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kadeuxhyeonju · 3 years

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Lee Hyeonju: Family

Mother—Lee Jihye

Hyeonju primarily grew up with his mother, Lee Jihye, a Rank 10 Master Sergeant of Spade. The Lees were a proud and ambitious family, always seeking to rise to greater heights within Kadeu and Spade. They expected greatness from their children and would see to it that their offspring rose in Rank and reputation. Lee Jihye was, from the very start of her life, put into a strict training regimen, which could be why she treated her future son much the same way—it was all she ever knew and it was effective. There was no room for mistakes, for flaws. If you showed weakness, the Lee family showed no hesitancy in casting out one of their own. It had happened to her younger brother, a born human who showed no ability in combat or intelligence, though he had an empathetic heart. Jihye would not be like him, she vowed it.

And it was true. She became nothing like her brother; she was not kind, gentle, understanding. Jihye only knew how to be cold, indifferent, calculating, her only virtue being that she knew patience. But even that was misplaced for more cruel deeds and ambitions. Hyeonju’s arrival in the world did nothing to change that. His innocent life did not stamp out the Lee family’s brutality, in fact, it may have spurred her on. Hyeonju found himself treated more like a pet project, an experiment, than a child in desperate need of and yearning for affection and acceptance.

Over time, as Hyeonju grew and distanced himself mentally from his environment and Jihye, he unconsciously began to believe that family was a sham of a concept. He’d seen the “normal” families, visited their homes, watched their interactions, and found he couldn’t understand, though part of him still held longing for what he observed. His mother’s way of life—of being—had stemmed from a prestigious family who deemed power and status as the only qualities of value in their lineage. Hyeonju failed to possess these two things.

As a born 10, he had garnered the proper respect of his rank, but he was a child and had no real authority. When his mother insisted he enlist, the young boy knew his Seven would make him worthless in the eyes of his mother, though that was considered reasonable rank for someone of his skill and age—at least what he had chosen to exhibit. His mother’s obsession with rank and power made Hyeonju resent her, Spade, it’s values, and how it made him feel trapped and unable to pursue what /he/ found value in. In all honesty, he didn’t even know what that was; his mother never let him explore his own identity to figure it out. And now as an adult, Hyeonju finds himself struggling to define who he is because of his mother’s erasure of his individuality. Which of the many masks that he wears is the real him?

Father—Park Minjun

The Parks are a long line of Kitsune and the occasionally Kumiho as many in the family’s history have chosen to stick to marrying their own species—fox spirits. Where the Lee Family was made up of the cruel and ambitious, the Parks were a clan of cunning and deceit. Mind you, they had “morals.” They didn’t kill unless necessary, didn’t wound or steal from the poor if they could help it. Their focus was primarily on theft, falseranking, and sabotage of rivals. Over time, though that changed. Killing became common. Scamming Low Rankers into crippling amounts of debt was the name of the game.

Park Minjun was a natural. Born to a Kitsune and Kumiho, both Queens of Heart and surrounded by the bloodthirsty, competitive nature of his six older siblings, Minjun learned quickly that he needed to get smart fast or find himself in the gutter with a knife in his back. Out of the seven children, Minjun was the most successful of them. He refused to piggy back off his parents’ wealth, not out of a need to prove himself, but out of simple arrogance. Minjun believed he didn’t need his parents in order to become the best. He thought of his siblings as moochers, pathetic and incompetent. They hadn’t figured out the rules as quickly as him and that was just fine.

Minjun was charming, cunning, conniving, and cruel. He took pleasure in the kill, whether human or something else, but he saved that as a last resort. He opted for handsome smiles and playing up his fox features—much to the delight of the women he pursued. He knew what to say, when to say it, could strike a deal with a man and have his business bankrupt within months all while Minjun walked away with droves of coins filling his bank account. Nothing could stop him and nobody could hold him back. He was invincible.

Then his eyes landed on what he would forever dub “the impossible deal” as he liked to tell his son. Jihye was everything he expected from a Spade—capable, strong—let’s face it, Minjun was a sucker for a powerful woman—competent, and always one step ahead of him. Minjun saw her and fell in love with a possibility. He wanted control and he wanted Jihye to give it to him willingly. The pursuit was something Hyeonju could speak about it in his sleep, his father had mentioned it so often whenever he visited Spade. Jihye pulled him in with her cold eyes and sultry sneer. She only ever cared about what his powers were, his lineage, his success as a Heart. Minjun had become ensnared without realizing it—entranced by her indifference and desire only for power. He had thought he was the pulling her in, but Jihye knew what she wanted and she was going to get it. She was an illusion he’d experience for a year before finding out she had become pregnant with his child, shattering any idea that /he/ had ever had any handle on this battle of minds.

Hyeonju has no false ideas of what his parents did and why they did it. Both were in pursuit of different forms of power—and they got it in the form of a little hybrid baby. Minjun trained him like Jihye requested, but Minjun wasn’t doing it out of kindness or even obligation. He used those moments to whisper toxic secrets and false hopes, all in an effort to one-up the woman who’d played him for a fool. Hyeonju had only ever wanted his father to see him and treat him as a son. In his desire for that, he did and said what Minjun wanted, sentiments leaning towards Minjun the more strained Jihye and Hyeonju’s relationship became. Looking back on it, Hyeonju is disgusted with himself for ever wanting anything from a man who only ever saw his child as a tool and punching bag. Nevertheless…

His father’s abandonment came as no surprise, but it was a wound that buried deep in Hyeonju’s chest. It further embedded the belief that family was only there to wound and then disappear. Ingrained in him was only the obligation he had toward his mother when he finally made it as a High Ranker. He can’t acknowledge it, even as a passing thought, but Hyeonju still hopes his biological family will change, will show him what he’s always wanted. But he’s not holding his breath. He’s died too many times for that.

Found Family—Nari

Hyeonju pursued life without any love, romantic or familial. Aside from his parents, he’d known his father’s family—and promptly decided they were as terrible as his father, but more idiotic. His parents among other factors had made him cynical of blood ties and even those formed through trust and respect. He had nothing to gain from it, fearing it would result in rejection and pain.

Nari came along just as he was ready to shut out the world. She reminded him of when he needed someone, anyone to show him empathy, kindness, mercy. She pulled at a string in his heart he was certain his parents had snipped in half with rusted shears long ago. At first, Hyeonju kept himself closed off, only occasionally offering advice or chastisement if he thought she was a bother to others. Time passed and Hyeonju found Nari’s sweet demeanor softening his heart and he began to reach out and become more involved. In her, he had found someone to care for. In time, and to his surprise, she reciprocated and Hyeonju found himself lighting up whenever she appeared.

There was nothing romantic about Hyeonju’s affections for the younger fox spirit, only a fondness he’d never known. It felt like what he’d always imagined in the dead of night as a child a family would be like. Never before and not since after, has he found someone that he loves as much as Nari—the family he had always longed for.

Chosen Family

Hyeonju will hesitate to call them family, but he does care for some people. Max, his childhood friend, who puts up with all his bullshit; Sullivan, who only recently became someone that the Heart has found himself opening up to. His circle is hardly a dot on a map, but to Hyeonju it is far larger than he’s ever known and it brings him some joy. This small, eclectic family he calls his own. It is the one thing that brings a true, heart-shaped, gentle smile to his face.

But only when no one’s looking.

#kadeuxhyeonju #task: family #again IM SO SORRY IT'S LONG TT #fun fact: juju knows his extended family on both sides #and hates them both equally #except his mom's brother #he's getting there #i drew crests because i didn't wanna draw that bigass tree of juju's family #headcanon

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graceandtheidiotsquad · 4 years

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Love is Dead and We Killed her (Five Nights AU) (TW: mentions of murder, death, language-your basic FNAF stuff, pretty much. )

Walking the streets with a switchblade with the best pressed suit I own Got away with it all, blood boiling to the bone October 13th, 1989. This was it. No turning back. After all the time he had spent in Jail, and in therapy-it was all coming down to this night. No one else was going to die in this damned restaurant, not on his watch. Who says my business is yours when you're holding the door No way you can escape tonight, it's the last time I'm calling you a wh*re Vincent Reynolds took a breath, getting into his car and driving to the place he knew he was probably never gonna be rid of-Freddy Fazbear's pizza. The place that had taken so much from him, and in return, given him a lifetime of misery, hatred, and scorn from the public eye. He turned on the radio, fiddling with the knobs and dials until the familiar sound of Freddie Mercury's vocals hit him. Of all the things he could count on to get him through the night, at least he still had Queen. No running back, no changing the past No fixing what's been shattered No words exchanged, no time rearrange No fixing what's been shattered He didn't know what had caused this whole mess in the first place, other than his own actions. For all he knew, the robots were just glitching, like Scott had told him. What he did know was that they needed to be stopped. They had already taken the lives of many a night-watchman, including his own older brother, Seth-Vincent himself had already, even if by way of a schizophrenic breakdown-induced-accident, taken six innocent little lives. No one else would have to die because of his mistake. At least, that's what he kept telling himself as he drove closer to the place of his nightmares. he was going to make sure those damned hunks of metal would NEVER see the light of day again, let alone kill anyone. Did you know I'm a killer? There's no stopping me tonight Underneath the blackness of the night sky Did you know I'm a killer? There's no chance for you tonight You won't escape this b*tch named Karma Catch up with you, she'll set it right "Alright, Vinnie-boy." he muttered to himself, getting out of the car and opening the trunk. "Time to end this nightmare. For everyone." He rifled around in the trunk-it was a wee bit messy, considering Seth wasn't around anymore to remind him to clean it-but he eventually managed to find what he was looking for-a fire axe, Its steel blade reflecting the face of a weary young man looking for closure in the light of whatever amount of the moon that wasn't being covered by rather ominous storm clouds. He gripped it tightly, swinging it around a few times to get a good feel for it, then turned to the doors. "Yippie-ki-yay, motherf*ckers." Now I've been sick of this for weeks Got bloodlust in my head Normally, Vincent would have been all for rushing in without a plan, but this time was different-one little slip could end with him dead, and that's the last thing he needed right now. Thankfully, his time working the dayshift had taught him about the safe rooms-where they were, and what could-and more importantly, couldn't, get into or see them. For weeks, he'd planned it all out-get to the restaurant between nights where they would have to hire a new guard (and believe me when I say, Freddy's has gone through a lot of security guards.), lure out the animatronics one by one, then hide in the safe room until they passed by-he could hopefully get the jump on them, and end this for good. At my wit's end, it's payback time For everything you did He took his position in the safe room, looking around-this sure brought back a lot of memories..He smiled sadly, seeing the worn, faded yellow rabbit suit sitting in the corner-It had once belonged to one of the original owners of the place, William Afton-and when he vanished, Vincent himself had been the one to take up the mantle. "Hey buddy.." Vincent knelt by it, almost as if talking to an old friend. "It's me, Vinnie..I know, i haven't been here in a long, long time-...sorry about that.." He sighed, running a hand along the still semi-fuzzy surface of suit. "I'm sorry you had to see...that.." The memories of the incident, despite being several years ago, were still fresh in his mind. Don't you dare try to run away Now look at those who lost their power With my new attitude, it's time for revenge, honey It was just supposed to be a birthday party. It was somewhere in the summer of 1986 when Vincent had lead a small group of kids to the back-they were the kids that not a lot of folks had payed much attention to, while the birthday boy had his fun. ..He could relate, somewhat. He knew he wasn't supposed to take customers back there, but, well-screw the rules, he was making a bunch of outcast kids feel better. At least, that had been the plan. But of course, things seldom ever go as planned in the Fazbear Franchise. Three years prior, Vincent had been on the dayshift to witness what would become the 'Bite of '83'-and then William, the man he had once seen as a second father, had dissapeared for some reason. Not to mention the face Vincent was currently trying to hide the fact he had been diagnosed with Schizophrenia. (and back in the 80's, people did NOT take that sort of thing well-trust me, i've done my research) And today was the day it would alllll come crashing down. He had been seeing the damn golden bear in the corners of his eyes for months on end now-he had caught glimpses of it ever since the bite, and he was convinced it was planning to hurt someone again-so when it had appeared as clear as day, behind one of the kids and ready to pounce, he knew what he had to do. No running back, no changing the past No fixing what's been shattered He wasn't about to let another child get hurt because of this thing. Not today. No words exchanged, no time rearrange No fixing what's been shattered After that fateful decision to fight, he couldn't exactly remember much-he remembered hearing the kids screaming-he THOUGHT they were screaming because of the bear- He was so, so wrong.. When the screaming stopped, he looked around-... ....it hadn't been the bear he had slashed. the cold, hard reality was much, much worse.. Back in the present, Vincent was peeking out from the entrance of the safe room-he had managed to take down Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica so far-now all that was left was Foxy. ...Admittedly, he felt kind of bad he was about to destroy his best friend's childhood hero. "Sorry Scotty..I-I'll find a way to make it up to ya, somehow-" Did you know I'm a killer? There's no stopping me tonight Underneath the blackness of the night sky Soon enough, the fox came close-he could have sworn, in the corner of his eye, he saw a dark-purple specter of the same bear he had feared for so long-but he merely shook it off as a hallucination induced by stress. "HEY F*CKSY! COME AND GET ME!" he charged out, singing the axe wildly Did you know I'm a killer? There's no chance for you tonight You won't escape this bitch named Karma Catch up with you, she'll set it right..! "I..I did it.." he looked down at the piles of robotic parts on the floor. "It's over..I-it's finally over...!" He couldn't be quite sure if he was laughing or crying-he didn't care right now. All he cared about was that Scott, and whoever else would come after him, would be safe. No one else would die here... '..murderer...' "..huh?" Vincent looked around-he could have sworn he heard something. 'YOU DID THIS!' In a flash, Vincent saw the one thing he never thought he'd see again-six ghostly silhouettes of faces he knew all too well Fazbear entertainment had lied to him-to all of them. There were no glitches, no problems in the suits or the code. The damn things were HAUNTED. I see it all in front of me The demon that lies in between I'll settle the score You'll be no more...!!! "Wh-HOW!?" Vincent stumbled back, in a panic-how could he have not known this!? was this some kind of sick joke!? "H-How are you here!?" 'SAVE US' 'YOU DID THIS-' "Stop it..g-GET OUT OF MY HEAD-" He shook, memories flooding back at a rate too fast for him to register-he was about to have a mental breakdown if this didn't stop.. Soon enough, he found himself running into the safe room, thinking that maybe they couldn't follow him. Boy, was he wrong. Did you know I'm a killer? There's no stopping me tonight Underneath the blackness of the night sky "N-No...no, stay back..! I-i-" he backed towards the wall-he was trapped. "What do you want from me!? I went to jail, i did my time, I lost everything-What more hell do you want me to go through!?" he snapped at them, trying to get some kind of answer-but for now, they remained silent-unanswering, possibly just to torture him more. And that was when he looked back at the suit. Spring Bonnie. ..Springlocks were always highly unstable.. "...You want...you want karma...justice..." he murmured to himself, heading to the suit. "You want me to die the same way you did..." he took a breath, beginning the slow process of putting the suit on. "I guess i had better oblige, then-" Did you know I'm a killer? There's no chance for you tonight "See!?" he turned to face them, now wearing the deathtrap he had once thought was his safe place. "Check it out-! IM PUTTING ON ONE LAST SHOW, AND ITS ALL FOR YOU!" he shouted, maniac laughter beginning to fill the air. "SO COME ON! GIMMIE YOUR BEST SHOT-I'M READY TO FACE HELL ONE MORE TIME!!!" and that's when it happened. The sickening snap of the springlocks going off-the pain of becoming what would amount to a human pin-cushion was almost unbearable-but as he slowly bled out, in his final moments, he saw the spirits begin to vanish, one by one-at least the children were at peace now... the last thing he saw before he blacked out was the dark-purple bear...shifting to the familiar form of someone in a nightgaurd's uniform-the very same Seth had used to wear...and he was smiling almost proudly, almost as if to say 'Rest well, little brother..' You won't escape this bitch named Karma Catch up with you, she'll set it right

(And here we have the origins of one Vincent Reynolds-my take on the Purple man.)

#fnaf #fnaf au #fnaf alternate universe #Purple man #Purple guy #Vincent Reynolds #Doll Skin #Love is dead and we Killed her #its an awesome song please look it up you wont regret it

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hiddendreamer67 · 5 years

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Fear of the Fae

Summary: Patton has a healthy fear of what awaits him in the night, the creatures that lurk in the forest and trick mortals into selling their lives away. But despite his fear, Patton goes searching for one in his grief, knowing that nothing short of magic could save his broken heart now. Fae Prince Roman is all too happy to oblige him.

Day 1: Fear. Part of the October Prompt List.

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The forest was dark this time of night. Even the wildlife seemed to know better than to come this deep, and Patton found the lack of cricket chirps only confirmed his fears.

He was getting close.

Patton was a fool, he knew that now. Everyone in town knew the legends of fae and the terrible tricks they liked to play on mortals. In some, the pranks were fairly harmless, in others quite painful, and in a majority…deadly.

So Patton truly was a fool for searching out a fae himself. Everyone who ever made a deal had come to regret it, if they even lived to tell the tale. Only the desperate fool would wander into the woods, seeking out a ring of mushrooms that would act as a fairy circle- a link between realms.

There, in a moonlit grove, Patton finally spotted one. It was a rather large ring with spotted red caps circling the barrier. It was inviting, in an eerie fashion. Come closer, they seemed to sing, we won’t bite. Well, Patton supposed that wasn’t a lie; it wasn’t the mushrooms themselves that scared him, but what waited on the other side.

He had come this far. Not giving himself a chance to second guess, Patton leapt into the circle and squeezed his eyes shut.

The human wasn’t sure what he was expecting. A tugging sensation? A whoosh? Whatever the case, Patton felt none of that. No sensation overcame him, and when Patton opened his eyes the woods looked the same as before.

“You’re quite brave, jumping into my circle, little gardenia.”

Patton jumped, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to turn around. He squeaked, trying to hide his fear when he realized there was a strange being right in front of him. It was clear this was a fae, his beauty too ethereal and his ears too pointed.

“Aww, have I startled you, sweet pea?” The fae took a step closer, not looking sorry in the least. In fact, he looked rather amused. Patton flushed, standing his ground even as the monster got closer and his heart began to pound.

“Y-yes.” Patton stammered, realizing the fae was waiting for an answer. “I did not expect you.”

“You did not expect me in my own realm?” The fae teased.

“No, ah, well…” Now Patton felt a bit silly. “I just meant- I didn’t expect you to be so close.”

“I can be closer, if you like.” The fae’s smile turned mischievous, leaving very little room between them and now Patton’s heart was pounding for an entirely different reason. It seemed cruel how the fae could use his beauty as just another trick to warp Patton’s mind.

“No, I don’t want that.” Patton shifted, trying to find somewhere to look that would help him calm his nerves, but now the forest was beginning to look hazy, almost as if he were looking through a fog. He felt the world becoming confined to just this circle, where both of them stood as if they were the center of the universe.

“Oh?” The fae tilted his head, curious. “And what is it you want, darling crocus?”

Patton paused. He should have an answer for that. After all, he was the one who had sought out the fae tonight, against his common sense and better judgement. He was here, against everything that was screaming at him that he was in danger, danger, danger-! But now, looking up at the fae, Patton couldn’t seem to sort out what could have driven him into this fairy circle.

“I… I don’t know what I want.” Patton admitted.

The fae looked at him for a moment before throwing his head back in laughter. Patton felt the tips of his ears turning pink in embarrassment.

“Oh, you sweet spring lily, you’re embarrassed!” The fae hummed happily, his fingers tilting Patton’s chin up so he was forced to look into those enchanting golden eyes. They looked amused, but not condescending. Patton shuddered, not sure if he liked just how quickly he was drowning in their gaze. He couldn’t be comforted by their warmth until he knew for certain that those eyes held no malice.

“Will you hurt me?” Patton suddenly blurted, knowing he needed answers.

This seemed to come as a surprise. The fae blinked, momentarily at a loss for words before that gorgeous, unsettling smile was back. “Why, you beautiful sunflower, who would ever think of harming such a delicate blossom as yourself?”

“That- “ Patton took a deep breath, trying not to get lost in the flattery. Fae were known to be tricky with their words. “that didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, darling Lily of the Valley, how you wound me with your remarks!” The fae let out a groan, nuzzling his face into Patton’s curls and inhaling his scent. “How can you ask such things of me when you see how I yearn to be in your presence? Is my affection not enough?”

Patton shuddered, taking a small step back. He couldn’t leave the circle, but it did give him some space from the handsome intruder.

“No.” Patton said firmly. “It’s not. I’m sorry, but… before we make any sort of deal, I just, I need to know I’ll be safe.”

The fae cocked his head, watching with an expression between amusement and pity as Patton nervously fiddled with the sleeves of his cardigan.

“Are you afraid, Tulip?” The fae asked, closing the distance between them once more. His arms wrapped around Patton’s waist, and Patton fought off the need to squirm.

“Of course I’m afraid.” Patton’s voice was hardly above a whisper.

“Afraid of what?” The fae pressed. “Afraid of me, surely, but if you were afraid then what drove you to run so willingly into my circle?” The fae brushed Patton’s locks out of his eyes. “What has made this Daffodil so frightened that he seeks comfort in my arms, even after admitting how I frighten him?”

Patton tensed, his heart beginning to beat rapidly. The fae had a point. Patton knew the risks, as every child of their village had been taught of the mischievous intentions of fae from birth. Tales spoke of humans being cursed with all variety of hexes, or children stolen off into the night, or giving away something so precious as a name and having it turned against you so you danced until your dying breath. It was a terrible, horrifying fate, and yet Patton had come despite the stories.

“I’m alone.” Patton said quietly. “I don’t- I’m not used to it. I was surrounded by loved ones for so long, but now my family has been torn from me. I can’t go on, living in a world of strangers. Every face I see I’m frightened to let any closer, because I know when they leave me too, I will not be able to repair the hole in my chest one more time.”

The fae was unusually quiet, no longer advancing. Instead, the fae looked content to continue listening to Patton’s woes, and even pouring his heart out to a monster that might use all this against him felt so good that when he received an encouraging nod Patton couldn’t help but continue.

“I just feel as though there’s nothing left for me here.” Patton gave a shrug that must have looked as helpless as he felt. “I doubt anyone would miss me, and it sounds wonderful, the idea of being wanted, especially by a being so wondrous as yourself, but even now I’m still afraid of being hurt. It’s selfish of me, fearing pain when I’m willingly submitting to it and others have worse fates thrust upon them-“

“Hush.” The fae’s voice was different this time, softer and more genuine. It reminded Patton of a gentle spring breeze. The fae’s hand drifted across his cheek, leaving a delightful tingling in its wake.

“Humans are selfish for many reasons, but this is not one of them.” The sincerity in the fae’s voice made Patton inclined to believe him- well, that and the knowledge that fae cannot lie. “The ability to feel so strongly, so passionately, is what makes your race so unique. Darling Cherry Blossom, you are right to be afraid, and you should never be ashamed of your emotions.”

Patton felt his throat tighten, a strange emotion welling in his chest. Not fear, but perhaps… acceptance? He felt overwhelmed by the fact that a magic being of the forest not only listened to his pitiful cries, but even indulged them.

Patton reached up, hesitantly gripping a hand in the fabric of the Fae’s outfit. The red sash felt unnaturally soft beneath his grasp, and distantly Patton wondered what material could create such a texture. The Fae made a small giddy noise, clearly pleased by Patton’s forward gesture.

“Will you…” Patton trailed off, his thumb rubbing the fabric to reassure himself as he tried to force himself to get the words out. “Will you hurt me?”

The Fae hummed, his own fingers now traveling along Patton’s shirt to rest atop where his heart was still pounding away. “Humans are so ... fragile. The barest twitch of my fingers could bruise your tender skin if I do not show significant restraint. And how, Primrose, could I possibly restrain myself around your elegance? I will not bind myself with promises I do not intend to keep.”

Then Patton took a shaky breath, now frightened by his lack of fear. Despite the fact the fae had very nearly threatened him, Patton did not feel threatened. Besides…maybe it was a fair point? Perhaps Patton was being silly. It could just be an accident if he was harmed, after all.

“Then perhaps you can promise me this.” Patton slowly released the red fabric, instead placing his palm over the fae’s chest to mirror the other’s actions. He tilted his head back, searching for comfort in those unnatural golden eyes. “Will you promise I will be cherished? Will you take care of me until my dying breath? If you do intend me harm, can you promise a painless ending? Will you promise me peace at the end of all my strife?”

“You certainly seek a lot of promises.” The fae’s laughter sounded like little bells. “And what, illustrious orchid, could you possibly give me in return? If we are onto the subject of deals, I’m afraid the laws of my people insist we be quite straightforward in our intentions.”

Patton straightened his posture, determined to meet his end with dignity. “I come to you seeking solace.”

The fae made a pleased noise, running his fingers softly through Patton’s hair. “And in exchange?”

“In exchange… I can offer only myself.” Patton said, feeling strangely vulnerable.

“Only yourself? Dear rose blossom, you sell yourself too short.” This time the fae’s smile was almost genuine.

Almost.

“You’re still afraid.” The fae noted, leaning closer. His breath danced across Patton’s nose, causing the human to shiver.

“Not afraid.” Patton murmured, trying to believe it himself. He received a dazzling grin in response, the fae clearly pleased with his bravery.

“An exchange it is, then.” The fae declared. “We must seal our pact. Are you aware of our customs?”

“I am-mpfh!” The words had barely left Patton’s lips before the fae pressed his own upon them, catching Patton off-guard with a kiss. Fae deals were always sealed with a kiss, and this fae seemed particularly happy with this custom. Patton could feel him smiling, a powerful yet gentle surge of magic passing between them. Patton wasn’t certain if that was due to the seal or the fae’s natural charm.

When the fae started pulling away, Patton found himself leaning to follow, his entranced body betraying him. The fae chuckled, gently easing Patton back as the human flushed in his bashfulness.

“My little delphinium is so eager.” The fae purred, pressing his lips to the back of Patton’s hand. He wasn’t certain when exactly the creature had taken his hand to hold in the first place. “Share your name with me, my azalea?”

“My name?” Patton repeated, almost in a trance. He knew, logically, that one should not give their name to fae, but considering he had just sold his being away it did not matter now. Names had power, and Patton realized with a slight tremble that he had already given his power away. “My name is Patton.”

“Oh, my precious Patton~” The fae crooned, wrapping his hand around Patton’s back and dipping the human so suddenly he let out a yelp. “Won’t you share the rest of your name with me?”

“I-“ Patton swallowed, remembering his statement before. I don’t want to be afraid. Patton refused to be afraid. “Can I at least know what to call you, first?”

The fae gave a pleased tilt of his head, and Patton was glad he hadn’t offended the powerful being with his query. “These lands know me as Prince Roman, guardian of the Kingdom of Spring.”

Patton’s eyebrows shot up. Prince! What on earth could fairy royalty possibly want with the likes of him? Surely the fae could have his pick of mortals, and yet here he was with his overly bright smile looming over Patton like the embodiment of the sun. Looking up at Roman, Patton found himself in awe of his savior, even if he knew this was likely to end poorly for him.

“That’s a pretty name.” Patton finally spoke, his voice a bit breathless.

“You have a pretty face.” Roman replied, causing the blush to climb further up Patton’s face. The prince giggled, rubbing his nose against Patton’s in a nuzzling gesture. “Come now, my Sun Drop, share that pretty name to match.”

Patton leaned upwards, pressing his lips against the fae’s ear and whispering his life away.

237 notes · View notes

razzle-zazzle · 5 years

Text

Don’t be Long, For the End is Near

Raised By Serpentine AU, Constrictai Tomb

3571 Words

Warning for mentions of death

<+><+><+><+><+><+><+>

When Skalidor was somewhere in his young teens, he met her. Asha, daughter of Shane, the current Master of Earth, and leader of the Constrictai and Tomb Dwellers alongside Krusch. She was no more than a child then, tireless and intrepid in her constant exploration of the tomb. It wasn’t long before she knew everyone, as small and closely-knit as the community was, and no sooner than that everyone knew her, and her bright smiles.

Skalidor could remember in detail what Asha had looked like when she had only just taken up the role of leader after her father’s passing. Standing there beside Krusch with a steady confidence that belied her inexperience, the nervousness that hid underneath her steadfast smile. They had talked then, as they often did, but about a very different topic.

Krusch, as strong as he was, was beginning to show signs of age, tiredness and arthritis seeping into his bones. He had asked Asha to pick his successor, having no children of his own.

Skalidor had recommended Sutara, citing her speed and wit. But Asha had smiled, and asked him to take up the position, as her friend.

Four months later, Skalidor was officially given the title of General.

The years after that were a bit muddied for Skalidor, the small details getting lost within the feeling of responsibility that had grown inside him as he gained experience.

But he remembered in almost perfect detail when Asha had introduced to him Lou, as if they had never met. Even though they had never talked before, Skalidor knew of Lou, had seen the poetry carved into the tunnel walls for all to see. He had talked to Lou’s parents about the boy’s tendency to go too far when spelunking in the unexplored caves, and he could clearly recall the vigor with which Lou participated in festivals and slither pits.

So when Asha, strong and steady Asha, dragged Lou, energetic but nervous, over to Skalidor to share the news, Skalidor wished them well.

While he never quite came to know Lou as well as he knew Asha, Skalidor could say with a certain sincerity that they had become friends. He’d express his concerns over disputes to Lou, the peppy young man offering the occasional piece of advice. And Lou, in turn, would come to Skalidor with his anxieties over his art, or whether he could ever be as good to Asha as she was to him. They’d discuss at length the songs passed down by their forefathers, the cave system that provided the tomb with food and extra space, and sometimes, when nearly everyone else in the tomb was at rest, they’d talk about family. Skalidor supposed he might one day find his partners; Lou was tightly bound to his. On some days, they never saw each other, too busy with their own duties to take the time to chat and catch up.

They were friends, and Skalidor never wanted that to change.

+=+=+=+=+

When Cole was born, Skalidor was in his early forties, still single, but happy all the same. It was a good year, the number of deaths hitting an all-time low and the harvest bringing in more food than usual; there had been a festival to celebrate. Asha had made her appearance, but had spent most of the night at home with her husband and son, leaving it up to Skalidor to oversee the event. The first chance he got he’d slithered off to Lou and Asha’s cavern, to see Cole with his own eyes now that the child was more than four weeks old.

“He’s… sso ssmall.” Skalidor commented, watching attentively as Lou rocked the child back and forth in his arms. He hadn’t been expecting Cole to be so small, it didn’t fit with the image of four-year-old Asha in his mind. “Are all infants this ssmall?”

Lou smiled, slowing down when he noticed Cole stirring. “Cole’s actually a bit big, Skal. He’ll probably grow to be taller than me.” Given the way Asha towered over Lou, Skalidor didn’t doubt that.

But was the size of a human infant comparable to the size of a freshly hatched Serpentine? Skalidor thought of the few Serpentine couplings he knew; none of them had had a clutch yet. Sutara and her lovers were expecting, but their clutch wouldn’t hatch for a while yet. Perhaps Skalidor could ask to watch the hatching? He didn’t have a coupling yet, but maybe one day… and it certainly couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

“You ever think you’ll have this?” Lou asked, breaking Skalidor from his musings.

“Have what?” Skalidor asked, already knowing the answer.

“You know.” Lou shrugged. “A family. Lovers. Children. You ever think you’ll have that, as old as you are now?” The jab at his age meant nothing to Skalidor, who would outlive Lou by decades, but it did get him thinking.

“I don’t really know…” Skalidor concluded, crossing his arms as he mused. “Nobody’s really caught my eye, and with how busy I’ve been managing everything, I don’t think I will.” He locked eyes with Lou, “There’s a reason the title of General isn’t hereditary.”

Lou laughed quietly, standing up to put Cole to bed. “I’m sure your someones are out there, Skal.”

“I would have met them already if they were, Lou.” Skalidor said, picking up his staff as he made his way to the entrance. “I’m just happy to see everyone else doing well.”

“Well,” Lou said, meeting Skalidor by the entrance, “Just don’t forget to take care of yourself, Skal.”

Skalidor nodded. “I won’t.”

Thoughts of family followed Skalidor all the way back to his cavern.

+=+=+=+=+

The next few years passed by uneventfully, save for the occasional death. The yearly harvests had been shrinking, but not so much as to cause fear.

Cole was growing more confident each day, going from crawling around the cavern to running through the tomb with the same abandon his mother once had, Lou chasing after him frantically in the hopes of catching the toddler before he got into trouble.

Skalidor had developed a fondness for the child, likely due to all the time he’d had to watch over Cole while Asha and Lou went off into the caverns for alone time. There weren’t many places for young couples to get away from the community, so it wasn’t uncommon to find young teens—both Serpentine and human—laughing and wandering the caves.

This time, Asha had left to ensure the stability of the tunnels after a recent earthquake, Lou accompanying her to look for signs she might miss. Which left Cole, a toddler with a tendency to get into trouble at a moment’s notice, in the care of Skalidor.

Honestly, Skalidor had faced more perplexing challenges. Cole wasn’t old enough to have met anyone in the community yet—a tradition that Asha had seriously been considering breaking, it didn’t make sense to isolate her child for so long—but Skalidor was more than capable of entertaining the toddler for a few hours, keeping Cole in place by setting him in the coils of his tail.

Cole was babbling, stacking the rocks Skalidor had given him and knocking them over with shrieks of laughter, so Skalidor had taken a moment to glance at this year’s census, absentmindedly noting that the harvest had been delayed again this year. It was then that Cole had chosen to go silent, prompting Skalidor to turn back to the toddler.

Cole was staring up at him, big brown eyes (Asha’s eyes, Skalidor thought) full of curiosity. Skalidor stared back, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth out of habit.

Cole stuck his tongue out, as if in imitation of Skalidor. He did it again, and again, and suddenly Skalidor was chuckling, his tail shaking as Cole giggled in response.

“Uh!” Cole said, holding his arms out. Skalidor obliged, picking up the toddler and shaking him slightly, making Cole laugh.

Skalidor didn’t need a family; he already had one.

+=+=+=+=+

The prosperity surrounding Cole’s birth didn’t last. The harvests became fewer and further in between, reports of a blight coming in droves. Starvation had always been a worry in the tomb—they needed something more reliable than what they could find in the caves—but it had never been this bad. By the time Cole was four, eight humans and one serpentine had died from starvation—and the number of those who were malnourished was more than thrice that.

Serpentine didn’t need to eat as much as their human friends, meaning the blight impacted the humans the most. It was disheartening, watching friends and family suffer and not being able to do anything about it, but the community pulled through. They always did.

It all came to a head when Cole was six—Skalidor could remember, in near perfect detail, the apprehension on Lou and Asha’s face when they explained where they were going.

They were searching for another source of food, Asha had said. And if they were lucky, a way aboveground, where the sun shone and crops could grow and maybe things wouldn’t be as bad. It was a long shot, but they had hope. And so they went, down into the tunnels, far further than anyone had been before, promising to return with good news.

By the third day, Cole had grown restless in their absence, becoming moody and disagreeable no matter what Skalidor did.

By the seventh, the effects of their absence reached the community, tensions and anxiety rising as the lack of news made room for fear. Skalidor was called out to break up more than twelve disputes on the eighth day alone.

The community couldn’t continue like this, Skalidor decided. If Asha and Lou didn’t return before twenty days had passed, then he’d send out a search party to look for them.

It was on the thirteenth day. There had been a commotion in the central chamber, sending Skalidor slithering out to see it. When he got there, he stopped in his tracks.

Asha had returned.

Relief mixed with anxiety as Skalidor noted Lou’s absence, which quickly became dread when he saw Asha stumbling towards him, badly injured.

“Get a medic. Now!” Skalidor hissed, watching as Chokun ran off to grab one. Skalidor made his way through the crowd, repeatedly telling everyone to disperse, make way.

“Hey, Skal.” Asha said breathlessly, her face far too pale. Her shirt was stained with blood. “Had to come back early…” She trailed off, gazing at the floor. “Lou’s—he’s—” she choked out a sob, “The cave fell in. I couldn’t get him free in time. I—” Skalidor had put his arms on her shoulders to steady her, but Asha simply crumpled, shoulders shaking.

The crowd parted to let in Vera and Sutara, who quickly ushered Asha away to treat her wounds. She didn’t protest as she might have before the journey, letting them guide her through the tears blurring her eyes.

As she left, Skalidor felt something tighten in his chest. He should have done something, should have had them be accompanied by someone—anyone. This shouldn’t have happened. He should have done better.

What was he going to tell Cole?

+=+=+=+=+

The moment he was able, Skalidor rushed into the infirmary, Cole at his side, to see Asha. “Will she be alright?” he’d hissed, worry turning his tone hard. Sutara nodded, gesturing to the bed where Asha lay.

Cole was already at her side, crying quietly as he held her hand. Skalidor let out a sigh of relief. Asha would live. She’d be okay. But Lou…

There was nothing Skalidor could do now. He could only focus on who was still alive. He didn’t have time to mourn his friend just yet.

“Hey, Skal.” Asha said quietly, sitting up in bed. She’d pulled Cole up onto her lap, running her fingers through his hair to calm him. She smiled at Skalidor, but this smile did not hide her exhaustion.

“Asha…” Skalidor wasn’t sure where to begin. There were so many things he needed to say, with no idea how to say it. He wanted to comfort her over Lou’s death, he needed her to begin leading again, he wanted her to stay in bed and recover—he didn’t know what was the right choice, and what might lead to even more lives lost.

“It’s alright, Skal. I’ll manage.” She was staring at Cole, who’d stopped crying, still playing with his hair. Skalidor watched awkwardly, not sure what to say.

“Cole,” Asha began, Cole turning to her attentively, “Can you go get Sutara and ask her for some water?” Cole nodded fiercely, jumping off the bed and running off to find the serpentine in question.

“He won’t be gone long.” Skalidor cautioned, catching on to what Asha was doing.

“Then we’ll make this quick.” Asha said, her voice firm as it was normally. Her hands were trembling. “Lou…”

Skalidor couldn’t stand by anymore. With a gentleness that belied his imposing presence, he wrapped his arms around Asha. She broke down then, returning the hug as sobs wracked her frame.

“There was nothing I could do, yet I still feel responsible. If we hadn’t gone down that way, or if I’d noticed the instability sooner, then—”

Skalidor hushed her with a hiss. “Of coursse it lookss like there’ss ssomething you could have done. Guilt is like that.”

“Yeah” Asha agreed. “Guilt is just like that.”

With that, they parted, Skalidor leaning back to let Asha resettle herself. After a moment of adjusting, she looked to him again. Her words, though they were spoken softly, cut through Skalidor like a knife.

“How do I tell Cole that his father is never coming home?”

Skalidor didn’t have an answer for her.

+=+=+=+=+

Five days later, Chokun found Cole crying over his mother’s body, begging her to get up.

Her stitches had broken, and she’d collapsed on the floor from blood loss.

By the time Sutara and Vera arrived, she was long gone.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole hadn’t been adjusting well. Between the grief of losing his parents and the change of switching caverns, it was a wonder the boy hadn’t crumbled in on himself. No, Cole had suddenly gained a stark solemnity in his actions and words, and he’d isolate himself in the corners of Skalidor’s cavern, refusing to speak to anyone. Skalidor was worried, because what reasonable adult wouldn’t be, but he struggled to make time for Cole more and more each day, what was once a shared burden of leadership between him and Asha falling to him and him alone.

Worse, something was wrong with the other humans. Some kind of sickness, one that nobody had seen before, had started claiming lives a few months after Asha’s death. The Serpentine were (mostly) fine, but that did nothing to dissuade the panic that gripped the community. The tomb they called home was becoming a prison, rendering everyone subject to sickness and blight.

Skalidor and the other Serpentine did what they could; some even went so far as to induce hibernation to allow the humans bigger rations. Sutara had expanded the infirmary, using all of her resources to combat the sickness that plagued the tomb.

But it was in vain. The humans, who had once numbered more than a hundred, were reduced to barely fifty in the following years.

It was clear that all of this death was having an effect on Cole—it was having an effect on everyone, the choking fear turning the once homely tomb into a death trap—the boy refused to eat, insisting that others needed it more. He had only become more gloomy when Sutara came with mixed news—Cole and Asha had an immunity to the sickness, but Asha had likely been the one to bring it to the tomb. Cole had run off to the empty cavern where Asha and Lou once lived at that, refusing to come out for more than a week.

It hurt Skalidor, not being able to do anything. All he had was a staff and a title, and look where it had gotten him—General of a prison, a death trap that nobody would escape. Cole was nine now, he should be learning how to control his powers from his mother, should be dancing at the festivals and trying to fight in the slither pits, but no, here he was, growing up as everyone around him died, and there was nothing Skalidor could offer Cole beyond false reassurances—

“Skalidor?” Skalidor turned over to face Cole, staring blearily at the child who’d woken him o late. He stood up, offering his coils to Cole.

“Yesss, Cole?” Skalidor asked, as the child in question settled in among the coils, curling up within.

“What’s the sky supposed to look like?”

Skalidor stood there. Okay. He hadn’t been expecting that question; he hadn’t heard it since Cole was five.

“Well, it’s ssaid to be big, bigger than anything you’ve ever seen before.” Skalidor began, happy to have this chance to connect with Cole.

Cole wrinkled his nose, sticking out his tongue on habit, “Bigger than the central chamber?”

“Yess.” Skalidor hummed, pulling Cole closer. Cole leaned into the touch. “It’ss big, and bright, and full of—” what were those things called again? Oh, yes, “—cloudss.”

“What are clouds?” Cole’s voice wasn’t as quiet now, some of the old curiosity returning.

“Hmmm, let me think,” Skalidor tapped his chin, trying to recall what he’d been told. “They’re like the mossss in the cavess, but white.”

Cole stuck his tongue out at that, as though musing it over. “And what does the sun look like?”

“Like fire” Skalidor whispered, “But brighter than any fire you’ll ever find in the tomb.”

Cole was silent for a moment.

Skalidor supposed the boy was satisfied, when—

“Do you think we’ll ever see the sky?”

Skalidor smiled. “I can only hope.”

+=+=+=+=+

“We can’t go on like thiss.” Sutara whispered, wary of Cole who was playing with Chokun and Bytar nearby. “There’s not enough humanss left to keep the community alive, even if the ssicknesss were to dissappear right now.”

Skalidor nodded. “We’ll just make do for as long as we can, then.”

But they both knew those were empty words.

+=+=+=+=+

When Cole was ten, there was a tunnel collapse, bigger than any before. It was the same set of tunnels that were hit directly by the earthquake all those years ago, Asha’s precautions finally failing.

“Give me a damage report.” Skalidor hissed, watching as Serpentine—the remaining humans not caught in the collapse, less than ten, were far too sick to leave the infirmary—cleared away the rubble in the hopes of finding survivors.

“The tunnelss that collapssed were ssuppossed to be unoccupied, sssir.” Chokun stated.

“But…?” It was more of a statement than a question.

“The Sserpentine who chosse to hibernate were there. And the humanss who were still healthy were tending to them.”

“Which meansss we may have just lost all of them.” Skalidor concluded, gripping his staff far too tightly. This wasn’t supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to end this soon, how, how were they supposed to recover from this? The blight’s effects were reaching the Serpentine; more and more had started hibernating every day. There had been more than fifty sleeping in those tunnels.

They couldn’t survive down here much longer. They had to find a way out. But trying to do just that had cost Lou’s life and brought upon the sickness. There was no way out that didn’t end in tragedy.

Skalidor growled. He’d never paid much thought to the surface dwellers before, their existence becoming a distant memory, but now he needed someone to blame. Now he needed someone to take his frustration out on. The surface dwellers had been the ones to seal the Serpentine away, the ones to condemn everyone in the tomb to this fate. Were it not for them, Cole might have had a life up there, below the sky, where he should have been. Were it not for them, the Serpentine wouldn’t be watching their human brethren die off slowly, while starving off themselves.

If Skalidor ever lived to see the tomb open, he’d make the surface dwellers pay.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole was the only human left in the tomb, and that made him precious. Of course, he’d always been viewed favorably, being the son of the Master of Earth, and thus the next in line to lead and protect, but now almost everyone kept an eye out for him, doing what they could to keep him alive.

The next four years passed without much incident—Serpentine continued to die, just as eggs continued to hatch—and Cole was growing fast.

It was on a day like any other when, for the first time in more than 200 years, the tomb opened.

Skalidor wasn’t sure he should trust the Anacondrai standing before him, but the words of revenge and the promise of a better life swayed him. He’d assist this “Pythor” in his goals, but only to the point where it served the Constrictai. Only to the point where it wouldn’t endanger Cole.

Cole was the first Tomb Dweller in 200 years to see the sky. It was just as big as the stories said. Skalidor had watched as Cole reached up towards it, his eyes squinted in the bright light, had smiled when Cole laughed, joyous and carefree.

The Serpentine were his people. Cole was his family.

Skalidor would give anything to protect them all.

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noelgarcias · 4 years

Text

[ tommy martinez, cismale & he/him ] did you know that NOEL GARCIA was on full disclosure? yeah, apparently the TWENTY FIVE year old CHEF was hiding HE’S LIVING UNDER A FALSE IDENTITY TO AVOID HIS PAST. i never would’ve expected it from our resident ARTISAN. i wonder how they’ll deal with this, considering how PASSIONATE & STUBBORN they are. // written by pepper: twenty three, est, she/her.

it is i, pepperoni mcpony back once again to bring you yet another messy ass muse. i am once again on that new muse juice, but also kind of on the recycled muse juice like i’ve used this fc and this name before but it didn’t work out, so i’ve changed a lot about him and revamped him and so now he’s better than every babeeyyy. down bellow will be a bit about noel, or rather dante if we’re being technical. you can just call him noel though. full disclosure (badum tss sdkjsdkj) this is gonna be messy as hell, because noel’s inspo is more scattered than percy’s but we’re gonna push through folks.

BIO ;

okay so noel’s family is kind of inspired by the quinns (from ‘you’ on netflix), the castillos (from how to get away with murder) and like henry gouldings family in crazy rich asians.

dante isaac campana was brought into the world in madrid spain with a silver spoon dangling out of his mouth. you’d never guess from looking at him, what with his hobo chic style and generally unkept appearance but it’s the truth. he came in this world out of a well paid surrogate as the second child of the infamous sofia and gabriel campana. and he wanted for nothing because of it, his parents made sure of that.

gabriel was a ceo and sofia was a wildly successful author, and from the moment noel could breathe his parents had his whole life set up for him. after all they wanted their son to be successful and they planned to make sure of it. a hefty trust fund in his name, to be accessible at the age of eighteen. a place in the family business that he would fill the moment he finished university. they even had an arrangement for who noel would marry eventually, before he was even old enough to understand what the concept of marriage was. it was all planned out for noel without the slightest bit of input from noel himself, and dante was just supposed for accept that. the funny thing is at first he did.

after all he was young and he had no reason not to. he loved his parents deeply at first, and they probably loved him in return, even if they had a bit of an odd way of showing it. dante’s parents were the type to shower their children in superficial affection. buying them things. kissing and hugging them when there was someone around to see. encouraging them only when it came to pursuits that they approved of. sure noel could draw, and learn guitar, and learn piano, as long as those things were just hobbies. as long as he didn’t forget the plan because The Plan was law.

dante only became aware of how conditional his parents love for them was when his elder sister started to slip under the pressure they put on her shoulders. anya campana was about fifteen at the time, and dante, six years her younger, had to watch as his sister crumbled. anya had always cared too much about what their parents thought of her, about impressing them and making them proud. it didn’t help that her parents made it clear that they would not accept anything less than excellence. the pressure drove anya to substance abuse, just to take the edge off, just to make things easier. it wasn’t long the weight of their parents expectations had drove anya to a full on addiction, all in the pursuit of success. but of course when dante’s parents found out they had no sympathy for her. only disappointment. their father had every plan to make anya, his eldest, the head of the company when she came of age, but that ‘slip up’ cost her the role. instead the position would be given to dante, and anya would be sent quietly to rehab. it was an eye opening experience for dante, honestly. to see just how replaceable their parents saw them.

the truth is the campanas were fake. plastic. sure they smiled in the public eye and the relationship between the siblings at least was genuine, but the truth was gabriel was cheating on sofia when he thought no one was looking, and sofia had openly slapped each of her children across the face at least once, usually when she got a bit too much wine in her. the older dante got the more and more he felt his love for his parents becoming more of an obligation than anything tangible.

when dante was thirteen, around the time anya’s second stint in rehab, all hell broke loose in the campana household. initially dante thought that his mother had uncovered one of his fathers many affairs again, but instead it was much worse. his mother had discovered his father had an illegitimate child with dante’s favourite childhood nanny of all people. considering sofia couldn’t have children herself (hence the surrogate for both of the campana children) and even gabriel was struggling with impotence, this was a shock and a slap in the face. only emphasized by the fact that dante’s ex nanny had passed away, leaving dante’s father as the kids legal guardian.

and so suddenly dante had a younger sibling. it was a situation that took getting used to but it wasn’t long until dante adored them, and the feeling was quickly mutual. while dante’s father could barely interact with the child without inciting his wife, and dante’s mother treated them with coldness, dante and his sibling became painfully close due to circumstance.

for years it went on like that. the three campana siblings all attempting to impress their parents for different reasons. his youngest sibling to feel less like an outsider, dante just because he knew no other way, anya because she desperately wanted to get back into their parents good graces. but anya never could do anything quite right, always somehow ended up messing up spectacularly and publicly. until one day, anya disappeared.

dante and his younger sibling were the first to notice. his parents just assumed that anya was on another bender, and when the siblings brought this to their attention that’s exactly what they said in reply. but they were wrong. in 2012 anya campana was kidnapped and held for a ransom of one billion dollars. dante can still remember getting the ransom call. he can still remember the sheer panic, the cold fear. and he can still remember his father refusing to pay the money. trying to negotiate with the kidnappers, as if anya’s life was just another deal. he can remember begging his father just to pay the money, because it wasn’t like they didn’t have it. but his father was convinced he could get the kidnappers to lower the price, or that the police would find anya before he had to pay it. they didn’t. anya campana died in the winter of 2012 at the hands of a couple of common criminals, all because their father apparently had his own idea about the worth of each of his children.

dante was furious and disgusted and grieving. his sister, his confidante and likely one of the two people in his life to love him unconditionally, was gone. dante officially snapped when his mother had the audacity to write a book about the experience. by the time the book was picked up by a publisher, dante had packed his bags, liquidated his trust fund, taken his younger sibling and fled spain with two new identities for them both. his sibling was under the age of eighteen at the time, so the campanas really could have called the police and reported dante for kidnapping, but dante knew that his parents wouldn’t risk making a scene so soon after the spectacle that anya’s death was. he and his sibling would be safe for a while as long as they laid low. and they did. dante -- now known as noel garcia-- and his sibling moved to san francisco and have been keeping a low profile ever since.

honestly, noel adapted to the american dream like a fish to water. having a new name, having no one in this continent knowing who he was, finally being out from under his parents thumb -- it was all so freeing, and noel really dove head first into that feeling. ever since he’s just been living the life he always dreamed of having. doing exactly what he wants and nothing less one hundred percent of the time (which is exactly how and why he got married, and is still married honestly). he lives his life on pure free spirited impulse one hundred percent of the time, with exception of rare show of responsibility he puts into helping raise his younger sibling. he tries to live his life in a way he hopes would make his sister proud. he’s determined to live enough for the both of them.

somehow, despite the multiple private investigators his parents have undoubtedly sent to find them, they’ve remained undetected. that is until full disclosure decided to expose him. now noel is just waiting for the day one of his parents shows up at his door demanding he come back to take over the family business. he isn’t looking forward to it, but he is kinda looking forward to finally telling them to fuck off, which is really the only silver lining.

PERSONALITY ;

god who knows folks like i said dkjsdjksd noel is a mess in my brain

PASSIONATE THOUGH! god he’s so passionate, like noel just feels everything on 10 one hundred percent of the time. The type to get teary eyed over a dead bird, but also the type to like stay up five days straight working on a project because he can’t get it out of his mind

despite this thinks romantic love is a straight up myth lmao because of his parents relationship, so we love a contradictory king. a bleeding heart but also a philiophobe.

nurturing honestly? but only with people he actually cares about like his sibling and wife. a dad friend i suppose.

but also impulsive. like the type to suggest going to vegas on a whim and get WILDLY FUCKED UP DRUNK, but also that really coherent drunk who can be doing body shots one minute and be trying to gently coax someone else to drink water the next.

thinks he’s funny! sometimes he is tbh. very sarcastic honestly.

a big ol’ flirt just naturally. also bi, so equal opportunity for everybody.

very touchy feely tbh because he’s a tactile person.

a live and let live kinda guy like actually,,, so close to a hippie that percy is triggered.

a bit promiscuous but he’s okay with it. he’s a hoe but he knows it you know.

the most generous person when it comes to money and kindness. the type to sit down with a homeless person and end up giving them his jacket, five hundred dollars, and a new outlook on life.

the type to hold a grudge until the day he dies, but also the type of person who can’t NOT help someone who needs help you know. like he hates his parents but if his mother called him tomorrow like i want to see you one last time before i die, he would fly out to spain to see her smh he might not talk to her the whole time because he’s petty and like ‘there, you’ve seen me’ efjkdsfj but he’d do it.

very liberal. literally can’t talk to conservatives without wanting to physically fight them. has definitely gone to a protest and gotten arrested for punching a nazi. luckily was released before the whole living with a fake identity thing could be found out.

HEADCANNONS ;

alright now onto the fun stuff.

deaf in his left ear and has been all his life. it’s kind of difficult for him to hear a specific person talking in a crowd of too many people, especially if you’re standing on his left so he might straight up text your instead. also if you’re standing on his left side in general, he might turn to face you better to hear you.

noel’s occupation is a chef at a restaurant but in truth at heart he’s an artist. like his art is his heart, and it’s actually very popular and he gets a lot of offers from people wanting to buy it but he can never part with anything he’s made so he always refuses the offers, no matter how much money the customer is bidding. he has refused offers on grounds such as ‘i didn’t like the vibes he was giving off’ or ‘that asshole was wearing a jack johnson shirt’ or even, once ‘pretty sure i saw that guy in a dream once. he fucking sucked.’ so most of his art decorates his and evie’s apartment instead, and he’ll even give some to friends for free. noel actually wants to become a full time artist but considering how picky he is about who actually buys his art, it’s unlikely because he’ll literally make no money. hence, being a chef. no matter what noel enjoys seeing people enjoy his food, so it works out.

actually learned to cook from his family chef, and hasn’t really had time to get any professional training but he really wants to. he has absolutely snuck into culinary school very briefly before just to sit in on a few classes. just pretended he went there and made a bunch of friends and learned a lot of stuff, and even taught some culinary students a few things. but he was eventually discovered and kicked out rip, but it was a great time while it lasted.

honestly pretty good at anything having to do with his hands, hence the artisan label. noel is the type of person who knows nothing about like mechanics but can like fix something if you put it in front of him. likes to make furniture as a hobby so hit your boy up if you want a sexy chair. also makes sculptures and does a bit of pottery, like your boy has his fingers in more than a few pots

intelligent in the way that he just has a lot of pretty well informed opinions like if you want a fun fact don’t go to noel but if you want a good insightful conversation he’s your man.

a big defender of the environment.

has a bunch of tattoos. i imagine him with at least one sleeve and he’s probably starting another. is seriously considering a neck tat. his parents would hate it and that just makes him love it more.

honestly got married a bit because it was a choice he got to make for himself that his parents had no control over. the thought of his parents still believing he will be playing into the arranged marriage they had laid out for him only for him to tell them he already married his bandmate was super satisfying.

doesn't do drugs at all, the most hell do is smoke weed. used to see his sister at her worst (aka withdrawal symptoms, two overdoses) and so he doesn’t even want to be close to anyone who does drugs, cause he can’t do that again.

if you watch jenna marbles i want you to know that noel is julian in the kitchen and julian in the kitchen only

surprisingly has a green thumb? can revive almost any plant with relative ease

never learnt how to ride a bike tbh

surprising the type to get into physical fights when he’s drunk, which he hates, because it reminds him of his mother.

WANTED CONNECTIONS ;

younger sibling ; if you’ve guessed that i’m going to put a wc into the main for noel’s younger sibling than you’ve guessed right but if anyone here wants it before i put the message into the main let me know!

claire to his brad ; ... please. i’m begging here. noel is a chef but i haven’t decided where and i really want him to have a chef friend or baker friend who he just messes around with in the kitchen. maybe they even make amateur funnily little gourmet-makes-esque youtube videos where noel doesn’t show his face because he doesn’t want his parents to see but sdkjsdkj he’s like julian behind the camera, making comments and having a good time. give me this.

a virgo ; speaking of julian, noel does have julian energy and so he therefore probably needs a jenna. please give him someone to help with his impulse control. someone to say, hey, maybe you shouldn’t deep fry that turkey in a huge vat right outside your apartment in the middle of may. maybe you should just take a nap. you know?

a love hate relationship ; honestly i just want someone who noel actively despises but still helps out anyways. like he doesn’t like who they are a person, but he can’t leave them alone, because they’re usually in some sort of trouble and unfortunately noel just can’t watch people implode.

one night stands / hookups / previous dates ; noel’s marriage is open but since he was keeping his whole marriage a secret in the first place these people probably wouldn’t have known that at the time sdkjsdkj but noel is perfectly willing to explain that now that full disclosure has exposed them and he’s got no more secrets to keep.

a best friend ; or two! i’d love a bromance for him and another close friendship that doesn’t have to be a bromance, just someone who he’s really close to.

okay this has gotten hella long so i’m gonna stop now but like this if you want to plot and i’ll come running! and to anyone who got all the way to the end of this... you’re the real mvp. <3

#fdintro #n.g. | bio.#i... think this is longer than percy's #how did that happen #drugs tw #death tw #kidnapping tw #i think that's it!

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ravenclaw-craftsgirl · 4 years

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Lilian - Year One

Part 1 Part 2

Rating: G Foreword: This story uses the fanmade idea of Rowan Khanna being the name of Two Twins (The Twin Khannas) Using their middle names to distinguish themselves. Research has been done ahead of time, with certain instances purposely being different.

I will pre-translate all of Lilian’s french for Mobile users!

Here’s the original Google Doc Link for those who enjoy proper formatting

Enjoy!

The train station was near empty. Lilian was worried, seeing as how she carted her steamer trunk all the way here with her whole family. Her Mama and Papa were dressed up, while Uncle Rorick looked more or less the same in his work clothes. Lilian hadn’t even heard of a platform named ‘9 ¾’ before today.

Rorick grinned as he told Lilian’s parents to head through first as he nodded to Abby. She gripped her cart, her two crocodiles Hunin and Munin lifting their heads in excitement for what was about to happen next. Abby placed one foot on the cart, pushing the other to gain speed and zoomed into the pillar. Lilian simply stared in amazement at the sight of her cousin and parents vanishing into a pillar of solid stone. Rorick smiled to her as she turned to him. “Go on lass. Way’s only open fer so long.” Lilian took a deep breath, steadying herself before following in her cousin’s footsteps, so to speak. She planted one foot on her cart and pushed herself forward. She brought her other foot up and closed her eyes, expecting impact with the wall. She only opened her eyes when she finally slowed down, seeing an entirely new station. Her parents simply stood there, beaming with pride as she stepped off of her cart. Lilian was awestruck by the sudden change of scenery. A family with several children, fussing around two boys with bright red hair, a girl with equally outstanding pink hair… A duck? Why was a duck quacking at someone… “Love, it’s rude to stare at an Animagus. Let’s get ya two settled in yer car.” Rorick said as he placed a hand on Lilian’s shoulder. Soon, with everyone's luggage packed away, Parents started to say their farewells as students boarded the train. Lilian’s mama, Amelie, took especially long. “<Make sure to write to us as often as possible, little butterfly. Don't be afraid to ask for help for anything you don't understand. And most importantly, remember what your mom taught you.>”

Lilian nodded, hugging her mother. “<Yes, Mama. I will. How can I forget the greatest teacher of all time?>”

Amelie smiled at her daughter, tears caught in her eyes as she hugged her baby once more before letting Lilian board the train. Lilian sat with Abby in the train car as they started their journey to Hogwarts. “Ye nervous?” Lilian turned to Abby and smiled. “<Immeasurably…>” Abby chuckled. “Don, worry. Ye’ll be fine.”

After about thirty minutes into the train ride, the pair heard a knock at their booth door. They turned to see Harrow and Hubei standing there and waving. The Khanna twins they had met in Diagon Alley. Abby opened the door as they held a small stack of books and a small box with various sweets in it.

“We didn’t know what you two preferred-” Harrow started as he sat by Abby

“-So we got two of everything!” Hubei finished as she sat the box between her and Lilian. The two seemed to be in very good spirits as the train trundled along the tracks. Among the varied books, Lilian saw several interesting titles. Many of them were probably tame to the Khanna’s but Lilian was rather curious about some of them. One especially caught her eye, ‘The tales of Beetle the Bard’. “Pardon, but may I read that?” She asked while pointing at the book.

Harrow was well into a licorice vine, so Hubei obliged Lilian. “It’s a wizarding world classic. Full of fairy tales and such.”

“If ye wanted, I coulda brought my copy, Lil.” Abby said as she quickly snatched up a chocolate frog and popped it in her mouth. “AH GAFF AH GOT ANOTER GILDEROY! Ma luck jus don seem ta pan out, don’t it?” Harrow grinned as he held up his wizarding trading card. “I’ll trade you a Merlin for your Gilderoy. I can never seem to get one of him.” “Ye’ve got a deal, Tree Boy.” Hubei nearly snorted out her drink while Lilian politely covered her mouth while she smiled. Harrow’s face went all shades of red as he sputtered. “OH YEAH! WELL MAYBE I SHOULD KEEP MY MERLIN!”

Abby looked shocked. “NO PLEASE AH SWEAR AHM SORRY PLEASE DON LEAVE ME WITH THE GIT CARD!”

Lilian smiled, enjoying the energy those two had. They’d be partners in crime, most likely. Hubei sat beside Lilian, reading one of her books. The two simply leaned against each other as they read, while Harrow and Abby bickered over Quidditch and trading cards. If Hogwarts had friendly people and good teachers, perhaps Lilian didn’t have anything to fear after all…

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

The group stood in the magnificent great hall of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was simply fantastic, from the magic boats that drove themselves, the towers spiraling above everything else; Simply gorgeous, like something from a storybook. She was nervous, unnerved by how magnificent the castle was. This was supposed to be the school? She knew that wizards were supposed to be grand and magnificent but…

“Lilian Le’Reau.”

Lilian walked towards the podium, nervous, trying to fight back the trepidation and anxiety in her stomach. She sat on the stool, painfully aware of all the eyes focused on her. Were her glasses crooked? Could they tell she was a Muggleborn? She hoped that her shirt wasn’t sloppy… “Hahaha, quite nervous are you?” Lilian flinched, then relaxed… Almost soothed? Was the hat talking to her? “No one else would be talking whilst I’m deliberating, young Le’Reau. Though quite astute to be muggleborn yet notice me. And rather courageous to sit here without knowing what’s ahead. Gryffindor?”

Lilian looked to the Gryffindor table, where Harrow sat beaming with his new housemates as he watched. Lilian smile, but felt a nagging feeling in the back of her mind.

“Cautious and caring eh? Thinking of friends and family alike… Perhaps Hufflepuff would be best?” The hat quizzed, almost curious with her. Lilian looked to the Hufflepuff table. They all looked like nice people, but Lilian could feel a knot in her stomach. While she was able to meet new people, she would rather hide away than just be dumped in with a group of new people. She and the hat then turned to the Slytherin table, seeing so many people scowling and unwelcoming. Lilian finally took a breath, trying to steady herself. “I just want to know what i’m doing. I don’t need fancy titles, I simply want… to know why I'm here…” The Sorting Hat seemed to ponder this, deliberating. Finally it made its decision. “Inquisitive and Creative? Sounds like… RAVENCLAW!” Quite a few of the Ravenclaw students cheered, Hubei among them. Lilian sat beside her friend, much to her relief with everyone welcoming her to her new house. She turned back to the group, watching everyone else getting sorted into various houses.

“Abbigail McKinley.” Lilian turned her attention to the podium where the Sorting Hat was. Abby sat in the chair, but her smile was forced. It was almost as if… She was upset. Lilian listened and heard much grumbling from the Gryffindor table, as if they were upset or afraid… She didn’t know what was going on. Abby must have been just as nervous as Lilian… “Quick minded and driven? Must be… SLYTHERIN!” Lilian smiled to her cousin, waving as her cousin went to sit at the Slytherin table. Hopefully they would see more of each other over the year, but so long as they tried to hang out every so often, it was fine. Professor Dumbledore stepped forward, giving his speech to everyone, new and returning to the school. Lilian looked at him, curious as he finished his address to everyone. Lilian looked to Rowan, confused.

“Who’s Harry Potter?”

#Part 2 #Lilian Le'reau #Abbigail McKinley #Rowan Harrow Khanna #Rowan Hubei Khanna #twin khanna #harry potter hogwarts game #harry potter hogwarts mytery #hphm

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startrekvigilant · 5 years

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So what was the 21st century in Star Trek.

We spent the early 2000s recovering from The Augments and their very near-totalitarian rule over humans. We develop technology, like the Millennium Gate in 2012 (Star Trek: Voyager), a superstructure that would serve as a prototype for space colonization.

By the mid-to-late 2020s we had continued our development of ships that would eventually surpass the model we banished Khan and his like in. But it was becoming increasingly clear that another world war was happening.

In fact, World War III broke out in 2026, apparently due to an “Eastern Coalition” making a direct attack on the United States of America (Star Trek: First Contact). The ensuing years the war went on with differing levels of intensity and size, and the world became steadily more violent, as many famous riots and upheavals spread through Europe (Unified Ireland, The Next Generation, The Bell Riots, Deep Space Nine).

In the 2030s earth made a few select manned missions to mars. (Apparently around this time the United States added two new states to their union, and why the hell not they were probably on the moon and on mars. I doubt this made other countries happy, it probably escalated the fighting and enveloped other nations, adding to the tensions the world had been experiencing since 1996, the end of the Eugenics War).

The United Nations reshapes itself due to the changes on earth since its initial creation, and the New United Nations feebly tries to sort out our problems. It did not do very well for itself, obviously. World War III was a fact now and earth was in trouble. Space-faring technology is pursued with renewed fervor, with ships of people attempting to explore further and further out of our solar system. Perhaps these many attempts to further star ship tech was due to a spreading fear that things might be coming to a violent end on earth? Most likely.

In the 2040s we see more colonies popping up on the moon, safe from the horrifying destruction that was breaking out on the planets surface. But it only continued to escalate. Now, whatever happened to the people on these off world colonies is not specified, but if the fighting is as bad as we think it is, and if it was fought primarily with nuclear weapons, maybe we stopped caring about these off-world colonies. Maybe sending them food and supplies was getting too bothersome. These colonies were most likely abandoned, or they scraped by on meager rations, waiting for the fighting to end.

The years 2039 to 2050 don’t really have any significant events in official trek canon, but I’m going to go on record and say it was eleven years of complete global warfare. By 2050 things calmed down, and many thought the worst was over, but then the nuclear strikes began in earnest, destroying thousands of cities and millions of lives.

Then in 2053 it suddenly stops.

The war ended because there was nothing left, and all who perpetuated the violence were dead. There are attempts to pick ourselves back up again, but any form of government that existed before the outbreak of war was gone. Civilization actually crumbled, it was the end of the world. Just like in the movies! The death toll is set somewhere around 600 million officially…but I think it’s low. This was the first real nuclear war right? All the stockpiles of warheads collected over the cold war and beyond…this was the war where those missiles destroyed cities, wiped nations right off the map. How many nations have warheads? How many warheads do they have? The imagined damage is catastrophic.

The years following are every dystopian fiction writers dream! Scattered bands of irradiated wary humans, scraping by in tents on the fringes of giant holes in the ground that were once major cities. A lot of information about who we were before all the mindless fighting was lost. So that’s a good cop out reason to explain was the canon is so spotty? But pretty much by 2060 human civilization had taken a major turn. People lived nomadically, independently, in a strange sort of dazed anarchy. Like I dunno, I think a lot of people might have died, a lot of important people, so we really were at an all time low.

But there were still scientists and scholars, entertainers and trades people. Humanity was still alive, but there wasn’t much left. Amongst them was Zefram Cochrane, the eventual inventor of warp drive on earth. Canon is once again spotty, he most likely started his physical experiments in 2060, but who knows how long he had been working on his calculations for.

2063 is when everything changed for the human race.

Zefram caught the attention of the vulcans! What a one in a million shot! It was mind blowing! It was astounding! It freaking changed the rotation of the planet, it boiled the oceans, it drove us all to madness, man it was BIG. Aliens! On earth! In front of humans! Talking to us! With language! That we were able to understand! And they us! My! God!

Like, it doesn’t take much thinking to realize how much this changes everything. But it’s also hard, yanno? These aliens seem so like us, but everything we do confuses them and everything they do bewilders us. They see our smouldering planet, nearly destroyed, still fraying along the edges and think “my god, emotions will destroy everything.” we’re just confused. No emotions? How. We talk to them and are upset by their unchanging face, they give us no visual cues, and they hardly move their eyebrows. This is difficult!

And on top of this we feel like small children around them. But by comparison our species is! They’ve been out in space doing the space thing for eons. Eons! They’ve actually traveled through space for so long that a very large fraction of their population split off and settled themselves in a different star system and stayed there so long they evolved into an entirely new species. Romulans! Those cunning cousins to the Vulcan race that will one day become one of our most notorious enemies.

But we don’t meet them until the 23rd century. And you wanna know why? It’s cuz the vulcans don’t trust us and the vulcans hide a lot of their information from us because it’s unsafe to let a species as primitive as us in on their technologies and knowledge. It’s kind of dark, isn’t it?

Some might feel like the vulcans are disgusted by us, but feel obligated to us. They might find us clingy and I really don’t think they’ve interacted with other species like they find themselves doing with us. Seriously, we’re dating. Or they’ve become our parents? Or like, our mentors? I don’t know but one year after first contact humanity finally sees itself getting back on its feet. We go from living on the fringes of nuclear waste sites to building universities and sending ships of people to explore the stars.

Large groups of people leave earth entirely, going off to discover new lands, and new peoples in the name of earth. Sometimes these encounters don’t end so well for us. We’re new to the space game.

We meet a race of wolf-like creatures, the Kzinti, and they bully us until we fight back. These battles amount to no more than schoolyard antics, really. In 2065 the SS Valiant is launched on an interstellar mission to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. Almost as an omen for the years to come, the Valiant is lost and never heard from again (or at least not until 2265).

So we don’t know how exactly it came to be formed, but by 2067 United Earth was sending probes out into space in order to learn more of the life out there. Vulcans would not share their technology or their information of space life, so it was up to us to get the ball rolling.

The Friendship 1 was a probe like the ancient Voyager I, meant to inform extra-terrestrials of life on Earth, our language and customs. Basically we were already getting bored with the vulcans and their rules, and wanted to meet more fun aliens, aliens who were down to party.

By 2069, far away from Earth the Kzinti pick on us for the last time. Humans finally defeat the Kzinti and they finally agree to stop attacking us. It’s an important moment for humans in space. We’ve been out here for such a short time but we were finally able to stand up for ourselves. We governed and were listened to. It changed us, I guess.

So now we’ve stretched our legs, we’ve been picked on by aliens and fought back; we’re ready to colonize. Well, the vulcans don’t think so, they’re still weirded out by us, think us too dramatic. And our home planet is still a mess. There’s still a weird sense of dystopian cruelty hanging in the air, and I guess a lot of people are looking to move out.

We want to meet more aliens, but we can’t take them back to our place, it’s too embarrassing. So expeditions to find a kind of replacement earth begin. Our starships were still in their infancy, only capable of warp factor one. But we wanted people to get excited about this technology, so we began high-profile searches for New Earths.

The SS Conestoga is launched to bring 200 colonizers on a nine-year mission to Terra Nova, where they would immediately dismantle the ship and use it to build their new colony. So you see, technology is still very limited. It’s faster than our previous technology, but it still takes a good while to reach our destination.

Humanity is becoming spread thin is what I’m saying.

Some humans go out to explore far reaches of space and are lost. Others venture out to meet new civilizations and are greeted with years of warfare with an alien race. Others still board starships to find home on new planets only to end up stranded. It’s a tumultuous time. But still, we explore. We don’t let the hardships stop us because they never have before.

The SS Conestoga reaches its destination in 2078, and the Terra Nova colonies of humans begin. Now we can clearly see a divide forming between space-exploring humans, off-world colonists and Earth-bound humans. And the rift will only widen from here on out.

The mindset is that now we’re able to explore strange new worlds then why waste time cleaning up earth? Because everyone is busy dealing with official space business, earth is once again left to rot.

By 2079 in some parts of the globe, things are pretty much back to being dystopic shambles, and all “United Earth nonsense” is brushed off the table. Humanity forgot about earth! It’s supposed to be a new, bright era for humanity, but our home is still on fire. And the distain for earth is palpable.

By 2083 the United Earth space agency planned to send 200 more colonists off of wasteland earth to the new Terra Nova colony, but the original colonists had grown so fiercely independent they were now actively aggressive towards Earth.

I bet vulcans watching from the sidelines were just amazed at the boundlessness of humans distrust of one another. Honestly. We’re our own worst enemy. We’re still shell shocked, we’re still not over the last centuries of violence and war with each other. And now we’re forced to deal with aliens? It’s a bad scene man; we’re not dealing well.

Things are pretty quiet during most of the 2080s, but by 2090 we’ve started to industrialize more planets and moons in our solar system.

The last decade of the 21st century is mostly filled with confusion and exploration, much of earth is still ungoverned, we’ve lost contact with our largest off-world colony and we’re realizing we know next to nothing about space and the aliens that populate it.

#long post #original content #star trek #writing #and that's the tea #i wrote this wow i forgot i wrote this but i did #thanks memory alpha for the references

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 5 years

Text

Onni Speaks

▲ The marriage of Dr Mose Durst and Onni Yeon-soo Lim (or Im)

HOSTAGE TO HEAVEN by Barbara Underwood and Betty Underwood

Four years in the Unification Church by an Ex Moonie and the mother who fought to free her. Published 1979

from pages 66-69

Divine Principle was continually reinforced by community life, especially in Family Meetings. These were a time for brothers and sisters in the centers to share their realizations of God, their conquests of their own selfishness, or their dreams. Sometimes Onni would speak words of fire. Because of this, the call for Family Meeting struck like lightning.

“Quick, pali-pali!” (Pali meaning hurry in Korean.) “Onni’s coming tonight for a Family Meeting. Clean up now!” Teresa ordered. Teresa, who was responsible for preparing the worshipful atmosphere, assigned an older sister to prepare fruit and Ginseng tea for Onni and Dr. Durst, tasks accepted with honor and fear. Tensions ran high to meet Onni’s standard of perfection. Windows were opened because we all knew Onni’s “spiritual smell” was very sensitive to “low spirits” from recently departed guests still dwelling in the Satanic world. Hair combed, faces washed, shirts tucked in, the Family gathered in full circle around a pillow or sofa prepared for Onni. Teresa would lead us in singing before the magisterial arrival.

Onni and Dr. Durst would sweep in. Onni’s presence commanded full obedience. Meetings would usually start with a ritual passing of fortune cookies, which we read out loud. Seen as a barometer of our spiritual states of mind, the ones I saved were memorable: “Great thoughts come from the heart,” “Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure,” or “He that falls in love with himself [which I publicly read, “God”] will have no rivals.”

...

I also lived at the Hearst Street mansion, a stately old Georgian ex-fraternity house near the University of California campus; at The Gardens, elegant and palatial home of Onni and Dr. Durst, for a few months; up in the Boonville trailers; and at the dignified Victorian Washington Street center in San Francisco.

The most complete responsibility in center life I ever assumed was during two months in summer of 1975 when I moved back to Oakland’s modest but historic Dana Street center. Jonah directed that house with bursting momentum, consistent as a reliably wound clock. My duties as his “object,” or assistant, included cooking for thirty each day and night, buying food and provisions, and in “spare” hours leading a recruiting team in downtown Oakland in which our goal was a “date” for dinner each night. (I still recall those unsuspecting sidewalk innocents on whom we lunged in desperation a few minutes before dinner.) I also hostessed evening lecture programs, gave lectures and slide presentations, kept the finances and the family history, answered telephones, drove flower-selling missions at night, conducted prayer meetings and trinity meetings, group-assisted at Boonville on weekends, and, above all, served Jonah with total obedience.

Jonah treated me with stern instruction, ever ready to correct. He’d catapult out of the house for meetings at The Gardens with Onni, sticking his head back in the door to yell about all the errors in judgment I’d committed that day. With no chance to plead for justice, I’d trot to Onni’s prayer room to faithfully pray for inner strength to humble myself to his holy tyranny, to feel “married for eternity” to his will. I tried to sense our bond as unending, the only way I could force myself to submit temporarily. After unlocking it with a hidden key, I’d slip into the Dana prayer room. One for each center, this one was immaculate with quiet light, translucent curtains gently blowing, photos of True Parents and Jesus, mementos from Korea, holy books, and the fragrance of fresh-cut roses. These moments were the few times when Reverend Moon’s wife, my True Mother, emerged as more important to me than “Father” himself. I had been told that her course in restoring the world set the example for all sisters. She lived an absolute shadow existence to Reverend Moon, an obedient birth-giver to “perfect” children, one after another. Kneeling under her unreadable face posed beside Father’s, I identified with her intense struggle to endure her life.

At Dana Street, while I was assistant, our main mission consisted of recruiting eight hours a day in places like the San Francisco wharf, Golden Gate Park, on Berkeley’s campus, or on the new subway system, BART. Working with a small team of partners, we would approach and invite to dinner as many bright, capable passers-by as we could manage to engage in conversation. Onni instructed us to avoid talking too long to any one person, especially to avoid talking philosophy about the Church. She herself had set the standard when, in the early movement, she had reached out to one hundred people in one day. “Make friends, offer them whatever they are seeking, pray for Heavenly Father to guide them to dinner,”' Onni would teach. “Sisters get handsome men, brothers attract pretty girls. It’s good if they come because they like you. Once in God’s house, they learn to love God instead.” By spoken and unspoken understandings, we knew what we were looking for: capable, healthy, restless, young, white people like ourselves, preferably lonely and traveling, uprooted. They might respond to our approach: “Beautiful day, isn’t it? Been traveling long? Where are you from? Have you ever met our Family? We live on a huge farm together. You should come visit us; you’re always welcome. By the way, are you hungry?”

Two Family buses, called the “Coffee-Break-Bus” and the “Elephant Bus,” were strategically located in tourist areas as recruiting centers for “hitchhikers with knapsacks.” Our teams would look for young prospects, bring them back to the bus for coffee and doughnuts, and introduce them to the Family. Our psychological approach was irresistible. Members of the Church “radiated” love and kindness to strangers. Many conscientious, open people felt obliged to respond to us on a personal and social level because we made it seem too cruel to resist.

After a full day of recruitment, reaching out to people we believed we could save, our dinners at the center consisted of more intense relating to individuals. We fed them, entertained them, and suggested to them an “amazing set of ideas that would change their lives and make them happy.” We insisted they stay with us. The success of the day was measured by how many guests “signed up” and paid for a weekend training session up on our isolated 680 acres of land, the Boonville farm.

After guests left the centers at nine-thirty at night, the house was cleaned. Moneymaking teams prepared to “blitz the bars.” Everyone else visited prospective “spiritual children,” or held trinity meetings to read “Master Speaks,” a series of tracts based on Moon’s speeches. Prayer and chanting was at eleven sharp. Anyone who had fasted, to bring more people or money in, would break that fast at midnight with soup and ice cream. By 12:30 younger Family members were in their sleeping bags, men side by side on one floor, women on the next level in strict segregation. Carpet cleaning or auto repair crews might come in at four or five o’clock after working all night.

After midnight, as center assistant, I planned menus, incorporating Boonville farm produce into rice, soup, or potato combinations for next night’s dinner. (Breakfast had been juice, coffee, oatmeal; lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, raisins, carrots, cookies.) One-thirty a.m. found me still making lists of workshop signups and fund-raising accounts, and trying to locate used clothes in the “extra clothes room” for new sisters.

By two o’clock, Jonah would either stagger in or bluster in, depending on Onni’s mood, from a staff meeting at The Gardens. Over his milkshake or a stack of gooey jelly and peanut butter sandwiches I’d prepared, I would try to guess from him the content of the meetings. I later read through a staff brother’s notebook and learned what a tight ship Onni ran. The following are quotes from Onni, as recorded in his notebook:

“If one person doubts then no good. If on staff and drop out, this creates disunity because can’t trust you. Such people are betrayers. You know heavenly secrets. If you go away, you dangerous because you know too much. You can’t zig-zag. If you fight it out, you can overcome.” (2/13/74).

“You staff have Satanic evil mouths. Have to knock off—don’t say too much. And when you talk to people, talk only about their needs, their benefits, find out what will get them in. In witnessing, if people get negative toward you, just say that we support all churches.” (2/3/74).

(And a few days later): “We never tell any lie, never give any untruth. Who accuse us of that?” (2/21/74).

“If you don’t listen to me [Onni], no way for you to be restored. Bind with Onni. Do or die for purpose. Get rid of own ego. Our own will or desires must be last.” (2/14/74).

In January Onni had given instructions to Teresa about a sister who had complained of seeing evil spirits: “Teresa, must ask Abbey honestly heart to heart, pray together. Then talk. If no good, then chase evil spirit out of her. If not we’ll send her to hospital. She should do laundry each day.”

Onni had said of a brother, a young insurance salesman noted for his spunk and independence of mind: “Never let Don drive again. I don’t like him. Smash his ego. Or put him in Heavenly jail to change his attitude!” (2/21/74).

Other provisos: “Everyone must raise hand and share experience at Family meeting. If you can’t raise hand you are living selfishly. No good.” Or: “When you go out and witness, witness to the people for Dr. Durst; they respect Ph.D. bag. But when people come into Family to stay, then you witness for Onni.” And, “No one want elderly people around for dinner because they are not needed.” (2/20/74).

Onni also made clear in staff meetings: “No German travelers for workshop; they too scientific and heady. And black people don’t fit in so well. Hard for them. Not right time in God’s providence for them. Father says if whites don’t accomplish then use blacks to shame whites in America, but not yet.”

Barbara Underwood:

One Family meeting with Onni Durst scarred my soul

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 1 Disciples Fill Moon’s Pockets

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 2 Moonie 1977 Court Battle: Fighting For ‘Rights’

A story from Bay Area Unification Church of the 1970s – part 3 For Moonies ‘Deprogram’ Meant Torture

Onni Durst – The Dragon Lady

Moon’s ultimate truth is … absolute obedience – Allen Tate Wood

Moonwebs: Journey into the Mind of a Cult by Josh Freed

Crazy for God: The nightmare of cult life by Christopher Edwards

#Barbara Underwood #Boonville #Oakland Family #Onni Durst #FFWPU #Unification Church #Sun Myung Moon

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fayepratas · 3 years

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Block , block, delete.

Forgiveness is such a difficult topic for me to talk about. When you’ve been through trauma, whether from childhood abuse, or a destructive relationship, or a ‘friend’ who turned out not to be who you thought, the thought of giving the person/people who wronged you just a second of your brain energy is an impossible one. Just thinking about the person/people and the event/events brings all these ugly dark and oppressive emotions rushing up from deep in your subconscious. The anger, the hurt, the grief, the pain. Even when you think you’ve put it in its box. Its spring loaded, and when you think about that trauma BAM! It’s like you’re right back there, and you haven't escaped it at all. Weak, vulnerable, defenceless. Just a taste of the emotions you feel when something not many could every truly relate to, has happened. And who would want to feel this way? especially when you’ve worked so damn hard to be happy. Is it not bad enough that a part of your true self has been torn from you, kicked around and thrown away like some cheap plastic football? Why, then, would you ever entertain the idea of showing any empathy or compassion towards them? They don’t deserve your compassion. People like that don’t give a shit about you or your feelings, clearly. You are the victim, it's your story, and while they had their fifteen minutes of fame, they’ll be pretty low down on the list of the end credits (if there at all). So why on earth would you allow them back into your life? and on top of that, attempt to reconcile or even forgive them? Forgive them... Even typing that was a challenge. Like I said, this is a difficult topic.

No, bad people deserved no opportunities prove themselves to me. And, as I grew up and entered adulthood, I treated everyone as a potential threat. Waiting for them to show their true colours before promptly and abruptly ending our friendship/relationship. And there was nothing to be done. My mind had decided that before I had even pressed the ‘Block’ button. They had ‘proven’ themselves already. That was my reckoning, anyway. Sometimes they hadn't even actually done anything. But I felt fear, threat, an uncomfortableness that I just couldn’t sit with. And each time I blocked, deleted and ghosted those from my life that I felt had crossed a line, I felt better, like the ‘problem’ had been solved, and I had gotten rid. Rid of all of the drama, and those uncomfortable feelings that I didn’t want to... have to... deal with. I was the victim. But while I hoped my life would get better, it got worse. I drank, I partied, I entered into a relationship that was not good for me. And I had absolutely no awareness that I was heading down a road that would take me to some very dark places. Life was just happening, and I was going along for the ride. In its highs I loved it. Getting drunk, connecting with people at a superficial level. I felt invincible. I lived for it. But at its lows I was constantly anxious, I felt incredibly disconnected, and walked around with the viewpoint that nobody was to be trusted, that every person I came across was another opportunity to be let down. I kept everyone at arm's length and unsurprisingly had very few people in my life. I convinced myself for years that I was happy alone, and that I didn’t need anybody. I concentrated on my work and my children, and that, I thought, was all I needed.

But I was so wrong about so many things. Childhood trauma does that to you. It instils beliefs deep into your unconscious mind about who you are, what you deserve, and how to view the world and everyone in it. My children were on pedestals, and I did everything I could to be the best mother I could be. But there was so much in me underneath that I had not dealt with; finding peace from difficult events, being able to maintain friendships, etc. In fact, the main take away from my counselling sessions over the years have always been centred around my connectedness (or lack of) with others. I let people in. They let me down. I erased them. But far from making me happier it drove me further into depression, and not feeling like I have a place in the world. And while my aim was to rid these people from my thoughts, they took much more of my brain space than I could have ever wanted. The anger and hatred I kept burning so brightly for them spilled into other areas of my life, and I was just an all-round bitter person. My outlook was pretty bleak, despite having overcome depression, and being disconnected from society was still a massive issue for me. In finally recognising this I came to the realisation that I couldn’t just erase and repeat, but instead must learn the art of repairing, reconciling and fixing what was broken. I'd never consider throwing a laptop with a damaged charger, so how could I consider being so detached when dealing with other human beings? And why would I want to repair? Because my inner peace was not just at risk, but constantly being violated by my negative thinking. After my least serious period of depression I learned that if I was to really move forward and grow in my life I needed to let go of the past and mend some of those bridges that I had so carelessly burned down. And so it started with my mother. After all this is where it all started. I had a lot to be angry and resentful about, but I taught myself to relook at all the events of my childhood and consider them from her perspective. It was hard, at first. But eventually while a lot of her actions could not be justified, I understood that she was acting from a place of vulnerability. Mothers aren't addicted to Heroin for the hell of it. She was in a very dark place. And the second I understood this I understood her. And i forgave her. Once this metamorphosis of my ability to empathise had occurred, I was able to look at others in my life and apply the same practices. I unblocked almost everyone on my social media accounts. I messaged most (some were random strangers I'd probably argued with one time on some BLM post) and I apologised. Not just 'I'm sorry', either. I really opened my heart and explained why I had acted the way I did, and offered sincere apologies for the things I had done wrong. I expected nothing back each and every time, which was very difficult with some who I had always thought owed me an apology. I accepted that nobody had any obligation to reply or accept my apology, no matter how sincere. And some didn't. To this day I have had no reply. Some replied and were less than impressed. Reading words that express anger at you are hard to hear when you're trying to do better, but you made the bed that you lie in. I used my ability to empathy to understand and accept their responses.

But all was not lost. Some of the responses were from people who were very happy to hear from me, who readily accepted my apology, and furthermore had actually missed me. I felt genuine shock about this, and struggled more with it than I had with the rejection of others I had contacted. Not ever had I considered that I had had a positive impact on people. I clearly did not think highly of myself as a friend, or maybe I thought that once I had cut people out of my life, they had just done the same with me. But there they were, with open arms, accepting me, and filling me with a love for myself that I'd only caught moments with before. I'm not fully there, with the forgiveness, there are still a couple of people on that block list who I haven’t taken the steps to approach. Partly because I still hold a lot of resentment, but also because I know that they most likely will be equally resentful. That fear of opening the can of worms and upsetting my inner self holds me back. But I know it must be done. And it will be done. Because I know how freeing it is to let go of all the things that keep you imprisoned. All the energy I expended on thinking about them, or worrying that I'd bump into them, has transformed into a more positive energy that I'm using to grow beautiful friendships. I'm happier. And I can't imagine a better way to live life.

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newscheckz · 4 years

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Are you a parent? READ THIS AND LEARN THE REALITY

New Post has been published on https://newscheckz.com/parent-read-learn-reality/

Are you a parent? READ THIS AND LEARN THE REALITY

Little did Mrs. Joseph know that the CCTV installed in their house, which almost caused a rift between her and her husband would be the saving grace to unravel the mystery behind a very unfortunate incident that would change the atmosphere in her home permanently.

Mrs. Joseph came back from work a few days before the ugly incident and met some guys from the technical department of their church working on certain installations.

When she enquired about what was going on her husband, Pastor Kim Joseph told her that he brought those brothers from their church to come and help install a CCTV camera in their home.

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This response did not go down well with Mrs. Joseph who felt that her dear husband should have discussed with her before going into such project for the home.

Agreed, they had talked over it some months back and even brought in some experts to survey the house and get some other technical details, but they later agreed that the project should be suspended till their son Dave, returned from NYSC.

However, Pastor Joseph explained to her that while he was praying in the house that morning after she had gone to work it was strongly impressed on his heart to get that work done without further delay.

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He is a full time pastor with one of the Pentecostal churches in Lagos, South-West, Nigeria while his wife, Dupe Joseph was a manager in one of the commercial banks in the same city.

The wife still could not understand the sense of urgency in the whole thing or why he could not wait till at least the next day so they could talk about it once again. Anyway, that’s that for the issue of CCTV installation in their home.

Mrs. Joseph was still nursing the wound from her husband’s rash decision before tragedy struck in their home.

Three days later, while at work, at about 1 pm Mrs. Joseph got a call from her husband to come home immediately.

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The tone of his voice did not give her any room to question him further. Even before she could open her mouth to ask any question he had hung up.

She quickly put necessary things in order in the office, called her driver and headed home not knowing what to expect. As she approached her home, she started having this kind of heavy heartedness, an indication that something was wrong somewhere.

When she got to their estate gate, the forlorn look on the faces of the security men who opened the gate for her car did not pass her unnoticed. Her house was just a few blocks away from the gate.

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He arrived at her house in time just to see the police and some paramedics from the estate medical centre putting a body into an ambulance. At that instant, her whole world came to a standstill.

She could not immediately make out what was happening or whose body it was. Before her eyes could span round the pockets of people gathered in the compound some women surrounded her and held her while leading her into the house.

On getting into the living room she met her husband sitting on the floor wearing a pair of trousers and no shirt.

That was probably the first time any of the people in that room had seen him that way. Pastor Joseph’s family was one decent and lovely family, which many residents of that estate admired so much.

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They are the kind of neighbours any person would like to have. Their two children are so homely and well-mannered that other parents use them to give example to their own children. Mrs. Joseph could still not fathom what was happening in her home.

Pastor Joseph had just rounded off their Wednesday Hour of Grace prayer meeting in the church when his phone rang at about 11.30am.

It was their nanny that called and tearfully said, “Oga I beg come home ooo! I no know wetin happen to Bisi ooo! (Sir please come home. I don’t know what happened to Bisi). She cut the line before he could say anything further, but not until the pastor heard some yelling and commotion at the background.

He quickly jumped into his car with deacon Udoh and Sister Margaret who were with him when the call came in.

Without wasting time with further details let me tell you what happened. The nanny said that she came back from the market and met the front door open, which is very unusual. She entered into the house, went straight to the living room and saw the only daughter of the Josephs, Bisola stone dead on the sofa.

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She ran outside the compound in fear and alerted the neighbours and the security men at the estate gate. That is the summary of what happened there.

Let us leave other events that happened in-between and address this sad incident: What do you think happened to Bisola? Who is the first suspect in this case assuming you are assigned to investigate this incident?

Your guess is as good as mine. But let us see more facts as they unveil…

In the midst of the uproar and confusion, one of the police officers who came there asked them if there was anything like CCTV in their house.

And Pastor Joseph answered in the affirmative. He then led the team to make the most painful discovery of their lives so far.

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From the CCTV recordings, they saw that a male figure came into the house at about 10.15 am and Bisola opened the door to him.

He came in and sat a while talking with the girl before other ugly things followed. From the moment he came in he went straight and sat near the girl on the 3-seater sofa she was reclining on reading a novel.

Bisola was relaxed and smiling heartily with him all the while. Suddenly the scene changed. He pinned her down on the floor and raped her. He was raping her and using the pillow to snuff the life out of her at the same time.

When he was done the first round he got up and moved round the house in search of God-knows-what.

After walking round he came back to the motionless body of the girl and raped her again then picked her and dropped her on the seat. He went further to bring out a small bottle from his pocket, opened it and tried to force some of the content into her mouth.

When it was obvious the liquid was not going down, he went into the kitchen and poured the content into the kitchen sink, came back and placed the empty bottle near the sofa where the girl lay; he made sure he opened it and dropped the cover on the floor. When he was done he quietly opened the door and left.

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Don’t cry yet because more horrifying revelations are coming. Let’s check this place tomorrow to know what happened next.

From the CCTV footage, it was not difficult for the pastor to pick who the killer was. Even the nanny was called in by the police and she immediately identified the monster. In other words, he was well known to the family.

Mrs. Joseph was too shattered to be made to watch any video, but I guess she too would have been able to recognize the assailant.

The policemen encouraged the pastor to put himself together and put a call across to the killer and invite him to come and help him to do something in the church.

He obliged and mustered courage and made a call to the guy at the other end. He was asked to put the call on speaker so that others could follow in the conversation.

The pastor sounded as calm as ever while the voice at the other end was enthusiastic to hear from him. And the brief discussion went thus:

Pastor Joseph: Hello my boy, how are you doing today?

Voice: I am fine sir. What of mummy and other members of the family?

Pastor: They are good; we bless God. Voice: Ok sir.

Pastor: I don’t know, ehnn, are you so busy this afternoon? Voice: Not really sir. Is there something you want me to do for you? Pastor: Good to hear that. Can you come over to the church now to help me type some mails?

Voice: Yes, sir. I will be there very soon.

Pastor: Oh, that’s my boy. I am expecting you dear. Line cuts.

The pastor entered his car while one of the police officers drove and they went to the church. On getting there the pastor went into his office with one of the police men while the rest waited in the car.

In a space of about 10 minutes a young man walked into the premises and went straight to the pastor’s office. You should know what happened there and then.

By now another police vehicle had joined them in the church. They drove back to Milimuck Estate where the Josephs live.

Back to the house, the CCTV footage was played for the young man the police came back with to watch. He was instructed not say a word but to watch quietly till the end, which he did.

At the end of the footage, the senior police officer announced, “young man whatever you say or do here may be used against you in the law court. Shall we proceed to the station please?”

Meanwhile, before they got back to the house Mrs. Joseph had been rushed to the hospital. The whole incident was too much for her to contain. Her elder sister, Dr. (Mrs.) Davies did not want to take chances knowing fully well that Mrs. Joseph was a known hypertension, as well as ulcer patient.

So, Dr. Davies arranged for her to be moved to her private clinic for close monitoring and observation, at least for that night.

I guess you may be asking within your mind, “who is that young man?” Don’t worry we shall soon find out. But before then let me tell you a little more about the Josephs family.

Pastor and Mrs. Joseph had two children, 20 year old David who is currently doing his NYSC in Rivers state, Nigeria and his 12 year old Bisola who was in JSS 3, in one of the private secondary schools in Lagos state before her gruesome murder.

As I said earlier, the Josephs family is a very godly and friendly family. Their 2 children are just good and also very intelligent. You hardly see them outside unless they are going to the church with their parents.

And they don’t even have many friends. They have few selected friends, mostly from their church and a few others from their estate.

Dave has a friend who is a member of their church music group. Both of them went to the same school from their primary to secondary school. But they separated when they were about to enter the university.

Dave did a 4-year course in the university while his friend went in for engineering, which was a 5-year program. Hence, Dave graduated before his friend and went to serve.

Meanwhile, when Dave came home after his orientation camp he discovered that his friend had been at home for some weeks.

When he asked him what he was doing at home he told him that there was a practical course he was sent to do in one of the firms in Lagos before coming back to finish his final year. And Dave believed him.

Dave and his friend were always together during the holidays. That was about the only friend he was allowed to visit from time to time. Both families became good friends because of the two boys.

This guy was like a second son to the Josephs. When Pastor Joseph traveled to the UK for a program he made sure that he bought the same kind of wears for his son and the friend.

Everybody in Pastor Joseph’s home loved this boy and even treated him as one of them. If he came to the house and wanted to eat, even if the family had finished eating the nanny would be asked to get him something to eat.

On several occasions he had spent not just a night but nights and days with the Josephs. To say that they were close may be an understatement but let us just leave it there.

It was barely 5 days after Dave went back to his place of service that his only sister, Bisola was gruesomely murdered. Bisola was at home that fateful day because their school was on mid-term break.

Her mum went to work while her dad went for a program in the church. The nanny had gone to Mile 12 market to buy some food items that morning.

I guess you are beginning to pick the pieces together as to unravel who killed Bisola. But before we finally name the dog, I want to ask you some questions.

· What do you know about your child’s best friend?

· Do you know that even the most trusted friend can be used by the devil to give your family a deadly blow?

· Are you sure the people you call your family friends share the same values with your own family? Are you sure they teach their own children same things you teach yours?

What of their religious beliefs and practices, because I have come to understand that some families believe one thing and practice another?

· When you are talking to your children and educating them on the issues of life, do you make it a point of duty to include their friends in the teachings?

· When was the last time you checked the call log and chats/messages on your child’s phone?

· Have you ever thought of organizing an in-house training/discussion on basic life issues like sexuality, friendship, academic excellence, and the likes for your children and their friends?

Even if you cannot handle it by yourself you can get some people who are good in such areas to help you.

· Do you agree with me that your own children are not safe until every other child out there is safe?

· Do you, from time to time, find out the state of the relationship between your children and their close friends?

· Apart from your children, who are the other friends kept by their close friends? This is because the friend of our friend is also our friend.

· Do you know that the fact that you are a child of God does not make your family totally immune to some of the pains other families are passing through?

· Do you know that you may be sincerely wrong to trust some unproven friends?

· Is there any reason under heaven why you should allow your daughter to be very close and relaxed with a young man without any measure of fear or suspicion?

· Are you aware that sexual hormones do not know who is a sibling or a friend?

· Do you know that at times boys can use their association with your son to get at your girls and vice versa?

· Am I wrong to say that none of my children should entertain their friends inside their room? Every friend must stay and be entertained in the living room, irrespective of who they are.

· Am I also wrong to say that I do not allow their friends to sleep-over in my home unless I am fully persuaded about who I am relating with, down to knowing the family and their value system?

· Who are your own friends?

· What is the testimony of people in your area about your family?

Please forgive me for throwing this number of questions to you at the same time. By the way, I still have many questions to ask but I just remembered that we are still looking for Bisola’s murderer.

At the police station, the police quizzed the young man they picked from Pastor Joseph’s house.

Officer: What is your name? Young man: (in a muffled voice) Edward Officer: Edward who? Young man: Edward Megida. Officer: Edward, did you recognize the man in the CCTV footage you watched before we left Pastor Joseph’s house? Edward: Ye-ye-yes sir. Officer: Who was that? Edward (stammering the more) I – I – I am the one. But sir it was the devil’s work (crying now).

Officer: (mockingly) you wrote an application letter to the devil and he employed you without pay but we are going to pay you here.

This will be a good lesson other devil’s employees like you. Now tell me, why did you kill that innocent girl?

Edward: Sir I I, it was the devil. Another officer: (kicking him from behind) come on speak out before I destroy you now! criminal like you!

Officer: My guy stop this your crocodile tears and just tell us everything you know about the death of that girl. And you better talk now before our oga comes here ooo! If you cooperate with us we may even do something for you before or when he comes. Edward: Sir I didn’t want to kill her but I was afraid that she might tell her family what I did to her. Officer: What did you do to her? Edward: I I raped her. Officer: (sounding amused) are you sure we will not collect that your dick from you so that it will not land you into trouble again? By the way, how did you gain entrance into the house? Was the door not locked? Edward: Bisola opened the door for me but the gate was open when I came. Officer: Why did she open the door for you? What did you use to threaten her? Edward: I did not threaten her at all. She just opened the door for me? Officer: Why?

Edward still has a lot of revelations and confessions to make, he may even have some accomplice(s) within or outside the Josephs family. Let’s cap it up tomorrow with those revelations. I am still your friend.

Edward: She knows me very well and I have been going to their house.

Officer: What do you normally go there to do?

Edward: Her elder brother, David is my best friend?

Another officer: (hit him on the head) you are a very wicked boy! You raped and killed the only sister of your best friend. You are not supposed to be alive by now.

Officer: Why did you do that, a fine young man like you? Did you want her to be your girl friend and she refused?

Edward: Sir I don’t know what came over me.

Officer: When was the last time you went to their house?

Edward: About six days ago, just before David went back to Rivers State where he is serving.

Officer: What happened that day, which warranted your going back to kill that girl?

Edward: Sir nothing unusual happened. All of us were just gisting and playing games in David’s room as we used to do before.

Officer: Who were the other people?

Edward: I mean three of us – David, Bisola and I.

Officer: So what happened?

Edward: Nothing sir. It is just that I became attracted to her. That day she was wearing one black bum shots like that, which was quite revealing of her very fair skin on her laps.

And as we were playing she bent over my body to collect her phone from David and her chest rested on my own. At that moment I didn’t know what happened to me again and I started imagining some weird things.

Officer: So?

Edward: I quickly got up and told them that I was going and I left. Officer: And?

Edward: When I got home I could not get her off my mind and I desired to have her by all means.

Officer: Continue.

Edward: That was just that. When my parents went to work in the morning I told my siblings that I wanted to pick some things from the mall and left the house. I went to their house straight.

Officer: How did you know she was alone in the house by that time?

Edward: I called her and told her that I just wanted to know how she was doing and if she was missing

Dave. It was then she told me that she was alone and would not mind if I paid her a visit.

Officer: So you accepted the invitation and went and killed her?

Edward: I didn’t mean to. I only wanted to have fun with her. But she just died when I was still on that.

Officer: (getting angry with him for the first time or so it appears) will you shut up your mouth you lying beast! She died while you were making love to her meanwhile the footage showed you suffocating her with a pillow.

You even came around to have a second round with her lifeless body. And that reminds me, what was that liquid you tried to force down her throat?

Edward: (obviously terrified) sir…sir, it…it was Sniper. But I just took a small quantity from the one in our house.

Officer: You said you did not want to kill her, why then did you go there with Sniper?

Edward: I…I…I don’t..

A slap from the other officer behind him could not let him complete the statement on his lips.

Officer: Now tell me, how many other girls have you done this to because you seem to be a master in the art?

Edward: Sir, this is just the first time I wa…

Another slap and a shove from the other officer brought him down to the floor with a heavy thud. This made him to cry out in pain. He was however mercilessly forced to stand on his feet again.

Officer: I am giving you the last chance before something sinister happens to you. Tell me how long you have been in this business and who your accomplices are. By the way, why are you not in school since they said you are a final year student of Victory Crest University?

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Edward: (shaking like a leaf with blood dripping from one of his nostrils) Sir, I was sent out of school about 2 months ago because I got involved in a cult activity. But my parents are still trying to see if they can work their way into getting me back to the school.

That is why no one knows about it yet. It was other members of the cult I joined in the school that introduced me into gang-raping of girls. They also taught me that the best way to avoid being caught is to eliminate the victim after using her.

I don’t know the number of girls I have raped from my second year in the university when I joined the cult but this is the second one to die in my hands.

Officer: Who and where was the first victim?

Edward: She was a girl in my department in the school and it happened during one of our gang activities in the school.

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We raided the girls’ hostel and her room happened to be one of the rooms assigned to me to raid. We were meant to raid the girls’ rooms and collect their hand sets and other valuables.

But when I got to their room her room mates were not there so I decided to rape her. While raping her she called out my name so I decided to kill her to cover my tracks.

Officer: Mhnn, oh boy you have gone far ooo. Listen to your language; you decided to kill her TO COVER YOUR TRACKS. How did you do that? Well, I don’t think that is necessary now. Are your parents aware of all these?

Edward: They got to know when they were invited to the school because of the last incident that involved the daughter of the deans of students’ affairs.

Officer: How old are you?

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Edward: I will be 20 years in December.

At this juncture those who went to the clinic to bring Mrs. Joseph and their nanny for some interrogations came in with them.

Of course they had told her to console herself with the fact that her daughter’s murderer has been caught and was already in police custody.

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Hence, Mrs. Joseph entered the interrogation room with the utmost curiosity to know who she offended so much that decided to take smiles from her face for the rest of her life.

And to think of it, that fateful day the T-shirt Edward was wearing was the same one Mrs. Joseph bought for him and his son, David when she took them to the trade fair complex about a year ago. She was not prepared for what she saw when she entered into the police interrogation office.

On seeing Edward in that dimly lit police interrogation room, every atom of strength that remained in Mrs. Joseph left her. Just before she collapsed on the floor, she managed to say in a trembling voice, “EDWARD, ARE YOU THE ONE?”

ALSO READ: Just see how dryspel is driving my pastor to Ex-adultery

These are the facts we have been able to pick from the story:

· Edward, David Jospeh’s best friend killed Bisola, the only sister David had. · Edward killed Bisola right inside her parents’ house, where he had always spent good times with the family before that fateful date. · Bisola trusted Edward so much and as such did not hesitate to throw their door wide open for him despite the fact that she was alone in the house. Another proof that 90% of pedophiles and other child sexual molesters are people known to the child. · Neither David nor his family knew that his best friend was a cultist and serial rapist.

ALSO READ: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU LOSE YOUR JOB · They also did not know that he was already rusticated from the campus and could not conclude his final year. · Edward was filled with lustful desires to waste Bisola from the day she unconsciously exposed her thighs and chest in a very unbecoming manner before him.

Another reason why we should ensure that our daughters dress decently even at home, especially when there are male visitors in the house.

That is the end of the story for now. But watch out for another series. Draw your own conclusions as a parent and as a family. I am still your friend.

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wingletblackbird · 7 years

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Follow one Thread

Prompt: Emotion

Padme walks back to her room slowly and stiffly, her gait suffers from the strength it takes to contain her fragile emotional state. She is a respected politician, and Nabu help her, she will maintain her rationality. She refuses to be lost in this daze. Slowly Padme enters her bedroom, turns and closes the door behind her, being careful to make as little noise as possible. She leans her back against it, and lets out a slow breath, as she slides down onto the floor. With no more witnesses, there’s no need for the illusion of strength and resolve. Here she does not need to hide how much she had wavered under Anakin’s gaze, and his guileless, honest declarations.

She curls up on herself. This is her fault, utterly her fault. She had been the elder: The one with the sense to see the danger coming. Ani, dear sweet Ani, he was younger, naïve about these things, and she loves him; she does. She can admit that if only to herself, but he’s so young. She is not, not as much as he is anyway. She should have known better, but she’d allowed herself to get swept away in his enthusiasm, in his boyish charm. She’d wanted to forget for once, just once in her life, the myriad of responsibilities that lay on her shoulders. Here, in isolation, amongst the memories of her youth before politics, she’d allowed herself to pretend like she was just Padme, and not also Amidala: How selfish, how foolish. Today, reality comes spilling back, and Padme finds she is unable to even cry. The ache inside her clings to the innermost depths of her being; tears would be inadequate. You cannot cry away what has become a piece of your identity. Padme knows she will live with the “what-ifs” of this moment for the rest of her life, as she has with so many sacrifices she’s made in her short life, but she learned at a very tender age to respect the power of Ithanne.

Padme had only been eight years old when she had gone to Theed to live with her grandmother: So very young. She had been determined to be like Daddy and Uncle Ono who had helped so many refugees. She’d seen all those people hurting, and she had just wanted to help. She was determined and would see no other course. (The faces of all of those children who had died with their sun, crying, moaning, screaming in agony, haunting her dreams…) It had been so simple. Back then, it had been simple. She’d been groomed in politics by the best teachers, and the strictest masters, but it had been her grandmother who had taught her the most important things. Her greatest support, and the fount of the deepest wisdom, she’d made Padme believe she could do anything. She’d also taught her how to be the best at it. She’d taught her all of the old stories of Naboo’s history, and culture, and what they all meant, and Padme had felt connected to all the people who had come before her. She had anticipated the future that lay ahead. Even now, she could see her beloved grandmother at her loom, weaving beautiful tapestries, telling her stories. It had been so soothing.

“Do you see, Padme,” Ammi would say, “how the threads all weave together? Each one a different colour, each one a different purpose, each one important but only from a distance can you see what the truth will be. Only the Mornae know the final product.” Turning her piercing blue-eyes on her granddaughter she would add, “Fate is a tangle, Padme. Follow one thread.”

Padme had spent countless hours at her grandmother’s side. She could still smell the scent of wood, and thread in the air, still hear the movements of the loom, still see the dust motes that reflected the sunlight shining in from the window on the right, still see her grandmother lost in her work. When she closes her eyes, she sees it like it was yesterday, or even five minutes ago. Padme had sat on a small stool by the window, and spoke to her grandmother about her day, about her thoughts, and her lessons. Here, Winama Naberrie, had bestowed upon her the wisdom of ages. With a kindness, but a sense of knowledge about her that Padme could never have ignored.

“Follow one thread, Padme.”

So, she had. She had devoted herself to politics, had chosen her path, had heeded the warnings: The warnings that to follow the one thread, to stay on the path, you had to avoid being lead astray. There were three understandings of love on Naboo. There was selfless love for people/community, family love, and passionate love, in precisely that order of importance. The latter, passion, the most mistrusted emotion, was the domain of the goddess Ithane, who was also the goddess of war. Both were equally irrational pursuits after all. (Not that the fools in the Senate ever seemed to understand that…) Ithane was dangerous. Passion was dangerous. It drove you to do the irrational. It compelled you to neglect responsibilities. You could lose yourself in obsession. It might be useful if applied to noble pursuits like politics perhaps, but to centre your desire on one person was dangerous. Ithane was both respected and feared; she could prop a government up, as surely as she could topple it down. Ithane could drive you mad and destroy lives, all for the sake of short-lived passion. She was never someone you could rely on. She was unpredictable. There was no logic in Ithane. That was the futility of her. You never knew what you would get, how it would end. It scares Padme to love Anakin like that. It is not safe, not at all.

Padme knows the stories. She knows of Naboo’s first Queen Elsinore who had brought the colonists to Naboo. She knows the Queen had been tempted to stay with her love on a different planet, but had sacrificed that desire for her people. Elsinore was respected. She knows of Hanial, who had betrayed her clan for love, and many had suffered for it. Hers was a cautionary tale. Padme knows who she wants to be like. If there is war on the horizon, she wants to shepherd her people through it like Elsinore had. She does not want to lose herself, just because the greatest temptation of her life has been thrown at her. Naboo, had been so named after the god of wisdom, Nabu. He is the king of the gods. He is the one to respect. He is rational. He is the one whose territory Padme had devoted herself to protect. He is the one she was going to listen to. He is security. He is safe.

“Follow one thread, Padme.”

So, she had. She wonders now, if she had known the sacrifices that would entail, if she would still have done so. Maybe that’s the real reason why the Naboo elected their monarchs so young: They carried their ideals, and did not yet understand what it would cost them. She sighs and shakes her head, tilting her head upward as tears begin to pool in her eyes. She does not let them fall. She knows if she could convince the fates to unweave her life, she would change nothing. Without her, Naboo may well have suffered decades under Federation occupation. She could never live with the knowledge that she had allowed that to happen. People, her family, were terribly fond of telling her to do what made her happy, but how could she be happy if it came at the cost of the happiness of others? No one ever seems to understand, as they, like her mother, like her sister, nag away at her to “settle down.” (It’s so annoying, and frustrating, and they wonder why she doesn’t come home more often…She laughs bitterly as she wonders what everyone would think of Anakin, a commoner of unknown paternity. Helping such people was all well and good, but marrying them. She wishes intensely that she could.) She is trapped by her very nature to never have what she wants.

No, she can’t. She could hardly leave the Senate with war on the horizon. She wouldn’t keep Anakin from being a Jedi. (He’d resent her in the end, anyway. He was born to be great. She could not strip that from him. He hadn’t been thinking straight. He was so young. Did he even really know what he wanted? He was just getting swept away. Surely, he must.) She couldn’t allow the Republic to suffer those consequences. She doesn’t trust anyone else to do it right. She finds her resolve again, and stands up. She walks around her bed, to her small chest of keepsakes, and pulls out a datapad containing a letter her grandmother had written her before her coronation. This letter always affords Padme great strength in times of distress. Padme uses it now to keep her decision firm.

My darling Granddaughter,

Words cannot express the pride I feel today as I viewed you standing before the Nabooan people, and before the gods, to take your oaths. You have worked very hard for this opportunity, Padme, and I am sure you will do your clan and your people credit. This is a great honor, my dear, and you have every right to feel great satisfaction in what you have accomplished. I would implore you though, granddaughter, not to allow such emotion to make you complacent. Great temptations lie ahead.

You are taking the throne in a time of deep instability for our people, and you must never forget your sacred duty. The people will need your strength and leadership in the months to come. You have already observed the corruption of King Veruna. Such corruption stems from the spurious belief that it is the right of a leader to be served, and for his power to be glorified. This, my darling, is untrue. You to whom the gods have granted great gifts, and have been afforded great power because of them, are now obliged to use such influence to the best advantage of your people. If you are ever tempted to rest, to allow yourself to give in to dangerous and selfish indulgences at the expense of your people, to presume that one such transgression will not matter, I would implore you to remember that if you cannot even discipline yourself, you’ve no right to wear the crown.

This is why I suggested to you to take on a regnal name. Henceforth, my child, you shall be two people Amidala, and Padme Naberrie. You will find that these two individuals will frequently be at odds with one another. However, in all disagreements that these two will have, Amidala must always win. Amidala represents the desires and sanctity of all, including Padme, but Padme is just one young girl in a macrocosm. Never presume that your desires may supersede those of your peoples. Your duty must be placed first, and it is because this is a sacrifice that your actions will hold great meaning. Without pain, it would be easy; it would mean nothing. The temptations placed before us, grant us struggles which enhance our beauty. It is the greatest of leaders who will suffer so that their people might not. I am confident that you are capable of this. (As always, I am very proud of you.)

My words are firm, Padme, but I do not wish you to be unhappy. I merely want you to understand the burdens of your position. Be generous, but do not allow yourself to be taken advantage of. Be patient, but do not fear action. Think rationally, but love your people. Be their heart. Be wary of those who would use you to their own ends, but treasure the genuine friend. Enjoy every small moment that you can. As the magnitude of your burdens increase, you must learn to savour all of the small moments. These are gifts. Enjoy yourself in all moments that you are able. I would never ask you to not be Padme; she is my beloved granddaughter, and I desire to see her fulfilled. I merely caution you to not let her jeopardize the crown, for that will doom her people, but rest assured, it will also doom you.

Now your servant,

Ammi

Padme breathes in and nods her head once firmly. Staring into the mirror she sees determination reflected back at her. People may never know what she sacrifices today for the Republic, but there is beauty in doing good that will never be known. It is goodness for it’s own sake. This is powerful. Padme is in pain, but she is proud. She cannot reconcile the desires of Amidala and Padme tonight, so she knows who must win. Ithane is the goddess of war and of love. She will not allow war to win, what she has fought so hard to prevent, because she also fell in love. If they come together, than she will drive both away. She will not give in to it. In the back of her mind, she remembers telling Anakin, when he was still just a boy, “Our fates are bound together.” She always felt his thread of life tied to hers. The Mornae are ever weaving their tapestry. She does not know what it means, what Fate plans, or to what end their threads will be entwined, but she is determined it will not come if it means destruction.

#starwarsfictober #Star Wars Fictober #Emotion #Day 3 #Padme #naboo #Culture #Winama Naberrie #Letter #So nervous about this one...

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dawud-abdulhameed-mcintosh · 6 years

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Asalaamu Alaikum, how can we muslims deal with the injustice that happens with us. How can we cope with it? Personally, i've been getting angry and I don't like how that makes me feel. So much goes on in this world and it's either all muslims are bad or we don't get the attention when we're being slaughtered and killed like animals. It's hurtful, it's sad, it's not ok. Why are we looked so down upon.

Wa Alayk Assalaam

I share your feelings of anger and sadness and despite what the liars, traitors, and dogs, the khawarij, would have you believe Ahlus sunnah feels the pain of their brothers and sisters all over the world, but whenever we find ourselves in a bad situation we must ask ourselves, “Is there anything that I may have done to contribute to this trial?”.

Undoubtedly the Prophet عليه سلام warned us of this day and told us exactly why we will be where we are now:

حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ الدِّمَشْقِيُّ، حَدَّثَنَا بِشْرُ بْنُ بَكْرٍ، حَدَّثَنَا ابْنُ جَابِرٍ، حَدَّثَنِي أَبُو عَبْدِ السَّلاَمِ، عَنْ ثَوْبَانَ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏"‏ يُوشِكُ الأُمَمُ أَنْ تَدَاعَى عَلَيْكُمْ كَمَا تَدَاعَى الأَكَلَةُ إِلَى قَصْعَتِهَا ‏"‏ ‏.‏ فَقَالَ قَائِلٌ وَمِنْ قِلَّةٍ نَحْنُ يَوْمَئِذٍ قَالَ ‏"‏ بَلْ أَنْتُمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ كَثِيرٌ وَلَكِنَّكُمْ غُثَاءٌ كَغُثَاءِ السَّيْلِ وَلَيَنْزِعَنَّ اللَّهُ مِنْ صُدُورِ عَدُوِّكُمُ الْمَهَابَةَ مِنْكُمْ وَلَيَقْذِفَنَّ اللَّهُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمُ الْوَهَنَ ‏"‏ ‏.‏ فَقَالَ قَائِلٌ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ وَمَا الْوَهَنُ قَالَ ‏"‏ حُبُّ الدُّنْيَا وَكَرَاهِيَةُ الْمَوْتِ ‏"‏

Narrated Thawban:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: The people will soon summon one another to attack you as people when eating invite others to share their dish. Someone asked: Will that be because of our small numbers at that time? He replied: No, you will be numerous at that time: but you will be scum and rubbish like that carried down by a torrent, and Allah will take fear of you from the breasts of your enemy and last enervation into your hearts. Someone asked: What is wahn (enervation). Messenger of Allah (ﷺ): He replied: Love of the world and dislike of death.[Abu Dawud no.4297, Saheeh according to imam al Albaani]

The dogs of hellfire and their leaders like Ahmad Musa Jibril(May Allah silence him), Anwar Awlaki(May Allah give him what he deserves), and others would have you believe that this hadeeth shows that you should take up arms against innocent civilians to fight the “enemy” who is oppressing you. However, in their ignorance they don’t direct you to the example of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and what he advised his companions with during times of trials and even oppression:

وعن أبي عبد الله خَبَّاب بنِ الأَرتِّ قَالَ : شَكَوْنَا إِلَى رسولِ الله وَهُوَ متَوَسِّدٌ بُرْدَةً لَهُ في ظلِّ الكَعْبَةِ ، فقُلْنَا : أَلا تَسْتَنْصِرُ لَنَا ألا تَدْعُو لَنا ؟ فَقَالَ : « قَدْ كَانَ مَنْ قَبْلَكُمْ يُؤْخَذُ الرَّجُلُ فَيُحْفَرُ لَهُ في الأرضِ فَيُجْعَلُ فِيهَا ، ثُمَّ يُؤْتَى بِالمِنْشَارِ فَيُوضَعُ عَلَى رَأسِهِ فَيُجْعَلُ نصفَينِ ، وَيُمْشَطُ بأمْشَاطِ الحَديدِ مَا دُونَ لَحْمِه وَعَظْمِهِ ، مَا يَصُدُّهُ ذلِكَ عَنْ دِينِهِ ، وَاللهِ لَيُتِمَّنَّ الله هَذَا الأَمْر حَتَّى يَسيرَ الرَّاكبُ مِنْ صَنْعَاءَ إِلَى حَضْرَموتَ لا يَخَافُ إلا اللهَ والذِّئْب عَلَى غَنَمِهِ ، ولكنكم تَسْتَعجِلُونَ » . رواه البخاري

Khabbab bin Al-Aratt (رضي الله عنه) reported: We complained to the Messenger of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) regarding the persecution inflicted upon us by the disbelievers while he was lying in the shade of the Ka'bah, having made a pillow of his cloak. We submitted: "Why do you not supplicate for our prevalence (over the opponents)?". He (صلى الله عليه وسلم) replied, "Among those people before you, a man would be seized and held in a pit dug for him in the ground and he would be sawed into two halves from his head, and his flesh torn away from his bones with an iron comb; but, in spite of this, he would not wean away from his Faith. By Allah, Allah will bring this matter to its consummation until a rider will travel from San'a' to Hadramout fearing none except Allah, and except the wolf for his sheep, but you are in too much of a hurry". [Bukhari]

Returning to the issue at hand, we are ruined, humiliated, and our blood is wasted with little regard due to what our own hands have put forth. Look at where we are today? How many Muslims every day openly go out and support all that which is against our religion? How many sisters REFUSE to cover and spout feminist nonsense, often times unintentionally rejecting what Islaam has obligated upon her due to her desire to copy this new ‘third wave feminism’? How many men are going on sites, speaking to women, singing, and traveling around the world to seem “No different” than anyone else(eg deensquad, fouseytube, etc.)? We do whatever we can to look no different than non-Muslims because we love their way over the religion we claim to follow. Further showing the truthfulness of our prophet when he said:

عَنْ أَبِي سَعِيدٍ الْخُدْرِيِّ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ ‏"‏ لَتَتْبَعُنَّ سَنَنَ مَنْ كَانَ قَبْلَكُمْ شِبْرًا شِبْرًا وَذِرَاعًا بِذِرَاعٍ، حَتَّى لَوْ دَخَلُوا جُحْرَ ضَبٍّ تَبِعْتُمُوهُمْ ‏"‏‏.‏ قُلْنَا يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ الْيَهُودُ وَالنَّصَارَى قَالَ ‏"‏ فَمَنْ ‏"‏‏

Narrated Abu Sa`id Al-Khudri:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "You will follow the ways of those nations who were before you, span by span and cubit by cubit (i.e., inch by inch) so much so that even if they entered a hole of a lizard, you would follow them." We said, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! (Do you mean) the Jews and the Christians?" He said, "Whom else?"[Bukhari no. 7320]

Feminism, homosexuality, every sin, innovation, and transgression against our religion we now, slowly but surely move to make acceptable within our communities. Why? Because we’re scared of being marginalized. We’re scared that people will look down on us and call us “barbaric” for believing in our religion to the letter. We have a severe inferiority complex. Meanwhile the enemies of Allah from among the kuffar proudly promote their ideologies in YOUR lands, in YOUR homes, and influence YOUR children, siblings, and spouses that they are backwards and that they(the enemies of Allah and his deen) are right, proper, and civilized ways of life that you should follow. Even the worst most racist of them like the KKK have no qualms about saying how they feel.

For example, I remember vividly when the last harry potter book came out. A group of Christians, who spoke against the harry potter series for years, continued to call their children and communities against anything that promoted black magic. They were mocked, scoffed, and laughed at but they felt no shame warning against that book. Where were the Muslims? Quiet. Some of us, out of ignorance and youth, were IN THOSE LINES buying this book even though magic, real or illusionary, is haraam and disbelief in our religion. Yet where were the Muslims? How do you who claim to love Allah and his messenger let a people show you up and have more gheerah(protective jealousy) for their deen and the upbringing of their children, while you have the truth! May Allah have mercy on us!

Sins destroy nations, and it is what destroyed Ad, Thamood, and the people of Fir’awn! Sins are what threw Iblis from a place of nearness to Allah and honor to a place of darkness, replusiveness, and distance from the mercy of Allah. Sins drove our parents(Adaam and Eve) from the garden to this world of tests and trials. So how can we think that our open deviation and sins wont cause us to be destroyed?

Is it not enough of a proof that in the past our sisters were honored by every person on the planet and now the filthy ones from the creation have no problem making pornographic films sexualizing and turning their very being into a fetish!?

Is it not enough of a proof that those who try to defend Muslims from the more extremist conservative political thought, defend us by saying “They’re just like us! I know Muslims who drink, smoke and have sex!”. By Allah I do not know how many times I have heard or been told of a Muslim brother or sister who have a girlfriend or boyfriend. How many times have I had to fight back anger when a coworker tells me “Yeah I slept with a Muslim chick/dude”.

Before we start shouting at the world, what have we done to ourselves. I leave you to ponder the hadeeth of Umm Salamah رضي الله عنها:

" إذا ظهرت المعاصي في أمتي عمهم الله بعذاب من عنده ، قلت : يا رسول الله ، أما فيهم يومئذ أناس صالحون ؟ قال : بلى ، قلت : كيف يصنع بأولئك ؟ قال : يصيبهم ما أصابهم ثم يصيرون إلى مغفرة من الله ورضوان "

“ ‘If sins become apparent in my Ummah, Allah will surround them with punishment from Him’ I(Umm Salamah) said, “O Allah's Messenger! Will they have righteous people among them then?' He said, “Yes.” I asked, `What will happen to them?' He said,They will be striken as the people, but they will end up with Allah's forgiveness and pleasure.'' [Ahmad 6/304]

So the way for us to move forward and gain Allah’s favor is to be patient, enjoin the good and forbid the evil and do what we are able to do. I cannot stress enough going back to the Quran and constantly reading it because indeed the way to happiness and security in this dunyah is found even in the smallest suwar like suratul Asr.

May Allah guide us. May Allah make us from those who are patient, constantly repentant, the thankful, and obedient.

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travel200899 · 4 years

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A glimpse into a jam-packed day! It was the day to discover the man island of Kalsoy. Woke up early enough, filled our tummies and we headed off to Klaskvik on the neighbouring island of Bordoy. It’s advisable to get to the ferry station early enough as the ferry only holds about 16/17 vehicles. The first row is for the citizens and the 2-3-4 for the tourists, buses, etc. We got in 2 hours prior to our departure time of 10 am. Got over to the island in less than 20 mins. Getting off the Ferry was quite something. The cars are lined in a very specific way as they are gestured in by the ferryman. The same way they are instructed in, they are instructed out.

Exploring Klaksvik before boarding the ferry station on the opposite side

Well, we were waiting for our turn but then this car lined parallel behind us decided he wanted to get out first. The ferryman gestured us to wait and started instructing this white Toyota out. When the car came neck to neck with us, we realized there was no driver in it. The ferryman noticed it at the same time as us. With his two hands holding the car in place, while his colleague went around looking for the driver of this white Toyota, he gave us a little head nod of disbelief. Of course, it was a woman!! I had predicted it, I am a woman, yes and I am going to say this. Women are the worse drivers ever. They won’t cause crashes but they will, however, cause daft mistakes that might lead to a blunder and they probably wouldn’t even know of the damage they caused coz they will be so oblivious. Miss Curley tops came down and finally turns off her engine and put her car in park! Our side-view mirror barely managed to live.. and we decided to stay the hell away from her and drove out, on our way over to to the village of Trollanes ( way up north).

Parked the car in the tiny village and hiked our way over to the Kallut lighthouse. The weather was treacherous and the hike fairly intermediate. let’s just say it kept us on our toes with the heavy winds either pushing us forward or pulling us back. We were at the lighthouse in less than 45 mins… couldn’t stay long as there was no point being slapped mercilessly by the winds. Enroute I met this black sheep, who by far is the most defiant little creature I met. Normally you can never get in very close proximity of sheep, I was convinced that he was blind as I was in touching distance – almost at an arm’s length from him. He definitely wasn’t blind as whenever I would extend my arm out to touch him or even gesture to touch him, he would move an inch backward but would never keep his eyes off me.

Clicked this picture right in his face, no zoom needed- he was quite brazen, or maybe it was me Afterall, I was the one visiting his territory!

We had a face-off and in the end, we both decided that it was enough time wasted at staring at each other. The lighthouse hike is lovely, it is short enough and keeps your focus all throughout as certain areas need your attention and skill. Way down was faster and of course easy enough and it was time to head over and say hello to the Selkie. The seal woman or the selkie is a steel statue of the seal wife, right on the Mikladalur harbor.

This is the story of the Selkie :

The legend of Kópakonan (the Seal Woman) is one of the best-known folktales in the Faroe Islands.

Seals were believed to be former human beings who voluntarily sought death in the ocean. Once a year, on the Thirteenth night, they were allowed to come on land, strip off their skins and amuse themselves as human beings, dancing and enjoying themselves.

A young farmer from the village of Mikladalur on the northern island of Kalsoy, wondering if this story was true, went and lay in wait on the beach one-Thirteenth evening. He watched and saw the seals arriving in large numbers, swimming towards the shore. They clambered on to the beach, shed their skins and laid them carefully on the rocks. Divested of their skins, they looked just like normal people. The young lad stared at a pretty seal girl placing her skin close to the spot where he was hiding, and when the dance began, he sneaked up and stole it. The dancing and games went on all night, but as soon as the sun started to peep above the horizon, all the seals came to reclaim their skins to return to the sea. The seal girl was very upset when she couldn’t find her skin, though its smell still lingered in the air, and then the man from Mikladalur appeared holding it, but he wouldn’t give it back to her, despite her desperate entreaties, so she was obliged to accompany him to his farm.

He kept her with him for many years as his wife, and she bore him several children, but he always had to make sure that she didn’t have access to her skin. He kept it locked up in a chest to which he alone had the key, a key which he kept at all times on a chain attached to his belt.

One day, while he was out at sea fishing with his companions, he realized he had left the key at home. He announced to his companions, ‘Today I shall lose my wife!’ – and he explained what had happened. The men pulled in their nets and lines and rowed back to the shore as fast as they could, but when they arrived at the farm, they found the children all alone and their mother was gone. Their father knew she wasn’t going to come back, as she had put out the fire and put away all the knives so that the young ones couldn’t do themselves any harm after she’d left.

Indeed, once she had reached the shore, she had put on her sealskin and plunged into the water, where a bull seal, who had loved her all those years before and was still waiting for her, popped up beside her. When her children, the ones she had had with the Mikladalur man, later came down to the beach, a seal would emerge and look towards the land; people naturally believed that it was the children’s mother. And so the years passed.

Then one day it happened that the Mikladalur men planned to go deep into one of the caverns along the far coast to hunt the seals that lived there. The night before they were due to go, the man’s seal wife appeared to him in a dream and said that if he went on the seal hunt in the cavern, he should make sure he didn’t kill the great bull seal that would be lying at the entrance, for that was her husband. Nor should he harm the two seal pups deep inside the cave, for they were her two young sons, and she described their skins so he would know them. But the farmer didn’t heed the dream message. He joined the others on the hunt, and they killed all the seals they could lay their hands on. When they got back home, the catch was divided up, and for his share, the farmer received the large bull seal and both the front and the hind flippers of the two young pups.

In the evening, when the head of the large seal and the limbs of the small ones had been cooked for dinner, there was a great crash in the smoke-room, and the seal woman appeared in the form of a terrifying troll; she sniffed at the food in the troughs and cried the curse: ‘Here lies the head of my husband with his broad nostrils, the hand of Hárek and the foot of Fredrik! Now there shall be revenge, revenge on the men of Mikladalur, and some will die at sea and others fall from the mountain tops until there be as many dead as can link hands all round the shores of the isle of Kalsoy!’

When she had pronounced these words, she vanished with a great crash of thunder and was never seen again. But still today, alas, it so happens from time to time that men from the village of Mikladalur get drowned at sea or fall from the tops of cliffs; it must, therefore, be feared that the number of victims is not yet great enough for all the dead to link hands around the whole perimeter of the isle of Kalsoy. THE END

In the evening we decided to explore the village of Leirvik, a neighbouring village to Nordagota which is where we are staying. Enjoying the ice cream and walking through the tiny streets admiring the Faroese way of living and discussing their charm and hospitality. The evening was then spent in the company of my Faroese friend – Flovin who is an aspiring YouTuber, the best one by far. Here is the link:-

youtube

For a kid who is hardly 10 years of age, he is extremely gifted in editing and putting together a video. I think he did a fine job. Please like and encourage.

I think I found heaven on earth

The Faroe Islands diary Day 4 A glimpse into a jam-packed day! It was the day to discover the man island of Kalsoy.

#black sheep #bordoy #earth #ferry #flovin #heaven #hikes #kallut #klaksvik #kopakonan #legend #lighthouse #mikladalur #nordagota #sealskin #selkie #the faroe islands #trollanes #youtube

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feral-space-faerie · 7 years

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Maiden, Crone, and when the Mother doesn't matter

To start off this post, I think it's important to say that many aspects go into the paths of everyone. Some people may not have the same aspects included in their path, but that doesn't mean that they don't have a place. Many things have driven my path away from the standard/common ones, and at times it can make things incredibly lonely. It can also make my path the subject of judgment in spaces where multiple paths are supposed to be safe. But I have not, and will not let it stop me from living my life.

No matter your Pagan background, most of us are familiar with the feminine 3 of Maiden, mother, and crone. Mostly used by wiccans, eclectics , and neopagans, but of course numerous other sections of pagans and witches use this. To the point where if your on a public forum it can be hard to escape from this phrase.

I'll be blunt, the mother isn't in my path. Not in the slightest.

I've had people, for the most part men and older women, tell me I wasn't a pagan because of this, because paganism is a "fertility based faith", and because of that suppose it fact it drove the spirituality behind it. Of course, I disagree with that.

I am childfree. The reality of my life in situation is that I'm glad my ankles will never swell, my boobs won't swell up and then sag, I won't balloon and be miserable for nine months, and then spend 18 years with someone constantly needing me, or potentially hating me, and I'll never be or feel obligated to associate with "that" Facebook mom who annoys literally everyone on the planet, even other mothers, with her constant pictures of how beautiful her baby is, how much they love their child, how their life was nothing before their child, Etc. I worked two years and a daycare center, and through most of my teen years babysat. Before I did that I knew I didn't want to have children, I knew that definitely when I was 12. And then after those experiences I realized that I didn't want to do either of those things ever again. I do not have, or live with children, and I haven't for about 4 years now and I absolutely love it.

The childfree choice was one that I had made many years ago, however, it wasn't always a steady decision. However, when the decision changed, it wasn't my own. I had no control. I was in a relationship for six and a half years, and lived through lots of domestic abuse of varying types. For instance, during those 6 years there were two times when I was 95% sure that I was pregnant. And I got horribly sick both times, but was refused medical treatment from both my partner and my partner's family because I was "just sick with a bad flu" and would "snap out of it in no time". Both times I took pregnancy tests and was pregnant. My partner wanted to have children but no I didn't, and I believe that that was why he would never take me to the doctor. He was the only one with a car. And if I argued about wanting children he would threaten to tell everybody that I was pregnant, because supposedly I needed to know how they felt about the subject before I could decide what I wanted to do with my life. During the last two years of that time I got pregnant again. And I terminated that pregnancy. The reason being, I got myself to the ER. I've been pregnant for about two months, and two ultrasound methods couldn't see the fetus, I was told it was very likely that if I kept it it would have made your birth defects, it wasn't growing, I was unable to eat, drink, be hydrated in any way except for being hooked up in the hospital room, in short it was extremely problematic. Not only all of this, but I did not want to have his child, for most of our relationship I resented any intimacy from him. I had extreme anxiety and self hatred and disgust daily until I was able to formally terminate the pregnancy. I've never felt so relieved in my life when it was over.

After all that I saw doctor again who basically said, " your body doesn't do its job properly, we don't know why. We're surprised you became pregnant in the first place considering everything. It's highly unlikely that you'll ever be able to become pregnant again."

Yes, I am childfree, by choice. But that was something that still stung. When you go through life not wanting to be a parent and being told that you'll change your mind, you'll meet someone who makes you want to have children, develop maternal instincts eventually, and then all of a sudden you have somebody telling you that you can't... It still feels like somebody else is trying to make your choice for you or trying to convince you to sway one way or the other. And it's a hard thing to go through regardless because either way you feel like an outsider and that something is wrong with you, because it isn't the majority's opinion.

On a side note before we continue, childfree does not equal childless. However both terms technically fit my experience at this point.

Another thing that affected my choice to be childfree was the fact that I am a part of the lgbtqia+ community. This has also affected my place in paganism, because people like to think in Polar Opposites. Man and woman, sun and moon, everything is binary and gendered, and focused on the cycle of life. People like to tell me that my asexuality is against nature, and that I'm simply ignoring my urges. Ignoring urges and not having sexual intercourse is celibacy, not a sexuality. Celibates choose this life, I did not. On the asexual Spectrum I fall under something called acosexuality, which by definition is someone who sexuality has been permanently affected or changed by past sexual abuse. I was asexual before the abuse, and after it changed me and pushed me even farther from what Society demanded I be.

Back to the binary, man-woman thing, I get it, some people believe that there's only two genders. I do not. Regardless of what I believe, I'm gender-fluid. And I'm only fluid by the standard two genders that most people recognize. So either way it doesn't matter. Essentially I don't feel like a woman a lot of the time, at least not a standard woman. Which in part could be related to why I don't want children, however I don't think that really matters.

I've been told by pagans and non pagans alike that I would change my mind, that I would die sad and alone, that I was selfish, that I was a useless woman, and that I had nothing to live for.

I live for me, I live for my partner whom I love. As far as selfishness goes if you ask anyone who's wanted to be a parent their first words usually are "I wanted". Being self-aware at a young age for what I want out of life isn't selfish, if anything it's selfless to consider it ahead of time, and before it's too late. I see it this way, think about all the people who shouldn't breed but I've done it anyway, and ruin the lives of the children in the process? I refuse to be one of them. I don't particularly like children, even the well-behaved ones. Yes some children are cute. Most of the time they're known to make me feel irrationally angry a lot of the time anyway. There's many other things to do with my life besides dropping my dreams and goals just to create spawn, writing novels, learning languages, engaging in art and music, traveling the world, there's too many other engaging in fulfilling options in life to the point where it shouldn't be assumed that I want or need to have a traditional family. I'd rather do something I love and I'm good at. I would completely resent myself and my children for the rest of my existence. If I decided I wanted to have children because I might simply regret it or be alone on my deathbed, then I'd only be choosing that choice out of fear and not love, and as rational people understand, that's no way to make huge life decisions. I could regret having kids as much as I could regret not having them. Regretting the existence of children after having them outweighs the potential small regret from not having them, in my opinion because then it would be their lives that I was still responsible for.

There's other reasons that I don't want to have children, I don't owe you any of these reasons but I'm offering them anyway because I know that some of you will still disagree with me. But my mental health has been in a horrible State most of my life. I'm simply mentally ill most of the time my brain gets sick very easy and I don't think that's a good thing to have going on all of the time when you have children, not to mention my partner also deals with mental health issues. Aside from the fact the cost of raising children in the state of my generation isn't something that makes me think that this is a good place for a family. How does paganism truly fit into all of this? Do I still have a pagan family? Do I have a family at all?

When I was told that I would probably never have children I did get depressed for a while, simply because it was no longer my choice. Paganism and spirituality helped me accept that. Most of my path focuses on ancestral practices and worship, and Family Focus. My path is still beautiful, and I'm still a useful human, because my fertility is not who I am. I am a Divine being in my own right, and deserve the same respect as anyone who chooses to live the life of a parent, because being a parent or not being a parent doesn't give anyone leverage over the other in life. They're simply different Lifestyles, and I believe that both should be celebrated, not judged or attacked by others.

If I wanted to be judged or attacked by the opinions of others I would have remained where I was, going through the motions and pretending that I like the life I lived, that I liked pretending that I believed in the Christian God, pretending that I liked the abusive relationship I was in, pretending that everything was fine when it wasn't, pretending to be somebody I didn't even know. I left all of that behind, and I won't let anyone drag me through the mud over making my life better for myself. Self improvement is important, and even though the way I improve myself isn't the same way as others, it's still a good way. A way that works for me better thananything else has.

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r3almellow · 7 years

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Nothing More Chapter 10

A/N: I’d like to thank everyone who has reviewed and those who have stuck around for so long. This is the first time I have written a fanfic that has made it to 10 chapters! Your support motivates me to keep pushing forward with my story! Thank you so much!

Rating: M

Ship: NaLu

Series: Fairy Tail

Chapter 9

xxx

The car ride was filled with silence that almost felt suffocating. Why did Natsu have to go and say that?! Dan was probably ready to press charges if her impulsive best friend decided to carry out his “promise.” Then she would have to bail him out, scold him, and threaten to never talk to him again. Lucy knew he’d probably beg for her forgiveness, but would commit attempted murder all over again.

That was Natsu in a nutshell.

Dan broke the silence. “It seems Dragneel hasn’t changed much.”

She laughed and gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry about that. He’s just a little overprotective.” Overprotective might have been an understatement. Gray and Erza were overprotective, but Natsu? There was always a hint of jealousy radiating out of him when it came to Dan.

Natsu was in a happy relationship, so maybe jealousy wasn’t the word for it. Was the idea of someone else taking up her time, something that he couldn’t handle?

Dan chuckled, his eyes still focused on the road. “Nothing wrong with that. It shows just how much he cares for you.”

While that was true, Natsu still carried some sort of grudge against the man.

It was then her mind ran back to just moments before Dan showed up at her apartment. Natsu was trying to tell her something, but in all honesty Lucy was too caught up in her own fears to listen. She knew it was something serious and she could feel it in her heart that what he had to say would change the dynamics of their relationship.

Lucy wasn’t ready to deal with that.

“Are you okay?” She heard Dan ask.

She caught him stealing a few worried glances in her direction.

Lucy only smiled and nodded. “Yeah, its just been a while since I’ve been to one of these.”

“A party?” He questioned.

Lucy shook her head. “No, a party is meant to be a place of fun, friends, and laughter. This event is meant to be nothing more than a competition to see who has the most money and who can get the most dirt on a person.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been to such an event, but I don’t remember them being that unbearable.”

“Trust me when I say it’s a nightmare. I remember when my parents were called unfit because they decided to let me go to school in the city instead of being home schooled. All because nosey people wanted to know how “little Lucy” was doing.” She sighed heavily at the memory.

“Yikes.”

“It’s part of the reason why my family and I took ourselves out of that lifestyle,” she said flatly.

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that tonight. Anyone who tries something will have to deal with yours truly.”

Lucy smiled softly. “Thanks.”

He smiled back at her as they pulled up in front of a brightly lit mansion.

Getting inside the Orland home was easier than getting valet parking. Once inside Lucy was complete awe of the place. She had forgotten how much money the Orland’s put into their annual event. From a live band to the detailed ice sculpture of Magnolia’s famous Sakura tree in the middle of the room.

The Orlands really knew how to go all out.

“Legion Corps Vice-Captain and Heartfilia Heiress an item?” On most days Lucy would be ready to chew out the person who dared make any sort of accusation about her, but she was all smiles when she was met with her co-worker Jason.

She waved at him. “Hey, Jason! I didn’t know you were working the event tonight.”

“You think I’d miss the Orland’s try to bounce back after what happened? I’m lucky enough to get the opportunity.” He was right. The press were outside in droves, but only a select few were allowed inside.

Probably to minimize any false news circling the air.

Jason holds up his camera. “Mind if I get a picture of you and your date?”

Lucy and Dan happily obliged as Jason began to take a few pictures. He wasn’t the only one as a few others managed to follow his lead. No doubt these pictures would make it online articles and magazines. She can already feel a call from her father coming in within the next few hours.

Lucy could hear a few murmurs from press and guests alike as they stared at her and Dan. Let the rumors begin…

Just as Lucy was ready to glare daggers at the people an announcement of the hostess’ presence towards the stairs.

At the top of the staircase stood Minerva clad in a blue tight fitting dress. Next to her stood a tall man with blonde long hair. Lucy quickly deduced that, that was fashion designer Rufus Lore. He was known as the youngest designers, getting his start with Sabertooth Collections as a teenager. Lucy remembered his early years were filled with other designers claiming he stole his work. Claims that were never proven.

Minerva looked out into the crowd and cleared her throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending our annual charity event. As you all know, my father could not be here tonight to grace you with his presence.”

‘Because he’s a drug dealer.’ Lucy thought.

“While he may not be here, I hope to represent the company to the best of my abilities. Do not forget that we will taking donations for various orphanages such as “The Rosemary Children’s Association.” Sabertooth Collections as well as the Orland family, hope to give the children of Fiore a bright future and we need your help to make that happen. Aside from that, the night is young and all the champagne won’t stay chilled for much longer. Please enjoy the festivities.”

The crowd clapped as Minerva was escorted down the flight of stairs by Rufus. It didn’t the woman long to spot Lucy and Dan in the sea of people. She broke apart from Rufus who disappeared into the crowd and with a few graceful strides, Minerva was at their side.

Lucy sensed a few of the press snapping photos near them. Yep, she was definitely getting a call from her father.

“Mr. Straight, I’m so glad you could make it!” Minerva says offering him a handshake.

Dan shook her hand with a charming smile. “I was honored when you sent me the invitation, Ms. Orland.”

Minerva glanced at Lucy as if she was just now noticing her. She was scanning Lucy from head to toe as if she was trying to find a way to make some backhanded comment about her appearance.

While she’d like to comfortable shorts and a t-shirt any day of the week, fashion was something Lucy never played around with when it was time to get serious.

Minerva pulled Lucy in gave her a cheek to cheek kiss. “I’m so glad you were able to make it, Lucy. Tell me, how is your mother’s health?” Oh, right. That lie was still a thing.

“She’s better, thanks.” She needed to change the subject.

Lucy looked at Minerva then at Dan. “I didn’t realize you two actually knew each other.”

“Mr. Straight has been working closely with us to create the Legion Corps’ new line of tactical uniform. We have yet to really discuss the details with the public, but I believe within the next few weeks an announcement should be made.” Minerva said proudly.

Dan chimed in. “Our collaboration was part of the reason I came back to Magnolia. You’d be surprised to see the ideas we came up with within a week. I’m almost sad I have to leave. I would have loved to dive deeper into that beautiful brain of yours just a little longer, Ms. Orland.”

Was that flirting Lucy sensed? It was easy to forget Dan had a tendency of being a smooth talker, but one would think that after all these years he would turn it down.

Minerva waved him off. “You’re far too kind. The companies research team deserves all of the credit.”

The conversation was cut short when Rufus came in and informed Minerva that other people requested her presence. She politely excused herself from the two and disappeared into the crowd.

“How about we start off this night with a dance?” Dan offered as he bowed with a stretched-out hand.

Lucy giggled and took his hand in hers. “Of course.”

The sounds of jazz music echoed from live band as Dan gently pulled Lucy onto the floor. It took no time for Lucy to find herself in his embrace as they slowly moved with the music.

“Reminds me of our first dance.” He says in a quiet tone.

Lucy looked up at him confused. “Our first dance?”

“Back in college. You were so upset that night and all I wanted to do was make you smile again. Do you remember?”

How could she forget?

Xxx

Lucy had just finished working on a big assignment for her Multimedia Reporting class. She had spent the last few hours analyzing the same audio files of the big Second Trade war. Lucy had listened to those files so many times that when she heard the loud music blasting from the fraternity house as she made her way inside, it almost sounded foreign.

Lucy had no intentions of going to any sort of party after the busy week she had. On a good day, she would have no problem partying with her friends, but there came a time when a girl needed to be alone. She was ready to hit the sheets and read her favorite novel “A Cursed Love.” A book she never knew she needed until Levy presented it to her as a gift.

Surprisingly, it was Levy that had been the one to finally drag the blonde out of her dorm after countless hours of pleading and promising to help her study for her Spanish exam that was to come in the next few days. That girl was lucky Lucy loved her dearly or her butt would have stayed home.

Lucy threw on whatever she could find in her closet and wrapped her hair into a bun. It wasn’t her best look, but there was no reason to get dolled up for her current location.

Stepping into the frat house she spotted Natsu through the crowd of people and smiled. Suddenly the tiredness she felt seemed to melt away. He always had that effect on her. He was like a ball of energy that selflessly shared its power with others.

Natsu had offered her a drink and teased her about her low tolerance when she declined. She huffed and attempted to bite him. What else could one do in her situation? Let him slide? Nope! Natsu liked seeing her flustered and she wasn’t having any of it.

Lucy suddenly felt someone wrap and arm around her waist which startled her. She was relieved to see it was Cana who began to pull her away.

Natsu called out for her over the loud music asking to save him a dance and she accepted. A small blush crept up to Lucy’s face and she hoped it went unnoticed as the sight of him disappeared.

It wasn’t the first time the two had danced.

Natsu reluctantly became her test subject once she joined the dance team. Any moves or tricks she wanted to try out, he was her guinea pig. He wasn’t bad at dancing like she believed him to be. He wasn’t perfect, but he was good at following instructions when he wanted to.

This time, however, was different.

He wasn’t helping her with a new routine, he genuinely wanted to dance with her at a party. What if he wanted to dance to a slow song? That meant they’d be close. Really close. He’d have his hands around her waist while hers would be wrapped around his neck. She’d be able to get lost in his eyes as they swayed to the sounds of the music. She’d want to lean up and kiss him before any second thoughts cloud her mind.

The desire to ask him to go back to her dorm with her with hopes he’d comply, would have lingered as she slowly pulled away from him.

The idea of what could transpire between the two caused the pink blush surrounding her cheeks changed to red.

Maybe reading nothing but romance novels was bad for your health.

“Having naughty thoughts?”

Lucy was brought out from her thoughts and was met with a devious smirk from Cana.

“N-no!”

“Right and I’m not tipsy.” Cana mused.

If she was, it was hard to tell. Cana could fake being sober if she wanted. She was a master drinker and could drink anyone under the table. Many have tried and failed miserably to beat the brunette.

A habit that Lucy sometimes envied yet disliked at the same time.

“Did you need me for something?” Lucy asked quickly changing the subject.

“As a matter a fact I did!” Cana pulls out her phone and grins.

“I want you to take pictures with me so that asshole of an ex-boyfriend I have can see how much fun I’m having without him.”

“Trying to make him jealous?” Lucy asked.

Cana scrunched up her face in disgust. “Hell no! If he sees me having the time of my life with someone else and gets jealous then that’s his problem. I just want to prove that I don’t need his dick to be happy.”

“Wouldn’t a guy be better suited for that? Gray, maybe? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” Juvia on the other hand…

“You’re much cuter than Gray and it gives me an excuse to do this!” Without a moment’s notice, Cana pounces on Lucy earning her a small squeak from the young Heartfilia. A second later Lucy heard the small click of a camera and evil laugh from Cana.

“Don’t we look so cute together!” Cana exclaimed as she waved her phone in Lucy’s face. Lucy looked at the phone screen and smiled. Cana had an arm wrapped around Lucy, who was in mid smile as her friend leaned in for kiss.

“You tried to kiss my cheek?” Lucy questioned.

“I was aiming for your lips, but I guess I’ll have to try harder next time.” Cana winks.

Lucy rolled her eyes at her friend’s teasing. Cana was never one to hide her sexuality and she was rather bold. No matter who you are, if she found you sexually attractive you were going to know about it.

Cana snickered. “I’m only teasing! Besides, I know a certain soccer player who would kill for a kiss from you!”

Lucy laughed nervously and waved off her friend’s accusations. “Natsu doesn’t like me in that way.”

There was no use in denying her feelings for Natsu. Most of her friends knew long before she even came to terms with it. However, there was no way Natsu would ever think of her as anything more than a friend. In the years that she has known him, there was no indication that he was remotely attracted to her the way she was to him.

Cana’s eyes widened and looked as if someone took the last bottle of beer. “Are you kidding me? He’s Lucysexual!”

Lucy’s looked at the brunette quizzically. “Lucysexual?”

Cana looked at her friend with a smug expression. “Erza and I made it up! He’s attracted to hot blondes, with big boobs and have the name Lucy Heartfilia.”

“Th-that’s not true!” She yelled.

Lucy would have expected Cana to come up with such a ridiculous word, but Erza?

Levy soon appeared with Juvia following close behind. “Are we trying to convince Lucy that Natsu likes her, because I’m all for that.”

Lucy made no effort to hide the betrayal she felt. “You’re supposed to back me up here!”

Levy shrugged as she took another sip of her drink. “I’m not going to lie. The two of you were always joined at the hip. He’s possessive of you and will probably kill the next guy who looks in your direction.”

Lucy wasn’t sure why she was looking sympathy from Levy. She would join forces with the pink haired man when it came to teasing Lucy. High school was all fun and games until her two close friends found a common interest and that was poking fun at her.

“I wouldn’t say possessive and Gray would do the same! I don’t see you guys throwing him on me!” Lucy eyed Juvia, hoping that the woman would agree with her comparison.

“Juvia used to think of Lucy as a love rival, but it is clear who her heart belongs to.” Ah, yes, the wonderful “Love Rival” phase that started at the beginning of their friendship. It took a while for Lucy to convince Juvia there was nothing going on between her and Gray.

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Why do I even bother?”

Cana thought to herself for a moment and then her devious smirk returned. That was never a good sign. “Why don’t we test this theory?”

Levy raised an eyebrow. “What are you proposing?”

“Natsu asked Lucy to dance. If a slow song comes on and he shows up that means our lovable pink haired friend totally has the hots for her.”

“I don’t thin-“ Lucy began, but was immediately interrupted by Levy.

Levy clapped her hands together and smiled brightly. “That sounds perfect!”

“How are we sure a slow song will play?” Juvia asked.

Cana looked at the DJ and grinned. “You leave that to me. I just need you two to be good little distractions and get those two away from Natsu.” She pointed behind the women.

The women looked over to find Gajeel, Gray and the man of the hour drinking.

“Piece of cake!” Levy said.

Lucy seemed to be the only one against the plan. “Hold on! Don’t I have a say in this?”

“Nope.” Cana said simply.

Lucy gave Juvia one last look, hoping to get through to her friend. “Juvia, you’re not going to go along with this?

“If this is a plan that involves Juvia getting close to her darling Gray then she is ready.” There was determination in Juvia’s eyes as she responded.

Lucy didn’t know what she expected.

“I’m going to go talk to the DJ. You guys get in position.” Cana orderd.

The three women broke away from Lucy to commence their plan. It didn’t long for Levy to drag Gajeel off and Gray was so busy with Juvia clinging on to him that Natsu was left on his own. Lucy looked over at Cana who was flirting with the DJ and whispering who knew what into her ear. The DJ blushed and nodded at Cana.

In no time, Cana made her way back over to Lucy.

“You’re up after this song. Go find him and make sure he asks you to dance.”

Find him? Wasn’t he…?

When Lucy turned her attention back to Natsu, all she found the space he had occupied filled by another person.

Lucy looked around. “Where did he go?”

“I saw him heading outside. Better hope he doesn’t leave.”

Lucy sighed. If her friends went through all this trouble just for her, she might as well go through with the plan, right?

Cana gave her a thumbs up as Lucy walked away.

What was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t like she was going to confess right then and there. He was just going to dance with her to a song…a slow song…possibly a love song.

Lucy’s legs started to shake and her confident stride across the room didn’t feel so confident.

This might have been a mistake.

Before Lucy could back out, she found herself opening the door and suddenly she wished she backed out of this sooner.

Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach at the scene that unfolded before her. Natsu was there with his lips pressed against Lisanna Strauss, who seemed to be really into the kiss.

Lucy was aware of Lisanna’s crush on Natsu. She was subtle about it, but if you paid attention Lisanna’s interactions with him, figuring out her feelings for him was a no brainer.

There was always a small pang of jealousy Lucy felt whenever Lisanna and Natsu were together. Whether if it was for a project or them casually hanging out, the sight of the two left a bitter taste in Lucy’s mouth.

Lucy begun to slowly understood Juvia’s jealousy earlier on her friendship.

To say Lucy was shocked wasn’t the best word. Heartbroken? Upset? There were so many words that could describe how she felt.

Natsu has never shown any interest in Lisanna, that Lucy could notice, so why in the world was this happening?

Maybe there was a spark between the two she was just too blind to see. An attraction that was so strong that Lucy could never begin to understand.

Not wanting to be spotted she closed the door gently and leaned up against it to keep herself steady.

Lucy felt the urge to cry. Her eyes burned as the tears formed and it took everything within her to choke back a sob.

She knew she was fool for believing that Cana’s plan would work. She was even more foolish for thinking he was interested in her in the slightest.

Her internal meltdown was interrupted when she heard her name being called.

She quickly wiped away a stray tear before looking up at the person. It was Dan Straight. “H-hey, Dan. I didn’t see you there.” Lucy blinked back the tears a little confused. She half expected Cana to be in front of her ready to eavesdrop, but the sight of Dan threw her off guard completely.

They had crossed paths a few times, but not enough for her to know him that well.

“Are you okay?” He seemed genuinely worried.

“Yes, I’m just a bit stressed. I was hoping coming here would relieve that, but I guess I was wrong.” Dan looked at her for moment. Lucy knew he could sense there was more to her story and whatever it was, was happening right outside that door.

“Dance with me.”

For the second time that night, he caught her off guard. “No, I-“

He puts up a hand to stop her.

“I will have none of that. Let me take your mind off of whatever it is. I’m not the most skilled dancer, but I can at least try to make you smile.” He held out his hand.

He was sweet, she had to give him that.

Lucy contemplated for a second.

She could decline, go home and possibly cry herself to sleep. The idea was tempting, but then she’d have to devise an escape plan because going out the front door was not an option.

That was too much work for an already emotionally tired mind.

The other option was to accept Dan’s offer. There was nothing wrong with dancing with him. From what she’s heard Dan was a nice guy and didn’t seem like a complete creep compared to most of the drunk partygoers.

Lucy smiled halfheartedly and took the young man’s hand.

Dan pulled her onto the dance floor pushing through the crowd of people.

Cana was the first to spot Lucy and her expression mirrored that of her other friend’s as she passed them. Confusion.

They didn’t know what had transpired moments before this moment. They didn’t know how hurt she was, but she would tell them and they’d understand.

At least, she hoped they would.

When the song started, Dan pulled her close and gently swayed to the sound of a guitar emitting from the speakers.

She closed her eyes in hopes to block out the stares she received, but the feeling of holes boring into her wouldn’t go away.

She tried to take her mind off it by listening to the music and listening to the rhythm of Dan’s heartbeat as she rested her head against his chest. It worked for a few seconds until she heard the faint sound of Gray’s voice. She could have sworn she heard him call out for the young man that currently plagued her thoughts.

When the song ended she politely thanked Dan and walked away. Not even a second later Cana pulled her over to the side still in complete shock. Levy and Juvia soon joined her their expressions unchanging. Lucy told them what she had seen and their faces forming into a mix of sadness and sympathy.

Lucy decided to head home after that. She didn’t see Natsu or Lisanna for that matter, but it was probably for the best.

As the days went by Lucy spent most of her time working towards getting an internship with Sorcerer Weekly, her dream job.

Lucy knew that this was an excuse to avoid Natsu which was the hardest thing to do. Being a part of extracurricular activities that sometimes-crossed paths with the soccer player and sharing the same circle of friends made things very difficult.

Natsu was the first to give up the charade and did all he could to move forward with their friendship. Even when she insisted she was busy, he would want to be “busy” with her. It took Lucy some time, a day and a half to be exact, until she started feeling comfortable around him again.

The image of him kissing Lisanna, never left her, however. That was something that would take her a while to get over.

Whenever Natsu wasn’t around Dan seemed to make his presence known to Lucy quite frequently. He would visit her after practice and walked her from class to class every chance he got.

Shortly after he asked her out on a date. Her friends thought it was a bad idea, but what was the harm?

Lucy thought that by agreeing to be his girlfriend would rid her of any feelings she might have had for Natsu.

Oh how wrong she was.

When senior year rolled in, Lucy had gotten accepting as intern for Sorcerer Weekly and got herself an apartment that was close to her new job. Dan had left for about a month and a half to start his military training, which left Lucy alone. Well, not completely alone.

She always managed to find Natsu either rummaging through her kitchen or passed out with Happy on her bed. The first few times she would scold him and wonder how he managed to get in without a key, but she quickly got used to him being there.

She got to see more of him, so she couldn’t complain too much.

Lucy would never admit it, but she loved coming home to Natsu.

She loved scolding him for leaving a mess or for breaking into her apartment. She loved being able to cook for him and Happy. She loved seeing a smile on his face when he asleep and wrapped up in her sheets. She loved how he always looked as if he had the best sleeps in her bed.

She loved him.

The time Natsu spent at her place caused the feelings she had for him to make its way back to the forefront. It was as if her efforts to push away her feelings and be happy with Dan went down the drain.

Lucy would be lying if she said she was excited when Dan returned. Natsu grew busy with his firefighter training and didn’t come over as much. Dan was still the charming prince that showered her with compliments, affection, and so much more, but it wasn’t enough.

Not long after, Natsu announced that he and Lisanna were dating. It made her blood boil.

Lucy couldn’t understand why.

She was in a good place with her boyfriend and yet the thought of Natsu being with someone else still managed to make her feel envious.

There was a huge part of her that couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but jealousy. The feelings she had weren’t fair. It wasn’t fair to Dan, Natsu or Lisanna and yet she still had them.

By the time Lucy was ready to put her jealousy behind her, Dan decided it was best for them to part ways. In a way, Lucy was hurt, but she was more relieved than anything. She didn’t want to continue to hurt Dan without him even knowing.

Now here she was a few years later, still alone and still in love with the same man she’s tried so hard to get over.

Xxx

Dan chuckled causing Lucy to look up at him. “Same old Lucy. You always had your head in the clouds.”

She must have been out of it because they had stopped dancing at some point.

She laughed nervously. “Sorry, I was…trying to figure out what your other reason was for coming back was. Did you have something else to do?”

Dan thought for a moment. “If I’m being completely honest with you, Lucy, I was more eager to see you again.”

Lucy looked at him shocked. “Y-you were?”

“I was afraid that you had moved on and I’d lost any chance I had of seeing your gorgeous face again.” Lucy blinked blankly for a moment to register what he was saying. She could feel her face grow warm.

Dan leaned in to get a good look at her. “You okay? Your face is looking a little red.”

Taking a step back Lucy nodded quickly. “Y-yeah! It just got really hot all of sudden.”

“I’ll get you some water.” Dan escorted Lucy off to the side and ventured into the crowded room in search for a suitable beverage.

Lucy sighed once Dan left. To think one of Dan’s reasons for coming was to see her again. As sweet as it was the thought alone turned her into a bundle of nerves.

“Is that who I think it is?” Lucy immediately perked up at the familiar voice behind her.

“Oh my gosh! Mira?!” Lucy pulled her friend in for tight hug and received one from Mira in return.

“I had no idea you would be here tonight!” Mira exclaimed.

“With what’s been going on with Minerva’s family I thought she could use a friendly face!” Lucy replied. Laxus then appeared behind the two with two glasses in hand. He greeted Lucy with a small nod in her direction and handed her the clear liquid that looked more like water than any form of wine.

“You’re only having water?” Mira wasn’t a lush like Cana, but it just seemed odd that she chose water as her drink of choices. It was then the realization hit Lucy. Her eyes widened as a blush appeared on Mira’s face and Laxus looked away awkwardly.

“Three weeks.” Was all Mira said.

Happiness couldn’t even begin to describe how she felt for Mira and Laxus. She contained her squeals by bringing her hands up to her mouth. “Congratulation!”

Mira’s smile widened. “Thank you! We’re hoping to announce it right after the wedding or at least before I start showing.”

“Your secret is safe with me! Not even my date wi-” Mira interrupted her.

“Date? You have a date? Is it with someone I know?” Mira always enjoyed learning about Lucy’s poor excuse of a love life. Lucy never understood why.

There were times when Mira would joke that Lucy and Natsu looked good together. A thought Lucy already considered.

She started ignoring the woman’s comments right after she suggested that Gray might have a thing for her. Good thing Juvia was nowhere near them at the time.

“You’ve crossed paths with him a few times.” Lucy said.

Mira’s eyes lit up and she eagerly looked around. “Finally! Where’s Natsu?”

Lucy frowned at the question. Why would she think Natsu was here? More importantly, why would she think he was here with her? “Why would I be he-“

“If it isn’t the dazzling Mirajane Strauss and her husband to be.” Dan’s voice sounded behind Lucy as as she felt his arm wrap around her waist.

Mira’s eyes widened in complete shock. Even Laxus looked surprised to see the man “D-Dan, I didn’t know you were back!”

“Not for much longer. Although, if given the right reasons, I might change my mind.” He looked over at Lucy with a warm smile causing her to blush. She heard a faint snort coming from Laxus and turned just in time to see Mira lightly elbow her fiancé in the stomach.

Mira brought a hand up to her mouth and she urgently looked at Laxus. “I’m not feeling too well. Laxus, would you mind escorting me to the restroom?” She gave Lucy a quick hug before pulling Laxus off.

That was weird to say the least.

Dan was the first to speak after the couple’s departure. “I hope she’s alright.”

“I’m sure she is…” Lucy’s words trailed off when her eyes were met with Minerva from across the ballroom floor. She was talking with a group of people when Rufus walked over and whispered in her ear. Minerva’s thoughtful smile she held for most of the night fell.

Minerva gave the guests an apologetic look and if Lucy looked hard enough there was some irritation as well. With a handshake, she walked away from the group of people with Rufus in tow, disappearing around a corner.

Something was up. Minerva was never one to leave a party. In fact, she lived and breathed opportunities that would put her family on the front page. What could possibly pull her away?

Lucy quickly turned to Dan ready to give the good old “I need to powder my nose” excuse, but he beat her to it. He was staring at his phone with annoyance dancing in his eyes.

“I have to make a quick phone call, beautiful. Excuse me.” He didn’t even give her time to answer before he briskly walked off.

‘It must have been important.’ She thought to herself.

Lucy didn’t dwell too much on his abrupt exit as it gave her the chance to figure out what was going on with Minerva.

Just as Lucy was ready to follow the raven-haired woman two men stepped in front of her.

Lucy had forgotten the type of people events like this attracted. Rich people, yes, but most of the guests were questionable, creepy, and snobbish. The two men before her fit all three categories.

Jose Porla and Duke Everlue were a part of one of the richest families in Fiore. One was a billionaire entrepreneur and the other was part of a lineage of authors.

Lucy had only met them a few times through their business with her family. Jose was the one that used to creep her out the most. When her mother was present he made no effort to hide his attraction her. He tried very hard to be the charming stud he wishes he was, but he just came off as pushy. “I never thought I would see the day when a Heartfilia would grace us with their presence again.”

Lucy put on her best smile. “Mr. Porla, it’s been a long time.”

He takes Lucy’s hand, leaning down to gently kiss it. “Please, call me Jose.”

The feeling of the man’s wet kiss and mustache brushing against her skin made Lucy’s skin crawl.

She pulled her hand away with a polite smile. “R-right…”

Jose looked Lucy over and as flattering as it was supposed to be Lucy felt like she was on display. “You have grown up to become quite a sight, my dear. You definitely are Layla Heartfilia’s daughter. Don’t you agree, Everlue?”

Everlue shrugged his shoulders clearly unimpressed by the blonde before him.

“I’ve seen better.” Was the short man’s reply.

Lucy didn’t let his words get to her. The man had weird taste and would call the most beautiful women ugly. Her mother was one of those women who received his harsh critiques.

Lucy smiled to show his words did nothing to her self-esteem. “You’re just as direct as ever Mr. Everlue. I would like to send out my sympathies for the loss of your old library. As a person who avidly visited the facility, it pains me to see the building be tarnished in such a way.”

The man shifted uneasily as if the topic made him uncomfortable. He glanced at Jose for a moment, who seemed to be too distracted by Lucy to even notice. “It doesn’t really matter to me. The building was old and set to be taken down anyway. Someone did me a favor,” he said with trying to show his disinterest.

A pretty indifferent statement for someone who almost had his building burned to the ground. Whether it was going to be torn down or not, that building was what put the Everlue family name on the map. It’s one thing to tear down the building on their own accord, but it’s another when someone else deliberately does it. It should have been unsettling.

Making note of his response, Lucy held her smile. “Of course. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.” Far away from them was very ideal. “Wait!” She felt Jose grab her arm with long, clammy fingers. She flinched at the sudden contact and quickly pulled away.

Jose smiled one of those creepy smiles, as if Lucy wasn’t already weirded out. “I was hoping I could ask you for a dance.”

Not even on his best day would she consider him as a dance partner. “I would love to but I can’t because…because…”

Where the heck was Dan when she needed him? Her eyes darted around the room in hopes to find the missing man, but there wasn’t a trace of him.

Lucy felt a warm hand gently grasp her shoulder and she sighed with relief.

“Because she promised me a dance.” Lucy’s heart leaped out of her chest at the voice.

That didn’t sound anything like Dan. Not even close.

That voice was something she spent years listening to and could point out without having to second guess herself. There was still a sense of hope within her that she was wrong.

Lucy slowly turned her head to the person who now stood by her side and her heart stopped.

This could not be happening.

Next to her stood a tall man wearing a black suit which revealed his white partially unbuttoned shirt. On most people, such an attire would be deemed sloppy or unkempt, but the look was working for him. The next thing Lucy noticed was his jet black spiky hair. It was as normal as any other hair color, but on him it looked so unnatural.

Jose glared and looked the man up and down, as if he was sizing up his competition. “And who might you be, boy?”

The man in question gives Lucy a quick wink and holds out his hand towards Jose.

“Zeref Vermillion at your service.”

Only one thing came to Lucy’s mind.

‘You have got to be kidding me…’

xxx

A/N: Has a new challenger appeared?! Mwahahaha! I hope you guys enjoyed Lucy’s side of the story! I apologize for not coming out with this much sooner! Both my beta and I have become super busy, so please forgive the lateness! As always, please review and stay tuned!

#fairy tail #nalu #nalu fanfiction #fanfiction #natsu #lucy #lucy heartfilia

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