#AND YOU’LL NO LONGER SEE THEM ON THE MERIT BOARD”

[morganaspendragonss]

angst week 2: electric boogaloo masterpost!

thanks so much to the admins of @911lonestarangstweek for another fantastic round of this challenge. i have had so much fun with these prompts and i'm so happy that i managed to get all nine days filled!

and now, without further ado, the fics:

day one - c is for...crutches, cry, care

just know that i will be with you

Carlos chews on his lip as he parks the Camaro outside the 126, glancing nervously over at TK. It’s been six months since the attack that almost took him away from them, three since TK was discharged from the hospital, and the first time either of them have been here during that time. Carlos had wanted to wait even longer, but TK had insisted, and it’s always been hard to refuse him anything.

It’s even harder now; coming within a hair’s breadth of losing him has only made Carlos more willing to give TK anything he needs. Even if that includes bringing him to the place his life had, metaphorically and almost literally, ended.

*

a snapshot of tk's recovery after the meetings for those in my wake

day two - g is for...grief, guilt, grace

teach me what i need to know (to be strong enough to let go)

Before, there was always Charles. At the end of the day, he would always come home; even if he ended up staying late at the restaurant, he would text her and she would go to sleep in the knowledge that she would wake up to a warm bed.

Now, all Tommy has is a cold mattress and an abandoned text thread that is slipping further and further down in her messages.

day three - j is for...jump

crack and crumble, it's all too much

As a kid, TK was terrified of falling, even if it was only off the playground equipment in the local park. The other kids would get annoyed, pushing at him until he almost, almost, fell—but then, at the last second, when TK was tilting on the edge, his dad would be there to catch him, lifting him up before he ever had a chance to fall.

His dad was always there, never failing to scoop him up in his arms, never failing to save him.

Until he did.

And, oh, how TK fell.

day four - m is for...mcd, mourning

'till death do us part

“TK, don’t you dare give up, okay, don’t you dare talk like that. You just need to focus on my voice and stay awake for a little while longer and then they’ll get you to a hospital where they’ll fix you up. You’ll be good as new right in time for the wedding.”

“The wedding. Carlos, I—”

“And if this is your way of getting out of making all the decisions, then it’s a little bit over the top, you know? I mean, point proven and all that, but you could have just told me.” He’s getting hysterical now, he can feel it, standing in the middle of his front room trying to keep his fiancé alive and talking when he’s god-knows-where in god-knows-what condition.

But, as always, TK is there to centre him again. “Carlos, stop, please. I don't want to spend the time we have left lying to each other.”

*

three years after tragedy, carlos is learning how to live and love again.

day five - n is for...nightmares

come deliver me back home

He’s been living in Cap’s house for a while so Mateo thinks he pretty much has the floor plan down pat. But it’s dark. And he’s tired. And he’s walking backwards.

So he misjudges the number of steps needed to clear the corner, and his heel hits the skirting board. Mateo can’t suppress his cry of pain and shock as he stumbles and falls, sprawling in an undignified heap on the floor.

The whispers still, and Mateo only has a second to commiserate over his situation before the kitchen light clicks on and he suddenly has both TK and Carlos staring down at him.

“Uh. Hey guys,” he mumbles, trying and failing to contain his shame. “Fancy seeing you here.”

day six - o is for...overwhelmed

would you believe me if i told you that i've got flaws?

It’s on his fifth failed attempt at getting his key into the lock when Carlos finally gives in and admits defeat. He leans forward with a heavy sigh and rests his head against the door, closing his eyes for a second and debating just lying down where he is. The idea certainly has its merits; he wouldn’t have to move another inch, and Carlos is tired enough that he’s certain he could fall asleep standing up at this point.

But his bed is calling to him, and Carlos’s back aches pre-emptively at the thought of sinking into the soft mattress.

So he wearily pushes himself upright and knocks—actually knocks—on his own front door, barely able to muster up a smile when TK opens the door.

day seven - p is for...pinned, panic, promise, pain

'cause soon enough we'll die

Of course they couldn’t have a peaceful wedding.

It had seemed like the perfect day at first—a cloudless sky, birds singing in the trees, the barn on Carlos’s family ranch done up until it was barely even recognisable—and everything was, for once, going exactly to plan.

Except, they hadn’t planned for a helicopter to crash onto the ranch.

day eight - t is for...tumour, terminal, treatment

quédate un segundo más

A visit to the doctor and crushing results bring TK's world to a screeching halt. He can feel the weight of the day pressing down on him, threatening to suffocate him, and when Carlos gets back from his shift, well.

All it takes is one look at his smile for TK to fall apart.

day nine - free day!

though we don't share the same blood

One of the things Judd isn’t expecting when he hears his phone ping one morning is a text from Carlos asking him if he could head over to Owen’s place that afternoon. It’s not that he minds at all but, of the two of them, Judd would have thought that it would be TK reaching out to him. He’s barely exchanged two words with Carlos outside of work and while he likes the guy, they don’t exactly have a close relationship.

And, friendly and casual though Carlos’s message is, Judd knows he’s the last person Carlos would call on to hang with. Which means one thing—TK needs help, and he’s too stubborn to ask for it himself.

*

tk is struggling to deal with owen after the fire. judd helps to set him straight.

#911lsangstweek #911 lone star #911 lone star fic #fanfiction #my fanfiction #writing #my writing #masterlist

[chocolatequeennk]

Forever Timeless, 1/23

Summary: Two months after the Dalek Crucible, the Doctor and Rose are getting used to having the biggest family on Earth. As they visit Leadworth in 1996, Victorian England, a mysterious desert planet, and Elizabethan England, those family and friends often help in unexpected ways. But no matter where they go or who they're with, it's always the Doctor in the TARDIS with RoseTyler--just as it should be.

Ten x Rose, Donna x Lee

Betaed by @saecookie, @rudennotgingr, @pellaaearien, and @jabber-who-key

Part 7 of Being to Timelessness

AO3 | FF.NET | TSP

Chapter One: Family Time

Rose leaned back into the drop cloth-covered couch and looked around the room. Her mum and Pete had purchased a house in Cardiff, and she and the Doctor had spent all day painting and cleaning. After two months spent monitoring the lingering effects of the Reality Bomb, the domesticity was jarring.

A sharp pain hit Rose between her shoulder blades, and she grimaced and rolled her shoulders. Every muscle in her body ached. She was in good shape, but she didn’t usually spend hours holding a paint roller over her head.

A moment later, familiar hands settled on her shoulders and started massaging the tension away. Rose sighed and leaned forward so the Doctor could get that spot in the middle of her back.

She enjoyed the massage for a few minutes, then reached for his hand and tugged, asking him silently to sit down with her. He collapsed beside her, looking every bit as tired as she felt. He had a smudge of dirt on his cheek and his hair stuck straight up.

“What have you and Pete been up to?”

“Putting together the furniture for Tony’s room.” The Doctor rubbed a hand over his face, smudging the dirt even more. “I need to create a setting on the sonic for Allen keys. Those belong on a list of forbidden torture devices.”

Jackie’s snort interrupted Rose’s teasing response. “And here I thought you were some kind of superior alien,” she said as she entered the room, carrying two tall glasses of water. “How the mighty have fallen—defeated by an Ikea flat pack.”

Rose listened to the Doctor’s internal debate, weighing the merits of defending himself against the likelihood that Jackie would dump the glass of water over his head. In the end, he only rolled his eyes and said, “Thankfully, the fate of the universe has never rested on my ability to put together furniture named after obscure Scandinavian locales.”

Jackie handed them the water and sat down on a folding chair. “Speaking of strange places, we haven’t seen Jenny and Donna lately. Where are they at now?”

Rose blinked. “You’ve seen them?”

Her mum raised an eyebrow. “You would have seen them too if you hadn’t been off to Neptune doing whatever,” she retorted. “They stopped by a few weeks ago before catching a plane to New York.”

Rose sipped at her water to cover up the urge to sigh. The trip to Paris had whetted Jenny’s interest in seeing more of the Earth. By airplane, she’d insisted, because that was how humans did it.

Donna had been happy to travel the world with her. Rose suspected the trip was a way for her to keep her mind off the fact that they still hadn’t found Lee. Four months had passed since the Library, and the TARDIS still hadn’t picked up even a trace of him.

Rose abruptly realised her mum was staring at her expectantly. It only took her a second to remember what they’d been talking about.

“They’re in Sydney,” she said. “They’ll be back for your big housewarming party, but they really wanted to see Australia before coming home.”

“Hah!” Jackie wagged her finger at Rose. “Now you know what it’s like, having your only child go off travelling by herself.”

Rose pursed her lips. “It’s not that,” she argued. “Well, not only that,” she amended. “It’s fun having other people on the TARDIS with us. I miss it.”  

“What do you miss?” Pete asked. He pulled a second folding chair over and sat down beside Jackie.

“Having friends travel with us.”

“Apparently I’m not enough company,” the Doctor added, earning a poke in the side from Rose and a snort from Jackie.

“More like you’re a bit too much,” Jackie countered. “Can’t imagine being married to an alien.”

“No, you just married a man from a parallel universe,” Pete interjected.

Jackie rolled her eyes, then looked at Rose. Rose groaned at the look in her eye. Interrogation time, she warned the Doctor.

“Speaking of marrying an alien…” Jackie raised an eyebrow and looked at Rose, then at the Doctor, and back again. “You mentioned something about weird alien rituals.”

Rose opened her mouth, but before she could start explaining the bond, her mother started rambling.

“I’ve been thinking, maybe you had to wear funny hats? Or defeat someone in armed combat?” She pointed at the Doctor. “Maybe Rose had to go back in time to ask your family for your hand in marriage.”

“Nothing like that, Mum,” Rose said quickly before Jackie could continue on that train of thought and bring back painful memories of Gallifrey.

“Well, what was it then?” She narrowed her eyes. “You better not have been naked for this wedding.”

“No! We were fully clothed.” The Doctor felt his neck heat up.  

Help!

Rose took his hand and he let out a slow breath. “Leave ‘im be, Mum,” she scolded. “It was mostly just like a wedding. I wore a beautiful dress and we exchanged vows and rings and everything.”

“Well that doesn’t sound too weird.”

“Yeah…” Rose squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, agreeing with her sudden decision. “I was mostly teasing when I said that.”

Jackie crossed her arms over her chest. “So your wedding was completely normal?” she asked, dubious.

Rose bit her lip. “Well, we were alone in the TARDIS,” she said slowly. “And we did a handfasting because that’s part of the Doctor’s tradition.”

“Hmmm…” Jackie raised an eyebrow.

Rose knew she didn’t believe her, but explaining the bond was a far longer conversation than she wanted to have right now. Some day she’d try, but not today.

“It was perfect,” she said, wanting to move away from the alienness of their wedding.

As she thought about that day, something occurred to her. “And our wedding anniversary is only two weeks away,” she added.

The Doctor blinked, and she was glad she wasn’t the only one who’d lost track of time. “We’ll have to go someplace to celebrate.”

“Mind if I plan this trip?”

He smiled and brushed his thumb over her wrist. “I’d love it.”

“Rose?”

The childish voice drew everyone’s attention, and they all looked over at Tony, standing in the doorway.

“Yes, Tony?”

He shuffled forward, a book in his hand. “Will you and the Doctor read to me?”

The Doctor scooted over and patted the cushion in between himself and Rose. “You bet!”

The little boy grinned, then darted across the room and jumped up onto the couch. Rose grabbed the book from him before he could stab himself in the eye with it or something.

“Under the Deep Blue Sea.”

As Rose turned to the first page, she suddenly knew exactly where she wanted to take the Doctor for their anniversary.

oOoOo

The Doctor followed Rose as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd waiting at Heathrow. “The board says their flight landed half an hour ago,” she told him. “They should be almost through customs by now.”

When the first passengers started trickling in a few minutes later, the Doctor gave Rose one end of the sign they’d made. Around them, other people likewise held up their signs—Limousine for Mr. Arbuckle, etc.

The trickle turned into a solid wave of people. “Can you see them, Doctor?” Rose asked as she strained to look through the crowd.

“No… Wait! Yes! Hold the sign up, Rose.”

They waved it madly, and a moment later they were rewarded by familiar laughter. Rose leaned sideways and saw Jenny and Donna walking towards them, wheelie bags in tow.

“TARDIS for Miss Noble and Miss Tyler?” Donna rolled her eyes.

The Doctor turned the sign around and studied it. “Well, we wouldn’t want anyone else to think they could get a free ride.”

“We told you we’d take the train to Cardiff, though,” Jenny said.

Donna nudged her gently with her elbow. “You owe me ten quid, Jenny. I told you they wouldn’t be able to resist surprising us.”

The Doctor’s mouth fell open, and when he looked over at Rose he was thankful to see that at least she was as surprised as he was.

Jenny hitched her backpack up on her shoulders. “I still say giving them the flight information was cheating.”

“I didn’t realise we were so predictable,” the Doctor muttered.

Donna smirked and turned her suitcase so he could take the handle. “We just know you too well.”

Rose shook her head and grabbed Jenny’s suitcase. “Come on, we should get out of the way. The TARDIS is just a short bus ride away.”

Thirty minutes later, the Doctor unlocked the door and held it open while Rose, Donna, and Jenny walked inside. He heard Donna and Jenny sigh in unison, and raised his eyebrows at them.

“Glad you don’t have to take a train after travelling for over twenty-four hours?” he guessed.

“Definitely,” Donna said fervently.

“And glad we can hop into the Vortex and get some sleep without Gran knowing we didn’t go straight to Cardiff,” Jenny added.

The Doctor and Rose exchanged a glance, then Rose gave Donna and Jenny a sly smile. “About that… Are you set on going to Cardiff?”

Donna crossed her arms over her chest. “The housewarming party is next week. I’ve only met your mum a few times, but I have a pretty good idea of what will happen if you miss it.”

The Doctor grimaced and rubbed at his cheek, making everyone laugh.

Rose chuckled and shook her head. “Yeah, you’re right about that. But our anniversary is the day after tomorrow, so we’re going on a short holiday before the big shindig. We can drop you in Cardiff for the week, or—”

“Or,” Donna said before Rose could continue.

Jenny nodded eagerly. “You mean you’ll drop us off on another planet, yeah?”

“If you want,” Rose said.

Jenny and Donna exchanged a look, then broke out in matching grins. “Yes!”

Rose hugged Donna and kissed Jenny on the cheek, then gently pushed them both towards the corridor. “Go lie down. We’ll drop you off in the morning after you’ve slept off some of the jet lag.” She leaned against a strut and watched them go, while the Doctor sent them into the Vortex just like Jenny had asked.

He slid the dematerialisation lever into place, and the time rotor quietly chugged up and down. The transition into the Vortex was so smooth that Rose hardly felt it.

A soft mental tug caught her attention, and she looked over at the Doctor. He’d sat down on the jump seat, and now he patted the seat beside him.

Rose pushed off from the strut and walked around the console, hopping up to sit beside the Doctor like she’d done a thousand times. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him.

“What are you thinking?”

“This life,” she said, talking slowly so she could put the words together as they came to her. “It’s… so much more than I thought it would be.”

She paused, and the Doctor left the silence empty so she could think.

“I thought I’d lost this at Canary Wharf,” she said finally.

“Lost what?”

“Just… human things,” she said, testing the words as she went. “Helping family move. Meeting them at the airport.”

She tilted her head back so she could look at the Doctor. “I love our life, traveling through time and space. And if I could never have anything else, this is what I’d choose. Every time.”

“But we get to have more,” he supplied, understanding what she was trying to get at. “Our life in the TARDIS, and a family on Earth.”

“Yeah. Time and space… and family.”

#ficandchips #ten x rose #dwfic #fic by Nancy #doctorroseprompts #series: being to timelessness #cq's fic: forever timeless #i'm back!! #finally!! #i hope you like this chapter #also you will get a second chapter this week #on thursday #and then we'll settle into a chapter a week #tenth doctor #rose tyler #jenny tyler #donna noble #lee mcavoy #donna x lee

[fivenightslaughter]

Wicked Serpentine (Part 2)

Part 1

pairing: draco malfoy x femravenclaw!oc

summary: slowburn enemies to lovers fic, multiple parts. <3

warnings: use of m*dblood, malfoy being mean

word count: 2,174

taglist: let me know if you’re interested in being added!

I knew nothing of this school I was willingly sending myself off to, nothing of this world. Other than the fact that I was severely late. I felt stunted and out of place. I couldn’t decide if this was some crazy, hyper-realistic dream or an even more unfathomable reality. But yet, I was standing here, at King’s Cross station.

“You look rather lost, love.” A voice rang.

Another chimed. “Mighty lost, really.”

Two voices on either side of me interrupted my contemplation and quieted the thumps of my palpitating heart. My palms felt clammy.

I had briefly considered asking these two ginger strangers about platform 9 and... ¾ , but ultimately I’d decided to hold my tongue from uttering such an outlandish thing.

“I, well… I’ll find my way, thanks.

”They looked at each other and seemed to jest before looking back at me.

The one on the left introduced himself.

“I’m George.”

The other followed swiftly, gracefully nabbing my trunk from my betraying slippery fingers.

“And I’m Fred.”

They gave each other a glance again before one pointed at the other.

“No, you’re George, I’m Fred.”

Their playful bickering lasted a few seconds before they had spoken to me again, this time about the platform. I had resolved already that these two must be quite familiar with young or lost wizards attempting to find this mystery location? They seemed eerily comfortable in this situation.

“Here, let us show you to the train. It’s just through this brick.”

I nearly gaped, incredibly unsure of this new situation or how to handle it. Was I being toyed with? I decided to give them more merit than I should a stranger and did as they gestured. I aimed to go headlong through a brick wall.

I braced for impact.

There wasn’t one.

Instead, I was met with a completely new sight of bustling students and their parents waving them off. Kisses and hugs goodbye. Yells and whispers, people filing onto the train. It was brighter, much brighter than the train station I had arrived at.

Following shortly behind me were clearly twins I’d now attempt to recognize as Fred and George, not respectively however, as I couldn’t exactly tell the difference yet.

I could swear I felt a fleeting pang of despair as my eyes trained unnecessarily long on two parents who had wrapped their daughter in a hug before she scurried off. My parents had no desire to be here, not with me, not in this world.

That was okay though. I tried to soothe my racing mind by turning to face one of the fiery-haired boys I’d just met, to attempt conversation, but they had busied themselves as pests to some other small, first year looking students. They seemed like a funny pair, maybe I’d unknowingly made my first friends already.

‘Fred and George’. I turned their names over in my head. Friends. I liked that.

I shuffled towards whichever was closest to me, needing a shield from the busy platform. Tapping him on the shoulder, I tried my hardest to gather my thoughts.

“I don’t mean to sound thick, but what do I do now? I mean, at all? I know I need to step onto the train but…” My face flushed as I admitted myself to someone I’d just met, “I don’t know anything about magic, or… Or this place.”

His jubilance eased into faint seriousness. He smiled genuinely at me.

“Oh, we could tell.” He let out a warm laugh.

“Also, I really am George. Don’t tell Fred I told you, though, …?” He trailed off as I assumed he realized he still didn’t know my name. No, there hadn’t been time for that yet.

I answered the question that lingered after his sentence. “Eris. Woodwork, if it matters.

”He seemed to enjoy my full answer, turning to look at Fred not far off behind him, I looked with him, noticing Fred hanging around other red haired kids dressed in robes. I made eye contact with George again and he nodded knowingly.

“Weasley. My last name is Weasley. And to answer your question, you’ll catch up easily and it will all make sense. I promise.”

Lingering kids rushed onto the train like lightning bolts and I took that as a cue to board immediately. I went to wave but noticed George had already taken back up with Fred and the other bright headed kids he had confirmed to be his family.

I suppose that meant I’d be navigating my way into this solid metal contraption alone. I didn’t much mind, though. Deep down I was glad, because I’m sure if I spent any longer with someone so nice I’d bare my whole soul before I could even think about the consequences.

I made my way on and took it all in rather slowly. It’s just a normal train. How curious it was, to be just a normal train. I began searching for an empty compartment from which I could stare outside in awe from without judgement. But it was proving to be more difficult than I thought. Everyone seemed well acquainted with one another, squeezing in with their friends and taking this as a chance to lightly doze before going back to school.

My head began to spin uneasily and my resolve was beginning to fade. Without the twins, or at the very least someone to guide me, I felt as helpless as when I arrived blindly at King’s Cross.

My helplessness only amplified when I felt an aggressive impact with my entire left side, followed by snickering.

“Out of my way, mudblood.”

Mudblood? What did that even mean? I stared back at my aggressor in confusion and it seemed to spark an odd glint in his sharp grey eyes. I took in his features. Pale, blond hair tossed over his forehead and ears. Pink lips pressed in a tight line, lifted into a slight smirk. He was rather attractive, though it was offset by a radiating malice that seemed to course through his very veins. I wasn’t expecting a negative encounter so soon. 

He examined me up and down, finally settling on the door behind me. I knew he could see through the window into the empty compartment, as I had nearly moments before. I knew where he was looking and yet it felt like he was looking over me into nothing, in a way that made me feel small and invisible.

“You’re so stupid you don’t even know what it means, do you? How pathetic I have to explain. It means your blood is dirty, filthy really, and you’re inferior for it. You’re lowly. Like dirt. Get it now?” He had a haughty air about him, as if explaining his insults was below him.

That was my first introduction to a... word of that manner in this brand new world. No good without the bad, I rationalized. I suppose there wasn’t much I could do about that.

“I see, thank you for explaining.

”His lips curled in response and I assumed it wasn’t an answer he heard often.

“Yeah, you should be thanking me. You’ll do well to mind your manners.” He was almost spitting his words as he started off in the direction my presence had halted him from, followed by two others I hadn’t noticed before.

I opened the door of the compartment I had just been pressed against, sliding into a seat. This had been easy enough so far, save for the mark of impurity that I was now aware danced above my head.

My thoughts flurried as I gazed out of the window and with a jolt, the train began to move. Fast. I was determined to take in the scenery passing on the ride but the speed turned it all into an amassed green blur that allowed me to be lost in thought again. The ride was eerily smooth and calm, save for the quick succession of grassy hills and trees I could make out, and it seemed to lull me into a quiet comfort.

I opened my bleary eyes slowly. Without even realizing I had, I'd dozed off. I frustratingly berated myself for allowing myself to miss out on my surroundings, but I was cut short as I noticed a figure in the seat across from me.

She… stared. Right into my eyes, into me. She bore into my very soul. A soft, knowing smile lifted her features up.

"I've interrupted a deep thought, haven't I? I can see it growing smaller in your eyes." Her bluey grey eyes looked dazed and vacant, as if she were talking to herself as much as she spoke to me. Her hair was long and blonde, falling against her almost ghostly frame. For a real, palpable person, she seemed almost see-through.

“Ah, no. Not too deep.” I managed to smoothly answer, much in contrast with my nerves. The only other blond-haired person I’d encountered thus far had been rather harsh. There was something about this girl, though, that felt eerily still and yet pleasant; very much unlike the writhing, seething heat I’d received from the other boy.

“Luna Lovegood,” she began. She structured her sentence as if there was more, but blatantly said nothing. Simply smiling, the action lifting her eyes. What an odd girl, very odd.

“Eris Woodwork. Nice to meet you, Luna.”

I wondered if sharing my name over and over would get old, as it already had bothered me this second time over. It felt intensely personal, despite being the most impersonal part of me yet.

She nodded and I finally noticed an odd looking magazine resting loosely in her hands, upside down. She looked through the window to my left and back at me, then to her magazine cover.

“We’re here.” She seemed to always have a faint smile affixed to her face as she spoke.

She silently slid out of her seat, opening the compartment door. She didn’t look at me, but I was too nervous and out of place to be left alone again. I swiftly followed her, my mind at war with my legs, which threatened to buckle and lock me on this train.

A large man covered my field of vision, Luna had floated off to wherever she saw fit. I looked up, and up a bit more before I found a face under a large, dark beard. He had a positively emanating grin as he clamped a warm hand on my shoulder.

“You must be Eris now, aren’t ya? Woodwork?” He offered, inquisitively. I felt my eyes widen a bit, my eyebrows now drawn together in confusion. He chuckled heartily, a booming and yet, sincere sound.

“Ah, ‘course ye are. Well, on now! Let’s get going ‘for yer late.” He shrugged his large hand from my shoulder and motioned for me to walk in front of him.

“This ‘ere is the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; though I’m sure you knew that much at least. You’ll get yer house sortin’ with the other wee first years and we’ll be on from there!” He shined another pleasant smile while leading me to the school, among some scattered first years from the train.

It was beautiful. Extraordinary, really. A steely grey, old castle. It felt archaic in a gorgeously antique way. Elegance and, dare I say, magic, radiated in waves from the architecture. I felt safe enough with the rather large oaf guiding me to begin asking questions. Although, I could barely find my footing, causing me to stumble embarrassingly over what I wanted to know.

“So, where… What; no, who... “ I stammered out stupidly. I tried to focus on the immediate things I didn’t know- like that boy on the train.

“Is mudblood a dirty word?” I finally managed. I knew it was. I had just wondered, well, if it were a popular or well-accepted ideal.

He took in a sharp breath, leading me to assume it wasn’t.

“Now where ‘ave ye heard that already?” There was a short pause as he continued, almost defeatedly.

“See the thing is, Eris, there's some wizards, like the Malfoy family, who think they're better than everyone else because they're what people call ‘pure blood’.”

It was my turn to take in a sharp breath. The boy on the train must have been a Malfoy, who else could taunt that word so carelessly and be so well-known for it? The large man continued, passively angered.

“And it's codswallop to boot. ‘Dirty blood’. Why, there isn't a wizard alive today that's not half-blood or less.” He finished off his rant with that, looking back at me. My eyes were searching the dirt for some sign of life, the buzz of the magic that I knew scattered this place.

“Ay, but I’m Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds here at Hogwarts. An’ I’ll be right willing to help with anything you need, lass.”

Relief flooded me to know that I wouldn’t be as openly hated or condemned for coming from two muggle parents. I also felt satisfied in knowing the last name of the blond from the train, as it hadn’t been so hard to piece together from Rubeus Hagrid’s small bout.

‘Pure blood’.

I mulled the words over in my head, wondering how much that word would fit in this new world of mine. If it were something important to remember, because it surely seemed like it was.

#draco malfoy x oc #luna lovegood #george weasley x oc #draco malfoy imagine #harry potter imagine #draco lucius malfoy #george weasley #slowburn #enemies to lovers #harry potter #draco malfoy x ravenclaw!reader #draco malfoy x ravenclaw!oc #slytherin #ravenclaw #draco imagine

[punkscowardschampions]

Mattie & Lulu

Mattie: [So my vibe for it, she just shows up without knowing because by this point it’s been like 2 years since attempted contact so you wouldn’t think to check like, where do they go to school, especially if Chloe swore the grandparents to secrecy vis-a-vis the teacher situation because she would, so you probably think they’re still in Switzerland, and then I think we should say that one of them is in her form and one of them has her as a teacher for either Physics or Computers and whoever we pick as the form one could see her first and if that was Dolly she could tell Lulu to try and get in with her]

Lulu: [That honestly feels the most legit to me too, I was gonna say maybe put Lulu in her form so they have to spend more time together lol but your idea makes the most sense in terms of like starting this convo, also love you not being the 1st to know since you spoke for them both in the last convo so]

Mattie: [And if you had her for both subjects, you’d still see her a lot so it’s fine, also lessons are longer than form time but you’re meant to like, talk to your form teacher if you need something so we can say that Dolly is without having to do it obvs, so then my vibe for today is she obviously took Dolly to one side and was like I don’t know how this happened but I’ll follow your lead like if you want to swap forms you can but also you can stay and we don’t have to make a big deal of it. Mattie would have to let the School know like they’re my half-sisters btw, didn’t know they were here, but we had kids who were taught by their literal mums so it’s not like she has to leave or they have to move classes, just as long as you aren’t hiding it ‘cos that’d be weird on her part, so maybe we can say Lulu didn’t have either lesson today so we can do this like Dolly has just told her but Mattie hasn’t had enough time or reason to come find her in person?]

Lulu: [That’s so clever boo, such an excellent way to get around having to RP with yourself and yeah she could totally be taught by her for both lessons so that is probably more time actually like you said]

Mattie: [Okay so our vibe for form is it’s about 30 mins at the start of the day, after breakfast for boarders and before lessons, and there are 4 girls from each year in the form (year 7-13) so the energy is very look after the little ones and go to the older kids for advice and help, as well as your form teacher being your go-to teacher for things you need that aren’t related to your subjects, you probably also have a matron-esque person for things related to boarding; Definitely doing houses also and you get points for good behaviour, academic achievement and clubs and sporting, can also be taken away for poor behaviour and performance, Dolly and Lulu are in the same house just not form. HOUSE TEA, after research it seems like forms and houses are separated by boarding and day students as well as sex, so only boarding girls in your form/house, you literally live with your house if you board, it’s about 60 girls, and there is the housemistress (and her whole fam and dog lmao) a matron, the tutors of the forms in said house and then head girl as well as 6th form girls being prefects, absolutely can think of what the housemistress, matron, head girl and other tutors who live in are like; MORE TEA, school starts 8:25, chapel, assembly or form time, four lessons before lunch, after lunch from about 4:00, 2 clubs a day, sports, drama, art etc until 6:00, final reg ‘til 6:15, then there’s the ‘cultural hour’ til 7:15, prep aka homework for AT LEAST an hour after dinner assumedly, Saturday is chapel, three lessons, lunch, then sports all afternoon depending how much sports you do, there are like 150 clubs so get at it]

Lulu: [NGL love this, I’d be fuming if my mum worked there and I had to live there too but like such a fun vibe for us and it makes sense that you’re gonna end up getting close to Mattie like it or not]

Lulu: [okay so Lulu studies Physics and Computer Science with Mattie and then Mathematics makes sense to go with that]

Mattie: [Dolly Drama & Theatre Studies, German & Religious Studies]

Lulu: [Okay so Lulu’s clubs cos you have to do a sport I’m gonna pick Tennis as a throwback to your old school, Drama as I’ve mentioned in this convo, Model UN likewise as a throwback, Chess cos we love it and that Curie Society thing where they just chat about scientific discoveries and D of E]

Mattie: [Dolly’s clubs are Drama, Archery, Running Club, Chapel Choir, Cross Country & Swimming, will do Creative & Literary Society when we are in a better place but not like right away]

Mattie: [I think we can start this convo now we have an idea]

Lulu: Dolly told me you’re her form tutor… that’s unexpected

Lulu: how long is your placement here?

Mattie: Yes, very

Mattie: I had zero idea you two weren’t still in Switzerland

Mattie: Believe me when I say if I planned to initiate contact between us again, I would have gone for a more direct, far less convoluted route to do so

Mattie: The placement is 8 weeks, I’ve had to let the head know and I was going to come find you to see how you wanted to proceed

Mattie: Dolly was happy enough to stay in my form and not make a big deal about it, her words, obviously this is a shock for us all and I’m not going to minimize that for my own gain

Mattie: But I am taking you for Physics and Computer Studies, so you would actually be seeing more of me than Dolly, so that’s… a thing

Mattie: There is another Computer Science class in your year but Physics is already a small class with just me… I could see if there’s a possibility for a Physics teacher from one of the other years to swap with me, if that’s what you would like

Lulu: Of course you wouldn’t be aware of our move, and of course Dolly doesn’t want to make a big deal of you being here now that we are, similarly I’m not going to make a fuss about you teaching me, that’s all you’re supposed to do, professionalism is also a… thing and 8 weeks is bound to absolutely fly by

Mattie: If you’re sure, Lulu, then that’s absolutely how I am happy to proceed too

Mattie: It really isn’t long, in the grand scheme of things

Mattie: You aren’t obligated to share any more than you would with any other teacher, but I have to ask why the move?

Mattie: You seemed to really love that place

Mattie: Even though it seems very impressive here too

Mattie: I just hope you’re okay, is really all I’m trying to say with that question

Lulu: There’s no big secret, it was just time for a change, which is how you jolly well may feel after you’ve spent 2 months here 😅

Mattie: Oh no, you aren’t enjoying it here? Or just a bit of a culture shock

Mattie: It was for me too, my last placement was an inner-city comp

Mattie: but it’s different being this side of the student-teacher divide regardless, that’s for sure

Lulu: I’m not a student you have to try to find common ground with, you aren’t my form tutor

Mattie: How are you getting on with yours? She’s the Drama teacher, right, funny how that worked out

Lulu: Marvellously, it’s been one of my extracurriculars since year 7

Mattie: That’s great, and you get to spend time with your sister, now you don’t have your lessons together

Lulu: Yeah, Religious Studies isn’t my thing

Mattie: I can’t say it’s mine either 😅

Mattie: Also the man who teaches that scares me a bit but 🤫 I’m sure he looks more off-putting than he actually is

Lulu: It’s his 🐛 brows but your first impression and instincts are spot on too, he’s v intense

Mattie: I’ll break the ice by asking him to come get them threaded, that’s a great idea

Lulu: I’m extremely clever and that was a elaborate ploy to prove every idea I have is A* to you as my new teacher and earn house points as I’m so devoted

Mattie: I sadly think I know how the head would feel about merit points for beauty reccs but admire the dedication, that’s definitely a core value they want to promote here so

Mattie: Not not worth some ++

Lulu: It’d be beastly not to pass the vibe check after all this time, the most relief ever that I’ve worked out this place’s core values

Mattie: I think I still have the introductory pamphlet, should you ever need a refresher

Mattie: Core values, Latin Motto, the lot…

Lulu: [Whatever the school Latin motto is cos I tried to make a sassy one up but was cockblocked] I’m fine, but thanks

Mattie: Impressive

Mattie: Okay, I will see you in class tomorrow

Mattie: Potentially around the house before then but I’ll do my best to give you both space

Lulu: It’s called making an effort, which you’ll see me do in class too

Lulu: okay but don’t give us a lot of space or everyone’ll think we’re in some huge bind over you and like Dolly and I have both said, it’s not that big of a deal

Mattie: Pleased to hear it

Mattie: Understood

Mattie: I more meant it as a warning that I too room there so you might see me around, but I won’t make a point of showing up in your dorm

Lulu: I don’t honestly know what makes you think I would need a warning but thanks again anyway

Mattie: I’m not trying to make your transition here any harder than it needs to be

Lulu: You’d have to be a horrific teacher to make that sizeable of an impact, we’re both settled, the newbie here is you

Mattie: Well that remains to be seen

Mattie: QTS will either be achieved by the end of this or not

Mattie: It’s a lot bigger than your last, your house has as many pupils as the entirety of Surval did, that’s a big change

Lulu: So was co-ed and day students, note my past tense though

Mattie: Right, and your subjects at A-Level are, sadly, pretty boy heavy

Mattie: You’ve got it all worked out though, I’ll be sure to ask for help if I get stuck

Lulu: Not something I expected to have to deal with, pre-fresh start, but I don’t have to teach them, only get on with my own work

Lulu: yeah, I could give an A* tour

Mattie: I’d call you lucky if I didn’t know personally that the workload is going to be intense

Mattie: but I’ve seen your grades so I’m not worried for you, you’ve got this

Mattie: I might take you up on that offer, though if you can secure one of the cute dogs I see running about, that turns might into a definite

Lulu: 😊

Lulu: Oh, this is the moment to let you know Skipper loves me

Mattie: I think Skipper nearly ran me down this morning

Mattie: assuming he’s the GIANT one that rarely listens to his owner 🤭

Lulu: He is 🥰💖 but he doesn’t realise 😆

Mattie: The best kind of dog 😌 It’s so cute

Lulu: My biggest soft spot is for little dogs who think they’re VIP as in v important humans, but we have one of those at home, for the best of both worlds

Mattie: Okay, yes, that’s a mood too

Mattie: What’s his name?

Mattie: Being currently without any pet I need all the surrogates, obviously

Lulu: Monty

Lulu: [show her a picture of him obvs]

Mattie: Oh, he’s a doll 😍

Mattie: a definite plus for being in England is you can go visit him more often

Lulu: Not really, I’m still boarding

Mattie: The 6-day schedule is intense

Mattie: I can see the benefits though, as long as the child is here because they want to learn, and not because their parent paid for an extra intensive education just because it’s the ‘best’

Lulu: Both can be true and mostly seem like they are here

Mattie: By your age, if it wasn’t suiting, you wouldn’t have made it, I don’t think

Mattie: At least you have Sundays

Lulu: You’ve seen my grades, who could fake making it that hard?

Mattie: I wasn’t accusing you of not being capable, not at all, sorry that wasn’t clear, just musing aloud that the people who aren’t suited to this model won’t make it past IGCSEs to A-levels

Mattie: but that kind of thing would fall under unprofessional, I imagine so let’s pretend I didn’t say anything

Lulu: It’d only be unprofessional if you shared who you think shouldn’t be here, which I’ll totally pretend you didn’t say after 🤭

Mattie: 😅😶 I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that and slip the list under your door when I’ve made it

Lulu: 🤫 to not turn you against an absolutely ridiculously high percentage of both your classes before you’ve taught them

Mattie: Definitely not the aim of my placement 😰

Mattie: Although someone has to be the teacher nobody likes, right?

Lulu: You could try that approach, but unless this tête-à-tête happening is what’s faked, I can’t see you making it work for 8 weeks

Mattie: Thanks, that’s almost encouraging 😌😜

Mattie: Over the initial shock, it’s good to see you both doing well here

Mattie: And if you do happen to need anything, you can let me know

Lulu: You’re almost my teacher, calling you a bitch wouldn’t get us off on the right foot

Mattie: I don’t think I can downgrade you for that, but no, I see that

Mattie: Professionalism works both ways, as it were

Lulu: And I could need an extension at any time, my lab partner is a perfect dunce who should be on your reject list 😓 I’d be pretty gassed if you would actually re-assign us, do you have that much power? 🤔

Mattie: It’s a possibility

Mattie: I like to switch it up anyway, you’re such a small group, it stops it getting clique-y, so you can all work together and swap around whilst I’m your teacher

Mattie: When you get a permanent teacher after I leave, they might see it differently but they’ve all been enthusiastic about my ideas thus far, though I just got here

Lulu: After you leave is after you leave, I feel seedy now and look like 💀 if you want to do anything about it

Mattie: What’s the problem with him, beside the dunce thing we’ve already covered?

Lulu: Isn’t that enough bad luck? I’m doing everything by myself while he’s high fiving his friends for getting partnered with me, like some incel

Mattie: Right

Mattie: Let me see it for myself and then perhaps I can do something about it, if it is that blatant

Mattie: You don’t need the teacher’s pet rep any more than I need accusations of baseless favouritism just because we’re related

Mattie: I believe you, but I’ll deal with it in class and in my capacity as your teacher and his, not like this, yeah

Lulu: I’m letting you know what I need, which is what you just told me to do

Mattie: Okay, I’ve heard you, I just want to make sure you understand that if you come to me with things related to class, then they’ll be dealt with in the proper channels

Lulu: 😬 sorry if you got the impression I’d come to you with anything unrelated to class, we’re not there

Mattie: You didn’t, I simply offered

Lulu: Grandma will be buzzing

Mattie: I’m not doing it to score points, or make a statement

Mattie: and undoubtedly you won’t come to me but I’m going to offer in case you need to, and because that’s what feels right to me to do, that’s it

Mattie: No hidden agenda

Lulu: Offer it to Dolly, that’s your job

Mattie: I have, Lulu

Mattie: Don’t worry

Lulu: Meaning?

Lulu: my sister is fine, I don’t have to worry about her

Mattie: Meaning just that

Mattie: I have a pastoral role as well as an educational

Mattie: If any pupil in my form needs help, they’ll receive it

Lulu: She doesn’t

Mattie: Glad to hear it

Lulu: You’ll have an easy time of it from both of us

Mattie: As long as you’re having a good time of it too, that works perfectly for me

Lulu: Il n’y a pas le feu au lac, as my previous mistresses were devoted to saying

Mattie: My French is limited to being able to order dinner with minimal side-eye from the waiters

Mattie: but I’ll take your very pretty words for it

Lulu: Whoops, I shouldn't have assumed, what language did you do?

Mattie: Mandarin, which was a huge plus on my application, with the college in Malaysia and the Mandarin course they do here

Lulu: Wow, how difficult is it? I’d love to have learned

Mattie: It is challenging, but a fun one I’d say

Mattie: It’s a shame they only have the one teacher, so they can’t make it a club too, they’d be run ragged

Mattie: I could teach you the 101 basics, I’m confident enough to do that much

Lulu: You didn’t want to be accused of favouritism and I don’t want to make an ass of myself

Lulu: I’ll have to move there and hope it’s not yonks before the immersion and fluency, I’ve only ever learnt a language that way, I don’t know if even the basics are doable otherwise 😟

Mattie: Well that’s certainly the best way to learn but not the only

Mattie: I wish I was here longer so I could commit to starting a club for the pupils like you who are interested but it wasn’t viable to pick as an A-Level

Lulu: I’ll download an app or something, delete it if it’s too embarrassing

Mattie: I’ll check in to see how you’re finding it

Mattie: You do have a wealth of extra-curriculars, you have zero reason to be embarrassed

Lulu: Only one of those is new and I get to talk in English on subjects I’m never out of my depth with, so yeah, that’s a reason

Lulu: I don’t have time to pick up Chinese Chess either 😭 maybe I can if I do move there

Mattie: The world is seriously going to be your oyster, you can do whatever you want to do, wherever you want to be

Lulu: Is that, like, your teacher catchphrase? 😅 totes inspirational

Mattie: I’ll get a poster made ASAP then 😏

Lulu: Do you need me to draw you a map to art first?

Mattie: Oh, absolutely

Lulu: [do draw her a little map of the key places in the school even though it’d obvs be really simple which might make it more confusing than the actual map cos we’re missing stuff out]

Mattie: [when you didn’t think she would and you’re lowkey touched lmao]

Mattie: That’s perfect, I should actually show up on time for our lesson tomorrow now, thanks for that

Lulu: I draw the line at teaching myself [a thing from both subjects she’s struggling with or doesn’t like lol] as well as Mandarin

Mattie: Now that we can 100% get down before my placement is up, that I can guarantee 😊

Lulu: so you’ve guaranteed yourself a thrilled student quote for the poster

Mattie: Everything’s coming up me 🙌🙌

Lulu: 🤞🏻 you keep that energy going tomorrow

Mattie: I’m not going to oversell it to you, but I do know what I’m doing, in terms of having me as your teacher, I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed

Lulu: They wouldn’t have you here as a teacher if that was your vibe, overselling is honestly closer to what they’re about, you must be worthy of 🙌🏻

Mattie: Bragging is never my vibe but I got the placement here for a reason, and I’m glad I did, so I won’t be wasting the opportunity

Mattie: I went to a good school, but the boarding lifestyle is something I’ve never experienced

Lulu: And I’ve never not, how odd, but you won’t have to experience it that hard as a teacher, they don’t even make you share or suffer through the indignity of inspections

Mattie: My room is a mess of notes and first-day outfits currently so that is definitely a good thing 😬😅

Lulu: The second-day outfit is much less pressure, especially in a class that’s v boy heavy

Mattie: Is that a promise you won’t judge me? 😏

Lulu: I’d come off worse, this uniform is not a mood, they never are

Mattie: At least there’s no boater, the full fantasy

Lulu: It’d add some interest, at least, to how plain everything has to be

Mattie: Thank Goodness for Sundays, you can express yourself then

Lulu: Are you promising not to judge me back? Awww! We’ve got a pact happening

Mattie: As long as there are no sacrifices or blood oaths I’d say that’s above board

Lulu: Sunday’s the chapel’s busiest day and without an altar what are we doing? 😬 Bad luck

Mattie: I do keep forgetting we’re CoE, I’ll have to carve that into the nearest tree or whatever so I don’t arouse suspicion with any 🔮ness

Lulu: Or 🤔 you could use the ⛪️🙏🏻 time to mentally outfit plan for the week if you’re for real awfully nervous, null and voiding the demand for the pact and witch vibes at all

Mattie: You’re very sensible

Mattie: though lesson planning is ultimately the best use of my time, if the big man upstairs is cool with that

Lulu: I use mine for [idk whatever maths or physics shit she could do in her head] and I’m blessed to have not been struck down yet

Mattie: 😅 Well I approve even if the jury is out with the 😇😇s

Lulu: Thanks

Lulu: did Grandpa teach you to play chess too? I need to practice

Mattie: He did, clearly very serious about passing on his chess knowledge 😌

Lulu: Relatable honestly if he just got sick of telling Grandma how the horse and castle move over and over for years 🙄 I tried to teach this boy once and never again

Mattie: Poor Grandma 🤭🤦‍♀️ Is that a boy from home?

Lulu: Golly, if that was how I spent my hols 🙈 No, his mother was a music mistress at our old school

Lulu: he tried but didn’t manage to teach me guitar either

Mattie: Oh, that makes a lot more sense

Mattie: I know the sort

Mattie: Everyone here seems to have little kids or grown-up kids right now, some of the little ones are super cute

Lulu: What sort?

Mattie: The walking-talking Netflix teen heartthrob type

Lulu: Yeah, no, you don’t know him, or me

Mattie: I didn’t mean anything by it

Lulu: And I meant what I said, I’m being welcoming and chill as it’s your first day, but you don’t know me like that

Mattie: Okay, I apologize

Lulu: It’s fine, I’ll see you tonight, not to ruin the surprise but there are other welcoming first day dorm traditions I have to be there for

Mattie: Oh, okay, cool

Mattie: When you want to practice Chess, let me know, we can do it after prep time

Lulu: Okay 👋🏻 for now

[myusualnerdyself]

After the Sun Sets- Part II (Ethan x F!Mc)

Book: Open Heart

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: None

A/n: Thank you for the response to the first half (Link here). Here’s the second and the final part. Please enjoy.

Tag List: @elwetritsche75 @schnitzelbutterfingers @binny1985

xxxx

“This looks familiar.” Ethan couldn’t help but remark upon entering the ocean-facing balcony.

“Yeah, everything is same except they have done some renovations, the table and chairs are different.” Casey said while absentmindedly stroking the tabletop.

“You even remember the furniture?” he asked, surprise colouring his tone.

“I remember everything about that night, Ethan.” 

He didn’t know how to reply to that. Truth be told, he had replayed the same night in his head countless times, the memory among others had somehow helped him maintain his sanity whenever the loneliness became too much but he couldn’t tell her that, not without leading the conversation to places he wasn’t ready to go yet. So he stalled, 

“Care for a drink?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She leaned against the railing of the balcony, watching him work, his age had started to catch up with him, there was a sparse spattering of white among the dark brown hair. He looked a bit tired too, the constant movement of his job had taken its toll but it hadn't in any way affected his handsome looks or personality that still exuded the same authority and confidence. Even after so many years, she could see why she was drawn to him, imagining how damn easy it would have been for her younger self to fall for his charms.

“So how have you been?” She asked while taking a seat beside him.

“Fine I guess, the WHO projects keep me busy, it’s just one country after another.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“Doesn’t that tire you? Being constantly on the run?” 

Ethan flinched at her choice of words but decided not to comment on it. “I do what I have to do. There is an extreme scarcity of healthcare facilities in the developing countries, the situation is so much worse. I try to do my part.” 

“That’s nice. I sometimes wonder if I should do something like that. ” She said, taking a sip of her drink.

“Why? The position of Director of Diagnostics team is not everything you imagined it to be?” He said with a grin.

“Hate to wipe that smirk off of your face, but I do enjoy my job a lot. It’s just that I have spent all of my career in Edenbrook, a change for a few months would help me. I think it would be a good learning opportunity.” 

“That’s true, you’ll gain a lot from it. Let me know if you ever plan on doing it, I can tell you all about the on-going projects and what to expect from each of them.”  

“You mean you won’t ignore my e-mails anymore?” She said, the hurt unmistakable in her voice.

He sighed, “Casey, you know why I cut off all communication between us.”

“No, I don’t! Come to think of it, I don’t know a lot of things. I don’t know why you left without telling me first, without thinking about me, without bothering to contact me for seven FUCKING YEARS.” She said, unable to contain her anger anymore.

“I had to leave, the insinuations about us were getting crazy, the board had started to take notice, they were questioning your credibility, saying you got the spot just because I favoured you, that you were sleeping your way to the top. I didn’t want to be the reason why everyone questioned your merit. I was your mentor, my job was to help you push yourself to your limits, to make you the best doctor you can be, not to hold you back. And look where it got you, you achieved so much.” He said, pacing the length of the balcony now, willing her to understand.

“Well, we could have dealt with it together, what gave you the right to make that decision on your own? How could you leave me like that? Didn’t you ever miss me? Didn’t you have feelings for me?” She shouted at him.

Her words hit him like a ton of bricks. After everything he did to protect her reputation and career, the fucking nerve of her to question his feelings, he was positively furious. 

“Of course I missed you, I missed you every fucking night, that’s why I took such a demanding job, so that I didn’t have the time to think about you, to stop myself from rushing back to you. I had to leave the way I did. I knew it would hurt too much to say it your face, I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave, to muster the courage to walk away if I stopped to say goodbye. And how could you even question my feelings for you when you are the one who went out and got married. Huh?”  It was a low blow and a completely irrational one but he always felt a pang of jealousy that she had moved on with her life while he was still stuck on her.

They stood facing each other, both out of breath, the calming waves of the ocean doing nothing to soothe their raging emotions at the moment.

“Really? Do you want to talk about my marriage? My marriage that lasted for what, four years?” She replied, a humourless laugh escaping her.

“What do you mean?” He asked, his eyes falling to her bare index finger, a place where he hadn’t dared to glance at up till now, not wanting the reminder of her marital status.

“We split up Ethan. He has filed for divorce.” Her voice broke at the last word and he couldn’t help himself, moving forward to give her a comforting embrace, all of his anger forgotten.  

“I am sorry Casey. But how can someone be such a huge idiot to leave you?” Although he wouldn’t agree with you if you asked him but there was a small part of him that was delighted, happy in the knowledge that she was a free woman.

“Well according to him, I am too detached, that I don’t love him as much as he does and deserves and most of the time it feels like I am completing a duty to him, just going through the motions of married life and not enjoying it. That the only thing I truly care about is my work.” Her voice sounded so defeated that all he wanted to do was kill the assehole who made her feel like that, even if he had done him a favour.

“So he left you because you are too devoted to your work? That to you your patients come first and everything comes after? I am sorry but sounds to me that he just doesn’t know how to be with a kind, compassionate and a career-driven woman.” He said resolutely.

“No Ethan, it’s not like that. Everything he said is true. Deep down, I knew I never loved him. Being around him for longer periods had started to make me nauseous, I just couldn’t handle it, him being such a loving husband when I couldn’t reciprocate, at least not the way he wanted me to. So I started taking all these extra shifts in the hospital, trying to hide my guilt with the mask of helping people.” She smiled wryly..

“Then why did you marry him in the first place?” He asked, confused.

“It’s not that simple.” She replied, unable to look him in the eye.

“I am sure I can keep up.”

She was silent for a few moments, trying to collect her thoughts. Then she sighed and continued, “You know before meeting you or up till the time we were…whatever we were, I had these idealistic notions about my life, I believed that even with all the ups and downs, at the end I will get my happily ever after, and with you, all of it seemed possible, it was so easy to imagine a life together. But then you left, and I was shattered. It was like you took a part of me away with you, a part that was romantic, hopeful, a part that believed in things, a part that believed in love. And all that was left was this…..this jaded person. It was like I couldn’t feel things for people anymore, I had given up on the idea of love. I went on countless dates, but there was never a strong connection, the sort that we had. So I realized that maybe I was never going to feel something like that again. Therefore I settled for the next best thing, my ex-husband and I had similar interests, an easy relationship, he was never too demanding and I knew he loved me like crazy, so when he proposed, I said yes.” She said, her voice breaking by the end, the tears flowing freely.

“Shhh…Rookie, I am so sorry, I didn’t know you were suffering so much.” He tightened his arms around her, holding her close, his eyes full of unshed tears himself. All the times he had felt bitter thinking she had moved on coming back to him, and to know her actual state and that too all because of him, he didn’t think he would be ever able to forgive himself.

For a while, they just stood there like that, with her head resting on his chest and him stroking her back, trying to comfort her.

“You know, now I feel like I should have stopped your wedding.” He said breaking the silence.

“What do you mean?” She glanced up at him.

“When I found that you were getting married, I couldn’t stop myself, the idea that you were going to be someone else’s forever was too much for me, so I came back to stop it, to tell you how I really felt, to beg you to give me another chance. But then I saw you in your wedding dress, you looked so radiant and dare I say....happy.  I just couldn’t do it so I left.” He said while playing with the strands of her hair that had come loose, rueful smile on his face/

“Wow, I can’t believe you did that.” She was shell-shocked, drowned in her sorrows she had never stopped to consider that maybe he was suffering as much. She always imagined him to anguished by their separation for a few months but then moving forward with his life.

“Yeah, me too.”

“So presently, do you have a special someone in your life?” She said, toying with the lapels of his jacket.

“No, I had a few on and off relationships but I never really got over you. I mean you would think it’s easy to forget one’s annoying, stubborn and rule-breaking intern but it’s not.” He said, throwing her earlier words back at him.

And the next moment, her lips were on his. It took him a minute to register what was happening, but then he was kissing her back with equal fervour, pouring everything that he felt into the kiss. He groaned when her tongue demanded entrance in his mouth, his memory hadn’t done justice to the feeling of her tongue sliding up against his, battling for dominance. They kissed like that for some time, both lost into each other’s sounds, touch and taste until they had to finally come up for air. But his lips weren’t ready to leave her skin yet, they moved onto her jaw, her neck, leaving open-mouthed kisses along the way, she moaned at the sensation, her hands tangling into his hair forcing his mouth back onto hers. After a while their kisses slowed to mere brushes of lips against lips, their foreheads touching.

“So you have feelings for me and I have feelings for you but where does this leave us?” she asked in a small voice, afraid of his answer.

“Wherever you want it to be. I have caused you enough pain, if you don’t want to do anything with me, I completely understand.” The thought of leaving her again was too difficult to even imagine but he tried to keep a brave front.

“Comeback to Edenbrook, take the position of  the diagnostic team’s head again.”

“What are you saying? I can’t do that. It was your dream, you have earned it.”

“I was anyway going to leave it, my research keeps me very busy, and I can’t juggle both of them together. We have been looking for a replacement for a while. Take it.” She said, taking his hand in hers.

“Well if that’s the case then I’ll be happy to.” He said, intertwining their fingers.

“Good, but that doesn’t mean you’re forgiven. I mean I understand your reasons for doing everything and I know you weren’t happy during the time apart either but it was unfair of you to make a decision about us without taking my feelings into consideration. It will take me some time to get over it.”

“Of course. After everything you have been through, you letting me back in your life is more than I ask for, but I promise that from now I’ll try my best to give you the happily ever after you deserve.” He said while caressing her cheek, trying to convey the truth of his statement with his eyes.

Her face split into a blinding smile. He leaned down to kiss her softly on the lips but it quickly turned wild, both of them unable to restrain their desire for each other any longer, she moved her lips to his jaw, tracing a path to his ear with her tongue, making him shiver in the process, biting his earlobe, she whispered into the shell of his ear, “Well, you can start making up by taking me to bed.” 

“Yes, doctor.”

xxxxxxxx

Thank you for reading. Please like, comment and re-blog.

#ethan x mc #dr. ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #mc x ethan #ethan ramsey #open heart #open heart fanfiction #choices stories we play #playchoices fanfiction #playchoices #ethan ramsey fanfiction #ethan ramsey fic

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Bourne

Story Update! FFN and AO3

Chapter 2

Mr. Harry Potter leant back in his seat and let out a long breath, the coach bouncing along the road as he watched the countryside near Ottery passing by the window. His valet, Sterling, tried to hand him a book, but Harry shook his head.

"Having second thoughts about coming along, Harry?"

Harry smiled at Ron, his closest friend since they'd started at boarding school together. He'd known Ronald Weasley longer than he'd known any other man outside of his own father and his father's friends.

"Only wondering if I'm going to make your family wish they'd never allowed you to spend your school years and beyond with the likes of me."

"On that topic," Ron shifted in his seat, "There is a slight chance they remember some of the nonsense I may have said when I was a boy. I'm ashamed to admit it but when I first saw your father's estate, I was blinded for days over it all." Ron chuckled and avoided Harry's gaze.

"I'll try to pretend as if my father's estate doesn't exist then," Harry kicked at Ron's foot and managed to catch his gaze. "You know my family, it's the people we're concerned with. Besides, that was years ago."

"Yes, and while I hope they've let my boyish ramblings become muddled with the passing of time, I'm sure my family has deduced that you're a man of some consequence, seeing as I've not asked for any allotment and have managed to travel with you through the majority of liberated Europe for the last three years." Ron finally managed to smile again and it put Harry at ease.

"Yes, well no need to tell them my yearly income, is there?" Harry chuckled and attempted to move the conversation away from his family's wealth. "We're here to visit your family, let you get things sorted to offer marriage to Miss Granger back in Godric's Hollow, and return home so you can make her yours."

"Right," Ron's eyes grew a bit wider.

"She's quite taken with you." Harry grinned, "And you with her."

"Yes, but the truth of your statement does little to quell the nerves I feel at the prospect of proposing."

"You'll do quite well at it, I'm sure, and even if you don't, I'm positive she'll be willing to look past it and accept regardless."

"Yes, well, first I must manage to work things out with my father." Ron rubbed the back of his neck and looked out of the coach to the fields beyond.

"I've told you, my father and I-"

"Yes, I know," Ron nodded, "but let me try to do the honorable thing first. My family isn't vastly wealthy, but we do have some, and my father has never been miserly with what we have. I have the apprenticeship ready with Mr. Longbottom to become a solicitor. Between that and what my father will give me should be enough. Miss Granger is her parents' only child, she deserves to know I can take care of her, and with her mother having no living relations I hope to support her as well when the time comes. I'd like for all of it to be on my own merit if I can."

"I respect that, but please don't throw away your happiness, or hers, over pride. Father agrees, if you need the funding, we will supply it."

"You have my word." Ron nodded, "And thank you."

They passed the remainder of their coach ride reminiscing on their school days and the adventures they'd found since traveling across mainland Europe. Now that Ron would be settling down Harry realized that these excursions would be over for the most part. It helped to push away the anxiety of what was next in his own life in exchange for enjoying the memories of their past journeys. It was the jovial conversation that allowed Ottery to come upon him unawares, and with it, his best friend's childhood home.

"Welcome to Westerly Place, Potter." Ron smiled as his childhood home came into view.

Harry admired how inviting the home looked. Though a fair bit smaller than the home he had grown up in, the house gave a feeling of warmth and welcome as they approached.

"It looks as though it was a welcome place to spend one's younger years, Ron."

"Yes, we fondly called it the Burrow as there were so many of us running about, barely enough room for the servants to be underfoot. But once Father managed to get all us boys out to boarding schools the place felt more spacious; so much so that my mother complains the house is empty now with just my sister and father and the help."

"I'm looking forward to meeting your family. Are your brothers still close to home or have they gone looking for adventure as you have?" Harry followed Ron to the front door.

"We've all gone off looking for adventure," Ron laughed. " Though three of them have settled down with wives, including the eldest. My sister is rather put out with them for it, I'm afraid, for their letters no longer tell her of the sights and wonders of His Majesty's kingdom. She wishes for the chance to see the world, and sates her desires with the letters from myself and brothers that still travel."

"An unusual trait in a woman, I've yet to meet many with real desire for more than a marriage proposal."

Harry smiled at the thought of a woman going off to truly explore as he and Ron had done the last few years, not simply improve her French. It seemed right to him, for a woman to want more from life. He had heard of a few higher born ladies traveling to Europe, but those stories tended to also include women seeking exile from a problematic marriage.

"Yes, well, my sister is an unusual sort," Ron smiled and gestured towards the field behind the old home.

Harry turned and was instantly enthralled by the image of a woman with hair as red as the red sky of a sunset and it was coming unpinned as it sprawled out behind her. She laughed and smiled and the combination made his knees begin to fold. She was running and he noticed as she caught herself from falling that she was barefoot. This woman was nothing like the women who flocked to his father's parties to try and win his favor - and his fortune. This woman was decidedly more. This woman was alive! Harry was certain that up to this point he'd been shown only versions of Frankenstein's monster when it came to women. Now he was beholding the real thing, a true lady, a woman with flesh and bones all her own.

"This is your sister?" Was all Harry managed to say as Ron knocked before opening the front door.

"Yes," Ron smiled over at Miss Weasley as she ran and spun in the meadow, then he stepped inside and breathed in deeply. "It's good to be back."

#Bourne #harry x ginny #regency au #regency england au #harry potter x ginny weasley #hinny fluff #harry potter #ginny weasley #hinny #references to jane austen #romance #fluff

[todisturbtheuniverse]

FIC: Set All Trappings Aside [5/8]

Rating: T Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition Pairing: f!Adaar/Josephine Montilyet Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Class Differences Word Count: 4000 (this chapter) Summary: After months of flirtation, a contract on Josephine’s life brings Adaar’s feelings for her closer to the surface than ever. It highlights, too, all of their differences, all of the reasons a relationship between them would not last. But Adaar is a hopeful woman at heart; if Josephine can set all trappings aside, then so can she. Also on AO3. Notes: While the context for this story is the Of Somewhat Fallen Fortune questline, some of the conversations within it didn’t quite fit for this Inquisitor. The resulting fic is a twist on the canon romance. This Adaar and Josephine have featured in other fics, so you may miss a little context if you haven’t read Promising or Truth-Telling, which both come before this one.

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Usually, Adaar liked nothing better than being on the road. Clear nights like these were best of all. It was easy to pick out constellations she knew, stars she'd once navigated by on her own, crisp against the velvet map of the heavens. She'd lain on a thin bedroll staring up at that sky more nights than she could count, and when she'd closed her eyes, she'd slept peacefully.

The view afforded her very little peace just now.

Four more days to Val Royeaux. Six more until this party that Adaar was supposed to appear at. She'd made up her mind as she left Josephine's office, though. She hadn't promised anything. Leliana had sent along the tools and information Adaar would need to deal with the House of Repose. Damn the woman, but she had done Adaar that small favor. 

Her people answered to the Inquisitor, not the Ambassador. When they arrived in Val Royeaux, she would do what needed to be done. No more games.

Josephine would be angry, but the damage to their friendship had already been done. What did one more blow matter? 

Best not to think about that. To hope, as was her habit, that Josephine had kissed her back and meant it. That it hadn't just been relief, or gratitude, or the heat of the moment, or… 

Adaar would send her back to Skyhold with Leliana's people when it was all over, but she would not be escorting them. The additional protection Adaar and her companions offered would no longer be required. They could ride far faster than a handful of carts. They would go south, to the Emerald Graves, and Adaar would get back to doing what she did best.

She did not plan to go back to Skyhold for a long, long time.

She shifted a little in the open bed of the cart, easing her legs out of one position and into another. Wouldn't do to get too cramped if someone crept up on them in the dead of night. She needed to be quick. Quicker than she'd ever been. She blinked her bleary eyes and surveyed the lonesome wilderness around their meager campsite again, searching for anything that didn't belong.

Behind her, canvas rustled. She turned her head to note it, squinting through the dim starlight. Paranoia prickled at her, insisting that an assassin had slipped by both her and the four others on watch, but the part of her still capable of logic expected to see one of their own party leaving their tent.

She just didn't expect it to be Josephine.

Adaar looked away, back to watching the road and sparse woods behind. She briefly considered the merits of lying down flat in the cart, concealing herself from view entirely, but that was both too childish and too dangerous. She knew how likely she was to fall asleep, even on these hard boards, if she arranged herself horizontally.

So she listened, with pricked ears, to Josephine's footsteps. She hoped they would circle away, paired with whatever guard had the unfortunate task of protecting people while they pissed, but instead, they drew closer.

Shit.

They hadn't spoken much since leaving Skyhold. She'd avoided Josephine, staying close enough to watch her back but far enough away to ward off conversation. Josephine seemed to have picked up on this, accepted it; she hadn't said anything beyond a simple greeting this morning.

But they'd also been surrounded by others: scouts, guards, Adaar's companions. Perhaps she'd just been waiting for the right moment, when they'd be overheard by the fewest possible ears.

The right moment for what, Adaar had no idea. Another plea for Adaar to understand? An apology for being so cursed stubborn about this? A reprimand for kissing her? An entreaty to do it again?

Josephine paused when she drew alongside the back of the cart, just within Adaar's peripheral vision. "Inquisitor," she said softly.

Adaar watched the woods. "Ambassador."

The cart dipped a little with Josephine's weight. For a moment, they sat in silence, two feet of space between them. Adaar saw Josephine's head tip back, taking in the view of the heavens, but only out of the corner of her eye. She didn't think knowing the way starlight looked on that face would make this any easier.

"I brought you something," Josephine said at last, and Adaar realized she held a small wooden box. She set it down on the cart between them and opened the lid. "If you're not going to sleep, you'll need your strength."

Adaar glanced down at the box. A pile of little round cookies nestled on a linen napkin inside it, some of their edges crumbling.

Well, maybe she could rule out a reprimand, at least. That was...something.

"I don't know that sweets are the best choice for a long watch," she said, but she took one, anyway. "I don't recognize these."

"Polvorones. My favorites. My father's, too. He sends me quite a few of them, for fear that I'll get too homesick, the way he's always done. I usually hide them away for myself, but…" She clasped her hands in her lap. "I thought they might be an adequate peace offering. Or the beginning of one, anyway."

Adaar turned her attention back to the road as she took a bite of the cookie. It crumbled in her mouth, on her hands, sweet with a trace of almonds. She swallowed, took a sip from her water skin to wash the rest of the crumbles down as she considered.

It was abominably hard to tell this woman No, which was why she'd avoided situations where she'd have to do it at all costs.

"Danaya," she said, raising her voice. 

Josephine's head turned toward her, but she didn't interrupt. Quick footsteps approached. 

"Yes, Your Worship?" the guard said.

"Watch the rear. I am being distracted."

"Yes, Your Worship," Danaya agreed, and wisely moved a solid thirty feet down the road to take her post without further comment. Good woman. Didn't make a single face whatsoever.

"I'm listening," Adaar said to Josephine.

She heard Josephine's relieved breath. She unfolded a napkin over her lap, and her elegant fingers dipped into the box to pick out one of the polvorones for herself. "I've been thinking, these last few days. I realized how poorly I've behaved. We had an agreement. If you still want to deal with the House of Repose directly…I am a woman of my word. I won't argue further."

Adaar blinked. The possibility of an apology had occurred to her, and not even as a long shot; Josephine was mindful of other people's feelings. She'd certainly noticed how...off...Adaar was. Adaar was not that adept at concealing it.

But this? She hadn't expected this.

"Okay," she said slowly, testing. "That does make things a little easier, since I planned to do just that when we arrived in Val Royeaux."

Surprise—distress—flitted over Josephine's face, but it quickly smoothed. "That is fair."

"I would have told you," Adaar said, compelled to defend herself, "but frankly, I don't hold up very well to your silver tongue. Best not to risk it."

Josephine chuckled, a little sadly. "No, I understand. I just have one request."

"For my sake, please make it a reasonable one."

"Even when you have every right to be angry with me, you are amusing," she said, but pushed on before Adaar could reply. "I would like to explain why I've been so opposed to your plan, to Leliana's plan. Prove to you that I'm not being mulish, or stupid, or naïve, or..."

"I don't think you're any of those things." Adaar picked up another cookie. She'd finished the first one without noticing. She did tend to eat her nerves. "Well, maybe a little stubborn. Usually that's a good quality. But if you'd like to tell me, go ahead."

Josephine dipped her head. "I used to be a bard, you see."

She paused there as if deliberating, and Adaar tried to imagine it. She was a deft negotiator, but Adaar had a hard time picturing her in such a place at court just now, with the pretty ocean-blue shawl held around her shoulders to ward off the chill, her long dark hair woven into a loose braid over her shoulder. Rumpled by sleep, or maybe a lack of it. She belonged among her books and her missives, her pen and her ink. Hard to imagine her hiding daggers in her clothes instead.

She'd had a letter opener in her sash that night. Adaar pushed the thought of it, its inadequacy, as far away as it would go.

"What, like Leliana?" she asked. "With the singing, and the story-telling, and…"

"The spying," Josephine finished. "Yes. I was young, attending university in Val Royeaux. It sounded so...romantic, so exciting. Trysts, secrets, fascinating people. Very different from my responsibilities to my family."

"Ah," Adaar said. "So even you can get tired of paperwork sometimes."

"Especially at that age." Josephine sighed, as if the memory embarrassed her. "So I put on a mask, told myself that my siblings would get along without me, and practiced the Game in as thrilling a way as I could."

"I suppose I can imagine that. Well," she amended, "parts of it, anyway."

Josephine nodded. "Parts of it, yes. The charming conversation, that I was good at. I had some skill with a harp, though my singing has never been as good as Leliana's."

Adaar made a mental note to find a harp at the first opportunity, then remembered herself and crossed it out again immediately. Her plans after Val Royeaux had not changed. She would maintain the distance between them. It was for the best.

The words would ring true someday, she was sure. 

"And the other parts?" she said. "How did that end?"

Josephine drew her shawl a little more tightly around herself. "Very poorly. You know that I am not a fighter. I had an aversion to violence, even then. But I convinced myself that I needed to play the part, that I could learn, that I would adjust to it. I practiced."

"You got hurt," Adaar guessed when Josephine hesitated.

"If only." She straightened up as if steeling herself. "During a particular intrigue, another bard was sent to kill my patron. We...fought, if you could call it that. It did not feel very much like the epic duels we sang about. I was terrified. I think that he was, too. We were at the top of a steep flight of stairs. He drew a knife, and I pushed him away from me…you can imagine the result."

Adaar could see the shame on her face. The guilt, even after all these years.

Adaar remembered the first person she had killed, too. The way she'd thrown up on her knees in the dirt after. It took a lot of practice to stop doing that part. Demons were easier. Hell, Red Templars were easier. They weren't really people anymore.

"It was self-defense," she said, trying to be gentle. "He would have killed you."

"But it was such a waste!" Adaar had rarely seen Josephine so animated: the words burst out of her, not loud, mindful of the guards, but sharp. Devastated. Her eyes gleamed, and Adaar fought the impulse to touch her, to comfort her. "And when I took off his mask, I knew him. We'd attended parties together. If I'd stopped to reason, if I'd used my voice instead of scuffling like a common thug…"

It was just another blow to an old wound. Adaar weathered it. She knew Josephine didn't mean it like that, would never be that cruel, but Adaar knew the truth about herself, too. Knew, and accepted it.

Cassandra kept saying that she was the person they'd needed, exactly when they'd needed it. Stood to reason that sometimes the world needed a common thug.

"I will always wonder who he would have turned out to be," Josephine said. "That is why."

Adaar returned to the problem at hand. "These aren't boys on their first run, Josephine. They're part of a guild of assassins—"

"I know that. I know." She shook her head, impatient. "It is not their lives that most concern me, though I do think their deaths would be pointless. For what? For an old grudge so easily forgotten that the surviving descendents would sweep it away for a favor of status?" She scoffed. "They're bound by that old agreement, but no one else feels the same."

There was truth enough in that. Adaar had seen some of Josephine's exchanges with the Du Paraquettes. Hard to imagine that a hundred years ago, these families had been at each others' throats. They were just strangers now. 

"What most concerns you, then?" she said.

Josephine looked up at her. Her fingers had pulled one of the cookies apart in her lap; it was a pile of crumbs now. "The lives of our people. Any of them could get hurt, could die, trying to destroy this contract. You could die."

Adaar considered her for a long moment. "You see our impasse, then," she said at last. "You are not willing to send me into mortal danger, and I am not willing to let you stay in the same."

"Yes." There was disappointment, but understanding, in Josephine's eyes. "I do see. And you have honored my request, above and beyond our agreement, so you can do what you see fit with a clear conscience. I won't protest."

Damn her. Even as she released Adaar, she bound her. Adaar wondered if she'd just played the Game for so long that she couldn't stop playing it, that she did it even subconsciously. That she knew, instinctively, that where pleading or begging wouldn't change Adaar's mind, this would.

And Adaar admired Josephine's idealism. Always had. Maybe she was cutthroat when it came to maneuvering alliances, but it was in metaphor only; she did her best to mitigate harm. She advocated for opportunity, for a future, not an ending.

Adaar wanted the world to work that way.

"This is exactly why I haven't talked to you in four days," Adaar muttered. "I knew you would talk me out of it." She took another cookie to console herself and stuffed it whole in her mouth. Maybe the crumbs would choke her, put her out of her misery.

"I mean it," Josephine pressed. "Do what you think—"

"—is best," Adaar finished. "Yeah. Wish I knew for sure what that was." She dusted her hands free of crumbs. "If this minister so much as looks at me funny—which is very likely, given the manners these kinds of people usually have—I'm storming the House of Repose that very hour."

Josephine reached across the space between them to touch her hand. "Thank you."

Adaar only nodded. Hard to do anything else as she looked at those soft fingertips grazing the backs of her knuckles, thinking inevitably of the last time they'd touched.

Josephine withdrew, and Adaar hoped that she would get up and leave; that she had gotten what she wanted, and there would be no need to discuss anything else.

"There is one other matter," Josephine said, her words more hesitant by far now.

Adaar didn't dare look at her face. She listened, waited, for the guillotine to drop.

"You kissed me," Josephine said, and Adaar closed her eyes against it. "After…"

Adaar would never forget it. Never. The relief she'd felt all the way down to her weary bones when she arrived outside Josephine's door to hear voices, to hear her voice, to realize that she was safe, alive—only for that relief to twist, become a terror so stark she'd never felt its like—

"I only…please understand, I don't want to assume that you harbor any tender feelings for me, I just…" Josephine let out a frustrated breath. "Listen to me stutter. I only want to understand what you meant by it."

Adaar opened her mouth before she even knew what she planned to say; she shut it again. Josephine waited, patient, not pushing.

Adaar could lie. Wave it off. Make the same excuses she'd imagined Josephine would make. Things would be awkward, probably. After all this, it was hard to imagine that they'd ever be as close as they had once been.

But Josephine deserved better than that. She'd gone out of her way to apologize, to explain. Now she asked to understand, to be given the same courtesy in return. 

It would still be awkward, but maybe they'd get past it, someday. She could hope. It had carried her this far.

"I care about you," she said. She sounded steady enough. "Very much." She paused, cleared her throat. "Thought it was sort of obvious."

Josephine didn't reply. The silence—a few seconds that felt like years—pressed down on Adaar, threatening to crush her. She had to look, had to see…

Josephine stared at her, eyes wide, lips slightly parted. She looked an awful lot like she had after Adaar had kissed her.

Breathlessly, she said, "I thought...I thought it was possible, but…"

"I know. I didn't send an eyebrow poem." She fell back on bad humor like it was some kind of defense, like it wouldn't just make things worse. "Just a bunch of stupid trinkets. Awfully unclear of me. Look, I'm sorry if I made you uncomf—"

She had not known that Josephine could move so quickly; she'd pushed the box of cookies out of the way, thrown herself against Adaar's side, and pulled Adaar's head down to kiss her before Adaar knew what was happening.

She'd tried not to remember. In those moments before the few hours of sleep she'd scraped for herself, she'd tried not to think about how it had felt. Josephine clinging to her, safe and warm and alive; Josephine pressing close to her, matching Adaar's desperation with her own fervor; Josephine's soft, sweet lips yielding beneath hers.

She was just as demanding as she'd been that night. Adaar had never expected, never imagined that—when she'd dared to imagine, anyway. That Josephine had a fire burning inside her to match Adaar's torch, and when their lips met, they knew one another's heat.

Josephine's hands framed Adaar's face, held her in place. Without Adaar's explicit say-so, her arms had wrapped around Josephine. She drank in the blissful noise of delight that came from Josephine's lips, didn't bother to catch the shawl as it fell and fluttered to the cart. Josephine touched her like she was something beloved, and she melted beneath the worship of those fingers, fell to pieces beneath the care of this deepening kiss, sweet with that lingering taste of the polvorones. Another few seconds of those soft lips moving with hers and she'd be tumbling Josephine down into the bed of the cart, and she doubted very much that Josephine would protest—

One of the guards called to another. Despite the heat, despite Josephine's body against hers, she heard it. It was a proprietary remark; there was no danger. But it felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over Adaar's head.

She tugged away, just enough to break the kiss, letting the cold night air come between them. "Wait."

Josephine made an impatient noise, following. "There are no assassins out—"

"It's not that."

Josephine's eyes searched her face. They looked a little glassy with want, with lust, with starlight.

It was a very good look on her, but it wasn't helping Adaar keep her head straight.

"Then what?" she asked. Her thumb ran over Adaar's cheek, once, twice.

She would not get through this if Josephine kept touching her, but she had to tell herself to let go three times before she actually took her arms from around Josephine. Josephine settled back to the cart, waiting, brow knit with confusion.

"This isn't a good idea," Adaar said.

Josephine leaned a little away, clearly stung. "Why not?"

Adaar glanced down the road, toward the nearest guard. Danaya's back was to them, but she wasn't far enough away, not nearly.

"People talk," she said. "As you've told me yourself. Even a short entanglement—"

"Short entanglement?" Josephine repeated, a thread of anger weaving through the hurt. "I am not interested in a fling, as you well—"

"Let me finish. Please."

Maybe something on Adaar's face convinced her; she took a breath and gestured, as if to say go ahead.

"This whole deal is going to restore your family's status," Adaar said. "Right?"

If Josephine found the change in subject strange, she didn't comment on it. "It will take more work than that, but—yes, this is the necessary beginning."

"How do you think that status would dip if everyone knew you were involved with me? What trade opportunities would you lose? Who would exclude your siblings from parties, your parents from plans?"

Josephine didn't answer right away. She thought about it, giving it a moment, turning it over, before she answered. "No one who has not already excluded us," she said. "No opportunities I have not already lost."

"Are you sure of that?"

"No one can ever be absolutely certain of anything," Josephine said evenly. "But I do not care."

"I know that isn't true. You've worked so hard to make this happen. Not just these last few months—years and years of work. What if just…being with me…would reverse all of that?"

Josephine slid off the cart and turned to face Adaar. Silently, Adaar offered out her shawl, and she took it, but let it hang loose from her hand.

"For my family, yes, I have worked," Josephine said. "So that they might get along without me, one day, if the worst were to happen. But I set all my trappings aside to join the Inquisition, knowing that I might well be cast as a heretic with the rest of you." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, as if this didn't trouble her at all. "It does not appear that this is our trajectory any longer. I've turned a deaf ear to many slights, but there are fewer of them every week."

"You'll have to turn a deaf ear to many more," Adaar said. She had to make Josephine understand. "Supporting me politically is very different from declaring a romantic relationship with a common thug."

Josephine looked at her, silent, inscrutable, and Adaar almost squirmed under the weight of that gaze. It felt like Josephine saw a great deal. Things Adaar didn't want her to see, things she didn't intend to show her.

"You know that I don't see you that way," Josephine said.

"But other people do," Adaar argued. "Other people will—"

"Other people think many silly things," Josephine cut across her.

"Tell me if this is silly, then. When this is all over, if I'm still standing when the dust clears, I will have a very simple life left to me. A little land, a little house. You have connections, responsibilities, that won't fit in the space I have to offer. Would you give all that up to sink to my level?"

Josephine let out a low breath. "I see."

The way she was looking at Adaar, Adaar very much doubted it. "See what?"

"You are afraid that I am going to hurt you."

Adaar spluttered. "That's not what I—"

"You think that when this is over, you will not be special anymore, and I will not want you anymore." Josephine stepped forward, just enough to wrap the shawl around Adaar's shoulders. "You're wrong."

She patted the fabric into place, as if to protect Adaar from the chill. Every touch of her hand weakened a little more of Adaar's resolve.

"I am not going to change my mind," Josephine said. "When you have gotten over your reservations—"

"My reservations? You're the one who should have—"

"I will be here, Herah," Josephine said, relentless. "And I will still want the same thing. Lest you accuse me of manipulating you with my silver tongue, I will leave you to think."

Adaar had lost all language, all ability to protest. Josephine took one more polvorone from the box, but left the rest with a last pointed look at Adaar.

She was not afraid.

...Was she?

Go to Chapter 6 -->

#josephine montilyet #inquisitor adaar #f!adaar x josephine #f!adaar/josephine #dragon age #inquisition #mutual pining #friends to lovers #developing relationship #class differences #universe writes

[shamoor-blog2]

Everything To Know About Belt Sanders

What are Belt Sanders?

Belt sanders are multiuse devices. They are regularly utilized for tending to a scribed line (photograph), sanding extremely harsh surfaces, leveling surfaces (like a substitution board in a hardwood floor) and freehand adjusting and forming. Since they have a ton of intensity and can deal with coarse corn meal, they exceed expectations at the quick expulsion of wood. Additionally, in contrast to orbital and vibrating sanders, the sanding activity is straight, so even with coarse corn meal you can sand with the grain and get a gorgeous outcome. Despite the fact that a belt sander isn't a basic instrument in the mortgage holder's arms stockpile, you won't find many experienced DIYers or craftsmen without one.

Advantages of a belt sander

Belt sanders are the enormous, incredible gorillas of the sanding scene. Not many devices can spare you as much time—or wreck your task quicker. In case you're new to belt sanders or have been baffled by yours, read on to discover how to monitor to see in Toolsearchkit.

Ideal for scribing

A typical use for a little belt sander is scribing. You can progressively sneak up on a bended line for an ideal fit. On a cover ledge, ensure the bearing of belt travel pushes the overlay down.

The Top Tool for Rough Flattening

Belt sanders exceed expectations at the fast evacuation of wood, making them the best handheld force apparatus for leveling and smoothing unpleasant sheets. Start at a point to the grain for forceful leveling, at that point get done with the grain. 80-coarseness is useful for beginning, at that point change to 120-coarseness.

Instructions to Choose the Best Belt Sander

The best multipurpose belt sander takes a 3-in.- wide belt. You'll see machines intended for more extensive and smaller belts, yet they're for specific errands.

Inside the 3-in. class, there are littler instruments that take 3 x 18-in. belts, fair size machines that take 3 x 21-in. belts and several enormous sanders that take 3 x 24-in. belts. The littler apparatuses are lighter and simpler to utilize one-gave for forming and scribing. They're useful for littler work and easygoing use.

The bigger instruments have more surface region and weight for smoothing wide surfaces. They're better for greater work and shop use. The 3 x 21-in. machines are a decent trade off.

You'll discover 3 x 18-in. sanders for $50 to $150 and 3 x 21-in. sanders for $100 to $250 when searching for the best belt sander.

You'll additionally discover littler belt sanders that take 2-1/2-in.- wide belts. They're light and helpful for one-gave use. Sanders with 4-in.- wide belts are rock solid machines best left to cabinetmakers.

Pick a belt, however no belt

By and by, I utilize 80-and 120-coarseness belts routinely, and seldom, 50-coarseness. Corn meal coarser than 50 leave profound scratches that are hard to eliminate. Also, in case you're doing better sanding, you're in an ideal situation utilizing an arbitrary circle sander. Recall one of the principles of sanding: You can avoid one evaluation of coarseness, yet it sits around and you'll simply destroy belts skirting two. For instance, you can go from 80 to 120, avoiding 100 coarseness, however don't go from 50 to 120.

Aluminum oxide is the conventional coarseness material. You'll see it in more affordable khaki-shading structure, great in the event that you need an expendable belt, and longer-enduring, dim earthy colored premium belts. In any case, for corn meal of 80 and coarser, numerous individuals currently lean toward zirconia belts (in some cases called "planer" belts). They have more honed, harder cutting particles that cut all the more forcefully, last more and don't obstruct as without any problem. These belts are normally splendid blue or purple. Zirconia belts cost marginally more than premium aluminum oxide belts.

Instructions to Use a Belt Sander

Try not to push down on the sander; let its weight accomplish the work. Go gradually, cover passes and permit the instrument to go past the end without plunging. Be mindful so as not to tip the sander or alter speed or course. Put the rope behind you so it's off the beaten path.

Watch Out for Gouging

This painted board shows a typical issue: horseshoe-molded gouges toward the finish of a board. To forestall gouges, utilize spotless, new belts, stay away from corn meal better than 120, and hold the plate added to the repertoire (the platen) perfect and liberated from dust development.

Belt sander security tips

Belt sanders are moderately protected instruments, however it's despite everything savvy to avoid potential risk.Wear hearing insurance—these children are LOUD!

Try not to inhale dust. It's not simply upsetting; it's terrible for you. Wear a residue veil while sanding, except if you rig up a shop vacuum for dust assortment (photograph, beneath).

Unplug the instrument before changing belts or discharging the residue pack. I have a scar that authenticates the significance of this apparently grandmotherly precautionary measure.

On the off chance that you utilize the belt sander to sand metal, you'll make sparkles, which can light a fire in the event that they blend in with the sawdust in the machine and the residue pack. Blow or vacuum the residue out of the sander before you use it on metal, and eliminate the residue sack.

Ensure the trigger is off before connecting the sander. Belt sanders have a locking button that holds the switch in the "on" position. Sounds kinda "duh," yet trust me, it occurs. You don't need the sander to fly over the room when you plug it in, isn't that right?

Belt sanders apply a considerable measure of power on the work. So if your work isn't safely held, it'll slide away from or directly into you. Cinches disrupt everything, except a straightforward stop on the suitable side of the workpiece (photograph, "Utilize Good Technique" above) will shield it from sliding. Pick a stop that is somewhat more slender than the workpiece so the sander will clear it at the edge.

Trim After Sanding

It's difficult to shield a belt sander from gouging or adjusting over the finishes of a board. So in the event that you can, belt-sand the board before slicing it to definite length. You can then securely proceed onward to a palm sander and better corn meal.

Watch Out on Plywood

Belt sanders take off genuine measures of wood, so they can wreck pressed wood essentially in a flash. In the event that you need to sand strong wood edging flush with compressed wood, draw a pencil line on the compressed wood to disclose to you when the sander begins eliminating facade. In the event that you have variable speed, dial it down.

Belt sander upkeep

To begin with, ensure the belt is arranged appropriately. A few belts have a favored course, demonstrated by a bolt within. Nondirectional belts can be introduced in any case. The main change you'll likely need to make is "following" to keep the belt focused on the roller. Hold the sander up, turn it on, and check whether the belt either rubs against the lodging or starts working its way off the rollers. With the trigger on, modify the following handle until the belt is fixated on the rollers. You may need to make a slight change when the sander is on the wood. On the off chance that your sander has programmed following, you don't have to meddle with any of that hogwash.

A few sanders have variable speed. You can go at greatest speed more often than not, yet you'll need to choke it back for fragile work.

Keep the Belt Clean

Filthy belts make for awful work. A belt-cleaning stick will eliminate the pitch development that occurs with all woods, particularly pine or sappy woods. Push it against the moving belt, or for bigger sanders, clip the stick in a tight clamp and sand it.

Useful for Rough Sharpening

You can utilize a belt sander for unpleasant honing of apparatuses like tomahawks, scoops, blades and etches. Eliminate the residue pack and eliminate all residue from the sander (starts and residue are an awful mix), at that point utilize a zirconia belt for best outcomes.

Overhaul your sander

Belt sanders are basic instruments that don't require numerous upgrades. In any case, in the event that you utilize your belt sander in the shop, think about these two updates.

Residue assortment

Belt sanders consistently accompany an implicit residue pack that gathers the majority of the coarser residue and requirements standard exhausting. Nonetheless, a lot of fine residue despite everything gets into the air. In case you're doing a ton of belt sanding, it merits getting a hose that permits you to interface your sander to a shop vacuum. You'll have the option to sand the entire day with nary a spot of residue (lower photograph).

You can at times utilize the hose that accompanied your shop vacuum, however it's normally excessively huge or excessively firm. The option is a super-adaptable, little distance across hose intended for dust assortment. You can get one at a carpentry strength store or on the web (search "vacuum hose"). I utilize one made by Porter-Cable that cost $25. Residue ports shift broadly (some are square, which is a test), so you may need to mess around to get the hose to fit. There are business connectors ($10 to $20; get one when you purchase your hose) or you can cobble something along with—you got it—conduit tape. It merits the object, however: no residue in your workspace.

Shop-made stand

A helpful adornment on the off chance that you do a lot of carpentry is a stand that holds your sander on its side, topsy turvy or vertical, permitting you to carry the work to the instrument rather than the other way around. The structure of the stand is totally subject to the state of your sander, so we won't give plans. In any case, it by and large includes a few layers of compressed wood, each with patterns to oblige the pieces of the sander that jut, in addition to several hose braces or other cinching gadgets to hold the sander safely and for information. click here

#best oscillating spindle sander #porter cable belt disc sander #best random orbital sander

[greenshanks]

What are Belt Sanders?

Belt sanders are multiuse instruments. They are regularly utilized for cutting to a scribed line (photograph), sanding harsh surfaces, leveling surfaces (like a substitution board in a hardwood floor) and freehand adjusting and forming. Since they have a ton of intensity and can deal with coarse corn meal, they exceed expectations at the fast evacuation of wood.

Belt sanders are the large, amazing gorillas of the sanding scene. Hardly any devices can spare you as much time—or wreck your venture quicker. In case you're new to belt sanders or have been baffled by yours, read on to discover how to monitor click here

Ideal for scribing

A typical use for a little belt sander is scribing. You can step by step sneak up on a bended line for an ideal fit. On a cover ledge, ensure the heading of belt travel pushes the overlay down.

The Top Tool for Rough Flattening

Belt sanders exceed expectations at the quick evacuation of wood, making them the best handheld force instrument for leveling and smoothing harsh sheets. Start at an edge to the grain for forceful leveling, at that point get done with the grain. 80-coarseness is useful for beginning, at that point change to 120-coarseness.

Step by step instructions to Choose the Best Belt Sander

The best multipurpose belt sander takes a 3-in.- wide belt. You'll see machines intended for more extensive and smaller belts, however they're for particular undertakings.

Inside the 3-in. class, there are littler instruments that take 3 x 18-in. belts, medium size machines that take 3 x 21-in. belts and a few huge sanders that take 3 x 24-in. belts. The littler apparatuses are lighter and simpler to utilize one-gave for molding and scribing. They're useful for littler work and easygoing use.

The bigger apparatuses have increasingly surface region and weight for smoothing wide surfaces. They're better for greater work and shop use. The 3 x 21-in. machines are a decent trade off.

You'll discover 3 x 18-in. sanders for $50 to $150 and 3 x 21-in. sanders for $100 to $250 when searching for the best belt sander.

You'll additionally discover littler belt sanders that take 2-1/2-in.- wide belts. They're light and extremely convenient for one-gave use. Sanders with 4-in.- wide belts are substantial machines best left to cabinetmakers.

Pick a belt, yet no belt

By and by, I utilize 80-and 120-coarseness belts routinely, and seldom, 50-coarseness. Corn meal coarser than 50 leave profound scratches that are hard to expel. What's more, in case you're doing better sanding, you're in an ideal situation utilizing an arbitrary circle sander. Recall one of the principles of sanding: You can skirt one evaluation of coarseness, yet it sits around idly and you'll simply destroy belts avoiding two. For instance, you can go from 80 to 120, skirting 100 coarseness, however don't go from 50 to 120.

Aluminum oxide is the conventional coarseness material. You'll see it in more affordable khaki-shading structure, great in the event that you need a dispensable belt, and longer-enduring, dim earthy colored premium belts. Be that as it may, for corn meal of 80 and coarser, numerous individuals presently favor zirconia belts (here and there called "planer" belts). They have more keen, harder cutting particles that cut all the more forcefully, last more and don't stop up as without any problem. These belts are generally splendid blue or purple. Zirconia belts cost somewhat more than premium aluminum oxide belts.

Step by step instructions to Use a Belt Sander

Try not to push down on the sander; let its weight accomplish the work. Go gradually, cover passes and permit the device to go past the end without plunging. Be mindful so as not to tip the sander or alter speed or course. Put the string behind you so it's off the beaten path.

Watch Out for Gouging

This painted board shows a typical issue: horseshoe-formed gouges toward the finish of a board. To forestall gouges, utilize spotless, new belts, maintain a strategic distance from corn meal better than 120, and hold the plate added to the repertoire (the platen) perfect and liberated from dust development.

Belt sander wellbeing tips

Belt sanders are generally protected devices, yet it's despite everything savvy to play it safe.

Wear hearing assurance—these children are LOUD!

Try not to inhale dust. It's not simply terrible; it's awful for you. Wear a residue cover while sanding, except if you rig up a shop vacuum for dust assortment (photograph, beneath).

Unplug the device before changing belts or purging the residue sack. I have a scar that validates the significance of this apparently grandmotherly insurance.

On the off chance that you utilize the belt sander to sand metal, you'll make flashes, which can light a fire on the off chance that they blend in with the sawdust in the machine and the residue sack. Blow or vacuum the residue out of the sander before you use it on metal, and evacuate the residue pack.

Ensure the trigger is off before connecting the sander. Belt sanders have a locking button that holds the switch in the "on" position. Sounds kinda "duh," however trust me, it occurs. You don't need the sander to fly over the room when you plug it in, isn't that right?

Belt sanders apply a considerable measure of power on the work. So if your work isn't safely held, it'll slide away from or directly into you. Clips disrupt the general flow, however a basic stop on the suitable side of the workpiece (photograph, "Utilize Good Technique" above) will shield it from sliding. Pick a stop that is somewhat more slender than the workpiece so the sander will clear it at the edge.

Trim After Sanding

It's difficult to shield a belt sander from gouging or adjusting over the finishes of a board. So on the off chance that you can, belt-sand the board before slicing it to definite length. You can then securely proceed onward to a palm sander and better corn meal.

Watch Out on Plywood

Belt sanders take off genuine measures of wood, so they can wreck pressed wood essentially immediately. On the off chance that you need to sand strong wood edging flush with pressed wood, draw a pencil line on the compressed wood to disclose to you when the sander begins evacuating facade. In the event that you have variable speed, dial it down.

Belt sander upkeep

In the first place, ensure the belt is situated appropriately. A few belts have a favored bearing, showed by a bolt within. Nondirectional belts can be introduced in any case. The main change you'll likely need to make is "following" to keep the belt focused on the roller. Hold the sander up, turn it on, and check whether the belt either rubs against the lodging or starts working its way off the rollers. With the trigger on, change the following handle until the belt is fixated on the rollers. You may need to make a slight change when the sander is on the wood. On the off chance that your sander has programmed following, you don't have to play with any of that babble.

A few sanders have variable speed. You can go at greatest speed more often than not, yet you'll need to choke it back for sensitive work.'

Keep the Belt Clean

Filthy belts make for awful work. A belt-cleaning stick will expel the pitch development that occurs with all woods, particularly pine or sappy woods. Push it against the moving belt, or for bigger sanders, brace the stick in a tight clamp and sand it.

Useful for Rough Sharpening

You can utilize a belt sander for unpleasant honing of devices like tomahawks, scoops, blades and etches. Evacuate the residue pack and expel all residue from the sander (starts and residue are a terrible blend), at that point utilize a zirconia belt for best outcomes.

Redesign your sander

Belt sanders are straightforward apparatuses that don't require numerous upgrades. Be that as it may, in the event that you utilize your belt sander in the shop, think about these two redesigns.

Residue assortment

Belt sanders consistently accompany an implicit residue pack that gathers the majority of the coarser residue and requirements ordinary purging. Notwithstanding, a lot of fine residue despite everything gets into the air. In case you're doing a great deal of belt sanding, it merits getting a hose that permits you to interface your sander to a shop vacuum. You'll have the option to sand the entire day with nary a spot of residue (lower photograph).

To get more specific brands or related information check https://toolsearchkit.com/best-belt-sander/

You can now and again utilize the hose that accompanied your shop vacuum, yet it's typically excessively enormous or excessively solid. The option is a super-adaptable, little width hose intended for dust assortment. You can get one at a carpentry strength store or on the web (search "vacuum hose"). I utilize one made by Porter-Cable that cost $25. Residue ports differ broadly (some are square, which is a test), so you may need to mess around to get the hose to fit. There are business connectors ($10 to $20; get one when you purchase your hose) or you can cobble something along with—you got it—channel tape. It merits the complain, however: no residue in your workspace.

Shop-made stand

A helpful embellishment on the off chance that you do a lot of carpentry is a stand that holds your sander on its side, topsy turvy or vertical, permitting you to carry the work to the instrument rather than the other way around. The structure of the stand is totally reliant on the state of your sander, so we won't give plans. In any case, it by and large includes a few layers of pressed wood, each with patterns to oblige the pieces of the sander that project, in addition to two or three hose clips or other cinching gadgets to hold the sander safely. Add another bit of compressed wood to go about as a table, if necessary.

Stands like this are especially helpful on the off chance that you need to sand loads of little parts—for instance, in case you're making bunches of wooden toys. For motivation, look online for "belt sander stand photograph."

#portable belt sander reviews #best portable belt sander

[captainkurosolaire]

Prime Time ~ Budokai 2 ~ P1

The deciding day had coursed pendulum. A clock in an Estate stopped. Before the remaining click, clack, swinging was heard. Two competitors. One brimmed in leather, unkempt, rugged. A rascal of vandal, you called. Other drew refinement, sturdiness, suave, A pillar towering above, you called. Seeker Keeper Moon Sun Dreamer Realism       Self-Strength Others-Empowerment The stadium was lit to them in Estate of Elune. The focus drew, this was day-on. Anticipation was fleeting, it was time to check in. Each drawing respectively to exchange words. This is where rivalries built off. Philosophies construing and spewing this was tension incarnate. The settling of storms was in age aggression until today, cause here stood an eclipse. Only one could navigate out, that would be the decider; the winner.  

......

The devilish cheeky-grin rogue picked his words wishing to explain why this was taking place. This grudge far as could be seen wasn’t of past events but the victorious would raise a symbol of who was correct. -- To the acts of flawed humanity, odds aren’t uncommon. The transgressions of indifference have taken placed through all forms of existence. It’s staggering to believe there isn’t a plane that lacks this issue. “I don’t hate ye because you’re a Noble. Contrary, It’s I pity you. Cause ye weren’t ever given the chance to know the meaning of what’s value! You never known because you’re swarmed with price upon entitlement. But you do not hold a single thing to the heart. That is why I loathed you. That’s why we even cross steel. You knew the Seas, but you were against the current. You held no purpose among or care. Yer nothing but a single fancy, land-lover in the flesh. This is why I will break your defenses. In-doing so, I break the shield. The one that oppresses and jails those who believe themselves above, that deem themselves ‘Elite’ that spit at those who haven’t yet stepped. ~ BUT THEY CAN! ~ I’ll show em... This is me breaking the chains all throughout the realm of those who haven’t fought or pressed back. I was a shite-faced orphan that could’a held more hugs and kisses from a mommy n’ daddy like the rest akin to my boohoo story, alas, though I was carded with th’ substance of nothin! I still am, nothing. But now... I carry the weight of all those who are every bit, ‘Something’. And they b’  what measures my determinate value Cause you see, They r’ my true power!” Hands of deft curled into a hilt staining the palm from abrasive roughness. His Grade One weaponry was inadequate, outdated. Though there was hope blooming in them. These had been resharpened, reforged as had their holder, dozens of times over.

Although these words held merit. They weren’t entirely plausible, for you see. Not all changes are visible. Especially to an out-looker; just because the seasons are known, does not mean they are inclined to constantly be warm, or cold. Nature is that of a Beholder. A fanged canine laughter expunged out of the debonair in white. “Dull.” He sounded, a pause in-between his words of inquisitive design. “That is what you’ll prove. It’s what you’ve always have. You couldn’t break me, I have never used more than twenty-percent of my full-prowess against you. I was the one who had pitied you, I have allowed you the presence of mind. This contest between us, this isn’t some game. This is me taking you to reality. I am tired of your dreaming ways, its utterly vile with those in hearing... There will always be a hierarchy. This is not for debate its been residing in beast and now here we are with our current dwellers. This is the Order you steer away from. You do not understand the basic conceptions of why things exist. You question and act like that of a spoiled brat, searching to imagination for answers or newly to set a narrative. This is not a role-play, this is not some charade to be had. Weak will always be below heels and groveling in jealousy.              Do what all the rest have learned, turn it into a fetish.                                   I do not idly care, long as a place is learned.” This battle hadn’t yet started as traditional ones with shredding of skin and a bludgeon of blows, it already began off along their tongues. A jagged stare between both advisories.The tension could be cut with a knife. The contrast, Yin & Yang met. Only the mediator could decisively draw their closing words to a halt. A referee in garments from the former First Budokai brought forward attempting to keep blood warm by rushing his palms against the forearms. Once picking up it was his cue. He thunderously drew the mic, making flamboyant motions to signal his personality before shouting in outcry towards the audience in the stadium, “This is the Second Annual Budokai our final bout is one between Noble vs Pirate. -- Officially dubbed Freedom vs Order! We shall see a momentous battle right here.

On one side we have the Captain of the Goldbrand, a pariah of the seas who has constantly been proven the underdog in this match. He has yet to truly take a directive W, over his opposing side. Though he stands here on his home opponent’s own home-field advantage in Coerthas where his potent frozen arts will be proven to be tipped in favor. This is a proven challenge, to him this holds far more meaning to win. He has stated it before, this isn’t for him. This is an act for those oppressed, may this performance and battle be one to bring the key of hope to those misfortunes.

Across from there is Lord Shiro Elune. He has never lost a confrontation or been outwit by the Scoundrel’s slimy ways. He was trained and groomed in the cruelest of manners to be absolutely one of the Ishgardian Elite, the select faction that are born from the Pillars. You may see them as arrogant and narcissistic but I assure you they have deplored the backing to all claims. Perfectionism is an understatement to them. They define it. They practically breathe it. For the bloodlines and legacy demands it. He strictly is here to display a lesson of realism. Both of them differ far-between. The banners are black and white across the board. However, one thing remains the same. As all battles and wars begin, this is between Right and Wrong -- Pride is here! The rule is simple: Should a man falter to the ground for longer than ten-seconds they lose. They must make the count before then. This is all but a last-man standing to see their resolves contested. This is not to breathless death only to who can rise and stand tall!” Caught between the metaphorical Wolf and Lion. The referee placed a positioning arm between the pair but held a curled fist. When titled and palm was left exposed, that was the sign to begin. Both men ignored the entire thing only staring dagger glares they were still arguing and bickering between mute. The smallest interval drew their heads to their own respective loved ones and attenders. Before sinking back and hearing the howl of wind, after the settle. The palm and a shouting voice drummed.     

                                                     “BEGIN!”

#And So. #Let it Be #Pride #Art Thou Stupid #? #Captain Kuro Solaire #Lord Shiro Elune #Big D Post #The Battle #Budokai 2 #Daym I miss that game #Noble vs Pirate #Uncertain when P2 will happen maybe rest in Winter since sub is dying soon. #Freedom vs Order #Destined Forever #Keeper vs Seeker #White Moon vs Black Sun #Snarl vs Growl #Wolf to Lion #Round 3 - Fight #My writin #Upside Down #Contrast #Speechcraft 100 #We'll get to it #OC Writes #FFXIV #Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers #Play this throughout the week and maybe Ill manage another by the next

[ultragenikketo-blog]

Ultragenik Keto

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[bittykimmy13]

Queen of the Sea (GT): Chapter 10

((All posted chapters))

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

He awoke to the sound of the door sliding open with a bang. Devian clenched his jaw and didn’t move, staring fixedly out the wide windows of the forecastle. The sun had risen above the choppy waves nearly an hour ago, and despite the hollow feeling gnawing at his stomach, he hoped to go a bit longer without being tormented. His arms felt incredibly tender; he hated to think how much worse off they would be if Clive hadn’t healed him. His eyes slid over to the bird cage. Kaia looked smaller than ever, curled up on her side and not moving a muscle. Perhaps she was as determined as him to block out the start of what had to be another harrowing day. “We’ve set off toward the next destination,” Andrea announced in a voice that was not suitable for anyone who had just woken up. “The one that you charted out. How close do we have to get before you can map out the next spot?” Devian reluctantly turned around. She was standing closer than expected. Her arms were crossed as she regarded him with an unreadable expression, and disappointingly, she didn’t have any food with her.

“The map will show it to me once we’re within a few miles of it,” he said. “And not a moment sooner.” “Figures.” The Huntress strolled closer, ignoring the way he cringed into the wall. With his experience among the mercenaries so far, he was certain she would threaten him until she was sure he wasn’t lying or holding out on her. But to his utter puzzlement, she reached out and undid his shackles instead. “What?” She smirked at him. “Worried that I’m going to claw you up with my talons now that you know what I am?” Devian frowned. “W-what?” Andrea’s eyes flickered over to the cage. “You don’t know? I was sure Kaia would have told you in the night. She had the pleasure of finding out yesterday that I’m a werecreature. A falcon, to be exact.” The news hit him like a blow to the gut. A falcon? Surely she was the same one that he had spotted on the ship several times--the one that the queen spoke to. Now that he thought about it, he had never seen Andrea and the falcon at the same time. That was how she was able to scout ahead of the ship. He glanced over at Kaia, who still hadn’t moved. If he hadn’t been so cold to her last night, perhaps she would have shared that information. What did it matter? He knew now, either way. The other shackle came undone, and Andrea motioned for him to stand. Her expression became strange for a moment as her eyes flickered again to the cage. She cleared her throat in a very uncertain, very un-Huntress-like way. “Since you haven’t caused us any trouble,” she announced, “you will no longer be confined to the forecastle.” The words shook through his mind like an echo, but before he could say a word, she added, “Some areas will be off-limits. The queen’s quarters and my quarters, for starters. Use your head when deciding where you’re not wanted, and you’ll keep all your limbs.” She glanced again at the cage, and Devian followed her gaze. Kaia had finally peeked up from her dejected position, watching them both. “As for where you’ll be sleeping,” Andrea continued to Devian. “You’ll be staying in the spare bed in Shirin’s quarters.” “The cambion?” he sputtered. “Yes. Perhaps by the grace of whatever god you worship, you won’t be torn to shreds tonight.” She rolled her eyes at the terrified look on his face. “She’s a seamstress. The only thing you have to fear is stray needles sticking your ass if you decide to sit anywhere in the room.” He wasn’t sure how much merit he could put into Andrea’s promise, but having a real bed--even within reach of a cambion--was certainly nothing something he had expected to be gifted with upon waking up this morning. “Are… are these orders from the queen?” he asked, staring in disbelief. “A trick?” “I am in charge of you two prisoners,” Andrea announced. “I’m second in command, and I don’t need to ask the queen’s permission for every little thing. That’s why she entrusted me with this rank in the first place. If I say you can walk about freely, then you can walk about freely.” Devian chewed the inside of his cheek. “As long as you’re not trying to get me into hot water.” “Now, why would I ever do that, navigator?” Andrea tossed her braid over her shoulder and strolled to the cage. “Think of today as a trial run,” she said over her shoulder to Devian. “Stay with me today, and if you behave yourself, you’ll have freedom privileges tomorrow.” The Huntress opened the bird cage, and Kaia moved neither toward the door nor away from it. Andrea held her hand out and murmured something that Devian couldn’t hear. Whatever she said, it worked. Kaia stood and somberly climbed onto Andrea’s hand. The moment that her little eyes flitted to Devian, he clenched his jaw and looked away. He couldn’t deny that part of him felt monstrous for acting so coldly to her, but she had abandoned him to insurmountable pain. A ghost of the flames seemed to lick at his arms, flaring at the memory of his interrogation. She had left him to suffer. He would be glad if he didn’t have to look at her all day. “Navigator,” Andrea said, striding over to him. She held her hands out, gesturing for him to do the same. “Since you’ll be something of an assistant today, you’ll keep a hold on Kaia.” Devian bit back a groan. He supposed he couldn’t have all the luck that day. Sighing, he held out his hands. Spending one day with Kaia and Andrea would be worth it if he wasn’t treated like scum anymore, he told himself. Kaia didn’t seem particularly thrilled about him being her carriage, either. She looked at him with wide eyes, as if he might swipe her down to the floor. Annoyed as he was with her, he wouldn’t dream of doing that. His hands were rigid and stiff as she boarded tentatively. “Where are we going, then?” Devian asked, tearing his eyes away from Kaia’s meek form. “Breakfast, of course,” Andrea said, gesturing for him to walk in front of her. “Unless you’re not hungry, that is?” “Starving,” he groaned. Thankfully, the mess hall wasn’t very active when Andrea led them inside. She grabbed two plates and nodded for Devian to sit at one of the long tables. He set Kaia down, and she scrambled hurriedly onto the surface. Devian didn’t speak a word, scarfing down a meal that might have been hot an hour ago. He made no complaint about it. Around here, he could never be sure when he was going to eat again. However, if Andrea kept her word, perhaps he wouldn’t need to worry about it very much. He eyed her, wondering what she was playing at. She wasn’t looking at him. She was spooning aside some food for Kaia, who seemed reluctant to walk over and accept the meal. Whatever happened yesterday, it couldn’t have been pleasant. The Huntress was acting almost apologetic, but Kaia would barely look up from the table. Devian lowered his gaze, refusing to get tangled up in their business. If Kaia wasn’t going to be there when he need her, why should he be there for her? Because she’s small and frightened, and you can’t possibly know what she’s gone through. He shut up the voice of reason in his mind and went back to eating. But naturally, interruption arrived in the form of three people approaching the table. “A fine morning to all of you.” Clive’s cheery voice made Devian’s hair stand on end. The druid sauntered over with two nereid girls. He elected to take a seat right beside Devian. “Don’t choke on your food, now. I know my presence can be breathtaking.” “We’ll try to contain ourselves,” Andrea said, rolling her eyes. Clive shrugged, unbothered. “Devian, Kaia, you know Ondine and Earlra, don’t you? The finest scouts on this ship. When it comes to water, of course,” he added, flashing Andrea a smile. The two nereids sat side-by-side on the same bench as Andrea. Devian recognized Ondine--she had been one of the outspoken mercenaries during his initial interrogation, questioning him about validity of the treasure. “Don’t try to sweeten us up, Clive,” Earlra said, folding her arms on the table and laying her head down. “You owe us a three day break for making us get up this early.” Waving her off, Clive leaned over to see Devian’s face. “That was quite the interesting meeting we had yesterday, no? How are your arms feeling?” Clenching his jaw, Devian tried to keep his gaze fixed on the food. He could feel eyes on him--from Clive and the nereids, sizing him up. “Fine,” Devian muttered. “You did a wonderful job of healing me after I was tortured.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kaia’s little shoulders slump in shame. His heart lurched a bit, but he tried not to show it. “Now, now,” Clive said in a placating voice. “If it had been up to me, there would have been no torture involved. Unfortunately, I am but a lowly mind-reader and not the Queen of the Sea. For what it’s worth, it was rather disturbing to see our Ailith so adamant about using such cruel means.” “For what it’s worth, I’d rather pitch myself into the sea than speak to you for another moment.” The two nereids burst out laughing. Earlra lifted her head and winked at him. “I’d save you from the waters if you did.” Clive was silent for a moment, staring at Devian with an unreadable expression. Devian pursed his lips, certain this was it: he was going to be murdered by an offended druid. But instead, Clive grinned widely and joined the laughter. “Dare I say it, we should torture you more often. You’re far more interesting when you’re pissed.” Devian threw him a dirty look, and Clive held up his hands in innocence. “Joking! Are you mad because you’re still in pain?” Before Devian could react, Clive grabbed his wrists. In an instant, relief washed over his arms. He gave an involuntary sigh that made Clive grin. “You’re not just a lowly mind-reader,” Devian said despite himself. “You’re a lowly mind-reader and healer.” “Mind-reading is far more useful as a mercenary,” Clive said, looking smug as he released Devian’s wrists and turned his attention to Andrea. “You better start your rounds, Huntress, before the queen starts hers.” Much to Devian’s chagrin, Andrea chose to start with inspecting what Clive and the nereids were up to. After breakfast, Devian followed them out of the mess hall and toward the side of the ship. Naturally, Andrea commanded Devian to carry Kaia once again. “I see that you’ve picked your regular duty of sitting on your ass--I mean, supervising,” Andrea scoffed as Clive lounged on a crate directly next to the edge of the ship. “What? Someone needs to be around when Ondine and Earlra return from scouting.” Taking notice of Devian’s confused expression, Earlra beckoned him closer. She was sitting dangerously on the railing of the ship. Reluctantly, Devian came closer. Despite his uncertainty toward Kaia, he cupped his hands a little more securely around her as he moved up to the barrier. “Look up ahead,” Earlra told him. “Those are dangerous waters we’re heading into--more so than usual.” “Thanks you to you and your map,” Ondine groused, glaring at him. “Me?” Devian questioned. “Well, we wouldn’t be heading that way if not for your navigation,” Clive said. “I knew there had to be at least some spirit of adventure in that bookish mind of yours.” Devian took a step back. “I don’t choose where the map decides to lead us. Remember, this is supposed to be some grand soul-searching adventure for an ancient demigod. I doubt the sea gods who put this in place would want to make it easy.” “I suppose,” Clive said with a lazy shrug. Putting his hands behind his head and nodded at the nereids. “Ladies. I’ll be here awaiting your full report when you get back.” Without further ado, the two nereids dove into the churning water below. Devian leaned out a bit to see as they cut through the choppy waves with ease. Even Kaia was gripping his fingers, leaning out to see for herself. “Come,” Andrea said. “We have other things to attend to. And I wouldn’t want us to disturb Clive’s hard work any more than we already have.” Clive grinned, tucking his hands behind his head and looking as far from overworked as one could be. “I knew you cared.” As Andrea led Devian and Kaia away, he tried not to look so intrigued. The ship was unlike any he’d ever been on. Now that he had gotten past the strange idea of having a variety of non-humans on one ship, he could certainly see the benefit of it. He would have expected constant fighting, but instead, they were working together, pooling their unique abilities to create the most functioning crew he had ever seen. He saw more evidence of this when they came upon the sylphs. Devian couldn’t help but stare, slack-jawed as they did their work. They were up on raised platforms, whirling around with fluid arm and legs motions, as if in a dance. They threw their hands out at the sails, sending gusts of wind. He didn’t need to ask what their purpose was. It was no wonder the ship moved to swiftly. He stood back, merely content to watch as Andrea circled around the platforms and ensured that each sylph was doing their task efficiently. However, he didn’t get a chance to observe for long before a figure circled around one of the masts, sharp eyes locking onto him. “What is our dear Devian doing outside of the forecastle?” Queen Ailith asked. She wore a magnificent blood-red coat, and her hat was perched perfectly on her head. With her being half-sylph, Devian couldn’t help but wonder if she altered the winds just enough to make her hair and coat flaps wave gracefully. Andrea was at his side in an instant, standing at attention. “He hasn’t been any trouble. And according to your interrogation yesterday, he’s being truthful as well. I say good behavior deserves some measure of reward. It keeps the cooperation flowing.” She crossed her arms boredly. “He’s going to stay with Shirin at night, under my orders.” The queen narrowed her eyes dangerously, but she seemed to mull over her words before purring, “Be careful, Huntress. I do hope you’re not trying to make up for yesterday.” “I had nothing to do with the interrogation,” Andrea snorted. “Oh no, my love, not that.” The queen sauntered over to Devian and grinned at Kaia in his hands. He felt a rush of protectiveness, particularly when Kaia gave a shiver of fright. She hadn’t spoken a word since waking and had avoided attention that morning thus far. “You were quite a hit last night, little one. That voice of yours--something to behold.” She lifted her eyes to Devian. “Has she sung for you?” Devian frowned. “What are you talking about?” “Why, I’m surprised you haven’t heard yet. Kaia gave quite a performance in town last night. Not a treasure’s worth of money, but certainly nothing to scoff at.” She reached out to troke Kaia’s hair, and it took everything in Devian’s power to not pull his hands away. With Kaia’s reaction, he could bet that she hadn’t sung of her own free will. Thankfully, Ailith grew bored of tormenting them. She sighed and gave Andrea nother knowing look. “Yourresponsibility,” the queen said, pointing at Devian. “Both of them. Understand?” “Of course, my queen,” Andrea said, bowing her head. Devian swore she saw a tick in Andrea’s jaw once AIlith turned away. Before he could dwell on it any longer than was safe, Andrea led them off once again. “Break time,” she said matter-of-factly. “I think you should meet your new cabin mate.” A chill ran down Devian’s spine. It must have shown on his face because even Kaia made a move to pat his hand comfortingly. “Shirin is kind,” she promised, addressing him for the first time since her attempts last night. “She made me a new gown and hasn’t tried to eat me. Not even once.” Devian gave a choked laugh. “That’s reassuring.” Shirin, as it turned out, was about as far from intimidating as one could get, so long as she didn’t smile with her teeth. The moment she opened the door, her eyes landed on Kaia. Her hands swooped in and cupped around the tiny girl gently, sweeping her away from Devian. He flinched forward, hand outstretched, but the cambion’s action didn’t seem to be from aggression. “Are you alright?” Shirin asked, her dainty features drawn into horror. “Andrea told me all about last night--how awful!” Devian swallowed hard. Kaia had tried to tell him all about last night. But he had refused to listen, too upset about the interrogation to care what she had gone through. He bit his lip, wondering if now was the time to apologize for that. With Shirin coddling Kaia, however, he doubted it would be a good idea to mention he had hurt her in any way. “I’m fine!” Kaia said, an exasperated smile on her face as Shirin held her lovingly to her cheek. “I… I only had to sing. It wasn’t as if anyone hurt me.” “Only threatened to,” Andrea muttered. Kaia’s eyes flickered up to the Huntress. The tiny girl pursed her lips, but whatever she wanted to say didn’t make it out. Andrea pressed on, “Shirin, this is Devian. You may remember him from being dragged onto the ship.” Shirin dropped her hands from her cheek, holding Kaia delicately. “Hard to forget,” she said brightly. “How do you do?” “I’ve been better,” Devian said, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’ll have plenty of time to tell you all about it,” Andrea said. “You two are cabin mates now.” Shirin’s eyes widened. For a moment, Devian was sure she was going to protest. Instead, she grinned, baring her razor-sharp teeth. “Oh, how wonderful! With all my fabrics laying around, it’s not often I get a cabin mate.” Right, I’m sure that’s the only reason, Devian thought weakly. But mouthful of fangs or not, she seemed kind enough. Before Devian could even begin navigating the confines of the fabric-strewn cabin, commotion came from outside. They all whirled toward the door in time to see Clive burst past the threshold, sweating and shaking. The terrified expression was so unlike him, Devian had to stop and wonder if he was really looking at Clive. “Ondine,” Clive gasped, holding his chest “She returned. Monster-infested waters. She says--there’s--there’s a sea serpent. It took--Earlra. She’s dead.” Shiring gave small wail, and Andrea was immediately running for the door. “The sea serpent--is it coming this way?” “Yes,” Clive said, already moving. “Ondine tried not to lead it back to the ship, but it makes no difference--even if we turn the whole damn thing around, it’s coming for us.” Andrea cursed and looked back only briefly. “Stay here! All of you.” With that, she was gone. “No!” Kaia shrieked, squirming in Shirin’s grip. “I-I didn’t know we were so close! Take me above deck! I can get rid of the sea serpent!” Shirin shared a wide-eyed looked with Devian, just as confused as he was. “Please!” Kaia begged. “You’re all going to die if I don’t!” She was special. Devian knew that. He didn’t know what she was or what she was hiding, but if she was willing to go above deck with a sea serpent out there, it had to be for a damn good reason. Figuring that nothing else in his life had been making sense since he started looking for the treasure, Devian lunged forward and snatched Kaia from Shirin’s hands, racing for the door.

#mywriting #gt #gt writing #amwriting #queen of the sea #kaia #andrea #ailith #devian #shirin #ondine #clive #earlra

[innerpostmentality]

Arcana Unbound - A Walker Family Dinner

All Rights to Characters and Settings appearing in the Pixelberry Studio’s Choices books belong exclusively to Pixelberry Studio. They are gratefully borrowed with many thanks to the inspiration provided by the Choices Books.

  This series is a collaboration with my friends and super talented writers @tornbetween2loves and @kennaxval This particular chapter was written pretty much half and half by me and tornbetween2loves. Here’s a link to the lovely mood board made by @tornbetween2loves for the Walker kids Word Count: Around 2280 Rating: The series will have erotica and adult situations. This part is safe to read with your mom sitting next to you.

Four thousand years ago gods and magic shaped and ruled and were plentiful in the world. Man and all the creatures were shaped and marked by it. Then things began to change. Gradually those things of magic diminished and the things of science took precedence until magic became a myth tucked away safely in children’s fairy tales and skilled entertainer’s parlor tricks. It’s been a thousand years of progress unmarked by true magic.   Things are about to change. King Liam and Queen Hyclea of Cordonia cordially invite you and your family to attend the festivities marking their Silver Anniversary. Additionally they are pleased to announce a Royal Social Season. His Royal Highness Crown Prince Aeneas and his sister Her Highness Princess Hyclea request the honor of your attendance for the events and festivities of A Cordonian Royal Social Season.

  Tag list for Arcana Unbound: @darley1101 @gardeningourmet @speedyoperarascalparty @hopefulmoonobject @bobasheebaby @carabeth @riseandshinelittleblossom @stopforamoment @furiousherringoperatortoad @indiacater @sirbeepsalot @alesana45  @museofbooks @eileendannie @furryperfectionlover 

    Something was up. Breandan looked at his parents holding hands though most of the family dinner. Now it wasn't unusual for them to have dinner together. And his parents were always displaying their affection with each other. But they'd been having discussions with their looks all dinner long.

  Drake looked at Meridoc and smiled then kissed her forehead before turning to the table. "So a couple of things are going on. And we are all going to Cordonia."

   Meridoc looked at her children and watched the reactions cross their faces. Breandan looked like a puzzle had been solved and another one presented. Sebastien lifted a brow and was unreadable. Conner was looking at her, looking for clues on her feelings about this. Pearse was shaking his head. Abigail was clapping and lit up with excitement.

  Sebastien spoke up first. “Okay, I’ll bite. What exactly are the ‘couple’ of things that are going on?” He looked at his dad pointedly.

   Conner nodded in agreement with his brother, while maintaining eye contact with his mom. “And when exactly are we making this trip? I’m supposed to be back in Paris in a few weeks for the start of the new semester.”

  Abigail could barely contain her excitement. She loved staying at the palace, it always made her feel so special to be a guest of the royal family. And the palace was the only place she had found horses to rival the ones at their ranch. “I’m down. Can we leave tomorrow?”

  Drake took a deep breath and ran his hand through his salt and pepper hair. "King Liam just bought a team of six of our horses. So we are all going." He looked pointedly at Pearse. "And Breandan, Sebastien, and Conner are invited to participate in the Social Season."

  Breandan sat back folding his arms across his chest. Looking thoughtful. Only a twitch in his jaw hinting at his thoughts.

  Pearse ran his hand though his hair mirroring his dad's gesture perfectly. "So who's going to mind the ranch? I should stay here."

 Drake looked at his youngest son. "Gilliam is going to tend the ranch while we are gone. This isn't a debate."

  Conner lifted a brow in surprise, tearing his eyes from his mother long enough to stare daggers at his dad. “Social season? You’re joking right? I didn’t think those existed anymore.”

  Sebastien shrugged and threw his arms up in the air. “Sure why not? It’s not like I have anything better to do.” He acted annoyed to follow his siblings lead but he really felt excitement deep inside. Maybe this was just what he needed. A change in scenery.

  “Aw, why can’t I participate in social season too?” Abigail frowned and her voice had a slight whine as she pouted at her father.

  Drake smiled. “I’m sorry Abby, you’re not old enough yet. But King Liam has assured me there will be plenty of social activities for the younger kids as well.”

  Meridoc took Drake's hand. "We are all going. And we are going to enjoy this vacation. It's a great honor to have a royal invitation to the Social Season. And all of you could use some socializing. Horses do not count, Pearse, Conner."   She smiled and there was a sparkle in her eyes. "All of you dressed up in suits. I'm certain all of you will make me very happy and proud." It wasn't a question.

  Abigail looked hopeful, "Do I get to wear a suit too?"

  Drake smiled and shook his head. "I think for this occasion you'll have to be dressed in gowns to make them all jealous that you are my girl, Sweetheart. And I will have to teach you the Cordonian Waltz so you can stun the whole court."

  Abigail’s eyes widened and she smiled big. “I get to wear gowns?! Like a real princess?!” She squealed and clapped her hands.

 Conner frowned, but did not argue. “I’ll try on my suit tonight. Make sure it still fits.” Sebastien nodded. “Same.”

 Breandan stood and walked over to his mother leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. "As you wish mother. I'm guessing that we are going to have to get some new suits for the occasion. And I insist that you teach me the Cordonian waltz."  He smiled at his brothers. "I say we take the court by storm! Just think of it as a long spring break."

Pearse looked around and nodded. "I'll do my best. But you know this is like some medieval crazy stuff, right?"

Sebastien threw his head back and laughed. “You’re right Breandan. Let’s show the court just what the Walker men are made of! They won’t know what hit them.”

 Conner sighed. “I just hope I don’t have to miss too many classes. Pearse is right. This is medieval. People don’t do things like this anymore.”

"Conner," There was a certain tone their mother occasionally got that brought all her children to instant attention. "There is more to learn than what you will find in books or in a kitchen. And people do many things. The very fact that there is so much discomfort being displayed here confirms my thinking that this is going to be very good for you all. To succeed as a chef you will need to learn how to connect with many kinds of people. The same goes for medicine, or veterinary medicine. Honestly, it doesn't matter what you want to do in life having excellent social skills will stand you in good stead.  Because of our friendship with the royal family you have an extraordinary opportunity. And I will NOT see any of you waste it." Meridoc lifted her brow and looked at each of her well grown handsome sons.

 Conner hung his head. “Yes mother. Of course you are right.” The other men nodded in agreement. “When do we leave?”

 Her tone had a different effect on Drake. There was nothing in the world as sexy to him as the commanding, tiny, spit fire of a woman that was his wife. He was grinning as he gazed at her a moment longer before he answered Conner.  “In two days. We'll need to leave. We'll have to take three trucks and trailers for the horses. And it'll take four, maybe five days so we can let the horses walk some and keep them calm. I don't want to keep them locked up in trailers for more than six hours at a time" Drake looked at his sons. Now that they were talking about business he could tell they were all settled and focused.    A lot more than he was if he was being honest. Liam was the brother of his heart but the Cordonian social season and the court held a world of anxiety for him. Meridoc knew and had persuaded him that this was something he needed to face and that with his family there it would be different, better. She squeezed his hand as though she knew what he was thinking. He smiled into her blue eyes and found his peace.

  Sebastien caught Pearse’s attention from across the table. “We’ll make sure everything is ready to transport the horses. In fact, we’ll get started right now.” He stood up, motioning for Pearse to follow.

  Conner looked back and forth between his parents, his gaze finally settling on his mother. “What can I do to help you, mom?”

 Abigail was all smiles as she looked around the table. “What can I do?” She looked at Drake with puppy dog eyes and a slight pout. “Can I help you daddy?”   Drake smiled at his little girl. “Of course Baby. You will play a very important role during this trip. You will help exercise the horses.”

 Meridoc looked at Conner. "I need you to do an inventory of the feed. I want to make sure we have a month’s worth here for all the stock before we leave. And another order set up for a month from now that would only take a phone call. If it were needed. Plan what we need to take for each horse for the trip first.   This is an opportunity Son, not a sentence. I need you to start thinking about that. You can make connections that would help you open a restaurant in several countries in Europe.”

  Conner straightened up and flashed his mother a big smile. “Of course, mama. You’re absolutely right. I’ll get started on it right away.” He stood up to follow his brothers out the door. But before he left he shot Drake a questioning look. “Hey dad, didn’t you say that the head chef at the palace received his Grande Diplome from Le Cordon Bleu?”

 Drake nodded and smile at his son. “Yes. And he is a 5-star chef who also owns his own restaurant.” Conner’s face lit up. Maybe this trip did have its merits. He followed his brothers out to the stables.

    There was a gentle ache in his heart as Drake looked at Abigail. He saw her womanly curves and knew that soon, too soon, his baby would find someone else who would be her focus. Tears were running down his face. He had little emotional defense left ever since the incident. Meridoc looked at him and wiped his cheeks and kissed him gently. "It's okay m’dear heart." Her blue eyes looked deeply into his dark gaze. "You will always have me."   Abigail hugged him then, "And me. I love you Daddy. Don't cry."   He kissed Meridoc and then Abigail's head. "My precious girls."

 Abigail pulled out of her dad’s hug and smiled at him excitedly. She turned to Meridoc. “Mom what about gowns? I have to have gowns to wear to the palace. Do we get to go shopping?” She squealed excitedly.

    Pearse followed his brother outside. "Okay. What are you thinking Seb.?"

  Sebastien flashed a sly smile at his brother. “I don’t know what you mean. We need to prepare for the transport.” They began walking toward the stables. “I’m thinking this trip could be good for us, Pearse. Get our heads out of horses’ asses for a bit. Give us a chance to meet some new ladies.” He raised an eyebrow at his brother.

  Pearse glared at his brother. "Well, I'm not actually invited to the social season in case you forgot. But that's okay. What would I want with a bunch of nobles? I'll be just fine with the horses."

 Sebastien raised a brow. "You know mama isn't going to let you hide in the barn. And you know the ladies of the court aren't going to be the only ones around."

    Drake smiled between his girls. "I think both of you will have to go shopping. Once we get there and learn more about what the theme for the different balls will be."  Meridoc laughed. "You can't possibly exp..." Drake cut her off nodding with a smirk.  "Oh no my Love, you don’t get out of this. I fully expect you to put all the other women to shame at the balls." He pulled her hand up and kissed her knuckles looking in her deep sapphire gaze.

    Breandan went to his room concerned and understanding far more than his brothers and sister what this entailed for their father. He didn't know all the details of exactly what happened so many years ago that had left his father in his mother's care, emotionally vulnerable with physical problems that ranged from tremors when he would get stressed to occasional speech and memory problems. He knew that part of recovering from trauma was facing that trauma again in some way. Facing it and overcoming it. And he knew that was in part why they were doing this. Why his mother insisted on at least once a year she and their dad would return to Cordonia to visit the palace and the royal family. So he was here. And as absurd as he found the idea of a Social Season he would participate.   He was feeling fairly ambivalent about it. Part of him was appalled at the idea of a series of contrived events with the express purpose of putting people together to find a suitable mate. Part of him was fascinated at the history of the society that gave rise to such a tradition. He considered it unlikely in the extreme that he would find a life mate in this pageant. Since he had been in university he'd dated men and women but never found that spark that made him want to make them part of his world and his family. But who could tell? The world never ceased to amaze and amuse him.

#choices trr #trr fanfic #trr drake #arcana unbound #trr au

[mst3kproject]

209: The Hellcats

With both the writer and the star of Sidehackers on board, we know we’re in for a delightful fun-filled romp.

Detective Dave Chapman is murdered by some sort of extremely small mob (kind of a mob-let) before he can close in on their drug smuggling operation.  His brother Monty gets back from Vietnam or somewhere just in time to hear the news, and being played by Ross Hagen, he decides he’s going to have to get revenge himself.  He and his fiancée-in-law Linda decide to dress up as bikers, get themselves invited into the gang that does the drug-running, and bring down the whole operation from within.

For a long time, I felt like there had to be a lot missing from The Hellcats, because when I would watch it as an MST3K episode I was never totally sure what was going on. Surely the Brains had removed something very important when they edited this film for the show.  Then I started doing this blog, and I got cynical.  If you’ll recall, I thought the same thing about movies like Laserblast and Swamp Diamonds, and it turned out I was wrong – the stuff they took out was even more irrelevant than the stuff they left in.  Yet upon re-watching episode 209 again, I got that same old feeling.  Where were everybody’s motivations?  Were they in the missing scenes?

Of course they fucking weren’t.

I’ll give you a specific example: I thought there had to be more to the scene at the airport, where Monty and Linda meet up after Dave’s death. Remember in movies like T-Bird Gang and Wild Rebels where the police want somebody to go undercover and get evidence?  I figured there would have to be something like that, but there isn’t.  Instead, as I said in the summary, the only reason Monty decides to do this himself seems to be because he’s Ross Hagen, and when Linda tries to protest, he won’t let her out.  Why can’t they let the police handle it?  You’d think the movie would want to offer at least a token reason.

What about the relationship between Linda and Monty?  She’s introduced as his brother’s fiancée.  She’s posing as his girlfriend when they meet the bikers at the Moonfire Inn (a place where the real-life Manson ‘family’ hung out), but she quickly becomes actually jealous when first Cyclops Woman and then Sheila take an interest in him.  Is she supposed to have fallen in love with him in the week or so since Dave died? This is never dealt with explicitly but their tender parting, with Linda urging him to come back soon, seems to imply it.

Like Megara in The Loves of Hercules, Dave is the movie’s fridge meat: he’s only here to die, and only dies to motivate Monty and Linda.  We know him about as well as we knew Megara, and we don’t really care about him or about the bond these other characters supposedly had with him.  Once Monty and Linda have ingratiated themselves with the gang, events move off in other directions and Dave is pretty much forgotten about.  It’s at least kind of refreshing that the movie places a man in this role, but then it goes and kills one of the girl bikers in order to anger her boyfriend.  Two fridges in one movie!

There’s more stuff missing.  Like, who are the other biker gang, who assaulted the artist and model and then showed up to challenge Snake to a race?  They seem to pop out of the void and then fade back into it.  How did Monty know where Sheila and Linda had gone when they went to see the moblet boss?  He was too far behind to have followed them.

Meanwhile, the things that are in the movie look and sound terrible.  The photography is awful: it’s out-of-focus, poorly-framed, jumpy, washed-out, and badly-lit… often all five in the same shot!  I watched the scene of the Hellcats’ Company Team-Building Picnic two or three times trying to figure out if it were supposed to be day-for-night or if it were just really crummy filming in general.  I favour the latter but I’m still not sure.  There’s at least enough light to tell what’s going on, which is a step up from some of these movies, but it’s bland and flat and everything looks like somebody’s home movies.

The actors are terrible.  The moblet boss in particular sounds like he’s reciting the times table in every scene he’s in.  Everybody else is better than him, but that leaves them a lot of room to suck.  Most of the ‘bikers’ look like they’re accountants or something dressed up for a theme party.

The music is bad, with not a single memorable song.  I can hum the Hellcats theme that plays over the opening and ending, but I remember it mostly because it reminds me of the Zombie Stomp from Horror of Party Beach.  A song about the brutality of a motorcycle gang should not sound like Playful Teen Beach Movie music!  Later, when things get actiony, we get what sounds like cheesy spy movie music.  It’s weird.

The crappy music plays over a lot of padding.  There are long-ass scenes of bikers on the road, and of the gang drinking, dancing, and fighting in the bar and at the picnic, while nothing much happens.  These make the movie longer, but they also provide something to show while the music plays, and the music really is the point because believe it or not, there was a soundtrack album for this movie.  I wonder how that went.

Insofar as the movie means something, it has an anti-drug message presented through the character Hiney’s bad trips (his version of Roses are Red does at least make me snicker) and the Mexican guy’s addict girlfriend begging for a fix.  This is as unsubtle as anything in Reefer Madness, if slightly less melodramatic, and it doesn’t merit deeper analysis.

Then there’s the ending, when the gang is undone by sheer bad luck. Instead of our heroes gathering evidence, finding out who was responsible for Dave’s death, and getting revenge, the whole drug operation falls apart as a result of a traffic accident.  One of the girl bikers crashes her bike after running over a board on the road, and the police lay a trap, knowing the gang will come back for the drugs she was carrying.  The man who does so decides to just turn everybody in to save his own skin.  Monty and Linda show up at the moblet’s HQ, where Sheila has gone for… some reason… and the final fight has far more to do with escape and survival than with revenge.

Monty and Linda participate in this climax but they are not in any way responsible for it.  An act of revenge does occur, but it’s on the part of the biker gang, who want vengeance for the dead girl on behalf of her grieving boyfriend.  If Monty and Linda had simply left things to the police, as Linda herself recommended, all this would probably have happened exactly the same.  Like Cabot in Outlaw, or Cal and Ruth in This Island Earth, they’re entirely useless in their own movie!

Of course, in Outlaw and This Island Earth, we had some idea of the personalities of the people we were watching.  In The Hellcats we’ve barely met Monty and Linda and what we’ve seen of them doesn’t particularly encourage us to like them.  Monty gets off his plane and immediately vows revenge, and the next time we see him is roaring up to the Moonfire Inn on a bike with Linda clinging to him.  We first meet Linda carping at her fiancé about him ignoring her in favour of work.  If he’d lived and been the hero of this movie, she would have been the nagging girlfriend whom he eventually reconciles with after realizing how important family is. We don’t know or like Monty or Linda well enough to root for them, and we definitely haven’t seen enough to care about their emotional bonds with Dave.

I find myself comparing The Hellcats to The Sidehackers and trying to figure out which movie is worse.  The Sidehackers did at least try to be about something (religion), but it was a nasty misanthropic movie that killed off both the protagonists and the antagonists, and left a bad taste in my mouth for days.  The Hellcats doesn’t have any themes besides Drugs Are Bad and the characters don’t appear to grow or learn anything from their experiences, but it doesn’t hate the audience the way The Sidehackers did.  If I had to pick one of the two to watch again, I don’t know which it would be.  I mean, The Sidehackers is less boring, but I hate it so much more.

Have I just lost patience with these movies after over a hundred of them?  Or was this one actually that bad?  I don’t remember being so annoyed by it when I watched it as an MST3K episode but then, I only watched it once – the flashback host sketches disappointed me so I never bothered with it again.  Too, I’ve learned a lot about what to pay attention to when I’m watching a film, and I probably have a very different perspective on shitty movies now than I did when I started this blog.  I wonder… when I’m finished the full run, maybe I should re-visit some of the early entries, and see if I have any new thoughts on them.  Maybe they’ll suck more than ever.

#mst3k #reviews #the hellcats #women in fridges #60s

[everythingisoverrated]

Post seven coming up! I am so behind on my idea of a schedule that I am not even going to attempt to excuse myself or apologize. Let’s just hope I can keep things up! I also added a few other writers to my list of people I want to give a shout-out to, but I am giving priority to the lovely people who are already in the know for this project.

Today’s post features the lovely, fierce, “angry brown girl” (her words, not mine) Taal from @samingtonwilson . She is an incredible writer, and as if the adjectives above weren’t enough to inspire me, she will fight any racist ass here and tear racism down with her words.

Taal has two masterlists on her blog, a Marvel one and a Trek one. Again, I am not a Trekkie, so I don’t read the trek fics, mainly because I don’t get as invested in the characters as I feel one should to thoroughly enjoy fanfiction. I’ve worked my way into her Marvel masterlist, and I am just left in awe of her.  

I think the first thing I’ve read from @samingtonwilson was the series The Killers, which is ongoing. There are many reasons to love fanfiction, but my main one is that the writers are able to create universes that the people behind the characters would have never thought of. In this series, Bucky is an assassin, which is nothing new to Marvel fans. But the way she writes, it’s an entirely new story. Also, Taal is making me question my sanity as I keep having a thing for her criminal characters. There’s such depth to them I can’t help falling in love.

“I know, I just thought that excellent piece of fiction you fed me needed some more literary devices,” you replied while picking up the tool once again and getting to work on undoing one of the plates. You smiled slyly as you looked up at him through your eyelashes. “Some personification, maybe a simile. ‘The knife swirled itself about, like a carousel with a mind of its own, inspiring chaos rather than the laughter of children.’”

He couldn’t help the grin stretching his lips. “Thank God you ain’t a writer, doll. That was pitiful.”

Deserve is incredibly well written. I try to refrain from saying people are talented because to me it feels a bit like you’re taking their merit away. I’m sure all the writers I admire are hard workers, not just talented. But damn, this one... Deserve tickled every writer nerve I have in my body, and I was awestruck with admiration for Taal’s writing style. You can feel Bucky’s pain in every word, it’s not hard to understand where he’s coming from, his doubts and insecurities. I loved how the reader handled him in such a difficult time. I’m insecure as hell, and that carefulness in approaching him made my heart melt. I lack words to describe just how much this piece moved me. I was on the verge of tears for a few minutes, and I loved how it ended.

I read The Relationship Tutor all in one go, it’s so good. I just could not stop myself. And again, it is so real. Real enough that it makes you wanna punch everyone involved for being so blind and silly. It was so well crafted, and the characters so deep I actually started slowing my reading down so I could be with Bucky, reader and the rest a while longer. I would also like to point out Taal’s creativity when it comes to writing titles. I mean, look at the title chapters in this series and tell me she’s not a genius. I dare you. I double dare you.

He pointed a finger at your shoulder. “Change.” “Like who I am as a person?” He lifted his cup to his lips again to hide a smile and muffle a chuckle. “Well, yeah, but I meant change your clothes. Somethin’ nice from your shit in the trunk.”

In Repairs, Taal says in the notes that she is her own worst critic and I believe her because I can’t find fault in her fics at all. Especially not in Repairs, which is so sweet and adorable. Her descriptions might just be my favourite thing about her. They are so well crafted, so poetic, it makes my heart double in size and break at the same time, the way only fantastic writing can do.

“Memory’s still a little foggy, doll,” he began, pouting a little. He widened his grey-blue eyes for good measure. “Semantics, anything relating to trigonometry, and the entirety of age sixteen tend to evade me.”

It’s no secret to anyone that I read fanfiction mainly to feel good. I love the stories, all of them, but when there’s fluff, my achy heart doubles in size. While Taal writes annoyingly good angst (I’m looking at you, Faking It), her writing always makes me giggle and keeps a smile on my face.

“I asked if you were on board.” “I’m not so much ‘on board’ as I am ‘not sure what you’re even referring to,’” you replied, offering him an exaggerated smile that had started off as a confused frown.

“He turned to face you, tracing your features with his tired eyes. He saw the beauty in you— he saw it easily. He saw beauty, and purity, and light— a light he thought might be too bright for hundred year old eyes that had shut too many times to keep splattering blood out.”

I would also like to point out I didn’t even know I loved Sam Wilson that much until I read Territory and got all giddy.

I got a little carried away when reading and selecting great quotes, so you guys will excuse the amount of them. I can’t help it. As a fellow writer, I love her, and as a fan, even more so. Her stories will always have a place in my heart, and my writer self can’t help but reread her fics to get inspiration and hope one day I’ll be able to write with such finesse.

Taal, thank you so much for sharing your fantastic writing with us. It is always a pleasure to read anything you write, and I know I’ll never be disappointed when I see you’ve posted something. I know hardship comes in this world for people of colour, but I have to see I have nothing but admiration for how you handle it. You are an inspiration, as a writer and as a person. You’ll always have a fan and avid reader in me. I’m glued to your masterlist and blog to see what you come up with next.

Love, Liv.

Ps: this entire post was written while fighting my four-month-old kitty, who was demanding attention. If that doesn’t tell Taal I love her, nothing else ever will.

The Relationship Tutor (series - complete) http://samingtonwilson.tumblr.com/post/170327806111/relationship-tutor-masterlist

Deserve http://samingtonwilson.tumblr.com/post/176132530886/deserve

Repairs http://samingtonwilson.tumblr.com/post/174148004836/repairs

Dusk Till Dawn http://samingtonwilson.tumblr.com/post/168469706806/dusk-till-dawn-bucky-barnes

The Killers (series - ongoing) http://samingtonwilson.tumblr.com/post/174822609136/the-killers-masterlist

Faking It (multipart - ongoing) http://samingtonwilson.tumblr.com/post/169746242156/faking-it-part-1-bucky-barnes

Effective http://samingtonwilson.tumblr.com/post/172742730341/effective

#writers #writersappreciationmonth #writers appreciation project #everythingisoverrated #samingtonwilson

[redditnosleep]

Has Anyone Heard of The Left/Right Game?

by NeonTempo

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 (Final)

A few points before we start.

Firstly, I am not the protagonist of this story. I just went to university with her, and though she went on to become a professional writer, I most certainly did not. She'll be taking over from me further down but, until then, please forgive my slightly awkward delivery while I give you guys the necessary context.

Secondly, I don't know what you will make of the following events, and I'm sure many of you might consider it all some sort of hoax. I wasn't present for any of what transpired in Phoenix, Arizona but I can vouch for the person who wrote the following logs. She is not, and has never been, a fantasist.

Ok so I once knew a girl called Alice Sharma. She was an undergrad at Edinburgh Uni the same time I was. My educational poison was History, a degree which has greatly benefited my career as a bicycle repairman. Alice Sharma studied journalism, though perhaps "studied" isn't the word. It's not an exaggeration to say that she lived and breathed the subject. Editor-in-chief of the campus paper, recognisable voice of student radio. She was frustratingly tunnel visioned, and she was a journalist in her own right before anyone gave her a professional shot.

We met in student halls and became friends almost immediately. A meandering waster trying to stay off his parent's farm and an intrepid, ambitious reporter may not seem the most obvious pairing, but I learned not to question it. She was inspiring, and smart and she proofread all my essays. I’m not too sure what she saw in me.

We were eventually flatmates down in London where she chased her dream and I chased my tail. She got a few jobs here and there, but nothing befitting of her skills. After months of fruitless internships and rejections, Alice called a flat meeting, telling us that she was moving to America, accepting a position chasing stories for National Public Radio. The job had come out of the blue, the result of a hail mary application she thought had been dismissed out of hand. We threw her a bittersweet going away party and put the room up for rent.

That party was the last time I saw Alice Sharma. She dropped out of contact a few months after her departure. Complete radio silence. I assumed she was just busy so I carried on with my small but happy life, and waited for her to pop up on television with some important words below her name; Chief Correspondent, Senior Analyst… something like that.

The radio silence was broken last week, and, for reasons you’ll glean further down, I’m less happy about it than I would’ve thought.

Arriving home from work I found a lone email in my otherwise bare inbox. An email that would later be described as "suspicious" by my tech literate friends. Despite being born in the early 1990's I didn't own a computer until uni, and I've missed several important lessons in the world of cyberspace. Lessons like "Don't call it Cyberspace" of course and more importantly, "Don't open emails with no text, no subject and no sender's address."

I realise most of you would have deleted this anonymous, blank email immediately, my friends certainly would have, but beyond my basic ignorance about online safety, something further compelled me to open it. The only thing of substance in the entire message was a zipped folder, labeled:

Left.Right.AS

I don't have to explain what I was hoping those final initials stood for.

Opening the zipped folder I found myself staring at a stack of text files. Each one titled with a date, continuing sequentially from the very earliest file "07-02-2017". (To any Americans in the room this is the 7th of February).

I’ve since read the files a few times, and shown them to some friends. They don't know what to make of it either, but they certainly aren't as concerned as me. They think Alice is just in a creative writing phase and, if I didn't know her, I’d have to agree. But the thing is, I do know her. Alice Sharma only cares about the truth and if that's the case with these files, insane as it may sound, then it’s very possible my friend has documented her own disappearance.

The people who suggested this forum said you discuss strange occurrences etc. If you guys have come across anything to do with the below, or know any of the people involved, then please send any information my way.

Has anyone here heard of the Left/Right Game?

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 07/02/2017

They say great stories happen to those who can tell them. Robert J. Guthard is an exception to that rule. As I sit at his table, sip his coffee and listen to him recount the past 65 years it sounds like he's reading off a shopping list. Every event, his first job, his second wedding, his third divorce, none of them receive more than one or two sentences. Rob plows through the years, the curt, dispassionate curator of his own personal history. Yet the story itself is so fascinating, so rich with moments and so wildly meandering that it somehow stands on its own merits.

It's a great story, no matter how you tell it.

By the time Rob was 21, he'd gotten married, had a son, worked as a farmer, a mover, a boat engineer, and grown estranged from his spouse... Here's him talking about that.

ROB: Course my wife started to get dissatisfied, I was away a while.

AS: For work?

ROB:Vietnam.

AS: You were in Vietnam? How was that for you?

ROB: I ain't never been back since.

That was everything he had to say concerning his first divorce, and the entire Vietnam war.

Rob had four marriages after that, and even more professions. After the war he worked with a firm of private detectives, got shot at once by the mob, then he became a courier, which is how a poor boy from Alabama got to see the world.

ROB: I been to most of the continents with that job. I been to India. You from India?

AS: My mum and dad are from India yeah.

ROB: See I could tell.

He'd been arrested once in Singapore, after one of his packages had been found to be full of white powder. He spent three days locked up before someone got around to checking the substance. It was chalk.

A friend he made during his brief custody, Hiroji Sato, invited Rob to stay with him in Japan. Just getting over the breakup of his third marriage, Rob took the offer. He stayed in Japan for another 5 years.

ROB: The Japanese are good people. Good manners. But they got all these urban legends and ghost stories that Hiroji was crazy for, spent all his free time chasing them down. Like, you heard of Jorogumo?

AS: I don't think so"

ROB: Well she's this spider lady lives in the Joro Falls round Izu. Meant to be real pretty but real dangerous. Hiroji took us out there to get a picture of her.

AS: Did you ever meet Jorogumo?

ROB Nah she didn't show. None of them did. I didn't believe at all until we went to Aokigahara

Aokigahara, affectionately titled the Suicide Forest. The next stop on Rob's adventure. It's an area of woodland at the base of Mount Fuji, a notorious hotspot for young people looking to take their own lives. Hiroji, Rob's ghost obsessed jailmate turned best friend, took him to Aokigahara to chase "yurei" the ghosts of the forest.

AS: Did you find anything? In Aokigahara?

ROB: Well I ain't gonna ask you to believe me. But I was a PI. Professional cynic. Even I can't deny there was a spirit in those woods.

From that moment on, Rob's sentences start getting longer. A childlike excitement creeps into his voice. I get the distinct feeling we're moving beyond background, beyond Rob Guthard's old life, and towards his new one. The one he wants to talk about. The one that led him to contact the show.

ROB: It walked up to me through the trees. Looked like static you see on a TV screen but it had a human shape almost.

AS: Almost?

ROB: It was missing an arm. It reached out to me but I bolted outta that forest so fast. Hiroji never saw it, holds it against me to this day.

Hiroji had good reason to be annoyed. Rob says that Mr Sato had been going to the forest 2-3 times per year for three decades. To have a rookie come along and claim to have seen a yurei on his first trip? I'd be more than a little cranky.

But Rob didn't stay a rookie for long. In fact, it was in those woods that he discovered his current passion. The supernatural, or more accurately, the documentation and investigation of urban legends. Legends like Bloody Mary, the Jersey Devil, Sasquatch. Rob has looked into them all.

ROB: I figured if one was true then who knows how many others could be.

AS: How many have you proven so far?

ROB: Since Aokigahara? Ain't none of em had any proof to em. Except for one. That's why I called you guys up.

At this point, Rob can’t hope to repress his smile.

The Left/Right game appeared on a paranormal message board in June 2016. Only a few people frequently visited the forum and, of these regulars, only Rob took an interest in the post.

ROB: The whole thing had a level of detail you don't see in other stories.

AS: What details grabbed your interest?

ROB: Logs. High quality pictures. The guy documented everything, said he wasn't gonna play the game anymore. I think he wanted somebody to keep investigating.

AS: And you were that somebody.

ROB: That's right. I set about trying to verify his information right away.

AS: And how did it go?

ROB: Well... It didn't take long to realise the Left/Right Game is the real thing.

The rules of the Left/Right game are simple. Get in your car and take a drive. Take a left, then the next possible road on the right, then the next possible left. Repeat the process ad infinitum, until you wind up somewhere... new. The rules are easy to understand, but Rob says their not so easy to follow.

ROB: There ain't all that many roads where you can turn left and right and left and right and keep going. Most of the time you find yourself at a dead end or needing to turn in the wrong direction. Phoenix is built on a grid system so you can keep going left and right as long as you need to.

AS: Did you move to Phoenix for the Left/Right game?

ROB: That's right.

I try not to seem incredulous. Selling your house in another state, packing up and moving your whole life to Phoenix, Arizona just to play a game you saw on the internet? It seems like insanity. Rob smiles as he reads my expression. I can clearly read his expression too. "You'll see." It says. "Just wait."

I wouldn't have to wait long. Included within the 9 page submission Rob sent our show, was a long list of suggested items the chosen reporter should bring with them. Clothes for three days, a pocket knife, matches, bandages. There were also a set of qualifications the reporter should have. The ability to drive, basic vehicle maintenance and its human equivalent... first aid training. He didn't just want to talk about the Left/Right Game. He wanted to take one of us along.

Rob leaves a short while later to embark on a few errands, "Prepping the Run", as he calls it. He shows me to the guest room and we part ways, on good terms but very much aware of the other's poorly veiled opinions. He knew I saw him as a charming obsessive, chasing after a fairy tale. He saw me as a naive cynic, on the cusp of a new world. All I could think as I heard the front door close is that by tomorrow afternoon, one of us would be right.

More after this.

When I wake up the next morning, Rob is in my room, holding a tray which he'd knocked on the bottom of to rouse me. I don't manage to record the start of our conversation.

ROB: - I got bananas, strawberries, chocolate syrup. We got some more downstairs but I wanted you to wake up to something good. We won't be eatin' this stuff on the road."

Rob has made me waffles. He sets them down on the night stand and talks through the coming day as I eat. I'll admit it feels a little uncomfortable, waking up in a stranger's home to find said stranger already standing over me, but I quickly move past it. I tell myself that he’s an older man, accustomed to living alone in his own house, not usually having to think about boundaries. Anyway, he certainly knows his way around a waffle iron.

ROB: We hit the road at 9. I wanted to give you time to get ready before everyone shows up.

AS: There are other people coming?

ROB: We got a 5 car convoy on the road today. They'll be here in an hour.

This is the first I’ve heard of a convoy, and to be honest I’m surprised. The game is Rob's obsession, and I’m here at his request. The idea that anyone else would have an interest in today's drive is a little perplexing.

Half an hour later, sated, showered and dressed in the "functional clothing" Rob had so painstakingly outlined, I take my pack out to the porch. Rob’s already there, waiting for his associates to show up.

AS: I thought you'd be conducting a few more errands.

ROB: If you ain't prepared by the morning of, you ain't prepared.

AS: Hah ok I guess that's fair. Oh, Rob is the garage locked? The inside door won't budge and I wanted to mic up the car.

ROB: Yeah it's locked up I'll open it for ya.

AS: Thank you.

ROB: In fact it's about time I wheeled her out. Fair warning Ms Sharma, she's a thing of beauty.

To Rob Guthard, beauty took the form of a dark green Jeep Wrangler. Rob climbs in and lets it roll out of the garage, where it dominates every inch of driveway. The car is large; four doors with a roof enclosing the entire compartment. It’s also been modified extensively, yet another example of Rob's dedication to the game.

ROB: What're you thinking?

AS: I think you're two caterpillar treads short of driving a tank.

ROB: Hah yeah I fixed her up good. I put the winch in, heavy duty tires, the light rig on top is LED's. They'll make midnight look like noon but they don't use hardly any power.

AS: Aren't Jeeps open top usually?

ROB: Not all. This is the Unlimited. I like to have a covered car when I head on the road.

I climb in and stow my pack. Rob had removed the back seats to afford more storage space. The place is packed to the brim. Jerry cans of gasoline, barrels of water, rope, snacks and his own neatly packed set of clothes.

I wonder if the rest of our convoy would take the game so seriously.

ROB: We got Apollo coming up in 10 minutes. No one else has given me a time. I sent the schedule weeks ago, this always happens.

AS: His name's Apollo?

ROB: That's his call sign. Apollo Creed I think he said.

AS: Why are you using call signs?

ROB: Did I not tell you? Oh yeah we're gonna use call signs on the road, keep communication clear.

AS: What's your callsign?

ROB: Ferryman.

AS: ... What's my call sign?

ROB: I thought about it. I was thinking London, you're from London right?

AS: I'm from Bristol.

ROB: Bristol? That’s fine I guess.

It’s less than ten minutes before Apollo turns the corner. Rob jumps out of his chair and paces briskly over to the edge of his property, as his first guest pulls up and steps onto the sidewalk.

Apollo vaguely resembles his namesake, dark skinned, tall and noticeably well built, though it’s clear he couldn’t be less of a fighter. This Apollo Creed is all smiles and seems to have a penchant for laughing at his own jokes.

AS: How far have you come?

APOLLO: I've come out of Chicago. Took three days hard driving.

AS: And you know Rob from the forums?

APOLLO: Everybody knows Rob, Rob's the god! Ahaha

Rob walks over to Apollo's car, gesturing him over to talk shop. Rob’s clearly impressed with Apollo's choice of vehicle, a blue Range Rover packed to the ceiling with kit. I was more impressed with Rob himself. Somehow this 65 year old farmer's son had become respected in a vast online community. My dad is Rob’s age and he's just discovered copy and paste.

The rest don't take long to arrive. Two Minnesotan librarians, also around Rob's age, pull up in a grey Ford Focus. They’re brother and sister, and they've shared ghost hunting as a hobby their entire lives. I find it hard to suppress a smile when they meekly introduce themselves as Bonnie and Clyde.

CLYDE: We would have gotten here sooner we had to drop by to get some blankets. Pleasure to meet you ma'am.

AS: Pleasure to meet you too.

CLYDE: Would you be the journalist?

AS: That's right.

CLYDE: You used to write for the town paper didn't you?

He's talking to his sister there, she nods. Clyde is clearly the spokesperson for the pair, yet they both seem incredibly shy. Whether they admire the famous outlaws, or just the name, it's pretty clear they couldn't be more different from the real thing.

Next to show up are Lilith and Eve, English Lit students at New York University and proprietors of the YouTube channel Paranormicon. Unlike Bonnie and Clyde, Lilith and Eve have no issue holding a conversation. As soon as they learn who I am, and what I do for a living, they attempt to conscript me for an expedition to Roswell.

LILITH: We have a friend there, he's been seeing some-

EVE: -He's a seismologist

LILITH: Yeah and he's been recording readings over the years that show subterranean movement. Predictable movement.

EVE: We're going to see him in July, but we could work it around you if you're free.

AS: I'll have to check my schedule

EVE: OK cool let me give you my email...

They quickly hurry off to film an intro for their latest video, featuring a quick interview with Rob, who seems pretty welcoming of the attention.

The last two cars arrive within a few seconds of each other. A lithe, strong willed older lady who goes by Bluejay and a younger man going by the callsign “Ace”. Bluejay has arrived in a grey Ford Explorer. Ace, much to Rob's annoyance, has arrived in a Porsche.

ROB: Did you think that's gonna help on the road? I didn't write that-

ACE: It's my car. What am I meant to do,? It's my car.

ROB: You didn't read my itinerary, you got nothing packed in there.

ACE: I did read it sir OK? Calm down. I have a bag, I won't ask you for anything.

ROB: Well I know that's true.

Ace and Rob were off to a bad start. Ace takes a phone call, and despite my best efforts to get an interview with Bluejay, she doesn't seem interested in talking to a journalist.

With five cars, and seven travellers waiting for a green light, Rob hands out radios and charging packs, then launches into a quick safety briefing. Wear seatbelts. Stay in position. Communicate clearly and often. It’s at this moment I start to feel a little dismay. I like Rob, and clearly so does everyone else. He'd convinced all of them to drive across the country to join in with his game. I start to worry what will happen in the likely event that the whole thing isn’t real. Would Rob lose the respect of his peers? Would he accept failure when it comes? After seeing the effort he’s put into these runs, the next few hours have the potential to be wildly uncomfortable.

With a smile and a few encouraging words, Rob ends his briefing and beckons me over to the Wrangler. I clamber inside and make myself as comfortable as possible.

ROB: You ready for this Bristol?

AS: I'm ready.

ROB: Ok then let's hit the road.

The Wrangler pulls out of the driveway, and the convoy follows in order of arrival. Apollo, Bonnie & Clyde, Lilith & Eve, Bluejay and Ace keep a steady pace behind us as we come up to the first corner.

Rob slowly and deliberately turns left, checking on the others in his rear view mirror. He looks back to the road as Ace’s Porsche completes the first turn of the game. Shortly afterwards, Apollo checks in on the CB radio.

APOLLO: This is Apollo for Ferryman. How many to more go Rob? ahahaha

ROB: Hah as many as it takes.

I can tell Rob wanted the to reserve the radio for something other than Apollo's quips. But he seems to like Apollo enough to let it slide. I'm not sure Ace would have received the same treatment. We take the next right, then another left. Now safely assured that everyone's following correctly, Rob speaks my thoughts aloud.

ROB: You're wondering the same thing Apollo is.

AS: What do you mean?

ROB: You're wondering how many turns we're gonna take before we hit some wall or something. Before you find out this is all just a story.

AS: Does that disappoint you?

ROB: I'd be disappointed if you weren't thinking something like it. But now we're on the road I gotta say something and you gotta listen to it.

AS: OK...

ROB: We're coming up to a tunnel soon. Any time before we reach it you can get out, walk in any direction you like, and you won’t be in the game no more. Once we go through, you gotta retrace the route we took to get yourself back out that tunnel. That's when you’re home. And you gotta convince someone to take you back in a car coz I ain't ferrying you back 20 minutes in. You got till the tunnel to skip out on this, understand?

AS: I understand. Though I have to say I'm getting little nervous.

ROB: Ain't nothing wrong with a little nervous.

We've taken 23 turns by this point. Already I feel like we're traversing the city pretty effectively. Rob's heavily modified Wrangler solicits a few impressed glances from passersby, as well as several honks of respect from other Jeep drivers. Other than those few moments, everything seems completely indistinguishable from a regular morning drive. I even start to worry if there’ll be anything at all for this story. “Reporter Takes Drive With Interesting Man” isn’t exactly Pulitzer worthy.

Turn 33 leads us onto a short, unassuming street. A row of small businesses in a quiet Phoenician neighbourhood; liquor, second hand clothing, tools and, at the end of the street, a little shop selling antique mirrors. Ten or so people shuffle along the sidewalk, smiling, talking, planning their weekends. The only lone person is a young woman in a grey coat..

I briefly glimpse her at the end of the street, standing on our next corner, the back of her coat reflected in fifty old mirrors. Even from a distance I can see that she’s sullen, wide eyed and nervous. She shifts constantly on her feet, tugging at the button of her coat.

I look away to write some notes as we roll down the street. When I look up again, the woman is standing by my window, staring right at me. She’s smiling, a wide, unfaltering grin that seems almost offensive in its complete insincerity.

GREYWOMAN: Lambs at the gate. Hoping for something better than clover when all they find are things worse than slaughter.

AS: Rob what's happening?

ROB: Ignore her.

GREYWOMAN: He wanted to leave me so I cut him out. The lake was hungry it drank the wound clean.

AS: Miss, are you alright?

The smile vanishes, it snaps from her face and suddenly, the woman is furious.

GREYWOMAN: What do you think you're doing?! Have you gone mad?!

I reflexively press myself back in my chair as the woman, wild eyed and gaunt, slams her fists against my window, with every intent of breaking through.

GREYWOMAN: Would you dance down the lion’s tongue? It will shred you, you whore! It will shred you down to your sins! You fucking bastard!

Rob puts his foot down, and the Wrangler rolls defiantly away from the woman. As we turn the corner I watch her as she wretches, her every movement cradled in abject hysteria. She yells despairingly at the rest of the convoy, bursting into tears when the last car passes her by.

As she shrinks into the rear view mirror, I see her turn to a large mirror on the side of the shop, which the owner is in the process of polishing. I watch as she walks up to it, and with a convulsant scream, slams her head into the glass.

The mirror cracks around her forehead, the owner jumps back in shock, and as the woman pulls her head from the mirror's surface, the fractured spider’s web is dripping red. It all happens in a split second, and she quickly swerves from my view as we take the next left.

AS: Rob, what was that?

ROB: She's there sometimes.

AS: On that street?

ROB: On the 34th turn.

AS: Who is she?

ROB: I don't know. She's never acted out that much before though. Must be a special trip.

I find Rob's lack of concern a little unpleasant, and his implication that this woman's ravings were the symptom of an internet game leaves me more than a little perturbed. As I see it, there are a few explanations for what just happened, and none of them lead to a comforting conclusion.

If we had just encountered a bonafide crazy person, then one could argue that Rob is just seeing what he wants to see. Maybe he'd bought into the game’s story so much that every strange but explainable occurrence would be rationalised as the next step in his favourite paranormal narrative.

Alternatively, the woman could have been an actor, a more elaborate theory sure, but not unheard of. People have lied to the show before and Rob was receiving a tonne of publicity for this attempt from Lilith, Eve and I. I admit, Rob didn't seem like a liar, but good liars never do.

There is a third alternative however. An alternative which, if you put logic aside, explains the all troubling little details that I couldn't help but notice. Because as strange as the grey woman was, isn't it stranger that no one on the street would react? I couldn't recall a single glance in her direction by anybody on the sidewalk. Perhaps that theory falls apart when you consider the shock on the mirror seller's face but, when I think about it, he only reacted once the mirror shattered, and even then, I feel like his attention was on the mirror itself.

The radio crackles.

LILITH: Lillith to Bristol. Sara... Eve got that on camera! Do you have audio?

AS: I think it picked her up.

LILITH: My god that was so weird. Can you send us the file when we stop? Can you ask Ferryman when we're stopping?

AS: When's our stopping point?

ROB: For them, in about 30 minutes. For you? Well, you tell me.

Rob turns off a busy street just before a large intersection, onto a much quieter stretch of two lane road. Ahead of us the road slopes downward, leading into an underpass, which disappears into darkness.

We'd arrived at the tunnel.

AS: What is this supposed to pass under?

ROB: Ain't supposed to pass under anything, it's just there.

AS: And if we weren't playing the game?

ROB: Then it won't show. The question is, are you playing the game or not?

Rob turns to me. It’s the first time he’s taken his eyes off the road since we started. He pulls the car to a slow stop at the mouth of the tunnel.

ROB: You get out now you can go wherever you wanna go, but through there you'll need a car to get yourself home and, like I said, mine ain't turnin round for a long while. You understand?

It’s a dramatic statement, but unsettlingly, it doesn’t feel like he’s attempting to dramatise. It feels like I’m having something genuinely asked of me. Am I ready for what’s to come? Do I accept the risks involved? Do I consent to be taken down this road, and the next road, and the next? Am I prepared to see this game through, real or otherwise, to its end?

AS: What are you waiting for?

Rob smiles, and turns back to the road. He picks up the CB radio holds down the button on the side. The microphone crackles.

ROB: This is Ferryman to all cars. Anyone want to step out then pull to the side now. Otherwise, stay in formation and have some supplies at hand. We got a long ways to go.

Much like the game I’m so tentatively playing, my view of Robert J. Guthard seems to change direction frequently. I’d heard all about his life, but I’m sure that I know him. I like the guy, but I’m not certain that I trust him. And though I admire his dedication to the Left/Right Game, I’m not sure I’ll like where it might lead us. Yet as he takes us into the tunnel, his face vanishing and reappearing under the dim sodium lights, I can that tell he expects this trip to be a major step in his already impressive story, and this time, for better or for worse, I’m along for the ride.

#creepy #horror story #series #left right game series #author: NeonTempo