maggicktouched

[maggicktouched]

"In the same way your left hand is obligated to defend the right or your head is loyal to your heart." The fox replied simply. "Like a forest that sprouts from the roots of one tree, I am a part of all natural things, and they are part of me. When they call, I come to answer. When I cry out, they rally around me. It is... complicated for a man to understand."

She sniffed at the herbs he held out to her. Poppy. A drug she had no interest in subjecting herself to, especially not in the company of men she did not trust. The fox drew a breath, and exhaled gently, causing the herbs to wrinkle and dry before crumbling to ash and floating to the ground in the stale air.

"I don't fear pain." She informed him stiffly. Many years of survival in the wilderness, and even more spent at the mercy of her mother's cruelty had twisted her sense of pain. At the very least it had changed how she responded to it. She could pluck arrows from her own leg or stitch up her own wounds without a single peep. The leg held up against her chest now was only there out of an instinctual desire not to further injure herself. She didn't need anything to dull her senses. She could endure.

She always had.

"What a silly question." There was a gentle humor to her chiding. "Yes. I am truly a fox."

It was neither a lie or the whole truth. She did not steal the skin of beasts and wear them as costumes. Learning new forms only came through dedication and understanding. Only when she could truly be the beast could she take its form. Most often, she shifted from form to form depending on what she felt like at the moment, and when she couldn't shift, and her spirit failed to fit her skin, it was terribly painful.

But it wasn't the answer he was actually looking for, and she knew that. She would let him think whatever he wanted. She still couldn't be sure he could be trusted.

Robb's hand faltered on the med-bag. His fingers gripped tightly to the edges of the leather as he felt the voice--a new voice--in his head. It would not be right to say that he heard Grey Wind's voice; it was not something he heard, precisely, just something he understood. There was a connection between them, an unspoken something. He had heard stories of greater magic, of course, but those had always been old wives tales his Nan had told to the kids as bedtime stories. Stories that said the sky was blue because they lived in the eye of a blue eyed giant, stories that told of terrifying white walkers--frozen, skeleton like creatures--that walked beyond the wall, stories of all types of beasts, and of the ladies of red, the dark priestesses. Clearly, his men feared curses. Robb's own mother had believed deeply in what she called 'signs.' When a stag had been found dead in the god's wood, feet from a direwolf, she had believed it a sign that their two houses--the stags of the Baratheons and the direwolves of the Starks--were in grave danger.

But Robb's father had never believed such things; he was a practical man, stern, and logical, and cool-headed. Robb was his parents' son; red-haired and prone to laughter, like his mother; discerning as his father and slow to judgement. But there was no denying what was happening now. The wolf was speaking to him--a voice as clear and poised as any human's, and just as real.

He looked with some surprise at the fox. It was clear in his gaze that he did not fear her, but he was curious, caught off guard. He thought of all the stories he'd ever heard, of things even the maesters and the scholars did not understand, like the ways of the children of the forest, and the age of the dragons.

"Do the other animals come to your aid out of loyalty or obligation?" He was not sure which answer he wanted--nor why it was his first question--perhaps because he still did not know the answer for himself: why did the bannermen, all these soldiers and lords within his camp, follow him? They fought for him and for his father and for their house, but why, truly, had they come when he called?

He reached, first for the milk of the poppy and brought the herbs to her mouth, very aware that she could bite him instead if she so wished. "This will help with the pain," he offered, his palm up. "When I clean the wound, it will sting. I would advise you to take this first." As he grabbed the cleaning supplies and bandages with his other hand, he added, "Are you truly a wolf?"

#burnnouts

[maggicktouched]

Beck watched the dog rip apart the fish raw like any other beast would, but that didn't mean anything. She knew better than anyone that hunger broke pride quickly. Rats, bugs, even trash had been on the menu for her as a child trying to survive in the wilderness---long before she was skilled enough to cook or steal. Anything was better than returning home to her mother. It was a bitter irony that a child born into such overwhelming wealth had spent half her youth starving like a beggar.

The fox shook her head, chasing off that unpleasant trail of thoughts before it could take her too far into the dark recesses of her memory. Her mother was long since dead, and she had the skill to thrive in even the harshest wilderness now. There was no need to dwell on the past. Especially not when she had a big enough problem standing right in front of her.

One fish wouldn't sustain an animal of his size, and rather than leaping into the water to catch his quarry, the mutt simply took a long drink and stared back at her. Useless. She thought to herself. No wonder he's starving. Her tail flicked behind her as she stood and jumped back to her fishing rock in one fluid motion. The moon shone silver on the surface of the water. The shadows of even the largest fish were fleeting and faint. Her eyes, however, were sharp as a knife's edge, and her ears were keener still. She stood perfectly motionless for a few seconds, then thrust her head back under again. The fish writhing in her teeth was not quite as big, but it would do.

She hopped back to shore and set it at his feet.

"For a night, maybe." She replied. There really was something about his voice. She'd heard it before, but not in her head. She decided that if he was going to talk to her, there was no point keeping up the act. "But if you don't hunt, you won't live much longer. This is no place for tame things."

There was something about the creature--something more aware than most Sirius met along the road. It had not taken him long to realize that animal to human communication was not so easy as simply taking the form of the beast you wished to speak with. He might look like a dog, but any real dog he'd seen along the way had known exactly what he was; or, at least, they had known he was no dog, no beast like them. They had smelled the human on him, caught the unfamiliarity with the animal world. And at the end of the day, their languages were not the same. He could bark, but he could not make meaning with those barks anymore than a human could as they attempted to mimic their hound's cries.

And yet, he understood the fox. Was he simply getting better at this, becoming, finally, more animal than man? Or was this fox more than it appeared?

No matter. The creature was small--if a fight came to it, he felt confident he could handle himself. He'd handled a werewolf in this form, after all. But he hoped it wouldn't come to that. He was in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the saying went. He needed help. He needed food.

He followed the fox, tail wagging, as they wove around the creek, traveling beneath the moonlight. Sirius yelped in concern as the fox's head came back from the water, mouth filled with a fish so large, it was a miracle she could hold it upright. But she'd done it, and there it was, flopping at his feet.

Sirius fell upon the fish like the starved animal he'd become. Long gone were the days where he needed food cooked; long gone, even, were the days where he cared what he ate at all. He'd eaten rats, bugs--anything he could get his fangs on--and he would do it again in a heartbeat. After all, he was barely surviving.

When the fish was gone, he drank his fill from the river then looked to the fox. Thank you, he communicated back to her. You've saved my life.

#burnnouts

[maggicktouched]

It's official I'm adding Mei Yin

#i did have a sick url saved but #y'all know i can't run two blogs

[maggicktouched]

The Ark show is so good but I know there will be zero rp fandom for it 😭😭😭😭

#my dinosaur lesbian heart #ooc

[maggicktouched]

Alaskan Red Fox (Vulpes fulva alascensis) on Herschel Island, Yukon, Canada

Photos by Cameron Eckert || CC BY-NC 4.0

#feckin hell;; beck

[maggicktouched]

He does not hurt the innocent.

A vague and unhelpful statement. Innocent of what? One thing she'd learned since finding her way to Westeros was that humans loved laws. There were rules and regulations for everything. Hundreds of them. She'd never bothered to learn any of them, but she was probably guilty of a few. Theft, primarily, but it was likely that witchcraft was a sin among them as well. Humans loathed and craved magic in equal measure. When he found out that talk of spells and curses were more than just superstitious nonsense, would he put her back in that cage?

She watched him over the short distance between them. Beyond the stench of fresh blood and the sword on his hip, he didn't look all that intimidating. He moved slow and quiet, and there was a gentle humor in his tone when he spoke to the wolf.

No. She didn't think he meant to harm her. No man who truly feared magic kept a dire wolf by his side anyway.

'It depends on how gently you treat me.' The fox flicked her tail from side to side, then hobbled forward a handful of painful steps. She was normally a creature of infinite energy, but she ached with exhaustion deep down in her bones. Still, she took care to place the words gently in the human's mind. Feeling another presence in your own mind for the first time could be alarming even for people familiar with magic, and if done carelessly, the spell could be deafeningly loud but impossible to escape. She didn't want to hurt him.

When she was within arm's length, she sank down into a sitting position with her injured leg held aloft.

'I did not curse those men. I was injured and frightened, and the animals tried to help me.' She paused for a moment, her ears trained on the warrior in front of her. 'It is in their nature to come to my aid.'

"Your bravery is noted, Sir Bryant. But you may go. If I die tending to the creature, you may tell the other men you did everything in your power to save me." Biting back a smile, Robb took the supplies from the soldier's hands and knelt back down. The mud splashed up to stain his already blood-soaked trousers. He had left his armor with the blacksmith for repairing, leaving him only in his leather underclothes. This war was the first time in all his life he had gone outside in no more than a tunic and leathers; in the North, such an outfit would have been a death sentence, even in the summer. But there was no snow here for miles, and for the sake of this creature, that was likely a good thing. He could not imagine it traveling far in the snow and ice with a leg like this.

Without his armor, of course, Robb was, however, at risk, should the thing decide to bite him--and especially if it were carrying a disease (or curse, as Sir Bryant seemed so afraid of). But surely he had not come so far, not survived as many battles as he had, to die from a small fox. If that was what the gods had in store for him, then so be it. He had no right calling himself a lord, of leading men into battle, if he was finished off by one creature--and an injured one at that.

As Robb looked through the med-bag, finding the supplies he'd need, Grey Wind sniffed around the fox. No, he said simply. He did not understand what she was, but he knew she was unlike any creature he'd ever met before. Yes. He looked to Robb then back to the fox. He will not harm you. He could not tell the creature that his master was not a killer, for he was--and a skilled one at that. He could not tell her that he was harmless, for Robb's name--and Grey Wind's beside it--was becoming a name feared throughout the land, a name that meant death. But--He does not hurt the innocent.

"What do you think?" Robb mused quietly to Grey Wind. "Do you think I will release the curse when I clean the wound?" he held up a disinfectant. "Or when I wrap it?" He held up the bandages, looking far more amused than he did concerned.

#burnnouts #post type: unformatted

[maggicktouched]

The little witch squealed like a boiling kettle, hopping from one foot to the other before bolting off into the apartment in search of her coat. They were going to the shelter! They were going to get a pet! She missed the closeness she'd had with animals back on her father's ranch, no matter how happy she was with Dana.

She wrestled with her little blue coat until it was technically on her body, and pulled on her shoes. Her frantic fingers made an awful mess of knots out of the laces, but she was too excited to notice. The second they were secure, she hopped up and ran back down the hall to find Dana.

"Mom!" A few short months ago, that word had never left her lips. She'd have never called Mother that. Now it came to her as easy as breathing. "Mom! Mom! I'm ready! Are you ready?!"

"I'm thirty-six," Dana answered, "heading for thirty-seven. Which is a lot more years than you," she added with a smile. Thirties weren't old by any stretch of anybody's imagination, but to a little girl who'd only been in this world for a few short years, your mid-thirties seemed like an entire eternity away.

"Yeah, we can go today," she reiterated, smiling widely at the undeniable excitement in Beck's eyes, the way that in that moment she looked no different than any other little girl her age. "Usually what they have is dogs and cats, sometimes birds or mice and rats, maybe a tortoise. The only real way to find out what they have is to go there," she told her, deliberately leading the little girl. She bit her lip, pausing a little in her affectionate amusement.

"Why don't you go get your coat and shoes and we'll drive down there?"

#if I had to describe tiny beck's personality I could do it with just !!!!!! #she's so excitable lmao #ladiesandwitches

[maggicktouched]

Well I want to write but I got like crazy sick in the last 24 hours. I'm gonna cry. Whatever.

#ooc

[maggicktouched]

I used to be able to write like 5k a night and have to force myself to stop. Now 20 minutes and one reply later in like shit I'm going to bed 😭😂

#i spend the last two days binging Heaven Official's Blessing #now I'm obsessed

[maggicktouched]

She eyed the gleaming blade as it slipped back into its sheathe. It did not soothe her anxious thoughts, but at least if he wanted to slice her in two, she had a couple of seconds to try and bolt. A heavy sigh of relief and exhaustion left her, and the hackles on her neck slowly smoothed back down. With her injured foot held to her chest, she hobbled to the cracked door and pressed her nose through. The bent hinge on the door whined in protest, but opened enough to let her limp out of her prison. As unpleasant as being surrounded by strange humans and the scent of blood and decay, it was no small relief to see the world devoid of iron bars.

"I---Yes, Lord Stark." The hovering soldier stammered, looking from her liberator, to her, to the enormous wolf. He wasn't just a huntsman with a tender heart, he was a lord, and she could smell the blood of at least two dozen men clinging to that blade of his---so perhaps he was not so soft hearted. With a small bow, Sir Bryant turned and began to jog in the opposite direction.

Beck weighed her options for the thousandth time in the last hour.

Running seemed to be the worst of her options, even if it was what she wanted the most. There were two paths out of the camp, one involved trying to swim across a creek with three legs, and the other meant bolting straight through the camp. She didn't have the strength needed to run that hard, and even if she did, there was a chance that the direwolf would come after her. Even she sometimes warred with the instincts of a predator's mind in beast forms---the deep, irresistible urge to give chase when anything ran. Her magic might have kept a normal wolf's instincts at bay, but she couldn't chance it with the beast before her. Not in her current state.

And where would she go? She could not shift until she was healed, she could not heal without food and rest, and she could not hunt or even steal in her current condition.

No. Running was not an option. So the real question was whether or not to reveal herself to the human. He didn't seem too worried at the mention of curses, and he---at least for the moment---tolerated a magical beast at his side.

'Do you know what I am?' The witch asked the direwolf. She limped a few paces away from the man, but kept her eyes locked on him. Her ears swiveled wildly atop her head as she listened to the dull roar of the war party around her. Her thoughts, however, stayed with the wolf. 'Can this man be trusted?'

She jumped, a threatening shriek piercing the air, as the soldier returned with an armful of surprise. He moved too quickly for her liking, and she grinned again with an open mouth and all of her teeth---a threat of violence if he came too close. The soldier gripped the supplies tightly.

"Lord Stark, please. If you insist on mending this creature---allow me." His words were brave, but his tone lacked conviction. He cleared his throat, "If what the men say is true, better the curse fall on me, my lord."

Robb pushed his sword back into the hilt upon his belt. He had used the damn thing enough that day.

As a boy, he had enjoyed the training he did side by side with his father, enjoyed learning to duel with his brothers, to work with the arms master day in and day out. He had been proud of his skill, glad that one day he would be able to protect his family and his people. Now, his sword had tasted real war, and it brought a bitter taste to his mouth. He did not regret what he'd done, what he had had to do to free his father, but he had had enough violence for one day.

He turned as a voice called out to him.

"It's a fox, Sir Bryant." Robb's mouth twisted slightly to one side, clearly amused but trying to hide it. It was not lordly--not something his father would have done--to taunt his own men. "Grey Wind passes in and out of this camp at all hours of the day and night, and you do not fear him." This, however, was not quite true. Many of Robb's men did fear Grey Wind--and in any other circumstance, they'd have reason to--but they did not tell their lord this. They pretended to be at ease when the beast passed, but they whispered behind his back, scared the creature would eat them in their sleep. They were also very aware--and frightened--of the inhuman connection that passed between man and wolf. They respected their lord, but they feared what he and his wolf were capable of together.

"If what you say is true, it is no wonder the creature's ire was turned on this camp. If you were locked in a box and drowned, Sir Bryant, would you not be angry?" Robb ran his hand through the fur at the back of Grey Wind's neck. Every day, the direwolf grew. Though he had been just a pup when Robb found him, able to fit into the palm of one hand, he now stood up to Robb's thigh. The maesters back at Winterfell had said he would grow larger still, that the dire wolves of old had stood to a man's chest and could cross whole battlefields in a single leap. "We do not kill what we do not understand. You want to kill a beast, you'll save it for the lions." Not literal lions, of course, which had not been seen in Westeros in living memory, but the house of Lions with whom Robb waged this war, the lion on every flag and battle shield.

He crouched down in front of the fox. "You're hurt," he repeated. He did not reach for her arm, aware, at least, that such a move might send her running off into the woods. "This will need mending." It was clear the men who had captured her had not treated her wound well. Days locked in close quarters and the drowning would surely made things worse, not better.

"Bring me supplies from the med tent," he ordered the man. "Quickly." He did not know how long it would take before the fox attempted to run off.

#burnnouts

[maggicktouched]

#animal fc;;; beck

[maggicktouched]

@roshale

An enormous house loomed in the distance, and with every step, the driveway got a bit shorter. She had until she got to the door to come up with a good reason for being here, and she doubted "Sorry to bother you, but I accidentally turned myself into a sea lion and couldn't change back for a couple of weeks, and the assholes at the port sold you my magic car along with all of my supplies." would work.

Best case scenario, if the enchantments on the bus held up, they'd think she was insane and try to send her to a mental hospital. Worst case scenario, she found out whether or not the elusive rich people inside the mansion in the middle of nowhere had a large collection of firearms.

Beck sighed and pressed her finger against the doorbell. The door swung open a heartbeat later, and for a second she was stunned silent by the beauty of the woman before her. She blinked a few times, then cleared her throat.

"Hi." She said, forcing a cheery note to her tone. "Sorry to bother you, I know it's getting late, but uh, well. Funny story... I think you might have my van? It got put into an auction by accident a week or so ago, and the guy at the lot gave me your address."

#roshale

[maggicktouched]

Hostile territory. Habrok reminded her. His shadow briefly blotted out the sun as he circled high in the sky above. She wished she could join him, but even if she could have afforded to risk doing magic here, she wasn't sure she had the energy to make the shift. Her hands shivered even when they laid still on her lap, and her legs protested painfully every time she stood to her feet. Like an earthworm trying to wriggle inch my agonizing inch across a sea of scorching concrete, she felt herself growing shriveled and rigid with every hour that passed.

A week with no sleep would do that to even the strongest witch. And it'd been two days since she'd had any decent amount of food.

Her brother had hired plenty of bounty hunters before. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse than simply trying to track her down himself and drag her home by her hair. Most of them were easy to wriggle away from. They'd spend a couple of weeks constantly five steps behind her until they decided that even a mountain of gold wasn't worth the price of their dignity as she repeatedly embarrassed them. It'd been that way for years, through dozens and dozens of rag-tag groups of low lives desperate to make a fortune at the cost of her freedom. Turnpenny and Stern were different.

She really knew only a few things about them: Turnpenny had been an infamous witch hunter in his younger days, Stern was an outcast werewolf who had glued himself to Turnpenny for some reason, and they couldn't enter the Witch Wilds, on account that neither of them were witches. They were ruthless and determined bastards that managed to get ahead of her one too many times. They'd managed to steal her van, and all of her supplies with it, and no matter how fast she moved, they were always right behind her. Without her food stores or time to hunt, she was hungry and tired only alive because she could siphon a bit of energy off of plants and wildlife around her. But it wouldn't sustain her much longer. Especially not here on the edges of the Harpy Forest.

A soft whine left her as she flopped to the ground. She couldn't go another step. Not today. Not without some kind of rest. Even an hour or so. Anything to chase away the dark circles below her eyes. She didn't look for a soft place to lay her head or something to curl up under. Propped against the trunk of a tree, she slipped off into nothingness.

When she awoke, the world was awash with blue. Lights twinkled like shimmering pearls around her, and everything moved slowly. There was a faint taste of salt on her tongue that made her mouth water. She blinked, finding that she was already on her feet, and when she took a step, she was light as a feather.

Someone was singing. The most beautiful song. It beckoned her forward, and she happily followed. She could not hear her familiar's frantic warning in the distance, nor could she feel the quiet emptiness as she crossed the boundary out of the Wilds and into the mortal wood. Once she might have stumbled, knocked to the ground by a gnarled root, but she felt no pain. She only laughed.

And then she saw her. A vision of dark hair and fathomless eyes. Her body was made of soft curves and from her lips fell that sweet sweet song. Could she see her? Did she hear the soft whimper that fell from her lips as she stepped out of the darkness and over something large and motionless on the forest floor.

She was in love again. What else could this be?

The witch reached out a hand, but the music stopped. She blinked. All she could hear was the slow, throbbing beat of her own heart. Color bled back into the world, then sound. She blinked again, and then a half dozen more times rapidly as the trance shattered entirely, and she realized where she was.

"Now now, no reason to do anything brash." Turnpenny's thin, greasy hands wrung as he spoke, looking between Beck and...

What the hell was she looking at? Still a beautiful woman, that was true, but had she just been---enchanted? How? What could break her protection charms so flawlessly?

"Just put down the knife. Please." He reasoned, a nasty grin splitting open his face. "You've brought her here, to us, just as we needed. Help me secure the witch and-"

Beck's hand had already reached to yank the slender iron chain from her neck, the metal charms tucked into her braids and dangling from the necklace began to flow like liquid, dripping down to her clutched fist and reforming until she was grasping her long iron wand in only a few heartbeats.

Turnpenny didn't stop talking, even as he watched the magic taking place before his eyes. "-I'll cut you in on the job. There's a fortune to be made here. Surely a creature like you would be happy to play a part."

She leveled her wand on him, then the woman, then back at him, unsure.

"Someone tell me what the fuck is going on." She hissed, trying to hide the tremor in her hand.

"You see? She's a dangerous little beast. Her brother wants her back home in her cage, where she can't cause all this trouble, and he's willing to pay to get her there."

Starter for @maggicktouched for Beck from Anna

How the men had found her was worrying enough, but how they had known what she was--well, that was a different matter entirely. A frightening, terrifying mystery.

Anna never stayed in town for very long. She got in, got what she needed, and was on her merry way again--just a memory in the wind. What she needed was food and supplies, but Anna had always had an eye for shiny things and a difficult time taking only what she needed, when what she wanted was so much more fun. So maybe she pickpocketed a watch here and there that she could sell along the road, and maybe she sang to a poor man in a pub until he bought her pretty jewels and nice dresses. Maybe this time, she'd stayed just a day too long, let the man get too close. Not to her heart, of course--she would never allow that--but to her time, let him stay under her spell a moment too long. How else would her secret have gotten out, the word spread?

She had been working, as she usually did, as a singer in a jazz club. She'd stay for a few weeks, bring in the tips, meet wealthy, well-to-do patrons, and then she'd move on the second the whispers got too prevalent, when people started to wonder how did she bring in such a big crowd every night, and why couldn't they remember where they'd left their pocketbook? So she returned to the room she'd been renting (the inkeeper had so kindly given it to her for free once she'd sang him a short melody), and was packing up her things, when it happened--a piercing pressure on the side of her neck, the room spinning, and then endless blackness.

When Anna next woke, she was tied to a tree in the woods, her head groggy, her eyes adjusting to the dark. Stars glittered above and a group of five men whispered together around a campfire. She picked up snippets of the conversation: they were looking for someone, a woman, someone they couldn't harm. They couldn't find her but needed a way to draw her in.

That was when they realized Anna was awake. The men looked over, smirking, and approached the bound woman. "Is the little mermaid awake?" one jeered. Another crouched in front of her, a knife in hand, and placed it against her throat. "If you want to keep that pretty little voice, you'll sing for us."

It took a great effort not to smile. Oh the little fools, she thought. As a member of the fae world, Anna could not lie, but that did not mean she couldn't stretch the truth, play along. She put on a frightened expression and nodded. And she opened her mouth and sang, her voice filling the clearing and echoing out into the woods, a melody to make the rest of the world go quiet, a song to enchant and bewitch.

And that spell, of course, included the men around her. Anna locked eyes with the man with the knife, her own glowing a bright blue, and he froze. Without a word, he cut the ropes binding her then turned the knife right around so the handle was facing Anna instead. "Thank you, Darling," she purred, taking the weapon. And then she knocked him out with a sharp elbow to the temple.

Anna jumped to her feet, knife held out in front of her. "My, my, you boys should have known better than to play with things you don't understand."

#burnnouts #post type: unformatted #i think your reply implied there was one left conscious? but if I read that wrong lmk

[maggicktouched]

Let's see if I can get some writing done.

[maggicktouched]

#lol me with Beck

[maggicktouched]

⋆ ⁺ ₊ ⋆ ☀︎ unreal unearth: part two.

lyrics from the last eight tracks off hozier's 2023 album, unreal unearth. various pet names have been omitted.

❛ feel at home. ❜

❛ all things end. ❜

❛ we begin again. ❜

❛ i will not be great. ❜

❛ the memory hurts. ❜

❛ i'm good on my own. ❜

❛ my heart leapt from me. ❜

❛ i don't wanna be anything. ❜

❛ i'm grateful to get through. ❜

❛ i hear he touches your hand. ❜

❛ i am never going back again. ❜

❛ you were like an angel to me. ❜

❛ i'm never going to be the same. ❜

❛ you may never know your fortune. ❜

❛ i would do anything just to run away. ❜

❛ if i had his job, you would live forever. ❜

❛ all my dreaming is only put to shame. ❜

❛ we didn't get it right but we did our best. ❜

❛ there are some things noone teaches you. ❜

❛ i learned to dread the coming of the night. ❜

❛ the distance never made a difference to me. ❜

❛ i want to be the last thing anybody ever sees. ❜

❛ there are some people who are better off unknown. ❜

❛ i'd fit all my joys and my pleasures in one perfect day. ❜

❛ when people say something is forever, either way it ends. ❜

❛ i'd walk so far just to take the injury of finally knowing you. ❜

❛ i wish i could say that the river of my arms have found the ocean. ❜

❛ knowing that everything will end should not change our plans where we begin again. ❜

[maggicktouched]

"How many years is that?" She asked innocently, looking up at her mother with wide eyes. Ancient wasn't a word she was completely unfamiliar with, but she was far too young to fully grasp the meaning. The Temples were supposed to be ancient, and her momma was younger than the Temples. She was younger than her mummi too. How old was something before it was ancient? Was she close?

"We can go today?!" All questions and curiosities evaporated instantly in the light of this new information. There had been a lot of animals back on the ranch. Her mummi had an alpaca who was her familiar, and her father had a collie as his, but there had been even more than that. Horses everywhere, deer that came out of the forest to graze on the tender grasses of the field, the pet bunnies in the back garden, cats that kept rats away from the feed, and cows and sheep and just about anything you could imagine. She really did miss that.

"What kind of animals are at the shelter? I wanna see! Can we go now?!"

Dana laughed with genuine yet warm amusement at her daughter's determined opinion that she'd already been on this planet long enough to consider herself old.

"Well if that many is old, then that probably means I'm ancient," she teased gently. But underneath the laughter she knew there was probably something a lot deeper to Beck's view on age and time. The fact she'd mentioned her father pretty much confirmed it; death anxiety was an all too common side effect of losing a parental figure so early on in life.

It was on the tip of Dana's tongue to simply tell her daughter not to worry, that no one died that young, that she had years and years left...but her line of work confirmed that that wasn't a guarantee for anyone. She'd had children on an autopsy table as much as the elderly, and she didn't want to reassure Beck with a lie. The only way to overcome death anxiety would be gradual work...and ensuring her daughter had reassurance and consistency in her life.

"It's not a house; a shelter is a place that keeps animals that don't have homes," she explained. "Some are strays, or they've been abandoned, or injured, and people go to shelters to adopt them, to make them part of their family." She looked at Beck with gentle encouragement, searching her little expression for a hint of an answer. "Do you want to do that? We could go today, and see if there's anyone that you want to take home with us. You can even choose the name."

#ladiesandwitches