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hutchhitched · 4 years

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Peeta Mellark, CEO

Written by: @hutchhitched

Prompt 8: Peeta is a rich CEO and in love with another who disappeared before their marriage. So he withdraw within himself. But then he meets Katniss (her background is up to you) and falls in love for the second time. [submitted by @mysteriouslycraftyreview ]

Ratings/Warnings: E

A/N: I’m continuing to post the nine @everlarkficexchange prompts I took and then sat on throughout the early months of the pandemic. This is the fifth of the nine. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy. Huge thanks to @javistg for understanding the delays. While this submission fills the prompt, I have more in store for this couple.

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Peeta Mellark tossed his glasses down on the desk and scrubbed a hand over his face. His tired eyes felt like they were full of sandpaper, and the stubble on his jaw was definitely not the look of a successful businessman, let alone the CEO of an up and coming manufacturing cooperation that was poised to break into the Fortune 500 in the very near future. Exhausted, he shoved at the pile of papers on his desk and cursed his luck. He needed an administrative assistant immediately. Like yesterday. Or two weeks ago.

To be fair, he needed a lot more than a new administrative assistant. He’d been in a funk for the past year, since his fiancée sent him a text (seriously, a text?) and called off their wedding—three days before it was to take place.

Cashmere’s rejection had been tough to take. He had loved her so much, still did, if he was telling the truth, and it hurt every day to go home to his empty apartment and not see her there. His friends, business acquaintances, and family all tried to make him feel better by telling him he was too good for her, but that didn’t help at all. Cashmere and he were good together for a long time. It wasn’t her fault that his ardor had grown after their engagement and hers had cooled. It sucked that her attraction to him had abated to friendship, but he didn’t regret anything other than that his marriage had never happened.

Since his broken engagement, Peeta had retreated into himself. He didn’t spend much time with anyone, including his family or close friends who all wanted to help so much it made him anxious. He couldn’t handle their good intentions when all he wanted to do was curl up on the couch in sweats and binge shows and eat junk food. If he hadn’t been the head of a company, he would have done that every day. Instead, he went into the office and buried himself in his work before going home and heading to bed—incredibly alone. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to his parents on the phone or grabbed lunch with anyone if it wasn’t for business.

Sometimes he missed being part of the human race, interacting with others and seeing their eyes light up with joy when they laughed. He missed family dinners with his brothers and nights out at the club with Finnick, Darius, Thom, and Gale. But most of all, he missed being in love with someone. Having a relationship with a woman who wanted only him. A person to come home to and wake up with. A confidante who knew his secrets and faults and loved him anyway. More than anything, he was just really, really lonely and more than a little horny. He was an All-American adult male, after all, and it had been far too long since he’d been with anyone other than himself.

Peeta pushed the intercom button on his phone and spoke into it. “Delly, can you come in here, please?”

“Right away, sir.”

Peeta smiled at Delly when she entered the room. As office manager, she’d worked her job and that of his missing assistant for too long. She deserved a raise. She also happened to be one of his oldest friends, which is why he managed to keep it together every day instead of losing it each time he thought about how empty his life was outside the office.

“Delly, I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the way things are going around here,” he said and idly twirled a pen between his fingers. “I think we need a change, don’t you?”

“Sir?”

“Delly, you’ve known me your whole life. Can you cut it out with the ‘sir’ bullshit? It’s me.”

She visibly relaxed and sank into the chair opposite his desk. “What do you want to change, Peeta? Am I not doing a good enough job?”

He winced at the worried furrow of her brow and chided himself for making her job harder than it already was. He made a mental note to submit the paperwork for a raise for her the next day.

“You’re doing an amazing job,” he assured her, “but you’ve been covering for two people for months. It’s time I bite the bullet and get someone else in here.”

“Do you want me to take a look at the resumés and send you the most qualified?” she offered. “I can go over them this evening and send them your way.”

“No,” he insisted. “You’ve done enough. Go home. Take the weekend off, and don’t worry about anything. I just need the applicant file before you leave. I’ll review them and set up some interviews for early next week. Deal?”

Her relief was palpable, and he tried to quell the guilt he felt for pushing her so hard instead of finding a replacement for his last assistant. She brought him the file right away, and he waved her out the office doors before she could find something else she had to do before she left. He’d flipped through several applications before his phone buzzed.

“Finnick,” he answered. “How’s it going, man?”

“Peeta Mellark, my man,” came the hearty response. “Haven’t seen you in months. It’s Friday. Come meet us at Ripper’s.”

“I’d love to. I really would, but—”

“But nothing, man. Get your ass down here. Time to rejoin the living.”

“I can’t. Snowed under here.”

“I will come drag you out of that office if you don’t get the fuck down here within the hour. I proposed. I will not take no for an answer.”

“Congratulations, man, but I really—”

“One hour, you asshole. You’ve been warned,” Finnick threatened and disconnected the call.

Peeta heaved a heavy sigh and sat back in his chair. Finnick engaged. That was really something—something that made his insides twist and curl and hurt. Despite that, he had to go meet his friends. Finnick was the first to congratulate Peeta after he’d ask Cashmere to marry him and had been there after the breakup, too. Peeta couldn’t shirk, no matter how much he wanted to go home and hide.

Frustrated and despondent, he packed up his laptop and files carefully before reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulling a bottle of whiskey from its depths. He poured two fingers of the dark liquid and loosened his tie. When he took a sip, the liquor burned a trail down his throat enough that he tugged the tie off completely and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his dress shirt. By the time he’d finished his drink, he’d also lost his jacket and rolled up his sleeves to reveal his forearms. At least this way he looked like a regular working schmuck instead of an uptight executive who had no life outside the office.

Fortified by the drink and a burgeoning desire to reconnect with his friends, Peeta made his way uptown to Ripper’s. Memories hit him in the gut as soon as the door opened. The sounds and scents assailed him, and a flash of evenings out with his friends and his fiancée flickered in his head. Cashmere leaning over to kiss him as his friends whooped. The taste of her lips after they both shot tequila, lime and salt clinging to her lips. Finnick grinning at him when he got his last promotion. Gale and Darius ribbing him about a new crush. Thom announcing his impending fatherhood. So many memories, and all they did was remind him how desperately lonely he was, despite his financial and professional success.

Except that did matter tonight. It was Finnick’s time to celebrate, and he wound his way through the tables to the back corner where his friends waited.

“Peeta Mellark! The man, the myth, the legend, right here in Ripper’s with us lowly humans.”

Peeta couldn’t help but chuckle. “Good to see you, too, Finn. It’s been too long.”

“That’s not our fault. Is it, boys?”

“Who are you calling a boy?” Gale snorted over his beer. “I only see men here. At least, those of us sitting down. You and Mister Hotshot might not have reached full maturity yet, though.”

Peeta laughed as Finnick flipped off the other guys at the table and then settled into the booth. It felt good to see his friends again. He needed to remember to make more time for them in the future.

“So, how’s the high life, man?” Thom asked.

Peeta shrugged and ordered before answering. Thanking the waitress, he slumped down in his seat and admitted, “Crazy busy, as always. I need a new administrative assistant. I’m working Delly to death, and she deserves better.”

“Some of us would like to see our wives,” Darius grunted. “Should never have agreed when she asked.”

“Didn’t realize she had to ask permission to leave the house,” Peeta answered pointedly.

“Oh, come on, man. I didn’t mean it like that,” Darius protested. “We just have one of those marriages where we talk things through and make decisions together.”

He knew he shouldn’t, but he envied Darius and Thom their marriages and Finnick his engagement. Even Gale had a serious girlfriend, although he hadn’t met her yet. Maybe that was why it didn’t seem too far-fetched when he spoke.

“My girlfriend’s in between jobs. She’s a fantastic office manager. Maybe she could help you out.”

“Seriously?”

“Sure. I’ll have her give you a call.”

“Thanks, man. You’ve just saved my life.”

Finnick leaned in and grinned cheekily. “Great. Then you can afford to get drunk tonight.”

“I really can’t.”

“Too bad. Here’s our first round of shots.”

****

Peeta woke the next morning hung the hell over. How he’d allowed his friends, in particular Finnick, to convince him to stay and then do shots was beyond him. His only excuse was that it was the weekend, and he didn’t have to go to the office today. Otherwise, his headache and significant dehydration might have killed him. He managed to stagger to the kitchen where he brewed a pot of coffee and downed half a liter of water before his phone rang.

“Hawthorne. What’s up?” he rasped into the receiver.

“Hey, Peet. I know it’s early, but my girl’s here, and I suggested she call you about the job. She’s game for it, so I figured I might as well hook you two up before I forget. You free to chat?”

Peeta grunted but agreed. Reaching for a mug, he poured himself some coffee and added cream before settling at the counter. He wasn’t prepared for the snarky voice that echoed through the phone, but he immediately straightened when he heard it. The woman on the other end of the line was a spitfire and sounded exactly like what he needed to help keep his office running and give his oldest friend a break.

“Gale tells me you need some help keeping your workplace running smoothly. I can do that for you, but I don’t come cheap. Pay me well, don’t give me shit, and I’ll make your life easier.”

“That’s quite an offer, Ms., uh…?”

“Mason. Johanna Mason. I’ve been keeping corporate America organized for the past ten years. You have quite a reputation. Youngest CEO at Panem Industries in ages. Survived the Coriolanus Snow purge and caught the eye of the board of directors in a good way. I think you surprised everyone when they realized you weren’t just a piece in their games. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” he answered, impressed with her knowledge of the business world. Gale must have given her a heads up, but he suspected she’d already known more than most. “You seem to be a player, too. I’m impressed.”

“I’m very impressive. I’m sure you’ve heard about some of my best attributes from your friend, so let’s just move past the posturing and get to the specifics,” she announced, her voice businesslike. “I can start Monday. Gale indicated this could be temporary or long-term, depending on your other assistants. I’m amenable to either. As for my salary—”

Peeta almost blanched at the figure but wasn’t deterred by her request. Good office managers were worth every cent they were paid, and Ms. Mason—Johanna! She was his friend’s girlfriend, after all—seemed to be exactly what he needed.

“I have one caveat,” he insisted. “Gale is my friend, and you and he are together, but you are my employee. Our relationship needs to stay professional.”

“Gale, honey,” she purred. “Peeta wants me to be professional. You think I can handle that?”

Peeta cringed at the wet sounds in his ear. He’d be offended if Gale hadn’t taken the phone briefly and hissed, “She’s good for it, Mellark. You won’t regret it.”

“Fine,” he muttered. “Can I call you Johanna? You’re hired. Thirty-day trial, and a five percent raise once you’ve proven yourself.”

“You won’t need thirty days for that.”

He was almost positive she was right, and he looked forward to Monday when he could offer Delly some time off to spend with her family.

****

“I need that folder,” Peeta announced into his phone and scribbled a few notes on the report before him. Johanna swept into his office a few seconds later. She’d only been working for him for a week, but she’d already revamp his world. Everything ran smoother; Delly’d already put in for some well-deserved vacation, and he hadn’t been subjected to any inappropriate knowledge of his friend from his new employee. “Thanks, Jo. Can you—”

“Already done. Meeting with Heavensbee is moved up to 1:00, and you have a business lunch tomorrow with Seneca Crane at the Capitol Grill. Both indicated their interest when I arranged the details.”

“You are a gift,” he said, distracted by the email he’d just received about a new project in China. “Seriously, thank you for everything you do.”

“No thanks needed. You pay me enough. I’m happy to make your life better.”

He chuckled and sat back when she plopped a hot chocolate in front of him. “How’d you know? This is my favorite.”

“You forget who I’m banging on the weekend?”

“Gale, of course.”

“And I don’t wait for the weekend, either,” she said with a wink over her shoulder. He smiled fondly as she slipped out the door and back to her desk. He understood what his friend saw in her. She didn’t take any shit, was sexy as hell, and knew how to get stuff done. If he had fifteen more like her, he’d take over the world. Not that he was too far off from that anyway.

****

“You mind if I take a long lunch tomorrow?” Johanna asked as she handed Peeta several files and watched him tuck them into his briefcase. “A girlfriend of mine just got back to town, and I promised I’d meet up with her. Won’t happen again.”

“Take all the time you need,” he agreed. “Delly can handle everything while you’re gone. It’s not a problem.”

“Thanks, boss,” she said with a wink. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Got a hot date with my man.”

Peeta chuckled as he shrugged on his jacket. “Tell Gale I said hi. Been a while since we hung out at Ripper’s.”

“That’s because I make it worth it to him not to leave the house.”

“I’m sure you do,” he mumbled as he headed for the elevator.

“Good luck on your date!” she called as the doors slid shut, and he groaned.

If she hadn’t reminded him at the last second, he could have argued with her, but now it was too late. He’d stupidly agreed to a setup. It was only drinks at a cocktail bar around the corner, but he had a million things to do before the next day. He didn’t have time to make small talk with a woman he didn’t know as they both sipped overpriced drinks and tried to figure out how long they had to stay before they escaped with a modicum of dignity. If he didn’t have to answer to Johanna the next day, he’d skip, but he just didn’t want to hear it. With a sigh, he turned left out of the building and made his way to meet his date.

“Rue?” he guessed when he met the slim, African American woman sitting at the bar alone. She was lovely and smart and very sweet, but he could tell within five minutes that they weren’t right for each other. He offered a second round, but she declined politely.

“You’re a great guy,” she said with a kiss to his cheek when she slid from her stool to the ground. “I’m glad we met.”

“Likewise,” he nodded. “Best of luck with your startup.”

He watched her walk away with a half-smile on his face and a hint of regret. It wasn’t that she’d passed on him. That wasn’t it at all. Despite being a perfectly attractive woman, there wasn’t a spark between them, and he’d been too deeply in love before to settle for anything less. With another huge sigh—they seemed to be becoming a habit—he grabbed his suitcase and coat and headed home to his empty penthouse.

He hated being lonely.

****

“Johanna, can you come in here, please?” Peeta waited for her reply, but when he got nothing, he walked to his office door and poked his head out. “Jo?”

Delly glanced up from her desk and replied, “She’s still at lunch. You told her to take the time, remember?”

“I do, actually. Sorry. It slipped my mind.”

At that moment, the elevator door opened, and his employee walked down the hall, chatting happily with another woman. She drew up when she saw him and narrowed her eyes.

“It’s not even 1:00 yet. Surely, the place didn’t fall apart with me gone only 80 minutes.” Johanna rolled her eyes at him and waved to her companion. “Peeta Mellark, this is Katniss Everdeen. Katniss, Peeta. I left something in my desk for her. She’s not staying.”

The woman in question glanced back and forth between him and her friend uncertainly. She was slight and unassuming with storm gray eyes and thick, dark hair worked into a loose braid. A few strands of hair escaped and framed her face, which was far prettier than he’d realized at first glance. Quickly, he snapped to attention. Stepping toward her, he extended his hand and waited for her to shake it. When she did, electricity sparked through him.

“Ms. Everdeen,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Any friend of Johanna’s is a friend of mine. Welcome to Panem Industries.”

“Sheesh! She’s not interviewing for a job,” Johanna snickered. She’s just here to get something from me, and she’s Gale’s friend, too. I’m surprised you haven’t met before now. Those two have been thick as thieves since they were tweens. You really haven’t heard of her before?”

“Why would I have?”

“I thought you and Gale were tight?”

“We are tight. What does that have to do with anything?”

Katniss smiled wryly and spoke in a smoky voice that shot straight to his groin. “Gale and I were best friends for years. We had a rough patch when he developed feelings for me in high school. Didn’t talk much through college, but we worked it out. I think Jo’s just surprised he didn’t mention me to his friends.”

“You okay there, boss?” Johanna asked, her eyes wary as she observed him.

Peeta shook himself, aware that he’d been frozen as Katniss’ voice washed over him. “Fine! I’m fine. Katniss, it’s wonderful to meet you. Johanna, I need to see you in my office when you’re finished with your friend.”

He moved quickly and closed the door behind him. Walking on unsteady legs back to his desk, he sank into his chair. Needless to say, he was unsettled. Something about those smoke colored eyes and husky voice had reached inside him and pulled feelings to the surface he hadn’t felt in ages, and it was disconcerting in a way he wasn’t quite ready to admit. Flustered, he turned in his chair and gazed out over the city until Johanna entered his office. It was only then that he could expel Katniss from his mind.

****

“You know, it’s bad enough that you foisted your girlfriend on me as an employee,” Peeta teased as he downed another whiskey. “The least you could do is pass on your best friend’s number. No, scratch that. The least you could do was warn me your best friend from high school is smoking hot now.”

Gale tipped his head back and laughed hard at his friend and Peeta’s obvious attempt to weasel Katniss’ number from him. Finnick and Thom hooted their amusement, and Darius waved to the waitress for another round of drinks. Peeta hadn’t meant to end up at Ripper’s again, but he’d been off kilter all week. When Finn had asked, Peeta shrugged and went.

“You only like me for my girlfriends,” Gale teased and clinked his glass with Thom. “To be fair, they are pretty spectacular. I have great taste in women.”

“Says the most modest man alive,” Finnick crowed. “You like them wild, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Wait,” Peeta blurted. “Wild? Katniss?”

“Not in the traditional sense,” Gale drawled after a long pull of his beer. “Nothing like Jo. She’s amazing—completely herself, likes to party, will rip me apart with her bare hands if I cross her—but Katniss is something else. Feisty but stealthy. She can skin a squirrel and look like an angel doing it. I’ve never been able to explain her to anyone. She really has no idea the effect she has.”

“But you dated? You two?” Peeta prodded. Something about the thought of Gale kissing the woman he’d met made his stomach clench.

“Not for long. She wasn’t much interested, but I would have given my left arm for her back in the day. She’s only improved with age. I’m lucky she still bothers with little old me.”

Peeta snorted and flicked his eyes to each of his friends. Gale may not have been the best-looking guy in the group—Finn pretty much had that locked no matter who was around—but Gale’s tall, dark, and brooding nature made him pretty popular with the opposite sex. He hadn’t had trouble meeting women in ages. Unlike Peeta, who’d had terrible luck with women both before and after Cashmere. Couldn’t get them to look at him instead of his money now that he was wealthy, and he’d been dismissed for being way too nice when he was younger. His former fiancée had been an exception, but then he couldn’t get her to stay, with or without his bank account.

“But seriously, dude. Help a guy out. I’ve been single for ages,” Peeta wheedled, but Gale just shook his head.

“If she asks, I’ll give your info, but there’s no way I’m gonna try to set her up. I value my life and limbs too much to intervene.”

“You just said you would have given your left arm for her!”

“Back in high school and college, man. Not now. I need them both for the work I do.”

Peeta conceded then. It wasn’t like him to pump his friends for information about women, and he wasn’t going to start now. Maybe she’d come by work again with Jo, or maybe Johanna would—

No. Johanna would not. That was a terrible idea, so Peeta shoved Katniss Everdeen from his mind and sipped his drink. If nothing else, he could use a night out with his friends.

****

Later that night, when Peeta lay in bed alone, his penthouse dark and empty, and his heart shriveling with sadness, he allowed Katniss to flutter through his thoughts. If he imagined her in love with him, no one could prove it. Just like there were no witnesses when he reached into his sleep pants and palmed his half-hard cock.

He hadn’t masturbated with anyone particular in mind for a very long time—not since Cashmere and he had been a couple. There was something intensely erotic about stroking himself with mental images of a specific woman smiling at him, touching him, taking his dick in her mouth and sucking until—

“Oh, fuck,” he hissed as he swelled and hardened. “Katniss. Yeah, just like that.”

He fumbled in his bedside table for some lube and was so worked up he squirted half the bottle onto his pelvis. Rubbing his hand in the fluid, he groaned when he wrapped his hand back around his erection and tugged. His hips bucked, and his headboard slapped against the wall. Startled by the sound, he bit his lip and shook his head.

It seemed wrong to jack off like this when he barely knew her. Stranger fantasies were fine, but this was one of his best mate’s long-time friends. Johanna would rip him apart if she knew what Peeta was doing and leave the leftovers for Gale to destroy.

God, he didn’t care, he realized. Something about Katniss Everdeen made him want to throw caution to the wind. He’d been a goner since he first heard her voice, and he’d paid his dues with his loneliness. One night of lustful thoughts and indulgence seemed like a just reward for being single for so long. He’d only met her once, but there were all the tell-tale signs of a massive crush. Except, yes, he was attracted to her, but he also wondered if he might have a case of love at first sight. She invaded his thoughts constantly, and he ached to see her again.

Until that could happen, though, he needed some relief. Closing his eyes and tossing his head back into the pillow, he moved his hand until he gained a steady rhythm. The wet squelching sounds of the lube on his skin echoed through the apartment and stirred mental images that made his breath come harder and faster.

In his fantasy, her lithe body bounced on top of him, riding him with abandon and wanton pleasure painting her face. Her small breasts jiggled prettily with dusty nipples pert and pointed and inviting his mouth to lavish them with attention. His fist tightened, he jerked harder, and then—

He whited out, stars bursting behind his eyelids, ecstasy flooding his body, and all the tension draining through ropes of thick fluid painting his torso. Dazed, he lay there for several minutes, doing nothing but enjoying the lazy tingle in his veins and the dopey grin turning up his lips with delight. His spent cock filled his right fist, and he squeezed it a few times to keep the buzz going.

When he could think clearly again, he opened his eyes and snorted at the mess. He was sticky and sweaty and slick with his cum and lube. Covered in his ejaculate, he stumbled to the bathroom on shaky legs. He meant to rinse off and then drop into a dreamless sleep, but he ended up hard and wanting a second time as the water coursed over him. Turning the temperature to cold didn’t help either. Only another round with his fist calmed him enough to fall into a restless, dream-filled slumber. His body insisted on round three the next morning.

Within a few days, a pattern emerged. He woke hard, masturbated, and then went to the office where two women ran his world. When he returned home, he beat off again, sometimes two times, before he was able to sleep. By the second week, Peeta had to admit his feelings for Katniss weren’t going away.

His only choice was to get her to fall in love with him, too, or his name was Peeta Mellark. CEO of Panem Industries, captain of industry, jilted fiancé, and desperately in love with Katniss Everdeen. Johanna was going to have a field day with this.

#everlarkficexchange #springtime edition 2020 #prompt 8 #everlark fanfiction #everlark #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark ceo

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hindumyththoughts · 4 years

Note

Redamancy for Arjun/Subhadra, Arjun/Draupadi or Draupadi/Bheem?

Hi @ambidextrousarcher 💙, you gave me three whole choices and seeing how bad I am with decision making, I chose two rather than one (hope that's alright 😄)

Redamancy: act of loving in return

Draupadi and Bheem

Both of them were blazing flames, but even if the wise words of old had pitted fire against itself as the only worthy opponent, these two were nothing but complementary to each other, their heat keeping the other one alive and fighting. He was the violently flickering red embers in the center and she the orange hued streams of flames that reached far and wide around the coals, both essential for the existence of that fire; one that protected and nurtured life through it’s light and warmth but was also capable of scorching those who tried to kill it from fear.

Both understood the pains of the other, knew exactly where they were wounded, in more ways than one. That was why it was easier to offer a healing hand to the other when they were injured. When Panchaali was flared due to an injustice to the masses born out of errors in the governance of the Samrat, the second eldest of the Pandavas was the one who followed after her, listening to her arguments and reason; the one who stood beside her as an ally to explain the rationale to the king so as to change his opinion. When Vrikodara was agitated due to the misconducts of his relatives, she was the one who soothed his anger, for she knew it to be justified but unwise for them all, for she knew that patience was the virtue of the prudent.

They had quite similar tastes on multiple levels which produced an amusing pastime where they searched for and found different varieties of flowers in the gardens that they thought suited the other best. They would point out different lilies, marigolds, roses and orchids to each other, with Bhimsena finding special delight in comparing Panchaali to the adorable orange tufts of marigolds. He knew that Krishnaa was fond of lotuses the most and so it was an endearing game to always bring her the best ones, whenever the opportunity arose. What he did not know was the reason why she was so attached to that particular flower, something Yajnaseni never told him. Lotuses were so endeared to her because they always reminded her of him, gentle beauty amidst the grave harshness of life.

The wishes their hearts yearned for were quite alike too, and praised be their fortunes or that blessed pair of husband and wife that they granted those wishes for each other. When asked, her husband might smile and say that all his wishes were granted by his family, so he doesn't have anymore desires left, but even still, one last prayer leaves Panchaali's lips, something she couldn't ask of her Bheem himself; that if Mahadev be pleased with her, should he be as kind to her as he was in her previous lives, let her once again, in another lifetime, have the honour of becoming the partner of the brave one known as Bhimsena, a simple, humble life which she could offer entirely to the one who stood beside her now, with another lotus in his hand that he knows will cheer her up.

Sometimes, all one needed was someone who listened, someone who accepted you for all of that, someone who helped you in becoming better, who inspired you to live. Flames which may have fused to become one but did not dominate or overpower the other, rather fortified each other to achieve a brilliant, spirited glow. Between them, all it took for love to be expressed were not the grand feats of glory, but merely a constant presence beside each other which remained there and understood what was spoken, or what even remained unsaid...

Subhadra and Arjun

"Have I ever told you how much I adore your smile, princess of Dwarka?" Came the question for the hundredth time, as they finally found a rare moment all for themselves, "No, I don't recall your having ever said that, O great Gandivadhaari " replied Subhadra teasingly. "Well, allow me to correct that grave error: I dearly love the simple smile that you adorns your lips, Subhadrey" "Then, let me tell you that I love the charming modesty of your expressions, Paarth". "Learnt how to compliment from the best, did you?" "I did, he is a master when it comes to these delicate matters, handles them quite smoothly. Rukmini didi never had any complaints." In answer to the sudden quip Arjun had nothing to offer except for a hearty laugh.

Absently his hand reaches for her, and he finds hers halfway toward him too, the realization of the fact bringing a smile on his lips. That was another gesture that they shared, both always coming halfway in their relationship, waiting patiently for the other, so that they were always equal, dependent but never helpless without the other. Subhadra might jest about him needing a lot more than an encouraging nudge when coming to the decision of marrying her, but still he was fond of the memory of both of them racing towards Indraprastha on their chariot, her jovial laughs mixing with the whistling winds, and their hands finding each other's for the first time. Krishna knew from the start, he had to admit, and also took great delight in matchmaking, it seemed. Another one of his greatest achievements, he declared on their wedding and Dau couldn't help himself but laugh.

Watching the sunset go by, with rosy streaks of clouds embracing it's rays in their wisps, and feeling as content as he could be, he felt something else in her hand, a ring. He turned towards her with a curious smile, "what is that?" "Something that I acquired today, a white pearl-embedded ring." she answered in an eager tone, "It's beautiful, the flawless white is enchanting." "But still, not the purest white I have ever seen" she said unexpectedly, while smiling at him, and he understood what she meant, for she and her brother were quite similar in flinging those suprising compliments which came towards him from out of the blue.

"Let it be your charm of good luck from me, let it be a shield that keeps you safe from all harm" she requested. "I am grateful to you Subhadrey, I will protect it with my life." "Leave it to you to misunderstand the simplest of things, Arya. It's the other way round, you are not supposed to protect the charm, it's supposed to protect you." she sighed dramatically. "Then, I will accept it with great gratitude, but only if you will accept one from me" he proposed with a twinkle in his eyes, "alright then, I accept it but what and where is it?". "Your smile." Arjun smiled softly "always keep it with yourself, for me. So that, as long as you have it, you'll be safe from all bad and harmful things. As long as it's there, I'll rest assured that your smile will protect you in my stead."

In the years that follow, a humble ascetic, meditating rigidly in the forests that extend afar, with the bearings of a warrior, keeps only one artifact of wealth on his person, a ring tied inside a knot of his rough cloth, hidden from the world; but not hidden from the one who lives her life in prosperity, but even among all that wealth lost her most valuable piece of heart, and lives on with a resilient, enduring smile as she waits patiently, for him to come back to her, on their promised halfway...

#mahabharata #mahabharat #lost words drabble ask #answered asks #asks #bheem #draupadi #arjun #subhadra #ambidextrousarcher #mahabharata rambles

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healthmedia · 3 years

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The truth is that yes, you can change your body in 9 Weeks

Naturally, you are unlikely to wake up on day 31 with the bulging biceps of a body builder, nor morph from couch surfer to swimsuit model either.

But after decades working with bodies of all shapes and sizes, what we definitely can advise is that with 30 days of rigorous, dedicated exercise, you will see and feel huge change – physically and mentally – that is highly likely to create a new, lifetime habit.

And if you want to live better for longer, then this is vital. Plus, we’ve seen it time and time again – once you start the challenge, you’ll wonder what you were worried about in the first place.

Here, two of our most experienced trainers, Xtend Barre® and Pilates instructor, Anna Serafinas Luk and yoga supremo, Victor Chau, explain how to stick with a 30-day exercise plan, so you can feel the change once and for all:

Every time you put a morsel of food into your mouth, you're making a decision - about your mind and your body. They are affected by everything you eat, in a way that modern science is making clearer through new research.

What you eat is responsible for making you tired and exhausted, or keeping you energetic, vibrant and ready for action. It's the choice of food you eat that helps keep you calm and clear, and makes you glow with good health, or relish a healthy weight, or stay fit and trim.

How can I transform my body with professional tip's

Increase your protein intake. Many fitness experts tend always to have a protein shake after their workout.

Buy The Fundamentals

Let's face it: The world isn't a fit place. If you're relying on circumstance, gyms, and restaurants to keep you on-track, you're going to face an uphill battle. So before you begin, fortify your home base with the essential food and workout arsenal.

Having good choices always at-hand in your refrigerator and cupboards will make your life much easier. The specifics will definitely vary depending on the diet play you follow, but these are all solid options to have in your pantry in a pinch.

Pantry Items

Brown Rice

Nutritionally, brown rice is recommended for a healthy diet because it contains extra nutrients. Brown rice tends to be a bit more caloric, but it also contains extra protein and fiber that offer these health benefits: Lowers cholesterol. Controls blood sugar levels.06

Quinoa

Rich in fiber, minerals, antioxidants and all nine essential amino acids, quinoa is one of the healthiest and most nutritious foods on the planet. It may improve your blood sugar and cholesterol levels and even aid weight loss

Oats

The oat, sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name. While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and oat milk, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed. Oats are associated with lower blood cholesterol when consumed regularly.

But that doesn't mean oatmeal cannot do any harm to you. If you do not take a few things into consideration, even oatmeal can lead to weight gain. It can instantly turn from a slimming breakfast to a blood sugar-spiking food that can be harmful to your waistline.

Sweet Potatoes

Vitamin A. A single sweet potato can contain 769 percent of the amount of Vitamin A you need to consume daily. Vitamin A is great for your vision, bones and skin, and helps strengthen your immune system.

Highly Nutritious. Sweet potatoes are a great source of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. ...

Promote Gut Health. The fiber and antioxidants in sweet potatoes are advantageous to gut health. ...

May Have Cancer-Fighting Properties. ...

Support Healthy Vision. ...

May Enhance Brain Function. ...

May Support Your Immune System.

Whole Grain Cereals

What are wholegrain cereals? Wholegrain cereals include wheat, rice, corn, oats, rye, barley and millet. Wholegrain cereals contain the three layers of the grain. Wholemeal foods are made from wholegrains which have been crushed to a finer texture.

Nuts

You could possibly gain weight.

Eat more than the recommended handful, and you might actually start to gain weight. That's because nuts are calorie-dense, Jones says, meaning they contain more energy per ounce than many other foods (you can thank all the healthy fats for that!

Which nuts are real nuts?

Hazelnuts, acorns and chestnuts are true nuts

Natural Nut Butter

The largest study of its kind, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, finds that people who eat a handful of nuts every day live longer than those who do not eat them at all

Ounce for ounce, macadamia nuts (10 to 12 nuts; 2 grams protein, 21 grams fat) and pecans (18 to 20 halves; 3 grams protein, 20 grams fat) have the most calories - 200 each - along with the lowest amounts of protein and the highest amounts of fats

Sesame Seed

Sprinkle seeds over your favorite veggie and bean side dishes. Sesame seeds add a subtle, satisfying, and healthy crunch to steamed broccoli, sauteed green beans, and a range of other side dishes. Simply sprinkle on raw or toasted sesame seeds right before serving—that way, the seeds will retain their crunch.

Here are health benefits of sesame seeds.

Good Source of Fiber. ...

May Lower Cholesterol and Triglycerides. ...

Nutritious Source of Plant Protein. ...

May Help Lower Blood Pressure. ...

May Support Healthy Bones. ...

May Reduce Inflammation. ...

Good Source of B Vitamins. ...

May Aid Blood Cell Formation.

Olive oil

Olive oil protects against inflammation, a key driver of heart disease (17, 18). Reduces oxidation of LDL (bad) cholesterol. The oil protects LDL particles from oxidative damage, a key factor in the development of heart disease ( 19 ). Improves blood vessel health

Olive Oil Is Not Associated With Weight Gain and Obesity

Eating excessive amounts of fat causes weight gain. However, numerous studies have linked the Mediterranean diet, rich in olive oil, with favorable effects on body weight ( 29 , 30 , 31 ).

Olive oil is a healthy fat that contains anti-inflammatory compounds. Drinking it regularly may benefit your heart, bone, and digestive health and help stabilize your blood sugar levels

Canned tuna

The bottom line. Canned tuna is a nutritious and inexpensive source of protein. Because cans of tuna last for several years, they are excellent for stocking your pantry with easy lunches and snacks. Opt for varieties that are sustainable and low in mercury.

You should never boil or sear canned tuna as this could easily overdo your meat. The most important thing to remember is that canned fish is almost always cooked already, so you're only reheating it. ... So, keep an eye on your canned tuna while it's being heated.

Salmon

Why is salmon so healthy?

The vitamin B12 in salmon keeps blood and nerve cells humming and helps you make DNA. But for your health, the true beauty of salmon is its wealth of omega-3 fatty acids. Most omega-3s are "essential" fatty acids. Your body can't make them, but they play critical roles in your body.

The American Heart Association maintains that eating two servings a week of oily fish (like salmon) can help healthy adults ward off sudden cardiac death, thanks to the protective effects of omega-3 fatty acids.

Spices

India contributes 75% of spice production throughout the world, and world spice market is continuously growing. Food ingredients such as salt, mustard, or pickle that is used to add only taste to the food.

...

Fridge Items

Fresh Fruit and Vegetables

Most fresh fruits and vegetables are picked before they are ripe. ... However, the USDA states that some produce, such as apples and pears, can be stored for up to 12 months under controlled conditions before being sold.

Fresh Fruits

Greek Yogurt

Egg whites

Low-Fat Milk

Turkey

Low-Sodium Soy Sauce

Salsa

Mustard

Chicken or beef broth

Bottled Water

Freezer Items

Frozen Chicken Breasts

Chicken breasts, larger pieces of frozen chicken and whole frozen birds can be cooked in the oven, although it will take around 50% longer than the normal cooking time for thawed chicken. ... Let the chicken stand at room temperature for 20-30 minutes. Set the oven to 150°C as this will gently thaw and cook the chicken.Frozen chicken is a healthy source of protein. If you're looking for a substitute for red meat, consider healthy frozen chicken. ... Frozen chicken vs. fresh chicken is often cheaper and has the added benefit of having longer storage times than fresh chicken does.

Frozen Lean Beef

Frozen Turkey

Frozen Fish

Frozen Vegetables

Frozen Berries

The truth is that yes, you can change your body in 9 Weeks

#health #fitness #health tips #beautiful body #body goals

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aotopmha · 5 years

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Attack on Titan Chapter 122 Thoughts

This chapter is pretty straight-forward in comparison to the previous ones, but in a deceptive way, where a lot of moments have a bunch of nuance, when they at first glance don't seem to.

Most of the chapter is very thoroughly "show, don't tell", which I can see getting people confused and leave them asking questions, but the key to this is context.

When taking this chapter as more stand-alonish, I feel like it would 100% feel much more obtuse and confusing, but almost every panel calls back to something and the story simply asks you to put the story together based on this. I feel it still definitely leaves some stuff up for potentially varying interpretation, but much less so.

Here's my take on it.

Firstly, the only voice in the whole Ymir flashback is that of King Fritz. Everyone else is silent.

There is much talk about how AoT is this morally gray series and there are certainly many morally gray elements here, but in truth, I'd phrase this idea more in the sense of the story having really well fleshed out antagonists.

It emphasizes humanizing every character, including all those that are presented as shitty people, in a specific way of giving them at least one quality that's if not sympathetic, then at least understandable from the characters' perspectives (this is something Isayama has actually straight-up mentioned to aim to do in interview material).

Karina is a horrible mother to Reiner, but she is a product of her environment and has never gotten to see outside of the world she lives in.

Alma treats Historia horribly, but her life is in danger because of a powerful man and the society she lives in.

Floch started out as a tactless asshole and has only grown worse, but there are understandable points in what he is saying during various moments in the story.

Gross is straight-up a candidate for the most hateable character in the series, but there is a spelled out, concrete perspective to his evil you kind of understand in a twisted way that also stems from the system he's living under, which often makes for my favorite type of antagonist.

I point this out because I think the first King Fritz is the most straight-forwardly villainous character in the series so far and I think that's fine.

The truth is, sometimes there isn't a "both sides". Sometimes there is a good and evil and in this case, Isayama opted for a powerful man that exploits the weak to further gain power for the evil, which is still a very real evil, but, as said, also pretty straight-forward.

He doesn't develop in any way - he's an abuser to begin with and in a position of power to begin with.

The only sliver of nuance to him is that he's a smart opportunist: he's a powerful man who knows to take advantage of the position he's in to gain even more power.

You could argue this also comments on power abuse and how a priviledged position and availability of the means to take advantage of others encourages to do so and gain even more power. People are more likely to use a gun when they are given access to it than when not.

But even then, as he says to keep passing down the spines of the Titans, due it being at the cost of the daughters he had with Ymir, whom he already saw as a tool to be used, he most likely doesn't even do it for the good of his people, but his own self-serving desire to preserve his position of power and influence and that way remain important and influental even after his death.

He's more interesting as a vehicle for exploring the social situation he creates than as a individual character.

Him being the only one to talk is thus another neat example of the story making a narrative point through meta elements. Abusers silence and take away people's voices through fear and conditioning and this is exactly what he does and therefore is the only one talking.

In this case, it's even literal, as we see a slave having their tongue cut out. We don't ever see this happen to Ymir, but it's an easy assumption to make that she might've had her tongue cut out, as well, based on what we see done with the other slave.

Regardless of any physical element, though, Ymir simply doesn't go against King Fritz because she doesn't understand she can do so. Her chains are entirely emotional. She seems to have been a slave for most of her life, never getting to see any other perspective regarding herself, so because of the conditioning and indoctrination stemmed from her position as a slave, she believes serving him is her purpose in life:

It's how she is lead to percieve herself that keeps her a slave.

This is interesting to me because this seems to reflect Armin's initial character resolve. The only reason he didn't believe in himself was because of his own, negative, perception of himself. It's through an alternative perspective given through Eren and Mikasa he grew to see himself in a different light. His arc is one of the first arcs in the story that involves a character gaining nuance in their perspective (technically Mikasa has a moment like this before him, but I think Armin's arc fits the comparison better because it very specifically relates to his self-image):

(Chapter 11)

This later also evolves into the Marleyan Eldians' single-mindedness and unawareness of playing into a corrupt system. Neither Ymir nor them simply never get an opportunity to see the world differently/in a more complex light.

In the case of a more typical damsel, the rescue would have had a much more straight-forward and simplistic explanation and through that in my eyes would have been much less interesting and I really appreciate whenever a story understands abuse like this.

Related to this, Eren's speech in this chapter probably makes it one of my favorites.

There are some uncertain connotations to it, as Ymir truly probably is in no good emotional position to make her own decision and Eren ultimately gives her two very specific options to choose from, but I think his words are genuine and the point of the speech still stands.

It's a powerful speech that says everyone is an autonomous person and is not obligated to be bound to anyone:

As said, the elements of a typical damsel in distress story are here, but I think it's more human than just a standard crying girl asking for help situation and on a meta level, the story says that whoever is in a similar situation also has a choice.

As also said, you could tear this into pieces when you focus on a bunch of the technicalities surrounding it, but I think as a general sentiment I really do think it’s incredibly powerful.

I mentioned how this chapter commented on how powerful men exploit women, but I think it's more gender neutral than it might initially seem. I think the general feelings here would work just as well if were Ymir a boy, with the only difference probably being another woman being involved to force him to have children. The story has gendered aspects, but it handles them with not only taste, but also in a way where the general point isn’t gendered, similarly to Mikasa's backstory.

Related to this, I think the final element to look at in relation to Ymir's story specifically is Historia’s pregnancy. I think it made it directly much more harder to make natural.

It felt artificial to begin with, but before this, I was much more open-minded about it.

Okay, since Historia genuinely seems to care for everyone, maybe this could've been somehow spun around her sacrifice being genuine and of her own choosing, but now it's as literal of a representation of history repeating itself as it possiblt could get and whether Historia chose the pregnancy or not, subtextually it will always represent history repeating itself.

The pregnancy has a bunch of potential problems: erasing the gay part of a character (since Historia is the most overtly gay character in the series and this happens after her love interest is killed, it will come across this way even if it's not the intention), contradicting a character's arc, but more than that, at this point, I just don't see anything interesting and unique said through it specifically. All other options where the pregnancy is fake sound much more interesting to me.

If the story finds a way to somehow make the pregnancy work in a interesting way, I'll applaud it, but right now I don't see all that many possibilities in terms of how it could.

This chapter literally calls back to the image of the kind girl Historia saw in the book Frieda showed her that she went against and while this contradiction in her arc already existed just with the reveal of the apparent pregnancy, this now puts a big red exclamation mark on it:

It's so obvious that the story missing this contradiction and not even addressing it would be extremely puzzling (which I do think it will).

More than anything, as if it hadn’t done this as strongly as possible already, this also even further (as it possibly could at this point), fortified the idea that something definitely, most certainly, without a doubt, is up.

Moving on, though, in the same vein as I said there are points in the real world where good and evil exists, there is actually a truth in history. History is a series of facts interpreted by people and with showing the "real truth" here I think the story dodged a dangerous potential implication about history not being factual.

I think it also fixed some of the potential implications with the historical imagery the story has been using.

Firstly, the Eldian empire was born through the exploitation of the weak. We don't even know if Ymir and all the other slaves were all actually Eldians, so depending how you interpret this, it takes away the potentially historically revisionist perspective of the Jewish analogue race ever being the oppressor. There is no place for "both sides" when it comes to the Jewish parallels because it's one of the most black and white situations in all of history. If nothing else, this element at least makes it clear that the story simply wishes to explore the thematic element of the dynamics between the oppressor and the oppressed the idea of power abuse.

Then, through making the encounter with the parasite creature happenstance and the Titan power not biologically inherent to Eldians, it removes the potential implication of the Jewish analogue being biologically different, therefore being "special" compared to other races, which is not the case with any race.

The element that has been there for the longest in my eyes and I think didn’t even need to be elaborated on because it’s been there and explored so much already and that always removed the possibility of the story (at the very least intentionally) being racist to me, though, is that the story treats all characters from all races the same without ever resorting to using caricatures or excessive stereotyping. The Eldians specifically are the main characters of the story, with there being equally good and evil characters among them.

The key element to racism has always been othering and dehumanization and the story for the most part makes sure that even the characters that are awful people have fleshed out perspectives.

I think what also helps in this chapter specifically is having more of a history-inspired than strictly historical situation, showing it all through a fantasy veil compared to the more direct usage of imagery with Marley and the Marleyan Eldians.

Finally, I really liked the potential Titan lore this chapter presented us.

I think it's really neat how it might potentially connect mythology and biology with the possible inspiration being, both, the prehistoric creature Hallucigenia and the mythological dragon under the roots of the world tree Ygdrassil, Nidhoggr, more than that, though, I really like the potential "nature you scary" element of the Titan origins.

The creature driving a horror story usually either isn't explained or is explained through something like aliens, lovecraftian horror, a human-made catastrophe or an experminent.

In this case there are elements of all of these in here and I think any of these could still be revealed to be the direct origin of the Titan parasite, but I really like the potential "nature you scary" element here because we usually always look outside of our world to find horror because we fear what we don't know, but Earth's own nature has plenty of that, too.

Nature can be really unsettling and horrifying at points and I’d like to see that being taken advantage of more.

Overall, though, I really liked this chapter. I think it might be one of my favorites because of Eren's speech, but I also really enjoyed it for it's "show, don't tell" aspect. Sometimes one image can say much more than a thousand words and I think this chapter did a really solid job with that.

#Attack On Titan #Shingeki No Kyojin #AoT 122 #SnK 122 #Chapter 122 #AoT #SnK

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pigeontheoneandonly · 5 years

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Serendipity

I saw a reply to a post over @ao3commentoftheday suggesting it’s impossible to write a slow burn in less than 10k words. My dumbass brain took this as “challenge accepted”. Who knows if I hit the mark, but I’m pretty happy with the result! This baby clocks in at 2487 words. Tucked under a read more, because that’s still a lot for tumblr.

Fandom: Dragon Age

When we met, I couldn’t see any part of you beneath the mud you’d earned trying to kill me. I don’t know why I took you with us, except that you were an elf without anywhere to go, and in Ferelden an elf with no home was good as dead, and we just don’t do that to each other. Naturally none of the shems understood. I bound up your wounds alone, thinking it would’ve been easier if you’d just fucking died.

The first prick of sympathy came when we arrived at the Dalish camp. You called me my dear warden, mocking the double-meaning of my title and your technical captivity. You flirted shamelessly with me the whole way, undeterred by my gender or my cold silence, and put me in a bad mood because I couldn’t tell if it was genuine interest, or something you felt you had to do, offer yourself to me, to stay in my good graces. With a man for sale it could go either way. But I saw how your ears went red and your tongue fell silent, when our wilder cousins sniggered at your tattoos, your so-called “city vallaslin”. It’s horrible to be an in-between, unwanted alike by the society that spawned you and the one you live with, to be lumped in with those who keep you in squalor and kill you at will. Watching their whispers subdue you angered me more than all the flirting put together. And fuck, wasn’t that annoying.

I bought you a pair of gloves. I don’t know why. They didn’t deserve my money, you didn’t deserve my kindness, but you looked at their tooled leather like you were reading a secret map, and I had to know what you saw written there. You didn’t say thank you. But you told me your mother was Dalish. I told you mine had died. I told you how she died, even though that’s a thing I don’t tell anyone, because my mouth moved before my mind could scream stop.

You made a joke. I shoved you hard into the underbrush and stalked away before I killed you. We never talked about it again.

In fact, we barely spoke at all, the whole long, rainy road to Orzammar. We didn’t speak through the political battle, we didn’t speak cooped up for days in a king’s mansion, and we didn’t speak as the heavy stone gates of the deep roads clanged shut behind us.

I had been a Warden for all of eight weeks. Alistair warned me that Wardens Joined in a Blight always were more sensitive, and all my newfound awareness remained raw as a fresh-hewn board. In the deep, I could hear them everywhere. Feel them, crawling through my skin like worms; smell them in the still and sour air. I could fucking taste them when we stopped to rest and I had no distraction.

The dwarves told me this was where Wardens went to die. I hugged my knees in the weak torchlight of our camp, feeling myself lost in the dark with them pressing in all around me, until they tore me apart, and for the first time, I hoped the Blight would kill me. Sleep was a fantasy. It showed, more and more, the deeper we went.

I didn’t notice the first time you offered to carry my knapsack, so tired I gave it over without question, numb to anything but the need to keep walking. The occasional darkspawn nest was a respite. Better to fight them than sense them waiting, a constant pressure of millions of eyes on the back of my neck.

I didn’t notice when you started staying up with me. I figured you weren’t tired, either. I still wasn’t speaking. But you rambled, about your childhood, about your exploits with the Crows, reciting snippets of awful Antivan poetry and singing bawdy songs you couldn’t quite remember. But it came as a shock when I woke up, the first I’d slept since we entered the roads, curled up against the cave wall, beside you. You smiled, still awake. Wished me good morning.

We fucked for the first time the first night we camped above ground again, drunk on dwarven ale and being out of that thrice-damned hole, that endless crushing darkness. In the morning we agreed it didn’t mean anything. Just the mindless choice of two bodies almost sick with relief.

You flirted less, after that. I talked more. I told you about coming up to the sealed gates of the Denerim alienage, hearing the word purge from the indifferent shem guard, and how I still didn’t know if my father or Shianni or any one of these people who’d been my entire world were alive. The ridiculous story I made up for those two kids, because elves survive on hope. My absolute disaster of a wedding, doomed long before the kidnapping; I was all my father had left, and the truth, that my inclinations were not reproductively compatible, would have crushed him. That if I closed my eyes, I could still feel a ghost of euphoria remembering my sword plunging into Vaughan’s gut, that I was only sorry I only got to do it once.

I don’t know why you listened. Put together, the whole thing rang absurd, not very sane and certainly not much like a Warden.

I do know that when the sloth demon snared us in nightmares, and I saw you stretched on that rack, my vision went red. When I came back to myself, your brother Crows were in pieces and you were gone. A little of whatever-the-fuck that was lingered when we woke; I took two running steps toward you, so damn happy to see you without joints popped and bruised. You stumbled one step back, on instinct, a portrait of humiliation. I faltered and the moment died.

You moved back to your own tent. We’d taken to sleeping side-by-side. The nights grew colder as the season waned, and the Blight spread, and the presence of another body in the night was an affordable comfort. I stared at the large space you left behind, startled to miss you this much.

Things stayed like that as we marched back to Denerim for the Landsmeet. Cordial, but distant. Hurt without reason and annoyed over it, to the point that Leliana warned me that compelling a Landsmeet as an elf would be hard enough without a pissy attitude. Maybe that was why it was so easy for Anora to betray us, because irritation makes me impatient and rude. But you snuck and charmed your way through the most heavily fortified prison in Ferelden to get us out— to get me out. And somehow I was still annoyed.

I said you must be really hard up for protection. You crowded me into the wall. For a wild moment I thought you’d shank me, and then for an even more terrifying one, that you’d kiss me. Instead, you told me to consider your blood debt paid, and shoved off down the street. Angry as I’d ever seen you.

And what was worse, you stayed angry, and I stayed on edge, and maybe that’s how we got jumped by a dozen Crows in a dead-end alley, one of your bad decisions come home to roost in earnest. Their leader offered to wipe your slate, to take you back to Antiva, make up a story and let you go home. Not like an order, but like a friend, offering you a way out.

You looked at me. Months on the road, and I couldn’t read your face. And what I remember isn’t thinking I was about to die, but that I was about to lose you to this smug shem jackass, of all people.

Then you said no. And the shit hit the wall.

We lived, somehow. Your old friend went down last, and hard, your Crow-hilted dagger quivering between his ribs as his heart pumped itself out. You fell down beside him. Uninjured beyond a few nasty scratches, curled into a ball on the cobbles like you were dying, too.

I asked something that amounted to what the fuck. And it all came pouring out. You grew up together, you and him and some girl named Rinna, a little family inside the unending terror of Crow education. If you couldn’t love the Crows, you could love them, and for a time the comfortable rewards of your harsh training were made sweeter by their sharing. Until Rinna betrayed you to a mark.

He killed her while you watched, you told me, your head in my lap. While she begged your help, you taunted her. She died with her love for you on her lips. You both went forward with the job, a loose end to clean up, and discovered there proof of Rinna’s honesty, her fidelity. You killed her together and now you’d killed him, too.

The silence stretched as the torrent of words finally stopped. Feeling your face damp on my leg. There was nothing to say, but that silence was a wounding kind, so I told you the stupid story about the bluebird in the vhenadahl. Recited rhymes we used to sing as kids, playing hopscotch and tag in the dirt. On and on, until the sun slipped below the buildings, and you were able to sit up, and we left.

It never came up between us again. In fact, very little had changed. A mild thaw in an undercurrent neither of us wanted to address. It seemed impossible we’d be able to swim it; diving in could only lead to drowning.

Returning to the alienage put it out of my mind. My family spared by the purge, but still not safe. Murder and disease and hints of darker things make good distractions. When we discovered elves were disappearing, you volunteered to scout, as you had so many times before. I thought nothing of it. Until I was sitting up alone at my childhood dinner table, more than a day past when you should have returned, too paralyzed to do more than stare at the door and plead with the Maker or the gods or whoever might be listening for you to walk through it.

Sometime after midnight, you finally did. You caught sight of me, and tendered a look of exasperation. My dear warden, you said again, chiding this time, and before you could continue I flung my arms around your neck, too tight for you to get anything else out. And we stood still there, like that, because if I let go I’d slap you. I hated you. You were the most important person in my world, and if you died it would change me, and I hated you for it.

We went into that warehouse together, and pulled people— my people— out of cages together. We read the manifest of those already sold away. You put your arms around me, when I stepped into an alley after it was done and screamed and screamed and screamed into my own hands, because even if we somehow got justice this time, there was no undoing it, and no way to stop it happening again. Because this was the Black City we all had to live in. You told me then that you’d been sold, too, into a different fate but one ugly in its own way. And my hand slipped into yours where it wrapped around my chest, just for a moment, until someone called us back to the mess we’d made.

You watched as I took the bastard Loghain’s head, and if it didn’t feel like justice for my kin, it did feel good. You stood beside me as I promised a collection of the most powerful people in Ferelden, shems all, that I could save their country, and hours later, when I was sick back at the manor where we stayed.

You weren’t there when Riordan told me I was going to die. It’s hard to remember now how out-of-our-minds, slap-happy with relief Alistair and I were when he showed up, fucking finally a senior warden who knew what he was doing. That went up like a matchstick when he explained a grey warden giving their life to contain the archdemon was the only way to end the Blight. He said some other things after that, but I didn’t hear them over the sound of one solitary thought: I cannot put Zev through that again. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…

And you weren’t there when Morrigan caught me as I shambled from that room, weak with shock and grief. You weren’t there when she told me there was a way out. You weren’t there to see my revulsion— not at what she suggested, but at myself, because I knew my answer immediately. I could not do that to you, not even with the entire world in the balance. That whatever the consequences, whatever pain this brought on me or on the child to come, if it spared you another heartbreak, the price felt fair.

I stumbled to your room no more than half-dressed. You smelled the sex on me immediately. Your face twisting with hurt and rage, until I fell down at your feet, my head on your knees, and told you everything. What waited for us in the heart of the Blight. The blood magic Morrigan wrought. That I’d done it for you, that I begged your forgiveness, that if you left now I’d never be the same and please, please, Maker, please stay.

Your hand lifted my chin. Your expression like I’d never seen before, tender and fond and something else. Something electric. Your voice a whisper. “My dear warden…”

“I love you,” I said. It was what I’d been trying to say through all the incoherent babble. Maybe for a lot longer than just this night.

You bent and kissed me. And in the softness of your mouth, every worry and doubt melted away.

We’d seen each other many times before. But you never trailed your thumb slowly across my every scar, from the faded wounds of Ostagar to the scrape from just this morning. I never traced over the swirls of your tattoos with my tongue. We never drifted back to each other every other moment for a lingering wet kiss, never burrowed a face into a neck or tangled our legs or clung so close together that we seemed more one person than two. It never felt right, not like this.

And as I looked into your face in the dying firelight, brushing my fingers over your cheek, I thought about you covered in mud and pain and waiting to die. Maybe the world didn’t care about us, but in its making, if there was just enough serendipity to let me find you, maybe that was all the care I needed.

#dragon age #dao #zevran arainai #m!tabris #zevran x tabris #slow burn speed run #alt title: dao in 3k words or less #i think i was possessed when i wrote this #not mass effect #enemies to lovers

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tessatechaitea · 5 years

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Team Titans #22

Team Titans is an anagram for "this could have been a good comic book but the execution was completely fucked up from the start."

If you can tell whether this kid is shocked or entertained, you're a better comic book reader than I am. And I'm a Grandmaster!

Meanwhile in New York, I'm faced with a similar conundrum.

If you can tell whether Killowat shit himself or had a wet dream, blah blah blah...you know the rest.

Little kids enjoying cannibalism (sort of? Were-creatures eating a Pegasus counts, right?), Killowat blowing his load so hard it wakes up the rest of the Titans, and now this:

I'm glad Fredric Wertham wasn't alive to see this debauchery!

The Team Titans have been put up in an old YMCA because they knew Prester Jon would fit in. The place is falling apart and there are *GASP* sex workers right outside! They're all disappointed that they survived the black hole because what kind of life is this? What did they expect, a mansion that's also a secret school for heroes from the future? A crumbling old YMCA should be exactly what they expected seeing that Terra describes their new gig working for the government as indentured servitude. Maybe there's a dictionary definition of "indentured servitude" that I missed? It's a good thing I learned how to type decades ago because I've just removed my eyes with some fabric scissors. Thanks, Urban Dictionary Rabbit Hole, for teaching me about My Little Pony crotchboobs! The drama between Redwing and Prester Jon continues because it's always nice to have drama that doesn't make any sense in a comic book and drag it on for several issues without explanation. Finding out that my sister could grow huge claws, pointy ears, and wings would be the least unsettling revelation I've ever received from her. Why the fuck is Prester Jon making such a huge deal out of it? In a world where Prester Jon dealt with hundreds of different superheroes on a daily basis, why would this change be so unsettling? Unless...of course! Prester Jon is sexually attracted to women with huge talons and pointy ears! Oh yeah! This is going to get incest! I mean good! The Team also manages to discuss earthquake preparedness because I guess some of DC's funding comes from Public Broadcasting grants? Over on Titans Island, the CIA have gathered a group of Team Titans together for their first black ops mission. The team will be lead by Aqualad and is composed of Mirage, The Human Mystery, Shockadelica, Wonder Boy, and Green. I can't believe I just listed a group of characters that include names like Shockadelica, Wonder Boy, and Green, and I'm mostly upset about Aqualad. Hopefully Mirage will tell somebody what she did with Deathwing! That's the only mystery I care about solving before this series ends. Hmm, apparently the mission is just sticking them on the Titans sub to wait for orders. Stupid comic book misleading me into repeating the "black ops" lie! Meanwhile in Seattle, Bumblebee and Herald will be leading another team composed of Metallik and Hero X. Maybe others but they're not named. A team in Torrance, California, learns how much people in the DC Universe hate super-heroes because editors at DC Comics have no clue what the whole medium has historically been about. Forget about inspiring heroes dedicating their life to helping make the world better. It's much easier to add drama if people hated and feared the heroes! So many assholes decided that the X-Men worked and thought the mutant premise could just translate to regular super-heroes. Plus it doesn't help when every other Superman story involves Superman being manipulated by a villain to use his powers against the people of the world. Stop giving the people of the world excuses to hate the heroes. Even I would hate Superman if his ego wouldn't allow him to leave Earth because he was a danger to it. Get the fuck away from humanity until you find a way to stop being hypnotized by magic villains, you fucking piece of shit! Um, Flamebird leads the Torrance team, composed of Nightrider, Battalion, Murder Master, some Judge and Jury member, and some other blockhead. No wonder everybody in Torrance hates the Team Titans (and the democrats, apparently)! They've shuttled all of the terrifying characters to the Torrance team! I guess I missed something over in the Darkstars comic because Donna Troy has decided to leave Terry and her baby to join the Darkstars. I can't say I disagree with that decision. Fuck Terry! Terra, Redwing, Prester Jon, Lapidus, and Killowat head to Qurac because remember how the comic book started there? They discover Chimera who must be a Team Titan because she knows their names and they recognized her dead pegasus. The Were-Creatures overpower them and they escape into a fortified building. But once inside, they discover Redwing has completely mutated too. The worst part is that Prester Jon calls her a hideous thing. She's going to remember that comment for sure. Team Titans #22 Rating: C-. Ignoring all of the plot stuff that annoyed me, I'm simply grading this comic book on one point: one of the Titans is called Murder Master and they held a press conference to introduce this guy to the community he'll be living in. And that community was already up in arms about the democrats taking away all of their military jobs! "Hey, angry people of Torrance! Here's your new local superhero team that will help protect your community! Battalion, a big gruff grizzly bear that probably hates you and would love to punch you in the face! Nightrider, a vampire that has just recently remembered he loves the taste of human flesh! A member of Judge and Jury, the bad guy Team Titans team that kills other Team Titans! And Murder Master, the master of murder! Don't you all feel safer now?!"

#Team Titans #Teen Titans #New Titans #DC Comics #DC #Comic Book Review

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tristealven · 5 years

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Proportion Surviving

by Renee Gladman, from Juice (Kelsey St. Press, 2000)

Long before the fresh apple crisis, my life had some form to it. I would wake in the mornings—I would perform something. For example, the day I tried, as one with acute passion might, to win one woman over but accidentally won another—that whole time I had been living like someone. Though I can’t remember his name. His model of optimism provided me with a certain geography that I inhabit in time of need. This time the need was surprising. People tend to have faith that the juice they drink in the morning is the same juice they have always drunk. And apples take their shape naturally. The guy, whose name escapes me now, taught me to look upon others’ concerns as mine to make at home. I was fond of doing many things at home, but my favorite was drinking juice. When my friends came by—they liked to suddenly show up with all kinds of breads in their hands, thinking they knew what I needed and planning to force it on me—I had to tell them I was busy with my juice. Two weeks before the crisis, I had been writing some poems about it. It was a warm day, not entirely different from other warm days in San Francisco. People were on the street. Pale people were on the street, making it to the park and lying there such that the next day they were a little browned. The poems I had written were failures, but dense ones. It seemed appropriate to think the person’s attempt at wholeness was a series of missteps, which if drawn across an afternoon might prove interesting to other people. I had a way of reminding my friends that we were all in pain, but a fruit tart kind of pain strangers can’t help but enjoy. That day I had, in a sense, gathered all my possessions and gone out onto the street with them. I awoke that morning with an urgency to prepare myself for something—not anything life threatening, but definitely personal. My lover, then, wanted to spend much of her life asleep. She had no ostensible reaction to the city’s sudden depletion of all its fresh apples and no hope for them. In a world where a person’s tastes revolve around the kind of sleep she gets, I could not find four people who cared. I thought that if I could find those four people we could really do something. A few of my friends pretended they were chosen. A few neighbors felt bad and made offers. My mother called to console me. My lover—in actuality, the closest person to being a member of the encumbered troop, slept next to me. Sleep became our network: falling in and out of it for change. The rule of survival is that no two people can lie in the same bed and sleep at the same time. So I kept an eye on her and played this game of freshness. If by morning I could quickly run out and do seven things that did not involve longing, she would reward me. Before the crisis, the reward would have needed only to be an apple one. But after the apples were gone. The landscape usually contains the solution to what’s lost. Demographics help people in cars. Some people did not notice me. Some demographers lose sleep and do not notice me. That was two days before. The evening before it was two days before the crisis, I was thinking that I did not think I was asleep. I had been watching the sunlight take the corner of my room and my housemate’s cat in it. When I looked again, there was no light—but I had not been asleep. It’s the way people react to traumatic events. They say, “I had just been there” or will say, “She was just with me.” So the loss of light was emotional and the lost state—demographic. I began to trace things by their disappearance. Alone in the room, my memory, and anticipated darkness going for light. People like to talk about the daytime. People in strange moods often miss the daytime. Before the crisis it was not often that one would find me in strange moods. I had managed a particular kind of balance fortified by a certain satisfaction of taste. I was happy. I mean, I was in my juice. Five weeks before the crisis, I was employed at the natural foods grocery around the corner from my house. I did not really work there, but I went there every week. All but the third Sunday of each month, I would walk in and find all kinds of juice on sale. Not to buy, but to stand next to. Shorter people have the privilege of proximity to most cardboard signs. That was one thing. I would stand there and be something for taller people who couldn’t see. I had gotten into the habit of improvised customer service as a way to peruse the juice aisles without being noticed. My parents thought my talents should have led me somewhere. My father would always say, “If you’re not going to be a people person, then numbers will have to do.” He was surprised that with all the time I had on my hands, I chose to spend most of it alone. Numbers then did hold some mystery for me, but mostly too high and far-reaching to explore. For years I had known that if there was a wall between where I was and where I needed to be, I did not want it there. Some people have personal goals that are demanding. Certain goals make it impossible to lounge around in bed. My decision to drink only fresh juice, which costs as much as a small satisfying breakfast, kept me busy rounding up cash. I would have to leave most friendships behind. As a way of keeping my life “wall-free,” I had to divide my time. I would spend the first part of the day searching for volunteer positions in organic juice factories. The second part of my day I would spend telling people about the first part. The other parts are not of substance here. Twenty-five years before the crisis I had for the first time what would eventually become known to me as apple juice. Twenty-three years later a magazine editor would reject my first attempt to recount that experience in litany. I am always drinking in my poems, a good friend says. In the first years of my life, everything I ate was mush. Today I will tolerate only the toughest of green vegetables and date people who will always forget this. When I had that remarkable glass of apple juice, I had no idea that one day I simply would not be able to find it. The city gets rid of its apples. People find themselves inventing fruit. The day I decided to write poems about it—it was twelve days before the rumors began and fourteen days before the media coverage—I had been resting in my best friend’s easy chair. We were discussing the rise of the smoothie industry when something fantastic occurred to me. Five days later I had twenty poems. When a person writes a poem about her passions, people on the street are bound to notice them. The passions overwhelm the body. She carries the body as though it were the book. The friend whose easy chair gave way to my failures moved out of town the next week, and though I miss her it was the failures that saved me. On every other day any kind of crisis one finds particular sayings helpful. If certain words are spoken quietly into a cup of hot water, with the handle of the cup turned toward the wall, whatever strength found in the person may be mirrored in the wall. The person leaves the house with her hand against this wall but strutting slightly. In the alley behind the natural foods grocery, I met my second lover for the first time. Meeting people in vulnerable places accentuates the passion later. Or it may be so hot that the lover never thinks in the present. And the weather was so hot during the crisis. Only the alleys had shade. Forty-eight days into the crisis, while on a thirst strike, I had to make a run for the alley. Not as though people were after me, but the elements. The foundation of anyone feeling that they must get away is need; at the bottom of any body-based need is grace. When I appeared at the opening of the alley, a woman who not twenty-four hours later would be dozing in my bed was stacking crates against the east-side wall. Women who work against surfaces inspire me to do things—I thought about telling her, or—short women make me want things. All the time while I was growing up I put a lot of demands on my juice; forty-eight days into the crisis she made me forget it. I did not forget it, but was embroiled. The newspapers were saying things about the past. People were celebrating thick juice, and I kept writing those poems. That day in the alley I realized three things about life. While assisting her I learned three things to carry around with me, to disperse when needed. For six months during the crisis, I did not care about the crisis. When my faith returned all my lovers were gone. That morning I woke to the two hundred and thirty-second day of the crisis; I was beneath my bed. It was the sixth day that I had awakened beneath my bed. I was lonely, but I was also sure. Life without juice had taken on the name and shape of my weakest character, who—when we passed on the street—did not know me. I knew it was me by the way my head felt: people find themselves in an idea and feel so specified by the idea that they are compelled to show it. Today all my ideas are liquid. That day of my faith, friends thinking I was sick came by to see me. It would be the last day I spent alone; I was happy, but still would not drink. The juice on my mind was no longer juice. There was an absence there, but one so constant it became familiar. I did not want to drink it.

#renee gladman #proportion surviving #poetry #prose poetry #favorites

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icehvs · 5 years

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Aural & Atreos - Blood of the Bull

We’re closing in on finishing with this setting, and I’ve thought maybe I could help speed things along. Plus, it was an interesting challenge to showcase two characters in the same drabble. Tell me what you guys think!

Tagging: @proseweaver @inexorableblob @crypticsx @jltillary

Captain Aural had a distaste for the desert. He was a man of refined tastes: of wine, of conversations, of men and women enjoying themselves at his home in Leyan. This city had none of that. It was crude, plain, its ancient stoned speaking not of history, but weariness. Some of that he could have forgiven. They were under siege, after all. But the heat killed off any desire in him to be understanding, and left the man with worry.

Not like he needed much to be concerned these days. Things were going wrong in a rapid succession.

He walked into the corner-chamber. The painted walls gave way to plain, brown sand-stone, but at least the pillars running along the edges, serving as substitutes for walls allowed the air to flow a little. The massive stone slab around which the army’s leaders – and that accursed queen – used to gather lay in the center. A man was standing beside it, and as Aural entered, he looked up.

“You got my message, Commander,” he said.

“I am not the Commander. That title belongs to Ennarim Tauvar…”

“Wherever he may be right now. By all intents and purposes, Aural, you are the one who has to make the hard decisions now.”

Aural swallowed and nodded. The other man’s eyes lingered on him for a few seconds, an inquisitive look he could have done without. Atreos, Captain of the Scouts – and the only one of them remaining alive – was a curious man. He was not Leyanese, looking, instead, the worse part of an Islander: his hair was long and braided, his beard quickly growing out of control. He leaned on the stone using one hand, while keeping his fresh stump behind his back. And though he was young – not much younger than Aural, in actuality – he had the air of confidence the army’s second-in-command did not expect when he was thrust onto the war-council.

“Why did you call me, then?” Aural asked joining him.

“To discuss what can be saved,” the other man said.

“Should the others be here…?”

“Kautar is still recovering after what that idiot did to him, and the rest are morons. Nothing would get done if we listened to them,” Atreos waved his hand. “It’s better this way.”

That was a serious breach of how an army operated, but Aural swallowed his reply. They never should have found themselves in this situation, boxed in from all sides, just waiting for something to happen. Unusual moments required unorthodox solutions. Even Leyan’s rigid politicians would admit to that.

“Tauvar left us weakened,” Atreos explained, “and the army demoralized. He marched into a trap, and though he survived, we suffered a defeat. Maybe his survival itself was a defeat. Either way, he is gone now, and we find ourselves left with his mess.”

“Those are harsh words about…”

“They are necessary words, and somebody has to speak them,” Atreos waved. Then, not even waiting for a counterargument, he pointed down at the slab. “Look at this, Aural: what do you see?”

There was a drawing on the stone, crude, chalk outlined of the city, the river Bavel, and the surrounding areas. Three circles marked the enemy’s encampments – one to the north, one to the west, one to the south. There were fortified camps, but they did not build a defensive line around the city – a trap the Leyanese promptly fell for.

“I see that we are boxed in,” Aural said.

“And you see that they can reinforce any of their camps before we would break through,” Atreos added. Aural did not see it as clearly, but he nodded – the enemy played their hand a day prior, and the cost was dear.

“We have only one chance,” Atreos continued. he put his hand at the southern and northern camps, awkwardly fiddling with having to move around the slab to do so. “We need to attack these two at the same time.”

“We don’t have the men for that.”

“I know.”

“Then…?”

“Why suggest it? Because in a few days, we might. And by then, that demoralized shambling band out there that we call and army has to be ready to fight like they never fought before. Either that, or we are all dead.”

Aural swallowed again. He had a sudden surge of sympathy for Tauvar, followed by the bitter taste of shame. He would not abandon these men, he would not slip out in the night, running from his duties.

He will lead them.

#writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #mywriting #fantasy #own writing #drabble #writeblr community #blood of the bull

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blackrose-ffxiv · 5 years

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Sowing Strife 10/02

Atlan Lanning heard the door open before he recognized the voice, and upon realizing who was there he made a not-so-valiant effort at trying not to cringe behind the curtain. Atlan groaned. Daijiro would have his head if he didn't do his job properly, so he stepped out into view to greet their guest. "...Lebeaux," he bowed politely to the man. "What can I do for you?"

Lebeaux Desrosiers tilted his head slightly as it wasn’t Kareem who passed through the curtain, but rather another familiar face. “Ah! The Dhavhas’ pet.” He declared as he reached up to remove his hat and held it out to the other, expecting him to hang it up for him. “Are your masters about, by any chance. It would be fortunate to have an opportunity to speak with either of them. A cup of tea as well. Hmm, Atlan, if I recall correctly?”

Atlan just....took Lebeaux's hat without putting up a fight and hung it on the rack behind him. He couldn't argue the fact that he was closer to it anyway. "Nooo, they are not," he answered after mumbling something incoherent under his breath. "I'm one of the hosts here. Believe it or not, I don't follow after Rin and Saerdha everywhere. And yes, my name is Atlan. Same as usual?" He did remember what Lebeaux usually requested when he visited the agency, at least. "There's more of a selection here.”

Lebeaux tilted his head as though shocked by that. “Is that quite allowed, that you should be out and about without them?” He mused as he made his way over to the couch and made himself comfortable. “I do hope that necklace you’re wearing is a return address tag should you wander too far.” He teased as he settled onto the cushions and tutted quietly. “For shame. Out without chaperone or leash.” He smiled sweetly at Atlan. “There was a particularly nice Ishgardian brandy on my last visit, "I’ll have some of that one the side.”

"...Any leash that's on me isn't being worn for public purposes anyway," Atlan shot back. "I heard you were a member now, so your choice of alcohol is free," he disappeared for a moment behind the curtain. Atlan didn't drink much himself, but he'd been there long enough to familiarize himself with Daijiro's massive selection of teas, coffees, and alcoholic beverages. "I think both of them might survive without me. Maybe."

Lebeaux smiled softly in amusement as he made himself comfortable, his right hand held carefully in his lap. “Though, I suppose perhaps moving from one pen to another is safe enough. Not as though you’re able to wander very far here.” He mused thoughtfully. “You’ve taken a bit of a sharper edge since we last spoke.” He noted in passing once the other elezen returned. “Something the matter?”

"Not at all," he smiled back at Lebeaux, "...Other than how I worry for Rinha'li, but," his smiled faded some as he handed Lebeaux his cup and saucer of hot tea and poured a half glass of the Ishgardian brandy on the side. "But, I also know Rin. He does what he does because he wants to, not because he's forced. That doesn't mean I trust your intentions, though." Atlan took a seat beside the man and waited to see if the tea was to his liking before he carried on the conversation.

Lebeaux tutted quietly again as he took the cup of tea and the serving of brandy. He set the tea down and sipped at the brandy first, tasting it to ensure it was of the same bottle as his prior visit. Satisfied with that, he tilted the glass to add its contents to the tea cup. “Oh, but it’s been some time since I brought him home bloodied and battered.” He noted calmly. “You surely don’t still begrudge me that incident? He's made a full recovery since.”

"I meant the more recent expedition," Atlan clarified. "Like I said, I know anything that happens is probably purely Rin's choice, and I can't change that. He's stubborn, but I want to know what happened." Atlan leaned forward in his seat, wringing his hands nervously. He wasn't so put off by Lebeaux this time that he failed to be as articulate as he wanted to be, but he was still anxious around the Ishgardian.

Lebeaux tilted his head slightly as he set down the glass and lifted the cup by its saucer, settling it into his lip so he could lift and sip using his left hand. He watched the other’s gestures as he fidgeted and leaned. “Ah, so you were told that there was a recent expedition. Yet he didn’t see fit to fill in all of the little details? Why would you ask me. I’ve no desire to sow strife in your happy little home.” He explained with that same saintly smile.

"He has his reasons for trying to protect me," Atlan shrugged. "I've pieced together some of it from what I know from him and Marvik. I know what Rin wants, in the end...It's always been something of an obsession with him. What do you get out of it? Something tells me you're not lending a hand out of the goodness of your pure heart, Lebeaux."

“Then perhaps we can help each other, Atlan.” He suggested calmly before he took another sip of the fortified tea. “I don’t know what Rinha’li wants. I knew full well that is agreement to assist was simply a means to his own ends. Yet I still don’t understand what those ends were.” He explained slowly. “If you would like to enlighten me as to some of his motivations, I would be more than happy to give you a full report on our activities in Amdapor.”

Atlan looked uncertain about that arrangement, but he did worry about the miqo'te; enough that he appeared to be giving it some thought as he looked away from Lebeaux and stared instead at the bottle of brandy resting in front of them on the table. Which decision was more dangerous? "...A powerful creature from the void has always had something of a grip on him, whether it was... real or just by fascination. He's always wanted to find ways to get closer to it; to control what we don't understand about their power. If he was there, it's because of his need for knowledge about him and the Amdapori people," he answered with clear hesitation. "...I want to help him, one way or another. I just don't know how."

Lebeaux smiled serenely as he listened. He had his own suspicions and this did confirm some of them. Yet it also brought up some new questions. “This voidsent being, he has had contact with it before and fully intends to establish contact again in the future?” He asked. “It seems to be a grander scale than your day to day nuisances. Something too large to go unnoticed for too long, save for when it’s locked away under a dead city. Do you suspect he wishes to bring it to our realm?”

"Yes, in fact that was how he and Saerdha got to know each other. Saerdha has...a habit of rescuing people with those kinds of connections," his smile returned briefly thinking on the magister's kindness. "If he ever did accomplish a connection like that, I honestly don't know what he would do. Rin doesn't believe that anything we don't understand is innately evil, and I agree with him. All I know is...he's stubborn enough to keep on going until he gets clear answers."

“As I suspected. I had formed the opinion that Rinha’li had some sort of contact ‘beyond’ and I was curious what would happen if we were to follow the threads towards that contact.” He explained calmly in between sips of tea. “A mentor of mine had a similar experience and was driven mad by it. I gave his notes and writings to Rinha’li to see what he could make of it and he came to the conclusion that we would find our answers at Amdapor.” He set the cup down and refilled it with straight brandy before he resumed sipping. “Yet there was nothing there. No ‘doors’ they kept going on about. No presence, save for the spiteful shade of my mentor. It was a bust.”

Atlan snatched up the empty glass he'd brought for himself, but he didn't fill it with brandy. He turned it in his hands, focusing on the light reflecting off of it rather than making direct eye contact with the elezen while he listened to his explanation. "Let me help," he said at last, still clutching the glass. "There might be a way I can, and even if I don't trust you, I'd feel better being able to do what Rin needs to succeed, whatever that means in the end. You must know things. You have connections. He wouldn't even have to know that I was helping you and him from the shadows."

Lebeaux paused with the cup partway to his lips before he lowered it again. “Allowing him to succeed would mean inviting a potentially problematic entity into our realm to wreak havoc as it pleases.” He noted. It would also be a generous helping of heresy, but so long as he wasn’t actually watching or helping directly, what was the harm. “It want to ensure there will be a measure of control. What can you do to help.” He asked, settling his icy pale gaze on the blonde. “Ensure we have an acceptable cup of tea waiting for when we return?” He suspected Atlan of hiding something as well, since their very first meeting. Now he was sure of it, but whatever could it be…

Atlan hesitated again. He didn't like the way Lebeaux always looked like he knew something but kept up such a convincing veil of innocence that one could never quite be certain. He opened his mouth to speak several times before finally settling on what he wanted to say. "I have my own connections," he answered cautiously. "If I were to lend them to your cause, I need a promise from you. Saerdha's peers in Ul'dah can't know. He's broken enough laws already keeping Rinha'li and I safe. You're his... friend, aren't you?" the word felt odd rolling off his tongue in this case. "I'm asking to protect him more than myself."

Lebeaux considered that silently as he sipped his vaguely-tea tinted brandy. Waiting patiently for Atlan to speak. He was in no hurry, so he waited for the boy to frame the words the way he thought would suit them best. Rather than speaking plainly, the blond opted for the polite version. “All of this is rather uncharted territory. At the very least it’s looked down upon, in the most severe cases it’s heresy and dark arts in all the City States.” He explained calmly, by way of assuring he had a very vested interest in this all remaining quiet. “I’ve no interest for our work to be brought to the light. The ends will justify the mans but that would require we achieve a satisfactory ending, which would preclude being arrested or murdered by vigilante hunters. What sort of contacts can you offer to such a cause.”

Atlan thought Lebeaux's words through. It was true that what they'd been doing—the expedition, all of it—would be frowned upon by almost everyone else. It wouldn't do the man any good to out himself in the process. Logically, he felt some semblence of safety knowing this, but it was still difficult to tell anyone his secret, especially someone he didn't particularly like. "A contact Marvik very nearly killed me for, on accident, of course. He didn't know any better when it tried to feed off him," he began, trying to gauge Lebeaux's reaction before he dared to dive further down that rabbit hole.

Lebeaux wrinkled his nose in disgust at the implication. Atlan’s contact was within his body. Making him… possessed for lack of a better word. “I see. That explains quite a bit now about several things. Another layer is lifted away.” He took a long sip of brandy as though to wash the taste of that out of his mouth. “It is a powerful contact? How firm is your control of it.”

Atlan expected something along those lines from his initial reaction, and he hardly flinched at the look. In fact, he looked somewhat relieved Lebeaux hadn't fled. "At first, it nearly drove me mad, but it's been years. Like any of them I suppose its power relies on how much it feeds, but that's rare, and never on a person," he shook his head. "Still, it's been useful on multiple investigations. We can speak to each other. It senses things, and Rinha'li has...an uncanny ability to put it in its place when I do allow it to have control."

Lebeaux snickered quietly into his cup at that. “Rinha’li, the monster whisperer.” He joked lightly. “How droll. In any case, I do suppose that puts you in a rather unique position to assist us. Even if it isn’t outright. Very well. I shall endeavor to keep you apprised of the situation so long as you do what you can to keep Rinha’li sympathetic to my cause and cooperative. He’s taken on something of a stubborn streak lately and it’s growing tiresome.”

@sedatayuun @black-omen-born

#atlan #lebeaux #mention of:#rinha'li #a few others showed up later but i didn't get screenshots of them #:(

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priya2019writer-blog · 5 years

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The Vegetarian Diet Plan - To Drop Some Weight And Longer Life

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Nice fulfill you, I'm Felisa. His job is financial officer actually something he really engage in. My house is here in Miami. One of points I love most is ice skating and now i'm trying to generate income with which.

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lighthouseofthewanderess · 5 years

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Goodbye

We’re all clear success isn’t a measure of the cars you own, the house, a perfect job, or family vacations every year. I’m sick of all the quotes that do nothing but bounce off the surface. The supposed pushing of self to do better and get to the end of the rainbow. But a rainbow’s a pretty swell thing by its own. The pot of gold is just a carrot to think you’re getting somewhere. Here’s a thought -- what if every day, you’re already there. Whatever moment you’re expecting when you reach the end is what you’re capable of feeling right here, right now. People underrate the small things that contribute equally to the meaning of ‘success’.

Being a single parent is harder than they say it is. I’ve seen my mom spend all her time with me for the past 2 decades and give up equally much. She stayed in a job just because there was no other alternative. She broke it to her daughter that there simply was no money to pursue medical science. But I see her stand tall next to me; as If I represent all the years she’s put in. Her face has wrinkled, her eyes widen up as she counts out change for the groceries. She forgets things, sometimes even gifts that I’ve got for her. I’ve never seen her pamper herself, try to marry again, or meet anyone even. Her life was simply never in the equation. It was always about me. For her, the measure of success is giving me a life she thought she couldn’t. Not without the concept of a family. Her little ways of knowing she’s done good is letting me pick whatever color of curtain I wanted in my room. To take me around town in a first-hand car. To cover the prices on the menu and warn me not to piss her off. That’s what I’m talking about. Yesterday maybe, none of this would’ve been possible, but today it is. And they’re all a bunch of little things that reflect equally on a point in life when things aren’t out of whack. When I take her out for dinner or book ourselves a spa date she shies away and says its a lot of money. But it also gives her another measure; her daughter is spending on things that were a luxury in her time. Here progress is success.

I remember making a little list of things I want to buy when I get a job. To me, success meant landing a good job. It meant reaching a moment where you can start building castles in the sky. But once I got there, I didn’t feel like I achieved anything. I felt it in the little things but not in walking into a job that I had landed. In a coffee from Starbucks -- a shop that was always far from my reach. In buying books off Amazon and watching the parcels reach an address. In a solo trip where money just melted away. Where I would have the luxury to take a couple days off and see a new place without anyone to steer my ship. I would smile whenever I found myself not giving it much thought but just doing the things I want. That was a little victory. For someone who’s always thought of the money first, to spend on herself. Here freedom is success.

Maybe I’m still talking about elusive things. Let’s come down to my clear compass for a sense of achievement. I’ve seen how movies have it all wrong. A serial killer probably turned out that way because he had an abusive childhood. The villain got his pure hatred because he was bullied in school. She saw violence as a child and ended up in prostitution. What are these character sketches even? Taking a minuscule sampling and repeating it on film over and over again until the jokes along the same vein start to prop up. Those who have gone through some trauma run the risk of personality disorders, clinical depression, insomnia, and a whole host of other issues. But there’s two ways to look at it. Either you add to those silly stereotypes or prove them wrong. And as a strong-headed Aries, I just had to prove them wrong.

The last few years saw me deal with all my big D related problems. I was doing great at work, the organization was bagging awards with things I had helped on. That’s because I had high-functioning anxiety. It helped me be super productive, have my mind on multiple things and move really fast with it all. It didn’t do anything for my self confidence. For the award night, I remember shopping alone trying to pick out a dress that would help me look like ‘I got this thing’. Even when I found it, I felt insecure wearing it. And on the stage a pretty girl smiled and shook hands but I was caving into myself. This wasn’t the sweet taste of success if inside I felt I didn’t deserve it. Getting out of the house was a task, every day felt like I didn’t have the strength in me. It was as though the wind would blow me away. On my bike, riding slow, I would feel the wheels drifting off to the side. Where was my center of gravity? Where was that core that would forever burn my light like the sun? Even on the off days, I wouldn’t like to get near the bed and give myself a break. I kept myself busy because the mind was a great magician who convinced me I wasn’t doing enough in life. It was a slow but painful process. To get out, to spend time with friends after dark. To tell myself that I am good enough, and where I am is good enough. Getting that positivity in me took forever, but once it did, I found happiness in the small things. In throwing a house party, in buying a swimming costume, in trying on outfits that were clearly chic. But that’s where I found my success. And like it or not, these small bursts count more than publications, headlines, awards, piled up gifts, or insane hikes. Success here is gifting yourself memories.

A colleague of mine, Kavya, brought out another important facet to this whole conversation. We ended up good people. People capable of loving, of giving and taking the world as it comes. The intricacies of why it is hard will be felt only if you went through something equally bad. And while I’m at it, let me give a tip for the people who you might be helping out. Please don’t say ‘I know what you’re feeling.’ It gets us super annoyed; not because we’re better at feeling pain but because it is impossible for any human to know and feel what the other person is going through. So stick to more harmless things like ‘I’m there for you.’ or “Do you want ice cream’ -- these we don’t mind so much. Going back to Kavya’s words as we sat up on the terrace talking about life and the like. Loving had to mean feeling. And just the right amount. If you felt nothing or way too much, it could fall into a disorder. I look at us like double-edged swords. On one side we're reactive and can lash out. And on the other we simply are our past, which could be dangerous in itself. To move from there and give love, I started with accepting what happened to me. To tell myself hurting another person because I was hurt isn’t going to heal me. To believe that the other person is deserving of my love even though I have been deprived of it. And getting comfortable with the fact that revenge is reserved for the movies and in real life it is spiteful. It meant building walls because only you are ever really there for yourself. You may have a wonderful partner, a loving family, but at the end of the day no one is going to war for you when you’re not in the picture. Then it was about operating this mechanism where the walls can come down instead of breaking it down entirely and exposing yourself. And this thought didn’t come without a few burnt fingers. Moments filled with too much hope in the world only to limp back because what else did you expect? Moments filled too much hate that it turned the atmosphere sour and made you cancel plans for the fear of ruining it again. After the walls were strong and the self fortified, there was still one big, huge quality I struggled to get. Trust was my biggest fear. To me it meant giving direct access to my castle, to operate the walls at their will. And I just couldn’t do it. Even with my own mom I couldn't. It wasn’t shown in the big decisions like where to invest what. I am smart enough to let people who know it better, do it. But it came in directing her on the streets because I didn't trust her to do it on her own. In standing next to her as she baked cake because I was sure it’ll get messed up. My mom didn’t know about my anxiety issues for 2 years either because I couldn’t trust her to believe me. I didn’t think she would get it, I was worried she’ll not even consider it a problem. That big cloud of imagined consequences kept me from telling her anything about my life. This is something I did with a lot of people. I kept my castle in plain sight and widened the moat around it. The cold distance could be felt the minute someone saw me from afar. I wasn’t welcoming, I didn’t want to be everyone's friend. I didn’t trust them enough to stay, to not leave me behind. And so, I didn’t want to give them any leverage either to hurt me with my own stories. I’ve stayed with one workplace for 4 years, I saw many people come and go. People I couldn’t deny not loving. Sunflowers that just spread so much light and happiness in my life that I couldn’t stop myself from trusting them. And when they left, I felt pangs of loss. I felt that I will be forgotten, no one sunflower will come my way or that this was all just a game. But thanks to them, and the way they still tuned in on my life, I realized trust is something you build over time. It is like a bridge. The walls stay, the moat stays. But everyone who really wants to know you will spend time to build that bridge and stay inside. Success here is letting love in. Till today, I’ve done a great job of not trusting people. Years have flown and yet the closest ones to me know only a fraction. It is an inside joke with myself. People think I open up easy. I share willingly and matters of sensitivity. That I am an open book. But in reality, it’s only the pages I’ve shown you that you’ve read. But now it’s all out, the entire thing. I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to let you in, and now that you’ve met the real me, I hope you stay.

#nanowrimo #nano 2018 #nano writing #writing #writedaily #wrimo #loveforwriting #writing challenge #done #life story #lifestruggles #trust

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alittlebookdust · 6 years

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Weekly/Monthly/When I Feel Ambitious Enough for It Review: Custom of the Country

Custom of Our Country By Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s Old New York was revolutionary. The cultural apogee fixated itself with being the battleground upon which the old customs met the new in climactic bursts of revelation inspired by the growing audacity of America’s up and coming elite, who had begun cultivating riches not from their ancestry but from novel institutions like Wall Street and the railways.

The Custom of the Country, like Wharton’s other works, centers itself in the midst of this turn-of-the-century flux. I picked up the novel after reading Age of Innocence and This Side of Paradise, continuing my fascination with 1910s and 20s during which America radiated within this gilded frame of promised wealth.

Despite being a century apart, I couldn’t help but mark similarities between the dawning American society of the 20th century to that of my Millennial generation. Three particular observations of Edith Wharton’s Old New York still echo, with resonating distinction, the characteristics of our modern-day cultural capital. We aren’t so different from our ancestors. We still tie society’s influence to our own personal desires. We are still hardly ever satisfied with what we have, provoked by the infinite opportunity that elicits our fear of missing something better—aka “FOMO.” And we still have a tendency to neglect our humanity—our need to be in personal relationship with one another—for the sake of the things we want.

Custom of the Country deconstructs these observations through the misadventures of Apex city socialite, Undine Spragg, whose preliminary dreams are but to establish herself in the brownstones on Fifth Avenue. Her grand move to New York is reminiscent to many of our exciting beginnings, where we move to the city and feel the buoyancy of our expectations to “make it big.” Undine is no different. She is also tenacious, exacting, demanding. Her ability to impersonally view a situation in order to assess the lessons from a failure and implement them into her decisions following the next stage of her “career,” constituted the embodiment of her character, the source of her unnerving success, and the ultimate cause of her inability to consider anyone or anything other than a business proceeding. Undine is selfish, cruel—unafraid to use people to get what she wants. And what she wants, defines Wharton’s first observation in relation to the past and present human condition:

1.) We are still easily influenced by the culture:

“As a child…Undine's chief delight was to "dress up" in her mother's Sunday skirt and "play lady" before the wardrobe mirror. The taste had outlasted childhood, and she still practised the same secret pantomime, gliding in, settling her skirts, swaying her fan, moving her lips in soundless talk and laughter…”

How many of us desire to be a celebrity? To be famous for what we do? To become so successful we are followed and admired for our work?

"The grand families” were the celebrities of Undine’s time. The dreaming girl lived and died by the society column, and throughout the novel Undine relished to read what was written about her.

The “lady” was the apex by which Undine judged her standard of success. A woman’s career referred to her progress up the ladder of social hierarchy. Where a woman fell on this standard was the essence of her success and culled forth the respect she desired from her peers.

“It was admiration, not love, that she wanted...”

“[S]he wanted passionately and persistently, two things which she believed should subsist together in any well-ordered life: amusement and respectability.”

A woman’s power was her reputation. Today it is her achievements. We might sneer at the idea of the old frivolous pursuits, and grumble about the inadequacy of women to challenge the social system, but can we really deny that everything we do is not in some way motivated by the same reasons fortifying the ambitions of women of Wharton’s time? To mock them would be the same as mocking a woman finding empowerment in being a CEO or a UN leader. If we are honest with ourselves, we want and often crave the influence of admiration in order to justify our own success. Society defines our values every bit as much as it did in the early 20th century by shaping the human need for recognition.

The literal translation of Undine’s desires change across the stages of her social career.

“To know that others were indifferent to what she had thought important was to cheapen all present pleasure and turn the whole force of her desires in a new direction.”

Ultimately, Undine justified her success the way we all do: by taking stock of what we have under our control.

“To have things had always seemed to [Undine] the first essential of existence; they were the justification for she demanded to demonstrate her success.”

We are still a consuming nation, obsessing what society has labeled “valuable.” Our success not only depends on the admiration we garner from our audience, but too by the things we have in possession. But do we ever get enough of either?

2.) We are still insatiable:

“There was something still better beyond, then--more luxurious, more exciting, more worthy of her! She once said to herself, afterward, that it was always her fate to find out just too late about the ‘something beyond.’ ”

Undine’s unquenchable ambitions were fueled by the notion that there was always something better for her “beyond.” What she had never mattered. It was what she didn’t have that led to nervous breakdowns, tantrums, and the single-minded veracity with which she pursued her will.

When Ralph Marvell—Undine’s first husband and an exception to the stereotypical apathy Edith Wharton attributed to the unappreciative, American husband—did not have the financial security to meet Undine’s standard for success, Undine, who was the “monstrously perfect result of the [American] system: the completest proof of its triumph,” left him. He had given her entry in to the familial inner circles of New York’s high society, but Ralph never had the means to live on Fifth Avenue with all the “greats.” Undine realizes the situation and leaves Ralph and their son; a marriage “dissolved like a business partnership.”

She wanted more. Being loved did not elevate her position in society, nor did it fit with the cultural definition of success. And so it meant nothing to Undine.

She moves on, meets a French count, and decides to marry him. Again, Undine displays inhumane cruelty when she threatens Ralph to take full custody of their son, unless Ralph is willing to pay an alimony of 100,000 dollars to fund the annulment of their marriage so that her new marriage can be recognized by French society.

In the end, Ralph kills himself and she gets both: her son and a new legal husband.

But Undine, now a countess, again grows dissatisfied. Her freedom is compromised again by the financial expenditures in which she indulges to comfort herself with things, and their connection to success. Raymond, Undine’s French count, realizes her egocentrism and looses interest.

Undine divorces again. With tenacity and cunning, she manages to at last marry a childhood friend turned millionaire. All along Elmer Moffet was most suited to Undine; the new American man—cruel and shrewd in the world of Wall Street—a symbolic reflection to impersonal transactions of which Undine executed in society. Together they have everything they could ever dream. Millions and millions; dresses and motors; dazzling trips to Paris.

Was it enough?

“[Undine] had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them.”

3.) We still neglect relationships

How often do our pursuits get in the way of our families, our relationships, our ability to relate or take interest in other people? How many marriages end up in divorce because both parties are unsatisfied from what they’ve received from the other?

When we only love people for what they can give us, we never learn to really love at all. If our ambitions are easily prioritized above our relationships with other human beings, we lose our humanity and become animalistic in our cause.

By the end of the book, Wharton makes it known that Undine has at last become fully desensitized to the people around her. The process began with her parents, whom she used to bring her to New York; to Ralph, whose family ring she altered without a care about its ancestry value; to appraising Raymond’s family heirlooms as means to sell in order to obtain more things.

“[Undine] had learned what things cost, but not how to do without them...”

In conclusion, you realize Undine Spragg had always thought of people in parallel to how she saw her things:

“[S]he saw what they might be converted into, and what they might rescue her from.”

Undine was willing to pay the ultimate cost for her ambitions: her humanity. Empathy is an easy thing to compromise if we put first the ambitions society promises will make us happy. It is difficult to disbelieve that what the world says we need, is true.

#review #book review #custom of the country #edith wharton #20th century literature #ole sport #turn of the century #books #reviews #My Book Reviews #reading #read

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emospritelet · 6 years

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Pixie Dust - Chapter 20

Sorry this has taken so long! I was distracted by Golden Lace angst and Woven Lace smut!

Anyway, last time, Gold found out that his night from hell with Zelena was cooked up by Belle's husband. Here's what happened next

AO3 link

Gold barely heard the door close behind him. He walked around onto the porch, leaning on the wooden rail and taking deep, calming breaths, the cold air burning his lungs. Memories of that night flashed through his mind, and instinctively he rubbed at his wrists, looking down. The weals had gone, the skin smooth and unmarked, but for a moment he could still see them, the evidence of his fear, his pain, red and angry and a vision of his hands bound tight to the bed frame. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that was worse. Then he could see her gloating face as she took things from his bag one by one…

Pushing back from the rail, he ran his hands over his face with a shudder, and turned as he heard the door.

“Alistair?”

Belle shuffled out onto the porch, looking anxious, and he sighed to himself. He would have to tell her. There would be no hiding it.

“It’s freezing out here,” she said, hugging herself. “Come inside, please.”

He hesitated, but this was a conversation that would be just as awful in the warm. Besides, he needed a drink. He nodded, and she looked relieved, holding out a hand for him to take and pulling him with her. The house felt wonderfully warm, and he shivered, only partly from the chill that had settled into him. Belle gave him a worried look.

“What is it?” she asked gently, and he licked his lips.

“Can we sit down?” he asked. “I think I need another drink.”

Her brow crinkled, but she topped up his whisky, sitting on the couch beside him. Gold turned the glass between his fingers, wondering how to tell her. She slid a hand across his thigh, a warm, comforting weight, and he looked across at her.

“That - that night,” he began. “That night I found you on the road.”

“Yes?”

He hesitated, and Belle reached up to stroke his hair, her touch sending him strength.

“I told you I’d had a bad night,” he went on, “and I had. I was hired by a woman calling herself Zelena. She—”

He cut off, taking a gulp of the whisky, and Belle continued her soothing strokes.

“She tried to drug me, I think,” he said. “I wouldn’t drink the wine she gave me, and so she tied me down so I couldn’t move. She did - things.”

Belle’s fingers had stilled in his hair, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“What - what things?” she asked nervously, and he shook his head.

“I - I can’t talk about it,” he said. “Please, Belle.”

There was silence for a moment, and her hand dropped to his leg again, sliding over his thigh.

“You think it was the same woman?” she asked. “It is an unusual name.”

“She said someone wanted to come and see me,” he said, his voice grown hoarse from the whisky and the stress of remembering. “She called him, told him I was tied up and waiting. She - she said that I wouldn’t enjoy the visit. Thankfully I managed to get away. God knows what would have happened if I hadn’t.”

There was more silence, and Belle seemed to shrink in on herself, chewing on her lip. He took another drink, his lip trembling a little.

“It’s because I told him who you were,” she said softly. “It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

“It’s his fault, and hers,” he said. “Not yours, and not mine.”

She met his eyes then. Tears had welled up, shining in the low light, and he wanted to kiss her.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I brought so much pain into your life.”

He reached up to cup her cheek, a tear coursing down and running along the length of a finger.

“And so much love,” he said gently, and she sent him a wobbly smile.

He leaned in to kiss her, and she opened her mouth, her hand sliding around his waist and pulling him closer. She tasted of the whisky they had been drinking, and his tongue stroked hers, his hands pushing through her hair. Belle moaned a little, and he broke the kiss, his breathing unsteady.

“Come to bed,” he whispered. “Come to bed with me.”

“What about Neal?”

“He won’t be back until tomorrow,” he said. “And if I know anything about teenage boys, it’ll be around lunchtime.”

She giggled a little at that, and he kissed her again, his fingers stroking her cheeks, her lips soft and warm. He nuzzled her nose with his.

“Come to bed,” he breathed. “I need you.”

She pressed her forehead against his for a moment, then got to her feet, picking up her whisky glass and taking his hand. They made their way upstairs, and Gold smiled to himself as they climbed, imagining that this would be their life in the future, lazy evenings on the couch followed by long nights curled in each other’s arms. He wanted that. He wanted to give up his double life and spend his days teaching and his nights loving Belle. Surely they could have that. Surely there was a way.

It made his heart leap a little when she walked past her own bedroom door and through his, pulling him inside and turning to face him. She was smiling a little tremulously, and it made him want to kiss her again.

“What is it?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“I’m in your bedroom,” she said. “Me. In your bedroom. About to get in your bed.”

“Yes?”

Belle shook her head, running her hands over his chest.

“I just - I wanted to, for so long,” she said. “I’ve thought about what it might be like to come to bed with you, here. In our house.”

“Our house,” he echoed, and kissed her forehead. “Yes. I’ve thought about it too. And it is our house, Belle. As much yours as mine, I swear it.”

Her lip trembled, and her eyes were shining, tears welling in them.

“I always wanted a family,” she whispered. “I wanted - I wanted to be loved, and to love in return. How did I end up married to a man who could never give me that? How could I be so blind?”

“It’ll be over soon,” he said. “It’ll be over, and you’ll be free, and we can make a new life together. You, me and Neal.”

She let out a shuddering sigh, leaning in to rest her forehead against his chin, and he kissed her brow, taking her in his arms.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for what he did to you. I’m sorry that - that you can’t talk about it.”

Gold was silent for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut as memories crowded in, clamouring for attention.

“I don’t think it’s something you should be burdened with, that’s all,” he said, and she looked up, her eyes wide and anxious.

“Perhaps - perhaps Archie,” she suggested tentatively. “He could understand more than anyone, I think. Given his past involvement in that world.”

Gold thought it over. Graham had suggested getting some help, but he had simply wanted to put the matter out of his mind. The connection to Belle made him rethink that decision. It made sense to try to deal with what had happened, and to get professional help. Archie was calm and capable, and Gold liked him very much.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you’re right.”

She nodded, looking a little relieved, and he slid his hands up to cup her face, thumbs stroking over her cheeks.

“Let’s not talk about it now,” he said. “Let’s go to bed.”

He ducked his head to kiss her, and Belle moaned a little, rising up on her toes, her mouth opening to let him taste her. Her arms tightened around him, her body pressing against his, and he closed his eyes and lost himself in loving her.

It was blissful to wake with Belle in his arms, and Gold smiled to himself, tugging her closer and breathing in the scent of her hair. She shifted in her sleep, murmuring something, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. He would have liked to stay there wrapped around her for another hour, but his bladder had other ideas, and so he slipped from the bed, pulling on a pair of cotton pants and padding to the bathroom.

The house was silent but for the low ticking of clocks as he made his way down to the kitchen, the air cool on the exposed skin of his chest. He filled a kettle for tea, looking around to see what he could make Belle for breakfast. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to think of the future, mornings spent in bed with coffee and pastries, reading and talking. Or simply mornings spent in bed. That would be good, too. He leaned on the counter as he waited for the water to boil. The meeting with the lawyers was in a few days. Was it too much to hope that Gaston would come to his sense? That she could be free?

The kettle clicked off, steam billowing from it, and he poured hot water into the teapot and got out eggs and some smoked salmon. He felt like cooking something indulgent, and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and cream would be a delicious way to fortify after most of a night spent pleasuring each other. The sound of soft footsteps made him look around, and Belle sent him a beautiful smile, padding towards him dressed in nothing but the shirt he had taken off the night before, her hair a tousled, wonderful mess. He grinned at her.

“I could get used to sleeping in your bed, I think,” she said, walking into his arms, and he chuckled.

“I don’t recall much sleeping being done.”

“We deserved it,” she said, twining her arms around his neck. “A last indulgence before I have to sit across the table from that arsehole I married and try not to throw something at him.”

“Speaking of indulgence.” He gestured at the eggs and salmon. “Why don’t I make you breakfast?”

“Mmm.” She grinned at him, eyes gleaming. “Are you one of the courses?”

“Oh, I definitely could be,” he breathed. “But only if I get to eat you first.”

She giggled, kissing him, and he tugged her close against him, her body warm against the cold skin of his chest. Belle pushed her fingers through his hair, tugging at it, and he groaned into her mouth, his hands sliding down to cup her rear and squeeze. The sound of the front door slamming made them jump.

“I’m back!” called Neal, as Belle and Gold sprang apart with wide eyes. “Had to leave early, Alex’s girlfriend turned up unexpectedly, and there was no way I was gonna be a third wheel—”

He cut off, wide-eyed, as he entered the kitchen and saw them together, both half-naked, both very obviously recovering from a passionate embrace. Belle’s cheeks were flushed, her breathing hard, and Gold suspected he looked no better.

“Oh my God, finally!” said Neal loudly.

“Ah,” said Gold. “Uh - sorry, son, we didn’t mean—”

Neal held up his hands.

“No no, it’s cool!” he said. “I’ll just - I’ll go upstairs and be really, really quiet, okay? Pretend I’m not here.”

“Well, that’s not likely, is it?” said Gold dryly.

“I should - probably get dressed,” said Belle, still blushing, and slipped past Neal, who watched her go with a grin.

“Perfect timing as ever,” said Gold, and Neal turned back to him, still grinning.

“Well, if you will canoodle in the kitchen…”

“We were not canoodling.”

“Whatever. Anyway, Pops, I’m happy for you.”

Gold sighed, carrying the teapot to the table.

“I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself, for now,” he said. “Belle’s going through a nasty divorce, and the last thing she needs is for her husband to have ammunition against her.”

Neal drew a finger across his lips, and Gold nodded.

“Thank you,” he said. “Breakfast? I was going to do scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.”

“Wouldn’t say no. Is there any coffee?”

“There’s tea.”

“It’s fine, I’ll make it.”

Neal reached for the kettle, and Gold turned back to the stove, taking out a bowl to crack the eggs into.

“So, you guys are an item, right?” asked Neal. “I mean you’re serious? Once the divorce is final, Belle stays here for good?”

“Yes.” Gold whisked eggs. “At least that’s the plan. You never know what’s around the corner, I suppose.”

“I guess. What’s her husband like?”

Gold hesitated.

“A bully and an arsehole,” he said. “But one with a lot of money. More than you or I will ever see. He could make things difficult for Belle.”

“She has a good lawyer, right?”

“She does,” agreed Gold. “She has a meeting with him and his lawyers in a few days.”

“Maybe that'll be the last time she has to see him,” said Neal.

“I hope so.” Gold put a pan on the heat, dropping in a piece of butter. “I think she just wants it to be over.”

Belle looked up at the offices of Mills, Black & Glass with a thumping heart, her hands clenching in her leather gloves. The building seemed to loom over her, its steel and glass facade somehow blank and threatening. Gaston was in there, waiting for her. The day would either end with her getting her freedom or with more threats and shouting. She suspected it would be the latter. She had donned the best and most sober outfit she had, a sleek grey dress and plain black heels, and she was hoping the picture she presented was of a woman who would stand for no nonsense but who simply wanted what was due to her, not the gold-digging whore they would try to paint her as. Her nose caught a whiff of Chanel No 5, and Carrie stepped up next to her, large sunglasses keeping the glare of the winter sun from her eyes. Her paralegal, Mr Dove, stood two steps down from them, but still towered over the both of them. Belle liked Dove very much; the bald man was quietly competent and still managed to look threatening to those who didn’t know him. His presence was comforting.

“Ready, darling?” asked Carrie, and Belle sucked in a breath, nodding.

“I wish we were doing this at your offices,” she said, and Carrie sniffed.

“Take the fight to the enemy, that’s what I say,” she said. “You can’t ever let them know you’re afraid. Just lift your chin and walk in there like the queen you are. Oh, and try not to imagine anyone naked. Believe me, that’s very distracting.”

Belle giggled a little, and Carrie rubbed her back comfortingly.

“Let’s go.”

She could feel her pulse quickening as the elevator took them up to the twenty-seventh floor, and she tried to calm herself, breathing in through her nose and letting it out slowly. It didn’t really work, and she was relieved that it was Carrie that announced them to the wide-eyed young receptionist. The three of them stood quietly, Dove carrying a leather case of files and Carrie nonchalantly checking her phone. Belle stared unseeing at the abstract picture hung above the reception area, a monochromatic series of curves and lines the blurred and swam in her vision.

“Ah, Mrs Legume!”

A slender, pretty woman with sleek, dark hair walked over on heels that clicked on the tiles. Painted lips curved in a wide smile, but there was no warmth behind it. She was wearing a dark suit with a red silk shirt, plain gold earrings swinging as she walked.

“I’m Fiona Black, senior partner,” she added. “I’m so delighted to meet you. My client has told me so much about you.”

The woman continued to smile, and it was creeping Belle out a little.

“I take it everyone’s ready?” put in Carrie, and Ms Black seemed to see her for the first time.

“Yes, we’re all here,” she said carelessly. “Would you like to follow me?”

She turned on the balls of her feet, walking swiftly away, and Belle glanced at Carrie before following her down a short corridor and into a conference room. The sight of Gaston, seated behind a large mahogany desk with his arms folded on the top, made her hesitate. She lifted her chin and met his eyes, dark and calculating. Be brave, be brave. He can’t do anything here. Gaston smirked a little, and she felt a brief, unexpected flash of rage at the thought of what he had done to Gold. The fire of her anger was oddly calming, and she took a seat across from him, smoothly drawing up her chair.

“Hello Belle,” he said, in his silkiest voice.

“Gaston,” she returned, her tone cold.

She looked away then, nodding as Ms Black made the introductions. The dark-haired young man to her right was her paralegal, Mr Frogge. Belle noticed Gaston shoot Carrie a venomous look when her name was mentioned, but his eyes narrowed at Dove’s. She suspected that he knew he couldn’t intimidate either of them.

“Shall we get down to business?” suggested Carrie briskly, opening her file. “You’ll have received our proposed settlement, so I trust you’ve had a chance to discuss the contents?”

“My client is fully prepared to be reasonable,” said Ms Black smoothly.

Since when? Belle glanced at Gaston, who was leaning back in his chair, stroking his upper lip with a thick finger. He was smirking slightly, and it was making her nervous.

“Excellent.” Carried turned to the settlement. “Shall we go through it line by line?”

“Before we do that,” said Ms Black. “My client wants to make a last plea to his wife for a reconciliation.”

“No bloody way!” snapped Belle, making Mr Frogge jump.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Belle,” purred Gaston. “You promised to love me forever.”

“You broke every promise you made me!”

“But remember what you said to your father,” he went on, his tone still irritatingly genial. “You told him you’d let me take care of you. I imagine he’s spinning in his poor, lonely grave right now.”

“If he is, it’s because of what you did!” said Belle sharply. “If you think for one second that emotional blackmail is gonna work on me…”

Carrie’s hand on her arm calmed her, and she swallowed the rest of her sentence. Gaston’s snide little grin was making her blood boil.

“Yes, somehow I think a reconciliation is off the table,” said Carrie smoothly. “Let’s deal with the things we can agree on, shall we?”

“I concur,” said Ms Black. “My client has expressed a preference for the country club membership…”

“Yes, my client agrees not to attend forthwith, so your client is welcome to cancel her membership.”

“Good. Moving on to the house itself.”

“My client has no desire to see the house sold and your client having to leave his home, so we can negotiate a settlement on that front. I provided a figure.”

“Yes, but it’s completely unacceptable.”

“Well, my client is prepared to be reasonable, of course.”

Belle tuned them out, distracted by Gaston and his knowing looks and snide smile. She had expected to be met with bluster and threats, not this quiet self-assurance, and she was reminded of the fact that he was considered a skilled businessman, a strategist. She had never been one for the big picture, acting on impulse and instinct more often than not. The last decision she had made that seemed to be based on cold, calculating realism had been to marry him, and considering the way that had turned out… Gaston’s smile grew a little, as though he could read her mind. She was sure he was up to something, but had no clue what it might be. Part of her wished Gold was there, although she knew that was impossible. Anything to wipe that smug little grin off the bastard’s face.

“So we’re agreed on the figure to cover the house and contents,” Carrie was saying.

“Reluctantly, but yes.”

“Excellent. Then perhaps we can move onto less contentious matters. My client has reluctantly agreed to your client retaining his various cars.”

I don’t give a shit about those gas-guzzling monstrosities! Belle sat stony-faced, knowing that Carrie was playing a game that needed to be played, but hating that they had to go through this charade to buy her freedom.

“Well, I suppose that gives us something to work with,” said Ms Black dryly. “A very small something.”

“No doubt my client’s generosity will be reflected in the settlement, then.”

“Let’s not get carried away...”

“Very well, moving on.”

Gaston was still staring at her, still stroking his lip with a predatory gleam in his eyes, and it was making Belle highly uncomfortable. She suspected he knew it, and so she refused to drop her gaze, squaring her jaw. His grin curled up a little. She wondered how the hell she had ever thought him handsome.

“I read through your valuation for the boats,” Carrie was saying, taking a sheaf of papers that Dove had proffered. “You can’t be serious.”

“Depreciation affects us all,” said Ms Black, with an insincere smile, and Carrie sniffed.

“Yes, well, unless The Sea Witch was used as a floating crack den, I highly doubt the rate of depreciation applied is reasonable.”

“It’s value is nothing, as far as I’m concerned.” Gaston speaking up made Belle jerk in her chair. “I won’t set foot on that boat again. Belle knows why, don’t you, my dear?”

Carrie’s hand pressed Belle’s knee, a warning not to speak, and she swallowed what she had been about to spit at him.

“Well, in that case, your client may as well sign it over to my client,” said Carrie.

“Certainly not, that’s—”

“Agreed,” interrupted Gaston. “She can have it. I’m in the mood to be generous. Particularly with - damaged goods.”

Belle could feel blood boiling deep in her chest, rising through her to flush her cheeks. He was smirking, and she wanted to reach across that wide, gleaming table and smack his face.

“Fine.” Ms Black turned the page. “On to the next. The Albatross is considerably more valuable, of course.”

“Not as much as we had expected,” said Carrie. “I’d like another valuation.”

“You already have two.”

“Yes, and I’d like to get my own done.”

“That will cause delays…”

“He can have it,” interrupted Belle. “Pretty sure that’s the one he took his mistress on, anyway. He’s not the only one who doesn’t want to deal in damaged goods.”

Carrie squeezed her knee again, but she ignored it.

“Well, if you’re happy to sign that over,” said Ms Black, looking pleased. Carrie’s mouth flattened.

“I am,” said Belle curtly.

“I didn’t realise it bothered you so much, Belle.” Gaston’s voice was low and smooth, and made her want to throw things. “Seems you’re jealous. I knew you still loved me. Deep down inside.”

“Jealous?” Belle sprung to her feet, leaning on the table with both hands and ignoring Carrie’s hiss. “After what you did, after what she did, you think I’m jealous?”

“Well, if we want to talk about infidelity…”

“I know what you did!” she snapped. “I know what you made her do! What the hell is wrong with you, you sick bastard?”

She was shaking with anger, and his eyes had darkened, but he maintained his composure, his face smooth.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Perhaps we could take a short break?” suggested Carrie brightly.

“Agreed.” Ms Black closed the file in front of her with a slap. “Let’s reconvene in fifteen minutes.”

Carrie steered Belle out of the room with a hand on her shoulder, and into one of the smaller meeting rooms before turning to fix her with a beady eye.

“What the hell was that about?” she demanded. “Things are going about as well as can be expected, better than I thought they would, and then out of nowhere you start yelling.”

Belle ran her hands over her face.

“I know, I know,” she sighed. “I just - he was sitting there smirking and calling me damaged goods, and I just lost it.”

“Which is exactly what he wanted, of course.” Carrie turned to Dove. “See if you can get us some tea?”

He nodded, shooting a concerned look at Belle before ducking out of the room, and Carrie folded her arms.

“Now,” she said. “What did you mean when you said you know what he did?”

“He - well, his girlfriend Zelena, really,” began Belle. “That night I met Alistair on the road - I wasn’t the only one who had had a bad night…”

She went over what Gold had told her, voice hesitant, and Carrie’s face darkened.

“And he doesn’t want the police involved?” she guessed, and Belle shook her head, smiling at Dove as he set a cup of tea in front of her.

“That’s the last thing he wants,” she said. “I can understand, it just - it burns that they’re getting away with it.”

“Maybe not,” said Carrie thoughtfully. “He knows that you know, after all. It’s another weapon in our arsenal. You should have told me. Both of you.”

“It wasn’t my tale to tell,” sighed Belle, and she nodded briskly.

“No, it was his. I’ll spank him next time I see him. Do you think you can sit across from the man for the rest of this meeting?”

“i can do it,” said Belle, taking a sip of tea. “If it gets me out of this marriage, I’ll even smile at him.”

Carrie sniffed. “Oh, I don’t think things are quite that desperate.”

The rest of the negotiations went about as well as they could have hoped for. Belle managed to keep her face composed when she sat back down opposite Gaston, and ignored his tiny smirk. She remained silent, letting Carrie do all of the talking, and after about an hour they had worked through each item on the lawyers’ lists and come to an agreement. The fact that Belle was only asking for a one-off payment, rather than ongoing support, made things easier.

“Of course we expect all contact from your client to be made through your good self,” said Carrie, at the end of the negotiations. Ms Black smiled.

“My client is following my advice on that subject,” she confirmed. “I’ll rely on you to pass any correspondence to your client.”

“In that case, I’m satisfied that things can progress,” said Carrie. “I expect it won’t take long to draw up the paperwork.”

“If she signs it, of course.” Gaston had stood and folded his arms across his chest. “It’s a very final step.”

“Oh, I’ll sign it,” said Belle, and he smiled.

“You promised me forever, Belle,” he said. “Promises mean something.”

“Let’s go,” said Carrie firmly, putting a hand on Belle’s shoulder before she could retort.

The winter air was a pleasing contrast to the warmth of the office, and Belle took a deep breath, letting it out in a plume of white and trying not scream.

“It’ll be over soon,” said Carrie soothingly. “You may not even have to see him again.”

“I can’t believe he agreed to let me go,” said Belle, shaking her head. “I was sure we’d have to go to court.”

“He wouldn’t want his nasty little secrets coming out,” said Carrie. “I hoped he’d see sense. Fiona Black is an excellent lawyer, after all.”

“How long will things take?” asked Belle.

“We should be done next month, with a bit of luck,” said Carrie briskly. “Assuming no last minute change of heart, of course.”

“No chance as far as I’m concerned,” said Belle. "I don't trust him, though."

"Oh, I don't trust him either," agreed Carrie. "But I think he realises you won't go back to him."

"Yeah." Belle ran her hands over her face. "I think I've made no secret of that."

"March at the latest, then, I’d say.”

By March. By March I could be free.

#fic: pixie dust #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #my fic #mention of restraints #mention of abuse

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