nice — real great? Real… talkity.”

Inessa released a soft laugh. “So you’re a snake and a liar.”

“Both now?” He smiled, shrugging. “Two things is better than just one, isn’t it?”

A faint quirk drew Inessa’s lips into an off-set line, amused and a bit dorky. “I suppose in this case, yes.”

“The case where I’m a fool and you’re perfection?”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” The stray curl along her temple trembled as she bounced her eyebrows. “We are both each of those things, to some extent.” She walked toward the bed, her robe billowing like a cloud behind her. It swirled as she spun, and settled only once she perched on the edge of the mattress. “Besides, I find fools to be adorable.”

“That’s the highest compliment I’ve ever been given.” Cabrey laughed beneath his words, shaking his head slowly “That and, thank the gods, a beautiful dork is standing on your new painting of the Constipated King! Bless him!” He snorted. “I’m still not sure if she was blessing me or his poor majesty…”

“You are a liar; I know it!” Inessa’s words held a playful tease, and she lifted a leg to point her bare toes at him. “Why did you come here, dastardly Cabrey?”

His mouth dropped open a moment before the words finally fell from his lips. “It’s not my fault!” He threw his arms out, palms up. “I have a magical condition — Spontaneous Anti-Singularity Syndrome. It just — just happens, from time to time, whenever I’m not fully grounded in wherever I am that moment.” Frustration laced his voice, as it always did in consideration of his frequent, accidental teleportations.

But talking to Inessa, he felt something more, some strange desire to laugh at his abnormality and throw a crude symbol in its direction before strolling gleefully away. “I went for groceries this morning and it’s happened three times since. Three times! I haven’t even made it home yet—” He stopped short then, dread pooling in his gut. “Groceries!”

With a yelp, Cabrey tore through the room, Inessa watching with silent look of bemusement. He dropped to the ground to peer under the bed and shoved himself against the wall to peek behind the furniture, checking anywhere the day’s food stuffs might have vanished to. He discovered a pile of books, a lacy pair of high heels, and far more dice than any sane person needed. But no groceries.

“Dammit!” Groaning, he sunk onto the bed.

“They aren’t here, I take it?” She leaned over him, her shoulders bouncing as she giggled. “You poor thing. I’m sorry you’ve lost them.”

Cabrey bobbed his head, feeling rather pathetic. “Probably still sitting in The Seer’s Museum of Future History.”

“The one in Paithe?”

Hope swelled in his chest for a moment. “Are we near there?”

Inessa sighed, her face dropping. “Four hours by carriage.”

“Oh.”

The bed rocked as she flopped down beside him. “Are you going to vanish on me, then? Poof off to some other, better place?”

“You think I could forget for a moment that I’m laying beside someone I’ve kissed and still managed to have a full conversation with?” He asked in return. Inessa’s presence felt easy, somehow. A giddy, light rush flew through his heart whenever he looked at her, but it held happiness and comfort, instead of the awful mixture of anxiety and shame most people brought.

“Are full conversations difficult?”

Cabrey’s brow tightened. “Are they not for you?”

“I suppose on occasion…” She propped her elbow onto the bed, laying her head in her hand. “But they’ve been expected of me since I was very little. Parties and political conventions. My mother was always in the lime-light, and so I was too, by default.”

Cabrey winced. “That sounds painful.”

“Oh, sometimes. But it could be fun too.” She smiled, a dreamy sort of expression, like a million little fairy lights dancing in an enchanted field. “I met all kinds of spectacular people, experienced life from around the world. It was an adventure, in a way.”

A groan rose in Cabrey’s chest. “Between my fairy god-uncle and my frequent, spontaneous relocations, my life has held more than enough adventure for me,” he grumbled, rubbing the front of his face. “Though if I could enjoy the moving about, perhaps things would be different. I have always wanted to see the eight astonishments of the Archramidies.”

“You haven’t seen them — not even the Velacian?!”

“Twice I’ve seen the top of it peering over the roofs, but I didn’t make it all the way there on either occasion.” He closed his eyes, picturing the emerald spires piercing the sky above glorious hanging gardens. “It’s hard to exist in one place if there isn’t someone to ground me. But throughout my life, most people have been too busy for a boy who might not be there when you come back.”

“I would make time for that boy.” Inessa’s voice was so soft, he wasn’t quite sure he heard her, the dainty sound paired with rustling as she leaned towards the other side of the bed. Her weight shifted back into place before he could be bother to open his eyes. “At least,” she added, louder. “If he were a liar and a snake who brought people to knees.”

He laughed, a little off-key, peeking at her through his lashes. “What if that last one wasn’t a joke?”

She only looked more intrigued. “Do explain?”

“It’s a nonsense curse. For some reason it affects certain small animals too.”

Inessa’s face lit up, the edges of her eyes crinkling. “They know how charming you are, is all,” she said, playfully. “They’re paying you tribute.”

“It they wanted to show their devotion, they could bring me groceries instead…”

“Well, I have no groceries for you, but how do you feel about hot chocolate?”

“As a drink, or a weaponized projectile?”

“Drink, preferably.” She drew a bit closer, fitting her head into the crook of his neck, her breath on his skin. “I would feel awful if my maids were forced to clean aggressive brown splash marks off all my vanquished furniture.”

Cabrey’s whole being latched onto her closeness, and he had to entice his mind away with thoughts of chocolaty drinks. “I like mine with extra cocoa and three little marshmallows.”

She hummed, quizzically. “Only three?”

“They’re for the aesthetic,” he explained. “The whole point is that they melt by the time you’ve finished the mug.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Inessa tapped a finger to his nose. She promptly sliding off the bed, the absence of her warmth leaving him empty and alone. “But if you’re insistent on having terrible taste, then exactly three marshmallows it is.” Her partially dried, blond locks sprung about as she left the room, her feet light.

The soft weight of her fingertip on his nose seemed to linger, warm and a little tingly. It filled Cabrey up, not quite a kiss, but in some ways better — a dorky acknowledgment of his life, a silly, platonic token of affection. He lay there, running his eyes along the lines of the ceiling, unable to keep the smile off his face.

His gaze found a crack in the corner nearest the head of the bed, and his brow scrunched. She should have that repaired. He mused over it: where it had come from, when it had first appeared. Perhaps it had been there since before she moved in, formed by an earthquake or a sudden shift in the wooden infrastructure. Wood did change with time, after all. Though it looked so lovely on his floor at home, he—

The lines of Inessa’s room flashed away, replaced by the darkness of an alley, clattering with the sound of a busy street nearby. He pulled himself out of the shadows, standing there properly: tall, dark, and handsome. The light drifting of his heart seemed to drop in one sudden, terrible motion.

Inessa.

But she was gone, along with her room. Four hours from Paithe. That could be anywhere. She could be anywhere.

“No.” He said the word out loud, the whimper bouncing aggressively off the dim walkway. That could not have been their last and only meeting. He would not let his blasted syndrome take her away without her say so. Four hours from Paithe, and he would find her, if only to ask her if she wanted to see him again.

He would.

Cabrey shoved his hands into his pockets, the darkness of the soul that wasn’t his billowing around him fiercely. His hands brushed paper. Shaking, he drew the scrap out, holding it in the direction of the nearest light. An address scrawled across the top, followed by two sentences in simple cursive: In case you get lost. Come find me again.

He held to the note as though it contained the meaning of life. She wanted him to return, and he would. He would.

If Cabrey had been in Inessa Ironika Imunician the second’s bedroom at that moment, he would have seen her walk in with two mugs of hot chocolate — one with a total of three, perfect marshmallows, and the other overflowing in every manner of fluffy, sugary goodness — and her mouth hung wide. Slowly, it would have closed into a soft smile as she sighed and held the mugs against her chest.

“Oh, Cabrey, you snake. Come again soon.”

The End.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this short story, please consider reblogging it so that others can too :)

#writeblr #my writing #amwriting #writer's on tumblr #short stories #short story #original fiction #literature #romance #fantasy #humour #I'll probably reblog it a couple times #just to make sure everyone sees #stories tag: short stories

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everlarkficexchange · 7 years

Text

Would this have happened anyway?

Written by: @florence68blog

Title: Would this have happened anyway?

Prompt 66: Would love to read a canon divergent fic that explores what Peeta says about “a lot of guys liking Katniss”. This could cover a lot of tropes: no games, arranged marriage, friends to lovers, or this would have happened anyway. Would love to see Katniss more open to her feelings and the possibility of love. Would love to see how Peeta would win Katniss over with more than just Gale as competition. [submitted by Anonymous]

Note: A work in progress (multichapter).

Summary: The war ended when Katniss and Peeta were 16 years old. A couple of years have passed since the rebellion. Life in District 12 has changed quite a lot. Without the threat of hunger, the Reaping or death, Katniss and Peeta have become friends. Is there hope for something more?

“She is ideal for my young’un”, one could hear Mrs. Cartwright’s calculating voice. “Katniss turned into a real beauty. Plus, their status improved since the pharmacy has been given back to them…”

After the morning rush, a few neighborhood women turn up at the bakery and exchange gossip with my mother on Sundays during the business lull. In the meantime I am in the kitchen and prepare bread for the afternoon crowd. Usually, I zone out and don’t listen to the malicious stories and the caustic comments of those joyless women with nothing better to do. But her name captured my attention at once…

“Are you sure? For me, she will always be ‘Seam trash’”, my mother cut her off impatiently.

„Times have changed“, the butcher’s wife declared. „I myself wouldn’t mind either if she became my daughter in law. My son Jonas has had an eye on her as well. A huntress would be the perfect butcher’s wife“, she added, laughing.

„My Daren is already a step ahead. He just ran over to the bakery to ask her out to prom“, Mrs. Cartwright threw in happily.

I started to pound the dough. My fingers are convulsing. No, it can’t be real. This is not happening. Not now… I am in love with her. For years I have been so. It is the worst-kept secret in the District. She is the only one who doesn’t have a clue about it.

When I think of my actual and as a matter of fact imagined history with Katniss, I divide it into three periods. The first one is the earliest period of childhood, when I was observing her in kindergarten, and then at school and in town, while she was strolling around in the company of her beloved father and her sister, with no worries on her mind. This Katniss exuded energy and radiated joy. For me, surrounded by an aggressive mother, a disinterested and coarse older brothers and an absent father, her family was the epiphany of all I’ve ever dreamed of, and Katniss the personification of happiness and safety. It was of some comfort to know that something like that existed. It yielded hope that it was indeed possible to reach these heights – with Katniss, of course. Even if she didn’t know that I existed, for me that phase of our relationship, in fact a one sided and imaginary one, was a beacon of hope that let me survive in the unhealthy environment of my own family.

It all changed after the sudden death of Katniss’ father in the coal-mine explosion. Once merry, his well cared for and sheltered daughter was devastated and left to her own devices. Her mother’s depression left her unprotected and forced her to take care of her younger sister at a time when she was a child herself. I observed how she slowly faded, hungry, weak and concerned – the peak of her helplessness being when she literally gave herself up and, under an apple tree, in the rain, waited to die. The fear of her not making it through the night made me take action. I, who (like father like son) have always avoided conflict, tried to not stir trouble and avoided to tempt my mother’s wrath, let the bread burn that evening on purpose and instead of feeding them to the pigs, as my irascible mother had directed me to, I threw the buns to Katniss. As was to be expected, my mother decided to cover my entire body in bruises; some even adorned my face and threatened to expose my parents’ questionable child-rearing methods to the public. Nevertheless, deep inside, I was hoping that Katniss would at least greet me next day at school; it didn’t surprise me when she ignored me. Still, I did manage to catch her glance, which flew right across me and focused on the dandelion which erupted from the holes in the asphalt at my feet…

In the following couple of years, I continued watching her from afar. Every once in a while, I caught her glance and built impossible and pointless plans regarding our future together. Katniss lost the appearance of a weakened, persecuted animal. Her movements became steady and quick and her glance clear and confident. The only thing missing was her old smile and a certain lightness of being. Soon it became clear that Katniss had started hunting in the forbidden woods outside of the district borders. She then sold the game or traded it for goods. My father was a regular customer, to the great dismay of my mother, who did not forget that my father’s first and probably only love had been Mrs. Everdeen.

At that time my mind was greatly preoccupied with Gale, officially her hunting partner, and unofficially – if you believed the rumors – her boyfriend. Their behavior in public did not confirm these insinuations. On the contrary, Gale, who was every girl’s dream, whether from the Seam or the merchant section, tall, good looking, with olive skin, the movements of a panther (Deli’s words, not mine) and a facial expression that induced great respect, was a regular visitor of the so called ‘Slag Heap’, a place where class differences vanished and young men and women were looking for some pleasure and oblivion. If one is to believe my oldest brother, Asher, who was not able to mask his unhappiness and jealousy of Gale – for he was his main rival – he never showed up with the same girl twice. That encouraged numerous idiots to say ever more openly how Katniss is ‘attractive’, ‘hot’ and the ‘main heroine’ of their ‘wet dreams’. In those moments I was only capable of self-control because of the many years of practice in hiding my feelings from my mother. What I actually wanted was to grab these fools’ throats and hold them tight until they’ve forgotten that Katniss existed. Luckily, these comments, even the glances, were nipped in the bud by no one other than Gale. Patrick, a real swine and a member of my wrestling team stopped Katniss after school one day and suggested “to make her acquainted with his friend Dick at the Slag Heap”. He ended up being a boxing bag for the furiously agitated Gale, who happened to be nearby and heard it. No one dared to intervene, except for Katniss, who pulled Gale by the sleeve and commented lethargically: “You were supposed to let me finish off my prey, remember?” That made him stop for a moment; suddenly, the two of them laughed hard and set out for the Seam.

The image of the ferocious Gale was carved deep in the minds of the people that had been there and an embroidered story of the incident remained to serve as a warning to all potential suitors. That occurrence left me feeling conflicted. I was delighted that Gale’s action sent a loud enough message to all the young men in the District about how Katniss was out of limits. On the other hand, it was clear that she was very special to him and that she meant to him more than people generally assumed. Gale’s rating among girls rose even more, if that was even possible, which became my brother’s sore spot and allowed me to tease him about it for months. A general conclusion that Gale was having fun on the side, waiting for Katniss to grow up some more and be ready for a serious relationship, was formed and wiped the smile off my face immediately.

Right after my sixteenth birthday, strange things began to happen. On the streets, unfamiliar faces started to show up, and head peacekeeper Cray died all of a sudden, allegedly from a heart attack. No one cared to inform the Capitol about it and Darius took his place. It was an unusual choice, if you take into account that he is my oldest brother’s peer. Haymitch appeared in town, sober and on the alert. The deliveries of the ingredients for the bakery were late at first and then stopped coming altogether. Unexpectedly, my father turned out to be quite untouched by that. The customers didn’t complain about it too much either.

During the course of April, Darius announced that, for the first time ever, a spring festival would be organized one week prior to the Reaping ceremony. The preparation was an occasion for numerous meetings of the more prominent representatives of the Merchant circle at the office of Mayor Undersee. In passing, I would sometimes see Haymitch in a seemingly casual conversation with Gale, Thom and some other young miners. A few times, he even stopped to speak with Katniss. For someone who has spent years of his life drunk and isolated in the Victor’s Village, Haymitch was unusually sober and present-minded. All of these suspicious signs that pointed toward something big happening could not hold my attention. Just like every year, when Reaping Day drew closer, I fell into a state of inexpressible fear. I worried about myself, my brother Marek, whose last Reaping this was, my friends, but my greatest fear and paralyzing thought was always: “What if they draw Katniss, just not her, no, everyone but her.” And this year, it was her sister Primrose’s first Reaping. For Katniss it was clear as day that she didn’t have any reason to worry about Prim. If necessary, she was ready to take her place. For me it meant that my fear that year should double. Fortunately, it proved to be unnecessary.

The last day of April began at dawn, when in the entire District, warning sirens resounded. My father ordered us in an imperious tone to put on our clothes quickly and leave at once. Unexpectedly he overrode my mother’s complaints and declared with an authoritative voice: “Let’s move!” Without a word, all of us followed him in the general direction of the woods. On the way, we met neighbors who quickly and silently walked into the same direction. At the end of the road from which a small path led through the grove towards the electric fence, Katniss was standing, armed with a bow and arrows.

She took over our group and led us through the woods to a camp that was a two hour walk away from the District. There, we found out that the revolution has begun, that Snow has been killed, that District 12 hadn’t been destroyed like we all had assumed but that its inhabitants had hidden and had lived under the radar. They, armored and trained for battle, had been the key factor in the revolution. Haymitch was the leader of the Rebellion in our District; the entire Seam and the more prominent representatives of the merchant families have been included in the resistance movement. The citizens had been brought to the forest, just until we could see how all of it would play out. The spring festival had only been a cover to organize shelter, a way to store food supplies and other necessities. In this temporary camp, we have stayed for about ten days. After the assassination of the president, the revolutionaries occupied the Capitol, which, unprepared for attack, surrendered. Battles were taking place in the Districts 2, 3 and 4 for a few weeks, however Snow’s sympathizers were soon overcome. This has been a two-week long blitzkrieg. Our district didn’t suffer much damage. There were a few casualties, but mostly these were older people who refused to take shelter and then fell prey to the residual peacekeepers who remained loyal to Snow. Soon we returned to our homes and carried on with a more or less normal life. The only graspable, enormous change that brought relief upon everyone was the fact that the Hunger Games have been discontinued…

On that last day of camp, while I was watching Katniss, who organized the camp’s closure with Darius, Haymitch and Gale and made a plans for our return home, it became painfully evident to me how different the two of us were from each other. I, pathetic, a coward, a wimp, and she a brave, dignified warrior. Suddenly, I despaired at the crystal clear thought that never, not in any universe, she would be able to, not even in passing, focus her glance on me, not to mention be interested in me. From the female camp one could hear snorting and mumbling. Our schoolmates, who were altogether burning with jealousy of Katniss because of her looks and posture, and, above all, the inviolable position she held in Gale’s life, were particularly loud. The male camp was quite a different story. They regarded her with an admiration that did not diminish their wish to physically possess her, but was enriched with an entirely new desire to rule over her. I had the feeling that I would become sick while reading their expressions.

In order to collect my thoughts and calm down, I left the group somewhat and, leaning on a tree that shielded me from the others’ view, breathed in the fresh morning air with closed eyes. A sudden, gentle touch of a hand made me flinch. Next to me was Katniss, she asked me softly: “Peeta, are you alright?” Oh my God, not only did she address me directly and on her own accord, probably for the first time in her life, but she also called me by my name.

And at that moment, the third phase of my relationship with Katniss Everdeen began, the one in which she really acknowledged my existence, talked to me from time to time and carried herself toward me in a friendly manner…

The events in the District and entire Panem have changed the life of the Everdeen family very much. Mrs. Everdeen’s father had died from a heart attack in the revolution. The District’s administration had then relocated her mother to a small one-story house and set a monthly pension for her, while the house and pharmacy she had been in were inherited by Mrs. Everdeen. Everybody was talking about how that must have been Haymitch’s doing, because the pharmacist never would have let his business be taken over by his outcast daughter. When, one morning, I left the bakery to see what the hustle in the adjacent house and garden was all about, I saw Prim, who told me that she would work at the pharmacy and that they were moving into the house. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity and offered her my help at once. She and I were very similar, and not only in the physical sense, considering that Prim had inherited her mother’s merchant looks. We were both talkative, candid and merry. We soon became friends, and when Katniss saw for herself that Prim was safe with me, she began embracing our new ideas and projects with a tiny smile and a twinkle in her eyes and even took part in them – from our medicinal-edible garden, which we prepared in the backyard, to painting the walls of Prim’s room. The neighborly connections turned swiftly into a friendship. We often walked to and from school together. When the gardening work or some other little thing I was helping Prim with took longer than expected, Mrs. Everdeen would ask me to stay for dinner. With time, Katniss fully let herself go in my presence and took part in the conversations, even initiated get-togethers…

I believed I was close to my goal. As if it hadn’t been enough that Gale was always nearby, even though Prim claimed that they were just friends, half of the male population at school decided that this was the best moment to take action and conquer Katniss. Well, this time, I wouldn’t let my cowardliness win. I took off the apron and set out. I resolutely opened the kitchen door that leads to the backyard and was flabbergasted when, in front of me, I made out Katniss.

“Hi! Um… I wanted to… Right now, there’s… I am…”

“Oh, hi. I just wanted to swing by. Prim said…”

“Yes, um… Okay then… I don’t want to hold you up…”

“Katniss, wait! I thought… I wanted to ask you…” Yes, I am that idiot who’s considered to be very eloquent. Luckily, she cut me off mumbling: “Do you want to go to senior prom with me?”

Some moments later, utterly confused, I’m taking the muffins out of the oven and freeze in the middle of a routine movement. Did I answer her? Did I accept the invite? Yes, sure, I did. Katniss and I are going to the prom. And she invited me! That has to mean something. Maybe she’s interested a little. Maybe she likes me a little after all. Or a lot? What if she asked me just to fend off all the idiots that are after her? Before I managed to destroy the next batch of muffins, Marek came into the kitchen whistling joyfully.

“What happened?”, he asked, worried, when he saw my red face.

“Nothing. Katniss has asked me to prom”.

“Isn’t that good news?”

“Hm. I’m wondering why she asked me?”

“Wow, everyone knows that she’s completely oblivious, but you too? What do you think why she is rejecting all the admirers, or why she is never going out with anyone? I thought it was clear to you that the ice queen of District 12 tends to turn into a puddle when you’re around”, Marek said jokingly. “Prim, Madge, Delly and I were taking bets on when the two of you would move from your dead spot. See to it that I win – I put my money on prom”. He slapped me on the shoulder and, with a smile, took off adding: “And I want to know all the details”.

For thirteen years, my eyes had followed her, I dreamed of her, rotated various scenarios in which she would notice me in my head and lived in a happy one-sided love story. And then one evening has changed everything. Senior prom turned into a perfect first date that I never would have even been able to imagine. It was real. At the risk of sounding girly (What else is new?), I will say that this was the beginning of my happily ever after. And no one will hear the details. Marek will have to settle for only winning his bet.

#Everlark Fic Exchange #Springtime Edition 2017 #submission #florence68blog #prompt 66

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ncfan-1 · 7 years

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Simple Wants

Vanimeldë was a woman of simple wants--or, at least, she thought so.

Written for the April 3rd Legendarium Ladies April general prompt, Wants and Wishes.

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When she was young, Vanimeldë was a child of simple wants.

“Vanimeldë, please, you must pay greater mind to your arithmetic. I have spoken with your tutors, and your progress… You do not seem to have made any progress at all since the last time I spoke with them.”

Vanimeldë’s mother, Vanimandil, often initiated such conversations with her daughter. Though Vanimeldë might find arithmetic too tedious and too irrelevant to devote much attention to it, she was quite an accomplished listener, and she had heard servants whispering in the back halls, when they thought she wasn’t near. The wife of the King’s heir despaired of her husband ever putting his mind to one day governing Anadûnê, despaired of it perhaps even more than the King himself. One of the maids had heard her complaining to her favorite lady-in-waiting; one of the grooms had watched her follow her husband into the stables to implore him to stay in the capital as he was preparing to ride away to meet friends in Rómenna.

Sometimes, the whispers seemed to seep from the very walls, and Vanimeldë would just attribute it to her own keen ears. But what could anyone expect? Vanimandil was a daughter of Andúnië, if a few degrees removed from the Lords’ immediate family. They had strange notions of how to rule in Andúnië; so everyone said, and if it was what everyone said, there must have been at least a kernel of truth to it.

But Vanimeldë knew better than to repeat palace gossip indiscriminately. Information was a valuable resource, one that should never be squandered. Besides, it would just make her mother upset to remind her of it. So Vanimeldë smiled winningly and pointed out, “But arithmetic isn’t all there is to being Queen, is there, Mother? I’ve been doing very well in my other—“

“Yes, you sing very well, Vanimeldë,” Vanimandil cut her off, her formerly smooth brown forehead beginning to crease noticeably. “And you master any instrument given to you to play within a few months. However, that is not—“

“And literature and history, Mother,” Vanimeldë added earnestly. It was easiest to overwhelm her early on, to get her off track so that she didn’t exactly forget what she had been angry about, but that she would deem it no longer relevant. Vanimeldë had watched her father employ this method many times, and he almost always succeeded. “I excel in those subjects, and did you not say that I handled the colonial delegation wonderfully when I had to greet them last week?”

A pause, and then, Vanimandil nodded. “…Yes,” she allowed, her green eyes softening slightly. “That’s not precisely new, Vanimeldë; you’ve always been attentive to your history texts, and to the classics.”

But Vanimeldë knew her mother had weakened the moment the word ‘history’ passed her lips. They did love their history in Andúnië, though Vanimeldë thought the Andustari focused disproportionately on the Elves. Why focus on another race when their own had such a rich history? But in the Andustar, it was all about the Ñoldor, and the Falmari who visited from Tol Eressëa. Boring. Now, the tales of the great among the Edain, and, more recently, the voyages of Tar-Aldarion and the struggles of Tar-Atanamir and Queen Adanel, those were tales worth reading and rereading. And watching. In fact…

“And remember what my tutors told you about the languages I’ve been learning?”

“Y-yes.” Vanimandil hesitated, winding her long belt in her hands. Finally, she squeezed her eyes shut, and sighed. “I would prefer if you devote an appropriate amount of time to all of your studies, not simply the ones you find most interesting. But for now, I will leave you. We will talk about this again,” she promised, but as she shut the door to Vanimeldë’s bedchamber, the air that followed her was hardly that of one who had won an argument.

With her mother gone, Vanimeldë reached for the Taliska reader she had been looking through before Vanimandil came to her. The language held appeal for her by itself, it was true. But there was another reason she was interested in it, and that was another thing she wouldn’t be telling her mother, not yet.

The theaters in Armenelos only allowed adults through their doors, and did not make exceptions for princesses—at the very least, Tar-Ancalimon wasn’t willing to force them to make an exception. But they offered many plays sung or spoken in Taliska, and it would only be a few years yet before Vanimeldë was old enough to go inside. She intended to be well-versed enough in the language to understand the story by then.

II.

When she was a young Queen, Vanimeldë’s desires were, she thought, still quite simple things.

Vanimeldë wrote poetry, and she wrote plays. This did not make her unique amongst the nobility, or, indeed, even among past royals. Fully half of the volumes of poetry on Vanimeldë’s private shelves were written by authors with more than a drop of Elros’s blood—the works of Princess Áralindë, the sister of Tar-Atanamir who had been disinherited for marrying outside the House of Elros, was especially fine, and… Anyways, there were also several tomes of plays written by noble authors on Vanimeldë’s shelves. The quality of these works tended to vary greatly, with some being masterpieces, and some whose greatest contribution to the world would be to inevitably be used as kindling by the future generations. The former, Vanimeldë kept to enjoy. The latter, she kept to laugh at and to remind herself of all the things she was not. And the theaters in Armenelos typically ran at least three Elrosian-penned plays at once at any given time.

It was not spectacularly strange for the nobility, even the Kings and Queens, to write. More than one of Elros’s blood had contributed to the great cultural legacy of Anadûnê. So why was it, that when Vanimeldë wrote—

She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on her stylus. She was the Queen; it was simply not worth concerning herself with. But Vanimeldë’s ears were no less keen than they had been when she was a child, and this time, she got the impression that she was meant to hear the whispers circulating around the palace.

‘Irresponsible.’

‘Given to frivolous displays.’

‘Can’t focus on affairs of state for more than a few hours at a time.’

‘Oh, if only that last child of Vanimandil’s had not died!’

Vanimeldë fisted her free hand in her dark hair. Incredible. Tar-Aldarion left the country for years on end on his voyages, and I’ve never uncovered so much as a scrap of evidence of ministers or courtiers or anyone calling for his removal. I haven’t left the capital. I am right here if there is a crisis. And yet…

Frustration was taking its toll. Vanimeldë hadn’t been able to finish the scene she was working on for the past three hours, though there were probably ten dialogue switches left. How ironic it was, that the very people complaining about the Queen sequestering herself in her chambers were causing her to stay there longer through their incessant criticisms. Just a few more lines, and I think I should be able to put this down for the rest of the day with a clear conscience. Just a few more lines.

The blank spot at the bottom of het page remained quite infuriatingly blank, and Vanimeldë would like you to know that it took an enormous amount of restraint not to hurl her inkwell out the open window, but that she did restrain herself.

“Vanimeldë?”

She didn’t hear anyone calling for her at first. Vanimeldë had sent her ladies-in-waiting and all of the other servants out of her chambers while she worked. Likely a few of them were gathered outside the outermost door in case she called upon them, but most had no doubt scattered to the four winds. If her pages came back with their tunics covered in crumbs again…

However, when Vanimeldë did hear someone calling for her, she was at least able to relax and set down her stylus (And managed to do so gently enough not to break it. This time.). She knew but one person who would come venturing into her chambers without ceremony. “I’m here, Herucalmo,” she replied, “becoming the living avatar of frustration. Come join me.”

Her husband strode into the room, looking very much as though someone had just died, though that wasn’t unusual for him. Vanimeldë loved him, truly, she did, but he was markedly intense about most things, and most of the times she liked to tease him about it. This time, she couldn’t summon the levity to do so. She could only flop back in her chair and look at him with a grimace. “What brings you to my dungeon?” Vanimeldë asked, wishing, not for the first time, that sarcasm was a substance that could literally drip off of her voice; distilling it into a perfume would likely do wonders for keeping certain officials out of her hair. “Has someone died? That would liven things up around here.”

Herucalmo grimaced right back at her. “Nothing that enlivening, Vanimeldë. If you will recall, you have a budget meeting scheduled with your ministers in an hour.”

Oh, that. Again, Vanimeldë resisted the urge to throw her inkwell out the window. It was made of Falmari sea glass, after all; that wasn’t exactly easily replaced. “I was under the impression that last year’s allotment was considered quite satisfactory. Do we really need to meet if obviously the best course of action is to do as we did then?”

“Considering that we have more money than we did last year, yes.”

“That could be easily solved by sending the surplus to the treasury.”

“They won’t accept that as a course of action unless you are there to recommend it.”

“I am hardly the first ruler to send such messages without being physically present in the council chambers.”

“Vanimeldë.” Herucalmo closed the gap between them, rested his hand flat on her writing desk. The look in his clear eyes was not unsympathetic, but at the same time, it wasn’t really a look that indicated he was going to leave without some sort of concession from her. “You’ve missed the last three council meetings. You are running out of excuses, and your ministers are nearing the end of their patience.”

She paused, running her hand over the rope of lapis beads strung around her neck. “I… I know that. I’ve been busy.”

Vanimeldë enjoyed holding court. She enjoyed hearing from petitioners, even if the issues they brought before her were laughably petty; it did give her a good laugh, and there was something gratifying about knowing that they’d thought it worth it to tell her about it. She enjoyed arbitration, diplomatic negotiations. She even enjoyed trade negotiations. It might have been one of the things certain people thought Vanimeldë didn’t have a sufficient attention span for, but there was something oddly fascinating about the knots people could tie themselves into over tariffs, and the underhanded trickery they would try to pull off when it came to taxes.

But meetings such as the one Vanimeldë was being called upon to attend now… She understood their necessity, of course; not all the vital workings of an empire could be exciting, though it would make life much easier if they were. However, the tedious minutia of running an empire held little appeal for Vanimeldë, especially when she knew she was going to be walking into a room where every person there would tell her that everything that came out of her mouth was wrong. If her advisors were really all convinced that they all knew better than her, what exactly was the point of showing up at all?

“I know,” Herucalmo murmured, lines showing up in his forehead, deeply etched. “But a gesture must be made.”

“And what would you suggest?” Vanimeldë demanded, her voice breaking with sudden exasperation.

Herucalmo said nothing for a long moment, his eyes very bright. Then… “I could go in your place.”

“If they demand that their Queen show herself, I am not certain they’ll settle for the Prince Consort.”

His mouth twitched in something like a smirk. “If I tell them that you sent me as your representative, they might accept it. And we are descended in the same degree from Tar-Atanamir. Even they cannot complain about that.”

Vanimeldë smirked back. “Go, then. As my representative.”

She almost wished she was going with him, just so she could see the looks on her advisors’ faces when Herucalmo told them he was there as the Queen’s representative; the flabbergasted looks might be enough to cure any bad moods for hers for a while. But for now, she had a scene to write…

III.

Vanimeldë wrote. And wrote. It was a glorious time, when she could write without any interruption at all, save those which she chose to heed. The play was finished, a score created, a willing actors’ troupe found, and a theater designated as the site for the debut. When she thought about it, Vanimeldë felt as though she was walking on air. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to write without disruption for so long.

But as Vanimeldë emerged from seclusion, she began to notice things. Her ears were still keen, and she was gifted with the far-sightedness of the House of Elros. She could hardly be expected not to notice.

Notices of meetings and scheduled negotiations and arbitrations were either finding their way to Herucalmo’s hands when they should have reached Vanimeldë’s, or they were simply addressed to him outright. Certain courtiers now addressed Herucalmo more deferentially than they had before, and in others, Vanimeldë detected a certain edge of… derision? Yes, derision, when they addressed her. Like she simply wasn’t someone to be taken seriously anymore. That wasn’t the least of it, but that was what followed her wherever she went. The nagging sense of dynastic irrelevance.

Vanimeldë supposed she could have stood to be paying more attention to exactly what her husband was doing while acting as the Queen’s ‘representative.’ Never let it be said that she couldn’t recognize her own faults; she knew she had been inattentive in this. But never let it be said either that Vanimeldë did not know how to send messages as well as she could receive them.

“Are you certain you can afford to spend the evening at the theater?” Vanimeldë asked sweetly as she and Herucalmo settled into the royal box of Armenelos’s grandest theater. Alcarin was not with them; the boy had never had much love of art, poor thing. “I know how busy you have been of late.”

If Herucalmo caught the knife in Vanimeldë’s voice, he gave no sign. Seeing as such equanimity would be new for him, Vanimeldë attributed it to obliviousness. So much the better. “I think I can afford to spend one night away from the palace,” he said with a smile.

So very much the better.

“Oh, good! I think you will enjoy this one, my love. It seems just the sort of thing that would interest you.”

Vanimeldë had never told Herucalmo precisely what her play was about, though considering that Herucalmo had never exercised the curiosity required to ask, she could hardly be faulted for keeping her silence. If he was content not knowing, then let it be a surprise. Vanimeldë loved surprises.

For an hour or two, Vanimeldë watched. And waited. Waited for that particular moment of dawning realization, and the emotions that accompanied it. If she was nothing else, Vanimeldë was an avid spectator; she hoped dearly that Herucalmo, her Herucalmo, would not disappoint her.

Around the end of the second act, Vanimeldë saw enough of that crawling look to ask, with just the right degree of anxiousness, “How are you liking it so far?”

“It’s… wonderful.”

To say that Herucalmo’s voice was strained would be a gross understatement, bordering on obscene. To say that it was strangled did not do it much more justice, but Vanimeldë supposed she would have to be content with that descriptor until she could find a satisfactory replacement.

As for Vanimeldë, she suspected she would have bled sugar if pricked, her smile was so sweet.

That nagging sense of irrelevance was still with her, and Vanimeldë did not know if she would be able to be rid of it. So many thought Herucalmo more fit to rule than her that it might well be impossible. But she still had her writing—and judging from the ghastly shades of white her husband’s face was turning, another new hobby. It was so good to have new hobbies.

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Anadûnê—Númenor (Adûnaic) Andustar—The western promontory of Númenor. The north of this region was rocky, with forests of fir trees on the coast. Andustar contained three small bays which all faced west, the most northern of which was the Bay of Andúnië. The south of the Andustar was fertile, and there were forests of birch, beech, oak and elm trees. Timber was this region’s main source of wealth. Falmari—those among the Teleri who completed the journey to Aman; the name is derived from the Quenya falma, '[crested] wave.' Taliska—the language originally spoken by the Houses of Bëor and Marach (later to be known as Hador) before they entered Beleriand. Taliska is noted as apparently having some Khuzdul influences. Though the language largely fell out of use among the House of Bëor (the Bëorians coming to more commonly use Sindarin in their daily speech), it was still widely-enough retained for the survivors of the House of Hador to carry it with them to Númenor, where the language eventually evolved to become the Adûnaic tongue.

#Tolkien #The Silmarillion #Fanfic #Legendarium Ladies April #Tar-Vanimelde #Herucalmo #Vanimelde is a troll is a troll is a troll

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micalefey · 7 years

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The Magicians (TV Spells)

Ars Deicidium

This spell is known as the Art of Killing Gods and is written in a book that is stored in the Library's Poison Room. It allows the user of the spell to turn metal objects into God Killing Weapons. The magical power needed to work the spell is tremendous and no ordinary amount would suffice. The amount of magic Kady extracted from the death of the demigod John Gaines as barely enough to make one God-Killing bullet. And the death of Umber was utilized to extract the magic to create a God-Killing sword by Julia, which Quentin used to kill Ember and save all of Fillory.

Atsuko's Spectral Refraction

This spell was mentioned by Julia Wicker in "The Girl Who Told Time" in an alternate timeloop sequence. The spell was referenced when when she connected it to the sequence of another spell. Dean Fogg stated that the Spectral Refraction was, in fact, a spell learned by second-year Brakebills students.

Une Chaleur Temporaire

A spell used by Julia and Marina while locked in the meat locker of the safe house. This spell provides the two women the ability to withstand the cold temperatures long enough to escape. The spell, written in a mixture of Latin and French, requires the preparation of a concoction. Along with alchemical symbols, the ingredients include crushed rocks or sand, and animal fat. Once the mixture is burned, it must be applied to the skin. It is possible this is the show's version of Chkhartishvili's Enveloping Warmth.

Coptic Illusion Spell

Emily Greenstreet used this spell on both herself and Quentin Coldwater in an attempt to manifest the appearance of Alice Quinn and Mayakovsky, respectively. Though she noted it a 'party trick', the illusion spell (which works only while the skin is wet) can be used to take the appearance of whomever the other person longs to see the most, or presumably, anyone they wish.

Contact The Other Side

A spell Alice Quinn planned on using to find out what happened to her deceased brother, Charlie. The spell requires the active participation of four 'magical adepts', candles, bones, sand, Cardamon and must be cast within the time-frame of Midnight. Being a Niffin, Charlie did not answer the call, but rather the Beast, who utilized the situation to open a gateway between worlds.

Czechoslovakian Unlocking Charm

A spell Marina taught to the Hedgewitches of her safe-house, and by extension, Julia. The spell, "Odemknout" forces any iron or mechanical lock open. It can be assumed the Czech spell to seal locks would be the opposite, "Zamknout".

Emotion Bottles

A spell utilized by Quentin, Alice, Penny, Margo and Elliot to physically isolate their emotions from their bodies in order to practice battle magic. Requiring a spell spoken in Japanese and a small bottle that can be worn on the body, this enchantment will quite literally "bottle" ones emotions, rendering the magicians completely unfeeling, logical beings. The spell should not be succeeded for longer than three hours as it can take a toll on the body, and the emotions can be overwhelming when they return.

The Fish Hook

A spell invention of Julia Wicker and Kady's mother, Hannah. The spell, which harnesses energy from a large floor-drawn sigil in the shape of an anchor, can be used to pull an object from one location to another through dimensions. The spell requires cooperative magic, needing at least two magicians to perform, and the chanting of an incantation. The duo used it to steal file cabinets concealing all of the magical knowledge of Marina Andrieski's Hedgewitch safehouse.

Koyosegi's Ward

One of various magical wards which can shield a space and offer protection from outside forces. Upon "picking" the weaker ward Julia had placed around her safehouse, Hannah suggested this one; implying it was a stronger version and not as easily infiltrated.

Lasaro's Golem Spell

A spell, only known originally by Lasaro, a jealous ex-boyfriend of Margo Hanson. Using a rare substance called 'living clay', a magician can create an exact, flesh-replica of a person, known as their 'Golem'. This process is complicated, and if done inefficiently, can cause the actual person whom the Golem resembles to become faint, weakened and unstable. If done correctly, a magician may be able to swap consciousness with their Golem while asleep, allowing them to reside in two locations at once, though only one body can be conscious at a time.

Musical spell

A spell to influence spontaneous music, song and dance in all those nearby. Utilizing a tut resembling the waving of a conductors baton, it was used by Margo in "Lesser Evils", to make Eliot sing "One Day More" from Les Miserables in an attempt to inspire courage in the High King before he has his duel with the King of Loria.

Necromantic Resurrection

A mysterious spell found in the Brakebills Library, this dark spell allows a magician the power to raise the dead. Though the effects are highly unstable and only last a few minutes, a spirit of the deceased may momentarily return to their corpse, as seen when Julia and Kady ressurected the lifeless body of Marina Andrieski. The spell requires a relatively fresh corpse, and the last known ingredient of the spell is to burn the book from which it came.

Poll spell

Mentioned in "The Girl Who Told Time". Eliot uses it to find out, how popular he is in Fillory as High King.

Prayer to the Harvest Deity

A supplication spell to a shy, earth goddess. While sitting inside a large, chalk-drawn sigil (the goddesses symbol) Julia recited the words, "I beseech and devote myself, I plead and promise myself to you, she of the grain, that you will raise me up above the chaff. Amen." The goddess answered, and Julia levitated into the air.

Probability Spell

A powerful ritual that can send one of any number of individuals into an astral state of being. While under, the participants can decide how best to go about their course of action, and whatever decisions they make will effect the outcome of whatever end result they desire. Using a double sided coin, candles and some hallucinogenic herbs, the spell will take effect, and the illusionary situations will play out as if they were reality. This can appear to play out for weeks at a time, if necessary to answer the questions for which the spell was cast (though upon breaking, the magicians return to the exact moments the spell was cast originally).

The Rhinemann Ultra

Presumably the most powerful battle magic spell known, the Rhinemann Ultra can only be successfully executed by a master magician. The first known usage of the spell was in December, 1944, when Rupert Chatwin used it during the Battle of the Bulge to win World War II, having petitioned the Fillorian Gods Ember and Umber for enough power to perform it. It was later taught by a Pixie professor named Bigby to Brakebills students until the class became too dangerous and was banned. Alice Quinn, having acquired the strength of a master magician from Ember, attempted to destroy the Beast with this spell. It is recommended that no one, save for the target, be within 20 feet of the blast radius when the spell is detonated.

Romanian Flying Enchantment

A spell spoken in Romanian, presumably used to enchant object to fly. The parchment the spell was written upon was kept in the Physical Kids Dormitory for practice uses. "pierde legaturile de gravitatie si plutesc liber. Ca praful, chiar pietre avanta pe briza. Ca vapori, un rau curge inapoi la cer. Deci, prea acum va aceasta mutare obiect mare pentru a acoper."

Scarlotti's Web

Spell used in "The World in the Walls" that traps the caster's intended target inside of a dark prison within their own mind that shapes itself to psychologically destroy the the target, with the intention of permanently incapacitating them. It is "high end designer cooperative magic", according to Marina Andreiski. It can only be broken by summoning the Matarese, an evil bug spirit of the Underworld. Along with a spell, placing a totem of the Matarese upon the victim will cause the bug spirit to awaken and inhabit the magicians body, shortening out the cerebral cortex and breaking the illusion. It is then up to the victim to release themselves from the spell. The spell: "Daemonium Matarese, ecce vocavi te in carcere liberare mens est. Imperio Scarlatti telem nobus."

Portal Spell

Using a piece of chalk, Richard Corrigan drew the large outline of a door onto the surface of Julia's apartment wall and recited the words "Aperio nobus ostium ad annecto procul". With a glimmering flash of light, the wall became a door to the location of every member of Free Trader Beowulf, no matter their distance from each other globally.

Sumerian Shield Charm

First-years at Brakebills School for Magical Pedagogy are required to learn this simple but powerful shield charm, which can be used to protect its caster from glass, debris and presumably projectile spells (as it was used in an attempt to protect Quentin, Margo and Elliot from the blast effects of the Rhinemann Ultra, an extremely powerful battle spell). This charm can be strengthened greatly through the use of cooperative casting.

Tesla Flexion

The Tesla Flexion is a fold between realities, requiring an array of tesla coils, and a tented area for the realities to meet. It was successfully performed by Dean Fogg and Julia Wicker, connecting two different realities temporarily together so that Quentin could speak to an Alice Quinn from a different time-loop that survived the Beast's attack and became an expert on Shades. In the procedure, people from different timelines were prohibited from interacting physically, as the collision of matter from different realities occupying the same space can create a paradox, i.e. an explosion. The Tesla Flexion has only been successfully employed once before, as it was deemed too volatile when three people died in an attempt to shut it down. Due to the forces at play in the spell, maintaining a connection for longer than two minutes would result in the death of anyone in the vicinity.

Teukolsky's Locator Spell

A spell to find the spirits of the deceased. The spell will locate an active spirit still tethered to the physical plane, directing a magician to the location where the spirit had originally died. It requires a lit match, which will flare up brightly when the correct location is approached.

Turkish Binding Spell

The spell magicians use to seal a rogue Niffin into a Niffin box. Accompanied by a small, coffin-shaped wooden box etched with special sigils, a magician will recite the spell "Seni baglamak emrediyorum! Sana dönmeni emrediyorum!" and permanently seal the Niffin within.

Weizenheim's Third

A "tiny little weather suspension spell" performed by Emily Greenstreet. It can be cast through a number of hand motions to enchant one's lips, enabling them to become a 'smoke artiste' and manipulating the movements and shapes the smoke takes.

Word as Bond

This spell is used by Julia on the Beast, and later by Quentin on Niffin Alice, to magically seal the terms of a pact between the two. Accompanied by a sigil drawn onto a piece of paper, the intended parties then place the base of their thumbs onto the sigil, branding the spell onto themselves. It is unknown what would happen if one were to attempt to break the Word as Bond, or if it is even possible.

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