#Like a Memory in Motion|Anibeth | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

brooklynislandgirl · 1 year

Text

Advent Calendar: Day 1

@mynameisanakin

“Wintah Solstice or Yule is da Longest Night, da peak of power of darkness ovah da ‘aina. It also da turnin’ point, aftah which da nights grow shortah, days get longer as light is reborn into da world. Amongst da Verbena, it is seen as a child, newly born in da underworld from da womb of da Goddess. It is a time of spirit descendin’ into da form an’ solidarity of matter, represented by da stillness of da cold an’ frozen eart’. It is also a time for craftin’ an’ repairin’ or workin’ indoors to make an’ fix da tools needed for da coming year.” Beth glances over her shoulder as she arrays a garland of holly and ivy along the mantle of the fireplace in the great room, allowing the ripe red berries to catch light from the windows, to make sure that Anakin is following along and not bored to death by her lecture. She’s careful not to impose her beliefs on him, despite having a firm hold of her own paradigm. He’s still constructing his own, waiting for the right mentor to find him. Some part of her suspects that search is not so strenuous, that he is content to remain within her umbrage. She’s prideful in her belief that her tradition gives her an older legacy, and she will swear that it is the ways of the Wyck that spread like fire among the Sleepers aeons ago, changing only a little with each culture that adopted that faith as their own. Of course, she also says that most Traditions will have the same story to tell, and most of them would be wrong. Except she’d do it with a wink and a smile, with very little more than playful sibling-rivalry in her tone. In the wan light streaming through the sheer curtains, his profile is still razor-sharp but not deathly worrisome, he’s filled out slightly since his arrival on her doorstep. In the three years he’s been under her roof he’s regained his colour, he’s grown a little more confident in himself, and no longer has that rattling cough that worried her into insomnia for months. He still hasn’t overcome all of his pains, illnesses, or neuroses, but she’s no longer afraid to leave him unattended nor does she think she will wake up one morning to find a bare home and clinic with nothing but her regrets for company. “Da Art of Matter, for Verbena involves infusing cold an’ unlivin’ substance wi’ Spirit and Life. Da ability t’ take an’ shape da raw stuff of da world into tools an’ da kine of beauty has always been seen as a magickal art, an’ we hold to da views of smi’ds, weavers, carpenters, an’ oddah crafters as practicin’ a sort of magick of dey own. By understandin’ how Prime has passed t’rough Spirit to become Matter, a witch can see da essence or Pattern of matter an’ alter it to suit his will.” This is all theoretical to her, she has never been able to learn that particular Art, though with specially prepared items, she can still bid spirits to bind with them to create talismans and fetishes, and he’s already known quite intimately how well she wields the sphere of Life. But she still owes him an explanation of all the Spheres, and how they were attempted to be taught to her. She hates having to acknowledge that his home is nothing like her own, save for the blessed heat and humidity, but they make a good go of it. “Foci of Matter magick are da tools of craftahs an’ makers, from simple kitchen utensils like knives, spoons, an’ bubblin’ cauldrons to da hammah, chisel an’ da anvil. Fire is a focus for da Matter Sphere, transformin’ da heat of da hearth,” she pronounces that word with extreme care, forcing herself the digraph correctly for him, “da oven, an’ da forge. We are known for firin’ or forgin’ matter into new forms as one might fire newly moulded clay t’ set its shape, or beat red-hot metal into some new life. Personally, I find it small kine silly…clearly Fire belong to Forces, but ya eventually gonna see dere’s a lot of overlap between da Spheres. What I’d like ya f’ do, aftah ya help me set up da candles t’roughout da house an’ we go grab lunch…Was t’inkin’ we go t’ T’irteen an’ grab some mushroom phillys an’ a impossibly huge order of dose tater tot nachos….is to come up wi’ somet’ing you’d like to make or some talisman you’d love f’ have… an’ we can practice t’ see if you got a talent f’ Matter. Personally, I’mma hand make us some 'ahu'ula ahead of carnival season.”

3 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 2 years

Note

Balsam and Cedar- Is there something you do or once did that you never would have considered in the past? {Francois' co-parent}

Candles Burn a Hole in the Floor || Accepting

The first drips are fast and heavy and red. Slightly coagulated as they get forced down the drain. She stands at the sink and scrubs. Scrubs until there is nothing but a pink tinge, then pauses and scrubs some more. The soap foam becomes clear just like the water but she doesn’t stop. Not until Anakin’s hand braves the scalding heat and insinuates itself between her thumb and the spot on the back of her other hand that should have been rubbed raw by now. It's only her extraordinary innate grace that prevents such a thing. The lowest kind of magick.

His voice is low at her ear. Spoken slowly that she might catch every word of his question, with the intention of causing a disconnect between her hotly running circuits. The personal cost to him is infinite degrees beyond anything she can calculate and mathematics is her strong suit. She's all but quivering there in his hold, a subtle shake of adrenaline spiking through her system. The emotional equivalent of casino carpets, the colour of which is interpreted a hundred different ways and never once accurately confirmed one way or the other beyond it being an off-putting eyesore.

Her spine is stiff, and her neck protests when she straightens it to adopt her full and wholly unimpressive height, especially when he’s got a full foot and still more on her. Tall as Andy, about half his bulk, which makes Anakin somehow seem even larger in his looming. He always tries to seem smaller. To be unobtrusive. To apologise for taking up space. To not draw attention until he wants to and at that point he glows. Were it not for his penchant toward a darker, less robust draw toward the Great Wheel, his shockingly wild disregard for most forms of human life ~particularly the ones who move in the circles he’d like her to forget~ she thinks that the Cult of Ecstasy might have found a stalwart champion for their paradigm in him.

She closes her eyes a moment and lets the question flow up, over, and around her. Rolls her neck along the backs of her shoulders and listens to the popping and creaking that follows with a wince.

Normally she has no problem talking to Anakin at length on whatever thought has caught his fancy. Regardless of how personal the information, regardless of where it might lead. She doesn’t believe in withholding knowledge honestly sought and there are few things she would discourage him from. This is perhaps one of them. She also knows that were she to insist on it, she could send him away. Up to bed to finally get some well-deserved rest, feeding the Tree is always gruelling even when the sacrifice made is a willing one. But more likely he would take it as a reason to shoulder even more guilt, presume that he’d angered or annoyed her with too many questions too much of the time. He’d rake himself over his own coals and Beth worries that maybe if he did so because of some imaginary slight done to her, that he would backslide into his more dangerous addictions of self-harm or mind altering substances. He wouldn’t have to go far, she’s sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he was sorely tempted, he could easily break into her meds cabinet and abscond with them before she was any the wiser. And maybe if she didn’t love Anakin as she does, if she hadn’t grown to depend on him with all his quirks and peculiarities, she might not care so much. The most likely scenario though is that he would slink off to the attic and continue to lay claim to it as he’s been doing for months now. She isn’t sure what it is he does up there, she’s only dropped by once since he’d chosen it as his space, and that had been by invitation. Anakin needs to feel that the house has a place for him, and he needs his own space to work with either ritually or as some kind of human nest that he cannot be rousted from. Somewhere he feels safe when even the shelter of her arms, or the kindness of her smile can not offer it to him.

Neither of the two options ~sending him off or answering the question~ are easy ones. And it all comes down to just which one she wants to do the least. He’s only trying to help. And he’s also picking at a scar yet to be completely healed as long as it's been since she’d earned it. Reluctantly though Beth pulls away from him, letting his gaze fall onto her back as she moves towards the refrigerator and its gleaming chrome surface. She pops the freezer door open and scans the shelves before reaching in. Anakin is used to watching Beth drink. Wine to pacify the ache in her heart, to wind down the endless spinning thoughts she usually tackles in the evening when everything is quiet and she can’t find sleep. He’s seen her have it at affairs she’d rather chew her own arm off to get away from, where his presence and the rich blood-red are the only two things that seem to offer her any solace. There’s the fruity drink from her first time seeing him in public that had fascinated him so, but those she doesn’t make at home. This is different. This is a fifth of Titos, so cold that the glass bottle immediately frosts over when it comes into contact with open air. Her fingers spin with slow grace as she unscrews the top and puts the bottle to her lips, eyes closed and face open with pain. For such a small woman, she can take a very large gulp. She breathes out. She closes her eyes and sucks her lower lip, full and lush as any of her roses in bloom, and pins it there with those sharp teeth. There is a sound that accompanies it that can be heard even from where he is standing, and it is both heartbreak and a wistfulness that has no equal in all the time he’s known her. She takes another drink as full as the first, blind by choice. Then she holds it out toward him in silent invitation as she dives inwardly.

She sees herself throughout the stages of her life thus far, three decades that have never been so radiant as she might have hoped they would have been. So much smaller than she is now, cowering in a corner of her closet, arms gripped around the hideously patched turtle that lays in her bed in its dotage, beloved more than any of the thousand things he could point to in the house with price tags larger than a year’s salary. The shouting and the screaming between adults drowning out every other sound that has always been too much and too loud in a way she could never shut off. Years on, watching as all the other children splintered off together in pairs and groups and finding herself on the outside of it all, so much younger than them. Not understanding the whispers and laughs when they hold hands and she wants to make bracelets from the clover, crowns from the dandelions. She’s every right to be here intellectually but her mode of speech and her inability to get on make her an outcast. She wants friends, too. Older still and yet aeons younger than she feels in the moment, drawn to a particular place and a particular figure that shares some passing resemblances to Anakin; lofty height. Piercing blue eyes, pale gold hair. Hands that are unspeakable in their beauty. A spark of life so bright it is blinding. And for all that, he is the enemy. The metal and circuitry beneath his skin proclaims that twice as loudly as the rhetoric that spills from the perfect shape of his mouth. Which becomes the moment Andy sits them both down, and the three of them discuss… bloodlines. Laid out things that were neither what they wanted to hear but had somehow already expected. Billy’s fingers and her own searching each other out beneath the table. Three pieces of a single soul and belief makes them have to choose whether to remain so close or take their roles on either side of a war that began a thousand years before. Standing there helplessly watching Andy and Billy shouting, all threatening gestures. A bit like watching King Kong have a go at Godzilla and you are trapped between them, only human, incapable of making one side listen to the other. Another swig from the bottle, and another following that. The assault of poison in her system and she does nothing to filter it out of her blood. Beth cannot drown. She will grow gills and she’s a strong swimmer but she can wallow and that is what she is doing now. Seeking some kind of senseless absolution. She is as brittle as frost and doesn’t bother to hide it. Maybe she won’t even try until morning after she’s made herself sick in penance for what she couldn’t ever fix.

Even still, it cannot compare to the loss. Not of body or even of mind, but an open wound of the soul. Billy had told him there was going to be an attack. Had urged him to let the others be a sacrifice, to save himself by not going. Andy stared him in the eye as he strapped on his armour ~physical and metaphor all at once~ and said he couldn’t do that. His tradition and his honour dictated he save as many as he could. Frustration. Anger. Eldest against youngest. The actual order that she stay home, as far away from the gathering as possible and she acquiesced. As she’s always done. If she’d gone? She could have prevented it. She could, she knows. Maybe not all of it but certainly Andy would have lived. After all, it’s her purpose and her calling, to weave the thread of life, give it full measure just as Anakin’s is to sever the corrupt and the stagnant. Instead, Beth did as she was told. And now…. Now there’s nothing. And it still feels like it only happened minutes ago. Her eyes well with unshed tears and the pain etches delicate features into an ugly mask of grief and inconsolable senselessness. Her free hand that doesn’t have a death grip on the bottle rises to press itself to her chest. She exhales a skittering breath in a maladaptive hope of restraining her emotions, something she’s never been good at. A humourless laugh, so faint it might have been a sigh comes next before she cuts her gaze back at him, shadowed by her lashes, her lips pulled tight showing her teeth, the primal markings that say not all of her is human. Anakin gets his answer in a whisper. “I’ve finally learned….to say no.”

2 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 2 years

Text

@mynameisanakin {Before}

She thought about explaining it in detail. About how in the 1930s people on O’ahu started selling colourful shirts ~originally Japanese or Chinese, depending on which story one believed~ to kama’aina, the ubiquitous ‘locals’ she’s mentioned in passing but more profoundly latched onto by tourists who weren’t actually a little afraid to be so loud and colourful as non-native Hawai’ians. She could give him even more history about the style eventually creeping its way east to California and sort of growing on the mainland like moss, brought back from Asia and the Pacific Islands by service-people after World War Two. Or how a garment guild talked the state House of Representatives and Senate into allowing islanders to wear their best lūʻau shirts to work during the summer months and then how it became acceptable to wear them during any time of the year. Even lawyers in court before judges wouldn’t get stink-eye for it. But the problem with certain histories like that is that they tend to become somehow dry or boring and no one really wants to hear it, no matter how enamoured they are of the speaker or how little they see banality in the culture and fashion of others. Which to his credit, Anakin is always an eager participant in their random discussions.

She can also see how he’s eyeing the particularly beautiful if she says so herself collection of tropical drinks sitting on low, teak table with its glass top, begging to be finished before the ice melts from factors that have nothing to do with global warming as she could mention and everything to do with it being a hundred degrees outside with twice that in humidity. Aside from Anakin, the thing she likes best about New Orleans is she’s never cold any more. At least not until the dead of winter and she finds herself being flayed to the bone by the gusty breath that comes sheering off lake or river side. She settles for the briefest explanation she can. “Y’know how haole... uhm... mainlanders go ‘round sayin’ “t’ank god it Friday?” Yeah, original Hawai’ian version is “It's Aloha Friday! No Work 'til Monday” an’ I was t’inkin’ ya migh wanna start da weekend off right. I got no more patients on da register today, an’ clinic doors locked up tight.”

It isn’t that her words fall onto deaf ears. It is that they’ve fallen into the pleasure addicted portion of his brain which is already distracted to capacity by the colour, the scent, the entire presentation of a host of beautiful things, the least of which is Beth herself. She doesn’t mind it so much, not when she’s absolutely mid-internal swoon over just how the young man can manage to make seating himself look like a pageant affair or some semi-forgotten dream still languid and seductive even on the cusp of waking. For a few scattered moments Beth isn’t even aware that she’s watching Anakin the way he’s watching those cocktails. A look that’s still there when he finally makes rare eye-contact with her and she blushes, nodding, and that gives her the opportunity to look away as sweet as the drink, as shy as a whisper. “Yeah. Learned early on how t’ be da perfect hostess f’ a military man.” Whether she means the Admiral or her brother, or some long lost romantic partner that has never been named before is up for debate and she makes no clarifications about it. Her tone is considerably brighter when she regards the drink. “An’ dat’s a mai-tai. Which itself come from Tahitian, a phrase dat goes... Mai Tai-Roa Aé. One you like so much got a orange juice an’ pineapple juice in it an’ dat’s called a Royal Hawai’ian mai tai. Darker one next to itis closer to da original Trader Vic recipe dan what ya get in Royal Hawai’ian when ya aks f’ one. Rum, lime juice, orange curacao, orgeat syrup, an’ a touch of rock candy sugah. I’d sip it real slow of I were you.”

She pours herself down beside him and leans in a little too closely to breathe in the warmth of the attic still on his skin and in his hair. Which puts her on a visual collision course with the way Anakin smiles. Her belly feels like there’s a flight of free range butterflies inside of it fluttering away. They escape as soon as the cherry disappears and she adopts a razor focus on the wiggled stem. Some rush to her head and phantasmal wings fan fires in her cheeks. Some slink their way into lower places below her stomach and pulse with each quickened beat of her heart. All things she wishes wouldn’t happen, nor does she really understand why they do with a simple gesture and an indulgent amusement alive and glowing in his features, and especially why. But Anakin is a clever thief and robs her words with exquisite skill. Her lips part and she draws a breath but nothing quite comes out. Not even a half strangled little squeak and it takes every ounce of her willpower to finally clear her throat and turn away to reach for a pair of the drinks that started this entire downward spiral into acute awareness of just how attractive Anakin can be and that maybe this was the exact wrong kind of game to play with him. She presses his glass into his good hand and then searches for an excuse to look anywhere else she can think of. “Uhm. Rules. You gotta finish whole drink if you take a sip. You don’t get t’ leave da room til all of dem are gone. Sometimes dey use t’ do a variation where you’d...” Alarm klaxons go off in her head. Screaming sound she can hear nothing over the ringing in her own ears and she quickly takes a sip, denying him the rest of her train of thought.

#mynameisanakin #Like A Sad Hallucination|Anakin Skywalker #Like A Memory In Motion|Anibeth #hell or high water/strange days verse #Crescent City Blues|New Orleans

2 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Note

Are there any physical items that make your muse happy? {Beth}

Soft, Silent, Sweet || Accepting

The question comes softly as they sit in their cardboard kingdom which is actually only the living room; each flat surface whether it's the couch deep enough for them both to while away a few drowsy hours when their bodies collapse into one another or the floor itself with its thick cushioning rugs strategically laid out for a kill-or-be-killed The Floor Is Lava game, is occupied with carefully labelled cartons. Winter wear. Summer wear. Pots and Pans. Miscellaneous. The only spot clear enough is where each of them sit, shifting through piles of what could be described as junk, as bric-a-brac, as incidentals amassed by the kind of hoarding that only the terribly rich and extravagant can truly accumulate physical items. Even beneath them are old coats of nightmarish proportions. Imperial era furs from far flung Europe. Trophies made out of animals who suffered to be skinned and worn by fancy people. The very idea of it repulses Beth so deeply that she can feel her own skin crawl at the mere thought. The other safe space is the wicker basket stuffed with pillows that Bug disdains, right next to the hearth, until it's time for the maid to dust or vacuum then it becomes something of the most contested territory outside of the Middle East. She is unaware of making a face or otherwise breaking the companionable silence between them as they sort items. Maybe she's stricken by the bright pall hanging over the outside, easily seen through windows. Fall in New Orleans is different than what she is now used to. Just as the cold, the bonfire of colours, the chilly drizzle was when she first came to the mainland. It sits about her shoulders like an unsettled sweater. Heavy. Uncomfortable. A little itchy around the edges but Beth's always been allergic to wool, real and imaginary. Maybe it's simply passing pieces of history out of her hands. Treasures of her ancestors that brought them joy or some other great emotion ~yes, even the hideous murder coats~ and were considered so important, so valuable both monetarily and in sentiment that they could not be passed along. That they had to be kept in the family so that they might never be lost. And here she is in the midst of it doing just that. Getting rid of them. Mostly dispassionately. Systemically. Just like she was a cast off to everyone but her brothers, and now Anakin himself. That doesn't sit well in her belly either and she shrugs off the feeling of it. Rouses herself from the mire of intrusive little thoughts. She glances up and over at Anakin, offering him one of those soft and short lived smiles of hers. The kind that tells him she has only half heard what he's asked and is sorting it out in her mind so it doesn't get answered with something absurd. She always feels like he deserves so much better than what she can really offer to the world most of the time. She picks up her phone and pauses the music that is playing on shuffle; his choices, hers. Some they picked out separately and others together. A perfect if eclectic blend of both of them. She then hikes herself up to her feet and places her hands at the small of her back, stretching this way and that and for a split second it sounds like every cell of her body is letting lose a bombardment of microscopic fireworks for all she creaks and pops doing so. She puts him off one more half second to take a sip of tea she'd made that morning. "Nevah been one dem materialistic kind, ya know? I suppose dat was one of da Admiral's complaints. Couldn't buy me off wi' promises of ponies or dolls or pretty t'ings from his exotic ports of call. S'nevah been my way an' nevah been da way of my people. Not dat he had to, mind ya, I was always...obedient sort." What she means to say is that she was always the portrait of a submissive young woman. Even when she was grown she was perfectly content to follow Andy's lead, to do what she was told so long as the requests and demands fell within her paradigm. The amount of nevers she throws out is indicative of the seriousness with which she's taking his question. It also doesn't come up

often, her world view. How she fits the things she sees with the things she knows and therefore pulls on the threads of the Tapestry to achieve her will. Her magick is a quieter sort. Some could tell Anakin it's fear of paradox and an unwillingness to push the very boundaries of reality. Others could tell him that maybe his Master lacks the actual degree and control to effect changes in even the bloodiest of Verbena ways. Those might be approaching the truth and still fall far short of it. And she rarely believes there's a need to explain and to dazzle. And while she believes in the maxim 'as above, so below', it is perhaps better for her to say 'as within, so without'.

"So my honu...ah...turtle," she says quietly, eyes straying toward the ceiling as though she could see through it and into the floor above their heads and the one above that. To her bed which is made tight enough to bounce quarters off as she'd been taught to do in early childhood to pass inspection. "I know its old an' not very beautiful now. Wi' it button eyes an' worn bits and odd patches of different materials but mebbe dat's why I love it. Now dat I'm t..." A tiny hint of vanity, she catches herself before saying her age aloud. "...I'm old, it has live wi' me for decades. Andy gave it to me back in lil kid time. T' keep me company when I was in da hospital cause of my leg." She doesn't talk about that either, though she has told him the faintest limp comes from the shortened tendon and atrophied muscle, the nerve damage that only healed to a certain point beyond medical practices. She told him it could have been worse. That keeping it only cost her the dreams of dancing as a prima ballerina for the Bolshoi some day. Nevermind that she would never have been tall or Russian enough, nor was ballet her passion for longer than a few months, and mostly because she had really admired her mother's copy of Baryshnikov's Nutcracker Prince. She also doesn't feel the need to explain any further to Anakin. She would bet her life on the fact that he'd lost back in that terrible night his own version of her honu. He would understand without having to understand that there are some things in life that irreplaceable, that are so tied to one's memory of a person or a place that have passed beyond the ability to reach again that the loss of the item would be a scar on the soul. And with Andy cold and buried in stone....she sniffs loudly and looks away, that same sad smile still fixed in place. "Uhm, my Makapu'u Lighthouse nightlight." That was another gift from Andy. Her brothers always knew better. Andy was the first to stumble on the idea that the dark had petrified her and he'd bought the sandstone creation, artfully sculpted and painted by the hand of a local artist on a class field trip. He'd promised her it would always be a trickle of light no matter how dark things seemed, and that every time it burned through the night that it would be an extension of him, protecting her with every ounce of his being. Beth always thought she was a romantic at heart but her older brother was the chivalric ideal of that. Anakin knows that lighthouse like he knows her turtle. They form a trinity, the turtle and the light and herself. And no matter what storm or power glitch hits New Orleans, it never burns out and it never loses its glow even when the transformers blow or lines go down. And no matter what, all three are always there for Anakin, in the dark. "Uhm. My oddah braddah." There's a look that crosses her face. One that startles not because of what it conveys but what it doesn't. The three words ought to have cracked her face like a porcelain mask. Laid her wide open and vulnerable for the vultures of memory to pick apart. But it's a soft pain, one wrapped up preciously so as not to chip or get covered in dust. As if she fears of speaking it too loudly and thus etch fingerprints on it that will be indelible. Her throat rises and falls as she tries valiantly to swallow it all down. It might have worked and it might not have. She turns away from Anakin before he can really pass judgement on her, not that she can imagine he ever would. Picks something up. Maybe handkerchiefs, maybe an old shirt. Something to do with her hands as she folds it carefully. Tightly. Puts it in an open box. "Real complicated story, but needless t' say we only got a few chances t' be t'geddah as small keiki. It wasn't til aftah we move to da mainland dat we all found each oddah all ovah again. An' ya know wha? Aftah all dat time? Still wearin' dis lil bracelet he made for us. One day on da beach he found t'ree perfect lil cowrie shell. And he had some yarn. Made one for each of us. Wears his. Wear mine. Andy...kept his in his pocket, a good luck

charm." She waves her wrist and the little bracelets there jingle together but sure enough there's a shell bound to blue yarn, more prominent than the others that are all thread-thin silver. The shell seems to press into her pulse as if drawn to it, smooth and brown and speckled, glossy with its own seeming life. What he doesn't really know, Anakin that is, is it's not far from the truth. It isn't merely lovely, merely sentimental in value. She has prayed over it under moonlight atop Mount Kaʻala, Oʻahu's highest point and sought the blessing of air and fire. She has washed it in her Mother's waves and sought the blessing of water and salt. Her resonance sings from the little talisman, which stores a small measure of tass within its pattern. A little 'primal energy in-case of emergency insurance' as Billy would say. And that, in and of itself, is a lesson she's not sure she's covered entirely to her or Anakin's satisfaction. She has explained that quintessence is the raw material of reality. That it is the same thing as Chi, Sekhem, Gnosis. That the Fae hold it as glamour and that the blood of vampires is theorised to be fused with it, thus explaining its supernatural properties. It flows through the pattern of everything in existence, essentially keeping them in existence. But then things get a strangely murky, drowning in a quagmire of abnormality. She knows at some point she lost him trying to explain how it shouldn't be hypothetically possible for quintessence to become trapped as it can not also be divided, measured or contained. And still it happens. Whether like her shell, or as particularly vivid mushrooms found in a forest glade or turning up as previously lost socks in a laundromat. She's let the matter drop for more practical and useful lessons, but that doesn't mean she can alleviate the feeling of guilt for doing so. Not when Anakin himself is such an avid and curious learner, one who wants to know as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. Of course, she realises now that she's trailed off in her own mind and that he is doing his level best not to dart between the shell and the need to touch it, feel the cool smoothness and gloss of it, and paying attention to the stories she tells. So she shakes her head as she often does. Self-chastisement in gentle fashion. "My bone athame I suppose counts, too, but less because I'm tied to it..." Not entirely true, since it was her bone to begin with and her blood used in its creation. All the pain and rage and emotional-spiritual anguish that made it special, a unique focus for her magick. "...but because it's a tool an' it's a tether. I don' t'ink I can say it make me...happy. In fact, I don' associate happiness wi' any real material possessions. For me, it's all about people, feelings. Love an' kindness. Helpin' where I can t' make da kine beddah. An' where I no can...jus' wanna make sure I don' make it worse...ya know? Then she frowns. Tilts her head toward him and then she offers him a shy grin. "I lie. Dis..." She lifts her hand to her throat, where his Christmas gift lays against her skin, warm from her body. "Dis make me happy because if was t'oughtful an' it was sweet an' wholly unexpected. An' da possum card ya give me first Christmas. Dat make me happy too because you put yaself into it. Like you put yaself into alla kine ya care for. An' so it reminds me dat you t'ink I was special enough t' go out ya way. An' because it's beautiful. Alla dat bein' said, I do wanna aks...what makes you wanna know? Like were ya sit dere an' t'ink t' yaself 'ho, get too much junks insai our hale?' An' is really okay if ya did, cause I t'ink we do. But also...see somet'ing ya wan or need...take it."

3 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 2 years

Note

💖 for a stabby girl with plants.

A Less Spicy Shipping Meme

How likely they are to enter a relationship with them:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Would they…

Make the first move? Yes | No Say “I love you” first? Yes | No Cheat on them? Yes | No Be the jealous type? Yes | No Plan the dates? Yes | No Initiate the first kiss? Yes | No Remember anniversaries? Yes | No If by First Move would Beth explain that she has feelings for Anakin, then yes. Desires that have no solid shape and morph from one to another, yes. Demand in her soft way that he dance with her in the rain and point out someone who is, according to the definitions of his Tradition, stuck on the Wheel of their Karmic destiny and need his help to move on to their next life? Absolutely. But she might actually be one of the least forward people to ever draw breath. Beth absolutely positively does not use the L word. Being demisexual takes a lot of build up to even acknowledge having feelings and she thinks that cheating is maybe one of the stupidest activities on the planet. She might be inclined to spend more time with her World Tree or fighting against the Technocratic Union, or feed rougarou off her own flesh so as to spare any future victims, but mostly Anakin will always know where he he can find his Verbena. And it isn't with someone else.

Beth is also not the jealous type. She is far more inclined to envy the things she wants, or to wish for him to see her the way he sees others, but it doesn't translate well across as jealousy. Dates can be a nebulous thing when you are mentoring someone. There are things that must be shown through outside eyes. There are liminal spaces between mundane and magick that are romantic alone with experience and connotation, and when two people are so closely bonded, anything can be a date. But in this arena, Anakin excels. The city is his home, he knows hidden histories and secrets she's never gleaned, and he has an almost preternatural sense of exactly what she needs, and when. Except that she might like him to kiss her. Beth is a bundle of neurosis when it comes to Anakin. He's nearly a decade younger than her. He's been taken advantage of by nearly everyone he's know except his mother. She is supposed to be teaching him the ways of their kind. And yet. There's something about his warmth. The bright intelligence in his eyes. The way he says that one particular F word like it's a promise or a dare. They speak the same language even if the accents compliment if not aligned to one another seamlessly. But for as often as she leaves hints laying around, he doesn't seem to notice. And that's okay.

BOLD WHAT APPLIES: Their Relationship Is:

friends to lovers | rivals to lovers | enemies to lovers | still just enemies | mutual pining | star crossed lovers | old married couple | perpetual honeymoon phase | stable and boring | stable but not boring | secret lovers | best friends hiding their feelings | and they were roommates | friends with benefits | coworkers avoiding HR | one-sided affection | weird sexual tension | it’s complicated | toxic relationship | a secret affair | an actual dumpster fire | master and apprentice | cabal mates Belle Santé is Beth's three story house in the lower Garden District that also serves as a community clinic, where fees are based on ability to pay {or not pay, as the case may be}. All of her works within the dwelling, the grounds, and in its umbral reflection have been dedicated to the health and restoration of those who need it. It was no surprise then that Anakin was drawn to it by his Destiny. She considers it as much his place as it is hers, and she appreciates the fact that Anakin is keen on helping her in the clinic, in the garden. She can see him healing bit by bit, growing. The unfortunate downside is that there are feelings that ought not be spoken. Boundaries that ought not be crossed. They become blurrier every day.

Anyone spying the pair of them on the street could assume that they are, in fact, a long-standing couple. Anakin and Beth don't seem to really care what the public thinks. They are enshrouded in their own little bubble most of the time anyway. Of course those foolish or brave enough to make a pass at her will find a: that she's oblivious to them, and b: just how menacing Anakin can become with a particularly foreboding glance, or standing to his full height.

PRIVATE Displays of Affection:

hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips | cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection Behind closed doors the only thing that changes is perhaps the nature of conversations. They tend to become a lot more intimate regardless of the subject matter, and Beth has told Anakin that nothing is off table to be talked about. Most of their evenings end up with drinks on either the atrocious sofa in the sitting room, or on the furniture on the lanai. A tangle of limbs and often throw blankets, and sometimes even Bug. At some point, she's accepted both of them to the point that there's nothing odd with him coming to bed in what he still insists on calling her room. The bed is big enough that one could put three more Anakin's in it and still have room to spare. They've never talked about why that is when Beth herself is so small. The attic belongs to him now, and he still has his own room.

Do they stay together?

yes, this is endgame | yes but someone is gonna die tragically {but this time, it’s not one of them} | something is keeping them apart | they part ways as friends | they part ways as enemies | they’re on-again-off-again | they have a super messy breakup | it was just a fling | other

BONUS:

What terrible pet names would they give each other? Oddly enough, neither really calls the other by terrible pet names. She's very careful to pronounce Anakin with all three syllables, though sometimes she might call him keiki, as in kid. Anakin enunciates the th in Beth. And he doesn't ever call her Elizabeth.

2 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Note

“Your sweater is so big!” There’s a good reason for that, since he’s pretty sure that’s his sweater, and the little grin on his face says as much. Says that this is endearing and amusing, that it’s a safe assumption he thinks it looks better on her, too.

Fall Into You || Accepting The air is damp and cold and the wind is sheering off the bay. From their balcony Beth can see the canvas snap and dance along the tall masts of the Plymouth II. The sight of the tall ship does something to her, awakens a yearning she hadn’t even realised lay dormant deep inside. It reminds her of something half-forgotten, or barely remembered though she could not say if it is this life or another before it. One in which she navigated by starlight and her mother’s roaring lullabies rocked the hull. It haunts her in a lingering sense that doesn’t allow for a mental finger to be placed on it nor a reason why she doesn’t feel that same presence back in New Orleans even though there’s as much water there as here. She half wonders if sometimes it feels like that for him, the contrast of certain places and the nagging sense of recognition or yearning that has no credible source. She doesn't invite Anakin to come up to her and watch the sun rising. Nor as much as she wanted to did she book a trip on that tall ship, replicated to the specs of the original ship that brought colonists to American shores. She would love to feel the wind in her face and to feel the deck roll and pitch beneath her feet but she will not torture him like that. There would be no benefit to either of them to confront him with his fear of deep water. At least not so publicly. It's bad enough that Beth has dragged him up to Boston for so long, an entire week of conferences and symposiums that she is absolutely certain mean nothing to him and would likely kill him with the banality of boredom if he had to sit through lectures covering microvascular surgery skills, practice performance assessments and improvements, and the like. Next year, the conference she's got scheduled will treat him to the beauty of the Kohala Coast on the Big Island. He will like that better, the heat and the sun, the fact that it is one of the places that get the fewest rain showers in all of the islands. But right now is stolen time. One without structure or expected attendance and while she would much rather have remained in bed where he had been putting out more warmth than a small thermonuclear reactor, where they were entangled within one another's limbs, dreaming whatever dreams might come when one is safeguarding the other. She has noticed that when he lays next to her, he doesn't fuss or twitch as much as when he's all on his own. Something she doesn't discuss because in admitting that she watches him sleep sometimes, she is kind of a creeper and doesn't want to put that anxiety on him and ruin one of his few healthy refuges. And in that loss of his warmth and his comfort she happened to throw on the first soft thing she could lay her hands on. She has never really gotten a sense of just how differently built they are without it. Oh, she's aware that she often has to crane her neck upward to look him in the eye. She knows that in his kindness and his occasional worry that he often makes himself smaller than should be possible or at least tries to make it so that she doesn't have to strain herself to meet his eyes or his smile, but it doesn't really strike her that he is as tall as Andy was until she pulls on his sweater. It hangs off her shoulders though not as much as it should, a testament to his natural slenderness. The hem carries down toward her knees and if she wanted to, she could throw on some knee high boots and wear it out to grab breakfast. She doesn't, partly because she left almost all her boots at home, and because that's not the kind of girl she is. If anything at the sound of his voice and the specific words he uses, she can feel a flush of colour rising up the back of her neck. Beth turns away from the large sliding glass door to the balcony and sets her coffee cup down on the small table in the living area of the suit. Anakin is in the door way to the bedroom, his hair and tee-shirt a little rumpled from sleep. His pyjama pants hang a little low on his hips and Beth glances over the slash of flesh she can see before immediately seeking out his face. Warmth floods through other parts of her. "Hey, goo' mornin'." As always her voice is soft. Inviting. She crosses the space between them and when she finds herself standing in front of him, she rises on tip toes to brush a kiss to his cheek. "I didn' order room service yet because I no wan wake you up so early. Firs' lecture today is not until dis afternoon. Only two hours an' den I'm free again. I t'ought mebbe we could take breakfas' togeddah, and do some shoppin' if your interested. Aftah, a walk t'rough one of da parks an' mebbe dinner on da pier." Perhaps deliberately she squeezes past him and into the room beyond. "I'm sorry for stealin' it. You mus' be freezin'."She takes hold of the hem with both hands, arms crossing briefly to do so and then strips it off slowly until she's only in her own night shirt, and a rush of goose-flesh sets up camp over the entirety of her exposed skin. She holds it out for him to take and while there's nothing particularly visual or verbal about it, there's a sense that she plans on diving under the covers until the room warms to some degree.

#mynameisanakin #Like A Sad Hallucination|Anakin Skywalker #Like a Memory in Motion|Anibeth #The Trunk You Kept Your Life In|Mage the Ascension #Magnolias in Moonlight|New Orleans

2 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 2 years

Note

Jingle Bell Rock – Our muses attend a Christmas party {For a Beth on the Bayou, Francois' attendance is optional.}

Silver Lanes Aglow || Accepting

Just how far their subconscious desire to be utterly enveloped by the other goes is a mystery to precisely no one but Anakin and Beth themselves. The moment he pops into the clinic, scarf still around his throat, the nurse and receptionist both see that it’s the same colour as Beth’s blue blouse and black skirt. That she somehow manages to leave her white lab coat in the office when she comes to thank him, and to take hold of the life-saving liquid he bears in hand, her beautiful Ganymede. Not that either one of them would say this anywhere Beth could hear them, the job pays too well and is too flexible to risk being fired, but there is a running bet on just how long it will take for the good doctor to pounce her live-in physician’s assistant. Speculation is rife and has been when his cat moved in with him that things weren’t exactly platonic, but the counter to that is the long lingering stares from her and his shy habit of looking away if he happens to to think he’s spent too long in one place; usually her mouth or somewhere in the vicinity of her eyes. They watch her strain, even in three inch heels as she rises on tiptoes to press her cheek to his. He’s as tall as he is pretty. He leaves far too soon, and they have to leave dreamy speculation behind in order to their actual jobs and not pretend this is anything like Grey’s Anatomy-Nola Style. He pops back around for lunch and this time Beth excuses herself and Anakin, escorting him almost primly around the counter. They debate whether they want to grab glasses and press them to the walls when the door shuts behind the pair, then locks.

Beth offers him his choice of seating with a little wave of her hand, and when he chooses one to sprawl into, she picks the nearest corner of her desk. His knees are wide, his shoulders are almost level with the chair back. Currently his hands are in his pockets but she can see the little frown starting to form between his brows. Silk on silk, the ticking clock, and her softest sigh all provide a soundtrack to him as she clasps her hands near her lap. “So I know we had plans,” she begins and threatens to mar the matte lipstick she’s wearing as she catches the lower left of her lip between her teeth. She hadn’t really thought this through, how to both ask Anakin to make a sudden and necessary change of plans- something which she knows he doesn’t particularly care for- or worse, how to explain that she won’t be here to celebrate Christmas morning with him. The latter which would be the kindest thing she could do is untenable. The idea alone tastes too much like abandonment especially when she knows he’s been going out of his way to bright and cheery those times he turns up after hours of solitude which means he has something up his sleeve. She isn’t about to spoil that for him. The former however is full of pitfalls, drowning in poison, spikes, the scattered bones of the unwary who came before him, and a significant chance that Anakin could suffer the tribulations of the Mad Monk himself. At the very least he would bear witness to the abject disdain that Beth had fled from, and knowing him as she does, she understands that it could be a potentially fatal mistake for someone else. Carefully, she watches his face. Some say that he often wears a blank look. That Anakin has checked out into some vacuous haze, wholly uninterested in the world around him. She knows this to be false. He is one of the most intimately connected people she’s ever met, and she includes herself in this. Anakin is constantly knocked about by the thoughts, the feelings, the fears and joys of others as if there’s no skin between the world and his nerves. Each and every line around his mouth or his eyes, whether either of them is closed or open, the tempo of his fluttering fingers, it’s all part of the larger codex of his nonverbal communication.

And those plans? It was Anakin getting to experience New Orleans through Beth’s eyes as they hit up the Luna fete on Lafayette. It was watching the efforts of the Krewe of Jingle parade, it was the tree lighting at the Roosevelt with drinks afterward in the Sazerac bar. There was caroling in Jackson Square and then there was perhaps Anakin’s bravest face of all. Escorting her to St James Parish for their lighting of the bonfires on Christmas Eve. He’d told her about them being set ablaze along the River Road levees so as to guide Papa Noel on his journey. Her favourites the previous year had been the blue crab and that enormous ‘gator. She’d also have been lying if she said she wasn’t for once happy to be so short so she could ride the miniature carnival rides with the other children while Anakin tried to smile and look happy. Maybe he won’t miss this part of things. She lifts a hand and swipes at the corner of her mouth with her thumb, taking a breath in a way to sort out what she was thinking. It helps to momentarily break line of sight as his beautifully bright eyes seem to dim when she gets only those few words out.

“But wit’ dis mornin’s post, I received a summons from on high. Da Admiral requires my attendance for his annual Christmas Eve party, an’ went on t’ say in a very personal handwritten message dat was so very heartfelt dat if I choose not t’ attend, he’ll send a car to fetch me anyway, an’ is really mo’ beddah for everyone involve dat I do as he aks an’ for once not cause trouble, Elizabeth.”

The more she talks the more she blends her native bird with proper English, emphasising her own name that sounds so utterly unnatural coming out of her mouth that it might have been someone else’s voice. And while she tries to hide it, there’s a tension shot through each word, that maybe Anakin can see the strings inside of her pulled so very tightly that she might literally snap in half at any moment. “Now, normally, a command appearance li’dis presages an announcement from our family. His bid for re-election, a change of position on any number of charity boards an’ philant’ropic endeavours in da clan’s name. Da engagement party he had no choice but t’ host for Auntie Aisling when she marry Auntie Siobhan, da kine li’dat.” Beth’s knee brushes between Anakin’s when she slides off the edge of her desk and begins to pace. Her hands fold together, painted nails disappearing between each slender digit. “So wha’ dis say to me is dat I now goddah offah you a choice, which I know ya not gonna like, but I don’t really got one. A choice, dat is. Earliest I could come back is maybe late Christmas morning, mebbe day aftah if he make me stay t’rough da holiday itself. If dat’s da case, he might go so far as t’ keep me til New Year’s.” The truth is that the Admiral could do so many horrid things to her that he could keep her locked away as long as he pleased and there was so very little she could do about it. However, if she played her role, escape might be more imminent and she might still get to come home, where she wanted to be.

“Oddah option, we accept his invitation. You fly up t’ New York wi’ me for a couple days, stay at my apartment dere, or you can pick out a hotel. Evah been f’ da Waldorf Astoria? Or da Ritz? Dere are oddahs, some of dem supah romantic...”

She turns on her heels. “We can bring Bug wi’ us, if you wanna come along. But only if you wanna. I am not aksin’ because I wan make ya miserable an’ I really don’ wan ya t’ get all mixed up in da circus of crazy dat’s part of my life. But I also don’ wanna...” Her shoulders rise and fall.

“Wha’ I’m aksin is if ya wan go to a Christmas party, wi’ me.”

1 note · View note

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Text

@mynameisanakin {{inspired by discord conversation, and... xx}} The only thing that could possibly make it any worse is if the mites had gotten past the thin barrier of entropy that she’d covered Anakin in. The same barrier that she’s woven into her hair, face, pretty much everything north of her own equator. It never occurred to her that they would manage to get into her stockings. And proceed to feast on her blood like the little fiends they were. And it wasn’t that Anakin, his dear face doing that thing he does when he wants to warn her but can’t bear to do so because she’s suddenly alive and enthralled with something and it keeps the shadows away from her heart. Luc would call it jhor. The taint carried by every Euthanatos that walks to some degree or other, the miasma of too much darkness from which their entropy is spawned. She doesn’t know if they’ve talked yet though she did send an email to her former cabal mate. He seemed to be the perfect choice, and maybe a touch of his lingering resonance is what actually drew Anakin to her door. Luc hailed from the swamps too, had strong old Accadian blood in his veins, and she wouldn’t be surprised if somehow his grandmother had known Anakin’s family. But she hasn’t been able to bring herself to ask...and she doesn’t share what little she knows about his Tradition with Anakin lest she give him the wrong information.

She has noticed though that he doesn’t seem to be any worse for the wear of living under her eaves, and that if she can catch him at just the right moment the boy who carries so much grief and scars on him sometimes twitches a smile at her that can light up the Quarter all on its own. And maybe Beth is a little glad that Luc hasn’t come to steal him away from her yet, she’s grown too fond and too protective of him. Which only makes where his hand disappears part of the swallowed-by-Gaia-if-She’s-merciful sensation rattling around inside of her. There have been a few passers by now and at least one of them were feeling like they were going to get a live show. And maybe that’s because she’s wended her arms around his neck and has tried to bury her face into Anakin’s collar bones. That was a mistake too, because she can still smell the moss on him. The silty layer of the water. The deodorant he put on, whatever he uses to make his hair do that thing. She can all but taste the salt on his skin and has to fight the urge to lick at it.

The man moves along very quickly and with some amount of shame from the way Anakin looks up at him, and then looks at him. She resists the urge to squirm as she is seated firmly in his lap ~nothing new at this point but this feels so very public, and of course, it’s City Park~ or to enjoy the heat of his wounded hand as it first holds her steady then curls fingers according to some inner mental formula he’s got going on. Not to make the sound stuck in her throat as he soothes the irritation on her thighs through touch alone, no hydrocortisone {which is tucked away next to the shark-printed bandages, the water bottles, the extra film, and everything else stuffed into the backpack at his side}, and certainly no applications of Life magick. That much she can tell just like she swears she can feel every individual whorl and ridge of his fingerprints for how slowly, carefully and tenderly his left hand....well, is exploring. But they have their footage. Little fuzzy and sleepy bads. He hasn’t made fun of her mispronunciation and she doesn’t know that she’s made it. They have samples of the moss ~sans mites, mercifully. She has new information. She also knows the irritation will be gone before they even reach the house once they finish up their plans. There were two other places that were imperative for her to see. Anakin is, after all, showing her Nola in the fall. A season he likes about as much as deep water, as much as hurricanes. Her lips move against his skin, muffling the sarcasm and maybe helping to diminish some of the thick huskiness that wreathes her words, threatening to set fire to the entire green-space. Only hints of her teeth, the ideas of them, seem to brush against his jugular. Trying to be playful, trying to swallow down everything that lingers too close to the surface. “So tell me doc...t’ink I’m gonna live?”

#mynameisanakin #Like A Sad Hallucination|Anakin Skywalker #Like a Memory in Motion|Anibeth #Crescent City Blues|Nola #The Trunk You Kept Your Life In|Mage the Ascension #{{pure crack that's my only explanation}}

2 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Note

📝 for the answering of applicable questions, please!

~Quietly, in the Lower Garden District~

~Colour~

The man behind the counter is ready to reach over and strangle her. She can see it in his expression, so put upon by each time she shakes her head and asks if she can have another sample made. She almost wishes he would try, he'd lose more than the hour that she's been at this. That might be uncharitable of her but the man reminds her of the kind of person who, when not wearing his little vest, is exactly the kind of person who sees Beth and Anakin walking down the street together and curls a lip, makes passing commentary to other middle-age white guys. Too poor, too weird, too questionably ethnic to suit them. The kind of person who would walk faster when it got dark, or would lock up before they could make it to a door. There's more of those than either one of them care to acknowledge, and the irony is almost delicious. Except that sometimes Anakin cannot help but to be very aware of that kind of prejudice and it really takes another chunk out of his self-confidence.

"Allow me to explain again," she says softly, in crisp and enunciated haole. "I said I want a very specific shade of blue. A hint of royal with a tinge of cadet number five. Then mix at the edges a touch of Prussian and just enough Turkish Steel to give that depth soft edges. Then overly sky atop it all. Or better yet, please find me a customer service specialist who can, in fact, understand what I am looking for because clearly? You're not it." That might be her fault, she does want to paint the living room the exact shade of Anakin's eyes.

~Song~

She doesn't play as well as Andy could, and she would never be a singer though she enjoyed it maybe because it was more about intent than execution, one of the few things that held true in absolute. And sometimes neither one really mattered when he folded himself up like an envelope just so he could rest his head against her chest and instead of plucking strings, she only ran fingers through his hair. He closes his eyes and she focuses hers across the back yard. Beyond the pool and past the grass. Colours blur and fade and there's a ripple of dissonance within the Tapestry to make a boundary between what is solid and inflexible and what is hidden in a space outside of the Tellurian. Words they don't use in every day conversation. She isn't quite singing now instead humming a tune that would reveal more than maybe they're ready to dive into. Other words they don't use, either. Her palm comes to rest on his brow as tender as she knows how. The other reaches around him to tuck one of the knitted blankets around him. He doesn't seem to mind the combination of warmth between herself and the acrylic, is maybe the only other person who could be cold in anything else less than 80 degrees and 90% humidity. It takes an infinite amount of patience, skill, and mana to redirect the rain to a different part of the city. He'll forgive her weariness even if he doesn't understand why she will go to bed early, sleep in late. And that's okay. He doesn't need to know. It's better if he doesn't, it would spoil the gift. 'Cause I'm gonna make this place your home.

~Scent~ The balcony door is open letting muggy air move sluggishly in through the French doors. Beneath her the bed is a little too stiff for comfort. Her laptop almost too warm as it rests on her thighs and only serves to remind her that she should probably get out of the charcoal grey suit she's wearing. She closes the screen and pulls her glasses off, raising them so they rest in her hair. Takes a sip of the wine she'd bought at...some store she won't remember the name of... but that came recommended by the bellhop.

She didn't have the forethought before leaving for Baton Rouge to steal borrow something to bring along. For reasons that she didn't want to explain because there's no very polite way to explain she's grown used to having him sleep beside her. That there's something soothing that comes wafting up from his skin the closer he gets, arm wrapped around her, leg half thrown over. At the end of a day there's his natural chemistry that mixes with clean laundry and cigarette smoke, something sweet and spicy from his preferred night cap. Sometimes there's blood. Sometimes the distinct smell of wood or metal from something he's working on for himself, the kind of tinkering that seems to bring him peace like nothing else can. There isn't an exact name for it but she can recognise it at a thousand paces. It makes her want to burrow furtively into his chest cavity and find some way to live inside of that newly hollowed out space. Maybe just thinking about it was all she needed. Maybe it's some new kind of magick trick. Regardless, she'd managed to doze off just long enough to be startled when the door of her hotel room clicks shut and he's there. Pulled out of her day dreams and turned into flesh. With exactly the kind of apologetic grin she's become as familiar with as she is the smell of him. "Guess, I jus' couldn't sleep." And she knows there's more going on behind the sheepish look, and the way he stands at a polite distance away, maybe waiting for permission. She doesn't say a word. Only turns down the previously pristine other side of the bed before slipping from hers. The white silk blouse hits the floor seconds before she disappears into the bathroom.

~Meme~ She eyes Anakin. Looks at her phone. Back and forth for five solid minutes before she just starts giggling. Which turns into a laugh.

~Sound~ It's those little sub-vocalisations that get her. Every near guttural groan, every single one of those breathless whimpers that cling to the edges of her senses soft as cobwebs or hard as thunder. There are so many layers between them, so much context to be drawn from even a half of a sigh. They are a siren song even if she doesn't know what rocks he wants her to dash herself on.

~Setting~

She cringes. "I don' wanna tell ya." He's helping her work on a psychological profiling assessment that's required of her continuing education class, which is all part of her professional development. But she's worried because it's going to sound incredibly racist, coming as it is not from a white-passing woman of colour but one of incredible privilege who absolutely knows what it's going to sound like. But she cannot resist the look of self-accusation and anxiety that creeps into his micro-expressions and doing anything else would feel incredibly dishonest. Something she doesn't want to foster in him. "Somewhere 'round sunset. Da bayou waddah look like it on fire. Dere's some soft Zydeco music goin' on in da backdrop. Air's hot an' heavy like steam 'tween lovers an' if ya real quiet, can hear da bayou jus' come alive wi' oddah souls. Dere's pirogues bobbin' along, an' you can smell some ono grindz cookin' somewhere. Spanish moss all hangin' down from cypress an' willow trees. A mixture of old spirituals an' dat beautiful, melodic pidgin dat get spoke down dere...I know is nevah really li'dat.... also make me t'ink of witch blood an' Mokole dat pass as gators... all dem ghosts an' da kine ya nevah can put ya finger on but dat give ya chicken skin jus' t'inkin' 'bout..." ~Fashion Style~

Clothes litter her floor. Flung without a care to their resting places. Some on the edge of her bed or the arm of a chair. Suits and jeans and tee-shirts. Undergarments and socks. Like some small hurricane exploded out of the closet, just with less water. There's sarongs too. Luau shirts that just aren't him. Shoes too. Finally, she steps back and examines her handiwork. A frame work of satin boxers that will caress the most delicate parts of him without bunching or pinching. An accent of which are picked up in the suit lapels and bow tie. White shirt, black buttons. Silver cuff-links. Socks that are thin as a Friday night prayer, and absolutely voluptuous Paolo Scafora oxfords in a blue so dark they look black at first glance, polished to a mirror gloss. Dior and Stefano Ricci. Famous labels from famous houses of style.

If the gala wasn't required...Anakin wouldn't be seeing the light of day and there'd be very different reasons the clothes would be laying scattered about.

But she kind of also misses that scruffy plain, slightly tattered tee-shirt and skinny jeans even she would have a hard time getting up past her own hips, and questionably aged converse. Aesthetically speakin, Anakin is ever clothing designer's wet dream and she has never wanted to be a circular scarf more in her life. "Wow. Jus'....wow." ~Feeling~

"Belonging."

It's all she says before she kisses him. Softly and sweetly, a little wet from a stray tear that slips down between their lips. Admitting this is admitting that maybe, just maybe, she loves him, too. Which puts a countdown on everything. Which means that he's going to find the wherewithal to leave her and to take with him every that makes her feel even the littlest bit real. She doesn't know if she'll survive the loss, so it's best that she make the most of it before he goes. ~Animal~ "If you were one dem changing breeds? You'd be a were-fossa. Dey are dese medium sized ....well. Dey kinda look like cats, but also...dey don't. Related to da civet but also like...mongooses. Mongeese? Wha'evah. Dey from Madagascar. Da Malagasy got kapu of a kind an' actually are sorta afraid of dem, an' wi' good reason...dey carnivorous ay-eff." She glances over. "Don' laugh! Dey beautiful an' rare an' I really like dem a lot. An' I'm not gonna tell ya any more about dem. Gonna make a new animal, an' call it a' Anakin." There is every possibility that she will do this. Some day.

~Holiday~ Christmas. It will always be Christmas. Not the lights and snow and carollers, though there's plenty of that to go around. Not the chill and dank air, not the interminably long night, not even because of gifts. It's not a childhood of Santa surfing or canoeing, and it isn't sandcastles and malasadas left by the lanai doors from Hawai'i, either. Maybe it's a touch of the peace and goodwill often associated with the season, and how he came to find her when he needed her the most. But if she had to give just one reason, it's that he brought her back a sense of wonder that she'd thought was lost when her world had shattered. He took something terrible and turned it into something beautiful. That isn't an ordinary, every day kind of magick and she doesn't know how she will ever be able to express her love and gratitude for him.

"Wha'ya t'ink about mebbe da Bahamas dis year? Get out of da city for a lil while, I promise I won' make ya go for da beach."

~Season~

When Beth thinks of seasons, she thinks of it being a mainland phenomenon. Her own islands only really have two: Kau from May to October, where everything is beautiful and averages about 85 degrees give or take, and Ho'oilo from November to April when the best tides bring in the biggest waves. It's only cooler by about ten degrees. Which is maybe why she always feels so cold so far away from home. And why she likes it here so much. She knows other places have as many as six seasons, broken up into more agricultural and solar tied patterns of weather and climate and sometimes even just spiritual nature. But taking all of Anakin into account, she would have to say... "Monsoon. It's da time of life-giving rains. But also it can be dangerous for the same reason. Cool but lingers along your skin. An' it's somet'ing I keep wi' me always, waitin' for it."

6 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Note

💖 either, both, neither lol all good!

Dream a Little Dream || Accepting

Pools of Sorrow-Waves of Joy|Anikeni

HOW LIKELY THEY ARE TO ENTER A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

If she wants to be poetic, Melakeni would say that they share a soul within the force and were staggered in their embodiment so she could get a head-start in learning the things she would need to know; kindness, mercy, compassion, understanding, and patience. She would say that every step of her life has brought her closer to Anakin and there was never a time that they were not one with each other. Keni would say a lot of things, if only she could do so without fearing for Anakin, for them being separated, from a host of fears that she does her best to suppress. It is sufficient and understood whenever she tells him she loves him, or even merely sends the weight of her love to comfort him through the Force.

~*~

WOULD THEY…

MAKE THE FIRST MOVE? Yes | No Neither of them is actually certain who made the first fumbling and innocent moves toward the other, save that it likely had something to do with the games they played, the things they read and explored with one another, and just the blossoming of two young people who have been together more or less for more than a decade.

SAY “I LOVE YOU” FIRST? Yes | No

It was defensive. Reactionary. He'd been surprised when she agreed to something likely foolish and absolutely dangerous, and when he asked why, her response was simple. "...Because I love you." Or perhaps it was softer, quieter still when she flung herself into his arms that first time she thought she'd lost him to one of his master's missions and he held her close. "I will always come back. I love you." Maybe both are the truth. CHEAT ON THEM? Yes | No BE THE JEALOUS TYPE? Yes | No PLAN THE DATES? Yes | No INITIATE THE FIRST KISS? Yes | No REMEMBER ANNIVERSARIES? Yes | No ~*~ BOLD WHAT APPLIES: THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS: friends to lovers | rivals to lovers | enemies to lovers | still just enemies | mutual pining | star crossed lovers | old married couple | perpetual honeymoon phase | stable and boring | stable but not boring | secret lovers | best friends hiding their feelings | and they were roommates | friends with benefits | coworkers avoiding HR | one-sided affection | weird sexual tension | it’s complicated | toxic relationship | a secret affair | an actual dumpster fire | other PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION: hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips | cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection {with the exception of rooftop trysts, hiding behind pillars, hiding below the Temple...} PRIVATE DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION: hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips | cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection | Biting | Licking | Murder-Suicide Plots | Boot Appreciating | Actual Sleep | Food Sharing | Cybernetic Limb Teasing | Other

WHAT TERRIBLE PET NAMES WOULD THEY GIVE EACH OTHER?

To Anakin she is Tiny Phantom Salad. To Melakeni he is Za'lali, and the heart that beats outside of her chest.

~*~

Hell or High Water Orphans|Anibeth

HOW LIKELY THEY ARE TO ENTER A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Anakin took Beth by surprise. She'd been content to live alone, licking wounds, and trying to recover her health and sanity when he turned up on her doorstep one winter night three-quarters dead, suffering from total body-sepsis, starvation, and a whole host of physical, psychological, and addiction issues. She could never turn him away, not when she was confident she could at least keep him alive long enough to figure out where he needed to go. And then she realised he was an Orphan with a tremendous destiny on him, and on the verge of Awakening. Even in the best of circumstances Beth knew that he would be easy prey to the wrong kind of person. So she decided to keep him and help him figure out where he best belonged. Little did she realise how that was going to turn out.

~*~

WOULD THEY…

MAKE THE FIRST MOVE? Yes | No SAY “I LOVE YOU” FIRST? Yes | No CHEAT ON THEM? Yes | No BE THE JEALOUS TYPE? Yes | No PLAN THE DATES? Yes | No INITIATE THE FIRST KISS? Yes | No REMEMBER ANNIVERSARIES? Yes | No Beth and Anakin are very self conscious and very self aware people. Making the first move so to speak is really seeing how close they can come to the other before needing to find a reason not to, as their situation is complicated by the fact that Beth is older than Anakin, and is his current Mentor. And while she has 99 reasons to try and push forward, there's 100 reasons not to. And I think Anakin understands why Beth can't say those words, even if they radiate off her like heat on summer asphalt. Also... Beth plans dates to things that will expand Anakin's horizons; orchestral music, civic debates, charitable events, people and animal shelter volunteering, and Anakin plans things that will allow Beth to see the Nola that he knows, and together they come away with a deeper appreciation for one another's passions. ~*~ BOLD WHAT APPLIES: THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS: friends to lovers | rivals to lovers | enemies to lovers | still just enemies | mutual pining | star crossed lovers | old married couple | perpetual honeymoon phase | stable and boring | stable but not boring | secret lovers | best friends hiding their feelings | and they were roommates | friends with benefits | coworkers avoiding HR | one-sided affection | weird sexual tension | it’s complicated | toxic relationship | a secret affair | an actual dumpster fire | other

Anakin: ??? Beth: There's just a kind of way that she can drawl out "Anakin" that can give the boy heart-palpitations. And when she writes about him, she would use: koʻu ʻuhan.

#Mahalo!Shady <333 #Your Nova Heart|Anikeni #Like a Memory in Motion|Anibeth #Hell or High Water/Strange Days verse #Across the Universe|SW AU

3 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Text

{you know the meme}

The ficus stares him in the face with a thousand years of dread judgment.

It knows.

“I said I wasn’t gonna,” he mutters in its general direction.

Had been a thought, but once it was assured that this was, in fact, a real plant…well, it’s just immensely thoughtless to go pissing on plants. Probably worse if they’re potted, even if he can’t say why that would be, it’s not like unpotted {is that even a term…} ones are capable of getting up and moving either. No, it’s just a bad thing all together, pissing on plants.

But it’s also a bad thing to have to explain to Beth when she gets out of the shower that the police are at the hotel because there may or may not have been an incident involving indecent exposure and-his train of thought temporarily stalls on the tracks at wondering what sort of exposure was decent. Legally. If there’s indecent, that implies there is the opposite, decent.

“Prob'ly strippers.”

He’s muttered this to the plant again, with a noncommittal shrug, as though the plant may have a better idea it can suggest. If it does, it does not share it with him. But then, he wouldn’t share it either if he knew the plant had been intending to pee on him, so it’s acceptable.

He also might be slightly more drunk than usual. Not that things like conversing with plants and wondering about decent vs indecent exposures is irregular for him. Particularly not when alone, and that he is. Save for the plant.

Technically, Beth is here too, but the suite really is rather large, and she’s in the bathroom. That makes it feel like being in a house when someone else is in another room. He’s functionally alone.

Well, no…no, there is another very active presence, and though it indeed be haunting, it isn’t that sort of Presence. It’s the immense mistake of not realizing he had to pee before Beth left, then making it worse by trying not to fixate on this mistake after she had. He is rather horrible at doing the opposite of fixating on literally anything while trying not to do exactly that, it’s a bit of a promise that he is going to fail spectacularly…and he is.

Additionally, he is intoxicated enough to officially be on Drunk Time, and Drunk Time is like no other expanse of time. It might have been five minutes or two hours or yesterday that she left. He is only certain that this span of time has included having a cigarette, contemplating the plant, contemplating hitting unfortunate human targets below the balcony, talking to the plant, and continuing to drink. Just a little bit. It was obviously necessary, to…pass the time.

It hasn’t helped to pass the time, only to make the issue more present, and with the plant giving no new ideas, there truly is only one.

So, he’s at the bathroom door, and wondering why the fuck it is that he isn’t alright with simply going on a stealth mission here. Really, it’s extremely possible, in his mind and only his mind, that he’d get away with it. And…he…just can’t. At least this sort of ridiculous behavior, and the combined honesty and respect for her that tends to drive it, means that he isn’t at all lying when he comes tentatively creeping through the steam. Eyes closed, mouth open and going.

“Sorry, Beth, swear I ain’t lookin’ an not even like, listenin’ close. Just really, serious'ly gonna die if I don’t piss ‘mediately, an not inna plant, talked to the plant, it agrees that’s not cool.”

~*~

Squeaky Clean || -

Presenting a paper to the medical community, and in particular members of the CDC, on infectious diseases suffered by indigent people especially in areas where hurricanes decimate resources, fresh water, and shelter… is a rewarding and somewhat terrifying prospect. Beth knows very well how to speak properly in social circles the likes of which she might compare to a feeding frenzy of various shark slews, and academically she has a reputation for being a thoughtful and respected voice for the less fortunate. It is one of the things she takes pride in, actually making a difference where the Admiral only pretends to. He practices a very different kind of medicine, and belongs to a world that Beth has never been comfortable in, doesn’t want to be a part of, and refuses at every opportunity. The old man would be utterly appalled that not only had she taken in a 'young wastrel’ which is the politest thing he would say about Anakin, but gave him a job, a stable roof, was determined to see him be better off than his current situation would allow. Or that she’d drag him along on this trip, booking a single suite for them both. But truth be told, there’s more to it than appearances would suggest.

She doesn’t even know if Anakin himself really understands. Beth hates flying. She had never done very well with heights, something she’d learned as a kid when she tried practising cliff-diving. The air plane ride to the mainland when she was sixteen had been a nightmare and she’d been sick the entire ten hour, non-stop flight from O'ahu to JFK airport, in New York. He tried books, he tried singing to her, he’d tried music and in flight movies, he tried medicating her with drinks. Eventually he could do nothing but hold back her hair as she continuously expelled all of her stomach contents, rubbed her back when it was nothing but dry-heaving. Eventually, she simply curled up in her seat and leaned into him, too exhausted to be okay, too terrified to sleep. He rubbed small circles against her back and promised she never had to fly again. And then he ran off to join the Air Force, and jumped out of planes for a living. That was something about her brother that Beth could never understand even if he could have explained it to her. She had sat on the lanai, trying to decide if she was brave enough to chance the Louis Armstrong airport ~ ~ “MSY.” Anakin’s grin had sprawled slowly across his lips and his head had dipped down, though she had been certain it was to watch Bug nap in a sunbeam.

Or to take a chance on one of the family’s private planes over at Metairie~

~"Metry...on the Big Ass Lake.” She hadn’t been sure if that was Anakin’s specific drawl or if she’d simply been mispronouncing that word the entire time she’s been here {which, honestly was more likely} because it looked like Met-prairie to her.

But even on the sofa, even with him reading his book ~a dog-eared and margin-notation copy of Ovid’s Metamorphosis~ on the opposite side of it, feet buried under her leg, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to book the flight.

Instead, she’d looked over, a little green around the gills, and in a surprisingly tremulous voice, she’d asked him if he’d be okay going on a road trip with her. After all, it was only a seven to eight hour drive, including stops to stretch, use the facilities, and food. She added to that the fact that she’d feel safer driving through that bit of Mississippi and almost diagonally across Alabama just to get there, if he would be willing to escort her.

There’d been discussion about what to do with Bug, and what not to do, which largely consisted of Anakin not really wanting to leave him on his lonesome and Beth arranging for the nurses to take turns {and hazard pay} to ensure meal times were kept to their schedule, and their housekeeper to ensure companionship and play time. And of course the discussion he had with Bug which she was politely not privy too, but she would have given anything to actually have heard even snippets of conversation.

And now, a few days later, here they are.

The humidity and heat in Atlanta is very different from that of New Orleans, which in Beth’s mind is more like home, where here it’s...sticky. A thin film of sweat has been clinging to her since their arrival in the wee hours when by all rights it should have been cooler at the very least. Because of the conference, she’d had to book them a single suite and though she’d apologise profusely, she didn’t think Anakin was very heart-broken about it. The air conditioner in the room had been running and it wasn’t so bad when they’d finally set their bags down.

Beth ordered breakfast from room service, had given Anakin that look, and like the rumoured pirates in her ancestry {sea-wooves, she called them not recognising her mispronunciation} had plundered the full bar. Miniatures were things one gave away to adults come Halloween, and full-size bottles were specifically requested. So it was drinks on the balcony and pastries, fluffy omelettes, and a very sudden urge to sleep.

She’d pressed a strawberry and Merlot kiss to his forehead and had only enough grace to fall onto her side of of the king bed, clothes and all. Which didn’t really help the situation. She also didn’t know how long Anakin had stayed up and what he’d consumed during that time. The moral of the story being she needs this shower. And there’s enough trust and enough love between them that she doesn’t think twice about leaving the door slightly ajar in case he needs the facilities. And maybe she stays in a little too long, letting the near volcanic temperature of the water ease away at her muscles in a haze of tropical scented soap, shampoo, conditioner.

She didn’t know that the ficus was a traitor. Or a victim. Or that it would eventually be going home with them.

She finds herself grinning when he makes his apologies and his platitudes. “...’S’fine, really. I trus’ you an’ besides...I promise no have any kine ya nevah seen before. Because we’re ‘way from home, an’ sleepers...all ovah da place here. Worse dan haole summers back home, worse dan deer tick. An’ maybe ya plant wiser dan all of dem put togeddah.” She hates that she’s suddenly become an Awakened psa, a reminder that they have to be on their best behaviour and any magick has to be disguised under the auspices of coincidence.

“Still got an eternity of hot waddah if ya wanna come in an’ grab a shower f’ yaself. But I’ll knife fight ya ovah dis loofah.”

#Mahalo!Shady <333 #Like A Sad Hallucination|Anakin Skywalker #Like a Memory in Motion|Anibeth #The Trunk You Kept Your Life In|Mage the Ascension #Georgia on my Mind|Atlanta

3 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Text

@mynameisanakin {before}

Everything goes still.

The sensation of that is disorienting when everything around Beth is often so loud that it blends and blurs like so much spilled paint that ruins the canvas beneath. Where words often just alight, singular brush strokes, that sometimes undergo a certain metamorphosis and comes across as something far different then when it began to take form. There’s shades of breath and birdsong that die out. She can see the smooth rise and fall of his chest but his heart is not the usual drumbeat that ticks away fractions of seconds of his life. She can almost feel the fluttering twitch of his fingers from spasms of nerve or twitch of anxiety but cannot for the life of her seem to connect to the often half hidden display.

The backs of her eyes prickle with what is often the salt of a rush of emotional tears, but they don’t come. They only threaten in the same way clouds do when they are too stubborn to impart rain on a particularly desperate piece of land.

But it isn’t horror that slowly gathers across her features. It isn’t reprimand or rebuttal. Rather with a single word ~her name~ he’s brought forth some softer cousin of surprise. Not quite mature enough to be awe. Or maybe it’s a little bit of both of those stirred into a well of more than healthy humility.

If the ocean is Beth’s mother as she claims each time someone ~anyone~ brings up her parentage and the tides sing in her blood, then nature is her closest maiden auntie. Every aspect of her life revolves around it in some way. The changing of the seasons are her religion. Each made manifest in the names of old gods. Some that have been forgotten and others who still live through music and media and people like her. The earth is treated with respect and responsibility. She uses words like kuleana ~respect~ and aloha’aina ~love and care of the land~ but she also means them. Acts in every way that is in harmony where she can. She does her best to be a good steward, to follow the natural cycles of life and death as they come, all with cherished dignity. That he would think so highly of her, it touches a part of her that she has no word for. There is an enormity there, and it steals her away for those few seconds, before colour starts screaming into her face. Until she lowers her eyes and gathers her bony shoulders inward. Makes herself small. As close to ephemeral as she can get while still existing.

“Anakin...I...”

But doesn’t finish the thought. Likely never will.

They are so much alike in that way.

“Mahalo.”

But on the end of her thanks, there’s the tiny crinkling lines of a smile that seem to tug at the corners of her lips, not quite the mirror of it’s own, rarefied demureness in place of his curious belief.

Even that is painfully mayfly lived when she starts to think of other things, things she’s loathe to talk about. She knows better than to mention this only because she understands how powerfully self-destructive Anakin can be some times. And although she trusts him, although she wants to show him all that their world has to offer above and beyond being mere sleepers, this is the thing she is most terrified of. How hard would he fight against the power of the Kiss? He’d once asked her about self-pleasure and she’d spoken as candidly as she could though she had mentioned, in error as she now sees, that when the worst pangs came up, the yearning to be something wanted, something desperately desired and devoured...that she’d find herself a friendly leech. And that was uncharacteristically cruel of her. To call such a being by the second filthiest derogatory name that could be applied.

She doesn’t like the other words for it any better. Popular media has, likely by design from them, ruined the very idea of vampire until it is now a ridiculous thing. Wyrmspawn is the politest word her changing cousins call them and she’d be lucky if none of them ever found out her predilection. They call themselves kindred, and maybe they are. She doesn’t really know much beyond the fact that they exist. That Princes of New Orleans have been very amenable to keep the real population low.

But where as she has some buffer against being drained dry, Anakin is newly Awakened, still has sleep dusting the corners of his beautiful eyes. And in chasing his oblivion, he could end up sacrificing the most important gift the universe has ever given anyone.

So it’s a tight-rope walk, a very careful balancing act without a safety net or harness. Her lips twitch with a few false starts toward an answer before she scoots her chair back and goes over to the counter. She almost makes another pot of coffee...then thinks better of it. Her hands rise like gulls. She stretches to the tips of her toes, affording him her too-thin silhouette, and then she pulls out a bottle of very, very old scotch, and two tumblers.

When she returns, she puts one in front of each of them and begins to slowly unscrew the cap.

“Answer is... Blood-doll. Technically two words, I know. So you win the game but...” The dark amber liquid fills the air with both it’s bouquet and a sense of foreboding. “Is time t’ explain t’ ya... we are not alone in da night. An’ t’ explain dat...I firs’ need ya t’...”

she clears her throat. Tosses back the three fingers she’s poured for herself with the ease of of a veteran barfly. She breathes in through her nose and her nostrils flare before she exhales out from her mouth. And then she’s moving again. Wedges herself behind him, between him and the wall and somehow slithers down until her lips are a spectral caress against his ear. Her voice becomes a kind of silky purr, the tempo measured in smoke and satin, immeasurably patient. Seductive. It’s the same voice she used the night she almost bit him as she slowly begins to stroke her fingers down his arm. Caresses his jugular with the pad of her thumb. And purposefully, with a little dusting of mana, calls out to specific parts of his psyche through just the right pheromones.

“Imagine with me, the most excruciatingly pinnacle of your carnal needs. The way pleasure howls through your body and you linger on the cusp of spent exhaustion between this world and the next, and whatever happens next...you’ve stopped caring about. Can you feel it? Singing in your blood? Pulsing through your member which itself is as hard as you’ve ever felt it to be. And just before it can be shattering agony, there’s soft. And wet. And every dark whim that’s ever played out in your most twisted fantasies, even the ones you’re afraid to admit to yourself is on offer, down to the last exquisite detail. All you have to do...is give in. Can you feel it? Do you want to? What would you be willing to offer me, if I would give it to you. That relentless release unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.

“Do you want that, Anakin?”

6 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Note

"I would marry you if I had the chance." He isn't joking, of course, but he's said it in a softly playful manner all the same. {I don't know, Beth, he was probably Inspired, I'm sorry.}

If I would, could you? ||-

Sheer gauzy curtains waft in the breeze coming in through the window, paired with moonlight bright enough to silver many of the furnishings of the room. There's no hint of rain that she can taste but the air is redolent with the flowers from the garden down below, and the heat of the day and the heavy humidity have given way to a now familiar coolness that doesn't make their proximity an onerous burden.

She doesn't stir from where she lays on her side, knees slightly drawn up, one arm bent beneath her pillow, the other at the inward slope of her waist entangled with his so that their fingers are braided together in loose enough a fashion that if he needed to get up it would be easier than extricating the leg of his caught between both of hers, or the one under her almost completely. It isn't often that Anakin chooses or simply becomes the 'big spoon' as it were and maybe she is enjoying being wrapped up in him. The only real pity to the situation is that she can't, without turning her head, see his face, limned in the soft light coming from the window and back lit by her lighthouse nightlight.

She doesn't turn because she also expects that maybe he's softly talking to her because he thinks she's asleep. Normally around this time in the early mornings if he's still in bed ~ a fairly recent development between them where propriety takes a backseat to comfort and their almost always more than mutual proclivity of finding closeness and solace through touch~ Anakin is tossing and turning, sometimes accompanied by soft, usually wordless murmurs that she can't quite find shape and function in but knows it's dreams that aren't any more pleasant for him than her own night terrors are for herself just loud enough to rest on the edges of her perceptions.

She almost wants to ask if he's actually slept yet or if he's kept a vigil over her for the past few hours when exhaustion finally managed to sink into her. Insomnia is another one of their commonalities. Neither one seems willing to risk closing their eyes until they have no choice in the matter. She doesn't even really remember getting up the stairs and into bed in the first place. At the same time, the idea of Anakin making sure she didn't curl up on the stairs, or falling asleep in the tub isn't an awful one. Neither would it be the end of the world if he'd helped her slip out of her scrubs ~a last minute after hours emergency~ and into the thin and a little baggy, little overlong tee-shirt that she knows for a fact didn't come from her closet. The material of it is worn to the point of being almost gossamer. Embedded with all the smells she associates in very good ways with him. The kind of thing she'd be inclined to steal borrow for herself if he weren't around to give her permission. Just so she could feel more closely connected.

But speaking would ruin the moment if he does think she's insensible to the world. It would ruin the moment to answer him, even if his tone might otherwise suggest that he knows what she's thinking. And that might very well be the case because Beth suspects that he has an affinity with Uhane'hana, the sphere of Mind. Not that she knows for certain, she herself is inept at it, never quite able to harness that art though her brother...s....were quite talented.

Speaking would also mean she'd inadvertently hurt his feelings. Not because she would say something cruel or spiteful to him. She can't imagine ever being so harsh, so angry with Anakin that she would want to savage him to verbal pieces and do more damage than she could ever do to his physical body, which to be honest would be easier on him and far more devastating that she can actually say. It wouldn't be the first time that someone he cared about harmed him, and unfortunately, she doesn't think it will be the last. But no, she'd rather not do any of that, not in any way. The hurt would stem from the fact that Beth isn't nearly as enchanted with herself as Anakin seems to be. As if he can't see the flaws and the disappointments that make up her central being. That he can't see the terrible failures that she cannot begin to make up for. That she isn't as perfect as she wishes she could be and that he really does deserve someone better, younger, less problematic in the long run. It would hurt because his heart is still pure enough not to see those things, to have a counter-argument for every single fault she could lay at his feet, and to be honest Beth knows she can never really measure up to his generosity of opinion. Just like she knows she really wants to be the person he sees when he looks at her, all quiet and troubled eyes, fidgeting fingers and so almost timid of voice.

That's always endeared her, that wonderfully creative and often time broken vocabulary at his, like poetry spoken out of the side-mouth of a sailor. The revelation of a voracious intellect that was never nurtured as it ought to have been, and the ghosts he carries in it from his past, still too painful to really brush with any sort of clarity. She would do anything, literally, to keep him safe, to nurture every aspect of his being that is within her capability. Even from herself, if need be. And in admitting that, she knows being dishonest, pretending to be sleeping and not having heard those few words... spoken in such a way that it could be brushed off as him knowing she was playing possum and was just trying to get a rise out of her...is not something he deserved.

Achingly slow and careful she lifts his hand ~the left one~ to her lips and brushes a fleeting kiss across his knuckles. Allows every ounce of her to be felt in that rather subdued fashion in place of the words she is having trouble finding. She decides that the only way forward is to try and mimic the same blithe tone he manages seemingly without any difficulty, though her own voice is far more languid than his. "But where we get us a' Elvis impersonator, at almos' four in da mornin' ke kōnane? Besides, I t'ink Bug's tuxedo still at da dry cleaner." The cat in question's ear twitches at the sound of his name but curled up in an almost complete circle at the end of the bed ~which even if Anakin were to stretch out to his fullest would still leave a good foot or more of unclaimed mattress~ in his very own pile of luxuriously soft blankets, he doesn't seem to really care what Beth and Anakin are discussing. It takes a little bit of doing, of shifting here and there that is an excuse for Beth to not have to be serious for the handful or two of seconds before she's turning. Before she takes even more time to once again have parts of him wedged between her knees, to wrap an arm around his waist, and to lift her face so that the bridge of her nose nuzzles along his jawline, her breath a warm sensation across his throat.

"Is...dat some kine...ya migh' be interest in, some day? I mean...not t' me specifically, but in general?" Beth had officiated dozens of marriages. To stuffed animals and dolls. To other kids in the same play groups. To shells and flowers and even trees. She would tell anyone and everyone who listened that some day she would grow up and marry her brother, before she was corrected in her grammar. Before she understood her mother and the Admiral's relationship. Before she realised that maybe that wasn't exactly something she could really have, not like the endings of fairy tales, not in movies and t.v. shows. Before the Admiral explained that she was defective in every way that really mattered. And now she has to wonder why Anakin would even want that. Want her, like that. Maybe he is only making a joke, maybe he really is just trying to get a rise out of her. Maybe is a hell of a word. She squeezes her eyes shut against the stinging prickle at their backs. Keeps her breath even and steady despite the fact that some latent kind of panic is beginning to set in, telling her she ought to have pretended to be asleep after all. She bites back the urge to ask what a chance would look like for him. She bites back on asking why he would say such a thing in the first place. Those little pieces of indigestible fear seem to pile up in her throat, forcing her to clear it and the sound is painfully loud.

"I mean... is only natural, an ya know how much us Verbena really like dat, right? Every kine...well, I should say mos' kine...wanna seek out a mate. Usually f' procreation but I no can help but t'ink it's f' company an' stuff, mutual survival an' all." Oh. God. Shut up. Just. Stop. Talking. Elizabeth. "Big ceremony or lil kine? I bet ya got a t'eme an' a venue an' everyt'ing pick out. Mebbe reception, too. I use t' wanna get marry on a beach back home. Sunset. Small-small. An' really surprisin'? Not a lot of blood. Maybe none, even."

3 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Note

3. Would you ever fuck someone in exchange for something? Money, business deal, gifts, etc? What’s your price? {Swamp Sharklette}

A Little Light/A Little Dark || Accepting

Immediate knee-jerk reaction is to say no. To be so indignant that there would come the resounding sting of flesh striking flesh at the velocity of a gunshot. Or at the very least and less harmful a drink thrown in a face before she rises like a Tsunami wave and marches out with her dignity intact. Several factors though go a long way from stopping that.

First is that this is not a public venue. It's the formal dining room of their home, where in Beth and Anakin are putting together survival packages for the up-coming hurricane season. Most of the items were gathered donations from the kinds of friends that have no idea what they're actually giving to; people up north that Beth has been immensely popular with even if she never really fit in amongst them. Supplemented by church organisations, local folk, and literally anywhere else that Beth could find help. Even if some of those were at best questionable, and at worst? Evil. Well, from a human stand-point. She was very careful not to take anything from Pentex, or its millions of subsidiaries. She wouldn't accept help, not even in the form of money, from places like O'Tooley's, or Pangloss Cosmetics, or Shenzhen Tianming, no matter what kind of electronics and NOAA weather radios they offered. Whenever he asks about those, she only shakes her head and tells him 'mebbe laddah'. But that later never comes. As if she through ignorance she can keep him safe, though for how long is the question that she likewise puts off. Spread out on every available surface at things like flashlights with extra batteries, whistles to signal for help, personal hygiene items, can openers, nonperishable, water tight food stuffs {canned goods that didn't require heating, and MREs}, potable water, baby formula and diapers, and even books and games for children. All being meticulously sorted into storage containers and backpacks.

The work is surprisingly sweltering and even the central air is having a hard time moving the oppressive wet-blanket heat. No matter how high up and in a bun she pins her hair, no matter how thin the bandeau and sarong she's wearing are, no matter how comfortable the board shorts and no shirt Anakin is wearing, it feels like a shallow layer of sweat covers...everything.

It's that fact that puts a sour look on her face as she reaches up to mop her brow with the inside of one arm and leaves the question lingering between them.

The second reason is... It's rare that his use of that one particular word offends her, she's heard it more times than she can count with a rather shocking frequency growing up and again from her brothers. And there's certain ways that Anakin uses it in certain context that gets under her skin in the worst ways, turning everything in its wake to lava. He uses it to great effect sometimes and it almost has become a playful game between them. But he's not talking about love making, not now, at least. He uses the vulgarity to imply the exact opposite of that. Carnality without emotion; a disconnect from the heart, the soul, the brain that leaves the body an empty shell of a vessel to be filled...or to fill someone else...with the same abject nothingness. She knows the implication hurts him as much as it would her because they are very much alike in regards to physical forms expressing love. And lastly, because while he doesn't often talk about it and she can't bear to really ask because she knows even the slightest facial expression will burrow its way into her and she will rage like one of her changing cousins until nothing is left when he answers truthfully, as he always does. She knows he has been abused. She knows he's been mistreated. She knows that he has, at least before moving into the house, and maybe after...it's not her place to pry... participated in some kind of sex-work. The only difference she treats him with than she would the sex workers back in New York? It's plain to anyone with the ability to see, who possesses a single ounce of empathy, that Beth loves him. And that love is without condition or reservation.

She stretches. Pushes away from the table and pads barefoot toward the kitchen, circumnavigating the fortress they've built up around them with a preternatural grace. A flutter of fingers in the air is all the invitation she offers for him to follow her.

The door of the fridge groans in protest of being opened, sighing before letting a floor of cold air waft over her and for a moment she closes her eyes and takes pleasure at the rush of chill. All too soon though she reaches in and pulls out an icy pitcher of cold water that immediately clouds over from condensation so it looks like a foggy morning with slices of lemon floating near the top, slivers of sunlight. She's half tempted to hold it to her chest until it becomes as tepid as possible. Let Anakin fend for himself with the other pitcher in there, the ubiquitous Sweet Tea that she made by directions left by the housekeeper. Unfortunately, it could pull double-duty as hummingbird nectar.

She sets it down on the counter. Retrieves two glasses and fills one up. The other is left beside the lemon water with the idea that he should hydrate since she isn't getting him into the pool without extreme measures, and she doesn't feel like forcing him to do anything. She lifts the glass to her lips and indelicately gulps down half of the contents before she presses the wet, cold glass to her brow. Her eyes shut the too bright world away. They cut off the pallor of Anakin's slight chest, the way the sheen catches the light in splashes of dampness. Not unlike the occasional bead of sweat that runs like an errant fingertip down her spine. And she's stalled as long as she can in answering him. She doesn't like to keep him waiting, a long enough pause can come across in the worst ways; at best it implies that he is undeserving of an answer, which isn't true in the least, and at worst, whatever she might say would come across as the softest kind of lie, the sin of selective omission.

"Growin' up...I t'ink I was near enough fifteen or sixteen... before I really had any curiosity about sex, an' you know dat already, so not shockin' dere. Dat curiosity nevah bloomed beyond a lil self-exploration before it was disregard as...mos'ly unimportant t' me. Of course, nevah gonna lie an' say dere was no ah..." She searches for the right word, the right explanation and comes up with exactly none.

"Experimentation wi' a receptive partner, but even dat result same-same f' me as on my own. I t'ink it no was a matter of attraction, oddah person was one of da few times I did feel da kine. Uhm...desirous...for lack of mo' beddah word. Now, ovah da years I been on da fringes of various covens wi' da Verbena. Small an' big an' in between...an' as ya know... Beltane one of our most sacred rites. An' I keep meanin' t' take ya proper, an' introduce ya...but..." But? ...But there's a part of her that is neither properly territorial or jealous but that IS adamant about taking Anakin before a gathering of priestesses and druids, of bards and fairly mediocre witches. The Verbena are a myriad of theologies and philosophies banded together to uphold their paradigm. They hold the Seat of Life on the Council of Nine, and have since the Council was formed, before the betrayal of the first Cabal. They are her friends, her peers, her sisters and brothers in a hanai sort of way. But she doesn't want to share him, not yet. Maybe once she's taught him a little more, maybe once she's sure he can survive the pit of flesh, politics, and chaos that mage gatherings can be.

"Not jus' yet. You might catch chill." She half laughs at her own little joke but it dies out almost before it ever stood a chance of surviving.

"I was offer da chance t' play da Maiden aspect of da Goddess in da Great Rite, an' still get aks ow and again. An' it nevah appeal to me even wine-soaked an' head stuffed wi' sacred incense. I nevah go out into da fields or under da trees eiddah, for more intimate an' less ritual...couplin'. I know fertility rites are important but not enough. Even if we could bring back magick like it was durin' da Mythic age....I still no would." While it might not mean anything to anyone else, Beth's belief in being a guardian of the mythic threads, a branch of the World Tree, she cannot imagine giving a part of herself for it.

"Money? I got dat...an' of alla da kine dat make me real angry? Is when women are led t' believe da only way dey got of improvin' deir situation is by allowin' someone f' slide between deir leg, an' I hate t' put it so cruelly. If a woman wanna do dat of her own accord...dat's one kine, but to be seen as only chattel, as only an object...an' not really jus' women, but anyone, regardless of how dey identify. "Business is usually about avarice...about acquirin' money, or power, or any number of stuff...an' it's all same-same. A gi nevah come wi' a price. Anyone who tell ya oddahwise...lyin' to ya. I give da kine to ya because I know ya need. I know ya nevah aks f' it. I know it makes us bot' choke happy. I would nevah aks ya for any kine in return, nevah expect it...not'ing li'dat. It's not my way. It's not livin' pono, an' I nevah would corrupt eiddah one in dat way." She pauses, finishes the glass, then starts pouring herself another. "F'I were force t' choose a price? I would only give myself for one kine, an' as stupid an' cheesy it might sound? It would be for love. An' love nevah ask f' any kine but to be and to grow. No maddah who or what is bein' loved."

3 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Note

How does your muse communicate to others they they’re in the mood? {For a Beth}

Love like We Love || Accepting

Wine leaves sticky lip prints on the back of Anakin’s neck as she grazes the skin between his hair and his shoulders. Just a hint of caressing canine points, not a full bite, not even the threat of it. Almost like flashing a slender ankle but hiding away the rest of the leg under some expensive, flimsy skirt no more substantial than thistledown. Her breath at his ear is sweet and soft and warm. Her hands though are anything but innocent as her arms slide around him. One strays like wandering birds up his chest to splay wide fingers just at the juncture of his collar bones. The other moves slower. Under his shirt, skimming down over his belly to stop only at the low blue denim border of his jeans.

The bench he’s on has no back. So she takes it as an opportunity to arch herself into his, the gentle swells of her breasts pressing into the backs of his shoulder blades. “Dansz-wi’-me,” she slurs, the smokiest vocal fry in the words. There’s a gleam in her half-lidded eyes he can’t see but that is bright, firefly-brilliant. But if he listens closely he can hear a spark of it in her voice as it’s low, husky and the words aren’t so sharply bitten into pieces. Matches the light dimmed down to candles, Norah Jones singing Unchained Melody from cleverly hidden speakers so the woman’s honeyed voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Beth sways against him before pressing her mouth to the side of his neck. There’s no wine this time, but she does graze the beat of his pulse with her teeth, soothing the razor line she leaves behind with the most gentle of licks, savouring the salt of his skin.

Her mind is still in its own daze, shrouded in the muted endorphins from earlier in the night. When Beth allowed herself to remember she’s not that much older than Anakin and the world can save itself for a few hours. She can still feel the pounding drum beats throbbing in her system. The drinks had been carefully spread out between water and...other enhancements that she didn’t strictly need but that let her loosen up. Trusted as it was passed tongue to tongue, and when his pressed it onto hers, she hadn’t wanted him to stop. She knows it comes in two does, too much and not enough and in that moment she couldn’t care less which it was, not when she can taste bitter and sweet, the lush confines the walls of his mouth, feel the reticent crash of their teeth knocking together, going old school as they were. A moment that elongates until all her nerves are warm and there’s a little bit of queasiness creeping up her throat that she ignores until there’s only peace. No noises beyond those that she expects, molasses beats caught in dripping musical amber. A connectedness that saps her defences and slaughters her inhibitions. They are alive in the universal pulse of humanity where they are all wise and star struck.

She’d watched him rise like a sacrificed god, halo-wrapped while he was moving against and around the crowd. All beautiful faces and beautiful bodies. None of them that will remain in her memory come morning. And none of them nearly as perfect as Anakin himself. Drowning in the sensual borealis of sights and sounds, her gaze rarely flickered far from him as she hugged friends and sipped wine, as lights gyrated in sync with hips and shoulders packed in around her. She couldn’t quite call it jealous as she watched him flashed that slow, premeditated smile that no one but Beth could see was dry and mirthless as sand, the one meant to lull. Confuse. Disarm. Hands that moved fast as flashes of lightning too quick to really be scene, little treasures and trinkets not everyone would miss, paired with someone dangling cherries by his lips. She’s never envied fruit that much before in her life, especially when he catches one between his teeth and she can think of other things that would fit there more perfectly. And just like that she felt her priorities shift like tectonic plates after a seismic storm. He can sense it too. Let her chase him through the heat-shimmer expanse, teasingly out of reach the whole time. It was a game meant only for the two of them. She almost, almost one when they come crashing out from the double doors, past bouncers twice of size of them put together. Into the air that is just as hot as the interior had been but a thousand times wetter. Sweltering. Smoke and vape laden. They kept moving, though. Into a cab, and she can’t stop petting his shirt. His thighs. Moving ever inward, upward. Knee to hip. Wanting to bury her face in his neck where sweat damp locks curled darker than the rest. He’d kept his arms fully around her, kept her close. Closer. Until all she could breathe was him and not the foul unquestionable stench of the back seat.

Anyone else would have taken advantage of Beth. But Anakin is not everyone else. In the cab she had wanted to rage against him. Demand to know why he’d spent so much time tempting her if those whims were only going to die out when they had no audience left. Now that they are home, and a lot closer to sober, she gets it. He was giving up languishing desire to protect her. She has a lot to lose, her standing and honour to a public that needs to be able to trust her. This sweet young misfit who often did the best he could to escape the lumpen emptiness and drudgery of an often beleaguered life...cared enough, loved enough to do nothing at all when she’d all but offered herself on a silver plate.

Now though, they’re home. Behind closed doors.

And when his hands grazed her calves to help her remove the laced sandals? She’s quite surprised to realise her feelings hadn’t changed at all. That what she thought was residue of the music clinging to her skin was a deeper ache, one that she has only passing familiarity with. Her hand arrives on his throat and she tilts his head backward. Presses her chin to his brow, the tip of her nose to his. Tightens her grasp reflexively and breathes out a shuddering sigh. Far more carefully than she would have at the club, she drags her manicured nails across the denim stretched at the apex of his thighs, listening to his breath and the raspy sound below. She doesn’t remain there long.

“Dance wi’ me until dere’s no space left between you an’ me. Until we stop bein’ two separate people.”

And as blisteringly agonising as it is, she lets go. She’s still offering to be with him, but this isn’t anything like the cab. She’s aware now, painfully so. And that means giving him the chance to decide if that is something he wants. Even if he chooses to say no.

And if he doesn’t? They’ll weather that, too.

4 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

Text

“What'cha like in bed? Say it like I gotta speculate…”

Oh yes, he’s got that look. The something lascivious is coming out of my mouth at the end of the countdown look, the one in which this countdown is reaching the very pinnacle of a sultry expression he fully intends to be exactly that. All barely parted, just this side of pouty lips and intensely fixed gaze of eyes that are also just a particular side of darker.

Pinnacle is reached with a positively unnecessary edge to his opening sound that makes it one part soft, short moan, two parts unspoken, filthy thoughts. Garnished with a citrus zest of contemplation that is assured not new.

“Mm…real soft an’ polite on the surface, I mean, you don’t even snore or nothin’, an’ you fit jus’ perf'ek when you snuggle in your sleep, but…also sometimes not real careful with where you’re puttin’ your knee. Or the ah, espedience a how you movin’ it. An’ sometimes, you kinda’ grab, an’ you know…don’t gotta lotta fingernails, but enough to dig in for a minute t'ere.”

Anakin somehow manages to sip his coffee without allowing the threatening twitch of his lips to turn into a ruinous laugh. Upon the mug’s return to the table, this blossoms into a wide, crooked grin.

“Thas’ not a complaint, jus’ so you know. Jus’ maybe, kinda’, lil'bit makes me think'a inappropriate shit. So, there. In m'educated ‘pinion, pretty confident that in bed, an’ not sleepin’, thas’ how it’d be, too. A kinda’ perf'ek mixture a how you i-are anyways. Gentle an’ warm, but also passionate an’ the right kinda’ wild.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Imagination Station || Accepting

For the longest day she lived, Beth would never once be able to explain why on earth she thought asking that question, specifically TO Anakin, was a good idea. Asking whether he’d felt like spending an evening finding a new victim cause to try to save a life was one thing. Or seeing if he wanted to work on elemental control, an entirely different one. Or if he wanted a night off from training to maybe read or watch a movie. All very good questions. All very pertinent ones. After all, wasn’t that what she promised? To teach him how to harness his mana, so his own could flow through him as it was meant. Or even how to fight and maybe win a certámen duel. But no. The question from the magazine article had somehow wormed its way into her subconscious, and right there, between coffee {his a little extra Irish though she says nothing} and the blackberry lemon thyme muffins they’d spent all of yesterday creating. First harvesting the berries she’d grown, and the lemons right off the tree. Her sitting on the counter and reading off ingredients as he mixed the batter, to help with therapy for his hand. A good hour chasing each other with the left over utensils before showering to get rid of batter in places it ought not be.

And now? There is attrition. With no one to blame but herself. Because there’s that look. The one that reminds her of wildfire so strongly she’s surprised she doesn’t smell smoke. It isn’t the kind of leer that she is often met with when she goes out dancing, or walks home alone with night descending on her with its frightful black teeth. It’s softer in its smoulder, more dreamy than predatory, though there’s a natural touch of that too that she doesn’t think Anakin is ever aware of. If he were, he’d likely be apologetic about it. It’s also sharper for the darkness held in his gaze, that pins her effectively to the spot as a pin through a butterfly.

Her throat rises and falls as she swallows, hard.

Because there’s the killing strike. Pure vocalisation that has no form per se and completely bypasses the broken part of her brain that cannot process words correctly or expediently. It is music and it is air and it is everything she needs to exist whilst simultaneously being murdered by it regardless of what comes after. And she can absolutely feel it in places she has no right to. Of course she flushes scarlet though when he portions out the sins of sleep. She could laugh about the snoring but be relieved that she doesn’t, who wants to sound like the offspring of a lawnmower and a grizzly bear? But more than that, it’s that he realises that even in sleep there is a desire to be close. Closer. To achieve an impossible state where there is no distinct beginning or end but a wholeness that existed before the One shattered into Many. The best she’d come to achieve was a while back when she and her brothers made a bed of blankets and pillows in the living room, watching the first winter snow fall heavily over New York and they surrounded her to keep the darkness at bay. It’s different now with Anakin. There is that same unexplainable sense of wanting but shot through it like sunlight just below the surface of the sea there’s the depths and shallows. The feel of his skin on hers. The immense comfort of his presence. The ache to open the way flowers bloom for the kiss of bees. Darker more tangible urges that would scandalise if they could only cross the boundaries of her lips.

But there’s also a healthy dose of shame when he mentions the ill placement of bony bits. Of hurting him when that is her very last intention in this world. Likely the result of the sickening encroachment of night terrors she cannot hold back or the instinct to free herself from the rigidity and torture that is sleep paralysis. The idea that by holding onto Anakin, he can become an anchor and makes her real, keeps her in the Tellurian and not dragged to some abyssal corner of the dark umbra to be wholly devoured by whatever monster that waits. “I-I’m...” Her budding apology gets swallowed up along with the coffee and the grin that robs her of finishing the rest of the thought. He has to know by now how that affects her even if it sits like a brooding cat on the periphery, and if he doesn’t...well, maybe she’s better at pretending than she’s ever thought before.

But then he baits her pretty good and her brows knit, one rising as if chasing her hair line and her head tilts just slightly. “What....what kinda inappropriate....stuff?” Looking at her it’s easy to see she’s running through some kind of internal codex of things that could possibly mean but also maybe wants to hear him say it aloud, indulging them both with his drawl that on one hand is so close to pidgin but with the bayou kind of flare that she has become enamoured of. And the way he describes her potential sensuality she suddenly finds herself alluring, soft and feminine, enticing enough to make him think about her in that way. Her gaze drops, but a little smile is born as she tucks her chin downward, takes hold of the ends of her hair and starts fiddling with them between delicate and sparkly purple painted nails. “Dat...uh. Dat some maybe appeals t’ you? I mean would you want...” Me. “Some kine soft an’ warm? Or mebbe ‘passionate’ like ya say? An’ how...important ya t’ink experience is, an’ if ent’usiasm is enough t’ mebbe make up f’ skill? Or ya prefer more worldly? More knowledgeable... More....more?”

2 notes · View notes