#and now i do that For Real with cow's hair and more recently with shadowing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pregnant-piggy · 3 years

Text

Reminds me of home

Jesper Fahey x reader

words: 5.5k

warnings: mentions of food and animals, reader’s mother is dead, no pronouns used for the reader

A/N: this is my first time writing Jesper, so I struggled with his character and don’t think this is totally right, but I loved writing this too much not to share it with you :) please let me know what you think, thank you!

The sun was setting slowly in the sky, painting orange strikes on a gradually darkening canvas, when Jesper checked the note in his hand one final time, before stepping onto the driveway of the old farmhouse. Around the farmhouse lay a yellow-green grass lawn, with on the left side of the house a little garden with flower beds in full bloom. Behind the house stood the stables and sounds of breezing horses and bleating goats filled the air, along with the lingering scent of drying grass.

The front of the house was covering in shadow, the red bricks and woodwork a tone darker than they would be in the sunlight. Above the front door hung a single lamp, and the flickering of the fire inside of it wasn’t enough to compete with the light of the setting sun.

Jesper groaned as he walked over the driveway to the front door. He wondered what the odds were that he had pulled the farm out of the stack with hideouts.

A week ago, Kaz had come with his plans for a new job. This time the victim was a rich merchant, who had a large estate in the country lands outside of Ketterdam. The merchant’s name was Klaas Rover and he was well-known in wealthy circles.

Just recently, Rover had bought a very pricey DeKappel painting and Kaz had found out that he was moving the painting to his country-estate at the beginning of that week. The basics of the plan had been easy. As long as Rover wasn’t at the house and the painting was, it would be impossible to get it with all the security. But, according to Kaz, there would be one moment of weakness in the security. From the morning Rover would step foot into his mansion to the night he’d fall asleep there, the merchant would want to showcase his painting to everyone who’d want to see it. That night had been the night to strike.

And so had Kaz done. He had set out with a small team; Inej and Jesper had been at his side, followed by two other Dregs, Pieter and Roos. The whole operation had gone according to plan and the painting had come off the wall and outside without a hitch.

That was why it had come as a surprise when Kaz had pulled out three pieces of paper with the notion that they had to hide for a couple of days. Inej had gone with Kaz, Pieter and Roos were together, and Jesper was alone.

‘Remember, you are Thomas van Dijk now,’ Kaz had said before they had parted ways. ‘You are a student and stranded alone after a trip with your fellow students. I know the people there and they will take you in.’

Kaz had disappeared before Jesper could say anything and he had seen no other option than to follow Kaz’s orders.

So now he was standing in front of a farmhouse, silently cursing his friend before knocking on the door.

A broadly built man opened the door and eyed Jesper suspiciously. This one tried to keep his easy posture and smile, but he felt himself grow slightly uncomfortable under the gaze of the man.

‘What do you want?’ he asked brusquely.

Jesper swallowed and his hands automatically reached for his hips, finding nothing but air there as he had hid his revolvers in his bag, figuring it wouldn’t be too great of an entrance. He scratched the back of his head and let out a nervous chuckle.

‘I’m Thomas van Dijk,’ he started, wondering if the man would ever believe him. ‘I uhh… I was out with friends—a break from studying, you see? And this morning when I woke up they were gone and they took all transport… so I was wondering if I could perhaps stay here until they pick me up again?’

The man glanced at Jesper for a while. ‘D’you know farm stuff?’ he then asked.

‘Sure,’ Jesper shrugged, figuring that it couldn’t be all too hard.

‘Alright, then,’ the man nodded and stepped aside to let Jesper in, ‘you can stay here for a few days.’

Jesper sighed relieved and walked into the farmhouse, only realising inside that he had had no plan if this hadn’t worked out.

The interior of the house reminded Jesper of his home in Novyi Zem. The walls were painted in a warm colour green and an old rug lay on the stone floor. On the wall in the little hall hung a portrait of a beautiful woman standing in a field of wildflowers. She had long hair framing her face, falling down in curls around her shoulders. The woman looked like she was in her late thirties, but she had a smile that was ageless.

Jesper followed the man into the next room, which was the living and dining area. There was an open door that led to the kitchen, from where Jesper could smell whatever the man was cooking. Another door probably led to a staircase, Jesper figured by the shape of the little space behind it.

The main room was an extension of the hall. The same green coloured the walls here and more paintings hung on the walls. Jesper recognised the woman in more pictures on the wall, and sometimes she was accompanied by a child.

Jesper looked around, wondering where the rest of the household was. Kaz had spoken about more than one person, but so far Jesper had only seen one; and that one was standing right in front of him.

‘You can sit there,’ the man said and pointed at the chairs around the table. ‘You want dinner?’

‘I’d really appreciate that, sir,’ Jesper said and the man nodded before he disappeared into the kitchen.

-=-=-=-=-

The sky was dark and the last rays of the sun were setting behind the horizon when you heard the bell from the kitchen, telling you that dinner was ready.

You always spent so much time outside that your father had given up on trying to find you for dinner. Instead he had installed the bell to let you know when you had to come home, and when you cooked you used it to get your father back home.

You got up from your spot on the ground next to Klara. She was the oldest cow you had at the little farm and she had been your mother’s favourite. However, two nights back Klara had suddenly fallen ill and so far she hadn’t improved yet. You had spent the last two days neglecting your duties at the farm to take care of her. Klara was the one thing that was closest to your mother and you refused to say goodbye to her too.

Silently you slipped from the stables and walked back to the house. There was light burning behind the windows and you saw the silhouette of your father inside, sitting at the dinner table. In a flash you thought you saw your mother there too, but as you blinked the image fell away.

Stepping through the backdoor in the kitchen, you kicked off your boots and shrugged off your coat. Quickly you washed your hands and face and arranged your hair, before you walked into the living area, knowing that your father liked you to not be messy at dinner.

‘Klara’s not any better,’ you said as you walked into the room. ‘She’s just lying still and—’

You stopped talking as your eyes found the stranger at the dining table. He was sitting opposite of your father, looking at you with a smile. The boy could be not much older than you were, but by the way he was clumsily sitting in the chair, you saw that he was a lot taller than you. His dark-skinned body was clothed by a dark green suit with flashy, golden buttons, lined with a silky lime-green fabric. Below his dark eyebrows two eyes glittered merrily and his smile got a little more confident as you sat down at the table.

‘What’s going on?’ you asked your father.

‘This is Thomas,’ your father answered, nodding towards the strange boy. ‘His friends ditched him and he needed a place to stay for a few days. With the situation around Klara, I figured a little help at the farm wouldn’t hurt.’

You stared at your father for a moment and then turned to Thomas. ‘Are you from the city?’

The boy nodded. ‘Yes, I go to the university in Ketterdam.’

‘What happened?’

‘We had a few days off and decided to go on a trip here. But when I woke up this morning my friends had left. I have no transport home and after searching for a place to stay all day, I got here.’

‘Nice friends you have,’ you mumbled and something in the boy’s face turned bitter.

‘Don’t get me started,’ Thomas said and then he smiled at you.

-=-=-=-=-

Jesper was woken early by a heavy, pounding headache. The sky outside was pink from the sunrise and with the figures of the trees and houses it looked like a painting to Jesper—one that was far more beautiful than the one he stole from Rover.

As he rolled over in his bed and reached for his temples, it didn’t take long for Jesper to realise that it wasn’t his head that was pounding—there was someone at the door of the room. Groaning Jesper sat up in his bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the sleeve of the shirt that he had borrowed to sleep in.

‘Coming, coming,’ Jesper groaned when the knocking kept going.

He opened the door and was met with your eager face, painted with a big smile. You chuckled at Jesper and shook your head. ‘Come on, Thomas! Work doesn’t wait!’

Just for a split second Jesper was confused as to why you called him Thomas, but then he realised that the whole show he was putting up here was nothing more than that; a show. You didn’t know who he really was and, if he was honest, Jesper did feel a little guilty about it. You were so kind to him and he hadn’t even given you his real name.

This was not the time for morale questions, however, and Jesper shook the guilt off him. ‘Right,’ he said slowly and then glanced into his room, finding the bag he had dumped on the floor. He had not brought anything other than his guns, the clothes he had been wearing and a little money. ‘Do you perhaps have some clothes I can borrow?’

Half an hour later, Jesper was standing in the stables next to the house with a buttered slice of bread in his hand. He was wearing a linen blouse and trousers of rough material that you had given him. He felt naked without his guns resting on his hips, but taking them with him had been out of the question. Now he felt like the Jesper he had been before he had gone to Ketterdam—poor, weak and unskilled.

You came back with a large sack in your arms, that you dumped into Jesper’s arms. He stumbled under the sudden weight, but managed to keep his balance.

‘My dad’s out on the fields today, so we have to take care of the stables,’ you said. ‘If you feed the chickens, I’ll do the goats and then we’ll get together again, okay? Don’t forget the eggs!’

You turned around and walked off and Jesper was left baffled. Unsure, he turned and walked to the chicken coop, finding a bunch of chickens there. A fat, white one looked up when Jesper stood over the coop and cooed softly. The chicken kept staring at him as he walked around the fence and Jesper slowly began to freak a little.

He put his hand in the bag with food and grabbed a handful of seeds that he threw as far away from him in the chicken coop as possible. All the chickens rushed to the food—including the fat, white one—and Jesper quickly stepped over the fence and lowered to his knees so he could reach into the henhouse. He was met with the angry eyes of another chicken that was still sitting inside the house. She pecked at Jesper’s hand while he tried to find the eggs that you wanted.

When he finally pulled back, he had found six eggs. His hand was throbbing and even bleeding at some places. As fast as he could he walked away from the chicken coop back to the stables, where he dropped the sack with food on the ground and sat down next to it, examining his hand.

After a few minutes you came back from the goats and the smile on your face changed to worry when you saw Jesper sitting defeated on the ground.

‘Are you alright?’ you asked.

Jesper quickly jumped up and nodded, hiding his hand behind his back. He forced a smile on his face and tried to look excited at you. ‘I’m perfectly fine.’

You squeezed your eyes at him but dropped the subject. ‘Okay, if you say so,’ you mumbled and then nodded your head to the back of the stables. ‘We have to check on Klara again before we go on.’

‘Klara?’ Jesper asked.

You walked off to the back and Jesper followed you, ending up at a dark stable where a big cow was lying on the ground, breathing deeply. She had her eyes closed and Jesper thought she was asleep, but when you stepped into the space, the cow opened her eyes and looked up at you.

‘This is Klara,’ you unnecessarily explained. ‘She is our oldest cow, but it’s not looking so good for her now.’

You lowered to your knees and rested your hand on top of Klara’s head. The cow closed her eyes at the feeling and let out a deep breath. You closed your eyes momentarily and as a troubled shadow crossed your face Jesper realised that Klara wasn’t just another animal at the farm to you.

‘Will she be alright again?’ Jesper asked, standing awkwardly at the entrance of the stable.

‘I really don’t know,’ you sighed and you looked up at Jesper with sad eyes. ‘She’s not worse than yesterday, but also not any better.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jesper said and he tried to give you a reassuring smile.

You got up from the ground and gave Jesper a little smile back. ‘Thank you.’

-=-=-=-=-

Later that afternoon Jesper was sitting with you in the shadows of the house, looking out over the fields that surrounded the farm. Somewhere far in the distance he could see the figure of your father, as a little black silhouette against the bright light of the sun.

Jesper was exhausted. Although he considered himself in good shape, the work on the farm was completely different from what he usually did in Ketterdam. Normally he would crouch, run and hide, but today he had had to use brute force and the running had only applied when one of the goats had gone after him.

‘And,’ you said as you handed Jesper a glass of water, ‘how do you like it here?’

‘I’m so tired,’ he whined dramatically and you laughed, throwing your head back. ‘But it looks beautiful here. I like it—reminds me of home.’

‘Where’s home?’

Jesper hesitated for a moment, considering where his actual home was.

‘I grew up in Novyi Zem, on a jurda farm,’ he told you, while staring out at the fields. ‘My dad still lives there, works on the farm now that I… am going to the university in Ketterdam…’

Carefully Jesper looked aside after his slip-up, but you hadn’t caught it. With your legs tucked to your chest and your arms wrapped around them, you were sitting in the chair, taking in the sunlight with your eyes closed. There was a soft golden glow on your face from the sun and the point of your nose glistened.

‘...I guess that’s my home now,’ Jesper continued. ‘Ketterdam.’

‘Hmm,’ you hummed softly before you opened your eyes and looked at Jesper. ‘What’s it like? To live there?’

‘You’ve never been to Ketterdam?’

‘I have, but never for a long time,’ you said, giving Jesper an innocent smile.

‘It’s… busy, noisy, crowded. There’s people everywhere, at all times of the day. When it’s hot the canals stink and when it rains the entire city turns grey. The rich people are mean and the poor are gross. It’s never safe and there’s a lot of crime.’ Jesper stopped talking to take a breath and noticed you were watching him with a raised eyebrow. Then he smirked. ‘It’s amazing.’

You leaned back in your chair and huffed. ‘I think I prefer the silence of the country.’

‘I get that. On my first day in Ketterdam I wondered how I could ever live there. I was sick with longing for home and the farm.’

‘What happened?’

Jesper grimaced. ‘I got a taste of real life.’

You waited for Jesper to continue, but he said nothing. He couldn’t really, not if he wanted to obey Kaz’s orders. Again he felt bad for you, for lying to you. You were so kind to him and all he did was lie about who he was; you didn’t even know his real name.

-=-=-=-=-

You stepped out of your room while the sun wasn’t even up yet. The house was silent and dark, but you could easily find your way to the room you were headed for. This was the house you grew up in and you knew every secret hidden in every dark corner.

‘Time to wake up!’ you said through the door and you knocked shortly.

Yesterday, Thomas hadn’t been of great use with your animals, but you hoped that today he would. He had told you that he had grown up on a jurda farm so you figured fieldwork wouldn’t be as hard on him as the goats.

There was a grunt from inside the room and you had to stifle a laugh. Once again you knocked—a little harder this time—and the grunt from inside came back louder. Yet there was little movement in the room and you rolled your eyes and grumbled something about lazy rich boys from stupid universities, before you threw the door open.

‘What—hey!’ Thomas cried out. ‘I said I was coming!’

‘Sounded a lot more like you’d just roll over again,’ you said, leaning against the doorpost with your arms crossed.

Thomas murmured something incomprehensible and he threw the blankets off of him. ‘If you wanted to see me naked, you could’ve just asked, you know?’ he smirked as he swung his legs off the bed and stretched his arms over his head.

‘Hmm, if only I wanted,’ you shot back, but you couldn’t keep your eyes from gazing at his chest anyway. It was dark, but your eyes had gotten used to the darkness enough to be able to see the lines and shapes of Thomas’ bare body. There was no denying his fitness, but what caught your attention more were the scars littered over his torso. From small, almost innocent lines to light-coloured circles and dents. For the simple student he claimed to be, he had an awfully damaged body.

You averted your eyes from his chest and shook your head. How this boy’s body looked was none of your business, so there was no point of dwelling on it. Yet, as you turned around to leave the room, you found yourself fighting the urge to get closer and feel his body under your hands.

‘You like waffles?’ you asked over your shoulder, seeing a big smile break on the half-naked boy’s face.

-=-=-=-=-

Your father had worked on the fields yesterday, and most work had been done already. All there was left for you and Thomas to do was harvest the potatoes on the last piece of land and then sort them with the rest. It was heavy, dull work and you were glad there was someone to help you.

Thomas and you were bent over the crops, working opposite of each other on a row of potatoes. The sun was shining on your back fiercely and you felt it burning on your neck. It was long too late to prevent the sweat from breaking out and you felt hot and sticky.

Opposite of you, Thomas wasn’t doing much better. Little droplets of sweat were rolling down his temples and the shirt he was wearing was soaked with his sweat. Yet there seemed to be some sort of glow around him, like he was energetic still—even after the hours of labour.

It was late in the afternoon when you pulled out the last of the potatoes. You and Thomas dropped down on the grass on the edge of the field, both sighing with relief that the hard work was over.

‘Only sorting left,’ Thomas said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. ‘How long will that take?’

You squeezed your eyes against the afternoon sun as you looked at the boy next to you and shrugged. ‘About two hours, I guess.’

‘Two hours in this heat is an eternity,’ Thomas stated.

‘We could do it tonight,’ you suggested. ‘After dinner, when it has cooled a bit.’

‘And what do we do until then?’

You shot Thomas a cheeky smile and got up from the ground. ‘I have an idea.’

You led Thomas through the sunny fields and over the meadows around the farm, ignoring the sunshine in your face. Eventually you slowed at large bushes and a few trees and you smiled at the boy before you pushed aside some branches and stepped out into an open spot with a small lake.

Thomas burst out in laughter and turned to you with a big smile on his face.

‘Last one in the water has to get the other drinks!’ he shouted as he threw off his shirt.

You followed after him, stepping out of your shoes and trousers. As you ran towards the water you took off your shirt, throwing it somewhere behind you on the grass. You pushed off on the side and wrapped your arms around your legs as you jumped into the water next to Thomas with a cheer.

The cold water engulfed your entire body and you happily welcomed it after the whole day of sun. Gasping for air when your head reached above the water again, you turned to Thomas.

‘You were last!’ he exclaimed.

‘Only because you were already in the water when you said it!’ you defended yourself and splashed water towards Thomas.

‘Still counts!’

He pushed water back and you closed your eyes against the waves. Water dripped down your hair and face, getting stuck in your eyelashes. You blinked the drops away and swam a little closer to Thomas.

Planning to create a huge wave, you lowered your hands in the water, when you felt something slimy slither past your foot. You squealed and leaped into Thomas’ arms, almost drowning him with the sudden weight. Terrified you scanned the water around you, looking for the thing you had felt.

‘What’s wrong?’ Thomas asked, trying to keep you in his arms while staying above the water.

‘I felt something!’ you squeaked, still looking around you.

‘Don’t tell me you’re afraid of fish,’ Thomas laughed.

‘I am not! I just freaked because I—’ you started but stopped when you quit looking and found yourself very close to Thomas.

That same deep urge as this morning crawled inside your mind before you could stop it. Despite yourself you admired the simple beauty of the face so close to yours. This boy had something enchanting, and it was more than just his jokes and smirks. Something about him made you want to cling onto him and not let go.

You did let go, however, and quickly swam back to the side in silence. Thomas followed you and climbed on the grass, offering you a hand so you could get out of the water yourself.

As you got dressed—with some difficulty because you were both still wet—far in the distance you heard the sound of a bell, telling you that dinner was ready.

‘Finally,’ Thomas said, as he pulled his shirt over his head. ‘I was beginning to worry we wouldn’t eat at all.’

-=-=-=-=-

Jesper was sitting alone at the back of the house with two large baskets of potatoes in front of him. Luckily it had cooled down and it was now pleasant to sit outside.

You stepped out of the house with a tray in your arms. Two glasses of lemonade and a plate of biscuits stood on the tray that you put down on the ground between Jesper and you, before you sat down yourself.

‘How generous of you,’ Jesper started, as he took the glass. ‘Almost like you didn’t lose the race.’

You shook your eyes as you took a biscuit, which you used to point at Jesper. ‘That race wasn’t fair, and you know it.’

‘Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.’

You rolled your eyes but there was a smile on your face nevertheless. Then you nodded towards the baskets.

‘Two piles,’ you said. ‘One with small potatoes and one with normal and large.’

You took out a few potatoes and showed Jesper how to determine the size. He got on quickly and you were already starting on the second basket when your father called you away.

Jesper continued on his own while admiring the sunset he always missed in Ketterdam. He loved living in the city and wouldn’t want it any other way, but in moments like these he did miss his old home. He missed the simplicity of life back then, of knowing exactly what was going to happen in your day. Living in the city, living with the Dregs, had taken that certainty from Jesper.

The sun had almost completely set when you came back and the last rays of sunshine reflected in the tears on your face. You sat down with a sigh next to Jesper and before he could ask you what was wrong, you burst into sobs.

Before thinking, Jesper dropped the potato in his hand and crawled to you. He wrapped his arm around your shoulder and pulled you closer to his chest. He didn’t know where the action came from or why he did it, but seeing you so heartbroken hurt Jesper’s own heart.

You buried your face in Jesper’s neck and he wrapped his arms a little tighter around you. He could feel your quivering breaths on his skin and your tears soaked his shirt but he didn’t care.

‘It’s okay,’ he whispered and pressed a kiss on the top of your head without a second thought. ‘Let it out. It’s alright.’

After a while your tears stopped and your quivering breath changed for hiccoughs. You lifted your head from Jesper’s shoulder and looked at him with an apologetic look, that he discarded immediately.

‘Don’t even dare to apologise,’ he said and you laughed softly. Jesper wiped the tears from your face and cradled your head in his hands. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Klara,’ you said as Jesper dropped his hands from your face to your hands. ‘My dad went looking at her and she’s doing even worse than before. I know she’s just a cow and everything, but she’s the strongest connection I have to my mother and I just…’

You looked up at Jesper and smiled sadly. ‘I don’t know, it probably sounds weird.’

Jesper shook his head and gave your hand a little squeeze.

‘It doesn’t sound weird,’ he said, thinking of how he had clung to the littlest thing of his mother after she had passed.

You sniffed and smiled at Jesper. ‘Thanks.’

‘Of course,’ he said, as he sat back next to you, taking a new potato in his hand.

You followed his example and for a while you worked in silence, until Jesper took the last potato from the basket and threw it on the pile left of him. He turned to you and found you staring at the dark sky.

‘What was your mother like?’ he asked finally, giving in to his curiosity.

‘She was perfect,’ you said and you smiled faintly ahead of you. ‘She was caring, kind and smart. She kept things going around here. There is not much to do, but she always made sure I was never bored.’

You laughed shortly and turned to Jesper. ‘Perhaps I’m a little biased; she was my mother after all.’

‘Maybe,’ Jesper said and he gave you a smile. ‘But you’re allowed. Who better than kids to judge a parent?’

‘She was beautiful too,’ you added. ‘Did you see the paintings? My dad used to paint a lot, but since my mother passed away he hasn’t picked up a brush. It’s a shame, I think he’s really talented.’

Jesper nodded. He had wondered why the paintings had only been of the woman young, but she hadn’t aged anymore after that.

Now that the sun had set, the warm air slowly turned cold. Jesper fought the urge to wrap his arms around his own body. He looked at you and noticed the goose bumps on your arms too. He got up and offered you his hand.

‘Come on, let’s go inside,’ he said. ‘It’s freezing out here.’

You took Jesper’s hand and followed him to the backdoor of the house. When you walked past the path that led to the stables, you slowed and pulled lightly on Jesper’s hand.

‘Can we…?’ you asked and before you had finished your sentence Jesper nodded.

‘Of course.’

The stables were warmer than outside and though Jesper still hadn’t gotten used to the smell he much rather be there than outside. He much rather be there with you than alone in his bed.

Klara lay in the back and you let go of Jesper’s hand to rush over to her. You dropped to your knees next to the cow and wrapped your arms around her. Big tears rolled down your cheeks and the soft sound of your crying filled the barn.

Jesper sat down in a pile of dried hay and stared at his hands as he listened. After a while your crying stopped and only the heavy breaths of Klara could be heard. Feet shuffled and when Jesper looked up you weren’t sitting next to the sick animal anymore but next to him.

Your cheeks were still wet from the tears, but you managed to give Jesper a little smile. He wrapped his arm around your shoulder and pulled you closer to him. Slowly he leaned back in the hay until his back found support and he was almost lying down.

Without needing more words, you pulled your legs on the hay and settled against Jesper’s body. With one hand to your own chest and the other rising and falling with the motion of Jepser’s chest, you quickly fell asleep.

Jesper glanced down at you and almost got unwell by the sense of comfort that washed over him. The longer he looked at you the more that little bubble of guilt in his stomach grew, but before he could do anything about it the hard work of the day took its toll on him and he dozed off.

-=-=-=-=-

You woke up in a pile of hay by something that was nudging your leg. Slowly and grumbling against the bright morning light you opened your eyes to find a cow standing in front of you.

‘Klara!’ you cried out and the happiness that filled you at seeing she had recovered during the night drowned out all the sleep left in your system.

You jumped up and stumbled to the cow, throwing your arms around her neck. A few tears of happiness escaped your eyes and they dropped down on Klara. After last night you really didn’t think she would recover anymore, let alone be standing on her own feet.

As you hugged Klara, you suddenly remembered that you hadn’t been alone last night. You let go of the cow and returned to the hay you had woken up in. Instead of the boy you had fallen asleep against last night now lay a little note.

Good morning sleepyhead,

My friends finally picked me up early this morning and you looked too peaceful to be disturbed. I want to thank you and your father for letting me stay at your humble farm. It did me good to be out of the city for a while. I want to thank you as well for your company and honesty. I really hope Klara gets better—she seems quite cool.

I know you don’t like the city, but if you ever accidentally find yourself there and you miss my sparkling presence, go to The Crow Club and ask the bartender for Jesper Fahey. They’ll know who to find.

Take care,

Thomas

- - - - - - - -

taglist: @is-it-really-a-secret @mrs-brekker15

MASTERLIST

#jesper fahey x reader #jesper fahey imagine #jesper fahey #jesper x reader #fahey x reader #six of crows x reader #six of crows imagine #six of crows #crows x reader #the crows x reader #soc #shadow and bone imagine

80 notes · View notes

candycityy · 3 years

Note

Hii, Candy! For the Drabble Challenge, 12 and 19 😊

(You can also read this on AO3!)

Newlywed bliss, Levi decides, is sort of like a bubble. Or a vacuum, pick your metaphor.

You get so caught up in the sheer wonder of the whole situation, of shared touches and delirious smiles and and waking up with the love of your life sprawled unglamourously beside you, open-mouthed and drooling and just thoroughly adorable, and your heart swells and you can't think and you forget that the world hasn't stopped spinning on its axis for you and you alone.

In other words, Levi pleads insanity.

So when Petra walks into the drawing room one day with a frozen look on her face, one that's equal parts terror and bewilderment and something else that he can't quite discern, he doesn't know what to think. And then she says it.

"Levi," she says, "I'm pregnant."

Just two words, and his world is upended. He think Petra says something after, but he doesn't hear her; blood roars in his ears, his breath is stuck in his throat, and for the first time in his life, he finds himself shocked into utter silence.

And he realises, that third emotion in her face that he hadn't recognised earlier: it's happiness. A wild, fierce joy, a bewildered and terrified joy, but a joy nonetheless.

His head spins, and he feels, incomprehensibly, the urge to lie down. "Pregnant," he echoes. His voice is hoarse, ragged. "Petra, that's..."

He trails off. He doesn't know what to say. Incredible? Ridiculous? Impossible? Petra seems to recognise the tumult in his thoughts, though, because her expression shifts into a kind of defensive stubborness. As if by instinct, her arms curl over her still-flat abdomen, protective.

"Look," she begins, "I know we hadn't planned on this so early, but if you're thinking of—"

"No," he says. His voice is harsh, decisive, and he takes a small step towards her. "I'm not. Petra, I'm sorry, I was just...surprised. I wouldn't...ask you to hurt it. I would never."

She swallows. Her gaze searching, tentative. "Then...you're okay? You're not mad? Or upset?"

"I don't know how I feel," he says honestly. "I don't know shit about being a parent. Maybe I'll screw it all up, I don't know that either. And I'll be real, this is fucking terrifying." Petra laughs. The sound is like broken glass.

"But," he takes a step towards her, "I know I'll try my damned hardest to protect it. Give it a good life. I mean..." His eyes never move away from her stomach. "It's our baby."

His voice cracks on the two words, and that's all she needs. She almost falls into him, sobbing and laughing all at the same time. "Levi, I'm so scared," she whispers. She sounds dreamy, incredulous; enchanted. "A baby. We made a baby."

Levi's never been sure of anything; his life has been a maze of choice, of possibilities, of maybes and what-ifs. But as he stares down at Petra, her arms still wrapped around her middle, he feels a surge of something fierce and unfamiliar in his chest, something almost painful in its acuteness, and he knows, without a doubt: he would die for this stirring of life that drifts, still blind to the world, in his wife's womb.

The first time he tells someone, it's entirely by accident.

They're all hanging out in the lounge, like most nights; they haven't told Erwin, and Petra reckons it's better to wait a little, just in case. Eld and Auruo are bickering away as usual, and somehow, the topic turns to one of their colleagues, who recently put in a request to switch to the Garrison after his wife became pregnant.

"I mean, I get why," Eld says, his lip curling, "I just don't get how. Sitting around on the walls, getting drunk and playing cards all day...I'll never understand."

"Your fiancée might like that, though, wouldn't she," Auruo taunts. The other man rolls his eyes.

"Aria knows I'll never leave the Survey Corps. I plan to live till the ripe old age of seventy and die in a blaze of glory as Supreme Commander, thank you very much."

"Supreme Commander isn't even a title, you ass," Gunther goes from across the room, looking up from his book. "But pregnancy...that's a whole lot of responsibility, isn't it? How do you just go off and risk your life every day, with a kid waiting at home for you?"

Levi's stomach churns suddenly, his dinner threatening to make a reappearance, and his face suddenly feels very hot. He fights to keep his expression carefully blank, but Petra's eyes catch his, narrowing with concern.

"And that's how you ruin a life. Congratulations," Auruo concludes wisely.

"Hey," Petra retorts sharply, "that's not true. Being a dad doesn't mean your life ends, you know. You can still be a soldier, and fight, and everything."

Auruo leers at her. "It's different for you, Pet. Mothers have options...but fathers, they gotta provide for their families, woman. Dying...leaving your wife and kid to fend for themselves...it's not done." Eld and Gunther nod agreement, and Petra makes a face, muttering something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like, 'sexist cows'.

Levi doesn't know what possesses him in that instant. His throat is dry, and he's so lightheaded he feels numb, almost disembodied. He stands up abruptly, and announces, "Petra and I are expecting."

The silence that follows is palpable, thick enough to choke on. He can feel Petra's eyes as Auruo begins to sputter apologies and retractions—"I only meant—but of course, you wouldn't die and leave your kid alone, captain! You're humanity's strongest, after all! You'd never..."

He's still stammering away when Levi turns on his heel without a word, and walks out of the room.

The candle in his room has melted into a stump of wax when Petra finds him, later that night.

"Hey," she says softly. She's changed into her nightgown, and her hair, still damp from the showers, tumbles into the hollow of her collarbone. In the dim light of the candle, she looks pale and fragile; hollowed cheekbones, shadowed eyes.

Something deep in his chest wrenches, and he opens his mouth, only to find that no words come out. But she seems to understand his expression; of course she does, she always does.

She walks over to the window, where he stands, staring out of the window, and wraps her arms around his back. They're so nearly the same height that it's a comfortable position for them, her face pressed into his shoulder, her hair brushing the curve of his cheek. They stay there for a few moments in a comfortable silence, just relishing in the wordless companionship.

Petra isn't a patient person by nature. But by now, she knows him; knows how the thoughts whirl insistently in his mind at the height of his emotion, unwilling to settle into the dust. So she waits, her warm breath reassuring on his neck, her heartbeat strong against his back.

He finally exhales. "Do you think they were right?" he asks. The words sound unnaturally loud in the silence of the night. When she doesn't reply immediately, he goes on, "I could...you know. I could join the Garrison, too, or the Military Police. Or leave the military. I could do other things. Erwin would understand, he'd help—"

"No." The word cuts through the room. Gently but firmly, Petra turns him around to face her. The moonlight casts her in silver, turning her into something luminous, ethereal—almost otherworldly.

"Levi, I love you more than anything in this stupid world." Her expression is fierce, intent. "And I won't let you do that. You belong here, in the Survey Corps. And I do, too."

"But just say—"

"I'm not fragile, Levi," she shoots back, her eyes burning with a familiar fire. "Sure, maybe I'm not strong the way you are, but I'm strong enough. I'm not saying I'd be okay if you died—of course I wouldn't—but I'd survive, and I'd keep our child alive, too. And I believe you'd do the same."

Something breaks in him, then, like the shattering of a glass, and he looks up. Petra is glaring at him with those burning eyes, and in that moment, she's so alive and beautiful, the love of his life, the mother of his unborn child. The realisation makes him stagger. He's never felt so complete; he's never had so much to lose.

Feeling as though the weight of the world sits on his shoulders, he nods.

Petra's answering smile is a promise, golden and honeyed and full of light. She draws him in tighter.

"Trust me," she whispers. Her presence is warm, solid, comforting. "Everything will be all right."

Drabble challenge!

#end open to interpretation WINKS #thank u for the prompt anya i hope this didn't disappoint;;;#rivetra #levi x petra #attack on titan #levi ackerman #petra ral #aot fanfiction #candycity writes

42 notes · View notes

orangegreet · 3 years

Text

No Minor Miracles | Chapter 4

On the Other Side of the Fold

In which we get a glimpse into what Alina has been up to all these years.

Three Years Ago

Alina opened her eyes.

It was well past midnight now. The sounds from downstairs told her people were still up but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the bed.

Who would she be once she stood from it? She could not say for sure anymore.

Ten years without looking upon his face. The jolt of adrenaline at seeing him left her off-kilter.

Had he always been so passionate?

Her breath was quick thinking of it. Of his hands. Of his mouth. His eyes alight with a touch of madness, desperation. Yes, he had always been this passionate.

With her—always.

His passion was never the problem. It only made being away from him harder.

It was the passion he evoked in her that was dangerous.

Alina forever fought an internal battle to contain the Light inside herself. That was what she called it, anyway. Though it was not altogether pure or holy, this Light.

It was easier when she was younger. Before she had seen so much pain and horror. These experiences only built the energy up inside, made it harder to contain. Alina tried to wield her powers in ways that brought justice and healing.

A handful of situations called for her to use her Light to eradicate; deliver annihilation and nothing less. She tried to be frugal with these instances.

More often than not in her adult years she felt she was a poorly constructed lamp. Full of something combustible which thirsted for the flame. A constant state of anticipation kept her limbs jittery and her mind alert for the next opportunity to ignite.

Seeing her Shadow Summoner, speaking candidly with him about what they both wanted—their future together, eternity—made containing the blaze feel dangerously precarious.

She had claimed him as hers and in that singular moment her Light exploded with a possessiveness that frightened her. Every molecule of her would gladly burn anything in the way to getting what she wanted—him.

Now she was here in her bed again, listening to the sounds of people in the boarding house.

Scared to move. Scared to stay. Scared to speak and string together any words. For the words would surely be lies. What could she say to her people? It would be better not to speak at all.

Everything about this was tiring.

Using the tether was not like falling asleep. She was not rested. That was the longest she had ever stretched the connection. The most she had touched Aleksander in years.

But they had not really touched, had they?

Enough soft touches were exchanged between them to know it was real but the lingering feelings of skin on skin were fading quicker than steam.

Does it all happen in her mind? It felt so real.

A moment before she had been experiencing that pleasant soreness between her legs. The feel of Aleksander’s fingers sliding and pressing inside her were so vivid. On this side of their visit it was terribly muted.

Where before she elated in the satisfaction in his presence, she felt now that she had been denied. Orgasm undone.

What witchery was this shit?

Reaching her hand down, she parted the dress uncovering her thighs. He had done just this; she felt the way the fabric slid over her skin.

She did not have his hands now. She did not have his mouth, nor his tongue. She did not have the wild look in his dark eyes. Full of promise of what was to come.

Saints, she really might kill to learn what would come next under his direction.

The wetness smeared between her thighs told her at least that her mind made it as real for her as possible.

With memories of him so recent it was easier to finish than it had been in years.

“Are you feeling okay?” Tamar was staring at her.

Alina pulled her eyes away from her plate.

“Yes. Tired is all.” She untucked the hair from her ear and let it cover her face while she ate.

“Timur said you went to bed early last night.” Tamar kept the accusation out of her tone, but Alina knew a press for information when she heard it.

Behind her hair she tried to calm the rush of blood and heat to her face. Things would have to end with Timur. Soon.

“I wanted to be alone. I did not know there would be an interrogation about it.” Alina looked at her friend.

Tamar held up her hands in surprise.

“Lay down your weapons, Sun Queen. I’m not trying to corner you. Just don’t try to tell me that something isn’t going on after that reaction. Tell me you want me to stay out of it but don’t lie to me about it.”

Alina stared back at her and then nodded, “Fine. You’re not wrong. I don’t want to talk about it and I want you to stay out of it.” Her voice sounded cold, even to her, and Tamar’s face hardened but she acknowledged the request with a nod.

After a moment’s pause Alina continued, “I’m sorry. I’m not myself.” Then, as she remembered more details of the night before added, “I need to ask you to do something.”

Tamar was alert again. “Send word to our envoys in the West. Warn them against staying in camps near the Fold for longer than two nights. They’re drawing attention.” Tamar nodded though covered her confusion at the instructions by looking away.

Alina stood and collected their plates, retreating to the kitchen without word. Lunch was nearly over and the other people dining did not try to get her attention as she passed; her aura gave off a sense of foreboding.

She relieved the young squaller on kitchen duty and began filling the basin with water and soap.

It was mercifully quiet in the empty kitchen save the occasional click of new dishes stacking by the dining window at her back and the thud of a plate sinking to the bottom of the basin underwater.

This was the best time to think—hands busy with their own purpose and a sense of satisfaction at dirty dishes made clean.

Why did it feel like penance?

Should she feel guilt for wanting to see him? For going to him when he called to her?

For staying? For taking her pleasure? Promising herself to him?

It was her right to pledge herself to whomever she wished. She was her own person. She would be her own person long after all these people turned to dust.

The flame inside her flashed in approval.

She was her own person and no one else understood the weight of eternity like she did. Like Aleksander did. Like—

“You do not fool everyone as well as you think.”

Alina straightened her back. Her hands stilled. She did not turn.

“You mistake me. I am not trying to fool anyone.”

Suds ran down her fingers and dripped into the dirty water.

“I feel the shadows stirring inside you, girl.”

Alina took a breath. She turned, head held up with dignity. She would not be cowed or reprimanded.

“Your observations are wasted. It is not your place to monitor me, nor guide me.”

Baghra stamped her cane against the ground and Alina twitched a fraction.

“Yet you take my advice when it is offered, do you not? You are not wholly a fool.”

Of course she was bringing up the very thing which plagued Alina’s conscience for the last month. The thing which Baghra ultimately swayed them on.

“It remains to be seen how that advice will play out. The Council has never been so divided as it was after that meeting. It has yet to recover.”

Baghra scowled and if she would younger might roll her eyes to match the disdain. Alina held her ground, unwilling to pretend it was the simple matter that was being presented.

The transportation portion of their enterprise had been in something of a bind when they lost a ship to a storm at sea. Moving refugees under the noses of several government entities, across three and four countries, was delicate work. One snag in the system and lives would be lost.

They were desperate and in need of a new ship to turn around and collect the refugees who were already on route to the rendezvous point on the Arkesk peninsula.

It was under such duress in their ranks that they allowed a known Grisha slaver to pick up this run at their discretion. The group was to be delivered within three days time and until then, they would all be on edge.

It had been an ugly council meeting, one in which Baghra had issued a persuasive argument.

Use the man. Know his faults but use him just the same. Determine his routes, his suppliers and his commissioners. Use his boat and his crew for the time-being. We will dispose of him when the time is to our advantage. If we are lucky we will take down others in his network after.

They voted to do so in the end. They would use him, posing as wealthy merchants looking to transport indentured servants to Kerch the long way around. It was either that or they would have to forfeit some twenty Grisha lives who lingered a little too close to the Fjerdan border.

Baghra continued, waving her cane at Alina, “You know that I know what is best. For us, for Grisha. Even if it is not the bowl of sunshine you wish for. That slaver may be a beast of a man but he has been a beneficial resource for us when we needed it.”

Alina’s temper flared.

“Your advice comes with caveats and darkness all the same. He is a beast. One I will have to put down soon along with his crew. I would not boast about having a hand in it, if I were you.”

He would be put down. In the next week based on the impending timeline.

“You do not like the things I say but you need to hear them anyway. I have some years on you yet, girl.”

Baghra was getting haughty and it drew another sneer out of Alina.

“You overestimate your usefulness. You are here to serve, not to dominate nor direct.”

Baghra pointed a gnarled finger at her, “No, I am here to stop you making as big a blunder as my son—“

“You are here at my invitation alone. I did not request your presence nor your guidance.”

Baghra’s face twisted into a scowl.

“Just as haughty and prideful as he is. Don’t forget who told you the truth of him, girl. He would have played you for a fool were it not for me.”

Keeping the fury off her face was a struggle as her hands glowed and heated like white hot irons.

How many times had she heard this?

It was demeaning. An impudence on her very character. On Aleksander's too. Neither woman could be sure what would have happened because there was no option for it to play out.

“I have not forgotten anything about that time, Baghra. If you believe the worst of your son, that is your choice. I have the same facts as you and I will interpret them as I see fit.”

The old woman stamped her cane again, her face showing an increasing desperation.

“Listen to me, Sun Summoner—“

“No. You listen to me now.”

The authority echoed around the small kitchen as the fury of her Light poured out of her pressed against every surface.

Heat emanated from the pores of her body and the golden hue of her eyes flashed with her power.

When she spoke it was quiet but no less effective.

“You are here at my allowance. It was you who requested we transport your Grisha soldiers out of the army and into safety. It was you who decided to stay and lend guidance to those who wanted to help. But it was at my word—“ she paused for a breath, staring the woman directly in the eyes, “that we granted you room and board and station among us.

“This operation was running long before your arrival and it will continue to run in the event that either of us leave or perish. That is the mark of the strength of it’s foundation. Do not attempt to control me or assert your years. I do not need them and neither are they vital to the continued success of this mission.”

Baghra’s face was still twisted into a scowl but she banged her cane once more against the floor and left in a huff.

Alina closed her eyes and inhaled deep. Her light withdrew and the kitchen was quiet and cozy once more.

She turned back to her task and continued to wash, eyes drifting up to the window overlooking the savannah around them. It was a beautiful day in Novyi Zem.

Banishing Timur from her bedroom was more difficult than she thought it would be. He did not want to go.

The Heartrender stroked her skin and spoke in soft tones and attempted to convince her things could remain casual.

These days all she felt was the itch of the tether inside her. Pulling taut, falling slack. As if one or both of them would pick it up and then let it go over and over. It was consuming. It was invigorating.

Alina blinked and pulled her wrist away from Timur again.

“You will make your next partner very happy and quite satisfied,” he smirked at her words and she pressed against his shoulder to keep him from leaning close again.

“I am leaving soon. I cannot say for certain how long I will be gone but you are to remain here and coordinate transports.” She said.

“I could go with you, look out for you.”

Alina strived to keep the annoyance off her features. As if she had need of him to keep herself alive.

“You are needed here with those who are far more vulnerable.”

Her tone sealed it. She no longer looked sentimental or even charmed by him. Timur furrowed his brow and pulled away.

“Very well, I will make you proud.” He bowed to her and her body ached to cringe at the gesture but she held still. A gracious nod was returned to him before he left her room.

Alina relieved the building tension in her body that evening. Her confrontation with Baghra, her tiff with Tamar and her dismissal of Timur had exhausted her for the week. More reminders of the reality of the mortal life span. Sometimes it did all feel petty. Small scale.

She longed for the comfort and longevity of Aleksander.

The newest round of refugees were safely delivered and ‘paid for’ the night before. Now it was time to cut ties with the slavers and get their money back.

A moment of combustion was upon her and she left the safety of the boarding house to channel the fury.

The light bent around her body as she crept onto the slaver’s boat. He kept a skeleton crew—just down to four or five men now.

When she entered the crew’s quarters, none of the men stirred. If any had been awake in that moment, they would have seen an Angel of Death.

They could have watched as she cast her eyes up toward the sky as if in supplication. They could have seen how she returned from that moment with light gathered in her palms. Could have gaped in awe as she squeezed the energy into twisting solar charges.

The charges hung in the air over the body of each man, writhing and coiling with barely controlled vitality. Two of the men at least did open their eyes at the sudden brightness. The bolts of sunbeam struck each crewman in the heart. One moment of awe, the next moment compressed by death.

The Captain’s quarters were locked. Nothing a flash of steel-melting sunlight couldn’t handle.

“Who’s there?” He sat up in his bed, a revolver pulled from under his pillow.

Alina was invisible again. She came to stand behind him, her light burned the hand with the revolver and it fell to the floor. Capitalizing on his distraction, she trapped his wrists and secured them with rope.

He yelled and thrashed but she remained invisible to him. No one could hear him scream anyway. He did not yet know that.

She bound his feet to the bed and his wrists to the low ceiling so he sat half up in his bed.

When she revealed herself, his face bore confusion and betrayal.

“You crazy bitch! I did your run and you got what you paid for!”

“Your use has run its course. Your men received a merciful death. It was quick and silent. You will not be so fortunate.” She said. Her voice was hoarse but she continued, reaching up to tighten the holds in his wrists.

He began to thrash again and paused only when her hand began to glow.

She pressed the fiery palm to his mouth and his muffled scream vibrated in his throat.

Alina held her hand to his face until the fat melted under her touch and the skin curdled like dry parchment over a flame.

When she pulled her hand back, she admired the outline of it burned across his disfigured face. He tried to move his mouth but screaming had become too painful for him. His visage was melted into a permanent grimace.

“The Sun’s Palm over your face silences your cries just as you silenced the cries of the Grisha you captured and sold. Just as you branded them for captivity, so you are branded for judgement.”

Tears streamed from his eyes as he watched her tower over him.

“The ropes at your hands and the ropes at your feet represent the binds of slavery which you have sentenced upon thousands of Grisha in your lifetime.”

Alina raised a blade above his heart and looked into his face.

“When I carve out your heart, it will be a humble sacrifice to the Saints. A meager offering of penance for the thousands of hearts you have carved from the chests of the Grisha who trusted you. Those who believed you would deliver them to safety, to refuge, to freedom.”

She glowed. A subtle, quiet glow that covered her skin and caused his eyes to grow wide as they continued to water.

“And perhaps the Saints will have mercy on you. I cannot.”

As her hands pushed the blade through the hardy barrier of his sternum, she tried not to luxuriate in the satisfaction.

As she left the ship rocking quietly in the harbor, she bent the light around herself again and retreated back to the boarding house. The bodies were disposed of and it was safe to send in the clean up team to retrieve the valuables on board and begin preparing the ship for a new name and new heading.

No one would ask after the slaver or his crew. No one admitted they existed. A grim reality which was to their advantage now.

As she walked the dirt paths back home she thought of the face of the slaver. Recalled the moment the light left his eyes. Pabel would be dismayed to see her. His little Sun should not find pleasure in murder.

It was not pleasure, she would argue. It was justice.

It was a small taste of satisfaction in the name of justice. For Grisha. For her parents. For herself.

He would fret over his memories of a General he knew. One who murdered frequently.

Alina pondered this herself but for a different reason.

When the Darkling exacted his vengeance, it was cold and expressionless. He executed with pens and ink and moving pieces on a map. She admired that about him.

For all she tried to distance herself, her vengeance was too personal. It was alive. She breathed and it moved and when she set on the path of destruction she could hardly contain the intensity of her Light from clawing out of her being to burn everything along the way. It frightened her.

For the rest of the evening she battled with her own will. Always after battle—murder, she found that though she quelled the combustible thing inside for a while, the urge to seek out carnal pleasure was nearly insatiable.

This is why she sent Timur away from herself. She could not continue to exercise this out with him. He wanted too much. Took her thirst for pleasure as something to do with him. Alina could not allow him to see that side of her any longer. It did not belong to him.

The need to seek out Aleksander, to relish in the glory of her bloodlust, was strong. Though she knew if she did reach out to him, if they came together through tether or by the mercy of the Saints, she would not be able to stop herself.

She would sit herself astride him and she would ride her body against his own. Together they would revel in the righteous justice she wrought and in the cosmic pleasure that belonged to them alone and she would not let him stop until she passed out.

If she started she would not stop.

Alina cursed the strength of her will all night.

It was deep in the hold of a merchant ship that she felt him call. A real and distinct pull from within her. She gave her excuses to Tamar and retreated to her bunk. She tucked herself in the corner of her bed and let herself fall out of space and time and consciousness and into him.

He was sleeping.

The black silk fabric of his sheets slithered between his legs and his torso was covered in a cold sweat. Alina crouched by the bed, unwilling to wake him.

Her eyes devoured every detail of his beautiful face. He would not be happy to wake and find her here, she was sure. Their game of chess was predicated on having the upper hand and to be invited into his presence at the height of his vulnerability would crush him.

The burn of her own victory was pleasant though. She tried not to laugh out loud.

She watched his face in repose for hours just thinking of a time when she would not have to hide this desire from him. From anyone.

Alina left before sunrise.

The next time he called she was already in bed and alone. She went to him immediately.

He was asleep again.

Well. This was too irresistible. She climbed in next to him and gently brushed her fingers through the strands of his dark hair. His face relaxed and she smiled.

She was not sure how long she stayed, only that she woke up in her own bed to see dawn over Kerch.

The third time it happened she was not so pleased anymore.

The success she was feeling initially on her mission in Kerch was waning. Finding a sponsor for herself among the upper class was proving to be difficult.

If she continued to meet dead ends, she would need to follow up with their contact in West Ravka. Though Alina found that option to be the most promising for the sake of strategy, she was not ready to return to her home country.

When she felt the tug she went eagerly.

All she wanted was to see his eyes. Open for a change. She wanted to see him seeing her again.

And yet he was asleep.

His rest looked fitful. He tossed in the bed as she watched him and though she wanted to see his eyes and to hear his voice, something inside her told her that he would not be kind tonight.

Perhaps it was the feelings he felt inside himself that she was sensing. Guilt and anger and torment. Crippling aches of sadness.

It hurt to be so close. The little glass dome within herself was brittle. To be hurt by him could break it permanently and she might lose control over what would come pouring out in response.

She did not have the strength to endure it tonight.

Alina allowed herself a gentle stroke to his ear, only enough to trace the curve of it and to rub the lobe between her fingers where his skin was soft.

He stirred.

She left.

West Ravka was nothing like she remembered. Admittedly, the ballroom before her was nothing she could have come close to seeing in her youth. Much less as she was now: an honored guest.

Alina sipped her wine and turned on the spot, her eyes caught on the gilded dome above the sea of people.

“Anya.” Alina turned.

“Xenia,” Alina said, sighing a bright smile and reciprocated kisses to her cheek. “I was just coming to find you. They will be seating us soon.”

The blonde tresses of her friend brushed against Alina’s face and Xenia whispered in her ear, “This is the man I spoke of to you.”

Xenia pulled away as a man in formal army attire approached, a bashful smile on his face. “Commander,” Xenia was beautiful when she smiled and the man did not take his eyes from her face, “this is my dear friend, Anya.”

Alina extended a hand, “A pleasure, sir. Xenia has nothing but glowing things to say about you.”

The man blushed further, “Xenia is exceedingly kind. I understand her family have been hosting you the last couple months now you’ve graduated university. Tell me, how are you enjoying West Ravka, Anya?”

Alina pulled a simpering look, “The society is everything I have been missing and more. When Xenia and her family agreed to take me in as their ward, I was deeply honored. To gain such a lovely sister as a result was beyond my wildest daydreams.”

Xenia kissed her on the cheek again and the Commander looked on fondly.

Alina ran her fingers over the gold necklace Xenia had placed around her neck that evening.

If you will represent our house, Anya, you will do so as a most treasured ornament. Xenia had said as Alina sat at her vanity.

Alina had laughed, feeling sincerely endeared to her host and lamenting the secrecy which kept them unequal. Xenia dear, we all know you are the true ornament of any gathering. I am happy to be bystander to your beauty.

Beauty I have in spades, I suppose. However, it is companionship I wish for most. I have never had many true friends before. Xenia said honestly.

Alina stared back, speculation on her face and a little pity as well. I appreciate the hospitality your family has extended to me, Xenia. Similarly, I hope you know I think of you as more than a means to an end. You may trust me.

Xenia looked taken aback at the bluntness of the statement and then quite pleased. Very well, I shall confide in you. I do have someone special whom I would like more time with but without the presence of a chaperone, I am doomed to see him only in passing for the rest of the season.

Leave it to me. Alina had told her.

Over dinner, Alina continued to facilitate conversation between the couple before her. The Commander and the blonde woman who was a real jewel of Ravkan society this season.

They were beautiful together and Alina felt twinges of absence missing her own beautiful person.

The tether had been pulled taut for a weeks but there was no true tug and she could not leave in this moment in any case.

“Anya has completed her studies in public services, education and accounting.” Xenia said, looking at Alina. She blushed in response, taking a demure stance to keep from needing to elaborate.

“Saints alive!” the Commander said watching her now with interest and puzzlement. “What is it you intend to do for Ravka with such a background?”

“Reformation to orphanages mostly, Commander. With the Fold and the War, many of Ravka’s children are left without parents, education or even proper nourishment. As a woman, I believe there is good work to be done on the home front while our brave soldiers continue to guard and protect our freedoms.” Alina said.

She added a blush to her cheeks for effect. “I had hoped to meet the First Army General tonight. It’s foolish, I know. He’s a terribly busy man, after all. I simply hoped to discuss ideas with him where our pursuits might overlap.” She carefully brushed around her mouth with her napkin, eyes lowered in deference to the Commander.

“You don’t say?” The Commander looked at her like he wished to laugh but it was lost to him. Alina was not so pleased at the calculating look she found on his face now. She much preferred his ambivalence to this development but there was no turning back now.

The comrade in uniform seated next to him gave him an elbow to the chest and added, “Sankta Anya, is it? What a treasure you are, lovely. I’m sure the General would love to make time for you.” The man’s speech slurred and the Commander looked at him with wary eyes before deciding to abandon the discussion as a whole.

Alina seized the chance to turn the conversation back onto Xenia.

Late that night, long after dinner was finished and Alina had made acquaintances with several more diplomats and senior military, she took the carriage home. Xenia slept against her shoulder and the women held hands loosely in her lap.

The evening was a success. The Commander would be joining them for dinner in a fortnight and even if she could not get an audience with the General himself, she had time to plan at least. A Commander was nothing to scoff at in the scheme of things.

Alina let her head rest against the window.

Loneliness had stolen over her strongly throughout the evening.

It was difficult to tell if it was her own.

Frankly, hiding under the cover of a fake name with false pretenses would have that effect on anyone. And yet her thoughts strayed to Aleksander and the loneliness—and longing—intensified.

She retreated to her bedroom and stripped herself of her overlaying dress. Just as she began to take down her hair, the tether inside gave an almighty tug and she could not help herself for how quickly she followed.

He did not see her immediately. She took advantage of his distracted state to watch him. Her Aleksander was finally awake. The Light inside herself brightened and expanded.

His attention was fixed on letters in his hands and she lingered on the planes of his chest on display through the gap in the fur he wore.

Alina’s eyes lifted to his face again. Something in his expression quieted her.

“Hello Aleksander.”

When he finally looked at her, she sighed at the sight of his eyes again. Too long. It had been too long.

Something had shifted inside him. At first she only knew that something had but by the time he was yelling an accusation that she was there to spy on him, a realization set in.

That mask of indifference which was once fixed on his face was at last broken.

She honored the transformation by taking him to his bed and cradling his head in her lap.

There she held his face with utter reverence and when he responded by pulling her around him, she went happily as his shield.

There was no one in the world except they two right now. She needed him. Her Light danced.

When he asked her once again to tell him details of her life she felt her control cracking.

How could she tell him now, while he appeared to be on some mental precipice no less, that her entire life was smuggling Grisha out of several countries, East Ravka included. That she helped them dodge the draft, helped them escape—far outside of his purview. An operation which was founded primarily with the help of deserters from his Second Army.

Alina could not betray her people that way.

Alina could not reveal her own treachery to him. Not when they were so fragile. The shame she felt at feeling more sympathetic to him than to her own mission and people was not lost on her.

She should have known Aleksander would not let go once he latched his jaw to something raw. In an attempt to dismiss the conversation, she only invited him deeper.

“You should also know on this side of the Fold, there are those you have harmed who would seek retaliation on you. I do not know that I can stop them.”

“Those I have harmed? Who exactly do you mean?”

She shrugged a shoulder, wanting him to drop it and move back into less dangerous territory. “Does it matter? I do not think you notice or think of it as harm. You do things as a General in war and those actions hurt people. People who are dear to me.”

“Tell me which people are dear to you and I will see that it is stopped.”

“Do not mock me.”

“Perhaps you could draft a list? First and last names please, followed by their exact locations and their specific relationship to you.”

The heat of her light was intensifying inside her, roiling just thinking of the stories she knew about this General.

First hand accounts of his ruthlessness reaching back decades before her even. She had heard so many over the years.

The first she knew of the General at all were stories from Pabel. Pabel who raised her, who loved her, who warned her.

Pabel who once stood by the General where Ivan stands now.

Aleksander did not even stir in recognition of the name. Pabel was not an uncommon name—it was silly to think he should even have a recollection of the man. He may well remember him but only as a soldier he thought long dead.

The idea that he could have forgotten about Pabel at all made her upset.

Perhaps it was her own guilt but she was angry with him now. Angry at the way his actions would continue to keep them apart.

“You know, for as long as I have desired you and wanted to keep you for myself, you have made it very difficult for me to be able to do so in good conscious. It seems that you do nothing but set up more obstacles for us.”

He tried to appeal to her, “Surely you can meet me halfway on this, Alina. Tell me how to make things right for us right now and I will do everything in my power to see it through. You cannot leave me in the dark forever.”

The frustration was mounting in them both. The negotiation went on. Alina tried in vain to give him a glimpse into the way things had to change—show him how she had changed.

She felt that she was doing her part for them already, why could he not see that? Why did he make things worse on his end?

The Light was licking up her insides and she was almost vibrating to contain it. She would use anything to make him understand.

Alina considered telling him about the slavers from just a few months before. If he could see her in her darkness, would he believe then that she did not see herself above him?

Would he understand that to keep her in true balance was a more convoluted task than her Light and his Dark? It was not so clean anymore.

The conversation was out of her hands. It was moving too quickly. He brought up the past. His plans for her hoping that she would—what? Feel guilty for screwing him out of his plans to dominate her? To control her? He was a fool.

She did not expect the Cut.

Whatever was said, whatever state he was in, she did not expect this.

Alina tackled him to the bed. “The Cut? Saints, Sasha. What were you going to do if that actually killed me?”

“We both know it wouldn’t have. Best case, it would have severed our connection and I could get some bloody peace for once. I could finally think.”

He hid his eyes from her again. The fire inside her was at capacity, she had seconds of composure left. Seconds before she burst, before she tried to strike him with lightning for hurting her. Why did it always have to end this way for them?

Life-threats made, old wounds recut and one or both of them begging the other for some sort of mercy.

Underneath the tempest and brewing storm, she found a core of shadow. The fire raged inside her but at it’s center was a cooling black vapor. Alina burrowed in. The vibrating stopped. The roaring in her ears and the agony of desire which was present just a moment ago slowed like cooling lava.

“You’re right.”

Pulling herself off, she held her knees to her chest on the bed beside him.

“It is selfish to keep coming back here when I know I am not ready.”

The way Aleksander was looking at her made her feel like that small girl from years ago. The one who got her hopes too high for him. The girl who managed to forget all the pain that came before her. The girl who fell in love with him in the first place, even when everyone in her life had warned her away.

When she first arrived at the Little Palace, all confidence and determination, she was hoping to get the drop on him. She was pleased that she did.

Aleksander hadn’t heard rumors even of the existence of a Sun Summoner. Much less one who was fully grown and undeniably powerful. It filled her with mirth to see his confusion and awe openly on display.

At the time it was easy to think she was ready to face him. He was nothing more than a boogeyman. An idea of a person molded in her mind by his former foot soldiers, his critics, his victims.

It was exhausting to hold all these accounts in her head and not have one of her own to compare. She begged Pabel to allow her to meet him but he refused. He said he worried too much about what would become of her once The General knew she had arrived in the world.

Once Pabel died she could endure only a couple years of mourning. Once her heartache subsided, the vibrating need to act had returned and she could not delay meeting the Shadow Summoner any longer. They were the only two of their kind in this generation of Grisha.

And Pabel had left her alone in the world.

More than that, his very being seemed to call to her.

Across land and sea and amplified by the Fold, he called. When she was finally close, she found peace. And then she already loved him. It did not take long.

And yet all the people she knew and loved—all the people who had ever loved her—identified this one man as the enemy.

It was humiliating how quickly and easily she fell in love with him despite this fact. Alina was thankful Pabel was not alive to ask her about him. She never was able to lie well to her adoptive father.

How could she explain to anyone that being with Aleksander made her feel like she existed outside of time itself, protected from its costs. She was seen by him there. Stripped down and bared in her entirety, unguarded; only for him.

It was that vulnerability that broke her. Aleksander would break her further if she stayed. When she left, she collected herself. Rebuilt stronger and more durable. They would come back around again. He would come back around.

It was painful to sit on his bed now. It was painful to look into his empty eyes. It was painful to love someone, to reach for them with every molecule of power inside herself and to know that it was not enough.

Not for now, anyway.

“We should go back to how things were before. It’s cleaner.”

He didn’t disagree. He didn’t say anything.

When she opened her eyes, she was still in her bed in West Ravka. The fire was crackling and there was a warming pan between the sheets. Tamar must have come by because a note was left unopened on the nightstand.

Alina rolled away from it. Her body curled into itself.

The loneliness that hung around her like a fog these last months finally swallowed her up. It coated every inch of skin and left her chilled.

Alina cried until the salt burned and dried in her lashes and her throat ached for rest.

The next day she moved and spoke as if nothing of significance had happened. Xenia tittered about the Commander and Alina played her part recounting the details of every exchange. They prepared for the impending dinner and Alina converged with Tamar through letters to determine their next moves.

Her Light had gone quiet for now. She rested in the safety of the shadow beneath it. Not tempted by emotion or driven one direction or another. For once she allowed herself to rest from the erratic nature of her power.

It would be there in a week when she opened herself up to it again.

Aleksander would be there too, eventually. That was the one thought which penetrated the shadow in her core. Aleksander would be there when this was all over. They were Inevitable.

This was the one comfort she could allow herself. A single flame in the center of dense black.

#darklina fic #darklina #darklina fanfic #alina x aleksander #aleksander morozova #alina starkov #smut #angst #power dynamics #grishaverse #the grisha trilogy

3 notes · View notes

soulairee · 4 years

Text

Woman of Medicine

SasuSaku Castlevania AU. Dracula!Sasuke. I’ve been wanting to write this for ages now. While the dialogue is very much the same between Sasuke and Sakura as it is between Dracula and Lisa in the Netflix series, it was still so much fun to put their meeting into writing. If you haven’t checked out Castlevania, I highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful show.

Haruno Sakura makes her way across a vast plain of land littered with bones—the dirt beneath her boots ashen and lifeless, the air reeking of death and decay. A blood-red sun sets on the horizon, tainting the sky in hazy washes of orange and crimson.

Surrounding her, reminding her that she may very well be heading to her certain doom, is an endless forest of skeletons, hoisted upon giant spikes pierced through their skulls.

Sakura is careful not to get too close to any. With their jaws hanging open and their limbs hanging limply at their sides, they make a horrific picture: thousands upon thousands of skeletons screaming into nothing, with no one around to hear their cries.

Her fingers tighten around the hilt of her dagger, and she jerks back when a flurry of bats appears as if from thin air, screeching, the sound of their leathery wings a rough staccato in her ears. Sakura glares at them, swiping her dagger at one that gets too close and driving the blade of it through the bat’s small body. She shakes the corpse from her blade, allowing herself to feel just a small amount of remorse for it as she wipes its blood on her handkerchief.

Thankfully the others now give her a wide berth, and so Sakura grits her teeth and trudges forward, head high. The hood of her black cloak falls to drape about her shoulders, long pink braid swinging behind her.

She walks through the forest of the dead—heart thundering in her chest, anticipation thrumming in her veins—until she sees a sharp pillar of grey stone rising from the earth. With each step a castle manifests before her very eyes, and she gasps when the entirety of it becomes clear to her.

It’s massive, climbing thousands of feet in the air above her, carved of great slabs of stone and pillars of obsidian. The architecture alone steals the air from her lungs. She can’t even begin to count the amount of levels within; can’t even begin to imagine how the castle balances itself with so many uneven towers branching from its center. It’s designed to emanate cruelty and menace, the inanimate counterpart to its lone master (or so she hears). But for all its harsh lines and severe edges, the castle appears elegant to Sakura. Beautiful, even. Then again she’s always been able to find beauty in the darkest of places—this time, evidently, is no different.

Shaking the awe from her face, Sakura breathes deeply before climbing the large set of stairs leading up to the castle’s monstrous twin front doors. She places her palm flat against one, the stone cool and hard beneath her skin. She shivers, feeling its iciness in her very bones, and nearly pulls her hand away before she senses movement against her fingertips.

A gasp escapes her lips, and she steps forward to lean her body flush against the door. Indeed there’s movement within the castle—reverberations from a great beast walking about, she thinks, or perhaps from the castle’s master himself. She closes her eyes, listening.

No, she thinks, eyes flashing open once more. Not a beast. The pulses of movement are too rhythmic, too steady. And that’s steam she hears, pumping out between heated metal.

Machines. It has to be.

Sakura can barely check her excitement. She smoothes down the sides of her cloak, willing her smile into a diffident line.

Then she raises the hilt of her dagger and knocks it against the door. Once, twice, almost three times—

The doors creak open, heavy and slow.

Sakura steps inside.

If she’s to be honest with herself, she expected to be afraid. To turn tail at the last moment, sprinting back to her homeland, all her dreams and efforts laid to waste as a result of her own fear and trepidation.

But as Sakura enters the castle and takes in her surroundings, knowing she could die at any moment, she feels only curiosity. Curiosity and wonder as she turns in a circle, gazing upon the hundreds of metal candelabras hanging from the walls, casting the great hall in warm, flickering light.

She blinks, once again having to bring herself back to reality—she’s here for a reason, after all. There’s someone she has to meet, even if it’s the last thing she does. So Sakura continues forward, dagger clutched in her hand, eyes darting left and right, searching for any sign of him.

She inhales sharply at the sound of the stone doors slamming shut behind her, but she refuses to look back. Instead she lifts her head and gazes upon the top of the double grand staircase before her, where a dark figure now stands, silent and foreboding.

Sakura tries to make out his features but he’s too far above her, shrouded in shadows. She clears her throat and sheathes her dagger.

Then, mustering all the confidence and bravery her small body can manage, she calls in a voice steadfast enough to make her proud, “My name is Haruno Sakura. I am from Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in the Leaves.” A deep breath. “I want to be a doctor.”

Within the blink of an eye the figure is gone. There’s the sound of fabric rustling behind the pillars lining the hallway beside her, but when she turns to follow the noise, he’s moved out of her sight.

Then he speaks. “You bang on my front door,” he says, his voice echoing all around her, deep and calm yet with a subtle, threatening edge that stiffens her spine, “because you want to daub chicken blood on peasants.”

This irritates her. “Don’t mistake me for a witch,” Sakura replies, indignant. “Everyone out there already does.”

Another rustle of fabric from beyond the pillars, this time on the second floor.

“I believe in science,” she says, nerves causing her to take a hesitant step backward. “But I need to know more. I’ve exhausted all my other options, and all the stories say the man who lives here has secret knowledge unknown to the world.”

“I do not get many visitors,” a soft voice says from directly behind her.

It takes everything within her not to show her shock—how was he able to sneak up on her so quietly, so stealthily? Indeed she feels his looming presence at her back, his words spoken into her ear so she could feel his warm breath against her skin.

Sakura remains still, staring straight ahead as he continues in that deceptively soft tone, “What have you to trade for my knowledge, Haruno Sakura of Konohagakure?”

Finally she’s had enough. Sakura’s eyes narrow and she steps away from him with confidence. Turning to face him now, she lifts her head and says, “Perhaps I could help you relearn some manners. I’ve crossed the threshold of your home and you haven’t offered me a drink or even to take my coat.”

All this said while Sakura gazes upon the face of the most handsome man she’s ever seen. With hair so black it appears almost blue and eyes the color of onyx, he’s the very epitome of darkness and the worst of nightmares. He stands a full head taller than her, his broad shoulders made even broader by the heavy black cloak he dons. Above the cloak’s high collar and peeking from strands of black hair she sees his ears, elongated and pointed. A vampire, through and through.

Sakura refuses to be cowed by the sheer intimidation his very aura exudes. She stands proud, meeting his gaze fearlessly, and takes great joy in the small flicker of surprise that flashes in his dark eyes.

Those eyes narrow to slits. “And what if I took a drink from you?” he asks fiercely, fangs gleaming in the candlelight. “Or have you loaded yourself with silver, crosses and garlic in superstitious fear?”

Sakura taps her index finger against her lips, thinking. “I might have eaten some roasted garlic earlier,” she admits. “Was that rude? It was all I had left.”

He begins to pace around her in circles, hands laced behind his back. “I’m not interested in superstition,” he snaps, “or assisting some muttering wise woman working tricks of entrails and pine needles.”

“I want to heal people, with real medicine.” Sakura tries to put all the passion and ardor she feels into her words, desperate. “I want to learn. Will you help me?”

He stops his pacing and stands still in front of her. He tilts his head to the side, examining her as if she were an exotic animal.

“You are certainly more... unusual than most humans I have met in recent times,” he finally says. “And much less afraid of me.”

Sakura grins. “You only seem a little frightening, truly. Maybe I can teach you to like people again. Or to at least tolerate them.” She pauses, thinking of her journey here. “Or to stop putting them on sticks.”

He chuckles, husky and low. “I gave that up a long time ago.”

He turns and begins walking away from her, deeper into the castle. Disappointment begins to weigh in her gut, and for a moment she accepts the fact that she’s failed, but then he gestures with his hand for her to follow.

Sakura hurries to join him, all previous doubts melting away.

“Where is the Village Hidden in the Leaves?” he asks inquisitively.

Fresh courage flows through her in waves. “You don’t seem to travel much,” she teases.

He shoots her an amused look. “I can travel. This entire structure is a traveling machine.”

This little piece of knowledge he’s shared with her thrills her to no end. A traveling machine?

“But you don’t travel, do you, ...?” She trails off, raising her brows at him.

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke. You may call me Sasuke. And no, I don’t travel.”

Sakura nods, pleased to finally have a name for this centuries-old vampire that is mysterious as can be. She can’t wait to know him better. Can’t wait to see what he has to show her. She’s been waiting for this moment for years.

“Well, maybe you should. The world is changing, Sasuke.” She meets his gaze, smiling. “Travel, like people do. You might even like it.”

Sasuke lifts a brow. She continues to look at him expectantly, and he eventually turns away.

Clearing his throat, he says with a hint of disgust in his tone, “I’ve known you for all of two minutes, and you offer for me to walk the earth like an ordinary peasant while I give you the knowledge of immortals.” He sweeps a hand before him, and a pair of doors swing open in response. “The true science.”

Sakura walks past the doors and into the room. Her mouth parts as she turns in a slow circle, taking in the room easily five stories high with books lining every wall and all sorts of golden contraptions unknown to her filling its center. Most of them move on their own, powered by some source she’s starving to know more about. Glass beakers are organized neatly on a wooden table to her right, some empty and some filled with gurgling golden liquid. To her left she’s shocked to see what appears to be a glass ball filled with lightning, the white light zapping around inside.

There’s no word grand enough to describe what she’s feeling. Awe, reverence, astonishment—all too cheap to put her experience into words. She is quite literally viewing the future right now, and she nearly forgets how to speak as a result.

Sakura finally twists around to find Sasuke standing to the side, watching her with an expression she can’t place. She’s too wonderfully dazed to care.

“You realize,” she says, nearly vibrating with excitement, “that those humans won’t be peasants anymore if you teach them. If you show them what you’ve shown me.” She walks toward him, hands splayed before her. “And they won’t live such short, scared lives if they have real medicine.”

“Why should I do that?” he questions, genuinely curious.

“To make the world better,” Sakura breathes, clasping her hands to her chest. “Start with me.” She gives him her brightest, widest smile, full of optimism and promises for the future. Oh, the changes they’ll set in motion. “And I’ll start with you, Sasuke.”

Sasuke stares down at her, quiet. She sees loneliness flash in those black, endless eyes, and wonders when the last time was that someone—vampire, human, anyone—treated him as something other than the monster he’s painted himself to be. She wonders how long it’s been since someone smiled at him; wonders how desolate indeed it must’ve been in this great, massive castle, alone for so many years.

Then, finally, like the sun breaking over the horizon for the first time in centuries, showering light over a land of eternal darkness, she sees it: hope. Hope, newfound and unpolished, but there nonetheless. His eyes nearly glow with it, and he gives her a small, barely-there smile in return.

“Very well,” Sasuke says, almost in disbelief, as if he can’t quite come to terms with how she managed to persuade him but satisfied with their agreement regardless. He bows deeply, arm outstretched, gesturing to the wealth of knowledge surrounding them. “I think I might like you, Haruno Sakura of Konohagakure.”

Sakura beams.

For the future is theirs, and she cannot wait to discover all it has to offer.

#Castlevania #naruto #sasusaku #Sasuke Uchiha #Sakura Haruno #fanfiction #soulaire fiction

48 notes · View notes

falseroar · 4 years

Text

Is This Your Card? Part 1: The Invitation

((Hi! This is the first part of another story in what I’m calling the Traces of Silver series, a WKM Werewolf/Monster Hunter AU. This story in particular is a retelling of Who Killed Markiplier, with a few twists along the way to match the AU. And it all starts with one last job and an invitation.

The POV will swap between Abe (third person) and Y/N (first person) every couple of chapters. Oh, and if I tagged you in this and you’re not interested, or I missed your username, or you want to be tagged, or whatever, just let me know. (Edit to add: While it’s not a main focus of the story, there are definitely hints of Abe/DA.)

Warnings, mostly for later chapters: References to death and suicide (off screen for the most part), language (nothing worse than from the original videos), dark themes, and yeah, no happy ending for this particular story.))

Abe nearly missed the sound of footsteps on the dirt road under the steady whine of cicadas enjoying one of the last warm nights of the year, and if not for the cloudy night he might have been spotted before he could duck into cover behind the nearby tree. Peering out, he watched with narrowed eyes as the figure moved with purpose down the road, a long cloak hiding any of the few details he could have hoped to make out in the waning moonlight. At this hour, few would have dared to be walking alone on the road so far from the village, but he hesitated, waiting for any sign that this was the one he had been waiting for.

He couldn’t make that mistake again in one night.

For a moment, he thought the figure would continue on its way, but at the mailbox they abruptly stopped and turned toward the short drive that led up to the farmhouse on the hill. In the time it took the figure to draw back her hood, revealing pale skin and light hair that shimmered in the moonlight, and take in a deep breath, he had already cleared the distance between them.

“Excuse me, miss—”

She screamed.

Even with his hands over his ears, there was no blocking out her wail, a bright and eerie keening that sent a shiver down Abe’s spine and wrenched his heart even as it threatened to burst his ear drums.

And then, abruptly, it stopped, and he risked opening one eye to see the banshee press her hands to her mouth, face darkening with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry! You scared me!”

At least, that’s what Abe thought she said, but it took a few more seconds before the ringing started to clear up, his own voice muffled as he muttered, “We…need to talk.”

A few minutes later and Abe’s hearing was mostly back as he stood in the living room of the farmhouse, eyes darting back and forth between Farmer Jim or Joe or whatever he was and the banshee seated opposite him.

“That’s all you want?” Abe asked again, to be sure.

The banshee nodded. Here, indoors and in normal lighting, she seemed that much more ethereal and out of place, not helped by how she sat primly as though unwilling to touch anything around her. “If the farmer will keep his cows in his field, I will stop the wailing.”

“Well, you could have just said something,” the farmer muttered. “Not like that pond belongs to anyone, I don’t see what the big deal is—”

“It is not your land,” she said, again. “And I do not like the look of that brown cow, the one with the spot on its nose and the evil in its eyes.”

Abe started to point out how ridiculous that sounded, but the farmer just nodded and said, “Yeah, that’d be Abigail. Been meaning to ask Father Richard around to take a look at that one.”

“And I did try to tell you, but my kind cannot pass the wards around your land without permission, and you just kept running away at the sight of me. It was very rude.”

“Oh, and standing outside a man’s house, wailing away his death sentence is that much better?”

Abe sighed. “For the last time, a banshee’s wail isn’t fatal, it’s just a warning.”

“A portent of misfortune or death,” she added. “For the record, you may want to stop climbing on top of your house and hire someone else to fix your roof. That’s not part of the deal, just general advice.”

The farmer sighed, sinking in on himself a little. “Yeah, that’s what my daughter keeps saying. I’ll go into the village in the morning and see if I can’t find someone to fix that along with the fence. Maybe I can keep some help around for longer than a week without someone scaring them off every other night.”

“Thank you,” the banshee said, springing up as though eager to leave. “I am glad to hear the others will not have to get involved.”

The farmer paled slightly, looking from her to Abe. “Wait, what others?”

She just smiled, which did little to set him at ease and probably explained the gratitude in the farmer’s voice as he turned to Abe and shook his hand.

“Thank you, hunter. I’m…not sure where I would be without your help. God, it’s going to be good to get some sleep again. How can I possibly repay you?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a cure for lycanthropy hanging around, would you?” Abe asked. “Maybe know anyone around who…”

He stopped when he saw the look the old farmer and even the banshee gave him and coughed.

“Or money. That works too.”

Outside, Abe felt the weight of the farmer’s money in his pocket and the stare of the banshee, who followed him to the road before speaking again.

“Thank you from me as well, hunter.”

“It was just a job,” Abe said with a shrug. Not a typical one, he’d admit, but these days he wasn’t sure what counted as ‘typical’ anymore. “I didn’t even have to do that much, but don’t tell him that.”

“Still, I apologize for wailing at you earlier. I know that it is not a pleasant sound, but…” She paused, her inhuman eyes staring a little too intently into Abe’s face for his liking. “Death seems to shadow your steps, hunter, even if it never seems to touch you.”

“Yeah, like this is the first time I’ve heard that one.” Abe tried to sound nonchalant, despite the pang at her words. She couldn’t know how true they felt some days.

“I feel I should warn you to be careful. There is something terrible coming, if you stay on your current path.”

“Do you mean the road back to the village, or…?”

Abe was only half joking, but the banshee just stared at him with something that looked close to sadness before turning and walking away.

He thought he would have preferred it if she just stuck to the wailing, all things considered.

Back at the cheap room he’d rented in the village, Abe took off his coat and hat, tossing both aside with a groan before sitting down on the foot of the narrow, rickety bed which gave a groan of its own. He stretched and hissed at a few aches and pains from his other recent jobs which hadn’t been as simple as standing around in a field to arrange a meeting. There was the griffin in the clocktower, that basilisk down by the coast—or had that been the circus who thought they could actually hire him to get their selkie back? It all started to blend together, the utter nonsense of it all, mixed with the rare moment when he would be pulled in to deal with a real monster, that exhilarating blend of terror and the thrill of the hunt.

A thrill that soon faded, leaving him here in a room identical to all the others, along with his pain and a paycheck. And so very, very tired.

Abe sighed, rubbing his bleary eyes with the back of his hand, and looked for the bottle he had left himself earlier only for his eyes to land on the elaborate invitation resting on top of its envelope where he had tossed it aside.

You’ve been cordially invited to Poker Night at Markiplier Manor.

Just a small get together, Mark had insisted the other night when he pressed the invitation into Abe’s hand. Dinner and some games with his most trusted friends, and Abe had barely managed to keep a straight face at being described like that before telling Mark he had another client already lined up and waiting for him. This close to the city, to the memories of what happened the last time he was here, left him wanting to get out before he did something stupid. Like give too much thought to how easy it would be to stop by their office, check in and see how they were doing this close to the full moon—

“Oh, come on, Abe,” Mark had said, his tone wheedling. “I know the life of a monster hunter is busy and no doubt glamorous, but perhaps you could spare a day or two for some time off and, dare I say it, a bit of fun? Life is for the living, so live a little!”

Abe had brushed him off with a noncommittal “see what I can do,” but now, sitting here and looking at the invitation with the banshee’s words still in his head, the thought of stepping away from it all and taking some time to relax and unwind sounded more than a little tempting.

Maybe a party was just the thing he needed.

((End of Part 1. Hoping to post a chapter a day until it’s done, but we’ll see.

Link to Part 2.

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @skyewardlight @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @weirdfoxalley @95fangirl @lilalovesinternet-l @thepoolofthedead @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @geekymushroom @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-anxiety-blog @shyinspiredartist @avispate @missksketch ))

#markiplier #fanfiction #wkm au #monster hunter au #werewolf au #wkm abe #wkm mark #wkm district attorney #the banshee's warning #don't trust the cow #Abe's almost visited the DA like 17 times now

25 notes · View notes

letterboxd · 3 years

Photo

Best of the Fests 2020.

From 17th-century werewolves to WWII gremlins to present-day nomads, the stripped-back, mostly virtual 2020 fall festivals still managed to bring the goods. Our team rounds up the very best titles we saw at TIFF, NYFF, the BFI London Film Festival and beyond.

LISTEN: Gemma Gracewood and Ella Kemp chew over their festival favorites in the latest episode of The Letterboxd Show.

Kudos to the teams at the Toronto, New York and BFI London Film Festivals for pulling excellent hybrid festivals together in extremely weird, not-at-all-ideal circumstances. From the always-excellent conversations (and Cameron Bailey’s always-excellent suits) to the hybrid options for viewing, we left feeling hope for our favorite art form.

We have been keeping track, over on our Twitter account, of the many film festivals going online, and it’s safe to say that virtual film festivals—and the wider accessibility they offer—have been a silver lining to this mostly awful year. Indeed, the 58th NYFF was one of Film at Lincoln Center’s most-attended festivals, with 70,000+ attendees in all 50 states and beyond. (We participated in a NYFF Industry Talk, along with MUBI and Rotten Tomatoes, about the future of online film conversation, moderated by Indiewire’s David Ehrlich.)

Attempting to replicate the extreme fatigue of the real thing, our festival team (Ella Kemp, Aaron Yap, Kambole Campbell, Jack Moulton and Gemma Gracewood and—helping us bridge the geo-locked divide—Canadian TIFF regular Jonathan White) disregarded international date lines and dove right in. We saw many films to love, but by consensus (and a poke around your Letterboxd reactions) these are the ones we’re still thinking about.

Lovers Rock Directed by Steve McQueen, written by McQueen and Courttia Newland. The ‘Small Axe’ anthology will be released on a weekly rollout on Amazon Prime Video beginning November 20 with ‘Mangrove’, then ‘Lovers Rock’, ‘Red, White and Blue’, ‘Alex Wheatle’ and finally ‘Education’. Seen at: NYFF, BFI London Film Festival.

Lovers Rock, the first part of Steve McQueen’s ambitious, multi-part film project Small Axe, feels like a massive stylistic departure for the filmmaker, in a manner that completely transfixes and astounds. It’s no wonder that this one turned heads at multiple festivals, as it’s immediately warmer, more freewheeling and sensual than any other McQueen work. It’s defined by a hypnotic focus on sound and touch, represented in its earliest scenes with a tactile close-up of a heated comb working its way through hair, and later with its focus on hands wrapped around shoulders, moving across shirts and dresses, people joining together and/or colliding through song and dance. Despite being made for television, it’s astounding how little Lover’s Rock feels that way. Often impressionistic and unbound to the kind of urgency or efficiency that naturally comes with having to adhere to a time-slot, it simply rests in the moment. With the seismic protests being undertaken by Black people this year, Lovers Rock feels like more than welcome respite from a hateful populace—visually rich, gorgeously soundtracked Black joy and love. Also, man, those shirts are incredible. —KC

Nomadland Written and directed by Chloé Zhao. In US theaters December 4. Seen at: TIFF, NYFF, BFI London Film Festival.

“I am already convinced that Chloé Zhao deserves the whole world,” writes Jaime of Nomadland, the TIFF People’s Choice winner. Personal security is something we don’t think about on a daily basis. We have shelter, we can buy food, anything else is bonus. But what if those two basic tenets vanish? While the global financial crisis affected all in 2008, it affected retirees more. Supposedly secure retirement investments vanished; security no more. What do you do? Survive. Zhao’s adaptation of Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction masterpiece Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century is a beacon of human spirit and survival. It may not be pretty, but it’s real. It’s not something to be embarrassed about, it’s something to be proud of. Those that let this happen to good, honest working people should be the ones embarrassed. —JW

Minari Written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung. No release date announced. Seen at: Middleburg Film Festival.

Minari is the medicine for these tough times. It’s a wonderful, wonderful, deeply personal, utterly serene and metaphysical portrait of America—freedom, faith, superstition, forces of nature, and ambition collide with the costs of intoxicating capitalist dreams, but not without a whole lot of heart. This is elegantly crafted, at once organic in its approach and always sweepingly cinematic. The film’s gentle sense of humor ensures that it never takes itself too seriously and allows the weight of its poetic images and juxtapositions to guide the narrative. The brilliant ensemble should grow to join Steven Yeun as household names (well, cinephile households). Youn Yuh-jung and Alan Kim are bright sparks as the latest classic duo of sassy grandma and precocious grandchild, but it’s Han Ye-ri—taking on the surrogate role of director Lee Isaac Chung’s mother—who provides an overlooked and tender sounding board for familial bonds in fraction. Minari is truly one of 2020’s most invaluable and essential pieces of art, living up to the hype built since Sundance. Korea came to the USA for the Oscars earlier this year, and if 2021 shows similar mercy, there’s a chance you’ll see this home-grown Asian-American picture mounting that stage in future. —JM

Wolfwalkers Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, written by Will Collins with Moore and Stewart. Recently released in UK theaters; coming to Apple TV+ December 11. Seen at: TIFF, BFI London Film Festival.

The much-anticipated Cartoon Saloon adventure Wolfwalkers was met with only joy around here. A fable about what happens when a colonizing force tries to tame a wild forest, set during Oliver Cromwell’s Siege of Kilkenny, Wolfwalkers builds to “one of the most sensational animated third acts I’ve seen in years,” according to Animatedantic. The film’s themes are embedded in every hand-drawn line and stroke. “It’s not sleek and seamless and modern,” writes Cow Shea. “This is transparently a true work of art where all the work of that art is part of the finished product.” Mebh and Robyn are animated action heroes for the ages, and you’ll hear a lot about ‘Wolfvision’ in the weeks to come—for very good reason. Werewolf films have, for years, tried different ways to put us inside the beast’s mind, but Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart followed their noses and it’s as thrilling as things get. —GG

David Byrne’s American Utopia Directed by Spike Lee. On HBO and HBO Max now. Seen at: TIFF, NYFF, BFI London Film Festival.

David Byrne’s American Utopia is well on track to join Jonathan Demme’s film of another Byrne stage outing, Stop Making Sense (1984), as one of the highest-rated anythings on Letterboxd. We’re still deciding whether this film is sublime because the stage show itself is sublime, or because Spike Lee has sublimely captured the whole joyous thing for us to inject into our eyeballs, time and again, for far less than the price of a Broadway ticket. Let’s be honest: it’s due to both, and more besides. It’s a blessing upon 2020, of that we are certain. As Clint writes, “The phrase ‘this is the film we need right now’ is such a creaky cliché, but there’s an ineffable feeling that, if David Byrne and Spike Lee can’t heal the world with grey suits, bare feet, and some of the most all-encompassing works of music ever written, no one can.” As my colleague says, “will rewatch to death”. —GG

Shiva Baby Written and directed by Emma Seligman. On the festival circuit. Seen at: TIFF, LFF.

A girl walks into a shiva and bumps into her sugar daddy. What sounds like a joke sets up 77 minutes of note-perfect comedy horror in Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby, her feature debut adapted from her dissertation short of the same name. It’s funny, horrifying, excruciating and so painfully, accurately Jewish. Isaac Feldberg calls it “cruelly hilarious about everything smothering and inevitably miserable about Jewish family gatherings”, but Seligman’s sharp eye for comedy, her affection for her teen hero Danielle (Rachel Sennott, a bona fide star) just figuring her career out and owning her sexuality (Molly Gordon playing Danielle’s overachieving ex-girlfriend Maya is a highlight) cuts straight to the core, however you relate. Matt Neglia points out how Shiva Baby “captures the behaviors of its characters with the same level of dry wit and detail as the Coen Brothers would”. What a thrill for a young, smart, Jewish, bisexual woman to be setting the pace now. Keep an eye on Seligman’s bright, bright future. —EK

Tove Directed by Zaida Bergroth, written by Eeva Putro. Released in Finland; on the festival circuit elsewhere. Seen at: TIFF.

If there was a film swoony enough to fill the Portrait of a Lady on Fire-sized hole in your heart this year, it’s Zaida Bergroth’s Tove, a bewitching biopic of Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, creator of the beloved Moomin cartoon characters. Set in Helsinki during and post-World War II, the film orbits around her boho world, flitting between her creative struggles as a painter and deep sexual awakening with married theater director Vivica Bandler (Krista Kosonen). As Lillian says, “Lesbians and Moomins is such a huge fucking mood I never wanted it to end.” Alma Pöysti shines effortlessly in the lead role. “The film happens on her fantastic face,” writes Hannu. Seth agrees: “a captivating first-class drama about a world-renowned talent in search of her own identity, love and freedom.” A cozy fall-season perfection. —AY

Shadow in the Cloud Co-written and directed by Roseanne Liang. Slated for a summer 2021 release. Seen at: TIFF, AFI Fest.

A proud addition to the “she did that!” canon, the single downside of Roseanne Liang’s genre-perfect, “deliciously fearless” Midnight Madness winner Shadow in the Cloud is that there was no Midnight Madness to experience it at—but thanks to a juicy sale out of TIFF, we can look forward to a premiere next summer. Chloë Grace Moretz is Maude Garrett, a WWII pilot assigned to transport a highly classified package over the Pacific. The all-male crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress banishes her to the lower ball turret, where they harass, gaslight and leer over her—and that is nowhere near the worst part of this bonkers, non-stop hell flight, which Moretz carries like the future action hero she must now become, if the movie goddesses are listening. —GG

Pieces of a Woman Directed by Kornél Mundruczó, written by Kata Wéber. Coming soon to Netflix. Seen at: TIFF, NYFF.

You will be hearing a lot about Vanessa Kirby in the months to come. Pieces of a Woman is an arresting, often taxing watch, but few actors have delivered a performance as utterly overwhelming as Kirby portraying Martha, a grieving mother processing the loss of her baby. The filmmaking team (Mundruczo and Weber share a “film by” credit) zoom in on deep, jagged pain, and tease out some of the most affecting moments put to screen this year. Jack calls the film “an intensely intimate depiction of mental and marital deterioration caused by tragedy” and nods to master Howard Shore’s “subtle yet potent” score. It’s poetry in motion, with stunning turns from Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn, Sarah Snook and Benny Safdie also. But proceed with caution: “this film will destroy you”, Alisha Tabilin warns. —EK

Underplayed Directed by Stacey Lee. On the festival circuit. Seen at: TIFF. (Also recommended in our music movies round-up.)

Women-in-the-workplace movies aren’t usually this banging. Stacey Lee’s documentary Underplayed focuses on one corner of the still wildly sexist music industry—the dance-music scene—and lays out both the facts and feelings regarding why women still, always, deserve better. A number of key names guide the story—Rezz, Alison Wonderland, Nervo, TokiMonsta—giving the viewer a taste of what we’re missing out on while booking the same old men, over and over. And it’s not just because of the stats or the injustices that this is a must-watch: in times of limited social interaction and when the feeling of an adrenaline-fuelled crowd feels like a foggy memory, Lee captures some truly electric moments of these women thriving, captivating thousands of music lovers at once. “Buy yourself good speakers and turn them up because this movie is fun and it deserves it,” writes Matt Brown, and he’s absolutely correct. Underplayed is essential and exciting. The most entertaining education of the year. —EK

Another Round Directed by Thomas Vinterburg, written by Vinterburg and Tobias Lindholm. Awaiting new UK date due to lockdown. In US cinemas soon. Seen at: TIFF, LFF.

Another Round reunites filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg with his muse Mads Mikkelsen, in a lads-on-tour buddy movie, except the lads are four middle-aged high-school teachers, and the tour features a very casual, very constant level of intoxication each man commits to in the name of a social experiment. What could possibly go wrong, you ask? Plenty, naturally—but Vinterberg marries the slapstick moments of bumbling drunks falling over themselves with more mature, poignant scenes that question just how far you can or should go to feel that little bit more alive. There’s a lot to love here, but if we’re being very precise, it’s “rock-solid proof that Mads Mikkelsen is one of our greatest actors,” says Karen Han. Come for the wise, contemplative study of youth and spontaneity, stay for rock-solid proof that Mads Mikkelsen is also, somehow, one of our greatest contemporary dancers. —EK

One Night in Miami Directed by Regina King, adapted by Kemp Powers from his own stage play. In select US theaters December 25, coming to Amazon Prime Video January 15, 2021. Seen at: TIFF, NYFF.

Ladies and gentleman, Regina King has arrived. The actor wastes nothing in her feature directorial debut, bringing to the screen Kemp Powers’ vivid stage play of the same name with a heavyweight cast of greats. Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge and Leslie Odom Jr. are Malcolm X, Cassius Clay (before he took the name Muhammad Ali), Jim Brown and Sam Cooke respectively, as the four men celebrate Clay’s victory over Sonny Liston in February 1964, during One Night in Miami. Rachel Wagner notes how “they all feel like friends and have chemistry, but each with a unique perspective”. This chemistry comes from King’s perfect alchemy of mood, design and structure; she lets her men speak, but her voice is never lost. “Queen King never wavers on her vision until every bit of flesh is torn off each man,” Ben notes, admiring a film that shines for all its famous faces, but stands the test of time for its rich, piercing empathy for every other one waiting in the shadows. —EK

Supernova Written and directed by Harry Macqueen. Awaiting UK and Ireland release due to lockdown; in select US theaters January 29, 2021. Seen at: BFI London Film Festival.

Colin Firth at his very best, Stanley Tucci losing his grip on himself, the luscious Lake District and endless cozy, delicious, warm knitwear. Supernova is every bit as beautiful as it sounds, but also packs a major punch when it comes to mapping a lifelong love story, and the cost of loyalty and pride when you’re fighting against pain nobody can control. As Sam and Tusker, devoted to one another for decades, come to terms with Tusker’s diagnosis of early on-set dementia, there is as much care and sadness as is to be expected, but it still feels brand new and cuts deep. Every good love story is its own. Director Harry Macqueen and his two shining stars understand this better than anyone. —EK

French Exit Directed by Azazel Jacobs, written by Patrick DeWitt. Scheduled for US release January 21, 2021. Seen at NYFF.

Armed with acerbic wit and sharpened claws, Michelle Pfeiffer delivers a vulnerable close-to-career-best performance in French Exit as a mother free-falling from wealth and reconciling with her son, an expertly cold Lucas Hedges. What appears to be formal and dry (“rich white-people stuff”, blegh) is actually wonderfully weird and surprisingly spiritual. There’s a divisive scene at the half-way point that instantly unroots the movie from any grounding we assumed it had established. In any other film, it would open up an entire world of possibilities, but French Exit decidedly treats it as matter-of-fact in order to focus on the emotional journey. It’s the decisive moment—you’re on its wavelength, or you’re overboard—and the rewards for staying aboard are plentiful. Patrick DeWitt’s adaptation of his own novel is in good hands with director Azazel Jacobs. —JM

Still Processing Directed by Sophy Romvari. On the festival circuit. Seen at: TIFF.

A final, honorable mention for Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing, the highest-rated short film out of TIFF, and an excavation of grief like no other. “You’ve got to watch this one twice,” writes Martyn. “First viewing to just weep every two to three minutes. Second viewing to really appreciate how great it is.”

4 notes · View notes

tsarisfanfiction · 4 years

Note

Please can I ask E, L, O and Z from the writer asks list.

Of course you can! I’m always up for answering things :D

E. Have you ever written a crossover?

Yup! I’ve written a handful of them actually, from my first and only bashing fic Vampire vs Shinobi (Twilight and Naruto - I have always hated Twilight) which ngl is only still up on my accounts because it’s something I’ve written and if I prune fics to only be the ones I’m currently proud of... many fics would not stay up very long. My second-biggest fic, both in terms of wordcount and popularity, it also a crossover. The Combat School was my twist on the super common 2012 trope “the exorcists from the manga D.Gray-Man take part in the Triwizard Tournament”, and was my first 100k word fic and I think still ranks highly if you look at Harry Potter/DGM crossovers on FFN by reviews/favourites/followers. I think at one point it was as high as 4th but I doubt it’s that high any more. Slightly sneaky is my TAG/Fight Rising crossover Stolen Shadows, because strictly speaking you could just call it a dragon!AU for TAG, but they’re based on the fandragons I’ve got for the Tracy boys+Thunderbirds on the site and FR does have its own category on AO3 and FFN.

I think those are my only published ones, but I do enjoy prodding at ‘what if these two ‘verses collided’ in my head so there are a few others floating around that’ll probably never be actually written, but they’re fun to play with.

L. What is your favourite fic idea that you don’t think you’ll ever write?

Oh boy, this one’s tough. I usually try to write everything I think is worth anything, but some of them are just huge, so whether or not they’ll happen is another matter entirely. Because I’m really bored I’ll talk about all the current ‘huge and too ambitious to probably ever finish’ ideas. If they do end up one day happening, ah well, you heard them here first :P

Love Makes Fools (One Piece) - A retelling of the Wano Arc (most likely to be scrapped because the daydreaming I call planning happened long before the arc started so none of it is anything like how Oda’s actually shown) that’s actually a shipping fic, unusually for me. Shachi saves Kid’s life and Kid falls in love with him, leaving Shachi to handle the Kid Pirates while the StrawHeart alliance are off doing their usual crazy shenanigans and winding Kaido up.

Fight Against the Tide (Boku no Hero Academia) - A retelling of the entire manga except it’s not Izuku that’s Quirkless, but Bakugo, and unlike Izuku, Bakugo is determined to make it on his own and turns down the offer of One for All (but still manipulates All Might into training him). Lots of Bakugo and Mei chaos as she gives him the support gear he needs to keep up without a Quirk.

If They Never Were (One Piece) - A retelling of the entirety of One Piece (ahahah) except if Luffy never met Shanks and therefore a) never wanted to be a pirate and b) never ate the Gomu Gomu no Mi. Follows Luffy’s adventures in the Marines, and explores what would have happened to the rest of the Straw Hats if they never met Luffy - or at least, never met pirate!Luffy. I actually have a cast of OCs ready to go for this but this project is so ludicrously big I doubt it’ll ever be finished.

TAGxPJO thing - The Greek Gods foresaw the creation of IR and agreed with it, but there was one problem: the Tracy family are all suited to the sky, but most of the Earth is covered in water. Cue Gordon Tracy, son of Lucille Tracy and... Poseidon! The Tracys all know about demigods and gods and stuff but still consider Gordon their full brother, and to keep the monsters away from the powerful young demigod they ended up on the island where Poseidon could protect them (and a promise from Zeus that he won’t blast Thunderbirds out of the sky for having a son of Poseidon in them). Chiron’s going crazy knowing there’s a demigod out there somewhere that he can’t find and train.

TAGxDCMK thing - Okay, so this one is probably my absolute favourite. Scott sees something on a rescue that the Black Org didn’t want him to, so he got APTX’d, and TB1 got stolen. Conan and Haibara take him in and hide him from the world (including his own family) and he joins the fight to take down the BO. Meanwhile, the Tracys are going crazy looking for Scott. In this AU no-one knows who IR really are, so Conan and co. don’t know Scott’s real name. However, the Tracys are still a rich family so they’ve rubbed shoulders with the Kudos before and Scott’s met Shinichi as a kid and realises who he is. At some point they end up going to Tracy Island? idk, not sure where it would go after that. And KID is involved because you can’t not involve KID.

O. Is there any fandom you’ve been into that you haven’t written fic for? Why not?

Many, usually because I’m just not inspired enough to actually write anything for them. If they’ve got a really complex canon, or something I just can’t get my head into, I tend to not write, either. Same with if there’s a character I can connect to enough. Examples include Homestuck, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures (although I do have a vague wip for a Steel Ball Run fic, actually) and Miraculous Ladybug, but I’m sure there’s more if I think harder.

Z. Post an excerpt from either your first fic or your most recent one.

Oh hell, why don’t we do both so I can cringe and cry and what I used to be like vs what I’m like now. Going with posted only (wips are a whole other kettle of fish).

First ever posted fic, from September 2009: Unwanted (Naruto). The opening:

There was not a sound to be heard. For once, there was no breeze caressing the emerald leaves in the forest surrounding Konoha. Not a single bird sang; nothing stirred. The bright blue sky didn't contain one cloud - the sunshine was unbroken.

A raven haired teenager stood in the heart of the wood, gazing emotionlessly at the Village Hidden in the Leaves with cold, black eyes.

"It's changed," he murmured quietly. There was a rustle behind him and his three companions appeared.

"So there's your hometown, Sasuke," the silver haired shinobi said, violet eyes inspecting the village. "It's pretty busy." He was right - they could just about make out the general hubbub of village life. The dark haired adolescent said nothing.

"What's wrong, Sasuke-kun?" the only kunoichi in the team asked, putting one hand on Sasuke's chest where his shirt was open, and the other embracing him. He shrugged her off coldly.

"Quit flirting with Sasuke you cow, Karin," the silver haired ninja told the red head.

"I'm not a cow, Suigetsu you...you..." she spluttered, unable to think of a bad enough insult.

"Shut up you two," the final member of the team said quietly, his fiery eyes glinting in the sunlight. Karin and Suigetsu quickly stopped bickering. With much trepidation, Sasuke started to walk towards the gate. He hadn't eaten for days - starving himself, pushing himself further. His vision blurred slightly, but he carried on walking. It wasn't long, however, before everything went black and he fainted.

Most recent fic, from July 2020: Grounded (Thunderbirds). The ending:

"Scott?" Virgil sounded worried, and he opened his eyes – when he had closed them? – to look up at his worried brother. Alan and Gordon hovered nearby, and he looked at them all in turn, even John's silent hologram – his ginger brother hadn't been there when the test had started, hadn't been expected after he pointed out their holotech's range didn't reach that far. "Are you okay?"

Was he okay? He had a broken rib, was recovering from a near-fatal spider bite and its side effects of dehydration, bradycardia and hypotension, and the man who had almost killed his brothers multiple times was standing the other end of the same balcony.

But they were one step, one significant step closer to Dad.

"Yeah," he said, staring out past them, at the platform cradling the most important engine International Rescue had ever created. For the first time since that horrid trash mine day five weeks earlier, he could honestly say, "I'm okay."

I’ll leave you guys to be the judge on whether or not I’ve improved at all. I’d like to think I have.

#ask #hedwigstalons #not fic #unwanted #grounded

3 notes · View notes

razieltwelve · 5 years

Text

Partners (RWBY AU Snippet)

Once upon a time, Yang had dreamed of being able to transform into a dragon. Reality, however, had shown that being able to turn into a dragon wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. A lot of the time, it was actually pretty horrible.

Whenever she went anywhere, she had to worry about would-be heroes trying to win fame by defeating her. Most of them got the message after a little bit of mangling and some singeing, but some of them had proven to be incredibly (some would say stupidly) stubborn.

Then there was all the shrieking and wailing that went on whenever she stopped at a village. It didn’t matter that she was perfectly happy to hand over some money for a cow or two to snack on. All villagers saw was a dragon, and the ones that didn’t run away screaming at the top of their lungs went after her with stakes and pitchforks. It was actually kind of sad. Stabbing her with a pitchfork wasn’t going to do anything except break the pitchfork, and most villagers needed their pitchforks to make a living or to drive off real villains like the occasional vampire or non-law-abiding werewolf.

And then there were the wizards who were obsessed with enslaving her and bending her to their will. She dealt with at least one of those a month although she had recently invited a dozen of them to do their worst. It had taken her about five minutes to incinerate the lot of them, so hopefully, she wouldn’t have to deal with anymore of that silliness for at least a year or so. It turned out that wizards were highly flammable and somewhat vulnerable to being clawed or bitten.

But as troublesome as turning into a dragon could be, it did have its perks. Normally, being caught in pouring rain would have been a fairly miserable experience, but dragons had nothing to worry about. Her fire kept her warm no matter how cold it was, and her scales were more than adequate for standing up to the rain. All she needed was a nice hill to rest against, and she’d be set. Flying in rain was fine, but being struck by lightning sucked. It wasn’t like the lightning could kill her, but falling out of the sky was not something she enjoyed.

Alas, being a dragon also meant she was bereft of company. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. A family of enterprising squirrels had decided to take shelter in the shadow she cast after a bolt of lightning had destroyed their tree. They would probably go look for a new tree once the weather died down, but they’d apparently realised that if she wasn’t going to eat them, then being near her was their best option since all of their predators had decided to give her a wide, wide birth. Sadly, though, squirrels did not make for good conversation partners.

Her musing were interrupted when the squirrels began to cast furtive looks around before scampering up her side and glaring in the direction of a bush. Yang’s eyes narrowed, and she reached out with her senses. Like most shape shifters, she could sense when another shape shifter was close. Interesting. Flame kindled in her jaws. If this newcomer was peaceful, she wouldn’t mind talking to them. But if they wanted to make trouble, there weren’t many things more dangerous than a giant, flying, fire-breathing reptile with impenetrable scales and claws and teeth that could tear through the walls of a castle.

Her concerns evaporated a moment later as the other shape shifter stepped into view… as a cute, cuddly black cat that looked absolutely miserable since it was completely and utterly drenched from the rain.

Yang gave a low rumble of greeting. One of the first things she’d learned as a dragon was how to project her thoughts and read the thoughts of others. It was an essential skill since dragons couldn’t really use language in the normal way and roaring at people had a tendency to terrify them, which was usually not helpful. She’d even given one poor fellow a heart attack while asking for directions.

The rain sucks, huh? Yang projected.

The black cat startled for a moment before stopping and staring. Evidently, the other shape shifter had been so intent on finding shelter that she’d somehow managed to miss the giant golden dragon draped over the hillside. Please, don’t eat me.

Yang gave the draconic equivalent of a laugh, and the squirrels made angry sounds as her shoulder shook with mirth. She wasn’t about to eat a fellow shape shifter for no reason, and it wasn’t like a cat would even suffice for a meal anyway. Given how big Yang was as a dragon, anything smaller than a cow was basically finger food. Don’t worry about it. Are you looking for shelter? Yang gestured with her wing. It was every bit as good as a proper roof given its size.

The cat eyed her warily for a moment before making a decision. Do you mind if I stick around? I can only change into a cat, and this weather...

It’s not exactly good for cats, is it? Yang nodded. Sure. Stick around. I could use someone to talk to.

The cat settled under Yang’s wing before moving over to lean against Yang’s side. Like most dragons, Yang radiated warmth. The squirrels gave the cat a suspicious look before settling back under Yang’s wing, albeit as far away from the cat as possible. Thanks. I’m Blake.

I’m Yang. So… why are you wandering around as a cat? A human form would be more convenient in this weather.

Blake huffed. I can’t change back. One of my… enemies did something to me, and now, I’m stuck as a cat.

Well, that sucks. Yang leaned over and peered at Blake. How long have you been stuck as a cat?

About a week. Blake shuddered. I’ve almost been eaten four times, and I just managed to escape the house of some crazy person who wouldn’t let me leave.

Yang scratched her own belly with one gigantic claw. You can stick with me if you want. I’m about to head home, and there’s a good chance someone in my family can help you. My uncle knows more about shape shifting than almost anyone.

Are you sure? Blake made a face. Aren’t you worried about me tricking you or something?

Blake, I’m a one-hundred-and-fifty-feet-long dragon. If you try to stab me in the back, I will laugh very loudly before setting you on fire and eating you.

Blake grimaced. When you put it that way… point taken. She paused. But how do I know I can trust you?

Blake, if I wanted to eat you, you’d be eaten. Like I said, I’m a dragon.

X X X

A few days later…

Ruby looked up from the cow she’d been in the middle of eating. A very pretty - but very angry - young woman with pale hair and blue eyes was pointing a crossbow at her.

“Unhand my cow, cretin!”

Ruby dropped the cow and opened her mouth to explain. What she wanted to say was: I am so sorry. I was really hungry, and I promise I will pay for the cow. Alas, as she was currently in her werewolf form, the only sound that came out was: “GRAAARGH!”

“So be it, vile fiend. I, Weiss Schnee, Scion of the House of Schnee shall defeat you.”

Since Ruby had no intention of being shot by a crossbow, she did the first thing she could think of. She slapped the crossbow out of Weiss’s hands. Again, she wanted to say something. In this case: Could you please not point your crossbow at me? Once again, however, she’d forgotten that she was still in her werewolf form. What came out of her mouth was: “RAAAAAARGH!”

Naturally, because Ruby’s luck had never been stellar, that was when Weiss’s sister arrived. Seeing a large werewolf knock the crossbow out of her sister’s hand before roaring, Winter came to the only logical conclusion. Clearly, the werewolf was a foul beast intent on devouring her sister alive.

“Begone, fiend!” Winter cried, levelling her own crossbow at Ruby as Weiss scrambled to draw her sword. “For you now face two daughters of the House of Schnee! Call upon whatever allies you wish, no evil can withstand our combined might!”

Ruby was seriously considering beating a tactical retreat - because as pretty as the two women were, they were heavily armed - when she caught sight of a most welcome shape in the sky.

“Distract it,” Winter ordered Weiss as she tried to move into Ruby’s blind spot. “This werewolf might be big, but we should be able to defeat it if we work…”

Winter fell silent as a massive shadow fell over the area. Weiss followed her gaze and gave a small, panicked squeak of horror as a huge golden dragon landed behind the werewolf. There was a black cat perched on one of its shoulders and a family of squirrels on the other.

Were you two pointing weapons at my little sister? The dragon growled. Because that would make me very mad.

It was at that point that Weiss did the only thing she could think of that might get them out of the situation alive. She lowered her sword and nudged the half-eaten cow toward the werewolf. “Please, forgive us for interrupting your meal. My sister and I will just be on our way and…”

Weiss and Winter’s attempt to retreat came to an abrupt end as the dragon’s long, serpentine tail flicked out to tear a gash in the earth behind them. How kind of you. But lunch is so much better with company. You’ll stay and talk, won’t you?

X X X

Author’s Notes

Dragons, werewolves, cats, squirrels, who knows what’ll happen next. Let me know if you’d like to see this snippet continue.

You can find me on fanfiction.net, AO3, and Amazon.

#rwby #fanfiction #yang xiao long #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #winter schnee

36 notes · View notes

shewhowantsmouseears · 5 years

Text

2 weblena fairy-tale au drabbles

TBH I don’t think they’re as good as the last one I wrote, but eh, least I tried.

Lena ignored the exhaustion in her body, with her drooping eyelids being the most difficult to ignore. Despite her body begging for sleep, she continued to flip through the book in an effort to find anything useful she could practice. If she ever wanted to get out from under Magica's thumb, she needed to become a better sorceress than her wicked aunt. Even now, all alone, she could hear Webby gently chiding – Bad spells will lead to bad ends! Just leave the work to me, I'll get you the destiny you deserve! - but after shaking her head, she managed to get the young fairy's voice away. Webby meant well, but Lena was going to find her own way to freedom. Somehow. Eventually.

That's when her eyes fell upon the “Heart's Desire” spell, and the wording of it was enough to interest her. She sat up straighter on her makeshift bed, following the letters with a finger.

Many of us have goals in mind, but they can be vague and obscure. I want to be rich. I want to marry. I want power. But what is that exact definition? With this illusion spell, you can find a solid goal to work towards by unlocking your subconscious desires.

Huh. That... wasn't a bad idea, all things considered. Lena wanted freedom, but when you put it that way, freedom to do what? What would she even do if she lived without Magica? It always seemed like a far-off, distant date so she never figured out the next step. Her eyes flew to the ingredients – along with stealing away any tomes Magica had instructed her to burn, Lena had also gotten away with snatching extra ingredients to several potions. This would work out perfectly, and it didn't take long. Leaves of a four leaf clover, milk from a cow that's given birth exactly three times, two pieces of silver, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, drop of blood... and then the combination would be lit like incense.

Fire spells were easy enough – one snap of her fingers and she could get a decent flame lit. As a small stream of smoke began to shudder forth, she waved it towards her nose, trying to get a good whiff in – and immediately regretted it. Yuck, that smelled worse than the royal stables! She resisted the urge to hack just as she heard her door open, and she froze up – oh, gods, if Magica caught her, she was going to be punished, she was going to be hurt, she was going to be sent to the shadow room -

“Hi Lena.” Webby stood in the doorway, her typically cheerful demeanor not as big or bright tonight.

Lena exhaled deeply, her body sagging. “Sheesh, Web, you almost gave me a heart attack.” She blew out the flame, not wanting the magic to irritate Webby's own fairy magics. “What are you doing here at this hour? If Magica catches you, she'll rip your wings off and place them above the mantle.”

“I know, I know.” Webby slowly closed the door behind her, and then began to fidget, unable to look Lena directly in the face. “It's just... there's... it couldn't wait.”

Frowning, Lena slid off her bed, placing the world's smelliest candle aside. “What is it? What, did Prince Charming turn out to be just a duke?” A lame attempt at humor, but sometimes it was all she had. Even her worst jokes could get Webby to crack a smile, so when Webby went silent, Lena knew it was serious. “Webby? … Everything okay?”

Finally Webby raised her eyes towards Lena's, and there was something in there that Lena couldn't quite name. A mix of confusion, sadness, hopefulness, and... and what? Webby swallowed, wringing her hands together, and when she spoke, her voice was softer than any flower petal. “Lena... will... will you kiss me?”

Lena had heard the expression about eyes bulging out of people's heads, and thought it was always a stupid exaggeration – until now, as she could literally feel her eyes expanding until they almost emptied the sockets. She didn't hear that. She couldn't have heard that. Her mouth formed to say something, didn't, tried again, still didn't, she raised a finger in the air, maybe she misheard! Yes! “Wuh... wuhhh... what?”

“I know it's selfish of me!” Webby suddenly cried out, grabbing both of Lena's hands with her own, eyes beginning to fill up with clear tears. “But... I don't want to let Prince Charming have you! I want you all to myself!”

Hang on hang on hang on - “I-it-when did-” Lena backed up, her entire face reddening.

“I just can't stand the thought of anyone else kissing you, or dancing with you, or being with you!” With every step Lena took back, Webby took one forward, her grip tightening, desperation growing.

“S-since when – Webby – wait a minute-WHOA!” Lena bumped into the side of her bed and fell onto her back, unceremoniously bringing Webby on top of her, who didn't seem to mind this turn of events.

“I love you, Lena!” Webby pleaded, her hands now pinning Lena down – when did she get so strong?! - torn between crying and begging. “I love you so, so, so sooo much!” Without waiting for any permission, she smashed her mouth into Lena's, and Lena felt her mind exploding. What was happening?! She needed a minute to think! Why couldn't she remember how to breathe anymore?! She wasn't even being allowed to recover from the – what was essentially a rather fantastic – initial kiss as Webby now began to cover Lena's face in tearful kisses, repeating over and over how much she loved Lena, Lena was so pretty, Lena was so perfect, I love you Lena, I love you Lena, so so so so so so much!

THUNK.

Lena blinked.

She was laying on the floor, all alone in her room, having fallen off the bed. Her eyes very slowly went to the spell candle that was still burning, and the pieces clicked together in her head.

Her body trembled with anger before finding the strength in her legs to get up, grab the spell book, and throw it across the room. “Think you're real funny, don't you!” she snapped.

Out in the hallway, Magica snapped back. “What's all that noise?”

“Nothing, Auntie.” Lena automatically replied, and went very still so that Magica would believe it. After several minutes of silence passed, Lena felt it was safe enough to go back to bed, and muffle her annoyed screams into her pillow.

~*~

The bad news is that they were being chased by a horde of angry unicorns. The good news was... um... let's see... Webby's mind faltered. She was usually great at finding the silver lining in any cloud, but this was a difficult situation. All she needed was a few hairs, and surely they could've spared that! But, well, Lena hadn't listened to Webby's instructions, thinking that a bunch of “prissy show-horses” couldn't do much harm, so why not take several hairs at once... but there was no point pinning the blame on anybody. It wasn't going to save them now.

“Can't you talk to them?!” Lena shouted as they ran through the forest, not daring to look bad at the army getting closer by the second. “I've seen you talk to all kinds of animals, tell them to back off!”

“Talking to them is one thing!” Webby tried to remind her friend as they scrambled past bushes and trees. “I can't make them listen!” She struggled to think back to her lessons back under Granny's watchful eyes. “Unicorns, unicorns... they fear the darkness and only come out during the day! They only respect creatures with higher magical energy than they have!”

Interesting information, but ultimately useless. Lena did know a spell that could create a giant wave of darkness, but she could only do it once per day – if she missed, they were dead. With they way they were running down, it'd be impossible to nail down the trajectory she needed.

Things only got worse when Webby tripped over a steep cut in the ground, and she squeaked as she hit the grass, her wand rolling away and fall off into a nearby riverbank. “My wand!” She shrieked, trying to get up. “I need it!”

“Leave it!” Lena commanded, trying to grab Webby's hand pull her up to her feet.

“I can't, it's my conduit! I need it to channel my magic into spells!”

“We can't stay here, we'll be mauled to death by 'my little pony'!” Lena could see them in the distance, hearing the hoofbeats echoing. Think, think, come on! There had to be something she learned in the things she stole from Magica, there had to be a payoff for those risks! Webby kept trying to reach for the riverbank, and Lena kept trying to pull her back. A higher magical energy... a higher magical energy...?

Suddenly, a memory flashed back into Lena's mind.

“It's not like regular mortals have no magic of their own.” Webby had said, hanging upside from a tree branch, as Lena was whittling a makeshift voo-doo doll. “The most powerful magic is fueled by emotions. The stronger you feel it, the more powerful the outcome.”

Lena was on and off paying attention, trying to carve Magica's likeness into what would be a failed project. “A-huh. So if you're saying I'm happy enough, I can totally trounce you?”

“Not exactly.” Webby swung back and forth, trying to think of a good example. “The most common display of mortal magical energy is True Love's Kiss.”

Lena stopped carving and glanced up, mostly out of disbelief. “You can't be serious.”

“I am always one-hundred-percent serious.” Webby had said, just in time for her recently created flower-crown to fall off her head. “It's powerful enough to break some of the strongest spells, even when done by an Enchantress! And if it's the first one, that ups the power by sooo much. It's like, a huge explosion of magic!”

“You're making this up.”

Webby looked offended. “I would never lie to you.”

This was true, and Lena winced, because she had certainly lied to Webby about several things. “Okay... I just wouldn't get your hopes up about seeing that in my lifetime. Not really into kissing, or true love, or any of that garbage.”

“Oh, you will be.” Webby easily enough was back into smiles and sunshine, swinging back and forth. “Once you fall in love, I bet your First True Love's Kiss is going to be one for the history books!”

… Lena spared a glance to the heavens, wondering if some deity was having a great laugh at her expense. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She grabbed both of Webby's arms to spin her around. “Webby! That thing about kissing – you said it's super powerful, fight?”

Webby blinked rapidly, having no idea where that came from. “What? I – well, yeah, true love's kiss is mega huge!”

“If you used me as a conduit instead of the wand, would that work?”

“I – I don't know, I've never heard of a person being a wand-”

The unicorns were getting closer, there was no more time for analysis! “I'll apologize later, okay!” Before Webby could ask what Lena intended to apologize about, Lena yanked her friend in close and pressed her lips as deeply as she could to Webby's. Having never kissed anyone before, Lena hoped that there was no magical rules or guidelines to make this count. All she could do was hope that lips to lips was it.

One second passed. Then two. On second three... Lena opened one eye, and had to admit Webby wasn't exaggerating. This sure looked like a magical explosion.

Webby's fairy wings, which were normally the size of her palm, had suddenly grown ten times their size, encompassing all the colors of the rainbow, with stain-glass framework of flowers and falling petals. They flapped once, coating the entire area around them in glitter and pink dust, and suddenly all the grass bowed down in reverence, newly planted roses sprang up with rich red colors, vines hugged the trees and even the nearby river was suddenly clear and beautiful. The clouds had parted and a brilliant beam of sunshine glowed down upon the two girls, and several birds in the branches began to sing the sweetest songs.

Webby, for her part, hadn't moved.

The unicorns stumbled upon this and whinnied loudly, not making any further advancements but still kicking up their feet. Seizing the moment, Lena pushed Webby behind her and held out her hands. “All right, you rejects from the glue factory, go home before I use your horns as toothpicks!” She slammed her hands together, muttering ancient tongues as black sludge began to spew from her palms. She then waved her hands apart, and the darkness rose high above, her, creating the beastly image of the darkest minds, and the unicorns cried out in fear before turning tail and running for their lives. Lena let the fake monster stay in the air for a moment longer in case there were any stragglers, and then let her arms drop – the monster faded, the nightmare was over.

Webby still hadn't moved.

“That was... way too close for comfort.” Lena sighed, running a hand through her hair, and she blinked at the glitter on her fingers when she pulled it back. “Huh... This stuff comes off, right? Not a huge fan of the sparkles.” When there was no reply, she turned around. “Webby?”

Webby, whose wings had just now shrunk back to their normal size, made a sound that could've been a “hee” before falling face-forward into the dirt. Lena wondered if she should've considered that reaction flattering. Now that their lives were no longer in peril, she could think about what she'd done, and she blushed. W-well. It's not like... she planned it, or anything. It just happened. But they definitely had to talk about it, didn't they? She hesitated, then walked to Webby and tried to roll her over.

“I am sorry,” she began, stopping when she saw Webby's deliriously stupid smile. The closest thing she'd ever seen to something like that was when Magica had downed six bottles of the good stuff from Ithaquack. “Webby? Can you hear me? Earth to Webby. You good?” She began flicking Webby's forehead.

“I'M GOOD!” Webby suddenly shouted, sitting up so quickly she almost bonked her forehead into Lena's. “I'M SO GOOD. I'M THE BEST AT BEING GOOD.” If she noticed all the extra flora and fauna around her, she didn't say so. Her mind was, unsurprisingly, on one thing. “That was... that was...” Words failed her, and she made futile gestures with her small hands.

Lena looked away, embarrassed, but she was also starting to smile. “Mmm. It was.” Maybe this wouldn't be as gut-wrenching as she first thought. People didn't make ridiculous faces like that if they hated a kiss, one could argue. She offered a hand to help Webby up. “Can you walk?”

“I can do many things.” Webby felt her intelligent hit a new low. “Including walking.” Once on her feet, she brushed down her skirt. Neither girl could quite look at the other's face just yet.

“We should get your wand.” Lena suggested.

“My wh... OH! Wand. Yes. Wand, I need the wand! Can't do spells without a wand!” With that, Webby raced to the riverbank to fetch it. She found it easily enough, and wiped off the mud with her sleeve. “There we go, no harm done.” Then, after a moment, she looked back at Lena with a new understanding. “You remembered my lesson!”

“I do pay attention sometimes.” Lena leaned against a tree, content to watch Webby. This was a step towards something, although Lena wasn't keen on giving it an exact definition. They could take it nice and slow, they were still young. Even better, they could finally put that whole “destiny” nonsense away, dead and done with. “So... this really says a lot, doesn't it?” She asked as she watched Webby climb back up.

“It says sooo much.” Webby agreed, flipping back onto the grass. “You have no idea how happy this makes me! This is so great!”

Lena's cool demeanor was, as usual, shattered before Webby's sheer adorableness. She felt her cheeks getting redder, and she turned her head away, trying to cover up her smile with her hand. “It... It really is, isn't it.” Her heart began to beat harder. Webby was so cute. So great. So, so so...

“Yeah! If that's what it's like to kiss me, Prince Charming is in for a real treat!”

… So amazingly DUMB.

Lena dropped her hand from her face. “What.”

Webby began to walk back to their original destination, twirling her wand here and there. “He won't know what hit him! Man, when you actually fall in love, that magic will be a real miracle to see! I kinda hope I'm there when it happens. All the other princes of the past are going to be super jealous.”

“You... you... you...” It was a good thing Webby had her back to Lena, so she could miss Lena strangling the air. “I... can't... BELIEVE YOU!”

Webby jumped – she'd rarely heard Lena yell like that before, and she whipped around. “Huh? … I'm serious, he'll like it!”

“I am going home!” Lena shouted, inches close to a full-blown snarl. “And I don't want to see you, or your wand, or anything magical, for a LONG TIME!” With one final stomp in the dirt, she began to march off, smacking away one of the sweetly-singing birdies.

“L-Lena!” Webby tried to trail after her, but Lena's march turned into a sprint, and she was gone. Webby scratched her head, puzzled as to what set Lena off this time. Maybe she could ask the boys, they tended to have solid advice every once in a while. She tapped her wand to her beak. What went wrong? Was this Lena just being stubborn about her destiny again? Why was so adamant about fighting it? She'd be so much happier if she went along with it!

If anything, this told Webby she had to get Lena to kiss one of the princes pronto. Because if someone had been kissed by Lena, and they didn't immediately fall in love with her, they'd have to be a blithering dunce.

#ducktales 2017 #fanfic #weblena #webby vanderquack #lena de spell

27 notes · View notes

imagine-darksiders · 6 years

Text

Guardian, pt 2.

Aaaaaat LAAAAAST! <3

Really hit bad writer’s block recently, but tried to push through it with this fic. Not sure how to feel about it though. :/

----

Despite the arduous day you'd had; what with being shrunk by an ancient author who had a thing for practical jokes, had the life frightened out of you and suffered the emotional trauma of almost being crushed by an angel with a real distaste for humans; Sleep is surprisingly hard to come by.

Azrael's intricately decorated bed chambers are dark, comfortably warm, quiet and there's a gentle smell of clean cotton wafting up from the silky pillow that Nathaniel had carefully placed you down on. Yet still you toss and turn, comfortable but restless, worried and anxious. With a soft moan, you shuffle over yet again, turning to face the arched doorway, standing at which is your gargantuan, golden-armoured companion.

If you squint, you can make out Nathaniel's silhouette shifting every so often, his head swivelling this way and that around the room. With every sweep, he stills when he's facing the pillow and you can feel rather than see the pale gaze that rests on you for a long moment before it moves away once again. He must know you're still awake, especially since one of the reasons you're struggling to sleep had all but exploded down in Azrael's study not too long ago.

You'd no idea when the horseman actually arrived but you certainly knew of his presence when the relative peace and quiet was interrupted by a deafening uproar of, “She's WHAT!?”

You sprang upright in bed with a timid gasp and stared fearfully at the doorway, fully expecting Death to come charging in at any second, a whirlwind of agitation. But Nathaniel took one look at your diminutive, trembling form down there on the pillow and, with a protective rumble, planted himself squarely in the entrance, barricading it with his enormous bulk and impressive wingspan. Sending the back of his head a conflicted smile, you settle back into the soft pillow and pull the snip of Azrael's cloth up to your chin.

From what you can hear, there's a very one-sided conversation going on between Death and the archangel, the latter of whom is completely inaudible, even to your sensitive hearing. Whereas the former is so loud, you can hear him grumbling and ranting from all the way up here.

And he does not sound happy.

A long bout of silence stretches into the night until, all of a sudden, there comes a loud thud from downstairs, sharp enough that Nathaniel visibly stiffens and reaches for his sword. Glancing over his shoulder, he sighs when you try to disguise a whimper as a cough and avert your gaze nervously.

Thunderous footsteps shudder the bed when he moves back into the room and stops beside you, where he slowly gets to one knee in an effort to be closer.

In the pale moonlight filtering through the door to the outer balcony, you can see the way Nathaniel’s eyes are etched with concern and shadowed heavily with distress. You swallow thickly, fighting the urge to slam your eyes shut in a vain attempt to dispel the inevitable wave of nausea at seeing such a huge mass suddenly loom into your entire field of view.

Noting your clenched jaw and how your hands are fiddling nervously with the light, silken bed sheet, the enormous angel slows his movements considerably, an effort that doesn’t go unnoticed. You smile appreciatively up at him, palms turning sweaty when his face lights up at the sight of it.

As though he were handling the finest china, he extends a finger to brush lightly down your bare arm.

It’s a gesture he hopes is comforting.

He’s seen Azrael use a similar technique on you whenever you’ve been upset in the past and with any luck, the familiarity will help to calm your nerves. In a gentle voice, he murmurs, “Will you be alright if I lend Azrael a hand in pacifying your horseman?” - and a part of you wants to laugh aloud that an angelic warrior of Nathaniel’s size and calibre is asking you for permission to leave.

Panic spikes in your chest at the thought of being alone like this but you hate the fact that Azrael is currently having to deal with the irate horseman - alone - even more. Still, despite the creeping feeling of dread whenever you consider that you’re going to have to face your nephilim friend sooner or later, you rationalise that, out of anyone present, you’ve probably got the best chance of calming him down.

After all, you’d been through a lot together.

Death had rescued you from your dying Earth, kept you alive at every turn. You’d even been to Hell and back together, literally. And then, when you thought you’d lost him forever, he came back to you. He could have just left you, alone and mourning, along with a newly restored humanity. But he had come back.

You’re hoping these facts would quell your newfound fear of the horseman, but although you trust him not to lay a finger on you, you’re still nervous.

Regardless, you refuse to let your other friends deal with your mistakes by themselves. So, with jittery nerves and a warbling voice, you timidly lower the soft bed-cloth from your chin and gulp, looking up into Nathaniel’s inquisitive eyes. “Do...do you want me to come?”

You’re ashamed of the relief that washes through you when he immediately shakes his head.

“No,” the angel responds, a little too sharply, “I don’t want him to-” Nathaniel hesitates, his mouth hanging open slightly as he searches your face.

You stare up at him expectantly, cocking your head to the side.“Don’t want him to what?”

“…Nothing. It’s nothing,” he eventually sighs, ruffling your hair in a warm breath. Tapping the pillow beside you, he fixes you with one of his commanding frowns. “Now, stay here. You’re not to move.”

You stretch your neck up to peer over his arm at the long drop from Azrael’s pillow to the marble floor. “Duh.”

With a smirk, Nathaniel pushes himself to stand and turns, lumbering over to the door. Giving you one last, uncertain glance over his shoulder, the giant angel hurries from the room, calling softly, “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay…” Your quiet reply falls pointlessly into the dark chamber and is lost amongst the miles and miles of silken bedsheets. Somehow, the abrupt lack of your mountain-sized friend manages to make you feel even smaller. His handsome grin doesn’t distract you from your diminutive stature and the heavy wings on his back no longer fill your ears with the pleasant sound of their rustling feathers. The shadows seem darker, longer and far more menacing. The one that appears on the balcony even seems to actually be moving. You fear that you may have been too hasty in your assumption that you’d be alright on your own for five minutes….

You blink, pressing yourself further into the pillow and your anxiety skyrockets as the dark shape on the floor begins to take on a proper, recognisable form.

Swaying gently on the balcony’s arch, the thin, blue drapes do little to hide the enormous silhouette from view. It approaches them and your breath hitches when a hand slowly reaches out to pull the flimsy fabric out of the way.

A tall, winged figure, framed by moonlight, steps softly into the room and turns this way and that in clear search of something. On the bed, you’ve fallen deathly still, unable to breath and utterly incapable of making a sound through the thick terror clogging up your throat.

“N -…Na- Nath!-” you whimper stutteringly, your breathing erratic and forced, especially as the stranger’s head snaps in your direction.

Pure, unadulterated horror chills you to the bone when the figure suddenly speaks in a voice like ice and hate that hisses softly through the bedchamber, flooding your body with chills and goosebumps.

That’s a voice you recognise.

“Hello again, little accident.”

-----

Azrael knows that you and Death are close. He knows of the bond you both share; the kind of bond that can only be forged through trials of fire, through surviving an impossible journey together and discovering that you've somehow become friends along the way.

But until the horseman arrived late that night and found out what happened to you, Azrael had no idea just how deep that bond ran.

“She's WHAT?!”

Death's outburst disturbs Dust from his perch upon his master's shoulder and sends him fluttering down onto the desk in the corner with a disgruntled squawk.

“Please, old friend,” the angel urges softly, motioning for Death to lower his voice, “She is well enough, in herself-”

“Well enough?” the other all but screeches, “According to you, she's no bigger than a rat!”

“Ah – Hmm, a mouse would be more accurate,” he corrects hesitantly, earning himself a heated glare, fierce enough to cow even the bravest of angels. But Azrael remains unfazed, instead drawing himself up and exhaling softly. “Horseman-”

Before he can get a word in edgeways, Death interrupts brusquely. “Where is she?”

The angel's eye twitches. “Hopefully she's managed to stay asleep.”

“Azrael-” Stepping forwards, Death growls impatiently “-Where. Is. Y/n?”

With another deep sigh, Azrael tries to placate the tempestuous horseman, although he can already tell he's fighting a losing battle. So, he strategically aims for Death's soft spot. “I will take you to her, gladly,” he promises, “just....not yet. You must understand, she's exhausted and needs to rest.”

Though the horseman's fiery glare does falter slightly, he shakes his hesitation off and snaps, “She can rest when I've seen for myself that she's alright.” Striding forward, he steps around the angel, heading for the door that leads to the rest of his lavish home. However, he doesn't get far before Azrael glides between him and the doorway, planting himself in a position that halts Death's approach completely. “If you must-” he says quickly as the horseman's eyes flash madly and his muscles tense and bulge, -then I can't stop you. Though there is something I must tell you first. I doubt Y/n will mention it and I'd rather you heard it from me..”

“What is it?”

Wings and brow drooping with worry, Azrael explains quietly. “Horseman, I'm afraid after her accident, Y/n was...attacked.”

Even though he fully expected some kind of violent reaction, he still flinches when Death's fist suddenly collides with the golden pillar beside the door, crunching the marble and causing cracks to spiderweb around his bandaged knuckle. The archangel hums, discontent as he glances at the ceiling. If you weren't awake before, you almost certainly would be now.

Slowly, eerily, Death pulls his hand back and inspects it for a moment, then gradually closes his long fingers into a tight fist, leather bindings creaking deafeningly in the silence. “I want. A name.”

Shaking his head, Azrael gives a regretful frown. “This is a Heavenly matter. Believe me, I am dealing with it. The only obstacle is that the culprit – blessedly - never managed to actually hurt Y/n and all we have is a biased witness in Nathaniel. The Council of Angels will want proof.”

“To Hell with your council,” the horseman snarls, “an angel threatened my charge, I would know his name!”

“Death, we are all eager for justice. Why, Nathaniel told me if Y/n hadn't been conscious or present, he'd have run her attacker through and been done with it.”

Death sneers behind his mask. “He should have. Y/n would've had no trouble watching them die.”

Knitting his slender eyebrows together, the angel gives him a stern frown. “That girl has seen enough death for a lifetime. You should know better than to dictate how much she should see.”

And Death can't quite respond to that.

So instead, he sighs and begins to ask if he can finally go and see you, but the sound of heavy, clanking armour approaching from the white staircase draws his attention.

Both turn to face the direction of the noise, only to find Nathaniel emerging from the candle-lit gloom of the hall. The broad-shouldered angel squeezes himself through the archway, forcing Azrael back into the main room.

“My Lord.” He bows his head, thumping a fist against his golden breastplate and addressing the taller angel. Though when he turns his steely gaze to Death, he appears troubled, eyeing the crater in the pillar. “Death.”

“Nathaniel.”

Swiftly, Azrael places a hand on the larger angel's forearm, asking in a hushed whisper, “Is everything alright?” His lips tug down worriedly. “Y/n...Is she -”

“She is fine.” The warrior claps the other angel reassuringly on the shoulder, at the same time shooting Death a frustrated huff. “She's trying to get some precious sleep.”

Fuming, the horseman glares between the two angels, attempting to keep his temper in check. Not for the first time, the rider is taken aback by his own behaviour. It's not as though he has any reason to worry about your safety anymore. Your journey with him had ended the moment he fell into the Well of Souls. So why hadn't he just left you alone to live out the rest of your days on Earth? Why didn't he stay away? If he weren't so cynical, he might admit what it really is. Friendship, plain and simple. After all, one doesn't go through the kind of things that you two have without growing closer as a result. He's come to learn to actually enjoy being around you. He becomes spiritless in your absence and apprehensive when you're in danger.

Death groans internally upon realising that this niggling feeling in his chest has only gotten worse now that he's learnt you're a mere three and a half inches tall. Wonderful.

A sharp hiss breaks the horseman from his musings and draws everyones' attention to the angry ball of ebony feathers perched on the desk. The crow is staring through the arch doorway, hopping up and down sporadically and flapping his wings in a frenzy as he continues to hiss and squawk like a bird possessed. In an instant, Death's head snaps towards the door as well and – like a missile - he hurtles through it, forcing Azrael and Nathaniel to fling themselves aside to avoid being bowled over.

“Horseman?” the angelic warrior blurts out, “what-”

“You left her alone!?” comes the outraged response. The two angels share a look of dawning dread before flying after Death, not bothering to waste time with stairs.

They both reach the top by the time he races through the bedchamber door and starts calling your name, a strained edge in his usually unflappable voice. A moment later, Nathaniel barrels into the room as well, heart in his throat. Azrael is close behind, his graceful features twisted into a picture of worry. Reflexively, the archangel sends a mental command into the room and light springs from seemingly nowhere, illuminating each dark corner in warm, white light.

Suddenly, the angels find themselves barred from further advancement by the horseman's sinewy arms which are flung out to each side, forcing them into an abrupt halt.

Nathaniel opens his mouth, more than ready to demand that Death move aside but a soft gasp from Azrael gives him pause and he instead squints into the dark bed chamber, following the archangel's mortified stare with a growing feeling of dread.

What he sees brings his blood to an instant boil.

Kushiel is skulked beside the bed, one hand levelling a deadly-sharp halberd at the three newcomers whereas the other is clenched into a tight fist and held out before him like an affronting taunt.

Sandwiched right inside the crushing grip, writhes a tiny, helpless human. Only your head and shoulders are visible, poking out the top of his hand.

Even across the room, Nathaniel's keen ears pick up on your rapid, wheezing breaths and the little grunts you make as you thrash weakly and desperately in a fruitless effort to dislodge yourself. Tiredly, your eyes flicker from Azrael, down to Death before finally roving up to meet the wide, blazing glare of Nathaniel.

The angel holding you increases the pressure after you manage to raggedly squeak out, “G...gu...guys?”

It's the sheer volume of fright and pain in your voice that kicks their instincts into overdrive.

From his newfound perch on the frame at the bottom of the bed, Dust caws and squawks agitatedly, digging his talons into the silver metal.

The chamber fills with static in response to a sudden surge of magical energy that emanates from Azrael's crackling fingertips and dances across his palms. Death drops his arms in favour of grabbing the scythes hanging from his belt, eyes flashing a bright, burning orange and the hate filled glare he's sending Kushiel is so laden with carnal desire, the sight of it makes you want to cower behind the angel's thumb.

Finally, there's Nathaniel.

In all the time you've known him, you've never seen the warrior scared. You've seen him worried, certainly. Anxious. Apprehensive. Even shaken. But never had there been a day that you looked at him and found fear.....Until now.

His eyes - always so unfaltering in their strength – lock you in a gaze and his breath catches. Terror? No – something more like torment spirals up from his stomach and into his throat, stealing the words back from the tip of his tongue. A desperate plea that you be let go dies when the crushing reality of this situation barrages his consciousness. 'If he kills her-' He struggles for breath. '- it'll be all. My. Fault.'

Silence stretches on for an eternity. None of your friends dare move, Kushiel's head is whipping to keep each of them in his sights, refusing to give them any sort of opening whilst you can only take deep, gulping breaths and try to push past the pain in your ribs, fighting to stay conscious for lack of oxygen.

After another beat of quiet, it's eventually Death who speaks. “Now, I've never been one for dramatics,” he says light-heartedly, pulling a snort from the almost blacked-out human, “but if you don't let her go, I promise you – there will be nowhere you could run that I wouldn't find you. There isn't a hole deep enough to hide you from my wrath. You touch one hair on that human's head, and I swear – by the time I'm done - you'll be begging me to throw you to Oblivion.”

You sob in distress when Kushiel moves his thumb on top of your head and presses down. Hard. Azrael gasps and Nathaniel cries out abruptly, “Stop that! You're hurting her!” while Death blinks, compulsively letting go of one scythe and stretching his sinuous hand out towards you.

Angry, cornered and mad with a fleeting pinch of power, the angel gives Death a twisted grin. “So, the rumours are true... The mighty reaper - Death himself - has gone soft!”

Choosing to ignore the attempt to bait him, Death mutters to Azrael, “Am I right in assuming that this is the angel who attacked Y/n before?”

The archangel nods slowly.

“Marvellous. Saves me hunting him down behind your back.”

His eyes never leaving yours, Azrael lifts his hands and spreads his fingers wide, a gesture meant to soothe your cornered captor.“Put the human down,” he softly urges, “and this goes no further....”

“This?” Kushiel hisses as he shakes his fist, jostling you around violently. “What this is....is sick!” “You should never have allowed this one to desecrate the White city!”

“Desecrate it!?” Nathaniel laughs harshly, “She helped save it!”

You begin to struggle again as Kushiel's grip tightens exponentially and he snarls, although he doesn't offer a retort because even he – deluded as he is – cannot deny that fact. Jamaerah the Scribe doesn't lie.

“What madness has claimed you?” Azrael shakes his head, “Humanity is not our enemy, why do this?”

Disturbingly, Kushiel's tongue darts out to lick his lips. “They are beneath us, Azrael. They do not deserve the privilege of walking among giants.”

“Because they are a younger species?” the archangel attempts to reason, "Kushiel, I have long since been taught that we are not so superior as we may want to believe. Trust me, this human is every bit our equal.”

“This one's presence is an insult to our kind. There are those of us who remember when we were worshipped by these miserable whelps, not comparable to them.”

Azrael, Death and Nathaniel all stiffen when Kushiel tosses you into the air before snatching you out of it again roughly with a smug laugh. A gasp of agony escapes you at the rough treatment and the hard press of his fingers against your fragile sides.

You're getting really tired of being thrown around like a rag doll and belittled by this guy. “You can punish me after she's dead,” he smirks, squeezing hard enough to make you shriek, “you can even kill me. But in the end, Heaven will thank me for this.”

“You're insane!” Nathaniel bellows, shifting clunkily on his feet, uncertain whether he should risk diving straight in or not.

Kusheil laughs, “No, Nathaniel. I am enlightened. And you will be too, starting with this one's death!” In an instant, you find yourself being held high above the triumphant angel’s head whilst he cackles madly.

So far, you have had a really terrible day.

But damned if you're going down without a fight.

“Alright! That's it!” you manage to hiss through gritted teeth, “I did not survive the end of the goddamn world – only to get crushed by some asshole angel with a major superiority complex!” Your volume increases with each word and at the very apex of your outcry, you lurch forwards and sink your teeth deep into the exposed flesh of Kushiel's thumb.

You suppose it was the shock of an unexpected assault rather than any real pain that caused him to screech and reflexively fling you away from him, across the room.

The effect is instantaneous. Letting out an almighty roar, the angel all but tosses you across the room....and in the blink of an eye, the room bursts into a flurry of motion.

Death – eyes trained on your swiftly falling body – dives forward with arms outstretched and at the same time, Nathaniel lunges around him towards Kushiel. Azrael, having anticipated that the horseman would prioritise catching you, sends a spear of thick, magical energy right at Kushiel's head. It hits the angel square in the face, snapping his head back and giving Nathaniel enough time to body-slam him into the far wall with both wings and nostrils flaring furiously.

The sensation of falling is just as horrifying as you imagined it would be. For a long while – too long – there is only the rushing air, gut-wrenching panic and a high pitched keening that you suddenly realise is emanating from your throat. And then, after what feels like an eternity spent in free-fall, you at last hit something solid and cold.

But it isn't the ground.

Whatever it is dips when you land on it, following the line of your descent so as to soften the impact. Despite the extra effort, you still end up with the wind knocked out of you.

Trembling from over-brimming adrenaline, you gradually start to become aware of several voices all booming above you, though your ears are ringing, your head is nauseatingly reeling and your ribs feel like they're on fire. Softly, you moan and crack your eyes open, blinking blearily down at your hands. A rush of relief has you shaking even more violently. You're alive! You touch a hand to your chest and gush out a breathless laugh, regretting the action almost instantly due to the pain in your ribs. High overhead, someone is urgently rasping your name.

Unfortunately, upon looking up, the relief in your chest is quickly snuffed out and replaced with a spike of apprehension.

Two bright, unwavering eyes that glow like twin pools of molten lava stare back at you.

Swallowing audibly, you drop your gaze to the pale, elongated fingers cupped beneath you as you wither under the reaper's heavy glare. You're embarrassed to find yourself wishing for Nathaniel's steady hands instead. The angelic warrior is at least predictable, often deliberate and he has always – always – been nothing but gentle and warm with you, even before you were struck with this shrinking hex. Death, however, is a little less calculable. He just....lacks Nathaniel's integrity and Azrael's kindly gentleness. You trust Death - you'd trust him with your life. But standing at barely four inches tall, it's hardly any wonder that your survival instincts perceive Death as a threat – because in truth – that's what he is, what he's always been.

And so, your breathing comes heavier and you work yourself into another small panic, too anxious to meet the horseman's eyes.

For a moment, Death just cradles your heaving body with cupped hands, staring down at you, content in the knowledge that you're alive.

A strained grunt breaks his unnerving calm. Slowly, he drags himself around to find the intruder held fast against the wall by the much larger Nathaniel.

Carefully transferring you to one hand, Death uses the other to draw his scythe and stalks dangerously across the room, lifting it high above his head as he reaches Kushiel, seconds from bringing the blade down between his yellow eyes.

“Horseman, stop!” Azrael's voice rings out, halting him in his tracks.

Through gritted teeth, Death tilts his head slightly, though his fierce stare never leaves your attacker. “What reason,” he seethes, “could you possibly have for defending this...this murderer?”

Calmly, as if he's trying to soothe a wild animal, the archangel approaches and meets your eyes from Death's hand. His eyebrows knit together and he pulls his lips into an apologetic grimace, replying, “Believe me horseman, I want this angel punished as much as you do -” He frowns at Death's skeptical snort. “ - but it is not our place to decide if he lives or dies. He will be put to trial, at the very least.” The angel's gaze turns soft and you feel as though he's speaking predominantly to you now. “He will not escape punishment.”

Nathaniel remains unusually quiet, his heavy chest pressing harder into Kushiel's and he bares his teeth close to his face.

“A trial!?” Death barks, “He should be executed. And how fitting that his executioner should already be here....” The hand holding you grows colder at his words. Or perhaps its just your imagination.

Before he can advance further though, Azrael speaks again. “Death, this is a time of peace. The first moment in a long, long time that we aren't all at each other's throats. If you – a rogue horseman – kill this angel without grounds, then I cannot protect you from the repercussions.”

“I don't need your protection, Azrael,” Death growls, “and neither does he deserve it! He tried to kill my -” Death pauses to glance down at you. There's something tender in his eyes that almost puts your mind at ease. “ - my friend,” he finishes quietly, sounding surprised at himself.

If you hadn't been shrunk by a mischievous, angelic author from the past, you'd say that was the most shocking thing to happen today. Although you knew the horseman considered you a friend, he'd never really admitted it...Not aloud and certainly not in front of witnesses.

You stare up at him - awed - if not still completely unnerved.

Kushiel coughs roughly, shoving against Nathaniel but merely getting crushed against the wall again by his impressive bulk. “Alas, I did not kill your pet human,” he spits, lips curled into an ugly snarl, “

He flinches when the warrior cracks his fist into the wall inches from his head. “Don't you dare insult her!”

Death raises his scythe again.

“This is not the way we do things here,” Azrael urges softly.

For a long, tense moment, the reaper stands there, poised for a kill and the room holds its breath.

Azrael hovers to his left, eyebrows furrowed in disapproval. Nathaniel has his forearm pressed up against Kushiel's throat as he moves slightly to the side to make room for the horseman's blow, the promise of murder in his pale eyes. The pinned angel – for the first time – is staring hard at the scythe, something in his expression that rather satisfyingly resembles fear.

And finally, the horseman moves his fervid gaze down to you, where you hang in his delicate grip. There's an uncomfortable pang in his chest when he sees that you're staring at him in much the same way as Kushiel is.With barely disguised horror.

Under that innocent gaze, Death falters. With a quiet sigh, he lets his eyes slip shut and at last, lowers his scythe. As soon as he does, everyone else lets out a deep breath.

Apparently, the diffusion of the immediate danger makes Kushiel keen to push his luck because he sneers down at you and manages to choke out around Nathaniel's arm, “This is not a victory, gnat! The council of angels has no love for humanity either. They will rule in my favour and the next time we meet, your guardians may not be around to protec- GACK!”

He's swiftly cut off by a gigantic fist that collides with the side of his skull and knocks him completely unconscious in a single, ferocious punch.

With a low moan, he slumps forward as Nathaniel takes his hand back, pressing a kiss to his knuckles and stepping aside, allowing the limp body to collapse to the ground in an undignified heap.

“Nathaniel,” Azrael scolds, though even he can't quite keep the amused lilt out of his voice. Huffing, the warrior merely rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, muttering hotly, “He had it coming.”

Now that the threat has been (somewhat) neutralised, Death returns his focus to you. He notes that your breathing is shallow and comes in quick, sputtering bursts and you have your arms wrapped loosely around your ribs, face scrunched up in obvious pain.

“Y/n?” A voice at his back has the horseman's eyes narrowing to savage, orange slits and he abruptly whirls about, rounding on Nathaniel. “You. Left. Her!” he seethes, long fingers caging over your head and trapping you between his palms.

Ignoring the nearly imperceptible pounding of little fists at his fingers, Death's head lowers and he hunches his shoulders predatorily, glowering at the shame-faced angel, who opens his mouth and tries to respond. However, nothing of any substance comes out following the realisation that he actually agrees with Death.

“...Yes,” he murmurs defeatedly, never taking his eyes off the horseman's clasped hands, “I did.” Despite his honest response, Death isn't finished. “What if she'd been killed?”

“Horseman,” Azrael calls, the only one not deaf to your quiet, wheezing pleas for release. Ignoring his warning, Death jerks his head to the archangel. “You said this will last no more than a few days?”

“I – well, yes. But Death, you -”

“Good. I'm taking her with me.”

The sound of both angels protesting drowns out your own gasp.

“Now, be reasonable-.”

“No! You can't!”

He appraises the both of them cooly, eyebrows raised. “I'm sorry, I hadn't realised you two had become the authority on this.”

Nathaniel's entire posture shifts from desperate to defensive in the blink of an eye. Wings flared and jaw set, he takes a heavy step towards Death. “Don't you take her from m-” He spares Azrael a side-long glance. “...from us.”

At last removing one of his hands and transferring you securely into a fist, the horseman stabs a long, slender finger up at the warrior's face. “Don't you presume to dictate what I can and cannot do,” he seethes dangerously, “I did not spend months trying to keep this human alive just to lose her to your neglectful incompetence.”

Nathaniel bristles but whatever retort he may have had is cut short by Azrael exclaiming, “Death, for Heaven's sake, loosen your grip!”

The two warring parties whip their heads down to look at you.

Tiny fingers scrabble weakly against the tough hide of Death's curled thumb. A little chest heaves in and out raggedly, incapable of making a full inhale and a pair of watery eyes stare into his imploringly.

And you're shivering fit to burst.

The cold of Death's hand does very little to help your body recover from the shock it's gone into after almost having been killed by Kushiel. Wincing disconcertedly, the horseman unfurls his fist and glides over to the bed, sliding you slowly from his palm onto the soft sheets. He kneels close, steeling his hollow heart against the way you drag yourself backwards to put some distance between yourself and that intimidating, enormous bone-mask.

Watching the display with sad eyes, Azrael turns to give Kushiel a distasteful glance before beckoning to Nathaniel. “I don't suppose you'd mind bringing him to the barracks? I shall accompany you - of course - and explain what... what occurred.” Nathaniel nods and stoops to grab the downed angel by his arms. Suddenly, a shrill voice cries out, “Wait!” startling him into roughly dropping the body.

All three of them swivel about to face you, staring expectantly.

Embarrassed, sore and ashamed of yourself for your onset cowardice, you twist your face away from Death, avoiding his gaze entirely. “Can...can Nathaniel stay instead?” You squeeze your eyes shut rigidly, whispering, “Please?”

The horseman blinks in rapid succession, an objection or even an outright refusal catches on the tip of his tongue as he stares at you, not hurt – per se – but he does look...lost. Or perhaps 'abandoned' would be more apropos.

“Of course,” the angel in question breathes, stepping around Kushiel to move beside the quiet horseman. He reaches out a bare hand and gently rests the tips of his fingers on your back to prop you up. You miss the huff of air that Death releases as he pushes himself to stand. Without a word, he stalks over to the unconscious angel and throws him unceremoniously over his shoulder like a clanking, metal sack of potatoes. Urgently, you feel the need to apologise, to explain yourself. But the words just sound hollow and empty in your mind. What on Earth could you say? 'Hey Death, sorry but I can't be around you right now because you're too capricious and I don't feel safe with you whilst I'm this small?'

It'd offend him greatly.

So instead, it's with a heavy heart that you watch your friend stroll past Azrael and out through the chamber door with Dust fluttering down onto his shoulder as he goes, not once even sparing you a glance.

‘Fair enough,’ you miserably think, blinking up at the teal-robed angel who seems to have drifted close to you without you really noticing, an elegant hand resting delicately over his heart. You notice his eyes sweeping over you with impressive speed and acuity - not so subtly assessing the damage.

When you squirm under the excessive study, pain lances up your sides and you’re unable to catch the undignified grunt that leaps up your throat. Azrael winces and extends a finger to touch it briefly against your shoulder. “I am sorry. I want to heal your pain.” One of Nathaniel's fingertips ghosts gently over your ribs. “But at your current size, I fear my magic's potency could do more harm than good.”

“It's alright,” you cough, your sides protesting the motion, “Nothing's broken...I think. Just bruised.”

Neither of them look comforted by that in the slightest. If anything, the archangel's eyebrows fall even further down his forehead.

“Look, I’ll be okay. I have Nathaniel with me...” you trail off and bite your lip, looking out through the arched doorway. As an after thought, you shyly ask, “D’you think he’ll be alright?” indicating after Death.

The archangel hums, disconcerted. Looking down at you, his lips tilt into a reassuring – if uncertain – smile. “Worry not, I’ll speak with him,” he pauses, then quietly adds, mostly to himself, “...

he's in the mood to listen..” Gracefully, he drifts after the horseman but not before stopping in the doorway to cast a sorrowful look over his shoulder.

“Hmm,” he grumbles, “I shall be back shortly. Nathaniel, if there's any trouble while I'm gone, find a healer – but don't leave her alone. Keep her still and rested. Above all, keep her safe.”

Despite the dulcet tone, there's an edge to his voice that unsettles your stomach. The warrior must have felt it too, because he inclines his head to stare at the hem of Azrael's long robes rather than meet his stern gaze. “Aye,” is all he utters.

And with that, Azrael folds his wings regally across his back and disappears through the door after Death.

In the dimly lit room, you heave a sigh that's equal parts relief and exhaustion.

Nathaniel keeps his head down, eyes fixed on the edge of the bed rather than you. Eventually, you give up trying to catch his gaze and settle on shifting your stance, trying to alleviate the throbbing in your torso. Pursing your lips, you tap a finger against the sheets, glancing at the monumental hand that rests too far for you to reach. The longer you go without saying something to him, the longer he has to try and blame himself. “It wasn’t your fault,” you call as casually as possible.

A heavy sigh is all that answers as it slips from between his full lips and washes over you, gentle as a warm breeze.

"Nobody could have known that Kushiel would-”

“I made a mistake-” the goliath suddenly forces out through gritted teeth. His hands curl into fists on the bed, pulling the pale scars taught across the surface of his skin. Finally, he drags his gaze up to meet yours. “-and it almost got you killed.” With a metallic clang, his shoulders slump and wings droop to the floor.

The sight might be adorable if it wasn’t so tragic.

With a grunt, you push through your discomfort to crawl over to one of Nathaniel’s hands and give one of the small, white scars a soft pat, smiling up at him. “Buuuut, I’m still here, aren’t I?”

The warrior scrutinises you for a moment before shaking his head. “But you almost weren’t....I am unfit to be your guardian,” he croaks.

This time, you smack your hand against his knuckle, although it’s hard, you’re sure he barely felt it. “Hey,” you call, “Look at me.”

Nathaniel’s hesitates but eventually turns his flinty gaze back to you, surprised to find that your eyebrows are pulled together insistently and a forgiving smile is lifting your cheeks. “Look at me. I’m fine - well. You know....mostly.” His expression wilts, urging you to continue. “You’re a good person, Nathaniel! And you always have the best intentions. You were just trying to help Azrael, you can’t blame yourself for things that are beyond your control.”

Subtly, he quirks a knowing brow at you. “Much like you shouldn’t blame yourself for the hex?”

You snort scornfully, crossing your arms. “Oh no, that was pure idiocy. I could’ve just not opened the book. You couldn’t help that Kushiel is a complete psychopath.”

He peers down at you for a while, his expression hard and unreadable. Then, just as you’re about to speak up, he reaches up to self-consciously rub at the scar beneath his eye and asks, “So....You would still trust me? Even though I wasn’t here to protect you when you needed me?”

Embarrassment flushes across your face and you have to dodge his sincere look. “Yeah! Course I do!” you mumble awkwardly, “You’re my friend! So...so I guess I.... -you know- I’ll always need you, or whatever..”

And despite the cold ache of guilt that gnaws at his resolve and the horseman’s words still ringing in his ears, Nathaniel blinks once, then slowly returns your smile. There isn’t a trace of blame in your eyes and you still want to be his friend. His self pity can wait until you’ve returned to your normal stature. For now, he’ll just have to be satisfied with making sure you’re comfortable.

Speaking of which -

“Hey, easy. Be careful,” he urges as you start getting to your feet, “Azrael said you need to-”

“Oh, Azrael's just being a worry-wort. I'm pretty sure no bones are broken and I'm perfectly capable of standing on my own.” Your shallow laughter rings delicately in his ears, pulling his brows into a deep frown.

“You're hurt,” he rumbles with a sigh, “You always seem to be getting hurt.” Regardless, he proceeds to lower his impressive head until his chin almost brushes against the silk. At the closeness and the hugeness, your heart starts to hammer once again, roughly jolting your sides with each beat. Shoving your apprehension (and sore ribs) aside, you step bravely up to the angel's face, peering dazedly into his endlessly emotive, milky-white eyes. Hesitantly and slower than a glacier, he tilts his chin down so that you can reach out to rest a minuscule hand on the bridge of his nose. He has to resist the urge to sigh contentedly. Every time you engage him in an tender act, no matter how small you are, he revels in it. Angels are not altogether openly affectionate creatures, even amongst one another. It felt as though they each have a quota for how much they could give in one day and they are all severely rationing it. Until you came along with your odd, Earth ways and your affinity for touching, he hadn’t realised just how starved for it he’d really been. Nathaniel squeezes his eyes shut with a grin.

“Thank you,” you smile earnestly, “for saving me.”

Blinking, the angel exhales softly through his nose and murmurs, “You saved yourself.” The pair of enormous lips graze against your clothes as he talks. “That was quick thinking, what you did. And it was extraordinarily brave. All I did was apprehend Kushiel..” He pulls his mouth up into a grimace at the memory of you sailing down towards the hard ground. "Death was the one who caught you though..And I must ask-” Here, he pulls away slightly, causing your hand to slide down his nose to stop on the tip. “Why did you choose to stay with me? Why not the horseman? I was under the assumption that you two were close friends?”

“We were!” you flinch back, dropping your hand, “I mean, we are! I..ugh - I don’t know!” The outburst sends pain shooting up your back, so - far more slowly and quietly - you take a step back from Nathaniel’s face to rub your temples. “I just...I just wanted you, okay?” Pausing, you stretch your lips into a thin line, looking to the doorway. “I just hope Death’s not too angry with me...”

“Come now,” the angel chuckles, “You’ve seen him angry, yes? That was not anger.”

“Well, disappointed then. I hate that I couldn’t even hide that I was scared of him.”

“I think it’s only natural,” Nathaniel shrugs his impressively wide shoulders, causing the bed to creak with the movement, “Your mind perceives a threat and fear is the response. And your instincts don’t lie; the horseman is dangerous.”

Frustrated, you lower your head, muttering, “Not to me, he’s not....and I know that.. So why don’t I feel like it?”

The angel opens his mouth to say something else but, out of tired desperation, you stretch up and quickly place your hand on the corner of his upper lip, causing him to fall silent. “Can...can we just drop it?” you murmur, ashamed to have admitted, aloud, that you’re afraid of your best friend. “Please?”

Nathaniel’s jaw snaps shut at your touch. He takes in how hard you’re trying to remain standing and how your eyes have become watery and unfocused, pointed at your own feet.

“....Alright,” he exhales softly, earning himself a grateful smile.

You blink when he stands again and reaches up and begins unfastening the clasps on his chest-plate and shoulder pauldrons. He pulls off each, heavy piece of armour with expert precision, even stooping to unclip the leather straps that keep his thigh-guards in place until at last, he stand before you, a veritable mountain of a man, in only a thin, white, sleeveless undershirt and a pair of loose-fitting, brown trousers. The sight would be impressive if you were at your regular height. As it is, you just about stop your jaw from dropping. Hundreds of feet of brown muscle tower above you, nearly every limb harbouring pale scars of varying length and depth. He raises a brow when he catches you staring and smiles warmly at the way you quickly jerk your head to the side and stare at the wall instead.

With that, he rests his hand on the bed, palm up and watches carefully as you crawl tentatively into the centre and sit down, sighing in contentment at the sensation of being utterly secure. Safe in the warm hold of your gigantic companion, you try to fight a losing battle against the lull of sleep, made even more difficult because the angel keeps using the fingertips on his other hand to rub small circles into your back through the thin shirt.

Nathaniel stands slowly, turning around and sinking down onto the bed. Briefly, he wonders if Azrael will mind him putting his boots on the bed sheets before giving a mental shrug and laying back against the pillows, keeping you steady in his hand until he releases you delicately onto his shirt. You never imagined you’d be sitting on your favourite angel’s chest, separated from his hot skin only by a thin piece of cloth, yet here you are.

The warrior studies your face for a while as he raises a hand and begins to rub tiny circles into your back with the very tips of his fingers. You realise too late that he’s trying to get you to nod off, obviously conscious of the stress today has put you through. Already you can feel the alluring spell of sleep tug at your eyelids. Using his forefinger, he guides you onto your stomach and hushes you when you try to push back against the heavy weight only to grunt at the pang in your ribs.

“Don’t fight me.” His rumbling voice vibrates in his chest and hums beneath your hands, followed by the booming, slow thumps of his heartbeat which lulls you further into lowering your head onto his shirt, too finished with the day to put up much of a protest.

Long after you’ve fallen asleep, Nathaniel’s smile remains etched across his face, happier than he’s been in a long time to be able to hold you so close.

He only hopes Azrael can smooth things over with Death and the Council of Angels quickly and relatively easily, for your sake. If Kushiel goes free, the angel may have no choice but to allow the horseman to take you away. .. . .

#darksiders #darksiders 2 #imagine darksiders #lazy writing #guardian #pt 2 #g/t #giant/tiny #micro/macro #angels #nathaniel

79 notes · View notes

poorguysheadisdoingwhatnow · 6 years

Text

Time For Heroes, part 2

Well, here it is. This one killed me to write, y’all, I am emotionally drained. Please enjoy.

(notes: one of the scenes is pretty much the Bottom Line Reprise scene, but there’s a twist at the end)

Jack dabbed paint onto the canvas perhaps a little harder than necessary, unintentionally smearing it. He swore under his breath and rubbed at the spot with his paintbrush, but that only made it worse. Shit. He would just have to wait until it dried and try again. Maybe if he-

“There he is, just like I said!” Les was about as quiet as a hammer hitting a metal wall; his voice echoed through the empty theatre and Jack groaned.

He turned toward the rafters, where Les, Katherine, and Crutchie stood. “What’s a fella gotta do to get away from you people?”

“Jack, you can’t just hide in here forever,” Crutchie called, and then Jack heard the telltale thumps of a crutch hitting the wooden stairs. A few moments later, Crutchie was standing beside him, his hand hovering hesitantly over Jack’s shoulder, as if afraid to touch him. “We need you.”

Jack sighed. “What good would I be, Crutch? I ran and you almost got arrested. Hell, the only reason you didn’t was ‘cause of Davey. And now he’s in the Refuge.”

“That’s not your fault,” Crutchie said. Now he let his hand rest on Jack’s shoulder and was glad when he didn’t pull away. “He knew what he was doin’. Davey’s more of a fighter than we give ‘im credit for. He’s gonna be okay.”

“But what if he isn’t?” Jack sat heavily on the crate that held his paints and put his head in his hands. “You didn’t see ‘im, Crutchie. I don’t know what the Spider did to ‘im, but...he couldn’t even come to the window.”

Jack heard a sniff, but when he looked up he saw that it wasn’t Crutchie. Katherine and Les had come down from the rafters at some point, and now Les was quietly crying into Katherine’s skirt. She patted his head comfortingly and glared at Jack.

“Is Davey gonna be okay?” Les whispered.

“Your brother’s a fighter,” Crutchie said with a sideways glance at Jack. “He’s strong. And yeah, they might’a busted ‘im up a little, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be okay.”

“Did you see ‘im, Jack?” Les asked, finally letting go of Katherine and turning towards the older newsie. “Was he hurt bad?”

“I…” Jack stood up and put his hands on Les’ shoulders. “I couldn’t get close enough to ‘im. But there’s another kid in there--looks kinda like you, actually--that goes by the name Sticks...he said Davey’s hurt, but he’s on the mend. Crutchie’s right.” Jack knelt down beside Les and wiped the tears from the kid’s face. “Davey’s a fighter.”

“Yeah.” Les’ face was still red from crying, but he smiled. “Did’ja know that one time, these older kids were pickin’ on me after school? And Davey told ‘em off! They gave ‘im a black eye, but then they didn’t bother me anymore.”

“See? He’s strong,” Katherine said. “And look, Jack, this is why we came.” She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a newspaper. “This is the last piece of strike news we managed to print before Pulitzer shut it all down, but it could be enough!”

“Yeah.” Crutchie was grinning. “And we heard back from Brooklyn. Spot says he’s in. So now all we gotta do is tell all the newsies in New York. Get ‘em excited. Get ‘em ready to strike. Maybe a speech or somethin’.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m no good at speech makin’, you know that. Davey’s the talker. How’re we gonna do it without ‘im?”

“I can write you a speech,” Katherine said. “We gather all the newsies...maybe here! Would Medda let us use the theatre?”

“I can ask.” Jack could feel a small smile on his face. “This could really work. We could win.”

Les tugged on Jack’s sleeve. “If we win, does that mean Davey’ll get out of the Refuge?”

“If we win,” Jack said, ruffling Les’ hair, “we’ll make sure that every last kid gets outta that rotten place, including your brother. Now,” he turned to Crutchie and Katherine. “You guys go spread the word. Take Les wit’ ya. I’ll talk to Medda. We hold the rally here. Tomorrow night. And if we’re lucky, we’ll have a real special guest speaker.” He grinned. “I just gotta go convince old man Pulitzer to show.”

---

When Jack walked into Pulitzer’s office that evening like he owned the place, he honestly didn’t know what to expect, especially considering he hadn’t even made it that far the first time. But now, a lady with red hair and glasses actually let him through the doors and led him up the stairs. He followed her through an ornate door and suddenly he was in the fanciest room he had ever seen. But Jack didn’t have time to marvel at the gold-plated grandfather clock that ticked in a corner, or the enormous windows that overlooked the city, because standing behind the desk was just the man he had come to see. Jack took a deep breath and stepped forward, plastering a grin on his face.

“Afternoon, boys!” Jack threw a mock salute in the direction of the other men in the room. They looked uncomfortable.

“And which Jack Kelly is this?” Pulitzer asked with a sneer. “The charismatic union organizer...or the petty thief and escaped convict?”

“Which gives us more in common?” Jack laughed to cover up his nervousness.

“Impudence is in bad taste when crawling for mercy.”

“Crawlin’?” Jack said. “That’s a laugh. I just stopped by with an invite. Seems a few hundred of your employees are rallyin’ to discuss recent disagreements. I thought it only fair to invite you to state your case straight to the fellas. So, what’d’ya say, Joe? Want I should save ya a spot on the bill?”

“You are as shameless and disrespectful a creature as I was told,” Pulitzer said. He glared at Jack. “Do you know what I was doing when I was your age, boy? I was fighting in a war.”

“Yeah? And how’d that turn out for ya?”

“It taught me a lesson that shaped my life. You don’t win a war on the battlefield. It’s the headline that crowns the victor.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when New York wakes up to front page photos of our rally.”

“Rally ‘till the cows come home!” Pulitzer was smiling now. “Not a paper in town will publish a word. And if it’s not in the papers, it never happened.”

Jack was getting angrier, but he tried to stay calm. “You may run this city, but there are some of us who can’t be bullied. Even some reporters.”

“Such as that young woman who made you yesterday’s news? Talented girl. And beautiful as well, don’t you think?”

Jack scoffed. What was Pulitzer getting at? “Yeah, I’ll tell ‘er you said so.”

“No need. She can hear for herself. Can’t you, darling?” Pulitzer gestured to a chair that sat next to his desk, and Jack could practically feel his blood boiling when Katherine stood up, tears in her eyes. “I trust you know my daughter, Katherine.”

Jack barely heard what Pulitzer said next; he was still too shocked. Sure, now that he thought about it, Katherine being Pulitzer’s daughter made a little sense. But if she was related to this money-grubbing scum, why would she care so much about the newsies’ plight? Was she doing it for her father? What did she have to gain?

“Jack, I-” Katherine started to protest, but Jack just cut her off with a glare.

Pulitzer chuckled. “Don’t trouble the boy with your problems, dearest. Mister Kelly has a plateful of his own.” He gestured to a darker corner of the office. “Wouldn’t you say so, Mister Snyder?”

And when the man who had tormented him for years, who had never given up hunting him, no matter how many times he managed to escape, stepped out of the shadows and into view, Jack thought he would pass out from fear. As it was, he turned and tried to run from the office, only to be stopped by the Delancey brothers, who held his arms iron-like grips. And Jack could do was try (and fail) to control his breathing as Snyder stepped closer, an evil grin on his face.

“Hello, Jack,” he said. Jack couldn’t speak past the lump forming in his throat.

“Does anyone else feel a noose tightening?” Pulitzer asked. He paused. “But allow me to offer an alternate scenario: you attend the rally and speak against this hopeless strike, and I’ll see your criminal record expunged and your pockets filled with enough cash to carry you, in a first-class train compartment, from New York to New Mexico and beyond.” He turned to Katherine, who just shook her head. “You did say he wanted to travel west, didn’t you?”

“There ain’t a person in this room who don’t know you stink.” And as he forced the words out, Jack glanced around the office, and he noticed that not only was Katherine close to crying, but the redheaded lady who had met him at the front door was frowning deeply. She looked like she wanted to say something, but stared at the floor instead.

“And if they know me, they know I don’t care,” Pulitzer said in a disinterested tone. “Mark my words, boy. Defy me, and I will have you and every one of your friends locked up in the Refuge. Besides,” he looked at Snyder, “isn’t there already one in there? Davey, isn’t it? Smart child, from what I’ve heard. But I’ve also heard that he isn’t doing too well at the moment.” He turned back to Jack. “Do you really want your arrogance and disobedience to be the reason your friend doesn’t make it out of there alive?”

Jack opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Pulitzer just cut him off. He wasn’t interested in what Jack had to say because he knew he had already won. “Gentlemen,” Pulitzer gestured to the Delanceys, “escort our guest to the cellar so he might reflect in solitude.”

The two brothers nodded, and despite Jack struggling for all it was worth, he couldn’t break free. They muscled him down a set of stairs into a dark, dusty cellar. There were boxes and other things scattered around the dirty space, but the most incredible was the massive, old printing press that sat in the middle. Morris threw Jack against it and laughed when he gasped in pain.

“We been given discretion to handle you as we see fit,” the Delancey snarled. “So behave.”

“Oh, but just in case,” Oscar said. He pulled some metal from his pocket and slipped it onto his hand. “I’ve been polishin’ my favorite brass knuckles.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re real scary, Oscar,” Jack said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He knew he probably shouldn’t be antagonizing them, but he couldn’t help it. “You and Morris practice your lines together? Make sure they’re coordinated?”

Morris shoved him against the printing press again, and Jack just managed to stifle his gasp when the sharp edges dug into his side. “Shut it, Kelly.”

“What? I’m just sayin’ that maybe you should get some new material.”

And then Jack found out that as tough as he was, he couldn’t hold his own forever against two angry brothers with brass knuckles on their hands and murder on their minds. Fuck, this was going to hurt.

---

Jack guessed Pulitzer probably hadn’t counted on the fact that the small window in the cellar was just big enough for a teenage boy to squeeze through if he didn’t eat daily and his job involved walking miles around the city every day. Once the Delanceys had finally left him alone, Jack had managed to stay awake long enough to take note of the window. Then he had passed out.

When he came to, his head was pounding and his ribs ached, but he slowly stood. There was no time to waste. With more than a few grunts of pain and quiet curses, Jack got the window open and slid through it, ignoring the pressure it put on his chest. Then he was moving as fast as he could toward the lodging house.

“Specs!” He called, barreling through the front door. The other newsie hurried down the stairs from the bunkroom and stopped in his tracks when he saw Jack.

“Where did’ja go?” Specs asked. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks. Specs, I need your help. I need everyone’s help. We gotta call off the rally.”

“What?” Specs’ confusion was clear. “But Jack-”

“No.” Jack cut him off. “It’s Pulitzer. He threatened everyone. Me, Davey, all of us. He’s plannin’ on gettin’ everyone arrested at the rally. We gotta call it off.”

“Shit.” Specs nodded. “Okay. I’ll send everyone out. We’ll make sure no one shows up. But, Jack...what should we tell ‘em?”

“...the truth. That way...they’ll know we’re not backin’ down. But we can’t risk anyone else gettin’ taken away.”

“Alright. What about Davey?” Specs asked. “You said Pulitzer threatened him, too? What’s gonna happen?”

“I’m gonna...I’m gonna get ‘im out.” Jack sighed. “I gotta get ‘im out.”

“Let me tell everybody what’s goin’ on, and I’ll come with you,” Specs said. “We’ll get ‘im out together.”

Jack just nodded.

A little under an hour later, Jack and Specs (with Race and Blink close behind) were heading for the Refuge. As the four of them approached the grounds, Jack could feel his heart sink.

“Fuck,” Blink whispered, echoing what they were probably all thinking. “There are so many bulls.”

It looked like Snyder had upgraded his security. Cops roamed all around the Refuge. It would be impossible to get to the window without being seen. Specs put a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“We can’t help ‘im, Jackie,” he said. “Not without them takin’ us all.”

“But-”

“Jack, please.” That was Race. “We can’t get ‘im now, but if we follow through? We’ll get ‘im out soon.”

“Besides,” Blink said. “Would the Spider wanna give up his leverage so quickly?”

“Yeah…” Jack tried to mentally reassure himself. “Alright, we’ll head back to the lodgin’ house. He’ll...Davey’ll be fine.”

God, he hoped they were right.

---

When they got back to the lodging house, the last person Jack expected to be standing in the main room was Katherine.

“Hiya, Kath,” Race said, giving her a small wave. “Whatcha doin’ here?”

“I need to, um...I need to talk to Jack,” she said.

“I don’t wanna talk to you,” Jack said. He ignored the confused looks his friends were giving him.

“Jack, please.” Her voice was quiet, pleading. “Everything that’s happened...I promise I can explain.”

“Hey, uh…” Specs corralled Race and Blink toward the stairs. “Let’s give them some privacy.”

Then the three were gone, and Jack and Katherine were alone.

“You got five minutes,” Jack said. “Startin’ with why you didn’t tell us Pulitzer was your father.”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“What? You didn’t think it was important to tell us that you’re related to the guy who’s tryin’ to put us all outta work?”

“I don’t let who my family is define me!” Katherine’s voice wavered. “It wasn’t important because I’ve made this career without my father’s help. I don’t work for him because I don’t want that shadow hanging over me my entire life.”

“Why did you decide to cover a story that defied your father? How was that gonna help you?”

“Haven’t you been listening, Jack?” Katherine asked. She sniffed, but now her voice was stronger, firmer. “I want to help all of you, I really do. I want all the people like us--the kids who have to work hard to have a voice--to be heard by people who would never listen otherwise. I want things to change. I want things to get better.”

“I…” Jack was at a loss for words, and frankly, he felt stupid. In his anger, he had never considered any of this. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Katherine said. “I’m sorry any of this happened.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“We can still win. We just...need to figure out how.”

“Well, we can’t have a rally,” Jack said. “The bulls’ll arrest all the second we go public.”

“What if there was another way to spread the word?” Katherine looked thoughtful. “I have that speech I wrote for you for the rally. If we could find some way to print it, then maybe…”

“We could send it out to everyone!” Jack finished. “I know a printin’ press we could use that your father would never expect. And then we might win this thing and get Davey out.”

“The only problem is...winning the strike won’t get anyone out of the Refuge, will it?” Katherine asked. “We need a way to prove that that place is awful. Evil. That no one should ever be sent there again.”

Jack thought of the rooftop, of the countless nights he had spent drawing by moonlight when the nightmares kept him awake. “I think I have just the thing.”

---

If it wasn’t for Sticks, Jamie, and Dodger, Davey was sure he would have lost all his sanity in the Refuge the moment he arrived. Snyder hadn’t come for him again since that first night, something Davey was grateful for, but it also filled him with such apprehension that he could barely stand it. Was Snyder planning something? Had something happened to the other newsies? How was the strike going? There was no way to know, and that was what worried Davey so much.

He couldn’t do much on a broken ankle, but he didn’t let that stop him, no matter how much Jamie protested.

“If you don’t keep off of it, it might not be the same again,” he said every time Davey tried to stand up. “Did that knock to the head make you stupid?”

Davey just waved him off. He hated to admit it, but every time he lay down in the bunk, he felt useless. If he couldn’t walk, how was he supposed to help the others once he got out of this hellhole?

Now Jamie just grumbled every time Davey asked Sticks to help him up, and Dodger rolled his eyes every time Jamie grumbled. The two of them had some sort of unspoken language made up of looks, eyerolls, and completely random hand gestures, and Jamie most often employed it when he thought Davey was doing something stupid and Dodger had to calm him down.

Sticks, however, was more than happy to help Davey, because then he could ask for more stories while they were slowly pacing back and forth across the room together. Davey didn’t have a lot of stories about the newsies, considering he had only known them a few days, but Sticks didn’t seem to mind.

“Tell me more about Les,” he said one evening. They were sitting on the bed with Jamie and Dodger. Davey’s foot was propped up on the one pillow, at Jamie’s insistence. “He sounds real fun. I hope I get to meet him someday.”

“Yeah.” Davey leaned forward and ruffled Sticks’ hair. “I hope so, too. There was this one time…”

As Davey told the story, one involving Les’ less-than-successful attempt to hide a frog he had found at the docks from their parents a few months back, he noticed that Jamie and Dodger leaned forward to listen, which made him smile. He was glad that, even in the Refuge, they could find something to smile about.

“So then my mom found the box under our bed-” Davey cut off when the door suddenly opened. He heard Sticks’ quiet whimper at the sight of the Spider standing in the doorway, scanning the room with an evil glint in his eye. He finally settled on their bunk and smiled.

“Guards,” he said, and two goons appeared from where they had apparently been standing out in the hallway. “It’s time for some...rehabilitation. Get that one, there.” He pointed to Sticks, and Davey felt his blood run cold.

Sticks pushed himself into Davey’s side, but it did nothing. One of the guards grabbed him by his skinny arm and pulled him away from the bunk. Davey couldn’t help it; he stood up shakily, holding onto the bed for support.

“Davey, no,” Jamie whispered, but Davey wasn’t listening. He could only focus on Sticks, the kid who looked so much like his little brother. The kid who had tears streaming down his face and panic in his eyes as he struggled against the grip of a man who did his heinous job unfeelingly.

“Stop,” Davey said. “Don’t take him.”

“And what, pray tell, are you going to do about it?” Snyder asked. He approached Sticks and grabbed him by the hair. Sticks cried out, and all Davey knew was that he had to protect him.

He didn’t get farther than a few steps before the other guard shoved him to the floor. Stepped on his broken ankle. Davey screamed.

“Davey!” Sticks cried. He struggled harder, but the man holding him was so much stronger.

There were black spots in Davey’s vision, but he still tried to get to Sticks. He had to protect him. He had to-

The guard pulled a knife from nowhere and stabbed Davey in the gut.

Davey could hear cursing. It sounded kind of like Jamie, but his voice was far away. Davey’s vision was fading fast, but so was the pain from his side. Actually, all his pain was almost gone, already only a dull ache. That was strange. Someone knelt next to him. They were crying. A small hand grabbed his own. Oh, it was Sticks. Davey was glad he was there. Shit he was tired.

The last thing Davey heard before he closed his eyes was Snyder’s laughter.

“You have your friend Jack Kelly to thank for this, little rat,” Snyder said. But Davey was too exhausted to even wonder what that meant.

He closed his eyes.

---

They had really done it. Jack could barely believe it, and he knew that everyone else was still in shock. They had won the strike, and now the working kids of New York City finally had a voice. Jack looked across the square to where Katherine stood with Medda and Teddy Roosevelt himself, and he couldn’t recall ever feeling so full of hope. The fliers had been a success. “The Children’s Crusade”, Katherine had called the speech. Jack had paired with it one of his sketches of the Refuge, and they had spent all night using the printing press in Pulitzer’s cellar. The newsies had distributed the fliers the next morning.

And now, here they all were. Victorious.

Roosevelt proclaimed his decision to close down the Refuge, and Jack could barely contain his joy. He swept Katherine into a hug, and then he felt another impact to his side. He looked down, and Les was grinning up at him.

“This means we’re gonna see Davey again,” Les said with a happy squeak.

“Yeah, kid,” Jack said. “We are.”

The doors of the Refuge were just opening when they all arrived, and the crowd of newsies and other onlookers watched as a pair of policemen escorted Snyder down the steps and into a waiting cart. Everyone cheered.

Then, kids started streaming out of the place. Jack saw so many he remembered from his last stay. Some greeted him, some just nodded. A few younger ones ran right up and hugged him. This was a good day. A day of freedom and happiness, the first in a long while.

Soon, the stream of kids petered out. Jack could hear worried murmurs from his friends. He knew they were all wondering the same thing. Where was Davey?

Three kids, two older than the third, appeared in the entrance of the Refuge and walked slowly down the stairs. Jack recognized the youngest from his last visit. The kid who met him at the window with an enthusiastic grin and a message. The kid who looked just a little like Les.

“Sticks?” Jack made his way to the base of the steps, where the trio had stopped. Sticks looked up at him, and Jack noticed that his eyes were puffy. Actually, all three of them looked like they had been crying, though the two older kids hid it well. “What’s wrong? Where’s Davey?”

Sticks said nothing, only started sobbing and threw himself at Jack. The two older kids glanced at each other.

“Davey…” One of them said with a slight British accent. “Davey isn’t coming out.”

“What do you mean?” Jack heard Les ask. The kid had approached the group at some point with Katherine in tow. “Where’s my brother?”

The British kid just shook his head and looked at Jack for help, and suddenly the realization hit Jack like a train. He had been wrong. He couldn’t get Davey out.

“Jack,” Les said. “I want Davey. Where’s Davey?”

He couldn’t save Davey.

“Where’s my brother?”

Davey wasn’t getting out of the Refuge.

Tag list under the cut:

@disney-princess-sized

@crazymecjc

@whovininja567

@rhodochrositelesbian

@thewebernutter

@p00rguysheadisspinning

@soldmysoultofandomshelp

@scollace

@losers-yurio

@purplelittlepup

@marcellerambles

#newsies #david jacobs #jack kelly #katherine plumber #les jacobs #sticks newsies #oc #specs newsies #kid blink #racetrack higgins #tw death #angst #so much angst

51 notes · View notes

codylabs · 6 years

Text

Chapter 14: Cabin in the Woods

Links: P 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

The hot midday sun beat down on two teenagers, who were working hard with their wire cutters and improvised prybars to clear off the top of the buried flying saucer. They’d set aside most of their armor by this point, just so that the heat wouldn’t kill them. They figured that since they were near the center of the clearing, nothing could sneak up on them very easily. And just in case, their weapons never left their sides.

Inch after inch of the small vehicle was revealed below them. Even past the barnacle-like moss and the dirt and the mud, they could see its hull remained smooth and seamless. Evidently, in all the thousands of years it had been sitting here, the drilling roots of the metal plants hadn’t been able to breach it.

“Say…” Wendy stood up with an exhausted sound, and scratched her armpit. “You don’t suppose this thing is still, like, working?”

“I don’t know.” Dipper set down the wire cutters, and put his hands on his hips. He looked down at the machine below his feet. “I doubt it.”

“That’d be cool though.”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” Wendy considered the ship. It was about 60 feet in diameter, a bit bigger than a fighter jet, maybe the size of 6 RVs all parked side-by-side. Small enough to fly around. Small enough to take off and land on runways, in parking lots, sports fields… You could actually use it to get around. Wendy got an idea. “Dibs.” She said.

“Huh?” Dipper looked up at her.

“Dibs.” She repeated. “I just dibsed it. Now nobody else can take it from us. Now it’s ours. International maritime law.”

“You can’t dibs a spaceship.”

“Just did.”

“Maritime law doesn’t apply to spaceships.”

“Dibs. See? I’ll do it again. Dibs. It’s official now. Don’t worry, I dibsed it for both of us. We can share it.”

“Well… Huh?” He looked down at it. “What would we do with it?”

“Well… What do you want to do? We could abduct farmer Sprock’s mutant cows and put them on his roof… We could take it to the Woodstick festival… We could take it to football games… Everybody would freak out and it’d be hilarious… You can use it pick up chicks, I can use it to terrorize Thompson or Poolcheck or Stanley or whoever…”

“Pick… Pick up chicks…?”

“Or we could take it to the drive-in movie theater… Or we could use it to take vacations to… Like, the beach or something. Or… Or to Alaska if the beach is boring… Ooh! Or we could fly it real low over Washington D.C. or North Korea, and see if we can outrun all the missiles they shoot at us…!”

“UH!”

“Yeah, the last one was a joke. Kinda. But… I don’t know. If we could get this thing running again… Man, we’d be the kings of this place! Come on, man. You gotta admit, it’d be cool to have a spaceship just lying around.”

Dipper blinked. Wait a minute. He thought. That actually does sound fun. “You know what? Sure!” He laughed nervously. “I… Yeah, sure! I guess…Yeah! That would be… Well, we would have to be careful and everything, but…”

“But yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!” Wendy turned back to her tools, and began prying more plants up off the ship’s hull. “Now if we could just get inside the stupid thing…”

“Yeah…” Dipper bent down toward his own shadow, and began to work again. He felt the sun burning the back of his neck, but all over his body he felt the progressing aches of weariness. In his scrawny arms, the tools were starting to seem dull and ineffective. He began to move slower.

Wendy noticed his exhaustion. “Hey, didn’t Ford call you a while back?” She asked. “You should call him back and check in.”

“Uh…” Dipper stood up hesitantly. “Well, we still have to do this…”

“Oh, leave this to the lumberjack, bro.” Wendy took the wire cutters out of his hands. “Go talk to Ford. Tell him we found a UFO fixer-upper… And also that we dibsed it. It’s very important that we dibsed it.”

“…All right.” Dipper fished his phone out of his pocket. As it booted up, he walked over to the shade of a nearby tree, and wiped the sweat from his hair.

With all his might, Robbie gave the fully-loaded backpack one final heave into the back of his van. The rear suspension bounced just slightly. Now that the burden had been lifted from his shoulders, he sagged over with his hands on his knees, and took a deep, profanity-laden breath.

“Wow, funny words!” Mabel half-ignored him, and skipped over to the passenger-side door with her pig. “All right Waddles, you have to go in the back seat. No, don’t worry, it isn’t that long of a drive. You’ll be fine!”

As Robbie climbed in the driver-side door, he thumbed over to ‘maps’ on his phone. But with cell service so patchy out here, it took a long time getting an image. And even when it did, it just showed them as a blip in the middle of the forest. The logging roads weren’t on the maps. “Well darn.” Robbie growled at the phone.

“Well… There’s only one road…” Mabel shrugged toward their surroundings. “You don’t need a map if there’s only one road…”

“Yeah, well… Well… Yeah.” Robbie started the van, and attempted to turn around in the narrow area.

Suddenly, something jarred into place in Mabel’s own memory. “Oh darn-poopy-darn!” She slapped herself. “I forgot to turn on my phone…”

She’d killed it this morning because she heard that the robot predators could track electrical signals. Now, as the screen blinked to life, she was rapidly flooded with everything she’d missed: text message after text message pouring in from Ford, Stan, Grenda, Candy, and even one from Dipper, asking where she was, what she’d been doing all day, and with whom.

Oh dear… She probably should have made up something this morning before she stowed away. She felt a little bad about worrying them, so she should check in now… Who to call first? How about Dipper.

He picked up on the second ring. “Mabel?” His voice came through in a scratchy way, since they were both almost outside cell service. “I was just talking to Ford, and you’ve been gone all day! Why wasn’t your phone on? Ford was worried! Stan was worried! Soos was worried! Heck, the goat was worried! Where are you?!? Are you--?”

“Oh, I’m in Robbie’s van!” She blurted with a hasty smile. (She hadn’t had time to make up a convincing lie.)

There was silence over the line for a few seconds. Mabel glanced at the phone, wondering if Dipper had hung up, or if the limited cell service had finally given out. But Dipper hadn’t been disconnected, only confused. “…What are you doing in Robbie’s van?” He finally asked, and she could hear the bewilderment in his voice.

“Uh... Oops, uh…” She scratched her head, and realized that her story needed a little extra something. She racked her brain. “Well… Uh… We’re on a date!”

Dipper yelped. “WHAT?!?”

Robbie stomped on the van’s brakes, and brought them to a sudden halt. Then he spun to fix her with a death glare. “WHAT?!?”

Wendy scoffed from Dipper’s end. “What…?”

Miles away, Tambry’s head jerked up from her phone for no conscious reason. “WHAT?!?”

Robbie stared at Mabel incredulously for a few seconds. She stared at him for a few seconds. Then she held up the phone in one hand, a 5-dollar bill in the other, and whispered. “Make it convincing!”

Robbie growled and snatched the cell and money from her hands. “Yeah!” He said into the microphone. “Yeah that’s right, I’m dating your sister, punk! We’ve been making out for an hour now!”

“Eww! No!” Mabel covered her ears.

“Making out?!?” Dipper asked.

“…An hour…?” Wendy said.

“I’m, like, totally wigging out right now for some reason…” Tambry tweeted. “I can’t even.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” Robbie continued. “Just kissing! Kissing as much as we feel like, because it’s romance or true love or, like, whatever! How you like that, bub?!?”

“Robbie you stay away from my sister!!” Dipper snapped.

“Yeah, well it was her idea!” Robbie snapped back.

“WHAT?!?” Dipper repeated. “Mabel! Why would you do this?!?”

“Well… Uh… He was the hunkiest guy!” She smiled.

“Mabel, he’s 17! You’re 13!”

“Yeah?!? WELL! That’s kind of a weird thing for YOU to say given certain recent events and certain people who may very well be standing very close to you and hearing the words I’m saying right noooooow!”

“Leave me out of this.” The sound of Wendy’s voice walking away.

“GAH! Wendy!” Dipper gasped. “Mabel you can’t just say…! Look…! Yeah…! I…! Look…! Mabel look, you can’t date him! He’s a minor antagonist! He’s like… My nemesis! He’s a jerk!”

“You dated Pacifica and she’s kind of my nemesis jerk! But did I throw a hissy fit?”

“I thought you and her were cool now!”

“We are! I thought you and Robbie were cool now!”

“Mabel!”

“Dipper!”

“Mabel!”

“Dipper!”

“Stop yelling my name!”

“You stop yelling my name!”

“Why are you doing this?!?” He demanded.

“Because it’s funny and I’m an impulsive person and opposites attract and Robbie is an edgy jerk and I’m an adorable glitter angel so we’re attracted and plus he was also looking kind of glum this morning so I wanted to cheer him up and also because we both wanted to spite you just a little or maybe more than just a little so THERE!”

Dipper tried to follow her logic, but he wasn’t used to using that side of his brain so hard. Finally he sighed. “Mabel.” He said. “I need to talk with Robbie for a minute, and it might get a little rude. Give him the phone.”

“Oh… Kay…”

Robbie took it while Mabel covered her ears.

“Step away from the van.” Dipper told him. “Some privacy.”

Robbie got out, and took a few steps down the road. “What?” He growled at the younger man, once he was outside Mabel’s hearing range.

Dipper was silent for a few seconds, while he gathered his thoughts and calmed himself. Then he sighed. “Robbie.” He said, as calmly as he could. “What’s actually going on?”

“I’m going steady with your sister. Just like we told you, you nosy snot.”

“…No you’re not.”

“Oh… Oh yeah? How do you figure that then, genius?”

“Well.” Dipper said. “First of all, it takes more than hunkiness to attract her.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“…Okay. Fine. You’re right. It doesn’t. But… But she did set you up with Tambry last Summer, and she would never think of undoing her own twisted creation. And secondly: I’m thinking of how I left Mabel at home today when we went on our expedition… Same as how we did with you…”

“Oh really?” Robbie frowned, feigning ignorance. “Oh yeah… That’s right… You did, didn’t you?”

“And so I finally put two and two together.” Dipper said.

Robbie glared into the distance.

Dipper’s voice dropped to a low, menacing tone. “You went to the metal forest today.” He hissed. “When you did, was Mabel wearing armor?”

Robbie glanced back at the girl’s cotton sweater. “No…” He shrugged.

“AND.” Dipper said. “Were you armed with a deadly weapon?”

“No… What’s it to you?”

“Listen to me very closely.” Dipper growled. “Mabel is my sister. She means more than the world to me, and more than she ever will to you. Do you understand that?”

Robbie had never had a sister, but he began to get the idea.

“Now.” Dipper said. “You’re obviously not romantically involved at all, but the thing is: I wouldn’t really care, even if you were. You can date, you can hang out, you can even kiss, and I wouldn’t throw a fit. But. BUT. BUT. Robbie. If I ever again hear that you’ve accompanied my sister into danger, and haven’t protected her… I will find you. And I will beat you up.”

Robbie took this in. He knew the kid on the other end of the phone line, and he knew how small and wimpy he was. But right now, he heard the tone behind the child’s voice, and strangely, he believed him.

He nodded.

There was silence for a moment.

“We didn’t do anything dangerous.” Robbie finally said. “We didn’t go very far in, and didn’t see anything cool even. Your sister… Took pictures… And… Played with all the robots she could find. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

Robbie glanced at the backpack full of stolen live samples. “That’s it.” He lied.

They were silent for a moment.

“Okay.” Dipper said.

Robbie sighed. “Look.” He said. “I gotta be honest with you kid, I can be a real jerk sometimes.”

“Yeah.” Dipper agreed. “You can.”

“You need to suck it up and deal with it.” Robbie told him. “This is the real world, not some kindergarten fairy tale where you deserve to be treated like a dainty little gentleman.”

“Yeah…” Dipper sighed. “…You know, I can be a real butt sometimes too.”

“Yep.” Robbie agreed. “I hate your guts and I want to pound a nail through your skull.”

“Yeah…” Dipper scoffed. “Grow a set and come at me then. And in the meantime? Shut up.”

“Yeah.” Robbie sighed.

They hated each other in silence for just a moment more.

“So…” Robbie said. “Are you and Wendy, like…?”

“Like what?”

“Dating, or whatever?”

“HUH?!? No!”

Robbie nodded. “Oh.”

Dipper considered this. “…Earlier.” He said. “When I brought up the hypnotizing thing, you said ‘the winners write the history books’… Is that what you meant? You thought I ‘won’ Wendy?”

“Well yeah…” Robbie said. “Didn’t you? I mean, kinda?”

“That’s not the way it works… At all. She yelled at me that night too, and… Told me I was too young, and… Yeah. We’re friends now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Friends?”

“Friends.”

“Like… You sleeping with her?”

“Uh… Yeah, we slept in the hospital the other night. What does sleeping have to do with anything?”

“I mean--”

“OH! AGH!” Dipper realized. “DUDE! We’re not even married!”

The boy immediately hung up.

Robbie frowned down at the phone, then slouched back over to the van.

“Sooooooooo…” Mabel smiled expectantly, and took her hands away from her ears. “Is everything non-rude again?”

“Yeah.” Robbie growled.

“Did you both apologize and be cool? I mean, I want you to be happy and him to be happy and it would be too bad if he had a brother-in-law he couldn’t stand…?”

Robbie slammed the door a little too hard, and tossed Mabel her phone back. “We had a discussion.” Robbie said. “A heart-to-heart, the way guys do it. We’re cool now.” He stuck the transmission into gear, and started the engine again. “Now listen, kid. I have a girlfriend, and a concert tonight. So could you STOP with the phony romance thing and tell me where we’re going already?!?”

Mabel blinked her eyelashes slowly and adorably. “Phony…?? Was it really so phony, my love?”

“Where. Are. We. Going.”

“Alright alright…!” She giggled, and pulled out a map. “We’re going… Here! The woods by the Mystery Shack. There’s some… Equipment we need.”

“What kind of equipment?”

“Like, this sort of a… Cave. And it has tubes of… Cold? Yeah, tubes of cold. Big freezy-frozen tubes.”

Robbie searched his mind for some kind of translation. “You mean, like… Stasis tanks? Like a sci-fi game?” He clarified.

“Yeah, that’s it!” Mabel smiled. “Stasis tanks…”

“Hey Dipper!”

“What?” He put the phone away and stood up, eager to talk about literally anything else.

“I think I found the way in…” Wendy gestured to a small patch she’d cleared on the side of the ship’s hull. There appeared to be a circular seam in the glass surface, as if the section could slide open like a hatch. “But there’s something reeeeeeally weird going on here.” Wendy said. “Look at this…” She pointed to a certain part of the seam. There was a blackened burn mark, surrounding a place where the glass had been chipped. “It looks like somebody came through here and unlocked it for us…”

Dipper scratched his head, as he remembered seeing a similar blast mark on the male lion.

“You mean… There’s some kind of… Third party?” Dipper asked. “Something with laser beams?”

“Could be…” Wendy shrugged. “But something? Or someone?”

“Does… Does anybody else know that this forest is here?”

“Do they?” Wendy asked. “My dad knows, and my oldest brother, but that’s all… Who have you told?”

“…I don’t know…” Dipper ran through a mental list. “There’s… Mabel… Robbie… The Stans… And McGucket. I guess Soos and Melody too, but they’re… Oh, and I guess Bill knew ‘lots of things’ too, but we killed him…”

“Right… But does the government know about it? Or anybody who would use, like… Bombs? Or burning-hot death rays? Or…?”

“I don’t know…”

They glanced uncertainly about the surrounding trees. Of course they saw nothing, but that did little to calm their paranoia.

“Well…” Dipper looked back down at the vehicle. “Whoever broke this seal… Do you think they could still be inside?”

“No, they never opened it…” Wendy said. “See, in order to get a grip on this, I had to spend, like, half an hour cutting away vines and stuff. Plus there’s still plants growing across the seam, and undisturbed dirt. So all they did was get it started. They didn’t go in.”

“As if all they were doing is opening the way for us…”

“Almost like that, yeah…”

“…Think we should we go in?” Dipper asked uncertainly.

“I don’t know…” Wendy shook her head. “Should we?”

“Should we?”

“SHOULD WE?”

“Will we?”

“WILL WE?”

Dipper shrugged.

Wendy shrugged.

“Let’s go.”

“Why not?”

They got as good a grip as they could on the glass panel, and strained for all they were worth. Eventually something below them creaked, the surface shifted, and the left side of the seam spread apart by about half an inch.

A fine cloud of dust puffed up around the broken seal, and a few loosed clods of dirt tumbled down the dark crack, to thud and shatter on the floor below.

The teens put their fingers into the crack now, and Wendy braced against the other side with her boot, and they pushed and they pulled some more. The panel creaked and squeaked and eventually opened up to about 20 inches wide. Wide enough to fit through.

They paused to replace the rest of their armor, weapons, and protection. Wendy thumbed on her headlamp, and Dipper pulled out a flashlight.

They shined their beams down into the opening, and saw nothing but a small, round room.

Seemed harmless enough.

Wendy tied one of the metal vines around the trunk of a nearby tree, and then dropped the other end down the hole, so they could climb back up again once they were down there.

Dipper gripped the vine in his gloves, and lowered himself into the darkness, with Wendy right behind.

Their boots contacted the floor with a dull ringing noise, and raised 4 tiny clouds of fine dust.

The room was empty except for a few pipes and vents, and a cluster of confusing controls on one wall. Dipper opened the translation app on Ford’s tablet, and began to decipher the controls’ markings. “Outer door… Inner door…” He read. “Pressurize, depressurize… Emergency lockdown… Okay, it looks like we’re in the airlock right now… Maybe this will work?” He flipped a switch.

The airlock’s outer door hissed back shut above them, severing the vine and sealing them below.

Wendy scoffed. “If I had a nickel for every time I was locked in a tiny, dark airlock with you…” She mused. “I would have 2 nickels.”

“SORRY! Sorry, uh…” Dipper flipped the switch that said ‘inner door’.

The room suddenly sprang to life around them. The space reverberated with a shrill beep, and dim, turquoise lights flickered to life around the walls. An incomprehensible alien voice announced. “Stand clear of opening door!” In a language that was most certainly NOT English. And the wall next to the controls hissed and creaked open, and then everything immediately fell deathly silent.

In the larger room beyond, more turquoise lights came on. Only about a third of the lights were still working, and of these, about half were flickering on and off sporadically, like some cheap movie effect that the director threw in to make a place seem shabby, aged, and eerie… Well, it worked.

Dipper and Wendy stepped into this room slowly.

At first, it looked like the inside of a spaceship. There were a few flight seats beneath the dome in the ship’s center, surrounded by levers and controls. The room itself was circular like the ship, and there were computers, pipes, and cargo containers built into the walls.

But…

It wasn’t a ship.

There was a homemade bed tucked into one corner, its sheets tattered and pale. Something like a baby cradle sat next to it, and the two were separated by a curtain. On the other side of the room, pots and pans were stacked atop some manner of makeshift stove. Water pipes had been disconnected from the wall, and hooked directly into a shallow washbasin, which sat near the airlock. Wooden cabinets and chests were erected here and there, each one stacked with small items. Items like tools, utensils, bowls… Baskets… Photographs…

This wasn’t a ship.

Once, in some far departed time… This had been somebody’s home.

Wendy walked hesitantly over to one of the chests. It was made of alien metal wood instead of normal wood, but it wasn’t too heavy to pry open. Inside it, she found clothes. This one seemed like heavy pants, but too wide. That one looked like a light shirt, though too tall across the back. And these two must be socks… Right?

Dipper approached the bed. The bedframe was wood, but not earthly wood. The sheets were cloth, but not earthly cloth. The center of the mattress was stained with blood, but not earthly blood: oil and burn marks more like…

Wendy inspected a basket lying on a shelf. It was handwoven. Handwoven out of steel cables…

Dipper turned to the cabinet next to the bed, and picked up one of the small, framed pictures. It was blurry with dirt and grime, and almost entirely faded, but he was able to make out a faint silhouette: the shape of two people, standing together holding hands. One tall and wide, one short and wider… They had glowing red eyes…

He turned the photo over, and recognized the symbols.

ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg@}Nᶌ.

Betty and Barney.

“Hey.” Dipper said.

“Huh?” Wendy turned toward him. “What?”

“Betty and Barney.” Dipper said. “They were… It looks like they were alien robots… I guess… I guess they lived here…?”

“Oh…” Wendy glanced at the bed, with its ‘blood’ stain. “So… What happened to them then?”

Without warning, the airlock door suddenly slammed shut, sealing them in the ship.

As one, they spun to face the door. Wendy pulled out her axe, and Dipper the magnet gun. They didn’t see anybody nearby who could have worked the controls, but that didn’t mean there was nobody there…

“Hey!” Dipper snapped. “Who’s that?!?”

“Yeah, come on out!” Wendy tried to help. “We just want to axe you a few questions…!”

“Ask.” Dipper corrected her.

“That’s what I said.”

“What you meant, maybe.”

“I meant what I said.”

“You said ‘axe’.”

“…I did?”

Suddenly, all the ship’s interior lights began to flicker and flash. Even the ones that had seemed fine before. Even Dipper and Wendy’s personal lights began to waver. Then, just to accompany the flashing, their walkie-talkies somehow turned themselves on, and began making scratchy, warbling noises. The sudden hubbub startled them both, and they found themselves back to back, with their weapons pointed in opposite directions.

“What’s going on?” Wendy asked.

“I don’t know!” Dipper said. Then he noticed something else: a few of the smaller items around the ship: the bowls, baskets, pictures and things on the cabinets, books and tools as well; all suddenly began to levitate. Then they began to accelerate, swirling around the room about chest level. “Maybe the ship’s coming back online?” Dipper guessed, as he ducked to the floor. “The gravity drive must have been engaged! Everything’s becoming weightless…!”

“Wait… No, no it’s not the ship!” Wendy ducked down low, to avoid a metal basket which would have hit her head. “I’ve seen this once before…”

“You what? Where?” Dipper frowned. “Oh… Wait…” He recalled a certain night spent in a convenience store… And a certain other night spent in a mansion. He looked down at Betty and Barney’s photograph, still clutched in his hands. The two silhouettes in the picture had vanished. “Oh.” He said. “Yeah… I’ve actually seen this twice before…”

They backed into a corner, and Dipper dumped out his backpack on the floor behind him. “Ghost stuff, ghost stuff…!” He muttered, and poked through the pile. He’d packed a magnet gun, a tablet, a radio tracker, a Geiger Counter, even a wrench set and a poster that said ‘this sentence is false’… “Dang it!” He hissed. “I packed all my sci-fi stuff today! Didn’t expect to run into magic…”

“So no ghost stuff at all?” Wendy frowned.

“No, no P.K.E. meter, no holy water, no silver mirrors…”

“Dang it!”

“Well. Guess we’re ghost-harassing the old-fashioned way then.” Dipper stood up suddenly, and removed his helmet. “Attention alien robot ghosts!” He bravely announced. (This was a string of words he never would have expected to say.) “We are human; native to this planet Earth!”

Wendy stood up too, and removed her own helmet. “We mean you and your kind no harm, and our intentions are honest!”

A small jar lifted off the floor, and accelerated right for Dipper’s head. He ducked just in time to save his skull. The jar shattered on the wall, and the broken fragments rained down around them.

One of the shards happened to scratch Wendy’s cheek. A single drop of blood fell from the wound, and dropped to the ground. Red, human blood.

As soon as the liquid touched the floor, all the lights in the ship suddenly turned off, all the levitating small items dropped suddenly and clattered to a stop on the floor, and their walkies fell silent.

“Ow.” Wendy said.

“What is it you want?!?” Dipper asked.

Then, at the other end of the room, a single computer screen winked to life; its soft blue glow the only light in the ship.

They hesitated for a moment, weighing their options. But, since there didn’t seem to be anything smarter to do, their curiosity won out and they cautiously crossed the room. Dipper picked up Ford’s tablet and the interface cord, and searched around the screen for a place to plug it in. Wendy glanced about the rest of the room, her eyes straying across the bed, kitchen, tub… All these relics of former life, now empty. Her eyes strayed over the walls too. The ship was haunted, and the invisible souls of the dead fixed her with their gaze. The souls of Betty and Barney?

Who were they?

Dipper found the terminal’s port, and plugged the tablet in. Its circuits thought for a brief moment, then began to spit out a long stream of text. Wendy bent down over his shoulder, and together they read…

-date: 13/20/2094-46’\

Hello.

My name is Ɖg@}Nᶌ.

As one of the survivors of the crash of colonial vessel 46.18’\, I am starting this journal to document our experiences on this planet. In the event that we are rescued, or survive long enough to reestablish contact, this log will serve as a record on our experiences. If you recover this and we’re not here to give it to you… Then I guess we’ve failed.

And this is our story.

#The Forest Of Daggers #Gravity Falls #wendy corduroy #dipper pines #shapshifter #see you next summer #wendip #wendy x dipper #fanfiction #fanart #scifi #alien #robot #ghost #oc

16 notes · View notes

crinaboros · 6 years

Text

Where have all the mothers gone?

by CRINA BOROŞ, Investigate Europe | The Black Sea, 5 October 2017

Romania’s parents are leaving to work abroad in the absence of a living wage at home, and children are paying the price

The drive from the northwest Romanian city of Iasi to the village of Liteni is a winding route through an open vista of sunflowers. Tractors work the fields next to peasants driving battered horse-and-carts, heavy with hay. On a fallow meadow outside the village, a shepherd with a tanned face holds up a gnarled wooden crook, and calls to his flock. The sheep pass by a lake, recently restocked with carp, and now open for fishing.

Crossing a narrow bridge into the village, we drive along roads that kick up clouds of dust, between rows of houses - new and old. Many are unfinished, with bright tiled roofs, and exteriors of plaster, standing on land scattered with building tools and broken pieces of fence.

We follow the road to the heart of the village, accompanied by the local school headteacher, George Moga, who points to the buildings.

“That house was made with money from Greece,” Moga says. “That one - with earnings from Italy.”

It’s a torrid July day and Moga takes us to a smallholding which breeds pigs and chickens. He introduces the owners, a family led by father Costel Butnaru.

“Come here in the strawberry season,” he says, “you won't find the shadow of a woman in this village!”

Photo: After working abroad family reunited in Liteni, Iasi county. Costel Butnaru (left), Lavinia Tihulcă, Petre Butnaru, Gabi Butnaru, Mihaela Butnaru and two nephews. Credit: Johnny Green, Investigate Europe, July 2017, Liteni, Romania

“It may be tough abroad, but being left behind is worse.”

Costel’s wife Vasilica, 44, has been on the road between home and work for eight years. She travels from Romania to Almonte, Huelva, in southwest Spain, where she shares a room with five women. From March to mid-summer, they pick strawberries and in September, they prepare plants for the coming season.

“I got left behind to take care of the children,” says Costel. “I taught them how to write, took their hands in mine and we drew letters together. I was trying my best to be there for them, and make sure they have what they need.”

A decade ago Vasilica was a housewife, and Costel was earning ‘nice money’ working in construction in Bucharest. But since the financial crisis of 2008, he could not find stable employment.

Sometimes there is work in the vineyards of nearby wine-maker Cotnari. Over 35 kilometres away is a car upholstery factory in Lețcani, but they only pay the minimum wage, plus food vouchers. Costel would need to commute by bicycle, even at night, and in weathers that can reach minus 20 degrees.

“It may be tough abroad,” says Costel, “but being left behind is worse.”

Romanians now has one of the highest percentages of its citizens working abroad in Europe, and many come from rural areas such as Liteni, where work is scarce or poorly-paid.

The villagers moved abroad to work in building, fruit-picking, housekeeping or care work in Italy, Spain, Germany and Cyprus.

But since the construction boom in southern Europe collapsed in 2008, the jobs available favour skills usually associated with women - which means a new phenomenon is emerging in Romania: villages with few - if any - women of working age, and large numbers of children growing up without a mother.

“We didn’t have our Sunday rest. We even worked on Easter Day.”

13 year old Gabi Butnaru has just finished 6th grade in the village of Liteni.

“Mommy used to help me read,” she says. “Sometimes she would help me with homework.”

But her mother has been leaving for work abroad since her daughter was in kindergarten. This year, on 9 March, a day after International Women’s Day, she left to pick strawberries and raspberries on a farm in Lucena, Spain.

Gabi’s life changed. When her father was out farming, she had to learn how to bake potatoes, make soup, and clean and feed the pigs, cows and chickens, before she could find the time to study.

“It was tough,” says Gabi, her eyes welling up with tears. “Finding the energy to do it all, to do it well…” With a straight face, she starts crying.

Her mother Mihaela is now back in Romania. It was tough for her to be away from home, among foreigners, and working for a boss with high expectations, whose language she did not speak.

She shared a room with four other women on the farm. Monthly rents in the nearby Spanish town were around 250 Euro per month, and the women needed to keep this cash for home.

Mihaela worked to exhaustion.

“We didn’t have our Sunday rest,” she says. “We even worked on Easter Day!”

Collecting strawberries is painful work. Pickers must bend over seven days a week, up to eight hours a day, plus overtime, and need to move fast through the bushes.

“I only got up to move when I carried the crates of fruit,” Mihaela says. “There is no stool to sit on, and nowhere to sit at all. Some women can rest on their fists, but I can’t. My back is killing me! When pain cuts like a knife, you feel like throwing in the job!”

Her husband Petre runs through the list of drugs his 33 year-old wife takes to Spain: painkiller Ketonal for backache, paracetamol for toothache, valerian herb for stress relief, and aspirin to increase the blood flow.

Despite the physical pain at work, and the emotional pain at home, Mihaela says: “We don’t have a choice: we need the money!”

Her husband broke his left leg 12 years ago, and cannot bend it. Now he works odd jobs, such as shoeing horses, welding and ploughing.

“He earns enough for bread and a bottle of cooking oil,” says Mihaela. “But with these earnings, child benefit and tiny aid from the local government, one can’t afford much.”

The family sometimes landed in debt, which she needed to pay off, and meant leaving abroad for longer, while her injured husband stayed at home with her daughter.

“A child is suffering,” she says. “She’s doing hard household work and yet she’s only a child. She shouldn’t be exploited, she’s so young! She’s had a lot to bear from a very young age!” Mihaela’s voice fades and tears resume. “I can’t bear being apart from them!”

Gabi nods through her sobbing, and admits she was crying often on the phone to her mother, asking Mihaela to return. Will she let her mother go abroad again?

Photo: Revisiting separation: Gabriela Butnaru (13), Lavinia Tihulca (13), Mihaela Butnaru (33). Credit: Johnny Green, Investigate Europe, July 2017, Liteni, Romania

“No!” Gabi says without hesitation, wiping her face dry. “All I want is us all to be at home, united, and to be a happy family.”

Revisiting separation: Gabriela Butnaru (13), Lavinia Tihulca (13), Mihaela Butnaru (33) (photo: Johnny Green, Investigate Europe)

“School, clean, cook, do homework, sleep, repeat”

13 year-old Lavinia’s mother left to Spain for the first time this year to pick fruit, and she had to take on her mother’s duties. This was stressful, as Lavinia loves to feel prepared for the school day, which lasts from 8 am to 2 pm. “Then I would clean, cook, do homework, sleep,” she says, “get up in the morning. Get dressed. Brush hair. Go to school. Repeat.”

She is in a class where 13 of her fellow pupils from 28 have parents working abroad. In many cases, this has ruined marriages, and the parents divorced.

“These pupils are not how they used to be,” says Lavinia. “They’re more distant, more reserved, less childish. Some of their grades are falling. All they can think about is the break-up of their parents.”

The number of children growing up with one or two parents working abroad is in the 100,000s in Romania, and could account for around ten per cent of all kids in the country, though true statistics are sketchy.

At the primary and middle school in Liteni, 115 pupils from 350 have at least one parent working abroad. The headteacher George Moga says economic migration scars many of the children left behind.

“We’ve experienced cases of child burn-out,” Moga says. “Parents who work abroad tell children that they are doing this for them. Meanwhile, the child’s sole duty is to study hard, so children who have to learn to manage without a parent’s help or supervision, drown themselves in study or household chores, and often end up unable to smile.”

Photo: “We’ve experienced cases of child burn-out,” says Liteni headteacher George Moga. Credit: Johnny Green, Investigate Europe, July 2017, Liteni, Romania

Nation on the Minimum Wage

The United Nations believes around 3.4 million Romanians have emigrated since the fall of Communism - 17 per cent of the country’s citizens.

Every village in the country has seen its share of work migrants - officially there are now over one million Romanians are in Italy, 900,000 in Spain, 600,000 in Germany and 180,000 in the UK, but the real figure is greater.

At first glance, an observer would ask whether this was due to Romania’s rapid deindustrialisation following Communism, which must have witnessed a surge in unemployment.

But on paper, only 4.18 per cent of Romanians are jobless. One of the lowest numbers in the EU. So why do they move abroad?

Firstly, there is no job security. Only 5.1 per cent of the working poor aged 16 to 64 have a permanent employment contact.

Secondly, wages are too low. The country has the second lowest minimum wage in the EU - at a net value of 1,065 Lei (232 Euro) per month. Over 230,000 citizens earn less than the minimum wage. The state has to top up the difference with benefits.

Thirdly, too many employers pay this rock-bottom salary. According to Labour Inspection agency data, around a third of contracts covering full and part time jobs pay the national minimum wage or under.

Romania’s average (median) salary, the net cash that families take home at the end of the day - is the EU’s lowest - at 2,448 Euro per annum, and has been since the crisis of 2008. Bulgaria beats it with 3,151 Euro, according to Eurostat.

This is set against the fact that prices of goods and energy costs are more or less the same as in western Europe.

“An increased number of sexual abuse cases”

This behaviour of the children left behind changes. A 2012 UNICEF report, and a Soros Foundation study found that parent migration was one of the main causes of children leaving school early. In general, one in five kids in Romania leave school early. This rate is on the rise - to 19.1 per cent in 2015, according to an EU report.

Director of the Social Assistance and Child Protection Services (DGASPC) in Iaşi Niculina Karacsony says a major problem is that many children have not been prepared by their parents for a temporary separation.

“We’re not condemning parents who leave to earn a living abroad,” says Karacsony. “But we are condemning those who do so without preparing their children for the separation, and who do not communicate often with them.”

This is backed up by Alex Gulei, executive director of Alternative Sociale, an NGO in Iaşi which works closely with DGASPC. “One thing that comes up again and again is that they hate when parents forget to Skype at 7 pm as they are expecting, or promise to return on a date when they don’t,” says Gulei. “They hate it when parents do not deliver on their word.”

In the most extreme cases, say experts, kids left behind by parents have died following irreversible depression. Another problem is domestic violence. Among the cases of children of migrant workers that are referred to DGASPC Iaşi, its director stresses “an increased number in cases of sexual abuse”.

This most commonly happens within the family, and when mothers are not at home. Some fathers have not seen their wives for a long time, and have taken to drink, while brothers have abused their siblings. Victims have been as young as three years’ old.

“I grew up with my parents fighting. This was our normal.”

19 year-old Andreea’s mother worked abroad in Italy during her teenage years, leaving her and her younger sister with a father who took to drink and violence.

“I grew up with my parents fighting,” she says. “This was our normal. I was glad when mommy left because my father was brutal with her. Finding work in Italy was her escape.“

Now she is a volunteer organising social activities at the Alaturi de Voi Foundation, which aims to reduce teenage pregnancies and drug abuse, and offers young people social and psychological support.

Photo: “I asked my mother to come home immediately, but because we would be left with no money, I had to wait for her to save for one more year,” Andreea, now 19. Credit: Johnny Green, Investigate Europe, July 2017, Liteni, Romania

Just before Andreea became a teenager, her mother, a sales assistant, needed money because she was in debt after defaulting on bank loans. Her earnings from work in Italy covered the interest payments, and she could send cash home only for food.

“But there would be times when father would waste all the money on smoking or another of his addictions,” she says. ”He became jealous, and suspected my mother of cheating.”

Her mother telephoned often and saw her daughters once or twice a year. But having to step into her mother’s role, take care of her little sister and the house, meant Andreea would be fainting, and feeling sick, and soon developed gastritis.

”It was mainly because of stress, but also poor nutrition,” she says. “I was young when mother left, I couldn't cook and was eating instant soup all the time.”

During this time, the teenager was admitted to hospital for five times with gastritis.

As her parents’ marriage disintegrated, her father began hitting his two daughters.

”He filed for a divorce, thinking this would bring my mother home and make her stay,” she says. “Mother saw this as her chance to escape a bad marriage and she took it.”

As the separation began, Andreea’s father kicked his two kids out of the house. They did not even have time to pack their belongings. In shock, they sought refuge at their grandparents’ house, where - due to the age gap - they would have constant arguments.

“I asked my mother to come home immediately, as I could not look after myself,” she says. “But because we would be left with no money, I had to wait for her to save for one more year.”

Alexandra says that she has lived in “total stress” most of the years spent away from her mother.

“If someone is confrontational or raises their voice, I’m in tears,” she says. “I cry out randomly and I don’t understand why.”

ORIGINAL PUBLICATION - The Black Sea - http://m.theblacksea.eu/stories/article/en/mothers-leave-romania#

Photography: Johnny Green

#migration #labour migration #gig economy #national minimum wage #Romania #crina boros #iasi #liteni #johnny green #investigate europe #the black sea #children #home

1 note · View note

blackphoenixalchemylab · 7 years

Text

American Gods Returns To BPAL!

++ AMERICAN GODS 2017

The paradigms were shifting. He could feel it. The old world, a world of infinite vastness and illimitable resources and future, was being confronted by something else-a web of energy, of opinions, of gulfs.

People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.

The mountaintop was an arena; he saw that immediately. And on each side of the arena he could see them arrayed.

They were too big. Everything was too big in that place.

There were old gods in that place: gods with skins the brown of old mushrooms, the pink of chicken flesh, the yellow of autumn leaves. Some were crazy and some were sane. Shadow recognized the old gods. He'd met them already, or he'd met others like them. There were ifrits and piskies, giants and dwarfs. He saw the woman he had met in the darkened bedroom in Rhode Island, saw the writhing green snake-coils of her hair. He saw Mama-ji, from the carousel, and there was blood on her hands and a smile on her face. He knew them all.

He recognized the new ones, too.

Neil Gaiman is the winner of numerous literary honors and is the New York Times bestselling author of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, American Gods, Neverwhere, Stardust and Anansi Boys; the Sandman series of graphic novels; three short story collections and one book of essays, The View From the Cheap Seats.

Neil is the first author to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal for one work, The Graveyard Book. He also writes books for readers of all ages including the novels Fortunately, the Milk and Odd and the Frost Giants and picture books including The Sleeper and the Spindle and the Chu's Day series. Neil's most recent publication, Norse Mythology has topped bestseller lists worldwide.

Originally from England, he now lives in the USA. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and he says he owes it all to reading the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook as a young man.

This series based on Neil Gaiman's American Gods, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, SFX Magazine and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Novel, and now a Starz television series.

Visit Neil's official site, American Gods at Starz, and NeverWear.

This is a charitable, not-for-profit venture: proceeds from every single bottle go to the CBLDF, which works to preserve and protect the First Amendment rights of the comics community.

Original American Gods art by Hugo-winner Julie Dillon.

PERFUME OIL BLENDS $26.00 per 5ml bottle. Presented in an amber apothecary glass vial.

Believe

Shadow was in a dark place, and the thing staring at him wore a buffalo's head, rank and furry with huge wet eyes. Its body was a man's body, oiled and slick.

"Changes are coming," said the buffalo without moving its lips. "There are certain decisions that will have to be made."

Firelight flickered from wet cave walls.

"Where am I?" Shadow asked.

"In the earth and under the earth," said the buffalo man. "You are where the forgotten wait." His eyes were liquid black marbles, and his voice was a rumble from beneath the world. He smelled like wet cow. "Believe," said the rumbling voice. "If you are to survive, you must believe."

"Believe what?" asked Shadow. "What should I believe?"

He stared at Shadow, the buffalo man, and he drew himself up huge, and his eyes filled with fire. He opened his spit-flecked buffalo mouth and it was red inside with the flames that burned inside him, under the earth.

"Everything," roared the buffalo man.

A scent of compression and release, of heat and faith, of plunging through the jet-shadowed darkness of uncertainty. The heart of the land: roots plunging ever deeper into thrumming black soil through the graves of faith, disillusion, and skepticism.

Bilquis

The Queen of Sheba, half-demon, they said, on her father's side, witch woman, wise woman, and queen, who ruled Sheba when Sheba was the richest land there ever was, when its spices and its gems and scented woods were taken by boat and camel-back to the corners of the earth, who was worshipped even when she was alive, worshipped as a living goddess by the wisest of kings, stands on the sidewalk of Sunset Boulevard at 2:00 A.M. staring blankly out at traffic like a slutty plastic bride on a black-and-neon wedding cake. She stands as if she owns the sidewalk and the night that surrounds her.

Honey, myrrh, lily of the valley, rose otto, fig leaf, almond, ambrette, red apple, and warm musk.

Black Hats

"So who were the guys that grabbed me in the parking lot? Mister Wood and Mister Stone? Who were they?" The lights of the car illuminated the winter landscape. Wednesday had announced that they were not to take freeways because he didn't know whose side the freeways were on, so Shadow was sticking to back roads. He didn't mind. He wasn't even sure that Wednesday was crazy.

Wednesday grunted. "Just spooks. Members of the opposition. Black hats."

"I think," said Shadow, "that they think they're the white hats."

"Of course they do. There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous."

"And you?" asked Shadow. "Why are you doing what you're doing?"

"Because I want to," said Wednesday. And then he grinned. "So that's all right."

Gunpowder residue, patent leather, pomade, and aftershave.

Coin Trick

Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.

The best thing—in Shadow’s opinion, perhaps the only good thing—about being in prison was a feeling of relief. The feeling that he’d plunged as low as he could plunge and he’d hit bottom. He didn’t worry that the man was going to get him, because the man had got him. He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, because yesterday had brought it.

Glittering gold and silver, rolling over knuckles - concealed in palms - and pulled from the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Eostre of the Dawn

There was a woman sitting on the grass, under a tree, with a paper tablecloth spread in front of her, and a variety of Tupperware dishes on the cloth.

She was-not fat, no, far from fat: what she was, a word that Shadow had never had cause to use until now, was curvaceous. Her hair was so fair that it was white, the kind of platinum-blonde tresses that should have belonged to a long-dead movie starlet, her lips were painted crimson, and she looked to be somewhere between twenty-five and fifty.

As they reached her she was selecting from a plate of deviled eggs. She looked up as Wednesday approached her, put down the egg she had chosen, and wiped her hand. "Hello, you old fraud," she said, but she smiled as she said it, and Wednesday bowed low, took her hand, and raised it to his lips.

He said, "You look divine."

"How the hell else should I look?" she demanded, sweetly. "Anyway, you're a liar. New Orleans was such a mistake-I put on, what, thirty pounds there? I swear. I knew I had to leave when I started to waddle. The tops of my thighs rub together when I walk now, can you believe that?" This last was addressed to Shadow. He had no idea what to say in reply, and felt a hot flush suffuse his face. The woman laughed delightedly. "He's blushing! Wednesday, my sweet, you brought me a blusher. How perfectly wonderful of you. What's he called?"

"This is Shadow," said Wednesday. He seemed to be enjoying Shadow's discomfort. "Shadow, say hello to Easter."

Jasmine and honeysuckle, sweet milk and female skin.

For the Joy of it

In prison Shadow had learned there were two kinds of fights: don't fuck with me fights, where you made it as showy and impressive as you could, and private fights, real fights, which were fast and hard and nasty, and always over in seconds.

"Hey, Sweeney," said Shadow, breathless, "why are we fighting?"

"For the joy of it," said Sweeney, sober now, or at least, no longer visibly drunk. "For the sheer unholy fucken delight of it. Can't you feel the joy in your own veins, rising like the sap in the springtime?" His lip was bleeding. So was Shadow's knuckle.

Whiskey, mead, honey, gold, sweat, and blood.

Glass Eye

"How'd you lose your eye?"

Wednesday shoveled half a dozen pieces of bacon into his mouth, chewed, wiped the fat from his lips with the back of his hand. "Didn't lose it," he said. "I still know exactly where it is."

The depths of Mímisbrunnr: mugwort and frankincense, grey amber and ash.

Laura

There was something he wanted to say to Laura, and he was prepared to wait until he knew what it was. The world slowly began to lose light and color. Shadow's feet were going numb, while his hands and face hurt from the cold. He burrowed his hands into his pockets for warmth, and his fingers closed about the gold coin.

He walked over to the grave.

"This is for you," he said.Several shovels of earth had been emptied onto the casket, but the hole was far from full. He threw the gold coin into the grave with Laura, then he pushed more earth into the hole, to hide the coin from acquisitive grave diggers. He brushed the earth from his hands and said, "Good night, Laura." Then he said, "I'm sorry."

Violets, upturned earth, mothballs, formaldehyde (mixed with glycerin and lanolin), and the memory of the taste of strawberry daiquiris suspended in twilight.

Low Key Lyesmith

"Cigarette, sir?"

"No, thank you."

"You don't mind if I do?"

"Go right ahead."

The driver used a Bic disposable lighter, and it was in the yellow light of the flame that Shadow saw the man's face, actually saw it for the first time, and recognized him, and began to understand.

Shadow knew that thin face. He knew that there would be close-cropped orange hair beneath the black driver's cap, cut close to the scalp. He knew that when the man's lips smiled they would crease into a network of rough scars.

"You're looking good, big guy," said the driver.

"Low Key?" Shadow stared at his old cellmate warily.

Prison friendships are good things: they get you through bad places and through dark times. But a prison friendship ends at the prison gates, and a prison friend who reappears in your life is at best a mixed blessing.

"Jesus. Low Key Lyesmith," said Shadow, and then he heard what he was saying and he understood. "Loki," he said. "Loki Lie-Smith."

"You're slow," said Loki, "but you get there in the end." And his lips twisted into a scarred smile and embers danced in the shadows of his eyes.

Black clove and cassia flung onto glowing cinders and mingled with slow-dripping poisons.

Mad Sweeney

"Coin tricks is it?" asked Sweeney, his chin raising, his scruffy beard bristling. "Why, if it's coin tricks we're doing, watch this.

"He took an empty glass from the table. Then he reached out and took a large coin, golden and shining, from the air. He dropped it into the glass. He took another gold coin from the air and tossed it into the glass, where it clinked against the first. He took a coin from the candle flame of a candle on the wall, another from his beard, a third from Shadow's empty left hand, and dropped them, one by one, into the glass. Then he curled his fingrs over the glass, and blew hard, and several more golden coins dropped into the glass from his hand. He tipped the glass of sticky coins into his jacket pocket, and then tapped the pocket to show, unmistakably, that it was empty.

"There," he said. "That's a coin trick for you."

Barrel-aged whiskey and oak.

Mama-Ji

Shadow saw the old woman, her dark face pinched with age and disapproval, but behind her he saw something huge, a naked woman with skin as black as a new leather jacket, and lips and tongue the bright red of arterial blood. Around her neck were skulls, and her many hands held knives, and swords, and severed heads.

Spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers.

Media

Waiting for them in front of the motel was a woman Shadow did not recognize. She was perfectly made-up, perfectly coiffed. She reminded him of every newscaster he'd ever seen on morning television sitting in a studio that didn't really resemble a living room.

"Lovely to see you," she said. "Now, you must be Czernobog. I've heard a lot about you. And you're Anansi, always up to mischief, eh? You jolly old man. And you, you must be Shadow. You've certainly led us a merry chase, haven't you?" A hand took his, pressed it firmly, looked him straight in the eye. "I'm Media. Good to meet you. I hope we can get this evening's business done as pleasantly as possible."

A news anchor's cologne, a soap star's perfume: perfect, pixelated, and glamorous; aglow with cathodes and anodes, coated with phosphor. "I offered you the world," she said. "When you're dying in a gutter, you remember that."

Mister Wednesday

His hair was a reddish gray; his beard, little more than stubble, was grayish red. A craggy, square face with pale gray eyes. The suit looked expensive, and was the color of melted vanilla ice cream. His tie was dark gray silk, and the tie pin was a tree, worked in silver: trunk, branches, and deep roots.

He held his glass of Jack Daniel's as they took off, and did not spill a drop.

Sleek cologne, the memory of a Nine Herbs Charm, gallows wood, and a splash of whiskey.

Mr. Czernobog

Shadow saw a gray-haired old Eastern-European immigrant, with a shabby raincoat and one iron-colored tooth, true. But he also saw a squat black thing, darker than the darkness that surrounded them, its eyes two burning coals; and he saw a prince, with long flowing black hair and a long black mustache, blood on his hands and his face, riding, naked but for a bear skin over his shoulder, on a creature half-man, half-beast, his face and torso blue-tattooed with swirls and spirals.

Unfiltered cigarettes, the leather and metal of sledgehammers, aortal blood slowly drying, and black incense.

Mr. Ibis

The smoke stung Shadow's eyes. He wiped the tears away with his hand, and, through the smoke, he thought he saw a tall man in a suit, with gold-rimmed spectacles. The smoke cleared and the boatman was once more a half-human creature with the head of a river bird.

Papyrus, vanilla flower, Egyptian musk, African musk, aloe ferox, white sandalwood.

Mr. Jacquel

Shadow looked up at the creature. "Mr. Jacquel?" he said.

The hands of Anubis came down, huge dark hands, and they picked Shadow up and brought him close.

The jackal head examined him with bright and glittering eyes; examined him as dispassionately as Mr. Jacquel had examined the dead girl on the slab. Shadow knew that all his faults, all his failings, all his weaknesses were being taken out and weighed and measured; that he was, in some way, being dissected, and sliced, and tasted.

We do not remember the things that do no credit to us. We justify them, cover them in bright lies or with the thick dust of forgetfulness. All of the things that Shadow had done in his life of which he was not proud, all the things he wished he had done otherwise or left undone, came at him then in a swirling storm of guilt and regret and shame, and he had nowhere to hide from them. He was as naked and as open as a corpose on a table, and dark Anubis the jackal god was his prosector and his prosecutor and his persecutor.

"Please," said Shadow. "Please stop."

But the examination did not stop. Every lie he had ever told, every object he had stolen, every hurt he had inflicted on another person, all the little crimes and the tiny murders that make up the day, each of these things and more were extracted and held up to the light by the jackal-headed judge of the dead.

Golden amber, hyssop, North African patchouli, and embalming spices.

Shadow

"How the hell did you find me here?" he asked his dead wife.

She shook her head slowly, amused. "You shine like a beacon in a dark world," she told him. "It wasn't that hard..."

Grey oudh and bay rum luminous with amber.

Technical Boy

The fat young man at the other end of the stretch limo took a can of diet Coke from the cocktail bar and popped it open. He wore a long black coat, made of some silky material, and he appeared barely out of his teens: a spattering of acne glistened on one cheek. He smiled when he saw that Shadow was awake."Hello, Shadow," he said. "Don't fuck with me."

It's all about the dominant fucking paradigm, Shadow. Nothing else is important: vape smoke and burning electrical parts.

The Ifrit

The taxi driver comes out of the shower, wet, with a towel wrapped around his midsection. He is not wearing his sunglasses, and in the dim room his eyes burn with scarlet flames.

Salim blinks back tears. "I wish you could see what I see," he says.

"I do not grant wishes," whispers the ifrit, dropping his towel and pushing Salim gently, but irresistibly, down onto the bed.

Desert sand, red musk, blackened ginger, dragon's blood resin, black pepper, cinnamon, and tobacco.

The Norns' Farmhouse

The farmhouse was dark and shut up. The meadows were overgrown and seemed abandoned. The farm roof was crumbling at the back; it was covered in black plastic sheeting. They jolted over a ridge and Shadow saw it there.

It was silver-gray and it was higher than the farm-house. It was the most beautiful tree Shadow had ever seen: spectral and yet utterly real and almost perfectly symmetrical. It also looked instantly familiar: he wondered if he had dreamed it, then he realized that no, he had seen it before, or a representation of it man, many times. It was Wednesday's silver tie pin.

The VW bus jolted and bumped across the meadow, and it came to a stop about twenty feet from the trunk of the tree.

There were three women standing by the tree. At first glance Shadow thought they were the Zorya, but no, they were three women he did not know. They looked tired and bored, as if they had been standing there a long time. Each of them held a wooden ladder. The biggest also carried a brown sack. They looked like a set of Russian dolls: a tall one - she was Shadow's height, or even taller - a middle-sized one, and a woman so short and hunched that at first glance Shadow wrongly supposed her to be a child. They looked so much alike that Shadow was certain the women must be sisters.

The smallest of the women dropped to a curtsey when the bus drew up. The other two just stared. They were sharing a cigarette, and they smoked it down to the filter before one of them stubbed it out against a root.

Dusty, ancient wood, horehound, and sage, with viper's bugloss, mugwort, chamomile, nettle, apple blossom, chervil, and ashes.

Zorya Polunochnaya

Her hair was pale and colorless in the moon's thin light. She wore a white cotton nightgown, with a high lace neck and a hem that swept the ground. Shadow sat up, entirely awake. "You are Zorya Polu . . . ," he hesitated. "The sister who was asleep."

"I am Zorya Polunochnaya, yes. And you are called Shadow, yes? That was what Zorya Vechernyaya told me, when I woke."

"Yes. What were you looking at, out there?"

She looked at him, then she beckoned him to join her by the window. She turned her back while he pulled on his jeans. He walked over to her. It seemed a long walk, for such a small room.

He could not tell her age. Her skin was unlined, her eyes were dark, her lashes were long, her hair was to her waist and white. The moonlight drained colors into ghosts of themselves. She was taller than either of her sisters.

She pointed up into the night sky. "I was looking at that," she said, pointing to the Big Dipper. "See?"

"Ursa Major," he said. "The Great Bear."

"That is one way of looking at it," she said. "But it is not the way from where I come from. I am going to sit on the roof. Would you like to come with me?"

Pale amber and ambergris, gossamer vanilla, moonflower, and white tobacco petals.

Zorya Utrennyaya

"Why you are standing at the door?" asked a woman's voice. Shadow looked over Czernobog's shoulder, at the old woman standing behind him. She was smaller and frailer than her sister, but her hair was long and still golden. "I am Zorya Utrennyaya," she said. "You must not stand there in the hall. You must go in, sit down. I will bring you coffee."

Sweet black coffee and a touch of ambrette seed.

Zorya Vechernyaya

"You see, I am the only one of us who brings in any money. The other two cannot make money fortune-telling. This is because they only tell the truth, and the truth is not what people want to hear. It is a bad thing, and it troubles people, so they do not come back. But I can lie to them, tell them what they want to hear. So I bring home the bread."

Red musk and wild plum, orange blossom and jasmine, juniper berries, sweet incense and vetiver-laced sandalwood. ++ AMERICAN GODS 2017: ATMOSPHERE SPRAYS

Bone Orchard

Back in prison, Low Key Lyesmith had once referred to the little prison cemetery out behind the infirmary as the Bone Orchard, and the image had taken root in Shadow's mind. That night he had dreamed of an orchard under the moonlight, of skeletal white trees, their branches ending in bony hands, their roots going deep down into the graves. There was fruit that grew upon the trees in the bone orchard, in his dream, and there was something very disturbing about the fruit in the dream, but on waking he could no longer remember what strange fruit grew on the trees, nor why he found it so repellent.

Clacking white sandalwood bones, grave soil, and the bruise-purple fruits of death and decay.

Crocodile Bar

It was getting late. He was hungry, and when he realized how hungry he really was, he pulled off at the next exit and drove into the town of Nottamun (pop. 1301). He filled the gas tank at the Amoco and asked the bored woman at the cash register where he could get something to eat.

"Jack's Crocodile Bar," she told him. "It's west on County Road N."

"Crocodile Bar?"

"Yeah. Jack says they add character." She drew him a map on the back of a mauve flyer, which advertised a chicken roast for the benefit of a young girl who needed a new kidney. "He's got a couple of crocodiles, a snake, one a them big lizard things."

"An iguana?"

"That's him."Through the town, over a bridge, on for a couple of miles, and he stopped at a low, rectangular building with an illuminated Pabst sign.

The parking lot was half empty. Inside the air was thick with smoke and "Walking After Midnight" was playing on the jukebox. Shadow looked around for the crocodiles, but could not see them. He wondered if the woman in the gas station had been pulling his leg.

Cedar shavings, a swirl of booze, a flattened French fry, and barbeque sauce.

That’s it for now, everyone -- Don’t forget to see AMERICAN GODS shine on Starz starting April 30!

#neil gaiman #american gods #comic book legal defense fund #julie dillon #bpal

201 notes · View notes

shenanigentravels · 7 years

Text

Devils Dyke - Easter Hike

BEEP BEEP BEEP! I found myself huffing at my alarm ringing 6:30 am on a bank holiday Monday. But it wasn’t for me, it was for my ex-wife who needed to get up for work. I didn’t mind because today was the day I was going to test out all my gear for my London to Brighton Trek in the end of May. I wanted to get used to carrying the gear and to get time one feet with some training hikes.

Today’s game plan was to hike from my flat to Devils Dyke and to then hike a bit of the area once I got there, and to finally get the bus back to civilization. Well very quickly that turned into a completely different adventure. I said my goodbyes and have my somewhat healthy breakfast of porridge and a protein shake. I packed some spare nutri-grain bars that I would refuel once I reached Devils Dyke before hiking the actual trails. I found myself grumbling at my camelback that I Jerry-Rigged inside my cheap MOLLE bag, for I didn’t realize that the nozzle was off the drinking tube last night, and it spilt over a liter of water all over my mattress and room.

I tried to use a hair dryer to soak up some of the water off my mattress and was only partially successful. Final checks and I was ready to head out at 08:30 to start my hike. I had a tight schedule to follow I wanted to be back by 1 at latest so I would be back in time to do the house cleaning and things. As I turned up the road to head to the top of my street I was greeted with a cool breeze. I shivered slightly but happy that I decided to wear my Ayacucho hoodie. This goes with me everywhere and it like a trademark. I got it from a sale at Cotswold outdoor shop and its perfect. Just heavy enough to keep me warm when things get a bit cool, but also as I later discovered, breathed enough so I didn’t over heat like I would in a normal hoodie.

This is also complimented with my cadet style hat to keep sun out of my eyes and ADIDAS walking shoes to finish the look. It would take me over three miles to get to the top of the A23 motorway island to where the trail actually started. In the mean time I would just take it one step at a time enjoying my own company. It was early enough I didn’t have to worry about cars heckling me because of the rucksack I was wearing. Occasionally cyclists would pass as they were enjoying the sunshine on the bank holiday and had the same idea I did. I would enjoy the singing birds and admiring the flowerbeds with tulips in full bloom.

I even found myself stopping to adjust my first aid kit from my belt attachment to be swapped over and attached to the actual bag. See this is the reason for the test run; I’m not that crazy after all! The large first aid pouch was pulling the belt on my left side too much and it was just to big, so it was quickly decided two miles in that it needed to be adjusted. Which made a huge difference and helped down the road It was 09:30 and I finally was at the top of the large hill and ready to cross two small round about that exit to the A23 motorway.

I patently waited my turn and when I saw a break in traffic I made a beeline across the road and then made it to a steep path leading up to my first gate and my first step out of civilization.

And for the first time I was in awe by the South Downs. I know that sounds bad, but I come from the land of mountains and glaciers so I did turn my nose up at “hills” but today the sun was breaking through clouds and you could see their shadows spilling across the landscape accentuating the rolling hills. For the first time I was in awe. But no time to lose I turned left and started to head down a gravel path towards Devils Dyke. I passed various runners and other walkers and hikers, exchanging pleasantries. The sun was also coming out to say hello and very quickly the temperature was rising. The road was to my left were the odd car was making its way down the twisty road, or the loud shouting of cyclists as they attempted to talk to each other as they pedaled on. Cows and horses on my right grazing on the endless fields but also never taking their eyes off me to make sure I wasn’t a potential threat. This would not be the last time I would see my bovine friends.

Bushes now started to hide my view on either side and then turned into a small patch of thin trees. I stopped dreaming for a bit as a found a very recent make shift campsite, that looked dodgy at best and also looked very fresh. I stopped filming and taking photos and started to be even more aware of behind and in front of me. I know this sounds ridiculous to some, but it was just in case and once I got back in a clearing I wasn’t to worried.

It was nearing 10:30 and I had been hiking for two hours now, I was ready to get to Devils Dyke and refuel at the pub, have a bathroom break and hit the trail again. But it became very apparent that this plan was going to change. There were people everywhere! Like I know it was a nice day and all, but this was almost uncharacteristically busy.

But I didn’t mind the crowd too much and just wanted to get out of the sun and refuel. But nope…pub door is locked…and now I had a decision to make.

For the National Trust was hosting an Easter egg hunt on the trail I wanted to hike, so there were going to be kid everywhere! The original plan was to get to Devils Dyke, hike a trail and then take the 77 bus back and head home from Seven Dials.

Well now with egg hunting munchkins everywhere I just wanted to get as far away from them as possible. I found a nice wooded area next to the pub where I knew a large log was. I had hiked this area before in preparation for Spartan race and knew I could refuel there in peace.

I was in luck and the tree was free. I pulled out the map of trails that I grabbed when I entered the park and looked at my options. I decided to take the purple trail, which was the longer train, but instead of doubling back on myself to get the bus, I was just going to walk all the way back to Hove, but this also meant adding 5 miles and an additional hour and half to my journey. But I was not going to stay around here that’s for sure. I refueled with my nutri-grain bars I packed earlier and I still had plenty of water and made my way to the start of the purple trail.

In all honesty I was excited to try a new part of the Devils Dyke Park, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise, but also it was a lot steeper than the other routes, which I could see why more adults only were on it. As I made my way down the thin narrow trail I actually found myself getting a bit dizzy with the sheer drop that was to my left. I tried not to look down but you cant help it, and then I would feel myself lose my balance, as if my body was trying to make me roll down hundreds of feet to the bottom. But soon the path made its way to another patch of trees and very steep steps! I was greeted by a Chihuahua who thought he was ten times bigger than he was and his owners scolded him as I passed.

I just smiled and said my usual “hi buddy” After I got to the bottom the steep stairs I saw a trail marker sign for the purple trail and once more I was in a large forest area. I enjoyed the silence and just listening to my breathing and keeping it in check. Birds made various calls around me but it was also very quiet.

The path started to get narrow and steep again but I didn’t mind, my feet now were ready for the climb down and warmed up.

After about 30 minutes I was back out of the forest and at the bottom base of Devils Dyke. I have been here before with my Ex and Father in Law, I remember us arguing about the map and how I didn’t know where I was going, when now I’m seeing I did know but that’s by the by. I hiked my way up the massive hill and turned left leaving the park.

This was new territory now, and this is where I was taking a gamble and where the real adventure began. I made my way across a busy road and walking through a farm.

There were trail markers for the South Downs Way, which is what I wanted, to a point, but if I kept going on the trail it would take me to far north and I wouldn’t be able to make it back.

Now I had to rely on my direction and using landmarks to get where I needed to be. Once I passed the farm the path split again and now I knew I needed to head right (south) but now I was going to be walking in a field with cows, cows that until now were separated by a fence. They were lazily eating hay left by their owners but I still didn’t want to surprise them, especially because there were calves with them. Again might be over thinking it but just wanted to be safe. I opened gate after gate of the “public bridal way” and even saw very little baby lambs (which as I said on video, I guess lambs are babies) but by this point I had been hiking for 4 hours and was getting tired.

Mama sheep was not impressed I was filming and started stomping her foot at me, I wasn’t even close I was a good 20 feet away. But still mama’s instincts are what they are. Just a few feet up the way I was passed by some mountain bikers and this is important later. We said hello and crossed past each other. Finally was I was at another gate that seemed to cut through a field, I could see the exit gate maybe 40 feet from me, there was just one problem…it was chained shut. Well shit…but hang on if those mountain bikers passed me they must have gotten in somewhere. So I walked for 45 minutes down this field walking parallel with a road in the distance that I knew would eventually intersect with the road that I crossed on the way here. And I knew the see was in front of me, so I wasn’t lost, but I clearly wasn’t on a path any more and now trapped in some farmer’s field with barbed wire fence everywhere. By the end of it my feet were slipping and I even feel once rolling my ankle. I took a second after cursing the sky and made sure I was OK. My ankles are weak and the roll easily, but I had my first aid kit with me just in case. But I was ok, dusted the dry cow shit off my trousers and headed down towards the road. I could hear and see the roar of cars so I thought the end was near and I was in the clear…but no, still a fence and no gate, I could see a gate beyond the barbed wire, so I wasn’t far.

I caught my breath and looked at the situation. There was a weak spot in the fence where I obviously wasn’t the first person to do this. So I threw my hoodie over the fence and took my rucksack off. I placed it under the weak chain-link and barbed wire fence and lay on my back. Slowly looking up at the sky I shimmied under the fence like a limbo dancer trying not to touch the pole. I made it, safe and sound. I then walked about 10 feet and climbed over the massing cattle gate and I was out. And now walking along the busy road that I thought I was avoiding in the first place. I didn’t have to go far before I saw a path again at I was back in a field again, but I wasn’t inches away from the road and cars roaring past. By this point my fun meter was pegged out, I was ready to be home but I knew I had at least 5 miles ahead of me. Grumbling to myself I kept moving forward and then I saw my bovine friends coming down the hill to their feeding trough. I knew it was the same ones from before because my Garmin watch was almost ready to intersect with the path it tracked earlier.

Which was also a relief showing I was on the right track and my cardinal direction hadn’t failed me. Finally I saw the step over to get out of the field and it was 12:15. I was back to where I almost started and close to civilization again. I could see the i360 in the distance and I knew where Hove would be. I made my way through the last gate, taking pictures of a beautiful horse and then prepared to enter the modern world again.

I was grateful for my hike but I was tired and hungry. I walked down the hill I came up 4 hours earlier and was counting my lucky stars that it was down hill. I passed Hove Park and then took the footbridge over Hove Station signaling I was not far now from home. Finally I turned the corner to my street and did one last video entry and felt a sense of accomplishment but at same time all I could think of was a big burger and warm bath. I went for the latter.

#devils dyke #easter hike #shenanigen travels

1 note · View note