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baepsaesbae · 4 years

Text

Personal Galaxy

Pairing— Jungkook x female reader

Genre— SMUT, Fluff, Established relationship au

Warnings— Explicit unprotected sex, slight exhibitionism (they’re outside), oral (m receiving), mild swearing, fluffy boyfriend vibes that will make you love Jungkook even more

Word count— ~4.1k

About— You and your boyfriend, Jungkook, decide to go stargazing as a special treat for your anniversary.

A/N— Happy Birthday Jungkook! This was a collab with @goldenclosetnetwork for their Golden Closet Net Jungkook Birthday Project. I hope you guys like it, please let me know what ya think! (also this beautiful banner was whipped up in record time by the marvelous @kimtaehyunq)

After college starts, summer is no longer a relaxing season dedicated to lounging around and goofing off with friends. Unfortunately, now summers were filled with internships or temporary summer jobs. You got the short end of the stick though, as your summer was going to be filled with summer classes. Along with taking summer classes, you had to deal with the grueling heat. Walking back and forth from your classes to your dorm was quite an ordeal, as the sun drained you of all your energy.

Your only solace of not going home was that you were close to your boyfriend, Jungkook. You guys started dating towards the end of the spring semester, so the relationship was somewhat new. He was nothing but incredibly sweet to you, and you honestly could not believe you were dating him. From what you observed, he was basically perfect.

At first you thought he was a little shy, but when you got to know him, you soon realized he’s just a huge lovable dork. He loved gaming, and bragged about what his rank in League of Legends used to be (platinum, he was in the top 8% of all people who played). You tried to take him seriously, but you couldn’t help but laugh. You didn’t laugh because you were making fun of him, you laughed because he was just too cute. You adored the way his eyes twinkled when he talked about what he was passionate about. He would get lost in his own world and ramble on before he realized you were still there. At that point he would reach out and pull you into a hug and ask about your day.

After a long day of listening to a boring chemistry lecture, you finally got back to your dorm. You freshened up with a quick shower and collapsed into your bed. You were about to drift off when your phone starts to buzz. It was a video call from Jungkook.

“Hey baby what’s up?” Jungkook beamed on the other end. It looked like he just got out of the shower too.

“Hey Kookie. I’m done with class for the day. Have I told you how much I hate chemistry?” you groaned in response.

“Plenty of times. In fact, multiple times a day. Can’t blame you though. You can relax when I come see you this weekend,” Jungkook tried to cheer you up.

Jungkook lived about an hour away from campus, so he stayed in a dorm during the school year. However, he went home during the summer break. With that being said, he insisted on coming down to see you every weekend. At first you protested, arguing that gas was too expensive and the commute would take too much time. But he simply said, “I just want to see my girl. What’s so wrong with that? It’s no one’s decision but mine.” You couldn’t argue with him after that.

“Why don’t we do something different this weekend?” you asked. This weekend would mark your 3 month anniversary.

“Yeah? Like in the bedroom?” he was intrigued.

“No! I mean...sure? Wait no that’s not what I’m talking about right now, you dingus. Why don’t we get away or something? There’s a park about an hour away that is known for stargazing! They have their own observatory and all that. Would you wanna--”

“Yes. Let’s do it.” Jungkook didn’t even let you finish. You knew he’d be excited. Along with videogames, anything pertaining to outer space had his heart. He loved reading about various stars, and was always hypothesizing how space travel would work.

The weekend couldn’t come fast enough. You spaced out in lecture often, but now you definitely couldn’t focus. The thought of being hand in hand with Jungkook while traversing the trails together was enough to make your heart flutter. That, coupled with the fact that you two would be under the stars without any air pollution, really had you on Cloud 9.

You gleefully hopped into Jungkook’s car in the late afternoon. Jungkook was wearing his favorite bucket hat with his usual casual clothes.

“Hello beautiful,” Jungkook leaned over to kiss you, “Let’s go get our dinner. How do ready made sandwiches sound?”

“Sounds perfect! Why don’t we get some fruit too?” you sat back in your seat.

“Ohhh healthy. Yes ma’am we can do that.” he drove to the closest supermarket.

“Hey babe, let’s get this bread,” Jungkook joked as he picked up a sandwich. You couldn’t help but laugh at his little one-liner. You both love that meme. You guys strolled over to the fruits section. Of course, there had to be a debate over which fruits to get.

“It’s hot outside so why don’t we get watermelon?” you suggested.

“Mm that’s a good point. But watermelons are basically just water. Why don’t we get pineapples instead? We can see if that myth really is true?” Jungkook wiggled his eyebrows at you.

“You dog!” you playfully slap his arm, “Let’s get both then. The more the merrier.”

“Okiedokie. Don’t act like you don’t wanna try the pineapple trick though,” he teased.

“Maybe I do. What of it?” you retorted.

“Nothing. That’s perfect for me,” he winked as you guys went to checkout.

The drive to the park was relaxing. Jungkook played his music and sang along to all the songs. You occasionally chimed in whenever you knew the lyrics, but you preferred to listen to him instead. Even when he was messing around, his angelic voice was still euphoric. You were pleasantly surprised when he first sang in front of you. You didn’t think it was possible to hear an angel up close.

Getting away from the city was something you needed. As the tall buildings faded in the background, a more sparse landscape came into view. You loved the open road. Sure, the neverending grass and scattered trees weren’t the most breathtaking view, but it was pleasant nonetheless. You saw the occasional cow or horse, and never failed to point them out to Jungkook. He would always respond with a “wow!” or a “so cute!” and chuckle at you. Everything you did was so adorable to him, though he wasn’t the most vocal about all that mushy stuff. He was sure he had already fallen in love with you, but he wasn’t sure if you felt the same yet. He’d keep that to himself for a little bit longer.

The park itself was nothing grand. It being closer to the coast meant that it was a little on the swampy side. After several attempts to make sense of the provided park map, Jungkook finally found a parking lot.

“Okay according to the map, this is the closest parking lot to the observatory. I think there’s a trail nearby too,” you say as you hand him the map.

“Let’s go!” Jungkook leapt out of the car before he could even see you trying to give him the map.

Jungkook grabbed the food from the backseat as you got out of the car. Sadly, neither of you had a stereotypical picnic wicker basket, so everything was just in the plastic shopping bag from the store. That didn’t make it any less charming when Jungkook started swinging the bag back and forth in one hand while doing the same thing to your hand on his other side.

The sun was beginning to set, but you could still feel its warmth in the breaks between the shady parts of the trail Jungkook led you on. The trail itself was basically a small gravel path that led from the parking lot to a picnic site overlooking a swampy lake. The trees that grew in the open grove by the picnic tables were extremely old, as they loomed high overhead.

Neither of you had spoken since you left the car. You were both enjoying the fresh air and new sights. The candid sounds of nature filled the air. From the buzzing of the cicadas, to the occasional whooping of unseen birds, the authenticity of it all had you in a trance. Jungkook squeezed your hand and you snapped back to reality. Your eyes wandered back to him to see a soft smile on his face.

“Is this table okay, baby?” he looked at you with his doe eyes.

“Yeah it’s good. Do you like this place so far?” you asked as you started to get the food out.

“I do. It’s beautiful. Everything is just so...natural. Obviously,” he chuckled, “The scenery is the second most beautiful thing here.”

“Mm okay I’ll bite. What’s the first most beautiful thing here?” you cocked your head in amusement.

“Me, of course! Why would you even ask that when you already know the answer?” he laughed.

“Oh you’re so right. How silly of me. I have your food here, you dork. Do you wanna start with the pineapples or watermelons first?”

“Let’s open the watermelons since it’s still kinda hot out,” he plopped down beside you.

You foolishly skipped lunch, so your stomach was killing you. Jungkook joked that it sounded like a dying cat during the car ride. Sometimes it got so loud that he could hear it over his music. He wanted you to eat while he drove, but you refused because you wanted to eat together. Thinking back, you realized you could have fed him while he was driving. It’s not an issue anymore though, not when you’re both wolfing down your sandwiches. The watermelon was definitely a good choice, as it was a perfect weapon to combat the heat.

There was a gazebo next to the water that allowed visitors to get a better view of the swampy environment. You led Jungkook over to it after packing up the leftovers (only a few pineapples were left). The water was murky, most of the vegetation that surfaced looked dead, and everything put together made the place seem perfect for filming a swamp horror film. Despite all of that, you couldn’t help but think it was still beautiful. Upon a closer look, you spotted some small turtles on the closest log by the gazebo. Of course you excitedly pointed them out to Jungkook, who cooed at how cute they were. Jungkook brought you closer to him so he could hug you from behind and rested his chin atop your head. He loved the height difference between you two, it always made him feel like that much more of YOUR man. He also mercilessly teased you for being short, but that was just an added bonus.

“Do you feel relaxed?” he whispered in your ear before nibbling it.

“I feel so relaxed, darling,” you say, leaning into him, “The sunset is gorgeous out here. Even if it feels like we’re about to get attacked by a swamp creature at any second.”

“Yeah, instead we’re being attacked by a billion fucking mosquitoes. Babe, I don’t think your bug spray is working,” Jungkook swatted away the hovering pests.

“But my mom got it for me! It’s supposed to be a more organic and natural spray,” you pout.

“Well, I’m sorry but your mom’s organic bug spray isn’t doing shit. In fact, I feel like it’s attracting them,” his swatting became more forceful.

“Oh, you’re not even getting bit. They’re all over ME,” you say as you started to feel insanely itchy all over your arms and legs, “Let’s go to the observatory, the sun has already begun to set. Also there are probably more mosquitoes here by the water, so let’s get the hell away from that.”

“There’s still about half an hour of sunlight left,” Jungkook observed after checking his phone, “We have some time to kill. Wanna check out more of this trail?”

“Sure. As long as it leads away from the water,” you shrugged as you followed Jungkook into the forested area.

Golden hour shone down through the trees. The rays made Jungkook glow and look even more ethereal. He rubbed his thumb over your hand as he led you down the trail. You absentmindedly brought his hand up to your mouth to plant a soft kiss on the back of it.

“I haven’t seen anyone on this trail the entire time we’ve been here,” Jungkook observed.

“It’s nice. It’s like our own little sanctuary,” you agreed.

“And you look so cute in that outfit of yours,” Jungkook’s voice lowered.

“What are you suggesting, Jungkook?” you played along, caressing his bicep.

Jungkook abruptly led you off the beaten path, into a more heavily wooded area. He spun you around into a deep kiss, backing you up against a tree. You palmed him through his pants, finding him already half hard.

“What if we get caught?” you huffed into his mouth.

“Doesn’t that make it more exciting?” he said as he nipped at your neck while fondling your breasts.

“I’m gonna have bug bites on my ass,” you laughed.

“I’ll bite your ass when we get back to even it out,” he chuckled into another kiss.

You forcefully switched positions with Jungkook as you tugged off his pants. You kissed along his jawline and down his neck before sinking to your knees in front of him. His erection bulged in his underwear, begging to be set free.

You teasingly licked him over his underwear, making him groan. As much as you wanted to continue teasing him, you didn’t want to get caught before he actually had the chance to fuck you.

You pulled off his underwear, leaving him fully exposed. You delicately kissed the tip of his penis like it was some sort of polite greeting. Then, you lewdly flattened your tongue on the base of his cock and licked a long stripe upwards and finished at the top with a swirl. You hollowed out your cheeks as you sucked him off at a repetitive pace.

“Do you want me to fuck you here, baby?” Jungkook huffed above you.

You looked up at him with innocent eyes as you deepthroated him. Saliva dripped off his cock and down your chin, a sight that would make any man sweat. You nodded and released him with a satisfying *pop*.

“You’re so fucking sexy. Switch places with me and face the tree,” he commanded.

You did as he said, bending over at the waist. He tugged off your bottoms, revealing your dripping core. He tantalizingly ran his tip along your folds.

“Hurry up! I don’t wanna get caught,” you complained as you wiggled your butt at him.

“So impatient,” Jungkook admonished as he slapped your ass.

You didn’t have time to complain because he jammed his dick into you immediately after his slap. You instinctively covered your mouth to suppress your moans. Your free hand toyed with your clit, rubbing it intensely. The thought of being caught at any second had you even more wet than usual. Jungkook noticed.

“You’re so wet. I’m gonna cum in no time,” Jungkook groaned as he thrust deeper into you.

Jungkook released his load into you. You moaned as you felt his hot juices fill you up, mixing with your own mess as it dribbled down your legs. Jungkook gave your ass one last slap before rummaging for a spare napkin in the picnic bag. He cleaned you up as best as he could, but you desperately needed a shower. That’ll have to wait.

Retracing your steps, you both wound up back at the parking lot, which was perfect because the trail to the observatory was just on the other side. The once empty parking lot was now nearly full as the new arrivals made their way towards the observatory. The sun was almost fully set at this point, so it was getting a little hard to see.

“Babe look!” Jungkook shouted as he pointed to a little creature that scurried in front of you. You jump back from his sudden yell, and then lock eyes with the possum that stood in your path.

“I don’t know whether to be scared or to call it cute,” you say, clinging tightly onto Jungkook’s arm as the possum lost interest in your staring contest and continued on its journey.

“I would say it’s cute. As long as it doesn’t attack you. Oh holy SHIT babe don’t look up!” Jungkook found himself frozen in place.

“Huh why-- OH MY FUCKIN GOD!” you neglected to heed his warning. Looming about two feet above Jungkook’s head was a gigantic spider. The web it was dangling from was enormous. You hate all kinds of insects (yes a spider isn’t an insect, but it falls under the creepy crawly category so you hate it too) but spiders are by far the scariest to you. After you screamed you clutched Jungkook’s arm tighter, probably cutting off his circulation.

“Okay okay just close your eyes and keep close to me. It seems like those guys are strung along the entire path,” Jungkook kept you by his side as you guys progressed past the trees. You helplessly kept your eyes closed and completely relied on Jungkook to guide you. Thankfully, it only took about three minutes to get past all the trees; the observatory was in an open clearing. Jungkook gave you the ok to open your eyes again.

“Thank you Kookie, you’re so sweet to me,” you kissed Jungkook softly on the cheek.

“Usually I’d make fun of you, but those things kinda freaked me out. So I could only imagine how scared you’d be of them. Don’t worry baby, I’ll protect you,” Jungkook returned your affection with a kiss on the forehead.

The line for the main telescope was already long, so you guys ventured off to one of the smaller ones instead. There were three big telescopes in the overall observatory. Amateur stargazers were scattered around the deck with their personal telescopes. You saw them letting other people see through them, so you made a mental note to check them out after the main telescopes. The sun had finally set, and now the dark sky was illuminated with shining stars.

As you waited in line, you looked back at Jungkook, who hadn’t let go of your hand this entire time. His eyes were glued to the wonders above him. His doe eyes were wide and twinkled more than you’ve ever seen before. His mouth was agape and you were amused by how captivated he was; everything about this boy was so pure. It was in that moment that you realized you had fallen head over heels for him. You wanted to tell him you loved him right then and there, but you held your tongue. You were worried that he didn’t feel the same way. Hopefully one day he could return the sentiment, but for now you will keep those three words to yourself.

“You lot are pretty lucky! It had been cloudy for the past week. Tonight’s the first night that the sky’s been clear. It’s also the perfect night to view Saturn!” the telescope’s attendant informed the people in line.

You and Jungkook were the next people to go. You were amazed at how big the telescope was, and this wasn’t even the big main one yet. You went first. You climbed up a small step stool to get to the eye piece. You peered into it and was amazed by what you saw. The image was not the clearest, but it was pretty evident that you were looking at Saturn because of the iconic rings. Of course you could look up better pictures of Saturn online, but seeing it for yourself made it more special. Experiencing it all with Jungkook was something you would not trade for the world. You waited for Jungkook outside after you finished.

“Wasn’t that incredible ___?! We actually saw all the rings! And it’s a pretty color! I mean it’s like a reddish brown. We can call it a rusty color because that sounds cooler...ah I can’t wait to go to the main telescope,” Jungkook grabbed your hand and bounded to the next line. Watching him get so excited was enough to make getting eaten alive by mosquitoes worth it (yeah, they never ceased their attack on you).

“Is this the best date you’ve ever been on then?” you squeezed his hand as he continued to bounce up and down. His abundant energy always amazed you, and certainly came in handy in certain situations *wink wink*.

“Oh is this a date? What? Do you like me or something, ___?” he teased, looking down at you, “Yes, this is hands down the best date I have ever been on. Thank you for suggesting this babe,” he grabbed your other hand and pulled you in for a kiss. You weren’t fond of PDA, but you’re willing to make an exception for Jungkook.

The wait in line lasted for about half an hour, and you wondered which celestial being this telescope was being focused on. Everything around the observing deck was kept dark to make it easier to see through the telescopes. It was also advised to not look at any phone screens because your eyes would have to readjust to the darkness afterward. You and Jungkook complied with the tip for the optimal viewing experience. Jungkook was rambling about UFO conspiracy theories when you interrupted him by pointing out the fireflies behind him. They danced in the darkness of the open air, and it was your turn to be captivated. Yes, you hated insects, but fireflies had a special place in your heart. You thought they were fairies when you were younger, and you would spend hours playing with them. Your parents would even help you catch them. The nostalgia that hit automatically put a smile on your face.

“You’re adorable, you know that ___?” Jungkook smiled as he wrapped his arms around you, “I wish you’d look at me that way,” he pouted.

“Oh shut up Kookie. I do look at you that way, but you never notice,” you stuck your tongue at him. Jungkook laughed in response. His laughter stopped and his eyes widened when he realized you guys were next in line.

“What is this one looking at?” Jungkook asked the telescope attendant.

“Oh, all three of these are pointed at Saturn,” he replied.

“Oh no, we waited in line for so long just to look at the same thing,” you said, shoulders sagging.

“Awesome! Since this one is the biggest, does that mean that we’ll get a better view than the other two telescopes?” Jungkook asked, his eyes twinkling once again.

“Uh, technically yes. But only slightly better, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” the attendant replied as he let Jungkook enter.

From the way he asked, it probably didn’t bother Jungkook that he’d be seeing the same thing again. Once it was your turn, you realized the attendant was right. There wasn’t much of a difference in the quality of the image you were seeing, but it didn’t make personally seeing Saturn any less magical.

“Seeing it a second time was super cool. Can you believe it? People a hundred years ago would have never thought they’d see Saturn with their own eyes!” Jungkook greeted you when you came out.

“Yeah that’s all pretty dope, but I kinda wanted to see something else. Maybe some of the people who brought their own telescopes are looking at other things,” you took Jungkook’s hand and made a beeline to the amateur stargazers.

There was an interesting assortment of telescopes there. Some were big and bulky, some were sleek and aesthetically pleasing, and some just straight up looked like weapons. Multiple people were willing to let you both look through their telescopes. You both saw an additional two stars whose names you will never remember, along with seeing Saturn one last time.

You and Jungkook stood in the middle of the deck, gazing upwards to soak in the clarity of the stars before your departure. As if the night couldn’t get any more magical, a shooting star streaked across the sky. Oohs and aahs were heard from people in the general vicinity when they saw it too. Jungkook pulled you close to him, his face inches from yours.

“You know, maybe we were lovers in a past life, because I feel like I’ve known you forever. I think you’re the most special thing in this universe. Thank you for today,” Jungkook said tenderly.

“You’re welcome, darling. I would give you the whole world if I could,” you smiled, slowly leaning closer to him.

“For you, my dear, I’ll give you your own personal galaxy,” Jungkook practically whispered as he cupped your face and brought you in for a kiss. The kiss was the epitome of sweet, as his soft lips brushed against yours without much force. You swear you’ve never been happier in your life. Thank the stars for Jeon Jungkook.

#bts smut #jungkook smut #gcn23 #bangtanarmynet #btswritingcafe #ksmutclub #bayanihanboost #bts fluff #jungkook fluff #jungkook x reader #bts fanfic #kpop fanfic

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themurphyzone · 3 years

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Nova Ch 11

AN: This is gonna be the last of the set-up chapters. The story will start snowballing (see what I did there? Heehee) from the next chapter on.

This chapter includes an art piece I requested from the talented @plutonis, and I’m so glad I can finally show this off because it contains some very gorgeous colors.

AO3 Link

Ch 11: Spectrum

Terran Date 2015.4.28

Yesterday, Pinky showed me one of his favorite pieces of media to thank me for the story of Heikro var Silda, even though he cried for fifteen minutes because of the tragic ending. While indeed sad, I’m proud to say I remained steadfast and controlled my emotions upon revisiting the story. And while I told him it wasn’t necessary, he insisted and I acquiesced to his demands.

That’s how Pinky introduced me to The Lion King. Once again, I remained strong even when the emotional distress threatened to override my logical mind. It was...rather difficult, I’ll admit. We watched the sequel afterward, and though I’ve created five different charts that list the plot points in order, I cannot come up with a satisfactory sequence of events that connects both movies into a cohesive narrative.

Moving onto real life matters...Pinky seems to be under the impression that I will be a permanent resident of the lab.

Celestial bodies above, what use is my intelligence if I’m trapped among heathen, dimwitted fools who can’t tell the difference between left and right! I refuse to be a lab rat, made to do the so-called dominant species’ bidding. Snowball and I shall be taking over this planet and progressing their backwards society far beyond their wildest dreams! That’s what we came here for, and I will not be sidetracked again.

As for Pinky...well, his imagination can make up some personalities for his inanimate object friends once I leave. He doesn’t have any shortage of those. The newest addition to the crew is an eraser nub with the moniker of ‘Gummy’.

Signing off for now,

The Brain

o-o-o-o-o

Brain saved the new transmission to an encrypted, password-protected file. None of the scientists were technical experts, so the odds of discovery were miniscule or nonexistent. He only had five audio files in total, a meager amount compared to the hundreds of transmissions he’d made back on New Selene. The pointer hovered over the Delete All button. He didn’t have a reason to keep making transmissions when he was leaving the lab behind in just a few days.

Still, he hesitated.

Maybe he could leave it as a memento for Pinky. But even a basic level of encryption and case-sensitive password would remain far beyond Pinky’s capabilities.

Perhaps it was best to leave the issue for another night.

He logged off the computer and joined Pinky, who’d surrounded himself with Gummy and the rest of his inanimate object friends as he played a board game called Monopoly. Though Brain had looked up the rules and goals of the game during his online session out of curiosity, he didn’t really understand the appeal or mass marketability of such an unbalanced game.

Although, given the number of different versions of Monopoly out there, creating and selling his own version of the game with the title of Brainopoly could prove to be a viable plan.

Pinky was playing as if there were four players and not just a free-for-all against a nickel, button, and eraser. It became disturbingly obvious that Pinky was either overly generous or just woefully terrible at mental math, because he continually doled out the wrong amount of money from the bank or his own meager cash pile.

And Pinky was far better off if Brain cut in now, because there was no chance that anyone else was catching up to Gummy, who owned the most lucrative properties and had the largest amount of money.

He had to stop anthropomorphizing these objects. He was starting to think like Pinky, and that was an extremely distressing thought.

“You’re losing to an eraser,” Brain said. Pinky only had a few fives in currency, and the three properties he owned were all flipped over and mortgaged.

“Yeah, Gummy’s just very good at this game! Narf!” Pinky said as he rolled the dice for Mr. Button. “It’s so nice of him to let us sleep in his Marvin Garden Apartments though. Otherwise we’d be homeless!”

“Nice indeed,” Brain replied. For his peace of mind, he didn’t dare press for more details.

Pinky threw the dice, then moved the bucket token seven spaces, landing on the Luxury Tax space. “That’ll be seventy-five dollars, Mr. Button,” Pinky said as he gathered the money, which only totaled sixty. And Mr. Button’s four properties were all mortgaged. Pinky realized this too. “Oh...you don’t have enough. Poit.”

Any normal player would’ve tossed in the towel right there, but Pinky wasn’t a conventional player by any means. He frowned, scratched his head, then picked up his own pile of fives and tossed them onto the sixty, bringing the amount to seventy-five, with two leftover fives for Mr. Button.

“You can have that, Mr. Button!” Pinky chirped as he dumped the luxury tax money in the middle of the board. “With a little more for the bus!”

Pinky had completely knocked himself out of the game.

This was supposed to be an extremely competitive game for families and seasoned professionals, right? Though the rules of Monopoly appeared confusing and controversial to most players, he was certain that nobody would willingly lose with such a reckless method.

Well...maybe it was just a fluke. Pinky was only playing against himself, so if he wanted to give up the money to something he was making the decisions for, that was his choice.

Besides, he couldn’t watch this game much longer.

“I’ll be your next opponent,” Brain announced. He’d never played before, but the basics seemed simple enough. And the math involved was basic arithmetic he could do in his sleep. “Reset the board at once, Pinky.”

Pinky’s tail wagged as he gathered up the houses and hotels and tossed them back into the box, then settled down as he skillfully shuffled the Community Chest and Chance cards. From the way he hummed and twirled around, an outsider could easily mistake Brain for a playmate instead of an opponent.

Brain quickly read over the instruction sheet, then divided the game currency into a starting amount for himself, Pinky, and the bank.

“Can I be in charge of the property cards, Brain?” Pinky asked as he organized them by color.

“Yes, but I shall handle all other banker duties,” Brain said. “Listen closely, Pinky. I’ve looked up stories about Monopoly games going on for a long time with no definitive winner, so we’ll stop the game when one of us runs out of money, or if chance has favored you or I enough that we can place a hotel on the board.”

“Chance always has a problem with favoritism,” Pinky said as he moved the horse token to the Go space. Indeed, chance hasn’t always favored members of either of their species, but it could stand to be more merciful during a board game. He hugged the horse token to his chest. “Anyways, Pharfigtwoton is always my choice! What’s yours?”

Brain didn’t understand how anyone in their right mind would want to play as a wheelbarrow or bucket, and the only pieces that interested him at all were the ones that resembled modes of Terran transportation. In the end, he chose the battleship.

He was tempted to call it the Conquistador Two, but he didn’t want to follow the trend of naming random objects.

“Good one!” Pinky said as he pushed the ship over to the horse token. “A gorgeous ship like this needs a name...so I hereby dub thee Battley McBattleface!”

“We’re calling it the Conquistador Two, and that’s final,” Brain snapped.

“The Conquesodor Two,” Pinky agreed.

They tossed the dice to decide turn order, and Pinky won that battle easily since Brain had the misfortune to roll double ones.

On his first turn, Pinky managed to land on St. Charles Place with a high roll. He happily shelled out the money required to buy the property. “I’m putting a nice dog park here!” he declared, placing the unused dog token in the magenta space above the property. “Now Pharfigtwoton can give rides to all the puppies!”

Brain didn’t know if Monopoly required players to create their own storyline, but it certainly made the game more interesting and baffling at the same time. He rolled the dice, sighing when he could only advance to Reading Railroad.

He hoped it wouldn’t be a trend for Pinky to receive high rolls while he was stuck in the first half of the board.

But he quickly changed his mind once he paid up for Reading Railroad and read through the card information. Just like any real life war or corporate strategy, the key to his victory would lie in controlling the flow of transportation and goods!

Pinky landed on New York on his next turn, rambling about taking all the puppies to New York for a double decker bus tour of the city as he slid a stack of bills to Brain. Brain sighed and tossed an extra twenty bill back at Pinky. He wished Pinky would pay more attention to adding properly than the make-believe puppies.

Brain rolled the dice and moved his battleship to Virginia, claiming the property so Pinky couldn’t control one-fourth of the board this early in the game.

“Brain, can I have a house?” Pinky asked as he drew a Community Chest card. He read through the card and grinned. “Awww, I got second in a beauty pageant! Thank you, everyone! It’s such an honor! Oh, and it says I also won ten dollars.”

“You don’t meet the conditions required for a house, Pinky,” Brain said, giving Pinky a ten. He didn’t care about the fake beauty pageant, just that money was either gained or lost depending on luck of the draw.

“Oh, I’ll keep them off the board,” Pinky promised. “I just want a house for Terry to live in.”

He held up the dog token, who was now apparently called Terry.

“Fine, but don’t mix your ridiculous fantasies with the board,” Brain sighed and tossed a green house at Pinky, which smacked him in the head when he didn’t catch it in time. Pinky laughed it off and coaxed Terry to stand next to the house.

Houses and hotels. His Internet searches on the Clarkes led to tons of websites on the Terran real estate market and hotel industry.

Which reminded Brain that he hadn’t shared his research into the Clarkes with Pinky yet. There hadn’t been enough time during the day, where the incompetent scientists poked and prodded them. And in Brain’s case, tried to figure out where the antennae came from.

Their hypotheses, and he was being exceedingly generous when he described their speculation and conspiracy theories as hypotheses, amounted to claiming a Terran mouse and insect had reproduced together.

“I’ve brushed up on the Clarkes so we can properly impersonate them at the party. According to-scrik!” Brain hissed under his breath when he landed on New York and had to pay Pinky.

“Sixteen please!” Pinky chirped. “All proceeds will go to buying toys and treats for good dogs in need!”

Brain grudgingly gave up the sixteen. Probability was not on his side tonight. “As I was saying before cruel fate reared its ugly head, the man I shall impersonate, Anthony Clarke, is an esteemed real estate and luxury hotel mogul, with a net worth in the billions. His success is rooted in savvy, ruthless business against competitors. It appears that he and Lamont are old college acquaintances, which we can spin to our advantage. And...yes! B&O Railroad!”

He claimed the B&O Railroad for himself, and Pinky wrinkled his nose. “I wouldn’t ride on the Body Odor Railroad even if you pay me in cheese,” he said.

Brain rolled his eyes. “The temptation for cheese is too powerful for your empty mind and bottomless stomach.”

“You’re right, Brain. It’s too yummy.” Pinky licked his lips. “So does that make me Mrs. Zoey Clarke then? Unless he divorced her already. I haven’t kept up with them in a while.” The butler on the phone had made a similar comment, thoroughly expecting ‘Mr. Clarke’ to divorce his spouse by the end of the week.

“So you’re aware of the Clarkes,” Brain said. He rolled the dice, and chance immediately sentenced him to jail. He had to push his battleship all the way to the jail space.

But all of this divorcing nonsense was trivial to his goals. Hardly worth a footnote.

The objective was to infiltrate the party, mingle with the guests to throw off suspicion, then steal the military weapon and take over the world, not involve himself in a Terran’s relationship drama.

“Ooh, tough.” Pinky clicked his tongue in sympathy as he bought Waterworks. “But everyone knows who the Clarkes are. Didn’t you see anything about all those divorces when you looked them up?”

“I’m more interested in his business ventures than his messy personal life,” Brain replied. “All this talk about divorce is simply incidental. But now I digress. Escaping jail so I may continue my conquering campaign is of utmost priority.”

“Doubles! Doubles!” Pinky chanted as Brain threw the dice. A two and three faced up, but no doubles. Pinky deflated, but only for a moment. Then he picked up a fifty. “Here, Brain. I’ll bail you out.”

From Brain’s brief skim over the rules, he didn’t recall a single one that allowed players to bail each other out of jail. He wanted to refuse and tell Pinky to focus on winning for himself, but obtaining Pennsylvania Railroad, which he’d missed the first time he’d passed through this section of the board, was just too tempting.

Brain took the fifty from Pinky, put it in the bank, then moved his battleship out of jail and used his draining resources to buy Pennsylvania Railroad. Only afterward did he realize that he’d been steadily losing money every turn and hadn’t gained anything since the beginning of the game.

Contrast to Pinky, who rolled a twelve and skipped over the last fourth of the board, placing him squarely on the Go space and guaranteeing himself a free two hundred. Then he rolled a low number and bought Mediterranean.

A poor investment, given that it was hardly worth anything. But Pinky didn’t think so.

And he wouldn’t stop cooking up new fantasies either. “Now we can host a beach jubilee for your welcome home from jail party! With hot dogs and beach balls and those big umbrellas and-”

Brain lobbed the dice at Pinky so he’d quiet down and allow Brain to formulate a strategy in peace.

Perhaps a pass around the board without purchasing anything would be necessary. He had to rebuild his financial resources again. The downside was that Pinky could potentially take the spaces for himself, but it was entirely possible that he’d miss some of the open spaces too.

So he did just that, finally lucking out when a Community Chest card sent Pinky to Reading Railroad.

But Pinky was incapable of keeping his mouth shut, and soon he was back on the topic of the infamous Clarke divorces.

“-so I think Zoey is number eleven, and I know they all blend together, so when I confuse them I just remember divorce, beheaded, died, divorce, beheaded, survived!”

Brain stared at Pinky, praying to all the ancient Selenian gods nobody believed in anymore that Snowball didn’t have him take the identity of a murderer.

“Oh wait no, no...that’s King Henry, not Clarke. Must’ve mixed them up, poit. Sorry.”

Brain threw another green house at Pinky, nailing him in the shoulder. Pinky yelped, but once he realized he had another house he immediately thanked Brain because that meant Terry’s friend could move next door.

Since there was little point to dissuading Pinky entirely, Brain focused on his game strategy instead.

It was mostly repetition anyway. Roll dice, move piece, board event, repeat. Perhaps it would be considered tedious and monotonous, but the storylines Pinky improvised were what truly made it fascinating, even though Brain could only follow about half of it since Pinky created plotholes within the fantastical yet mundane place named Monopoly City faster than the speed of light.

According to Pinky, he and his sister co-ran an enormous pet supply shop attached to a humane animal shelter next door to the dog park. Meanwhile, Brain was conductor of a magical train and seeking the mayorship because the corrupt mayor was involved with an evil cigarette corporation who wanted to diabolically sell their products to innocent children.

And while Pinky certainly had a knack for improvisation, the matter at hand was that Brain couldn’t resist buying Boardwalk, but he’d used up a third of his money and Pinky wasn’t landing there to make up for the deficit. But Brain also had Baltic, the least valuable property, and Pinky had Park Place, which Brain desperately needed since neither of them had houses on the board yet.

This wasn’t going to be a fair trade for Pinky, but it was the best chance Brain had to etch out a victory. He was going for it.

“Park for Baltic so we can finally build some residences,” Brain said, sliding the card over to Pinky.

And to his surprise, Pinky jumped at the opportunity. “Sure, Brain! If you’ll trade me Oriental for Marvin Gardens. We’re gonna open a Chinatown district!”

He’d be giving Pinky control of the first quarter of the board, but the allure of the most expensive properties was far too tempting to pass up.

They swapped properties, then paused the game to set up their houses. Brain didn’t have enough money to buy houses for all his properties, so he set two houses on Boardwalk and hoped he could deal a staggering blow to Pinky’s finances. And even this decision was costly, for he only had $180 left.

Pinky set four houses on Baltic and clapped his hands together. “They’re beach houses,” he explained, and didn’t bother putting houses on the rest of his properties even though he could afford it.

Brain kept his mouth shut. Best not to give Pinky ideas. So he rolled the dice and got doubles.

Luxury Tax.

Scrik.

Now he was down to $105. But he’d pass Go on his next turn, so he could obtain an extra two hundred and hopefully skip this portion of the board.

Then he landed on Baltic.

He slowly looked at Pinky, and Brain couldn’t tell if Pinky was being perfectly innocent or just very, very good at pretending to be perfectly innocent. “That’ll be $320 please,” Pinky said.

Including the two hundred from passing Go, he’d only have a grand total of $305.

And according to the conditions he’d set, he’d lost the game through losing all his money.

“Can’t pay it,” Brain sighed. “Congratulations, Pinky. You’ve bested me.”

Pinky giggled and threw his play money in the air in celebration. “Aw, thanks for playing with me! I’ve never played Monopoly with anyone before. Never been able to get the board to Pharfignewton’s stable without the play money flying all over the street. It took me a long time to pick it all up. We should definitely do this again, Brain! Troz!”

But there wouldn’t be a next time. No matter how much he wanted to be victorious in another match against Pinky.

“Yes, we should,” Brain forced out, willing his racing heart to calm down so he wasn’t caught in his lie.

Pinky beamed, and Brain only wished it wasn’t so difficult to explain.

o-o-o-o-o

Terran Date 4.29.2015

Tonight, we shall seek appropriate outfits for the masquerade ball. I have been informed that my jumpsuit is not considered formal attire and that we will need to shop for proper clothing. However, I will be bringing my jumpsuit along since I will not return to the lab, and I require my conquering outfit to carry out our plans.

Pinky knows a place that may contain what we need. He’s spent the last two hours finishing his hat for the Kentucky Derby and has proudly shown off the finished product to me. Though I’ll admit that the result can only be considered a hat if one is generous with their definition.

I have not been able to contact Snowball. I can only assume he’s making the necessary preparations on his end.

Signing off for now,

The Brain

o-o-o-o-o

They stood in front of an enormous building with bright neon letters, impossible to miss even with his direction-challenged companion. Thankfully, it was only a few blocks from the lab. After the scientists strapped him to a machine that tested centrifugal force, he didn’t have the energy to walk much further.

“Welcome to Toyz ‘B’ We, Brain!” Pinky exclaimed, and Brain cringed at the horrendous grammar of that name. “It's the most wonderfulest toy shop ever!”

Wonderfulest wasn’t a word, but Brain was given no time to inform Pinky of that fact before Pinky dragged him to the entrance, where a large, cartoonish statue of a Terran bee stood off to the side, greeting customers with a cheerful wave of her magic wand.

“So that’s the mascot, Becky Bee,...let’s see, those are the shopping carts and the baskets and those machines that give you washable tattoos-”

“Focus on the clothing, Pinky. Not all the extraneous material,” Brain reminded him as they entered the store. Unlike their disastrous mall trip, Brain had brought along a source of money, an ACME credit card one of the scientists had carelessly left at their desk after purchasing a chair online.

They had a right to use the card as ACME employees who never got paid for their hard labor in experiments. And he promised Pinky he’d give it back once they were through purchasing the necessary items, so it didn’t catch on that pesky ‘no stealing’ radar.

Based on Pinky’s descriptions of the store, he expected an interior full of wonder, excitement, and interesting objects designed for enjoyment for young Terrans.

Instead, everything was a sterile white, yellow, or black. Rectangular kits of building blocks of all shapes and sizes sat neatly in a row, their price tags dusty as if they hadn’t been moved or cleaned in some time.

Dozens of bee models hung from the ceiling rafters, all of them sharing the exact same dead stare and pose. The whole setup was rather unnerving, and Brain averted his eyes.

He spotted two workers at the registers. They scrolled through their phones, not noticing Pinky’s cheerful greeting as he skipped past them. A third worker called out in alarm to them, and they suddenly dropped their phones and picked up rags, repetitively wiping their counters in circles in a poor attempt to appear busy.

The only one who acted like they were in a store meant for entertainment was Pinky, who oohed and ahhed and zigzagged all over the place to get a look at all the toys.

“Brain, look at this Barbie convertible! It’s so sparkly!” Pinky exclaimed before darting off to admire the box art on five-hundred piece jigsaw puzzles, then crawled onto the lowest shelf to hug a life-sized chihuahua plushie. “Narf! This one’s a cutie! And I also like the polka-dotted lizard, that green unicorn, and that rainbow koala looks really soft too-”

Brain grabbed Pinky’s tail, yanking him out of the shelf and onto the floor.

“This store’s already eroding whatever’s left of your mind,” Brain said, dragging Pinky away from the stuffed animals.

Pinky propped himself up on his elbows, humming as they passed aisle upon aisle of action figures, balls, and building blocks.

It was strange how they seemed to be the only customers here. Shouldn’t there be more snot-nosed brats running amok or haggard parents corralling them so they didn’t destroy everything with their grubby hands?

Still, perhaps he shouldn’t complain.

It was a relief that he didn’t have to worry about people trampling him underfoot for now.

But the peace didn’t last long, since Pinky suddenly peeled away in a completely different direction, forgetting that Brain was hanging onto his tail. Though he tried to dig his heels in, Pinky was too fast and the floor too slippery for Brain to bring them to a halt.

Then Pinky stopped on his own, and Brain only caught a glimpse of a metallic table leg before he crashed face-first into it, his nose smarting from the impact.

“Sorry, Brain,” Pinky said sheepishly, and there were five upside-down images of him. Brain swatted at the one in the middle, but his hand hit empty air instead. He shook his head to clear his vision, and all but the Pinky on the far left vanished.

Pinky didn’t stay put for long, darting past Brain. He hauled himself up the table leg and onto a light blue tablecloth. “You have to come up and see this, Brain!” Pinky squealed, peering over the edge of the table, his tail wagging beside him. “There’s an entire fence made of Legos here!”

Brain sighed, wondering if it was an exercise in futility to get Pinky to focus on the task at hand. “This is the last time I’ll repeat myself!” Brain shouted as he climbed up to retrieve Pinky. “We’re here for the clothes and-”

Though Brain only took fifteen seconds to ascend, Pinky managed to don a cropped, checkered top that showed off his slender stomach and a very short blue skirt in that short timeframe.

“Well, what do you think?” Pinky giggled and twirled in circles, the skirt flying in a graceful arc around his waist. “I could go square dancin’ in this, pardner! Yee-narf!”

Realizing he’d been staring at Pinky’s exposed stomach rather than making proper eye contact, Brain quickly turned away and pretended to find a row of small toy cars interesting. Next to the toy cars, there was a menagerie of small, plastic animals penned in by a colorful fence.

Part of a garden themed jigsaw puzzle served as a lawn under his feet, the pieces leading up to an enormous pink dollhouse.

Pinky took off the clothes he’d tried on, neatly threading a bent wire through the crop top and skirt and hanging them on a piece of string that served as a makeshift clothesline. There were five different clotheslines, each stocked to the brim with a variety of colorful articles.

Brain thumbed through the selection, though he didn’t feel an attachment to any of these pieces. While these clothes were designed for toys, most of them were still too big for him.

Finding something that would fit would be more difficult than he realized.

There was a large empty space past all the clotheslines, but it seemed it would be filled in soon enough. The display had all the signs of being a work in progress, and Brain couldn’t help but wonder who had the patience to put all this together. Certainly not the bored workers at the registers.

It was a welcome splash of creativity from the rest of the dull store.

“Poit. This is exactly how I imagined my dream home to be,” Pinky said in awe. He walked up to the front door and popped it open, revealing a spacious interior. Brain followed Pinky inside and they explored the first floor together, which contained a kitchen, living room, and a playroom.

“I really like the coloring on those kitchen cabinets, and the fireplace is a great touch! Very retro. And the kiddies will have a grand ol’ time in the playroom,” Pinky said as they climbed the staircase to the second floor and walked through two bedrooms and a bathroom.

“Marble countertops would make the kitchen and bathroom more refined,” Brain argued. Really, did Pinky want any visitors to think uncivilized brutes owned the house? “But the fireplace is a welcome touch.”

Pinky shrugged as they entered the master bedroom. “It’s fine as is. Now if the backyard was bigger with a dolphin-shaped swimming pool, that would be really, really amazing!”

And Brain preferred marble countertops, but since he wouldn’t be getting everything he wanted, neither would Pinky.

Brain sat on the large bed that took up half the room, the fluffy covers soft and welcoming. But they were on a mission, and future world rulers didn’t roll around on beds in an undignified manner, no matter how tempting it was.

Pinky threw open the closet doors, revealing more clothing inside. “Oh, these pajamas are lovely!” he said, pressing a yellow nightgown close to his body.

“Anything that would suit our purposes?” Brain asked. In hindsight, doing some research into what people wore for masquerade balls would’ve been helpful. He didn’t know why it slipped his mind. Perhaps Pinky’s scatterbrained traits were contagious.

“Hmmm, it’s all pajamas and casual wear,” Pinky said, flicking through the different articles. He closed the doors and reopened them, as if the formal wear would magically appear if they were out of sight. “No suits for you or the porpoises, Brain.” And he’d been so hopeful too.

“Maybe we can find something in the aisles,” Pinky said.

A sensible suggestion, for once.

Brain tried not to appear reluctant to leave the bed, but necessity demanded it. As he stood up, the fur on his neck pricked, his ears twitching towards the large window in the bedroom.

An odd sense that he was being watched came over him, and when he turned to look at the window, he saw a Terran’s eye peering into the balcony.

They stared at each other.

Then the eye blinked.

And Brain was suddenly very, very glad Snowball wasn’t here to bear witness, or he’d never hear the end of how he’d leapt onto Pinky’s back in his moment of panic.

Pinky yelped, and so did the Terran outside the window. There were several loud thuds, followed by a frantic apology.

Brain released Pinky, rubbing his face to get rid of the blush as he ran down the staircase and out the front door.

“S-sorry!” a young woman stammered as she bent down to pick up several packages of toys, only to lose her large glasses on the floor in the process. She wore the standard uniform of the store. “I didn’t think anyone would be inside! I thought one of the furniture pieces fell over, that’s all!”

Pinky hopped down from the table, picking up the woman’s glasses and pressing them into her hand. “It’s okay!” he chirped. “You scared us good, but now we can laugh about it! Oh, your name tag says Sharon! What a lovely name! I’m Pinky, that chubby alien up there is Brain, and we’re going to a party this weekend where we’ll raise awareness for the plight of frosted animal crackers!”

“That’s not the event’s objective,” Brain corrected, and he had no choice but to let Pinky come to his own conclusions. Stealing the secret weapon on Lamont property would remain classified information as promised. “And if you call me chubby again, I shall have to hurt you.”

Sharon took her glasses from Pinky with a tentative smile, then let him climb up her arm and onto her shoulder. “Zort! You have very good taste in Polly Pocket dolls!” Pinky said, peering down at the packages in her hands. “Do you collect?”

Sharon blushed. “I, um, have a lot of Beanie Babies at home. I’m not really interested in Polly Pockets, but they’d fit much better in this display than a standard Barbie.” She glanced at Brain. “I’m sorry, could you please move? I’m putting a few things in that area.”

Brain moved out of the way as Sharon carefully opened the packages. Then she placed several small tables and chairs in the empty space next to the clotheslines, bending the dolls’ legs into sitting positions and placing them on the chairs. She worked slowly and diligently, taking great caution to not knock anything over or break the items.

“Did you make all this?” Pinky asked. “It’s amazing!”

“Y-yeah, I did. The display, I mean. Not the toys.” Sharon didn’t look at Pinky as she straightened one of the Lego fences. “Store’s been on the decline, and because there’s not really much to do, I’m trying to create a few displays to generate some interest. The toys in this one were supposed to be thrown away since nobody’s buying them, even on clearance, but it just seemed so wasteful.”

She was resourceful. It was a valuable trait, but she seemed more embarrassed than anything.

“Take pride, Sharon. It’s an excellent use of parts,” Brain advised.

Pinky nodded eagerly. “And you’re saving the toys from the evil furnace! I’m sure they’re very grateful to you when you’re not looking!”

“You...you really like it?” Sharon lifted her glasses and wiped a tear from her eye. “Nobody’s ever really noticed my efforts around here.”

“Well, they should!” Pinky declared. “I’ll tell them so myself!”

Sharon smiled as Pinky hugged her face, then rejoined Brain on the table. “Thanks, but I don’t think you came to this store just to invade a toy home.”

“No, we didn’t,” Brain said, seeing his opportunity and seizing it. “We require formal clothes for a masquerade ball, and unfortunately, we haven’t seen anything of interest yet.”

“There’s plenty of interesting things in here, Brain,” Pinky said. “Like the busybody bees up on the ceiling!”

Apparently they had two very different definitions of interesting.

“Well, I can bring out some items from the back,” Sharon offered. “We had to pull the entire line of formal Zuma Ben accessories last week. Some parents found the outfits a little scandalous for their kids, so now the accessories are just going in the trash. But maybe you’ll find something to wear from the pile. Be right back, guys!” She walked away, her steps growing slightly more confident.

“Real Zuma Ben accessories?” Pinky clasped his hands to his cheek. “I’ve never worn anything like that before!”

“It’s just a name,” Brain said. He didn’t see why Pinky was treating Zuma Ben’s name like a sacred object. “As long as we’re dressed to impress, the name doesn’t matter.”

“I just think they’re pretty,” Pinky replied. “And I like looking at them, even if I can’t buy anything. Still, I’m really happy with the clothes I have now.”

But Pinky had a sizable wardrobe. Those clothes had to come from somewhere.

“So how did you obtain your clothes if you never bought them?” Brain asked.

Pinky smiled. “The scientists. They’ll drop clothes into my cage, which is really nice of them! One time, I put on this pretty sundress they gave me and I started itching really bad. I was jumping around like a tiny monkey and I managed to make them all laugh! I must’ve been quite the sight!”

Pinky laughed at the memory, but Brain was more disturbed at how the blatant act of humiliation didn’t affect him in the slightest. Then the laugh faltered and restarted at a higher pitch.

No, that initial assessment was wrong. True, Pinky could withstand many things, but not even the most resilient being could tolerate the sound of mockery for long.

Should he say something? Was an ‘I’m sorry’ sufficient? Was there any act of comfort that didn’t involve unnecessary physical contact?

Brain wanted to be decisive, but dozens of scenarios played out in his head, and none of them led to a satisfactory outcome. Tell Pinky to cease his laughter, embrace him, talk about the weather. He didn’t know.

Emotions led to nothing but trouble.

“Quit staring,” Brain snapped when Pinky wouldn’t stop watching him like he wanted something.

Pinky’s ears fell, but Sharon came back before the pang of guilt could fully settle in Brain’s stomach.

“Thanks for waiting, guys,” Sharon said as she dumped the accessory packages onto the table. “See anything you like?”

“All of them!” Pinky declared, happily tossing a three-pack of formal dresses into the air. He tried tearing it open, but the packaging wouldn’t give. Sharon helpfully tore it open for him, and Pinky made a happy, grateful sound before pulling a sparkly purple dress over his body. He twirled around. “So how do I look?”

“Lovely,” Sharon giggled as she pulled out her phone. She set it against the Lego fence, allowing Pinky to see himself in the camera app.

“I’ll put this as a maybe,” Pinky said. “But I have to give all the dresses a chance too!”

He tried four other dresses on in quick succession, and all of them went into the maybe pile.

Meanwhile, Brain searched through his choices of men’s formal wear. He wanted the best possible option for successful infiltration, but he didn’t know much about Terran fashion. His nose wrinkled at a powdered blue suit with far too many ruffles. He was fairly certain that wouldn’t garner respect on any planet, so he pushed the offending pack away from his other options.

The pure white suit would get stained too easily. He needed something darker. That one was out.

“Hey Brain, what about this one?” Pinky asked. He now wore a long sleeved lime green dress, which Brain found extremely tacky and unappealing to the eyes. Not even Pinky could salvage that monstrosity. Yet in Pinky’s hands, there was a black suit with a white shirt underneath. Not extravagant by any means, but since the coloration was similar to his conquering attire, it was the most probable choice by far.

But while Pinky was comfortable with changing in front of others, Brain wasn’t so keen on the idea.

“I require privacy,” Brain said. He took the suit from Pinky and went inside the house, shutting the door behind him and ensuring the shutters were closed.

Then he removed his gloves and jumpsuit, shivering from the cold air as he laid the items over a chair. He put on the new set of pants first, then the white collared shirt, and finally buttoned the jacket over his abdomen.

Well, it was comfortable. And it hid most of his stomach too, which was also a positive. But he needed to see how it looked in the light before making a judgment call, so he rejoined Pinky and Sharon, who were playing with different filters on her phone while Pinky wore a magnificent feathery pink dress.

“Now you really look like a flamingo,” Sharon laughed as Pinky changed the filter to sepia, the image now different shades of tan. Pinky blew a kiss to the camera. “This one’s my favorite so far,” Pinky declared with a graceful curtsey.

And the sleeveless feathery dress did seem to match his personality much better than all the other dresses. Flamboyant and quirky, but inviting and friendly as well. A darker pink feather boa was draped over his shoulders, and purple feathers fanned out from the back of his neck. A light green choker was wrapped around his neck. Then Pinky added a matching headband with a light pink tuft to complete the ensemble.

“That will certainly make an excellent first impression on the partygoers,” Brain said.

Pinky changed the phone filter back to normal with one hand, playing with the feather boa in his other. “Egad, you really think so?” he exclaimed. “Hold on a sec, Brain. Where’s the rest of your outfit?”

“Rest of?” Brain echoed. “This doesn’t require anything else.”

Pinky shook his head and dug a red bow and matching sash out of the clothes pile. “You need a few splashes of color, Brain! Or you’ll just end up a sad wilty wallflower!”

“They’d really match your circles,” Sharon added.

Well, he’d always looked good in red. It was a bold, attention-grabbing color.

Brain draped the sash over his shoulder and fastened the bow around his ear, checking himself over in Sharon’s phone. Then Pinky and Sharon started giggling for some odd reason.

“What?” Brain asked. He was presentable at a formal event now, wasn’t he?

“You’re kinda wearing it wrong,” Sharon admitted.

His ears flattened from embarrassment. Selenians typically wore practical jumpsuits with minimal accessories, and none of their databanks ever mentioned Terran outfits. They must’ve found it unimportant.

“Don’t worry, Brain. It’s an easy fix! May I?” Pinky exclaimed.

Brain nodded his permission, and Pinky removed the bow from Brain’s ear and carefully fastened it underneath his collar, taking great care to not pull the bow too tightly around his neck.

“So this isn’t a sash. It’s a cummerbund and you wear it around your stomach,” Pinky explained as he demonstrated the proper way to wear it. It was relieving to know Terrans made accessories that would hide the slight bulge, and Brain donned the cummerbund correctly.

The accessories really did match his orbs. For the first time, he was dressed to the nines and it was a glorious feeling indeed.

“Aw, you’re both so spiffy!” Sharon exclaimed. “Mind if I put a photo of this on the Twitter page to boost some interest?”

“We’ll return the favor,” Brain said. She deserved some reward for helping them out anyway.

Sharon turned her phone around, ready to snap the picture when Pinky suddenly darted out of frame. “Hold on! Narf!” he cried, shoving a small blue butterfly-themed mask into Brain’s hands and flipping a pink feathery mask over his face. “It’s a masquerade ball, you know!”

While Brain’s mask only covered the area around his eyes, Pinky’s face was mostly hidden by his birdlike mask, leaving only his bright blue eyes exposed.

“Doesn’t that tickle?” Brain inquired as Pinky stretched his boa out for a picture.

Pinky shrugged. “A little. But I don’t mind!”

“Smile for the camera, you guys!” Sharon grinned.

Brain didn’t smile, but he stood in front of the toy house while Sharon snapped pictures and Pinky struck a different pose with every shot.

Pinky’s laughter rang joyously in Brain’s ears.

He would leave that sound behind in just a few days. But it was a small price to pay for the world.

End AN: Maybe this chapter is a little disjointed, but oh well. Sharon is based off the toy store worker who helps the mice in Brain’s Night Off.

I tried to do the math for the Monopoly game and even pulled out my Monopoly property cards so I could get the amounts correct, but if anything is inaccurate I am hereby excused from responsibility because I am a writer and not a mathematician. Yes i use that excuse every time but it’s true.

Brain's outfit comes from the tuxedo he wore in the reboot's Future Brain episode. Pluto designed Pinky's outfit herself (somehow we both were thinking lots of pink feathers for Pinky) and deserves all the credit for it cause it's so beautiful. I chose a butterfly mask for Brain and a flamingo theme for Pinky.

#pinky and the brain #patb fanfiction #patb nova

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shoutaaizawas · 4 years

Note

For the au prompt event can I requst a fantasy!au Shinsou with the prompt "Is there a reason you're blushing like that?" please!

thank you for the request!! 💖

↳ shinsou hitoshi x reader → remember

event: au prompt event summary: shinsou hitoshi was an assassin sent to kill you but he didn’t and your trying to figure out why. word count: 2,479 tags/warnings: fantasy!au, light angst, happy ending a/n: this was a fun idea and it was kind of hard to fit it in to a one-shot

Was Shinsou an assassin sent to kill you? Yes. Were you sort of friends at the moment? Maybe. Friends was probably too strong of word to use for him but he wasn’t trying to kill you at the moment so that was good.

You were a princess, next in line to rule. You had been traveling to another kingdom to meet your betrothed when you were attacked. It had happened so quickly. The strange purple-haired man had a blade to your neck but he hesitated. You weren’t quite sure why he stopped but you weren’t complaining.

Somehow this all lead to you traveling home with this assassin. With his change of heart, he decided to escort you back to your kingdom. Unfortunately, you were a very long way from home so this would be a long journey.

Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. You weren’t looking forward to seeing your home. The pressures of being royalty were simply not for you. You would prefer to live a peaceful and simple life. But you were stuck in a world where you would be a leader and not only that but you’d be wed to a man you didn’t even know. All of it was terrible.

At first, your travels were stale with this assassin. He barely talked to you and would hardly look at you. This left you with the sound of your footsteps and whatever sounds the forest made.

Sometimes you would take in his features, his pale skin and the scars that marred it.

“So, been an assassin for a long time?” You asked trying to break the silence. You were tired of being stuck in your thoughts of what awaited you at home.

“None of your business.” He said simply.

“Just trying to make small talk.” You huffed.

“I don’t do small talk.” He replied.

“No small talk, just murder.” You retorted.

“I didn’t murder you.” He said shooting you a glare.

Okay, so small talk wasn’t going to work. You ended up counting the trees to keep yourself busy but there were too many trees so you gave up on that.

“I spy, something green.” You said after another hour of silence.

“I’m not playing a child’s game.” He said.

“Oh come on all this walking is so boring.” You said.

“I’m sorry that I don’t have a pretty carriage for you or a white pony, princess.” He said.

“It’s not the walking it’s just the silence.” You said. "I used to have a white pony, her name was Snowflake. She was such a good girl." You reminisced about your childhood horse.

Shinsou just looked at you with an odd stare.

“It was that tree, by the way.” You said answering the game you had tried to start earlier.

There was a lot of walking through forests, it all started to blend in together. Some days you sang until he told you to shut up. Others you attempted asking him questions to be shot down. Sometimes you would just start telling a story since that required no response. He would eventually get annoyed with that.

One night you sat around the campfire he created, keeping yourself warm in the harsh cold. Watching the flames dance you imagined a life where you could live in a small cabin far from others, tend to your own crops and animals, and simply enjoy life. Maybe even share it with someone else.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” You asked breaking the silence.

“It’s none of your business.” He replied not sparing a glance.

“It feels like it’s a little bit of my business. You know if you hadn’t spared me I’d be a dead body floating down a river right now.” You said.

“That’s not how you dispose of a body.” He scoffed.

“I’m not sure that’s what I wanted to hear but I’ll take it since it’s the first thing you’ve said that’s not ‘it’s none of your business’ or ‘shut up’.” You said.

Slowly but surely he slowly opened up. Maybe opening up wasn't the most accurate phrase for it but he would let you sing a song as you walked. Sometimes he would answer one of your dumb questions.

One day you were walking along the dirt path leading you to the next town when you started talking about your kingdom. You hadn’t been thinking much about what you were saying but you got on the topic of your role as princess.

“You know, I don’t even want to be queen.” You rambled on. “I don’t want to marry some random guy I’ve never met, I don’t want the responsibility of leading people. Sometimes I just want to run off and never look back.” You sighed.

“What?” You were shocked at the sudden interest that Shinsou showed.

“Hmm?” You hadn’t expected that he was listening. “I was just saying I don’t want to be queen.”

“But you have to.” He said seriously. You hadn’t expected that either.

“I mean who’s gonna stop me if I don’t go back?” You shrugged. “What’s the difference between that and me being dead?”

Shinsou was silent but despite the fact, he was hard to read, you could tell he was deep in thought.

It was yet another day traveling home, you were close maybe a few days out now. You felt nauseous. You didn’t want to go home to a life you hated. You wanted choices, you wanted freedom.

You weren’t expecting the sudden attack. You were tackled to the ground and fear seized you as you looked at your attacker. He wasn’t on you for long, Shinsou ripping him off you. You watched helplessly as he fought off the attacker along with three others that had been apart of the group.

You hated that you couldn’t help, you hated being so helpless. You let out a gasp of horror as a blade sliced against Shinsou’s side. Even with the wound, he fought them off with a lot less trouble than you expected someone to fight four people by themself.

“You’re hurt.” You said going to his side.

“I’m fine, let’s get out of here.” He said, waving away your concern before grabbing you by the shoulder as he gripped at his side.

After insisting he finally gave in and stopped at a local tavern that doubled as an inn. You wanted to help bandage him up and let him get rest. Once you were in the room you sat him down, you reached for the pack you had with first aid. Worry filled you at the sight of the blood that had soaked through his clothes.

“You don’t have to, I can do it myself.” He said.

“You got hurt defending me, I’m not going to sit here.” You huffed. “I already didn’t help in the first place.”

The last thing you were expecting was for him you grab your chin tilting your gaze from his wound to his eyes.

“I’ll always protect you.” He said in a soft tone that had your heart skipping a beat.

Not a moment after Shinsou’s eyes fluttered shut and he fell back onto the bed unconscious. Okay, maybe that was the last thing you expected in retrospect.

You panicked for a moment before you reached for his side pulling aside cloth to look at his wound. It didn’t look right, it was foaming. It hit you, you had read it in a book once, the blade had poison on it.

You recalled a night a few weeks ago where you had been poking through his bag, he had vials of poison himself as well as antidotes. Thanking yourself for your curiosity you dug into his bag looking for the vile.

Shinsou was now shaking and convulsing on the bed and fear gripped you even stronger now. You couldn't lose him.

Pressing it to his lips you tilted his head so he could drink the antidote. Once it was all gone you pulled him onto the bed fully before starting to tend to his wound.

The antidote was working, his body stilled and his breathing evened out. His body was burning up but you assumed that that was part of the poison leaving his body. You hoped that you had done everything right.

After you cleaned and dressed the wound you pulled off the outer layers of his clothing so he would be more comfortable. He was sweating, touching his forehead you could feel he had a fever. You went down to the tavern to retrieve water.

You sat at his bedside, dabbing his forehead with water and doing whatever you could to help him be more comfortable. Watching his unconscious form you appreciated how handsome he was even looking sickly as he did right now. You had stared at him before but he would usually catch you and it almost felt like he didn’t sleep considering you only ever saw him awake and on guard when you set up camp. But now you could take in his peaceful features.

His long purple hair that rested against his shoulders, his sharp cheekbones, and the darkness under his eyes that was oddly attractive.

It was a hard thing to admit to yourself but you had slowly grown close to this man along your travels. It may have taken a while to get him to talk but once you did you weren’t expecting his dry sense of humor or the soft tone he took with you when you did something that could get you hurt.

Shinsou stirred in his sleep, tossing and turning. You cleaned the cloth off in the cool water and dabbed it on his forehead.

“Princess.” He mumbled out and you quirked an eyebrow.

“Shinsou, how are you feeling?” You asked leaning foreword to hear his quiet words.

“Princess, I can’t go I have to clean out the stables.” He said. Your eyebrows furrowed. What was he talking about?

“What are you talking about?” You questioned.

“I’m sorry princess, next time.” He said softly.

Suddenly you were pulled into a memory. You were young, maybe around ten years old. The boy in the stables with the purple hair and the soft eyes that matched. Oh, how you loved how gentle he was with horses, how he talked to you in that soft voice of his. He was so kind-hearted.

You spent so much time with him, talking to him, telling him stories, singing. You always wanted him to go with you to the forest and explore and run around. But he always had to work, even when you asked your father to let him have the day he refused and said you shouldn’t be hanging out with such a lowly servant. It didn’t stop you, you spent every day there with him for years.

Oh, how you fell in love with the sweet boy, Hitoshi. As you got older you both planned to run away far away from it all and get married. You could live a life free from your family and the things that kept you apart.

But one day he was gone, you went to your father only to find out that he had him sent away. You cried and cried for weeks, heartbroken at the loss. You looked for him but there was no trace of him anywhere. You missed him so dearly.

How had you not realized sooner? How did it take this to make you realize your lost love was in front of your eyes the whole time.

“Hitoshi?” You said, tears welling in your eyes.

This pulled him from his feverish dream. His eyes snapped opened and focused on you.

“You remember?” He asked cautiously.

“I don’t know how I could forget you, ‘Toshi.” Your tears broke and rolled down your cheeks. You moved forward, perching on the side of the bed so you could pull him into your arms as carefully as possible.

You tucked your face into his shoulder and his arms pulled you in.

“It’s okay princess, I’m here now.” He said, stroking your back.

After a few moments of resting in his arms, you pulled back looking into his purple gaze.

“Let’s run away together, I don’t want to return. Let’s run away from it all like we talked about when we were kids.” You said.

“We’re not kids anymore, we’re adults and we have responsibilities now.” He replied in a stern tone.

“Oh yeah, like murdering people?” You bit back, pulling away from him.

How could he say that after finding each other after all this time? You could finally be together.

“You don’t know what I’ve been through!”

“How am I supposed to know you just disappeared!” You shouted back. “You were gone and I was so alone, I couldn’t find you no matter where I looked!”

“Your father sent me away, he sent me to an assassin’s guild. They trained me to be some kind of monster. I realized what real life was like, not like the little fantasies we dreamed of. How am I supposed to be worthy of someone like you with all the blood on my hands? How could you ever love me?”

You stared at him in disbelief. How could he think that?

“You’ll always be that boy in the stables that I loved nothing could change that.” You said softly. It didn’t matter what he had done you could work past it. “You don’t have to kill people anymore, we can both leave our lives behind and start fresh.”

Shinsou started deep into your eyes, his own eyes filling up with tears.

“That sounds nice.” He said.

Shinsou leaned up, minding his wounds, pulling you in before pressing a kiss against your lips. You were shocked for a moment before melting into it and wrapping your arms around him.

"Is there a reason you're blushing like that?" He said as he pulled back taking in your red cheeks.

“No, no reason at all.” You teased. He gave you that smirk that you loved so much and it was easy to imagine the boy you fell in love with even with the scars he had now.

“Let’s get some rest.” He said pulling you down to the bed with him, holding you firmly in your arms.

“Tomorrow is the start of the rest of our lives.” You whispered into his ear unable to hold back the smile on your face.

As you laid there wrapped up in his arms listening to the soft music that drifted from the tavern below it was easy to imagine the rest of your life with Hitoshi.

A small house secluded away from the harsh realities of your past. A warm fireplace to sit next to in his arms with a warm drink. A life free from what you were both born into. A life made on your own terms.

#shinsou hitoshi #shinsou x reader #hitoshi x reader #shinsou hitoshi x reader #bnha x reader #bnha #mha #mha x reader #my writing #au prompt event #starri-night

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chocolatequeennk · 3 years

Text

Let it Snow, 1/5

A winter adventure takes a turn when the Doctor and Rose are snowed in together in a remote cabin in the woods.

Ten x Rose, set just after New Earth

This is for @doctorroseprompts 31 Days of Ficmas. Day 1: Snowed In

AO3 | FF.NET

Chapter 1: Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

The Doctor cast Rose surreptitious glances as he slowly circled the console, tapping dials as he went. He didn’t see any obvious signs that Lady Cassandra’s possession was still bothering her, but still… He didn’t want to throw them into danger just yet.

Rose hopped up on the jump seat and swung her feet. “Where are we going today?”

“Your choice,” he said. “Where would you like to go? We could go to a concert or watch the moon landing, or there’s a famous market on an asteroid… Anywhere you want, Rose Tyler.”

Rose arched an eyebrow, and he tugged on his ear in response. Of course she knew something was up, but he didn’t have to tell her what it was.

She rolled her eyes, then tilted her head back against the seat back. “Anywhere I want?” she repeated, testing him.

“Absolutely anywhere,” he promised.

“What if I want to tour the most famous pear orchard in the galaxy?”

He flinched, then nodded gamely. “Anywhere,” he promised. Just please don’t choose that.

Rose giggled, almost as if she’d heard that thought. “Nah, I won’t do that to you,” she promised. She tapped her finger against her chin, and a little wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows.

Finally, when the Doctor thought he was going to burst from impatience, she grinned. “Could we go someplace with snow?” she requested. “Actual, proper snow—not ash.”

The Doctor rocked back on his heels and pressed his tongue against his teeth. “Snow isn’t much of an adventure,” he mused. “Unless…” He bounced on his toes and grinned at Rose. “How about a full-fledged winter holiday, just like you see in the movies?”

Rose’s answering grin sent a spark of electricity through the Doctor. “You mean, a cabin in the woods where we sit in front of a fireplace and watch snowflakes float lazily from the sky? And having snowball fights and building snowmen and going ice skating?”

“Oh yes!” the Doctor crowed.

“Sounds perfect,” Rose agreed.

She hopped up on the jump seat and watched the Doctor dance around the console, spinning dials and sliding levers into place. This Doctor was still so new, but he was also still so familiar.

He tossed her a grin over his shoulder. “Just you wait—this will be the best winter holiday you’ve ever had, Rose Tyler.”

Rose shivered when he said her name. His new voice just… wrapped around the long o in a way that she felt down to her toes.

She fought back the urge to snog him. “Well that won’t be very hard,” she drawled. “Seeing how I’ve never had a winter holiday.”

The Doctor gasped. “Never? Well then, prepare to have all your fantasies fulfilled.”

It just wasn’t fair of him to say things like that, Rose mused. And especially not when he added that saucy grin and a teasing wink.

He’s an alien, remember, she reminded herself. Maybe he doesn’t even realise what he’s saying.

Still… She remembered a dance in a hospital and a different voice insisting that he was actually a man.

“You should go change,” the Doctor said, breaking into her musings. “And I imagine the TARDIS will have a suitcase waiting for you, too.”

The ship hummed, and Rose patted the nearest strut. Thanks, old girl, she told the ship as she walked back to her room.

Twenty minutes later, they were walking hand in hand through fairy tale streets. “And Librell is one of the best places in the galaxy to experience that Hollywood winter,” the Doctor rambled. “Beautifully stable climate, and a travel industry centred around snow festivals and etc.”

“So where are we going?” Rose asked. She turned a circle, looking at the marketplace in front of her. “I mean, we’re in the middle of a town, and that’s not exactly the image I had in mind.”

The Doctor tutted. “Oh ye of little faith,” he chided. “While you were getting dressed, I reserved the stereotypical snug cottage deep in the woods. But to get us there…” He nodded in the direction of the end of the street.

Rose turned around and gasped. A sled was waiting for them, with a horse hitched and ready to go.

“The full holiday experience,” the Doctor said smugly.

Rose was too amazed to talk as they got into the sled. The Doctor wrapped a blanket around their legs, and then the driver snapped the reins and they took off.

“How far out of town is the cabin?” she asked the Doctor.

“About ten kilometres,” the driver said. Rose looked up at him, a short man wearing a knit cap pulled low over his ears. “It’ll take us a good few hours to get there, so get comfortable.” He passed a jug over his shoulder. “This will keep you warm.”

Rose opened the flagon and inhaled the warm scent of spiced wine. “Oh, lovely,” she sighed. She took a sip and then snuggled down into the blankets to enjoy the ride.

The wind whipped at her face as they drove, and Rose’s cheeks and nose were frosty before the end of the first hour. She drank more of the wine and then tugged her scarf up until only her eyes were uncovered.

After two hours, she started actively looking for their cottage. Finally, she thought she spotted a tendril of smoke lifting up into the sky, and she held her hand up over her eyes to block the glare of the sun.

The road took a wide bend around a hill, and when they came to the other side, Rose saw a small cottage nestled back into the trees. “Is that it?” she asked, standing up halfway to get a better view.

“Yep!” The driver turned off the main road onto the lane. “Our best house. The kitchen is fully stocked, and my partner came out earlier to start a fire.”

Rose spotted the large front windows and hummed. “Perfect for watching the snow fall,” she told the Doctor.

The sled pulled up in front of the door, and she and the Doctor got out. The driver opened the door and handed the key over to the Doctor. “I’ll be back in a week to pick you up. If you run into any emergencies, there’s a phone in the kitchen. My number is taped to the wall next to it.”

The Doctor shouldered his way into the cabin and set their bag down just inside the door. “Thank you!” he told the driver, a wide grin stretched across his face. “I can’t imagine we’ll need to call for anything. We are here for an adventure after all, right Rose?”

Rose laughed. “That’s right,” she agreed. “The full winter experience.”

The driver raised an eyebrow. “All right then,” he said, walking back to the sled. “I’ll see you in a week.”

Rose waved at him, then followed the Doctor into the cabin. He stood in the middle of the small living room and waved at the cosy space. “Well, what do you think?”

Before looking around, she took off her hat, scarf, and gloves and set them on the kitchen table. Then she turned and took in the living room.

The Doctor pointed at the large stone fireplace on the opposite wall. “Imagine the crackling fire, maybe roasting some marshmallows while we watch the snow fall.”

Rose swallowed. That sounded a bit… romantic. Actually. Now that she thought about it, the whole winter holiday idea sounded a bit romantic. And the fact that the only seating in the room was a cosy love seat certainly didn’t make it any less romantic.

Oh bloody hell Rose Tyler, what have you done?

The Doctor was watching her hopefully, and she shoved aside her momentary panic. “It’s exactly what I pictured,” she told him. “And look at that television! I bet we can get By the Light of the Asteroid!”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “You are obsessed with that soap.”

“Well it was you that introduced me to it, so you only have yourself to blame!” she retorted.

The Doctor made a happy sound in the back of his throat, and it took Rose a moment to realise what she’d just said. It had been him—but it had been the old him, the one in leather.

“Well it was,” she grumbled, giving him a smile.

“Yes, yes it was.” He bounced on his toes and then pointed at the closed door. “Let’s see what we have in here.”

Rose reached the door first and pushed it open. The bedroom was just as cosy as the living room—and just as much meant for two people. She stared at the plush queen bed in the middle of the room.

“What is it?” the Doctor said. She felt him lean through the door and look over her shoulder.

Rose could almost hear him blink as he processed what he was looking at.

“Ah. There’s only one bed. And… I doubt there’s a second bedroom.”

She felt his arm shift and knew he was tugging at his ear. It surprised her to realise she knew so many of his tells already. This new Doctor was quickly becoming just… the Doctor, one she knew and… and cared about just as much as she had her old Doctor.

“There’s not a second bedroom because…”

She turned around and looked at the Doctor.

“Because I told the app I was looking for a house for two.”

Rose had to laugh at the sheepish look on his face. “And it didn’t occur to you that if you said you wanted a holiday house for two, the program would assume you meant a couple?” she guessed.

“Well I’ve never been part of a couple,” he retorted.

The way he said it made her breath catch in her throat for a second, but Rose forced herself to relax. He wasn’t saying he was part of a couple now—just that his lack of experience led to this particular thing.

His next words proved it. “Anyway, I don’t really sleep,” he said. “I can just sit in the living room and read all night, while you sleep the day away.”

Rose stuck her tongue out at him. “You won’t be able to say there’s no night on a time machine when we are actually on a planet,” she reminded him.

The Doctor swallowed a sigh. Rose wasn’t arguing with his offer to sleep on the love seat, and he was honestly a little disappointed. Not that… not that he’d done this on purpose, or even was certain he wanted to share a bed with her. Well, he knew he wanted to share a bed with her, he just wasn’t sure it was wise.

But regardless of desire or wisdom on his part, it would have been nice to see a little bit of interest on her face. He shook his head and quickly carried out the rest of the tour. He was eager to dispel some of the awkwardness, and he knew exactly how to do that.

As soon as they saw the kitchen, dining room, and the loo, he grabbed Rose’s hand and dragged her towards the door. “Come on!” he said.

Rose resisted, just a little. “Let me put my things back on,” she said. She grabbed her hat, gloves, and scarf from the table and quickly pulled them all on. “There, I’m ready. Let’s go have this winter adventure.”

The Doctor beamed at her, then ran out the door. “The first order of business is a snowman contest,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back.

“Like, we each build a snowman and the best one wins?” Rose asked.

The Doctor bounced slightly and nodded his head, and Rose started laughing. “And who is going to judge this contest, when we’re the only ones here?”

The Doctor sniffed. “I’ll have you know I can be a very impartial judge when the situation calls for it,” he said.

Rose shook her head, but she bent down and started packing snow together. “Yeah, all right,” she agreed. “It’ll be fun, even if the contest does end in a draw.”

“You know you’re admitting that you would be a biased judge,” the Doctor informed her. He squatted down in the snow facing the opposite direction and started working.

“At least I’m being honest,” she retorted.

He didn’t really have an answer for that, so he focused on his work. This had to be the absolute best snowman ever built, so that even Rose would have to vote for it.

He rolled snow into a single, giant ball. From there, his work little resembled building a snowman. He spent more time carving out snow and packing some onto other spots than he did rolling balls and using sticks to create limbs. Finally, he stepped back and nodded, satisfied with his creation.

“Are you done over here?” Rose asked. “Ooh, you made a snow Boe,” she said, immediately recognising the alien they’d met twice now.

“Yep!”

The Doctor brushed some excess snow off the front of the ‘glass.’ “What did you make?”

Rose bit her lip. “I… well, come see.”

He turned around and walked with her to her snow creation. The gasp, followed by a stunned silence, were all she needed.

“A snow TARDIS?” he said. “We said snowman, though. Or snow person.”

He sounded a little choked up, but when Rose looked at him, his eyes were dry.

She reached out and touched the door. “Well… she is a person, isn’t she? Maybe not quite like you or me, but she’s so real. I love it when she talks to me.”

The Doctor blinked and stared at her. “When she… You can understand her?” he demanded.

Rose nodded. “Yeah… I have ever since…”

She let the sentence dangle, but they both knew how it ended. At least, they both knew part of the story. Rose pursed her lips when she remembered that he still hadn’t told her the full story of what had happened on the Game Station. The last thing she remembered was staring into the TARDIS console and seeing a stream of gold light float around her. Then she woke up on the grating and he was dying.

The Doctor swallowed hard. Rose had not been telepathic before Bad Wolf. He was almost certain of it. Part of him wanted to call up the driver and ask to be taken home immediately so he could run tests on her. If Bad Wolf had changed that part of her, who knew what else had happened.

But this was a holiday, he reminded himself. And really, the TARDIS did talk, so why was it so shocking and distressing that Rose could understand her?

He shook his head. “We’ll come back to that later,” he said, more to himself than to her. “But for now…”

He looked at his giant face made out of snow and then back at Rose’s snow TARDIS. Truthfully, his creation was more intricate. But Rose’s… Rose’s was more meaningful.

“You win.”

oOoOo

The light was already fading when Rose spotted the first snowflake. “Oh, brilliant.” She stuck her tongue out and caught it.

“What’s so brilliant about it?” the Doctor asked. “By which I mean, you’ve been playing in the snow for all day. I’d think the novelty would have worn off by now.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we’ve been playing in the snow,” she said, gesturing at the trampled snow. “And there’s not much left to play in, because we’ve either built snowmen or made snowballs or just stomped it down with our boots. This is fresh snow, Doctor.”

He leaned back and looked at the sky. “And lots of it,” he observed. Snow was falling steadily now. “Come on, let’s go inside and watch this through the window. Wasn’t that one of the things you wanted? Sitting next to a fireplace and watching the snow fall?”

“Yeah, all right.”

Ten minutes later, they were sitting cosily on the love seat, cocoa in hand. Not for the first time, Rose cursed the owners of this cabin. Only one bed, only a love seat… Sure it was a tiny cabin, but that didn’t mean that it would always be rented by a couple. Sitting here with her shoulder brushing against the Doctor’s every time either of them moved their arm made it hard to… it just made it hard.

She shifted her cocoa to her left hand so she wouldn’t be tempted to do something stupid, like rest it on his knee. The quiet was giving her brain too much time to think and worry, so she cast about for something to talk about.

She found it, resting on the coffee table in front of them. “You have penguin socks,” she said, staring at the bright blue socks with a dancing penguins pattern.

The Doctor wiggled his toes. “Yep! It’s fun to be thematically appropriate.” He looked at her seriously. “You should always match your socks to your day.”

Rose shook her head. “You’re barmy.”

“I am not!” He pointed at her feet. “Look, you’ve got on thick, fuzzy socks. Perfect for lounging around in a cosy cabin during a snow storm.”

“Yeaaaaah…” Rose drawled. “They’re perfect for the weather, not for the theme of the day.”

The Doctor sniffed. “I’d argue that there’s not much of a difference at the moment.”

Rose tilted her head, silently acknowledging his point. The teasing had relieved some of the tension, and they settled back into quiet, watching the big, fluffy snowflakes fall past the window.

The snow didn’t stop all evening. In fact, it just kept coming harder and harder as they made dinner and settled back in the living room to watch reruns of By the Light of the Asteroid.

Rose went to bed earlier than she normally would, a little tired from all the physical exertion earlier in the day. She normally had a hard time falling asleep without the hum of the TARDIS surrounding her, but the stillness of the snowfall seemed to quiet her mind just as well.

A harsh whistling woke her up some time later. She lay in bed for a few minutes, trying to place the sound. Finally, curiosity drove her to get up, leaving behind the soft, cosy covers to investigate.

The air was chillier than it had been, and she pulled on the thick dressing gown she’d brought before leaving her room. The faint glow of firelight told her the Doctor was still awake, though she hadn’t really expected him to sleep on that love seat.

The sound accompanied her into the living room, and she understood it as soon as she joined the Doctor by the window. What had been soft snowfall had turned into a sheet of white swirling around the house.

“Bit of a storm,” he said.

Rose rolled her eyes. “It’s a blizzard, Doctor. A proper blizzard.”

The Doctor tugged on his ear. “Well… I suppose.”

They stared out at the literal white-out conditions for a few more minutes, and then he said, “This changes our perfect winter holiday a bit. We certainly aren’t going out in that.”

Rose snorted. “Definitely not. I don’t fancy getting lost in the snow and dying of hypothermia. That was not part of those holiday movies we talked about.”

To her surprise, the Doctor spun around, a wide smile on his face. “But don’t worry,” he said. “I have a plan for this.”

Despite the smile, Rose saw the uncertainty in his eyes. She slid her arm around his waist and gave him a half-hug. “I know—” A yawn interrupted her sentence. “I know you do,” she said.

The Doctor returned Rose’s half-hug, hoping she felt his gratitude in the gesture. Rose always rolled with the unpredictability of their life, so he’d known she wouldn’t be upset. But the level of trust she gave him would always humble him.

She yawned again, and he chuckled and gently nudged her towards the bedroom. “Go back to bed. I’ll have everything ready in the morning.” He watched her shuffle down the hallway before turning back the window.

A feeling of inevitability swirled around him just as much as the snow swirled around the house. When he’d suggested a winter adventure, he hadn’t anticipated a blizzard. Now instead of enjoying all kinds of outdoor winter fun, he and Rose would be snowed in together.

It’s like something out of a Hallmark movie. The Doctor raked his hand through his hair. The hero and heroine end up at a remote cabin in the woods, and then the snow begins to fall…

He swallowed hard. He remembered what usually came next in those movies. The forced proximity created intimacy which led to… feelings rising to the surface.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t have… feelings. He had given a regeneration for her, and his feelings for her had shaped the man he became.

But he didn’t know… He glanced down the hallway towards the bedroom. He was pretty sure Rose had had feelings for his past self. He hadn’t yet sussed out how she felt about this him. Did she know this new, new Doctor was still the old Doctor who… had feelings?

She had asked him to change back. Every time he thought about making a move, he remembered the painful blow of that rejection and changed course. He wanted some kind of sign that she wanted this him before he made any overtures.

“Still,” he muttered, keeping his voice low to not wake Rose up, “the universe has dropped us into the middle of a soppy romance. Maybe that’s the sign I need.”

And with the storm howling outside, the Doctor sat down and plotted the perfect snowed-in day.

#ficandchips #ten x rose #fic by Nancy #doctorroseprompts #31 days of ficmas #mutual pining #so much mutual pining #snowed in #snowman contest #there's lots of winter fun here #cq's fic: let it snow

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agentrouka-blog · 4 years

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ASOIAF - Food symbolism: apples and Jon “You have to choose.”

Inspired by this amazing post by @thoughtsandgrumbles I felt compelled to look at apples a little.

Apples are a deeply symbolic fruit on a good day, but I’m not going to go too deeply into the general use, because who has time for that? I’m looking at the text itself. This post will be all about apples in Jon’s chapters, once I get the preliminary rambles out of the way.

Warning: LONG. Many quotes.

Just a few things:

Popularly associated with temptation and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden of eden, the realization of being nekkid, the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise as a result. (That would botanically not have been an apple, though.)

The apple “to the fairest” handed out by Eris, godess of discord, for Paris to choose among the three godesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, ultimately leading to the Trojan War, which GRRM heavily draws from.

Snow White and the poison apple

Sansa is the name of a variety of apple that was developed in the 1970s, an early ripening mix of Gala and Akane.

Just by the general use, we get a theme of choice and destruction. Also Sansa is an apple. But - spoiler alert - that is NOT very central in Jon’s chapters. YET.

Also, some boring numbers, because this is not as easy a fruit as the persimmon to parse for the sheer amount of them:

Apples in general have 155 mentions in all searchable publications, 135 in the novels directly, 22 in Jon chapters. Only 9 of all the novel-mentions concern House Fossoway, 11 in the other literature.

Top chapter uses:

AFFC, Prologue - 14: Oldtown, Quill and Tankard inn backyard. Alleras shoots them with bow and arrow while the acolyte nerd squad discusses Dany and her dragon rumors. "Where's Rosey? Our rightful queen deserves another round of cider, wouldn't you say?" The apples are withered and wormy, the cider is fearsomely strong. Pate agonizes over his betrayal and theft for his creepy, obsessive love. His choice is “love”. Then he is killed. Complex.

ADWD, Jon V - 11: Jon passes out food and asks the wildlings at Mole’s Town to choose if they want to fight for the NW or not. Apples and onions, you have to choose. The apples are withered.

ADWD, Davos II - 7: Getting information about Manderly from an apple seller in White Harbor. Bad apple, good information. Theme in WH: who are you truly loyal to? The apple is dry and mealy, “bad”. Apples and onions, again.

ASOS, Bran III - 5, and ASOS, Jon V - 3: (8 combined) Rotten apples carpet the ground near an abandoned Queenscrown inn. They provide the background for Jon’s break with the Wildling Undercover Operation and flight back to the Watch. Theme: the abandonment of the Gift, the decline of the Watch, the Dream of Spring and Jon really doesn’t even really pretend to want a future with Ygritte. He chooses. The apples are rotten.

POV uses: Jon 22, Arya 18, Prologue AFFC 14, Sansa 13, Davos 8, Jaime 8, Bran 8, Tyrion 8, Brienne 6, Catelyn 6, Dany 5, Eddard 5, Cersei 3, Theon 3, Samwell 2 JonCon 1, Asha 1, Quentyn 1, Arianne 1, Areo Hotah 1, Prologue ADWD: 1.

Jon is not only the single top POV character to feature the apple, he also has two of the top-use chapters that give the apple significance in setting the background. The apple is very closely tied to Jon.

A short note on the red apple Fossoways (Cider Hall) and the green apple Fossoways (New Barrel):

The branches split at the trial of seven at the Tourney at Ashford (of the Ashford Theory), where the red apple fought for the bad guys (Aerion Targaryen) and the green apple for Ser Duncan the Tall.

Both had the red apple of the Fossoways painted on their shields, but the younger man's was soon hacked and chipped to pieces. "Here's an apple that's not ripe yet," the older said as he slammed the other's helm. (…)

"Ser Raymun, if you please." He cantered up, a grim smile lighting his face beneath his plumed helm. "My pardons, ser. I needed to make a small change to my sigil, lest I be mistaken for my dishonorable cousin." He showed them all his shield. The polished golden field remained the same, and the Fossoway apple, but this apple was green instead of red. "I fear I am still not ripe . . . but better green than wormy, eh?"

(The Hedge Knight)

Again with the split of loyalty, with the following your moral code, with the choices.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So how do apples feature for Jon himself?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apples are connected to Jon’s struggle of loyalty to the Night’s Watch, and with his inner struggle in general. Every time they show up, he is confronted with a choice of who to stay loyal to, what values to follow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First apple: AGOT, Jon IX.

Jon’s final chapter in the book. Big Drama!

Jon eats a brown, withered apple when he tries to flee the NW the first time. He is heading South because his father has been killed and he wants to join Robb. He is plagued by self-doubt and fear. Then he takes a break to eat.

In his saddlebag, he found a biscuit, a piece of cheese, and a small withered brown apple. (...) He kept the apple for last. It had gone a little soft, but the flesh was still tart and juicy. He was down to the core when he heard the sounds: horses, and from the north.

Straight after, he is caught and prodded back in an incredibly moving, nonviolent confrontation by his new Brothers reciting the NW vows.

"… and all the nights to come," finished Pyp. He reached over for Jon's reins. "So here are your choices. Kill me, or come back with me."

Jon lifted his sword … and lowered it, helpless. "Damn you," he said. "Damn you all."

In his mind, Jon is determined to try and escape again, but the next day, Mormont lets him know they knew what happened.

Jon’s throat was dry. “You know?” “Know,” the raven echoed from Mormont’s shoulder. “Know.” The Old Bear snorted. “Do you think they chose me Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch because I’m dumb as a stump, Snow? Aemon told me you’d go. I told him you’d be back. I know my men … and my boys too. Honor set you on the kingsroad … and honor brought you back.” “My friends brought me back,” Jon said. “Did I say it was your honor?” Mormont inspected his plate.

Jon thinks he’ll be executed. Instead, he will be taken along to the great ranging beyond the Wall.

“So I will have an answer from you, Lord Snow, and I will have it now. Are you a brother of the Night’s Watch … or only a bastard boy who wants to play at war?” Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath. Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran … forgive me, I cannot help you. He has the truth of it. This is my place. “I am … yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run again.” The Old Bear snorted. “Good. Now go put on your sword.”

Apple = choice. The choice is the Watch. Because the war against the Others is more important.

Apple Quality: Brown and whithered. But still tart and juicy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Second apple: ACOK, Jon I

A former green apple (the valiantly knightly Fossoway kind) is to be dispatched from the Wall to garner support from a Baratheon king...

"Renly is not like to heed a quaking fat boy. I'll send Ser Arnell. He's a deal steadier, and his mother was one of the green-apple Fossoways."

"If it please my lord, what would you have of King Renly?"

The conversation turns toward maester Aemon, his repeated refusal to become king and the incredibly foreshadowy information about the ending of the dragon line.

It made him feel odd. “My lord, why have you told me this, about Maester Aemon?” “Must I have a reason?” Mormont shifted in his seat, frowning. “Your brother Robb has been crowned King in the North. You and Aemon have that in common. A king for a brother.” “And this too,” said Jon. “A vow.” (…)

Jon drew himself up, taut as a bowstring. “And if it did trouble me, what might I do, bastard as I am?” “What will you do?” Mormont asked. “Bastard as you are?” “Be troubled,” said Jon, “and keep my vows.”

Apple = choice. The choice is the Watch. The bigger picture is more important.

Apple Quality: green and unripe. (But honorable.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Third apple: ACOK, Jon VII

Jon and the Qhorin Halfhand crew are on the losing side of a game of cat and mouse with the warg-powered wildlings. Squire Dalbridge is about to sacrifice his life by going to shoot the Wildlings that are stalking them.

The squire bowed his head. "Leave me as many arrows as you can spare, brothers." He stroked his longbow. "And see my garron has an apple when you're home. He's earned it, poor beastie."

He's staying to die, Jon realized.

And that’s almost right at the end of the chapter. This is the only apple chapter where Jon is NOT immediately confronted with a moral dilemma of loyalty or the making of choices. And Dalbridge’s self-sacrifice, his off-page death, all of that means it’s a more long-term projection of the dilemma.

The next, final chapter, Jon and Qhorin Halfhand are captured and he is compelled to kill Qhorin to prove himself a turncloak to the Wildlings, in order to start his Undercover Operation.

The flames were burning low by then, the warmth fading. “The fire will soon go out,” Qhorin said, “but if the Wall should ever fall, all the fires will go out.” There was nothing Jon could say to that. He nodded. “We may escape them yet,” the ranger said. “Or not.” “I’m not afraid to die.” It was only half a lie. “It may not be so easy as that, Jon.” He did not understand. “What do you mean?”

(…)

Rattleshirt’s bone armor clattered loudly as he laughed. “Then kill the Halfhand, bastard.” “As if he could,” said Qhorin. “Turn, Snow, and die.” And then Qhorin’s sword was coming at him and somehow Longclaw leapt upward to block. The force of impact almost knocked the bastard blade from Jon’s hand, and sent him staggering backward. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you.

(…)

He knew, he thought numbly. He knew what they would ask of me. He thought of Samwell Tarly then, of Grenn and Dolorous Edd, of Pyp and Toad back at Castle Black. Had he lost them all, as he had lost Bran and Rickon and Robb? Who was he now? What was he?

“Get him up.” Rough hands dragged him to his feet. Jon did not resist. “Do you have a name?” Ygritte answered for him. “His name is Jon Snow. He is Eddard Stark’s blood, of Winterfell.”

(ACOK, Jon VIII)

Ouch. From this point on, Jon will have to make his own choices, no longer guided by other people’s rules, other people’s honor. The choices will be harder, lonelier. They will be contradictory, they will involve even more tangible loss. They will involve dishonor. The reward is as distant as home. Sacrifice. Death.

But one day, the poor beastie will get an apple, he will have earned it.

Apple = choice. The choice is the Watch. The bigger picture.

Apple quality: unknown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fourth apple: ASOS, Jon I

As inconspicuously as above, the apple features in a memory of home, featuring not-yet-deserter Mance Rayder at Winterfell, meeting Robb and Jon up to shennanigans:

“I remember,” said Jon with a startled laugh. A young black brother on the wallwalk, yes … “You swore not to tell.”

"And kept my vow. That one, at least."

"We dumped the snow on Fat Tom. He was Father's slowest guardsman." Tom had chased them around the yard afterward, until all three were red as autumn apples. "But you said you saw me twice. When was the other time?"

"When King Robert came to Winterfell to make your father Hand," the King-beyond-the-Wall said lightly. (ASOS, Jon I)

A neat connection between desertion, vow-keeping and the events that led Jon to take his own path to the Wall. Before Meeting Mance, Ygritte has been praising the values of being “free” like the good Little Wildling Propagandist that she is. But Jon isn’t biting yet.

The following conversation gives the backstory of Mance Rayder’s desertion from the Wall. It was over a cloak, mended by a Wildling woman who tended to him while he was injured.

“And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me.” He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. “But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears … and most of all, no red. The men of the Night’s Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said. “I left the next morning … for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose.” He closed the clasp and sat back down again. “And you, Jon Snow?”

Jon uses Mance’s story of visiting Winterfell to spin his own lie:

“And did you see where I was seated, Mance?” He leaned forward. “Did you see where they put the bastard?” Mance Rayder looked at Jon’s face for a long moment. “I think we had best find you a new cloak,” the king said, holding out his hand.

What will the bastard do? Be troubled and keep his vows. So far, so true. But he did kill Qhorin Halfhand, he is pretending to be a deserter. Lines are a lot more blurry than they used to be.

Apple = choice. The choice is… the Night’s Watch. Shifting more and more toward simply the bigger picture.

Apple quality: red autumn apple.

Red silk patches. Conflicting values. Women. There is uncertainty on the horizon.

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Fifth apple. ASOS Jon V. BIG apple chapter.

His final confrontation as an Undercover Wildling.

This confrontation takes place at the abandoned tower and village of Queenscrown, which gets a closer description in the accompanying Bran chapter:

No one had lived in the village for long years, Bran could see. All the houses were falling down. Even the inn. It had never been much of an inn, to look at it, but now all that remained was a stone chimney and two cracked walls, set amongst a dozen apple trees. One was growing up through the common room, where a layer of wet brown leaves and rotting apples carpeted the floor. The air was thick with the smell of them, a cloying cidery scent that was almost overwhelming. Meera stabbed a few apples with her frog spear, trying to find some still good enough to eat, but they were all too brown and wormy.

(ASOS, Bran III)

The abandonment of Brandon’s Gift is a subject of conflict between Jon and Ygritte. A carpet of rotting apples. It opens the very next Jon chapter, as they are on the way to Queenscrown. Ygritte mocks the farmers who left the Gift as fools. Jon doesn’t take the bait yet. He briefly indulges in a fantasy of introducing Ygritte to Winterfell before being overcome with guilt and shame again. Ygritte is super great at reading his mood:

“Might be after we could come back here, and live in that tower,” she said. “Would you want that, Jon Snow? After?”

He doesn’t think about it, doesn’t answer for a while, it rather reminds him of Ned’s Dream of Spring, the plan to resettle the Gift. The Starks and the Watch.

If winter had come and gone more quickly and spring had followed in its turn, I might have been chosen to hold one of these towers in my father’s name. Lord Eddard was dead, however, his brother Benjen lost; the shield they dreamt together would never be forged. “This land belongs to the Watch,” Jon said. Her nostrils flared. “No one lives here.”

Jon isn’t even tempted. Like, no, Jon, Bambi, you did not love this person, no matter what your telling yourself later. He doesn’t even really contemplate it.

Instead of bonding them closer together, Ygritte’s invitation to make long-term plans has the opposite effect. It fans the flames of what divides them. They argue about raiding and rape. Ygritte spouts nonsense.

“You know nothing, Jon Snow. Daughters are taken, not wives. You’re the ones who steal. You took the whole world, and built the Wall t’ keep the free folk out.”

Ygritte, no, that is not why the Wall was built. You think they built a gargantuan magic ice structure to keep out Styr, Magnar of Thenn, or what? Really? Jon is also sceptical of this version of history:

“Did we?” Sometimes Jon forgot how wild she was, and then she would remind him. “How did that happen?”

"The gods made the earth for all men t' share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs. My trees, they said, you can't eat them apples. My stream, you can't fish here. My wood, you're not t' hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I'll chop 'em off, but maybe if you kneel t' me I'll let you have a sniff. You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t' be brave and clever and quick. A kneeler only has t' kneel."

Ygritte is basically a bland political extremist. I could sympathize with her criticism of feudal culture if it didn’t come hand in hand with her passionate defense of violent theft and rape culture. Like, you paragon of intelligence, not everyone resides at the fair top of the food chain like you do in your peak fitness status within your warrior culture. But of course, rape is fun! Just bring a knife!

"Harma and the Bag of Bones don't come raiding for fish and apples. They steal swords and axes. Spices, silks, and furs. They grab every coin and ring and jeweled cup they can find, casks of wine in summer and casks of beef in winter, and they take women in any season and carry them off beyond the Wall."

Apples in a breath with women. People should not be “stolen”. But Ygritte thinks men who successfully abduct and rape women are sexy. She’s like Dany that way. There are some cultural divides that cannot be pretended away, and their entire conversation circles around it. Jon is plagued by terrible guilt, he tries to warn Ygritte that their plan is doomed, she (rightfully) suspects his loyalty to the Wildlings and Jon believes himself in love but he never wavers in his actual allegiance to the NW.

She grinned at that, showing Jon the crooked teeth that he had somehow come to love. Wildling to the bone, he thought again, with a sick sad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He flexed the fingers of his sword hand, and wondered what Ygritte would do if she knew his heart. Would she betray him if he sat her down and told her that he was still Ned Stark’s son and a man of the Night’s Watch? He hoped not, but he dare not take that risk.

GRRM is going out of his way to undermine the supposed romance by constantly referring to the conflict between them and the apples-of-choice are just all over.

Anyway, Jon is thoroughly eaten by guilt over having to betray these human beings who are a vicious and brutal threat to the place and people he loves and swore to protect. His true identity is hinted at:

Jon wondered where Ghost was now. Had he gone to Castle Black, or was he was running with some wolfpack in the woods? He had no sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone. He did not want to die alone.

Ghost. Not Ygritte. Not the wildlings. Not the Watch, even. Ghost. Wolf.

They arrive at the Queenscrown inn and an old man is captured.

Jon walked away. A rotten apple squished beneath his heel. Styr will kill him. The Magnar had said as much at Greyguard; any kneelers they met were to be put to death at once, to make certain they could not raise the alarm. Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them. Did that mean he must stand mute and helpless while they slit an old man's throat?

The apples are rotten. Jon spends one last moment with Ygritte contemplating Queenscrown and then the “kill the old man” business starts. He struggles but ultimately refuses. Bran’s wolf Summer disrupts the tension with a bloody attack and Jon doesn’t hesitate to Escape. Like when they met, Jon didn’t slit Ygritte’s throat, but she slit the old man’s. He will not shoot arrows at her, but she did at him. Love.

Thunder rumbled softly in the distance, but above him the clouds were breaking up. Jon searched the sky until he found the Ice Dragon, then turned the mare north for the Wall and Castle Black. The throb of pain in his thigh muscle made him wince as he put his heels into the old man’s horse. I am going home, he told himself. But if that was true, why did he feel so hollow?

Apple = choice. The choice is… NOT Ygritte. NOT the Wildlings. Time and again. But it also isn’t the Watch. Not as it had been before. Jon followed his instincts, his inner values, but it had a cost, it is hard. Jon is lost.

Apple Quality: rotten.

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Sixth apple: ASOS, Jon VII

The Battle at Castle Black They await the attack, Jon and Satin share a meal. And they get a nod to Renly’s peach quote:

"Eat," Jon told him. "There's no knowing when you'll have another chance." He took two buns himself. The nuts were pine nuts, and besides the raisins there were bits of dried apple. (ASOS, Jon VII)

Compare to Renly, which also took place before a nightly sneak attack.

"A man should never refuse to taste a peach," Renly said as he tossed the stone away. "He may never get the chance again. Life is short, Stannis. Remember what the Starks say. Winter is coming." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. (ACOK, Catelyn III)

Peaches have an air of incest and hedonism about them, nostalgia and summer, Baratheons and Arya and Asha. The apple is different. It’s about choice, about conflicted loyalty and personal values, about identity and the bigger picture. (And again and again, they connect to women.)

Jon commands part of the fight, it’s grim. He recognizes some of the wildlings as they pepper them with arrows but cannot shoot at who he thinks is Ygritte. Wildlings die, his brothers die. The battle is brutal, Jon’s POV is distant. Satin remains by his side all throughout, grounding him. Jon remembers advice from Theon, from Ned. They eventually beat the wildling attackers with a horrifying fire trap on the stairs, they win. Immediately after, Jon goes looking for Ygritte, Satin still by his side.

The ice crystals had settled over her face, and in the moonlight it looked as though she wore a glittering silver mask. The arrow was black, Jon saw, but it was fletched with white duck feathers. Not mine, he told himself, not one of mine. But he felt as if it were.

We get a Dany-Val nod…

The light of the half-moon turned Val's honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. "The air tastes sweet."

"My tongue is too numb to tell. All I can taste is cold." (ADWD, Jon VIII)

...and a lovely double-layered “not mine, not one of mine”. Not his arrows, but he feels guilty. She is not his pack, but he feels guilty.

She just smiled at that. “D’you remember that cave? We should have stayed in that cave. I told you so.” “We’ll go back to the cave,” he said. “You’re not going to die, Ygritte. You’re not.” “Oh.” Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she sighed, dying.

Jon struggles to let go of the fantasy. He is loyal to the cause of the Watch, if not the letter of the vows, but he knows now that his souls want more. He indulges Ygritte’s fantasy of returning because it’s the only thing he has, the only thing he can offer.

Apple = choice. The choice is… the Watch. But painfully. Numbly. No passion. Duty.

Apple quality: dried.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seventh apple: ASOS, Jon X

Tormund’s daughter Munda.

After vicious attacking Janos Slynt for insulting Ned Stark during a hiostile interrogation in the previous chapter, Jon is sent to kill Mance Rayder under the pretense of parley to prove his loyalty. He is resigned and shame-filled, contemplating his future, where he will be remembered in honorless infamy. Much bitterness, plenty of woe. His reception by Tormund is surprisingly jovial. They drink mead to honor their fallen Donal Noye and Ygritte, with surprisingly little bitterness. It helps Jon return some of his cheer.

"You bloody crows." Tormund's tone was gruff, yet strangely gentle. "That Longspear stole me daughter. Munda, me little autumn apple. Took her right out o' my tent with all four o' her brothers about.” Toregg slept through it, the great lout, and Torwynd … well, Torwynd the Tame, that says all that needs saying, don’t it? The young ones gave the lad a fight, though.”

“And Munda?” asked Jon. “She’s my own blood,” said Tormund proudly. “She broke his lip for him and bit one ear half off, and I hear he’s got so many scratches on his back he can’t wear a cloak. She likes him well enough, though. And why not? He don’t fight with no spear, you know. Never has. So where do you think he got that name? Har!” Jon had to laugh. Even now, even here.

Autumn apple. Stolen women. Cloak.

Stealing women was a hot topic with Ygritte and Jon is immediately concerned, but is reassured. The tenor of the conversation is conciliatory, while he is revealed to be loyal to the Watch, there is mutual respect. In Jon’s thoughts, Ygritte becomes a mentor voice, drifting away from the romantic woe of before.

Easy for you to say, he thought back. You died brave in battle, storming the castle of a foe. I’m going to die a turncloak and a killer. Nor would his death be quick, unless it came on the end of Mance’s sword.

Similarly to Dany later, Jon is arguing with dead beloved abusers in his head, like she will do in ADWD with Viserys. Ygritte is less obviously horrific, but the “voices in my head” aspect and the sheer idealising that both of them engage in feels disconcerting. Never the less, we see Jon’s current identity status on Facebook is “turncloak”. Not Night’s Watch.

The rest of Mance’s “court” is less welcoming, but Mance draws him in for a private conference. The Horn of Winter is revealed, the mutual cause of the Wildlings and the Night’s Watch is identified.

“If I sound the Horn of Winter, the Wall will fall. Or so the songs would have me believe. There are those among my people who want nothing more …” “But once the Wall is fallen,” Dalla said, “what will stop the Others?”

(Dalla has the brains that Ygritte lacked. Why can SHE not be Jon’s mentor?)

Mance offers to hand over the Horn of Joramun if they let the Wildlings pass through the Wall, or he will destroy the Wall in three days. Jon hesitates because he fears they will ransack the place, but he also has no negotiating credit with Thorne and Slynt. He contemplates just smashing the Horn, when suddenly Stannis attacks. The Wildlings are smashed, a helpless Jon enters the tent with Val to attend Dalla.

He is just... disillusioned.

Apple = choice. The choice is… the bigger picture. The Watch is headed by irrational scum, the Wildlings are no less dangerous to the North than they were before and Jon has no hope of saving his ruined reputation either way. He was about to murder Mance, then about to smash his bargaining chip, yet he has no ill will toward them. Only a depressed, numb resignation to preventing the worst of all outcomes.

Apple Quality: autumn apple.

Again with the autumn apple. There are only 3 “autumn apples” in the books, all in ASOS. Jon I (above with Mance), Samwell II, and Jon X here.

In Jon I it connected Mance’s disloyalty to the Watch to the red-and-black cloak given to him by a woman. Also Bael the Bard, deception and stealing. Jon consults his inner values, and chooses pragmatism. His break with “blind” honor will leave him flailing a bit.

In Jon X it specifically refers to a young woman being stolen. Jon consults his inner values, he chooses the bigger picture, but he’s frayed and his choice is interrupted. Stannis will offer him Winterfell. Ghost will remind him of who he is. Ultimately, he will become Lord Commander and his struggle with loyalty will cease for a long time.

What’s Sam’s autumn apple about? They are listed with many foodstuffs that the angry NW brother’s at Craster’s after the fight at the Fist of the First Men expect to receive. Mormont just remembered the true purpose of the Watch. Gilly has just given birth to her son. Sam offers to take the boy, Craster gets mad. they bury a dead brother and the mood is mutinous.

“Apples,” said Garth of Greenaway. “Barrels and barrels of crisp autumn apples. There are apple trees out there, I saw ’em.”

A confrontation breaks out and they kill Craster and stab Mormont. Sam’s friends flee, the others raid and rape, Sam cradles a dying Mormont. Some wives approach and order Sam to take Gilly to safety.

Gilly was crying. “Me and the babe. Please. I’ll be your wife, like I was Craster’s. Please, ser crow. He’s a boy, just like Nella said he’d be. If you don’t take him, they will.” “They?” said Sam, and the raven cocked its black head and echoed, “They. They. They.” “The boy’s brothers,” said the old woman on the left. “Craster’s sons. The white cold’s rising out there, crow. I can feel it in my bones. These poor old bones don’t lie. They’ll be here soon, the sons.”

The massive abundance of apples suggests a link to the abundance of women, to the connection to inner values over formal loyalty, to the “stealing” of Gilly to save her. To the massive bigger picture. With Jon it translates to his trademark quick-thinking pragmatism, with Sam it translates to compassion and identifying valuable information.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8th and final apple: ADWD, Jon V - The Grand Appling.

ADWD Jon V is another big apple chapter: you have to choose!

Much time has passed since the last apples were mentioned. Jon is Lord Commander and has sent away Sam, Gilly and maester Aemon. The Wildlings are south of the Wall. Food is a constant worry. Bowen Marsh is upset with Jon, Jon is super-diplomatic. Not. It’s time to bring provisions to the Wildlings at Mole’s Town. A Mirror to Dany in ADWD, Daenerys VI, bringing food to the Astapori refugees. The Wildlings are grumpy. Jon struggles to balance the culture clash between free folk, Stannis’ men and Wildlings.

Pig ignorance, Jon thought. The free folk were no different than the men of the Night’s Watch; some were clean, some dirty, but most were clean at times and dirty at other times.

Jon is much removed from his earlier woeful struggles or idealism. A weary pragmatism guides his every action. Grey.

Apples ensue:

"You can have an onion or an apple," Jon heard Hairy Hal tell one woman, "but not both. You got to pick."

The woman did not seem to understand. "I need two of each. One o' each for me, t'others for my boy. He's sick, but an apple will set him right."

Hal shook his head. "He has to come get his own apple. Or his onion. Not both. Same as you. Now, is it an apple or an onion? Be quick about it, now, there's more behind you."

"An apple," she said, and he gave her one, an old dried thing, small and withered.

"Move along, woman," shouted a man three places back. "It's cold out here."

The woman paid the shout no mind. "Another apple," she said to Hairy Hal. "For my son. Please. This one is so little."

Hal looked to Jon. Jon shook his head. They would be out of apples soon enough. If they started giving two to everyone who wanted two, the latecomers would get none.

"Out of the way," a girl behind the woman said. Then she shoved her in the back. The woman staggered, lost her apple, and fell. The other foodstuffs in her arms went flying. Beans scattered, a turnip rolled into a mud puddle, a sack of flour split and spilled its precious contents in the snow.

Apples are once again almost aggressively connected to choices. Apples or onions. Not both. You have to pick.

Barring another meta, I can’t really say what the onion is supposed to represent. Some things that echoe Jon’s apple themes:

His sons were good fighters and better sailors, but they did not know how to talk to lords. They were lowborn, even as I was, but they do not like to recall that. When they look at our banner, all they see is a tall black ship flying on the wind. They close their eyes to the onion. (ACOK, Davos I)

Denial.

Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men. (ACOK, Daenerys III)

Faithlessness.

The feast was a meager enough thing, a succession of fish stews, black bread, and spiceless goat. The tastiest thing Theon found to eat was an onion pie. Ale and wine continued to flow well after the last of the courses had been cleared away. (ACOK, Theon II)

Theon about to be ordered to attack Winterfell. Betrayal.

The last time it was life I brought to Storm's End, shaped to look like onions. This time it is death, in the shape of Melisandre of Asshai. (ACOK, Davos II)

Life and death brought by the same person.

Melisandre’s manichean world view vs. Davos’ more encompassing one:

"What if I am? It seems to me that most men are grey."

"If half of an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil." (ACOK, Davos II)

Bless you Sam.

Hungry as he was, Sam knew he would retch if he so much as tried a bite. How could they eat the poor faithful garrons who had carried them so far? When Craster's wives brought onions, he seized one eagerly. One side was black with rot, but he cut that part off with his dagger and ate the good half raw. (ASOS, Samwell II)

Considering apples represent the choice you make to serve an ethical bigger picture (not necessarily loyalty to an order), onions seem to show a contrasting duality of bad and good, a refusal to position oneself honestly, dirty compromises, the darkness in human beings.

Davos’ entire arc circles around being a very decent human being who none the less supports a whole lot of questionable crap. Our resident kraken Theon is torn inside unable to choose between Greyjoy and Stark identity and becomes monstrous.

Melisandre downright denies the existence of grey. The presence of bad cancels out all good. Samwell, on the other hand, embraces the good while disregarding the bad.

Ygritte smelled of onion. Dany eats wild onion on her dragon grassland chapter, Jorah eats onion. Brienne has onion soup on her way to Lady Stoneheart. Jon offers the Wildlings onion soup after they burn their god’s for Melisandre in echange for safety. Dark compromises.

So the choice between apples and onions is the choice to MAKE a choice. Stop hedging your bets or practicing denial, position yourself, one way or the other.

The woman who refuses to choose, loses her apple, loses the fruit that will set her sick son right, loses her cance at following her inner moral compass and doing the right thing.

There is a tussle, Jon tries to rally them with a speech. They are in a Mutiny at Craster’s Keep kind of mood.

“You want more food?” asked Jon. “The food’s for fighters. Help us hold the Wall, and you’ll eat as well as any crow.” Or as poorly, when the food runs short. (…)

“Fight for you?” This voice was thickly accented. Sigorn, the young Magnar of Thenn, spoke the Common Tongue haltingly at best. “Not fight for you. Kill you better. Kill all you.” The raven flapped its wings. “Kill, kill.” Sigorn’s father, the old Magnar, had been crushed beneath the falling stair during his attack on Castle Black. I would feel the same if someone asked me to make common cause with the Lannisters, Jon told himself. “Your father tried to kill us all,” he reminded Sigorn. “The Magnar was a brave man, yet he failed. And if he had succeeded … who would hold the Wall?”

Jon believes in the greyness of men, but he also believes in choices. You don’t have to be perfect to do the right thing. But you have to do the right thing. Or a thing, anyway. You have to choose.

There is more commotion. Jon decides to make it simpler.

"Hal, what was it that you told this woman?"

Hal looked confused. "About the food, you mean? An apple or an onion? That's all I said. They got to pick."

"You have to pick," Jon Snow repeated. "All of you. No one is asking you to take our vows, and I do not care what gods you worship. My own gods are the old gods, the gods of the North, but you can keep the red god, or the Seven, or any other god who hears your prayers. It's spears we need. Bows. Eyes along the Wall. (…)

He recruits, actively.

“The choice is yours,” Jon Snow told them. “Those who want to help us hold the Wall, return to Castle Black with me and I’ll see you armed and fed. The rest of you, get your turnips and your onions and crawl back inside your holes.”

Apples yay, onions nay. Dany killed the slavers of Astapor, and left alive only children under the age of 12. Jon recruit ages 12 and up for the Watch, girls and boys. Dany killed 163 random slavers. Jon recruits 63 Wildlings.

By the time the last withered apple had been handed out, the wagons were crowded with wildlings, and they were sixty-three stronger than when the column had set out from Castle Black that morning.

The apples win out. No more mention of onions in this chapter.

The chapter ends on a grey note, uncertain but hopeful.

Marsh was unconvinced. “You’ve added sixty-three more mouths, my lord … but how many are fighters, and whose side will they fight on? If it’s the Others at the gates, most like they’ll stand with us, I grant you … but if it’s Tormund Giantsbane or the Weeping Man come calling with ten thousand howling killers, what then?” “Then we’ll know. So let us hope it never comes to that.”

Hilariously, it is not the treachery of the apple-choosing wildlings Jon will have to worry about.

The abundance of onions and apples in this chapter sets up the struggle Jon faces in later ADWD chapters. The bigger picture v. Arya. Apples are done, for now, the onions stalk him. He tries to strikes a balance. He hesitates, he sends Mance, he struggles. In the end, the Pink Letter sends him over the edge.

Apples v. onions. Jon has chosen.

Apples = choice. The choices is… NOT the Watch. Arya. The North. The bigger picture. House Stark.

Apple Quality: withered. Like the very first apple.

Jon stood tall. He told himself that he would die well; that much he could do, at the least. “I know the penalty for desertion, my lord. I’m not afraid to die.” “Die!” the raven cried. “Nor live, I hope,” Mormont said, cutting his ham with a dagger and feeding a bite to the bird. (AGOT, Jon IX)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In conclusion:

Apples signal the necessity for Jon make a moral choice according to his own personal values.

Jon always has his eyes on the bigger picture.

His choices becomes increasingly divorced from the concept of loyalty to the Watch.

There is a pronounced conflict between apple and onion, between moral choice and refusal to choose. Jon tries to walk the line between the letter of his vows and his values. He ends up choosing his values. It goes badly.

The quality of the apples has a relationship with the ease of choosing.

whithered apples are fairly clean choices,

rotten apples are traumatic choices,

autumn apples relate to choices influenced by the wisdom of women, the stealing of women.

There is a future apple promised to “the beastie” as a reward.

If we want to draw a connection to the show, Jon will clearly face another apples v. onions conflict and the need to choose will feature heavily. It will go badly. But there is the promise of home and reward.

#asoiaf #fruit symbolism #apples #jon snow #you have to choose #my posts

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whimperwoods · 4 years

Text

Arms of the Enemy (D&D Whump)

This is part 4.

Here are part 1, part 2 , and part 3.

Castor is a warlock, in service to the Great Old One and the Dark Emperor, in that order. Ed is a fighter, a knight and battle master in the service of the True King of Lumenea. They have always been enemies. In the space between the Old One and the Emperor, they might be able to become something else.

(Also, Castor is winging it and Ed is, as usual, recalcitrant. And emotional. It’s been a long day for both of them.)

tw: Gosh, probably something. Aftermath of torture. Mental mess. Ed is easily triggered and maybe paranoid and definitely having a traumatic experience. Physical anxiety symptoms? Yeah we’ll go with that. Physical symptoms of anxiety/trauma.

taglist: @redwingedwhump, @fanastywhump, @insanitywishes @bluebadgerwhump

***************

Ed was deeply, horrifyingly present in his own body, the last place in the world he wanted to be. His body was all he had left to him, the only thing he controlled at all, and he had to keep it breathing, had to keep it conscious, had to keep himself from crying, even as the pain and shame rolled through him in deep, unstoppable waves.

Castor the Black was talking, but the words came to him like he was underwater, like the mage was miles away, and they meant nothing. The mage’s hand carded softly through his hair, and Ed squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about that.

The touch felt good. Comforting. His attention kept falling back toward it, to get away from the pain, and he hated it. Hated it. Couldn’t cry. Couldn’t cry.

He was ashamed of himself, ashamed of lying here, ashamed of letting one of the enemy’s battle mages touch him like this. He should shrug away. Should fight back. The hand in his hair was the only good thing in his world, and he hated it, because it couldn’t be good at all. It wasn’t allowed to be, and he wasn’t allowed to like it.

Heat and cold swirled through him, shame and pain and, when he couldn’t bear to shut it out, comfort.

He had cried, already. He had cried until his body gave out, exhausted by the sobs, and part of him wanted to let go and allow it to happen again. Instead, he breathed, and breathed, and breathed, and kept his breaths steady even as his eyes began to leak tears, hoping that it meant something that he was quiet, this time.

*****

Sir Edmond’s breathing slowly settled, and Castor knew they should move, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Instead, he kept rambling softly, explaining his plan, such as it was, and hoping it was comforting.

“Don’t worry about the change in plans. My master said it would protect us, and like I said, I don’t think the healer’s kit will be missed, or even remembered. There’s no reason for them to look in the stables, not with all the horses accounted for. Not that you’d have been able to ride off on your own, but then, you couldn’t have gotten out on your own, so that hardly matters, either.”

He sighed. “I should move us. Better to hide, protection or not.”

Sir Edmond didn’t respond, still lying listless on the ground beside Castor.

Castor stopped stroking Sir Edmond’s hair and found as whole a patch of shoulder as he could to shake. “Did you hear me, Sir Edmond? I need to know you’re alright with moving. I need to know you won’t try to wriggle away from me. I don’t want to drop you.”

The knight hissed, though Castor couldn’t be sure if it was in pain or anger. He reached down and scooped up Sir Edmond’s hand, holding it in a way he hoped was reassuring. “Hey. I’m not - I know you don’t trust me. I know you have reasons not to. But I have to move you.”

For a moment, he considered thinking to Sir Edmond again, since at least when they spoke telepathically, they could both manage full sentences, but then he thought of the pain of being driven out and he didn’t.

“Just - squeeze my hand if it’s ok to move you. If you won’t try to hurt me or get me to drop you.”

*****

Ed held himself stiff. even as the tension of it hurt and tired him. He couldn’t let Castor the Black think he liked having his hand held, couldn’t let him think he wanted the comfort of that any more than he could let him think he liked having his hair combed through.

He was forcing himself to listen, now, everything the mage said clicking into place and becoming understandable only with a moment’s delay.

He didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t squeeze the mage’s hand. Would they just stay here? There was only so long they could be outside in the open, but he didn’t know where he would be agreeing to go. He focused on breathing, on staying calm, on seeming to be in control of himself.

If they stayed here, they’d be caught eventually. If they were caught, he’d be back in the dungeon, where his captors hadn’t shown any more inclination toward a quick death than the mage had. He had already told them what they wanted to know, betrayed his comrades and his king in a moment of weakness, and whatever awaited him in the dungeon at least couldn’t make that any worse. But he hadn’t been strong enough to hold out, and he wasn’t sure he was strong enough to go back there, to take the pain again, even if it meant getting away from Castor the Black’s sinister games.

His face grew hot. He could give himself over to the man holding his hand, or he could put himself back in the dungeons. To go back - to refuse to cooperate - it seemed more honorable. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. The thought of the dungeons made his breathing speed up, his heart pound, even as his mind skated instinctively away from it.

He couldn’t go back to the dungeon. He didn’t have a choice.

He closed his eyes and squeezed Castor the Black’s hand, knowing he was making a deal with the devil.

*****

Castor relaxed as soon as he felt Sir Edmond’s hand squeeze his, and squeezed gently back, acknowledging the answer. Good. Good. They were on the same page, as impossible as that still seemed if he thought about it too hard.

He let go of Sir Edmond’s hand and brushed the man’s hair off his forehead before getting to his feet to get a good look around them in the dark.

No one seemed to be coming, which was good. He’d been careful when he’d charmed the guards, been careful not to push too hard, not to say anything that would tell them definitively that he planned to take Sir Edmond with him, rather than just paying his old enemy an unsupervised visit. Maybe they wouldn’t look into the cell. Maybe they’d just return to their posts, assuming he’d roughed the knight up and left. But no, they would at least check to make sure he was gone. And then they’d find out that Sir Edmond was, too.

He closed his eyes and reached outward with his awareness, feeling for other minds and finding none within the admittedly limited range of his telepathy.

He squatted back down beside Sir Edmond and started packing up the little he’d taken out of the healer’s kit. “Alright,” he said quietly, “I can’t sense anyone coming. If we’re lucky, the guards will spend some time looking for you before they sound the alarm. They’re human, so until they call in someone else, their vision will be limited in the dark.”

Sir Edmond didn’t answer, but the knight’s half-dazed eyes met his, and that was good enough for the moment. Castor collected the healer’s kit, straightened up for one more glance toward the castle, and then scooped Sir Edmond up into his arms and tucked the hanging chain from Sir Edmond’s ankle out of the way so he couldn’t trip on it.

*****

Ed wrapped his arms around Castor the Black’s neck, clinging to him with what strength he had left, only to find that the man’s grip on him was surprisingly solid.

He tried to think about that, instead of the pain that jolted through him with every one of the mage’s steps, or the fact that he was being carried like a bride crossing her threshold, curling willingly into the man’s chest where he felt more secure.

Castor the Black was strong for a mage.

That was a problem. Or it could be, at any rate.

They moved more quickly than he’d expected, though the jolts meant he couldn’t focus on where they were going without also focusing on the pain, and he was surprised when they reached a building and Castor the Black carried him inside without hesitation.

He found himself inside a stable, one that looked shockingly normal, and whose horses were apparently unbothered by their presence.

Castor the Black carried him to the ladder that led to the hayloft, then stopped and looked up toward the loft itself. “Shit.”

Ed started shaking, his body responding to the sense that something was wrong even as his brain was still trying to make sense of being inside a place that felt so familiar. Things were falling into place, but it was hard to make sense of it, hard when his body hurt so badly, hard when he kept having emotions that muddied the water.

He shook, and clung tighter to Castor the Black, and hated it.

*****

Castor stared up at the hayloft, the weight of Sir Edmond pulling at his arms. “Ok,” he said softly, “Ok, so we’re not gonna make it up there. There’s an empty stall and we’ll just have to -”

He looked sideways. The block and tackle for hauling the hay up there would never do for getting Sir Edmond up there, and they’d never make it up the ladder if he tried to carry him.

“Yeah, we’ll just have to stay down here.”

Sir Edmond was shaking in his arms. Castor’s brow furrowed. He needed to move. He needed to get Sir Edmond somewhere safe and hidden, so he didn’t have to move him again.

He bit his lip, thinking for a moment, and then moved quickly toward the empty stall farthest back, toward the storeroom. It was a risk being closer to where the horsemaster slept, but he’d risked that once, and it was still less dangerous than someone coming in and happening on them before he could adjust to their entrance.

Setting the knight down was a relief, but instead of turning his face away, Sir Edmond stared back at him, his eyes confused, half-dazed, and locked intently into Castor’s. A shiver ran down Castor’s spine, and he knelt down, laying a hand on Sir Edmond’s forehead. He still didn’t seem feverish, and that still didn’t make sense, and Sir Edmond was still shaking.

“It’s ok,” he said, forcing himself not to break eye contact until the knight did. “I’ve got you. You’re gonna be ok.”

*****

Castor the Black stared into Ed’s eyes, and Ed stared back. He hadn’t gotten an answer to why. Not really. He hadn’t even gotten an answer to what, not that he’d asked. And yet - they held eye contact, the mage staring back at him deeply, intently. Ed’s heart raced and his body shook, every part of him buzzing with the knowledge that something had gone wrong, that something had made the mage swear and change his mind, that whatever this was that he’d just given himself over to was every bit as dangerous as he’d feared.

“You’re gonna be ok,” the man whispered again.

Ed’s head spun. The eyes looking into his were an icy blue in color, but where he expected something cold and hard behind them, he found a soft, open gaze with something warm behind it. He hated it. It had to be a lie. And he’d fallen for it. He’d agreed.

He reached out and grabbed the mage’s sleeve to keep him from pulling away. Finally, the eye contact ended as the other man looked down at his wrist and Ed’s hand wrapped around it.

Ed couldn’t talk. Not the way he wanted to - the way he needed to. He gathered his strength, took a deep breath, and wheezed, “head.”

The ice-blue eyes looked confused, the eyebrows over them contracting. “Does your head hurt? I mean more than the rest?”

Ed grunted in frustration and tugged at the mage’s sleeve, pulling it toward the ground. “Talk,” he managed.

The eyes widened in comprehension and Ed relaxed, letting go of the bloody sweater sleeve.

Then Castor the Black was speaking in Ed’s head again, still half hunched over him, and Ed not to let his revulsion show.

“Is this what you meant?”

Ed fought not to insult the man and managed, narrowly. “Why are you so strong?” he asked, “I don’t understand. What are you doing with me?”

“Oh!” the mage answered, aloud. “Yeah, I’m not -” His voice showed up in Ed’s head again. “I’m a battlemage, but I’m not actually a wizard. It’s - people aren’t supposed to know, because they’re supposed to think my magic’s wide open and limitless and all that but - nobody’s is.”

Ed grunted, impatient.

“I’m not a wizard. What I am has its upsides and its downsides but it mostly just means I - uh - well, I don’t exactly hang out in the library. I train with everybody else.“

That made sense. It mostly made sense. It wasn’t the important part. “Why are we here?” he asked again, “What are you planning to do with me?”

The mage’s eyes were locked into his again, just as intent, and still softly, bewilderingly kind. “I don’t know,” he answered aloud, his voice soft. “I know that’s not the answer you want, but I don’t.”

*****

Castor’s heart raced as he made his admission, looking into Sir Edmond’s dark brown eyes as they started to clear, or at least to focus on his own better than they had before. “What now?” the knight asked, reaching up and grabbing his sleeve again.

Castor sighed. “Now we hunker down for the night and hope nobody finds us.”

Sir Edmond grunted, still displeased.

Castor closed his eyes, sighing. “I offered a look into my head before,” he said. “You won’t find a better answer. I saw what they were doing to you and I acted. I don’t have an answer for that. I can put you back, if you want. I can just let the guards think I wanted to hurt you, too, and pretend I did. Or you can trust me, and we can hide. That’s what now.“

Sir Edmond whined, an unexpected noise of distress, his hand squeezing tighter at Castor’s wrist.

Castor slid down onto his knees, giving up on this being a short conversation.

“I don’t understand,” Sir Edmond said into his mind, pushing again, not as sharply this time, and Castor could feel a deep anguish under the words, an anguish the knight was pushing at him just as hard as the words. “Something’s wrong. What aren’t you telling me?”

A lot of things were wrong. What had happened to Sir Edmond was wrong. Breaking out one of his biggest enemies on an impulse was wrong. Being out here instead of safe in his room. Not having the time he needed to properly clean the man’s wounds while they were next to fresh water. Sir Edmond’s persistent, infuriating stubbornness, and his own inability to be angry about it, to blame the man for putting every ounce of strength he could muster between the two of them and Castor’s goals.

He sighed. “I know. But I’m not - there’s not that much not to tell. We’re here. I can’t get you into the hayloft to hide, so we’re gonna have to make the best of it down here.”

There was another shove against his mind, just the anguish and confusion, without any words, and he wasn’t even sure Sir Edmond knew he was doing it.

He shoved back, trying to focus on the way he’d felt deciding he had to rescue the knight, the way he’d felt when Sir Edmond was unconscious and he could see the wounds he was cleaning in their full horror, the way he’d felt watching the knight grow calmer under his fingertips the way he’d calmed down himself as a boy, having his hair stroked.

“No.” The anguish was still there under Sir Edmond’s words, “I don’t understand. Why are you lying to me? I don’t have anything left. I know something is wrong. I feel it. Why are you making me feel like it’s not? Why are you trying to trick me? I don’t understand.”

Castor didn’t know how to answer. He pulled his wrist out of Sir Edmond’s hands. “I - I’ll explain tomorrow.” He should use his telepathy again, should try to push his honesty at Sir Edmond like the other man was pushing his anguish, but he couldn’t take it, and he stayed away from the knight’s mind, giving in to his own frustration. “We have to hide. And I need rest so I can hide us better tomorrow. Let me finish saving you, and I’ll explain tomorrow.”

The knight’s fingers scrabbled desperately at Castor’s ankles as he stepped away, but he didn’t stop - couldn’t stop. He had no answers. He had no answers and that was hardly something new, but right now - he scrubbed a hand over his face. Right now, it was late. Right now, he was tired. Right now, he couldn’t do anything but try to make the stall as comfortable as he could, and trust that his master meant it when it said it was protecting them.

#whump #fantasy whump #d&d whump #aftermath of torture #hurt/comfort #emotional whump #somehow is most of this even though the plot started with bad physical injuries?#trauma tw #trauma response tw #ptsd tw #anxiety tw #one of those is probably right #just a couple guys who are confused and having a lot of feelings that slow them down #if they're lucky maybe they can eventually have some of those feelings together so they slow them down less #i really wanted to get this to a soft and fluffyish place but instead - this #anyway taking bets on the next installment which will involve either crying or fluff or both #probably both

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passionate-reply · 4 years

Note

what are your thoughts on pre-moog keyboards/organs?

Hi Anon! Thanks for a great question.

Regular readers of Passionate Reply have already probably encountered me griping about the fact that pre-Moog music generally holds little appeal for me. I talked about some similar stuff in my earlier response to a question, “WHAT IS THE OLDEST SONG YOU LIKE?” You can go and read that if you like, but suffice to say music essentially starts with the indispensable “Autobahn,” for me.

But, of course, there was electronic music before Moog. It was rarer and clunkier of course, but here again, regular readers of Passionate Reply know that I love a lot of obscure and/or amateurish electronic music. So what’s the obstacle? In my mind, I think a lot of this comes down to what I often call the musical “DNA” of a work.

In the conventional reckoning of genres, we have this category called “electronic” which is used as a sort of dumping ground for more or less anything that uses electronic instrumentation. “Electronic music” stretches from mainstream dance-pop hitmakers like the Pet Shop Boys to gothic, counter-cultural industrial acts like Skinny Puppy all the way to the loony bin of experimental weirdness that contains the likes of Silver Apples.

Are those really all the same genre? Do they belong in the same bucket? Well, we could talk about that question all day. But I think the main takeaway here is that not all “electronic music” comes from the same sensibility. Electronics are a tool, and music made with electronic instruments is no more inherently homogenous than all music made with strings or percussion is! (Could you imagine if we had a genre, “percussive music,” and we pigeonholed every song with drums into it?)

So, to your question...I like Hammond organs and Mellotrons and the other really early stuff, as instruments, and as sounds. But the consciousness or sensibility of the “electronica” that I enjoy hadn’t formed yet. Of course, part of why it DID form the way it did was because it took a while for synthesiser technology to trickle down and become accessible and affordable enough to enough people for the forging of this shared culture--the soul of electronic music as we know it today. (Once again, I think you can look to Kraftwerk as the first “ideologically electronic” band in this tradition.) During the time of pre-Moog organ technology, nobody was really using it in a manner that I especially sympathize with, and by the time that culture had arisen, that sort of tech was becoming obsolete. That said, given the recent vogue for analogue synthesisers, stylistically lo-fi audio treatments, and other such clunker chic, I’d love to see a contemporary avant-garde musician or two try and incorporate those sorts of instruments into more of a synthwave sound!

Okay, enough rambling. I know a lot of people are just here for the jams, so here are a few choice cuts.

THE OSMONDS - “CRAZY HORSES”

I touched on this one before, mainly aiming to tackle a cover of it by KMFDM. It’s easy to see why they were attracted to it, since it’s considered a proto-hard rock song, and the combination of its chugging rhythm, dark lyrics, and strident Wurlitzer organ riff makes it more or less a blueprint for an industrial track.

STEPPENWOLF - “BORN TO BE WILD”

Another tune firmly in the hard rock tradition, with harsh-edged vocals and that overwhelming sense of sweeping grandeur. Oh, and a Hammond organ. Now THIS, I’d love to hear a real synth cover version of. I first heard this song as a small child, while playing a Tetris knock-off video game that had a supremely dorky MIDI version of it playing in the background--and I was in love! I’m sure that on paper, this is one of those songs that my affinity for seems rather puzzling, but I assure you, it all makes sense. Just imagine that riff on a synthesiser, and that rhythm coming from a drum machine, and you’ll see that it’s not too far off. Metal and industrial are cousins, after all!

#music #steppenwolf #osmonds #the osmonds #electronic music

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secretgamergirl · 4 years

Text

Abuse I’ve just had to sit with forever

Right now I can’t look anywhere without seeing people speaking up about abusive monsters in various positions of power and it’s really triggering a lot of PTSD for me about all the times I’ve been in positions like that where nobody has ever listened or tried to help so... I’m just going to rattle off all the ones that come to my head, anonymously, and I don’t know, if anyone who knows me wants to ask me about any of these and/or try to really do something to help, maybe come talk to me about it through whatever private channel we talk in sometimes.

Family stuff. There’s a lot, and there’s no real way to talk about any of it anonymously because I mean being members of my family it’s already narrowed down way too much.

Someone once put me in the temporary care of a woman who savagely beat me because her own children were making too much noise when they should have been asleep. Bad enough that when I went back to school I was almost ripped out of my home by child protective services on the assumption that’s where it happened. Oh and she also force-fed me rotten food with maggots in it. I ended up pretty sick as a result, lost a whole lot of weight, and ended up with a serious eating disorder that’s plagued me since. I did eventually get out of there but I don’t know that I’ve ever really conveyed the full extend of it.

One of that woman’s children had some sort of torture kink, very nearly killed me, did put me in the hospital from injuries, and might have raped me. Hard to say because I was like... 7? Hard to translate those memories now that I have the context and vocabulary. I tried to explain that to anyone who’d listen at the time but, again, I didn’t have the vocabulary and I don’t think it came across that like... ropes and tools were involved, not just fists. Never got into that with therapists, because the first one I had really loved playing gatekeeper with trans stuff and liked the “maybe you just think you’re a girl because of abuse as a child” line of thinking too much already. I think I heard he eventually landed in prison though, so that’s something?

The first job I ever had. Games website. I was too young to be working but nobody ever thought to ask about it, and my family needed the extra income to avoid homelessness besides. The owner of the site... was really into open sexual roleplay in workplace text chats. I was so young and weirdly sheltered that I didn’t even process that that was even a thing, and 90% of it went straight over my head, plus I was in a weird state at the time with the whole trans thing where oh yeah, if anyone’s doing any roleplaying stuff on the internet, I’ll be in the character of me-but-a-girl but everything is pretend here right? So... there was a whole lot of mounting and thrusting being described and it took a few years to sink in that that was not in fact about him pretending to be a knight with me as a horse or something. And there was also a lot of... failing to pay me for years of backbreaking work, outright stealing from me, and I mean, I was up until like 4 AM every night working while still in high school. So, yeah. that was a lot. Never told anybody about any of this. So far as I know he still runs the site and nobody’s ever confronted him about anything.

Used to try to play various RPGs with some people in this extra niche-y game space. Sort of the first place I was ever read as a woman without offering anyone “corrections.” And... there was just this one guy who whenever he was GMing had some weird creative excuse for my character (usually the only woman in the party) to... be raped and/or impregnated just all of the sudden and totally out of left field. Which everyone was OK with somehow. And when he wasn’t GMing he was all over my character of course. Never really spoke up to anyone. I just left one day.

Ended up... in the inner circle of someone very famous. Mostly famous for being a victim of abuse. Which is why I ignored... every single red flag there is that someone is an abusive person and taking advantage of everyone around them. They controlled every aspect of my life for years. Had me do a whole lot of work for them, place myself in real physical and psychological danger, regularly. Directly asked me to severe ties with most people in my life. Install kill-switch sortware on my laptop for their piece of mind that none of our conversations would ever be seen by anyone, while also making me talk only in privately managed chat services where they logged everything and my screen wiped at regular intervals, and insisting I use an untraceable alias in it. All of this I was constantly assured was for my own safety as much as theirs, somehow, and that I was their most valued friend who they would keep safe, start paying a huge salary to soon, as well as help secure me a safe place to live and get properly started on medical transition stuff that I was unable to do in the increasingly unsafe place I was living at the time. I could keep going with this, but again, I don’t want anyone playing guessing games. Eventually, as serial abusers do, this person got sick of me, cast me out, and said presumably unspeakable things about me to everyone in that social circle, because everyone quite promptly cut all ties to me without a word. I once mentioned some small fraction of this publicly in defense of... multiple people attempting suicide as a result of this person’s abuse, and it was made very, very clear to me that this is not someone I will ever be able to safely speak about in public.

Another person who is very famous, with ties to abuse prevention stuff, added me to a blacklist to kill my career prospects and then kinda put a hit out on me on a neo-nazi website, but I’ve written about that incident. Nothing happened as a result of speaking out aside from the violence I was already being subjected to ramping up and more people cutting ties with me. Oh and those who didn’t are still quite friendly with her.

Several women with ties to... dangerous people randomly got it into their heads several years ago that I posed some sort of threat to someone I am told they “feel very protective towards” and... unleashed a hell on me unlike anything I have ever seen. I have spent the past 6 years now dealing with death threats from far right terrorist organizations who in some cases have very sizeable body counts, and those groups don’t scare me anywhere near as much as these people. Anyone else I have seen them paint a target on completely withdrew from the internet their careers and any sort of public life to try and stay off their radar. I have had multiple people privately confide in me that they had been threatened never to speak to me again before proceeding to make good on that. I have individually thrown myself at the mercy of every single one of them, explained that I have absolutely no ill will towards any of them, and had never even heard of this person they’re “protecting” before they started coming after me. Nothing has worked. They’ve never stopped. I’m legitimately afraid someone connected to them is going to murder me some day, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve confided in all of maybe 3 people about this. One might be dead, one is a total hermit, the third briefly tried supporting me, received threats, and promptly retracted everything, replacing it with a fire and brimstone speech about how I am an evil monster who tricked them. I have regular nightmares about this, and collapse into a shivering heap just seeing any of their names mentioned.

I... spent a good deal of time in social contact with a person I have been told I need to be friends with to advance in a career I would like to pursue. While doing so, he sabotaged a project that was fairly important to me, and I saw some him mistreat someone else in ways I find quite disturbing, but that’s her story to tell and not mine. I don’t feel comfortable around him, and have no real choice but to give up on those dreams. Haven’t really discussed this anywhere. The sort of work I can get would definitely vanish completely if I did.

The sort of work I can get also involves working for a variety of companies with people very high up the ranks who have seriously harmed a number of people I consider to be very good friends, in ways that in some cases include sexual abuse, and I... really would prefer not to ever work for anyone employing such people now that I am aware of this.

Yet another famous person, but one who I feel perfectly comfortable naming, Graham Linehan, used to follow me on social media with a level of enthusiasm that could arguably be better referred to as stalking. Then later he joined some extremist anti-trans hate group and rose to the top pretty quickly. And some years after that, it finally sank in that worshiping a trans woman while also leading a group of people bent on killing us all, so he has been very loudly and very publicly rambling about his hatred for me specifically. I don’t really have to speak up about this one because he’s doing plenty of that on his end, but I do have to note that while this famous person terrorizing me hasn’t really earned me any sort of public defense or sympathy, it has encouraged a whole lot of people to invent an alternate timeline of events where I am directly responsible for him being a bigot, leading to me getting dangerous threats from both horrible bigots and people who claim to hate horrible bigots but have suspiciously poor aim.

Hey speaking of celebrities, one of the stars of Firefly used to regularly send me photos of violently distended testicles. One of the stars of Star Trek once posted something encouraging millions of social media followers to attack me and left it up for a weekend. One of the producers of World of WarCraft once threatened to sue me for libel and went on a big PR tour about it, speaking on podcasts and such, and so many fascists pretending to be journalists have dumped so much crap on me...

And not to long ago in something of a wacky mixup, someone ELSE rather famous, who does diversity consulting no less, confused me for someone else and cut loose with a horrific bit of hate and gossip and throwing me under the bus, and misgendering me, saying random harassers baselessly calling me a pedophile were probably onto something. Privately told a handful of people about that, because I thought she was a friend and that was so heartbreaking, but anyone I told is just pretending not to have seen it.

Someone was once offering me help because I was in a dangerous situation, financially. I explained that things had been extra hard since coming out as trans. Suddenly he goes from helpful and concerned to just... violent. Screaming a me, openly trying to chase me out of the space we were both in. I reported this to the proper people. They tried talking, he left. The whole community mourned the loss and wondered who could have driven him off. Still doesn’t feel like a safe place for me.

I don’t really know why I’m bothering with all of this. Nobody is actually going to help. I’d say nobody is actually going to read this, but I’m sure plenty of people who hate me will to see if I’m talking about them and use it as justification to make things worse. Plus some people I’m not talking about I’m sure. I get plenty of that all the time.

Nothing ever helps and you can’t ever win. If you try to keep the abusers appeased by not outing them, the abuse never stops. If you try to speak up, their fans and friends treat it like declarations of war and pile on. If you just try to be there for other people when they’re being abused, you get singled out as a “troublemaker” and added to hit lists and black lists and... nothing works.

I don’t want a lot out of life. I want to know I have enough food, and have a place to live where I’m not at risk of dying from either temperature extreme, a bathroom, enough room for my book shelves, a bed, a couch, a dinner table, and a yoga mat. Maybe a space where my cats can run around a little enclosed semi-outdoor area for the fresh air and sun. I want to be able to deal with my medical problems. I want to see and talk to friends sometimes. If I’m really greedy, I’d like to have all that for a particular friend too who I’m constantly worrying about dying of poverty. And I’d like to be able to work on games. Maybe play them sometimes. Maybe watch things.

And that’s the really messed up part. Because abusive people and people supporting the structures of abuse always say they just want to focus on getting work done, or having fun, and it’s a lie. What’s most important for them is perpetuating abuse. They could just stop, or get rid of the people doing it, and the rest of us could live our lives and everything would be fine. But no instead we have to drop everything and make sure no woman anywhere feels safe enough to even breath.

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praphit · 4 years

Text

Horse Girl: What happened to white Darren?!

So, I had someone else pick the movie. Whenever others are involved, you gotta have them pick, so that if it's bad, you can blame them. That's how we come to "Horse Girl"!

I went into it cold. All I knew was that Alison Brie is in it, and I'm here for all things Alison Brie.

With a name like "Horse Girl", I thought there was a slim chance that it might end up being a superhero flick. Alison is finally getting her own solo comic book hero franchise. Perhaps she'll have powers similar to Aquaman, but instead of sea creatures, she talks to horses.

I thought that perhaps she'd have the power to turn into a horse; kinda like that movie "Tusk". Have any of y'all ever watched "Tusk"?

Yeah, don't watch that movie; it's awful.

In retrospect, I still don't know why this movie is called "Horse Girl". There is a horse in the movie, but... idk. Plus, shouldn't it really be "Horse Woman"? I do believe that Alison Brie is around my age. But, maybe it's a PR move. Spider-Man, in many adaptations, is really a teenager, but referring to himself as a man. Which is good, cuz I don't want to be rescued by a "Spider-Boy"; having a teenage boy flick things out of his body in order to save me? - I can't get behind that.

"Horse Girl", I can work with, cuz I'm thinking she's fresh to the hero game, unjaded, and has a real future in front of her... maybe one that involves a better code name.

(Look how happy she is... a real go-getter. I question her horse selection though, but she’ll learn. That horse has def been into the stuff.”

"Horse Woman" has already made her bad choices. She's used up. Frankly, I don't have a whole lot of confidence in her.

The beginning of this movie is very girlie. Do I mean that in a bad way? - not necessarily; it's just a fact. Kinda like, um... "Jane the Virgin".

Nothing wrong with that show (I guess... I’ve never seen it), but I can't imagine a group of men getting together to watch it. "Yo, y'all ready to watch a lil Jane the V?! Maybe she gonna pop that cherry tonight, man! She might just pop it! Yeah!"

Is that what the show is about? Her trying desperately each week for love or lust, and neither ever coming her way? What a sad show. But, I hear it's good, just girlie.

Meanwhile, I'm enduring the girliness of Alison Brie's fabric store, zumba sessions, bracelet making time, crying in the shower time, and upbeat convos with girl friends. I'm thinking to myself "When is she going to have her superhero origin moment?" Where's the vat of toxic waste that she falls into?

Have a radioactive horse gnaw on her! Where's the villain?! Where's the fight?! Let's go!

She does have a bitchy roommate and her tool of a boyfriend. Apparently, her roommate thinks that Alison's life style is pathetic: working at a fabric store and home to watch her favorite supernatural cop show (every day). Every now and then, she pesters some horse, its caretakers, and some young girl who rides the horse (I know what you're thinking - “Maybe this young girl will end up being the legendary “HORSE GIRL". Nope. Again, I don't understand the choice of title for this movie). Her bitchy roommate's judgmental pestering does lead to a fling for Alison. A man by the name of "Darren".

He looks more like a "Dave" to me. Or a “Ken”. I wish he had a different name; he probably wishes the same. White Darrens... just... no.

A nice guy, but he's one of those people who should really end their thoughts in convo a few paragraphs earlier. Socially, he’s like a quicksand of blah. A cake with “meh” icing - I blame his name, mostly for this. And his dancing... goodness gracious! He dances like he’s being attacked by hornets.

Though Alison's dancing isn't anything to brag about either. She dances like she’s riding a bull.

But, you can't be a white Darren and dance like that; you've either got to get lessons or make a promise to humanity to never dance. Alison's beautiful. Pretty women can get away with being horrible dancers. In fact, I think it might make them more attractive.

"You know, Alison, you're a 10. I didn't think I had a chance with you, until I saw you dance."

So far, I don't know what type of movie this is. Is it a romantic comedy? - not really, though it has funny moments in it. Superhero flick (I know that was a long shot)? Nope.

It's too quirky to be a drama.

Horror? There are some moments where Alison is sleep walking. I kept hoping that we'd get a scene where she's in the shadows holding an ax. Yes, Alison! Kill! Kill them! - but again, no.

The movie starts going in a mental illness direction. Alison Brie's character slowly starts to lose her mind. We learn that it's possibly something that runs in the family. Those of you who know me, know that I'm a big advocate for mental health care & mental illness awareness. I probably would have really connected with this movie on that level, if it was directed better. There's just too much artsy, wackiness smeared over this movie. I love the idea of this film and I love what the director was going for in many parts, but... idk.

There's a great cast here. Not only Alison Brie, but Molly Shannon... or do I have those two fist names backwards? You know her... "Superstar".

Wait... that’ not right - that’s what popped up though. To my knowledge she has never played Jesus Christ in a musical. Back in the day, she starred in a comedy from... wait a sec...

- you know what?? - it doesn’t matter. Maybe you don't know her anyway. She's good in this; though it's a minor role.

Aaaah, there she is.

Got my man Paul what's-his-face up in here! That’s my main man!

Who... um... y’all probably don’t know either. To be honest, I barely know these people. What am I doing?

I’m trying to say that the acting talent is here! - regardless if you know peeps like Paul what’s-his-face or not. And the bitchy roommate and her annoying boyfriend really made me hate them, so that's points for their acting, I suppose.

This could have been a thoughtful drama about mental illness, with comedy sprinkled in, and making a point. The movie/Tv landscape needs more stuff like that (especially these days, with people losing it, during this pandemic).

It seems like the director was going more for "creative genius" acclaim. Unfortunately, he missed the mark, by a lot. Again, I saw what he (I'm assuming it's a he - I don't actually know) was going for, and there are some really creative parts here, but... the message is a bit muddy, and the pacing is rough at best (not unlike this post).

. You know what, I'm going to go ahead and say it's a man who directed this, because there's a nude scene from Alison Brie that doesn't really need to be there. The director is trying to show the mental collapse of this woman, and... you know... when people lose their minds, they tend to walk through their place of business naked. I'm sure that most male directors would have all main actresses have a similar scene, if they thought that they could get away with it. Picture "The Avengers" director -

"I really think that Scarjo needs to be nude in this scene.”

“Maybe she's in the shower, when her team calls for help. She's so dedicated that she doesn't have time to put on clothes. It'll be a powerful scene. Trust me. Really zoom-in. Annnnd ACTION!"

That scene with Alison Brie is not terrible. Maybe I'm nitpicking.

It would have been a better use of Alison Brie's acting chops to have her walk in looking rough (maybe scantily clad... or in her underwear, if you must), but here could have been some of those artsy shots while she's walking around the store in a bit of a fugue state (if you do that butt-neked, it'll seem gratuitous). But, maybe have her say and do some things that have been building up through the movie, for an Oscar-Nudging climax, and emotional scene of her losing her grip on reality. But, far be it from me to be a backseat director. I'm just a rambling praphit. Just have her jiggle in, cry, and jiggle out. That's better.

Grade: an interesting D

I'm glad that I watched it, because there are a lot of good ideas here, but... you know.

Of course, maybe she's not crazy after all. Things go super wacky towards the end. Something about aliens and clones. Oh, and she does technically get a superhero outfit.

Looking like a Power Ranger for some reason.

There’s also a scene where she (as a Pink Power Ranger) gets it on with white Darren... like out of nowhere. But, did that even happen? Idk.

Was it all in her head? Was the reality of the sitch, that she broke into white Darren’s place, wrapped in pink fabric, and tried to dry-hump white Darren, while he was sleeping? Then, IN HER HEAD, he thinks that’s hot. She only THINKS that they got it on. In reality, he refused her crazy advances, and as a result, she kills him. She beheads him... with a spoon or something. The director is strange, so why not?? Or maybe she takes him (or his head) away as some alien sacrifice. It’s really weird, because after their “ sexy time” the movie just kinda moves on from him. It’s very awkward.

What happened to white Darren?! What was real?! Who knows??

Things get crazier and crazier, until... I don't even know what happened. I guess they're leaving it up to the audience to decide whether or not it's all true or she’s crazy. It's hard to tell, sometimes, whether you've got a clever ending on your hands or a lazy director, who decides "Hey, let's do something really weird in the last scene

and then just... kinda... end."

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skyfireflight · 5 years

Text

It All Started With a Famine

This will probably ramble a bit; these are some things that I've been thinking about for a while, and some have probably already been mentioned, but the main point is in the title.

From the conversation between the human dark mage Ziard and Sol Regem, we know that humans viewed dark magic as a necessity. Not just as something that was convenient and made life easier, but something that kept them from starving. So, in Ziard's view, Sol Regem's ultimatum was a choice between

A) instant death by dragon (for the City of Elarion's hundreds of thousands of inhabitants)

or B) a slow death by starvation for all of human kind.

Yeah, not the best options there.

And as we can see by his "you are lesser beings" comment, Sol Regem just plain... doesn't care.

He doesn't offer any other solutions or help. (Which isn't very kingly of him, if you ask me; seriously, who put him in charge choosing dragon monarchs based on power, instead of wisdom and compassion, is a bad idea and causes problems).

But then, even as wide spread as dark magic became, there were probably humans, like Sarai and Soren in the present day, who were against killing magical creatures on moral grounds, or were put off by it .

Which made me wonder, at first: since dark magic was destructive and no other solutions were offered, why didn't humans look for other solutions themselves? Why didn't they ask for help?

And then I remembered: Oh, wait. They did.

We know this from Elarion's poem.

When humans were in danger of dying (likely from a famine, since we know humans struggled with starvation before they had dark magic) they went out to ask for help from the elves, and likely the startouch elves, too. But instead of helping the humans, the elves turned them away instead, and left them to die.

(There also seems to have been danger from a dragon, but I'm not quite sure what to make of that right now.)

Granted, we don't know the whole story, but if my theory of elves being able to use primal magic to warm the land and grow crops is correct, then they probably could have spared a few mages to help the humans.

Instead, the only one who helped them was Aaravos, who taught them dark magic.

Now, even if some, or even many, humans didn't like the idea of dark magic, they were probably desperate. And beggars can't be choosers, and you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I wonder if this is where Aaravos' "Those who fail tests of love are simple animals, they deserve to be motivated by fear," comes from.

Turning away the humans when they asked for help was the test of love that the elves failed. And with how they saw humans as inferior, they seemed to care more about magic than about the fact that humans are people.

So, Aaravos gave humans dark magic in order to make them powerful, and to scare the other magical races into respecting them.

Which, of course, backfired. Unless Aaravos was thinking long term/is playing a long game, and he thought that things would have to get worse, with the humans' exile, before they got better, and that this would ultimately lead to the events of the present day and allow humans and elves, and dragons, to finally be at peace and care about each other.

Because at that time, the belief that humans were inferior, the knowledge that magical races as a whole just didn't care about humans, and the idea that humans had to make their own power and prove themselves and forcefully put themselves on equal footing, would create an Us vs. Them mentality.

So for humans, many might have believed that, if magical beings don't care about us, why should we care about them?

Now, going back to using dark magic to protect against famine.

We know that Viren got his idea to use the magma titan's heart, to warm the land and grow crops, through researching in his books.

But someone had to write those books. And were those books just theory, or were they writing about that spell from experience?

So, if famine was a common problem that humans had to deal with, it would make sense that they had killed and used the heart of a magma titan before.

And we don't know how long that spell lasts, either. Since Duren is still flourishing from the spell nine years after it was cast, we know it at least lasts that long. But if it wears off eventually? Maybe every few decades? That's more magma titans.

And that... would cause problems.

(Then, we know that there were books that detailed uses for dragon parts. So, if these were based off of experience and not theory, that means they were using dragons for dark magic as well.

That would have made dark magic a huge problem.)

Back to my main point:

The initial conflict seems to have risen from the humans dying of starvation/famine, the elves and dragons (besides Aaravos) refusing to help them, and the resulting Us vs. Them mentality that caused humans to disregard them as much as the elves and dragons disregarded the humans.

And the present day conflict?

It also started with a famine.

The whole reason that this war is going on in the first place is because of the famine in Duren.

With winter only months or weeks away, and no other options that would provide enough food in time, humans needed to cross the border and kill a magma titan and use its heart to save the lives of a hundred thousand people from starvation.

Leading to the Dragon King killing Sarai, Harrow killing the Dragon King for revenge, and the Dragon Queen getting her own revenge.

It's a really interesting parallel.

And so, while we don't know the whole story, with what we do know, I think this whole mess never would have started in the first place if the humans hadn't been under the threat of dying of starvation, and if the elves and dragons had just helped them and not left them to die.

Side note: All this makes me wonder, too; why were the humans dying of starvation without magic? Were there really that many famines? And if so, why the heck were there so many famines? Is the land of the Xadian continent just not that fertile for growing crops, or what?

#tdp #the dragon prince #tdp thoughts #tdp magic #tdp dark magic #tdp elves #tdp humans #tdp dragons #tdp aaravos #tdp sol regem #tdp harrow #tdp sarai #hopefully this is coherent

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starrywonn · 5 years

Text

february spring

request: can you do a han jisung bullet point scenario with a fantasy au??? like he's the prince and y/n's his knight or something oof :'>

a/n: i had to rewrite this like four times that's why this took so long anyways this is my first request in a REALLY long time :”))) i hope you enjoy it!! pairing: prince! han jisung/knight! reader genre: fluff scenario type: bulletpoint scenario word count: 1.6k

warnings: cursing (like one time)

sunlight pours into the window of your bedroom, piercing your eyes

you immediately get off your bed to get prepared for the day ahead

you dress in your plainclothes and make your way towards the stone castle that made your residence seem like a dwarf

the thudding of your running feet fills the empty corridor

the armoury was chillingly silent

you hastily put your armour on and place your sword in the sheath

you speed walk to the prince’s room

just on time

the prince had just woken up, his hair an absolute mess, eyes droopy and low

“mornin’ y/n”

“morning. i see you had a good night’s sleep?”

“only the best,” he says airily

you wait patiently outside the bathroom as he gets ready

he comes out of the bathroom with a completely different aura

his hair was now neater, his cream coloured night clothes replaced with a deep blue tunic and trousers

"ok let's go. you're gonna be late"

despite only recently beginning to guard jisung, you had already fallen into a routine

he was about your age which shocked him at first

his guards were always way older than him

it was insane that someone his age was already one of the top fighters in the land

he always pestered you to tell him how you got that good but all you would tell him was “lots of practice”

he’d give you an annoyed look but after a while, he stopped asking

getting back to the task at hand, you quickly think of the lessons he had to go to

out of the large array of classes, he had ruling, sword fighting, horse riding, etiquette and archery today

sometimes, it felt like you were babysitting him more than you were his bodyguard

you had to attend all the boring lectures with him too zzz

finally, it was his last class of the day

archery

ah, archery

what pain it caused jisung

every time you see him shoot, you kind of want to lose it

his face was always scrunched up in a weird way whenever he tried to shoot

give him a sword and he’d best anyone any day but archery was a different story

but at least this one thing deflates his stupid huge ego so he doesn't get his head stuck up in the clouds

“y/nnnnnn can’t you just teach me??? all my teacher does is get me to copy you. you might as well teach me right??”

you? teach him?

“well, technically, i'm not qualified to”

jisung pouts at you

“but if you want me to, i GUESS i can” you say as you roll your eyes

“you can’t take it back!!”

“HHHHH”

dinner comes around

all jisung does is sit at the table, scarf down delicious food and give you mischievious looks

you glance large mounds of food dished on gold and silver platters

but you can’t eat any of it! too bad

so obviously, your best choice is to go back to staring at the wall

you’re so out of it that when the king calls out your name, you almost jump out of your skin

“yes, your majesty?”

“i asked if you would be alright to teach jisung archery from now on.”

“of course, your majesty! it would be such an honour to be able to do so”

jisung gleams towards your direction and you shoot back an annoyed look

“very well! i will make the necessary arrangements.”

the dinner was finished without much fuss and as you walk jisung back to his bedchambers, he seemed to be almost skipping

was he really that happy to be coached by you?

“good night y/n, see you tomorrow!!”

“good night”

the next thing you know, it's the next day and you and jisung were in front of the archery targets in the fields

jisung was showing you how he usually shot

immediately, you could see his mistakes

“you have to take into account the wind. aiming for the centre doesn’t mean that you will hit it.”

jisung nodded, adjusted his bow and shot again

he finally hit the target

it involved lots of death glares, cursing the gods and jisung almost breaking the bow more than once

but after two weeks, he could hit bullseyes repeatedly

least to say you were proud of him

but also a little suspicious that he failed with his other coaches on purpose

jisung proudly announces his achievement to nearly everyone he meets

the king and queen were over the moon and immediately wanted to reward jisung

“if there’s anyone you should reward, it’s y/n. they’re the one who helped me,” jisung pointed out

“ah, y/n! is there any way we can repay you?”

you froze

you never thought about being repaid at all

you shook your head

“it’s alright, your majesty. i just did my job. in fact, it’s prince jisung who shot those bullseyes so i can’t say i really did much”

the king waves off your excuse, “nonsense! if you ever wish for anything, let us know! we’ll be more than happy to get it for you”

“thank you, your majesty”

as jisung makes his fortnightly visit to the villages, he brings up the spring festival

his horse is in a slow trot

he goes off on a tangent and rambles on and on about everything under the sun

he gestures so much you get dizzy looking

but you can see the sparkle of anticipation and excitement in them as he talks animatedly

it's cute, you think to yourself

wait, hold on, you’re not supposed to think this way about him

you shake your head, willing yourself out of it

“so of course, we’ll be attending as guests-of-honour but i want to experience the festival for real”

“for real?” you quirk your eyebrow

“yea! for real! like going out to the streets and like, getting to eat all the snacks we want kind of real?”

“but what about your parents? wouldn't they want you there with them?”

"who cares what they think! getting to go to the festival is a once in a lifetime opportunity!"

"and how would manage to avoid everyone?"

your jaw drops as he explains his plan

this boy really has a wild imagination

“wouldn't asking be easier?”

“c’mon y/n!! don’t be such a party pooper!! it’s an adventure!! let’s just try it!!”

you sigh

“fine. one 'adventure' wouldn’t hurt right?”

jisung pumps his fist in the air, gleaming

“but, on one condition. you have to make sure to stick with me the whole time. because if you get lost or injured, it's on me”

jisung eagerly nods

training sessions were spent secretly planning the best route around the festival

jisung gets to play the fair games and you get to steal his snacks

it's a win-win situation here

the day of the spring festival comes within a blink of an eye

you wait behind the balcony doors where the royals are announcing the start of the festival

the resounding cheers are audible through the thick walls of the castle

you follow behind as the royal family walks to the town square

the townspeople rush to invite the king and queen to try their goods

jisung and you exchange a look

it was time

the two of you rush back into the castle

you change back into your plainclothes and stand outside jisung's room

you crack open the door

"hurry up jisung!!!!"

"i'm coming!!!!"

he pulls on the door and you nearly fall with it

"geez, 'sung" you mutter

when you look at him, jisung almost looks like a regular teenager

but there's something still a little off

you reach over and ruffle his hair

"that’s much better. now let's GO"

you grab a hold of his hand and drag him out of the castle

for once, you let yourself go, having fun as a kid your age would

you both stuff yourselves with all sorts of snacks till you're sure that if you take another bite you would probably puke

you and jisung walk out to the quieter parts of town

he grabs your wrist and leads you into the forest

you end up on a small clearing that overlooks the villages

jisung sits near the edge

you follow suit, slightly confused

in a small whisper, he says, “look up”

the stars are bright, dotting the pitch black sky

jisung sighs

"it's beautiful right?"

you hum in silent acknowledgement

"i used to come here when everything was too much," he pauses, "it's harder than people think. being a prince i mean. just so many people trying to take advantage of your position or waiting for you to fail"

"yeah, it's scary" you pick at the grass around you, "but you're getting through it pretty okay right? you’re trying your best and that’s what matters. plus i'm here with you now. i'll fight those assholes if i have to"

he lets out a small chuckle

the two of you sit in silence

everything seemed so small from where you sat, the chatter and noise in the village replaced by the chirping of crickets

"i like you"

his words break the silence softly, passing like the fluttering wind

they hold an air of absent-mindedness but in your mind, they're heavy with meanings and implications

your throat suddenly feels dry

when you look over to him, he's still looking at the night sky above

his eyes seem to hold the universe and the moonlight gives his face an angelic glow

it finally hits you that when he wasn't being an absolute dork, he was actually… handsome

the starlight clouds your judgement for a split second and you lean over, pressing a small kiss onto his cheek

"i like you too"

his hand finds yours and in the february spring, it's you two against the world

#stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids bulletpoint scenarios #han imagines #han scenarios #han bulletpoint scenarios #han jisung scenarios #han jisung imagines #han jisung bulletpoint scenarios #bp: han jisung #w: han jisung #bp: stray kids #w: stray kids

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henrylevesconte · 4 years

Note

L, N, P, X, and Z for the fandom ask meme pls. Have a lovely day!

Ahh bless you. Have a lovely day as well!!

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves (chars you’re neutral on are fair game, as are chars you dislike)

Edward Little has never been my favorite character. But I really see how people see him as handsome in like episodes 5-6 when he’s got that double chin and just fluffy facial hair? That’s a great look. Like I love the fanon interpretation of him as a horse girl with oldest daughter syndrome.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

More positive work with Silna, more diversity in pairings like its getting better since we had rare pair week which was godsend!, and terror ladies represented in fics or art please!

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

I’ve been dying for a ravenous au with Solomon Tozer as a Boyd type figure sent to an outpost in California where he meets a certain cannibal Cornelius Hickey who’s about to ruin or better his life.

X - top 5-10 characters who are yoUR PRECIOUS BABIES AND YOU WILL DIE DEFENDING THEM

I don’t like the precious babies bit but I’ll do my top five characters I adore!

1. Joseph Oda from the Evil Within

2. Kieran Duffy from Red Dead Redemption 2

3. Thomas Sweet Tart Hartnell

4. Kent Connelly and about every Ghoul in any Fallout game that’s ever existed

5. Angus McDonald, boy detective and best lad in general from the Adventure Zone Balance Arc

Z-Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged)

Man some of y’all have made some beautiful work. It could be gifsets or playlists or videos or fanfics or art but I’m always amazed that the Terror fandom has kept it going for so long. It will be two years soon since I started the show, when it originally aired. It’s weird to think we are all still here despite everything. Good on you, fandom

Send me a fandom meme ask

#ask meme #aconfusedwriter #thank you so much

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sothisisathingiwrote · 5 years

Text

One last wish

Atem and the afterlife Or post ceremonial duel/DSOD rambling. Because the duel never sat well with me and DSOD brought on a whole bunch of feelings. Blink and you'll miss it prideshipping

***

His father hesitated at first. Longing and joy written clear across his face (younger than he can ever remember it being) but also shame, regret and guilt. It's him that takes the first step to close the distance between them, and that's all Aknamkanon needs to close the distance, to enfold him in his arms, to murmur my son, my son, my son over and over into his hair.

His mother has no hesitation. When his father leads him into her garden, she drops her basket with a cry and pulls him into a strong embrace before he can even breathe a shy hello.

He sits at their feet and lets himself feel a child again, just listening to their voices.

***

The palace is how he remembers, and he spends days rediscovering his favourite haunts from childhood. He wraps Ta-ameya from the kitchen into a cloth and climbs as high as he can, his hands and feet remember the way to the roof, which stones to grab, how far to jump, before his mind catches up.

He dangles his legs over the side as he savours the Ta-ameya, remembering the day Yuugi realized that the spirit of the puzzle had not, in fact, ever eaten a hamburger, and had charged his way through the streets of Domino to Burger World to rectify that, even though it was nine oclock at night and he'd just eaten dinner.

Yugi had had a stomach ache after, though Yugi didn't say a word and pretended he didn't.

He had once eaten so much Ta-ameya it had made him sick. And earned him a lesson in princely decorum from Shimon.

He'd have liked to have shared Ta-ameya with Yugi.

He wonders if the kitchens here can make anything possibly resembling a hamburger.

***

There are other kings in these halls. Those who came before him, and those who came after. They treat him with a mixture of respect but mostly curiosity; the king that sacrificed all, but that none can remember.

They gather together, ostensibly to confer and dispense judgement, but paradise, particularly paradise presided over by the god of the underworld, wants little in the way of real ruling. So they drink and they share stories from life before; battles, feasts, festivals. Of great public works, temples and obelisks and expeditions they sent forth out to neighbouring lands.

He sent forth no expeditions, had no time to build temples, and the battles he fought are best left forgotten in the shadows. They were not the glorious tales of daring and victory his forefathers like to tell. He's fairly certain no one really wants to hear what it was to carve his name from history, what it felt like to end his mortal life and bind his soul to a magical item, or to spend 3000 years trapped in darkness, his memories bleeding away like sand through a crack.

He feels a bit like that nameless spirit again as he slips away from their gathering, unseen.

***

Eventually he runs out of palace to rediscover. Instead, he takes to roaming the halls, restless as a caged cat.

Shada finds him up a tree, harvesting figs for the kitchen so the ushabti don't have to.

***

He's not surprised when Seto Kaiba strides out of one existence and into the next. He'd been half expecting it since the moment he did the same.

He doesn't know where the notion to step forward, and take Kaiba's face in his hands comes from. Now at the very, very end, with Kaiba slipping away in pieces in front of him, he finds himself crossing the last bit of distance between them, reaching up, fingers curling around that stubborn jaw, trying to say-

-You've always been my equal-

-I hope I helped bring you peace-

-Please be happy-

-I wish - -

But no words come out, and instead he finds himself staring into blue eyes and the sudden appearance of a questioning concerned furrow between them and then Kaiba is gone, no more than a few leftover wisps, which hover in the air before winking out like stars.

He is alone. Alone and determinedly ignoring the voice in the back of his head telling him he wasn't trying to say anything, he was trying to hold on.

***

The ushabti unnerve him.

He knows it's silly, knows that they are nothing more than clay and sorcery, meant to serve so that others do not have to, but there's been one too many shadow games, one too many friend or adversary reduced to blank eyed shells of themselves -

He dismisses them whenever he can and handles most tasks himself.

Some of the regalia is tricky to put on without a second set of hands, so he stops wearing it.

He feels lighter.

***

The Nile is both the Nile and very much not the Nile. He can stand on its shores and look out over its waters, but the other side is strange, never quite in focus - like looking through a haze.

The Nile is both the Nile and not the Nile, it's banks are the banks upon which the sun god dies each night, and rises again each morning. It is the barrier between the world of the living, and the world of the dead.

He can get up to his waist before it's waters start to churn ominously.

***

There are no ships on the Nile that is both the Nile and not the Nile. No fishing boats, no pleasure barges, no great expedition ships coming in from the Delta. It is the odd note in an otherwise perfect picture.

There are no ships but there are roads. Roads that cut through the city and stretch out beyond, leading somewhere where the desert meets the sky.

He packs a bag.

***

"The hardest part," Karim says, when the hour is late and they are all well into their cups, "was not knowing.” The priest stares at the bottom of his cup. "Waiting millennia for you to return to us here, never knowing when, or if, you ever would."

He looks around at all of them, gathered here with him and drains his own cup, setting it carefully on the table. "I'm here now."

Next to him, Isis reaches out and lays a hand on his arm.

They all do that, reach out and touch him at odd moments. They touch his hands when they pass him food and drink, they give an arm to help him on and off his horse though he doesn't need it. They bring capes and pelts when the sun dips beyond the Nile, draping them over his shoulders with exaggerated care. Reassuring themselves that he is actually there.

***

He unpacks the bag.

***

He doesn't expect Seto Kaiba to return in a rage of glory.

But return the man does, and catches him off guard in one of the gardens, standing knee deep in a pool, idly making swirling eddies rise out of the water. It's a far cry from a shadow game, but it's refreshing to use his magic for something other than card games, now that it too has been unbound from the puzzle.

His latest eddy crashes back into the water below when Kaiba storms into the garden, flings his arms wide (no duel disk this time) and practically shouts to the heavens; "Is this what you really want?"

Something must be written clear as day across his face because Kaiba is suddenly striding across the garden, closing the distance between them, splashing into the pool and sending the water lilies spinning away. Looming over him. "Is. This. What. You. Want?"

And he doesn't know how to answer that, because he doesn't know. He's been trying so hard to follow the path of destiny, and he'd long since given up believing that he'd ever have a choice, but suddenly Kaiba is here again, as perfect as he remembers him, and all of those traitorous emotions that refused to go to rest when he was supposed to, those wants and wishes that he's not supposed to have, are bubbling up inside and nobody has ever asked him what he wants-

He reaches out and presses his hands against Kaiba's chest, curls his fingers into the fabric there. Holding on.

"I-" he stops, swallows, starts again. Starts with something small, one small want allowed to escape. "I want you to stay. For a little while. An hour. A day. Stay with me.”

Slowly, Kaiba's fingers curl over his own. "Get me out of this sun first."

He laughs.

***

"Are you happy?"

At his feet, the Nile that is not the Nile pushes against him. He glances over his shoulder as Mahaad approaches, a cloak to ward off the early evening chill draped over his arms. The other man stops just short of him, feet firmly on dry ground.

"I could be happy," Mahaad continues, not waiting for an answer, "knowing that someone I cared about was happy. I think time and distance wouldn't be so difficult, if I knew they were with someone they cared about too. I would be content to wait for a later reunion, knowing it would be much sweeter for it." Mahaad steps forward, draping the cloak around his shoulders. "I think we all would." The priest bends and places a bag at his feet.

He stares at the bag. The cloak is thick and warm, the kind for traveling, not an evening's entertainment of Nile that is not the Nile gazing. He stares at Mahaad.

From the darkness comes Mana, leading a horse, her eyes wet with unshed tears but her smile strong.

"I think all this would make us happy, if we knew that it was what that person wanted."

***

The road cuts through the city, leading out into the desert beyond, where sand meets sky. Somewhere along that road is the door Seto Kaiba has made through strength and will and sheer want- breaking through because who needs rivers that are not rivers when you can fly-

And Atem knows in his heart that that door can open a third time, one last time, that somewhere, somehow, Seto will hear his call.

All he has to do is want it.

He picks up the bag.

#atem #seto kaiba #yugioh #prideshipping

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