#IMAGINE VELVET SINGING UNDER OUR SPELL

[lunityviruz]

Are they not the same character 😭

#rants n rambles #LISTEN #LEMME TALK ABOUT THIS #I’m listening to mount rageous and it literally clicked how familiar the song sounded #IMAGINE VELVET SINGING UNDER OUR SPELL #trolls 3 #velvet trolls #adagio dazzle

[lady-plantagenet]

A Bygone Era - Chapter 11

This is the newest chapter of a long-term fictional project of mine. It is a story centering around the lives of Lady Isabel Neville, George of Clarence and Richard Neville 16th Earl of Warwick (heavily also featuring Anne Beauchamp 16th Countess of Warwick and Anne Neville). It is told alternating between their POVs, occasionally dipping into that of others from the outside eg Cecily Neville, Margaret of Anjou’s. It is based on history, as opposed to TWQ series!

Points of views so far include: Anne Beauchamp Countess of Warwick, Lady Anne Neville, George Duke of Clarence, Lady Isabel Neville, Richard Neville Earl of Warwick,Cecily Neville, Dowager Duchess of York and Margaret of Anjou

This chapter is through Margaret of Anjou’s POV:

[Text]:

10th July 1470

Among roses red and white presided the daisy - or so she had taken to inwardly correcting herself when whispers of her unenglishness would close around her like mocking rattles shook by the fauntkins that once haunted her nights. And then Edouard was finally born to her and those nightmares were assuaged only to be replaced by newer, more detestable faces: York, Warwick, Salisbury. And so the rattling returned after eight years, but it was that of armour.

At Angers she was now Marguerite again, although every time she would look back to her hands, she could believe it less. The long, white fingers that had once flashed brilliantly over parchments, whether it was a charter she penned or a match she wove for whichever gentlewoman of hers was yearning that week, would never straighten out as they once did. At times when she held her reins, she would cringe for their finery. Ma mère Isabelle, sage Yolande, to which end will your memory guide me when not even you have known exertions such as these?

But before her stood only her father, René with as many chins as he had titles. It was only in his presence that she would even dare examine her wrists or roll a fallen hair into her lap, checking how it greyed. Behind him the ‘Mary in The Burning Bush’ sizzled with the draft, bellowing forever through those red halls of her childhood. Even after the longest absence, she could still point to curls of orange paint and placings of ultramarine which Froment let the Duke of Anjou add by his own hand. Beauty in devotional dialogues as in verses he exchanged with the renowned Charles D’Orléans, the sarcenets and masks whirling in every colourful performance of the Passion of Angers, would there ever again be a place for her there? She would sometimes wonder - if, for all the families with men riding out, grizzling in battle squalor so to keep the brute from their ladies’ doors, whether god had played a twisted experiment on the men and women of her house. Twisted still, how the contrary courted every generation.

He was now looking at her, crossing his fleshy arms in a manner so familiar that she anticipated his tact from a league away ‘When I rode at Jeanne D’Arc’s side in the crusade of Orleans, she- ‘ strange of him to resurrect La Pucelle like this, helped to the flames by the Earl of Warwick’s very own father-in-law. She lifted her hand. Those same granddaughters of Warwick would come in her presence with their ancestor’s banners mingling in their skirts as in their overmighty subject blood and pack into her own robes as their grandmother of Salisbury had done some March procession ago. May they burst like the blistering skin of a snake. ‘Whither you come again father to sacrifice your own daughter in the interests of the country, only now this is to be made my own doing?’

Réné’s hands fell to the side, the sound broke her thoughts. Velvet was not supposed to make that sound when it met, she looked back and saw the black had faded from the fabric, not unlike the scarlet sunsetting the halls - at least now that she chanced another look. Mary in the Burning Bush, her father’s gaze followed hers to the painting. She burns but is not consumed, La Pucelle...

Her father’s rings were boring (digging/gripping could work) into her shoulders, however they did not dig much. Gentle impoverished man, I see I shall fight for you too. ‘The divine mystery’ he whispered behind her as if he himself beheld it now ‘jesu, her only son, ma fille, likewise as he, our only light. Marian’s sacrifice’

‘Sometimes, I think my king husband is much like the spirit of Most High’ she murmured not unkindly, for Henry’s was not the beacon laying the flame that would make ashes of the heart. Longing, in the end, had but one care, to cocoon, stifle and transform that which was unruly. Not yearning, the yearning that brought with it no peace; the gaudling of her London court for which the fashionable youth adored her, daughters of Chaucer down to her gilded ladies would forsake the altars for their Guinevere. Had the Yorkists only the craft to have seen that tale through complete materiality... She gave out an unbalanced sigh, while her mind addled on whether monsieur Warwick’s imagination coming to them would leave the brutes with naught else but smashing the cocoon, however snuggly lain in its stony bower.

July beams lingered, heat shattered off the floors, and so she tried to pull at the linen that clung to her wrist, more that it was unfashionable it was a grey that summer suns liked to singe ‘Have my thoughts wound about your tongue, mon père? you do not appear to have any words for response’

‘Ah?’ He turned her towards him raising an eyebrow ‘I was not aware you sook any, was there are question I did not note?’

‘Yes’

His amusement faltered when he saw her unamused ‘Ah, yes, your sacrifice. It was ever your way Margaret, though whether it is for France or your son I do not know’

Her robe drew their shadows when she fell back, black thistles on grey from the gallery’s corners. ‘I’ she shook a crooked finger ‘you ask me this? I who- have you any idea why it is that the English so hate me father? It is not for I traded tin and wool; it is not for my founding of colleges...’

Now it was he who raised the hand ‘Indeed ma marguerite, your kingly husband rules over a nation of merchants huddled in village kingdoms. They who would cast the white of a lady’s hand anywhere but in council. The jealousy of the English is legendary, I know’.

‘Not that either’ her voice was terse while she took her seat on the stone bench. It was much more worn than she had found it years ago, if rock would splinter rather than burn. ‘It is because they think like you and my cousin le roi. Henry and Edouard’s people, once they were also mine - descendants of Charlemagne as are we? They have never forgotten how I had Maine and Anjou surrendered, all for you et comme ça I became France’s agent. Not a queen for England was I: mercantile where their English roses are industrious, that was, before I was the wastrel of a lavish court where their ladies stayed stately patrons steeped in pious splendour... and yet the Yorks are not England, not more than Pembroke, Somerset, Suffolk, Exeter’

Réné stepped back and huffed a laugh, the way his lips sat after, thin and waved would have looked shrewd in other men’s faces, never in his, sat among his folds of pink and white skin ‘But the Monsieur le Warwick is’. He shuffled next to her, the pale blue of his eyes renarrowing as he concentrated on setting down his fleshiness on the little space, she could concede him on the bench ‘Not as us, ma marguerite, kings of Jerusalem, rulers of Majorcas and Minorcas...

‘Must he too make them different’ she realised she sounded like Henry, looking up with eyes rounded and rimmed so darkly by unsleep that she did not notice the footsteps approaching ‘Can crowns and people be so? The English and the French? Ah to stoop l’Agneau into an alliance with a subject, to have my posterity sat on thrones built on concessions, to they themselves be so as well?’

‘And so, you helped them to it when you gave Berwick back to the Scots. An act singing of the auld alliance’ Father and daughter looked up, it was something said with all the bitterness of an erstwhile groom of such a match. ‘I cannot say I minded that much’ Louis XI of France had just returned from mass, crossed himself and twitching his long Valois nose, Margaret was reminded how this was a man who went to prayer mechanically as in all manner of things; mimicking other’s gestures with the mind’s thoughts separate. Perchance all ceremony was indeed same to him, the prie-dieu of vespers though softer than the stone under his breaches and spurs when he had knelt with his Stuart dauphine at an alter times passed. She had died and he had burned all her poetry Margaret was horrified ill-befallen queen to be.

He was prudent, like Salisbury’s prudence but York was now a house of alchemists. Why have at Boccacio’s matter when bare re-anatomization could make for Lydgate’s fall of princes? Sometimes not even names need be changed. Her wandered to Queen’s College with a sigh; she could be angry no more.

He did not walk as much as swept with the blue heaviness of his robes as they cooled the sun off the flagstones, atop his head comically lay only a black skull cap which made his face smaller, less discernable.

‘and Carlisle’ she feigning her approval ‘France never breathed while England was strong’ behind Louis, Réné stood up shooting her bewildered looks. Just as nor would my son buttressed in from the North and South. But sectioned up part and parcel from within?

‘You now speak like a prince madame. A prince of France’ he spoke barely moving a lip ‘good did it you this spell at Angers, I see we are past ravings for vengeance’ he stayed the way he also did but now swung his eyes from one side to the other like a pendulum ‘I always know when to come, as does Warwick it seems. Two days ride they tell me’

‘Him? He’ she grabbed at the column grilling the window behind her as though she meant to wield it ‘here?’

Her father shrank away and Louis’ voice curled in amusement as he flicked a speck of dust from his collar ‘St Mary would do well, resplendent enough for an oath, the floors need no bending from our treasury without offending Monsieur’s apparent newly exalted tastes’

His confusion at her silence could almost have been taken for indignance, he now turned to her father with the same look. ‘I told her, nephew, we are agreed, Fortescue would not write to you without her consent you know that. She noticed how he hated being called that. ‘Marguerite-‘

‘That was in May’ she gathered her thumbs in an inward gesture and under her chin ‘before I knew they made a mockery of our assistance; all he did these months was spend all that Bourrée had given him and without profit. A lord without profit, think sire think.’

‘Leave the costs of their presences to me’ he retorted ‘all his sailors and had they ten children each are the poor’s bread sat next to you and yours all these years’

‘Maine and Anjou were scores that’ Margaret hissed ‘and you forget that by even deigning to compare your obligation to us as that towards Warwick. Edouard is a prince of France too - remember that.’

He huffed laying both hands on the counter-table. His sleeve’s fleur de lis pattern dragged to clarity when he stretching, lit the three candles that lay atop although it was daylight. The servants were sent away, he seems a very practiced man in these respects. ‘So I hope that you remember that when you prevail over that idiote de York’

‘Believe you in the right of Lancaster then?’ she heard an ounce of hope in her father’s voice ‘That Lancaster is good for the country? Warwick is either to be turned water crossing to his ruin or turn for my grandson? Advising a York had always been futile’. Had he not heard what had just been said?

‘Yes -oncle’ he narrowed his eyes, chaffed his heel while he spoke ‘rather... good for the world as well I think’

Margaret approached him, catching his sleeve when he tried slightly turning his back ‘it is good you see, for Pembroke will be governing besides your friend Warwick and we can insure an even goodlier reign over England under an even redder rose’. He looked over his shoulder with features pointed in irritation, The King of France was but around her age, yet he looked as those old English bankers that bit their coins and and found they were not gold.

Nearly two years ago, Jasper’s enterprises had cost Louis much, but now he had come back with only little accounts of assizes and short-lived sieges. Inwardly, Margaret felt pleasant. Apart from her, no one angered them as he did, he was now to Champagne, on his continuous quest. With every return she felt she could reclaim new pieces of her old court, and unknowingly his gallantry rebuilt her court of chivalry, regarbing her a Guinevere when he knelt. Regarbed, for the love they both bore Henry was second only to that for Edouard. As did Catherine de Valois, faithfully, as her welsh suitor longed, yearned and served. Wedded and then to die for his step-son’s cause. She once wondered whether such a musing could ever cross a busy mind like his, the welsh do have their romances, as do the French. But even though England pools them all to herself in the end, lovely waters of red and blue they stay.

‘It is good of you’ Réné said, patting his gut in a manner going with his satisfaction ‘that you also hold that an alliance between these two kingdoms is an ideal. You may yet grow to be known as the Europe’s bringer of perpetual peace, le prudent est la meilleure que l’universelle aragne, non?

‘Oncle...’ his dark eyes dropped to his simper and Margaret was beginning to realize was something Louis used to mock, ‘yes, yes. I also happen to know men like the Monsieurs Warwick and Clarence and they do not fall easily and will always know where to find me at every exile, especially now that Edward will never allow them to the force of Calais again. Though I had their wives housed with my Queen and gave the princeling a bolt of pretty green silk to appease him, one month since landing at Normandy they have caused me nothing but trouble. They did not spend all the coin Bourrée gave to them to affront you but to bade me recognize them, and loudly enough to bring Burgundy in his throes of idiocy, to tell me how I am breaking our treaty of Péronne by not attacking them for what they did to his ships. Attack? Ack all these men think about is hitting one another with their sticks of steel - dense as their skulls’

She raised an eyebrow Craven ‘Then you would not object to having Warwick kneel during the audience. He who bespoiled us, your treasury and my virtue- ’Many hard hours had been wasted like this. she felt herself being grabbed by the shoulders to which she responded by looking back at him in confusion, he proceeded to slip down and now she felt more shocked. ‘Marguerite, belle cousine, I beseech you. We need Warwick to invade and you need him most. France will not bear war with Burgundy, think on your hatred for those carver princes of your kingdom, just so is my wrath for Charles le Temerraire, he is like your York for me. The father and son merged in an even greater traitor. England has not razed to the ground, but if France falls, I split, just as my father had when he betrayed the maid of Orléans to them - the English and the Burgundians. Marguerite, I am not my fool father, I will not betray you and so you will not betray me. Do not trifle, dissimulate instead, I urge you as one sovereign to another. Take this as my kneeling in lieu of Warwick, as repayment for my father’s debt towards the maid’ And an England divided would suit you just as well, if not better than an alliance. Far less costly. His words sounded well-chewed, but such thoughts were overborne and unheard, thoughts paling to those for spirit of the Maid ‘who had raised Charles to throne’ and how it had ‘renewed in the Queen’. You who once followed a peasant girl follow now a queen, soft sprang the echoes, Captain Margaret.

‘Maman!’ her son came bounding in like a sprig, a tall, stately boy whose features were never left by the serious air that his childhood hung about them. His father’s blue eyes were squarely cut in his face and shone whenever in the presence of men with whom he could prove his mettle - he had the leanness of someone who never grew too easy. Just so, upon sight of Louis his tone dropped and he pecked her on the lips before sitting himself at the edge of the stone bench. ‘Comme les anglais’ her father joked and even the king managed a small smile ‘like the English princes’. She knew well that they were too old for this custom, but how many mothers so raised their sons so alone and unattended by others, the lord’s manger had straw for warmth where St Michel only stones.

‘I met the lady Anne’ started Louis ‘a vivacious girl, t’was her proud sister’s wedding festivities, but she did not strike neither me nor my brother le duc as one much saddened by much’

Your beloved Monsieur must be ever in god’s gratitudes to have found in you the wedding land for all his daughters and woes. And so now Margaret would lean onto his marital prowess as he unto her martial, for she knew Warwick had no third daughter, no alter avenues for alliance.

‘It is a shame cousin’ she said stroking her son’s cheek, faced away she could still feel some disaffection forming itself in that proud head ‘how you let harbour the joining of Isabelle to that shaking boy’ at that Edouard removed his cap while his mouth twisted in a callous smirk, the fringes of his yellow hair, had long been growing over his face and the concealment was timed perfectly for Louis not to see. The universal spider hated recall for parts in webs he left to the wind for miscalculated threads layed and they both knew that well.

‘Yes, Clarence still shakes but for quite something else, but that blunder is of no account, for remember - the sisters are co-heiresses one is as good as the other, the stately Isabelle may be marble, but Anne is the clay, with perceptive eyes, childhood and better French’ his face softened while he paused, as if readying for the next persuasion. ‘Do you know? She had approached us at the second day festivities, coyly to ask us if now that her sister is married and her English suitor had forsaken the match, if we now had a French prince for her, so that she may honour her sister, and remain apace. Her father had laughed, and not long after her mother - it was that which rather shocked me’

It was a little girl’s boldness that Louis would not know to invent. Margaret smiled, close-lipped but slipping involuntarily like a streak from the fireplace strays to a nearby pot, leaving in its wake a black but warm smudge as its patronage. If god have given her all her father’s spirit, we may harness her boldness to ours.

‘Perceptive?’ Edouard peaked one eye as he slipped back his blue skull cap. He could not image what would have to twist in a fourteen-year-old girl’s eye for anyone to see such moods. In hers he had only known the same that dwelled in all other men’s eyes. It is he who is most like la pucelle Margaret thought a little tinged with guilt.

She approached Edward in his bright brocades with the shift of her faded ones, she cringed at the sound as she regathered her skirts over to her knees, waiting for the dust to settle ‘So what say you my son?’ From the corner of her eyes Louis raised an eyebrow to her father’s fidgeting.

He held them all paused a minute, and then scrounged up his nose. ‘One may be good enough for a pretender’s traitor brother but not for us’ he raised his chin in a way that never before so struck the image of a Henry looking up at mass, and proclaimed ‘we will not be compromised, concede to servants who so tear our country asunder, those who injure our person so with illicit raisings of arms and slander’. My son, our son.

Réné had long slipped off from their side, so he made his way forward to finally speak ‘mais petit-fils, can you not see how Warwick’s acceptance of this marriage would be the strongest declaration to the world that he retracts his statements?’ Such was ever his wont- playing bubbling grandfather, but while gently nodding his head with her son, blue eyes smiling on blue, Margaret wondered if there was another tact she had not quite noticed before.

Edouard slipped away with disappointment and suspicion forming into one of his pouts, little matter as they were all rosebuds to Margaret. His look to her was unshaped and she knew the thought that what stood behind those heavy-lidded eyes remained unsure ‘Édouard, if I may brook those insults levered at me, then you must learn to as well. Your justice must bend to compromise’ perhaps you may transfer some of this Marian devotion to your wife, lose some for me if you will. When she store at the painting again, the flames no longer appeared to flicker, nothing moved but an orange light, muting all with the mark of the day’s descent. She wondered if this new girl’s hair hued the same, held any of the colour’s warmth, would at least for Edouard.

Louis lifted one finger and thrumping it on Edouard’s shoulder, the youth looked up ‘do know something else, you may have an annulment should the union outstretch its use. Without consummation there can be no bind, papal dispensation notwithstanding’

‘She is all but fourteen, it is true’ her father murmured ‘Monsieur appears to have a woman’s heart when it comes to his children. Or so that is the impression you have given me’

Louis nodded ‘I know better than to presume to know his mind, but he readily shows himself willing for a delay. Of what cause I do not know’

‘Ah now the dog insults us!’ Edouard blurted

‘Hushhh’ Margaret did not hide her grimace ‘he is now to be your father-in-law, lay him before you as a shield, for soon we may have no more swords’

Find the rest of the story on AO3… (link in the reblog)

#margaret of anjou #richard neville 16th earl of warwick #anne neville #louis xi #edward of lancaster #edward of westminster #rene of naples #a bygone era #i wrote this #r&r please xxx #i would appreciate it so much! #whether here or on #ao3 #the white queen #the wars of the roses

[ft-dads-au]

Spellbound

Shadowlight Week 2020 Prompt: Fantasy Pairing: Sting x Rogue

A Collaboration by @mdelpin​ and @oryu404​ for @gaymirajane​

Thank you, Mollie, for being such a constant and enthusiastic supporter of this AU and all our efforts! 💓 Your knowledge and beliefs were a huge inspiration for this story. We hope we didn't mangle any of it!  😅😄

AO3

Summary: Candles and strips of paper are normal, everyday items, but when combined with a strong enough wish they can become quite powerful. The lines between fantasy and reality blur when Rogue meets someone who could maybe, just maybe, be his literal dream guy.

Chapter 1: Fantasy

The flames of the candles that sat on the tray at the end of the bathtub flickered softly, making the shadows of the surrounding objects dance against the tiled bathroom wall. Rogue silently observed the movements, taking a deep breath and inhaling the scent of the herb-infused bathwater and the incense that burned in a small dish next to the candles before sliding down and submerging himself.

He stayed under, enjoying the feel of being suspended in the water until he had no choice but to come back up for air. He wiped his wet hair out of his face and sought the most comfortable position so he could relax and clear away all the unwanted thoughts the day had brought. Today he was determined to rid himself of all the negativity he had been carrying around for too long already.

The water started to cool down, as he’d been soaking in it peacefully for a while already. He removed the plug from the drain and climbed out, taking the pouch containing the once dried herbs with him to be emptied later. Instead of drying himself off completely, he only dried his hair a little, wrapping the towel around his waist and blowing out the candles on his way out of the bathroom.

With light steps that left a trail of drops and wet footprints on the wooden floorboards, he crossed the hallway and ascended the staircase to the attic, where his bedroom was situated. He closed the door behind him and unwrapped the towel, laying back on his bed to air-dry in the pleasant warmth of the late spring evening.

The sun was setting, its last rays slipping through the open moonroof, making the bland walls of his room look golden. It was still a few hours away from Rogue’s usual bedtime, even now that the days were getting longer, but when he deemed himself dry enough, he got ready for bed anyway. His eyes traveled over to the altar in the corner as he put on a pair of boxers and a sleepshirt. Once, it had been just an antique coffee table he’d inherited when his grandmother passed away, along with a matching cabinet that he used to store everything he’d collected over the years. Books, minerals, dried herbs and flowers, and lots of other useful items.

He combed out the tangles of his still damp hair with his fingers, and got comfortable in his bed, going over the checklist in his head to make sure he had everything he’d need for the spell he’d been planning to cast. The timing was important, and he had been waiting quite a while for the right moment to arrive. Where everything aligned from the date, to the hour, to the phase of the moon.

As the sun sank lower on the horizon, the room slowly darkened. Rogue closed his eyes and let the crickets sing him to sleep. He’d be up before dawn.

0-0

He’d gotten dressed and ready for the day as quietly as possible, as to not wake up his family members, who were sleeping soundly downstairs. The watch on his left wrist told him it was just past 5.15, and as he stood on his toes and stuck his head through the moonroof, he admired the beauty of the sky in its transition from night into day. The sun and the moon, coming together for a short time, against a backdrop of deep blues and violets, joined by a few scattered stars.

Rogue moved away from the moonroof and took a slow, deep breath, shifting all of his focus onto the task he’d set himself out to complete. He started the familiar ritual, drawing a circle around himself and the altar with a piece of chalk, and cleansing the space, his spell items and himself with a bundle of burning white sage.

When everything was done, he knelt, starting the preparation of his spell by placing two red candles on the surface of the altar in front of him. With a black-handled blade, he carved his name into the first candle and placed it back into the holder.

“I am a beacon of loving light. Let it shine and summon he who shall be mine,” Rogue spoke softly, lighting the candle after he finished.

He grabbed the next item, a red sheet of paper, and cut it into 12 pieces. On every piece, he would write down a desired trait his ideal partner would have, and he had no trouble coming up with the first trait.

‘Considerate,’ he wrote down neatly in gold ink, not wanting to deal with another possessive and jealous boyfriend. Once the ink had dried, he folded the paper three times. He focused on the word and its meaning, imagining every way he wanted it to be represented in a relationship. When he was done, he grabbed the red velvet pouch from the items he had set out and put the folded paper inside it.

The next traits he wrote down were ‘Honest,’ ‘Faithful,’ ‘Kind,’ ‘Spontaneous,’ ‘Likes animals,’ ‘Confident’ and ‘A good sense of humor,’ giving each piece of paper the same treatment as he did the first, but he still had 4 pieces left and found himself unsure as to what he should write on them.

He thought he’d covered all the personality traits that mattered to him, so he decided to focus on looks next. After all, a great personality wouldn’t make him fall in love if he couldn’t feel any attraction to the package it came in. And although his past crushes and boyfriends didn’t have a lot in common appearance wise, Rogue definitely had a preference, something that had enchanted him since he was old enough to recognize the feeling.

‘Blue eyes,’ he was already imagining it before he scribbled it onto the paper, smiling as he folded it because the stirring in his stomach told him that he’d made the right choice. To go with the blue eyes, he wrote down another silly bias, ‘Blond hair,’ and now that a visual was starting to form, his imagination was threatening to run away with him.

Tall, short, or average height? Slim, stocky, muscular? Fair skinned, tanned, or dark? Rogue pondered and fantasized, so many options to choose from and only 2 pieces of paper left. He frowned and pouted, twirling his pen between his fingers as he tried to just pick something, but truth be told, he didn’t really care as long as…

A loud snort escaped him that he managed to muffle behind his right hand as he wrote with his left, ‘Nice ass,’ scolding himself for having a dirty mind. But then again...not really.

He pressed his lips together, trying to hold back more chuckles as he indulged in mental images, justifying it with the excuse that the spell required him to. Feeling a warmth creep up from his cheeks to his ears, he forced himself to get his mind out of the gutter before he would get too distracted to finish the spell.

And on that note, for a second he’d considered picking ‘well endowed’ as his final trait, but decided against it, knowing that if he was going to have to envision that and everything that came with it- pun not intended?- there’d be no end to it. Pushing that thought right back to where it came from, he wrote down ‘Neat’ instead, folded the paper and filled his mind with thoughts of having a boyfriend who was organized, didn’t need to be badgered about doing chores, and dressed smartly.

Satisfied with his efforts, Rogue put that last piece of paper into the pouch and cupped it in his hands, closing his eyes as he ran through everything he’d written down in his mind until he once again felt that same stirring from earlier. Then he blew a kiss into the pouch and sealed it by pulling the drawstrings.

He placed it in front of the lit candle, and grabbing the knife again, carved the words’ future lover’ into the other candle before placing it back into its holder, next to the one with his name on it. He moved the red pouch in front of the still unlit candle, again focusing on everything he’d written down on the red pieces of paper, combining all twelve traits into one vision.

He lit the candle using the flame of the other and finished the spell, “We now share a light, a spark in the night that draws you to me. No harm will be done, so shall it be.”

Filled with faith that the spell had been put into motion, Rogue rose to his feet and broke the magic circle, releasing all the energy inside it into the world. In one of the cabinet drawers, he found a leather cord to tie around the pouch, and after he tied the ends into a small knot, he was able to wear it around his neck.

Now all that was left for him to do was put away the items he’d used, starting with blowing out the candles before any accidents could happen. The smoke that came off the wicks curled up into the air, filling his room with the unique scent that was one of his favorites, and still a bit moony-eyed from the spell, Rogue got so caught up with enjoying it that he’d forgotten to turn off the smoke alarm. The shrill beeps blared loudly through the house, making him scramble to grab it off the mounting bracket and remove the batteries.

He looked from the smoke alarm that was still busy singing the song of its people in his one hand, to the pair of AA batteries in his other, getting increasingly frustrated from not being able to hear his own thoughts over that most hated sound. But why was it still beeping? And better yet, why did it sound an awful lot like…

Rogue slowly opened his eyes, squinting and blinking to clear his blurry vision. He rolled over in his bed and swept aside the hair that hung in front of his face like a black curtain so he could find the off-button on his alarm clock and put an end to that atrocious sound. Off, not snooze like he usually did at least once before he’d get up, but he was currently too confused and disoriented to even consider trying.

He scratched his head as he looked around his room, at his window, his regular French door window that didn’t look anything like a moonroof. They didn’t even have an attic. There was no antique cabinet in the corner of his room, no coffee table that served as a magic altar. Just a bookcase and his guitar.

It had all been a dream.

0-0

October 3, 2012

Rogue padded to the kitchen to make his breakfast still caught up in his dream and how very real it had seemed. He could only imagine it had something to do with the conversation he’d had with Cana the previous night.

Cana had learned to read cards from her mother at a very young age, and after her mother had died, she had continued to learn all sorts of things that most would consider occult. Gildarts had always encouraged it, knowing that it helped her cope with her loss and trusted her to be smart enough not to muck with any dark stuff. Not that she ever would, especially now that she had a young daughter of her own.

When they were younger, both Rogue and his older brother Gray had listened in awe as she told them about some of the things she’d learned. It was all pretty fascinating in theory, although neither one of them had been interested enough to learn how to do it themselves, which was why that dream had been so surprising.

However, as obvious as he thought it was that Cana had inspired the whole thing about the spell, he knew that the idea behind it, the wish to find love, was all his own.

He certainly couldn’t deny that he was feeling pretty lonely these days.

When his parents had left, he’d had great hopes of spending long nights writing, working on new songs, or even catching up on his reading. And while all those things had definitely happened, there was one thing he hadn’t factored in.

The silence.

Before Gray had left for college, and his parents had moved to Alvarez, their house had always been busy. Gildarts and Cana could usually be counted on to be about as well, adding to the ever present noise. There had always been someone around to watch TV or play video games with.

Now there was nothing but a big empty house that Rogue was suddenly responsible for, and it was filled to the rafters with the silence his loved ones had left in their wake.

It was deafening, and no matter what he tried he could never seem to quiet it.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d broken up with his boyfriend weeks earlier. Not that they’d been together very long, or that Rogue had any regrets about his decision, but at least spending time with Maru had offered a break from the monotony of his days.

His band Phantom Lord, of which Maru was the drummer, was the only real social interaction he had at the moment. Unless you counted the random hookups he’d tried at their last few gigs, drunk on cheap alcohol and the hope that a spark might ignite with one of these people that seemed so hungry for his attention.

Far from it, they usually left once they were done, content with having fooled around with someone in a band, but having no real interest in anything more. It was the same at the parties and clubs Rogue forced himself to attend, an effort to delay the inevitable return to his house.

Everyone was interested in his looks and the fact that he was a part of Phantom Lord, and although a good time could be had easily enough, any pleasure he felt was hollow at best.

He wanted someone he could connect with, who was interested in him because they found him appealing or had things in common.

He wanted, he noted wryly, someone just like that person he’d tried to spell into existence in his dream. A man who could vanquish his loneliness and make him feel something again.

But so far, that person didn’t seem to exist in Magnolia.

Rogue snapped out of his musings long enough to glance down at his phone and realize he would be late for class if he didn’t hurry. He wolfed down the toast and juice he’d put together and ran out the door, wearing his guitar on his back and dragging his backpack behind him.

He went from class to class, groaning at the ever growing number of assignments the professors dumped on them. Thankfully today was Wednesday, and he had band practice right after his last class. That thought alone cheered him up immensely.

He and Gajeel had been playing around with a new song, and Rogue had spent most of the previous night working on it, eager to make some progress that he could show his band members.

He all but counted the minutes until the end of his last class, impatiently collecting his stuff and jumping up from his seat as soon as it was dismissed. He’d made it all the way to his car when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He grabbed it, seeing it was a call from Gajeel.

“Hey, I’m on my way,” Rogue answered the phone, the device awkwardly pressed between his shoulder and his ear so he could put his guitar and backpack on the back seat, “Do you need me to pick up something?”

“Don’t bother, it’s a mess over here. There was a small fire earlier and they’re gonna have to close down for repairs for a week or two,” Gajeel sounded agitated and Rogue could hear the sound of sirens in the background. “I gotta go, I’ll text you when I figure out where we can practice in the meantime.

In his disappointment, Rogue almost suggested practicing in his garage, but the idea of having Maru at his house quickly decided him against it. “Oh. Okay. Well then, keep me posted, I guess?”

A grunt was all he got in reply before the line went dead.

Well, that’s just great, Rogue thought, his mood darkening at the idea of going back to his empty home already. Remembering all the work he needed to get done, he grabbed his backpack again but left the guitar, locking the car and turning around to head back towards the library. Might as well get some of it done.

It had been a while since he had set foot in the university’s library, and he was surprised to see just how crowded it was. Every table was occupied. Walking through the main room, he searched for an empty chair, keeping an eye open for anyone he recognized, on the off chance there might be an opening at their table.

As luck would have it, a table opened up just as he walked past it, and he immediately claimed it, setting his backpack on the floor next to him. Opening it, he pulled out the first thing he got his hands on without looking, dismayed to see that it was his biology textbook, the one class he hated with a passion.

Telling himself to just get it over with, he accepted his fate, grabbing his laptop to examine the worksheet the professor had assigned. It didn’t take long for his frustrations to build up, because the whole reason why he disliked biology so much was that he just couldn’t keep up. He had a great memory, which was the only reason why he wasn’t completely failing the class yet, but the fundamental principles of the science just went way beyond him. Maybe he should just do something else and hope Gajeel would be able to help him with this sometime, in the meantime, he could focus on a different subject.

Just as he leaned over to reach for another book, he heard a voice ask, “Hey, is this seat taken?”

Rogue gave a small jump, not expecting the interruption. When he looked up, he came face to face with a guy with blond hair, a smile like the ones you’d see in toothpaste commercials, and a pair of the bluest eyes Rogue had ever seen crinkling down at him in amusement. <br> <br> In the time it took Rogue to force his jaws back together and reply with a stupefied, “Oh, uhm, not at all,” the guy had already dropped his backpack on the table and sat down across from him. Rogue’s thoughts went back to his dream, and even though it was completely irrational, he couldn’t stop his hand from subtly patting his chest, searching for the pouch that he knew wouldn’t be there.

But when the guy flashed him another one of those smiles that were already making his heart race, he wondered if he’d somehow managed to cast that spell after all.

#fairy tail #ftdadsau #stingue #shadowlightweek2020 #ftlgbtales #fics #prompt: fantasy

[theweepingmonk]

struck by cupid’s arrow

Geralt says nothing as he listens to Yennefer talk about a rumor she caught wind of because Jaskier does it for him. 

"So love spells are being used in some remote village. What does it matter to us?" Jaskier questions as he pulls on his doublet.

"The source of the magic is said to be a vile creature feasting on those who fall under it's spell." Yennefer tells him. "Numerous people have been reported as missing."

"Again, why is it our business?" Jaskier asks. 

Yennefer takes a step towards Geralt. "I am asking for your help, Geralt."

Geralt really resents the way his defenses crumple under her gaze. "I won't hesitate to give it if only you'll explain why you want to intervene."

Yennefer hesitates a moment, then says, "An old friend of mine is among those missing. I wish to investigate, and I would have to have your bard's IQ to go alone."

Geralt exchanges a look with Jaskier who immediately frowns. "Geralt – "

"We'll help you," Geralt says, looking to Yennefer once more. 

Yennefer's lips twitch with the smallest of smiles as Jaskier splutters in protest. "I can't portal us to the village itself. Whatever magic the beast uses prevents me, but I can take us to the bottom of the mountain."

Geralt nods. 

Jaskier complains the entire journey, picking petty little fights with Yennefer who manages to best him with her wit every time. Geralt finds it amusing, and he has to suppress his smiles lest Jaskier pout about them later. 

The village is empty when they reach it, but the sound of laughter echoes off the cobblestones and lead them to a large tavern. The building is packed wall to wall with people, most of them drunk or drinking, music wordless but loud even over the stomping of feet on tables as people dance merrily. 

Geralt feels a pulse of magic come from the bar, and his gaze immediately locks onto a short, fat baby with white wings protruding from it's back that allow it to hover above a stool. Geralt frowns.

What the fuck is that?

Yennefer must've felt the pulse too because she walks over to the baby, Geralt and Jaskier scrambling after her. The baby turns to them with a smile. "How may I help you, Yennefer of Vengerberg?"

"How is it you know my name?" 

"Why, because I am Cupid of course." The baby answers as if it was a perfectly acceptable answer. 

"Cupid?" Jaskier questions. 

"The deity of love, the bringer of fate, the matchmaker of humanity." Cupid answers. 

"Matchmaker of humanity – what does that mean exactly?" Jaskier prods. 

Cupid smiles. "I help people find their true love."

Geralt narrows his eyes. "With magic?" 

"Yes."

"Love borne from magic isn't real." Yennefer says. 

"Ah, but in most cases the magic I use simply brings out pre-existing feelings. I do not twist hearts, simply inflame the spark so bright it can no longer be ignored." Cupid says. 

"In most cases?" Jaskier prods. 

"My bow harnesses my magic and if a mortal were to use it, they could inflict false love on whoever the arrow struck."

"Does that happen oft – "

Geralt steps forward, interrupting Jaskier with his own question. "What have you done to this village?" 

"I simply brought out the love in their hearts."

"And the missing people?" Jaskier asks. 

Cupid frowns. "I've been here a month and every day eighty people come. The number has not changed."

Jaskier scoffs. "Excuse us if we don't believe the fat baby claiming to be some kind of love deity."

Cupid glares at him. "I am not a baby, I am a cherub!" 

"Yennefer's friend is among the missing," Geralt interjects before Jaskier can continue insulting the deity. The sooner they got to the bottom of this the better. 

Cupid tilts his head curiously. "I sense only one tether of love to Yennefer here, and it is tied to you, Geralt of Rivia."

"Tether of love?" Jaskier repeats. 

"Humans have tethers to each other's souls when they form bonds – romantic or other. I can see these tethers. You, for example, Jaskier have one firmly tied to Geralt."

Jaskier pales when Geralt looks to him, hope and curiosity flaring in his chest. "Firmly is such a...strong word."

Yennefer clears her throat suddenly, drawing their attention as she turns to face them. "Could you give us a moment?"

Jaskier narrows his eyes. "You want to speak to the fat love baby alone?" 

"I am a Cherub!" Cupid protests while Geralt frowns in confusion. 

"I knew you had an ulterior motive for coming here!" Jaskier exclaims before grabbing onto Geralt's arm. "This witch always has an agenda and I wish you'd stop blindly trusting her. It only leads to trouble, Geralt."

Geralt stares into Yennefer's violet eyes a moment, then he nods, and walks away, dragging Jaskier with him. He plants him and Jaskier at the end of the bar. Whatever Yen had really come here for, Geralt would give her the opportunity to find it. She had sought him out, and that was enough to show how she trusted him. The least he could do was prove she was right to. 

"What do you suppose she's up to?" Jaskier questions, his eyes locked on Yennefer and Cupid. 

Geralt doesn't respond, busy watching the echange himself. 

Jaskier starts chatting up the barmaid who plies them both with alcohol that Geralt will likely have to pay for. He doesn't mind though. At this point in their friendship Geralt was used to it,  knowing Jaskier liked the feeling of being cared for, and it wasn't like Jaskier never paid for anything, especially after a long stint at court. 

Geralt frowns when Cupid touches Yennefer's stomach, and he feels a pulse of magic. Cupid gives her an apologetic smile, and Yennefer sags with disappointment. Cupid wanders off to join in on the merriment around him, and Yennefer joins them after a moment. 

"Want to tell me why you lied?" Geralt tries. 

Yennefer takes his half-empty mug, "Not particularly," she says before chugging it. 

They stay an hour to drink – Jaskier managing to insult Cupid so much so that he leaves the village well before they do – and then portal away to one of Geralt's favorite fishing spots. Yennefer sets up their camp in a clearing nearby – her way of saying thank you, he guesses – while Geralt fishes and Jaskier lists out his many complaints about Yennefer and her wickedness. 

Geralt makes Jaskier carry the fish back, and the oddest thing happens when Yennefer glances over at them – Jaskier lets out a sharp breath and grabs onto him as if he was in desperate need of support and doesn't let go until Geralt takes the fish for deboning. It's as he's started on the fish that he finds out why. 

"Um, Geralt," Jaskier says. "I think I may have been struck by Cupid's arrow."

Geralt huffs, and rolls his eyes. "Is this your way of saying the bar wench is your new muse?"

Jaskier's hand grips onto his shoulder tightly. "It's more of a safety precaution so you won't punch me in the face when I tell you just how lovely Yennefer looks today."

Geralt frowns, eyes snapping to Jaskier only to find him staring off in Yennfer's direction, a fondness in his eyes that he would definitely never hold for the witch. 

"Her hairs looks so soft," Jaskier tells him. "Is it soft Geralt?"

Geralt's frown deepens. "Fuck," he says softly, but with a lot of feeling. 

Yennefer laughs and laughs when Geralt tells her, finding the entire situation to be amusing. 

"I need your help, Yen," Geralt says.  

"And why should I help the fool clean up his mess?" Yennefer asks. 

"Because I am asking, because I don't know how,  because we came to help you and now Jaskier needs you to return the favor. Pick a reason, and do it...Please."

Yennefer eyes him, a curious glint in her eyes. 

"Oh, Yennefer!" Jaskier calls, drawing their attention to him. He's got a flower of some kind in his teeth, and his lute in hand. "I think I have written a song that will perfectly illustrate your beauty to the masses."

Jaskier barely opens his mouth before Yennefer does some spell to knock him out. 

Geralt shoots her a curious look.

"I will track down Cupid, but if he sings one word to me I will kill him myself, Geralt." Yennefer tells him seriously, all amusement apparently gone. 

Geralt nods, and she portals away. He wonders if Cupid had actually prevented her from portaling or if she had lied to spend more time with him. He shakes his head. What a foolish thought. 

He goes over to check on Jaskier, finding him snoring peacefully in the dirt. He huffs, and pulls Jaskier closer to the fire.

Geralt was starting to think that if there was ever a way for something to go wrong it was sure as shit to happen if Jaskier was around. The bard seemed to have an unnatural proclivity to misfortune.

The bard wakes an hour later, pouting like a lovesick puppy when Geralt tells him Yennefer left to find Cupid. It's disturbing, but not quite as disturbing as the song Jaskier tries to write about the whole situation. 

Geralt nearly punches him, but the thought of hurting Jaskier, even one yearning after the same woman as him, is sickening. Despite his best efforts, Jaskier had become his best friend, and all he wanted was to protect him. 

"How does her skin feel, Geralt? From what I've seen I imagine it to be like warm velvet. And what does she smell like?" 

Geralt twitches, putting all of his effort into not knocking Jaskier out again. 

"Geralt?" 

Geralt doesn't acknowledge him, choosing instead to eat the fish he cooked while Jaskier was unconscious. This serves only to make Jaskier move in front of him, knees digging into the soft dirt, hands settling on Geralt's knees as he crowds into his space. 

"Geralt please, I need your help to write this." Jaskier pleas, eyes big, mouth set in an adorable pout. 

Geralt huffs, even as he feels himself starting to soften. Jaskier's eyes really were the most alluring shade of blue. "You need to eat."

"But how I can I eat when my love is gone?" 

"You don't love her. You're just under cupid's spell," Geralt reminds him. 

Jaskier shakes his head stubbornly. "It's more than that! My heart aches in her absence, my stomach shrinks, my day feels colder, my co – "

Geralt clamps his hand over Jaskier's mouth. "I don't want to hear it."

Jaskier stares into his eyes, brow furrowed, but then he seems to come to some sort of realization and he gently pries Geralt's hand off his mouth, holding it captive between his own. He strokes Geralt's hand gently, unaware of the warmth it stirs in the witcher. 

"I've been a heartless fool, haven't I?" Jaskier mutters. "Of course you don't want to answer my questions. You love Yennefer too, and here I am carelessly declaring my love in the face of yours. I am truly sorry Geralt."

Geralt's gaze fixes on their hands. Jaskier wasn't wholly accurate in his assumptions, but if it got him to shut up without Geralt having to reveal anything else, he would gladly play along. "It's fine, Jaskier, but for my sani – I mean my sake will you refrain from composing your lyrics out loud?"

Jaskier smiles. "Of course. It's the least I could do."

And so Jaskier remained mostly quietly, occasionally humming, while Geralt waited, quite impatiently for Yennefer to return. 

"We're fucked," Yennefer says once she's finally portaled in. 

"My love!" Jaskier exclaims excitedly, jumping to his feet. He goes to take her arm, and gently lead her to the log Geralt sits on. 

Yennefer frowns, then looks to Geralt, ignoring Jaskier fiddling with her hair. "I found Cupid."

"Of course you did, my love, because you are brilliant." Jaskier says. 

Yennefer eyes him warily.

"What did he say?" Geralt questions. 

Yennefer slaps Jaskier's hands away, before answering. "He explained that he lost his bow while rushing away from this idiot."

"An idiot in love," Jaskier says, trying to reach for her again. 

Yennefer rolls her eyes and smacks his hand away. 

"Did he tell you how to fix this?" Geralt asks. 

"He said true love's kiss is the only way to dispel the magic."

Geralt stares at her, waiting for her to say she was only kidding, but she doesn't and all he can say is, "Fuck."

Jaskier tries to touch Yennefer's hair again and she pushes him into the dirt. "Who could love this screeching moron?"

"Well he is very popular at court." Geralt points out. 

"Love and lust are not the same thing."

"But they are often interwined," Jaskier says, sitting up and brushing the dirt off himself. He quickly interjects himself in between Geralt and Yennefer. "But no, I don't think any of my muses hold any true love for me."

"Are there any loopholes you can think of, Yen?" Geralt asks, ignoring the prickle of jealousy at the tender way Jaskier is gazing at her. 

Yennefer appears to think a moment, then says, "You could try kissing him."

Geralt's heart skips. "Me?"

"Cupid said he had a firm tether to you and true love can also be found in friendship." She has that same curious glint in her eyes from earlier. 

"I am not kissing him!" Jaskier protests, jumping to his feet.

"Why not? He's very skilled at it." Yennefer says, making Jaskier frown, an echo of his usual thinly veiled annoyance at her presence set in his features.

"It's not him I wish to kiss tonight."

"Only tonight?" She questions, and Jaskier struggles to speak, face turning pink. Yennefer looks at Geralt expectantly and he supposes he doesn't have much of a choice.

Geralt grunts, then stands up and grabs Jaskier's face, pulling him into a rough kiss. There's a pulse of magic between their lips, and then Jaskier's hand tangles in Geralt's hair, holding him in place as he kisses back. 

Geralt makes a soft noise of surprise, but he doesn't make to move away, relishing in the way Jaskier's mouth fits perfectly against his. 

Yennefer clears her throat after a moment, and Geralt breaks the kiss reluctantly, pulling back to meet Jaskier's gaze. He looks almost dazed.

"Still in love with Yennefer?" Geralt asks. 

Jaskier frowns. "What fool, besides you, would love that creepy witch?" 

Geralt huffs in amusement, and looks to Yennefer.

"If that's all, I will be on my way," She tells him, her expression closed to him now. 

Geralt nods, aware of Jaskier's fingers gently pulling his hair. "Thank you, Yen."

Yennefer nods, and opens a portal. 

"If you ever need my assistance again, don't hesitate to ask." Geralt tells her. 

Yennefer glances at him, then says. "Perhaps next time we won't bring the damsel in distress."

Geralt chuckles and she leaves. He barely moves before Jaskier's kissing him again – sweet and firm. He allows himself to return it briefly before pulling away. "The spell is broken, Jaskier," He reminds. 

"Can we really be certain of that?" Jaskier questions. "In fact, I think I feel a desire to finish my ballad of how beautiful Yennefer's lavender eyes are prickling under my skin. Maybe we should keep kissing just to be safe."

Geralt's lips tug briefly into a small smile, amusement washing over him. "Jaskier."

"Geralt." Jaskier says, crowding into his space. "By the way you've chosen to keep kissing me instead of pushing me into the dirt I doubt your true love is rooted solely in friendship. Just as I doubt that you don't wish to kiss me again."

"You've always been presumptuous," Geralt tells him, his hand fisting the front of Jaskier's shirt, readied to push or pull the bard. 

"And you've never minded as much as you pretend."

Geralt grunts, eyes flicking briefly to Jaskier's soft lips. "Perhaps not. Or perhaps I simply thought a brazen fool like you was safer irking me than someone else." 

He kisses Jaskier before he can even open his mouth, feeling protests die against his lips, and hands settle on his hips to pull him in closer. Maybe not all of Jaskier's misfortunes were so terrible after all. 

read on AO3 | toss a coin to your writer |

#the witcher #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #geralt x jaskier #i wrote this for valentines but i figured it wouldnt hurt to promote it/post it here now

[sivemqikela]

WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE - Sive Mqikela

On 26 October 2019, the fire spitting, scamtho-lingoed-poet Makhafula Vilakazi together with his cohort of vagabonds who go by the name of Kokorumba (a euphemism for Cockroaches)  led by Koketso Poho’s velvet wailing and backed by Nhlanhla Ngqaqu’s zumba-ba-ba-zumba gwij’ basslines and Luyolo Lenga’s overtoned Umrhube and tickling Udu rhythms, dragged a stubborn bull by its horns into the kraal-cum-auditorium of Soweto Theatre. As usual for a ceremony of this manner, a call was made to the people to come bear witness to what was promised to be a brawl with the beastly figure of Mandela depicted in Slovo Maphanga’s artwork. Makhafula is no flip-flopper of a poet; and I imagine no other depiction of the vivid images of his lyricism than what Maphanga has presented as the artwork and poster for this project. In Maphanga’s artwork  we see the ‘enchanting figure of peace’ transformed into an unbearable sighting. This beastly figure is donned in Madiba’s October 1962 court appearance swaggering Thembu royal outfit of isiyaca neck-beads nemibhaco. As if this is not enough beauty for the father of the nation, Maphanga insists on having another piece of neckwear to decorate Madiba, except that this piece of neckwear once reserved for those deemed to be traitors or witches is not so majestic for the Thembu royal. In the surround of this beastly face is a sketch of the map of South Africa, making Mandela/South Africa synonymous. The background is the colour of fire - gazole and matchsticks are on standby: 

“bamfak’itoss neparaz uKawu, bam’gasa nges’gubhu sika bab’ akasebenzi separafin. Bashay’igwijo l’ka Samora Machel. Zalilizel’intsyza zakhona, bashaya amafleyt ooMjoint. Bamfak’ esekileni bamlayta...Kwashukuma iAfrika ngobudala bayo” (Makhafula Vilakazi)

“Wenzeni? Bengeke bamshise engenzanga lutho?”

The best person to answer this question would  be Makhafula himself; but we must ask it in this way: what would make him go for what has become an easy target of scorn in the form of Nelson Mandela, in this stay-woke-type generation of ours? 

Again we might have to look at Maphanga’s artwork for one last time, bearing in mind that Mandela and South Africa are represented to mean the same thing. In the absence of a working title let’s call it Amandel’Afrika, referring to both the artwork and the synonymous relationship between Mandela and South Africa as depicted by Maphanga. In Maphanga’s Amandel’Afrika, an earnest smile with missing molar teeth, clenching on a smoking pipe is imposed on Mandela’s face. Second only to Louis Armstrong in deceitfulness, this pipe smoking smile demands its own face, but only manages to sneak in just that - a smile. The owner of this smile - the sound of whose voice Makhafula Vilakazi and his cohort desires so much to hear as evidenced in their opening cry - “Sobukwe ulele kanjani? Siyakukhumbula. Sobonana kwelizayo” - remains only a memory to those who were there to see and hear the man. Unless the excavationists of Amandel’Afrika decide the time to air out this muted voice; Makhafula and Kokorumba can only hope to see him kwelizayo (in the next world), and that is if when they go to the next world, they won’t be met with Mandela acting as an intermediary for all that lived life in his South Africa. The tension between Madiba magic and this man with the smile is far more serious than we can imagine, and it is not by coincidence that the Madiba dance ended its tenure on earth on the day of this man’s birthday (05 December). Think for a second that other outworldly battles are possibly happening.

For the boxer that we see in pictures, Mandela is definitely poking thorns (uRhol’ihlahla) and throwing jabs on Sobukwe’s resting spirit. We are in Africa anyway, these things happen.

There is another figure demanding space in Maphanga’s Amandel’Afrika; his gaze, the opposite of the mona lisa effect, stares obstinately with one eye. His eye is not shaded with the colour of fire as is the rest of Maphanga’s figure. He is probably putting on a fight as he himself says:

“My attitude is, I’m not going to allow them to carry out their program faithfully. If they want to beat me five times, they can only do so on condition that I allow them to beat me five times. If I react sharply, equally and oppositely, to the first clap, they are not going to be able to systematically count the next four claps, you see. It’s a fight.” (Biko) 

His offspring in the form of groups like the iPhupho L’ka Biko (Biko’s Dream) jazz band are also making attempts to put on a fight and to testify to the potency of his weapons. However, judging by the current situation in Amandel’Afrika, this man might, as Mbe Mbhele suggests in his poem, Biko is Dead,  be in need of some introduction to black consciousness. One will have to visit Mbhele’s poem to fully appreciate this problem.

In this world and the other one, it seems that the Madiba magic glitters as an emblem of many possibilities for what looks like an eternity. Think of how Mandela Bridge spits people in and out of the two worlds it separates, day and night.

Mandela is unwilling to die alone in the necklacing carried out by Maphanga and insisted by Makhafula and Kokorumba. With him will be his beastly comrades in eye and smile.

“Witchcraft you’ll never win me. He’s here! He’s here! Ula. Ula” (Makhafula Vilakazi)

As an African people, what do we do to an (un)holy spirit of our departed kinsmen that is a menace to the living and to the departed? 

Perhaps the motive for Makhafula to title this gathering “Mandela is Dead”, is to precisely answer this question. He seems to know what he’s supposed to do, but complains about the difficulty of the task and the labour it requires:

“Ngizihambe zonke izinyanga zaseSpruit, ngigquma, ngichatha, ngiphalaziswa ngobisi lembuzi, ngiqiniselwa wena nalomgorho wakho” (Makhafula Vilakazi).

As if the stay-woke children of the city of gold needed any more reasons to justify their contempt for sleep, the 120+ seater kraal-cum-auditorium was filled to capacity with everyone wanting to catch sight of this (un)holy ghost. If they knew what they were getting themselves into, that one you will have to ask them. The singing along whenever the Kokorombas invoked a familiar selection in the struggle’s discography is evidence that they were however, consenting participants. 

Wazi Kunene, who did the difficult task of master of ceremony, jokingly bestowed Makhafula Vilakazi with Mzwakhe Mbuli’s long held title of ‘the People’s Poet’ and the crowd approved. Old age will not make the fight fair for Mzwakhe Mbuli to defend his title; I suggest he retires it, but only if Makhafula is interested in having it. 

To sweep the fields for this (cleansing) ceremony was Nomashenge Dlamini with her electrified and sermon-like rendition of Ingoapele Modingoane’s epic poem Africa My Beginning, Africa My Ending. Under Silla Dulaze’s diligent cut with the lighting, Makhafula and Kokorumba brought the beast down, leaving the room in euphoria and nostalgia; you’d swear we had never known sorrow. But the beast rested only for a moment, only for us to return to the spell of our Amandel’Afrika an hour later. 

Khafula Makhafula, thina siloyiwe.

Culture Review link

https://www.culture-review.co.za/what-is-dead-may-never-die-makhafula-vilakazis-mandela-is-dead

#mandela is dead #makhafula vilakazi #blk thought #iphupho l'ka biko #koketso poho

[libramoon2]

twilight (in progress)

~twilight of the goddess, call to song to aery dancing, lady fair your fiery trance rewinds our souls; enjoy these offerings of fancy: all art is yours ~ Degree of my natal Hekate -- a liminal year for the dweller on the threshold. The search is for clarity, expanding borders, introducing elasticity as integral character. To see, to feel, to merge and undulate through; to discover, uncover, swim in the glory of original grace, ecstatic beauty. To see, to feel, to breathe in all exquisite luxury of prescience; to hold, transmit as cellular energy. To paint upon translucent canvas subliminal etchings, private symbols generously revealed. Sagacity gifted, re-gifted, planted in potent fertility of visions, of cantations. The tinsel of starlight; the subtle scent of conflagrated pain; the feather touch of eternity. I fall into velvet voice, enchanting form. Move with the rhythm; caressed within word and worlds' mysteries. Resolutions and revelations. Look into the molten glass, sparking visions Clean star twinkles ask not, glorying in terpsichore, no written lines obscure wide sky, open beyond horizon mistily expanding into rolling sea. Drink to the season, to oblivion, to ecstasies bequeathed in excess emotion, rolling, amniotic, amnesia of expectation. Breathe -- vestigial gills awaken. This is the first measure of the first movement, a pirouette, a dervishly delightfilled whirl. Cast upon this rocky estuary, dance inner wise third eye calling dawn into destiny. The new day dawning, dawn's cloudy brew. Cumulative immersion with pollution, anthropic chemical solution under which we were formed. It will encounter clouds and hailstorms, turbulence and destruction. The curse took no notice of time or circumstance. I existed in a liminal state of vague dream images, static discharge of random sensory neurons. I did not expect; I did not wait; I was not aware of being. Caught in conundrum ‘tween twilight and dawn Formerly someone, lost without form Back to that question you asked being born and the answer that started when? At the crossroads, past midnight, just before dawn, the power of peeping dawn high in colors of awe. Songs that entwine backbrains, insist we all dance one foot, one mind, one goal or another. Face off, blinded, emit sonic rays as walls so steep, so hard, so badly soiled. In quiet dark before twilight, before time, vagrants paint with bloodied fingers, examine interstice and flow. Slowly, as viscous waste, then quicker pick up of pace, then light takes hold, caresses gentle as a kiss of friend intent. Will you let it in? Will you let your vision bend, extend, begin? Beginnings never warn of battle flame or drunken dares. They only promise vague adventure, valiant possibilities. wild in the sun, in the shadow, against the highway moving I to I in the twilight anticipate memories to come. There is a viscosity to twilight Cut from the core fruit of neural womb, gestating decades sluggish, subject to cravings, livid dreams Within the secrets of the seed, occluded aspects of beginnings, unfolding petal by petal sacred in the morning dew enticing fragrant fields as if myths foretell our lives twilights of harmonic symphonies when Sun touches green horizons. Twilight, trace forecolours of dawn, silence deepens, counterstroke to what is to come. as twilight melts into familiar constellations, migrating like flying life, early harvest still feeds celebration. Liminal Spaces Twilight, the wee hours, the dark of the moon liminal spaces, places where magic reigns, crossroads, crises, cusps. There is static on the radio. A song my voice was singing taking flight to surround me, the sound of music, a comforter of down to ease my soul. I've been trying to define a taste, a sense of bittersweet and salt. I've been trying to find a trace a footprint in the desert, a sound, a scent, a memory. I've been trying to find a trace of me, a piece to fit the puzzle, my contribution to the grand design. Seeking in the shadows, the space between myth and matter, those places words cannot define. On those insubstantial plains of myst and awe, the stuff of dreams, threshold of wonder, creation begins. A brief eternity before dawn, supplicating the night sky for solace, this soft moment before, an unmarked road to ride along home. That liminal space Between my body and the airwaves Creates a dance. Rather like a spell, you know. Those dawning tendrils sneaking through my windowshade. But it's much too early to be rising. So I'll dally in enchanted romance without recalling I've no one to wake to beyond the dawn. Simple acceptance The dancer with the dance enter pre-dawn mystery quiet interval, incanting music. Undulating reverie glistening in firefly light tell a rollicking tale, we demand of the piper we have paid all the long seasons of darkness it is time to reap an early harvest of dreams dancing to dawn Every dawn could be inspiration, bounteous gifts free of obligation, uplift of energy gleefully received. Symphonies, drums at dawn Inspiration and instruction carried forth through song and stage vibrant murals painting onward age to age Taking up the challenge of the tale that twists, turns, meanders providing kaleidoscopic opportunity ever to begin again wrenched gut throbs, eyes blurred to the howl Twilight crowd a'clamor for loud resilient community; tranced instant glamour distant from day's insanity entrains yearn for humanity Learn flexible grace staggering tribal stadia; fade lines between day and night as you play Grooving through the twilight Twirling through the fade Relax into madness, dark magic masquerade After images, ash sparks in the twilight, take flight, swirl within echoed breeze Readiness, relative to the free winds of chaos Here, in a world of fog and fury, blurred in twilight vengeance. Crows, ravens, portents of black flight circle above, a crown of shrieks, feathers cascade, rain like pestilence. No blame in blindness. "I could not see through feathered fog; could not save you." Signpost in the fog. Thick dry-ice blue billow emits formulations. Liminal, portals rise back, diminish time, disarrange context. Sear of light, brutal panic. Quiet. High-pitched sonic memories Eternity of now burns through bone, marrow -- flimsy narrow gate Liminality is waiting That liminal dimension between the pain and the screen selection of feeling, immersion away from meaning: what you don't mean Twilight passages when possible expands. Pre-dawn messages, first-draft images subconscious doodles before thought can capture plan. Empty enormity celestial map demands. Continuum of spectral light draws sight against backdrop of shadow’s span. Midsummer twilight, fairytales brought back from sleep. Sprinting across that abyss, goblin mouths, hungry ghosts. Dusk’s purple sky imagines snow, shoveling, streets aglow in festive lights, flights of fun. By liminal command, young aggressors channel to sport, fantasy battle, adventurous work. Next level survival demands we assess, re-learn. last of dying light first return liminal twilight -- dusk, dawn Oblique bands dapple into twilight Far away forests call Peace floats softly in trailing starshine mystically inviting. Dusk whirls of wilding sands. Gentle twilight, before the night, before all the freeze of laughter, bubbling partying, high hats and hands, desperate to ignite, to touch ice to ice and become. free of temporality, ephemeral, rare and precious and of the fleeting moment, exquisite beauty without further responsibility. Yet again, "be here now" ever changing landscape; ever changing dance of me to you. I am leaning into the whole illusion theory. Too many coincidences/synchronicities, object lessons, deja vus. There's too much that makes too much sense in a totally fantastic way. I feel like I'm slipping down the rabbit hole, through the mirror, into the Twilight Zone. Welcome to the Twilight Zone Welcome to the twilight zone for twilight presages the night the beautiful, magickal night where anything can happen any dream can be revealed. I ride a marvelous nightmare over evanescent swamplands, mysterious passageways into undiscovered treasure hoards. There is so much, mirroring its way into the future, recombining images, sounds, visions, eery macabre skeletal touch. Endlessly morphing images, whirling through me, each fleetingly touching its sweet taste onto my tongue, eternally cherished in a magnificent instant. There is no future in the night, no past, no present, only dreams and surreal landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes. There is an anticipatory quality that moves and dances, ever out of reach, never coalescing into form. This is the essence of magick. This is the promise, the curse, the incantation, the lion's roar. This is the homeland of vampires, lycanthropes, sorcerors from beyond. This is the holy see, the mist shrouded mountainpeak, the smokey lake, the boundaryless mystery. Welcome to the twilight zone, the band of pale purple light that draws us home. Darkening into heavier compression Molten heat compressing Density increasing toward event horizon. Twilight on the apocalyptic battlefield. Inside the box are we dying or transforming? another rainy day allowing dawn to hide behind weeping clouds Sunday into Monday, weekly transition Giving in to who we are despite our dreams Look! Listen! The sounds, the smells, the awaited adventures Anticipation . . . Or merely another day? Do you long for love in the dark, dusky evening? Do you count the countless stars, knowing a miracle is on its way? Has the chill of eternity captured your imagination? Light coalescing into sound into waves into sea? What is the demand of sky of sea of fire dripping through the twilight? Reflections half moonlight, half mind. Someday soon the piper calls a merry tune you're too afraid to answer; you are no dancer Still afraid at dawn chirping birds upset you Those who have not met you no longer matter Mad as a hatter you open your soul to the night and find though blind in your flight better ventures than fright now bid you to believe your fate It may not be too late too close to the dawn I hear the nightbirds pleading for just one more song Like you, I've learned everything I know from late night movies lyrics on pre-dawn radio. I look behind to shining grace realize my place out, far from grim, grey dawn upon dawn listening for enchanting pipes of Pan to follow past the painted sky Longshoremen, in early dawning stinking of dead fish seagulls' wet crying Desolate, the sea entwined with sky casting about into another day. Dream Street Bright colored lights, Boisterous music, Gaily chatting people drawn in by wares. Carnival beauty painted so prancy whirling romance casts off daily cares. At the dark end of the street quietly peaceful drawn in to the pre-dawn air. birdsong, voices conflating the sum of experience let loose into this foggy dawn colours, still subtle arranging catch liquid dissolve in undulating air tell a story Coloured atmosphere, diffracted light The many metaphors of dawn Layered clouds, clarify ecstasy perfect inspiration dissolves the lock twixt everyday and magic. Times, forms, enemies change. The game goes on. Bright golden Sun absorbs mist a glorious dawn. The smell of lonesome prairie after the train's rushed through. On this side of the bars, life is slow awaiting judgment. A brave touch twixt worlds Can change minds into consciousness with such subtlety "Of course, we knew it all along." on the threshold before the eclipse before the dawn before we are given our missions, sent forward in time we must be ready must rise to the challenge without map or guidebook to prepare we endure the patience to exercise control over every capillary, every synapse, of our being it's not the believing, but the seeing a better world needs a new kind of ware be a ware for peace, for life, for consciousness before the wake quest Deep in our ancient lives Far from our daily chores Hidden within our minds With no bright line to follow Could I be true? Breathing, a mist so fine sprayed from brave ocean floors Seen in dreamlike design shades dark and blue Dawn's pink-purple hue breaks through over time while I wander in dreaming What could be true? Torn by my primal cry how would you answer? Words of Peace speak beyond structured language sharing profoundly in joy graceful dancing to music of each dawn morningbirds Welcoming the light creamy purples into day so swift the change (when it happens) from predawn mysteries. Trees sway gracefully. Morning birds are singing. Primeval emotions awake in my dreams before I remember to whom my day is promised. Old King's Cold/Grail King And the old King dies. Sends out his mortal ghost to dance on Olympian plains. I am the mighty he; ruled wisely while I was allowed; sold my soul to please the crowd; withered on the vine divine. There is no more of me. Drink from the golden Grail, Oh New Found King. You are triumphant. A bright dawn upon the kingdom offers sparkling hope, new dreams aborning. Don't despair old peasant folk, though you think despair all you can cling to. The Fisher King has returned from his desert adventures. He brings the tides to slake the thirst of this arid land. I beg you yet again to take a stand. Take harness, plow your pastures. Believe that the seed will take hold. Listen to the heralds shouting lines in the sand. They know a flood is coming after many a hard rain -- but don't despair! It is a flood of fertility, a harbinger promising carpets of grain and lush vegetation. All this is promised if you do your part. The old King, so long dying of his festering wounds, has poisoned you with ill-fated rule. Cast out the poison from your hearts. Tend your fields with a will and a song. Never forget you are free. Never forget that responsibility. May I say, I am awed by the way your presence echoes, keeps time and space at bay as if you create each new dawning day A new day dawns cloudy and forbidding. We are entering San Francisco in the morning fog, early, early, the world still dreaming. Or maybe it was Cambridge, Mass., lost in the fog, unsure of time or space. Sometimes there is singing: something about a "Yellow Submarine" or "Strawberry Fields" or sometimes haunting melodies without words. But it's all about the words, even those implied by the music. Wine can help. By the gods, wine is sometimes all that can help (tho sometimes even wine betrays me). The stinking debris of mornings after the night before, or just morning by the coast with the stink of rotting fish, the cries of gulls or sirens, the emptiness without tears, the cold of morning -- I remember that too. That no more mornings could touch me, that I could hide contented in the night dreaming flying dreams so none could touch me. Fragments. Taking life in fragments. Folding each shiny fragment into tender velvet pockets sequined to reflect the light, let them be all right, feel cared for. Let the nights protect us from the days. Like a wandering hermit with a self-igniting lantern . . . . Coming to the Light My mind playing tricks on my eyes That golden glow bringing me into worlds of pumpkin coaches, Valkyrie in flight, neverlands that never were, yet so much more real than what passes for day to day. Sadness is beauty brought down by ugliness, truth succumbing to convenient lies. Joy is opening all the senses into the spectrum of beauty. No moderation, no limitation, no convenient structural captivity. Let the stars be shining beacons calling us home. Let the wind be a magical cloak, the rain an exultation. Let the cold, dark night be a treasured, inspiring friend. Let the night take me forward Into everfulfilling fantasies The never empty cup, the magic wand/magic word, sprinkled with faery dust, toasted with the fine bubbles of celluloid champagne. Let us, the night and I, sneak off into exotic adventure. Let us learn the secrets of the Moon and Stars, ancient runes and alchemical wonders. Let us play upon the backs of dragons, learning to fly, learning to breathe fire, learning to explore the mountainpeaks and caverns of our chthonic fears and spin them into gold. The new day dawning it will encounter clouds and hailstorms, turbulence and destruction. It will be a day of startling showers and unsettled wind, of unreasoned pain and empty solace. It will be a day to try our souls. But it will be a day of infinite possibilities. Let my good friend, the night, join me in play to help prepare me for the day. Let the earth and fire and rain and wind infuse my spirit that we all be fellow friends in the new ventures coming with the light. Early morning dawn awakening to a season of wild abandon a golden moment of sensation In a flash -- alive to an open season Alive to a new awakening Alive The future descends from the fear-embroidered skies the vision is of holocaust -- when everybody dies A new day is dawning, but is it sun or storm? We have a chance to make our mark but is it right or wrong? They dream of liquid floating in suspension and do not understand. We are the product of their dreams. We suck you of your life fluids, moving mouths on every part of your body. Vampires of experience, we will not let you go till we have sucked you dry. Like a vampire's victim, you will crave the life, the experience of others, will suck them dry to gain eternity. We suck you and lick you clean, fondlingly. We again enter you through every opening, cleaning you through. You have been exhausted. We complete our ritual cleansing as you lie immobile, beyond response. We symbolically cut off your genitals, cut out your heart. We now own your soul. It has been a good night. Dawn has long since risen; they will wake soon. Soon they begin again, another day of their busy aimless lives: rise, work, unwind, sleep, and, oh yes, consume those predigested market-attractive packaged products of the mass media, the mass brainwash, the mass society. Silent, the singers are searching for voice They know in their souls it's a matter of choice They need to find reason, a cause, to rejoyce, A newly turned path to felicity. A new day is dawning, but where is the sun? Our freedom and faith are defined by the gun. The symbol of power overrules everyone 'Til we create our own electricity. But under cover of darkness a banner's being stitched Of patchwork-bright colors and radiance To someday soon be unfurled in the breeze As we march to freedom's song. Dreams drifting by The neon letters "LOVE" lit up in the air A poem in pictures and sound. Rather like a dream, you know Those dawning tendrils Sneaking through my windowshade But it's much too early to be waking So I'll dream on of morning romance Without remembering That I've no one to wake to beyond the dawn. Reaching to the stars, Tarry in eternity: This is all. If life were simple, childish agonies dispelled with dawn's bright kiss, we would laugh cross-purposes, cross-talk easily sorted out in counsel. Cast into sorted cells with little thought to empower; we could harness the Sun, Moon, birth of stars, simply allow minds to grow. Growing Out of Liminality Thirteen Wizards Shall Guide You, rotating in 7s, to be chosen from a wizard test administered at regular intervals to any who wish to apply. Each wizard shall serve at his/her pleasure -- until they decide to move on. Any wizard may return by retesting and getting the highest score amongst those currently in line at the time of a vacancy, like any other candidate. The test to be devised by a wise pre-council to ascertain qualities of wisdom, compassion, responsibility, integrity and clarity of communication. The test may be reviewed and revised at any time that the full council agrees to do so, based on evidence of better result to be gained. The wizards do not make the laws. Laws are made by direct democracy, after a sufficient period of debate when an overwhelming majority of consensus seems likely. Wizards do have veto power. Wizards do not control the economy. That is the province of the market. The wizards do oversee the use and conservation of common resources. They do oversee a social infrastructure that assures everyone a comfortable, secure livelihood. They do oversee disputes to assure that everyone is treated fairly in the course of commerce, and in the course of community life. They are not paid an outright salary. They are given comfortable living conditions that their minds may be free of personal want. True shamans aren't ready for this world, dreamcatching from all hallowed and harrowed. Wrapped in a cloud of moonbeams -- query and call; capture fleet answer and call -- Eerie, yet wondrously apprehended in glory of original grace, ecstatic beauty, to remember we only borrow tomorrows on our return to eternity. ...a liminal epoch for the dweller on the threshold. Internal search for perspicacity, expanding borders, authentic elasticity as integral character. Letting go Earthly gravity. Crafty synaptic flow. To see, to feel, to merge and undulate through; to discover, uncover, burst renewed. Uplifting notes, affecting themes, track social rhythm, mark liminal time. Lyric, simple sweeps of tone and cue, never meant to trip up but evoke true meaning. In unknown dark, shadow hosts deep thought to lark and lounge. Dawning form seeps toward reward, to speak out what’s been found. promotes liminal wisdom promotes calm acceptance of non-rational realities, promotes reintegration of self as programmer promotes self-reprogramming in alignment with self-progression to a place of bliss and dharmic awareness in which every piece fits, magically finds its place in expanding space eternally unwinding. Being, not being, letting it be. Day upon night swept by twilight. Vague images coalesce, remain an instant, slowly disintegrate. Ghosts in smoky distance reset dimension, eternal reconfiguration. Twilight of Goddess Revelation What twisted so maliciously your mind? Your God -- Created that greedy leaders may more easily prevail? Is it guilty shame, seeded by consistent training insisting that you fail? Lost to balance, whole possibilities, unable to be free or sane. Eternal life is yours, we scream, while you destroy our birthright in service to conjuror's dream of denial. but it's just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start, each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart II. Born other than imperial, torn into what we are told is real without power to protect ourselves from venal brothers of the order spreading hatred like any venereal disease. We no longer need to meet you cowering on our knees. Karma's a hot potent bitch unschooled in mercy. Witches reclaiming noble heritage, reframed herstories will prevail. Though born, forced to service, in our master's jail, lost and lonely midst the masses, masked to fit expected forms. but it's just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start, each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart III. Listen, little one, watching every moment for our chance, we will break free to adventurers' romance; dance away the chill of foreign hills enrapt in leaves and grass. Hiding in primeval castles, tightly aligned to a bright inner sphere, holding to hope of life to hold dear. Learning to fly, ride to some unknown side, escape from the herd hate stone, can't be as hard as learning to stand alone. but it's just for a while, while we learn what we were from the start each creature alive to the beat of a self-reasoned heart So she drifted through the night, content, serene, laughing at silly little private jokes, singing wisps of songs as they floated by, making up fantasy landscapes and stories from the shadow shapes as she passed through. As dawn approached, shapes became more distinct against the color infusing sky. She understood that her journey was over, as the memories returned in one last burst of clarity. Leaves twinkle falling. Stars arise in twilight. Their song soft, insistent siren call. Lost to primeval moorings. Washed by eternal storm to awake transformed. Twilight at the Dark of the Moon Moving inward. Spiraling into deepest silence. Feel me here, oh my most darling. Here is the free-est flow, river of bliss. Bounty of years of grey resistance, incrementally awakened to swirling shades -- mystic purples, mad magentas, sky-eyed blues. There is ancient music, crescendos to peals. Layered millennial ears, creatures of seas to trees murmur through. Ripples of soundwaves, broker wisdom not yet condensed into words. Romances spun of clay and sand, woven into fashion’s fabrics. Hearty voices join, create regaled mythology. Star-shaped world story reverberates with chill and heat. Nascent strive for enriched clarity that must open ever more widely, a luminous spiral up, out, in, around. Come, brave as you imagine. In that brief eternal interval all of energy coalesces. Imagine the day that dawns when you are no longer dreaming.

#hekate #liminal #dusk #dawn

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Family reunion Loki x teen reader ft. GOTG

This came from after watching the Dreamwork’s movie “Home” and listening to the song by Jennifer Lopez “Feel the Light” which I felt fit this story so well so if you’d like you can look up the song while you read this oneshot. Hope you guys enjoy it :)

Taglist:

@evyiione

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While cruising through the galaxy on the Milano, Gamora and Peter were on the controls of the Milano, Rocket was down in the engine room making some repairs of his own to the ship with Groot helping him, Drax was busy cleaning his daggers, and their oldest member which is me, (y/n) Goddess of dreams and magic was assumed to be sleeping in my room in the ship.

Maybe I should start off by introducing myself.  As I stated before my name is (y/n) Lokidottir Goddess of magic and dreams, and as you can tell by my last name I am the daughter of Loki Laufeyson, the God of Mischief himself.  I was born on Asgard and my mom had died when I was around 100 years old *roughly around 3-4 Midgard age* by my father’s side in battle against the Frost Giants.  Ever since then my father’s raised me alone but still loved me very dearly up until his disappearance off the Bifrost bridge. It was then I was also captured by the mad Titan Thanos and tortured under him until I became a weapon, then once I reached the physical Midgard appearance of a 16 year old I was sold to a Kree judge known as Ronan the Accuser.

Trained under him I was to kill under no conscious with my magic of the mind and driving my enemies till their mad with insanity.  It wasn’t until Gamora had come and allowed me to come with her to Xandar to retrieve an orb containing an Infinity Stone and well—if you know of how the Guardians of the Galaxy got started then you know the rest of my story after that.

Ever since then I have been traveling with the Guardians, hoping that one day I would reunite with my dad because I could feel that somewhere out there he was still alive. Gamora once said to me that she knowing what it’s like to be taken from your family, she promised me that as we traveled the galaxy, she would help me find my father and the rest of my family and get me back home to Asgard.

And that’s where our story begins now. 

I had built myself a small blanket fort held up by two chairs and my bed and used my magic to fill it with similar things I had back in Asgard like a few spell books we had gotten from a few marketing stores around the galaxy, pictures and drawings I did myself of each member of my family, mainly of my dad, and last but not least the one thing I never take off my person;  My Dream catcher.

You see my dream catcher is very special to me, because I can successfully pull out any personal event from either mine or another person’s life and actually view them like a video recording according to Peter.

And that’s what I was currently doing right now.

I didn’t even notice someone coming into my room and enter my blanket fort.

“I am Groot”.

“Yeah I thought you were in bed too Princess?” I softly chuckled and stroked Rocket’s head even though he hates it and said.

“Sorry guys, I couldn’t really sleep, not without watching this,” it was then Rocket and Groot began to see my first snow day with my dad.  He was nervously trying to keep his balance but kept on holding onto the rails of the palace stairs as our voices said to each other.

‘Hey dad, I think our horses want to join us!’ It was then my vision showed my old mare Freya and my dad’s horse Sleipnir in his stable whinnying and bobbing his head up and down.

‘It’s not funny!’

“Is that your dad?” It was Peter’s voice this time as I could even feel Gamora’s and Drax’s presences in my blanket fort. As the vision continued to show my dad clinging onto his life as his feet began slipping and sliding on the ice laughing and my laugh still ringing out before I said.

‘Come on dad it’s just snow!’ I hummed a single chuckle as a small smile came across my face and my dad’s voice began to say as he slowly tried to balance on his feet.

‘I don’t even like snow! Snow is evil! It always makes me fa-AHHLL!’ It was then he fell backwards and landed on his butt on a small bundle of snow behind him to cushion his fall. Both of us laughed as the vision showed me falling backwards and even showing the two of us now still laughing.

‘Are you okay?’ My dad said still slightly laughing but still concerned for me.

‘This is definitely going in my dream catcher!’ I smiled softly as tears fell down my face.

“We’ll find him (y/n), you’ll be reunited with him soon” said Gamora.

“Yeah, so don’t you start crying on me now babe, okay?” Peter said as he placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.  I looked at him and placed my hand over his and nodded in gratitude.  He gently kissed the top of my head and one by one they left my room leaving Groot to be the last one.  

Before he left, he held out his hand and grew a beautiful Asgardian Lilly just for me, he picked it off of him and gave it to me.  I smiled and took it from him and said.

“Thank you Groot”. Groot smiled at me then left my room leaving me alone with my dream catcher as I now saw my dad holding me close to his chest as we both nuzzled each other in the snow.

My heart ached and tears continued to fall down my face as I let the vision fade and allow another one to take it’s place.  This time it was every time I was sad or had a nightmare, dad would come in, lay down beside me, allow my head to rest on his chest and sing me a special lullaby in our native Asgardian tongue.  His voice was always so warm and deep like velvet that it soothed me to sleep every time. I laid down and tried to imagine myself in his arms as I listened to the lullaby on constant repeat until I finally fell asleep hugging a pillow close to my chest.

When I woke up, I heard a knock at my door and Peter’s voice said from the other side of my door.

“Get dressed Princess, we’ve landed on Xandar”.  I raised my head in confusion as to why we were on Xandar but I put that confusion aside and got dressed and ready then left the Milano with the rest of the Guardians as we headed to NOVA Headquarters.  We entered inside greeted by Denarian Dey and a few other NOVA officers.

“Glad to see you made it safely Star Lord”. Dey said as he and Peter shook hands.

“Hey you got my codename right this time”.

“After saving my family, I owe you that, now follow us NOVA Prime is waiting for you in the council room”.  We then followed Dey and the rest of the NOVA officers to the council room where NOVA Prime stood with a gentle smile on her face.

“Welcome back to Xandar Guardians”. She greeted.

“Thank you for your help NOVA Prime”. Gamora stated.  NOVA Prime then turned to look at me and said.

“Princess (y/n) of Asgard, your friends have told me of your father and we have allowed you to use our wide-spread technology to help find his current location”.  

My eyes widened in shock.

Was she serious? Is that why we came to Xandar in the first place? Did Quill and the others hide this from my back last night and contact NOVA HQ after they left my room.

“Are—are you serious?” She nodded I then turned to my friends who were all smiling sweetly at me. I didn’t know what to say.

I really didn’t know what to say.

Except I quickly embraced NOVA Prime in a hug as I couldn’t help but be truly grateful for her and she smiled sweetly at me and gently patted my head in welcome for my thank you.

“Is she allowed to do that?” Peter muttered to Dey and Dey only shrugged in confusion.  After I released her she then said.

“Now, if you will follow Denarian Dey and your friend Rocket, they will help you in locating your father”.  I nodded then followed Dey and Rocket to the computer lab where the two of them started up the computers and soon the whole galaxy came up in a hologram projection.

“Now, all we need is the name and we’ll have him in no time”.

“Loki. Loki Laufeyson, the God of Mischief and Lies”. I stated, then Dey and Rocket began typing up my father’s name and just like that a planet appeared.

“Midgard”. I muttered. It was then the picture zoomed in on a certain country I’ve read as North America, it then zoomed on a certain part of North America and soon a vision of the city came up that uncle Thor once called it New York City and Denarian Dey then stated.

“And here, is Loki Laufeyson”.  But the person who came up was a fat and bald male human with a picture on his arm that said “MOM” on it and wearing strange black things over his eyes.

“That’s not funny!” I sneered.

“Wait that’s not your dad?” Dey asked me.

“Are you kidding?!” I stood in front of the monitor and cried out as I pointed at the fat slug on the screen, “THAT’S NOT HIM!!!” But little did I know was that the current man moved and showed a different man on the screen now.

“Look again Princess,” I turned around and gasped as I saw who it was and who he was talking to.

It was my dad, talking with uncle Thor.

“I know, I know okay Thor you’ve been saying that for the past 2 years now! Please! She has big (e/c) eyes and beautiful (h/l) (h/c) hair!”

“Daddy”. I breathed out as tears filled my eyes.

“So tell me if Heimdall has seen her! Or I will go out there myself to find her! Please.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from him.  He was looking for me too and by the sound of it it’s been years.  

I also took notice of his appearance now, his hair had grown longer, down to almost his shoulders, his skin was more paler than the snow itself, and his eyes were more blue and dark circles were under his eyes, filled with tears.  

I always knew it somewhere deep down I knew, and now seeing him brought much joy in my heart.

My dad was alive.

I quickly raced out of the room and raced back to the council room to where the rest of the Guardians and NOVA Prime were at and Gamora asked me.

“(Y/n), is everything alright?” I looked up at her and tackled her in a hug and cried out.

“Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!” Gamora stood still but then knowing what I was talking about she hugged me back with a sisterly smile across her face and she gently stroked down my hair.

“So I’m gonna assume she found her dad alive?” Peter asked.

“Yes she did, he’s on Terra along with her uncle”. Dey stated as he and Rocket walked into the council room now.

“Well we now have our next destination”. Peter said.  But it was then I said.

“No, only I have a destination, you guys can continue on with your adventures in protecting the galaxy”.

“What? But (y/n)…..”

“No Quill, as Princess of Asgard I order you all to remain here until I’m reunited with my dad! I have the power to get me to Midgard without using the Bifrost and I refuse to allow you guys to leave your duties as being the Guardians of the Galaxy”.

“(Y/n) as noble as that is of you, we wish to see you safely reunited with your father” Drax said.

“I am Groot”.

“I’m with Groot on this one, you ain’t leaving us behind. We’re with you on this one princess” Rocket said.  I shook my head knowing that they wanted to see me back with my dad, but now this was my mission and mine alone. So when no one was looking I reached into my bag and readied my dream sand as I said.

“And I thank you all for this. For the adventures you’ve given me. Gamora, I am forever in your dept for getting me away from Ronan and Thanos, and the rest of your Guardians will always be remembered as heroes of Asgard for stopping Ronan, but now your presence is no longer needed.” I then threw my dream sand down onto the ground letting it go off like a bomb.

As everyone was trying not to fall under my sleeping spell, I then used my magic to transport me all the way to Midgard and soon everyone fell to the ground asleep by the time I was gone and the sand dust remained in the air.

Finally I reached Midgard and the city of New York where I would soon find my dad.  But as I appeared in an alleyway, I suddenly began weak from exhaustion from using so much magic at once for the transport and for putting all of NOVA and the Guardians to sleep that I fell to my knees and leaned up against the wall.

“No, no, come on (y/n) you’re so close to finding him, just gather enough strength to walk and ask these Midgardians if they’ve seen dad”.  I took a few deep breaths and pulled myself up and began walking slowly to make sure I kept my balance then once I did, I began to plow through the crowded streets until I recognized a part of the city where my dad was in front of a large tower.  

Once I reached the tower expecting him to be there, my heart dropped not seeing him at all.  I began to search around the city more to see if I could see him nearby and since I’m still weak from using my powers to get here. I couldn’t track him with magic.  Not unless I really want to drain myself of more energy.

But still I had to keep looking, so instead of using my dream catcher to show an image of my dad, I drew a very good and detailed on and went from person to person asking if anyone had seen him, but all they did was run away or refuse to answer.  With no response from anyone, I looked down at my picture helplessly and saw a tear drop fall onto the picture smearing it. More tears fell onto the paper until finally I just couldn’t take it.

Finding myself an alleyway, I collapsed onto the floor and wept long and hard.  Maybe I should’ve let Peter and the others come and help me find my dad, because no one here was of any help to me because they were so scared of my dad for whatever reason or refused to help me because they had other things than to help a child find her father.

I curled up into a ball as my father’s sketch was now smeared with tears and I wept and wept until I had cried myself to the point of exhaustion.

Next thing I know, I hear someone knock on the wall and I only commanded hoarsely.

“Go away!”

“Uhh no sorry your majesty but the only orders you should be taking is from me! Star Lord!” I look up hearing the familiar voice of Peter Quill and low and behold there he was.

“Peter!” I cried out as we both hugged each other.  It was then I saw the rest of the Guardians had come along as well.  “I can’t believe it!” I exclaimed.  “But you all came back! What are you doing here!?”

“We told you. You’re not doing this alone, you’re a special part of the Guardians (y/n), our friend”. Peter said.  I smiled then Rocket said.

“But next time you pull a magic spell like that I can’t promise you that I won’t blow your little Goddess ass”.  I chuckled softly and stroked Rocket’s head making him groan angrily but I could tell he enjoyed it because I took notice of his tail gently swaying from side to side. After I released him from my petting he then said,

“And besides, we thought you could use this,” he then held up a tracking device grinning smugly. It showed two points on the screen, the green was where we were and the red just a couple turns up the block was where our target.

I gasped happily and turned to all of them smiling widely.

It was then the Guardians walked ahead with Rocket and Groot leading ahead.  Rocket was on top of Groot’s shoulder reading the map and telling him which way to turn.  I would every now and then lag behind because I was trying to make myself more presentable by getting back into my old Asgardian uniform of a long white dress with golden designs that showed the stars and moon, then I quickly caught up with the Guardians as we kept walking down block after block of New York City.

My heart raced with excitement, my smile refused to go away, and my palms were getting shaky at the fact that I would finally see my dad after so long.  Soon we had arrived at the location where my father was said to be according to the tracking device Rocket made.  He then held the device out for me to take which I did and walked a bit away from them and looked through the crowd of people for my father.  After a moment when I thought I’d never find him, my eyes widened and my jaw slightly dropped as my body froze.

Just ahead of me after walking away from the figure in familiar green and black armor with golden encrusts, the figure turned revealing him.

My dad.

He and I stared at each other in shock at the sight of each other.

I dropped the device and ran towards him as he let out a sob and ran towards me twice as fast until we both met in the middle.  He picked me up and twirled me around as we embraced each other before setting me on the ground and cupped my cheeks to look at me before embracing me once again sobbing.  The two of us embraced each other tightly trying to bring the other closer than physically possible as we both continued to sob.

The Guardians watched with happy and loving eyes at my reunion with my dad.  Then for Odin knows why, Quill got so into our reunion that he ran up cheering and group hugged me and my dad making my dad retaliate and punch Peter across the face for touching him and me.  While Rocket and Drax laughed hysterically for a bit and Gamora grinned, I held my dad back and began to explain everything to him as I helped Peter stand back up.

After explaining that they were my friends and that Gamora was the one who got me away from Ronan, my father’s eyes softened as he then turned to the Guardians and turned to Gamora especially and took her hand in his and whispered thank you in a grateful tone and Gamora smiled and happily nodded to my father.  He then turned back to me and we embraced each other once again leaving the Guardians to smile once again.

“Oh (y/n), my beautiful girl”.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you dad”.

“When Thor told me you were kidnapped, I was so scared that I’d never see you again”.

“Oh dad, I would’ve begged to sister Hela to release me from Hel’s gates just to find you!” He smiled and hugged me again as he kissed all over my face.  After awhile of rekindling our reunion and even seeing Uncle Thor again and being introduced to his friends known as the Avengers, the Guardians then headed back to the Milano thinking that now that their mission was done they could go back to saving the galaxy, causing trouble or even a bit of both. But before they boarded onto the Milano I stopped them by saying.

“You guys weren’t really leaving me without saying goodbye right?” They stopped and turned to see not only me but my dad, uncle and the rest of the Avengers.

“Well, we thought we’d just step out quietly, now that you’re back with your family”. Peter started sniffling and then whimpered, “oh I promised myself I wasn’t gonna cry!” I shook my head then embraced the big-lug and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“For god-sake Quill quit your whinnying!” Rocket exclaimed.  I walked up to him and said.

“So you’re not gonna miss me too?”

“No I won’t, in fact I’ll be glad that you’re gone!” He may put on this tough façade but I could read him like a book especially from the fact that his ears were bent back and the way he hid his voice in a tough growl sounded like he wanted to cry, that and I could see tears at the end of his eyes.  

I smiled and stroked his head and gave him a single kiss on his cheek knowing that he was blushing even from behind all that fur.  Groot then gave me a large flower symbolizing his and the Guardian’s life force and it will only wilt if their lives are in true danger. I thanked him and placed a kiss on my hand and pressed it against his chest giving him eternal life from an Asgardian’s kiss.

I then turned to Drax and we both crossed arms with one another in a warrior’s farewell with his arm against mine in an X formation and we nodded to each other hoping that one day our paths would cross again.  Then when I came up to Gamora, I embraced her and said.

“I have you to thank most of all, had it not been for you, I’d still be with Ronan, or even Thanos. Thank you Gamora, my sister”.  We separated and I kissed her cheek in gratitude then I turned and walked back towards my dad.

“On behalf of Asgard, I would like to bestow my profound gratitude of returning my daughter to my side. You are all heroes for finding and saving the lost Princess, and you will be memorialized as heroes”. My father stated.  The Guardians all bowed their heads in gratitude then boarded their ship and soon after seeing them wave farewell to me and I waved back along with everyone else, the Milano took off and soon disappeared into the light of the sun.

I leaned up against my dad’s chest as he wrapped his arms around my waist holding me close, I let a single tear slip from my eye but knowing somewhere deep in my heart that I will see the Guardians again.

Someday.

#loki x teen reader #father!loki #gotg #avengers #loki fanfiction #fluff #family #reunion #thor

[nalu-week]

The Memory's Hargeon Holds (Day 1, Prompt 1- Nostalgia)

PROMPT 1- NOSTALGIA

Lucy’s POV

“Ahh I just love summer” I say stretching my arms up in the air while sitting at the bar with Mira

“Yeah it so nice” she smiles looking and me as I take a sip from her well-known strawberry milkshakes

“Yes I do agree with you Lucy it’s warm, everything is booming with life and Heart Kreuz always has adorable swimsuits available!” Erza says her eyes lighting up at the last part as she takes a bit out of her strawberry cake (which will probably get destroyed soon)

“Annnddd also a perfect time for love” Mira sings happily looking at me the starting at Natsu then back and forth a few times, I look at Natsu who is starting a fight with Gray (Naturally) and slightly blush

“Wait, what n-no” I go red in the face “O-Of course not I don’t like him were just friend that’s all” I say puffing out my cheeks looking away

“Oh come on Lucy it’s so obvious” Mira say fangirling

“Yes Lucy we all can see it” Erza points out

“Yeah Lu-chan it’s like we can all see it but you and Natsu”

“Ahh” I jump as Levy pop’s up beside me “How did you get here you were over the other side of the guild just a moment ago?!”

“Well a little birdy told me you were gossiping about your love life so I rushed over here because I knew I just had to join” she giggles, I look behind me to see Happy floating in the air with his paws on his mouth trying not to burst with laughter, he must have flown by without me noticing, I’m gonna kill that god damn cat

“So come on Lucy details when are you going to confess your feelings” Mira beams with excitement

“Huh, w-wait no I don’t e-even like him” I say shaking my head vigorously waving my hand in front of me

“Oh sure you don’t” Erza and Mira laugh

“But of course you do” Levy pipes in

“Umm… well maybe”

“HA I KNEW IT” Mira squeals drawing some of the guild attention

“Agh wait no your just putting words in my mouth!” I retaliate, I take one last slurp of my milkshake twirl around the bar stool and walk out of the guild, I can only imaging Mira, Erza and Levy just looking at me with smug smiles planted of their faces, as I walk away from the guild I can hear a faint yell

“WHICH ONE OF YOU ASSHOLES DESTRYED MY CAKE!” (Called it) Erza yells at who I can only imagine to be Natsu and Gray.

I sigh as I pull out Plue’s key to talk to so my walk home isn’t so boring

“Punn Punn” He yaps whilst shaking

“Aww your just so cute” I say picking him up and holding him in my arms as we walk home together.

Once I get home Plue disappears and I make/eat my dinner run myself a bath then get ready for bed as it is getting pretty late, as I lay in my bed the conversation I had with Mira and the girls today keep running through my head, I guess I do like him… I mean I guess I’ve never really admitted it to myself because he is my best friend and I’m just… scared he doesn’t feel the same or even know what a relationship is, I just don’t want to make thing weird between us. I don’t know how but Natsu Dragneel you have found some way to make me fall in love with you.

I smile softly and close my eyes but opening them a few second later

“Wait… something feels… off” I murmur to myself and a couple of seconds later

“Hey Luce!”

“And there it is” I mumble turning to my window to see Natsu on the window sill with Happy on his shoulder

“Lucy guess what”

“What is it Natsu I was about to go to sleep” my eyes follow him as he jumps into my room

“Well I have a job for us” he says giving his adorable smile, I mentally slap myself for thinking that

“Okay sure” I say not caring much

“Well the reward is enough to pay off your rent and more” Natsu states

“When do we leave!” I happily jump up snatching the flyer from Natsu my eyes sparkling   

“Well the job request says we don’t have to leave until a day or so”

“Alright”

“Oh and Erza was sent on an S-class mission with the request asking specifically for her and I’m NOT going on a mission with that stupid Ice Princess so it’s gonna be just us” Natsu explains, My heart speeds up knowing it’s going to just be us

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!” I say point at Natsu who is now getting on my bed

“Umm… going to sleep”

“No you have your own house go sleep in your own bed!” he groans until I give him a death glare

“Ugh fine come on Happy” He says leaving through the window jumping off my roof and running away, I sigh and get in my bed under the covers

“I can’t let him sleep in my bed with me after I only just admitted my feelings for him to myself I just couldn’t take that” I say to myself using my hands cover my madly blushing face while kicking my legs.    

Soon enough the sun rays were blaring through the crack in my thick curtains shinning directly on my face, I scrunch up my face and roll over planting my face on my warm pillow where the back of my head used to be, I groan once more then groggily trudge out of bed surrounded but my puffy blanket, as my bare feet touch the cold wooden floor I walk to the bathroom and have a shower get read then leave to go to the guild because if I don’t Natsu will come to my house to wake me up and his idea of waking someone up are well… unethical. I walk into the guild to be greeted with a table flying towards my face which I manage to dodge thankfully, I sigh thankful and see Natsu and Gray fighting along with most the guild

“Hey, Lucy” I turn my head to see Natsu running towards me

“Hey you fire breathing Jackass you can’t just leave mid fight” I see Gray call to Natsu who was coming over to me

“Remember we got a job tomorrow” his says giving me a cheeky grin which makes me  blush  but unnoticeable to those around me  

“Natsu?!” Gray yells from across the guild standing alone looking stupid

“I HEARD WHAT YOU SAID BEFORE YOU ICE PRINCESS JERK!” Natsu yells charging full speed back into battle

“Wow there really going at it aren’t they” I nervously laugh sitting on the velvet seats by the bar

“Yeah since Erza isn’t here no one can really stop them” Mira smiles and I just nod, after about an hour or so at the guild I decide to leave and go home relax before the mission with Natsu tomorrow, once home I have my daily bath and walk over to my closet in my pink towel

“Huh, I haven’t look through all my clothes in a while” I dry myself and walk to my dresser and pull out a baggy short sleeve shirt and tracksuit pants and put them on and walk back to my closet which is filled with clothes, I started going threw them pick them up and folding or hanging them

“What’s that” I say to myself seeing one last outfit in the corner of the closet, I put it out to revile my old clothes, my white sleeveless shirt with a blue cross going across the shirt and blue outlining the shirt, matched with my blue thigh high skirt and brown combat boots “Now I haven’t seen this outfit in a while… actually I though the landlady took it” I shrug it off and pull out the outfit looking at in full remembering all the good time I spent in the guild and all the events that happened wearing this, I smile to myself and lay it out as I’m going to wear it tomorrow. Soon enough the day draws to a close and I go to bed and wake up when the sun shines in my eyes, I have a quick shower and put on my old outfit and tie a bit of hair to the side with a ribbon like I use to, finally I grab my whip and keys then leave for the Mongolian train station and wait for Natsu.

“Lucy!” I hear Natsu in the distance running to me with the job request flyer in his hands

“Hey Natsu, good timing the train just arrived” I smile at him see his face turn into horror

“A-A-Are you sure we have t-to take the train” He says almost like he’s going to throw up

“Aww come on its not that long we are only going to… umm where are we going exactly?” I ask Natsu when I realize I didn’t actually ask him where the job is located beforehand

“The request says ah… Hargeon” Natsu says

“See the trip is only to Hargeon, wait Hargeon… haven’t been there in a while” I giggle entering the train Natsu trudging behind me, after a couple hours me and Natsu arrive at Hargeon walking down the pretty streets

“Nostalgic isn’t it” I say as a breeze blows my hair around me

“Huh?” Natsu looks at me confused

“Well our first S-class mission (even though it was stolen) was by the docks and well I guess… you knew this is where we first met” I smile at him

“Yeah, and you brought us food there” Natsu points to the café/reastrunt where I brought him and Happy food when he saved me from the fake salamander

“… Hey Natsu do you remember Bora the fake salamander?”

“Yeah”

“And remember I told you, you saved me from a charm spell he had on me?”

“Aye” Happy and Natsu exclaim

“I read somewhere that only your true soulmate can break the curse spell” I blush looking at Happy and Natsu who are looking at each other then looking back at me

“Luce what’s a soulmate exactly?”

“Ahh well it’s… umm someone who you really really like”

“I really really like you Luce” he smiles I blush and giggle knowing that Natsu doesn’t understand what I mean

“And you want to spend the rest of your life with them”

“I wanna spend the rest of my life with you”

“What?!” I snap my head back in their direction

“Well I want us to stay in the guild forever and continue to go on more adventures and I want you a Happy beside me, so never leave my side okay” He smile his cute smile at me with a tint of blush

“Yeah okay” I smile, I walk towards him and give him a quick peck on the lips then turn around quickly so he can’t see my mega blush

“Come on were have a job to finish” I turn ever so slightly to see a flabbergasted Natsu, I smile and begin walking to the client’s house

“Ahh y-yeah” I hear Natsu nervously say running beside me with still rosy red cheek and I can help but smile.

Soon enough this will probably be my new nostalgic memory for Hargeon. 

Thanks for reading my one shot for Nalu Week 2017 prompt 1 Nostalgia.

#fanfiction #day 1 #nostalgia #submission

[of-william-wilde-and-dickens]

To Love a Man Named Earnest

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read - Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

    I opened his pages and sniffed, basking in the smell of his yellowed leaves. He smelled like home or a rusty old cabin on a mountain or woods surrounding a lake in the middle of a hot summer day. My fingers, covered in dirt, caressed the ink covered pages and  beautiful words that echoed in my head as I read the stories inside. I laughed in delight as I discovered the wit and tales he held in his heart. his name was The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Works by Oscar Wilde. A mouthful to say the least, but despite his long name, he was quick and clever.

    Yellow highlighter in hand, I marked his pages, making note of words he spoke that intrigued or amused me. On the inside in fading pencil is my mother’s name in cursive. Lying on the couch, I shout to my mom asking if she’d read it. She couldn’t remember, but she might have. Perhaps in college or high school she held on to it and then placed it in the bookshelf and left it forgotten for the next twenty or so years. Despite being surrounded by many other books, he seemed lonely as I pulled his out and examined him.

    A brown colored photograph of the author and several companions graced the cover, covered in a thin coat of dust that I blew off quickly. Earnest seemed to stare up at me as I gripped him in my hands, staring back down at him, as if we were competing to see who would blink first. He was the victor of the battle, but it was I who held his protectively as I wandered the house, delving deeper into his pages every minute. I’d met a cousin of his before, and that cousin was why I introduced myself to this noble Lord. His cousin was a film version of the play, and he had amused me greatly. When I saw this Lord’s title I knew I must introduce myself.

    “Ever since I first looked upon your wonderful and incomparable beauty, I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly.” I told him as I admired the words that stemmed out from his spine, my fingers following each line, tracing the tattoos left upon his skin by the ink. He quickly replied to my remark and surprised me.

     “I don’t think that you should tell me that you love me wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly. Hopelessly doesn’t seem to make much sense, does it?” With a grin, I took him by the spine and whisked him off to the kitchen, where I grabbed turkey and bread and proceeded in making myself a sandwich. I knew at that moment we were meant for each others, that we appreciated humour that was well crafted and filled with wit. After a few minutes, I decided to propose, hoping to celebrate with a cold Dr. Pepper.

    Again, he surprised me. “Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.” I raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Worn out by your entire ignorance of my existence, I determined to end the matter one way or the other, and after a long struggle with myself I accepted you under this dear old tree here. The next day I bought this little ring in your name, and this is the little bangle with the true lover’s knot I promised you always to wear.”

    He then informed me that he had broken off our engagement, because “it would hardly have been a really serious engagement if it hadn’t been broken off at least once. But I forgave you before the week was out.” And so our life together began, and I introduced his to my family, who was greatly amused by his during Thanksgiving dinner. “Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.”

    The table erupted in laughter at his commentary, and then descended into loud discussions of politics, school, and work.

***

The rest is silence - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1599

    It had been several years since our engagement, and he and I are still close. I picked him up and read and spoke to him on occasion, but at times I felt as though we were drifting apart, as if he’d become some book I simply placed on my nightstand and occasionally glanced at, flipping through his pages and reading a section before putting him down again. Sometimes I felt like he was still speaking to me, trying to grab my attention as I focused on other books.

    That was when I met Hamlet. He was shiny and new, with no other name written inside except for my own. He and I stayed up late, sitting on my bed with a bowl of popcorn and a Dr. Pepper, his black cover resting in my lap as I stared intently into his pages, my thumb holding my place as I popped another bite into my mouth before carefully turning the page to uncover the secrets inside. He was my very own Prince Charming of Denmark, speaking sweet words to me as I eagerly listened, taking them in and listening to his gentle voice soothing me. “Doubt thou the stars are fire / Doubt that the sun doth move / Doubt truth to be a liar / But never doubt I love”, he said, speaking promises into my ear.

    He was dark and mysterious, the ideal bad boy of my existence. His presence was alluring in a way that captivated my imagination and fascinated me in ways that Earnest could not. He was romantic yet enveloped by darkness with his black leather-like cover, like the void of the night sky. The silver words that spelled out his name shone like stars against this endless night sky. He was moody and restless, yet I loved him still, refusing to give up on my precious prince.

    His voice lulled me to sleep every night, the rhythm of his words like a lullaby to my ears, rocking me back and forth as he sang to me. His voice had the same feeling of black velvet on the skin, soft and dark at the same time, yet comforting in the cold winters as I wrapped it around me, drinking warm cocoa and reading in my bed as grey clouds cover the sky, blocking out the light of day, making time seem irrelevant to me.

    We stayed this way for a year or so, watching David Tennant on screen with a skull in his hand, reciting those words that Shakespeare had written so diligently in years before. At times though, as I held him by my side, I’d glance across the room and see Earnest watching, sadly, that same lonely look upon him as I had noticed those many years ago in the bookshelf, surrounded and yet alone. I felt a pang of guilt in my heart before returning to Hamlet, his words spoken quietly yet with a fierceness that was only possible coming from him.

    For a while, all was well, yet he began speaking harsh words to me. He did nothing harmful, but his words held so much power in them that I was harmed indeed. “ Let me be cruel, not unnatural / I will speak daggers to his, but use none,” I overheard him as I entered the room, before he began insulting me, yelling “Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.”

    Crying, I ran from him, grabbing my dear Earnest from the nightstand and running towards the bathroom. Shutting the door I turned on the water and stepped into it, lying back in the bathtub as I allowed the water to rise until it covered my face, leaving me in the silence except for the sound of the waterfall coming from the pipe, crashing into the water already in the tub. There, I was safe, away from my Hamlet, and at rest. “Good-night, ladies; good-night, sweet ladies; good-night, good-night,” I whispered, bringing my head above the water for a moment.

    Over the sound of the waterfall I could hear another familiar voice. “Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

***

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility - Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

    I held Earnest to me tightly, staring out the window into the empty street and quiet fall colors that covered the grass, orange and brown and red. He had grown jealous of Hamlet and I, and yet he had remained patiently with me, his pages always there to be turned and to provide me with whatever I needed. I felt a pang of guilt at how I had used him without caring for him in return. I had betrayed him and grown to love another.

    My fingers returned to the brown photograph on his cover, blankets wrapped around me like some eskimo in the Arctic. I bit my lip, accidentally drawing blood, tasting the copper tang in my mouth. Earnest was silent, staring back up at me with a blank face, emotionless and tired. As if all had been lost and there was no way to return to the way we had been before. His pages felt cool to the touch now, no longer bringing the warmth I had felt.

I had not returned that devotion that had been so present in the beginning, and the way he sat on the bed, turned away from me, the cover shut and blocking me out, I could tell the damage I had done just by looking. Sighing, I carried him outside, towards the swimming pool where I sat by the edge of the deep end, dipping my toes in the cool blue water, opening him to my eyes and reading what I had read so many times before, but this time, it felt so different. I didn’t deserve to read those lines, to touch those pages printed with ink that marked every word he spoke to me.

Earnest spoke differently to me than Hamlet had, although during our time together I’d felt that the prince had truly cared for me. Yet he didn’t give me that same warmth and laughter my true love had so often provided me. He was witty and yet when I needed any comfort, he held me in his arms, gently wrapping those soft yellow pages around me, caressing my skin as I listened to his words. There was comfort in those words, unlike the cold harsh speech Hamlet would use against me at times. Yet Earnest was never unkind, too cruel or demanding. He was sweet.

I stood, holding him to my chest, sighing quietly as I listened to the laughter of children in the backyard behind ours. They were probably having friends over, judging by the level of noise coming from it. As I turned to go back inside my home, I tripped, skinning my knee as he fell from my hands, away from me, into the deep end of the pool. I knelt by the edge, leaning forward to retrieve him, but he was already sinking into the depths of the dark lonely pool.

I cried out his name one last time, before remembering something he had said so many years ago. “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” My eyes had been opened, though I was not asleep, and I saw my reality as it should be.

[kitvinslakte]

PT 2

The Exhiles by Ray Bradbury

"...through every country on Earth and finally left no alternative at all but exodus. You must help us. You have a good speaking manner. We need you.”

“I repeat, I am not of you, I don’t approve of you and the others,” cried Dickens angrily. “I was no player with witches and vampires and midnight things.”

“What of A Christmas Carol ?”

“Ridiculous! One story. Oh, I wrote a few others about ghosts, perhaps, but what of that? My basic works had none of that nonsense!”

“Mistaken or not, they grouped you with us. They destroyed your books—your worlds too. You must hate them, Mr. Dickens!”

“I admit they are stupid and rude, but that is all. Good day!”

“Let Mr. Marley come, at least!”

“No!”

The door slammed. As Poe turned away, down the street, skimming over the frosty ground, the coachman playing a lively air on a bugle, came a great coach, out of which, cherry-red, laughing and singing, piled the Pickwickians, banging on the door, shouting Merry Christmas good and loud, when the door was opened by the fat boy.

Mr. Poe hurried along the midnight shore of the dry sea. By fires and smoke he hesitated, to shout orders, to check the bubbling caldrons, the poisons and the chalked pentagrams. “Good!” he said, and ran on. “Fine!” he shouted, and ran again. People joined him and ran with him. Here were Mr. Coppard and Mr. Machen running with him now. And there were hating serpents and angry demons and fiery bronze dragons and spitting vipers and trembling witches like the barbs and nettles and thorns and all the vile flotsam and jetsam of the retreating sea of imagination, left on the melancholy shore, whining and frothing and spitting. Mr. Machen stopped. He sat like a child on the cold sand. He began to sob. They tried to soothe him, but he would not listen. “I just thought,” he said. “What happens to us on the day when thelast copies of our books are destroyed?”

The air whirled.

“Don’t speak of it!”

“We must,” wailed Mr. Machen. “Now, now, as the rocket comes down, you, Mr. Poe; you, Coppard; you, Bierce—all of you grow faint. Like wood smoke. Blowing away. Your faces melt—”

“Death! Real death for all of us.”

“We exist only through Earth’s sufferance. If a final edict tonight destroyed our last few works we’d be like lights put out.”

Coppard brooded gently. “I wonder who I am. In what Earth mind tonight do I exist? In some African hut? Some hermit, reading my tales? Is he the lonely candle in the wind of time and science? The flickering orb sustaining me here in rebellious exile? Is it him? Or some boy in a discarded attic, finding me, only just in time! Oh, last night I felt ill, ill, ill to the marrows of me, for there is a body of the soul as well as a body of the body, and this soul body ached in all of its glowing parts, and last night I felt myself a candle, guttering. When suddenly I sprang up, given new light! As some child, sneezing with dust, in some yellow garret on Earth once more found a worn, time-specked copy of me! And so I’m given a short respite!”

A door banged wide in a little hut by the shore. A thin short man, with flesh hanging from him in folds, stepped out and, paying no attention to the others, sat down and stared into his clenched fists.

“There’s the one I’m sorry for,” whispered Blackwood. “Look at him, dying away. He was once more real than we, who were men. They took him, a skeleton thought, and clothed him in centuries of pink flesh and snow beard and red velvet suit and black boot; made him reindeers, tinsel, holly. And after centuries of manufacturing him they drowned him in a vat of Lysol, you might say.”

The men were silent.

“What must it be on Earth?” wondered Poe. “Without Christmas? No hot chestnuts, no tree, no ornaments or drums or candles—nothing; nothing but the snow and wind and the lonely, factual people. . . .”

They all looked at the thin little old man with the scraggly beard and faded red velvet suit.

“Have you heard his story?”

“I can imagine it. The glitter-eyed psychiatrist, the clever sociologist, the resentful, froth-mouthed educationalist, the antiseptic parents——”

“A regrettable situation,” said fierce, smiling, “for the Yuletide merchants who, toward the last there, as I recall, were beginning to put up holly and sing Noel the day before Halloween. With any luck at all this year they might have started on Labor Day!”

Bierce did not continue. He fell forward with a sigh. As he lay upon the ground he had time to say only,

“How interesting.” And then, as they all watched, horrified, his body burned into blue dust and charred bone, the ashes of which fled through the air in black tatters.

“Bierce, Berce!”

“Gone!”

“His last book gone. Someone on Earth just now burned it.”

“God rest him. Nothing of him left now. For what are we but books, and when those are gone, nothing’s to be seen.”

A rushing sound filled the sky.

They cried out, terrified, and looked up. In the sky, dazzling it with sizzling fire clouds, was the rocket! Around the men on the seashore lanterns bobbed; there was a squealing and a bubbling and an odor of cooked spells. Candle-eyed pumpkins lifted into the cold clear air. Thin fingers clenched into fists and a witch screamed from her withered mouth:

“Ship, ship, break, fall!

Ship, ship, burn all!

Crack, flake, shake, melt!

Mummy dust, cat pelt!”

“Time to go,” murmured Blackwood. “On to Jupiter, on to Saturn or Pluto.”

“Run away?” shouted Poe in the wind. “Never!”

“I’m a tired old man!”

Poe gazed into the old man’s face and believed him. He climbed atop a huge boulder and faced the ten thousand gray shadows and green lights and yellow eyes on the hissing wind.

“The powders!” he shouted.

A thick hot smell of bitter almond, civet, cumin, wormseed and orris!

The rocket came down—steadily down, with the shriek of a damned spirit! Poe raged at it! He flung his fists up and the orchestra of heat and smell and hatred answered in symphony! Like stripped tree fragments, bats flew upward! Burning hearts, flung like missiles, burst in bloody fireworks on the singed air. Down, down, relentlessly down, like a pendulum the rocket came. And Poe howled, furiously, and shrank back with every sweep and sweep of the rocket cutting and ravening the air! All the dead sea seemed a pit in which, trapped, they waited the sinking of the dread machinery, the glistening ax; they were people under the avalanche!

“The snakes!” screamed Poe.

‎And luminous serpentines of undulant green hurtled toward the rocket. But it came down, a sweep, a fire, a motion, and it lay panting out exhaustions of red plumage on the sand, a mile away.

“At it!” shrieked Poe. “The plan’s changed! Only one chance! Run! At it! At it! Drown them with our bodies! Kill them!”

And as if he had commanded a violent sea to change its course, to suck itself free from primeval beds, the whirls and savage gouts of fire spread and ran like wind and rain and stark lightning over the sea sands, down empty river deltas, shadowing and screaming, whistling and whining, sputtering and coalescing toward the rocket which, extinguished, lay like a clean metal torch in the farthest hollow. As if a great charred caldron of sparkling lava had been overturned, the boiling people and snapping animals churned down the dry fathoms.

“Kill them!” screamed Poe, running.

The rocket men leaped out of their ship, guns ready. They stalked about, sniffing the air like hounds.

They saw nothing. They relaxed.

The captain stepped forth last. He gave sharp commands. Wood was gathered, kindled, and a fire leapt up in an instant. The captain beckoned his men into a half circle about him.

“A new world,” he said, forcing himself to speak deliberately, though he glanced nervously, now and again, over his shoulder at the empty sea. “The old world left behind. A new start. What more symbolic than that we here dedicate ourselves all the more firmly to science and progress.” He nodded crisply to his lieutenant. “The books.”

Firelight limned the faded gilt titles:The Willows, The Outsider, Behold, The Dreamer, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Land of Oz, Pellucidar, The Land That Time Forgot A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the monstrous names of Machen and Edgar Allan Poe and Cabell and Dunsany and Blackwood and Lewis Carroll; the names, the old names, the evil names.

“A new world. With a gesture, we burn the last of the old.” The captain ripped pages from the books.

Leaf by seared leaf, he fed them into the fire.

A scream!

Leaping back, the men stared beyond the firelight at the edges of the encroaching and uninhabited sea.

Another scream! A high and wailing thing, like the death of a dragon and the thrashing of a bronzed whale left gasping when the waters of a leviathan’s sea drain down the shingles and evaporate.

It was the sound of air rushing in to fill a vacuum, where, a moment before, there had beensomething!

The captain neatly disposed of the last book by putting it into the fire.

The air stopped quivering. Silence!

The rocket men leaned and listened. “Captain, did you hear it?”

‎“No.”

“Like a wave, sir. On the sea bottom! I thought I saw something. Over there. A black wave. Big. Running at us.”

“You were mistaken.”

“There, sir!”

“What?”

“See it? There! The city! Way over! That green city near the lake! It’s splitting in half. It’s falling!”

The men squinted and shuffled forward.

Smith stood trembling among them. He put his hand to his head as if to find a thought there. “I remember. Yes, now I do. A long time back. When I was a child. A book I read. A story. Oz, I think it was. Yes, Oz.The Emerald City of Oz . . .”

“Oz? Never heard of it.”

“Yes, Oz, that’s what it was. I saw it just now, like in the story. I saw it fall.”

“Smith!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Report for psychoanalysis tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir!” A brisk salute.

“Be careful.”

The men tiptoed, guns alert, beyond the ship’s aseptic light to gaze at the long sea and the low hills.

“Why,” whispered Smith, disappointed, “there’s no one here at all, is there? No one here at all.”

The wind blew sand over his shoes, whining.

[mysteryshelf]

BLOG TOUR - Bones to Pick

  Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Partners in Crime Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Bones To Pick

by Linda Lovely

on Tour October 16 – December 16, 2017

Synopsis:

Living on a farm with four hundred goats and a cantankerous carnivore isn’t among vegan chef Brie Hooker’s list of lifetime ambitions. But she can’t walk away from her Aunt Eva, who needs help operating her dairy.

Once she calls her aunt’s goat farm home, grisly discoveries offer ample inducements for Brie to employ her entire vocabulary of cheese-and-meat curses. The troubles begin when the farm’s pot-bellied pig unearths the skull of Eva’s husband, who disappeared years back. The sheriff, kin to the deceased, sets out to pin the murder on Eva. He doesn’t reckon on Brie’s resolve to prove her aunt’s innocence. Death threats, ruinous pedicures, psychic shenanigans, and biker bar fisticuffs won’t stop Brie from unmasking the killer, even when romantic befuddlement throws her a curve.

Book Details:

Genre: Humorous Cozy Mystery Published by: Henery Press Publication Date: Oct. 24, 2017 Number of Pages: 266 ISBN: 9781635112597 Series: Brie Hooker Mystery, #1 Get Your Copy of Bones To Pick by Linda Lovely at: Amazon Barnes & Noble Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

ONE

Hello, I’m Brie, and I’m a vegan.

It sounds like I’m introducing myself at a Vegetarians Anonymous meeting. But, trust me, there aren’t enough vegetarians in Ardon County, South Carolina, to make a circle much less hold a meeting.

Give yourself ten points if you already know vegans are even pickier than vegetarians. We forgo meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. But we’re big on cashews, walnuts, and almonds. All nuts are good nuts. Appropriate with my family.

Family. That’s why I put my career as a vegan chef on hold to live and work in Ardon, a strong contender for the South’s carnivore-and- grease capital. My current job? I help tend four hundred goats, make verboten cheese, and gather eggs I’ll never poach. Most mornings when Aunt Eva rousts me before the roosters, I roll my eyes and mutter.

Still, I can’t complain. I had a choice. Sort of. Blame it on the pig—Tammy the Pig—for sticking her snout in our family business.

  I’d consorted with vegans and vegetarians for too long. I seriously underestimated how much cholesterol meat eaters could snarf down at a good old-fashioned wake. Actually, I wasn’t sure this wake was “old fashioned,” but it was exactly how Aunt Lilly would have planned her own send-off—if she’d had the chance. Ten days ago, the feisty sixty- two-year-old had a toddler’s curiosity and a twenty-year-old’s appetite for adventure. Her death was a total shock.

I glanced at Aunt Lilly’s epitaph hanging behind the picnic buffet. She’d penned it years back. Her twin, Aunt Eva, found it in Lilly’s desk and reprinted it in eighty-point type.

  “There once was a farmer named Lilly

Who never liked anything frilly,

She tended her goats,

Sowed a few wild oats,

And said grieving her death would be silly.”

  In a nod to Lilly’s spirit, Aunt Eva planned today’s wake complete with fiddling, hooch, goo-gogs of goat cheese, and the whole panoply of Southern fixins—mounds of country ham, fried chicken, barbecue, and mac-and-cheese awash in butter. Every veggie dish came dressed with bacon crumbles, drippings, or cream of mushroom soup.

Not a morsel fit for a vegan. Eva’s revenge. I’d made the mistake of saying I didn’t want to lose her, too, and hinted she’d live longer if she cut back on cholesterol. Not my smartest move. The name of her farm? Udderly Kidding Dairy. Cheese and eggs had been Eva’s meal ticket for decades.

My innocent observation launched a war. Whenever I opened the refrigerator, I’d find a new message. This morning a Post-it on my dish of blueberries advised: The choline in eggs may enhance brain development and memory—as a vegan you probably forgot.

Smoke from the barbeque pit permeated the air as I replenished another platter of shredded pork on the buffet. My mouth watered and I teetered on the verge of drooling. While I was a dedicated vegan, my olfactory senses were still programmed “Genus Carnivorous.” My stomach growled—loudly. Time to thwart its betrayal with the veggies and hummus dip I’d stashed in self-defense.

I’d just stuck a juicy carrot in my mouth when a large hand squeezed my shoulder.

“Brie, honey, you’ve been working nonstop,” Dad said. “Take a break. Mom’s on her way. We can play caterers. The food’s prepared. No risks associated with our cooking.”

I choked on my carrot and sputtered. “Good thing. Do you even remember the last time Mom turned on an oven?”

Dad smiled. “Can’t recall. Maybe when you were a baby? But, hey, we’re wizards at takeout and microwaves.”

His smile faltered. I caught him staring at Aunt Lilly’s epitaph. “Still can’t believe Lilly’s gone.” He attempted a smile. “Knowing her sense of humor, we’re lucky she didn’t open that epitaph with ‘There once was a lass from Nantucket.’”

I’d never seen Dad so sad. Lilly’s unexpected death stunned him to his core. He adored his older sisters.

Mom appeared at his side and wrapped an arm around his waist. She loved her sisters-in-law, too, though she complained my childless aunts spoiled me beyond repair.

Of course, Lilly’s passing hit Eva the hardest. A fresh boatload of tears threatened as I thought about the aunt left behind. I figured my tear reservoir had dried up after days of crying. Wrong. The tragedy—a texting teenager smashing head-on into Lilly’s car—provoked a week- long family weep-a-thon. It ended when Eva ordered us to cease and desist.

“This isn’t what Lilly would want,” she declared. “We’re gonna throw a wake. One big, honking party.”

Which explained the fifty-plus crowd of friends and neighbors milling about the farm, tapping their feet to fiddlin’, and consuming enough calories to sustain the populace of a small principality for a week.

I hugged Dad. “Thanks. I could use a break. I’ll find Eva. See how she’s doing.”

I spotted her near a flower garden filled with cheery jonquils. It looked like a spring painting. Unfortunately, the cold March wind that billowed Eva’s scarlet poncho argued the blooms were false advertising. The weatherman predicted the thermometer would struggle to reach the mid-forties today.

My aunt’s build was what I’d call sturdy, yet Eva seemed to sway in the gusty breeze as she chatted with Billy Jackson, the good ol’ boy farrier who shod her mule. Though my parents pretended otherwise, we all knew Billy slept under Eva’s crazy quilt at least two nights a week.

I nodded at the couple. Well, actually, the foursome. Brenda, the farm’s spoiled pet goat, and Kai, Udderly’s lead Border collie, were competing with Billy for my aunt’s attention.

“Mom and Dad are watching the buffet,” I said. “Thought I’d see if you need me to do anything. Are you expecting more folks?”

“No.” Eva reached down and tickled the tiny black goat’s shaggy head. “Imagine everyone who’s coming is here by now. They’ll start clearing out soon. Chow down and run. Can’t blame ’em. Especially the idiot women who thought they ought to wear dresses. That biting wind’s gotta be whistling up their drawers.”

Billy grinned as he looked Eva up and down. Her choice of wake attire—poncho, black pants, and work boots—surprised no one, and would have delighted Lilly.

“Do you even own a dress?” Billy laughed. “You’re one to talk.” Eva gave his baggy plaid suit and clip-on bowtie the stink eye. “I suppose you claim that gristle on your chin is needed to steady your fiddle.”

He kissed Eva’s cheek. “Yep, that’s it. Time to rejoin my fellow fiddlers, but first I have a hankering to take a turn at the Magic Moonshine tent.”

“You do that. Maybe the ’shine will improve your playing. It’ll definitely make you sound better to your listening audience. After enough of that corn liquor even my singing could win applause.”

A dark-haired stranger usurped Billy’s place, bending low to plant a kiss on the white curls that sprang from my aunt’s head like wood shavings. Wow.

They stacked handsome tall when they built him. Had to be at least six-four.

Even minus an introduction, I figured this tall glass of sweet tea had to be Paint, the legendary owner of Magic Moonshine. Sunlight glinted off hair the blue-black of expensive velvet. Deep dimples. Rakish smile.

I’d spent days sobbing, and my libido apparently was saying “enough”—time to rejoin the living. If this bad boy were any more alive, he’d be required to wear a “Danger High Voltage” sign. Of course, Aunt Lilly wouldn’t mind. She’d probably rent us a room.

I ventured a glance and found him smiling at me. My boots were suddenly fascinating. Never stare at shiny objects with the potential to hypnotize. I refused to fall under another playboy’s spell.

“How’s my best gal?” he asked, hugging Eva. “Best for this minute, right?” my aunt challenged. “I bet my niece will be your best gal before I finish the introductions.” Eva put a hand on my shoulder. “Paint, this young whippersnapper is Brie Hooker, my favorite niece. ’Course, she’s my only niece. Brie, it’s with great trepidation that I introduce you to David Paynter, better known as Paint, unrepentant moonshiner and heartbreaker.”

Eva subjected Paint to her pretend badass stare, a sure sign he was one of her favorite sparring partners. “Don’t you go messing with Brie, or I’ll bury you down yonder with Mark, once I nail his hide.”

Paint laughed, a deep, rumbling chuckle. He turned toward me and bowed like Rhett Butler reincarnated.

“Pleased to meet you, Brie. That puzzled look tells me you haven’t met Mark, the wily coyote that harasses Eva’s goats. She’s wasted at least six boxes of buckshot trying to scare him off. Me? I’ll gladly risk her shotgun to make your acquaintance. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Eva gave Paint a shove. “Well, if that’s the case, go on. Give Brie a shot of your peach moonshine. It’s pretty good.”

“Peach moonshine it is,” he said and took my arm. A second later, he tightened his grip and pulled me to the right. “Better watch your step. You almost messed up those pretty boots.”

He pointed at a fresh pile of fragrant poop, steaming in the brisk air inches from my suede boots. “Thanks,” I mumbled. Still holding my arm, he steered me over uneven ground to a clear path. “Eva says you’re staying with her. Hope you don’t have to leave for a while. Your aunt’s a fine lady, and it’s going to be mighty hard on her once this flock of well-wishers flies off.”

His baritone sent vibrations rippling through my body. My brain ordered me to ignore the tingling that remained in places it didn’t belong.

He smiled. “Eva and Lilly spoke about you so often I feel like we’re already friends. ’Course head-shaking accompanied some of their comments. They said you’d need to serve plenty of my moonshine if you ever opened a vegan B&B in Ardon County. Here abouts it’s considered unpatriotic to serve eats that haven’t been baptized in a vat of lard. Vegetables are optional; meat, mandatory.”

Uh, oh. I always gave relatives and friends a free pass on good- natured kidding. But a stranger? This man was poking fun at my profession, yet my hackles—smoothed by the hunk’s lopsided grin— managed only a faint bristle.

Back away. Pronto.

Discovering my ex-fiancé, Jack, was boffing not one, but two co-workers the entire two years we were engaged made me highly allergic to lady-killers. Paint was most definitely a member of that tribe.

“What can I say? I’m a rebel,” I replied. “It’s my life’s ambition to convince finger-lickin’, fried-chicken lovers that life without meat, butter, eggs, and cheese does not involve a descent into the nine circles of hell.”

Paint released me, then raised his hand to brush a wayward curl from my forehead. His flirting seemed to be congenital.

“If you’re as feisty as your aunt claims, why don’t you take me on as a challenge? I do eat tomatoes—fried green ones, anyway—and I’m open to sampling other members of the vegetable kingdom. So long as they don’t get between me and my meat. Anyway, welcome to the Carolina foothills. Time to pour some white lightning. It’s smoother than you might expect.”

And so are you. Too smooth for me.

That’s when we heard the screams.

TWO

Paint zoomed off like a Clemson running back, hurtling toward the screams—human, not goat. I managed to stay within a few yards of him, slipping and sliding as my suede boots unwittingly smooshed a doggie deposit. Udderly’s guardian dogs, five Great Pyrenees, were large enough to saddle, and their poop piles rivaled cow paddies.

I reached the barn, panting, with a stitch in my right side. I stopped to catch my breath. Hallelujah. I braced my palm against the weathered barn siding.

Ouch. Harpooned by a jagged splinter. Blood oozed from the sensitive pad below my right thumb. I stared at the inch-plus spear. Paint had kept running. He was no longer in sight.

The screams stopped. An accident? A heart attack? I hustled around the corner of the barn. A little girl sobbed in the cleared area behind Udderly’s retail sales cabin. I recognized Jenny, a rambunctious five-year-old from a nearby farm. Her mother knelt beside her, stroking her hair.

No child had produced the operatic screams we’d heard. Maybe Jenny’s mother was the screamer. But the farm wife didn’t seem the hysterical type. On prior visits to Udderly, I’d stopped at the roadside stand where she sold her family’s produce. Right now the woman’s face looked redder than one of her Early Girl tomatoes. Was the flush brought on by some danger—a goat butting her daughter, a snake slithering near the little girl?

I walked closer. Then I saw it. A skull poked through the red clay. Soil had tinted the bone an absurd pink.

I gasped. The sizeable cranium looked human. I spotted the grave digger, or should I say re-digger. Udderly’s newest addition, a Vietnamese potbellied pig named Tammy, hunkered in a nearby puddle. Tiny cloven hoof marks led to and from the excavation. Tell-tale red mud dappled her dainty twitching snout. The pig’s hundred-pound body quivered as her porcine gaze roved the audience she’d attracted.

A man squatted beside Tammy, speaking to the swine in soothing, almost musical tones. Pigs were dang smart and sensitive. Aunt Eva told me it was easy to hurt their feelings. The fellow stroking Tammy’s grimy head must’ve been convinced she was one sensitive swine.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “The lady wasn’t screaming at you, Tammy.”

Tammy snorted, lowered her head, and squeezed her eyes shut. The pig-whisperer gave the swine a final scratch and stood, freeing gangly limbs from his pretzel-like crouch. Mud caked the cuffs and knees of his khaki pants. Didn’t seem to bother him one iota.

The mother shepherded her little girl away from the disturbing scene, and Paint knelt to examine the skeletal remains. “Looks like piggy uncovered more than she bargained for.” He glanced at Muddy Cuffs. “Andy, you’re a vet. Animal or human?”

“Human.” Andy didn’t hesitate. “But all that’s left is bone. Had to have been buried a good while. Yet Tammy’s rooting scratched only inches below the surface. If a settler dug this grave, it was mighty shallow.”

“Probably didn’t start that way.” I pointed to a depression that began uphill near the retail cabin. “This wash has deepened a lot since my aunts built their store and the excavation diverted water away from the cabin. The runoff’s been nibbling away at the ground.”

Mom, Dad, and Aunt Eva joined the group eyeballing the skull. Eva looked peaked, almost ill. I felt a slight panic at the shift in her normally jolly appearance. I thought of my aunts as forces of nature. Unflappable. Indestructible. I’d lost one, and the other suddenly looked fragile. Finding a corpse on her property the same day she bid her twin goodbye had hit her hard.

Dad cocked his head. “Could be a Cherokee burial site. Or maybe a previous farmer buried a loved one and the grave marker got lost. Homestead burials have always been legal in South Carolina. Still are.”

For once, the idea of finding a corpse in an unexpected location didn’t prompt a gleeful chuckle from my dad, Dr. Howard Hooker. Though he was a professor of horticulture at Clemson University by day, he was an aspiring murder mystery author by night. Every time we went for a car ride, Dad made a game of searching the landscape for spots “just perfect” for disposing of bodies. So far, a dense patch of kudzu in a deep ravine topped his picks. “Kudzu grows so fast any flesh peeking through would disappear in a day.”

Good thing Dad confined his commentary to family outings. We knew the corpses in question weren’t real.

Mom whipped out her smartphone. “I’ll call Judge Glenn. It’s Sunday, but he always answers his cell. He’ll know who to call. I’m assuming the Ardon County Sheriff’s Department.”

Dad nodded. “Probably, but I bet SLED—the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division—will take over. The locals don’t have forensic specialists.”

Mom rolled her eyes. “You spend way too much time with your Sisters in Crime.”

It amused Mom that Dad’s enthusiasm for his literary genre earned him the presidency of the Upstate South Carolina Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Mom didn’t fool with fictional crime. Too busy with the real thing. As the City of Clemson’s attorney, she kept a bevy of lawyers, judges, and city and university cops on speed dial. However, Udderly Kidding wasn’t in the same county as Clemson so it sat outside her domain.

“Judge Glenn, this is Iris Hooker. I’m at the Udderly Kidding Dairy in Ardon. An animal here unearthed a skull. We think it’s human, but not recent. Should we call the sheriff?”

Mom nodded and made occasional I-get-it noises while she clamped the cell to her ear.

“Could you ask them to keep their arrival quiet? Better yet, could they wait until after four? About fifty folks are here for my sister-in- law’s wake. I don’t want to turn her farewell into a circus.”

A minute later, Mom murmured her thanks and pocketed her cell. “The judge agrees an old skull doesn’t warrant sirens or flashing lights. He’ll ask the Ardon County Sheriff, Robbie Jones, to come by after four. Since I’m an officer of the court, his honor just requested that I keep people and animals clear of the area until the sheriff arrives.”

Andy stood. “Paint, help me bring some hay bales from the barn. We can stack them to cordon off the area.”

“Good idea.” Paint stood, and the two men strode off. No needless chitchat. They appeared to be best buds.

I tugged Dad’s sleeve, nodded toward his sister, and whispered, “I think Aunt Eva should sit down. Let’s get her to one of the front porch rockers.”

Dad walked over and draped an arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Eva, let’s sit a while so folks can find you to pay their respects. This skeleton is old news. Not our worry.”

Eva’s lips trembled. “No, Brother. I feel it in my own bones. It’s that son-of-a-bitch Jed Watson come back to haunt me.”

THREE

Jed Watson? The man Eva married in college? The man who vanished a few years later?

Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “Eva, that’s nonsense. That dirtbag ran off forty years back. You’re letting your imagination run wild.”

Eva straightened. “Some crime novelist you are. You know darn well any skeleton unearthed on my property would have something to do with that nasty worm. Nobody wished that sorry excuse for a man dead more than me.”

“Calm down. Don’t spout off and give the sheriff some harebrained notion that pile of bones is Jed,” Dad said. “No profit in fueling gossip or dredging up ancient history. Authorities may have ruled Jed dead, but I always figured that no-good varmint was still alive five states over, most likely beating the stuffing out of some other poor woman.”

Wow. I knew Eva took her maiden name back after they declared her husband dead, but I’d never heard a speck of the unsavory backstory. Dad liked to tell family tales, including ones about long- dead scoundrels. Guess this history wasn’t ancient enough.

Curiosity made me eager to ask a whole passel of none-of-my- business questions, though I felt some justification about poking my nose here. I’d known Eva my entire life. So how come this was the first I’d heard of a mystery surrounding Jed’s disappearance? Was Dad truly worried the sheriff might suspect Eva?

I was dying to play twenty questions. Too bad it wasn’t the time or place.

I smiled at my aunt. “Why don’t I get some of Paint’s brew to settle our nerves? Eva, you like that apple pie flavor, right?”

“Yes, thanks, dear.”

“Good idea, Brie,” Dad added. “I’ll take a toot of Paint’s blackberry hooch. Eva’s not the only one who could use a belt. We’ll greet folks from those rockers. Better than standing like mannequins in a receiving line. And there’s a lot less risk of falling down if we get a little tipsy.”

Aunt Eva ignored Dad’s jest. She looked haunted, lost in memory. A very bad memory.

I hurried to the small tent where Magic Moonshine dispensed free libations. A buxom young lass smiled as she poured shine into miniature Mason jars lined up behind four flavor signs: Apple Pie, Blackberry, Peach, and White Lightnin’.

“What can I do you for, honey?” the busty server purred. I’m still an Iowa girl at heart, but, like my transplanted aunts and parents, I’ve learned not to take offense when strangers of both sexes and all ages call me honey, darlin’, and sweetie. My high school social studies teacher urged us to appreciate foreign customs and cultures. I may not be in Rome, but I’m definitely in Ardon County.

I smiled at Miss Sugarmouth. The top four buttons of her blouse were undone. The way her bosoms oozed over the top, I seriously doubted those buttons had ever met their respective buttonholes. No mystery why Paint hired her. Couldn’t blame him or her. Today’s male mourners would enjoy a dash of cleavage with their shine, and she’d rake in lots more tips.

“Sweetie, do you have a tray I can use to take drinks to the folks on the porch?”

The devil still made me add the “sweetie” when I addressed Miss Sugarmouth. She didn’t bat an eyelash. Probably too weighed down with mascara.

“Sure thing, honey.” I winced when the tray slid over the wood sliver firmly embedded in my palm. Suck it up. No time for minor surgery.

As I walked toward Eva’s cabin, crunching noises advertised some late arrivals ambling down the gravel road. On the porch, Dad and Eva had settled into a rhythm, shaking hands with friends and neighbors and accepting sympathy pats. Hard to hug someone in a rocker.

I handed miniature glass jars to Eva and Dad before offering drinks to the folks who’d already run the gauntlet of the sit-down receiving line. Then I tiptoed behind Dad’s rocker.

“I’ll see if Mom wants anything and check back later to see how you and Eva are doing.”

“Thanks, honey.” He kissed my cheek. I returned to Paint’s moonshine stand and picked up a second drink tray, gingerly hoisting it to avoid bumping my skewered palm. Balancing the drinks, I picked my way across the rutted ground to what I worried might be a crime scene.

Mom perched between Paint and Andy atop the double row of hay bales stacked to keep the grisly discovery out of sight. The five-foot-two height on Mom’s driver’s license was a stretch. At five-four, I had her by at least three, maybe four, inches. My mother’s build was tiny as well as short—a flat-chested size two. I couldn’t recall ever being able to squeeze into her doll-size clothes. My build came courtesy of the females on Dad’s side of the family. Compact but curvy. No possibility of going braless in polite society.

Mom’s delicate appearance often confounded the troublemakers she prosecuted for the city. Too often the accused took one look at Iris Hooker and figured they’d hire some hulking male lawyer to walk all over the little lady in court.

Big mistake. The bullies often reaped unexpected rewards—a costly mélange of jail time, fines, and community service.

Mom spotted my tray-wobbling approach. “Are these Paint’s concoctions?”

I nodded. “Well, Daughter, sip nice and slow. Someday I may file charges against Magic Moonshine. Paint’s shine is often an accomplice when Clemson tailgaters pull stunts that land them in front of a judge.”

Paint lifted his glass in a salute. “Can I help it if all our flavors go down easy?”

Mom turned back to me. “Have you met these, ahem, gentlemen?”

I suddenly felt shy as my gaze flicked between the two males. “I met Paint earlier. This is my first chance to say hi to Andy. I’m Brie Hooker. You must be the veterinarian Aunt Eva’s always talking about.”

Andy rose to his feet. “Andy Green. Pleased to meet you, ma’am. Your aunts were my very first customers when I opened my practice.”

He waved a hand at Tammy, the now demure pig, wallowing a goodly distance away. “I’m really sorry Tammy picked today to root up these bones. I feel partly to blame. Talked your aunts into adopting Miss Piggy. It aggravates me how folks can’t resist buying potbellied pigs as pets when they’re adorable babies, but have no qualms about abandoning them once they start to grow.”

Andy’s outstretched hand awaited my handshake. I held up my palm to display my injury. “Gotta take a rain check on a handshake. Unfortunately, I already shook hands with the barn.”

Andy gently turned up my palm. “I’ll fix you right up, if you don’t mind a vet doing surgery. Give me a minute to wash up and meet me at my truck. Can’t miss it. A double-cab GMC that kinda looks like aliens crash landed an aluminum spaceship in the truck bed. I’m parked by the milking barn.”

As Andy loped off toward the retail shop’s comfort station, Paint called after him. “Sneaky way to hold hands with a pretty lady.”

Andy glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first.”

Paint chuckled and focused his hundred-watt grin on me. “Bet my white lightning could disinfect that sliver. Sure you don’t want me to do the honors?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Somehow I doubt honor has anything to do with it.”

The moonshiner faked an injured look. Mom rolled her eyes. “Heaven help me—and you, Brie. Not sure you’re safe with the wildlife that frequents this farm. Forget those coyotes that worry Eva, I’m talking wolves.” She looked toward the porch. “How’s Eva holding up?”

“Better.” I wanted to grill Mom about Jed Watson, but I needed to do so in private. “Guess I should steel myself for surgery.” I took a Mason jar from the tray I’d set on a hay bale. “Down the hatch.” My healthy swallow blazed a burning trail from throat to belly. Before I could stop myself, I sputtered.

“Shut your mouth,” Paint said. Yowzer. My eyes watered, and my throat spasmed. I coughed. “What?”

“Shut your mouth. Oxygen fuels the burn. You need to take a swallow then close your mouth. None of this sipping stuff.”

“Now you tell me.” I choked. Mom laughed. “That’s the best strategy I’ve heard yet to shut Brie up.”

I wiped at the tears running down my cheeks. “Your moonshine packs more punch than my five-alarm Thai stir fry.”

Paint’s eyebrows rose. “My shine is smooth, once you get used to it. You want a little fire in your gut. Keeps life interesting.”

A little too interesting. I’d been at Udderly Kidding Dairy just over a week, and I already felt like a spinning top with a dangerous wobble.

***

Excerpt from Bones To Pick by Linda Lovely. Copyright © 2017 by Linda Lovely. Reproduced with permission from Linda Lovely. All rights reserved.

Author Bio:

Over the past five years, hundreds of mystery/thriller writers have met Linda Lovely at check-in for the annual Writers’ Police Academy, which she helps organize. Lovely finds writing pure fiction isn’t a huge stretch given the years she’s spent penning PR and ad copy. She writes a blend of mystery and humor, chuckling as she plots to “disappear” the types of characters who most annoy her. Quite satisfying plus there’s no need to pester relatives for bail. Her newest series offers good-natured salutes to both her vegan family doctor and her cheese-addicted kin. She served as president of her local Sisters in Crime chapter for five years and belongs to International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America.

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