#WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MOVE IS

[batwynn]

I’m seeing a weird uptick in people commenting nasty stuff on people’s non-cat/dog pet stuff again and not so gentle reminder:

Your phobia or dislike of certain animals does not give you the right to harass and bully people who love and share them.

Use the blacklist tag like a normal human being, and leave people who love rats or snakes or bugs etc. the fuck alone.

#pets #bully behavior #rats #snakes #bugs #stop being little shits Jfc #grow up and block the person #black list the tag #wtfever to curate your experiences online #but you don’t go after someone for sharing their fucking pet spider or whatever?? #it literally has nothing to do with you #phobias are NOT AN EXCUSE TO BE A SHITHEAD #I expect half of y’all not to see this because you’ve already grown up enough to black list words and hashtags #right? #we’re moving on from highschool behavior? #RIGHT?? #here we go #tw: spiders #tw: snakes #tw: rats #tw: bugs

[rafeandonlyrafe]

ponytail

words: 1k

warnings: 18+ only, smut, blowjob, face fucking a bit, hair play?, mentions of thigh riding, public sex

“can i join you today rafey?” you ask, plopping down on his lap. 

“join me for what?” he questions, dropping his phone onto the couch, the weather app still opened up, checking the radar and wind direction.

“golf, duh.” you say like it's obvious. he does usually go on fridays, so it's no surprise that he would be going today, especially since it was pretty sunny out

“oh.” rafe says, his eyebrows raising in surprise. “you really want to go with me?”

“mhm.” you nod. “i bought a new golf skirt.” 

“ah, now it makes sense.” rafe laughs, pulling you into his chest when you pout. “of course you can come baby.”

“yay!” you press a kiss to his lips, your hands coming to rest on his strong jaw. “im gonna go get ready.”

you hop up off of rafes lap, but not before giving him another kiss. you head upstairs, excited to get dressed in your new golfing outfit. you apply makeup, figuring you'd get rafe to take some cute pictures of you for instagram.

you tie your hair up in a ponytail before adjusting your skirt and putting on your golf shoes.

“all ready, rafey.” you bound back down the stairs. rafe perks up instantly when he sees you in your tiny skirt.

“you look hot.” rafe says as he stands, coming over to deliver a kiss.

“thanks baby.” you smile, rafe still managing to make you blush even after you've been together for over a year.

“come on, let's go before it gets too busy.” rafe says, taking your hand in his as he leads you out the door.

--

“rafe, cut it out.” you say with a laugh as his hands find a way to your waist again.

“i can't help it baby, you look so good.” he groans, pulling your body against his, not letting you swing your club and hit the golf ball.

“i know, but i gotta hit this! don't you wanna move on to the next hole?” you question. it's an easy putt, which is all you really like to do. you always start your turn from where rafes first hit lands, it makes golf easier and more enjoyable for you. rafe even lets you drive the cart from time to time. 

“wanna move on to your next hole.” rafe says, making you lean against him as you howl with laughter.

“that was so stupid!”

“shut up.” rafe groans, burying his head in your shoulder, glad that you wore a tank top today that didn't cover too much of your skin as he kisses where your neck meets your shoulder.

“you are corny, rafe cameron.” you say with a roll of your eyes, pulling away from his grabby hands so you can finally make your putt.

you line up your shoot before tapping the ball into the hole, letting out a whoop in happiness at getting it in.

“good job.” rafe says, giving you a high five.

you retrieve your ball before heading to the next hole, frowning when rafe turns the golf cart the wrong direction.

“uh… rafe?” you question as he pulls behind a patch of woods.

“wanna suck me off baby?” he questions as he puts the cart into park, looking over at where you are perched on the golf cart next to him.

“oh!” you squeal, now understanding why he took you to the one secluded part of the course. “yes!”

rafe laughs, stepping out of the cart and moving to the other side. you get on your knees in the cart, not wanting to dirty them in the grass.

rafe tugs his zipper down as you work the button open, mouth already salivating.

you pull his pants down to his thighs, his underwear coming with it as his cock perks up, already hardening. rafe glances around, double checking that no one is around as you grasp his cock. 

you open your mouth, stroking over his cock as you rub the head against your tongue. rafe lets out a quiet moan, his hand moving to grip your ponytail.

“gonna fuck your mouth, yeah?” rafe questions. he wants to let you take your time, but he also doesn’t want to get in trouble with the country club if he gets caught. 

you nod, opening your mouth as rafe pushes your head down on his cock, his hips pushing forward at the same time. you place your hands on his thighs to keep yourself steady as he uses your ponytail to guide you up and down.

rafe only takes it slow for a minute before he begins to snap his hips forward, his cock growing inside your mouth.

he wraps your ponytail around his head for a better grip. you squeeze your eyes closed at the pain of your hair being pulled, you panties flooding with wetness.

“good girl.” rafe praises you, pumping faster. you moan around his length, glad that you have enough practice on his cock to accommodate him easily, remembering when you first blew him and was unable to take him all the way into your mouth.

you whine as rafe yanks on your hair, using your mouth to get himself off. your throat constricts around him as you resist the urge to cough, managing to squeeze your fists tightly and avoid gagging.

rafe picks his head up from looking at you to glance around again, but he sees no carts or players nearby. 

“gonna cum in your mouth baby.” rafe warns, imagining if you did get caught, if someone saw you being such a good slut for him, your jaw slack as his cock pulses in your mouth.

rafe releases quickly after his warning, cum spurting into your mouth. you moan around his length, sucking gently as you help him ride out his high.

rafe pulls you off by your ponytail, tucking his cock back into his pants and redoing them.

“you messed up my hair.” you pout, trying to smooth out your ponytail.

“sorry, baby.” rafe says, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead. you wipe your mouth and move to sit back on the seat of the cart, stretching your legs out.

“wanna ride my thigh to make up for it?” rafe asks, sticking his leg out.

“oh, yes!” you squeal, sliding over to push your crotch into his thigh, straddling him.

taglist: @drewstarkeyslut @rafecamerongirl @f4ll-for-you @dilvcv @drudyslut @drewsbabygirll @jjmaybankswifes-blog @rafescokenostril @jjsmarijuana @jjmaybankisbae @seeingstarks @angelofcigs @cece45450 @babygorewhore @vanessa-rafesgirl @michelleisheres-blog @outerbankspov @drewstarkeyswifehoe @cutielando @kamninaries @buckyswhxre

#fun fact i fucking hate this fic! #i just had a different picture in my mind but ugh whatever #i wanna move on #rafe smut #rafe cameron smut #obx smut #outer banks smut #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron fic #rafe fic #rafe cameron fanfic #rafe cameron x reader #rafe x reader #rafe cameron fanfiction #rafe fanfic #rafe cameron x you #obx x reader #obx fic

[qifrei]

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (2004)

#ghibligifs #ghibliedit #ghiblifilm #ghiblisdaily #ghiblicentral #animationsdaily #howl's moving castle #animationsource #dailyanimatedgifs #filmgifs #moviegifs #fyeahmovies #nondisneyedit #studioghibliedit #studioghibligifs #dailystudioghib #anisource #animangahive #whatever the fuck is going w his idc #also from 2021-22? #999gif

[justaz]

merlin who grew up in a small village and only having one (1) friend growing up (will) and them two being thick as thieves and not making friends with anyone else so they have like no boundaries and they eventually begin to court without really knowing what they’re doing but just knowing that they’re super close and care for each other deeply but not being able to put a name to what they are. which in turn leads to merlin growing up thinking that like spending 24/7 together, holding hands everywhere you go, staring into each others eyes and at each others lips, cuddling at night even when it’s boiling hot, and kissing is normal in platonic friendships which leads to a LOT of misunderstandings and miscommunication when he gets to camelot.

#merlin x will #what’s their ship name #whatever #merlin completely missing gwen’s flirting in the early seasons #thinking him and lancelot are just really good friends despite the fact that they’ve kissed multiple times #thinking him and gwaine are BEST friends after spending the night in his room #(gwaine never correcting that bc he’s used to the whole one night stand move on kinda thing. he’s a fling queen.) #never questioning what the fuck is going on with him and arthur #merlin: i love all my very good friends :] #literally all of camelot: i’m in love with you #merlin emrys #bbc merlin #mergwen #merthur #mercelot #mergwaine #multishipper #merlin’s harem #oblivious merlin 🔛🔝 #arthur pendragon #sir gwaine #sir lancelot #guinevere #this is just adding on to my previous bbc merlin post LMAO #i just decided to post it separate

[bigbhaals]

wdym this isnt how theyre supposed to look

#like. the mouths r super fucked they move side to side #and gales eyes r bugging the FUCK out #but the other expressions looks just fine #its a lil distracting but whatever. a small price to pay #i am gonna do wyll n karlach and any other companion i get as dragons too #bg3 #lae'zel #shadowheart #astarion #gale #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #dragonborn

[chrollohearttags]

y’all won’t be satisfied until you run every black writer off this app and I’m so serious. Yes, I’m being rude to anybody that takes time out of their day to post some dumb ass remarks (a recycled one at that) and uses it to disrespect black writers of any capacity. Sitting up screaming about wanting more representation and the black reader fics being nonexistent but y’all get mad about everything. Yes, I’m cussing y’all out everytime I see it and I’m blocking idc. Free, FREE content that people took time to create, y’all are being nasty about it. We don’t owe y’all grace or kindness. Especially when we can see the hypocrisy. Go to hell with gas undies on and leave us alone. And please write whatever y’all want and fuck these people. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk

#rant #vent and rant #cw discourse #I see fifty toxic baby daddy fics with toji’s dirty ass and nobody moves #but damn #a character who’s balls y’all were just sucking two weeks ago can’t smoke a blunt #I don’t even write these so called ‘toxic’ hcs but I’m all for black women having representation in whatever way makes them comfortable #get over yourselves #like who do you hoes think y’all are #nobody has to write to appease a bitch who can’t even spell her own name #the way my lil hiatus is about to turn into me archiving this shit and leaving #cherry chats 🍒 #my blog is not a safe space for you fucking losers #and if you don’t like it #unfollow me #I love eren and the AOT characters over here and I’m not gonn stop writing for them bc you bitches got a new character to gush over

[front-facing-pokemon]

#skitty #big number 300‚ and it's a good one! everyone loves skitty! their unopened eyes… blind to the horrors of the world #also very good for the rescue team scene where they say “look into my eyes if you don't believe me!” or something like that #also *also* a perfect pairing to go on a team with cyndaquil. and their tiny little legs are also very cute #this is just an extremely good pokémon. honestly. i love everything about skitty. the pink‚ the ears‚ the face‚ that smile‚ the tail #the way that they have early-gen normal-type syndrome so they can learn like a thousand different moves of whatever-the-fuck types #which is AWESOME‚ seeing a skitty using fucking thunderbolt are you kidding me?? that's badass. the coverage monarch #so thank you‚ to skitty‚ for existing. and keep doin what'cher doin………

[pcktknife]

I am simultaneously the luckiest and unluckiest fucker ever I can't believe this

#stupid fuckass house!!!!!!!! (<- leak in my room only. specifically over the good outlet where my tv and everything is) #i had to swap my tv with my computer desk which messes with my drawing situation cause now THOSE cords have to b moved #and my tv/switch/ps4/whatever cords probably dont even reach the outlet i was using in that area #and theres only FOUR OUTLETS IN THIS ROOM. #in the most inconvenient places ever and theres too many doors and i hate the street we're on and #i hate the east coast i hate these old ass houses i hate this stupid weather i miss my cali bedroom #okay whatever im gonna go fuck w these plugs see if i cant figure something out #not even that mad its just annoying #kae.txt

[falling-skyzz]

genuinely never seen anything like hilda. its so unique with its limited color palette, character animation, shape language, lines, everything, not to mention the voice acting, characterization, world building etc etc. i could write multiple essays about how awesome this cartoon is and it wouldnt do it justice

#LIKE #if u look at how characters are animated in she ra or owl house or whatever #theyre pretty humble with their frames #if a character can be animated talking with just their mouth and maybe eyes moving #they will do that #but not with hilda #theres so much CHARACTER. EXPRESSION. #the little things like the head turning #the hair shifting #eyes following the character thats talking #it means so much #and theres so many extra frames they absolutely couldve gone without #but they added them anyways #and it makes all the difference #why the fuck are my tags glitching out of existence #anyways. im very normal about hilda #hilda #hilda the show #hilda the series #hilda netflix #ava rambles

[androgynouspenguinexpert]

pondering

#redacted audio #redacted asmr #redactedverse #art #illustration #redacted sam #sam collins #samuel collins #i guess he's fucking off then #praying to whatever god is left to hear me that sam doesnt have his own spinoff season a la coral palms #then come back to solve [issue] and everyone is friends again yay! #moving the cast around was probably necessary but im not a fan of jarring third act splits #bc either sam and darlin peace out indefinitely (unlikely) or are driven back towards william by an external force #i dunno man

[dailyloopdeloop]

DAY 7: i miss my wife bonbon

#codacheetah #isat #loop isat #twohat spoilers #isat act 6 spoilers #SLIDING IN WITH 14 MINUTES TO THE CLOCK YEA BABY #this is like the dollar store version of what i had in my head but in my defense i was out all day. woopsiedoodle #its my personal postcanon headcanon that sif goes on like a several month 'i miss my dead wife' arc about loop bc he thinks they evaporated #into the either infinity war style after their fight. so theyre rlly sad and emo n shit about it but theyre like well. i hope loop is happy #at least. i hope they moved on and found peace :) #meanwhile loop does not know what moving on is they are clawing onto mortality with every last sap of their strength #always approximately 4 seconds from deciding to track down the party #but theyre scared so they spend all their time fuckin playing with birds and scaring kids or whatever #until one day siffrin's like stars i know they probably cant hear me but i miss them. and like does the handsign morosely #and then after several seconds loop picks up like ....hi stardust!!! wow you really didnt miss me that much huh!!! #siffrin voice: YOU'RE NOT FUCKING DEAD?! #anyways what heinous crime did the running one commit. leave your answers in the comments below #also. happy one week of this fucking guy!!!

[shinelikethunder]

landlord gave me notice at 3pm thursday and by 9am tomorrow, sunday march 10th 2024, propelled by equal parts terror and incandescent fury, i will be putting in an offer to buy An Entire House.

i mean, it's a nice and low-risk little house, at a price that makes it a no-brainer to jump on it before it goes - but still, this is fucking surreal. i could technically have had the offer in by 3pm today; this is me taking the time to think it over. except there's not much to think over: i need a place and this one's solid, and the monthly payment is the exact same as what i was just offered in order to rent half as much duplex by the landlord who's kicking me out to renovate and price-gouge.

and i'm not gonna pretend one of the emotions driving my haste here isn't the vicious satisfaction of having just enough fuck-you money to pull this off. in all likelihood i'll be filling out mortgage paperwork by the time his ass even gets around to fitting a walkthrough of the half-duplex into his busy house-flipping schedule, and if he wanted his model tenant placidly paying the extortion rent on that place - two days before the first of every month like i've been doing for the five years i've lived here - then maybe he shouldn't have fucking dicked me around.

#i'm trying not to think too hard about the cat because whatever's going to happen with him will happen no matter where i move to :/ #but also because if i think about that too hard i will make some choices that guarantee i'll never see a cent of my security deposit back #and i am about to need all the fucking cashflow i can get

[todayisafridaynight]

Is it funnier if:

Shishido tunes in to the VTuber's broadcast knowing he'll fume about exposing Kiryu being his idea first

Shishido is already a fan of the VTuber and tunes in as normal only to fume about exposing Kiryu being his idea first

Shishido is the VTuber

SHISHIDO IS THE VTUBER

#snap chats #sorry i had frog soju #BUT NOOOOOO THTD BE MY FAVORITE RRGG PLOTTWIST #he slithered away from the fuckinnnn daidoji ??? think thats whaat theyre called.. #he ran waay from em and decided to purus e a carreer as a vtuber NOOO YOU KOW WHAET VIDEO I THOUGHT OF #THE FUCKING ONE WHERE THE VTUBER HAD A SHIBA INU AVATAR #BUT THEY MOVED OUT OF CAPTURE FOCUS OR WHATEVER AND WAS EXPOSED AS JUST SOME GUY #the correct vtuber tieline. let shishido move Just out of frame enouhg to expose his ass #what do you MEAAAAAN its nt a catgirl...... just a big man........ #its like a twelve step plan see he won in the fend #would also be funny if as a form of 'reformation' or whateve the daidoi just show him the fuckin livestream 😭😭 #he isnt allowed o let loose that he tried to expose kiryu Not being dead first #He Has No Mouth And He Must Scream type of deal

[dateamonster]

the ongoing transmisogyny situation on this website is becoming something that would be almost comical if it wasnt you know genuinely impacting the lives of marginalized people. ive been using tumblr for over a decade and i dont think ive ever seen this level of cartoonish incompetence and thin-skinned behavior from staff members much less the fucking ceo. get a fucking grip guys.

#i feel sometimes my attachment to this place is a bit of a sunk cost fallacy situation #its hard for me to imagine really moving anywhere else after all this time but idk! #and when i start thinking like that i cant help but think how insulting it would feel to have some guy obliterate my whole blog and fucking #scour my posts and pictures clear off the site for no fucking reason! and then lie about it! #fuck matt mullenweg fuck this culture of transmisogyny thats been allowed to go wildly unchecked on this site #just!! ugh! whatever!!!!!! #off topic #ungodly screeching

[caeslxys]

the salt and the skin

Hi! I have been deeply beset by a disease that can only be cured by writing about Imogen Temult’s intensely ingrained mental illnesses. Yeah it’s contagious. Honestly this fic should probably be labeled as some type of biohazard.

Also on Ao3!

The first time Imogen told Laudna about the storm it was, appropriately, storming.

Laudna’s eyes had been swallowed by a blackness darker than that of the night surrounding them, catching and reflecting even the most minuscule scatterings of light in a way that made her gaze look full with shooting stars. She had taken her leather-shielded hand to hold in both of hers as she listened. It was the first time she could remember someone taking her hand simply to hold.

She said, here is what she knows of the storm: it is unrelenting, it is violent, it is hers.

After—as they lay for the first time in a shared space, hands locked together in a promise at their sides—Laudna fell asleep before her, eyes wide open. Imogen had spent minutes watching light shows reflect in them, enchanted utterly. She thought, without really considering the weight of it then: beautiful.

When she finally fell back asleep, she did so with the comfort of knowing she was never out of Laudna’s lightspun gaze.

———

In the time that has passed since that night the same things that have changed about the storm have changed for her and Laudna—which is to say, nothing at all.

(Which is to say, absolutely everything.

In the time that has passed since that night Imogen has become familiar with the difference between the chill that follows Laudna’s skin and the chill that follows a corpse with her face. In the time that has passed since that night Imogen has learned the difference between running from and running to. In the time that has passed since that night Imogen has learned the difference between losing and being left.

Here is what she knows of grief: it is unrelenting, it is violent, it is hers.

It does not escape her that the first time she heard her mother’s voice was in a storm.)

———

On the twenty-seventh day of Quen’Pillar, as the falling leaves and spines begin to create a shoreline on the bordering forest in a glaze of varying orange and brown shades, Gelvaan celebrates the Hazel Festival.

This, like all other celebrations in Gelvaan, is celebrated with hastily put-up stands and stages and games, the best and biggest cattle and produce hauled in on freshly cleaned wagons—some sporting their previously won ribbons as intimidating trophies—and various flowery dedications to various different gods.

The Hazel Festival, as her father explained it, is a celebration of love and divine intention—the concept and promise of soul mates. As the superstition goes, if there exists another half of you, then you would find them here. People would arrive with bouquets of freshly picked flowers, hand-written letters or hand-crafted food, wandering the small stream of Gelvaan townsfolk with the belief that they were about to stumble upon the great love of their life.

It always seemed so silly to her, which means it was something many of the people in that town held very close to their hearts.

Her father told her that they met there. He and her mother. Maybe that’s why it seemed so silly.

But here, in the dark and with the taste of honesty staining her lips, she has the passing thought that she’d like to take Laudna one day. Maybe not to the one in Gelvaan; somewhere new, somewhere that feels syrupy sweet and slow and that sticks to your skin like a joyful glaze when it's over. Somewhere that stains. She wants Laudna to have to lick her fingers clean. She wants to bring her a bouquet of flowers.

But, for now, she is in a chasm that might as well be endless telling Laudna things that she deserved to hear in any other way. She should have told her about how she feels about Delilah’s presence in their room, holding her hand, holding her lips to the skin of her throat in a threat and a promise.

She should have told Laudna she loves her at the Hazel Festival.

Instead she says “I love Laudna,” with the same tense hesitance you would feel pulling a trigger and follows it with a “but” that bursts from her chest like a bullet that precedes “I’m disgusted at the idea of Delilah looking at us all the time.” that leaves her smoking mouth like an accusation. She watches her careless aim land true in Laudna’s chest, sees the conflicted hitch and stutter of her breath from even the short distance separating them.

It ricochets; it strikes her, too.

———

During the trial of trust, when Laudna says she loves her, Imogen’s response is: “I think you’re a doppelganger right now?”

Which is silly. They’ll laugh about it later. It also makes her want to die as soon as it leaves her lips.

Because, the thing is, she knows Laudna. She knows Laudna and she would be able to tell if it wasn’t Laudna if she had been blinded or deafened or made senseless altogether. Her tether, her anchor. She would know. She should have known.

In the same way she should have known the moment they landed in Wildemount that Laudna was in Issylra. In the same way she should have known the moment she fled that Laudna was in the Parchwood. In the same way she should have known twenty years ago that Laudna was coming to her.

Not that any of it matters. She didn’t know. She didn’t know that she was in Issylra—the Parchwood—The Hellcatch—in front of her. It feels as close to sacreligious as Imogen has ever truly felt. Heretical. Like she should be punished or brought down altogether. And, really, maybe she should be. The exercise was to trust one another.

What kind of trust was it, to instinctually keep trying to reach into her friend’s minds? To summon a hound to stand between them all as they stood at the very precipice in case? If she’s honest, she doesn’t truthfully feel like any of them deserved to be called victorious.

She wonders, briefly, if the other side is lacking here, too. Ludinus, Otohan. Her mother. Is it trust that binds them? Is it faith?

The brief thought of it, that her mother has found her own version of the Hells—maybe her own version of Laudna—drives into her chest like a fist.

But none of that compares to—Laudna’s face, fumbling into disbelief at the accusation; Laudna’s grasping, empty hands; Laudna’s nervous, darting eyes. Laudna’s screams, cutting through the night off the bow of the Silver Sun. Laudna’s bleeding fingers, dripping black onto shattered, pink stone.

If it was sacrilegious of her to doubt Laudna’s intention, it is damnation she feels take root in her ribs as a hound aparrates at her side. It bursts forth with a growling howl, its decaying hackles raised, its bright green eyes trained on her, sharp and dutiful. For her to doubt Laudna—for her to make Laudna doubt her—

Well. She supposes it’s fair.

She glances at it, her Cerberus. She says, “Hi, baby boy.”

It calms. Across the fountain, face blocked by the angle of her own extended hand, Laudna calms, too. “Yes.” Laudna utters, “Good boy.”

She closes her eyes as she, Orym, and Chetney breach the barrier surrounding the fountain and drop their ivory sticks into its grasp. She reaches for Laudna’s mind one final, unsuccessful time, the plea for her not to lunge dying unheard in the folds of her mind.

(In the moment, as Morri applauds their upward failure of a success, she doesn’t register the way her now red-scarred fingers come up to brush against the now-bare skin of her temple. She should have known.

Next time, she will.)

———

When Fearne finally makes up her mind and readies herself for taking the shard, Imogen’s eyes are on Laudna and how a line of tension shoots up her spine and draws her shoulders together like folding, skeletal wings. How, as Chetney reaches into the bag of holding, she silently steps away.

Imogen hasn’t been wearing her circlet, has lowered herself once again into the rapid waters of her too-open mind for hours now, but she doesn’t need to be in Laudna’s mind to know what is passing through it.

It makes her sick, the thought of that vile woman in Laudna’s mind or soul or presence. It makes her more sick to think of Laudna spending even a moment around her influence alone.

(When Laudna had come back—when they found her, out at the tree line of the Parchwood—she had run. She had taken a moment to meet Imogen’s exhausted-elated-terrified eyes and sprinted in the opposite direction. She ran for fear of what she was capable of doing, of who she was capable of hurting, of both her lack of control and abundance of power.

She thinks of Laudna running from her and from her and from herself and, briefly, envisions a storm in the place where once she stood.)

She doesn’t really register that she has moved until Laudna is already in her arms.

“You can put your head in my shoulder. Til’ it’s over.” She whispers, one hand burying itself in Laudna’s hair and the other wrapping possessively around her waist, “I can tell you what’s happening, if you want?”

Laudna doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and then, into her neck: “You’re warm.”

She feels the barely-there press of lips to her carotid and tries valiantly not to let the shiver it sparks pass through her. Instead, she takes the hand in her hair and presses lightly, moves so that every point of their bodies that could be connected are. She says, voice silk-soft, lips brushing a metal-armored cropped ear, “So are you.”

For a moment it feels—well, intimate in a way she’s slightly embarrassed about displaying in front of the others. Slightly.

But then Laudna is murmuring “shut up, shut up, shut up,” into the skin of her shoulder and—she can’t help it—she smiles. She giggles. It is pure pride. Her brain in three parts: loving Laudna, hating Delilah, wanting to tell Laudna it’s okay to bite her shoulder to drown out the voice if it’s too loud.

She does not do that, and instead whispers the incantation she has all but ingrained on her tongue from countless back-and-forth trips on too shaky gondolas and grief insurmountable—she says, in some dead language or a command—calm.

She thinks, as the spell leaves her and Laudna’s tense body melts completely—as Fearne’s body rises into the air, encompassed in flame—as Chetney’s grip on the tools he has taken out to hold for comfort, and then on FCG’s raging body, turns white-knuckled—as Ashton flinches and almost doubles over from another shock of pain that passes through them and then as healing energy into Fearne—as Orym bounces anxiously on his heels like a flea or a warrior looking to strike—as FCG’s eyes flicker red and his tiny healing-hands become something violent—as her mother says her name through the roaring of a storm—I’m not running anymore. I won’t run.

She imagines, as Laudna pulls back when things have settled and her taloned grip releases Imogen, that her skin has formed new scars in the shape of Laudna’s hands. She holds the idea in her mind in place of an oath.

———

That night, she gives in.

It’s inevitable, really, no matter which way you look at it she and the storm and the moon have always been meant to collide. To swallow each other whole. It’s better that she does it on her terms.

Laudna agrees. It’s good that Laudna agrees. The best, actually, because she was hoping that she’d say no. She was hoping that she’d say no because she doesn’t actually want to be swallowed whole by the storm or the moon or the concept of a mother. What she wants is for Laudna to say no, and to take her hand and walk her out of the room—the house—the feywild—this entire situation—and into whatever is next. Because the truth of it is, no matter how many people go into her dreams with her, she still feels alone.

In the end, she tells herself as red bleeds into the nothing behind her eyelids, the future she has been fighting for has never been her own. The hope she holds like water in her hands was never meant for herself. Her last fight. Her last hope. She stows them away like weapons. She thinks, They’ll owe me. She thinks, They’ll free her.

Except, when she gives in—when her friends fall away, as they always do, and she is left alone and cradled and warm with the echo of her desperate mother’s voice ringing in her mind—it’s everything. It’s twenty years of nightmares and ten of minds on minds on minds and months of grief and love and wrath all wrapped up in a bow and labeled “purpose”.

She feels like a child. Or what she imagines most children felt like. Weightless. Like if she’s simply good enough there will be someone who loves her there to wrap her in a hug or a blanket and tell her she did well. Who will carry her tiny half-asleep form to her room and tuck her in and kiss her forehead and say “good night.” Like she could close her eyes and let the darkness swallow her and know someone left a light on.

It’s everything. So when she wakes to her friends hovering, groggy faces she is only guilty for a moment at the spike of disappointment that shoots through her at the sight of them. And only guilty for a second longer when her eyes land on Laudna who is still, also, endlessly, everything.

It’s not—she’s not really there for the next few seconds—minutes—hours. All of their voices come through as if she is submerged in something thick that pulls every time she tries to break for air. Or maybe a lack of air altogether. There are still stars behind her eyelids every time she blinks.

At some point in their conversation two things finally register in about the same amount of time. One: her mother had called for her. Her mother had been there. Her mother had sounded like she was crying. And two: Laudna is holding her hand.

Laudna has been holding her hand, maybe. For a few moments and a few years. It's this, her tether, that finally brings her back to—well—Exandria.

The others are—asleep? No, they’ve—that is, she and Laudna—have moved. To their room. They had a room? Have they spent a night here already? If time is a soup then she has made quite the mess.

Regardless, Laudna is holding her hand. It’s everything.

Then there is shifting, slow and slight.

“Imogen.” She hears her whisper, voice dropping to that low husk that her choked, only lightly decayed vocal cords must reach to achieve a tone so soft. She doesn’t ever mention it, but Imogen knows how sometimes kindness exists like a war in Laudna’s body. In the way her throat rebels against the scratchy dip of her voice, in the way her bones ache when embraced. It hurts her to be so soft. For Imogen, she does it anyway. “Imogen. Would you like to lie down?”

She doesn’t respond—she doesn’t think she responds—just squeezes Laudna’s cool hand in her warm one and laces their fingers together in lukewarm knots.

She feels Laudna’s hands take and cradle her close—holds there, chests rising and falling against each other like lapping waves for an amount of time Imogen doesn't bother to count—and then she twists and shifts and lays her down like a sleepy child on their shared pillows. She tucks her in. She stands.

“I’ll be back.” Laudna husks somewhere above her. “Rest, darling. I won’t be but a few minutes. I’m sure Nana has a pitcher of water somewhere around here that I won’t have to—I don’t know—make a deal for, or something.”

She thinks she feels the tiniest beginnings of a grin pinning her lips up as Laudna's steps slow near the door, hesitate—begin to close—and then open the door long enough to peek in and say: “Pâté is with you, okay, I’ll be right back. I’ll try not to bargain what remains of my soul for water, but—you know—as they say—what must be done and all—okay, bye” punctuated by the croaking sound of their door pinching shut.

Definitely a grin, then. “Pâté,” she says, dream-drunk, “Your mom is the best.”

She feels Pâté land on her chest with a soft, somewhat wet flop. His tiny feet pitter like he’s excited or dancing. He says, “I know. She’s the whole package.” And then, after letting loose a rattling sound that could be considered a yawn, he asks, “Can I get cozy, then? While we wait for mum?”

Imogen, eyes still blissfully closed, let's loose a breathless laugh. Her hand blindly makes its way to the ball of fur and viscera and bone and love on her chest and scritches, “‘Course, Pâté. We’ll wait together.”

He hums. She feels him turn in one, two, three circles on her chest before finally curling up and settling in on her skin. He makes another rattling noise that could be a yawn or maybe a purr and says, “You’re warm.”

She is undeniably smiling when she responds, “So are you, buddy.”

———

When Laudna comes back minutes or hours later, Pâté is fast asleep on her chest.

His little body rattles with what she assumes are snores, softly vibrating against her collar. She holds a finger to her lips as Laudna goes to shut the door behind her. Laudna makes a face like she’s about to burst into tears.

She doesn’t. She instead turns to—softly—shut and lock the door, and then turns soundlessly again in her direction. She takes a breath. She smiles, “I’m not going to lie, I was kind of hoping you’d be asleep when I got back.”

She hums, low in her chest. “Why?”

Laudna looks at her in that somewhat blank way she does when she thinks the answer to something is quite obvious. She says, “Because you need the rest.”

She hums again. Laudna treks the distance between them and sits softly beside her, her sharp hip just barely pressing against the bend of her waist. Her bony hand catches Imogen’s cheek—or, maybe, Imogen’s cheek willingly falls into her hand—regardless, suddenly she finds herself held. A thumb brushes under her eye with the barely there gentleness one uses when full with fear for something breaking in their grasp.

She leans forward and over her, dark hair falling around them like a curtain of ink, blanketing them in shadow, encompassing her entire vision. She asks, breath falling upon her lips like a torrent or a phantom kiss, “Are you alright, darling?”

Imogen lifts up the barely there distance to press their lips together, sighing into her mouth. “Careful with Pâté,” she whispers when she falls back, a hand splaying on Laudna’s chest to keep her from fully settling in atop her, “he needs the rest, too.”

Laudna opens her eyes as if from a good dream—and then rolls them. She lifts a hand to wave in the air as if swatting at something. “He’s dead.” She says, like it’s an obvious thing—which, it is. But. “Besides, if he dies from exhaustion or something else ridiculous then I’ll just bring him back.”

Imogen frowns. “I don’t think he’s dead. Not, like, dead-dead, anyway. ‘Sides, he’s comfy. I’d feel bad if we woke him.”

Laudna hums, then. “Yes, he is. Comfy. And also dead.”

Her turn to roll her eyes. “Where’s his house?”

Laudna sighs like the world is ending—which, well—and leans down for one more soft kiss and then back and up and off of her entirely. Imogen tries—valiantly, she might add—not to openly wince at the loss.

She watches Laudna brace her nonexistent weight against the bed in a way that would cause the mattress to dip if it were anyone else, and instead just presses with the barely there imprint of her palms into the silk. She reaches for Imogen’s chest, cups Pâté’s tiny form in her hands; Imogen brings her hands together overtop them both. When Laudna looks at her, her eyes are full of shooting stars.

“Can I?” she asks, “Please?”

Laudna stares at her for a few slow heartbeats more, a little like she is stunned. Eventually, she leans down over their joined hands and kisses her fingers. Again. Moves her thumb to run over her knuckles like she is wiping away a stain. “Of course.”

Her body still feels a little gone, a little floaty, as she brings her hands to catch Pâté’s tiny body in their joint grasp, lifts herself up against the headboard, and then swings her legs over the side of the mattress. She sways to her feet slowly, slightly wobbly, eyes never leaving from the curled-up ball of fur in her hands and on her chest. Laudna’s hands have moved and are pressing into her biceps from somewhere behind her, steadying.

She lifts her head long enough to find where Laudna had placed Pâté's little home across the room, its golden-brown wood resting silently atop the possibly skin-covered drawer by the archway that opens into a vine-wrapped, flower-lined balcony.

She half-shambles, half-stumbles her way over with Laudna on her bleary-eyed heels. It feels infinitely important—it’s always felt important, but—that she is gentle. That Laudna sees her be gentle. It is more important than she has words to describe that Laudna could leave or fall asleep or be elsewhere and feel and know that Pâté would be put softly, lovingly to bed. That he would be tucked in. That Imogen would leave a little light on for him if he asked. She looks down at Laudna’s most special little gift and drops a tiny, feather-light kiss against his skeletal head. “G’night, buddy.”

He mumbles out a gargled sounding, “G’night, ‘mogen.”

She smiles, pulls apart the tiny curtains that act as a privacy sheet to his home, tucks him in as well as she can, runs one last soft finger down the length of his beak and just like that—she can’t help it—she starts to think of her mother.

She wonders how gently Liliana held her, when she was so small and helpless and vulnerable. She wonders if Liliana ever sang to her, ever held her little hands and kissed her stubby fingers. That memory—the one that Otohan conjured or summoned or triggered—her mother had caught her as her toddler legs had stumbled; she had smiled and wiped her tear-stained cheeks and lifted her into her arms and held.

The phantom memory of a mother and the phantom memory of Ruidus begin to overlap—how long had it been, before Laudna, that she was shown gentleness? Before Laudna, two decades into her life, was it her mother? Before her mother, before she was ever given a name, was it the moon?

How was she meant to—how was it fair to expect her to—is it so evil of her, to wish? She won’t—she won’t—because she knows that it’s wrong no matter how desperately it feels right. But the—the venom she catches pooling in the depths of Orym’s gaze, sometimes, when he talks about the moon and the vanguard and she—she gets it—of course she gets it, of course she understands—but it’s not like she’s ever genuinely entertained the thought of joining the vanguard—of joining Otohan—but the moon, Ruidus, Predathos—she won’t—the silence, the comfort—her body, radiant even among the stars—running, tripping into her mother’s arms—she won’t—

“Imogen?”

A chilled hand on her shoulder, gentle, gentle, gentle.

Breath enters her empty lungs in a shock-sharp inhale. Light enters the world again—natural, silver-white moonlight like a stripe of paint from the open balcony; warm, flickering orange from the candle by the bed—and the temperature goes from freezing to scalding to cool as she collapses back into her body like debris flung from orbit. Laudna’s hand on her skin; she crash-lands back home.

On impact, she whispers, “Laudna.”

A moment of hesitance and then a soft, cool pair of lips against the curve of her neck and shoulder. Her hands circle to wrap around Imogen’s waist. She asks, again, voice feather-fall soft, “Are you alright?”

A moment of hesitance and then her traitorous mouth, her traitorous heart: “I don’t know anymore.”

Laudna presses another, more lingering kiss to the space below her ear, then moves to run her nose along the curve of her jaw. She whispers there, in a way that she feels the words press against her skin, “That’s okay.”

Imogen finds her hands against her belly and twines them together as tightly as she can—tether, anchor, home. Her breath trembles.

They don’t say anything, holding each other in the space and the silence. Laudna presses gentle, gentle kisses to anywhere on Imogen that she can reach—neck, shoulder, ear, jaw—until Imogen turns to meet her there, barely capturing Laudna’s bottom lip between hers and then moving in again, more insistent. She feels Laudna’s lips pull into a smile against hers. Imogen notes that she’s becoming familiar with the feeling. The thought pulls her own smile forth.

But they haven’t kissed like this before, at this angle, in this room. There are so many other perfect kisses they have yet to discover.

It doesn’t make sense that she only kissed her a little over a week ago. She should have kissed her a month ago, the moment she came back on the floor in Whitestone, the moment they arrived in Jrusar, two years ago in Gelvaan. She should have kissed her a hundred more times than she did the day that she first gathered the courage to kiss her in the first place and then kissed her some more. She should’ve bought lipstick so she could leave a stain.

Laudna pulls back first, half-laughing and half-sighing at Imogen’s attempt to give chase. She leans back in to press a quick kiss to her nose—new, perfect—and then dips down, seals their foreheads together, looks up at her. She asks, “Would you like to talk about it?”

No, not really. “I think I’d need another week to even begin to process what’s happened to us in the last three days, to be honest.”

Laudna nods. “Yes, understandable. It’s been a lot.” She pauses, as if to see if Imogen will respond, and then says, “Still, I’d like to listen.”

She’s perfect. That’s it, really.

Imogen finds her hand and brings it up to her lips, kissing each finger once and then each knuckle. She whispers, “I’m not sure I know how to.”

Laudna kisses her cheek. “That’s okay, too.”

When she pulls back she also pulls forward, taking Imogen’s hand in her own and guiding her. She twines their fingers together, and then they are on the balcony.

Catha shines more brightly here than she is used to in the Material Plane. There is no bloody red or pink shine of Ruidus to speak of after their work at the key. It is navy-dark, struck through with silver cuts from Sehanine’s light. There are moving, shifting vines wrapped around the stone-skinwork railing of their little alcove, purple and yellow and orange and bright, vibrant green dancing and swirling and alive around them.

Laudna gasps, her lips forming a perfect, excited “O” when she notices the little movements. “Hello, there,” she says to the vine, “Sorry to disturb you. Would it be impolite to talk to my girlfriend out here, for a minute?” and then, her hands coming up like claws and her voice deepening to the tone she uses for her most important and dramatic of questions, “Is this, like, your domain?”

The vines shake back and forth as if to say knock yourself out or maybe well I can’t stop you.

Laudna grins, “Oh, perfect. Excellent. You're much less ferocious than your feywild-forest-flower friends.” Her brows furrow, a single finger coming up to tap nervously against her lips. “Hm. I hope that wasn’t insulting.”

Before Imogen can stop her she reaches forward and lightly taps the vine with two fingers, sharp teeth exposed in a smile, “You’re perfectly ferocious as well.”

The vines shutter as if to say fuck off and then pull back and vanish, leaving clean stonework behind.

Laudna pouts. Imogen takes and tangles their hands together. “Maybe next time.”

She sighs, all dramatics, “I’m beginning to believe plants hate me as much as people do.”

Imogen knocks their shoulders together. “People don’t hate you.”

“Objectively untrue. Regardless,” she says, waving Imogen’s immediate attempt at a counter aside, “Are you ready? For tomorrow.”

For the key? For Ruidus? For her mother?

She shrugs, “As I’ll ever be. You?”

”Oh, I think so.” She leans her bony hip against the balcony wall. “It’s been a long road. To get here. I never doubted you would.”

Imogen scoffs. She leans against the wall, too. “A long road is certainly one way to describe it. A shitty road, would be another.”

Laudna tilts her head at her, raven-like. A rope of black hair falls into her face. Imogen clenches her fingers around her arms in an effort not to reach across the space and brush it behind her ear. She says, with the upward tilting, insecure cadence of a question, “It hasn’t all been shitty, though?”

Imogen heaves a heavy breath. “No,” she says, fingers still digging into her own skin, “No. Not all of it.”

Laudna hums. There is still hair in front of her eyes. “But quite a bit of it.”

”Quite a bit, yeah.”

Quiet. Some likely incredibly fucked-up feywild bird flutters its incredibly fucked-up feywild wings and takes off into the moonlit night. Imogen turns and balances her weight on her elbows, leaning over the wall. The vines from earlier are just over the edge, as if eavesdropping. She says, “But not all of it, Laudna.”

”I know,” Laudna whispers, “I agree.”

”About not all of it sucking absolute ass or about it sucking absolute ass in general?”

”Yes.”

“Awesome.” Imogen chuckles, “I’m glad we agree that everything sucks.”

”But not everything-everything.”

”But not everything-everything.”

”This is getting pretty circular,” Laudna steps closer, “How do we make it suck less?”

Kiss me, Imogen thinks. “I have no idea.” Imogen says.

“Because, you know,” Laudna continues as if Imogen hadn’t spoken at all, “I think you’re…so capable. Truly. And I really haven’t ever doubted that you’d make it here—“

”—to the moon?—”

”—from the moment it became apparent it was possible, yes—but, really, even then—anyway. I just…I want to protect you. On the moon, but also here,” She lifts one dainty hand and presses her finger against Imogen’s forehead, “I know the dream was a lot.”

Imogen grasps Laudna’s wrist where it is in front of her face, leans forward to press a kiss against the veins there and then again at the tip of that same finger. “It was.”

Laudna shifts closer, still, leaning over her just slightly. “Do you feel any different?”

Imogen finally, finally allows herself the gift of brushing those stray hairs back, lets her fingers linger against Laudna’s gaunt cheek. “Yes and no.” she admits, eyes on the silk-soft hair tangled in her fingers to the side of Laudna’s face, “I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“That’s alright. Maybe I can help you find the words. You just—well, I…don’t want to, you know, but. You’ve just seemed a little—“

”Out of sorts.”

She sees Laudna’s breath stutter and then release. “Yes, I…I didn’t want to pressure you, or anything. It’s been a lot, so much. And you don’t have to—I trust you. I do. But if you…if you need or want help, then I would like to offer it. Is all.”

Imogen swallows. “I meant it, earlier,” bursts from her chest, her heart, “When I—That I love you. That I’m—in love with you. In case that wasn’t, um, clear.”

Laudna, for her part, looks genuinely surprised. Which is itself surprising. Not in the least because she had said she loved her, too; but, also that Imogen realizes that she very simply is not super good at hiding it.

Quietly, softly, Laudna’s lips part. Her eyes go a bit glassy. She shifts forward slightly, leaning into her palm still on her cheek. She says—whispers, really— “I know.”

Imogen inhales. Exhales. “You—well, that's good. That’s great.”

Laudna smiles against her skin. “You’re warm.” she whispers. She presses a kiss there, to the crease of her palm. “I love you, too.”

Imogen inhales. Exhales. “Well. That’s good. That’s great.”

”Mhm.”

”I don’t—“ she licks her dry lips, “I don’t know what to do now.”

Laudna hums. “Yes you do.”

”Right.” she says, “Okay.” and then she’s kissing her again.

”I’m going to ask you—“ a pause, another kiss, “I’m going to ask you about the dream again, when—“

Imogen pulls back. Laudna’s lips are kiss-swollen and shiny. It makes her want to break something. She asks, “When?”

Laudna sighs. Her eyes open to find her slowly, and then stop half-way, hanging over her iris’ heavily. Her eyes are dark. Hungry. She says, “When I’m done.”

Imogen’s eyes fall back to her lips. “Right.” She whispers, “Okay—“ and then the rest of her sentence and the rest of her breath and the rest of her thoughts are stolen from her.

———

“Now, then.” Laudna starts. She wipes the back of her hand across her uptilt lips. “What’s different? Do you have gills? Webbed fingers? Though, I supposed I’d have noticed that much by now—”

”Laudna—“ she heaves a laugh, lungs still desperate, voice a little hoarse, “God, let me catch my breath first.”

Laudna’s tongue runs lightly between her lips. She is above her, still, grey-ish arms bracketing either side of her. There is hair in her face again, sweat-stuck to her skin. Imogen is too mesmerized by the way that it splits her into like running ink and catches the nearby moonglow in a contrasting showcase of light to bother to want to brush it away. Chiaroscuro personified.

She tilts her head, bird-like and uncanny. Her eyes, shooting stars. It makes Imogen want to pull her back in. “Shit, Laudna,” she whisper-giggles, “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful.”

Laudna stutters and then grins, all too-sharp teeth. She says, teasingly, ”It’s nice to not be the breathless one for a change.”

Imogen’s laugh leaves her like a strike to the chest, “Oh, that’s a good one.”

”I thought so.”

Laudna leans down, kisses her again. Imogen sighs into her.

This—the intimacy of it—is still so new and beautiful and exciting and—well—frankly, they've both discovered that they’re ravenous. For each other and for love and for touch. That first night—at Zhudanna’s, her body still thrumming hours later with the electric echo of their first kiss—Imogen had taken Laudna’s hand after they passed the threshold of their little makeshift and borrowed home and led her to their windowless room, their small bed. She had asked: Can I kiss you again?

It was indescribably wonderful, and took approximately two lung-heaving, feather-light minutes in the aftermath to discover that Laudna was starving. Voraciously hungry. Thirty years of nothing and then—suddenly—this. Suddenly them. Imogen could hardly stand the handful of weeks apart.

Which is to say, Laudna has a tendency to lose herself in her, a little bit. It has quickly become one of her greatest prides.

Except—well.

Imogen falls back, separating them. “Sorry,” she whispers, “What were—what were you sayin’?”

Laudna pouts. ”Asking.” She corrects, “Well—maybe theorizing, but mostly asking. You said—earlier—it feels different?”

Imogen nods. She reaches up to brush her fingers over Laudna’s cheek. “Yeah.”

”Is it…good different? Or bad different?”

Imogen nods. “Yeah.”

Laudna nods, too. Imogen watches something like self-consciousness settle on her shoulders. She isn’t sure what to do about it.

Laudna braces to press a kiss to her cheek and then rolls over. When her skin hits the light it makes her look made of marble. Like a statue. A work of art.

She bends across the space and tugs the blanket up and around them both, reaching around Imogen to make sure she is covered completely. Imogen uses the opportunity to press her lips to the skin of her bicep in passing thanks.

She settles back against the sheets. “I love you.” She says. Somehow, it sounds like a plea. “And I’ll support whatever it is you decide you want to do.”

Imogen turns on her side to mirror her. “Even if—if it’s giving in completely?”

Laudna's eyes are dark. Hungry. “Whatever you decide, Imogen.”

Imogen swallows. She feels like she’s choking. Something is rising in her, clawing at her chest and stomach and ripping its way into the world. Laudna’s eyes are so dark. There is a hound in her chest. Imogen swears she hears the echo of its howl, somehow, in her own chest. In the breaths between heartbeats, something is growling.

The howl, her eyes; it rends her completely. With blood in her teeth, she says, “My mom was there.”

It leaves her like a strike of lightning, seeking the quickest way to earth, splitting and bursting apart her ribcage as it rips from her lungs. Or like a hound, pent-up and caged, let loose to hunt and sprinting, snarling to the nearest indicator of meat. Or like sickness, like bile, burning.

That’s the bursting, bleeding, burning truth of it: her mother was there. On Ruidus, at the key, in her dreams for as long as she has had them. Guiding her or warning her. In the end, isn’t that a form of love? Isn’t that what a mother would do? She felt so held, there at the center of Ruidus, in the eye of the storm, in Predathos’ hand or maybe its jaws. Her mother had screamed for her. Her mother had cried for her.

And she can’t remember the feeling of her mother’s warmth, but she can remember the sound of her voice: Run. Imogen.

Does Predathos have a voice? Would it mourn her? Would it leave?

“What did she do?” Laudna—like a thunderclap, or a resonating howl, or a hand on her heaving back—takes and wraps their bodies together like twisting vines. She presses their foreheads together. Her eyes are still dark. “Imogen. What did she say?”

Laudna would. Laudna would mourn her. Laudna would tuck her corpse into bed before leaving her.

”I don’t—she just—called for me. My name. She said no. Laudna.” Laudna’s hands on either side of her clenched jaw, Laudna’s lips centimeters from her own, Laudna’s hand in hers in the middle of the storm. “She sounded like she was crying.”

She feels the well in her eyes overflow, cutting down her cheeks. Laudna makes some gasping sound and leans in, pressing her lips to the skin and the salt. “Imogen. Imogen, I’m sorry. Imogen.” She pulls back. The dark in her eyes is gone. “Darling, what can I do?”

Imogen shakes her head. They’re close enough that each passing arc causes their noses to bump. “I don’t know.” She says, voice tight. “I don’t know. What if I fucked up? What if she left to protect me and I wasted it? I don’t know anymore, Laudna.”

Laudna kisses her, lightly, a barely there press of their lips and then gone. Like she isn’t sure how else to respond. “What happened? When you gave in? What did it feel like?”

Imogen trembles. “I—you all—left. Were pulled away. It brought me in and then—my mama—but it—“ here, she sobs, “it was warm.”

Laudna’s body stiffens around her, arms locking like rigor mortis around her waist. She doesn’t exhale for a long, long time. When she does, it passes over her lips like a torrent.

“My mother taught me to sew.” she starts. “Did I ever tell you that? We didn’t often have enough money to go get new clothes so we made our own. Anyway, the first time it was because I ripped a hole in one of my shirts out in the woods—I was digging for worms—and when I came back I was all in a huff, expecting to be in so much trouble and felt so terrible for ruining clothes I knew she made for me.”

She pauses to press a kiss to Imogen’s hairline, “She took the ruined thing out of my hands and taught me how to fix it.”

She inhales. There’s the tiniest stutter in her chest that makes Imogen want to level another city block. “I used to think about her quite often. Everytime I found myself trying to sleep on the floor of some cold, abandoned cabin, all alone, I remember wishing she were there to teach me how to fix it.”

Their eyes find each other again, snapping together like magnets or puzzle pieces. Laudna’s eyes are full of shooting stars again. “I just—I’m just sorry, Imogen. I’m sorry I don’t know how to fix this. I’m sorry she doesn’t.”

No longer the snapping wolf, no longer the lightning strike or the thunderclap or the bile or the hand; Imogen breaks.

“God, Laudna. It feels like—like I'm mourning her.” She sobs. The words loose from her throat like an arrow held taut for too long, aimless. “But, Laudna, she isn't—she was never gone."

It is an ugly, sharp, irrational thing, her grief; she feels it drive like icicles into Laudna’s already chilled skin and dig rot-guilt up from under the warmth of her own when the weight of it tugs her over and into Laudna further. She wishes, fleetingly, that she could wear her grief as prettily as she thinks Laudna does. Laudna slips into hers like an old coat or an old blanket—scratchy, filled with holes, utterly familiar in a way that settles onto her shoulders in some poor facsimile of comfort.

Imogen’s is always, always this: an implosion. An excavation of the self. Her body nothing more than a dig-site of scars with histories older than she is.

“She’s my mama, Laudna.” It is a pathetic plea, it drops with the weight of a stone into water from her lips, “She was always with me. I never knew her. I love her and I loved her. She was dead. I have to kill her. I have mourned so why am I still mourning?”

The last word rips out of her in two tones, caught in the hiccup-choke of a sob into Laudna’s shoulder.

"Oh, darling." Laudna whispers, her lips against Imogen’s temple petal-soft in a way that makes the guilt dig deeper, sugar and salt. For a moment she only holds her. Presses kisses to the side of her head. And then Imogen feels air fill her chest, hears her lungs expand with the accompanying sound of bones like a creaking ship at sea or a growling hound. She says, with all the wisdom of someone who has lived and died and lived again, "Mourning is just…love in a transitive state.”

She shifts, catching the wet guilt dripping from Imogen’s face and forming lakes of grief at her collar, rivers of it down her chest. It makes Imogen’s breath catch, watches the moonlight catch in the momentary proof of her on Laudna. She continues, more softly, “It is…an adjustment to distance. Not gone—just far."

At this, Imogen glances away from the stain of her to meet Laudna’s eyes. She hesitates, breath a pathetic stutter in her lungs. She asks, “Are we still talking about my mother?”

Laudna watches her. And watches her. And then, voice like a bleeding wound or creaking branches or whining rope: “Death could not take me from you.”

“Don’t—“ she begs, “Do not—Laudna—“

”It can’t, Imogen. She can’t.”

Imogen sobs, reaches up desperately to cradle Laudna’s face in her hands. “I don’t want you to be another voice in my storm, Laudna. I can’t. I won’t.”

Laudna's gentle, cool hands gather her own callous, warm ones together at their collar. She asks, "Can I tell you something you don't want to hear?"

A laugh breaks out of Imogen’s lungs, desperate and sad. “You already are.”

Her grip on Laudna's hands is not gentle, it is clinging. Clawing. She imagines that when Laudna pulls away, her wrists will bear the bruise of her.

She says, in that same creaking branches voice, "You would have been fine without me."

She pulls away—tries to—hears her voice from outside her body saying, "No—No, I—" but then Laudna's fingers are entangled in hers like roots and Imogen is—she's—clinging, too.

"Don't say that." She cries. There is thunder in her voice. A precursor and warning. "I love you. Don’t say that.”

Laudna’s hands release hers to wrap around and claw at the skin of her hip, dragging them close again. Her eyes are swimming. “You’re so strong, so capable, and you are going to live. Your storm won’t take you. You will outgrow it.”

”You are, too.” Imogen demands. Because it is a demand, of herself and of the world. “You’re going to live, too.”

Laudna says nothing. Imogen continues, “I won’t let her have you, Laudna. If I can outgrow my storm, you can outgrow her.”

Laudna’s face is choked up in grief, now, in a way that Imogen has never really seen. “I just mean—“ she starts, chokes, starts again, “I just mean—my mother taught me to sew. And I did. And I think maybe your mother taught you to run. And you did. And I don’t think it’s…it’s understandable, that you wish she had taught you how to sew instead.”

Something in her, some roaring thing—the storm, maybe—cracks her skin at the words. She thinks if she were to look at her hands right now there would be new scars.

Laudna takes her ruined hands into her own; she tries to fix them. “But I can teach you how to sew, Imogen. I can—and then when I'm—gone. You can still sew. Or cook or—or paint or—whatever it is, Imogen. Imogen.”

Imogen rushes in; she kisses her. What else is there to say? What do you say when I love you isn’t big enough anymore? How do you say I don’t want you to teach me how to sew, I want you to teach me how to hunt?

Maybe there aren’t enough words to encompass them. Maybe they’ve created their own expanse of love and devotion here, between them. Maybe they’ve spent two years carving a space for the other in the ether of the world.

Everything they’ve found, all of the information they've picked up on the Gods and what makes or breaks or conjures them in these past months—faith. Both the call and the creator, the word around which divinity molds itself. And her faith, her divine call into the dark—her unanswered pleas on her knees in Gelvaan, on her knees at the altar of the Dawnfather Temple in Whitestone—if they can pick and choose whose faith they deem truthful, then what does it mean to be truly faithful?

The confidence in the callous hands of a blacksmith as he brings the hammer down, striking metal into shape. The gentle hands of a gardener digging into the soil, preparing it for life, removing that which would otherwise ruin and rot. The small hands of a child held in the soft, guiding hands of their mother. Are these not examples of divine faith?

Would the Dawnfather's hands hold her face so gently? Would the Wildmother's lips press so softly to her brow? Would the Changebringer's fingers dig just so into the skin of her shoulders, sweaty and heaving in the aftermath of her storm?

What could the gods offer her that Laudna hasn't? What would they ask in return for what Laudna freely gives? What faith of hers have they earned?

If faith is the ultimate test of love and passion and trust—than whose altar but Laudna's would she kneel to?

If godhood, then, is as simple as a state of faith and belief then maybe she alone can love her to the point of divinity. Immortality. Imogen could make a God of her. Maybe, she thinks with Laudna’s bottom lip caught between her teeth, maybe one more kiss will do the trick. Maybe one more. One more.

Eventually a sob—Imogen’s, of course—breaks them apart. Her head falls into Laudna’s neck. Laudna’s arms cross behind her back and press her close. She runs her taloned fingers over the bare skin at Imogen’s shoulder blades, the base of her neck, down every popping vertebrae. She is breathing at the normal human rate—for her it is heaving. She kisses Imogen’s temple.

“No one can take away the love for the mother you wanted. Not even the mother you have." She says into her hair, and then pulls away and down—kisses her. Keeps kissing her. When she separates to speak it is by centimeters, “And no one can take me away from you. Not Delilah. Not Otohan. Not Predathos or The Matron.”

And then, into her trembling mouth, “If we are apart, then I am within.”

Imogen lets out a wrecked—choking—dying sound, “Yeah—Yes. Laudna, I—“ desperate and clumsy and broken, she brings her shaking hand up to Laudna’s face and presses her finger to Laudna’s forehead, “Here. As long as you’re here.”

Laudna nods, brings her own talons up to Imogen’s face in a mirror-gesture, “Here. As long as you’re here.” And what is left for Imogen to do besides to rush up and in and in and in. Again and again and again.

Here, in Jrusar, in their room at Zhudanna’s, in Zephrah, in the Feywild, in Bassuras, on the moon, in the storm. In the evening, in the morning, in the middle of the day, in the depths of the night. Crying, laughing, bloody, triumphant. Again and again and again and again.

Better halves, Imogen thinks—into Laudna’s head and then, endlessly, into her own, Better wholes. I love you. I love you.

“I love you.” Laudna gasps aloud, ripping away and then rushing back in, “Imogen. Imogen. As long as you’re here. I love you.”

Imogen nods, gasps, and then neither of them say much at all.

———

In the end, Imogen doesn’t say: I lied. When I promised to move on. I lied to you. Nor does she say: I’m sorry. I’m not disgusted by you. I could never be. I love you so deeply that every time I look at you I am remade. She doesn’t say: I sundered her once. I’ll sunder her again. If you’ll let me, I’d plant a new sun tree in your mind. One that makes you think of picnics and not nooses. One that makes you think of the view and not the fall.

She does not say: I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can kill her. Will you do it? Can we trade?

She tucks these confessions away in the divots of her mind right alongside her circlet. She hopes the weight of them, the promise of them, will help to keep her runaway feet firmly rooted.

———

(After, Laudna falls asleep before her, eyes wide open.

Imogen lays next to her, one hand softly running up and down Laudna’s exposed navel, the other curled under her own head as she allows herself to trace the profile of her face.

It is late enough—or, early enough, maybe—that Catha’s light cannot breach the shared darkness of their space. Or maybe it does, and is swallowed entirely by the pitch of Laudna’s eyes.

Laudna’s eyes—the empty, dark swirl of them—Imogen remembers her gaze full with stars—captures her attention. The shadows in the room paint Laudna an even deeper dark, cutting her features into shapes that catch the barely there impression of light that Imogen’s weak, mortal eyes require to capture form.

With no light, with nothing to reflect in her sky-locked, sleep-awake stare; Laudna appears hungry. Like even in sleep, she is hunting. In the dark, she takes the form of a predator.

Watching her, Imogen thinks of Ruidus and of the storm there and of the one in her mind and of the one that takes the shape of her mother—reaching and watching and waiting for her, the entirety of her life—like an animal, like something waiting in the grass for her to make a mistake or lose her footing—waiting on the opportunity to close in on her—to consume her or to change her—

She reaches across the space.

Gently, mournfully, she closes Laudna’s eyes.)

#critical role #imogen temult #laudna #imodna #liliana tumult #writing #I don’t think I love this anymore BUT. at least it is Finished and I can Move On. To Other Equally Distressing WIPs #i have a full blown liliana character study locked in the chamber of my brain. she is in there. #and delilah is right next to her. in a away i am just like the gay girls #also sos. this is the first time i’ve posted fic anywhere but especially on here in YEARS and why the FUCK #did they take away being able to simply add a line break. or am i dumb. i couldn’t get the HTML to work either orz #Also post-posting update. I am now recognizing a collection of formatting errors specifically on this version that I am like. h about. #But Whatever. The Show Must Go On

[silentreigns]

A note about Carlos, mostly about Jeddah

I gotta rant because I've just been seeing a lot of opinions about what has happened to Carlos within the last week. And instead of just going under every single post explaining why you're wrong, I'm just going to write an essay. The real tumblr experience is getting emotionally invested in something, and putting more effort into your writing on here than school or work. With that being said, if you dislike Carlos then this is not the post for you 🤷‍♀️

The "This is the first time Ferrari has felt like a family in a long time" comments are very mean. It's actually been bothering me since last Friday. Y'all saw a man visibility sick from a condition, and he probably knew he shouldn't have jumped in the car in the first place, try and persevere just for our entertainment/ his dedication to the team, just to say that it felt more like a family when he wasn't driving has rubbed me the wrong way. Granted, I think it was dumb for him to leave the hospital against doctor's orders and go to the paddock. However, that shows how passionate he is about Ferrari. He did not have to send message wishing Ollie good luck, or show up to the Ferrari garage to watch the race in person. But he did it anyways because he genuinely loves Ferrari and has done so much for the team (you guys who continuously say that he's not a team player do not watch the same race as i do or you just straight up don't like him. But don't discredit him because you feel some type of way for whatever reason). You don't need to hear it come out of Carlos's mouth to hear how heartbreaking that is. It's his last year with the team, and he has one less chance to drive the car he's been working his whole career towards driving. Why is it that he's spoken endlessly about how much he loves Ferrari and some of y'all have convinced yourself that he doesn't. Saying that because his family members like tweets or share Instagram stories that you don't agree with is such a cop-out excuse. From what I have seen, nothing he has said or done would lead me to believe that he's not truly a dedicated member of the Ferrari family. Yes Ferrari has had periods where the team was very disjointed and fragmented. But here in 2024, that is not the case.

#honestly i wish drivers had more freedom to say whatever they want #because if i was carlos I'd tell y'all to go fuck yourselves #and not to bring lewis into everything but i see how some tifosi move #the same ones saying that carlos isn't really dedicated to ferrari will be the same ones criticizing lewis's every move #saying stuff like “he's not really part of the ferrari family” #like you know these people personally #please just be honest and say what you really mean: you don't want carlos to be on the grid period #i would prefer you say something like that than just making stuff up tbh #f1 #formula 1 #carlos sainz #like carlos get behind me please