#(mayhaps more ideas may come of this depending on how we feel) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

onmyoji-posting · 2 years

Note

Ootengu and Onikiri anon back for a part two of some ideas I’ve been having!!!!! There’s more but I’m gonna wait until I write them all down to space them out!!!! But I’m so glad that these were able to cheer you up and were enjoyable for you too!!! 🥺😭

Suzuka Gozen, Otakemaru, and Senhime with a s/o from the deep sea!! This one’s been plaguing my mind forever because I’ve loved how different the deep sea fishes/sharks look!!! I even created a whole backstory about it but that’s for a later date!! Suzuka, Senhime, and Otakemaru trying to court their deep sea s/o but s/o is a bit hesitant to agree! They don’t think they’re being serious because of internalized self doubt. S/o coming from the literal bottom of the sea where no sun shines while Otakemaru basks in the sun light. While Suzuka Gozen and Senhime look like literal goddesses. S/o is worried that they’re going to regret it. But alas, neither of the three were known to give up. Senhime bluntly tells her soon to be s/o that she adores them for being themself. Suzuka Gozen tells her s/o that regardless of what part of the ocean they’re from, she’d still adore them because they feel like home. Otakemaru would pull them into a tight embrace and tell them they glow brighter and more radiantly than any jewel he’s ever found!! (Quite literally too!! Because some deep sea fishes have the ability to use bioluminescence!!!)

Otakemaru being protective of his Onmyoji!! He’s already lost Mt. Gozen and the fact that he’s still alive gives him a bit of guilt. His people needed him the most yet he couldn’t protect them. Yet, when this Onmyoji comes along and proves themself as being strong, Otakemaru hesitantly agrees to become their shikigami. It takes a while to trust them, the slight memories of humans trying to invade his old home still rings in his head but when his Onmyoji lets him process his feelings, he soon realizes that he’s inadvertently been given a second chance! He may have failed to stop Mt.Gozen’s downfall, he may have not been able to make amends with Suzuka Gozen, but he has a new start. Otakemaru being determined to protect the new person that he swore allegiance to. He’ll protect them with every tooth and bone in his body, no one is going to hurt them while he’s around. It doesn’t matter if he has to fight Orochi himself face on. Shuten Doji? Pfft, bring it on, Otakemaru will fight for his onmyoji’s honor. Whether they become lovers or a new family depends of whatever you enjoy the most! I’m simping for him as well so I like to imagine him being enamored with his onmyoji- mayhaps a bit of Yandere tendencies develop because he’s afraid of losing the thing he cares for the most.

Kuro Mujo and Shiro Mujo having soulmates that keeps getting reincarnated. Despite how many centuries have passed, they’re always gonna remember their face. How their s/o always brought joy to their dark job. How they enjoyed the peace their s/o brought with them. Regardless of the circumstances, s/o would always get reincarnated into a different life and come back to them.

A funny little giggle au to stir things up!! vvv

An au where Ootengu and S/o are suddenly being followed by these two kids. Wherever they go, from what Ootengu says, these two kiddos follow them. Ootengu has enough of he and his Onmyoji being followed so we swoops behind the kids and grabs them by the collar of their clothes. And low and behold, these two kiddos look like a mixture of them- the little girl having eyes like the s/o yet Ootengu’s face. The little boy that’s struggling against Ootengu’s grip looking more like s/o with Ootengu’s eyes (and a carbon copy of his personality as well tbh). When they start pouting, one of the kids whimpers out “mamaaaa” (or “baba” if we wanna include a gender neutral route!!) Ootengu suddenly drops the kids in shock. Before it’s revealed that these two kiddos are his and his Onmyoji’s. Wait a minute- does that mean that he and his Onmyoji- *cue Ootengu fainting from shock*

Onikiri and s/o going to one of those festivals we see in game during events!! The music radiating throughout the area, the cheers of laughter, the sound of Yokai and spirits having a good time. Onikiri always having an arm around his s/o so the crowds doesn’t separate them from each other. Even if he doesn’t have an arm around you, he’s only a few steps away and actively ensuring that you’re safe. His heart warming up every time you look at him with a smile and happy laughter.

This is more along the lines of platonic/familial but why not include it!!! Yamausagi and Mouba begging you to be their referee whenever they have a race. They wanna show off to their cool friend/ sibling (you!!!) So they have races to see who’s the fastest on their respective mounts. The winner gets their friends/sibling’s praises and a meal that the loser has to pay for. Ready??? Steady!!!! Gooooo!!!!!! X3

Aoandon telling the story of Seimei and his significant other, who brought peace to both humans and yokai. Allowing both species to live alongside each other, despite it being centuries they both passed away. The Yokai kids listening in awe of the tale of love, perseverance and determination.

Ibaraki Doji scaring away Kamikui (or literally any other spirit) when they get too close to his s/o with less then good intentions. Like? How dare you?? How dare you think you can get anywhere near my beloved’s presence??? Even if the spirit in question has good intentions, he’s still ready to throw down if they make his s/o uncomfortable.

This is a bit based on your headcanons but like it’s amazing man- Tamamo no Mae, after being in constant denial for centuries, allowing himself to love again. They’ve grieved Chiyo’s death for many many centuries. They beat themself up for not doing enough and for failing their own kids. It takes a long time, and I mean a very very very very very long time with so many ups and downs through the process. But the powerful Kitsune takes the first steps of trying to move on, because deep down they knows Chiyo would have hated him being in despair forever, to a better life. It’s a very hesitant process, he sometimes takes a step forward but then two or three steps backwards. Yet here Tamamo lies, in bed with a s/o that waited patiently for them to gather themselves. The feeling they never thought would come in his life ended up happening again. They feel loved, they are able to love again after what felt like a millennia. Chiyo will always have a special place in Tamamo’s heart. She always will, she was they’re first love after all. However, their heart also belongs to the s/o that’s sleeping next to them. The s/o that taught this once grouchy and irritated Kitsune what loving again felt like.

Any sea yokai trying to reach their s/o how to swim!!! Senhime? Being a stubborn teacher that’s determined to teach her s/o this important skill. Otakemaru? A bit of a sassy teacher that won’t hesitate to come at you for your form. Suzuka Gozen?? Definitely the friendly teacher that will praise you but also critique your form and how you can better it. But don’t worry, even if you’re afraid t swim, just imagine the strong arms of one of these yokai around you throughout the whole process. I would faint if Otakemaru put his arms around me not gonna lie- gonna go glub glub with the fishes

Okay- speaking of arms being around you. Imagine how amazing Onikiri’s hugs would be. Osbwsjbwjswbsjwn the toned muscles of his from years of vigorous swordsmanship and training. Those calloused hands of his as they gently kiss your knuckles. His hands on top of yours while his arms are wrapped around your while he tries to teach you, and correct your stance, how to use a wooden practice sword. OHHHH BOI- *faints*

Sjjsldosmf these are wonderful!!!! You've inspired me to write some fluff for Otakemaru and for Shiro and Kuro Mujou

Also my simping for Onikiri has intensified thanks you anon /lh

#onmyoji #ootengu & onikiri anon

10 notes · View notes

benhardypout-archive · 3 years

Photo

016. fever

a/n: another chapter from my Wonty “comfort fics “Dirty Little Secret”. As I mentioned from the previous chapter I posted few days ago, I’m just going to post some chapters which I enjoyed writing. So the number is the chapter of this fic, and this is the chapter 16, hence, 016. Enjoy reading! 🙈

Monty didn't sit next to me on our third. But if I'd be honest, I'm still salty about yesterday. I know I'm not in the place to do so…

Maybe I'm just hoping that somehow he cared about me since that's what he's starting to make me feel, and not let me hope for nothing.

Just because he apologized, and agreed to meet you in your place tomorrow, you thought he cared.

Ugh! whatever.

So when I caught him staring as I ate with Charlie that lunch, maybe I had been extra chatty towards the latter.

Yes, he joined me at lunch again, and with Alex this time. Unfortunately, Charlie just made himself look awkward. He obviously didn't know how to make a conversation with Alex, so he talked to me instead, which became favorable for me. Apparently, Alex got the wrong idea and thought that Charlie was hitting on me.

Oh, if only he knew.

I exchanged numbers with him since he asked for it, only to bombard me with questions about Alex. I told him that I'm not some slam book or Alex's diary who's carrying all the information he wanted to know about him, so he should be the one making a move towards the guy himself. But he pleaded, for me to help him out at least, and enlighten him some basic things about my friend- he's been using the word to persuade me- like his favourite food, movie, color, hobbies and such, which I realized I didn't really have ample knowledge about. Though, I still promised to help him in any way I can, as a kindred spirit I am. Then I just learned that my friend and Zach wasn't like a real thing yet, but they have a thing. Well, relationships could be complicated.

And that's it, that's all I know about my 'so-called friend'.

So, I deemed it safe for Charlie to take his chances and make a move on Alex. Even giving him words of encouragement to do so. Go, Charlie!

By afternoon after class, since the Football practice had been cancelled due to Coach Kerba's absence, I spent it at Monet's, attempting to do some homework. I didn't ask Estella to come. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts for a while.

"Is this seat taken?"

I froze knowing the voice so well.

What's he doing here?

Looking up, I had to blink a few and asked myself if I'm dreaming. Then I glanced around before I nodded and let him sit with me, taking the seat in front of me.

We were quiet at first, me flipping through my notes. Pretending rather, as I found it hard to concentrate anymore with him around.

I cleared my throat and asked where Estella was. I wanted to reason that he couldn't come here all by himself, so he should be at least with his sister, but decided against it. He said she's having a night out with some friends.

I just hoped it's true and she's not with that guy, Gavin, somewhere. Perhaps, I'm starting to be protective of her too, and I caught myself sending a quick text to her asking where she was.

She replied: With Gavin.

I knew it.

I told her to be careful and to call me if she needed some help or just anything.

I turned back to Monty and asked him in a hushed tone, "What are you doing here?"

He let out a smirk and said, "What do you think?"

I looked around, even though it's obvious that students from Liberty were everywhere in this little coffee shop. "I think we're not supposed to be here together."

He moved towards, resting his elbows on the table, his face quite dangerously close to mine and whispered, "We're working on a project." He held my gaze and gave a ghostly smirk, before leaning back to his chair. We were silent for a second as he lightly tapped his fingers on the table. Clearing his throat, he said, "By the way, I… apologized to Tyler."

Blinking, I looked at him in disbelief. Smile then stretched out my lips. I wanted to ask why, though I didn't want to sound like I doubt his sincerity. I wanted to believe he's wanting to change.

Then I caught Ani with Jessica from afar glancing our way.

I casually moved my gaze back to Monty. And focused down my homework. "People are looking," I whispered.

"Let them look," he said.

He, mayhap, asked me about Charlie's deal with me as he began pulling his own homework, suggesting for us to work together.

I said nothing. And changed the topic to where we are now… in my house.

We only had the place to ourselves. Our maid was out shopping for groceries, so it may take a while before she could come back.

We're settled in the living, flopped down on the couch.…watching some movies on Netflix. A bowl of popcorn between us. We both pretended to pay attention to the movie, when my hand, as I blindly grabbed a handful of popcorn, accidentally collided with Monty's, whose hands were already dipped in the bowl.

I stopped and turned to him. His gaze on me.

"Sorry," I pulled my hand away.

He sighed, taking his empty hands off the bowl, and shifted closer to me, enough to make my heart skip.

I just focused my eyes back on the show. It's a movie from the 80's, entertaining enough. Although, I know I would appreciate it more, but not with Monty around who had completely stolen my interest.

"Seriously, what's your deal with Charlie?" I heard him say.

I sat back, suppressing a smile. I couldn't believe he's not done with that talk yet. So he really wanted to know.

I turned to him, making sure I looked innocent. "I told you. None."

"Then why does he keep clinging to you?"

Clinging?

I looked away and decided to chew on some popcorn since I couldn't hold my smile anymore. Thanks, popcorn.

"Maybe he's just trying to be friendly," I reasoned after swallowing the popcorn down. Then I shifted, turning my body his way. "I think I should be the one asking you why your friend keeps on hanging around us."

He moved his eyes to me from the TV and I swear, I could stare at him all day, and wouldn't be tired. I began counting the freckles that scattered around his face.

"We're not really that kind of friends," he said. Then he snatched the bowl of popcorn from my hands to his lap.

I frowned. "Hey--"

"Trying to be friendly, eh?" he scoffed and shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth and added, "Why don't I believe you?"

I grimaced. Couldn't believe he would show me his unethical side.

"Didn't your parents teach you not to speak when your mouth's full?"

It's too late when I realized what I said. I know his deal with his parents. Fuck you, Winston.

But then he smiled, and playfully threw a popcorn to my forehead.

Frowning, I touched where the popcorn hits. Okay, I think I deserved that.

"Why don't I believe you?" he said, but he's still smiling. It took me a second to realize that he just repeated what he said; maybe he thought I didn't understand him after speaking with his mouth full.

I decided to play dumb. "What do you mean?"

He just ignored me and continued on his rambling.

"Really, why?" This time he looked serious and held my gaze. "He isn't like…" he trailed off and moved his eyes to the side, looking away, "... trying to hit on you, right?" With reluctance, he moved his eyes back to me.

Hiding a smile, I turned to face the TV. "And… what if he does?... I mean, Charlie can be cute."

He scoffed, a loud one at that. I felt him shift, but I kept still, trying to make sense of the movie and failing.

"So you like him."

My skin jumped, feeling his breath close to my neck, his voice soft but clear against my ear.

I glimpsed at him, he's a little close with me, but still keeping a safe space between us. However, for me, it's dangerous.

I swallowed. "...I don't."

He scoffed again. "Oh yeah? Is that why you find him cute?"

"Just because I find him cute doesn't mean I like him. Give me back the popcorn."

"No, you get it yourself."

"Tell me why does it seem a big deal to you?" I turned to him, forgetting for a second how close he was, and now we're practically face to face. I held my breath, and froze in my place.

None of us moved. Our eyes silently travelled down to our face with our hitched breaths and racing hearts.

Damn. I wanted to kiss him. So. Fucking. Bad.

But I'm surprised how I'm still able to control myself; maybe it's the fear he'd punch me again.

Though, my mouth started to feel dry.

"Kiss me," he whispered against my lips, causing my heart to beat even faster as if it's possible.

My throat moved as I looked down his lips.

Slowly, I inched towards him, closing my eyes, until his dry trembling ones brushed against mine. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who's trembling. I didn't make a move and just teased our lips together, but that simple contact already caused us to inhale sharply. So we had to break off, when I felt him grab the back of my neck and pulled me back, crashing his chapped lips on mine.

He took in a deep breath, and stayed just like that, unsure what to do next. So I decided to take the lead.

Sliding my hands between us, I reached for his chin, opening our mouths, so I could have more access.

His breath hitched, making me smile, as I grazed my tongue, licking the dryness of his lips before I slid it in and explored his mouth. He inhaled once more and quivered against me. His hands were tight on my sides but I loved how he's holding me.

"Relax," I whispered as I continued drowning him with my fiery kisses. He softened and I gave him time to adjust until he's able to catch up with my kisses.

I inhaled, feeling his tongue poking against mine. Soon we're kissing like mad. Our breaths sharp with every stroke of our hungry lips. His hands grabbing my hair and my arms tight around his neck. Our bodies glued together, feeling the heat. We kissed as if our lives depended on it.

I moved my hips wanting to feel him and we tensed feeling how hard we were. He pressed his body more to mine as if it was possible, and felt him move, his hardness rubbing against my thigh, causing me to draw a breathless moan and suck on his lower lip. Our kisses became harder. Hungrier. Intense. And I'd never kissed anyone like this before.

I never knew he could be this passionate and I'm all here for it.

We only stopped to catch our breaths, but he soon collided his lips back to mine, and his kisses became slower but just as ardently.

I could feel myself wanting more, feeling him getting harder as he continued riding my thigh. I didn't notice that he already got me pinned under him, with my back on the couch.

The movie still played in the background as we continued kissing and grinding each other desperately.

"I want you…" he said, breathlessly, between feverish kisses; making me melt but even harder. Is that possible?

"Come on," I pushed him gently, and stood up. And impatiently led him to my bed room.

It only hit me that we were making out boldly in the living room. I'm just relieved our maid hasn't come back yet, or I didn't know what I'd do if she caught us screwing here. Though, the idea seemed thrilling.

We didn't waste any time and kissed as soon as we got to my room. I just managed to push the door. I didn't know if I was able to lock it. I didn't really care.

He shoved me on the bed, and crawled on top of me. I smiled and pulled him down as I brushed my tongue sensually against his parted lips. He smiled, kissing me before he sat up and yanked his top off. Then we began to help each other be free of our clothes; hands fumbled against the fabrics. We gasped as raging teenagers we are, whenever our heated skins made contact. And, I loved it. Loved the feel of his warmth and his weight over me, and how hard he was against my thigh, sending delicious shivers down my body.

Feeling suddenly bold, I reached for his ass. And gave it a meaningful squeeze, earning a moan from him. The sound he made, did things to me. And I'm even more eager to hear them again.

We continued to fool around the bed, moaning and breathing each other's names like a song as the height of pleasure rose within us.

#13rwedit #13rw #13 reasons why #wonty #winston williams #montgomery de la cruz #alex standall #chalex #zalex #charlie st. george #winston x monty #*writings #*wonty #otp:igotthegoodsideofyou #*wonty:dirtylittlesecret #*excerpt #*2021 #hope you guys like #♥

47 notes · View notes

thecheesbyrecipebook · 3 years

Text

so @girouxes made me begin to post all my cheesby aus.. so here we go. i’ll guess i’ll start off with one of my longest ones: keep in mind this is unedited and written very casually, and a lot of it is not thought through. warning for typos and weird sentance structures. tw for unhealthy relationships, unhappy-ish ending, it’s a soulbond au thing. also, like, by nature of this blog: mentions of 18+ stuff may happen, think ao3 mature rating.

bonds are fickle, they're unpredictable and you're never quite sure if you're able to bond with someone. it is important to note that bonds are not soulmates and bonds are not predestined: they're a part of human biology, where two or more being have a connection that extends beyond themselves, they form a bond with someone else. this bond strengthens their capabilities, their emotional understanding of each other and has developed as a survival tool for humanity, and our complex relationships.

in modern pop-culture, bonds have become the 'end goal' when it comes to romance, best friends, or even enemies. bonds have become like most things in our world, commercialized and exaggerated by media, they've changed from a survival instinct, to one additional layer of complexity within our society and something to sell and market.

the thing with bonds is that if you bond with someone: it can go away, and it can come back. bonds can be strong, they can can be weak. however, they cannot be one-sided: luckily, a bond requires consent (that is not to say forced bonds doesn't happen, they do, and it's.. yeah. bad)

anyways, within hockey: bonds are fucked up. like, actually fucked up. you remember how i mentioned forced bonds? yeah. obviously, they don't say they're 'forced' but when two teammates can sense each other,, yeah, that's an advantage. there's been attempts to forbid it, but modern hockey relies upon what is known as 'hockey bonds' which are superficial, often 'forced' bonds between teammates (most often, a line or d-man pairs) to help them play better. within hockey, bonds with other players that aren't for playing or with people on other teams.. well, it's highly frowned upon and a lot of time, not allowed.

like. see bonds as a sort of more.. mental connection of friendship and understanding. they can be strong and they can be weak. and this kind of tool in human biology where you can sense / understand others would obvs be abused in many ways, esp in hockey.

so like, a hockey bond is essentially a very superficial bond done between two or more players who has a ’good’ connection but they’re always temporary bonds, and don’t go ’deeper’. as said, bonds have to be consensual in that they need to be accepted by both parts... but when your contract depends upon it, yeah. also like, closer friendship bonds or godforbid romantic bonds between players is taboo, both because of the nhl being Itself as well as the drama that would happen with deperr bonds that can’t be broken with trades and no-trade clauses with bonds is a whole dramatic thing

this is just a vague idea and worldbuilding but it’s more deep nd like complex? anyways so

sidney crosby doesn’t like bonds. or rather, he doesn’t like hockey bonds. it’s the nature, when you’re a kid and you click with someone: they try to make you bond. it worked, a couple of times, but it’s weird being him, being sidney crosby, and seeing that from someone else’s head, where he’s not himself, but he’s the legend, and the unintentional jealousy and fear and pressure of being bonded to him is there. bonding makes them better players, sure, but also sid feels like he’s lost himself, where his thoughts aren’t his own and he’s less and less of sid and more sidney crosby the chosen one, and he’s been dealing with this since he was 16.

people don’t really know what makes it easier for some to bond, and harder for others, but as young, sid’s always gotten it easy to bond: mayhaps that’s been open to it, that it’s hockey, and mayhaps it’s that there’s something about sid being ’sid the kid’ that makes the other players want to bond with him, wants part of his hockey, want part of his legacy, which makes it easy.

that’s the thing with hockey bonds: your hockey becomes entwined with someone else, you aren’t just ’you’ and when you’re the next golden kid of hockey, it’s.. well, it feels like they’re leeches, it feels like they want his glory, his abilities, and a young sid doesn’t like his hockey not being his. he never said he was unselfish. luckily, hockey bonds don't last.

especially not for sid. during his years in rimouski, there’s a lot of bonds: but none that stick.

thank god for that. he doesn’t like being bonded: he doesn’t like having to share with someone else, and he doesn’t like being sidney crosby, the hockey legend in his own head. he just wants to be himself. sidney crosby is strong enough to handle it on his own.

the only bond that sticks is his familial bond with taylor. at this young age, other kinds of bonds haven’t really stuck: not when you’re a playmaker, and you’re constantly pressured to bond with your team.

so, sidney crosby doesn’t like bonds: especially hockey bonds.

then he’s drafted. the thing about being a center, the thing about being a captain (or on his path to become one), about being the centerpiece of your team is that you’re expected to well, bond with the core of your teammates. you are supposed to understand them. supposed to guide them, you’re supposed to be the hivemind: that’s the role most captains play.

sid doesn’t. sid realizes after his first years with the penguins: when he’s been encouraged to bond, and it hasn’t worked, and he hasn’t wanted to, and they win the cup: that well, he’s sidney crosby, he’s got the power to do his thing, to be one of the best players without adhering to the nhl’s system of bonding. in this universe, sidney crosby is not the quiet play-along with the rules guys: he’s out there, and he’s causing a minor revolution, but he’s sidney crosby and he won’t be making a big deal out of it, so it’s fine.

sidney crosby can do whatever the fuck he wants: as long as he plays good hockey. and he does.

there is a plotline here with sid wanting to bond with a couple of his teammates (mainly geno, maybe flower) but not letting himself to do so because bonding has always been a ‘must’, it’s always been something he doesn’t want, it’s always been the part of hockey he doesn’t want to participate, and he knows bonding with any teammate would result in his careful system toppling down upon himself, so he can’t.

there’s another plotline here with bonds being solely for hockey: and other bonds (outside of familial bonds, and romantic bonds with a perfect girl) being frowned down upon, or not really talked about, because when bonds become a part of the sport, your career, when that’s their role, it affects the nature of them.

and yes, this is a big issue within hockey and it is talked about, and awareness is trying to be spread about it, and some players fight back, like, it’s a social issue and a further flaw of the sport and harm of the culture. anyways.

(i know there’s like, like, not right stuff with claude’s history in here, rn i’m too lazy to look it up, but, you should get the gist)

on the other side, we’ve got claude giroux. he never bonded as young: it was never his role, and he never had the prominence for him. there’s always been someone who fit better with someone else, and while claude’s been an important player when he was young, he’s always had his own, independent journey. claude’s not grown up with hockey bonds in the same way a lot of the stars are, where they are grown up to find the perfect partner or the perfect line, and to be the center of the system: claude’s a young playmaker grown up with the rare case of bonds not being shoved down his throat.

this also means claude’s grown up with platonic bonds, friendship bonds: bonds that aren’t related to hockey, bonds that are allowed to be just that, to flourish and grow.

then, he’s drafted by the flyers. the flyers is a messy, violent team: not that claude minds, at all. but it’s also the nhl. and bonds matter. hockey bonds matter a heck lot. there’s been bad blood in the past with bonds within philadelphia, everyone knows this, and everyone knows that there’s always been contention and heat within philly and bonds between the players. this is a sudden culture shift for one claude giroux, but it’s also a claude giroux who forms bonds with someone like danny briere, and who, well, claude’s not a kid who is used with hockey bonds.

hockey bonds are different than normal bonds, that’s just how it is.

there’s not like, a lot of detail thought out here but know this: know that claude’s new, and that flyers have a complicated past with how they bond, and how claude does things his own ways, and forms bonds, and how the flyers begin to find each other during 2007 - 2012, and how claude’s way of bonding spreads through the team, and how it becomes more familial, and reliable, but how it’s.. well. then briere get traded, and that’s the thing with hockey bonds, they need to be broken.

this hurts. this hurts so fucking much. claude doesn’t want to break his bond with danny (and some strange familial bond with his sons, either) but, he has to. that’s the rules. you can’t have bonded players on different teams, that’d destroy the game, make it unfair. and so. for the first time, claude’s gotta break a bond that he’s forged so closely, that hasn’t just become a hockey bond, it has become a bond of strong friendship, of trust, and it’s broken just like that.

there’s probably been other smaller bonds broken and not broken (and the whole thing with sidney crosby but we’re getting into that later) but it’s different. hockey bonds are different. claude quickly learned, for him, they’re something casual: they’re a quick connection you get with someone on the ice, it’s a connection you have with your teammates, but it’s not a connection that goes beyond that. at this moment, claude’s not experienced the true harm of hockey bonds until now: when he realizes that it means the connection, that the part of himself, must be broken.

he hates this. he hates this so fucking much. he hates it even more when people gets traded, when things change, when things start to go downhill, and claude’s starting to realize the way he bonds and the way he is doesn’t work in hockey, it’s not a part of the game: the game doesn’t want this.

it hurts.

anyways, by now i’m sure you’re curious about what’s been going on between sidney and g, and well, it’s complicated. i mentioned it before, but bonds aren’t just friendly. they can be happen between rivals: they can happen with someone you don’t like, and yet, have a connection with. of course, with hockey: rivalry bonds are somewhat common. it would be strange, otherwise, since hockey is.. well, hockey.

rivalry bonds don’t fall under the same category as normal hockey bonds: hockey bonds are meant to help, guide, and assist. it’s believed that rivalry bonds were developed as a need to understand your enemy, to help defeat them: and the thing with rivalry bonds is that they are balanced. this means within hockey, a team-bond of two people on opposite teams is meant to aid and assist in helping each other: a rivalry bond is the opposite of that.

so, of course, rivalry bonds have become an entertainment factor of the nhl, of hockey: rivalry bonds can be temporary, which has happened at times during the olympics between former teammates (this is often so funny, and is definitely one of the best parts of international tournaments), or they can last long. oh, there’s definitely been beef when two people with enemy bonds have gotten traded onto the same team. it can be very funny, but it can also be quite dramatic, but of course, the nhl tries to hide this.

bonds makes trades complicated: that is why permanent bonds aren’t allowed between teammates, or other hockey players. it has happened, and has most definitely caused a lot of internal drama within the nhl.

anyways, so. it’s like, 2008 or 2009 and sidney crosby and claude giroux are facing each other upon the ice. obviously not for the first time. but there’s been something brewing, something of obvious rivalry, and claude can feel the possibility of a rivalry bond between him and sid: and he can sense how explosive their hockey would be against each other, he can taste it upon his tongue, and he can feel it happening but- sid doesn’t want to. sid rejects it. enemy bonds are usually less voluanteery than other bonds, but, sid shuts claude out so quickly. they fight. sort of. basically, there’s a heated moment on the ice and after the ice, where claude questions this, because he enjoys the rivalry, he enjoys the thrill, he knows the potential of a rivalry bond. sid doesn’t want that. they talk outside the game, or well, talk, argue and bicker: and claude learns one thing he’ll never forget: sid doesn’t do bonds.

anyways, most of their early ‘relationship’ is this.. weird tension between them because they both know there’s a rivalry bond there. it could be formed so easily. it has the potential, it could grow, become something that would fuel both of theirs hockey, become a part of them. claude can sense it. sid can sense it. but. sid doesn’t want it, he really doesn’t want it, and bonds can never be one-sided.

the media speculates about this, of course: and sid hates it so fuckin’ much. he wants to play, and he enjoys playing against the flyers, and he enjoys being a brat against claude, but he doesn’t want a bond. he doesn’t do them. he doesn’t need it. his hockey can do good without it. claude gets so fuckin frustrated with sid, not with the fact that he won’t let their bond form, because, he understands that, but with what a brat and fuckin’ idiot sid is.

their relationship is heated, it is strange, it is weird. it is almost like a bond, except they’re not bonded, and instead, there’s some kind of potential that is there between all of their encounters and it affects their interactions, and they don’t quite know where they have each other.

then we get to the playoff series against the pens, in 2012. a rivalry bond forms between them. and claude is so fucking shocked, that sid let this happen, that he can feel the venom, that he can feel the hate, the frustration, and sid can feel it back, but it’s weird, it’s full, it’s got so much fuckin inside it.

their series becomes explosive. their hockey becomes explosive. claude’s got a taste what he’s been feeling for the past years, brewing, and it’s- it’s fucking glorious.

sid feels this too. he hasn’t bonded in so fucking long, and of course, it’s the rivlarly bond with claude, a bond that fuels him, that makes him play like fire- but he’s also scared. he doesn’t want his hockey to depend upon someone else. not now.

after the series is done, it fades away. claude and sid meet, after the flyers get kicked out of the playoffs, they talk, they fight. it’s heated, it’s rough. words bleed out, insults bleed out, their weird fickle relationship and with their strange, fickle, unstable bond between them. “what is this, sid” claude tells him, because, it’s not quite like a bond either of them has felt before. it’s a rivalry bond, but they both can feel so much brewing under the surface.

sid kisses him, heated, violently, and they both can feel the bond spark between them, come alive, rush through them, entwine itself around them, something about how love and hate is close, how it fuels them, but then claude pushes sid away and the bond breaks. it’s quiet.

“not like this.”

sid walks away.

so, we’ve got the next years. anyways. so, claude becomes captain after the lock-out, and claude’s way with bonds and how he thinks and feels about them and all this and his unique view on hockey bonds forms the flyers core going forwards, everyone tightly bonded (beyond what is allowed, but no one needs to know) and every time he meets sidney crosby, their bond flickers. this time it’s claude who doesn’t want it.

you see, sidney realizes a few things during the next years: this is what happens when you grow up. some of these things are realized thanks to claude himself, feeling his bond, feeling how bonds can be, but also, letting himself bond (platonically, not-hockey, in secret with his teammates) and letting himself learn and know what a bond can be and meeting new people and understanding how harmful the nature of hockey bonds is, with a fascination to learn how actual bonds outside of the harmful world of hockey work. thanks to claude giroux, and the world around him.

anyways, claude and sid are quite weird during this time: they both don’t really know what’s going on between them, what their bond is, what bonds are. and during this time, it is sid who wants it, it is him who wants to let claude in but claude- yeah- he doesn’t want to deal with that.

then the world’s happen. short summary of the world’s: they form a bond, but it’s merely a superficial hockey bond and it feels cold and empty and sid hates it, and claude does too, but they can’t let themselves closer, claude can’t let it open up, and they have this weird sort of understanding of each other, pretending it’s way less than it is and of course media catches onto this, and they both become teased over it, and it is- like- yeah, not really fun.

it breaks shortly after the worlds.

what happens next is that the pens win the cup. claude doesn’t know how to feel about this. sid seems happy. he seems joyous.

the next years are weird. they bond sometimes, and then it breaks, because one of them doesn’t want it. it’s like, this weird friends with benefits relationship where their bond bounces back and forth between lust / love / rivalries / friends and,, sometimes they open it, sometimes they close it, but in the end: one of them always don’t want this.

like, i don’t have the rest of plot of this worked out, but it’s essentially exploring the idea of bonds and hockey bonds in the world and how claude and sid are always entwined, and bonded, but how it changes and develops, and how their relationship is always this ‘well, you missed out’ thing and it never quite aligns, and how the harmful world of hockey shapes this, and how they have different understandings of bonds, and how this shapes their relationship, and how it never quite pans out, and how the hockey world developes around this, and how they both bond in different ways, and learn to understand it, and maybe they find each other sometime, maybe they don’t, but it’s exploring the fucked idea of having something as important as bonds tied to hockey and how it fucks with people and how in the end, it ruins claude and sid and their potential together because bonds are so personal and so sensitive and how they work in hockey is so toxic.

#sid #klod #grilled cheesby #cheesby au #au #soulbond au #rpf #hockey rpf

20 notes · View notes

radramblog · 3 years

Text

Rating the letters of the alphabet

I feel like part of my style of comedy is just rambling about shit and making loose connections between things as part of an overall bit. I think. I’m no expert on myself, unfortunately.

The inspiration for the following absolute load of shite is trying to search Tiermaker for nothing. Like, no characters in the search bar. Didn’t come up with anything. Did a search for just a space. No dice. What about just a? Surely that’ll bring up everything with an A in the title. But it didn’t, and I was somewhat disappointed.

Then my head started writing bits about letters and that’s how we got here. This is probably really stupid, but maybe it’ll at least be fun. Wordplay is cool, though maybe not my strong suit? Anyway.

A: A is one of the two letters that’s also just a word, as you’ve just seen, giving it a necessary promotion in rank. Not a lot of things get to double up like that, though with the “an” ligature maybe it’s actually a double or nothing. But because of the confusing common connection crossing contexts for the character, it gets somewhat awkward to talk about the letter in conversation. An A, in my opinion, A does not get. 4/5.

B: B is also just a word letter but unlike A when you write it out you have to stick a few extra letters on to make it work, making it not as good. But B’s association with bees isn’t enough, because in the year of our lord, like, 2019 or something, it would become inextrixably linked with shite memes as the B emoji became king. And I just don’t respect that. It’s otherwise a fine letter, dragged down by its company. 2/5.

C: Oh come on now, the word doesn’t even have a C in it anymore! You can sea the see without any of our tertiary letter’s involvement whatsoever. Not to mention how its two main sounds are just copies from other letters wholesale. C must be confusing to non-english speakers, I’d imagine. C as a grade gets what C as a grade typically entails for many a schoolchild. 3/5.

D: It would be remiss of me not to give a sterling grade to the D. Why, none of us would be here without it. While many a youth may find the D to be quite a humourous subject, I assure you I’m taking it with the gravest of sincerity when I say the D has got to be one of the best letters of all.

And by D I mean deity, of course. Wait, what did you think I meant? 5/5.

E: The absolute absurdity that is the E meme elevates E efficiently enough to excel beyond many another vowel. However, it is also the single most common letter in the English language, going so far as to open the damn name. It’s to the point where someone made a point of writing an entire book without using it, and I think Gadsby is cool but mayhaps avoiding fifth uncial was a bit showy. I can’t help but mark it down for the sake of hipster cred. 3/5.

F: F is for Fuck. I like the word Fuck. F is for paying respects. I think the military-industrial complex has poisoned our cultural landscape to the point that a reference to one of its most prized productions’ awkward moments has become one of the most colloquially used meme letters in existence, And That’s Terrible. 3/5, I’m conflicted.

G: Man literally who the fuck cares about G. What is it even good for. Just an absolute waste of a letter, total shithouse. It’s NATO equivalent is Golf, the Worst Sport, too. Who asked for any of this? Just use a J instead, it’s cooler. 1/5.

H: I’ve seen “Hhh” used enough times in written forms of pornography to not consider it a Horny Letter. That and it, being short for Hentai, is often used to denote adult material in Japan. Basically what im saying is, I think this gets worse the less sex-positive you are. 6/9.

I: I think I’ve said enough about letter words already, but I is another high-tier one because like A I is just it’s own thing. It can also, however, be a bit confusing, looking just like an l a lot of the time, and having to constantly capitalise it is a pain in the ass. I also don’t have a particularly high opinion of myself, so a high opinion of I seems disingenuous. 3/5.

J: Clearly the best letter, hands down. I’m definitely not biased. There are so few letters as underappreciated by J- a fact many a person who’s had to do that “assign yourself an alliterative adjective” icebreaker game has had to reckon with. Because it appears to be a lot more popular with names than with words, and that just kind of sucks. 6/5.

K: K has in some circles managed to bump off its partner to become yet another letter word, though in a very informal abbreviated sense. However, when you’re looking into scientific fields, eventually said partner returns, having lost some weight on the trip down to absolute zero. This all makes complete sense in my head, and I’m sure is a lot less funny to anyone who doesn’t live there. 4/5.

L: I’d argue that L doesn’t cop its namesake. It’s a really useful letter, loads of words use it, especially in pairs, and my ADHD-brain thought it was fun to just say LLLLLLLLLLL for a bit while I was thinking about this so I guess that’s staying in now. Put me down as an L Lobbyist. 4/5.

M: Mmmmmm. M&Ms. But also it’s kind of a pain to write. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. 3/5.

N: I’d like to fight whoever decided we should have two letters that sound so similar right bloody next to each other in the alphabet. Actually, who the fuck even decided the alphabet’s order to begin with? Maybe it should go M to N, that’ll bloody show you. 2/5.

O: Our fourth vowel, and perhaps one of the underappreciated ones. O is similarly a letter word, but a much more common one considering its use as an interjection. It’s also one half of a very powerful letter combo, as we’ll see. 4/5.

P: There’s the other half. Many a joke involves OP as a phrase, whether it mean overpowered or original poster, and the letters’ adjacency is a lovely bit of serendipity. Whenever I say P out loud, on its own, I have to resist the urge to do some incredibly shitty beatboxing, which may or may not be a good sign. 4/5.

Q: I was going to write some very harsh words about Q, and its dependency on U, but then I realised that that is probably hate speech against the disabled. It still sucks, though. 0/5.

R: R is the one I am most struggling to think of things to say about. R is another letter that’s just kinda there. I’m sure the Roberts and Rachels of the world would disagree with me, though. It’s also the name of a program that I know has traumatised a lot of young biologist wannabes, slapping us with a whole pile of maths and statistics when we just wanted to look at cool plants and shit. Or in my case, cool cells and shit. 2/5.

S: The most overrated consonant, but also the thing that makes plurals not a pain in the ass. However I’m going to lean towards giving S a positive rating, if only because it’s associated with snakesssss (and serpentine characters who can talk) and I like those. 3/5.

T: I don’t think T gets enough credit as one of the pillars of the English language. A lot of very common words feature it, and yet it feels like it never gets the same level of credit as big shots like S or half of the vowels. T is like the character actor of the alphabet, is basically what I’m saying. 4/5.

U: Ah, the letter Americans hate for some reason. I think this is actually commentary on the history of American politics. Because throughout history, America has been extremely selfish and self-centered, while attempting to present a positive image that people are finally seeing past. They only entered WWI and WWII when it was convenient for them, they started wars and initiated coups in even their allies for petty ideological reasons, and they’ve gone to war with several countries and funded wars with several others seeming just for shits and giggles. Because apparently if you’re not an American, then you’re not one of them, and that means they hate U. 4/5.

V: I actually think V is underrated. It’s a fun sound. That’s it, no joke here. It’s neat, I like it. 4/5.

W: This may come as a shock to you, but double-u over here is actually two Vs! unless you’re writing in cursive, but fuck cursive. The French actually have it right on this one, naming it double-v (pronounced doobleh-vay). Add in the fact that it’s literally just M upside down, and you’ve got a pretty shite letter. 1/5.

X: There’s a reason literally every “A is for Apple” thing you see made for kids uses Xylophone for X, and that’s because there are no commonly used words that start with it. Seriously, it’s all just scientific terms- I’d argue X-Ray is more common than Xylophone in common parlance, but also, who wants to explain imaging to a kid. It doesn’t even get a second page of words on Dictionary.com. X also has implications as a letter word, that I’d rather avoid at the moment. 2/5.

Y: Ah, Ygreck, everyone’s favourite “what the fuck, France?” moment. Between that and being sorta kinda not really a vowel, Y prompts its own question more often than I’d care to admit. 2/5.

Z: As a (technical) member of the generation associated with this letter- on the one hand, I’m sorry, on the other, y’all have it coming. The final letter of the alphabet, one of the other ones worth 10 in scrabble (and yet X isn’t???), and one we probably got pretty sick of in the early 00s when it was everywhere- ironically, when most of the generation was getting born. 2/5.

And that’s the lot of them. I hope this didn’t alienate any non-English speakers too hard. It’s probably fine.

Join me for more bullshit next time I have another stupid idea. I mean, tomorrow.

#ramble #nonce shit tbh #remember when I made good content? yeah me neither

3 notes · View notes

kachinnate · 3 years

Note

evens for the ask meme if you want (or just whatever evens you want to answer)

:’0c <3 oh wow okie anon

ill throw it under a readmore then since that means i’m answerin like uhhh 30 sumn questions jfdsgnfdg

2. who did you last say ‘i love you’ to? my dad before he left for work i think ??

4. are you insecure? about almost everything B^)

6. how do you want to die? i don’t particularly Want to die asdfgh but preferably just not by asphyxiating or like something bad happening w my organs?? 😔 mayhaps something unfortunate but kinda funny idk

8. played any sports? i was in marching band for two years, which depending on who you ask may or may not be a sport!

10. when was your last physical fight? i’m like 99% sure i’ve never genuinely physically fought someone?? i slapped my brother really hard though when we were children tho kdsjgnkdsg

12. have you ever stayed up for 48 hours? physically, yes probably

14. do you miss someone? the list of people i miss is literally miles long at this point we Hate living in a pandemic bro

16. how exactly are you feeling at this moment? on edge and kind of achey 😔 i also keep nervous ticcing which is making my life difficult bc i’m trying to DRAW

18. are you scared of spiders? yeah 😔😔😔

20. where was the last place you snogged someone? ‘snogged’ is literally such a cursed term n i hate that i had to look it up to figure out what it meant dsbnksdgsdg but uh my bedroom

22. do you want to have kids? how many? at the moment i don’t rlly seeing myself having kids |’D my partner would have to Really want them and i’d have to like come to terms with the idea for me to even really consider it

24. what is/was/are your best subjects? english and history, which makes the fact that i’m a computer science major kinda hilarious

26. what are you craving right now? ;;; cheesy bread.. also like a kiss or sumn

28. have you ever been cheated on? i haven’t been in a real relationship to have been cheated on i don’t think ,

30. what is irritating you right now? my father and Myself 😔

(already answered 32)

34. who/what was your last dream about? dreamt that moss was mad at me for something i think ??? it was about crossovers and they were sending me Many Paragraphs which is funny in retrospect because i’m pretty sure they Don’t mind crossovers and are in fact more privy to them than i am asjfnkdsjfgsdg??? cursed

36. do you give out second chances too easily? i sure do ! third and fourth chances also very common pensive i rlly let myself get Fucked Up before i realize a situation mayhaps might be toxique bc i have issues(tm)

38. is this year the best year of your life? 2021 just started but i’m going to say already a soft no

40. have you ever walked outside completely naked? nope ! i think if i break a certain like ~tradition rule~ at my uni the repercussion is that you have to Streak on a certain part of campus, but i can tell you wholeheartedly that i’d just let myself be cursed rather than do that

(... upon looking at the post they really skip from 40 to 51 hmmm?? cursed)

52. do you believe everything happens for a reason? as in fate or like Some Plan someone’s got for us? no not really

54. is cheating ever okay? nope

56. how many people have you fist fought? nONE,

58. favorite weather? sunny n warmmmm

60. do you wanna get married? uhhHhH i’m not sure

62. what makes you happy? being known / reminding ppl of things / being perceived by those whom i loveee

64. would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? ᶠʰⁿᵍʲᵏˢᵍˢᶠᵍ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵖᵃʳᵗᶦᶜᵘˡᵃʳˡʸ ⁿᵒ 😳

66. do you have a friend of the opposite sex* who you can act your complete self around? *for clarity’s sake imma pretend that says ‘gender’ but yeah ! a few !

68. who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? my brother i think... talking about our mental illnesses as a Treat 😔 also he got on me for taking another 19 credit hour semester sighs

70. is there anyone you would die for? not particularly a fan of this question bc the answer could Change depending on like,,, my self-worth at the moment LMAO so for time’s sake i’m going to gently say no :’D

woo okay that’s all the evens thank you anon !!!!

70 horrible questions

#garbage.txt #ask #anon #ask to tag #long post #Anonymous

2 notes · View notes

xenoglossy-but-also-fishing · 4 years

Text

LFRP: Amandine du Aubrieault

The Basics ––– –

Age: 25

Birthday: 12th Sun of the 6th Astral Moon

Race: Elezen.

Gender: Female.

Sexuality: Asexual/grayromantic.

Marital Status: Single.

Physical Appearance ––– –

Hair: Something like deep-gray with black streaks.

Eyes: Violet.

Height: About average, for an elezen, she would say.

Build: Lithe.

Distinguishing Marks: Other than a mark going through her right eyebrow, she doesn’t have any visible scars or marks.

Common Accessories: Her staff if it counts as one, her ear cuffs. Normally wears a necklace and bracelet. A small pouch on the inner side of her coat with gods know what inside of it.

Personal ––– –

Profession: Usually just says ‘mage’ and leaves it at that.

Hobbies: reading, spending some time with friends, going out once in a while to enjoy herself. Learning about new and exciting things.

Languages: Eorzean, Ishgardian, a sentence or two in Hannish that she learned from a friend.

Residence: Ishgard.

Birthplace: Ishgard, presumably.

Religion: Worship of the Fury.

Patron Deity: Halone, the Fury.

Fears: Dying without ever knowing the truth that evades her, seaweed, the actual truth that she is trying to find.

Relationships ––– -

Spouse: Doesn’t have one.

Children: N/A

Parents: Reauriene du Aubrieault: adopted mother, deceased. Amandine has no idea on who her biological parents were.

Siblings: Only one that had died before she could really ‘know’ him.

Other Relatives: None that she’s interested in keeping contact with. More than likely alive.

Pets: None.

Traits ––– -

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable (depends on the first impressions, really.) / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between / Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Additional information ––– –

Smoking Habit: Tried it once, hated it, never bothered trying much afterwards.

Drugs: The Fury said drugs are a big no-no. …Probably. Anyways, she has no interest in them.

Alcohol: More of a social drinker. Usually drinks only wine, even at that.

RP Hooks ––– –

Ishgardian - Amandine was raised in Ishgard for nearly all of her life. Up until two years ago, she had never even stepped foot outside of the Holy See. If your character happens to be Ishgardian as well, then perhaps you may recognize her from somewhere, like running into each other while shopping or by sitting together in church.

Out From the Rumor Mill - There was a minor rumour that had started up at some point, two years ago. A terrible illness had taken over Reauriene du Aubrieault, and just as suddenly as it had come, she passed in her sleep. The family attempted to keep it covered, yet such things have a habit of getting out.

Made more difficult when the apparent heir of the house did not take up her mother’s title, instead going to the aunt, instead. Combined with talk from those employed to the family that said Amandine was being cast from the family on several suspicions of heresy, and having potentially poisoned her mother to claim the title… made no better by her just-as- sudden disappearance. Mayhap one with a good memory and keen eye could recognize this wayward daughter of the Aubrieault family.

Out on the Road - contrary to how the story of many Ishgardians vanishing without another word after being suspected of heresy would usually go, Amandine did not suddenly join a merry band of heretics, or get flung from the edge of Witchdrop. Consciously aware of the latter being a distinct possibility, however, she left Ishgard behind one snowy eve and started off on her own into the great world beyond— she would live out her days as an adventurer, free to go where so ever she chose, to do as she wished. Could it be that you met this bright-eyed adventurer once? She was quite often seen sulking in Gridania after a disappointing pay for her efforts.

Looking For - most things! Friends, rivals, enemies, frenemies… and maybe romantic-esque things, though that one is a little more unsure. (Also probably worth mentioning I don’t do ERP. I’m willing to go with fade to black, but actually like… rping that kinda stuff out is a big pass.)

I’m up for discussing ways that they might know each other, anyways! There’s bound to be some interesting ideas we can brainstorm up.

Contact Information ––– –

Heya! So, there are pretty much three easy ways to find me— tumblr, discord, or just in game in general.

I can be found on @yafaemi (my main blog), or here, on xenoglossy. This is my side blog for- you guessed it- Amandine. Feel free to shoot a message! I usually have access to tumblr from either my phone or computer.

Another is discord. You’re more likely to get a quicker answer on discord to be honest, I usually have my discord open. My discord is rory#4178, if you want to get in contact for anything!

Then there’s ingame. All of my characters are on Mateus in particular, I don’t really have alts anywhere else. This is a bit more of a gamble, since I might not be on in general. Though, if you do happen to see either Amandine Aubrieault, Aurora Rivers, or Oliver Elysande running around on Crystal, feel free to say hi! It’s more than likely me, unless I have twins that I don’t know about. And if I do have twins I don’t know about, well… that’s cool, too. I guess.

I’m usually free during the afternoons every week during normal times, and pretty much all day every day during… not normal times. Being this specific time. But ya, we can probably work something out! My timezone is EST. I live in Canada, if that makes it more specific.

Anyways! Before I forget to add it, here is Amandine’s carrd info as well!

#ffxiv rp #crystal data center #mateus lfrp #lfrp crystal #lfrp #ffxiv lfrp #ff14 lfrp #ok im running out of things to tag here

19 notes · View notes

vbee-miya · 3 years

Text

[romantic matchup]

╔═ @tired-of-this-bs ═╝

𝙵𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚞𝚙 - 𝙹𝚘𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚘 𝙺𝚞𝚓𝚘 (𝚏𝚝. 𝙺𝚊𝚔𝚢𝚘𝚒𝚗 𝙽𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚔𝚒)

Ah, yes

“ J O T A R O ” “ D I O ” “ O H U R A P P R O C H I N G M E ”

Okay my opinion is that he’s pretty insensitive, but that won’t mean he wouldn’t want you to not ask him for help, doesn’t matter if it may sound stupid.

Because he is your friend and he wants to make sure you’re not suppressing down your emotions to the point where you just break.

Cuz honestly same 😌🤚🏼

He’s a logical thinker and thinks outside of the box.

Therefore with you coming up with various logical ideas in anything he’d admire you for that.

He could care less about your appearance. Intelligence >>>>

I mean have you seen my boy Kakyoin? Man is big brain.

Jotaro and you would have an interesting friendship.

Like his idea of hanging out would most likely be pretty boring, but fear not that’s why Kakyion is here.

Man’s will save the day, because he has more fun and clever ideas.

Question.

How often do you clown your friends?

Because to an extent since you somehow miraculously became his friend (mayhaps the similar personality) I feel like you and Kakyoin would clown him on a daily basis. Or at least when you guys hangout.

Now there’s a reason why I paired you up with Jotaro rather than Kakyoin.

I feel like with Kakyoin, he would want to learn more about you and such and it’s not just like oh what do you like to do, it’ll be something like so how was your past like? And you stated that you don’t really like opening up to those.

As for Jotaro it’s not that he wouldn’t care per say it’s more of the fact that yes. He understands so he wouldn’t have any interest in talking about subjects of that matter.

As for Kakyoin the way you two became friends was through Jotaro, naturally I feel like Kakyoin would want a type of friend that would assure him everything would be alright when things go to shit, almost like a mom friend or a sweet optimistic friend ya know?

Of course the Stardust Bros is a different story, but let's just say you didn’t have any stands of some sort.

Anyways yes J O T A R O .

Let's say Kakyoin got sick and he had to stay home, BUT wait the day he got sick was the day you guys planned to go to an amusement park. Jotaro tried to talk things out with Kakyoin, but Kakyoin wouldn’t allow it and said that you two should just head to the fair without him.

A sad story really.

Anyways at first it’ll be awkward because it’ll feel like you’re hanging out with yourself. That’s until some old fair guy work came up to y’all and said “What a lovely couple, here take for free.”

I’m calling it, Jotaro wanted to internally throw up.

He wanted to punch the old man with his stand, but he couldn’t...that’s a lie. He could’ve but all that came out was “yaRE YaRE dAZe” and he did that hat thing. I mean who’s knows he might done something to the old man but that seems a tad bit too cruel right? 🧍🏻‍♀️🧍🏻‍♀️🧍🏻‍♀️🧍🏻‍♀️👀

The rest of the day was fun, surprisingly, Jotaro chuckling at others stupidity when trying to win the rigid game booths. Anyways you both left the fair early to check on Kakyoin he asked how things went. You briefly told Kakyoin everything besides that one awkward encounter...Ya we don’t speak about that.

Brightside was that you guys got free food.

⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹

Downside of this friendship...would, probably be nothing. He does get irritated easily, but he wouldn’t hold a grudge or anything of that sort.

If you’re being loud in public he’d just go. “yaRE YaRE dAZe”

𝚂𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚞𝚙 - 𝙻𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝙰𝚋𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚘

Logical you say?

Intelligent you say?

Book smart you say?

HaTe InJUStiCe?

SAY LESS!!!!!!!!

Please this boy was an ex police officer. Of course he knew how unfair the justice system was. That’s one of the many reasons he became one.

But even so, he was eventually fired from his job for certain reasons that he wishes to forget about.

So when he found out that you were a person who hated injustice and how unfair the systems were you betcha he’d try talking to you.

Like Jotaro he’s pretty insensitive, but if you need someone to talk to Abbacchio isn’t really the best at being sympathetic.

But damn, is he a great listener and since he isn’t that well about being sympathetic if you ever need the harsh truth. He’s got you.

I don’t see Leone as a cat person, but I guess he wouldn’t mind as long as they aren’t being annoying.

I feel like he wouldn’t understand dark humor, but when he does I don’t see him laughing out really about it. He’d just make a small snickering sound and then be like “tsk, Y/N mature up.”

Playing devil's advocate? He’d play it to, possibly lowkey start competing with you in a very lowkey lowkey way. On see who can play the best devil’s advocate.

⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹

Negative part of this friendship...how is y’all’s communication going?

And again he’s pretty insensitive sooo don’t expect him to know how to handle emotions. Another reason is that he wouldn’t really know how to deal with your short temper, he’d just roll his eyes to the sky and listen to music. Isn’t bothered at all, but secretly he’d want to throw you out the window depending how long the temper lasts, especially when you become a tad bit too sassy. Your ass is out the window.

𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚞𝚙 - 𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚊 𝙶𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚐𝚊

You’d be too intimidating for him. Perhaps scary.

He’d think you’d be able to beat him up just like that.

I mean you're smart and shit & he’s kinda a dumbass….. Just saying (16x55=28)

So in conclusion an intimidating smartass would scare him. Please this boy.

⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹⊹

But let's say you two do become friends somehow….He’d still be scared of you, but more of an older sibling scary.

Again another really fun request. Hope you enjoyed your results @tired-of-this-bs . Sorry if I might’ve left any blanks. Or if the characters weren’t who you’d hope to get m(_ _)m

——————

For those who are still waiting please be patient. I've had a pretty busy schedule and workload. DM me if your request has been pending for about a month now.

Pictures edited by: @dublemiyachiaseed

𝙿𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝙲𝚑𝚎𝚌𝚔 𝙼𝚢 𝙽𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 (𝙿𝚒𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚝) 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝚁𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚄𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜

#jjba matchup #jojo’s bizarre adventure matchup #matchup *.·:·.✧

3 notes · View notes

gg-astrology · 4 years

Note

heyy! one of my friends is a cap sun/merc/venus/mars + a virgo moon and talking to him can get so EXHAUSTING and it's not just me saying this, a lot of other people i know say the same thing but i'm looking through the astrology point of view and i wanted to hear your thoughts on it. also is it true that virgo moons can be emotionally detached/have trouble expressing their emotions or does that depend on their other placements?

hey there! 💙🖤❤️ i totally get what you mean, I know someone like that too.. but I have to say this, once again, (as a precaution) try not form opinions of the sign/placements based on bad experiences. Just moving forward, in order to learn techniques and stuff properly. This is just a precaution to keep in mind?

About and For the Virgo Moon Person ⬇️

🚫long post 🚫

So…how do i say this.. virgo moons… they think alot because they want to help? that’s their mode of caring?

In a way, being useful/thinking logically is how they provide help for others. Even if people don’t like them, virgo moon’s detachment stems more bc they care about others than an actual detachment/isolation itself (i.e. see aquarius detachment as well, but of a different kind than virgo).

I think it’s that kind of thing y know - like, detaching ur emotions so u can still offer objectives first. But in a way they also like to over-analyze and over-think a lot of stuff. Especially emotions and how to deal with it/process it moving forward. I think that’s why a part of the archetype is those of a giver and ultimately self-sacrificial, because they will put other priorities before themselves - whether it’s people, objectives, or getting their views across to help the situation.

Even if they bury or suppress their own sensitivity and emotions a lot of the time in order to do that (provide help/offer assistance/support). It’s a good idea to keep in mind that they are burying it underneath.

Let’s look at it from their perspective for a second - you’ve probably already realized this (or if not, it’s never a bad thing to look at it again and maybe realize how empathetic they can be) - they process emotions themselves very logically, so when others come to them for help - they tend to give advice/reflect that back in the same manner, without getting too attached to the emotional side of things (being capable vs being too emotional).

However, they ARE sensitive to the environment - to people around them + what is sourced. If they can’t identify the problem/isn’t sensitive to that - then they wouldn’t be able to offer any advice regarding it. It’s good to keep in mind, that the moon receives energy from others. So when their advice is criticized, thrown away, hurled back or hurled at them. They may hide behind a mask of indifference (bc, again, logic and understanding rationally that not everyone can like you) – but it does still hurt.

That kind of creates a loop contributing to how they suppress or have difficulties occasionally with expressing themselves, or letting themselves talk about stuff freely. Because as much as they want to help - sometimes they think they’re not translating well, or is not helpful to others, the idea of what they’re giving being the opposite of helpful - wasteful or a burden - sometimes repels them too (more like, ‘if it repels them personally it would repel others as well’. That’s how they’d think about it.)

So. You can imagine what that would be like if you’re stuck in a loop of trying to be the Best Version of Yourself Possible (that you think is needed/that you’re proud of or accepted yourself as) but not being actually accepted by others - it’s kind of a hard life to have?? Virgo/Pisces have this thing where being accepted is nice, is what makes it - ultimately fulfilling. They have a role in the universe and a function - and sometimes it’s just hitting and hitting a metal bar until something fits - whether its a place, person, environment, life. That’s when it’s truly ok to feel accepted.

I guess the best way to say this is that Virgos can think sometimes that emotions get in the way - which can be true - of fixing things. And that’s how they function?

I can totally understand your frustration - especially if the person has a lot of Capricorn as well (wanting to be right, prideful, wanting to be Good and the Best even if they can be low-key about it!) - but, again, this is just very earthian. And ultimately - if you’re asking for my perspective, they deserve some empathy. They’re not? really doing harm to anyone. And sometimes it’s just that.

I don’t blame the person altogether, I think it’s an everyone’s problem where no one’s developed or doing well enough to accept each other which is a? thing that happens sometimes in groups and maturity (the idea of developing). A boat is being balanced, someone needs more help than others because they’re rocking it with their own personal problems - but it takes a team to actually keep it together and not throw them overboard.

You don’t have to be friends with those you know you can’t handle right now, I’m just saying 1. look out for yourself, your own boundaries and mental well-being 2. hopefully this will help with empathizing with the person in question a little bit more. At least keeping in mind that they have their own perspective and emotional stuff too. and 3. If things don’t work out right now - don’t worry about it. Time is a long long journey, and people can grow and change - doesn’t mean you have to be there or be obligated to that.

Anyways, as an ending note I just wanted to say I do think Earth moons all kind of have similar problems with opening up - but emotional detachment doesn’t mean they don’t have emotions inside. It’s good to keep that in mind!

If you need any advice on how to help this Virgo Moon person - usually offering detailed and logical advice right back analyzing the topic (whatever it is, like, hey lets talk about boundaries, or hey lets talk about how we both want to be treated?) tends to help. I think they’d appreciate it, just as long as it remains neutral and not a personal attack/direct criticism. They’re still a mutable earth sign, so they CAN get slippery if the tone isn’t right skkskskskkd but - otherwise, I think just spelling it out to them on how to DO stuff that you (and others) are comfortable with is nice.

The problem with this combination is that they don’t KNOW if nobody teaches them. They don’t know what people expect, what other people require, they’re trying to do their best figuring it out themselves and trying to provide from their own perspective. Feedback really helps, but done so in a way that’s like proposing a new concept to discuss/discover together. Rather than a criticism of how shitty they made someone feel.

I hope this helps?? 💙🖤❤️ Again, if you’re interested in learning about this astrologically - try not to have prejudice by learning archetypes of these signs. It tends to help, alongside the placements.

I think most of the time we’re trying to line up our experience with what we’ve learnt, simultaneously at the same time. But sometimes we miscalculate and turn into our experiences over-blinding what we should learn. I recommend reading up on what the planet does as well - if you’re looking into further details about the topic! As it tends to help.

Right.. so. Hm! I can’t take all the credit for this myself, since I did have a long discussion with my friend who’s an Aquarius/Virgo. I think they’re very empathetic, and it helped me a lot with how I wanted to form this answer. So I’m gonna add in some excerpt incase it helps:

Aquarius/Virgo friend:

“i process emotions w a logical approach and when ppl for some come to me for help I’m v much able to help them and give them advice without getting emotionally attached at all? this sounds bad bc it sounds like im not emotionally supporting the person truly nhhhdh yeah it can be useful for advice and knowing how to go on from a bad situation nd move on but it’s not always ideal since. duh. feelings r made to… be felt.. properly”

“but emotionally detached like FR…. idk man…. i think we care a lot abt people, we always want to help nd we’re not ok if they’re not. virgos r actually v sensitive to their environment and how others r feeling as well”

“and true i do feel like all earth signs have issues w expressing emotions. they’re grounded nd they know themselves… so they all think they’re self sufficient. or want to be or whatever. but ofc it’s not true y'all do need somEone sometimes. but its hard bc everyone relies on earth signs i think… so yeah”

“take good care of Virgos. we’re sensitive. we need love. we want people to like and need us. we’ve been through more than u know. yes i will process that you don’t like me logically but i do care deep down, I’ll just bury it so I don’t stop being logical. bye”

“also as u know we’re really good over analyzers nd over thinkers nd w that being said pls reply u were typing but didnt send did i say something wrong i hope i didnt but i idk idk what I’m talking about but am i dumb??? reply plsssksskkjsjd where are u… but then we never send these despite thinking them bc it’s an earth sign supposed 2 be cool for everyone nd grounded all the time”

So! 💙🖤❤️ They’re kind of worriers! 💙🖤❤️ But they’re pretty harmless and nice once they learn how to relax and be chill a little bit more. I guess I’m saying sometimes you just gotta sit a cap/virgo down and be like my dude… mayhaps not?? and be done with it!! 💙🖤❤️ I hope this helps! 💙🖤❤️💙🖤❤️

#astrology asks #virgo moon #cap/virgo #damn all that cap...#no wonder #caps are EXHAUSTING bc theyre serious about everything #i talk about caps being funny and fun loving #but sometimes like myself?? personally??#i know i take things unexpectedly seriously #esp with virgos bc we want to be the best or like #put our best foot forward #anyways #anon #asks

45 notes · View notes

everlarkficexchange · 5 years

Text

Unmasked ~ Fourteen

Written by: ~ M ~

Prompt #88

Rating: E (Explicit) This fic will contain consensual sexual content; mild language; discussions of injuries, illness, and amputations in a historical setting; discussions of miscarriage; discussions of minor character suicide; references to non consensual sexual situations.

My thanks to the moderators of @everlarkficexchange for always running an entertaining event, and for playing along with a little fun and mystery. Also my thanks to everyone else who has offered up their inbox for submissions. I appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm for this story. There are still several chapters to go, so if you volunteered to help post and have not yet, there is still a chance I will need your help! Please enjoy the fourteenth chapter of this adventure. Previous installments can be found here. Regards,

~ M ~

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

~~ Chapter 14 ~~

That night, I do seriously consider, as mad as it sounds, greeting Peeta in nothing but the mask I wore to the masquerade. I go so far as to strip down alone in our room and put the thing on. Then I realise how ridiculous I look and consider that he might laugh or worse, and put my night dress right back on and hide the mask.

Then I wait… and wait… for him to come to bed. I fume and huff and read. I am about to go in search of him when the door opens and he limps into the room. His movements are the most labored and careful I have seen them yet.

“Where have you been?” I ask and he stops, his shoulders slumping as I rise to my knees on our bed, fists planted on my hips.

“Ah. You are awake. I’ve been in the stables, assisting Joe and Charles with a mare who has been ill,” he says and hobbles over to his chair.

“In the stables?” I ask and fly off the bed.

“Yes,” he answers, doffing his coat and vest, then lowering himself to the chair. I stand before him, furious at his distance and the way I feel in this moment as he rubs his thigh, furious with him and at the sick mare for commanding his attention.

Good lord. I am jealous of a horse for she has received more touches from my husband than I. Truly I have sunk to astonishing depths here.

“And what is wrong with your leg?” I ask, crossing my arms and giving him my darkest scowl.

“It is made of wood?”

“No husband, what is wrong with it is that you have been working too hard and neglecting your health. Take off your trousers.”

“Madame I do not —“

“Take off your trousers this instant, or I shall fetch the shears and do it for you!” He stares at me a moment, his blue eyes wide, astonished. Slowly, he removes his boots, his eyes not leaving mine as I tap my slippered toe to show him my impatience.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” I mutter and reach for his trousers. He makes a noise of distress as I help him with the garment, but they are off in a flash along with his undergarments, and I kneel before him. I hesitate then, as it strikes me how close I am to…him.

Oh Lord and mercy, I start blushing and completely lose my thoughts as he thankfully adjusts his shirt and hands to keep himself covered. I started so brave and now find myself unsure. He clears his throat and I tuck my hair back behind my ear before reaching for the contraption that keeps his leg attached. I skim my fingers over it and examine the straps, at a complete loss as to where to even start.

“Have you done this before? Removed a man’s leg?” he asks and my eyes leap to his. He’s smiling slightly, although I can see that he is in pain and I cannot help but laugh a little.

“If I say yes will I be met with your fury or your disapproval?”

“Most likely with my jealousy of the man,” he says and my cheeks warm at the idea that he might be jealous of anyone I paid such intimate attention to.

“I am guessing here. Perhaps some assistance, sir?” He leans forward and shows me how to remove his leg. I set it aside and scowl at the cloth padding that provides cushion between flesh and wood. It is stained with blood and Peeta winces as I prod at the chafing and blisters on his skin.

I begin to feel ill. It is much worse than I thought. Mother and Prim would be better at this, given how much more experience they have in healing. I barely know where to start and need a few deep breaths to order my thoughts. But I refuse to summon either of them. Peeta is my husband and I will care for him.

“It is not that bad…is it?” he asks. I turn my scowl to him.

“Not that bad?” I rise and ring for Mary. She must be close as she answers almost immediately.

“Yes ma’am?”

“I need a healing kit as quick as you can, Mary…and perhaps a light repast from the kitchens.”

She glances past me at Peeta then and hesitates. “Is Mr. Mellark injured?”

“Not severely, but that may change should he decide to be obstinate.”

Mary hides her smile and vanishes as Peeta protests. “Are you calling me obstinate?”

“Indeed I am, husband.” I retrieve the wash bowl and a sponge then sit before him, spreading a drying cloth beneath his truncated leg. I wash the affected area then and glower at each tiny wince of his until he grips the arms of the chair and ceases to show any reaction at all.

Mary returns then with the kit. She brings Sae with her, carrying a tray of food. Slices of bread, pears, goat cheese and honey.

“I apologize for keeping you both so late, but I’ve also need of my sewing kit and several scraps of fabric. I believe they are in the drawing room right now, if one of you could fetch them.”

“Allow me,” Sae insists and both of them leave.

“That thing is useless,” I say with a nod towards the soiled piece of padding.

“That thing prevents splinters or from it being worse than it already is.”

“What were you thinking? You cannot continue like this!”

“And what is my alternative? To whine and complain? Allow others to shoulder the work intended for me?”

“You live in a house of healers, Peeta. To leave these small injuries to fester is both an insult and a poor decision.”

“You have had much bigger wounds to heal. I will be fine,” he says and I can argue with him no more or I might truly lose my temper. How could he not see how irresponsible it is for him to have left this uncared for? That is precisely what led to my father’s amputation, only Peeta does not have much of a leg left to amputate.

“Shut up and eat your pears,” I say. He sighs but does as I order. At one point, he offers a bite to me as well. I take it and thank him. He feeds us both, one morsel at a time, as I finish washing him and then carefully dry his leg.

I set to work crushing together herbs to make a paste for him as he watches me. “This should draw out any infections that may have already taken root and assist in healing the blisters. In the morning I can coat it with an oil that will soothe the chafing. You need a padding with a more open weave, and I think mayhap a sleeve to both hold the padding in place as well as protect your skin from these straps will help. Tomorrow, Mother and I can concoct a paste that will help prevent this from happening again if you insist on being so stubborn.”

“Thank you,” he says and all I can manage is a nod. “You have a talent for this. For healing.”

“My mother and sister are better at it. It is far easier to kill than to heal.”

“And yet you are not a killer either. You hunt only what you need, kill only what is needed. You are more a grower, a cultivator, a provider.”

I pause and scowl at him. “Flattery will not make me less angry with you.”

“Why are you angry? Have I disappointed you in my work? In the fulfillment of my duties?”

“Not in regards to this house and estate.”

“Then in what, Katniss?”

“Had you left this untended much longer, it would have gotten infected, and then what, husband? Would you have taken your silent suffering to the grave?”

“I would leave you with no complaints, I should hope. You would be an exceptionally wealthy and independent widow,” he says it so easily without a trace of self pity or sarcasm that it angers me further.

“I beg your pardon?”

“One of the things I tended to while I was in Capitol before our wedding was having a will drawn up. I signed it the day after we were married and sent it back to my solicitor. It names you the sole beneficiary of our funds should anything happen to me. You will not be left dependent on the Mellark family, nor anyone else for that matter. You can cease being angry at the idea of my passing.” I stare at him, agog for a moment. “Is that not what you wanted?”

It is precisely what I wanted, and he knows it. I work on his leg, gently spreading the paste and apologizing for its chill when he hisses slightly. I cannot meet his eyes, overcome with the knowledge that he so readily saw to such a detail, without my asking or reminding him of the reason I sought out a marriage in the first place, and that he did so before we had any sort of agreement between us at all.

“I have a copy of it and can show it to you if you do not believe me, madame.”

“I suppose I am expected to throw a gala party to celebrate your death,” I mutter.

“Some cultures do so. Why not embrace that?”

“Mourning is a fine time to adopt a new culture!” I practically snarl and he sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face as though he cannot even bear to look at me, but would rather look at his palm. Or the ceiling, as when he removes his hand from his face, he tips his head back to rest on the chair and speaks more to the crown moulding than to me.

“There’s no need for sarcasm, Katniss. We both know you would be better off as a widow.” If he tells the truth about the will, then he is correct objectively speaking, and yet something inside me screams in agony at the very idea of having to bury him, of never seeing his smile nor hearing his laugh ever again.

“I would not.”

He laughs bitterly then and lifts his head to look down at me. “You’ve barely been able to look me in the eye the past few days, and I cannot blame you. I am as disgusted with myself as you must be for my weakness in nearly yielding to misguided temptations, for how close I came to breaking my promises to you.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” I secure the bandages on his leg and stand to clean up the mess, too distracted in my rage to actually have any awareness of what I am doing.

“You’ve no idea at all, have you? The liberties I took…when you believed me to be someone else. How much I wished for the way you looked at me that night to be real and… for me, not another. I should burn in Hell or at the very least self hatred for my actions and feelings. Then yesterday with your corset…I nearly took advantage of you! What sort of monster does that?”

“That is ridiculous!”

“It is not ridiculous. It is abhorrent.”

“No, it is ridiculous! I have barely been able to look at you these past days, not because I was angry with you or feared you, but because I’ve barely been able to keep from ripping your clothes off!”

The words fly between us and he sits back as though I had slapped him. I too step back, astonished at my own admission and brazen words.

“What did you say?” He breathes the words and I groan. How humiliating, to just throw such words out into the air. He is too surprised by them. Madge must have been wrong. I move to focus on cleaning up my supplies rather than focus on my careless words, but he reaches out, grasping my wrists. “No. Wait, do not go. Katniss.”

I do not know what comes over me, likely insanity or perhaps simply fatigue. I pitch forward and our lips collide together. His mouth is still opened and our teeth connect painfully, as do our noses, making me jump back and wince. He stares at me, wide eyed as I blush furiously. How stupid of me. I think I may have gotten worse at kissing since my first.

“Why did you do that?” he whispers, his hands still holding my wrists so that I cannot escape.

“I do not do a thing that I do not wish to,” I spit the words out because I am so tired of fighting, so tired of pretending that everything is fine, all is well, and that I am not ready to scream or tear my hair out with frustration. The weight of everything that has happened since spring presses down on me, culminating in this fresh degradation. I cannot even manage one decent kiss.

“You wanted to kiss me?”

“That is what I said.” I shiver slightly as he slides his hands up my arms, up to tangle into my hair as I stand bent awkwardly over him. His thumbs caress over my cheeks.

“And what do you want right now?” he whispers the words, his voice deep and curling through my body, settling as an echo in my blood as it thrums through my veins. EVer so slowly, it dawns on me that Peeta is not looking at me with disgust, nor even with dispassion but rather with great care. I am not sure if I move towards him or if I let him pull me down. Either way, I am drawn to him. Down to his mouth as our lips touch in a tentative caress, folding together in a warm embrace as we stand still like that. My muscles shake with the effort of holding this pose, of noting everything in this moment.

The familiar and comforting scent of his body, magnified in heat. The feel of his steady, rapid exhales caressing over my cheek. The softness of his lips against mine and the heat simmering beneath our touch. I moan and let go. Why should I refrain from kissing him? I have wanted this for so long now. We are married, bound to one another until death tears us apart. Before that happens, I wish to live as a married woman, fully and completely. I wish to know the secrets between husband and wife – between Peeta and I.

I kiss him as I have longed to do, pressing my lips closer to his, lifting my hands to hold his in place on my neck and jaw. Warmth spreads through me, such incredible warmth that I shiver with it. Our mouths move together, somehow familiar already, perhaps because I know him now.

My knees weaken as the kiss continues and I shift to sit on his lap, my legs moving and stuttering with my uncertainty. I’ve no idea where to move nor what to do. I flounder until he pulls his head back. “I am not certain how I should… I am trying not to hurt you.”

“Come here,” he whispers. Letting go of my neck, he guides my legs until I am seated astride him, my knees pressed close to his hips and his warm palms caressing my calves, up to my thighs as I resume kissing him, combing my fingers through the soft curls of his hair, sliding them over the broad planes and angles of his shoulders, down his chest to feel his heart beat beneath my palms. Its steady beat pulls me deeper into the kiss.

Just as I am wondering how he would respond to my tongue in his mouth, he moves his lips, down my chin, lower still as he kisses his way down my neck. I move, restless and spurred on by the delicious feeling of his lips on my skin, of the delightful shivers that wrack my body and the heat growing heavy between my legs, demanding an answer. He murmurs my name, his hands caressing over my back, up to unbutton then drawing my night dress off my shoulder, giving him access to more of my skin.

“Yes, please,” I plead, scarcely knowing what I am agreeing to, but I am caught in a fever and know that only Peeta holds the cure.

“Do you feel pity for me, Katniss?” His question teases a smile from me and a feeling of lightness flutters in my heart.

“None, you obstinate bastard.”

“Duty to your marriage?”

“Heavens no, not now. Duty is for the pious and the righteous.”

He kisses over healthy and scarred skin. His hands grip my hips and pull me down. I gasp at the feeling of something hard pressed to my intimate skin, beneath the fabric of his shirt still caught between us.

I have seen a handful of naked men, although never in an aroused state. It is sometimes inevitable with a healer for a mother. While some part of my mind knew that for copulation, a man’s sexual organ would become engorged as an animal’s does, I have never been impressed with the sight of a flaccid one, to be honest, and had no idea of how such an odd looking organ could incite desire in a woman…or anyone for that matter.

Feeling the reality of Peeta, however, hard and present, insistent and pressed tightly to my own sex, is another matter entirely. A small spark of fear, curiosity, and yet mostly desire, dances to life inside me. I am overjoyed at the evidence that Peeta does in fact desire me. I find further relief and also torment in the movements over him as I discover exactly how such a thing could incite desire in me.

“And this is certainly not pious, husband,” I whisper and tear at his neckcloth until his shirt gapes open for me. I grab hold of his hair to pull his head back that I might taste his skin as he has tasted mine. He must enjoy it as I kiss and suck at his neck, if the curses and moans he releases, his tightened hold on me, are any indication. I smile in pride to myself. It appears that I am improving at this seduction business.

“Tell me to stop. I will stop if you demand it,” he whispers then curses as he buries his face against my breast. His exhales burn through the fabric of my nightgown, caressing over my heated skin and a stray thought of his mouth there has my breasts feeling heavy, the peaks tight and aching. “But God in heaven I do not want to stop.”

I push myself into him, heady with the groan I receive and lost in pleasure as his hands slide beneath my nightgown, his palms scorching, soothing, and pleasing all at once, guiding me to a place I do not know and desperately wish to experience.

“You would make me wait longer than I already have, husband?” He laughs against my skin, lifting his head to smile up at me with swollen lips, flushed cheeks, and wide, darkened pupils. “I will not allow you to stop now, Peeta. You have denied me our wedding night for too long.”

I take his mouth with mine then, sliding my tongue past his lips, uncaring if he is shocked at my boldness. His moan vibrates across my tongue along with his taste as his arms tighten around me, holding us together as I writhe, seeking release for this pressure mounting in my core. A brief flicker of familiarity in the movement of our kiss seeps through the haze of desire and need, a calling out of a memory and a taste and scent that tickles the brain. It whispers of starry nights and exquisite kisses shared between red stained lips.

No, not now.

I do not want the intrusion of a third party in my thoughts as I kiss Peeta. I stiffen in his embrace, but before I can break the kiss, there is a knock on the door and it opens.

“My apologies for the wait, Mrs. Mellark, I had a bit of a time finding it. Picked up Miss Primrose’s first then saw the fancy stitching and knew it couldn’t be yours,” Sae says as she enters and I leap from Peeta’s arms, hands frantically repairing my appearance as she takes note of our faces, the way we cannot look at one another and the way we shift clothes back in place to hide away kissed, flushed skin. “And my apologies for interrupting.”

Sae’s smile is as poorly disguised as our activities. She sets the sewing kit down on a chest near the door, curtsies, wishes us a good night, and leaves us in awkward silence. How humiliating, to be caught in the act of mauling my own husband. Undoubtedly the entire household will hear of this by dinner time tomorrow. The mere fact that Sae and others will know exactly what we are doing behind our doors now cools the ardour that so recently burned through me. Her knowledge saps my body of desire and replaces it with fatigue.

“I am…going to sleep now,” I say and move towards the bed. “In the morning, I will design a better sleeve and cushion for your leg.”

“As you wish, madame,” he says, his voice hoarse. I settle in the bed and he does not move.

“Would you cease being obstinate?” After a few moments of him moving about, tending to the fire, the room darkens. Then I feel the bed dip as he joins me.

“Satisfied, wife?”

“Perhaps a little, husband,” I mutter.

He releases a sigh, sounding beleaguered as he moves and wraps his arms around me. “Better?”

I shift to find a more comfortable angle, my backside brushing against him as I do. He sucks in a sharp breath and I pause. Push back into him and grin at the feel of him still hard. His response to me tonight gives me courage to ask something I need the answer to.

“Do you desire me, Peeta?”

“You’ve no idea,” he whispers, holding me tight so that I might feel him and his kisses as they whisper over my neck, up into my hair as he inhales and then releases his breath in a tortured groan. “But you were right. In my efforts to avoid you and the temptation you present, I have exhausted myself. I would not last ten seconds before humiliating myself and disappointing you.”

“So you admit to avoiding me?”

“Please understand, it is not meant as an insult to you, Katniss,” he says. “I am…used to being unwanted. A bastard is never truly wanted. Neither is a cripple. I am both. Even when it seems I am close to earning acceptance, something always arises to remind people of what I am.”

I lay still then, contemplating his words for a moment. He says them with no trace of self pity or sadness but rather states them as a fact. “Has this anything to do with the letter from your family a few days ago?”

His body turns rigid against mine and I know I have struck upon the truth. “Amongst other things.”

“Bad news then?”

“In a manner of speaking. We are expected to present ourselves at Vale House at our earliest convenience,” he tells me in a sardonic tone.

“The Marquis cannot be bothered to attend our wedding but we are to answer his summons at the drop of a hat? Why did you not tell me?” I ask and Peeta turns me in his arms to face him, his hand caressing over my cheek.

“Your father and your family need you right now, Katniss. I would not ask you to leave them under such circumstances. Therefore, it is not our earliest convenience and the Marquis will have to wait. I have already told him so.”

“That does not change the way he has ordered us about!”

“I like it no more than you, but he has provided us with a generous income as a wedding gift—”

“A start! It does us no good if we mismanage it in the coming years.” Peeta lets go of my face and shifts uncomfortably in the bed.

“It would be one visit, Katniss. I would not enjoy it any more than you. One visit to bow and curtsy and pretend that we’re eternally grateful and then he would leave us alone.”

“How can you be certain? What is to prevent him from–”

“Read it,” he says, rolling away and lighting the lamp. He retrieves a letter from the drawer on his side of the bed, shoving a few scattered papers back in before handing me the letter. “He makes it quite clear he sees our marriage as a chance to be well rid of me, since my time in the infantry did not do the job.”

I snatch it up, eyes darting over the words. My skin crawls at the domineering tone and veiled insults – at the implication that Peeta would never have managed to convince anyone to marry him anyways and so it is lucky that Sir Robert eloped, thus leaving me available to manipulate into a marriage with Peeta. The implications that I was not good enough for Robert, but Peeta is an acceptable substitute that I should be grateful for. I am not sure how he manages it, but the man simultaneously insinuates that neither of us are good enough for the other and also that we should both be grateful we were fortunate enough to find someone to marry us at all, all while congratulating himself for raising Peeta to the point that he no longer needs a father. The message is clear. Come visit and be grateful and then never bother me again.

“Who did Robert elope with anyways? The queen of Panem?” I say and at this, Peeta laughs.

“Not even close.”

“Well this pompous ass makes it sound like he did. At least tell me I was left for the daughter of a Duke, a minor princess.”

“No, the Marquis would have rejoiced in such a thing, not tried to hide it,” Peeta says and I wait for a real answer. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “You remember I told you that my mother worked for the Marchioness’ birth family?”

“Yes,” I say, impatient to hear the truth.

“That means that once I was living as a Mellark, I was invariably dragged back to that estate along with the rest of the family.”

“Why?” I ask, astonished that they would demand such a thing of Peeta. To be forced to return to a place so full of both happy and miserable memories for him must have been devastating.

“To prove that the Marquis is merciful and generous because he provided for his bastard? To control Lady Tabitha through humiliation? Remind me that I was forbidden to so much as speak of my birth mother anymore and why? Perhaps to remind me that with a snap of his fingers, I could be back in the kitchens or worse. Or to use me as a warning for everyone else in his circle of influence that he could do the same to them as he had done to my mother and I. Who knows how truly twisted that man’s cruelty is, for surely I do not. But that is not the point. The point is that…Robert was already used to visiting there and with my presence as his brother, there were now…new friends and playmates he was forbidden before. We were careful never to be caught of course.”

“His aunt then, or perhaps a cousin,” I guess and Peeta sighs.

“Were it that simple, although he did have a brief romance with one of his cousins. That was the trouble. Robert was always in love with someone, convinced that she was the only one for him. It was impossible to tell fondness from infatuation from real love where he was concerned. I think… in a way, he was desperately seeking the sort of love and affection he was denied as a child, always expected to act like a lord before he was even a man.”

I glance down at the pillows beneath us as guilt rises in me. At the callous and business like marriage I proposed to him. I was attempting to be honest and instead perhaps hurt him more than I had realised. No wonder Robert ran away with someone else. He knew that I did not love him even a little.

“I suppose he asked this unsuitable girl whom his father now wishes to hide to marry him at some point in the past?”

“She refused Robert’s proposal, insisted she could not bring him down so. It left them both broken hearted. The Marquis purchased my commission shortly after and I had no choice but to leave. At first, Robert’s letters to me showed his pain, but they gradually grew increasingly optimistic, and by the time I returned, Robert seemed to have recovered from the heartache. He was back to his old self, falling madly in love at every dance.

“Then he started courting you, and I thought… I thought there was no chance for him. How could he not develop a real love for you?” Peeta says it so tenderly that a strange sort of giddy feeling permeates my body, all the way to my fingers and toes. His belief that Robert would not be able to keep from falling in love with me suggests more about Peeta’s feelings for me than it does Robert’s, in this case. “But I knew of your family’s situation and the real possibility that it was Robert’s fortune not himself you were truly interested in. I thought to protect him from disappointment or from falling in love too fast by accompanying him on every outing, but in the end it did not matter. He was clearly not over his former love and ran off with her the night of the masquerade, although I’ve no knowledge yet of the details how exactly that came about. I am simply sorry that you were left hurt by it.”

“You still have not told me who she is, Peeta,” I say rather than confront the lingering feelings in my chest at the memories of those last few days in Capitol.

He takes a deep breath and releases it. “Delilah Cartwright…Delly.”

I stare at him, unblinking. He’s waiting for a reaction, and yet I’ve no idea how I should react. I search through feelings and attempt hurt. That no longer seems to fit. In truth, the only thing hurt by Robert’s elopement was my pride. My vanity. And perhaps my sense of control over my life.

But… I did not love him, and I have no way of knowing if I would have come to love him. There is also the fact that it matters little if I would have. I am married to Peeta, and as much as I try, I cannot summon any regret over the outcome, despite my lingering misgivings about the methods.

I finally manage a shrug. “Is there a bargain price for family members on those excellent boots she makes?”

Peeta blinks twice and then his lips curl up in a fragile smile. Ridiculous the way my heart flutters at this small expression of hope on his visage.

“You are not angry?”

“I am perhaps…confused about a few details,” I say and then a massive yawn halts my next words. I am exhausted as well, apparently. “But you can remedy that in the morning. For now, you will hold me and you will see to your health or you will regret it. I have grown rather fond of you, husband.”

“Rather fond of me?” I nod and close my eyes, prepared to sleep.

“Yes and I am now used to having you about. You can be most helpful at times. I will be quite aggravated if you die on me due to your own stubborn neglect. Such an inconvenience. And you will not even think of doing something so ridiculous as sleeping in that chair, ever again.” I crack one eye open and catch him smiling down at me. “Unless you are drunk.”

He laughs, extinguishes the light and wraps me up into his embrace. “I would not dare over indulge nor die prematurely for fear of your retribution, wife.”

“Good.” A smile stretches across my lips and I am grateful for the darkness, for surely my expression is quite feral in that moment. “Then rest with me. There is always tomorrow, husband.”

To be continued….look for chapter fifteen on the blog of @stjohn27

#Springtime Edition 2019 #submission #M #prompt 88 #late submission

136 notes · View notes

zorahvelaceras · 4 years

Text

Guilty or Innocent - Zorah Shapa

Asked someone to marry you?

“Never asked, didn’t really think about it until recently. Mayhap I’ll ask in time. Or he will. Whoever gets to it first. As long as it’s with him.”

Kissed one of your friends?

"Sure! Plenty of times. Either paid for, dared, or just because I usually have some pretty amazing friends. Wait, how are we referring to as kissing thought...?”

Danced on a table in a bar / tavern?

"Yep, many times. Seems really far away now. Sometimes I’ll probably still do it depending on what’s going on.”

Ever told a lie?

"Yes but...” Zorah paused, “... only because it involved my life in the matter.”

Had feelings for someone you can’t have?

Zorah shrugged, “Not really. In certain businesses, you learn not to attach yourself to someone. I didn’t until I came to Eorzea. But I have him.”

Ever kissed someone of the same sex?

"Isn’t this the same question as earlier? Well I guess slightly different. Gender and orientation matter little, I’ll kiss whoever. Unless they’re dirty, count me out.”

Kissed a picture?

Zorah laughed, “Uh, not of a person? A place. I remember receiving a picture of Limsa Lominsa before and I loooved it. I think I did kiss the picture and that was when I wanted to travel to Eorzea.”

Slept until 5pm?

She gave a shake of her head, “I don’t remember ever sleeping in. Mayhap when I wasn’t feeling well. But even then, I was up.”

Worked at a fast food chain / restaurant

"What? Food can be fast? Is that healthy? Can you fast food fish? I love fish.”

Stolen something?

"Mayhap a few times... To be fair, they were clients and very very rude and abusive. They didn’t need those extra...things...” Zorah glanced to the side with a shrug.

Been fired from a job?

Zorah shook her head, “Nope.”

Done something you regret?

Zorah tapped a finger along her chin, “Not really. I don’t like the idea of regretting anything.”

Laughed until something you were drinking came out of your nose?

She gave a shake of her head, “Oh no no no... that would never have gone over well. Though now I’m a lot more free to express myself, so I wouldn’t doubt it’ll happen.” Zorah laughed.

Caught a snowflake on your tongue?

"The first time I went to Ishgard, which was recently, totally may have tasted snow. Don’t tell Khora....” Zorah attempts to whistle, failing at it.

Sat on a roof top?

A nod was given, “With mama, quite often. We like to stargaze. I should do that with Khora soon.”

Kissed someone you shouldn’t have?

"Uh, there’s a lot of separate questions for kissing. No, though.”

Sang in the shower?

Hands went up in the air, “All the time, even when it’s just me home. Gotta enjoy life.”

Been pushed into a body of water with all your clothes on?

"Probably, i like to swim though so it’s good. I can just strip in the water.”

Shaved your head?

Her hands immediately moved to her hair, “No and never will! You’ll have to convince me really hard to ever get rid of my hair!”

Made a boyfriend / girlfriend cry?

"I’ve only had the one; Khora. I don’t think I’ve made him cry.” She looked thoughtful about the question. “Facepalm a lot though for sure. But I never want to make him cry.”

Shot a gun?

A simple shake of her head; “No, I don’t really use discs for my dancing either. I tend to just keep to aether.”

Still loved someone you shouldn’t?

"Ah well, Khora’s my first love so, no.”

Have / had a tattoo?

Zorah spread her arms to show herself off, “Despite being clothes, I promise my canvas is blank. Though some people have some pretty amazing tattoos.”

Liked someone, but will never tell who?

"Nope. I think, well there was this one Miqo’te in my tribe whenever he’d come back around. But I was super young.”

Been too honest?

She thought for a moment, “I...don't think so? I can’t say for sure.”

Ruined a surprise?

"Uh, nah. I’m really bad holding that information. I get soooo excited and then I really wanna tell and then I make hints and... it’s all downhill from there. I wouldn’t suggest telling me about surprises. Thankfully, I think people already knew that.”

Been told that you’re beautiful by someone who totally meant what they said?

Heat rose on her cheeks, nodding. “They all meant it, but when Khora reminds me, it’s different. I love hearing it.”

Stalked someone?

Zorah gave a nod, frowning. “No, I can barely hunt much to the tribes dismay.” She gave a dismissive wave. “Not that it mattered anyhow.”

Thought about murder?

"Absolutely not. That’s cruel.”

How about mass murder?

Zorah just stares blankly.

Cheated on someone?

"I wouldn’t cheat on Khora. Or anyone for that matter. That’s a mean thing to do. I’ve seen others go through it, I wouldn’t wish that heartbreak on another.”

Gotten so angry that you cried?

"Uh, I can probably cry at anything. But I don’t think I’ve been angry enough for that.”

Tried to stay away from someone for their own good?

She shook her head, “You know, I’m only 22 summers, mayhap these questions are better suited for someone older and more experienced.

Thoughts about suicide?

"I love my life and mama would be heartbroken.”

Had a girlfriend / boyfriend?

"Yes! Right now.”

Gotten totally drunk during a holiday?

"Duh, nearly every holiday.” She laughed with a slight shrug of the shoulders. “What else would you do during holidays?”

Tagged by: @ivyffxiv <3

Tagging: @khoravelaceras @pocketninja-ffxiv @lunaexiv @magistrixvoidchaser @hearts-and-hammers and anyone else that wants to do it!

#Mannerisms #ffxiv #ff14

4 notes · View notes

thinkofduty · 4 years

Text

non culpa mea

"So what you're saying is," says Ingvald, far more calm than he likely feels, "That we have to argue for the right to travel with them?"

He's refusing to call them anything that could be misconstrued as friendly, Orella notes with some little amusement. Not that she can blame him: the last thing either of them wants is to be seen as sympathetic to them or their cause - whatever that cause might be. None of them have spoken of it, and none of them are likely to.

Berend shrugs and keeps walking. They keep pace with him easily; wherever he's bound, he's not trying to escape them, at least. Falling back into companionship with him was like falling into bed at the end of a long day: easily done and gratefully so. "Thought you'd be happy for some peace," he says after a moment. He shoots a knowing look Orella's way. She shrugs.

"Could give him back minus the tongue," she suggests, and when no one laughs, rolls her eyes. "A joke. It was a joke."

For all the airs of faux-disinterest they've put on, Berend can see right through them. He's always been good at that. "What do you need them for, anyway?" he asks, and his tone bores right through Orella's skull to nestle in the place where headaches are born. Not for the first time, she cannot remember why she is so insistent - why both of them are, come to think - on keeping the idea of the way their comrades used to be so firm in their minds. They are yet men, irritating as fleas, loud and proud of it, all around nuisances.

The road from Quarrymill to the Reach should only have taken five days. They'd made the journey in eight, having been stopped on the road by desperate bandits unknowing they'd stopped four of Ala Mhigo's finest. One of the birds pulling the cart had tried to bolt at the sound of steel, and a whole afternoon had been wasted recapturing the damn bird and then mending the trace and axle it had been fixed to. Gisfrid had suggested plucking and roasting the chocobo in a fit of pique, and seemed as though he would - but then the chocobo had warked most indignant and pecked a deep gouge in his hand. Even Milleuda had laughed, and Orella suggested they present the bird with a medal.

But they'd gotten there, eventually, and when Ingvald had asked the Resistance men for help getting the sacks of grain down, they'd put Gisfrid and Milleuda at spearpoint instead.

"Can't say," Orella says, at the same time Ingvald tells him, "What's it worth?"

Berend starts laughing as they shoot startled looks at one another. For once they've traded positions; she'd thought Ingvald would be most displeased if she started haggling for their secrets.

"Cute," Berend says. "Come on, just spill it. They're not getting out of their chains anytime soon."

He has the right of it. Had it not been for the name of the Riskbreakers, neither Orella nor Ingvald would have passed through the Reach unscathed the first time they'd come through. At least these idiots have companions that might be able to help, if they're so inclined. Not that they've discussed it, though they've wanted to - neither of them have spent a moment alone, and they trust Resistance ears as much as Garlean ones.

They trade glances again, and Orella shrugs. Fine, the twist of her mouth says. "Don't go getting any ideas," she warns him.

"quo Folles," says Ingvald before Berend can interrupt. His expression turns as dark as Orella's tone. "We're after him, at their... request."

There's more to it than that, of course, but the explanation will serve for now as good as any other. "I'm coming," their friend says with utmost seriousness.

Orella snorts. "What did I just say? You're stationed here, Armsbreaker. You don't have leave to go running off as and when you please."

"Ho," says another familiar voice when Berend opens his mouth to retort. "What's all this about running off?"

In the months since Orella last lay eyes on him, Wilhelm has caught the sun. Brown as Velodyna mud and almost as shaggy as the bears that live in the area, he and his twin could not be less alike if they tried, and thank the Twelve for small mercies. Despite that, they've the same crows' feet gathering at their eyes, the same manner of standing still and straight.

"No one's running anywhere," Ingvald sighs, and swats his brother's hand as he reaches to muss his hair. It's getting shaggy. "Stop that."

"No? Pity." He's attractive, despite the way he's abandoned his looks for the wild to take over. Ingvald had been mortified to hear that from Orella's mouth; she'd teased him about it for days. "Thought you'd heard about Ser Çesaret before I came with gossip."

"Oh, dear," Berend says unsympathetically. "What's he done now?"

---

The court sits crosslegged on the ground, it being a sight more comfortable than standing for hours in judgement.

Berend had whistled when he'd seen Gisfrid and Milleuda sat in the centre of everyone; he's sporting fresh bruises and a eye nearly swollen-shut, but she's untouched. Whether it's because he opened his mouth or the guards thought hitten a woman was below them is a debate better saved for later: there they sit, hands tied behind their backs, in prisoner's rags.

Almost the whole of the Reach is here, it seems. Not every day does justice come to be meted out.

At Rhalgr's great stone feet sits Lyse Hext, all in red, young and inexperienced to this sort of thing. Orella guesses by the brightness of her eyes that she's never sat as judge before, or at least rarely enough that the trials themselves have made no lasting impression on her. Yet. Gyr Abania will do its best to weather that from her, no matter how many years it takes.

"State your names before Rhalgr, so He may know you speak true, and for the court, who have gathered to hear your crimes," she calls, still sounding half a girl despite the role she's taken on.

"Milleuda Folles," says she, and when her partner in crime says nothing, elbows him.

"Gisfrid Çesaret."

Lyse nods, satisfied. "Will you speak for yourselves?"

Beside Orella, Ingvald swears under his breath. "If he has any sense at all-"

He doesn't, of course. Gisfrid lifts his head and stares as best he can, attempting to look severe and managing it. "We do. Tell us what these charges are, for we've done nowt wrong unless travel's outlawed in this republic of yours."

"He's going to hang," predicts Berend cheerfully. "With a mouth like that he can't not. Does he not know who that is?"

"I don't think he cares," Orella murmurs back. Even if they've never met before - and they've had no reason to, as far as she's aware - he'll know Hext's name. Orella wonders how many of Curtis' men Gisfrid had killed, back in the day. She wonders if Lyse herself knows.

The girl herself is unfazed by his manner, at least. "You were arrested for your ties to the Corpse Brigade," she says loudly, and her words carry. "Men that served Theodoric's realm now serve the Resistance, but none that did not renounce his name and his crimes."

Hidden by the crowd of onlookers, Orella shifts uncomfortably.

"You, however, continued to act under his banner for the last twenty years out of Thanalan, in the heart of the mainland. Do you refute that?"

There's nothing either of them can say that isn't a blatant lie. It does not matter that they have not sworn outright to tell the truth, for their lives depend on their words, and for once, honesty appears to be the best policy. Too many here know who they are; those that don't will be having the names and deeds whispered to them. They will lie and die, or speak true and by sunset sway from a branch.

"The Ul'dahn sultanate has a warrant out for your arrest," Lyse continues, oblivious to the storm brewing in Orella's breast. "And at least one Free Company has personal grievances with you and yours. Coupled with your crimes against the free state of Gyr Abania-"

"Oh, hells," Orella murmurs. A hand touches her shoulder. She doesn't know who it belongs to; it means nothing to her. "We can't-- this can't happen."

"You want to get between them and justice?" Berend hisses somewhere behind her. "Don't be so bloody stupid."

She shakes the hand off and pushes people aside; if Ingvald or Berend say something to try and get her to stop she doesn't hear it. Blood pounds through her ears and her heart beats wildly in her throat. All she can see is the two captives at the mercy of an audience eager for their heads. Ala Mhigo has changed not a bit and she is disgusted by it.

Men and women part before her and then she stands with them at her back, back straight and cheeks flushed, hands balled into fists.

"I stand for them," she calls, and the court grinds to a halt. This close she can see Hext's daughter. She's older than Orella realised.

"You vouch for these criminals?" she asks. Her voice is flat as though she is used to people getting in the way of justice. "State your name."

"Orella Steelhand," she says easily. Before her, Gisfrid has twisted awkwardly to gawk at her. "Previously also a member of Theodoric's retinue. Now I work with the Riskbreakers."

"Do you deny their crimes?" Hext asks. Orella folds her arms.

"No. Hells no. But they meant not to stop here. That was my doing. Aldynn of Ul'dah charged us to travel to Gyr Abania for... for a reason," she amends before she can disclose to the world why they're here. It's bold of her to say, barely even the truth, but Aldynn is half a continent away, so-

The Miqo'te on Hext's right frowns. "Raubahn Aldynn is no longer Flame General," she says. "He quit the position to help the rebuilding effort here. Mayhaps we should adjourn," she adds, softer, "and send for him as soon as."

Lyse does not look best pleased at the suggestion, more a petulant girl than the woman she really is. "I wanted this done now," she grumbles. "I've little enough time to do another hearing, let alone with yet another angry mob awaiting my instructions."

Hardly believing her luck, Orella clears her throat. "Adjourn," she says, clear enough for it to carry. The crowd murmurs. "I would speak with you privately of the request."

---

"Told you," Gisfrid snaps.

The very embodiment of steadfastness, Orella ignores him. For all her stillness, one might think she doesn't even understand the Abanian language.

"I said," he repeats. Besides him, Milleuda rolls her eyes.

"Hush now," she tries, but Gisfrid will not be hushed.

"I said I didn't want to come back, and you dragged me here anyway, and look what happened-"

This time Orella rolls her eyes. "Grow up," she snaps, still not looking his way. "Are you such a child you're going to throw yourself to the floor in tantrum?"

"I'll show you childish," he threatens, but when Orella ignores him in favour of picking her nose, he goes no further.

He had told them. Several times, in fact, as endless as the breeze.

When they'd stopped in Quarrymill he'd been disgusted by the refugees. Like the fucking plague, he'd said as they'd waited. Like rats.

Both Ingvald and Orella had been disgusted with him in turn. She'd walked away to find somewhere else to sit as they waited for the fresh cart to arrive, and Milleuda had gone away to steal or make water or some such, leaving Ingvald to listen and remind him that there was nowhere else they could go for clues, and if they hadn't wanted quo Folles found, maybe they shouldn't have put in the request in the first place.

Lyse had listened, because she is younger than them, and has a better heart than old knights jaded to the way of the world. She'd listened to the whole sorry story without interrupting, and then asked a single question.

"Can I trust them?"

"No," Orella had said. "Not unless you expect them to play you for a fool."

She'd nodded at that. "What about you? Can I trust you?"

And Orella had given it plenty of thought. She was as guilty as Gisfrid for crimes long-since forgotten but no less execrable for memory's lack. Helping with one city's liberation did not wipe her slate clean.

"I said," grumbles Gisfrid. "I fucking said."

---

When Lyse comes to them, she is not alone. It seems as though the Miqo'te that sat in attendance at court determined not to let her out of sight. Behind them, two guardsmen with their helms drawn down stand at attention.

"Reached your verdict, have you?"

Gisfrid is in need of a good kicking in the ankle, and Orella moves to deliver it, but Milleuda reaches him before she can. The other woman clips him neatly around the ear and he yelps sharply. Lyse watches, saying nothing, letting this happen, and Orella wonders if she's seen this sort of thing before. Mayhaps leaving Gyr Abania meant she was couched in a gentler life as she grew up - but no, that can't be right. The girl's leaner than most her age, arms defined and back straight.

"I have, as it stands," she says. The old fashion hangs off her as easy as anything: it seems curious that she'd choose to wear such dress when the rest of the men and women that live and work in the Reach wear uniform. It's hard to think of it as anything other than sexy, though she knows it's not intended to be; the last time Orella had seen silks like those they'd been on Gisfrid's aging mother, who had been a well-known whore in her time.

When she looks, Gisfrid has his eyes trained dutifully on her feet, and she cannot quite hold back a grin.

"We've been in contact with Raubahn- excuse me, Commander Aldynn," Lyse says, oblivious to the thoughts and feelings she's stirred up. "He's of the opinion that if you're here, it's for a reason. That you wouldn't flee this way unless you had to."

"Could've been in Hingashi by now if we wanted to flee," Gisfrid grumbles. Beside him, Milleuda pinches the shell of his ear and tugs so he goes silent again. Orella folds her arms.

"You're letting them go, then?"

"With supervision," Lyse confirms, her gaze sliding toward Orella like a knife through butter. "We all agree the word of another member of Theodoric's cabinet isn't quite good enough to get them off the hook, but you told us true enough they wouldn't be here without reason, so..."

Orella wonders who we all are, but before she can say anything, Ingvald steps up. His mind works quicker than hers, and he's already arrived at the obvious conclusion. "Finding the man we're after is only going to get harder if there's more of us," he says patiently. "We're not exactly indistinct as it is."

"That's why I'm only giving you two," Lyse says, and the men either side of her step forward when she lifts a hand. One has a spear upon his back, taller by far than any Roegadyn Orella's ever seen; the other has a pair of bagnakhs hanging from his belt. "They won't be getting in your way, I assure you."

"And if we refuse?"

Milleuda's voice is soft, but it carries all the same. Lyse's right-hand woman shrugs, as though they were waiting for the question to be asked.

"Then we hang you," she says simply, and when she grins they all see the flash of fang. "Simple as that."

None of them need so much as to look at one another to know what they're all thinking. As pleasant as it would be to have silence reign once more, Orella isn't willing to bloody her hands for it.

Ingvald neither. "We'll take your men with us."

And from beneath a griffon-helm glinting in the afternoon light:

"Excellent choice, little brother."

#p07

1 note · View note

wackygoofball · 5 years

Note

What represent Brienne's dressing robe during latest scene? We see Brienne dressed as a woman, quite and confident... but in black ... black not blue! And furs bed with Brienne remember me the old scene with Bran / direwolf / Catelyn Stark... so sad...

Well, my guess is good as anyone’s, I suppose, anon, but it is known that Wacky loves to ramble - especially about costumes. Since it is a longer post, I will put it below the cut:

Colors are always a tricky thing because depending on the culture you take from, they may signify very different things (in some cultures, white is the color of mourning, in others it’s black, etc.). However, since the costume design is done by the wonderful Michele Clapton, we can at least go from the British context here for some ideas.

To my mind, there are four interpretative planes on which I can see this operate (others may certainly find more and/or better ones, but those are the ones that come to my mind:

1) I suppose the straightforward associations of the color black in this context are mourning, death, endings, and sadness already pre-mediated in the dress before the two even say the words and Jaime rides off. She basically *is* wearing a mourning dress for the loss she is about to suffer (if not for long… I remain certain of that). It makes her standing there alone all the more heartbreaking. She merges with the background, she becomes visually more and more one with the darkness of the night. In that same vein, it creates a very stark contrast to Gwen’s naturally pale complexion, which puts even more focus on her face (whites and blacks have the greatest contrast in the color scale).

* Side note: Also note the texture of the dress. It’s roughspun and thick. It’s a tough fabric that stays very much in place and does move around a lot. Since it is very thick, it signifies protection (against the cold), too.

2) It’s a neat way of establishing visual connections between the two right in that scene and in connection to earlier scenes. Black has been a dominating color for both lately. Jaime, upon riding North, takes up a black cloak he repeatedly wears, even in that episode. Brienne also features a dark coat edging on black.

It’s been the predominant color of the North. I think that may also be some level hidden inside particularly for Brienne who’s gotten quite cozy up in the North even though her *identity* bears the color blue. She is *not* a Northerner and her time with Sansa is actually long since up, if only she finally found an impetus to make that step… oh wait! ;) And yet again, that perfectly mirrors her with Jaime whose ultimate landing place is not Winterfell either. Winterfell was about getting them together, but it’s not mean to be the place where they ultimately stay together. This black unity was a comfort they enjoyed while it lasted, but it was only ever there for a time because both their houses, both their colors, both their duties are calling.

In some shots during the goodbye scene, Jaime’s red leather jacket also appears almost black due to the darkness of the night.

See how they almost look like they are one piece color-wise? They are building a visual unity not just through the physical touch, not just by her cupping his cheeks or him rubbing his (black!) glove against her wrist for comfort. They are creating a visual unity in that darkest hour. In this shot in particular, it’s even hard to tell where one part of clothing begins and another ends.

It can also be regarded as a neat callback to their lovemaking scene. The tunics they wore were either *really* dark gray or just plain black. Be it as it may, the *look* black in those shots.

Jaime and Brienne wore different style tunics, but the shirts were still harmonizing, creating unity even before they dared to physically touch and undress in that chamber. In that way, the color black, even before the goodbye already pre-mediated visually what was about to go down. This callback to their unity may be one of the big hints here already.

3) Black is not just the color of mourning in Western culture. It is also a color that signifies status and authority. Judges wear black robes, referees have black clothes oftentimes. I have noted elsewhere that I was mesmerized by how regal and lady-like she looked in that dress. Gwen knows how to carry a dress, so that certainly added to it, but it really has something dignifying about itself, teh simple cut just fitting perfectly and all. Let’s not forget that Jaime and Brienne are basically still some of the few actual adults in the room, considering that we have a bunch of young adults calling global shots. I think that may also be a hint because this is a *mature* Brienne of Tarth we are seeing, we are seeing her carry herself with dignity and authority. If a spec of mine turns out to be true, then that posiitions her at last as a lady about to take charge *in her own right* rather than continuing to play bodyguard for a teenager who has others who can take good care of her in her stead.

4) Black is the color of mystery, of the unknown. Part of the reason why a lot of people are afraid in the dark is because we don’t typically see what’s in the dark, a fear that was deeply embedded into our system because of our ancestors who had to fear to be eaten by wild animals that sneaked up on them in the middle of the night. Evidently, that’s not what’s happening in that scene, but black still has something mystifying. It leaves you in the open. And I think that is also the big giveaway with regards to the misdirection I believe they are seeding here. His leaving is a mystery *to her*, she reckons the reason but her heart cannot comprehend it (also due to a lack of information, which is the figurative equivalent of *leaving her in the dark* about certain things, including the threat on his life thanks to Bronn and Cersei posing a threat by extension therefore).

So. Why black, you asked, anon. I think there are many reasons why. It fits the aesthetic of the overall scenes, creates visual unity and calls back to earlier moments of unity and closeness, it pre-mediates the sadness and grief we are about to witness for them both while at the same time showing that there is a connecting matter between them.

I think part of the big message for Brienne’s black dress lies on the color (see above) but also the fact that it is a dress. Beside the callback to Ned and Cat parting ways, we see here Brienne at a very vulnerable moment. She appears to him after she laid her feminity bare before him and started to embrace it. She holds herself (because of the cold), only to receive a massive blow to the femininity she finally allowed herself to be part of her life. That is what makes this moment even more heartbreaking than it is because of Gwen and Nik acting the living shit out of that scene and perfectly illustrate the vulnerability Brienne is feeling and the pain Jaime is feeling for saying those things and leaving now, even if it is with almost utmost certainty in an effor to protect her from further harm.

As to your question about the furs… interesting thought. I never really thought about Bran’s bed and the furs, because it just seemed to me that furs were simply the kind of thing to find on a bed in the Northern regions due to the cold.

Buuuut interesting thought, really.

If we compare the shot of Bran’s re-awakening after the fall…

We see fur, we see Ned killing Lady, and then Bran opening his eyes. Also interesting how Ned’s clothes seem to fit in rather neatly here.

While the order’s switched up a bit, we also have shot of furs, guy brooding, about to make a tough choice, and then someone awakening.

INTERESTING.

I don’t know what to make of that, I really don’t, but I find it VERY interesting. So thank you for that observation, anon. Mayhaps the visual callback to Bran we’ve been waiting for? The foreshadowing that Bran had his hands in Jaime’s leaving? So many possibilities with that little robotic guy. Ugh.

Anyway, those are my two cents, maybe three.

#jaime x brienne #got spoilers #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #wacky rambles #anon #thanks anon #I had never thought about it #actually #hmmmmmm

24 notes · View notes

turtle-paced · 6 years

Text

Revisiting Chapters: Sansa I, ASoS

Fun and interesting chapter! Probably not on my personal favourites list, but one necessary to get to some of my favourites.

Sansa’s ASoS story so far...

Following the Battle of the Blackwater, Sansa’s betrothal to Joffrey is off. Huzzah! But this means that someone else has to marry Joffrey, and Sansa’s about to meet the lucky lady.

Now on to the chapter.

Tyrell Politics

This chapter is aaaaaaall about the Tyrells. The last time we saw them, back in Catelyn’s ACoK chapters, we didn’t really see them because Catelyn was focused on Renly, Stannis, and Brienne. Until now they’ve basically been muscle for other forces. Now we’re getting a proper introduction to several of the personalities behind that muscle, the soft power to the hard power. It’s just as formidable.

That soft power is apparent right off the bat, as Sansa watches Margaery enter the city. It’s a big public procession with flowers upon flowers, and the people of King’s Landing love it. Sansa’s now aware that it’s the images they love, not the person and her deeds.

The same smallfolk who pulled me from my horse and would have killed me, if not for the Hound. Sansa had done nothing to make the commons hate her, no more than Margaery Tyrell had done to win their love.

But it’s just such a pretty picture. Sansa’s got the idea behind this now. First we see these tactics pointed at the people of King’s Landing, and then we see them pointed at Sansa.

As soon as we start with the Tyrells in person, starting with Loras, we see a family working together, with just about every Tyrell present brought into this scene save Mace. Loras escorts Sansa to dinner, past Garlan training in the yard. Not only are Garlan’s skills hightlighted, they’re highlighted by Loras himself - and there’s no envy in Loras when he says straight out that Garlan’s a great knight, and the better swordsman.

Then Loras hands Sansa over to Margaery, who starts to work on Sansa like the professional she is. The rest of this chapter is devoted to a good-cop-bad-cop act aimed at extracting relevant, sensitive information from a young girl who’s seen her father murdered in front of her and recently been through a siege, aside from whatever else Joffrey might have done to her. They’re doing this in order to verify for themselves what Littlefinger told them about Joffrey, before they commit themselves to regicide. Cautious, and very sensible. Through this scene, Margaery and Olenna work as a team to get the information from Sansa. Alerie Tyrell’s role is less clear, but I wouldn’t be shocked if she did the background work of keeping the conversation and food service going in the rest of the room while Olenna and Margaery did the interrogation.

Let’s get into the play-by-play.

Step one: make sure the environment is comfortable as possible. Physical comfort, yes, with the firelight and the sweet rushes, but just as important is making sure that the room Sansa walks into is one she feels she can talk in. First, Sansa has to walk past the very impressive-looking Erryk and Arryk, physical security for the room. Next, Margaery refuses to stand on formalities, getting on first-name terms with Sansa within thirty seconds, and sending Loras away with a gesture of physical affection. Then she brings Sansa into the aforementioned comfortable, nice-smelling room, into a social environment more welcoming than dinner with just Margaery would be - the aim is to make sure Sansa feels she is amongst friends. They also feed her, not just a good dinner, but her favourite lemon cakes as well.

Note also that the ladies in the room are from all over the Reach. This is partially to make up a gap in GRRM’s worldbuilding (in which neither Catelyn, nor Lysa, nor even Queen Cersei have ladies-in-waiting), and partially a good indication of how the Tyrells manage dynastic politics and access to power.

Step two is Olenna’s job. What a character. Literally, what a character. I take her funny speeches with more than a grain of salt; she knows that there are people listening in. (She didn’t pull that trick with Butterbumps out of nowhere.) She’s fine with people finding out the light dinner conversation.

Olenna starts by launching a comedy broadside at Sansa.

On Renly:

“Gallant, yes, and charming, and very clean. He knew how to dress and he knew how to smile and he knew how to bathe, and somehow he got the notion that this made him fit to be king.”

On Loras:

“Loras is young,” Lady Olenna said crisply, “and very good at knocking men off horses with a stick. That does not make him wise.”

On Mace:

“As to your father, would that I’d been born a peasant woman with a big wooden spoon, I might have been able to beat some sense into his fat head.”

“My son ought to take the puff fish for his sigil, if truth be told. He could put a crown on it, the way the Baratheons do their stag, mayhap that would make him happy.”

On the Tyrells more generally:

“If truth be told, even our claim to Highgarden is a bit dodgy, just as those dreadful Florents are always whining. ‘What does it matter?’ you ask, and of course it doesn’t, except to oafs like my son.”

Olenna carefully lets the air out of some equally carefully constructed political images, in order to construct a persona for herself. She starts by insulting her family (in on it), the Baratheons (dead), and the Targaryens (also dead), firmly establishing that she’s a rude old lady who’ll say anything about anyone, before she moves on to saying rude things about the Lannisters. She establishes the irreverent pattern before heading into things that may or may not be interpreted as treason. Her honesty (or “honesty,” depending) also helps set the tone. If she’s blunt, it helps others be a bit more honest as well, to return her candour.

She also waits for the meal to be served and attention to be directed elsewhere - namely, at Butterbumps. This is also where she starts in on actually being the bad cop.

Lady Olenna was growing impatient. “Why are you gaping at Butterbumps? I asked a question, I expect an answer. Have the Lannisters stolen your tongue, child?”

“You said that. You know, child, some say that you are as big a fool as Butterbumps here, and I am starting to believe them.”

Sansa’s repeated attempts to deflect by saying Joffrey’s handsome, and also handsome, and if you’re looking for something nice to say about him, he’s handsome, go absolutely nowhere - but nor can Olenna get anything else out of her until she swaps back to kindness as a means of getting Sansa to open up. And not just fobbing her off with “don’t be scared,” but actually providing sympathy for her position.

The old woman turned back to Sansa. “Are you frightened, child? No need for that, we’re only women here. Tell me the truth, no harm will come to you.”

“My father always told the truth.” Sansa spoke quietly, but even so, it was hard to get the words out.

“Lord Eddard, yes, he had that reputation, but they named him traitor and took his head off even so.”

Just words, sure, but a firmer implication of what Olenna believes about Ned’s execution than she ideally might have wished to give. Especially where someone might hear her. At this point, Margaery interjects, showing that she’s been paying close attention to what’s been going on.

“Go on.” It was Margaery who urged.

“Calm yourself, child,” the Queen of Thorns commanded.

“She’s terrified, Grandmother, just look at her.”

Olenna also has to speak a bit more openly about the fact she knows people are listening. She calls in Butterbumps to provide that extra layer of security and make sure Sansa knows it’s an extra layer of security. The Tyrells have to work hard to get this information out of Sansa.

Step three is the follow-up. Having given them the information they want, the Tyrells promise Sansa a reward for her cooperation.

“You will love Highgarden as I do, I know it.” Margaery brushed back a loose strand of Sansa’s hair. “Once you see it, you’ll never want to leave. And perhaps you won’t have to.”

Note the physical contact here, too. Sansa’s not had a lot of non-violent physical contact in the past year, let alone affectionate physical contact.

Close reading this is creepy as hell. Sansa’s emotionally exhausted, people are offering her affection and safety and explicitly “the beautiful magical court she had once hoped to find at King’s Landing”…if only Sansa will agree to marry Willas. Willas might not be so bad, but the rest of it, and the method of presentation and procuring Sansa’s consent feels more than a little sinister. The Tyrells’ offer is backwards for Sansa, the easy way out. It takes her backwards to a time where she couldn’t see how things worked.

Of course she wants it. And of course the story can’t let her take it.

Here’s another interesting thing that comes out of the conversation.

[Olenna] patted Sansa on the back of the hand. “Now, child, the truth. What sort of man is this Joffrey, who calls himself Baratheon but looks so very Lannister?”

So we know that Olenna knows about the incest. Given that Margaery’s right there and stays silent, it’s a fairly safe bet that Margaery also knows about the incest at this point too.

Sansa’s Lessons

Underpinning the Tyrell politics is the development of our PoV character, whose analytical abilities are tested here in her first chapter and, as fitting for a first chapter not even halfway through the series, not yet up to the challenges around her. Oh, she’s closer. We see her do some good thinking right at the start.

She’s to be queen now, she’s beautiful and rich and everyone loves her, why would she want to sup with a traitor’s daughter? It could be curiosity, she supposed; perhaps Margaery Tyrell wanted to get the measure of the rival she’d displaced. Does she resent me, I wonder? Does she think I bear her ill will?

We’re seeing Sansa work through options and possible hidden motives, based on the disparity in their social status. She even considers that Joffrey might have put Margaery up to this in order to humiliate her. She’s partially right; getting the measure of her is one of the objectives, but not for the reasons she thinks.

Perhaps she was doing Margaery Tyrell an injustice. Perhaps the invitation was no more than a simple kindness, an act of courtesy. It might be just a supper. But this was the Red Keep, this was King’s Landing, this was the court of King Joffrey Baratheon, the First of His Name, and if there was one thing that Sansa Stark had learned here, it was mistrust.

She’s been learning that quite well. Worse, that passage is followed by this one:

Even so, she must accept. She was nothing now, the discarded daughter of a traitor and disgraced sister of a rebel lord. She could scarcely refuse Joffrey’s queen-to-be.

Sansa knows it could be a trap. She knows there could well be malice at work here. The idea that the night might end with her stripped naked and beaten occurs to her. And she can do nothing about it except play along. Playing along is the wise move, because Sansa’s now consciously sticking it out until a deadline (which I’ll talk about in a bit).

Then, ‘cause she’s still a kid, most of her analysis of Margaery goes out the window when who should come to escort her to dinner but Loras, and - in a moment that’s kind of funny, really, before the conversation goes sour - she realises that he’s still super hot, incredibly mega-hot, and she is very distracted by this fact.

Sansa was finding it hard to walk and talk and think all at the same time, with Ser Loras touching her arm.

For the remainder of the chapter, we see exactly where Sansa’s still got plenty to learn. Her encounter with Loras is the chapter’s pattern in miniature; she realises quickly that Loras doesn’t actually remember her from the Hand’s Tourney, but continually puts her foot in her mouth afterwards. It’s plain to see why Sansa does so - it’s a happy memory and she doesn’t like it being hollowed out in her currently miserable situation, and there’s no way she could know about Robar. Analysis of the general situation is coming along nicely - but Sansa’s application of skills to a new and changing situation is still a bit shakier.

It’s always worth keeping in mind, too, that all Sansa’s analysis is running against the repeated accusations levelled against her in-universe of being stupid. The poor girl keeps second-guessing herself.

As we see, a great deal of the good-cop-bad-cop goes right over Sansa’s head. She’s learned caution and mistrust, but only got to the first layer of Margaery and Olenna’s objectives. They genuinely did want to hide this conversation from the Lannisters, as much as possible, and this is what Sansa picked up. The offer to marry her to Willas is likewise genuine, and this Sansa can believe. What Sansa doesn’t think of is that she’s a secondary objective, great to have but not needed for House Tyrell, expendable if that advances the primary goal of making Margaery queen.

In terms of the thrust-and-parry of the conversation, Sansa is continually on the back foot. Normally, conversational grace is a strong point of hers, but this is an interrogation and Sansa’s aware of the fact (if not everything that went into carrying it out). She’s more than aware of the potential consequences of actually saying it. Up to and including a scenario where the Tyrells call the betrothal off.

Oh, gods, thought Sansa, horrified. If Margaery won’t marry him, Joff will know that I’m to blame. “Please,” she blurted, “don’t stop the wedding...”

In terms of characterisation, we see Sansa’s courage throughout. She’s petrified. The whole time. That’s why the Tyrells have such a hard time getting the information from her. But she manages to say it. It’s all right there.

“Joffrey,” Sansa said. “Joffrey did that. He promised me he would be merciful, and cut my father’s head off. He said that was mercy, and he took me up on the walls and made me look at it. The head. He wanted me to weep, but...”

“A monster,” she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. “Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher’s boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He’s evil and cruel, my lady, it’s so. And the queen as well.”

The truth. Whatever illusions she had about her past interactions with Joffrey are long since gone.

Moreover, Sansa retains her loyalties to her family. She knows her abusers are abusers. She’s determined not to bond with them, and not to think of Joffrey and Cersei as anything but evil and cruel - even if that means she has to hold her tongue, terrified the whole time that she might be found out and beaten for her opinions. This is a pretty damned impressive feat of psychological resistance.

A Note on Loras

Ouch, that conversation with Sansa.

“That was when Lord Renly was killed, wasn’t it? How terrible for your poor sister.”

“For Margaery?” His voice was tight. “To be sure. She was at Bitterbridge, though. She did not see.”

“Even so, when she heard...”

Clear implication: Loras is the one for whom Renly’s death was terrible, not Margaery. Sansa picks up on this a mite too late. In the meantime, we see that Loras’ mourning for his lover is severely crimped by the fact he can’t openly say that they were lovers. One wonders how many times he’s already heard people give their condolences to Margaery, totally ignorant of Loras’ own grief. And yet he must carry on performing heterosexuality for this clueless little girl. No wonder he loses all warmth.

Then there’s the fact that the conversation touches on the fact that Loras murdered Robar Royce. He says “slew,” but the fact is that Loras found Renly dead, and in his grief, he didn’t just punch the men who were guarding him, he killed them.

“It was after you unhorsed Ser Robar Royce,” she said, desperately.

He took his hand from her arm. “I slew Robar at Storm’s End, my lady.” It was not a boast; he sounded sad.

This is also part of the deconstruction of Sansa’s romantic image of the Tourney of the Hand; what was to Sansa an innocent sporting occurrence is now known to her to end in real violence, the interaction of murderer and victim. Loras feels guilty, as we can see right here (and will see again later), but Robar is still dead.

Chapter Function

It’s a first chapter - it’s there to make an opening play without revealing the author’s whole hand. Critically, for both audience engagement and the character’s psyche, what this chapter establishes right out of the gate is that Sansa can now see the finish line. This also advances the buildup to the Big Event itself, working on the mentions in Tyrion I, and hints that it’s not going to be quite as glorious an occasion as Tywin thought it might be.

No one can save me but my Florian. Ser Dontos had promised he would help her escape, but not until the night of Joffrey’s wedding. The plans had been well laid, her dear devoted knight- turned-fool assured her; there was nothing to do until then but endure, and count the days.

Joffrey’s wedding. Then things will be different. The end is in sight. We just have to hang in there, with Sansa, until Joffrey’s wedding. It goes without saying that the author will make it as hard as possible for Sansa to endure until then. The issue of matrimony comes up at the start and finish of the chapter, first emphasising by implication that Sansa’s now unattached, and then proposing an alternative. So there’s no possible way this could work out - could this possibly be linked to the endurance test the author’s putting her through?

In terms of Sansa’s ongoing skill development, we’ve got a progress check of sorts. We see how far she’s come, and then we check in with Olenna and Margaery to see how far Sansa still has to go to attain mastery of her political skillset.

We also get a good look at a bunch of the smaller pieces that go into the “Kinsglayer stew” and Joffrey’s assassination. In bringing up Robar Royce, we’re reminded of Loras’ murderous temper. The fact that the central conversation even takes place is a hint to future events, because the conclusion that Olenna and Margaery are verifying Littlefinger’s intelligence is a conclusion only possible with hindsight. Most telling, perhaps, is this:

Lady Olenna Tyrell and her granddaughter exchanged a look. “Ah,” said the old woman, “that’s a pity.”

Olenna and Margaery, looking at each other and saying, “Ah.” Again, Margaery has acted throughout this chapter as a partner in Olenna’s interrogation. At no point does she express surprise or shock. It very much seems as though she’s familiar with all the background information Olenna is. She’s just as much “ah, that’s a pity,” in learning that her betrothed is a monster as her grandmother. And she shows just as little fear. When you go back and read, you know that you saw the moment House Tyrell committed itself to the Purple Wedding.

Without the foreknowledge, you just have to wonder what their nonchalance means.

Miscellany

Garlan’s sword skills look like a bit of a Chekov’s Gun, don’t they? Also featured in that brief snapshot of training are the Kettleblack brothers. Of particular note is Osfryd beating up on Morros Slynt - Morros Slynt being not only a squire, but a recently-made squire at that, which the reader knows. Good guy, is Osfryd.

This chapter provides us with our first sighting of Taena Merryweather, “a sultry black-eyed Myrish beauty.”

Willas Tyrell too rates a mention, with his bad leg and good heart, and his love of reading. Another probable Chekov’s Gun.

The final few lines of the chapter give us our first ever mention of Oberyn Martell, introduced as someone that the Tyrells (or Olenna, at least) Do Not Like. “That snake of a Dornishman,” specifically. Already snake imagery and the sense of the Dornish as a cultural other.

Clothing Porn

A bit vague, but Margaery Tyrell is described as “splendid in green with a cloak of autumn flowers blowing from her shoulders.” Ditto with Loras later in the chapter, his clothes are basically described as “white,” but his cloak is fastened with a brooch in the shape of “the rose of Highgarden wrought in soft yellow gold, nestled on a bed of delicate green jade leaves.” (Sansa’s a bit too distracted by Loras’ intense hotness to focus on much more.) We also have Erryk and Arryk, “two guards in gilded halfhelms and green cloaks edged in gold satin, the golden rose of Highgarden sewn on their breasts.”

Food Porn

Broth of leeks and mushrooms. We know that Alerie Tyrell was planning to serve boar and lemon cakes, and eventually cheese, but the actual food isn’t described in more detail.

Next three chapters

Melisandre I, ADWD - Davos IV, ADWD - Jaime VIII, ASoS

The list runs through to about August at the moment, but if you have a chapter you want analysed, send me an ask with that specific chapter, and I’ll add it!

#ASoIaF #revisiting chapters #cw: violence #sansa stark #margaery tyrell #olenna tyrell #loras tyrell #a storm of swords

175 notes · View notes

jutsei · 6 years

Text

Types of Fae Affected Mortals (Part 2)

PART ONE IS HERE!

Decided to write some more stuff since it’s been awhile, and felt inspired! Last time I wrote one of these, I made up a bunch of distinct new types of characters, all associated with, and changed by the Fae in one way!

You might’ve noticed Oathbound got a rewrite recently, that’s because I thought people changed by sealed Fae would be different from people with a direct connection to a fae, sooo... rewrites and another page of this! Basically, the Fair Lands has the fae, and no mortal leaves an experience or connection with the fae unchanged, these are some of the ways you can be changed, in the first one we had a bunch of different ones, but this time it’s focusing on what happens when a person just happens to stumble on fae power without either party intended! They are both brought about by sheer luck, or happenstance... and the results of the Fae punishing another Fae! Anyway, read on!

As before, each part will be split into a few parts

Description: A description/history of the type of fae affected person/thing describing how they may come to be, their history (if any), what they may deal with/some general ideas of how they are

Effects/Changes: How Fae magic/the Fair Lands affect them, changing them physically, mentally

Abilities: What powers, if any, they gained from exposure to the fae

Examples: Ideas/concepts/Overall Examples for a character that fits into the Archetype

Other Notes: Some other stuff that doesn’t fit in anywhere else!

But first, some explanation, how does a Fae lose their power, or get sealed inside an item!?

Judgment

Even in a world as immaterial, ephemereal, and strange as the Fair Lands, there is some amount of order and expectations, especially for those Fae gifted with extraordinary power. The rare Fae that shine above Fae Lords, and are just close to being Archfae are expected to benefit the Fair Lands to keep it going, make it grow, make a positive change... etc.

Should a fae shirk these duties, ignore them, or break one’s own rules... there is punishment involved.

A fae of this standing may lose respect and standing in circles, they may lose their court or lands... but, more often than not, those above decide a worse punishment

They may be sealed away within a magical item, to be sent within a mortal realm, hopefully to never bother them again. aware, and conscious, yet unable to act... unless a mortal finds them and uses their power.

They may have a portion of their power stripped from them, and scattered amongst the Fair Lands in hope someone else will get it... or mayhaps, it may find its way into a mortal world, gifting a mortal with incredible power, but pushing them much farther away from their humanity...

Most of the time, a Fae losing power in this way does not lose all of it, simply leaving them weaker than they were before, only the truly reprehensible fae have all of their powers stripped away and banished to a mortal realm.

Regardless... the following are what happens when a mortal comes upon fae magic suddenly, and unexpectedly.

Inheritors

Description:

One of the favored punishments of the more powerful fae is to transform the offending party into an innocuous object, leaving their power, consciousness, and memories in-tact, but forever trapped within a mundane item, and unable to act. After this, the item is cast into a mortal world, hopefully to never be seen again, so as to not bother them.

Despite this, the object containing the fae’s essence is quite active, and does have power... but they cannot use it... unless one is holding and using them. But unfortunately, because most cannot move or speak, they are forced to simply bide their time and hope one finds them.

For the lucky disgraced that do eventually get found, they use all their power to make the item they are as alluring or appealing as possible, making it shine, look beautiful, or otherwise lovely. Should the mortal be foolish enough to put the item on, or remove a seal on it, a bond is formed between the fae item, and the mortal.

So long as the mortal is wearing, holding, or otherwise has the item on their person, they can use the abilities that the fae had with (almost) no limitations, even if they have no capability for magic, there is nothing stopping them from being a conduit for the fae’s power.

Not only that, but the Inheritor bonded to the weapon is able to hear the voice of the fae sealed within the weapon... but no one else can, leading to embarrassing situations of the Inheritor talking to a weapon in public.

Despite the wondrous endowment of power on otherwise normal mortals, this does not come without a price. Use of the fae’s power is addictive, where before the Inheritor l may have only used it as a last ditch effort, every time they don’t use it, they will feel pulled or compelled to use it more as the bond with the item (and the fae) depends, causing their appearance, personality, and sometimes even memories to change. The worst case scenario of a relatively normal person becoming someone almost completely different, and running off from friends and family is sadly all too common when it comes to these types of mortal.

The fae within the weapon usually has ulterior motives, such as trying to get their Inheriator to free them from their prison, return them to the Fair Lands so that they might regain their proper place in society, to claim revenge... or, in some rather horrifying cases, attempt to take over the Inheritors body and use it as a vessel.

Thankfully, Inheritors at least have freedom of will, even if their talking items attempt to get them to do things they do not want to, there is nothing stopping them from saying no besides some buttered words and sweet nothings, and unfortunately for the fae, more often than not, the Inheritors are too bonded to their weapon to even think about getting rid of them, still trapping them forever within an item... but at least letting them move and have someone to talk to.

Effects/Changes: The Faebound item has no effect on a person, unless put on (if it is an accessory), unsheathed (If it is a weapon), or otherwise “activated”, however, once activated, the mortal using the item forms a bond between it and the fae inside, allowing them to act as a conduit, and use the fae’s power.

However, the more a mortal uses the fae’s abilities, the more the fae has an effect on their appearance, slowly but surely changing how they look. As they continue to use the item more and more, their hair might grow longer, they may become taller (or shorter), and most of the time, their skin color and eyes change color. The changes strongly depend on what the fae inside the weapon looked like, or was, as their appearance and abilities are “rubbing off” on the mortal, so to speak. They even may begin to look like a child or relative of the fae, but them turning into the fae themselves is something that never happens.

Yet despite this, the Inheritors never truly become a fae, or a changeling, in some ways, they are similar to Oathbound in that they have an intimate connection with Fae, but they inherit far more of their benefactors appearances and traits.

This also applies to personality, a meek person may become far more brave or standoffish if the faebound weapon urges them to act more and ask questions later, or an outgoing person may become more introverted if the fae in the weapon is shy and tells them to not interact more. Regardless, most Inheritors become somewhat distant and “strange” compared to people they once knew.

In the worst case scenarios, an Inheritor may begin to suffer from altered memories, being unable to remember things as they truly happened, this is due to an actively malevolent fae inside the weapon messing with their perception and thought more than others. In some cases, an Inheritors entire past could be overwritten with what the fae desires, to lower the chances of things going poorly for them.

To put it simply, the “bond” between the Inheritor and the mortal depends, starting off weak and hardly noticeable, until it becomes deeper and deeper. Once the bond is fully matured, the changes stop, the mortal stops aging, and is quite the odd one compared to before their “lucky” find. Though, some believe the bond can go even deeper...

Abilities: So long as the item is touching the Inheritor in a way, the Inheritor can use all the abilities and powers of the fae sealed within the weapon. Because of this, the abilities of an Inheritor can greatly, greatly vary.

Where one Inheritor has the ability to use magnetic magic, another might simply be good at illusions or convincing others to help them.

However, should the item be removed, or otherwise knocked away from the Inheritor, they will be... quite simply, helpless. With no abilities besides the ones they had before the item was bonded to them. And even then, most will simply be too shocked at suddenly being unable to use their abilities to act

Examples:

A teenage girl unsheathes an ancient sword to protect her father and save his life, yet after this, keeps being drawn to the sword, using it, and it’s incredible power over the weather and wind more and more, she fails to notice her skin turning silver, her acting out a bit more erratically... and the fact she can’t quite remember the day her mother passed away...

A shy woman, seeking something to help boost her confidence, one day finds a magnificent box with a beautiful ribbon inside, and decides to put it on, to her surprise, she finds that not much can keep her down as much as it used to, and she feels a lot more sure of it herself, not even minding the fact that she started to no longer recognize herself in the mirror, or the fact she could never think of taking the ribbon off...

A young man one day finds a jeweled ring, no doubt worth thousands, buried in his backyard, upon taking it to sell it, however... he figured he’d try it on. Sure enough, after putting it on, he could find that he could now control water, and swim better than ever before! Never even mind the fact that the gills were on his neck, the slimy skin he was getting, or the fact his hair was starting to turn into something resembling tentacles

Other Notes:

Inspired by Ice King, the Anubis Sword, and cursed weapons/items!

Have more than a few similarities to Oathbound, but Oathbound are contracted to a very alive and active fae, and can use powers freely, while Inheritors can only use their abilities should the item be on their person!

Some are known to use the items to go to other worlds or the Fair Lands to cause mischief and trouble.

Cease aging once they reach a certain “bond” with their item, may even start getting younger, or “older” depending on the fae within

Aren’t technically changelings due to not having the brand, but are somewhat close. Are sometimes confused for changelings by fae who don’t notice the item.

Worthy

Description: Another favored punishment the Fae employ against those who have committed crimes or simple inactivity against the Fair Lands is to shear a portion of the power the Accused has, taking it away from them, while leaving them alive and with some power... but far weaker than before.

After this, what they do with the power removed greatly depends. Some may use it to ascend one of them to the power of Arch Fae, they may split the power up between the Accused subjects and servants, making them stronger, while others spread it out across the Fair Lands, accelerating growth and helping it in general.

But should the fae feel extraordinarily spiteful towards the Accused, they will claim that a mortal could do the Accused’s job better than them!

After coalescing the Accused’s sheared off power into a manageable form, they cast it to the winds, and have it wander and drift off towards a mortal realm, upon which it will seek out a host to use its power before it is gone.

Be it attracted to a type of person similar to where it came from, by sheer luck, or the fae found an amusing person to bless, the energy flows into them, granting them the power of the Accused it was sheared from, at first this may seem like nothing, but as time goes on, the Worthy will notice they can do amazing, incredible things, being able to make something out of nothing, turn a statue into a different person or style, or even turn lead into gold, there is almost nothing they can’t do!

Most of the time, this power goes to their head as they do everything they ever wanted to, and do not think about the consequences, going on mischievous and impish benders doing whatever they please, but sooner or later, this fades, and they realize they can do so much more with their newfound glory.

At this point, one of three things happen. They either become corrupted and seek to use their powers for evil, they realize the good they can do with their powers, and attempt to change the world for the better, or simply try to only use it when necessary.

Usually, the world or place around the Worthy tends to change, for better or worse, and sooner or later, the fae will find the person who inherited the power, and depending on how they are feeling, will either take it back, let the person keep it... or, if they gained their interest, offer them transit back to the Fair Lands, where they could do even more...

Effects/Changes:

The Worthy tend to undergo the most changes, physically, mentally, and emotionally out of most of the fae affected mortals, having a large font of fae power imposed on them not only massively changes how they act and their appearance, but also pulls them closer to becoming a fae far more than any other.

Almost immediately after gaining their power, the Worthy gains pointed ears, which only grow the more they get used to their abilities, and parts of their appearance become alien and strange, if they go off the deep end, they resemble any creature from folkore, be it an elf, orc, or unicorn. And this only continues until thy either lose their powers, or they ascend from their mortal frame, becoming a fae, forever abandoning the mortal world and morality.

However, should one be more conservative in the use, the ears will likely be the only change they have, aside from some sparkling eyes or other strange bits about their appearance.

Of course, their personality is also likely to change, as well as their memories, gaining bits and pieces of the Accused’s past, and perhaps some of their quirks as well. The changes largely depend on either what kind of person the Accused was, or how the person uses their abilities.

Abilities: The abilities of the Worth largely depend on two factors, what the Accused’s abilities were, and the strength and fortitude of the Worthy themselves.

At first, the Worthy’s abilities will solely mimic and mirror those of the Accused, but should they show commitment and growth, the power within them will instead begin to favor them and not where they came from, becoming abilities more suited to the Worthy. For example, at first a Worthy may only be able to use fire abilities, but if they assert themselves over the magic imposed on them, it will instead resonate with them instead, transforming into mist magic.

And lastly, it largely depends on how powerful the Accused was, should an Accused lose over half their magic to a Worthy, the Worthy will be almost as strong as a Fae Lord. Which is quite terrifying should one use their powers for ill...

Examples:

A down on his luck college student decides to take a walk in the woods, when a strange ball of light flies into him, he pays it no mind. But when he wakes up with freckles, really long ears, and the sudden ability to make anyone like him, he starts to mind quite a bit.

Whilst working overnight, a park ranger decides to investigate what appeared to be car crash, given the lights. What she didn’t expect to see was a glowing rock that seemingly was absorbed by her hands. And she also certainly didn’t expect to be able to pull magma out of the very earth itself the next morning.

One day, a girl awakes to find herself feeling more alive than ever, spry, and filled with energy! When her friends asked her why she felt that way, she simply couldn’t explain it, of course, at this point, the girl noticed that she could make any item she desired, and had quite a knack for granting wishes... though, of course, if someone she didn’t know wanted a wish granted, they’d need equal payment...

Other Notes:

Inspired by... pretty much anything where people suddenly get powers. Also Thor!

The closest to fae out of any fae affected mortal. Extremely likely to abandon their mortal world

Worthy that have their abilities stripped away revert into mortals, or Faetouched, with all memories of their deeds erased. (In worst cases, the fae may abduct the former Worthy to use them as a changeling)

Should a Worthy do a good job with their powers, the Fae show the Accused just how good someone else is doing with their powers; to mock them with how they wasted it.

#shin concept theater #shins fae setting

3 notes · View notes

raintekla · 3 years

Text

Rain Tekla: Zeyo Atoel Part II

It was a sleepless night, the first of many she would come to have throughout her life. Young Zeyo’s home was small, like most, herself sleeping in what might be considered a closet in Eorzea. There was no room for pacing here. Instead she just lay on a small flat mattress, holding a pillow against her chest. She had so many thoughts, so many concerns and emotions.

Hormones. That’s what she had heard someone call it. She wasn’t a kid any more. Well, she was and she wasn’t. She was getting taller, stronger and just growing out of her adolescence. A kid, in her mind, was an androgynistic short little person. She was, as her mother had put it, ‘developing’. Blagh. And she wasn’t alone in that regard either. So, too, had Rhom grown. When they had first met, she hadn’t even noticed him. He had just been another face in the crowd, really, but that was easy enough a perspective for someone who was only six years old. To be fair, he hadn’t quite been a ‘he’ back then either. In her village, at least, children were just that, children. They all kind of looked the same, lanky tanned bodies still growing into their ears. It was common courtesy to use the singular ‘they, them, their’ to speak to kids. Zeyo, at the time, had thought herself fully capable of picking out any boys from girls, and so she had copied something an older woman had taught her to call her elder kin. ‘Sister’.

She had been proven wrong.

To think, back then they had been so alike. They were still best friends, no doubt, but they had grown so differently. They could have been mistaken for siblings, maybe even twins at one point. Now they were just, well, different. His arms had grown, his chest had widened, his ‘baby face’ had become more angular. He was beginning to resemble more and more the pictures she had seen of the Wardens. Is that why she had kissed him? Or had it been fear of losing him? Maybe that had just been her instinctual attempt at calming him down.

Feeling down? How bout a big wet one? Panic attack? Pucker up, Buttercup!

Two dozen times she had gone through it in her head. What had happened, why it had happened, and of course, what she was going to do about it. She had promised him that they wouldn’t take him from her, but when she had made that promise, she had no plan whatsoever. The best idea may have been to just sleep on it, get some rest and brainstorm in the morning over breakfast. Instead, she elected to just overthink things and punch her wall in frustration.

As morning sunlight crept through her little window, Zeyo had her plan ready. It may not have been perfect, but it certainly sounded better than exiling herself from the village. She could never leave this place, it was her home. Her friends were here, her family, her entire life. For breakfast she helped herself to a large strip of dried seasoned meat, then ran outside. Up above, a familiar hawk cried out before descending towards her, landing on a little stone perch. At that moment her mind went back to an old teacher, Vjnne. She couldn’t recall if, historically, hawks were part of the natural ecosystem, or something that had been brought to her people hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. Rhom could have told her. He had always been the better listener.

The hawks made for great scouting companions and messengers. This one, named Hawkje, belonged to Rhom’s family, and held a little rolled up note in it’s claws. Zeyo took the letter with one hand and stroked the feathered friend with another, her heart sinking.

[ Dear Zeyo,

I wanted to say goodbye. You’re the best friend that anyone could ever ask for, and I love you. A Warden came to see me last night. Not just any man from the jungle either. He says he’s my sire. My father. I don’t know how to feel about that, but he tells me that he can teach me to be strong. He says we have a long way to travel, so we’re leaving at daylight. I don’t want to, but I don’t have a choice. I’m really scared, but know that I’ll always be thinking of you. It might be a very long time before we see each other again. I have too much to say, and he keeps looking at me like he’s ready to walk out in the middle of the night. I don’t want him to see me cry, so I’m trying to suck it up, but you know me. I can’t help it. Sorry.

I wish I could have said goodbye in person, but for men, companionship and dependability is a crutch. Apparently. Love, Rhom ]

Zeyo read the letter twice, still stroking Hawkje. Her heart began to beat faster, her respiration began to stagger and the inside of her throat felt very cold and tingly all at the same time. Before her panic could get the better of her, she steadied her breathing, swallowing her emotions and physically calming, as she had been taught to do. She had come up with a solid plan through the night, and while it was still solid, it had now changed.

Sister Crjn, or as some of the li’l brats called her ‘Old Lady Crjn’, had been preparing for another sparring day for the children. Truth be told, sparring day was usually a cover. It was her ‘take it easy’ day, her recovery day. Any time she had spent the night drinking too heavily, and some mornings even, she would just tell the kids it was sparring day. In that way, she could just sit down on her ass and watch the younglings beat the hells out of one another with wooden training swords, staves, or whatever else she had decided to ‘teach them’ that day. She wasn’t particularly hung over today, at least not like she had been the day before. She was just having a ‘twofer’. Sun in and sun out she was trying to beat her head against those of the kids’, hoping to impart at least a fraction of her knowledge unto them. The stress of administering such higher learning meant that she was entitled to a few sparring days every now and then, right?

And that had been the idea when she had rolled out of bed that morning. Get up, grab a bite to eat, get ready to call another ‘sparring day’ and then pull some kind of lesson out of her ass before class time was over. That had been the plan until she saw what was waiting for her within the training grounds. Her kids, most of them anyroad, had already beat her there, and were standing around in a circle. In the middle was a single child, hands on their hips, waiting for her. Had she slept in? She had to take another glance up at the sun. Nope, same time as usual. Everyone else had just arrived early. Trying to mask the surprise on her face, she took a breath and resumed her cool flat expression.

“Sister Crjn, I’m callin’ you out.”

Immediately Crjn’s eyes squinted and her fists balled up. This was not a case of eager students ready to learn. This was one idiot kid looking to get their jaw broken. This was a trial. She never broke stride, pacing her way to the interior of the ring. The little brat calling her out wasn’t even of age. Zeyo was, twelve, thirteen summers old? Most of the ones who challenged her for the first time were nearer twenty. A moment of weakness caught the old veteran in her soft spot as she dug her right pinky nail into a long floppy ear. Not once had she ever allowed someone to take back their challenge, but seeing as this was her favorite student of the semester, mayhap even, well, ever.. “I must have misheard you, runt.”

Zeyo stood her ground, tall and proud, the expression on her face quite serious. This was usually the girl who was always smiling, always playing, teasing, making jokes. This was a complete change in attitude, and Crjn knew exactly why. The little pacifist had been taken away, likely. That burned her up a little, knowing that she was responsible for preparing them. If her children failed, so too did their teacher, in Crjn’s mind anyroad. And now here Zeyo would present her with a second failure. It was disheartening, but Crjn would see the job done.

“You’re too early, summers too early. Let all of your peers gathered before you make judgement of your actions here today. You are a fool to take the trial now, but words will no longer alleviate you of your predicament. If you want to bow out, kneel now and say nothing, save yourself a few broken limbs.”

“My name is Zeyo of Atoel, I am thirteen summers old and today I challenge you for the right to become a proper woman in the eyes and respect of the village.”

Crjn stepped outside of the ring, students with expressions a mixture of both fascination and horror parting out of her way, as if any one of them could somehow be roped into what would surely be the beating of the century. She made her way to a small wooden table, pulling back a weighted cloth to reveal a variety of weaponry.

“Choose any one single weapon to defend yourself.”

Crjn didn’t need to reach for anything on the table as she made her way back to the inside of the ring, the kids closing in behind her to fill the gap. From her back she unsheathed a well worn albeit sturdy wooden staff. She pointed the tip forward towards Zeyo, then spit a bit of morning gravy into the dirt between them.

Zeyo, too, reached behind her back, only with both hands. After a few seconds, she nodded to her teacher, then brought both palms forward. One remained empty, the other wore a hardened leather glove that extended and tied to the forearm. “I have selected my weapon.”

Crjn gritted her teeth as she stared at the little shit. She was racking her brain, trying to remember Zeyo’s family history, what grades she held with each weapons category, and her survival and tactics scores. This didn’t add up. Regardless, Crjn would approach this challenge as she had each one before. She would treat her opponent as her enemy, straying only from fatal blows. There would be no held punches here, and for the audacity of challenging her at such a young age, there would most certainly be broken bones. Nodding her head in return to Zeyo, Crjn spun her staff once, it’s weight balanced and familiar in her hand. “Begin!”

This was it, this was for Rhom. Zeyo exhaled, concentrating on her breathing as the much larger weapon spun her staff on the opposite end of the fighting ring. Her teacher had at least a hundred ponze on her. She was taller, stronger, had better reach, and a hundred and fifty years more experience. Still, none of that mattered at this moment. This was the only way to be with Rhom, and so she would not fail. As soon as Crjn roared out to ‘begin’, Zeyo cried out as loud as she could, “Hawkje, to me!”

She held her arm out to the side, stiff as she could make it, knowing that should the hawk not heed her call, it was over. Crjn, for her part, took a cautious step forward, gauging Zeyo as a serious opponent. Zeyo’s nerves rattled for a moment, imagining her own brains being splattered against the dirt, her friends and family shaking their heads. Poor Zeyo, she had such potential, but she was such a dumb girl in the end.

Weight landed on her outstretched arm in the form of the morning messenger. Zeyo had no training with animals, and had never once tried to command her friend’s bird. Perhaps it was destiny, kindred spirits, empathy or something magical. Whatever it was, the beast had come to support her.

“Hawkje, kill.”

Purple eyes locked onto her target as she threw her arm forward while giving the command. This wasn’t Crjn any more. This was an obstacle to overcome, and something she would not survive if she didn’t give it every onze of her being. And as if the pair had been training together all their lives, the hawk flew from Zeyo’s leather gauntlet, launching like a bullet straight forward.

Crjn’s reflexes were too slow, her staff narrowly missing the bird of prey as its talons ripped into the viera’s cheeks, tearing flesh with ease. Blood sprayed both Viera and hawk as they battled one another, the blunt end of Crjn’s staff coming back up to defend herself, knocking into Hawkje and batting him to the ground with a heartbreaking screech. Her brown skin now painted crimson, peeled like curled pencil shavings in strips on either side of her face. She swung her staff around, hoping to catch the little shit, but her target was already gone.

As quiet as she was swift, Zeyo had made her way around to Crjn’s blindspot. As soon as the staff swung, perhaps expecting an attack from the side, Zeyo dove forward. From behind her teacher, she wrapped her arms around Crjn’s waist, kicked at the back of her leg, then pulled back using her own force in conjunction with the momentum of the staff swing. As the larger woman fell back, Zeyo spun, allowing her teacher to bite into the dirt as she pinned her to the ground.

If the two had been the same size, Zeyo would have had her right where she wanted. Unfortunately, even on her belly, her face torn to shreds and bleeding, Crjn was far from down and out. She spun around, and using her longer arms, elbowed Zeyo in the nose. Zeyo’s grip loosened as the gang of school kids heard the morbidly satisfying crunch of broken cartilage. For Zeyo, the world went red for a few seconds, pain erupting in her face. That was nothing, however, compared to the blunt of the staff crashing against her head.

As soon as the staff made contact, Zeyo’s vision went black, her head cracked on one side, the ground rising up to meet her other. There she laid, bleeding, her head pulsing, blood matting her hair from the point of impact. It might have been over there and then, had she not heard the sound of the hawk’s cry. Willing herself to keep going, Zeyo’s eyes opened and she stood back up, breathing through her mouth.

In front of her, Crjn battled Hawkje once again, this time the hawk’s right talon getting stuck in the corner of the teacher’s eyelid. In a sickening display, the eyeball popped right out of its socket in a splatter of blood and tears, still hanging on and dangling, fastened to nerve endings. Whatever empathetic chord the gore struck amongst the other students, Zeyo was immune. In a ferocious scream, Crjne swung her staff down diagonally against the bird, snapping its neck in one swift vengeful maneuver. Again, Zeyo took her opportunity. As soon as the staff was used, Zeyo dipped back into close quarters, palming Crjn’s chin up with one hand, then punched her in the throat with the other.

The muffled coughing noise the older lady made had the circle of students close in. She was gurgling, choking, yet still Zeyo didn’t stop. As Crjn went to reach for her own throat, her grip on her weapon loosened just enough to allow Zeyo, both hands now wrapped around the midsection of the staff, to pry the thing loose. Backing away from Crjn’s blindly clawing free hand, Zeyo stepped to the side, then swung the end of the staff against the back of her teacher’s head with enough force to lay her into the dirt.

Not taking any chances, Zeyo raised the weapon above her head, something primal within her rising and manifesting as a scream. That’s when a hand stopped her staff from caving Crjn’s head in. Snarling, Zeyo’s upper lip trembled in rage, the blood pouring out of her nose now covering her teeth and filling her mouth with the taste of copper. Meeting her gaze was her own mother, holding back the attack with a single hand.

“This is over.”

Like a rabid dog, Zeyo didn’t want to unclench from her weapon. Sound returned, something she hadn’t noticed had somehow faded away. There was a boom of cries, some astonished, some joyous. The world was dizzying to look at, the edges of her vision now black, the pain in her head now sharpened, akin to a knife wound. As her fingers let go of the staff, she reached to the wound under her hair, wincing as it burned at the touch. As she took a step, it felt as if the earth beneath her feet was moving away from her. She stumbled forward, kneeling and catching herself with a single hand reaching out to touch the ground. As she tilted her head up, black sticky bangs obscured much of her vision, but she could make out two women addressing Crjn.

“Yeah. It’s over. I win.”

No one rejected her claim. These trials usually ended in a bloodbath one way or another. Ferocity was not just encouraged, it was necessary. While her ‘weapon’ had been unorthodox, it had not been against the rules. No one had ever challenged Crjn with a hawk, but they had been used in combat before by other villagers. In fact, Zeyo had originally planned on just using one of the wooden practice swords until Hawkje’s arrival that morning. She knew now that had she tried with any other weapon, she would have failed.

Thinking of the bird, her eyes turned towards it’s feathered corpse, only a few short fulm away. What had she expected to happen, that it would get in a few licks then fly away home intact? She certainly didn’t know she was sentencing it to death, or she never would have used him. How would Rhom take that news? Rhom! Hawkje deserved a decent burial for its service to her, but right now Zeyo had more pressing matters.

As the crowd of children, now dotted with curious adults, circled Crjn even closer, no one seemed to notice the victor of the trial slip away. No longer a child, Zeyo was now independent and free to do as she pleased with the respect of her people. She was a woman, as much an adult as even the eldest of the villagers. And with that newly gained freedom and reverence, she fled to the jungle.

#ffxiv #ffxiv viera #ffxiv mateus #ffxiv rp #backstory

0 notes