#it took me nearly two hours to find one for randolph | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ikehoe · 2 years

Text

Ikemen Prince Suitors' Reaction to You Having a Naughty Dream About Them [Part 2]

Characters: Licht Klein, Nokto Klein, Luke Randolph, Sariel Noir, Rio Ortiz

Rating: Explicit (SMUT – minors, do not interact!)

A/N: Part 2 is here! Click here to read Part 1 of the Ikeprince Headcanons (Jin, Chevalier, Clavis, Leon, and Yves).

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Ikemen Prince or any of the Ikemen series games. I’m merely an avid fan of being MC.

Licht Klein

Licht’s favourite moments with you were at night when you two were cuddled up together on his bed, reveling in each other’s warmth.

He often watched as you fell asleep, your eyes fluttering softly and mesmerized by the gentle rise and fall of your chest with each breath you took.

That’s why, when he hears you softly moan out his name in the middle of your slumber, his eyes widen, and he’s so taken aback he has to turn away from you just to catch his breath.

The next day, he shows you extra affection even in public, which is definitely not typical for the prince.

It’s when you two are in a carriage you finally ask him why he’s acting so differently that day. You don’t want him to force himself to act differently just because you enjoy affection.

“I… heard you moan my name last night, and now I can’t seem to get it out of my mind,” he responds, looking away with a faint blush colouring the tips of his ears and the apples of his cheeks.

“Oh…” You say, mouth gaping open in surprise.

“Will you tell me what you were dreaming about?” He asks, pulling you onto his lap in the carriage.

That’s how you ended up gasping for air as Licht’s fingers plunged into your core, relentlessly teasing your g-spot until white-hot pleasure spread all throughout your body.

“You’re so beautiful,” Licht murmurs in awe, mesmerized by your lustful gaze as you come undone for him over and over.

Nokto Klein

“Oh, Nokto… Right there,” you murmur, hips thrusting into the blanket on their own accord.

“Oh…?” Nokto says, eyebrow cocking up in interest as he watches your still-sleeping figure experience what was clearly an erotic dream about the man himself.

Most days, Nokto finds you absolutely irresistible. Still, when you’re at your most vulnerable, he has to nearly restrain himself from ravishing you every time he sees you.

He slowly turns you onto your back, making sure not to rouse you from your slumber, and lifts up the bottom of your nightgown, exposing your already dripping core to him.

Thanking the lords for his luck, he presses a few gentle kisses on your inner thighs before dipping his tongue into your folds.

He can’t help himself but thrust into the bed, seeking relief for his hardened manhood, when your moans start to get louder and louder.

Finally, your eyes open and meet the lustful gaze in his crimson ones.

“Sorry, love. Did I wake you up?” He asks teasingly, returning to that spot at the top of your core that had you throwing your head back in pleasure

Nokto ends up pleasuring you for the rest of the night, bringing upon your release again and again until the wee hours of the morning.

Luke Randolph

Luke is 100% baffled at the strange behaviour you’ve been exhibiting around him for the past couple of days.

Not only have you been avoiding him, but every time he’s cornered you, you’ve given him some clearly made-up excuse about how Sariel wants you to study foreign affairs or how you and Rio had plans.

Finally, he has enough and traps you between his arms after breakfast with all of the other princes.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” He asks, looking reminiscent of a kicked puppy dog with pain and confusion evident on his face

“I—I…” You stammer out, heartstrings tugging at the pained expression on his face. Finally, you sigh and admit to him the explicit contents of your dream that had you picturing Luke as a domineering and relentless lover.

“Oh…” He says as his usual carefree grin returns to his face

Unbeknownst to you, Luke ends up approaching Jin for advice on your sex life, and that’s how he ends up returning from town with a box of toys, including a paddle, feathers, a candle, and a blindfold.

Luke invites you to his room that night, and that’s when you find out about the young man’s foray into town.

He immediately captures your small figure in a crushing hug and nuzzles his head into your shoulder.

“If you wanted to play with me like that, you should have just asked!” He exclaims as if it were the most natural thing in the world

That’s when he shows you his secret box, and you almost regret it when hours later, the skin of your buttocks is raw and irritated, and your panties are absolutely drenched.

Sariel Noir

Sariel is known as the cruel and strict disciplinarian in the Rhodolite castle, but he has a soft spot for one person only, and that’s you.

That’s why he ends up letting you climb on his lap and nap after his regular Rhodolite History lessons, even reaching his gloved hand up to brush some hair out of your beautiful face.

��You’ve been working hard, huh,” Sariel muses to himself, a smile forming on his lips as you begin to softly snore.

A couple minutes later, he hears you moan his name in such a lustful tone that his slacks immediately tighten, and the wind is knocked out of him.

“Belle,” Sariel says sternly, rousing you from your slumber.

“O— oh! Sariel, did I fall asleep? I just had the weirdest dream about you….” You stammer, trying to look at anything in the room except for his stern gaze.

“Tell me what you were dreaming about unless you want to be punished,” Sariel says, arms wrapping around your body to keep you in place.

“I—I—”

“Too late,” he says, bringing out a large coil of black rope from the inside pocket of his cloak.

A few moments later, he has your hands tied behind your back and your ankles tied together, exposing your bare chest and sensitive nubs to him.

He begins to lavish your body with his tongue, ordering you to stay quiet lest you want to be edged for the rest of the day.

A lustful moan escapes from your mouth at the sensation of his teeth tugging gently at your nipple, and you know that you’re done for

Needless to say, it’s a long night.

Rio Ortiz

“Are you still awake?” Rio calls out, eyes lighting up in excitement at the prospect of seeing you. “I’m coming in! Prince Yves gave me a couple of chocolates as a thank you for helping him out with something, and I wanted to share with you!”

He bursts through the door of your bedroom and is about to call out your name when he realizes with a start that you’re already in bed.

He immediately falls silent and approaches your bed, smiling softly at the tranquil expression on your face.

The soft flush on your face has him absolutely mesmerized, and he’s suddenly pulled from his thoughts by the sound of your voice.

“Oh, Rio… I love you,” you murmur, slightly slurring your words in your sleep.

With a gasp, his sky-blue eyes widen, and his heart begins to race at your words.

No, she probably said something else… there’s no way… is there?

He leaves your room in a hurry, heart soaring at the prospect of his unrequited feelings of love towards you being returned.

The next day, Rio is extra clingy to you, following you everywhere and even shooting Prince Clavis a murderous glare when he attempts to cajole you into another game of Let’s Prank Yves.

“Rio, what’s going on with you today?” You ask, failing to conceal your amusement at your friend’s actions. “You’ve been especially protective, even for you.”

He takes a deep breath, as if bracing himself for the inevitable heartbreak that was to come, and then immediately chickens out and ends up saying that he feels unwell.

Later that day, you visit Rio in his room with a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup and some green tea, hoping to nurse the pretty blonde back to health.

Seeing the tray in your hands, Rio immediately tears up and jumps out of bed, nearly causing you to drop everything on the tray.

“I am so sorry for worrying you and for lying!” He exclaims, grasping both of your hands in his large ones.

“Lying?” You ask, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. You quickly put the tray on his nightstand, trying to avoid an unnecessary mess.

“I… wasn’t telling you the truth earlier… I know you’re Belle now, and I promised you I’d be here to support you no matter what, even if you fall in love with a Prince, but truthfully, I think it would kill me.” He starts, eyes tearing up at the thought of you marrying another man. “I’m still in love with you.”

“Oh, Rio. I’m in love with you too,” you respond, watching as the most radiant smile slowly appears on the blonde’s face. “Will you let me show you how much?”

You and Rio end the rest of the night in a passionate entanglement of limbs.

His one goal in life is to please you, and please you he does, repeatedly until you feel like passing out from the pleasure.

#ikeprince headcanons #ikeprince headcanon #ikeprince #ikemen prince smut #ikeprince smut #ikepri nokto #ikepri licht #ikepri sariel #ikepri rio #ikepri luke #ikemen prince smut fic #ikemen prince #ikepri fic #ikepri #ikemen prince fic #ikepri smut headcanon #ikepri smut #ikemen series

402 notes · View notes

offspring-of-calliope · 4 years

Text

Oneshot #1: BillDarcy (Soulmate AU)

Description: A soulmate AU where the first words your soulmate will say to you appear on your skin when you reach the age of 16. It's BillDarcy in the canon era. Slightly angsty but also sweet with a happy ending.

words: 3411

A/N: Am I procrastinating because I should write so many other things? Maybe. Do I regret anything? Maybe but in my defense, I feel like there is a lack of BillDarcy fanfics and I really need to improve my English skills, so... that's a semi-good reason for writing this. It would be nice if you left a comment (maybe also on grammar/spelling mistakes).

I hope you enjoy (because strangely, I don't think that it's that bad).

Sincerely, me,

Lélodie

-----

The softly swaying music was the only thing that kept Darcy sane in this stuffy room. Some people were crowded on the dance floor, dancing intimately close with their partners, whereas others stood around in their fancy suits and dresses, behaving as if they were the most important individuals on earth.

Darcy sighed and held on tighter to his glass of sprinkling water, searching for something to get his mind off the fact that everything here was fake. In the beginning, he hadn't exactly been opposed to the idea of accompanying his father to this big event that was hosted by William Randolph Hearst. But he had soon realised that he literally felt trapped in between all these people. He wanted nothing more than to return to his bedroom and continue to read the latest book he had gotten his hands on. An interesting piece of literature, written by Victor Hugo.

He searched for his father in the crowd, soon finding him being in an animated conversation with another newspaper owner whose name he had forgotten. For a small moment, his father glanced back at him and as if he could read his son's thoughts, he threw him an ominous look. As if to say: “You are staying right where you are, young man.”

Darcy answered with a cautious nod and turned away. That was when he saw him. In a small corner, right next to an open window, stood a boy, who seemed to be as young as himself, staring at the floor and looking obviously out of place. His suit seemed to be too big for his slim body, his short brown hair was drenched in sweat because of the heat and his eyes that appeared quite lively on the one hand, signalised exhaustion on the other hand. Darcy couldn't describe why, but he felt like something in him was dying to get to know this boy. With a last look in his father's direction and a sip from his water, he made up his mind.

It was difficult, getting to the corner where the boy stood. Everywhere were bodies, dancing, standing, swaying, and the general atmosphere made it hard for Darcy to take a breath. But eventually, he ended up beside the boy, who eyed him curiously. Then, he raised his eyebrows, an unspoken question as to why Darcy had come over to him.

“You're looking pretty miserable over here,” Darcy explained, fiddling with the brim of his glass.

The other boy snorted and replied in the most sarcastic tone he could come up with. “Oh, quite the opposite, I actually enjoy being around presumptuous people who hide themselves behind a facade.”

Once again, Darcy wasn't able to breathe but this time for an entirely different reason. He had expected everything but not that. When he was younger, his mother had always told him stories about soulmates. Two people that were so perfect for each other that the universe graced their skin with the first words one would say to the other so that they would be able to recognize the right person when they met them. The words usually appeared when one turned sixteen. The days before Darcy's sixteenth birthday had been torture. He had realised at a very young age that he wasn't able to look at girls the way he was supposed to and he couldn't feel anything but shame and fear. A tiny part of himself had hoped that his soulmate would be a girl and he had simply been confused.

But no. The words that he had memorised ever since he had seen them for the first time had just been spoken. By the boy right in front of him. Who was now looking at him with concern in his eyes. Why was he looking concerned? Why wasn't there recognition in his gaze? Didn't he have Darcy's words as well? Had he just not registered them?

Still a bit stunned, Darcy cleared his throat. “That was really the first thing that came to your mind?”

Now it was the other boy's turn to be confused. “Why? Is there something wrong with what I said?”

“No, no, it's not that,” Darcy assured him quickly. “It just...” Think, Darcy, think. In his head, he cursed his brain for not being able to form coherent thoughts any more. “It just makes me glad I approached you.” He was quite satisfied with this spontaneous explanation because the other boy flashed him a smile that made him feel things he never had experienced before.

“Thank you for the compliment. You are the son of mister Reid, aren't you?”

Darcy nodded and stretched out the hand that wasn't still holding his glass. “Yes. My name is Darcy. And you are?”

“I'm Bill. The unfortunate son of today's host,” Bill introduced himself and shook Darcy's hand.

“Nice to meet you, Bill.” His skin was very soft, Darcy noticed, yet he couldn't help but see faint traces of ink on his fingertips. It made him smirk. Bill's hand was perfect. And it was being pulled away by its owner far too soon. For a moment, the two boys just stood next to each other, observing the room and the people in it. Upon realising that every person in this room, except for Bill, was kind of old, Darcy had an idea. “You appear to be the same age as I am. Are you sixteen as well?”

Bill shook his head. “No. I turned fifteen, two months ago. My mother always tells me that I look older than I am though.”

Darcy hoped that his relief wasn't too obvious. So this whole soulmate thing was not necessarily one-sided, at least regarding the role of the universe. But after this short moment of relief, reality came crashing down on him. Even if Darcy's words appeared on Bill's skin on his sixteenth birthday, that didn't mean that Bill wanted to be with Darcy. Homosexuals were very despised within society and he hadn't ever heard of a same-sex soulmate couple that was openly together. Or maybe that wouldn't bother Bill but he still wouldn't be attracted to Darcy. Was Darcy even attracted to Bill?

At the end of the evening, Darcy completely dismissed the last question. How could he not be attracted to Bill? Bill, who had asked him if he wanted to leave the party to show him his father's printing press, after Darcy mentioned his interest in printing. Bill, who had been so gently when he had adjusted Darcy's spectacles. Bill, whose eyes were big and glistening with joy when he talked about things he loved.

It was like Darcy was falling without having planned to jump.

The stars in the sky were especially shiny that night, or maybe that was just Darcy's imagination. He was staring out of the window of Bill's bedroom, sitting on the spare bed and awaiting the moment the clock would strike twelve. Part of him was curious. He wanted to know if Bill would really have his words on his skin. You're looking pretty miserable over here. In addition to Bill's words on his chest, he had his own memorised, repeating them over and over like a prayer.

The other part was afraid. His mind was being flooded with the same questions he had asked himself nearly a whole year long. After the party where they had met each other, Bill and Darcy had started to hang out more and more, sometimes even with Katherine Pulitzer, a childhood friend of Bill's. They had never talked about this whole soulmate topic, at least not when it was just the two of them. Katherine had told them her words at one point but that was it. Darcy had noticed Bill's curious look in his direction when Katherine had asked him if he wanted to share his words. But Darcy had only made a dismissive hand gesture and started to talk about the latest news.

He didn't know what to expect. The only thing he knew was that his body was aching, aching for something that he just couldn't put his finger on.

Suddenly, the room was filled with the faraway sound of ringing bells. It was twelve o'clock. Darcy hadn't gone to sleep the night before his own sixteenth birthday, so he remembered clearly how he had been hugging his knees in anticipation. The abrupt pain in his chest as the universe drew words on his body, his skin, right above his heart. He had wanted to cry. He had known that he wouldn't be able to read with tears in his eyes, however, so he had gripped tight onto the edge of his bed, waiting for the pain to subside. Then, he had run towards his mirror, a flickering candle in his hand, and had nearly ripped off his shirt.

His memories were interrupted by Bill's cry. The other boy had been fast asleep for at least one hour, so Darcy had thought that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be able to feel the pain. Alarmed, he turned his head in the direction of Bill's bed and saw that his best friend was clutching his chest, still half asleep and panting.

“Bill,” Darcy called out, softly, so that he wouldn't wake up Bill's parents. Bill didn't respond. Instead, he was blindly searching for something to hold on to. The blanket, then the bedsheets. “Bill.” As fast as he could, Darcy left the spare bed and ran over towards Bill. Bill, his soulmate who was in pain and whom he couldn't help. “Bill, sh, it's alright, I'm here. It's going to be alright.” Bill's wandering hands were suddenly in reach, so Darcy took them between his own, tenderly, as if Bill was made of glass.

Still gasping for air, Bill seemed to be able to take in his surroundings now. Through half closed eyes, he looked at Darcy, trying to process what he was saying, while holding onto his hands like a lifeline. “Darcy, it hurts, why does it hurt?”

Now, that was a good question. In every story his mother had ever told him about soulmates, she had never once mentioned the pain that came with getting your words. He had felt betrayed and he had told her so afterwards. But she had just hugged him with an encouraging smile and mumbled something along the lines of: “Nobody wants to remember the downsides of the beautiful things.”

“I know. I know that it hurts, but don't worry, Bill. It will stop eventually. I'm here. I'm with you,” Darcy whispered, softly drawing patterns on Bill's palms.

“You won't leave, will you?” A sob escaped Bill's lips and Darcy wondered if the pain was different for everyone. His own chest began to hurt upon seeing Bill like this.

“I won't leave. I promise.” Carefully, he put his arms around Bill, holding him as close as he could, showing him that he wouldn't go away that easily. He could feel Bill trying to hold him tighter but the tiredness and the pain had taken away the strength of his arms.

For a long time, the room was filled with sobs and affectionate words. The sound of the bells was long gone and the intensity of the stars only an obligatory background.

The next morning, Darcy was awoken by Bill's shuffling. He distantly remembered falling asleep in each other's arms, with their legs tangled under the blanket but in retrospect this might've just been a part of a sweet dream. The bed was creaking and he could feel Bill standing up. Muffled sounds escaped Darcy's mouth. He was nevertheless too sleepy to open his eyes. He could hear steps. Fabric being moved. A gasp.

“Everything alright?” Was the only thing he was able to say in his condition. He wondered if being hungover felt like this. It took him some time, but that didn't matter since Bill wasn't responding anyways, before he finally could open his eyes. Only to see the other boy standing in front of his mirror, shirtless, examining a little thread of ink on his skin. He tried hard not to stare. Then it hit him. “You got your words.”

Bill turned away from the mirror, in his direction, and smiled. “You're looking pretty miserable over here,” he recited. “What do you think? Am I gonna meet them when I am coming out of a fight? Maybe I will join a revolution and a time will come when I don't succeed but then I meet them and everything turns out to end good,” Bill speculated, like the dramatic boy he was. Always dreaming about defying laws and doing something great.

It took Darcy embarrassingly long to register that the words on Bill's skin were his own. It took him even longer to realise that Bill had no clue that he had already heard these words before. For a moment, a short little moment that could easily be missed, he contemplated telling him. But he couldn't. Not when Bill started to go on and on about some fictional soulmate, already planning out their lives together. Some fictional soulmate. Some soulmate that wasn't Darcy.

Maybe Darcy should at least tell Bill that he shouldn't get his hopes up. That he shouldn't go through the streets, thinking that he will meet his soulmate. That he should instead go and find a pretty girl to settle down with. But he didn't.

Instead, he just stood up, wished Bill a happy birthday and pretended to be as invested in Bill's soulmate scenarios as the boy himself was.

A cool wind was blowing through the streets but that didn't bother Darcy. He was just content with walking an overjoyed Bill home. It was an easy concept. After being persuaded by both Katherine and Bill, all three of them had joined the newsboy's cause and helped typesetting and printing an article to get the working kids of New York to unite. Bill was convinced that he was finally part of a big rebellion, so he nearly began floating with delight. And when Bill was extraordinarily happy, he became the most beautiful person on earth. Walking side by side with the most beautiful person on earth was making Darcy the luckiest boy on earth. So some tiny, chilly breeze became nothing to him.

Right now, Bill was talking about the commitment Katherine had shown and how surprised he had been when she had told him that the strike leader himself, Jack Kelly, was her soulmate. “Wouldn't it be nice, being part of a revolution alongside your soulmate?”

Darcy snorted. “I suppose.”

Bill threw him a strange look. The last few days, he often wore this exact same look and it drove Darcy crazy because he didn't know what it meant. Suddenly, Bill slowed down his steps. He hadn't exactly talked loud before, considering the fact that they were walking through the city while most of the people were asleep in their beds, but nonetheless he began to decrease his volume. “Say, Darcy, do you remember what we saw before we left the building?”

Darcy's heart stopped beating for a moment. Of course he remembered. It had shocked him to see two boys kissing openly in front of so many people but then the shock had turned into jealousy. How badly he wanted to do the same. Kissing the person he loved. But these were newsies. They lived after their own rules, as long as nobody got hurt. They may have been treated badly by life but they could be who they are. He wasn't a newsie. He wasn't allowed to follow his heart's desire. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I was wondering, you know... If two boys could be each other's soulmates,” Bill stated. His hands, that had been hanging by his sides, were now fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Darcy wanted nothing more than to reach out to them.

Why couldn't Bill stop with this whole soulmate talk? And since when was he so interested in same-sex soulmates? Suddenly, Darcy felt nervousness crawling up his skin. Did Bill suspect that Darcy wasn't interested in girls? “I... How would I know?” He stuttered out.

Silence. Then, without a warning, Bill grabbed his hand and led him into the nearest alley, away from the lights of the street lamps. The smell in this alley wasn't exactly pleasant but Darcy had other problems than his stinky environment. Bill was close. So close. And he hadn't let go of his hand.

“Darcy, look, I desperately hope that I am not wrong but if I am, let's just forget about this whole thing, alright?” Bill's words didn't make any sense to him. However, he nodded, if only to learn what was going on with the other boy all of a sudden. “The party where we first met. How did you think I looked?”

You're looking pretty miserable over here. He remembered. Bill remembered, didn't he? Beads of sweat were tickling Darcy's forehead now as he contemplated his options. He could name a random adjective or act like he didn't know what Bill meant. Or he could be honest and finally get his rejection. But why would Bill be so keen on rejecting him? I desperately hope that I am not wrong. All this time, Darcy had thought that he understood Bill pretty well, but now he wasn't so sure any more. “You were looking pretty miserable,” he breathed out. His heart was beating faster than ever and he distantly registered that his hand was still in Bill's. Bill's wonderful hand that was so often decorated by ink stains.

“Thank God.” It seemed like Bill let out a breath he had not known he was holding. And then, he pressed his lips to Darcy's.

Darcy's brain short-circuited. What was even happening? Was he dreaming? No, he couldn't be dreaming. In his dreams, his kisses with Bill were always perfect. But in reality, neither of them had ever kissed someone before, so it was an awkward touch – lips to lips, with a little too much saliva. Darcy pulled back in bewilderment. “What do – But you didn't remember – What was that?”

Bill let out a shy laugh. “I know I didn't even consider the possibility that someone had already said my words when I first got them. But the longer I thought about some fictional person I realised that I didn't really want them. There was only one person on my mind and I couldn't get rid of all these thoughts about you and then I remembered our first meeting. I knew I said something to you about these presumptuous people but I couldn't remember your words. Context, hope and Katherine were what led me to at least hope that you could be my soulmate. And I just had to know if I was right.” He made a face like he was thinking about something. “Why hadn't you told me before?”

“I didn't want to scare you away. And you were so happy with your idea of an ideal soulmate. An ideal soulmate that wasn't me.”

“I am so sorry, love. It wasn't my intention to make you feel this way. But you have to know that there is no ideal soulmate. There is just you. You and me. From now on.” Bill used the hand that wasn't holding Darcy's to stroke Darcy's cheekbone, trying to not knock the spectacles from his face. “If you'll have me.”

Darcy couldn't help but smile at being called love by Bill of all people. “Of course I'll have you. But... what about everything else? Our parents? The rest of society? I want to make this happen, I promise, but I have to remind you that the position we're in is not exactly an optimal one.”

“I know. I know and we can think of something tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow, I mean, we may be a little busy with joining a revolution. But please, please let us be only us for a moment.”

Darcy didn't even have to think this time. He nodded, feeling tears of relief forming behind his eyelids. Then, he took a deep breath and decided to lift a weight off of his chest. “We are soulmates, Bill.” It felt indefinitely good to say it out loud.

“Yes, we are, love.” Bill had never looked more beautiful to Darcy than in this moment.

26 notes · View notes

leonthecardboardunicorn · 4 years

Text

The Oracle Prince, Happy Ending

Pairing: Viggo/Liz

Summary: We’ve found the gems of the Dragonkin, but now Hawkeye has their eye on the treasures of the noble families. The Foundation Day royal ball seems like the perfect time. Luckily, we have the help of the crown prince- Viggo?!

First: Chapter 1

Previous: Chapter 12

Unhappy Ending

Normal Ending

The Dragon of Time. All of my life, I'd heard the legend of the mighty dragon who watched over this land, a being sealed away in stone.

But that night, stone became flesh, and the dragon's mighty song filled the air- a power so great I could barely remain standing.

"Liz!" Viggo wrapped his arms around me, shielding me. Finally, the light faded. "Are you all right?"

"Ah!" My heart jumped as I saw them. Jaden and Daniel were still standing, but they were frozen like stone. Only the king remained unfrozen.

"Their hearts were filled with wickedness." The voice boomed through the tower, and my gaze fell upon the dragon. "They will awaken in time, but they will be without their magic. This is the fate of all those who followed them."

"Amazing.." I had read about this power in the storybooks, but it was different to see it in person.

But all my attention turned as the dragon landed before us. Those eyes.. the eyes that had watched over this land were now fixed on Viggo. "Your presence is strange, familiar and also.. new. Who is it who awakens me?"

"I am a descendant of Siegfried," Viggo said clearly. No longer was he trembling, as if all his fear had faded away. "I am a prince of the kingdom the two of you dreamed of long ago."

"I see. I have slumbered for a long time."

Viggo nodded. "You have guarded us for all this time. But someone told me that even you deserved to see the light of day again." He nodded towards me.

"And who are you?" His gaze fell on me, but his eyes were gentle.

So many things that I wanted to say, but I couldn't find the words. "I-I'm Liz Hart. I'm h-honored to meet you."

He seemed to smile. "The honor is all mine, Goddess of Time." The blood rushed to my cheeks as I heard him.

"Ha.." And Viggo and I realized at the same time there was still someone left in the room.

"Ah, crap! Hang on!" We quickly ran over to the king, untying him.

"Thank you." But the king was trembling as the dragon's gaze fell on him.

The dragon approached him, sniffing him. "You too are the blood of Siegfried. You are the one who leads this land."

"I-I am. I've heard.. the legends all my life, but I never thought.. I never dreamed I'd see you like this."

"I didn't think I'd see the light of day once more," the dragon said. "It's thanks to the bravery of all those gathered here- especially those two who dared to face me."

"I know." The king smiled at Viggo. "I feel like I can learn from their bravery."

And just then, I remembered. "O Dragon of Time! I forgot to mention- we're not the only ones here! There are some old friends waiting to meet you! I'm sure they'll be really excited!"

"Well then, let's not keep them waiting."

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

When we got back to the floor, the first thing I noticed was all the frozen figures, just like Jaden and Daniel, frozen mid fight. Even Cordelia amongst them.

'So this is what's become of Hawkeye..'

A hush fell over the room as all eyes on fell on the Dragon of Time.

"Just as the legends say," Vain murmured, eyes wide, "so this is the Dragon of Time.."

Randolph smiled as he approached him. He reached out, touching the dragon's snout. "It's been a long time, old friend," he greeted warmly.

"It seems a lot has happened while I slumbered."

"More than I can say. I've been watching over this land for all of these years. It's different, but.. wonderful all the same."

"This power.. just like I remember, all those years ago," Felix said, a distant look in his eyes.

The dragon turned to him with a smile, a knowing look. "I see that you too have awakened from your long slumber."

"Yes. It took a long time, but.." He looked over his shoulder at Willem and Lacan. "I found my way home. It's good to see you again."

I couldn't help but smile as I watched them. 'It looks like everything's working out.' But something hit me.

"Oh, wait!" In all of the confusion, I had almost forgotten about the ball. I couldn't imagine the confusion back in the ballroom, with everyone leaving so suddenly. "Viggo, shouldn't we be getting back to the ball now?"

“Crap!”

Headmaster Schuyler stepped forward. "Your Majesty, you, His Highness, and Liz should go on ahead. We'll take care of getting these," he nodded towards the frozen figures, "back to the castle dungeons."

"We can help with that," Felix offered. The other two nodded behind him.

"I'll go with you," the Dragon of Time said, nudging the king. "I'm looking forward to seeing what Gedonelune has become after all these years."

"Huh? Sure.."

My heart warmed as the four of us started walking together. 'It looks like things are working out.'

Suddenly, something cold touched my nose as we stepped outside. "Huh?" I held out my hand, confirming my suspicions.

"What's wrong?"

"It's.. snowing."

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

'What a fuss.' I nearly collapsed against the wall, a wave of exhaustion sweeping over me as I left the ballroom.

"Liz?" Viggo settled next to me on the ground. "You all right?"

"It's just been a long night." I had lost count of the hours we had spent in the ballroom, taking care of the fuss. "Still.." I couldn't help but smile at the memory. "We made quite a sight showing up with the Dragon of Time, didn't we?"

"We did. May have been worth it just for the shock on their faces." He laughed, but his expression softened. "But.. seems like they took things pretty well. Everyone seemed to accept the Dragon of Time wasn't going to destroy everything. And I won't be the prince who brought destruction upon Gedonelune."

"It looks like you'll have to be the hero who saved us instead."

"A hero... That doesn't sound so bad."

The dragon we feared was kind, and now Hawkeye was gone. "It looks like everything's going to be all right after all."

He smiled a little, but his expression turned stern again. "..A lot is going to change now that he's awake. The snow is just the start of it. We can't go back to how things were before."

"I know. I know our actions wouldn't be without consequence. But we'll face it together. And, honestly, after every thing that we've been through tonight, I feel like we can handle anything together."

He smiled. "..I'm glad you were there with me," he said at last, avoiding my eyes. "I don't know if I would have been able to face it alone."

"Of course I was. I'll always be there with you."

He was quiet for a long moment as he leaned against the wall. "..I never thought that I'd make it this far," he said, his voice distant. "Thought I'd always be shoved around, in trouble until the end.”

He turned to me, and my heart was racing. He squeezed my hand, and I knew what this was. I'd felt it way back then, walking together in the town, and I knew it when we'd faced the dragon together. I knew it without a doubt.

"You are the only one who doesn't see me as just a prince- or a troublemaker. Over and over, you've shown me the future doesn't have to be as dark as it seems. You've shown me I can forge a new light.”

"Viggo-"

He smiled, sweet and warm. "I love you, Liz."

"I love you too, Viggo."

I wasn't sure how long we sat together, both exhausted from the trials. But it was a peaceful feeling. Not a girl and a prince. Just the two of us.

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

By the time morning came, everything was settled. With everyone's help, we'd managed to find the others Hawkeye had kidnapped; the rest had been trivial.

In the light of morning, the castle looked like a different world. The courtyard glistened with fresh fallen snow; nobles frolicked happily through the snow or played together.

I couldn't help but smile as I saw them. 'To think, just last night, I thought the world was going to end.' And now we felt at peace.

To my surprise, I felt something drape over my shoulders. I looked up to see Viggo settle his cloak over my shoulders. "You ought to take care. It's freezing out here."

"Thank you."

"Dad usually arranges for it to snow on Foundation Day," he said, a wistful look in his eyes. "First time it's happened like this though. We'll have to start preparing for a heavy winter."

"Well, don't you two look like a happy couple." Vain strolled up to us, Hugo and Mischa following on his heels.

"You.." Viggo's gaze fell on Vain. "You're the one who broke Cordelia out. Guess I should thank you."

"Oh, that's right! Vain, there was something that I wanted to ask you. How did you convince her to help us?"

"Hmm, I wonder." As usual, all I got was his mysterious smile. But.. was I imagining the distant look in his eyes? "That's for me to know."

"Figures." Even after all this time, I still couldn't get answers out of him.

"I can tell you this." His expression turned serious. "You would have gotten the gem of wind either way."

"..Who are you, anyway?" Viggo asked.

"Well.." The story of the time travelers was a lot to explain.

But Vain got there first. "I'm the one you would have faced in the finals, if things had gone according to plan. It's almost a shame we never got to face each other."

Viggo smirked, his hand already on his pipe. "That sounds like a challenge."

"I'm up for it if you are. If, of course, you're prepared to lose."

I couldn't help but smile, seeing their spirit. "That sounds like fun! It might be just the thing to lift everyone's spirits up."

Panic flashed across Hugo's face. "Wait, Vain, I don't think that's such a good idea-"

"Don't worry, Hugo, this won't take long."

"Pugnus Tempestus!"

Vain lurched forward, hidden eye flashing- and went crashing to the ground with one swing of Viggo's mist fists.

"Huh? Why can't I summon my magic?!"

Hugo sighed, helping his brother to his feet. "That's why I tried to warn you," he scolded. "The Dragon of Time awakening threw off the magic that governs time all at once. It'll take a while for our magic to recharge."

That sounded familiar. "Oh! It's just like what happened with the Castle in the Sky." Hugo nodded.

"Hmph." Vain turned away, clutching his nose.

And Viggo wrapped his arm around me. I felt him resting his head on my shoulder, a teasing smile on his lips. “Does this mean that I win?"

"Looks like it." I giggled. "Prince Viggo, savior of Gedonelune- and winner of the tournament."

He smiled. "That doesn't sound too bad."

He leaned in towards me- and kissed me on the lips. And even in the freezing snow, he was as warm as the sun.

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

"What? You can.. take away my visions?"

The Dragon of Time faced him steadily. "If that is what you desire. I have heard how you suffered at the hands of Hawkeye. How you were used from a young age because of your visions. You need not carry that burden any longer."

Viggo glanced at me, as if asking what to do. His visions had caused him a lot of pain over the years. It could be the start of a new life, to live without them. But.. he had been able to make something new for himself too with it.

I took his hand, meeting his eyes. "It's your choice, Viggo."

He was quiet, for a long moment. "I.." He sat up, his voice firm. "I won't let myself be used by anyone else anymore. I won't go back to how it was before."

"Understandable."

"..So teach me how to use them."

"Huh?"

"As much as I've hated them, they've helped guide me too. And if everyone else can use them, I sure as heck can too. So teach me how I can make the best of them."

Relief flooded over me, and the dragon smiled. "Excellent choice."

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

Luca and Elias stared up in awe at the Dragon of Time.

“All that time of dreaming of the tower,” Luca muttered. “I never thought I'd get to see you in person like this.”

“Who would have thought we'd end up here?” Elias said.

The Dragon of Time looked at Luca curiously, sniffing him. “Your presence is familiar too. You.. are a descendant of Siegfried too, aren't you?”

Open shock flashed across Luca's face. "You can tell?"

"You have a similar presence as he did. Like Viggo and the king. Different, in a way- but shining brightly too."

Luca smiled. "You have.. no idea how much that means to hear from you."

Viggo looked thoughtful. "You know.. Dad's been getting better about listening. If we told him who you were, I think he'd listen to us. Especially with the testimony from the big guy here."

"You'd be willing to do that for me?"

"Who do you take me for? Of course I would," Viggo said without hesitation. My heart warmed as I watched the two of them.

"What do you say?"

He was quiet for a long time, looking between us. And then he smiled as he shook his head. "Maybe.. another time. I have family here and at the academy. For once, I.. think I'm happy with this. But.. it's nice to know that I have the option."

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

"You wanted to see me, Your Majesty?'

"Ah, come in, come in!" The king beckoned me into the dining room. "Please, have a seat." I took a seat across from him; the table was filled with lavish foods.

'Not exactly what I expected when I got a summons from the king.'

"Viggo's been telling me a lot about you," he said with a light laugh. “He told me about your adventures together. And he told me that he loves you."

My heart dropped. 'This is a warning. Is he going to ask me to go away?'

"Do you love him?" he asked, fixing his gaze on me.

A dangerous question. But.. I couldn't lie. "Yes, I do, Your Majesty."

He laughed. "Well, that's wonderful! I'm glad that Viggo has someone who makes him so happy. The way he lights up when he talks about you.." He smiled warmly. "I haven't seen him smile like that in a long time. I'm sure you two will be very happy together."

I could hardly believe my ears. "Your Majesty, are you saying you approve of me and Viggo together?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

I bowed my head. "I'm not a princess, not a noble. I'm just a girl from the middle of nowhere."

"That doesn't matter to me." There was a distant look in his eyes. "I've spent too long letting people push me.. letting people push my family around simply because of their names. I nearly lost my kingdom because of it. And Viggo got deeply hurt because of it. I won't make that mistake again. So, if you and Viggo love each other, I won't stand in your way."

My heart soared. "Thank you, Your Majesty!"

"Oh, and there's one more thing before we eat. Tell Viggo he can come in, all right?"

"Huh?" I looked over to see Viggo in the doorway.

"I.. wasn't listening," he said, but he avoided my eyes.

"Come on, come on, sit next to me!" He smiled as he sat next to me. How wonderful. Now nothing could hold us back.

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

Our days in the castle flew by, and soon it was time to return home.

As we settled into the carriage, Viggo wrapped his arms around me, as casual as could be. My heart raced, but I relaxed in his gentle touch.

'I can't believe I get to be by his side like this.'

"It's a little sad to be leaving this place," I said idly.

"Mhmm. But we'll be back soon enough," Viggo said. "After all, this is going to be our home, right?"

I couldn't help but giggle. "Right!"

When we got back, Amelia and Gray were waiting for us at the gates.

Amelia practically tackled me in a hug. "Liz! You have to tell me everything! I heard that you went to the royal ball as Viggo's partner!"

She went pale as Viggo stepped out of the carriage with me. He casually dropped a kiss on my cheek.

I laughed at Amelia's astonishment. "I have so much to tell you." I heard a familiar cry from above us; Amelia's jaw dropped as she looked up. "A lot to tell you!"

Gray looked up. "Is that..?"

"Come on, Gray," Viggo said, guiding him away, "there's someone I want you to meet."

"Come on!" Amelia grabbed my hand, pulling me away. "Let's get inside. It's so cold out here!"

We walked together, sharing stories of our breaks. But as we walked past the forest, something caught my eye- a figure standing there, gazing up at the tower. Someone who shouldn't be there.

"Liz?"

"Uh, you go ahead, I'll catch up with you." My heart in my throat was I approached the figure. She was unmistakably familiar- a mysterious woman with long, red hair, just like I had seen her, years ago. Her gaze fixed on me. "How are you in this form during the day?"

"Have we.. met before?"

No. Something was different. She looked almost the same, but her eyes lacked the same warmth. "Randolph?"

"You must be thinking of someone I have a contract with," she said with a pleasant smile. "Easy mistake to make."

A chill ran down my spine. This was her- the one Randolph had made a contract with all those years ago. The third mage of the tower. "You're..!"

"You can call me Mab." She smiled. "By the way, I heard that you're the one who awakened the Dragon of Time."

"Y-yes."

"I'm impressed. I didn't think anyone would have the guts. But.. it does change my contracts now. And it seems.." She looked towards the tower. "It's time to renegotiate."

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

The years passed us by. And one day came a day I once would have never dared to dream of before.

This time, I found myself waiting at Viggo's door. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be. Let's get this over with." My breath hitched as I saw him, dressed in his finest. But I also smiled as I saw his eyes widen. "You look wonderful."

"You two look like a proper royal pair." I smiled at the familiar voices; Shu settled at my side, and the Dragon of Time at Viggo's.

"They'll be calling your Your Majesty soon."

"Ugh, don't remind me." But Viggo smiled even as he said it.

"King Viggo La Rochejaquelin Gedonelune," I said playfully. "Guardian of Gedonelune, awakener of the Dragon of Time-" Viggo cut me off with a kiss, taking my breath away. I loved it when he did that.

"I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. But with you as a queen.. I suppose it won't be so bad."

"Come on, Your Majesty. Gedonelune awaits."

The future that we dreamed of- and sometimes feared- had finally arrived, and, with it, came a new dawn. Like everything else, we'd face it- together.

#wizardess heart #viggo la rochejaquelein gedonelune #The Oracle Prince #Dragon's Song

8 notes · View notes

iced-coffee-and-imagines · 5 years

Text

Randolph von Bergliez/f!Reader - Empire’s Call

"When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'-ye'll ken it was because I didna have time." ~Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

~---~---~---~---~

Buckles clinked softly as you adjusted the leather straps on your husband’s pauldron, securing it to his harness and over his cloak. The polished, ruddy steel glinted against the early morning sunlight streaming through the large windows. You toyed with the tassels adorning his right shoulder once you finished, your gaze remaining fixed on his chest. The weight of your heart crushed against your lungs, the lump of emotion in your throat nearly suffocating. Biting it back, your other hand dropped to his forearm, idly tracing the edge of his vambrace. You knew he had to leave, to answer his country’s call, Her Majesty’s order. The summons had arrived yesterday morning: he was to ride to Enbarr on the morrow for an undisclosed amount of time. You dreaded the thought of what lay ahead; surely, the Empire was not preparing for war. But, as long as your hands lingered, he was there, alive and well and unscathed.

Randolph studied you silently, soft red eyes taking in whatever he could, while he could. Your expression broke his heart, features forced into neutrality, but unmet gaze betraying; a vain attempt, beloved. It was more for his sake than yours, he knew, and for that reason he never questioned. The letter had surprised you both; the Emperor’s plans were not foreign to him, but for her to act so quickly...

He did not miss the movement of your throat as you swallowed whatever sorrow crept, nor did the small motions of your fingers against his armor escape him. He shifted slowly, gauntlet-covered hands hovering just over the curve of your hips. Gaze lowering in attempt to find yours, Randolph stepped closer, the side of one sabaton brushing against your bare foot. His cuirass skimmed your chest with each breath.

Your hands had long since stilled, right hand resting in the crook of his elbow, left against his shoulder. His hands settled on your waist, grounding, real. He stooped, his nose brushing against yours, russet eyes a silent plea. You tipped your head forward, your brow meeting his as your gaze fell to the floor beneath you. Your hands sought purchase in the sleeves of his tunic, the chocolate wool of Adrestia’s winter uniforms soft and sturdy. Like porcelain, your resolve started to crack, breath shallowing, eyes warm with the beginnings of tears; looking your husband in the eye so close to his departure—for what purpose you had no clue—was dangerous. You had been through his deployments before, yes, each harder than the one previous; but this one felt different, off.

Randolph gently pulled your shorter frame flush to his, keeping his forehead pressed against yours. His armor chilled you through your chemise and peignoir, a sharp inhale escaping as a shiver coursed through you. He rubbed your waist in apology, ghosting his hands up your sides, over your arms and shoulders, before cradling either side of your face. The dark leather was warm against your skin as he tenderly tilted your head up.

He breathed your name like a prayer, unadulterated reverence effortlessly falling from him. You hitched, breath and heart faltering as your hands moved to clutch his wrists, anything to keep him close. Tears blurred your vision, barely clinging to your lashes. He stroked your cheeks, his tone adoring, elegiac, a command wrapped in silk, “Look at me.”

Whether it was out of obedience or simply because it was him, you would never know. Slowly, you brought your gaze to his, those intense redwood eyes that were always so gentle, so loving toward you. You choked back a soft sob, the tang of dolour thick in your mouth. You felt the leather grip brush under your eyes, taking with it the slightest hint of moisture; tears, it hit you, you were crying.

Randolph’s movements were careful in an effort to avoid cutting you on the edge of his gauntlet. This. This was the hardest part of leaving. To see his darling, his wife, so shattered broke parts of his soul he never knew existed until he found love. He needed to leave soon, if he was to make it to Enbarr before evening. But to leave you like this, he could not; goddess damn his heart if he did.

He pressed closer still, the bridge of his nose meeting your cheek. Your hands moved, settling weakly on his jaw and neck as you pushed back, ignoring the ridges of his breastplate against your front. Your voice sounded foreign in your ears, soft and brittle, “Please don’t leave.”

He brushed his nose against yours, straightening to kiss your brow before meeting your eyes again. His right hand trailed over your shoulder and back, resting firmly in the small of it; the other remained on your cheek, cradling it. The ash blond’s smile was sad, forced, “If I had the choice, beloved, I wouldn’t.”

Your thumbs dragged languidly over his broad jawline. You craned your neck as you leaned into him, his hold on your waist tightening. Your gaze softened, exhaustion seeping in. Swallowing the thickness in your throat, you spoke, “How long will you be gone?”

Letting his other hand fall to your back, Randolph sighed. He averted his gaze, leather-covered fingertips tracing along your spine. “I don’t know, unfortunately.” Noting your crestfallen expression out of the corner of his eye, he continued, “But, I shouldn’t be away long; a moon and a half at most, I’d wager.”

Your shoulders dropped. Wrapping your arms around his back, you leaned your cheek against his cuirass, the steady thrum of his heart hidden behind plate. His embrace—safe, secure—had always been a place of respite once you began your relationship in earnest. You felt his left arm envelop your shoulders, the other staying snugly around your waist, holding you fast against the general.

Randolph let his gaze wander over your head to the large windows on the opposite side of the chamber. Bergliez was truly a beautiful territory, nothing but expanses of fields and pastures for miles, a few villages scattered here and there. It smelled of fresh grains and flours, always; the people were kind, happy, grateful to the ruling family. Though not the house of his birth, it was home. If the war were to find it, to find his loved ones, well... He preferred not to dwell on such thoughts.

His eyes fell to you, tucked against him as though he were a lifeline. At some point, the hand at your shoulder had begun to trace patterns, leather sliding easily over the silk that covered you. The lives of those on the home front was not easy, that he knew well; countless nights had been spent discussing “what if’s” and easing the other’s worries, oft through tears. That won’t happen; I’ll come back to you; I promise—all common phrases that only the stars bore witness to. Silver weighed heavy on his finger, the band a constant reminder of oaths he did not know if he could keep. This deployment was not like the others; in three day’s time, he would be marching to Garreg Mach at the Emperor’s whim, her hope to topple the church in a blitzkrieg. Should they fail, the continent would be plunged into conflict, fire, and bloodshed. War was cruel, vicious, heedless of the lives it took in its rampage; he had no idea if he would return at all. The thought gripped his heart and throat like a vice, a sickening chill left in its wake.

His left hand found your face again, tilting your chin up to meet his ruddy eyes. Though your tears had stopped, the melancholy of acceptance in your gaze did not seem much better. The gentle smile that crossed your face was sad, but nothing short of adoring. You would wait for him, counting the hours until he held you again. You trusted him fully, knowing he would do everything in his power to return home. His chest ached. Goddess, what did he do to deserve you?

Randolph held you steady by your waist as he guided you onto your toes, stooping to meet you halfway. He kissed you softly, sweetly, one of your hands raising to cup his cheek, the other finding purchase on the junction of his neck and shoulder. It was meant to be a chaste farewell between a husband and wife; but as contact mutually deepened, it became far more: “I’ll be home soon” changed to “I may not return”; tenderness fell to desperation; hope shattered to fear. Masks crumbled, leaving two haunted lovers in their wake.

Both of you were breathless as you pulled apart, a slight saltiness lingering on your mouths; though whose tears they were neither of you could tell. You felt every divot and rise of his armor against your chest, his belt pushing against your stomach. However uncomfortable, it was proof that he was alive.

He pressed his forehead to yours, thumb stroking your cheek. He would fight a thousand wars if it meant keeping you safe. “I love you.”

Your eyes opened to find his, soft but piercing and all too unsure for so confident a man. Losing him would kill you. “I love you too.”

A sharp rap on the chamber door startled you both, heads turning. Upon hearing Randolph’s confirmation, an older servant opened the door halfway. “Forgive my intrusion, my lord and lady. Lord Bergliez, your horse is prepared. Shall there be anything else before you depart?”

The general, cheerful demeanor rebounding, simply smiled, “No, my friend. That would be all. Thank you.” Upon hearing the click of the door shutting, he sighed, expression faltering as his head turned to the large battle axe against the rack. He walked over and attached the sheath to his harness before picking the silver weapon up, brandishing it before holstering it behind him. He ran a gauntleted hand through his sandy blond hair, his attention falling to you. “Well,” he chuckled dryly, “it appears it’s time for us to part, my darling.”

You clasped your hands in front of you, bare feet padding softly against the floor as you moved to stand in front of your husband again. Grasping the collar of his cloak, you stood on your toes and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. As you returned weight to your heels, he caught your left hand, kissing the inside of your ring finger, and with it your wedding band, softly, reassuringly.

You smiled, right hand grazing his cheek, “Stay safe, my love.”

The undercurrent of worry in your tone was not lost to him, no matter how well you tried to hide it. He smiled in return, baritone airy, “I’ll try my best.” A laugh rose in him at your furrowed brow, Honestly, Randolph? “I will. I swear it. When have you ever known me not to be careful?”

You did laugh at that. “Many times, if Fleche’s stories and patching you up myself are anything to go by.” Your voice softened, “Write to me.”

He hummed, “As soon as I may, as often as I can.” He kissed your forehead once more before releasing you, stepping away and toward the door. “I love you, with everything I am.” Goddess, did he cherish you.

“I love you too.” Goddess, protect him.

The easy smile not leaving his face, he opened the door and departed, unsure of the future but swearing to return.

68 notes · View notes

welllpthisishappening · 5 years

Text

An American Haunting (1/2)

Emma Swan does not believe in ghosts. She simply talks about them on tourist-filled walking tours at Colonial Williamsburg.

It’s a belief she’s certain she’ll always hold, until, one summer she starts hearing a voice, asking her for help. And, suddenly, every certainty Emma Swan has ever had starts to shake just a bit, a hint of history and a past that’s far more extensive than she could have imagined.

----

Rating: Probably like a pretty solid teen Word Count: 6.4 K this chapter. Closing in on 13K overall AN: This is, hands down, the single most self indulgent thing I have ever written and one time I wrote a college basketball story that was literally just my own opinions. I grew up going to Colonial Williamsburg, have been on every ghost tour, including the one the RAs took us on when I went to HISTORY CAMP AT WILLIAM AND MARY. That happened. So, I’ve been wanting to write a story based at CW for years, but I couldn’t ever come up with something legit idea-wise and then today. Bam. BAM. i had an idea. I wrote the idea out in several hours of sunshine-fueled key smashing and here we are. Part two eventually because I really do hate spamming the internet with words. I won’t ever go in the Peyton Randolph house at night.

Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll.

----

The gasps always made her smile.

That was a very strange sentence out of context, but Emma couldn’t help the way her lips quirked up every single time, biting the side of her tongue so she wouldn’t actually laugh at the whole, stupid thing.

He had quite a flair for the dramatic, after all.

“Even Lafayette himself once wrote that he felt someone push against his back upon entering the house! But there was no one there. There never is. Just a feeling, that chill that creeps up your spine and takes up residence in the back of your brain, waiting for you to let your guard down.”

And…cue the gasps.

Emma covered her mouth with her hand, fingers curling around the side of her jaw. Her eyes flickered towards the couple in front of her, still sporting their Colonial Williamsburg tickets on lanyards and the man’s ghost tour sticker was peeling off at one end.

The woman reached for his hand.

And Killian was wholly and entirely in his element.

He leaned forward, a spark in his eyes that was not even remotely supernatural, but completely theatrical, the stretch of a smile moving in slow motion across his face.

“Take a look at some of the photos you’ve been snapping this whole time,” he muttered. If he leaned forward any further his stupid tri-corner hat was going to fall off.

Emma shifted against the side of the fence she was leaning on, tugging on her own skirts and trying to find a way to stand that didn’t end with her stupid eighteenth-century appropriate shoes digging into the back of her heels. It didn’t work.

It never did.

Killian wasn’t done.

“See anything yet?” he asked lightly, a practiced spiel that always ended with—

“Oh my God, there are orbs in the photo!”

Emma rolled her eyes skyward, all stars and a few clouds and it was humid enough that her hair was actually starting to curl at the ends. Maybe she could convince Regina to let her wear a different outfit later that week. This one was impossibly heavy, all full skirts and an apron that didn’t make any sense at all because she wasn’t working in any of the kitchens on property, was leading tours from nine at night until somewhere in the realm of midnight for extra money and she was certain each group was getting smaller and smaller.

The crowds were getting smaller and smaller.

No one wanted to go learn about Colonial American history on their vacation.

“That’s right,” Killian said, crossing his arms and rocking back on his own heels. Emma assumed they didn’t hurt his feet. He was still smiling. “The Peyton Randolph house is considered one of the most haunted buildings in the entire United States. Visitors since even before the first shots were fired in Lexington and Concord have claimed interactions with the supernatural. They’ve been shaken violently in their beds, heard laughter from other rooms, furniture moves—“

“—But what about the orbs?”

Emma was going to need pliers to move her hand away from her mouth. Killian uncrossed his arms, resting his weight on the replica musket he was holding.

He was supposed to be a Colonial soldier.

At the Randolph house while it was used as a hospital in 1781. Just about every building in Williamsburg was used as a hospital in 1781.

It was unfairly attractive.

Him, not the hospital thing. Emma was a psychopath.

“Well,” Killian drawled, “that’s up for debate, isn’t it? Could be a catch of the light. Could be—“ He shrugged, eyes flicker towards Emma and she had to bite her tongue again. “Disembodied ghosts looking to find their way onto the afterlife. No one knows for certain, do they Miss Swan?”

She might have gasped.

Killian’s smile widened.

Idiot.

That wasn’t part of the script at all.

“Oh, yes, absolutely, sir,” she said quickly, trying her best to stay in character. The group turned expectantly toward her, eyes wide and that woman appeared to be gripping her husband’s hand like some kind of vice. “Lots of whispers about this house and, well, Mr. Randolph, you know, I don’t like to speak ill of such a respected gentleman, but—“

“—Is that the newspaper guy?” another voice interrupted, and Emma was going to have to have a serious conversation about Regina about that too.

And she was just about to respond, not sure how she was going to do that while staying in character, but the words got caught in Emma’s throat, a sudden chill spreading through all of her limbs.

She felt rooted to the spot, mouth going dry and goosebumps exploding across her skin. Her vision danced in front of her, no orbs, but something just on the edge that felt a bit like a shadow creeping across her eye line, a hopelessness that Emma was certain she could taste, like ash and disappointment and none of that made sense, but her knees suddenly felt very weak and—

Help me. Please. I need help.

Emma didn’t hear the footsteps at first, flinching when Killian’s fingers curled around her elbow. People were gasping again.

“Swan?” he whispered, bending his own knees so he was level with her. His thumb traced absent-minded patterns on her sleeve. They were going to get in trouble for that. “Are you alright, love?”

She nodded slowly, not sure if it was actually true or not, but the shadow was gone and that had to count for something.

“Fine, fine. I’m—I’m fine.” “Try that again.” “Fine, sir,” Emma snapped, an abrupt return to form and characters and Killian's eyebrows leapt into his hairline. His tongue swiped the front of his teeth.

“Just a touch of vapors, is it?” Emma scowled, resisting the very real urge to kick him in the shins, but she didn’t need Regina to yell at them for more than one thing and she really wanted to switch costumes. “The air is rather heavy tonight, sir, that’s all,” she said. “Shall we continue on to the next place, then?”

There was a general murmur of agreement and confusion from the crowd, Emma pulling her arm back to her side quickly enough that she nearly elbowed herself in the ribs. Killian’s had to pick up the musket. He’d dropped it at some point.

“Alright,” Emma continued, backing up towards Nicholson Street, “if you’ll all be so kind as to follow me this way, our next stop takes us up the road towards the public gaol and Hangman’s Lane where, legend has it, member’s of Blackbeard’s crew were taken to the gallows.” More gasps.

A few ooh and exactly one no way, really . Emma smiled.

And Killian’s eyes never left hers, concern practically wafting off him and mixing in with that very specific smell that was Williamsburg in late August, like dogwood trees and sunscreen.

He was waiting for her.

She wasn’t all that surprised, but it was still kind of nice in a butterflies in her stomach and slightly erratic pulse kind of way and Emma had gotten a few more gasps out of the crowd. Well, Ruby had when they’d gotten to Shield’s Tavern and the story about the lady who haunted the corner room upstairs, but that felt like splitting hairs and Emma was exhausted.

“You want to tell me what happened now?” Killian asked, legs stretched out in front of him where he was sitting. On the stairs behind the Public Armory, a few feet away from the staff rooms.

He was already back in modern clothes, which was a little bit like playing with fire, guests still filing out of the historic area and meandering down Duke of Gloucester Street, but he had that very specific type of pinch between his eyebrows and— “No,” Emma replied. “Because nothing happened.” “You’re honestly getting worse at it.” Emma made a face. “I really don’t see how that’s possible.” “Swan.” “Yeah, what was that about? You’re just throwing out real names in this now? You better watch out or I’m going to tell Regina on you.”

“Please, the only thing you want to do when talking to Regina is tell her how annoyed you are with the overall state of your skirts.” “Oh, that’s so dumb, honestly.”

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Killian challenged. He leaned back on his elbows, another very specific type of spark in his eyes and this was really starting to become a problem. In a way where it wasn’t, obviously. Becuase he waited for her and knew her and Emma really had way too many thoughts about how good the whole Colonial outfit regularly looked on him.

But they were going to have to tell people eventually.

And she wasn’t sure she could cope with that.

“It’s a lot of skirts,” Emma mumbled, a quick shrug and pitiful attempt to get around him. “C’mon, move, I’ve got to change and—”

“—What happened, Emma?” He caught her around the ankle, impressive considering the amount of fabric in the way, glancing up at her with a look that was treading somewhere between imploring and a little overwhelming. Maybe they wouldn’t have to tell anyone.

Emma couldn’t believe people hadn’t figured it out already.

That lady from the tour definitely knew.

“Did it happen again?” Killian pressed, and his thumb was doing that thing again. Tracing and brushing, following a pattern that wasn’t really there, but might have been obvious for him.

Emma swallowed. “I don’t—’ “—Swan.” “This is not a real thing,” she exclaimed, at least the forty-seventh time they’d had that particular conversation. “It’s not! I’m just—I’m tired and I’m worried about attendance and—” “—Well if management would stop sending out all those cards and things to donors, then we wouldn’t have such a problem. You see the Christmas ornament designs Regina’s been looking at yet? They’re ridiculous.” Emma sighed out something that might have been a laugh, letting Killian tug her down to his side. She burrowed her face into his chest. “It was louder this time,” she whispered. “Like it was—I don’t know, getting desperate or something.” “And you still couldn’t see anything?” “No. Just heard it. Her. Heard her and I was freezing cold again.” Killian’s hand had started moving at some point, up and down her arm and Emma got the distinct impression he was trying to account for all of her. As if some voice she’d been hearing for the better part of the summer would be able to make her disappear.

The whole thing was, honestly, starting to get on her nerves. Emma had never been all that apt to believe in the facts she was touting on one of Colonial Williamsburg’s several official ghost tours. And while her’s was definitely the scariest of the bunch — the kid-friendly one didn’t mention hanging pirates — Emma wasn’t the kind of person to have nightmares or worry that she was being followed by some kind of frustrated spirit.

Until.

It started just after the Fourth of July festivities in the historic area, one of the few times when the place drew regularly crowds. Emma was sitting on the Palace Green, more ridiculous skirts and sweat pooling at the base of her spine and it had been the middle of the day. None of the stories about being haunted ever happened during the day.

That was...against the rules or something.

Help me. Please. I need help.

She’d brushed it off as the heat and exhaustion, but it kept happening — the same words, the same voice, someone looking for help and Emma seemingly incapable of doing anything except getting cold when it happened.

She was probably just going insane.

That wasn’t really a much better option.

“You’re ok,” he whispered, and her breath definitely hitched as soon as his lips ghosted over the top of her head. That was a bad word choice. “It’s ok.” “It’s crazy, that’s what it is.” “I don’t think you’re crazy, love. This is—” “—Oh, God, do not tell me that this is one of the most haunted places in America. Just...do not do it. I’ll punch you.” “You kind of looked like you wanted to before.”

“You like drawing out the Randolph schtick.” “Did I get the best reaction of the night?” “No.” “No?” Killian echoed, all scandalized incredulity. Emma shook her head, glancing up and he didn’t argue when her chin dug into his shirt.

“No. Ruby got some pretty good gasps at Shield’s and David got what can only be described as as a whimper when we started at the Wren, so—” “—That doesn’t count, the Wren is proper haunted.” She made a noise in the back of her throat, not quite a disagreement, but more like innate skepticism and Killian definitely kissed the crown of her head that time. “There is no such thing as actual ghosts,” Emma said, ignoring her maybe -boyfriend’s wide-eyed stare. “There’s not. This is—we are doing this for profit and to freak out the tourists. I’m—” Emma pushed up, nearly tripping over her goddamn skirts in the process. “I’ve got to change and then I really think you owe me a milkshake for going off-script.” Killian grinned. Slowly. It was cheating. They both knew it. The ghosts Emma absolutely, positively did not believe in knew it.

“You want to walk to Wawa or…” “Walking’s fine. Five minute?” “I’ll be here.”

She made him buy the fried ravioli under the heat lamp at the register too.

And Emma didn’t notice the brick sitting outside her apartment door when she got home, trudging into her room and falling asleep almost immediately, Killian’s arm curled around her middle.

“Ok, do not freak out.” Emma looked up, her phone in one hand and a half-finished cup of lukewarm coffee sitting a few inches away from her. She winced.

Ruby had that look on her face.

And Mary Margaret wasn’t far behind.

Which meant David was— “Where’s David?” Emma asked.

Ruby stopped in her tracks. “What kind of question is that?” “Usually these kinds of conversations also include David and I just don’t want to have to repeat ourselves when he gets here. I’ve got to be at—” She glanced at the schedule hanging on the far wall. “Tarpley’s this afternoon.” It was apparently Mary Margaret’s turn to freeze. Her eyes bugged, lips popping audibly. “You have to work at Tarpley’s today? Oh, Emma you can’t go.” “Excuse me?” “You seriously can’t go there, Em,” Ruby said, hooking her foot around an open chair and dropping down in a small cloud of fabric. “Where’s Regina? You’ve got to tell her.” “Is there a reason I have to tell our boss that I can’t go where I’m scheduled? Honestly, Tarpley’s is the easiest gig out there. I barely have to remember any facts, just for the few kids that come in with that’s—what’s the name of that thing they’re doing this summer?” “—Kid’s in Liberty,” Mary Margaret answered. Her eyes hadn’t returned to their normal size. “That’s a garbage name, isn’t it?” “Emma, I am not kidding around here,” Ruby hissed. She leaned forward, tugging Emma’s phone out of her hand and ignoring any objection. “This is a big deal and—Tarpley’s is crazy haunted, you know that.”

Emma groaned. Loudly. And slid down her chair. It hurt her spine. “Are you kidding me? Ok, who did he tell?” “You mean your boyfriend?” “Killian is not my boyfriend.” “Yeah?” Ruby grinned. “Tell that to how worried he was about you this morning. Becuase he, how would you describe it M’s?” Mary Margaret still didn’t look entirely confident, but Emma knew she couldn’t pass up a good romance either and secret dating in the middle of a vaguely popular tourist destination certainly fit the bill. “Something about a whirlwind,” she muttered. “And he told David. David just—” “—Can’t exist without telling you things?” Emma finished.

“Basically. Why didn’t you tell us you were hearing things?” “Oh my God, I am not hearing things! That’s—I’m just tired and...hallucinating?” “I’m going to be honest, Em, that is not great either,” Ruby pointed out. She took a sip of Emma’s coffee, sticking her tongue out when the temperature was wrong.

“Get your own coffee then,” Emma sneered. “Ok, ok, so I’m just...listen, this is not a big deal.” Mary Margaret’s eyes were never going to recover. “It’s not! Because it’s not a real thing. There are not actually ghosts in Williamsburg. It’s an old place with old stories and—” “—Ghosts,” David said, appearing in the doorway with a bag of Raleigh Bakery goods in his hand. “I refuse to take responsibility for any of this. Your boyfriend—” “—Come on—” “—Found me before his shift started at the blacksmith, which is where he is by the way now, Em, if you’re planning on killing him before work, and wanted to know if there were any stories we don’t use on the ghost tours. Specifically about a woman looking for help.” Emma lifted her eyebrows. “And?” “And nothing. I can’t find anything.” “Did you look real hard, then?” Ruby asked knowingly.

“Maybe not real hard,” David admitted. “But we pretty much cover our bases on all the tours. I mean you can ask Regina if you want to, but…” “No,” Emma cried. Her voice cracked on both letters, another less-than-good thing, but she was bouncing between emotions so quickly she kind of felt like a ping pong ball. Or that stupid game with the string and the stick and none of the kids who bought it could ever do it right. “We are not telling anyone about any of this because—” She cut herself off when she heard the first clack of heels, Regina walking into the room with a stack of papers on her hip and bags under her eyes that looked deeper every time Emma saw her. “What are you doing in here?” Regina asked. “Emma, you’re supposed to be opening Tarpley’s five minutes ago.” “Yeah, that’s not how time works. I’m going, I’m going. I’m—” Regina blinked. “Yeah?” “Nothing, I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

She looked around, as if she were challenging the rest of the room to contradict her and none of them said a word. “Let’s help the tourists learn something, huh?”

She made it through the day.

No ghost. No voices.

Just a day filled with overheated families and kids dressed in Colonial garb, more than a few obvious retirees sporting their own tri-corner hats because, for reasons Emma could never understand, that was apparently something people wanted to do.

She sold replicas of the Declaration and the Constitution, tiny books that reprinted George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Thomas Paines’ Common Sense. And soap. So much soap. People who came to Colonial Williamsburg loved buying soap in bulk and a variety of scents. Lemon, lavender, bayberry.

All of them.

Emma’s hands reeked of the scents when she locked the door to Tarpley’s behind her. She didn’t have any extra ghost shifts that night, but she knew Killian was back at the Randolph house and, well—she did like when the crowd gasped.

So she didn’t consider changing or even going back to the employee rooms, hiking up her skirts and heading towards the palace green and, really, she should have expected it all to go to shit.

The first gust of wind wasn’t much more than a soft breeze, but then the dirt blew up against her ankles and Emma felt like someone had strapped a very strong, nearly indestructible steel pipe to her back.

Her spine straightened, mouth falling open like something was actually trying to yank the air out of her lungs. She tensed, the lump in the back of her throat making it impossible for Emma to swallow the way she wanted to.

She tried to lick her lips, but even that was too much movement, shadows extending out from the Governor’s Palace in front of her and whatever sound she heard would probably echo in the back of her consciousness for the rest of her life.

It wasn’t human.

That much she knew.

It sounded like it was coming from an impossible distance and right in front of her, all at the same time, a shrill wail filled with despair and fury and something else just on the edge that felt a hell of a lot like determination.

And if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, Emma would have sworn it was a dream.

But she was awake and, somehow, still standing there, knees locked into place with what she could only described as awe and bone-rattling fear. Because there was someone running towards her.

A woman.

She was dressed exquisitely, a soft yellow fabric that ballooned around her when she ran. There were tears on her cheeks, streaks of kohl and a softness to her mouth that made Emma want to strangle whoever had done this. Several times over. She didn’t slow down, even as she got closer to Emma, a haziness around her that made it obvious she wasn’t entirely there.

Her shoes clacked on the cobblestone street, sniffling every few moments and Emma couldn’t blink if she tried.

She followed the woman as she continued forward, head on a swivel and her own breathing turning erratic. The woman’s shoulders heaved, until something changed, abruptly and suddenly, and her gaze snapped directly towards Emma, eyes boring into what genuinely felt like her soul and that steel whatever got even stronger.

Emma stood up straighter, not sure what was happening, only that it was important and— “You have to help me,” the woman said, voice sounding like it was coming from underwater. “What he did. What he—tried to change. It’s not right.” Emma blinked. Once, twice, three times. “This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream,” she chanted, pinching up her arm like that

would get her to wake up. It didn’t. She wasn’t asleep.

The woman shook her head slowly. She didn’t take a step forward. That was probably for the best, Emma wasn’t sure what she would do if that happened. “You can help,” she said instead, “make sure the truth is known, what I—what we did. You can make sure it doesn’t happen again. He’s trying. Now. Please. Help me.” Emma didn’t respond.

And eventually, when she stopped to think of everything that happened that night, how it changed the scope of anything that happened after, she would always regret that just a bit.

The woman took a deep breath.

Impressive, since, by all accounts, she was a ghost.

“Please,” she repeated softly before turning on her heels and floating straight through the front door of the Wythe House.

She left her right heel on the ground, the sight flickering for a moment, like it was clinging to this plane of existence and Emma couldn’t pull her eyes away. Until. One more burst of light, another sharp wail and— Emma didn’t remember her knees giving out, just a pair of hands around her shoulders and mumbled words in her ear, kisses peppered to every bit of skin he could reach and the goddamn musket was a few feet away.

“Swan, Swan, Emma, look at me, love, c’mon, I need you to actually show that you’re breathing.”

She didn’t say anything. Again. That was becoming a quickly frustrating habit of hers.

“Emma,” Killian sighed, only slight frustration. The rest was obvious fear and— “How did you get over here?” she asked. “That’s...aren’t you Randolph’ing tonight?” “Did you just use the family name as a verb?” “Am I awake right now?” Killian kissed her again — just between her brows. “Yeah, you are, love. And I...I don’t know how I knew. I just—” He swallowed, tongue darting towards lips that shouldn’t have been that distracting. All things considered. “I could feel it.” Emma jerked her head back, the condensation from the grass seeping through her skirts. Regina was going to yell about that. Loudly. Incessantly. “Wait, what?”

“It doesn’t make any sense, but—” “—I think I saw a ghost.” To his credit, Killian didn’t laugh. He didn’t really do anything, which was also pretty understandable, but Emma was teetering right on the edge of a complete breakdown and she kind of wanted him to kiss her some more.

If only to prove this was real.

“When?” “Just now,” Emma whispered. “She was...she came out of the palace. All fancy dress and she was crying and she said...she said I could help?” “You think it was the same woman? The one who was asking for help before?”

“If there’s more than one ghost involved in this, I will scream very loudly.” That got him to laugh. Killian ducked his head, lips catching Emma’s, and it was over before it really began, which was probably for the best, but she was greedy and dealing with ghosts and her knees were very damp. So she wanted to kiss him.

For several interrupted minutes.

No ghosts allowed.

“Was there anything else?” Killian asked. “I mean she didn’t introduce herself, I’d imagine.” “No, the ghost and I did not exchange pleasantries.” “I’ve never heard of a haunting on the Place Green, that’s…”

“What you asked David about?” Killian blushed, the spots of color on his cheek obvious even under the dim lighting of now-electrical lamps around them. “I was worried,” he said softly. “About—” “—Me?” “Quite a bit, yeah.” “You could feel it?” Emma asked. “Feel what, exactly?”

“I don’t know how to explain it...it was like—like I could feel this tug in the pit of my stomach and I knew it didn’t want me, specifically, but it was like everything that I’ve ever felt for you was disappearing. Like you were…” “Disappearing?” “It sounds crazy, I know.” “I just saw a crying ghost leave her shoe on the grass, so. You know, comparatively.” “She left her shoe?” “Technically,” Emma nodded. “It was a ghost shoe, so it’s not there anymore. But it was silk, I think. Pink.” Killian narrowed his eyes, gears almost turning audibly in his head. He pressed the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth. “That’s something, love. What do you say to a little bit of research tomorrow afternoon?”

The Wren Building and the Wren Library were two different places on the campus of William and Mary, a fact that always inexplicably annoyed Emma. But the campus of William and Mary was also absurdly old and, if the stories were true, haunted in several different places and Thomas Jefferson went there, so Emma also figured it was the prerogative of said campus to be frustrating if it wanted.

She’d already lost track of how long she and Killian had been there, tucked into a corner of the Library, not the Building, with half a dozen stacks of books around them and David’s promise that he’d sneak them ginger cookies from Raleigh at some point.

“This is pointless,” Emma said, slamming another book closed and ignoring the look of reproach on Killian’s face. He was very worried about offending the books.

Or possibly the ghosts.

She hadn’t slept very well the night before.

“We’re just not looking in the right books, Swan.” “Babe, we are—” She nearly swallowed her tongue. And Killian didn’t tense so much as he smirked at her, which was really, patently stupid when they were also researching ghosts, but maybe boyfriend sounded kind of good, if not just a little antiquated and— “Oh, don’t do that,” Emma mumbled, but that only gave the smirk more power.

Clap if you believe in using relationship qualifiers.

That was an out of place reference. “You were saying, love,” Killian drawled, propping his head on his hand. Emma rolled her eyes.

“We’ll circle back around to that.” “Will we just?”

“Tell me the most out of left field Revolutionary War fact you know.”

“And that will help us how?” “It’ll distract me from finding absolutely nothing about some lady in a yellow dress that, in all likelihood did not exist,” Emma explained, the smirk turning into something that looked a little more genuine. Killian’s chair squeaked when he pushed out of it, in her space in three quick strides and he didn’t react to whatever sound she made when he tugged her up only to pull her back onto his legs.

He hooked his chin over her shoulder.

“The Continental Congress tried to replace Washington at one point. When things were at their worst, before Saratoga and the French showed. Lost some of that faith him. You know he didn’t have a picture-perfect military record—” “—Starting the French and Indian War will probably do that to you.” “Ok, it wasn’t Washington specifically.” “It helped,” Emma argued. “And this is really not a lesser-known fact. I also have a degree, you know. Plus the colonists won at Saratoga and Benedict Arnold was a good guy for a while and—” “—the French showed up,” Killian said. “We’re making the same point here, love.” She huffed, equal parts frustration and exhaustion. “The woman didn’t have any other defining characteristics? I’m just...I’m trying to time her.” “Like her 40 up the Palace Green?” He nipped behind her ear, leaving Emma squirming on his lap and they were going to get kicked out of the Library. She hoped David showed up with the cookies before that. “It just doesn’t make sense,” Killian mused. “Once the royal governor left the colony there wasn’t anything at the Palace that would warrant a dress. It was a hospital. That’s—” “—Oh, if you say it’s haunted, I’ll strangle you.” “That’s not romantic at all, Swan.” “And that’s not a disagreement. I know the story, anyway. Used as a hospital during the Siege of Yorktown and French soldiers died there and now kids at the College jump the wall and see apparitions or whatever.” “Have you ever done it?” “Once,” Emma answered, appreciating the look that elicited. “When I first started here. It was Ruby’s idea, obviously. So I went with her and David and M’s. But nothing happened. No ghosts, no weird voices asking me for help. No lady disappearing into the Wythe House.”

Killian jerked back. “Wait, what?” “Did I not mention that yesterday?” He shook his head slowly, the muscles in his throat moving when he swallowed. The lights above them flickered. “Spooky,” Emma muttered, gritting her teeth when Killian pinched her side. “God, stop that. So, yeah, that happened too. She lost her shoe and then kind of...melted through the door, but that’s—that’s not a clue. George Wythe was a really important guy. He had hundreds of people staying with him.” “During the war, though? That would have put him in Philadelphia.” “So he was ahead of his time and came up with a colonial Airbnb.” “Swan.” “I’ve never heard of a ghost story at the Wythe house.” “I have,” David said, and Emma wished he’d stop showing up like that. It was doing damage to her pulse.

And Killian’s, apparently.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled. The arm around Emma’s waist noticeably tightened. David’s eyebrows lifted.

“Cookies. And information you can use.” “I thought you said you’d never heard about a woman asking for help,” Emma said, well aware that it sounded exactly like the accusation it was.

“That’s true, I haven’t. But I have heard about a woman haunting the Wythe house, or at least its staircase and,” he clicked his tongue, squeezing one eye shut in thought, “possibly the upstairs bedroom too.” “God, get to the point.” “The story goes that a woman had been attending an event at the Palace—very Colonial Army, strategizing and—” “—A woman?” Emma interrupted sharply. David glared. She ignored that. “I know, I know. That’s...I’m just—for real?” “Again, the story goes that she was well respected and well married. Her husband had been big money in London, came to the colonies to expand the empire or whatever and ran in close circles with both Washington and the Marquis.” “Lafayette?” “You know another one?” “Give me the goddamn cookies, David.” He chuckled, another step into the room and he’d bought cornbread too. “Do you know what anniversary we’re closing in on?”

Emma was going to scream. It was going to be dramatic and emotional and college kids would very likely talk in hushed whispers about the Wren Library Incident for years to come. Only, she never got the chance. Killian was talking.

“The Comte de Grasse showed up in Yorktown. The beginning of the end of the Revolutionary War.” “Ding, ding, ding,” David nodded. “And according to the story some of the plans for the blockade of the Chesapeake that the Comte staged were drafted in a small room outside of the Governor’s Palace. Out by the gardens in the back.” “Where the hospital was?” Emma asked, and David was starting to look a bit like a bobblehead. “Ding. Again. The story goes that the woman was there with her husband, a man named Robert Gold and—don’t make fun of the name, I am not in the mood.” Emma mimed zipping her lips closed. Killian kissed the curve of her shoulder. “Anyway, no one knows why, but something happened in that last meeting and the woman she ran out, not a trace of her ever seen again, except, at midnight, when the sound of one heeled shoe can be heard walking up the stairs in the Wythe House.”

Emma had to look down to make sure her heart had not, in fact, fallen on the floor. She was having trouble breathing. But whether that was from the state of her lungs or just how tightly Killian’s arm was holding her was probably a debate even a group of revolutionaries outside the Governor’s Palace wouldn’t have been able to decide.

“Shit,” she breathed. “One shoe, David? You’re sure?” “Is that important?” Emma didn’t answer him. She twisted, meeting Killian’s gaze and the tip of his tongue was back in the corner of his mouth. “What do you think?” “I think I have several thousand questions I didn’t have before.” “So list ‘em out.” He kissed her before he said anything else. That was nice. David groaned.

“Possibly lesser-known Revolutionary fact,” Killian started, “but Washington had two options in 1780. The French were trying to get some support from the French West Indies, but that wasn’t guaranteed and Washington needed to do something drastic to make a move on the British. So he could either follow de Grasse to the Chesapeake or try and recapture New York.” “I mean obviously they didn’t recapture New York.” Killian shook his head. “No, they didn’t. Rochambeau advised them this way because he heard the British were building a deep-water port in Yorktown. And it wasn’t quite a last-ditch effort, but trying to contain Cornwallis down here was...an almost unheard of tactic. A lot of things had to go right and there was a certain amount of subterfuge to it. Washington and Lafayette both engaged British troops to make it seem like they were going for New York.” And it only took her a few seconds to understand.

The light above them definitely got brighter. “You think he had help,” Emma said, stabbing her finger into Killian’s chest. He caught her around the wrist. “Someone here. Whoever told Rochambeau.” Killian nodded. “I do.” “You think it was Robert Gold?” “Why would someone with deep pockets in London be at a meeting of the minds just months before the British surrender?” Emma’s head was spinning. And racing. And possibly tripping over things. She was very glad she was sitting down. “But what about this woman?” David pressed through a mouthful of cookie. “Why would she run out of a meeting if her husband was helping the colonists? Unless she didn’t want that?” “No, that’s not right,” Emma said quickly. She blinked at the sudden certainty to her voice, as if it wasn’t hers at all, and she really wished her mouth would stop going dry so often. Killian tilted his head. “I don’t—David, do not react to this—she told me that he was trying to do it again. That’s got to be the husband, right?” Killian shrugged.

“Ok, that’s not helpful at all.” “Hold on, hold on,” David cut in. “We’re still talking about Emma’s ghost? Em, did you see someone? Here?” “Not here specifically.” “Oh my God.” “She said that exactly, Swan?” Killian asked. “Again?”

“Seems important, right?” He hummed, tongue swiping in front of his teeth. She needed to stop looking at his tongue. “America won,” Killian muttered. “That...it all worked the way it was supposed to, eventually, but the road to Yorktown wasn’t great. There were a dozen instances where Washington could have lost control and—” “—These sound a hell of a lot like questions only the woman can answer.”

“No.” “Excuse me?” “I know what you’re thinking Swan and absolutely not.” “Ok, first of all, you are not a mind-reader, so jot that down. And second of all, that’s ridiculous. You are the one who is constantly talking about ghosts and—” Emma cut herself off. She couldn’t help it. Because the look on his face wasn’t one she’d ever seen before and she wasn’t entirely sure she ever wanted to see it again.

She leaned forward, both hands on Killian’s cheeks. He kissed the inside of her left wrist. David didn’t make any noise. “I don’t know why this is happening,” Emma whispered. “But it is. And it’s...I can hear this woman and I saw her last night and she needs—if I can help her, then I’m going to.” Killian took a deep breath. “I know, Swan. But I’ll be damned if you do it by yourself.”

“Well, this is very romantic and absolutely lovely, but, uh, you guys are both idiots if you think I’m not going too,” David said.

Emma nearly fell off Killian’s leg. “Are you kidding me?” “Are you? I was the one who knew the story, Em. Plus, something about this just...it feels off, you know?” “The ghosts weren’t a clue?” “You’re using humor to deflect and that’s fair, but I can also get the key for the Wythe house from Locksley. So.” “Fine,” she groused, only faking the irritation a little. “What time would you like to commune with the dead?”

#cs ff #captain swan #captain swan ff #cs fic #captain swan fic #colonial williamsburg fic #god what even is this???#i certainly don't know

73 notes · View notes

tealsnapdragonfics · 5 years

Text

Hallows Eve Engadement pts 1-3

Summary: Having dated 3 years and living together, Klaus decides it’s time to take their relationship further, but Klaus doesn’t know exactly how to go about it, so he swallows his Goldstein pride and confides in Tiva Nasia, Ania’s best friend. But what will happen when Joel pull Ania away every time Klaus tries to bring up the topic? Will he ever get to ask the question, or will his jealousy of Joel get the better of him forever?

Tiva’s POV

The light had just barely began to peek into the dorm room when I opened my eyes.

I took a deep breath, preparing to brave the awakening of the living dead. The last thing I wanted to do was wake Ania up after a rough night, but the headmaster would kill me if Ania was late one more time. Unlike myself, Ania was famous for sleeping in late, and Klaus always gave me a glare every time Ania was late to class. Creeping over to the bed, I nudged her arm before backing off quickly. Instantly, her other hand snatched a blade and swung over her body like instinct.

“Don’t you know by now not to wake me up, Tiva? This is the third time this week I’ve nearly killed you,” Ania said while not opening her eyes.

“Come on, Ania, you can’t afford to be late today, of all days.”

“How come I have to go to the stupid meeting and not you?”

“You’re the prefect, not me.” Ania groaned out of frustration before getting up, tossing her sword into the wall and sitting up reluctantly. As her eyes opened, they weren’t their usual orange color but red as the flames that left Cerberus’s mouth when he got too excited. This was normal whenever she didn’t get enough sleep. As she got dressed, her eyes faded back to her orange shade, although it still retained the red undertones.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. When I opened the door, Prefect Klaus was standing there. The longer I stared at him, the more uncomfortable he grew. After a minute in silence, I called out to Ania, “Your boyfriend is here!” The response I received wasn’t exactly what I expected. All I got was a groan of defiance, as if to say ‘I don’t wanna go! I’m exhausted!’ Rolling my eyes, I couldn’t help but sigh. It was the same routine every time she had to go be a functioning human and not her exhausted demon self.

After five minutes, I gave up and left the door for a moment to drag Ania out of the dorm. Much to her displeasure, of course. Ania continued to pout in the doorway. Without warning, Klaus lifted her up like a doll and walked off with her in his arms. Sigh… Just another start of a normal day.

Ania”s POV

As Klaus carted me to the school in his arms as though I was a doll, I couldn’t help but place my face on his chest and close my eyes, hoping to sneak in more sleep.

To be honest, I didn’t mind helping the students with their magic and all that, but when it came to not getting any sleep due to a student summoning an untamable creature unless you were born in hell, it was a good way to put me on edge for the next week. The spell had succeeded, but the student failed to step away from the creature and just kept pestering it till it attacked. By that point, the idiot was as good as dead, and it was none other than the school’s favorite spell singer, Joel Crawford, my childhood ex-friend.

While it was unfortunate that the angry hellhound didn’t manage to kill him, I also had to stay up even later to cover up the incident. There are times in a wizard’s life that they wished they were dead, but what I wished was for Joel to not have ever lived so that I stop nearly killing Tiva every other morning. As we got closer to Klaus’s office, he slowed down, and I sensed exactly what he was up to.

Klaus’s POV

As we neared my office to begin the tasks for today, I couldn’t hold back the urge to tease Ania.

I had gotten the brilliant idea to make her think I would drop her. As I began to loosen my grip, the words that left her mouth stunned me, “Klaus, you do, you die.” I was dumbfounded for a moment. How did she know? Reality smacked me in the face. She was half demon. Of course she could sense my movements. That was one of the many reasons why I fell in love with her. Instead of fake-dropping her, I lifted her upwards into the air slightly. Before I could catch her, she somersaulted onto her feet before walking up to me and punching me on the arm.

“Ow, yeash, I was just playing around,” I joked. The brief shimmer of red in her eyes told me that she didn’t get a wink of sleep after the hellhound incident. I engulfed her in a hug out of apology. When I let go of Ania, Randy and the headmaster walked into the office, closing the door behind them. Knowing full well it wasn’t professional, Ania sat down on my lap as I asked, “What the hell is Randy doing here? I thought this was an official meeting.”

“It is. We’re discussing the setup of the annual Gendonlune Ball taking place here instead of the usual location,” Headmaster Randolph answered. With a rather loud groan, Ania buried her face into my neck, totally ignoring the headmaster. I continued to interrogate the headmaster, “Why is the ball happening here, rather than in town like normal?”

Randy blushed a bright red as Headmaster Randolph answered, “Randy forgot to make arrangements with the town, then decided to argue with their manager in public. Unfortunately, Randy is permanently banned from the town, and there is simply no way to fix things in time for the ball..”

Rolling my eyes with an exasperated sigh, I questioned. “Why do we have to go out of our way for the kids of this school? All they ever do is get drunk, no offence.”

“This year, alcohol is banned because it is Halloween-themed, and there will be a haunted house maze that everyone must try to escape without magic at midnight. You can see why the prefects must organize this. With the enlistment of some talented students, we can still make this a success.” Ania rose her head up while keeping her eyes closed and asked, “Am I allowed to terrify the students in my demon form?” The only response the headmaster gave was a sneaky smile.

Turning to look in my direction the only response I got from her was a fanged grin and golden eyes The expression alone told me she was going to make even the bravest and most powerful students shit themselves.

Headmaster Randolph asked, “So, we’ll have Joel help as part of his punishment, and Elias and Luca will also be helping with the setup. Is there any other students that should be pulled out of class to help too?” After thinking for a few moments, one individual popped in my mind. There was a girl that most people forgot existed in the first place, who is powerful and loves a good haunted house.

“What about Tiva Nasia? She enjoys this kind of stuff, and she can build some stuff along with enchanting.” Only fast footsteps echoed in from the hall as everyone else in the office just stared at me like I was insane. Ania finally said, “Tiva’s even worse at magic than I was. Are you damaged in the head?” Her face said, “Why the hell are you bringing up Tiva’s uncanny skill at magic?!?!”

I let out a deep sigh, ready to drop the idea when suddenly, Randy had to open his trap and comment, “Tiva is pretty good at crafting stuff without magic.” The headmaster was officially convinced that Tiva helping out was a good idea. “Tiva helps too. Meeting concluded for today.”

Finally relieved this meeting was over, I put Ania on my fold-out bed to let her sleep and went to locate She-Who-Can’t-Be-Found. For the most part, I was going to tell her that she gets to help with the haunted house, but there was another deeply personal reason to find. Going to Tiva Nasia for advice meant I finally had to swallow all the pride I have in me.

*Time skip brought to you by Klaus (almost) killing Luca for turning the main entrance into one big carbuncle slip ‘n’ slide*

It took me nearly seven hours to find Tiva, and it turned out that she was tailing me the whole time. Backing up a little.

When the clock told me that it had been nearly seven hours, I grew frustrated and cursed under by breath, “Where could she possibly be this whole time?!?! I’ve looked everywhere!” I turned around, and there she was, the mysterious Tiva Nasia, leaning against the wall. How Ania even managed to become best friends with her was beyond my knowledge. I fought against my pride as she said, “I was wondering how long it’d take you to realize that I was right behind you the whole time.”

“Seriously? How did I not see you behind me?”

Tiva placed her finger up against her mouth and replied, “A girl never reveals her secrets. So, what’s up?” Wait, how did she- you know what? I’m not even gonna finish that thought. This girl hangs with Ania. I really need to remember that questioning her is just like questioning my girlfriend, complicated.

Running my hand down my face, I peered at Tiva from the side. “Well,” I started, “you are officially on the committee to help prep the ball’s haunted house.”

“I heard.”

“Not even asking how you found out.” I began to shift my weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably while trying to find the words. Giving in, I swallowed my pride and asked, “I need your help on how to propose to Ania. I’m at a total loss and you’re the only person close enough to her that might have some ideas.”

“The owl finally wised up, did he? Sure, I got an idea or two...” Silently growling, I stared at her, waiting for her to share away, swearing to God she was purposely torturing me. “Oh, you’re waiting for me to share away. You could try proposing on Hallow’s Eve, say, in the woods or a haunted house or even at a secret graveyard that no one supposedly knows about.”

I smacked myself on the forehead. OF COURSE! Her favorite place to terrorize other people. While I’ll never figure out how Tiva even know about the secret graveyard, she clearly knows Ania. Tiva continued, “And in case you’re still trying to find the perfect ring, there may or may not be a secret magic ring shop in town that is supposedly behind the chapel. Good luck.”

I nodded my head as Tiva walked off never to be found again. Leaving the school grounds behind, I rode on the train for a brief 20 minutes before entering the town. Out to find this shop, I quickly found the chapel. Walking around the building, I noticed a faint shimmer deep within the fog.

The shop was rather easy to locate, but having to fight off some angry fire wolves wasn’t quite so fun. Wandering through the shop for what seemed like days, the shop appeared to be never-ending. Then, I came upon a simple, yet elegant, wedding ring. The band was golden, with silver diamonds surrounding ten amethyst stones shaped like feathers. It looked as if the stones itselves were wrapping itself around your finger.

Pulling the ring from its case, I walked up to the register in the old shop to inquire about the price of the ring. As the man took the ring in his hands, glancing from it to me, he asked, “Why would a young wizard like yourself be after such a fine ring? A royal demon ring, no less.”

I couldn’t stop the smile that formed on my lips as I answered, “It’s for my girlfriend. Her birthday is on Hallow’s Eve, so I thought, why not propose during the ball in her favorite graveyard? As for the demon aspect of that ring, if you must know, she’s half demon and is the granddaughter of the devil himself. I’m fairly positive you can figure out the other half. Amethyst is also one of her favorite stones.”

With a smile, the older man placed the ring in a garnet encrusted box before finally saying, “That will be 1,700 lune.” Sighing with relief, I payed the fee and left the shop with a smile on my face.

I knew I had made the right choice picking that ring. Now there was only two thing in the way of us being together for good: her grandfather’s approval, and her answer to the question I’ve waited to ask ever since we ran into each other years ago. One can only hope the answer I receive is yes.

Unfortunately, the fate of our engagement rests in the hands of the devil himself.

Part 2

I found myself fiddling with the engagement ring as the train silently ran back to the academy.

After scolding myself for taking it out of the box, I placed the enchanting ring inside the stone-encrusted box just as the train pulled into the station. Walking back to the academy was nerve wracking and uncomfortable. Venturing through the academy entrance as the pebbles crunched under my feet, my thoughts drifted to Ania and how she’d react to the question. Just as I was about to enter, I hear Joel’s obnoxious voice sweet-talking.

Peeking in the main entrance, I see Joel making a pathetic attempt to win Ania back, asking for forgiveness for only the devil knows what. Saying I wasn’t jealous was a complete lie, but I couldn’t afford to “accidentally” kill Joel for hitting on my girlfriend and risk losing Ania forever. Thus, I came to the conclusion I needed to once again swallow my pride and accept that Ania can deal with Joel herself.

Meanwhile, I had a bigger problem… Now I have to find my way into hell and convince Hades, the devil, to let me marry his granddaughter, the last reminder he has of his firstborn son. Maybe I should have gone to him first, then the ring… No time for regrets now. I continued to watch Joel’s makeup attempts, plotting how to kill him later when he messes up again, when suddenly, the last thing I expected to happen did.

Out of nowhere, She-Who-Disappears-All-The-Time showed up, walked right past Joel while Dinozzo-slapping him on the back of the head, and disappeared in the distance in front of about a few dozen students watching and laughing their head off (In case you don’t know what a Dinozzo-slap is, there may or may not be a show called NCIS). “See? Even Tiva hates you,” Ania snapped at Joel, now on the ground, as she walked away.

With a smile, I headed towards the abandoned temple deep into the forbidden forest, the ring secured in my drawer. There, the portal to the underworld remained open for only the use of myself and Ania. I entered the abandoned temple and descended down to some tunnels similar to a maze, walked straight to the end of the tunnel, and entered an empty room with an unsuspecting crack in the wall. Running a finger along the crack, I suddenly found myself in the same room with just skeletons.

As I left the newly-transformed temple, Hades’ castle stood with pride in the distance. The smell of black tea and cocoa beans wafted through my senses. A familiar howl invaded my ears as the silhouette of none other than Cerberus leapt closer along with a figure on his back. Soon, Cerberus came to a halt, nearly crushing me to death, and Hades got off of the three-headed hellhound to greet me by asking, “How’s Ania?”

Getting out of the way of the hound, I looked at him and replied, “She’s fine, as demonic as ever.” With a heavy sigh, I fell silent, unsure how to bring up the topic. Then, Hades threw me off by saying, “Time to pop the question, isn’t it?”

“How did you even-”

“You never come here by yourself. What else could it be?”

Rolling my eyes, I continued, “I know that not every person is as welcome in hell as yourself or Ania, but I didn’t want to intrude on you, seeing as you have to govern the underworld...”

“Dude. It’s cool.” I was left speechless. I can’t believe that of all beings agreeing to the engagement of Ania and myself, I already had HADES’ approval. Cerberus started trying to stick one of its heads under arm in attempt for some playtime. I turned around to stare at the hellhound, looking depressed and innocent. “Next time, I’ll bring Ania for playtime. Deal?” I told Cerberus.

After a brief and messy lick in response, I bid Hades and his guard dog goodbye and made my way back to the room with the portal. As the old temple consumed my vision, thoughts of doubt and worry plugged my mind. What if she says no? Or worse, leaves me for Joel? After touching the crack on the wall of the demon temple, I found myself in pitch darkness.

Is it dark outside already? After nearly smacking right into the door that was now closed, I cautiously made my way back upstairs and out the main door. A walk through the faintly lighted forest later, I was once again standing at the main entrance of the academy. Before I could open the door and sneak in, Ania tackled me from above saying, “Where have you been all day?!?!”

Her normally golden orange eyes were glowing with a blood-like red that sometimes shows when she is sleepy, mischievous, or otherwise pissed off. After getting up off of me, she continued to scold me, “What possible reason could you have for disappearing for a whole day while Joel have been whining and begging like an infant to take him back?!?!” I was trying so hard to hold back my laughter at her semi-childish complaints only to realize that she wasn’t in a playful mood.

She was genuinely worried and angry that I disappeared. What do I tell her? I can’t tell her that I have been getting her engagement ring and got Hades’ ‘blessing.’ Getting an idea, I told her, “Headmaster Randolph asked me to go visit the Ministry because my older brother needed help on a recent case. I’m sorry I didn’t give you any heads up.” Unable to say anything, Ania simply curled up on my lap and buried her head on my chest. Guess I really did scare her. Can’t say I blame her…

The door creaked slowly, and Tiva peeked her head out, whispering, “Guys, get in here now! The headmaster is doing his final check of the school grounds.” With a silent nod, I stood up with Ania secured in my arms and entered the academy.

*Time skip brought to you by Ania stealing all the blankets on Klaus’s bed*

As Ania slept curled up on my bed, I sat by the window, deep in thought. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to pull this off alone and that if it wasn’t for Tiva and Elias talking some sense into me, I would still be single and alone and not with one of the most amazing girls in this world, above and below. How to plan the proposal….

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a piece of paper slip from under the dorm door. After eyeing Ania and making sure that she wasn’t gonna wake up, I quietly used magic to bring the paper to me so that the creaks of the floor wouldn’t trip her slumber. The note read, “Bring whomever you see fit to help you. Meet at the entrance of the forbidden tower in the morning. Amelia and Morgan will take Ania out to town for archery while we plan the proposal. They know absolutely nothing about this. Destroy the note when you finish reading. - Tiva.” A sneaky smile grew on my face. I was glad that I decided to confide in Tiva about my plans.

That morning, Amelia and Morgan did indeed show up, excited for a girl’s day out. Pulling Ania to me by her waist, I nipped her neck and earlobe gently before kissing her passionately. “Stay out of trouble, Karma, and stay safe,” I whispered into her ear. With a gasp, her eyes widened when I called her by her given name only for her to wrap her arms around my neck and give me a silent nod of agreement. Letting her go, I watched as Amelia and Morgan fangirl over Ania having a boyfriend and unknowingly drug her towards the town with smiles on their lips.

Tiva’s POV

I waited for what felt like an eternity at the train tracks for Amelia and Morgan to show up with Ania. Sure enough, looking utterly flummoxed and slightly irritated, they marched up to the tracks with Ania in toe. “Sorry it took so long, Tiva. Ania is rather stubborn, and it took longer than expected to get her out of bed and ready to go,” Amelia said as she tightened her grip on Ania’s wrist.

The black aura radiating off of Ania was rather interesting to watch dance around her as she glared daggers into the back of Amelia’s head. “It’s fine. The train hasn’t quite gotten here yet. There will be plenty of time for fun.” I looked around and spotted a realistic fake-Professor Schuyler glaring at me. Morgan followed my eye-line and noticed him too. “Tiva, what haven’t you told us?” she asked.

“Darn it! He caught me outside my dorm room last night and now expects me to come to detention. I was hoping he would forget about me,” I smoothly lied to the girls. Ania told me to ditch when I could and join them in town later just as the train pulled into the station. After waving the girls off, I turned around and started walking towards the illusion that I had created for the lie. Once I was sure that the train was gone, I swiped the spell away and made my way through the so-called forbidden forest.

Soon enough, I reached the Tower of Sorrow, where the chimera lay guarding, and found that Klaus hadn’t shown up yet, or so I assumed. Three silhouettes merged from the forest in my direction. It appeared that Klaus brought Elias and Luca with him. The trio stepped out of the forest, revealing themselves. Well, this may be easier than I thought… I bid them welcome and started sharing ideas for the engagement.

Part 3

Tiva’s POV

“If anyone messes up in any way, I will personally take you to Hades myself, understand?” I warned Zach.

“Yeah yeah. Whatever.” The brown-haired teen walked away, disappearing into the shadow of a wall as Ania and Klaus came around the corner. I gave the thumbs up to show that everything was in place. I hope my temporary... ‘assistants’ don’t go too far out of control tonight. There was no doubt that someone would enjoy terrorizing the students, namely Zach. However, I’m positive Ania would give him a run for his money before the night is over. Zach and Ania will be competing for the most screams tonight….

Klaus kissed Ania gently before silently leaving the two of us in the halls of the haunted mansion. “Ready to go get our costumes on?” Ania asked. I gave her a look that said, Do you even have to ask? With a evil laugh, she teleported us to the dorm where our costumes laid out on the beds. As we started to change, Ania suddenly threw me off a little bit by asking, “Will Klaus ever propose, or will he eventually leave me for another girl? It’s not that I don’t trust him, but waiting so long makes you wonder.” She doesn’t suspect anything tonight. Good.

Taking a deep sigh, I said, “If he knows what’s good for him, he won’t make the mistake of leaving you for a mere mortal. And if it turns out that he isn’t who you thought he was, I’ll make sure that I beat your grandfather to the punch. Assuming that there is anything left of his soul.” Ania laughed.

Ania’s costume was a badass dark-angelic assassin, which would soon take on a demonic persona. I was trying to not imagine Klaus’s reaction when he saw her in her outfit. She summoned two wolf-like hellhounds to join me in my assassin costume before we made our way to the main dance area. Once we got there, there was many students wearing costumes either dancing or complaining about the no-alcohol rule this year. If only they knew what awaited them…

Suddenly, a dark-haired Klaus walked up to us with a semi-unhappy and semi-mischievous look on his face. He decided to darken his hair and wear a demon costume with wings, some unusual weapon held by one of his hand, an eye patch over the right eye, and a faint red eye contact to make his eyes appear a mix of demonic red and purple. It took Ania a good five seconds to realize he was her boyfriend.

*Time skip brought to you by Joel trying to get Tiva’s trust despite having failed a lifetime ago*

Ania’s POV

“Are you sure Klaus isn't possessed, Tiva?” Joel nagged Tiva, finally realizing that Klaus had been with us for an half-hour.

“Would you rather he was possessed by Death herself and trying to hunt you down while I stand here saying, 'I told you so?'” Tiva stared at Joel with an evil look in her eye and a mischievous slight grin. Joel took a gulp, turned around, and bolted for the door. Before he made it, the door magically slammed, locking all students of the academy in the dance room. Looks like everything is in working order. Here come a night of fun…

Tiva, Klaus, and I looked at each other, acknowledging the fact that the haunted house was about to begin. We made our way to the door, where Randy, Elias, and Luca waited excitedly while Joel looked perfectly miserable. Suddenly, an automated deep voice, similar to Klaus’s, echoed out throughout the room with an evil laugh. After a few seconds of screaming died down, the room was in dead silence as Tiva and I fought against our urge to laugh.

The automated voice spoke, “Welcome to the 107th annual Gendonlune Ball. Unfortunately for you poor... innocent students, this Hallow’s Eve is the night of your death. There is no escape from your inevitable fate tonight. At the stroke of midnight, you’ll suddenly find yourself in a haunted mansion with ghosts, booby traps, and worst of all, a demoness. You could stay in the room with your group and pathetically attempt to stay alive, or you could try to escape with your team. The odds that you will make it out alive is slim, but possible. (evil laugh) And did I mention that your magic is completely useless as of right now? May Death favor your end.” It laughed again, fading away into silence.

Students left and right glanced at each other, trying to figure out if the voice was genuine or a practical joke skillfully crafted.

Random Student’s POV

My friends and I were whispering to each other fearfully, debating whether Luca had successfully pulled off the ultimate prank on the whole school when all of the sudden, only darkness can be seen. A grandfather clock could be heard in the distance, signaling midnight. Light slowly fades in, and my group of friends plus some other students were still around me, but we were now in a smaller room that appears to be a locked Victorian bedroom. A high-pitched screech echoed from the door just before the door suddenly opened wide.

We glanced at each other, terrified of what could potentially happen. A figure clothed in black gripped a long slender item I couldn't make out. Twisted around the item were silver thorns weaved into a crown laying atop the head of a legless skeletal figure. The hooded figure turned around and walked away, and a minute later, a black-haired, purple-eyed girl in an assassin outfit stuck her head in the door. “The demoness is coming soon. Let’s go!”

We followed the mysterious girl down the corridor where the hooded being previously disappeared into. One guy had the guts to actually ask the girl if following the grim reaper was a good idea. She answered, “One, that was no grim reaper. Two, who ever said anything about following him?” Instead of turning right and following the figure, she led us down the left corridor into a humongous library. A crack of thunder and a flash of light startled us, but does not seem to bother the assassin girl. Darkness swallowed the room, and numerous howls echoed from every direction.

Where the assassin girl stood, a candle was lit, revealing the face of the famous Elias Goldstein, reading a book as usual. He wore a badass male witch librarian costume, and sheathed on the table in front of him was a sword, known for its playfully dangerous personality. It was none other than Excalibur. As Elias looked up from his book towards the temperamental sword, there was a warning chime of the grandfather clock. Suddenly, the ground shook, almost like an earthquake or an explosion from a distance.

Standing on the edge of the balcony was a long haired male with a glowing burned and aged six of spades card in his long artisan fingers. His green eyes glazed over my group and stared straight at Elias, preparing to throw his now burning card. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Joel over by the table, about to touch the infamous Excalibur. Elias noticed too late, but he was unable to do anything about it, now in a magical duel with the mysterious guy. The Excalibur floated up, unsheathing itself as Joel slowly backed up.

I yelled at my group to run just as the enchanted blade turned its point towards us. We were scrambling into the corridor and tried to go back to the room we originated at. Blocking our path was a brown-haired male with head trauma and an evil grin. He started bolting for us as we kept running down the corridor where a feminine figure stood at the very end. By the time one of us noticed that we were trapped, the ground collapsed from under our feet. We were in complete darkness with a slight odor of garlic and iron. Right above us was faint bickering between a male named Zach and a female who sounds familiar, but it was suddenly drowned out by a loud screech in the distance.

Klaus Goldstein, wearing a vampire hunter costume, walked up to us with a torch in one hand and a lethal crossbow in the other. He lit a torch that was on the wall behind us, then said, “Grab the torch. You’ll need it to defend yourself.”

“From what?” one of the girls asked at her own risk.

“Don’t you mean who? Randy has been transformed into a vampire by the demoness herself, and he’s now roaming around the dungeons. The headmaster has asked me to hunt him down to protect any students that may actually have a chance of surviving.” A metallic clang echoed from the direction Klaus approached from. “Get ready to run in case I fall.”

Adorkable Randy walked out of the darkness, batting his eyes in reaction to the torch. At first, he appeared to be perfectly normal, besides the lack of costume. Then, he grinned madly, revealing his bloody fangs. With a quick motion, Klaus shoved us past the blood sucker and fired his silver crossbow at Randy, saying, “In the name of God, impure souls of the living dead shall be banished into eternal damnation!”

Before we could do anything, Randy leapt up, narrowly missed by the arrows, and pounced upon Klaus, nailing him down. We hurried away into the darkness with a single torch, not knowing where to go. Turning the corner, we nearly ran into Excalibur, still persistently hunting for us. “Go go go!”

We bolted up some random stairs and through a series of corridors, not paying attention to our surroundings except for the fact that there was a magical emo sword chasing us. Pretty soon, we found ourselves cornered at a dead end, about to meet our Creator. Out of nowhere, the assassin female from earlier dropped down from the ceiling, facing the infamous emotional-teen weapon with hands on her hips. It was almost like Excalibur was terrified of her. It turned itself right around and went flying off to its owner, whoever that may be.

She turned to face our group and said, “You guys want to get out of here? We have to confront the demoness, the ruler of this tormented mansion. It’s the only way we’ll ever get out.”

“What?!?! Isn’t she just going to kill us anyways?!?!” Joel stupidly protested.

“You’re right. She will kill us, whether it’s in these corridors and rooms or as we walk right out the main door that is cursed. If we can keep her busy long enough, then there is a chance that we’ll be able to walk out alive. Who’s coming with?” Everyone stood in silence, unsure of whether to listen to her or try to make it out by themselves. The black-haired female started walking away, and we followed behind.

Eventually, we stopped walking right outside the throne room, with the doors casted wide open. Standing in the center of the room was a girl with blonde hair with red tips wearing thick assassin armor. What the heck? That’s no demoness. That’s a student.

Ania’s POV

Tiva led a group of confused and terrified students, including Joel, into the throne room. The fright of their life was about to begin.

“Karma, I demand you to reveal yourself!” Tiva yelled. With a sinister voice, I answered with a little magic to make it sound as though I was elsewhere, “Which mere mortal dare to command Karma, demoness and granddaughter of Hades himself, to appear before mere humans?” Tiva stepped forward while the terrified students tried to run out the door. With a wave of the hand, the doors slammed in their faces. They watched in horror as I morphed into my demon form before their eye.

My white, red-tipped wings extended from my shoulder blades and out to its full span as my skin shimmered into a pale silver-white tone. My assassin armor shifted into my demon armor, as elegant and invincible as ever, and my long-missed scythe, thorns wrapped around a metal skull, rose into my hands from the ground. My hair faded into pure white while retaining its vibrant, blood-like red tips, and my fangs grew just slightly longer and sharper while remaining human-like. My demonic aura yearned to take control and consume all creatures in the throne room while my humanity fought against it.

In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but think, I always forget how hard it is to hold down my power when in the human world. It’s never been this strong before, but again, it is Hallow’s Eve, the second most dreaded night for superstitious people of the year, not to mention the fact that I literally have not been in my demon form since before I started coming to this academy.

Before I knew it, I found my demonic side saying, “Well, looks like you get your wish. Not for long, though.” My demon form let out a demonic, evil laugh as Tiva only raised an eyebrow. Well, Tiva definitely knows something is up. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Joel trying to sneak past me. Unfortunately, so did my dark side. With no control over myself whatsoever, I glided over to Joel in a blink of an eye, nailing him to the wall by the throat. My eyes darkened as I stared into his soul, withering in fear.

Next thing I knew, I was raising my scythe, preparing to finish him off. WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?!?! I CAN'T TAKE HIS SOUL! Another part of me started to whisper enchantingly, Come on, Ania, you know he deserves to die. Especially after what he have done to you, or even better, your bestie. Nearly giving in, I prepared myself to swing the scythe, when all of the sudden… “KARMA NOX!” I morphed back into my normal form unarmed, collapsing onto the ground as I heard Tiva tell the mortified students to make a run for it now while the demoness was powerless.

Almost immediately, footsteps faded away into the silent distance. Glancing up, I watched Tiva jog towards me with a concerned look in her eyes. “Are you okay, Ania?”

“No. I nearly- no, I lost complete control over myself when my demon form appeared. I was on the verge of just letting myself do the deed. I let Klaus down. I told him that I’d never lose control of my dark side, and tonight, I failed.”

Tiva looked me straight in the eye and flat out said, “You may have lost control of your demon side, but you most certainly did not fail Klaus. You entrusted me with the safe word to ensure that tonight would not end tragically. By doing so, you have gained the ultimate control over yourself.” I was completely confused on what she meant. The truth is, the fact that I felt like I failed Klaus was the least of my worries…

I still had to face my greatest fear involving my demonic side: my grandfather.

#wizardessheart #elias goldstein #klaus goldstein #shall we date #randy march #luca orlem #professor schulyer #headmaster randolph

1 note · View note

endeavour-fan29 · 6 years

Text

*sighs* Here is the complete first chapter of my fanfiction ‘Closure’

Closure

Chapter One

*Trigger Warning*

Contains graphic details of sexual assault. Reader discretion is strongly advised. I understand the risk I’m taking by publishing this, but I also understand that people can choose whether to read this or not.

A/N: I have not been raped myself, but I have come very close, so I have a rather good idea of what that trauma feels like. Please don’t ask for details. I’d rather not discuss it. I’m still traumatized.

A tear ran down Lizzie’s face as she sat on the steps outside Cowley Police station in Oxford, as DS Jim Strange stood with her. “It’s gunna be alright love,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. A black Jaguar pulled up as Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, and Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse stepped out of the car as they walked up to Strange. “Thanks for getting here so quick, matey,” said Strange, shaking Morse’s hand.

“Why is she on the steps?” Asked Morse. “She came to report in person, but the front desk was shut. She called 9-9-9 from a payphone just down the road.” Said strange.

“Oh, poor thing!” said Morse. “Why don’t you take her in?”

“She said she didn’t want to do that,” said Strange. “What’s her name?” Asked Morse. “Only got a first name - Lizzie,” said Strange. “Did she say anything else?” Asked Morse. “No,” said Strange. “Right, thanks Strange,” said Morse as he cautiously approached Lizzie.

“Hello,” he said softly as Lizzie turned. “Lizzie is it?” Asked Morse. Lizzie nodded. “I’m Detective Sergeant Morse, City Police, you called about an attack? A sexual attack?” Lizzie sniffled as she nodded. “Alright. Why don’t you come inside so we can talk?” Said Morse gently. He offered his hand to Lizzie, but she didn’t take it. “It’s alright,” said Morse.

Lizzie held out a shaky hand and took Morse’s as they walked up the steps where Thursday met them. “This is Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, he’s a colleague. We work together. This is Lizzie.”

“Hello Lizzie,” said Thursday. “Come on inside, watch your step,”

He supported Lizzie as he and Morse helped her up the stairs into the police station.

They met a woman there dressed in a police uniform with blond hair and a kind face. “Lizzie?” she asked as Lizzie. “My name is Shirley Trewlove, I’m a WPC, I’m going to be with you through this whole process, and make sure you understand everything that’s happening. If you are feeling unsafe or uncomfortable in any way whatsoever, do not hesitate to say so. We will stop.”

Lizzie nodded, showing she understood. “My office is just down this way,” said Thursday as he led Lizzie to his office as Morse and Trewlove followed. “Uh, the FME is on her way,” said Trewlove to Morse as he nodded and walked into Thursday’s office as he shut the door behind him.

Trewlove brought in a labeled cardboard box, and opened it. Inside were several sterile items: swabs, alcohol wipes, etc. Trewlove took one of the sterile swabs out of it’s packaging. “Now I’m going to take a mouth swab, and the reason we do this, is basically so you can have a cup of tea, okay?” Lizzie nodded. “Alright, could you open your mouth for me?” Asked Trewlove as Lizzie opened her mouth and Trewlove began to swab her whole mouth; her teeth, her gums, the sides of her mouth and under her tongue. “Alright darling, just gonna go round here, alright? Well done, nearly done,” Lizzie whimpered. “Alright, just under your tongue. All done.”

Lizzie sniffled and wiped her tears away. “Alright, now, second request - also comfort related, do you think you could do a quick urine sample for me?” asked Trewlove. Lizzie nodded as Trewlove handed her a small urine specimen cup from the box. As Lizzie got up, Trewlove, noticed a suspicious wound on her collarbone that was bleeding pretty bad.

After five minutes, she hadn’t emerged from the ladies room. “She still in there?” Asked Trewlove. “Yeah,” said Morse. “Did you see the wound on her chest? I’m no expert, but it looked like a bite mark or something!” “And marks on both wrists. She doesn’t have any kind of identification?” Asked Thursday. “No,” said Morse. “Strange said she wasn’t carrying a purse.”

“Still no surname?” Asked Trewlove. “No,” said Morse.

The door opened and Lizzie emerged carrying the urine specimen cup in a wad of toilet paper and handed it to Trewlove.

They then walked back to Thursdays office and got Lizzie a cup of tea. Morse offered Lizzie a cigarette and she took one as he helped her light it. She

“Lizzie do you mind telling me your surname?” Asked Trewlove. Lizzie was quiet. “Lizzie,” said Morse, gently. “You told the emergency operator that you were attacked. Can you tell me and Inspector Thursday when and where that took place?”

Again Lizzie was quiet. “You don’t remember, or you don’t want to tell us right now?” Asked Morse. Lizzie breathed heavily and shook her head. “Where do you live Lizzie?” Asked Trewlove. “I um, I don’t - I don’t live anywhere I’m staying at the Randolph,” said Lizzie. “Oh, yeah, I know it!” Said Trewlove, smiling kindly. “It’s a nice hotel.” Lizzie nodded.

“Um, Lizzie,” said Trewlove. “The man who attacked you, was it someone that you know?” Lizzie swallowed hard and nodded. “Who?” Asked Morse. “I can’t say!” “Why, why can’t you say, Lizzie?” “Please!” Lizzie begged, fresh tears streaming down her face. “Did he threaten to hurt you if you said anything?” Asked Morse. “He said he’d kill me if I went to the police!” Said Lizzie.

“If you tell us, we can protect you,” said Thursday. “No, please!” Lizzie begged. “Alright,” said Trewlove. “We’ll get to that later. Just answer some other questions first. Do you remember anything from the attack?”

“I was at school,” said Lizzie, “In the common room. I was packing to leave, and he came in and started talking to me. Then he tried to kiss me and I pushed him away.” Trewlove nodded. “What happened then, Lizzie?” She asked. “He - dragged me to the couch, and pulled down my underwear, and before I knew it he was on top of me - inside me...” She gasped as she buried her face in her hands. “It’s alright,’ said Morse, as he put a hand on Lizzie’s leg. Lizzie flinched and pushed her chair away from Morse.

“Did you say ‘no’? Or - or ask him to stop?” Asked Trewlove. “Yes!” Said Lizzie firmly. “You’re doing great, Lizzie,” said Thursday. “You really are,” said Trewlove.

“Were you tied up, Lizzie?” Asked Morse. “Behind my back,” said Lizzie. “And after the attack were you left there or did he make you go somewhere else?” Asked Trewlove. “Uh, no, he left me there.” Said Lizzie.

“And how did you get to the police station tonight?” Asked Morse. “Walk? Drive?”

“No, I don’t drive,” said Lizzie. “So you walked here?” Asked Thursday. Lizzie nodded. “Lizzie,” said Morse, licking his lips and scooting forward on his chair. “This is a delicate question for me to ask, but did anything else happen during the attack?

Lizzie’s eyes filled with fresh tears as she shook her head “I’m sorry!”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” said Morse.

After they finished asking Lizzie questions, they took Lizzie to the hospital in the Jaguar. Trewlove stayed with Lizzie through the entire examination process. She took off the clothes she was wearing and they were sealed in evidence bags, along with her shoes. She then had photographs taken of her external and internal injuries. She held Trewlove’s hand tightly as the FME performed an internal examination on her. Morse and Thursday stood outside the curtain as they heard the FME gasp “Good God!”

When they were done Lizzie was allowed to have a shower and get cleaned up. The FME talked to Morse and Thursday about Lizzie’s injuries. “Severe bruising and contusions to her vaginal canal and cervix, signs of forced penetration. Her hymen is torn, and there is deep bruising on her inner thighs. Honestly her injuries are the worst I’ve seen! Whoever hurt her did a damn good job of it.”

“Will this affect her fertility?” Asked Morse. “Based on the condition of her injuries, the chances of her ever being able to conceive are slim to none but more to the none,” said the FME.

Dr. deBryn came by to give her a physical, and see what’s what. After he was done he approached Morse.

“How’s she doing?” Asked Morse. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t talk for a while, and I wouldn’t push her too hard. The poor girl’s been to hell and back.” “Did you see the injury on her chest?” Asked Morse. “Most likely a bite mark,” said deBryn. “Human?” Asked Morse, his eyebrows raised. “Oh, yes,” said deBryn. Morse looked horrified.. “You find this piece of work, Morse, do that for me, would you?” Morse nodded.

Afterward, Lizzie was sitting with Trewlove, still looking shaken. She had been given a dose of contraceptives during her initial examination. “I’m going to refer you to Oxford Rape Response, and they’ll allocate you an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor who should get in touch within twenty-four hours. Dr. deBryn checked you over, yeah?” Lizzie nodded. “Lizzie,” said Trewlove, taking Lizzie’s hand. “I want you to know that there is a tremendous amount of support for what you’re going through right now. There are people who will look after you, help you, and guide you. You will survive this, I promise.”

Again Lizzie nodded. “DS Morse, and DI Thursday are going to take you back to your hotel. Do you have any more questions for them?” Asked Trewlove.

“Do you believe me?” Asked Lizzie. “Yes,” said Morse. “We do, Lizzie. And we will catch whoever did this to you. You have my word.” Said Thursday. “Alright DI Thursday and I are going to take you back to the hotel,” said Morse.

Lizzie got in the Jaguar with Morse and Thursday as they drove Lizzie to the Randolph hotel and dropped her off in her room. As Lizzie bustled about making tea Morse and Thursday sat down. Morse noticed a pile of mail with the name Lizzie Blaszczak on it. There were two locks on her hotel room door and the windows were sealed.

“Surname is Blaszczak - what is that, German?” Asked Thursday. “It’s Polish,” said Morse. “Two locks on the door, doors sealed, I don’t think she’s at risk here,”

“Not unless her attacker has a key,” said Morse. “How’s she doing? She say anything else?” Asked Thursday. Morse shook his head. “What? She can’t remember or she just doesn’t want to tell us?”

“She’s still in shock, we need to give her some time, sir,” said Morse. “We may not have that kind of time, Morse,’’ said Thursday. “Look at that letter. It’s from her school.” Said Thursday. Morse picked up the envelope, it was addressed to Lizzie in green ink and the back was sealed with purple wax, bearing a coat of arms featuring a lion, badger, eagle and a snake, all surrounded by the letter H.

“If the attack happened at her school...” Said Morse. “Could be why she’s so reluctant to talk about it,” said Thursday.

After Lizzie finished making tea, Morse and Thursday continued to question her. “Does anyone else know your here?” Lizzie shook her head. “No friends?” Asked Morse. Lizzie shook her head again. “No,” she said.

“What about your parents Lizzie?” Asked Thursday. “Um, my dad died when I was seven and my mum, and my twelve sisters live in Surrey. I’m dead for all they know.”

“We found this, on your desk. What does H mean?” Asked Morse. “It stands for Hogwarts, it’s a school for bright students - geniuses.”

“What House were you in?” Asked Morse. “I was in Gryffindor,” said Lizzie. “Only the bravest of the brave are put there.”

“Is that where it happened, Lizzie?” Asked Morse. Lizzie nodded. “Was it someone in Gryffindor?” Asked Morse.

Lizzie took a shaky breath. “I was in the common room, like I told you before,” “This letter came Saturday, it’s now Tuesday, so what did you do between then and now?” Asked Thursday. “I - I caught a bus here, and checked in. And for a while I laid on the bed. I thought If I just laid there it would go away,” said Lizzie. “And the clothes we took from you yesterday, are they not the clothes you were wearing when you left Hogwarts?” Asked Morse. “No, I threw them in a corner of my room, Over there,” said Lizzie, pointing.

They gathered Lizzie’s clothes and put them in evidence bags along with her bed linens.

“After we’re done we’ll go to Hogwarts see what we can dig up,’’ said Thursday. Morse nodded.

As they were preparing to leave, Morse approached Lizzie. “Is there anyone I can call to come be with you?” He asked. “No,” said Lizzie. “Friend? Relative?” Asked Morse. “Did you not hear me?” Asked Lizzie. “Alright,” said Morse. “I don’t want anyone knowing,” said Lizzie. “Lizzie, you need support, you can’t be on your own,” said Morse. “But I am,” said Lizzie. “I just am.”

Morse reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a card and handed it to Lizzie. “I shouldn’t really give you this, but here’s my card, my home number is on the back, Anytime you want to talk, or if you need anything day or night, you give me a ring, alright?”

Lizzie took the card looking grateful. “Thank you,” she said.

“You must be exhausted, how are you feeling, sweetheart?” He asked. “Dirty. Violated,” said Lizzie.

“We will need you to come and make a full statement as soon as you’re ready,” said Thursday. Lizzie nodded. “You’ll hear from your ISVA soon, there’s two locks on your door, and you can call the front desk at any time for anything, and you’ve got my number, I can be here very quickly,” said Morse. Lizzie nodded again.

“How far away is Hogwarts?” “Few hours by train,” said Morse. “She said the attack was in the common room, do you think it was a Gryffindor?” “If it was, then why won’t she mention his name?” Asked Thursday. He sighed. “Why did she wait, Morse? Why didn’t she report it sooner? Why did she come back to her hotel?”

“Everyone responds differently,” said Morse. “Well, we’ve already lost - sixty hours? If the attack happened at Hogwarts that is a long list of people to interview and eliminate. And the attacker is still out there.”

They got to Hogwarts around sunset and met Lizzie’s old Head of House Minerva McGonagall. “I’m Detective Sergeant Morse, this is Detective Inspector Thursday,” said Morse as he showed his identification. “What can I do for you detectives?” “We understand that Lizzie was a student here?” “Yes, she disappeared, roughly...” She sighed. “Two days ago. “Did you report her missing?” Asked Thursday. “No, I figured that she had just gone on holiday or something. “And she didn’t give you any notice that she was leaving?” Asked Morse. McGonagall shook her head. “She disappears, and you don’t think to report it? Even when you don’t receive any notice?” Asked Morse, sounding shocked.

“Lizzie has had a hard year,” said McGonagall. “What’s been going on?” Asked Morse. “Lizzie’s been having some trouble with another student. She claimed he was sexually harassing her. We questioned him, but he denied it.”

“What other student?” Asked Thursday. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that.” Said McGonagall. “We are investigating a serious sexual assault that we believe happened at your school,” said Morse firmly. McGonagall looked horrified. “Shit! Lizzie! Is it Lizzie?” She asked. “We can’t reveal details.” Said Morse “What kind of student was Lizzie?” Asked Thursday. “One of our brightest, really,’’ said McGonagall. “Very diligent worker, always did her homework, popular with both the boys and the girls, just an overall friendly girl.” “Can you think of anyone at all that would possibly want to hurt her?” Asked Morse.

“Well, the Slytherin students don’t like her very much because she’s disabled - our only disabled student. But I can’t imagine them ever wanting to hurt her.”

“Can we see the common room?” Asked Thursday. “Certainly, follow me,” said McGonagall.

She led them to a portrait of the Fat Lady that concealed the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. McGonagall gave the password as the portrait swung forward. “We sealed it off for a while, but now we’ve reopened it for the students,” said McGonagall. Morse, ever the observant detective, noticed a dark stain on the carpet, “Sir,” he said, “Look,” Thursday looked at it. “I’m willing to bet that’s blood,” said Morse. “Seal off the common room,” said Thursday to McGonagall. “Again? We’ve just reopened it!” “We have a possible crime scene here, this is not open for negotiation!” Said Thursday. McGonagall nodded.

After collecting potential DNA samples they returned to Oxford and debriefed the rest of the detectives. “Lizzie Blaszczak, a student at Hogwarts has made an allegation of rape against an unknown attacker. The incident is alleged to have taken place in her House common room Saturday night. She was packing to leave. At this stage it is unknown whether the attacker was a fellow student or possibly even a teacher. DS Morse and I took her to hospital late last night. We’re awaiting preliminary forensics, and have dispatched further forensic teams to Hogwarts to gather up anything else...’’ “Sorry,” said Detective Constable George Fancy. “When did she report this?” “Last night,” said Thursday. “But the attack happened on Saturday - it’s a bit of a gap. Are we sure she’s genuine?”

“When you’ve complete your sexual offenses training, Fancy, you’ll understand we always begin from a position of believing the victim.” Said Morse. “Of course,” said Fancy. “But...” “Given the specific injuries, the details of her account, matching facts at the crime scene, and an overall assessment of her emotional state, we’re working on the assumption that she is indeed genuine.”

“Just asking the question,” said Fancy. “Alright,” said Morse. “You’re new, we forgive you,”

“As of right now,” said Thursday. “We’ve made no public statement. Chief Superintendent Bright is aware. Once we have got the initial forensics, we’ll make a call on the risk of the safety of the students at the school.”

That night Morse woke up around midnight to his phone ringing as he groggily got out of bed to answer it. “Morse,” he said putting the receiver to his ear. The sound of a woman breathing was on the other line. “Lizzie?” He asked. “Yeah,” said Lizzie. “Are you alright?” Asked Morse. “I remembered,” said Lizzie. “He - he put a knife to my throat! He said that if I screamed he would slit it! I was so scared!” Morse went over to where his coat was and fished out his notebook and pen and started taking notes. “Alright, this is really useful information, Lizzie, thank you,” said Morse. “Why did he choose me?” Asked Lizzie tearfully.

Morse and Thursday returned to Hogwarts to check on forensics and conduct more interviews.

Later they returned to the police station for another debriefing. “Lizzie Blaszczak was attacked by unnamed assailant, possibly another student. It was a deliberate, extremely brutal and violent attack. She was restrained, unable to defend herself, a knife was held to her throat, and he threatened her. Her hands were tied with bailing twine. Morse has got a lead on that.”

“Yeah, they’ve got a horse barn on the grounds and there’s a hayloft there as well.” Said Morse.

“We think the House common room at Hogwarts was where the attack took place. Traces of blood and semen were found on the carpeting,” said Thursday.

“Her attacker held a knife to her throat, we need to find that knife, He didn’t use a condom, which either suggests a spur of the moment attack or he intended to commit the crime without using protection. We have asked Lizzie’s head of house to provide a list of all the students in her House, as well as her friends. DC Fancy will coordinate interviewing.”

“Can’t we get more uniform? I looked at a map. Hogwarts isn’t a small town school.” Said Fancy.

“No, you are the extent of our resources,” said Thursday.

“And what about further inquiries with the victim. Her ABE interview? When will that take place?” Asked Fancy. “Can we not use the word ‘victim?’ Her name is Lizzie Blaszczak,” said Morse.

“And further inquiries as well as her ABE interview will take place when she is feeling up to it,” said Thursday.

“We’re on a time crunch, right?” Asked Fancy. “She’s still incredibly traumatized, she may not have full recall,” said Morse. “Was she drunk?” Asked Fancy. “What?” Asked Morse. “DC Fancy!” Said Thursday scoldingly. “You want to run this meeting?” Fancy hung his head in shame.

“We can’t keep this out of the papers for long, but there are still people we want to interview before the news gets out. So for now, all of this is kept confidential. Morse?” Morse followed Thursday out of the room.

They went back to Hogwarts where they collected samples of the bailing twine from the barn to compare to the fibers found in Lizzie’s wrist wounds. They then began to interview the Gryffindor students. The first one was a young man named Cormac McLaggan, who appeared to be very keen on himself. “Will you tell me what this whole thing is about?” He asked. “You’ll be assisting us with an ongoing investigation,” said Morse. “Gonna give me more than that?” Asked Cormac.

“No, I’m afraid not,” said Morse. “Where were you on Saturday night?”

“In the library, studying. I’ve got exams coming up.” Said Cormac. “Can anyone vouch for you?” Asked Morse. “Yeah, my mates,” said Cormac. “How many?” Asked Morse. “Six or seven,” said Cormac. “I’ll need you to give me their names,” “Yeah, of course, anything you need,” said Cormac. “Good,” said Morse. “One more thing. Do you ride horses?”

“Yeah, eventing,” said Cormac.

Morse met Thursday at the Hogs Head for drink. Thursday handed Morse an evidence bag with a sample of bailing twine. “Here, send this off to be tested against the fibers found in Lizzie’s wrist wounds.”

Morse picked up the bag of twine, examining it. “But even it’s a match, it doesn’t prove anything.” Said Morse. “It does increase the probability that her attacker was a student,” said Thursday.

They went back to Hogwarts after their drink and began interviewing Lizzie’s friends. “Have you seen Lizzie?” asked Hermione Granger. “We are unable to discuss anything other than we are investigating a serious sexual assault.” Said Thursday. “Does her family know?” Asked Hermione. “We’ll ask you not to discuss this with anyone else until we’ve made the news public.” Said Morse. Hermione scoffed. “It’s Hogwarts. People are already talking,” she said. “Make sure you’re not one of them,” said Morse.

Lizzie received a message from her ISVA Lauren Hale and made arrangements to meet her in a coffee shop in Oxford near the police station. She walked up to Lizzie who was sitting at a table drinking coffee. “Lizzie? Hi,” said Lauren. “May I sit down?” Lizzie nodded. “My name is Lauren Hale, I’ve been assigned to your case,” “Oh,” said Lizzie. “Nice to meet you,”

Lauren sat down opposite Lizzie and put a portfolio on the table. “I’ll bet you’re a bit nervous about this so can I begin by telling you about what I do?” “Mm-hmm,” said Lizzie. “Okay,” “I’m from Oxford Rape Response. We are an independent organization, we’re not part of the police. We support people who have experienced sexual violence, and there are three strands to what we do: We run a helpline, counseling sessions, and then there’s ISVAs - Independent Sexual Violence Advisors. That’s me. I’m not a counselor, but I can make those arrangements for you, if need be. My job is to support you through the police investigation, and if it goes to trial. I will be there with you every step of the way, What I do is completely client-led. I don’t have any agenda, only to help you, okay?” asked Lauren. Lizzie nodded. “How are you doing so far? Are you up for a bit of paperwork?” Lizzie nodded. Lauren took out several official looking documents from her portfolio, and showed them to Lizzie.

“This says that I can share information with other agencies if appropriate. Basically, if you tell me anything that gives me cause for concern, for you or others, I have a duty of care to pass that on. Understand?”

Lizzie nodded. Lauren handed Lizzie a pen. “So I just need you to sign there where it says ‘Victim’s Name,’” she laughed slightly. “I don’t know why that’s there. We don’t use that word. We use the word ‘client.’”

She then handed several pamphlets to Lizzie. “Some information leaflets for you to take with you,” she said. “We’re going to have regular meetings, so have a think about how often you’d like to meet with me and where. We could meet in a place like this, or I could come to your hotel? If there are any developments in the investigation or if you have any questions for the police, I can help you with those. Am I right in thinking you haven’t made your full statement to the police yet?”

Lizzie shook her head. “How are you feeling about doing that?” “I do want to talk to them, I really do,” said Lizzie. “I just - don’t know if I’m ready,” Lauren nodded. “You do what is right for you, don’t worry about what anyone else says.”

“When you are ready, I could come with you to the interview, if that’s helpful,”

“You - you’d do that for me?” Asked Lizzie. “Of course, darling. I’m here for whatever you need,” said Lauren.

“I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin. It’s like - like I’m not in my own body,” said Lizzie. Lauren nodded sympathetically. “I can understand that,” she said. “Your mind and your body are not going to be behaving normally. You may be going through a process of trauma. There are some information in these leaflets about Rape Trauma Syndrome which may be of use to you. Whatever it is you’re feeling whether it be sad, angry, disturbed, exhausted, depressed, it is all normal, alright?”

“Thank you so much,” said Lizzie. “You may not think it but you’re doing amazingly well..” Said Lauren. “No, I’m not,” said Lizzie. “You really are,” said Lauren. “You got out of bed, you got dressed, you did your hair, and your makeup, you took a shower, you fed yourself, and you came here and talked to me. Believe me, I’ve had clients that can’t even get out of bed in the morning. They’ve stopped taking care of themselves. These are massive victories for you! These crimes, they make you feel like your control has been taken away, like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. But I can personally assure you that there is. And we’re gonna find that light, together, okay?”

“I feel so ashamed, so guilty,” said Lizzie. “This is not your fault Lizzie,” said Lauren. “None of it is your fault. The man who attacked you is the one who should feel ashamed!”

Later, Lauren called Morse. “I don’t think she’s going to be ready today,” said Lauren. “Can you hold her there? Thursday and I will drop by and have a quick word,” said Morse.

As they drove in the Jaguar, Morse sighed. “I don’t know if we should be pushing if Lauren says she’s not ready,” said Morse. “Lauren Hale is not in charge,” said Thursday. “You alright?” Asked Morse.

“Murder I can make sense of, but sexual offenses....There’s wickedness in this, Morse,” “Mm,” said Morse.

When they got to the coffee shop they met with Lauren and Lizzie. “Lizzie we’re going to release a statement later today about the attack. It’ll be very brief and non specific. It won’t mention your name or the location. We just wanted you to know in case you saw it mentioned anyway. “And...You have to do that do you?” Asked Lizzie. “Well,” said Morse. “It’s vital that we release limited information into the public domain in case it encourages any witnesses to come forward.

“We’d also like you to come in at four o clock to make your formal statement.” Said Thursday.

“Right,” said Lizzie. “If that’s what you want.” “You’re welcome to have Lauren accompany you if that helps,” said Thursday. Lizzie nodded.

That evening at four, she arrived at Cowley police station to give her statement. Lauren was with her. “You sure you’re ready for this?” Asked Lauren. Lizzie sighed and shrugged. Morse and Thursday went inside Thursday’s office where Lizzie and Lauren were seated and shut the door.

A tape recorder was set up as Morse turned it on. “Lizzie, you understand that this audio evidence is the evidence that will go forward as your definitive statement of what happened that night, including in court, if the case is taken that far,” “Yes,” said Lizzie. “I understand.”

“Can you tell us exactly what you were wearing that night?” Asked Morse. “Erm - short skirt - chiffon, leopard print, and a - a camisole - red with lace on the neck and bottom seam.” “Any jewelry?” Asked Thursday. “Just some stud earrings,” said Lizzie. “And what underwear did you have on?” Asked Morse. At first, Lizzie didn’t respond. “I’m sorry, Lizzie, but it’s important that we have this information,” said Morse. “Burridges lace bra and pants, black. They were new.” Said Lizzie. “And what were you doing that night in the common room?” Said Thursday. “I was packing to leave,” said Lizzie. “I had a really mentally exhausting year, and needed a break, so I was planning on going back to Surrey, to visit my family,” said Lizzie. “And the man who attacked you came into the common room?” Asked Morse. “Yeah, he said he wanted to see me off. I was nervous, but I didn’t want to let him know that,” said Lizzie. “Did he talk to you?” Asked Morse. “For a bit,” said Lizzie. “I offered him a drink, and we talked,” “What did you have to drink?” Asked Thursday. “Just some pumpkin juice - no alcohol,” said Lizzie. “What did you talk about?” Asked Morse. “Our relationship - if you could call it that,” said Lizzie. “He said he didn’t regret meeting me although I had pushed him into doing things he wouldn’t otherwise do.” “And what did you take him to mean by that?” Asked Morse. “No idea,” said Lizzie, “Although I immediately got this huge pit in my stomach after he had said it.”

“What happened next?” Asked Thursday. “He finished his drink and walked over to me, I had my back turned to him - I was finishing up my packing. He - he brushed his hand against my cheek, and I immediately felt like I was going to be sick. Then he - he tried to kiss me, and I pushed him away. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes after that,” said Lizzie as her eyes filled with tears.

“What happened after that, Lizzie?” Asked Morse. “His eyes got really, really dark, and out of nowhere, he tackled me, pinned me to the ground, and pulled my hands behind my back, and tied them with - I think it was bailing twine, from the barn, I suppose. He pulled down my skirt and tore my panties off my body. I was crying, told him I didn’t want it, and he - he laughed at me,” “Did he talk to you during the attack?” Asked Morse. “Yeah,” said Lizzie. “He told me to stop being silly, and that he knew I wanted it. He - He....” She took a few deep breaths before continuing. “He spread my legs apart, it hurt, I have tight hip flexors. You know, because of my CP?” Morse nodded. “Go on,” he said. “I tried to scream, but he yanked my head back by my hair, and held a knife to my throat, and he threatened me. “What did he say?” Asked Thursday. “You want the exact words?” Asked Lizzie. “Please,” said Morse. “He said, ‘If you scream one more fucking time, I will slit your goddamn throat!’ He pressed the blade of the knife against my throat enough to break the skin, I could smell my own blood. He let go of my hair, and I could -” She gulped hard. “I could hear the metal sounds of his belt, and the zipper, and - Oh, God!” She buried her face in her hands as Lauren put a comforting hand on her leg. “It’s alright, you’re doing really well,” she said.

“He - He climbed on top of me, and he started to have sex with me,” said Lizzie. Morse leaned forward in his chair, his pale blue eyes, gentle and full of sympathy. “Lizzie,” he said gently, licking his lips. “I know this is going to be hard for you, but I need you to tell us exactly what you mean by that?”

Lizzie sighed, and stared at Lauren. “Do I have to?” She asked. “He put his - penis inside my vagina,” said Lizzie. “He was -” she swallowed hard. “Thrusting, moving back and forth. It was rough, it hurt me, inside.” Her voice began to break as tears spilled down her face. “And then he started talking to me,” “What did he say, Lizzie?” Asked Morse. “He made me - tell him things,” said Lizzie. “What sort of things, Lizzie?” Asked Thursday. “He wanted me to tell him that I liked it, and how good he was. I said no, and he began to thrust harder. It hurt so much!” She sobbed. “Did he say anything else?” Asked Morse. “He yanked my head back, and told me I wasn’t allowed to say no. He put the knife to my throat again, and for a moment I thought he was going to slit my throat. I apologized and told him what he wanted to hear. I’m sorry!”

“You did what you had to,” said Thursday gently. “Do you know who that person was?” Asked Morse. Lizzie nodded. “Who?” Asked Morse. “I can’t say!” Said Lizzie. “Why?” “After- after he was done, he warned me that if I told anyone or went to the police, he’d track me down and kill me,” said Lizzie. “What did you do after the attack?” Asked Morse. “Did you shower? Or clean up, or have anything to eat or drink?” “No, I-I caught a bus here, and checked into the Randolph. After that I just sort of - lied on the bed and tried to forget about it,” said Lizzie.

“And um - I’m very sorry to ask you this, Lizzie, but when was the last time you had sex with a man before this happened?” “I hadn’t,” said Lizzie. “I was a virgin before it happened. I had my heart set on saving myself for marriage, but....”

“Are you sure, that there was just one person who raped you?” Asked Thursday. “Yes!” Said Lizzie. “Lizzie, if you are lying to us..” Said Morse. “I’m not!” Said Lizzie shrilly. “Did the man who attack you use protection?” Asked Morse. “No,” said Lizzie. “Lizzie, if there’s anything else you’re not telling us,” said Thursday. “I-I want to stop!” Said Lizzie. “Not yet,” said Thursday. “I said, I want to stop!” Said Lizzie firmly as she exited Thursday’s office with Lauren.

2 notes · View notes

easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

Text

Who Will Save the Food Timeline?

The internet’s most comprehensive archive of food history — a passion project of one dedicated librarian — predates Wikipedia. Now, it needs a new custodian.

In the long timeline of human civilization, here’s roughly how things shook out: First, there was fire, water, ice, and salt. Then we started cooking up and chowing down on oysters, scallops, horsemeat, mushrooms, insects, and frogs, in that general chronological order. Fatty almonds and sweet cherries found their way into our diet before walnuts and apples did, but it would be a couple thousand years until we figured out how to make ice cream or a truly good apple pie. Challah (first century), hot dogs (15th century), Fig Newtons (1891), and Meyer lemons (1908) landed in our kitchens long before Red Bull (1984), but they all arrived late to the marshmallow party — we’d been eating one version or another of those fluffy guys since 2000 B.C.

This is, more or less, the history of human eating habits for 20,000 years, and right now, you can find it all cataloged on the Food Timeline, an archival trove of food history hiding in plain sight on a website so lo-fi you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a GeoCities fanpage. When you look past the Times Roman font and taupe background, the Food Timeline happens to be the single most comprehensive inventory of food knowledge on the internet, with thousands upon thousands of pages of primary sources, cross-checked research, and obsessively detailed food history presented in chronological order. Every entry on the Food Timeline, which begins with “water” in pre-17,000 B.C. and ends with “test tube burgers” in 2013, is sourced from “old cook books, newspapers, magazines, National Historic Parks, government agencies, universities, cultural organizations, culinary historians, and company/restaurant web sites.” There is history, context, and commentary on everything from Taylor pork roll to Scottish tablet to “cowboy cooking.”

A couple of years ago, I landed on the humble authority of the Food Timeline while doing research on bread soup, a kind of austerity cuisine found in countless cultures. The entry for soup alone spans more than 70,000 words (The Great Gatsby doesn’t break 50,000), with excerpts from sources like Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat’s A History of Food, John Ayto’s An A-Z of Food and Drink, and D. Eleanor Scully and Terence Scully’s Early French Cookery. Before long, I fell into the emotional condition known as an internet K-hole, following link after link after link for hours on end. From olla podrida to hodge podge to cassava to taro to Chex Mix to Johnnycakes, the Food Timeline covered everything. Did you know that mozzarella sticks go as far back as the Middle Ages, but back then they called them “pipefarces”? I bookmarked the site and returned to it time and time again, when I was researching, writing, or just bored and hungry.

Despite the Food Timeline’s incredible utility, few people I spoke to had ever heard of it. Those who had always marveled at its breadth. “Oh my god, it’s nirvana,” Taste of the Past podcast host Linda Pelaccio said to herself when she first stumbled onto the Food Timeline. Sandy Oliver, a food historian and fellow fan, was stunned by its completeness and simplicity. “It was one of the most accessible ways of getting into food history — especially if you were a beginner — because it was just so easy to use,” she told me. “It didn’t have a hyperacademic approach, which would be off-putting.”

When Oliver learned that the thousands of pages and countless resources on the Food Timeline were compiled and updated entirely by one woman, she couldn’t believe it. “Oh my lord,” she thought. “This is an obsessed person.”

The Food Timeline, in all its comprehensive splendor, was indeed the work of an obsessed person: a New Jersey reference librarian named Lynne Olver. Olver launched the site in 1999, two years before Wikipedia debuted, and maintained it, with little additional help, for more than 15 years. By 2014, it had reached 35 million readers and Olver had personally answered 25,000 questions from fans who were writing history papers or wondering about the origins of family recipes. Olver populated the pages with well-researched answers to these questions, making a resource so thorough that a full scroll to the bottom of the Food Timeline takes several labored seconds.

For nearly two decades, Olver’s work was everyone else’s gain. In April of 2015, she passed away after a seven-month struggle with leukemia, a tragedy acknowledged briefly at the bottom of the site. “The Food Timeline was created and maintained solely by Lynne Olver (1958-2015, her obituary), reference librarian with a passion for food history.”

In the wake of Olver’s death, no one has come forward to take over her complex project, leaving a void in the internet that has yet to be filled — and worse, her noble contribution to a world lacking in accurate information and teeming with fake news is now in danger of being lost forever.

It isn’t often that we are tasked with thinking about the history of the food that we eat, unless it shows up in a Jeopardy! question or we ask our informal family historians to detail whose mother passed down this or that version of pound cake. But there are plenty of reasons to pay close attention: for curiosity’s sake; for deepening an appreciation of and respect for cooks, food, and technique; and for gathering perspective on what came before us. “Very few (if any) foods are invented. Most are contemporary twists on traditional themes,” Olver wrote on the Food Timeline. “Today’s grilled cheese sandwich is connected to ancient cooks who melted cheese on bread. 1950s meatloaf is connected to ground cooked meat products promoted at the turn of the 20th century, which are, in turn related to ancient Roman minces.”

The problem is that these days we’re overloaded with bad information that can be accessed instantaneously, with few intermediaries running quality control. “I think it’s a little too easy to turn to the web,” Oliver, who was also a longtime friend of Olver’s, told me as we talked about the legacy of Food Timeline. “What I worry about is that people aren’t learning critical thinking skills. Once in a while I run into someone who has never used a primary source — wouldn’t know it if it hit them on the head. Libraries are where you’d find that stuff. It’s not the same as using a Wikipedia page at all.” Or, if not a library, a mammoth resource compiled by a certified reference librarian herself. Whenever a reader would write in asking a question, or when Olver herself would become interested in the provenance of a certain food, she’d turn to her personal library of thousands of food books, and her litany of professional resources and skills, and write out detailed answers with sources cited on her website.

As Olver emphasized proudly in a 2013 interview on Pelaccio’s Taste of the Past podcast, when you Google “food history,” the Food Timeline appears first in the search results, even though she never “paid search engines for premium placement, solicited reciprocal links, partnered with book vendors, or sold advertising.” Over the years, thousands of emails poured in asking Olver for help finding the specific information they were looking for, like the history of a weird cheese or a grandmother’s pie recipe.

“One of my favorite groupings of people are those who are looking to recover family recipes,” Olver explained to Pelaccio. “I love that! As long as you can give me a little bit of context, then I have some direction.” She would often cook the recipes people sent her so she could gain a better understanding of the legacy of certain foods. Occasionally, she would struggle to come up with an answer to readers’ questions. “If anybody out there knows the answer to this, please let me know,” she began on Pelaccio’s podcast. “I’ve been asked repeatedly over the years for a recipe for ‘guildmaster sauce.’ It is mentioned on some of the old railroad menus and on fancy dining car menus, but we are not coming up with a recipe or other references.” She never got the answer.

“One of the reasons she wanted people to learn about food was for the simple basic fundamental fact that it kept people alive,” Sara Weissman, a fellow reference librarian at the Morris County Public Library and occasional Food Timeline collaborator, told me. “It was that simple. There was no pretension about it.” Olver found food to be a universal subject of interest — everyone had something to share and everyone had something to learn.

“Yesterday I took the entire day off from work because I wanted to research seitan wheat meat,” Olver told Pelaccio. “My whole site is really driven by my readers. What is it that they want to know?”

The Olvers’ former family home is a modest colonial that sits on a shady suburban street in Randolph, New Jersey, about 10 minutes from the Morris County Public Library, where Lynne worked for more than 25 years. It is fastidiously clean and welcoming, and Olver’s library was still the focal point of the house when I visited a little more than a year ago. As she amassed primary sources to build out the Food Timeline, the sitting room filled up with bookshelves to house her more than 2,300 books — some dating to the 17th century — as well as thousands of brochures and vintage magazines, and a disarrayed collection of other food ephemera, like plastic cups from Pat’s and Geno’s and a tin of Spam. “One of 10 top iconic American manufactured foods, SPAM holds a special place on our national table & culinary folklore,” Olver wrote on the Timeline.

Despite Olver’s intense fondness for it as an object of inquiry, Spam did not hold a special place on her palate; she never tried it. A picky eater, she detested lima beans, pistachio ice cream, calamari, slimy textures, and anything that even edged on raw. When she was in high school in the early ’70s, her favorite dish to make was something she called “peas with cheese,” which is as simple as it sounds. “She would take frozen peas and she’d melt cheese on it, mostly Swiss,” then cover the messy pile in Worcestershire sauce, Olver’s sister, Janice Martin, recalled. “We called Worcestershire sauce ‘life’s blood.’ It was coursing through our veins.” (Sadly, the Timeline does not include an entry for peas with cheese.)

Making peas with cheese as a teenager was the beginning of what would become a lifelong interest in food for Olver. Libraries also captured her attention early on: At 16, she took her first job as a clerk in the Bryant Library in Roslyn, New York, shelving books in the children’s department. There, she was mentored by two older librarians, whom she loved. “She was an introvert,” Olver’s sister told me. “When it came to research, she was fascinated by ferreting out information that nobody else could find.” In 1980, she graduated with a degree in library science from Albany State University, where she also worked as a short-order cook, making sandwiches for students and faculty at a university canteen.

“Libraries are where you’d find that stuff. It’s not the same as using a Wikipedia page at all.”

Olver and her future husband, Gordon, met at Albany State and married the year after Olver graduated, in 1981, after which they worked in Manhattan (Lynne at a law library, Gordon in reinsurance), then Connecticut. They eventually had two children — Sarah and Jason — and settled in New Jersey in 1991, where Olver found a job as a reference librarian at the Morris County Public Library, eventually becoming the head of reference, and finally director of the library.

It was during Olver’s time as a reference librarian that the seed was planted for the Food Timeline. It began as an assignment to explain the origins of Thanksgiving dinner to children, to be published on an early incarnation of the library’s website. Around the same time, Olver was asked to write a monthly print newsletter to share library news, which she named Eureka!. One section of the newsletter was devoted to “Hot Topics,” as Olver and her colleague Sharon Javer wrote in the first dispatch. “Each month, this lead feature will focus on a particular theme: holidays, New Jersey events sources, census data, and so on. Included in this sizzling section will be answers to arduous questions, practical pointers and many marvelous morsels of information.”

Eureka!, in a sign of things to come, began to take over her life. “I remember one time saying to her, ‘How come we’re buying all this colored paper?’” Gordon, her husband, told me. “The library wouldn’t pay for the paper, so she was buying it on her own. When the library realized it was taking so much of her time, they asked her to stop. Meanwhile, she had put so much time and effort into it that she said to them, ‘Just pass it over to me, I’ll take it.’”

When the family got a Gateway computer in the late ’90s, Olver began teaching herself HTML, and by 1999, she was combining her interest in the Thanksgiving dinner project and the Eureka! answers column into a hybrid website she called the Food Timeline, where she could focus on providing well-researched food history on her own time. An archived version of the 1999 Food Timeline still exists and looks — unsurprisingly — more or less the same as the one now. “We still hand code html & today’s readers comment the site is ‘ugly,’” Olver wrote under the site’s “Market Strategy.” “We acknowledge: what was cutting edge in 1999 is now stale. Conversley? [sic] FT looks so old it’s become vintage.”

Olver wrote everything on the Food Timeline with a royal “we,” including her responses to readers’ emails, despite the fact the project was largely hers, with an occasional assist from others. “‘I don’t want anyone to know that it’s just me,’’’ Sarah recalled her mom saying. “She wanted people to believe that it was a network of volunteers,” because she felt that it lent the site more credibility.

“We acknowledge: what was cutting edge in 1999 is now stale.”

While Olver worked at the county library by day, by night she was creating an online resource for anyone who wanted to know more about Johnny Appleseed or chuck wagon stew or the origins of Sauce Robert. By the website’s first anniversary, Olver was already spending upwards of 30 hours a week on the Food Timeline, compiling and posting all the information she was digging up and answering readers’ questions about the origins of their grandmothers’ crumble recipes. “If you came in the house and you wanted to know where she was, and she wasn’t cooking, she was in the office on the computer,” Gordon recalled.

Eventually, even the cooking fell behind. Olver’s children came to expect burnt grilled cheese sandwiches at meals Sarah said. “She would be like, ‘I’ll leave these [on the stove] and go do my work,’ and then she would forget because she was so into what she was doing.”

Over time, the audience for the site expanded, and Olver’s subtle form of fame grew with it. She was named a winner of the New York Times Librarian Award in 2002, and, in 2004, Saveur put the Food Timeline on its Saveur 100 list of the best food finds that year. In the mid-2010s, she was asked to contribute to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America and consult for America’s Test Kitchen.

Sarah and Jason recalled taking their mother to a cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan during that time period. “She was so excited about the teacher of this class because she had heard of her through her research,” Sarah told me. “When we got there, the teacher was like, ‘I’m looking at my roster of students and I see that Lynne Olver is here. Where is Lynne Olver?’ Mom kind of timidly raised her hand, and this chef was like, ‘I’ve been dying to meet you!’” The chef who left Olver starstruck was just as starstruck to meet Olver.

For years, Olver lived something of a double life. As the director of a mid-size suburban library, she was known to hand out PayDay candy bars to her staff on pay day and shovel snow from the building walkway during snowstorms, while as the founder of Food Timeline, she brought her computer on vacation, dutifully responding to readers’ food history questions within the promised 48-hour window. “I think she started on the internet as a way to reach a lot of people,” her sister said. “A lot of people who wouldn’t go into the library.”

The night before her wedding, in September 2014, Olver’s daughter, Sarah, noticed that her mom wasn’t acting like herself. While the family was sitting all together in the living room, Olver got up to go to the bathroom; minutes later, she was in the throes of a seizure. Sarah called 911, and Olver was taken to the hospital. The family stayed with her until doctors sent them home in the early hours of Sarah’s wedding day. The wedding had to go on, though Olver was too sick to attend. Doctors diagnosed her with leukemia the next day.

Olver had known for a while that she was sick, but didn’t want to ruin the wedding, so she had put off telling anyone. “She’d be like, ‘I’m dying, but let me put everyone else first,’” Sarah said. Olver was kept in the hospital for two months, but fought hard to be home for Thanksgiving. “It was my first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner because she wasn’t feeling up to cooking — and I ruined it,” Sarah said. “The turkey shrunk off the bone. That was one of the only things that made her laugh in a really long time.”

“Knowledge is power, but sharing knowledge is the best.”

When she was diagnosed with leukemia, Olver used the Food Timeline’s Twitter account to grumble about the food in the ICU at Morristown Medical Center, where she stayed until she was transferred to specialists in Hackensack two months later. “It was a chicken cutlet with some kind of sauce on it,” Gordon recalled; the post has since been taken down by the family. “She said, ‘This sauce, I don’t know what it is, I’m not eating it. It doesn’t look very good. It’s not a natural color.’”

Following her stay at the hospital in Hackensack, Olver returned home to wait for a bone marrow transplant. “She had to use a walker because balance was a problem, but very shortly after getting back from the hospital, she was walking around and doing all of her Food Timeline stuff again,” Gordon explained. She was responding to emails, diving back into her research. “On her birthday, March 10, she said, ‘I had a glorious day.’”

The reason? “Someone had written in with a question that she liked.”

A little over a month later, Lynne died of leukemia, only one year short of her retirement from the library. She had been planning to spend her retirement working on it full time: Earlier that year, she had renewed the Food Timeline domain for 10 more years.

A year after Olver’s death, her family began to discuss what would happen to the Food Timeline and who could take it over. “What we know is that we couldn’t do it justice ourselves,” Sarah said.

To anyone willing and able to maintain Olver’s vision of an ad-free, simply designed, easy-to-access resource on food history, the family members say that the website and her library are theirs, for free. A couple of people have put forward their names, but the family felt that their hearts weren’t in the right place. “One woman had shown us what she had done with her website and it was just full of banner advertisements,” Gordon said.

“It has to uphold her vision,” Sarah added.

Olver’s book collection — if a price were to be put on it — would be worth tens of thousands of dollars, Gordon estimates. So far, there have been no takers for either the books or the task of keeping the site going.

“The Culinary Institute of America initially expressed interest,” Gordon said. “But three months later, they came back and said, ‘We don’t really have the ability to take that volume of texts and dedicate [the task of updating the site] to a specific person. I said they were missing the point; I wasn’t looking to give them the books unless they wanted the website, too.”

The Food Timeline was — and still is — a great democratizing force. “I think Lynne liked that the internet was for everybody and by everybody. Knowledge is power, but sharing knowledge is the best,” Lynne’s sister, Janice, told me. “If you hold the knowledge and you can help everybody get it, that’s where it’s at.” Lynne Olver, an award-winning reference librarian, wanted everybody to know exactly what she knew.

“I would second anybody who says that they want Food Timeline to be brought up to date, who know how to keep that valuable digitized information where people can get their hands or their minds on it,” Sandy Oliver told me. “I’d hate to think Lynne had spent all those hours doing all that work and have it just slide into oblivion. I’d love to see it continue in whatever useful form it can.”

Dayna Evans is a freelance writer currently based in Paris. She last wrote for Eater about the rise of community fridges across the country. D’Ara Nazaryan is an art director & illustrator living in Los Angeles. Fact checked by Samantha Schuyler

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2AEYzmX https://ift.tt/3gQZZdN

The internet’s most comprehensive archive of food history — a passion project of one dedicated librarian — predates Wikipedia. Now, it needs a new custodian.

“Libraries are where you’d find that stuff. It’s not the same as using a Wikipedia page at all.”

“We acknowledge: what was cutting edge in 1999 is now stale.”

“Knowledge is power, but sharing knowledge is the best.”

The reason? “Someone had written in with a question that she liked.”

“It has to uphold her vision,” Sarah added.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2AEYzmX via Blogger https://ift.tt/2AHBVKT

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

0 notes

humansareweirdsedition · 7 years

Text

Humans Are Weird: Women’s Edition Part XII

Alright, it’s time for Part XII. Again, my apologies for the late post, due to university, expect updates at least once a month.

However, I will post little character profiles and other things in between updates. In the meantime, please enjoy Part XII. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Thanks!

Part I >> Part II >> Part III >> Part IV >> Part V >> Part VI >> Part VII >> Part VIII >> Part IX >> Part X >> Part XI >> Part XII >> Part XIII >> Part XIV

Vallion stared, mesmerized by Fatima’s eyes. Vallion felt like ages had passed since they last seen the rich darkness of her eyes. Looking into her eyes felt like looking into the vast depths of two galaxies sitting side-by-side, one melting into the other in endless vortexes. Vallion could stare into her eyes forever and always find something beautifully new about them― “Ahem!” With a start, Vallion looked up to see Murakami pointedly glaring at them.

“Sorry,” they said. Alright, Vallion, focus on the vid. Taking a seat, Vallion began watching the vid again, picking up where it left off.

<<“ ―Mel,”>> Murakami drawled, <<“but I figured this’ll be a fun way of passive-aggressively pissing him off.”>>

Fatima smiled that mischievous smile of hers. <“Good one, sir.”>> Her eyes sparkled.

Vallion wanted to hear more of Fatima’s voice, but Mel interrupted her. <<“Alright, all languages except Standard Galaxic are forbidden.”>> Mel’s way of speaking really pissed Vallion off.

It looks like Fatima feels the same way. She’s crossing her arms, Vallion noted as they continued to watch. <<“What will you do if we don’t comply?”>> Really, what could Mel do to her? He can’t lower the particle barrier and abuse Fatima. Murakami would beat the shit out of him first. Or both women would beat the shit out of him.

Vallion contemplated Mel’s possible actions when he heard the dreaded word “This” before Fatima dropped to the floor, screeching and clawing at the back of her neck.

Frozen, Vallion let the holo-device slip through their fingers. The device almost fell to the floor, but they caught it at the last possible second. They hadn’t expected such pain. They hadn’t expected to see Fatima in pain. Carefully, they held the holo-screen close and tapped the holo-vid again, this time prepared to brace themselves against her screams. Watching was painful. Painful to listen, to watch. They felt their chest tightened and throat close as they helplessly watched Fatima curl up on the floor, clutching the back of her neck like a wounded penjax.

Then the holo-vid cut to Murieal Dalais, Ichi Hyung’on, Lorell Church, Mueg Kuku’ish, Wapun Reeds, Mish Lokkion, Lurk Nellion, Soo Mi Moon, and more and more and more. All of them in pain, curled up, clawing at their necks...

At some point, Vallion snapped the holo-device in two to stop the screams, but the screams continued. Their friends’ screams still rung in their head.

Dropping the broken device, Vallion glanced at Murakami and closed their eyes, resigned. Silencing the screaming, Vallion opened their eyes and stared straight at Zeelot. “When are we to speak?”

Outside the holding cells of the Auction, the sounds of lifeforms and the usual hustle-and-bustle of a bazaar were audible. It was muffled, but Balogh could imagine a Getvi bargaining with a Koosh to lower the price on a used photon generator or a litter of H’hish pups stealing orogo berries from a food stand. The scenes she imagined were perfectly normal, except reality was not so innocent.

Outside her holding cell, Balogh heard roaring lifeforms betting to the highest bidder on the lives other lifeforms from the Frek’jon and soon she would be up.

Soon, she would be sold; never to see her friends, her family, anyone she loved, ever again.

If anyone said she wasn’t beside herself in grief, Balogh would sock them in the mouth. Even now, as she anxiously sat between two Pollikons she named Randolph and Gustav, Balogh wanted to scream. Cry. Mourn.

Last night she, Vallion, and Murakami addressed their crew and told them to give up, let the bad guys win because who the fuck would have thought those crazy alien bastards implanted shock-collar chips in their spines? This is shit, she thought for the hundredth time, this is some fucking shit. Fuck.

Restlessly, she bounced her legs until Randolph told her to quit it. “How ‘bout I don’t, Randolph? Dontcha know amma nervous wreck ‘ere?” she spat.

“Shut up, fleshbag,” Randolph snarled, slamming one extremity down on her nervous knee and shooting pain up her body like rocket to the moon.

“LA NAIBA!” Balogh doubled over and cradled her injured knee; the searing pain slowly seeped into her bones and left her with a numbing sensation like hitting her funny bone. Glaring at Randolph, she threw every curse she knew at them; she screamed at Randolph; she screamed at Gustav when they tried to smother her.

The two Pollikons only pissed her off more.

“Pray tell, what are you three doing?” a new voice demanded. Glancing up, Balogh saw Zeelot flanked by Krellion and Murakami. Randolph and Gustav went into attention, terrified and silent. “Well...?”

Finally, Randolph spoke, “Cargo Inventory No. 246531 spoke Earthen. We were disciplining it―.”

“Her. I’m a her, măgar,” Balogh cut in, still cradling her knee. Randolph shot her a death glare; she sneered back; and everyone was silent.

Then Zeelot stepped forward and blasted Randolph’s skull. Balogh started screaming as blood spray and warm bits of flesh covered her and the others from head-to-toe. Her screaming continued when Gustav tried to escape only to have their head blasted off. Her fear maxed out when Zeelot turned to her and―

With a start, Balogh shot up from her cot and found herself back in her prison cell. It was just a dream, she realized as she breathed a sigh of relief, a gory and terrifying dream. Her nerves were getting to her. Her trembling hands served as proof. Time to get your mind off that awful dream, Lily.

Swinging her legs off the cot, Balogh stood up and checked the holo-device mounted against the wall to check the time. “I’ve been asleep for only two hours. Fuck,” she mumbled. Except for reading the indoctrination itinerary the pirates had most graciously bestowed upon her and her crewmates, she had nothing to do besides sleep in her cell. But not for long, she thought as she sat back down. Soon, she would be standing beside Murakami and Vallion, to address her crewmates, just like in her dream. However, she refused to feel helpless like her dream-self. She could not afford to give up; her parents, her husband, and her two little boys were waiting for her at home on Luana. She would not give up hope.

“FLESHBAG!” Startled, Balogh clutched her chest and said a prayer under her breath while Wilk, her usual Pollikon guard, stood in front of her cell with their arms crossed. “I’ve been calling you for three drushs. I’m to escort you to the others.”

“Sorry Wilk, I was lost in thought,” she said as she stood up. “The future is terrifying after all.” Wilk gave her their usual look; and she threw back her head and laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re going to miss me after this, huh Wilk?”

Wilk snorted and lowered the particle barrier. “Just follow me. I don’t have all gulkib, and Zeelot doesn’t have much patience these days.” As Wilk turned to leave, Balogh followed after them.

“So,” she began, “do you finally trust me? I’m not handcuffed or anything like before.”

Wilk shook their head. “You know the spinal chip is your handcuffs.”

“I guess...” she drawled as she finally caught up with them, “but we’re friends now, right? After three months on this hunk of junk, you trust me and like me and wouldn’t want to see anything bad happen to me.” She nudged their arm and stayed by their side.

“Delusional. You’re delusional,” they scolded her, yet they still nudged her back.

Then the two of them walked in silence, comfortable in each other’s presence. Balogh would tell anyone who would be willing to listen that the friendship she struck with Wilk was oddly conceived, but the relationship was doomed to fail. Wilk and their crewmates were selling Balogh and her crewmates at the Auction; friends didn’t sell each other off at the highest bidder, which just proved she and Wilk couldn’t be friends. What the two of them had now was an illusion concocted to make the transition less painful, but for who was still questionable.

“I’m gonna miss you,” she said once they both arrived at their destination. Three days after this announcement, they were to arrive at the Auction. “Don’t get into trouble,” she ordered before entering the prisoner’s mess hall where the future awaited.

Wilk watched the door close behind Balogh and felt a pang in their chest. They knew the pang was sadness; the emotion was one Pollikons were too well accustomed to feeling.

However, Wilk had never felt sadness towards cargo until they met Balogh.

Balogh treated Wilk and the other Pollikons like equals; she did not discriminate against them; she did not insult them, curse them like the H’hish did. She took the time to talk to Wilk and the other Pollikons; to know their likes, dislikes, and worries. She never pushed when an uncomfortable topic came up; and when Wilk asked questions, she responded just the same. She talked and laughed and cried with them; she became...Wilk’s first friend.

Then again, Balogh was cargo; cargo was their livelihood; their livelihood was escape from death and slavery. Balogh was likely devising an escape from imprisonment, or at least a rebellion; she didn’t care about them or any of the other Pollikon on the Frek’jon or in the rest of the Viraaj’lieon Empire.

But one human doesn’t change anything, Wilk thought for the thousandth time, not a thing―

“―lk. Wilk!”

Nearly snapping their neck, Wilk turned around to find Snell scowling at them. Bowing to their commanding Pollikon, Wilk apologized for their error. “My apologies for blocking the entrance, Xeu Snell.” Wilk stepped aside to allow Snell passage, but Snell did not budge. Instead, Snell circled around Wilk before forcing them to their knees. “Xeu Snell?”

Snell practically spat as they said, “I saw you, Leu Wilk. I saw you and that piece of filth walking side-by-side, chattering away like forokj. I nearly expelled my latest meal at the sight.”

Wilk felt their hearts drop. “Xeu Snell, I do not know what you mean―”

“Shut it,” Snell snapped, pushing Wilk flat on the floor. “Captain Zeelot said you were working with the humans; I didn’t want to believe them.”

“I’m not, Xeu Snell. You know as well as I how humans easily bond with other sentient lifeforms. I was gaining Balogh’s trust, making her think I’m kind. Check my holo-dev if you don’t believe me. I’ve composed personal detailed info on her and her crewmates.”

Snell dropped on heavy foot on Wilk’s back and unclipped the holo-dev off Wilk’s waist. The two of them remained silent as Snell went through the holo-dev’s contents. After several long drushs, Snell finally said, “I’ve transferred all the information to Captain Zeelot and deleted it from your holo-dev. Never gather information on your own again, or else I will not be so kind.” Tossing the holo-dev on the floor, Snell walked into the mess hall without another word.

Taking a deep breath, Wilk tried to calm their rapidly beating hearts. That was too close.

Balogh made her way on a makeshift stage set at the far end of the mess hall, passed the silent crew of the Voyager Moana. She walked behind the curtains of the stage and saw Murakami and Vallion surrounded by guards. Balogh took her usual position on Murakami’s left-hand side and took note of all the guards; the Pollikons stood behind them and at all the exits. Balogh smiled. “Doesn’t this situation remind you of when Rear Admiral Woshmellnick farted in the middle of High Priestess Yulnick’s blessing ceremony on Planet Icknock?” she whispered to Murakami and Vallion.

Vallion shook their head, but smiled. “I felt mortified when that happened, like I was the one up on stage.”

Murakami hip-bumped Vallion. “And here I thought H’hish couldn’t feel second-hand embarrassment,” she teased.

Vallion chuckled. “Neither did I until that day; and many more H’hish will second it.”

Balogh frowned. “But not any we will meet after tonight.”

The three of them went silent until Murakami said, “We are in a no-win situation, but...but we can’t give up hope. I’ll find a way back to you and everyone else. I promise.”

Vallion nodded. “I can’t give up either. I’ve found a...place where I belong with our crew. I won’t stop searching for a way out.”

Balogh bubbled with laughter, prompting Murakami, Vallion, and the guards to stare at her like she suddenly sprouted a tail. “We are one stubborn crew, huh?” she finally said through the laughter. “We don’t know when to accept defeat. I’m glad.” She reached out and held onto her friends’ hands. “How much would you wanna bet the rest of our happy-go-lucky crew of idiots are thinking the same thing?” she asked, smiling like a fool, but she knew she wasn’t the only fool; Murakami and Vallion were smiling, too.

Murakami rested her head on Balogh’s shoulder. “Let’s go inspire our crew―”

“―and piss off Captain Zeelot, Surgeon Krellion, and Slave Mel?” Vallion finished, bringing them into a six-armed hug, “Because I have a feeling we’ll be doing exactly that.”

“Yes, and it’ll be perfect,” Balogh said. Grinning like fools, the three of them found Snell and told them they were ready.

Snell sneered at them, saying, “You all are fools,” but Balogh and the others didn’t mind because as the curtains were pulled away, the crew of the Voyager Moana was filled with the happiest-go-luckiest of idiots in the universe.

44 notes · View notes

snowwolf1118 · 7 years

Text

Humans Are Weird: Women’s Edition Part XII

Alright, it’s time for Part XII. Again, my apologies for the late post, due to university, expect updates at least once a month.

However, I will post little character profiles and other things in between updates. In the meantime, please enjoy Part XII. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Thanks!

Part I >> Part II >> Part III >> Part IV >> Part V >> Part VI >> Part VII >> Part VIII >> Part XI < > Part XIII