#just kind of floating past the observation window and hoping spring will help

[thirddeadlysin]

i can tell by how long it is between turning off the car and getting out of the car to go inside even though it's only like 25F/-4C outside that i am Doing Poorly (Mild) but unfortunately knowing doesn't do much about it not turning into Doing Poorly (Intense)

#just kind of floating past the observation window and hoping spring will help #it's so close #i need to see acid green new grass and/or some awkward newborn creatures come onnnnn #I would settle for a day where nothing goes wrong

[greenjacketwhitehatdocmui]

Frozen:  In the Details

Summary:  Sometimes, the simplest of tasks can have a deeper meaning.  Agnarr muses on what washing the car has meant to him in the past, and possibly the future.  This was written for the “Summer Lovin’” issue of @frozines on Tumblr. Modern AU, Agduna and Kristanna.

This story can be found on @frozines and at Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own.

Enjoy!

--Pearson “Doc” Mui

Frozen:  In the Details by Pearson “Doc” Mui

           Agnarr awoke early on a Saturday. With some grumbling, Iduna released him from their bed as he prepared for the day. She understood that this task had to be done early in the morning, but she didn’t have to like it. If things worked out, however, it would have been worth waking up early for.

           After a quick breakfast and some cleanup, Agnarr trotted to the garage. The spring in his step ran counter to the occasional crackling sound in his knees. Even the projected thirty percent chance of rain did nothing to dampen his spirits.

Eyeing one corner of the garage, he chose his tools for the day’s task. Buckets, wash mitts and car soap were laid out on the garage floor. After a moment, he opened up some folding chairs and a small table.

           Opening the garage door, he smiled at the sight of his girls coming home, if only for today. They were adults now; Elsa was working on her PhD while Anna was a year into graduate school. The nest was never empty for too long, thankfully. They made time to visit, even if it was just for small talk.

           Elsa eyed him ruefully before accepting a quick hug. She had a pretty good idea of what he had planned for their incoming guest. Anna, on the other hand, was pouting.

           “Dad, are you really going to put Kristoff through this?” Clearly, his youngest wasn’t pleased at the prospect.

           Agnarr raised an eyebrow. “The way you’re talking, you’d think that I was going to torture him. It’s just a car wash between men.” He sighed. “You used to love helping me wash the car.”

           “I remember that you loved using the hose,” Elsa reminded Anna. There wasn’t any real bite to her words, though. “We used to help while wearing swimsuits.”

           Anna’s pout faded as she sighed, briefly lost in nostalgia.  “Those were good times, weren’t they?”

           Iduna folded her arms and sighed. Both of her girls were wearing swimsuits underneath their shirts and shorts. Anna eagerly fingered the trigger to the hose while Elsa made sure the supplies were in order.

           Elsa was having a good day. It hadn’t taken too much cajoling to get her outside. Anna’s puppy-dog eyes were a formidable weapon, especially at the tender age of eight.

           Most men would have insisted on doing “man stuff” by themselves. Agnarr wanted to have as many family activities as possible. Everyone had a job: Agnarr would wash the car, Anna would rinse it off and Elsa would take care of the windows. Iduna was there for spot-checking and refreshments.

           “Is everyone ready?” he asked enthusiastically.

           “Ready!” Anna piped up.

           “I’m ready, Papa,” Elsa said more demurely.

           He nodded.  “Well, let’s get this car clean, shall we?”

           Iduna marveled at their coordination. Everyone worked their roles admirably. Of course, a family wash like this was more for fun than work. There wouldn’t be any intensely-detailed work like Agnarr had done before—

           She suppressed a shudder. Agnarr’s father had been a cold taskmaster. He was more of a sire than an actual, warm father figure. While she took no pleasure in anyone’s passing, she had admit that the town had been the better for it.

           The calm lasted almost the entire time the car was being washed. Then Anna got a little overzealous with the hose and sprayed into the air.

           “Look, Elsa! Look Papa! I’m making rainbows—oops.” Anna laughed nervously as she realized that both Elsa and Agnarr were soaked.

           Iduna sighed, safe in the garage. She knew that it was going to end up like this.

           With calm, deliberate steps, she retreated further into the garage and grabbed a third, covered bucket from its hiding place. She and Agnarr had prepared this little surprise last night. With some effort, she hoisted the bucket to the driveway and uncovered it.

           Iduna reached into the bucket and grabbed a water balloon. She gestured for everyone to do the same.

           “On three,” she said firmly. “One, two—“

           “THREE!” Anna squealed.

           The battle was joined. When it was over, they were collapsed on the lawn, soaked through and basking in the summer sun.  It had been a good day.

           “Morning, girls,” Iduna greeted them. “Have you had breakfast yet? I could fix something up.”

           “We’re fine, Mom,” Elsa reassured her. “We ate before we came here.”

           Anna blinked and winced as she ran back to her car, an unassuming Honda Civic.  Rummaging around, she extracted a bag and jogged back.

           “We stopped by Hudson’s Hearth,” Anna said. “Destin and Halima say `hello.’” She opened it up and the three women sniffed deeply at the smell that wafted out.

           “Hmm…chocolate,” they chorused. For a moment, they were lost in the smell of the pastries.

           Agnarr tried not to chuckle. The apples didn’t fall far from the tree.

           He turned away from them and tried not to look too anxious or expectant. In the brief encounters he’d had before, Kristoff had seemed like a nice enough young man. It was clear that he cared greatly for Anna.

           Unfortunately, Anna hadn’t been so lucky the first time. At first glance, Hans had seemed like a good person, too. But the devil was always in the details—or, in this case, the detailing.

           Hans had pulled into their driveway in a Ferrari. To Agnarr, this was the first clue that the young man might have been trying too hard.

           “Good morning, Mr. Arendelle!” Hans greeted him enthusiastically. “So, who’s going to get the royal car wash treatment?”

           “We’ll be taking care of Anna’s car,” Agnarr said. “I already waxed our cars last week. I figured that Anna’s car could use a cleanup.”

           Hans’s smile froze. There was a dark shadow of disappointment in his eyes.

           “Oh,” Hans said simply. Then he rallied. “Oh, of course,” he agreed. “Nothing but the best for Anna.”

           “I’m glad that you agree,” Agnarr said. “I have all the supplies in the garage. Was there anything you needed?”

           “Thank you sir, but I brought my own things,” Hans said smoothly. He almost strutted to the Ferrari and pulled out some high-end detailing supplies from the little trunk. They were all brand new and still in the package.

           “Do you use all this on your own car?” Agnarr asked.

           Hans paused. Then he smiled in an ingratiating manner. “I don’t compromise on quality, Mr. Arendelle. As I said before, I want only the best for Anna.”

           As the time passed, Agnarr noticed several things he wasn’t sure that he liked. Hans insisted on doing it all himself, even though Agnarr had offered to help. Whenever Anna caught his eye, Hans flexed and winked.

           It was clear to Agnarr that Hans had never washed a car in his life. He was washing randomly instead of methodically, “politely” refusing any suggestions. He was sloppy applying the wax, squirting a long line on the car and working from there. Furthermore, when Hans thought that neither Agnarr nor Anna was looking, he scowled.

           Agnarr did not have a good feeling about Hans. He tried to voice his objections to Anna, but she was entirely captivated by how charming, selfless and helpful he was. Hans was, in her eyes, flawless. It was not a good sign.

           “I’m not sure it’ll work out,” he admitted to Iduna later on. It pained him to see Anna clinging to Hans’s every word. It was obvious that Anna was utterly besotted with Hans.

           “I didn’t know that a car wash was a personality test,” she joked. Her smile faded as she noted his grim expression. “You’re serious?”

           He sighed heavily. “He doesn’t take any suggestions or criticism. He shows off when he knows that people are looking. When he thinks nobody’s looking, it’s obvious that he’s not really enjoying himself.” He paused. “And honestly, even Anna could see that he did a terrible job of it.”

           “Elsa doesn’t like him, either,” she said. “Something about how he seems insincere to everyone except the person he’s focusing on.”

           “Dad had that kind of charm,” Agnarr admitted. “He was better at it, though. Hardly anyone saw his dark side.”

           She flinched. “We should warn her.”

           “I’m not sure she’d listen. She has an incredibly forgiving heart and Hans will take full advantage of it. You saw how besotted she was with him. I could practically see the hearts floating from her.”

           “So we do nothing?” Those words left a bad taste in her mouth.

           “No.” He shook his head. “We hope for the best and prepare for the worst. If he tries to isolate her, we find ways to keep in contact. Elsa’s ready to intervene if she has to.”

           She nodded. “And what if he goes too far?”

           His expression darkened. “Then I will make certain that he never huts anyone again.”

          “Just you?” she asked. “You never let me have any fun.”

          “Fine, I can go after you,” he sighed. “Not that there would be much left.”

           Anna’s enthusiastic greeting to Kristoff’s truck broke Agnarr out of his reverie.  He chuckled as Kristoff parked his truck on the side of the road. It was a small gesture of consideration, one of many that he’d observed. Kristoff wasn’t rich and he hadn’t been able to afford the best education, but he was kind and sincere.

           “Woof!”

           Oh, and Kristoff had a big, friendly dog. The girls had taken to him almost immediately, with Anna babbling baby-talk as Elsa looked embarrassed. Iduna was not immune to Sven’s “puppy in a big body” charm. As for Agnarr, he was fond of the big dog as well—though he tried to be restrained about it.

           “Mr. Arendelle,” Kristoff greeted Agnarr politely—and a bit nervously. “Um, I hope you don’t mind that I brought Sven. The big lug didn’t want to stay home.”

           “That’s fine,” Agnarr said reasonably. “As long as he behaves himself, I don’t have any problem.”

           “He’s a total sweetie, Dad,” Anna said from behind. “Want me to keep an eye on him?” She asked Kristoff.

           “That’d be great, thanks,” he said.  “If he gets fidgety, you know what to do.”

Opening the door, he grabbed Sven’s leash. The big dog jumped out and waited for Anna to accept the lead. After the obligatory scratch behind the ears and baby talk, she and Sven headed to the shelter of the garage.

           “So, um, I brought some stuff with me,” Kristoff admitted. He rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous gesture. “Of course, if there’s something you want to use, I’m okay with that.”

           Agnarr scrutinized the equipment in the back of the truck. The microfiber towels had been neatly folded in their own, zip-locked bag. Two buckets with grates inside met with his approval. He did arch an eyebrow at the orbital polisher and pads, something that his late father would have taken issue with. There were spray bottles of wheel cleaner, “ceramic wax,” something for the upholstery and something called “instant detailer.” Everything was in good condition, but it was obvious that the equipment had seen some use.

           “Do you think I brought too much?” Kristoff asked nervously. “Maybe I overdid it.”

           “I think this will be just fine,” Agnarr said. He turned towards Anna. “What are you in the mood for today?” he asked.

           “Well, I really don’t need anything fancy,” she replied. “Why? What did you have in mind?”

           “I could probably get rid of some of those swirl marks,” Kristoff suggested. “If you want, I mean.  Think of it as kind of exfoliating your car.”

           She lifted an eyebrow at the metaphor. “Well…maybe just the hood and the trunk,” she allowed. She quirked the corner of her mouth in amusement. “You just want to use your little toy, don’t you?”

           “Well, I saved up for it,” he admitted. “So, smooth out the hood and trunk, got it.”

           Agnarr tried not to chuckle. “You have a polisher, don’t you?”

           “It’s nothing fancy,” Kristoff said. “I saved up for it, so I figured I might as well get some mileage out of it.”

           “He waxes his truck every few weeks,” Anna said. “You know, I kind of feel bad that you’re doing all this for my car. Maybe I could take care of the upholstery or something?”

           The two men shared a look. Anna was dressed practically for the warm weather. There was nothing objectionable about her jean shorts and t-shirt. However, crawling around to wipe down the seats would have been awkward, to say the least.

           “How about I walk you through getting your trunk polished?” Kristoff suggested. “It’s not that hard.”

           “You’re letting me touch your baby?” Anna asked dubiously.

           “My polisher is not my baby,” Kristoff protested. Then there was a warmth in his smile that made her flush. “I trust you.”

           “So…you’d let me wax your truck?” she teased.

           “Why don’t we start with your car first?” Agnarr gently interrupted. “We don’t want to wait too long, after all.”

           Elsa quietly smiled as the men worked on the car. They had been surprisingly efficient and coordinated well together. There were moments when one man had to offer feedback to the other, but neither of them took any offense. It was an unusual kind of camaraderie.

           Kristoff was a vast improvement over Hans. What he lacked in funds, he more than made up for in heart. He may have been a little rough around the edges, but there was no doubt that Anna was the most important person in his life.

           She heard one breathy sigh, then another. She noted the very contented looks on the faces to either side of her. Then she noted that even in the relatively cool summer weather, Kristoff and her father had worked up quite the sweat, their shirts clinging to them.

           With a quiet, resigned sigh, she went into the house. Her sister and mother were oblivious to her absence.

           A few moments later, she returned with a tray of drinks and two towels. She set the tray on a nearby work bench and took two tall glasses of lemonade with her.

           Anna still had a dazed, dopey expression on her face. Iduna wasn’t much better.

           Elsa took Anna’s free hand, the one that wasn’t holding Sven’s leash, and gently placed the glass in her palm. With a start, she blinked as if she were coming out of a spell.

           Elsa did the same for their mother. Iduna’s reaction was much the same as Anna’s.

           Elsa couldn’t resist a little smirk. “I thought you two might want something to drink,” she said. “You both looked…thirsty.”

           Iduna and Anna rolled their eyes at the double-entendre. Behind the cool exterior that Elsa projected, she could be quite the joker—even if her humor tended to be on the dry side.

           “Very funny,” Anna returned. “We’re just appreciating their hard work.”

           “We certainly are,” Iduna agreed. “Both of them are very diligent.”

           “Well, maybe we could reward their diligence with a towel and a sports drink?” Elsa suggested, gesturing to the tray. “I think they could use it.”

           Agnarr wiped the sweat off of his forehead. While he still enjoyed washing cars, he was reminded that he wasn’t a young man anymore. Even though he and Kristoff were cutting the workload in half, he was still going to be sore tomorrow morning.

           Still, it was gratifying to see how seriously Kristoff took things. He was methodical and, more importantly, he seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself. He concentrated on the job at hand and accepted feedback.

           “You’ve had some experience,” he observed. “With washing cars, I mean.”

           Kristoff gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I worked part-time at the car wash one summer,” he replied. “I guess it kind of stuck.” He wiped at his brow. “I wouldn’t want to do it for a living, though.”

           “I had to…earn things by washing cars,” Agnarr said. “My father was a big believer in hard work.”

           Kristoff said nothing. He could tell by the older man’s tone that there were mixed emotions.

           Agnarr wiped the sweat off his brow, if only to not drip on his father’s Cadillac. The “beast,” as he jokingly called it, was an ostentatious symbol of his father’s wealth and practicality. It was practical in that any repairs or maintenance could be easily obtained within the town.

           As he wiped off a clear path in the baked-on wax, he saw his tired, sweaty reflection in the black depths of the “beast.” He had just spent the last four hours under the hot July sun. Every detail had been supervised by his father, who was resting in the shade with a beer. Every once in a while, his father would shout words of—

           “Come on, boy!” Runeard exclaimed. “Put your back into it! In my day, we had to deal with Blue Coral. You’ve got it easy with that wax!”

           Agnarr said nothing. His father often deducted from the anticipated payment if he talked back. It was one of the little ways that the family company kept people in line.

           It took another half hour to clear off the last of the wax. His arms trembling, he stood up straight and awaited judgment—and hopefully, payment.

           Runeard took one last draw of his beer and got up. He circled around the Cadillac and murmured in—well, it wasn’t quite approval. It was more like he acknowledged that the job had been done.

           Agnarr tried to keep calm. He didn’t dare show how eager he was to get paid. He couldn’t ever let his feelings show, not in front of his father.

           Runeard wiped his index finger down the hood and felt for any errant wax. There was one last murmur as he nodded.

           “It’ll do,” Runeard declared. With exaggerated magnanimity, he took out a twenty and handed it to Agnarr. Then the scowl returned as his nostrils flared. “Get cleaned up before you go, boy. And you’d better stay away from those filthy people.”

           Agnarr nodded once. The less his father knew about his outings with Iduna, the better.

           With one last scowl, Runeard shooed him away from the car. It was the same dismissive gesture he might have used for a servant. It certainly reinforced Agnarr’s place in the world—at least in Runeard’s mind.

           Agnarr trudged back into the house. He didn’t have to play up his muscle aches. He did have to remind himself not to smile in front of his father.

           Those long, hot hours had been worth it. The aches had been worth it.  Above all,   Iduna was worth it.

           Agnarr forced himself to take long, slow sips of the sports drink as he toweled off the sweat. The exterior had been cleaned and dried, including the wheels. All that was left was the interior and waxing the car.

           “You’re in good shape for your age, but don’t overdo it,” Iduna warned him gently. “There’s no one to show off to.”

           “I’m not showing off,” he replied. “I’m just…enjoying the moment.”

           “What moment?” she asked.

           He turned his gaze to where Kristoff was showing Anna the bottle of detailer spray and some sort of yellow clay. He sprayed the hood and wiped the clay across the surface. Then he took a microfiber towel and wiped off any residue.

           “See these little dots and specks?” Kristoff pointed to the clay bar. “These are contaminants that stick on your paint. We want to get rid of those before we polish out the swirls. After that, we put on the wax and we’re all set.” He paused. “Here, feel where I just cleaned it up.”

           Anna tentatively brushed a finger across the surface. Blue eyes widened in amazement.

           “Whoa, that’s…really smooth,” she said. “So, you do this every time you wax your truck?”

           He shook his head. “No, this is only once or twice a year. This used to be a big secret for the car shops until a few years ago.”

           Iduna turned back to Agnarr and nodded in understanding. There wasn’t a hint of arrogance or condescension in Kristoff’s voice. He merely wanted to inform Anna about something he liked.

           As the morning went on, Agnarr noted how patient Kristoff was with Anna. He was a good teacher, putting his polisher in Anna’s hands. It was obvious that Kristoff trusted her implicitly—and she felt the same about him.

           By the time they were done, Anna’s Honda had never looked better. Anna and Kristoff took a moment to bask in their shared accomplishment. The car gleamed in the light, despite the clouds coming in.

           “Good job, feisty pants,” Kristoff complimented her. “She looks great.”

           “Oh, I didn’t do all that much,” she demurred. “You and Dad did all the hard work.”

           “Oh, it’s not as hard as the old days,” Agnarr chimed in. “Believe me, I would have been a lot less sore if we had that ceramic wax back then. It’s a lot easier to take off than baked-on Turtle Wax.”

           Any further comment was forestalled when Sven sniffed the air. The big dog made a dissatisfied, grumbling sound. Moments later, the sky darkened with an ominous rumble.

           “Oh, no…” Agnarr groaned. “There wasn’t supposed to be any rain today!”

           “That figures,” Kristoff sighed heavily. He eyed the back of his truck.

           Elsa checked her phone. “Looks like there’ll be heavy showers for an hour or two.”

           “But we just finished it!” Anna groaned.

           Kristoff perked up a little. “Well, I’ve got a tarp in the back of my truck. I could cover up your car until the rain stops.”

           Anna blinked. “You’re prepared.”

           He shrugged. “Sometimes life is like that. You get little bumps in the road and do the best you can. Experience is the toughest teacher. C’mon, let’s get this done.”

           Moments later, Anna’s car was safely covered just before the deluge hit. Everyone watched the rain from inside the garage. Kristoff and Agnarr were toweling off their hair. They were both soaked form the rain.

           “Sorry it didn’t work out, sir,” Kristoff said.

           “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Agnarr replied. “I’d say that this was a very productive day.”

           Kristoff looked at him quizzically. “How so?”

           Behind him, Anna looked puzzled while Elsa looked satisfied. Clearly, something was going on.

           “Do you have anywhere you need to go?” Agnarr asked casually.

           “Not until the rain stops,” Kristoff replied. “Why do you ask?”

           “Well, until then, I suppose that you and Sven are our guests. Do you have any requests for lunch?”

           Kristoff held up his hands. “Sir, I really don’t want to impose. I’m sure you were looking forward to time with your family.”

           “I am,” Agnarr acknowledged with a nod. “Of course, this can include prospective members of my family.”

           “But Sven—“

           “He’s covered,” Elsa said. She reached in her purse and held up a can of dog food.

           Kristoff blinked as Sven leaned against Elsa. “Did you know about this?” he asked Anna.

           She shook her head. “Nope. It’s news to me.”

           “Relax,” Agnarr said calmly. “I’m not bringing out the shotgun for you two. I’m just asking if you’d like to stay for lunch.”

           “I—sure, if it’s no trouble,” he agreed.

           “No trouble at all,” Iduna reassured him. “There’s plenty in the Instant Pot to go around.” She opened the door to the house and the smell of hearty stew wafted outside.

           “Useful, isn’t it?” Elsa remarked. She paused and dug out something else from her purse. She handed a large, folded square of cloth to Kristoff. “You’ll need this.”

           He grimaced at the t-shirt he’d been handed. It wasn’t his, but it was definitely his size. The words “love expert” were boldly emblazoned on the front, complete with hearts.

           “Elsa!” Anna exclaimed.

           “Yes?” Elsa could not have pretended to be more innocent if she’d batted her eyes.

           “You are a stinker. No, you are a scheming, plotting stinker. This was a conspiracy!” Anna declared.

           Elsa and Agnarr had matching smirks. That was unsettling to both Anna and Kristoff.

           “Well, I didn’t plan on the rain,” Agnarr admitted. “You are welcome in my house.” He paused. “While you are in my house, I do expect you two to…mind your manners.”

           Agnarr turned to go inside. He only briefly paused when he passed Elsa.

           “They’re blushing, aren’t they?” he murmured.

           “Oh, yes,” Elsa agreed.

           “Good.”

           Elsa lingered for a moment, a smug little smirk on her face. Then she tapped her thigh and Sven followed her inside.

           “Your Dad really doesn’t have a shotgun, does he?”

           “I…don’t think so. I think he likes you.”

           “That’s…good,” Kristoff got out awkwardly. “I mean, it’s better than the alternative.”

           Wordlessly, Anna reached out. He gently took her hand as her eyes shone.

           “Come on, Mr. Love Expert,” she said. “Let’s have a family lunch.”

           Kristoff’s expression softened. “Sounds good to me.”

The End

#frozen #frozines #summer lovin' #agnarr #iduna #agduna #anna #elsa #kristoff #hans #kristanna #my writing

[saphyhowl]

Own Story

Ok so I finally got the courage to write my story. I was a bit afraid to post it but I still got through with it. I have no idea how to protect my writing so I hope I can figure out where to regularly post it and not be afraid that someone will take it. Although I doubt my story is that great. I just want to protect it because I am like a mother hen. 

Here it goes... Please tell me how you like it, leave a comment or a like, I will be forever grateful to you :3 Also please please please don’t pay attention to my bad spelling. It’s a story I wrote by hand in french and translated it here. I am no translator so there will be mistakes. It’s not a final version, it’s an ongoing work. If you feel like stuff is missing that’s normal I am still working on lots of aspects, but don’t hesitate to let me know what you think might be crucial to you to understand the story.

I have a very low self esteem when it comes to my own work. It took me a very long time to get where I am today. I am not trying to get pity or anything, I am just putting you in a context so you understant that all this is historical for me and I hope we can celebrate that historic moment together.

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

He should have felt it during the morning, when he woke up. The crispy air from the night still hung in his bedroom, rendering it impossible for him to fall back asleep. Nothing pleased him today. No urgent letters for him. Everything was calm. Although Cynan enjoyed the calm routine that had settled in his life, he could not help to feel as if he should act to prevent what seemed to him an upcoming storm.

After seven years of conquest and negotiation, his friend  Meanas could ascend the throne officially. He could finally hold a coronation ceremony without any fear of revolution. Cynan had organized everything with the help of the other members of the counsel. The invitations were sent and had been answered. The preparation had already begun, all was well. After seven years of constant uproar, Cynan almost worshipped the calm and order that had finally settled in and so did Meanas.

As he sat at his desk, basking it this holy stillness, he read utterly slowly the law document he needed to approve. This was part of the many tasks Cynan, advisor of the future king. He should have sensed it in this moment as well, when the sun finally can warm one enough, hinting that the season of spring was approaching. He should have known that as the sweetest and mild season of the year was nearing, his life would enter a season of bitter regret.

***

“If my heart could run, then it would have already passed the coach that was meant to bring me to him. 

I am of an impatient nature.

I play the scene out in my mind, like an actress before her performance. 

How delectable it is just to imagine their faces when I finally reveal myself in front of them.

I could appear here and there. I could keep him as the last person I meet.

I could hide until the very end and wait until the coronation. Then, I would make the most vibrant of appearances.

Oh no, even better! I could visit him first. That would stir the glowing embers of our past and hint towards a possible story for us. Whatever that story would hold, that I would decide depending on my mood.

So many possibilities lie out there and only a few can be chose as I have only one life.

However, my emotions should not lead me astray and distract me from my true goal.

I did not return to revive past passions. I came here to set this place on fire, to start a new era.

Seven years of preparation and now everything will play out. 

But to open the festivities, I must first get my hands on an invitation,”

The coach came to a halt in front of a mansion. Zelina descended and took in the view of the garden before walking towards the entrance, where a quite surprised butler awaited her.

***

Her arrival could not be compared to a thunderstorm. The situation occurred way too fast for Cynan to be overwhelmed. His butler announced her and when she entered his office her aura invaded the room like a rising tide. Cynan had been too dulled out from his peaceful day to prepare himself mentally to face the young woman in front of him.

Two old friends meeting again for the first time.

“You still have an awful taste. Your curtains are a disgrace,” Zelina said as she scanned the room visibly bored.

Silence.

“After all this time, I would have thought you had developed a more luxurious taste,” she added.

 Zelina took one step forward and then another. She walked idly in the room with a candid expression.

“What is the reason for your visit... Madam?” Cynan asked.

Zelina suddenly turned her head towards Cynan and her golden eyes squinted with hatred.

“Madam…” she repeated.

Cynan did not react.

“Meanas’ coronation. Would that be a pleasing enough reason for you, Sir?” Zelina finally answered.

“King Meanas,” Cynan corrected.

“My apologies,” Zelina said as she bowed down excessively.

Zelina refused to refer to Meanas as a king.

“Lady Zelina, you are not invited to this joyous event,” Cynan stated.

Zelina smiles causing Cynan to doubt his capacity to stay unfazed for long.

“Oh but I do know that,” she said.

Zelina sat in the chair in front of Cynan’s desk and started playing with her fan. Cynan examined her and slowly he shifted into contemplation. That smile of her, her voice, her gesture, they were all familiar to him. Thousand memories rise again in his mind. He is tempted to dive into them and daydream. As he battled against the temptation of reminiscence, he did not notice Zelina looking at him as well. However, she was not reminiscing, she was waiting for the right timing.

“I simply came as a friend.. An old friend. One cannot forget a friend who did so much,” she added.

Zelina placed her hand on the table in an attempt to draw closer to Cynan. He stared at her hands. She was still wearing her many bracelets.

“And I mean, you know…” Zelina hesitated.

Cynan raised an eyebrow as he noticed her false bashfulness.

“Say, was it intentional to choose only one emissary for the South?” she asked.

Zelina had found the right moment and had struck with her words. She knew his weakness, Cynan was a skilled warrior and noble but not a tactician.

“Lady Zelina, this should not be of concern for you,” Cynan answered.

“Many southern families were quite shocked and felt offended,” Zelina added.

“I thought you came as a friend Zelina,” 

“And it is as a friend, Cynan, that I inquire about this issue!”

Cynan sighed and Zelina took it as a sign to continue.

“You know much the merchants' families take pride in their origins. I tried to explain to them that there must have been a reason to send only one emissary. And that you, Cynan, would have chosen the emissary as impartially as possible,”

Cynan remained silent. Her way with words had gotten more skilled after all those years. Sadly for him, there was no impartiality coming from him. Meanas had wished to choose one emissary to demonstrate that under his reign the South was meant to be one unified province. Despite all the tribes in the South, only one person would represent the South. The emissary, chosen from one of the most influential families, would then be promoted to Governor of the South. This would allow Meanas to have one sole correspondent in political and economic matters regarding the South. However, Cynan had no intention in sharing this intention with Zelina, who was herself from an affluent family from the South. However, her family belonged to another tribe. Cynan never investigated further the intrications between the southern tribes. Now that Zelina had returned, he realized how foolish that had been.

Zelina stood up to leave Cynan to his thoughts.

“Why did he not invite me, Cynan?” she asked.

Cynan did not answer nor did he accompany her. The question floated in the air unanswered.

Through his office windows, he caught a glimpse of her crossing the gardens. She passed by a lilac bush. She stopped in her tracks, turned and contemplated the bare branches, noticing the growing flower buds. Cynan continued to observe her as she took off again. His gaze returned towards the lilac bush. With the mild season approaching the bush would bloom again.

***7 years ago***

  “Gardening really?” Zelina asked as she had stopped on the path leading towards the mansion. She made her umbrella twirl as she thought about what Cynan had just shared with her.

Cynan carressed the lilacs and smiled lost in his thoughts.

“There is nothing more beautiful than helping mother nature in her creations,” he explained.

Zelina shrugged her shoulders unimpressed by his wise words.

“If I weren’t a noble then I would have become a farmer. However since I am a noble, I have to satisfy myself with mere gardening,” Cynan continued explaining.

Zelina twirled her umbrella once more and peered at him through the laces. 

“If I were not a noble, I would not exist as I am before you. I have used over and over again all the privileges that have come with my status to build myself. I clung myself to anything a noble like me could get their hands on. Wishing to escape this world that created me would be idiotic and would turn my life into something insignificant, where I could not be the fully fledge me,”

Cynan listened to her attentively and did not respond immediately.

“I did not know you had such strong opinions about your title. Our aspirations vary a lot,” He finally said.

“And yet we somehow get along,” Zelina added.

A smirk appeared on her face. 

“If I ever find myself in dire need of a gardener, I know to whom I can turn to. I’ll make sure to order my lilacs with you,” Zelina said as she made her way back towards the mansion twirling her umbrella.

Cynan bowed excessively. “You are too kind Madam,” he whispered.

***Back to the present. In Zelina’s coach***

“He called me Madam. How monstrous! Poor soul, he does not know what awaits him. Ugh, now I must wait for all of this to stir and boil. Let my words sink in. I must get under his skin. If only Cynan would have more spark then I would not have to wait so much. The day Cynan bursts will be one to remember. I must ensure to be the one to wake the dragon sleeping in him. But that would be only a collateral benefit from what I truly intend to achieve.

#own writing #my story

[silveredglass]

Aha, Thank you @serpensthesia for thinking I deserved I’m a bit unsure of that tbh because I am a dag but anyway .. to be tagged in this first lines meme. I am not sure of the rules tbh but these are the first lines / paragraphs of some stuff of mine.,

So, this is my Drarry unpublished WIP

Quiet - Inspired by @charlotte-bird‘s picture (which I am in love with) I am writing an Eighth Year Fic ™ about Draco and Harry and concepts of home (spoiler home is not a place or a person) It’s going to be about 18000 words and it’s almost done. It’s been distracting me a lot lately actually..

Eighth year back at Hogwarts is a quiet dream. There had been no sorting this first year back. The concept of houses and divisions too much for people to contend with. 

And this is my WIP Drarry which I am very bad at updating but it helps to motivate me to publish by chapter.

Worm Juice - Your mid-twenties are as good a time as any to have a bit of a delayed breakdown. Maybe take up an interest in gardening. Maybe take up an interest in your arch nemesis.. 

The gate creaks when he opens it. Actually, it's more of a screech, a high whine which for a moment makes Draco's skin goose bump and his shoulders tense. It's a grating noise that's far too reminiscent of the screams and cries that used to echo around the Manor, an eerie welcome home.

Okkay and these are my other unpublished WIPs .. Which I may have pasted more then one line but oh well.

Tomlinshaw Regency Fic -  Look, this is a kinda crack fic that possibly has some light a/b/o dynamics so as to adhere to period correct gender dynamics. It’s loosely based on Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer  and it’s just such an odd thing but I love it. Basically Nick gets cross that renowned beauty/childhood bff Harry won’t marry him - and due to reasons (he’s a dashing buck on the town & has debts to pay) swears to his mother & uncle (who control his fortune until he marries) that he’ll marry the next eligible person he sees. Who ends up being well-born but penniless Louis. Hi-jinks ensue.

“Stop, My Lord you must stop, I can hear no more and I will not change my mind!” Harry  has twisted his body and is looking dramatically over his shoulder towards the large open French doors that lead to the patio and then down to his Mother’s recently redesigned formal gardens.  

Despite himself Nick starts laughing as he gets up from his position on his knees in front of the other man, “Stop with the theatrics Harry, if you refuse my hand I will not press you, but damn it you should explain yourself.” 

At the curse Harry gasps dramatically and turns his head quickly, “Viscount Grimshaw I would thank you to keep proper manners!” Then he adds in a simpering tone, “No matter how much I imagine your heart must be breaking.” 

Nick laughs outright now, “Come on Harry, my heart’s not breaking, and don’t play the shrinking violet with me, I’ve heard you curse like a pirate." He turns and strides across the room and pours himself a drink from the decanter on the side table, "Now little one, explain your refusal.”

Some Larry ones can go under the cut ...

Lane Five - Louis goes home for Uni half term break. It’s spring but the days seem long and slow, as if it's summer. Harry Styles keeps kissing him and then leaving. Louis decides to make his own luck. (Actually if anyone out there wants to read some H/L fluff and Brit-pic some uni holiday stuff for me hit a gal up, this is practically done.) 

His muscles are burning to the point that feels as if his legs are made of literal fire, and he’s sending messages to the damn things to move faster - faster, but they're not. The nerve impulses must be getting drowned out by the screaming pain of his overworked thighs and calves.   

He can hear himself making a horrid gasping noise with every intake of breath, his blood vessels desperate for oxygen.  

There's a final almost sickening jolt of adrenaline which allows him one extra push forward, but it’s too late.  

There is nothing more he can do.  

Max is already pumping his fists in the air in victory and before Louis can even think about comprehending what a total wanker the guy is, he’s across the line as well

The Spaced!AU - I had a little search and I couldn’t find a Spaced AU so, well, here we go. Louis is Tim, Harry is Daisy, Niall is Mark, Liam is Twist and Zayn is (predictably) Brian. Martha is Martha because if she wasn't you'd want her back for good.   It’s not going to be totally the same in terms of plot, it’s inspired by; not an exact tribute too.. But I hope still fun while at the same time expanding on some of the eek-time-to-real-adult issues that Spaced touched on.

Louis is standing in the small front garden watching Aiden throw his footie kit out of the second story bedroom window. He's yelling something down at him but Louis’ not listening properly, he’s tracking the floppy floating of his shorts as they fall and drift into the neighbour’s privet hedge.  

Fucking great. There is no way Louis can up that reach that high to rescue them.  He searches  around for some kind of implement to help him reach them and he's bent over trying to fish a sick out from under the scraggly rose bush by the letter box when his left boot lands cleat first and hard on the centre of his back at the exact same time as he hears the voice of his ex-friend now mortal enemy.  

“Louis, you’re down on your knees in the dirt you know.” Tom says observantly, like the douchey observant prat that he is. 

Louis looks up squinting, Tom is carrying a moving box, not a hair out of place, “Yeah, yeah, I am Tom and you're moving in with my boyfriend before the last of my stuff is even out of the house” 

Louis can observe things to.

Great Spring Show -  Louis is building a garden, Liam is trying to keep him sane while he does, Niall is into rock and Zayn is the supposed enemy over the fence. Harry is the new Hot-New-Face-of-English-Gardening who Louis can’t stand. But somehow Louis’ future has ended up resting in Harry’s over hyped (and far too clean to be a proper gardener’s) hands. - Set at Chelsea Flower Show it’s a getting back together / hate to love thing. 

His eyes are sore and dry and he's actually having trouble focusing properly now but despite this he reaches out and clicks play on the flyover in the CAD again. There are so many alerts pending on his phone and at least seventeen tabs open on his browser and he really needs to go sleep. Louis glances at the clock on the computer screen and moans. He needs to be up in four hours. But still he sits at the desk, eyes not moving from the screen. 

There is a sudden bang on the flimsy door to his bedroom and Liam is yelling, "Louis you awake, Niall has a problem with the rocks." 

And what the fuck. No. Louis grabs his phone and starts dialing Niall's number as he flings open the door. Liam is standing on the other side in his pants, his hair sticking straight up and brow furrowed. 

"Niall’s going straight to fucking voicemail, what the fucks going on?" Louis shouts, turning around with Liam following inside the room. 

"Lou, mate, Nialler is on the phone with me." Liam says gently holding his own phone out towards him while he looks at Louis laptop open on the desk, still playing the flythrough.

#drarry wip #larry wip #Tomlinshaw wip #drarry fanfic #larry fic #lets chat if you like #I have no idea what I am doing and if anyone ever had any nice advice (not like the comments on Worm Juice thank you) then please say Hi #<3 #serpensthesia #ILY girl #fic excerpt #My fic #my writing #mine

[hencethebravery]

Muscles Better, Nerves More for the commentary? it's phenomenal and poetic

First of all, thank you, glad to hear you enjoyed it. Let’s do this thing. btw, I will be providing commentary on “Muscles Better, Nerves More,” which can be found without my notes here.

I’m doing author commentary!

i like my body when it is with yourbody. It is so quite new a thing.Muscles better and nerves more.i like your body. i like what it does,i like its hows. i like to feel the spineof your body and its bones, and the trembling-firm-smooth ness and which i willagain and again and againkiss, i like kissing this and that of you,i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzzof your electric fur, and what-is-it comesover parting flesh … and eyes big love-crumbs,and possibly i like the thrill,of under me you so quite new.

– e.e. cummings

A/N: This is one of my most favorite poems of all time. I try not to pick opening poetry at random, generally, there’s some kind of reason the story is preempted with the poetry or song or what have you. I chose this poem because I wanted to write a story about physicality, and this is a poem that emphasizes touch and the body.

It’s early spring, and the flowers in Storybrooke have only just started to bloom, much to Emma’s quiet delight, when her precocious child makes it a point to upend her entire day.

“You can admit it you know,” Henry smirks, his look simultaneously knowing and infuriating all at once (not unlike a certain pirate, whose inability to concede to Emma’s pride seems to have been passed on to her son).

She’s not sure what she’s supposed to be “admitting” to, but the look on Henry’s face would suggest that she knows damn well to what he’s referring and she may as well confess now or he plans to spill the beans to all the wrong people (namely Killian and her parents, who would, undoubtedly, blow the whole thing entirely out of proportion).

“I’m not sure what you’re fishing for here,” she evades, sifting through one of the messier drawers at the station, no rhyme or reason to any of it, really.

A handful of vibrant, purple flowers appear suddenly in her vision, and she has to blink once or twice so that they re-appear in focus.

“I found these on the counter in the bathroom,” he explains, smirk still firmly in place, “And even more soaking in water next to the dishwasher.”

She sighs, “What do you want, Henry?”

The smile starts to waver slightly, and for a moment she feels a rush of guilt, until the smirk quickly returns as if it had never left, “I just find it interesting, that’s all.”

“It’s all the leather, isn’t?”

A/N: Ya know what’s really important to me? Emma Swan. You know what’s even more important? Emma Swan being soft and vulnerable and that being okay. One of my biggest problems with the OUAT fandom that I’ve seen (and not with everyone mind, just, it’s a common opinion I’ve seen floated around), is that Emma is not a strong character if she displays any kind of traditionally feminine softness. I think that Emma had to grow up sharper than usual, and I think she’s in a place where she’s finally safe, and she’s with people who she doesn’t think will abandon her, and I think if given half the chance she would go after the softer things. While wearing her leather jacket because you can do both.

It’s not surprising, really. She’s spent a good deal of her time in Storybrooke cultivating a reputation for herself, made damn sure that she would be the least princess-like Savior as it was possible to be. If the leather and the gun and the aggressive behavior didn’t clinch it, the chainsaw she took to Regina’s dramatic and heavy handed apple tree certainly took care of that.

Emma Swan had a secret, however, and although it was one of the more innocuous in her rather sordid, secretive past, it still rattled her to think that someone might find out. Obviously, Henry or Killian finding out was the best-case scenario, but still, she was protective of her softer parts.

She tries to ignore his flinch out of the corner of her eye when she slams the drawer shut, closing her eyes and taking a deep, cleansing breath before acquiescing to Henry’s, admittedly innocent, observation.

He surprises her by placing a gentle hand on her arm before she can speak, “It doesn’t make you any less of a hero, mom,” he urges quietly. Sometimes so like the man she loves she can hardly believe how lucky she is to have both of them in her life. “You’re the strongest, bravest person I know.”

He smiles and leaves the flowers behind on her desk before she can respond, and the guilt she felt earlier returns with a vengeance as she hears his steps get further and further away.

“Dammit,” she whispers fiercely, glaring half-heartedly at the slightly crushed, melancholy Irises on her desk. She wishes she could let go of it, this silly instinct to deny her fragility, her love of beautiful things, as if that could somehow make her weaker. Logically, she knows that it’s nothing more than a ridiculous, antiquated notion of gender and power that lingers in the frayed, damaged parts of her psyche, but that doesn’t make it any less disruptive.

A/N: I really love Henry Mills. I love thinking of Henry Mills as being a really enlightened kind of guy and wanting good things for other people he loves. And I like the idea of Henry Mills being the observant author who knows when his mother is worried or hurting. That’s the guy I tried to include here. I also really like the idea of Killian’s gentleness imprinting itself on the boy he’s basically helped raise.

A warm, refreshing gust of air blows through an open window and she sighs, relinquishing her firm, almost painful grasp on the back of her chair. It’s late afternoon, and the sun is at its warmest as it stretches itself across the open floor, heating her skin through the fabric of her jacket. The flowers are still soft in her hand when she collects them, the petals velvety and soothing against her skin despite their wrinkled edges. When she raises them to her nose, she can still catch an enticing hint of their scent, the enchanting blend of the spring’s warmth with their earthy freshness sends an eager thrill down her spine.

A/N: Like I said earlier, the physical was really important to me when writing this, so I tried to include a lot of atmospheric imagery that would really transport the reader (and Emma). I want people to be able to recall the feeling of petals on their skin, or how sun in the late afternoon feels. Hopefully I succeeded!

A vivid, almost vision-like image appears unbidden in her mind, as if the wind, the sun, and the small, innocuous flowers in her hand had somehow summoned him. The sun feels stronger, the air saltier, and it’s a familiar, soothing comfort to her frazzled nerves.

“Swan?”

The dulcet tones of his voice carry on the breeze, wrapping themselves in the heavy canvas of the ship’s sails, carried away by the crying of the gulls.

A/N: I’m proud of this line y’all. I like wrapping Killian’s voice in soft petals and wind-whipped canvas and salty air. What a guy he is.

“Emma, darling?”

He sounds far closer than he should, his warmth far more heady than it could possibly be in a vision or fantasy, or whatever the hell she’s currently experiencing. Confused, she wrinkles her brow and nose, wondering if this is yet another facet of her power she has yet to explore.

“Emma.”

Firmer this time, and her eyes snap open in surprise at the feeling of his hands wrapped gently around her upper arms. “Killian—”

When she manages to tear her gaze away from the surprised, concerned blue of his eyes, she’s forced to squint against the shocking glare of the sun reflecting off the surface of the water, suddenly feels the gentle rocking of the Jolly Roger under her feet, the familiar smell of damp wood tickling her nose.

“Uh,” she gasps, “Hey?”

She smiles in a way she hopes is charming enough to avoid a flustered, overprotective smothering, and the delicate, yet undiscerning lift of his brow would seem to suggest she’s failed.

“This is a surprise, I must say, Swan. Not everyday a beautiful woman suddenly appears in my arms.”

She huffs in disbelief and silently considers the young, eager faces of the various men and women she’s observed following his slight frame with a heated, shamelessly obvious gaze. Not that she can blame them, obviously, but she is right there.

A/N: Excuse me, but why have we yet to see at least a small percentage of the Storybrooke townsfolk blatantly staring at Killian Jones? We all know it’s happening. We know.

She wants to say something flirtatious and charming, something along the lines of, “I’m in your arms everyday,” or “Humility is a good look on you, Captain.” But she’s finding it hard to ignore the note of concern in his voice, hidden behind the humor he tries so desperately to convey for her emotionally stunted sake.

“Kind of a weird day,” she admits sullenly, unable to acknowledge the selfless interest, awe, and love that she can almost always find in his unbearably kind eyes.

“Never had one of those before, have we?”

When she looks up she finds his smile, just as bright and disarming as she’s come to expect, his eyes no longer merely worried. She exhales and drops her forehead to his chest in exhaustion, feeling his soft chuckle, the heavy weight of her conversation with Henry lifting slightly from her shoulders.

Her voice is muffled when she speaks against his chest, “Henry found my flowers.”

A/N: In case people haven’t noticed, I also really enjoy writing Emma Swan with her teenage girl tendencies. She’s so stubborn and embarrassed and I kind of really love that about her. I also know the feeling of admitting to the person you trust most in the world that you enjoy something you feel a little bit dumb about. I ended up borrowing from real-life a bit when I wrote this fic.

“Come again, love?”

There’s a handsome, incredulous look on his face when she finally leans away, and she forces a stern look onto her face along with a pointed, enthusiastic finger, “You can’t laugh.”

“Cross my heart, Swan.”

From their place in the pocket of her jacket, the purple Irises have gotten a bit more ruffled than they were earlier, but the color is still vibrant, the scent still quietly biding its time within its frail petals.

A/N: Yes, a scent can “bide its time,” don’t test me.

“I’ve seen these,” he exclaims quietly, “they’ve been growing in the yard, by the shed.”

She smiles at his absurdly gentle touch of the flowers in her hand, and replies, “Yup, sprang up overnight with the warm weather.”

“You want to tell me what this is about?”

“I love flowers,” she admits desperately, crushing the petals beyond repair within the confines of her fist, “after the long, depressing winters… just, the sight of them.” She sighs and tries to ignore the twinkle in his eye, “I like to pick them, leave them around the house, just look at them… I guess.”

“Just when I thought the charms of Emma Swan could ever cease.”

“Shut up.”

She feels the last of the sun’s warmth on her face before his lips finally meet hers. A light, yet insistent pressure she can feel in the sudden tensing of her neck in playful defiance of his touch. The breeze is a few degrees cooler with the loss of the sun, and her skin prickles along with the heat of his hand against her cheek. He pulls away before she can truly appreciate the finer points of his kiss, and she flushes at the familiar feeling of his nose nudging against her own.

“Shall we, my love?”

His fingers are wonderfully rough when she tangles their hands together against her rapidly warming face, and when she anxiously nibbles at her own lips, she can taste a hint of rum and oranges that he left behind.

“We shall.”

A/N: And again with the sensory language! Can y’all taste the oranges? The rum? Maybe feel the sun on your skin? THAT’S WHAT I WANT.

Killian Jones is a remarkable creature that she hopes to never fully know. A maddening blend of confident righteousness and eager violence, tossed with a delightful smattering of gentleness and chivalric intention. Emma Swan wants to learn something new about Killian Jones everyday of her life, from the most lovable to the most infuriating, she wants to burrow inside that wonderful mess and remain there for the rest of her days. The good and the bad, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

A/N: To this day, this is one of my most favorite bits about Killian as a character that I’ve written.

Similarly, she hopes against hope that their frequent, decidedly enthusiastic, time spent locked away in their cavernous bedroom remains a constant surprise. Despite the gentleness he had shown moments earlier, his touch is suddenly rougher, more eager and impatient than she would have expected.

“You got somewhere to be?” she asks breathlessly, her voice barely above a whisper with the way his lips have begun their swift, perilous descent down the length of her neck.

When he speaks against her skin his tongue makes brief, teasing points of contact with her flesh and she feels a pleasurable tingling between her legs as he pushes her jacket from her shoulders.

“I’d be a bloody fool to imagine myself anywhere else.”

It’s hard to form coherent thoughts after that, what with the somehow rougher tugging of her top over her head, the feeling of his hand and hook securing themselves beneath her denim-clad thighs. She feels her stomach heave excitedly as he lifts her into the air, her legs wrapping around his waist, arms fastened tightly across his shoulders.

The night is largely silent outside their window except for the sporadic chirping of various insects awakening from their sleep, a cacophonous melody of sound blending seamlessly with her breathless sighs and soft moans escaping in the open space between their mouths.

“Cold,” she manages to whisper against his lips, the feel of the biting night air along the bare flesh of her back causing a vaguely unpleasant shiver to crawl across her skin. All day long she’d been luxuriating in the warmth of spring, so to feel a chill in the air, despite the warmth of Killian’s touch, has her feeling more sensitive to the cold than usual.

A/N: I would like everyone to know that I don’t write a lot of smut, this was one of my first times writing it, and I’m still getting a little flush reading it again. I’m so glad people enjoyed it, but I’ll be honest, it was a horrifying experience. And not to get too TMI with this, but I borrowed from real-life again, a little bit, only because I get cold ALWAYS and ruin the mood. But the mood doesn’t have to be ruined. Anyway.

He grunts in acknowledgement, and she suddenly finds herself delightfully pressed into the soft, wave-like warmth of their many blankets, the exposed, heated skin of his chest pressed against her own, and she wishes quietly, desperately, for the uncomfortable tightness of her bra to disappear. Her back arches in a silent entreaty, the softness of her breasts pressing meaningfully against his pleasant weight.

A/N: Bras suck.

“Problem, Swan?” He chuckles and she resists the very real urge to give him a small pinch, her legs tightly securing themselves along his stomach and legs in a vain attempt at scolding, “I thought I said no laughing!”

She can barely keep the breathless, frightfully high-pitched giggles out of her own voice, and the reprimand falls short of barely teasing, the soft, lyrical notes of her pleasure betraying any attempt at severity.

“Ugh,” she gasps, “please get rid of it.”

One-handed wonder that he is, the offending garment is unhooked and pulled away with an alarming quickness that would have had her thinking “magic,” if not for the distracting sensation of his mouth against her breasts, his lips steadily working their way down her torso to the top of her jeans.

An unacceptable amount of time passes before she feels his breath against the top of her pubic bone, her hands flexing against the top of his back impatiently. A hush seems to fall over the room, and before she can think to wonder where the sounds of the evening have gone, a cool breeze wafts over the naked skin of her legs as he slowly rolls the fabric down her thighs and over her knees.

“Still cold?” he asks the taut skin of her belly, the soft pressure of his lips against her skin creating an involuntary movement in the tense muscles of her stomach, a nervous, anticipatory reaction that she can find no way to hide.

Her underwear is almost uncomfortably damp at this point, but he makes no move to discard them, his nose and mouth pressing insistently between her legs, and she has to take a moment to breathe and forgo the dreaded feeling of embarrassment that they had worked long and hard to dissuade her of. She tries to say his name but the only noise that leaves her mouth is a gasp, and she huffs in frustration, her eyes falling shut at the gentle, probing feeling of his tongue against her heat.

A/N: I’ve seen other, far more talented writers do this too, but I think it’s really important to at least hint at the possibility that we’re not all comfortable with sex all the time. Oral sex in particular can be particularly nerve-wracking for both parties and I wanted to emphasize that here. I also think Killian would be particularly understanding about this stuff.

Just as she’s prepared herself for the welcome relief of her remaining piece of clothing sliding away, the feeling of his body re-acquainting itself with the length of her front returns, and the fine hairs along her arms seem to rise excitedly with the unexpected feeling of his warmth and weight.

A/N: I’m not super crazy about my language here, that’s a long-ass sentence. I’d probably break it up a bit now, possibly get 2 or 3 sentences out of it instead of the great big long one. Ugh.

“What’re you doing up here?” she asks curiously, a note of wonder to her voice that she barely recognizes.

When he smiles, there’s a lovely crinkling at the corners of his eyes, and she feels her heart flutter rapidly in her chest in the reverent tone of his reply.

“I missed you.”

Her responding kiss is harsh and insistent, hands fiercely tugging at the dark, soft strands of his hair, scratching at his scalp, and he moans loudly before bringing his hand to her thigh and lifting it eagerly over his hip as he ruts uselessly against her.

A/N: I just thought there was something almost sickeningly romantic about the idea of oral sex creating just a little bit too much distance. Obviously, it’s one of the more intimate things you can do, but at the same time he is all the way down there, idk.

“Pants,” she whines against his chin, the scruff of his jaw scraping delightfully against her lips, and she knows they’ll be slightly red and chapped in the morning, but it’s a blissful, fading irritation that she can hardly think to acknowledge.

The final moments before he’s finally where she needs him to be are swift and incomprehensible, as if each second bleeds meaninglessly into the next, her heart racing almost unpleasantly in her chest as she makes to frantically pull the fabric of her underwear aside, and it’s only when he’s exquisitely buried inside her, wet and inviting, does the sensation of time return. She can hear the chirping of the insects in his stillness, the heavy, sultry weight of him hovering over her, the now welcome rolling of the cool night air over their heated, flushed skin.

His hand leaves her hip to return to its place against her cheek and jaw, a mimicry of their kiss on the Jolly only an hour or so earlier, and she feels a familiar hardness at the back of her throat, a pressure behind her eyes that she’s become far too comfortable with in recent years. “Killian,” she finally manages to whisper before he’s practically devouring her, his hips barely moving against her.

A/N: How would these two idiots not cry during sex at least 50% of the time? Literally everything about their relationship is intense. She’s also in love with a man who’s so goddamn Extra™ that he’d probably find it nigh-impossible to contain all of his Emma Swan feelings. Especially when she admits to loving purple flowers? Come now.

“Oh,” he sighs, his brow enticingly furrowed with a lingering grasp on his self-control, his teeth gently tugging on her already swollen, kiss-stained lips.

The encouraging tap of her knee against his side seems to snap him out of whatever Emma-induced reverie he seems to have found himself, and she very nearly yells with the unexpected pleasure of his body snapping hard and fast against and within her, the sound of the headboard cracking against the wall creating a loud, purposeful echo in the otherwise quiet space.

He mouths a wonderfully accented “Fuck,” against her neck and the beginnings of a long, drawn-out tightness in her belly takes her by surprise; the contradictory, erotic events of the evening coming to fruition with the filthy words tumbling out of his mouth and across her pink, feverish skin. She begins to notice beads of sweat rolling between her breasts and down her sternum, but she only drags the blunted tips of her fingernails harder across his back, circles her hips with more strength than she thought she possessed.

A/N: Again with the soft/hard juxtaposition! As you’ll soon find out, I’m pretty sure I was prompted to write this because there’d been a discussion at some point about how Killian would 100% wear a crown made of flowers in one moment and slam you into a headboard in the next.

When she comes it is quiet, nary a sound crosses her lips besides a soft, gracious “Thank you,” against an exhausted, proud smile that has worked its way across his sweaty, flushed face, before he finishes with a few final, well-placed thrusts that have her hand wrapped tightly around one of the bars behind her head.

As soon as he drops to the side there’s a dryness in her mouth that begs for water, and she places a quick, wet kiss to his cheek before swinging her legs over the bed and pulling his shirt on, making a quick beeline for the bathroom before running downstairs for a glass of water. A full moon shines through the window above the sink, and a welcome, all-encompassing tiredness seems to weave its way through her body, her eyelids drooping, mouth open in a silent yawn.

A flash of color catches her eye, and she remembers the purple Irises that Henry had mentioned that morning, soaking in water, their heads tilted towards her in a silent question. She scoops them up before returning to bed, a small, delighted smile obscuring her otherwise sleepy expression.

If it were in his power to do so, Killian Jones would choose to awaken to the sound of Emma Swan’s laughter everyday for the rest of his life. It’s so soft he can barely hear the cadences of its movement, but it’s there, a bright, loving thing that he feels just as surely as he can feel the early morning sun against his face.

A/N: Me too, Killian. Me too.

He had fallen asleep before Emma had returned to bed the previous evening, waking only briefly to the light, tickling sensation of her fingers running up and down the length of his arm. A familiar, repetitive motion that he’s begun to suspect comforts her more so than it does him, but he had fallen back into a deep sleep regardless, his mind and heart full with thoughts of Emma, her long, blonde hair covered in the pale pink petals of Middlemist roses.

A/N: I give my fiancé chills all the time because I find it comforting and he fucking hates it. Oh, well. DEAL WITH IT.

“Morning,” she hums somewhere close to his ear, and he smiles before opening his eyes to the no doubt wondrous sight that awaits him.

“I know you’re awake,” she continues, “it’s creepy that you won’t just admit it.”

“Just savoring the moment, love,” he explains, and the sight is indeed, just as, if not slightly more beautiful than he expected. “Would you look at that.”

“Cut it out, I am not at my most elegant this morning.”

Practically speaking he supposes she’s right; a large, cotton flannel hangs off one shoulder (and what he thinks might be a coffee stain covers the breast pocket), her hair is a knotty mess on top of her head, with rather sizable, long strands that she had clearly missed in her hurried attempt to look marginally presentable. She still looks vaguely tired, but content, and sometimes it’s enough to be thankful for.

It’s then that he notices the busy motion of her hands, the purple of the flowers she had shown him the evening before tangled around one another in an indiscernible pattern.

A/N: Can you even believe that it took me this long to get to the flower crown? That was the whole freaking point. I had to add all that superfluous backstory about how much Emma loves flowers to even get here. Go fuck yourself, Alana.

“What’s that you’ve got there, love?”

“Oh, nothing,” she answers mischievously, and he notes a playfulness that he would happily take in exchange for the tiredness that lingers around her eyes. Besides, he thinks with only a slight hint of astonishment, there was always time for a nap.

He’s propped up against the headboard, a mug of hot tea in hand when he feels her fussing with his large, messy nest of hair he’s yet to tame. The flannel she wears is only partially buttoned, so the view is distracting enough that he briefly forgets about whatever’s going on up there, but then he notices a small, violet-colored petal fall in front of his eyes and he forces himself to look up.

“What’s this, now?”

“There,” she says wistfully, her hands coming to gently frame his face, desperately in need of a shave or a trim at the very least, “perfect.” She plays with a few strands of hair that have fallen over his forehead, and the softness in her expression makes his chest tight.

He sets the tea aside and tries to sit straighter despite Emma’s weight in his lap, his attempts to construct a princely countenance encouraging yet another wonderful stroke of laughter from her lips, “What do you think, Swan? Will the King and Queen approve?”

It’s somewhat surreal to think that the man currently beneath her; this shirtless, sleepy, miracle of a human being (flower crowns, untrimmed beard and all) could be the same man that had fucked her quite ardently into their headboard the night before. The sun has begun to make its way out from behind the early morning fog, but she can smell rain in the air, observe the heavy clouds in the distance, and quietly makes the decision to stay in bed until at least the afternoon.

There’s clearly an element of humor in the question, but there’s a deeper chord, something about meeting her parent’s approval and being “nothing but a pirate,” and she can’t quite kiss him deep enough or gentle enough after she responds, her voice quiet and firm in the early morning silence that falls around them like a cocoon, “Who gives a damn?”

A/N: Oh, Killian, always with the self-doubt. Will he ever learn? Probably not, no. But Emma Swan doesn’t care and she’ll love him forever and now I have gone full-sap. btw, I’ve always had a sequel in mind for this fic. Hopefully I’ll get to it soon.

#@hencethewriter #attn blogging #shady-swan-jones

[geekade]

Legion of Spoilers - Chapter 4

Legion's latest chapter is a halfway mark in every sense: Chapter 4 falls midway through the season’s eight episode run, and its handful of revelations, capped with that painful ending, promise to be the fulcrum of the remainder of the season. And viewers as well as David stand halfway through a looking glass, struggling to ascertain what is real, and what is reflected.

This episode is also riddled with self-conscious artifice, as though going out of its way to feel like a TV show. Hawley frames this opening with Masterpiece-esque commentary AND a noir-ish voiceover from Syd. Colors and lighting are even more hyper-saturated than usual; shots betray their camera work, and every scene is composed with painterly precision. The artifice is occasionally distracting, which is unfortunate for an episode peppered with so many intriguing hints and reveals.

Oliver Bird plays us in with two introductory monologues, the first attempt abandoned while his drink freezes solid. The theme of tonight’s presentation will be the conflict between empathy and fear, the struggle between mirror images as a man goes to war with himself. And indeed, this chapter is full of unsettling symmetries and incongruities: Lenny (at least Mind Lenny) turns out to be a kind of cover identity for the parts of David’s mind he’d rather not face. Amy and Dr. Kissinger exchange confidences through the wall that divides their mirrored prison cells. Cary and Kerry fight in tandem, riding a psychic link that spans the distance between them. David’s memories of others collide with their memories of him, as Amy reveals David never had a dog, Philly describes David’s actual drug buddy, and Syd deduces that David’s true motive for breaking into Dr. Poole’s office was to destroy records his mind could not overwrite.

This ability to overwrite itself is what makes David’s memory a hall of mirrors. From childhood on, any time he was confronted with something frightening, David clapped his hands over his eyes, again and again, until his mind learned to do it automatically. Now he unconsciously deploys his powers in a fractally complex cycle: React, obfuscate, forget. David's memory glitches are this protective mechanism at work, the childlike conviction that something can't hurt him if he doesn’t look straight at it. If you stand still, The Angriest Boy will catch you. The voices will overwhelm you. The yellow-eyed monster will flower into malevolent being. So David runs.

This served him well enough until D3 and Summerland found him. Summerland wants to teach David how to stand still, but his mind is so used to folding realities that it refuses the concept. David's new friends mean well but they can’t understand what it means to be marooned in a self whose instability is its security. Confronted with empathy, his mind, conditioned to fear, abandons the conscious realm entirely.

While David lies inert in Cary's lab, Dr. Bird dispatches Syd, Ptonomy, and Kerry to uncover what precipitated David's admission to Clockworks. The trio dutifully make their way to the site of the memory that went haywire in Chapter 3: Dr. Poole's deserted but preserved office. Ptonomy and Syd piece together David's memory work vignettes with “object memories” magicked from a demolished tape recorder. 

The trio then set up camp in the woods, where Syd's reverie is broken by the appearance of The World's Angriest Boy in the World, who brandishes his fixed scowl and his knife before vanishing. Syd keeps the sighting to herself as Kerry announces she has a lead on David's ex-girlfriend Philly. Then, in a speech that is all but captioned EPIC FORESHADOWING, Kerry explains her relationship with Cary. They share his body, and she emerges at will – mostly when there's fighting to be done – while Cary takes care of “all the boring stuff.”

Elsewhere, Amy's ordeal continues. Tortured and interrogated, then caged and starved, she scrabbles at a foul meal before hurling it against the wall. Hearing this, the adjoining cell's inmate hollers a strange introduction: “I exist!” It's the disappeared Dr. Kissinger. Amy admits that David was a sweet but strange child who moved inexplicably between rooms, knew the substance of unspoken thoughts, and conversed with people who weren't there. Most chillingly, she tells the good doctor that they never had a dog, and that she never saw the King to whom David spoke. Dr. Kissinger flashes back to the day David walled up the inmates of Clockworks. In contrast to previous iterations of that memory the series has shown us, he's unaccompanied by Syd and there's no sign of Lenny. At least Amy has some company now.

Back at Summerland, Dr. Bird finds herself before an apparition in an antique diving suit. She grabs Cary and they descend to a hidden sub-basement, speaking gently and obliquely about missing pieces. Cary admits to missing Kerry when she's away, and since she only ages when she's outside, he wonders (EPIC FORESHADOWING) what will become of her when he dies. Melanie floats the obviously well-worn hope that this will be the time her husband returns. Oliver is sprawled on a table in a kind of cryo-chamber, diving suit peppered with rime and air hose trailing out of the frame. Neither alive nor dead, he’s stuck somewhere in between. As Melanie and Cary enter, a buzzer goes off, warning lights flash, and an automated voice calls out “Unannounced Visitor.” The system, linked somehow to the astral plane, has registered David's arrival.

David has not quite registered David's arrival to this strange place that looks like the aurora borealis crash-landed in the Grand Canyon. After a bewildered look around, he follows the beckoning figure in the diving suit to a ladder. Together they ascend into the ice asteroid we saw in the episode's opening. Oliver introduces himself and asks how much has changed since he got stuck there, somewhere at the convergence of beat poetry, avant-garde jazz, leisure suits, and free love. David doesn't seem to recognize or care that he's having a tête-à-tête with Melanie's long-lost spouse. As always, his impatience for an exit truncates the explanations that could help viewers piece together the story; Oliver barely gets a chance to explain the astral plane or the creature that dogs David's memories and has followed him here. Maybe David doesn't really want to know. He climbs back down the strange ladder and strikes out across the undulating mindscape.

In the meantime, the Summerland trio have tracked down Philly. She tells them that David's drug buddy was a large and unpleasant man by the name of Benny, whose face and identity David has apparently overwritten. When he scans her memories, Ptonomy witnesses encounters with Benny and with Dr. Poole. She and David had him over for lunch, and later, she visited him, now blinded and scarred, at a lighthouse. Our detectives make their way to the lighthouse and convince Dr. Poole to talk to them. He admits them grudgingly before transforming into the Eye and signaling D3 to spring its trap. A SWAT-like team closes in, driving the three upstairs in a hail of bullets. Kerry leaps out the nearest window to beat back the commandos and clear an escape route while The Eye pursues Syd and Ptonomy to the attic room where they've taken refuge.

So begins a well-executed montage in the grand style which is also a trademark of Hawley’s TV adaptation of Fargo. To the strains of Feist's “Undiscovered First,” Oliver dances in the ice asteroid of his mind as Melanie mourns his body, Cary vicariously follows Kerry's hand-to-hand, and Amy paces in her cell as The Eye closes in on Ptonomy and Syd. Ptonomy's bullets can't seem to connect, and once the gun is out of bullets he’s subdued with a touch. Cornered, Syd slips off a glove, meets The Eye's hand, and switches bodies just in time to receive the commandos' confirmation of Kerry's capture. “The Eye” orders the captives placed in the van and takes the wheel.

Back in the astral plane, Lenny confronts David in a mirror image of his childhood bedroom. Agitated and anxious to leave, she goads him – again – into using his power by showing him someone he loves in danger. Seeing “Syd” tied up by “The Eye,” he howls with rage, the Devil flickering behind his face, and teleports straight toward the path of his friends' escaping van. After it swerves off the road, David frees “Syd,” setting in motion a foot chase that gives The Eye enough time to regain his body and shoot Kerry. Miles away, Cary collapses, clutching at an invisible wound. As David looks on in horror, a gangrenous hand curls around his shoulder, and “Lenny” smiles – but not with her eyes.

QUOTES 

“The past is an illusion.”

“Who are we, if not the stories we tell ourselves?”

“Is free love still a thing?”

“Defeat the dragon. Unless, you know, the dragon wins.”

“Pity. Two more and we could have had a barbershop quartet.”

“In times of peace, the warlike man attacks himself.” -Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” -Sun Tzu, The Art of War

ODDS & ENDS 

That nugget from The Art of War is basically how demon-Lenny subdues David.

Shout-out #2 to Italo Calvino: Philly works at Calvino Realty. (Shout-out #1 was the ambulance company in the pilot).

We still don’t know what the stars say to David.

Has Amy’s husband filed a missing persons report? Is anybody looking for her?

If David’s story is about a conflict between fear and empathy, fear is off to a great head start: It originates in the amygdala, and in Chapter 2 Cary observed that David’s was unusually large. Interestingly, the amygdala is also involved in memory formation.

The posters for Enceladus and Europa in David’s childhood room are two of the vintage-style solar system travel posters you can download from NASA.

Legion continues to confound attempts to peg it to a single time period; this week's anachronism is Ptonomy's Luger, a pistol historically associated with Nazi-era Germany.

The Eye’s powers are varied and as yet unexplained. First of all, either he’s wearing space-age clothing or he has the power to deflect bullets. He can’t just be a bulletproof mutant, because then his clothes would have bullet holes. He can also knock people out by touching them, doing something to one eye in the process and has sufficient psychic chops to spot David and Syd’s astral forms.

According to the tablet on her desk, Philly’s full name is Florence Welch, also the name of the lead singer of Florence and the Machine.

The beat poetry Oliver recites to David is a selection from Allen Ginsberg’s A Supermarket in California, which includes the line I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective, which sounds a lot like the wandering and chasing in David’s mind.

Based on this week’s theme of smoke and mirrors, Hawley may be referencing Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly, Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. All three works deal with mirroring, mental illness, the nature and limits of the self, and shifting internal perspectives.

This chapter’s significant music selections: The avant-garde jazz Oliver puts on for David is Sonny Simmons’ Metamorphosis. In keeping with the episode’s theme of mirrors and reversals, the cover image from that album is a reverse negative. The song that plays over the montage is Feist’s “Undiscovered First.” Mind-Lenny calls David a mountain climber just before Feist’s lyrics ask “Is this the right mountain/For us to climb?”

FAN THEORIES, or WHAT THE HELL I THINK IS GOING ON 

My theory is that this episode was written and shot to feel like TV to telegraph that most or all of it is one of David’s invented realities, maybe a TV-show-esque reality (or pocket universe!) his mind created to cope with something traumatic. The strongest piece of evidence for the unreality of what we’ve seen so far, aside from the outlandishness of that lighthouse, is the sign the van hits in the final act. It reads: Slow Down: Uncertainty Ahead.

As in The Wizard of Oz (also name-checked in the intro), at least some of the characters must be real people superimposed on this parallel reality. My guesses: Amy, Philly, Melanie, Oliver, Brubaker, and The Eye are real. I’m on the fence about Kerry, Cary, and Ptonomy. The case for Lenny in any reality is now mighty thin (although if Clockworks was a real place, it remains possible that she was a fellow patient David later wrote into his memories of Benny), and even thinner for Syd, who should have appeared alongside Dr. Kissinger in his flashback. In the first episode, when Syd visits David in his room at Clockworks, his door opens and closes no one actually steps over the threshold. Syd has also begun to see The Angriest Boy in her waking life, which would make sense if some other parts of David’s consciousness are encroaching on that personality.

Speaking of The Wizard of Oz, we don’t currently know what’s real, but the mirror theme pervading this episode makes me think most of what we’ve seen so far is just a reflection of a reality yet unseen.

There’s an internal logic to David’s primary coping mechanism being the creation of new worlds, people, and memories. Some small quantity of self-delusion is part of the human condition; we are, as Syd observes, the stories we tell ourselves. Stories mediate between the self and the reality outside it, allowing us to develop and contextualize what we think of as our selves. David can’t tell himself any coherent stories about himself, let alone the people around him, because his telepathy eroded his ability to establish boundaries between self and other.

This being a delusion or pocket reality would explain why real people (that is, people who exist outside of David’s mind) see and interact with latent personalities and imagined characters.

Legion’s shots change aspect ratio, seemingly based on whether they are showing us present time, memories, and (possibly) delusions. The deeper into the unconscious a shot takes us, the more black space appears in the upper and lower thirds of the screen. For example, when Kerry references her childhood and the scene cuts to Cary/Kerry’s shared memory, the screen narrows slightly. It narrowed significantly during David’s botched memory work in Chapter 3. Based on aspect ratios I’d say there’s a strong likelihood D3 (or something like it) exists and Amy really is in their custody.

This episode gave us the longest shot yet of a fluorescent-lit corridor that has previously appeared only in brief flashes. One glimpse of the corridor shows a hooded figure slumped against a damaged observation window, whose crack pattern resembles the damage Cary’s lab window suffered while David was astrally projecting in Chapter 3. Also, the circle of light in which David lays is very similar to the stark blue-gray fluorescent lighting of the corridor and Amy’s cell. Could this world be a retreat from D3’s custody?

Recurring motifs: Stacks of circles appear in the astral plane ladder, a sequence of shapes echoed in Philly’s headband (lunch with Dr. Poole) and earrings (meeting with Syd and Ptonomy), Kerry’s belt, and the portholes that run up the sides of Dr. Poole’s lighthouse. The way The Eye’s victims’ eyes crystallize looks suspiciously similar to Oliver’s ice asteroid. Maybe he temporarily banishes his victims’ consciousnesses to the astral plane. The recurrence of particular motifs in unrelated contexts would seem to suggest mental shortcuts as David’s brain reuses certain shapes and images, maybe borrowing them from waking life.

Colorwatch: Oliver’s leisure suit is in the same neutral color family as Melanie and Brubaker’s clothing, if you don’t count the mustard shirt beneath his jacket, which echoes the floor of the common room at Clockworks. Neutrals seems to be worn by people with an interest in mutants, or possibly by those whose allegiance or intent is not yet clear. Lenny wears a vivid blue jumpsuit beneath a beige trench; I still have no theories about blue’s significance. The Vapor is also blue, and may scenes in this episode bear a bluish tint. Philly wears Kelly green edged with black piping, Amy wears the same mint-green clothes in which she was captured, and The Eye wears pale olive green. My original theory was that green is only worn or carried by people free to move in the real world; David carries green only once, when he leaves Clockworks. But the astral plane is a ghostly, insubstantial yellow-green. Maybe the astral plane is a real place, insofar as it’s a realm that exists outside of David and that can be visited by other people with similar powers. It’s probably closer to reality than the world of Summerland. The door to the lighthouse is red, and the lighthouse itself is candy-striped red and white. Red always seems to accompany David’s moments of profound anxiety, reverie or dislocation, especially his great demonstrations of power. And I’m back to speculating that David’s personalities wear black – in this episode only Syd and Lenny wear black.

#TV #articles #Legion