We Were Destined To Fall (But I’ll Catch You) || Six: 1213 B.C., Greece
Pairing: Jeonghan x fem!reader, minor Seokmin x fem!reader
Synopsis: In which he traded the fate of humanity for your love.
Genre: Angst, betrayal, greed, fallen angel!jeonghan, sinner!reader, blacksmith!seokjin, F2E!seokmin, one-sided pining, angel!joshua
Warnings: major character death (nothing explicit - brief mention), reincarnation, description of food, major historical inaccuracies, Jeonghan gives the best kiss known to the history of men (and angels), Seokmin almost beats up Jeonghan
WC: ~900
A/N: I'm so sorry haven't updated this series in so long 😭😭😭 I hope it's still relevant and you enjoy it though 🥺 TYSM for being patient. It's um . . . 430AM so imma go to sleep. Apologies for any grammar errors 😅
Taglist: @yoozuku @maijunejuly @sleeplessdawn @listxn @paintedstarres @knucklesdeepmingi
Permanent taglist: @nanamioo @bibinnieposts
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His kiss tasted like lemon tarts: piquant, yet sweet.
You didn’t pull away, but Jeonghan's sudden advancement towards you, made you lean back in your seat, tightly gripped the ledge of the barrel. The rough splinters of the old wood found home in the surface of your skin, but the pain was nothing compared to the zing in your lips rapidly spreading to the rest of your head, a heavy pressure sinking into the back of your skull.
Jeonghan’s lips pressed firmly against yours, he leaned into you more, caressing the highs of your cheeks with his thumb and gently cupping your jaw with the rest of his hand in hopes to ease the agony of restoring your memories of your past lives. He knew it was more torturous each time you returned to him, after all, it was another near century worth of sorrow to fill the crevices of your human mind.
You winced at the intensifying discomfort, but were reluctant to pull away. It was as if you were on a sugar high – not that you could ever afford that much sweets, but you imagined it to feel blissful and addicting like this.
It's only when your vision suddenly turned white and the sensation of the fallen angel's lips fell away, that you came to your senses again. The barrel underneath you was no longer rough, rather replaced with the prickling sensation of grass. The stale air of the pub developed into pleasant scent of poppy flowers. You could feel the sunlight kissing your skin that was now bare and the sound of crickets echoing in the background.
You finally peeled your eyes open to find Jeonghan seated next to you, his fingers playing with your own. It was Jeonghan, but it also wasn't.
His short dark locks had been replaced by a veil of chin-length blonde hair. His body was encased by a loose white tunic cinched at the waist with a gold band.
You found yourself similarly dressed with a gold headband woven like vines wrapped around your head and matching bands adorning your wrist. Your garment was a deep blue, however, draping down to your ankles, your feet wound up in strappy sandals.
You weren’t quite sure how you knew, but you did.
This was your first life and this was the fields beyond the village where Jeonghan, you beloved angel had first kissed you and confessed to you his first sin: He had fallen in love with a human.
You.
You called his name, raising a hand to cup his face when a firefly in broad daylight captured your attention. Your fingers had barely grazed his smooth skin when the ground opened up out from under you and sucked you in whole. You screamed but no sound was made.
Your past lives came to you in flashes – like photos spilling out of a Polaroid, snippets of your happiest and saddest moments.
1212 B.C., when the wooden box with blue light spilling from the seams that sat on Jeonghan’s dresser called your name.
1569 A.D., when he arrived to the shores of South America, clad in armor, his icy blue eyes only lands on you for the first time in centuries.
1771 A.D., when you held your firstborn son in your arms and Jeonghan stood by close, pressing a long hard peck against your sweaty temple.
1988 A.D., when Jeonguan pulled your body from the ruins of the burning warehouse.
Each moment broke you. Each moment sewed you back together. The memories blended together around you, spinning like a tornado. Scolds, laughters, images, smells, his haunting touch moving across every inch of your laughter, you found yourself gasping for air. The next time you blinked, you found yourself back at the pub, hunched over and panting.
You sucked in a sharp breath, followed by a pitiful whimper. You broke out into a sob – one that blurred your vision and shook your body violently, as all the memories sunk into your mind. You tried your best to control yourself, knowing acquaintances and strangers alike were here, with their eyes trained on you. You lurched forward, bowing your head to hide your tears, hoping your grasp on the barrel would steady you.
"What's going on here?" Seokmin walked over, purposely wedging himself in between you and Jeonghan.hd threw the fallen angel a nasty look before turning to you.
You shook your head fervently at his questions, choking on your tears, unable to produce a comprehensible sound.
"Y/N?" Seokmin's worried eyes skimmed over you. "Please, talk to me."
When you gripped onto his forearm and only cried harder, Seokmin spun around to face Jeonghan. Oh how we wanted to wipe off that smirk off the pretty man's face.
"You," Seokmin narrowed his eyed and lunged at Jeonghan, grabbing his collar.
"Seok, no!" you finally managed to shout. "Please make, please, please, please."
Jeonghan raised a teasing eyebrow, poking his tongue into cheek.
"Don't hurt him," you begged.
Roughly though reluctantly, Seokmin let go of Jeonghan, shoving him back before turning to you again. He pulled into an embrace, rubbing soothing circles into your back. He kissed the crown of your head.
"Let's go home," Seokmin suggested.
But home was no longer the little tent you had in the forest with Seokmin.
Home was with him.
The man standing behind Seokmin.
Whatever cruel destiny fate would lead the two of you in this lifetime, home was Yoon Jeonghan.
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Researchers have long thought that Maya cities were largely isolated and self-sustaining. But the LiDAR scans indicate that the Maya civilization was in fact interconnected and sophisticated, not unlike the ancient civilizations of Greece and China. For example, the team discovered a network of wide, elevated causeways that linked Maya cities and may have been used to facilitate trade between different regions.
The scans also suggest that the Maya civilization was much larger than previously believed; estimates had placed the population at around 5 million during the Maya classical period, which spanned from about 250-900 A.D.
But the new data suggests that the population may have been as large as 10 to 15 million people, “including many living in low-lying, swampy areas that many of us had thought uninhabitable,” as National Geographic Explorer Francisco Estrada-Belli, who was also affiliated with the project, tells Clynes.
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“Several of the great Jesuit scientists also performed the enormously valuable task of recording their data in massive encyclopedias, which played a crucial role in spreading scientific research throughout the scholarly community. "If scientific collaboration was one of the outgrowths of the scientific revolution," says historian William Ashworth, "the Jesuits deserve a large share of the credit.”
The Jesuits also boasted a great many extraordinary mathematicians who made a number of important contributions to their discipline. When Charles Bossut, one of the first historians of mathematics, compiled a list of the most eminent mathematicians from 900 B.C. through 1800 A.D., 16 of the 303 people he listed were Jesuits. That figure-amounting to a full 5 percent of the greatest mathematicians over a span of 2,700 years-becomes still more impressive when we recall that the Jesuits existed for only two of those twenty-seven centuries! In addition, some thirty-five craters on the moon are named for Jesuit scientists and mathematicians.”
- Thomas E. Woods Jr., Ph.D., “The Church and Science,” How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
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The Beowulf Fandom: By The Eras
<900s A.D. : literally just ppl vibing around the fire/in their meadhall to a version of this story that we will NEVER truly know
900s-1000s: Monks, with complicated motives in writing this down
Early 1900s: A couple of random painters and illustrators, a small handful of (old, white, male) translators and scholars, but mostly its just J R R Tolkien in here banging pots and pans and screeching a lot
1930s-60s: Old, rich, white men in academia, translating with an emphasis on "accuracy" (as they saw it) and debating the meanings of the text without much thought to views outside their own.
1960s-90s: Still a bunch of old rich white men, but now also an influx of existentialist, grief-focused, feminist, and folklorist interpretations popping up as well. On an opposite note, the Sci-Fi Bros have arrived.
1990s-2010s: The old rich white men and older rich white women are now joined by a SMATTERING of actual racial diversity and maybe even a queer identity or two... no??? ok not yet. also, theatre kids. oh gods, theatre kids everywhere. if a new interpretation isnt "Subversive" and/or a musical, then does anyone really care? to be clear, this is all GOOD progress, but... holy shit that's a lot of theatre kids. Also we have Maria Dahvana Headley now.
2020s: All of the above, but now with the addition of queer, neurodivergent Sad Swampcore Medieval-Adjacent 20something Creatures(tm) lying facedown on the ground listening to The Mountain Goats and sobbing uncontrollably.
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